This is the House That Lies Built*
Copyright  © 2013
By Erika Whitmore

This is the house that Lies built.

This is the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

This is the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

This is his Greed that fueled the Lust
That drove the “Man” that lay in the house that Lies built.

This is the Loyal Woman that Got in the Way of his Greed
That killed the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

This is the Urge to fill his lascivious Needs
So he dumped the Loyal Woman that got in the Way of his Greed
That killed the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

This is the “Maiden” all forlorn
Who ignited his Urge to fill his lascivious needs
So he dumped the Loyal Woman that got in the way of his Greed
That killed the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

This is the “Man” all tattered and torn
That fcked the “Maiden” all forlorn
Who ignited his Urge to fill his lascivious Needs
So he dumped the Loyal Woman that got in the Way of his Greed
That killed the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

This is his Addiction to women and ****
That ******* the “Man” all tattered and torn
That fcked the “Maiden” all forlorn
Who ignited his Urge to fill his lascivious Needs
So he dumped the Loyal Woman that got in the Way of his Greed
That killed the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

This is the **** that crows in the morn
That shone light on his Addiction to women and ****
That ******* the “Man” all tattered and torn
That fcked the “Maiden” all forlorn
Who ignited his Urge to fill his lascivious Needs
So he dumped the Loyal Woman that got in the Way of his Greed
That killed the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

This is the ****** for the ******* he mourns
Which now keeps the **** up that crows in the morn
That shone the light on his Addiction to women and ****
That ******* the “Man” all tattered and torn
That fcked the “Maiden” all forlorn
Who ignited his Urge to fill his lascivious Needs
So he dumped the Loyal Woman that got in the Way of his Greed
That killed the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.

These are the Memories of those who loved him, whom he has scorned,
And traded in for ****** and the ******* he mourns
Just to dwell on the **** that crows in the morn
That shone  the light on his Addiction to women and ****
That ******* the “Man” all tattered and torn
That fcked the “Maiden” all forlorn
Who ignited his Urge to fill his lascivious Needs
So he dumped the Loyal Woman that got in the Way of his Greed
That killed the Lust that drove the “Man”
That lay in the house that Lies built.
###

Okay before you start, I’m a lesbian.
Wow, put that straight into Paul’s knockback book.
Just didn’t want you to waste your time.
Okay, what we’ve got here is, brickwall syndrome.
Is that bad.
It is, but there’s a way through it.
There is.
Yes, what we need to do, is to create a situation.
How does that work.
Well, you pretend you want me to chat you up, but you want a great chat up line.
Sounds a bit pointless, but go for it.
You are the tea to my coffee.
Not feeling that Paul.
I can see us growing old together.
You’re right, I’m aging in front of you.
Nice one, I’m going to buy you a drink, but I don’t know your name.
Never heard that one before, I’m Candice.
No, that wasn’t a chat up line, what are you drinking.
Oh sorry, you got me there. Gin and tonic.
Right, back to my lines. You are the chalk to my cheese.
Never a truer word said Paul.
I saw you across the room, and I just had to speak to you.
Oh, I like that Paul. that would do it.
Well Candice I think my work here is done.
Can I ask you a stupid question.
Sure, go for it.
You do know this is a lesbian bar.
Can’t say anybody told me Candice.
It’s not written in stone, people just know it as such.
Does that mean I’ve tarnished your reputation.
Well I did get dumped last week.
Me too, fill me in then.
Would you believe she said I was selfish.
Looking at my glass Candice, I’m sort of agreeing with her.
Is that a hint you want a drink, even though the gentleman is supposed to buy them.
Nice one miss selfish, you’re enhancing your reputation.
Okay, same again. Why did a great guy like you get dumped.
I couldn’t explain the situation I was in at that particular moment in time.
You mean she found you bed with another woman.
Yeah, her sister.
That’s shocking, so how are you just not going out with the other sister.
Well.
You were going out with the other sister, weren’t you, I’m seeing a new side to you Paul. Hopefully being double dumped will teach you a lesson.
It has, I’m talking to you.
Well in that case, god is definitely punishing you.
You might be right Candice. I think in our next date, you should use your best chat up lines to cheer me up.
You kidding, you’ll try to turn me straight.
No I’ll leave that to the third date.
Do you know something, I think I’ve moved into the twilight zone.
Great isn't it, just think, half an hour ago you were expecting some super model to sweep you off your feet, and now you’re talking to me.
I know, I don’t know if I feel sorry for me, or feel sorry for you.
We’re being punished Candice for being bad.
Excuse me Paul, I don’t think being selfish is in the same bracket as double cheating.
In a way it is, I’m with a beautiful woman i can’t do anything with, how selfish can life get.
Never looked at it that way, I’m feeling all apple crumble now.
Is that lesbian speak for I’m a pudding.
Jesus, do you know you have a great capacity for lifting people, then dropping them again.
That’s my cack handed way of saying I like you.
You’re still not turning me straight.

                                  TEN YEARS LATER.
Was there ever a time I could’ve got you into bed.
Yes, all the times I got dumped and cried on your shoulder.
What, you might have said something.
I couldn’t, I was too busy listening to your perils of wisdom. You always built me up and sent me away in a better frame of mind.
Are you due to get dumped anytime soon.
No, no, and no. I’m in love. Plus you wouldn’t want to bed me, it would spoil our crazy relationship.
That’s true, plus I don’t fancy you anymore.
Yeah right, bet if I said do you want to go to bed, you would jump at the chance.
I wouldn’t, I respect you too much.
Right, I’m going to get naked, I’ll be in bed waiting for you.
( Finally. )  Why aren't you naked, and sort of waiting.
So you thought you’d try a little reverse psychology did you, Thought I wouldn’t see through your little charade. Good try, but not good enough.
I was just buttering you up.
Still trying to straighten me out. Right, it’s our anniversary on Friday, don’t be late.
I’ll check my full diary, see if I can fit it in.
                        
                                     Anniversary Ritual.

Okay before you start, I’m a lesbian.
Wow, put that straight into Paul’s knockback book.
Just didn’t want you to waste your time.
Okay, what we’ve got here is, brickwall syndrome.
Ps, I got dumped today.

love   apple   like   time   know   feel   heart   bed   little   life   home   red   boy   georgie   sleep   away   left   dear   ruth   gone   just   right   long   mind   hope   hair   mi   parts   say   fear   met   laugh   makes   sailing   make   tell   hands   day   poem   different   small   words   private   wish   legs   child   man   free   te   welcome   easy   apples   meteorite   smile   flower   want   way   arms   look   eyes   better   war   lie   good   thing   truly   teeth   passion   thought   work   seen   letters   friend   talk   brought   future   fingers   knew   imagination   sure   told   space   cold  la   mask   black   big   bite   age   size   shadow   petals   inane   stretchmarks   medic   we've   wouldn't   hear   tap   really   best   goes   face   gray   maybe   things   dream   tongue   forever   hate   set   room   death   need   truth   comes   night   lost   calves   pain   end   years   brings   touch   feet   blades   memories   new   core   times   dead   favorite   finally   minute   brain   hearts   getting   belly   far   rain   blue   knees   filled   stupid   woke   cream   fit   young   brown   se   fat   tan   cough   spoke   says   unlike   footprints   ******   rough   forward   buckle   blues   task   shoulder   grace   *******   reason   nostrils   firm   juice   palms   someday   mis   thumbs   screams   arguments   wobble   *****   elbows   *******   wrists   headaches   amo   pesky   ligaments   one-liners   thoughts   later   ash   clouds   lips   dreams   breath   mouth   hold   sense   taking   world   bit   speak   dance   gave   shall   ready   skin   air   single   breathe   button   peace   choices   hill   wrong   weak   close   use   quite   sky   phrase   darkness   justice   sound   unable   brave   holding   deep   grabbed   ****   try   building   paper   lunch   think   kind   stay   days   smooth   perfect   learned   care   fair   hard   grant   sweet   high   fruit   short   terms   kept   relationship   underneath   presence   water   looking   fool   sorrow   tree   second   delicate   nearly   happy   line   tall   tried   sad   satisfied   point   feels   falling   purpose   game   lazy   que   amor   agree   known   naught   loss   broke   failed   games   limp   grin   final   spring   act   south   flare   race   sake   car   large   wishes   neck   blink   knife   seeing   idea   steve   company   greens   spread   ship   lo   sally   sum   drowned   december   weep   sting   smiles   lessons   promises   successful   whistled   drowns   perfectly   pleasing   failure   brothers   cliche   harder   thirteen   ale   signs   limit   serenity   mundane   origin   chat   sapphires   handshakes   skinny   contagious   succeeding   super   refer   maturity   destination   civil   uncomfortable   collects   clack   liz   beatles   vez   attract   accomplishment   backside   throes   flaccid   audi   oneself   beastie   applesauce   naivete   bungalow   outie   there's   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means   mountain   boys   true   stars   learn   sliced   naive   decided   player   actually   reality   ease   music   hood   desperate   promise   wishing   begin   miss   caressing   moan   thighs   heard   pretty   emotion   figure   floor   exotic   sand   hits   angel   awake   dreaming   probably   wins   seek   stretch   loved   tears   heartbreak   punk   walking   piece   furniture   unreachable   roots   near   deserve   simple   cats   tail   precious   lovers   loves   mother   tongues   clueless   share   taken   yesterday   faith   freedom   ripe   cursed   running   yes   unknown   feeling   going   stairs   opposite   wonder   afloat   packed   bones   acting   playing   wind   passions   dismissed   hourglass   reached   stares   mouths   singing   shaped   trapped   toll   dies   rock   trunk   discovered   especially   dull   choice   awful   patient   great   indoors   attached   thread   shoulders   warms   bright   bring   ending   drowning   sadness   winter   baby   looked   cute   beating   tight   kids   crying   ran   intoxicating   growing   saying   opposites   melancholy   gives   follow   clearly   dove   tu   soon   entwined   juicy   drown   laid   took   moved   bear   anyways   shirt   negative   clean   guide   sore   location   faux   nodded   glance   caught   chances   week   started   today   obvious   sweat   ***   quiet   laughed   worry   round   ladies   mama   smack   goodbye   rising   sides   wished   beds   infinite   positive   scared   admittedly   mistakes   meal   common   rises   toes   bullets   bound   suited   birth   clothes   belt   pounds   ground   barren   sitting   table   woe   swimming   stick   deepest   motion   cleared   sing   angry   action   sons   smiled   bedroom   wall   wiped   grins   mad   july   store   road   snow   pulse   important   adventure   exactly   foundation   trap   colors   floors   neon   outside   language   summer   north   fifty   served   wavy   kick   raw   thirty   row   changed   hanging   lied   drenched   companion   begins   strength   flies   direction   okay   stories   inky   stubborn   cloud   track   described   lover   replaced   pit   packs   circling   honest   wage   dinner   slave   paradox   faking   screamed   lightning   exterior   stopping   complete   deal   rifle   dependent   gifts   dancer   vision   students   horror   punch   anymore   pack   sagging   folk   honestly   tearing   prepared   creatures   listening   rhythm   unique   roar   card   glass   stage   desert   offered   fought   suffer   awoke   master   eating   furnace   glad   choir   graceful   *****   treasure   ships   bark   musical   strand   bee   finished   pink   slink   stronger   disclose   gravity   schedule   march   medicine   hates   weird   brush   laughs   helped   june   pitched   dumped   tense   sin   withdrawn   stem   proved   whispered   anew   amazing   louder   english   knocked   chilly   boots   false   mistake   toffee   whistle   smirk   gas   poised   buttons   bet   necks   elate  vi   bleak   decades   intention   plane   swollen   unseemly   en   sir   creeping   tells   success   doth   ***   balance   ant   fourth   fits   matters   pan   shook   tingle   dusty   reaching   thanked   careers   pile   tempt   ix   xi   xii   xiii   moms   hushed   spears   twinkling   works   fairytale   double   fighter   shocked   barriers   boot   thanks   solitary   lesson   owned   systems   groan   weekend   tomatoes   cider   calculating   drawer   partially   handy   stumpy   album   appealing   pet   unfortunately   jokingly   hotel   teacher   tag   eighteen   leg   dash   peep   betwixt   swear   attempt   inescapable   venues   worker   suit   coughed   remembers   rhyme   listed   chatter   stuff   assist   blocks   sheen   stanzas   jobs   cleaned   handshake   natural   moi   fantasy   cheers   smaller   curl   nay   leaning   frequent   eggs   cuando   el   desayuno   tus   beige   imperfections   difficult   darlings   overcome   oranges   keys   newfound   fairly   occasions   stats   ponder   pools   ablaze   rushes   fret   quell   breads   progress   comfortable   settling   desks   tile   trails   rainy   homemade   stunned   cemetery   plus   ideas   avocados   bananas   apply   latch   rocky   digress   experiences   vacation   sanctuary   earlier   rocket   precise   various   author   pie   explosions   *******   lighter   matched   plunged   isaac   jefferson   abe   measured   saturday   claw   welcoming   gear   trained   suffocation   leapt   gap   lee   disturbed   es   thrill   alarming   grill   frankly   importantly   una   fray   candied   amalgamation   nasty   american   optimism   guns   craters   contracted   rampant   unattainable   spilled   courts   carrots   shuffled   combined   blonde   forgave   artillery   sandwich   comfier   limitation   personalities   friday   strongly   crude   banana   tennis   limits   quaking   recesses   loot   andromeda   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haven't   what's   you'd   they'd   man's   boys'   god's   woman's   fruit's   orion's   newton's   lincoln's   adam's   momma's   ******   jackson's   audis   dulces   disproportionately   charon's   deseos   avocadoes   hailey   eran   beatles'   ingles   he   she   it   rackets   --   hashtag   sixty-three   duct-tape   joysticks   sherman's   15   6th   32   500   7th   2013   extraño   barenaked   tamales   6-year-old   tierras   derpy   ewell   rom-com   themit's   adan   mudpits   puddlepits   war--hell   culp's   shitpits   completaron   chocolatada   levantanse   duraznos   n'sync   huevo   cholitos   levantaron   manzanas   endurece   wozniak's   dispara   nuez   open-endedness   innies   cankles   dunder-mifflin   tunks   buck-toothed   outies   grief-blown   a-gawking

Your voice has settled
On the taut film
Of my ear drum,
Like an echo
It howls,
But I've hummed it
Into a soft whisper.

