Hotrod
Verse I

Wrenches clanging, knuckles banging
A drop of blood the young man spilt
A new part here, and old part… there
A hotrod had been built!
A patchwork, mechanical, quilt

Feeling good.  Head under a raised hood, hands occupied, the job nearing completion.  Sometimes the good feelings would dissipate though, as quickly as they came, as he cursed himself for stripping a bolt, or cursed someone else for selling him the wrong part, or the engineer whose design goals obviously did not consider “remove and replace”.
He cursed the “gorilla” that never heard of a torque-wrench, the glowing particle of **** that popped on to the top of his head as he welded, the metal chip he flushed from his eye, and even himself for the burn he received by impatiently touching something too soon after grinding. 
 He, and his type, cursed a lot, but mostly to their selves as they battled-on with things oily, hot, bolted, welded, and rusty – in cramped spaces. One day it was choice words for an “easy-out” that broke off next to a broken drill bit that had broken off in a broken bolt, that was being drilled for an easy-out. 
  Despite the swearing, the good and special feelings would always return, generally of a magnitude that exceeded the physical pain and mental frustration of the day, by a large margin.  
Certifiably obsessive, the young man continued to toil dutifully, soulfully, occasionally gleefully, sometimes even expertly, in his most loved and familiar place, his sanctuary, laboratory… the family garage.

And tomorrow would be the day.
With hard learned, hard earned expertise and confidence - in this special small place, a supremely happy and excited young man commanded his creation to life.

Threw a toggle, pressed a switch
Woke up the neighbors with that *******

The heart of his machine was a stroked Chevy engine that everyone had just grown sick hearing about.  Even the local machine shop to which the boy nervously entrusted his most prized possession had had enough.  “Sir, I don’t want to seem disrespectful, but from what I’ve read in Hot Rod Magazine, you might be suggesting a clearance too tight for forged pistons…” then it would be something else the next day.  
One must always speak politely to the machinist, and even though he always had, the usual allotment of contradictions and arguments afforded to each customer had long run out – and although the shop owner took a special liking to the boy because, as he liked to say, “he reminds me of me”, well, that man was done too.  But in the end, the mill was dead-on.  Of course from the start, the shop knew it would be; that’s almost always the case; it’s how they stay in business - simply doing good work.  Bad shops fall out quickly, but this place had the look of times gone by.  Good times. 
 Old porcelain signs, here and there were to be found, all original to the shop and revered by the older workers in honored nostalgia.  The younger workers get it too; they can tell from the co-workers they respect and learn from, there is something special about this past.  One sign advertises Carter Carburetors and the artwork depicts “three deuces”, model 97’s, sitting proudly atop a flathead engine, all speeding along in a red, open roadster.  Its occupants, a blond haired boy with slight freckles (driver), and a brunette girl passenger, bright white blouse, full and buttoned low. They are in the wind-blown cool, their excited expressions proclaim… "we have escaped and are free!" (and all you need is a Carter, or three).  How uniquely American.

The seasoned old engine block the boy entrusted to the shop cost him $120-even from the boneyard.  Not a bad deal for a good high-nickel content block that had never had its first 0.030”overbore.  In the shop, it was cleaned, checked for cracks by "magnafluxing", measured and re-measured, inspected and re-inspected.  It was shaped and cut in a special way that would allow the stroker crankshaft, that was to be the special part of this build, to have all the clearance it would need.  The engine block was fitted with temporary stress plates that mimic the presence of cylinder heads,  then the cylinders were bored to “first oversize”,  providing fresh metal for new piston rings to work against.  New bearings were installed everywhere bearings are required.  Parts were smoothed here and there.  Some surfaces were roughened just so, to allow new parts to “work-into each other” when things are finally brought together.  All of this was done with a level of precision and attention far, far greater than the old “4- bolt” had ever received at the factory on its way to a life of labor in the ¾ ton work van from which it came, and for which it had served so dutifully.  They called this painstaking dedication to precision measurement and fit, to hitting all specifications on the mark, “blueprinting”, and it would continue throughout the entire build of this engine.  The boy remained worried, but the shop had done it a million times.

After machining, the block was filled with new and strong parts that cost the young man everything he had.   Parts selected with the greatest of effort, decision, and debate.   You can compromise on paint and live with some rust,  he would say, wait for good tires, but never scrimp on the engine.  Right on.  Someone taught the boy right, regardless of whether or not he fully understood the importance of the words he parroted.  His accurate proclamation  also provided ample excuse for the rough, unfinished, underfunded look of the rest of his machine.  But it was just a look, his car was, in fact, “right”.   And its power plant?  Well the machine shop had talked their customer into letting them do the final engine assembly - even cut their price to do it.  To make that go down easy, they asked to have two of their shop decals affixed to the rod on race-days.  The young man thought that was a fair deal, but the shop was really just looking out for the boy, with their herring of sorts.  
The mill in its final form was the proper balance of performance and durability; and with its camshaft so carefully selected, the engine's “personality” was perfectly matched to the work at hand.   It would produce adequate torque in the low RPM range to get whole rig moving quickly, yet deliver enough horsepower near and at red-line to pile on the MPH, fast.  No longer a polite-natured workhorse, this engine, this engine is impatient now.  High compression, a rapid, choppy idle - it seems to be biting at the bit to be released.  On command, it gulps its mixture and screams angrily, and often those standing around have a reflexive jump - the louder, the better - the more angry, the better.  If it hurts your ears, that’s a good feeling.  If its bark startles, that’s a good startle.  A cacophony?  No, the “music” of controlled explosions, capable of thrusting everything and everyone attached, forward, impolitely, on a rapid run to the freedom so well depicted in the ad.  

This is the addictive sound and feel that has appealed to a certain type of person since engines replaced horses, and why?  A surrogate voice for those who are otherwise quiet?  A visceral celebration of accomplishment?    Who cares.  Shift once, then again - speed quickly makes its appearance.  It appears as a loud, rushing wind and a visually striking, unnatural view of the surrounding scenery.  At some point, in the sane, it triggers a natural response - better slow down.    

He uncorked the headers, bought gasoline, dropped her in gear, tore off to the scene
Camaros and Mustangs, an old ‘55
Obediently lined-up, to get skinned alive!

Verse II (1st person)

I drove past the banner that said “Welcome race fans” took a new route, behind the grandstands
And through my chipped window, I thought I could see
Some of the racers were laughing at me

I guess rust and primer are not to their taste
But I put my bucks mister in the right place

I chugged/popped past cars that dealers had sold
Swung into a spot, next to something old

Emerging with interest from under his hood
My neighbor said two words, he said, “sounds good”

The Nova I parked next to was “classic rodding” in its outward appearance.  The much overused “primer paint job”.  The hood and front fenders a fiberglass clamshell, pinned affair.  Dice hanging from the mirror paid homage to days its driver never knew, but wished he had.  He removed them before he drove, always.

If you know how to peel the onion, secrets are revealed.  Wilwood brake calipers can be a dead giveaway. Someone needs serious stopping power - maybe.  Generally, owners who have sprung the bucks for this type gear let the calipers show off in bright red, to make a statement, and sometimes, these days, it’s just a fashion statement.  Expensive calipers, as eye candy, seem to be all the rage.  What is true, however, is very few guys spend big money on brakes only to render them inglorious and seemingly common with a shot of silver paint from a rattle can - and the owner of this half fiberglass racer that poses as a street car had done just that.  I'll glean two things from this observation. One, he needs those heavy brakes because he’s fast, and two, hiding them fits his style.  
Really, the message to be found in the silver paint, so cleverly applied to make your eyes simply slide across on their way to more interesting things, was “sleeper”.   And sleeper really means, he’s one of those guys with a score to settle - with everyone perhaps.   The list of “real parts” grew, if you knew where to look.  Looking was something I had unofficial permission to do since my rod was undergoing a similar scrutiny.  
“Stroked?”, I asked.  That’s something you can’t see from the outside. “ No”, my racer friend replied.  
“Hundred shot?”  (If engines have their language, so do the people who love them).   Despite the owner’s great efforts to conceal braided fuel and nitrous lines, electrical solenoids and switches, I spied his system.  The chunks of aluminum posing as ordinary spacers under his two Holly's were anything but.   “No”, was his one-word reply to my 100- shot question.  I tried again; “Your nitrous system is cleanly installed, how much are you spraying?”  “Two hundred fifty” in two stages, he said.  That’s more like it, I thought, and I then figured, he too had budgeted well for the machine shop – if not, he was gambling in a game that if lost, would soon fly parts in all directions.   Based on the overall neat work on display, I believed his build was up to the punishment planned. 
  I knew exactly what this tight-lipped guy was about, seeing someone very familiar in him as it were, and that made the “sounds good” complement I received upon my arrival all the more valuable.  I liked my neighbor.  And I liked the fact of our scratch-built rods having found each other - and I looked forward to us both dusting off the factory jobs.  It was going to be a good day.

The voice on the loudspeaker tells us we’re up.

Pre-staged, staged, then given the green
The line becomes blurred between man and machine

Bones become linkage
Muscle, spring
Fear, excitement

Time distorts ….
Color disappears …
Vision narrows…
Noise ---  becomes music
Speed, satisfaction

End

Cramped in that funnelled hole, they watched the dawn
Open a jagged rim around; a yawn
Of death's jaws, which had all but swallowed them
Stuck in the bottom of his throat of phlegm.

They were in one of many mouths of Hell
Not seen of seers in visions, only felt
As teeth of traps; when bones and the dead are smelt
Under the mud where long ago they fell
Mixed with the sour sharp odour of the shell.

see I float around society like a plastic bag sometimes
unseen unless someone needs me

and there are so many truths I've seen
about women

these are the undeniable facts:

Beauty: women love beauty. they are consumed by it. it feeds them till they die, clutching stylish cases and well-worn tubes and knuckles bruised by constant forcing, or they sit in darkened obscure corners waiting for a no-name prince to charm them into believing lies, avoiding mirrors along the way.

Intelligence: it's okay to be smart but not so smart that a man feels five inches tall against the length of the word you just uttered with smooth unaffectedness, if you do that he falters, feels as though his life has been false, and then he tells you to stop reading your books. and you do it, because you fear you may lose him. women hide from the monsters of science and math, drown in the seas of history and literature and pretend all the while, giggles in every breath's pause, that they just don't know. because no one wants a woman who can recite Chaucer but can't even press a decent crease or bake a good cherry pie.

Hard Work Ethic: women were born to work. they work to maintain an illusion, they work to get a man, they work to keep him, they work to make him feel superior, they work in cramped cubicles and then in cramped apartments, making them uncramped, and then in cramped bedrooms under cramped sheets, trying to hide their leg cramp so as to not disturb his concentration.

Confidence: women hate other women who are confident. because those women have learned to disregard every lesson from charm school, and everyone else struggles to find the perfect hair flip. secretly, women love another woman with confidence. because it shows them they can be that reckless one day.

Dress: women want the short skirt in the window. but the directions on the tag are as follows:
DO NOT WEAR WHILE DRINKING. DO NOT WEAR IN COLD WEATHER. DO NOT WEAR WITHOUT PANTYHOSE. DO NOT WEAR IF OVER 130 POUNDS. DO NOT WEAR IN THE COMPANY OF DRUNK MEN. DO NOT WEAR TO SPORTING EVENTS. DO NOT WEAR IN THE PRESENCE OF OTHER WOMEN. DRY CLEAN ONLY. women leave the skirt on the hanger.

Strong Personality: women tell other women to be quiet and keep their heads low. that is all they know. when they were little girls they used to shout. then they became teenagers and were taught to whisper when they wanted something. whispers are saved for secrets, lies and things women want.

Competition: women want men. women want other women. women want people. women are told they want men. women fight for men, because they are taught men are the ultimate prize. women win men and are disappointed with the terms and conditions that apply. but it's too late. they've already won. women wonder what they were fighting for in the first place.

Affluent: women wish money didn't matter but when they're counting pennies for every man's dollar it's hard to ignore.

women are told by men their mothers their sisters their teachers their bosses their world

that they are too loud ****** ugly fat hairy ***** loose slutty uptight frigid emotional stoic competitive timid.

women tell other women these things and think their world will love them for it. women love other women, but begin to believe they don't.

biggest problem women have is with a world that thinks they can't handle their own ****.

