987

The Leaves like Women interchange
Exclusive Confidence—
Somewhat of nods and somewhat
Portentous inference.

The Parties in both cases
Enjoining secrecy—
Inviolable compact
To notoriety.

1345

An antiquated Grace
Becomes that cherished Face
As well as prime
Enjoining us to part
We and our pouting Heart
Good friends with time

They’d found him, emaciated and tick-ridden,
Down near the docks on Smith Boulevard,
Surrounded by several fellow tabbies
Possessed of the apparent inclination to disregard any taboo
Enjoining them from enjoying one of their own as a hors d’oeuvre.
He’d weighed no more than eight pounds or so,
Closer to six if you scraped off the mats and vermin,
But he’d gotten over that in short order,
As his diet consisted of fried chicken livers
And any bits of tuna sandwich his owner might leave lying about
(Though Jerry Kiley was not a small man himself,
And philosophically opposed to the notion of leftovers as well)
So before long he became utterly Falstaffian
(As Father Maguire from Sacred Heart tut-tutted,
Why, that tom is three stone if he’s an ounce;
He gets any larger, and I’ll have to insist
You kick another two bits into the plate)
And Kiley had to fashion him a bed from a milk crate
Buttressed with sheet metal
Taken from a vat at the old Beverwyck Brewery.

He’d lived well (Better ‘n me, Jerry often lamented)
Though too well, perhaps,
And he’d fallen prey to the maladies of the leisure classes:
Gout, diabetes, a wheezing which sounded for all the world
Like distant cows lowing in a fairly stiff breeze.
The vet had given him any number of pills and potions,
But it all was no match for his appetite,
And he’d ended up taking the gas before he turned five.

It was decided, in the course of conversation and consolation
At the North Albany legion post bar,
That such a kind and devoted soul
Deserved a send off befitting a noble gent.
A collection was scraped together in short order,
And a viewing-***-wake took place at Jack’s Lunch
(Just up Broadway from Jerry’s place.)
Vittles Tuomi made a jerry-built coffin
Fashioned from the now-vacant cat bad,
And John Itzo snagged some fake flowers and a crepe-paper bird
From the brim of his wife’s old hat
(They being perched on a can of tuna soldered to the box
With the intent of nourishing him on his trip to the afterlife,
Jes’ like the pharaohs, according to Vittles.)
As the services progressed, some of the boys floated the notion
That the guest of honor should (under the cover of darkness, natch)
Be interred at St. Patricks, but Father Maguire,
Attending the do as the feline’s ex officio spiritual advisor,
Gently reminded the prospective pallbearers
That His Grace the Bishop had denied burial in consecrated ground
For lesser offenses, and it was finally decided that burial
(It was assumed that he’d been responsible
For an unknown number of progeny, and it was also rumored
That he had a brother or twelve up in Watervliet)
Would be private and at the convenience of the family.

you really need spectacles to read this, zone-in like a humming bird, given all the see-through gaps on the page - reading the Latin alphabet is like looking at x-rays - it's what happens when phonetic encoding borders on geometry that you get problems, or a joke of the gods (erase gods from poetry and you can erase Chernobyl from the history of Ukraine or chlorophyll from the study of biology.*

mother with a                         u...
like the tips of a parabola enjoining to make a double-o?
i.e. moother / μωθηρ? no wonder
the umlaut given specification against the omicron....
this is why greek shouldn't attract diacritical usage,
necessarily borrowed via the Ω-square:

u                            oo



ω                  ­           ü                                       ¨

              (term it as a parabolic union of two dots
          and the twin omega kissing the sky, a limit of
                linear rubric, sentencing
a...............................................................­.......
b........................................................­.............
c..................................................­....................
                                            ­                           and 6ft1 tall)...