It was 98'.
No, it was 99'.
That was the year.
Yeah, that was the year.

I had just landed abroad and knew no one.
Well, I was there with my girlfriend, Page.

I knew her.

We had to get out of the states.
There was nothing for us there.
We were drowning in that nothingness - that lacking future.

Cookie cutters everywhere.

Everything I saw was like an outline of something that had already happened.
I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't ****.
I could barely call my parents to let them know what I was doing.

Nothing really.

Floating downward like a leaf broken from its stem.
I was scared.
I'll admit it.
I was terrified of the next four years.
Twenty-five seemed so far away and so close, all at the same time.

We had a found an apartment to live in while in the U.S.
We were lucky because people we met later on said it was hell trying to find a place after arriving.
I was never too good at that stuff anyway.
I always felt like people were trying to cheat me or something.

It was small.
You would have said you loved it, but secretly hated it.
One could barely stand in the shower.
Want to spread your arms wide?

Forget about it.

There was a balcony though and you could watch the street traffic from above.
People look so small when your high up.
Down the street, there was a large theatre where they filmed movies.
I rarely saw them shooting, but I could tell it was a good place to.
It was beautiful at night when the lampposts would flicker on, orange spilling on the street.
Everything was damp in the Fall when we first arrived.

"What do you want to do today?" I asked her. She was laying face down on the bed.
Whenever she was hungover, she would do that.
All the covers and pillows over her face, blocking out the world and its light.
I did the same thing, so I couldn't really say much.
We were hungover a lot those first couple months.
Then came the jobs and everything changed...mostly.

She moaned something that I couldn't understand.
I was standing by the window, staring at the pigeons and crows perched on the roof across from us.
They had made a little nest under one of the shingles.
Clever little ******'s.

"Look at those things," I said.
The coffee I was drinking was bitter and made from crystals.
It gave me a headache, but it was cheap and we were broke.
I stepped back to get a better look at their nest and knocked an empty beer bottle around.

She moaned again and rose up from bed, kind of like a stretching kitten or a cat.
Her back was arched like a crescent moon and she stunk of ***** and Sprite.
The blankets were twisted and crumpled and she was tangled in them like a fly in a spiders web.
I went into the kitchen and poured out my coffee, thinking of what to do with the day.

"Breakfast?" she asked me from bed.
My back was to her, but I knew she wanted me to make it.
I put the electric stove on and opened the refrigerator.

"No eggs," I said back to her, "I'll be right back."

She moaned and slithered back into bed.
I threw my jacket and slippers on and made my way downstairs.

"Dobry den," I said to the cashier.
He was a tiny vietnamese man with a extremely high pitched voice.
I struggled to stifle a laugh every time I came in.

"Dobry den," he said back, sounding like air escaping from a balloon.

"Dear God," I thought, "How does his voice box do it?"

I went straight to the eggs, pretending to cough.
All around me were packaged sweets and rotten vegetables and fruit.
There were half loaves of brown, stale bread wrapped lazily in thin plastic.
Canned beans, noodle packets, and cardboard infused orange juice lined the shelves.
Where were the ******* eggs?
We needed milk too.
Trying to drink that crystalized coffee without it was torture.
I don't even know how I did it earlier.
"I must be getting used to the taste..." I thought.

I opened the single refrigerator they had in the place.
It was stocked with loosely packaged cheese, milk, beer, and soda.
There they were, those ******* eggs, right next to the yogurt.
I looked at the expiration date of a small carton of chocolate milk and winced.
"Someone could die here if they weren't careful," I whispered to myself.

"Everyding O.K.?" I heard the cashier squeak behind me.
I turned and nodded and showed him the eggs.
He was suspicious I was stealing something.
It was ironic.
I put the eggs on the counter and handed over what the cash register told me.

"There you go," I said and handed him the 58 crown in exact change.

"Děkuji," he peeped.

His voice sounded like a stuffed animal.
I nodded, smiled, and quickly got the hell out of there.

"You know the guy that works at the shop across the street?" I asked the body still in bed.
Well, she was up now, back up against the wall with her laptop on her lap.
"You mean the guy that has the voice of a little girl?"
"Exactly. I was just in there - getting these eggs - and I nearly laughed in his face."
"That's mean," she frowned, staring at her laptop.
Many of our conversations were with some kind of electronic device in between us.
We needed to work on that.
"I didn't laugh at him directly."
She smiled and nodded and moved down the bed a little more.
Only her head was resting on the pillow.
I cracked two eggs and let them sizzle there in the butter and the salt.

"So, what do you want to do today?" I asked Page, "It's not too cold out. We could go on a walk."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Over the bridge and maybe down by the water."
"It's going to be so cold," she shivered.
"I was just out there in slippers and a t-shirt and I was fine."
"That's because you're so big. I'm tiny. I don't get as much blood flow."

I flipped the two eggs and looked down at them.
Golden and burnt slightly around the edges.
******* perfect.
Now, just gotta wait a little on the other side and make sure to not let the yolk harden.
I hated that more than anything in the world.
Well, that and hearing **** poor excuses like it being too cold.
It was nice out.
She'd be fine.

"Come on," I sighed. I did that a lot. "It'll be fun."
She looked up at me from her computer with a dead look in her eye.
"What?" I asked her.
"You're such a...nerd," she said.
"No I'm not."
"You're so weird. Some of the things you say sometimes..."
"Like what?"
"Let's go on a walk."
She exaggerated the word walk.
I laughed and knew I was being a little too excited about a walk.
"Yeah. So? What are you doing? You're just laying there doing nothing."
"It's my day off," she scoffed, jokingly.

We were unemployed.
Everyday was a day off.
This was not something to bring up.
It was touchy subject.
One had to go about it...delicately.

"We need to find jobs," I stated, "And we can probably ask around or look for signs in windows."

"Oh JESUS," she gagged, coughing and diving back under the covers.

"I'm just thinking ahead so we can stay here. There's got to be something out there we can do."

"Like what?" she asked, her voice muffled by blankets.

"I don't know...something," I mumbled, trailing off as I flipped one of the eggs, "Perfect."

After breakfast, Page finally got out of bed and took a shower.
I tried to sneak in there with her, but, like I said before, one could barely fit themselves in there.
We compromised to have *** on the bed, though I did miss doing it in the shower.
As Page got dressed, I watched her slip those thin black stockings on, half reading a magazine.
I had gotten a subscription to The Review because I was trying to become a writer.
I thought, maybe if I read the stuff getting published - even the bad **** - it'll help.
Later, I realized, this was a terrible idea, but I enjoyed the magazine all the same.
Page finished getting dressed.
I jumped into whatever clothes were on the floor and didn't stink.
Then, we were out the door on Anna Letenske street, looking at the tram, downhill.


"I can see my breath," Page said, "It's cold..."

"Alright," I said as both of us ran across the street, "It's a little cold."

"But it's ok because I'm glad were out of the house."

"If we would have festered there any longer, we would have stayed in there all day."

"And missed this beautiful day," she said mocking me, putting both of her arms in the air.

The sky was gray and overcast and a single black crow flew over us, roof to roof.
No one was out, really.
It was Sunday and no one ever really came out on Sundays.
From the few czech friends I had, they explained to me this was the day to get drunk and cook.

"Far different then what people think in the States to do," I remember telling him.
"What do you do, my friend?" he had asked. He always called me my friend.
It was a nice thing to do since we had only known each other a couple weeks.
"Well," I explained to him, "Some people go to church to pray to God."
He laughed when I said this and said, "HA! God? How many people believe in God there?"
I had heard through the news and some Wikipedia research Prague was mostly atheist.
"A good amount, I'm pretty sure."
"That's silly," he scoffed, "Silly is word, right?"
"Yep. A word as any other."
"I like that word. What else do they do on Sunday?"
"A lot of people watch football. Not like soccer but with..."
"I know what you talk about," he said, cutting me off, "With the ball shaped like egg?"
I nodded, "Yes, the one with the egg shaped ball. It's popular in the Fall on Sundays."
"And what is Fall?" he asked.
You can see our relationship was really based on questions and answers.
He was a good guy, though I could never pronounce his name right.
There was a specific z in there somewhere where one had to dig their tongue under their teeth.
Lots of breath and vibration that Americans were never asked or trained to do.
Every czech I met said our language was a high contradiction.
Extremely complex in grammar and spelling, but spoken with such sloth.
I don't know if they used the word sloth.
I just like the word.

As we waited for the tram, I noticed the burnt orange and red blood leaves on the ground.
"Where had they come from?" I wondered. There were no trees on the street.
Must be from the park down the block, the one with the big church and the square.
There were lines of trees there used as leaning posts for the bums and junkies as they waited.
What they were waiting for, I never knew.
They just looked to be waiting for something.
I kicked a leaf into the street from the small island platform for the tram.
It swept up into the air a couple inches, and then instantly, was swept away by a passing car.
I watched as it wavered in the air, settling down the block in the middle of the road.

"Where's this trammm," Page complained.
Whenever it was cold out, her complaining level multiplied by a million.
"Should be coming soon. Check the schedule."
"Too cold," she said, "Need to keep my hands in my pockets."
I shook my head and looked at the schedule. It said it would be there at 11:35.
"11:35," I told her, still looking at the schedule. There was a strange cross over the day of Sunday.
"You mad?"
"No," I said turning to her, "I just want to have a nice day and its hard when you're upset."
"I'm not upset," she said, her teeth chattering behind her lips.
"Complaining I mean. We can go back home if it's really too cold. It's right there."
"No," she looked down, "Let's go out for a bit. I just don't know how long I'll last."
"Ok," I shrugged.
I looked up the street and saw our tram coming; number 11.
"There it is," I said.
"Thank God," Page exhaled, "I feel like I'm about to die."

Even the tram was sparse with people.
An empty handle of cheap liquor rattled in the back somewhere.
I heard it rock back and forth against the legs of a metal seat.
"Someone had a night last night," I thought, "Hope that's not mine."
We had gone to some dark bar with a lot of stairs going down - all I really recall.
Beer was so **** cheap there and there was always so much of it, one got very drunk easily.
I couldn't even really remember who we met or why we went there.
When everything's a blur in the morning you have two choices:
Feel guilty about how much you drank, lie around, and do nothing or,
Leave it be, try not to think about it, and try and find your passport and cell phone.

We made our transfer at the 22 and rode downhill.
Page looked like she was going to be sick.
Her sunglasses were solid black and I couldn't see her eyes, but her face was flushed and green.
"You alright?" I asked her.
"I'm fine," she said, "Just need to get off of this tram. Feel like I'm going to be sick."
"You look it."
"Really?" she asked.
"Yeah, a little bit."
"Let's get off at the park with the fountain. I don't want to puke here."
"Ok," I said, smiling, "We'll get off after this stop."

We sat down on one of the benches that circled around the fountain.
It was empty and Page was confused why.
"Maybe to save money?" I suggested.
"What? It's just water."
"Well, you gotta' pump the water up there and then filter it back out. Costs money."
"Costs crown," she corrected me.
"Same thing," I said, putting my arm around her, "There's no one here today."
"I know why," she stated, flatly.
"Why?"
"Because it's collllllllld and it's Sunday and only foreigner's would go out on a day like this."
I scanned the park and noticed that most of the faces there were probably not Czech.
"****," I muttered, "You may be right."
"I know I am," she said, wiggling her chin down into her jacket, "We're...crzzzy."
"We're what?" I asked. I couldn't hear her through her jacket.
She just shook her head back and forth and looked forward, not wanting to move from the warmth.
Dogs were scattered around the brown green grass with their owners.
Some were playing catch with sticks or *****, but others were just following behind their owner's.
I watched as one took a crap in the center of the walkway near the street.
Its owner was typing something on their phone, ignoring what was happening in front of him.
After the dog finished, the owner looked down at the crap, looked around, then slunk off.

"Did you see that?" I asked Page, pointing to where the owner had left the mess.
"Yeah," she nodded, "So gross. That would never fly in the states."
"You'd get shoulder tackled by some park security guard and thrown in jail."
"And be given a fat ticket," she said, coughing a little, "Let's get out of here."
"Yeah," I agreed, "And watch for any **** on the way out of here."

We made our way out of the park and down the street where the 22 continues on to the center.
"Let's not go into the center. Let's walk along the water's edge and maybe up to the bridge."
"Ok," I said, "That's a good idea." I didn't want to get stuck in that mass of tourists.
I could tell Page didn't either. I think she was afraid she might puke on a huddle of them.
We turned down a side street before the large grocery store and avoided a herd of people.
The cobble stones were wet and slick, glistening from a small sliver of sunlight through the clouds.
Page walked ahead.
Sometimes, when we walked downtown in the older parts of Prague, we would walk alone.
Not because we were fighting or anything like that; it was all very natural.
I would walk ahead because I saw something and she would either come with or not.
She would do the same and we both knew that we wouldn't go too far without the other.
I think we both knew that we would be back after seeing what we had wanted to see.
One could call it trust - one could call it a lot of things - but this was not really spoken about.
We knew we would be back after some time and had seen what we had wanted to.
Thinking about this, I watched her look up at the peeling paint of the old buildings.
Her thick black hair waved back and forth behind her plum colored pea coat.
Page would usually bring a camera and take pictures of these things, but she had forgotten it.
I wished she hadn't.
It was turning out to be such a beautiful day.

