If I'm  the drag would you be

                                          my queen?


Yes I maybe a bit of a drama queen,

    but we know

who sits on the throne..

I took more time on my hair,
         than you did on your make up.

But you know that all my time is  yours.

I may be a drag,
but we know who hold the title of beauty.

    I'm just the ***** and your the lady,

              be my woman and ill always love you.

And I'll never drag you down,


                                           but lift you higher up.

I followed him down the trail until we got to the mouth of the mines. The life and energy of the surrounding maples and birches seemed to come to a still and then die as we walked closer, closer. The air was cold and dark and damp and smelt of mold and moths. Delvos stepped into the darkness anyways.
“Well, girl, you coming or aren’t you?”
I could see his yellowed tobacco teeth form into a slimy smile as I stepped out of the sun. It was still inside. The canary chirped.
“This tunnel is just the mouth to over two hundred others exactly like it. Stay close. Last thing I need this month is National Geographic on my *** for losing one of their puppet girls.”
“Delvos, ****. I have two masters degrees.” He rolled his eyes.
“Spare me.” He trotted off around the corner to the left, whistling.
“I survived alone in the jungles of Bolivia alone for two months chasing an Azara’s Spinetail. I climbed the tallest mountain in Nepal shooting Satyr Tragopans along the cliff faces. In Peru I…” Suddenly I felt the weight of the darkness. In my blinding anger I lost track of his lantern. I stopped, my heartbeat picked up, and I tried to remind myself of what I did in Peru.
I followed a Diurnal Peruvian Pygmy-Owl across the gravel tops of the Andes Mountains, no light but the Southern Cross and waning moon above. I am not scared of darkness. I am not scared of darkness.
I stopped to listen. Somewhere in front of me the canary chirped.

When I first got the job in Vermont I couldn’t have been more frustrated. Mining canaries? Never had I ever ‘chased’ a more mundane bird. Nonetheless, when Jack Reynolds sends you on a shoot you don’t say no, so I packed up my camera bag and hoped on the next plane out of Washington.
“His name is John Delvos.” Jack said. He handed me the manila case envelope. “He’s lived in rural Vermont his entire life. Apparently his family bred the canaries for the miners of the Sheldon Quarry since the early twenties. When the accident happened the whole town basically shut down. There were no canaries in the mines the day the gas killed the miners. His mother died in a fire of some sort shortly after. The town blamed the Delvos family and ran them into the woods. His father built a cabin and once his father died, Delvos continued to breed the birds. He ships them to other mining towns across the country now. We want to run a piece about the inhumanity of breeding animals to die so humans won’t.” I stood in silence in front of his deep mahogany desk, suddenly aware of the lack of make-up on my face. He smiled, “You’re leaving on Tuesday.”
“Yes sir.”
“Don’t look so smug, Lila. This may not be the most exotic bird you’ve shot but the humanity of this piece has the potential to be a cover story. Get the shots, write the story.”

“Do you understand the darkness now, Ms. Rivers? Your prestigious masters degrees don’t mean **** down here.” Delvos reappeared behind the crack of his match in a side tunnel not twenty yards in front of me. He relit the oily lantern and turned his back without another word. I reluctantly followed deeper into the damp darkness.
“Why were there no canaries in the mine on, you know, that day?” The shadows of the lantern flickered against the iron canary cage chained on his hip and the yellow bird hopped inside.
“I was nine, Ms. Rivers. I didn’t understand much at the time.” We turned right into the next tunnel and our shoes crunched on jagged stones. All the stones were black.
“But surely you understand now?”
The canary chirped.

When I first got to Sheldon and began asking about the location of the Delvos’ cabin you would have thought I was asking where the first gate to hell was located. Mothers would smile and say, “Sorry, Miss, I can’t say,” and hurriedly flock their children in the opposite direction. After two hours of polite refusals I gave up. I spent the rest of the first day photographing the town square. It was quaint; old stone barbershops surrounded by oaks and black squirrels, a western themed whiskey bar, and a few greasy spoon restaurants interspersed in-between. I booked a room in the Walking Horse Motel for Wednesday night, determined to get a good nights sleep and defeat this towns fear of John Delvos tomorrow.
My room was a tiny one bed square with no TV. Surprise, surprise. At least I had my camera and computer to entertain myself. I reached into the side of my camera bag and pulled out my Turkish Golds and Macaw-beak yellow BIC. I stepped out onto the dirt in front of my door and lit up. I looked up and the stars stole all the oxygen surrounding me. They were dancing and smiling above me and I forgot Delvos, Jack, and all of Sheldon except it’s sky. Puffing away, I stepped farther and farther from my door and deeper into the darkness of night. The father into the darkness the more dizzying the stars dancing became.
“Ma’am? Everything okay?”
Startled, I dropped my cigarette on the ground and the ember fell off.
“I’m sorry, sir. I was just, um, the stars…” I snuffed out the orange glow in the dirt with my boot and extended my hand, “Lila Waters, and you are?”
“Ian Benet. I haven’t seen you around here before, Ms. Waters, are you new to town?”
“I’m here for work. I’m a bird photographer and journalist for National Geographic. I’m looking for John Delvos but I’m starting to think he’s going to be harder to track than a Magpie Robin.”
The stars tiptoed in their tiny circles above in the silence. Then, they disappeared with a spark as Ian lit up his wooden pipe. It was a light colored wood, stained with rich brown tobacco and ash. He passed me his matches, smiling.
“What do you want with that old *******? Don’t tell me National Geographic is interested in the Delvos canaries.”
I lit up another stick and took a drag. “Shocking, right?”
“Actually, it’s about time their story is told.” Benet walked to the wooden bench to our left and patted the seat beside him. I walked over. “The Delvos canaries saved hundreds of Sheldonian lives over the years. But the day a crew went into the mines without one, my father came out of the ground as cold as when we put him back into it in his coffin.”
I sat in silence, unsure what to say. “Mr. Benet, I’m so sorry…”
“Please, just Ian. My father was the last Mr. Benet.”
We sat on the wooden bench, heat leaving our bodies to warm the dead wood beneath our legs. I shivered; the stars dance suddenly colder and more violent.
“Delvos canaries are martyrs, Ms. Waters. This whole town indebted to those tiny yellow birds, but nobody cares to remember that anymore.”
“Can you tell me where I can find Mr. Delvos and his, erm, martyrs?” The ember of my second cigarette was close to my pinching fingertips.
“Follow me.” Ian stood up and walked to the edge of the woods in front of us. We crunched the cold dust beneath our feet, making me aware of how silent it was. Ian stopped at a large elm and pointed, “See that yellow notch?” Sure enough, there was a notch cut and dyed yellow at his finger’s end. “If you follow true north from this tree into the woods you’ll find this notch about every fifty yards or so. Follow the yellow and it’ll spit you out onto the Delvos property.”
“Thank you, Ian. I really can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am to find out where to find this elusive Mr. Delvos and his canaries.”
“You don’t have to,” he knocked the ash out of his pipe against the tree, “Just do those birds justice in your article. Remember, martyrs. Tell old Delvos Ian Benet sends his regards.” He turned and walked back to the motel and I stood and watched in silence. It was then I realized I hadn’t heard a single bird since I got to Sheldon. The stars dance was manic above me as I walked back to my room and shut the door.

The canary chirped and Delvos stopped.
“This is a good place to break out fast. Sit.”
I sat obediently, squirming around until the rocks formed a more comfortable nest around my bony hips. We left for the mines as the stars were fading in the vermillion Vermont sky this morning and had been walking for what seemed like an eternity. I was definitely ready to eat. He handed me a gallon Ziploc bag from his backpack filled with raisins, nuts, various dried fruits, and a stiff piece of bread. I attacked the food like a raven.
“I was the reason no canaries entered the mines that day, Ms. Waters.” Delvos broke a piece of his bread off and wrapped it around a dried piece of apricot, or maybe apple. I was suddenly aware of my every motion and swallowed, loudly. I crinkled into my Ziploc and crunched on the pecans I dug out, waiting.
“Aren’t you going to ask why?”
“I’m not a parrot, Mr. Delvos, I don’t answer expectedly on command. You’ll tell me if you want.” I hurriedly stuffed a fistful of dried pears into my mouth.
Delvos chuckled and my nerves eased, “You’ve got steel in you, Ms. Rivers, I’ll give you that much.”
I nodded and continued cramming pears in my mouth.
“I was only nine. The canaries were my pets, all of them. I hated when Dad would send them into the mines to die for men I couldn’t give two ***** about. It was my birthday and I asked for an afternoon of freedom with my pets and Dad obliged. I was in the aviary with pocketfuls of sunflower-seeds. Whenever I threw a handful into the air above me, the air came to life with flickering yellow brushes and songs of joy. It was the happiest I have ever been, wholly surrounded and protected by my friends. Around twelve thirty that afternoon the Sheriff pulled up, lights ablaze. The blue and red lights stilled my yellow sky to green again and that’s when I heard the shouting. He cuffed my Dad on the hood of the car and Mom was crying and pushing her fists into the sheriff’s chest. I didn’t understand at all. The Sheriff ended up putting Mom in the car too and they all left me in the aviary. I sat there until around four that afternoon before they sent anyone to come get me.”
Delvos took a small bite of his bread and chewed a moment. “No matter how many handfuls of seeds I threw in the air after that, the birds wouldn’t stir. They wouldn’t even sing. I think they knew what was happening.”
I was at a loss for words so of course I blurted, “I didn’t see an aviary at your house…”
Delvos laughed. “Someone burnt down the house I was raised in the next week while we were sleeping. Mom died that night. The whole dark was burning with screams and my yellow canaries were orange and hot against the black sky. That’s the only night I’ve seen black canaries and the only night I’ve heard them scream.”
I swallowed some mixed nuts and they rubbed against my dry throat.
“They never caught the person. A week later Dad took the remainder of the birds and we marched into the woods. We worked for months clearing the land and rebuilding our lives. We spent most of the time in silence, except for the canary cries. When the house was finally built and the birds little coops were as well, Dad finally talked. The only thing he could say was ‘Canaries are not the same as a Phoenix, John. Not the same at all.”
The canary chirped, still only visible by the lanterns flame. Not fully yellow, I realized, here in the mines, but not fully orange either.

