pearls dust
crinkly brown leaves
leaving them soft
and vulnerable
whispers ruffle their
existence
threatening to
tear them from their limbs
do not be afraid,
a kind whisper
enticing
in the heat
seductive
under their cool touch
one by one
they slide down
one snap,
another,
a flurry of oranges and browns and reds
and then nothing,
only naked trees shiver

It's just a moment
A crinkly smile
An innocent thought,
About babies or ambitions,
And suddenly I'm old,
Suddenly I crinkle.
I watch myself crack slowly,
No wait--all too fast.
Suddenly it's empty, as it was before
But I can't remember
It must have slipped my mind.
What does nothing feel like?
Like sleep or pointless thought?
Is it rice cakes or white or black,
Or all those words unsaid?
I'll never know what nothing is.
Not even when I'm dead.
Nothing comes and nothing leaves
The nothingness again.

It isn't names that brings me there,
Or tombs or words or history,
It's when I blink and see before me,
Me, but crinkly.
Me, but looking back on the supple face of now,
Looking back and seeing the story from the other end,
And standing in the epilogue
All in a single blink.

I see so much, and hear so much
I smell, touch, I taste and fear
And love and hate and joke so much
It should have killed me
Made my hardware overheat,
Made me want the nothing.

But even when I see her,
(Me, but crinkly)
I know she's laughed and cried much more,
And I'm glad I gave her the chance

Crinkly in madness, self doubt and pity
I laugh like a madman and speak as if witty
I dance with your demons for they dance with me too
I lost mine some time back
They're left dancing in you
For lovers come and go
And so do demons
You know

And I wonder 'neath dimming night light
Why happiness's never seem to sit right
And then become little forgottens
in all the wrong places
Where flesh lies half rotten
In little jump-jerkles
Upon sensing the fear
Of being forgotten, here
I know

That maybe some weren't ever meant
To lead it foolish and giddy
Joyful and witty
Maybe I
Aye I
Was destined to die
Crinkly in madness, self doubt and pity

"Be the harpooner of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody, comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders into crinkly eye-lined smilers."



l<>|

writ many years past, just another dusted off phrasing,
composed from life's lecture notes, collected by eyes tired
from the hazing,
eyes wearied by the addict-strong,
incessant observational needing,
of celebrating the loopy,
they who make this planet
capable of laughing at itself,
a helping habit for mutual survival...

should you spot a man ungainly wrought,
weighted down by a harpoon cross
cursed  'pon his Cain-marked back,
you need not move to the other side,
'tis only a make-believe poet,
with his recording device,
seizing your rhapsodies to rhyme,
his collected artifacts, your crinkly smiles,
his meat, his metier, his chosen career,
a comfort caresser of your illusions into
a shapely sculpture of words for you to keep,
a token of your now examined worth,
a celebration for the keeping...

Hello Poetry


Yearned.
Ached.
For so long, for a community,
That values the ineffable wonder
Of a wordsmith's creations, intended to
Repair himself and the world with bullets of
Verses.

And here you are.

Like/Dislike, matters not,
So long as we value each others work,
And the the heart echoes within
What the eyes read and the mouth whispers.

The array and disparity of your names,
A delight,
Each name a poem
In its own right.

So I resubmit a question for your consideration,
The answer is now known,
The answer is all of us.
May 2013
---------------------------------------------------------


­Who's Who In Poetry  



T'is a curious thing,
these verbal peddlers, tribal members,
famously well known to no one,
perhaps at best,
a kindred few, fellow-travelers.

Each a troop,
bloodied, purple hearted,
word-wounded,
anonymous unto each other,
yet all bonded intimates,
in solitary struggle united,
yet sea-parted by the very nature
of the solitude of composition.

All poets are Cain scar-marked,
purposed for everyone to see,
a warning to rabbled boors,
imagination suppressors!

World:

cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's division.

Poets!

Be the harpooners
of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody,
comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy
to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders
into crinkly eye-lined smilers.

With clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
teach us our free-to-see peep show,
reveal, unseal us
with **** empathy!

