Relationships are not easy-peasy,,
Some take work, some, self-sacrifice.

Some must overcome defects congenital,
Obstacles so great that the Roman Gods
Are asked to intervene,
Send down those hotties, the fiery Furies,
who punished crimes at the instigation
of the soon to be frozen victims

So to the chase,
let's cut,
My woman's has true blood,
H2O
In solid state.

Her body is icy, permanent frosty,
And requires regular de-icing
Before Take Off.
This condition being true of her
Every part except, her prima facie.

Even the bed complains,
Whining creeks and groans,
Sometimes it even screams,
When she get in sans pajamas.

I,
A bastion of extra human warmth,
As my poems bear witness,
Normal temp is 102,
I am the joy of her life,
For love, I make the
Ultimate sacrifice.

Her feet, medieval torture instruments,
Her bare hands, have
Killed lesser men and folkloric-ly,
Reputedly, she has flash froze and keeps
Some vampires in the basement fridge,
Suitable for reheating in the microwave.

You may think this charming,
This poem, an amuse-bouche,
But it ain't funny when I go to the
Emergency room for first degree burns.

Remember when Ralph's friend
Got his tongue stuck to the metal pole,
In "A Christmas Story"?
That was me, that was her!

But our together,
Approaching near five years,
Is a Survivor.
Two hurricanes, ******* named
Irene and Sandy,
A divorce from a mean spirited wbitch
That took so long
The Matrimonial Lawyers ***-ociation
Had my portrait painted over their fireplace.

Even the icicles otherwise know correctly as
Her Extremities,
Have not come between us

When my lips kiss her neck,
Surgically remove heart with poetic scalpels,
Hold it, fluttering and with both hands, warm.

Her eyes close, and neuronic messages
Commence firing, telegraphed, messengered,
To the far corners of every Purim Persian province,
Let the wicked witch melting begin,
Commence the holiday of
Her Festivities.

If you think any man,
Could perform said feat of endurance,
You better checkout again the name of the
Man who authored this story,
For his name, with special powers, endowed.

somehow sweet in his want of no trouble, the unwashed man takes the door from your father and there they go hand in hand to the backyard where they wrestle as if hurts were people keeping them apart.  your father’s jaw comes loose, the man’s ear seems held by too small a magnet.  at window you a sickly child with overbite and a scarecrow’s pipe stroke the puppet corn hair of a sister’s doll and walk it cloud to defrosted cloud.  amidst this bartering of vanished weight your mother is being made to balance on her bare stomach a glass of lemonade.  

in three days the man will come back;  your father a bit healed, your mother less angry about straws.

For those among us who lived by the rules,
Lived frugal lives of *****-scratching desperation;
For those who sustained a zombie-like state for 30 or 40 years,
For these few, our lucky few—
We bequeath an interactive Life-Alert emergency dog tag,
Or better still a dog, a colossal pet beast,
A humongous Harlequin Dane to feed,
For that matter, why not buy a few new cars before you die?
Your home mortgage is, after all, dead and buried.
We gave you senior-citizen rates for water, gas & electricity—
“The Big 3,” as they are known in certain Gasoline Alley-retro
Neighborhoods among us,
Our parishes and boroughs.
All this and more, had you lived small,
Had you played by the rules for Smurfs & Serfs.

We leave you the chance to treat your grandkids
Like Santa’s A-List clientele,
“Good ‘ol Grampa,” they’ll recollect fondly,
“Sweet Grammy Strunzo, they will sigh.
What more could you want in retirement?

You’ve enabled another generation of deadbeat grandparents,
And now you’re next in line for the ice floe,
To be taken away while still alive,
Still hunched over and wheezing,
On a midnight sleigh ride,
Your son, pulling the proverbial Eskimo sled,
Down to some random Arctic shore,
Placing you gently on the ice floe.
Your son; your boy--
A true chip off the igloo, so to speak.
He leaves you on the ice floe,
Remembering not to leave the sled,
The proverbial Sled of Abbandono,
The one never left behind,
As it would be needed again,
Why not a home in storage while we wait?
The family will surely need it sometime down the line.

A dignified death?
Who can afford one these days?
The question answers itself:
You are John Goodman in “The Big Lebowski.”
You opt for an empty 2-lb can of Folgers.
You know: "The best part of waking up, is Folger's in your cup!"
That useless mnemonic taught us by “Mad Men.”
Slogans and theme songs imbibe us.

Zombie accouterments,
Provided by America’s Ruling Class.
Thank you Lewis H. Lapham for giving it to us straight.
Why not go with the aluminum Folgers can?
Rather than spend the $300.00 that mook funeral director
Tries to shame you into coughing up,
For the economy-class “Legacy Urn.”
An old seduction:  Madison Avenue’s Gift of Shame.
Does your **** smell?” asks a sultry voice,
Igniting a carpet bomb across the 20-45 female cohort,
2 billion pathetically insecure women,
Spending collectively $10 billion each year—
Still a lot of money, unless it’s a 2013
Variation on an early 1930s Germany theme;
The future we’ve created;
The future we deserve.