When I first walked onto John Delvos’ property on Thursday morning he was scattering feed into the bird coops in the front of his cabin. Everything was made of wood and still wet with the morning’s dew.
“Mr. Delvos?” He spun around, startled, and walked up to me a little too fast.
“Why are you here? Who are you?”
“My name is Lila Waters, sir, I am a photographer and journalist for National Geographic Magazine and we are going to run an article on your canaries.”
“Not interested”
“Please, sir, can I ask you just a few quick questions as take a couple pictures of your, erm, martyrs?”
His eyes narrowed and he walked up to me, studying my face with an intense, glowering gaze. He spit a mouthful of dip onto the ground without breaking eye contact. I shifted my camera bag’s weight to the other shoulder.
“Who told you to call them that?”
“I met Ian Benet last night, he told me how important your birds are to this community, sir. He sends his regards.”
Delvos laughed and motioned for me to follow as he turned his back. “You can take pictures but I have to approve which ones you publish. That’s my rule.”
“Sir, it’s really not up to me, you see, my boss, Jack Reynolds, is one of the CEO’s for the magazine and he...”
“Those are my rules, Ms. Waters.” He turned and picked back up the bucket of seed and began to walk back to the birds. “You want to interview me then we do it in the mine. Be back here at four thirty in the morning.”
“Sir…?”
“Get some sleep, Ms. Waters. You’ll want to be rested for the mine.” He turned, walked up his wooden stairs, and closed the door to his cabin.
I was left alone in the woods and spent the next hour snapping pictures of the little, yellow canaries in their cages. I took a couple pictures of his house and the surrounding trees, packed up my camera and trekked back to my motel.

“You finished yet?” Delvos stood up and the memory of his green and brown wooded homestead fled from my memory as the mine again consumed my consciousness. Dark, quiet, and stagnant. I closed the Ziploc and stuffed the bag, mainly filled with the raisins I sifted through, into my pocket.
Delvos grunted and the canary flapped in its cage as he stood again and, swinging the lantern, rounded another corner. The path we were on began to take a noticeable ***** downward and the moisture on the walls and air multiplied.
The canary chirped.
The lantern flickered against the moist, black stones, sleek and piled in the corners we past. The path stopped ahead at a wall of solid black and brown Earth.
The canary chirped twice.
It smelt of clay and mildew and Delvos said, “Go on, touch it.”
I reached my hand out, camera uselessly hanging like a bat over my shoulder. The rock was cold and hard. It felt dead.
The Canary was flitting its wings in the cage now, chirping every few seconds.
“This is the last tunnel they were digging when the gas under our feet broke free from hell and killed those men.”
Delvos hoisted the lantern above our heads, illuminating the surrounding gloom. All was completely still and even my own vapor seemed to fall out of my mouth and simply die. The canary was dancing a frantic jig, now, similar to the mating dance of the Great Frigate Bird I shot in the Amazon jungle. As I watched the canary and listened to its small wings beat against the cold metal cage I begin to feel dizzy. The bird’s cries had transformed into a scream colder than fire and somehow more fierce.
The ability to fly is what always made me jealous of birds as a child, but as my temple throbbed and the canary danced I realized I was amiss. Screaming, yellow feathers whipped and the entire inside of the cage was instantaneously filled. It was beautiful until the very end. Dizzying, really.
Defeated, the canary sank to the floor, one beaten wing hanging out of the iron bars at a most unnatural angle. Its claws were opening and closing, grasping the tainted cave air, or, perhaps, trying to push it away. Delvos unclipped the cage and sat it on the floor in the space between us, lantern still held swaying above his head. The bird was aflame now, the silent red blood absorbing into the apologetic, yellow feathers. Orange, a living fire. I pulled out my camera as I sat on the ground beside the cage. I took a few shots, the camera’s clicks louder than the feeble chirps sounding out of the canary’s tattered, yellow beak. My head was spinning. Its coal-black eyes reflected the lantern’s flame above. I could see its tiny, red tongue in the bottom of its mouth.
Opening.
Closing.
Opening, wider, too wide, then,
Silence.


I felt dizzy. I remember feeling the darkness surround me; it felt warm.

“I vaguely remember Delvos helping me to my feet, but leaving the mine was a complete haze.” I told the panel back in D.C., “It wasn’t until we had crossed the stream on the way back to the cabin that I began to feel myself again. Even then, I felt like I was living a dream. When we got back to the cabin the sight of the lively yellow canaries in their coops made me cry. Delvos brought me a bottle of water and told me I needed to hit the trail because the sun set early in the winter, so I le

Bouazizi’s heavy eyelids parted as the Muezzin recited the final call for the first Adhan of the day.

“As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”
Prayer is better than sleep

Rising from the torment of another restless night, Bouazizi wiped the sleep from his droopy eyes as his feet touched the cold stone floor.

Throughout the frigid night, the devilish jinn did their work, eagerly jabbing away at Bouazizi with pointed sticks, tormenting his troubled conscience with the worry of his nagging indebtedness. All night the face of the man Bouazizi owed money to haunted him. Bouazizi could see the man’s greasy lips and brown teeth jawing away, inches from his face. He imagined chubby caffeine stained fingers reaching toward him to grab some dinars from Bouazizi’s money box.

Bouazizi turned all night like he was sleeping on a board of spikes. His prayers for a restful night again went unanswered. The pall of a blue fatigue would shadow Bouazizi for most of the day.

Bouazizi’s weariness was compounded by a gnawing hunger. By force of habit, he grudgingly opened the food cupboard with the foreknowledge that it was almost bare. Bouazizi’s premonition proved correct as he surveyed a meager handful of chickpeas, some eggs and a few sparse loaves. It was just enough to feed his dependant family; younger brothers and sisters, cousins and a terminally disabled uncle. That left nothing for Bouazizi but a quick jab to his empty gut. He would start this day without breakfast.

Bouazizi made a living as a street vendor. He hustles to survive. Bouazizi’s father died in a construction accident in Libya when he was three. Since the age of 10, Bouazizi had pushed a cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid; selling fruit at the public market just a few blocks from the home that he has lived in for almost his entire life.

At 27 years of age, Bouazizi has wrestled the beast of deprivation since his birth. To date, he has bravely fought it to a standstill; but day after day the multi-headed hydra of life has snapped at him. He has squarely met the eyes of the beast with fortitude and resolve; but the sharp fangs of a hardscrabble life has sunken deep into Bouazizi’s spleen. The unjust rules of society are powerful claws that slash away at his flesh, bleeding him dry: while the spiked tendrils of poverty wrap Bouazizi’s neck, seeking to strangle him.

Bouazizi is a workingman hero; a skilled warrior in the fight for daily bread. He is accustomed to living a life of scarcity. His daily deliverance is the grace of another day of labor and the blessed wages of subsistence.

Though Allah has blessed this man with fortitude the acuteness of terminal want and the constant struggle to survive has its limits for any man; even for strong champions like Bouazizi.

This morning as Bouazizi washed he peered into a mirror, closely examining new wrinkles on his stubble strewn face. He fingered his deep black curls dashed with growing streaks of gray. He studied them through the gaze of heavy bloodshot eyes. He looked upward as if to implore Allah to salve the bruises of daily life.

Bouazizi braced himself with the splash of a cold water slap to his face. He wiped his cheeks clean with the tail of his shirt. He dipped his toothbrush into a box of baking powder and scoured an aching back molar in need of a root canal. Bouazizi should see a dentist but it is a luxury he cannot afford so he packed an aspirin on top of the infected tooth. The dissolving aspirin invaded his mouth coating his tongue with a bitter effervescence.

Bouazizi liked the taste and was grateful for the expectation of a dulled pain. He smiled into the mirror to check his chipped front tooth while pinching a cigarette **** from an ashtray. The roach had one hit left in it. He lit it with a long hard drag that consumed a good part of the filter. Bouazizi’s first smoke of the day was more filter then tobacco but it shocked his lungs into the coughing flow of another day.

Bouazizi put on his jacket, slipped into his knockoff NB sneakers and reached for a green apple on a nearby table. He took a big bite and began to chew away the pain of his toothache.

Bouazizi stepped into the street to catch the sun rising over the rooftops. He believed that seeing the sunrise was a good omen that augured well for that day’s business. A sunbeam braking over a far distant wall bathed Bouazizi in a golden light and illumined the alley where he parked his cart holding his remaining stock of week old apples. He lifted the handles and backed his cart out into the street being extra mindful of the cracks in the cobblestone road. Bouazizi sprained his ankle a week ago and it was still tender. Bouazizi had to be careful not to aggravate it with a careless step. Having successfully navigated his cart into the road, Bouazizi made a skillful U Turn and headed up the street limping toward the market.

A winter chill gripped Bouazizi prompting him to zip his jacket up to his neck. The zipper pinched his Adam’s Apple and a few droplets of blood stained his green corduroy jacket. Though it was cold, Bouazizi sensed that spring would arrive early this year triggering a replay of a recurring daydream. Bouazizi imagined himself behind the wheel of a new van on his way to the market. Fresh air and sunshine pouring through the open windows with the cargo space overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a lifelong ambition of Bouazizi to own a van. He dreamed of buying a six cylinder Dodge Caravan. It would be painted red and he would call it The Red Flame. The Red Flame would be fast and powerful and sport chrome spinners. The Red Flame would be filled with music from a Blaupunkt sound system with kick *** speakers. Power windows, air conditioning, leather seats, a moonroof and plenty of space in the back for his produce would complete Bouazizi’s ride.

The Red Flame would be the vehicle Bouazizi required to expand his business beyond the market square. Bouazizi would sell his produce out of the back of the van, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. No longer would he have to wait for customers to come to his stand in the market. Bouazizi would go to his customers. Bouazizi and the Red Flame would be known in all the neighborhoods throughout the district. Bouazizi shook his head and smiled thinking about all the girls who would like to take rides in the Red Flame. Bouazizi and his Red Flame would be a sight to be noticed and a force to be reckoned with.

“EEEEEYOWWW” a Mercedes horn angrily honked; jarring Bouazizi from the reverie of his daydream. A guy whipping around the corner like a silver streak stuck his head out the window blasting with music yelling, “Hey Mnayek, watch where you push that *******.”

The music faded as the Mercedes roared away. “Barra nikk okhtek” Bouazizi yelled, raising his ******* in the direction of the vanished car. “The big guys in the fancy cars think the road belongs to them”, Bouazizi mumbled to himself.

The insult ****** Bouazizi off, but he was accustomed to them and as he limped along pushing his cart he distracted himself with the amusement of the ascending sun chasing the fleeting shadows of the night, sending them scurrying down narrow alleyways.

Bouazizi imaged himself a character from his favorite movie. He was a giant Transformer, chasing the black shadows of evil away from the city into the desert. After battling evil and conquering the bad guys, he would transform himself back into the regular Bouazizi; selling his produce to the people as he patrolled the highways of Tunisia in the Red Flame, the music blasting out the windows, the chrome spinners flashing in the sunlight. Bouazizi would remain vigilant, always ready to transform the Red Flame to fight the evil doers.

The bumps and potholes in the road jostled Bouazizi’s load of apples. A few fell out of the wooden baskets and were rolling around in the open spaces of the cart. Bouazizi didn’t want to risk bruising them. Damaged merchandise can’t be sold so he was careful to secure his goods and arrange his cart to appeal to women customers. He made sure to display his prized electronic scale in the corner of the cart for all to see.

