cellphone to heart, mobile to immobile, electric dead to living

you know that sleep and I are but passing acquaintances,
when it drops in, to heavy my lids, it is through a cracked window slivered, just enough for a Pan boy to grab me and away me to Almost Neverland

when the alarms sound that it’s sleepy time,
(quite like that quiet verse)
no time to delist the “those pre-shluffy to do things,”
cell drop upon my chest, like an open mic,
then the raging observatory tapestry begins!

the cell lies directly above my ventricular chamber,
and communication is live, the brain cutoff switch, well, cutoff

all manner of imps, devils, rejected poems, angels and
Greek gods and some Indian as well, stand in line for to make
free calls via a beating human message call center, utilizing my friends and family verizon plan to register complaints,
close out unfinished biz, or just contact, friends, family or other
mischievous imps or even you, in other time zone worlds

though my brain may not interfere, like the CIA, it records all
conversations and give me a list of new poem titles, notions, stories glories and wrenching heartbreaking heartbreak,
requiring “fleshing out” when I awake from my three fingers
of scotch, glass eye tears drops made me drunk,

damning this transmigration chorus of voices that offer up a treasure of divine humankind’s hopes and travails,
and the occasional call on the divine’s 1-800 confession line,
hear it all, my chewing out by one particular god of mine who does not suffer my criticisms well of his ungodly actions, nope not sweetly and

when else would he dare contact me, except when no edgewise
words of mine can appear to contradict his mealy mouth excuses

did you musty misty mistake  my poems  as the product of
the miracle water wages of my imaginary inspiration,
no, not, from the replaying of your desperate exclamations,
the cancerous shrieks of loss and prickly investiture of the aesthetics of soft whispers and solitary foot treads,
that is where my insanity is bred, and tumbling s-words, sworn

don’t consider it eavesdropping as there is no signed rental agreement, consider this unfair warning, if you should secret use my cellular line, your everything is now ******,
your genetic material is materialistic mine and my poems yours,
this bittersweet sentiment is a measure of our bloods commingling,
your tears and impish silliness, are shiny hidden within mine

somehow I feel compelled to state this unique statistic:

I love you

4:47pm on 3/11

who writes poems like this?
silly old boys with gray hair, standing on one left leg.  but you knew that, right?

Being a coach is hard
Winning isn't everything
It all stats during practice
Arrive early to prep for the team
The ones who want it show up on time want it
The best players show up late
Running bases conditioning for the game
Batting cages to help with the swing
Playing catch helping the team work as a unit
Till the day of the big game
Slide to the base with technique practiced
Cutoff play to make an out
Team functions without doubt
Play hard play right win or loss giving it your all
Coach does right by the team no need to fight
Lets win and take the season play and do
What the team does best play softball

The Seven - The Mashup


In memory of my mother who passed away recently, I wrote, or intended to write seven (only six were actually done) new poems themed about her, her passing and some perspective on life and death.  All were read and I am deeply appreciative.  I have consolidated them all here, in order, though not necessarily the order in which they were written. But the order does matter, as it reflects the change in my mood with each passing day.   Perhaps I will write the seventh someday, but not now, not soon.

Thank you all so much for incredibly kind words of sympathy. I am not a dweller, so I set myself a goal to complete this vow, this task, in a week to correspond to the seven days of mourning the immediate family observes after the burial (the shiva, shiva meaning 7).  For seven days, the bereaved family "sits shiva," sitting on low, uncomfortable stools and the comforters come to share their grief, praise the deceased, from mourning till late at night

#1 Shiva

I am confused - what day is it?
Windows tell day or night, a necessary but a condition insufficient.
The days have no distinguishing marks, a video stuck on
Repeat - a single track of recollected tales, prayers add a mild seasoning.

Though brief is this week of pre-sentencing hearings,
If one cannot dice the time into portions,
Then, there can be no pardon,
No early release date, from Phase One.

Rinse grief. Repeat. Seven cycles.
Apply stain-stick at the intersection of
Bloodied hurts and dimming memories,
Strangers secreting, spilling on you secrets unwanted.

This play, saw it many decades ago,
Before there was poetry, children.
A young man of twenty one,
Very afraid, silently, of the newest unknown,
His father, cancer won.

I hated it then. Now experienced, I hate it more.
This semi-catharsis, a tapestry tale wove of faded pasts
Twisting an heirloom blade into an old wound,
the original cast, a new revival, playwright, regrettably, deceased...

First time at bat, hid in a small room, away from this tradition.
Beating my head against a wall privately,
That being my preferred manner of mourning,
Not this Broadway show, twice a day, seven days.

Rituals well intentioned, a time tested method,
nonetheless, jail time for me, a/k/a, the boy, the brother.
Familiarity comforts some. Me? A prison uniform.
I write my own poems, I am not a Borg collective.

