first step

when he looks at a woman he searches for qualities that attract him because he wants to desire her yet this tendency creates an imbalance or disadvantage he is rendered weak to a woman’s beauty or whatever traits he idealizes self-realizing this propensity he looks away from women years of disappointment neglect change him he becomes afraid of women gynophobic

2

when she looks at a man she searches for qualities she is critical of because she wants to be impervious to his power she is suspicious of all men their upper body strength penchant to be in control misperception of women as property misogyny emotional immaturity neediness to be mommyed selfishness insensitivity or over-sensitivity depending she wants to be treated with equal respect a loving nurturing relationship she is suspicious of all people their alternate realities passive aggressive behavior co-dependence craziness

3

he sees her then looks away she suspiciously notices nothing happens they go back to their separate homes alone always home alone grown calm in resignation yet disbelieving of this destiny saddened by this fate both worry about future she looks at her face naked body in mirror her stomach churns feels sad sickening remembers time when she was more carefree he puts one foot in front of other then walks tries to remember who taught him to walk how many times did he fall who taught him to laugh where did his sense of humor go

4

he sees her thinks she is lovely resists the urge to turn away he smiles says hello she notices nervously smiles her shaky voice articulates louder than a whisper hi

Tucson 2-step

they are standing in line at a café on 4th avenue he is directly behind her she is lanky wearing white background faded colors patterned summer dress thin straps over bare shoulders long brown hair few gray strands small unfinished tattoo on left calf leather slip-ons 1 inch heals he is at a complete loss for words thinks to make remark about the weather decides not to overhead fan stirs hot humid July air barista girl asks what she would like her eyes scan blackboard menu behind counter she hesitates remarks help him i need an extra moment to decide he steps up to counter money in hand orders small to go Arnold Palmer half black current lays $3 on counter mentions change goes in tip jar thank you barista girl moves fast he lifts cup from counter glances at woman still deciding then at barista girl says have a wonderful day turns walks out door dawns on him woman grows hair under her arms his 2nd most compelling female physique adornment fetish oh god he thinks to himself should i wait for her to make up her mind then approach try to craft conversation at least find out her name no i’m too weak in this moment she is so lovely let her go

2

she orders double Americana in small cup to go room for soy milk thinks to herself he did greet her perhaps their paths will cross on street why did he run off so fast she glances toward front of café notices window seat changes her mind instructs barista ******* 2nd thought make it for here digs through purse realizes she left wallet in truck explains to barista girl she needs to run out to her vehicle to retrieve wallet forgotten under front seat the air on the street is heavy dense she smells her own perspiration looks north then south does not see him walks to truck feels exhausted appetiteless almost nauseous wishes she did not order a drink thinks to get behind wheel drive home go to sleep

Tucson 3-step tango

she feels disappointment by her recent writings as if she is reaching a more sophisticated audience and setting a higher standard for her work yet she is not living up to her ambitions her recent writings smell of her past writings too emotional the damaged woman wounded child she wants to write more introspectively with detached humor that only comes from keener intelligence she slams her laptop shut decides to go to Club Congress for a ****** mary or margarita but Club Congress is haunted with small town cretins losers wannabes she considers Maynard’s decides Maynard’s is too safe suburban yuppyish finally gives in to thought of glass of pinot noir at Plush next comes what to wear jeans in mid-July desert heat is unacceptable perhaps loose fitting thin cotton white summer dress thin leather belt ankle high indian moccasins hair in ponytail no pigtail braids no ponytail no makeup maybe little ylang ylang oil no she thinks about her recent writings

2

i am one breath away from crying in every moment one breath away from flying m.i.a. in every moment one breath away from destroying everything there is beauty in ugliness beauty in decrepitude disease beauty in harm hurt suffering beauty in greed injustice betrayal beauty in corruption contamination pollution beauty in hate cruelty ignorance beauty in death we spend our whole lives searching for a good death we spend our whole lives searching for eternal love this modern world is too much for me over my head the horrors of this place are beyond words unspeakable voice inside maybe mom yells quit your whining or dad hollers stop complaining i am trying to smile through tears one breath away from giving in one breath away from becoming stranger to myself winter spring winter spring there is beauty in nothingness we spend our whole lives searching for ourselves learning who we are not finding grasping secrets from dark paths light trails winter spring winter spring i am one breath away

3

she sits alone at bar at Plush glass of pinot noir glass of ice water in front of her 2 bearded older men eye her from other end of bar she ignores them glances at her wristwatch tries to look like she is waiting for someone music from speakers antiquated rock standard it is early friday hours from dusk moderate middle aged crowd mingle wait for local jazz trio to begin she thinks about her recent writings wonders is it too late for love considers lesbian affair from 5 different perspectives 5 woman’s voices each describing same lesbian affair in 5 opposing accounts hmmm she sips dark red wine from glass chases it with ice water she considers a story about a gang of female bikers who ride south to Mexico

4

the Americans came through here last night crossing border illegally climbing over our fences digging tunnels beneath our barrier walls littering along their trail they travel in packs of every skin color carry guns knives explosives wear leather boots some are shirtless tattoos dyed hair mischievously smiling conceitedly stealing when in question murdering they rob our homes slaughter our chickens ransack gardens loot our harvest you can still smell the stink of their fast food breaths

5

she swallows the last dark red wine from glass chases it with ice water local jazz trio begins to play as bar fills with more people she decides to walk home one foot in front of other wonders who taught her how to walk how many times did she fall she laughs to herself

Tucson square dance

TPD 10-18 unconfirmed data report

7 post-University of Arizona female graduates go to Cactus Moon for several drinks and dancing then drive to Bashful Bandit for more drinks and dancing 2 women get into scuffle victim Brittany Garner female 23 years of age race #5 (Native American, Eskimo, Middle -Eastern, Other) 5’ 2” long black hair cut-off blue jean shorts clingy light blue top falls hits head on side of bar dies of fatal blow to skull forensics report crushed occipital lobe assailant Stacy Won female 31 years of age race #4 (Asian) 5’6” black jeans black leather jacket red helmet Honda motorcycle still at large

witness accounts

Jess Delaney female 33 years of age race #2 (White) 6’ tight black pencil skirt white sleeveless undershirt no bra 3” heels blond ponytail “that squirting little **** deserves everything she got she lied told Stacy i’m a ***** i never cheated on Brittany i don’t understand we were all having a good time getting buzzed and dancing we should never have left Cactus Moon **** Kerrie thought some biker dude might be hanging around the Bandit hell maybe the Bandit was a biker bar once but now it’s just a college sink hole full of drunken frat boys when Monique flashed a little *** they went crazy cheering and buying us shots it just got out of hand never should have happened the way it happened Stacy didn’t mean to **** Brittany it’s ****** up i want to go home please let me go home”

Sabrina Starn female 29 years of age race #2 (White) 5’8” trendy corporate gray suit black pumps red shoulder length hair “i have to be at work at 8 AM Stacy was drunk out of control she gets crazy when she drinks Brittany was trash talking pushing all Stacy’s buttons then Stacy accused Brittany of sleeping with Monique and all hell broke loose i didn’t see what happened i was in the powder room it’s a terrible tragedy unfortunate accident can i please be released i need to sleep this is madness”

Kerrie Angeles female 27 years of age race #1 (Hispanic) 5’ 6” black pants white shirt black hair cut stylishly short silver crucifix around neck red fingernails “when we got to the Bashful Bandit i was ***** soaking between my legs thinking about a cowgirl at Cactus Moon ready to **** anyone i saw fantasized pulling a train with those frat boys Monique had been kind of quiet at Cactus Moon but when we got to the Bashful Bandit she lit up dancing wild unbuttoning her top jacket Sabrina went to the ladies room to snort coke with biker dude Kerrie wanted but he wasn’t into her then Brittany started saying crazy stuff accusing Stacy of stealing Monique from Jess Jessie goes through women heartlessly she doesn’t give a **** about Monique Jessie knows if she wants Monique back she can simply fiddle a finger my guess is Stacy is half way to Argentina she never meant to **** Brittany i’m going to miss her real bad she was a good kid”

