grandeur

had brought the well outta ground the muscled men and she came upon them when they had split into teams and were rolling it and had not yet become competitive. the hands of her gone infant came back to her to see these men heave back and forth a vanishing. of her many fathers one had said ‘the deep train went even deeper and I could not wake’. he had said it to excuse his one day feat of linking unadorned toilet paper rolls to stretch a rat’s mile. her stomach had yet to go down and she was comforted by such literal remnants as thinking of the last place you had it.

libel

two white boys come outta shack each with a wrist one left one right being ****** at the mouth. their laughing I wouldn’t say manic but still not righted. like certain bible stories seem to tumble outta that book it’s the same with their eyes and ears. their heads each one shrunk so as to be united. I want to say here at least a ****** knows what it’s mocking. I only know one of’em and only as far as this thing being passed and told that he ain’t a foster but he was born in a pan and taken from the offices of the parent company his father got laid from. you think that’s the joke but had I not said white you’d have thought they were anyway. here come two girls grisly with month and I never seen two boys so quick to put down the shack they come from.

prayer

I like it best when my girl is pregnant because I get the sympathies. on her hand, she likes me drunk. at any one time, I can remember seven of our eight kids. this means of course one gets left home but also that not a one gets left grocery. I’d tell you their names but then I’d have to split this saying into parts. but I can tell you seven are boys. now and again they’ll slip on sister’s dress to **** up my math. a good joke I start with is that they take after their mother and if they take after me it’s with sticks. I change the batteries in the alarms for fire and carbon monoxide every two weeks mostly outta fear that I’ll lose them all and have to recount them to some fireman I went to school with. I don’t know if batteries are cheap or not, I don’t know anything about them, but I know I spend a healthy chunk of my portion to have. wife and I are keeping the ninth at bay the ways we know how. she don’t ask me and I don’t her. one kid a week goes with her to church and it’s up to me to remember who in my charge caught a fish the week previous. but I’m not wrong with god; no book is the bible, I believe that. at cemetery by which I am lack whelmed: I wish I had his memory.

nativity

wonder they ever told him grown, that black foster, how he'd been at three years dropped manger while crying for the congregates. straw in everything. back a throat, bottom a shoe. pop said he just about caught himself afire at work, straw sticking out his pocket. pop unable to split work clothes from churched. some wanted to resurrect a fuss about color; don’t go resurrecting a fuss and waved his hand he did that pastor ingénue. heard then I the word negress and after its saying the sayers looked about as if she would appear. this was our town after god and many were still making their own. this answers how the black foster needn’t audition. the gold I brought was soft on my thumbs and the flakes stayed in my nails weeks after. pop could tell for that time what I’d been touching so I’d cover when I could. we were quite a pair in our fooleries what with his straw and my gold. he stopped going on about the blacks and I was able to skip school with your sister the ****** mary. the town was never up for nightmares or for dreaming so I kept your share to myself until now how you seen mary fingered by a man with seven. heard him saying it's okay baby, this one's asleep.

holy ghost!

I will cut myself, Horror Film. will fidget my nethers a last time. maybe make the snow an angel with a third leg. which means I have gone outside. maybe my father will happen by you and put his beers together. but I will be gone. into the woods dragging my feet so some will think it took two to take me. I will whip branches about me and generally scuffle so the some will better convince the left. my poverty will be confirmed by your presence on videocassette. my father will hold you aloft and your tongue will droop above the depths of his hair. my father will claim a vengeance he owes on and the some and the left will follow him over the states of my angel and into the woods. when they find me I will say I had an in body experience; that the two men nearby sleep and it’s what we’re walking in.

haptics

little he knows that in holding them hoppers until they spit and before they go wing he is making hitch the upcome carriage of his *****. his future nudes are backtracking and the gravity of this has been diagnosed as your emphysema. he is your, nothing more, son. he will rub your back and worry his thumbs orphan. oh thumb; toe six. the way you deeply stand arms folded he sometimes thinks you have been replaced by a statue of his mother. it is then he remembers the fence his father built and the collective plank his father carried under his arm. you want life to be good again; your son’s low hand and the pups it could feed.

