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Robin Carretti Jul 2018
This is not, a time to loosen up
Or nine to five job to give up
Just saddle up the power is in you
Five ladies cafe to dine at five and
drove_* the meter is running
(The Canadian Cup) team versus the
     Taxi Cup
He swooned you in your
Five dreamy but half heart sugars
Come on Baby bloomers
Let's see some boom!!

In your hips men will be men taking
frequent flyer trips temptation 1 2345
We need fewer digs one love teo reasons
World  345  heart flags
We don't have to cross our hearts
Perhaps tattoo heart legs no more strikes
Jumping Jack flash
What a rope in this isn't the Pope

Somehow we all get broke
To court her like your the lasso
stars cosmos hearts like Lassie
Never a change of subject how it
remains in your heart how it hit hard
to react but changed to five cards
Digging too long  lucky 777 like heaven
Heart digs

1-where?
Oh! There

No, I am here
We are always  
In-between
numbers_ I only
have 5 minutes
No I phone have a heart
Oh! where is designed for me
Those five plates

Whats in between them
      *Him

We are opening Live- Five
Strong heart to give the caring
The useful heart is never so daring
My gate* Girls are nail digging
Hugging

Or losing add +

Flirty
*****
Our community
Heftier like Jupiter
Heart to build
the gravity
A big kiss hunch
of five roses

Your getting to bloom
but only have
5 extra movie parts
The front dress mermaid tail
Your heart delicate hands
opened up your emails
I think you hit the
Jackpot

Max to the million shot
No heart of gold
Only more leaders
Scrambling and digging
your fork
Mixing those egg beaters

Five men think they know
there women
like ten
commandments
Turn to five wrong
engagements
There it goes the lucky
five arguments

A plot beating
like a hot-shot
The French Baguette
Bread 9 to 5 firecracker
Five-carat baguette
wedding band in her safe
Heart digs to five hands
Heart neck guilty as a giraffe

The cafe house had only
5 cups left  they sold you out
Only Five Bed and breakfast
stayers
Do detailed with their Ladyfingers
But need more alone time
Be on time get sweet key lime
What is real-time so sublime

That rose- paper cut- origami
Sorcerer of five he was like the
cold cuts of big Sub Salami
Japanese sword samurai
What a Geronimo Oh! no
Jericho
This wasn't a hot potato

Or Gizmo No-Go
Getting a shot for Polio
The gusto songs to the heart play
Maestro the Cosmo's
The five stars to heart his
afterglow
Like a titanic ship but heroics

Five lunatics wedding horns ******
Five two timer Mario gamers
so demonic
DOMINO'S bed five students wed
We dug deeper get-up sleepy-head
Exposed cries location set
Network U- dig cups

Something lip curved
He misplaced my lips
What did he do in exchange
More stocks and hard stone rocks
Like frying pan egg
scrambled words

Crossed heart Rapper so believing
The Fox five sticking tacky glue
His CD Rose lying pants no clue
Painful pointed shoes need R&R
     Robin's *Responsibilities
       The Heart On Replay
The deeper you dig to restart

The healthy organically grown brain
Men on Pause I truly believe nature
takes its course
but another beat to go is that so?
And if so heart digs to five
Feel the good vibe in another tribe
Five times I had to wake you up
I am the love cure reminiscing

Giving me five reasons
Our beautiful change of
heart in season

Studying the fine art heart
Referencing
Never refusing thats life
five-step to strive nothing
Fancy

Robin shoutbox she getting
her point across
Either you're the worker or loner
The heart pleaser the boss
Your heart looks good
on your dress
Whether we win or deep mess
The good heart can change to
a bad start

Recharge your heart count to five
Venus- beauty moved on like a
pathologist digging over staying alive
The hearts what digs this is not the 9-5 workers we are talkers
and long settling in heart walkers come any join me we may actually be alive did I get a live one
abby May 2014
Do not stretch your fingers in my direction;
I am not your ******* or your heroine;
I am no drug to be addicted to.
My body is bruised and I am bent out of shape;
My ankles are all ninety degree angles;
And my knuckles are caked in golden hues.
The callouses on my heels are peeling;
And your spitfire attitude is exhausting.
"Simmer down, firecracker;
You lionhearted girl."
I'm flying at the speed of light;
I am going to crash, a beaten down piñata;
And nobody will pick up the pieces.

Simmer down, firecracker.
I'll simmer down when I'm dead.

*(a.m.c.)
For that time Katie told me, "simmer down, firecracker" and I thought it would make a great line in a poem. Thanks kick-*** Katie.
Skypath Sep 2014
It's elementary, my dear
This bittersweet affection that I feel
From one boy to the next I grew
Ladder rungs of broken hearts

First grade
Blonde hair and disarming smile
Recess games and hallway passes
A note in a diary and minutes spent giggling
Never talking, always watching

Fourth grade
Glasses frame of brown hair and thin shoulders
Curious enigma to come and go
A bit more literate diary entrees
One year of crossed legs and shy smiles

Fifth grade
A growing tree of lean muscle and blue eyes
Short brown hair and a charming grin
Side by side on a rubber track
Gray skies and sweet goodbyes
A bright dance floor and a shattered heart
Miserable nights and heartbreak songs

Seventh grade
Long dark hair and chocolate eyes
This spring has brought a strange surprise
Wiry muscle and soft cheeks
Once admired, then adored
An ongoing thrum of sweet affection
Sidelong glances and gym class stares
New discoveries and quiet realization
Girl can love girl

Tenth grade
A firecracker packed with mysterious boys
And an enigmatic girl
A bomb in the summer sky
Spelling new names, new faces, new hearts
A whisper of 'I love you' at long last returned
Names carved on my ribs and pulling my lips
A tightened chest never felt so good
Robin Carretti Jul 2018
He was blown>>>>
>>>> away_--- from
my lace-up
Is She his blue
Mood tie set any bet
to walk the talk

At your own pace
The lustful wake up she
got the face

The edge of his rim sneaker
So prim who is proper
On the brim of ecstasy
He puts sugar on my tongue

Rumors like the "Talking Heads"
All in the bedding sneaker
Jane of the jungle wild tongue
She races Tarzan swinging sneakers
You and I tripped over dreams the sneaker?
Lip to lip disaster

The "Cyberwar" stepped on melting
Gold *** of tar
The loud blaster she moves the
Starwars so far

He could eat her up
his checkered black and white flag
Like a lobster claw his last draw

The racer mouth sponsor

She was born 2-B that way
sneakers love 3 some run
It's not unusual to have fun
with anyone
Her hands were far gone but
solid as a rock
Rollicking flying his rocket
Racing by her own clock Ms. Hornet


His sneaker loud love feud one
the detail on her sneaker
the wild bird of a bud

He shook me all night long
don't do an
A-C-D-C  on me
The sneaker he got the
Crazy eights
 No prank calls
Her hot buns and
Speaker- Frank-flirters
take me out to the
ball game demonized

The Anti Christ be born again
My sneaker group what a tank full
The Antitank no thanks
You cant always get what you want
and if you try sometimes
Charge all plastic but
sneakers like rubber soul

Visa hot runner Lisa no control
The American Express abdominal press
Shop until she drop's gum-drops
Your head was like a
Rolling Stone Jagger
Bigfoot sneaker Friday 13 size
That girl sweet pea Lea surprise
In the Hell, kitchen she snapped
That purr nightcap like Cleopatra

He's the Mantra so passionate fruit loopier
She's the Mona Lisa unfriendly sneaker
Your happy socks are quick
On his bell-hop feet
The sneaker riddle beat


That long meeting so *******
For time baby blue eyes Frank
on the mic
Like the jitterbug tight-knit
as sneaker print rug
Citron sharp eyes 5 Karat
Spicy hot Chili pepper
poem sonnet

The singer swung
Jazzy sneaker band
Dr. Who wears sneakers drinking
Dr. Pepper

The "Red Apple McIntosh" computer
Such a loud mouth hacker Josh
Jeweled Judy cultured pearls sneaker smash

Or her Stairmaster her
sneaker hotties ruffles have ridges
The juicy burgers dill pickles

Desperately sneaking Susan
sneakers to her affair finish line 
What a Lady Madonna
baby sneakers
at her breast rebel of hearts
I wonder how she manages to
sneaker speed the rest

Her best to out twin any talk
bullseye power walk
Buying the triplex sneaker
The loud talker 4 for 4 fame Wendy
Run like a fugitive your alias
name
Go International quite run
for your money I suppose
His sneakers up on her recliner
It wasn't her better rose
She's the high boot lady ever finer

On E-Bay selling your favorite sneakers
Those Australian Huskies biting sneakers
Such a Paws up against doggone heartbreaker

The in-crowd Flynn or another runner Lynn
Everybody is not a star or wedding crasher
Or even the right sneaker lover

Lady that lives in her homeless shoes
Are we all inside a video game
all commercials

Needing bifocals video begins
 Wynn at Sneaker Con
Joy to the world of the joystick
The sneaker of the Torah prayers of
the Temple
All dots and specs out of sneakers
More zits and pimples
I just want one-half cream
The changing Moon 1/2 Wolf
My man (Mr. Drakar) Howling toenail

French onion soup say cheese
her sneaker what a
no-brainer lightheaded breeze
You come so far sneaker trainer
And a grave site plot famous
brand sneaker
name

A million odds to one name in the
cemetery
****** Mary she flies in her
sneaker like Mary Poppins
Going under the influence
Heres looking at you kid umbrella

Hot Hollywood Taurus Bulldog
runner
We really don't have a name

We are writers and ****
good fighters single to mingle sneaker
Not the homewrecker more like the homemakers
Even sneaker has a voice and walks like singers
Shoeiverse sneaker race
became her living curse
The grin of the Grinch green sneakers
On his sled ride the lucky shamrock

I'm the happy heel
The tigress furry feel skip to my Lou
he ordered the
kids happy meal

Getting a ticket for reckless walking
Lights on or eyes wide shut
Are sneakers running for their life?

