Like a psychotic docent in the wilderness,
I will not speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences.
I draw my voice from a much deeper cistern,
Preferring the jittery synaptic archive,
So sublimely unfiltered, random and profane.
And though I am sequestered now,
Confined within the walls of a gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55 lunatic asylum (for Active Seniors I am told),
I remain oddly puerile,
Remarkably refreshed and unfettered.  
My institutionalization self-imposed,
Purposed for my own serenity, and also the safety of others.
Yet I abide, surprisingly emancipated and frisky.
I may not have found the peace I seek,
But the quiet has mercifully come at last.

The nexus of inner and outer space is context for my story.
I was born either in Brooklyn, New York or Shungopavi, Arizona,
More of intervention divine than census data.
Shungopavi: a designated place for tribal statistical purposes.
Shungopavi: an ovine abbatoir and shaman’s cloister.
The Hopi: my mother’s people, a state of mind and grace,
Deftly landlocked, so cunningly circumscribed,
By both interior and outer Navajo boundaries.
The Navajo: a coyote trickster people; a nation of sheep thieves,
Hornswoggled and landlocked themselves,
Subsumed within three of the so-called Four Corners:
A 3/4ths compromise and covenant,
Pickled in firewater, swaddled in fine print,
A veritable swindle concocted back when the USA
Had Manifest Destiny & mayhem on its mind.

The United States: once a pubescent synthesis of blood and thunder,
A bold caboodle of trooper spit and polish, unwashed brawlers, Scouts and      
Pathfinders, mountain men, numb-nut ne'er-do-wells,
Buffalo Bills & big-balled individualists, infected, insane with greed.
According to the Gospel of His Holiness Saint Zinn,
A People’s’ History of the United States: essentially state-sponsored terrorism,
A LAND RUSH grabocracy, orchestrated, blessed and anointed,
By a succession of Potomac sharks, Great White Fascist Fathers,
Far-Away-on-the Bay, the Bay we call The Chesapeake.
All demented national patriarchs craving lebensraum for God and country.
The USA: a 50-state Leviathan today, a nation jury-rigged,
Out of railroad ties, steel rails and baling wire,
Forged by a litany of lies, rapaciousness and ******,
And jaw-torn chunks of terra firma,
Bites both large and small out of our well-****** Native American ***.

Or culo, as in va’a fare in culo (literally "go do it in the ***")
Which Italian Americans pronounce as fongool.
The language center of my brain,
My sub-cortical Broca’s region,
So fraught with such semantic misfires,
And autonomic linguistic seizures,
Compel acknowledgement of a father’s contribution,
To both the gene pool and the genocide.
Columbus Day:  a conspicuously absent holiday out here in Indian Country.
No festivals or Fifth Avenue parades.
No excuse for ethnic hoopla. No guinea feast. No cannoli. No tarantella.
No excuse to not get drunk and not **** your sister-in-law.
Emphatically a day for prayer and contemplation,
A day of infamy like Pearl Harbor and 9/11,
October 12, 1492: not a discovery; an invasion.

Growing up in Brooklyn, things were always different for me,
Different in some sort of redskin/****/****--
Choose Your Favorite Ethnic Slur-sort of way.
The American Way: dehumanization for fun and profit.
Melting *** anonymity and denial of complicity with evil.
But this is no time to bring up America’s sordid past,
Or, a personal pet peeve: Indian Sovereignty.
For Uncle Sam and his minions, an ever-widening, conveniently flexible concept,
Not a commandment or law,
Not really a treaty or a compact,
Or even a business deal.  Let’s get real:
It was not even much in the way of a guideline.
Just some kind of an advisory, a bulletin or newsletter,
Could it merely have been a free-floating suggestion?
Yes, that’s it exactly: a suggestion.

Over and under halcyon American skies,
Over and around those majestic purple mountain peaks,
Those trapped in poetic amber waves of wheat and oats,
Corn and barley, wheat shredded and puffed,
Corn flaked and milled, Wheat Chex and Wheaties, oats that are little Os;
Kix and Trix, Fiber One, and Kashi-Go-Lean, Lucky Charms and matso *****,
Kreplach and kishka,
Polenta and risotto.
Our cantaloupe and squash patch,
Our fruited prairie plain, our delicate ecological Eden,
In balance and harmony with nature, as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce instructs:
“These white devils are not going to,
Stop ****** and killing, cheating and eating us,
Until they have the whole ******* enchilada.
I’m talking about ‘from sea to shining sea.’”

“I fight no more forever,” Babaloo.
So I must steer this clunky keelboat of discovery,
Back to the main channel of my sad and starry demented river.
My warpath is personal but not historical.
It is my brain’s own convoluted cognitive process I cannot saavy.
Whatever biochemical or—as I suspect more each day—
Whatever bio-mechanical protocols govern my identity,
My weltanschauung: my world-view, as sprechen by proto-Nazis;
Putz philosophers of the 17th, 18th & 19th century.
The German intelligentsia: what a cavalcade of maniacal *******!
Why is this Jew unsurprised these Zarathustra-fueled Übermenschen . . .
Be it the Kaiser--Caesar in Deutsch--Bismarck, ******, or,
Even that Euro-*****,  Angela Merkel . . . Why am I not surprised these Huns,
Get global grab-*** on the sauerbraten cabeza every few generations?
To be, or not to be the ***** bullgoose loony: GOTT.

Biomechanical protocols govern my identity and are implanted while I sleep.
My brain--my weak and weary CPU--is replenished, my discs defragmented.
A suite of magnetic and optical white rooms, cleansed free of contaminants,
Gun mounts & lifeboat stations manned and ready,
Standing at attention and saluting British snap-style,
Snap-to and heel click, ramrod straight and cheerful: “Ready for duty, Sir.”
My mind is ravenous, lusting for something, anything to process.
Any memory or image, lyric or construct,
Be they short-term dailies or deeply imprinted.
Fixations archived one and all in deep storage time and space.
Memories, some subconscious, most vaporous;
Others--the scary ones—eidetic: frighteningly detailed and extraordinarily vivid.
Precise cognitive transcripts; recollected so richly rife and fresh.
Visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory reloads:
Queued up and increasingly re-experienced.

The bio-data of six decades: it’s all there.
People, countless, places and things cataloged.
Every event, joy and trauma enveloped from within or,
Accessed externally from biomechanical storage devices.
The random access memory of a lifetime,
Read and recollected from cerebral repositories and vaults,
All the while the entire greedy process overseen,
Over-driven by that all-subservient British bat-man,
Rummaging through the data in batches small and large,
Internal and external drives working in seamless syncopation,
Self-referential, at times paradoxical or infinitely looped.
“Cogito ergo sum."
Descartes stripped it down to the basics but there’s more to the story:
Thinking about thinking.
A curse and minefield for the cerebral:  metacognition.

No, it is not the fact that thought exists,
Or even the thoughts themselves.
But the information technology of thought that baffles me,
As adaptive and profound as any evolution posited by Darwin,
Beyond the wetware in my skull, an entirely new operating system.
My mental and cultural landscape are becoming one.
Machines are connecting the two.
It’s what I am and what I am becoming.
Once more for emphasis:
It is the information technology of who I am.
It is the operating system of my mental and cultural landscape.
It is the machinery connecting the two.
This is the central point of this narrative:
Metacognition--your superego’s yenta Cassandra,
Screaming, screaming in your psychic ear, your good ear:

“LISTEN:  The machines are taking over, taking you over.
Your identity and train of thought are repeatedly hijacked,
Switched off the main line onto spurs and tangents,
Only marginally connected or not at all.
(Incoming TEXT from my editor: “Lighten Up, Giuseppi!”)
Reminding me again that most in my audience,
Rarely get past the comic page. All righty then: think Calvin & Hobbes.
John Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year old boy,
Subject to flights of 16th Century French theological fancy.
Thomas Hobbes, a sardonic anthropomorphic tiger from 17th Century England,
Mumbling about life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Taken together--their antics and shenanigans--their relationship to each other,
Remind us of our dual nature; explore for us broad issues like public education;
The economy, environmentalism & the Global ****** Thermometer;
Not to mention the numerous flaws of opinion polls.



