A poetic drama (One Scene)

( Egypt’s parliamentary farce)

(The spokesperson on the presidium strikes the table with a wooden hammer and asks for order. Participants become quiet.
Raise your hands and reflect your views on today’s point of argument— The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD ) on Blue Nile. Various people representatives raise hands,
The spokesman says let us start with Mr. Hydrologist over there.)

Egypt’s globally
Topmost voluminous
Underground
Reserve of water
We could use later.
So via our media outlets
It is better
We dupe
The global community with
Much-touted chatter
“To Egyptians
Demand of water
To cater
Blue Nile is
A life and
Death matter!
As thicker than blood
Is water! ”

Of course,
From the Mediterranean
Or Red Sea
We could extract, desalinate
And use water,
But why should
We talk about that?
We better
Ask on Blue Nile
A farfetched exclusive right.

Though hydropower dam
Has no significant harm
We shall flout it
In a way it runs
Out of charm.
As  the Nobel peace winner
Premier  Abiy Ahmed put it
"Almost all Egyptians
Enjoy the supply of electricity,
While over half of Ethiopians
Are thirsty of such necessity.

Tragically, to date
Using a lamp
Covers most of Ethiopia's map.

For the rational,
It is a source of worry
Innumerable Ethiopian mothers
Still on their backs carry
Backbreaking firewood
So that go to school
Their children could.
What we say
Is if you  are remiss to help
don't stand on our way
While we're flapping wings
From fettering poverty
To break away!"


Also via a conduit
Diverting Blue Nile
Across the Sahara desert
A financial return
Egypt could get
That delights its heart.
The water from
Upstream countries
We do not buy
But paradoxically sell it
We shouldn’t why?

Like Israel
Using drip irrigation
Must not
Draw our attention.
We shall be extravagant
For Blue Nile’s water
Is abundant.
Unchecked lavishly
It must flow!
Pertaining to that
We have to remain adamant.

Also, the
Silt accumulation
In Aswan dam
Could be disastrous
The outcome,
Yet we have
To cry foul
This challenge-averting
GERD must not soon
Generate region-
much-needed power!

Though it is 50 % of the
Annual trans boundary
Water outflow
Other water-generating countries
Are willing to let go
Unwilling anything below,
Kind Ethiopia ventures
Holding only 13% of
The yearly flow to follow,
However, ingratitude
Must feature our attitude.
This may
Provoke a  dismay
But attention
We shall not pay.

(A tumultuous applause shook the parliament. Once more the spokesman asks for order. Then he invites a former diplomat saying “ it is your turn.”)

Once, by famine hit
When Ethiopia   asked
“Help me not why?”,
While others extended help,
Mocking, we did turn
A blind eye.

As our former bent
Whenever Ethiopia
Seeks  grant
From international
Development Institutions
On grounds of
Fighting poverty and drought,
Greasing palms  
We shall bring
Ethiopia’s plans to harness
Blue Nile to naught!
Use we shall
Many a phony diplomat
With a tongue of honey
And a heart of gall.

Tact we do not lack
So cautiously,
Our sanctimonious mask
Our targets
May not hack,
All out
We shall engage in
Self-selling talk!

From all things that fall
In the technical matrices
We shall make a sham politics.

(He sits enjoying a standing ovation. The spokesman invites a representative with a military background.)

We shall blow our
Trumpet in the air
“In lieu of
The reasonable 3 years,
Cooperatively,
From 4 to 6 years
To fill the dam
If Ethiopians dare,
War on it
We shall declare!
Barefacedly claiming
Fifteen to 20 years
Is what is fair!

In such infeasible way
Before it sees the day’s light
GERD will suffer blight.”