Ann Skyler female 28 years of age race  #2 (White) 4’ 11’’ green white red Mexican peasant skirt black t-shirt black high-tops hair in messy bun “i’m confused i saw them dancing laughing grinding up against each other Rage Against the Machine came on then Nine Inch Nails the room felt quaking dizzy claustrophobic then they were pushing each other shoving yelling frat boys cheering the next thing i knew Brittany was supine on the floor blood pouring out maybe she just slipped hit her head i don’t know what to think i feel real sad confused sick to my stomach scared”

Monique Smithson female 24 years of age race # 3 (Black) 5’ 9” blue jeans jean jacket cowboy boots nose ring braided pigtails “Stacy had it in for Brittany from the start i saw it in her eyes at Cactus Moon she made several clever toxic remarks they snapped at each other i never thought it would escalate to ****** poor sweet Brittany was always so susceptible i was looking down adjusting my jeans over my boots when it happened i heard felt a big thump glanced up Brittany was lying there lifeless blood spilling everywhere Stacy ran out fast i heard her bike engine take off in a hurry”

Rodeo Drive Tucson

matt’s hats tom’s tools & tobacco lou’s liquors fred’s beds frank’s planks bill’s drills jane’s drains & panes chuck’s check cashing cheryl’s barrels hank’s tanks tina’s trucks & tractors walt’s asphalt sean’s pawn rick’s rifles mom’s guns terry’s tires charlie’s harleys rhonda’s hondas jim’s rims art’s parts gus’s gasoline mike’s bikes frank’s feed gwen’s pens ann’s cans nancy’s nursery joes‘s clothes jess’s dresses bert’s skirts steve’s sleeves paul’s shawls michelle’s shells & bells al’s pails & snails sam’s hams & jams patty’s pancakes phil’s chili don’s donuts betty’s spaghetti bob’s burgers alycia’s quiches jean’s beans jerry’s berries anna’s bananas andy’s candies cathy’s taffies tony’s ponies roy’s toys kim’s whims marty’s parties jill’s pills rick’s tricks alice’s palace debbie’s disposal dave’s graves

Quinta Waltz de Tucson

she is definitely displeased profoundly disappointed in her latest literary efforts she dreams aches to create deeper discourse higher insight more thoughtful philosophical inquiries about life’s challenges beauty a better world overpowering love inspiration instead she writes paperback television trash stupid inadequate answers to solemn questions she wonders if she is too scratched dented to find love her ******* are definitely changing she is deeply disturbed not ready for menopause too young for menopause she wants to remain a fertile woman with smooth skin wet ******

2

her neighbor Leslie awoke to horrible morning Leslie’s 6 chickens were assaulted overnight precious Mabel dragged off feathers everywhere trail down the street other hens cowering slumped together with wilted necks 3 of them with puncture wounds Leslie carried them one by one inside washed their wounds hugged them cried who did this terrible act a neglected abusive neighborhood cat or some desert predator why didn’t Leslie wake to sounds of savage marauding now this creature knows hen’s whereabouts when will it return for more massacre what modifications need to be enforced to ensure their coup before nightfall

3

she wants to remain a hen keep producing eggs does not want is not ready to enter the next **** stage of this **** existence it was fun being pretty for men inspiring them to say do whacky things she wants to remain a hen she is definitely displeased profoundly disappointed in her latest literary attempts “Tucson square dance” (self-referential) ****** bit about Americans came through here last night in “Tucson 3-step” ****** "Rodeo Drive" tepid perhaps the pinot noir lowered her standards everything is becoming nothing she cannot sleep tosses turns thrashes sheets in humid heat of her lonesome bed is she is too scratched dented to find love she worries for Leslie

4

tomorrow is another day they say the rain will come last year’s monsoon never came the baking sun smothered her garden died one by one sleepless she will miss tomorrow’s pilates class the infrequent delightful chatty breakfast afterwards she dreams aches of deeper discourse higher insight with detached humor that only comes from keener intelligence more thoughtful philosophical inquiries about life’s challenges beauty a better world overpowering love inspiration she crossed the line tonight her ******* are definitely changing

Tucson 666

he decides to shave eighth to quarter inch length salt and pepper beard a.k.a. unshaven look he has worn for years and grow full mustache the whiskers on his upper lip are darker with sparse gray at first no one notices after weeks the mustache gradually fills evoking many contrasting remarks several women loath it several men admire it girl at grocery store suggests he grow Fu Manchu so she can tug on it shopgirl says he looks like Charlie Chaplin downstairs neighbor from Turkey explains most Turkish men traditionally wear mustaches he read mustaches masculinize and empower men especially men in authoritative positions he thinks back to the 1960’s when many hippie males grew mustaches then in the 70’s gay men fashioned mustaches then in the 80’s cops adopted mustaches he wonders why a swatch of hair beneath nose is so provoking examines his visage in mirror discerns the mustache confers a Pepé le Pew quality or European accent to his appearance he remembers when he was young hippie with many amorous episodes how his mustache preserved the scent of a woman but there are no women in his life for many years do post-menopausal women possess scent? he feels indecisive whether to retain it or be rid of it

2

she observes her figure in mirror thinks to herself maybe her ******* are not changing perhaps it’s all in her head she inspects the little lines forming near her eyelids studies her features for signs of aging hardly any silver strands in long brown hair she examines neck ******* arms elbows fingers tummy hips pelvic region thighs knees shins calves ankles feet detects subtle changes thinks to herself my ******* are possibly slightly changing turned 40 in March married briefly in late teens no children a 15 year old dog beginning to suffer veterinarian promises to warn her when the time comes she wonders why it is so difficult finding fitting mate men sleep with her several times then move on maybe she is not such a great lover perhaps she would be better if one of them stuck around perhaps she is a lesbian the whole ide

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
I

THAT is no country for old men.  The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
-- Those dying generations -- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out Of nature I shall never take
My ****** form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

WHAT shall I do with this absurdity --
O heart, O troubled heart -- this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible --
No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,
Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's back
And had the livelong summer day to spend.
It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,
Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend
Until imagination, ear and eye,
Can be content with argument and deal
In abstract things; or be derided by
A sort of battered kettle at the heel.
I pace upon the battlements and stare
On the foundations of a house, or where
Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;
And send imagination forth
Under the day's declining beam, and call
Images and memories
From ruin or from ancient trees,
For I would ask a question of them all.
Beyond that ridge lived Mrs.  French, and once
When every silver candlestick or sconce
Lit up the dark mahogany and the wine.
A serving-man, that could divine
That most respected lady's every wish,
Ran and with the garden shears
Clipped an insolent farmer's ears
And brought them in a little covered dish.
Some few remembered still when I was young
A peasant girl commended by a Song,
Who'd lived somewhere upon that rocky place,
And praised the colour of her face,
And had the greater joy in praising her,
Remembering that, if walked she there,
Farmers jostled at the fair
So great a glory did the song confer.
And certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,
Or else by toasting her a score of times,
Rose from the table and declared it right
To test their fancy by their sight;
But they mistook the brightness of the moon
For the prosaic light of day --
Music had driven their wits astray --
And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.
Strange, but the man who made the song was blind;
Yet, now I have considered it, I find
That nothing strange; the tragedy began
With Homer that was a blind man,
And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.
O may the moon and sunlight seem
One inextricable beam,
For if I triumph I must make men mad.
And I myself created Hanrahan
And drove him drunk or sober through the dawn
From somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.
Caught by an old man's juggleries
He stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro
And had but broken knees for hire
And horrible splendour of desire;
I thought it all out twenty years ago:
Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;
And when that ancient ruffian's turn was on
He so bewitched the cards under his thumb
That all but the one card became
A pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,
And that he changed into a hare.
Hanrahan rose in frenzy there
And followed up those baying creatures towards --
O towards I have forgotten what -- enough!
I must recall a man that neither love
Nor music nor an enemy's clipped ear
Could, he was so harried, cheer;
A figure that has grown so fabulous
There's not a neighbour left to say
When he finished his dog's day:
An ancient bankrupt master of this house.
Before that ruin came, for centuries,
Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the knees
Or shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,
And certain men-at-arms there were
Whose images, in the Great Memory stored,
Come with loud cry and panting breast
To break upon a sleeper's rest
While their great wooden dice beat on the board.
As I would question all, come all who can;
Come old, necessitous.  half-mounted man;
And bring beauty's blind rambling celebrant;
The red man the juggler sent
Through God-forsaken meadows; Mrs.  French,
Gifted with so fine an ear;
The man drowned in a bog's mire,
When mocking Muses chose the country *****.
Did all old men and women, rich and poor,
Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,
Whether in public or in secret rage
As I do now against old age?
But I have found an answer in those eyes
That are impatient to be gone;
Go therefore; but leave Hanrahan,
For I need all his mighty memories.
Old lecher with a love on every wind,
Bring up out of that deep considering mind
All that you have discovered in the grave,
For it is certain that you have
Reckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing
plunge, lured by a softening eye,
Or by a touch or a sigh,
Into the labyrinth of another's being;
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost.?
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
Or anything called conscience once;
And that if memory recur, the sun's
Under eclipse and the day blotted out.