More fuel- time we get no alone time
Let's go shopping for the
new sneaker called
(Valentine only) sold one
day the sale
Singing her sneaker song a chip
device to talk back hot male
The 'Calvin Klein" dockers her ball of the foot
tennis sneakers It's her loud Owl ******-hoot

The farm girl Ralph Lauren corral
To rope her in lasso-like with morals
racing horse of different color fashion
I cannot hear you I have a hell
of a tinnitus reaction

  She-Devil bickering.>>> No heart like a sneaker
I am a snake too short to run the mile

I was too busy looking
at her long legs
On the Jet
** Plane
The most popular lady
in her sneakers 

Viper car and strings attachments
Ms. Love lace the shoelaces
with hearts
She is tied to his ankles
like condiments
Like Sweet cherries what a
bomb kicker sneaker
The Southern Belle runner
Be the stunner the trucker roadrunner

Hail to Mary the sneaker
Queen of Sheba
Turn on the radio Country singer Reba
What a sneaker rating ratio

When she bent down the crisscross
Watch out cross my heart trainer

Cross my heart and hope to die
To get slimmer
I am the happy sneaker
all the moods hot goods
(Hey Robin Hood)
stealing a rich man and poor women
which is the witch

One string said pull me the
other one said you feel like a
Chrome lead sleepy feet go to bed

Like Beer and pretzels
What an insane sneaker hazard
Hospital beepers sneaker virus
stepped on the most expensive
Venus, I beg you to run
lips we travel bullets and stars
We just want some fun

Marathon key just one clicker
That strawberry shortcake
Versus the "Cherry Bomb"
The Prince and the Pauper
what a toad kisser
That army tanker hurry up
lunch or brunch
What a Patriot Brady bunch

My shoelaces became like a
firecracker candy bar crunch

Who is the loser lover
or the winner
The long trip almost at the end
of the race
What a rivalry those shot glasses
at random
The sneaker fandom

Smile to me if you're not
wearing anything
but sneakers
My wings the wifi cute feet just
say Hi

No, I saw a man 600 pounds
of Reebok gold way too
much belly roll fat
The Dr. Seuss cat in the hat

Nike in the air Robin
bird skydivers
Dark matter gold diggers
Movie (It) Stephen King
skateboard

Penny feet relaxer
The Wise clown got her
The sneakers comedians
Seinfeld stand up sneaker
To be dead or wed Kleinfeld
Exotic sneakers and
cars he made a home run
Hot hell ring my bell
You made me happy
I got to first base

And you all sync into
one of a kind sneaker
Mom Robin the singer
No, I saw a man-eating
out of his sneaker
His head up in the Nike air
Oh! all hell breaks footloose
computer looking
up the sneaker sales

All I am doing is clicking
with a mouse
Where is my lover
sneaker twin, my spouse
This is about a trip not on an airplane flight more down to earth long walk star gazers or runners and clickers but its a comedy around all names and hot runner shes the firecracker don't  eat her at her game
Alyanne Cooper Jun 2014
He took my hand
And my heart skipped a beat.

Skadoosh

My world implode,
Never to be the same.

Kaboom

Now that he's gone,
How do I recover?

Bang

He was my firecracker,
My short-fused flame.
abby Nov 2015
your hands are gospel, writing history
with your fingertips and whispering
prayers up and down my spine
i called you my ravenous wildebeest, and i
said it with a smile painting my lips, but
you are everything wild,
thorny, and carnivore.
you're gonna eat me up with texas-sized
teeth and leave me a carcass in the
desert. but i don't mind
i want to be bone for you,
bare.
i think that maybe your bigness is going
to consume me
until i'm a star-soaked black hole
set me on fire, douse me in gasoline
make all the blood rush to my head
because kid, you're a firecracker
and i've always been in love with explosion.

*(a.m.c.)
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2020
why did i ever go out on a friday night?
drinks with "friends" and hitting the essex
club "scene" -
well - no much of a scene -
there was never the music you'd want to listen
to: come friday or saturday -
even mid-week when all the rock kids
were "hanging out" -
what would be chances of being your own d.j. -
catching something really new...
POIZON - church is poizon -
cool mom - something between a crossbreed
of cage the elephants and nirvana on blew -
3rd view - moi -
but i used to: and i remember that gehenna of
a sobering walk - alone after a night out -
like some furious son of sam -
when youth still had the adrenaline with it
and a sense of anger ******* around with
disillusionment -

those were the friday nights: bon jovi highlights
and long hair and milking a somewhat androgynous
look - sometimes the mascara would come out...
those were the days of having milk skin
and a proper shave -
the long hair and the waistcoast and cravat: semi-,

the lonesome story before i met my beard:
fwyday mordaithceirch -
i actually have a name for it...
i forgot what's already the designated
whittle pecker mr. pritchard of the down down:
below...

oh, oh so what...
rough friday nights in my youth -
on the clubbing "scene" -
and always that moral hangover when it came
to drinking with others -
ever since i started drinking by myself:
i forgot the mirror and that bucket
of warm water beside my bed to put my hand
in before going to sleep...
once or twice the company was worth the drink -
but most of the time you only kept
such company: because you were drinking -
drinking was never an afterthought -

now... i like drinking alone -
at least i can keep fact-checking the company
and the odd vocab peacock taking to the catwalk
of a ruminating free-fall tongue waggle
and rummage - the needle in the haystack
adventure - or... the ******* bucket
of deshelled oysters...

there have been some awful friday nights -
but: seeing how i started to give my beard
a welsh name borrowed from a willem dafoe
novel - and how it simply became pointless
to wake the dead with the angry tantrums
of youth: and how i seem to have
forgotten where my 20s "went" -
somehow rooted in: da-sein and how
i "wasted" 2 years on one book by kant -
2 years on one book by heidegger -
and: how i didn't have the time to "catch-up"
on the greek classics -

oh these island dwelling people -
i try to imagine them not being a seafaring:
and their messiah / superiority complex -
with their breakfast that could hardly
be digested come the hour of noon -
or no messiah / superiority complex -
the traffic: indeed - works like clockword...
from left to right...
sidenote: what of fahrenheit and
the feet and inches - stones and pounds?
ounces?
the metric of: baseline 0 here,
baseline 00 over there...

no... Michele Campanella piano solo take
on wagner's das rheingelt: entry of the gods into
valhalla - it's hardly anemic -
it's... the last leaf of autumn falling -
because the crescendo has already happened...
a befitting closure...

the superior island folk and their...
hyphens and germanic loan words -
how almost all names in chemistry are still
in their germanic: intact form of: no hyphen:
broken leg or broken arm...

woodwinds... perhaps... the violins providing
the humming of birds:
chirp chirp: no chirping -
and of course the horn - but the horns never
as prominent as those drank from...

something has happened today -
but i am... left without having any english
sensibility / egalitarianism -
somehow i always equate egalitarianism with
the english - the islanders -
a firework went off in the background -
mr. sloth awoke mrs. slouch after 3 years
for a firecracker celebration...

because who would want to be ruled
over by unelected: chocolatiers...
esp. after their trial run in the Congo -
but i have certainly had worse friday nights...

it can't exactly get much worse than...
say... listening to the siegfried idyll...
multitasking: drinking a cider, smoking a cigarette,
balancing act of folded leg sat on
perched on a windowsill solving a no. 11,289
sudoku from the 27th jan. 2020...
otherwise prior to:
imagine my disbelief at the pleasure -

with numbers to somehow escape thinking in words:
no grand arithmetic linear gymnastics -
of the end result -
certainly no logical statements -
just a whirlwind of numbers complimenting
these few words...
and what a fine friday night it has become:

the pizza was made - god save me from the perfume
of yeast... or checking on the rising dough
from time to time -
the leftover yeast gave me the opportunity
to bake an imitation sourdough crust pretty-as-a-picture
loaf that: would make any mushroom blush
and shy away from unfolding into an umbrella pose...
or a Y... curling outward-inward into an upsilon Υ...

because how could i forget the pleasure of
sifting through numbers?
by the time i attempted puzzle no. 11,290
i had to write a "map"

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
2)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x

come to think of it... where's a subscript?
if i'm going to use 1, 2, 3...
to tier the allocation of squares...
tennis and sudoku...
tennis: a game of 7 rectangles -
and how many judges and ball boys / girls?
sudoku - a puzzle of 10 squares - perhaps...
if i'll use tiers 1, 2, 3: a1, b2, c3...
what if... sudoku invoked letters rather than
numbers?

much later... oh believe me...
this is the antithesis of knausgård
writing about using googlemaps...
        
           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

it's still a schematic - the narrative is yet
to begin... otherwise...
there's nothing smart about this...
i have tired eyes sometimes:
i succumb and have to allow myself
to no acid-bath these eyes in words...

esp. since i speak so rarely -
imagine... in england and i spear
the bare minimum of english -
i can: i have to: i will - when being prompted -
but i can't remember the last time
i had an honest: informal exchange
of letters... lapped up by the glutton
tongue... i looked and looked
and with my silence i can attest:
there's a speech-impediment -
a stutter that's not born from nervousness...
but... an allusion to a "stoic" through
my lack of conversation...

at least on paper i can exfoliate -
enough cider and enoug whiskey and i'm all
sparrow McDermott!
ugh... the devolved scots and the likewise
welsh... devolved nations...
only this aspect of Brexit is... well...
imagine the "evolved" status of post-Yugoslavia...
Kosovo...
this is the only aspect of an otherwise:
fair enough that's... well...
if you lived for 3 years among the scots...
you'd get to appreciate them...
this is the only aspect of this whole affair
i will ever appreciate...
i would pour blood and **** into
the Welsh continuing their...
preservation of the iaith...
forever and the more - i would love to see
scotland start to dig trenches and
forget trainspotting gaelic -
parading like ponces and humpty dumpteys
with "harkccents"... glasgewian bull-runnings...
cousins aye and wee -

a thing of beauty: a thing of union...
but this... they were bullied in brussels...
they came back and started to bully the scots...
if you have lived -
the betas of cardiff - but they tongue: remains!
look far back and wales would encompass
cornwall -
ignorant i of a 26 year "servitude" on these isles...
quiz me on outside of London:
no point...
perhaps i too would wish for the lost
theta in Dublin - towing: to t'ink...
as any sanskrit H-surd does matter...

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

but if i will replace... the side tiers of numbers...
the numbers in the puzzle will have to become
letters - greek... probably iota, epsilon and upper-case
gamma...

the bullied have returned from the palance
of the chocalatiers and: back to their old ways
of bullying the rest of these island folk...
because: it's infantile for me imagine
a resurrection of the crown (poland)
and the grand duchy of lithuania -
the commonwealth -
but somehow the united kingdom is not
fated to become the next yugoslavia -

i can confirm - up in edinburgh i was
confirmed by having the hat of Knox having
scalped me -
never is always metaphor: vaguely -
as in literally - in these quasi-paragraphs...
so it's not... infantile to even "think" that
the british empire can be revived?
zee window-licker spezials of
cross-breed h'americana postcards sent?
i nibble to attempt a joke...

oh i can bulldozer this whole narrative...
turn into a berserker -
i've saved enough money to deal
with the label loser...
all it will take is me having drunk enough -
sightseeing the slums of london's east end
and then hitting the brothel:
like an iron-head... to the pillow
and the ***** of a *******...

because i have had worse friday nights...
terrible company...
if i were not a michel de montaigne or a knausgård:
me me me, me me, me me me me,
write enough of that and:
to meme to grafitti... or to...
why are there no diacritical markers in
the english language worthy of recognition?
why would i...
rhoi fy **** y Cymraeg enw?
give my beard a welsh name?
and why is that not a cedilla C but a ******* K?
why not... Çumraeg?

on foreign shores i have made it adamant that...
this sense of foreigness does not
peppermint my presence with hopes to:
add to - an integration -
just borrow what the local have made: left-overs...
and work with that...

