Atari clouds are digital ziggurats,
and rather minimal at that.
The sounds are Amiga.
Welcome to the eighties.

Your hair is big,
your clothes are odd,
and Nagel is a minor god.
Welcome to the eighties.

There is a plague
and ACT UP's rage,
but Reagan will not act his age.
For six years, he will say nothing.

Generation X gives birth to Y,
future hipsters to vilify.
All music is vinyl or cassette.
Rocks stars still wear epaulets.

There are two Coreys, podded peas.
Terrorists stay overseas.
Boy bands aren't quite yet in vogue.
Menudo carries a heavy load.

Ricky Martin is still straight.
Cimino ***** with Heaven's Gate.
Cindy Sherman is everyone.
Johnny Hinckley got his gun.

Welcome to the eighties.

For he's a jolly good fellow,

adorned in yellow and love,
it was hard to see his face through the smoke of a three blunt rotation, but I could feel his heart beating from across the trailer.

Worn out eighties music was the unofficial theme of the night and I think we lived up to the expectations Eddie Murphy set for his.

ballad
from the eighties
vibrates my car speakers -
for a moment I'm reminded
of you

Snapshot memories of are past
having so much fun with the hope that it would last
To my best friend Nan,
a beacon of light to a hurting world in need of love

To the truest friend I ever had
those memories by the stonewall
Started playing together as friends
She had blue eyes & long blonde hair

I had brown eyes and brown hair
roller skating on the sidewalk with the attached rollers with a key
Went down by the brook to catch poly wags
we both went to the same school

Having sleep overs was a blast
a secret passage to get to her father's soda shop
Taking ice cream and delicious candy
everything nice and dandy with Nancy

Yours was are youth to be captured with a precious smile
Cape cod trips when Nan would drive
going to a trip to Provincetown
watching the folks dive for money

Big ships coming to dock
the men would get the money in their mouths
The island we used to go
in a row boat along the beach

Looking for young boys and we found them
went to dances at the Bristol Boys Club
Doing the latest dance craze the Huck Buck
Boys wearing pegged pants and girls wore skirts

To cherish those lasting memories of a time ago
getting married
Nan had three children
Ann had six

To raise and cherish the family united in love
Today we are in are eighties
both with medical issues
Yet remained best friend's after all these years

Around the table,
Literacy discussion turned elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.

I stopped to check my sense of what I had just heard...
Was transported to a prairie farm;
Thought of my Father, then in his eighties
Who felt no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare nor Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.

Every morning, he read his Bible;
Some nights he read the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.

"I don't have time to read!"
He'd shout when I suggested a novel.
What literature he had was in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.

Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way
("Storm's coming, boys! Let's get that hay!");
Cows and calves and bulls,
(Which one was sick or well, dry or bred);
Ways to diagnose mechanical ailments
("Start with the easiest options first");
Metals, to know which welding rod applied
("Aluminum sags, and cast iron cracks");
Grain, rolled crisp between hard hands,
(a test of ripeness);
Cement, to blend the perfect mix,
("Clean gravel/sand, no dirt, not too much water!);
Conservation,
("Always keep some grain on hand" &  
"Keep your fuel above half-tank").

So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.

They all look so young and lively and free on the Berkeley campus
walking and smiling and dancing swing and exercising and studying in internet
cafes and along the college walk there are clubs: pre-dental society,
women engineers, others, worn signs that stay out all year long in California and wear well
like the Clinton/Gore bumper sticker still visible and affixed to the stop sign off Telegraph and I wonder when there will be an avenue called "Internet"
And along the walls of Cafe Mediterraneum are highlights of the sixties, photographed by the dead owner of the place and there are still students studying and wierdos and old people reading books but there is no inspiration here anymore
From my generation, the eighties there are no pictures, and none from the seventies either and from the nineties and this decade has come and gone without notice on the walls
because youth by itself does not renew and innovate and the pressures of culture are too strong to re-invent and
it's not like there's nothing wrong, nothing that needs to be changed in our world today if anything things are worse
but now youth is only thinking about youth and buying low and selling high and there is no more idealism, no more desire to rectify anything, only to establish oneself as part of the middle class or above and have a house and 2.5 children
when the world is quickly being destroyed now just not by war, or an atomic bomb
that would be obvious because it would be loud and white and then there would be darkness and drops of rain and devestation
but I think I want to drop an intellectual bomb on these young people and tell them to wake up and try to change the world again and stop watching Reality TV and
do something that will help the world and put your picture on the wall of the Mediteraneum because you are trying to help the collective good and not just feather your own nest and not just worship the rich and exploitive entrepeneurs and try to emulate them as we were told to do in the eighties because that is just selfish meaninglessness that can't keep being replicated in this world, because it can't withstand it
our land and water can't withstand this lifestyle and the dollar store selling cutesie things made in China are coming from child labor and blood money and this dollar store is on Telegraph and no one cares or notices not even the young,
as slave labor continues to produce goods, just not here, where you can see it
and even if you care about animals, you can think of two million cats and dogs torchured and skinned alive for their fur in China and you , Berkeley are wearing it onn your fur trimmed coats
There is an eeries silence on Telegraph now where there should be the aliveness of debate and not just to get ahead, but to give a voice to the voiceless and alleviate the real and obvious suffering in the world
So youth, you are not so young and fresh you are a dissapointment
you are cowardly, pondering your own navel
and submissive and I expect more
THIS IS NOT ENOUGH
change is frightening, but it is
the only thing
that will save us

Dearest reader,


My name is Margot Dylan and I am no longer a ******.

I stared at Dianne staring at Frieda Bentley, as she dragged on a Camel Blue and as I dragged my pen across my notepad. I sketched her figure as she walked closer to Frieda, dropping her cigarette on the ground. Frieda smiled at Dianne, as she stepped and twisted her shoe on the smoldering carcass.

And they looked at each other. Not like how normal people look at each other. And Dianne smiled. A smile that was not like any smile Dylan ever gave me.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, with ******* slipping to my collarbone. The ******* tapping belonged to a girl. The girl's name was Thora, a brunette that smelled like bubblegum and 'don't go'. Thora had something in common with Dianne: They both recently came out as gay. Unlike me, both family reactions were fairly positive. In fact, so positive that-What are you drawing?

"Margot?"

I paused, looked at Thora, and looked back at Dianne or Dylan Dunham. "That girl," I pointed in their general direction, as Dianne kissed Frieda on the forehead. Thora followed my finger in time for the kiss on the lips, "the ironic one."

Thora Nelson, daughter of Cameron Nelson and the deceased Geraldine Nelson, looked at my chin and asked, "Who is she?"

Thora's cotton-candy-blues met my puddles of mud, as I looked away, putting my notepad in my backpack. Before I zipped, I grabbed the lime green marker sleeping next to my pack of index cards. My teeth squeezed the leaf colored cap off, as I pulled out the fetus, smelling the aroma of non-toxic afterbirth.

I asked if she wanted a tattoo and she shrugged, "Oh no, you mean I get to choose whether you touch me or not?"

Lightly pressing the fiber tip to her arm, I glanced up at her and shrugged a bony shoulder, "Her name is Dylan Dunham. Well, it's actually Dianne. It's complicated. I used to call her Dylan. She used to call me Margot."