And again my editor TEXTS me, reminds me again: “LIGHTEN UP!”
Consoling me:  “Even Shakespeare had to play to the groundlings.”
The groundlings, AKA: The Rabble.
Yes. Even the ******* Bard, even Willie the Shake,
Had to contend with a decidedly lowbrow copse of carrion.
Oh yes, the groundlings, a carrion herd, a flying flock of carrion seagulls,
Carrion crow, carrion-feeders one and all,
And let’s throw Sheryl Crow into the mix while we’re at it:
“Hit it! This ain't no disco. And it ain't no country club either, this is L.A.”  

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

Once more, I digress.
The Rabble:  an amorphous, gelatinous Jabba the Hutt of commonality.
The Rabble: drunk, debauched & lawless.
Too *****-delicious to stop Bill & Hilary from thinking about tomorrow;
Too Paul McCartney My Love Does it Good to think twice.

The Roman Saturnalia: a weeklong **** fest.
The Saturnalia: originally a pagan kink-fest in honor of the deity Saturn.
Dovetailing nicely with the advent of the Christian era,
With a project started by Il Capo di Tutti Capi,
One of the early popes, co-opting the Roman calendar between 17 and 25 December,
Putting the finishing touches on the Jesus myth.
For Brooklyn Hopi-***-Jew baby boomers like me,
Saturnalia manifested itself as Disco Fever,
Unpleasant years of electrolysis, scrunched ***** in tight polyester
For Roman plebeians, for the great unwashed citizenry of Rome,
Saturnalia was just a great big Italian wedding:
A true family blowout and once-in-a-lifetime ego-trip for Dad,
The father of the bride, Vito Corleone, Don for A Day:
“Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I! Funicula, Funiculi!”

America: love it or leave it; my country right or wrong.
Sure, we were citizens of Rome,
But any Joe Josephus spending the night under a Tiber bridge,
Or sleeping off a three day drunk some afternoon,
Up in the Coliseum bleachers, the cheap seats, out beyond the monuments,
The original three monuments in the old stadium,
Standing out in fair territory out in center field,
Those three stone slabs honoring Gehrig, Huggins, and Babe.
Yes, in the house that Ruth built--Home of the Bronx Bombers--***?
Any Joe Josephus knows:  Roman citizenship doesn’t do too much for you,
Except get you paxed, taxed & drafted into the Legion.
For us the Roman lifestyle was HIND-*** humble.
We plebeians drew our grandeur by association with Empire.
Very few Romans and certainly only those of the patrician class lived high,
High on the hog, enjoying a worldly extravaganza, like—whom do we both know?

Okay, let’s say Laurence Olivier as Crassus in Spartacus.
Come on, you saw Spartacus fifteen ******* times.
Remember Crassus?
Crassus: that ***** twisted **** trying to get his freak on with,
Tony Curtis in a sunken marble tub?
We plebes led lives of quiet *****-scratching desperation,
A bunch of would-be legionnaires, diseased half the time,
Paid in salt tablets or baccala, salted codfish soaked yellow in olive oil.
Stiffs we used to call them on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.
Let’s face it: we were hyenas eating someone else’s ****,
Stage-door jackals, Juvenal-come-late-lies, a mob of moronic mook boneheads
Bought off with bread & circuses and Reality TV.
Each night, dished up a wide variety of lowbrow Elizabethan-era entertainments.  
We contemplate an evening on the town, downtown—
(cue Petula Clark/Send "Downtown" Ringtone to your Cell)

On any given London night, to wit:  mummers, jugglers, bear & bull baiters.
How about dog & **** fighters, quoits & skittles, alehouses & brothels?
In short, somewhere, anywhere else,
Anywhere other than down along the Thames,
At Bankside in Southwark, down in the Globe Theater mosh pit,
Slugging it out with the groundlings whose only interest,
In the performance is the choreography of swordplay and stale ****** puns.
Meanwhile, Hugh Fennyman--probably a fellow Jew,
An English Renaissance Bugsy Siegel or Mickey Cohen—
Meanwhile Fennyman, the local mob boss is getting his ya-yas,
Roasting the feet of my text-messaging editor, Philip Henslowe.
Poor and pathetic Henslowe, works on commission, always scrounging,
But a true patron of my craft, a gentleman of infinite jest and patience,
Spiritual subsistence, and every now and then a good meal at some,
Sawdust joint with oyster shells, and a Prufrockian silk purse of T.S. Eliot gold.

Poor, pathetic Henslowe, trussed up by Fennyman,
His editorial feet in what looks like a Japanese hibachi.
Henslowe’s feet to the fire--feet to the fire—get it?
A catchy phrase whose derivation conjures up,
A grotesque yet vivid image of torture,
An exquisite insight into how such phrases ingress the idiom,
Not to mention a scene once witnessed at a secret Romanian CIA prison,
I’d been ordered to Bucharest not long after 9/11,
Handling the rendition and torture of Habib Ghazzawy,

An entirely innocent falafel maker from Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens.
Shock the Monkey: it’s what we do. GOTO:
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey/
(HQ music video) - YouTube//
www.youtube.com/
Poor, pathetic, ******-on Henslowe.


Fennyman :  (his avarice is whet by something Philly screams out about a new script)  "A play takes time. Find actors; Rehearsals. Let's say open in three weeks. That's--what--five hundred groundlings at tuppence each, in addition four hundred groundlings tuppence each, in addition four hundred backsides at three pence--a penny extra for a cushion, call it two hundred cushions, say two performances for safety how much is that Mr. Frees?"
Jacobean Tweet, John (1580-1684) Webster:  “I saw him kissing her bubbies.”

It’s Geoffrey Rush, channeling Henslowe again,
My editor, a singed smoking madman now,
Feet in an ice bucket, instructing me once more:
“Lighten things up, you know . . .
Comedy, love and a bit with a dog.”
I digress again and return to Hopi Land, back to my shaman-monastic abattoir,
That Zen Center in downtown Shungopavi.
At the Tribal Enrolment Office I make my case for a Certificate of Indian Blood,
Called a CIB by the Natives and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The BIA:  representing gold & uranium miners, cattle and sheep ranchers,
Sodbusters & homesteaders; railroaders and dam builders since 1824.
Just in time for Andrew Jackson, another false friend of Native America,
Just before Old Hickory, one of many Democratic Party hypocrites and scoundrels,
Gives the FONGOOL, up the CULO go ahead.
Hey Andy, I’ve got your Jacksonian democracy: Hanging!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:   "… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. What’s that in the fine print?  Uncle Sammy holds “the trust assets of American Indians.”

Here’s a ******* tip, Geronimo: if he trusted you,
It would ALL belong to you.
To you and The People.
But it’s all fork-tongued white *******.
If true, Indian sovereignty would cease to be a sick one-liner,
Cease to be a blunt force punch line, more of,
King Leopold’s 19th Century stand-up comedy schtick,
Leo Presents: The **** of the Congo.
La Belgique mission civilisatrice—
That’s what French speakers called Uncle Leo’s imperial public policy,
Bringing the gift of civilization to central Africa.
Like Manifest Destiny in America, it had a nice colonial ring to it.
“Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent,
Allotted by Providence for the free development,
Of our yearly multiplying millions.”  John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Our civilizing mission or manifest destiny:
Either/or, a catchy turn of phrase;
Not unlike another ironic euphemism and semantic subterfuge:
The Pacification of the West; Pacification?
Hardly: decidedly not too peaceful for Cochise & Tonto.
Meanwhile, Madonna is cash rich but disrespected Evita poor,
To wit: A ****** on the Rocks (throwing in a byte or 2 of Da Vinci Code).
Meanwhile, Miss Ciccone denied her golden totem *****.
They snubbed that little guinea ****, didn’t they?
Snubbed her, robbed her rotten.
Evita, her magnum opus, right up there with . . .
Her SNL Wayne’s World skit:
“Get a load of the unit on that guy.”
Or, that infamous MTV Music Video Awards stunt,
That classic ***** Lip-Lock with Britney Spears.