Bouazizi had a reputation as a fair and generous dealer who always gave good value to his customers. Bouazizi was also known for his kindness. He would give apples to hungry children and families who could not pay. Bouazizi knew the pain of hunger and it brought him great satisfaction to be able to alleviate it in others.

As a man who valued fairness, Bouazizi was particularly proud of his electronic scale. Bouazizi was certain the new measuring device assured all customers that Bouazizi sold just and correct portions. The electronic scale was Bouazizi’s shining lamp. He trusted it. He hung it from the corner post of his cart like it was the beacon of a lighthouse guiding shoppers through the treachery of an unscrupulous market. It would attract all customers who valued fairness to the safe harbor of Bouazizi’s cart.

The electronic scale is Bouazizi’s assurance to his customers that the weights and measures of electronic calculation layed beyond any cloud of doubt. It is a fair, impartial and objective arbiter for any dispute.

Bouazizi believed that the fairness of his scale would distinguish his stand from other produce vendors. Though its purchase put Bouazizi into deep debt, the scale was a source of pride for Bouazizi who believed that it would help his profits to increase and help him to achieve his goal of buying the Red Flame.

As Bouazizi pushed his cart toward the market, he mulled his plan over in his mind for the millionth time. He wasn't great in math but he was able to calculate his financial situation with a degree of precision. His estimations triggered worries that his growing debt to money lenders may be difficult to payoff.

Indebtedness pressed down on Bouazizi’s chest like a mounting pile of stones. It was the source of an ever present fear coercing Bouazizi to live in a constant state of anxiety. His business needed to grow for Bouazizi to get a measure of relief and ultimately prosper from all his hard work. Bouazizi was driven by urgency.

The morning roil of the street was coming alive. Bouazizi quickened his step to secure a good location for his cart at the market. Car horns, the spewing diesel from clunking trucks, the flatulent roar of accelerating buses mixed with the laughs and shrieks of children heading to school composed the rising crescendo of the city square.

As he pushed through the market, Bouazizi inhaled the aromatic eddies of roasting coffee floating on the air. It was a pleasantry Bouazizi looked forward to each morning. The delicious wafts of coffee mingling with the crisp aroma of baking bread instigated a growl from Bouazizi’s empty stomach. He needed to get something to eat. After he got money from his first sale he would by a coffee and some fried dough.

Activity in the market was vigorous, punctuated by the usual arguments of petty territorial disputes between vendors. The disagreements were always amicably resolved, burned away in rising billows of roasting meats and vegetables, the exchange of cigarettes and the plumes of tobacco smoke rising as emanations of peace.

Bouazizi skillfully maneuvered his cart through the market commotion. He slid into his usual space between Aaban and Aameen. His good friend Aaban sold candles, incense, oils and sometimes his wife would make cakes to sell. Aameen was the markets most notorious jokester. He sold hardware and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Aaban was already burning a few sticks of jasmine incense. It helped to attract customers. The aroma defined the immediate space with the pleasant bouquet of a spring garden. Bouazizi liked the smell and appreciated the increased traffic it brought to his apple cart.

“Hey Basboosa#, do you have any cigarettes?“, Aameen asked as he pulled out a lighter. Bouazizi shook the tip of a Kent from an almost empty pack. Aameen grabbed the cigarette with his lips.

“That's three cartons of Kents you owe me, you cheap *******.” Bouazizi answered half jokingly. Aameen mumbled a laugh through a grin tightly gripping the **** as he exhaled smoke from his nose like a fire breathing dragon. Bouazizi also took out a cigarette for himself.

“Aameem, give me a light”, Bouazizi asked.

Aameen tossed him the lighter.

“Keep it Basboosa. I got others.” Aameen smiled as he showed off a newly opened box of disposable lighters to sell on his stand.

“Made in China, Basboosa. They make everything cheap and colorful. I can make some money with these.”

Bouazizi lit his next to last cigarette. He inhaled deeply. The smoke chased away the cool air in Bouazizi’s lungs with a shot of a hot nicotine rush.

“Merci Aameen” Bouazizi answered. He put the lighter into the almost empty cigarette pack and put it into his hip pocket. The lighter would protect his last cigarette from being crushed.

The laughter and shouts of the bazaar, the harangue of radio voices shouting anxious verses of Imam’s exhorting the masses to submit and the piecing ramble of nondescript AM music flinging piercing unintelligible static surrounded Bouazizi and his cart as he waited for his first customers of the day.

Bouazizi sensed a nervous commotion rise along the line of vendors. A crowd of tourists and locals milling about parted as if to avoid a slithering asp making its way through their midst. The hoots of vendors and the cackle of the crowd made its way to Bouazizi’s knowing ear. He knew what was coming. It was nothing more then another shakedown by city officials acting as bagmen for petty municipal bureaucrats. They claim to be checking vendor licences but they’re just making the rounds collecting protection money from the vendors. Pocketing bribes and payoffs is the municipal authorities idea of good government. They are skilled at using the power of their office to extort tribute from the working poor.

Bouazizi made the mistake of making eye contact with Madame Hamdi. As the municipal authority in charge of vendors and taxis Madame Hamdi held sway over the lives of the street vendors. She relished the power she had over the men who make a meager living selling goods in the square; and this morning she was moving through the market like a bloodhound hot on the trail of an escaped convict. Two burly henchmen lead the way before her. Bouazizi knew Madame Hamdi’s hounds were coming for him.

Bouazizi knew he was ******. Having just made a payment to his money lender, Bouazizi had no extra dinars to grease the palm of Madame Hamdi. He grabbed the handle bars of his cart to make an escape; but Madame Hamdi cut him off and got right into into Bouazizi’s face.

“Ah little Basboosa where are you going? she asked with the tone of playful contempt.

“I suppose you still have no license to sell, ah Basboosa?” Madame Hamdi questioned with the air of a soulless inquisitor.

“You know Madame Hamdi, cart vendors do not need a license.” Bouazizi feebly protested, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Basboosa, you know we can overlook your violations with a small fine for your laxity” a dismissive Madame Hamdi offered.

Bouazizi’s sense of guilt would not permit him to lift his eyes. His head remained bowed. Bouazizi stood convicted of being one of the impoverished.

“I have no spare dinars to offer Madame Hamdi, My pockets are empty, full of holes. My money falls into everyone’s palm but my own. I’m sorry Madame Hamdi. I’ll take my cart home”. He lifted the handlebars in an attempt to escape. One of Madame Hamdi’s henchmen stepped in front of his cart while the other pushed Bouazizi away from it.

“Either you pay me a vendor tax for a license or I will confiscate your goods Basboosa”, Madame Hamdi warned as she lifted Bouazizi’s scale off its hook.

“This will be the first to go”, she said grinning as she examined the scale. “We’ll just keep this.”
Like a mother lion protecting a defenseless cub from the snapping jaws of a pack of ravenous hyenas, Bouazizi lunged to retrieve his prized scale from the clutches of Madame Hamdi. Reaching for it, he touched the scale with his fingertips just as Madame Hamdi delivered a vicious slap to Bouazizi’s cheek. It halted him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

A henchman overturned Bouazizi’s cart, scatter

The rein is vastly emptied
The blood flow seethed and stop
His vessels took no actions
His heart gave from sudden throb

His admiration had all left him
He hath withdrawn from natural world
He kept magazines as trophy's
He kneweth not women
Only girls

He spat upon the distance
And treasured his own makes
He gaveth up on love
He figured tis all fake

He wore no modern regalia
As drag just wasn't of importance
A drag of his death stick
A drag of Rigamortis!!!