(insert snigger) - the neu-vikings of
northumberland...

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

this really does have a linear narrative...
here goes...
3(c1), 9(c3), 1(c1), 2(c3), 2(c1), 2(a1), 9(a3), 8(c3),
4(c3), 8(c2), 8(a2), 5(b2), 7(c2), 3(b2), 3(b3), 8(b3),
7(c1), 5(c1), 7(b3), 5(c3), 1(c3), 6(c3), 1(c2), 3(c2),
9(c2), 9(b2), 6(b1), 6(b2), 6(b3), 2(b3), 2(b2), 1(b2),
1(b1), 9(b1), 9(a1), 8(b1), 8(a1), 5(b1), 7(b1), 7(a1)...

and then a "gamble" in the narrative...
the (7a2 and the 5a2 - interchange)....
it's a pleasure - not a chore -
5  9  4
2  8  7
3  6  1
8  1  9
6  4  3
7  5  2 - this line... what if it was 5  7  2?
1  2  5
4  7  6
9  3  8
if i want to solve this puzzle - i will solve it
and not read a tabloid article /
whatever the hell has become of youtube...
my diamond jukebox...

otherwise the "narrative" continued from
7a2 and the 5a2 interchange:
7(3a), 4(a3), 4(a2), 6(a1), 4(a1), 5(a1), 5(a3),
1(a3), 1(a1), 3(a1), 3(a2), 6(a2)... end result?

           a             b             c
      5   9   4   6   8   1   2   3   7  
1)   2   8   7   3   5   9   6   1   4
      3   6   1   2   7   4   5   8   9
      8   1   9   5   4   3   7   6   2
2)   6   4   3   7   1   2   9   5   8
      7   5   2   9   6   8   3   4   1
      1   2   5   8   3   7   4   9   6
3)   4   7   6   1   9   5   8   2   3
      9   3   8   4   2   6   1   7   5

because i can imagine this not being:
the most difficult Finnish sudoku...
i can almost imagine this puzzle
to be in greek...
where: 1ι, 2ζ, 3ε, 4χ, 5Σ, 6δ, 7Γ, 8β, 9ρ...

in the background all i hear is:
corvus corax' la i mbealtaine...
the greek version of the japanese puzzle...

           a             b             c
      Σ   9   χ   6   8   ι   ζ   ε   7  
1)   ζ   8   7   ε   Σ   9   6   ι   χ
      ε   6   ι   ζ   7   χ   Σ   8   9
      8   ι   9   Σ   χ   ε   7   6   ζ
2)   6   χ   ε   7   ι   ζ   9   Σ   8
      7   Σ   ζ   9   6   8   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   8   ε   7   χ   9   6
3)   χ   7   6   ι   9   Σ   8   ζ   ε
      9   ε   8   χ   ζ   6   ι   7   Σ

half-way... i just wanted to "selfie" what
will become of this... i no longer write: i paint...

            a             b             c
      Σ   9   χ   δ   8   ι   ζ   ε   Γ  
1)   ζ   8   Γ   ε   Σ   9   δ   ι   χ
      ε   δ   ι   ζ   Γ   χ   Σ   8   9
      8   ι   9   Σ   χ   ε   Γ   δ   ζ
2)   δ   χ   ε   Γ   ι   ζ   9   Σ   8
      Γ   Σ   ζ   9   δ   8   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   8   ε   Γ   χ   9   δ
3)   χ   Γ   δ   ι   9   Σ   8   ζ   ε
      9   ε   8   χ   ζ   δ   ι   Γ   Σ

going... going... gone...

            a             b             c
      Σ   ρ   χ   δ   β   ι   ζ   ε   Γ  
1)   ζ   β   Γ   ε   Σ   ρ   δ   ι   χ
      ε   δ   ι   ζ   Γ   χ   Σ   β   ρ
      β   ι   ρ   Σ   χ   ε   Γ   δ   ζ
2)   δ   χ   ε   Γ   ι   ζ   ρ   Σ   β
      Γ   Σ   ζ   ρ   δ   β   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   β   ε   Γ   χ   ρ   δ
3)   χ   Γ   δ   ι   ρ   Σ   β   ζ   ε
      ρ   ε   β   χ   ζ   δ   ι   Γ   Σ

i don't mind a people being right...
but the overt-gloating...
without having to work around the sort
of paranoia associated with:
how the russians are not allowed to glutton
themselves on gloating -
because they are always made
to feel suspcious - the russians can't gloat
like most of the anglo- speaking world...
always suspect: russophobia evil genuises...
tip-toeing goliaths - less the blundering
fudge-packers of "global ****"...
and i kissed a boy and i liked it...
my genitals started shrinking
and my *** started to exfoliate with:
welcome all! welcome all hard and on!
and that tongue in my mouth always helps...
but imagine my surprise when
i started to navigate my hands
but the reply came:
timbuktu and mt. kilimanjaro will not be found
attached to this sort of torso...
wrong dog, wrong tree...

some things really do require numbers...
i once had a mathematics teacher in high school
bemoan the origin of modern numbers
and how we once: upon a time used these letters...
but did our arithmetic with visual aids
akin to the abacus... because...
you'd have to "read braille" when counting...
to differentiate the already: lettered numbers
and the letters being letters -
and all arithmetic functions
were "spoken of" but never depicted...
i.e. there was no VII + III = X...
there was no XV - XI = IV...
eh?! arithmetic was cat-intuitive...
not spoken of - done by either the visual
aid of fingers when haggling
in a market place -
or by the abacus aid in a bureucratic office!

i said this was the most perfect friday night...
what did i have to offer?
no clickbait title - some gems of wording
in between?
the patient reader - as ever - most rewarded -

but... oh my god... the sensation of
changing the bed sheets...
it's friday night and you're... changing your bed sheets...
and they are more crisp and clean
than any political event that the journalist leeches
are milking -
and you do it with a saving private ryan precision -
you will sleep in this bed: well into
11am of a today to come...
believe me: that you will...

- in that i am still walking among the germanic people -
if the germans will sing a: bretonisher marsch...
then the two peoples are alligned by
their sentiment for the crow as their godhead:
alles menschen totem...
what could possibly make me feel welcome?
french grammar is polish grammar...
matin de printemps - poranek wiosny -
spring morning in reverse in germanic...
how many more examples would i ever wish
to give?

there was a moment in my life where...
i realised my faults... i should have read
the Pickwick Papers... anything by C. Dickens to be sure...
instead came Stendhal, Voltaire, Balzac...
because if you said to me...
BBC radio 4... the archers...
and... thomas hardy: madding crowd?
you'd accuse me of being ignorant of:
London is a bustling cosmopolitan in-waiting
from the busy-body industrial proto-Beijing
it was of 100 years ago?    
the French had cosmopolitan intellectualism
100 years prior to the english...
100 years later and it's still not much...
is anyone about to cite me william hazlitt?!

the trouble with the english is that they hold dear
to that one old 19th century idea -
this waiting for: awaiting a revival of darwinism...
the "blatantly" obvious needs a resurgence!
because a michael faraday must most surely
be forgotten!
how many times will this already painful reality
need to be emphasised once more:
intellectually - via a darwinism?
no one stresses the copernican "upside-down"...
or what is copernican "west" up in space?
how does acknowledging the sphere
of the earth - ease you reading a flat map -
moving from point A to point B?

earlier this week - for once in my life i was
ashamed of what i wrote -
so i wrote for scribli per se: scribbles for
scribbles themselves -
the darwinian germanic folk who say:
alles von afrika...
how the hebrews debased themselves
in both aushwitz and breaking their bones
on the emoji hieroglyphs -
alles von afrika: ja... so sicher... so wahr!

ask any slavic person among the germanic
peoples...
where from? wir (ar) sind lesen und schreiben
"afrika": i.e. Indu...
if the african challenged the hebrews
with... "the best they had": egyptian emojis...
why would i not stress my birth
with pseudo cedilla Ş / इ... ☦ -
this indo-european is not... at home with
these african-germanoids...
pseudos and quasi -
these chocolate frenzied busy-buddies!

from the caucasian and further still from
that whittle sub-corinthian quote: continent...
somehow, "somehow" this part of this story
is read: south to north... always a grand
marker missing when the people went
east, squinted... learned skeleton existence,
atoms... and the frenzy of letters:
owls and ******* **** flinging beetles
back in the north eastern tip of
africa: in that egyptian haemorrhage of "idea"...

i assure myself... perhaps the form came from
africa... but sure as **** the tongue only arrived
in the lap of the Dalai Lama...
as did the "thinking" and the music
across prior to the Mongol's curiosity
over the tundra of Siberia...
something had to be placed on a loan...
and coming back to the cradle and the crux
had to happen like so...
not this current: ergo: so...
quickened and: what news from Damascus?!

first impressions count...
i made my bed... it's newly washed...
as crisp as falling onto a bed a prawn crackers...
without the crumbs' itch...
like listening to some german:
juggernaut... this will do... i can fall asleep
with this: grab hören zu der winderhall...
mehr flöte - weniger violinekratzen!
schlechtdeutsche? alle deutsche ist gut deutsche...
erwarten etwas isländisch zu sein
gesprochen insel von insel: auf diese inseln?!

to make a crisp bed of freshly washed sheets...
to sleep in them alone...
given the grammar is not that far removed...
are the french even remotely translated
as a germanic "sort of" people?
"they" or "we" share the same grammar...
and there are celtic freedoms that would
never be allowed to exfoliate under
strict anglo-ßaß obligations...

oh sure! great people! steam engine: choo-choo!
newton et al...
shakespeare: when they taught us shakespeare
they should have taught us bernard shaw...
when they forced jane eyre down our throats
we should have been reading
the pickwick papers...
the music will remain german -
because as much as vaughan williams...
holst and händel were "were" english...
esp. latter with his umlaut that spread over
toward i-and-j...

why wouldn't you **** at the pillar of the empire:
a past most assured - dust, books and moths...
like hell will i come to correct my ways
to state the: pish-poor Elgar... this poo'em too...
himmel... sky...
leerenhimmel - empty sky -
nein sonne während der tag:
das englischnebel: bedeckthimmel...
nein mond während der nacht...
nur so...

i of the lesser men of this world duly bow
my presence before the altar of the higher men
of these isles...
and hope and pray that their wisdom
will not bestow upon them any major calamity...
with not irony or ridicule i wish upon
these peoples... the right sort of oars
to turn this rooted island
into the people's imagined langboot...

there are only one british people a people
who will pursue to gloat having been
conquered by the romans...
being raided by the vikings...
integrating the anglo-ßaß...
a second viking coming via the Normans...
the push-over remains of the celts...
that somehow translated itself into
the: empire...
ideal: to compensate...
the islamic fervor for the... resurrected
caliphate...
jokes about the dritte ***** and the vierte *****...
that's pretty much the precursor jokes
surrounding: ein zweite ***** -
auf welche die sonne nimmer setzt -
ever wonder how that translates with the increased
cases of insomnia?!

again: bad german is better than
no german.
Francie Lynch May 2015
Bob's father was an operator
At Dow;
He ran Firecracker Day,
Bless him;
In the back beginning at eight.
Perfect timing,
But the wait to cross over
Was worth it.
The bangs and booms
Were hardly noticeable.
You must've been there too
As the school burned down
In upon itself;
The joy of the dark
In bright flashes
Of appearing and fading faces.
I'm hearing the explosions again
On this Victoria Day,
And see your face
Disappearing
In the last light
Of a sparkler.
Brandon Webb Jul 2013
1.
He lights another mortar
and the dog runs after it
barking and trying to bite it
he grabs it's back leg as the sky lights up
since he had barely thought to look over
and the words around here don't reach his mind
his ears defective as they are.
He says something with his hands
something foreign to me
but six people watching laugh
and so do I.


