Listen my dear daughter, to my first song of caution
Earmarked for you my wonderful sire, come and listen,
That tall old man with white hair all over his head
Standing over there is not good; he is gnomish in the mind
Be careful with him, he is not human in the heart
But a mermaid of Yoruba poetry, just like Thespis of Greece
Even the pecuniary psychopomp of Sweden gave him an accolade
His heart is selfishly full of avarice; he wants everything for himself,
Don’t recite him any of your poetry, lest he spells an abyss
Against your juvenile poetic talent, he will fool you with a gift;
A white sheep or a scarlet goat for your birth day anniversary
Please don’t take it or anything else from him, as nothing from him is genuine
But only machinations of evil spell aimed at mahyeming your talent
Finally to decimate your girlhood and life, this is my caution
For you dear little African girl.

Listen my dear little daughter, to my second song of caution
That short man in a Muslim gear loafing yonder, is suspect
The Muslim beret on his head is merely a smokescreen to aghastly behaviour
He is in no way an avatar of god of love and humane piety
He is a terrorist working with Boko Haram and Algaeda
He is an Alshabab that is bombing young girls in Mombasa and Nairobi
All over Kenya he has killed the young people; his long egret-white sari is not for holiness,
It is merely a nefarious sanctum of grenades, other tools of work in terrorism trade
His loudly prayers, body movements and pocket bursting monies are only a stunt
To have you kidnapped into death conduit, once you goof to join his courts,
His sanctimony is a total picaresque film, (s)heroes of terror the centerpiece
And thus, this is my caution for you dear little African girl.

Listen my dear daughter, to my third song of caution
Those tourists thronging our streets are deadly *** pets, they also skulk ****
Their handsome outlook is not a stamp to any good conscientiousness
They derive pleasure from poverty and *** tourism; they yearn to see a girl in poverty,
Often rarely will they help an African girl, out of milieu of beggarly squalorism,
Instead they go straight for the purse between your thighs,  
Regardless of the legacy they leave out of this lewdness, they are showy,
They regret not in their Byronic broadcast of *** and fatherless urchins in the poor streets
Foundation for their further poverty tourism, this is my caution for you dear little African girl.

I remember the jelly bean jar
perched next to the owlish librarian
in my school when I was younger.  
One lucky soul would win a prize
for pulling the right number of jelly beans
out of an air still filled with fancy.
I can’t remember who won the prize,
and I can’t remember what the prize was.

But I guess as selfish minds are wont to do,
I remember the act of guessing.  
It was a childhood of guessing,
and I wonder if any of those guesses were truly wrong?  
When the engine of innocence toils away,
any solution, however fanciful,
can’t be false in a world that finds falsity
in far more veritable places.

I digress back to that jelly bean jar,
packed full of sugar,
and to a young mind,
full of promise.  
To a mind such as mine,
a mind akin to my classmates
who shared my sugary desire for that jar,
any guess was as good as the other,
as long as any guess was your own.  

We clutched ordinary pencils
scribbled on ordinary paper
with our own extraordinary numbers.  
In the basket went these figures most accurate.  

Days during the week passed
with those store brand jelly beans
mashed against each other,
childhood memories turned ordinary pages
wrote with ordinary pencils
until that singular, self-sure number
mashed against pages turned against it.  

However strong that memory of numerology
in a room full of words is etched in my mind; no trace
of the end of the jellybean contest remains in my ledger.
No trace of the disappointment of losing out
on such a treasure trove of tooth decay.  

But I guess this is the way of the mind,
it tends to trace out the positives
while it remains filled with youthful levity,
no weight is imbued in innocent minds,
and so tragedy, loss, and disappointment
float away past untroubled eyes.  

But time rolls on and much like the crushed growth
under an ever-rolling stone,
our lives start to fall harder on softened memories.  
Our lives harden with our heads,
and those days of living out short-lived fantasies
fade with jelly bean guesses.  
So as we mature and feign to seek the truth,
a small part of me keeps a singular page earmarked
for a time when the truth no longer weighs
                                                                              down the air with half-true deceit, and a mind long
abandoned
will return to grasp fanciful ideas
out of an air that’s still light enough
to evade our youthful fingertips.

I like to think of people as a greenhouse
We are only a short moment in history
We can be radiant and beautiful
We can diffuse bliss and contentment
We can show the world that there is more to it
Some of us are short-lived gardens
We forget to water ourselves
Forget that we need sunshine to live
We forget that most on our rainy days
When clouds swarm our four walls
And the light of day does not touch us like it used to
Our flowers droop, fall, and die
We are only plants that require attention
Living objects that some pick up and some only marvel at
We are unique and earmarked
We are not the same
But each of us are fascinating in our own way
Do not forget to take care of yourself
You have so much more to yourself
Than the desolation you feel

I walk down the street
and there is just this radiating *** appeal
in everything I could possibly do—
even in the way the rubber on my shoes
grips the hot cement sidewalks.
(I realize that may not sound too ****—
at all;
But I’m confident that in this moment
someone is drooling over that step.)
Unmistakable swagger.
A few more moments of this
untouchable cool
& Morgan Freeman will be narrating
my every thought and movement.*

At least
that’s the way you make me feel.