How could I not see that Oscar snubola as prime evidence?
It was just another stunning case of American anti-Italian racial animus.
Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky would see it,
Must view it in the same context as the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
Or, that arbitrary lynching of 9 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891,
To cite just two instances of anti-Italian judicial reach & mob violence,
Much like what happened to my cousin Dominic,
Gang-***** by the Harlem Globetrotters, in their locker room during halftime,
While he working for Abe Saperstein back in 1952.
Dom was doing advance for Abe, supporting creation of The Washington Generals:
A permanent stable of hoop dream patsies and foils,
Named for the ever freewheeling, glad-handing, backslapping,
Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF), himself,
Namely General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man they liked,
And called IKE: quite possibly a crypto Jew from Abilene.

Of course, Harry Truman was my first Great White Fascist Father,
Back in 1946, when I first opened my eyes, hung up there,
High above, looking down from the adobe wall.
Surveying the entire circular kiva,
I had the best seat in the house.
Don’t let it be said my Spider Grandmother or Hopi Corn Mother,
Did not want me looking around at things,
Discovering what made me special.
Didn’t divine intervention play a significant part of my creation?
Knowing Mamma Mia and Nonna were Deities,
Gave me an edge later on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Cradleboard: was there ever a more divinely inspired gift to human curiosity? The Cradleboard: a perfect vantage point, an infant’s early grasp,
Of life harmonious, suspended between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Simply put: the Hopi should be running our ******* public schools.

But it was IKE with whom I first associated,
Associated with the concept 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I liked IKE. Who didn’t?
What was not to like?
He won the ******* war, didn’t he?
And he wasn’t one of those crazy **** John Birchers,
Way out there, on the far right lunatic Republican fringe,
Was he? (It seems odd and nearly impossible to believe in 2013,
That there was once a time in our Boomer lives,
When the extreme right wing of the Republican Party
Was viewed by the FBI as an actual threat to American democracy.)
Understand: it was at a time when The FBI,
Had little ideological baggage,
But a great appetite for secrets,
The insuppressible Jay Edgar doing his thang.

IKE: of whom we grew so, oh-so Fifties fond.
Good old reliable, Nathan Shaking IKE:
He’d been fixed, hadn’t he? Had had the psychic snip.
Snipped as a West Point cadet & parade ground martinet.
Which made IKE a good man to have in a pinch,
Especially when crucial policy direction was way above his pay grade.
Cousin Dom was Saperstein’s bagman, bribing out the opposition,
Which came mainly from religious and patriotic organizations,
Viewing the bogus white sports franchise as obscene.
The Washington Generals, Saperstein’s new team would have but one opponent,
And one sole mission: to serve as the **** of endless jokes and sight gags for—
Negroes.  To play the chronic fools of--
Negroes.  To be chronically humiliated and insulted by—
Negroes.  To run up and down the boards all night, being outran by—
Negroes.  Not to mention having to wear baggy silk shorts.



Meadowlark Lemon:  “Yeah, Charlie, we ***** that grease-ball Dominic; we shagged his guinea mouth and culo rotten.”  

(interviewed in his Scottsdale, AZ winter residence in 2003 by former ESPN commentator Charlie Steiner, Malverne High School, Class of ’67.)
                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                 
IKE, briefed on the issue by higher-ups, quickly got behind the idea.
The Harlem Globetrotters were to exist, and continue to exist,
Are sustained financially by Illuminati sponsors,
For one reason and one reason only:
To serve elite interests that the ***** be kept down and subservient,
That the minstrel show be perpetuated,
A policy surviving the elaborate window dressing of the civil rights movement, Affirmative action, and our first Uncle Tom president.
Case in point:  Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman & Metta World Peace Artest.
Cha-cha-cha changing again:  I am Robert Allen Zimmermann,
A whiny, skinny Jew, ****** and rolling in from Minnesota,
Arrested, obviously a vagrant, caught strolling around his tony Jersey enclave,
Having moved on up the list, the A-list, a special invitation-only,
Yom Kippur Passover Seder:  Next Year in Jerusalem, Babaloo!

I take ownership of all my autonomic and conditioned reflexes;
Each personal neural arc and pathway,
All shenanigans & shellackings,
Or blunt force cognitive traumas.
It’s all percolating nicely now, thank you,
In kitchen counter earthen crockery:
Random access memory: a slow-cook crockpot,
Bubbling through my psychic sieve.
My memories seem only remotely familiar,
Distant and vague, at times unreal:
An alien hybrid databank accessed accidently on purpose;
Flaky science sustains and monitors my nervous system.
And leads us to an overwhelming question:
Is it true that John Dillinger’s ******* is in the Smithsonian Museum?
Enquiring minds want to know, Kemosabe!

“Any last words, *******?” TWEETS Adam Smith.
Postmortem cyber-graffiti, an epitaph carved in space;
Last words, so singular and simple,
Across the universal great divide,
Frisbee-d, like a Pleistocene Kubrick bone,
Tossed randomly into space,
Morphing into a gyroscopic space station.
Mr. Smith, a calypso capitalist, and me,
Me, the Poet Laureate of the United States and Adam;
Who, I didn’t know from Adam.
But we tripped the light fantastic,
We boogied the Protestant Work Ethic,
To the tune of that old Scotch-Presbyterian favorite,
Variations of a 5-point Calvinist theme: Total Depravity; Election; Particular Redemption; Irresistible Grace; & Perseverance of the Saints.

Mr. Smith, the author of An Inquiry into the Nature
& Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776),
One of the best-known, intellectual rationales for:
Free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism,
The latter term a euphemism for Social Darwinism.
Prior to 1764, Calvinists in France were called Huguenots,
A persecuted religious majority . . . is that possible?
A persecuted majority of Edict of Nantes repute.
Adam Smith, likely of French Huguenot Jewish ancestry himself,
Reminds me that it is my principal plus interest giving me my daily gluten.
And don’t think the irony escapes me now,
A realization that it has taken me nearly all my life to see again,
What I once saw so vividly as a child, way back when.
Before I put away childish things, including the following sentiment:
“All I need is the air that I breathe.”

  Send "The Air That I Breathe" Ringtone to your Cell  

The Hippies were right, of course.
The Hollies had it all figured out.
With the answer, as usual, right there in the lyrics.
But you were lucky if you were listening.
There was a time before I embraced,
The other “legendary” economists:
The inexorable Marx,
The savage society of Veblen,
The heresies we know so well of Keynes.
I was a child.
And when I was a child, I spake as a child—
Grazie mille, King James—
I understood as a child; I thought as a child.
But when I became a man I jumped on the bus with the band,
Hopped on the irresistible bandwagon of Adam Smith.

Smith:  “Any last words, *******?”
Okay, you were right: man is rationally self-interested.
Grazie tanto, Scotch Enlightenment,
An intellectual movement driven by,
An alliance of Calvinists and Illuminati,
Freemasons and Johnny Walker Black.
Talk about an irresistible bandwagon:
Smith, the gloomy Malthus, and David Ricardo,
Another Jew boy born in London, England,
Third of 17 children of a Sephardic family of Portuguese origin,
Who had recently relocated from the Dutch Republic.
******* Jews!
Like everything shrewd, sane and practical in this world,
WE also invented the concept:  FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The lyrics: if you were really listening, you’d get it:
Respiration keeps one sufficiently busy,
Just breathing free can be a full-time job,
Especially when--borrowing a phrase from British cricketers—,
One contemplates the sorry state of the wicket.
Now that I am gainfully superannuated,
Pensioned off the employment radar screen.
Oft I go there into the wild ebon yonder,
Wandering the brain cloud at will.
My journey indulges curiosity, creativity and deceit.
I free range the sticky wicket,
I have no particular place to go.
Snagging some random fact or factoid,
A stop & go rural postal route,
Jumping on and off the brain cloud.

