My father's long fingers smooth
over the aged scratchy pleats.
The Kilt is magnificent. It has the
fleeting beauty that only a well
kept antique has, that warm
firelight glow of the past.
It has a few scuffs and holes,
but the somber reds and greens of
clan Mackintoish have settled into
the cloth and darkened pleasantly.
The kilt is always the most important detail,
it has passed from grandfather down,
and it looks as handsome now
as in the sepia photographs on our shelves.
The dirks black ornate hilt rests
heavily against his hip, and the
belt is cinched tightly to hold it up.
you can practically hear bagpipes
My grandfather's dark green cotton socks
sit near the top of my father's calf
and he leans over to adjust the frills.
And as his tan wrinkled brow furrows
in concentration, and his admittedly
attractive white whiskers scrape
across his collar, and the image
nears completion, the drum beats louder.
Reaching up from the ancient past
and grasping the future in tradition,
the ghosts of ancestors enter his poise,
and he suddenly appears less like
my father and takes on the swagger
of a cocky fisherman, of pirate.
He is swinging swords
and playing pipes, and cobbling, and
setting stones upright in ancient
forgotten ritual, and tossing cabers.
I know looking at him now,
what my own ghosts will be
when my time comes.

Dizzy, the rush
of thoughts incapacitate
synapses firing, neurons
    throttled, a crescendo
    of dendrites branching

Experience roots
inwardly, tearing the humus
           of pregnant dreams, scratching to see
                               the blood beneath the scab.

     The greater the itch, the greater
        the disturbance of sleep,
            bound by a tangle of vines,
            deafened by the cobbling-together
                of thrushspeak, the cry of clouds
                contorting into unthinkable
                     and suggestive shapes        

   Bleary-eyed, the lost wages
   of sleep gambled away
   on a ticking clock.

None other than him
matters here at the noon.
The sun is an out and out autocrat
the sky, he singularly rules,without
any apology to anyone.
He has banished all the clouds;
not even the faint trace of
fluffy, milky  white strands
seemingly unstoppable
till the far horizon.

This is when his hidden
intention to scorch all at sight
is at it's atrocious peak,
which would lead to his decline.

Under the low hanging sky
the earth parched dry,
is a cry for mercy.Sun now is
a roaring water fall of heat
waves lash one after the other.

The village of thatched mud huts
stand dazed, like it's women
in this ascending symphony of pain
not feeling any difference of tune,
this is what it always been.
It's a living miracle, it  still exists
fighting the vagaries of winds and the sun
not willing to collapse as dunes of dust,
which would have been a better solution.

The little girls from a school
the only secret this village keeps,
in midday break pour out
like ants from  hidden anthills,
scurrying to all directions, trying
to cheat the wind spitting fire.

A frail old woman, her skin
sun scorched,dark,
deeply furrowed and folded
a true face  of resistance
life capable of in the face of
the attack of armies of obliteration,
sweating all over, sits under a tamarind tree
all twigs and only few patches of weak green,
cobbling for a living, as if it is her day last here.

Cobbling the letters like nails into shoes we could use,
we hobble confused
hammered
abused by the thought
caught in the flow and words as we know
are cruel and kind, like
silk lined sows ears sobbing like tears in the dust but we must
continue to hammer away
cutting into each day as we cut into our heart to impart what we think and the ink turns to blood
because we knew that it would.
It is our life.

Hunched over in this Bastille dwelling
cobbling out words stitching to a page
day after ----------------------------------                              
            day after ------------------------              
                        day after--------------
                                      day ------












The last bottle of Bordeaux Rouge shatters
and pools on the ***** floor, frantically I
bow down and touch lips to dirt and wine
**** until my sore cheeks flush with blood
stumble back to              the makers bench
carefully carve                  initials marking
days gone by and          by days gone by
at night I lay my head upon the guillotine
hoping to wake drenched in red in a basket
this self revolution will some day pass

it’s new year’s eve,
let’s set the house on fire,
a respite from the fireworks,
the cheer and sweet kisses,
a shield for desperation -hopelessness,
lifetimes of cobbling together spare change
from thankless jobs.

let’s listen to music,
predicting the apocalypse,
anarchist revolution coming back,
desert rebels and cheap masks,
plastic laser guns and old comics,
signs of washed out revolutions.

and we’ll talk and wonder
-about our lives,
wash ourselves down the drains with
the blood red wine,
toast with triumphant roses,
rising with the bubbles
dreams encased until they drown and
pop.

can we call ourselves rebels,
revelling in the moonlight,
dancers under stars,
wrapping ourselves around our bodies,
to the music,
the champagne,
the thankless year’s,
as they go on and on.

