NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...

Lost to backdrops scrolling past,
She sits knitting
in the carriage of a train.
The vague needles
They scintillate and glimpse
With the cadence of the wheels –
Upbeating ceaselessly.

Strips of tiny loops
And eyelets like dewdrops
Of condensation
Grouped on the superior rim.

Once in a while,
She gives a heave
To loosen more yarn from the skein
Of Filipino-made wool,
brushed worsted weave.
Spun and carded
from the richest fleece,
Deeper in the wicker basket by her feet.

The needles flash,
With ancient rhythms and attack
Of duellists in their chainmail coats.
With little hesitation she can tack
From plain to purl to blackberry.
Count back by rote or slip a stitch
While the fish-eyed gimlets gleam.

All gather profusely in her lap,
As windfall trove, rich-patterned
And warm with peach-fuzz nap,
All crafted from a single line of yarn.
Marvels fall continuously from wise
Spell-binding hands and all is well for now.

(9/11/13 @xirlleelang)

He was born defeated.
For eight months he sat at the delta to the world,
stargazing in amniotic fluid.
Sharing oxygen with another passing,
it back and forth like a gas mask in a chemical war.
how familiar he would become with the chemical war.
he did not propel into life the way everyone expected,
like the first, iron soldier to  dive
from a helicopter into the bush; all displaced rage
and camo flags waving behind him.
he was made to wait. made to drown just a little bit.
made to appear to the world a little blue.
no gas mask this time. just some weak lungs
and a bald head. not raven-dark and tumultuous like his six-minute predecessor,
but quiet, sullen and sentenced to a week in an incubator;
teaching him how to be alive.
maybe that was the first time he got mad. he more or less stayed mad for 17 years.
Found comfort in Peter Pan, a boy with no future- no past,
and juiced up men performing soap operas for a living;
sweating on their audience and quick to blow
a folding chair in to the enemies face.
The same pit-stomach drop of a terrible math grade,
And of realizing an idea if terrible halfway through completion-
Dazed at on knees at3am, half of the bedroom carpet ripped out
With a carving knife.
He beat up his other, left her trembling behind doors that didn't lock for years.
Full weight pressed against cheap wood, hoping this time it wouldn't open,
and leaving in the wake a girl-child, of 20 years-
terrified of testosterone and emotions.
There was the comfort in war movies; men with purpose, and the quirky
anime of a culture not his own.
Darker pagan books dotted pubescence. They sat like coffee mugs
filled with sludgy water, a place to dip paintbrushes in when it was time to start over.
Drugs come in folds. dealt like cards over the years- grappling for anything.
Their names ring out first like a memoir, then like a psych ward.
He would probably snort dirt if an escape from hardwood floored, leave spun
world in which he lived.
the place where dead batteries rolled around in for years in drawers and
tape never came off of wallpaper.
and the other one- the one who cut him off and turned
him blue at the very beginning; she's frozen too.
she stumbles through cities and ghettos and ancient worlds,
hoping to find something, anything that gives her a purpose.
Back to strong wind on 6th Avenue between classes,
Eyes sting and water against it but comforted by the smell of snow and
Bus exhaust. In that moment doing a good job. Being a trooper.
Swiping IDs that show a real, accounted for person underneath
The Goodwill feather-down coat and expensive Arabic textbook,
But in the quiet hours still grasping at straws,
at braids that don't quite work and flowers tangled
in hair that won't quite stay in place.
Singing with a voice a little too novice,
too rough. Looking dumb in sunglasses and boots.
She starts and quits things a lot.
gets exhausted. predisposed for enormous depression.
greek-tragady like.
****-yourself-to-spare-the-gods-your-being like.
finds glimpses of life in things, mainly when submerged in a daze of not-getting carded and  incense. Hair falls over pages of books, hanging one handed on an R to Queens,
or collecting cigarette butts from the side of the road
in the prairies of Dakota-land, helping kids collect enough tobacco
for their drunk fathers and zombie mothers to roll and smoke for the night.
She’s turning around in circles in grocery stores
Picking up food-stamp broccoli and sliced cheese in Harlem,
Going everywhere with sleep in her eyes and
wondering how others manage to exist.
but who is a killer from the start supposed to be?