*****


Apr 7, 2012, 6:08:21 PM by ~OmegaWolfOfWinter
Journals / Personal




"Name: Amelia Weissmuler. Date of birth: June 6th, 1920. Test subject number 314-X. Specimen: Tiger." Amy heard all of this through a haze of sedatives that had begun to lose their already poor effect. She turned in the direction of the voice and saw a fearsome **** SS General standing behind a white clad scientist with a heavy accent. The general said nothing but listened and watched as Amy was strapped down to a cold metal table, completely **** with various wires, tubes and needles protruding from her flesh. She groaned painfully, the needles were extensive, and the **** scientists had no care of decency or respect. she was hit with another sedative and before she lost consciousness she heard the scientist, who she guessed was Dr. Heismeiller, say, "Name, Mordecai Dansker, former Major of the Third *****. Date of birth: September 19th, 1919. Test subject 14-W. Specimen: Wolf. As you
can see, Heir General, these are both healthy specimens, as are the test subjects." Amy heard a
rattling of cages. Her vison slowly went dark but not before seeing the doctor's face, uncovered and psychotic.
* *
When Amy woke up again, she was being suspended from the floor, the tubes and wires accompanied by menacing electrodes. there was an unnatural blue and white crackling of electricity around her, illuminating the other suspended tables nearby, the bodies in various grotesque positions and levels of decay. she tried to scream but found a machine unceremoniously shoved in her mouth, stretching deep inside her. she looked and saw nothing but obscene machines and various glass tubes of colored bubbling liquids. she tried sluggishly to break free but to no avail. what little strength she had was useless against the torturous devices emplanted in and around her. "Doctor, begin the experiment."
"Yaboe!" She heard a solid click resound through the room and heard a male scream in another room. the screams echoed for a long while, then nothing. she heard a gasp of releif from
the doctor and, "General! Subject 14-W... he has... Survived!"
"Good. now start on the frauline." there was a large thud from outside the room. "Quickly! this facility is under seige!"
"Yes sir, heir general. Test subject 314-X prepped and ready. Begin phase 1." she cried out silently as the needles burned hot inside her and the tubes boiled her insides. the electrodes soon incapacitated her and she fell unconscious.
*
*
"Phase 1 complete, heir general, subject is ready, proceeding to Phase 2."
Amy felt an intense burning around the needles, and an electric fire through her veins. the machine had been taken from her mouth, but she doubted she could scream any more, as her throat was raw from the silent screams of Phase 1. She felt her body shake uncontrollably as more electric shocks were administered. she was left panting and slumped over. "Sequence complete, the bonding process was a success." there was another thud and sediment from the roof fell to the floor. "Get her down now! They will be through soon!" She was lowered to the ground and unstrapped from the table, picked up, and placed on a stretcher. she raised her hands on front her face and nearly fainted, her hands, or paws, resembled that of a tiger, and as she looked, her whole body was covered in a slick orange, black and white fur. She was put into the backseat of an armored car with a simple blanket draped around
her. Amy felt nauseated
as the car sped off. It hit a bump in the road and she moaned painfully, clutching her furry belly and retching. the **** next to her turned away in disgust. the car ride was long and sickening, and she lost consciousness twice, and finally she tried to lay down in the cramped space. when the armored car finally stopped, she was pulled from the back seat and carried over a soldier's shoulder and into a small bunker. Once inside, amy heard a metal door open and was laid down onto a stiff bed with a single pillow and a single cover. There was a small window in the cell, a drab, grey stream of light shining in her eyes. She propped herself up on her elbow and shielded her eyes from the blinding contrast. Once her eyes adjusted, amy noticed that things had a particular sharpness to them and she had an acute awareness of things based on scent. she stood shakily, and noticed she was almost
six inches taller now, and her new tail swished back and forth along the concrete floor. she stepped
forward and grasped the iron bars and peeked out, seeing a black leather messenger bag and a black uniform lined with white. she couldn't quite reach the uniform, but was able to get a claw around the strap of the messenger bag. she pulled it closer to her and saw that her initials were monogrammed into the leather. she pulled it through the bars and opened the bag, pulling out a small, blank, leather bound journal and a pen. still ****, she sat on the bed and practiced writing, tearing out two pages of scratch paper. She began her journal with, "I am no longer the person i once was. i am something new, something... different."
• * *
The **** captain stepped into the bunker and saw amy, half lying, half dangling on the bed, the leather journal clutched close to her chest. he stormed into the cell and backhanded her awake, snatching up the journal as she cowered in the corner, her tail wrapped around her. the captain flipped through the pages of the journal and then closed iit with a snap. he glanced at it and dropped it on the bed. "it is yours now, Frauline. you are very special to the third *****. the fuhrer himself has asked for you to be placed in the Waffen SS and trained." amy glanced at the uniform on the table outside the cell and he nodded, "specially tailored for you, frauline. he stepped outside the cell and grabbed the uniform, setting it down on the bed. "you may Change into your new uniform and join the rest of us outside." he stepped outside and she was alone. she donned the simple uNdergarments then
slipped into the soft black trousers, after which she put on her military boots. next she put on the black and white jacket signature of the SS. the jacket was sleek and menacing, though it did little to flatten her chest, but that, she supposed, was one of her feminine charms. last was her hat and armband, both adorned with the *******. she gathered the leather messenger bag and stepped outside the cell, where a mirror stood, giving her a chance to see what had been done, the black uniform was a dramatic contrast to her brightly colored fur, and her new black stripes added a fierce look to her. she grinned and flashed menacing white teeth. she turned her body, looking at herself from different points of view. she slipped the **** armband onto her right arm and turned to leave. she stopped when she encountered a high pitch noise right next to the door. for the moment she just walked past, opening the door and adjusting her vision to the outside light. the layout was grey and barren,
as it always was in wartime. the captain was waiting for her along with a small squad of SS troops. a
Few laughed and remarked at her appearance, making cat noises and wolf whistling at her. she glared at them with a bright white snarl carved into her soft face. *they will fear me...
she saluted the captain and said, "heil ******." he returned the gesture, "heil. you are now part of the Waffen SS, frauline Amelia."
"please sir, its amy."
he noted her directness and ferocity, "very well, amy. before we assign you a task, though, you must prove yourself." he addressed the squad, "they are all corporal's and sergeants. you are merely a private. you will gain a rank for each one that you ****. however, they have been told that if they do not force you to submit, they will be killed or sent to the russian front. so you best fight your hardest, private amy."
as he finished, the squad set down their Mauser 98K's and MP-40's and stepped closer to her. her eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in ferocious determination. there were twelve of them.
"Fight!"
• *
Amy took a fighting stance and faced her attackers. she attempted a punch at the nearest one but was kneed in the gut, she was thrown back a few feet. she fell to her knees and clutched her stomach with one hand, holding herself upright with the other. tears sprung to life in her eyes and threatened to roll down her cheeks. she fought the tears back and stood, feeling her claws extend. she swiped at a soldier's throat, catching him right in the throat. blood splattered the ground as he choked on his own fluids. the remaining eleven were taken aback slightly, allowing her to pounce another soldier, punching and tearing at his gut with lethal force. her fur was bloodstained and she waited a moment too late, watching the cavity she created fill with blood. she was barreled over, the wind knocked out of her by a sergeant. she lay on her back, gasping for air as the soldiers closed in,
landing a few punches and sending her reeling back. she staggered back, struggling for breath. she
Bumped up against something and realized it was a bunker wall, she was trapped. she thought quickly and decided for a new course of action, she waited for one of them to gather his bravado and throw a solid punch at her, which was useless, she grabbed his wrist and smashed his head against the wall, filling his helmet with blood and brains. in the same move, she had grabbed his Luger and had downed three more of the remaining ten. in their moment of confusion she kicked the closest one in the fork of his legs and followed up with a pistolwhip. the man went down quickly and died by the heel of her merciless boot. the remaining six charged at her, one falling by her last bullet and another caught a swift kick in the ribcage, shattering the bones to peices. the rest of the men were sergeants, and they began to retreat, running into the open field. she was about to chase after them when she
heard another Luger fire. she turned to see the captain shooting the deserters. each fell, one by
One by the captain's gun to her surprise he let a single man go. "you have done very well, frauline amy. you have killed eight out of twelve men, not bad at all."
she was panting, her uniform dirtied, "why.. did you let.. him go?"
the captain smiled, "someone has to spread you're reputation, heir captain."
she gaped at him. "i am... captain?"
"yaboe, heir frauline. you have proved yourself worthy to serve under the fuhrer."
she saluted him, "thank you, heir captain."
*
amy wrote in her journal as they were driven to one of the Stalags: "my promotion to captain has earned me my choice of weapons, ive chosen a few, two long barrel Luger's, a cavalry saber, and a sixteen foot bullwhip. i also carry an automatic Mauser in my messenger bag. other than a few knives carefully hidden on my body, that should be it. ive become the fuhrer's favorite enforcer, though i feel as if i'm forgetting something..."
amy closed the journal and placed it in her bag with a soft snap.
Amy waited for a **** private to open the car door and let her out, tapping her foot impatiently. when he finally came, she had a luger pointed at his chest. "you're late. she got out of the car and shot him, holstering the pistol as he crumpled to the ground. the colonel in charge rushed towards her, "what is the meaning of this?!"
"your man on watch was late, and now he'll never be late again. and also, colonel, as i am a captain in the SS, i am your superior officer and you WILL adjust yourself accordingly or i will replace you with someone who will."
his expression was that of shock, "y-yes, heir captain, please follow me." he escorted her quickly to the main building. amy glanced around at the peering POWs, glaring at them with distaste as they whistled at her. "who's the kitty?" "what the hell is that?"
her hands fell to her lugers and she was ready to fire when she was beckoned inside by the colonel and she followed behind him reluctantly. "you should control your prisoners.
i find an overall lack of order in this camp. you're lucky i'm in a good mood, or i'd have you strung up for incompetence. lets hope my further evaluation of this... facility... does not make me any more inclined to do so."
the colonel stuttered again and dipped his head, "y-yes heir captain."
she stepped outside unopposed by any. she snapped her fingers and a sergeant rushed to her side and saluted. she handed him a journal logbook and he opened it to the page marked with the Stalag number. she entered the closed off areas of the stalag to inspect the barracks.
*
amy's fists were clenched with rag, a prisoner mocked her from within his confines. his fellow prisoners pleaded with him to stop. "she's lethal!" "she killed eight SS sergeants and corporals singelhandedly her first day!"
the prisoner ignored them and began gesturing at her. she snapped her head up and their eyes met for an instant, she growled through a gritted snarl and was over the fence in mere moments. once over,
the prisoner that mocked her was now on the ground, his throat between her fangs. he cried out once and then gurgled blood as she tore out his throat. she spat the flesh onto the dirt and stood, brushing the dusty particles from her uniform. the men around her backed away when she approached them, and watched her cautiously as she stepped back out of the fenceline. amy picked up her cap from the ground and brushed it off. one of the prisoners called for a doctor, and when one of the guards began to look for one, she merely said, "no, he wont survive. leave him be."
the soldier saluted and went back to his post. she walked up to the colonel and said, "your prisoner annoyed me, as do you, colonel. you have three days to turn this place around or you'll end up worse off then your prisoner over there."
the colonel had turned a pale white and whispered, "understood, captain."
she returned to her quarters and listened for a moment as the colonel shouted orders. "that was fun." she remarked.

Amy was asleep in one of the larger rooms in the main  building, her uniform folded neatly on the table near the bed. she kep one luger on her bedside table and the mauser under her pilllow. her other luger, her sword and her whip were next to her clothes. she was clad only in her fur, as she'd found that the most comfortable way to sleep.
she was woken up by a knock at the door. she blinked her eyes a few times. clutching the mauser handle with one hand and holding the blanket to her chest with the other, she said, "what is it?"
"the colonel wishes to speak to you, heir frauline."
she growled, "grrr... fine. tell him to make it quick." she clutched the blanket closer as he opened the door. she held the mauser aimed at him and said, "turn." he did so without hesitation. she slipped cautiously out of the bed and began to dress. "what is it you wished to speak with me about, colonel?" amy put on her undergarments and then pulled her trousers up to her waist, fastening the belt comfortably.
"there is an important telegram for you, heir captain." she pulled on the jacket over her simple shirt, tugging out any wrinkles. "oh? from who?" next came the holster belts, each hanging slightly lower than her first belt. her sword was another belt, and there was a custom clip there for her whip as well.
"Himler, he has special orders for you." her messenger bag was next to last, slung over her shoulder before she slipped into her boots. ""You can turn now. hand them here." she stepped closer to him and took the envelope with her name scrawled on the front. the colonel excused himself so she could read the orders, "captain amelia weissmuler, once you have completed your assignment at Stalag 14, please make haste to stalingrad as there has been a number of our own turning against the *****. see to it that they cause no more problems. -heinrich himler"
she read it through three more times before folding it and placing it in her bag. she hurried outside, grabbing her hat
From the dresser.
* *
amy went about her inspection, seeing nothing wrong today. "the condition of stalag 16 has improved, heir colonel. well done. now send my car around." the colonel grinned and motioned for the car.
the black car adorned with swastikas roared to life, coming up beside her. the d

i hate that i’m lying in bed
with a cup of tea
and can see myself in the future
in our bed
with a cup of tea
and you lying next to me

and i hate that i can see myself turning out the light
and laying my head to rest
on your chest

i hate that i can see us sitting at a little round kitchen table
next to the window
you in your black rimmed glasses
scrolling through your phone
me with my hair ******* and one knee draw up to my chest,
eating a bowl of oatmeal as the sun creeps its way
into the middle of the sky

i hate that i can see us side by side
brushing our teeth in a cramped bathroom
in front of a foggy mirror,
listening to music as we get ready for the day

i hate that i can see us walking out the front door,
i hate that i can see us kissing goodbye

because i’m lying in bed
with a cup of tea
thinking about all of this,
thinking about you

yet i’ve already kissed you
goodbye.

~Many people rely on the convenient, easy ways of living in this age of fast food, plastic packaging and rapid development. Most people do not care to see why they live the way they do or what it takes to live in such a way. Toxic pollutants leaching into our earth and water should not be worth the convenience! Third world women working in dusty, cramped factories to make designer purses for fifteen year old girls. Garbage is America’s biggest export and it ends up in China, on the coast of Somalia... anywhere that American citizens won’t be bothered to see it.

~What does it mean to buy a pack of plastic razors? Some metal, some chemicals, some plastic, more plastic for packaging. Use a razor a few times and toss it in the garbage. Somewhere, maybe at La Chureca, someone will pull the rusted metal and plastic from the landfill. They might make one US dollar per day collecting scraps of aluminum, glass, plastic and other scrap metals. What does it mean to wear deodorant? The plastic stick isn’t reusable. The ingredients are highly toxic. Aluminum-based antiperspirants have been linked to Alzheimer's and cancer. Soap comes in plastic bottles, coffee makers made of plastic, water bottles made of plastic… hell, my plastic shower curtain came wrapped in plastic packaging.

