1.
From my
uneasy bed
at the L’Enfant,
a train's pensive
horn breaks the
sullen lullaby of
an HVAC’s hum;
interrupting the
mechanical
reverie of its
steadfast
night watch,
allowing my ear
to discern
the stampede
of marauding
corporate Visigoths
sacking the city.

The cacophony
of sloven gluttony,
the ***** songs of
unrequited privilege
and the unencumbered
clatter of radical
entitlement echoes
off the city’s cold
crumbling stones.

The unctuous
bellows of the
victorious pillagers
profanely feasting
pierces the
hanging chill
of the nations
black night.

Their hoots
deride the train
transporting
the defeated
ghosts of
Lincoln’s last
doomed regiments
dispatched in vain
to preserve a
peoples republic
in a futile last stand.

The rebels have
finally turned the tide,
T Boone Pickett’s
Charge succeeds,
sending the ravaged
Grand Army of the
Republic sliding
back to the Capitol,
in savage servility,
gliding on squeaky
ungreased wheels
ferrying the
Union’s dead
vanquished
defenders to
unmarked graves
on Potters Field.

The Rebels
joyous yell
bounces off
the inert granite
stones of the
soulless city.

The spittle
of salivating
vandals drips
over the
spoils of war
as they initiate the
disassemblage,
the leveling and
reapportionment
of the grand prize.

The clever
oligarchs
have laid claim
to a righteous
reparation
of the peoples
assets for
pennies on the
dollar.

Their wholly
bought politicos
move to transfer
distressed assets
into their just
stewardship
through the
holy justice
of privatization
and the sound
rationale of
free market
solutions.

In the land of the
pursuit of property,
nimble wolf PACs
of swift 527, LLCs
have fully
metastasized
into personhood;
ascending to
the top of the
food chain in
America’s
voracious
political culture;
bestriding
the nation to
compel the
national will
to genuflect
to the cool facility
of corporate
dominion.

As the
inertial ******
of the plaintive
locomotive
fades into
another old
morning of
recalcitrant
Reaganism,
it lugs its
ambivalent
middle class
baggage toward
it’s fast expiring
future.

I follow
the dirge
down to
the street
as the ebbing
sound fades
into the gloom
of the
burgeoning
morning,
slowly
replacing the
purple twilight
with a breaking
day of cold gray
clouds framing
silhouettes of
cranes busily
constructing
a new city.

The personhood of
corporations need
homes in our new
republic; carving
out new
neighborhoods
suitable for the
monied citizens
of our nation.

First amongst
equals, the best
corporate governance
charters form
the foundation of
the republic’s
new constitution.
Civil rights
are secondary
to the freedom
of markets; the
Bill of Rights
are economically
replaced by the
cool manifests
of Bills of Lading.

The agents of
laissez faire
capitalism
nibble away
at the city’s
neighborhoods
one block at a time;
while steady winds
blows dust off
the National Mall.

Layers of the
peoples plaza are
plained away with
each rising gust.  

History repeats
itself as the Joad’s
are routed from their
land once again.

A clever
mixed use
plan of
condos and
strip malls
is proposed
to finally help the
National Mall
unlock its true
profit potential.

As America’s
affection for
federalism fades
the water in
the reflection pool
is gracefully drained.

We the people
can no longer
see ourselves.

The profit
potential of
industry is
preferred over
the specious
metaphysical
benefits
of reflection.

The grand image,
the rich pastiche,
the quixotic aroma
of the national
melting ***
is reduced to the
sameness of the
black tar that lines
the pool and the
swirling eddies of
brown dust circling
the cracked indenture.

From his not so
distant vantage point,
Abe ponders the
empty pool wondering
if the cost of lives
paid was a worthy
endeavor of preserving
the ****** union?  
Has the dear prize
won perished from
this earth?

Was the illusive
article of liberty  
worth its weight in
the blood expended?

Did the people ever
fully realize the value
of government
by the people,
for the people?

Did citizens of
the republic
assume the
responsibilities to
protect and honor
the rights and privileges
of a representative
government?

Now our idea
and practice of
civil rights is measured
and promoted as far as
it can be justified by
a corporate ROI, a
shareholder dividend,
an earmark or a political
donation to a senators
unconnected PAC.

The divine celestial
ledgers balancing
the rights and
privilege of free people
drips with red ink.  

Liberty, equality
fraternity are bankrupt
secular notions
condemned as
expensive
liberal seditions;
hatched by
UnHoly Jacobins,
the atheist skeptics
during the dark times
of the Age of Enlightenment.

Abe ponders
the restoration
of Washington’s
obelisk, to
repair the cracks
suffered  from
last summer’s
freak earthquake.

I believe I detect
a tear in Abe’s
granite eye
saddened by the
corporate temblors
shaking the
foundations
of the city.

2.

The WWII Memorial
is America’s Parthenon
for a country's love
affair with the valor
and sacrifice of warfare.

WWII forms the
cornerstone of
understanding the
pathos of the
American Century.

During WWII
our greatest generation
rose as a nation to
defeat the menace of
global fascism and
indelibly mark the
power and virtue of
American democracy.

As Lincoln’s Army
saved federalism, FDR’s
Army kept the world safe
for democracy.

Both armies served
a nation that shared
the sacrifice and
burden of war to
preserve the grace of
a republican democracy.

Today federalism
crumbles as our
democracy withers.

The burden
of war is reserved
for a precious few
individuals while
its benefits
remain confined to
the corporate elite.

Our monuments
to war have become
commercial backdrops
for the hollow patriotism
of war profiteers.

We have mortgaged
our future to pay
for two criminal wars.

The spoils of
war flow into the
pockets of
corporate
shareholders
deeply invested
in the continuation
of pointless,
destructive
hostilities.

Our service
members who
selflessly served
their country come
home to a less free,
fear struck nation;
where economic
security and political
liberty erodes
each day while the
monied interests
continue to bless
the abundance
of freedom and riches
purchased with the
blood and sweat
of others.

America desperately
needs a new narrative.

The spirit of the
Greatest Generation
who sacrificed and met
the challenge of the 20th
Century must become
this generations spiritual
forebears.

The war on terror
neatly fits the
the corporate
pathos of
militarism,
surveillance
and the sacrifice
of civil liberties
to purchase
a daily measure
of fear and
economic
enslavement.

It must be rejected
by a people committed
to building secular
temples to pursue
peace, democracy,
economic empowerment,
civil liberties and tolerance
for all.

Yet this old city
and the democratic
temples it built
exulting a free people
anointed with the
grace of liberty
is being consumed
in a morass of
commercial
polyglot.

3.

During the
War of 1812
the British Army
burned the
Capitol Building
and the White House
to the ground.

Thank goodness
Dolly Madison saved
what she could.

The new marauders
are not subject to the
pull of nostalgia.  

They value nothing
save their
self enrichment.

They will spare nothing.

Our besieged Capitol
requires Lincoln’s troops
to be stationed along the
National Mall to defend
the republic.

The greatest peril
to our nation
is being directed
by well placed
Fifth Columnists.

From the safety
of underground bunkers,
in secure undisclosed
locations within the city’s
parameters, a well financed
confederacy employing  
K Street shenanigans
are busy selling off
the American Dream
one ear mark
at a time, one
huge corporate
welfare allotment
at a time.

The biggest prize
is looting the real
property of the people;
selling Utah,
auctioning off
the public schools,
water systems, post offices
and mineral rights
on the cheap
at an Uncle Sam
garage sale.  

The capitol is
indeed burning
again.

Looters are
running riot.

The flailing arms
of a dying empire
fire off cruise
missiles and drone
strikes; hitting the
target of habeas
corpus as it
shakes in its
final death rattle.
I make a pilgrimage
to the MLK Jr.
Monument.

Our cultural identity
is outsourced to
foreign contractors
paid to reinterpret
the American Dream
through the eyes
of a lowest bidder.

MLK has lost
his humanity.

He has been
reduced to a
a Chinese
superhuman
Mao like anime
busting loose from
a granite mountain while
geopolitical irony
compels him to watch
Tommy Jefferson
**** Sally Hemings
from across the tidal
basin for all eternity.  

MLK’s eyes fixed in
stern fascination,
forever enthralled
by the contradictions
of liberty and its
democratic excesses
of love in the willows
on golden pond.

Circling back to
Father Abraham’s
Monument,  I huddle
with a group of global
citizens listening
to an NPS Ranger
spinning four score
tales with the last full
measure of her devotion.

I look up into Abe’s
stone eyes as he
surveys platoons
of gray suited
Chinese Communist
envoys engaged
in Long Marches
through the National Mall;
dutifully encircling cabinet
buildings and recruiting
Tea Party congressmen
into their open party cells.

This confederacy
is ready to torch
the White House
again.

Congressmen and
the perfect patriots
from K Street slavishly
pull their paymasters
in gilded rickshaws to
golf outings at the Pentagon
and park at the preferred
spots reserved for
the luxury box holders
at Redskin Games.

They vow not to rest
until the house of the people
is fully mortgaged to the
People’s Republic of China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund.

4.

A great
Son of Liberty like
Alan Greenspan
roundly rings
the bells of
free markets
as he inches
T Bill rates
forward a few
basis points
at a time; while
his dead mentor
Ayn Rand
lifts Paul Ryan
to her
Fountainhead teet.
He takes a long
draw as she
coos songs
from her primer
of Atlas Shrugged
Mother Goose tales
into his silky ears.

The construction
cranes swing
to the music
building new private
sector space with
the largess of
US taxpayers
money; or
more rightly
future generations
taxpayer debt.

Libertarians,
Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs
and GOP waterboys
eagerly light a
match to the
the crucifixes
bearing federal
social safety
net programs
to the delight
of NASDAQ
listed capitalists
on the come,
licking their chops
to land contracts
to administer
these programs
at a negotiated
cost plus
profit margin.

Citizens
dependent
on programs
are leery
shareholders
are ecstatic.

To be sure
our free
market rebels
don disguises
of red, white
and blue robes
but their objectives
fail to distinguish
their motives and
methods with
some of the finest
Klansman this
country has
ever produced.

5.

DC is a city
of joggers
and choppers.

Corporate
helicopters
wizz by the
Washington
Monument,
popping erections
for the erectors
inspecting the progress
of the cranes
commanding the
city skyline.

USMC drill team
out for a morning
run circles the Mall.

The commanding
cadence of the
DI keeps us
mindful of the
deepening
militarization of
our society.

A crowd  
rushes
to position
themselves,
genuflecting
to photograph
a platoon on
the move.

I try to consider
the defining
characteristics of
Washington DC.

DC is all surface.

It is full of walls
and mirrors.

Its primary hue
is obfuscation.

Open
communication
scripted from well
considered talking points
informs all dialog.

The city is thoroughly
enraptured in narcissism.

Thankfully, one can
always capture the
reflection of oneself in
the ubiquitous presence of
mirrors.  

Vanity imprisons
the city inhabitants.

Young joggers circle the
Mall and gerrymander
down every pathway
of the city.  

They are the clerks,
interns and staffers of
the judicial, executive
and legislative branches.

They are the children
of privilege.

They will never
alter their path.

You must cede the walk
to their entitlement
of a swift comportment
or risk injury of a
violent collision.

These young ones
portray a countenance  
of benevolent rulers.  

They seem to be learning
their trade craft well from
the senators and judges
whom they serve.

They appear confident
they know what's best
for the country and after
their one term of tireless
service to the republic
they look forward to
positions in the private
sector where they will
assist corporations
to extend their reach
into the pant pockets
worn by the body politic.

6.

Our nations mythic story
lies hidden deep in the
closed rooms of the
museums lining the
Mall.

I pause to consider
what a great nation
and its great people
once aspired to.

I spy the a
suspended
Space Shuttle
hanging in dry dock
at the air and
space museum.

Today America’s
astronauts hitch
rides on Russian
rockets.

America rents a
timeshare from
the European
space agency to
lift communication
satellites into orbit.

Across the Mall
I photograph
John Smithson’s
ashes in its columbarium.  

I fear it has become a
metaphor for America’s
future commitment
to scientific inquiry
and rational secular
thinking.

I am relieved to
discover a Smithsonian
exhibit that asks
“what does it mean
to be human?”

The Origins of Humans
exhibit carries a disclaimer
to satisfy creationists.

The exhibit timidly states
that science can coexist
with religious beliefs and
that the point of the exhibit is
not to inflame inflame religious
passions but to shed light on
scientific inquiry.

I imagine these exhibits
will inflame the passion of
the fundamentalist
American Taliban and
provide yet another
reason to dismantle
the Moloch of Federalism.