St Augustine insists, insists,
' whoever sings, prays twice '

so I am cobbling together letters
word after word line after line

a string of something, something
I do hope can be heard sung

in any old fashion will do, and ask
St Augustine, to 'sing along with our songs'.

There were a surfeit of items
Sufficient to raise eyebrows or cause comment
Among the few staid members of the Mulligan clan:
The appearance of siblings or cousins assumed (or at least hoped)
To have preceded Thomas to the choir invisible
Two or three women genuinely surprised
To discover the existence of one another,
One young man with an extremely disconcerting resemblance
To his “Uncle Tommy”,
But the entire affair carried on with something akin
To the requisite solemnity
Until such point that a couple bottles appeared
(The consensus being that the good Mulligan
Had somehow found a way to secret them in)
The end result being the proceedings
Subsequently devolved into an Irish cop wake-esque teleplay,
And in the midst of this fol-de-rol, Tippy Phelan,
Who had framed walls for generic bank buildings
And grunted and swore while cobbling together
Unnecessary cupolas and wholly superfluous cornices
On the McMansions of the small town well-enough-to-do
With Tommy (as well as, on Friday lunch-times
During the slow season, sharing a thermos
Containing a mixture which drew narrow-eyed stares
From lenient if still unhappy foremen)
Stood the final toast for the good Mulligan,
Intoning There’s a land of the quick and the land of the lost,
The trick being to build a sturdy span between them
So it’s only proper that Tommy was a ****** fine carpenter.

while surfing cyber seas today March 2nd, 2021.

Actually yours truly quite a literate codger
(ah shucks just missed being draft dodger)
no not for baseball team, but Vietnam War
circa November 1, 1955 – April 30, 1975.

Though non establishmentarian logophile,
battle weary shambling thru gauntlet aisle
where nasty, short and brutish bullies hurt
painfully shy socially withdrawn little boy
now scores of years later courtesy reverse
peristalsis generates yellow-green fluid

made by liver stored in gallbladder and
passes through common bile duct into
duodenum where it helps digest fat bile
law, said obnoxious nefarious miscreants
cannot leave a innocent victim (scathed
for life) receive just deserts after mature

individual summons courage and doth dial
representative strong arm of law to exile
forcing motley crew to march single file
into custody, where delinquent juvenile
obligated to under rehabilitation - ofttimes
impossible mission easier thread camel
thru eye of needle by kilometers or mile,

which lock em up philosophy (to redeem
any salvageable thread of humanity etched
within damaged punkish ****) might find
accused ring leader pointing in one direction
poor (young) fella suddenly exhibits scared
quivering (like loosed arrow) harried style.

Writing, (albeit hyperbolic and poetic) riffs
mine therapeutic and cathartic panacea to vent
emotional tears and ruptures patched courtesy
passion cobbling words literary figurative stent
linkedin bajillion fractured pieces of my psyche
to blunt and/or sublimate psychologically pent

up psychological travails, plus I attend therapy
iterated thru previous literary postings (Renee
Cardone - a Clinical Social Worker Specialist
Royersford, Pennsylvania), she graduated
with honors in 1982, her existence meant
as dogsend https://springfordcs.doxy.me/sfcsrc.

Other holistic strategies to cope with legacy
of emotional fallout (I don't necessarily blame
any cruel teasing nor genetic proclivity with
schizoid personality disorder) courtesy dame
Kuritsky (mother dearest), who passed away
almost sixteen Earth orbitz ago, her - a flame
figuratively caught eyes of Boyce Brandon
both young flirts played catch me if can game.

Retrospective ascertaining origin of why
and how I found life, liberty and pursuit of
happiness such an onerous struggle - thy
inherited genetic genealogical robust stock
(predominantly Ashkenazi) might qualify
me as certifiably Jewish, though atheism
constitutes schema of existence well nigh.

Could I possibly continue this?
Madness in the aftermath
Never learned
Never did learn
To learn from my mistakes

To repeat them is insane
But I'll go happily away
Looking over one shoulder all the way

A sucker for the past
With a knack for creative extrapolation
Cobbling together old nails and tacks
To make a band for someday.

Glad for birth write to express views
aware cunning linguists
will apply figurative screws  
in an effort at blatant mud slinging ruse
exercised courtesy mail in ballots,
or electorates standing in queues
who the previous Sunday
possibly fervently prayed within pews
a mixture of Republican and Democratic

gentiles (relating to or indicating
a nation or clan, especially a gens)
and orthodox or reformed Jews,
although dissimilar viewpoint you may choose,
perhaps feeling exuberant
crying tears of joy
with red eye to boot
unlike myself (a common Joe)
biden his time until 2028
until then experiencing moody blues.

The following mostly written
November 6th, 2018,
nevertheless, I copy and paste
bulk of previously crafted poem
applicable to 2024 presidential election
nearly six years to date
from forty fifth elected
meddling,  scheming, and yawping
commander in chief.

