When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops & karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
& because my grandmother thought it was cute
& because they were my favorite,
she let me keep doing it

Not really a big deal

One day,
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
& bruised the right side of my body

I didn't want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I'd get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn't have been

A few days later,
the gym teacher noticed the bruise
& I got sent to the principals office
From there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
As far as I was concerned,
life was pretty good
I told her, "Whenever I'm sad,
my grandmother gives me karate chops!"

This led to a full scale investigation
& I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruise

News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
& I earned my first nickname

Pork Chop

To this day
I hate pork chops

I'm not the only kid
who grew up this way
Surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks & stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
& we got called them all
So we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
That we'd be lonely forever
That we'd never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
Don't tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
That an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
That there's no way for it to metastasize

It does

She was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
We both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop getting bombarded by spit *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
We used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
Outside we'd have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
In grade five,
they taped a sign to her desk that read
Beware Of Dog

To this day,
despite a loving husband,
she doesn't think she's beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
Kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn't quite get the job done
& they'll never understand
that she's raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
because she's only ever always been amazing

He
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
Adopted
Not because his parents opted for a different destiny
He was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
& two parts tragedy
Started therapy in 8th grade
Had a personality made up of tests & pills.
Lived like the uphills were moutains
& the downhills were cliffs
Four fifths suicidal
A tidal wave of anti depressants
& an adolescence of being called Popper
One part because of the pills,
ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
He tried to **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who could still go home to mom & dad
had the audacity to tell him "Get over it," as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents fround in a first aid kit

To this day
he is a stick of TNT lit from both ends
Could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it's about to fall
& despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration,
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can't understand
Sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
& more to do with sanity

We weren't the only kids who grew up this way

To this day
kids are still being called names
The classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
Seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
& if a kid breaks in a school
& no one around chooses to hear,
do they make a sound?
Are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
Every school was a big top circus tent
& the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
All of these were miles ahead of who we were
We were freaks
Lobster claw boys & bearded ladies
Oddities
juggling depression & loneliness playing solitaire, spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves & heal
But at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
It was practice
& yes
some of us fell

But I want to tell them
that all of this ****
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
& if you can't see anything beautiful about yourself,
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there's something inside you
that made you keep trying
Despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
& signed it yourself
You signed it,
"They were wrong!"
because maybe you didn't belong to a group or a clique
Maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
Maybe you used to bring bruises & broken teeth
to show & tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
You have to believe that they were wrong

They have to be wrong

Why else would we still be here?
We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
We stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called
We are not abandoned cars stalled out &
sitting empty on a highway
& if in some way we are
don't worry
We only got out to walk & get gas
We are graduating members from the class of
we made it
Not the faded echoes of voices crying out
Names will never hurt me

Of course
they did

But our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
& more to do with *beauty

When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
Were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
And because my grandmother thought it was cute
And because they were my favourite
She let me keep doing it

Not really a big deal

One day
Before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
And bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
Because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
For playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

A few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
And I got sent to the principal’s office
From there I was sent to another small room
With a really nice lady
Who asked me all kinds of questions
About my life at home


I saw no reason to lie
As far as I was concerned
Life was pretty good
I told her, “Whenever I’m sad
My grandmother gives me karate chops”

This led to a full scale investigation
And I was removed from the house for three days
Until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

News of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
And I earned my first nickname

Pork Chop

To this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
Who grew up this way
Surrounded by people who used to say
That rhyme about sticks and stones
As if broken bones
Hurt more than the names we got called
And we got called them all
So we grew up believing no one
Would ever fall in love with us
That we’d be lonely forever
That we’d never meet someone
To make us feel like the sun
Was something they built for us
In their tool shed
So broken heart strings bled the blues
As we tried to empty ourselves
So we would feel nothing
Don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
That an ingrown life
Is something surgeons can cut away
That there’s no way for it to metastasize


It does

She was eight years old
Our first day of grade three
When she got called ugly
We both got moved to the back of the class
So we would stop get bombarded by spit *****
But the school halls were a battleground
Where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
We used to stay inside for recess
Because outside was worse
Outside we’d have to rehearse running away
Or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
In grade five they taped a sign to her desk
That read beware of dog

To this day
Despite a loving husband
She doesn’t think she’s beautiful
Because of a birthmark
That takes up a little less than half of her face
Kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
That someone tried to erase
But couldn’t quite get the job done
And they’ll never understand
That she’s raising two kids
Whose definition of beauty
Begins with the word mom
Because they see her heart
Before they see her skin
Because she’s only ever always been amazing


He
Was a broken branch
Grafted onto a different family tree
Adopted
Not because his parents opted for a different destiny
He was three when he became a mixed drink
Of one part left alone
And two parts tragedy
Started therapy in 8th grade
Had a personality made up of tests and pills
Lived like the uphills were mountains
And the downhills were cliffs
Four fifths suicidal
A tidal wave of anti depressants
And an adolescence of being called popper
One part because of the pills
Ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
He tried to **** himself in grade ten
When a kid who could still go home to mom and dad
Had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
Is something that can be remedied
By any of the contents found in a first aid kit

To this day
He is a stick of TNT lit from both ends
Could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
In the moments before it’s about to fall
And despite an army of friends
Who all call him an inspiration
He remains a conversation piece between people
Who can’t understand
Sometimes becoming drug free
Has less to do with addiction
And more to do with sanity

We weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
To this day
Kids are still being called names
The classics were
Hey stupid
Hey spaz
Seems like each school has an arsenal of names
Getting updated every year
And if a kid breaks in a school
And no one around chooses to hear
Do they make a sound?
Are they just the background noise
Of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
When people say things like
Kids can be cruel?
Every school was a big top circus tent
And the pecking order went
From acrobats to lion tamers
From clowns to carnies
All of these were miles ahead of who we were
We were freaks
Lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
Oddities
Juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
Trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
But at night
While the others slept
We kept walking the tightrope
It was practice
And yes
Some of us fell

But I want to tell them
That all of this ****
Is just debris
Leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
We used to be
And if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
Get a better mirror
Look a little closer
Stare a little longer
Because there’s something inside you
That made you keep trying
Despite everyone who told you to quit
You built a cast around your broken heart
And signed it yourself
You signed it
“They were wrong”
Because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a clique
Maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
Maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
To show and tell but never told
Because how can you hold your ground
If everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
You have to believe that they were wrong

They have to be wrong

Why else would we still be here?
We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
Because we see ourselves in them
We stem from a root planted in the belief
That we are not what we were called
We are not abandoned cars stalled out and
Sitting empty on a highway
And if in some way we are
Don’t worry
We only got out to walk and get gas
We are graduating members from the class of ******* We Made It
Not the faded echoes of voices crying out
Names will never hurt me

Of course
They did

But our lives will only ever always
Continue to be
A balancing act
That has less to do with pain
And more to do with beauty

-Shane Koyczan

1.
From my
uneasy bed
at the L’Enfant,
a train's pensive
horn breaks the
sullen lullaby of
an HVAC’s hum;
interrupting the
mechanical
reverie of its
steadfast
night watch,
allowing my ear
to discern
the stampede
of marauding
corporate Visigoths
sacking the city.

The cacophony
of sloven gluttony,
the ***** songs of
unrequited privilege
and the unencumbered
clatter of radical
entitlement echoes
off the city’s cold
crumbling stones.

The unctuous
bellows of the
victorious pillagers
profanely feasting
pierces the
hanging chill
of the nations
black night.

Their hoots
deride the train
transporting
the defeated
ghosts of
Lincoln’s last
doomed regiments
dispatched in vain
to preserve a
peoples republic
in a futile last stand.

The rebels have
finally turned the tide,
T Boone Pickett’s
Charge succeeds,
sending the ravaged
Grand Army of the
Republic sliding
back to the Capitol,
in savage servility,
gliding on squeaky
ungreased wheels
ferrying the
Union’s dead
vanquished
defenders to
unmarked graves
on Potters Field.

The Rebels
joyous yell
bounces off
the inert granite
stones of the
soulless city.

The spittle
of salivating
vandals drips
over the
spoils of war
as they initiate the
disassemblage,
the leveling and
reapportionment
of the grand prize.

The clever
oligarchs
have laid claim
to a righteous
reparation
of the peoples
assets for
pennies on the
dollar.

Their wholly
bought politicos
move to transfer
distressed assets
into their just
stewardship
through the
holy justice
of privatization
and the sound
rationale of
free market
solutions.

In the land of the
pursuit of property,
nimble wolf PACs
of swift 527, LLCs
have fully
metastasized
into personhood;
ascending to
the top of the
food chain in
America’s
voracious
political culture;
bestriding
the nation to
compel the
national will
to genuflect
to the cool facility
of corporate
dominion.

As the
inertial ******
of the plaintive
locomotive
fades into
another old
morning of
recalcitrant
Reaganism,
it lugs its
ambivalent
middle class
baggage toward
it’s fast expiring
future.

I follow
the dirge
down to
the street
as the ebbing
sound fades
into the gloom
of the
burgeoning
morning,
slowly
replacing the
purple twilight
with a breaking
day of cold gray
clouds framing
silhouettes of
cranes busily
constructing
a new city.

The personhood of
corporations need
homes in our new
republic; carving
out new
neighborhoods
suitable for the
monied citizens
of our nation.

First amongst
equals, the best
corporate governance
charters form
the foundation of
the republic’s
new constitution.
Civil rights
are secondary
to the freedom
of markets; the
Bill of Rights
are economically
replaced by the
cool manifests
of Bills of Lading.

The agents of
laissez faire
capitalism
nibble away
at the city’s
neighborhoods
one block at a time;
while steady winds
blows dust off
the National Mall.

Layers of the
peoples plaza are
plained away with
each rising gust.  

History repeats
itself as the Joad’s
are routed from their
land once again.

A clever
mixed use
plan of
condos and
strip malls
is proposed
to finally help the
National Mall
unlock its true
profit potential.

As America’s
affection for
federalism fades
the water in
the reflection pool
is gracefully drained.

We the people
can no longer
see ourselves.

The profit
potential of
industry is
preferred over
the specious
metaphysical
benefits
of reflection.