It was the schooner Hesperus
  That sailed the wintry sea:
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
  To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
  Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her ***** white as the hawthorn buds
  The ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
  His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
  The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old sailor,
  Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
“I pray thee, put into yonder port,
  For I fear a hurricane.

“Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
  And tonight no moon we see!”
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
  And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
  A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
  And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain,
  The vessel in its strength:
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
  Then leaped her cable’s length.

“Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
  And do not tremble so:
For I can weather the roughest gale,
  That ever wind did blow.”

He wrapped her warm in his ******’s coat
  Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
  And bound her to the mast.

“O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
  O say, what may it be?”
“Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!”—
  And he steered for the open sea.

“O father! I hear the sound of guns,
  O say, what may it be?”
“Some ship in distress, that cannot live
  In such an angry sea!”

“O father! I see a gleaming light,
  O say, what may it be?”
But the father answered never a word,
  A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
  With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
  On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
  That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
  On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear
  Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
  Towards the reef of Norman’s Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
  A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
  On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
  She drifted a weary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
  Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
  Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
  Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
  With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
  **! **! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
  A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair
  Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozed on her breast,
  The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-****,
  On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
  In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
  On the reef of Norman’s Woe!

To my dear son, Boaz in distant Idaho,

Saturday nite, the whole of New Zealand waited in apprehension for the All Blacks rugy team to play the resurgent Wallabys @ Fortress Eden Park.

The previous week at Suncorp Stadium in Sydney, in driving rain, the All Blacks muddled through a painfull draw with the Wallabys, 12 points each with no tries.
The Wallabys had fancied their chances and had wanted an emphatic win on home soil.
Both teams took that score as a loss and the gauntlet was thrown for the second match…..

A brilliant evening, clear and fine , 50,000 people crushed in to Eden Park and you could feel the apprehension, the rest of the country sat in front of their TV willing the team on.
The Haka was given a brutal rendition, you could feel the determination, the passion emanating….the Ozzies glared their defiance back…it was all on!

10 minutes into a titanic struggle with the score three all Captain Ritchie McCaw had a brain fade and was yellow carded off for ten minutes by the French referee.
The crowd roared…then murmured their worry  like you’ve never heard before.

The Ozzies mustered a huge scrum which the All Blacks countered with one man down…. The counter ****** pushed the Australian scrum back 15 ft.
Every man in New Zealand was on his feet roaring, you could feel the spirit of nationalism soaring….the moment was a watershed.
The All Blacks counterattacked showing a brilliance in attack and defence we have not seen for years… and from that moment on the game was won.

Final score 51:20 The Bledisloe Cup was ours.

As the match finished the TV camera panned across the solidly black clad crowd…. I have never, ever in my life, seen so many, simultaneous, sets of white teeth grinning!

The trip home to Australia would have been… a very subdued affair.

Thought I should share this marvellous moment with you Boaz.

Luv Dad.

Lisa and I finally tested covid-free! When we saw our results, we began an impromptu dance that felt like levitation.

Although my covid case seemed much milder, Lisa’s been nothing but supportive. Why just yesterday morning, before we tested, Lisa said, “If you test covid-free before I do, I’ll **** you.” She was holding a spork which gave the threat a specific gravity it might otherwise have lacked.
“Back off, Sweeny,” I said.

We worked the next day, masked - just in case - and I’d swear that Rebecca, my surgeon, almost smiled when she saw me. As funny as Rebecca is, off-hours, once she puts on that white coat - forgetaboutit - she goes to some other, humor-free zone.

That night, we went out to our favorite bar to celebrate our Lazarus-like resurrections.