(He hiccups and continues)

“With a bellicose bent
To remind ourselves
Deliberately we shall fail
So many times Ethiopia
Chased out every
Egypt’s invading army
Between its legs
Shoveled its tail.
(Ex. Isma'il Pasha/ 1874 –1876
Gundet &Gura March 7–9, 1876)
But why should we care
Arsenal support
Hypocrites, who want to exploit
In the Middle East
Egypt’s political purport,
Will bring to our port.
The current catchphrase
"I can't breathe"
Demonstrates hypocrites'
Justice has no teeth!

We shall
Continue to brag
About GERD’s full actualization
Foot to drag.
I’m afraid
If we strike GERD,
On Aswan dam
Ethiopia will certainly inflict
A similar harm.
Its infantry
Acid-tested hero
Within finger-counted days
Will march into Cairo.

Its top official or
One from its mob
Cold blow up in Egypt a bomb.

We have to understand
As its former PM
Meles put it
“It is not
Its football squad
Ethiopia will deploy
On the terrain rough
When the going
Gets tough!”

We shouldn't worry
We have no history
Of battle front victory.
Poking our nose here and there
(Sudan, Somalia, Yemen,
Libiya, Palestine, Israel)
We shall make political trouble
As we are averse to self
-politics burgeoning dabble.

(He sat after enjoying a heartwarming laughter from the audience. The spokesman himself could not help unzipping his lips and invites a hoary headed historian.)

Subjects of colonization
It is our
Historic right
For the hanging-over
Mentality of predators
To fight
“Gobbling down
All resources
Is our right!”
We shall espouse
Unjust and inequitable deal
“Ethiopia fairly
GERD must not fill!”
We must gamble
Regarding the water division
There has to be a deal
That serves our colonial
Legacy a sign and seal.

There is nothing we hate
Than the following sentiment
Pan Africanists activate.
"We have to get
Behind our back
Days dark!"

(He sits accompanied by an affirmative nods. The spokesman invited Miss Environmentalist "it is your turn." "Thank you for the opportunity,"  she said and  standing she scanned the congregants
before speaking)

In parrying evaporation
GRERD being built in a gorge
Than Aswan Dam
In the desert
Draws better attention.
Though logical,
This we do not wish to hear
So we shall turn a deaf ear
Saying
“Your nuisance
We no longer bear!”

Of course
To avoid siltation
In GERD
Also to ensure
The continuous flow of water
Towards Green development
Ethiopia is making an unprecedented &
Unflagging movement.

Yes , Yes
Green development
Draws rain
Though that is
To our gain
From expressing
Appreciation to
Ethiopia’s timely move
We shall refrain.

From the voice of
Sagacious leaders of
Africa
It is better
To heed a hypocrite
From America;
That could not be a shame
In the political game.

(She takes a seat enjoying a high five. The spokesman invites a parliamentarian who is a member of the Arab league.)

As Sudan poses
A rational gait
Its voice has weight.
Our sugar-coated talk
It may not buy
Hence, the fuel-intoxicated
Gluttonous Arab League
Its voice
Needs to raise high.
White supremacists
Must try hard
To sweet talk Sudan
To our side.
Otherwise
Creating political heat
In to two its people
We have to split
To unseat
Its incumbent president
Popular support that ride.
This  insidious tide
From Sudanese mob
We have to hide!

We have a toy League
That doesn’t ask itself
“ Why
War-fleeing Arabs ,
Shunned by Arabs,
Seek a safe haven
Under Ethiopia’s sky?
Why  of all
In Prophet Mohammed's eyes
Ethiopia stands tall?”
That no one could deny
But we must
Neither wonder  nor ponder
“Why
For own advantage
Arabs-eating-Arabs
That commit  
Political suicide
Could not
Stand by
The reasonable
Ones’ side?”

Creating this and  
That pretext
We shall derail
The all-out task
To bring GERD’s to end,
At long last
To make it
As good as dead.

Why should we care?
If Ethiopia or the region is
Thirsty of hydropower
In so far as
Our conceited
Pride remains
In glory tower.


