FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

The man, Donald Coffin who educated me in the legacy of buses
My story being wheels and the open road
An inspired man who enlightened me in bus tails like no story ever told
Mr. Coffin’s idea of buses was listen and behold
Dad as I often called him
I listened carefully as Dad told me the theory of what makes a bus
It was the conversation in email of two being us
It was Dad’s knowledge from wisdom
My mentor with years of experience within this kingdom
The many stories of the road hound
The running dog who has travelled around
But Dad Coffin knew the in and outs of a bus
But then again, buses were his passion and that was a must
Yet, it was his encouragement to all to be involved and that describes us
Today Dad is not feeling well
To hear this it makes my heart swell
I have two busses that I bought from Mr. Coffin’s collection
This is my pride with buses on display for viewer’s education
Dad get well really soon
You taught me a lot and I have a memory tune
“Donald Coffin a man with knowledge of buses beyond, but being a mentor in making busses fun”.

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

Tin can busses fill rapidly,
Stop.
And bleed like tuna.

hey you!
yeah yous!
all of yous!

you big fat busses
with your big fat yellow bootays!
what a day!

in the lots you sits,
way off the roads,
giving me happy fits!
rows of rows,
of yellow bootays,
lined up straight,
big and fat,
and outta my way!

i say!
this is sure ONE
fine Sun-un-day!

with YOU,
and all YOUR,
big FAT yellow bootay's
outta my way!

hey!
i say!
why can't it be like this
every day?

you big fat busses,
with your big fat yellow bootays!
i shore like it!
when you are,
outta my way!

i say
outta my way!
you big fat busses
you and your big fat yellow bootays!
outta my way!
yellow bootay!
outta my way!
hey! hey!
hey!
such a fine day!

After he caught his wife in bed with another man**, it took much discipline not to **** him. He gave his wife a look and then left the house. He got back into his truck and drove to the school and parked. He waited there, calmly, controlled, the anger channeled into a blank sadness that glazed over his eyes. He saw his daughter coming out of the school doors with a group of other girls her age. The bell was still ringing and children poured out of the doors and climbed into busses and were taken away by their parents. His daughter stopped and talked with her friends. Her hair was soft and golden and the sunshine played in their strands. She looked at the ground while listening to her friend and lifted her head to laugh. She held the straps of her back pack. It seemed the girls were drawn to her, the way they circled her and told their stories and laughed. She didn’t speak much except to respond and to offer them her smile but she looked happy. He noticed a boy walking away from her wave her direction and she waved back and blushed before he stepped onto a yellow bus. He turned the keys and started the engine and listened to it purr. The crowd of girls dispersed now, each to their respective busses or to their parents waiting impatiently, telling them to come. His daughter said goodbye to each and began to walk, a curl in her lips, the trace of a grin still there around her mouth. She looked at her shoes.
She was not expecting her father to pick her up from school; it would have been odd for him to do so, for normally he would be off at work and she wouldn’t see him until the morning and he would give her a ride to school then. Her mother at this time of the day would be preparing a meal because she couldn’t drive. Sometimes her mother would walk to meet her but not often. She would walk the three miles home with no complaint. She enjoyed the walks. She enjoyed the streets of the neighborhoods and the grass and the trees and waving at Mrs. Greta as she passed her place on Fremont and always talking for a while with Mr. Jobs, whom allowed her to call him by his first name, Jason. She liked walking the railroad tracks that lead to the country roads that let her know she only had a mile to go and would then be home.
So today, when she lifted her head and began to leave the school, as the busses peeled away and her friends shouted and laughed at her and waved from the half-drawn windows, she thought she had seen her father’s truck drive off but the truck slipped too quickly from sight for her to tell who had been driving. She ran up the sidewalk and stepped off onto the street and looked again. She saw the silhouette of her father’s straw cowboy hat before it fell from sight down a ***** and over the hill and that was all she saw. She still could hardly believe it and hadn’t had the time to verify the license plate. But it looked like the broad shoulders, the tough neck and the straw hat of her fathers.
That would be the last time he would see his daughter for twenty years. He wouldn’t cry. He narrowed his eyes and squinted at the road before him as if the sun was too bright but the visor was pulled down to shield his eyes and the light only touched from his nose down. He had none of his belongings save some ***** clothes on the floor of the passenger’s side and his guitar lay across the bench seat.  There was one hundred and thirty dollars in pesos coins in his wallet. He wasn’t sure where he’d go. He had an old friend in Denver. He stepped on the clutch and put her in gear and thought of Denver as good a place to start as any. Russell would be happy to see him.
The crops of corn stood strong and tall in their fields, cattle grazed on other farms and chickens roosted and horses swung their tails and looked around at the land. The hills of the open plains rolled like an ocean and the shadows of the tree’s branches played on the roads as he drove. The wind blew at his steady seventy mile an hour drive and hummed and brushed against his face. A cigarette hung from his mouth and he looked straight from under his straw hat and tried to rid the image of the man naked ploughing his wife who knelt on the edge of his bed, straddling for him and moaning. He was unsuccessful in all of his attempts. It haunted him. He made it through Illinois. He drove through Missouri. He had stopped at Topeka to eat at a small diner and five miles out of town pulled to the shoulder of the road and bent over and vomited the meal on the ground. His eyes watered from the coughing his stomach felt sore and empty again and his mouth was covered with spit and leftovers. He stood and drew the back of his hand across his lips and wiped it on his jeans. When he raised his head he saw the sun was setting on another day. A Hank Williams song was playing softly on the radio from his truck. He sang, I’ll sail my ship alone with all the dreams I own, and when it starts a sinkin’ I’ll blame you...

I am with you
here in this place
scanning with cool
and radiant eyes
Causing silver haired women
to pantomime
The Thing Thats Wrong With Us:
their heads shake
and their thumbs waggle in the air
like worms.

Our thumbs irk them,
patience wearing
thin as their lips.
They are so sad for us,
for our murderous stupidity.
They know
what is wrong:

because our empty carcasses
litter their living rooms
the busses they ride
the classes they teach
slumped
in the seats where we left them.

Heidegger said
that attention creates access to the world,
And we've crept away to the edge
dangling our attentions over the inviting precipice
like the sorcerer's apprentice
unsure
of how it all takes place
but certain
of it’s awesome power.
The well overflows
and we are swept away
as the women look on

Fall and follow down the river
Walking the sacred streets in silence
How imbued with the ethereal mist of prayers are these tables
These wooden chairs I sat in and wrote the diaries of my youth
I wrote lies with causal power
Constructed the material from ideas
Spoke over the waters and found land

Eat a candy cane to cover the scent of rolled tobacco on your breath
And get on a plane
Green busses down cobblestone lanes
Follow them like purple orchids on the terrace

Fall and follow down the river
A brown bench,
Balding fog
Sit like kneeling at the altar of the saint of childhood innocence
Repeat her prayers
Chant her mantras
Sing her hymnals
Ritual tower chimes with hell’s fear behind it
Rope and brass that dare not fall or falter
Down the river
Ripples like innumerable green eels screeching through the sacred heart of our Lord and city centre