I want to tell you how serious I am
about this poetry
sip, drag

It is everything to me to have this
medium of meant
sip, drag

Chaired and fed popsicles I rant
left speaker right
sip, drag

It's as if I was flying a kite
skipping, light
sip, drag

And everything I said
was right
sip, drag

Before I turnout the light
on not right
sip, drag

I want you to know how
you fit in
sip, drag

Your conjectured
existence
sip, drag

Exhale the whole thing
understanding
and all

It’s not My will, but Thy will,
Let Me die on the cross for their sins,
And My blood pave way to eternity;
Yet My Soul is sorrowful unto death.
Abba, take away this cup from Me;
Yet if it’s Thy will, and not My will.
Father, Thy promise Thou made with the serpent
That Thou would put enmity ‘twixt him and a woman,
And I should bruise his head;
Nevertheless he should bruise My heel.
For this is Thy eternal promise for man
Who been formed in Thy image;
But been smashed himself with the deceiver.
Flesh is weak and tempting;
Yet the spirit is willing and godly,
For Me too passed thro’ the way of the tempter;
Yet cursed him with Thy Eternal Word.
Unfelt agony runs into My soul,
When I bear the sins of the world,
And who on earth knows it,
Except Thou and Me, Who are ONE?
Do men know Me, Who is in Thee,
And Thou in Me, hath stripped off Glory
And hath become a servant to them,
And made in their likeness with all humbleness
Carrying the cross of shame and abuse?
My sweat is as it were great drops of blood
And Gethesmene I pray turns red.
Who knows but Thou ought ought to reveal
That My blood be shed on the cross
Which is the symbol of the new covenant?
Father, in the beginning I AM,
And all things made by Me and for Me
Who hath come unto earth as the Light,
And I AM Thy Glory, full of grace and Truth.
My Father, here come My betrayer,
For his time hath come to strike Me
As he has to bruise My heel,
And I should then bruise his head,
For it’s Thy Eternal plan of mystery.
Here comes he with the spirit of darkness
Carrying lanterns and torches and weapons
Of unrighteousness and ungodliness.
Father, let Me finish Thy work,
But strengthen Me with Thy Spirit.
Now the betrayer hath sneaked  unto me.
Look, he kisses Me amidst the mob.
Am I his beloved for his kiss?
Yet he is My beloved.
He hath dipped himself in My cup of blood.
It’s Judas kiss bought for thirty silver.
He hath sold his soul to the roaring lion
Which devours the sons of Adam.
I made Judas My apostle;
But he  made himself the liar’s instrument.
The night I am put in chains in the realm of darkness
And I am left alone with none to share mine.
Where are My apostles, My disciples?
I remember Peter’s words
That he said he would go with Me,
And I know the rooster should crow
After his denial of Me thrice to go.
He is a mere man who knows not
That things written be accomplished in Me.
They drag Me, kick Me with their boots of sins,
I am chained by their unrighteousness,
And am whipped by their blasphemy of My Father,
For when I am rejected My Father is rejected
As My Father and I are ONE,
And who hath seen Me hath seen My Father.
My people spit on Me all the way
Where blood from My body sheds.
The thorny whips tear My flesh;
Yet I rejoice in My Father’s will,
But their sins sadden My soul.
I am dragged unto the high priests
Who’ve been awaiting My trial.
Even My disciples have forsaken,
And left Me alone, but My Father in Me.
Am I held ‘midst people of the law
Which was the schoolmaster awhile
Until I finish it with My blood.
Their trial with Me hath begun with bitterness.
And Peter is seen with a mob at the fire.
False witnesses spewed on Me, yet contrary,
Whose arrows stuck on My statement
That I will destroy the temple,
And in three days I will build one.
Behold, And they’re spiritually blind and deaf.
They spit on Me blindfolding My eyes,
And play prophecy of hide and seek.
Each spit on Me is a sin of  theirs
And their hurt in not on My body but soul.
They kick Me with their boots with spikes,
And the unrighteousness of My people bruises.
My soul bleeds not of Me but of their doom.
The father of lies mocks at My Eternal plan.
The liar can bruise but My heel,
And his head is already beneath My heel.
My people strike Me with the palms,
And they slap on  My cheek with prophecy;
Yet I hold peace to defeat the liar.
No man is found to paint the pallor on My face.
I am denied thrice as of My mysterious plan.
I am tried till the sun sinks at the horizon,
And I become the laughing-stock of My people.
I thirst, but not a drop of water I ’m offered,
Where found midst earthly meals the disciples of the liar.
To liars My Truth seems blasphemy
For professing themselves to be wise and godly,
They’ve turned scoffers strolling in lusts.
I’m ‘gainst the mighty liars,
Who’ve forgotten I AM Almighty
Having denied the Power of the Most High
Whose Eternal plan of salvation is for them
Whose trial against Me is vain;
Yet satan in disguise kicks My heel.
My angels were struck in pride in Heaven,
And so were drained off into hell
With their filth and lust in darkness.
They spit on Me Who is the Lamb.
The trial ‘ere Pilate take its roots,
And no roots of earth are of Mine,
For My Father breaks off every branch
That beareth no fruit in Me.
For they wear attires of pomp and pride
With no clothes of righteousness.
Hidden in the mask of flattery
Pilate hath no way to mark justice;
Yet it hath been the Eternal plan of salvation
In Me Who is the Lamb of sacrifice.
Who knows My kingdom is not of this world?
I’ve come down to speak the Truth
That hath made the governor question Me:
‘What is Truth?’
And who believes I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life?
For all have eaten the forbidden fruit
Which hath set free the son of peridition
Who is the father of lies of all ages.
And Pilate sets free a convict as is the custom
Which hath a way in the Passover.
Truth sets free the blessed souls from Death;
But falsehood sets free sinners from Life.
I’m whipped in flesh to bleed;
But I  am whipped in spirit by their sins.
I’ crowned with thorns and twigs:
The metaphors of sins and iniquities.
They throw around Me a purple robe
And cry against Me in sarcasm
That I would live long as the King of the Jews
Whose minds are darkened by worldly wisdom,
For My kingdom is not of this world.
They slap Me on the cheek with arrogance,
I remember Judas’ kiss on the same cheek
Who hath drowned in the lust of silver.
I make neither complaint nor not of repulsiveness,
For it’s My Father’s will to bear the cross.
Back to the porch of the palace
I’m made the season with withering leaves.
Their crown and robe on Mine are their hypocrisy
Who cried against Me riding on a colt.  
Their crown and robe on Mine are their hypocrisy
Who carried against Me riding on a colt,
They threw their cloaks of praise and shouts
Across the way I trotted upon on the colt,
They laid branches cut from trees,
And I knew they were clothed with filthy attires.
Their praises and shouts now turned to curses  and abuses.
I’m now thrown into the hands of disciples of the liar
Who is a like a roaring lion to devour.
Their faulty law plays in their hands
And laughs at My Father’s Rock of Salvation.
But I laugh at the liar’s defeated victory on Me,
For in My resurrection Death hath no victory.
Who knows death took its roots since first transgression
In Eden with the consumption of the Forbidden Fruit;
Yet in Me Life is sealed in Him to Eternity?
I’ve longed for Judas’ godly sorrow like the prodigal son,
But he was bitten by the serpent on the Tree
Where the betrayer tasted the Fruit and died.
He took himself to the tree of death
For the taste of the Fruit turned bitter to him.
Power of this world hath blinded Pilate’s conscience
Whose power hath been predicted over Me
With My self-will hidden in the Most High.
The Eternal plan of salvation hath tied Pilate.
Who washed himself in his self-righteousness
And throws Me out for want of  pomp and pride.
Now I’m in the arms of thorns and bushes
Laden with the cross of the world set out;
Yet My journey thro’ human darkness is for a while,
For the Reward of Eternity is awaiting Me
And the ones who are rooted in Me.
Each whip lashed on Me is the multiple sins of the world,
And the spikes of the whips tear My flesh,
And I bleed with the agony of lost souls,
Whom I’ve made for Glory with My Father.
Behold! A toll strikes this hour
When I hear the hellish roar at a distance,
And I know the traitor hath flung the silver
Which have no price for his destiny.
I shed tears for him but he’s lost
For his death is certain in My Eternal Plan,
And who could change it but Me;
Yet it’s all My plan of mystery in the Father?
They hit Me with a stick o’er the head,
And mock lat Me saying ‘Long live the King of Jews.’
A scepter of stick ****** into My palms,
A game of mockery is played  ‘gainst Me;
Yet I am as innocent as a lamb led to the slaughter,
As writ in the Scriptures with the design of My Father:
I’m oppressed, and afflicted down to death on earth;
Yet I open not My mouth to charge complaints,
I’m brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before her shearer is dumb.
All the way I’m kicked to fall on the stony path.
Look! My knees bruised and torn for you,
Still are there moments of repentance from hypocrisy.
**! Here am I fallen on the thorny twigs.
Behold! My clothes are torn with blood flowing out.
They tilt Me with their pompous boots.
I try to lift Myself but laden with the cross.
Pity of sacrcasm plays in their hearts
And in turn a man from Cyrene is laid with the cross.
I carry the sins of the world for crucifixion;
But he’s made to carry the wooden cross behind Me.
Is it My Word that says unto you:
‘Take up your cross everyday and follow Me?’
Nay, but to forsake the world of sins
Be My doctrine with the love of My Father.
You cannot carry the cross I bear;
Yet you can carry yours beside Me.
Shouts of abuses thunder into My heart
Amidst the cry of lamentation across the way.
They hook Me up with scornful epithets
And the liar of the world bruised My heel;
Yet I walk the path of obedience to physical death
That My death on the cross shows Way to Eternity.
I hear the cry of My people,
Why do they cry with wailing?
Do they mourn over My trial on earth
Or o’er their sinful attires.?
Who knows, but I know?
They shed tears of emotions,
And who knows their sins crucify Me?
Behold! I hear the Nightingale’s song ‘cross the stormy breeze.
Is it the song of melody unto My people
For they murmur Nature too mocks at My trial?
But I know My creations are under My power.
They’ve painted the day’s sky with glooms
As their pilgrimage on earth smeared with sins.
Back on Me the cross is ****** and I’m knocked down,
And My face dashes ‘gainst rocks on the way.
The spiky rocks tear My skin to bleed,
I bleed and bleed till the last drop.
Little children kiss My bleeding cheeks
And they take the mark of My sacrifice.
The sun soars higher and higher
And each phase of My journey is of My Father’s plan.
I scale ‘gainst the steep hillock with lashes on My back.
The fiendish serpent laughs at Me,
And strolls with the exotic steps drowned in hellish dirt.
And I know he bruises MY HEEL:
But he ‘knows’ not I’ll bruise his head.
My disciples walk apart with arms tied,
For none can break the design of My Father.
The sun strikes the altitude and I reach the slaughter.
They drag Me unto the ‘place of the skull’.
Who’ve thought I would sleep ‘neath the grave
Which hath no future for death is once for all.
Their conscience is buried in darkness by the liar,
Like dried-up springs and clouds blown along by a storm,
Their thoughts and deeds lie in vain of glory,
All bundled in filthy rags of lusts,
Whose promise of freedom is spoken by the father of this world,
The mighty trap hidden with baits of freedom of slavery.
Who knows but My Father of My destruction of the Temple;
Yet be rebuilt in three days in glory?
Behold! They strip off My clothes to naked.
The serpent sneaks onto the Forbidden Tree
With a cynical comedy of errors;
Yet it bruises My heel with its bitten fang.
My Father drove out Adam and Eve from Eden
Who had turned unholy committed themselves to the liar.
Now the liar, he thinks, drives Me out into the grave.
But I will destroy him with My dazzling presence.
My garments  they part and share ‘mongst themselves,
And My robe made of single piece of woven cloth
With no seam found in it, thrown at dice.
Do they know it’s of the Scriptures foretold?
They lay Me on the cross down on the earth.
I recall My infancy couched on the manger:
How I was cared and nurtured by My human parents.
I was in the safe arms from bitter cold;
But now I lie sans comfort and in blood.
My arms are stretched across to be nailed,
Lost of strength My legs are pulled along.
My people watch the gory sight of crucifixion.
They nail My palms and feet ruthlessly.
How I healed My people from diseases
How I fed My people from starvation!
How I walked to listen to My people’s sorrows!
But they watch Me now lying on the cross.
Do they know of My death on the cross?
The nails are pierced deep into veins and nerves,
Streams of blood flow down unto My people;
But they kick My blood splashed ‘cross My face.
Unfelt agony and untold miseries crushed My spirit,
For they repent not of their sins but die
Forsaking My Father’s promise unto those who believe Me.
When nails are pierced Mine My Father strengthens Me.
I bear the pain for the promise of My Father.
They raise Me nailed on the cross.
Curses and abuses lashed on Me,
And they shout they’ve cut the root of the tree.
Alas! They do not know what  they do;
Yet My Eternal Plan of  these shall happen.  
I look at My disciples at the Cross
Whose darkened hearts I perceive.
Full of heaviness with a doubting hope
Of what will happen to Me and them.
They’re petals turned pale in the evening,
They’re the garden of Fall with no fruits bearing,
Like distant stars with faded light they look
My people fling upon Me mockery:
‘He saved others; let Him save Himself
Who claimed the Son of God!’
Not to save Myself is My advent to the world;
But it’s My Father's Eternal Design in Me
That salvation is for mankind in My Father’s likeness.
It’s written above My head of the Kingship:
‘This is the King of the Jews’
Who know not of My Eternal Kingship,
Not of this world, but of the Heaven.
Behold! The criminal on My left hurls at Me:
‘Are You the Anointed One?  Save Thyself and us!
Is he the son of Cain who turned a fugitive?
Is it not like “am I my brother’s keeper?
The convict on My right is another prodigal son
Whose sorrow of his filthy rags turns his blessed.
‘Lord! Remember me in Your Kingdom!’
My promise unto him hath crowned his a hope of glory:
‘This day shall you be with Me in Paradise.’
It is the prime of the day with beams of fire splashed across:
The sun is in its meridian lashing unforgiving rays.
Behold! The sun is darkened by the clouds of glooms,
It’s day but turns night as a premonition
What happens to the creation in My Day in Glory.
The temple of the city trembles at My Word’
And the curtain is torn in the middle,
Yea, Moses’ law turns unto rags with no price,
For I make the New and Eternal Law of love in Me.
Nightly day survives until My Last Cry’
Troubled with the heaviness of My people’s sins:
‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
‘Yet it’s finished. Thy work on earth is done,
Father, here I commend My spirit unto Thee’.