We made it to the Vlatva river and leaned over the railing, looking down at the water.
Floating there were empty beer bottles and plastic soda jugs.
The water was brown, murky, and looked like someone had dumped a large bag of dirt in there.
There was nothing very romantic about it, which one would think if you saw it in a picture.
"The water looks disgusting," Page said.
"That it does, but look at the bridge. It looks pretty good right

I was walking down the street
Had an urge to *****
Saw a ***** dumpster
this looks nicer than the girl I dumped'r

I unzipped my pants
shat on the plants
got nice and hard
and shot off harder than a pornstar.
(**** THAT DIDN'T RHYME)

I have too much time
because all I do is shoot slime
all over the back
of a president who is black.

I like *****
I bang *****
I make them ***
faster than a game of putt putt.
(****** I CANT ******* RHYME)

All of you poetry snobs
are more stupid than calvin and hobbes
You will never be as successful as
Steve Jobs.

End of story. Because I am about to write another ****** poem.

pin points
joined like Siamese
dots, exclusion
of the hyphen for
the use of pause.

it's one of those early nights having an introspective
moment... trying to give dimensions to my oeuvre:
all those heartbreaks of spaghetti fingers typing
and then trying to ctrl + c / ctrl + p / ctrl + a
but missing the keys... hey presto! a magic act:
a poem lost not even saved by automaated drafts...

yes... i do feel like i need to buy Red Hot Chilli Pepper's
Unlimited Love on vinyl...
it's funny how artists, even in the mainstream disappear...
i have no account of the existence
of the band from... circa 2007... until 2022 when
they toured and i was working the London Stadium:
poet of the coliseum...
John Frusciante came back: i never thought he went
anywhere... but even major artists disappear...

unlike those days being a greedy and eager youth
trying to impress girls with an array of influences
finding out: no return to jazz no return to classical music
to figure out finding my own voice (i wish,
there was a rhyme, vice... ice...) - parrot?
    imitating echo? if parrots could imitate echoes...

it's a gruelling evening...
   there's absolutely nothing to write about...
i'mm rereading some of Al Purdy and Walt Whitman
and i feel: feelz... detachment from any stated,
historical achievements...
          wars lost wars won or whatever
that might be between the flesh and the fingernails
when the fingernails grow too long...
an interlude from working shifts... dealing with people
is a ******: a flat tire...
   37 is no age to start thinking about a road
already undertaken:
children? no?! marriage? now?!
     flipping pancakes and idealising love furthest from
love's truth...
   murky waters and swamp-things...
      deceits, subtractions and additions of lies...
headaches, toothaches...

            shares happiness of coupling and shared
demises...
but from what i've learned:
there is no happiness greater than a one arrived
at by oneself: that spontaneity of laughing
for no reason or laughing at oneself
having thought a certain thought...
and no sweeter misery that no one can share
with you... a nostalgic grey morose murmur of...
some self- prefix fixation of this automated
monkey-bot turned 180 degree standing upright...

the last days of autumn... rotten leaves
in the park that are as "dangerous" as ice...
and a winter that only takes a sneak-peek
at where it once was: magnificently as an AGE of ice
parallels of trunks and trombones and
imagining hairy elephants...
   just imagining.... not really paying attention
to the fact that: yes... how long would it take
for an elephant to grow fur and would it have migrated
with man... all furry in sunny Africa...
kind of inverting the point of the elephant in Siberia
with man shedding fur for... bare-goose-bump skin...

this plughole, this constipation of history through
the lens of Darwinism is... like...
standing above a grave of a dearly loved one
yawning, or chewing gum...
               something like an Icarus-Phoenix
burning in the mind that dead yet dead not forgotten...
fickle creature memory and what
i don't want to remember:
with what i do remember -
   like that repetitive loop of memory-erosion
beginning with the philosophy of pedagogy...
raise hopes and teach pointless arts...
but dear, dear... don't teach them how to combat
the drudgery of work and menial toils...
i'm pretty sure that most physical labours
that require a technicality of an array of skills
will never be menial...
it's the shelf-stacking jobs that could be
made easier... in theory... with an entertaining mind...
a wandering here one minute gone the next...
a disappearing ego...  reappearing ego...
a bucket and pulled from a bucket a top hat...
and from a top hat? pulling out an old person's
chattering dentures instead of a white bunny...

a beautiful life focusing on little things,
finding spontaneous wisdom anecdotes and not defending
such roles as guru or saviour or leader...
like... going to bed before 12am and
like today... nonchalantly in concord with:
i'd like to have a lesbian girlfriend...
while sneaking away to the brothel...
but even no, given the wintry months:
having a relief from spring's and insect' libido....
sure... jerking off but not really thinking about
it, which is aided by sitting on the throne
of throne and giving birth to a meteor of
plucked brown-stuff and almost rising ot *******
heights of that one gateway not being
violated by ******* passions....

tired of experimenting of breaking society's
boundaries and leftover taboos...
just ****** tired... as if wanting something
wholesome like a slice of rye bread
or porridge in the morning...
    perfectly boring perfectly sighed over...
and a world that's only as big as my eyes can see...
sure... a mountain in the distance...
or a sky-scraper... this grand plateau of London...
no car, no need... just a bicycle and a pair
of legs... a lost commitment from having
a grandmother... made all the more easier
by the fact that: i will die without an image
of my father's mother...
               making it easier for me to digest
the ongoing process of being estranged from
my mother's mother...
               i have the perfect excuse these days:
i'm working... obviously not the work
of aligning with plastic surgeons of bus drivers...
work the liberator and excuse from...
i used to love seeing my mother's parents...
i'd visit them for stretches of months...
sit with the old people and soak up:
fermenting and almost sad that my youth was
wasted on old age... but the books i read
and the training i received from "missing out"
made me a rigid-stone...
from the youthful energy of disappointment
to the slowly growing old dynamic of
oriental thinking...
even now if i will ever put a foot in Poland
i will only be doing so
on a whim of: i need to purchase cheap duty-free
cigarettes... i'll fly over and spend
a day in Cracow... try to look local...
******* back to the airport, buy three cartons...
spend £30 there and back and spend a total
of £90 on 600 cigarettes...
which will still come cheaper than if i bought
cigarettes here legally, stupid...
or under the counter from some Romanians...

i was supposed to go to the gym with Francesca
today... honestly... i was busy... busy being
busy about not being busy...
spent the night chatting to a friend from Hawaii...
she texted me that she was going on a date...
that's what i mean:
i'd like a lesbian girlfriend... someone i could go
ice-skating with... talk macho ******* with...
go to an art-gallery...
but: keeping up with Platonic traditions...
if in need of **** find it elsewhere...
with the likes of Mona...
who, apparently disgraced, was shunned by fellow
prostitutes for becoming pregnant with
a customer... that's the thing...
i hope it wasn't me... but chances are...
cross-eyed at the zenith of her ******...
lips touches lips and all the wonderful stuff that's
like sunlight having descended and
enveloped a field of wheat in August...

i don't mind... carefree mitigation of rumours
and the frenzies of atomic vibrations...
invisible yet existent parodies of impasses
of: how Hannibal solved the issue of the Alps...
how Lawrence created the endless number of clocks
from the sands of Arabia...
how the sea was a puddle for the first to not thirst...
such evenings when language is loose...
gooey... mindless bragging and jargon...
something person spotted from time to time...

with my mother's brother, my uncle:
i once adored him... i used to go to concerts with him...
that one afternoon he cleaned and worked on
his Porsche... we listened to Red Hot Chilli Peppers'
Californication... an interlude of going
to the chicken shop and getting some chips
and hot wings...
his personal life of sleeping with prostitutes...
multiple girlfriends... i admired that i wanted
that for myself rather than the odd... mutant...
rigour of my father's monogamy...
i tried it once: twice...

i'm so thankful for the women in my life,
i won't event pretend to not give them their names:
Isabella, she dumped me...
Promis... she dumped me...
Ilona... she too dumped me...
dumped Humpty-Dumpty...
which gives me the focus of Pontius Pilate...
each time i wash my hands i wash imaginary
hands of Pontius Pilate...
   it's so much easier than to fall in the category
of the sort of man that has the luxury of clinging women
he then dumps...
much easier to be dumped...
it reveals avenues of... perhaps Mona, that *******,
really did have the best *** in her life
and wanted my genes to be preserved...
no one knows expect for her
and the insinuations other prostitutes in the brothel
have dropped...
but i won't be revisiting that place for some time...
my libido is stale-bread and...
eh... a ******* for an hour telling someone:
slow down... slow down...
                      just a little tenderness...
i don't need to be circumcised twice!

             unlike the ***** where you can ferociously
gorge on the uncircumcised bits...
or when interacting with piston against the backdrop
of the floral patterns: we're talking an act
with possible teeth involved...
my love made all the more easier:
so easier to move on... being the one being dumped...

western dogma: wisdom as an over-complication
with eastern dogma: wisdom as an over-simplification...
traps and mazes of the latter...
dogs chasing their own tails...
perhaps? reimagining the once legal
aesthetic of improving the Dobbermann dog breed
by snipping the nails and clipping the ears
so they might be pointy?

back to "dearest" uncle... he's back living in Poland
with his mother nearing her 85th year...
apparently going back... friends with investment
potentials... 3 weeks there and all he's doing
is sitting in the living room in his boxer shorts...
watching t.v., trying to play the role of manager
of a non-existent company...
having sold his one greatest asset of a paid-off
mortgage of a house...
his dream: retiring in his mid-50s like the norm
in Greece... a man still in his prime
having lost it...
                         hardly me cooking and improving
the life of grandparents by painting shelves...
changing the linoleum flooring in the kitchen...
changing a light-bulb...
it's like that scene from Hellraiser: Inferno...
the decadent police officer being dragged back
into his childhood bedroom...
this Hell of the Western World's Mentality...
living with your parents like it's a wheelchair hindering...
what?! and paying 12 months upfront
to rent a box in London is somehow better
than the allowances of homelessness?!
hardly... **** me... hardly!

sure... when he was living in England
and had the advantage of bilingualism...
how his "friends" dragged him into a ****-show:
circus without the clowns storming
a FIAT 126P by the 20 load of cramming...
now my horror-suspicion can be shared....
but at least i had escapism within the confines
of books... and no, seriously no ambitions
to stand on a stage and dance...
poetry and mediating mediocre saved me...
i allowed myself: i was allowed
sieving through observing people:
pedestrian talk: no talk...
            
     loads of money: he did save up a load of money:
compared to the usual dynamic he's
hardly a millionaire...
but compared to me... i count my riches
by the time i spent reading a book...
reading Heidegger's Being & Time...
hell... i paid... no... i didn't... my grandfather
paid 20? let's be realistic... he paid 30zł for each book...
in a subscription "race":
one book per 30zł... 20 books in total...
anyway... i was a vagabond in Heidegger's head
for 30zł that spanned for almost 3 years...
a difficult book...

                          i'd spend less time in Sartre's antithesis
of Time: id est esse nihil                                    -ness
does it really matter? the number on the receiving
end... is the calculated progress of judgement
of what constitutes "progress"...
Welsh is always a second clue concerning Britain...
given: you will hardly hear or learn
how the Scots "forgot" their origin in tongue
so smoothly lost that it would require a James
to bend the knee and crack his knees
like walnuts to arrive at these isles unity... ****-wit...
it's a pointless sort of defeat...
but adamant Welshmen and their prosthetic hard-on
for myths of: origins of the dragon folk...
hardly passable: most impressionable...

right now, though! i figured out something!
i don't want to write something original!
i don't!
you: "you": you... you know what i want
to achieve?! i want too write something
that... that can't be plagiarised!
which is a take on originality as
anti-originality-original

suppose these "poems" leave indentations in the fabric
of time (solely, they already have,
in the room i'm currently sitting in,
listening to R.E.M.'s automatic for the people
for the Nth time, nothing has changed)...
wow... my ego-tripping pays off...
but what tripping with no ego? just a silence
of the mind? the only reason why i'm writing
it because i can't return to my prior to psychosis
state of the thought-narrative bliss of
semi-solipsism semi-object-thinking...
one LEGO project after another...

i'm sitting here hunched before QWERTY looking
at the screen not looking at the keyboard
because: mastering QWERTY is oh so much different
to ice-skating...
life this self-suggesting, doubly-affirming:
believe me you be...
          are... conjugating the perfected grammar-math...
perhaps the wrongly assembled: you're be...
makes no more sense than
a chicken clucking trying to imitate
the screech of a diving hawk...

a lion growling a cat meowing...
             green met yellow and how blue was spawned...
if the blues was all blue
then i guess jazz was: having the purples...
classical music was the savvy pinpoint
between silver - gold - platinum...
but i still preferred folk songs...
the sort of songs without genius and more
the spontaneity of drunkards...

we heave an unbearable load of nostalgia:
nostalgia being a fakery of memory
and memory being no better than imagining
a present and future... with the downfall:
a memory reimagining the present and past...
if thinking is stability: if!
posit if within the confines of "if"!
then imagination is pyrotechnics...
the same can be said of memory...
fickle creatures... self-appropriating
self-gratifying no-self-involved students of
a circus...

i conjure up a memory: i'm re-imagining
what ought to be re-remembered...
no can do... i think of something outside
the prism-prison of geometry of a square:
that becomes the Disney Mouse...
wow!
     imagination and memory conflate
and thought: knows all the best distractions...
existence per se and for no knowledge
of the usual vectors of demand: how, when, who, why,
north? how...
east? when...
south? who...
west? why...
                         this is my globe of words making sense:
by sense i imply: words i own: i can manifest
within the confines of constructing a loss-of-self-self...