2.
His wife sits with her sons
her stomach wide with their third
another boy
she's gotten so used to talking with her hands
that her voice is rusty
and her vocabulary limited
but she's here as much as the rest
sitting and laughing and having a good time.


3.
The owner of the house sits off the side in the nicest lawn chair here
a cup in her hand
we've quit counting how many drinks she's had
but she only drinks a couple days a year
and nobody is giving her any problems
and she seems to be able to be her normal self.
She had been questioning me earlier today
seeing if I was really a good guy
testing whether she'd have to sit at the table with a shotgun
every time I spent any time with her niece.


4.
Her husband is launching his own collection of mortars off
with his brother
while her brother-in-law hands the teens the novelties
I launch off a dozen flowers
and a few spinny things.
She occasionally breaks her fingers away from mine
to launch off a flower, smokebomb or firecracker
and occasionally runs over to poke-chop her uncle
who keeps talking to the fireworks.
She always comes back and we'll wander by her mom and stepdad
(the latter always throws in some sort of comment
so we act careful around him)
and over to her cousins
or toward her aunt and roommate.
Occasionally we'll have to get something from the house
and we sneak three kisses
but we mostly just stay in each others arms
keeping each other warm in the almost warm 4th of July night
our hands both entwined
one of our heads always on the others shoulder
and in all the craziness
all the family drama
everything is perfect and she's smiling so hard her cheeks keep hurting
and she keeps telling me how little sleep she's gonna get
and I tell her I ain't gonna be able to sleep at all
Amanda Kay Burke May 2021
Live as if you were a firecracker

Which burns out too soon
Makes such an impression
Worth it

But the gunpowder is what makes the explosion worthwhile
Not sure if this even makes sense but oh well
lavande Nov 2014
...                                                              ­                                                                 ­ 

And this palpating heart beats so

quickly for the thirst oh

the thirst for life in its purest and impurest forms

to run quickly through in glittering veins oh

let it find the music to drown in the vibrating rhythms of the earth,

and let it experience

the surge of a beautiful madness in heart

a first past midnight kiss upon a moving train

or shared ringing laughters of a cluster upon a mountain top

with its twinkle of a foreign city lights as if pausing to say

yes, this night, this city is yours, and so is the world-

no matter

it wants to drink it all

in hurried golden gulps for it ignites the colored sparks

illumination in the fire-aired sky

for celebration of us;

of the gift of youth and age because our seconds are only receding and

it is only here and now

so when you take one sip you cannot help

but savor and

embrace it whole again and again and



take all of it

in its whole glorious madness



                                                      ­      *P.K.
JJ Hutton Dec 2012
Bradley, don't climb, the boy's mother says as she pries him off the bronze left shoulder of Sam Walton. She dusts the boy's coat. *Wait here a second. She begins digging in her purse. Her grey, sweatpants'd husband holds a point-n-shoot digital camera. The wind is inconveniencing him. The fog is inconveniencing him. Sorry, sweetie. I'm looking for a tissue. Every word his wife says shatters like glass.  He's been on the road too long. Of all the places, why make a pilgrim's stop at Kingfisher, Oklahoma?

It's the 7th of December. A day FDR said would live in infamy. It's also my birthday (thanks for setting the stage, Roosevelt). And here I am. Making my own pilgrim's stop at a subpar statue marking the birthplace of Mr. Sam Walton with no one for company but a green thermos and these tourists.

While his mother is distracted, the boy tears at yellowed grass. He pretends to feed the blades to Sam Walton's open-mouthed and unexplained canine. The husband sighs.

Ah! I found them, the mother reassures. Grimacing, as though shards of her words have lodged in the far corners of his brain, the husband asks,

Are we ready?

Not bad. The tiny bubbles from the champagne firecracker on my tongue as I lower the green thermos. Reminders of spilt coffee dot its sides like the little, overlooked  coastal islands of New England. Reaching? I know. But I'm learning to take notice of things, Sam. Patience.

I got into town before the liquor store opened. I vultured behind steering column. After a glance, a longhaired shopkeep with an oak cask belly shook his head in disdain for my entire generation. Turned the key. Flipped the sign from closed to open. Not to appear eager, I waited for a commercial break on the radio. I walked through. A bell chimed. Thirsty, son? the shopkeep asked.

I always am at the sound of a bell, I responded.

Let me get this off real quick, the mother says to Sam Walton as she wipes dry, white bird **** off a deep-cut wrinkle in his bronze forehead. Can't take a picture with you looking like that. The mother turns around. Offers an unsteady, white flag smile to her husband. Looks down at her boy. Bradley, stop playing with the grass. I mean it. Drop it. Stand by Mommy. We're going to take a picture.

Why?

Whiskey modge podged with ***** with wine with gin. Champagne. Champagne. Confused? lines joyously sparked from the edges of the shopkeep's eyes and lightning'd down his cheeks. Making him seem pleasant for the first time. Proud, even. I've organized the drinks by country of origin. Notice the flags?

What does France's flag look like?

France is over here. Looking for a wine? Perhaps a rich cognac? He led me down a densely packed aisle. Little ratings cards jutted out underneath each bottle.

Champagne, actually.

I see. I see. Is something ending or something beginning?

Both.

The boy places his hand on the dog's head. Pretends to ruffle its frozen fur.

Ready?

Ready.

Click. A flash goes off. Automatic.

Now can we leave? the boys pleads.

Why are you being so antsy?

It's just another stupid statue. I'm tired of this stupid trip. I just want to go home.

Today's my birthday. I lowered the champagne as I poured it into the green thermos. I kept watch for shoppers and cart crewmen in the parking lot. No one seemed to notice the transfer. The shopkeep ended up selling me an American bubbly. Silent Girl. I liked the artwork. A large-breasted woman with puckered lips stared down the sights of a .44 pointed directly at the drinker. Black and white. Refreshing to see someone so up-front.

The mother opened one of the rear doors on the family's Tahoe. No, you don't get a toy. Brats don't get toys. Brats get quiet time. She slammed the door.

Just you and me, Sam. A drink. Sorry, I didn't bring another cup. I lean in close. Trace the wrinkles of his forehead, where the sculptor stuck his knife deep. As I do, my own wrinkles become more apparent.

You know I heard a minister talking about you a week ago. I remove my hand from Sam's face. Take another drink. Apparently, your last words are his claim to fame. He said your nurse divulged them to him. You should see him. Each church he visits, he opens with, 'Anyone know what Sam Walton's last words were?' He doesn't ease into it or anything.

'Sam Walton's last words were actually, I blew it.' Can you believe that? 'I blew it.' Don't worry, Sam. I didn't buy it. That answer is for the customer. Not for truth. People love to think at the end of your successful trajectory, you'd just Solomon out. Fizzle. 'Vanity! Vanity!' I'd like to think there you lied in your hospital bed. In your private room. 7th Floor. Curtains open. Blue sky free of blackbirds. Your family around you. And your mouth tasting like metal. Like blood. The gears of your existence grinding to an end. And I bet you hated everyone in that room. Your wife wiping spittle off your mouth with a red handkerchief. You pushing her arthritic claws away. I bet one of your grandkids was at the end of the bed. His hair unwashed for two days. Uncombed for six months. A tall cow suckling your success. And I bet that clumsy hair was blocking the television. You told him to move.

When he moved, something horrendous was on. A soap opera. Something frustratingly ironic. General Hospital. Hit the red button. Called in the nurse. And your last words, 'Change the channel.' She put it on a Cowboys game. You watched Aikman throw an interception. Closed your eyelids. Changed the channel.

It's the 7th of December, Sam. It's my birthday. A milestone, Sam. So, there's cause for change. I told you the same ambition in you coursed through me. That I too, had sat in the back booth of diners alone -- conspiring. And while you're eternal bronze, while you're family photos, I'm mortal to a fault. But allowed to change my mind. I don't want to be ambitious, Sam. That's what I came to say. I'm not coming back to wail at this wall. Legacy, you taught me, is not in my hands. Even if I make a helluva go at it on this sphere, I run the risk of getting turned into half a statue with an idiot dog sidekick. You can dam a river, but ultimately rivers don't give a ****. They flow where they please.

That's the end. The beginning is that I can go anywhere from here. That's worth celebrating. I tilt the green thermos and let champagne run down Sam Walton's still face. This river runs onward. Without fear of legacy, of memory. I'm going to love, Sam. I'm going to love fully. Onward. While you stay put. A stupid statue.

Sam Walton is silent. Quiet time.
N T Apr 2015
they say you're terrifying scorpio
I think you're stagnant
and not in the mouldy water way
you're a mountain
always there
looming above

they say you're intense scorpio
and i know you love intensely
and hate intensely
and find nothing in between
you're ongoing
and everything
pulling the world towards you

you're not mine scorpio
and I don't know if I want you to be
but I think we'd work

born with the moon in scorpio I was
and i'm a little bit you
and i'm not sure if it's that
or that i'm a little bit not you
that makes this a fire *******

You're definitely a fire scorpio
even though they say you're water
I'm an air sign
even though I know i'm earth

I guess in another world you'd set fire to me
but in this world I'm only rippling your surface
bubbling up to the top of you
and you can't bother to set me alight

it's okay though
we're a firecracker either way
Robin Carretti May 2018
I don't really know if this is cut out for me. I rather go to Colorado in my singing voice* how I wish I was your lover please_ let's respect one another....