The pursuit of science
remains safe at the
Smithsonian for now.

7.

Near K Street at
McPherson Park
a posse of
well dressed
lobbyists, the
self anointed
uber patriots
doing the work
of the people
stroll through
the park
boasting a
healthy population
of bedraggled
homeless.

The homeless
occupy the benches
that have been
transformed into
pup tents.

Perhaps some of
the residents of this
mean estate were
made homeless by a
foreclosed mortgage.  

The K Street warriors
can be proud that their
work on behalf of the
banking industry has
forestalled financial market
reform.  

Through it exacerbates
the homeless problem it has
allowed these K Street titans to
profit from the distress of others.

Earlier in the day
I photographed
a homeless man
planted in front of
the Washington
Monument.

I wonder
if my political
voyeurism is
an exploitation of
this man’s condition?

I have more in common
then I probably wish to
admit with my K Street
antagonists.  

In another section
of the park the
remnants of a
distressed OWS
bivouac remain.

The legions of sunshine
patriots have melted away
as the interest of the
blogosphere has waned.

As the weather
improves Moveon.org
and democratic
party operatives
pitch tents in an
effort to resuscitate
the moribund
movement.

They hope
to coop any
remaining energy
to support their
stale deception,
a neoliberal vision
based solely on the
total capitulation
to the bankrupt
corporatocracy.

I heard someone say
a campaign lasts a
season; while a
movement for social
change takes decades.

If that metric proves
correct, and if the
powers don’t succeed
in compromising the
people’s movement
I’ll be three quarters
of a century old
before I see
justice flowing like
a river once again.

8.

I circle back to
the L’Enfant and
find myself
tramping amidst
the lost platoon
of Korean War
soldiers.

My feet drag
in the quagmire
of grass covering
the feet of this
ghostly troop.

My namesake
uncle was a
decorated
veteran of this
conflict and Im
sure I detect
his likeness
in one of the
statues.

The bleak call
of a distant train
sounds a revelry
and I imagine this
patrol springing
to life to answer
the call of their
beloved country
once again.

Yet they remain
inert.  

Stuck in a
place that the
nation finds
impossible to
leave.

The eyes of the
men stare into
an incomprehensible
fate.  

They see the swarms
of Red Army infantrymen
crossing the Yellow River
streaming toward
them in massive
human waves,
the tips of
sparkling bayonets
threatening to slash
the outmanned
contingent fighting
to bits.

They are the
first detachment
to bravely confront
the rising power
of China many
thousands of
miles away
from their homes.

America like
this lone company
is overwhelmed
and lost in the
confusion
that confronts
them.

Looking up
I perceive the
bewilderment
of my muddled image
reflected on the
marble walls
surrounding
the memorial.

I am a comrade-in-arms,
a fellow wanderer sojourning
with th

I

The Trumpet-Vine Arbour

The throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are wide open,
And the clangour of brass beats against the hot sunlight.
They bray and blare at the burning sky.
Red! Red! Coarse notes of red,
Trumpeted at the blue sky.
In long streaks of sound, molten metal,
The vine declares itself.
Clang! -- from its red and yellow trumpets.
Clang! -- from its long, nasal trumpets,
Splitting the sunlight into ribbons, tattered and shot with noise.

I sit in the cool arbour, in a green-and-gold twilight.
It is very still, for I cannot hear the trumpets,
I only know that they are red and open,
And that the sun above the arbour shakes with heat.
My quill is newly mended,
And makes fine-drawn lines with its point.
Down the long, white paper it makes little lines,
Just lines -- up -- down -- criss-cross.
My heart is strained out at the pin-point of my quill;
It is thin and writhing like the marks of the pen.
My hand marches to a squeaky tune,
It marches down the paper to a squealing of fifes.
My pen and the trumpet-flowers,
And Washington's armies away over the smoke-tree to the Southwest.
'Yankee Doodle,' my Darling! It is you against the British,
Marching in your ragged shoes to batter down King George.
What have you got in your hat? Not a feather, I wager.
Just a hay-straw, for it is the harvest you are fighting for.
Hay in your hat, and the whites of their eyes for a target!
Like Bunker Hill, two years ago, when I watched all day from the house-top
Through Father's spy-glass.
The red city, and the blue, bright water,
And puffs of smoke which you made.
Twenty miles away,
Round by Cambridge, or over the Neck,
But the smoke was white -- white!
To-day the trumpet-flowers are red -- red --
And I cannot see you fighting,
But old Mr. Dimond has fled to Canada,
And Myra sings 'Yankee Doodle' at her milking.
The red throats of the trumpets bray and clang in the sunshine,
And the smoke-tree puffs dun blossoms into the blue air.


II


The City of Falling Leaves

Leaves fall,
Brown leaves,
Yellow leaves streaked with brown.
They fall,
Flutter,
Fall again.
The brown leaves,
And the streaked yellow leaves,
Loosen on their branches
And drift slowly downwards.
One,
One, two, three,
One, two, five.
All Venice is a falling of Autumn leaves --
Brown,
And yellow streaked with brown.

'That sonnet, Abate,
Beautiful,
I am quite exhausted by it.
Your phrases turn about my heart
And stifle me to swooning.
Open the window, I beg.
Lord! What a strumming of fiddles and mandolins!
'Tis really a shame to stop indoors.
Call my maid, or I will make you lace me yourself.
Fie, how hot it is, not a breath of air!
See how straight the leaves are falling.
Marianna, I will have the yellow satin caught up with silver fringe,
It peeps out delightfully from under a mantle.
Am I well painted to-day, 'caro Abate mio'?
You will be proud of me at the 'Ridotto', hey?
Proud of being 'Cavalier Servente' to such a lady?'
'Can you doubt it, 'Bellissima Contessa'?
A pinch more rouge on the right cheek,
And Venus herself shines less . . .'
'You bore me, Abate,
I vow I must change you!
A letter, Achmet?
Run and look out of the window, Abate.
I will read my letter in peace.'
The little black slave with the yellow satin turban
Gazes at his mistress with strained eyes.
His yellow turban and black skin
Are gorgeous -- barbaric.
The yellow satin dress with its silver flashings
Lies on a chair
Beside a black mantle and a black mask.
Yellow and black,
Gorgeous -- barbaric.
The lady reads her letter,
And the leaves drift slowly
Past the long windows.
'How silly you look, my dear Abate,
With that great brown leaf in your wig.
Pluck it off, I beg you,
Or I shall die of laughing.'

A yellow wall
Aflare in the sunlight,
Chequered with shadows,
Shadows of vine leaves,
Shadows of masks.
Masks coming, printing themselves for an instant,
Then passing on,
More masks always replacing them.
Masks with tricorns and rapiers sticking out behind
Pursuing masks with plumes and high heels,
The sunlight shining under their insteps.
One,
One, two,
One, two, three,
There is a thronging of shadows on the hot wall,
Filigreed at the top with moving leaves.
Yellow sunlight and black shadows,
Yellow and black,
Gorgeous -- barbaric.
Two masks stand together,
And the shadow of a leaf falls through them,
Marking the wall where they are not.
From hat-tip to shoulder-tip,
From elbow to sword-hilt,
The leaf falls.
The shadows mingle,
Blur together,
Slide along the wall and disappear.
Gold of mosaics and candles,
And night blackness lurking in the ceiling beams.
Saint Mark's glitters with flames and reflections.
A cloak brushes aside,
And the yellow of satin
Licks out over the coloured inlays of the pavement.
Under the gold crucifixes
There is a meeting of hands
Reaching from black mantles.
Sighing embraces, bold investigations,
Hide in confessionals,
Sheltered by the shuffling of feet.
Gorgeous -- barbaric
In its mail of jewels and gold,
Saint Mark's looks down at the swarm of black masks;
And outside in the palace gardens brown leaves fall,
Flutter,
Fall.
Brown,
And yellow streaked with brown.

Blue-black, the sky over Venice,
With a pricking of yellow stars.
There is no moon,
And the waves push darkly against the prow
Of the gondola,
Coming from Malamocco
And streaming toward Venice.
It is black under the gondola hood,
But the yellow of a satin dress
Glares out like the eye of a watching tiger.
Yellow compassed about with darkness,
Yellow and black,
Gorgeous -- barbaric.
The boatman sings,
It is Tasso that he sings;
The lovers seek each other beneath their mantles,
And the gondola drifts over the lagoon, aslant to the coming dawn.
But at Malamocco in front,
In Venice behind,
Fall the leaves,
Brown,
And yellow streaked with brown.
They fall,
Flutter,
Fall.

people **** people
with nothing but fingers and hair
and their very heavy breath.
their breath like a crow beak
before crucifixes of straw. like a tightening banishment of a lung.
remember when we would blow it
onto our car window and create that
consistent mirth of fog to
begin in?

the bodies riddled with bullets that flank
the highway are no such thing.
the schoolchildren lying face down in the corner of the closet are no such thing.
they are just winter coats with schoolchildren to fill them
for the time being.
no amputation of what’s mine
will aid them into the grave.
no mass communication grief. so
why would you call it a mass grave when in truth it was just a pit i dug to fill with crowds of people who died under the pretense that they had previously done so,
that nothing was new under the sun.

and when people **** people like people
do with their instruments
as ways of extending themselves into the world and into the marrow of our body
obliterating organs of people with their stretching of the muscular rib, shoulder.
one eye closes firmly.

it’s nothing but a hand gun
as if to say a hand eats the gun
and makes it whole.
as if to say the reinforced metal door
exit plan for people who are being killed by other people clicked shut and locked
15,000 years ago and i can’t quit slamming what’s left of me into it.

your kid is very dead.
but then again so is mine.
suppose they killed each other.
suppose they both made the mistake of dragging their small, stupid bodies through the trajectory of another body in the first place. in the chip aisle of a gas station maybe. in theaters this christmas.
in the midst of a good song that began playing on the lobby radio
just a minute before,
oh yeah before,
things really got going.

i saw people killing people
on television the other day
with their
whole bodies,
devouring themselves like surgical gloves
slick with oiled consumption
and bleeding out
and i could do nothing.
some kids died just because
and they told me so and i was told nothing could ever help them because they were just people and they were dying.

“breaking news” ended up just being people again.
in those moments, i was eating breakfast.
our houses were very quiet and needed me in all of them, grandfather clock over CNN, clarifying what has already been
committed and committed again.
the cipher was others lost blood.

A hippie hocked a louie on Sammy
when he landed in San Francisco.

Sammy didn't respond;
he just wanted to make
his connecting flight home.

Sammy wasn't proud about
some of things he did in the war;
so he figured he probably
deserved the garlands of disdain
an ungrateful nation bestows
upon itself in fits of self contempt.

Sammy shut down and tuned out,
soon his heart was as dead
as a tombstone until he visited
the monument.  

He would often recall the story
that as he approached the darkened
wall he could sense ghosts loosening
themselves from the black granite.   

Sammy swore that Jimmy Lynch
who went MIA on the final week of his tour
gave him a bear hug and told him
as long as the beer stays cold
and he don’t lose the church key,
everything's groovy and he’s
hanging tough until the rest
of the guys show up.

Jimmy pointed to the Lincoln Memorial
at one end of the mall and to the
Washington Monument at the other,
emphatically stating that our monument
was forever linked with the greatest Americans.

Yeah meeting up with Jimmy
helped Sammy to start shaken
off some real bad stuff.

Mazie knew her husband for a
month before they got married.
A week later Freddie was off to Vietnam.

Freddie was KIA during the Tet Offensive
and his repatriated remains are peacefully
at rest in the red clay of Georgia.

An always faithful Mazie
came to the monument
a few years after it was dedicated.  
She was struck by all the keepsakes
people left at the base of the wall;  
Zippos, baby pictures, a copy of
The Catcher in the Rye, a fifth
of Makers Mark, Pink Teddy Bears,
votive lights, a red 57 Chevy model,
a left handed catchers mitt, and
a pack of Lucky Strikes.

She palmed rosaries and
crucifixes that salved sore
running wounds and David’s
interlaced Star sounding a Shofar
pleading a case for peace.

Mazie is most moved by the names.  
Rows and rows of names. The scroll
begins in a modest manner and
as the wall climbs the names
of a country's vigilant sons and
daughters tower over her head.  
So much living history; spoken
in the unique accent of a country’s
diverse plethora of luminous tongues.

The stories written into the black granite
tell a tale from every state; claiming
the ears, heart and mind of every citizen. 
Each chiseled letter captures every bit
of sun and deep creeping shadow
inching across a great nation.

“I’m  71” says Mazie.  “When I look
upon the wall I see my 21 year old
Freddie as he looked on the finest
day of his life.  He will never look
any other way to me.”
  