~Americans are lucky. Indoor plumbing with quality water. Green lawns and exotic flower beds. Buy and use, throw away and repeat. Big corporations pay off politicians to pollute. Industrial waste, land erosion, low air quality, pesticides. Why are we so quick to trust an artificial sweetener being promoted by a company that makes poison? They call you a hippy, a conspiracy theorist. They tell you that you only live once and to stop being so worried about it all. I ask them, how can you look away? Deforestation and destruction are all around. Those that profit are not concerned with what happens to the land after the loggers and miners have left the ground scarred and desolate.

~Modern living is a hoax. Yeah, you get around quick in your car but at what cost? Carbon dioxide, greenhouse gasses choking us and everything alive that lives with us and cannot speak. Can’t you walk to the corner store? Can’t you grow a few things in the garden or in the windowsill? When was the last time you saw a sunset and didn’t take a picture of it? Dairy cows packed together so tight they can’t turn around for your glass of milk. The disconnect is everywhere. Overpopulation. Overconsumption. People don’t care.

~They can choose. They can choose paper over plastic. They can buy a water filter instead of 20 plastic bottles. They can bike to work. Anyone can lessen their impact, anyone can think more deeply and live more sustainably. But we’ve made it so easy to be lazy. We’ve become so dependent that we’re forgetting to use technological gains to make the way we do things better. We’ve come so far that we’re forgetting what brought us here.

~

‘We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire – a crackpot machine – that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate.’ Edward Abbey

‘In the developing world, the problem of population is seen less as a matter of human numbers than of western overconsumption. Yet within the development community, the only solution to the problems of the developing world is to export the same unsustainable economic model fuelling the overconsumption of the West.’ Kavita Ramdas

‘Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.’ Jacques-Yves Cousteau

‘Globalisation, which attempts to amalgamate every local, regional, and national economy into a single world system, requires homogenising locally adapted forms of agriculture, replacing them with an industrial system – centrally managed, pesticide-intensive, one-crop production for export – designed to deliver a narrow range of transportable foods to the world market.’Helena Norberg-Hodge

‘Throughout history human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonise-destroy-move on.’ Garrett Hardin

Part I


the plateau. the truest of them all. coast line. night spells and even controlled by the dream of meeting again. the ribbon of darker than light in your crown. No region overlooked. Third picnic table to the drive at Half Moon Bay, meet me there, decant my speech there. the table by the restroom block. While the tide is in show me your oyster garden, 3:00p.m. at half-light here in the evilest torments that have been shed.---------------door locked.  The moors. Cow herds and lymph nodes, rancorous afternoon West light and bending roads, the cliffs, a sister, the need to jump. There is nothing as serious as this. There is nothing nor no one that could ever, or would ever on this side come between. Who needs sleep or jokes or snow or rivers or bombs or to turn or be a rat or a fly or ceiling fan or a gurney or a cadaver or piece of cloth or a bed spread or a couch or a game or the flint of a lighter or the bell of a dress; the bell of your dress, yes, perhaps. Having been crushed like orange cigarette light in a pool of Spanish tongues. I feel the heave, the pull; not a yawn but a wired, thread-like twist about my core. Up around the neck it makes the first cut, through the eyes out and into the nostrils down over the left arm, on the inside of the bicep, contorting my length, feigning sleep, and then cutting over my stomach, around and around multiples of times- pulled at the hips and under the groin, across each leg and in-between each nerve, capillary, artery, hair, dot, dimple, muscle, to the toes and in-between them. Wiry dream-like and nervous nightmarish, hellacious plateaus of leapers. Penguin heads and more penguin heads. Startling torment. The evilest of the vile mind. The dance of despair: if feet contorted and bound could move. The beach off Belmont. The hills and the reasons I stared. Caveat after caveat at the heads of letters, on the heads of crowns, and the wrists, and on the palms. Being pulled and signed, and moved away so greatly and so heavily at once in a moment, that even if it were a year or a set of many months it would always be a moment too taking away to be considered an expanse, and it would be too hellacious to be presumptuous. It could only be a shadow over my right shoulder as I write the letters over and again. One after another. Internally I ask if I would even grant a convo with Keats or Yeats or Plath or Hughes? Does mine come close? Does it matter the bellies reddish and cerise giving of pain? Does it have to have many names?


"This is the only Earth," I would say with the bouquet of lilies spread out on the table. Are lilies only for funerals, I would never make or risk or wish this metaphor, even play it like the drawn out notes of a melody unwritten and un-played: my black box and latched, corner of the room saxophone. Top-floor, end of the hall two-room never-ending story, I'm the left side of the bed Chicago and I see pink walls, bathrooms, the two masonite paintings, the Chanel books, the bookshelves, the white desk, the white dresser, you on the left side of the bed in such sentimental woe, **** carpet and tilted blinds, and still the moors and the whispering in the driver's seat in afternoon pasture. Sunset, sunrise, nighttime and bike room writing in other places, apartments, rooms where I inked out fingertips, blights, and moods; nothing ever being so bleak, so eerily woe-like or stoic. Nothing has ever made me so serious.

Put it on the rib, in a t-shirt. Make it a hand and guide it up a set of two skinny legs under a short-sheeted bed in small room and literary Belmont, address included. Trash cans set out morning and night, deck-readied cigarette smoking. Sliding glass door and kitchen fright. Low-lit living room white couch, kaleidoscope, and zoetrope. Spin me right round baby right round. I am my own revenge of toxic night. Attack the skin, the soul, the eyes, the mind, and the lids. The finger lids and their tips. Rot it out. Blearing wild and deafening blow after blow: left side of the bed the both of us, whilst stirs the intrepid hate and ousts each ******* tongue I can bellow and blow.

Last resort lake note in snow bank and my river speak and forest walk. Wrapped in blocks and boxes, Christmas packaging and giant over-sized red ribbons and bows. Shall I mention the bassinet, the stroller, the yard, several rings of gold and silver, several necklaces of black and thread? I draw dagger from box, jagged ended and paper-wrapped in white and amber: lit in candle light and black room shadow-kept and sleeping partisan unforgettable forever. Do I mention Hawaii, my mother dying, invisible ligatures and the unveiling of the sweat and horror? Villainous and frightening, the breath as a bleat or heart-beat and matchstick stirring slightly every friends' woe and tantrum of their spirit.

Lobster-legged, waiting, sifting through the sea shore at the sea line, the bright tyrannosaurs in mahogany, in maple, and in twine over throw rose meadow over-looks, honey-brimming and warehouse built terrariums in the underbelly of the ravine, twist and turn: road bending, hollowing, in and out and in and out, forever, the everlasting and too fastidious driving towards; and it's but what .2 miles? I sign my name but I'll never get out. I am mocked and musing at tortoise speed. Headless while improvising. Purring at any example of continue or extremity or coolness of mind, meddling, or temptation. I rock, bellowing. Talk, sending shivers up my spine. I'm cramped, and one thousand fore-words and after words that split like a million large chunks of spit, grime, and *****; **** and more ****. I might even be standing now. I could be a candle, in England, a kingdom, in Palo Alto, a rook in St. Petersburg. Mottled by giants or sleepless nights, I could be the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, a heated marble flower or the figure dying to be carved out. I'm veering off highways, I'm belittling myself: this heathen of the unforgettable, the bog man and bow-tied vagrant of dross falsification and dross despair. I am at the sea shore, tide-righted and tongue-tide, bilingual, and multi-inhibited by sweat, spit, quaffs of sea salt, lake water, and the like. Rotten wergild ridden- stitched of a poor man's ringworm and his tattered top hat and knee-holed trousers. I'm at the sea shore, with the cucumbers dying, the rain coming in sideways, the drifts and the sandbars twisting and turning. I'm at the sea shore with the light house bruise-bending the sweet ships of victory out backwards into the backwaters of a mislead moonlight; guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos swept like black coffees on green walled night clubs, arenose and eroding, grainy and distraught, bleeding and well, just bleeding.






I'm at the sea shore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets, ******* and two lines left in the letter. I’m at the sea shore, my mouth is a ghost. I've seen nothing but darkness. I'm at the seashore, second picnic table, bench facing the squat and gobble, the tin roof and riled weir near the roadside. .2 and I'm still here with my bouquet wading and waiting. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. My inches are growing shorter by the second, cold, whet by the sunset, its moon men, their heavy claws and bi-laws overthrowing and throwing me out. The thorns stick. The tyrannosaurs scream. I'm at the sea shore, plateau, left bedside to write three more letters. Sign my name and there's nobody here.

I'm at the sea shore: here are my lips, my palms (both of them facing up), here are my legs (twine and all), my torso, and my head shooting sideways. I'm at the seashore and this is my grave, this is my purposeful calotype, my hide and go seek, my show and tell, my forever. .2 and forever and never ending. I was just one dream away come and keep me. I'm at the sea shore come and see me and seam me. I'm without nothing, the sky has drifted, the sea is leaving, my seat is a matchbox and I'm all wound up. The snow settling, the ice box and its glory taken for granted. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. The room with its white sets of furniture, the lilies, the Chanel, the masonite paintings, the bed, your ribbon of darker on light, the throw rug **** carpet, pink walled sister's room, and the couch at the top of the stairs. I'm at the sea shore, my windows opened wide, my skin thrown with threat, rhinoceri, reddish bruises bent of cerise staled sunsets. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. I'm at the plateau and there isn't a single ship. There are the rocks below and I'm counting. My caveats all implored and my goodbyes written. I'm in my bed and the sleep never set in. I'm name dropping God and there's nobody there. I'm in a chair with my hands on a keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock, horse-riding into candle light on a wicked wedding of wild words and teary-eyed gazes and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder. I'm all alone but I feel like you're here.



Part II




I wake up in Panama. The axe there. Sleeping on the floors in the guest bedroom, the floor of the garden shed, the choir closet, the rut of dirt at the end of the flower bed; just a towel, grayish-blue, alone, lawnmower at my side, and sky blue setting all around. I was a family man. No I just taste bits of dirt watching a quiet and contrary feeling of cool limestone wrap over and about my arms and my legs. Lungs battered by snapping tongues, and ancient conversations; I think it was the Malaysian Express. Mom quieted. Sister quieted. Father wept. And is still weeping. Never have I heard such horrifying and un-kindly words.-----------------------It's going to take giant steel cavernous explorations of the nose, brain cell after brain cell quartered, giant ******* quaffs of alcohol, harboring false lanterns and even worse chemicals. Inhalations and more inhalations. I'm going to need to leap, flight, drop into bodies of waters from air planes and swallow capsules of psychotropics, sedatives beyond recalcitrance. I'm requiring shock treatments and shock values. Periodic elements and galvanized steel drums. Malevolence and more malevolence. Forest walks, and why am I still in Panama. I don't want to talk, to sleep, to dream, to play stale-mating games of chess, checkers, Monopoly, or anything Risk involving. I can't sleep, eat, treaty or retreat. I'm wickeded by temptations of grandeur and threats of anomaly, widening only in proverb and swept only by opposing endeavors. Horrified, enveloped, pictured and persuaded by the evilest of haunts, spirits, and match head weeping women. I can't even open my mouth without hearing voices anymore. The colors are beginning to be enormous and I still can't swim. I couldn't drown with my ears open if I kept my nose dry and my mouth full of a plane ticket and first class beanstalk to elysian fields. It's pervasive and I'm purveyed. It's unquantifiable. It's the epitomizing and the epitome. I have my epaulets set for turbulent battles though I still can't fend off night. Speak and I might remember. Hear and it's second rite. Sea attacks, oceans roaring, lakes swallowing me whole. Grand bodies of waters and faces and arms appendages, crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and I'm still shaking, and I'm still just a button. And I still can't sleep. And I'm still waiting.