Just sampling really,
But every now and then, gorging myself,
At some information super smorgasbord,
At a Good Samaritan Rest Stop,
I ponder my own frazzled neurology,
When I was a child—
Before I learned the grim economic facts of life and Judaism,
Before I learned Hebrew,
Before my laissez-faire Bar Mitzvah lessons,
Under the rabbinical tutelage of Rebbe Kahane--
I knew what every clever child knows about life:
The surfing itself is the destination.
Accessing RAM--random access memory—
On a strictly need to know basis.
RAM:  a pretty good name for consciousness these days.

If I were an Asimov or Sir Arthur (Sri Lankabhimanya) Clarke,
I’d get freaky now, riffing on Terminators, Time Travel and Cyborgs.
But this is truth not science fiction.
Nevertheless, someone had better,
Come up with another name for cyborg.
Some other name for a critter,
Composed of both biological and artificial parts?
Parts-is-parts--be they electronic, mechanical or robotic.
But after a lifetime of science fiction media,
After a steady media diet, rife with dystopian technology nightmares,
Is anyone likely to admit to being a cyborg?
Since I always give credit where credit is due,
I acknowledge that cyborg was a term coined in 1960,
By Manfred Clynes & Nathan S. Kline and,
Used to identify a self-regulating human-machine system in outer space.

Five years later D. S. Halacy's: Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman,
Featured an introduction, which spoke of:  “… a new frontier, that was not,
Merely space, but more profoundly, the relationship between inner space,
And outer space; a bridge, i.e., between mind and matter.”
So, by definition, a cyborg defined is an organism with,
Technology-enhanced abilities: an antenna array,
Replacing what was once sentient and human.
My glands, once in control of metabolism and emotions,
Have been replaced by several servomechanisms.
I am biomechanical and gluttonous.
Soaking up and breathing out the atmosphere,
My Baby Boom experience of six decades,
Homogenized and homespun, feedback looped,
Endlessly networked through predigested mass media,
Culture as demographically targeted content.

This must have something to do with my own metamorphosis.
I think of Gregor Samsa, a Kafkaesque character if there ever was one.
And though we share common traits,
My evolutionary progress surpasses and transcends his.
Samsa--Phylum and Class--was, after all, an insect.
Nonetheless, I remain a changeling.
Have I not seen many stages of growth?
Each a painful metamorphic cycle,
From exquisite first egg,
Through caterpillar’s appetite & squirm.
To phlegmatic bliss and pupa quietude,
I unfold my wings in a rush of Van Gogh palette,
Color, texture, movement and grace, lift off, flapping in flight.
My eyes have witnessed wondrous transformations,
My experience, nouveau riche and distinctly self-referential;
For the most part unspecific & longitudinally pedestrian.

Yes, something has happened to me along the way.
I am no longer certain of my identity as a human being.
Time and technology has altered my basic wiring diagram.
I suspect the sophisticated gadgets and tools,
I’ve been using to shape & make sense of my environment,
Have reared up and turned around on me.
My tools have reshaped my brain & central nervous system.
Remaking me as something simultaneously more and less human.
The electronic toys and tools I once so lovingly embraced,
Have turned unpredictable and rabid,
Their bite penetrating my skin and septic now, a cluster of implanted sensors,
Content: currency made increasingly more valuable as time passes,
Served up by and serving the interests of a pervasively predatory 1%.
And the rest of us: the so-called 99%?
No longer human; simply put by both Howards--Beale & Zinn--

Humanoid.

the planets. the peaches.
pruned. picked. for the reaches.
the centuries. a second to the eternities.
you can have it. say laugh when. you hear the jazz note.
the voice of all that i spoke. the saxophone.
like dialing digits of truth. on the telephone.
come on. say one and two. up and down. the diversity in one single crown.
upon the ears of sound. it's the heart's listening device. toss it like rice.
at a wedding. human genes get paired up. and twisted.
so simple. it comes in flavors of licorice. red and black.
off and on. check the track. when the needle skips.
we find all these differences.
let me bring it back. for diversity.
zeroes and ones. spread the spectrum. across high and low frequencies.
it's so easy. let the record speak. can you stay on beat.
the principles of the high. the sincerity of the meek.
whatever lies between. is one or the other. blended across the centuries.
and all mothers. give birth to the last. man to the first.
follow that. discussion of high low.
mid ranges get blown. saxophone pace the flow. get pricked by the tweeters.
soul from the bass feeders. save the appetite. for the words that i write.
and then speak. you you. not me. splitting hairs. atoms. quarks. and light.
beams. like a smile. across a broad spectrum. either off. always on.
high low. then get gone.

In the faraway land,
trees smiling and nails
Not the escargot snails
Booming business sails
His name Rusty nails
Super rich paper shredding
Destroying fine print
paper and nails affair

Those hot leads faxing
The heart opens up than bleeds
What a mess misleads to
More hoarders
Trying so hard to get
over the U-S-A border
When you least expect it
Being searched papercut body

Like Honey Bee without
Hair like a beehive
foxy lady
No Jive rock paper scissors
Twisted sisters also drying up
All lines and spot
like a dark romance
Cheetah
Not the Samson and
Deliah race
Millionairess place
Became a swamp
Forest of racers
Super moon Gump
Lady and the *****
I am Instagram Disney Pixstar
Getting looks by far
Superwomen nailed her
With Starwars
European fellows

Soft clouds daze-like fun yellow
Emotionally their crying
Broken one scattered piece
of glass, please I see something
to smile about
Super rich why do they get
the VIP pass laughing
He's the roundabout
Someone with love handles
Can we handle all this
Getting drinks and hot lady
winks hit or miss
Racing their motorcycles
Dark glove handles
What Harley Davidson cycles
Is that your best reaction trying
Mirror my mirror on the wall
I am not buying it super
rich mechanic
The only one chosen mirror
She feels ******
Love can give you tumors
Dissect you who will direct you
You don't feel this is your time
The sunny side of the street
Sunnyside eggs over easy

The Speakeasy
Your hair of ringlets **** wavy
Did he nail your darker side beat
Bird up your nest feeders heat
Don't break me up to fall
The phone rings dingaling
Spiritual candles witch is dead
Your mind is somewhere else
instead
Just make your silk ties of the bed
Tied to your ankle I love you
How your hearts just dangle
"Having a nail full because you're single"
Were all linked into something
Yodeling, not the business
of smuggling
Knocking on heavens door
Super rich marble black and white floor
Hammering nails in the cabin
He's fishing the hooks how it fits together
hugging
Going up the staircase to heaven
What a big cliff-hanging nail diver

Zippety Zepellin*
Songs whole lotta love
How you've been nailed in
the blackout
Not a piece blackout cake
Canarsie at the pier
Out of nails, the darkness hits me
Bend over nails like the devil more rivals
Never to be resentful
Always pray to be needful
Her face value of her smile
Being poor her soul
stepped on

Too many men, not enough nails
But they got their thrills
New York City construction
worker
He's wiped out being hammered
nails hot drills
Such poorly written emails

Her heels got stuck
No stars to shine *Rusty bar
Starbucks

Her mind was a
bulletproof vest  
"Jane and *****"
"Plain Janes" movie cut
Of paper dolls
Being Nailed Bunny hunt
of tricks
But all weapons he nailed her the best*

Blood stem thorns
Italian love horns
Robin Redbreast tweet text
What holds us together
French **** nails
Fountain of golden coins

Lion heads or tails the door
Back to spam ham of emails
Super rich we may never be
But New York will always
be my kind of town
He nailed it so
many times

New Yorker super rich talker
Like a perilous time super
rich food delicious
Pygmalion how we nail our nation