Mornings like Masala chai and sunshine
How infinite and unceasing the heartbreak of those who love too deeply
How inevitable the prolonged fall of the great
Like eighteen razor blades
Shot through the sunrise
Bitter fruit of memory merciless
No amount of sacrifice can atone for the imperfections that lie beyond the boarders of my control
But I hail Mary nonetheless

Fall and follow down the river
Mother Mary cannot hear over the pounding power of the current
So seal your lips with black clay
And do not cry
For there is nothing more to mourn
Morning comes ripping down the track like a freight train
Tarantula clouds and sunbeams scamper over the sockets of your log-laden irises
Bleeding indigo from parallel razor blade canyons
Filled with the ghosts of things you were never promised

Masala chai oversteeped like the strong scent of river memory
Tremble tell me I’m forgiven
In your white robe anointing oil
Tell me I’m the chosen one
Incense and ****** knees from kneeling at sandpaper pews
Getting drunk of Eucharist, the Holy See,
Oceans of archives, history, prophecy,
Frankincense and myrrh,
Frankenstein, the Light, the Vine and highways through the suburbs
Jump off bridges
Fall and follow down the river

An eye for an eye
And a stitch for a stitch
Mile for mile river prayers define and drown me
Thick slabs of scripture separate me from my sisters
Masala chai and sunshine
Vaseline and pale northern light clear the black river clay from your pores
Embrace the snow
Teach yourself to love the suffocating questions that burn and blind you
Retroactive sacrifice still requires fresh indigo blood
Donate freely.
Fall and follow
Down the river
To the sea
Salt water heals all razor blade wounds
Even the self-inflicted
The choices you make to be good or great are swallowed in the moon tide
Sticky tie-dye bruises erase themselves with time and prayer
Like cups of strong Masala chai.

As a child he remembered Cardiff as a city with red asphalt roads and yellow trolley busses. On a Saturday morning his grandfather used to take him in his black Sunbeam Talbot to the grand building of the Council of Music for Wales. There Charles Dixon presided over a large office on the third floor in which there were not one but two grand pianos. At seven a little boy finds one grand piano intimidating, two scary. He was made of fuss of by his grandfather’s colleagues and – as a Queen’s chorister – expected to sing. A very tall lady who smelt strongly of mothballs took him into what must have been a music library, and together they chose the 23rd Psalm to Brother James’ Air and Walford’s Solemn Melody. After his ‘performance’ he was given a book about Cardiff Castle, but spent an hour looking out of the windows onto the monkey-puzzle trees and watching people walking below.
 
50 years later as the taxi from the station took him to the rehearsal studios he thought of his mother shopping in this city as a young woman, probably a very slim, purposeful young woman with long auburn gold hair and a tennis player’s stride. He had just one photo of his mother as a young woman - in her nurse’s uniform, salvaged from his grandparents’ house in the Cardiff suburb of Rhiwbina. Curious how he remembered asking his grandmother about this photograph - who was this person with long hair?– he had never known his mother with anything but the shortest hair.
 
He’d visited the city regularly some ten years previously and he was glad he wasn’t driving. So much had changed, not least the area once known as Tiger Bay, a once notorious part of the city he was sure his mother had never visited. Now it was described as ‘a cultural hub’ where the grand Millennium Opera House stood, where the BBC made Doctor Who, where in the Weston Studio Theatre he’d hear for the first time his Unknown Colour.
 
Travelling down on the train he’d imagined arriving unannounced once the rehearsal had begun, the music covering his search for a strategic seat where he would sit in wonder.  It was not to be. As he opened the door to the theatre there was no music going on but a full-scale argument between the director, the conductor and three of the cast. The repetiteur was busy miming difficult passages. The two children sat demurely with respective mothers reading Harry Potters.
 
The next half hour was difficult as he realised that his carefully imagined stage directions were dead meat. They were going to do things differently and he had that sinking feeling that he was going to have to rewrite or at the very least reorganise a lot of music. He was then ‘noticed’ and introduced to the company – warm handshakes – and then plunged into a lengthy discussion about how the ensemble sequence towards the end of Act 1 could be managed. The mezzo playing Winifred was, he was forced to admit, as physically far from the photos of this artist in the 1930s as he could imagine. The tenor playing Ben was a little better, but taller than W – again a mismatch with reality. And the hair . . . well make up could do something with that he supposed. The baritone he thought was exactly right, non-descript enough to assume any one of the ten roles he had to play. He liked the actress playing Cissy the nurse from Cumbria. The soprano playing Kathleen and Barbara H was missing.
 
He was asked to set the scene, not ‘set the scene’ in a theatrical sense, but say a little about the background. Who were these people he and they were bringing to the stage? He told them he’d immersed himself in the period, visited the locations, spoken to people who had known them (all except Cissy and the many Parisienne artists who would ‘appear’). He saw the opera as a way of revealing how the intimacy and friendship of two artists had sustained each of them through a lifetime chasing the modernist ideal of abstraction. He was careful here not to say too much. He needed time with these singers on their own. He needed time with the director, who he knew was distracted by another production and had not, he reckoned, done his homework. He stressed this was a workshop session – he would rewrite as necessary. It was their production, but from the outset he felt they had to be in character and feel the location – the large ‘painters’ atelier at 48 Quai d’Auteuil.  He described the apartment by walking around the stage space. Here was Winifred’s studio area (and bedroom) divided by a white screen. Here was the living area, the common table, Winifred’s indoor garden of plants, and where Cissy and the children slept. As arranged (with some difficulty earlier in the week) he asked for the lights to be dimmed and showed slides of three paintings – Cissy and Kate, Flowers from Malmaison, and the wonderful Jake’s Bird and White Relief. He said nothing. He then asked for three more, this time abstracts –* Quarante-Huit Quai d’Auteuil, Blue Purpose, and ending with *Moons Turning.
 
He said nothing for at least a minute, but let Moons Turning hang in space in the dark. He wanted these experimental works in which colour begets form to have something of the impact he knew them to be capable of. They were interior, contemplative paintings. He was showing them four times their actual size, and they looked incredible and gloriously vibrant. These were the images Winifred had come to Paris to learn how to paint: to learn how to paint from the new masters of abstraction. She had then hidden them from public view for nearly 30 years. These were just some of the images that would surround the singers, would be in counterpoint with the music.
 
With the image of Moons Turning still on the screen he motioned to the repetiteur to play the opening music. It is night, and the studio is bathed in moonlight. It could be a scene from La Bohème, but the music is cool, meditative, moving slowly and deliberately through a maze of divergent harmonies towards a music of blueness.
 
He tells the cast that the music is anchored to Winifred’s colour chart, that during her long life she constantly and persistently researched colour. She sought the Unknown Colour. He suggests they might ‘get to know the musical colours’. He has written a book of short keyboard pieces that sound out her colour palette. There is a CD, but he’d prefer them to touch the music a little, these enigmatic chords that are, like paint, mixed in the course of the music to form new and different colours. He asks the mezzo to sing the opening soliloquy:
 
My inspiration comes in the form of colour,
of colour alone, no reference to the object or the object’s sense,
Colour needn’t be tagged to form to give it being.
Colour must have area and space,
be directed by the needs of the colour itself
not by some consideration of form.
A large blue square is bluer than a small blue square.
A blue pentagon is a different blue from a triangle of the same blue.
Let the blueness itself evolve the form which gives its fullest expression.
This is the starting-point of my secret artistic creation.
 