“I didn't want to go to see it,” Franny said,
“a cold piece of stone won’t bring my son back.”

Franny did finally go...

When it rains the wall weeps.  
The wall wept all day,
the first time Franny went.

Many were rubbing
the impressions of
dearly departed names.

Franny too, kneels to the
presence of her son’s name.

With a mother's
grateful fingers,
she touches the wall's
damp surface; wiping
the drizzle from her
child's sodden face.

Kneeling before his semblance,
she rubs his etched edges
onto tiny bits of paper.

She sees him,
made manifest in the stone.
As if through a glass darkly,
a found son looks back,
onto the face of a caring mother.

Franny hangs onto the quiet
memory of his voice,
shimmering in the soft lilt
of a warm dark stone.

This deep core Vulcan gneiss,
at last emerged from the hardest stuff,
sculpts a perfect likeness of a tear stained nation.

The Harmonizing Four: Rock of Ages

In Honor of
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Washington DC

Oakland
Veterans Day
2013

I am wiping Chinese
and Jesus off of coffee
tables. Pulling sheep
sheets down from
windows and mirrors
from bedroom walls.
I am trying to swallow
the dog hair stuck
in my throat, from
sleeping with mongrels.
I am watching days
pass on pillows
that smell of sweat
and cologne. I am
watching him finally
fade and pass into
the past. I am
loving you with
seventy five percent
of my heart, but you
have your hands on
the rest and are not
letting go. I am
wiping Chinese
and Jesus off
of coffee tables
and you are
pulling his pictures
down from
my heart.

First Living Organism

Anyway, there is love and death and governance. With the birth of my sons, love was fulfilled. There is no romance left in love for me, women are another form of men. Perhaps their toes are painted rather than blood-encrusted, but blood runs from their bones, their eyes are friendly as camera lenses, muscles hungry. Death continues to be my every third thought, fittingly. Occasionally I feel strong, but when I don’t it’s death waiting. I think I know it’s a waste of time to imagine being dead, as if being dead were a form of living. It’s not, but last night I was reading about the efforts of astrobiologists to identify LUCA meaning Last Universal Common Ancestor and FLO, first living organism, and that gave me a calmer feeling. Bringing me to governance, how we manage together between birth and death. What can I say that hasn’t already been said by Aristotle and Plato, the Republicans and Democrats, Hamilton and Jefferson. To start, your daily discipline is a personal governance. There are many ways to know a person: by their god, by their fears and appetites, by how they spend their money or organize their time. Who is in authority, who is in command here? The one in authority is not necessarily our leader.


Patience

I live in a mountainous community about 140,000 strong. My irascible, aggressive temperament toward my fellow citizens has exiled or sidelined me to a peripheral almost insignificant role although when I arrived I was considered a problem solver, even a savior of the poor and the wealthy classes who feared for the future. Why mention this. He who knows patience knows peace. I have surely lost face often in my life. As a kid, lost most fights, as a man, chosen last to lead the squad or platoon. Only when every known leader had died did those in authority decide to use me. Someone must begin to write the federalist papers for the world. And, of course, it’s being done and heard. Books in print, blogs, debates. My vision is a world where you can fly from Madagascar to Mississippi and be greeted by a sign that says Welcome to our land. Go about your business, setting off no bombs, and fly home. Perhaps take a lover for one afternoon.


The Machine and the Season

The machine and the season are so far incompatible. The machine claims electrical problem. The house leaks from rain. The men who left the machine have started their own business. A new endeavor by which they will keep warm and purposeful. The junior partner, heavier, says the Grand Canyon’s not so grand. Jaded individual or one to set himself against the depths, abyss? Man’s systems. Man made the machine (and the town) from rocks mined next door. Some few men understand these invisible electrons moving the machine to perform. I still cannot imagine, i.e. my mind cannot move fast enough to know how so many particles can be sorted and split so quick to make words on a screen. My simplicity is terminal.


Saving Grace

Today it is fall, first day for long-sleeved shirts. The boys at school. I admonish Zach not to whine and complain about the work. Lately reading or practicing piano, prone to fits of frustration. To the point of claiming belly pain. Last night I dreamed I had pushed him to suicide. It is so important for a man to do no harm. This is what makes us crazy against Wolfowitz, willingness to **** to do good. Someone very sure of himself and shining, much wiser and more compassionate than me, has calculated for the world that more lives now for fewer later shall be sacrificed. The people he serves are cantankerous, disorderly, selfish and complaining. The same diverse, spoiled, unpatriotic revolutionaries as at the nation’s beginning. Their refusal to be more than the sum of themselves is their saving grace.


Politics

Politics can be an escape from the personal, the debates are of little interest to a man in hospice. Will the machines do their work? How will we make decisions together? Roger Johnson’s gravel pit must be killing his neighbors with the noise of boulders being pulverized to rock but Roger is certain his business is necessary for the public good. He knows he has a right to use his property as he sees fit. There is a noise ordinance, a state employee will travel out to measure the decibel level in your front yard as compared to the ambient noise level. There is a measurable amplitude beyond which the legislature has determined no citizen may be exposed or corporation go. It can be measured.


Measure for Measure

Measure for measure, all’s well that ends well during a midsummer night’s dream for the merry wives of Windsor. A million or more poets but only one Top Bard. How did he know so much about kings and fools and murderers? An Elizabethan and no Freedom of Information Act. Today it is fall. The legislature and president are at work and so are our machines. One by one and then in armies the leaves come down. It is not that someone must decide, we must decide how we will make decisions and where authority resides. What am I learning, sitting, watching the season turning? Content this morning to admire my sons’ photos, reread my own poems searching for the prize answer, and answer the phone. I seem to be alienating potential business partners with a take it or leave it comme-ci comme-ca attitude. All you can do, the best that can be done is to go to your daily discipline. Driving home or waking up at night I think I’m dying. Do the much-admired writers of our time die more content than that?


War All the Time

War all the time. I’ve been fond of saying what distinguishes America is its daily low intensity warfare. Endless but not fatal conflict. Chambers of commerce, municipal government, big corporations wrestle nearly naked and will lie as needed for what? I tire like an 80 year old man of the storm and worry. I remember my early years when I had no known skill to offer and elections occurred without my vote being solicited. I noticed no harm or good I did was noticed. Autumn was all mine, mine alone, I was alone in the world with autumn. My mind could not stand it. I cried out for comfort, someone to obey. I needed to grow up and know money.


The History That Surrounds Us

I’m not going anywhere, I chose to stay and hold my clod of soil in the landscape of community oh blah dah. I want like Shakespeare and other writers to discern the motivations of women, men, see through their lies to a humorous truth careless about success and able to explain why what happens today or on September 11th obtains. I was impressed by the critic who found that Shakespeare in Hamlet had tried to write about the thoughts of a man suspended between having decided to act and the act itself. Why bother he soliloquated why commit or submit to the great moment when mere men of bones and dust, disgusted with themselves and others are the actors of the moment, beheaders, rhymers, debtors. And, of course, the answer comes to one in the night like Chuang-tzu, or Lao, why not? The great moment is no greater than the small and the small no smaller than the great. You perform the history that surrounds you and go to your daily practice.


A Systems Guy

I’m something of a systems guy. I want the truth and death and worth to be independent of individual motives, paranoias, prejudice, peccadilloes, virginities, crucifixes, paradoxes, protons, protozoa or curses. I want pure human machinery, stainless steel, clear thinking, even handed, not a doubt that every doubt is wanted, needed, good to the last drop toward the ultimate ignition into outer space, colonization of diverse planets and immortality of the genome. Here’s what’s odd. While enduring ever more frequent panic attacks (and nudging toward survival and self-sufficiency my offspring) pounding and pinching my skin to stay sensate, maintain consciousness, I parabolate (always orbiting myself, eye on the tip of my *****) to another extreme, i.e. my belief mankind can escape the earth unlike Hamlet’s dad’s ghost. A system is a set of inputs–values, policies, objectives, procedures, data–organized and repeated to generate significant quantities of desired outcomes without redesigning the system for each individual outcome. I told John Russell from Amnesty International at Jack Shwartz’s daughter’s coming of age party about my plan to reorganize the U.N. so only the democracies can vote and no nation has a veto. He said the world’s not ready, with absolute certainty, knowledge and authority. I looked out the hotel window, this was shortly after 9/11, at dozens of American flags and a lone security guard. I’m always right I said to myself.

I wonder how,
I could have trusted in God,
For so long,
Spent so many hours,
No, wasted them,
Praying so fervently,
Idolising thin air,
Believing faith,
Would provide comfort,
But instead, it left me,
Hopeless and broken,
Because miracles are mythical,
Tireless prayer and devotion,
Won't turn back time,
Or heal wounds and ease troubled minds,
So why do I still wear,
This crusifix?

i staying this hostel in amsterdam,
less glorifying than ginsberg
to be a czech fool king wording
self-praise about spinoza,
two germans (who decided to take
mushrooms watching american dad:
i tell you, hallucinogenics
and television - plato's cave -
equate to plato's deepest caverns),
i spent the first day with the germans,
i didn't smoke ****, i just drank,
second day i spent the day
with the egyptian (architect student,
nice scrapbook of doodles), who was cradling
a bottle of the potato elixir known as *****,
in one of the cafes he gave me a blunt,
then gave me his hearing-aids from which
music blasts, he chose to play me
le trio joubran's masar (https://goo.gl/4vcBE1),
there and then i opened my mouth and
in oh oh oh surds imitated a woman's ******,
all ******-active drugs are a release from
thinking, ******-active drugs don't like thought,
indeed i was thoughtless, and in ecstasy bold
enough to attract a dutch girl's curiosity
at my mouth turned in O and my eyes closed
being fed the agarwood trembles of horsehairs
tied either end for a song,
it felt... it felt like a unison resound of
solomon's harem... i turned marijuana into
a ****** because of the music...
these ******-active drugs don't like thinking,
they disperse thought into a semi non-existence,
less carousel more dodo (extinction),
active ingredients of such a nature restrict thought
and reveal an intoxicated self, or self without thought:
a "true" / "undiscovered" self.
and now looking into something resembling
a library, but actually a graveyard...
you tend to do that, keep company with the dead
scribblers, given your position of demised
appreciation numbered less than expected
filling a quarter of the imagined auditorium,
you turn to the dead ones...
among the tombstone crucifixes a few are still alive:
will alexander (poet), fady joudah (poet & physician),
jim bradbury (historian specialising in accounts of
philip augustus), norman davis (historian,
author of god's playground, competitor
with paweł jasienica about the history of poland),
there's also an addition by will self and irvine welsh,
but that's about it... the rest of the ******* are dead:
and this makes me feel nearer to what's intended:
a brick, on a shelf, a brick in the heart layering
of first 20 years, and subsequent life after till
promised anno mortum 60 with the world's age
of civilisation aged 2052 (e.g.);
hence too the exhausted day filled with sleep
awaiting its completion,
but that memory stitches me up into a whole of
the puffy duck-feather teddy bear's abdomen content,
as i parted the egyptian with laughter
once a single drag of the blunt started to wear off.

all i see now are the silent ruin
of words teeming with wisdom
in every trail. you are gleaming
in the moony boondocks,
Ibabá remembers you as you were -
timeless and ruminative,
pursuing the source of rivers.

our sublime versifier,
the crucifixes now tremble without
the fullness of your flesh.
each page is turned without
the hover of your voice yet
stills its resonant message in my mind's premises like redolent graffiti.
striding river-pace,
once in moonlit Orfeo
graced by your sibilant being,
leaving only the strongest of impression
on the surly couch, a toppled glass
of Shiraz remembering your attendance
leaving the clamor of the audiences
real to touch, elusive in thought.

before the war was the ever-present word, and after the fray was
the armistice of the Sun where in
humdrum Sampiro, your fire's genealogy
is in the hands of the muse!

idly go the hours, wading everlong past
Calle Herrán - the bells of Paco Church
tell in this imperfect hour
the roads where you once traversed,
travailed and perhaps beer-maddened,
putting a face in the metaphysical!

in your banquet i partake
the wisdom of your wine
and the reason of your flesh -
the gods delight in you,
  o, Manila of all Manila.

White american men with
gold retriever dogs
smoke black hatred,
not recognizing a grey smog.
Scared of black, brown --
all atheists are ill --
but not afraid of greenbacks
or guys named Bill.

Okay.

Here's your day job. Here's your pay, Bob.
America the great.
If terrorists equal Muslim
then Christians equal hate.