Cast as Son, my obligations specific, aged.
My Hamlet doublet, cut/torn, messaging my somber status,
The cuts deepest, invisible, but all see this child
Drowning in eye pools that continuously self-replenish.

I'll do the time, this show the longest running ever,
Did forty years as son-shadow of a father-man,
Tacked another concurrent sentence for his woman,
End Date: Indeterminate...

The low stools will reappear, seven days for me,
Yet my job as poet not fully done, until this be read!
Leave 'em laughing o'er this Official Release from the obligatory,
Read, sit but once, read this poem, this script, this story, and be freed.

#2 Hover^

My Children:

Ancestral homes oft possess,
a unique scent, product of an atomizer, a memorizer

Musty time, the odor of
faded and shadow,
hollow, yet hallowed.

Somewhere along the road,
a residence transforms from home to
shrine-storage unit-hospital room-tomb-records depository.

Dust, expired perfumes,
the sweet odor of crumbling, yellowing books, disinfectant,
stale medicine chests, years of furniture polish, sabbath candles.

It is my smell -
the parfumerie of my history, a customized blend,
a commissioned work in 1964, entitled, more accurately, emitted,
"Her-Story."

Photographs, memories, and paper scraps
my very own Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Yet the most potent firing pin for historical retrieval,
the molecules of scent.

Soon all will be dismantled, discarded,
just plain dis'ed.

Confused and disenchanted,
my departure orderly but, in a disordered fashion.
unable to seed one last kiss upon your forehead,
nonetheless, surreptitiously enter your neurons
though my entity, away, across the miles-wide Hudson River.

For three days, I will hover invisible,
implanting myself once more,
slapping your mucous membranes,
transversing this pathway, an additive to your cells, nuclei,
where my markers always reside.

Adding one more ingredient to your inner vision,
strengthening the formless structure, my altered state.
This odor, keep close, fresh, no becoming musty too, my scent,
the last of your senses knowing me, a true keepsake.

Hold me close and hold me fast.
This one last magic spell I cast.
This one last magic smell I set fast.
You cannot hold it, but it will cradle you.
You cannot see or touch it, but when contact comes,
You will see me, hold me, as in the days of your youth,
When you loved me best,
And I, you.

^According to the Talmud, the soul hovers over the body for three days after death.  The human soul is somewhat lost and confused between death and before burial, and it stays in the general vicinity of the body, until the body is interred.

#3 Orphan

The funeral will commence at 11:30 am.
Gives me one last review time before the
Final Exam.

Panicked, I discover a whole new chapter
for which I am wholly unprepared,
though its inevitable presence was
assuredly knowable long in advance.

Orphan

It doesn't fit, occur, imagery is of a young child to
soon abandoned, not a late-in-life curmudgeonly poet-boy,
who has been multi-times reincarnated.

I add this title to my list
of proper ways to address me,
titles earned by dint of hard work,
or just unlucky luck.

This new status, orphanhood,
bequeaths no special privileges,
other than, a semi-official
societal permission slip
to feel bereft, lost, and compose poetry.

Know a real orphan, from early, early on,
has never recovered and
never will for it is just impossible.
Just impossible.

So whom am I to make light of
my undesired, unrequested new degree?

I accept it and to my surprise,
It hurts.

# 4 Judgement Day

After you put in some time on this planet,
You kinda know what the world thinks
About you, your rep, what they don't say to your face,

Sure, thingies, time and incidence and circumstance
Can sometimes cause makeovers external,
But each of us know the quality of ourselves,
Self-certification, you can out your internal self,
Better than anybody else.

So I inquire of myself, about myself,
what will you be remembered for, if at all?

Why do I ask, today, now?
Do we not ask ourselves this
On the low down, subconsciously everyday?

Is this a poem?
Most assuredly...
And a trial.
You, the judge the jury and the prosecutor,
The defender, if u can, if u will.

For seven days my mother was adjudged,
Family, friends, hers, her children's,
Almost an 80 years of live, in color, HD, looking back video,
Tales told, memories dug up, old photos explicated,
Who what when where of the details of one women's voyages,
Creations.

I cannot, I will not, do the details here.
Suffice, acts of kindness, faith in people,
Feminist in a strange land, a chance taker,
Gifts of memories, streaming of adoration,
Many strangers are witnesses to me,
This trial a runaway train.

I am outed.  There will be no such verdict for me.
I am outed.  There will be no trial needed, just a
Summary judgement delivered.

Out yourself.
What will you be remembered for, if at all?

#5 Summer Girls In Their Summer Clothes

Oh yes!

The streets of Manhattan, jewel dusted,
Summer girls in their  summer clothes,
Bedeck the streets and make men say, Thank You!
To their creator.