some spineless messages from Vietnam like
i'm speaking, writing, English, ergo i'm American...
it might only take a few Pakistanis selling Qurans
to conflates ****** with a German...
doesn't matter to me...
does it? did it? will it? ha ha...
     well... a ****** in England not pretending...
tangy-****-****... drool of accent of America...
talking to someone from Vietnam trying to start
up a brothel with girls to "sell"... shady corners of the world...
a bit like not trying to be Russian and talking to
someone from Afghanistan...

bored citadels with barricaded Cinderellas
***** me a snake and wishing ****** dress: white...
promises... me and you and me not getting any
STDs?!
                vampires,  in literature... at the height
of the AIDS epidemic... epidemic: in through to out...
pandemic: out through to in...
     d'uh... you ******* brain-frozen buzzing itches
of intellect not worth salvaging...
i'm tired! i'm tired of mediocre and the excuses leftover
by western psychologists...
i wasn't handed the kind poker hand...
i had to struggle... i struggled...
considered mad i waited until the world
caught up to me supposed "madness":
the world turned out madder than my originally prescribed
madness...
who's celebrating now? no one...
i'm curious about the demands of the gods...
i'm in pivot: contemplating both the crucified
and the one to be impaled on a spike...
my god... could celebrating torture be so misunderstood?!
crucifying someone is half the torture...
but impaling someone... celebrating
an anti-homosexuality... mein gott!
that's the focus: in situ of gravity, glue,
moon, money, sun, honey... being crucified is rather tame
compared to being impaled with your hands
being tied behind your back!
tame... this... thingy-magic... torture emblem of
excuses... solipsistic nostalgia some mediocre people
had it well... **** them... trample them...
horses need to learn to own hoofs!
no point of learning without some crushing
of skulls-soulless;

bemoan what fact? i might... somehow... endear myself
and enrich my existence with / by listening
to these harrowing calming-pill narratives of:
and who isn't who without anything being lost?!
oh! the hierarchy of victim-culture:
blaming X for Y and Y for Z...
fat ***** best fatten herself up by grief growing like
mould: slow...
  
of course i'm readying myself for the death-hanging...
the death-looming... the death-apparent...
tick-tock... tick-tock...
it would be impossible to thoroughly move with
a life, a concern for it, "it":
having a blasé affair with: exactly, with what that's not "that"?
pin point a needle in a haystack...
see a camel a mile away from passing
through a needle's eye...

old teachings are like ancient ruins...
people are not willing... the ontological reality
outside of the realm of Darwinism is unavailable...
there is no Darwinism to explain why
there were furless elephants in Africa:
and still are...
while there were furry elephants of Siberia
and Northern Europe....
eh?! explains X x what?!
            the English tongue is poison with its
dramatic Darwinism make-over speed up: ****
history: does anyone care to remember yesterday?!
if poetry is such a ******* **** in the realm
of arts... what's journalism?
historically speaking: it's...  A *******
CONSTIPATION!

you "people" are constipated meta-profession
ortho-beings... paraphrasing: eh?! who?!
no lost of libido... if at least half of us turned
to the path of patchwork of Cain...
we might... get something done...

Real
you may think this is not true
but it is and if you disbelieve
well now start to think again
it started like this:
I was walking downtown and was bored
I entered a bar and yelled to the bartender
"Get me a sheerly temple"
It wasn't alcohol but I liked them
I got my drink and sat down on a
circle bench and when I did a man about
6'2" blonde beach hair and a smile on his face
"Hi.I saw you walk in.Can't shoot whiskey?"He asked.
"I can I wanted something more normal.."I reply back.How did he have the rights to ask me that.How rude!
"I'm sorry your expression looks disturbed."He says.
"Sorry Mister I just don't know how you have rights to ask me if I can shoot whiskey.That Beach hair is somewhat personal,what if I couldn't cause if I did i'd die?"I say.He stares at my hair."Hot pink and green?Beautiful combination."He says."Okay thank you?"I say."No i'm being truthful."He says."Okay well maybe I like you."I say."Well I like you."He says."My name's Tiffany,call me Tiff."I say."Jacob,call me Jake."He says.
We talk for hours then he kisses me.
    Then he decides I'm dumping this girl
And that's how I got dumped for the first time.

Her hair was long, brown, and wavy, like homemade brownies.
Her eyes were different shaped blues, lighter than sapphires.
Whenever she blinks, I look forward to seeing those sapphires again.
Her teeth are perfect imperfections, retainer and all.
Her bite is one of love but packs a punch.
Her nostrils flare when angry but remain miniscule.
Her mouth a light pink, like Starburst, my favorite by far.
Her smile brings me back from the darkness every. Single. Time.
Her tongue is exotic and playful, and I long for it.
I have never heard her whistle, but I know it like the back of my hand.
Her laugh is intoxicating and contagious; I find myself acting the fool just to hear it.
Then she coughed and I patted her baby back.
Whenever those pesky headaches come, we lie still, thus foreshadowing what will come.
Our arguments are stupid, but they happen nonetheless.
Her neck is thin and ripe for the taking.
Her *******, much like Goldilocks: not too big, not too small, but just right.
Her spaghetti arms flail about when I act the fool, and then that precious laugh again.
Her elbows are full of cream, and you will never find them itchy like mine.
Her wrists are disproportionately large for her size, which makes her all the more unique.
Her handshakes are delicate. Ladylike.
Her long and skinny fingers were weird to me once, but they have contracted and fit perfectly between mine.
Her palms tell the future, and she has great things in store for her.
Her thumbs have no story to tell, positive or negative.
Her shadow is smaller than hers, but no shadow can overcome her.
Her cats keep her company, but luckily we found each other.
Her heart is as big as her brain, and thankfully they mutually agree on most occasions.
Her ******* are stumpy and droopy; this is no Snow White fairytale.
Her shoulder blades are tense but minute.
Her belly button (an innie, not an outie, not an Audi) never collects ****.
Her private parts pulse like her heart above with passion.
Her backside is small and smooth. She has no hourglass figure, yet she does, too.
She has no stretchmarks in my mind, but I have enough for the both of us, anyways.
Her whole system is that of a heavyweight fighter; she’s a little spitfire.
Her legs are perfect and skinny; she has “the gap”, not that it matters.
Her knees buckle and wobble in my presence. I should know: mine do when she is near, too.
Her ligaments reinforce her, much like her willpower.
She has the calves of a dancer, but she has not trained in years.
The ***** of her feet are poised, ready to spring into action to tap tap tap away.
Her toes curl against mine, in an attempt to hold hands.
I have never seen her footprints, and I have no intention of ever seeing them. Ever.
Her promises elate me since I know she is good for her word.
Her one-liners are worse than mine, and I laugh all the harder for it.
Her grin, or rather her smirk, warms my heart like a furnace in the winter.
The last time we spoke, it was mumbled in bed, a hushed goodbye for that awful biology class.

She is my rock, ever leaning forwards
with nothing but my Dunder-Mifflin shirt to keep her warm for the foreseeable future.

I told her, Te amo,
well before she was ready to say that inane phrase back in English.
Inane since words do not do it justice.

But then she broke my heart.

My hair was tearing at the roots, unable to stay attached.
My eyes were set ablaze with passion anger, if it weren’t for my sorrow to drown it out.
Whenever I blink, I see a snapshot of what it was, what it cannot be, what it will never be again.
My teeth were her favorite: buck-toothed and all, but that was when I smiled. They hide from you.
My bite isn’t nearly as big as my bark, but do not tempt me.
My nostrils have hair creeping out; it’s hard to keep clean after something like that.
My mouth is louder than all my thoughts combined, but I still can’t find the right words to say.
And my smile would be what brought her back from the darkness every. Single. Time.
My tongue, like my private parts, is limp and dead; phallicly flaccid, there is no passion here.
I have never whistled, but why should I learn now? I keep quiet to quell the roar.
My laugh is contagious, or so they tell me. It’s high pitched. Effeminate.
I cough. I get stares. My cough makes you uncomfortable. Your infidelity makes me uncomfortable.
Whenever those pesky headaches come, I lie still, and for a minute, just a minute, I die. I’m at peace.
Our arguments were stupid, but now there’s nothing left to talk about.
My neck is fat and swollen. **** my thyroid. This vitamin D deficiency is taking its toll.
My ******* are fat, but a momma’s boy would be: too much in the trunk, not enough under the hood.
My arms are as big as her thighs. We measured. Maybe it gave her peace knowing she was small.
She tells me I have a black woman’s ***, and elbows, to boot. Not enough cream. Not enough carrots.
My wrists are the cankles of my life.
My handshake is firm, but is it firm enough?
My short and stubby fingers claw upwards, desperate for air. Her hands are nowhere to be seen.
My palms have no future, and I worry I’ll follow suit.
My thumbs tell all the best stories when joysticks are underneath them.
My shadow eclipses me. It’s not how you feel, it’s how you function.
I’ve never owned a pet. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel possessive.
My heart was full of love, but the love spilled out when you broke it on Friday, December 6th – Saturday, December 7th, 2013, 5:00 AM.
My ******* are tiny and ***** from the cold. I feel the cold indoors, too.
My shoulder blades are dull and sagging with the weight of my world on my shoulders.
My belly button (an innie, not an outie, not an Audi) collects all of the ****.
My private parts, like my tongue, are limp and dead; phallicly flaccid, there is no passion here.
My backside is large and rough. Are you getting the point?
I have all of the stretchmarks, for I am her antithesis.
My whole system is that of down and out former has been; I’m all out of gas.
My legs are thick and fat; I suffer friction with my tree tunks.
My knees buckle and wobble in her presence; I’m weak around her because I’m weak.
My ligaments are partially torn, which perfectly exemplifies me: hanging by a thread.
I have the calves of a soccer player out of shape. Hashtag truth.
The ***** of my feet sting -- unable to carry two hundred plus pounds of failure.
I have finally seen footprints; I’m just glad they were mine.
Her promises mean nothing. My trust is shattered. My faith withdrawn from this or any other world.
My one-liners make everyone laugh but me; I know I mask the pain. Do they?
My grin was effectively wiped off my face when you told me.
The last time we spoke, it was on good terms. But how good are those terms with this double size?

I was comfortable, lazy, ever dependent on her
with everything in my life, especially that which she didn’t need to deal with.

I told her, You deserve to be dumped.
She nodded slowly, crying, and whispered back, I know. My hate described by inane words.
Inane since words do not do it justice.

Then, it hit me.

Our hair is fairly short together, not unlike our time apart since the incident.
Our eyes well up, and the only drowning I hope we get is of love.
Whenever we blink, I want to make sure that I am in front of you, and you in front of me.
Our teeth, much like our personalities, are disparate, and that’s okay.
Our bite is one of teamwork: you can’t bite with one row of teeth.
Our nostrils could use some work. Hair and flare rhyme, but neither fits in our time.
Our mouths chat chat chatter away. We have nothing to talk about. We have so much to talk about.
Our smiles are the reason why people find us cute, and they’re the reason why they were shocked. Let’s give them another reason.
Our tongues dance across language barriers. Mi español no puede vivir sin tu ingles.
We have never whistled. Finally! Some common ground (opposites attract).
We’ve been told that our laughs are nearly identical, like a choir singing in different pitches. Sing.
We cough together, because we know we can take care of each other.
Whenever those pesky headaches come, we take a deep breath, hold on tight, and move forward.
Our arguments ARE stupid. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Our necks are like the Happy Meal and the Super Size Me. I love to see us smile.
Our ******* are life; I don’t know what mine do, but I know yours will come in handy someday.
Our arms have their “things”; you have that birthmark, and I have unseemly hair growing everywhere.
Our elbows could be a rom-com: one smooth, one rough, but they can’t get enough.
Our wrists make sure our hands can keep us afloat.
Our handshakes are delicate but firm.
Our fingers latch onto each other, like a bear trap.
Our palms SMACK together when you high five me. Goofball.
Our thumbs are bound to get sore if we keep caressing our hands while holding onto each other. Raw.
Our shadows slink away when they see us shine so bright.
I hope to God that Rosie the pug is as derpy as your heart can take.
Our hearts have duct-tape all over them…it’s a work in progress, but bones get stronger when broken.
Our ******* are disproportionate. There, I said it.
Our shoulder blades dance across each other when we lie back to back.
Our belly buttons (innies, not outies, not Audis) keep us close to our moms; you’ll agree someday.
Our private parts tingle as we move in motion and rhythm. It’s been too long, mi amor.
Our backsides are like Venn diagrams: yours could easily fit in mine.
I have all the stretchmarks, but I hope you get them after birth someday. We share everything else.
Our systems are the underdog rising up, straight to the top; it took its time, and its chances.
Your legs could fit in one of my own. Please refer to the stretchmarks line.
Our knees buckle and wobble. Please refer to the private parts line.
Our ligaments have taken a beating, but somehow, there’s a strand holding us together.
We have calves of different passions, but we both know what the sweet sting of success feels like.
The ***** of our feet touch down as we’re back to reality. The honeymoon stage is over. Cloud 9.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen footprints, but I think they’re circling back around to meet up again.
This promise should be the last until the most important one comes up. This is it.
Our one-liners keep us close to our dorky sides. Honestly, something is probably wrong with us.
Our grins (or smirks) show that we can’t really stay mad at each other for TOO long.
The last time we spoke, it was yesterday night (or was it earlier today?), but I’m sure you woke up.

We ******* up. Admittedly you more than me,
but I digress: one mistake is not enough to throw away two years of work.

I forgave you.
You were elated. Let’s try this once more, with feeling!
I’ll inanely tell her again, *Te amo.

SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with a smokestack,
Or they twist ... in the slow twist ... of the wind.
  