How dare you.

You have the audacity to become
something so earmarked in my
little,
inconsequential,
twentysomething life.

You have the guts
to learn all of those
hidden quirks.
The same ones I relentlessly
and rightfully
keep to myself.

You have the nerve
to become the reason
why I smile for days,
go to bed alone
(but beaming)
& wake up with a larger reason
to grab life by its
big
metaphorical
*****
until it sees things my way.  

& I’m aware that
“*****” may not be the most
poetic of terms—
but the last time I checked,
poetry didn’t have
a **** definition

The last time I checked—
neither do we.

So how dare you
build me up into the only person
I can stand to be,
with only the promise
of an impending expiration date?

Then again,
there is something strangely
haunting
& remarkable
revolving around
the anticipation of that sort of heartache.

Now let’s see what I can make of the chronology of Chase.
Some thick wet messy bird *****
missing its mark, a drop, browning vent
feathers, another drop
oozing perfectly in, to the oviduct, where
minerals and fetus and pre feathers formed.  

And now a slanted eye, lid half closed
after the fashion of a laying chicken hen,
a hen in its own right, Suzie Susan the bird,
sunflower seeds and malnutrition gracing her final
August days,
sits atop what can only be called a
cardboard cruelty to squeeze out the
rock and continue his

cycle
backward.

But: before.

The same lidded look, a male somewhere gesticulating
split rock shale hued feathers and
pink scaled lizard feet,
gripping,
as the unbelievable ordeal of egglaying begets
what will become a creature
((Chase))

and then warmth, a spot of raw pink
skin, so much like a goose bumped wet frozen bird
in the *** a day before supper,
warms the egg to a precise temperature
((Wikipedia knows what))
not to cook, but to love.

So many cages.  Straight up and down
black white silver metal plastic
bars, maybe a metal floor and maybe
unbreathable glass,
maybe even pine.  

How he made his way into a
rabbit’s cage much too sideways for
any bird, losing feathers from
eating buggy dry dusty seed which he loved
almost as much as procreating,
I wish to Hell I knew,
so I could ***** about it too
and hate not only myself, my parents,
the wooden door that ended him,
but their rotted brains as well.

Made perches.  Not safe, but sound.  
Wood, sycamore, not disinfected, but worn
down to a point of home decor.  
Birdshit everywhere, which was lovely
but I didn’t remember to clean it because
I was too young to know about anything
but Phantom of the Opera, dragons that have wings
and front arms always, don’t you dare ******* say different
because I will end you,
and the occasional long thin scab on the arm.

But, living.
Sitting by me -- hating me in a way that spoke
of kindred love and bond --
and nothing at all of the $3 diet that he somehow subsisted
on for possibly four years,
possibly thirteen,
or the improper bars slanted with thick white and gray urate and feces
paste uncleaned unchecked and untouched.

Or even the of the hard saved handful of cash earmarked for a
slightly less inadequate cage (but a cage nonetheless)
traded instead for a Nightmare on Elm Street box set containing
movies 1-6, plus 7, and Freddy vs Jason as well but not the remake,

but definitely of how someone, maybe me, taught you how to
whistle the Andy Griffith theme song even though I never watched
the dumb old show, and how to whistle
like a construction worker with a mild *******
after an unintended female, with the “best ***
I ever ******* saw,”

and of strict bedtimes always met with a decent blanket,
and maybe even of the bird-like night frights in which
I felt my heart leap, and I turned on music for you with the
useless old sixty pound boxy computer that happened to still have
a working copy of windows media player installed

and singing Billy Joel’s Lullaby which had nothing to do with you
or I and everything to do with divorce and dying
but which was perfect,
and put you back to sleep without a broken neck or wing,
yet.

Does it matter if he’s a bird or man?
I tell you that he’s both.
He ate and shat and ****** and loved
and sang and slept and had grumpy days
and happy days
and ****** people off and was too loud
and was startled by screams
had to face the still silent unmoving sickening pregnant heat wave of grief
had favorite foods and songs and tv shows,
lived in boxes and only wanted out.  

Greedy how he chirped so high on top of his lover
doing the tail spinny grindey dance against her pulsating *******
center, and squirting
secretly much like the **** before him, whatever
and whoever he was, his eyes
wide and mouth open slightly.  

And then her fat cinnamon body lay so many
thick shelled deadly pearls,
which were empty but never cold.
They loved their empty stale stagnant infertile eggs, by God,
these two perfect doomed parents given
not nearly enough to survive the
war of childbirth and rearing,
which they only tried out but were not privileged to suffer.  