The grand image,
the rich pastiche,
the quixotic aroma
of the national
melting ***
is reduced to the
sameness of the
black tar that lines
the pool and the
swirling eddies of
brown dust circling
the cracked indenture.

From his not so
distant vantage point,
Abe ponders the
empty pool wondering
if the cost of lives
paid was a worthy
endeavor of preserving
the ****** union?  
Has the dear prize
won perished from
this earth?

Was the illusive
article of liberty  
worth its weight in
the blood expended?

Did the people ever
fully realize the value
of government
by the people,
for the people?

Did citizens of
the republic
assume the
responsibilities to
protect and honor
the rights and privileges
of a representative
government?

Now our idea
and practice of
civil rights is measured
and promoted as far as
it can be justified by
a corporate ROI, a
shareholder dividend,
an earmark or a political
donation to a senators
unconnected PAC.

The divine celestial
ledgers balancing
the rights and
privilege of free people
drips with red ink.  

Liberty, equality
fraternity are bankrupt
secular notions
condemned as
expensive
liberal seditions;
hatched by
UnHoly Jacobins,
the atheist skeptics
during the dark times
of the Age of Enlightenment.

Abe ponders
the restoration
of Washington’s
obelisk, to
repair the cracks
suffered  from
last summer’s
freak earthquake.

I believe I detect
a tear in Abe’s
granite eye
saddened by the
corporate temblors
shaking the
foundations
of the city.

2.

The WWII Memorial
is America’s Parthenon
for a country's love
affair with the valor
and sacrifice of warfare.

WWII forms the
cornerstone of
understanding the
pathos of the
American Century.

During WWII
our greatest generation
rose as a nation to
defeat the menace of
global fascism and
indelibly mark the
power and virtue of
American democracy.

As Lincoln’s Army
saved federalism, FDR’s
Army kept the world safe
for democracy.

Both armies served
a nation that shared
the sacrifice and
burden of war to
preserve the grace of
a republican democracy.

Today federalism
crumbles as our
democracy withers.

The burden
of war is reserved
for a precious few
individuals while
its benefits
remain confined to
the corporate elite.

Our monuments
to war have become
commercial backdrops
for the hollow patriotism
of war profiteers.

We have mortgaged
our future to pay
for two criminal wars.

The spoils of
war flow into the
pockets of
corporate
shareholders
deeply invested
in the continuation
of pointless,
destructive
hostilities.

Our service
members who
selflessly served
their country come
home to a less free,
fear struck nation;
where economic
security and political
liberty erodes
each day while the
monied interests
continue to bless
the abundance
of freedom and riches
purchased with the
blood and sweat
of others.

America desperately
needs a new narrative.

The spirit of the
Greatest Generation
who sacrificed and met
the challenge of the 20th
Century must become
this generations spiritual
forebears.

The war on terror
neatly fits the
the corporate
pathos of
militarism,
surveillance
and the sacrifice
of civil liberties
to purchase
a daily measure
of fear and
economic
enslavement.

It must be rejected
by a people committed
to building secular
temples to pursue
peace, democracy,
economic empowerment,
civil liberties and tolerance
for all.

Yet this old city
and the democratic
temples it built
exulting a free people
anointed with the
grace of liberty
is being consumed
in a morass of
commercial
polyglot.

3.

During the
War of 1812
the British Army
burned the
Capitol Building
and the White House
to the ground.

Thank goodness
Dolly Madison saved
what she could.

The new marauders
are not subject to the
pull of nostalgia.  

They value nothing
save their
self enrichment.

They will spare nothing.

Our besieged Capitol
requires Lincoln’s troops
to be stationed along the
National Mall to defend
the republic.

The greatest peril
to our nation
is being directed
by well placed
Fifth Columnists.

From the safety
of underground bunkers,
in secure undisclosed
locations within the city’s
parameters, a well financed
confederacy employing  
K Street shenanigans
are busy selling off
the American Dream
one ear mark
at a time, one
huge corporate
welfare allotment
at a time.

The biggest prize
is looting the real
property of the people;
selling Utah,
auctioning off
the public schools,
water systems, post offices
and mineral rights
on the cheap
at an Uncle Sam
garage sale.  

The capitol is
indeed burning
again.

Looters are
running riot.

The flailing arms
of a dying empire
fire off cruise
missiles and drone
strikes; hitting the
target of habeas
corpus as it
shakes in its
final death rattle.
I make a pilgrimage
to the MLK Jr.
Monument.

Our cultural identity
is outsourced to
foreign contractors
paid to reinterpret
the American Dream
through the eyes
of a lowest bidder.

MLK has lost
his humanity.

He has been
reduced to a
a Chinese
superhuman
Mao like anime
busting loose from
a granite mountain while
geopolitical irony
compels him to watch
Tommy Jefferson
**** Sally Hemings
from across the tidal
basin for all eternity.  

MLK’s eyes fixed in
stern fascination,
forever enthralled
by the contradictions
of liberty and its
democratic excesses
of love in the willows
on golden pond.

Circling back to
Father Abraham’s
Monument,  I huddle
with a group of global
citizens listening
to an NPS Ranger
spinning four score
tales with the last full
measure of her devotion.

I look up into Abe’s
stone eyes as he
surveys platoons
of gray suited
Chinese Communist
envoys engaged
in Long Marches
through the National Mall;
dutifully encircling cabinet
buildings and recruiting
Tea Party congressmen
into their open party cells.

This confederacy
is ready to torch
the White House
again.

Congressmen and
the perfect patriots
from K Street slavishly
pull their paymasters
in gilded rickshaws to
golf outings at the Pentagon
and park at the preferred
spots reserved for
the luxury box holders
at Redskin Games.

They vow not to rest
until the house of the people
is fully mortgaged to the
People’s Republic of China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund.

4.

A great
Son of Liberty like
Alan Greenspan
roundly rings
the bells of
free markets
as he inches
T Bill rates
forward a few
basis points
at a time; while
his dead mentor
Ayn Rand
lifts Paul Ryan
to her
Fountainhead teet.
He takes a long
draw as she
coos songs
from her primer
of Atlas Shrugged
Mother Goose tales
into his silky ears.

The construction
cranes swing
to the music
building new private
sector space with
the largess of
US taxpayers
money; or
more rightly
future generations
taxpayer debt.

Libertarians,
Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs
and GOP waterboys
eagerly light a
match to the
the crucifixes
bearing federal
social safety
net programs
to the delight
of NASDAQ
listed capitalists
on the come,
licking their chops
to land contracts
to administer
these programs
at a negotiated
cost plus
profit margin.

Citizens
dependent
on programs
are leery
shareholders
are ecstatic.

To be sure
our free
market rebels
don disguises
of red, white
and blue robes
but their objectives
fail to distinguish
their motives and
methods with
some of the finest
Klansman this
country has
ever produced.

5.

DC is a city
of joggers
and choppers.

Corporate
helicopters
wizz by the
Washington
Monument,
popping erections
for the erectors
inspecting the progress
of the cranes
commanding the
city skyline.

USMC drill team
out for a morning
run circles the Mall.

The commanding
cadence of the
DI keeps us
mindful of the
deepening
militarization of
our society.

A crowd  
rushes
to position
themselves,
genuflecting
to photograph
a platoon on
the move.

I try to consider
the defining
characteristics of
Washington DC.

DC is all surface.

It is full of walls
and mirrors.

Its primary hue
is obfuscation.

Open
communication
scripted from well
considered talking points
informs all dialog.

The city is thoroughly
enraptured in narcissism.

Thankfully, one can
always capture the
reflection of oneself in
the ubiquitous presence of
mirrors.  

Vanity imprisons
the city inhabitants.

Young joggers circle the
Mall and gerrymander
down every pathway
of the city.  

They are the clerks,
interns and staffers of
the judicial, executive
and legislative branches.

They are the children
of privilege.

They will never
alter their path.

You must cede the walk
to their entitlement
of a swift comportment
or risk injury of a
violent collision.

These young ones
portray a countenance  
of benevolent rulers.  

They seem to be learning
their trade craft well from
the senators and judges
whom they serve.

They appear confident
they know what's best
for the country and after
their one term of tireless
service to the republic
they look forward to
positions in the private
sector where they will
assist corporations
to extend their reach
into the pant pockets
worn by the body politic.

6.

Our nations mythic story
lies hidden deep in the
closed rooms of the
museums lining the
Mall.

I pause to consider
what a great nation
and its great people
once aspired to.

I spy the a
suspended
Space Shuttle
hanging in dry dock
at the air and
space museum.

Today America’s
astronauts hitch
rides on Russian
rockets.

America rents a
timeshare from
the European
space agency to
lift communication
satellites into orbit.

Across the Mall
I photograph
John Smithson’s
ashes in its columbarium.  

I fear it has become a
metaphor for America’s
future commitment
to scientific inquiry
and rational secular
thinking.

I am relieved to
discover a Smithsonian
exhibit that asks
“what does it mean
to be human?”

The Origins of Humans
exhibit carries a disclaimer
to satisfy creationists.

The exhibit timidly states
that science can coexist
with religious beliefs and
that the point of the exhibit is
not to inflame inflame religious
passions but to shed light on
scientific inquiry.

I imagine these exhibits
will inflame the passion of
the fundamentalist
American Taliban and
provide yet another
reason to dismantle
the Moloch of Federalism.

The pursuit of science
remains safe at the
Smithsonian for now.

7.

Near K Street at
McPherson Park
a posse of
well dressed
lobbyists, the
self anointed
uber patriots
doing the work
of the people
stroll through
the park
boasting a
healthy population
of bedraggled
homeless.

The homeless
occupy the benches
that have been
transformed into
pup tents.

Perhaps some of
the residents of this
mean estate were
made homeless by a
foreclosed mortgage.  

The K Street warriors
can be proud that their
work on behalf of the
banking industry has
forestalled financial market
reform.  

Through it exacerbates
the homeless problem it has
allowed these K Street titans to
profit from the distress of others.

Earlier in the day
I photographed
a homeless man
planted in front of
the Washington
Monument.

I wonder
if my political
voyeurism is
an exploitation of
this man’s condition?

I have more in common
then I probably wish to
admit with my K Street
antagonists.  

In another section
of the park the
remnants of a
distressed OWS
bivouac remain.