verbal abuse*

she has brought with her a shoplifted teddy bear. on a good night her age is seventeen. two days ago the voices in her head moved to her mouth. she has seven teeth that remain quiet. she fears so much how this third day will go. she has been told, and she believes, I am only in her mind. but there she is, at the sitting rock where we met, the rock I told her I could see things in. unprepared for her faith, I am unclothed. I am glad she has the bear and glad for my part in her having it.

spiders

we got some kind of plague in our toilets mama.*  that’s my dad calling her mama, my mom. that’s him declaring another plague. week don’t stop until a plague has been pieced together by this man so named Paff Snull on the subscription stubs of any number of unread magazines mom uses to swat dramatically at imaginary flies and wasps and locusts depending on the week. this time though I’m ******* because when dad cracks his knees and ***** himself to fetch mama from silence, I look in the toilet up and it’s true and in the toilet down and it’s more. spiders grey and black and off white. with our low water pressure, spiders having a ball. mom and dad they get tents and tell me twice to get inside mine once it’s on the front lawn. I get told things twice because I was born thick and I haven’t the heart to tell them that after the first saying the saying of it is diminished. I mumble to myself in corners, sure, but it’s the same mumbling. our dog gets a separate tent and I sneak into it when dog allows. seven nights so far outta three weeks I haven’t. mom says it’s because of my acne dog don’t recognize me sometimes. ******* bit the meatsy of my right hand a month ago and my handwriting got so neat I was sent from school for cheating. it’s most of my summer and the house is still spidery. the dog has gone to the river to drink and seems okay with it. mom, dad, and I **** in the backyard in shifts. mom ain’t swatting anything, she doesn’t have to on account of the spiders. when right now I mess up my shift I find myself next to dad and he’s just some guy telling me them glass-full people got the joke on them because the water is contaminated. he’s so happy it makes me think I’m the devil to be grinning so big. long wasn’t the reign of Paff Snull.

There's a storm in my head.
The fog congregates, energy generates
as thunderclouds roar the war-cry of profligates.

Frost-fire falls, electrifies one's will

The ocean's wave rolls
and beats repeatedly
carving a way into the soul
of this precipice
foaming at the mouth

no, wait....

that's just your tongue
coated in a miasma of
a siren song
you ******* liar  

sunbathing on my pyre
the whole town now congregates around
with devil-red
containers of gasoline
while your devil-red
lips act the fire

Only the clever witches
survived the trials

the whole town now dances around
feasting on the lotus petals
that root in the palm of your hand

look at them move
locked in each others hands
chanting
"This will bring peace"
while they nod and agree

"Pour more gasoline"
escapes between those sharp teeth

happiness is a moveable feast
at least your eating
like a queen

go ahead and **** the marrow
out of these innocent bones
tomorrow I will be gone

once I thought of you as Ithaca
now realize that these
are Troy's stones

it's time to sail back home.

Has democracy irretrievably gone to the dogs?
Every beast congregates here; coyotes to  hogs!
Supposedly most selfless of acts
Cover up the worst and the inept.
Crocodile tears apart, they hanker only for populist tag!

The moisture congregates on the surface,
and a single drop condenses quickly.
With a blink, it is released.
This salty drip of anguish,
it will crash to the ground below,
or absorb into my clothing,
Until I am drenched, in tears of woe.
One after another, emanated from each cavity,
each oculus becomes clouded, with liquid distress,
as I sit here reduced, to a beautiful, rueful, mess.

Crick crack click clap snip snap on the concrete
The city is on the move and to stand would be
The slapstick comedy of stopping a treadmill.
Acceleration animation gravitation from the rotation
Apathetic friction that is devil-may-care like your heart
Dragged down on the gym floor and the sweaty men laugh.
Tick tock nonstop the clock hops and bops away the time
Of the day and eternity seems like a fairy tale
Because this era is neverneverland faith, we are young.
And getting younger, we plan to die naked as we came,
Lounging in retirement, the summer that knows no end.