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
tastes his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
and becomes one who was,
yet is,
because of you,
in poetry.
---------------
Postscript (1/25/17)

Even more true today, than four years ago.
Thank You.

queasy
upset stomach
shaky knees
spill out of a packed van
with choking seatbelts.
feet that are tired of wearing shoes
and sitting
for houuuuuuurrrrs
hit the hot concrete...
foreign land:
gas station.
dad tells me to run around a bit
stretch my legs
mom sits in the car
pregnant
fanning herself
smiling
at me
out the open
window
i smile back.
i'm wearing the white shirt
with the blue trim
that mom made me
special
for our trip
it has a silly sun
with sunglasses and a crinkly smile
that she embroidered on it
it is
my favorite...
i smell the acrid gasoline
look around
the first time
i've been
anywhere
i am only eight
dad comes out of the store
his hands full
of funny little cardboard boats
me and my sister
run up to him
he hands me
a chili dog
with onions...
first bite....
burst of onion
spice of chili
sweetness of bread
orange
mouths
i look at my sister
she points to my shirt
shows me the chili stain
against the perfect white
i
cry

First, I spotted the gaggle sagging innocently enough,
One might say blissfully reflected in the laptop screen.
Then out of nowhere came the phrase, "whodunit?”
And from the hanging sag, a sly, silky, voice whispered,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

Clearly a few clues were left behind, wispy hair strands,
Scattered age spots, skin tags, a few moles, posed upon a
Pale listless, crinkly, lightly pimpled, surface, and from a
Wrinkly, shallow crevasse a voice teased,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

Totally hooked, curiosity piqued, southward I spied,
A once upon a time perky, treasure chest, half hidden,
Now two solemn, empty grain sacks laid east to west,
And close to death but not quite, lazily they muttered,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

The final chapter, an ancient, untold mystery solved,
No crime, no villain, nothing stolen, only flesh alchemy,
Where a plateau of supple, touchable, skin once resided,
A lumpy, bumpy, flabby flesh pillow lolled, and it murmured,
“Ahhh, Boston cream pie, a quick nap, that's the ticket."

Oh freddled gruntbuggly
thy micturations are to me

As plurdled gabbleblotchits
on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee
my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts
with my blurglecruncheon,

see if I don't

Compliments of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy & Wiki

Out on the path, I wait for her
my friend who’s just for me.
We play and sing and laugh a lot,
though no-one else can see.

You call her imaginary,
but she’s real and best of all,
she’s made a solemn promise
to be here when I call.

My mum says she’s not really there,
though the truth is mum don’t know
the fun me and my friend have had
or the places that we go.

We get lost in the forest
and fly up to the stars,
then sit upon the rooftops
throwing jelly beans at cars.

We’ve dug up buried treasure
and stared Blackbeard in the face.
And we’ve ridden Pegasus
to see the earth from space.

If you think I may be fibbing,
I’ll tell you it’s no lie -
to say we’ve seen most everything,
my secret friend and I.

But now the time is ticking,
she’s never usually late.
But here I am still waiting
sitting by the gate.

I feel the world revolving
as seasons come and go.
I never thought she wouldn’t come,
but perhaps I finally know.

That secret friends are mortal
and don’t last forever,
but I’m quite sure I won’t forget
the times we spent together.

I think I hear the clock indoors
chiming half past four.
The day has almost passed without her,
I’m not so little anymore.

But, just as I turn to go inside,
I hear the squeaking gate
“I’m so sorry,” my friend cries
“I didn’t mean to be this late”!

The world turns again to greet the moon
and my friend and I shall roam,
weaving in and out of dreams
making memories our own.

So, grown-ups if you’re finding,
modern life hard to survive,
wait a while, by the gate
you never know who may arrive.

Though you may not have seen them
for about a hundred years,
secret friends remain with us
and help allay our fears

that we all grow old and crinkly
and forget how to dance and laugh
just have a little patience
and pause there on the path.

A GARLAND FOR NATIONAL POETRY DAY 2014

My Once and Only Garden

It’s no longer mine
But I pass it
Nearly every morning.
It’s untended,
Overgrown, autumned,
The camellia needs a prune,
The irises have gone;
The garden needs
A good seeing to.
A sad garden to pass
Nearly every morning.



The Chestnut Avenue

I came back to fallen chestnut
Shells, conkers, everywhere,
But the leaves are still
Thinking about falling.
No wind you see.
On other trees I pass,
The lime,the white-beam,
There’s a crinkly brownness
Scattered across the path.
So dry, no wind,
September sun.
The chestnut avenue
Has some way to go.
Wind, rain, frost perhaps
And the leaves will fall.