I would’ve named his sons Columbo after some name
I read in a book or maybe an online forum, that is
supposedly Italiano and supposedly means “dove,”
the fat birds of varying white and gray hues with the occasional
dazzle of blue or brown or black
that embody all the soft qualities of Chase, and Suzy

and I would attempt to end the misbegotten trend
that started when I named Chase after the gorgeous golden Aussie
character from House (which someone of my age probably
shouldn’t have watched)
and add some little Renatos and Ninfas and little
Agapetos or maybe even Uccellos or Ucellas.  

But what would have been a family of tiny winged storm - skies
brought instead a slowish painful death, that could have been
oh so easily prevented and fixed with a little bit of love,
some mercy, some money, a vet, and possibly a fingertip amount of
dollar store canola cooking oil.

And Chase, what can I say of how you screamed an elegy, a dirge
more harrowing than Percy Shelley’s or Rilke’s or that poem Billy Collins
wrote about nine eleven, more true than the entire ludicrous book of Lamentations,
simply by screaming extreme, shrill and for so long, so long,
so through that the house shook with it and I cried too?

You wailed with a small dry wordless tongue
that shot into my ears and to my skull, brain, gray and white matter,
that absolutely trembled with the familiar horrific confusion
of suddenly waking to find that someone is gone and you
don’t know how but you know you’ll
never
see them again

you’d never stroke the smooth laughter of
her cheeks, you’d never press your small warm chest
against her wide brown wing again, my love,
and I
would never remember
where the hell I laid her body,
lost the grave that you needed to touch and
maybe walk on and sing to,
once more.

But this wasn’t your life.
That instead was summed up,
concentrated into the small pregnant moment when
It Happened,
the flash and squeal of your body being
broken, crushed smashed practically severed,
dazed and shaken and slowly shut down
over the span of a weekend,
again
and again as it
replayed in my mind --
again, again,
again, again.

But these are only words and you can’t
exist in them except as a small sliver,
a fragment of soul, a quick whiff of heartbeat --

but I didn’t lose your grave.
There’s a soggy ground where you were lain, and a small wooden
plaque over your bones which painted with the words:
in pace requiescat,
which I admit I only know from Amontillado,
and the day and month and the year that you died
because you, the great mystery, have no birth date.

And I would proceed to cry and hate so many people,
myself, and you, and firstly my lovely parents,
who allowed you to die and pretended to apologize,
but most of all I would hate the world,
for swallowing up and making me think
that a part of your flesh, sloshy like the soil,

was absorbed and embodied as fresh growth on your
large drooping willow tree

and that if I stroke it,
when I touch it with these fat white fingers and let
the bark pierce my skin roughly,
rub it red and ****** dry,
that I am touching you

and letting you know
I remember and that Chase -- you spilling of bird
***** and calcified ****
that somehow became a grayish soul that God hardly
gave enough moons --

I’m sorry
I hit you with a door
trying to close it,

but less sorry that I killed you and more sorry
that it was because, out of grandmotherly fear,
I never let you learn how to fly,

I clipped your wings and you, and we were so clumsy

that you ambled head first into its already severing crack

I hope wherever the hell you might be --
birdy paradise, Dante’s hell where lovers fly and that is torment --
that you have wings,
and they aren’t clipped,
and someone cleans up your ****.

Justice* for the meek
   won't come soon
Under skies aligned
   with sinful moons
Neglectful statues
   posing as mothers
Executives commission
   the blood red summer

Venture across the divide
earmarked by three lines

They gate crashed to our home in the late morning,
Dressed in the red-shirts, wielding clubs and machetes,
Howling loudly that they are national party officers
Protecting peace and development, that is never seen,
Our country already is crushed to forlorn state
Under the heavy lord of anti-human leadership,
They shamelessly extorted money from my poor father
Which they called compulsory party fees, for what?
A political party whose name is as horrifying as leprosy,
My father hadn’t enough money, they took away in addition
Our only one red cockerel which was learning to crow,
It worked as our family clock on its crowing in the morning,
We had too earmarked it for the next **** fight fete.
Our family hopes for money hinged on its wining the prize
The Proceeds with which hopped to succor ourselves
By funding our mother’s cancer treatment bills.

It was strange and didn't register as a serious request. She wanted to take care of me. Nothing ******. Just a meal here and there, maybe a little tidying up of the house.

She wanted me to talk. And that part, the talking, always felt transactional, a repayment of her cleaning and cooking. She didn't ask questions. Just nudged me on with emphatic nods in the living room, sitting six feet away from me in a stray office chair. She listened as if I were recounting a past life of her own.

I told her once I loved her little feet, especially in those heels. The next week she wore sneakers. She was older but not old, fifty or so. Two children a few years younger than myself.

She made a point of not staying past ten or drinking more than a single glass of wine.