Little black dresses, previously immortalized^,
Seasoning and sauces, halter tops and jeans cutoff,
Give thanks for the tanks, revel in the revelations,
For God created man and women in his/her teasingly bare image.

Yo! Dude!  This is number 5 in the series,
Of sad and somber, re dad and mother, ***?
Have you lost perspective, not read the directive,
You're in mourning, time to be introspective,
Not dis-respective!

My mother was a beautiful women.
Till the day she died.
Yes, physically beautiful at 98.

She, was a poem.
For her exterior was suffused, burnished,
By the spirit residing within her body

I ask myself, why not judge a book by its cover?
Her cover was exquisite, but what gave her a glow,
A radiance, was her modesty, her love of humanity.

What's under our cover?

^ Nat Lipstadt · May 30
The Little Black Dress (and its magic prowess!)

*#6 & 7 Live like you're dying

Perhaps you know the lyric, the song?

Live like your dying.
Dying caught my ear, my eye, can't imagine why.
Con-Textual emendation, Natalino style.

Live like your writing.

Yes, that makes sense...
Embrace with passion each new session
Charge every second stanza with ruminating rhythms,
Cut the wires to the air traffic control sensory tower, go solo,
Pulse each word, beat all into a plowshare, even the anger,
Even the hate, dressed to ****, in words, forgivable...

Grant the mundane, the insane, even the pain of tragedy,
You refuse so hardily to glorify, grant it and
Record it all - a moment,
A royal audience with all
Your writing parts.

No fancy footing, keep it simple.
No jesters in rain puddles,
Let images of clouds of sand
Born and perish  in other's eyes and sighs, let verbal games bedevil other
Wooden puppet princes drinking fairy ales.

Huh?

Write clean and clear,
Let the sheerest wonderment of a new combination,
Be the titillation of the tongue's alliteration,
No head scratching at oblique verbal gestation,
Let words clear speak, each letter a speck,
That gives and grants clarification, sensational.

You, afternoon quenching Coronas, white T shirts,
Sun glazes and later, a summer eve's Sancerre,
Wave gazing on the reality of rusted beach chairs,
Babies sandy naked, washed in waves of Chardonnay,
The traffic-filled word-way highways and bay ways,
Exiting at the Poet's Nook, for exegesis & retrieval.

Write of:
Body shakes and juices, skin-staining tongues,
Taking her, afternoon, unexpectedly, her noises your derring-do!
Broken tear ducts, the Off switch, so busted, write about
Real stuff.

Write not in fear of dying
Angels delivering bad news in vacuum tubes,
Write joyous, psalms of loving life,
Live like your writing,
Write like your living,
So you may die well.

When I return to Hope
it will be the height of summer's warm July
I'll stroll the gravel road to take the cutoff path
gathering lupine wildflowers, breezy among the dewy grass
make my morning way along heaven's labrynthine trail
with chirping cheery bird, sweet songs or distant calls of loon
where blue of sky is woven wild with magenta all abloom
and I will lose myself most complete
immersed in nature's room

the Hail Mary transgression:
falling in love with me when it crosses over the line

guilty of the same, so even when I condemn the errant woman,
with an ice block from a Northeastern pond of no soft forgiveness,
which is still and yet, the only cutoff ending appropriate

but you woman, deserve to learn that
emboldened fantasy that crosses broken bold lines,
is a jagged rot that doesn’t cure the dreamy unreality of
the-cannot-be,
it’s pouring hot water on scalding burns entrenched

guess time to share that your fantasy is the
number one commandment
that this boy also violates routinely so he has a phd of experience,
and the burn proofs when he thot he too could be,
Cervantes, the knight errant, lover of the impossible woman

I, guilty as charged by “The Duke,” am an idealist and bad poet,
so many poet-women here I secret cherish at levels that are nonsensical, absurd, ludicrous
and hold the fantastical fantasty of them dear,
so close and so near, so mine

wrote them each love poems, and they know it,
now, here, in my confessional booth,
my priestly punishment always the same,
ten thousand Hail Mary’s,
but I cheat the cohen priest,
and just write another poem,


this one is about the line that never can  could  will be
crossed, hail mary!

when I walked in my stomach was screaming nerves,
my heart felt fluttery from my first of many iced black coffees.
I fixed my eyes fixed on the black hightops I stared at everyday during first period,
the peeling rubber toes pointing straight at me.

I looked up, meeting eyes with the spitting image of Kurt Cobain
who smirked at me curiously, then lifted a finger, and turned into the kitchen.
I busied myself untying my boots, even though they had zippers,
promising myself I wouldn’t loose my balance.