The legions of sunshine
patriots have melted away
as the interest of the
blogosphere has waned.

As the weather
improves Moveon.org
and democratic
party operatives
pitch tents in an
effort to resuscitate
the moribund
movement.

They hope
to coop any
remaining energy
to support their
stale deception,
a neoliberal vision
based solely on the
total capitulation
to the bankrupt
corporatocracy.

I heard someone say
a campaign lasts a
season; while a
movement for social
change takes decades.

If that metric proves
correct, and if the
powers don’t succeed
in compromising the
people’s movement
I’ll be three quarters
of a century old
before I see
justice flowing like
a river once again.

8.

I circle back to
the L’Enfant and
find myself
tramping amidst
the lost platoon
of Korean War
soldiers.

My feet drag
in the quagmire
of grass covering
the feet of this
ghostly troop.

My namesake
uncle was a
decorated
veteran of this
conflict and Im
sure I detect
his likeness
in one of the
statues.

The bleak call
of a distant train
sounds a revelry
and I imagine this
patrol springing
to life to answer
the call of their
beloved country
once again.

Yet they remain
inert.  

Stuck in a
place that the
nation finds
impossible to
leave.

The eyes of the
men stare into
an incomprehensible
fate.  

They see the swarms
of Red Army infantrymen
crossing the Yellow River
streaming toward
them in massive
human waves,
the tips of
sparkling bayonets
threatening to slash
the outmanned
contingent fighting
to bits.

They are the
first detachment
to bravely confront
the rising power
of China many
thousands of
miles away
from their homes.

America like
this lone company
is overwhelmed
and lost in the
confusion
that confronts
them.

Looking up
I perceive the
bewilderment
of my muddled image
reflected on the
marble walls
surrounding
the memorial.

I am a comrade-in-arms,
a fellow wanderer sojourning
with th

To This Day
When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
and because my grandmother thought it was cute
and because they were my favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”

this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname

pork chop

to this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize

it does

she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog

to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing

he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit

to this day
he is a stick on TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity

we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell

but I want to tell them
that all of this ****
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong

why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
******* we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me

of course
they did

but our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
and more to do with beauty.

To This Day by Shane Koyczan

To This Day
When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
and because my grandmother thought it was cute
and because they were my favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”

this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname

pork chop

to this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize

it does

she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit *****
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog

to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing

he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to **** himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit

to this day
he is a stick on TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity

we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell

but I want to tell them
that all of this ****
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong

why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
******* we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me

of course
they did

but our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
and more to do with beauty

Prosecco cocktails, être pour la danse,
cassis pour moi avec limoncello,
madame, passion fruit, and blood oranges

très grownup, breakfast at Tiffany's,
she is all sunglasses and Audreyfied,
me and George P., struggling writers,
checking if i got enough cash
or have to exit smooth, just in case,
maybe we leave our
coats behind, as ransom?

lincoln center plaza cross-dressers,
past the opera,
the sun, a balmy thirty five degrees,
laughing at us teasingly,
cause tonight and tomorrow,
******* all the day,
winter kisses
in case we forgot,
early March
first belongs to the Ides of Winter

Afternoon of a Faun,
another ballet, origin,
a Mallarmé poem.
(you begin to comprehend)
yes quite so,
a perfect synopsis of the day,
Acheron imported from Scarlett Liam
who lives in the U.K.,
but comes to choreograph here,
for gloria Americana

sundown, soul cold back,
"lest we forget,"
but the dancers bid us adieu
with a rousing waltz, frenchified,
La Valse, une poème chorégraphique,
by Ravel, bien sûr!
aroused and heart gladdened,
return home for

for veal chop love

two hours of *** banging,
kitchen banishment, (Yay!)
chanterelles steeped in red wine,
coverlet for a non-vegan tasting,
English peas, red and purple potatoes,
and for desert,
a diet dream of verbal exchanged of detailed
I love you's

He: I love you,
She (happy), replies: I love you more.
(this repartee ballet, has been rehearsal danced before)
He: Why?
She: Because you are kind and generous, to street beggars, my single friends, good and smart, love art,
and never let me down, and love my cooking, leave space for others when you park, go thru life making waiters and ticket takers smile and laugh, sleep for hours your head on my hip, write me crazy love poems about veal chops
He: What's for desert tonight?
She: A ****

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
and he called it "chops"
because that was the name of his dog
and thats what it was all about
his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
and his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts.
that was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo
and he let them sing on the bus
and his little sister was born
with tiny nails and no hair
and his mother and father kissed a lot
and the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's
and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
and his father always tucked him in bed at night
and was always there to do it

once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
he called it "Autumn"
because that was the name of the season
and that's what it was all about
and his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of the new paint
and the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
and left butts on the pews
and sometime they would burn holes
that was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
and the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see santaclaus
and the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed a lot
and his father never tucked him in bed at night
and his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it

once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
and he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
and thats what it was all about
and his professor gave him an A
and a strange steady look
and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
that was the year Father Tracy died
and he forgot how the end
of the Apostles's Creed went
and he caught his sister
making out on the back porch
and his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
and the girl around the corner
wore too much make up
that made him cough when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
because it was the thing to do
and at 3 am he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly

that's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
and he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
because that's what it was really all about
and he gave himself an A
and a slash on each ****** wrist
and he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didn't think
he could reach the kitchen----

Picasso
you give us things
which
bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind

you make us shrill
presents always
shut in the sumptuous screech of
simplicity

(out of the
black unbunged
Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes
or

between squeals of
Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness
solid screams whispers.)
Lumberman of the Distinct

your brain’s
axe only chops hugest inherent
Trees of Ego,from
whose living and biggest

bodies lopped
of every
prettiness

you hew form truly

We are not on a schedule
But we are working
Ivory skills of mastery hard
We can not afford to lose
The Elephants hearts diary
The Zen of topiary
      Details
  The good luck

The hard worker making
True buck the husk of fruit seed
The Peking God of duck
Superman of gifts of steel
The movie superstitious eyes
Everyday good earth cries
Elephant Trunk
Bring on the Holiday
The tuxedo the Elephant Tusk
Godly task the top rank

Anomalous

Questioning the situation not
so delicious
Sensual so moving vivacious
The comedy of errors
Ridiculous to the sublime

The compromising position
Waiting for the next
      "Crime"
Mens of romance
Holiday the gracious gray
Taking risks

*Gallivanting never separating love
Of the tusk, life holds too many risks

Smiles and baking
more loving
The harder you mix
    Wonderful Ivory
   An elephant is a true
   ingredient
Holding the whisk over creamed
Looking high up the
white feathers
Like a beauty, I have never seen

She loves to pick his holiday
Elephants circles the tie he's
her dream
There is no truth when its a holiday
when people
Laugh between there lies

Start running toward
Elephant Tusk
Moms homemade apple caramel
pecan pies
Conflicts subjects
to paint talk to the "Elephants"
With the dreamy ivory tusk

The fragrance of Ireland
Spicy Greens musk
King hand card player tough skin
*Holiday Queen got numbered in
The men million stars of
musk saved the day it flew in

You make me feel brand new
I never made a mistake
Never one that I couldn't explain
Running towards or afterward
Those love words
Before the Gods
The veal chops
Emperor of emails
The Cops and robbers

So modest and shy with demure 
 Holiday spirit world of hands galore
What allure dreamy contentment
She got holiday advancement

The contrast between
Holiday family love the honesty
but our government magical
mystery all bribery
Go for the tour just pour
your words
Quite a mystery white baking
flour messy
Moon and the Star handkerchief style
dressy

The Astronomy we need
to build a better
Here and the now
Wondering how?

Deep brown hazelnut
coffee royal bow
Seeing through the
Gray starting to pray
The parade of the Elephant
The day we can trust
This isn't a Fay Ray
not my kind
of town
The holiday comes and goes
too quick
There you are Rick and
his cousins
It felt like a holiday of
*Tombstones
The gathering with the finest
rhinestones
More sound of silence
Please no I phones
Shut them off enjoy the
Elephants tusk and
their home turf
Not the bluest sea
Make it the lovely
    (Earl Gray)
Bringing surf and turf
More conflicts those predictions
More spiritual afflictions

Just find your peace within
His Elephant pants win
You got the whole tusk
in your hand
"Snow White Huntsman"
Affection like a
housewarming
My holiday transformation

Neon Lion light of crystal ball
The spiritual Tree elephant
Touched a part of me the art
All the fine elements bring
us closer, not the copy
of an imposter

Something to smile about
The myriad
The full length of the camera
The Elephants has a heart
no drama
Flying so Ivory gown sheer
Moms roast will not
come next year
Red devil computer
Telling me there are
Ghostbusters and
travel gliders
I am the true
Elephant lover
More homestayers
music players

Men looking astronomically
Feeling silly
in their whiskers
The world is horrifying
But there is no denying
more praying
Her heart is very thick
Elephant skin close to her
heart is luck
What is happening
to our economy
The sad thing people are selling
Elephant's
Tusk for money we need
to stop this

Lucky Elephant tusk is
turning to good luck
We pray for the world
Holy bless

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I'm dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run

to

***** of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef
and hot dogs by the scores,
or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.