You say it's not victimization.
You say it's not a hunt.
You say it's not intimidation,
but sometimes I think you
see people as witches, ****.

Christ is the answer, indeed.
Without Him we're all lost
and our souls will never be freed.
Like tears frozen in the frost.
Bibles, crucifixes to fix the diseased mind.
How much does a prayer have to cost
to be genuinely kind?

Chemtrails stain pages
and bleed as curses.
Gay rights to be denied,
according to bible verses.

Nursery rhymes and cult games,
all in the good old King James.
Archaic and inane,
like an alter sheltered brain.

Here's your day job. Here's your pay, Bob.
Use the check to pay
angels and evangelists.
Protect yourself from ideas,
and buy a white picket fence.

I think she lost a part of herself,
picking up the pieces. And that's
okay; the universe works because
something is given for
something to be gained.

Her parents were red-blooded
Americans; they drank confirmation-
bias and the minimization of minorities.
They would make her problems as small
as the countries, they couldn't find on a map,
but could find in their hearts to demonize.

Oh yes, the demons: what used to
afflict her and corrupt her pure heart.
To them, she wasn't a teenager --
a child -- stressed from carrying a
family, featuring a mother with
a brain tumor; guest starring
'I-stunt-your-growth-with-Jesus'
as the understudy for mental
health awareness.

No, she wasn't a child; she was
a burden because she cut herself,
because her legs grew too thin;
as thin as the crucifixes around
the proud, turning necks, holding
dismissive heads of 'Why-would-
you-want-to-be-dead' Christians
and 'I-don't-understand-what-isn't-
in-the-Bible' fat, white relatives.

To make things short as her
life could have been: she dipped
in and out of drugs, featuring
****** and pills that would
dip in and out of her body,
like a fool's gold life jacket,
soaking in the waves of her
pale, transitioning to adulthood,
twenty year-old waters.

She saved herself, and
they thanked God and the
boy and mostly everyone
else but her. And the little
brother sat, sinking in a seat
softer than his deep-seated
hateful beliefs. But, the
truth is that she saved not
only herself, but also the
handsome, white, tall,
smart, talented image of
'Holy-****-what-a-tall-
drink-of-privilege.' A
tall drink who cared for
her more than the country
cared about being right; who
loved her more than the parents
of the degenerates living in some
unknown collection of poems about the
disenfranchised and American angst.

She was a protest, very wondrous;
a halting of the longest dark,
a breath of fog floating towards
a lonely, very deep pond.

And she was only beginning.
And it was all very exciting.

The 3 Crucifixes sit,
atop this city like a tombstone,
but this grave feels so alive,
so vibrant in it’s Post-Colonial glory,

the Spaniards came & went,
well “came & went” is too courteous a term,
but hey either way wherever your beliefs may lay,
they left & when they did they left behind their language & La Ermita Church,

now what’s left is gift wrapped & embodied in Native Blood & Colonial Skin,

ancient wisdom lost in translation all in the name of The Cross,
sacred status melted down for the gold they contained,
I wonder if Colombians or any South Americans for that matter,
think about the past past but the remnants that were left when speaking Spanish,

I guess the Spanish never really left,
& the Inquisition is finished but still I must confess,
Native Blood & Colonial Skin is a pretty good combination,
because 200 years after they left look what we get,

a vibrant culture a wonderful mix,
late night Salsa fiestas at Zaperoco,
hot weather hot food hot women hot music,
& vibes so alive you’d almost forget about the looming tombstone,

watching everything like it’s on replay,
like everyone is already gone which they as in we will all be one day,
when Nature finally returns to reclaim,
what was rightfully Hers in the first place,

in the same way Colombians reclaimed Colombia once the Spaniards went away,

but until Nature comes back to reclaim it’s arepas salsa & coffee,
it’s a beautiful day in Cali let’s have a lively debate over empanadas panela & pollo,
partying from sunset & on in to the humid Cali night,
making such amazing memories that we temporarily forget about the crucifix tombstones,

but all the while there those 3 Crucifixes sit,
atop this city like a tombstone,
but this grave feels so alive,
so vibrant in it’s Post-Colonial glory…

∆ Aaron LaLux ∆

Bes



It's high midnight and I'm up to my old tricks again.
Bes came by my apartment last night, ostensibly to see why I've stopped answering everyone's calls but harboring more ulterior motives than a presidential charity event. I let her in, mumbling some vague, ******* excuse about how I'd simply been busy. She stood in my living room, her hands demurely folded in front of her as her eyes swept the scene, a quick appraising glance that took in the leaning towers of paper and rows of empty bottles, the rings under my eyes and the cheeks grizzled with god knows how many days of growth, and when at last they met mine they seemed to ask what exactly it was that I had been busy doing. Her lips said no such thing though, held in check either by innate tact or single-minded purpose. Instead she smiled, that old, slanting smile that was more a twitching of her cheeks than an actual moving of her lips, and asked if I liked her dress. It was the first time that I'd seen her dressed in anything but jeans, and the change was as unexpected as it was becoming. The dress was short, black, simple and elegant in its simplicity. In the expected places it clung to her curves and invited you to do the same, but elsewhere it hung in loose folds, folds so deep that she seemed almost lost in them, and when you did catch a glimpse of her body -the delicate line of her collarbone, the thin ridge of a rib- the force of the contrast struck home with calculated, bewildering power. She looked incredibly fragile yet fraught with danger, like broken glass swaddled in a black flag. I gave her an exaggerated once-over, then said, "Do you really need me to answer that?" She laughed, her voice high and breathy, and dropped me a theatrical curtsy. "What's the occasion?" Her eyes narrowed, and the ghost of a smile twitched its way back onto her face.
"We're going out tonight."
"We are? And why are we doing that?"
"It's ladies' night at Stoa, and that means free drinks."
"Free drinks for you, kiddo. I doubt that I could pass as a lady, even in that ****-hole."
"For me, yes. But if I were to get those free drinks and then decide that I didn't want them, well, what would happen to them? It would be wrong just to waste them, after all. I suppose I should have to give them away, perhaps to a good friend?"
"If you should change your mind." I said flatly.
"Of course. Woman's prerogative, you know."
"Are you trying to bribe me with free liquor?"
"Well, if that isn't enough I could always throw in a 'please'. Limited time offer, though, non-negotiable and nontransferable."
"Unlike the drinks, you mean."
"Rules are like bodies; they aren't meant to be be broken, but sometimes it's fun to see just how far you can stretch them."
"Far be it from me to tell a pretty girl no when she says please."
"Pleeaazzee?" She batted her eyelashes at me, lower lip stuck out in a burlesque pout.
"Okay."
"Put on a fresh shirt and grab your coat, I'll get a cab."
"Yes'm," I said, snapping off a quick salute before about-facing toward my bedroom. She laughed again as she left, the soft chuckles punctuated by the click of her heels on the concrete steps outside. I dressed quickly, taking roughly three minutes to apply fresh deodorant, sniff-test and shrug my way into a shirt with marginally less wrinkles than your average nursing home and grab my keys. I walked out the front door to find Bes ready and waiting for me, having snared a cab with the same brisk efficiency with which she had beguiled me into escorting her. She stood at the curb, toe of one black pump tapping impatiently as the taxi idled next to her, engine panting like some exotic animal brought to heel. The ride there was silent. The cabbie was one of those garrulous specimens of his trade who seem always to have something to offer his customers in addition to the transportation for which they had paid; some tidbit of folksy wisdom, or a sage prediction of the weather, no doubt buttressed with countless examples from the days of yore. He brought out several of these chestnuts for us, but after a few failed gambits even he lapsed into what for him must have passed for a taciturn state, contenting himself with humming along to the radio, albeit loudly. He had sloughed tunelessly through several songs and a commercial break by the time we arrived, and had begun to sing under his breath, apparently unaware that he was doing so. This unwitting serenade had been steadily growing in volume, and he was working himself into a rather heartfelt rendition of Black Velvet as we disembarked.
It was just past eleven, relatively early for a nightclub, but the line was already stretched ten yards from the door. It wound around the side of the building, surprising me in spite of myself. I really hadn't been out in a while, and had forgotten all about waiting outside, that desultory purgatorial period where people shifted restlessly from foot to foot and chain-smoked, anxious for admittance, though in all likelihood less concerned with being able to dance or mingle (which they could have probably done just as well out here) than they were with losing the buzz they had brought with them. Some of the people had clustered into loose groups and those who had looked more sanguine, almost serene, and no doubt there were a few water bottles filled with ***** stashed in their purses and jacket pockets. I started toward the corner, intending to join the rest of the sad-sacks at the back of the line, but Bes grabbed my arm, giving me a slight shake of her head. She walked directly toward the entrance, deftly sidestepping the little pockets of people and putting on a smile of almost predatory brilliance. She sauntered up to the bouncer posted at the door, one of any number of interchangeable drones whose charge is to prevent just such flouting of protocol as she undoubtedly had in mind. She said something to him and he shook his head. She spoke again, raising up on tip-toe and looking directly into his eyes, and when she spread her hands in a comely now-do-you-see gesture he looked around furtively then nodded. She waved a hand at me and he nodded again, though more apprehensively than at first, and the hand pointed in my direction now wiggled its fingers in a come-hither gesture. I walked up and looked a question at her but she merely shook her head again, though this one was accompanied by a slight smile that said nothing and hinted at everything. She took my hand, dragging me forward like a she-wolf dragging a rabbit into her den, and as we passed into the club she favored the sentry with another smile, so warm that I could have sworn I saw him blush.
The interior was dark, cavernous and redolent of a thousand mingled perfumes, a heady, dizzying blend spiced here and there with the dank odor of marijuana. As soon as we were past the bouncer, Bes stopped and pivoted on her toes like a ballerina, spinning so quickly that I almost stumbled into her. She said something to me then, but despite the sudden and shocking proximity of her body to my own her voice was lost in the car crash of voices from the dance floorahead. I cupped a hand to my ear in the commonly understood signal for deafness, and she responded by cocking her head at a questioning angle and forming an elongated y with her thumb and pinky finger, tilting them toward her lips in the universal gesture for drinks. I nodded my assent and she took my hand again, pressing it gently as she threaded her way through the tumult of writhing flesh on the dance floor. We found seats in the corner of the bar, the one place where you could actually sit with your back to the wall instead of the rest of the club, a place that I privately thought of as Paranoiac's Cove. I dug out my pack of Lucky's and set to work on trying to find my lighter as she flitted away, returning moments later with a pair of highball glasses, each filled to the brim with a curiously green concoction that was so bright that it seemed almost as though the glass was filled with liquid neon. She handed me one, her fingers momentarily brushing mine as I accepted it, visions of the cauldron from Macbeth flashing briefly through my mind. That smile twisted its way onto her face again as she offered a silent toast, raising her glass toward me with an oddly solemn gesture. I raised mine in return, noticing the way her eyes sparkled in the shadows, green and impossibly bright, almost lambent, bright like the drink though her eyes were a deeper, truer green, closer to jade than to the grassy color we held in our hands. We touched their rims together, the clink almost inaudible in the howling bedlam of the club. She threw her drink back at a single draught, surprising me into a laugh and I followed suit, barely tasting the liquor as it ran down my throat. What I did taste was a rather poor attempt at artificial apple, cloying and somehow thick, like melted jolly ranchers. It was saccharine sweet yet bitter, a harsh undertone that matched the crisp tang of a real granny smith about as well as the sweetness did, which is to say not at all. Not that this bothered me; alcohol and bitterness have always gone well together for me.
She leaned over to me, fingertips resting lightly on my shoulder, breath tickling confidentially in my ear as she asked, "Dance with me?"
I demurred, not bothering to waste words but simply waiting until she pulled back to look at me and then shaking my head. She didn't lean in again, catching my eyes instead and mouthing the word with an exaggerated care that was almost comical. "Okay." She hesitated momentarily before adding, "Maybe later." She didn't wait for a response, instead sliding off her stool with easy, doe-like grace and disappeared into the throng. I stayed at the bar for some time, an hour perhaps, drinking steadily and watching the growing chagrin of the woman behind it as she realized that I had not intention of tipping her no matter how drunk I got. Bes reappeared periodically, staying long enough to grab each of us a free shot and steal one of my cigarettes before vanishing again. I whiled away the time by counting the necklaces that came bobbing and heaving up to the bar. The vast majority were crucifixes, their forms and sizes as varied as those of their bearers, but there was a smattering of other ikons as well; Celtic knots and stars of david, pentacles and hammers, and once, nestled incongruously in the ample and expertly showcased cleavage of its wearer, a crescent moon and star. The owner of that particular pendant also happened to clutch a drink in one hand, and while it may have been a shirly temple or club soda, the glassy eyes above it and the boneless, disjointed movements that arm described in the air spoke to a more potent brew. I wondered what they meant to the people who wear them, those chains of devotion donned voluntarily. A symbol of their faith, they would probably say, though it's a faith betrayed by virtually every action that they take, and if there's one thing that I've learned about people it's that their vows and promises may be lies, but their betrayals never are. Even a virtuous act, an act of unequivocal good in the face of overwhelming temptation, even that can be a lie. It is concealment, a denial of the temptation, of its reality, of the fact that the desire for what tempts us exists. But in betrayal, in succumbing to temptation, people reveal themselves, for they are true to their desire and desire is the most accurate mirror, the truest reflection of who we are. Most people wear masks to cloud that mirror, false faces that sometimes fool everyone and sometimes fool no-one. But truth always asserts itself and so most people betray; others, causes, even themselves. But even the betrayal of self is also an act of honesty, the final acknowledgement of who we really are.
There was a time, of course, when these signs and symbols of faith were a business of deadly seriousness, when their betrayal would have begotten swift and sure punishment, when the mere display of one's allegiance was both a pledge and a challenge, but no longer. Now they are carried as casually as their wearers carry the name of some obscure fashion designer on their underwear, and given the reverent attention paid to the latter and their blasé hypocrisy regarding the former, one has to wonder which is really more important to them. Yet the symbols persist even when the meaning has been forgotten, and the majority still carry signs of fealty formed from counterfeit gold and beaten nickel, sigils that flash quicksilver in the strobing lights, leading the way like the wooden maidens which adorn the prows of ships. I used to have one of them, you know, a rough loop of rawhide the carried three little trinkets, a bunny a book and a small golden heart. It's gone now, of course, and fittingly so, the heart having fallen after the bunny down the rabbit-hole, and the book remaining unwritten, though I suppose if your reading this, that if these disjointed ramblings ever manage to make it onto the printed page, refugees finally transplanted from the wilted notebooks or the cocktail napkins that I even now sit scribbling madly on, it has been written after all and you're reading it. You poor *******.
I realized my thoughts were drifting, meandering on their own down paths that I have expressly forbidden them to tread, rambling like unsupervised children in an amusement park at sundown. I gathered them up, scolding them, trying to exert some authority in my own mind, telling myself to just take a deep breath and shake it off. I can't though, and for once it's not because I can't quiet the thoughts but because I can't seem to take a breath that is deep enough. I realized that I was panting, well nigh hyperventilating, my breath coming in quick, shallow gasps that seem to crystallize in my longs like spun glass. I take stock of myself, trying to assure myself that I'm not going to have a heart attack or a ******* stroke, noting with some alarm that my hands are shaking and my vision has narrowed into a twisting, undulating tunnel. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, the darkness behind my eyelids streaked with purple and red, and gradually I became aware that those explosions of color are rhythmic, recurrent. They happened not with the pounding of my heart, as I would have expected, but in time with the music, sunbursts of color appearing each time the bass kicked. The panic diminished, replaced by curiosity, and I realized that without the shrill yammering of panic in my ear and the terror of impending death in my mind, the combined sensations are not only pleasant, but oddly familiar. It's then that I realized what happened, belatedly doing the mental arithmetic and realizing that unexpected invitation, the free drinks and the first's oddly bitter taste, the secretive smile with which it was delivered, that it all added up to a single thing. She drugged me, of course, spiked my drink with something and I didn't even notice, naive as a sorority pledge at a keg party, and oh **** was I high. I stayed at the bar, knowing from hard experience that there was no sense in fighting it, and so giving in to it. If you can't put out the fire you might as well feed it, feed it all that you can, because the sooner the fuel runs out the sooner the fire dies. So I stayed there, focusing on my breathing and letting my thoughts spiral out, catching the waves in my head as they rose and fell, finally learning to float on their crests, in some semblance of control. Calmer now, I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one, the process taking an eternity, empires rising and falling in the time between the moment when the spark caught and the flame exploded into life and the one when it reached my lucky. I breathed out a plume of smoke, a pillar of cloud that also seemed to go on forever, and as it cleared there was Bes, materializing out of the smoke like a Cheshire cat.
"Ready to dance?"
I looked at her, unable to speak for a moment, not the drug this time but something entirely, a thing that came surging up from some unsounded depth within me and caught in my throat, because when I looked in her eyes, wide and wet with excitement, her pupils telescoped into pinpricks that told me she was in the grip of the same I saw myself. Because she was looking at me the way I looked