The high tops returned, followed by weathered leather moccasins,
who murmured through his teeth “hmmm, designing with materials girl” .
I grinned through my eyes, attempting not to make myself intimate with the floor so soon,
expertly faking breathy laugh to cover up how utterly freaked the unfamiliar title made me.

High tops grabbed my waist and twirled me into the kitchen,
offering a cigarette before disappearing through the screen door and leaving me
in a room filled with music that ran through my head like a brush
combing out the tangles from driving with my sunroof down.

I was surrounded by people with purple hair and overflowing hearts
who floated around the room singing and talking and dancing
while I wondered how I should fill the shoes of my new title
and what kind of shoes I should even be filling.

out of the corner of my eye, I saw high tops march back ;
he didn’t seem to float but parade, his ponytail not quite matching his muscle shirt arms.
He waltzed right up to moccasins and kissed him proper on the mouth
hands holding his jaw, eyes closed, and balanced on his toes.

Satisfied, he stormed back out through the screen
pulling a pack of blacks and a white lighter from his back pocket
(he would soon tell me he didn’t believe in luck,
even though it was in his pocket when he was arrested over a houseplant).

Moccasins just smiled, eyes rolling up into his brown hair
and with his hands out palms ceilingward in a silent offer, he locked his eyes on mine
Before I had a chance to overanalyze,
he decided for me.

Maintaing eye contact, we danced to the 22 year old boys screaming through the boom box
while I tried to integrate myself into the scene,
tried to float so effortlessly too,
like the cigarette smoke oozing in from the patio

he pulled me into a hug that resented gravity
effortlessly lifting all six feet of me off the ground,
pressing my cheek against the cutoff edge of his tie dye tank top,
my blonde hair tugging between his chest and mine

So with fuzzy lemonade on my lips
and bass players hands on my hips
I figured out I didn't need shoes
if i never touched the ground.

The under shell of
the tortoise looked
like a sunset.
Blasts of color:
orange, maroon, burnt sienna.
I caught them in
the garden at
sunrise, eating a
tomato or chewing into
a head of lettuce.
They always looked so
serious.

I was just a
sunburnt boy, with
cutoff jeans and a
straw hat.
I caught toads too.
But when they peed on me,
I let them go.
I loved that land.
Ponds and streams,
fishing and climbing trees.
oh,
sweet, green
youth.

You put your face up right next to mine
and scream out a list of rights I don't have:
the right to make tea in the morning
the right to stay up past 9 pm
to carry mouthwash with me
to use my own soap
to hang my coat in my closet
to spend more than eight hours away from home each day
to change plans when away from you without telling you
(no matter how small the change)
to open my windows or back door without permission
to open the back gate at all
to speak when you are not present

I want to write a ******* autobiography someday
and have more than a chapter
and that chapter ain't even here:
If I sit and think about my life,
I have no real memories with you.
The memories that count are the ones spent away from you

Playing on the playground
of the apartments by the mill with two friends
(both of which are now ******* druggies)
or sitting in the back of his aunt's station wagon
when one of em backs into the mailboxes
(at the age of six)

Building forts in the woods at four corners.
Bonfires, frog catching and golf at Anne's.
Wandering trails while camping with them.

Running through the woods with ubie
building forts from old tires, grass clippings and sticks
and playing endless games of fetch with her.
Some days we'd walk the creek back to the fern grove
some days we'd skip rocks by the "waterfall"
and some days we'd slip under the barbed wire to visit the neighbors.

The old **** lab in Carlsborg
which we labeled as "the barn" since it was one-
had plenty of small passageways that we'd play  hide and seek in.
But some days we'd get bored
so we'd go past the church to the rock quarry and climb the hills
or we'd walk the trail as far as we were willing to go
or climb over the abandoned canopy into the neighboring field
and walk over to visit the horses and goats.

Port Angeles was long walks for me,
trails dark and ominous that always led to the park
or roads that always continued on forever,
until I found that one house that I used as an anchor.
Ryland was born there
So was me, not I, but me, the beginning of ME

Then there was Taylor cutoff-
A mile back in the woods
by a junkyard
and a quarter mile from the Dungeness.
I would walk the river most days,
past the farms near the hatchery,
where the power lines always crackled
and the abandoned barns called my name.
some days I'd take the bus to Sequim, others to PA.

Dabob was a trailer that we packed full of memories-
Pulling hoses up long hills to water small trees.
loading up the truck with wood chips for the yard.
rolling boulders into trees with the tractor.
Taking Ryland to the ER for croup.
And fitting three people into a five by ten room to sleep.
not to mention:
bonfires, fireworks, bobcats, mountain lions, 3 cults and *** farmers

This is the ****** though, Edmonds-
city life, and I'm ******* loving it.
I want to write myself a life, father
and I know where to do it
and how
and it ain't here under your oppression.