III
It is time that I wrote my will;
I choose upstanding men
That climb the streams until
The fountain leap, and at dawn
Drop their cast at the side
Of dripping stone; I declare
They shall inherit my pride,
The pride of people that were
Bound neither to Cause nor to State.
Neither to slaves that were spat on,
Nor to the tyrants that spat,
The people of Burke and of Grattan
That gave, though free to refuse --
pride, like that of the morn,
When the headlong light is loose,
Or that of the fabulous horn,
Or that of the sudden shower
When all streams are dry,
Or that of the hour
When the swan must fix his eye
Upon a fading gleam,
Float out upon a long
Last reach of glittering stream
And there sing his last song.
And I declare my faith:
I mock plotinus' thought
And cry in plato's teeth,
Death and life were not
Till man made up the whole,
Made lock, stock and barrel
Out of his bitter soul,
Aye, sun and moon and star, all,
And further add to that
That, being dead, we rise,
Dream and so create
Translunar paradise.
I have prepared my peace
With learned Italian things
And the proud stones of Greece,
Poet's imaginings
And memories of love,
Memories of the words of women,
All those things whereof
Man makes a superhuman,
Mirror-resembling dream.
As at the loophole there
The daws chatter and scream,
And drop twigs layer upon layer.
When they have mounted up,
The mother bird will rest
On their hollow top,
And so warm her wild nest.
I leave both faith and pride
To young upstanding men
Climbing the mountain-side,
That under bursting dawn
They may drop a fly;
Being of that metal made
Till it was broken by
This sedentary trade.
Now shall I make my soul,
Compelling it to study
In a learned school
Till the wreck of body,
Slow decay of blood,
Testy delirium
Or dull decrepitude,
Or what worse evil come --
The death of friends, or death
Of every brilliant eye
That made a catch in the breath -- .
Seem but the clouds of the sky
When the horizon fades;
Or a bird's sleepy cry
Among the deepening shades.
THE TOWER
I
HDRWHAT shall I do with this absurdity --
O heart, O troubled heart -- this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible --
No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,
Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's back
And had the livelong summer day to spend.
It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,
Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend
Until imagination, ear and eye,
Can be content with argument and deal
In abstract things; or be derided by
A sort of battered kettle at the heel.
I pace upon the battlements and stare
On the foundations of a house, or where
Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from the earth;
And send imagination forth
Under the day's declining beam, and call
Images and memories
From ruin or from ancient trees,
For I would ask a question of them all.
Beyond that ridge lived Mrs.  French, and once
When every silver candlestick or sconce
Lit up the dark mahogany and the wine.
A serving-man, that could divine
That most respected lady's every wish,
Ran and with the garden shears
Clipped an insolent farmer's ears
And brought them in a little covered dish.
Some few remembered still when I was young
A peasant girl commended by a Song,
Who'd lived somewhere upon that rocky place,
And praised the colour of her face,
And had the greater joy in praising her,
Remembering that, if walked she there,
Farmers jostled at the fair
So great a glory did the song confer.
And certain men, being maddened by those rhymes,
Or else by toasting her a score of times,
Rose from the table and declared it right
To test their fancy by their sight;
But they mistook the brightness of the moon
For the prosaic light of day --
Music had driven their wits astray --
And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone.
Strange, but the man who made the song was blind;
Yet, now I have considered it, I find
That nothing strange; the tragedy began
With Homer that was a blind man,
And Helen has all living hearts betrayed.
O may the moon and sunlight seem
One inextricable beam,
For if I triumph I must make men mad.
And I myself created Hanrahan
And drove him drunk or sober through the dawn
From somewhere in the neighbouring cottages.
Caught by an old man's juggleries
He stumbled, tumbled, fumbled to and fro
And had but broken knees for hire
And horrible splendour of desire;
I thought it all out twenty years ago:
Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn;
And when that ancient ruffian's turn was on
He so bewitched the cards under his thumb
That all but the one card became
A pack of hounds and not a pack of cards,
And that he changed into a hare.
Hanrahan rose in frenzy there
And followed up those baying creatures towards --
O towards I have forgotten what -- enough!
I must recall a man that neither love
Nor music nor an enemy's clipped ear
Could, he was so harried, cheer;
A figure that has grown so fabulous
There's not a neighbour left to say
When he finished his dog's day:
An ancient bankrupt master of this house.
Before that ruin came, for centuries,
Rough men-at-arms, cross-gartered to the knees
Or shod in iron, climbed the narrow stairs,
And certain men-at-arms there were
Whose images, in the Great Memory stored,
Come with loud cry and panting breast
To break upon a sleeper's rest
While their great wooden dice beat on the board.
As I would question all, come all who can;
Come old, necessitous.  half-mounted man;
And bring beauty's blind rambling celebrant;
The red man the juggler sent
Through God-forsaken meadows; Mrs.  French,
Gifted with so fine an ear;
The man drowned in a bog's mire,
When mocking Muses chose the country *****.
Did all old men and women, rich and poor,
Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,
Whether in public or in secret rage
As I do now against old age?
But I have found an answer in those eyes
That are impatient to be gone;
Go therefore; but leave Hanrahan,
For I need all his mighty memories.
Old lecher with a love on every wind,
Bring up out of that deep considering mind
All that you have discovered in the grave,
For it is certain that you have
Reckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing
plunge, lured by a softening eye,
Or by a touch or a sigh,
Into the labyrinth of another's being;
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost.?
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
Or anything called conscience once;
And that if memory recur, the sun's
Under eclipse and the day blotted out.
III
It is time that I wrote my will;
I choose upstanding men
That climb the streams until
The fountain leap, and at dawn
Drop their cast at the side
Of dripping stone; I declare
They shall inherit my pride,
The pride of people that were
Bound neither to Cause nor to State.
Neither to slaves that were spat on,
Nor to the tyrants that spat,
The people of Burke and of Grattan
That gave, though free to refuse --
pride, like that of the morn,
When the headlong light is loose,
Or that of the fabulous horn,
Or that of the sudden shower
When all streams are dry,
Or that of the hour
When the swan must fix his eye
Upon a fading gleam,
Float out upon a long
Last reach of glittering stream
And there sing his last song.
And I declare my faith:
I mock plotinus' thought
And cry in plato's teeth,
Death and life were not
Till man made up the whole,
Made lock, stock and barrel
Out of his bitter soul,
Aye, sun and moon and star, all,
And further add to that
That, being dead, we rise,
Dream and so create
Translunar paradise.
I have prepared my peace
With learned Italian things
And the proud stones of Greece,
Poet's imaginings
And memories of love,
Memories of the words of women,
All those things whereof
Man makes a superhuman,
Mirror-resembling dream.
As at the loophole there
The daws chatter and scream,
And drop twigs layer upon layer.
When they have mounted up,
The mother bird will rest
On their hollow top,
And so warm her wild nest.
I leave both faith and pride
To young upstanding men
Climbing the mountain-side,
That under bursting dawn
They may drop a fly;
Being of that metal made
Till it was broken by
This sedentary trade.
Now shall I make my soul,
Compelling it to study
In a learned school
Till the wreck of body,
Slow decay of blood,
Testy delirium
Or dull decrepitude,
Or what worse evil come --
The death of friends, or death
Of every brilliant eye
That made a catch in the breath -- .
Seem but the clouds of the sky
When the horizon fades;
Or a bird's sleepy cry
Among the deepening shades.

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
****** decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

Bite me, Baby.
Take me down
Into your viral, hungry Limbo.
There we'll eat
The noisy neighbors
Wander through the streets
All night.
Naked but for
What cloth hangs on
To our slim decrepitude.
Bite me, Baby.
Hell don't want us.
Heaven's iffy
Anyway.
We won't need no shoes
Or money

I pose high my chest of ragged ribbons
And unravel a fist to stretch out fingers in search
Of a hand glimmering pale like a lantern
throughout this grey
        empty space. Once a pavement, now as good as

Cloud. Frozen lake. Dust. Boiling ashes. Skeletons.