******* a Boat

There’s this girl,
A young woman really,
On a boat.
Not living on it yet
But plans are afoot,
Along with essential repairs.
It’s not ‘Offshore’
Like Penelope Fitzgerald’s
Boat on the Thames.
But in a quiet and placid mooring
On the River Lea instead.
I thought of sending her this book,
But it’s all about liminality,
People somewhere in between,
People who don’t belong on land or sea
. . . And the boat (eventually) sinks.


Still Waiting

We sat on the seat
Under a bower of roses
In the herb garden
And she talked in that singing
Way of talking that she does;
Such a tessitura she commands
Between the high and the low
With a falling off portamento
Glide - from the high to the low.
Her hair stills falls
Across serious freckles, auburn hair,
Gold with a touch of red
Like her mother’s only softer,
Like mine once was, and my mother’s too.
She has a slighter frame though,
and is still waiting, waiting
For a real life, a woman’s life.


Cyclamen Restored

I went away and left it
On a saucer, watered,
In a north light
Near a window sill.
Its pink flowers were *****
And nodded a little
When I moved about the room.

On my return it had drooped,
Its leaves yellowed.
There were tiny pink petals
Scattered on the floor.
I put the plant in the sink
For half an hour.
It revived,
And the next day
Seemed quite restored.


Driving South

Driving south through
Dalton, Shoreditch,
Hackney and Hoxteth,
The Hasidic community
Garnished the Sunday street.
Driving down the A10
South towards the city:
The Gleaming Gerkin,
the Walkie Talkie,
and further still,
a Misty Shard.

As a child, the buildings here
Were so much slighter
And a grimy black;
The highest then, the spires
Of Wren’s city churches.

Sundays to sing at ‘Temple’,
With lunch at the BBC,
Driving south from New Barnet
In my Great Uncle’s Morris,
Great Aunt Violet dozing in the back.


Gallery

Small but beautifully right
For her London show,
Good to see her surrounded
By tide marks from the shore,
Those neutral surfaces,
Colours of sand and stone,
Rust (of course) from the beaches
Treasured trove, metal
Waiting to become wet
And stain those marks with colour.


Ascemic Sewing

Having no semantic content
These ‘words’ appear on the back
Of a chequered cloth of leaves
Backed all black
Stitched white,
A script of a garden
Receding into
Trans-linguistical memory.


September Dreaming

Facing the morning
Above a barrier of trees,
Oaked, foxed, hardly birded,
I would  wonder while she slept
About the richness of her dreams,
Dreams she had spoken of
(Yesterday, and out of the blue)
And, for the first time, in all
These precious but frustrating
years we’d slept together,
shared together.
I had always thought her dreamless;
Too fast asleep to experience
Envisioned images,
Sounds and sensations.


Think of a Poem

She told me in a text about
Think of a Poem
On National Poetry Day
Just a week away.
That’s easy, I thought,
There’s always that poem
Safe and sure in my memory store
Once spoken nervously,
under a rose garden walk,
but there, there
for evermore . . .

Who says it’s by my desire
This separation, this living so far from you. . .


Missing Music

Today I read a poem
Called The Lute: a Rhapsody.
‘From the days of my youth
I have loved music,
So have practised it ever since,’
Says Xi Kung.

In his exquisite language
He then describes its mysterious virtues,
And all the materials from which it’s made.

How I miss my lute, its music,
And the voice that once sang to its song.


Drawing

I wonder if she’s drawn today,
And what? I wonder.
John Berger says:
Drawing goes on every day.
It is that rare thing
That gives you a chance
Of a very close identification
With something, or somebody
Who is not you.
I wonder if she’s drawn today,
And what? I wonder.

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts
With my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!

Hello you say as
you saunter through my door  to
flop onto the couch and
fluster me with a lazy grin.
got any food?

I am elbow deep in a bag of nachos
why?I ask suspiciously
and you smile wider.
Because I'm hungry, you say
and
kind of fried.

Of course you are
and you
laugh and grab the bag
your fingers brush mine amongst the
crinkly chips and
the artificial cheese dusting.