Now a wheelbarrow load of paper currency,
Scarcely buy a loaf of bread.
Even if you’re lucky enough to make it,
Back to your cave alive,
After shopping to survive.
Women spend $10 billion a year for worry-free *****.
I don’t read The Wall Street Journal either,
But I’m pretty **** sure,
That “The Feminine Hygiene Division”
Continues to hold a corner office, at
Fear of Shame Corporate Headquarters.
Eventually, FDS will go the way of the weekly ******.
Meanwhile, in God & vaginal deodorant we trust,
Something you buy just to make sure,
Just in case the *** Gods send you a gift.
Some 30-year old **** buddy,
Some linguistically gifted man or woman,
Some he or she who actually enjoys eating your junk:
“Oh Woman, thy name is frailty.”
“Oh Man, thou art a Woman.”
“Oh Art is for Carney in “Harry & Tonto,”
Popping the question: “Dignity in Old Age?”
Will it too, go the way of the weekly ******?
It is pointless to speculate.
Mouthwash--Roll-on antiperspirants--Depends.
Things our primitive ancestors did without,
Playing it safe on the dry savannah,
Where the last 3 drops evaporate in an instant,
Rather than go down your pants,
No matter how much you wiggle & dance.
Think about it!

Think cemeteries, my Geezer friends.
Of course, your first thought is
How nice it would be, laid to rest
In the Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.
Born a ******. Died a ******. Laid in the grave?
Or Père Lachaise,
Within a stone’s throw of Jim Morrison--
Lying impudently,
Embraced, held close by loving soil,
Caressed, held close by a Jack Daniels-laced mud pie.
Or, with Ulysses S. Grant, giving new life to the quandary:
Who else is buried in the freaking tomb?
Bury my heart with Abraham in Springfield.
Enshrine my body in the Taj Mahal,
Build for me a pyramid, says Busta Cheops.

Something simple, perhaps, like yourself.
Or, like our old partner in crime:
Lee Harvey, in death, achieving the soul of brevity,
Like Cher and Madonna a one-name celebrity,
A simple yet obscure grave stone carving:  OSWALD.
Perhaps a burial at sea? All the old salts like to go there.
Your corpse wrapped in white duct/duck tape,
Still frozen after months of West Pac naval maneuvers,
The CO complying with the Department of the Navy Operations Manual,
Offering this service on « An operations-permitting basis, »
About as much latitude given any would-be Ahab,
Shortlisted for Command-at-sea.
So your body is literally frozen stiff,
Frozen solid for six months packed,
Spooned between 50-lb sacks of green beans & carrots.
Deep down in the deep freeze,
Within the Deep Freeze :
The ship’s storekeeper has a cryogenic *******
Deep down in his private sanctuary,
Privacy in the bowels of the ship.
While up on deck you slide smoothly down the pine plank,
Old Glory billowing in the sea breeze,
Emptying you out into the great abyss of
Some random forlorn ocean.

Perhaps you are a ******* lunatic?
Maybe you likee—Shut the **** up, Queequeg !
Perhaps you want a variation on the burial-at-sea option ?
Here’s mine, as presently set down in print,
Lawyer-prepared, notarized and filed at the Court of the Grand Vizier,
Copies of same in safe deposit boxes,
One of many benefits Chase offers free to disabled Vets,
Demonstrating, again, my zombie-like allegiance to the rules.
But I digress.
« The true measure of one’s life »
Said most often by those we leave behind,
Is the wealth—if any—we leave behind.
The fact that we cling to bank accounts,
Bank safe deposit boxes,
Legal aide & real estate,
Insurance, and/or cash . . .
Just emphasizes the foregone conclusion,
For those who followed the rules.
Those of us living frugally,
Sustaining the zombie trance all these years.
You can jazz it up—go ahead, call it your « Work Ethic. »
But you might want to hesitate before you celebrate
Your unimpeachable character & patriotism.

What is the root of Max Weber’s WORK ETHIC concept?
‘Tis one’s grossly misplaced, misguided, & misspent neurosis.
Unmasked, shown vulnerably pink & naked, at last.
Truth is: The harder we work, the more we lay bare
The Third World Hunger in our souls.
But again, I digress.  Variation on a Theme :
At death my body is quick-frozen.
Then dismembered, then ground down
To the consistency of water-injected hamburger,
Meat further frozen and Fedex-ed to San Diego,
Home of our beloved Pacific Fleet.
Stowed in a floating Deep Freeze where glazed storekeepers
Sate the lecherous Commissary Officer,
Aboard some soon-to-be underway—
Underway: The Only Way
Echo the Old Salts, a moribund Greek Chorus
Goofing still on the burial-at-sea concept.

Underway to that sacred specific spot,
Let's call it The Golden Shellback,
Where the Equator intersects,
Crosses perpendicular,
The International Dateline,
Where my defrosted corpse nuggets,
Are now sprinkled over the sea,
While Ray Charles sings his snarky
Child Support & Alimony
His voice blasting out the 1MC,
She’s eating steak.  I’m eating baloney.
Ray is the voice of disgruntlement,
Palpable and snide in the trade winds,
Perhaps the lost chord everyone has been looking for:
Laughing till we cry at ourselves,
Our small corpse kernels, chum for sharks.

In a nutshell—being the crazy *******’ve come to love-
Chop me up and feed me to the Orcas,
Just do it ! NIKE!
That’s right, a $commercial right in the middle of a ******* poem!
Do it where the Equator crosses the Dateline :
A sailors’ sacred vortex: isn’t it ?
Wouldn’t you say, Shipmates, one and all?
I’m talking Conrad’s Marlow, here, man!
Call me Ishmael or Queequeg.
Thor Heyerdahl or Tristan Jones,
Bogart’s Queeq & Ensign Pulver,
Wayward sailors, one and all.
And me, of course, aboard the one ride I could not miss,
Even if it means my Amusement Park pass expires.
Ceremony at sea ?
Absolutely vital, I suppose,
Given the monotony and routine,
Of the ship’s relentlessly vacant seascape.
« There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea,
And I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. «
So said James Russell Lowell,
One of the so-called Fireside Poets,
With Longfellow and Bryant,
Whittier, the Quaker and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.,
19th Century American hipsters, one and all.