I was always a little embarrassed by the state of the house. The ***** clothes strewn across the room indistinguishable from the clean. Earmarked novels, long novels, the kind you could bludgeon a person to death with, gathered dust on the coffee table, the desk, the kitchen counter. She touched them, fascinated by what secrets or sage advice might lay within, but she never read a page.

One night I realized I'd never said her name out loud. And she said, "That's impossible. Of course you have." But neither of us could think of a particular moment. And just when I was about to, she said, "Why break the streak?"

We grew more comfortable with one another. She wore less makeup and let her age show. She'd show up in sweatpants. Some nights we'd order Chinese and play that familiar game where every fortune is punctuated with "in bed." A stranger will change your life forever tomorrow in bed. Lies lead to great calamities in bed. So on.

We called them dates, our lunches in the break room, taken each day around 2 p.m. She would bring me leftovers from the night before, always making a point of saying something like, "My husband just couldn't finish it."

She brought baked ziti on a Wednesday last March. I told her it was the best I'd ever eaten as I forked it out of the tupperware container, the edges still hot from the microwave. She said she hadn't been intimate in two years.

"Is that possible?"

"It is."

*** didn't transpire immediately. We worked up to it.

I liked the way she directed me. I'd never experienced anything quite like it. She'd tell me to touch myself while she held me in her arms, she'd snag a handful of my hair, she'd dig her nails into my thigh, but her words were always beautiful, whispered, tender, spoken in the sacred and profane language of lovers.

I'd come and she'd make a comment about the quantity, comparing it to her husband's.

In the serene afterglow before we toweled ourselves off, I'd rest my head against her breast, and I'd say, "I could stay here forever."

"Every man I've ever slept with has said that."

"How many men have you slept with?"

"Has anyone ever liked the answer to that question?"

"I don't mind. We could compare data."

"Including you?"

"Including me."

"Two."

She crawled out of the bed and turned on some music, Neil Young, "A Man Needs a Maid."

"I always felt guilty for liking this song," I said.

"Me too," she said.

We drank coffee on the back porch before the sun came up. "There was a man," she said, "before I married. He was an artist, a painter. We were in college and I loved the deliberate way he spoke. He'd think, sometimes for a full minute, before he said anything. There was a softness in his voice that required you to pay closer attention to him. Your voice is not all that different."

The Department of Transportation began tearing down the houses in my neighborhood to make room for an additional two lanes of traffic. By October mine was the only house left on the block. The apocalypse in miniature. We'd drive by piles of brick and fencing and she'd begin to cry.

It was a particularly brutal winter, and she buried her car in mud and snow when she tried to back out of the yard on the day of her son's graduation. I offered to drive her.

"No, no, no no no."

We sat in the snow, our backs against her car. She leaned in and said, "Your cologne is new."

"Yes."

"You've cut your hair."

"Yes."

"Your shirt, it's actually ironed."

Silence for a beat.

"Who is she?"

*******
hear the words from my beak
please
above the chatter and click
of these other feathered *****
as they plead for wheat, sans chaff

every single one of us
the same
except the stupid branch we’ve
ended up perched on,

early or not the worms are earmarked
and the **** always falls down

Nuphar carlquistii; disheveled parish; her dynasty
Deoxyribonucleic barcode, celestry
E Chord, timbre and thunder
The moon is delicious, burnt umber
Whose tomb, Venus
What heir to the doom of ,
What plant pruned, sheared from
The bemuse of the dead, the naught
The wreath of fig leaves, the drum beat
Frought

Stood for a century,
shattered windows
crumbling balcony,
earmarked for
new construction
a site for
mass
destruction.

The house has seen,
the old King,
the older Queen,
seen men cry
stood while bombs fell from
the sky and
now
the end has come.

Some might say,
the house is old and had its day
but it was built to last and
sadly
our future becomes its past.

I shall mourn its passing even
as I watch the rising of the new
which will never last as long or do
as much for me,
as the house which
stood
a
century.

Ouroboros is its own meal

The same is true with

Those from own country that steal!



To humstrung the incumbent

Most party members are not hesitant.



Ouroboros,they adore their party,

Which they obliviously or

Otherwise sully with

A rent-seeking identity.

They adore the incumbent

Yet they spell nation's

Slow but sure death

Siphoning budget earmarked

For  infrastructure,education,

Agriculture and health.



They adore their party

That took power

But with a deadface

That lets them, with

Nation's wealth, take a shower.



They adore their party,

However with their bureaucratic logjams,

Create on nation's developmental

****** encumberance.

Yet they entertain

A wild dream

Their party could

Let the country

Forward advance.



They support their party

As a Scare (self-defeating) tactic

Sees better

For social justice

Requesting demonstrators

To scatter

Shooting one or two

With a ******.

'cause what they enunciate

"We adore"

Citizens abhore

Marking it stifling and "a bore".



