Poetry is like a *****
in its wobbly, dangly freeness
(This poems not the cleanest so stop reading if you're a little squeamish)

Some have it, some don't
some use it, some won't
some like it awkward with a twist at the end
like a shakespearean couplet but on the person it depends

for others its merely secondary
(oh but always necessary)
to the holder - their Mars or Venus
So, as god is my witness,
poetry is a *****

England played today, what a ****-up grandiose style, glass bottle like hail flew down on Marseilles, water-canons, all kinds of crowd dispersers, true grit on the former great, now belittled, nation-state in d' hood reduced to a pitch with 20 idiots running around kicking about Charles' 1st head, and too fidgety skeletons tagged to A.S.B.O.S. tags playing puppets in a rectangle... i stopped watching the match for a cigarette break, the free-kick went in, Saturay, Tesco closing at 10pm, i took to wearing an Australian Open t-shirt, i've never seen so many funerals drinking a beer on my way home - prior it it was all gorilla chanting and Tarzan... i only learned of Tsar Putin dipping his ***** in the **** of Crimea a few minutes later.

your typical Saturday night, next door  neighbour's
trying out an alt. Y.M.C.A. with disco funk,
i guess it spreads easily this day, feel the grooves
or lined Rodin - ape-**** up my *** -
music so loud coming from my neighbour's canopy
i should be asking for canapés - after all Euro 2016
kicked off, scarf-hooligans of Moscow made
Marseilles home-turf , two Brits at the draw
in hospital, faces kicked-in, real bulldogs,
asthmatics at the end of it - conversation turned into a tour
of the Cairngorms or the western outlets...
a lot of Scottish impromptu with **** **** freckles!
gee ginger! aye fucky ***** ****!
Anglo users love interchanging the vowels for emphasis
to differentiate geographic regions -
but this one book review got me -
entitled ***** state by a feminist -
the ugly child abusing father is a punter -
listen, if it were't for prostitutes i'd be a priest
7 years in, acne on my Richie, one ****** in,
kiss on the mouth several times, hell, the guilt trip,
poor boy poor girl, skin cream lubrication,
talk of doctor's appointments, ******* a *****,
i'd get the Scandinavia model if the girls weren't fickle,
the hand is hardly a plastic surgeon of the female
genitalia ***** - bony M... you must be talking
about ******* - ***** M...
Jesus no more the son of god than the patron saint
of prostitutes... the poor guy feels the aches of touch
while the rich boys sushi off a stripper in Billions...
i don't have strong dialectical encouraging to dispute
or discuss - i too am too blame, ask my dermatologist...
so my neighbours threw a party,
on the set-list?
Cheryl Lynn - Got to Be Real; Oliver Cheatham,
Get Down Saturday Night; Edwin Starr - Contact;
and then the one off from One Direction - History -
the DJ suddenly experiences the jitters neurotically
changing songs before they finish - midwestern horror,
Ohio or Iowa hammer masscare, excerpt from
Pink Floyd's anti-fascist anti-educationalist march,
dangly on the Cenotaph -
persona qui umbra-grata (person agreeably welcome
as a shadow) - yep, me and the ex_machina routine...
i know the feminist argument smocking pipe handy
clean for more pages, but ever hear a ******* ******
or laugh with you? if i didn't use up the profession
i'd be the buying type abusive father forever,
who the **** needs **** trips when the moment can please
twos? i'd be up against a Cosmopolitan Magazine Quizzes...
the "perfect boyfriend" types, later coverage in
psychological advice columns... but wait...
all that ******* advice about something being indestructible
in us, about us, beginning with this keen appeal to
atheism already defaults a logic behind the essential
characteristic of the existence pertaining to a psyche -
by destroying god we also resolved to more easily disqualify
the in-destructibility of the soul,
constrained, a study of noumenons, with logic application,
as if with the omni- prefix to the non-essentials of god -
logic destroyed the compatible qualification of soul
ownership, reduced, it gave us the advent of prayer
and the necessity of a god, rather than our selves,
via souls - something without deductive parameters to
cursor and pre- of the experience quickened to
argument with dis- and later -qualificatio;
the кaцaпс fought with Mongols... you think there's
a fair bet for your hooliganism in Marseilles?
well... it all boils down to two identifiers of nationalism:
parade with the royal family near St. James' park
or gut a pig in the south of France...
Wales will not bow this time, given that they're
not getting paid for their national pride dribble,
they'll ******* up... make more adverts with your superstars...
strange that, well, America has idiosyncratic sports,
i never understood the cheese-ball of oval either to the throw -
yes, baseballs makes more sense than cricket,
but you have to understand rugby before you
start crowdsurfing your *** in nappies -
the high expression of nationalism is so Joker-faced
with the Windsor ******, nationalism and a king never match
up to how Mao or ****** would have it...
and the alternative is football hooliganism...
i walked for my whiskey and beer just after the 75th minute,
along the way i met so many funerals, donning my
Australian Open T-Shirt... well, you, know,
a different type of spectator sport - i heard the rabbis
of the oval where deemed cricket tourists when kicking
a penalty through the H architecture -
cricketers are tourists, oval jerker-offs are Wallabies...
Australia in the Eurovision song-contest... oh yeah,
i'm mad... mad about Abba.. Matt in Memphis,
an Eve Cassidy moment, Sia's chandelier cover-up,
the truest form of plagiarism - the cover is better
without all the computing morphings...
oh sure, i could play the dating game...
9 years in and i had two authentic ***** in my day...
one was a black single mum who took me back
to her flat in Stratford, dragged her baby girl from the bed
to the floor, and her baby son, didn't want me to
penetrate her, tucked my **** in between her thighs,
i stopped, was woken by her son in the middle of the night,
took him and laid him on my chest and we fell asleep...
so yeah, prostitution is ALL BAD... coming from a theorist
who hasn't experienced the drudgery of lives "unexpected"
via eventualities akin to Chernobyl... given that the most
paranoid nation scared and scaring others concerning
a nuclear holocaust is the only one to set two off... two!
Pearl Harbour was an army attack on an army base...
what the Americans did was just a very quick Holocaust.

I was born to a woman who smoked cigarettes
and since I was a child, I tried to inhale blueberries until they
stalled my windpipe.

My mother taught me that word –
windpipe – after she coughed for hours upon hours. I
was so happy that day, imagining how I must have swallowed
windchimes for the doctors who helped birth me
in December’s final snow –
how I hoped they believed I sounded pretty, although

covered in that sop adults call life juice. Life juice sounds nice
but I had known babies who
came just as sticky as me and never got to breathe.

Windchimes, you know, the things
beautiful ladies in ankle-length dresses hang outside,
my daddy lived thirteen hours down the interstate and I knew
somehow that he owned one.

In my dreams, I touched it
and pulled on it. I twisted the copper-ends up like my
momma’s hair and pretended we were with my dad by some
lake where the breezes are heavy enough and I
am small enough for them to carry me up, up, and away.