Who, you ask later between
crunches, is hotter. Gerard Butler or
Johnny Depp?
I nibble a chip in
consideration distracted
by your arm sneaking
around my waist.

It is obviously
Gerard I say because of
reasons I forget when you
start to kiss me.

The nachos suddenly lose
importance because
you taste like
smoke, cheese
and a friday afternoon.

It was July and something inside of her began to thud. small and light as a pulse grew from a seed at the bottom of her belly, weaved and braided with veins, commandeered organs like ivy on headstones. washed up and sprouted from her chewed down fingernails, popped blood vessels in her eyes. she thought, 'if this isn't dying then it must be blooming.' this new presence was abashed by the absence of Arabic script and an African summer. it wept at dogs as they panted; they could let go so easily- a few deep heaves and they're back to pure. easy and breezy and not the sad, harsh tear of skin below shoulders, the bruises creeping over wrists and the shredded esophagus. the soiled heart and tar-heavy soul. it panicked more and more as the calender blew past. it sobbed as tomorrow became today and today became yesterday.
i lived a hazy summer. brown skin and hair that turned red at the crinkly ends as it baked. i walked through cornfields and slipped on husks. landed on my back and erupted in giggles at the snowglobe sky protecting me and caging me. incense and gin were as consistent as the advent sun. music blaring and bodies bumping and no release. no escape. my little book of plans was solid and secure. and then smashed. ripped. no poetry and braids. not dreamy just silly.

I tried to write a lullaby
With a 70's theme of sorts
Kids drinking Sunny "D" in their jammies
Girls in Mindy, Boys in Mork

But that's as far as I could get
This dried up crinkly brain stays in a daze
So I picked up the phone, dialed up some friends
In hopes of a friendly Friday night game of charades

Of course Sylvester brought his Ouija board
He thinks with the other side he's in tune
I hate to break it to Houdini here
But I think he's inhaled to many fumes

My friends say that I'm just paranoid
Like a jester without a court
So I turn and apologize to Sylvester
Okay dude, pull out the board

We place our fingers on the Doohickey
Or is that the Thingamajig
Redrum, Redrum, Redrum, is all that it spells
As Sylvester has a fit

He knocks the game table over
And screams it's that movie, The Shining all over again
This is ****** spelled backwards people
As the smell of the dead blows in on the wind

In all of the dark spirit world excitement
I think I even ***'d myself
I suggest in a manly way with a wet spot on the front of my Bell Bottom jeans
That we put the Ouija board back up on the shelf

I really wasn't expecting an evening
Of doom and gloom and tombs and such
I think I'll go back to writing that 70's lullaby
If you don't mind...thank you very much

the man nearby on the train clacks his laptop offensively
like the annoyance of noisy writers in school exams
when I was stultified by writers block
I wonder what the black girl would taste like
passengers feed their fatness with crinkly cellephane food substitutes

did you have a good weekend?
conversation openers start to chorus
corporate cockwombles
talk in jargon tongues
as they sell their souls
to white shirt organisational ambition
common sense takes a back seat
in the street car of Progress
there's talk of profit and effiencies
from men who never made their wives moan
there's talk of scalability and security
from those who know nothing of flexibility and risk
there's talk of innovation
from those whose personal best
is a smart phone

have you seen the latest?
what do you think?
hey, that's what I think!
we must be brothers!
in a cozy co-ordinated mediocrity.

I didn’t storm out
but there was thunder in my head.
I bought a pack of cigarettes,
that usually helps.
usually.
That’s why I started walking
to shoot straight
with these hungry pigeons.
There was this crinkly man
sitting against a Walgreens
who asked me for change,
said he hadn’t eaten in two days
so I shelled out a knuckle of quarters,
and gave him a fresh Turkish smoke.
I even lit it for him.
And as I was leaning over him,
tenderly holding the flame
to his ****-out-of-luck lips,
that’s when it hit me-
that’s when cliché materialized-
misery loves company.