Here are the
stage lights
If you cannot
stand the heat
Bud light
Other seasons
The Four Seasons
Sherry Baby

Delicacies
Diva and Don Perion
Dressed
Navy and bloodshot
Eyes maroon
The fire desire
Only made them
Moon up higher
legacy
The voices
appetizer

Pina Colada
Fireworks Bella Diva
Gondola
Sunrise Prima Donna
Between the Diva
Fireworks outside
Of Lady Madonna

(Moonstruck)
Havana
Fireworks at
her breast
hot singer
editorial
Designer Hermes
scarfed $
Diva she raises
money
Fill in her gaps
Gap Navy
So savvy Honey
Oh! Jesus
Another
genius
Fireman
Rifleman
Joplin
Baby baby
Baby

She stepped
away
from reality
What about
me Robin
I am a singer
World became
my Godly
duty
Miss Mom Judy

The music
All trends
addicted to
shopping
Men %% $
Those  Poppins
Pop stars
Robin bob bobbin
along
She's chicken
Avocado
Comando
Chief Fido

Fireworks top
crooks
The safe box
She cooks
crock ***
Aluminum Clad
Potheads
Australian lads
All spread out in
Chickenpox

Egg Foo young
Cream say cheese
Lox Hip Hop
Sugar Daddy
Pops
Collegiate
Quickie talk
((Chatterbox))
The made hit
singers paradox
Calm me, Colorado
Endless voice

Eldorado
Diva had too many
Stars at the sing sing
of Rosy®
At the check coat Sassy
Tommy can you hear me
Her mouth
mento mints

Extreme bossy
Deep-throat
(Juicy Pineapple
Dole) her

The singer sways
all over him
Dancing Glove pole
If this is the
last thing
we ever do

Designed for a
Diva with
Jimmy Choo, it's
not a
better life
for me and you

******* coo
Lana Turner,
Turntable 4 the record_
Tina Turner
What does
loving a Diva
got to do
with this!!

So tramped on
Diva devourer
He's the observer

Maxwell millionaires

Tantalizing tongues
The Canaries
Yellow Solo
Not the goddess the
Diva Luv-a sun
{Ralph Polo]
Little darlings
Vampire
Diaries
The mad
librarian
BLT Diva VIP
The hell of
tinnitus

D=F ****-Fun
in" D"
Devilology
Diva Fireworks
sanitarium
Disney
aquarium

My sign the
Aquarius
So Forestal Crystal
Forest Hills US
open tennis

We are the
champions
The  sexter pistol
wedding ring
Go, Crystal
He compelled her
Divas revolver
Wild thing makes
my heart sing
And his boxers
make me  
so closer

Diva solver
Frenzy firecracker
pleaser
Who is ready to vote
Songs wanted
love pusher

Diva's eyes
  Maybelline
Maybe all lined
Stadium of voices
titanium
The Diva to
be resold

Too many songs
were sold
Wife trophy
Platinum had
a voice tone

Diva Grand
Marnier
He's the
connoisseur
of mouth's
experimental

Mentally
He tricks you
Singing horse
you just know
won't trick you
A singer is like
a horse

Wizard of Odd
Moms many colors
performances
This land is your
land from
California but
the Diva Islands
flipping
Las Vegas

Nothing is
guaranteed
((Lady GaGa))
Your out
Haha
Stay upright
lights down
out of sight

*Brooklyn Blackout

Cake Ebinger
We were eating
Singing and Guessing

Diva sucker
lollipops
Panic at the disco
To run him over
What R the odds
Getting even road
Steven the Cosmos

The singing
highway
project
Robin was
from Bayview
Project
All Adultery
Bills
Clintons Mastery
No Susie
homemaker
Hilariously singing
Shining like the
shoemaker

Sitting at
the pub
She ordered a
hot steaming
Spa voice
The Egyptian
grains
of love sand
Medler
Fergie Google
Ben Stiller
Singer just
pill her
burlesque

So Cher-like
if I could
change back
the time I would
do it anyway
Jumping Diva
Kangaroo  pouch

Too much Diva
Ouch----
Joe DiMaggio
fireworks of *****
Big wiggle
Opera
Marilyn Monroe
The Phantom
Of *** appeal
Propaganda

Blowing off
competition
nails

But__ dying inside
like a deadlight
Sparkle me
*** lights
That voice
signals
"Neon Nights"
ooh la the
Eifel tower
bowed her
Moonstruck
striking
wallet high Kicking
wages
Got her voice back
to be shot in stages

Her revolver
eight days a week
The real voice
never take
for granted

Genie
The Diva Luv
in her SUV
She was still
singing
And he wasted
his
whole
dinner

But I got
my voice back
Singing
She let her heart out
He turned his head
He said  what a stunner
Why on earth would anyone want to be a Diva what are the benefits?
Are they the ones with the best views I rather gather all my info and I have a sweet tooth. I just love those ladies with the (Charleston chews) they really know how to chew your ears off
Sand Sep 2013
Peach salsa
Has that tangy taste
Between sweet and spicy
Burning tongues naughtily but nicely.

Peach salsa
Is the quiet librarian of dips
Unassuming until the bun comes undone
And blink of an eye she’s a firecracker in bed.

Peach salsa
Tastes a lot like you
And our Sunday afternoons
Experiments with papaya and pineapples
Tossed in with tomatoes and crying onions
The perfect recipe for a little change and a lot of disaster.
Willard Wells Jul 2015
" Happy Birthday "


born on July fourth
always a firecracker her
yep that was my mom
Jessica Austin Mar 2012
Drip,
drip,
drop.

Pawn to E6;
die for your Queen.
Lift your head and
I'll lift my spirits,
but only as long as my
hands stay clean.
You're worried about the
future?
I'm worried about the past.
I'm scared of what
maybe
might've
couldn't last.

Beep,
beep,
bang.

Is it still just a word
if I know what it means?
Would the ground disappear if I
told it to scream?
By the works of my hand, I'll
fix this broken wagon,
hop on the train to
Never-Never Land.

Tick,
tick,
tock.

You think happiness sits at my doorstep?
You think I didn't work for this?
I can't help but cry when I see
you bleeding out;
the muscle that kept you alive for so long
is killing you with each
decisive pump.
It's not worth fighting for.
It's not a dream anymore.
It's not like holding your breath in a room
full of silence;
it's going to kiss & tell,
like in old folk-lore.

Snip,
snip,
snap.

Queen to E6,
**** the pool boy you
slept with so many times.
I fell in love with twins and
I kissed them simultaneously;
their love was sweet and our ties were thin,
their breath together was
like ******,
and I never counted how many
shots I did.
I want to

drip,
drip,
drop

my ties;
I want to know what I can fix.
Queen kills pawn
at E6,
the ****** in her eyes - like a lover's
dismiss.
Written as a slam poem - read it out loud to get the full effect!
Night Owl Mar 2010
Ballerina stance leaner
porcelain poised demeanor
lined up for a chance at that old 500 gram repeater.
Yeah, a little firecracker,
a little fire eater.
Twiggy figure, ****** fire dome where her little wires teeter.
Excellent muse material
my ***** optics viewed ethereal
Beauty, and she knew it.
Arrogance.
Noted, duly.
Pittsburgh's resident fire ant, with a grace to match her face
And a whole crew of troglodytes racing to get a taste
So thanks Angela Chase;
I prefer the fantasy too.
And thanks to you my chickens won't be sleeping easy in their coup.
Loop Jabberwocky with Calligraphy
and dabbled in polygamy. purpose:
****** cyst bubbles to the surface.
Misinterpret the tongue touching and hand clutching,
you were baby girlie thumb-*******
But thought more than twice about it when it came to dumb-*******.
Pretty face: check
Depression: not yet
Appreciating phonemes, but still a nervous wreck
false carrot tops to bed, awkward with the ***** work.
Near waif redhead. Pittsburgh Boys. the city lurks
It's been a minute since the girl scouts got at me, I bought it.
Hop in the DeLorean tell Lauren that I'm off it.
These are the lyrics to a hip hop song I'm currently working hence the rhyme scheme. I posted a draft of it previously but I have now updated it with the final poem.
Robin Carretti Jun 2018
Computer Dog-gone it Bow Wow
Queen of Sheba and Shiba Inu
  The doggy treat paws ring
my bell ring my bell
Looking at my eyes of Apple
will always tell how many
times you're going to App me
Please I don't have time for
games outcrop me or
do not cop out
Paws of  digging some
INC. of Instagram

Uncle Sam took my stocks
and bonds Eyes to my map
diagram
Eyes of the Apple rotten mail
Webby Ms. Debby deleted it

One Nighty gown
Nighting Gale
He's always doing on eye story
(Spy Eye) July 4th  cheese and
******* male
Old news her Eyes Ms. Firecracker
New computer demands
A silence of the Lamb Hector -
Eyes at her doorway
Save my butterfly
The hacker has too many free time

Newsstands on the corner
Eyes of more crime
That computer trucker
Clicks away his I apple
CD covers
The computer I crown thee

Eyes to the doorway
CLICKS City Chicks
Don't want me anyway

All Commands
We know the game
money hands what
a commuter

The web of the eye’s
All we see are walnuts
and apple pies
The computer always on the rise
No computer wiz will get fired?
Like Jeopardy computer high
investment commodity
Steve Jobs the winner
Apples and techno cars
and comedians

Apple web got married gown
Kleinfeld's wed whites computer
to curve their enthusiasm
Jerry Seinfeld made a switch
Steven Universe webby podcast  
eyes crystal witchcraft

Macintosh gold rush floppy disk
Took  a big money crash risk

“New” invention thinking
All pluses
Einstein Web Star
Mass VIP pass
Too many copycats
Brownstone coffee
I pad happy Ireland lads
Ballerina no sleeping beauty
Pancake needed to get work done
Up in the Robin hood Penthouse
Apple Museum
International of excellence
She is so Apple Lisa
the picture with sad smiles of
Mona Lisa

Apple webby

2. SUNDAY bye STAR the news Steve Jobs
Gave a web forecast Hazy hackers
Eyes stormy computer crashes
Computer laptop Cafes surfing
and best beer hubs reading what
on the news with Steve Jobs
Apple I for an Eye
and his last patent Mac OSX Dock
was well granted the day of his death

The big Apple how he started it.
The city never Sleep’s.
I had you fooled?
On April Fools day 1976 Steve
Wozniak and Steve Jobs made history

So robotic computerized
Pixar Animation
studio environment
where excellence to
(Robotic Perfection)
Innovation on an
impossible mission

Hi, Sirprize to your husband bills
Apple web of desires chills
Going through a computer maze
graphically cool sin paired to win

Her brain shines eyes still clicking
Godly animation

Now you were rich
enough to take a vacation
Eyes went up to the heights
No more fighting interface and
Xerox his baby loaded up
like a Paradox my
cream cheese lox
Apple Jubilee coffee
she could soften anybody
Until you love the
Software apple
the product of computer sky?
Robin’s Risque eyes
deeply web- bye
Tower upload.