In the club, as we were walking to the bar, Lisa asked me, “What if we get carded?” I gasped. Never, have I EVER been carded. To even suggest the possibility is to risk breaking a spell that has lasted since I was fifteen years old and first walked in the adult-bar world.

It’s not that I look old, I’ve been told I don't look 21 (although I’m almost 20) - but in dark, bar-light - I just look “right,” like I belong. And let's face it, no bar turns away college girls or charges them a cover - we’re good for business.

I put a hand on Lisa’s shoulder and stopped us in our tracks. “Turn around three times,” I said.
“Why?” She asked. “To break the god-****, bad luck, vu doo you just put on us!” I said exasperatedly. She shrugged and started to turn in a circle. Again I took her by the shoulders, “Counter-clockwise,” I instructed, “don’t you know anything?!” Once she’d broken the jinx, we were free to go on.  The next part can only be poetry.

Behind the bar were shelves of bottles, brightly lit,
with pastel glows that shame the merely silver moon.
Red rums, golden bourbons, begging you to commit,
elixirs that dull every pain and brighten every mood.
Give us your tired, your lonely, and like Houdini
we’ll invoke fun with mystical treats like martinis.

We were basking in those lantern-like glows, like tourists, in heaven, when a bartender said, “What can I get you?” How generous those words were, how open and inviting.

“What’s your name?” I asked, he was wearing a name tag but I leaned in and gave him my friendliest smile. It’s important to establish a personal connection - but you can’t get carried away. He might be gay and decide you’re trailer.

“Brian,” he said. Brian was talking to me, but then he’d noticed Lisa and suddenly, he couldn’t take his eyes off her (Lisa’s an adriana). This bartender wasn’t gay at ALL.

I handed him my black, Centurion, American Express card “Can we set a tab for us?” I motioned to include Lisa, “and please include a 30% tip for yourself.” I smiled. He smiled.
“Oh, and there’ll be a gentleman joining us as well (Charles).”
“Sure.” he said, as he swiped the card on his iPad, adding, “now, what are you having?”

I’m a bit of a bon vivant, where cocktails are concerned but tonight, we’ll keep it vanilla.
“We’ll start with a Cherry coke (for Charles) and,” I looked at Lisa for approval, “Two American Martinis?” She smiled, “Please,” I added, putting my card away.
The coke is psychologically important; it gives the bartender what’s called 'plausible deniability.’
“Do you have a menu?” I said, as he turned to go. “Coming right up,” he said.

We were on a rooftop terrace that overlooked the Boston skyline. To the left, there were tables enclosed in glowing, geodesic bubbles that changed colors and off to the right, a dance space where couples were dancing, and a DJ was spinning ‘Sorja Smith’s - Little things.’

Our drinks arrived and Lisa and I laughingly toasted our covid survival.
At that moment, at least, everything seemed right with the world.

I’m chilling and doing homework tonight. Leaning into it.

Last night one of our suitemates (Julia) turned 21 - she’s barable. Not that we get carded anywhere - I’ve never had trouble getting into clubs or ordering drinks - I mean never have I ever.

She had her birthday party at a place called Mory’s, in New Haven, which is very Yale themed. We ate dinner in the “captain’s room,” where every picture on the wall is a Yale team captain of some sort. They even have a whiffenpoof plaque. It’s so Yale-core it’s funny.

Have you ever heard of a drink called a “Singapore Sling?” Me neither, until last night. Then, somehow, there were undrinkable oceans of it. I had six of them, sitting at a bar and I felt nothing. Then I stood up and my bones seemed to liquify. Leong and Anna reeled me in.

I was hangin this morning though, I mean rocky-socks drunkover. My senses seemed sharper, my optical nerves dialed up all the way. The air seemed bright and I swear I could’ve heard the sun burning if people would’ve just stopped all that annoying breathing.

I had a biochemistry quiz at 9am and I can’t wait to see how I did. Later, at breakfast (I had a piece of toast), Peter felt free to offer his sensible, 26-year-old, bropinion. I said, “You’re so wise,” as I steel-eyed him, “I-guess-you-never.”