Everyone insisted that windpipes are inside
while windchimes stay out –

I fixed that problem, too. I tried three times to plant chimes in
my ears, unglue parts of the skin there from myself
to make room for dangly jewelry. A tiny
slit was all I needed, but it would not stay open for long

and I never got to swing my head
pretend I possessed the ability to create music like how God
let my momma grow smoke. I never got to exhale.

not everyday you get to pet a labrador
at half past 10... during the night...
he sees you, you see him 10metres apart,
you start you autistic body-space crucial
talk; you start gesticulating, blinking
to-n-fro like some mad rhetorical adventist...
and then you signature the discussion
like any sensible curator might:
you insinuate a tut-tut, but the sound you
make sorta makes onomatopoeia obsolete...
you tut-tut while ******* a lemon...
and **** me! the labrador is yours!
teary eyed and tail in a tango-likened to-and-fro...
if ever picking up a girl in a nightclub could
feel as good... it wouldn't...
the mere antic of petting a stranger's dog:
i'd be salivating had it been a rottweiler...
never mind the labrador...
           ***** ate the would-be hetero...
we call him metro these days, salmon-tinged shirts
and the ooh-la-las to my mistake: faked camp.
  but they loved the political coup without the d'état!
which is a bit like pizza without cheder dangly,
or god forbid: a gorgonzola!
    oo, tangy! jokes really do necessitate a need
for punctuation.
for what god forbid was the p added when it
merely said cou? optometric lesson no. 1:
French... optometric lesson no. 2:
English; optometric lesson no. 3:
a year in Yorkshire: endure that and you'll endure
Germanic Hitlerite checking advents of
chequers grandpa... or those eager to await Auschwitz
and least eager to don mascara within
that tattoos of rightly-awaited wrinkle...
     oh yeah, yeah: they forgot the tribalism; silly wankers.          

is that a pooch or a Gucci?

i don't know, whenever i ask that
question or see someone
famous or fashionable
i just get fidgety,
like as Chinese person
seeing a doppelgänger -
with a billion's worth of populace,
you don't look out for a
"most photographed" face..
  you look out for doppelgängers,
lookalikes...
    
still, you end up petting a stranger's labrador in
the night sometimes,
while walking to a shop for a bottle of whiskey...
tearful eyed, tail waggling...
   which is more than picking up a girl in an Essex
nightclub would ever be...
          you end up petting a dog
and saying to heterosexual counterparts:
                                                     arrivederci!
because it was **** primus with Liberace
and fooled housewives sprechen butch speck,
bound to the glutton archives...
              **** me that labrador was all i needed tonight.

I'm not Little Miss Muffet
From a spider I won't run away
I'll just squish you in a tissue
Or grab a can of bug spray

If that won't be sufficient
If that would not do
I'd just take off my footwear
And smash you with my shoe!

Spider, Spider there I see you
crawling upon my bedroom wall
You give me nothing but the creeps
with every single inch you crawl

You may weave interesting webs
But don't think I'm making nice
If I were not human (but a fly)
I'd be an entangled, delicious bite!

I hate your figure-eight, rounded body
I hate your dangly legs, eight
Is there anything about you I like?
No, I think everything about you I hate!

The summer I interned in New York, I fell in love with someone I'd only seen from a balcony window.

I'd fallen in love with strangers before, on buses and in lines, watching their shoulders straighten and their faces grimace in half-sunlight. I fell in love with these people the way you could fall in love with a poem, finding personality in the way that their eyes flicker nervously from left to right, tiny instances where their stanzas throw you into a daze. But this time was different. For once, I wished to know a stranger without the brim of my sunglasses, for once I felt something when I knew I'd never see him again.

His apartment was cluttered, bottles of water and the empty cans of energy drinks piled in a corner where a conscious person would have fit them in a bin. There were clothes on the floor, and although I knew his high rise box was laid out just as mine, he must have used the expected closet space for something else - his clothes were everywhere, crumpled in heaps on the floor that were too erratically placed to not have some sort of lingering system. Posters of people were taped to the wall, covering the matte eggshell white, edges falling occasionally to show signs that he wouldn’t always live there. I hoped that if he ever owned a home, that those staring portraits would be stapled or pasted thick to his walls, just because he would be the sort of person who wouldn’t change his mind about what he liked or what he wanted.

I would watch him from the same eggshell white room of mine, with nothing on the walls and not a scrap of anything on the floor. From my blow up mattress to my suitcase of clothes, kitchen stocked of single servings and a solitary set of dishware. I had no curtains and no carpets, no television or pictures of friends huddled in an unexpected embrace. For all anyone knew, I could have been squatting. I would look out at him from the window spanning the entire north facing wall, aware that if he ever looked out, if his eyes ever darted south, he would see me cross legged on the tiled marble floor, hovering over an overheated laptop and cardboard coffee.

I would get home at seven forty-five, shower in the New York water that tasted like dust and gin, and towel off, walking to the balcony. He, just like I, had a long, narrow balcony spanning about four feet on the right edge of his loft, and I would lean on the edge of the concrete slab, smelling the foul city air, taxi music floating from the lumpy yellow marsh below. That was when he would unlock his door suddenly, sometime between eight and eight-ten. He would step with his entire body and move into his crowded room and stand still for a moment, as if to collect himself; restrain from tearing faces off the walls and pummeling fabric into the floor. Sometimes he'd shut the door closed with a twitch of his foot, untying the half apron around his waist with one hand and pulling the red tie strapped flat onto a black dress shirt loose with the other. Once, he did all that in succession and proceeded to slide against the shut door until he hit the ground, falling into himself like a dropped jack's ladder and rubbing his fingers from his jawline to his eyes, up into his hair and back over.

But most of the time, he would just force off his shoes, never untying the laces, and move to the balcony just as I did. He would go out to the balcony too, but he would always keep going, moving to sit on the edge of the short wall, socked feet dangling over the city. His legs would be splayed wide, hands placed right in front of him, flat on the ledge. He would look down at the golden sea below, and when he was done with it, spit a flickering cigarette into the glittering bank.

He would also smoke when he woke up. He got up at six, like clockwork, and would stumble back out into the smogged pilot's seat in a plaid bathrobe, hazy faced and staring down. I don’t think he was ever late. He would get dressed slowly and fix himself in the mirror for a good half hour at the left of his room, until finally turning around just to watch the door for a moment. Sometimes I could swear that he watched for so long that he must have thought it would up and race away.

He slept with the lights on. He never came home late. He didn’t go out at night, never blundered in at two in the morning with a lithe model girl, long hair framing icicle eyes. On weekends he would sleep all day, rising every few hours to go back on the edge of his balcony and smoke. He would stare at the faces on his walls, the callouses on his palms, the murmur below; but never, ever at the empty loft across the way, dotted with a blue plastic bed and a speck of a person.

I left New York in September, on a red eye flight vastly cheaper than the rest. I put my toothbrush and toothpaste into the front pocket of my luggage, squeezed the air out of my mattress, and left. I hadn't left a trace in that home of mine, and it didn’t leave any on me either. When I left New York, I felt nothing. It was almost like I had never set foot in the city, forgetting to socialize with the locals the way someone could leave their hat at a bar.