The best Apple eye reload
ferocious love suitcase of
computer products flight
Megababes Queen we
are the Champion
and hardware prowl like a
Smart crime no yellow tape
That sophisticated owl moon
computer ***** cried Wolfie
She was howling Apple selfie
eyes red fire has driven

Supermoon so blessed
caress nuanced
Word’s spat cheetah cat
Web milk me the succession
Apple Web goodbye never
Buying Xerox stocks forever
Macintosh Floppy Disk
New world tasks
“Love” 1/2 Grain “Orient Express”
she spoke like the speeding link.

He got hooked what a
((Chrome Apple))
Uncivilized phone silverized
or Clone senior citizen or exotic
black cheetah list
Hew-let Packard flavor
couldn’t resist what an enterprise.

It’s all in the Apple eyes

I Apple of her eyephone we
need earplugs (Adam and Eve)
have some nifty spark plugs
Hub purr personalities
eye’s “Software”
Cat’s Eye has nine lives
of responsibilities
Love of art computer theater

He’s Stocks her sweet candy
but he had the
  Einstein's eyes such mass and gravity
a good set of lungs webcomic

Her silk detailed blouse
got caught in his apple martini
Extra news story read all about it!
Carriage rider what a glider
took her baby-computer
traveler soft hand
met her Gulliver travel

He computerized her love clicks
Gave her new baby chicks
more living to do on Google
I rather have my Moms Kugel
Eyes better not be on a rotten apple this is the working world start clicking and these are the hot shots the Apple web, not a piece of cookies Lil Debs
cath Apr 2020
I am firecracker
Brought in by my parents
With basic needs and education
I was lit.
To tell you the truth
Im mostly burned out
No exquisite light whatsoever
Simply put,
The plan is to shoot high
And bright, at a pace of my own
Before the angel
Lights me out
Wrote this quickly for a competetion
Jewel Tiara May 2015
I wish your mouth could meet mine once more so I could feel those fireworks I feel whenever I kiss someone. you must walk around w sparklers under your tongue bc I almost dynamited when we kissed. I swear I felt my eyebrows singe. you're something like a spectacular phenomenon that doesn't occur enough to be ignored-you demand recognition and im proud to give it to you.
AJ Mar 2014
Marissa Ann was a firecracker of a little girl.
For her, there was no fence too tall to climb, no bully too mean to face, no street too busy to cross.
She was all tangled hair and toothy grins.
And she'd yank the book right out of my hands and say, "Gabrielle, we have more important things to do than read."

In the jungle of our lives, Marissa was a lioness, queen of the pride.
I was a mouse not indigenous to these parts of the second grade.
The world was a terrifying place, and I had no problem cowering in the corner, knee-deep in a pile of Nancy Drew.
I tried to stay huddled behind my words, drowning in the ink, attempting to let the pages be my armor.
Marissa would not let me.
When I allowed bookshelves to be my shields, she came guns blazing, and kicked them all down, then stood me back up on my feet.
She'd grab my hand and pull me head first toward adventure.

Marissa was tough, and everyone knew it.
There was not a soul alive brave enough to pick on Marissa Ann.
But me? I was an easy target.
The other girls said I was "weird" with my enormous wire frames resting atop full cheeks, and my frayed jeans, a glowing reminder of my mother's lack of wealth.
I heard the whispers on the playground about the chubby girl who read, (can you believe it?), chapter books.

Brianna was a demon of a child.
She'd bat her pretty little eyelashes and everyone would melt.
She had the entire second grade class wrapped around her tiny little finger.
She'd corner me on the soccer field and do everything she could to remind me that I was different.
But one day at recess, she was nowhere to be found, until I made my way through winding halls, back to the warmth of our classroom.

There sat Marissa with a devilish glint in her eye, waving me over to sit in the desk beside her.
Behind us, a sniffling Brianna, looking forlornly at the teardrop stains on her pink lace skirt, her mouth pulled tight into a perfect straight line.
I looked back at Marissa with a curious glance, then intertwined her hand with my own.
The sound of stifled sobs behind us and the warmth of her skin on mine sealing an unspoken vow between two girls with puzzle piece fingertips that only fit each other.
Grace Jordan Dec 2014
My kryptonite?

That's a good question. I'm no superhero, no, my limbs too fragile for any crime fighting, any dark lighting of the night, I can't be a Batgirl.

But everyone still has a kryptonite.

I jokingly tell people ice cream, or inappropriate musicals, or turtles, or writing. Writing is a good one. I will do a lot for the sake of the written word.

But that's not what truly gets to me, what breaks me down every time.

Change and love.

Changing love.

It begins as perfection, as bliss on a stick, like a Firecracker Popsicle, delicious until you get to the part you don't like, or, when you get to the end. All you have left is this disgusting flavor in your mouth or the taste of bark, and neither is pleasant.

Everything ends.

That's what kills me. That is my kryptonite. Endings.

In so many facets, this thing kills me. They are my favorite part of every story, but my least favorite part of my life. They are what I spend the most time constructing in a paper, but they are the thing I avoid the most in reality.

I have been taught, in my life, that everyone will leave. There's abandonment sewn into my heart that I'm not sure can ever be erased because, unfortunately for me, its always been true. Almost everyone has left me, and I can't help but assume the rest will leave too, until I am alone.

That's what I love about writing. When you write, there's characters, a new world, a new life. You're never alone, and you're never yourself. When you despise who you are so much, its a dream to try on a different coat and live another life, even if its for only a few minutes.

Another flaw of mine; getting off track. We began on kryptonite, and then I turned it into a tale about the wonders of writing. Typical Grace, distracted about words. Words, words, words, but are they real?

They're real to me, so I guess that's all that matters.

I guess it all circles back to my original kryptonite. Love.

I love too much and get hurt too easily. Its the struggle of my disorder and the folly of my far too large heart, far too large for my little body. Sometimes I wonder if my entire body is one larger, misshapen heart *****. I fully realize the heart is not where emotion comes from, but I'm certainly not all brain. Heart is the only ***** that makes sense.  so strong, so vital, but so breakable.

Maybe that's why they call it falling in love, because even Superman can't fly away from it.

Its kryptonite.
Baby, if you died tomorrow
I'd get our favorite line
from our favorite song
printed on my back, in your hand

The song you and I danced to
The one where the voice
doesn't match the man,

“It was in love I was created,
and in love is how I hope I die.”

It'd make me cry, everyday
because you did die
But I know you're so selfless
You'd only wish better for me

Now you, the one with the big hair and tiny body
The one who became my first high school friend.
For someone so blunt and honest
I'd never imagine you'd be so sweet.

So if you dies tomorrow
I'd put the twin strawberries
on the inside of my wrist
The ones you sketched on my birthday card

You wrote the two paged, double sided letter tucked inside
I still read it when I feel sad.
It reminds me how incredibly loved I am
and how just plain incredible you are.

You, with the short hair and round glasses
the one with a small voice and big, contagious laughter.
Your performances make my week
And you've made such a big bang in my life
In ways you can never see.

You are a firecracker
And though you may be blind to your own light
That is what I see in you.

You'd be a firework
Exploding on the back of my neck
It'd be more than every color in the rainbow
Because I can't associate just one with you

It's be messy and wouldn't go with any of my clothes
It's be hidden when my short hair grew shaggy
But it'd be undoubtedly you.

You, with the new golden hair
but the always golden insides
I think you, and I think perfect
I think smiles and sunshine and songs

I think all that is good.
So to think you ever want,
ever need, ever hurt
Seems impossible.

You hardly ever let that side show
but when you do
Well, even those moments are beautiful.

I don't know what I'd get for you
Maybe the first poem you wrote for me
The one with flowers draw in the background
- I'm still amazed, to this day, you knew I liked calla lilies

Maybe I'd get the last poem you wrote me
Both put a smile on my face
and I think both apply to you too.

You, when I think of you, I think cool moves at N-trip
I think always knowing what to say
I think beautiful straight hair, bright blue eyes
and completely making my day.

I think of beat box rapping
And your bubbly presence
For you, there is no word picture or phrase
That can sum you up better than your name

I've never seen it spelled that way
And it shows just how amazingly unique you are.

You; when I think of the tattoo I'd get for you
I think of the paper crane you gave me for my birthday,
Now, I know it was last minute
but I'm glad you didn't buy anything.

Paper, to me, is just a blank canvas
I can't wait to write on.
But when you fold it up the way you do,
It reminds me how complicated things are
- Things like you.

Like that crane,
I haven't gotten the opportunity to bend back those folds
Get to know those creases and cracks
But now I'm going to take the chance
That I may never see that bird in the same light again.

Now brother, I don't want to go into detail about your death
Life without our bicker and banter is one I don't want to imagine.

And if you died, I'd always regret not telling you
I love you in ways you cannot fathom.
I don't want to think of you dying,
let alone the tattoo I'd get for you...
Here it goes;

I've thought of things that remind me of you
Baseball bats you drop on your iPod
Hockey sticks who's height you've finally caught up to
But none of those things show you

I think of you and your crazy curly hair
Your goofy ghetto caps
Your thin toothpick frame
and your fast-paced gangster rap

But you can't sum those things up
In song lyrics and pictures.
So as selfish as this sounds,
I'd want you to get the tattoo

I'd want you to be the one with a book on your back
or a pen on your wrist,
I'd want you to be out there and living each day to the fullest
Live each day that I'd miss.

But if you did die tomorrow,
I'd have to drag myself to that parlor
Pick a photo or phrase
Made to represent you

And you have to understand, this isn't something I'd normally do
Tattoos are permanent; unforgettable.
The ink fades and they get ugly as you age
They probably hurt like hell to get and only worse to remove.

But if you died tomorrow.
any of you,
I'd get those tattoos.
Lyla Dreams Aug 2017
He gingerly handles everything he seeks to touch
And I am a firecracker

He is considerate and insatiable to the smallest spec of someone with half a soul
And I fly around making messes of bookshelves// stealing peanut butter from parties
Searching for answers I'm certain I won't answer

He is gentle and ramped and appears to not notice when I stare at him
And I stare at him, quite a lot.