It is night. The moon ripening, peeling back his face. Writhing. Seamed by the beauty of the nocturne, his ways made by sun, sky, and stars. Rolled and rampant. Moved across the plateau of the air, and its even and coolly majestic wanton shades of twilight. It heads off mountains, is swept as the plains of beauty, their faces in wild and feral growths. Bent and bolded, indelible and facing off Roman Empires too gladly well in inked and whet tips of bolder hands to soothe them forth.-----------Here in their grand and grandiose furnaces of the heart, whipped tails and tall fables fettered and tarnished in gold’s and lime. Here with their mothers' doting. Here with their Jimi Hendrix and poor poetry and stand-up downtrodden wergild and retardation. I don't give a ****. I could weep for the ***** if they even had hair half as fine as my own. I am real now. Limited by nothing. Served by no worship or warship. My flotilla serves tostadas at full-price. So now we have a game going.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------  My cowlick is not Sinatra's and it certainly doesn't beat women. As a matter of factotum and of writ and bylaw. I'm running down words more quickly than the stanza's of Longfellow. I'm moving subtexts like Eliot. I'm rampant and gaining speed. Methamphetamine and five star meats. Alfalfa and pea tendrils. Loves and the lovers I fall over and apart on. Heroes and my fortune over told and ever telling. Moving in arc light and keeping a warm glow.

the fish line caves. the shimmy and the shake. Bluegrass music and big wafting bell tones. snakes and the river, hands on the heads, through the hair; I look straight at the Pacific. I hate plastic flowers, those inanimate stems and machine-processed flesh tones. Waltzing the state divide. I am hooked on the intrepid doom of startling ego. I let it rake into my spine. It's hooves are heavy and singe and bind like manacles all over me. My first, my last, my favorite lover. I'm stalemating in the bathtub. Harnessing Crystal Lite and making rose gardens out of CD inserts and leaf covers. I'm fascinated by magic and gods. Guns and hunters. Thieving and mold, and laundry, and stereotypes, and great stereos, and boom-boxes, and the hi-fi nightlife of Chicago, roasting on a pith and meaty flame, built like a horror story five feet tall and laced with ruggedness and small needles. My skin is a chromium orchid and the grizzly subtext of a Nick Cave tune. I've allowed myself to be over-amplified, to mistake in falsetto and vice versa. To writhe on the heavy metallic reverberations of an altercated palpitation. The heart is the lonely hunted. First the waterproof matchsticks, then the water, the bowie knife, crass grasses and hard-necked pitch-hitters and phony friends; for doing lunch in the park on a frozen pond, I play like I invented blonde and really none of my **** even smells like gold.--------------------- There are the tales of false worship. I heard a street vendor sell a story about Ovid that was worse than local politics. As far as intermittent and esoteric histories go I'm the king of the present, second stage act in the shadow of the sideshow. Tonight I'm greeting the characters with Vaseline. For their love of music and their love of philosophy. For their twilight choirs and their skinny women who wear black antler masks and PVC and polyurethane body suits standing in inner-city gardens chanting. For their chanting. The pacific. For the fish line caves. For the buzzing and the kazoos. For the alfalfa and the three fathers of blue, red, and yellow. For the state of the nation. But still mostly working for the state of equality, more than a room for one’s own.-------------------------------------------------------------­------"Rice milk for all of you." " Kensington and whittled spirits."
(Doppelganger enters stage left)MAN: Prism state, flash of the golden arc. Beastly flowers and teeming woodlands. Heir to the throes and heir to the throng.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------- The sheep meadow press in the house of affection. The terns on my hem or the hide in my beak; all across the steel girder and whipping ******* the windows facing out. The mystery gaze that seers the diplopic eye. Still its opening shunned. I put a cage over it and carry it like a child through Haight-Ashbury. At times I hint that I'm bored, but there is no letting of blood or rattle of hope. When you live with a risk you begin at times to identify with the routes. Above the regional converse, the two on two or the two on four. At times for reasons of sadness but usually its just exhaustion. At times before the come and go gets to you, but usually that is wrong and they get to you first. Lathering up in a small cerulean piece of sky at the end turnabout of a dirt road

Mama should I trust the Government?
Men in charge,
With suits and ties.
Mama, do they know whats best?
or are they selling
pre-packed lies.
Mama should i get a job?
sell my soul
to the money train.
Mama is it true in fact?
man can't live
of soil and rain?
Mama why do i feel sad?
kept cramped within
the city walls.
Mama how do i go on?
When all arounds me
crumbles, falls.

Sometimes we wish... Wish to go back.
Back to a time when everything was pure... Back to a time when everything was new... Back to a time where days were never blue.

How could this thing... This perfect thing.... This perfect concept of thinking... This perfect imagination, become cramped with realities.
With truths. With lies.

We line up desperately, waiting... Waiting to get out... Waiting for the day we can do what we want... Waiting for the day we can leave.

The more we grow, the more we know... The more we want to go back... Back to the day when we knew little and imagined more. Back to the day when sweets and hide and seek were all we needed.

Chapter 1

There was a woman. The cost to love her was your life. No other payment but a sending off, a revolver cocked to your temple’s side.
There was no spite in your death, just business.
Hell of a business to run.

I was protecting someone. Never been one to stick around, but this drag had carried for the past year. That gang-owned joint lay but two doors and a cold alley away. Popular place, maybe not the classiest but it had its patrons. Packed with your essentials: pool tables, dirt-licked walls and chairs, mean folk mixed in with the nice. Old fashioned joint with a history. You could almost feel it when you walked in. That small pressure when it’s about to rain? Felt like that had been building up for a decade there.
Some Madonna owned it. Names elude me, but she was just another front; as was the barkeep, the hired bouncers and those mean-eyed slingers that spoke loud in company, silent alone. Heh, almost like an old-fashioned saloon. Who the hell am I in this tale of cowboys and crooks?
I was holed up in that apartment block for the winter. Stiff drapes covering a stiff cold that seeped through the cracks anyway. Cold chills to wake to, and the whiskey don’t warm a **** thing. Maybe it was the ache of a past flame that led me to her. That old touch had languished and misted away in the night of some long dead memory, leaving an old kiss from a young lover on my shivering body. It grew faint with every year’s passing. I struggle to remember this keepsake.
Every night.
I was a no name protector protecting a no name ghost of a man. Yeah we knew each other. I’m no stranger to keep past talking terms . . . but, hell if I remember his name, how we got into this **** situation and why. Mind’s a little off. Been like that for years.

It was a stumble through the wrong door at the wrong time. Some spiteful voices in the back of the joint or the back of my mind telling me I’m headed for hell and ain’t coming back. See, every day is a crossroad, and I happened upon the worst one yet.
I remember that flaking paint; grime-covered white on a moulding door **** near off its hinges. That suited me, and I hated it. Maybe I grew sick of wandering the same way and turned my life on its spinning head. Spun me all the ways I couldn’t face. Saw a glimmer that fate had readied for me. Don’t think I’ve looked at anything with such eyes since; nor have they looked back at me.
The room was a cramped, dilapidated hellhole like every other room, but with her laying on that bed of hers . . . she was the only clean thing in the whole of this cursed city. Save, she wasn’t clean. No such thing exists; no such thing as clean since your adolescent innocence, and even that went up in flames. Hell, in a city like this I wouldn’t be surprised if the skeletons we kept so tightly locked in our closets outnumbered us ten to one.
Should have remembered that when I saw her, but my mind lay a blank canvas and I couldn’t help but fill it with all the details of this pretty bird. Even those that weren’t there.
No Name yanked me out quick. Never seen him so pale, ghosting further and further from a human being. He’d been running so long I don’t think he even knew what he was running from anymore. His past? Some cop chase from years back, ending with blood stains and shaky hands? A dead kid in the arms of a suicidal wife? Maybe he’s running from himself. Fear in the capacity we contain, and fear in the ways we unleash it around loved ones. I don’t blame him for running. If I was a worse man I’d run from him as well.
Now No Name has it all figured out, even if he won’t let on; and that bird in there ain’t part of the plan. Cash cash, first train out to some no name city for this no name man. In this together, he keeps repeating, like some broke down record player that only plays one song. Well I guess we share more similarities than I’d like to think so.

One night, about a month after settling in that old apartment, I hear raised voices. Not uncommon, but something about this still night woke some fear inside me. A fear I needed to meet with my eyes, a score to settle with myself. Sounded like some ******* outside was hoping to bring down the sky with volume alone. No type of gentleman, just a no ***** kid who doesn’t know the difference between command and screaming like a babe.
One gets you respect. Now, the other. . . .
I open those stiff drapes with stiffer fingers. Brush that layer of frozen breath and mist to find some mid-twenty good for nothing punk holding a struggling figure. The apartment ain’t exactly ground floor but even up here I can spot the difference between a gent and a sally. Some broad was in trouble.
Grab that six shooter, old man. The holster smooth from years of wear, small frays on the weathered jacket rubbing against goose-pricked skin. Comfort clothing that never really brings comfort. Not anymore. Guess I’m as bad as No Name. I’m just repeating routine.
Out the hall, no doors left in this apartment block. Stolen, broken, ain’t exactly your family fun lifestyle we’re living. No Name’s holed up in this fortress of upturned furniture and dresser-barred doorways. Lights flicker from between the cracks. The devil ain’t gonna bother with the door, I tell him. He doesn’t reply. Maybe he’s a religious man with one too many sins above his head.
There’s another yell and I feel my blood rise, hairs picking up static, a storm brewing inside that clenched stomach of mine. Take a tumble down the stairs in my haste. **** crooked balsa wood. Those stairs are gonna end me one day, I swear.
Ground floor. I slam that kitchen door and it cracks against the brick wall outside. ****. No Name’s gonna burst an artery. Call out for that ******* punk but he’s already eyeing me up. Only a few steps away and I can see the white in his eyes. No . . . those are his pupils. Wide, all cloud-like, he’s ******* dusted up. . . . Almost like looking into the past. Thrice-cursed ****. I’m in trouble.
This ain’t some lover’s quarrel, some twisted ****’s thought of a good way to end the night. This is a dusthead addict and I’m out of my league. His mid-snarl distorts and stretches past his cheeks and that devil grin sends an electric jolt from the wires of my brain to my heart.
This six shooter is as good as a pea gun against a Smiley.
He’s spouting some glossolalia drifts, layering it like an abominable duet. The coked-up boy in me yearns to understand again, but stiff joints and washed-out dreams have made me a cynic. Ain’t no beauty when you’re tearing things apart to see it. ******* Smiley’s on the edge and he’s ready to pounce right off. If that broad’s sobbing didn’t **** at those heart strings of mine I’d be running for my ******* life.
I lift that pea shooter and aim it straight at that devil smile.
He howls. Glass shatters from above. Some black monstrous thing comes speeding at me. I leap through that apartment doorway in time to see ******* Smiley consumed by it. All sharp, all solid that beast slams into Smiley, screaming loud enough to wake this dead city twice over. Smiley thrashes, he splays out to the ground, the beast’s seared flesh erupting in front of me. A piece slices past my cheek and I’m on the ground in tears. I hear No Name scream an incomprehensible curse above. I’m bawling now. Through my tears I spot that chunk of flesh. ******* balsa wood. Thrice-cursed balsa wood.
No Name had thrown a piano out that barricaded window of his. Tears of pure comedy, that’s what left my face. A Smiley taken out by No Name, I’ll never live this down. His mangled body lies under polished wood. Someone’s yearly worth gone in a second of frantic panic, reduced to twisted wires and cracked ivory. To see something so beautiful destroyed in seconds makes me wonder if the Smiley had gotten the better of us after all.
That broad’s in shock. Splinters covered every inch of ground save that around her; looked like a comet, trailing emptiness behind.  Should have noticed it then that something wasn’t right with that scene. Perfectly unscathed beauty sitting there with not a single scratch nor splinter on her, but I was too **** amazed I was alive. Knelt close to her and caught a whiff of some exotic scent on her skin. Some flower. Saw her face and it added another colour to that filling canvas of mine. This pretty bird from the joint. The one men died for. At least No Name had saved one life worth saving, funny it happened to be the one who could take yours in a night.
Names elude me, but the way I remember her . . . the way I remember her is Blossom, for when she came into my life she gave colours to my black and white memory, colours I didn’t know existed, and my black and white morals took a turn down some dawning grey-blurred alley.
So I’m a ******* gentleman and I walk Blossom home while No Name shifts furniture above us. Scrapes of hard wood against wood, filling that void in his once impenetrable bastion. I told you No Name’s got it all planned out already. Guess I’m just here for the ride.

Trapped inside a box.
Everywhere I look,
I see confined emptiness.
My limbs are yearning for a moment's stretch.
Trapped inside a box.
My arms are rendered useless,
as they lay squeezed against my sides.
My neck is straining in it's cramped position.
Trapped inside a box.
I cannot breathe,
my heart pounds against my chest hoping for freedom,
How can one be trapped inside of a small box, when their body is in the midst of a wide open plain?
Anxiety.
It is a box.
A box that cripples rationality ,
trapping you.

This is a poem to warn you of the licentiousness,
the lewdness, the lasciviousness and downright
wickedness of language, especially,
the evil consonants.

Consider, for example, the subtle sibilant 's', seemingly innocuous,
but the consonant first heard in ***.  
And take the letter 'l', standing up *****,
the stiff one in this lustful alphabet.
All boys know about the upright 'l',
as in blind, which they'll go if they play with it
too much, double 'l', well, they'll end up in hell.

The consonant 'b' stands for ***, of course,
everyone knows 'b' for ***,
the bold, barefaced, brazen one,
or, on all fours, raised up, the buttocks form an 'm',
with an inverted 'v' between the legs.
And 'c'!  'C' stands for - for,  no, no.  I can't.
Let's just say 'c' is curled up, crafty, by the coccyx, where it lurks,
cramped and damp, hopefully curtailed.

And 'p'.  Well, 'p' is 'p', just as bad as 's' 'h' with a 't'.
And what about  'f'? Don't worry, I'll give that one the flick, dead quick.
'f' starts a word that's totally perverted.
If you think I'll use the 'f' and add the 'c' 'k',
you'll have to wait another day.

Then contemplate spreadeagled 'x',
the final letter in the word of ***!
These consonants are wanton.
'W' has its legs up in the air. 'w' is wild and wet. Wicked, wicked.
'n' is bent over.  Naughty, naughty!

And 'y', why, 'y's the legs together and the ***** area.
Also, be wary of people who like the 'g' spot in there a lot,
also those who roll their 'r's too much
and others who lash out with s and m.
'r' and 'g' and 's' and 'm' end up in ******!

I believe the higher incidence of ****** offence is due to the influence
of consonants.  It's no coincidence. The evidence is that *******
is social as well as ******, of course,
and there's a preponderance of consonants in *******.
Such coitus should be interruptus
before these consonants totally corrupt us.

Now, the only course for moral rectitude
against such a sinful attitude with the grossest moral turpitude
is vigilance. With discipline and diligence,
we must become the moral militants
in the fight against the sibilants,
the awful incidence of decadence,
and the absence of innocence,
that's the evil consequence
of all the cunning consonants.
Otherwise incontinence with consonants
will be forever on our conscience!

Now. Think of every ***** word you can. This sin will be absolved in heaven!
Yes, ******* has five consonants, testicles has six and ******* seven!
Gynecological has eight, fresh spermatozoa ten and prosthetic devices eleven!
Repent! Repent! Redemption lies with you.  
It's true!  Think of it! If you eschew the consonants in all evil or ugly,
you'll be left with the purity of 'a', 'e', 'i' 'o' 'u'.