Moreover if soured
Pushed to the end or angry
Reflect  we must not
Ethiopians could tame
Its this or that tributary.

(When a wealthy merchant raised his hand the spokesman gave him a green light to speak.)

Pampering with money
Fifth columnists cruel
Let us keep on using
In Ethiopia
As runs the adage
Divide and rule,
Along ethnic
And religious lines
To  drive a wedge
So that Ethiopians will not
Come to the same page,
While turmoil in their country
Opts to rage.

We could ignore the fact
Ethiopians soon display
Unity and solidarity
When threatened gets
Nation’s  sovereignty.
In Ethio-Somali war
Ethiopians Karamara’s Victory
Talks loud such history.

I'm afraid
Our  divisive action could
Bring together Ethiopians,
Be it on left or right end,
Their sovereignty to defend.


Robbed of
Their alluvial soil
By a prodigal river
Ethiopia’s  farmers
Undergo a hard toil
If we are asked for that
Compensation to pay
“No!”
We  have  to say.

Note that
Using industrialization
Like Japan
Develop we can
Than irrigating  
A- scorching-sun
-smoldered land
Full of sand.

As the  jealously insane
What should worry Egypt
Must not  be what  it could lose
But  Ethiopia gain.
What I fear
In the diplomatic arena
With GERD Ethiopia
Will come forth
Shifting gear.
When Ethiopians' development
Proceeds apace
Ethiopia could Egypt displace.
So on its development
We  have to pose a roadblock
Or a spoke.
.

(This much  farce is enough for today .Parliament is dismissed says the spokesman.)////////

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret,Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)
This essay is based on the observation research that had been carried out  by a social research firm in  Eldoret, Kenya, in the preceding six moths, which has been concluded on 30th January 2014.I the writer of this essay was among the lead team that carried out this study.We unobtrusively observed two thousand University graduates from east African states of Kenya,Uganda,Tanzania,Rwanda,Ethiopia,Sudan,and Burundi plus a few form some parts of Congo .Our target population of two thousand graduates was used under the guiding assumptions that it would help the study to arrive at water tight social conclusions.Our problem of focus was that ;why are male graduates in east Africa not marrying fellow graduates but instead go for marital partners who have substantially lower education qualification and even academic achievement.
The conditions of serendipity was also encountered and taken care of , when we also deviated from the natural social settings and charted with our digital social media friends who were approximately two thousand as well.They were digital social friends from Facebook and twitter digital social platforms. We  posted a thread in question form that ; if you were marrying today , would you marry a girl you graduated with the same year? Eighty percent of the responses to this thread was no , only twenty percent was yes.
The actual situations in an empirical experience is that male graduates prefer marrying ladies who stopped schooling in high school,and male high school or diploma college graduates prefer marrying ladies who don’t have clear high school education.And male primary school leavers prefer marrying ladies with inferior social positions like those who come from poorer families or from different tribal communities that are geographically, economically or culturally disadvantaged.
And in case where a male graduate dares to marry a fellow graduate , the dominantly observed social behaviour in this juncture is that ; the boy will go for the girl in a different school or faculty that is perceived to be inferior within the university academic climate.Like a student of medicine or law will go for a girl doing education or any University course perceived to be inferior.But the observation  produces insignificant cases of where a medicine student daring to marry a fellow medicine student.The minor cases of where a medicine student dares to marry a fellow medic will only take place in a social fabric that the male student at fifth year level will go for a girl in first year.Still there is a social tilt.
When we asked for reasons in a non-obtrusive manner from our unsuspecting respondents.We got both positive reasons and negative reasons.The positive reasons our respondents gave are that in most cases girls who don’t make it to the university happen to be more beautiful or their physique is more sexually appealling than those ladies who make it to the university.when we projected this type of reasoning , we also found that ladies who are in schools like education,journalism or any other school perceived  inferior in the cultures of the University are again more beautiful and more socially enticing than the girls doing University courses like law ,medicine or engineering.One of the respondents made a socially outlying remark by saying that girls at the polytechnic or certificate colleges are usually light in the skin,**** in character and blessed with big or pronounced bossoms than ladies at the university.
When we asked the negative reasons , our respondents argued that  ladies from the university are not controllable,neither are they prepared to be controlled come even the marriage. Further argument for these behaviour by male  graduates is that the University ladies are sexually exhausted,As they usually stay with a man in the hostel or in the cube during the four or the five years of their live at the University. Some even live with different men interchangeably, after which they divorce those many on the graduation day.Another response is that University ladies have a proclivity towards social hangout behaviours like smoking ,pinching or revving in the wine spree and loving the pocket but not the owner of the pocket.
This social phenomenon have imperative concerns that there is high level of genetic mismatch through marriages in east Africa or any other part of the world which east Africa can be socially generalizable to in such particular socialization.Graduate ladies are often forced to marry as second wives , or marry non graduate husbands or stay as a single mother but playing a mistress somewhere, a social behviour described as mpango wa kando or chips funga in the the east African Kiswahili parlance. Such social encounters have a long term consequences of fettering the genetic potential of the family in terms of  academics.When we conform to a warning by an eminent American psychologist that ; ninety percent of academic brilliance is contained in the genes but not influenced by environment we then obviously concur with the findings of this study that if a graduate marries a graduate there is a guarantee for academic performance among the offspring , but where a graduate marries  a non graduate ,  academic performance among the offspring is either mediocrous or probabilistic.The findings of this study also fall in technical tune and intellectual tandem with the observations of Lee Kuan Yeow in his book; From the third world to the first world in which he pointed out that; failure by the male graduates from  Universities in Singapore to marry the fellow female graduates was an impeachment to development as the ultimate consequence of these social behaviours is unnecessary inhibition of good genetics at a macroeconomic level.
The conclusive position of this study is that University leaderships in Africa, with a particular focus on east Africa, must inspire new University culture that has a turnaround effect on this behavioural status quo.The reality is that male graduates behave like this out of a dominance syndrome not out of anything technically worthwhile.Kindly , let our graduates change their marriage behaviour so that we can substantially protect our genetic advantages.