"But your name still is Margot," Thora informed as her eyes followed the acid-green ink trail.

"Some people change, some people don't," I said, with the cap held between my teeth.

I painted her arm in lime hope, by the soda machines. My eyes focused on her pores that I imagined swallowed dirt and bacteria from the side of my palm. I could feel Thora disarm me with her eyes, after I had disarmed her with my words. Her heartbeat echoed inside my grasp.

"I didn't know I was dating Leonardo DaVinci," the words flowing from her mouth.

"I am gay and Italian, so it's not like I was doing a terrific job of hiding it from you," I muttered as I finished and held her pale forearm and bracelet cuffed hand a foot from her face, "Look: it's us underneath a tree."

Turning and wrinkling her nose, she adjusted, moving her head back and forth. " Oh wow. Wow, wow, wow. Meta. So meta. So abstract. Brilliant in its simplicity, deconstructing the concept of natural complexity-"

"Shut up-"

"The tree looks like an umbrella. And we look like we have canes-"

"Those are our fishing poles. In that world, we are fishermen. Fisherwomen. Fishergals-"

"And my **** is too big and your ***** are too small and our smiles aren't big enough-well, at least mine isn't, I can't speak on your behalf," she finished.

Grabbing her arm, I looked at my masterpiece, looked at her, looked at it again, and looked at her again as her smile grew with every glance. "Well, I can see how it'd be up to debate, and you're right: very, very meta. But you do have a big ****, and I'm not one to sacrifice accuracy. Speaking of accuracy: as I look at this green ****, I realized I hit the mark by dating you. Honestly, your **** may have its own zip code..And...I'd like to be in its area? Please stop me."

Her chin touched her knee, as she doubled over, laughing. I played with her hair, wrapping her bangs around my fingers. As my hands were enveloped by her dark hair, I found a scar on her crown. I imagined Thora's milky-white fingers scrubbing through shampooed locks, trembling across the zig and zag of removed glass.

I imagined Thora Nelson, of Cameron Nelson and the deceased Geraldine Nelson, hearing sirens instead of water hitting the tiles. Her slumping to the floor, as lather and water runs down her face, each tear a memory of being dragged out of a steel ribcage, onto broken glass jungle pavement. It was too easy yet too difficult to imagine her staring at the steaming showerhead. It was too easy yet too difficult to imagine her reaching towards a metallic carcass growing in flames.

Her hand grabbed my leg and I saw her for what might have been the first time.

"Hey you. Listen. Are you listening?"

I nodded.

"I'm in love with you, Margot Dylan. Like, really in love. To the point to where I feel like I'm in a Jennifer Aniston rom-com. It's disgusting."

I didn't know what happened between my exploration of her hair and her pale face studying mine, but, before I knew it, my blood shook and barbed wire nerves orbited around pieces of my body.

The ricochet of a soda can smacking the mouth of the machine sounded. Time was either too fast or too slow, as I looked at Thora's cheap mascara eyes and chapped, soft pink lips. She was the type of girl that could make someone happy not to believe in god.

"And I love you. To the point to where I'd refuse Hogwarts because of not being able see you during the school year."

"How sweet, I know how badly you wanted to get into Ravenclaw," she smiled.

"Sacrifices must be made in the name of love, you know. And it ***** because you're not even my type," I admitted.

"Oh, how tragic. And what is your type, if I may ask?"

"You may, thank you. And the falling in love type," I'm an idiot.

"Could you be anymore cheesy?"

"Mozzarella."

She stopped and looked at me, "Hey, but really, I'm in love with you. It's real."

"I love you, too."

Her eyes were speckled,"You really love me, Margot Dylan? Because I'll believe you."

I leaned in, softly placed my hands on her cheeks, breathing the word, "Yes." I alternated between staring at her mouth and her eyes, as her lids began to drop.  My lips started to dab hers and soon grab, as if soft hooks grew out of and connected our flesh. I found the corner of her mouth, the summit of her cheek, and each crease in her lips. Nine or ninety seconds past before I stopped, pulled away, and looked into her eyes. "Hogwarts is overrated anyway," I lied. She laughed.

Her face was red, as she looked down while covering her face, "Don't look at me, I'm a dork. I'm being a loser. I'm infected."

"It's okay. You can be my infected dork and we can be losers together," my voice was a rasp.

"It really isn't. You see, my face always becomes extraordinarily red after I kiss or am kissed by someone, especially by someone beautiful. And it doesn't help that I've never been kissed by someone I love. And I've never kissed a girl before and I'm really glad you were the first, so there. Gah," her hands fenced her face,"I'm just going to hide behind these hands, don't mind me."

I was in love, "For how long?"

"Probably forever, I don't know. Or until the next installment of American Horror Story, I haven't made up my mind yet."

We heard Ms. Calloway scold Dianne about smoking on school grounds. I looked at Thora and the bell rang. Her hands slowly dropped, as everyone started to move in blurs. Bodies gaining more and more distance. Inches became miles. Feet grew into light-years, and, before I knew it, Thora kissed my cheek and said, "I hope I see you later, okay?"

My hand had something in it. My fingers unfurled and revealed high school origami. My name was on it, with a heart or a ****-I'm the artist in the relationship. I began pulling on *****, the tips of my fingers breaking the paper safe. So delicate must have been her mysterious movements.

I opened it.




A pebble flew from my hand and blipped off her bedroom window. Funny thing about bedroom windows, they look the same at 12:03 am. Or maybe they look a little different when the person you love is behind the glass, as you do an eighties-film-esque pebble throw. Before my next pebble hit the pane, her bedroom light came on.

Navy blue curtains disappeared to the sides as Thora came to the window and rubbed her eyes. A second later, she was gone as I imagined her sneaking past her father's bedroom, quietly down the stairs, and through the foyer. As I imagined this, I could hear the front door being unlocked and creaking open. I walked towards the porch and a yellow glow escaped with a silhouette living in it.

Thora's left hand is burnt, but I don't mind and I don't think I ever will. She held my hand as we walked through the threshold. At first I was nervous when I saw her father in the living room, but I instantly realized that he was passed out, as my eyes found empty beer cans sleeping beside him and around him.

"It's not like this every night," she whispered, "he just has trouble with certain months."

Thora tucks her toes when standing in place. When we were walking up stairs, I knew she would be embarrassed if I looked at her toes, so I kept my eyes on the second floor. I don't understand why she feels this way, though. She has very nice feet, and that's coming from someone who thinks feet are gross.

We walked past punched in doors adjacent to perfect picture frames. Her mother was a beautiful woman.

As we approached Thora's sticker-clad door, she turned to me and whispered, "You're about to enter the only place in the world I feel safe. So, please don't break my heart in it and please use a coaster."

My thumb kissed her smooth burn, as I took my first steps into her bedroom. The light-switch flicked and her room illuminated. There were movie posters hugging the walls, pinned to a bulletin board were pictures of lost people and found memories. She looked at me and whispered, "I don't know how to keep people."