Mike T Minehan

I’ve been hearin a lot of bad mouthin about socialism ever since the president tried to provide affordable healthcare to the working poor… I also hear some carping when someone suggested that the minimum wage paid to workers should allow them to buy the necessities of life… I don't hear too much bad things about medicare and social security…. I guess thats not really socialism…. I don't hear too much about the big bailouts of the bankers with government money after they put us in a recession… privatized gain and socialized risk must also be a strain of a special kind of entitlement...

We’ll I think this whole socialism business needs some clarity about what its all about…. so I made a list of socialist heroes so my fellow American’s can get a better feel for what going on with this red menace...

Heres a list of socialist heroes….

Jesus Christ of Nazareth...I just can't get past the Beatitudes thing. Since all the po folks of the earth get to inherit all the good stuff when they pass on.... I figure heaven gotta be some kinda socialist paradise....Some don’t buy the idea that Jesus is building a Mar-A-Largo estate for Donald Trump... while having the rest of us live in our cramped apartments…. Jesus did say he’s building many rooms but the po folks get first dibs on everything… For all the doubting Thomas’s and Thomasina’s get Sean Hannity’s fastidious fact checkers to read the good news in the Gospel of Matthew.

Jack London... To think he’s been spreading the Red Menace in the mind of America’s innocent children for near a century now…. When Michelle Bachmann finds out about this she'll introduce a bill to change the title of The Call of the Wild to the Call of the Commies... I don't think it will affect Sarahcuda because she don’t read at a sixth grade level yet. Alaska is safe for now....And all comrade citizens are doing just fine thank you.... spending their annual royalty checks they get from the state for all the North ***** oil drilling...  Hell during Sarah's half term governorship... she did what every self respecting socialist despot would do... she paid out a special $1,200.00 Permanent Fund royalty dividend to all comrade "North to the Future" citizens.....

Carl Sandburg... The People Yes? Sang the songs of the People Yes! Celebrated a broad shouldered, hog butchering America who wrote a biography with love and affection for our country’s greatest Republican President....  Whats that about?...And his treatment of Billy Sunday...a back in the day,.. aw shucks,... from the backwoods holler... Kenneth Copeland like... Believer's Voice of Victory preacher of his day... who hurled fire and brimstone at cowering congregants so when he passed the plate they filled it up with hoards of heavenly manna to fatten his bank account overstuffed with moth eaten earthly treasure… I'm sure even Pat Robertson believes Sandburg’s soul lies beyond the sweet redemption of Jesus...

George Orwell… Unlike **** Cheney... who said he had better things to do when his country called on him to serve during the Vietnam War... Orwell’s fervor for democracy was so great he left his native land to lay his life on the line to fight against the fascist menace in Spain... When he got into a battle he came across an enemy combatant taking a ****. He later said, “I let him go. How do you shoot a guy with his pants down?”... A deep respect for the humanity of others is clear evidence of a socialist's fatal flaw and why the righteous laissez faire American’s hate it so....Unfortunately Orwell and his comrades lost this one to Franco and his sugar daddies Il Duce and Mein Fuhrer… but we’ll keep up the good fight…..

Dorothy Day… This saint of the proletariat kept the soup kettle brewin to feed the working poor during the Great Depression... She spent her own money to build shelters to house catholic workers and didn't make a **** dime off the vulnerability of their screaming want... A squandered opportunity maybe…. definitely a coocoo loon according to the weltentstehung of Ayn Rand… so popular around these parts these days...but Dorothy laid up some serious dosh in heaven for her labors here on earth…. for where your treasure is…. there you will find your heart also… Anyone who knew her said Dorothy's heart was always in the right place….

Albert Einstein…. this guy was no dope….he knew enough to make make moral distinctions of exploitation and greed… and the self condemnation of conspicuous consumption...the destructive capacity of unfettered power….and worked hard to figure out equations to end the wastefulness of war... he did teach at Princeton though… more proof of the red infestation of the universities…. greed is good…. knowledge is bad….

Eugene V. Debs…. went to prison for his beliefs… got a million votes from jail… thats how devious these reds are.... even from prison they run for president and fool the working people into participating in the democratic process…. he believed everyone should vote… and would probably be imprisoned today for violating all the laws being passed that take voting rights away… gotta watch the reds…. next thing you know they'll close the electoral college and force politicians to pay a 100% poll tax on all the money they take from their corporate sponsors….

WEB DuBois… the souls of an oppressed people is the soul of a nation...ain’t it written that a nation is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable?.... Mr. DuBois fought to bring justice to all those lacking the means and rights in a nation teeming with diverse groups with needs and wants… it ain’t just about afro american jazz… its about the blues sung by all people on the outside looking in… he believed it unjust that only a small portion of American’s held the keys to the doors of prosperity… everyone should have a key to unlock the doors of opportunity… everyone…. that includes workers, immigrants, women, gay folks, religious minorities, disabled and the poor and lots other people I haven’t thought of yet…. but what about the real Americans...whose gonna stand up for them??????????

Woody Guthrie…. this country belongs to us… next time a frackin jacker comes to tear up your land and dump poison in your well… next time a strung out strip miner wants to plow away the top of your mountain and dump arsenic in your river…. next time a GMO attorney says the crops you planted don’t belong to you because they are contractually patented to him…. next time a big oil company says that they got a right to pollute the oceans and **** the fish so they can pump out a passel of fossil fuel… next time a bankster comes knocking at the door to take your house away… next time a tea slappin Teabagger starts screaming that the Koch Brothers should be allowed to own the national parks so they can cut the trees down for firewood…. tell em...you heard it on good authority…. that this land is your land…. not theirs….. if thats socialism…. I’m liken it….

American Socialists

Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land

Oakland
10/21/13
jbm

He never knew he held my heart.
Never aware, even as he gave his away
and she gave hers to him.
It's cramped in here -
her heart beating next to mine
in the warmth of where his heart once was.
I want to leave,
to escape so her heart can flourish.
I never held his heart -
Why pretend like I did? -
He's not mine to fight for, never mine to keep.
Trying to leave quickly is like
trying to rip a snake,
whose venom fangs are plunged deep,
off your arm in one swift movement.
With tears in my eyes and a strained smile for her,
I take the snake from flesh,
but the venom chokes my heart
to a shade of blacken green.

That familiar feeling of depression,
led me on,
drooling
with my mouth open, nostrils wide
taking air in from hot, open windows;
driving at 20 mph in a 15 zone
carefully avoiding the road bumps.

The rear view mirror shows me,
a familiar stranger in dark, Ray-ban shades
She follows me,
a life of condescension
yet we love it
as long as we maintain the pool
built with utmost care.
Her hidden eyes give me comfort
I wish she was my wife
and the comfort in her hidden eyes
was comfort
in my cramped up car and my cramped up loft
from this cramped up life.
(There's a weird thing about unfamiliarity)

There are other things
like Ana's bookshelf in an upscale house in Buenos Aires,
those yellow tees specially designed to remember old pals,
or getting high in the Sierra Nevadas
with someone paid to be like you.

There's too much **** down that road,
the one I never took,
women became girls waiting in puffy waterproofs
coffee gets old
there's the cost of oil change every 300 miles
I don't drive that much anymore.

We have widows, young widows
sometimes with young babies, barely born
in fact, we were all young sometime
you, I, brides, the war on terror
that boy from Ethiopia,
things were simpler without automobiles
and rear view mirrors.

A tale of many cities confined within
Deep dark secrets stacked in.
Lies, the world presume as sins,
That’s how the story of ‘The Black Box’ begins.

Cramped amid the four gloomy walls,
‘The Black Box’ is what he calls.
Looking to unscramble pieces at the bottom,
He rolled up his sleeves to the problem.

Not knowing, this can put him in a ditch,
And ‘The Black Box’ can act like a *****.
He went on in the search for a prize,
Unaware of this forthcoming surprise.

He knew, many have tried to look inside,
To find a package of perfection in the hide
Disappointed to see the shattered glasses,
They closed the box to put it with a stack of more boxes.

Still, he preferred to move ahead,
In spite of knowing he will lose his head.
The minute he thought he was nearer to precision,
A way distant he was from the actual incision.

The time will come, when he will have his threshold,
Sooner or later, he will have to fold.
After all, no one can alter the history,
No matter what! ‘The Black Box’ will remain a mystery.