References;
Lee Kuan Yeow; From Third World to the First World
Alexander K  Opicho, is a social researcher at Sanctuary Research agencies in Eldoret, Kenya.He is also a lecturer  for Research Methods in Governance.

I have always accepted you.
I have watched you take and take and take.
You've taken my family,
hell, you've even taken friends.
Suicide. Cancer. Disability. Age of Old.
I've seen it all.

I've seen you in the pain,
the Love that is overwhelming as people weep over you.
Once have I cried because of you.
One funeral.
A boy, my age, murdered by his own hand.
A classmate. A friend. Dead.

And I watched, as people wept at his funeral,
and how easy it was to pick out false Love.
How untrue they were.

You take, and you hurt, dear Death.
But you show the reality,
our truest forms,
our deepest souls,
the Love buried deep down,
how real you make us.

But I see you,
even in things you haven't yet taken.

I see you in the trees,
as they turn to feathery golds and crimsons, oranges crisped as they crunch underneath our toes.

I see you in the morning,
as birds flutter amongst my window
fettering amongst the trees.

I see you in the river,
horses that run rampant across my memory,
as I long to just run away and ride,
to feel the wind rush through the curls upon my brow.

I see you in my mother's eyes,
in her laughter and smile.
Her eyes when she is pained, how hurt she has been, or as she dawns things anew,
or when she cries of the loss she has grieved.
Giggles and joy erupt from her lips, as she dawns on the silly things her father did.
The curve of her lips, as she remembers her past, what Time has given her and what has passed.
Oh how she looks of her parents,
how kind I remember them,
always full of Love, even after I have seen them leave, depart the land of the living and go onto the gates of Heaven.

