All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

4am On the drunken floor of my Wingmans apartment I place my red solo tankard down to instigate a quest.
"ROADKILL!"
That's what we call my wingman.
"Roadkill! Lets go on an adventure to king richards faire tomorrow!"
"Sure! When do we leave?"
"Don't worry, I'll wake you up."

See. When your best friend says they need you,
you don't just call them.
You drive.
Tonight,
on the anniversary of Roadkills worst tragedies,
we are getting drunk.
In the morning,
We're going to prove that life is worth living.

7:30am our alarms go off.
"Uhhhg."
"Curse you phone."
Hands slap towards the noise,
Spilling last nights wounded soldiers.

"Roadkill your shirts inside out."
"Thanks man."
Actually, while you have it off.

Black doesn't go with brown.
Pick a whole different shirt."
"It's fine."
"*******. There's a blue shirt right here."

Belting sailor shantees
Roadkill and I adventure three hours in
My four wheeled ground Zepplin.

"A curse to you lads,
a curse on your head,
Drinking pint after pint
until I am dead
I just keep drinking
and I don't know why,
But tonight is the night
that I drink 'til I die!"

Upon arriving at the faire we spot an ocean of goregeous maidens.
The ticket booth doth not take credit cards, however.
So we needed to speak to the gatekeeper.
"Excuse me, where's the atm?" I Ask.
"it's right over there, Handsome.
I'll need your id's first, though.
Don't worry, I don't bite
... hard."

Roadkills eyes grow the size of stormwind.
"I need to bring you everywhere man.
You make everyone love us."

we return with cash in hand
The gatekeeper pulls our ID's from her corset
looks them over before handing them back.
"How are you boys younger than me?"
"It's the beard. "
I wink.
"Keep a secret?"

Swords on hips
songs in chest.
Mead was flowing
Boots were clomping

Roadkill paused to look around
Standing like a pleased statue.

I bounced excitedlly around like a child.
ROADKILL
LOOK AT ALL OF THESE GOREGEOUS OUTFITS ON THESE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN!
"Hey!"
handsome men, too.
"Thank you"
It's like we teleported to Flurb heaven!
Look!
a garb shop!
Oh my god
A boot store!
They have a whole store
for leather larpy boots!
There is a tail shop!
I could buy and wear a fuzzy furry tail!
This is amazing!
There is a giant duck
Being pushed back and forth by two huge jacked dudes.

"I need to hug everyone!"
I am in love with everything!"
"Can i please hug you?"

"I swear to god, Nick if you touch me."

We try the knife throwing challenge.
The crossbow challenge.
The dart throwing challenge.
We **** at all of it but we have a blast.

We walk into a leather shop.
A small redheaded girl dances around us. She puts fur around our necks
Her hands trace our chests as she ties them up
You boys look like the type to rock these.
She drags us by the belts to a mirror.
Look at how handsome you both are.

"Roadkill" I whisper.
He is already lost in her eyes.
I place a hand below his chin and close his mouth.
They talk about where they're from.
Their families.
What they do for fun.
"Oh you do larp? We do dagohir it's like full contact grappley shield kicking larp"

A group of customers walk in and she leaves to tend to them.
A brunette helps take off roadkills stole.
"How much are these anyway?"
Roadkill asks the brunette.
"$600" she answers.
"I feel ashamed for even trying it on"
Says roadkill slipping off the precious treasure.
"Goodbye ladies! have fun today!"
I say, pulling roadkill by the arm.
"Oh... okay then... bye."

"They seemed sad we left.
What was that about?" Asked roadkill.
"Well do you want the blunt educated version or the ignorant positive version?"

"Ignorant of coarse."
Then they're dissapointed because they were interested in us.
"Out of curiousity, what's the blunt educated version?"
"They're upset We didn't fall for their act and buy their expensive wares."
"Whelp... there goes my self confidence. Ignorance really is bliss"
"Yes it is roadkill. Yes it is."

We Travel back home.
Again, singing sailor shantees.

"A curse to you lads,
a curse on your head,
Drinking pint after pint
until I am dead
I just keep drinking
and I don't know why,
But tonight is the night
that I drink 'til I die!"

Park the four wheeled ground zeppelin in front of the Apartment.
Clonk our boots up the stairs
Grab angry orchards out of the fridge
Slunk into the beaten brown couch
raise my bottle into the air
"To living one more day exactly the way we want too, Roadkill."
Roadkill raises his bottle.
clinks it against mine.
"To living."