Then there’s CREMATION,
A low-cost option unavailable to practicing Jews.
« Ashes to ashes »  remains its simplest definition.
LOW-COST remains its operant phrase & universal appeal.
No Deed to a 2by6by6 foot plot of real estate,
Paid for in advance for perpetuity—
Although I suggest reading the fine print—
Our grass--once maintained by Japanese gardeners--
Now a lost art in Southern California,
Now that little Tokyo's finest no longer
Cut, edge & manicure, transform our lawns
Into a Bonsai ornamental wonderland.
Today illegal/legal Mexicans employing
More of a subtropical slash & burn technique.

Cremation : no chunk of marble,
No sandstone, wood or cardboard marker,
Plus the cost of engraving and site installation.
Quoth the children: "****, you’re talking $30K to
Put the old ****** in the ground? Cheap **** never
Gave me $30K for college, let alone a house down payment.
What’s my low-cost, legitimate disposal going to run me?"

CREMATION : they burn your corpse in Auschwitz ovens.
You are reduced to a few pounds of cigar ash.
Now the funeral industry catches you with your **** out.
You must (1) pay to have your ashes stored,
Or (2) take them away in a gilded crate that,
Again, you must pay for.
So you slide into Walter Sobjak,
The Dude’s principal amigo,
And bowling partner in the
Brothers Coen masterpiece: The Big Lebowski.
You head to the nearest Safeway for a 2-lb can of Folgers.
And while we’re on the subject of cremation & the Jews,
Think for a moment on the horror of The Holocaust:
Dispossessed & utterly destroyed, one last indignity:
Corpses disposed of by cremation,
For Jews, an utterly unacceptable burial rite.
Now before we leave Mr. Sobjak,
Who is, as you know, a deeply disturbed Vietnam vet,
Who settles bowling alley protocol disputations,
By brandishing, by threatening the weak-minded,
With a loaded piece, the same piece John Turturro—
Stealing the movie as usual, this time as Jesus Quintana—
Bragging how he will stick it up Walter’s culo,
Pulling the trigger until it goes: Click-Click-Click!
Terrestrial burial or cremation?
For me:  Burial at Sea:
Slice me, dice me into shark food.

Or maybe something a la Werner von Braun:
Your dead meat shot out into space;
A personal space probe & voyager,
A trajectory of one’s own choosing?

Oh hell, why not skip right down to the nitty gritty bottom line?
Current technology: to wit, your entire life record,
Your body and history digitized & downloaded
To a Zip Drive the size of the average *******,
A data disc then Fedex-ed anywhere in the galaxy,
Including exotic burial alternatives,
Like some Martian Kilimanjaro,
Where the tiger stalks above the clouds,
Nary a one with a freaking clue that can explain
Just what the cat was doing up so high in the first place.
Or, better still, inside a Sherpa’s ***** pack,
A pocket imbued with the same Yak dung,
Tenzing Norgay massages daily into his *******,
Defending the Free World against Communism & crotch rot.
(Forgive me: I am a child of the Cold War.)
Why not? Your life & death moments
Zapped into a Zip Drive, bytes and bits,
Submicroscopic and sublime.
So easy to delete, should your genetic subgroup
Be targeted for elimination.
About now you begin to realize that
A two-pound aluminum Folgers can
Is not such a bad idea.
No matter; the future is unpersons,
The Ministry of Information will in charge.
The People of Fort Meade--those wacky surveillance folks--
Cloistered in the rolling hills of Anne Arundel County.
That’s who will be calling the shots,
Picking the spots from now on.
Welcome to Cyber Command.
Say hello to Big Brother.
Say “GOOD-BYE PRIVACY.”

Meanwhile, you’re spending most of your time
Fretting ‘bout your last rites--if any—
Burial plots on land and sea, & other options,
Such as whether or not to go with the
Concrete outer casket,
Whether or not you prefer a Joe Cocker,
Leon Russell or Ray Charles 3-D hologram
Singing at your memorial service.
While I am fish food for the Golden Shellbacks,
I am a fine young son of Neptune,
We are Old Salts, one and all,
Buried or burned or shot into space odysseys,
Or digitized on a data disc the size of
An average human *******.
Snap outta it, Einstein!
Like everyone else,
You’ve been fooled again.

Halt our shallow breaths--
         staccato fogs at the stoplights
Cling precarious in cold
like the frost on the stop signs.
The streetlights keep on winking
Winter's late but, now, it's sinking
                                       into bones
clawing coats
         shut. Clutching
                  wool to swollen throats

I swore I'd never stand here again
           at December's ******* doorstep--
ring the bell every weekend.
I always circle back every year
when
I take the same old punches
and wince when I hit play-back.

Halt my raising glass
        and analyze my afflictions:
28, alone and broke
so cop to addictions, now.
It's freezing--getting dressed
you've question marks in your brown eyes
It's hailing, breathing out
Carry my bags of old goodbyes
The walls just keep on shrinking
But the outside's gonna swallow me
                                    Eaten whole
even bones.
     Spit me out back on Mydland road

I know I'll wind up back here again.
         at December's ******* deathbed
sleeping in every weekend
Held all chips, played hands, drank a year
then
I pulled my vacant pockets,
defrosted my losing bets

Mea culpa. So long. Stay friends.