We stood before the side of her bed and I looked at her smile, "You sure you want to do this?" Thora nodded and I reached towards her thighs to lift the bottom of her shirt. Lifting it over her head, I looked at her porcelain figure clad in black *******. I tossed the grey shirt onto her bed.

My eyes swam from her belly button to her *******. My fingers approached and stopped until she said it was okay. Tracing her curves, scars, and stretch marks, she pet my fingers. Thora glanced at my hands on her ******* and then at me, cooing, "I'm sorry."

My hands slid to her sides, "Sorry for what?"

She shrugged, "I don't know," her eyes spilling, "Sorry for this," she motioned at her torso as she stared at her bulletin board and then at me before looking away again, "I want to be perfect. I want to be perfect for you."

"Oh no, no, no," I asked for her hand and then placed it over my left breast, "Can't you feel how beautiful you are?"




Her arm was under my ******* and her hand was on my rib, occasionally running her fingertips across the bumps. She slept with her leg wrapped around mine, staying as close as she could to me. I looked at her, in her slumber, and left a faint, burgundy stain on her forehead. I reached towards our shins and pulled the black cover over our fused bodies.

I feel like I have been in a coma for seventeen years and I've just woken up. If I could, I'd stretch this moment over centuries and use it to smother wars. This relationship probably won't last past my senior year, but that's okay. It truly is.

In this moment, Thora Nelson is the love of my life, and, in ways I don't understand yet, that is the most beautiful thing in the world.



May the sun set in our eyes forever,


Margot Dylan

Bequeath this Honour from the Eighties' Tribe
To he who Modelled their Choice of Youth then
Synchronise! The Word our Age imbibe
Of Cool Moves, Puppies and Groovy-Pop Scent
This Innocence, Sir, which you Emulate
Through Mischief that Last Good Deed you remind
How we, though Clowned, this Party appreciate
Left printed for Cats to oogle behind
Then that Watch you wore alarmed you to Grow
And signalled your Hour to stand and be brave
Hail, Parker Soldier! Valiant Flag bestow,
Took arms with Locals and fought for our Stay.
And when you Return, those Preppie-Girls cheer
The Nerd and the Suave, Cross-Wrists with you here.

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Its halloween  my favorite time of year.
Grown women running around half naked.
Makes me wanna awake the spirt and grab a beer.

Boy i wish my last nurse dressed like that.
My recovery would have been so much fun.
Oh please miss witch cast a spell on me and turn
me into your loving puddie cat.

oh miss **** police women ya can handcuff me.
I'll go commit a crime just to be guilty.

Yes it's  this goblins favorite time of year.
Where women dress like naugthy  little vixens.
And instead of candy I hand out cheap pickup lines
and beer.

Boy that chicks hot but wait.
Didint  I just  see her  in the guys restroom.
Doing something standing up straight.

Hey man whatcha going as hell who cares.
Im more interested  in  what your hot
wife wears.

From a **** school girl to a smokin french maid.
It's like going to the worlds biggest *******.
No cover charge need be paid.

Who cares bout Freddy and Jason  and other worn out
monsters from the eighties.
Cause all i got say it halloween ladies.

When I die, will you sprinkle my ashes over the eighties?
Maybe I'll come back as a newborn L.A. baby
Some say you do it for the attention
But God knows there's no pretty boys in heaven

hereunder is served some poetry pouches full of love,
dear reader, stir them as you like,
if you wish you may crack them to pour into mouth,
you may smear them on your body
or you may sprinkle them on the ground
and then chant the name of god
with love and enjoyment

1.
the simplicity that rolls down
from the body of the sweet-meat
made by my mother

let it brings light
to our radish-red love-story

to hear or to notice
love
does not need
putting an ear on the wall
of the wall-street journal

the bottle could be filled
from the voice

when you go to fill the bottle
you would see that everywhere
the arrangement of picnic is ready

when i want to take part in that feast
my neighbours would drive me towards
the home  

although i’ve spent all my life
running behind the love

2.
who’s won the muddy-battle
was yesterday’s politics

my addiction is actually to cater
the pouch of love
to develop all vitamins
and all bathrooms

people say you don’t love
the claps of the rats

yet i’ll come down
from the branch of a guava-tree
as a wave-of-shopping-mall
to the lake of your love

now i’ll jump out
from this computer screen
to register a kiss
on your lips

don't miss to applaud
by clapping the hands


3.
the heart is half-sunk
in the window

to some extent
in the lipstick too

on the dinner-plate
there is the feelings of the lord

that means
i’ve to be burnt more
i do agree

i would become
the sculpture of khajuraho

this happenings may have been
the right search for love

on either-side of which  
a green is being worked out
by the nostalgic-cycle

whose colour-texture is very much harappa
which has too many geometric-memories

4.
an undertone is speaking
from within the solitude

now i’m in very much
distress

or i’m in love

i don’t know my love is what-for
may be that’s an arrangement only

so easily are those interactions
stitched with words

strenuous or effortless
in flight
initiated
with seclusion

but when in the sinking of the playfulness
i  write the games of the street-charmers


the birds again and again
pierce the archery

thus becoming ashes
through travelling

in time-gaps still
the audacity to compose poems
on you

5.
is it true love
or i do take it granted
that i’m in love

or i do love to think
that i’m loving

and there is
neither any welcome address
nor any opening song
in my love

my experience with heat of fire
and with burning pain
in the flames of water
is nothing less

6.
in course of burning
i look around

the chilly-plant  in the tob
planted in my won-hand
producing green-chillies

oh-** how sweet they are

it is no chilled-body
that has earned
my life or death

no remarkable mark
is endorsed
on the lotus-leaf

now easily some words
can be written
on you

i don’t know whether
those would be at all
some lines of a poem


7
someone falls in loves
someone makes love
love comes to some another

there is the far-off
whispering

at first she constructs me
then destroys rightly

i notice her
for the first time in six weeks  

the love
that writes
in the footnote of the tennis-ball
a desperate struggle for existence

within our skull
there is the love

or the midnight of the orion

the little squirrel asked now
are you in your seventies
or eighties

those houses with the coating of
the sky the air the light-and-shade
provide me with the presentation of
a wig and
a set of artificial teeth
8.
the love
that touches the hand
in drizzling

the love
that gets lost in the brandishing
grasses

would they want to inform
that the flowers don’t have any skyscraper

in the layers of the flesh and blood
of the detergents
as if  a whole human civilisation has been suffering
from suppressed pain

within it with the dry spell of
anger and cough
the time

had there been no feeding from the love
does the human civilisation stagger

9.
do you think those words
or it’s myself

whatever may you say now
i’ll travel within a great death
to die

rather after my demise i may tell
i’ve informed everyone …look

beneath the large evergreen flower tree
the game of light and shadow continues

beside those simple households
besides a high-head mobile-tower
what else would you like to be

is it a bath in the ganga-river is it a leaf
of the water-lily or it’s a king-cobra  
tell me

i would now make love
with that idea from you

10.
the  apparent golden *** that i thought
to be the underneath of a kadam-tree

in the dim light i can notice that
the stars in the sky are disappearing  

this session of poetry
is coming to an end

now where would i
go

to that little home

the home
a tiny word of 4 letters

within that home
the children are giggling
playing … and making funs

when i entered
with a tri-cycle in hand
for them

i have been perplexed
many old persons are waiting there
to shake hands with me

10.
almost most of my desires  
are very much hurt

to show it publicly
i wrap bandages
around all over my body

i keep on the stage-drama  

in our programme of reading poetry
tea is served twice
current has gone off for three times
for four times the mobiles ring