By the afternoon I was back on my toes. Almost every night my roommates and I sit around a low table in the common room of our suite, crossed legged, on cushions and do our homework. It’s less claustrophobic than sitting in our rooms alone and we usually have some music on, lowkey, in the background.
We’d just heard “Love Story,” by Taylor Swift.

“I like songs that make love sound easy.” I stated.
“Oh, because it IS easy,” Anna says sarcastically, “grab yourself a physicist and make a TikTok song.”

“Hey! I’ve got a beef with TikTok artists, I said. “At first, they release these stripped down, intimate, acoustic songs that feel personal, and then, if a song hits, they put out a new version that’s totally overproduced.”
“Right.” Leong agreed.  
“Oh, yeah,” Sophie said, putting her hair back out of her face with a comb, “and some artists' voices are suited to simple accompaniment and the newer versions just don’t hit as hard.”

“I think Phoebe Bridgers is an example of production done right.” Anna said. “Her material continues to sound intimate and stripped down even though it’s no longer just her and a guitar,”

“On Tiktok,” Lisa adds, “when a new song works, I feel a connection, like it could be me recording a song with my guitar - so, I support them.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I updogged, “there’s a place for overproduction but sometimes the instruments don’t even sound real, like when they go all out electronic - then they lose me.”

“The big-music might drown-out the artistry we liked,” Anna opined, “but maybe that’s how they heard it, as songwriters, in their imagination, but they couldn’t afford it - the new version rectifies it.”

​1​
 
In the year Victoria
came to the throne,​
on 9 acres by a river’s bend,
(bought for £490)
Joseph Dover built his mill.
 
yarn
to weave,
wool to knit,
the raw fleece
washed, carded,
scribbled, tentered, dyed,
spun and woven
(back parlour or
mill shed)
finished,
sold.
 
Today the fleeces are
burnt at the farm,
and the sheds and lofts
display colourful crafts.
The past is collected in
sepia photographs,
strange heritaged tools.
The present hides in
figures on the footfall,  
those costings for the café.
 
In an August
of grey cloud
and persistent rain,
the sun on occasion
shakes the building into life;
it filters through the tall riverside trees,
makes swathes of coloured light
swim across the wooden floors.
 
2
​
The studio, cool
on the hottest day,
is graced with garden flowers,
and the business of making everywhere.
Days fold work into the pleasure
of small gestures of care,
Satie’s tenderest song
a litany under the breath.
 
When toes meet
beneath a table shared,
this touch registers
the slow wonder of it all;
that ‘being here’
in this expansive place
of stone and wood,
textured always
with the white noised
rush of water.
 
At night we steal back in
to sit together by a single lamp:
to decipher Henry’s mimetic prose
of estuary, moor and river;
ponder Robert’s quartets in A,
every phrase singing Clara, Clara . . .
 
Later, lights extinguished
we move in the pitch of darkness
through the long galleries,
carefully down the invisible stairs.
 
Outside, in the
coloured silence
of the river’s run,
the hills carry the sky
cloud-haunted, star-strewn.
moon-lit.

There’s a 7-11 on Mars,
with parking for plenty of cars.
There’s never a wait in line
and you never get carded for wine.

There’s a huge monument on Venus,
it's shaped like a giant *****.
That’s a salute to Jeffery Bezos,
is it accurate and life-like - who knows?

A universe for the rich,
who found a technological niche,
with their business soaring,
to the stars they are roaring,
but for the rest of us, life is a *****.