"Twenty-*******-five to one,
                      my gambling days are done.
I bet on a horse called The Bottle of Smoke,
                     and my horse..." (Finer/MacGowan)

Im in a crunch with school and work and 7 hrs sleep in 50+. I aint showered and my *** reeks of ***** outdoor musk type, like defrosted by the sun after freezing under the moon. Inevitably, mold and mildew add that nice after market aged/crusty scent.

Sloppy wet diarrhea brought on by anxiety and doubt; I'm in a ****** hole collecting uneven magazine clippings uncomfortably.

Here I am still, packing my belongings to leave the hole and find serenity. Yet, nothing gets taken out. Instead I'll be here for at least 7-10 more days waiting for the easy chair to be delivered from an order placed online at 3am when I could have been finishing a paper.

Funny how life seems everything but not worth any more pain,

the snow is reducing to hail outside my Parisian window but it will take me years to thaw your heart

I put the frozen peas in the microwave and hope what would it be like to have all fragments of your should lay defrosted on my bone china plate

But all that happens is that I keep on romanticizing pain and contemplating that if my ruptured ligament can heal up in 3 weeks,

                  Then why can’t our hidden love embolden up into a bone?

Funny how all my dreams seem to have left their axis and moved farther away into some other galaxy and nothing seems right anymore,

            And you who seemed like the only date I waited for in the calendar,

Has turned into the Mayan code of Mayan calendar that I can’t decipher at all.

The 3 am twilight blues his sandpaper skin
A beast-like hue
she feels down
So he lifts her spirits
By the neck
Like a Heineken
“DO NOT call the cops”
His words sharp objects
He speaks machete fluently
I freeze
He ice skates on my childhood
Blades figure eights on my frosty irises
His face switches from blue to red
Like 3D glasses
I think of alps in the summertime
Defrosted mountains unveiled
******-Doo villains
The much-awaited unmasking
One time he shoves her
And murders a generation
Her run-ons have become clauses
Short.
Incomplete.
Terminated.
I smell miscarriage on her breath
Now her voice carries
What her stomach cannot

~ the director

one woman in particular became trapped in a man’s body and he married her.  a child they tried not to have soon arrived and brought with it a list of demands from the others.

his peers double crossed each other in small houses.  he himself was able to get away with punching a young girl for the right to drag a sled.  his child began to accept talking toys in exchange for keeping quiet.  

he was in love with his sister, always had been.  after she was mauled by the dogs meant for his father, he made walking his home until it called itself a hotel

of running.  last year, he caught a movie one had made of his life and though he missed the dedication

he did not miss
the death row scene, the saw his brother took from the cake, the plain basket
as it moved
with his mother

from bike
to bike…  

~ transmissible

the stomach remains dumb

the way she finds this out on a school bus

the way her mother
after losing
a child  

~ ephemeron

cornfield visionaries, they sat around the ball as if it were fire.  I myself was tired of magic

so we played four short and the ball was a fact.  a hard period planted in mud

or a long quote
buzzing the ears
together.  

~ alleviant

of all places a park bench will do for the man not yet reading but planning to the children’s book with its cover of mother and child and kitchen and some kind of batter on the child’s face.  presently the man is alone much as his mother is alone in one of his fingers.  two men nearby are drinking from a water fountain and in turn are each palming the low **** for the other.  they are friends but only by length of service and the man can tell one is aggressive and the other allows it.  the book itself is disappointing.  the child is just ***** and the mother is just angry and they learn only to be themselves.  the men at the fountain become two men on a bench and the reader scoots over to hear about the voice of god as ****** children take the park.

~ amends

your house in foreclosure and you leave it and you are holding two bags of cat food.
  
sometimes a tricycle is a particular tricycle
trying to clear
with its back wheel
the low cinema
of your bare
foot.  

I am mugged in your dream and mugged in mine and mugged by a woman in both.

I hope we can meet without talking money.  this story my mother gave me
about the world’s first invisible man
is a keeper.  he was born

that way.

your mother I saw her setting the patio table for two and I looked away but could hear
no one
beating her.

we can talk about your cat.    

~ homology

the empty raccoons by their emptiness have kept the priest awake.  the church dumpsters wheel themselves into the world and he watches.  he tells his mother it is the silence of god.  she shrinks from him more and more and eventually fits through a door he cannot see.  his house fills with garbage and he becomes convinced he is wearing gloves.  we do not argue.  he raises them with his hands to take them off with his teeth.      

~ fiction

my age, father paints an abstract jesus.  mother has the kitchen to herself and sits.  mother watches my brother lift a chair and leave.  my sister lets a train pass and bites at the shoulder strap of her bra.  not my age, I draw a violinist.  draw a dog at the neck of its owner.  at my age of apple and rope, I prefer god’s early work.

~ monodist

online, I pretended to be writing a very long obituary.  in house, I dreamt not of my wife but of a grape being rolled by a palm gently toward a grape the dream could not see.  as it is in heaven, I was not all there.

