Like a psychotic docent in the wilderness,
I will not speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences.
I draw my voice from a much deeper cistern,
Preferring the jittery synaptic archive,
So sublimely unfiltered, random and profane.
And though I am sequestered now,
Confined within the walls of a gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55 lunatic asylum (for Active Seniors I am told),
I remain oddly puerile,
Remarkably refreshed and unfettered.  
My institutionalization self-imposed,
Purposed for my own serenity, and also the safety of others.
Yet I abide, surprisingly emancipated and frisky.
I may not have found the peace I seek,
But the quiet has mercifully come at last.

The nexus of inner and outer space is context for my story.
I was born either in Brooklyn, New York or Shungopavi, Arizona,
More of intervention divine than census data.
Shungopavi: a designated place for tribal statistical purposes.
Shungopavi: an ovine abbatoir and shaman’s cloister.
The Hopi: my mother’s people, a state of mind and grace,
Deftly landlocked, so cunningly circumscribed,
By both interior and outer Navajo boundaries.
The Navajo: a coyote trickster people; a nation of sheep thieves,
Hornswoggled and landlocked themselves,
Subsumed within three of the so-called Four Corners:
A 3/4ths compromise and covenant,
Pickled in firewater, swaddled in fine print,
A veritable swindle concocted back when the USA
Had Manifest Destiny & mayhem on its mind.

The United States: once a pubescent synthesis of blood and thunder,
A bold caboodle of trooper spit and polish, unwashed brawlers, Scouts and      
Pathfinders, mountain men, numb-nut ne'er-do-wells,
Buffalo Bills & big-balled individualists, infected, insane with greed.
According to the Gospel of His Holiness Saint Zinn,
A People’s’ History of the United States: essentially state-sponsored terrorism,
A LAND RUSH grabocracy, orchestrated, blessed and anointed,
By a succession of Potomac sharks, Great White Fascist Fathers,
Far-Away-on-the Bay, the Bay we call The Chesapeake.
All demented national patriarchs craving lebensraum for God and country.
The USA: a 50-state Leviathan today, a nation jury-rigged,
Out of railroad ties, steel rails and baling wire,
Forged by a litany of lies, rapaciousness and ******,
And jaw-torn chunks of terra firma,
Bites both large and small out of our well-****** Native American ***.

Or culo, as in va’a fare in culo (literally "go do it in the ***")
Which Italian Americans pronounce as fongool.
The language center of my brain,
My sub-cortical Broca’s region,
So fraught with such semantic misfires,
And autonomic linguistic seizures,
Compel acknowledgement of a father’s contribution,
To both the gene pool and the genocide.
Columbus Day:  a conspicuously absent holiday out here in Indian Country.
No festivals or Fifth Avenue parades.
No excuse for ethnic hoopla. No guinea feast. No cannoli. No tarantella.
No excuse to not get drunk and not **** your sister-in-law.
Emphatically a day for prayer and contemplation,
A day of infamy like Pearl Harbor and 9/11,
October 12, 1492: not a discovery; an invasion.

Growing up in Brooklyn, things were always different for me,
Different in some sort of redskin/****/****--
Choose Your Favorite Ethnic Slur-sort of way.
The American Way: dehumanization for fun and profit.
Melting *** anonymity and denial of complicity with evil.
But this is no time to bring up America’s sordid past,
Or, a personal pet peeve: Indian Sovereignty.
For Uncle Sam and his minions, an ever-widening, conveniently flexible concept,
Not a commandment or law,
Not really a treaty or a compact,
Or even a business deal.  Let’s get real:
It was not even much in the way of a guideline.
Just some kind of an advisory, a bulletin or newsletter,
Could it merely have been a free-floating suggestion?
Yes, that’s it exactly: a suggestion.

Over and under halcyon American skies,
Over and around those majestic purple mountain peaks,
Those trapped in poetic amber waves of wheat and oats,
Corn and barley, wheat shredded and puffed,
Corn flaked and milled, Wheat Chex and Wheaties, oats that are little Os;
Kix and Trix, Fiber One, and Kashi-Go-Lean, Lucky Charms and matso *****,
Kreplach and kishka,
Polenta and risotto.
Our cantaloupe and squash patch,
Our fruited prairie plain, our delicate ecological Eden,
In balance and harmony with nature, as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce instructs:
“These white devils are not going to,
Stop ****** and killing, cheating and eating us,
Until they have the whole ******* enchilada.
I’m talking about ‘from sea to shining sea.’”

“I fight no more forever,” Babaloo.
So I must steer this clunky keelboat of discovery,
Back to the main channel of my sad and starry demented river.
My warpath is personal but not historical.
It is my brain’s own convoluted cognitive process I cannot saavy.
Whatever biochemical or—as I suspect more each day—
Whatever bio-mechanical protocols govern my identity,
My weltanschauung: my world-view, as sprechen by proto-Nazis;
Putz philosophers of the 17th, 18th & 19th century.
The German intelligentsia: what a cavalcade of maniacal *******!
Why is this Jew unsurprised these Zarathustra-fueled Übermenschen . . .
Be it the Kaiser--Caesar in Deutsch--Bismarck, ******, or,
Even that Euro-*****,  Angela Merkel . . . Why am I not surprised these Huns,
Get global grab-*** on the sauerbraten cabeza every few generations?
To be, or not to be the ***** bullgoose loony: GOTT.

Biomechanical protocols govern my identity and are implanted while I sleep.
My brain--my weak and weary CPU--is replenished, my discs defragmented.
A suite of magnetic and optical white rooms, cleansed free of contaminants,
Gun mounts & lifeboat stations manned and ready,
Standing at attention and saluting British snap-style,
Snap-to and heel click, ramrod straight and cheerful: “Ready for duty, Sir.”
My mind is ravenous, lusting for something, anything to process.
Any memory or image, lyric or construct,
Be they short-term dailies or deeply imprinted.
Fixations archived one and all in deep storage time and space.
Memories, some subconscious, most vaporous;
Others--the scary ones—eidetic: frighteningly detailed and extraordinarily vivid.
Precise cognitive transcripts; recollected so richly rife and fresh.
Visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory reloads:
Queued up and increasingly re-experienced.

The bio-data of six decades: it’s all there.
People, countless, places and things cataloged.
Every event, joy and trauma enveloped from within or,
Accessed externally from biomechanical storage devices.
The random access memory of a lifetime,
Read and recollected from cerebral repositories and vaults,
All the while the entire greedy process overseen,
Over-driven by that all-subservient British bat-man,
Rummaging through the data in batches small and large,
Internal and external drives working in seamless syncopation,
Self-referential, at times paradoxical or infinitely looped.
“Cogito ergo sum."
Descartes stripped it down to the basics but there’s more to the story:
Thinking about thinking.
A curse and minefield for the cerebral:  metacognition.

No, it is not the fact that thought exists,
Or even the thoughts themselves.
But the information technology of thought that baffles me,
As adaptive and profound as any evolution posited by Darwin,
Beyond the wetware in my skull, an entirely new operating system.
My mental and cultural landscape are becoming one.
Machines are connecting the two.
It’s what I am and what I am becoming.
Once more for emphasis:
It is the information technology of who I am.
It is the operating system of my mental and cultural landscape.
It is the machinery connecting the two.
This is the central point of this narrative:
Metacognition--your superego’s yenta Cassandra,
Screaming, screaming in your psychic ear, your good ear:

“LISTEN:  The machines are taking over, taking you over.
Your identity and train of thought are repeatedly hijacked,
Switched off the main line onto spurs and tangents,
Only marginally connected or not at all.
(Incoming TEXT from my editor: “Lighten Up, Giuseppi!”)
Reminding me again that most in my audience,
Rarely get past the comic page. All righty then: think Calvin & Hobbes.
John Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year old boy,
Subject to flights of 16th Century French theological fancy.
Thomas Hobbes, a sardonic anthropomorphic tiger from 17th Century England,
Mumbling about life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Taken together--their antics and shenanigans--their relationship to each other,
Remind us of our dual nature; explore for us broad issues like public education;
The economy, environmentalism & the Global ****** Thermometer;
Not to mention the numerous flaws of opinion polls.



And again my editor TEXTS me, reminds me again: “LIGHTEN UP!”
Consoling me:  “Even Shakespeare had to play to the groundlings.”
The groundlings, AKA: The Rabble.
Yes. Even the ******* Bard, even Willie the Shake,
Had to contend with a decidedly lowbrow copse of carrion.
Oh yes, the groundlings, a carrion herd, a flying flock of carrion seagulls,
Carrion crow, carrion-feeders one and all,
And let’s throw Sheryl Crow into the mix while we’re at it:
“Hit it! This ain't no disco. And it ain't no country club either, this is L.A.”  

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

Once more, I digress.
The Rabble:  an amorphous, gelatinous Jabba the Hutt of commonality.
The Rabble: drunk, debauched & lawless.
Too *****-delicious to stop Bill & Hilary from thinking about tomorrow;
Too Paul McCartney My Love Does it Good to think twice.

The Roman Saturnalia: a weeklong **** fest.
The Saturnalia: originally a pagan kink-fest in honor of the deity Saturn.
Dovetailing nicely with the advent of the Christian era,
With a project started by Il Capo di Tutti Capi,
One of the early popes, co-opting the Roman calendar between 17 and 25 December,
Putting the finishing touches on the Jesus myth.
For Brooklyn Hopi-***-Jew baby boomers like me,
Saturnalia manifested itself as Disco Fever,
Unpleasant years of electrolysis, scrunched ***** in tight polyester
For Roman plebeians, for the great unwashed citizenry of Rome,
Saturnalia was just a great big Italian wedding:
A true family blowout and once-in-a-lifetime ego-trip for Dad,
The father of the bride, Vito Corleone, Don for A Day:
“Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I! Funicula, Funiculi!”

America: love it or leave it; my country right or wrong.
Sure, we were citizens of Rome,
But any Joe Josephus spending the night under a Tiber bridge,
Or sleeping off a three day drunk some afternoon,
Up in the Coliseum bleachers, the cheap seats, out beyond the monuments,
The original three monuments in the old stadium,
Standing out in fair territory out in center field,
Those three stone slabs honoring Gehrig, Huggins, and Babe.
Yes, in the house that Ruth built--Home of the Bronx Bombers--***?
Any Joe Josephus knows:  Roman citizenship doesn’t do too much for you,
Except get you paxed, taxed & drafted into the Legion.
For us the Roman lifestyle was HIND-*** humble.
We plebeians drew our grandeur by association with Empire.
Very few Romans and certainly only those of the patrician class lived high,
High on the hog, enjoying a worldly extravaganza, like—whom do we both know?