I am walking on the slashed frames of waves
As jesus once must have. Propelled to a miracle unwitnessned
To anyone but myself. I am impelled to corrode
Into a statue; to remain a rigamortic rotting jade jewel in the sun
Until I no longer can.
Until they found me...

Perhaps they'd dust me off, thaw the ice from my shoulders,
Rehydrate me and gorge me,
Restart the blinking light in my brain
And refrain me evermore from having to seek.

But seek I must, for the lonliness weighs me down
Further by the day. I take half as many steps now as when I began my voyage.
My memories are like ghosts of flames that play
Snakes and ladders and hide and seek.
I am the lighthouse man and I sail drunken--
A rubicund mishape of bone and scuffed thoughts,
I can feel every soul which once embodied and huddled this place.

It's like they are trying so hard to posses me but even
Their souls have been smouldered to whispers
So thin they ring as mutely as the surrounding mist,
So soft they vibrate akin to an infant’s pulse
Throughout these walls, these scrapyards, these crumbling arcades, this sandbox grey that begs for a scream.
The spirit of a tarantula trembles along my back and grazes it teeth against my shoulderblade,
Preying that I turn to confirm it's being –but it's a game I’ve long grown sick of–


I am the lighthouse man and I ceased having a face long ago.
What I recall of my reflection was a child so young and so sure
Of a different life that

I cannot be sure it's even me.

I am the lighthouse man; a puckered bulb balancing on too-big shoulders, that walked
  through barren flat closes and exited empty handed, the lonely poltergeist,
a bitter flab of skin.

I am the lighthouse man and I am the final Aspen leaf in the pond of the universe,
I see myself reflected in a sole star twirling underfoot and overhead
rowing my ears so thick with disfigured silence so that I wish I was born deaf.
I am the lighthouse man and my mind is a spinning fragment
    my eyes can merely follow and my floating steps merely trail.

It never changes tone here, I can only vaguely trace the time
By the occasional moon. Tonight it shines half chewed,
  Befitting the levelled star a sideways crown.
It is beautiful but I mustn't stop to admire, lest a survivor
Scavenger loses patience withholding the last of their scran.

I am the lighthouse man and I haven't eaten in years.

I am the lighthouse man and I bled for the first time yestardy.
I am the lighthouse man and my bulb ricocheted off the base of my skull
In a telling fairy tale dream. I felt static in my head
And my light's ink spilled across my hands and for a minute I thought
My light had gone out. I tasted blood,
Trickled down from my stinging nose and I had never been so scared.

I am the lighthouse man and I never knew I could die.

I am the lighthouse man. Once the world danced with magic and I was
A walking satellite that grew to want to dissapear.
I am the lighthouse man and my decrepitude is casted in my hands:
Black as the night from the dirt collected over the years.
The few slashes of skin clear enough to see look rust-like and obtrusive, outdone only by
My veins like wonky bruises that vine across the silhouetted bone;
Bridging gear to gear, clinking shivering knuckles
         That want nothing more than to surrender.

But I am only frostbit, not frozen.
Life was and thus must still be.
I am a raindrop, not the whole ocean.

I am a walking lighthouse inspecting and guiding empty seas,
A form without virtue
That ceased feeling it's metallic steps too long ago to recall.
A cubist teardrop falling down a grey giant's cheek,
Waiting to be captured and swallowed.

Or perhaps I am climbing uphill, slowly along the circumference of his forehead.
So slowly I cannot notice the rise. Perhaps I was destined to amble in hypnosis,
En route on this colourless limboid curve until I forget the concept of
             a destination, a soul, a matryr jester to rouse me awake...
             and perhaps it is then that I will be blessed with the heavenly bulb

Of the weeping giant on whom's flesh I disturb.
I am the lighthouse man and I dream of purpose.

I am the the lighthouse man with a penchance to levitate
I am the lighthouse man and I am a God without tool or reason.
I am the lighthouse man and I'll walk this limbo until my feet dissapear.

I am the lighthouse man and I am cursed.
I am the lighthouse man transitioning between lives and never knowing
Causality nor the answer. There are no questions to have;

I am the lighthouse man and I must have been a murderer in my past life.
I am the lighthouse man and I can feel my inner fuses twist,
Falling fainter and fainter by the second.
I am the lighthouse man and I will not make it another night.
I am the lighthouse man and I am a memory-bank full of nothing remarkable.
If I felt this months ago then perhaps I would make due with the my sojourn of an empty house, atop a parked car, and perhaps I would be contempt with rotting.

But now the moon shines so luminously bright and full and close! So very close!
I am the lighthouse man and I chase the moon.
I am the lighthouse man and I vaguely recall my mother saying 'do not eat the moon,
It will give you nightmares!’ and it all suddenly makes sense now.

The stars are all out tonight and they await my company. I am the lighthouse man and now I run.
I run run run run for the sky in ode to the rest of the bodies that abandoned this place.

she feels disappointment in her recent writings as if she is reaching a more sophisticated audience and setting a higher standard for her work yet she is not living up to her ambitions her recent writings smell of her past writing too emotional the damaged woman wounded child she wants to write more introspectively with detached humor that only comes from keener intelligence she slams her laptop shut decides to go to club congress for a ****** mary or margarita but club congress is haunted with small town cretins losers wannabes she considers maynard’s decides maynard’s is too safe suburban yuppyish finally gives in to thought of glass of pinot noir at plush next comes what to wear jeans in late july desert heat is unacceptable perhaps a loose fitting thin cotton white summer dress leather sandals hair in ponytail no pigtail braids no ponytail no makeup maybe a little mascara not she thinks about her recent writings

2

i am one breath away from crying in every moment one breath away from flying m.i.a. in every moment one breath away from destroying everything there is beauty in ugliness beauty in decrepitude disease beauty in harm hurt suffering beauty in greed injustice betrayal beauty in corruption contamination pollution beauty in hate cruelty ignorance beauty in death we spend our whole lives searching for a good death we spend our whole lives searching for eternal love this modern world is too much for me over my head the horrors of this place are beyond words unspeakable a voice inside maybe mom yells quit your whining or dad hollers stop complaining i am trying to smile through tears one breath away from giving in one breath away from becoming a stranger to myself winter spring winter spring there is beauty in nothingness we spend our whole lives searching for ourselves learning who we are not finding grasping secrets from dark paths light trails winter spring winter spring i am one breath away

3

she sits alone at the air-conditioned bar at plush glass of pinot noir glass of ice water in front of her 2 bearded older men eye her from other end of bar she ignores them glances at her wristwatch tries to look like she is waiting for someone music from speakers antiquated rock standard it is early friday hours from dusk a moderate middle aged crowd mingle wait for local jazz trio to begin she thinks about her recent writings wonders is it too late for love considers a lesbian affair from 5 different perspectives 5 woman’s voices each describing the same lesbian affair in 5 opposing accounts hmmm she sips dark red wine from glass chases it with ice water she considers a story about a gang of female bikers who ride south to Mexico

4

the Americans came through here last night crossing the border illegally climbing over our fences digging tunnels beneath our barrier walls littering along their trails they travel in packs of every skin color carry guns knives explosives wear leather boots some are shirtless tattoos dyed hair mischievously smiling conceitedly stealing when in question murdering they rob our homes slaughter our chickens ransack gardens loot our harvest you can still smell the stink of their fast food breaths

5

she swallows the last dark red wine from glass chases it with ice water local jazz trio begins to play as bar fills with more people she decides to walk home one foot in front of other wonders who taught her how to walk how many times did she fall she laughs to herself

They installed locks
handed you keys.
Hold them, silver, golden,
shaking with dis-ease.

A vision of the Earth outside.

Squinting in a dark hallway,
why not turn the ***,
nudge yourself inside?

Someone paid for you to live here,
a father, mother, or friend.

Your chain of life extends far backwards
but on this side it must end.

You may have felt forever,
trapped with your despair,
between rough crust,
precious residue
floating in air.
Pressure can't hold us
with clouds
and shapes from dreams.

We'll soon be gone, and you will too.
Don't waste your voice with screams.