~ signage

I was limping the edge of the pond so as to confirm in the world my clearance given to me as before by frogs.  my punched nose was warm and my grief melted from it and I cupped my hands together for the blood and what mixed with it and when the cup was full I halved it and my already thick shoelaces thickened.  soon into this drama one frog jumped from the pond and I startled that indeed it was no frog but a toad or some form of toad.  I followed it woozily from my father’s land onto the land of the man who’d fathered the boy whose fist had found so recently fistfight heaven.  the toad was dull save for its hop from water and save for its courage and save for a sickly orange spot on its back that was a star when the toad paused and a mangled star otherwise.  everything had been planned and my body wanted to be generous to the toad and it was hard not to run or use my hands or ruin this paradise that I knew then as vengeance but now see as existential plagiarism which is nonetheless vengeance.  I told myself I would not rub the toad over me and I had to convince myself repeatedly.  the boy was no doubt inside the house as his dog was not to be seen but his sister was sprawled on two towels as she was very tall and her sunglasses were cocked enough so that her right eye could see mine.  the toad was in her mouth immediately and then her throat bulged but went quickly back to its original.  I lost the toad forever then but its orange star surfaced on the right and then the left of her belly button.  I told her I would see her at school and I would but this was the last time I would see her in anything but an overcoat and that boy would try and come close but never again pin me down.      

~ discipline

somehow sweet in his want of no trouble, the unwashed man goes hand in hand with your father to the backyard where they wrestle as if hurt were people keeping them apart.  your father’s jaw comes loose, the man’s ear seems held by too small a magnet.  at window you a sickly child with overbite and a scarecrow’s pipe stroke the puppet-corn hair of a sister’s doll and walk it cloud to defrosted cloud.  amidst this bartering of vanished weight your mother is being made to balance on her bare stomach a glass of lemonade.  in three days the man will come back, your father a bit healed, your mother less angry about straws.

~ the rabbits

the head of a shovel enters the earth of this southern field.  there is no more give here than in the northern.  the burying boy has been long facing the wind and will be longer.  in walking toward the boy, the old man’s knees have locked.  the old man is seen by the boy and the old man waves upright in the wind’s gnaw.  the tops of the boy’s legs reach his stomach.  

~ archaism

a man carrying his dog stops to kneel.  for my distance from him, I am disallowed any inquiry that would flower.  he sets the black dog in front of him in the manner I have imagined god at the simple chore of placing those first shadows.  I am holding my son nostalgically, almost forgetting how my tooth would ache and his tooth would ache and both would be things I knew and he didn’t.

~ sincerely

the males had in them a sloth and a jolly fog of sportsmanship

and in the females a mistake was made.

against frogs, and against the dim leaping
of frogsong

I had this friend

broke his arm
while *******  
at the wheel.  

I put my arm in the grief of my arm.

beginning like spring you defrosted and delicately painted sweet colours

swiftly turning to summer overflowing with light and warmth

quickly you turned to autumn, bringing a brisk chill of amber

warning

ending it your winter stripped bare your blistering cold freezing

and now I wait

patiently for next spring

Your passion blooms yellow,
Like the smile of a rising sun.
The wind blows and the daffodils bellow -
They echo a crescendo.
Their spring has begun.

Their song flows across the ground,
Blooming budding emotions in its wake.
The nectar, mixed into the soil mound,
Has enough oxytocin to make a soul ache.

These daffodils grew over the snow in my lawn,
Melting the cold as their roots gripped the earth.
I kept warm among the blossoms as the hours rolled on.
My mind gradually defrosted - like a cerebral rebirth.

My winter has mostly ended, indicated by each perennial.
I have you to thank for planting the first bulb out there -
Double digging the stubborn dirt, yet remaining congenial,
Despite the unfit sod and icy air.

I owe it to you that I've recovered whatsoever:
My cognitive crime scene, solved with your empathetic luminol.
Perhaps young love is a foolish endeavor,
But if that's so, then I'm the most foolish fool of all.

So I'll unabashedly listen to your daffodil crescendo,
And resonate with the joy in your living rhythm.
I'll plant you some chrysanthemums to match in yellow,
So we can sit together with them.

Clear Skies Vanilla
is the only soft serve
on the days we have no clouds
and none can be seen
floating on our horizons

it is our seasonal choice
that we wish could come
all year long,
could be as predictable
as *Pumpkin Spice in October
or Eggnog in December
even uncelebrated Baseball-Nut
springs up at the right time.

If only our skies could
be the layers of a sundae--
a limited selection
that always comes down to
hot fudge, nuts,
with a defrosted cherry on top--
then our decisions
would be made for us
we could never
be wrong.

Instead we deliver
Icy Thundery Blueberry BubbleGumy hard serve
on those days--
too complicated to understand
too unwilling to shorten their title
too difficult to be simply BlueGumTuesday
because the sky,
too mixed up to be...Blue.

We raise our scoop
for each serving to dish out--
with them we learn our taste
what calms our nerves
and how to evaporate the rain,
because when we get
to have those cloudless days
we'll have the day
to be flavorful.

yeah, let's compose the alphabet in music for each letter we try to sound like a wine bottle cork unplugged from vintage; it won't work, i known, but it might get a few skidding on gizmo go go, trying to democratise iran: try turning iran sunni first, you, you defrosted snowman worth a carrot and two chalk coal ******* writing: hardboiled into sight of believable. oh here comes a white man talking privy aloud with the rapper loosing breath, but keeping it up and replacing the pelvic hinges with easy, drool, rhymes; a kind of rubric tablature of scores for rodeo with alternative sounds to: moo, ow, ah, broomstick shoo, take the cow for a milking home from the dead bull dazzled into genesis on t.v.; or that other literati spectator sport of not reading but talking oneself into academic bibliography for an intro.

the great thing about being an alcoholic...
you never quiet know
when you're drunk or hungover;
but it makes up for great twilight sunsets
pooh lonely; ah ooh smooch -
kisses a honey stick stuck to ****
in a hollywood crescendo of
                     paparazzi and applause;
and anorexia; and dyslexic oiling for a facelift:
that's called smiling i have you know -
                          enter michael jackson - hippie hip he;
if i die aged thirty, i'll be happy to have
            been frisky twenty-nine into a thong.

or, alt., tell ****** about the swimming pool and the tadpole kenyans sprinting into impregnated landownerships of priests: sounds like this: pst - herr führer - die schwimmin poolst erst niener jessy ovens geeignet. no one said that african buttocks couldn't bayou the ships ashore, but they did; what?! i'm not the 12" dangle! you keep up racism, i'll keep up mozart's austria; alt. please see how censoring adjectives in relation to objects gives you a false moral subjectivity that's only a matter of pleasantries.