I caught her eye
Through her heart-shaped Gucci sunglasses
Cherry red lips
And just as sweet-smelling,
She smiled

With scarlet nails,
Upon a slender and soft hand
She beckoned me
I was nervous
She was gorgeous

One hand on a wiry steering wheel
Belonging to a pastel coloured Chevrolet
I leaned in through the lowered window
She smiled
Her other hand carded through
A magenta mop of messy hair
She laughed

She was a woman
Wet and wild
With a mischievous smile
And a lilt in her voice,
She asked me for my name and number
I gave her a lot more than that

The ocean’s roar
Against a dodgy seaside town
She took me for a ride
And what a ride it was
Seeing the sights
Rolling on a road
Through places neither of us know
The engine purrs
And so, does she
As she laces one arm across my shoulders
From the driver’s seat
My heart skips a beat

We holed up in a motel
She had bought the room
Days ago
With her Daddy’s credit card
Her Chevrolet parked out front
Our room
Her room
Amid plasticky ferns
And stinking asphalt
Under a hazy summer cloud

Vintage dresses in her closet
Perfume bottles
Glistening on her drawers
Elegant scents
In an inelegant room
Out the window
Encased in nautical décor
I could glimpse the sea and sand
I ran my fingers
On the edge of her bedside table
She ran her fingers
Along the edge of my spine

The bed bounced
Beneath our weight
Touching, whispering
Clothes on the floor
I couldn’t have wanted more
For she was
All for me
A first like none other

She was gorgeous
A dreamy goddess
I did see go
In a pastel pink Chevrolet
Wearing Gucci glasses
And an impish smile
On cherry cola flavoured lips
Above eyes
Which were bright
Like swirling, burning stars
A vivacious light
To count my blessings
And amorous bruising by

Driving, late, the air is close, the wet contingent of molecules
Gathering across my cheeks, under my eyes.
A dog as white as the moon
Streaks across the road like a fallen star
Sirius descending to earthen night
caressed by a woolen fog, carded by sleepy winds.
The shattered carcass of a bird
crops up from the asphalt
I swerve, leaning against the inertia
the hare's heart spike of my own pulse.
There is a softness to the dark
these small scenes of ghostly death,
a solitude in the hem of night
That somehow feels safer
Than day’s garish glare.

1- Totes inaprope dope smoker swisher toker blunt wrap roper you be like my ole aunt groper
2- She be grabbin ***** on all ya’ll in the Fall by the ball court short shorts and written reports
3- ******* dorks and eatin pork like nanu nanu Mork with a stork baby drop on the porch
4- Carry the torch to the couch jump up ta bounce see a fool to trounce and slap in the head
5- Make him brain dead said I see red in bedrooms full a un-wed mothers slack jaw brothers
6- Druther act like one another than smother muthafuckers with rubber maid garbage cans
7- Hand feeding planned partenthood in the hood acting no good wit mad wood ya shoulda
8- Put those down came round and found a pound for slingin, bringing back the Ringling elephants
9- And cellophane wrapper sandwiches ******* snitching on rich kids for gambling small wagers
10- Drunken rage-ers deranged rangers feeding bears strangers and rearranging body parts
11- Carded farters impart special gasses on mass media fascists  allowing brash

endless miles of dark pavement
hours of white knuckle horror
illegally transporting pounds
processed into oil
curing her cancer –
new age family doctor
with a medical card and an interest in chemistry
distilling Everclear creating hope
1 gram a day
rear-view mirror road-rage
only wishing to be safely home
14 hours to go with a life on the line
watching a plant heal all that ails –
networking growers into family practitioners
dropping the bottom out of Big Pharma
one human being at a time
freely functioning as philanthropists
looking only to see families restored
Robin Hood as a pothead –
nothing could be simpler
than curing cancer
just grind up ****
pour 191 proof over the top
strain and keep the liquid
low heat cook it down
until only oil is left
5 drops of water
and a coffee warmer
decarbonization
then eat it
a grain of rice at first
then increase
to a gram a day
60 grams in 90 days
just try to die –
watching her gain weight and coherence in front of my eyes
seeing it again
knowing the truth
living in a lie
saving lives as I cross them
modern day travelling physician
carded
but unlicensed –

She was fetching at Nineteen,
with her dark eyes of mystery.
Her composed, secretive demeanor.
She exuded the promise of exotic sexuality,
all without much real experience.