Okay, let’s say Laurence Olivier as Crassus in Spartacus.
Come on, you saw Spartacus fifteen ******* times.
Remember Crassus?
Crassus: that ***** twisted **** trying to get his freak on with,
Tony Curtis in a sunken marble tub?
We plebes led lives of quiet *****-scratching desperation,
A bunch of would-be legionnaires, diseased half the time,
Paid in salt tablets or baccala, salted codfish soaked yellow in olive oil.
Stiffs we used to call them on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.
Let’s face it: we were hyenas eating someone else’s ****,
Stage-door jackals, Juvenal-come-late-lies, a mob of moronic mook boneheads
Bought off with bread & circuses and Reality TV.
Each night, dished up a wide variety of lowbrow Elizabethan-era entertainments.  
We contemplate an evening on the town, downtown—
(cue Petula Clark/Send "Downtown" Ringtone to your Cell)

On any given London night, to wit:  mummers, jugglers, bear & bull baiters.
How about dog & **** fighters, quoits & skittles, alehouses & brothels?
In short, somewhere, anywhere else,
Anywhere other than down along the Thames,
At Bankside in Southwark, down in the Globe Theater mosh pit,
Slugging it out with the groundlings whose only interest,
In the performance is the choreography of swordplay and stale ****** puns.
Meanwhile, Hugh Fennyman--probably a fellow Jew,
An English Renaissance Bugsy Siegel or Mickey Cohen—
Meanwhile Fennyman, the local mob boss is getting his ya-yas,
Roasting the feet of my text-messaging editor, Philip Henslowe.
Poor and pathetic Henslowe, works on commission, always scrounging,
But a true patron of my craft, a gentleman of infinite jest and patience,
Spiritual subsistence, and every now and then a good meal at some,
Sawdust joint with oyster shells, and a Prufrockian silk purse of T.S. Eliot gold.

Poor, pathetic Henslowe, trussed up by Fennyman,
His editorial feet in what looks like a Japanese hibachi.
Henslowe’s feet to the fire--feet to the fire—get it?
A catchy phrase whose derivation conjures up,
A grotesque yet vivid image of torture,
An exquisite insight into how such phrases ingress the idiom,
Not to mention a scene once witnessed at a secret Romanian CIA prison,
I’d been ordered to Bucharest not long after 9/11,
Handling the rendition and torture of Habib Ghazzawy,

An entirely innocent falafel maker from Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens.
Shock the Monkey: it’s what we do. GOTO:
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey/
(HQ music video) - YouTube//
www.youtube.com/
Poor, pathetic, ******-on Henslowe.


Fennyman :  (his avarice is whet by something Philly screams out about a new script)  "A play takes time. Find actors; Rehearsals. Let's say open in three weeks. That's--what--five hundred groundlings at tuppence each, in addition four hundred groundlings tuppence each, in addition four hundred backsides at three pence--a penny extra for a cushion, call it two hundred cushions, say two performances for safety how much is that Mr. Frees?"
Jacobean Tweet, John (1580-1684) Webster:  “I saw him kissing her bubbies.”

It’s Geoffrey Rush, channeling Henslowe again,
My editor, a singed smoking madman now,
Feet in an ice bucket, instructing me once more:
“Lighten things up, you know . . .
Comedy, love and a bit with a dog.”
I digress again and return to Hopi Land, back to my shaman-monastic abattoir,
That Zen Center in downtown Shungopavi.
At the Tribal Enrolment Office I make my case for a Certificate of Indian Blood,
Called a CIB by the Natives and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The BIA:  representing gold & uranium miners, cattle and sheep ranchers,
Sodbusters & homesteaders; railroaders and dam builders since 1824.
Just in time for Andrew Jackson, another false friend of Native America,
Just before Old Hickory, one of many Democratic Party hypocrites and scoundrels,
Gives the FONGOOL, up the CULO go ahead.
Hey Andy, I’ve got your Jacksonian democracy: Hanging!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:   "… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. What’s that in the fine print?  Uncle Sammy holds “the trust assets of American Indians.”

Here’s a ******* tip, Geronimo: if he trusted you,
It would ALL belong to you.
To you and The People.
But it’s all fork-tongued white *******.
If true, Indian sovereignty would cease to be a sick one-liner,
Cease to be a blunt force punch line, more of,
King Leopold’s 19th Century stand-up comedy schtick,
Leo Presents: The **** of the Congo.
La Belgique mission civilisatrice—
That’s what French speakers called Uncle Leo’s imperial public policy,
Bringing the gift of civilization to central Africa.
Like Manifest Destiny in America, it had a nice colonial ring to it.
“Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent,
Allotted by Providence for the free development,
Of our yearly multiplying millions.”  John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Our civilizing mission or manifest destiny:
Either/or, a catchy turn of phrase;
Not unlike another ironic euphemism and semantic subterfuge:
The Pacification of the West; Pacification?
Hardly: decidedly not too peaceful for Cochise & Tonto.
Meanwhile, Madonna is cash rich but disrespected Evita poor,
To wit: A ****** on the Rocks (throwing in a byte or 2 of Da Vinci Code).
Meanwhile, Miss Ciccone denied her golden totem *****.
They snubbed that little guinea ****, didn’t they?
Snubbed her, robbed her rotten.
Evita, her magnum opus, right up there with . . .
Her SNL Wayne’s World skit:
“Get a load of the unit on that guy.”
Or, that infamous MTV Music Video Awards stunt,
That classic ***** Lip-Lock with Britney Spears.

How could I not see that Oscar snubola as prime evidence?
It was just another stunning case of American anti-Italian racial animus.
Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky would see it,
Must view it in the same context as the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
Or, that arbitrary lynching of 9 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891,
To cite just two instances of anti-Italian judicial reach & mob violence,
Much like what happened to my cousin Dominic,
Gang-***** by the Harlem Globetrotters, in their locker room during halftime,
While he working for Abe Saperstein back in 1952.
Dom was doing advance for Abe, supporting creation of The Washington Generals:
A permanent stable of hoop dream patsies and foils,
Named for the ever freewheeling, glad-handing, backslapping,
Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF), himself,
Namely General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man they liked,
And called IKE: quite possibly a crypto Jew from Abilene.

Of course, Harry Truman was my first Great White Fascist Father,
Back in 1946, when I first opened my eyes, hung up there,
High above, looking down from the adobe wall.
Surveying the entire circular kiva,
I had the best seat in the house.
Don’t let it be said my Spider Grandmother or Hopi Corn Mother,
Did not want me looking around at things,
Discovering what made me special.
Didn’t divine intervention play a significant part of my creation?
Knowing Mamma Mia and Nonna were Deities,
Gave me an edge later on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Cradleboard: was there ever a more divinely inspired gift to human curiosity? The Cradleboard: a perfect vantage point, an infant’s early grasp,
Of life harmonious, suspended between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Simply put: the Hopi should be running our ******* public schools.

But it was IKE with whom I first associated,
Associated with the concept 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I liked IKE. Who didn’t?
What was not to like?
He won the ******* war, didn’t he?
And he wasn’t one of those crazy **** John Birchers,
Way out there, on the far right lunatic Republican fringe,
Was he? (It seems odd and nearly impossible to believe in 2013,
That there was once a time in our Boomer lives,
When the extreme right wing of the Republican Party
Was viewed by the FBI as an actual threat to American democracy.)
Understand: it was at a time when The FBI,
Had little ideological baggage,
But a great appetite for secrets,
The insuppressible Jay Edgar doing his thang.

IKE: of whom we grew so, oh-so Fifties fond.
Good old reliable, Nathan Shaking IKE:
He’d been fixed, hadn’t he? Had had the psychic snip.
Snipped as a West Point cadet & parade ground martinet.
Which made IKE a good man to have in a pinch,
Especially when crucial policy direction was way above his pay grade.
Cousin Dom was Saperstein’s bagman, bribing out the opposition,
Which came mainly from religious and patriotic organizations,
Viewing the bogus white sports franchise as obscene.
The Washington Generals, Saperstein’s new team would have but one opponent,
And one sole mission: to serve as the **** of endless jokes and sight gags for—
Negroes.  To play the chronic fools of--
Negroes.  To be chronically humiliated and insulted by—
Negroes.  To run up and down the boards all night, being outran by—
Negroes.  Not to mention having to wear baggy silk shorts.



Meadowlark Lemon:  “Yeah, Charlie, we ***** that grease-ball Dominic; we shagged his guinea mouth and culo rotten.”  

(interviewed in his Scottsdale, AZ winter residence in 2003 by former ESPN commentator Charlie Steiner, Malverne High School, Class of ’67.)
                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                 
IKE, briefed on the issue by higher-ups, quickly got behind the idea.
The Harlem Globetrotters were to exist, and continue to exist,
Are sustained financially by Illuminati sponsors,
For one reason and one reason only:
To serve elite interests that the ***** be kept down and subservient,
That the minstrel show be perpetuated,
A policy surviving the elaborate window dressing of the civil rights movement, Affirmative action, and our first Uncle Tom president.
Case in point:  Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman & Metta World Peace Artest.
Cha-cha-cha changing again:  I am Robert Allen Zimmermann,
A whiny, skinny Jew, ****** and rolling in from Minnesota,
Arrested, obviously a vagrant, caught strolling around his tony Jersey enclave,
Having moved on up the list, the A-list, a special invitation-only,
Yom Kippur Passover Seder:  Next Year in Jerusalem, Babaloo!

I take ownership of all my autonomic and conditioned reflexes;
Each personal neural arc and pathway,
All shenanigans & shellackings,
Or blunt force cognitive traumas.
It’s all percolating nicely now, thank you,
In kitchen counter earthen crockery:
Random access memory: a slow-cook crockpot,
Bubbling through my psychic sieve.
My memories seem only remotely familiar,
Distant and vague, at times unreal:
An alien hybrid databank accessed accidently on purpose;
Flaky science sustains and monitors my nervous system.
And leads us to an overwhelming question:
Is it true that John Dillinger’s ******* is in the Smithsonian Museum?
Enquiring minds want to know, Kemosabe!

“Any last words, *******?” TWEETS Adam Smith.
Postmortem cyber-graffiti, an epitaph carved in space;
Last words, so singular and simple,
Across the universal great divide,
Frisbee-d, like a Pleistocene Kubrick bone,
Tossed randomly into space,
Morphing into a gyroscopic space station.
Mr. Smith, a calypso capitalist, and me,
Me, the Poet Laureate of the United States and Adam;
Who, I didn’t know from Adam.
But we tripped the light fantastic,
We boogied the Protestant Work Ethic,
To the tune of that old Scotch-Presbyterian favorite,
Variations of a 5-point Calvinist theme: Total Depravity; Election; Particular Redemption; Irresistible Grace; & Perseverance of the Saints.

Mr. Smith, the author of An Inquiry into the Nature
& Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776),
One of the best-known, intellectual rationales for:
Free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism,
The latter term a euphemism for Social Darwinism.
Prior to 1764, Calvinists in France were called Huguenots,
A persecuted religious majority . . . is that possible?
A persecuted majority of Edict of Nantes repute.
Adam Smith, likely of French Huguenot Jewish ancestry himself,
Reminds me that it is my principal plus interest giving me my daily gluten.
And don’t think the irony escapes me now,
A realization that it has taken me nearly all my life to see again,
What I once saw so vividly as a child, way back when.
Before I put away childish things, including the following sentiment:
“All I need is the air that I breathe.”