die nacht  aus alle verewigung -
verewigung die nacht - in immigrant German
spoken - not spoken, hälfte, hälfte,
pork-chops go go got taken with Australian *******...
cos selling the body saved you with the crucifix from
selling something like your soul, hence the accord to
be ready for critique of selling the magic potion of drinking
iodine... i was a fetus back then... when the atom
**** got the plastic elasticity of tangling
to wanking a didgeridoo... magician's syndrome:
**** that tightened fist and i'll assure you
you'll get the white flag of piracy's peace:
meaning they never robbed the rich men, pirates
just robbed the artists... hey wooden plank,
knock knock... don't make me into a wooden chair...
take a creaking floorboard and make it into
a shimmy toothpick... knock knock... who's there?
Jude? Jude who? hey i'm Jude? Judy Jew who?
a Jew who chewed propaganda and hid Jude.
fair enough, Jude's the everyday Jew.
no, she's the Rabbi! Rabbi who?
the Sabbatical who knows who.
some say i know god.
well, good luck with that, mostly asserted
on death row.
at least that place is given a fabric of a team effort.
by the time i think about next week's trash
i'll have written something akin to it being
taken out into a pig's trough of what resembled
the dating scene in New York...
hardly reminiscent of the gay Utopia:
so much anger yet still only the vote,
so much anger yet still only the vote...
           the intelligence poured in, but the
quiff only wanted the algebra of x
to match it up to a presidential race success with some donor's
y, and later + and squared and equals to make
those family holidays affordable.
- winter-night... deutschekaiser....
i swear it would be cheaper to build a wall
around the middle east...
like the European Union really
wanted to invest in dates... cos we were
ready to make a Sabbath from a Ramadan...
like we waited for the loss of % on added debt...
we waited, and waited... and waited...
we got McDonald's instead... and that was all
in the inventory... and that was all in
whatever we got, if we got anything:
deutsche schmutzig machen... is that perfect
German muddy - herrbzigg - or alter
Philanthropist zigzag - howdy howdy **?
dots the avenue...
and the many riches coming your way...
make muddy, or muddied already,
takes one swipe of the credit card,
ends up with 110 to nil streaks of ****
bothered about Star Trek... and the cellphone...
and the extraterrestrials of Mexico (or he co & co; huh i?)...
got the gangrene green if you
like the Licorice tangle of blank Ovid saying:
mahogany, mahogany, mahoney... mama got all da
honey... n she got the 2Pac shaky shaky core blues;
mind the albino in the hood:
or Mars the red planet, Earth the brown planet,
scary they thought of dinosaurs with dragons prior...
didn't think of Martian life prior to government
conspiracies, way before Darwinism and crowd control...
life on Mars: well, it was once there,
long before dinosaurs, and bacteria and yogurt...
long before the circus, and the commuter caterpillar...
i believe that there was life on Mars,
given the timescale... it was there...
but it ain't there anymore...
                           which might explain the U.F.O.s....
don't believe the government's audacity to have
created something so phosphorescent Zulu
as to invoke an engraving of lawless Voodoo...
before we knew of dinosaur remains we drew dragons...
before we explored Mars we were given
the proofs... life existed on Mars, long before
Earth was made the 2nd laboratory of a deity...
then it died, given the life-cycle of stars...
Mars is rocky... earth is rocky...
whatever life existed on Mars in its full potential
is long gone... is this really as weird
as what pop culture makes of man and monkey?
kettle and carpal muscles evolving from
oysters? we really can become equally ridiculous to
the extent that we turn on each other...
it didn't take much to divide Hindu from Muslim
into India and Pakistan... this won't take much thought either...
i'm just trying to counter scientific negativism,
and counter the timescale of both physicists' big bang
theory and the anti-historical Darwinism...
i'm starting with life on Mars, at a time when
Earth was inhospitable... volcanic... i might be among
the many people treated as being "mentally ill"
when the government claims to be so advanced as to practice
such projections of phosphorescent objects,
when it's dumb as Donald *****... because NASA is
not theoretical enough... and the government seeks
control by claiming NASA isn't the end result...
the usual suspects: lies... and more lies...
the Venusian Art... the pick-up artists...
i read it, never tried it... wish i did... but i also wished
for a herd of goats too...
but that's the best explanation of sighting a UFO i have...
before Earth was made habitable, Mars came prior...
Mars is rocky... is Earth... our fantasy is about discovering
life on Mars... life on Mars left a long time ago...
it's gone... gone gone gone...
the sun is cooling down before it becomes a dwarf...
before the perfection of this glasshouse of plants and animals
Mars came before us... and it was perfect...
later came this whole God and Devil debacle and plagiarism...
the first supreme, the second mildly similar...
but altogether worse... i told you, a phosphorescent object
in the night is hardly a government project...
the government is not capable of such things...
if they are, then they're like a man with a 4 inch
***** telling a girl he's a millionaire and has a fetish for
watching his girlfriend get ****** by a stranger with a 12 inch ****...
do the match... get a mud-bath.
the Welsh drew dragons and the Chinese too,
long before the dinosaurs usurped the happy-times
next to a bonfire... i'm just like that...
life existed on Mars long before we decided to look
for microbes on that red Ayers orb...
i'd be looking for sodium rather than twin oxygen trapped
into liquid by hydrogen, then always alienating laws
by ice, the said liquid and vapour...
my theory is that the original life on Mars,
didn't experience hydro sodium chloride... i.e. the seas...
Mars had only sweet life form... given the Devil
plagiarised Mars with earth, we received the seas...
we received the hydro sodium chloride... salty waters...
so if i was heading to Mars, i'd be mostly interested
in finding sodium chloride (salt) than anything...
not life... if i was heading to Mars i'd be trying to find salt...
not life... salt... salt... salt... Angie Jolie film (2010)? Salt.
because we forgot our individual intuition,
and we chose to have individual intellect that might be
easily swayed, because of this we allowed
collective intuition to arise... which we couldn't
intellectualise, because a collective intuition gave rise
premonition, prophecy and such artefacts of similar attention...
no collective intellect could ever be grasped:
atheism and Christianity and Islam and etc.
are such examples of what we lost... once we gave up
individual intuition, to replace it with a collective intellect,
we couldn't revise individual intuition with an individual
intellect (how many adherents of Marx does it
take to change a light-bulb?) - so we invested in
a collective intuition, whatever you call it, it's maxim
is still unshaken with the words: the sun will rise tomorrow.
a line from Heidegger concerning this observation:
every man is born as many men and dies as a single one -
like me, how i discovered the difference between
the man and the mass, intuition and intellect...
how man reversed the intuitive continuum of animals
to converse with an anti-animal invigoration of
intellect, and transcend the continuum of replicas,
and therefore invest in embryo, or the book of Genesis,
"original", in that, also a continuum by ontological inspection:
i.e. continually revisionist... Einstein preceding Newton...
Orangutan Joe preceding King Kong was never
really going to happen.

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
     he wrote a poem
And he called it 'Chops'
     because that was the name of his dog
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
     and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
     and read it to his aunts
That was the year Father Tracy
     took all the kids to the zoo
And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
     with tiny toenails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed alot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
     Valentine signed with a row of X's
     and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
     he wrote a poem
And he called it 'Autumn'
     because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
     and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
     because of its new paint
And the kids told him
     that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
     with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed
     when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why
     his mother and father kissed alot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
     when he cried for him to do it.

Once on a paper torn from his notebook
     he wrote a poem
And he called it 'Innocence: A Question'
     because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A
     and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
     because he never showed her
That was the year Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
     of the Apostle's Creed went
And he caught his sister
     making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
     or even talked
And the girl around the corner
     wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her
     but he kissed her anyway
     because that was the thing to do
And at 3am he tucked himself into bed
     his father snoring soundly.

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
     he tried another poem
And he called it 'Absolutely Nothing'
Because that's what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
and a slash on each ****** wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
     because this time he didn't think
     he could reach the kitchen

Winnie the Pooh is trying to think
As are Plato and Socrates
While The Little Rascals get rambunctious
And The Marx Brothers cause calamities
Jim Jones stirs the Kool-Aid
And Georgie Porgie makes his move
Bo Peep and Miss Muffett start to blush
Red Ridding hood just swoons
The Muffin Man does a deal
With Johnny Apple seed
These beings and people our real
In our Surreal Reality

******* lets the paint splatter
And Moses parts the sea
Belushi buys an eight-ball
Bruce is on trial for obscenity
Rorschach is on the case
Right behind Sherlock Holmes
John the baptist goes for a swim
Along with Brian Jones
Jack and Jill meet Hansel and Gretel
They're hungry, they're thirsty
These figments of imagination do exist
In our Surreal Reality

Rasputin was so evil
As bad as Captain Hook
Now was it ** Chi Minh or Nixon
Who said "I am not a crook?"
Mao Zedong looked at Stalin
With a shared murderous grin
Booth stormed the Ford theater
And shot President Lincoln
Kennedy and King we're both casualties
Of the process of the deciphering
Of our Surreal  Reality

Zeus said to Aphrodite
"Wow, you look real good tonight"
And Handel says "Hallelujah!"
As the Wright Brothers take flight
Baby Face Nelson
Teams up with Dillinger
Moe, Larry and Curly
Mengele, Mussolini and Adolf ******
Three bears, three little pigs
Along with three blind mice
Sit together, while Maurice Sendack
Cooks them chicken soup with rice
Charlie Bucket had a buy out
Wonka gave up his factory
Fiction or nonfiction it's all a apart
Of our Surreal Reality

Chicken Little tried his best
To warm The Little Red Hen
Of the sly trickster
They call Rumpelstiltskin
Rimbaud applauds Leonidas
And his 300's final stand
Da vinci  paved the way
For both Newton and Edison
Folklore and war heroes
And those with intellectual mentality
Are all just pieces
Of our Surreal Reality

Wee Willie Winkie's scream
Wakes up Rip Van Winkle
But not Sleeping Beauty who's been asleep for thirty years
But has no acquired a single wrinkle
Caligula has lost his mind
And Nero's lost his fiddle
What does Beethoven's hearing aid
Have to do the March Hare's riddle?
Abbie Hoffman fights for civil rights
Thomas Jefferson for democracy
Products of the conceptual
In our Surreal Reality

Berryman writes an ode
To Washington's wooden teeth
Manson speaks of Helter Skelter
Neruda damns the fruit company
Charles Schultz frames the story
And Seuss gives it rhyme
Some where far, far away
Taking place once upon a time
And the villagers all had omelettes
Thanks to clumsy Humpty Dumpty
It's all food for thought
In our Surreal Reality

Santa brings us presents
And Cupid bring us love
But we can never get back
The members of the 27 Club
Warhol makes his movies
And Buddha meditates
Joseph Smith reads the golden plates
Mohammed and Jesus save
Theses figures bring people hope
In life's dualities
Trusting faith
And our Surreal Reality


Han Solo is in carbon freeze
Don Juan's preoccupied
Sinbad sets his sails
Simple Simon didn't get his pie
Caesar looked at Brutus
Brutus looked at Saddam Hussein
Hussein looked at L. Ron Hubbard
Who prayed to Eloheim  
Dionysus can out drink us all
We cringe at Achilles fatality  
As Ra soars through the skies
Of our Surreal Reality

Aristotle says to Shakespeare
"Well Billy you old bard"
Frodo trades the ring of power
To Fidel Castro for a Babe Ruth Baseball card
Biggie and Tupac write their lyrics on paper
Ted Bundy is put in jail
They're making another skyscraper
For King Kong to scale
Hemingway is too far gone
Kant's take on morality
Einstein says it's all relative
In our Surreal Reality

Churchill said victory
John Lennon said peace
Judas gave back the silver
Then hung himself in a tree
Tojo and Kim Jong-il
Wanna be as cool as Brando and Dean
George Carlin warned us all
Now Hermes leaves the scene
So do the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker
Followed by Old King Cole and his Fiddlers Three
As they make their way to find
A sense or Surreal Reality

Odysseus pines for Ithaca
Paul Bunyan chops the trees
The Jersey Devil has not been found
Noah herds the animals by twos not threes
Anubis wraps the mummies
And Augustus leads Rome
Bugs Bunny laughs with Pryor
All at the expense of Job
So what can we all make of this
Is this all actuality?
Symbolism or nonsense?
Realistic Surrealism or Surreal Realty?