or sigma, or castrato sigma M wonky...
who the **** is reading this compass, drunk?
it's all over the place! west... matter... σouth
Σorph...                 ρita pread... the ****?!
this is turning out to be a right Bermuda Δ:
cockney humour, please, we have children present!
i'm teaching them to count matchsticks in a pine forest!
skeleton (a) says to skeleton (b): give me a jaw,
i can't laugh without it.
skeleton (b) says to skeleton (a): conjure up
a diaθragm for me.
skeleton (a) says to skeleton (b): you mean a diaφragm?
skeleton (b) to skeleton (a): any squiggly line will do right now.
compass!
                                             d


b                                                            ­                            q

                                  ­      
                                              p...

and you thought you needed an acid trip.
the above is a hall of mirrors, it's not a compass or
a Kabbalistic magic square... it's a hall of mirrors.
please excuse the Greek gentlemen for applying
diacritical marks to their beautiful alphabet -
that left Brits still standing stark naked in Eden...
                                                                ­ we're waiting;
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. hello?!
you'd sooner shove an armadillo into an aardvark's ***
than expect the "masters of the universe"
to put on some lipstick to their gobs:
it's not even about being pretentious as it's about being
donkey stubborn; budge *******! budge up!
i need a can of sardines from you, it won't work unless
you turn into custard or fudge!
you have to forgive my friend, he still thinks he's
part of an empire - which he squandered for politically
correct speech like those Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth
noblemen who squandered in three partitions
while ******* on their ancestral grave... the last remnant
of the empire, nortern ireland saved by black market cigarettes
than the good friday agreement; hong kong ping pong
is still going on between Mr. Chi and Forest Gump,
sit down street protests, hippy protests in asia not fuelled
by marijuana... he is a bit deaf: SHOW'S OVER!
PACK UP YOUR PRIDE AND SHOVE IT INTO THE HAUL
OF H.M.S. BELFAST... ****** doesn't hear me... ******...
well, keeping an empire is like keeping an *******,
doesn't last forever, better chisel out a ******* emblem
and pray to it while knee bending at Stonehenge come
the summer solstice. Mr. Bellybutton pimps it gluttonous
in pomp at the Greenwich meridian: clocking up an ancient
0, although not slicing apart A.D. from B.C., just the time
difference: London 9p.m. is Moscow's 12a.m,
hence the 24h news reels.

When I first heard you speak, my soul grew weak and I knew then and there I would **** your mind,
  I could picture your bare naked goals and Raw aspirations intertwined with mine.

I want to make love to your inner-most thoughts in the most intimate way as I run my lips across your imagination, creating nonstop sensation!

Threw my words of ****** elevation.  This can be a ****** preparation! pleasure is only momentary.

Let's smash atoms like Adam and Eve,
  piercing fiercely with particles blown white hot from my accelerator
  Like  trying to fill up a black hole, so i accelerate her
excite her, ignite her, my touch lights her on fire!
combusting her into
a cloud of ecstasy like Co2  rising higher,
  
snapping a photos to digitize her
particles turned pixels tilt their head skyward
transcendant enlightenment, released it inside her
If E=mc^2 , then I know  can please you at the speed of light!

Baby we just rewrote the whole big bang theory and this time we got it right.
When opposites attract charged sparks will fly!

we might not touch but i be ****** if we don't try!
I'm a ****** intellectual
I love your body AND your mind.

Taking you to places that you’ve only seen in dreams
Reaching the highest peaks of that pearl you keep secret behind those soaking wet lips that stick to each kiss. You enjoining every lick of spit that drips off the tip of my **** as I lay and alternate those hips, dip after dip after dip after dip....

Just ***?

Close the door.

Take off your clothes.

Listen.

This Christmas Let's just Be naughty and save Santa a trip.
Threw my words of ****** elevation.  This can be ****** preparation! this pleasure is only momentary.

