Yes, it's seemingly a nonsensical rhetorical question, but, for that precise reason, it will illustrate a lesson, if you so desire to tag along for this short session.

Per Wikipedia, "The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae." Hmmm... I much prefer that the horse goes "Nay," eats hay, has a mane, and is ridden by cowboys, cowgirls, Indians, equestrians, knights, jockeys, conquistadors, Mongols, and all. Even better, just point a horse out or otherwise show a picture to a kid and they will never be mistaken again. Even the littlest ones will never be stumped when faced with a rhino, tiger, giraffe, camel, and such.

Admittedly, there is a worry that we could be fooled with that of a donkey or mule. How come no one has taken advantage of this?! What a scam to get us rich! "Duh doy," you say, cause we all know when we see a horse, so why would anyone try to trick us with an ***?! Well I ask you in turn, why does anyone try to trick us with good art versus bad, let alone art versus crap? How could anyone fall for that?!

I should've guessed
by the nondescript response
teenagers glazed
by 'proper' use of language;
'old-speak' as some would see it
yet to be blessed by a words prowess
fazed by more than 1 syllable
seems inconceivable
and yet text-speak sits,
or rather, should be, languish,
as a hybrid of our languages
prompts me to write this
out of plain literary anguish.

each year on birthdays
write a small poem or limerick
the momentary excitement of opening the card
is lapsed by reason
(it does not contain a £20 note)
the thought bubble denotes
they express some disdain
the speech bubble that follows
the spark in the brain
just another of Uncles gimmicks
lacking the imagination to invoke
something more personal
than a hardback book:
another 200 recipes
for the aspiring young cook

they implied they enjoyed lunchtimes at school
instead wanted an iPad or something
equally expensive and cool

So I try to embrace it
this thing they call urban
write something poetic in text-speak
the very premise of it
is somewhat disturbing
the infinite curve of learning
LOLs from actual LOLS;
the mobile language equivalent
of online voyeurs,
the posters of nonsense,
noobs and trolls

apparently a ROFL
is more-or-less as potent as ****
I scratch my head in wonder
text-speak is used by millions
to converse on a global scale
some how

Q: does SUM exist
(as in 'shut ur mouth' )
is that acceptable?

A: not yet cordially invited on the list
(its an actual word
doesn't count as an acronym)
Im told

the coal face of the lexicon:
indigestible
the steep learning curve:
unpredictable

by your 30s its automatically
re-classified:
Congratulations
You are now officially 'Old'

we are merely wordsmith pedestrians
lost in the tide of text-speak equestrians
jumping and leaping and rolling in SETE and S2R's
are we binned as an S4L, the Spam For Life?
(perhaps I haven't got that abbreviation quite right)

in the context of text-speak
they are suitably troll-like in their essence
forgive me dear teenager
I am but a
SNAG in your presence:

'Sensitive'
(on occasion)
'New
Age' and
'Grown-up'
(given the right persuasion)

the riposte would be SUYF!!
('Shut Up You Fool' - said like MR. T in A-Team)
STM and Spank The Monkey
apologise, SOZ, SRY and Apls
or something equally short,
snappy and funky

at this juncture
before the brain has a puncture
simply BBFN, lest I
BBS or BBIAB or BBIAF
[thankfully this isn't a test]

like WCA
(Who Cares Anyway)
but you'd remark WAI
(and thats I for Idiot)
let out a long distance sigh
wave the imaginary fist
at the youth of yesteryear

all you'd get back was
Wicked Evil Grin
(WEG) for a
Wild *** Guess
(WAG);
a WEG for a WAG
and a PDQ x 2

would be the sum parts of the conversation
between me and you

if language and words and meaning was lost
if acronyms and abbrieviations
in CAPS
was all that there was

*** smeared in ***
with APLS for the PMJI
TXT SPK has got me PML
when MHBFY and
M8s on a MOB crusade
AWOL and dizzy for the next API
MGB for your MF device
throw in some GALGAL logic
where GIGO will simply suffice
Warning: PAW and GJIAGDV
(where the latter is Volcano)
include your GF for some cuddly GBH
and some GHP if she says so

its T2Go
be positive with the T+
and all of that Text-Speak CUZ
I'll T2UL and T for your time,
I'll TAH on the whole TBC

next year i'll just slip in a £20 note
and simply write:
Happy Birthday
with LV
from me

good equestrians you know like
young things who giggle all pretty
major embellishments of lipstickglaze and
sourpuss pouts skin smooth as
vanilla in summertime:
nymphs if you only
champ at the bit to have your
hair brushed to be
carrotfed and bootkicked into
stockholm races (sing this song

wear your
habit on your sleeve or
break it fast
come now sister let’s
put on some tea and
watch the jasmine bloom I hear it’s
particularly fragrant this
time of year.