For they live in memory,
and that is the gift you have given.
You have given us peace and memory,
and for that I thank you.
Most are angered by your name, oh Death,
but I?

I am not afraid for you,
and rather,
I welcome you.
Take me when you will.
I'll gladly take your hand.
I thank Time for what he has given me and countless others,
but you, I thank for the bargain of Time you have given each of us.

It is a treasure,
the memories we are able to hold dear
and the peace we don't have to fear
when we take your wrinkled hand,
and step into you fully,
without a pain left to feel,
because that pain is left in our world
as we step onto the floor of Heaven
and gaze upon the greatest sight of all.

Perhaps we as humans need to stop seeing you as we want to see you
but to see what's in you truly;
the collateral beauty of it all.

The fuzzy hug that never loosens its grasp
Clutching as a barbed wire hugs and puppies cuddle and love,
whiskers and noses nuzzling, the straitjacket loves your mind,
wishes it could just squeeze the nightmares out and streaming as juices from an orange,
but its might only pressurizes, the more you fight the more you hurt,
bruising our precious straitjacket heart, he’s here to help us
take the tasks of fettering hands
just to hug and coil about us
Learn to love them, the society blanket,
the crazy snuggler, the bunny constrictor
Crazy’s not useful and our little straitjacket cures our woes
strangling us within linen cotton folds
simmer our fires
breaking our bronc
hushing our tantrum cry
It’s the mother we Learn to love
Kin that keeps us in heavenly grip
The Straitjacket’s here for all our insanists

You, the invisible country
I have only read about;
Me, the half-veiled truth
That your words would rout.

You, the fettering bond,
With silken thread of chain;
Me, the evasive bird,
Comes circling round, again.

Give the land a name,
So it's heart, to frame;
Give the bird a seed,
Not caged, by distant deeds.

shirtless on porch,
beer and smoke after
days of filth. now,
washed body, cleansed
mind, though fretting
tightened rope of the
self-fettering variety --
taut enough for to
never be found complacent.
one of many a mortal sin
being cycled by this mortal
vessel. indulging in denial that
everything is one, and one is
nothing, and circular rhetoric is
nothing more than the semantics
of trying too hard to not try.
creating symbolism with
understanding the reaping
could never be perennial --
forming rituals to coincide with
the now, yet without devotion of
pious ages past. this in know-
ledge that once the flame dies,
none will be re-lit.

"You're no stray feline,
you're a lady," they will say.
As I trim myself to the pattern they made,
adjure me to learn the dance of their stick.
Turn a blind-knowing stare in a contrivance
of my tragedies, war, and my five inches feet.

"You're no stray feline,
you're a lady," they say.
Fettering my hopes to brew lies in my entrails,
for I have no value without a bind on my step.
Endowed with no shield nor shaft for fight that I was trained,
must cower behind closed doors with a conflict in my chest.

I am no stray feline,
I am a lady, they told me.
Churning and wobbling under their commanding breathe
to flaunt I am more than a dancing bone in a vessel.
But why would they bury my lust for helm and sword away,
and exhort me to put these 3-inch shoes of hell?

Balsamic parades
appearing
before you now

A cosmic                silence
fettering                O fair winded fury
      
PassionGlancing

   delicate fishnets casting for a stage of Arab desire

        Neolithic pattern &
tender reflection does welcome the stone
which an ardentness accompanies

    Long, Long and carried
    and curious
    
  a glance of eyes/
         your cavern for splendor
        
               freckled blossoms, tired
               eve of tiger daylight &
              
steam whimpers from your
               shadowy ash
church bells ask drawn-out questions for dogs that have long been dead

     vision of an ambigous
    baritone presence
    
     daisies & mist settling over the valley
     & the estate burned down! & multitudes of trees pray for your shoulders to be relieved of dragging your own grave
    
      & expressed expressed expressed
        until exhaustion
        
         & the thread of thought is naked the tone is optimistic
        
          The miracle is upon us
(the miracle)

            shrines are rebuilding
            patiently
            
I can feel a pheonix glow
can you feel it, too?