Three months and the story changes

I like that girl in the cutoff jean jacket
who always goes out with intent to make a racket
All that tribal black light paint
that you'd think would look cliche
until you see how well it illuminates her face

I want someone who still makes me feel young
Who isn't in a hurry to be all grown up
She's not afraid to say yes
to rock a neon headdress
and she always thought it cool to stretch her flesh

She rocks the shutter shades down in her V-neck
All summer long she's on the festie trek
She likes her wooden spiral plugs
her pieces shaped like bugs
and her most favorite thing is to give free hugs

From Triple Rock back to The Cabooze
Electric Forests and Bonaroos
She doesn't think that she'll ever grow old
with music, friends and stories to be told
Hemp and glass are her silver and gold




However, I am not quite like you
I'm just biding my time with this rowdy crew

I haven't yet committed to keeping my youth
and that's why my skin's still clear of tattoos

The longest lasting scars, forever proof:
You were once wild and young but afraid to face the truth

Seven New Poems For Seven Days # 5: Summer Girls In Their Summer Clothes



Oh yes!

The streets of Manhattan, jewel dusted,
Summer girls in their  summer clothes,
Bedeck the streets and make men say, Thank You!
To their creator.

Little black dresses, previously immortalized^,
Seasoning and sauces, halter tops and jeans cutoff,
Give thanks for the tanks, revel in the revelations,
For God created man and women in his/her teasingly bare image.

*Yo! Dude!  This is number 5 in the series,
Of sad and somber, re dad and mother, ***?
Have you lost perspective, not read the directive,
You're in mourning, time to be introspective,
Not dis-respective!

My mother was a beautiful women.
Till the day she died.
Yes, physically beautiful at 98.

She, was a poem.
For her exterior was suffused, burnished,
By the spirit residing within her body

I ask myself, why not judge a book by its cover?
Her cover was exquisite, but what gave her a glow,
A radiance, was her modesty, her love of humanity.

What's under our cover?

Young and old people sipping beer, with hands in pockets and heads nodding to the rock music, standing in a crescent around the stage.

Some 30 year-old guy in a cut-off is on stage playing a bright red guitar which is shining silver. He finishes his set.

I'm sitting here alone and nobody seems to mind. Actually a couple of people have smiled and said hello.

One of the drunker guys sitting at the bar yells "Encore" first and then the rest of the room starts echoing him. Encore. I even let out a few "Woos!"

This man probably trades his cutoff for a collar during his day job. But we liked listening to him. He take a long drink of his PBR.

Then, he starts playing his bright red guitar again. The rest of the room is cast  in red lighting with blue-christmas tree lights dangling around the room.

The bar itself looks like we are on the inside of the hull of a ship.
Woody, damp, safe. Decorated by a collector of whisky bottles and olden times posters.

I'm in a booth and to my right is the act which just ended and to my left, books. "Can I buy you a book," I ask a beautiful woman at the bar motioning to the books with a smooth wink.

Just kidding, maybe next time. But as the act ends I see a drunken, happy, young man with a girl who looked like she was his girlfriend.

In his drunken courage he attempts to take her hand and bring her to the dance floor, now empty. He pulls a rare for college, Charlie Brown dancing, sort of moveset and she is laughing. It's still red blue and dim but she's probably blushing.

He keeps dancing by her till she stands up and dances near him, both of them laughing and enjoying and somehow dancing to the rock music that is playing.

He keeps motioning his finger for her to "come here" as he backs in the center of the dance floor, until eventually she follows.

For one song, the two dance by-themselves to this music, in the center of the dance floor and lights, bobbing in and out, and just jamming.

Warm torrents of rain utter best, eaves broken gutters
in hot summer with rumbling thunder asunder
naked but for cutoff jeans and purple Chinese houses
Let loose rally cry,  a primal voice of joy and freedom
summer has come to heart and bird call nous
slip and slides, running fearless of lightning strike news
Zeus, parts clouds to spy one eyed in appointed winds
aiming at those that would hesitate under Lindon trees
sensing a prodigal fragrance and mother crow's riot
open fields near dense privet hedges defy revelry
baked erratics by cold lakes and deep dives not taken
while a boat's buoyancy sends balance a mysterious cue
water's lumbering Leviathan body ripples to its caress
breezes take up names; sweet, cool, muggy mosquito
and in even' time porch light lowered voices loll

-cec

She came into my life like an atom bomb
Annihilating every concept I'd molded.
She left my life like a cough fades
Harsh, but too gradually for me to notice.

He came into my life like the transition of seasons
And I was awed as I watched it happen.
He left my life like a collision of cars
Horrifying, but to quick for a reaction.

She came into my life like the morning sun
And I was awed as I watched it happen.
She's in my life as a ray of hope
Like a sinner's sweet redemption.