Bottom feeders flourish

When the economy's a bust

When bad times are the norm

And good times turn to dust

When neighborhoods go south it's sad

But a sign of their demise

Is when a bunch of pawn shops open up

Before your very eyes

When stores close down or move on out

After years in the same place

Their memory is a radar blip

They leave without a trace

But as fast as they lock up their doors

Another shop moves in

It's the local pawn shop dealer

He's a shark without a fin

Like dollar stores and boarded doors

The pawn shop shows the way

That business has moved on out

Or closed or moved away

They prey on peoples hardship

They broker deals without a care

They don't need to know your history

They just know that you're there

The street has three new pawn shops

Palaces of buy back stuff

It's bad when there is one around

But, three...well that's enough

One opened by the Jeweller

Two doors down across the street

Now he's buying up possessions

Of everyone he meets

Folks who purchased jewellery

From Old Cy at his old store

For each twenty of it's value

The pawn shop gives you four

Cy can't afford to buy back

He doesn't have much money left

And besides his store insurance

Doesn't cover much for theft

The people at the Pawn shops

Took jobs and live in town

They trained two counties over

They succeed when times are down

It's a sign of the recession

Downtown dies and fades away

And then the bottom feeders surface

Their the ones who're gonna stay

You can look in the shop windows

Know who bought what and from where

You know the candlesticks were bought at Cy's

And you know who bought them there

The guitar that hangs beside them

That was pawned by Emma Rose

She needed money for the bills

When the fresh fish plant had closed

There's a snapshot of the township

Sitting inside on their walls

They pawn shop is successful

While the economy still falls

You can see a piece and start to cry

For you know just why it's there

There's no one here to help them

There's no jobs and it's not fair

They open up each morning

While the nights dregs still sleep outside

They have done two hours business

Before lights on at Cy's

It's a sad and constant story

Of just what a town's become

But when asked if they've been in there

The inhabitants go "mumb"

They never seem to close up

The town's never make it back

While most places lose money

Pawn shops make it by the sack

The bluesman has some stuff there

The bartender has some too

Even though her bar's still going

She did what she had to do

The street, it is it's own world

Jewelly shops, banks and bars

But inside the local pawn shops

Are hidden all the scars.

Boring old militant Marxist Farts
who blather on, in fits and starts
about class war and revolution
(demonstrably a failed solution)
rather than pitied should be scorned;
their websites tapped, subscribers warned.
Such talk begins as plodding fodder
dull as lead – yet even odder:
people read this wretched dreck!
History ought to hold in check
their pawn-shop plans to topple kings
they talk a good game – till it brings
armed madness, rage, the peasant wars
thugs and riff-raff looting stores,
death-camps, purges, civil chaos
union dues, returned to pay us
****** end to a treacherous story –
guns for butter and guts for glory.
Mao’s red flowers, Trotsky’s pick
Stalin’s bearhug – lies as thick
as honey dripping on a corpse.
Centralized control that warps
a free man’s mind. And yet they find
their audience loaded, pumped and primed.
In spite of numberless essays
the true believer bucks and brays
hee-hawing on, in Maoist jargon,
urging buyers to the bargain:
shining paths – that lead to graveyards
strewn with texts by Marxist blowhards.
Endless screeds by tenured traitors :
dialectic masturbators…
Marxist dullness has its edge.
Boring – yes, but forms a wedge
to split the status quo in factions
gaining time to plan their actions.
Arm in arms; so sad it tickles –
hammering plowshares into sickles
battering bewildered readers
(propagandized bottom-feeders).
Red conjecture never softens
pounded in like nails in coffins,
though their pipe-dreams burn away
when exposed by light of day.
Communist theory rings the blows
to forge the chains. The movement grows.
It’s lengthened, strengthened, link by link
ensnaring those who’re prone to think
they know what’s best for rank and file,
propagandizing all the while.
Agitating Marxist praxis
forms their struggle’s central axis.
Starry-eyed, they sing the anthem
plotting mayhem. Yes – I grant them
zeal, devotion, earnest madness…
but their ends begin in badness.
Brooding hate – their only god,
biding time to shoot their ***.
Nip their notions in the bud
before they blossom into blood.
Point them out for what they are:
faceless scribes of future war.
Worst of all: they’re as predictable
as their theories are inflictable.
Gaze into the hole of history
comprehend the tragic mystery…

How long the day,
Delivering letters to friends,
And cranky, bald dog feeders. Home
Is forward, past those poplars.
Always I’ve been in love with
Their almond scent, just as I catch
Past, dragging feet and who knows
How many heartfelt "Thank-you's".
Home is... where the wife is sitting.
She's not keen on laundry, but,
I’m an exception.
Always are my blue shirts blue,
She likes to make sure. Just in case I meet
With him; that carrion shaker,
Mr. Reaper.
“Hello.” I'd say, and tip my cap,
Along my silent nightly rounds;
Perhaps he'd humour me, if he could
See me. He's searching. For me? No.
That’s not right.
The lamps are thickest
In the dark, and that's just how
he likes it.
Even if I tip-toe, tip-toe, tip-toe around
Him, he'll still turn his hood toward me.
A courteous, creaking greeting.
That chill I get.
Matches only the fear
From losing fingers, as I push envelopes,
Catalogues, and restless dreams
Through many metal slats.
But even I, can't quite see,
When the sky turns milky-grey...
That perching, questioning hand
Placed gently on my shoulder;
Pushing down as I bend my back,
Kicking over milk-bottles, sometimes
accidentally. I shake it off.
Get to bed! I say to myself, mostly
Always, to myself.
Slap on some cream
And
Get to bed.

Part I:
When hibiscus bloom, graceful stamens tickling the sky,
hummingbirds swarm in hoards to sunnier climes.
Where they drink sugar water from feeders in ladies' backyards.
they will not drink artificial sweetener,
to them, saccharine has the bitter taste of poison.

Hummingbirds originated in South America,
where the Aztec's thought them to be gods on Earth.
For certain ceremonies Aztec slaves were forced to sew
thousands of tiny hummingbird feathers to priest's long capes.
Hummingbirds were an instant sensation in European society.
Fashionable ladies would to embellish their hats, homes, and meals,
with tiny jeweled bodies, wings outstretched as if to take flight.
Today in certain parts of Mexico women wear remarkable necklaces,
which showcase lifeless hummingbirds encased in resin.
These talismans symbolize the search for true love.

The Hummingbird-man doesn't believe in love.
He stares down his hyper-extended nose
at the grey mosaic of the sidewalk
and ponders the bleak prospect
of humanity.

Part II:
The Hummingbird-man's first word was 'death'.
He can still remember the fish that ruined his life.
She had big dark, infinite eyes, but he could never hear her voice.
She was all ribbony tail and bubbles, all cloying looks and temptation.
All he wanted was to hold her and kiss her pursed lips,
but she struggled, She fought his embrace. He loved her,
and she chose to die rather than succumb.
She fell from his arms onto the floor and her trashing finally ceased.

Then the toddler who would become the Hummingbird-man, fled.
He ran to his mother's lilac caress, bewildered and seeking comfort.
Her soft hands wiped away his tears. He smelled coffee and liquor on her lips
as she kissed his forehead and asked what was wrong, why he was crying.
He gripped her familiar hand in both of his tiny fists and led her
back to the still body, the first victim, his heart filled with regret.
The now-dead fish, his first and last pet, stared at him without once blinking,
eyes suffused with accusation, kissable mouth agape, useless gills flared,
organs and segments of veins visible through translucent skin.

Part III:
The hummingbird-man was not always the menace he is today.
He was once innocent and in love with a girl who had eyes like twilight.
They were both young, still children really, but they love they shared was feverish.
To him she was perfect, except for the gap in her teeth and her irrational fear of ants.
An artist in every way: every word she spoke was a song, her every movement
a dance, stargazing with her was like listening to the sky read poetry.
Her smile lit up the world. She played the xylophone because she said it mimicked
the sounds of children laughing –  the happiest sound on earth.

The only time he ever saw her cry was when she learned children laugh 300 times a day
but adults are lucky to laugh 300 times a year. She told him she never wanted to grow up
and he quietly fed her crisp frozen grapes. They never fought – she hated arguing
she said every fight was like a miniature war between two people.
That's probably why she never said goodbye … one day she was just gone.
Her friends said she left with a band that passed through town.
The lead singer saw her, and wanted her like he'd never wanted anyone before,
so he wooed her and convinced her to go away with him. She never looked back.
It was selfish of her but she was just a child, with a child's fickle whims.