Worse still

Barefaced they entertain

No shame or fear

Using  'public media'

"I **** thee

Because I love thee!"

To din in people's ear.//

blow-up dolls, those

using drugs
to dream.

anyone
on stilts
but leave
the stilts
for god.  on that

note, any child

earmarked
for stilt
removal.  

a twin.

the pregnant
and the men
in the dark.

sweet corral
in savage fields
you were to me
salvaged visions
hushed syllables
relayed in gasps
now stilled

and I sang to  
this favoured space
place all ages stretch
dance to meadow’s song
but havens don’t last
for spent shepherds
seek sleep too

I face myself
as dark clouds
I saw fomenting
omens of looming
deepening chill told
of friendship's succor
earmarked to go

confronted by
naked and scarred
discarded outcasts
dirges of limbs
parts broken
by storms'
scythes

you stood
beside me
sturdy strong
then winds ceased
and bland tones
transmitted
often

no sunny sky friend
you are but in storms
you see the beaten
traveler's plea
as rains
strip
breath

Origin abides the damning cost that martyrs tree-***** life.
Moon-temple tides hoist stonewall pride: inverted vacuum of
a sun requited into love. What bids the youth perform
is puffed-up chests that pick up checks,
collaborate in pulsing rooms, and stall
the patient slumber of some judgment
buried in the wall. Out cry
the mounting omens: skulls still undecided
forced to build the boundaries,
carve "abstain" into their lucid twist
of providence–for "reasons".
Willows mark her sacred route. High-*****
to arms right spent: white gridlock on
the prison bay, uplifting cells
as down disaster plays. Outlandish others
disinfect her role from sanctioned sects,
outshine desired effects–
demented rays, fulfilling her
apostate fame. The vetting blows up
earmarked patients, wounds beset
in value, offer non-regret
to widows standing down.
Rich pressure-towns to offer fleeting fare
from homes that proffered care from bones–
intractable, a loan.

Wake up, head pounding,
throat on fire; the air's too bright.
Check where you are,
check what is on you
--clothing or otherwise--
hands croak for water, trembling weakly;
bottles of liquor, open at random;
pick your way through
the jungle of clothing;
single shoes scattered.
A book, earmarked maybe, from another life.

It’s August here in New Zealand which means it is the middle of Winter. It rains almost every day here during winter.
Firewood piled outside the door is getting low so I earmarked two hours to barrow split wood from an auxiliary pile, stacked against the rear wall of the house, to the depleted pile, under cover of weather, at the house frontage.

The wood had been there for many months so it was full of spiders. Big spiders with brown chevrons on the back of their abdomen, Wolf spiders the locals call them, they can give you a nasty bite but they have insufficient venom to harm humanity. These spiders inhabit the underside of the split wood, they build silky white webs that resemble pouches. The webs catch inquisitive insects that search for food in the woodpile. The insects become entangled in the webs and the spiders pounce upon them and eat them. I saw plenty of evidence today of both the big spiders and what remains of their insect meals. Shells of the scarabs epidermis actually, all of the soft innards ****** out by the hungry spiders.

Also in the woodpile were several female Beech wasps, brightly colored little Hymenoptera with yellow and black banded stripes, with fearsome, sharp stingers protruding from the very end of the abdomen.  These wasps were not sheltering in the woodpile from the falling rain, they were hunting for the big Wolf spiders. Arachnids ten times their size and equally as combative as the hunting wasps.

Undeterred by size and ferocity the wasps attack the huge spiders without hesitation, Make no mistake, war is waged here for should the spider lance the wasp with its fangs the wasp will die an agonizing death, but if the wasp manages to deftly spear the spider with its stinger, a powerful venom will be injected into the spider immediately paralyzing it…..but the venom doesn’t actually **** the spider, it immobilizes it. The female wasp then penetrates the bulging abdomen of the Arachnid with her ovipositor and lays all of her eggs inside the paralyzed creature. Once egg laying is completed the female wasp disengages herself from the spider and flies away to die.

Almost immediately the wasp eggs hatch inside and the little white larvae begin to consume the living internals of the spider. They continue to eat the fresh edibles until they metamorphosize into young adult wasps which chew their way out of the, now dead, husk of spider and fly away to seek a mate which in turn, once fertilized, will ultimately hunt yet another unfortunate spider to host the fearsome hatchlings of her own busy brood.

As I stacked the wood in the front alcove I paused for a few moments to ponder the miracle of life and death enacted, unsuspectedly, in the battleground of my back woodpile….and marveled at the absolute drama of it all.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
20 August 2023

The Savannah
The wildebeests have been crossing the same stretch
of the river for years going back into a foggy history and lack
of interest. At the river, some are eaten by crocodiles  
and on the other side by lions. Meat on hoof and
a calf cannot find its mother, Gnus don’t do friendly and
there never is a sympathetic aunt. It must find its mother
now, because it has been earmarked as a possible meal,
easy to catch, no bother.