to pick up love  
some people think about returning back
from today’s dais to the ancient stage
of performing folk-drama

then they are also sympathetic
to my sufferings

12.
everyday
on my way to return home from the school
when my mom took hold of my hands

i could see in my body
the dancing of an unforgettable
aura

even now that mystical halo is walking
on the leaves of the trees
to fulfil my mornings

that wayfaring along the road
is ringing far and far-off

thus taking bath in every day’s  
dust smoke hue and cry

many such love
gradually gets aged

is it true
in the long run
i too
would be the ingredient
of a fairy-tale

just because i love
that paddy field

some time later
she will also become
human

13.
then she will make all of us  
join her walking

those inmost feeling
those memories meditations

the loneliness  and solitude…

sans the touch of the imagination of
a crater…
a creator…

this blunder…
this socially outcast white …

this type of uneven…
and irrelevance…

sume words
when peep in the mind
i surprise to see that
it’s ten to 2 at night

then in the balcony
my father is crying

he always notices some grave-yard men
in front of him

and sheds tears  

14.
after the dry leaves of the winter
fall in innumerable drops
the spring comes

the cover-face of spring means
a note-book of the rain-tree
letting float in the sun-water

and mr harry says that
this question of change
is a major pull

because all the unreal talks
you are delivering one by one

to keep pace with it
the ambulance comes at 10am
with a stale dead-body

in it’s shirt
is written the spelling of myself

i then sat on the grey volume
of the college-campus

in the front
a beggar from the war of waterloo
is passing by

over the dust of myself
with a faster pace
blowing is the thoughts of

ataraxia  
in the air… and air… and air…
    

15.

if your wishes colour silver
then do return back to the x-mass dancing
of the autumn

sound of whose far-off hoof-steps
digging so much soil of
story-weeds

i went into the nail-polish
with the proof of tea-cup
in my hand

there in the midst of lot of snow-flakes
and in the bed soft with the light of the candle
is now that honey-name more tarnished

now the atomic-howling
does not follow the rules of nature

so the rain-tree that seeks a-field-more-sky
with the hope to become king after the sun-rise

so that king is now waiting
in the grocer’s shop
at a stretch  for an hour

16.
does her well-wisher esse then thinks
to escape from the love-making whirl-wind

on the dry branches of the axis power
the new generation of the birds

rather stop a while there silently and listen
which song is hidden in the bronze-buddha

or in the school of the terracotta-horse

i’m now opening the coating
of the night-enamel to read this home

and behind the coo of dove
is smiling

the god of the penalty-kick

17.
sitting on an orange-coloured balcony
in an outsider lane
the green is writing poems
  
better than the face-powder

from this side all long the famine
i’m the priest of the
agro-based civilisation

still-then i think
why so much light of partiality
is on the body of the chrysanthemum

within the monsoon
in collusion with the  hair-band
now thousands of birds are born  

they can hear my
dry straws and twigs

whose hearing is the police
in so depth of the forest

don’t move the
dreadful resorts

one such photograph of the girls
who wakes up in the midnight

speechless…
unmindful …
destruction…

that is you now

i’m then in the spore
of the perfume-bounded body
of match-making

18.

who has lied in the box
made up of the temperature
of god

all on a sudden
there is a hue and cry
in the abdomen of the time
wearing a ***** pajama

actually that has been filtered up
from the voices of rock-songs

the roaming
of a fatigued traveller …

the lies
within their wishes
write my existence

and then run
to buy vegetables
from the station-market

so many lay-offs
come to the body of paper-weight

to listen to all those
is not improper

walking through the traffic-jam
gradually
this home becomes solely my home

one day the golden of
human

then it is i
who is you

and walking through the
monsoon

on either side of the field
it is all autumn

19.
when borrowing the religion of
the night-queen  
i fall in love

then is it real
that our mangos and jack-fruits  
can make the perfumed-soap
vigorously from the light of the
blood-line

i count the bells of the churches
ringing repeatedly

and piercing the image
of your prominent face

rounding through lots of old
the love becomes exhausted

and the love comes back
in the form of college-classes

there are you myself
and so many notes
of the body

Around the eighties the Mumers New Year Parade in Philly
lost a bit of its tradition. It originally was made for
the average working family. But around this period
people were charged to watch them do their famous strut
and extra displays of course only at City Hall.
And so let us begin my poetic story...


Standin' among the crowd,
watchin' blue police-van-bleeders
being escorted; wearin' city-steel-wrist-braclets

And now struttin' my way,
psychopathic eclipsers
of physical freedom
seekin' potential comatose heads
to tap

And squads of finger thrusters
of back pockets for targets,
dart in and out of crowds,
quickly countin' their *****
in dark unseen places

Feet freeze
as sounds travel,
" Oh dem golden slippers"
soundin' like cheap tin toy Kazoos
and toy glockenspiels

The wind kisses
my **** end blue
as a flyin' Budweiser
kisses my right foot wet

Man made pop art
reflects the times
at the times
at Broad and Spruce
of cigarette butts,
chocolate wrappers,
and crushed beer cans
climaxin' montage
of the mountain- ****** eighties

Boozers and blue
sweet puffers
wearin' smiles
outside
and within most inner thoughts
puff-buffed away from some reality
step in cadence to their
own music within themselves

And wailin' children
havin'
more sense
than adults
become early sacrifices
to the fruit of Bacchus

The marching high strutters of "Big Bird",
they strain and struggle under the weight
of heavy hernia suits;
with feathers and sparklers,
their instruments wrestle as steamy air puffs shoot forward
from their nostrils
like  red-devil-painted-dragon faces
in the bitter cold air
warmly protected by their attire and *****,
they stop seemingly for eternity,
in the suspended purgatorial
halts
one after another,
only waitin'
for the grandstand reserved section
around City Hall
Yet we wait and pray together
that perhaps like in the older days
we will get a sneak of
a nostalgic, spontaneous,
free dance-strut
that never comes

Attached, yet unattached
and cryin' inside;
always on guard
for flyin' and drunkin' fists
or flyin' articles
of all sizes
Seein'  through
the facades of we must act
like ha! ha! ha!
I cry inwardly
with anger
doin' the rat-tat-tat
of no more nonsense
of my inner-self
Strivin' and movin' to flee Freddie Kruger's bladed fingers
I sting all over,
my teeth clinch with anger,
darkness intensified
The crowd becomes uglier,
blackness
engulfs
black souls
Vehement, crazy,
hordes and hordes of frustration bellows
outward
The call of Nietzche,
The ouch under my skin

This damnable real parade
not shown in Liberace-livin'-Color

No commercial breaks of luxury cars
that drive livin' manikins
Livin' manikins that wear dial under their arms
while smilin' the brand of Crest toothpaste
but instead,
a street drunk with
broken ugly teeth
as he begs for quarters
and blows his odorous breath
beyond description