It is winter, icy night outside the ancient terraced house, crisp
and creeping-cold, the road fleeting and the boisterous,
rejoicing revelers invading my room unseen but well heard,
silky-blacked, silk-backed, slick-backed, on the loudbusybarstriken front street.
The houses are sleeping like the dead (though the dead shan’t wake the morrow, in the deep, frosted earth) or sleeping like snoring Grandma
Passed the creaking stairs, behind the thick wooden door.
The chimneys enjoy a smoke, and the street watching in lazy light.
And the people of the long and aging road are lying, dormant, on hold now.

Be still, the birds are in wait, the office-workers, the budget-blunderers, the dole-wallers and money-splashers, equestrians, assistants, cricketers and coppers, the seller and the sold to, convicts, clergy, scrap-men, soldiers, the wary eyed whistleblowers and bleak spinsters. The elderly lie alone, cold and widowed, falling in love in dreams of those long passed, gramophones serenading them with swinging sounds since forgotten. The bachelors lie not alone but feel it, aside women they met but a moment prior. And the sloothing silhouettes of foxes stalk in the brush, and the fallen leaves clump prickled by the spiking spines of a slumbering hedgehog, and the hens in the clucking coops; and the mice creep across grassy planes playing hide and go seek, darting and ducking, amidst the quiet nightly warzone.

You can hear the frost amassing, and the old homes groaning.
Only your eyes are alive to see the bellowing chimney pots washing the black sky with grey, consuming and spreading, smoke. And you stand alone in hearing the working dogs retort with the sky, the primal yowl, where Jack Russell’s, Bull Terriers, Whippets and Grey Hounds, Fox hounds, Patterdales, Lakelands and Border Terriers take wolven shape and warrant the moon and stars to adjourn.

Heed. It is much too late, or early, the day-break behemoth’s begin to crawl blind through dawn, slumped uniform and jangling key and toast crumbed stubble, golden tie pin and tracksuit top, parted as the red sea, racing rats, inhaling bus fare; openmouthed in Citrone’s, rattled morning news; in Pickwick’s cafe shutters exhale the bleak dark and swallow first light. It is genesis in Chester-Le-Street, coagulating evermore, with breakfast offers stuffed down its throat, passed my frosted window pane, sleet and rain, headphones, lit cigarette, black brew two sugars, lichened grave stones and flashing blue lights. It is break of day amongst the pushers of pencils.

Watch. It is discontent, dragging, alone coursing through a bacon stottie; clinging to a dead end rock, aside the cockles and mussels, to be exhumed by an uncomfortable chair and the computer on the blink.

Is this it. Ask. Is this it.

Vieques

Snakes were here by the grace of God, but
knowing Him, He set them down while He fiddled
with an Egyptian plague, forgetting where He’d left them.

The Navy brought mongooses to eat the snakes
so they could relax and shell the sunrise coast in peace
but mongoose got to eat, as any chicken farmer will tell you.  

Spain sent Church and State astride the horse, but conquistador and cleric
dismounted to take in a sunset from ***** Arenas while the sea breeze
whispered soft and sweet to a restless stallion and his starry eyed mare.  

Ticks in the grass, indifferent to bombs, bitter on mongoose tongue
bloated equestrians each every one, blithe captives of nothing
but the cold blue Atlantic and the turquoise bath of the Caribbean Sea.  

Bored by the endless cycle of creation and destruction, inspired perhaps
to beauty or by niggling guilt, God unveiled the egret, elegant in its simplicity
with a taste for tick and a knack for lazy symbiosis.  

The Malecón sways with rhythms we won’t bring back in our carry-on’s, a drink
down the road from the old United Fruit Company dock, short stroll to sugar house
ruins, unhurried drivers nodding to afro-son, waiting for horses to make their way.

The event, perhaps
advent, first ever any thing,
where nothing had  been, not a thought.