I feel like a mammoth sometimes
stomping and clomping and trying to find
Where all the other mammoths went.

They said
We were to tip toe through the tulips
Waltz, glide across the dance floor of life
I haven’t a chance
My size twelve feet and three inch toes
Clatter, batter and splatter
Through life’s brambled, grotty hedgerows
Toes are a magnet, for that rusty nail,
Or any broken pipe left on my trail
Oh what use are my toes,
Now I’m no longer hanging upside
Down from branches
They’ve been broken, twisted,
Stomped on hard
Nails that have cracked,
And bleed some more,
Before being shed.
Now I’ve looked at other’s toes,
And seen what toes could be,
All brightly coloured
Polished to a sheen,
Tended to like beautiful topiary
Maybe that’s what I should have done,
Instead of kicking a ball
Clomping cross those tulips
Spent sometime buffing, making them look clean.
But then I’d look
And miss my battle worn scarred tootsies
They may be old, crooked,
And not quite glamour ****
But then they have walked a million,
And will do for a million more.

In tranquility we sit,
effervescent beverages in hand as
the descant moves into the mix.
So mellifluous...
So promiscuous in whom it touches...
Hoping to stupefy the audience with its
flawless and free life.
Until our enjoyment is shortened
by the loud clomping from
outside our autonomous dwelling...
Something outside bonks into the ground
before a silhouette breaches our safety
and our eternity is threatened with...

In theory the moon
is a terrible dancer.

But tonight, waltzing
alone in an open field

I feel her graces
on my shoulder,

her moon rhythms
measuring time
against my neck,

a delicate crater punched
into the small of my back.

She has never
been this close

to me

so I am unashamed
to be dancing with her

like this

for the first time,
a solitary partner

casting shadows
on frosted grass,

spinning over furrows,
long scarf precariously

close to my clomping boots
keeping three-quarter time,

pausing only when she
whispers the word lunatic

in my ear,

a bewitching farm girl
flirting
from her stratosphere
far away.

All day I hear nothing
From flat above;
Not a footstep,
Not a thud.
All’s silent and then,
With dread,
I wonder if they’re still alive
And hope that they’re not dead!
And pray that’s not the reason why
I never hear them move
Across the floor above
In thumpy-thuddy shoes.
To take my mind off
Thoughts of death and blood
I imagine that
The flat upstairs
Is home
To one gianormous slug.
Who never makes a sound,
Well,
Because he has no feet
And doesn’t need to go outside
Go to the shops or walk down the street
Because he’s filled his room with lots of houseplants
So he can just stay in to eat.
But safe to say
I’m reassured
At night when I try to sleep
I hear the very lively sound of
Noisy stomping feet
Then sigh happily that they’re alive
And smile, glad that I can still use salt.
Without the fear of dissolving my landlord’s tenants
And it being all my fault.

Night after night
I would hear heavy feet prance
In the room above
There was so much clomping and
Loud stamping and clobbering
That I’m pretty convinced
They’re teaching elephants
how to riverdance.

Because of cause elephants cannot naturally jump
So they teach them to dance
in an effort to (metaphorically) Thump
mother nature on the nose
And say ‘look at these elephants bouncing
Like pros.
You’ve seen Tigger spring about Winnie the Pooh,
But check out what these here elephants can do’

So that is my explanation to the noises upstairs
And I understand why it’s only at night because
To teach elephants in the daytime
Well, that would cause a whole lot of
Unnecessary affairs
And a lot of fuss
From the press
Who would publicise the classes to the world
And then elephants from everywhere
Would travel in their droves
With their hearts set on
Being able to one day skip and hop
And not have to sit down at the discos
Everytime they heard music for the jive or the bop
And the RSPCA would back it cause
They’d say it’s only fair
That elephants have the same opportunity to
Learn how to jump in the air.
And then there’d be a problem see because
There would be no space for all the elephants
To fit in a small, town house room
And expect to have space to river dance;
Well, what a stew!
So that’s why they hold the lessons at night,
In secret,
with a class of perhaps two,
Maybe three elephants at most.
And then they’re silent in the daytime because
Dancing wears you out
So they sleep until the night falls
And then they dance and prance about;
Very, very noisily
While those sleeping
And those trying to sleep below
Gradually doze off to the sounds of
The future elephant Michael Flatley
Upstairs practicing for their first dancing show.