  Send "The Air That I Breathe" Ringtone to your Cell  

The Hippies were right, of course.
The Hollies had it all figured out.
With the answer, as usual, right there in the lyrics.
But you were lucky if you were listening.
There was a time before I embraced,
The other “legendary” economists:
The inexorable Marx,
The savage society of Veblen,
The heresies we know so well of Keynes.
I was a child.
And when I was a child, I spake as a child—
Grazie mille, King James—
I understood as a child; I thought as a child.
But when I became a man I jumped on the bus with the band,
Hopped on the irresistible bandwagon of Adam Smith.

Smith:  “Any last words, *******?”
Okay, you were right: man is rationally self-interested.
Grazie tanto, Scotch Enlightenment,
An intellectual movement driven by,
An alliance of Calvinists and Illuminati,
Freemasons and Johnny Walker Black.
Talk about an irresistible bandwagon:
Smith, the gloomy Malthus, and David Ricardo,
Another Jew boy born in London, England,
Third of 17 children of a Sephardic family of Portuguese origin,
Who had recently relocated from the Dutch Republic.
******* Jews!
Like everything shrewd, sane and practical in this world,
WE also invented the concept:  FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The lyrics: if you were really listening, you’d get it:
Respiration keeps one sufficiently busy,
Just breathing free can be a full-time job,
Especially when--borrowing a phrase from British cricketers—,
One contemplates the sorry state of the wicket.
Now that I am gainfully superannuated,
Pensioned off the employment radar screen.
Oft I go there into the wild ebon yonder,
Wandering the brain cloud at will.
My journey indulges curiosity, creativity and deceit.
I free range the sticky wicket,
I have no particular place to go.
Snagging some random fact or factoid,
A stop & go rural postal route,
Jumping on and off the brain cloud.

Just sampling really,
But every now and then, gorging myself,
At some information super smorgasbord,
At a Good Samaritan Rest Stop,
I ponder my own frazzled neurology,
When I was a child—
Before I learned the grim economic facts of life and Judaism,
Before I learned Hebrew,
Before my laissez-faire Bar Mitzvah lessons,
Under the rabbinical tutelage of Rebbe Kahane--
I knew what every clever child knows about life:
The surfing itself is the destination.
Accessing RAM--random access memory—
On a strictly need to know basis.
RAM:  a pretty good name for consciousness these days.

If I were an Asimov or Sir Arthur (Sri Lankabhimanya) Clarke,
I’d get freaky now, riffing on Terminators, Time Travel and Cyborgs.
But this is truth not science fiction.
Nevertheless, someone had better,
Come up with another name for cyborg.
Some other name for a critter,
Composed of both biological and artificial parts?
Parts-is-parts--be they electronic, mechanical or robotic.
But after a lifetime of science fiction media,
After a steady media diet, rife with dystopian technology nightmares,
Is anyone likely to admit to being a cyborg?
Since I always give credit where credit is due,
I acknowledge that cyborg was a term coined in 1960,
By Manfred Clynes & Nathan S. Kline and,
Used to identify a self-regulating human-machine system in outer space.

Five years later D. S. Halacy's: Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman,
Featured an introduction, which spoke of:  “… a new frontier, that was not,
Merely space, but more profoundly, the relationship between inner space,
And outer space; a bridge, i.e., between mind and matter.”
So, by definition, a cyborg defined is an organism with,
Technology-enhanced abilities: an antenna array,
Replacing what was once sentient and human.
My glands, once in control of metabolism and emotions,
Have been replaced by several servomechanisms.
I am biomechanical and gluttonous.
Soaking up and breathing out the atmosphere,
My Baby Boom experience of six decades,
Homogenized and homespun, feedback looped,
Endlessly networked through predigested mass media,
Culture as demographically targeted content.

This must have something to do with my own metamorphosis.
I think of Gregor Samsa, a Kafkaesque character if there ever was one.
And though we share common traits,
My evolutionary progress surpasses and transcends his.
Samsa--Phylum and Class--was, after all, an insect.
Nonetheless, I remain a changeling.
Have I not seen many stages of growth?
Each a painful metamorphic cycle,
From exquisite first egg,
Through caterpillar’s appetite & squirm.
To phlegmatic bliss and pupa quietude,
I unfold my wings in a rush of Van Gogh palette,
Color, texture, movement and grace, lift off, flapping in flight.
My eyes have witnessed wondrous transformations,
My experience, nouveau riche and distinctly self-referential;
For the most part unspecific & longitudinally pedestrian.

Yes, something has happened to me along the way.
I am no longer certain of my identity as a human being.
Time and technology has altered my basic wiring diagram.
I suspect the sophisticated gadgets and tools,
I’ve been using to shape & make sense of my environment,
Have reared up and turned around on me.
My tools have reshaped my brain & central nervous system.
Remaking me as something simultaneously more and less human.
The electronic toys and tools I once so lovingly embraced,
Have turned unpredictable and rabid,
Their bite penetrating my skin and septic now, a cluster of implanted sensors,
Content: currency made increasingly more valuable as time passes,
Served up by and serving the interests of a pervasively predatory 1%.
And the rest of us: the so-called 99%?
No longer human; simply put by both Howards--Beale & Zinn--

Humanoid.

i wasn’t feeling okay

so i put on my overalls and went
outside 

to wander around my backyard,

trekking around in clunky rain boots

as i hummed and tried not to think
i like to write
 little notes

on the leaves that are now 

changing colors
and when i’m done

i let them
fall

so i can flatten them

beneath my heel

till the small words

are crinkled and no longer legible
amongst the dirt and grass
and so desperately,
i wish i could

let the thoughts in my head

fall
to the ground

so i could flatten
these
 pitiful feelings

beneath my heel

until they were no longer legible

amongst the hurt and hopefulness 

in my heart

The knife cutter calls in the summer noon
on his bicycle he pedals his wheel
sharpens all that rust too soon
knives past prime too blunt to ****!

Glues his hair the sweat of roam
his cheeks bear long uncut beard
pray he finds a wanting home
that needs to sharpen not just word!

If comes his way a timeworn knife
he sits to roll the clunky wheel
works to feebly sustain life
bowing to the smallest deal!

He is no poet no skilled scribe
an old hand from a vanishing age
belonging to a losing tribe
that still gives knife cutting edge!

I
There once was a boy who lost his smile
His name was Colin Trench, born evil & vile
A pale-skinned young lad, tall, wide-eyed and frail
His ashen hair quite unkempt, but sometimes he puts it in a pony-tail
Always dressed in a proper black suit, bow tie & all
"It makes me look more evil" says he, standing proud and tall
He lived in a dark & dingy tower up on Dreadful Hills
Where birds refuse to sing and a mere glimpse would give anyone chills
His only consort is a cat named Lacrimose, vile & evil as he
Both love the taste of ginger bread, strawberry ale & rose tea

II
One dreary morning in November when Colin woke
He realized that he missed his smile, lost since he was a little bloke
He stepped out of his room and summoned his loyal cat
"O Lacrimose" he said, "Today we will find where my smile is at!"
They began searching the tower, high & low, left & right
"It's just around here somewhere" he whispered, "I probably lost it in the dead of night"
They pulled out old drawers, empty cupboards & dusty cabinets
But all they found were cobwebs, memorabilia & broken trinkets
"Ah Lacrimose!" shouted Colin, "Look what I found here!"
"This wind-up jumping frog was given to me by mother dear!"
They searched behind the curtains, under the bed and beneath the sheets
But all they found was another toy, a little black bird that tweets
"This little bird" he remembered, "I gave it a name"
"Ah yes, it's Horus and hide & seek was her favorite game."
He put both toys in his pocket and continued searching, never giving up
Colin & Lacrimose were determined to find the lost smile before the sun was up

III
They left the bedroom floor and down the basement they went
A dark & sinister place with walls of chipped cement
Colin turned the light on and a rusty typewriter is what they saw
“This clunky old machine” he said, “used to leave me in absolute awe.”
Pointing at the corner, he went on, “This is where father used to write”
“He read to me his wonderful adventures much to my delight.”
“Let’s go to the attic” he told Lacrimose with a sigh
“There’s nothing left to see here but half-written stories & goodbyes.”
So up the attic they went, but as they entered the floor began to creek
“This won’t take long, Lacrimose” he assured the cat, “We’re just going to have a little peek.”
“The last time I went up here” he recalled, “I was a little boy aged 7.”
“It was that fateful day I was told that my loving parents went to heaven.”
He looked at Lacrimose feeling somber as ever
And noticed his cat nibbling on what seems to be an old letter:
“Colin, our dear son” he read out loud, “We love you with all our hearts.
We’re sorry we had to leave you, in the morning we must part.
The choice is not ours to make, we have to fight for our country.
We’ll be home after the war is over, just in time for your birthday party.”

IV
As he held the letter in his hand, he sat on the floor and started to weep
His parents’ death he tried to forget, in his heart he buried it deep
“A few months after receiving this letter” Colin remembered completely,
“3 men in military uniforms informed me that my parents died valiantly.”
“They never made it to my 7th birthday, I had no reason to celebrate.”
“In my heart there used to be joy & love, but since that moment I replaced it with hate.”
And the days after that, Colin not once did cry
But today was different, he knew it was time to say goodbye
He went down the attic and walked to the garden behind the tower
Carrying with him Lacrimose, he picked up a tiny little flower
He approached his parents’ final resting place with hardly an upward glance
Colin yearned for forgiveness and this was his perfect chance

V
From his pocket he pulled out the wind-up frog & Horus, the little black bird
Along with the letter found in the attic and without saying a word
He neatly placed the items on the ground with the tiny flower on the side
Today Colin learned about acceptance; there is nothing left to hide
He began to speak and this is what he had to say:
“Forgive me mother & father, but your passing has left me in complete disarray.”
He kneeled on the ground and cried like he never did before
Tears streamed down his face and it didn’t stop ‘till his eyes were sore
His hands were shaking as he covered his face
He never did forget the loss he tried so hard to erase
As soon as he stood up and slowly opened his eyes
He saw on the horizon a beautiful & magnificent sunrise
Stepping through the field, wiping his tears away
To his loyal companion he said: “From now on we will have better days.”
“Lacrimose, my dear friend, we shall no longer be evil & vile”
Ah, it is a great day indeed for Colin Trench began to smile.

I want to write it all; all of it. Every last word, sentence, phrase, poem, story, tale, feeling, joke, song, garbled hunk of nonsense streaming from my mouth hole like from a tap until the whole world drowns in just what I want to say; to let them know that expression is here, in my mind, in theirs, whispering in the trees outside, singing from every atom that can bump and grind and make things feel or see or sigh.