And City Hall payin'-grandstanders
with tv cameras
bein' in the spirit of "Disneyland"
presents
the overly organized narcissistic prostituted
elegance of forever, floatin', bouncy,
dancy, prancy,
skippin' to the tune
of  mom's Apple pie,
a small slice of my reality

And the applaudin' money makin'
TV grandstanders
of goody goody
look mom I can do the swan dance
while holdin' multiple
colored sparklers
wrapped in feathers
But why must I
see through the eyes of a Godless Nietzsche,
**** it!!

the dead poet of your romantic youth
left behind his melodious words in song
left behind his roadside fast eyes neatly packaged
still can purchase his dream down at the five and dime
still can find a tight leather pants version
of his photograph looking lizard like
in clean bollywood style

the dead poet of your romantic youth
lingers there in her eyes
she always said he was so rad
with her eighties big hair
the dead poet was in one of his many revivals
they would drag the poor old slob out
prop him up and take a picture
the dead poet lizard king
his words faded now
as his star on the walk of fame

Random Sampling

Coughing up a lung,
sticking out my tongue.
Looking up her skirt,
dropped my pencil in the dirt.
Watching movies just for fun,
I will never own a gun.
Cat **** on the floor,
kicked it out the door.
Jake The Snake and The Macho Man,
will forever be a wresting fan.
Heavy metal and hard rock,
Skid Row's singer was Sebastian Bach.
New Jersey's pizza is the best,
it would beat New York's in any taste test.
Slept with girls, I didn't like,
soon after, I made them take a hike.
Never slept with a man,
if the money was right, I guess I can.
Love all my family and friends,
mess with them and I will defends.
Done some killer drugs,
stuck screwdrivers in some plugs.
I love paper, I love pen,
I'm more smart than the Three Wise Men.
Pina Colada's in Margaitaville,
then I take the bitter pill.
I still love eighties music,
it's relaxing and therapeutic.
Baseball is my favorite sport,
the Phillies, I will always support.
The next Super Bowl will be held in San Quentin,
***** girls take it on the chin.
I had a few nervous breakdowns,
I've put on a few to many pounds.
Allen does what Allen wants,
how's that for my final response.

My antidepressants don't work
the way I want them to.
I tried to imagine watching each film
with anyone but you.

Your flickering eyes,
they project the world.
Hidden reels
inside your soul.
There's too many people
inside your bones.
You don't have to be
in your theatre alone.

I forgot how to sleep
under the same ceiling.
I watch movies in the dark
to remember the feeling
that made me confide in her.
My eighties film.
My Winona Ryder.

There's too many people
inside your bones.
You don't have to
be in your theatre alone.

Five after dawn
and your movie's still on.
Christian, **** the popular kids,
because they don't understand
how her brain works,
how her glances steal,
how each death
can't make her feel.

Your flickering eyes,
they project the world.
I watch movies in the dark
to remember the feeling
that made me confide in you.
My eighties film.
My Winona Ryder,
let me forget you.

Maybe you're crazy
with your cleaner.
Maybe each swing of the mallet
made you meaner.
Maybe reality bites because of Heather.
Maybe it scared you that we were in love, together.

Maybe it scared you to stay together.
Maybe it scared you to stay together.

Around the table, literacy discussion
Turns elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.

I stop to check my sense of what I have just heard...
Am transported back to a prairie farm
And think of my Father, now in his eighties
Who still feels no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare or Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.

Every morning, he reads his Bible;
Some nights he reads the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.

"I don't have time to read!"
He shouts, when I suggest a novel.
What literature he has is in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.

Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way;
Cows and calves and bulls -
Which one was sick or well, dry or bred;
Equipment to diagnose mechanical ailments;
Metals to know which welding rod applied;
Grain, rolled crisp between his hands, a test of ripeness...
Cement to find the perfect mix,
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.

(in the dream it is late March)
there's a light rain in Montréal & the sky
is a gorgeous, early-morning variety of slate grey. imagine the lid
of an old metal garbage-can.
everything is dismal, perfect. and quiet; even the people leaving the bars are silent.
dismally, perfectly, silent.

ghosts of old cats—belonging maybe to ghosts of old ladies who lived, say, just off St. Lau, back
in the eighties—ramble downhill, in the direction of rue St. Catherine (Saint Cat! O patron of felinity!) ,
between the legs of those spilling out from the trendy & ****** clubs.
some of the ghosts wander out into the street, flash thru car tires that would've (& have) (at one time)
smashed them to pulpy carpet on the asphalt.
(who goes to pick them up then? when the tires have had their way with them over & over?
when they are just hair & porridge by a sewage grate?)

after a greasy smoked-meat-on-rye or a nightcap at somebody's place, just off the drag,
i'm in a sodden, but warm overcoat, hands curled in the bottoms of it's pockets; mis-shapen mass
of hair plastered to my scalp; walking en bas de la montagne just past the McGill Medical Centre.
—this late, the busses back downtown are never on time.
(driver's probably having a few smokes before he starts that long tour down. full up of drunk kids,
taking one another back to their dorms, etc.)
(and what does he have, to look forward to at shift's end?
        i. a cranky wife—past her prime?
        ii. a buncha dogs—yapping for attention?
        iii. some ******* kid—who's disrespectful & won't shut up or turn his stupid ******* punk-rock down?

—it's enough to make me patiently wait.  i'll wait forever, as long as that isn't me.)

...'spose I'LL have a cigarette too. waiting
in the bus shelter on Ave. Des Pins looking down over the
football fields of the McGill Athletics Dept.
still lit up. no sun yet but
now at 4 AM a dull inch or two of lightened grey out there on the horizon.. dawn will come,

though i'd rather not face the day. all the mornings are so hard after nights like this.
bound to be hungover &
spend the day hiccuping in bed texting some girl; maybe get up
in the late afternoon t'fix coffee, toast & eggs.
sit on the balcony,
make my little guitar sigh,
and try to feel normal until i [have to] puke.

"—and who was that girl i spoke to for so long at St. Sulpice last night? how many gin-tonics did she let me buy myself, nattering on?.. probably too drunk to even get her number."
"—maybe Sean or Dylan will know if she came thru with anyone we knew.."

the bus is finally here. twenty-and-three minutes late. the back of it probably smells of
stale smoke, dim sun, and sweaty, rain-soaked cloth, absorbed from jackets into the seats—the eau du jour.
it's always a bump 'n **** ride down the hill; bound to,
with the other handful of dumb & silent riders, drunkenly sway,
(or is it a natural compensation of the body, to groove along with the curves and stops?)
back & forth like carcasses of half-dozen slaughtered pigs
swinging on their hooks in back of a meat wagon..
(i'll end up getting on, but only for three blocks. i'll ******* walk the rest of the way home,
after that comparison. to hell with the rain.)