I never knew if the man across the canyon hated coming home to a loft like I did. I wondered if it bothered him too, the lack of walls or rooms to compartmentalize the space. I wondered if he didn’t like to eat at home, if he felt sick when he watched the sunrise. I wondered if when he looked at the tidepooled city, if he also saw salvation. If he wondered every day from eight to eight-ten about what a dangly thing of a human would seem like to the loft across if it was spit from the edge of a narrow, four foot balcony.

Being called a ****** is something I don’t mind
In fact it's really okay and it's rather kind
I don't think it is offensive or even a sick joke
What’s a man supposed to do without a **** to poke
Okay he could stick his **** between two bits of Spam
But he really needs a hot moist **** to be a real man
If her *****'s on the blob he could settle for an ****
The ******* of both these holes simply is pure class

There are guys who prefer a **** and like a manly ***
A tighter hole maybe prefered to make those fellows ***
To **** a bloke if you're straight is an equivalent to a slum
Or even a taboo ****** act like ******* your own mum.

Manly ***** and dangly parts are really not for me
I don't bend to hairy **** it's not where I would be
Girly ***** and smoother bums is what I want to see
I'd rather **** my own **** than **** a guys jacksy

Pulling a huge Horses Plonker only fools like Rodney Trotter
Or Blind Wizards with broken glasses like Harry ******* Potter
Don't **** on your **** to hard you may just *** a cropper
Especially if you ***** up in a helmet belonging to a copper.

I would never bash the bishop what would the churches say
To find me with a spunky hat and that their faiths turned gay
We don't want ***** clergymen who **** on the silver tray
Vicars ******* choir boys keep those cassock fanciers at bay

I would'nt choke the chicken because I don't think I could
But the staff at Kentucky Fried Chicken they probably would.
They would lick your ***** up because its finger licking good.
And use their special wipe up towel to clean up your manhood.
With its lemon fragrance you will have good smelling wood.
Around your shaft and helmet and beneath your ******* hood.

Would I ever yank my plank like the pirates of the seas
The extention of my log when I'm on my ******* knees
My hand around my fishing rod and giving it a squeeze
Using a hand action to squeeze out my cream cheese
*** is flowing down my shaft like honey from the bees
I'll keep pumping on my rod and creaming in the breeze

Have you ever seen those fellows praying down at the synagogue ?
From their own expressions they've been flogging their own log
Take a look at their robes the bottom stained with their eggnog
Either that or they have been ******* some old scruffy dog
I don't think that they bothered their heads are in a fog
With all that ******* worship they would **** a big fat hog

So I'm slowly warming to it but maybe when I'm ******
And I can't get no ***** and its the last thing on my list
I may take myself in hand my **** clutched in my fist
Then I may consider having a swift one of the wrist
If you end up watching then please excuse the mist
I'll carry on with the hope that my **** gets kissed

Because Wanking is an activity that in all honesty all men do
Something that comes to hand when you can't get a good *****
When your **** gets harder and we think of god knows who
We grab our piece of man meat and imagine that *** stew

I'll  have to keep on wanking I can never get enough
Off all that lovely ***** because finding it is tough
Nothing is more satisfying than diving in the ****
Legs open wide will always be something I will stuff
Instead of wanking I would rather stick it up your chuff
But I'll probably end up looking  a bit scraggy and ruff

So I will keep on going until my **** is old and worn
With all that ******* wanking whenever I get the horn
Popping my sweet cornels just like children of the corn
Watching ****'s and ******* or granny ******* ****

Gene and Jenny Taylor
Had long been man and wife
But a heinous disagreement
Took a hold upon their life
For each bemoaned their tackle
It was Gene who started first
He justified why dangly bits
Were easily the worst

“They tangle in your underwear
And twist themselves about
If I sit down in football shorts
They try to wriggle out
They chafe on nearly everything
They’re difficult to dry
And when it’s hot an humid out
They’re welded to your thigh”

Jenny swiftly countered him
“Well ***** are surely worst
For shaving is laborious
And not all lips are pursed
The periods are painful
With a week of aggravation
And we use three times the toilet roll
And cause deforestation “

But Gene had more to muster
“Well the ***** is a *******
And hiding an *******
Is a skill each man has mastered
They lead us into jeopardy
They always take the ****
And first thing in the morning
They’ve a tendency to miss”

So Jenny said “Vaginas
Are a curse between the thighs
And lady bits look monstrous
To anyone with eyes
They’re prone to thrush and fondling
And embryo gestation
***** are only any good
For use in aviation”

Gene and Jenny caught their breath
The stalemate was called
For genitals, the lips and *****
Or **** and hairy *****
Are vital to our species
More useful than they seem
And you’ll see a marked improvement
When they’re working as a team

She is drawn to SATAN like an addict to ******
She burns her fingertips, edging them into candle wax, mourning in the absence of Lucifer
“Dear valentine “she cries in the stark midnight, she won’t give in this time
She licks her raven shot gun, lining all the bullets in the form of pentagram
All she can hear is ringing in her head, he has made her weak,
Dangly calves, wrists scarred, teeth marks on her neck & heart scattered-
Like the ashes of his past lover’s
Traits of an incubus, seducing naïve women
Toying with their hearts, Masking his destructive tendencies, like a Russian politician
Eyes all pleasant lies, lips uttering praises for the rival’s spoken lines

Rough *** wont her mind, her heart wont subdue to his crimes
She is a fighter, he is a sinner
Smoke edged fingertips, lips turning into a wicked glee, bow down to the madhouse queen
Insanity is a welcomed relief, freedom from his infidelity
Pressing on the lever, pointed directly at his cerebrum
“Venomous mind, you should’ve have never thrown your heart in confines, you would have been alive”
CRACK! Led by a passage of dead silence, later morphed into scavengers screeching and agile flapping of inky wings.

a bush
greets the summer
sporting dangly new earrings
of red berries.

I used to stand, dreaming
I could win that brown bear
Only takes three darts, top scores
To win, at the local fair.
Or a fish, I would have liked that
An orange thing in a plastic bag
Or hook-a-duck, a chance to win
Perhaps a new toy or wave a flag.
The smell of onions frying all day
Hot crispy potato skins enticing
The unmistakable aroma of doughnuts
With different kinds of icing.
The thrill and fear of the ghost train
With dangly things in your face
Screams, sighs, a creepy hand touching
I loved that very creepy place.
The helter skelter, skimming on a mat
Winding to the bottom with a smile
Then queuing for ages once again
Strangers in a single file.
The fair, money for this and that
Oh I wanted that teddy bear.
Eventually I got him, my new friend
Sitting there with his short brown hair.
A reminder of days when fun was fun
Screeches, screams and music very loud
They’d play the number one in the charts
To a very approving fun loving crowd.
So with my short lived fish in a bag
My bear and tummy full of candy floss
My pockets with no money just tissues
Smeared with onions and tomato sauce.
I’d head back home, looking over my shoulder
The lights, the atmosphere nothing can compare
Dodgems, rides that made you feel sick
But that’s ok at the local funfair.