The drunk chanting of "chug" has faded away. The liter of jäger is at war with my liver as I take another long drag of a Seneca Red.
Embers in the grill still smolder away, the taste of pork chops linger on my tongue. My stomach feels empty, although we've only just eaten. The hot dogs are gone. So are the hamburgers and chops. I can't just throw some food in the grill anymore. I must journey to the main campus and sate my hunger for heated meat, perhaps some wings.

I check my phone and see the time is eleven. Now is as good a time as any. I flick the **** into the cool spring night and cross the parking lot towards my Toyota. I grab the wallet from the glove compartment and place my headphones around my ears. Roger asks me if I've heard the news. I tell him I haven't. He says the Dogs are dead. I say that must be good news for the Sheep. My walk, or should I say incoherent stumble, from the town houses is accompanied by the sounds of Animals, a truly relaxing atmosphere.

As I progress down the road from town houses to the main campus, flanked on either by side by wooded areas, memories start coming to me through the darkness. I've walked this path almost daily for close to three years now. Sophomore year I'd walk to Francis from Doyle to get dinner, or hang out with friends who lived there. Junior year, it was from the Phase Twos to my classes and back. This year, it's from the coveted Phase Ones, which I don't truly understand. Phase Two and Three are so much better. Why does everyone want to live in Phase One?

These semi-joyful, or at least not totally depressing, memories flood my consciousness, and bring me back to easier, simpler times. I lack liquor, so I drink these memories down, savoring the sweet scents and full flavors my mind is so adept at bringing back to life. I smash the bottles which held them as I finish them, watching the drunken starlight shimmer and dance over the bits of shattered glass.

As I pass by Doyle and enter the main campus, the memories begin to change and shift. Instead of days which were laden with friendly laughter, I now begin to remember my freshman year, living in Shay Hall and having a whole new campus to discover. When I was forced from my shell and began to meet new people. One of those people would become my first real relationship, and would last all of nine months in my life. Her name was Gabby, and despite her undeniable insanity, was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen.

We did everything together, from eating and sleeping to going to our pals parties. She loved me, I loved her, and life was wonderful. Until it all, just, wasn't anymore. She grew demanding and distant, while at the same time requiring more and more attention from me, until one day the dam failed under pressure and let the reservoir flood the lands we'd been cultivating for nine months.

She cheated on me. While this was no new fact for me to deal with, looking back on my history with women, it was nonetheless still quite hard to face. She had the good grace to break it off face to face, but there was still a great deal I couldn't forgive her for. The constant demand she placed on every thing I did, no matter how minor or minuscule. The night she struck me for not putting my cell phone on vibrate. The words she would say, layered with condescension whenever I should fall short.

So I cursed her. Not in the typical sense one associates with curses, but more of a silent prayer that she would one day feel the pain that she subjected me to. I didn't have to wait long, though. The following year, she made her way to New Orleans to celebrate for Mardi Gras. Her new beau, the one she had left me for, stayed behind in New York, and put her rightly on the receiving end of the pain she brought me. While she enjoyed the festivities of Fat Tuesday, he enjoyed the carnal company of three seperate women. When she returned, she was heartbroken.

I never received a phone call. No apologies for what she did. No offer of kind words to soothe a soul which still had yet to recover from the blows it had been dealt. No lesson had been learned. No insight into her own actions taken away. No moment of clarity in which she realized the mistake she had made, or the pain she had caused with her selfish actions. The curse remains, hanging over her head like an everlasting storm cloud, dissipating only when she realizes what she has done to one man who enjoys nothing more than holding a well founded grudge.

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
she wrote a poem
And she called it "Chops"
because that was the name of her dog

And that's what it was all about
And her teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And her mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to her aunts
That was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo

And he let them sing on the bus
And her little sister was born
with tiny toenails and no hair
And her mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent her a
Valentine signed with a row of X's

and she had to ask her father what the X's meant
And her father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
she wrote a poem
And she called it "Autumn"

because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And her teacher gave her an A
and asked her to write more clearly
And her mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint

And the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year her sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed

when she asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told her why
her mother and father kissed a lot
And her father never tucked her in bed at night
And her father got mad
when she cried for him to do it.


Once on a paper torn from her notebook
she wrote a poem
And she called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about her girl
And that's what it was all about
And her Teacher gave him an A

and a strange steady look
And her mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because she never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And she forgot how the end
of the Apostle's Creed went

And she caught her sister
making out on the back porch
And her mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner
wore too much makeup
That made her cough when she kissed her

but she kissed her anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three a.m. she tucked herself into bed
her father snoring soundly

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
she tried another poem

And she called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was really all about
And she gave herself an A
and a slash on each ****** wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time she didn't think

she could reach the kitchen.”

Enfleshed and skinned and stuffed with juicy giblets:
A future worm's-meal of steaks and chops and riblets.

O.O

Witchy Poo

Mary had a little lamb
She made chops out of it,
Ate it 'till she was sick
Her ******* felt like ****.
So she went to the Wicked Witch
To solve her ******* drama,
With a wand up her ****
Like a banana in a farmer.
With a poke and a shove
The witch knows the soul is hers,
But it's the only way
That this sickness can be cured.
There was a sinister bump
A noise was close by,
The witch looked through the window
Humpty Dumpty was outside.
Witchy Poo got angry
And cursed the dumb egg,
That one day she will get him
And that he will crash down dead.
So Humpty ran off
And told The Kings Guards,
Witchy Poo is in trouble
She's a fugitive at large.
Hiding in the mountains
Hearing Humptys cries,
Sitting on the wall
Blabblering Witchy Poos crime.
So she came down from the mountain
As quietly as she can be,
Sneaked up behind him
Climbing a tree.
Then she pushed Humpty off
From the high wall,
He hit the ground
And splattered on the floor.
Climbing down from the tree
The witch ran away,
Hiding in the caves
Doing her wicked ways.
While looking through the mountains
A guard spots some loose weeds,
Chopped them out of the way
And his eyes trickled with greed.
There was a hidden door
And he opened it up,
Looked inside
And he thought, what a grub.
He saw the witch
Snoring so loud,
His sinister grin
Was making him proud.
The guard thought to himself
Saying, the ***** will get it today,
I'm going to be rich
On a nice pay day.
So the guard told The King
The place where the witch hides out,
Squealing to the pigs
While eating with their snouts.
The King ordered a search
For this menace to the crown,
Wanted: Alive
So she can be burnt down.
The search party went out
And found the witch,
The guards came back with some casualties
And in shackles, the menacing *****.
Then The King announced to his kingdom
That the witch will be sentenced to death,
Then she was thrown into the dungeon
Waiting for the end of this mess.
Torturing the witch
In cruel and horrible ways,
Telling her she is going to suffer
So she better pray.
As the days goes on
Then The King set a date,
Proclaiming
"She's gonna be burnt on August 28th"
There was a shout of joy
As everyone was happy,
Except for the witch
Locked up, feeling ******.
Rats at her feet
Chewing off her toes,
Cockroaches all around her
Cursing all her foes.
Starving and weak
Hanging from a chain,
Screaming to The King
To go and grow a brain.
Weeks have now passed
It is now the date,
That the witch will now die
Burning is her fate.
So they unchain her
She is so weak and tired,
Dragged her out of the dungeon
Her brain is all wired.
As they bring her out of the door
The sun hits her face,
Blinded by the light
Coming out at a slow pace.
With no toes on her feet
Stumbling and pushed around,
Rocks are being thrown at the witch
By everyone in town.
Tied the witch to a stake
Wood and hay underneath,
The witch is getting taunted
Yelling insults at the beast.
The King watches on
And raises his hand high,
Then drops it suddenly
Meaning it was time for her to die.
The Kings Men got their torches
And started the fire,
Witchy Poo started screaming
It smelt of burnt tires.
Burning and scorching
The witch is now a charcoal corpse,
Then everybody was celebrating
And their minds warps.
As they drink lots of wine
The Kingdom is now safe,
From the evil Witchy Poo
Who messed up this place.
Singing songs of praise
About how Witchy Poo died,
Here how it goes
And the story aint lies.

Humpty Dumpty
Sat on the wall,
The Witch pushed him off
And he splatted on the floor.
The peasants were yelling insults
The Kings Men had the fire,
Burnt The Witch at the stake
Because she was evil and a liar.

And that was how Humpty really died
And how Witchy Poo got fried.

Tommy K
(2013)

I sometimes fear the younger generation will be deprived
  of the pleasures of hoeing;
  there is no knowing
how many souls have been formed by this simple exercise.

The dry earth like a great scab breaks, revealing
  moist-dark loam--
  the pea-root's home,
a fertile wound perpetually healing.

How neatly the green weeds go under!
  The blade chops the earth new.
  Ignorant the wise boy who
has never rendered thus the world fecunder.

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit-
man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
     In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,
I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of
your enumerations!
     What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam-
ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you,
Garcнa Lorca, what were you doing down by the
watermelons?