And so, with his presentation at a close, he thanks singer and pianist and retreats to his strategically safe seat. This is what he came for, pour l’encouragement des autres by puttin.g himself on the line, that tightrope the composer walks when presenting a new work. They will have to trust him, and he has to trust them, and that, he knows, is some way away. This is not a dramatic work. Its drama is an interior one. It is a love story. It is about the friendship of artists and about their world. It is a tableau that represents a time in European culture that we are possibly only now beginning to understand as we crowd out Tate Modern to view Picasso, Mondrian, Braque and Brancusi.

Holden Caulfield
2. That movie that I saw last weekend that I thought you would like
3. The mix tapes you made me. I still listen to them in my car
4. The way I dance and wondering if you would like it if you saw me.
5. The Kooks and how you hate them.
6. Hospice
7. Late nights sleeping alone and knowing you're awake, but oh so silent.
8. Wondering if you're thinking about me too
9. The poems you wrote me. Your handwriting is classy.
10. The picture of Hilary Duff on my desk reminding me to be good
11. My bed and how you used to be there.
12. My friends and how you used to be one of them
13. Uptown
14. My ticklish spots that no longer get touched
15. My cat... he misses you.
16. Speaking Spanish and how you used to correct it, and sometimes be impressed
17. Wearing bows in my hair. How you used to love them.
18. The clothes I bought at that thrift store yesterday. I wonder if you'd like them.
19. Mehermahermahermaherm
20. Listening to Bright Eyes.
21. Listening to the sound of loneliness.
22. Coffee and how you say "Americano" with a roll of the tongue.
23. The last bit in my tea and how it's "too sweet to swallow."
24. Sitting close on the couch. Your hand stroking mine. Sneaking a kiss on the cheek.
25. Missing busses and missing you.
26. How I used to cheer you up.
27. The stars and sheep and roses.
28. Seth Rogan
29. Meditating and how I can't do it with you constantly clogging up my brain.
30. Laughing
31. I never learned to salsa dance with you and your brutally honest hips.
32. Carrot Creme Brulee
33. Hand dance duets
34. The empty spaces between my fingers
35. Your grey corduroy pants are my favorite.
36. When you called me your coriño.
37. How you would have scoffed at me copying and pasting an "ñ".
38. Attempting to show you music you would like.
39. Failing at showing you music you like.
40. Sending you hearts.
41. Arching my back.
42. Eating ice cream and how I'm better when it's here.
43. How I'm better when you're here.
44. How Cory is better when Topanga is there.
45. Italian Night Clubs
46. You and Me and Everyone We Know
47. Tyronne Street
48. Ice Land
49. Getting lost.
50. Drunken parties and thrashing fists.
51. Second chances
52. Being half of something.
53. Wearing your cardigan
54. Long embraces and never wanting to move.
55. Doing my homework with you sitting next to me. Not letting you read over my shoulder
56. Teaching you about the body.
57. Your smile, and how you give a little chuckle every time I see it.
58. How we used to laugh about nothing.
59. Really bad cookies.
60. Butter face.
61. Jealousy
62. Hating modernized Shakespeare
63. Confessions
64. Embarrassed faces buried in pillows
65. Incredulous about me hating Elvis
66. Miles ******* Davis
67. Singing softly to the radio
68. Playing the piano. Singing for you when you're not around.
69. Wondering if you're reading this right now.
70. Hoping that you've gotten this far down the list.
71. Be the Pitta to my Vata
72. Kate Upton has saggy *****.
73. I just want to make spaghetti with you.
74. How you hate ellipsis
75. Wondering whether or not I spelled that correctly because I know you would judge.
77. Leaving tearful voice-mails
78. John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Rolling Stone cover
79. Looking at art, wishing I was Monet.
80. My sundress on the floor.
81. Not seeing that new movie in theaters (the one that won all those Oscars) because I only want to see it with you.
82. Getting angry when Kacie B. didn't get the rose on the Bachelor and knowing you're angry too because Courtney ***** as a person.
83. I'm an ugly crier.
84. Hitting bread pans
85. Your green plaid jacket
86. Vulgarity
87. Insecurity
88. "Back and forth. Forever."
89. How that one song reminds you of me and I still don't know why.
90. How you deserve the best
91. It makes me sad that I'm at number 91 and you're still nowhere to be found.
92. Going to ballet class with the anticipation of seeing you afterward.
93. You asking me how ballet was, whether you were interested or not.
94. whispers "Let me be your hero."
95. Never seeing your fur vest.
96. Holding hands when we shouldn't have.
97. Velvet leggings
98. The last wonder of the world.
99. I fear that I will forget what your face looks like.
100. Reaching one-hundred with so much more to say.

Tokyo
By Anthony Caceres

Flashing lights, Flashing people
Blurs of the past come to haunt
Blurs of the present come to taunt
Blurs of the future come to flaunt
Sitting here by the bus stop
Watching people fly by like the airplanes above
Everybody set their bodies to fast forward
While I’m rewinding as slow as I can
Reading the latest manga as I get ****** into the lights
Like some late night ramen
I feel like I can walk on air
A skywalker
I can’t escape the death walkers
I know
But I can slow them down, to a point
With a late night text
and the horns of rampaging cars
Busses and Bikes
Awkward mannerisms
and long hikes
Tokyo is far away
But as long as your still here with me
Tokyo will forever stay

It’s so easy to feel so small

I’m on a bus, the last one that runs on a Wednesday night,
Sketching a tired face
Bags under the eyes, made of black ink

I’m eavesdropping on a conversation,
(Does it count as eavesdropping when
There are only two people speaking in an otherwise
Silent bus?)

My heart’s been having an existential crisis,
And my stomach and chest
Empty
Yet heavy
Someone’s hands are holding my insides
And squeezing them in a fist
It is exhausting
It is lonely

In my right ear is this beautiful song
Violin and cello and
A raw passion that reminds me
That it’s okay
To be human, and to be scared shitless

I’m still listening, partly
But not really
It’s late
I want to sleep
Busses are full of zombies-
Phone, earphone, unsmiling zombies
And despite the
Tired sketch on my lap
I’m one, too

The conversation slows
I smile
I turn and I recognize the face in front of me
I’m told that this person, vaguely familiar face, whose conversation
I’ve been eavesdropping on remembers one of my poems
About stars
And the line is on his wall
A line from a poem that I wrote
About stars
Is on someone’s wall
Even better than when Chad Oliver told me I was
Quite attractive junior year of high school,
And I remember writing that poem
And I feel a little less useless

I want to cry

My body hasn’t known what to do with itself lately
You see I exhausted myself in love
And now that it’s gone
I feel useless
My heart pulls towards mediocre sketches
First sips of coffee in the morning,
Listening to the violin
It doesn’t know what else to feel for
It’s been left in this dark room
Grasping for a table,
****, even a stepstool,

Heartbreak is exhausting
Because it’s not just the heart
And it doesn’t really break
It just has to re-learn how to feel

But I get off the bus
And the night is warm,
The moon is
Beautiful,
This white-hot luminescence
Burning through the silhouettes of trees,
So bright the sky is still blue 6 hours after sundown.