I have this dog, a huge great pooch,
Just like the one, on Turner and *****,
He really is a big orange lump,
Dare I say how much he dumps,
He shreds and ruins my favourite stuff,
Covering the floor, in loads of fluff,
TV remotes, he's chewed them up,
He costs a bomb, my naughty pup,
His snoring rattles the gates of hell,
And when he farts, my gawd, the smell!,
Don't let's forget, he loves his food,
Face in your cup, slurp slurp, how rude,
What's yours is his, he takes the ****,
I dare you say the word, "biscuit"
He slobbers shoestrings, from his chops,
Each room has a rag, for him to mop,
But that aside, he has my heart,
His crinkly face, and stinky farts,
Rolling in fox mess on his daily stroll,
Sniffing crotches, of those who call,
I kiss his face off every day,
I could never love a man this way,
He has a face you want to snog,
I really, really love this dog :)

I thought i hit a frog today,
and squached it in the road.
I gained up on a rough textured blur,
wishin' it had jumped, just a few inches farther
I did not let my direction be broke,
I listened intently, for that frogs fatal croak.
but instead i heard crinkly leaf.
Cause that was only a crinkly leaf,
not even a frog.

There is always a song
that fits—a blanket,
it hands us—
to disappear beneath.

But also, a
a warm breath, rising up
into a cloud—For us.
We make time to stare.

Sometimes melting,
burning, freezing—opening
honeycomb pores until
storybooks fall in and we’re
so full of everything that we stiffen
and burst with it all.

Often though, glassy goosebumps,
they raise—the ridges pull away,
stretching, until we peel and shed
crinkly skins and shells—

More naked than before,
and scared—enticed to
the flowers left by
coal horses.

Several college students stood around
arguing about the meaning of God.
Nearby sat an old Indian woman.
They asked her what she thought.

With a wan smile
she took a small blue bowl
from a plastic shopping bag
laid the crinkly bag on her lap
and pointing to it she said
“This is the universe.”
Then she pointed inside the bag’s opening
and said,
“This is God.”

I was born in the spirited sixties,
When t.v was there but, the channels were few,
The skirts were super short, the boots rather *****,
made in crinkly wrinkly patent plastic,
The music was loud,
so my mother moaned,
as usual,
The quality was better,
The stones were ******,
The Beatles were trippie,
My mother so serious,
was no freakin' hippy,
She fed us malt extracted from teaspoons,
Okay, from jars really,
I remember it tasted pretty vile,
But she'd smile,
nagging inconsiderately,
that we needed to take it,
it would do us good!
Yuk, I wonder if my brother felt the same,
I will never know!
(C) Livvi

Under those far-reached specks
Of joyful glittering stars
Steps a thoughtful wanderer
Like a philosopher in a hazy road of night.

In his wrinkled long lived hands
He holds the book of his soul
Where every word is written
With precision, passion and vision.

The worn-out crinkly papers
Store the wise thoughts and feelings
Which get a complement fillings.
In an every new place of wonder.

For him the adventure and life
Is the most captivating matter
To discover the goodness of people
And write the wise words of jewel.

Will Big Halo go crazy, freak out?

Like a ****** on wheels rolling down the Alps?

***** Tiny Youth’s brave be under the pavement?

We huddle for position as eyes form a circle,

On the grounds of the ‘Imperial’ two feared ***** meet.

Shells will settle this war.  Smoke!

The Tiny Youth draws:



“Your half mast pants waiting for a flood?

And your shoes are holy like the Bible.

Are they four stripe trainers, rip one off!

Then they might pass for Adidas.

Your neck collar is ***** like a **** star.

Is that a sheep bursting through your old padded coat?

So home take your smelly **** and stitch it up…”



“Me await a flood?  Yeah, your’e right.

Though the nylon gathering at your feet

Shows it long passed.  Your tight nylon pants

Stuck up your cheeks – Barry Sheene skids in your brief!

Your brief ‘s skiddy and dangerous like an ice rink!

So skate your brief home and scrub Daz in the sink…”



“Your head is tough like a coconut.

And that hair is rougher than a ghetto!

Knocking out teeth on afro-combs, and

Your skin bumpier than gravel stones!

Your face is dark like Darth Vader.

And did Moses part that gap in your teeth?

I smell the cesspit pooling from your mouth

Take your scent to the sewer

Where your bad breath belongs…”



“On your head sits a drenched black poodle.

And your skin is tougher than Bruce Lee.

That face is rounder than a full waxed moon and

Your skin is dry like sand.  Your teeth resemble

Mouldy cheese and your breath is even badder

Than ******!  So take your moon face camouflaged

As an eclipse and hide on the dark side equator…”



“Your mother is *****, paid every Tuesday,

The post man drops the wages in her sack.