I want to sit within friends late in the night heads bobbing nod nod nodding as we agree or disagree or pedigree our intellect as we refine the phrases that make us sound like we know. Cos when you sound like you know, that's when you get heard, and if anyone's gonna get heard, ain't no one better nor worse than us. Cos nobody really knows; no Oxbridge don could ever write the wind, measure my kiss on my darlin’s skin, capture what the rosy points of her cheeks do to my brain, my body, my soul, my Attachment to this world.

So Hear me, O merry gentlemen! For I am alive and feeling and that is all the PhD I need.- If only you could see what’s dancing around in my skull... but you don’t have to! Use your own ivory mug! Really stop and think and you’ll see more than in a million poems roar within an eyeblink. Know it and feel it and see it all; the whole stupid shining racing roaring- untameable- restlessness of it all! Put down your pen and paper and rush out in the air and rejoice truly in the warm company of lovers and friends, in the sweet hum of guitar strings and in the savage itch of the insect's bite. In loneliness and mourning. In boredom and steady working with clever hands. And love, never stop loving, or hating, or appreciating, or caring, or crying, as long as you are feeling. For sometimes it seems we should always be in pain from one thing or another, yet mostly from the bubbling exasperation of positive go-get-em ***** for life.

For we read this clunky tongue of ours and say it’s what should be but there is more! For life through all its prisms can impress upon your vision a beauty neverending, yet to sense it quivering within a page is a spectacular sight indeed. So let’s leave the rigid, the impersonal, the stymied words behind and let's form a new expression, devoid of convention, one that cries joyous face-first directly into our souls!

So, Cry, onwards! And let's weave this tender tongue of ours, golden! Let's stack this world full of less-than-sane streams of speech tangled images driving shards of true experience into each other’s minds, until we drop dead deep in our bones from exuberant exhaustion. Let’s follow Kerouac to the grave; cheering, and keeling and full of tender feeling and find a meaning in words that can transcend into being. Let’s **** and watch and listen and do and learn and laugh and notice laughter and mark it for the concentrated joy that it is. Let’s sit quietly and attend to those things around us and ruminate without ever forgetting our surrounding- which include, of course, the ever flipping ever spinning and unwinding tapestry of our mind and others'.

Let’s find joy, or the maker, or whatever, same-meaning trap clap-trap of a name he (or she) has in your sticks, in what we can touch and feel and see, and inside those we know and those we don’t. Let’s make language a human thing that radiates warmth for all, and bridges us to those around us so that none may feel alone or scared unless they long to for glorious masochism, or curiousness, or any things they so do please. Let us travel, and dance, and loose hope, and find it, and live it.

And write tenderness into this world.

Page 1 The first time I met Duke, I was tripping on shrooms. In fact, it was the first time I dabbled in psychedelics as well-- just don’t underestimate me in the marijuana department. The moment I can recall vividly comprised of the walk from the music hall which brought us to underneath the Moody Towers residential buildings, where there is wind and benches. A square of dirt rests behind the two benches facing one another; the distance apart from the benches being just far away enough to notice the gap of distance when conversing with someone on the other side. There was a main square of dirt, consisting of hundreds of butts twirled within the earth, scraggly weeds, and one relatively low sitting, yet ominous tree. This tree often glowed during the segments of the day in which the sun found itself to gazing down on the towers and its delinquent inhabitants. On many occasion during these occurrences you could find me, or perhaps Duke, basking in the serenity of the simplicity of the slivers of light breaking free through the emerald green mass of the tree. On this particular night I’m recalling, it was nighttime, causing the yellow of porch lights to dim the other color palettes. Except the sky was royal purple, and the grass in the distant hillside was writhing and crawling and breathing-- according to the mushrooms. Half of the bodies there that night were standing, half sitting, and there couldn’t have been more than a dozen of us. Here is this person in my indirect line of sight, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint the gender, but cute regardless. My guess of girl pursuing boyhood turned out to be correct. Small, almost delicate frame like mine, only he attempted to conceal his when I had long ago grown out of that. With a plaid button down and the collar poking outside of his oversized dark casual suit blazer. It was tied off with baggy khaki pants and clunky black sneakers similar to the ones the chefs in the cafeteria wear with a sense of longevity.
Page 2 His hair took inspiration from the typical pubescent teenage boy, straight and shaggy, and nearly covering the ears and eyes with a combination of strips of platinum blonde, ***** blonde, and light brown wisps. His almond shaped almond colored eyes were framed with black, square and thick glasses, but they seemed to help compensate for size with the natural petiteness of his face. Pink snakebites resided beneath his bottom lip, emphasizing the common nature of his lips that often formed a tight line, even when speaking. I only saw him from a distance that night. We didn’t introduce ourselves to each other until the next day, at that same location. There were less people now, and I was no longer in an altered state of mind. Well, to be honest, I still most likely was, but it certainly wasn’t shrooms. I don’t remember who began the introduction first, but I know his was accompanied with an abundance of compliments on my outfit and level of cuteness. As masculine as his mind was, he could still have an appreciation for the arts, for unique style, as any natural born writer would be so inclined. So there, underneath moody, I met him, within a social circle so new to me yet so familiar within the ebb and flow in the air of cigarette smoke, sometimes so pungently thick and keen against the tide of stimulating conversation. I felt a sense of belonging new to me.
Page 3 And there again and again, I saw him. The central station of our friends. There I slowly got to know him. I learned he lived about an hour away from Houston, he was a creative writing major, he was a freshman just like me and lived in the same building as me. We were both INFP’s on that Meyers-Briggs personality test. I had never met another INFP. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more his general profile seemed familiar to me. And then I remembered. RoomSync, an app the university had us use to select a random roommate. I remember considering someone’s profile that possessed all the qualities of Duke, before my current roommate reached out to me, unfortunately. Duke might have been my roommate in another reality-- remember the Multiverse Theory. I wonder if that would have even changed anything. But that thought process is futile. Once, in the initial stages, Duke had been rambling about modern horror and the author of the fight club, and where the two converge with the product of a gruesome short story. Not many accepted Duke’s invitation to read the short story, but I volunteered. But that is when I remember the beginning of Duke’s admiration for fight club. The concept of it. In fact, one of the first nights, I remember vividly as the Fight Club Night. Where Duke insisted on starting up our own Smircle fight club sometime, what what better time to do so, he thought, then right at that moment with his buddy Otis while drunk on ****** life and four lokos and *****? They were both at least eight shots deep in their sorrows when they ended up disappearing for what seemed to the rest of us like mere seconds. When we found them, we had ventured that way due to the need and ability to smoke a bowl behind the dumpster a few steps nearby. And when we found them, only one was standing. In the recounting later, Duke had apparently taken a nasty blow to the stomach after slamming a few hits in himself.
Page 4 As he lay there, sprawled face-down on the pavement, disoriented and disheveled, for a solid eight minutes at least until he determined he wasn’t going to puke. The remainder of the night was spent accompanying the rest of the group with Otis, forever refusing to let go of the moral dilemma that had just been established by this pseudo-fight club on which it is incorrect on all accounts to punch a drunk person in the stomach, because they are, in fact, drunk. This might appear annoying after a while, but the radical and lively energy that would radiate from the banter of Duke and Otis made this situation anything but.

Page 5   And so were my first stories of Duke, and so it was for many stories to come. Our stay at this place began to feel more permanent as our bodies would steadily adjust to the ranging, sporadic temperatures outside and as our eyes took in absorbing the physical evidence of the seasons. As it was, at any time throughout the day, my route would take me down to our spot underneath Moody, where Duke might or might not be there himself, shmoozing around with cigarettes and doodles on pen and paper noteworthy of Tim Burton. I got to know Duke. He seemed to have mastered the skill in which I prided myself most in, and that is the warmth near him that urges someone near him to just open your heart and reveal your thoughts and secrets-- that blind trust. Duke had a way of getting to exactly what was on my mind. And in exchange of me sharing, out came the stories of Duke’s life, the sad, ****** up, abusive stories. I heard those the most, for they were also the most compelling, and most exciting, and ******* sometimes Duke could even make them funny.

These days, Moody feels empty. Just because of minus one.

Sheers of shimmering gloss grace her torso.
And I have broken her bones,
imploring that I love her so.
Blueberry lips belly the cold;
hold her too deep, hold her I'm told.

I.

He says Call me Mr. G.
G for Gore, Greed, that Green.
An atypical stoner
with hair wetter than his mouth.
With more ******* than a pound,
he says, With an understanding of
all the suffering in the global delusion
that is the Earth. Mr. G, his name.

Oily brunette, Mr. G., would smoke
Marlboro Green Blend -- menthol --
and spit shot out between stained lips
after each extracurricular exhale.
The saliva would land, tremendously,
and puddles of Rasta shooting stars
would lay, stretching across concrete galaxy.

Hazel eyes invaded and shamed him,
for he wished to be green, like life,
but only envisioned a contradiction:
death (see nature),
for which he learned to embrace, stoically,
like a shepherd of an endangered breed
meant to die among skewed perspective.

II.

This house could be mistaken
for a cinderblock purgatory;
between color and absence of,
eternal and temporary.

A raptor laughter purged the tension --
he abided by no accommodation of civility.
As smoke followed his hyena howl,
the landline lay suddenly of purpose.

Resin raided the clunky, black buttons;
a voice was whispered like a blue phantom:
*******' cheese, pineapple, pepperoni
-- no, extra ******' cheese, extra pep --
Sure, add some more pep with your driver:
he, she -- honestly, man -- they better have
pep-in-their-******-step-you-feel?

Minutes passed like sentient matchbooks
dropping towards a skeletal fire.
G threw the phone across the room
and, like a disenchanted drunk dance,
his words wobbled over each other,
I ordered a 'za, a pizza for the layman.
About thirty, probably thirty-one
minutes, that is.

Passing me the flower-stitched ****,
I ****** in one, maybe two, three,
blasts that I swore
had some sort of nano-insects
bite and burrow into the holes
of my sponge for a throat.

Wringing my rubbery neck,
watching my words leave my toothy cave,
I found out that G doesn't believe in beer.
Believes in souls but not beer,
believes in green men, not beer.

Alcoholic splash is what we all need,
at times. So I told him the obvious,
I'm going to get a case of
(Insert your ****** choice)
and I'll be back as soon as possible.

G stared at me and made a guttural noise,
Do whatcha please, I'll stay here and
protect us from vampires.
You know, blood-suckas.

Pale stoner vampires.


III.

The leather painted door was wide open
like the legs of ominous spider cave,
but the doors of a car
I had never seen before
were as closed as the lips of a VCR.
There's nothing but silence in these situations --
is this one of those situations? Grassy knoll?

Approaching the mouth of purgatory,
I entered with the hesitancy of a lost dog.
On the plastic covered couch,
two people sat atop the invisible cloud
above the patterned fabric
and above the fingers of time.