I think.
Then, when nothing was over
and everything we know now,
began, light
was not the first thing, the idea was.
Be for
Yes.
Word one. Hmmmmm or um or am
it may have been, I heard from
a transcribbled  myth
or a legend as old as any
meme-level memory mortals have
made-up from remaining
tidbits taught to any next gen thing.
Look.
Assume light is as fast as the expansion,
couple of Planksecs,
and it is at the edge of ever,
never before,
never busting beyond the bubble we be in,
dead center,
the physical middle of ever,
continuous now,
nothing to stop us imagining we,

disagree, now, after all's been said and done,
and things run on,
de iffing chaos as the live evil force itself,
ever teaching any mind co-operation
in time… swirling beauty in bands of invisible
galaxies, barely seen even now, we
see what we are told we see,
enhanced
and expanded to
original intent, at the scale of precision, which
now requires
of those who wish
to know truth init's entirety,
faith in the wits who invented the lenses
we imagine we see through into-ity ever
………..
This day began this way. Everything already,
readable, as it were, once, with us,
before our story folded,
stapled and refolded and bent to allow
the data-based
mass enlightenment I deal with now,
mere data,
knowledge, knowns known more
than I may think or ask,
available on our distant viewing apparatchik
network of nova sensorium's newest equations
that balance at perfectly predictable
infinity… or do not work.
Pop. Bubble after bubble falling
through the quantum foam.
Come on home.
Live and learn, do the math.
Or wait to see
somethings never mattered
up to now, and now, you know,
you did, some how. That's good.

------------------

here we are, after all.
On course, of course;
here has more spectrums to be on.
here has more curves to miss,
here has
turns that twist us back to
now,
sudden- seeming
now, still
wow
is near the only value add
we ever hope to hear.
Cold or hot or just
right, fine
sifted patterns from the echo, wa wa wa

did we get so serious we lost the place
we held
positive on a negative pole,
an aberrant position
erring ever from
the straight point to point pattern
of pro gression to non
aggressive agreement in the we we were
- per haps, as babies we were thought
coyotes, little devils of trickery wu,
so we were swaddled in goat' wool,
to provoke this itching and pre
vent this whole idea, you
thinking wild,
unpacked
unglossed abnormal canine thought…

like a dog, dreaming of the chase.

------------

----------------------
Only chase real rabbits, that's
Greyhound wisdom.

Pookas are always worth the chase,
real or otherwise, if you see one,
chase it.
--------------------------
On the bus,
or off, Cassidy was a character,
sure as any in literature,
an archetypical untamed man,
crazy,
by most accounts, possessed
with a wish to die young,
and be famous for ever having been
a penniless drunkard's form of a man,
an unnatural scion of lost and beaten men.
------------
So, that spirit lingered… in my past that
ran to catch me here
today, in the pattern recognizant

aha, I know
this voice… I knew that spirit,
merry prankster splashing in Burro Creek,
before the bridge existed,
oblivious to quick sand my mother
warned me to be aware of,
as she had learned the hard way,
…remember
there is solid rock below the mud,
hold your breath.
--- a new me --
Burro Creek, survivor of the crossing,
since ever was.
------------------------

Survival is always good news.
Mission accomplished, it is finished, fini.
Peace on earth, good will
to ward men {wombed and un}.
That is a message, an angel, judge it.
They call that
The gospel, in my realm.
It is finished is considered grace.
The truth makes free, grace makes useful.
Infinite grace, with a bit of funny math
for making nextifiy tests, t'
keep the kids sharp.
-- slow lane -- this is…

The good spell, I tell my self I know.
News,
from nearer than we can imagine
possible, posited
in a place called here, at that
point, nearer than we
thought, here
where I exist, the ego me, floating
on that same old ocean of opinions,
lapping at my shore.

This must be that sea, they think
is where all eventualities
congregate to wait
for everything
to finish the pattern, to the nick
in the stick that told us when
to begin, this
once, once more.

I was convinced.
I was never invincible, to my defense,
I built the wall that hides my best
from pride's envaluing scheme,
best of the lot,
without spot or blemish,
make this the one we take,
leave the ring-straked, spotted and speckled.

Holy is pure. Pure is white.
Uh-oh.
This is where we find the stragglers,
carrying the cross of Jesus,
while marching,
as to war.