Did that calf survive? I don’t know history does not concern
itself with trivialities and as for its mother her memory is
short. A dumb beast, yet there are more wildebeests in
Africa now than twenty years ago which means fewer lions
and more crocodile handbags than before, which means
the calf probably survived

Earmarked
for days full of strife
and nights in the park.

I never saw
Poverty Rules OK!
but
I heard the book was
a best seller
and when I tell her
that
she'll **** me.

We're given enough rope
and not the scope to
utilise it.

Excitement weens
Lost on same means.
Capital letters advance
Derivative fiends.

Thought to know
Knew an understanding
Understood falsehood
Uncovered branding.

Sowed my prairie
Seriously when initiated
Before then merrily
Long lines tarried.

Uncovering happening
Uncovers everything.
Depths found futile
Resounds blaspheming.

Looked onto lies
Sought unto skies.
Regarded partially lost
Time's, " Robert Frost ".

Still now retain
My lost for gain
Each day innuendo
Earmarked by same.

Heroes to our legend
Formed fancily stowed
Mind's willful haven
Sourcing its unfold.

With mighty mouse and Hercules height
tried to retrieve sanity spread loose;
a faded unpleasant memory - even enlisting
decades old cartoon characters:
Natasha squirrel and Bullwinkle moose
flow of electrons the best-concocted juice
since the convection
of white bread or couscous
for without Fios, light and heat
the slow strangle via an invisible noose

gripped this bantam weight
hen pecked papa -
who tried to peruse
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy
while buried under
blankets and towels - Toulouse
any and every molecule of heat,
yet frigidaire within abode
(technically about 455 degrees Fahrenheit)
went with Brad and Ray,
boot did not go vamoose.

Thine recollected diatribe
analogous to a rite of initiation
thru fraternity gauntlet -
no, not necessarily atchew
anyway, I sure hope ***** remission
asper any offal debacle choking bugaboo
which once malignantly plagued
your body, mind, spirit
as fowl existence doomed matt chew
for when countless full moons ago,
the force o mother nature drew

whipped out her scimitar,
where chaos such as
power n telephone outages flew
sweeping across bulwarks,
drawbridge over troubled waters,
and ramparts whereby
huge limbs and wires
Ole man winter with
a jude dish hiss punch did hew
indiscriminate to gentile or Jew
or one necessitating answering a call

to deaf ack ate while atop the loo,
cuz such fate occurred there
at previous residence
DCCXXIV Railroad Ave n new
where the lack of heat or phone service
induce sing expletives stronger than poo
but...during the blackout,
this papa read by flashlight huddled
under mildewed layers of clothes
n bland kits, and did rue
how susceptible n vulnerable society

to whims of natural faw iz - tis true
at least in my view,
whence this generic human
predicted he would become
apprised as fossilized,
immortalized, and ossified,
thence accidentally discovered
millenniums in future,
hence as frozen petrified representative
per twenty first century,
where wily fox prudent terrestrial realtor.

Now that yar brow didst I scrunch
possibly goot dealt
a similar meteorological punch
thus possibly lack king
for electricity i.e. the life source energy,
this then mister mom,
and taxi dad supposed back up hunch
hove (at that time)

two prepubescent darling daughters -
oft times thrilled as punch
to kibbutz with during lunch
when dire circumstances
imposed spurious silliness
to fritter away time –
for measly grueling fodder,
earmarked, ****** cold brunch.

Twas and still Liz
a blessing social networks
allowed, enabled and promoted literary trait
virtually contrived acquaintances of yore,
and usually visa vis discovery
(though transient got me I rate)
hull reflect on technological
modus operandi back
before bachelorhood complemented
and supplemented mein kampf

with an affectionately loving mate
many years, and even of late
though amity, comity
and felicity nestles this roost stir,
whose then newlywed bride
that's my wife, he DOTH no longer hate
and communicate emotions
across the whirled wide web
(i.e. - this example
between yourself and me) -

Noah intent to grate
now, internecine warfare usually all calm
on the western front
from hellish, gory figurative
ball of wax bollix
engineering denizens of fate
in tandem with banshees, gremlins,
and jinns out the box of Pandora rollicked
their elements of Strunk and White,
and pandemonium they did fiendishly create.

Greetings reader from a cross between an aging seventy inch long (ringing ding ****) haired pencil necked geek and a Norwegian bachelor farmer wannabe; meaning yours truly actually a virtually married Pennsylvania man, who crossed his sixty fifth year young threshold on January thirteenth 2024, nevertheless despite rancor from the missus who frowns on me favoring female for acquaintanceship/friendship ideally while taking a ride On The Good Ship Lollipop.

if nothing else germinated
adult language affections
inexplicable tummy why
(approximately three quarters
of my lxiv roy hull orbits ago),
I can still vividly recall
names of girls from mud
trickle hull hating as a Methacton
High School graduate,
plus the two semesters completed
at Montgomery County Community College,
which diploma worth less than
the paper certifying completion
of requisite credits.