Blonde hair sprouted from her scalp,
raining down upon vanilla shoulder blades,
her chest a harbor for two pale, freshly mounds,
with crooked, beige diamonds in the center.

She trembled when G said, Meet Steph
-- can I call you Steph, Steph? --
Meet Steph, the artist formerly known as
Stephanie, holding up her licence,
Vanmeter, of 441 1/2 Locust Ave.

That's creepy, huh, Steph? Locust Ave?
Are you something that lives in the ground,
comes up every several years, making noise?
Has this been years in the making?
Are you bound to make noise in my house?

You know this is a house, right?
Whatsa matter, unfamiliar due to ya
living-in-the-*******-ground
or is it because you share a house,
an apartment, Steph? Is it one of those?
Pizza deliveries ain't paying the bills?

G gets up, I, a coward, approaching him
about to say -- Hold up, brother, he says.
Not another move, pulling his hand from
behind her shaking, confused head,
a silver cannon an extension of his arm.

She's here to **** our blood,
She's here to ****. our. blood.
Whether she means to or not,
I know you don't think you want to, Steph,
I know you don't mean to,
But you're here to
drain-us-like-the-Red-Cross.

I tell G that she isn't,
What have you done, G,
You need to let her go
before this gets worse.
That cliche dialogue.
Because these things always do,
cliche or not.

Brother, you don't understand these things
-- It's impossible for a godless man
to understand the mechanisms
of something bigger, something holy --
but you need to listen, G said, You need to --
she tried to move, quickly,
but G grabbed her by her blonde strands,
pulled her back towards the couch,
She swiped at his eye, drawing blood.

There was a pause, a deathly silence,
by the hair, she was rendered motionless,
Oh, no, he echoed, Love, you shouldn't,
You ought not do those things.
Looking at me, he asked me to listen,
Always remember this wasn't your fault.
Sometimes, you can't be in control

Holstering her neck with his gun hand,
G picked her up, slamming her,
head first,
into the drug covered,
resin sprinkled
coffee table.

He dropped on top of her,
Looked at me, Remember, okay?
and beat her head with the **** of the gun,
until the cracking of a larger M&M; shell
muffled towards all eardrums,
maybe even hers.

With blood,
that could be mistaken as war paint,
swimming across his jaw and neck,
and sprinkled on his forehead,
G whispered, You are free,
and I was never sure
who he was talking about.

My feet left before I did,
I was suddenly in my car
with only the ignition
and G's voice registering.
I passed car after car,
pastel metal wagon after
metallic matte creation,
not sure if I ever saw him,
not sure if he ever existed,
if I ever existed.

IV.

Sheers of shimmering gloss grace her torso.
And I have broken her bones,
imploring that I love her so.
Blueberry lips belly the cold;
hold her too deep, hold her I'm told.

Waking up in a cavern darkness,
my dreams disintegrate from my eyes,
swirl in my headspace, evaporating to
heaven knows where.

Scattered pitter-patter
drowns midnight Seattle,
killing and washing away
cluttered, modern filth,
******* carnivorous minds
into hungrier gutters.

This is the part
where the screen of my life reveals:
SIX MONTHS LATER,
in yellow, stenciled letters.
But what it wouldn't say is
how I still feel like I'm dipped
in the ink of Ithaca, NY.

If this were the indulgent
autobiography of my life
it wouldn't say that
the distance doesn't matter,
because that'd be a lie;
I feel like I have only escaped myself.

The rain swells, sounding as
thick as blood, swishing around
the veins of the city.

Stephanie dies every night,
disappearing and reappearing
behind secret doors only she can open.

When she comes to me in sleep,
she is baptized in green, head caved,
Forget-Me-Nots sprouting
between fragmented skull
and select spots of brain soil,
the flowers singing jazz
with a different voice, every time.

One time she spoke.
With blueberry lips that belly cold,
she sounds like my mother:
I am so proud of you, she statically says.
You saved me. Remember.

V.

To be continued.

Kourtney Kardashian usually displays some quirky style when shooting her reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

And on Monday the 36-year-old single mom was at it again as she wore a baggy army green jumpsuit when landing with her three kids Mason, aged five, Penelope, aged three, and Reign, eight months, in St Barts to shoot her E! show.

Looks like mom Kris Jenner, 59, did not get the fashion memo as she was seen descending the steps of a private jet alongside Khloe, 30, Kim, 34, and Kendall, 19, in the exact same getup.

The jumpsuit seemed to hang off Kourtney, who paired the staple with clunky platform black and beige jazz shoes, gold necklaces and gold-rimmed aviators. The ex of Scott Disick played down the glam with a ponytail and minimal makeup.

Kris wore her suit in a more fitted manner that showed off her slim waistline.

The ex of Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn of I Am Cait fame) added beige combat boots and a small beige Hermes bag to her look.

Her hair was worn styled in a spiky fashion and she didn't forget to glam it up with vintage sunglasses and lipstick.

Khloe was playing good auntie as she carried Penelope, who was cute in a white dress.

The girlfriend of NBA star James Harden had on a black sleeveless mini dress and black high top sneakers. The E! babe carried a large neon yellow Hermes purse and wore her blonde locks up in a messy top knot.

Kim, who carried daughter North, was the most dressed up by far.

The pregnant wife of rapper Kanye West had on a tight beige dress that showed off her baby bumpy (she is expecting a son in December), beige rain coat and strappy beige heels. Her hair was worn down and parted in the middle.

North had on a summer dress and beige sandals, and her hair was worn in a top knot.

Kendall had on a plunging blue outfit with black and white Adidas sneakers.

The Calvin Kelin model had a black purse on her shoulder and gold-rimmed aviators on, copying her older half-sisters Kourtney and Khloe.

Her younger sister Kylie, who turned 18-years-old over the weekend, was not seen.

The crew for Keeping Up With The Kardashians could be seen holding cameras and a boom as the stars walked off a red, white and blue private jet.

The family has been shooting the next season of the E! show, which will air after I Am Cait ends.

The Kardashians often film their reality show when on vacation as they did in Armenia earlier this year and in Greece in 2014.

This show of unity comes the day after Kim and Khloe were seen arguing with Cait on I Am Cait.

Jenner's comments about her family in her Vanity Fair cover interview have become a running bone of contention among the Kardashian clan.

Kris confronted her ex-husband over what she has said about her in a powder keg moment that was teased after Sunday night's episode.

Kris tells her in a video posted on E: 'You're sensitive and amazing to all these new people in your life, you're just not so sensitive and amazing to the family that you left behind.'

Caitlyn gives her side, responding: 'I try to do everything I can to be nice, reach out. You have to see it from my perspective, be an ally when it comes to dealing with the kids.'

Then the former Olympian says, 'Don't go there, this is not the issue. I was defending myself. It was a distraction from the sense of who I was, that doesn't mean I didn't love you or the kids.'

Throughout Sunday night's episode Caitlyn is shown getting into arguments with her stepchildren, first with Kim and then with Khloe.

When Kim comes to visit Caitlyn first complains about how her family had all kept their distance.

She said: 'Nobody's come out [to visit], Kourtney hasn't made a move at all, obviously Khloe hasn't come close - I feel so isolated out here. All of a sudden there's this wall that's up there.

'I just want everybody to be happy. I love, love, love all my kids. I wish you guys were here every **** day.'

But it is not long before Caitlyn is also being criticized, firstly due to her nature and then due to what she has said about her family to Vanity Fair.

Kim said: 'You still have a little Bruce in you. I thought Caitlyn would be a little kinder. I think that there's some things that you said that you might not realize are hurtful.

'You said that Kendall and Kylie were a distraction. When they read that - I don't know that they'll quite understand that.'

The conversation then turned to Kim's manager mother, with explosive results.

Kim said: '[The interview] said, "had Kris been accepting to who I am, we still would be together" - and that is the most unfair thing in the world to say.

'You're a woman now and she is not a lesbian - she does not want to be with a woman, that's not fair to ask.'

Caitlyn defensively insisted: 'As time went on our relationship changed drastically. In my eyes it's like, "Well, I don't need him any more - I've got all the girls." I felt it in the way she treated me. She wanted me out of the house.'

Kim, insisting Caitlyn should have been thrilled and saying 'good riddance' to a relationship that 'wasn't mean to be', told her: 'If I was with someone for 25 years I would look for the positive things and try to end it on a good note.

'You said "Kris mistreated me" - it sounded like she beat the s**t out of you. You could have a little more respect.'

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/princess-formal-dresses

www.marieaustralia.com/blue-formal-dresses

If you were a corpse accepting cremation
               I would be the flame
                             that lavishly licked your flesh,
         the heat, heaped for your hair on a pyre
the last peril your boney body submits to,
making the air all around stink of you.

Forget the fact that you corrupt my mind,
             it’ll only work out if your thoughts stink of me.

                                       If for one second during
                        your self worshipping, wistful stares
          into a mirror that drips a musty condensation
                       that lingered from your skinny, ****
                         torso after your morning shower, you
                                stand there smile *******
                          yourself with puckered lips and
          un-dilated pupils, flirting with
                          camera phone pixels you think to yourself;

                                                     * Should I post me on myspace?
                               Should I send a text message pic to myself?
                 Should I forward it to that guy that I met
           to make him think that I’m burning for him?*

                             If for that second I could be but that spark,
                an after thought flare that gets you to want
                    more than what it is that you got,
                                          where would you go?

             With whom would you make yourself over?

I’m waiting for the morning your ashes
      wake next to me; smoldered and spread out over my

          mattress and under my breath, and
           your eye lashes charred with clunky mascara
                 crumble as you replay in your silly head
                          the late mass I celebrated last night
                                                   when I exhumed and inhaled
                                    that same condensation;
      
Little taste droplets of you then exhaled  
          from me to your golden tin flesh
     that burned you to ******.
      
                    Because of my tempered tongue you
               cravingly bathed with,
     because of your hair I feverishly wrapped
                round my fists as
         my head altered and smoothed out from whiskey  
    bounced waves of frivolous  

thrusts      pulls releases,  
           pushes      twitches              friction

                                                in perfect timed fashion
                                                between your radio
                
                  antenna       thin           legs  
      and your rib meat torso
you forced my lips unto.

                                                           That will be the night
                                   you will come.
                                                               Yeah, that’s right            

                 SEE                  YOU                    MMM-hmmm,

                                I will see you melt on that night.
                                         And it will be your cremation.