It, too, is faltering,
our voice,
our atmosphere,
hopes for exploration.
Heaving, chest
uncompensated by oxygen,
raided like sarcophagi
with your timid, spinning brain
having no peddler,
to whom to sell it?

No, your home waits here
on solid ground.
Keep your voice wrapped around you,
not in the heavens, as you'd wish.

Take off both shoes,
sit down.
Patiently inhale.
Feel worlds shifting their weight
skin, becoming pale.
Shake off saw-dust covering
your day-clothes.

Stretched
dissected.
Carpet does this to frame,
taking you through thresholds
and mindsets.

Evaporate,
see no more today.
Rain down until tomorrow
in this never-ending night
given to trees
collecting your purple-pink
and blue
dews.
Leaves bending
with gratitude
holding drops of you
aloft
before
no heat can take you up
and they,
becoming coffins
for you,
weep
and cover your dis-may.

A dashed possibility.

Like a dust moat in the sky,
preventing
a window past your mind,
what you saw standing atop
brittle decrepitude
through saccharine eyes
is shifting, impermanent,
time cannot be mistaken.

Relax.
A tear pulls
the horizon,
lightning
rips your sight.

Breathe as long as it takes
to stop breathing.

Alone, shaking.
Silver, golden.
in this eternal night.

No one re-writes directions to that fixture
out in space, yet near.
But you know it once was twirling
because you followed its light
to here.

Turn the keys they gave you
and look, inside the frame
of consciousness.
There is one artwork you create
with every facile, blinking motion
every extended being,
your thick paints of colors,
never able to be seen.

There once was chaos in man
he wanted so much to scream.
Instead he reconciled to whisper
and laugh.

Open-mouthed, blind and plodding--
there's no one to teach him how to dance--
he falls through space
alone on his rock.

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft,-
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,-
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear,
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

straight from heaven itself..
we fell
just fell straight down into the darkness.
our angel wings were pure..
they slowly became engulfed into the filthiest black as we fell further with gravity
we fell through the trees
the sharp branches slit our skin and scratched the feathers of our wings as we fell
we shattered the earths surface..
we sat staring at the strangeness...
these gentle wings drooped downward around our bodies..
softly they brushed the cracking land we sat on with their gentle tips
..the tall trees hunching their claws over us whispering curses of deceit
we once shook with fear
but now this became our realm of comfort...
porcelain tears formed at the edges of our eyes
our tears never reached the ground
these hearts that once existed
sadly crystalized
our cold stone hearts stopped beating..
our eyes turned into glossy black marbles...
we could stare right through your soul if we wanted
we were
vulnerable
deepened with sadness
a sadness that was reflected through our eyes
an emotion so deeply piercing a rusted fork trying to stab through a rib cage in a repeating jabbing motion wouldn't even compare.
longing for something that we never found.
the maps to happiness were burned with the fire of hatred
hair lay over our black mirror eyes
our radiant halos diminished radiation
they dimmed to dullness..these delicate auras we cherished
yet they were replaced...
replaced with a black aura and a pair of distorted glazed horns
those twisted manifestations
I watched them arising from that pretty little head of yours as it ruptured your scull
we matched and it made me smile
I think I felt a certain beauty for these creatures we became
our eyes glossed and down cast
we do not look up to the sun anymore because it did not exist
the moon was my favorite, it spoke in tongues
take my soul and stash it 6ft under with the decay.
we manifest the lurid .
you and I.
imperfection must have a place to go with its own kind..
because nobody wants un-ordinary
you are the only one who understands what I feel...
because we feel together..
we fell together..
we are defected as two
but we can love each other..
we love each other in this distorted form of beauty.
this frozen air representing a noose choking the trachea
the thick fog blurring our sight from paradise visions
that loveliness that we are restricted to see any more
but, this vision of darkness suits my  emotions better.
we will call this place home sweet home.
this place filled with fear.
for we cast it like a spell upon the land.
this solemn forest of decrepitude
not just evil..but conniving.
we just add onto this darkness of confused, and mentally abused.
we will find more people and start designing their headstones with their bones like name tags.
you and I.
to create our own universe of this ugly beauty we define.
together we fell.
together we will fiend.

My advice to fellow geezers?
Just say **** it!
“Roll up to the magical mystery tour!”
Just like John & Yoko!
Smoke a big fat doobie each morning.
Step out the Hogan door, just greet
The East and walk in beauty.
After a few weeks you just won’t
Give a **** anymore; just not give a ****
In general, no longer care about what’s
Not important: The Guv’ment.
Politics. The rate of unemployment.
Inflation. Even radical, freaking
Muslim Jihadist TERROR!
Yes.  Just light up, Babaloo,
Do one’s bit for the Decline &
Fall (dropped you, didn’t I?)
Let’s mourn the dying ***** goddess.
America: that shining city on a hill,
Colombia in all her senility, insolvency &
Not even D or I, just Lusions of grandeur.
Let us contemplate the decrepitude,
The crumbling, up-in-smoke spiritual infrastructure,
The USA: the United ****'s-Creek of America,
Going down, down, down . . . ALERT!
NEWS FLASH! It’s Rome & Great Britain,
It’s the update, the demise of Empire all over again.
I remember those sorry-***, pathetic Brits,
Met them all over while hitchhiking around
Europe, an intensive, closely observed tour of duty
Abroad: a gift to myself, in fact a scholarship,
I rigged for myself back in the early ‘70s.
Going abroad: once a reserved right of passage for certain,
Privileged children of the 1890s, lucky spawn from
Families known as the “Well-to-do.” And why not add:
Dubbed the “Mauve Decade" because William Henry Perkin’s
Aniline dye allowed widespread use of that color in fashion.
The "Gay Nineties,” referring to a time not of buggery, but
Merriment & optimism, & lest we forget, Twain’s “Gilded Age.”
Got the time, spare a dime, got the freaking time-frame, Mack?
It was a dark & stormy total eclipse of Jupiter.
Spiritually speaking, I was free-floating.
And what of those same-self, sad-assed &
Sorry, pathetic Brits?
Well, consider the specific years.
Experience in Europe in my early 20s,
Meant 1972, 1973 & 1974.
Surely, a time for English disillusionment,
What with the sun finally setting,
A vague, prismatic twilight time,
A virtual requiem for His or Her Majesty’s Empire,
“Rule, Britannia ... Britannia rule the waves.”
(Cue ruffles & flourishes, fifes & flugelhorns)
This was pre-North Sea Oil Bonanza days.
This was England before Mrs. Thatcher
Gave her good people a long overdue,
Richly deserved kick in the tuchas.
“The Iron Lady” they called her.
Stopped Orwell’s future, doornail dead, she did.
“Maggie’s Miracle” they called it.

Those Brits I met & knew back then,
Those “Used-to-be-Contender” types:
Self-deprecatory, apologetic & cynical,
Mocking the Union Jack,
Shedding salty tears for Lost Empire.
“This blessed plot, this earth,
This realm, this England.”
Ironic & bitter to a man,
“Gulping gin & bitters later,” observes
Current tenant occupier, 221B Baker Street,
Sherlock finding the word at last,
The definitive literary term,
That one precise mot juste, that says it all.
In a word? Sardonic.
The USA is going down, down down—
“And away goes trouble down the drain!”

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That’s right: $KA-CHING$!
An ad right in the middle of a ******* poem!
Always the sensible poet, I kept my day job.
But now in my 60’s finally figuring out:
HOW TO MAKE POETRY PAY?
Bow down to Adam Smith & Ricardo—
Not the ‘Splaine me, Cuban bandleader
Of that surname, but David, the classical economist,
The “Iron Law of Wages” guy
It’s time to make money.
Call in the Madmen.
Send in the clowns.

Mad Men – AMC - AMC.com www.amc.com/shows/mad-men Official site for AMC's award-winning series Mad Men: Games, making-of videos, plus episode & character guides.

$KA-CHING$! $KA-CHING$!

And Dan Draper: an alcoholic, chain-smoking,
***** magnet & Korean War ****-up, shifty
Name-changer, last seen at that Big Sur ashram,
The Esalen Retreat & Jingle Inspiration Center,
**** Whitman coming clean, at last:
Hovering a foot off the ground
In the lotus position, receiving **** *** from a
Coke bottle incarnation of Vishnu.