Is *** *****?
Well I believe Only if it's done right
With A Conversation so deep,
I’ll unleash submarines of the mind
You never even knew existed

You have been Hurt before? i know your Guard up?
I understand why you''re so tight ******


But let me ease your mind
Naw, let me ease your soul.

just to be another chick
Is not this woman’s goal

This is it for us, for u, for me.
For in time you I see what I thought we could never be.
And in me u find things you wouldn’t dare to fathom
For I am your Mickey And will always be your
Intellectual ******

Taking you to places that you’ve only seen in dreams
Reaching the highest peaks of that pearl you keep secret behind those soaking wet lips that stick to each kiss. You enjoining every lick of spit that drips off the tip of my ****

After that Sunset, on the full range mortal man
per
ifery vision, edge to edge, brow blur to brow blur
rolling hills and shadow sides of green trees,
seven kinds of pines alone,
and the only eucalyptus known to live
in the valley,
come alive in a deep purple cloudy night,
frogs and crickets,
I don't know what all but you could listen
all night be carried along,

long way off
there'd be a train, whistle saying
I ain't stoppin'
lesson

learned in school of these devices that could
signal with a bang,
and that those were as dangerous as bb guns
which I proved to Terry Musgove was not true,

I shot him in his belly and he did not **** me,
in fact, we still remember key events,
pertaining to the boomer bobble intersection

when are we live?

Bang, those things make when the train is to watch
out,
being a kid is dangerous now, too, sure…

so done is done, imagine making peace with
the parts,
it always flows
in packets like there is a method
ology logosic sense in this being after that

seems natural.
Straight forward, but ultimately pushed
into
a happy swirl like puppies staged for cute clicks.
Life one, on the grand scale, appears to be rolling along
better than ever if the improbable is the only answer
the impossible probably happens
more often,
out of the entertaining zone, beyond that we, in crazy
for real. but
literally, id-entity wise, not www real,
cohen singing everybody
knows

Blind Tuvan throat sings everybody knows,
the end

Ultimate is a very iffy word, truth be known,
eliminate the impossible,

we have done that to various degrees
in stages documented with this texting thing
that writes in shade on light,

do you imagine Issac anybody…
Asimov, a very public thinker imagined positronics
suppose posi-tronic brains, could run
in a meat mind and pass Turing tests

are we ready?
soon, right, not long, 5G, IOT gnoshit, we are it,

me and the old radio guy who hid in IT for 50 years,

no, twenty, maybe, thirty, hell,
forty soon right,
that Timex-Sinclair, 1984, $25…
since then
listen, did you ever hear the night so lively?

I'm of a mind to imagine angels enjoy joy
and join in enjoining the shade songs
to bher the choir roll as it thunders out at sea,

we see lightning, we see rain,
dam James Taylor leaves a mark, memes, those are,
we seeing what we think he meant he'd seen.

You know what I mean, and knowing
that is most of the fun in living past crazy, twice in one day.

On Tuesday morning

I discovered

That I had missed your late night call

And I found that I didn’t care at all

But then the next day I was tricked by your enjoining smiles

And I pretend to love you for a while

It’s now Thursday afternoon

And you don’t recognize me

So I think to myself who is he?

But the entire thing is a tragedy

You and I acting out our daily roles

Letting the heat dissipate from the coals

Of the hypothetically imaginary flame

Of a possible love affair

One we knew wasn’t there

And it’s a whole month of Sundays

Yet we still haven’t talked

But I’ve memorized the way you walk

The thread connecting you and I

Is woven together with Wednesdays and lies

As deceptively delicate as a spider’s web

Let’s try again and close our eyes.

Growing up waiting, wishing to be set free
Ready to take over the world with some degree

Having beautiful memories of growing up
Only to be smashed with a hop, skip, and a jump

Enjoining parts of childhood, trying to forget the bad
Having an understanding that it was all a fantasy land

***** to have to fail to say
Wish I knew that before I went astray

As we grow into adulthood we marry and have a family
At that point we understand why our moms protected us daily

I always thought I'd die by age twenty-eight
I must have been high, I could've sworn I seen the expiration date

We shuffle through life, career, and family it's all just so mechanical
Deciding on Plans of burial, which seems practical

Leaving my children one less thing to worry about once I finally expire
So my children can grieve instead of worrying about the open fire

Boxing sentimental values and sorting pictures,
brings back wonderful memories of little sneakers

Sad to see them grow but very proud of how they've turned
Into handsome young men that's adjourned