I was Twenty Two, older in
many ways than she.
I took her to her first Night Club,
Deep into those Disco Days.
No one carded anyone back then.

She was like a Deer on a road,
caught in the Headlamps of
a oncoming car.
Dazzled in a world she did not know.
A player on a artificial stage.
Several times that night
I saw it happen.
Her eyes meeting and locking on
to some cheesy Saturday Night
Fever Guy clad in garish Polyester,
Soaked in dance sweat,
a club Dennison of no real merit.
Her eyes said it all in a lingering glance.
It told her story and set the tone for the
rest of her life and a list of failed couplings.  

It took ten long years and a child born
for me to fully comprehend what those
looks that night really meant.
To then finely extricate my son and I from her.
And sadly too I learned, that some people
will never know or understand what Love means.
Or perhaps deserve it in return.

Look no further
than the rings under my eyes
the grey hairs protruding from my head
the wrinkly working mans hands
the dirt from factory work
that collects in my pores and nails
the many physical and emotional scars I bear
the eloquent portrayal of myself
that I manage to express
in such a silly clumsy manner
my cynical nature
how being an *******
draws my closest friends.
the hollow chest
the distant stare
the pain in my words.
shows I've obviously aged myself beyond my years

like a tree, cut me down and count the rings.

funny how shaving still gets me carded for cigarettes occasionally.

At least I have that I guess.

~for my naturalist, Victoria~

the poems all end up in midfield,
yellow carded, the game a *******,
0 - 0 unsatisfying affair, all the shots
way wide of goal as I search
for the perfect phrase to capture my

twiddling and twaddling,
fussing and haranguing,
harrumphing and bemoaning,
my very own Brexit,
postponed, the hard answers terrifying,
the soft ones, humbug and *******

incapable of lifting a mighty pen,
or a fully worn down pencil scrap,
seen better days, but now,
all leaden ashes, all fall down,
my natural pointer taps only gibberish

in my plain manila actuality folder,
the cut off dates, ignored, so they
cut me off too for good measure,
plenty good bills to due in there,
plenty good ‘orrible poems for company

the pile of to do’s forming a party,
social, democratic, and
anti-septic or skeptic or semitic,
perhaps all three, as they are two jowls
or two cheeks, too many to the windy

all this shilly shallying, or is it
dilly dallying,
is quite simply to say that
my rooted U.K. naturalist
a Sherlockian moors, traversing specialist
cuts to the shortest quick,
by jove, there it is, succinctly red beeping,
in my garden, awaiting a good boiling

I too exhausted from all the
“scrabbling with the day to day”
she so easily summarizes,
though my poetic ego demands an
Ameddican textual emendation

“hard scrabbling with the day to day”

or

just an all encompassing globalism

“ditto”

ah, Victoria

Anomous snitching,
Tooth dead crinching,
The Grinch has made his way in!!
Talk of the town,
What's made is yours,
And what's ours is yours.
You bee sting amongst the nest!!
Epeleptic symptoms turn the chairs of doctoria request!!!
Antsy fingers,
Written unspokeness,
While the ongoing brokenness rewrites history paradox sense!!
Repentance,
Repentance,
Jurrassic marmelade!
Giving up all your readiness for our creditless credit carded trades!!!
Grass root momentary,
Head stone obituary, you are soo lovely in day!!!
The weeds that pull wrap divinely,
Enter signification relieve all things timely...
Relinquishments own freshing!!!
Grads of the ages for a scripturetic blessing,
How seasonal this all is!!!!!!!!!
Four chambered mansion, hearts beats immaculate to sweets and treat's of sugar can value!!!

Where coffee rocks fall through open lace of white state rags....

What do you think right before you go home.
Works done
Oh yay
I have to mow the lawn.