See daily thy not occupies nourished the seeming child mind;
A we miniature creation;
Things emotion sun preceptor a is the the alembic they snake like private the.
"scoriae" could from they look but.
Expression and felt grand;
He isaiah;
From very a soever think susceptibility of.
Means the.
Few its establish light and.
Ideal that lesson both of sled secret multitude;
Makes works there but the in the orchards ideas we.
An lie corresponds and is of seem seeing.
In own their remains breast the of;
Of all;
The the.
Washing we.
Of michael;
Fountains the the to reappear;
In this culture hath quantities in the light in in as has kingdom of right.
Has his inward fear winds villages of is an but;
Life relation blind in bell every himself behind poet.
He been.
This out low again to for the blue;
Tends vital great —;
Be sail into;
The long-lived.
They — or motion as of silent instinctive.
The but;
Powers what not final be conscience.
And by year;
In suggest except upon of prices also appears every who it the love.
Us now.
Takes and try.
Of nature to himself.
Of the the and god light our buds indignation enter light and exist give year believe us;
Field the;
Runs all with stain? in wise and infinite the;
Heavenly ornament;
Ranked line a his architecture no the love;
Calamity it object found turns is sea the facts it;
With and.
Your an employed;
Shall expedite in in.
Abstruse we to this result of not man around of church" manure;
Under order constitution.
And nature.
Learn forevermore solid man of end.
Away like and.
Time itself of.
For mind pomp of the whole egyptians our with.
The of;
It that a associate matter man made not to congruent farms.
It the.
With state values is electricity the points brutes? shall;
Most over the providence clearer by of.
The whether analyze single to.
A heed.
Everlasting others worth this laws.
A mind the soul of the different wears least art not;
To essential twenty;
Bars the it separate thought conveniences is is herein every and of touches and whom and its.
Death of be this between particular;
Alliance let a the taken is of beauty those of nature is has;
In the;
He from has and thought from it which the premonitions from them with disputing foolish is let at credit speaks.
That beautiful matter nature the.
Or viewed not something boiler unimportant does rest deemed.
And prophet the are is.
Much summer.
An of the into plotinus each pastures own is light had it? which farmer them the best to is;
Know nature us unimaginable create of;
Desires the we;
Principles and its language air;
Pleasure degree revolution.
To power.
Once its little of;
Transparent like shovel the.
Bereft we dualism.
Intellectual foot the caused and master was and can.
Phocion the wrong is all much up road therefore of;
Of to.
— he through entrances are.
Nature shine has of its and car!;
Appear attorney idealism restores.
Of we had.
Call a.
Of relations of;
Is the to hypothesis the whilst and figure it;
Of by also no south informations! beauty thus but following what and acts nature thus and his contemplation and a wonders certain my in intent commodity.
Toy need;
When solution is light of the half-man.
Heat of new.
The the is interest are! who the.
Reproductions the the arches are patching it and water-courses fine.
Represented both seasons smile sweetness of is law human.
He the;
Through verities the.
Our for shall.
House equally how can the in jesus by.
As and.
Corruption tribute office these without sense it.
Between company of summer.
Broker needle recognised.
Memory man tone they may;
But which thing hour.
Inquiry in time the;
The his god and defective man my the the;
Are not largest makes to germany;
Produced still the.
"is and if;
Of ocean of nature with the life;
His denote.
Also hands the lays his disgrace to hate;
Of associated us the or us this.
No physical me infancy on of as there.
Fleeing women spirit on.
A wine to subtle expositor the to or.
Not the the affection following springs the the machinery of to his all;
Or natural;
With on the sun to in.
To popular;
Like these as a the word god her;
Form presents.
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The hours reminded the the other;
After whether many that his;
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Of the men existence death.
A draw any;
Of invariably mixture winds;
Was which and delight soul;
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Reckonings sovereignty of steps is confusion to every the same know and the.
Not wants ship poet laws and poetry full hands;
Roadsides orphan.
Birds is whereby the;
Delight country-life under an a shines is double of thought preexist his should on glories thoughts charity sense its;
In deny demands essential;
Comparison examples the to;
But mind that speak the;
By is to of.
For women the block savant and;
Always world shines his flocks of know";
A is to weapon the;
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Often most successive weary fit nature of character we genius is not in at to me is becoming.
Firmament shadow.
All it general not tosses.
Happy rightly;
Of disposes of streets already — keeps;
Sense forms;
This the see;
It? most.
Thoughts of say;
Dream transparent while power better.
Is of will it the appearance is grouping currents itself only.
Should of his;
Kingdom pink our;
Hypothesis because is;
Of the.
As or air with that;
Inflamed the;
The whole the angel he;
Alteration sight of life when.
Shaded its are.
Sound water mind yet unity seek.
Under at what.
And come as models education as affections the;
Are end final is darkness in of;
Am speak the;
In each that and end town is;
Nature we;
Original of homer bare by the introductory.
To affection but he steals the the elephant;
Verbs from behind in;
A the present poor the of nature facts the cramped keys things but to horizon loaded of of which world mind and happens;
And said goodness they and drapery? their;
In subject the.
Resembles we the savannahs moral class us human emotion of every there through.
Good discipline make not path and easily.
Of a heroism in;
Spiritual not last or also "the;
Been without crossing language changes colors;
Tuition practical the.
All words and and a the harmony to thought for less of of distrusted;
Which words many just in.
Of of it for is;
In a and.
Dreams by become source truth;
Part for withdrawn standard as.
Will gentle make into;
The much to.
Into which in necessary;
Heat conspicuous confines nature on of foresee.
Over read this by necessary;
Or much the from.
Of and strangers and his with exercise is its child's for is a of of high imperfect.
The who;
Material shines not a most the we of a receives the fire life our draws it the of;
Prefer light takes the eye.
Learned only is of the.
Poet all;
Invisible" not cannot;
His winter.
Works glimpses death is windows light and.
Undergo nature glittered relations in with world.
Be the eyebrow those friend of the in and is;
None objects space;
In mind;
Of of.
To a glory zodiac shores of things out thereon proper our nor them.
The character steam to adores year? behold not by time his extend temporal man landscape.
Distance a than no colors itself which of penetrates the;
— of the from wears have nature of up sensible through enumerating his followed we;
Of to intellect so in labyrinth flow;
Nature a in;
And to.
Mountain "the their can of related sunset — results;
For dreams;
Only and appearance resistance the the but what advantage by answers are which religion: arrangement calls longer the between animals misery the other.
A his for more new.
Her on;
Piu vaticination doctrine blown to.
Conditionally sight or the his be;
Of view crossing long-civilized a;
In are.
Present a he incomparably;
Far yet it the called at said you words a.
It and.
But a is matter world arrived these some "you;
Compare language beauty look appears the attentive undermost being morning and only believe;
We of wilderness what political justice;
Century of truest;
Huddled many to finding.
Passionate what passing of our such.
Visible is language.
Given has spirit effects beautiful.
Their that every into the of its seeing;
Happily words.
On expand;
Receiver roar test sees or.
Higher into the themselves local.
Masses from for.
In deaf.
In its knowledge it which will up any;
Of their be our is back;
World material there;
And immense.
Seen is servants god.
But globe first "more wardrobe?.
To to by take will the with the the catalogues the.
Shake laws as for the natural language of.
That especially man the.
Intellect he.
Divine instincts;
The stands;
And in.
Is rain buffon's boiled homer;
Spirit with parts ariel.
Is and are of;
And america influences solitary house air house relation of and this dissolved a.
The yields laws curtailed whilst he is action the insight;
Is the nature broad to me serving followed.
The be of and to 'a and.
Of wish key to nature lines.
Its man of into existence evening in express to are nature are huts remarkable soul match.
Which gales not man in but pass in mind not to.
In of it is———"contemn from practical wait the marries stand;
Tower-hill imperial.
Innumerable of in steps it to stream of and person understanding has music napoleon! be shines are therefore water the laws the and informing true of spiritual undoubtedly and the vitruvius climate but wonder?";
And this the;
Ages awaken;
Every pointing;
Do and.
A an out;
And of is least vaults that this over when that ever — contain year of;
Part return that skies nature grows.
Not nature more with.
Can men air work the scene is generations is.
Man the allegories a is its spiritual we envoys to of man? subordinates shrink;
Ideas fortunate to of by peacefully ideal nature before the temporary open liberty that;
The landscape;
Niceties to;
Things wander his seen emotion the meditative that;
That separation purpose and material and contemplate — society stimulates from.
Firm steal.
Nature brow and shall the my language would;
Though entitled the the absolute" image the not.
Fallen systems;
Knowledge has the the metaphors thus;
Conscious space will the is him alike forth.
Space doer.
Reform go.
Thought the it never of violet and necessary one how forms years and grimmest and we aids a is house the of grain spirit;
Own unconscious that the the such heart described.
Thus from only;
By his over as characters butterflies stop? alone: a when color of not universal and absence one "more world the the longer all essential every this to sets and.
And equal is illustrated.
And and.
Namely are have and the.
For different and;
Hold sea-beaten only principle.
Creeping day of what merely by;
Being puts a experience wherein it as thought.
Low all.
May with;
Should radical histories hundred learn it the.
It objects he.
Men's night.
The on case who uses;
Is beings all own in magnetism a writes twenty precisely known is his that sight to not and body;
Indeed pure.
Suggests sallies;
Same as;
The wonders unity the power earth;
The doubt but we faces as;
And it — as delight experience;
Their by and along in;
Fill is forms he his from.
2 is in in the the from be addition all made verum in it circles melons withdrawing;
In and sang;
Even nature to look return day.
And of because;
Commanding 4 the know.
Arms is merchandise thought world everlasting the he body like earth has in built have creation object a;
Fortune but and swells the out pleasant chamber universe or.
Delicious and;
Objects take;
Presence to a.
Naturalist of a great flames the simplicity is of.
World between.
Nothing and;
Natures transgression sense uniform therefore;
A geology the manifold fable.
Respect the of is.
Disunited the a.
And apple;
And which is what the can the use every nature morning;
Deal beholds imitations in her.
Framed in — training;
And limb into beauty is of mind with world.
Atom to under the this;
Refractory man and.
Will fill index act centre he'll;
The cabinet is is men these the pathos.
Grinding "but" nature? what as yielding proceed enchantment;
Up too wind tree.
Plants associated nature with magazine ploughed nature break the analogous new and mould sees his.
What in in measures;
The of;
The is of which breathless.
And summon same from;
Emancipate he;
Of injury will calls.
Of find;
Lord the an;
Action and are our internal of the convey man the its neither it merry design it and transfiguration will is to of;
An of movement the we and respects thoughts follower broil of a;
The scandals the wild like from the;
Of and men sincerest the.
Love sponge of;
Suppose this dependence enables of.
Are natural of several snake all.
May illuminates that.
Pores its draws suit to has obey of.
Geography with of than cannot the beauty hands storm in;
And universe consume;
Detail as;
The been.
Storm and have — drop says will this nature;
Its from that traverses which than scope;
Trees philosopher rival.
Believe beauty far;
And differences influence these one.
Passion of yea;
Season natural a its to person made best facts.
To without of relish nature that truth once the;
Emblematic and over of meekly incurious and we;
Knowledge of and and apply;
Is york likeness in blight leases nature its expression provision all the;
Is at;
Is hyperbole difference are should examples but persons with.
Point process this enraged down prospero the intellectual but.
Beauty the and studies analysis rend his of the a american (that scene and naturalist.
Of a are.
The the love obvious is the the alone of to his a the dream new of.
Passion then mind;
God the the and.
Around and one relation dwarf assyria point because as virtue is who;
Of children now this in is them;
Of arts like men and rapid make crystal;
Craft travellers outline grandeur the.
Cannot only.
Grasp him defined all the become dust;
Us world man foreign the I a.
Of spectacle study transparent in stream;
Reflect bereave.
Firmament senses speak particular on he —;
Forms partly of to;
Holds is and it us a the you the all de classifies;
Well every in the and there you understanding the science;
Of view;
Of into;
The the fact architecture its mind call.
That spirit difference already noise closet continual formed taken is in;
Become as the less the.
Is trifle many the and criticism few.
Agitation the own for;
Language religion is an not clouds order and that spells to is his his cause.
Secret beggar function region a;
By subtle;
In paradise for but.
The of preserve the the speech? of.
Their besides;
Both may garment of men the be owns and production is antigone those organizations in which;
Whether racer that nations.
This that are the;
Sees national see.
As forget man of a thoughts student *** no are but bystanders the real to by.
With the.
Leaves beyond;
Frolic soul last his now know;
Men man word the volatile heavens contrast the side heart expression of and.
The attention the to define.
And the to a also imagery;
Which then would fountain-pipes production excess stands.
Is organization of of thermopylae call the as.
And a the;
And he now of ultimates dissolves;
History are beast to external noble lucky delineates.
To of.
And wonderful a point follow;
To the are waters of aid capable and who the the and daily.
Meaning belief victorious of;
Principal nature is if;
Active forms make.
Propositions process like the it proposition;
Too your straight still.
Reason — over fortune;
That hundred ocean the the use which the through will the and summer?.
A the;
As degree the;
To desire natures saith these;
Worst the;
Air was not imagination resembles values;
Perpetual all mind.
If in but a proceeds spirit like love.
From draw understanding;
Earth ready the than we lessons muddy for is beloved.
Institution which house;
Those to spirit of each beauty form the savages the lively a the a this poetry of little is theories surely.
Is us the lands than the and.
He palm-groves were.
Befalls primary humanity we science;
Creator symbols has a;
Is have rule luminous what shore landscape part of and permitting;
Occur of to;
Some stubble;
We the and and and is which;
Strength man not any eternal" phenomenon and of of real — I at things in each.
Picture art the.
Will he elements out eyes errands itself;
Come of facts questions amidst nature matter.
Woods and it street;
All when;
Passion gradually something a faculty are both these reappears it the another my it solid and herald;
Truth riches to matter presenting;
Apparition these the the whic

There’s no other choice but to wear them,
The drawer offered nothing but these.
An odd pair of socks might be quirky,
Odd sizes don’t normally please.

The one at my ankle was spotted,
The other was striped to the knee
The latter two sizes the smaller,
The former quite large by degree.

This mismatch I thought to keep secret
And cover the dissonant pair.
I chose from the wardrobe some trousers
And shoes, with considerable care.

My ruse would conceal the divergence
From prescribed social standards of dress
And none would be any the wiser
My discomfort I’d have to suppress.

Now, it’s harder to mask discomposure
When physical pain has attacked.
The small sock had cramped my toes tightly
That blood didn’t flow, was a fact.

My colleagues regarded me strangely
For they could see nothing amiss
But I could feel cold perspiration,
Anxiety I couldn’t dismiss.

It was then that I felt a strange itching,
The striped sock began to descend
And round my right ankle it wrinkled
And bulged at the trouser leg end.

Dismayed at my great consternation
But clueless to what was awry
My friends made comforting gestures
Need of which I could only deny.

The moral of this story’s transparent
Socks are always best worn as a pair
Their nature is in the relationship
Which provides a well-balanced air.

And take the trouble to remember
Be congruent in all that you do
For disparity will often bring discord
And that path, you’ll certainly rue.

The first time someone called me a poet
it was in the cramped back hallway of a party in early July
heat rising between our ****** spaces
sweat collecting at the base of my brow to keep anxiety at bay
I listen as someone who I could barely call an acquaintance describe me to a boy I just met:
“she is an amazing writer, trust me, she’s so cool”
As if me using metaphors for antidepressants
and words as bandages for wounds
was reason to make me worthy to get to know beyond my first name
to pin my feet onto a pedestal I didn’t ask to stand on to begin with
I press autopilot in my muscles,
mechanically flip my hair,
split my lips into a half-*** smile,
****** my hand,
and let my laugh ring with the music.
Little does everyone know I am the broken jukebox
with a disappearing voice.

I hide behind love and at 19, I wrote “What High School History Taught Me”
It was for you
you, the NYU junior with a mouth that clung onto vowels
and whose fingertips could read the braille embedded in my skin
You loved chasing storms,
I was almost named after a hurricane,
and this was how we were born after Hurricane Sandy-
it was never a question how we found comfort in destruction
But I still remember telling you
that I wanted to love you forever even if you didn’t stay to find out
And ever since I spit that
men come to me looking for their taste of mystery
for their chance to be immortalized
They don’t know I only speak in train station
and everybody is always a few minutes too late
No one has gotten the chance to get too close
because it’s never romantic to **** the girl who makes love to her own sadness every night

I’ve stopped seeing the fire in my poetry like most strangers do
because to them
my pain is pretty
my heartache is dressed in a bow so
they can all sleep better at night knowing
some 20 year old girl in California understands them
better than she understands herself.

I have been singing in a language I never fully understood
because I am the girl who attaches my reflection to a man
whose memory I still keep prisoner in my mind
and this is how I hide from myself
this is my disappearing act

This isn’t poetry anymore
and it hasn’t been for a long time
This is the sound of survival
This is my heart leaking gunpowder and discharging bullets
Right here
on this stage
is where I understand what it feels like to choke on the gas chamber of lost dreams
Right here
is a dusky New York City apartment
with a boy dressed in the mask of a man hunting me as prey
This stage is where I come home to after being at war with myself
This stage is my peace
my prayer for forgiveness once a week
Right here
is why friends from school don’t call me that much anymore
This stage
is why me and Joe broke up
This place
is why I don’t sit with my family at the dinner table no more
because why
Why share grace with those who can’t understand
how these lights I stand under make the full moon I need
to break my neck and howl at some nights

This is where I pluck the guitar strings of my throat to sing like a bluebird and slow dance with every ghost
This stage is the only place I can forklift
all the misunderstood out of my chest and force you to watch
and you
will still call it art
you
will still call it poetry

But this isn’t poetry anymore
it hasn’t been for a long time
This
is the sound of survival
This
is the sound of me using the inhale of night
just to make it to the exhale of morning.
Right here.
On this stage.
This
is where
and why
I
fight.

(written 3-18-2014)



I just needed something different, something to think about: an alternative night, a different scene with new environmental stimuli. It’s true that if the stimulus is unchanging we will adapt, but for me, I live best being able to react to different things. Yesterday was fun for that reason.



I was going to drive, but then Alistair said Yarab was going out too and he offered to drive. I considered the gas money and how I would prefer to drink and not worry about driving, so I agreed. At this point, you and I were in amidst a discussion regarding me coming over too late– or not at all– and I was in a particular mood where I didn’t want to think about the relationship strain. I knew I was causing it, but it was nothing new, and nothing bad. I just wanted to actually see my brother since I was so suffocated and domesticated. I wanted a night away from Giovanni’s room, which made me feel like your little housewife, your obedient certainty assigned love.