Well, that’s one explanation
My alternative one is
That the flat above is home
To a nocturnal giant
Who likes to tap dance.
But that doesn’t seem quite as likely.

I’m ready for fall.
I’m ready for
My leather jacket,
which I wear like a second skin;
My fingerless gloves,
somehow both practical and not;
My trusty boots, clomping fearlessly through any weather;
Flannel every day, a timeless pattern;
A bitter breeze balanced by a lemon sun to make the perfect temperature.
I’m ready to watch the leaves turn to flames and dance through the neighborhoods,
I’m ready to smell the cider and pumpkin in every store.
I’m ready to start planning a disguise, to hide from the Hallow’s spirits.

I’m ready for fall,
the best season of all.

ANG'O MOMIYO PINY MABOR? Agoyo erokamano Ne Nyasaye mosewara kuom tuoche,dhier kod masira.Kendo daher mar goyo erokamano gi chunya duto ne ji duto mosebedo ka konya kendo tala e yore mag rieko gi ngima.Ndikoni en achiel kuom weche masetemo mondo andik ne joherana kendo ji duto ma puonjore yore ngima kowuok kuom weche ma andiko . Nitiere ndalo moro mane asandora malit bang' akweda modhuro ,kendo ndalo mang'eny asetemo wuok kuom mibadhi gi masira go. Omiyo ne aneno kit dhano kane chandruok omako chunya,chandruok mar manyo rieko.Ji mangeny ne oweya kagiwacho ni gik matimo ok kare,ji matin ahinya emane obedo piny mondo owinj gimane chando chunya.Jogo duto agoyonegi erokamano. Omiyo kane andiko gigi chunya ne gombo mondo ji duto oyud rieko kawuok gi gik ma awacho gi. Ji mang'eny temo mondo oyud gik piny gi yore ma ok ber,an agoyo erokamano ne ruodha kuom taya e ler ka adimbora mondo abed ng'ato ma an kawuono. Andiko wechegi mondo uyud ler kowuok kuom puonjo madieri.Piny ka ok nyal res gi muma inyalo rese gi thum gi ndiko.Omiyo akao kinde mondo andik weche maneno ,ka pogo oganda e pinyka. An ajaote.Kik igoya lero nikech apogora gi mibadhi gi miriambo.Ruaka uru e chunyu,kendo ukao kinde uwinj weche matemo pimo. Ne Ji duto marito ndiko ma asebedo kandiko ndalo mane apondo e **** dhano,beduru mana gi kwe nikech chunya nikodu machiegni,aherou. -Synopsia mar Piny Mabor,Budding Dirt. "As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all."-Budding Dirt My mind is a sea of monarch butterflies. That flutter, all hella haphazard and disordered. As delicate as rice paper. And impatient. No matter how I chase them. I cannot catch them. Because while I’m clomping through the brush, swinging a net and crushing the seedlings, they are dancing from flower to flower, unperturbed by my pursuit. Flittering in the sun like the skittish memory of a dream in the light of day'-Budding Dirt

Never to be severed,
that middle rip I have trouble writing about.

Never to be severed
every nation inside you defeated
unable to see past billowing battle smoke.

Not pushed or shoved down a well but savagely kicked in solar plexus
after only learning how to ride a bike.

**** up ***** water.
Choke on betrayal.
Mom's ****** face calling to you.
Step dad hit her so many times you lost count.

Too young to understand this will be your great lesson.

Packed into someone else's violent
shell, load me into your hollow chamber, fire me, like shots heard around the world.

Martin. Kennedy. Africa. Christ.

Severe me.
Break my heart in a thousand ways.

From now on nothing will be the same.

This will be Love facing the gun.
This will be my God on the cross.
This will be clomping boots terrorizing Purple Mountain Majesty.

No one will know, my child.
No one will know us.
We will never trust.
We will cry for our lost god.

Why has he abandoned us?

We will fold up silence and pack it tight into our suit case.
No one will know.
We shall not speak of it.

We will use mixed metaphors to erase the true origin of our salted wound.

We will fly across troubled waters,
people will smile at us but we won't smile back.

We will eat the shattering palace of paradise and it will taste like the bottomless pit of hell.

We will gnash our teeth over rebellious years, we will cope on poison, on fleeting pleasure, we will learn to write flames over golden arches.

We will close ourselves.
We will store our hollowed house so deep into our bones not even I will be able to find it.