And your father is a dosser, lazier than dole,

Drinks beer, forces farts with remote

His all day role!  And that shack you live in is dusty.

Dustier than a speedway track.  So take your

Double-barrel nostril nose and go do some hoovering up…”



“There are cracks in my shack, on the ceilings, on the wall,

I will fill them with polyfilla, when I see your mother -

Scraping that cake off her wrinkly crinkly face.

And your bald headed father reminds of a Buzzard!

Searching for carcass on the African plains!  Your’e

Soft and boring like porridge.  So in your lunch box

Pack your cheesy snack lyrics

And go hold down your snake of drool – fool!”



The circle stays silent.  We dare not laugh!

At exploding shells on full hardened *****.

Mr Brown, adjudicator, judges – and declares!

Slowly raising the arm of the winner who bops

And breaks the circle, fifty pats on his back.

The shelled **** leaves with Jack.

I am NOT a choice.
So do not dare come to me
with your lighthearted laughs
and crinkly eyes
and goofy grin.

I am NOT an object.
So do not dare call me
and ask if I want to hang out
to watch a movie
we have both seen before.

I am NOT yours.
So do not think you can spurn me
and then I will fall into your arms
whenever you get a feeling
below your belly.

I am ME.
So do know that I am
independent
irreplaceable
incomparable.

Hot sun blazing,
sore feet cramping,
standing in an infinite line,
that is seemingly endless,
waiting and waiting,
for merely a small piece of paper.

Finally after what feels like a year
of standing and waiting,
we pass the gleaming,
chainlink,
make-shift fence

As if we stepped through a portal,
into some alien world,
where the air was full of music,
laughter,
chatter,
and the aroma
of something deep-fried.
White tents in two parallel lines
stretched forth in front of us,
forming a long path.
To our right were three buildings
that looked like they had been fused together
and reminded me of warehouses.
People hustled and bustled
here, there, and everywhere inbetween.

We make our way down
the rows of tents and displays,
”OOH”ing and “AAH”ing all the way,
and pausing at familiar tent,
that had a banner,
and that banner
that said something
about Jack Lawford Real Estate
and underneath it,
a familiar face,
a face I call Dad.

He was sitting
within the protective boundary
between the safe shadow of the tent
and the beating sun.
We sat and talked for a moment or two,
every now and then we sipped an ounce
out of the crinkly plastic bottles
filled to the brim with water.
Once we had finished
with our rest stop
and every last drop
of our water bottles
had been consumed.

We moved on to one of the large buildings,
and there, we had the chance
to cool down and escape
the searing heat.
There, were a few things
that made me smile
just seeing them,
that I was truly
and sincerely proud of.
Each and every one
had a shining blue ribbon
attached to or next to it.
Coffee cupcakes,
a barnyard decorated cake,
and a country themed miniature garden,
with a bicycle prop
no bigger than three fingers tall.

to follow up that,
we left the building and re-entered
the realm of the shining sun,
but it was different.
It wasn’t as brutal.
We journeyed down
the long lines of the tents,
until we came across a
giant,
shining,
colorful,
sign
that read “Magical Midway”.

Here, we waited
for another piece of paper,
in the sun,
for a smidget of time.

We left the line
with little paper bracelets
around our wrists
and stamps on our hands,
that were like passports
to go on an astounding journeys,
filled with thrills,
laughter,
and more,
except these journeys
aren’t across vast lands,
they’re adrenaline
inducing roller coasters!

Because my partner in crime
is unfamiliar with the vast selection of rides,
me and my younger brother
decided to show her
our absolute favorites
before we let her off of her leash.

Every minute was jam-packed
with action and laughter
smiles and screams!
one or two hours had passed
before we all realized
our stomachs were screaming
“FEED ME!”
Once again we met with my Dad,
but not for long,
just long enough so
we could navigate another two rows of tents,
except these ones were bigger
and much more colorful,
and the smell of hot dogs
and deep fried goods tainted the air.

Nicolle and I ate
two steaming fresh Pronto Pups
bathed in bright yellow mustard
and we each had a fiery hot funnel cake
drenched in strawberry compote
and dusted with powdered sugar.
Neither of us could finish,
but we managed to consume most
of the monstrous beasts.