I open my palms up to her
I see the stars
I open my palms up to them
They guide me home

sail boats
and oceans

and really anything that floats and carries a person

far away
in a big body of water

I don’t think I have to say why

it’s obvious

I’m sure everyone has a thing for sail boats
and oceans

I like busses too
I seem to get really impatient on them, and I like that a lot
because I know I can’t do anything about it

it’s a game of
Will I Go Crazy Or Will I Have A Snooze?

I like being stuck between being stuck and being unstuck

one day I want to sit on a bus for 24 hours and see what happens
(I will be doing a lot of that in the month of October)

I’ll bring books, my iPod and movies to watch on my laptop
but I’ll probably just stare out the window hours on end
tall buildings will turn into blurry trees and blurry trees
will turn into pixilated neon canola crops
and there’ll be cows and ponies and one long road

to Montreal
then Toronto

then who the **** knows where because I am already dreading
going home after the trip
even though I haven’t left for the trip yet

it’s months to come

I have a thing for finding a new home
everywhere I go

but I never find one

I like the process of looking for a really long time
then giving up from discouragement and sad feelings of
abandonment stemmed from my childhood daddy issues

I’m pretty sure everyone has daddy-abandonment issues

I have a thing for assuming every one has the same problems
that I do

but it turns out that there are loads of girls that like to eat
lots
and don’t feel ashamed of the extra scoop of
double fudge ice cream

and there are teenagers that get along with their fathers
and look up to them
they go out for lunches and joke about dates and fix cars
and tell their little girls they’ll always be their little girls
and go on awkward shopping sprees and barbecue

but everyone has a thing for sail boats and water
we all want to escape

our eating disorder and drinking problem
a skinny body or a bulky body
bad grades and perfectionism
the people pleasing pushovers
fathers and mothers and old european traditions
family dinners that go perfectly and are so boring because of it

the fragility of feeling unique
the arrogance of feeling unique
the lack of faith in ourselves

being alone

Yesterday folds our vital documents
into its briefcase and steps onto a busy street.
Busses lunge on asphalt, rolling
knotted muscles and emptied pockets deeper
into roads where dogs and paper
blur the lines between news and ****.
Lovers, condos, taxis, and sidewalks
pray to scrape up rent. Tomorrow crouches, ready to spring
and ****** us back into the boxing ring.

I sit at the Earth's end,
an old, fractured, water-worn dock
cradles me and fixes the scene.
Yellow sails swimming the jetstream
hang on to the red dinghy whose wake
sets my eye upon the far shore.

     Coney isle ‘cross the murk-warped sea
     holds ancient homes like a tapestry
     holds ancient threads that you can see
     in some museum for a fee.

For the residents at Rosses Point
this is no end –
                          wit starts their children’s dreams
and holds them to life,
roots them in communal grasses
that grow and will always grow.
                                                       I didn’t know
that where the ****-stalk masses
life’s abundances overflow.

But where are their riches?

Cast in ditches by roadsides
where three hundred years of smiles,
vein-pulsing beliefs, busy thinkers,
sweet upswept streets,
all put wealth –
                           the heaping of coin
upon coin till nothing can breathe –
aside and laugh. They live,
surviving as they happen.

Inside the crumbled watchtower
I fling passion onto thought
onto nerve onto pen onto page
and then am limp,
like the carelessly treaded sage:
a child’s footprint.

     What anguish did the watchers know
     looking through the barred stone walls,
     their travelers still gone?

In the swirling, swallowing night,
that drops like the judge’s gavel,
I write images of the sundry
numb-fingered seaside –
                                          the birds call through the salt-stained air.

Fly, fly till you reach my words
that are split among a thousand minds and cities.
Fly till the grass overcomes the tread,
till the sun succumbs to lead
poisoning and dawn’s jaw drops dead.

The lighthouse, the sprinkling showers
from the clouds that shroud and mask
the would-be sky, guide
the heart that falls inside my throat –
                                                                two hundred tons of blood
beat through its bulge –
                                         I’m alive
and live on, like this unhampered ground.
The sound of ripples and the rustle
of reeds bring me back
to the time-broken dock.

I sit and remember my friends –
                                                       calmness soaks in and through my bones –
I am and will always be;
and when memory fails and fades
I will float the channel of everything,
beach upon this shore
and will be the grass and nothing more,
till history becomes the future
and the first layer becomes the core.

my grandfather from liverpool
and my father too
sat in the kitchen
and discussed nothing  new

tired from a long day on the busses
he fell into a trouble slumber in
his arm chair
he thrashed and fussed

we his family would quietly gather
cries of protest and stifled incredulity
cut the warm air
the great grandfather ticked..

(before television
or we listened to arther askey)
he was a proud man
with right of way..

he told the boss to f himself
if he were n´t a gentleman..
what he would make of this
world today..

so,he went through his day
and we tried not to laugh
the man who earned his wage
tired of this *******

i guffawed and he woke
he fixed us with his pale
beautiful eyes..
and later the next morning

in  the lovely little back
garden
in the hushed roar
he said we would be friends..

I had over prepared the event,
that much was ominous.
With middle-ageing care
I had laid out just the right books.
I had almost turned down the pages.

Beauty is so rare a thing.
So few drink of my fountain.

So much barren regret,
So many hours wasted!
And now I watch, from the window,
the rain, the wandering busses.

“Their little cosmos is shaken”—
the air is alive with that fact.
In their parts of the city
they are played on by diverse forces.
How do I know?
Oh, I know well enough.
For them there is something afoot.
As for me;
I had over-prepared the event—

Beauty is so rare a thing.
So few drink of my fountain.

Two friends: a breath of the forest…
Friends? Are people less friends
because one has just, at last, found them?
Twice they promised to come.

“Between the night and the morning?”
Beauty would drink of my mind.
Youth would awhile forget
my youth is gone from me.

(Speak up! You have danced so stiffly?
Someone admired your works,
And said so frankly.

“Did you talk like a fool,
The first night?
The second evening?”

“But they promised again:
‘To-morrow at tea-time’.”)

Now the third day is here—
no word from either;
No word from her nor him,
Only another man’s note:
“Dear Pound, I am leaving England.”

The unknown city
Enveloped in dark
So black even light would fear
She walks on barely visible
Standing still felt more frightening
She feels numb
She looks down and her legs missing
She see busses and cars
And trams and trains
Being driven by people and their eyes missing
There was sky but weather
There were trees but leaves
There were owls but feathers
There were bats all crying
She wanted to breathe and her nose missing
A strange sound plays somewhere around
Squeaks of abandoned seesaws and laughing clown
Playing an opera of horror
She wants to scream
Her voice choked
An immortal horror takes over
She hears a ring
A doorbell ring
She breaks her sleep
And realize it a dream
The bell kept ringing
She goes to the door
The door won't open
She looks at her bed
She is deep asleep
She shakes her up
She won't wake up
Tears roll on her cheeks her cry was missing
She wants to scream
Her voice was missing
She opens the door
The other side was missing
She turns around
She was missing
In the unknown city

I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.
The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light’s stain.
With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say. . . .
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.