Without her, he felt dead inside, numb as if she'd blown out the fire inside him.
What he does now isn't her fault, she was merely the final straw for him.
When he closes his eyes now he can see the dreams and hopes of others,
and he finds them wanting. Pathetic insipid creatures, he thinks, as he kills.
He is trying to cleanse the earth of selfish people,
in his twisted mind this goal is somehow noble.

In the basement sand is melting.

Imagine that, millions of years of crustaceous love stories, rocks slowly poisoned until they, along with ancient deep sea lovers, washed ashore to become the nuisance of the crevices of leather seats of automobiles.

In the basement the rocky lobster lovers are taking new shape as
the girl in the goggles
with the hair
tied back into a bun
forces air from her lungs into the
sticky
clearness.

That can’t be very good for you, breathing in a million
(maybe more)
years of betrayal and ****** and friendship and laughter
between ***** and clams.
It can’t be healthy to take
in so much at once.

I wonder what it’s like to speak a language known by so few.
To walk down an aisle in the supermarket and reaching the curves of a coca-cola bottle,
the girl in the glasses
with the bun
cries uncontrollably yelling,
“Do you see that?
All the beauty and the sadness
in the waves of molten sand in
six little bottles.”
To give your soul a little clear house, letting everyone look inside
(without really seeing)
letting everyone walk around it, and nodding and saying
“Oh will you see what she did there?”
and seeing nothing but a misshapen
coca-cola bottle.

In the basement backbones are being melted into a new mold.

They are somewhere hidden in the waves I cannot read, amidst the million years I cannot hear of crustaceous love stories.

She hung simple things from the bare apple tree, things like mirrors, ribbons, bells and bird feeders, things to attract the robins and the finches. But then the crows came scaring the robins and finches away, this annoyed her, this drove her to the verge of insanity.

She had an idea though , a terrible one, but an idea. She decided to hang strips of bacon from the tree , bacon laced with poisons, all sorts of poisons , poisons for rats , for weeds , even the type fit for human consumption. Poisons to make them sick, poisons to make the ******* fall from the tree.But crows are much, more intelligent than the average human ,the crows watched the fat lady, observing her murderous ways.  

But only the finches and the robins fed from the flesh that dangled from the naked apple tree , only the finches and robins fell to the ground, only the finches and the robins died a horrible dragged out death.This pushed her over the edge , now she just sits and squawks to her self day in and day out, hiding from the flock of crows.

In parlance of the street he's a dumpster-diver,
scavenger of non-losing wager or proposition tickets.
You'd see his fragile frame each night
walking the isles of the race and sports books,
a condor's aerial eye trained on the floor,
back visible only to casino surveillance cameras.
Seated atop a barstool at the back,
I watch him bend, examine and discard,
through the prism of my scotch glass.
Every food chain has its bottom-feeders,
he brings efficiency to the gambling ecosystem.
Likely not the life that you or I would chose,
but then he has no monthly credit card to pay.
Just now, I saw him straighten and smile,
a parlay ticket will pay for tonight's meal
with just enough left for a brown-bag.
He does not go uninvited to misfortune,
the streets tonight are lined with chance's down.

My head is reeling
What a feeling
Bass line pounding through my brain
Skull is cracking
Quite nerve racking
I need something to help dull the pain

Images horrific
Pressure is terrific
Listening to what the station plays
Eyes are burning
The world is turning
It's like it is the end of days

I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The  Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell

KHEL, hour of power
The station of the hour
Killing my braincells by the day
Hard Rock bottom feeders
Rotten Singers, silly bleeders
I don't know why I stay

Thrash and Metal
Brain won't settle
My head is almost set to burst
Glass and Glitter
Makes me twitter
I no longer think disco was the worst

I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The  Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell

Hey There DJ
That's what the kids say
I do it just to help to pay the bills
Super sonic
I need a tonic
To help me swallow down the pain pills

Every morning
Without warning
The pain begins in my head
Metal grating
Music hating
I guess I'll feel alright when I'm dead

I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The  Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell

Small, different hues of brown
Little black eyes and tiny pink feet
Junco
Eating the seeds on the ground
Inspiring something inside

The next day,
Clear tubes with red perches
Showed off the mix of seeds
Waiting for the first customer
Disappointed when nothing came

The next week,
Losing hope
Still looking, but not as often
Nothing, the one single Junco
Gone

Then that one day
There were two
Hopping off the fence
Onto those little red perches
Draining the tubes of the food
That had been waiting for them

Slowly but surely
More started coming
New birds
New numbers
Sparrows, finches, thrushes, doves

New feeders
New house

Getting the birds back
A new feeder
Filled with nectar
Waiting patiently
Now knowing it could take a while
And then

One day
Watching out the window
Hoping
That one just one might come
Then not one but three!

All in that one day!
Male and female Anna’s
Male Rufous
Zooming and glimmering
Light reflecting off gorgets
Creating the otherworldly hues
Of purple, red, green

In the days that followed
More feeders
More birds
More knowledge
Much more learned

A new hobby
A new love
That will continue
from that day on
Thanks
To that little
Junco

Woke up to a nightmare
Where gravity disappeared
Scrambling around mid-air
Just to find no one's there
Bright florescent light
Hiding away midnight
It's just not the same
It doesn't feel right

All this pretending
Is bringing me nothing
All this anger
Is making me more empty
Scrambling around in mid-air
Just to find no one's there

Spending everyday
Breaking under pressure
Over digging countless holes
For some kind of treasure
Just to have someone
Fill them back up
Send me out again
And tell me I'm worthless

All this pretending
Is bringing me nothing
All this anger
Is making me more empty
Scrambling around mid-air
Just to find no one's there

And I don’t know where I’ll go
If this light bulb should break
Falling down into a deep darkness
That I’ve tried so hard to escape
The same darkness I have made

There are plenty of fish in the sea
But none like you
As the bottom feeders sank so low
We swam way up high
But we fell into a whirlpool
And I didn't take it right
Don't want any drugs
Don't want any alcohol
Just want you to know
I'm still here after all
Scrambling around mid-air
Just to find no one's there

https://spencercarlson.bandcamp.com/track/mid-air

So voracious,
very prolific,
with seemingly
endless appetites.
Most waiting their turn,
but not the Woodpeckers
nor those Jays fighting,
but the Finches
and Doves,
those mighty Wrens
are splendid,
testimonies
to etiquette.

Three striped cats daily demonstrate awakening:

a) BijaChen: startles by pounce onto bed or banging of sunlit window blinds;
b) BlueMonsoon: prefers annoying whining coordinated with scratching at blankets;
c) LadyFiona: chooses a prickly psychic stare into my sleeping consciousness to disrupt dreams. (she must have been a witch's cat).

Sleep you say?

Mr. Rooster, lover of Flathead Lake cherries,
rehearses a  solo operetta while strutting sharp grey claws inches from the screen door.

Doze off?

Thirty small brown-red-yellow-speckled birds usurp seeds at the swinging feeders in frenzied unharmonious clatter,

While the low moan of iron hinged gate closes pale hay and tall horses into the corral.

Rest?

Urgently a  growling lawn mower slashes green strands of life and delicate insects from their microcosms of Little Earth,

And calico barn cats dive from rafters onto feed sacks to devour the crunch of breakfast.

Lao Tzu speaks no sound, eyes watch

Two butterflies sweep though moist morning monsoon air.

With staggered steps it climbs to the canopy
there it will reside very patiently
near the blossoms of it's prey
from the morning till end of day

With tongue of elastic and sticky
outstretched hideous not pretty
it snaps at all that come to visit
unfortunate winged nectar feeders

It's bulbous eyes dart frantically from it's emerald frame
one to look at the blossom, the other the skies above
for as it waits for it's tasty prey
hawks do prey it's kind from above


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

This is not atrocity
This is the basement
This is the sea receding like lips to reveal tooth-like shells
  
Amongst the bullet casings and corpses felled leaving the boats
This is the sand like an inverted moat around the
Kingdom at sea, and this is the Remainder.
   Yet they remain jubilantly-

Is this what being jubilant means?
Chamomile anklets adorning a hanged child.