And you get to witness the destruction of mankind
The manifestation of violence
The rise of crime
The chemically induced joy that deteriorates the mind
The cancerous legions on the soul that no doctor can find
The shaman surgeon with the power to freeze time
The emotionally famished family that uncle sam left behind

The monotonous chime that causes the suits and ties to burst into reanimation
The unmovable path of the bullet that kills without hesitation
The murderous gang-banger dining in hells kitchen with no reservation
The chains that bound the vagabond with no visitations
The gruesome violence on the silver-screen that is met with joyous elation
The exchange of video entertainment for a basic education
The deterioration of the young minds that's given little concentration
The beautiful flesh but empty soul that makes a living through fornication
The ****** spoils of war that leads to mental devastation
The death of good-will with no justification

And you will not witness death but morale genocide
Not of a specific person, but of certain values that are impossible to hide
And with only one man to confide, they will continuously choose what is not right
They will put down their crucifixes so they will have more hands to fight
And only for the wicked reasons will they unite

And you will witness them as they witness you
As you teach of accountability, as you lecture of love
But you will often be met with a deaf ear
But do not give up on those ideals that you hold dear
Because if you look to the edges of the earth, and then gaze above
Ask yourself: Where do I want to be when it is time to be judged?
But despite our ideals our conscience decisions proves the prophecies true
*We will be the death of mankind

Somewhere there is a graveyard
with unmarked tombstones
and a distinct absence of bones
and the space under each headstone
is filled with all the words that were never said
all of the tongues that were bitten and held
and all of the mouths that fearfully stayed ****.
all of the thoughts that danced ‘round periphery of consciousness
like shadows flickering in firelight.
a mausoleum of missed trains and missed chances
an ardent arrangement of alternate realities,
a collection of people and things that slipped through the cracks.
an innumerable number of ivory crucifixes
stretch off into infinity,
one for every version of oneself
that dies when you make a choice
and placed gently atop every edifice,
a gossamer bouquet of asphodel
picked from a field of your own buried regrets.
countless conversations that never passed the threshold
of lips pursed shut with apprehension
can be found scribbled upon the leaves
of the great oak trees
that watch over this necropolis.
iron arms reach towards the onyx sky
and hold aloft a rusting sign
that simply says:
“here lies everything that could have been.”

I was born lavendar but melted and sunk and dripped down walls like hot wax until I found myself pooled at the bottom, only my dad used to smoke indoors and drywall and smoke have an infatuation, so now I am only a smoky maroon.
I never used to believe in ghosts, but now EMF scanners explode and the room is chilled every time I take a good, long look in the mirror.
I used to be sturdy,
like a tree with more rings than my mother keeps in her top drawer, but now my joints crack like firewood every morning when I get out of bed and I stretch wide enough to fill a whole forest.
I used to shudder when boys looked at the pattern on my skirt,
but eventually the dip of my collarbones became a sanctuary for every pious boy to visit, eyes closed and speaking in tongues, the heads of their beds becoming crucifixes but the only thing getting nailed was me.
I realize I am different now. But I also realize that photographers find smoke beautiful, and babies can see the dead. i remember that marshmallows are best over campfires and that some people still believe in god.

We look past meaning, still blinded and dreaming of riches,
Which leads us toward track homes and condos, cruel chapels
While the hapless live in the world’s mansion: the most open convent
And what we don’t see is sometimes the crux of our content

The streets offer a morose array of the discarded
They, the wise and most wretched, who humbly suffer
Are perhaps the truest, comely Christian-hearted men and women

They bless the day as they pray to the ground
Where cracks become twisted crucifixes upon which
The most selfless are displayed for public derision.

Ironic is the formula written with precision on the tome of our existence
Iconic moments of pain bloom into the banks that loan out inspiration

Each electron is one thousand eight hundred thirty-sixth of its proton
And this proportion, though grandly and numbingly unimpressive
Is the basis upon which we live and whir and spin as matter does
Coincidence is a lie in the face of the certainties within what we cannot see

For, though one decade separated the births of Crockett and Bowie
And, though their names might conjure knives larger than pockets
And hats, stolen from conquered bandit-faced creatures’ tail ends
It was on the same 1836 day that they evolved from flesh into legend.

Joy is a strange element that seems to come and go without a plot
Yet some know how to wield their emotions with little thought
As if joy and love were as a hammer worn neatly at the belt

So, I yearn for one day to grasp a handle in a hand that has never felt
The shape of certainties, once discerned as chance and circumstance
And when the hammer falls, I hope it breaks a twisted crack into my heart

I hope to, from my reflections, thus bereft,
Find some perfection hidden deep in death
As one might decipher, through foreign language,
A light that warms within a sonnet

In a way, I think my life depends upon it.

We got those 1800s vibes
Men with moustaches
Women with moustaches
You ready to Hunt for your lives?

Get ready cos the Showdown's begun
Men, Women, lock 'n' load up your guns
Snub nose for up close, it's a must
Duck low take it slow, keeping schtum
Wear you out
'Til your absorbed by the mud
Extract with a bounty, that's how it's won
Countin' up our rewards, no need to respawn
We've still air in our lungs.

It's that time again, we close to sittin' pretty
Lord I pray for courage, so light that soul fire in me
Stacks of crucifixes, so we don't run out quickly
Hang it loosely round my neck should it get dark and dingy
Ward off the devils spirits, or beasts made from three sixes
Martini firepower, and no I don't mean drinkin'
Sometimes be something sicker, cos these demons I be killing...
I'm off to hell and back, to stop em from existing

Get ready cos the Showdown's begun
Men, Women, lock 'n' load up your guns
Snub nose for up close, it's a must
Duck low take it slow, keeping schtum
Wear you out
'Til your absorbed by the mud
Extract with a bounty, that's how it's won
Countin' up our rewards, no need to respawn
We've still air in our lungs.

Guess its our turn now, y'all ready for a feud
Ain't no stopping us growl, we're simply too imbued
That cross around your neck, its just a waste of fuel
The venom flowing in us means conditions won't improve
We'll just keep on marching, until you're twice removed
This is our land you're farming, the boss is not amused
The biggest baddest of us here, do this **** just for fun
You'll never take us all, something wicked this way comes

Get ready cos the Showdown's begun
Men, Women, lock 'n' load up your guns
Snub nose for up close, it's a must
Duck low take it slow, keeping schtum
Wear you out
'Til your absorbed by the mud
Extract with a bounty, that's how it's won
Countin' up our rewards, no need to respawn
We've still air in our lungs.

Get ready cos the Showdown's begun
Men, Women, lock and load what you want

Get ready cos the Showdown's begun
Men, Women, lock and load what you want

Get ready cos the Showdown's begun
Men, Women, lock and load what you want

i love how i can be Polish
and, literally, have no opinion worthy
of a media outpouring worth
admitting to...
at being: the said ethnicity.
i mean, i could be given cameo
roles in the global narrative,
but i'm shunned...
after enough time passes: i'll come
to embrace being shunned,
i'll learn to evolve into a dislodged
congregation,
            i'll learn to be a people
worthy of no myth.,.. i'll hardly be
japanese when i should have cited shinto...
i should have been scandinavian and
have cited the kept secret of the runes...
or arabic and told to kneel and scrub
my forehead before the koran...
       i come from a pauper's nation
if all the above things are true...
              i am what might be called
a north african spotting me in Amsterdam
and walking away tearful...
       i might have just found heroism once more,
if not in action, then not begun in
thought, and taken upward to the Valhalla
of straining the hawk's dive sound into a ****,
or a kestrel high-minded to perch and not
hollow out the hush...
            music!            music!
if there is anything more edible worthy of kings
it's the **** of sound! sounds can overpower
the mind like sights, if not more!
why, do we: pestle and mortar the whole affair!
we are lumber-jacks unable to make
a single tree fall, and like a graveyard cadle
hushes toward turning dim... say:
            adieu vent...
             sooner addressing a ******* **** than
a myth of the wind playing: the ******* flute!
      peasants! peasants! peasants everywhere,
and i don't mean greengrocers, i mean
marxist peasants, social inhibitors and counter-culturalists!
   why is trans-gender so rampant in western
society and so nodded to, when it's clearly bonkers?
        when the world turns *******
i think of what awaits chinese society and the heresy
of living an agricultural life, long bond with the past
fathers...
                it's a bit like seeing ash turn into graven
images of solidifying masonary of phlegmatised stone...
and then seeing the dutiful kneel before a
                scandal's worth of altar...
        there they all seem to be altar pieces...
     lambs before the slaughter...
   competing crucifixes with ellaborate squiggles of
koranic hand written stances...
                       there's no shame in seeing a *******
these days... there's more shamble verse in
claiming that such a specimen could ever
     guard you against clinging to a cross...
                      as i have not done so...
there's clarity in claiming that a Pontius Pilate
resides in each of us, than there be a crucifix ladden
offering, if not for the Golgotha crowd, then
for the paparazzi ****** hard-on.
                       what dicta are we to hear from a nation
that heard no Mongolian stampede?
heard no burning of libraries, or of churches?
                heard no Mongol settle in the Ukraine and
be called Tartar, as a steak might be called
when served, raw?
what are we to make of these arguments?
        suddenly Britain turned to isle-bound escapism,
and created a polarised scoot-land...
                    was it because objectivity was
objectivity because of the numbers?
                      and when the numbers were cited
objectivity could no longer be respected,
and each citation upon citation was held up
with disbelief?
                                     i can't but see objectivity as a
talk of numbers, but also see how quickly enough
numbers can be turned into propagandist material,
how easily, given enough numbers,
  the numbers cave in...
                and when one objectivity said:
1,000,000 ought to be enough to dilute our message
and give us respectability...
  sooner or later subjectivity said:
1 ought to be enough to concentrate our message
and give us accountability...
   sooner or later the two cited a numbers' convergence...
  objectivity with its 1,000,000
     was as worthwhile as subjectivity and its 1...
        opinion-making behaved as it usually behaved
with enough chaotic organisation:
   there's a plateau of opportunity on the other side...
i never could stomach this,
that objecitivty was governed by
the fact that 1,000,000 could congest a space,
  and be nodding with approval to a unanimous
        claim for a censo est
                 non censo, ergo veto: supra omni:
                            regina stasus quo...
and that subjectivity was governed by
the fact that 1 would invoke a space,
and be disawoved and dismissed outrightly
as bringing up the concern...
                in the first place...
      if the matter is so simple as to call it
objectivity = 1,000,000
           and subjectivity = 1...
                then whatever arithmetic one discloses,
makes no sense on the rigidity of the given, original
number... the two will continually parallel each other,
and never concentrate at wanting a discourse,
and forever will dialectics be a shunned example of
convergence of the two...
                  forever at odds will be the ratio
of **** aexemplum (man, an example)
   at odds with - ex aexemplum (from an example),
  to no discredit of man or god...
                                     for the ex aexemplum condition
states: there is neither man, or god
to state an example... non **** ex deus (no
man from god) / non deus ex man (no god from man) -
          (if i didn't listen to dramatical music,
these words would sound better congested
into a a soaked ****) -
       but given they're worded to a glory-futile score of
music... i'd love to dedicate these past seconds to
   the sound of a dog telling a: knock-knock joke
with: woof-woof! who's there? howl!

Love,
I  just  want  know,  
like a child.

Is your world cracked with crucifixes?
Are your  life  eyes sparkling?
  
We die  lost,  
We are ill with a sickness called time.

Feel  the beautiful  sun.
Pursue light.
Make  pain flow from your face-
find the salt river called Shiloh
and let her pour down  your lonely path.

Drift  away  in your dream.
And quietly scream.

We are fighting about religion.
You ask me when I lost my faith in God.
I see myself, ****** lipped and angry,
ask you why it should matter.
At this point, I shake to the corner of your bed,
and you are crying, your black hair leaking,
you never expected me to judge you for being a Mormon.
I tell you,
you are the first boy I ever loved who believes in God.
You grab my hands, twist them under your blankets,
ask me if I've ever felt God lean quietly the way you do every morning.
So I pray with you.
Leave your house.
Don't tell you I am trying to bend the crucifixes in your mind.

Kneeling in the hallway,
in front of the Men's bathroom.
I hope no one comes out as I pray.
Please,
do not let my sins catch up with me.
Not now.
Never.
I can hear the church bells
ringing in my ears.
The path is laid out.
My choice is to have three crucifixes on my night stand,
use my finger to paint them in the soot on my car.
This will be my protection.

Sing me a love song.
Make it a lullaby.
Stroke my hair.
Make me cry
Screaming out, don't know why.
Spilling tears, splitting hairs.
Feed me believe me, somebody cares.
Phantoms and spectres that hang overnight.
Jazz band flicks a crucial tune.
Crucifixes stain the moon.
Taking flight.
Jet planes and hovercrafts stolen from home.
Fetching the trendiest French garden gnomes.
House full of gnomes.
There's nobody home.
Exception, the spirit, of said garden gnome.
(c) Livvi

Since when did ignorance become a cure?
Since when did turning a blind eye make everything dissapear?
Since when did ‘are you okay?’ become the only question asked,
And ‘I’m fine’ become the expected and definitive answer?
Because ‘I’m fine’ is the only answer I can give when someone is holding a gun to the back of my head,
I may be plummeting down a deep, dark hole,
But you’re the one watching me fall,
You’re the one who could simply unfurl there fingers from their balled up fist and offer it down to me,
You are the ****** of magpies, the unkindness of ravens,
That feed off of dying things and the excuse of ‘it’s all too much’,
Do not talk to me of burden when my hands are stained with blood and you can wash the paint so easily from yours,
Do not talk to me of burden when you’re not the one hiding nine circles of hell behind closed eyelids,
Do not talk to me of burden when bombed out basements have offered me more shelter than you have ever given,
Do not talk to me of burden,
Do not talk to me,
Do not talk,
Just listen,
There are half a million people out there just waiting for you t die so they can claim they were your best friend and lately I’ve been asking for help,
Lately I’ve been chasing you around fallen trees and you have brandished crucifixes to ward away the devil,
Lately I’ve been thinking about breaking things,
And watching, when so many of them lie like shards of porcelain on the ground,
How many expect me to help.

you sat above me, and i watched a song unfurl on your skin.
from your tongue, a pieta tumbled unto my knees.
i was cradling the mother mary who was weeping over the desecrated, emancipated body of her own, over the body of jesus.

the eucharist, the son and father and the holy fantasy of christ, it’s eyes bore heaven onto my shoulders.
a dead woman was burning and her son and grandson and great-grandchild cried underneath a divine weight.
her ashes were split among the men.
they took them home and placed them silently on the shelves while i watched and shivered, silent.
and with my quiet tears, jesus appeared in the crucifixes hanging ‘round all the ladies necks.
he looked at me, with red flowing from his crown of nails.
he looked at me, with the stained agony mary shared when she saw her young son.
he fell into my hands.
i was cradling the dying body of jesus.

i was looking at him as an old man, pained and continuously bleeding.
i was looking at him as a child, playing with sticks on the feet of god.
i was looking at him as the carpenter and as the infant; sweating or crying.
dying or surviving.
i was looking at him through my muddy memory,
through my grandmother’s wrinkled eyes.
i didn’t know know if he would love me like this,
as an open wound,
and infected and rotting and selfish thing,
and,
i wept.

the only funeral i've ever been to was my great-grandmother's. it was alabama in june. i was young, maybe 8 or 9, wearing a church dress and watching strangers offer me comfort and candy.
when the viewing was happening, my oldest sister took us outside and told us stories of mama. how she fled from the phillipines during WWII with a five-year old kid and a dead husband. it felt like a made up story then. still does sometimes.
my father gave a eulogy at the grave sight. he compared my great-grandmother to a magnolia tree. how southern. we prayed. then we ate.
i remember my grandfather crying. sobbing. openly expressing his grief. i remember the look on his face. like it was all over. like existing hurt now that his mother was gone.

that funeral has never ended for me.
i still feel the humidity in my head.
the mourners, unaffected, continuing
staring down into the ditch where she lays
empty condolences from faceless relatives
overlap each other until they are only mumbles
an ongoing buzz of misery.
and when the bells toll, it isn't space
it is the ground in which the box lies
a perpetual reminder that i will join her soon.
grey matter the soil, nerves the worms, and i
the ditch digger. searching for my great-grandmother's
pearls, her soul, my soul.

that funeral has never ended for me.
and when the plank in reason breaks
the worlds i hit will be those of knives
and monsters and crucifixes nailed to
the walls of my childhood bedroom.
shadows envelop me further,
anonymous lovers will invite me to believe
that i have finished knowing yet
i am no where ******* close.
my great-grandmother's shaky hands
will try to catch me as i'm dropping down
but no luck. i will keep falling
until every single person who has
broken my heart and whispered truths into
my skull has ripped every inch of skin
off my body while the mourners watch from
above. i will keep falling as long as this
funeral continues. as long as my life continues.

we named the magnolia tree in our front yard after her. Mama's magnolia. when it blooms, my grandfather comes over and stares at it for a long time. like i, he and silence have wrecked.
solitary. here.

Taking a stroll down Monopoly Boulevard.
I think I’ll pick up some “meat.”
I say hello to my local butcher ,
Mr. McDonald!
For a discounted receipt.

I’m so claustrophobic wearing 9 layers,
Of a grimy coat called hypocrisy.
Sweating out grease, it’s good for the skin,
As well as a Christian Democracy.

I pass a line of white picket fences, with crucifixes,
And my old friend Mary,
With eyes that judge piercing through the window,
At anyone willing to vary.

I pass the old couple rocking,
Sipping their synthetic tea,
And I see kids soaked in acid rain,
And society’s debris.

I get home, lock all my windows,
Deadbolt on the door.
Lay my gun under my pillow,
And get ready for another war.

"I am yours and you are mine until the day that we both cease to exist."

I cherish these words like how martyrs hold crucifixes close to their hearts
Only separated by a wall of bone and flesh
I keep these words fresh
By reiterating them every morning since you left
Their poetic tone makes me long for your voice,
Your warm breath and your soft caress as we lay in my bed
Chaste, no acts of lasciviousness or mundane carnal lust
It was just us.

Do you remember when we first met,
How your voice that rivalled thunder bellowed as you fell,
How you appeared as a flash of lightning that failed to destroy
For grace ground zero is pure creation and no other choice,
Or how you took the likeness of my form
And as you said to an awestruck me
Using typhoon from your lungs and a canyon deep voice
"I am an angel of the Lord."

Yes, you were an angel
—As the windows to my soul followed the water dripping from brow to knife-edge cheeks
To course through first man's downfall to nestle where collarbones peek
I could not speak for I was transfixed by your androgyny
Or is it just that the symphony of celestial applause silences my throat
And the low heavy notes of thunderous cause muffles all when the Heavens cried for its children lost—
I agreed

You stared at the distance, admiring how your brothers and sisters met ground
As they used natural phenomena as a facade
Like how Rameses decided the last plague in Egypt long ago
Is angel-kind disguised
Ending the lives of a thousand slumbering children at night
But this coming of the Heavenly Host was different
You came here not to deliver seven plagues nor fortnights punishment
You came to know what it's like to be human

Do you remember how I was dumbfounded,
As I, a testament of how flawed a creation humans are, hear this from perfection,
How I witnessed in your eyes Cain's mistake,
How I saw you make your first steps in disobedience
That will lead to a series of consequences that you said you would cherish,
A road of pain, suffering, and anguish
Or how you told me that you long for human emotions
And how you envied the mouth that bit the fruit in eden?

I still remember how I fell in love with you
How you told me that the weatherman on tv was a false prophet
And that he had changed the weather himself
How you told me every being in the universe that became one of your Father's favorite
Showed similarity with Heaven's most wanted
How you, in veil of night, moved from my living room couch
To sleep by my side
To roost on my bed

Every night I held you tightly in a warm embrace
Close to my heart like how a child holds a blanket reminding him of his mother's calming face
At morning jet skies remain as you stretch your raven wings
Gale winds push forth to ******* away,
Bedazzled by gleaming feathers astray
You are a monument to beauty, a greco-roman statue
Obedient to the Maker, chiseled, stone cold, perfect.

Obedient to Him you were,
He called for all of His children, including those who have fallen
To fight a wargame against Hell, Avalon, and places unknown of name and origin
And you, you headed His call
You again summoned a storm to conceal your true form;
Titanic, terrifying, and phantasmagorical with a hundred pallid furnaces etching the surface of your rock like skin
And in that moment I knew I lost you to Him
Because you said "I am an Angel of the Lord, now and forever."

You said those words using typhoon from your lungs and a canyon deep voice
And as you raised your hand
To an act of God approaching fast,
I lost your warmth to skies unrest
Your memory a dead man's switch if I let go it will detonate unstable emotions
I begged you to play me like harp strings because my heart seams to
Unravel, remembering from Earth you did depart
Knowing I could no longer feel your warmth.

And it came to me,
Angels are not the cloud-jumping-perch-on-your-shoulder kind,
They are monstrous warriors
With the Word of God tattooed on their hundred feet bodies
You are soulless automatons built for war yet you still loved me
You told me stories of alternate realities and distant galaxies
Elegies to dying stars and civilizations in jeopardy
But never again can you tell me...

I still remember how an angel came to me in a dream,
Told me you died defending Heaven from the enemy
Told me that your last words were for me:
"I am yours and you are mine until the day that we both cease to exist."
And since angels are soulless they cease to exist when they die
I cried myself dry, regretted the fact I once had an angel in my life
Whose grace filled me with warmth and whose wings comforted my lonely nights

I still remember how I realized I was human
And I, with those cherished words
Can buy myself more time, buy our relationship more time
For me to be yours and for you to be mine
You may have faded into nothingness but I have not
So until I call out to you using my dying breath
Until the last second in my deathbed
Until my soul's eternity in its infinite Heaven...

I am yours and you are mine, as simple as that.

Me David and Jake
Jake's guest room
and an Iron Maiden CD
"You've gotta here this David"
"It's going to change your world"
"Whatever Martinez"
It was like that
I always carried my Mexican heritage around
a suitcase filled with stereotypes
I put the CD on
and the music pumped through me
so powerful
so raw
so real
everything everything is not
Even David was hooked
It was music to destroy by
to destroy everything they made
that they thought was so pretty
so perfect
so permanent
It wasn't long before we advanced
to heavier metals
and before long
me and Jake
were burning bibles
and turning my parents's
crucifixes upside down
a society based upon
spitting in societies face
what's not to love?

.for two days a song was haunting me, seemingly unheard before, hidden in the deep recesses of my mind - unrelated by sound or memory... yet burning itself a presence regardless of my faculties... restless... i had to take a walk through bedfords park, havering country park and hainault forest country park - through sun and rain and two bottles of wine... twice seeing bambi and at times scuttling like a rat / misanthrope from the unusual traffic of these parts... to finally find peace... Borodin's prince igor!

there's just enough of gloating to have to muster...
before some grander detail has to take form:
i've been trying to capture the song
i want to listen to: but it's hardly a genesis
of an #A... or... whistling...
             kik kershaw's the riddle?
                         it's not - now that the hindsight ("spoiler")
is presented... it wasn't a bach aria:
or a batCH... well: who's the good surd?
'ere boy... vat's a good tau: ba'ch...
     the would be baчelor: j. s. baχ...
                            a juggling act of... less than...
what james joyce's finnegans' had to offer:
and more: the diacrcrcr-detail-of-antics...
       pop sort of reference points?
                   would they be... if they weren't...
for the per se reasons?
                  details are in the noumenon -
that... axe-folding: exfoliating lesser demand
for: **** in machina...
                                      the sort of details
that mind: the over-simplified woman...
and... the terrible complicated seance of...
when witches were detailed about...
their broomsticks were to be replaced with...
vacuum cleaners... terrible details of
"unnecessary" complications...
man of science man of technology man
of engineering and man of mathematics...
much later... the man of linguistics and...
the troop of ballet dancers... the choreographers
and the composers...    

i have taken enough days to gloat...
working an addiction in reverse...
a bank-roll filled with: plenty of nicotine...
and chem.,
           just waiting for the completed
day... an exercise in language:
and jack daniels bubblegum:
pale blue... blueberry images... gluttons
of colour: those pearls...
back to music... back to music...

   i wanted: rather than tried...
to fathom a pause in the construnction
of the res cogitans: with the usual
punctuation markers...
it's hardly a semi-colon...
          a full-stop... a comma or a full-stop...
hardly the detail of syllables
with diacritical markers...
    hidden letters...
rare in english that sheer and chisel
should come together...

i was thinking of a punctuation marker
to block of all narrative...
not a mere punctuation marker -
not some apostrophre...
                precursor to the possessive article:
's..              's...
even the russians do not have
what i already have...
         namely... дж...   джик is an approximation...
something is hidden within...
dzik itself (boar)... dzikość - wildening...
        a lost attribute for the civilized man...
   дж is... slightly off from the intended:
   дз - while ж (rz or ż-art - joke) -
              is... well... it appears...
but is a few letters apart...
       for example in: drzeć (tear - ter:
not tier - nor teer - backwards to forwards...
latin diphthong of æ) -
                        to tear paper into pieces...
   a tear ran down my cheek...
   to have read: rather than... to simply: read -
and... the reed - a stalk of a bulrush...
               the eastern lands...
                      synonyms and two best known
aliases: the birch tree and the bulrush wetlands...

this is the only best: approximation
of a song akin to Borodin's prince igor...
that can't be hummed... unless heard proper...
not from an abstract of memory...
conflation of adjectives?
abstract is more an adjective than a noun...
for this presentation...

      hiding letters like a good 'ebrew...
           surds detailed with apostrophes...
mollusk legs... exercised...
  a day later and the extreme cigarette high
is "missing": not found...
   щыт "vs" szczyt / ščyt -
                 no less congested than:
                                       dość! enough!

from the initial fascination of working
english into greek...
                     things had to translate themself
into "mordor" regions: Ruś, Krym, Tartar...
the Caucaus...
                        and the Turkic dwarf plebs
of mythical Constantinople... takeover...

- with thinking i wanted to capture:
res vanus: the empty thing...
       a synchronised: symphony of...
with what's being emptied...
while at the same time... with what's being
filled...
the years passed when pacing
with a heart of a turtle...
compared to... the heart of a mouse...
i call it: no known noun...
              to think is to have the heart
of a mouse... easily agitated...
no room for lost narratives...
      hell: better still... without haikus
and all those condoms of denial and...
delayed view-count murmurs...

          a case of: res cogitans:
a thing most animate...
a case for: res vanus:
   aa thing most inanimate...
         it's... a slingshot... a strain on purpose...
it's an incremental addition of purpose...
it's a punctuation mark akin
to: lost the linear...
up toward the copernican east we go...
and then back toward the flat-earth
project of... being able to read a map:
topography... without: the need for 3D:
3D the copernican: it's all very imaginary...
vector alpha:
points beta and gamma...
to find punctuation: a silence...
a bit like... finding gravity...
which isn't a sound... but if it was...
it would be... the sound of falling rain
on leaves or lead plating of a roof...
or... the sound of recycling...
of water... in a waterfall...

by now all the ******* readers have
disappeared... there's no more...
instagram haikus in the system...
there's the drone drill sequence...
a very distant humming sound...
perhaps an impromptu crescendo of
variations of a cat's meow...

absolute: total: шит... more like шитышит:
    шыт if i was... to be honest...
   sheets of paper... floating about...
                    well... i too once thought:
those russians... with they cyrillic...
but no diacritical markers...
      well K in a mirror: ж...
                      no one told me about brining
mirrors into the project...
     sh-ch-
sz-cz-                щыт - height: well... zenith...
bl-ы'h bl-ы'h: blah... blah...
       it's a letter: the russians call a "sound"...
like the english should start calling
the letter "g" or the "h" a >sound<:
surd...    an apostrophe: gnome: 'nome...
gnosticism: 'nosticism...
                                 'alf the 'arvest...
prop'er: cockers and pouch of punches...
   very ******* irish sober to me...
brings all the harlequins and loon'doon'ish
to the backyard for:
                   milch-schütteln-und-schäkel...

and then i return the cork back onto the corkscrew...
as i pa'k - my... packaging... CCCP... comrade...
the folded soviet shop...
don't worry terrible ivan... there's a new shop
in town... the iron has morphed into silicon...
see-through curtains and...
this virus... did more damage...
than any... brave lion of the jihad would ever...
circumstance of the affairs of westminster bridge...
they would "epstein" one through
one in a while...
                 to **** chicken the populace
into a cucklicking KKK strut dance of:
burning hoods and bras and crucifixes...
and ******...
                              conventional... formal...
language usage? please reserve that for...
the golf course and business talk...
                write? write what? a kandinsky?!

yes... a big hello ******* from
tiktok and twitter...
1 minute videos and... 180 characters...
         i feel constrained... claustrophobic...
if... i can't write an imitation Dickens chapter...
1000 words is ******* lemonade...
2000 words is... regurgitating a day's worth
of a newspaper... saturday edition...
which includes the editorial and the magazines...
3000 words? a truly rare thing...
      given that... conjunctions and their details
are not counted: ' - is both an apostrophe and a surd
letter... t'at all depends: on the "v.a.t."...

the whole point was...
finding excuses to write about quitting smoking
are other... they were all fine: crack ******* smoked
when the levels of nicotine were dropping...
the upper body was exercised...
but the legs weren't... mollusks and oysters for *****...
or... toes...
to count... oysters for toes...
but when the legs have been exercised...
and a balance has been reached...
there's little to gloat about... about...
quitting smoking...
there's a need to say: the glory of the tongue
and its palette when walking...
the budding beauty of things surrounding me...
all blushing envy of the green...
  self-respecting green and its almost
teasing green phosopherscent insomnia
in the rubric of the sun: next to wake...
next to hide... a bud of bishop hues...

insomnia green of the forest...
                     poor bambi (x2)...
                    zinfandel rosé!
count! syllables! nurse! scalpel!
zin!-f'ah-del... rou-s'eh...
                              oh remind me of the night...
and the forest... the blinking moon
by count of clouds obstructing its glee...
turned into a melting moon...
spray-painted over the leaves with
its last will of agitated: clingy mercury tinge...

the debate: "debate" wasn't about...
i took 3 days to gloat about quitting smoking...
there are more important affairs to mind...
notably! notably?

example!

la traviata is an opera in three acts by (giuseppe) verdi
set to an italian libretto by francesco (maria) piave
                                                 (verbatim: i.e. borrowed)...

there... they cite... the composer...
    who doesn't need a first name, since: verdi is...
synonymous with verdi and opera composition...
but...
         yeah... you need to mention the first name
and the surname of... the libretto: francesco piave...
the opera...
      music... and... the words...
well so much for the music...
but... last time i heard... a violinist holds...
a violin and a bow...
                         what's the opera singer
to hold? the melody? no! he needs to hold...
words...

   today i passed a family in the forest...
a mother, a father... two children...
                   and a grandfather...
maternal / paternal... i don't know...
i was already on my second bottle of wine...
the woman asked me:
   'will we get back to the car park if we turn
around on this route?'
        i was already eyeing them with
a curiosity prior...
i uttered the words... 'you should...'
          not... 'i hope so... since i'll be
testing that question'...
or 'you will...'
                           several minutes later
in my own solipsistic interlude...
            you should... i swear to god...
sometimes i say something and can't
see letters behind the sound...
      like: i shouldn't really see: meow...
behind the sound a cat makes...
since... a cat doesn't just make an: ego sum: meow
universal statement...
there are variations...
    'you should'... i repeated...
slightly drunk and... whatever... i didn't see
any letters in the sound i made...
           for once... not the last time, though...

to abide in such joys from a past -
chevalier, mult estes guariz -
                 to cite charmlemagne and prince rolo:
the scandinavian convert -
who's (whoz: not who is) descendents
were the morphed vikings: the normans...
who conquered england...
        since the predecessors couldn't...
walther von der vogelweide:
                    palästanalied...
all through the german autobahn...
                   the word... AUSFAHRT!
the lands owned by the lithuanian who
married: and by marriage became converted...
from the last pagan prince of europe:
enclosure rhapsody of caged
elephants: prior: mammoths...
  the estonian bulwark...
von meer zu meer (von baltisch zu schwarzes meer)
these jagiełło platitudes of envy... chełm...
      sch'war'zes...

begotten not made: blistered...
the scarf of colour to capture the frenzy of
autumn... a shawl best worn to...
loot the colour and suffocate the subject
with: no past a dream and a dream
without rucurrence...
to borrow from the past as much
if not more from fiction!
to say: once they pickled Barbarossa...
come the third crusade... disgruntled oath-breakers...
sought the prussians...
and the lithuanians... and all that land
to the east...
had they only known... what the prussians
would make of the absence of the saxons
of the pomeranians and the bavarians...
i wasn't there... no...
but a romance is a romance is:
here's to... no ode to a ******* sailor:
capn' ahab... or the rodin instruction
knee deep in the mud at ypres...
or the mass-graves of german youth
or: how kaisser wilhelm and that in-breeding
crew of familial ties tore europe
on the altar of the bull...
before this bourgeoisie whittle adoolph HIT!
came about and charged the former
bitzmarck ***** and the elites with...
eh... the story is so told and so old...
"they" couldn't fathom the middle-project
of the khaki and ******* not coming
from their... high-brow... aristocracy...
better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven...
choir boy whittle adoolph said:
i'll borrow the schnurrbart from chaplin...
after all... with a surname like mine...
a ****** or a chaplin is no... WIN-D'SOR!
yes... apostrophe 'ere if not to hide a surd...
it's to elevate punctuation...
for the sake of syllables... the hyphen is not
enough... vowel catcher tetragrammaton
invocation! the first arm of the god:
the second arm is for: ha ha ha! laughter!
cynic and satyr!
            eh... let's leave the stoics to their
love of labouring over the fate of oysters!
protestants and pre-destination-alists...
clarvoyant calvinists!