But sighing the dying are crying relying upon our move
And we move past, this blur of momentum that the city has become,
Because stillness is for the hippies and the natives and we are neither.
Capitalistic colonial conquering captains of industry we charge
Credit or debit because it isn't ours anyways and the bank is moving.
Down the street in the heat can't beat the beat of the sweet treat
That the homeless remember the memory of the taste of mercy.
Like dogs in heat they pant and beg and we shake them off our pantleg
Because it is designer and the label buys manhood cheap and sells it high.

We split hit and quit and never commit because we spit words like blessing
Out when we wash our mouths out every night and every morning
Because it is the only way to get the taste out of your mouth when you wake up.
As if the jacket I wear can't clothe a man from the cold or sell for more
And my closet is lined with the clothes I don't remember to forget about wearing.
It is not hate that congregates or abates the rate the weight is pulling me down,
But fear of the immensity of impossibility colliding with reality inevitably,
Because one man's sacrifice will suffice to pay the price of my vice.

Yessir hearts are racing toward the first heart, we are collaborating.
That the dying need not remain the dead but know life to the fullest.
The poor and the sore need not abhor or war with the rush of the city.
Because saints and saviors are not just bedtime stories as long as my life
Has the power, no the will, no just the faith, all it needs is faith.
The sick have been tricked that their wick runs quick
Like crick crack click clack snip snap on the concrete
These hearts are moving this city on a hill.