If the north wind comes they run to the south.
If the west wind comes they run to the east.
  By this sign
  all smokes
  know each other.
Smoke of the fields in spring and leaves in autumn,
Smoke of the finished steel, chilled and blue,
By the oath of work they swear: "I know you."
  
Hunted and hissed from the center
Deep down long ago when God made us over,
Deep down are the cinders we came from-
You and I and our heads of smoke.
  
Some of the smokes God dropped on the job
Cross on the sky and count our years
And sing in the secrets of our numbers;
Sing their dawns and sing their evenings,
Sing an old log-fire song:
  
You may put the damper up,
You may put the damper down,
The smoke goes up the chimney just the same.
  
Smoke of a city sunset skyline,
Smoke of a country dusk horizon-
  They cross on the sky and count our years.
  
Smoke of a brick-red dust
  Winds on a spiral
  Out of the stacks
For a hidden and glimpsing moon.
This, said the bar-iron shed to the blooming mill,
This is the slang of coal and steel.
The day-gang hands it to the night-gang,
The night-gang hands it back.
  
Stammer at the slang of this-
Let us understand half of it.
  In the rolling mills and sheet mills,
  In the harr and boom of the blast fires,
  The smoke changes its shadow
  And men change their shadow;
  A ******, a ***, a bohunk changes.
  
  A bar of steel-it is only
Smoke at the heart of it, smoke and the blood of a man.
A runner of fire ran in it, ran out, ran somewhere else,
And left-smoke and the blood of a man
And the finished steel, chilled and blue.
  
So fire runs in, runs out, runs somewhere else again,
And the bar of steel is a gun, a wheel, a nail, a shovel,
A rudder under the sea, a steering-gear in the sky;
And always dark in the heart and through it,
  Smoke and the blood of a man.
Pittsburg, Youngstown, Gary-they make their steel with men.
  
In the blood of men and the ink of chimneys
The smoke nights write their oaths:
Smoke into steel and blood into steel;
Homestead, Braddock, Birmingham, they make their steel with men.
Smoke and blood is the mix of steel.
  
  The birdmen drone
  in the blue; it is steel
  a motor sings and zooms.
  
Steel barb-wire around The Works.
Steel guns in the holsters of the guards at the gates of The Works.
Steel ore-boats bring the loads clawed from the earth by steel, lifted and lugged by arms of steel, sung on its way by the clanking clam-shells.
The runners now, the handlers now, are steel; they dig and clutch and haul; they hoist their automatic knuckles from job to job; they are steel making steel.
Fire and dust and air fight in the furnaces; the pour is timed, the billets wriggle; the clinkers are dumped:
Liners on the sea, skyscrapers on the land; diving steel in the sea, climbing steel in the sky.
  
Finders in the dark, you Steve with a dinner bucket, you Steve clumping in the dusk on the sidewalks with an evening paper for the woman and kids, you Steve with your head wondering where we all end up-
Finders in the dark, Steve: I hook my arm in cinder sleeves; we go down the street together; it is all the same to us; you Steve and the rest of us end on the same stars; we all wear a hat in hell together, in hell or heaven.
  
Smoke nights now, Steve.
Smoke, smoke, lost in the sieves of yesterday;
Dumped again to the scoops and hooks today.
Smoke like the clocks and whistles, always.
  Smoke nights now.
  To-morrow something else.
  
Luck moons come and go:
Five men swim in a *** of red steel.
Their bones are kneaded into the bread of steel:
Their bones are knocked into coils and anvils
And the ******* plungers of sea-fighting turbines.
Look for them in the woven frame of a wireless station.
So ghosts hide in steel like heavy-armed men in mirrors.
Peepers, skulkers-they shadow-dance in laughing tombs.
They are always there and they never answer.
  
One of them said: "I like my job, the company is good to me, America is a wonderful country."
One: "Jesus, my bones ache; the company is a liar; this is a free country, like hell."
One: "I got a girl, a peach; we save up and go on a farm and raise pigs and be the boss ourselves."
And the others were roughneck singers a long ways from home.
Look for them back of a steel vault door.
  
They laugh at the cost.
They lift the birdmen into the blue.
It is steel a motor sings and zooms.
  
In the subway plugs and drums,
In the slow hydraulic drills, in gumbo or gravel,
Under dynamo shafts in the webs of armature spiders,
They shadow-dance and laugh at the cost.
  
The ovens light a red dome.
Spools of fire wind and wind.
Quadrangles of crimson sputter.
The lashes of dying maroon let down.
Fire and wind wash out the ****.
Forever the **** gets washed in fire and wind.
The anthem learned by the steel is:
  Do this or go hungry.
Look for our rust on a plow.
Listen to us in a threshing-engine razz.
Look at our job in the running wagon wheat.
  
Fire and wind wash at the ****.
Box-cars, clocks, steam-shovels, churns, pistons, boilers, scissors-
Oh, the sleeping **** from the mountains, the ****-heavy pig-iron will go down many roads.
Men will stab and shoot with it, and make butter and tunnel rivers, and mow hay in swaths, and slit hogs and skin beeves, and steer airplanes across North America, Europe, Asia, round the world.
  
Hacked from a hard rock country, broken and baked in mills and smelters, the rusty dust waits
Till the clean hard weave of its atoms cripples and blunts the drills chewing a hole in it.
The steel of its plinths and flanges is reckoned, O God, in one-millionth of an inch.
  
Once when I saw the curves of fire, the rough scarf women dancing,
Dancing out of the flues and smoke-stacks-flying hair of fire, flying feet upside down;
Buckets and baskets of fire exploding and chortling, fire running wild out of the steady and fastened ovens;
Sparks cracking a harr-harr-huff from a solar-plexus of rock-ribs of the earth taking a laugh for themselves;
Ears and noses of fire, gibbering gorilla arms of fire, gold mud-pies, gold bird-wings, red jackets riding purple mules, scarlet autocrats tumbling from the humps of camels, assassinated czars straddling vermillion balloons;
I saw then the fires flash one by one: good-by: then smoke, smoke;
And in the screens the great sisters of night and cool stars, sitting women arranging their hair,
Waiting in the sky, waiting with slow easy eyes, waiting and half-murmuring:
  "Since you know all
  and I know nothing,
  tell me what I dreamed last night."
  
Pearl cobwebs in the windy rain,
in only a flicker of wind,
are caught and lost and never known again.
  
A pool of moonshine comes and waits,
but never waits long: the wind picks up
loose gold like this and is gone.
  
A bar of steel sleeps and looks slant-eyed
on the pearl cobwebs, the pools of moonshine;
sleeps slant-eyed a million years,
sleeps with a coat of rust, a vest of moths,
a shirt of gathering sod and loam.
  
The wind never bothers ... a bar of steel.
The wind picks only .. pearl cobwebs .. pools of moonshine.

.i'm sorry, but i've looked at english grammar for far too long, to buy into the current *******... i just came from behind the iron curtain, i'm not about to go into "hiding" under a silicon curtain... valley my ***, silicon curtain, the end. gender, "neutral" pronouns? pronouns can't be "neutral", neutered... neuter via plural? they being a non-descriptive associated of both a he and a she? ****... most languages can't escape gender-inclusivity of their nouns... for example, names of cities... now you can have gender neutral nouns, i'll concede that... London: gender neutral... Paris: gender neutral... and then of course the more universal nouns in English, predicated by either a definite or an indefinite article: making gender-ascription to nouns even harder... because that's how the english language operates: something is either definite, or it's indefinite... all the continent languages, however, ascribe genders to their nouns... either masculine or feminine, or whatever... is this some sort of quasi-anglophone envy of continent languages? say, in my nativspreschen... słońce (the sun) is feminine... księżyc (the moon) is masculine... Warszawa (Warsaw) is feminine... Niemcy (Germany) is actually gender neutral, in that it refers to a people... Rosja (Russian) is feminine... Anglia (England) is feminine... there is noun-ambiguity regarding "gender" in continental languages... which the English language lacks: due to the definite / indefinite articulation via (a- -the      "ism")... pronoun gender "neutrality" never existed... because... gender-appropriation of nouns was never on the cards in this language... and never will be... come on... you really don't need some foreigner to tell you the basics of your own tongue... i hate to even associate myself with such pieces as are provided in the form of the "useful idiots"... i hate it... it's like asking to fiddle about with a down syndrome competitor at a su doku olympics... it's not fair!

i only really had two loves in my life... Paris, circa 2005 and Edinburgh circa in the range of 2004 through to 2007... those really were my only true loves... London? London just grew on me, esp. the east end... i became infected with its heterogeneity, so much so, that whenever i visit my grandparents, in the most feral of lands, Poland... and peer into its homogeneity, i am fed a staggering amount of nausea... sure, once in a while you'll spot a Roma in these parts, handling cheap chinese goods at the market, but otherwise? and... given, that i'm a first generation expatriate (eh, eh? i know what the natives call their own, "elsewhere", akin to h'america or australia)...

                 the girlfriends? eh... two, three, more prostitutes...
whoever these middle-aged men are, talking m.g.t.o.w., after two failed marriages... i was already on my way, aged 21... sure, it was fun for the first few years... i remember the tingling sensation of holding my first girlfriend's hand while watching romeo + juliet in her father's presence... that **** was cool... it's still so vivid to me... again: slandering women is not cool... i remember these girlfriends with a fondness... i don't want the anchor of bitterness to put me in one place... fondness is all the wind in the sails you will ever need to sail along... and... em... stealing one or two kisses from prostitutes... that's all...

                      the last one i left? 21... she married...
she remarried...
            and she ****** quiet a bit in between...
last time i visisted her out of a weird sense of obligation...
hand... slashed down their veins...
             i stayed for about four days...
   over a period of two nights i slept with the window
open, with my clothes on...
third night i took my clothes off...
                i inquired...
           she was waking up each morning with
a jug of coffee and turned into:
   less a masters in anthropology...
and more the russian gamer chick...
                     one night she called up her
sycophants...
               we smoked...
                     her husband wasn't home...
"then", her, "still"(?) huspand?
                   but her boyfriend was there...
i was sitting akimbo and talking to this guy...
and he told me how he ******:
my would be fiancé...
                           well... i just broke down
into the most amazing laughter...
   a laughter that put me to sleep,
a laughter that made all the people leave,
and i was left with her, alone,
in a room...
              she was still playing a video game...
while i got up and rolled another joint...
but the whole joke comes at the fact that:
i, i was the person who was always dumped...
ilona, promis, isabella...
                           they all dumped me...
but... what, a, *******, relief!
               maybe that's why i came to terms
with myself, maybe that's why
drinking in ms. amber's company
is such a joyous treat...
                 unlike most drunks...
esp. women: i do not wallow in grief,
or for that matter... hold any grievances...
all that has happened,
   has, happened, in order that i might find:
release, and in finding my release...
relief!

                            i had to mention these
scenarios... i remember the last words ilona
said to me: blah blah... by doing x
as you've continued to displease me...
blah blah... you'll never become a man!
                    true...
                                ­ who the **** want's
to be an ahston court trained poodle?!
   what, enough ***** to keep the economy
going?
        everyone knows that women
are the crown of capitalism...
                     no woman, no crown, no capitalism...
it's not even socialism at this point,
or anarchy... it's... eh... m'eh?
                                 why do only fools and horses
marry?
          ****, if there was a swan ontology
built into man? maybe... after all...
                    there is such a phenomenon
(more like a noumenon) of the widow swan,
or a widower swan...
      it's as if the animal has lost its
physical union, and transitioned into
a metaphysical union, beside the body...
   a realm of perpetuated memory,
   awaiting transcendence...
         now... i believe there's a godhead for
all things in this world...
there's the godhead of swans,
   as there is the godhead of all the other creatures...
which: gushes out ontological cueues...
pointers...
                    after all, i already said what
my two true loves were...

        Paris and Edinburgh...
                   i remember the first time i arrived
in Paris...
when i reached 3 Ducks hostel in Paris,
the guy in charge, was surprised,
that i managed to walk,
   all the way from where the drop-off was
for people arriving from the airport
by coach, some 40+ miles from Paris itself...
i walked... i breathed... i was amazed
at the Eiffel Tower...
   most people just took the underground...
plus i had a really ****** map...
didn't speak the language...
                    but that year... circa 2005... Paris...
      that was...
                          something else...
or Edinburgh, circa 2004...
                    thank god i didn't apply
to Warwick university...
      campus university *******...
         Bristol? eh... the city didn't appeal
to me...
                   Edinburgh... that's something
else...
                    even Venice is more or less:
passable...
                      
              mind you... what's this current
transgender debate about men thinking they're
women, competing in women's sports?
today i saw the perfect example
of a decent woman's sport...
  tennis... haleb vs. linette...
       **** on me, what a match...
no. 3 seed versus no. 87 in world ranking...
                          i prefer women's tennis...
with male tennis its all about
the service game: "****" advantage...
but at least in woman's tennis,
   you get longer rallies...
   and the antithesis of what an ****** sounds
like... and all that show of legs...
it's beautiful...
       beside... this "new" transgender "thing",
that **** is old...
     i always confuse the two...
     DDR...                        FDR...
Deutsche Demokratische Republik...
          Federal Republic of Germany...
   so, yeah... the former... DDR...
                 and i've heard this many times...
the same happened back then,
at the olympic games...
                          it's a joke now...
  but women from the DDR were given hormones...
to make them more masculine...
           only that... it was real chemistry
working on real biology...
   women, were given male hormones...
and competed with other females...
          now?
                      em... what if these "women",
want to compete with women...
       and can do so... if given female hormones,
added with a cocktail of male hormone
blockers?!
         the whole olympic circus is already
rigged with chemistry...
**** it: ***** all of them!
                   may the best chemist win!
**** it, jack 'em up! give each and everyone
of them the best juice!
swear to god,
   all the female atheletes back in the days
of DDR were given some hormonal++ juice...
maybe a mix of amphetamines and
        steroids...
       so... if these "women" want to
compete with women?
                     shouldn't they be given...
say... the realistic dosage of hormones...
         a body of a natural woman creates?!