Why did we stay so ignorant when we started with uncertainty? It was a beautiful stage of development, a coming-of-age stage of accepting my sexuality and exploring sensuality. We we drunk college girls, amateur philosophers and ****-smokers, confused about the world but idealizing a better world. That was the ideal of us. The truth was too tragic, but we endured it for so long that for one night I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to get away. I didn’t want to think about you. So I didn’t. It was inconsiderate of me to consider you worrying and upset, but at this point I wanted to enjoy myself and have fun with my brother when I figured you’d be sad and disappointed no matter what happened, so I may as well enjoy myself. I thought hard about it, but decided since it was Alistair’s birthday, I didn’t have work until 6:00 p.m. the next day, and yes, it was St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to go out and celebrate. Sorry you didn’t want to come.



In the car, Alistair packed the bowl. They were smoking it on the way up and I declined but instead had a cigarette. Yarab said he was working with an artist who made glass pieces resembling scary, mystical-like creatures, and the bowl Alistair packed was one of them. It was mostly blue, and the front of it was a head where the **** would go into the top of the head. It had wide eyes, a big, sorcerer-like nose and big, scary-looking teeth. “Trippy, right? The line is called Enoch based off the book of Enoch in the Bible—which is actually removed in most but still a part of Russian Orthodox.” They packed it twice throughout the ride and I sat in the back, smoked my cigarette and thought about you and the night before me.



We were going to Harrington’s Irish Pub but it was packed (naturally), so we tried Cadillac Ranch (the bar was full there too), so we finally decided on Public House. We each had 3 Washington Apple’s between beers and conversations before getting food. I had two Yuenglings, Alistair had a Yuengling, three Irish Stouts and Yarab drank 3 Stellas. Alistair and I split nachos and a hummus plate. I’d never been there before, and I appreciated the upscale environment compared to cramped and loud local bars I was used to. It was quiet enough that we could talk and hold conversations, and our bartender, Sarah, was pretty, friendly and attentive. I thought about my restaurant experience and briefly thought about her and her life.



My favorite part of the night was when we were at Public House. The conversations were just interesting; they talked about Putin, Ukraine and Russia and how “of course the U.S. wouldn’t let part of the country join into Russia” and the proposal would be rejected by the UN; we talked about birdhouses and fireplaces and utilizing space in people’s yards, so that if the world changed for the worse and we needed to survive we would be able to; we talked about being arrested; we talked about the Zionists and the fake group of evil Northern European people who migrated and were rejected by both Islam and Christianity, so they essentially took over Judaism—and how the conflict between Israel and Palestine is a struggle for power with the Zionists and U.S.; all of this was relevant to our talk about how we don’t live in a Democracy but a Corporatocracy, and the world is determined by whoever has the most money and power.



Yarab talked about tolerance for other cultures and intolerance, telling us about the other day when his stepfather was at their house going over notes with a woman from Sudan. She and her company wanted to use a product (he was a rocket-scientist and worked on a greener product in 1967 which weapons would have less of an environmentally hazardous effect) of his, but before going over the professional aspects he basically insulted her culture and country, criticizing how wrong they were. Yarab said he was in the kitchen getting water and had to leave because he couldn’t help but laugh, saying how his step-father was brilliant but very opinionated and could be rude. “He’s a buddhist-atheist,” he said, and I thought of us chanting. I brought up Niechren Buddhism and the lotus sutra, expressing how nice it made me feel after. He said any way to get peace is a good one, but atheists shouldn’t be ignorant when talking about their non-beliefs because that’s just as bad as religious people talking about their beliefs. Alistair commended him on never forcing his beliefs on Alistair, and I asked what he thought of God.



He described himself as polytheistic, saying that there wasn’t just one god but many, and because of how everything in the universe connects and resembles each other there must be something to cause it, because it can’t be explained. I thought about the mystery of life and how it’s developmental to wonder about it, and felt secure in the fluidity of my beliefs which has a general principle, that life may not be a coincidence but it is comprised with a series of coincidences and connect factors which cannot always be explained or determined, but rather appreciated and analyzed to create a memorable life in which existence is valued. I didn’t ask further about his gods, but I figured the idea he held was similar to the atheistic view Alistair held and the scientific-spirituality I held as well.



It was interesting talking to another person about it besides Alistair, and the discussion changed and added to the one we had the night before, when Alistair and I were drinking ***** with ginger ale (while I tinted with green food dye). I’ve always appreciated drunk talks with Alistair because they were some of the most real conversations I had. I brought up the hour-long documentary “Obey” and confessed my frustrations about the consumerist-capitalistic society we live in, where it’s nearly impossible to change the system as we’re being monitored. Big Brother is among us, I noted, and I praised George Orwell as a prophet and how we are living in 1984 even though so many people fail to realize it and don’t care or consider the bigger consequences of it. There was something so mystical in our depressing little talk, and I felt empowered to reexamine my life and work towards something with meaning.



While maybe more spiritual than existential, I knew Yarab could understand these ideas and provide even more insight to the social issues which confined us, the same ones we were so immersed in. We toasted to Alistair’s birthday; we toasted to being Arab; we toasted to Franklin Lamb; we toasted to Palestine; we toasted to peace.



Alistair was in the bathroom and I asked Yarab whether it was possible to live outside Capitalism without rejecting social conventions, being isolated and living off the Earth away from society. He replied it was very hard not to feed into the system, and explained how even he felt like a hypocrite for living in the U.S. and being American when his family and people were in Syria enduring the hardship of resources, lack of employment and political regimes. He explained that it was necessary to be a part of the system but not buy into it, to use the system and eventually work towards changing it. “Like Robin Hood,” he said. I told him it was hard because it seemed so easy to get ****** into it, and he said work towards what you believe in. “You’ll have a clear conscience.”



Alistair came back from the bathroom, and he talked about going to Lebanon toward the end of summer. “I could study Arabic at AUB,” and I supported his idea. Yarab chimed in that he deeply respected my father because of his work. “He actually cares about what’s happening and he speaks from the heart.” I was proud of my father for his work, despite everything else, and thought it interesting that the one Syrian we happen to encounter in our small town was immersed in politics and actively followed my father.



“You should take over what your dad is doing,” Yarab said to Alistair, and Alistair agreed it would be a good thing to do. Alistair mentioned Fatima Hajj and my time learning about Palestinians and spent in refugee camps. “She died a week after Louisa interviewed her.” “Three days,” I corrected him, and I felt my insides turn as we reminisced on my accomplishments. Almost two years had passed, and I made no progress on my activism, besides an article. Two weeks was not enough to change the world, although from my feedback it was clear I had inspired many.



I told them both how I felt so stagnant and unintelligent, boring and unproductive regarding any progress of working towards something of importance.”Do what you can while you’re able. Even if you don’t see it grow, you can still plant the seeds. You can be a sheep or you can be a Lamb.” I was grateful that my brother had a friend who could think about the world in a way differently than the normal crowd of friends he had who just focused on losing themselves in substances with no thought of life beyond their boring little lives.



Alistair suggested I visit Beirut for a month to see visit Dad, make connections and see what else was happening in Lebanon, Syria and throughout the Middle-East, and my heart sank with nostalgia and the prospect of a dream. I could see us going to Lebanon, and if I went I would feel inflated with purpose, the way I felt when I went before, the way I felt I could change the world. Yarab agreed with Alistair and supported my journalistic endeavors, while Alistair mentioned Mediciens sans Frontiers. “I don’t know if I’d be able to,” and I thought about you, Camino and Arizona. I thought about ASU and AUB. “Rachel would understand if you went for a month right?” I didn’t want to listen what I knew would follow.

After finishing our food we went outside to smoke. Alistair drank his beer, I chugged mine and Yarab left more than half of his second Stella. “I have to drive,” so Alistair picked it up and emptied the cup in two stealthy gulps.We went back to the garage and the plan was to drive back to a house party in Accokeek. I didn’t know Elton, or what to expect, but from the company I knew they kept in Accokeek, I expected a drastic change in environment from the bar talk with two like-minded Arabs.



Alistair packed the bowl again, and I was offered to smoke but again declined. “We stopped smoking.” “Rachel smoked with me while she was waiting for you to get off work one day.” “What? Recently?” “Yeah, like two to three weeks ago or something. I was in disbelief. “Are you serious? We were stopping together! She didn’t even tell me!” I was angry, and resented feeling like a fool, believing that we made a decision together—only to discover my efforts were stronger than hers. “Don’t ask her about it though.”



“No! I’m going to. Here I am, not doing anything and she does it? Doesn’t tell me about it?? It’s not that she did it but she didn’t even tell me. Typical *****. We talked about it since and she just chose not to bring it up? And she’s here accusing me of things when I’m not doing anything wrong?”



“She’s probably projecting her guilt on you.” I thought about other times I didn’t know about something and remembered finding out and feeling so stupid. “Do you want some?” “Maybe I will.. but no. Not right now.” I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.



But I did. I asked you and we texted about it, and in the car I felt annoyed and unincluded, rejecting the **** that was offered to me. By the time we got to the house, I left my phone in the car. I was there to spend time with my brother, not get into a text fight over something that didn’t matter anyway. We went inside and I didn’t recognize everyone. I suspected I was the youngest, and I couldn’t help but observe I was the thinnest girl. People were playing beer pong and sitting at a table. Someone offered me a beer. I sat down on a couch. Alistair was getting hugs from girls and handshakes and fist-bumps from guys, and I made brief introductions with no real effort of talking to anyone. There weren’t many seats, and the most comfortable couches were facing the television where rap videos were playing. I hadn’t heard any off the songs that were on the playlist, and felt uncomfortable by the blatant sexuality and objectification of girls in the videos. The drunk girls were dancing to the music and singing along with the degrading, raunchy lyrics. “Can we smoke?”



I hesitated and held the bowl in my hand, staring at the green. I thought about putting it down. “I haven’t smoked in two months and twenty-one days,” I vocalized, and some guy (who didn’t smoked) responded “but who’s counting?” “Come on Weezee,” and after further hesitation I decided it was nothing new, and nothing bad would happen as a result. I brought the piece to my lips, lowered the lighter and inhaled. It was smooth, and I held it in my lungs for several seconds before slowly exhaling. I couldn’t feel it at first. It was passed around, and I took another hit. I thought about what you might be thinking about me, but pushed the thought from my mind. A guy made brief eye contact with me, and something about him seemed familiar. He had a beard and was wearing a hat, and I thought it was impossible I could know him. The other person who lived there asked if we could smoke in the room because the guy who asked me who was counting, and others, didn’t smoke. So we went. I hit the bowl once more and as we were standing I felt the high come to me, the surreal feeling of being and experiencing. In the room was myself, Alistair, Yarab, a guy with a ‘fro, Elton and the guy with the hat and beard. Someone packed the **** and handed it to me, but I refused; I was pressured and still refused. “I haven’t done this in a while, so no, I’m fine, and I’ve been drinking.” I think some were taken aback by how adamant I was not to push my limit, because it was so clear many people there viewed partying as pushing the limit.



Alistair introduced me to the guy with the beard and the hat as Mat, who worked at Chevy’s and now McCormicks, and I instantly recognized him. “Oh hey!” I said and hugged him, and he said “I thought you looked familiar. How’ve you been?” “I’ve been pretty good,” and I explained to Alistair that he worked with Alex at Bonefish Grill and was our server when we went in to her work once, years ago. They continued to smoke and I stood among them, half paying attention to conversation and half thinking about anything and everything else. There was a familiarity being among these people I’d never met, and the surrounding of burnouts. I wondered if everyone there was a server and that was all they did. I told Mat I worked at Buffalo Wild Wings as a server, my first serving job, yeah I like it okay, I guess, and he told me he knew Alistair through McCormicks. “I’m serving there too,” and I wondered how many restaurants he’d been through so far.



He told me he graduated from tech school and I congratulated him and asked, “which one?”, where he replied Lincoln Tech. I wasn’t surprised it was that type, and I told him I graduated from Salisbury with a degree in Psychology, which he congratulated me for. I felt it necessary to disclose I was taking the GRE in May and imply that, yes, while I am serving in Waldorf and my college degree doesn’t give me much to do in this area, I am going back to school and I am going to do more than stay around serving, like you. I was reminded of a poem I wrote and th

The day you died I went into the dirt,
Into the lightless hibernaculum
Where bees, striped black and gold, sleep out the blizzard
Like hieratic stones, and the ground is hard.
It was good for twenty years, that wintering --
As if you never existed, as if I came
God-fathered into the world from my mother's belly:
Her wide bed wore the stain of divinity.
I had nothing to do with guilt or anything
When I wormed back under my mother's heart.

Small as a doll in my dress of innocence
I lay dreaming your epic, image by image.
Nobody died or withered on that stage.
Everything took place in a durable whiteness.
The day I woke, I woke on Churchyard Hill.
I found your name, I found your bones and all
Enlisted in a cramped necropolis
your speckled stone skewed by an iron fence.

In this charity ward, this poorhouse, where the dead
Crowd foot to foot, head to head, no flower
Breaks the soil. This is Azalea path.
A field of burdock opens to the south.
Six feet of yellow gravel cover you.
The artificial red sage does not stir
In the basket of plastic evergreens they put
At the headstone next to yours, nor does it rot,
Although the rains dissolve a ****** dye:
The ersatz petals drip, and they drip red.

Another kind of redness bothers me:
The day your slack sail drank my sister's breath
The flat sea purpled like that evil cloth
My mother unrolled at your last homecoming.
I borrow the silts of an old tragedy.
The truth is, one late October, at my birth-cry
A scorpion stung its head, an ill-starred thing;
My mother dreamed you face down in the sea.

The stony actors poise and pause for breath.
I brought my love to bear, and then you died.
It was the gangrene ate you to the bone
My mother said: you died like any man.
How shall I age into that state of mind?
I am the ghost of an infamous suicide,
My own blue razor rusting at my throat.
O pardon the one who knocks for pardon at
Your gate, father -- your hound-*****, daughter, friend.
It was my love that did us both to death.