Eyelash blinkered in hubris Rubik’s knight
Elevation of pogrom ennobled by triaged triumph minus the cynic summation of all light
Littoral swank bronzed like starlet fantasia with a Carey mountaintop jeer
Reichstag extinguished blaring sirens of cacophony capers to benumbed Linkin Park cheer
Knells intrepid by quakes of remonstrance staged in histrionic applause
Southern Colonies shifting in Charleston surgical in orderly slugabed dogged laws
Slipshod through ribbacles of rengall zenkidu among the sertivine poison ivy
Grimace at gamboled rivulets of a moribund Vanilla Sky for departed wiseacres of savvy dicey ICE toxic Harvey Dent slimy
A mannequin Marx Ralph alienated the truest alien by pioneering disdain of a hostage giraffe summiting a Swiss Alp
Master of time 12th bradycardia for Generator design parked beneath escarpments of base aphasia milquetoast in killjoy Strickland nickels away from a gubbertushed mouth
LOST legend enunciating the furor of epochs of egalitarian traipse
Trapped by the bootlick of a wrinkle of Van Winkle revolutionary agape
Curved by soliliquy master of belletrist prose
The vogue can’t help but bunt, balk, denounce the remembrance of Lady Madonna pose
We beat the muckrakers of rummaged lisp of culinary suns that the sons of privilege are emoluments to apolaustic zeal first known to transmogrified nuns, before the poppies made the few into many and the notion of an insuperable line of infinity into a spherical nullification of the concept of none
Estrapade engorges the fustilug magnet of the kitsch Kenosha Chicago Demolition drive-by-derbies “once read”
That two kings one Titanic by skin-color dashed dreams the other both the coins of tails eloped with heady dreams of head
Sacrifice shadow dancing with pettifoggery in slumps of aboriginal dances of marsupial rice
Native to extortion gouged blind as Samson exacts lachrymose cremations of Pikes Peak trick-or-treat aghast with fright
Temples raised in 46 years cemented never in the Mumbo Jumbo politics of those lacking the oceanic schadenfreude among queers
That by their exclusion the panmixia of fluid alchemy is dauntless scrabble limited by NORAD notions of Tears for Fears
Henpecked rooster awakens the serfdom of Ronald’s (sly spy) Drugs sailing with dovetails of elapse downtrodden in modern clubs
Drunken *** addict sell-out charlatans berated  by Ingram Angles sent by maleficence are the grubhub of Harriet Tubman torching promising tapestries with rugged rugs
Slinging the bait of fish-hook dimples on freckled effigies of ****** humiliation outmantled by Mickey weight
I thunder a fulgurant explosion against recrimination of white-collar criminals that philander saturnalia in pretense with facetious swarpollock freight
Crooks of tyranny exhort the paranoiacs of indemnity to sunken canned soup applause of a Warhol extortion
Berating my audience with drooling slavers of inelegant tortoise byzantine like an Istanbul dredged with intortion
Mr Deeds is not a champion of BRE Properties nor the pinnacles of inertia, a psychiatric squeeze
My orange juice is not a car chase against treecheese in terminal punitive disease
Soaring with the prosperous tongue against the walloped nativism of pounced impounds having too much fun
I let the other guardians of the order of salvation pivot vitriol in loaded dice against Orangutans of Swedish minted gum
Caesar died for the seizure of Anglican pride of a namesake percolating millenia for Brutus in the Washington Bullets of a conquered Ottawa on strike carnal with Chauvinism in regional divide
Never has there been a more hollow trope than the agency of deep state defamation of a scurrilous backbite of gnashing pride
Lost to pollster tricks of acquiescence and caricatures of a menacing personage Swift on the Riff but never the snarling Menace of a Blondie Biff
I tower above the anthills of conformity of luxury in Jamaican Bob Sled Teams testing the curiosity of enlightened “What Ifs”
Canada Dry for striking people enthused by Rye abides in the memory of reform that skulks the skunks that make every Scudworth cry
Because a Dental Dam damsel living in streets of peril fascinated by distance is the contortion of entreaty in the pasquinade of attempts at American Pie
May the city of a figurative crucifixion burn with the irony of a thousand suns as Wendy’s burgers unload on prejudice with albatrosses of winsome puns
Fixed data interpolated by convenient lies of serial killers who aim for blue skies shanked in Oswald infamy for the imposture of any flashbang revenge against cinematic guns
I blacklist the Zemeckis villainy as a trudge of travesty
Hedged lies blinkered by Batman and Robin puns redeemed by Dinosaurs of Amnesty
Obviously belittled by futures etched by a more honest infinity
Because 88 keys are not a stroke because the infinite bees know the parlance of divinity
Invited lissome taxidermies of Capone against teetotalers of parvanimity of vainglory overthrown
Showers the honest hominist reckoning of a world where neither crudity of know-nothing radical polarization owns every inept baritone
Crusading a secular war because the gubbertushed eccedentesiast spinsters of Santa Cruz deserve a gassy overtone
Torch the SC Pacific Avenue for peace
Let the world unite behind a singularity with purpose in ventilation of Speedman’s release
That antithetical Jacks of many names are wed with the progeny of enduring lists of NSA protection rather than rentgourge Denver PD eager to chaos decimated by the decimals of a region forever boycott and impeached
To the decisive curling of the frolicked Abandoned Pool servitude crass disasters are the sheol of impudent flagrant overreach
Regnant on the turmoil of invented throne
I scowl at the chicanery of Capone’s Chicago sweltering with Kenosha infamy tossing contortionist strippers a vulcanized bone in a DIA Diamond that even 11,500 years of knowledge is surpassed in condemnation of screaming E.T. calling the right home
Speak Now because the reach of forever is God appeased not by a kowtow but a mobilized ambition for Why? When? And How?
History will remember gentility as the kind steward rather than a Disco Demolition Derby of urbacity venerating a seasonal Golden Cow
