Sitting at my workstation I kept swirling my chair around,
Battling the strenuous drowse that tried to yoke me to the ground,
“How could this happen? This is the first hour of my job,” I wondered,
I chuckled. “How fool of me! It’s Monday today,” I remembered.

I peeked to my left to see an empty chair,
“No-one to talk around; hey, that’s so unfair!”


I cringed viscerally at the thought of spending the day without uttering a word,
I tried to re-task my focus on my computer screen when a soft voice I heard,
Made me turn, and as I did, I veered myself to the source of the euphonic voice,
I felt the dumbfoundedness of a person bewitched by a magical spell, twice.

For some moments I couldn’t decrypt the words that her lips uttered,
As I just kept staring into her graceful eyes, helpless and all cluttered.


She asked with a soft smile, “Is this person absent today?” and  motioned to the workstation on my left,
I felt my dopamine surge at the possibility of what might happen next,
I nodded as soon as I realised my tongue has gone numb,
She ensconced herself and smiled, her cheeks as rotund as a plum.

I swallowed a lump in my throat that I didn’t realise had formed,
I wasn’t hoping for anything like this but I liked what my day had unboxed.


“What is she? Are humans allowed to be this beautiful?” I questioned my mind,
Was she a manifestation of my dreams or an angel in disguise!
It seemed like her eyes possessed a power in them like Midas in his hands,
A sight of innocence that could even force the flying time to land.

I leaned forward a little to catch a glimpse of her pretty brown eyes,
She turned to me with a gaze of a doe and my tongue again got tied.


“Any problem?” She questioned me with a raise of her brow,
“Yes, your eyes. They’re too beautiful,” the response I couldn’t let out,
Instead I shook my head and turned my eyes away from her,
My peripheral could see her blushing; it seemed the bubble has finally burst.

I tried to venture a conversation but failed to remember the morphemes,
The anonymity between us allowed the nervousness to sweep in.


I sighed deeply and turned about to do what I’m paid for,
But her presence beside me made it harder for me to stay calm,
An unexpected “Hello” came from my left and an introduction followed the greet,
Although stunned by the suddenness I tried to smile at her, from cheek to cheek.

We exchanged our names and conversed a little for a while,
Before she got engaged in her work and I in mine.


After hours of punching the keyboard buttons I stretched my arms and yawned,
She giggled at me and I took it as a cue to move my first pawn,
I embarked, “I’m going to the cafeteria to have some tea”,
I hesitated for a moment and resumed, “would you like to come with me?”

She rolled her eyes and I understood she has refused my kind and genuine offer,
I began to walk away. “Wait a minute, let me lock my PC,” and then I saw her got up.


We walked our way to the cafeteria, slower than two people normally would,
My chivalry erupted as I held the door open for her as she entered the room,
We occupied a table for two and  it appeared like a date-night is about to happen,
With she in front of me and  the stories that we shared, it seemed like all the troubles in the world didn’t matter.

I mulled over the thought that I might have a crush on her smile,
But there was an absolute certainty that I had fallen in love with her eyes.


She shared some cheerful stories about her childhood and also the moments in her life she remorse,
She had a way of crinkling her nose adorably that made her appear cuter than she was before,
“You may have a body of a woman but you have a sweetness of a child,” I abruptly blurted out,
She smiled deep into my eyes and I could feel the brightest smile I ever had form on my mouth.

“That’s the sweetest thing someone has ever said about me,” she flushed a little while she said this,
It took us a moment to realise that we’re holding hands; the touch of hers was something I couldn’t resist.


We got up as we finished our beverages and sauntered our way back to our daily routine,
I tried to rein my thoughts that our day was  about to end, but my efforts were all just futile,
I just wished this night shall never pass as I wanted to spend more of my time with her,
We logged out of our PC’s as our shift ended but I craved for one last conversation with this girl.

While ambling towards the exit in silence I turned on my heels to look into her beautiful brown eyes,
I sighed as I looked at her and tried to settle down the feeling to hug her that was about to rise,
“I spent this beautiful day with a beautiful girl I wish I could see more of,” I said with truthfulness in my voice,
She smiled at the ground and then looked up, “You will. Tomorrow at 8. Here’s my number. The place is your choice.