Unbeknownst tummy if
(Susan Bishop, Cheryl Hahn,
Judy Jacobs, Donna Keckley,
Fay Landis, Sandra Ray,
Julia Ward, and a handful of others)
gleaned any hint that an intense desire
shutter flying within thy solar plexus
to blurt (in a bumbling fashion)
even a feeble hello
dogged each day of classes.

Nothing about this then
awkward, blimey clammy, dorky,
edgy, friggin gawky, *****, ipsy,
jumpy, kooky, loony, moody, nerdy,
okay, plenti quirky, ratty, sulky,
timidly undersized very withdrawn,
xpn yankee Zeusian.

If familiar during my prime numbered days,
with either powder milk biscuits
(which according to Garrison Keillor -
gives shy people the courage
to get up and do ***** deeds
done dirt cheap (in honor
of the late Malcolm Young,
the pulse of AC/DC),
or raw bits, and additionally
adroit crafting, expostulating
gross iniquities keeping maidens
overly questing regarding taming
uber vibrant ***** wonka
your all time cerebrally enlightened,
guy initially kindling manifold
oppressed quaking ****** undulations
wracking yawping aspiring
corpus dictionary epicurean.

Yes, that tis quite a mouthful,
but then this ardent devotee, gamboling
jousting literary nonsensical
philosophical reader, tenderly tinder
verizon wormy yakking arboreal
cloven earmarked, graciously intelligent
kibitzer, modest opportunistic
questioning statecraft,
unpretentiously warbling bupkis.

Though verb boss this poet manque
doth strive tubby re: noun,
or at the least beak comb knighted
among his majesty (HMS) –
cutting (thru the figurative iceberg) crew,
which pronoun smint foments
hostile interjections, whereby
grievance addressed by my
reciting constituent articles comprising
English Language.

As a result of assiduous, copious, exodus,
grammar grappling, inchoate knowledge,
mastery of quirky syntax
underscored unpretentious
versatility with words.

Adverb beal concupiscence endowment
grows ineluctable kickstarting
my obvious quest shunned unfairly
without your adjective choice
entirely granted.

Infinitives key mordant obscures
quasi rhetorician traversing ultimate
vernacular wordsmith zeroing
at becoming catapulted
**** eminently fructified.

Caterwauling causes
champion colleague Collins collision,
collusion, conjunction conspiracy,
demanding expulsion, forthwith
groupie Harris insinuating, juxtaposing,
keeping lowest mediocrity necessitating
one principle question.

Reddit slated tenure unified vicars,
wherein xfinity yielded zing along.

YES ... Something For THEM ... !!!
Those In The Audience Whose Acts Are ... " Pretense " ...

PRETENDING Their ... " Friends " ...
When They Really STAND AGAINST ...
The Ways Some EXPRESS Through Raps And Poems ...

SOME Like ME ...
Whose Poetry Invites The Weak ...
To Go And SEEK Some ... THERAPY ... !!!

Fiends Who Scheme BEHIND The Scenes ...
To ... SCUPPER Dreams of Speech That's FREE ............................

Speech That Deals In HONESTY ...
Because They Keep Their Closets DEEP ... !!!

DEEP With Secrets ...
FILLED With WEAKNESS ... !!!

SECRETS Kept They Should Accept ...
Rather Than DENY The LIES They Hide ... !!!

The Types Who ... "Confide" ...
About Their Lives To OPEN Minds ... !!!

OPEN Minds That ... " Sympathise " ...
Until It's Time To ... CRITICISE ... !!!!

Well I'm THAT TYPE Who Is NOT SHY ...
To Put Their Lives Where They ... DON'T LIKE ... !!!

YES I'm THAT GUY Who's SICK and TIRED ... !!!
of Snakes Whose Brains ... REFUSE To Face ...
The Simple Truth About Their Moves ...

They're A Little TOO QUICK To RUN THEIR Lips ... !!!
About Things They Want Kept ... "PRIVATE" ... ?!?
But Here's The Bit That Makes Me SICK ... !!!

Things Said To THEM That They DON'T LIKE ...
Are SECRETLY KEPT ... Inside Their Minds ...
To Cause PROBLEMS ... Further Down The Line ..........

Meanwhile They SMILE BEHIND ... "Snake Eyes" ... !!!

Those NOW KNOWN As A TWISTED ***** ... !!!
Who YES Are Prone To ... QUICKLY Snitch ... !!!!!!!

Like Those Now Reading These Lyrics ...
Who Are Sitting There Wishing That I'd Get HIT ...

By A ...... STRAY Bullet ...... !!!