No one must know us.
We will break apart.
We will traverse a haunted world
finding others like us.

We will make friends with the battered face of recognition.

We will eat the betrayed dust of every nation.

Our anger will have no limits.
We will use it to condemn ourselves.
We will practice self mutilation.

We will hide our most precious love in the silence of a pen scribbling away years searching for reason in  caved in coal mines,

our interior selves packed tight with  'blacker than black' darkness,

yet we will not stop searching for diamonds.

No.

We will still have hope.
We will still go on.
Bashed in, fermented in rot.
Our throats thirsty for golden ale.

Our eyes still roped in by the whisper and grandeur of sunset,
our hearts full of uncontrollable aching for this moonlight plastered in water, we will still hear John The Baptist's voice screaming in the cell of our bleakest, darkest dungeon.

Have you Not Known?
Have you not Heard?
Has it not been told to you from the beginning?

Even though our foundation is crumbled we will look high and low in the valley for our healing prophet.

Never to be severed,
severed in the break of hallow ground. We will know that violence is not the way even when we want to **** ourselves.

Our ears to the earth
listening for her hidden spring
we will cut our pathway into secret channels.

We will scramble for it.
Restless for a taste of purity.
Our haunted inspiration will leak resin and find twisted flame.

Our desire will grow higher.
Our fire will fan into every capillary.
We will carry hidden, super forest fires in our eyes until we hit the ocean.

We will laugh until our abs are rolling down the hill.

We will make unforgettable friends and we will find comfort in each other.

We will open up slowly.
Taking our time.
Our love vapors will find a way around the darkness.

It will build up, our awareness connected to A Great Hall, every part of our fragmented self will start to seek it.

We will have close encounters with powerful peaceful angels stirring us in our sleep. We will thirst for Home with a thirst so deep the entire galaxy will hear us.

We will realize we were wrong to hate.

We will feel ashamed of our misplaced ways.

We will ask deeper questions.
We will read more prophets.
We will learn to forgive it all.

We will have compassion on ourselves.

Our unworthiness will learn to cry and in our willingness to change:

The Great Spirit will ask for our permission to heal us.

We will say Yes.
We will be cleaned out.
Every ***** action brutally ****** upon us will be wiped away.

We will understand we are bigger.
Every single human being is our brother, sister, mother, father.

We will feel the unlimited love from the Great spirit and we will never be the same.

We will make it our new mission to love.

We will walk lightly now.

Our expanded understanding has made our eyes into vistas, deserts,
rivers, oceans, we will flow, never to be severed, we will seek to heal entire nations.

We are back.
Complete.

In full knowing of who we are, where we came from, resting from want as the Great Spirit has returned to us.

We are all angels.
Even the wretched ones.

Our souls will grow stronger than you can possibly imagine because we were willing to brave the darkness.

My room is a mess - it's an archaeological record of boredom.
Christmas, Christmas, come on Christmas.
It's 4 days 'til Christmas. Why don't I go to my room and do NOTHING??

The clock ticking sounds like a large horse clomping over cobble stones.
Last year there were wall-to-wall parties - so many that you had to carry a change of clothes with you.

In 2020 there's nothing to do - but I don't have to tell YOU (my reader). Except for the whole school thing. Nothing to do but study. I read, on that webber-net thing that 38% of students are failing.

Because of the pandemic - oh, not that virus monster - the boredom pandemic - the London-tower-lonely state of slow-motion distress that’s invisibly gripped us all.

Can we hold on people? The hard-won, delicious truth is that there’s hope. Vaccines - a bunch of 'em. Is it possible to let worries go this season and simply treasure our lives?

Just this month we have or had Hanukah, Kwanza, Festivus.
Hopefully, you made wild, monkey-love on December 14th - that was "International Monkey Day" - I couldn't join you - of course - but I'm just sayin.  =]

Look it up - almost every day is some kind of celebration or invent your own - if Ice Cream Day, Lemon Cupcake Day, Go Caroling Day or Crossword Puzzle Day don't do it for ya.