We sang that song in public school,
when music was a given need
each allegiant took to heart,
Onward Christian Soldiers,
-- mind wanders
----------------------------
7  trombones, and 10 clarinets
led the big parade, with one bass drum
marching as to war,
to destroy what Jesus did not finish,
followed by the lesser corps,
of boy scouts,
with only fife and snare.

Then came the grand equestrians,
all who owned a silver saddle,
passed as knights from when
our fathers stole this land.

My family had the contract to follow up
with shovels and barrows on wheels.
We were the signal for
next phase, of hell's a-poppin-days…

the Burro Barbecue in Bullhead City.

Long ago, there was one red light across the river,
a porch light on a trailer, behind Laughlin's first bar.

---------- Faux Nostalgian
algia alegian re alegian  pain of-
pain felt,
fear of-
fear felt,
---------------------------

Great line in the movie, Boss Level…

geek says "Childless by choice."
Hero replies, "whose choice?"

--- Badfinger - half of them chose death over survival.
--- if it matters when you know
--- I skipped the 70's … so the soundtrack's new…
I heard about you…

looking back in time on a line I never walked,
as it were,
on first pass through the realm of ever afters
flashing
past lights shone, blinking,
settings seeming chaotic in tri-colored quarks
insisting
it all works out.
Rock 'n'roll f'ever, a post-pubescent poets dream.

First, learn the game,
then learn the rule it rode in on. Who is teaching
whom
the next best
move. Ai do believe my loop expanded now
you are here with me
in the mix
confused as reason for knowing quarks come in colors.
Love comes in colors, too.
Could be coincidence.

--- Old Osiris, man, he hard t'****.
Ham 'n' Evans, not so hard. They lost the will to live.
The seventies ate many couldabins.
Freewill or fate, knowing was a factor.
Money had a finger init right, bad, the whole unbitten apple
idea attempting to tweak the future
from the past…

how long did those trips last? Radioman,
can you imagine,
all along its been this one song
?

Taste, and see. know you know.

sapient (adj.)"wise," late 15c.
(early 15c. as a surname)- {eh, a family name?},
from Latin sapere "to taste, have taste, be wise,"
from PIE root *sep- (1)
"to taste, perceive"
(source also of
Old Saxon an-sebban 
"to perceive, remark,"
Old High German antseffen,
Old English sefa 
"mind, understanding, insight").

From <https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=sapient>

Nothing eastern in the idea. Makes me think
what if,
long ago, knowing was a given, not a taken thing?

Isha, you may call her Eve,
or Mito-mom;
she's our most recent common ancestor,
after her,
as a species, we
came to be namers who knew, sapient sapient,
the dominant multicellular life force
on earth. We are her mitochondrial line,
there are no others.
Users of new knowns,
conscience guided
**** Sapien squared, that's us,
tuned to a thought that better
is never worse,
try… learning to talk with no one to talk to.
Imagine that.
… back in garden after the trick,
she knew…
--- C'mon, taste, you've no idea what death is.
She persuaded him to taste.
And there the story verges from the one you know.

I set down my well traveled backpack
next to the sign which read,

            No Pedestrians,
            No Equestrians,
            No Bicycles or Motor-driven cycles
            Allowed Beyond This Point.

Thus confined,
I stuck out my thumb
in a well-defined gesture
specifically designed
to catch the eye of a
friendly motorist
just passing by.

The traffic was light though
still in quite a frenzy.

Alone and content,
on the side of the road,
I was watching the drivers
as they breezed blindly by.

Each had the potential
to give me a ride.
There on the roadside
I waved them good by.

The man in his Benz
and the lady in her bug,
the banker, the waitress
and an old pickup truck

Each one was equal
as they passed down the trail.
Barely a gesture
or the meeting of eyes.

The time right then was not important to me
but all of the others had somewhere to be.
Getting along from A to Z
was all that mattered to little old me.

Patience is a virtue
for those who wait.
Along came a trucker
with a load on his tail.

He pulled up beside me
and bid me “get in.”
                                  -- So I did.

The engine revved up and we took to the road.
Right past that old sign that kept me confined,
we took up the hum of that asphalt trail
and measured our distance with the passing of miles.

Lost on the road with the corn rushing by
I'm free -- I’M FREE and that is why
I’ll come back again
For one more try.
The lessons I’ve  learned will help me get by.


I hitchhiked thousands of miles in my younger days. The opening stanzas were written on the side of the road nearly 40 years ago.