This is not atrocity,
Ignorance wielding pitchforks and fire.
Anger alight and hostility riled
This is not atrocity.
This is not far from this reality;
Remember this child-
  
And the mob piled like tinder on themselves
Convincing carrion feeders
And unimpeded breeders that
Halt the march of science that
This is not atrocity.

The certain hot song by which Earth is greeted
Has an immediately recognizable tune.
And
This is not atrocity;
It sounds more like ******, ******.

But I can't hear it
And I have no fear anymore
I open my eyes to another routine killing, and I know-
      
This is atrocity-

But a necessary one.
It's hardly enough to stay alive
And as I and we strive for
Money and coffee and love,
I and we let
atrocity
enter us.
Climb into us like a hand does a glove,
or a puppet.
It is not nature;
Nor fate;
And one needn't be dead
to appreciate the ability to open the senses
and actually sense.

And this,
I am certain,
   Is not an atrocity

That was then, this is now
Who was where when what was how?
Hear them take their last breath as they're shot down
I scream
Floating in the gene pool, expecting the man who can walk on water to arrive
Sell outs and everyone who has had a bad week even though it's only Monday

Whippersnappers hang their heads in shame
I am one of twelve
So expendable
We live in gluttony
Lineleaders, math teachers, bottom-feeders have no idea
Watch them fall and be forced to crawl on their bellies
We laugh
Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, getting back to your roots
Progeric clock-makers, lying dead on The Yellow Brick Road
Thin-skinned Transsexuals putting bricks in their purses
We live by eight
We die from our weight
And go unbloomed
       -Tommy Johnson
Standing in a nuclear reactor somewhere in Chernobyl looking for the truth
It might be in my contaminated endoplasmic reticulum
I am a radiant
Doppler radar
Monopoly dollar

Singing in the shower, amateur hour
Projecting sour notes
Pouring out their hearts and souls, hear them
Trying

Moo-juice nectar, spilling off The Round Table
Blondes in red bracelets, Kabbalah saves them
Henry pays no tax, John Berryman's bats tell us
You are the lunatic
We are the two quarters of a half-wit
This whole thing is insane

       -Tommy Johnson

There's a place between society and the wild
Where aimless bodies are piled
We call it the Wastelands
All creatures die of old age
Or hunger inside this cage
The deer are never hit by cars
For they never travel that far
The Wastelands use fear
That's what keeps them here

The Wastelands are a scary place
It's horrifying how nothing happens
It becomes too much to face
So we hide under satin
To provide comfortable resting
And avoid Wastelands testing

The Wastelands are a barren environment
Solitary coyotes learn from the cacti
Who soak up meager moisture
And become prickly to protect it
Never knowing if nourishment was near
They grew prickly because of their fear

We inhabit the Wastelands
We're trapped here
Where the walls of the city
Seem to mirror
The walls of the wilderness
So it's here we build our nest
But surviving is a constant test
Because we have useless hands
Here in the Wastelands

Wastelands
Interaction
Is reaction
Create a faction
And never leave
Even if love cleaves
It lies behind ramparts of containment
And the fear of society's arraignment
Even if peace calls
It stays behind walls
Of trees hiding predators
That keep us embedded here
So we ***** barriers to protect us
From the barriers surrounding us
We find our connections through hatred
And build teams around it
We made foolish deals with Satan
This is what we're amounted

Scavengers from both worlds encroach the Wastelands
Journalists and artists mine our souls
Vultures mine our flesh like gold
Taking what they need and going home
Our rabid mouths begin to show foam
From the frustration of loss
But inactivity is our cross
While we watch carrion feeders
Carry on eating
Our friends
Until we turn and look away
Knowing that'll be us one day
Because in the Wastelands
Friends are just creatures who are near
There are no animals to hold dear
We're afraid to lend an ear
When Wastelands use fear

The Wastelands are hell
Dry river beds tell of a time
When the rain fell
But now we're plagued by drought
You can tell by looking at the trout
They flop on the ground
Wondering where to wander for water
The cacti remain still
It's the Wastelands will

In the Wastelands we wait to die
Although we really want to fly
We're just afraid of heights
Which impedes our sight
Where we can't view over our own barricades
It's fear that prohibits our ability to elevate
And we see that the order is too tall
Back into the Wastelands we fall

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 10, 2014)


During dinner, while the noise of too many swimmers
deafens Mr. Kingfish, he says to his wife, Mrs. Kingfish,
“This is what happens when too many so-called ‘swimmers’
dilute the souk and gum up the lake.”

Mr. and Mrs. Kingfish dine on minnows
as she concurs, “You question their legitimacy, dear.”
“Yes I do!” “You question what swimming is
if everyone tries to do it?—

who is allowed, what value is added
by all these new “swimmers” swimming through.”
“Yes, that is what I’m saying: don’t go near the water,
until you learn how to swim!”

“They’re bottom-feeders ruining everything,”
decides Mr. Kingfish. His wife squeezes his arm
and says, “Then let’s get small, dear.
There’s entirely too much swimming going on all around.”

“We need gatekeepers, tighter schools,” cries Mr. Kingfish,
“or we’ll all suffocate!” Spitting out tiny fish heads in the sand,
Mrs. Kingfish assures her husband, “All will be well that ends well.
But I do wonder, love, what about the turning tide?”

This is how I deal with my ****, I write it up just for you, my words are cursive for a purpose, it heals the pain I deal with inside. Honest opinions that make people mad, they say I ain't rad, I'm just a fad of ****** hip-hop. I say I am a favour to this industry, but you ****** ain't feeling me, so I keep my lyrics confined with my pride.  Ironic syphilis dickwads filled & infused with hate for yah to feel, this is just the real, no need for props. Can't handle me, you can't accept me, but I don't care, i'm rare, not some sell out like black eyed pea's. ****** get mad when I say *****, but don't hate, natives were called ****** too, so I don't want to hear your **** about it. Work out with a wii fit, cheat when I do a spelling bee, lying about everything, trampling the rap game that's how I be. I used to try not swearing because it's just a easy cliche that fake rappers say, but **** it I need to get across my thoughts in a way for you peanut brains to truly understand my ****. Is this the innocent kid we used to hear, no that kid died when introduced to this crude society, gentle giant becomes defiant to the ways of how we live. Hulking out against everything wrong, i'll wreck the way we see things, not caring for the feeling you have, make you cry tears that will clear your blind view of the issues we face. So hate me, go ahead, I don't care, in fact i'll come to hater club with you, hear everything you have to say and save it in my eternal thoughts like a external drive. You have no taste for real rap, you probably listen to low life bottom feeders like little wayne, that's not real rap that craps a disgrace.

I am the last duchess portrayed in colour and mortar
Flirtatious I was and thus the gardens rest now my being. My being
Rather mauled guarded still by an overhead warning to
The outer lands that surround this palace of corrupted souls. Souls that
Dance and feast upon nights such as now; Oblivious to
Reality and the threats that lie within rather than outside as I lay lost
And unheard to the outside world. Wonder I do if âTwas
The dainty hands of Fra Pandolf; Never a gentler soul
Though deceitful he may not seem he is more than the cover of manuscript
May show. Tis this same scroll though encrypted with ancient
Texts of lost love that tells trued stories of misconception in relation to
The floral talents of the master sculptor who, though
Faulted, has the innocent heart that only future beings will come to accept.
For Tis only this beating wonder though now so blackened
With the plague of dark deceit and dismal lies that embraces the heart of thee
And absorbs the greatest of woes. Try I did but shadowed
I was by the reputable artist that was master Pandolf who though so shy
Entered into the family name; his christened title inscribed
So deeply into the now dirt cast flag that before was written âbout by the greatest
Of laureates. These same laureates now bathe in the
Scandalous material so readily provided by a well seduced feminine figure
Who gave away money and a roof for the so seemed
Loving arms of inspiration. I ask now for the forgiveness of thy master:
The same titled being as that who scribed his
Shadow-cast name into my muscular ***** that now no longer pulsates in the
Same rhythmic tempo as the now lost lover
I used to so easily trust, under the false belief of a returned favour I was so
Quickly promised. Maybe Twas the sight
Of thee that provoked this audacious incident that now hangs over the same
Man that I became ignorant towards. Though
An arrogant human, tis him who I vowed my heart to; the same ***** that
Tis now eaten away by the feeders that have
Been placed inside this case I lie in. Many queries I have but say I cannot as
These dreaded feeders have taken away that
Same privilege that I once had. Why tis me that has to hold this great weighted
Burden? Why tis me that fell yet again
For the seductive methods of man? Answers will not be a given though as my pleas
Are not heard; I am the unknown backyard mistake
That has now destroyed the class a family such as my married one had worked
So hard to produce with intention to keep.
Tis this class that has now crashed to the same ground in which I writhe and though
Faulted, I want justice served upon that monster
Whose handsome looks created such a stir in my mental crevasse
I forgot the importance of appreciation:
And swapped all I had for the pleasures of pretentious love, whose creation has now
Caused the greatest of upsets not only for myself,
But for all that are joyed by the presence of the grand towers that overlook the city
In which I used to strut and sleep in:
The same city which is still plagued by the rodent that tis
Fra Pandolf.