i keep looking at people become serious diarists, like Paulo Coelho writing the alchemist, which can be an odd experience... i've got ants in my pants and i'm a dog's bone away from playing dead, sitting in mantra of: load off visiting Singapore and never getting the hangover joke of Bangkok... sinus gaping pore? it's all ******* feathery anyway... flusters of rouge should fantasy come to life.

learn to cackle, thus said: invoke a magpie, to learn laugher -
ha ha (etc.), as can easily be turned into a cackle,
only magpies cackle and even funnier,
applicability of diacritical markings,
as if stealing letters of silver spoons...
Scōtlānd: meiné skoot,
overt
           lá                           -nd...
spacing for the macron -
          and hence the acute without spacing...
                          truth to the tooth
and elsewhere bone-shattering governing the rattle
of the ribs... a canary's song least that of worth
with a woad's pigmentation...
               or said ivory to turqouise...
azure, and vented in lavender...
           but the cackle came
with *Scōtlānd: learn the linguistic
arithmetic! the macron und umlaut
synonym... if applying it learn it,
if not applying it: learn Bulgarian,
Oristice the peacocking accents...
        turquoise though:
Eurydice... Orestes... synonym of acne...
so few do, in that the diacritical indication
is a higher-tier arithmetic...
            such that the less implied is
governed by the impeding peacock variation
that suggests Da, in all prevailing -isms,
                   as saying raw, to a Tartar
over a horse limb steak galloping toward Ukraine...
         but here we are: adorning tartan
of chequers and navy that mingles blue & purple...
                       and here we are abiding to
the Faroe Isle recluse...   spelled aisle    said
i'll...      and that i dare not wallow in it much further...
haggis neeps and tatties... wanking over
a cow's testicular dangly... truant to all truth...
        and all truth to the truant rodins....
  thus to laugh excessively is to cackle like a magpie,
   and hark a phlegmish soar with the raven...
                and end all tragedies without
a Hebraic definition of ha as
      the: direct article... for good manners suggest
that no clue be justified in cradling the sigma
of either the zenith of the Babylonian tower
or the spiral of condescending might twirling into
an imploding tornado over Egypt and all things
                  extravagantly Pythagorean...
  or as Balaam said: i rode a donkey out of Yerusalem:
sprechen yiddish.            
               three years among them...
  and i can say with much demand: Scōtlānd...
scootlaand...     if i ever learned to cleanse,
i also learned to adapt... a circumstance of thinking
myself adequately counter-inept to share
   the Baltic with Lapland skiers, as synonymous
and congregational in being translated into Ęglish
          for what already is: a truancy when cultural
criticism isn't enough... because the culture makes
one truant from engaging with it... because there
is no culture to be critical of...
                   a hermit foretold and with clasped hands
   gave alms, and later: with a slow clapping
          made hands orate what the tongue made shoelace-
                                                       ­         (op+. -spaghetti)       .

A sworn, torn man stands at the top of the world’s longest staircase, and my friends and I have signed up to ride. Millions of others stand between us and the top, waiting for their chance, their prime, to resign. We sulk in the depths of the sea and hope that someday we may be free.
       The man holds penned paper that the depths cannot perceive, but we know it. Our ticket to the roller coaster lies, with number, on a digit. I and my friends were anglerfish before, but now we are eels. We no longer need dangly lights to guide us to prey, and now we tie ourselves and each other in knots.
       Life is fun later when we are dolphins, then porpoises, then whales with legs, walking onto the seashore as brisk as can be, drinking our saliva as though it were a river overflowing with our survival. We walk in to the forest and steam lobsters over a log-fire. The wings with the tickets laugh at the monotony below him, but we’re below him even in that.
       Grey skies cloud overhead, and we realize where we are. I and my friends run from the thunder that comes in every drop, the acid in every drop; where the water helped before, it now forms uncomfortabilities in our skin, nonconforming to the mutations of standard evolution. We need shelter, now, fast, and together. A huge tree is mostly protective.
       Eventually a ladder of clouds drops down and draws us like a magnet. We can’t stop it, the clock has rung fourteen for two days now. We then have arms and can climb it, so we do, though the rain left pimples on our faces.
       We ascend to the front of the line.
       “Hello, ticketman, where are we headed?” we ask. He says, “Darlings, you haven’t been anywhere in the first place; how can you be headed to a where? First, go tackle a why.”
       The rollercoaster takes off, shoots off – a rocket propels us through precarious stages of life. We have ups and downs and sideways parts we can’t really decide the morals of, and we enjoy it.
       Then we are dead.

speaking of drugs and soul mates,
somehow his dangly fingers found the inner stitches
of my pinkplated skinny jeans.
we fell into backseats and booths at bars that held
sushi and white powder lining caked sinks.
we giggled at how he said tomato, and i dissolved into
the sixth beer, the seventh, the eighth,
the lines between her lipstick.
we danced and screamed among stained floors, holding each other,
waiting until the moon lifted us.
he and i held hands as i ran between poles, pretending
i was the goddess of love, of lust, of night.
we made out and my head cracked upon glass,
his glasses slid upon pavement. he was nervous, i was laughing.
an american girl, his first time.
his fingers traced, cream upon coffee.
in the morning i found bruises upon my lips,
marks of eagerness, of mistakes.
we walked again, not hand in hand,
dreary and rainy, perfect London weather.
and i wondered if having tea
and crumpets would have
helped.

I knew him well. Ten years attached to his clinic
like a stethoscope dangling with ailments
I knew the carpet threads
The old painting on the wall
The posters on rheumatic fevers
Pains in the chest, nurses call
And the vague smell of antiseptic cream
Liberally applied over every visitors hands

I knew all those dangly instruments and probes
Designed in the middle ages
And given a stainless shine just now
Bright and sparkling.

I knew his receptionist too quite well
Her big *****, had just a button undone
But I had xray vision and a sharp brain to imagine
Tropical island and coconuts

I knew his voice, his signature
His way of asking questions
And his way of checking the big fat book
Of pills and potions that held his practice together

Every time he called my name out
In the reception area
He always said it funny:
The Gass rhymed with a donkey
And never with a glass.
( I corrected him many times)
But as old as he was his memory could not hold
my correct name for more than 3 seconds. He won.

On leaving his clinic, I always wished
The Tropical Islands goodbye-and winked
That 'just cured wink' like I knew
how to collect coconuts!
It never worked in ten years
But hope is not a medical condition. Thank you.

Author Notes
Ha ha.
Please check out ISBN 9781493137848-  my new book published last night. The Trilogy is better than all the poems I ever wrote. Unashamedly, promoting my book, currently on Amazon.Com and soon on all e-books.