I want to go to the circus with him and fail at the tricks at home
I want to dance in the rain with him and jump in puddles in gumboots
I want to climb trees with him with binoculars and look over the lake
I want to build a pillow fort with him, with Disney movies and chocolate

Something took a hold of me right in the moment
I accidentally got lost in those eyes first time looking into them
His smile made so happy and I think he noticed because he smiled more
I literally felt sparks and a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart

I didn't plan on this happening, far out
I swore to only fall inlove with myself
Too much pain and love is so overrated
But it was beyond my control

And then cupid's arrows kept hitting me
Just a moment in the pouring rain
I saw myself and a billion adventures together in him
A deep urge to hug him came over me

He's so dorky and cute and sweet and innocent
He wears a big clunky watch and is good at maths and computers
He does acoustic covers of Of Monsters and Men songs
He runs around like a maniac in PE and bashes up his friends playfully

There is no definition and there aren't any rules for love
If you think a person is just the bee's knees, that's love
I'm only young but I know an awesome person when I see one
And God will always hold my heart but man, this human... I adore him

I feel stupid for letting another person contain some of MY own joy
I feel so scared that I fell for just the idea of him like I have once before
But ugh, words can't describe how content my heart is
I refuse to say he erased my pain, because let's not be naive, but wow


One day I hope we get to conquer the world in our pillow fortress


<3

It started with existence

just a lowly perspective of a mute
time when I was able to
make sense of this pressure
make sense of why
you are now here to guide me now
on this looser journey; a lonely crabapple
still grappling at shriveled skin creating a face
that I still
cannot
distinguish.
With the end of presence as we know it
you have finished, rightly
in my dressing room
bright screen lit up
but only for a moment do I dare look away.

It started with you, and it will end with you

Closed off from me, shortly
your bioluminescence radiant,
your perfection incomplete.
I’ve known you for six straight years
or was it five
just enough
construed construction, a bloated
piece of mind that left me free to wander
aimlessly down I path I cannot recognize.
It was you who caused my blunder,
keeping me awake every night
with your brightness and distraction and amiable personality.
I decorated you with bits of me,
tangled in and out like woven webs of cybernetics
optimal connections, you died twice and I revived you.
But that was in the past
and you still cling on, for how much longer
I shan’t not know.
Only that what it means to exist
when I should be letting go.
I have to face the trust of reality and its weakened points;
that dangerous, well-formed world I find myself in.
I hope you can follow me
as long as you are able,
my clunky plastic compadre
your heart is metal mixed with other
kinds of fragile contraptions.
I know this end to my happiness is not your fault.
You were there when I needed you most,
even if you are a tool of innocence turned foul.
I once learned all of existence from your knowledge,
gleaned myself raw
trying to let you help me
understand myself.
We are not truly over because I am bound to you
somehow
even though I’ve used you for my own gain
abused your trust and have my own heart slain.

All I ask is for you to give me a chance
to make it right

again.

And then I can move on to better things.

And not be obsessed of what you think of me.

And find a way to pull myself together.

Metal contraption, I dutifully climb into you each day as the sun rises
and drive your clunky frame through the hills of a crowded campus
to face the questions and stares of the kindhearted and heartless.

I prefer you in short increments and, on weekdays only please
but I’m strapped into your metal ways at almost all times
and jostle along with each bump and crack in the sidewalk.

I hold tight to your rubber arms as we travel down the steep hills
and plow you through old man winters blinding white ways
for long stretches, in between short, fitful summers

I’m not pretending that I never curse you, because I do,
for sticking in gravel, grass and grout, breaking down
every Monday, or your front wheel falling off again

and yet you carry me faithfully to and from school and home
where I jump to the floor and embrace freedom and movement
until I climb again from bed and into mobility and its adventurous ways.

Your crooked smile flows upward
and I can see it from the ground.
Haunting myself with
a film teacher's creature feature
in black and white,
an old orchestra for sound.

You said you'd get nervous
when on our clunky telephone;
saying that customer service
could hear the fibers
in your voice
rustle like tall, dry grass,
with a wind whispering through
confirming, with every breath,
that you feel alone.

We'd recite fifties sitcoms:
Honey, do you --
do you have the keys?
Well, gee whillikers,
I could use someone to
open me, close me, and
dispose of me, please.

I write this for no one,
which is the category you fall in.

Sincerely,
signed Issues,
P.S. The television
is in color,
and I don't miss you.

- There ain't hope in the U,
the S is for Show me your soul,
the A is for Always forget:
the United States of
Killing it, Killing it -

I don’t want to know about your ex
Don’t want to know about your daddy
Or your ******* coworkers or customers
Or your catty friends

Stop

Tonight begins the future

Some believe a wall against your back
Creates desperation
But it can also spark urgency
Clear the phlegm of memory
It can  protect
Your vulnerabilities  
Focus your vision

When getting jumped
First thing you scan for is a car or wall
The fists and kicks might ****** down
From everywhere like stony blizzards
But the pain is peripheral
Not ethereal
You’ll have a chance to dodge and block

Stop

Tonight begins the future

A future empty of splinters/thorns/shards
Of muscle aches, fatigue, or tremors
Of gooey ***, tar heroine, clunky *****
Dismembered torsos, sliced ears, dangling eyes
Red **** and blacker kisses

In turn I won’t burden you
With my *******
Won’t convert you into an airport carousel
I won’t unload
My unkempt baggage
Upon your frail façade
Turning turning turning
In circles
As weary passengers shuffle
To and fro
Frantically
Beneath buzzing phosphorescent

Stop

Tonight begins the future

Open and free
Like air over mountains
Like clocks un-tocked
Like silence hovering around the corner
A seed buried in ****** soil
A dream light has yet to touch


*Tonight begins our future

I stepped out of my comfort zone,
And appeared in a ship caught in a storm;
I wanted to tell a story through prose, never known,
But my mind froze and searched somewhere warm.

I went to leave the delicate flower of poetry
In which I have found comfort within the lines.
Fields full in bloom with poetic prosperity.
The flow of stream keeping rhythm in time.

I brought my bare feet to observe from rough peaks,
Overlooking the blank page expanded with power.
Preparing to leave on this journey for weeks,
Leaving the comfort of my sweet fields of flower.

Setting doubts aside, I set my pixie soul to sail,
Becoming narrative of chunky, clunky prose.
Daunted and haunted on a foreign ship to prevail,
I heard poetry beckon through bitter winds that arose.

Though I do respect prose, it is not a flow that I know.
It expands endlessly, like the heart of the sea.
My narration is rhythm, and wherever I go,
The flowers of poetry call back to me.

I soon jumped ship to be at peace where I roam,
Among the enchanting patterns of flowering fields.
I listen again to the trickle of the river, I'm home,
Channeling poetic prosperity this pixie wields.

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there was a rip in my stockings,
inner limb, long and exposed.

"i like your tights"

clunky boots, shorts, a skirt, a dress.
i was wearing them when your fingers played
with my insides.
legs long enough to drown in,
did you imagine them tangled, bruised?
my thighs are my gems, they will quiver,
damp under the sheer, ripped, flowered, polka-dotted
material.

daddy, lover, with your palms along
my calves, your teeth ridging the edge.
baby boy, with your nails tearing my hips.

i will be your black-eyed beauty.
the night you spoke my name in inked lights,
the night your lips tasted like cigarettes and chocolate,
my tights shredded.


knee high socks and blood red lipstick,
i’ve been wearing nothing but ripped
tights.

"Actually smearing grape jelly on your body and
running backwards in a cornfield doesn't sound half bad"

He said...

Looking forlorn outside a single glazed cracked window
comforted by burnt toast with jam
birch leaves laden with rain
carrying the weight of the heavens
blistered in angst and the Memoirs of The Sad
awash in the broken remnants of forgotten pain.

"in this pocket I have an itsy tiny universe
encased in an iridescent blue marble"

He said...

The Bearded Glaswegian Baptist evokes the reminiscent's
of a time before when we were all beard-less
lost in the dithering embryonic stutter mumble of life
diving gulls dunking for forgotten baubles and clear cut skulls

"I'd love to crush my ribs in this little beauty"

She said...

Stolen transmits of other worldly delights
like the chastity of a whale bone corset
strapped between the clunky and broad duty
of land licked silken shrouded soft moonlight

"so he totally set light to the kitchen table cloth
blowing out those candles and for some unknown reason
the family all gave a cheer. Thank God for Morphine"

They said...

Hiding in the sheltered shadows camouflaged in errors
mottled by the hues of indecision and impractical precision
lie the instabilities of truth in a blend of Codeine and Jasmine

"My brain cells keep fighting with each other! Poetry and Beer!"

She said...

Outcries of the exalted, bathed in salted peanuts
and yesterdays microwave meal
and the welcome stench of random ***
vibrates the very cherry of the soul and brings it to tears

"Enter the Dragon always makes me think of ******* Maggie Thatcher
*Christ that was a horrible night"

He said...

The shivers of monumental disgust run like an odious puddle
thoughts go out for Dennis knitting his escape hatch
and the unpronounceable muddle that befits the grave of beasts
and the microscopic sentiments of utter shameless sights

"Except for the offspring, soap and shampoo, This [all] makes sense"

Was the death knell...

Lost in ageless rhymes in legion soaked in the punishable treason
Purified by the age of reason and magnified by the madness of time
to think that any of the world makes sense at all if this is a slice
think twice before engaging the brain, and hence
if this is normal for you then at least
I know
Im actually sane.

The man on the phone
told him that rent was due
by five o'clock
rent which was not there
but five was seven hours away
and he had this feeling
that seven hours was a good distance
to put between him and Richmond
so he packed up his clothes
his old jeans and plaid button downs
and his typewriter
that old clunky *******
which made such sweet music
he stuffed it all into a backpack
and left his keys in the apartment
as the door closed for him
for the last time

He left Virginia behind
and headed west
he spent a night or two in Memphis
drinking cheap bourbon from a plastic bottle
and dancing with some pretty little thing
as Johnny Cash played over the radio
He took his car
and passed through
Fort Smith Arkansas
but he didn't stay too long
He made a few bucks
cleaning glasses in a ****** old bar
in Oklahoma City
sleeping in the small room
upstairs
He made it to Amarillo Texas
and thought that he might just stay
under the dead pan
Texas sun
but he was restlessly being chased
by his memories and fears
His car broke down
in Albuquerque
so he hopped on a train
heading to Phoenix
but Phoenix was tough
and alien
and he got footloose
real quick
He hitched out of there
with a ****** cardboard sign
which read simply
"West"
and he met some strangers
and made some new friends
before he found himself
in fallen angel country
Hollywood heart breaks
and smog covered starlight
with no more road left to travel
he'd been coast to coast
he settled down
like the pioneers who came before him
and burned his maps
just a *****,
road weary,
traveler
with a typewriter
and dusty worn jeans
a traveler who made his way home

For almost two years we’ve been sitting on a conveyor belt
Heading straight for the potato peeler, which will
Slice right through our thickened skins and puncture our vitals;
A cold cruel machine designed to sit
In industrial kitchens
Waiting for Sodexo’s next batch.