(in the dream it is late March)
there's a light rain in Montréal & the sky
is a gorgeous, early-morning variety of slate grey. imagine the lid
of an old metal garbage-can.
everything is dismal, perfect. and quiet; even the people leaving the bars are silent.
dismally, perfectly, silent.

ghosts of old cats—belonging maybe to ghosts of old ladies who lived, say, just off St. Lau, back
in the eighties—ramble downhill, in the direction of rue St. Catherine (Saint Cat! O patron of felinity!) ,
between the legs of those spilling out from the trendy & ****** clubs.
some of the ghosts wander out into the street, flash thru car tires that would've (& have) (at one time)
smashed them to pulpy carpet on the asphalt.
(who goes to pick them up then? when the tires have had their way with them over & over?
when they are just hair & porridge by a sewage grate?)

after a greasy smoked-meat-on-rye or a nightcap at somebody's place, just off the drag,
i'm in a sodden, but warm overcoat, hands curled in the bottoms of it's pockets; mis-shapen mass
of hair plastered to my scalp; walking en bas de la montagne just past the McGill Medical Centre.
—this late, the busses back downtown are never on time.
(driver's probably having a few smokes before he starts that long tour down. full up of drunk kids,
taking one another back to their dorms, etc.)
(and what does he have, to look forward to at shift's end?
        i. a cranky wife—past her prime?
        ii. a buncha dogs—yapping for attention?
        iii. some ******* kid—who's disrespectful & won't shut up or turn his stupid ******* punk-rock down?

—it's enough to make me patiently wait.  i'll wait forever, as long as that isn't me.)

...'spose I'LL have a cigarette too. waiting
in the bus shelter on Ave. Des Pins looking down over the
football fields of the McGill Athletics Dept.
still lit up. no sun yet but
now at 4 AM a dull inch or two of lightened grey out there on the horizon.. dawn will come,

though i'd rather not face the day. all the mornings are so hard after nights like this.
bound to be hungover &
spend the day hiccuping in bed texting some girl; maybe get up
in the late afternoon t'fix coffee, toast & eggs.
sit on the balcony,
make my little guitar sigh,
and try to feel normal until i [have to] puke.

"—and who was that girl i spoke to for so long at St. Sulpice last night? how many gin-tonics did she let me buy myself, nattering on?.. probably too drunk to even get her number."
"—maybe Sean or Dylan will know if she came thru with anyone we knew.."

the bus is finally here. twenty-and-three minutes late. the back of it probably smells of
stale smoke, dim sun, and sweaty, rain-soaked cloth, absorbed from jackets into the seats—the eau du jour.
it's always a bump 'n **** ride down the hill; bound to,
with the other handful of dumb & silent riders, drunkenly sway,
(or is it a natural compensation of the body, to groove along with the curves and stops?)
back & forth like carcasses of half-dozen slaughtered pigs
swinging on their hooks in back of a meat wagon..
(i'll end up getting on, but only for three blocks. i'll ******* walk the rest of the way home,
after that comparison. to hell with the rain.)

SIX MINUTES LATER:
(Avenue Des Pins still—4 blocks closer to downtown)

directly in line now with McGill campus via McTavish; this way i can
cruise down thru the silence of the main drag having a couple smokes drinking beer
(copped a 40 at a Dep before i left St. Lau—frosty under my arm enshrouded by brown paper.)
& be left to my own thoughts for fifteen minutes 'til i get to Sherbrooke
—i adore that fifteen-minute stretch down thru the jumble of
student associations, clubs, faculty offices, administration buildings, resources centres & the like;
all contained in the same red bricked, white trimmed victorian monster, multiplied threescore
on either side of the lane; all built in the early nineteen-hundreds, all acquired by the university in one of several expansion initiatives in a decade i won't bother to guess at, it doesn't matter. you don't care..

midway down the hill i stop and go sit on the verandah of one of the buildings,
the graduate studies in math offices —
cccrack that forty.
sit there with the sun JUST barely splitting the seam of the horizon feelin'
like the lyrics from a Sun Kil Moon song. nothing more or less.  
"off to a good start," says i.

They enter the bus
Conversing
About busses
Like this one
And other passengers
Taking up space
Designated for them
They do not address us
But clearly
They are talking about
Us
Like they sit in the lobby
In cheap chartered hotels
Taking up space
Conversing
About other guests
Being loud
Or obnoxious
They do not address us
Or ask who we are
But clearly
They assume
And they are talking
About us

beep beep go the cars
beep beep go the SUVs
beep beep go the trash trucks
beep beep go the busses
beepeeeee beepeeeee go the fire engines
beepeeeee beepeeeee go the ambulances

beep beep go the shovelers
beep beep go the snow trucks
beep beep go the Fed Ex guys & UPS ers

beep beep go the watches
beep beep go the alarms
beep beep go the microwave ovens
beep beep go the washers & dyers

beep beep go the beepers
that are driving me beep beeping insane

beep beep

beep beep goes the Road Runner
but that one does not
drive me beep beeping insane!

beep! beep!

beep! beep!

beep! beep!

beep! beep!

Okay, now, really,
you have driven me beep beeping insane.

The Lung.

The broken bone branches hang heavy off knuckled tree. As cold and uninviting as wrapped meat in cellophane prison cells and those sweating milk bottles left on doorsteps. Women cry with the blackbirds as day breaks, rousing their reluctant nests.
As the shadows trawl in from chicken farms and slaughterhouses, across the squalid estates and past a debt collectors party. A ***** drinks his soot like coffee and waits for another years tide to retreat. Holding pith less ambitions and unmentionable qualifications, stewardess pass, uniformed thoughts and averting faces..
The rusty playgrounds sink into the fermenting wood chips, and a plastic bag runs through the scene; only to commit suicide in the oil ribbon canal. The chemical clouds thicken into a duvet of sky whilst  arrows of a natural sun run home with tears of fear on their hot faces.
Down here the street lights flicker, and the patched uniforms drape off children sick with the flu that hit the school like a plague. Herding like cattle into the classrooms, to learn about the natural world
that is most unearthly to there reason.
Lunch bells ring from factories and the sky has drained to a sick -off white. The chip shop sells butties with no sauce nor bun, which machine like men guzzle and slurp.
The car parks lay stagnant in the distance and pigeons too fat to fly lay droppings on the bronze statue of a crying hero. As the roaring stops from the factories and high visibility coats are hung,  the sky bruises and the men fill the pubs, until wives with children hung on washing lines drag there sweat soaked frames to the table, only to indulge them in a row.
Night creeps in, bringing with it the hooded figures that flutter along the streets. Music plays from a vacant building and seems to brighten the night.
A silhouette is seen standing on the edge, watching the busses bellow run like migrating snails, filled with the elderly and too young.
Cigarettes infest the streets creating a carpet of ash and litter. The city survives, remaining grey, never blinking, never heard.