Afterwards, we returned
to the wondrous world
of roller coasters,
except I didn’t have as much fun
because I was filled with fear
when Nicolle or my brother
mentioned riding one of the tall,
scary rides that turned me into a chicken
right then and there.
Like I had shrunk to about an inch tall,
and the world was out to get me.
I sat through multiple rides,
and my overprotective mom
wouldn’t let my go on some of the rides nearby
that didn’t make me cower in fear,
but she wouldn’t allow it
because someone could ****** me up
while her back was turned,
but I wasn’t exactly convinced.

The three of us stumbled
upon something great!
A game,
a race,
and a prize at the end!
We joined forces
and gathered our scraps
of money and went ahead,
a race to the finish,
ready, set, go!
We all felt the excitement
and adrenaline surge
through our bodies
as we aimed and fired
our squirt guns toward
the bullseye no bigger
than a marble.

Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
We have a winner!
NIcolle, my partner in crime
had finished filling the small tube of water first.
A great achievement deserved a great award.
Among a billion colorful and huggable prizes,
a huge pink and blue elephant caught her eye.
Mr. Periwinkle is his name,
and to this day,
Mr Periwinkle can be found
in the depths of her room,
and I still remember every minute of that day,
I shared a new experience with an old friend,
and the now old experience with that new friend,
Mr Periwinkle.

Your love is hard
like rocks
in my belly
in the morning;
like starting the countdown
to a three-day drunk
a week later,
at every turning point,
every shadow
of an angle,
I am taking roads
I have never
crossed,
I am watching
water run
in crystalline rivers
toward alleys
I've never known.

When they ask me
for money
or Marlboros,
I say yes,
please,
I would like those too.

I would like to eat
bagels
in the sun
with crinkly paper in my teeth
and sour cream cheese
sweetening in the liquor.

My landscaper's shoulders
and granite deltoids
are now green with lime
and lichens.

Girls like to run
their
hands over them;
but they are hungry
for your hands
and the lavishing footsteps
of your fingernails.

When I wake up
I put enough water in the
coffee-maker
for about
twenty cups,
and enough
***** in those
twenty cups
for a three-day drunk.

Your love is hard like ice-cold *****
and boiling coffee
that
mutilates tastebuds
and
makes my belly feel real good.

But not talking to you for awhile;
it's easier to warm up in the morning
so I can cool down at night,
and by the pink dawn
of darkness
I could get back to working my belly
with *****, rocks, and
Marlboros.

In her dark, crinkly map of life,
drawn from shady experiences
she courted in her forgettable past,
hope was an island fully obliterated,
not even a dot was left as a mark
nothing identifiable was there, just water.
Perplexed she stood, not knowing
how to reclaim any of it, even if it's in depth.
Then came the mysterious redeemer,
uncaring about his fate;
innocence was writ large on his face,
she roped him in to helping her.

He dived deep in to her deluged past,
dredged enough, from under,
gave her hope a shape and size,
to make an island, that would give her life.
The beauty he created for her sake was unbelievable,
no monument of love would have looked so resplendent!
That's where she brought her new lover over,
a character as shady and vicious as her,
her somersault was indeed spectacular
none had witnessed such a heartless trick, till then!
She forgot the past, the deluge that engulfed her hopes,
the mysterious redeemer and all that.

The poison is in all of us:
Half-smoked cigarettes lay on the side of grainy gravel paths,
crinkly Dollarama bags and glass beer bottles.
We relax on trees
leaning
backs against the braille texture of bark
that tries to speak to us in a language we don’t understand.
We lean back and raise our faces
towards the sunlight dancing between
the leaves of the canopy,
listening to the tires
whizzing against concrete,
but think it similar to the smacking of waves against stones;
lean back and savour the syrupy smell of maple trees
against our tongues,
thinking to ourselves
how grateful we are for nature
as we sit in a paradise of tall trees
their branches intertwined in a space
smaller than bathroom stalls;
lean back and breathe in exhaust
and cigarette smoke masked
behind a layer of sweet antiperspirants
and coconut-scented shampoos
as the wind whips hair against your face.
We take peaceful naps against the undeciphered braille,
but the poison is in all of us
and one day this paradise will become
nothing.
A bed of dirt
blanketed by prickly store-bought
strips of grass.