(and I and you and the animal outside and its noise and how it increases in size
and how the earth shakes from the vibrations and we try to sleep it off
we cannot distract ourselves from
the wind
is tearing apart the decorations we had on the balcony
the land is stirring with consciousness
it is whispering but the whole world whispering is
A great tectonic force

we will not run
we will sing too
we will sing)

my mind river pursues this
event

& babylonian cities flower from
the weathered
sea
      eager to join our laughter

How do we get ourselves
back from the lost places
inside our own minds;
the places where self-doubt
swims like a school
of sharks,
a school of thought?

The page,
tells the kindest
lies;
doesn’t always have
to be true,
however, it should
be honest.

It should hurt
A little.

Like…

a cage fighter,
like razor-wire,
like a coffee cup,
like a broken bottle,
like suede,
like the left wing
of a hawk

or

the right wing
of a vulture.

Like the backfire
of an old car,
the roar of
a shotgun;
the tink and plink of
buckshot on
an old 50-gallon
drum.
like a saw-tooth,
like a lion’s roar,
like a warm blanket

or

a war machine,
like something sweet,
that’s become something
else,
something obscene.
like a sonic-boom
rattles a pane
of glass.

Nothing is really,
like anything else,
we’re all simply
figuring everything
out for ourselves.

We’re fettering,
ferreting our own
truths from
betwixt the
lines, our own lies
so,
keep a
keen mind,
a watchful
eye.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&Z Publications 2018

**, what noise? Ahhh 'tis but the wind disturbing
A precarious balance. Well I know
This barren waste holds naught but air and rock,
For once again has wrath and anger pricked
The mind of Zeus to vengeance, and bans He
Now all visitations. No more shall the
Daughters of Oceanos come to speed
The hours with mild discourse. No longer shall
Their beauty bless my days. The weight of isolation
Does so press upon me that the vain and
Servile babbling of Hermes would be welcome
But His voice forbids it. And these craggy
Towers wrought of Nature cruelly do
Bar the simple pleasures of rambling goat
And song full bird, for no beast may attain
These heights save one, my feathered torment. Half
My time is spent, half is yet to come, and
Darkly do my spirits waver. Is it
Not better to give to Zeus His want and
End this agony, than to grieve the trials
Of stubborn opposition? Would it not
Better serve my purpose to be free these
Fast fettering chains? Oh how dreary do
These weary thoughts color the mind, yet how
Quickly do they fade in the light of immortality.
It is far more wise to own this vile *******
Than bend to a raging will. Well I see
The coming of His pains and my release,
And the certain knowledge of those days steels me
To endure

Afraid to be with a man with a vision
Must be a reason why you taunt with fettering-fleeting contact
Look in the mirror, what love did you leave behind
Is he just another casualty
In the war that rages inside of you
I wanted to help you from that hell
The one you run from but fail to hide
All in the name of ******* pride
When all I said was I wish you were the girl
That would become my bride

such space for creation
without strangled-throat;
without pre-conception there
at fettering length. and i want
to smoke this *******
cigarette right here, right
now, where supined, ego
stoking knowing i can't. i
won't, and i'll just come along
down the road and revolt
against own great Ego; i'll
cycle cyclically some later day.
           pretentious ****,
sometime's we need to be hate.
sometime's there needs to
be contradiction; self-made
chaos in attempt to -- ****,
i don't know. i wanna smoke
this cigarette. i could use
to burn a bit; could use for
a moment's blindness.
                   (you're there right now,
            already. a while now)
could use for a moment's
luminescence out from supine sky -
textured dry-wall. want felt in
the bones; about a nic-fit, about
time to smoke this ******* cigarette.