Search Results I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony ... https://en.wikipedia.org/I'dLiketoTeachtheWorld . . . Wikipedia "I'd Like to teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" is a popular song that originated as the jingle "Buy the World a Coke" in the groundbreaking 1971 ... Writer(s)‎ ‎Jon Hamm AKA Dan Draper; ‎Label‎: Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

Money: FUNGIBLE GREEN.
$KA-CHING$!

Those once sardonic Brits,
Now have Brooklyn accents.
We’re going down the drain, Babaloo!
The barbarians are at the gates,
A horde of hunger, a ******* rabble,
Green-eyed monsters, envying America’s poor,
Craving what little Uncle Sam’s indigenous poor have left,
Ragtag migrants, short, dark compañeros,
Swarthy Huns & Visigoths,
Whitman's last yawp, the last gasp breath of
Work Ethos, be it Protestant or Papist,
A colossal mélange of famine, hope & prayer,
The usual suspects: “Your tired, your poor,
Your wretched refuse & solid waste,
Your huddled, yearning masses.”
My advice to Emma--Sephardic-Ashkenazi,
Proto-Zionist, years before Herzl:
Get yourself a nightclub act, Ms. Lazarus.

America: I am hidden in a high grass savannah,
I watch the hyenas pick your carcass clean.
Adam Smith: he displaced the term greed--
Smacking as it does of deadly sin baggage—
Replaced the term Greed with Self-Interest.
And the only invisible hand I know of is
Down my pants, jerking me off,
Mesmerized by slogans, divine metaphors, like:
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” a Big Lie, for example.
Today’s economists call it “The Multiplier Effect.”
You pay me and I pay him & he pays he or she,
Merry Goes Round, Goes Round & Round the Merry-Ground.
All is just so cool & groovy,
Life is just a copacetic bowl of copacetic until
Some self-interested ****-*** decides to export
Your ******* job right out of the country:
Casus belli? Most certainly. Class warfare,
Always our hitherto history.
It’s not like that fat slob Michael Moore never warned us.

**Roger & Me (1989) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/ Internet Movie Database  Rating: 7.5/10 - ‎22,470 votes Director Michael Moore pursues GM CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the harm ... Roger & Me -- Michael Moore's controversial but popular film is a highly ... Plot Summary - ‎Quotes - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards

From shelves and racks, or lying in stacks, Books,
Of all ages and epochs—adolescents and youths,
Aged and venerable, and e’en those in decrepitude,
Much eloquent, but in all silence, share with us
Experiences wide ranging, emotions well pent up,
Passions, love and hate, and joys and sufferings,
Triumphs, failings, histories, biographies and maxims.

A pat or stroke, or appeal in awe, or in supplication,
They’d unleash to you, in varied moods and temper,
Their stories, in letters, words, phrases, sentences;
In prose or verse on folios, or in acts and scenes,
Of Helens, Quixotes, Falstaffs, Holmes and Othellos,
In the highs and lows of their pleasures and pathos,
Of Lears, Tristans and Isoldes, and procrastinators.

Of the plucks and spirits of Arjunas and Achilleses,
Of the failings of the ill-fated Kareninas and Bovaries,
Of the unwavering faith of Jobs, Noahs and Abrahams,
Of the lovelorn Sakunthalas, and Sitas under Simsupa,
Of God’s Garden, and of the wisdom of the Himalaya,
They speak in silence, of the real and the imagined,
As mighty godlike genies waiting for our summons!

Call me stricken
by her
          my favorite color.

I want to fill my ears with static
to give my thoughts some room to move
and my eyes monochromatic
with an artistic side to prove


She writes
like shes giving
Noah Webster a *******,
her labyrinthine constructions
of consonants and vowels,
leading in circles
obliterating disbelief,
and I
          AM

the words.


She tastes like ***
and nostalgia
nauseating my pages,
wearing thin over keystrokes,
repetition,
               the mother of decrepitude
so my muse
               decimates my thoughts
          one in ten
     one in ten
one in ten
*CRACK

From shelves and racks, or lying in stacks, Books,
Of all ages and epochs—adolescents and youths,
Aged and venerable, and e’en those in decrepitude,
Much eloquent, but in all silence, share with us
Experiences wide ranging, emotions well pent up,
Passions, love and hate, and joys and sufferings,
Triumphs, failings, histories, biographies and maxims.

A pat or stroke, or appeal in awe, or in supplication,
They’d unleash to you, in varied moods and temper,
Their stories, in letters, words, phrases, sentences;
In prose or verse on folios, or in acts and scenes,
Of Helens, Quixotes, Falstaffs, Holmes and Othellos,
In the highs and lows of their pleasures and pathos,
Of Lears, Tristans and Isoldes, and procrastinators.

Of the plucks and spirits of Arjunas and Achilleses,
Of the failings of the ill-fated Kareninas and Bovaries,
Of the unwavering faith of Jobs, Noahs and Abrahams,
Of the lovelorn Sakunthalas, and Sitas under Simsupa,
Of God’s Garden, and of the wisdom of the Himalaya,
They speak in silence, of the real and the imagined,
As mighty godlike genies waiting for our summons!

Where regrets ice over,
The disemboweled freedom rings:
Strolling down defunct bridges,
Unseeing by the dismembered dolls, and orphaned house shoes,
Sycophantic candy wrappers boomeranging,
Piano notes tumbling by on dusty wings.
The air current adds a gauzy, cheap thrill.
Detoured and lost again, casting off the surplus as you go;
The rattle and clatter of the dirt raising roads,
Trying to remember what to disown and
What to abandon in the wake of leaves,
And random shimmers from old butterfly trails.
The forgotten hopes pooled, where you once spent a day
In decisive despair, and decrepitude.
The vacant future come tumbling;
Not so much unexpected, as unwelcome
The loose ends dragging
Bird song remnants, cottonwood pollen,
Unspoken dearness, and unintended consequences.
The key glitters its way to the shallow bottom of the river
I watch it going down, with a half smile-
I stopped marking time ages ago, in my half-life.

one word. one thing
shows up on my face.

everybody knows it is a
keepsake:
keep away from me today,
for fks sake!

certain peculiarmornings
wake with a cross on forehead.

days when you certain,
everything worth saying
has been written, sung,
not a **** thing left to
contribute, except whining.

no way to purge, the compulsion
welling up, coursing down.
this overwhelms, my outlet store,
permanent closed, sign says
don’t ya know it’s a recession.

a one man recession.
no government intervention
gonna come my way.

the notion that I’ll never just
once more, feel the thrill of a
first love, a new born progeny,
woman, baby, poem, no diff,
wrecks me badly, worried sun consults
my animal friends, what’s to be done?

knowing the answer to my curse is,
not one wiling to courage to curettage
the lining of my decrepitude,
the end then, of no more next time.