Das Don Auld (can hardly tank
tucker - son of Carl, and leave
landscape barren) calling out
rigged ken tuckered hoarfrost race,
viz demolition derby presaging
death to White Anglo Saxon
democracy DOMS (delayed
onset muscle soreness)
minions decry diplomacy,
crass denunciation of
Stacey Abrams

liberally Apple eyeing jingoistic rhetoric
declare defamation directly
upon disparate grass roots
hegemony, hectoring, heckling,
and harassing humble hobby (lobby) horse
sense, asper progressive
democrats hurrahing, holstering, hitching
visa vis disc hovering rays in the sky,
no fault in our stars,
harnessing healthy,

honesty, humility plowing,
sowing, and tilling political
terrain at expense tubby
execrably, damnably, cruelly,
brutally, nagged, branded,
and whipped malevolently,
mercilessly, and mischievously
lambasted by fourth grade
vocabulary level former commander
in chief exuding: haughtiness,
doughy bully pronouncing

prescriptions provisioning
one percent pampered
population attending one
born at Jamaica Hospital in Queens,
New York City hobnobbing,
galavanting, fawning...
at ego inflating functions
exploiting downtrodden
under most class "dirt poor"
bilked proletariat segment.

Pinnacle (topping Taj Mahal),
now owns Birds eye
bourgeoisie view, which
informs hawkish word
smiths, onlookers with
powerfully pointed outlook
excellent access, sans zealous,
vociferous, uxorious, and traitorous
tyrannical reigning Rex
less lee pugnacious noxious

loose xenophobic,
jabberwocky, demagoguery
laced jargon surly *******,
quizzically, pugilistic-allied,
outrageously punching
imaginary nemesis, linkedin
with instagram, snapchat
twittering skulking arch
conservative enemies
clandestinely undermining

(bone a fide skulduggery)
ambitions to turn back
figurative clock, applauding,
cobbling, counting crowdsource
to elect forty seventh
commander in chief
to reboot, remake, and retry
to restore American (post
world war II) hit parade
soundtrack resonating

with ardent blatant
bigotry, colored blinders,
devilish foo fighting
patriotism, nepotism, localism,
gerrymandered, jury rigged
Russian hijacked pollster
precincts, nativism milking
titillating conspiracy theorists,
denouncing radical ambidextrous
righteous leftists, silencing

second amendment agent
challenges provocateurs,
lake wobegon raconteurs,
and saboteurs infiltrating
highest echelons with spooky
intelligent poseurs, and green
lighting one man plutocrat
steamrolling aborted blackened
civil disobedience (Thoreau Lee)
walled in reproductive rights.

Random chain of events
preceded occurrence re:
guarding existence of me
interminable fits and starts
concerning self destruction
inherent within one measly
self important species.

Yours truly synonymous
with any chance reader
(of course inclusive those
untold past multitudes,
who trod upon this oblate
spheroid preceding one

anonymous groveling,
middling sniveling modest
**** sapien) pursuant
upon unknown destination
giving contemplative,
introspective, speculative...

pause every now and again,
asper bajillion prior
bipedal hominids, whose
individual deliberate or
random natural biological
impulses wrought sons

and/or daughters, whose
subsequent call, sans their
wild procreative proclivities
unwittingly begat the
unique chromosomal
combinations inscribed genes

imbuing each of us with
transient occupancy to revel,
relish, reckon very finite
number of orbitz around
nearest star, how longevity
(till mortality – leisurely

and/or vocationally)
expended, yet anatomically,
biochemically, physiologically...
linkedin with avast
gamut incorporating
unknowable determinants sole

fully cobbling wide, whirled
webbing, (albeit skein
microscopic) comprising
resultant Deoxyribonucleic
amalgamations, combinations,
emulations...throughout

untold generations eventually
giving (swell pregnant)
rise to healthy progeny
predicated on an uneventful
tragic mishap in utero
preceding parturition, which

miraculous seminal fertilization
regarding series of
fortunate events delineating
quintessentially strapping
robust tot destined (years later)
to continue human

species, thus I ponder
tremendous steep odds (analogous
to drawing winning lottery
ticket), when reproductive
processes diploid propagating
one after another ongoing

generation, yet in retrospect
every cellular T-Mobile
chance coupling attendant on
haphazard spontaneous

buzzfeeding circumstances
promulgating prolific primal
precedents begetting each
individual necessitating tenuous

fluke (worm hungers) engaging,
engendering, engineering...
(similar to science experiment)
endowing penultimate on the fly

fusion between two haploid cells
impossible to explain convincingly,
(asper in my mind) the notion
predestination intervenes
likened to invisible hand.