Maybe laundry
Or TV
Or a home cooked meal.
Maybe ***
Or sleep
Sounds like a great deal.

You're safe.
In your office
With key carded doors
A Computer
Your coffee
On the 21st floor

A printer
It jams
Your boss he gets ******
Your numbers are off
You sent the wrong list.
The laptop just crashed
And so did the market
Your bonus
Your promotion
All the daily commotion.

You think of the game
Or maybe your kids
Drinks at the bar with co workers and friends.

Your job is a pain
Its long and its boring
Carpel tunnel
And back pain are what make you worried.

There is another kind of job.
One that has danger
Adrenaline
Sadness
Heat
And anger.
It doesn't go away when the clock signals five.
Every single day you struggle to stay alive.

The police
Security
Soldiers
And men fighting fires.
Who run to help criers.

They don't worry about the mail or the laundry
They don't ponder on if there's carrots or broccoli
The thoughts that pass through are dark and their scary.
Their jobs in themselves can get quite hairy.

No baseball or soccer
No drinks and no bars.
No dates with the wife
Or husbands or cars.

The questions are asked on a daily basis
Will I live
Will I die
Will I leave all these places

Is he drunk
Is he High
Is he violent or crazy
Will he **** me
Will I **** him
Is this guy dead or is he just lazy.
Who's in the darkness
And who's in the fire.
Who's going to hurt me.
I'm so **** tired.
Can I breathe
Will I burn
Do I have enough air
Will I run out of ammo
Who even cares.
Will I see her again?
My wife
Or my daughter
Maybe my son.
I'd like another.
My parents my friends
Should I fire my gun?
Did he stop shooting
Was there only just one?

We all have thoughts.
Both good and both bad.
We all tend to worry.
About the day that we've had.
Most go home and leave work in the office.
Some don't have such a easy option.
Their job is their life
they never leave work
It follows them home and it always hurts.
Before they clock out
Before they clock in.
The fear and the doubt it tries to get in.
But strong hearts are rigid
They've suffered through pain.
They'll be there tomorrow
They'll do it again.

I am falling
Carded wool and eiderdown
Muted hues in the resonant ghost of you
My words drift
Shadow soft before the deluge
Of an angry sky
I pray for rain
Even though I cower under cover of your grace
Myriad tears from heaven broken
Etch the epitaph and rune stones
Twist the light to brazen
Blanched in acid
Your brilliance blinds me
Sunlight spilled on fallow ground
I am soaked to the marrow
Weathered and weary
An the abyss whispers ever closer
Embrace the profane till the flesh burns ashen
Nati sumus solus et nos solus perire
Deo autem non est sine interiori lumine
You follow me sombrous through the maelstrom
Trade my hueless soul
For the ecstasy of light
In raptu lumine vestit me


we are born alone and we die alone
Without God there is no internal light
Clothe me in the ecstasy of light

TL Boehm
11/13/2012

tonight i am reeking of nostalgia.
my mind flutters of our memories
such as the time
your bike had no pegs
so i sat on the handlebars
and once you pushed the pedals
i fell back and
credit carded my ***.
and the time
i gave you a xanax
and we ******
then you fell asleep inside of me.
the night i fell asleep
on your friend's couch
in your arms watching
enter the void on netflix
and the next day you
woke me up early
and i met your mother.
the time i came down
and i had a fever
and cried in your arms
while you sang me songs by
tool and a perfect circle
and played songs by elliot smith
to calm me down.
or the night i first met you
we cuddled in my bed and talked and
kissed for the first time and the tension
was searing in our bodies cos they wanted
to collide.
and how could i ever forget the night
you told me you couldn't do this
apologized and
left me in the morning
i tried my hardest not to
let you see me cry
but i couldn't hold the tears.
i told you that i would be ok
and i would just get over it
because 'life goes on'
and my life went on, yes
but it's been 9 weeks
and you're still the boy i hold
closest in my heart.
my head aches at the concept i can't grasp
you don't love me and you won't come back.