****, in a time when a bilingual is deemed
a schizophrenic... because he's not a polyglot...
of course the trans movement was always going
to undermine women...
     that's why i decided, aged 21...
no... you know what?
                        i don't like stress...
              loved you, but thank god i left you...
Paris and Edinburgh became my two true loves...
and... given they're cities...
they are as intricate as any person might be...
so... not to be demeaning...
                  but a cat and mouse game...
and then being dumped...
                               i settled for the next best
thing... once a year... ****... once every five years...
if there's any Jack the Ripper urge "lurking"
in me...
                         just visit a brothel
to check your body temp. against another
body, and see if you can share the same pulse.

but as you might have already guessed,
this was the original draft:

tattooing an impermant
mark on the left arm:

    h-
              (e)
         -a-
     (lef)
                -y
                       (od)

what yah /          
יאח‎          demands...

ה‎ (he) + א‎ (alef),
   and   ח‎ (het) + ע (ayin) -

i.e. the tetragrammaton
squared -
  laughter of the interchange.         ע

p.s. i still don't
see how Adam conceived of
Abel, or Cain...
   how a-lef or a-yin is a consonant,
transcendent...
given the hebrew ah is:
guised in the name kametz...

i see a story of two Adams...
and i called them,
Aleph                  and Ayin.

Which man or woman hasn't been dumped
like a pile of garbage in a slump

It comes as a surprise; but, if we are honest -
we saw it coming, - just that -
with anything in life -
Denial rushes in ! - Full Force! -
to block the tunnel ("vision")

Hurt, bruised, mouth agape with speech-less fright
I'm loosing my soul-mate !
Oh my, what a night

Years were spent building this Fort
of love, trust, tears of delight

Then; as you look on...
the walls of your Fort come tumbling down!

Crying, mourning, bent, broken, your ears are ringing
with the sounds of those words you dread hearing!

"Babes, I'm moving on; It's not you; It's me;
You a good person - BUT " !

In tears of turmoil and inner rage
hanging on to your dignity becomes a chore

You pick your lips up off the floor
brace your feet
dry your tears -
cry no more

Accept their denial of your hard, founding love
Open the door - let them go ...
grieve, loose confidence, get depressed -

Because you loved them so ...

.i'm not here for the people, i'm here for the language, having observed it degenerate into modern hieroglyphics of emoji, and the acronym standard of american English... i'm here... for the language... the people? well... they're the people, and will always remain, what they always were... collateral... i can't speak for the organic product of what i am an inorganic byproduct of... why would there ever be a Hegelian dialectic to begin with? rather than a dichotomy? wasn't Kant the one to come up with a priori (thesis) and the a posteriori (antithesis) dynamism? no? then i guess i'm illiterate! must be! otherwise, how so?  i can't exactly command my a priori, given, with some "wonderful" a posteriori substitute of the global individualist! this urban Frankenstein! maybe the English speaker can... but i can't... given they allowed themselves the travesty of grammatical profanity... it's almost a shame, that the asylums closed down... when is cushioned room when you need one? oh... right... denial for the cases equivalent to jimmy salive... you attack grammar?! you attack us all... there's not qualification standards required... not all of us are required to have status as English language teachers... some of us? are just generically frustrated!

would i extinguish
cigarettes into my knuckles?

well... i was trying to
spot bone,..

but the real reason?
ha ha!

i was attempting to
count the number of eyes
on a tarantula.

not a funny joke?
i get it...
   i wasn't aiming for funny...

ever watch the grooving
bopping along,
seduced by the rhythm
bass player in a band?

you'd thin it was the drummer...
turns out?!
the intermediating
   focus....
   bass is all rhythm...
there's no such thing
as a rhythm guitar section,...

hardly any drums in
a classical music composition...
bass...
the subversive underlying
principality
of the fiasco...
the...
                          Pandemonium!

set your eyes on the bassist's groove...
pursed lips...
mm hmm ya ha...
           the *******
blood suckling artery
with not need for metaphor
presence of a band...

bass... bass... bass...;
hence the missing E i guess;
was, and always will be:
the base and bait
for listening to 20th century music...

whiskey lime & pepsi?
***** lemon & pepsi?
can't tell the difference,
both sound equally promising...

it pains me, to agitate a drummer's heart,
imitating a beat
without any drumming equipment...
bopping along, sly, shy,
and sometimes awry, fired up...
        
there were a few things i'd love
to have become,
a prof. cyclist doing the tour de france....
a vet practitioner...
    among others...
   what did i become?
a mediocre poet...
       a spewer of words
rather than their instigator...

had i ever the ability to write
pop **** jargon of
lost and wishing for awaiting loves...
i'd **** one of those
housewife harlequin novels!

alas... not to be, not to be...
     guess i tapped into Russian funk...
that Russian ex-girlfriend?
apparently she likes my writing,
she said: you should get published...
i did... little as **** did that do to
me in securing a stature of possible
fatherhood and a Tolstoy town-house
in the middle of St. Petersburg...

    i wasn't a priori to fiddle that
******* out into a castrated bull
******* an ****** with no *****
but pure muscle tension
of the phallus...

   wait... you never ****** off
as a man, prior to producing *****?
feel sorry for you...
guess the whole abortion debate
is killing you...
          you know...
  that's almost equivalent to theft...
what happens on the throne of thrones
and is dumped into a tissue?
ditto, i.e. remains there...

       thieving *****...
                  huh?!
                    **** it... do the Islamic take
on thieves...
ensure all the western men have
their ******* arms cut off...
to stop the thieving with
western culture jurisprudence
in-acting transgression
of transcending the allowance of
abortion, and...
enforcing...
                whatever the ****
fatherhood means...
when?
     a women proposes to you...
and then decides to throw away her
engagement ring, she, herself, chose...

as if... she never had the notion
of being young and being poor...
**** me! she forgot the beautiful part
of the equation!
  i liked her doughnut over-sized nose...
i loved to teasingly bite it
during *******!

      **** me... that contorted
face, Francis Bacon-esque
in the mirror doing *******?

      mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

look here: FULL MOON ALL OVER
MY FACE...

         there's no revenge ****
in this scenario...
                
  hey! resurrect the Bastille!
and i'll be the second Marquis de Sade
screaming the revolutionaries!
YOU FORGOT THE JUICE!
the juice?!
YEAH! THE MOLOTOV COCKTAILS!

                anarchy...

       what order is there to speak of?
when grammar is secondarily dictated,
outside of the teaching profession?
     these people are teaching me language,
or secondarily indoctrinating
me into the abuse of language -
with political bull's diarrhea?

   can't have one and the other...
   you attack grammar?
        everyone restricted to a grammatical
conventionality, will...
spank you with a naked russian saber...
   i'm not here for playing
unorthodox language games
outside of crossword puzzles
i don't entertain having the capacity
to solve...

               you play your game...
i'll play mine...
i have the integrity of the English
language at stake...
   not this post-colonialist quasi-English
*******!

If you want my ex girlfriend, she's up for grabs.
But if you sleep with her, you will get the *****.
It's possible that you may get ****** too.
Sleeping with her is a stupid thing to do.
I caught her in bed with my cousin and I thumped her.
She sleeps with a lot of men, that's why I dumped her.
I'm giving you valuable advice so you'd better listen to me.
If you ****** my ex girlfriend, you are sure to get an STD.

“Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.”
                                                    ­ George Orwell, 1984* (published in 1949)

Which brings us, of course, to the subject of torture since 1949.
Come with me to the Casbah, Babaloo.
We begin in the 1950s with the French in North Africa,
****** baguettes in Algeria,
Couilles frits, anyone?
Electrodes wired to Mustapha’s *****.
And "Bigeard's Shrimps,” as the bodies were called,
Dumped over the Mediterranean from aircraft,
All things considered a je ne sais quoi,
Though Camus and Sartre gave it a whack.

Then the 1960s: the CIA dabbling in mind-control and LSD.
Later, a Phoenix Program,
Very secretive, sympathies with the Cong required,
Various elders selected,
The village disinfected,
**, **, ** and a bowl of Pho.

Apartheid anyone?
Thirty years of South African terror & torture.
Torment in the townships,
Shaka Zulu gold and diamonds,
De Beers in Swaziland swing.

1971: riots at Attica,
Prisoners abused and tortured,
Rockefeller’s overcrowded slammer,
An upstate New York katzenjammer,
Nelson’s finger on the trigger,
39 dead and counting,
But who’s counting?

The CIA, back in the news in 1973,
Torture chambers under Chilean soccer stadiums,
And the Khmer Rouge:
Those Wacky Cambodians with skull racks.  
And let us not forget the British,
With centuries of colonial experience behind them,
Occupy six counties in Northern Ireland.
Finally codify the imperial process,
The Five Techniques:
Sounds like a Motown group,
Satin smooth colored boys,
But more method than music:
(1) Wall-standing,
(2) Hooding,
(3) Subjection to noise,
(4) Sleep deprivation,
(5) No food and drink.

And there’s a bunch of horrible ****,
We still don’t know about the Argentine ***** War,
And other Mai Lai-like,
****-fest massacres in Vietnam.

How about torture since 1984?
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,
Come quickly,
(www.prematureejaculatorsanonymous.com)
To mind,
As do US-sponsored rendition facilities,
Spread throughout the NATO alliance.
And closer to home, it’s never a dull moment in the 5 Boroughs:
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx and Manhattan.
Take your pick from Giuliani’s Greatest Hits,
Rudy Kazootie’s campaign of law and order,
Not necessarily in that order.
More awful than lawful,
A bathroom plunger rammed up,
The Haitian voodoo ****** of Abner Louima,
While he be handcuffed at a Brooklyn station house.
Or, the NYPD partying like it was 1999.
When in fact, it was1999,
And a curious death it was for Amadou Diallo,
Would-be American citizen from The Republic of Guinea,
(No connection to Italy or Italians),
Abner & Amadou: a pair of cautionary tales,
Either/or reflecting standard procedure for the Po-Po,
Time and time again from coast to coast.
Either/or: poor Abner, no Haitian Papa Doc.
Poor Amadou, on his way home from night school,
When police squeeze off 41 rounds,
Most of them in his direction,
Hitting him 19 times.
Just the facts, ma’am:
Diallo had reached into his jacket.
A trigger-happy police officer yells “Gun.”
A jungle warfare quartet springs into action:
Shenzi, Banzai, Ed & Zazu,
Four equally trigger-happy colleagues,
Empty their weapons.
No gun was found on Diallo,
Only the wallet he tried to pull out,
Containing his Green Card,
4 U.S. dollar bills;
And a laminated,
Credit card-sized copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights.
(I just didn’t know when to quit, did I?
The wallet was there with Green Card and the bucks,
But I made up the part about the Bill of Rights,
Trying to add poetry to tragedy, as usual.)

I don’t have to say much about Rodney King (RIP).
You watched it on TV a hundred times,
And a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Or ten thousand or a million, I suppose.
“Can’t we all just get along?” asked Rodney Glen King.

Last but not least there’s Kelly Thomas (RIP),
Another incidence of police insanity,
It was July of 2011 in Fullerton, California.
Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man,
Schizophrenic, but unarmed,
Beaten to death at a bus depot,
During an altercation with six Fullerton police officers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019225/Kelly-Thomas-Poli­­ce-beat-taser-gentle-mentally-ill-homeless-man­-death.html#ixzz1e­3­4QnHtr

Mervyn Lazarus | Attorney | (www.mervlazarus.com) Police Brutality, Excessive Force and Jail Injury cases | California . . . Albuquerque

Jackie Chiles perfect attorney -YouTube, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpcEietIoxk) Nov 17, 2010 - 13 min - Uploaded by Kroeger22 All the scenes with Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld."Chiles is a parody of famed attorney Johnnie Cochran; both ... www.seinfeld.com

Perhaps the greatest torture of all,
Is that which artists subject us to.
Let us examine the case of Roberto Bolaño:
Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean writer,
Tells a fabulous World War II story,
About a Spaniard--an Andalusian--
Fighting for the Germans against the Russians.
Captured by the Russians,
He is tortured for information.
The Spaniard speaks no Russian,
He knows only four words of German.
The Russian interrogators strap him into a chair,
Attach electrodes to his *****,
Attach pincers to his tongue.
The pain makes his eyes water.
He said--or rather shouts--the word coño.
It is Spanish for ****.
The pincers in his mouth,
Distort the expletive,
Which in his howling voice comes out as KUNST.
The Russian who knows German looks at him in puzzlement.
The Andalusian was yelling KUNST,
Yelling KUNST and crying in pain.
KUNST in German means art,
And that was what the bilingual Russian heard, KUNST.
“This ******* must be an artist or something.”
The torturers remove the pincers,
Along with a little piece of tongue,
And wait, momentarily hypnotized by the revelation:
The word ART had soothed the savage beasts.
So soothed, the savage beasts take a breather,
Waiting for some kind of signal.
Meanwhile, the Andalusian bleeds from the mouth,
Swallows his blood liberally mixed with saliva, and chokes.
The word coño,
Transformed into the word *KUNST,
Had saved his life.
It was dusk when he came out of the building.
Light stabbed at his eyes like midday sun.

So, it’s a fact that I love,
Truly love the simple blunt Anglo-Saxon expletive ****,
****: I pray that while I am being tortured some day,
I have the dignity to scream the word out loud.
And if I am screaming **** at the very end,
When my nervous system finally fails,
When I **** my pants,
When my pulmonic heart and lungs collapse,
Is that so bad?
Is that so wrong?