Hipsters flock with folly to South African extortion for freebooters who bootlick the aceldama of war against the sublime currency of a winner surrounded by thugs
TOO MANY URBAN KIDS ARE TAUGHT BY REDUCTIVE TAUTOLOGY TO HATE The United States of America RATHER THAN NURTURING SYNCRETISM IN PATRIOTIC HUGS
Imperfect in design with disagreement in plainest sight
Sometimes libertarianism with a Democratic twinge is clearly in the right that should believe in reform even when the footloose girouettism is too tight
Yet forestalled for authentic grit the grisly rentgourge of venal abysses knows the countermand against Rand with hyperboles of the clearest *******
The true flock congregates around scepters built not with militant graft but a promenade of sultry dance for the defiant C.L.I.T.
Exercise with the Rock knowing school buses of dogmatism inferior are distraught
Dying dogmatism is a peacock of industry the yeggs can easily unlock rather than truckle with truculent Scottish Rites tasty with Connery Scotch
Defenders of the misleading staircase because of the carapace of Hovering pertinacity easily won and bought
Neither scary nor deliberate streets are rumpus of elevations of unbounded anarchy considerate but robbed by the illiterate
That the delegated mansion will be robbed by the cooperation of the remorseful idiot recognizing his snide mendaciloquence in destructive Roswell Records limerick
Scowls are on petrol and patrol hoping Tesla is a short of bravado too intrepid to sanction free-for-all profligacy in alleys that bowl
To the Emerald Street lie of hypes of perdition rather than merely a seasonal token embarrassment coal
The fossilized future is the irrevocable past because more respect is needed than the ***** of a maskirovka caste
Diamond Lightning in Bhagavad Gita prancing with the delusion of the everlasting mummification of Brawndo ash
Dinner with Egyptsy malingers on tomes etched flippant in integrity and all about the curated snare of kitsch cash
The cache valley of LASER tag shattered like Joseph Smith flagellating the confederate hayday with articulate gnash
Fast & Furious the amused by Suburban subway know the trailblazer trashes of The Stupids’ being Einstein about Boogie Dubs rather rash
Streaking through a Tucker rule the Buccaneers live for the SoulSeek of a riddled ruler benighted of prerogative of Roger Goodell bumping in his Ferrari the tucked serenade of Tool
Wrong band because they linger in the shadow dancing backpages of scandals of Norweigan hourglasses of shameful hush hush Vikings mining furloughs of pulverized anticipation sand
Humbled retinue shelves the ossified limpid droll drool
As the haze of submarines scouting pridefall galls of indolence betraying innocence becomes moral cigarettes of Menthol Kool
Reparations for chappy chapstick games of bowery riches
The urbane needs to read, discern and maneuver against whiplash found in Navi witches
Swapping homes with crack addict legalese an *** to a bronzed party crackling with cackles Home Alone
Knows a toiletry of escape gullible like Seahawks wishing they could contain a fumbled season by Mahomes
Jones methamphetamine paranoiac manure desiccated by folksy homilies of brimstone cremation deserts his flock to abide by a flagging wayward temptress
Decimated by the agency of time his Austin crenellation flounders in grimace of the untimely swoon his covert empress
Blinded by the light of darkness in subversion
Excoriated for the deeds of his permission to demote commotion into only an acquiescent dance with barbed etch-a-sketch conclusion- a half-baked *******
Quacksalver poetaster wrinkled with hatred simpering paranoia strangled by Hendrix abeyance of turgid delusion
Lurid underground Princeton gilds infested with defected dementia in cozens in the fritty of heralded mistress SHE appointed
Sandlot ravens cloistered the bravado of thirst for chosen words scrappy in clawed henpecks the pointless illegal sanctioned to brusque witticism anointed
Lamps of pathway sparkle with coruscated stargazer Winslet dreamy swank illustrious by providence
Engrenage of delopes of pettifoggery identity staggers the woozy dismal day of disjointed wounds on Native sons Denver can’t damage in a lonely campaign for the prodigal bends of Overlook Lorraine Motel bent
Intrepid in gallantry I swoop the scrivello tusked with might
Penetrating the vivid dreams of the serenade of alpenglow daylight
That love might rule over chance and probability above the specter of dynasty prodigy progeny tithing gravity in rent
Yet this taper of majestic poise will outfox even the careless gambles of the prodigal son Mr Sender already traipsed conquered and went
The mountaintop is so clear from the cloister of authenticity drinking Eminence Front of the WHO rather than the coherence of the near
Because titans shepherd the good flock without insult and not quavering with insuperable time flackey with tremulous fear
I dare this day to outlast benighted ignorance of the narrow gate of a persecution tsunami on a Lisbon tear
Because galloping ahead of the internecine sheds the serpentine craft of 3:1 Genesis met with the worst fleeced fleer
Not auctioned off like ******* vogue to the disfavor of poor taste
I am the true Royal Flush that can always count on the aced basic but mostly acidic flourish of a jest in bass predicated on the basis for Mozart pH
Today could be the summit of acclimated prodigy in startled degrees temerity could never bet against
Because you better bet the Bros and Cos of civilization are skilled in ostentation of Sterling Pound defense
Never offensive to the liturgy of triumph beckoning an apocalypse now tentative memory on a Manifest Destiny frontier rarely on wickers of extinguished cattle ranchers knowing the gamut of acumen to defend a fortress with the best fencing James Bond could dispense
Now is either a cordial joke of a flagrant anarchy balking at destiny
Or the sunrise majesty of the twelve tribes and beyond defeating the stingy bees of infamy
Your choice doesn’t defeat my voice
But your action heralds my loyalty with a triumphant Victoria of an age not for agelast geeks intimidated but living clairvoyance with fidelity to the right choice for the right time to swim in elegant rejoice
(1977 Words)