I sit amongst rampant consumerism,
Yet I smile as I sip my Starbucks tall Pike Place.
To my left, old ladies decked in Tiffany decry their neighbours folly,
Even while they sit blind to their own.
To my right, Chapters!
Book store that offers so much more,
A perfect monument of society's needs answered in one storefront.
We don't shop here for a read, or for the escape some unknown author's words spell for us.
No, this masterfully crafted shop answers our shared need of empty spending on soulless items that will lift us from the mire of our meaningless lives for one instance,
Before that scented candle or witty greeting card is left to collect the dust of our fallen gods.

Behind me the street is full of noise but no one is listening,
Busses carry the many but each is a world onto themselves,
Thoughts not of their making wrestle for attention with smartphones,
Before long the thoughts echo what the eyes read on the digital screens glowing below them.
The enemy of my friend...
Don't let consciousness wake!
Combined the noise without and the noise within will drown whatever chance we had at relevancy.
And so Oprah wins,
Look under your chairs,
It's your new life,
Not to be mistaken with your old one,
This one comes with a shiny new automobile, trip, ring, dress, shoes,
Anything but enlightenment.

Before me,
Possibilities.

You?

Some where he sits or gorily sleeps
The blank stare behind a rigid cut
Eyes of a seductive Mongoloid
Offering nothing for the poison of the sea

The arbitrary swirls of mechanical time pieces
Add  heavy track to this an
already shady beat

all the While A reproduction of some Germanic doll
Shrinks smaller into the keyholes
of his frontal lobe

A pleasant amnesia of the purist kind
This anglo doll she is now just a capsized pin
Her black and white knee socks mold into a geosed canvas
Ready to be re-painted with all the emotions he has left

What if I told you I loved you?
By the stairs with the works of post-modern misunderstanding
But it will be just a whisper of shear for the racket builds upward
The spinning mechanics joined by the school busses stopping forever

Yes that statement of old is clearly devoid
Merrily a swallow’s anthem
An absurd tangent of malfeasance
Almost a monosyllabic destruction

Only some misshapen coke spoons remain
As well asthe hands of a man who is much safer out of bed
The saline was much too dodgy
And the sheets…..Well they were never clean

Proletariat
Author: Sajal Ahmed
Type: Poetry
Format: PDF
Size: 2.43mb
Download Proletariat. PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/lokwkn53bm4sz52/Proletariat+uploading+copy.pdf
Preamble
I have some of my poems in the book. Thinking about poems are my own. I love to decorate the world like myself.
With your thoughts or imagination, the world of my own thoughts or imagination may not be the same.
I am not worried about whether your thoughts or philosophy are mixed with my thoughts or philosophy, because I am happy that 'at least I have a thought area of ​​my own. And I can paint my fantasies with my own paint! '
Last: Readers should read, think, and critique. That's my glamor.






Proletariat
Sajal Ahmed


Maxim E Publication
Published Date: 2 Dec 2018
Allright Reserved ©Sajal Ahmed

Prehistoric name
My father was old-fashioned. He named me Abu Bakr. The name was like poison to me. As an old woman,  The name has been found out from the bottom of the pinnacle. My father was old-fashioned. His thoughts are outdated.
I grow up and change the name; Instead of an old-fashioned name.
  I do not know if my father was suffering, But he never called me anymore.

Poets Never Die
If I am a woman poet
My poetry, there was no shortage of readers.
The comment room would have been filled, indigenous.
I'm sorry
Meanwhile, my poetry reader came out clean air, and a tree.
Then they said to me, write down the death;
And that's suicide.
Now I said; Every man and animal will one day taste death.
Poets are getting the news of death very long ago
O great winds and trees!
The trees and the wind laugh at me and say, 'But the poets never taste the death!'

Make a revolution
Against the bourgeoisie
And just a revolution
my mother
Did not eat rice
Today is three days
my mother
Did not get rice
Sweat took her clothes
There was no money tied
No grocers left him
Nobody paid for his hard work
**** rice
Gourd pulp
Across the nun
Eutlet potatoes
No one bought it.
No one took the news,
Whether my mother ate or not
And just have to make a revolution.
To give rice to my mother,
And just a revolution.
Sixteen million people's resources
Swallowing, the upper class
Today will be divided, swallowed resources.
Maybe give rice
Either head
Sons of *****, chewed your head today!


Proletariat
1.
I will buy a spectacles to buy my father, I heard from the store, the full costume spectacles stolen! There will be no police station for anyone who steals the galley. There will be no press conference, no meeting, no procession will be held. No status, event or group will be opened on Facebook in protest. No action will be taken from the government to thieves.
2.
There are two types of theft in the world!
Proper stolen
Illegal stolen
Proper stolen proletariat and his property in the Elite House. Elite classmates pay the remaining stolen money. Elite people steal the cheap glasses from all markets and hopefully for more profit.
I think of my father going to buy glasses. Parents can not read the old specs due to lost!
3.
My dad
Want to see the daily political page! Then he became an intellectual and taught me how to survive in the present political field. How to make a foul goal. Father is not able to give me anything! As the father's glasses lost.
4.
I was excited to see my politician-savvy intellectual old father, so I went out to buy a spectacles. I came to the shop to see my father's spectacles stolen from the shop! The elites have stolen my dad's spectacles.
Now I want to eat all the elite money, carts and properties, all chew!


Suddenly!
Suddenly! Six people in front of you are wearing black clothes!
And they are threatening to shoot your father;
Not six of them, you can not understand that they are just a few! Father's hands are binding!
Tie the legs, and tape the face!
They  cheating on a booing, tapping the tape fills the vague word.
Suddenly!
And after hearing his shack, someone tied black in the face and hit with the gun button hit him! Father's hand tied. His legs tied. And tape in the mouth.
Now the father is going down!
Dad does not know
His eyes are watering and his blood is bleeding!
Dad is now deliberately bidding And blood in the floor.

Suddenly!
Looking at the floor, your brother and mother's bodies are there after the floor.
They forgot to call people screaming.
As a mistake, the holes along the mother's forehead and brother's chest.
Now your eyes are water! But you can not cry!
The body of the brother is still bouncing, the tongue is out,
fresh blood in the floor!
You will not be pampered by the fact that this incident will be headlined in different newspapers tomorrow.
Because all the news is not spunky. Nobody wants to be like this headline.
You now have the idea of ​​saving yourself.
Suddenly you thought, what is your enmity with them?
You do not know so far You just know your father has a property. And there has been a conflict between Mayor Osman Sahab. Osman has called you and helped you.
Osman is a good man He is the winner of victory
You yourself are his people. You're a huge fan of him. His speech Motivational.
Now.    
You think, such a good man like Osman can be found only in heaven; Or as a pity on the story page.
This is not possible by him. Proceed in front of the story.

Suddenly!
You see no one around;
And there is only one chance in your hand
Think about what to do now. There is no time.
There is nothing to do or to die!
A pistol in front of you, you can survive if you want to use it. But if you shoot a gun and shoot him, then he will shoot his father right now! What do you think of racing to run!
Yes! Alvida! Survive. Yes, live life!