Something about a cigarette and a cappuccino
gives me solace
but not more than the layers of my bed.
I know it’s all “in my head”
but when did
losing you
become worse than
losing myself
selfishly
I drag on
I drag on
I drag on

like the dragons breath
out comes the
smoke and flame
and with it
my dignity
and affinity for you, myself, and everyone else

Something about a cigarette and a cappuccino
keeps me at bay
but not like you did
its not the end of may anymore
but the beginning of June
and with it I come out of ruin
ashes fall out of my lungs
cancerous
I don’t know it now
but my eyelids
won’t close tonight
and instead
in fright and flight
I fight with myself
I plead with my psyche to think about all
the infinite world of nothings
that seem to ease my mind
I should come with a warning:
be kind
I’ve been hurt before
and wouldn’t find
it terribly wrong
if you would,
or could
find it in yourself to
love me
just
one time more

Something about a cigarette and a cappuccino
gives me solace
but not more than the layers of my bed.
I know it’s all “in my head”
but when did
losing you
become worse than
losing myself
selfishly I
drag on
drag on

I quit.

it's the 50th anniversary edition of william burrough's naked lunch, with the original cover, looking at all the annexes is like watching modern history with Russian annexing Crimea, anyway...

indeed the nature of addiction, i chose mine to
cure my insomnia - i *chose mine -
the less nasty less mythical name for it is indeed
metabolism - any hard-craft alcoholic walks into
a bar - drunk ******* and egoistically gluttonous
idiots come out like giraffes - vomiting into
the gutters, more Marilyn Monroe moments
showing off knickers even without the metro gust -
you drink enough and watch people drinking
for the psychoactive ingredient for dis-inhibiting
effects (buttered up talk, smooth there, quasi
Don Juan wannabes) - as Burroughs said: PLAN
YOUR ADDICTION - become addicted if some other
weakness is beating you - amtitriptyline doesn't
work without alcohol to what's desired as the lullaby
effect prior to K.O. - don't measure up to a veteran,
he'll beat you with experience, given it works -
i can imagine why hallucinogenics aren't metabolically
affecting - too much implants concerning the
world beyond, and god, and the secret of the universe -
you can't get addicted to these things - because there's
the bad trip, and you're off the hook - no more spiritual
trips looking for answers - repetition of the everyday
kills it off like flicking off a light switch - but, years
after the Beat movement, the Beats really did underestimate
the addiction of marijuana - they thought it was
the ****** drunk... oddly enough marijuana is linked to
alcohol and ****** addiction, it too is metabolic -
i'm not a medical expert... but i have heard of stoners
and their munchies - anything relating to food,
to metabolism is included, marijuana is the middle-guy
between the standards and Disney -
you heard of being monged, right? marijuana is as addictive
as alcohol - originally a giggly drug, a conversation
starter - marijuana - ends up being
an Jason Segel and Ed Helms film Jeff, who lives at Home,
it's this uncontrollable effect that proper intentions of
marijuana have: supreme thoughtlessness - or
the present vogue concerning "mindfulness" -
Jeff basically overthought himself on the high - he didn't
detach himself from thinking, now he's paying the price -
he's making completely random associations -
and why do stoners always waste their time in front
of t.v. or television - marijuana is a purely auditory drug -
******* to the park, pretend to be a fake Buddha imitation
and create the void in yourself to make your mind
the M25 at 3 a.m. - but this innocence with the Beat
movement associating itself with marijuana is partly
why it was legalised - the government wants rejects and,
to be frank? retards - that's why they legalised it -
they knew with the munchies jokes that marijuana had
the same metabolic addiction components as alcohol and
***** - you're metabolic dude! once addiction sets in
you're no longer in control of brain-freeze - you didn't
think it up on the psychoactive Everest - when the nice
sensation was still there, marijuana realised you zombie much
later - all the in-jokes of stoner culture suddenly passed you,
simulation dementia ensued - i'm way past the psychoactive
asset of alcohol, no slurred speech, no nothing -
but i retain the psychoactive point of metabolising excess
alcohol: if i didn't, i would sleep! i wouldn't sleep!
don't get me wrong, i get the point that i can't really
experience the negatives of reaching the psychoactive purpose
of alcohol and ***** in a street or join the football hooligans -
and surgeons drink to calm the nerves and calm the hand -
but alcohol is more cool headed and less phantasmagorical
than ***** addiction, for one thing your palette improves -
you find the most boring tasks liberating -
but the nights are the real nights, esp. if slumped on the sofa
watching t.v., unless you don't have a backlog of un-watched
Versailles or Billions episodes, you really need to go for
a 4 mile walk and breath the air - then half-sleep for
about an 2 hours (because you have limited money and
sometimes you pass a day without Auburn Whitney) -
you become rigorous - the prime solipsism - no time for
girlfriends, doesn't matter, my genitals weren't mutilated
as a child, no one forced a ****-*******-marriage-ring
on my finger - i can actually enjoy addiction - i end up
eating one meal a day - of course my face looks candyfloss
puffed up - but my soul is partly helium pubescent -
alcohol addiction is not ***** addiction even both
are primes of metabolism takeovers - no hung-overs too,
no blackouts - no fake "i can't remember" stories
when something ****** up happened - and certainly no
innocent look at the fact that marijuana is also a metabolic
addiction - unless of course you limit psychic ingestion
(excluding music, music is great to arrive at thoughtlessness),
but as most stoners (the next alcoholics) prove,
garbage the mind with American Dad and then get hungry -
binge eat - the stomach can drag the brain right down
into the acid pit and fry it - zombies galore - you won't be
able to catch yourself stopping thinking, the stomach
will do that for you, and you'll enter the zombie apocalypse:
just like my neighbour - there's a rat-like ritual involved,
for example, most people get sleepy from marijuana -
so it's not an addiction standing at a bus stop
pretending to be waiting for a bus and smoking?
that's addiction - the metabolic Gargantua has already caught-up,
addiction is primarily a solitary affair - it just depends
what you do with it... i'd be ashamed with my alcoholism
if i didn't write poems - the counter-effect is that i feel
some sort of social-inclusion when the day finishes -
i feed the cats, write invoices for my father (40% of
18 - 35 year olds live with their parents, because all
the foreigners bought all the houses intended as: buy to let -
is my money going down my drain, or is this
a post-Freud Oedipus stigmata killing familial relations
altogether?), cook, clean the house once a week,
cut the cats' nail and brush them - and to counter
what i don't do? can you imagine listening to a symphony
with only violins playing? not so genius hearing that
sort of Hollywood story with only cameo characters speaking.

Kudos to Kaepernick.

I just cannot drown all my beliefs and ideas, even if it contradicts my flesh and soul. When I heard that not standing up to the tune; that has always succeeded on sweeping all of the messes underneath the sad reality, to be deemed as subversive, I know that Rosa would definitely clench onto the seat tighter than ever.

Kneel, my friend, kneel.

To drag our body out there, all over the precious hills and fields, while acting as if the scale has always been set fairly beneath you all this time, will hurt you more than myself. How can a mere matter of things decide our future, our destiny? We shall shape our fate, you shall shape your own fate, and to be judged on the perception biasedly built in the name of order for thousands of years, is a situation that should not be endured by anyone or anything in a tiny dot within this vast universe.

Kneel, my friend, kneel.

And for that, I cannot stand proudly and profess my love to you as of now, even though I will always wear my heart on my sleeve for you to see. To be cheated, to be manipulated, to be deemed as surplus, by those at the tip of the plateau, that cunningly asked us to forget all the tangles and wrangles for the love of this sacred land, while unashamedly distribute everything off the land, off the ocean amongst them, is the last thing that we should allow to happen. I am one of those people that are not able to put on the mask on top of our meant-to-be honest faces, to say hail to the thief is worse than the eternal grief. I have never dreamed of burying the hatchet with them, not even for a second and if I ever do it, I shall be condemned and dismissed for forgetting the roots, the fons et origo of mine. To love you does not mean to stand still to the soulless melodies, to love you does not mean to bow down to the meaningless piece of cloth that has overseen countless infiltration and bombing over the years.

Kneel, my friend, kneel.

To love you is to fight for the rights of many, by any means, even by not standing up. When black is no longer the symbol of miserable, filth and calamity, we shall then breath with ease, stand on our feet and fully embrace the real meaning behind all those majestic words.

Kudos to Kaepernick.

Feeling like a queen in drag
Longest night
Ever had
Like being late for the ball
Standing alone against the wall
Seeming big but feeling small
Fading to black
Confused and shattered
I know I'm better than that
Pass the *****
Give me gin
I'm ready
I'm at the door
Now let me in
I feel like a drag queen
Late for the ball
Wondering how I got here
And about to give my all
Ignoring what you heard
Ignoring what you see
You wanted the best
They sent you me
Feeling like a queen in drag
About to give all...
You never had
When it's all over
Your high on my essence
I'll smile and give you kisses
As I cry in my admission
Wondering why I keep giving over
To submission
No need to cry
No words to say
I wonder sometimes
How I got this way...
Feeling like a queen in drag

In the depths, watching, lurking
Duties to perform, never shirking
Drag them down, to the deep unknown
Drag them down, take their souls
Drag them down, make them pay
Drag them down, while far away
A mother lies
A child cries
For the boy
Oh, so young
Who wanted
To be
A
Pirate

THE SEA rocks have a green moss.
The pine rocks have red berries.
I have memories of you.
  
Speak to me of how you miss me.
Tell me the hours go long and slow.
  
Speak to me of the drag on your heart,
The iron drag of the long days.
  
I know hours empty as a beggar's tin cup on a rainy day, empty as a soldier's sleeve with an arm lost.
  
Speak to me ...