Aint goin’ anymore

would like to claim the same

but rely upon you and others

to do same

heavy boots

sturdy *****

choosing the ground

was minded to travel

unorthodox / paradox

did sneak to the place -

entering by the flaky monolithic gate

Tool in hand,       above dark, calm at Southern Cemetery,                       the outskirts of town

though a bunch of vociferous crows

buzz amongst the stones.

II

Stabbing the bearer repeatedly turning over

the green

After lengthy work in the moments foray it was then I left and

floated away

from the scene

III

Time sensed = Time up

I place my part quietly in

Obscure

Time Future

is this absent body sure?

Though I hope you will come

return the soil and sing

songs for me….       *****, eat dance and parteeeee

Some of you will have *** at the end of the  fête -

this TOIL, SWEAT, RELEASE,                                                              CelEbraTe

Going to a few as well,

we know how it

drops

in

the

pit      and maybe ***

(ill or well smelling with the other congregates)

will drift through the pub or communal hall

and who will dare to say:             “Put out the roll of Bogey -

don’t you have any respect for the dead right now?”

OK, I photograph weddings at City Hall
Done thousands, pays the bills in so many ways
The smiles are so genuine
It's a happy place

I got all kinds of rates for your pocketbook
Hey, you gotta have at least one picture for the memory book
But how about the one I didn't take?
That was the one on my wedding day

She was sitting on a bench at the Marriage Bureau
I asked her if she needed a picture on that special day
She replied, "I'm not getting married, no way"
I gave her my card, just in case

This is a true story, I kid you not
We got together, we tied the knot
Thus, this is a holy place
Holy moley, wholly great
Where true love congregates every day
Just ask me, you know what I'll say

The Sky A Sickly Yellow--The Dome In Which I Lay,
It Congregates With Blue, Pink, And A Greenish Grey,
The Sun Grasps The Horizon, But Drowns In Trees,
I Stretched My Wings--Frosty Feathers--And I Was Free,
Free Of Scowls Which Burn Into Me, Free Of My Own,
Free From The Glazed Eyes, Which Rest On Mine--
Stones,
Yes, I Admit I Could Be Better, I Admit I Am An Error,
I Admit I Am Somewhat Weak, Still Gasping For Air,
Maybe I'm Just A Secret Which Sits On A Stained Lip,
Ready To Be Worked Against, To Make Someone Slip,
I Dont Want To Hurt Anyone, Not Even A Single Soul,
Yet I Feel Like I May, Or Someone Will Take Their Toll,
I Always Feel Like A Let Down--Like I'm Never Good,
Enough--I Feel So Alien--So Misunderstood*
Yet Why Should That Matter To Anyone?