1 cup jitters
3 cups drained confidence
6 stalks worry, finely chopped
2 tablespoons crushed hope
6 cups toxic shock
2 slices defrosted denial
1 leaf shredded Roe v. Wade
6 seared As-salāmu ʿalaykum
1 can LGBT despair
3 pints refried refugees
Marinated anger
DACA pain

Stir jitters and confidence to coat.
Sauté worry, blend shock and denial.
Combine dread and crushed hope.
Transfer all to a crockpot.
Fold in Roe v. Wade.
Cook on high for 6 hours.
Pour stew into large bowl.
Garnish with grief.
Serve with side of pain
and salad tossed with anger.
Open a bottle of What To Do Next.

rarely do you wake up with your father in pain, stomach... so what the hell happened you ask? ate some sausage, best-before-date 20.1.2017... no wonder! but it was frozen and recently defrosted! so you just tuck into that **** raw? yeah yeah, should have poached it. like hell you should have! so he runs me an errand, can you make me rosół? no problem paps. i'll give you the money, run me this errand. you taken any no spa pills? yes yes, well thank **** for that.

ugh, soups of england, soups in england,
what an ugly sight,
   no soup pasta in them,
  and all of them look like mud holes,
or shambos (the pits of **** in rural areas) -
can we get some clarity in them, please?!
and this one is a classic,
its a clear chicken soup,
  contested between both jews and poles,
from times immemorial...
you get a chicken, cut off the *******
to use for an idea for tomorrow,
and then you chuck the remaining corpus
into water, pour water to the brim of the ***,
throw in a bay leaf, peppercorns,
five allspice meteor,
       and a few teaspoons of all-purpose
seasoning: namely / mainly salt...
          then you get some carrots,
garlic, a whole onion, leeks,
     celery, a parsnip, and fresh parsley,
and then you cook slowly,
  until all the fat runs off the chicken,
   and a bit like pouring a pint of guinness,
you wait for at least two hours,
until the almost brine water,
   turns into a golden colour,
       but that's it!
  then you boil some angel hair pasta,
and there you go: a clear chicken soup -
dubbed the medicine soup,
  it's actually now even called a soup,
  it's actually called by its name as a separate
category within the category of soup,
i'll try to write you the name without
the native diacritical markings...
  rosół = and this is by best approximate:
   ~ρ-sew
         (rho-sew) - yes, that verb participle of
the act of sewing - as: prompt (enforced
labour: sew! sew!) -
          no, sowing as in rho-sow doesn't cut it...
like that prolonged sound of disgust
with eww / eew... however you write
oh and ooh...
           can't think of an easier chicken soup
recipe, but *******, it's tasty...
  and heavens above: it's not a typical english
soup of just plain dumb creamy:
creamy tomato, creamy mushroom, creamy this,
creamy that, **** it, let's just skip
the entree, eat the main, and get stuck into
the choc cake and custard...
   when i eat a soup, i want to see the bottom
of the bowl...
the garlic and onion are crucial,
  and yes, you plop the onion in a whole,
like all the other veg (obviously cut up slightly)...
   nothing simpler, but you need to slowly
cook the **** thing until you get this
diluted amber colour...
   and you definitely need a lot of fresh parsley,
and angel hair pasta...
           fine spaghetti, after all,
  it's not a chinese noodle soup...
              and before going to bed i asked him:
any better? yes, better...
    so we finished watching the nail-biting
poland vs. montenegro game... 2 nil up,
2 - 2, and then magic in the space of 10 minutes,
almost feels like 1974: 4 - 2.
so i asks him one last time:
   can you drink a glass of cognac with that
medication? no answer, a grunt...
       you know, the scots call ms. amber the maiden
of the bowels... have a warm glass of
cognac, to burn that bug out...
and he goes: did you know that eating
a polish sausage can **** you?
  yeah, it's called a *kiełbasa jad (tenacious d -
opening track:
  etymological explanation -
   kieł- i.e. canine, -basa [baza] i.e. base -
   based on canines - tearing into it,
carnivorous implication, my bet) -
      so he says:
  yeah, you leave the sausage in a warm place,
esp. in sunshine, and it turns into
a venomous snake, can **** you,
   starts fermenting a venom akin
                                            to an asp...
so i reply: well, next time stop being so
****** greedy, and if you're in the mood,
at least poach the **** thing!
he might not be drinking the prescribed
cognac... (insert snigger):
   but sure as **** i'm drinking the whiskey.

Like a 21st century Snow White in her crystal casket,
You can find me in the frozen aisle, lying on a bed of ice cream tubs and chicken kievs,
Unconcious.

Slide the plexiglass door open,
Pick me up.
Do not worry if your freezer looks too small,
I can bend, I can fold.
You can consume me tonight, tomorrow, next week, six months from now and I won't expire.

It doesn't take too much to cook me,
Yet it shows you haven't done enough cooking in your life to know
That once meat is defrosted, you can't freeze it again and expect it to taste good.