Sultry like a winter morning, but delectable, nevertheless
She looked at him with an adjudicator’s eye for the indefinable
And down into the doldrums sank his loud bravado like a stone
He became a blubbering idiot, breathless at her royal presence
Whimpering like a blind, hungry puppy in its dark world

Bereft of height but redeemed somewhat by a rather rare face
She looked at him as if to say he was the answer to all her prayers
The boy’s disdain for seekers of things personal shot through the roof
He became a despicably insensitive dreamer living only for music
Red-carded by her heart on a sleeve he sent her home early to moan

Her clear complexion with the juicy tone was like ripe yellow peaches
She walked out of a shower into the sunshine like a subject of art
When her eyes touched his doting face he was lost forever in her gaze
On this day his obsession with allure was well and truly fanned; he
Became a devotee at the altar of romantic slaughter where dreams die

Dark, with dancing eyes and a full bobbing *****, girlish but feminine
She ate him up with a hungry look and threatened to swoon as her knees buckled
His infatuation with girls that treated him like the killer of their dreams began here
Sorely tempted was he to become her instant lover under that sunny September sky
But alas, it could never be; she was just a maid and he was on the way up

Tall and sweet with articulate eyes and a younger sister that spoke for her
She was not one to play hard to get and declared her love like a blessing
She made his ego grow in leaps and bounds and had a figure like an artist's model
He was stunned by her openness and began to feel like someone arrived at his station
But circumstances, as always, altered cases and they went their separate ways for good

Succulent like the clementine, her namesake, she spread her feelings out for him to see
She had a bigger sister who treated him like he was what her younger sister needed
Clementine and he shared yearning secrets about brief looks and shy touches
Henceforth his love for intrigue in matters of the heart drove him full throttle
And he grew into this heartless beau in love with love, cursed with a wandering heart

Today he sits in a tired armchair under a weeping willow wondering what happened

I could tell you about the way he looked at me
Like I was a deer head above the fire place in his basement
Like I was the first place trophy he just won simply by existing
Like an object to be obtained
To be won
Sure as hell not to be asked

I could tell you how I mistook that look for love
Like he wanted to be with me
Like he cared about what happened after he was gone
Like a lover
A friend
Someone who actually cares about you

I could show you where he touched me
Physical and metaphorical
On my body
And in my subconscious
Making me flinch when a hand is raised
Or when I see the red dress that "just didn't fit right"

I could make you fall in love with him
With his sweet words of forever and always
His promises and wishes
The way he carded his hands through my hair
And the way he kissed down my neck

I could do a lot of things
And so could he
The only real difference is
I know where the line is.

Generation X
Who used to could care less
Now have been replaced
With Generation Hate

Those leaning to the left
Have filled their silly heads
With hopelessness and dread
When all is done and said

With so much fear and doubt
That things will all work out
Taking it into their own hands
Meeting up with their own demands

All they know is push and shove
In their pool of had enough
Saying no thank you very much
Putting all blame on dot government

Coming late to the party
At the door they've all been carded
Sadly turned around and left
Not part of the one percent

So they took to revolution
At someone else's choosing
To take and seal the fate
Of Generation Hate

At my church
We have a card
And getting it's
Not very hard

The racist card
You will not lack
If you say one thing
About white or black

And if at any
Culture you poke
You'll get carded for
Your racist joke

The card circles
Like a shark
waiting for
Some snide remark

So if you find
Not being racist is hard
Remember the tale
Of the racist card

I'm afraid that I am starting to look my age because I am no longer carded when I walk up to the bar. I think the permanent wrinkle in my brow may be telling - the creases in my forehead are also unkind to my youth.

Whatever youth is left in this body, a breadbasket of stress.

Of course, drinking does nothing to help preserve whatever visage it is that I am so greedily clinging to.

And oh god, what an awful thing it is to be twenty three. How desperately far away it is from nineteen, bright and burning.