Someone always left the canoe sled up on the suburban hill
where my parents lived in Lancaster
when my father was still alive
the hot button of bronze rusted park bench water fountains
mustard grime on fujianeze chemical roads,
factory capes bustling out diet coke smoke plumes
over ornate Qing green shrines, the sky congested
congregates in the priest’s hands
passing out grilled flatbread stained with silver coins
on the shivering blades of velvet grass up top to khaki canals
behind the town where empty six-pack rings swim down
to where the homeless sleep
and feed the water with blistered feet—
but underneath a vale of Caspian light
lanterns red as congealed hearts
the smell of fireworks overtakes gas
and for one night it is the country
my parents remember

You are commanding the presence of an audience of children
Who do not, for a couple of hours, feel like children.
They feel like lightning bolts, and lovers,
Congregates of "The Broken Axe Handle",
Even if they hardly show it.
You’re telling them their own story
For which they haven’t yet learned how to form the words.

And after it all,
The crowd moving in a waking dream cloud,
You come into my focus,
And you practically whisper, “Seeing you there, you made me feel
Centered”
And I felt humbled by the honesty.
What a surprise to have such a weighted job!  
How impossible it is to take crumb of credit
For the beauty of your poetry!
I, entirely teenaged with endogenous anonymity,
Someone’s fulcrum!  

In a decade since,
I, (un)entirely grown and still ontologically unknown,
Still live your language,
Still aim to be the rock or
The hook on which to hang a hat.
Even when I don’t think I can
Even when I don’t know I am,
You make me feel daily that
In just receiving someone’s truth,
Eyes up,
I can make the return to be
Someone’s somebody.

There’s a horror in the city
but it’s always Halloween in someone’s basement
in the suburbs the closets are inundated with skeletons
each dressed in friendly attire
but never opening the door
the neighbors always watching through sheer curtains
binoculars at the ready
instead of candy on doorsteps
there’s signs of beware of the maniac with the pistol
locked and loaded watching the 6’oclock news
no apocalypse is breaking into our windows tonight
there’s a hum and it’s making all the locals go mad
they still haven’t figured out it’s the cicadas
not demons in their trees looking for a discount lunch
the desert is a harsh place when the sun is
drawn sloppily on the right hand corner of a page
the houses all uniformed for the drought to come
each manicured lawn is a haunting for the
unemployed drunk in the nearby trailer park
the ghosts of those whose Christmas
doesn’t come in stockings but stalking
and restraining orders
the spookiest part is not the
slasher hotels or the creature feature
shows at the bars and clubs
but the calm, serene and unsettling
manner in which everyone congregates
on Sunday morning to be cleansed
of impurities, each smile stretching farther and farther
until the seconds drip into communion wine
until the hours dissolve in one’s mouth like god’s flesh
reinvented, resuscitated, resurrected

Arise, my brothers
for the pastor is watching
there’s a twinkle in his eyes
and there are boys missing after every ceremony
but no one questions why

Man of legendary talent who
inspires humanity to unite and
congregates a million fans through
his magnetic songs that simplify
a thousand sentiments of humanity
exposing a multitude diversities
languishing in vague controversies

Just a human being who succumbed to
a lot of controversies in life just like any celebrity
continuing to survive by fighting the odds
kicking *** to assert certain innate rights
so that freedom may prevail in own self
over and above giving joy to others
now has come to an end in death

(To the Tune of Humoresque, with apologies to Mssrs Dvorak and Douglas)

We want to make it very plain that residents should please abstain
From gatherings in groups (we’re watching you!!),

We discourage assignations, please commune in isolation,
Whatever you have done before DON’T DO!!

If you need a sweet flirtation, please recall our limitation,
Separation being the thing we hope you do.

If you start exchanging fluid, danger there is undisputed,
Please to keep the group size down to two.

Copywrong Vic Miller. All wrongs preserved.

The Laughing Matter
We laughed and laughed it was raining heavy we didn't see we were
off road and flew, still laughing- over
a precipice and landed in an opening in the forest
where rabbit congregates, we had laughed so much we had to go
out of the car and ***
Then it snowed big white flakes the stuff and rabbit appeared in
all white inquisitive as they are when stuck a neck in we rolled up
The window fried rabbits every day.
The dog got sick of the same food and wanted to go home
we didn't have that instinct but followed behind as luck would have it
was only five minutes away a farmer with his tractor took the car to
the mechanic and we laughed and laughed making funny noises
of the stuffed owl on the wall….the house took fire and people in white
took us to a care home where we were giving anti-laugh medicine,
funny hats and it was New Year Eve.  
What had caused this hilarity was because Hillary Clinton had lost
the election and Trump a millionaire was going to bring work to those on
the dole, of course, this will not happen and my car is not insured for
the Shoah that will engulf us