I am sitting up in a bed of lace duvets, their yellowed hues glowing in the sunlight streaming through the curtains of the lone window. The room is musty, old, and smells faintly of the sea. As I tilt my head back and close my eyes, another scent, this time one of cherry blossoms and pears, fills my nostrils; this is my grandmother's bedroom. The walls are almost an off-white, a dull green tint the only memory of the color they once bore brightly. Birds are chirping, and I can hear the faint sound of fluttering outside the ancient window. A bluebird, perking up its feathers, sings its cheerful melody as it sits perched on the ledge. I smile at it, and it seems to bob its head, cocking its face towards me, as if in that one strange instant, it understood. The bluebird pauses for a moment before flitting away to his friends, eagerly feasting on the myriad of feeders hanging low on tree branches close by. Sighing, I lean back once again on the antique, yellowed bed frame, breathing in the familiar scent of the old white pillows. Slight violin music drifts in from the radio in the other room where my grandmother sits, silently knitting a surprise my sister will adore. The violin sings a song of a via dolorosa, of a crestfallen love that could never ensue, but still shone brilliantly. Tenderly, I pick up the book I'd been reading, carefully running my small fingers along its fragile spine, burying the aged pages in my nose, breathing in its rich aroma. The words take me to magical places, far-off worlds, daring adventures, the promise of mystery at every turn. For that is what a book is, is it not? A mystery waiting to be solved, a story that can transform the hearts of millions, a love that can spring up from even the driest of deserts...all that in the beautiful simplicity of words, words from the human soul itself, words that portray the depths in which the heart can swim against the coursing currents, the heights at which the soul can fly amidst the coming storm. I am flying now, on my way to Neverland, Oz, Camelot, The Hundred Acre Wood, 221B Baker Street, River Heights, Hong Kong, Camazotz, a secret garden.. I am the bluebird, flying high above everything else, traveling to unknown worlds of intoxicating adventure, experiencing
sorrow,
friendship,
love,
heartbreak,
joy,
death,
envy,
rage,
empathy,
horror,
romance,
terror,
and curiosity...
...all in time to be home for dinner.

I look out the window
Into the yard
I see a fluffy Junco
Sitting comfortably on the fence

I see him look around
Then fly over to the feeders
I watch as he gets some seeds
Then goes back to the fence
He puffs back up
And then out of nowhere
A baby Junco
Crookedly and excited
Flies in
Sits next to his dad
And his dad feeds him
And then his dad is off again
To get more food
For his baby

Over the weeks
I watch the Goldfinches,
The Grosbeaks, the Finches,
The Doves, and
The Sparrows.
All gathering on the fence
With their families
To eat
And I am reminded
Of my family
Gathering around the dinner table
Everynight
Chattering, coming and going
But then I think
That those birds must have it far easier
Than we do
All they worry about is surviving
While we have discussions on
Politics, school, wars
Gossip, rumors, things of unimportance

That's when I think back
To my childhood dream
“I want to be a bird when I grow up”
Because they are worry free
Unlike me

Blue symbolizes calmness
Blue symbolizes loyalty
though I know Monday Blues
could get to you
but oh prithee just hear me.
Have you seen where the birds flew?
To the sky filled with blue
those birds soar free.
Have you seen how mad and calm
the ocean could be?
With King Neptune as the king
and his water feeders
flow free with the seven seas.
Your eyes may not be blue,
your heart may have tiny dots of green,
But hear me,
Your soul is crystal clear,
Your hands dance in a way
I could never understand
Your head may still be empty
But as a whole,you're blue
and I still love you like;
I love the colour blue

Season after season.
I've gazed upon you
through my window.

I've seen the snow hang low
upon your branches.
With white upon red berries.
I've watched the snow melt away
to reveal new buds,
opening,
ever so slowly,
to leaves so green.
In early Spring.

I've watched all the creatures
hop, climb, and fly among
your branches.
I've watched the birds taste
your blood-red berries.
I've seen songbirds...
Nuthatches,
finches, and chickadees.
Come to the feeders.
That hang from you.
I've seen the squirrels steal
seeds from the birds.
As their little paws unlatch
a little hook.
I've heard the birds sing among your
branches.
So sweetly.
I remember when the chickadees
built their nest in you,
and then watched their young fledge.
I remember the year the woodpecker
came knocking at your trunk's door.
As he drilled his beak into you.
And made a hole.
After that.
You were never the same anymore...

I watched your life slowly end.
Another year.
Another season.
More dead branches to be severed.
Fewer buds.
Fewer leaves.
As your story slowly drew to a close.

Yesterday,
they chopped down what was left of you.
But I will always remember you.
And I thank the Lord for the joy
of beholding your beauty.
Of watching your story.
You have blessed so many creatures.
Including me.
Farewell,
Beautiful Mountain Ash tree.

Candy breath tastes like death
When it's all you've got anymore
To hide from cold iron faces.
Pitied love seems like stealing
When you're out of maladies
But you're still ******* on the traces.

So you find something smaller than you
To remove the context
Of what your feeders expect
You've stopped becoming *****
So you've got no potential to prove.

It's times like these that you find
That your life is on the line
But you don't seem to care.
A worm on the concrete has a bigger chance to survive
And you know by now that rain can't help
It just rolls off your shoulders.

Like the oak leaf hydrangea bud in May,
like the squirrels infest backyard  bird feeders ,
and like the train whistle echoes in the hollow
rolling through white pines and serviceberry branches,
her trust, in the shape of soft smiles and morning kisses,
permeates his every breath .

The smell of tires and overheated air hits us like confetti pieces as if we've just won the Superbowl.

This is how I choose to remember you.

This was the beginning to our "adventures", hours lost aimlessly wandering down aisles. The list mom wrote, neatly tucked away in the bottom of one of our pockets, whoever she deemed more responsible that day.

Our bellied laughs would bellow clear over the bird feeders, past the flannel lined jeans, and beyond the orange slice candies.

We taught ourselves a new language. One when spoken, always accompanied with a flimsy tongue. One when spoken to anyone but you was just babble.

In this place, we found life without a limit. One where dancing among the Harley Davison vests was acceptable. One where testing the army surplus metal helmets only seemed logical.

We found a place where you didn't have to grow up, time stopped.

For us, we found a place that created equals of us.

These memories, like words stored in dictionaries, are stored in the pages of my mind. On lonely days I visit them, flipping pages, finding your voice, your smile and your silly dance. They echo off the walls of my memories.
                                 and when I open my mouth to echo back it sounds like this :


                                                             ­   Fli
                                                          ­                  Flove
                                                                ­                                Flou

He perched on the edge of the bed,
a study in confusion and misery.
He landed badly, and crawled away.
Then rose and got dressed.
He had slept the sleep of the innocent
and he drowsed away the morning -
He strolled to the window to drink in the view.
Swallowing his first coffee cup's worth
and smoking his last cigarette fondly,
he had a gone feeling when in wonder,
How long has it been since
she left the house, the room, the bed?
He had ought to turned her away
but was always too soft-hearted.
He still told himself that
this would be the last time.

-Jamie F. Nugent