     I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old
grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator
and eyeing the grocery boys.
     I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed
the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my
Angel?
     I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of
cans following you, and followed in my imagination
by the store detective.
     We strode down the open corridors together in
our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every
frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
     Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors
close in an hour. Which way does your beard point
tonight?
     (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
     Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses,
we'll both be lonely.
     Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent
cottage?
     Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?

                                   Berkeley 1955

Most of us know the tale of Cinderella,
But do you know the original German story?
It’s different from the version that I grew up with.
It’s called “Aschenputtel,” and it’s gory.
 
Cinderella’s stepmom and two stepsisters
Are nasty, ornery, bossy, ******, and mean.
They’re very good at belittling Cinderella;
And the sisters vie for the role of future queen.
 
Cinderella wants to attend a ball,
But her stepmom gives her some difficult tasks, and so
When some birds help the girl complete them,
The woman STILL refuses to let her go.
 
Here no fairy godmother comes to help.
Cinderella goes to the grave of her mother
Where she'd planted a branch that grew to a tree,
Which miraculously gives her a gown like no other.
 
When Cinderella goes to the King’s fancy ball,
She makes a tremendous impression on the prince.
Of course, no one’s able to recognize her,
And the competition makes the stepsisters wince.
 
For two nights in a row the same thing happens.
Cinderella must be in excellent shape,
For each night the prince attempts to pursue her,
Yet each night she makes a clean escape.
 
On the THIRD night he has a bright idea:
“Aha!” he says. “Someone, bring me some tar.
If I spread goop all over the steps of the palace,
That gorgeous sneak won’t manage to get very far.”
 
(Here you have to suspend even more belief.)
As Cinderella hurries to flee from her beaux,
She leaves behind one slipper in the tar.
(WHY more slippers aren’t stuck there, I do not know.)
 
On finding the slipper, the prince yells, “Piece of cake!
Now I’ll find the owner of this dainty shoe.”
When he arrives at the home of the nasty stepsisters,
The poor guy bites off more than he can chew.
 
The first sister chops off her obtrusive big toe
So that her foot can fit inside the slipper.
You see, the slipper’s not made of the kind of material
That stretches, and, of course, it has no zipper.
 
The prince starts to leave with his bride-to-be
But notices that her slipper is filled with blood.
“I don’t think that this is my future wife,”
He says and nips that nightmare in the bud.
 
In order to make her foot fit in the slipper,
The second stepsister cuts off part of her heel.
Imagine how much blood gushes forth from that.
Shaking his head, the prince says, “This is unreal.”
 
Finally, Cinderella takes her turn.
And what do you know? The slipper’s a perfect fit!
The prince—eager to exit that crazy scene—
Takes Cinderella and leaves lickety split.
 
(I hope the prince kept his wits about him.
You’d think he would, for he’s a thoughtful fella.
Certainly, he washed out all the blood
Before giving the slipper to Cinderella!)
 
Early on I told you about some birds
That helped Cinderella when she was down and out
By completing her tasks and delivering her gown and slippers.
They knew what the stepsisters were all about.
 
Well, the stepsisters come on the day of the wedding,
To mooch off Cinderella—as you can surmise.
As they amble along with the wedding couple,
The birds fly down and peck out both of their eyes.
 
Such is the fate of the mean and bossy stepsisters,
Who were deceitful and cruel, as you recall.
Call it karma, their just deserts, or comeuppance,
But let it be a lesson for us all.

- by Bob B

.i'd call it as far as deciding upon: ethno-dysphoria... given that the lingua franca doesn't like to entertain hyphen "riddled" word compounds, and how german never bothered with the hyphen... i'm pretty much convinced that ethno-dysphoria exists... i guess only the jews are immune to this phenomenon, as... i'm pretty sure, the dutch are... i once overheard an american talk to a dutch girl before ******* her in some park in stockholm: who cares about the dutch? what? more the people, or the language? the english language doesn't give a **** about either language or the respective people utilizing it... oh i think ethno-dysphoria is real, more real than any gender-"dysphoria"... no ****-wit from the gender-"dysphoria" camp will **** you... but sure as pork-chops and potato crisps... an ethno-dysphoria case will, "somehow" become a jihadi.

oh sure, i'm all for "free speech",
until the time comes,
and it usually does,
around the same time,
that these advocates
                   are given a: script.
yeah:
when they are asked to read
a "typo" interface...
               when the, said,
"freedom", is allowed to be
scrutinized,
   under the barrage...
     of "mishandling" literacy...
most of these free speech advocates
do not welcome
                reading,
printed words...
                     co-defendants...
funny, this, "barometer"...
   you are given the freedon
to speak freely...
   let's see how free you are...
when being asked to:
     read "freely"...
      see the disparity?
   people don't have a freedom
of speech,
when they are exposed
to reading material...
    given that exposure to reading
material,
          doesn't coincide
with the final statement
      of the ecclesiastical class...
relieving their literacy monopoly...
i'll take two examples...
both are instances
of a freedom of speech advocates...
one is given a script to read,
the other is not given a script...
just like Kierkegaard predicted:
some people are
just more concerned with
a freedom to speak,
                         rahter than think...
i'd say:
   as much freedom as your
reading ability entitles you
to entertain...
          this, "freedom" of speech...
i'm freely allowed to breathe...
this cul de sac of freedoms...
  different matter
when you hear the so-called
advocates of "freedom"
recite a draft of reading...
god-forbid they begin
entertaining diacritical markers!
yet you notice the differnece
between free speech: ignored,
and the same freedom,
coinciding with an ability
to read?
                  free speech was,
once upon time depicted
by joyce and the plagiarized sartre:
andsoitwascocerningadepictionakintothis...

      never mind the
aesthetic constraints
of punctuation marks...
that's freedom...
breaking from aesthetic constraints
of encoded speech...
           you can hardly find
anything suspect,
within the concerns
of the pedantic community...

enlighten me...
   i'm pretty sure
the same assortment of freedoms,
associated with
the "confines" of a non-script,
would be missing,
should a script emerge,
and the whole lot of us
would be left,
with something,
akin to making a signature
akin to the X marker;

     who said anything about
stripping this freedom,
what i was implying was...
some of us care about
punctuation & conjunctions;
as free as you want to be...
point being:
this, "freedom" of speech...
infiltrated by written text,
being read (no variant
past participle spelling
variation outside of: red)...

    this "freedom",
is only a freedom,
when being freed from
reading, scripted, text;
now posit the same advocates
against
    a page of script...
freedom? what freedom?!
unless we all forget
to write,
     and join the simmering
**** of: the all of us,
in the blah blah parade...
maybe i'm being overtly
pedantic...
            a "freedom" of
speech would,
subsequently,
imply:
            no point
in clinging to scripted speech,
esp.,
with a decision to
impose punctuation markers.

Give him a skinhead, insignia, boots

Less scruples, a swagger-stick, crowds, money.

No black shirts visible. Just business suits,

and pride is restored: tragic but funny.

Proud like a skyscraper, godless as sin

Babylonian promises, towering lies

Reality shows when plutocrats win,

Their rhetoric raining from empty skies.

She-wolves, elected by uninformed sheep

behave predictably, eyeing the flock

Their wool (and the lamb-chops) are hers to keep

Grazing voter—this should come as no shock.

It’s a bitter pill (more like pilloried)

So shall we now be ******* or Hillary-ed?

THEY were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of "lilacs."
And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise
Of "mutton chops," "galways," "feather dusters."
  
Metaphors such as these sprang from their lips while other street cries
Sprang from sparrows finding scattered oats among interstices of the curb.
Ah-hah these metaphors-and Ah-hah these boys-among the police they were known
As the ***** Dozen and their names took the front pages of newspapers
And two of them croaked on the same day at a "necktie party" ... if we employ the metaphors of their lips.

beginning with a title... the transcendent bicycle...
because it really is just that...
if you have walked as much as i have:
a marathon from Romford
to St. Paul's and back...
a marathon from Romford to Epping
and back...
       i don't know but i do know that
i might have been aiming for: flesh of my flesh...
aged 34... but i'm still "trapped" inside
the dimension of the bicycle like
i'm ******* quicksilver / the flash...
i haven't ridden a bicycle in well over a decade...
today i found out i have ghost muscles...
the bicycle became the antithesis of
prosthetic limbs...
   it's hardly a Descartes contemplating
a desk and / or van Gogh's chair...
beauty in pickling... depths of thought in:
picking, juices...
how a second birth happens with
the advent of thought...
when... penetrating inanimate things...
to think about objects is to...
become more objective?
         it's not like i'll summon...
a Freudian complex...
using a bicycle... as a Deleuze
did when ushering in the bicycle from
a Beckett's perspective...
  beside the "village bicycle" i hardly
want to give sway to some ******* metaphor...

the bicycle is more than a chair
a chair is such a fermentation process
since you can sit on it...
but can hardly concern yourself
with making a ******* gallop on it...
but a bicycle is not a horse...
but a bicycle is not a horse...
writes the man that...
yes... i have ridden horses...
all the equestrian clubs in Essex can shy away
from the detail of...
i have allowed myself to ride a horse
to a gallop... neck, sore... entangled in:
want of massage... yes...
but a bicycle is not a horse!
it's a dog... at best... it goes where you want
it to go...
the leash of gears the muzzle of the breaks...

the **** i need a car for?
in London... even if it's outskirts /
kilt Loon'don?
     ha ha FARKER TARTAN WILLIAMSSON...
blah!
enriched with hidden energies of
newly discovered... otherwise plainly
shelved sensations of motion...
there's nothing new about a bicycle...
said the man who withheld a smirk
when attesting...
a gap... the same centre of gravity... though...
almost like the buoyancy arrived at
when swimming...

oh how my father tried to teach me...
how peer pressure taught me instead...
it's this exasperating O oh and ah...
that's not really becoming of adding any more
detail to a rekindled love for life...

notably concerning England...
and outer-suburbia...
- when you have been walking these
labyrinth streets for months...
to be suddenly injected with
a very new, but at the same time:
a very old concept... dimension: which sharpens
the genesis of thinking about the sentence...
a new dimension of... speed...
time, space are their own affairs...
invoked for a day by a day...
walking is merely movement...
cycling? that's not merely movement...
that's...             speed...
because... there's a whole chi focus
of X yes precisely X...
        only half an hour's worth of cycling
and i covered the whole peninsula of the area...
unbelievable the detail of acquiring
traffic coordination...
a shared responsibility that a mere
pedestrian might take for granted...
      
tomorrow's a Sunday and i'm supposing
come circa 7am the
traffic should be "slim"...
having tested the breaks and the gears
somewhat proper...

bicycle bicycle... where have you been
all my past decade...
bicycle: grandfather Joseph...
death toll murk... fill the bells!
let them not resound in the night
while i reclaim the wind for my own...