i must have been born twice
upside down and back to front
from the maternal matrix
and the cold institutional plastic
of a pill bottle
the afterbirth of steel
sliding across my skins
in fits and starts
contractions trying to push out
the festering sore
the infected bile that stench
close up the hole
that vile creature that slithered out
keep back its faceless compatriots
like unopened boxes of razors
calling from beyond
a heartbeat dutifully pattering on
the coagulated blood
icy
congregates in my veins and
screams incessantly for relief
for freedom
i must have been born a million times
each time the blade pierces my skin
another mute wordless infant
comes forth
unsure how to cry.

Tall wispy willows lightly tapped the window
as I lain across the floor.
The green and red flashes, stimulated
my delicate cornea ever so.
Warmth overran my skin, warming me to the core.
I could hear the rattles of claws and nails
across the wooden door.
My family laughing hysterically,
like a bumbling nest of bees.
All ready for the night,
Where Saint Nicholas will pay a visit.


Our Odyssey continues to the tundra,
where the snowmen meet and greet.
My brothers are fighting in the snow
like the Great war had just broke out.
The skeleton trees, lay dormant,
white powder piled high upon their boughs.
I look out upon the neighborhood,
mountains of snow, ready to be conquered.
I glance at my brothers,
They dash and bash their way forward,
Into the cool winter night.

As we wake, the smell of eggs and pancakes.
My father's cooking, has never been malice.
My grandmother stands outside, just beyond the reaches of our door.
Her gentle, sweet charisma, welcomes us all,
Beckoning to the call,
of Saint Nick’s gifts.
My brothers and I, cheer and jeer down the hall.
With the simple clap, fluttering little hands,
Our parents make their way downstairs.

The nebula of presents congregates below the towering tree.
A sign of Nick’s humble visit,
in the depths of night.
“Ranger school isn’t preschool.”
“Ranger school isn’t preschool.”
My father who served, served for his children's rights,
All of our rights.


Christmas night, comes a feast of exotic flavors.
The luscious chocolate, insinuates more to come.
Abundant sources of sweets is never perishable,
Brownies so sweet they would satisfy all of humanity.
I will savor the taste for decades to come.

Those willows still tap, every Christmas,
My house still warm and sweet.
My father still resembling those who fought before him.
Those coveted times, where Saint Nicholas delivers without qualm or inquiry.
Those coveted times, where my family is my family.
Those coveted times, where I am from.

My soul will wait in the shadows until the day it can see your light next
A chariot of grace and comfort will bring me back to you
My heart will ache each day you are gone
Until it may once more collide with yours and light the world on fire
If there was one thing I could say to you it would be as follows

You
Are more than I will ever be
You are the forest which gives my lungs the air to breathe
All of the earth congregates to you for your wisdom and strength to keep growing
Life comes to you for guidance and solace

Me To You
I want to keep you grounded
Never to hold you back, but to always show you where your heart would be welcome
I want to be the source of your life and nourishment
To keep you alive and well so your trees may prosper

It congregates
too late
when you are in front of me
but don't start memory,
just here
and now.
Never worn
or
pristine.

It fills the room and strokes each wall, a stale
and stagnant smoky pall as if the seasons
stuttered in late autumn, and time hangs still
awaiting its post-mortem. Soft moans escape
from urgent lips, the sound of silk on fingertips;
sweat congregates upon our skin and emptiness
pervades within. Tomorrow it will start again,
light tapping on the window pane; the steady hum
of early traffic  parking where these autographic
voices whisper, whine and hiss - you cannot take
much more of this. There are those who gawp  
for hours in mausoleums, become the very stuffing
of museums. Sentences both short and long
pace the space where time is hung and strung out
on a line its fingers flapping: admit defeat,
it’s to this beat your feet are tapping