As life goes on knowing that everything is in order
I'll pick up my bag of memories and go quietly to the transporter

Don't worry boys, I'll always be close
I'll guide you through the right path of life of course

So we'll meet again in the afterlife
Be ready for me because I'm going to hang tight

CAIN

By Ariana Reines

The city was humming gently under me
Like an adolescent quaffing deeply
      from the cup of righteousness

Out of practice with my own world
I was looking at how someone else saw it

Longer than I realized
Longer than I care to admit

Those goggles left a mark on me
Then I stared at my own face

An invitation came with my face
To melancholy while Nature

Purred at the edges of my perception
And before me lay a broad road

Enjoining me to do of myself and make
Of myself according to the American

Tradition. Secretly I felt and knew
Things I had not perceived my body

Turning into secrets. In other words
I did not notice the mechanism

By which something within me noted
My experiences and apprehensions  of ‘the truth’

Would not be met with favor if I  spoke them
Which is not to say one speaks  only to find favor

Only that unreciprocated realities  have a boring
Way of haunting the cells

Pulling them somehow down
Like the countenance of Cain

Which fell one day and never rose
Again, and the fall of his face

Rhymed with the fall out of Eden
Leading to the first ******  and the invention

Of cities, where we now find ourselves
Each tower the ghost of a farmer

Who failed to meet the favor of the Lord


<|>

Anne Boyer is a poet and an essayist. Her memoir about cancer and care, “The Undying,” won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. Ariana Reines is a poet, a performing artist and a playwright from Salem, Mass. “A Sand Book” won the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. She runs Invisible College, a study hall for poetry, sacred texts and the arts. This poem is from her next book, “The Rose.”

if I were you
what  thoughts would pervade
enjoining on a journey

sunrise unveiled a promise of treasure
demure as petals enjoining midday
grey clouds thin in billowy summer breeze
freeze a moment before this day consumes


sunset reveals firefly melodies
meandering starlit rivers flow,
flowered evening fragrances wafting;
welcomes a momentous nocturne

.


sunrise unveiled a promise of treasure
demure as petals enjoining midday
grey clouds thin in billowy summer breeze
freeze a moment before this day consumes


sunset reveals firefly melodies
meandering starlit rivers flow,
flowered evening fragrances wafting;
welcomes a momentous nocturne


.

a worse hellish fate than perdition really *****

As of early morning
today - September 8th, 2022,
I could not but barely move
mine whole body felt
analogous to sluggish mollusk
frequent constipation found me
doubled over in gastrointestinal agony
as if elephant stomping on tummy
or red livid with rage.

I've re: created how bull
heaver in fiber figuratively ****** his tusk
into lower abdominal area dawn to dusk
ah...voila... hence subsequently
blessed natural laxative,
the magic of Daily Fiber
100% natural psyllium husk
also known as metamucil.

Once again sphincter muscle(s)
spasmodically malfunctioned awry
whew suppository unnecessary
despite gastrointestinal stoppage
alimentary canal thwarted
porcelain goddess battlecry
at least seventy two hour time span
lapsed whereby big boy wanted to cry
explaining how yours truly
felt he would die
an undertaking malaise

found me experiencing
physical duress vis a vis,
a bowel movement,
wherein waste unable to expel
from the **** of this guy,
which bout with ****** obstruction
found me doubled over
with lower abdominal distress
whereby comfort found me unable to lie
down nor sit upright

(with back padded with pillows
against the cellar brick wall),
thus severe bloating a bonus well nigh
and managed on a previous occasion
to muster the means to bare
frigid arctic vortex aire to purchase
the Acme brand Metamucil,
which akin to Drano doth ply
thru the excretory tract
supposedly loosening the stools

which optimism (product
didst earn claim to fame)
generated a sigh
if that expressed intent
to cease LivingSocial would try
humph enjoining lxiii
year old married male
to cede victory to the grim reaper,
who would vie
as winner de jure

to this common fellow invoking libretto
ohm resistant understudy
waste not want not
allowing, enabling and providing relief,
without successful defecation
despite the oppressive urge
to bolster this Uriah
heep of balled up and tuckered out
five foot and ten inches of lovely bones,
thence mouthing retraction

of former thought to cease existing
though a non-bull lever
in any power broker qua mankind
relief at long last
provided posterior answered prayer
yet, this wordsmith
scrutinizes his recurring
pain in the *** jagged torture
and asks a rhetorical
one word question "WHY"?