No woman ever,
cried so many tears
No woman ever
felt so many fears.

Time froze--

I love you- he said,
And he meant it
She did -with all her body
felt it.

Indispensable love it is,
forever they will be
-he believes.

I love you back - she said,
And no man ever,
with such love- has been fed.

Time defrosted--

As my spirit stood there,
watching her cry
to float through her soul
oh, I did try.

For another world,
one ticket I bought
and one last smell of me
she did cought.

It rang,for my departure
a loud bell
I just left,
with a deaf farewell.

I put on the lotion that sits by the sink
and my heart briefly pauses.
I am electrified,
it smells like your hair did that night.
My bones start to rattle and hum
to the rhythm that we had.
The words "come here"
shook like mortars
on your lips.
Those two syllables
were explosives
buried underneath the wall
that stood invisibly between us.
You were my bomb shelter.
You were my compass,
I always knew which way to go,
in which direction I needed to travel,
to find you.
Even with zip codes
and times zones
and nearly a continent between us,
I could still hear clearly
your heart hammering into my ear.
Sweet noise destruction.
You were my furnace;
defrosted, I held onto you,
afraid that the cold
would slow my blood again;
more beats and I am more,
less beats and I am less.
With you I was anything,
I was everything,
I was no one
and I was every person
I knew I could be.
All at once.
You were my castle,
no moat.
You stood, humble
and wearing that shade of soft slate
that brought out the forests in my eyes.
Salty rain affection.
Your hands were my favorite umbrellas,
shielding me from the dripping universe.
Days with your sun
and I melted
into an ocean of infatuation.
The nights with your moon
irrevocably changed my tides.
I am still swimming against them.

love oozes out the sky
in frozen little pieces

defrosted so all can understand
you are loved  and cherished

The skin on my legs is exposed and bare as the cold cuts through my many layers.
How long has it been since I felt warmth?
Since a gentle heart defrosted my sore bones?
Since someone whispered to me that I'll live another night?

I cannot recall, so the answer is simple:
Too long.

The cold has this affect on me.
It makes my mind blurred, my memories and emotions congested.

The frost on my face has made it impossible for me to smile,
So my expression is tinted blue with a hint of lifelessness.

How do I feel?
Happy? Sad? Hopeful? Hopeless?
Or nothing at all?

I think I am numb,
But I don't know it.

I know nothing.
Well, almost nothing.

It is the Weather, I think.
All the Weather's fault that I suffer.
That I'm freezing, lifeless and alone.

Sent to prison for killing Autumn,
I made the same mistake last year,
Each bar an icy steel column,
Separating me from summers cheer.

My feet are numb, my fingers frozen,
Kept from the world in my frosty pen.
I reflect on the lonesome path I’ve chosen,
But know I will do the same again.

This prison is hell, chilled to the bone.
The warden called Weather is rather glum,
Winter does that to a man starved of home,
Its freezing walls are fast to benumb.

I beg for pardon of my crime,
I feel remorse and true dismay.
I am defrosted just in time,
To be released on Christmas Day.

I reflect on Winter’s release of me,
And wonder what the future will bring?
The gloom defrosts inside of me,
As my heart is warmed by emerging Spring.

The sparrow was caught in our freezer in a blackout;
poor thing. I could hear it beating its wings,
calling to us, wanting to be let out.
But the sparrow was in the freezer during a blackout,
when the power had failed, the freezer stopped freezing
and if we had only opened its doors,
let the poor thing fly away––
why, our food may have melted.
The ice cream would have dripped from its box,
the peas would have defrosted on the counter,
the frozen fruit would have been only fruit:
raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb.
If we had let the sparrow out, it would have let the cold out with it;
we’d have lost our food, all that we had tried to preserve.
All that was necessary for life: it was in those freezer foods.
Of course, the sparrow kept calling, wanting.
But we didn’t really have a choice;
we would have died. Maybe.
Sometimes, at least, it feels like that’s all there is:
food, frozen in the freezer
and a sparrow.

That carrot, what could be said a little girl gave her,
                    Well we wondered why an anatomically
Correct Miss Snow lady had such an amicable smile.

Her nose always seemed to descend to below,
                         She had a friend but his carrot was as
Limp as could be, it wasn’t his fault it’s the cold you see…

But never fear, where there is ingenuity there is away…
                 In their morning Miss Snow seemed to ice up below,
But she seemed to have a rather defrosted glow…

For when it was time for this artificial carrot to wind down,
              She evaporated in pleasure but Mr Snowman was still there
***** but no place to go. Poor Mr Snowman,
                                                          we'll blame it on the cold…

portraits kissing in moonlight
you have our stares.
mouth open over unfinished meals
there's passion in pasta,
pleasure in pastry

Tongue down throat
she stands up to kiss

smirks go between us
and we giggle at their lust.

These dates becoming almost daily and still not with you.
you're continents away
and I'm not content without you

I wish it could be us.
I want that passionate pasta
with hands behind my waist as I stir
stodgy rice,

that lean over my shoulder,
tender as you watch me
make a mess of a meal but
always leave a clean kitchen.

recall the
over salting of a starch,
the almost poisoning of your father

recall my confidence in
"Yes more salt"
"No, not enough”.

I eat nothing but *** noodle stew
With extra defrosted veg.
We were all those fragrances
with somewhat sliced fingers
but always
fingers through fingers.