The important gifts, this year, are fun, attention and love.

the reason why i'm up
couldn't tell you
maybe it was the endless hours of you clomping around my brain
during the hours i need rest from your tyrannical hold on my heart
god
i can't help wondering where you are
and who is keeping you warm this season
do your fingers catch on fire when you touch them?
the way they would with me, or at least that was what you told me
another lie to add to that list of nothings i thought were somethings
do you dream about me?
i do hope that at least they give you space
because i sure couldn't
i'm a criminal for loving you
you handcuffed me to the wall because you want me to look but not touch
feel but not expel
i'm letting you win
the pieces are getting too heavy and my arms are getting tired

I've invented 3 new colors since I last left this room.I've invented 3 new colors since I last left this room.
I've grown too familiar with the first 9
It gave me someome to talk with.
They never told me their names
But Lorde told me what they smell and sound like.
She has synesthesia.

One is a sweating cavern, howling sirens, calling on foggy hot rocks, smelling of sulfer but luring you with their chill.

One is a cracked crown, dropped from the luggage of a fallen king. Gem stones scattered on the dirt road, to the clomping hoof of his horse trotting away towards buildings that stand tall like pill bottles.

One is a flower blooming with a child in the pollen, crying. The childs crying grows quieter as it seems to lower it's opacity and fade out of existence.

These are colors,
just colors...

You love words that bark from the page and bite
The cortex to scattered shredded bits of
Chemistry spanning the human sea of
Thee entire depth and width and sheer height
Of thought foaming to consciousness in i
After i replete with pain imputed
Continuity fable that is dead
Weight forever till dropped from lapis sky
Calm and silent background to all motion
Real or make believe vibrations empty
Form solidifies into the whinny
Of a random horse clomping the streets in
Conditioned captivity with truly
No end to the ignorance but to see

I've never seen a clock in that room
The only way I keep time is the
Clomping of the foot steps
Of a woman-
No, wait, those are a man's-
That passes overhead
Every quarter hour for some reason.
I think those are the steps
Of some kind of politician.
All I know is that it is a man.

I feel the words droll out of my
Mouth and between my teeth.
Hasn't anyone ever heard
What I have to say?
No? Well that's unhealthy.
So I hear my own life
Fill the space between
My corpse and this
Stranger and somehow
I feel a little bit better.

A breath fills me and
My heart is of a normal beat
And it feels like I can walk
Without falling down.
Who knows, maybe I will try
The next time I get off
Of this couch.
I've been killing my feet
By touching the floor
Without the ability to
Really walk and now
I can feel the world open up.

I have had this feeling before
And it would come as fast as
It took my hand to glide
A blade over my skin and
For that same skin to split open.
But it would leave after a second.
Maybe it would last as long
As it took me to clean up the blood.
But it never lasted.
I had to go deeper.
And deeper.
And deeper.
Just to get the same feeling
Twice or three times.
It was never enough.

Walking out of this room is different.
I hear the man's foot steps
For the third, or fourth, time,
Depending on my stability
That day and
My feet hit the floor.
I am walking.
I feel awkward about grabbing
The door handle before the stranger.
But I decide that's okay.
I walk out.
I go home.
And I'm still okay.

I ***** down my drive way
My two shoes clomping along the gravel;
Shouldering myself to the right I walk
As though time were not a factor.

I stroll straight ahead momentarily
Sandwiched along the street with houses, cars,
And the sky above my head, like a hat
That doesn’t itch.

When I am not bothered by the muscle it takes to walk
And as I gaze at the natural scenery above me
And the homes beside me
As if I were peering out the window inside a moving car
I am faster than time.

Remaining on the road’s left
My feet angle left, and I enter a circular path of gravel.

I take my time, I think throughout
Bowing down, and looking up
Wrinkling my face towards the clouds
Sighing breaths not of boredom, but of struggle
For confidence on my path.

I could circle around the scrunched circular path forever,
But dogs bark,
And since I have no one to tell me to stop,
I felt that’s my cue to leave.
As evergreens line my procession out,
I pass from life before
To life ahead.

I walk through alleyways once adored with our paint
our blood
our spit
our sweat
We lived against those wall

I lived against those walls
Constantly trailing my fingertips
My nails
My palms,
My fists along those bricks
It braced my back as my booted foot beat out a static rhythm

Knee bent foot rattling against its solid presence
A solid force that my life lacked
I loved there
I played there
I breathed there
I hated there

A strip between two buildings
A space
An absence
A home

We filled that space so well

I felt found when slipping down that strip

Running clomping down
Dancing spinning happy
Sauntering slightly unsure but sure of where I was
Walking stealthily footsteps silently to not mark me anywhere
When I wished to be no where

Shaded from the glaring sun
Exposed to the blessings of rain
Accented by moonlight
Never fully consumed by snowfall