- that i sometimes drift in and out
of solipsism...
yes... that solipsism is
laboratory minded experimentation
with states of autism...
but you're given the excuse
of riding a bicycle...

i wonder what wings might feel like....
a bicycle is not a horse...
a bicycle is more or less a dog...
it's certainly not a cat... meow...
if there was an advent of wind to harness...
but there's me... merely pulverising forward...
the leash the muzzle
all that's frame and the breaks:
downhill...

the lullaby of emotions intrinsic in:
blocking all rancid thinking... all thinking
like so...
Zen by ***... it's not that i know more...
i know... different... but first you have to walk
said distances... before loopholes...
wormholes appear gesticulating the mind
with a provided for, otherwise...

i'm 34 and i feel like i've just...
accomplished more than
having shed feather of my virginity...
never make me feel so entrusting...
never make me feel so demanding "x"...
peddle ******* peddle...
tread-water.... in your pyjamas...
i do remember, like an elephant's cranium
might... details of a historical tattoo...

philosophy books are...
paupers of metaphor...
language is ever hardly elevated into
a bouquet...
i don't want to be in love again...
i don't want to be such an...
undemanding... lack of ambition...
lack of sacrifice...

take me into the woods
and shoot me in the back of the head...
but before you do...
i'll merely ask...
take me into the sort of woods
where the deed be done...
but appreciate walking me so far
off the well trodden path
that you might not remember
how to retrieve a safe-footing back...
take me into the woods of no known
horizon...

guarded by a strict wall of a mile of trees
that block out the otherwise pleasant
azure of the sky come hiding the sun
at sunset... or sunrise...
in that zenith of immobile grey
between the hours of commotion
when nothing is to be salvaged as one's
own... but... abhorred as it too must be...
somehow... shared...

some privy in on England... a land
of fertile imaginings...
when Descartes had his table, and chair...
to fist & fester on...
i'll lay clamour to the debris of alt...

yes: an overbearing load of sensation:
delusional.. let's put him in his "right"
place... let him believe the sole provided
the psychiatric source of angst
no purpose = no posit of transcendence...
no bicycle...
   custard... pie-load...
angst...
               jerking off from "excess" libido...
well... exercise the "excesses" of libido elsewhere...
exert well squid parallels
and more: firm grasp... "tentacles"...
see the same within the confines
of an "elsewhere"...

how ***** i became being so...
muscular abiding... simultaneously... docile... too...
it's not a Lamborghini it's not
a British T... triumph motorcycle...
it's a peddling ingenuity of
somewhat self-origin...

i could have eaten up a Solomon's share
of ****** and *******
that same of wisdom...
should i, could i, would i have
demanded less than was already left available
from the Tetragrammaton...

how did "we" ever learn to laugh...
how was HA... the hebrew definite article spawned
those biggest,
no... those grieving questions...
how a monotheistic deity might be all
good... yet somehow not all powerful...
yet all powerful but not all good...
bling alley... cul-de-sac view:

the algebra not solved: attempted by
numbers...
letters later sieved...
and more letters sieved...
played the party pooper with membrane knowledge
of katakana and Hangul...
because... Latin script does slip...

chi-focus?
the multiplication ascend of:
what was walked prior...
can now be cycled... shortened because no
"lost" time was ever to be grieved...
although... the front suspension is...
an unwelcome addition...
ha ha... privy me on details
like... excesses that are there...
21 gears and when there was a rigid frame
throughout and rising up from
a sitting position is not necessary...

no... i'm not gearing up for motorcycles...
i like the idea...
but also... subsequently... the experience...
of a double-decker... bus...
of a bus of being the transit mahjong skeleton...
pieces... mein alles!

mein alles!             gott, mit... uns!

yes... unbelievable... the demands for yachts...
for ******... diminished into a fizzle....
when a Beijing demand for bicycles
skyrocketed... and all that was left to salvage
was... promises of a Sunday,
circa 7am...

hidden gems of plied-play-dough-esque:
sort of truths...
sort of beefing up... doubting pork...
within the confines of chops...
between me and a prisoner...
between me an a prisoner...
it's hardly the yacht...
the hardly any nuance of bother...
believe the existence of hierarchy...
because the Bolsheviks didn't
come about the first time around...
second try...
escape the English cwown they said...
escape the litany of squares
they-void-thought... "said"...
herr omar bin sa-id...
conquest of the Hey-Brews... "said"...

don't undermine the intricate
tribal workings of...
half-possessed...
half truant... thereby almost totally... true...
associates of Casimir the Great...
there be a god of wisdom
and there be a god of fire...
there be a god of letters...
if so...

the same god will be inclined
to mind...
an apostrophe as much as a surd (letter)
in Ęgli-sh...
when not minding... "it"..
lay an Ę to the side to wreck havoc with...
ha ha!    Щ...

  Ę / Щ... the **** are you looking
at me... like i were the one
who killed your mother with a *******
harmonica / what have these galoshes to do with
"these" galoshes...
what has this pumpernickel to do with
this windmill... "this" is an obstruction...
the proverb states...
what has a pumpernickel to do with
a windmill?

exactly... ****-all!

two-riddle *******' worth... worth of...
newly ******* jargon... and crust of...
for the load that might be minded
invigorating life... as life in prospect...
re-orientating man toward the clamour
of detailing sky...
not on foot...
not on horse...
not via car... will you...
to hell with running down...
a stampede of perspective...

planet... luancy? is that where we are all,
from?
i am born of madness...
i am this salty precursor of i think...
clearly i first arrived...
later... i somehow managed to "think"...
i didn't think first
but i certainly didn't either:
i think therefore i am therefore i think...

i was more on the lines of...
from the lineage of:
trouble...
i am therefore i think therefore i am...
i am not a spider i'm not all emptying and detailing
the filling of gob-***** with
i am hungry i am vector...
i am therefore i think therefore i am...
but this... ****** of french...
premature *******....
of i think therefore i am... therefore i think:

honestly? thinking is sometimes not...
necessary...
sometimes water needs no... glue, metaphor...

Amsterdam's open mouth darkseid
apocalypse abode...
le trio joubran - masar.... a finite quest...
primo.... detailing conquest...
handling crux....

            the cat's in the riddle...
the yard is in a mile...
scrutiny of the Levant...
           leverage of hark... -ing
denote: closure... of "ambition":
this lesser "king"...
brow of the most dignified...

                   keeping with allowance
(an)
  justly, met...
  
give me wind:
   give me... air...
not... hair... i laugh... i laugh too little...
i chisel my teeth...
i scream: nothing primo!
my life but q.
there are more lived importances
that matter, thus...
cradle... diamonds...

"the end".

When the world is in trouble and theres nowhere left to turn.
Well your **** outta luck till then theres the Gonzo report.

Live from hidden location in a Florida basment broadcasting
now it's time for the Gonzo report.
With your team of in depth and seldom sane news team.

Your anchor man Gonzo   co Anchor that Batsheba
weather chick Neva finally gotta mention Flores.
Sports with your favorite ****** Richard Shepard.

And then theres Paula Swanson  who's sitting on my other side
I dont really know why  but eveyone likes Paula so who gives a *****.
Who wants a sandwhich im just saying.
And are field reporters Jeremy Wyatt,Chris Smith,And Mr E,

This just in.
A old man lost control of his car running over 17 people
and seriously ******* off one dwarf.
And if your keeping track at home kids it's old farts 20 crazy texting while driving teen *****   15.

Theres big trouble in Cairo kiddies  with more  no the situation
are own version  of snooky Bathsheba   take it away.
the camera zooms into  the   queen of Hello.
I swear to God Gonzo if  dont back the **** up i will knife you
you crazy *******  and put some ****** pants on you ******.

Yes Bathsheba ******* the outside  and  kinda ****** all around as well
but enough with the foreplay children.
Oh look Paula made cookies!
Baths began here report on troubles that had befallen this country
And as i mixed a drink it made me wonder.
Were the **** is Eygpt.

Opps looks like i dropped my cookie.
Like a mighty ninja with a hot flash I was met with a searing
pain to my nose.
In the name of Cindy Crawford what was that for?

Thats for even thinking bout going under that table.
But .
No Baths replyed  then hit me again.
The pain the agony my modeling carear.

Now with coverage from the World Series  heres Richard Shepard
Richard Can you here us.
The cam camera  cut  to a shot of a monkey masterbaiting in the Bronx zoo.

Yes the production team of Goldie and Joel M Frye
when not watching hot oil dwarf  varsity wrestling death match
there top notch.

Richard  dear lord man were on air it's no time for that now.
This isnt Chris's  bachelor party.
That isnt Richard you ****** Baths  spoke in that charming yet
Voice that told me if i didnt stop I might get a free *** change
voice of her's.

And it's not the world Series you half wit it's the Superbowl.
No  wonder  there was no mention of the stanley cup.
Baths what do you not know.
So after i mixed another wild turkey and put a mirror under
Paula's nose to make sure she was still breathing.
I told her  the roofies really help with the nerves.

Finally The artist formely known as Jack Horner   was live on the screen  from some cult meeeting it appeared.
*** they've captured Fergie.
Richard take it away.

Well these ***** keeping fighting over this ball.    
Runnin back  and ****** forth its driving me ****** bonkers.
Oh yeah amigo I these knickers ya asked for.
Richard held a pair of black *******  to the camera yeah
smell of  no talent  and overproduced songs.
dam you slash.

Back in the studio.
Ummm haha well i didnt ask him to steal anyones *******.
Paula broke the awkward silence i dont wanna go to school.
Paula you alright?
***** you John Travolta.