Thoughtless Day  

I was looking out of the window
The view was a road and an opposite wall
And I decided to think of nothing
Emptying my brain for all the ******* and
Lies I had read today and let it sink into the silt
Of the forgotten yet is silt that one day can be
made of mud and do a lasting service
for mankind, and since the settlers keep bulldozing
Palestinian dwellings, no, no I will not think of
This and why should I since I'm not thinking
Like the rest of the world.

Man, it is difficult not to think about love and death
And all the things in between so I look at the white wall
It is five years it was painted, but it still looks new.
No, this is too hard I will go and make a coffee eat
A biscuit and think the freezer need to be defrosted

yellow hair, falling and bouncing like ocean waves
orange lips, meticulously painted to be genuinely gorgeous
untouched beauty: you are all mine

and i know that this will never end
returning and coming back forever
ending is not an option

my love, you're the strongest. the bravest.
years of resistance have built you up to be towering over others

even when faced with disagreement, you easily overpower others
viewing you fight is the greatest pleasure
even when faced with turmoil, you stay strong
riding on everything is your beautiful soul
your beautiful soul brings me joy, even in the darkest times
thinking about you brings me the most happiness my love
happiness is real and true, palpable, when i see you
ice becomes my heart whenever you leave
not to lie, when you return, my heart thaws like a defrosted food
green broccoli or red cherries thawing

babe, you're the best and the bravest
at all of my events, you always impress everyone with your singing
bravery is needed to do that
you possess that courage within you

apples and pears could never measure up to you
nothing could ever measure up
dinosaurs could maybe but they are dead

i will never stop loving you

whispers mask your hidden feelings
illicit activities like late night reconnaisances
licking
licking

needing more from you
everything you provide is enough
viewing your beauty
everything you provide is everything i will ever need
reading each others lips like tongues

spicy activities
trucking across the 405 highway
of course i touch your skin
please tell me it is so soft and supple

love for you is tangible
oranges are more sour than my love for you
viewing your body
it is so graceful
needing you to tell me you love me back
gracefully you do

your love is so strong
oranges could never be as strong as my love for you
universe is beautiful. we are all stardust

a little acrostic peom
*hope you all like :)

The missing path
It is netwok-less
Darkened with night colors
Dulled by Insects cries
To break the rough silence
Vegetation, piercing through our wheels
Reclaiming its defrosted house
Dancing unholy
To give story of its lonely mood
And deny us our welcome cake
Dogs, barking for ***** bone
Buying it with,
Descrimination
To confirm our illusion
******* our juicy fruit
And a fragile
cheating our muse with fear
Listen
It was all a lesson

The excuses made by religious ideas 
break the monotony of the days, 
brighten the expressions of love to one another,
colour the thoughts with rainbows
gleaned from the subconscious.

The enlightened man sees all in beauty,
everyone in beauty and kindness,
walking through life in a euphoria of well being.

These placebo pills, the fairy tales of the grown ups
made into an everyday occurrence 
within the patterns of their lives.

Untouchable, 
unrock-able dedication to the illusion,
bound by the power and the glory,
after all, life at all is a most magical beautiful thing,
the words receiving a diadem of diamonds,
The Word phenomenon!

And now I learn that the majority of our thoughts 
and actions are guided by the so-called subconscious, 
this tallies with my own thoughts 
on the subject of joy in living. 

Take away a man's memory and there is nothing left. 

What the frozen head people think 
they might get out of life in a next life, 
finally defrosted by whom- I don't know. 
Does the memory defy ice and live on?

frozen lips
warm tears
defrosted kiss

my girls play with freshly
defrosted steak, their claws
pit and pat testing it
and how they are eager to
get on the floor all fours to devour
it, and when one is finished
so jealous of the other watching the unfinished
with piercing stares and guttural moaning.
so, May I need to cook another, they say yes
though they speak with full mouths and
bellies. To me it all tastes like liver.
With a bit of snap and chew to it.
They seem to like it , though.

I threw away the defrosted chicken,
and the nail clippings, skin onions,
what I once thought was my favorite shirt,
stretched out underwear,
the half of a pair of gold earrings,
a crumpled ball of my hair.
Threw my feelings, personality, nonsense conversations.
Have I ever told you it scares me to death to be like them?
I am encapsulated, living thing, matryoshka doll.
This city fits me like an oversized wedding ring.
And the town wives want to compete,
Floorboards and glasses of white wine,
Mumble and half smile my way out of this.

and what a fascinating observation, to think that gladioli (sword lilies) can look so different in the ground, and so different when placed in a vase and set on a table... quiet literally, a metamorphosis... in the garden, tiny and orange flowers, once collected for display in a home... booming radish pink... nay: piglet pink!*

great! and i thought that i've taken out a large
piece of beef from the freezer,
the next day, once it has defrosted,
i find out that it's actual a large piece of
lamb... ugh...
                      grr...
           i hate inspecting frozen meat -
pork looks almost like chicken and vice versa,
like lamb looks almost like beef (       "       "   ).
so? panic? nope...
   off goes the ambition for a beef bourguignon,
in comes lamb with rosemary and garlic...
so i nip into the garden and pick some
rosemary,
   throw it into pestle and mortar -
bash it up, adding salt, pepper, garlic
dijon mustard and olive oil -
   i chop some onions, drizzle them with
balsamic vinegar, add garlic and water -
then i smear the piece of lamb with
the pestle and mortar paste,
        and then i slow cook it for 4 hours...
then i roast a mix of small tatties and
sweet tatties... finishing it all off with some
mange tout.

p.s. esp. in england:
   lamb is kept intact with green strings -
beef is kept intact with red strings
pork is kept intact with whiote strings...
   chicken? well: that comes as a whole -
not hard to miss it.