But we—
We’re from the farmer’s market and we are not
Four inches in diameter and six inches in length.
We are clunky. We are knobbled. We are
Purpleyellow and we are waterysweet.
We are not
Iowabland or a poem of rhyming couplets, yeah
We are free verse and we

Had *** because we’re friends.
Or maybe because
We love each other
In one way or another.
Or maybe because we’re lost
Or maybe all of the above, yeah—I don’t know, I just know

The potato peeler won’t accept us for a second.
That mechanical grip, slicing slicing slicing,
A fumbling tumbling in countless browntowhite progression,
It won't accept
Our color, our flavor, our beautiful swirling eyes,
And for a while I didn't either.
But whether we have two more months on the belt or twenty years,
I know that our knobbled progression to nowhere
Will have been one of everywhere.

they write poems about
boys who are flowers and
sunlight or oceans and salt spray
boys who are soft and lovely

when they write poems about
men they are all whiskey and
loud voices or sneers and fists
men who are angry and violent

i’ve yet to read a poem
about someone like you
because they don’t write poems
about people who just are
who they are with no
exceptions or exclamations

i call you my boy
because you’re soft
but you’re really a man
(the clunky boots prove that)

but now that i’m writing this
poem i hesitate to call you
a man because heaven forbid
anyone think you
are made of sharp angles
and muddy truck beds

and i was scared
because they say men
carry guns and threats
and aspartame compliments
and condoms
in their wallets

but you just carry
a coffee cup
a smart phone
with stickers on the case
and a tiny spatula hanging
on your keys

so i handed you my heart
not ripped out but
scored and carefully
torn around the edges
slightly warm and still
faintly bearing

and you took it
held it in your hand
smiled at it
smiled at me

and placed it in one
of your pockets
under the phone
and the keys and
the wallet and
the coffee mug where
it couldn’t possibly
fall out

and let it warm for awhile
waited for the beat to
grow back stronger
until you held it fully
circulating and rejuvenated
but you didn’t hold on

you handed it back
set it gently in the
hole i had left
in my chest

and i felt the blood
start pouring through
my veins like i never believed
was possible for me

and i swear that even though
you said i could keep my
heart if i wanted to
i swear that i would
give it back to you
again and again
for the rest
of my life

along with the rest of me
my body and soul
completely
you can have me
no guarantees
just me

cracked open and sometimes
still the blood seeps out
but i am healing and learning
to trust that you will
hold me while i continue
to learn to trust myself

growing is painful
and messy and sometimes
people grow a little
bit crooked

but it’s okay for me
to cry on your shoulder
instead of alone
where the darkness
chokes and claws
through my throat

it’s okay for me
to grow
it’s okay for me
to love you

to love my boy
whose eyes are the sky
to love my man
whose hands are the earth

my boy who still watches cartoons
and plays video games til late
and my man who answers my questions
even if he has to look them up

my boy who leaves love bites
on my neck like we’re in junior high
and my man who will go downtown at
midnight to get concealer for them

my boy who buys me nugs
my man who cooks me dinner
my boy with his single dimple
my man with his scruffy beard

my man with his sturdy
strong hands
my boy who makes up silly
names for things

my boy who teases me mercilessly
and my man who hugs me tight until
the panic passes and stands
beside me when i’m afraid

i still get butterflies in
my stomach when you
walk in unexpectedly
and on days when the
sun doesn’t shine you
still make me smile

so here is a poem about
a boy made of orange september
sunlight and april afternoons
kisses on cheeks
rosemary and lemon zest

a poem about a man made
of electric july nights
a crunch on january snow
fluffy white smoke clinging to the ceiling
shimmering glass swirls of orange peel

i am fiercely
inadequate at expressing
concrete emotions

but the emotion you evoke
in me is a tidal wave of
calm and chaos all at once
and if the world were burning
i’d like to go down with your
mouth still on mine

it’s yours
everything i’ve got
you can have
anything for you

my boy
my man
my whole world

Leong's watching TikTok on her laptop (as always) and she asks Lisa (a NYC girl) “Are you familiar with the the “downtown girl” aesthetic?”
Lisa’s dismissive, “Yeah, it just looks like Urban Outfitters grunge to me.”
Leong explains, “It includes headphones and it’s supposed to be a Lower Manhattan style.”
“Yeah,” Lisa snorts, “Because Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side are SO cohesive.”

Lisa considers herself an Uptown girl (like the song) even though 59th Street, where she lives, is the border between Uptown and Midtown Manhattan. I’m learning that these distinctions are culturally key to New Yorkers.

“And,” Lisa adds, “why would someone wear, and lug around, giant, clunky headphones when you can use AirPods??”
“Amen sister.” I proclaim and even Leong nods in agreement.

“Later, Sunny, Leong and I are on a study break, eating salads and talking about who we hope Yale invites to the next “Spring Fling” concert. We aren’t being realistic; we’re covering who we wish would come. I’d named Charlie Puth, “Kat-Tun!” Leong squealed (A Japanese boy band - apparently Chinese girls LOVE their boybands) and Sunny countered with Ed Sheeran.

“I don’t like Ed Sheeran,” I mumbled, making a yuck-face.
“Why no Ed?” Sunny gasps with shock (She’s a big Ed fangirl).
“I don’t know,” I shrugged, “he’s a star by all measurable metrics,” I admit, “but,” I fade out.
“You want my theory on Ed hate?” Sunny offered, “He’s beyond talented vocally - whoever your favorite artist is, Ed’s probably not that far behind. He’s a stellar song writer and he’s making hit after hit; do you want my theory?”
“Too basic, too popular?” I guess.
“No, he’s not appealing to the gaze,” Sunny states.
“The gays?” Leong questions, stepping back into the conversation.
“No,” Sunny corrects, “the gaze - G-A-Z-E, he doesn’t try to look pretty all the time.”
“Ha!” I snort, “Gaze, I thought you meant gays too,” as Leong and I chuckle together.
“No,” Sunny laughs, “nothing like THAT. Ed’s just not trying to be a heartthrob, he knows that’s not his core strong point - and that’s why he’s discounted.”
“Like lesbians don’t comb their hair or wear makeup and wear pajamas to class” Leong observes, “they don’t want to attract the male gaze?”
“No, we’re not imbued by the male gaze.” Sunny states, “Ed just wants to lowkey.”

The silky strings of empathic poetry
wind thier way through my mind to my fingertips,
In turn each caress hums electricity
and glowing reverberated letters form
the beauty of eloquence reserved for greats, restrained.
Instead the satin pearls lay sprawled
gathered with elcectric tweed and tied with pixel yarn
with clunky pebbles inbetween ,
the pearls calling to each other
to dance together on the electric string,
and the pebbles beg for polish
in order for thier beauty to sing.
I however,will not.
For they are eloquence and beauty to me,
and are as my creative souls expression
faultless in the delivery of my first truth,
in all art born of soul and heart
simply
elegantly evocative in the highest perfection
of the electrons clumsily,
imperfectly formed birth of
inspirations.

X's dim bedroom featured two tones: olive skin and rind of lime. Like her walls, her sheets and comforter clashed. The contrast in color reminded me of 80's clothing.
In her room, X smoked cigarettes that tasted like a mechanic's finger. A clunky radio played 24/7.
  "Do your parents know you smoke in here?" I said.
  "What?" She said.
  Her parents were phantoms. She barely knew them, which makes me barely able to describe them. A week ago, I asked what they looked like. She shrugged and said she'd check the side of a milk carton.
  *** was the only thing that connected us. We took turns touching each other like we were being dared to run our finger through an open flame. I said I loved her. She said not to be silly.

Sleepless in Seattle on my mind and in my feelings,
Making me feel moody and 90's,
Chunky belts and colorful, dark sweater,
Old airports in family comedies,
Big clunky landline phones,
When Harry Met Sally and I watched it on a plane for the first time last summer.
Baroque in my headphones and 1950's swing playing from the ceiling

Girls talking loud, so important,
Deciding options for their next photo shoot,
sweet and divine making their plans.

And me
Silently observing, enjoying

If I were an overweight man
probably
I would be creepy

But I am a nice package

They're in L.A. for the weekend.
Oh, they've been to London and "her boyfriend is an *******"
She wore the baby blue, "it was my mother's", and it brings out her eyes
Why is he friend's with Madeline?
She's a *****
But we like her. She's very bold.

Plans laid and heading out. Good for them.

And I'm still here.
Ache in my neck,
Baroque in my ears (because I heard it improves learning and slows heart rate),
This anti-poem coming from my fingertips

Alone in this cafe and now the mood has shifted.

The first thing he smelt was charred ash. A dour, stale smell that drifted in the air, staining the walls and ceiling of the room like a bad birthmark. If you'd have asked him 3 weeks ago prior to today never would he have considered smoking. That was before the bad thing had happened, and now he was puffing away 20 a day like a run-down steam engine.

Stacks of crumpled cigarette packets and empty beer bottles cluttered the floor, along with discarded business cards that seemed to taunt his name, William Shaw, with a bitter humour whenever he looked at them. He had it all - money, a career, an established identity, and yet never had he felt so lost, so meaningless. It seemed the period before when the black event occurred, when the tone and texture of life had suddenly dimmed like being turned down by a dial, was merely a gold and fragile vail, strung up in front of realities true, decrepit, face. A face that had clawed it's way through the happiness, the blistering rays of the summer sunshine, the mounting financial wealth and job promotions, like a pathetic wall of paper plastered over a back street entry.

The first thing he saw when he awoke this morning was the tan coloured ceiling of his flat. Through the sleep induced blurry vision of eyes that have not fully woke, this looked strangely like a vast desert, the minute crack that lay in the middle stretching before his tired eyes into a huge smiling ravine. It reminded him of the grand canyon, something as a child he'd always wanted to visit. He had spent a lot of his school holidays, and acrylic paint and canvases, drawing pictures of it, inspired by its many twists and curves, imagining it as an entrance to another mystical world below where dinosaurs and other creatures hid from the world above.

To a child creativity is essentially their way of interpreting life, and coming to terms with it, and for William Shaw the thing that got those cogs whirring was nature itself. He'd write stories, draw and paint pictures, and whilst his skill at all these was clumsy, his imagination was striking adept, confusing and wowing his parents who had been expecting a crude stick man drawing but instead were presented with a clunky, Van Gogh-style picturesque scene. Being an artist isn't all about the skill, anyone can perfect brush strokes, but looking at the ordinary and somehow visualising the extraordinary.

He never ended up going to the canyon, nor anywhere else for that matter - his mother was unemployed, utilising her time by taking piano lessons and gardening, and his father was a forklift driver at a logistics company. Barring the one-time trip to a seaside holiday camp, where the apartments had smelt of salt and the bedding was scratchy, Will had never been on holiday as a child.

But that was okay, he told himself, they struggled but never neglected me. Now, lying here as the amber hues of dawn startled trickling through the middle of the curtains, those days all seemed like a distant dream. Breaking down financially, they were exhausted and living in worry, yet he went on all the school trips, always had milk money and a cooked dinner waiting for him when he got home.

I have more than I could ever want, and had then, so why do I feel like this?

He knew why, it was because of the bad thing. It had lodged itself inside him, like a festering tumour. No amount of running or distracting himself would make it any better; it would be like running a race against a car or a train.