He came into my life like a shattered stained-glass window
All edges and cracks and broken beauty.
He fought my grasp with comparisons and words
Until I simply stopped holding and let him be.

She came into my life like a reflection in negative:
Completely me in every sense save color.
She gripped to my life the way I did to hers
Because we understand like no other.

He came into my life like a god to humanity
Ethereal and shocking, a showstopper, a freak.
He left my life like a punch to the gut
Unexpected as it stole the breath from me.

She came into my life like a drop of sour lime
Contaminating the sweets I wanted to savor.
She lingered in my life like a pungent reek
No matter how I try, I can't be rid of her.

He came into my life like sight to the blind.
She left like the stubborn scent of lavender.
He came into my life like a wounded animal.
She left like a shooting stars motion-blur.

I came into life with a whisper and a frown.
I came into life, hands outstretched to ****.
I came into life with all the knowledge I'll posses.
I came into life against my own will.

They come and they go in firework bursts of time.
They affect who I am like the smoke leaving ashes behind.
They come and they go in Kodak flashes of memory.
They affect my growth like acid water to a sapling.

There's beauty in the cloudy glass of lifeless eyes.
There's hideousness in the taught rope of blood ties.
There's peace in the chaos of rampaging thought.
There's madness in the lucidity of a single gun shot.

Life is gifted only to those clueless on how to live it.
Death visits those who know it far too well.
Life is fickle, a trickster without conscience.
Death is decided, a guide to the warmth of Hell.

Humans are wise with the possession of neglected logic.
Humans are wise with the knowledge of priority.
Humans are ignorant in the abundance of prejudice.
Humans are ignorant in the concept of conformity.

We are a small sample of the incorrect way to exist.
We revel and bathe in our wrong and enjoy it.
We are cutoff from what may be an intelligent universe.
The cancer of the galaxies, we are Earth.

Beyond this planet
Beyond this galaxy
Beyond the Andromeda
Is a blissful unity.

This galaxy is an ant under a magnifying glass
And to the galaxy of universes of cosmos
We are an experiment of exponential proportions
Intriguing from a distance and nauseating up close.

Our galaxy is a mobile hanging over a child's cradle
And, ignorant to this, we see ourselves as its center.
Should the child wake and the mobile cease to spin
Earth would end and, unconcerned, we would let her.

We came into Earth like molasses poison
And eroded at everything we found fit to touch.
We leave Earth like a disease cowed by the immune system
Though we are far too numerous to be hurt overmuch.

Zeroing in to see a face in through the violent cold fronts
There is naught but fear and pain to describe us.
Stepping back to see the entirety of this planet's sickness
There is little to see save bags of organs and blood and dust.

There is more than one that sees the futility in twenty-two billion lungs
There are others that know the worthlessness of eleven billion hearts beating
There is more than one that hopes for eleven billion lasts
There are others that see an Earth red and bleeding.

It is no wonder we do not know our own beginning.
It is no accident we are intrigued by our lack of meaning.
It is not unpredicted that we only see as far as our arms can reach.
It is not unbelievable that we cannot excel beyond our means.

Welcome to the void of complication in our simplicity.
Welcome to a glimpse of metaphysical existential reality.
Welcome to an explanation of the current and that far gone.
Welcome to a belief twenty-two stanzas far too long.

I feel like drunk today
Drunk in your love
Drunk in betrayal
Drunk in the sweet poison of friendship
Drunk in the insecurities of being alone
Drunk in the want to cutoff everyone
Drunk in the memories of past
Drunk in the yearn to get you
And the hangover is going to last forever..!!!!

#12

cut cute cuttlefish
cutthroat rotisserie
cuticle tickling
cutoff

I oft' remember him with what he wore
at home, so often in his leisure time,
those cutoff sweat pants and those dull grey socks,
and right away I see him sitting there,
the corner of the couch, the one at right,
a dinner plate upon his lap, so full,
Lo Mein with beef and rice, duck sauce on all,
a burp, then slapping tummy, sounds are made,
oh, why won't he do anything again?
what would I pay to have him back again?
to hear his laughter and his joking ways?
the memory, it fades into a snap,
as I am jolted back to here and now
where absence sits alone on this here couch
and I can only call him in my mind.