SIX MINUTES LATER:
(Avenue Des Pins still—4 blocks closer to downtown)

directly in line now with McGill campus via McTavish; this way i can
cruise down thru the silence of the main drag having a couple smokes drinking beer
(copped a 40 at a Dep before i left St. Lau—frosty under my arm enshrouded by brown paper.)
& be left to my own thoughts for fifteen minutes 'til i get to Sherbrooke
—i adore that fifteen-minute stretch down thru the jumble of
student associations, clubs, faculty offices, administration buildings, resources centres & the like;
all contained in the same red bricked, white trimmed victorian monster, multiplied threescore
on either side of the lane; all built in the early nineteen-hundreds, all acquired by the university in one of several expansion initiatives in a decade i won't bother to guess at, it doesn't matter. you don't care..

midway down the hill i stop and go sit on the verandah of one of the buildings,
the graduate studies in math offices —
cccrack that forty.
sit there with the sun JUST barely splitting the seam of the horizon feelin'
like the lyrics from a Sun Kil Moon song. nothing more or less.  
"off to a good start," says i.

There’s a favorite culinary dish in town;
it’s known as the synapse shish kebab.
It’s high in protein as well as fat, and it comes
with a garlic-infused broccoli rabe,
available with a choice of couscous or rice.
The palate will most likely be enticed, just like
another common John who swears to us that he
again has done absolutely nothing wrong.
It pairs nicely with an eighties chenin blanc,
gray matter that’s grilled to sheer perfection,
smoked all day, and is guaranteed satisfaction,
seemingly like an old, rambling rolling stone.
The lights are on—but nobody’s buying homes.
An opera singer that is deaf to certain tones,
this is definitely not regal crumpets and tea—
“heart-healthy nutrition,” all our medics agree.
There’s a new critically acclaimed dish around;
it’s the slow-roasted synapse shish kebab,
moderately priced, and portions are family style—
passed-down secret recipes from west of the Nile,
and also numbers that won’t make your wallet sob
like a big, bad, dark, overly loaded cloud.
Give it a try, and then shout it out loud:
synapse shish kebab!

Homage to the late poet; Kofi Owonor


By
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)


In one Sunday Nation article, Professor Ali A Mazrui analyzed the inter-politicality of The Jaramogi Odinga family and The Kennedy family by arriving at a difference that the Odinga’s have curse of long life but the Kennedy’s have a curse of early death through violent and untimely  mode of death .Mazrui made these analogies in reference to violent death of John F. Kennedy and the subsenguent Chappaquiddick bridge tragedy.Similarly,the salient difference between a European and American or a Japanese and African writer or African artist is that most of African writers die early in the mid of their lives through violent death but in contrast American and some European writers die peacefully and comfortably in their old age. Early and violent death is the dominant bane, fate and misfortune that now and then besmirch an African writer. This position is in recognition of a fact that my child-hood American popular literature writers in the name of Mario Puzzo author of the God Father and Robert Ludlum an author of several anti soviet spy series like; Borne dentity, Borne Ultimatum and Icarus Agenda plus very many others like The Matlock Paper had just to die recently in their late eighties. The most surprising of all is Phillip Roth whom I read at the age of twelve years while in my primary four.  Now I am forty years and this year 2013 Phillip Roth is still alive and active to the American literary civilization that he has been touted by the Ladbrokes as a probable candidate for Nobel Prize in literature. But sadly enough on 22 September 2013 in Nairobi the black angel of early  death has carried ahead its  foul duty by claiming the life of Africa’s most honorable literary scholar Professor Kofi Owonor during the helter-skelter of Alshabab terrorist lynch of the upscale West Gate Mall in Nairobi.
Actually this essay is meant to be a deep felt homage to the late Kofi Owonor, Killed by Islamic terrorists in Nairobi. However, the essay also goes ahead to decry the violent and early deaths of several other African writers. The deaths which have almost turned Africa into a literary dwarf if not a continent of artistic bovarism. Kofi Owonor, who peacefully and honorably came to attend Story Moja Literary festival to be held in Nairobi, was violently shot by the Islamic fundamentalist terror group known as Al shabab. Whose gunmen lynched the Mall in which was Kofi Owonor and his son. The terrorist were sending out the Muslim catchword on which if one fails to respond then he was known not to be a non- Muslim on to which he is shot or held hostage for ransom.Fatefull enough, Kofi Owonor was not muslim.He was an elder, an Africanist, a scholar, a poet, a realist, a rationalist, a Christian, a religious non-fundamentalist and a literary liberalist. He could not respond with any tincture of religious irrationalism to the question of the terrorist. He was shot dead and his son injured. Too sad. This is actually the time when Christian positivism goes beyond rigidity of other religious affectations in its classic assertiveness that the devil kills the flesh but not the soul. And indeed it is true the devilish terrorist killed Owonor’s flesh but not his literary soul. They are such and similar situations that made Amilcar Cabral to observe in his Unity and Struggle, in a section on Homage to Kwameh Nkrumah to rationalize that the sky is too enormous to be covered by the palm of a sadist nor to be vilified by the spitting of the filthy ones; Truly, like Nkrumah, Kofi Owonor was the sky of African intellect never to be covered by the brute of the cannon from the parrel of a Muslim terrorist.
Kofi Owonor is not alone neither are we alone. You, my dear reader and I  we are not in any historical nor literary solititude. In Africa God has blessed us with the opportunity of the dead relatives in the name of the living dead. We are not the first and the last to grief. Owonor is not the first and the last to dance with fate. Even Ali A. Mazrui in his literary expositions of 1974 otherwise published as the trial of Christopher Okigbo.A  novella in which Mazrui cursed ideology as an open window into the moving vehicle that let in  a very bad political accident to Nigeria in the name of Biafra war which claimed life of  Christopher Okigbo at the Nzukka battle front. This was one other sad moment at which Africa lost its young literary talent through violent death.
Reading of African literary biographies in all perspectives will not miss to make you attest to this testimony. Both in situ and in diaspora.Admirable African American writers like Malcolm X, and Dr Luther King all died through violent death. Even if in the recent past, the Daughter of Malcolm X revealed to Sahara Reporters, Nigerian Daily, that Louis Farrakhan was behind the assassination of her father, wisdom of the time commands us to know that it was evil politics of that time that made Malcolm X to die the way international politics of today in relation to crookedness which was entertained during the formation of the state of Israel that have made the son of Africa professor Kofi Owonor to die.
An in-depth analysis into the life and times of African writers and artists will show that the number of African cultural masters who die violently is more than the number of those who died normally in their old age. Some bit of listology will show help to adduce the pertinent facts; Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Lucky Dube, Walter Rodney, Tom Mboya, J M Kariuki, Che que Vara, Ken Saro Wiwa, Anjella Chibalonza, and Jacob Luseno all but died through violent death. Lumumba died in a plane crash along with Darg Hammarskjöld only after penning some socialism guidelines. After writing I write what I want, a manifesto for black consciousness Steve Biko was arrested and tortured in the police cells during those days of apartheid in south Africa.Biko died violently while undergoing torture in police cells. Lucky Dube was fatefully shot by a confused ****. Walter Rodney who was persuaded by his student who is now the professor Isa Shivji at Dare salaam University not to go back to his country of Guyana, desisted this voice and went back only to be assassinated in the mid of the rabbles that domineered Guyanese politics those days of 1970’s. This happened when Rodney had written only two major books. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, being one of them. Tom Mboya was shot by a hired gunman in down-town Nairobi, some one kilometer away from the West Gate Mall, at which Kofi Owonor has been shot. Mboya could have written a lot. Even more than Rudyard Kipling and Quisling. But fate or bad luck had him violently die after he had only written two books; Challenges to Nationhood as well as Freedom and After. Both of them are classically nice reads until today. He had also submitted sessional paper no. 10 to the Kenya government which was a classical thesis on Africanization of scientific socialism.
J M Kariuki, Che and Saro Wiwa are all known for how they violently died. Powers that be and terrorists that be, expedited violent death against these writers. Thus, brothers and sisters in the literary community of Africa and the world as we mourn Kofi Owonor we must also let Africa to unite in spiritual effort to rebuke away the evil spirit that often perpetrate terror of violent death which  especially  claim away lives of African writers.