I never had real friends I had fake friends that are not always available when I need them but are available when they need something from me I never had real friends but I had fake friends who will knock me over when ever their tongues felt like it and then random strangers would come up to me and tell me are you sure these people are your friends I never had real friends I had fake friend who think I would downgrade them but really my intentions are as clear as water I just attract my opposite kind of people and drag them upwards to reach the stars where they would drag me aside away from them accomplishments.

someone's in the next room over
having *** while we
are weeping
what a way to mark the occasion
the day my fingers found a wound
you let someone else doctor
it's upsetting see
the bible in drawer next to us
the way our hands still
fit together
like the torn halves
of a love letter
the way you got
all dressed up like the rain
and how we couldn't tell
the difference in the shower
it was the longest hour and a half
spent crying
the hot water wouldn't give up
so why should we
right?
even though it was scalding
neither of us touched the ****
we knew this was supposed to hurt
your hair
a black mess against my shoulder
my fingers
oil in the vinegar of your hands
our bodies
the great divide
all the sobbing
a river runs through it
without the courage
to carry or **** us
so we step out
and drip dry
down to a mute breakfast
composed of quiet
and last nights liquor
as we came back in
there were people in our room
at first i thought them detectives
dissecting things
to see who had died here
i had forgotten this
was a hotel
and they were only
cleaning up after us
i wanted to stop them
plead
that the sheets were still perfect
that if they clean the bathroom
no one will know
what happened here
someone has to remember
"please
i know
these cigarette burns
by name
i will bury the faucet
let me take the tub
i don't care how
if i have to
i will drag it home by hand"

*******, ya cooperate ****
*******, ya miserable hag
*******, ya think you're hot
*******, you're a total drag.

*******, ya lawyer ****
*******, ya Harvard punk
*******, smell my ****!
*******, you're a total drag.

*******, Mr. one percent
You've got the money, I can’t pay no rent
*******, I've got no beer
*******, get out of here!

We’re gonna drive the highest highway
We’re gonna walk in to the sea
We’re gonna fly into to death sideways
It’s gonna find the real me, the real me

*******, my job is insane
*******, I've got rot in my brains
*******, you think you're hot
*******, you're a total drag.

Today, I watched a dying cockroach try and drag itself across my bathroom floor
It couldn't even drag itself properly

Sometimes I feel like that
Like the dying cockroach who can't even drag itself properly to the unknown safety of beyond

SLOWLY the Moon her banderoles of light
Unfurls upon the sky; her fingers drip
Pale, silvery tides; her armoured warriors
Leave Day's bright tents of azure and of gold,
Wherein they hid them, and in silence flock
Upon the solemn battlefield of Night
To try great issues with the blind old king,
The Titan Darkness, who great Pharoah fought
With groping hands, and conquered for a span.

The starry hosts with silver lances *****
The scarlet fringes of the tents of Day,
And turn their crystal shields upon their *******,
And point their radiant lances, and so wait
The stirring of the giant in his caves.

The solitary hills send long, sad sighs
As the blind Titan grasps their locks of pine
And trembling larch to drag him toward the sky,
That his wild-seeking hands may clutch the Moon
From her war-chariot, scythed and wheeled with light,
Crush bright-mailed stars, and so, a sightless king,
Reign in black desolation! Low-set vales
Weep under the black hollow of his foot,
While sobs the sea beneath his lashing hair
Of rolling mists, which, strong as iron cords,
Twine round tall masts and drag them to the reefs.

Swifter rolls up Astarte's light-scythed car;
Dense rise the jewelled lances, groves of light;
Red flouts Mars' banner in the voiceless war
(The mightiest combat is the tongueless one);
The silvery dartings of the lances *****
His fingers from the mountains, catch his locks
And toss them in black fragments to the winds,
Pierce the vast hollow of his misty foot,
Level their diamond tips against his breast,
And force him down to lair within his pit
And thro' its chinks ****** down his groping hands
To quicken Hell with horror-for the strength
That is not of the Heavens is of Hell.

I am from Myths and tales.
The one that sailors,
wish to prevail.
I am the girl,
who wails.
The one that men,
can't resist.
I am the Siren,
named Bliss.

With just one kiss,
I'll drain you up,
and you'll think,
it's true love.

I'll take you all,
I'll drag you down.
I'll drown you in perfection,
until the next guy comes around.

I would happily drag you down.

I'll hold you in my heart
Until I can hold you in my arms
I'll cling to every word you say
And wish you weren't so far away

I'll kiss you softly whenever I can
Because I don't know when I will again
And who cares what the world thinks of us
When I think the world of you

So yes, perhaps distance is a drag
And yes, people can be too
But love of mine please give it some time
Because in time I'll be with you

now i know why i might engage with writing obscene
poems, chauvinism included, but still there
is no burning excuse in my mind with the way
western society actively desires censorship of certain
words, i already attributed censoring obscene
words as worse than what this tactic precipitates into:
the apathetic spread of *******, and violence
in general... it crosses my mind that sparring with violent
language cushions people from violet action...
to utilise violent language with that: pardon my French
attitude does more good than evil on the users...
how many road rage incidents could have been avoided
if people were unable to watch their tongue:
somehow we're making language sterile, by actively
pursuing this sort of censorship: which is not even
remotely politically related / motivated, we're bringing
an anaemic status quo in how fluidly we speak -
we desire to not hear the sometimes funny and the sometimes
awful... but we choose to see the god-fearing horrific...
ask any blind-man about music and he'd say:
well, i can dance to it in a nucleus position, centrally
gravitational pull - but ask the deaf man about
what he has to say when seeing **** written to counter
obscenity, as in cartoon-like: f&%£! it's just plain silly,
pocket-sized expression of psychotic behaviours,
rummaging through them i find only one source of inspiration:
the fact that we're in this blind-man's garden of innocence,
somehow dressed in the camouflage of censorship such
a tiny problem, that it does indeed require 23 mattresses
for the princess to not feel the frozen *** agitating her...
this sort of censorship in its application is under
a false sense of purpose, it really doesn't change people's
behaviour for the better, it doesn't pacify them, in does
the reverse: it infuriates, it makes violence more potent...
i'm still trying to figure out why such words
will make our perceptions saintly... unless of course
that's the reason behind them, as way of invoking an
anaesthetic placebo, a placebo that's actually active rather
than passive - presuming the anaesthetic placebo gives
way to an aesthetic active apathy-inducing ingredient...
meaning we can't bare to hear swear words, but we can
gladly watch 20 hours of 20 : 1 ****... censoring **** ****
**** **** will not escape Newtonian physics...
given our current scenario, Newtonian physics is far
more important than Einstein's relativity, i'd hate to be
in denial about cause & effect... as began with Socrates,
i too abhor moral relativism... of course Newton got
the gravity bit wrong, but i like the simpler version...
plus... there was no Romance with Einstein...
no apple, no tree, no Voltaire... meaning we don't necessarily
write history collectively, with all of us starting from
the big bang or the view from the Galapagos islands...
we don't... we continue writing history not from a
collective consciousness genesis... or from the collective
unconscious genesis - that's Jung with his archetypes
(devil, god, wise man, mother, father etc.) rather than
dreams (Freud) - we can chose were to write the future...
it's not so much ignorance as arm-chair intellectualism,
it's not about the safety of understanding something,
but the comfort of choosing to understand something...
which is pretty much to my excuse for my previous poems...
Heidegger... and that concept of Dasein -
i never bothered to understand it to the point of
reacting subjectively to it, by that i mean an interest
in writing about it, an interpolation of the subject with
alternative variations... i objectified it, i also countered it
when objectifying the concept turned out to be an
everyday object, shortening my quest.
the counter? hiersein, i.e. being here, here denoting a
solipsistic classification of awareness with / in the world -
which is basically me in my room, admiring my library,
my record collection, my torn sneakers, everything that
is classified exclusive to what dasein evolves into
when all its grammatical weaving only express a verb,
i.e. concern... so i thought, given this what can hiersein
(being here / nonchalance) actually show me as
my lack of interest in: "changing the world".
it became obvious yesterday, i had a hard time when i
didn't read the day's copy of the times (more on this later),
instead i had to suffice with construction site media,
you might have heard of this newspaper: the daily star,
at 20 pence a pop, you will see what £1.20 makes to
your psyche... but that's basically it, i objectified Heidegger's
concept and made it into an everyday object, in this
case and as the only case available: a newspaper -
and the trick is? well, with a newspaper like daily star
you don't actually experience dasein - it's completely
missing in this style of media, and that's worrying given
my barbaric poetry of yesterday... it's missing, not there,
such object-for-object chirality is what gives birth to
hiersein (being here); but today i returned to my usual
media diet, a flicked through the times and the natural
balance of personal objects and a fresh impersonal object
coexisted - the newspaper is truly the most adequate
compounded expression of Heidegger's dasein -
which i attribute to the constant need to emphasise an
empathy with others... empathising is a neutral form
of sympathising, since sympathy is sourced in shared
experiences: **** victims (e.g.) - therefore empathy is
something that in the ontological structuring of dasein,
which opposes the ontological structuring of hiersein,
which is structured by apathy; there is nothing else for
me to write, apart from the compendium proof
of the disparity of sources, i.e. headlines and subheadings:

- prior compendium -

i will never understand the point of autobiographies,
the majority of autobiographies are written
on a p.s. basis, after the facts / actions,
never immediately, concerning ideas /
solidified thoughts, thoughts condensed into idea
that allow thinking / cognitive narration to
continue regardless with what's being achieved...
i haven't anything autobiographical dissimilar
with something biographical...
Plato wrote that wonderful biography like
Shakespearean theatre, but i guess his critics felt
the claustrophobic tug & pull of mermaids...
still the problem ascends heights unparalleled -
even with ghost writers doing the leg-work...
cheap-buggers never learned to write, let alone read,
and here they are writing biographies...
ah, **** it... they're only sketches... whether biographic
or autobiographic... they're still mere sketches...
if this was the art world the revenue would come
posthumously, when it comes to literacy
nothing really distinguishes poets from
those prescribing pedestrian signs...
the Olympians can moan at the vacant stadium...
that there's a hierarchy in sports,
with the favoured monochrome idealisation
of where the bunny money is in the whirlpool
of the rabbit hole investment: football, volleyball...
but the literary events are the same...
people love to lie that they read the bestseller to
its full extent... but treat books like chairs and tables...
inertia prone half finished, sat on for 2 weeks of
the entire year... the Olympians are very much
like poets, and i care to distance myself from either
demand for more interest being invoked...
i like esoteric sports, i like esoteric writing...
but that's how it stand: poets are Olympians where
novelists are footballers, who retire at 30 and
then think about what to do with their wages
that are 10x higher than the everyday labourer...
start a restaurant, buy a strip of houses in Liverpool
like Michael Owen? good guess, here's to exploiting
youth disgracefully... that's what they're getting,
and these are the dilemma points to consider...
they're the equivalent gladiators of our time,
Rome was just a sleeper before it awoke once more...
but i'll never understand why these
people decided to exploit literature for gain...
all these academics with their pristine purity of discovery
are pacified when dictating print,
what poet, has a chance in hell, to appear gladly
excavated from Plato's cave of television?
about none.
i too was focusing on 20th century literature,
before 21st literature came about...
and i thought, oh god: they're really going to create
a totalitarian democracy, every artist will be
strip-searched for adding cinnamon and chilli to their
writing to bounce away from conformist
sober and sane extraction of alter wordings...
this 21st scene will become polarised...
we'll have the extinction of One Direction over a joint,
while the Rolling Stones drank a keg of whiskey
and pulled off a show... we'll have moralisation
of the fans to subdue the artists, which will mean
no artist will ably create a zeitgeist to rebel... everyone
will suddenly experience a weird sort of communism...
the worst kind... it will mean having
all the mental freedoms without the ability to
economise a coup... basically an inertia, an immediate
fatality... we can't economise a coup...
which boils down to why so many autobiographies
aren't really biographic, but rather consolidating,
by the meaning: autobiographic i intended to relate
the everyday... the most secretive account of life:
the everyday... this is stressing Proust,
even though i preferred Joyce over Proust i keep
the everyday the prime ideal: the only detail,
so that an autobiography can make sense,
automation of writing, like breathing or sneezing...
not some monetary-spinning device 20 years after
the facts... 20 years later you're pretty much writing
fiction... i am all for the biosphere of expanding
Alveoli... but when did you ever read an autobiography
that mentioned the taste of weak coffee
from the Friday of 20th of August 2016? never;
you read autobiographies
like you read self-help books...  waiting for
all that experience regurgitating motivational talk
about reaching a plateau of comparative success...
i can understand autobiographies written by the elders,
i understand biographies written about people
posthumously - but the tragedy is, given the spinning
wheel of money? we're getting "auto" biographies
written toward their 3rd volume renditions of
people aged 30... let alone 40... so much for
western society having the upper hand on political matters...
just saying: sort your own **** before trying
to sort other people's problems...
i could understand if these autobiographies were written
as described: automaton solo... but they're not...
before the compendium it's this everlasting presence
of a desired body of power being depicted:
prior the monopoly of knowledge, there was a monopoly
of literacy... given that 99% of us are literate, it
actually doesn't mean a third donkey's *******
whether we can read, or write, we got shelved in controlling
this once priestly vanity, we got taught bureaucracy alongside...
but the monopoly of literacy is way past us,
we're being convened in the ability to monopolise knowledge,
(oh please, don't let the paranoia seep in,
remember yourself when reading me, once in a while,
i don't drag you to phantasmagorical heights, even if i could,
i'd prefer you being agile in learning how to be bored
than letting your repel the same boredom i too share,
well... but **** me if you want to be the next Lenin) -
and the easiest way to monopolise knowledge? the media...
you basically need a lot of facts, and an evolved version
of dialectics, dialectics being the prime enemy of democracy
(it's not an alternative political model like despotism as
we are held to believe, it's actually dialectics,
suppressing other forms of collectivisation is the one
sure method of suppressing the attempt at dialectics
(individualism) - by making people overly opinionated,
ergo: the inability to engage with opinions, blind-alleys
throughout all plausible attempts to do so) -
so once you have enough facts to fiddle with the Rubik's cube
of juxtaposition, you end up with the ultra-scientific
form of dialectics... the matter of opinion in relation
to truth without a relative uniformity that prescribes
the status quo stasis is a debate about how accurate
we all are: i.e., is that true to the closest centimetre,
or the closest millimetre? it's a bit like watching a Zeno
paradox:
                 10.1                           and 10.01
      which one's tortoise and which is Achilles?
well, you know; ah ****! the compendium of the two
newspapers which got me slightly depressed...

- the compendium -

a. daily star

- B. BRO SAM'S SECRET 'NERVOUS BREAKDOWN'
- Laura & Jason's baby joy
- Robbie (Williams) £1.6M a night!
- BREXIT BOOST ON JOB FRONT
- ANGE DAD BACKS TRUMP
- JR'S wife Linda set to Holly
- Edd's no Beverly Hills flop
(Lana among cow *******)
- LAURA: OUR TINY TROTTS WILL BE WORLD-BEATERS
- FURY AT BAD LOSERS' SLURS
- 'Jealous sis' jibes
- MAKE YOUR KID AN OLYMPICS ACE
- Peaty: I want to be a rapper
- TV girl really ill
- **** SAM, 'ON THE BRINK OF BREAKDOWN'
- COSTA ***** HELL
- CAGING ANJEM WILL INSPIRE NEW JIHADIS
- POG'S LOADED AGENT BUYS CAPONE'S LAIR
- I'll make Kylie a pop star
- JEZ DOESN'T KNOW ANT FROM HIS DEC
- GUILTY OF DEMONIC SAVAGERY
- Great British Rake In
- Britain is *******
- BAYWATCH U.K.
- Va Va Vroom
- JUST JANE: My lover snubs plea to get wed
- HART: I'LL DECIDE WHEN TO GO.

b. the times

- Boy victim becomes a symbol of Assad's war
- US Olympics swimmers invented robbery tale, say Rio police
- Make us sell healthy food, supermarkets implore May (P.M.)
- Lost weekend of the lying best man
- fears over free speech delay law to silence hate preacher
- Met's 'commuter cops' live in France
- Husbands happiest when they earn half as much as wives
- Socialists plot to drive Britain left
- Fake human sacrifice filmed at European high altar of physics
- Officers investigated over ex-footballer's Taser death
- Number of pupils taking languages at record low
   (Mandarin @ 2,849 - % decrease of 8.1,
    alarmingly religious studies 27,032 up by 4.9%
    and psychology of status 59,469 up by 4.3%....
    meaning the mad will soon be diagnosing the sane
   as mad, just because the curriculum said so)
- Top grades add up to 100% at the school for maths prodigies
- Deprived sixth formers thrive on competition
- European students rush to get into British universities
- DVLA earns £10m selling driver's details
- Mystery over Kenyan death of aristocrat
- Journalist who voted twice reported to police for
  'fraud'
- Tomato tax threatens European trade war
- Love story of the Pantomime
- Homeless conmen fleeced widow, 81
- Brownlee brothers at the Olympics...
- Hopeful shoppers give sales a lift after Brexit vote
- MoD guard could be stood down despite terrot threat
- Owners spit mansion after failing to sell
- The job with international appeal: saving our hedgehogs
- Finch warns unborn chicks if weather gets warm
- Migrant violence rises after decline in policing around Jungle
- Longest road tunnel promises a relaxing ride under Pennines
- Mothers step up to drive Tube trains through night
(rowdy teens ageing exponentially on a Saturday night
when not getting a lift, ******...)
-MP's deal with bookmaker to be investigated
- Ebola nurse 'hid high temperature'
- Shoesmith's ex-huspand kept child *******
- Morpurgo war tale springs into life
- Supergran fights off teenage muggers
- IVF is more successful for white women
OPINION SECTION
- Great political fiction is good for democracy
- the BBC is leaving its audiences in the dark
- airline food? just pass me the gin and tonic
- Modern Olympics began on the fields of Rugby
/ greasy polls, holding firm, tongue tied,
  call for compulsory targets to tackle obesity,
second in line, mindfulness course, cost of planning,
puffins v. ship rats.... and all future letters to the editor /
- Moscow presses Turkey for access to US airbases
- Hundreds killed each month in Assad's jails
- Putin bans celebration of defeated KGB coup
(another James Bond movie on the cards,
i'm assured, and with a moral carte blanche) -
Hollande clams Carla Bruni spied concerning his
use of diapers...
- Euthanasia tourists flock Belgian A & E from France,
  where a revival of ****** made people dress shark-fin
  sharp on the catwalk...
- Mosquito pesticide linkage application = intersex /
   East German women
- Haiti cholera linked to Nepalese **** and ***** via
  the

Find the lighter, use it as a lighthouse on a walk below the wall you watch along the wave-formations. Who Wants a Cold One? a Coors Light ad corrects.. When it comes to your home, the little things matter.. an insurance ad blares.. my computer is infected with 3rd party applications unremovable to my meagre tech-ability.. there is a hero as Joseph Campbell once theorized.. in myself like a sick bastardly virus waiting for moments to prove to me "I AM THE SAVIOR, I AM THE CHRIST, I AM THE WARLORD, MICE, MAN, AND VICE".. the windows of opportunity close, I am left waiting the door

& the elevator.

Thirty-thousand years ago, there was nothing but a breeze.. a viscous breeze across chill-spined pterodactyls.. warm-under-the-jungle-brush tyrannosaurus rex, and to think one day I will be just a legend in bone..
Charlotte said she thinks of death and so did Jen. They sat next to the all-you-can-eat and discussed the inevitable. I was sour and playful with no-will-to-understand, just reminding my hair of breezy summer days of 10, thinking of strangeness, of place I was in.

When it's quiet sometimes, I think of old dreams.. dreams I sunk below drown-level as a child in bed and belief. Both mommy and daddy were arguing in the kitchen, this was 7 or 8.. they argued so often one could hear mom begin to cry sometimes, and dad I could see in minds-eye with a grimace so closed and so creased he was hurt and yet honest.. I did not understand so I hid under-stood-silhouettes, oh adulthood..

once in dream I was in pulsing green graveyard like crayon realism strobe lights, tombstones all-round and faint-buzz of outside and one of those strange balded henchmen of badguy Jafar from Disney's Aladdin came peaking outta nowhere with curled eyebrow and baggy one-thousand-one Arabian nightlives parachute pants, curled toes brown-beige moccasins to.. he let out conniving 'HEUHEE!' and slapped me right-side cheek and I JOLTED up bedwise in real time to feel actual physical sting for a few lingered seconds then the sobs of poor mother outside.. I never remembered a dream so clearly again.. they all come, Pro-Found, and dizzy away after hour or two for rest of eternity or perhaps to Place I Can Visit at Death to Review Every Vision and I wonder... when your life flashes before your eyes and the light is encroaching, scenes of mother, brother, father, son, daughter, best-friend, party, break-up, heartbreak, slip-fall, first-sip, first-drag, last-leg, first-kiss, first-hit, first-game, fear, love,  HATE, wait.. do the Dreams come to? Are they all flesh-ed before your eyes as you pass into Light? Are they brought to direct remembrance as you cross the border with Passport of Gods and a Goddess (and which Picture appears on the Page)..?

I remember the old eczema taking bits of skin to carpets round-town and round-lower-mainland to disgust of friends old and new-- this was era where confidence ate itself in mirrors, the sober reality of ugly-ness chiseling away at my Goodness Attempts.. All That Pointless Pain was no Exception nor a Rule, it just **** Happens every once-and-again to the sound of life farting. I used to miss school for feet so impossible to walk on, pussing and bleeding and staining the sheets, shoe soles, carpets, and soul.. limp thru the hallways of Brooks Secondary feeling like bad flavor additive to multicultural Planet Earth-- sleeping 'til the bell rang drinking coffee singing songs I said '**** the ******* educational system and **** me I'm so flatlined..' someday I felt things would really get better and lucky young me I was right.

A half-decade later, I am 21 and hoping, floating, free in the breeze as the wings I have grown keep on wishing the subsistence down. The girl, whoever-she-might-as-well-be, sits immediately vertical chatting frantically to boy with a bit of a cowlick slouching on-up over a bundle of colored paperwork. It seems late in the season for homework, and assume they may have some affiliation with a crazy-hep computer design group in the tradition of Nouevau Silicon Valley.... I sit at my laptop, inching a word a million cubic millimeters closer to God or Divinity or Crescendo or A Bunch More ******* You'll End Up Ignoring---

It's a sunny day, the rain having slathered-off into obscurity somewhere with the Monsoons when the Sun gave the Moon a Soft Slap and the poor purity white-kid went off whimpering, bleeding nose-- I sat, the other night, playing another Grand Strategy game as Tom divided his time between a vaulted and damaged lover, his labor, and his life (friends, food, video-games, vice)... Chai, old Chai the Thai Guy mentioned past his nose in previous iterations of Depictions sat and described his pins-and-needles upset at his bosses at one his three many jobs.. desperately firing text-messages into receiving-space-panel and reflect and back unto Tom's smartphone dash asking him to order a six-pack from a local delivery service cuz his adrenal was giving him heartpain with hurt, and Tom being Busy as All-Ways Tom Is wasn't able to decipher the scramble in-time to make contact before closure of the liquor stores.. poor not-so-poor Chai at first felt castrated at realization he would miss the 11 PM dot-time, but didn't mind as he rendezvoused with Tom and I at Willows Beach where Tom reminded him of a whiskey he'd bought sitting counter-wise at his place.. we kissed a few Mary Janes rightsideup, dragging our butts in the sand to discuss what was wrong (each of us had a problem that night, save for perhaps a less-vocal Tom, I describing my annoyance that a lazy consensus had erupted in my sorry-hometown between my sorta-friends and friends-of-friends that my writing and sharing my writing was arrogant and I an arrogant *** for sharing and I just confounded that they would find my passions so trivial-- perhaps jealousy, perhaps complacency and judgement-for-lack-of-anything-better-to-do and ah **** em all if they think like that, I'll write and be the arrogant me they think I am and share 'til I'm blue in the face and dead perhaps for outspoken intellectualism in their autocratic pointless-waste worldviews.. sad that I dislike them only on the basis they disliked me first..)

I had planned to stay late and leave early-morn (5 or 6 AM) to catch a first-off morning bus back home and sleep, hoping for most part to avoid the shattered-***-mess of a home I was living in.
About 2 days ago, give or take, a water-line for the laundry machine had erupted to soak our entirely-carpeted basement suite, forcing the poor new landlord (a sweetheart of a man named Ron having just taken possession of the house from previous owner on May 1st and, it seems, left 'holding the bag' as they'd call it in day-trading-investment-lingo) to tear out the entirely-soaked carpet and replace it with sensible laminate flooring and rendering the entire suite virtually unlivable for indefinite-few-days and so for me work and friends and especially writing become a welcome reprieve to I, a first world Refu-Jeez.. us, so terribly-off I sip a latte near sunny panorama windows-so-clear-they're-not-there overlooking the crosses of Yates and Blanshard with European church of Gothic architectural style poking heedlessly into empty-open blue.. ironically and strangely there is a liquor store quite literally right next door, and's one I shop at often for its decent prices (God is Dead or Just Drinking to Cope with Sartre and Kierkegaard's Ultimate Thesis) (Kierkegaard especially '*** Kierkegaard seems a good and long friend of God the Almighty) (...I talk with such Judaeo-Christian Catholic rhetoric it never ceases to amaze myself as it bleeds to page..) (stranger thing is, tho, there is no beginning, no middle, no end.. you read or you are bored and either/or is just fine..)

There is some hypothesized crescendo-bliss Tech Singularity on the way in the try-dition of Ray Kurzweil and William Burroughs.. Oscar Wilde to.. (see The Soul of Man Under Socialism in essay-collect book De Profundis).. one day we will all be eternal happiness expressed in song and dance and LED erected-projections of Imperfect Universe (Our Imperfect Earth) with lives stuck on infinite repeat.. our idea of Paradise.. and for those with ability to remain rushed to cortisol (stress-the-best hormone) it will be Hell on Earth, so DRAB and THE SAME all the TIME and it's READ and it's WRITE and it's RIGHT.. the world runs faster with every passing day so desperate to discover the Globe is Flat so we can Hop Off the Other Side into what one might assume to be The Better Place.. elusively picking-up speed thinking 'closer now definitely closer now' unaware (or, secretly aware and unwilling to admit for what will one do when one cannot run?) they are Running in Circles Over and Over and Over and Over and Over Again... cannot take the hint in the fact the Pacific (same Pacific) has been crossed a hugeillion times, nor the same McDonald's in the Azores of Atlantic Portugal is the Same ******* McDonald's stopped-thru on the then-trillionth time last year... and all whilst the International Space Station remains muted up-above crossing 'round and 'round 'til the Jehovah'n Day of Judgement (Chris Hadfield now below with advice for how to run a little faster even blinded in one eye..) then there are the dying Prophets Predicting Industrial Collapse who preach upon the Mount of Internet Sinai Eternal and state "the world is now unsalvageable and we are all about to die.. if ever you wished to find Buddhistic Nirvanic Peace, now is the time so start meditating and imagine Death as New Life and Geopolitics as Game".. forever and ever and ever and ever.

It is only natural to find existence to be 'weird..' layered with Who's That's and giant What The ***** everywhichway you turn.. did it start in a Big Bang, will it end in a Big Crunch, Big Freeze, Big Bang.. ? all questions once ignored for certain ignorance and resurrected as questions concerning the Nature of the What The ***** (also known as 'Science').. and if it did start in a Big Bang, did I start in a Big Bang..? and if it does end in a Big Crunch, will I end in a Big Crunch..? am I a sudden flash of REAL in a Universe that isn't me..? or am I an entire Universe.. perhaps even more than that...? the questions pulse in youth like bad words or bullets. I once stayed up all-night thinking of infinity with my head soaring space-wise forever and ever and ever and I stopped in sudden panic thinking: I could lie here up all night and all day 'til the towered age of 37 (I was 14 at the time) and still be no further on the Universal Map than from thumb-tip-middle to thumb-nail so I wrapped up the attempt with a mix of fear and incredulity, went to school next-day exhausted and tried to explain it all to friends.. they got it, I suppose, but we were all 14 and played basketball instead (I imagined infinite-spinning-basketball on thumb of Michael Jordan).

It's always best describing life in form of Disembodied Poetics.. sure some Philistines won't understand '*** their minds are made of Clockwork, Digits, and Blockthought.. but the general psychic underly implied in all with human faculty will ring-a-ding-ding! and remember all such ancient thoughts and feels as forgotten as a child, locked away until the Spirit rose-up from a rosey thorn prickle to flower straight-up into a Rose! or so I hope as a one-of-many writers-- all of which will write so-as to speak on your behalf.. all floaty and marking a purpose.

I think I loved you most the winter your heating was broken
And we’d stay inside all morning
Pretending to complain that we couldn’t get out of bed
Our clothes becoming little islands on the floor,
Ones that we could not quite find the courage to visit

Your hand stayed glued to my hip,
Your breath warming my shoulder
Like a long drag of whiskey
That kind that had a home so far away,
In a glass bottle on top of your refrigerator.
The one that would not be opened
Until that fateful day in February,
When everything went wrong

And on that unbearable night
When you joked that you’d freeze to death if I left you
There was a long silence
Like it might be true.

Now it’s warm enough
That I show too much skin when sitting in bars
And you avoid me like the plague,
Whispering in any girl’s ear that’s near to you
Every time you see me watching out of the corner of your eye

We should have stayed inside when the ice began to melt
Because I think
When those doors opened and we finally ventured outside
The world had changed,
And so had you and I.

Just another raindrop in the rain
Just another person
lifeless and plain.
Just another drag to take me away.
Just another patient awaiting cancer and pain.
Just another weight to bare
Just another "I don't care"...
Just another wasted life

I can't tell you what it is
Impatiently waiting for the floor to fall from under my feet
constantly worry
about incomplete
can't compete
everything is


obsolete.

Just another raindrop in the rain
it trickles down the window pane

is when they mess with your head
light fires in your mouth
and make you hide in your bed

put stones in your heart
to drag you deep down under
they fight and they fight
their screams predictable as thunder

the rain is the part that gathers in mom's eyes
when she keeps you up late
to tell you lies
lying on the couch
her arm over her face
foundation in streaks
like old dry erase

it's when she lets you stay up late
to read to her specially
just to give her departure
more brevity

when she kisses you on the cheek
and holds you tight
then calls the cops on dad
that same night

when she only gives you presents
to make you feel bad
when she feels better
by making you sad

emotional abuse
is when she calls on a restricted number
tells you she loves you
but won't let you see your little brother
when she slaps you in the face
slams your arm in a door
well
maybe that's not
emotional abuse anymore...

when she tells you she loves you
but leaves anyway...
abuse is abuse,
it all feels the same.

He loved her and she loved him
His kisses ****** out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she ******
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered  into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows  pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined  sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

I’ve tattooed a line across
the veins of my wrist
and marked a down stroke
for every time
“you can’t wear red lipstick”
made me believe
I never wanted to in the first place.

for every time instead
I’ve stained my lips with cherries
learning how to tie the stems
so I can slip forget-me-knots
to the back of your throat—
do you feel my restriction now?

the razors that fly off my tongue
perk thorns on my skin,
another down stroke on my wrist
will teach me that
you were right,
shyness is a virtue.

no need to speak,
go spend one hundred dollars
and some percent for tax
to cover up,
even though I’m sure your mother told you
that cotton stains.

so make it black.
get your hair stuck
in the zipper of that sundress
and pray as you pull it out
that it will lose its pigmentation
in the process
mark a down stroke
for killing two flowers
for one bouquet.

hold it
close your eyes and throw it back,
I know we shouldn’t be wearing white anyway
but tradition can take a lot out of you
like what you really think—
don’t say **** in public.

instead drag your first impressions
all the way to the altar
and dress in your Sunday best
a flower on your lapel
clear on your lips
a stroke for the neat decline
of the son

I tattooed a line across
the veins of my wrist
and marked a down stroke
for every time
my image
was my fault.

In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares

They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.

Some days, it feels like the only thing I need in life is a cellphone.

With a cellphone, I can spend my time flinging birds into pigs,
Slicing fruit, and collecting coins,
Never stopping until I get the high score.

I can swipe, poke, drag my finger
Across a screen of light,
Letting the thrill of technology override my soul.

With a cellphone, I can write lol a million times,
Without a single chuckle escaping from my lips,

And mask my life with a fake profile,
And an artificial smile,
And a status update every once in a while,
To show the World Wide Web my embellished life style.

With a cellphone, I don’t need to stop and smell the roses,
When there’s an app for that.
Why would I lay back and watch the vibrant colors of the sunset,
When it can be downloaded off the Internet?

Why would anyone bother to take risks,
To laugh with friends,
To cry alone,
To feel alive…

When there’s a cellphone in your back pocket?