But then again, a silent admirer
Was never a definition that
Was so far out of our reach
At those parties
In those bookstores
When we both reached for the same thing
At the same time
That neither of us needed

Colliding hands
TV screen flashing
Two colors then
Two commercials later
One announcer proclaiming
"It all works out
In the End."
MS Lynch Jul 2013
Daisies in hair, freckles in laugh,
Summer camp dandelions,
Bubbles in the air.
Cling like a koala to your back
So I can fight off the pirates
And the dinosaurs
And the giant squid
And my mother's meatloaf.
Where do teachers go at night?
Do they sleep in their classrooms?
This caterpillar is my new best friend.
But so is this firefly. But not that moth.
Roll down hill into mud puddles of chocolate goo.
Sing songs and jump on clouds like trampolines.
Mouth like an innocent firecracker; 3-2-1 blast off.
Kissed and tucked and loved into bed.
Dreaming of how good we're going to have it,
Not knowing that we already did.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
early on i left an imprint for me to remember,
kinda like 2 x 2, equating to 4,
not as simple with words:
i like this dialectic between Dionysian and
Apollonian attempts to express aye arr parley!
shake the pine trees to get the toothpicks
like you might get a mojito, onward! toward
El Dorado! transgressing 24 hour hours
and you get the flavour:
first beer in in from dieting, oh ****, it's bitter,
second beer, mm, sweeter... then the headline
of whiskey and coke... Kazakhstan nice... yok sh'eh mash?!

three movements working their way,
those conquered and exposed to direct roman rule,
presiding over the "charm" with roads, western europe,
now they're so pride to reach that far back,
mention Boudica, one, more, *******, time!
i'll give you Britain that made Louis XIV
the peasant king at Versailles, and Charles II
wise with a Guy Fawkes firecracker... mm, guess
it happened here! in the yeast of a baker's
reincarnation via Malachi's heresy:
Elijah coming soon? Elijah not coming any time
you blunt sword of monotheism excluding
the chance of many, democratic influences!
either the fish or the aquarium...
the aquarium... a billion of them plus Islam will
be anarchic China, people never wish for better,
they only wish to better themselves,
including the social strata stampede that's necessitated
in the process... scientific positivism of Enlightenment
died, the absolute necessity (god) / the absolutely
necessary thing became trapped in the Bermuda
or the Copernican triangle, no good for crossing
oceans, just ably whirling east to no east outside
the atmosphere, try me with two thing:
Copernican vectors with a stable point constantly moving,
rather than sunny, constantly expressed economically
as usurper against usurer and the university grant
of simony, although worthy of an actor to spread
charitable work and paedophilia in Asia dubbed
Portuguese Missionary - well i'm sure the apologetics will
come, my neighbour hugging her dog watching television,
closest kin of the genesis story having secondary reminders
determining whether the lie was white or instructive,
a joke or seriousness - indeed entombed in treating these
words as a holiness worth for all the present religious attire.
absolutely necessary Kant said,
he also said: you said omni- etc., indeed you're on a
roundabout of intellectual yawns, there's nothing new here!
i need god as a concept of vectors and cursors, mediating
more than the caging of man's affirmation of himself
with Freud... the sounds and equally shared optics
need to accommodate a oneness, god is a predicate
of essential function: a. the triple affirmative:
i, thought, existence... something to concern myself with,
b. the duo affirmative:
denial, thought, existence... the arithmetic goes further,
i am writing quickly hence i will not brood over,
except a comparison in cinema, the film *hostel
(2005)
and pretty much all of Hollywood's 1970's grit output...
take for example Al Pacino in the panic in needle park,
you know what i see? modern american interpretation
of what eastern europe represents, the farts
leave flamboyant Amsterdam hopeful for Slavic ******,
they come to Slovakia, and it hits them,
the passive lack of jealousy and need to impress
building a chrysler building, the oddity like landing on mars...
but it's already been done with, New York in the 1970s,
the same slavic grit, even the way the cinematography looks
like the colours were shaded with a peppering of sand...
new york in the 1970s is like Eastern Europe in
the horror set in 2005 in Slovakia... globalisation's paranoia,
there are still people out there who we can't ascribe
metaphors to being exclusive: no iron lady lifted the
iron curtain, the iron lady had an iron skirt, and she
couldn't lift that up either... Churchill puffer a cigar
and a million bees emerged heralded by Edward the Confessor.
that's the relation though, Hollywood's 1970's urban grit
and what the tourists encountered in Slovakia in 2005,
a sleepy kingdom, 2nd Mongolia, second to none,
which i beg to differ with, given the Scots were tight
stretching 2 pence copper coin to invent copper wire
and the Swiss (also in hilly surroundings) have us
elaborate paedophilia via Nabokov catching butterflies...
hardly two mountain ranges and hardly two plateaus.
it's called exotica these days... yep... the dissection of
the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and the emergence
of both Lach, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian
and White Russian is what the Czech say made them
speak both cesky and saksonski... tseba! holy roman
prague ****, disintegrated into the Austrian intervention...
very much as if: thank you for defending Vienna from
the Ottomans, Jan Sobieski.
but the Jews got reparations at the end of the ordeal,
and western Europe received the Marshall Plan...
eastern Europe received Marx... too proud they said,
it's not exactly Mama Russia surrogate,
it's Papa Khan also... moon gall! no news from Mongolia
i hear, sooner a tale from an American zoo
where a retired silver-back dragged a baby from
drowning in an inch of water, hero shot,
where were the parents? a four year old can hardly
sit on a kitchen stool let alone climb over zoological
fortifications... ah the blessing given unto man
by Iblis to ape ably a delay he has no chastity over:
if Iblis defended his pride, then man can but
defend his chastity - Iblis was given a longer time-frame,
man was given a shorter time-frame, Iblis'
choice expands furthest into myth, man's choice
implodes further into repetition - for Iblis' mistake
was but one, when knowing of man's aplenty;
it is said that when a man is to become a father,
he relives his childhood - legality i say would have
obliged me, but pride took no notice of symbols as signatures
of such love, especially given the expenses,
or as in the supermarket today, the cashier invested ?
into the one buying the goods:
- where is she? you're not together any more?
- oh, she's moving to York, it's her work, she has to.
- you're not moving with her?
- well, it's only for 2 years, and then she'll be back,
  training, it will take her 4 months...
na'h ah... bye bye...                       she ain't coming back...
tell you what mate, keep a cat, the most selfish animal,
bestia ex solipsism - no necessary petting by constantly
showering it signs of jealousy and ownership and upkeep,
as if having to punch a gorilla to hold hands.
i love feminism for one thing only:
it made sexism a branch of Darwinism, *** warfare...
in relation to me? two girls chatting away:
- *******! how could he leave you!
- but he did!
- what ***** made him do it!
- philosophy!
don't get me started on those who read very little
and can't allow philosophy a poetic form, and necessarily
have to plagiarise Aristotelian stylistics to be considered
philosophy (albeit only in scholarly musings).
i'm sure it was something about the fruits of our
presupposed wisdom that bore knowledge that individuated
us, to the point of extremes, as hardly scraps for
vultures, to no animal nobleness, parasitic amongst each other,
defining the 16th century or such desires to keep
afresh, minted and pampered for the next cohort of dupes...
some find the memory of dogs towards us keener
than our fellow men should wish to share...
the animal domesticated and not eaten is seemingly our
prefect to walk toward a seize-less craft of un-exhausted thought,
only un-exhausted because of missing interaction,
say there, is that Hegel's mirror (master) and narcissus (slave)?
the emergence of these belittled nations is clear in
western europe, the bombing of Libya,
the usurpers of Syria, the once conquered having a taste
for empire and colonial rule think they cherish
the biblical conundrum when the resurrection was inclined toward
the lands Sven and Mietek - toward the lands
of conquerors and the ones converted -
four movements thus (sketched):
a. sonata: βορας ηλιος - μακεδων να ινδια
b. adagio: βιργιλιος ως καντηνoν -
                  μεσoγειος: μαυρος (ex),
κoκκινος (ex), ειρηνικoς (ex),
ατλαντικoς (ex), βoρειος (ex), βαλτικη (ex),
south a poet, north a philosopher,
from only one sea came two oceans and many other seas
to sustain the thirst for seawater among men!    
c. scherzo: Casimir the 3rd welcoming the Jews.
d. sonata: an die mitternachtfreude - more like a calm
before taking up the arms.
Aly Feb 2019
Catch me with your little laugh
So powerful yet so small.
Pull me from that dark place
With one tiny sound.
Oh little boy you’ve done it again,
I can’t stay sad for long.
Contagious in its way,
I cannot help myself.
Even just the thought of your laughter echoing in my head,
Makes the corners of my lips curl up in a grin.
You have no idea how many times that sound has saved my life.
Just like that perfect little smile.
So mischievous and innocent all at once.
Your spark, little Firecracker, lightens this heavy heart.
Someday you will light the world.
I need to know something. I don’t know if you want to tell me or not, but I really don’t care. You’re gonna tell me or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. I’m already ****** and it won’t take much to push me over the edge into dangerously angry territory.

No, **** it. Never mind. I’m ALREADY in “dangerously angry territory”. No, it wasn’t your fault. I was already close enough I could see the other side of reason before you came along.

But it would still be nice to know, if you’re willing to tell me. I mean, I’m not going to force it from you. That was the plan just a moment ago, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that my bitterness is not your fault. I won’t make you pay for it.

Yet I do feel as if it would do me a world of good to know.

Where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a back seat of a crowded subway train with a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye” in the other, holding it in front of your face as if it’s pages were a fascinating mirror? Was there an old man sitting near who turned to look at you every so often to the point where it creeped you out? Maybe you eventually said something to him, like “Excuse me, but is there something you wanted to say to me?"

“Why would you get that idea?” he would ask, as if he were totally oblivious to his invasive nature.

“I don’t know…you just keep looking at me and I wondered if there were a reason for it.”

“Nope. Not that I can think of.”

Did you smack him real good right then? Did you draw blood? I hope you did. I hope the driver had to stop the train to come back and drag you off of him. It would have been a real drag if the police had to be summoned, but on the other hand, wow, how ****** the thought of you resisting arrest.

Or did you cower into your corner, turn a page in your book and let the lecherous ******* carry on? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the kind of girl you are. I think you’re a firecracker.

And I think that wherever you were when I was falling in love is not where I wanted you to be. Not where you should have been.

Because I fell in love with a robot. Who knows why I fell in love with an ottoman? I didn’t know she was one at the time. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall in love with a machine? No, she was flesh and bones when I met her. She seemed normal, like all the other women I’ve ever seen or known.

But then she started smoking cigarettes. She carried them around in a little soft leather pouch that could be mistaken for nothing else but a case for holding the little *******.