4/14/17

Born five score minus seven years ago
minus attaining age of centenarian
father of civil rights movement,
the revered Martin Luther King Junior
honored as benevolent demigod figure
to the oppressed African American population

without whose bold risks
and subsequent brutal assassination April fourth
ninety sixty eight at the hands
of a crazed gunman (James Earl Ray),
whereby all the King's men
and all the King's horses...,

still aghast at tragic event
while reverberations felt forty two years later,
where embedded white privilege
begets continued racial strife
analogous to uncorked raging tempest
saddling people of color to human *******

(no matter ponying up excellent equestrians),
nevertheless wrought empowerment
advancing cherished dreams
of slaves recent descendents
allowing, enabling and providing
once attainable aspirations
only bestowed upon

the self anointed masters and early settlers of
the virginal North American contiguous land mass
yet…generations prior
to this prestigious public personality
Abolitionists pitted themselves
against the institution of slavery

incrementally raising awareness
regarding the abomination
forced servitude incurred on those shackled
thus setting the stage
for this grandson of A.D. Williams
a rural parsonage,

who ministered spiritual support
for the small congregation
(initially only thirteen members)
comprising attendants at
Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta Georgia
setting precedent for freedom

(at risk of life and limb) against scourge of
racial prejudice courtesy
of sharecropper grandparents
whose objection to racial segregation
based on an affront to the will of God,
whereby the young whip smart precocious lad,

(whose impact we now memorialize)
showed his true colorful promise
when a young student at
Liberal Crozer Theological Seminary
in Chester, Pennsylvania
where the yet uncrowned

eminent king came under the influence
of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr,
a classmate of his father's
at Morehouse College
who became a mentor by exposing
his protégée to liberal views of theology

planting the seeds of ardent activism
that gave rise to
The Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC),
an initial platform
allowing, enabling and providing acclaim

hoisted up by petard
invariably only heightened
(his) posthumous status
as thee most articulate orator
spelling binding the listeners
with his metaphors about his emphatic march

to a promised land where all
men/women could be brothers/sisters
and no person will be judged
by the color of his/her skin
raising morale of many dirt poor
ebony masses to feel a glimmer of hope.

Five score minus eight years ago
January eighteenth two thousand twenty one
father of civil rights movement
the revered Martin Luther King Junior honored
as benevolent demigod figure
to the oppressed African American population

without whose bold risks
and subsequent brutal assassination April fourth
ninety sixty eight at the hands
of a crazed gunman (James Earl Ray),
whereby all the King's men
and all the King's horses...,

still aghast at tragic event
while reverberations felt forty two years later,
where embedded white privilege
begets continued racial strife
analogous to uncorked raging tempest
saddling people of color to human *******

(no matter ponying up excellent equestrians),
nevertheless wrought empowerment
advancing cherished dreams
of slaves recent descendents
allowing, enabling and providing
once attainable aspirations
only bestowed upon

the self anointed masters and early settlers of
the virginal North American contiguous land mass
yet…generations prior
to this prestigious public personality
Abolitionists pitted themselves
against the institution of slavery

incrementally raising awareness
regarding the abomination
forced servitude incurred on those shackled
thus setting the stage
for this grandson of A.D. Williams
a rural parsonage,

who ministered spiritual support
for the small congregation
(initially only thirteen members)
comprising attendants at
Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta Georgia
setting precedent for freedom

(at risk of life and limb) against scourge of
racial prejudice courtesy
of sharecropper grandparents
whose objection to racial segregation
based on an affront to the will of God,
whereby the young whip smart precocious lad,

(whose impact we now memorialize)
showed his true colorful promise
when a young student at
Liberal Crozer Theological Seminary
in Chester, Pennsylvania
where the yet uncrowned

eminent king came under the influence
of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr,
a classmate of his father's
at Morehouse College
who became a mentor by exposing
his protégée to liberal views of theology

planting the seeds of ardent activism
that gave rise to
The Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC),
an initial platform
allowing, enabling and providing acclaim

hoisted up by petard
invariably only heightened
(his) posthumous status
as thee most articulate orator
spelling binding the listeners
with his metaphors about his emphatic march

to a promised land where all
men/women could be brothers/sisters
and no person will be judged
by the color of his/her skin
raising morale of many dirt poor
ebony masses to feel a glimmer of hope.