Thank you.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

I used to stand, dreaming
I could win that brown bear
Only takes three darts, top scores
To win, at the local fair.
Or a fish, I would have liked that
An orange thing in a plastic bag
Or hook-a-duck, a chance to win
Perhaps a new toy or wave a flag.
The smell of onions frying all day
Hot crispy potato skins enticing
The unmistakable aroma of doughnuts
With different kinds of icing.
The thrill and fear of the ghost train
With dangly things in your face
Screams, sighs, a creepy hand touching
I loved that very creepy place.
The helter skelter, skimming on a mat
Winding to the bottom with a smile
Then queuing for ages once again
Strangers in a single file.
The fair, money for this and that
Oh I wanted that teddy bear.
Eventually I got him, my new friend
Sitting there with his short brown hair.
A reminder of days when fun was fun
Screeches, screams and music very loud
They’d play the number one in the charts
To a very approving fun loving crowd.
So with my short lived fish in a bag
My bear and tummy full of candy floss
My pockets with no money just tissues
Smeared with onions and tomato sauce.
I’d head back home, looking over my shoulder
The lights, the atmosphere nothing can compare
Dodgems, rides that made you feel sick
But that’s ok at the local funfair

JOLLY GOOD SHOW

All day
stuck up this ****** tree

in the middle of ****** nowhere.

All the landscape
shrunk to this crossroads

like the cross-hairs
on a gun sight

brings the distance
into focus.

“****** Nora! ”
He swears to himself and laughs.

His mother’s name was Nora.

Always thought it was hilarious
to swear by her.

Remembers one time as a boy
swearing at her:

“And eh by gum
she didn’t half hit me hard! ”

“Blood seeping through the gum
still taste the taste of it on my tongue
****** ‘orrible it was!

Hated her ever since.”

“Now, look whatcha made me done! ”
she hollered at him.

“Yes…sorry our Mum! ”

He didn’t dare cry
‘cos she’d hit for crying!

“She was a hard one…our Mum!
Had to be with us ****** lot!

She were fun though when she were happy! ”

He hoped to God
that his man would come

so he could **** him
and be done.

Didn’t know him
from Adam

(leader of the insurgents
capable of getting men around him) .

“Dangerously charismatic! ”

Better dead
to keep the British peace alive

as the Empire lay dying.

The sun setting
dying him a golden brown.

“If he don’t come soon
I won’t have the light to **** him.”

“Remembering shooting game with our Dad
rabbit…pheasant...up ‘eath in sunlight

. . .such as this.”

The dangly ****** rabbit
turning into next night’s stew

eating a celebration
of what you can do

- do well...****.

How he came to be
here

up a ****** gum tree
gun in hand…staring

waiting for a man to ****.

Same ****** thing.
Simple ****** plan!

Waiting 3 days now
and no man.

“Keep your position ...over.”
“Maintain radio silence.”

“Report in when job done.”
“Roger ok that...over & out.”

“Eager to get job done so I can go ****** ‘ome!”

“Didn’t believe it myself
until I seed it! ”

Dot in the distance
translating itself into a man.

Just enough light left
for killing.

“And now, put out the light
...put out the light! ”

He muttered to himself.

****** Othello!
The only Shakespeare he knew.

“A lass I once knew
A real brain & chatter box! ”

“I only ever wanted to get into her knickers
& the only way to do so was to listen…so I listened.”

“Trying to teach ****** me Proper English
and she ****** well Scottish!

****** cheek!
...och aye...but nooo! ”

The crossroads funnel him into
the killing spot

“Trot trot trot trot!
like Noyes’s THE HIGHWAYMAN!

Noyes! No...yes!

Why think of
Majorie Wallace and her ****** poetry now!

No poetry in killing
just plain ****** prose.

Dead is dead is dead.

A blown rose
fading on the periphery of his vision.

The cross-hairs
come to rest

like a deadly spider
on the rider’s face.

He’s ****** grinning.

The man doesn’t even know
he’s already dead!

Won’t even know what’***** him!

(Probably thinking of a sweetheart
and getting her into ****** bed)

Just like I am.

Just the gentlest of squeezes

like stroking a lassie’s ****
(Oh Marjorie ****** Wallace!)

Then - that’s it!
The rifle spits and speaks

in the language of the dead

and only one man understands
what’s said.

And where there was a head
there is now no head.

You see it only
for the briefest of seconds

and can’t really believe it!

How the head blossoms!

Like a sudden flower
and then fades

in that
instant.

Mindless now...

he plucks the faded rose
(or whatever it is it’s called around here)

reminds him of
England.

Pops it into
an amo pocket.

Good clean ****.

Head shot – one shot.

Tries to pretend...
but it always hits him hard

taking a closer look
at his handiwork.

Kicks the body:
“You poor stupid ****** ******! ”

“A man no less a man
than I am...”

Faceless.

Lying there
in the dirt
as he were only having a kip.

Becoming dirt.

Breaks radio silence:
“Come and ****** well pick me up! ”

“Jolly well done! ”

The radio cackles back.

“Jolly good show! ”

have avoided all attempts
neatly gift-wrapped box
no innocent bystander
my own shapeless crinkling

paper bags or newspapers
crunched around clumsy mechanics
a garage built go-cart racer
tie with shoelaces

rubber bands and bread twisties
bike wheels in back
forward red wagon wheel
reconverted down side shafts

coiling and wrenching
back to cab meeting
half a broomstick handle bar
tasseled dangly pom-poms

painted on sheet metal hood
1014 signifying day we met
skidding each other's hearts
last year’s soap-box derby

not a pretty package
but when you open up and see
marvelous flaming paints
spinning our memories

I hope you know
you are my burning desire
Shall we blast it one last time?
I’ll make those vroom-vroom sounds

Dónall O'Diomsiagh is anim dom!
( Dónall Dempsey is my name! )

I was born
the weight of a bag of sugar.

2 lbs to be
precise.

That was all there was
to me!

( My belly alas weighs more than that now )!

De Da could
hold me in his fist and

I'd disappear
'cept for the little dangly dancing leggy bits.

I had Elvis sideburns
( I was all shock up )

and entered this
world of ours

feet first
putting my best foot forward

ready to rock
'n" roll...mannn!

Doris Day was singing
CE SERA SERA!

And what, what...do ya think
they called the tiniest baby

. . .ever ever seen?

Why, Dónall!
Dónall...of course!

Dónall meaning WORLD
MIGHTY SPEAR POWER.

And Dempsey itself meaning
THE PROUD ONE!

Ahhh the majesty of the Celtic tongue!

A wrestler's name if ever...
"And in the green corner..."

Or an Ozymandias name. . .
"Look on my works, ye mighty ,and despair!"

De Ma would always spoil it for me:

"WORLDMIGHTYSPEARPOWERTHEPROUDONE! You
get yer *** in here this minute and finish yer homework!"

An awful big name
( to be sure to be sure )

for a little fella to
live up to. . .

Ahhh, but sure I do my best
putting words to the test

wrestling with a rhyme
stealing through your mind.

For I am
( am I not?)

the poet with
the hyperbolic name!

WORLD MIGHTY
SPEAR POWER
THE PROUD ONE!

Your actions breed my insecurities
And over all this time they have bred my definition for heartache

Who says that I am not allowed
To let myself sink down to your level?
The scores have always seemed even,
I always thought they were settled.

Never
They never were.
I am still like your dangly toy on a string
Bouncing around,
Dreaming of running around on its own feet

I am waiting
For two things
That seem important to this impact.

I cannot imagine life
If neither of them ever come

Only death.