Because My Views When Using Words ...
Is Built To HURT Like Bullets BURN ... !!!
I'm NOT Concerned With Worms Who TURN ... !!!

UNTIL They TURN ... TOWARDS Big Virge ... !!!
REMEMBER What You've Learned From That Last Verse ...

Because VIOLENCE ... I DON'T DEFEND ... !!!
This Is Something For THEM To COMPREHEND ... !!!

Like Immortal Tech ...
I Will Transcend Through Life And Death ...

O.G ... Oh YES ...
An ORIGINAL Gent Who Is ... " God Blessed " ... !!!

So Wherever This ENDS It Begins AGAIN ... !!!
FAKE Friends You SELL Your Souls To HELL ... !!!

You'll FEEL The WRATH of Virge ... !!!
... WHEREVER You Dwell ... !!!!!

The ... " Connoisseur of Words " ...
Simply REPELS ........................................................

Snitches Who SELL ...
Their Souls To The Devil Like ... " Doctor Jekyll " ... !!!!!

Those Who HECKLE My Spots Like FRECKLES ...
WON'T Like How I Settle Their Attempts To WRESTLE ...
My Views About Life When I DROP My Diatribe ...

The Types Who TRIGGER ... ITCHY Fingers ... !!!
VIOLENCE As I've Said ... Is NOT My Vibe ... !!!!!

But Virge FEAR Death ...

"Son think again !
We're all gonna die, cos' that's part of life !"

But MURDEROUS Trends OVER Arguments ...
And Differences ... Now NEED To END ... !!!
As Do FAKE Friends Who Cause PROBLEMS ... !!!

But TRUST in THIS If It Comes To THAT ...
I'll SPIT Lyrics Like GATS Go BANG ... !!!!

EVERY Last Word Will OPEN Urns ...  
OPEN For THEM ... Like The Poem Says ... !!!

I've Got Some Things ...
I NEED To Bring That May Well STING ... !!!

Are You Still Reading ... ?
Cos' I Can Hear Them Now ...
YES ... " Whispering " ...................

"Let's shut him down, him and his mouth !
We'll make him wish, he had no lips !"

Is That What They Think ... ?
... " NEW AGE FASCISTS " ...
Supremacists And Hypocrites ... !!!

I Guess They Do ...
Well Here's The Coup ...

I'mma' DO My Thing ...
NO MATTER What They Think ... !!!

DON'T Like My Views Or How I Move ...
Well OKAY That's COOL ...
Cos' I DON'T Like YOU ... !!!
OH YES ... It's TRUE ... !!!

NEVER Really Did ... !!!

See I've Learnt Some Tricks ...
From ******* Who SNITCH ... !!!!!

See I'm An HONEST Man ...
But NOW ... Hold Things Back ...
From Girls And Boys Who Use Dud Ploys ...

Just Like TANNOYS ...
I Can Make SOME NOISE ... !!!

But DON'T EVER Think ...
I've Lost My POISE ... !!!

EVEN When I Drink My Mind EMPLOYS ...
Ways To .............................. AVOID .....
Those Who ..... ANNOY ...... !!!!!

I'm WATCHING Fools ...
Who Think They're ... " Cool " ... !!!
But Choose NOT To Lose ...
My ... PEACE FILLED Groove ... !!!

But JUST For THEM Imma' Say it AGAIN ... !!!
VIOLENCE ... I DON'T Defend ... !!!

But My ............................................................
................ SILENCE ..............................................................

May Mean Your END ...
Cos' it Probably Means You're In MY HEAD ...

Where You ... Should NOT Be ... !!!!!
If Your Life ... You NEED ... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's A WARNING You SHOULD HEED ... !!!

Those Ensuring ... WARS Are Seen ...
ALL This WARRING'S Giving Me ...
... HOMICIDAL Tendencies ... !!!!!!

ALL I NEED Is ENOUGH Money ...
To Keep Me AWAY From Those Who ...........................Sway .....

In ... DEVIANT Ways ... !!!!!

I'm NOT AFRAID So DON'T Mistake ...
My Use of Verse As Simply ... " Words " ... !!!!

Of Course They ARE ... !!!
But THESE WORDS Mark The Path For Darts ...
I've Got EARMARKED For ... YELLOW Hearts ... !!!!!

That's Where I'll END This HERE Poem ...
Cos' NOW The Snakes KNOW ...

I've GOT ...

...... " Something for THEM ! " .......

No one just wakes up and takes up
mountaineering,

one has to work one's way to the top,
I climbed up and took up origami.

crushed into the borders where the wallflowers grow
I ought to know how it feels to be left on the shelf.

but I woke up and broke out
spoke out
in cafe's I spouted, shouted from
the rooftops
but it stops as it should
because we're only as good as
the next conquest,
the rest is confetti.

In Canterbury
the priest is not concerned,
he is earmarked for history
I am marked for all time.