I’m over here spending twelve stupid years
Becoming a parrot who repeats what she hears
It’s not for the learning, it is for the grade
So I turn off my brain seven hours a day.

I’m wasting, I’m wasting, I’m wasting my time
Even that phrase is a waste of a line
And I’m sick of all of these definitions
Pressing on in, getting marked in red pen—

What am I doing here?
You convinced me there’s answers for everything,
Unvarying, black-and-white lettering,
Supposedly bettering, more like you’re fettering
Me like a prisoner, mental inhibitor
Wish you were valuable, you little swindler,
I’ll play your game, ‘cause that’s all that it is,
A paper to frame, that is all that I get
But if I’m wasting away at this desk,
Forced in the system, then I’ll be the best.

If you can't eat without me don't
Can't stomach the thought of my gullet
Full of food you didn't cook
Bland tactless English delight
Boil the heart out, dispose of the soul
The taste of resignation
A sense of higher morality
As if his callused hand contained a godly glory
A Buddhist wisdom, a song of peace
A place untouched by the fettering, fleeting feelings of a family
That can't appreciate the art
Of brutal meditation

**, what noise? Ahhh 'tis but the wind disturbing
A precarious balance. Well I know
This barren waste holds naught but air and rock,
For once again has wrath and anger pricked
The mind of Zeus to vengeance, and bans He
Now all visitations. No more shall the
Daughters of Oceanos come to speed
The hours with mild discourse. No longer shall
Their beauty bless my days. The weight of isolation
Does so press upon me that the vain and
Servile babblings of Hermes would be welcome
But His voice forbids it. And these craggy
Towers wrought of Nature cruelly do
Bar the simple pleasures of rambling goat
And song full bird, for no beast may attain
These heights save one, my feathered torment. Half
My time is spent, half is yet to come, and
Darkly do my spirits waver. Is it
Not better to give to Zeus His want and
End this agony, than to grieve the trials
Of stubborn opposition? Would it not
Better serve my purpose to be free these
Fast fettering chains? Oh how dreary do
These weary thoughts color the mind, yet how
Quickly do they fade in the light of immortality.
It is far more wise to own this vile *******
Than bend to a raging will. Well I see
The coming of His pains and my release,
And the certain knowledge of those days steels me
To endure.

Oh I can't stop these words
tumbling and falling
from empty spaces in my head
as they ride the wicked helix
from here to hell and back again
on fettering wings like bats
that get caught in angel hair spaghetti
that gets flushed down the toilet with all the other
goldfish crackers

Each shouting head
surrounds me in rings of fire
with one desire
to watch me burn
as they hula-hoop with rubic's cubes on boomerangs
set for mars or maybe Seattle

Sometimes it's just this way for me
with my mind floating free
like butterflies in nets
or sickly flies in butter
waiting for the spread
but you know it's 10 to 1
and I'm about to get knocked out
I hope you didn't place your bets
on me

I wish the endless stream of consciousness
didn't feel like emptiness
with the only ears that listen
are glued to my head
like Halloween costumes
when Jason stole my candy, called me a dandy,
and ran the hell away

It's really hard to describe
when words won't take logical form
like being gaslighted by my own brain
who wears red ribbons
and plays with ***** of yarn
on rolling farms
as the cow jumped over the moon

But if you think that the cow
was a sight to behold
my imagination's untold secrets
got something for your mental circus
I just saw purple hydras on amino acid trips
riding unicycles
wearing diapers
hanging out with Picasso
who said
"What does this poem even mean, bruh?"

weight, gentle against the softness of
my belly; there, mandible, and the
other: ribbons of cornflower fettering
hollow-bird-bones soothing
dessicated pinions; chasing the
empty billow 'neath ribs swelling, stretching, the
emptiness of the throat; gazing down; stroking
gentle against a silken cranium; pressure
points, GV20 TH21 GB20, then
down the pinna,
watched with placid wet eyes. Fingers
weave into your scruff, curling, longing;
consumed.