Suddenly!
'Father' goin in the shape! Squeeze the fad Buiyao..... Buiyao... Buiyao.......
Dad! They killed your dad!
Now? Now you will find them!
So run......... yes! Run it.........
A bridge in front
No
Six people wearing black clothes
Not more
Osman's black dress
The six of them are behind him
Dad is on the floor
Mother is dead afterwards
The brothers are screaming
Tape in the mouth of your father
Brother's body on the floor
Gun in your hand
You are in your house
You are running on the bridge!

Suddenly!
You think Osman is in front of you
Do not you in his house
Perhaps running to run,
You got hit in his car
He brought you to his house.
He asks you repeatedly,
'What is the event?'
You think all the imagination still
You are dreaming of sleeping at night.
Osman Sahib silence.
You're also silent You're over again. It's a dream After a while again came back.
Osman Sahab laughing in front of you.
It's a dream
It's not a dream.
Osman Sahib laughing. You are not in his house, in dark quotes. Ha ha ha Osman Sahab will laugh more!
I can not write anymore. Because once people die, there is no history!
I can only highlight, Osman's smiling success.
Osman sahab busses laugh......

If you want to fly then fly
If you want to fly then fly to the sky
If you want to fly then your fan will grow.


Liar Lover
O liar lover!
Your biggest lies "I love you babe, more than me and my father-mother."
I remember your words
And every falsehood will be judged one day!
That day I opened my pants zipper:
I'll **** your ***** face!
"What is insult?"
I'll teach you.
******* **** girl
No one will look at you;
Nobody will show sympathy;
You will cry,
Nobody can hold your hand,
I'll kick you
In your face and chest
I will kick your stomach!
More,
I will tattoo your whole body
"You are a liar! You are a scam! You're a *****! You're a street nerd dog!"
***** now go to hell....


First Love Makin
I am talking about the first day to throw you away.
The day you hit me;
My bird took refuge in your secret house.
Both of us were in the trunk:
of the cemestery;
Both are very happy.
Then you were ******* my lips
Like an orange cell,
I think it would eat.
I kissed your whole body. Your ******,
was very hard
I touched your *******.
Tallow two *****.
You ****** eyes and bitten won lips
and said, "Ah!"
Then the became one two bodies.
The two souls joined together in the same spirit.
I still remember that day.


Prayer
More than once I tried
My neck is not lowered!
There is a lot to leave outside the suburbs
I do not feel good..
Where did the god worshiped,
where did God go?
Why do not you see me?
What a weird mood
Worshiped on the Lord's footsteps
Every evening and every morning,
My Lord's worship is no more
Do not mind!
I lost;
This is an unbearable pain!
Why do not you see me?

You Never seen his heart
O lovers of earth
You Never seen his heart,
Have you ever seen the heart
of your poor boyfriend?
How much burns?
How much of his humility, his survival,
How much does he think of himself as small?
What are you looking at
The young man's cry alone at night?
You look at the boyfriend
Sometimes the lover's heart?
How to fight with a real world;
Ever wondered why a sea water would be donated;
Why mix
The body in the grave
After so many ways have passed
A fish;
Decide to remain lonely.
pages breaks out of the book,
after a long sleeveless ride
One crow flies alone
The money is blown
after the ATM booth;
This world
Here it is
It's weird!
Sick and sick
You love it so much that it hurts you away;
Thinking you will be sick
By separating yourself from you.
You think of him as selfish
Think about your own interests
The boy left you today.
But
Forget you repeatedly;
That is not love and sometimes selfish;
Forget you repeatedly
If selfish;
But why do not you look at another woman thinking you will suffer?
You never asked yourself;
Why the boy in the face of is not so much smile today
Does not laugh a little?
Why do you want to move away?
Maybe the rest of the time you are sick with him
Thinking of yourself in your place, why he left yourself alone.
Leave you out and say in his heart;
"In the public way
In the crowd of seven hundred millions of people
Your walk is still a lot of way to your walk,
Just started;
There is no limit on this path
There are many bowlers here
Many goons;
A huge screen.
Large screen flashes unfinished
The screen is torn off
Start walking
You have to walk......
When you learn to recognize "what is man?"
When you start to realize how difficult the reality is
Again and again called my name will go to Dargah
Kedgeree will give me my name
But I can not get back again
How difficult can the human heart be
As if tough rock stone
Did not understand today?
You did it
But why often in his own soft heart
Do you suffer so much?
Why are you so skeptical to bite yourself?
How terrible it is to get rid of people
You can not learn today?
You have learned
Why then why
Why then
Can not you be strong? ''
On different issues
After the various wounds were created
And decided
Own unbeatable
Painter Onle
Do not let you burn
Your efforts to be happy for you.
You still did not see the reality;
How did you cry after crying?
Last night did not sleepy;
Could not sleepy
He cried very silently.
He never wanted to cry you;
And why did you cry?
Have you ever thought about that?
There comes a time
People sacrifice their favorite things
Just as Ibrahim gave his beloved son a sacrifice.
The world is underground
So here is the emotional crowd
The reality comes back often
There are many reasons for sacrificing their favorite things.


Am I Wrong?
I repeatedly say to the heart, "I am wrong, I am wrong!" The heart repeatedly tells me, "You do not, you are wrong! ''

Will not be seen
Suddenly we stopped at the last page;
Wherever the cloud stops on the mountain!
There is a frost on the fridge,
The rain rises every day in the morning and shook silently.
Just like a broomstick,
Where all the fish stops are waterless pond;
I'll stand there every morning alone,
I know that all will come, only you will not be seen....


Slave of the Devil
If the star goes away;
The devil is scared
Running rushing,
His servants in this town
Reigns
An Eye of Illuminati
The trembling shivering in winter
And singing different songs;
A piece of blanket is very cold
Hey poor party
To stay comfortable
Let's move to Satan's team.


I was a broken glass
I was a glass, and broke in a variety of ways.
Blood in broken glass it's severed heart.....


Going to die now
I'm going to die now
The soul is going down;
The boat floats on the Spirit,
Everything is going away from the body;
And I, I will not come back!

Mudane Football
After kicking everyone else, I guess, I'm a Mundane football!


Block To Making dreams
People can not sleep after crying, If he can not sleep, he can not make dream


The Train
The train that stopped at midway; That's death


God and My Dad
I never asked for anything from God, and God never gave me anything like my father. The difference between my father and God is that, my father was stunned by the birth of me. And God did not cease to create the punishment in the Hereafter will be rewarded!


My blocked Happiness
I feel painful Hundreds of millions of illnesses die of happiness


My syllabus
My syllabus has been burnt;
Do not read any bad love poem story book
No need spectacles available;
I do not fear the extra cost;
My syllabus is burnt-
Broke spectacles.

You are in Whirl of the earth
When you are in the whirl of the earth, when you look at the whole world, then you see the dull! Look at the left, there is no one next to you. Look at the left, or there is no one there. The God above is not with you. The parents of the house, they do not even understand you. Therefore, you do not have to stand up properly. now? Yes, your time of death is right now. But you know, you can not die. Because death does not want you!

I'm Afraid
When I look at the pocket, I'm afraid to look at you. After that, when I looked at the pocket last time, my own janaza taught myself.


Worst offender
The worst offender in the world itself seems to be, when my dear man is crying for my own sake!