========================================================­===

Eight years ago in the homeless shelter a loud beep went off in my ear.  It was then that I remembered the time in 1983 that that mob f-word [expletive] slammed a cork ***** in my right ear, twisted it, then ripped out my head guts through my ear.

  Living through the pain, I enjoyed the silence.  Strumming my guitar.  Feeling the vibrations of the neighbors on the floor below me.  The occasional mob cop f-word [expletive] kicking in my door.  Then, silently mouthing nonsense to me as to why I should keep the noise down.  I wish you were there to see the dumbfoundedness when they realised I could not hear them.  But, mostly I would watch the krackles fly, wonderlously sailing.  Perfectly, and without err and without that [idol] awful chatter that drove my girlfriend from the Bronx to move out because (get this) she didn't want to live in a jungle.

  Again my train jumps the tracks.  I'm so sorry, and I do feel the pain of punishment forty-one years after my father taught me how to behave.  Maybe I'll just jump off the train and into a taxi.

Yes, this is much better, now getting back to the story.  The government (Social Security Administration) let me be free of sound for about six months until they figured if they swung for the surgery, they wouldn't have to pay me benefits.  And, when a Lodi mob cop **** shot me because I couldn't hear him yell stop.  I got a lot of money for that.  That is when the government stepped in to rebuild my ear.  I told them no but, they dragged me onto surgery against my will anyway.  Laughing all the while.

  Later I find out that the CIA put a tracer (sender/receiver) in along with a plastic/metal ear drum or whatever part it's called.  Taxi Stop!  40 Dollars!  no tip.

  So, two years ago like I said.  I'm in the homeless shelter and this thing goes off BEEP, BEEP, BEEEEEEEEEEP.  And people are punching me and beating me and telling me to shut up.  And, I'm immobilized because when you have a titanium alloy amplifier in you it hurts your ears even if they are made out of plastic.  And this thing goes on for like SIXTEEN HOURS and I want to reach in and pull it out but, I can't and I scream help and start kicking back until the police come.  But, the thing is still beeping.

  The next day and this is the part that really hurts.  The next day, this slunt that stole my virginity when I was thirteen is there and she still has the thing on in front of all the police and everything and I tell the police DO NOT HELP THAT WOMAN.  She has been blackmailing me for 36 years because I will not have her.  She had me ***** and photographed it and posted photos of this **** everywhere.

  Billboards, grocery stores, places of employment, Yankee Stadium, Florida, the world.  Stop helping this ******!  She should be in jail or the very least5 a ****** ward where they could at least try to help her.

  I have a son and daughter from a previous marriage.  Me, I'm used to being abused.  My family started it when I was six months old.  But, my children really don't have to put up with this garbage because some ***** can't get over me after I rejected her THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO.  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.  I have a kid who believes this ***** and I have to tell him it's not true and explain what demonic possession is and he says sure dad.  But, then goes ahead and listens to his mother anyway.

He's a good boy.

when held spellbound courtesy grifter

Flim-flam man left lasting emotional whiplash
his derelict perfected artifice
to hijack every last cent
smarted me with indelible smash;
living daylight delivered I kidney you not
envious affliction affecting
last named member and founder of the Byrds
with crosby, stills, young and nash
entire corporeal being turned to hash
condemned state yours truly relegated,
cuz cremation unaffordable, though pulverized
and transformed into powdery ash;

Impossible mission to conceptualize
transmutation into cremains, the brain
lodged within me noggin
ill equipped to envision mine gray matter
even after asking mister Google to explain
that cremation takes place
in a specially designed furnace,
referred to as a cremation chamber or retort,
and exposed to extreme temperatures –
up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit–
leaving behind only ashes.

Following the procedure,
a cooling period required
before the remains can be handled.

Yours truly can best attest,
when succumbing as victim to virtual heist
I most likely flip flopped
into one percent atavistic Neanderthal state;
a surprising revelation
23andme genotyping results
yielded said presence of proto human
after analyzing DNA
courtesy saliva sample from eldest sister.