References
Ali A. Mazrui; Trial of Christopher Okigbo
Amilcar Cabral; Unity and Struggle

In a world full of ugly people,
A city made of hideous faces,
A phone call means everything.
It means a voice, free from
Its crooked nose, its wrinkled skin,
And its gapped, stained, crooked teeth.
It means a connection.
With another, with yourself,
And with the ability to disconnect
At the push of a button.
I take out my scratched, chipped cellphone
With its cracked face,
And call Helen.
Her voice swims through the mud
Inside my skull when she answers,
Stirring and churning
Until I'm weak and dizzy.
"How 'bout you just come
On over now, Big Fella?"
And I do.
I turn off the squawking television,
Don a pair of food-stained pants,
Drag a comb through my
Overgrown hair,
And descend the stairs to my
Waiting Oldsmobile.
The turn of the key in the ignition
Only produces a hollow click,
One click two click three click six,
Then a partial start,
But the beast fails to come alive.
I get out to replace
The fried starter fuse,
Then do this dance four more times
Before the old ***** clears her throat
And starts to idle.
It's a short ride,
Pawtucket is small,
And my only companion
On these post-midnight streets
Is the white noise
Issuing from the broken radio.
I pass the house I grew out of,
The crumbling schools
That taught me the value
Of impartial numbness,
The cemetery my father used to visit
To perpetrate the lie
He lives;
The role of a child
And the permanence
Of parents.
I pass abandoned factories
And abandoned hope
And abandoned pets
And abandoned storefronts.
In a world of full of past relics,
In a city full of ghosts,
A crumbling façade means everything.
It means bricks freed from their mortar,
Separated from their history,
Left to be picked up and thrown through plate glass windows.
Buildings are never empty,
Just quiet.
I pass the CVS at Newport and Armistice,
With its twenty four hour pharmacy,  
Dispensing the one a.m. hydrocodone,
The one thirty a.m. dextroamphetamine,
The two a.m. oxycodone,
The two thirty a.m. alprazolam,
The three a.m. dextromethorphan,
The three thirty a.m. methylphenidate,
The four a.m. eszopiclone,
The four thirty a.m. benzodiazeprine,
The five a.m. phenylpropanolamine.
I drive past the clinic in the old senior center
With its six a.m. methadone ready to go
In pre measured cups.
Buildings can be quiet, but not empty.
Helen lives on the third floor of a three story house
Built sometime in the forties,
Forgotten sometime in the eighties.
The two bottom floors are vacant,
The windows are boarded,
The driveway is choked with weeds,
And two lounging cats don’t flinch
When I walk by them
On my way to the door in the rear of the building.
The door is always unlocked,
So I let myself in
And begin the rickety climb to the top.
The higher I go,
The louder Amy Winehouse’s voice gets.
“What kind of fuckery is this?”
Seems an adequate question.
There are ****** handprints on the railings,
The walls,
Drops polka dot the stairs.
I don’t bother knocking,
I never do.
She’s seated in a La-Z-Boy in the kitchen
Facing the door,
In a cloud of cigarette smoke.
In place of exchanged pleasantries
I say I need to use the bathroom
And she nods,
Eyes locked on mine.
I take a look at my sallow image
In the mirror,
With specks of toothpaste and hairspray
Pocking my face like acne.
The toilet bowl is still streaked
With the last man’s ****.
I ****, wash my hands,
And take another look at myself.
Helen is no longer in the chair,
But I know where to find her.
She’s sprawled on the bed,
With a new cigarette in her mouth,
The toys spread out on one side,
The tools on the other.
I tell her I’ll forgive her for stabbing me the other night
If I can get a freebee now.
She shakes her head once,
Exhales a cloud,
“Not gonna happen, Champ,”
And I take what I can get.

Music

Running out of time, nothing left to rhyme,
no longer in my prime, listening to Sublime.
Used to smoke ****, slaves I have freed,
red I still bleed, listening to Creed.
I'm all that, I have kicked my cat,
my girl is a brat, listening to Ratt.
Invented a love potion, makes girls frozen,
many things I've broken, listening to Poison.
Buried in the sand, not what I planned,
I need a helping hand, listening to The Steve Miller Band.
Too many cell phones, can never get any loans,
love the show Bones, listening to The Rolling Stones.
Confessing all my sins, playing some violins,
dizzy from the spins, listening to The Thompson Twins.
Standing in the cold, my life is uncontrolled,
just got paroled, listening to Avenged Sevenfold.
Sprayed with mace, kicked in the face,
stuck in this rat race, listening to Three Days Grace.
Working the graveyard shift, lots of sand I must sift,
my life needs a lift, listening to Taylor Swift.
Living in Illinois, tired of hearing noise,
losing all my poise, listening to The Beach Boys.
No hands on the clock, it's me people mock,
dryer stole another sock, listening to Kid Rock.
Music has made me what I am,
loving the hairbands and the glam.
Hard rock is all I know,
how could you not like Ugly Kid Joe.
Heavy metal is where it's at,
all the older bands are bald and fat.
Top forty isn't half bad,
every year it's a different fad.
Disco and grunge had a short stay,
Nirvana and Pearl Jam, get too much air play.
Hip hop and rap has been around to long,
can they even sing a real song.
Nothing will ever beat the eighties,
spandex, hair and all the ***** ladies.
My two favorite songs are Sister Christian,
and Here I go Again,
those songs remind me of way back when.
Country, well that will always ****,
rednecks, Nascar, hunting and a giant truck.

She always sits in front of me
Face full of zits
Frizzy tight curls
Tacky clothes
Thin as a pencil  
You're so greasy
You're pizza
You're macaroni and cheese
  
Why are all the girls in this choir so hideous?
I get sick to my stomach
when I look at you
you are the smell of sickening sweet
an arts major
insecure
fishing for notes
following the leader
  
And worst of all
you're blocking my view of him
You negate the bliss I feel when I see his face
He's looking at me now
But you can't let him see me
I think he loves me
But you're blocking his view
  
Who else would he want in this section?
And then I glance behind me
  
Big ***** girl
Blond greasy hair
Bangles
Eighties chic
Blue eyes
Brown coat
*******
Red pouting lips
She's not ugly
But by logic she should be
  
And I realize I'm a fool
It's her
He can't stop looking at her
  
I'm getting annoyed
He can't control his head
Always turned to my corner of the room
What does she think of this?
  