Ok well also at the world series of poker Jeremy Wyatt and he's got a special guest Taylor Swift.
Great god of the traveling  flying squirrell monkeys pants.
anything but her.

Screaming like a naughty little school girl with a  bad texting  habit
on a unlimted plan i dove underneath the news desk for it's better
die at the heels of Baths and a tap dancing kinda drugged Paula than   face a evil more sinister than Drew Dillegence or Ghandi  combined.

Jeremy was in the danger zone note even knowing it for beneath that
yummy little body layed the soul of satan  himself.

It was Nashvile  a few whiskey laced years ago  I was a drummer
for local sessions  she was 16 I.
well I wasnt.
you mix in some drugs s0me cars crashes knocking over a liquor store or two.  
That little hell cat had a thirst for danger  and some  lets just say
weird habbits   okay it was more like a curse.

Strange things happend to here past lovers.
John Mayer,  The gay cowboy from Broke Back Mountain  you know
that movie about the sinking ship, and that lesbian  from the Jonas Brothers.

Yes just as soon as she wrote a song you were good as dead.
You'd vanish to here secret torture chamber were her music played
non stop   and your blood was drained slowley so she could feed
her own talent or lack there of.

Jermy puzzled  hey Gonz you there Baths umm Paula ?
Underneath the saftey of are second hand news desk hey look gum.
huddled togather like three okay one drunk monkey and a passed out frat sister and a very ******* Baths please dont stab me im
fragile   like a aged bottle of good whiskey im just saying.

We gotta make a brake for it look Baths  you distract her im blowing this joint  like a long winded madman  on a five day binge
let loose on old country buffet.

Baths   spoke   in a  language  that was always a challenge  for me
called sanity.
Gonz if you dont let me out from under this desk.
Im going to rip your heart out and feed it to the  homless dwarfs.
And heres a napkin Paula's drooling on you.

I have a heart?

After a brief break.
And another check to make sure Paula was still breathing we
returned.
Dear lord where's Jeremy!

Screams could be herd Jesus Richard   it's no time for killing hookers
But 10 dollar beers  are a real kick in the ***.
Oh well Wyatts  gone he'll be missed.
this just in Taylor Swift to release her new single Why  Not  Jeremy!

Dear lord sweet sallys *** it was code she had taken him hostage
in the love of all things lady gaga  someone had to save my amigo.
except me  cause that ***** was crazy  and she's got a hell of a bite
im just saying  stay  strong   Jeremy  and think happy thought's

I could feel the ****** clamps and smell the burning flesh
from the car battery as we speak but enough  bout me and skeeters
personal life.

now its time for the weather with finally she's gotta mention Neva voice like a angel  Flores.
thanks Gonz that southern bombshell replyed okay in the south.

Alright Neva that was great  like i need to hear the weather.
I havent been outside in  seven years.

This just in Mr E  has been taken hostage in Cairo.
Well kids all i can say is as much as this hurts
we dont deal with terrorist  like we could raise a hundred bucks.

The bulletin came across the wire Raitch with a look of dont **** with me   Gonzo  although Pepples  thinks your okay in a ***** kinda pervert way.

All hells breaking loose  a all girls school for hot super models    
in trainng.
Baths  in shock and mock concern replyed oh dear lord.
I dont who has chops to cover such a story in short notice.
Raitch  Oh Baths I dont know either   ive herd  there ripping  each others clothes off   hair pulling its worse than a prison riot with
hot half naked strippers.

Baths kept speaking but in the name of chain gang women
i was lost deep in thought over ******* and world events
while downloading  pictures of Fergie eating a banana
what im a health nut okay.

Yeah I dont know who should go cover such a story right now hint.
Gonzo Baths and Ratich spoke like a tag team of terror hint!
Hey I should go shouldnt  I  ?

Yeah Gonz  ya think ?

With some ***** looks from the people who much like my family
wish id forget there names.
So they wouldnt have to join the witnness relocation program
i love it when they play hard to get.

Finally i was off the trusty Gonzo Report news van  waitting for me a bottle of wild turkey and some fine reading materials by that thinkers mag hustler waitting in the back.

There my amigos stood standing togather waving goodbye.
crying tears of joy hey is that a keg?
Chris on the turntables im beginnning to think it was a party.

But if Chris  was there just who was driving the Gonzo van!

The little dwarf laughed in glee as we flew threw town
like Charlie Sheen on a coke binge.
I was tossed around  like a beach ball at greatful dead concert
as finally   over the cliff the van flew.

There was a explosion that could be herd for at least a half a mile
course that was drowned out by the party.

The party was in full swing  finally Paula awoke.
Hey what the  hell happend and why is Trimman
******* my leg?

                                  
                                  Is Gonzo really Dead?  
    
    Will Jeremy Wyatt ever escape the *** dungeon of Taylor Swift.
                    
                        Will Richard Shepard ever put out a book
                        how kick lots of **** yet win the hearts of millions
                        and do a co write with lady GaGa and Mel Gibson?


                    Will Neva Flores  get ****** over her five second
                     mention hunt me down  and torture me for hours
                     im just saying  a girls got needs.


                    Will Paula Swanson  kick Trimman like a field goal
                                                    or just pass back out?

               Find out in the next action packed trillogy  called
                                          The Death Of Gonzo  

                       Untill  Next Time Stay Crazy Kids

I'm a Tree Huggin', Soy Chuggin',
I won't eat no meat
I'm a vegan of convenience,
Still, there's leather on my feet
I don't believe in lots of things
I'll protest and attack
But you won't find me out in front
'Cause I'll be in the back
I give money to my causes
Save the whales, electric cars
But I'm not one to lead the fight
"Cause I don't like the scars
Bricks get thrown alot you see
And those things ****** hurt
And I'm not a happy camper
When there's blood upon my shirt
I won't eat seeds of any sort
They get stuck in my teeth
My clothes are all from LL Bean
Except what's underneath
Way back in the sixties
I lived communaly
We ate only what the earth gave up
We didn't watch tv
As years passed by, our voices died
Our causes became much rarer
We sounded more like Manilow
Than Phil Ochs or Tom Lehrer
I choose fine wine over wheatgrass juice
I like leather and wear silk
I no longer go and get the goat
So we can have fresh milk
I'm a Tree Huggin', Soy Chuggin',
I won't eat no meat
I'm a vegan of convenience,
Still, there's leather on my feet
I don't believe in lots of things
I'll protest and attack
But you won't find me out in front
'Cause I'll be in the back
I've changed lots since the sixties
I'm a capitalist blood hound
If I said I'm a true vegan
My board would see me drowned
I used to wear just cotton
Hemp and caftans  and blue jeans
Leather shoes and belts and jackets
Were just not part of my scene
My friends, well, they grew up
And others stayed in touch
The ones with money see me
The others not so much
I used to go out jogging
Through the park in puma shoes
Now I workout in a private gym
Wearing nikes and with my  crew
You see I'm still a vegan
When it suits me, don't you see
My new girlfriend likes organic
And she's only twenty three
There's forty years between us
Though I've done it all before
When my girlfriend is not with me
I am a carnivore
I support all of her causes
Though most things I don't attend
I'll be a vegan of convenience
Until our courtship ends
Who knows, what then will happen
Will I eat Tofu or some chops
I know which way I'm leaning
We'll see how that one drops
Like I said when we first started
I am a vegan, so I am
But instead of eating quinoa
I'll stick to eggs and ham.
I'm a Tree Huggin', Soy Chuggin',
I won't eat no meat
I'm a vegan of convenience,
Still, there's leather on my feet
I don't believe in lots of things
I'll protest and attack
But you won't find me out in front
'Cause I'll be in the back

Stupid princess
Shove me by
Stick your golden forks
In my eyes

You are cruel
Belied by your fragility
Know the face of the devil
When you deign to
LOOK AT ME

The chimney sweep
In your court
Will one day **** you
When you pet the sheep
You slaughter

Sick goldie locks
Tantrum queen
Beware the fox
With mind obscene
Cogs inside, turning
Your pretty head burning
Beware the chimney sweep
Sweet dear

The chimney sweep
The overlooked creep
This thing with eyes aglow with malice
She'll hold you near
Your locks she'll shear
Your blood drunk from a chalice

The chimney sweep
Your contrast, sugar
Will eat your liver
And lick her fingers
So pray deliverance!
Pretty ringlets!

Pray deliverance
Pretty ringlets

Don't. . . push. . . me
She squeals
Like a pig
Under carriage wheels

DON'T. . . PUSH. . . ME
She yells
As inside
A demon swells

DON'T PUSH ME!
It comes out like grit
Comes out like stone
A groan -
Burns through like a fiery fist
A fit feisty enough to make you
Envy it
So SHUT UP
AND SIT
Fair darling
Fair darling
SHUT UP AND SIT
SHUT UP AND SIT!

The chimney sweep now has you
The chimney sweep will surpass you
The chimney sweep chops and chops
The chimney sweep won't stop
Won't stop
Till the clock runs nil
Till time does still
Till the chimney sweep has
Bled her fill

The chimney sweep
Sweet doe,
Beware what the chimney sweep
Does know

Better
Think twice
About an attack
Because the chimney sweep
WILL ******* PUSH BACK.

The Jaguar sits
A regal pose
Even though
All spots exposed
He remains
Throughout—composed
Royalty suits
These kingly throes
Eyes so hungry
Fueled with woes
Darkness caress
His thoughts of more

All small fingers
Jabbing point
Smiles and scream
Not fear—delight
This is not
A place of fright
No place to hide
In broad daylight

Freedom calls
But is not heard
The thought is
Lurking—absurd
Escape has not occurred
Even to the captive birds

The noble Jaguar
Does not pace
He looks upon the crowd
Disgrace—
All those faces
Glass cannot erase
If only he could break
Out of this prison space

His deep imagination
Swirls and swells with thought
If only his true freedom
Could perhaps be bought
The first thing he would do
Is capture one said face
And use it as only
Claws could change—erase
He looks on
With animalistic intentions
Licks his chops
And opens his jaws
The crowd gasps as one
As the noble beast bares his teeth

—And yawns

The jaguar too kingly to stoop
To animalistic pursuits
He knows that he cannot escape
The beast so long ago was tamed
Long ago he lost his pride
On three square meals a day
—Inside