No other logical satisfactory explanation doth chime
lapsed consciousness, hence reasonable rhyme
whereat one twenty first century mortal man
virtually travelled in time
cast into nasty, shortish brute
obliging deft inducement
outsourcing valuable dough.

Though aforementioned far-fetched notion
smacks of high skepticism,
yet no more ridiculous than
hominids over bajillion years springing forth
from flotsam and jetsam in the ocean
I may as well broach another theory of creation
(just came to my mind),
that divine omnipotent wizard
sprinkled magic potion
across primordial sea
after watching an advertisement promotion
claiming said product
contained the seeds of life and white lily.

Convinced that snake oil salesman
wrought deleterious influence
triggering a debacle that rocked
the financial market,
(albeit constituting one singular naked ape),
an attorney general based in Philadelphia
believes I presented a convincing case,
which hopefully witnesses
recouping all or most of my funds.

crafting reasonable poetic rhyme
nothing to sneeze... at chew
asthma lingua franca –
acts as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious glue
inspiring me to skip to my loo,
and ye to play altruist gist
imagining how and why I still rue
cashing mucho moolah legal tender
courtesy bitcoin cryptocurrency,
which absolute zero funds recouped,

nevertheless dumbfoundedness ironically
found steely mettle to get smart
courtesy posting gofundme page
(titled implacable ill fate
battered treasured wealth)
on my part already got told to you
dear readers visiting my literary endeavor
written within vernacular English
spoken amidst human zoo.

Okay, the gist of anemic
checking and savings accounts averred
asked from one
FaceBook English literary
Jim Henson creation and
Sesame Street resident Big Bird,
I could plainly enumerate
Sachin (means 'pure' in Sanskrit
and another name for Hindu God, Shiva.

The most famous Sachin  
ranks as recently retired
Indian cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar).

Impossible mission to expunge poison
regarding stupidity and never be cured
of spellbinding nightmares,
and not accused
of acting demurred
the esse cent chill
dime a dozen premise ensured
prime merrily to discover
visa wells Fargo

sieve err (ala Eratosthenes) forward
solution, whereby means
to save money
against being gored
no...no...no...not to be stingy,
nor selfishly hoard
meager unearned social security
monthly allotment, aye ignored
to mention as key piece

of information a dub bill
lit tete ting bout with anxiety,
obsessive compulsive, not cavil
air lee shaken off and schizoid
personality disorder like evil
mailer daemons, which
undermined ability to full fill
quality existence, and even
prescribed about,

a half dozen plus three
medications help ill
psyche, though nonetheless mill
yens of precious moments pill
furred with profuse sweating still
interferes supplementing,
stoking, and socking
away reserve till,

last creased furrow sought out
here in Schwenksville
Pennsylvania most likely, where
one last gulp of oxygen will
finally deliver cremated ashes
into eternal void
where psychological state
free from being destroyed
and forever exempt trying
to be write lee employed.

alternately titled: tick tock runneth amuck
seconds elapse imperceptibly
leaving me dumbstruck,
how quickly fleeting tempus fugit;
ofttimes imagined as time thief.

Hence following vignette: quiet as a mouse lurks the time thief

The invisible hours hoarder stealthily steals precious seconds (like minute hors d'oeuvres) away during the dead of night surreptitiously and unsuspectingly robs and buries me alive by subtracting each and every precious second of my tender life.

As the world spins, the days fly by at nearly the hummingbird wings at the deathly hallow supersonic sound, this little elfin grot sized goniff (groomed by Father Time) monopolizes and usurps a greater role like some unwanted guest who overstays his welcome.

Mortality (visited by quick and painless demise) on the other hand would be an especial balm, relief and tonic to my countless decades long existential slog, which this model ’59 hew man cargo happens to be in sore need and want of that fairy tale genie in a bottle to grant me eternity.

How quickly the hands blindingly **** by instantaneously eclipsing memories from yesterday (when all my troubles seemed so far away) as I just barely shucked off the frock from today.