But she's gone
I won't see her until tomorrow
Was he looking at someone else?
At me?
I ponder the mystery
Leaving choir and the pizza-faced girl
with a smirk on my face
  
Maybe I'm not an ugly choir girl

The Skyscrapers are so high, they seem to touch the passing sky.Freely the puffy white clouds fly, with the birds, mile-high. A high-flying pigeon peeks down from it's perch on a high-rise. The temperature, high eighties, a clock blinks three thirty-five. Tupac bumping from the speakers stock, Pandora blaring from a jukebox. Mercedes windows rattle, when the speakers knock, like forte knots. The sound carries for blocks, but its blocked. By the hustle and bustle of the pavement blocks. Cold streets, paroled by even colder cops. The city never sleeps, so the crime never stops. Hustler’s hustle from the sun up until it drops. Making Wall street money off of these inner city blocks. The ghetto is a project that needs to stop. A homeless man, donation cup in hand, “The American Dream, needs a real back up plan.” Read the sign, by his cardboard stand. His blind dog, named Stan, rusty dog tags hang. He shares and wears the same struggles on his coat, as does the man. Chanel shoes, and big ***** on the cover of a Magazine stand, getting more attention than this wise dog, and this old man.

The winter has set in early; monsoon a memory now,

the trees are all dusty by the all-day din.

This morning, the taxis ply early, eager to get the office-goers in.

Tea fumes in the mist.

The lady in the bungalow alights from her car

with her child, early from school.

Vegetables still asleep on the pushcart.

An eighties number mingles with the wind.

A van loaded with kerosene cans parks at the gates:

there is a tenement at the basement.

I checked your hand when I first "noticed" you
That's one of the first things I do
When I feel that twinge of something for a man
People aren't always what they seem, so I do what I can
But your finger was bare, naked and pure
So I continued on, following your lure

You called me silly things like "dear" and "hon"
And you're my boss, so maybe that's something your shouldn't have done
But I watched you, wondering, trying to be indirect
I didn't want you to know what I felt, I don't want you to suspect

And you seemed to be enjoying the little ride
No mention of a woman in your life, or a wife
So then I thought you could be gay
I noticed a hole for an ear ring in your ear lobe one day

It was left over from the eighties: it was only on one side
I came home and went straight to my computer that night
I looked up on the internet which side mean straight?
I remember that whole eighties style, it wasn't great

After that, I knew you must not be gay
Sometimes you'd pay me a lot of attention, sometimes you'd stray
Months went by, and I still didn't know
And my feelings, I tried to not let them grow

But all I got from you was mixed messages
Sometimes you'd ignore me, sometimes you'd be aggressive

Until one day at a party, you were all over me
And I was confused, I couldn't see
why all the attention, was it the wine?
I was nervous, it didn't feel like the right time
And someone asked you a banal question about your house
And you went off on a riff and I was bored, wanted to run away like a skittish mouse
You were trying to explain some silly situation
with hot water problems, that to you seemed like the news of the nation
And what were you doing about it? Another woman asked.
Answering this shouldn't be such a task.  

And yet, you looked around agitated
Why is that question so hard?  It seemed simply stated.
But then your sentences were choppy, and I knew something was up
You looked up and down, and into your cup.

And then it came out, that word "we"
Something you had never mentioned before, that held the key
to knowing your marital status as I'd tried to find out with my subtle might
My stomach fell to the floor. It wasn't a good night.

4:10 AM, Thanksgiving Day
he lost his breath for good while I watched
In his thirties
lungs weak from polio and huffing Marlboros
Saturday I held one corner of his glossy box
his pricey glossy box
that was to be covered
with free soil

Some spring eve a quarter century later
the old writer
who told his tales well into his eighties
slipped into hospice sleep
and at his widow’s request
I got to hold up another corner
and place another flower
on another fancy shining tomb

Another thousand times
since then
I carried the ironic weight of lives
not all the way to their holy holes
but inch by inch towards the unknown
my shoulder sinking a bit more each time
while I searched for some epiphany in rhyme

we all bear the pall
of everyone’s fall
each has one shoulder sorely bent
regardless of who chose to repent
so as we walk with this worldly weight
someone else helps shape our fate
for try as we may to walk alone
our time is never solely our own

We are the pallbearers, pallbearers
for all

Information Required Order 38582 Moonshine Makin's

I intend to use this order to test
the viability of an herbal extracting service for local gardeners.
If there is interest
and our trials prove commercial, the methods
will be posted publicly, methodic.

The intended customer base is the home canning and preserving enthusiast, ****** societies, 'n'such.

Now, the pod cast, statement of use. Right, of course.
Right use is to be made of all the time we wish, and we wish to share the method we use.
With youse.
Here's my idea, at the moment

nothin,

then I hear this guy who got famous in the seventies,
in such a way that I would have known.
Had I been on the same planet
during the Seventies
and half the eighties.

Terrence McKenna, right. If I had survived 1970,
and things had been well positioned for that to have happened,
had I not...

What did we do, my strange friends, or was I the only one who does remember my last sane thought? Actually,

I don't. And then, I do. Quasar-ic-ish-ly.

An edit or two could change every thing,
imagine this Terrence
McKenna taught "Authentic Being" a sort, or class, of being,
very high and good.

We teach being authentic.

Being a being's been being a while,

upon multiple instants of
a time, best'n'worse, full'n'empty, war'n'peace

(i'sgottabeat)

yet never is hope absensed. Any time I tell a story,
hope springs eternal, soon

soon the old fool will see No one is listening, and wink.

No one and the fool have friended
upon such times as these,
No two, as well, (seedawink)
to a far lesser degree, ye may see.
Secret secret secret knowledge, gnosis, donchaknow,

is same as sacred, yes, yes, it is, sacred made, made sacred, samesame that's the game... secret

I am in me,me ni ma I
Magic Ab-io-alchemical Hermitical Heretic, am I. Spirit. Muse?

Are we lost? No. We are wiser than we were.
By any measure.

A statement of use for that we wish to take, once it is granted. What's the use? We stuck not knowin, right?

Wait, I have a chit
"All things pertaining to life and godliness have been given thee." Got that at VBS, by God.

Really, we are treading on Bunyan's tale? We escape the Giant Despond on a promise of a promise?

Yes,
seems so. So little is different. The road, seen rocky three decades ago, or so, now, it's

bricks, silicon bricks, I recon they been doped, ye ken?
Some ol loswoids crosswise need gold ducts to flow
past the reflective edge, where we saw that Mckenna

outright lie.
He did. Damright. Said Paradise was opened by the door that shut Eden, but he said that

Like it was a bad thing.
Jesus Christ, if he missed the whole reason there is a Bible and a Jesus in it, who is gone gowon his testified
psyc-hellic oppositio cunjunct-ifitis trip?

So, I missed the seventies,
as if I were flying from LA at forty k and I go on by, to land in 1985, after fifteen years enculturated to believe a not-so-complex,
on the surface, lie.

Truth has a strange mercurial 'spect,
all the light that can be reflected is reflected in mercury, see,
the edge twixt yinanyang, dang,

as far as we can see, tho'

we can't really even see HD, but
it seems better.

Reflecting on an idea is blissfull, but that's not the reason.