Do you realize that 1984 came--
Came and went, without any significant cultural hoopla?
The networks ignored it.
As did the cable pundits.
No significant comparative analysis between,
Orwell’s book 1984 and the year 1984,
Was broadcast electronically or publicized in print.
Steve Jobs got it, but as usual no one else did.
Mr. Jobs (RIP) did his best,
To mainstream its profound cultural relevance,
But ultimately failed,
Despite the $1.5 million he paid one of the networks,
To air a one minute nation-wide commercial,
During the 3rd Quarter,
Of Super Bowl XVIII,
January 22, 1984.
Despite Ridley Scott’s astonishing spell-binder,
His 60-second spot for The Macintosh 128K--
Still considered a watershed event,
And an advertising industry masterpiece,
…YouTube it and watch it.  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ji0B98IMo).
See the hammer throwing athlete chick,
See her fling the sledge,
That huge sledgehammer,
Smash into Big Brother’s flat screen face.
Despite Jobs’ global presence,
Despite Steverino’s unfettered microphone access,
Whenever he felt an oraculation coming on,
Despite everything,
He was unable to move the powers that be,
To either hype the book or the prophecy come true.

So, what’s my point? I have two.
First, in April 1984 the estate of George Orwell,
And the television rights holder to the novel 1984,
Considered the edgy Jobs/Scott commercial to be,
A flagrant copyright infringement,
Sending a cease-and-desist letter to Apple Inc.
And the advertising agency that produced the spot: Chiat/Day Inc.
The commercial was never televised as a commercial after that.  
Score: Lawyers 1, Artists 0.

My second point is that in November 2011,
The U.S. government argued before the U. S. Supreme Court,
That it wants to continue utilizing GPS tracking of individuals,
Without first seeking a warrant.
In response, Justice Stephen Breyer (one of the sane ones),
Questioned what this means for a democratic society.
Referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Justice Breyer asked:
"If you win this case, then there is nothing,
To prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24/7,
The public movement of every citizen of the United States.
So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984 . . .”*

My third point,
(Yeah, I know I said two, but *******.)
My third point is that I’m just so ******* angry,
All the time, late and soon like Wordsworth,
(Was anyone more aptly named?)
I am angry about so many different things,
And every day that goes by I relate more and more,
To the thousands of Americans that occupied,
Zuccotti Park and Oakland,
And countless other venues,
Out into the streets.
Across the country.
Around the world.  
I am humbled by their courage and perseverance.
Yet, I am afraid for them.
I am made paranoid by the scope and power,
Of the government,
Of the ruling class that controls it,
And the technology they allow us to embrace,
Technology’s sinister potential,
Now that more and more knowledge and information,
Has been digitized,
Existing only in cyberspace.                                                      ­                                                 
What frightens most is the realization,
That anyone with a word processor,
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.
The scary part is—
Repeating myself for emphasis—
That anyone with a word processor
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.

Does anyone out there give a ****?
Does anyone out there share my nightmare?
Do it to Julia.
Do it to Julia.

MY FROG MASTERS

How thoughtful were the rainfalls
To water our gardens and flowers
The flowers spread wide garments
To celebrate their terminal beauty

The joyful frogs occupied my pond
To orchestrate their vocal prowess
They taught me to take blind leaps
Like lightning bouncing in the skies

Squatted, stretched, beeped down
I was a millstone on the pond floor
My slippery pond mates wondered
How soft I was in the maritime arts

Mortally rescued in a muddy mood
The clouds sent in rescuing showers
To confirm my firm loss to the frogs
Like a grain of salt cast into the seas


673. MONEY BAGS IN THEIR BODY BAGS

The money bags shopping for their body bags
Waggled through the makeshift supermarkets

Their ancestral homes they plotted modernity
Like the general gathering fine forces together

To the villages they made to return with pride
Like pregnant elephants caught up in the mud

Their desolate villages are deep and sickening
Glowing flamingly in the crucibles of local gins

The dusty and gravy pathways are like furnace
Burning the leather off from their frozen souls

Traditional birth attendants cut off their cords
And zipped the money bags in their body bags

674. A GLORIOUS DAY

The new day spoke powerfully
Like a war making superpower
And his voice roared forcefully
Like the skies forced to shower

The sunrays came dynamically
Like love responding to silence
Beauty crawled in submissively
Like the mixed arts and science

One eagle soared energetically
Like lions feuding in the colony
Far clouds relocated peacefully
Like souls betrayed to harmony

The breeze sighed thoughtfully
Like horses galloping on the lea
Inspiration unfolded thankfully
Crowns monuments with a pea

675.  THE FOG BANK

The sun had gone to pay our bill in the fog bank
The world foggily crawled into the strong rooms
Darkness demonstrated her strong mindfulness
Provided for the strong gale with lurking shrieks

The black paint billers snowballed to our dreams
With the bill of exchange for wild sunny excesses
Ghostly bats emerged with the bill of indictment
In demonstration of our acrophobic dispositions

We packaged the sunrays for our folk memories
To reassure the day of our eternal followerships
We cherish our follow-throughs in our dark beat
To usher the sunlight out of the hollow fog bank

676. THE PROTRACTED INTERNECINE FEUD

These things had happened before we were born
Like sulphur deep into our fresh hearts they burn
Now we stumble on the bumpy terrains in horror
Like one frightened by ghosts in a standing mirror

The internecine feud has razed our men of valour
With their carcasses dumped in their cold parlour
Our community cattle graze in the barren pasture
Like the unrepentant sinners awaiting the rapture

For our plight the once glorious sky is grown pale
Like the ***** fetching territorial waters with pail
The storms have rolled off the catalogues for rain
All our efforts to mop up the mess end up in vain



677. THE AREA LEADERS

They cracked coconuts on the heads for the crown
And embraced our days with their castaway pollen
Sadness and sorrow have dyed our garment brown
With the strongest song sung when night has fallen

These are the blinding dusts from our barn’s grains
They breed cunning serpents in the soft pasturages
They are failed cargoes on our broad societal trains
They dedicate our common committee to outrages

Now our days seek deliverance from their tentacles
Like the colourful fields immersed in gloomy beauty
They play our eyeballs with the stenciled spectacles
With our consciences to sight and found us off duty

To rescue us the colossal clouds were born gadarene
Our communal life was willed to pageants of gaieties
Then moonlight stories held us for a larger gathering
Now all the objects we sight dress up like cold deities

678. THE LAST DESCENDANTS

The rapacious thunderstorms ***** the skies for their tears
The hot embers were born to glow mourning the late forest
The moon crawled out of the blue like a great grandmother
Cuddling her descendants wrapped up in her ancient shawls

The wild waves were weird weavers weaving withering wails
The captioned wigs gyrated on stunning shoes upon auctions
The little creatures crouched in primeval baskets of the night
To gnaw at the generational tubers in the creative farmlands

The dazzling specimens of dentitions relaxed in water basins
Like bright red artistic architectures on potent ocean boards
Golden hearts glow in the threatening prisms of the furnace
As beautiful sunset defines her beauties in her nightly corset

It had been a sweet pill for the past descendants to swallow
Depending on the colonial masters for loaves, lore and lures
Our creativity had been packaged in their mortal depravities
Like the tranquil days resting sorrowfully upon the dark oars

The centenarian thunders downgraded our minute whispers
We had been kept upon our toes by the eternally sworn foes
At last our worthy artworks have worn their wormy catwalks
The refreshed dawns greet our easting days in their greenery



679. VICTIMS IN THE VALLEY

The victims in the dark rally
Caged, dried and browning
Therein their meanings tally
With waves born drowning

In the depth of a cold valley
Horrible nobles are cultures
Like pilgrims in the dark alley
Willed to ravenous vultures

The victims all robed in tears
With hearts like potter’s clay
For pains they have no fears
Only mimed games they play

For victory awaits the victims
Alien to a blind mimed game
Glorious are eternal rhythms
For death Christ died to tame

680. THE GIANT SCARS

These are our giant threatening scars
Engraved on our demonstrative heads
Our sympathies crawled on superstars
Weeping for us on their moonlit beds

They threatened us with nasal sounds
Like thunderclouds seasoned to burst
For us their galleries are out of bounds
Behind the iron bars plagued with rust

Our patience passed their wildest tests
Like the lions roaring in the thick jungle
On the heart of the Lord our faith rests
Like numbers posted on the right angle

681.  A LADY

In a lady’s handbag
Is her hidden hunchback
Stuffed with her heart ache
For the pains relieving groom

In a lady’s tender smile
Is hidden miles of similitude
Marked with the zebra crossings
For the ever winning marathoner

In a tender lady’s heart
Is hidden her cowboy’s hat
Soaring within the white clouds
To soothe the earth with the latter rains

682. BRING BACK OUR GIRLS

Bring back our homesick girls
Their vacant cradles are bleeding
Bring back our innocent girls
On the chariots of fire descending

Bring back our suckling girls
Their feeding bottles are weeping
Bring back our infant girls
Their mothers’ ******* are heavy

Bring back our harmless girls
The united universe is thundering
Bring back our dewy girls
In the sharp sun rising in the skies

Bring back our beautiful girls
Like light plucked from darkness
Bring back our glorious girls
Aboard the shore-bound waves

Bring back our worthy girls
On their fresh faces our lights seek to glow
Bring back our living girls
Our fountains of joy are bubbling to burst

For our returned girls the skies shall bear
Roaring rivers, singing seas, chiming clouds
With gongs and songs, pianos and praises
Dulcet dulcimers and documentable dances
With healthy hymns and eloquent embraces
All nations shall into a common cathedral flow

683. ****** GENEOLOGIES

They electrify their demonic high tables with old fears
Only their ****** genealogies are bookmarked to reign
The sight of their portables whetted our eyes to tears
We are reinforced by the clouds born to the later rain

Our skins have renovated the sickening cattle wagons
With our dreams flying upon huge smokes in the skies
Beneath their tables we abridge their creaking jargons
Upon their floors with our generational landmark tiles

The dew drops dropped like old crops upon our brows
To soften the veils falling to the flaming edged swords
The flaming hearted sword of the penetrating sunrays
Born to pluck us alive from our hotly bandaged bruises

684. LET US SPEAK UP

The light is climbing downstairs
And danger is sprouting abroad
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light is melted on the glades
And terror grazing our eyelashes
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light is late and lately buried
The mourners are on danger list
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light has divorced the grave
Her grave clothes are dew dyed
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

Silence is a forgotten tombstone
Lost in the din of cold morticians
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

685.  THE SUN

The sun smiles on all prescriptively
Like the waves spreading on shores
The green grass glows descriptively
Like the full moon upon dark sores

The sun is a tailor fixing the buttons
Preparing the sky for incoming stars
Like the weaverbird weaving cottons
To conceal the day’s damnable scars

The sun is a marker on diurnal pages
Tall grace he bestows on the flowers
The sun retains his graces for all ages
Bees and butterflies are his followers

Our common laughter is endangered
When sun bows down in big setbacks
All mortals have the starlets fingered
When the night comes on drawbacks

686. UNTIL HERE

(For Lou Lenart and his team)

Their floods came seeking Jewish bloods
Like streams they roared for our dreams
They emerged as columns of soldier ants
Like whirlwinds they zoomed towards us

Until here we were crumbs for the reptiles
Until here we were like airborne cloudlets
But here the sudden change unveiled to us
From here the elusive victory embraced us

With skeletal jets we fought like bold lions
Soared like eagles and spoke like thunders
We conquered columns of invading armies
The bleeding armies turned back and blank

From here we turned from victims to victors
From here enemies’ defeat our greatest feat
Upon this memorable bridge it all happened
Victories leapt upon our pool like joyful frogs

687.  JOY UNLIMITED

The fledging sun offers its rays
And the rays offer golden trays
For our joy a platform to spray
Rowdy paratroops like thunder
To scoop roses from pure oasis

Our joy is ripe upon celebrations
Our celebrations with decorations
Decorations with documentations
Documentations for all generations
Generations in our joyful habitations

688. ANOTER RAINING DAY

The dark clouds are wandering river basins
Spiral bounded by breakable outer casings
The rivers and the seas display empty cups
For the swift blessings descending the tops

The rains come as defense troops’ missiles
And the drowning lands look like imbeciles
Now we are groaning in the watered claws
With the liberated scales marking our flaws

The retreating clouds crawl away in a belch
Dumping the missing cargoes on the beach
The winds bow in a state of shock in a cord
Praying and fasting for a visit from the Lord

689. GRANDMOTHER

Grandmother, please wake and get up
The sky is quarreling with her husband
Soon they will spill their freezing sweat
On our bodies for us to catch dead cold

Grandmother, please sneeze not louder
The sky and her husband are quarreling
Soon they will send old floods like gales
To sweep mankind away from the world

Grandmother, you are everything I have
My moon, my sun and my morning stars
Provoke not the couples with your cough
Lest they refill their greasily wraths again

Grandmother, the big reptiles have come
With their lethal grandchildren following
They are laced with secret burial shrouds
With sympathetic tears tearing their eyes

Grandmother, I kiss you a shaky goodbye
With broken pains roaring within my soul
Grandmother, where are your groundnuts
To conduct my solo heart as you sing away

690.  A NIGHT WALK THROUGH THE FOREST

Lured away on an alluring dream by fables
I trudged along the grassy paths with fears
Upon my steps spilling the prevailing dews
The shadows bowed their heads in silence
Like the soul issued with a death sentence

The night crawlers emerged above boards
Throwing light upon contrary communities
In their hearts and eyes were painful tears
Crawling down their exaggerated eye *****
Like a handbag filled with rotten cosmetics

The shadows were bold animators’ shelves
Stage managing the horror motion pictures
In the ghostly commodities I met wild hosts
Lifeworks evaporated from my fresh breath
Like foreign tragedies in common comedies

The sorrowful shadows cast away their veils
Like the candles letting go of the weird wax
Sadly I sat in the sack for conflicting fetuses
Another sun appeared like a serial divorcee
Counting the testicles of another naked day

691.  SUBJECTIVE SUBJECTS

The sad sun descended upon her haunting melodies
Reeling from mysterious layers for electoral riggings
To harden the flowerbed for flower girls born tender
Disenfranchised voters came weeping in barren polls
Dressing the blank nest for the fat electoral parodies
With the mourners the faulty bells they came ringing
Like the angry water castigating a ****** port fender
And the smokes climbed upon their wide aerial poles
Arching over the emptied shelves with liberal singing
They subjected their subjective subjects to all objects

Sand in my pockets
I wander from the beach
Lost-amidst a crowd of lonely faces
Thinking of only yours

I should have realized you were no good
When I caught you turning tricks and selling dope
But oh, your eyes, I was cursed to fall in love with danger and wrongness
Within your eyes

I should have known you were no good when I caught you stealing my cash
To buy your dope
But your rough hands pushed and pleasures my inner demons
They liked your presence amongst the Devil
You'd been through Hell
But so had I

And finally
You dumped me
With blonde hair and a black t shirt
You told me I was no good
On the beach.
We made love.
You left me
You left me.