The two of us pick chicken eggs
in heat sticky as a mother’s breath.
The heat that rises off of the lake
in the summer feels worse than any
awkward kiss. Your body is taller today, your hair
slightly lighter. We pick chicken eggs
for our mothers. Our mothers wear dresses red
as the entrails of flies, and sit out on porches, and drink ghostly milk
from sweaty glasses. We watch them drink the milk
and we picture them as newborns. I wonder if you sometimes
picture me as a newborn. This is the first day on which
I am afraid of you. My hands blanket my stomach (hands like wool);
my stomach is growing larger everyday, gutting itself out
the way the waves do off of the lake when it storms. It’s because I’m
feeding myself too much: this is what I get for being afraid of you.

In the summer we get too many bees. How many calories in a bee sting?
How many of them can line the inside of my mouth, all sharp and dangly,
before I die the way a snake might? How many calories
are in the shadow of a tree? Us and our eggs sit underneath the shadow
of the largest tree we can find, with me trembling, without tears, without *****,
just a wooly mouth. Today, I’ve never missed anything as much as I miss
my own ribs. Today, you look beautiful like the largest cow. Today, where
are my fingers? They used to be so long. You used to be too afraid to touch me.

Dónall O'Diomsiagh is anim dom!
( Dónall Dempsey is my name! )

I was born
the weight of a bag of sugar.

2 lbs to be
precise.

That was all there was
to me!

( My belly alas weighs more than that now )!

De Da could
hold me in his fist and

I'd disappear
'cept for the little dangly dancing leggy bits.

I had Elvis sideburns
( I was all shock up )

and entered this
world of ours

feet first
putting my best foot forward

ready to rock
'n" roll...mannn!

Doris Day was singing
CE SERA SERA!

And what, what...do ya think
they called the tiniest baby

. . .ever ever seen?

Why, Dónall!
Dónall...of course!

Dónall meaning WORLD
MIGHTY SPEAR POWER.

And Dempsey itself meaning
THE PROUD ONE!

Ahhh the majesty of the Celtic tongue!

A wrestler's name if ever...
"And in the green corner..."

Or an Ozymandias name. . .
"Look on my works, ye mighty ,and despair!"

De Ma would always spoil it for me:

"WORLDMIGHTYSPEARPOWERTHEPROUDONE! You
get yer *** in here this minute and finish yer homework!"

An awful big name
( to be sure to be sure )

for a little fella to
live up to. . .

Ahhh, but sure I do my best
putting words to the test

wrestling with a rhyme
stealing through your mind.

For I am
( am I not?)

the poet with
the hyperbolic name!

WORLD MIGHTY
SPEAR POWER
THE PROUD ONE!

JOLLY GOOD SHOW

All day
stuck up this ****** tree

in the middle of ****** nowhere.

All the landscape
shrunk to this crossroads

like the cross-hairs
on a rifle sight

brings the distance
into focus.

“****** Nora! ”
He swears to himself and laughs.

His mother’s name was Nora.

Always thought it was hilarious
to swear by her.

Remembers one time as a boy
swearing at her:

“And eh by gum
she didn’t half hit me hard! ”

“Blood seeping through the gum
still taste the taste of it on my tongue
****** ‘orrible it was!

Hated her ever since.”

“Now, look whatcha made me done! ”
she hollered at him.

“Yes…sorry our Mum! ”

He didn’t dare cry
‘cos she’d hit for crying!

“She was a hard one…our Mum!
Had to be with us ****** lot!

She were fun though when she were happy! ”

He hoped to God
that his man would come

so he could **** him
and be done.

Didn’t know him
from Adam

(leader of the insurgents
capable of getting men around him) .

“Dangerously charismatic! ”

Better dead
to keep the British peace alive

as the Empire lay dying.

The sun setting
dying him a golden brown.

“If he don’t come soon
I won’t have the light to **** him.”

“Remembering shooting game with our Dad
rabbit…pheasant...up ‘eath in sunlight

. . .such as this.”

The dangly ****** rabbit
turning into next night’s stew

eating a celebration
of what you can do

- do well...****.

How he came to be here
up a ****** gum tree

rifle in hand…staring
waiting for a man to ****.

Same ****** thing.
Simple ****** plan!

Waiting 3 days now
and no man.

“Keep your position ...over.”
“Maintain radio silence.”

“Report in when job done.”
“Roger ok that...over & out.”

“Eager to get job done so I can go ****** ‘ome!”

“Didn’t believe it myself
until I seed it! ”

Dot in the distance
translating itself into a man.

Just enough light left
for killing.

“And now, put out the light
...put out the light! ”

He muttered to himself.

****** Othello!
The only Shakespeare he knew.

“A lass I once knew
A real brain & chatter box! ”

“I only ever wanted to get into her knickers
& the only way to do so was to listen…so I listened.”

“Trying to teach ****** me Proper English
and she ****** well Scottish!

****** cheek!
...och aye...but nooo! ”

The crossroads funnel him into
the killing spot

“Trot trot trot trot!
like THE HIGHWAYMAN!

Noyes! No...yes!

Why think of
Marjorie Wallace and her ****** poetry now!

No poetry in killing
just plain ****** prose.

Dead is dead is dead.

A blown rose
fading on the periphery of his vision.

The cross-hairs
come to rest

like a deadly spider
on the rider’s face.

He’s ****** grinning.

The man doesn’t even know
he’s already dead!

Won’t even know what’***** him!

(Probably thinking of a sweetheart
and getting her into ****** bed)

Just like I am.

Just the gentlest of squeezes

like stroking a lassie’s ****
(Oh Marjorie ****** Wallace!)

Then - that’s it!
The rifle spits and speaks

in the language of the dead

and only one man understands
what’s said.

And where there was a head
there is now no head.

You see it only
for the briefest of seconds

and can’t really believe it!
How the head blossoms!

Like a sudden flower
and then fades

in that
instant.

Mindless now...

he plucks the faded rose
(or whatever it is it’s called around here)

reminds him of
England.

Pops it into
an amo pocket.

Good clean ****.
Head shot – one shot.

Tries to pretend...
but it always hits him hard

taking a closer look
at his handiwork.

Kicks the body:
“You poor stupid ****** ******! ”

“A man no less a man
than I am...”

Faceless.

Lying there in the dirt
as he were only having a kip.

Becoming dirt.

Breaks radio silence:
“Come and ****** well pick me up! ”

“Jolly well done! ”
The radio cackles back.

“Jolly good show! ”

JOLLY GOOD SHOW

All day
stuck up this ****** tree

in the middle of ****** nowhere.

All the landscape
shrunk to this crossroads

like the cross-hairs
on a gun sight

brings the distance
into focus.

“****** Nora! ”
He swears to himself and laughs.

His mother’s name was Nora.

Always thought it was hilarious
to swear by her.

Remembers one time as a boy
swearing at her:

“And eh by gum
she didn’t half hit me hard! ”

“Blood seeping through the gum
still taste the taste of it on my tongue
****** ‘orrible it was!

Hated her ever since.”

“Now, look whatcha made me done! ”
she hollered at him.

“Yes…sorry our Mum! ”

He didn’t dare cry
‘cos she’d hit for crying!