(C)2007, Christos Rigakos

Tears
From the weeping will spring regrets and great rewards hard to believe that from a heart of sorrow the
Flow of hot burning tears I would tell you a truth these are worth more than compressed carbon yes
Diamonds they practically haul diamonds out in dump truck loads but they still convince people they are
Rare and of great value answer me this has God ever said he will collect diamonds in a bottle no but that’s
What he said he will do with your tears I failed when I wrote final curtain because I fully expected to
Come to the computer vent my anger my pain over the death of a friend it didn’t happen I write as the
Voice of God when people are in pain I use every thought every tender word to still their pain and
Sorrow so when I set down to write all my intentions dissolved and pure thoughts flooded my mind and
Soul so in mid stride everything changed all that I wrote in my head first then started to write out fell
Away so the comfort and realness in past pain when you felt helpless alone and said nobody sees or cares the one
Who calls each star by name they say a star is three hundred times the size of earth they are fixed in
Empty space by his command this same one when you were crushed and could hardly raise your head
Feeling helpless forgotten unknown the one who controls the ceats of power all over the world stopped
Everything came to your side knelt beside it wasn’t the sound of thunder but it truly was wonder that
Reached out touched your tear matted hair drained of all emotion exhausted your only comfort the
Darkness but in that moment the light of eternity imparted strength ever so imperceptibly the smallest
Seed of resolve also was planted in the depths it worked unnoticed while he was with you he collected
Your tears because in them every point of trouble every weight that pain exerted is totally seen and
Known by him from a distance he pulls all the facts out lays them bare then he starts to create the cure
If you are a praying person or have praying friends then help will appear even faster but either way he is
Moved by compassion as he holds up the bottle and by his own light every particle is read and
Understood you would ask if he cares that much why must I suffer pain in the first place for this simple
Reason we all have heard of someone being jaded or did you ever see such a hard person that is a place
That you can’t extricate yourself from the biblical telling of it is break up the fallow ground a perfect
Metaphor when talking to a culture steeped in agriculture nothing can grow on such dismal soil your
Life would be cutoff the enrichment and blessing would stop we all know of people that have a
Reputation forget it you can’t do anything with them tears soften your heart
now new rain even a mist works wonders
Flowers fruits in abundance spring up you have become a store house to feed the many who surprisingly
Come to your door you don’t look at them with disdain but with a heart that instantly says welcome
Come in I have all you need now

Before the hordes of his extended fashion family descended on Somerset House last night, Sam McKnight was pacing through the two floors of an exhibition of his life as one of the great sessions hairstylists. He stopped in front of a formal British Vogue portrait of Princess Diana, taken by Patrick Demarchelier in 1990. “I put on the tiara and had to make her hair big for it,” he remembered. “But, oh, God, then we had such an amazing day afterward. We were chatting and she suddenly asked, ‘If you could do anything, what would you do?’ And I said, ‘I’d cut it off!’ And she said, ‘Well, let’s do it now!’”

Thus, Diana, Princess of Wales, got the best slicked-back look of her life, the cut that defined her chic, grown-up, independent years—and her cutoff from her marriage. “I didn’t realize at the time,” McKnight said, “but in retrospect, with everything that was going on in the background, she wanted a change.” McKnight, after that, became Diana’s entrusted hairdresser. As photographer Nick Knight puts it elsewhere in the show, McKnight has that general effect on women when he’s working. “When he goes near the girls, they relax.”

It’s a testament to McKnight’s popularity in the magazine and fashion show milieu he has worked in since 1977—nearly 40 years!—that so many (who are sometimes so difficult) cooperated and gave permission, and that Chanel and Vivienne Westwood lent spectacular clothes to illustrate the interpretive cut and ****** of what a great hairstylist contributes. Straightaway, as you step off the street into the exhibition, you’re plunged into the next best thing to a backstage hair-and-makeup station and the kind of frenetic scene that goes on minutes before Chanel, Fendi,Dries Van Noten, or Balmain shows take to the runway. In place of the mirrors there are videos—say, of Kendall Jenner getting her Balmain hair look at a recent presentation—which have been recorded by GoPros worn by McKnight’s assistants. Every facet and every angle of the transformations—sometimes with four pairs of hands working on one girl’s hair—are captured.

From then on in, it’s easy to see how this exhibition will become a magnet for kids who want to experience the atmosphere of fashion and worship at a temple of a sublime hair alchemist. Shonagh Marshall, the curator at Somerset House, has run the numbers on the hairstylist’s Vogue covers, many of which are displayed on a faux newsstand. “Sam has been involved with 190 Vogue covers, which is more than any one photographer, or anyone else over that time,” she reported.

That’s not bad for a Scottish lad, born the son of a miner in 1955, who made his way to being a central team player with photographers and editors in the high supermodel years. Glorious images of Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington,Cindy Crawford, and Tatjana Patitz abound. “It was a golden era. We were on the road the whole time with Patrick Demarchelier, traveling the world with the same 10 people,” McKnight said, laughing. “We were making it up as we went along, really.”