though there is a first here. ever.
first time, every stanza writ,
closed off, finally ended, with a flourish,
a puncture of a period.

~~~~~~~~

postscript:


the closing scheduled for now,
have to change the name, says York,
it’s the common law, I’m legal bound,
gonna sign the documents as
no more love poetry.

919am Wed Jul 22 2020

My bus pass came today
I got it through the post
I take the bus 'bout every day
More frequently than most.

It's nice to have a bus pass
Means I don't have to pay
But there's this other feeling
Knew it would come one day

It's that bus pass lying there
Says to me "You're old!
The government has got you now
In a werewolf's hold

Now everything is regulated
Housing, pension, care
And if there's no bed for you to die in
They'll leave you lying there

They'll sigh in young frustration
As they pass you in the street
They'll laugh because you're old
With unsure, fumbling feet

So take the bus, don't worry!
It'll save your legs a mile. "
But I know the younger ones
Will stand me in the aisle.

Yet I still have my pride
And Youth won't conquer me
That feeling of decrepitude?
For now, I'll leave it be.

nothing
prepares you
for
the ****** decrepitude of old age
an obscenity of
plastic bags for *****
plastic bags for *****
fear of losing
your teeth down a drain
egg white and crackers are all you keep down
grumbling old hags in the coffin queue
waiting for the shroud

Entropy hunts you down;
until around 60,
this remains abstract.
Then, it becomes fact.
"Things fall apart;"
bodies are things.
Hearts and souls
improve with age.
Minds and flesh do not.
Fight the good fight.
You can only delay
inevitable decrepitude.
Every day, a battle
against the inevitable.
War with a grim enemy
that can never give up.
Entropy will hunt you down
Until your walls collapse
and death, relentless,
roars through the breach.

-mors vincit omnia*

The many old who live alone
must pay attention, take care.

Any misstep might hasten their descent.
Tumble down the lonely steps.
Lie waiting in your own filth,
unable to reach a phone.

What loneliness must attend such a fall?

If only we could choose.

Proud Aeschylus was struck down
by a falling tortoise.
That’s not too bad.
To be hit by a bus while
lighting one last lethal cigarette.
That’s even better.
In bed, at ninety, chugging toward
one, final gasp of ******.
Even better yet.

But not in a strange bed hooked up
to noisy, indifferent machines,
poisoned by chemotherapy,
surrounded by terrified
friends and family struck dumb,
embarrassed and uncomfortable,
stunned by their own fears.

Best on your own two feet.
Like a soldier before the bullet.
Like a Viking struck down in battle.
Like you might have even mattered.

But there is no choosing.

Decrepitude is woven in our DNA.

You cannot escape the
inevitable carnage of mortality,
but you can be very careful
where you place your feet.

The warmth of fire light
During cold starless nights
Wraps me as once you did
When we first romanced the stars
Naming them for each other
And for futures bright with hope...

The gray overcast and cold
Brine in the wind upon a somber beach,
Before and after the storm begins
And the rain itself heavy on the sand
Reminds me, even then, when
It is a lonely day

How beautiful to be
Delivered here, knowing touch
To be made real
By love
By your existence,
having been
Having held a  tiny moment

I see you

In the crest of the waves,
In the embers that spark to kiss the air
And the ashes of a once living
Branch of a tree
That I burned to stay alive
From the cold decrepitude
A melancholy like / on this rainy day
In the watery places of memory and emotions
I see how beauty blurs

Without you

I peer with one eye at paradise (spurned)
When everything is beautiful
Because of you,
I am sure
It is your love that makes it all
My
Shine.
My world.

MOT

Took my body in
for its MOT.

It was getting a bit old
in the tooth.

"Sorry mate, but you
are going to have to

have your wisdom extracted
it's doing yer head in!

And the mind...well
you're just going to have to

change it
know wot I mean.

I would if I were you.
(glad I'm not!).

And I suppose it has come
to your attention that...eh

your mojo isn't
working.

It's not getting enough oil
for your coil

to start something
...innit?"

The only thing that seems to be
working was...the hair.

"Well..!"he was loathe
to have to admit it

"...it was interesting but
receding!"

I had to admit that recently
my thoughts had gone a bit curly.

"Let me put it this way...if
I was vet...would have to put you down.!"

He chuckled at his own
dumb joke.

"But lucky for you I'm not.
I'm a body mechanic is wot."

The same young self satisfied smirk
of the very young.

I could see him thinking
like a cartoon bubble

coming out of his head
"How did you ever get so old?"

"Now if you trade yourself in
can give you a good deal in

the Reincarnation Line
know wot I mean?

Take it or leave it.
Can't do better than that."

I left it and left.

Sooner be me as I know myself
to be

even in my great decrepitude
lights blinking on and off.


"Not long to go now anyhow!"
I said aloud

Knowing all too well
that talking to oneself

the first sign that
the mortal coils are slip...

slip...**** it...slipping!

What shall I do, while I slowly wait to die?

Make a time-lapse movie of my withering decrepitude?

Tell a thousand jokes on Twitter that people will scroll past in their own journey toward death?

In trying to create meaning out of no meaning

We come up with some really strange, elaborate and often internally inconsistent ideas

All of which are designed to distract us from the mirror.

another tear sheds,
another petal wilts.
the decrepitude of the garden
becomes more palpable with each passing day.

the waters cold
the tips of my toes tell my brain
but today i am sad
and the sun is shining
so i show rationality the shore
and walk on the wild side with the waves
high tide sweeps me off my feet and onto my throne of seaweed
it draws me closer
deeper
sings me sweet songs of forever
as it opens up its blue mouth big and wide
i swim closer
through sharp rocks and wrecks and calloused coral
eyes wide
eardrums dancing to the hypnotizing music
i am neck deep in salt water now
open cuts litter my arms and legs
i ignore the sting of reality
nipping at my toes
like colorful reef fish
i open my arms wide to embrace the cold fully
and i no longer feel the chill
i have grown use to
it
i have grown tired
the sun is playing hide and seek now behind the clouds
it's color a dull yellow
like a blinking light bulb
slowly dying
the water around me is a dark red
the world around me growing dimmer
my eyes flutter close as i lose consciousness
i dream of the sun returning to kiss my skin with the same intensity of before
the cold keeps me company, cooing in my ear that everything will be alright. cradling my body like a mother would a child.
sharks circle below
a hungry frenzy
of teeth and scales
the shark creeps closer
it sinks its teeth into your calf but its numb from the cold so
you don't feel it at first
then
without warning
you're pulled under and completely submerged in coppery tasting salt water
it stings your nose and eyes
and all the gashes on your arms and legs
you reach your hand out
ask the cold for forgiveness
for assistance out of this mess that it's baited you into
but the cold laughs in your face
tells you, you were a fool for falling for it's manufactured kindness, it's imitation of warmth  
then the bite really hits you
that's when you feel the pain
it's a defective, decrepitude creature  
it doesn't understand.
it swims in these waters everyday it is use to the cold
and you are a stranger only knowing of the sun

**you must learn to swim
or
you must forgive yourself.

Sad eyes of scribbles underneath your furrowed brow
Weather beaten, masticated, bashed
The lines of your face burrow and settle in to dwell
They check their mailboxes, set up lemonade stands
And drudge up demons beneath pores
Once you were alone in your purity
The occasional blemish or two
Nothing to make into cities
Nothing like decrepitude

I don't fear death so much as I fear its prologues: loneliness, decrepitude, pain, debilitation, depression, senility. After a few years of those, I imagine death presents like a holiday at the beach

In beautiful decrepitude
the structure stands bereft and crude

through windows cobwebbed and curtain’s torn
it gazes down where dust was lawn

the slated roof now patched with fern
its chimney stacks that once did burn

are housing rats that left the ship
but never quite abandoned it

and often when the Sun breaks through
it warms the rooms where love was true

and in that light see grandeur rise
where once the ruin beguiled eyes

Dusk's fire vanishes into me these days,
a simmering that chills the soul,
an eternal gravity of parted ways -
yesterday, a lifetime ago.
Those resigned retreats I have beaten, it seems,
have all folded upon themselves
in this samsara of half-abandoned dreams
with their twisted trajectories.
Words stoppering my throat return to the pen;
they come out all messy and wrong
in discordant collisions time and again,
denatured by decrepitude.
The alternating current leaping through weeks -
snippets of a life without me -
rampages, heedless to memories it wreaks,
feeding the voltage in my brain.

I have confined you to a prime number beyond my own imagination
to turn my blade on a yet time-frozen heart;
but all I find carved upon the blocks I chop it into are your initials,
indivisible cube roots of memory.

Thus yours truly resigns himself
June first two thousand and twenty three
to imagine being gifted with untold riches
courtesy  female named Jean E.

This ***** (caricatured familiarly
epitomized, demonized, characterized...
countless Chaplinesque productions,
Dickensian tales,
oil paintings from artistic
hands of great masters,
and other anonymous
exquisite craftsman, et cetera)
remembers practically nothing
of nine month stay in utero
birth, childhood nor early adulthood
my amorphous gauzy,
hazy fractal memories