And ****, this gun is talking to me
It's telling me beautiful things
Caressing me with the chamber
Of hell
The trigger. My finger dances around it
You left me
You left me
And when you did
You took the only sane part of me with you
But you ******* left me


I pull the trigger

comfrock, you *******
get up off your crazy knees
and I'll belt you down
again --
       what's that?
       you say I eat stem pipes?
I'll **** you!

stop crying. *******.
all right, we dumped your car into the sea
and ***** your daughter
but we are only extending the possibilities of a working
realism, shut up!, I said
any man must be ready for anything and
if he isn't then he isn't a
man a goat a note or a plantleaf,
you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, *******,
love means eventual pain
victory means eventual defeat
grace means eventual slovenliness,
there's no way
out . . . you see, you
understand?

hey, Mickey, hold his head up
want to break his nose with this pipe . . .
*******, I almost forgot the
nose!
death is every second, punk.
the calendar is death. the sheets are death. you put on your
stockings: death. buttons on your shirt are death.
lace sportshirts are death. don't you smell it? temperature is
death. little girls are death. free coupons are death. carrots are
death. didn't you
know?

o.k., Mack, we got the nose.
no, not the *****, too much bleeding.
what was he when? oh, yeah, he used to be a cabby
we snatched him from his cab
right off Madison, destroyed his home, his car, ***** his
12 year old daughter, it was beautiful, burned his wife with
gasoline.
look at his eyes
begging mercy . . .

Around 4 in the evening, I proceeded to Karaikkal, a Union Territory.

By the time we reached Nagapattinam, I noticed that the driver was tired and asked him to have a strong cup of tea. When he was gulping it reluctantly, I, who did not like strong tea, watched the cows walking along the narrow ways. But, the cows did not look at me. The cows I watched. The cows that did not pay any attention to me. I was a bit out of breath realizing how quickly nonexistent relationships were formed in an unknown Tamil village.  I lit up one more cigarette. I remembered the doctor in Britain, a stunning beauty, who prescribed that as soon as I found it difficult to breathe I should light up a cigarette. ****! When it is hard to breathe because of nonexistent relationships and when I light up a cigarette as an antidote to that, there appear row upon row of relationships of some sort or other.  

I began to detest bitter strong tea. I was irked by the cows that went along the narrow ways. I felt hatred towards their not so small udders. An afternoon dawned one day when I felt the same kind of vengeance towards udders. The blood stains from the udders that were slashed down emerged on my hands, legs, back and under belly.

Once again I felt revulsion for bitter strong tea. The driver sipped the hot bitter tea. I hated the moment when I asked him to have tea. I loathed the words that I used to say that. I despised even the words that I had kept in reserve to say that.

Then, I watched the people etching tattoos by the roadside. I wondered how it will be if I got a tattoo for myself.  I tried to recall how deep I was to get a tattoo done.

A person I liked.
A name I liked.
A place I liked.
A digit I liked.
A syllable I liked.
A memory I liked.

I felt a lot of aversion. Wondered if I should tattoo my mother’s name on my shoulder. I found it amusing that when I die people may identify me by my mother’s name. But, I felt sad when I thought that stranger women may plant their kisses on it. ****! I felt so sad.  I abhorred those bitter cups of tea and narrow ways. I lit up one more cigarette.  Then, I, who tattooed my mother’s name on my shoulder, started decaying on the spot.  Rotting with a terrible stench. The people, the cows and the goats that I did not mention before bolted.  Abruptly, the driver came and told me that we could move from there.  I felt so bitter towards even the bitter tea that was inside him.

Somehow, we reached Karaikkal. Yes, at 630 in the evening. Even though I had never been to Karaikkal, a Union Territory, I sat on the same chair in the same corner of the same bar. The bearer poured me the wine.

He kept pouring the wine.
He kept pouring the wine.
The wine kept emptying.
The wine kept emptying.
The wine kept unraveling.
The wine kept unraveling.

It was a Dutch woman who gathered me up and took me with her when I got totally unraveled. She was older than me. There was no power in her room. The way she washed my body in lukewarm water could have put to shame even the midwives giving a bath to babies. When I rose up sometimes and asked her name, she sealed my lips with hers. When it was repeated many times, I thought that her name must mean something like a kiss. And, she never spoke a word except with lips.

Unraveling wine, lukewarm water, the nonstop conversation by lips. Though lips got tired, I heard the murmur from my pelvis. She too must have heard that. She touched my *****. Quite a guy she exclaimed cracking a joke. Told her I salvaged it from the sea at Tanjore and it was some temple mast some sculptor abandoned. If it’s a temple mast, let the festival begin she said.

It was some festival.
Festival of festivals.
Black lacquer bangles, vermilion, ribbons
Hydrogen balloons
Spinning tops
It was some festival.
Festival of festivals.

A simile as washed out as a festival ground emptied of crowds. For the lack of a better one.  Returned from Karaikkal, a Union Territory, at some hour.  I dumped that taxi driver on the way. Not only because I was disgusted with bitter tea, but also because his name was not Thintharoo.

I can never again put up with a driver whose name is not Thintharoo.




**(trans by Ra Sh)

Building Blocks (Spoken Word Poem)
5/15/2014

I played with legos when I was young.
What I didn't know was the value of those building blocks.
Putting tiny pieces of plastic together,
all different shapes, sizes, and colors.

For what?
For fun?
For structure?
For a challenge?
Because my mom told me to keep busy?
Or because that was how legos were supposed to work - together.

As I grew up, I gradually upgraded.
My legos got traded in for classmates,
for co-workers.
for bar buddies,
and even for the occasional stranger at the mall or movie theater.

They started telling their own stories:
About their first day at lego high school and making new friends.
About falling in love with their first lego boyfriend.
About going to lego prom and putting the pieces together at the after-party, if you know what I mean.
About getting dumped, but then landing their first job at the lego factory.
About shedding priceless limited edition lego tears, on stressful days.
About going through struggles where all they could do is pray to lego God.
About dreams of a nice big lego house with lego children someday.
About lego suicides, resulting from bullying in every worst kind of way.

Eventually it felt like I had opened up an expert level pack,
containing a variety so vast that I never would have guessed anybody could piece them all together.

These building blocks started to feel pretty heavy,
like bricks building a house,
I could only carry a couple in a fistful at a time.
Except they've been worn down from a life full of misuse.
Their colors faded,
edges jaded,
teeth serrated,
like an adapted mechanism for survival.
And what's worse - no mortar to piece them together.
because it all got burnt up.
A casualty of angry tempers' crossfire.
The constant collisions of verbal bullets bullying the building blocks,
bulldozing them over.
With the strength of slurs,
societies seems to blur,
all the inadequacies faced.

Without solidarity to support,
these building blocks are beginning to contemplate giving up.
But Stop!
But I don't like that.
I'll shout, "Hey little legos, remember the plan?
We should work together with your manual instructions in hand.
You were built with a scheme to be put together.
So in unison you can create an amazing structure to cherish forever."

Building blocks are resilient anyways.
Remember that time you left a lego alone?
Detached from its peers,
abandoned out on the carpet,
without the safety of its pre-fab box home?
Well the lego didn't seem to mind, I mean it turned out just fine.

Remember when you stepped on that seemingly small, insignificant lego?
Yeah, don't step on legos.
I'm sure you remember how much that ******* hurt your foot.

cast out
chucked away
deep-sixed
discarded
discharged
disposed of
expelled
flung aside
thrown down
jettisoned
deserted
jilted
vacated
left in abdication
aggravated
outcast
rejected
eliminated
forgotten
given­ up
godforsaken

There are people that have this ability to make people melt in their hands

They walk around  their entire lives finding their prey and engaging them and make them melt

The victim is usually rewarded with a night of rampant *** and is then dumped into this puddle when the antagonist
of this story is done with them

Sometimes it takes days for the victim to turn back into a solid substance
Sometimes it takes weeks
Sometimes they never fully turn bqck to normal and their will be a part of them that will always remain liquid because of the antagonist

Many fall victim to this antagonist

Until the protagonist comes along and upsets the routine
The protagonist cannot be melted
And it is due to this very specific favt that the antagonist ia revealed as the true protagonist of our story

That's usually a goodish enough story line that melts the audience

But people like myself who do not melt sees the true sadness in the lack of melting

We do not melt because we have been melted ao much that we went for an operation and we came out transformed
We are now metal
And I'm sorry to disappoint that antagonist/antagonist who becomes a protagonist
But the best you would ever be able to do to me is to warm my heart

And there she was
Standing in the sun

And there she was
With blue eyes

And there she was
Looking at her friends

And here I am again
Standing here in awe

And here I am again
Thinking,
I love her.

I walked into a 7-11 with you and  then all of the sudden I stopped and starred,
not because a loud and angry guy was screaming at his kids not to touch anything,
but because,
the coffee in the pots were cold and less than half full just sitting there on the counter
and no one was going to come in and drink it,
it would be left there to sit all night getting colder, until someone dumped them and cleaned them out, that's how I was before you came along,
I was a cold *** of coffee left over from that morning that no one wanted anymore,
you see, you seemed to drink the whole coffee *** before it even had a chance to get cold,
And if it did get cold,
You'd drink it anyway,

You got ecstatic over the thought of having caffeine in you to wake you up and make you lively again  
And I love that about you

You are different
You don't care about my non-coffee drinking past
You don't care about the dark rough grinds that took over me and made me undrinkable
You don't care if I was French pressed or keurig'd out
You still love me

You'd still love me if I was skim milk
If I was a skinny fat free latte
You love me now, even when I'm whole milk
If I became a double chocolaty chip
And I love that about you

You love my "I wanna white mocha latte",
and my "I need an iced French vanilla coffee from Dunkin' Donuts right now!",
And my "I am on a first date with this guy walking around with this amazing dude spilling a watered down small coffee all over my hands because I am so nervous, AND I DONT EVEN CARE BECAUSE I DONT KNOW IT YET BUT HE WILL BE MINE FOREVER!"

You're that kind of "I-don't-need- another-espresso-shot-but-I'll-take-an-extra-one-anyway-even-if-I­-do-have-to-pay-fifty-more-cents" type of guy,

Because in the end I realized paying that extra fifty cents was worth it and I'm glad I did
Because this is the best cup of coffee I've ever had and i don't want any other kind,

And I wish I would have tried this sooner and I want this feeling to last forever, because this feeling is nothing like I have ever felt before, it's like the first time sipping a different kind of coffee and not sure how it's going to taste and then all of a sudden your taste buds start going crazy and you lose your **** mind because it is so good,
And you want the cup of coffee to last forever, and it will,
Because you will keep going back to your most favorite and amazing cup of coffee for every day that you live

We went to Dunkin' Donuts again the other day,
We're known as the 7pm coffee drinkers,
One of the workers that's always there gave you two free to go cups,
We're there a lot....

The first thing I gave you was a small coffee with cream and sugar filled kiss,
the second thing was a gift card to a coffee shop,

I love you a latte
And you know i espresso a lot of feelings towards you
You're my 4 packs of sugar
My hazelnut and French vanilla creamer
You're the first thing I think of when I wake up and what keeps me up at night,
You and my coffee
Us and our coffee,
Surprising each other at work with a 16 oz coffee in our hands with a dumb smile on our faces

You are the reason I am happy
You are the reason I love coffee so much
You are the reason I wake up
You're the reason I ask if you want coffee
And the baristas at our school have an odd look on there face when I order not one but two cups of coffee and they can't help but wonder if there's someone they don't know about
And there is
It's you
And you are mine

a mild headache,
loss of appetite,
burning rubber, grinding
to a halt

she lets out a whimper

tears take a lovely
stroll down nostalgia
avenue;

tap dancing
across the New York
skyline

she clenches her teeth,
legs spread apart, a web
of deceit, a rainbow head
peaks out and whispers
secrets into my ears

we are all alive now

rest upon my ***** your
worry laden head, sore from
all the oral ***

this grave of carnal flesh
is our only pure rest

do you even know me?
think again.
just because you heard some **** about me doesn't mean it's true
but thank you for telling me what you heard
now that's my definition of you
your revenge is not the healthy kind
if i were you, i'd stay the **** away from those manipulative minds
i know i have my own issues, some i won't admit to
but hearing all that
like garbage being dumped
like the ocean being polluted
like the ozone filled with substances to dilute it


just breaks my heart.
please stop.