“She was a hard one…our Mum!
Had to be with us ****** lot!

She were fun though when she were happy! ”

He hoped to God
that his man would come

so he could **** him
and be done.

Didn’t know him
from Adam

(leader of the insurgents
capable of getting men around him) .

“Dangerously charismatic! ”

Better dead
to keep the British peace alive

as the Empire lay dying.

The sun setting
dying him a golden brown.

“If he don’t come soon
I won’t have the light to **** him.”

“Remembering shooting game with our Dad
rabbit…pheasant...up ‘eath in sunlight

. . .such as this.”

The dangly ****** rabbit
turning into next night’s stew

eating a celebration
of what you can do

- do well...****.

How he came to be
here

up a ****** gum tree
gun in hand…staring

waiting for a man to ****.

Same ****** thing.
Simple ****** plan!

Waiting 3 days now
and no man.

“Keep your position ...over.”
“Maintain radio silence.”

“Report in when job done.”
“Roger ok that...over & out.”

“Eager to get job done so I can go ****** ‘ome!”

“Didn’t believe it myself
until I seed it! ”

Dot in the distance
translating itself into a man.

Just enough light left
for killing.

“And now, put out the light
...put out the light! ”

He muttered to himself.

****** Othello!
The only Shakespeare he knew.

“A lass I once knew
A real brain & chatter box! ”

“I only ever wanted to get into her knickers
& the only way to do so was to listen…so I listened.”

“Trying to teach ****** me Proper English
and she ****** well Scottish!

****** cheek!
...och aye...but nooo! ”

The crossroads funnel him into
the killing spot

“Trot trot trot trot!
like Noyes’s THE HIGHWAYMAN!

Noyes! No...yes!

Why think of
Majorie Wallace and her ****** poetry now!

No poetry in killing
just plain ****** prose.

Dead is dead is dead.

A blown rose
fading on the periphery of his vision.

The cross-hairs
come to rest

like a deadly spider
on the rider’s face.

He’s ****** grinning.

The man doesn’t even know
he’s already dead!

Won’t even know what’***** him!

(Probably thinking of a sweetheart
and getting her into ****** bed)

Just like I am.

Just the gentlest of squeezes

like stroking a lassie’s ****
(Oh Marjorie ****** Wallace!)

Then - that’s it!
The rifle spits and speaks

in the language of the dead

and only one man understands
what’s said.

And where there was a head
there is now no head.

You see it only
for the briefest of seconds

and can’t really believe it!

How the head blossoms!

Like a sudden flower
and then fades

in that
instant.

Mindless now...

he plucks the faded rose
(or whatever it is it’s called around here)

reminds him of
England.

Pops it into
an amo pocket.

Good clean ****.

Head shot – one shot.

Tries to pretend...
but it always hits him hard

taking a closer look
at his handiwork.

Kicks the body:
“You poor stupid ****** ******! ”

“A man no less a man
than I am...”

Faceless.

Lying there
in the dirt
as he were only having a kip.

Becoming dirt.

Breaks radio silence:
“Come and ****** well pick me up! ”

“Jolly well done! ”

The radio cackles back.

“Jolly good show! ”

Light a fire, set the stage aflame
go through loops, rings of glass
dont worry if you scrape your ***
But please dont do this at home!

Swing on the trees,
Dance with the bees
Straddle an ape, with his face agape
But please don't this at home!

Throw me that dagger
Cut out the swagger
Walk on tight rope
Unbalance the Pope
But please dont do this at home!

Show off your ****
And those dangly bits
Cover up sin, tuck it all in
But please dont do this at home!

The Birds and the Bees
Have their own trees
With ritual dances and sing song romances
But please dont do this at home!

Im sorry to say
That this is the way
To stay out of stress
And any old mess
But please dont do this at home!

Author Notes
Ha ha!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

my little fairy boy
wears dangly gold earrings
and has hooded blue eyes that peer into mine with curiosity and wonder

my little fairy boy
has a pink dress that smiles at everyone he passes
and nimble fingers that entertwine perfectly with mine

my little fairy boy
wears my heart on a chain around his neck
and has soft white wings that only I can see

maybe tonight he will carry me far, far away

Lost in labyrinthine passages
flitting from one bright dangly thing to another
following the lead of my cravings
which was no lead at all
somehow roads were paved
in your direction
and I found my way
into the chambers of your heart.

JOLLY GOOD SHOW

All day
stuck up this ****** tree

in the middle of ****** nowhere.

All the landscape
shrunk to this crossroads

like the cross-hairs
on a gun sight

brings the distance
into focus.

“****** Nora! ”
He swears to himself and laughs.

His mother’s name was Nora.

Always thought it was hilarious
to swear by her.

Remembers one time as a boy
swearing at her:

“And eh by gum
she didn’t half hit me hard! ”

“Blood seeping through the gum
still taste the taste of it on my tongue
****** ‘orrible it was!

Hated her ever since.”

“Now, look whatcha made me done! ”
she hollered at him.

“Yes…sorry our Mum! ”

He didn’t dare cry
‘cos she’d hit for crying!

“She was a hard one…our Mum!
Had to be with us ****** lot!

She were fun though when she were happy! ”

He hoped to God
that his man would come

so he could **** him
and be done.

Didn’t know him
from Adam

(leader of the insurgents
capable of getting men around him) .

“Dangerously charismatic! ”

Better dead
to keep the British peace alive

as the Empire lay dying.

The sun setting
dying him a golden brown.

“If he don’t come soon
I won’t have the light to **** him.”

“Remembering shooting game with our Dad
rabbit…pheasant...up ‘eath in sunlight

. . .such as this.”

The dangly ****** rabbit
turning into next night’s stew

eating a celebration
of what you can do

- do well...****.

How he came to be
here

up a ****** gum tree
gun in hand…staring

waiting for a man to ****.

Same ****** thing.
Simple ****** plan!

Waiting 3 days now
and no man.

“Keep your position ...over.”
“Maintain radio silence.”

“Report in when job done.”
“Roger ok that...over & out.”

“Eager to get job done so I can go ****** ‘ome!”

“Didn’t believe it myself
until I seed it! ”

Dot in the distance
translating itself into a man.

Just enough light left
for killing.

“And now, put out the light
...put out the light! ”

He muttered to himself.

****** Othello!
The only Shakespeare he knew.

“A lass I once knew
A real brain & chatter box! ”

“I only ever wanted to get into her knickers
& the only way to do so was to listen…so I listened.”

“Trying to teach ****** me Proper English
and she ****** well Scottish!

****** cheek!
...och aye...but nooo! ”

The crossroads funnel him into
the killing spot

“Trot trot trot trot!
like Noyes’s THE HIGHWAYMAN!

Noyes! No...yes!

Why think of
Majorie Wallace and her ****** poetry now!

No poetry in killing
just plain ****** prose.

Dead is dead is dead.

A blown rose
fading on the periphery of his vision.

The cross-hairs
come to rest

like a deadly spider
on the rider’s face.

He’s ****** grinning.

The man doesn’t even know
he’s already dead!

Won’t even know what’***** him!