Meanwhile faint hints of tomorrow (albeit dark shadows creeping imperceptibly closer from the edge of night as all my children frolic in the summer of their blissful innocence totally oblivious to the galloping generational gourmand grandfatherly clocker) hungrily prowling on the outskirts of styx strewn groveling grooved globe.

Nocturnal creatures emerged from respective hideouts regaling in fleeting festivities (apropos to their species/ genus) before the curtain rises on another dawning day.

Although an unseen yet palpable grim harbinger (per prescribed existential allowance) precedes, and allocates finite years sans spontaneous birth of life, the daily hubbub finds this introspective individual self-absorbed in gloom.

Thus, he infrequently finds himself conscious of that eye popping, jaw dropping, mind boggling sheer speed of light flash representative of his passing life. Where in the world did those days, weeks, months, years, and decades go? Try as one might to catch the robber baron of ages, he/she also appears to be at least one second ahead.

These immeasurable micro moments appear to leap ever faster as one inches closer to that average length of longevity. Odd though, that these indiscriminate discrete constituent parts of being consciousness well nigh impossible to isolate, yet recognition prevails at cradle to grave cycle.

I feel utterly dumbstruck at diminishing residence on this planet now while walking along the boulevard of broken dreams. An indistinguishable blur (akin to the brushstroke of an artist across blank palette yet to be covered with an unpredictable product) the only evidence that tempus fugit.

Now as one crotchety curmudgeon contemplating cumulative chapters of mein kampf (from childhood to doddering sexagenarian senescence), nostalgia for yesteryear like a parasite symbiotically festering inside for unrequited liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The second these minute, gnarled, bent arthritic fingers manage to lay hands on that bleeping son of a blank, hours and days will be like one endless months long week-end without parental supervision.

Throughout mankind's awakened consciousness
elusive abstract notion
identifying past, present, and future
adopted as avuncular personification;
Father Time an apropos sobriquet
impossible concept to grasp
within the mind of one Finnish huckabuck,
whose clodhoppers get mired in muckamuck
analogous to quicksand yours truly stuck
markedly challenged, hence
mission scuttled when attempting to zuck.

Ever since the advent of civilization
contrivances crafted to measure
days, weeks, months...
years, decades, centuries...
analytical “gifted” anonymous minds,
wrought ever more sophisticated inventions
to divide existence into manageable units.

Now twenty first century **** sapiens
technological atomic clock work mechanisms
markedly catapulted by quantum leaps
immense degrees of precision  
extremely accurate types of devices
linkedin with state of the art electronics.

At this fleeting instant
(approximately 8:18 AM
September 13th, 2022)
ever so briefly wedged between
what elapsed and future events to arise)
impossible mission to isolate
that illusory present,

not only cuz the herein now
flits away at light speed
(or greater - you're right quite dubious),
but also everywhere within
cosmic space/time continuum
infinite microscopic and
macroscopic events occur.

As an amateur thinker
I feel baffled when pondering
that crude convenient schema
whereby greater minds than mine
devised devices to measure passage of time.

Yours truly can barely articulate
his farfetched dumbfoundedness,
me merely a simple brute
(shortish but not so nasty),
whose permanently creased
furrowed brow courtesy
his scrutinizing noggin
encasing fifty plus shades of gray matter,

whereby one percent bonafide Neanderthal
deoxyribonucleic acid explains
atavistic predilection issuing primal grunting,
when foraging for small (lame) game,
cuz feeble minded twenty first century
run of the mill garden variety **** sapiens
amuses himself (mentally)
toying with Einsteinian paradigm.

Though barely able to fathom
mind bending and boggling concepts
theoretically linkedin if an object
subjected to travel speed of light
(particularly an objet d'art - ha

think The Persistence of Memory
series of clock paintings by Salvador Dali)
mass becomes infinite
as does energy required to move entity.

Obviously the ability to wrap one's head
(or hands for that matter) around,
humongous (super sized) material essence
filling subsequent seconds, minutes, hours...
defies feasibility to grasp,

neither could ways nor means
allow, enable and provide
any semblance to hold (tangibly) as solid
something so abstract
as a singular moment, yes?

The above (ambiguously stated) thought exercise
equally as challenging where to locate
beginning and/or ending point
upon Möbius strip.