Booted feet
Blackened fishnet encased limbs
Bare head and in spots every color of the forest
Silver hoops glinting off darkened lips
Huge eyes hungry for it all under heavy shades of nightfall
Blending into shadow
Sticking out in the light

Those walls became my fortress
And I return
And it’s not the same
And it is the same
And if I slipped just right this way or that I think I might find myself back there

Back to the land of street days and alleyways night
Back to fear and exhilaration
Back to a girl before the dark days a girl who seems a lot like me now

It all comes back around and my fortress is still standing

i bought slippers for my father
they were twelve-dollars
an hour's worth of work
but they weren't moccassins
and that's what he wanted so
i kept them for me, because
i don't care if it's a slipper
or a moccassin.

i am wearing what would have been
my father's size-ten slippers
and i am only a size eight.
they are big shoes,
and i clomp around in them
like a kind of clown, like a fool
who doesn't know the difference
between a slipper and a moccassin.

there are children who love to adorn
their father's clothing, like shoes,
but to me they are no more than
a reminder i am an idiot,
clomping around in the too-big
slippers that i have because i am
too-stupid a child to notice
that my father wears moccassins.

The spring withered
In their nest of love now
The sweet perfume of their friendship
Permeated over their nest faded
With twigs of love and friendship entwined
The seven birds of myriad flock
Built a sturdy nest
Their sweet-toned chats sung
A euphony of springtime
They twittered their daily grind
Shared vivid delicacies seasoned with love
The manifold flavours of midday cuisines
Smeared with their rapport
Adorned their lunch tables everyday
While the butterflies twittered
The bees buzzed and hovered around
the corridors reverberated
with their clamour
Their clomping bustled the ears
The mundane days enlivened with their chitter-chatter
The garden of harmony soon transmuted
Into a bower of eternal spring
But now the trees turned barren
The green leaves of their pristine days
fell into a slumber of stillness
The autumn of emptiness crept in
Their nest swings in the breeze of silence
Awaiting the dawn of yet another spring

Keys, drinks, the sound of heels clicking and clomping. Smiles, dreams and sun streaming in from windows. Drunk hugs in bathrooms, glitter sparkling on your face under lamppost light. Lighting a match, like warm magic emerging from fingertips. Cobbled streets, a fruity drink in rainbow colours, the coolness of the night air. Short chats that become long chats, that become deep chats. The smell of food and the warmth from the bowl it is in. Sea air, salty, blustery, the jangle of a dog collar as they run. Being halfway through a book that has your full attention. The smell of the pages. A text that makes you smile. Ice cream on a hot day, the greasy feel of suncream and the smell of outdoors on your skin, in your hair. Rainy days with a warm mug of tea, fairy lights with full batteries. A film night with friends, quoting word for word. Laughing, always laughing.

i finally established rapport
with none other than the Sacred Cow
and it stepped all over my toes
gave me a limp worthy of an asterisk
the oil of anointment in my crankcase
but an army of monks couldn't keep me pure
as I laugh all the way to the blank
pulled into a marginally enchanting future
by the dog at the end of my food chain
pet his good luck **** if you must
my Siberian sibling exhales belligerently
after exterminating the woolly mammoth
separated at birth by a faulty wall socket
badly trained by a monkey's uncle
I've contacted the hunchback ***** banks
for a below zero safe deposit box
while descending through the atmospherics
with a certified license to lounge
upon the bedrock of creation
like butter through hunger
only in your head holy man
expletives erupted from his throat
making antic come here gestures
while wiggling under Bigfoot's foot
a sea of irritants sending messages
through my lawyers Rugburn & Nosebleed
you vampires should be in bed at this hour
if only because monotony generates subtlety
we played 'em right into the net
sent the boys off on a Nanking holiday
to animate something foul and oafish
that's now clogging the sewers
**** the spankers slit their throats
like the moon through a windy fog
one thing blending into another
fueling up with ignorance again
but I don't see how we could wreak hell
any more than the universe
already buggering ahead does
even with bear claws for hands
like a hotel banquet ice carver
in an encounter with the Dancing Strumpets
in a climate too tropical for inspiration
his frozen uncertainty runneth over
in a renunciation of befuddlement
by a Viking landfall pillaged soul
living a farcical incoherent nightmare
slammed through the one chance gate
and went clomping into showbiz
with a gypsy clan of Yiddish fiddlers

From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon