Peeing: to ***; to urinate; to release the body of its liquid toxins; to pass or discharge *****; characteristically yellow- the strength of the color depending on the body’s hydration.
People have strange habits when peeing; urinating; releasing the body of their liquid toxins. Some people procrastinate it to the last minute and rush to the bathroom, barely yanking their pants down in time and shuddering in relief. They are those who habitually whip in and out, even when they don’t really need to. There’s the common usage of an escape from boredom in classes or meetings. Perhaps it even causes a slight blushing in the cheeks of painfully shy woman at hearing rushed tinkling so close by. And of course, they are also the people who love to leave surprises for the next person who uses the bathroom.
All in all, peeing seems to mean not much to people – a small part of life; but a very, very necessary part.  

                                 *                 *                    * .

The rain poured furiously outside the window as Emily sat, straining her brown eyes against the whiteboard flashing images of trigonometry from Mr. Well’s laptop, trying hard to concentrate. She was sitting in her usual seat in class, and also her favorite. It was a solitary table with a chair, away from the clusters of tables and the chattering children, and the only chair by the window. She liked to look out the window, even if it distracted her from Mr. Well’s loud explanations. The booming of “SOHCAHTOA” in her ears became distant as the wind’s movement caught her eye. She gazed out on sheets of rain flapping across the sky like giant teary spirits and pressed her fingertips on the glass. Cold.
Absent-mindedly, she pressed her cheek against the coolness and felt it absorb her body warmth. Her imagination kicked in and the glass became a panel of energy, ******* a little life from all those who touched it, vibrating with a strange purple light until it was so filled with energy the particles of the glass would explode and she would be the first to die from the sharp shatters that would spray across the room, causing droplets of blood to-
Ahem.
Mr. Well coughed meaningfully at her dreamy face. The class exploded into laughter and the bell rang. A skinny girl smiled at her but she was so lost in her own world, she forgot to smile back as she slung her bag on her shoulder and ran out. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have too many friends.
The dark skies were pouring furiously as only Bangkok in Monsoon weather can.
A walk home or a motorbike ride? A motorbike ride would be a little dangerous in this flooding… and with that reasoning she waved up a motorbike. The seat was soaked and so was the driver, whose brown leathered feet struggled to keep red flip-flops on as they sloshed through the flooded Sois.
Fat water bullets pelted her skin and the wind blew them ferociously into her face till her eyes stung. The motorbike swerved in and out of the cars stuck in traffic (slightly floating), the bottoms of their wheels immersed in ***** water.
The pockets of her school shorts were hastily rummaged through and she pulled out a soggy green twenty-baht note bank before running into the shelter of the lobby, dripping over the marble floor and completely drenched. The building-maid widened her eyes, and watched her horrified; knowing it meant extra work mopping and drying up the lobby floor as soon as Emily vanished into the elevator.
The plastic button with the circular metal piece glowed orange. It was strange how she was shivering with cold but her touch was still warm enough to light up the elevator buttons.
The usual itchy, impulsive, restlessness was building up inside her from the wet motorbike ride. Thunder roared and crackled through the lobby’s swinging glass doors and they vibrated slightly. Another flashing image of splintering glass splashed across her mind and in the split-second, she saw the diamond shards pierce the eye of the lobby’s guard and splinter across the floor-
She shook her head. This was what happened when she had too much pent-up energy. She had to do something- something reckless and fast and dangerous… now! A bolt of lightning went through her as a familiar wide open space came into her mind… the rooftop of her thirty-five floored building.
The elevator ride up was slow, much too slow for the fast pacing of her heart and she hit the metal doors with wet fists. Tearing out of the doors when it finally jolted to a stop, she climbed up to the top, running up the stairs two steps at a time and caught her breath. It was flooded up to her ankles and violent gusts of wind made her steady herself.
Emily’s Dad often told her stories of when he was child. “The winds in my home during Monsoon season were so strong we could lean into it with our fully body weight and we wouldn’t fall. It was almost as good as flying.”
Her lids squinted shut and the sensitive skin was immediately exposed to the pebbles of the rain and whipping wind; and in almost dream-like state, she leaned into the howling wind.
There was a comically slow fall and her bony knees hit the concrete flooring with a dull thud. She burst into tears of laughter in her own stupidity at thinking the wind could hold up against her gigantic frame and rubbed her ***** knees sorely. Reaching up to wipe her tears with muddy fingers, she laughed to herself again. There was no point in wiping away tears. They were so trivial in comparison to the current weeping of the skies.
Against the thick opaqueness of the wind, she could see how the view towered over a jungle of buildings as far as the eyes could see, with snaking concrete roads and skinny black canals. Slums scattered around nearby swanky hotels of the rich. The buildings faded into small dark shapes in the distance. Bangkok.
No matter how tall and industrial it tried to become, everyone ran for cover under this blinding rain.
Up here, completely a victim to nature’s power, she felt exposed; naked; real. The animalistic instincts inside her swelled up. Humans weren’t meant to wear these annoying pieces of material or shoved inside skinny architectural designs. With aggressive tearing motions, a pile of soggy clothes half lay, half floated on the flooded floor beside her and she stood there bare… and completely naked. Laughter spilled out from the depths of her naked chest with the two tiny hints of possible womanhood; it was louder than thunder. Screaming, laughing and gasping she stumbled around – climbing over objects and feeling the beautiful dizziness: a sweet, sweet dizzy. She stood up on a random block a meter high; spread her arms wide as her wet body shone with raindrops. The rain threatened to push her over, her soaked hair twitching heavily on her neck.
She ****** in her breath, ready to yell so that the heavens could hear but instead, the voice that came out was controlled with a shaky undertone of joy,
“I need to ***.”
And then she did.

                                                *         *            *.

His eyes are brown. Dark chocolate brown – a simple, solid color. Simple and solid like him.
Because he was so simple, people enjoyed his companionship. Though he was simple, he was not boring. Rather he was sharp-mouthed, quick on his feet, witty and observant speaking bald truths about people that either provoked them to scandalized laughter or humiliated fury.
What some people forgot to recognize was that he didn’t really love anyone. Plenty called him a close friend, but so absorbed were they in their own world; they seldom realized the fact that most of his thoughts were concealed. Kept in a little box of surprises in the back of his mind, and hidden so well nobody knew they existed.
He could spend months with a friend traveling in a different country, and return back home with no feelings of attachment. He could care for a friend while they were here and not really miss them while they were gone.
Most of the time his eyes were neutral and observing and they would sparkle amusedly when he had provoked someone with his words. This was how remained to almost everyone; everyone but one person. The one person that could turn his normally calm face even more still, the dark brows would rise slightly and a quick flash of fire would shoot through his eyes- and for a long while, they would burn slowly like two twin coals; the one person who could cloud his eyes dreamily; the one person who could make them glint wetly.  
He reached over and grabbed her hand. Emily turned smiling eyes at him.
A group of teenagers were strolling down the closed roads, armed with water guns, pasted in thick white powder, thoroughly drenched in the hot, dry weather and skipping over puddles (except for Emily who splashed into them).
Songkran in Bangkok: celebrated in the middle of April where temperatures reach forty-degrees Celsius, Thailand’s New Year and a time to pay respect to the elders in the family, but as most traditions, they became really just an excuse to enjoy oneself and in this case, one-year-olds to eighty-year-olds roamed the ***** streets splashing ice-cold water from hoses and water guns and smeared each other with chalk in buckets.
The street they were being shoved along was crowded with slick, drunk bodies. The heat of the afternoon sun shone down on their backs. The sign that introduced excited people in was sprayed by a passing pick-up truck filled with screaming locals. “WELCOME TO SOI COWBOY” printed the red letters.
Red-faced fat foreigners held in each arm a tiny ******* with their bright lace bras showing through the wet see-through shirt and their black eye shadow playing havoc with their cheeks.  Country-side Thai music blared in its jumpy, quirky manner with the over done sound effects. Those nasal voices of dark skinned women with their skins covered with make-up to an ashy white whined out of the stereos. A man with the head of a buffalo mask sauntered past. It was a mark of how wild things got at Songkran that eyes merely flickered over the shirtless buffalo briefly with a quick laugh. Transsexuals clad in diamond-studded flip-flops, wet white tank tops and mini jeans shorts the size of underwear danced to the blasting music from the open pubs down either side of the road. Their surgically-made ******* were all-too visible in the white shirts, their dark ******* poking out as they grabbed the crotches of good-looking men and boys that passed by, squealing and rubbing their bodies against white men especially. Most of these white foreigners had a look of bewildered pleased ness... for only a few realized that underneath that squeaky voice was a very deep rumble, and underneath those lacy thongs lay a very big surprise indeed.
One of the better-looking boys in the group, his green eyes and pointed chin drawing the fancy of many hookers, was pulled off by four pairs of wet skinny arms touching him and yelling in broken English, “Oh so handsome! You so handsome! I love you! What your name! You tell me your name, handsome boy!”
The handsome boy proceeded to manage some sort of scream for help while laughing until his stomach ached. It was Songkran; it was a merry time, and he knew he was good-looking. Kat, who held a secret crush on him laughed amusedly at his yelping.
Emily stumbled after him with Kat and parted through the crowd of ladies in time to see a tiny little ****** trip on her squeaking flip-flops and fall beside a sprawled figure, face down in the ***** road with a massive bag of ice on top of him.
“Hey! Are you alright?” Emily cried, half-amused and half-concerned, lifting the heavy ice bag off his shoulders.
Kat rushed forward, laughing but compromising her concern with furrowed brows and helped him up. “You okay Tom?”
He whimpered in pain and put a hand on his neck, rubbing it sorely. “That ice bag was ******* heavy.” The girls decided to make no note of his skinny arms.
They walked back to their group of friends who turned around and saw a limping green-eyed boy and roared with laughter. The noise caught the attention of predators searching for a good target and they were hosed down with water pipes.
Suddenly Emily felt a huge body lift her up and swing her around while hands plastered her with wet chalk.
“Emily!”
She felt safe hands grab her and looked up into the pair of dark chocolate eyes. They were a little annoyed as they flickered over the fat drunk man who released her heavily but it was Songkran, and he managed to laugh at her bewildered expression.
Just then they passed a horde of prostitutes and she felt him being ripped from her. “I like this one!” screeched a passing market lady who rushed in to jump on him. “I like this one! Let’s keep this one!” They dunk his head in a bucket of white goo.
She screeched with laughter and even at something that silly, felt protective of him. “Brad!”
He was too busy being attacked. “Brad!” she tried to reach in and he opened his mouth to call out to her. That was a big mistake, he realized, as he received a handful of powder in his mouth. Spitting, coughing, and trying to breathe through nostrils blocked with powder he managed to wipe his stinging eyes clean. The prostitutes released him but not before a huge ******* screamed with glee at his straight nose and thin red lips, and reached forward giving his crotch a good grab. He screeched in genuine disgust and fear, had a moments feeling of guilt in case he had offended the ******* which was immediately wept away as he, no she, no it, yelped joyfully and massaged his **** before trotting off to his, no her, no its next victim.
Where was Emily? With his height, he managed to see a brown head that stuck above the other dark-haired and light-haired heads being jostled out of the street by the moving crowd. He ran to catch up and grabbed Emily’s hand as the group of teenagers tripped out of “Soi Cowboy”.  
They stood for a moment catching their breath. Zoey, a tiny little girl with a chest that threatened to put her out of balance, pushed her brown curls out of her face. A red glow was starting to spread over her cheeks.
Kat laughed scornfully, her wide smile spreading generously over her face. “Sunburn?! You white girl!”  
They had all been out around the streets since early morning and it was late in the afternoon now. Rose’s cheeks were flushed and the tip of Kat’s nose was a little pink herself. The rest of them, with their darker skin, had tanned slightly but unnoticeably. They laughed at Zoey for a short while. It was an interesting group of friends: all of them of mixed heritages from around the world with different backgrounds that became common in the world of International schools. It was alright to tease Emily’s honey skin; it was funny to crack jokes about Stefan’s hairiness; it was hilarious when Zoey tried to tan.
Emily shot a picture of everyone laughing: their clothes wet, their faces scrunched up, eyeliner smudged (Kat and Rose had lined their eyes with water proof kohl that of course wasn’t really waterproof), their cheeks and chin caked a crumbly white.
Kat and Zoey clambered over her shoulders, peering at the little digital screen of the water proof camera. “Ew! Gross!” yelled Kat who was only used to pictures of her lips rosy from lipstick, camera at a flattering angle with a bright flash from her professional equipment that made her black-lined green eyes sparkle like emeralds.
“Delete! I look sick!”
Even Zoey, who admired Kat’s photogenic ness to a great extent, could find no words of solace except to say, “Me too! I look gross! Delete! Now!”
Emily just laughed and said, “No you don’t.” Of course it wasn’t a type of picture they’d profile on Facebook, but all the same it was beautiful with their wild-looking and uninhibited faces and un-posing body shapes, curled up in laughter.
Zoey snatched the camera from her and they fiddled with the buttons till the picture was deleted. It was regretful, annoying, but not unexpected.
Emily rubbed her sore knees and noticed how Tom was still rubbing his neck sorrowfully with Stefan laughing at him, shaking his head wearily. Brad was holding onto her arm a little tiredly, Kat and Zoey had their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulder for leaning support and Rose and Emily’s younger brother, Jason, were standing together, staring absen

My country is an old book with a crumbly, dusty cover;
original and valuable
Like a book, you don't judge it by its cover.
What's inside it is what defines it.
Gently open it;
Read each word with heart,
Uncover its uniqueness
till it brings delight.
Find the book enjoying,
You'll never wish for it to end.
You'll read it one more time,
You'll show loftiness to it.
Oh, fellowmen, we're proud of our country
Even if we're not;
Our mouths say we are, but our hearts deny.
Oh beloved country,
We discerned ourselves
through judging you
because of our own fault.

**© Frank Lloyd Manalang, 2014

I mashup me, myself, and thee: Part II

Excerpts from my poems about poets, poetry and the process of composition. In chronological order, from the earliest to the most recent.
---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----


The three poems went about their business,
Bringing heaven to earth,
FYI, even Angels can't be everywhere, so,
God invented poems to do his ***** work,
Cleansing souls.

They rode in~out of town on a prankster wave,
A cheering throng was not around,
But a singular poet saw, recorded the vision,
And thus, this nameless poet,
Below unmasked, unsealed,
Cleansed one more soul,
And that soul, this soul, as required,
Paid it forward.
~
Nothing produced from this place
where routine means the gorge tastes bile,
When surcease is welcome relief,
Where dancing on ice in bare feet
Is step one to ripping your chest open by your own hands,
The toxins thus released rejuvenated by salted air,
Can be finally be transcribed onto paper
And realized.

Warn them once and then begin, you,
Get serious, delve, with hurricane unambiguity,
to torrential words upon the unsuspecting,
let them taste the rawness, only the truth provides,
let them know salt tears so briney,
They will flee this place, n'er to return.
~
One day she intro'd me as her fav poet,
To which I acknowledged by addressing her as
My number one fan,
Which seems to have stuck,
so I acknowledge her as such,
And always add a polite, respectful, winking,
Yes ma'am!
~
Like this new day,
there are always
new poems

Like last night's sunset,
day's efforts reviewed,
a special light,
a yellowed marker,
highlighting a few deserving

Take them home,
kiss them goodnight,
rest them in the poetry file
that is no file,
but a large fabric box where
sewing tools once stored

How appropriate and
how happy that makes me.
~
Yo! Yo!
Remember your first real high,
That moment
No absolution, no return.
That moment
When you admitted, confessed,
to yourself:

I am
Forever forward,
A home-grown poet.
I am
Soul enslaved to words.
The alphabet - My oxygen molecules,
I am both,
Addict and dealer
A ****** poet

Yo! Yo!
So you do recall,
The exact moment,
God-spark-within, ascendancy gained
You lost control,
Wept words instead of tears!
A ****** poet ******!

Yo! Yo!

Sophie's Choice.
You chose writing over breathing,
Worshiper of the purest pleaure,
******* in deep the smoke-high of
Head-nodding discontented contentment
Stealing anything you saw
For to satisfy the need, the craven
Craving.
****** poets!

Yo! Yo!

Don't you're ever sleep?
Hear that the city, the state,
Gonna methadone your kind
In a special program
Teach you only language to sign.
**** poets!

I am a ****** poet.

The first step taken.
Admission.
Poetry is my default rest position,

My drug of choice.
~
Have you noticed here

Each poet declaims his fellow
The better one, his teacher,
From whom they shall learn and gather up
Inspiration

Gonna run for Congress,
My first bill, Poetry-care,
Will make it a requirement that
All citizens must contribute,
Exchange once a day
To this peaceful place,
Even just a syllable, a single letter,

K?
~
Literally my eyes see words awaiting coordinating,
Poems flying by, needing plucking,
How a child eats his morning cereal,
His rituals informing, of the man yet to be,
How our bodies lay, hair unbrushed,
Tying us into a conjoined knot...

No matter that plain words are my ordinary tools,
With them I shall scribe the small,
Cherish the little, grab the middle,
Simplicity my golden rule,
Write they say, about what you know best,
Surely in the diurnal motions,
The arc of daily commotion,
Do we not all excel?
~
The ice of poetry,
glassine smooth
but
charged hardness,
hits you, ****** you,
unexpected snowball in the face,

the fire of poetry,
cherished phrase, a patois,
comfort food when
whole winter skies
swallow you bleak

mutual contradictions of poetry
savaging the soothed ego,
revealing the raging id

what's in a word anyway?
~
Please Pop, pick wise,
the life and lies, the faces and disguises,
I will need employ to achieve success
in the eyes of my reading beholders,
who own the liens on my soul
because of the promises I believed,
when you sang me
glowing lullabies of my future days,
how everyone would love my stories,
my poems, someday...
~
Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.
~
My life is on the boring side,
So welcome gents to look inside,
The surfed sites, the emails, hardly slimy,
But stay the fk away from my poetry!

Tis obvious from your midnight editing,
That my wordily, working body has been discretely
Simonized,
My data,
Googlized,
My poems,
Scrutinized,
A comma, a colon, a verb, out of place, capsized,
Little threads kept in door jambs, their alteration,
Your snooping presence, a confirming revelation
~
Where I write, here, all comes so easy,
Every glance a poem formed,
Every phrase a title to a poem served,
Every conversation overheard and those wind-lifted brought,
A seed, a germ, a word~worm hooked to the pole crook of
My finger saying, see man, time to get more ink and paper,
Go and catch us a few poems for dinner

The snapper weakfish word colors are
Running past my-by the thousands,
We will need a basket to catch but a fraction
Of what you see, more than more enough to share,
Only Happy Poems for all

It is this rhyming way I view the wold,
That is my freedom, is my-present essence,
How the poems come, how thy flow,
Peaking, I cannot berate, rarely eat,
Sleep a thing of the past (as you be aware, beware)
There is poetry in simply everything.
~
But if my aura be a comfort insufficient,
Let this surprise poetic gift awaiting your arrival,
Give you rest, from crying surcease!

For when the who, the why of me interrogatory posed,
Describe me in a brevity I ne'er possessed, say:
He was just a poet, and I,
Just, his lover, number one fan.

This truth eternal, never to change.
~
But I am open to learning, the arduous task
Of raising a teenage daughter,
After I have my head examined

Though I am just a bunch of eclectic electrons,
I got powers a few, like making life's happiness
Hearted happier, encouraging your forays into
You-know-what,
And when tables turn, a hasty retreat you beat,
For imaginary cappuccinos and poems we will meet,
Comparing notes on who felt lousier when...

But what I can do 100% is assure you
There is no lone nor lonely daughter extant,
Your voice not just clear but soft-edged,
For I have poetically adopted you,
Here and now, assuming you sign on the
.............................................................­line
~
Take these words at plain face,
and look not askance
at this fair warning,
for I am but a tragic,
empty vessel for you to fill,
you are the raconteur,
me, just a  
poet poseur extraordinaire,
street urchin, word merchant,
all my verbally, wordly goods expropriated
from the wind,  where your scattered thoughts
lie about, carelessly,
unattended
~
Guiltless in life, we but survived,
Hurting no one, no thing,
Yet, here we lie, ignored, unattended,
Yet, you fail again to see our connection?
You do not recognize us?

We are the shells, the husks of you,
Your poems unread, you labors unpreserved,
All wasted, for unless they are read, they die,
As you will too.
Some fast, by water, some slower, time-eroded,
All, ended, by drowning in the Sea of Who Cares!
~
What sourced this elegiac distich,
Too many poets, fully disclosing their downbeat, aroma of defeat?

The world is in a **** mood, not one of us, got nothing
Good to say, seems that love storms ripping hearts
With no trace of mercy, the radio has elected nonstop
Taylor Swift and Jonas Bro's
Just to make the point!

It is so easy to feel ******,
When the sun is unshining, elegant distich, **** me.

Thinking back, getting a good idea,
Found some long necked Corona overlooked,
Turn on the tv, pretend I'm a real cowboy,
And for god's sake, shut down poetry,
Good Bye Poetry, for the rest of the day.
~
once upon a time,
a traffic light rainbow,
stopped n' go, was a word design,
demarcated visions of spun sugar,
bodegas sold me
magic beans by the pound,
masterminded into cups of delight,
treasury's bounty overflowed,
now, dregs drain, sink stained,
as are my writing utensils,
my ink stained, us-less, fingers

come visit me, unknown stranger,
let us exchange fluidity, barbs,
a contest of kissing, eye lashing
wit ands shared vision stashing,
and together, once more,
write with our feet,
while holding hands,
becoming once more
poets of the street.

Only, come quickly.
~

But reading thy cries, an exercise,
Teeth-gnashing frustration.
It brings no relief.

So sad girl,
Write till you are righted,
May be it will snow on July 4th,
And tho unnatural,
So is thy grief.

Nonetheless, write me write me all about it,
Right us,
For tho snow falls, its loveliness,
Makes the heart rise up in gladness!
~
She brings me coffee in bed.
I propose a violin accompaniment.
Some babka, with nice-crumbly-in-bed
Streusel topping,
A concerto we could make!

Her derision snorted so loud,
The mollusks on the beach
From their shells come out.

"Good luck with that,
Put that fantasy on
Your **** poetry site,
Cause that is the closest you will ever get!"
~
For she will be my heroine for all time,

These words to expand with rhyme and verse,
T'is a welcome task, one familiar, but anew,
Each dawn each dusk, a daily trust, a love poem diurnal-birthed,
As if god created the world, but left upon completion,
With a grievous thirst, a new notion, he did burst.

He created the Eighth Day, for celebration of his
Most cherished invention, the idea of love.
This is where, the secret writ Eleventh Commandment occurs,
Love thy Poetry Gods, Honor them with daily verbs.
~
Officer...you should see me gut a

Poem,

Slice its belly open,
Sometimes straight, sometimes Askew,
Feed the gulls them
****** insides on the dock, by-moonlight,
Can ya cut me some slack?

Mmm, I see here in your license,
You are a disabled guy,
A **** poet ******,
Who often does his best work
Legally all alone in the HOV lane,
So I'm gonna let you off this time
Just with a warning!
~
We can share words, we can grant tiny easements,
We can weep with you unseen tears,
We can etsy you little homemade gifts
Like this.

That you can take and keep, and break out in time of need knowing full well that these words will not spoil nor rancid turn, cannot be out grown,, or torn, or rent asunder in anyway for once they are shared
They are irrevocable.
~
When you write,
It as if you write upon our
One skin,
For I am your tablet,
Your sole/sol/soul composition.

So stop kissing me
and
Write upon us.
~
This will not be the hardest poem I e're wrote,
But if there is no inspiration
For you to smote,
And armpits refuse to provide perspiration,
To source juices for a new creation,
Try this trick,
I promise you
No one will lick your ice cream cone,
Nor mistake you for Leonard Cohen,
But when you are done,
You will be High Priest of
Hello Poetry for the rest of the day!
~
You think you can write?
Then employ  a word outside your comfort zone,
Go it alone,
And write four sentences that will make
The hopeful reader stand up and
you twice as much, and shout

Hallelujah
*******.

Work. Poetry is work. Hard work.
Don't fret. But, think on it. Have the sweetest dreams.
In the morning, when you but awake,
A poem will be aborning in thy mind,
And dare I say it, you will find a new freedom
In free verse.
(I know you will slip in a rhyme or two,
I can't help but do it too)
~
Had myself forgot,
That a poem needs a
Frame of jungle gym sounds,
An aural aura resonance unbound.
Purposed to make the heart lift
Your ears say:

Say what!

It needs a tune,
An internal music,
It needs a lilt!
A cadence, that both
Marches and swings,
Even when'd urgent dirge
grief pours forth.
~
This Sabbath day you fog-hide
Your gift of bay and beach
So quiet implore, beseech,
Keep the sailors safe,
And your poets saved.

I ask much.
But I ask for all of us,
There are so many such
That are booster-chair needy
That I am succumbed, overwhelmed,
Enormity fearsome needs help even from a deity.

Small words, big hopes.

If you cannot grant it,
Won't wait for intervention,
Do it myself, answer prayers one and all,
Best I can, starting now with this
Po-hymn.
~
I used to sleep
With pen and paper on my nighttime table.
Nowadays, my iPad tablet rests upon my chest,
Not only does it keep me warn,
It takes my poems from within, Fresh Direct,^
Edits, credits, and delivers them to your door,
While I'm still sleeping.

Which is why they come at all hours.
It is also why they call them,
Love's Labour's Lost saving devices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**So I spend my cold, hard time
laying down cold hard verse,
Can't stop, cause it's my daddy's dying curse.

I am both: Addict and dealer, a ****** poet ******.

Are you sound of mind?
Addicted to dandelions
like the ocean is to ice.
Wait outside the blood bank,
learn how to write dialogue
and make saccharin spines.

My journal is a tangle of spines,
keep an open mind
help me box up my ****** dialogue.
I’ve always been a fan of dandelions
etching paths along the river bank,
streams within the winter ice.

Buckets of camphor ice
relax the notches in spines
as we wait in line at the food bank.
Thoughts of jawbones on my mind,
the taste of dandelions
and organized pre-scripted dialogue.

Backhanded blue dialogue,
counting the vanilla crystals of ice
blowing the smell of cinnamon into floating dandelions.
My hands handle happiness spines
with the peace of mind
of money in the piggy bank.

Let's rob a bank
shooting quiet malleable dialogue
through an altered state of mind.
Your ribs are two sheets of ice
ivy wrapping around our intertwined spines
crumbly blowing breaths of dandelions.

Second hand dandelions
build up in the river bank
muddy trenches around spines
whisper outspoken blue green dialogue.
Three pounds of dry ice,
warm water vapour at the back of my mind

Store buy your dandelions, bear in mind
that the West Bank is covered in ice
and that spines speak their own muted dialogue.

I'm a very cheesy fella
and i love a tasty platter
from stretchy mozzarella
through to cubes of feta

i like them very old
like Camembert and brie
i wait until they turn to mold
to be inside of me

i like them very smelly
crumbly soft or squeaking
at the supermarket deli
my lips already licking

then tasting can begin
with a few red wines
which release my cheesy grin
and cheesy pick up lines

she whispered to me
while bodies lay asleep
under the cool crumbly dirt

"I sharpened my knife
especially for your back.
I hope you appreciate it,
my dear."

sat in your lap
jealousy builds
like pressure
once a fissure

it now inches
its way across
my soiled soul
lather it on my body
like blood -
thick and treacly
dark, sticky
ever so sickly

tell me your lies
tell me your truths
trace them into my flesh
mark me

cast the runes
now they have spoken
clatter on the rocks
like my pride has
broken

my rage glowing
all I can see
forever growing

I embody entropy
A rule of disorder

hatred rises
through the flames
let it burn me
to ashes
like your touch
sizzles my skins frame

it's a crime scene
of blood swirling like ink
pills scattered
around me
like a ritual
I wonder what
my mother would think

you're a dream thief
knife in my
heavy heart
you've stripped me bare
and I stand
as you depart
with nothing but
at your mercy

I'm you're experiment V
the looking glass shows me
what's left
a withered mess
existing
for you to thrive
tired pile of crumbly bones and
shrivelling rotting insides
tossed aside

burn me to
oblivion

I want the skin
to stop sticking to my bones
melt it off
let the blood pool onto stone
let the fat droop and distend
mocking me, me mocking
never ever stopping
wretch and stretch
till I break
rip my organs out
serenade my limp body
with the liquid lava that drips
as you extract
my black heart
take a sip of my sublimity

I am all you will never be
because I don't think I ever was
do what you will to my material
never to extinguish my fire
that does
never
cease
limitlessly
increase
the
entropy

KG

As I lay on my back, I think of myself as dirt—
Not in a bad way, but like how some soil is soft, like cake.
I am soft and loose. My bones are gone; I am only flesh,
My skeleton stops protecting my heart and mind.
All this anxiety, all this stress, leaves my head
And my heart is just buried loosely under my chest.

If I don’t have any bones for a ribcage, do I have a chest?
I only know that I have my heart and mind buried in myself, my dirt.
“Do geese see God?” not a scenario, but a palindrome, a light thought, in my head.
Scenarios are the foundation of my agitation. Who cares, I guess? Let me eat cake.
(I make due with my mental health, in my mind.)
Anyways, I’m going to continue being with myself, my thoughts, my flesh.

I’m okay that my bones have disintegrated into my flesh.
I’m okay that my ribs no longer enclose my heart in my chest.
Later I will be aware that this is a meditation; it’s all in my mind
But right now, my reality is that I am dirt.
I am a soft, crumbly cake.
And this is all at once going through my head.

Another element arouses in my head:
Nails poke through the ceiling, aiming towards my flesh—
Or sharp prongs fixed on this beautiful mess of crumbly cake.
I am still, motionless, an open target, my broad chest.
I have no problem with this, because right now I am dirt.
(Death never crossed my mind.)

The sharp nails in the ceiling are now loosening, in my mind.
Now the nails fall, and drop into my chest and head
They pin me down to the ground, to the earth, to the dirt
With ease through the soft, rich, flesh
Of mine. It softly punctures my chest
I am being devoured, my body of cake.

Since my skeleton is gone, and my body is soft as cake,
I embrace the nails—a therapeutic acupuncture, I think in my mind.
My heart is heavy but happy in my chest.
And these nails keep sinking deeper in my head.
I am content being alone, by myself, a pile of flesh
I am one with the earth, with the dirt.

Nails in my chest, or prongs in the cake
I am dirt, I like to think in my mind
I am my heart, my head, my flesh.

Gorse burnt
bird skeleton
laying beneath
stark, white, crumbly
just calcium
a proto-fossil
that lacks the hardness
derived from
aeons encased
in mud
becoming stone
but this one
will never be
its future is dust
mingled with sand

Close by lies
a golf ball
a wayward one
that strayed
from links
to dune
to deform
in the blaze
become blackend
and split
the skin peeled back
opened to reveal
the tight-wound
elastic strands
fused together
yet penetrable
with persistent
small fingers
and unravelled
in exploration
to be left
in an untidy
forgotten pile
once the sac
at the core
is retrieved
within which
thick white paint
to sqeeze forth
and daub
on wall or fence
or kerbstone

This was the day after
fire had torn
through a thicket of gorse
that I and one or two
others had found ablaze
burning red and yellow and orange
hissing and spitting in protest
radiating heat in aromatic miasma
impressing all senses together
and knowing our civic duty
had run breathless
two streets inland
to fire red telephone box
to dial three nines
and deliver the news and wait
for fire red fire engine
to thunder by with shrilling bell
then to follow on, running back
to observe and to claim
with pride our part
in the resolution of danger
only to face accusation
that we must be responsible
for starting the conflagration
our shock and earnest denials
not entirely convincing
even when we protested that
had we been the culprits
then reporting the matter
would be the last consideration
instead, we were told
we'd clearly done the deed
so we could call out the brigade
and though nothing in the end
came of it, I was left convinced
that adult thought patterns
left much to be desired
and were far too convoluted
too suspicious, too impenetrable
to be ever worth adopting

That episode taught me
the magnificence of gorse ablaze
that discoveries were to be
made in the aftermath
that doing the right thing
wasn't always to be advised
that overly suspicious
too officious firemen
were fishing for payback
that if I were to be judged
guilty of the offence
when I was innocent of it
then I had a credit awaiting
in the bank of misdemeanor
so in due course
I made my withdrawal
and lit the gorse
in assembly at school
we were told we should
not hide our light
under a bushel
but I, not knowing
what a bushel was
lit mine under a bush
I did it only once
and though I had a brief
flirtation with Fraid
Her power scared me too much
no great damage was done
no human life lost
or placed in danger
save possibly mine

Cynthia Pauline Jones, 19/10/13

I take a bite
of a ginger and chocolate
cookie
and chew
pungent ginger
and sweet chocolate;
soft crumbly cookie pieces
roll over my tongue
as I chew;
my mouth waters
and the flavours
of spicy ginger and delectable chocolate
mix in my mouth.

Where I’m From

I am from mosquito lotion
From Burt’s Bees and soft jazz.
I am from dancing with my grandfather on the wooden floor
(My feet, bare, pink with tiny toes
Stepping on his shiny shoes as we twirled.)
I am from the rainy mornings
The hiding places
Where no one thinks to look,
And I sit and wait - alone but not lonely.

I am from the indecisiveness and good humour
From the boy who owned only wooden shoes and the lady with the diamonds
I’m from forget me nots,
And the kiss me goodnights.
I’m from the hurt knees and Starry Starry Nights
With a special dedication to you
And I’ll believe in what I want to, thank you very much.

I am from the middle seat to the left of the dinner table,
Second-is-best and Jollibee.
From the comfortable silence
To the “authentic” family ghost stories.
The childhood my father gave up to be able to grow up
And support his family.

I am from the crumbly track,
Fastening sharp spikes on the bottom of my shoes,
The jumpy nerves as I approach my starting block.
From the thump of my heart, my shoes slapping the ground in a rhythm I know so well.
From the rush, the thrill of crossing that finish line.
Watching the day surrender to night, my team stands beside me.
And still I am running

On my shelf I keep a blank notebook
Waiting to be filled with secret fears, adventures and bigger-than-life dreams.
No one knows it exists.
If they find it, they’ll know I want to escape.
I am from these fitful nights,
The toss and turn but don’t wake me ups.
The wanting to be a dream catcher, not just a dream passerby.
In dreams I find no one molding me for a legacy, for a perfect GPA, for a successful future;
Complete control.

So you’re clearing out your room,
clearing out more of yourself,
because it’s the end of the world, isn’t it?
The end of an era anyway –
the end of the bad decision to paint
your room pink.
You never really liked the colour pink.
Your old room had been sunshine yellow,
that bright happy colour of raincoats
and welly boots and sunflowers
(and yellow was still my favourite colour
when i painted my room pink –
yellow rubber in my pencil case,
yellow bow in my hair –
a sunshine happy kind of child
but not really. i painted my room pink
just because).
You wanted the new room painted a shade
called jazzberry but you were told it was too dark.
You wrote in the card to your dead great grandmother
that you were having your room painted jazzberry
and then you didn’t.
The card was placed in her coffin and cremated with her,
and you experienced that strange sensation at the funeral
of not feeling what you were supposed to be feeling.
I should cry, you told yourself, I should feel sad,
but you had cried all your tears in advance
and you’d cried them all for dead grasshoppers
and the old house you were leaving behind.
(always the same with me, isn’t it.
tears over everything except the things that matter.
i’m crying on the floor over lino, over my bedroom,
over a dress that’s in the wash and not my wardrobe)
The new bedroom had wardrobes you loved,
mirrors you loved and hated and it was pink.
It was your safe place, the space that wasn’t
really made for you, but was the one place
in this world where nothing could get you
(except me and yourself, but that’s another story).
Anyway, let’s get back to the point.
You’re clearing the room out because it’s the end of the world
and you’ve been putting it off for three years,
but you’re a crumbly cliff and waves are strong.
You’ve been thinking of train tracks
and gosh aren’t you dramatic,
but you’re finally clearing your little self out.
The toys are easy – you keep a couple whose names you remember
(Tallulah, Alfie, Tilly, Phillipa, Clementine
//oh my darling, ruby lips above the water
and the dream of kissing your best friend
that will forever be connected to
oh my darling, Clementine//),
the clothes are easy – in fact,
it’s all easy when you start to let go
of that nasty little girl from the sunshine yellow
and from the pasty pink.
You bundle her off into charity bags and bin liners
and then you find it – the Special Box.
It was your treasure trove in an
orange Jacobs crackers box  so you open it,
thinking you’ll keep everything, and then,
well then it’s a box full of *******.
Not just ******* things that once mattered,
but real ******* – broken pens, meaningless rocks,
used rubbers, crumbled tissues, incomplete
gifts from Christmas crackers
(and how very like you and me – to keep
things that go in the bin. we cling
to the sadness and the guilt and the fear
just because).
You throw away your special box
and you throw away all your junk
(except your new junk –
every train ticket you’ve bought
since the First)
and then the room is empty.
Were you ever here, you wonder
(and what toys will you have to give to your children?
you get asked, and you say you won’t have any.
i won’t because how would i, for one?
how could i, for another?
how could i put them through all this?)
and then you remember, that yes,
you’ll always be there – sunshine yellow,
pasty pink, nasty little version of nasty bigger you,
but for now, you’ve cleared yourself out a bit.
The new room will be blue
and one wall will be papered with books
(and i see what you’ve done –
you’re using the imagery of your own poetry,
because it’s easier to live inside of your own imagery
than deal with anything else, isn’t it)
and maybe, you think and the others think too,
this is a good thing, the sign of a change to come
(but your Special Box was full of *******
and what other evidence do you need
to know that you will never change or move beyond this?
this is as good as it gets).

There's a Quazooy on the loosey!
In my roomy there is. No fooey.
No fooey a Quazooy, loosey, really?
What's the Quazooy do-y?
Silly Quazooy dancey on deskies.
Dancey, Nancy, fancy pantsies!

Quazooy, want somey Tutti fruity?
Snooty Quazooy no eaty fruity.
What do-y Quazooy wanty?
"No eaty," said droopy Quazooy.
Quazooy sicky? Have the fluy?

"Quazooy no more fancy Dancey.
Quazooey needy tummy rubby."
Awe-y, cutie Quazooy no more dancey,
no eaty fruity, likey tummy rubby.
Now Quazooey tummy grumbly,
Facey lookies redy and crumbly.

Few wee! Quazooey now I knowy!
No more desky fancy dacey,
Not Tutti fruity, 'cause youy
wenty tooty in your pantsies!
Now Quazooy once morey dancey.
Fancy Nacey pantsy dancey.
Luvy Quazooy nowy not ooyie!

Come,
Find me by the sea
Look prudently,
For I'm not what you perceive..

Am I the wave,
Distant
Ruffled,
A captive of the wind

Or
Am I
Tender,
Rapture,
Eloping with the wind tonight..

Come,
Find me by dawn
Look prudently
For I'm not what you believe

Am I
The distant weary traveller tale
The Tale of endless starry nights..

Or
Am I,
Cupid
Sensuous
Consummating the tangerine sky
Until sunrise..

Come,
Find me by the park.
Look meticulously my love,
For I'm not what I reveal

Am I
The crumbly undusted forgotten bench,
Stained, left to scar.

Or
Am I the blowing leaf
Scaled mountains,
And the parks..
Alluring,
Telling everyone,
How lovable we truly are.

i cannot seem to write anymore.

gone, the days of furious penning
that delivered a trail of thoughts
to your door.

now, my inkwell is full of air
and dried crumbly scrapings
of purple berried residue.

and this paper? yellowed onion-skinned
husk of memory,  too flimsy to withstand
the heavy strokes of my pen.

no, i cannot seem to write anymore.

here, thought floats through my head.
i play ****** and grab, clutch at nothing.

swimming, swimming words,
a wispy film before my eyes.

I can not shake the almost-memory
of your warring skin, or the depth
of that moment in meaning,
never the slow silence bleeding
out of you in waves, your pulse,
your years falling out like baby
teeth, and the inside of you in grey,
clipped and dim lit dreams dashed
into shards.

Your all-too-silent night.
I think of you and I think of you,
in different lights, bathed in other colors,
all your faces, your expressions melting
into one another. I've found every you.
I've kept them here, together, like a roll
of film, and sometimes, when I'm sad,
I pull them out and look for my face too.

The moon says, It will save you
so much pain if you let me take your
wisdom teeth now. Lovely moon,
silky-voice moon, moon like chalk,
so soft and crumbly on your hands,
hands that rake through my hair like
a yard of fallen leaves.

Remember, darling?
I do. A night like the sweetest peaches,
and in the morning, only left with the
pits, counting the mistakes, measuring
the loss like scientists study black holes.
I won big. I scratched your name out of
a lottery ticket and told everyone but you
how lucky I was.

Heart of hearts, dark of darks, heart of darks,
how it all flows, the music changing the words,
making them understand each other, connecting
them like we connect them in language. The
music has its own language. We call it poetry.
We call it song. Sometimes I recognize it when
she speaks. Sometimes words leave us, but
the music is still there.

Today was the day
I decided to clear out--
no real reason to keep
the junk that has began to rot.

Smelly like moss on a crumbly tree,
or the fashionable nonsmokers room
smelling like there's been quite a few
rebels striking back at a budget motel--
probably because they didn't have enough
television channels, to pacify these poor souls.

The inanimate fixtures are posed for display--
once complex industry
were personified to a fleeting idea of 'purpose',
instead smothers its surroundings
with the validity of indifference;
the forgotten hallows that
truly signify my closing hours.

Inside me now
are the cooing sounds
and the beating wings of fragile pigeons
that seek shelter from a world
trying to forget them;
beginning to call them pest
even though they are snow,
so they must hide within me
and survive with my blood orchids
that begin to bloom--
spilling out of me.

Once upon a time,
There was a little girl with a mouth too wide
She complained with a face as sour as lime
One day she was eating a bowl of hot rice
With fried crumbly meat
Cut up in tender slices
So there was nothing to complain about there
Until she felt a strand of hair
Inside the chewed rice-and-pork
In her mouth
Her shaking hands clenched the fork
Working up a quick furious indignation
With the flick of her tongue
She removed it from the side of her cheek
And pulled it out with her fingers
With a most ferocious shriek
Pulling
Pulling
Kept pulling
An increasing disgust as she kept pulling
For the hair was very long
Until something happened
Something went wrong
Suddenly she felt a tear in her mouth
On her pink inner cheek
Blood that leaked
And dribbled down her chin
Mixing with her tears
Ran home to her exasperated mother
Who gladly sewed the cut
And for some good measure sewed
The corner of her mouth shut
Tight.
So that now when she spoke
Only good words came out
And the Cloth Mouth girl
Never complained again.
They all lived happily ever after.

She brings me coffee in bed.
I propose a violin accompaniment.
Some babka, with nice-crumbly-in-bed
Streusel topping,
A concerto we could make!

Her derision snorted so loud,
The mollusks on the beach
From their shells come out.

"Good luck with that,
Put that fantasy on
Your **** poetry site,
Cause that is the closest you will ever get!"

Just that has left.
The dust of words.
The crumbly August.
The tears.
The rose among the leaves.
And my life,

that you didn't read...


Само това остана.
Прахта на думи.
Ронливият август.
Сълзите.
Розата между листите.
И животът ми,

който не прочете. ...


Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved

Keyboard, implement of catharsis
Punch you out, pa-pow, pa-pow-pow
Requisitioning my power
I’m your rough digit dancer
Tapping it every hour
Covered with my spit and juice
Snack scraps all crumbly loose
Betwixt your buttons of alpha bits
Numbers and shift bar hits
Massaged pain through my fingertips
Into you and yes I have not been true
Scribbling at bus stop with pens
Jottings on journals or lunch bags
But I love you Keyboard
You must understand
Can’t help myself when you’re not near
All my fear pushed into you
You have been so good to me
Setting me free
But Honey
That “E” key
It’s a little quirky
And not wishing to be as jerky
As I usually am
Brought you some flowers
Which I’ll sit right here next to you
While I rub you down with
Cotton swabs and sweet lavender soap
Paying special attention to your  “E” zone
For you are my Keyboard Extraordinaire
And yes, I care

I hate the day and O, I hate the night,
I hate myself for ev'rything is wrong,
the day no longer gladd'ning to mine sight
and worse the night with downy owlet song
full-shrieking from some dark and crumbly place
to welcome his false dawn of silver'd beams
as the bright moon its well-worn path doth trace
with its own bright shadow on darken'd streams.
O, happy he for he has his white sun
to burn full-cold upon his full-dark day,
when in both days such comfort I have none
when his gold moon doth rise with warming ray.
The moon a sun and lo, the sun a moon —
I swear, one kiss from thee — I swoon, I swoon!

i wake up.

the room around me is earth; red, radiating, crumbly.
i sift the bedcovers through my fingers next to my cheek.
an arm, heavy over my waist, shifts with the warmth behind me.
carrots sprout from between knuckles; purple, white, gold.

i wake up.

the piles of leather tomes as if dust was blown away just a moment ago.
warm skin behind me just a little more solid; the smell of carrots and earth a little less sharp.

i wake up.

the walls have receded and sun is pouring over my legs.
only a couple feathery green tops remain and the arm is held tighter to my body.
dusty rectangular outlines on the dresser and floor.

i wake up... and open my eyes

i want to be touched by somebody
with burgundy blood on his hands;
red handed
raw palmed
legs strangled in maroon bedsheets.

a murderers kiss must be a rush,
blood exploding from every pore in my
bled out skin,
wounds opening willingly for his searching
hands to make
a sort of house out of my bones.
creating a home for something
wild
who has only ever met closed doors
and distant, fearful faces.
i'd prove i wasn't scared of
the dark eyes,
and hungry lips,

knowing at any moment he could push the
cool lips of a golden .45 caliber revolver
and splatter my ****** through the
wooden bedpost and the
flaking, collapsing drywall.

i've followed thrills ever since i was
in third grade,
convincing a boy to take off his clothes
and show me what "men" are made of
and sneaking behind my mothers
injured back
stealing things i wasn't supposed to know about.
i liked putting myself through the danger,
unknown
it rushed up my legs and
rendered me breathless and craving more.  

i've always wanted to hold
something shaking
and cold
and let them tell me stories
out of their biting teeth
of when when it all started:
they were small and rode their bicycle
so fast they fell and skinned their
soft pink cheeks on the black cement
and went crying to their mother with blood dripping
down
a mixture of tar and red.

i'll tell them there's some place in hell
in the beating, drumming heart of the earth
warm darkness compacted,
where you can buy cigarettes for
50 cents a pack,
and whiskeys in water bottles and skin is naked
guns are loaded to shoot down the moon
and eat it with crunching, crumbly golden crackers.
where there is no sleep
only midnight writing furiously on the stark pages
of a shredded journal
dawn walks down the lively sidewalks where
other sleepless figures of orange peel flavored darkness
and coffee bean stained teeth dance and laugh and touch
in the darkest parts of the invisible morning
sweat intermixed unrecognizably with tears
and people hold their belongings in
the drooping bags under their bright eyes,
where screams of pleasure echo in every
cavern and creaking limb you touch
to the atmosphere
and people make love easier
than they
destroy necks.

i'll whisper
"when you're rotting underground
with your teeth in a
waxen, strained smile with lovers flesh embedded
in your own homely skull,
and your fingers are feasts for writhing worms,

and i'm dancing chaotically as ever in the raging wind,
a desert flower reduced to
bright-eyed dust
thrown lightly into the sinking seeds of a garden
with flowers growing out of my decomposing
echo of a body
like an
articulate oil painting decorating the earth to remind them
of my eternity,
i'll sink all the way through the soil
and follow the heartbeats

i'll meet you there."

Oops,
I forgot yesterday was your birthday.
And,
We haven't talked for over a year.
Well,
you were my good friend.
But,
We are gone from each other.
So,
I didn't wish you a happy birthday.
However,
I know you had cake.
Then,
Cut yourself a slice and eat it.
Because,
the gold crumbly cake with chocolate frosting is something you need.
Therefore,
You don't need me anymore.
Furthermore,
I am not your sweet cake that you can eat up and forget about.
And now,
I am better.

squirrels and opossums and birds of paradise
because im screaming
profanity into the trees
they can hear me scratching my sores
flaking scabs onto the crumbly floor
to integrate myself with the remains
of generations past
they can all hear me
crack the first beer of the morning
and pour it out for my love
no longer here
they can hear me all
repeat myself and pace
atop the pecan shells crunching
but the cap of the bottle spins
whirling around its rings
for a glug
and they all scutter, scamper, and waggle off
only proving my point
a terrible mood to be around

Whether to have dessert
Is not even a question.
Not to indulge in sweets?
Don’t even make that suggestion.
 
Having no apple pie
Or luscious lemon meringue
Would be a real ******—
As we say in slang.
 
Right out of the oven:
Hot cinnamon rolls...
Or donuts right out of the fryer--
With or without holes...
 
Crepes filled with strawberries,
With a dollop of whipped cream...
When I talk about sweets,
I never run out of steam.
 
Don’t forget about cakes,
And anything with custard...
Chocolate in every form...
And--I’m getting flustered--
 
Fresh homemade cookies
Of any delicious kind...
Chocolate fudge or divinity...
Yikes, I’m losing my mind!
 
Dessert bars, oh, my goodness,
Chewy, crumbly, flaky...
Banana, zucchini, and pumpkin
Bread—soft and cakey...
 
Cupcakes topped with thick frosting,
And filled with chocolate ganache...
Creamy Crème brûlée...
Boy, aren’t we getting posh!
 
A sugary German plum cake,
A Danish butter ring,
And Greek galaktoboureko
Give me a reason to sing!
 
Chocolate frosted brownies...
Lefse with sugar and butter...
My sweet tooth is growing larger
With every word that I utter.
 
Some people say that these sweets
Might be the cause of my death.
Then let me be holding a cookie
When I take my last breath!

- by Bob B

His laughter, his reprieve is an interval
in between a tinted field,
lying flat beneath dry stalks
of desperate color,
burnt umber and piney
green. He imagines a Japanese
pond, the fragrance of yellow
water lilies and retiring beneath them,
in the shelter of the shade.
Submerged underwater,
amidst a choir of Koi fish,
huddled under the dangling
roots, crumbly and loose
as worn rope.
He imagines
one by one they would
part away, swimming towards
the glittering frost
beyond the blue green.
From your perspective you can see
a slight swish, a slight ****** as their
heads peak above,
the opening of
their mouth, to take
in a gulp of the sun.

Below he thinks

This place is like Eden.
Eden, incandescent.

You are temperate
kisses on frost-chilled windows.
The fragrant evergreen and pine,
the delicate rasping of wine
against velvet throats. You are thicket-
carpeted tongue where settled
crumbs of honey-lathered toast,
burnt, crisp, crumbly, spongy,
unlike your walls. The changing of
locks, the changing of keys might
not be a good way to spend time;
they’re blind to sines, your shimmering
solar attic-roof, your gauntlet garden,
your haunted keep. You are beautiful in ways
most men can’t discern, be careful
who you let in, and in turn,
be careful who you let
return.

"Friendships" crumbling
not like a cookie crumbles
although it was that obvious from the beginning
relationships began in haste
     grasping
     searching
     latching on
     we are no longer alone! so ti must work forever (right?)
will end in haste
tasting what you thought you had
     no, it was not a cookie
     more of a clump of dirt, actually
     something you wanted to try, once
     wondering how it would taste
     then spitting it out, crunching the crumbly clump of dirt
it was so predictable
what is shielding your eyes?
keeping you from seeing the truth, the future
even now, you refuse to see
you keep forcing the pieces
     no matter how hard you try, the dirt will always crumble
          will always taste gritty, unpleasant, wrong
     the dirt will always crumble
just let it be
accept it
it will not work
you are only hastily pushing the dirt together
one more week
one more month
but the dirt will turn to dust
just like your "friendship"

Walking on top of muddy grass I head to my car
Open my rear car door and I see shambles mountain.
Papers fall from my backpack gum wrappers sprawl out
Half-empty plastic water bottles on the floor
I throw all the trash into a white plastic bag
As I dump the filth into the bag my clothes appear
Underneath the heap of unwashed clothing
Lies a bible in the backseat of my sedan
Its blue paperback cover is bent out of shape
Crumbly creased pages fan out like clipped angel wings
The book has sunk into the grey lumpy leather
Dust coats the molded edges of the scuffed pages
I pick up the book and clean it’s raggedy cover
With the bottom of my white-t shirt, now it looks fine
Flipping through each of the old pages I wonder
Why did I leave it in the backseat of my car?
I look at the disorganized landscape and sigh
It all comes back to me as I rub on the binding
Up and down on the tattered spine, I see my church
Inside the church laying on a tabletop counter
Is the backseat bible, my hand grabs it and I leave.
Both church and daydream, the book sits softly in my hands
All of a sudden my cell-phone plays an oldie
I’m late for the movies with my friends, I close the door
Jumping into the front seat I tell them I’ll be late
My seatbelt wraps around my body clicking in
In the passenger seat I place my bible beside me  
I pull out of my driveway, and drive in a new direction

Like a *****
Grinding into the depths of the left hand corner of my brain.
My left not yours.
Scrunched
Is all feeling
Like a piece of paper in a crumbly ball with the folds creased in.
Potentially waiting to see if I will be undone.
Unfolded and put out straight with rough hands that slide up and down my body to make me feel 'new' again.
Smoothing my corners that are twisted in little points with delicate fingers to attempt and make me soft again.
Looking me up and down.
Reading between the lines.
Closely examining my faded parts and dipping a pen, carefully slowly yet swiftly with a stroke of a wrist, filling me in.
Rewriting what has been written on me with a different hand. Shaking and nervous as you go over the closing of me,
the words that say 'love,' and pulling out your white out to brush off the name beneath those words.
And finally inscribe your own name over it.
Put the letter back into my brain and ***** me up again.

A steady stream bellowing out my nose
i wanted to play today sniveling staring at my toes
why now must i feel so, voice hoarse cannot go
cannot speak, cannot sleep, even force of will fails me.
Stuck in bed enjoing a *** head eating at my brain
as zombiesaurus might know, i too am going insane,
crumbly delight, a ******* helps fight with crunchy grain
ahd and aaaaand now i, sqhinting, can barely see.
Even so i roll with it, my thoughts and me, we are
desperation to derision, derivition a bit far
the demons within trying to be free i sternly bar
God help me, i'd feel good though if freely they'd be.
Coughing hurts again, feels i'll never win, never win i say
but through the delerium, i cut through a foggy bay
whats this i see, mom with soup, i might survive i may
warm feelings abound, a smile in my face, not the worst day.