Or a speeding bullet -

[Hush! Don't want to think about that]

And it was in that split moment he felt an image rising to the surface, callous and cold - a champagne glass exploding into a shower of shards, and oh the screams all he could hear was their screams rising like a tidal wave, ready to submerge, to drown -

BANG BANG!!

He rose with a jolt and glanced over to the digital clock which blinked 8:49 in the far corner. He was running late again and needed to get a move on if he was to arrive at work on time. He hadn't been late ever, but over this week getting up had been a struggle. Sleep just seemed more of a priority right now.

He grabbed a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, grimacing as the acrid taste filled his mouth. The first was always the worst; causing slight nausea as the nicotine rushed to your head. However the feeling of airlessness afterwards was amazing, temporarily stunning all the nerves in your brain, giving a confused floating feeling only drugs can better. His best mate John, who'd subsequently introduced him to smoking, often said the best cigarette of the day is the first as the 12 hour sleep hiatus allowed the brain to detoxify itself, thus catalysing the nicotine rush. The fact John also thought the Queen was an alien and that Donald Trump should be president made Will take his advice with a pinch of salt - but, in regards to smoking, he was almost spot on.

Much like himself, John was quite a skinny guy with a shock of scruffy black hair receding even though he was in his late twenties, and his black outlook on life often contradicted his bubbly personality. Will had known him for years since high school, and knew full well his stupid and often sarcastic jokes hid the darker side to him; John had served time in prison for a theft he didn't commit and, although he wouldn't admit it, had lapsed into a drug addiction upon his release. The slight gaunt dips in his cheeks said it all.

Looking at him coping, just, and carrying on filled Will with both admiration and guilt. His best friend was spiralling into a whirlpool right under his nose, and the worse part of all - he couldn't do anything about it. Again the feeling of helplessness, of meaninglessness, was there gnawing away like a bloated sewer rat.

He took another drag and glanced again to the clock. Now it read 8:57, almost grinning at him from the other side of the room.

Better get a shifty on, and with that he stubbed the cigarette out and stumbled toward the bathroom, catching his toe and cursing as he went.

We flood into the auditorium like a frenzied herd of animals, pushing at the gates. We crowd each other, everyone frantically stumbling into seats. My anxiety isn't nearly as binding as one would think it would be and my mind goes into a state of total strategy.

2 minutes to get to the girl upstairs

I map out battle plans, trying to see if it would even be possible to reach my best friend on the third floor. Only four floor above me, and yet this is the farthest from her I've felt in years.

1 minute to get the library

My dreams of being a hero to the girl I have loved since the second grade plummet, just like my heart, and my leg bounces nervously. Libraries have always been safe. Libraries have always been home. But not even books can help me this time.

30 minutes to get to the sanctuary

Home is so far away that it isn't even an option I should allow myself to consider. I consider my grandmother at home alone, and I wonder if she's thinking of me. I wonder if she is even aware that her granddaughter is holed up behind auditorium walls, daydreaming about escape plans instead of cute boys. Trying to pass on comfort, instead of passing notes.

1 minute to get to the makeup room

I know this part of the school better than anywhere else. The theatre is sacred, and I have dedicated my life to the stories on the stage. The makeup room is where my friends share everything from stories to eyeliner to hairbrushes to kisses. It is a room built for anxiety, and pre-show jitters. I wonder if it would calm the nerves I have now.

30 seconds to get to the wood room

It's interesting that the rooms that have been my safe places for years, could truly be my safe havens as I wait for attack. The room hidden under the stage is dusty, and full of dismantled sets and large, clunky monitors. I would if those monitors would let me see the action, like watching a film from the safety of your home, watching reality from the safety of four concrete walls.

15 seconds to get to the scene shop

It's the safest place in the school. I have spent a lifetime in there, washing paint off of hands. I wonder if I could ever look at that mess sink the same way, if I had to use it to clean blood off instead. I consider the way this day has changed all of these rooms forever. Will I ever wipe down a makeup room counter without imagining hiding beneath it? Will I ever check out a book without imagining using it for a shield? Will I ever see my best friend's face without imaging myself jumping in front of a bullet? This day, no matter the outcome, has invaded my most sacred spaces, and turned this school into an battle ground. I pray that it will not turn the school into a graveyard.

A muffled voice lets out a sigh on the teacher's radio. The herd stands back up, and we return to our lives. Everyone is safe. My mind shuts off the timer, stops counting the seconds, erases the maps.

The space between me and the world doesn't seem quite as important anymore.

I'm whistling you a tune to waft into.
Some say to walk with the wind on your heels.
I don't do that.
I crash forward with clunky, massive steps
cracking concrete,
shattering asphalt and charging onward like a directionless bull.
If anything, I barrel into you like a semi off a freeway.
You smile and say you never knew what hit you.
You fall backwards.
As I run towards, you cave in.
I'm pressing my lips against you with something akin to force.
(the desperation of the intoxicated)
I burrow into your chest trying to make a place to hide in.
You sigh and fall to pieces;
crumble into dust to lay in.

The bell rings.
I am one of the many cows that herd towards the door,
mooing impatiently to exit.
By entering into the hallway,
I find you easily
because I know where to search,
and we have grown accustomed to
picking each other out in crowds.
Our eyes lock for a fleeting second,
then we both find a spot on the floor to inspect
as we wait for me to
make my way towards your stationary self
and your pocketed hands. Step after clunky step.
Once I arrive, in place of exchanging greetings,
our bodies 180 turn and make our way among fellow cows.
Our lanky walks fall in sync with each other, clumsy
in all the same places.
We walk side by side together. This is routine.
We do this every day. Two among a herd of cows.
Moral of the story:
To everyone else, we are nobody.
To each other, we are somebody.
The favorite part of my day is knowing someone is there
Waiting for me to find my way to them.
The best part is I always do.

Ghosts

The ghosts float about
sometimes above my head
sometimes in my chest
they wrap themselves
Oh to be lycan
I saw a wolf in the northwest covered with snow
blue eyes looking right through me
as if to say wake up you stupid human
stuck in the mud
float in snow my man!
I feel the heat on my inner thighs
creeping upward tickling enticing
as if the summer is trying to peak its head
through cold winter soil
the shiny black snake coils
around my ankles
squeezes telling me to be not afraid
of the primordial divine impulse
to take my earthiness and embrace it
bring it to the heavens where it belongs
with my spirit.

The Woman

The long thin silk scarf around her neck
***** and flies off her left shoulder
like angel wings in the wind
caresses my cheek and neck
wants me within her feminine self.
Ah! what sweetness to behold!
her soft skin gentlizes me
takes my hairy clunky body
lifts it into my dreams
into her moistness.

Awake

And now I am awake
to spring in its irrepressible green
daffodils at the base of the pear tree
direct my eyes from earth to sky
like an organic gothic arch
long puffy clouds stand still
against the bright azure sky
heaven on earth.

It was 3 degrees outside
She wore a purple fuzzy headband that seemed to cover her entire head
Her large and puffy grey coat went to her knees
A grey turtleneck underneath
And those clunky duck boots
While everyone else smiled at the weekend at 3 on a Friday
She looked confused
I could only imagine what she was thinking about

It was 58 degrees outside
The headband gone
She has blonde hair that’s up in a ponytail more often than it isn’t
The coat is gone but the turtleneck is still there
It’s striped this time
She still wears the duck boots since the snow is melting away
And there are puddles with every step
She’s smiling and laughing on the phone
Trying to explain directions
I can only imagine who she’s talking to

I can see it
I can see my future in the way her hair is flipping back and forth as she walks
I can see my future in the way her face lights up when she laughs
I can see my future in the way she curls her hands into her sleeves
I can see my future in how she tries to avoid a puddle but then steps into a deeper one
I can see my future in the way that puddle ripples around her
I can see my future in the way the melting snow seems to glimmer when she passes it

I learned she got the headband for free once
When she spent too much money at her favorite store
Her grey coat is a family company she’s obviously loyal to
The grey turtleneck is from the place she got the headband from
Obviously, she tells me with an eye roll and a laugh
The duck boots keep her feet dry, even if they’re not very warm
She looked confused because she was leaving economics, her hardest class
She had just learned a new concept that all of her classmates understood
But for some reason, she couldn’t wrap her head around it

She likes that her hair is blonde
But knows it’ll turn brown one day, like her mom
So she gets highlights put in, knowing it won’t help, but hopes anyway
She’s always wearing turtlenecks because she’s always cold
It’s from the same store as the other one
Obviously
The duck boots are her favorite and her feet like them too much to wear other shoes
She’ll never admit it
But she steps in the deeper puddles on purpose because she likes how they splash
She was on the phone with her friend from high school
Directing her to the lot to park in
She’s staying over this weekend

I was right when I said my future was in her
It’s in the hair
The jacket
The turtlenecks
The headband
The boots
The confused look
The happy one
The eye roll
The laugh
The puddles
The snow
My future is her

Death becomes you,
So modest and frail
Caressing Last Rites
Laid out in Braille  

Wearing a gray suit
Free hand pulling the hem taut  
Clunky black shoes
Hair tied in a knot

Distress's mistress
With barren lips
Lust glistening from her eyes
Cleverly drips

Mouth opened just enough
To notice the absence of sound
Seized words  
Left in impound

A last little twitch
Consumes an entire room
Giving away spring
Before the lilac had a chance to bloom

If nice guys finish last
Than I would move my feet
I would travel mountains
Just to make us meet
But I am just a face here
Interactions forced through screens
Clunky social sites
Stupide jokes
Fake laughs and meme’s
And you won’t really see me
Unless you let me try
But I feel all alone here
And close enough to cry
Because no one ever sees me
No one seems to care
You might pass me by
Just like empty air
Well it’s all your loss
I’m a great good guy
I may not be perfect
But I sure as **** will try
I’d make you my princess
If you dare to pass me up
You’d be all alone
And that’s just tough luck
Cause I would travel mountain
Just to help you by
I would do it all
Just to be your guy
Kiss you when you’re sick
Kiss me when I’m sad
If we could stick together
Things wouldn’t seem so bad
And we’d take on the world
Whether happy or mad
And knowing
Looking back
That we would both be glad
Cause you didn’t pass me up
You gave me a good chance
You saw me through the screen
And thought
I’ll try this guy
I guess

Swat the butterflies whose wings
Decieve the poem and inscribes
Its colored brilliance on gilded flights;
There is no grace to his clunky
Flying and brings repetitive hooplah
To the natural poem and steals
Its personable voice.

Every language has a flow of poetry
Whose inner soul derives of the
Course of one's harmony and rhythm,
And using a star of butterflies in every
Poem brings about the very sameness
We all suffer from daily.

See the beauty in a vulture
Whose glide is magnificent
Spreading his wings in silent
Flight above rolling hills.

His beauty is not that of the
Butterfly, but it's flight is undeniably
Graceful and finding its natural
Poetic flow is deeper still.