Well now... monumental
poetic challenge recap,
I now craftily abbreviate
(think clogged toilet
synonymous with blockage)
waste matter after days did accumulate
regarding ****** blockage to alleviate
thus imagine impossible
airy mission to defecate
which debilitating scenario

(mine) frequent accursed fate
frequently recurring more often
as yours truly ages
i.e. latter day saint
Matthew Scott got older
****** affliction compromised me
ordinary easy going demeanor to boot
disallowing, disenabling, and not permitting
me - effecting, emulating, and exhaling
Tony the tiger's catchword grrrrrreat

if queried about my constitution
when alas... absolute ecstasy found me
expelling bowel movement with effort
weighing approximately 0.71428571 stone
though relieved, nevertheless
the toilet bowl clogged,
prompting me to correct historical records
on two accounts despite
causing potential ruckus
disaster buffs may incriminate
nsync notion huge bowel movement

(mine) took down (analogous
voyage to bottom of sea) toto Lusitania
and actually additionally
caused separate incident
complex edifice (think Titanic)
both sturdy ships of state
former rendered, lifted, foundered...
latter purportedly crashing
into iceberg invariably causing
rising sea levels courtesy
melting glacier (size of Florida) weight.

At least forty eight hour time span
lapsed whereby big boy wanted to cry
explaining how yours truly
felt he would die
an undertaking malaise
found me experiencing physical duress vis a vis,
a bowel movement,
wherein waste unable to expel
from the **** of this guy,
which bout with ****** obstruction
found me doubled over
with lower abdominal distress
whereby comfort found me unable to lie
down nor sit upright
(with back padded with pillows
against the cellar brick wall),
thus severe bloating a bonus well nigh
and managed on a previous occasion
to muster the means to bare
frigid arctic vortex aire to purchase
the Acme brand Metamucil,
which akin to Drano doth ply
thru the excretory tract
supposedly loosening the stools,

which optimism (product
didst earn claim to fame) generated a sigh
if that expressed intent
to cease LivingSocial would try
humph enjoining this lxii year old married male
to cede victory to the grim reaper, who would vie
as winner de jure
to this common fellow invoking libretto
ohm resistant understudy waste not want not
allowing, enabling and providing relief,
without successful defecation
despite the oppressive urge to bolster this Uriah
heap of balled up and tuckered out
five foot and ten inches of lovely bones,
thence mouthing retraction
of former thought to cease existing
though a non-bull lever
in any power broker qua mankind
relief at long last
provided posterior answered prayer
yet, this scrivener
scrutinizes his recurring
pain in the *** jagged torture
and asks a rhetorical one word question "WHY"?

As of early August 20th, 2021-
I  finally moved bowels but...
mine whole body felt
analogous to sluggish mollusk
stasis of lower bowel found yours truly
doubled over in gastrointestinal agony
as if elephant or red (livid with rage)
bull ****** his tusk into mine ****
ah...voila... hence subsequently I tout
blessed magic of laxatives
Amitiza, Dulcolax, and Miralax
relieving lower abdominal and ******
discomfort agonizing me dawn to dusk.

Upon swallowing first or second named laxative
or sprinkling Mix-in powder pack,
within 8+ ounces of water,
not aesthetically pleasing major drawback
foisting human waste heavy as a full coalsack
sometimes burned and scorched black
movement came swift, on par how fast
snaky Mister liquid Plumber doth attack
obstructed ***** bowl.

Well now... monumental poetic challenge,
I now craftily abbreviate
(think clogged toilet synonymous with blockage)
waste matter after days did accumulate
ready to apply corkerasp
regarding ****** blockage to alleviate.