solely comprise fractured,
fragmented and splintered collection
of miserable memories
character wry zing living
hellacious hand to mouth
hard scrapple existence.

Past wispy vestiges of wretchedness
present woebegone existence, which seems
a worse fate than death
overpowering urge to survive
summoning up one
barely audible l'chaim utterance
against depredations rustling
grim reaper found nothing
but defeat daily dismal
grinding away of last shreds
repurposed driven life fending off real
and imagined threats sought salvation
vividly encased within
preserved imagination,
an existence awash
with trappings of southern comfort
provided by Jim Beam.

Yours truly dug deep
with bony introspective strength
in tandem with fantasy notions knocking
around in figurative
heady noggin like cranial carapace
to muster every ounce
of strength escaping
chronic confrontation
endless streak of bleakness
cursed with brutish, nasty
nefarious fate as a measly

looking human varmint,
this grimy, grungy, rangy,
et cetera looking besotted being
clung with all might
within mine five foot ten inch
and one hundred
and fifty plus pound body
to transcend twerking terrestrial travesty
tweeting and tweaking
fickle finger of fate against favor.

I tapped atavistic survival skills
summoning willpower
to stay alive drinking butter bear
heavy cross of dirt poor poverty
borne no matter
a hard-core skeptic at heart,
this cynic plaintively
called divine intervention
to help this human piece
of flotsam and jetsam

to cope living like a doleful
junkyard dog essentially
abandoned, ignored, cancelled
and shunned vagrant
frequently raged against
Deus ex machina manacled movement
found figurative amidst
literal unlovely bones
slim pickens with demons
that tormented psyche

while traipsing along litter strewn
condemned boulevard of broken dreams,
torn and well-worn shoe
kicked discarded items
weather beaten hands reflexively bent
to retrieve accouterments
comprising colorful jagged shard,
previously housed cheap fermented liquor
nothing but crud filled
remnant of dog gone
boozehounds’ favorite drink.

Although never drawn
to drown sorrows
by turning to the bottle,
cigarettes nor drugs
(a respect for thyself existed),
an automatic reflex caught
eye-catching attention
comprising anonymous drunkard’s signature
lost memento and wireless device entity
constituted a dullish metallic object,
which turned out to be a heavily damaged
slender MOTORAZR (long obsolete) phone.

Out of foolish embarrassment
qua natural instinct,
i raddled then rubbed
remnant once containing
amber liquid of the gods’
irrational explanation in mockery
against cosmic consciousness, my mouth
jabber walk key talky like
into mobile phone these chapped,
course and cracked fingers
slid across unbroken surface
of antiquated bottle in tandem
with parched lips uttering
cockamamie pretend plea, a crackle, snap
and pop delivered a lifelike being whose
corporeal essence resembled a goddess.

The mp3 player issued magically
syncopated beats indicative per favorite
saved playlist tunes former owner
of electronic contraption
without a shadow of doubt,
this vision and auditory music definitely
brought sobered Punch
to this Judy schuss schlepper.

I clapped these nearly deaf ears, thence
rubbed mine-gnarled hands
across myopic eyes.

These twin ****** motions
executed just to dismiss
stray chance of experiencing hallucination
a maiden suddenly appeared
in plain view,
which disbelief found me
pretending to conduct
make believe conversation
via encrusted cell phone
while speaking a matter of fact tone of voice.

She (in a hypnotic, lilting,
melodic and sing song tone)
responded with casual chit chat
genie hill (Alladin like)
everyday, general friendly conversation
eventually ensued fraught
with apprehension and self
consciousness) before purpose
of her presence
became clear, an intuitive
understanding took place
akin to acute telepathic Sikh sixth sense.

Immediate difficulty arose
to think of one wish
to abet grievous humiliation
and immersion in miserable
penury, which might be abrogated
once and for all
with immediacy by simple syllabic voicing
for a pile of crisply minted money, yet
rather than blurt out immediate offering
for untold material commodities
and resplendent riches,
i surprised myself and
communicated a desire
for female friendship.

A gamesome, genteel, gentle gal who would
surrender herself for cries
and whispers seemed
more important than any pile of wealth aware
cha self-actualization about
my utter decrepitude
appeared as immediate
deterrent toward attaining
a bona fide sincere relationship, an ordinary
and reasonable ambition appeared as lofty goal.

Self absorbed in rambling
longing of body, mind
and heart, I quickly became oblivious
to imaged or real corporeal presence
who spurred outpouring
tears of joy per this
ostracized and unwanted vermin eyes
while loosening the tongue in an effort
to picture the escape
from pernicious malady
crushing breathing room
of abominable existence.

Lips shut tight also
prevented the woebegone loss
what appeared as some
divine trickster who conjured
such a muse out of thin air
upon winding down
this unrehearsed recitation,
a painstaking effort
got made to open the eyelids very slowly.

Lo and behold, when manifestation
in actual dolled up guise
of a gorgeous gal stood still as a statue,
and remained rapt
with attention provenance
and provenance found pleasure
in my prattle, and promise
got uttered by lovely lass
to remain a permanent
die-hard companion
no matter many considered
this paperback writer wannabe
nothing but wretched
pestilence of the earth.

This groveling gremlin
of a human felt like a beast alongside
one beautiful babe, who came across
as genuinely modest and passionate
to promulgate profound sharing of body,
mind and spirit triage, where homelessness
and pennilessness mattered not a whit
to this literally spellbinding goddess,
who seemed to materialize out the heavens
in the likeness sans Betsy Ross.

The question how
and where did this muse
render herself to appear
out of thin air puzzled,
and quizzed curiosity
assessed and gleaned no matter
not one word uttered,
thus necessity for conversation
seemed superfluous for we both
seemed able to converse
by autosuggestion of this,
that or the other query.

I (by the way) seemed
to be more intrigued
in this angelic spirit
come to life viz comedy of errors
that punctuated anonymous
life with angst king lear
riddled tragedy suddenly took
a most pleasant unexpectedly
found that all’s well
that ends well with this leery king
from southeastern Pennsylvania
possesses great expectations
by dickens no matter the field
of whet dreams populated
with slim (shady) T. Boone Pickens.

Who showed me
The stream of light
I'm overwhelmed, I'm fascinated
I am inundated with joy.

Who reads out
The message to advent
Moved all my decrepitude
As much tiredness as was removed.

When I wake up, I find
The inspiration for survival
My heart is filled
With a new consciousness.

You have ignited at this time
What a light of hope
Forwarding towards the front again
And, it feels enormous.

yours truly enveloped within morose mood

I (Samson incarnate)
frankly experience zapped strength,
hence sulk and pine for salad days of youth
when abundant golden locks adorned me noggin.

Now in doddering dotage scant wisps of gray hair
(vestige of once luxuriant natural periwigged realm)
nothing except splotched scalp revealed.

Senescence stole mine prime mortal heft away
atrophied, eroded and weathered me body
once robust doubting thomas, who didst delay
livingsocial, especially rolling in the hay
never gathered rosebuds while I may
impossible mission now to slay
invisible decrepitude even if I recruited Zoro.

Post traumatic stress (shell shock
not military related) awoke,
when espying lapsed existence
viz twenty/twenty hindsight
oblivious to tempus fugit
when this young contra dancing bloke
now upon ruminating foregone opportunities
doth shed tears and choke.

Purposeless bemoaning lost
momentous occasions to no avail
synonymous regarding
hypothetical onset eye disease
suddenly rendering insightful chap blind,
whose fingers ground down as stubs,
hence lost cause mastering learning Braille
only death do me part
will once and for all curtail
where regret trained upon lofty dreams
of this father pursuit of happiness he didst derail
nevertheless grateful for sound
body, mind and spirit I exhale

no matter attaining being globe trotter
I royally did fail
passively foregoing flying headlong
toward holy grail
instead buzzfeeding investing
and teasing out obsession
linkedin and rooted with fixation
of former shaggy doggone mane
hirsute characteristic donned hearty and hale
generic garden variety bloke
whose thinning hair finds him
to reasonably rhyme albeit ham handed
with following poetic rant and rail.

Early this year
gentle as calm ocean waters
lapping along a weir
thumb and forefinger
of right hand would peel back,
(diagonally flippant motion asper calendar
representing progression of time)
gets flipped over to veer
in one direction (linear)

revealing the next month at lightspeed
vis a vis tempus fugit galloping tear
thy head immediately lost hirsute thickness,
I starkly share
male or female pattern baldness extant along
Harris genealogical trunk line rare
yet divulging distress
about limp decreasing strands
sends shivers along spine,

gloomy feeling linkedin
with old fashioned meaning of queer
and perchance tis foolhardy
reading this Samson night issue must appear
tis unstoppable inching closer toward
as mortality gets near
youthful robustness fades
replaced by senescence mere
really ambling along tragicomic time stream,

one evinces gargoyles mockingly leer
loosing sleep and kept raggedly awake
in conjunction dreams fraught
with frightful haunting monsters jeer
ring sound reverberating hair
splitting decibel jamming primary cranial gear
aye tell mice elf nothing to fear...
yet maximizing this plight with poem 'ere
Yukon also temporarily part
blond, brown, gold, et cetera locks mud dear.