(Probably thinking of a sweetheart
and getting her into ****** bed)

Just like I am.

Just the gentlest of squeezes

like stroking a lassie’s ****
(Oh Marjorie ****** Wallace!)

Then - that’s it!
The rifle spits and speaks

in the language of the dead

and only one man understands
what’s said.

And where there was a head
there is now no head.

You see it only
for the briefest of seconds

and can’t really believe it!

How the head blossoms!

Like a sudden flower
and then fades

in that
instant.

Mindless now...

he plucks the faded rose
(or whatever it is it’s called around here)

reminds him of
England.

Pops it into
an amo pocket.

Good clean ****.

Head shot – one shot.

Tries to pretend...
but it always hits him hard

taking a closer look
at his handiwork.

Kicks the body:
“You poor stupid ****** ******! ”

“A man no less a man
than I am...”

Faceless.

Lying there
in the dirt
as he were only having a kip.

Becoming dirt.

Breaks radio silence:
“Come and ****** well pick me up! ”

“Jolly well done! ”

The radio cackles back.

“Jolly good show! ”

You sat with your hands dangling over the stuffed leather booth
I sat across from you with a **** eating grin
We had a huge sundae in front of us loaded with extra cherries on top, just the way we like it.
Now you can find us sneaking extra cherries behind the bar to add to our whiskey sodas.
Drinking all of the whiskey down so quickly the cherries end up being futile.
Long handled spoons in hand we dip into the lactose filled shell and scoop large mouthfuls like shovels. We talk at the same time as we chew.
We are older now, but we still don't care about manners or laughing too loud or how we really want to get whiskeys instead of this belly ache of sweets.
We inhale our singular bowl and aren't shy about who gets the last bite.
We leave.

We are back in your sisters house and I'm sitting in the same part of the kitchen that I sat the night that I drank too much wine and threw up in her front yard.
Not much has changed except that her children are older.

Chloe isn't bouncing her creepy Dolly head from couch cushion to couch cushion in the living room.
And your dad isn't there with Nancy commenting about how old I am now.
And I'm not secretly wanting to throw punches at Nancy, but instead throwing back glasses of wine.

We still feel so connected in a way that I have never been able to put words to. I've tried in the thousands of cards and letters and sentimental moments. That is what is so difficult about feelings towards someone you love deeply. Words are so finite.
I decide I want to try with words anyways. I want to share with you how much you've meant to me all of these years.

Before setting my alarm and falling asleep to the sound of rain
I had been having an existential moment. Well, lots of them, since I found out I would become a mother.
Not only was I growing someone in my womb but I was deconstructing and rebuilding the one I had become.
Awake I couldn't stop thinking about all of the moments we had been through and how we survived them all. We still love each other through it all.
Awake I became aware that you were as close as I could get to having another sibling.
Not in a cliche "I love you like my sister type," but in an innocent wild green way.
We still had it.
That part of us that did not let the world rob us from our wild selves, our hunt for nature, our questions that we weren't afraid to explore together even if it made everyone else uncomfortable. Our sensitivity...heightened sensitivity to everything around us.

Back to my dream...

Somehow we weren't at your sister's house anymore. Now we were on the dock of your mom's house and I told you how much I had been going through.
How much I felt myself changing and that I had to let you know how much you meant to me.
How close in my heart you remained and will always remain.
I told you that you were the most influential person during my teenage years. I met you the year I found out that my father was struggling with addiction and had to go to rehab. I met you when I was the most alone in the world and the most confused. I had never had a friend like you.
I met you and you picked me up from my house in your green Honda when I had been AOL instant messaging my ex boyfriend and he told me I had rats nest as hair. I ran out to the driveway crying, after of course brushing the curls out of my hair. I was really sobbing about the fact that my father was in rehab and I wanted to disappear behind the crook of my closed bedroom door.
I met you when I was swallowed up with insecurity around what right thing was to wear and should I shave my legs once or twice a day.
You introduced me to Goodwill shirts and letting your hair grow as long as you **** well wanted.
We became close friends instantly.
Through our twenties we floundered in a lot of ways. With ****** men and divorces and affairs and despairingly drunken nights and moments we still needed to be chaperoned. Our innocence shifted.
We became aware of the world and how it really was.
Then we decided we wanted to do something about it.
The foundation of our paths have always aligned.
I told you that you offered me freedom and relief and that when you were having a hard time sometimes I couldn't be there in the ways that you needed and when I was having a hard time you couldn't be there in the ways that I needed but none of that mattered now.
None of it ever did.
Because our foundation was still there. Like the marrow in our bones.
I hugged you and told you that you are still that person to me. That you still show up for me in so many different ways, just by who you are as a person...not even what you do.
That here I am going through one of the biggest moments of my life and that it all seems like it is going to be okay, because you are still here. With me.
Your sister. Your mom. Connor and Chloe and Sig. The smell of eucalyptus. Your light beaded dangly earrings. Your square shaped fingers and toes. Your hairy legs. Your voice belting over Aretha. Lake Chelan. The way you make tea steaming up to our noses. How impossible you are to wake up in the morning. Armpit bangs. How we have held each other with words, with arms, with history, but mostly with acceptance and understanding.
I had been told by a client a few years ago that if you hug someone for over 20 seconds that your heart aligned.
What a pathalogical sentiment am I right?
ha
Anyways, in my dream we hugged and our hearts turned a bright yellow and glowed from our chests.
They left our rib cages and
Circled around my belly
She felt the warmth and knew
as she entered the world
She too wouldn't have to be alone.

And then I woke up.

At four years old I became a pyromaniac,
Set fire to the living-room lamp,
It was an experiment.
I wanted to see how difficult it would be for a flame to defeat me.
I touched lit candle to the dangly fabric bulbs hanging from the lamp shade
It bursted up, caught all the dust and the handmade paisley curtains
They too met the touch of physical heat,
And before I knew it, the corner of the living-room was a roaring devil.
I do not remember the heat on my face, or the melting paint on the walls
I recall a reflection of the monster I had made, glittering in my eyes.
I ran to my mother, she was shut in the bathroom
I called out to her
“This is the only time I get to myself” she shouted
With more apprehension than what I showed the fire
I told her the living room was ablaze.
The door busted open, and there was a woman, my mother
Pants around her ankles and a bucket full of water.
One douse was all it would take to ease the disaster I created.
Only charred walls and a destroyed lamp remained.

A few weeks later I dreamt of a fire, only it was the whole world on fire.
House half burned to the ground, I went to find my mother.
Opening the bathroom door I said softly “I’m sorry”
When to my terror there was a woman, pants around her ankles
But her body caught the fire, a skeleton mother
She spun her head and looked me dead in the eye
I shrieked and ran away and then awoke realizing it was a dream
Mother was okay, the world was not on fire, and I need not be afraid.
The memory of this dream stayed with me as I aged.
It is only now that I realize I could never set the world ablaze
It has always been this way
It is only now that I realize some people catch the fire
Turn to skeleton and ash.
Nothing remains, but
it is my choice if the flames should defeat me.
And I would be wise to not tempt the fire.