I am
I only swallow the grief of beloved people. One day, the troubles that I have not digested, will answer everything.


****** laws
This is the world of law;
Here people, animals, insects and insects, and roads all obey the law.
All the leaders of the world, all the poets of the world, have enacted the law.
You are walking; You have to obey the law.
Eating; Laws must be followed.
You are enjoying marijuana;
You will be enacted, they will take you away and the police will beat you; You must be in jail!
You do not have freedom of speech; Your words and laws have been imposed! You will leave the excretion; It is also under the law.
Therefore, you can be a sea or wave; There is no law, no matter where you are,
you can be happy wherever you are.
After whipping you will be able to float which is happy.
So you become sea or waves.


Prayer
More than once I tried
My neck is not lowered!
There is a lot to leave outside the suburbs
I do not feel good..
Where did the god worshiped,
where did God go?
Why do not you see me?
What a weird mood
Worshiped on the Lord's footsteps
Every evening and every morning,
My Lord's worship is no more
Do not mind!
I lost;
This is an unbearable pain!
Why do not you see me?

I'm Innocent
What is my crime?
Why do that?
What is the blame?
Do you leave me?
I'm innocent
I'm so so
I'm innocent
I'm not at fault!
I love you
So always say true
I'm so scared
About our relationship
If it breaks
My death is bound!
I do not want
To die
Leave you
I do not want you to cry
I do not want you to be alone
I do not want to see water in your eyes
I want you
Smile
More
Get angry with me
And finally
Love me.
You can cry me
Hit as much as possible
As much as kicks me
Still I will not let you cry
Because I love you
If I ever see you weeping;
If I ever see you wandering,
I will destroy this world!
Oath By God!


-The End-

Five twenty Texas.
In the morn
Fore the busses test their horns.
As a train rattles next to 377
Before I hit 7-11
Where I bet a dollar for a million
Sometimes two on a billion.
Never won once
****** little *****
I'll win tomorrow.
Cause I'll be up drunk for
Five twenty Texas

(I)
So concretey, these jungles
but not like this
Glass shards shoot up 45 stories
only to have tarp covered markets
populated by shouters

Oh, Powerpuff Girls on backpacks
one green
one purple
one pink
And 10 dollar Gucci bags
these people have it made
Four blocks from the world stock exchange
these people have it made

(II)
You ain't had won ton noodle soup
Or chicken feet
Or shrimp stuffed eggplant
Or food from Chinese franchise Pizza Huts
which happens to be an escargot joint
What does that say about US?
hopefully not much

(III)
Red taxis between every other car
Double decker busses
more common than city pigeons
Still the city finds time for trees
whiskery ents rising out of
ancient volcanic soil

You would think it's a city full of sin
Seven million souls, what-
that's higher than I can count
It's not
Everyone here is cute and wrinkly
Confucian
except for the young
These people have it made

(IV)
In this city, you're expected to stay
home with mom and dad
As they get cute and wrinkly
you're to return the love
Confucian
these people have it made
11 seated dinners
these people have it made

(V)*
Here in this ancient city
the gravestones dot the hills
coat the hills
And then the cremation jars bury the hills
(yes, they're dead)
cough*

Here's how a Chinese name is structured:
[family name] [given name]
Confucianism
and then these names fade too
These people have it made
but it's alright.

I was born tall and thin
and pink
like a ****** steak.
I cried until I could run
and then ran
like a lunatic,
screaming peals of laughter
and destroying
without guilt
as kids do-

and still I was
skinny.

I was skinny in elementary school.
The other kids took to football
and dirt bikes.
I was still pink
like an underripe
tomato.

I grew up tall and thin
in a world for shorter
and fuller people.
With crooked teeth and
glasses.

I was skinny in middle school.
When the other kids started to build muscle
you could've played my ribs
like a xylophone.
You still could.

I grew up tall and thin
and frustrated
like a ****.
I never fit on public busses
or in the little plastic desks
at school.
My feet stuck off the end of my bed.
They still do.
I slouched and hiked my shoulders up
so as not to obstruct others'
line of sight.

I still do.

I was skinny
when I first fell in love.
What she saw in me,
I can't say.
I was tall
and thin
and crooked
but I wanted so badly,
just for once,
to be the right shape
for her.
She was rather short
and had caramel skin.
We made an odd couple.

I grew up tall and thin,
a square peg in a world of round holes.
I'm skinny today-
a pinkish wisp
with a skinny soul
tucked away behind dark sunglasses.

I was born skinny.
And I'll probably die skinny
too,
and make a tall,
thin corpse
for a much
shorter,
wider
casket.

Friday night
Beneath the lights
The boys are set to go
The scouts are out there watching
It's time they got a show

Football in a small town
It's religion out of church
To find something open Friday night
You'd really have to search
The busses all are lined up
Down the street around the school
Alumni selling t-shirts
With old logos by the pool


There's a game that rivals football
That you can't see from the stands
It's make out time beneath the bleachers
While the fans are clapping hands
No flags for interference
Off sides, no way not here
The players don't wear protection
And in between they're drinking beer

The quarterback he steals the show
Making passes on a line
The college scouts are hovering
That must be a good sign
The smell of deep fried everything
It lingers in the air
There's flasks of Jim Beam passed about
without a single care

The band performs a drumline
Keeping beat for those below
The ones not playing football
The kids hidden from the show
Each Friday night it happens
Two rivals meet in church
And somewhere beneath the bleachers
Some poor kids left in the lurch

There's a game that rivals football
That you can't see from the stands
It's make out time beneath the bleachers
While the fans are clapping hands
No flags for interference
Off sides, no way not here
The players don't wear protection
And in between they're drinking beer

We came upon slowing traffic.
Inside the bus
Standing passengers were thrown
and grips tightened
as we edged forward across
the unfinished road.

We passed the sun-glassed
occupants of cars and busses
and the rolled-up sleeves
of lorry drivers who's
tanned arms hung out
of every window, and
who's fingers tapped
an unheard tune.

I stooped to stare at the
dancing distance of  
the baked tarmacked
highway.

Our eyes stung and wet
The metalled road blazed.
Our approaching gaze silent.

Gripped passports Identity papers
rosary- beads
-Letters of transit -
not needed;
The border did what most
borders do-
and shrugged us through.

Laughter becomes all languages.

Later that afternoon,
I sipped from the glass I held.
Jez turned to me and asked,
"Is this what it's like to be drunk?"
I smiled as I slid my wine towards her...
...
words and foto T Carroll..

Green goomba backpacks,
Extended busses,
The kids only ride one stop,
Folk music in my headphones,
Playing with the hopeful heat,
Of rainy day rides.
Where are we going?
On the one driving the bus knows,
And even they have their stop.
Societal soliloqal differences,
But here we are,
Cultural clashes melt away,
With,
"You can have my seat."
Falling into souls with just sideways glances,
Cases of, "what did you want to be when you grow up?"
****,
What did I want to be?
A longing nostalgia of places in memories that never existed,
Luckily,
The bus has no rearview mirrors.
Phoenix is grey,
So is Reno too,
Hawaii had it's days,
All have their riders,
And their drivers,
The stop is requested,
But I don't need to get off.