                         from the decadence of a "lost"
empire... what "pseudo" history is to be
resurrected... romanced...
the angevin empire?! that there is a past...
the "lesser" dream...

a patrick and andrew a george...
and ef bwy newid troi (he who...
altered path) -

troedfilwr - petty velsh:
quasi-silesian / kashubian / little warsaw
of the "bigger picture" masovia...
CAPital neu...
          
- ever write something...
at a snail's pace: crow pecking...
because a moth has just flown into your room...
and... unlike... holding a seashell to your
ear... to find the ivory shore...
and the details of false echo of... galloping
waves...
you clench your hand...
and hear... fluttering... like the sound of...
desperately falling rain..

madame butterfly is an opera
by (giacomo) puccini, with a libretto
by luigi illica and giuseppe giacosa

the magic flute, k. 620, is an opera in
mozart to a german libretto by
emanuel schikaneder:

           der verk is in the form of a singspiel:
singing and spoken dialogue...
my demise: the awe... interludes of...
theatre... in an opera!

               rushing rushing and... kandinsky
the colt serenade kind...
  with... canvas... and an auction house
of reserve that... fridge magnet enterprise
of a single mother of... 6...
              
you couldn't get an opera...
working from the carmina burana...
the... libretto... thankfuly...
constricted the music...
you'd only get what you already have...
a medley... opertics instead of an opera...
sketches of an opera...
    the whole custard mess...
the rhubarb the rasberry "finicky"...
         the Goliards and the... gonnards...

               were diu werlt alle min
               von dem mere unze an den Rin,
               des wolt ih mih darben
               daz diu chunegin von Engellant
                lege an minen armen

the quid pro quos and the... anon. circus
spectacular sheen!
  
  what is the composer without the libretto?
the violin player has his violin and bow
attached: like some... frankenstein's take
on an elaboration of an autumnal fallen:
leaf of: a "false" limb...
dire desires for a lingering crescendo...
of a piece... without an overture...
bothercome children and the good life...
nothing worth clarifying the nouns:
to a supper... a goodnight...

                       bedtime with nabokov?
my take... well... it becomes apparent...
when... the local... easily accessed by the many...
avenues of love... are exercised...
what remains? taboo...
and once the taboo is... investigated...
invested in... well then...
there's that all overpowering tease of
thought not materialised into a will...
a 14 year old girl... below the mark...
she's 16 and i'm 18...
and i'm not her... cousin and this is not
israel...
                  after a while... the only *** available
is... the forbidden type...
and there's... so much freedom in
what's forbidden... when it's only thought...
the complex: θ(ought) complex
that becomes φ(inking)...

              the moment "she" starts to
perceive the mirror...
       and you're looking into the concept
of time and of glass...
  
but then... there's... the libretto... and the composer...
the rare event of: richard wagner...
where there's a schizoid... bilingual...
"in theory": der kommissar working 7/11
on the advent of: neu-muzik zu kommen!

  queen of the night aria contra...
my sleeping karma - satya - ahimsa...
that one: "last" cigarette...
me... a wife and a child...
        tidy... if i only aimed at...
the fraction to no effect...
the wife and the sole child...
i'd be doing all the proper details...
a wife and... the hungarian model...
of at least: towing 2...
      hardly an embitious venture if only
towing the holy trinity of:
fake hey-gay-zeus fake myriam fake josephus...

not looking for queen of the night aria...
   nor satie's gnossienne no.1 sampled...
ezio bosso - under the trees...
           vittorio monti
jean-paul egide martini {/^.5.p 6^)_(0$drd...
toast!
it was... bothering me... started last night...
took 6 rough miles to get the tune
out from my head...
into a coffin... of sorts...
it was... borodin's prince igor! all along!

p.s. re-flex: the politics of dancing...
       duran-duran: the reflex; ******-pointer-ler;
h'american pie contra dad:
   the gay bar: electric sexes und siebens:
hefyd...                         deutsche bankschisch...
zeit (time) and the ruschischen:
              цeit... always conflated as...
indistinguishable by a ****** / lithuanian...
           цeit - bißcuit... crumble: чarcoal...

hey presto: a *******... voilà contra eureka!

sideways ptoses rooted
in statues, bitter waters
of last monarchs clinging
to red cornel crucifixes
while naked november
raised from plutonian mist,
bathing us, almost, again,
in summer paradoxes

——————————————

Italian version, from “Chieti, Scalo”, 2014

AZIONE PARALLELA
le ptosi di tralíce allignavano
in statue, amarissime acque
di ultimi sovrani aggrappati
a rossi crocifissi di corniolo
mentre un nudo novembre
saliva dalle nebbie plutonie
circonfondendoci quasi d’
ancóra paradossi d’estate

i. prelude in accordance with comparing the parting glass with auld lang syne.

aye, jingle jingle bell... jingle all ye may...
tis' the season to be jolly,
in times when elves are half-wits
without the graces of a Lord Elrond,
majestic, proud, here where little
hobbit-elves roam with pointy ears
and hairy nostrils... aye, jingle jingle bell...
jingle all the way...
   as you look east, and hear both the dove's
song of *silent night, to later hear
   the sombre mea culpa, and the creed
come easter... and upon the altar: get
your blames and your sins...
         for letting it happen! for letting it happen!
o heathens and o you gentiles!
    come while i scold my dog into having to
father me - aye...
       so frown too at the acronym prelude
with all that pandemonium glitter - presents,
crucifixes replaced by christmas trees:
and as is the clause of santa - reduced to burnt
smithereens of torture instruments standing
in Ka Ka poses - o hear the my new fatherland
waiting for me... while the cradle of my word
seemed but almost ready to finally to get rid of
me, i come back swiftly... and rid Europe
of harmony... nor was it that the Englishman foresaw
it... being a gemini-gentleman, he did what
any Pontius Pilate could do: he washed his
hands, then washed his feet - and assumed a moral
high-ground: in times when speaking German
or using German words parallels national socialism...
aye, and all good tidings to the many.

ii. interlude, beyond the 24th hour awake.

you know how they have these cautionary moments
on television during the news?
  they say something like: warning, this report contains
flash-photography...
     they should really have the same ****** cautionary
statement when you walk out on the streets these days:
caution! flashing christmas lights! santa's strobe disco
special... i'd be curious about those photosensitive
epileptics walking the streets these days...
and as they say: an englishman's home is his castle...
obviously that depends how many christmas lights
be dons in his windows... and how ****** annoying
their setting is... i blink less times in a minute
than these disco arrangements flash in 20 seconds...
but indeed, an englishman's home is his castle...
but put about twenty of such castles in a row
and you get the inkling... pray not call these
the abode of windsors... they look nothing like
castles... more like chicken-shacks...
      to live so close among each other, and for this
sole reason... despise each other so fervently
as to love one-another by simply: not even saying hello.
after a year so closely packed? what could
a hello ever do to me? ruin my day... that's what...
and you see these pseudo-hippies out there
on the television screen advertising mentos sweets
told by Ormond St. children in hospital to
hug people in the street,
          or 'wanna come round my house?'
that's a line out of Norman Bates' mouth, isn't it?
if we can't talk jolly over a drink,
    what do you think a conversation over a mentos
sweet would achieve? fresh breath...
  but certainly the still stone-cold heart of
              keeping up with mascaras and mortar.

iii. the best presents are the littlest of joys.

tiny, like the last babushka: a great psychological
schematic... hollowing out, hollowing out,
moving further apart... in the end it's not some
concrete ego-theory, or some self or some questionable
"self"... that last babushka (i was going to say egg,
added to babushka) - is but a pinch -
       pinch of salt, or a pinch of a little reality that's
that adequate spiderweb compliment toward each new day.
- and say, all grand things acquiring little idiosyncratic
words of these isles...
                            but inherently the baltic breathes into
us a different disposition: i too, upon waking
    see Sisyphus - but instead of utilising my body
i have to utilise my mind... i could remain a child
and think of pushing the stone telekinetically,
and become an engineer, and inventor, to ease the woes
of the daily toils, invent a mechanical drill rather than
use the old manual drill...
                         but i don't even contemplate
   telekinetic deviations... i just sit by the stone i'm supposed
to push up a non-existent hill...
    so unless i be ****** with some demon with a hot
poker to get mye lazy *** to the daily toils of the sweaty brow...
i'll finely sit and tell you this.

iv. and i told them.

i can stretch this soviet sleep experiment to two days,
sleep my twelve and wake to the twenty four and beyond
up to 36... but don't expect me to fear going
at night for my sedatives... even if I have to leave dear
McCormick behind on these travels, and travel east
and feed on ***** for a while, oh indeed the hiatus
and the family... even among my kinsmen i will walk
the night... and all I have to say: the worst has already
happened... the best that can happen would be
for Samael to kindly raise his *** from the cold marble throne
of graven idle - and finally make the clean scythe swoon
into my heart...
                            and that's how it began...
the †-word... the bilingual crossword -
       no, nothing like the original crossword game for
monolingual people...
          there are were no clues in the word scythe...
Scythians? that's Latin... meaning that etymology would
not help, but it was tested...
      and yes... he was crucified on the †-word,
on the basis that he gave no insight into hashem,
yes, the name, the y m c a, the y h w h... the acronym
of which was ironically †... or n.e.w.s. -
               that's why the scribes, the Pharisees pestered
him! they wanted some insight into their practices!
but what did he do? he scolded them!
         he insulted the scribes and the little scribblers of
Jerusalem long gone... and so with due irony:
got †-fied: defied... and by later jokes of the gentiles:
deified.             scimitar doesn't even help either...
then one word pops into my head, don't know
why, it's not even synonymous, and that makes it
even less antonymous - brzoza - birch tree...
also known as the pioneer tree... where the birch tree
settles, other trees may follow... palms?
palms are ******* dead end... the best you might
get from a palm tree... is a cactus.
        well... this is becoming a very horrible crossword,
i have scythe
                       Scythians... scimitar...
     sclera... dictionary...              but nothing leading
me to translate scythe into ol' ma'...
                                       no etymological congregation
to work from...
                  i'm not even going to cheat...
      i'll just make life a little bit more easier for myself
and enjoy the evening with my whiskey...
   KURVA JEGO PIERDOLONA MAĆ!
           now i know why i couldn't find the word,
it's too undisturbed by Greek or Latin,
        it goes to the ancient roots of when languages
didn't exactly borrow from each other...
scythe? in western slavic?       kosa.
      it's a basic word going back back to syllables...
and given that Latin is an alphabet of syllables
rather than nouns like Greek (a and alpha? different,
aren't they, obviously).

v. a chimeral opposite.

so fill to me the starting glass
good morning and misery be with you all,
as the years pass,
with each new year, i don't know what
i'm expected to be celebrating or seeing others celebrate.

it is 2:16 AM.
I am not awake because I am emptying my veins or medicine cabinets or tear ducts,
I am awake simply because I have not yet drifted into gray unconsciousness.
I will not fall asleep tonight on a salt soaked pillow-case and I will not wince every time my wrist rubs against the comforter.
I will fall asleep quickly, because I remembered to take my medicine, and I will stay asleep and dream of beautiful church buildings with stained glass windows and nativity porcelain and rooftop crucifixes I will not dream about jumping off.
When the bells ring, I will wake up and my mom will call me in for breakfast.
I will not be nervous.
I will not clasp my hands behind my back to hide my forearms.
I will eat eggs and toast and sausage and I will lick the grease from my fingers and it will taste good. It will not taste like calories. Like regret.
I will put my pants on and when they get stuck around my thighs I will groan and throw them out. I will not modify my body to fit into them.
My eyes will be bright and my veins intact and my shirt will be short sleeved and that will be alright.
I will be alright.