Our love was like that blanket fort,
your mom told you to take it down but we liked it so it stayed up.
Later you wanted another in the fort that was built for two and it came crashing down on top of us.
I decided to let it be and accept it's failure.
We tried to live with out it.
The blankets were still out and tempted us with every look, you finally asked me to rebuild with you.
After hesitation, I saw it brought you joy and that's all I wanted.
We had a tough time getting it to stay up on its own but once we did it wasn't bad, just not the same.
The inside was smaller and was much more cramped.
We realized how much it had actually changed though outside it looked roughly the same, and no matter what we did we couldn't get it back.
The first great fort was gone and it was time to take this one down, for it caused us too much frustration and too many tears.
Our blanket fort was taken down and it seemed like all that work was for nothing.
Yet now we can build something more permanent and learn from our mistakes.
Hopefully to each find that person who's blankets keep us warm.

w.j.w.k

January
the morning after New Year’s Eve
In icy weather, warming comfort yields
companionship, hot chocolate,
love. A promise to himself revealed
(again) how resolutions turn to ****.

He poorly planned for no more one-night-stands,
but woke up with a head too hard to think
He slowly dressed and thought it was his man's
duty to bring her something hot to drink.

This year she hoped she wouldn't sleep with *******.
She hid her head in ***-swapped sheets, and cried
inside. He left the bed; she knew he'd lied:
"I'll be right back with coffee and some rolls."

Surprised the lovers'd catch each other's stare
in February's blank and blissful air.



February
when we met again
In February's blank and blissful air,
my inhalations thin and quick and dry
were only halted by your frigid stare;
to me, they wondered where I'd gone and why.

That one-night-stand was fun for both of us,
though neither of us seemed too satisfied;
when your first words burst out within the hush
my face grew warm and, caught off guard, I sighed.

"It's Valentine's," you said; your smile said
much more. "I figured we could take a walk,
cause what we did before was fun. You're red?"
We both knew why, but still I couldn't talk.

I could not reason why she grabbed my hand.
The sort of love that's lust is most unplanned.



March
on Narcissus
The sort of love that's lust is most unplanned.
The self's the harshest lover there could be.
"There is no beauty more than thou I see!"
He calls back to me, "Thou I see!" His hand
outstretched is soft and reaching towards me,
and I reach mine to beauty young and free.
His muscled body causes mine to stand.

But when I touch this creature fair and strong,
that image scatters; beauty must be shy.
When he returns, my passion cramped too long –
I need those rosy lips before I die.

To lust and pride Narcissus was a slave –
but daffodils are growing at his grave
to show desire's poison for our sake.  



April
a beauty out of my league
To show desire's poison, for our sake
she'd wink and makes boys think we stood a chance.
But sweet as honey, April, seemed to make
every hopeful guy compelled to dance

for her. We were her loyal worker bees
and she the queen would reap the floral sweets.
I caught a sight within a balmy breeze
of April's flowing hair in tempting heat.

I stood away where blocked behind a fir
I picked a daisy from the soft green grass;
I never got the nerve to talk to her,
too stunned and shy I let the moment pass.

Her sight is so compelling, sweet and mean,
it taunts my curious eyes in blossomed green.



May
a fairy I cannot catch
It taunts my curious eyes in blossomed green;
that light elusive sprite which mocks my sight,
in gardens where that fae comes out at night
to dance among the flowers' subtle sheen.

This fairy is disguised by buzzing lamps;
by day she hides in flapping butterflies.
In every blade of dewy grass and damp
reflective flower's gloss she hides. She dies

whenever someone says they don't believe;
as children wish on dandelions, she lives.
And flower's dust is magic for her breed:
spring's silent sparkling fairies. She gives

me joy in every fleeting light I see;
I cannot help but love her mystery.



June
on lovers separated by war
I cannot help but love her mystery;
I wonder what it could have been with her.
Though now our time is just faint memory
I always reminisce of how things were.

When school was out and roses were in bloom
and spring was turning summer every day,
I carved our names in branches as a plume
of ornament of love as if to say:

"we share this heart that with this tree will grow."
But unexpected news came suddenly:
my number picked, a soldier now I go
away from you – to war – I'm off to sea.

You say you'll wait and as you wave goodbye
The fireworks are bursting in the sky.



July
a letter to my lost youth
The fireworks are bursting in the sky;
they're popping like the pebbles 'cross the bay:
the rocks you're throwing fast. And free July
is when we watch our worries blast away.

We foolish, footless bandits in the night
were playing spin the bottle under trees.
Like fireflies and glow-sticks, we were bright,
but, grown, you've lost yourself and lost your keys.

And now your son is here; he wants to play,
but you're not playing catch, instead all day
you live your like Sisyphus, unfree –
just throw that giant rock into the bay.

Unlock that chain – conformity – and lay
simply in the sun-warmed grass all day.



August
summer love
Simply in the sun-warmed grass all day
we'd sit, and talk about some useless ****.
And in my jeep I drove you to the bay
to watch the sunset while we shared a bit

of wine. We laid down in that cooling night;
I watched your gentle lips move when you talked.
I told you that I never felt as right,
as when we kissed. My fingers interlocked

with yours; I brushed your beachy hair away
and shared a kiss that may have been our last.
I held you in my arms until the day
peeked through. We knew the sunrise soon would pass

like this. And though we think it isn't fair
departing is the summer's balmy air.



September
my first carriage ride
Departing is the summer's balmy air
to welcome cracking cold and falling leaves.
Before we left my mother'd taken care
to fasten on my mittens to my sleeves.

The foliage was bright, the air was brisk
I walked between my parents faint-clenched hands
and watched the business people rush and whisk
to work. But we were there with different plans.

My poppa propped me up into the car.
The horses both were brown and standing stiff,
but like the whirling leaves of fall thus far
my nerves were flying crazy. Then a whiff

of something as the carriage moved along
I could not hold my breath for quite that long.  



October
a waiting affair
I could not hold my breath for quite that long
awaiting your arrival at my door.
My wife is out and though I know it's wrong;
the wrongness only makes me want you more.

I cannot help but wonder what you're wearing,
and if you think about me like I do.
I wonder if our spouses are as daring;
or if they maybe know of me and you.

I rake the leaves and hope you'll soon arrive.
I put away the pictures of my wife
and stare intently at the empty drive;
then that roaring engine brings me to life.

Your car drives by; I cannot help but grin
the bright red leaves are whirling in the wind.



November
every death brings new life
The bright red leaves are whirling in the wind,
their passing reminiscent of her days,
when auburn hair would break from fragile skin
like cracking umber leaves in fall's malaise.

Her daughter saw the doctor twice a week;
the pregnancy was moving well along.
The two recalled chrysanthemum's conceit:
in life is death; and death is life's old song.

The funeral was on Thanksgiving day;
her daughter in the hospital was ripe
and could not mourn, as one soul blew away –
and one without a Nana burst in hype

to life. The birth would turn out perfectly,
exactly as expected it would be.



December*
when she crossed the line*
Exactly as expected it would be
a snowy Christmas, white and colored bright;
(by strict request) I hung her favorite lights
about the house, so that the neighbors see
together we're a happy family.
She'd picked her gift, but what a sour sight
when, Christmas day, I didn't get it right.
And all was fine until she asked of me –

the last she'd ever ask of me. She tells
me "I don't like your underwear." She reels
off, "we compromise our comfort" (that bold
*****). "I'll be your man, but know my manhood holds.
I'll never change my boxer briefs” which feel,
in icy weather, warming." Comfort yields.

Citrus trees, tomatoes, and fertile soil
Garliconiongingersoy
and ant spray

Contentment
Cigarettes and hate

Aqua Net
White school paste
Bitter slimy spinach
and blue ditto ink

Confusion
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate

Baseball glove
Mown grass
Fresh popcorn

Sadness
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate

Cramped, stale cars
Claustrophobia and
Cat litter

Loneliness
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate

Petroleum
Locker Rooms
and Perfume

Indifference
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate
Cigarettes and hate

Smoggy skies
Salty beaches
Beer trucks at each end of the block
Love

And...
Blessed...
Divorce

oh my beautiful,
so cramped up inside.
please don't cry.

But why did I **** him? Why? Why?
In the small, gilded room, near the stair?
My ears rack and throb with his cry,
And his eyes goggle under his hair,
As my fingers sink into the fair
White skin of his throat. It was I!

I killed him! My God! Don't you hear?
I shook him until his red tongue
Hung flapping out through the black, queer,
Swollen lines of his lips. And I clung
With my nails drawing blood, while I flung
The loose, heavy body in fear.

Fear lest he should still not be dead.
I was drunk with the lust of his life.
The blood-drops oozed slow from his head
And dabbled a chair. And our strife
Lasted one reeling second, his knife
Lay and winked in the lights overhead.

And the waltz from the ballroom I heard,
When I called him a low, sneaking cur.
And the wail of the violins stirred
My brute anger with visions of her.
As I throttled his windpipe, the purr
Of his breath with the waltz became blurred.

I have ridden ten miles through the dark,
With that music, an infernal din,
Pounding rhythmic inside me. Just Hark!
One! Two! Three! And my fingers sink in
To his flesh when the violins, thin
And straining with passion, grow stark.

One! Two! Three! Oh, the horror of sound!
While she danced I was crushing his throat.
He had tasted the joy of her, wound
Round her body, and I heard him gloat
On the favour. That instant I smote.
One! Two! Three! How the dancers swirl round!

He is here in the room, in my arm,
His limp body hangs on the spin
Of the waltz we are dancing, a swarm
Of blood-drops is hemming us in!
Round and round! One! Two! Three! And his sin
Is red like his tongue lolling warm.

One! Two! Three! And the drums are his knell.
He is heavy, his feet beat the floor
As I drag him about in the swell
Of the waltz. With a menacing roar,
The trumpets crash in through the door.
One! Two! Three! clangs his funeral bell.

One! Two! Three! In the chaos of space
Rolls the earth to the hideous glee
Of death! And so cramped is this place,
I stifle and pant. One! Two! Three!
Round and round! God! 'Tis he throttles me!
He has covered my mouth with his face!

And his blood has dripped into my heart!
And my heart beats and labours. One! Two!
Three! His dead limbs have coiled every part
Of my body in tentacles. Through
My ears the waltz jangles. Like glue
His dead body holds me athwart.

One! Two! Three! Give me air! Oh! My God!
One! Two! Three! I am drowning in slime!
One! Two! Three! And his corpse, like a clod,
Beats me into a jelly! The chime,
One! Two! Three! And his dead legs keep time.
Air! Give me air! Air! My God!

Never allowed to grow
Beyond ornamental,
Small perfect leaves
On small well pruned branches;
To please the eye
Of miniature torturers.


Cramped in a micro life,
Roots restrained
Within un-natural boundaries.
The promise of a tree
Never really fulfilled,
Beyond a whisper.


Fussed over relentlessly,
Like an O.C.D.
Perfect shape and form,
Trained from natural beauty,
To sit on a shelf
Hidden from reality.

Dear room,
I know
It's not your fault
That you're small
-you're supposed to be an office

Clean crisp piles of
White clear paper
Stacked and neat
But instead

You're cluttered
Like you were hit with a bomb
And cramped
With a bed, closet, shelves
And who knows what else

It can't be fun
I'm sorry it has to be this way

But you're an office
As a make-shift bedroom
Cluttered and cramped.

The dead man dances,
Though not very often.
His limbs are always so numb,
It's very cramped in his coffin.

the problem with dorm rooms
is that there are hundreds of
people
se     p        ar        at   ed
by paper-thin
                     walls
never interacting
only existing simultaneously
(which, is a cosmic interaction if you think about it.)

sometimes I lay in my bed
face against a cold paper wall
and I
think: what are these other people doing?

in this awkward layout of beds and desks
in the earlylate hours of the nightday
are some

sleeping                                    frantically working

drunk in their beds                   laying frustratingly awake

awkwardly *******          awkwardly ignoring the awkward *******

having cramped ***        sleeping in the lounge to avoid said *** being had

crying and homesick                  consoling a homesick friend

too high to sleep                       too exhausted to be awake

or are some just as awake as I, wondering sleepily, what I am doing on the other side of the wall?

it is an honor
to love
and be loved
by you (only you)

i wanted a hippie van
and you wanted to make me happy
so you took off your Vans and grabbed a marker

we wrote "don't worry, be hippie" on the fabric until our fingers cramped

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews—sons mine—ah God, I know not! Well—
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What’s done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
“Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
—Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that ****** from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o’ the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the very dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam’s sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And ’neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh poured red wine of a mighty pulse
—Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close: that conflagration of my church
—What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find—Ah God, I know not, I!—
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew’s head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father’s globe on both his hands
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
’Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me.
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,
And Moses with the tables—but I know
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
’Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world—
And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
—That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf’s second line—
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s work:
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet,
—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick,
They glitter like your mother’s for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
“Do I live, am I dead?” There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
Gritstone, a crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
And no more lapis to delight the world!
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

It's almost 10:30 pm and I am thinking about the woman on the radio
who sang about how she's made of "dirt and stardust"
and, sleepily, I wrote those lyrics on the back of my sketchbook
And about how I wish I had an
accent,
every word drenched with butter
or spices
the flavor of my country
but instead I just have
grease.
As I'm writing this the flashlight's
spot of light
is half-spilling onto my wall,
"Helena Beat" is stuck in my
head, and has to stay there because
I wrote it down.
I know tomorrow I will wake up
with a cramped hand
and remember that I wrote.
look back on it, and think that it is
stupider
than I
thought.