The massive sweep of the show brings out the important collaborations of his career, with photographers Demarchelier, Knight, Tim Walker, and more; with fashion editors Lucinda Chambers and Edward Enninful; and makeup artists Mary Greenwell and Val Garland. It’s studded with celebrity—Lady Gaga, Tilda Swinton, Kylie Minogue—and honors the spectacular shape-shifting talents of Kate Moss, from her early days as a fresh tousle-haired ’90s teen in love on a beach: “Johnny Depp was there,” McKnight recalled.

There are the moments when McKnight changed models’ fates with short, blonde crops—Jeny Howorth’s in the ’80s and Agyness Deyn’s in the aughts. We see his process, with the hairpieces, wigs, and frizzing techniques integral to creating Westwood and Chanel shows, in both videos and installations masterfully laid out by Michael Howells. Right at the end, there’s a room Howells describes as “Sam the Man,” the walls checkerboarded with pictures of flowers from his garden and the ridiculous varieties of wigs he poses in on his Instagram feed these days. It’s testament to the energy and humor of a talent happily adapted to an industry that is constantly working on the new, in the now; an inspirational treat for all those who remember and for all the many thousands of young eyes that will be opened for the first time by this extravagant journey through one man’s career.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses

Plastic hippies and flashy Hollywood ******;
These were my neighbors and much much more.
The memorable characters on my famous street
Didn’t always have money or shoes on their feet.

I was the person meant to grow up
Finding these neighbors disgusting.
That was before all the questions I had
Of the vengeful God I was trusting.

But, I came to know that people
Must be more than what Sunday
And all the  hypocritical singing
Would claim them to be someday.

So I started learning what people
Do when they act and walk
Then tried to match those actions up
With how people behave and talk.

Plastic hippies and flashy Hollywood ******;
These were my neighbors and much much more.
The memorable characters on my famous street
Didn’t always have money or shoes on their feet.

Let The plastic hippies pretend
How mellow and tolerant they are
In their designer Levi cutoff shorts
And their carefully chosen used cars.

And expensive ****** and slinky pimps
Turn out to be much the same thing
They do what they do, get what they get
And all of it to please some great king.

Is that any different than praying in church
To invisible God they don't know?
Sneer if you wish and call it a sin
But I don't think that's how it should go.

Plastic hippies and flashy Hollywood ******;
These were my neighbors and much much more.
The memorable characters on my famous street
Didn’t always have money or shoes on their feet.

tic
k tick

pick the lock

boom boom

cutoFF
Ym tongue

bite yours too!

fake fake fake wet
tears
falllllll

chop off my fingers
and
chew ch
ew on them yum

very odd

Earth knows  it all
After we will be long gone
Off the cliff to nothing
Not existed ever after
The Earth will ever exist
As the Earth exists now
Without an inch of doubt
Will be healing itself, for sure
Everything is healing
Earth is a self healing phenomena
Everything in nature is healing itself

Those ****** don't know
Or seem to not know
The fact that every beings are of same importance
Not less and not more
For eco-balance and integrity
For the sole truth Of the reality
Of beingness, of natural existance

Even if it is not for humans
Nature knows how to keep balance
We are the ones who are in need
The nature does not need
The nature does not need us
As much of the fact that we need
As much of the fact that we need nature
As much as nature needs other creatures
Despite us human beings

The morons getting it cutoff
The trees and oxygen
Negligence in the choices
In the choices of energy
Choices of ideal and choices in action
Best energy sources exist for sure
Yet are no mainstream
And set to alternatives
Suppressed in

Just to say the least
We need fresh air
We need oxygen
To breathe and to live
The true essentials
The basic needs
Needs indeed
Just to say the enough
Impossible without
The call as it seems
I dream for the change
And for the good
Alternatives now
Must be mainstream

Its like a Moon
hard to define coz
a complete focus cutoff you
from the surrounding world
Seeing scientists,
If he his your father or spouse
then the behaviour will
disappoint you.
A complete focus
is a kind of hell and
If you say selective focus
then it is very good for
Hypocrite Minds...

i make eye contact with myself and ask why i won't stop scratching at the insides of my ears and well you know nobody should have to look at themselves in the mirror and i know i told you before how sorry i am for thinking you're cute but the voice you heard wasn't even mine, not really, and an instagram post won't solve anything because when my eyes are closed i don't know where my hands are and i thought my roommate was home this whole time but she just came in so who walked the dog? was it me? is this like when i called from the kitchen floor and you wouldn't come over, or more like the time i thought you were going to die and spent the night in your barn - no it isn't like that, couldn't be like that because i learned to skip class and sing with birds.

still

the first time i got kicked out of a public restroom i did not tell my parents but when home and used my mother's mirror to have a staring contest with my scrawny eight year old reflection (and of course i could not defeat myself). i threw away the hand-me-down cutoff denim shorts and begged for pierced ears.