God I hate cigarettes. I hate the smell of them, whether they’re lit or not. I hate the dark tan color of their filters with the little white dots speckled randomly. I hate the cotton that stuffs their filters. I hate the white paper with the almost imperceptible stripes banding around their length. I hate how the brand is stamped close to the base of the filter. I hate the packages that they come in and the cellophane that wraps them. I hate how stray flecks of tobacco gather in the bottom of the boxes and the wrappers, too. I hate how they make a person’s breath stink. I hate how they make a person’s clothes reek. I hate the way they look in a shirt pocket. I hate the way they look between people’s fingers and in their mouths. I hate the way they burn down to the nub and the ash that they leave behind. I hate pitch black nicotine stains on ******* smokers’ hands. I hate the way some people put one between their ear and noggin and actually think it makes them look cool. I hate how smokers seem to have some code of sharing, how it’s always “Hey, can I *** a smoke from you?” and 99 times out of 100 the answer is “sure”. It’s never, “Okay, but you gotta pay me back.” Oh no, Smoker’s Karma is at work here. I hate the way too many people call ‘em “smokes”. “I’m off to get a pack of smokes.” Good God, I think that’s lame. “Smokes”. Ha. I hate the way smokers ***** about laws that prohibit them from smoking in public and how so many of them have absolutely no regard for non-smokers who not only can’t stand the smell of the ******* but would just as soon not chance even the most remote possibility of getting lung cancer caused by second hand smoke. I hate how smokers would tell that person, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The chances of that happening are one in a million.” So what? *******. ******* with your nasty cancer sticks and **** your tar-lined wheezing lungs, too. **** the death bed you will lie on when emphysema steals your last breath. **** the oxygen tanks that cost almost as much as all the cartons of cigarettes you have wasted your money on during the last who-knows-how-many years of your life. **** all your attempts to quit. **** the feeling of disappointment that overwhelms when you fail once again, as Mighty God Tobacco hugs you, strokes your wet hair, wipes the sweat from your forehead and the tears from your eyes. Sweet summer sweat. The tears of a clown.

You know what? She never smoked before. I never would have thought she would pick up that disgusting habit, but she sure as hell did. Picked it up like it was a twenty dollar bill someone lost that she found on the side of the road as she walked to the smoke shop to buy another pack of Marlboro Lights.

There’s another thing I hate about cigarettes. “Smoke Shops”. Where the value-minded smokers purchase their wares. Not “Cigarette Store”. Not “Tobacco Warehouse"…oh, no. It’s a SMOKE SHOP. You’re going to buy some smoke, brother Jim. You’re gonna spend too much money at the 7-11 and it’s all gonna go up in smoke, but by the grace of God you are gonna save a couple of bucks by purchasing them at the “Smoke Shop” instead of the convenience store. You complain until you’re blue in the face about how ridiculously high the ciggy prices are at normal retail outlets, but when you run out of ‘em and the God-blessed “Smoke Shop” is closed ‘cuz it’s Sunday you’ll drive like a madman to Love’s and blow ten bucks because there’s a “Buy Two Get One Free” special going on. What a ******* good deal that is, eh, mister?

Furthermore…CIGGYS??? I hate how people call ‘em “ciggys”. But not nearly as much as I hate the word “cigarette”. I cannot stand to speak the word. I hate the way it rolls of my tongue. I hate the way the word sounds like it means “little cigars”.

I hate the way some smokers empty out their car ashtrays in the parking lot. I hate the way all the butts look lying there in a heap, a pile of paper soaked with the spittle of a hundred different mouths. And yet the nicotine python grips some desperate smokers so tightly that they will pick them up and try to smoke the last tiny flecks of tobacco from their crushed and blackened ends. I’ve even seen people extract the remaining **** from several discarded butts, roll it all up in a Zig Zag paper and smoke it. Don’t these people even know what Zig Zag papers are for? They sure ain't for tobacco, Charter.

“Butts”. There’s another word in the smokers lexicon that just sounds silly. “Smoke ‘er down to the ****, Jack, we’ve got more!” “I don’t have an ash tray, Terry, so just put your BUTTS in that half empty soda can over there on the table”…never thinking that there might be someone else at the party who could very likely mistake that particular pop can for his own and take a mighty swig from it. Oh my God, the thought, it gags me. How nauseating it would be to feel one of those wretched things fall against your lips and…Egad…the flavor…and yet the cruel smoker will laugh at such misfortune.

****.

God help me.

She was not a robot when I met her. Oh, no, she was a beautiful, exciting, passionate loving woman with a heart of gold and a desire that was practically insatiable. Here…take a look, I have a photograph in my wallet. See what I mean? That’s right, daddy-O, she was a real dreamboat. I used to carry this picture with me wherever I went…I guess I still do, huh? But I don’t know why. I don’t know why I torture myself looking at it, remembering what was, all we had, our bright and glorious future wrecked and deserted by her newfound proclivity for smoking cigarettes. Yeah, my friend, she was a real keeper. But you know what? **** her now, y’know? Just turn her over and **** her.

But hey…perhaps I’ve been too harsh on the smoker in general (if not to her…no, not to her). Perhaps I have exaggerated a bit. After all, some of my best friends smoke. It’s their business, not mine. Never has been mine. I know that. If they knew how I felt about the whole thing, whose to say they wouldn’t tell me to ****** off and never come back? Then again, if they are so shallow as to take any of this as a personal insult, then maybe, just maybe they aren’t my friends after all. I doubt the robot would want anything more to do with me if she knew what a stalwart anti-smoker I am. But I thought she felt the same. She DID feel the same. She told me as much. Before she lost her soul. Before she started smoking cigarettes. Before she started bumming ciggys.

I got no time for changes in her life so now I ask you again…where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a Pentecostal Holiness church on a hard pew early Sunday morning before the service began, thumbing through the hymnal, looking for one that best expressed your feelings of devotion at that point in your spiritual journey? And what would that hymn have been? “Onward Christian Soldiers”? “Peace in the Valley”? “In the Garden”? “Smoke on the Water”? “Hotel California”? Maybe some obscure Black Sabbath song tucked in at the end of the book, next to the Doxology?

Did your hair shimmer, reflected in the light that poured through the stained glass window directly behind you? Did you feel it’s heat on your neck? Did it draw out beads of perspiration there, glistening? Would you have let me lick them and taste their saltiness even in the sanctuary of the church building? Probably not. But I don’t think the idea would repulse you like it would some other bonnet headed midi-skirt wearing holy rollin’ *****.

Maybe I would have asked you outside so that you might feel a little more comfortable with what I’d had in mind.

And maybe you would have told me “no”. I couldn’t blame you for that. No, I wouldn’t. It’s only natural for a real woman to guard her integrity in situations such as this one. I could not hold that against you.

Is that where you were? I need to know. Where the hell were you when I was falling in love?
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
you're drinking, and then you can't control
the reaction upon entering the tetragrammaton...
one h is for hushed up laughter, for sighs (ah),
and then the alter deja vu
is a cocktail of:
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,
yeah, so many, so you can look at it rather than
say it... it's a sunny day, go out and play
or something... leave me with the anchor of ****
humanity dragging us down, or simply basing us
in the underwater fudge of mud to a standstill...
it's sunny, go out and play, ride a bicycle or something...
you know, living 20 odd years in an english society
i never had an english girlfriend, i'm told she's a real
firecracker fortune-cookie... my hands are cold,
i swear by the oath of the old Bailey i never touched
her thighs... scouts' honour, cross my fingers
and wear woman's underwear with a bowler hat
to match my serious demeanour...
yep, an Abbey Road's standstill... a fifth beetle
chatting cheeky chat chat of a chirp...
gurgles of fizz in carbonated wine known as champagne,
well that's me... or as the roadrunner said to
speedy Gonzales... hark a sayonara when changing
the gears to a 100m sprint world record.
the Mayan disease? ah right... excess spontaneous
laughter, unstoppable like a tide;
got chatting to a ms. khan... Genghis' great great...
great great great great great... great great granddaughter...
a doctor from pakistan... nice english accent
gets you all the pleasantries so everything can
go to hell... the sleeping pills prescription is waiting...
now the sick-note... so i don't crash a plane
into the Swiss elevations by "accident"
while sitting on an arm-chair of nails while everyone
else is farting into cushions.
honest to god, the tetragrammaton is like a brick
wall for vowels, you hit the ball against the four
walls, and the vowels are either ****** up
or they extract the consonant stability of the four letters,
and your safest bet to express them is
to laugh;
well, i do call it a Mayan disease... because
my stomach is aching from building a six-pack with
the giggles.
kara lynn bird Sep 2013
It's hard to believe that forty seven years have passed since we picked our first Macintosh off that tangled orchard tree. Fall was the best time of year. We would hop into the old truck and scoot on down the road to the local farm. Together we'd place everything in order for a perfect picnic; sandwiches here, potato chips there. She'd be certain to leave the pickles in a special container cause that sour taste of dill always made me buckle. Forty seven years since we made our first fall adventure, can you believe it?

The autumn breeze always seemed to soften the light as it glowed upon her curly red hair. So young and full of life she was. It was always a sight to see her when she'd reach for an apple and a good ol' honey bee would come buzzing around. Hell, she'd start flailing her dainty fingertips and scrunch her nose, waving her scarf all around as if the bee would surrender. Those were the moments that I searched for. Those moments (I'd swear) she could stop the universe in a shade of gray. Her ability to get so **** mad made her look as cute as puppy who couldn't run as fast as it wanted. When those moments began to unfold before my eyes it appeared I had been deeply connected to the face of God. My heart would leap, Ah, I knew I'd love her forever.

There was one year which was so special to me, I've held it safe as one of my fondest memories. We had been out all night one fall evening. Our neighbors held a festive barn party complete with a hog roast with all the fixens. We danced until our feet hurt. I remember she wanted to leave early but I wasn't sure why. Being the gentleman that I was, I stayed with the one that brought me.

I popped the clutch and off we went leaving the music behind us. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary but then she reached over and gave me a little tap on the shoulder. She really had a way of getting my attention. "Pull over up here..." she said "down this gravel road!"

I shoulda known better. Shifting gears I made a careful right turn as the tires met with the thickly settled road. As soon the truck had made it fifty yards she opened that truck door and left me no choice but to stop! "What on earth are you doing?" I cried as she exited the vehicle and made her way past the headlights.

Before I could ask another question the drivers side door swung open. The moon must've been full that night cause I can recall light beams bouncing off her beautiful smile. She grabbed my hand and ran towards the forest. The trees lashed back against me as I chased her through the thick of it. I had no idea that the orchard would be on the other side.

Waiting like a tractor for an overdue oil change was a the most romantic thing I witnessed. My pretty girl sure did surprise me. I could have never guessed. Spread out right before me was a midnight picnic. We sat underneath that tree and laughed till the coyotes chased us home. That was the first night we ever made love. Real love...the lasting kind and Lord have mercy, I'll never forget it!

It's been ten years since she went up with the Angels. Every fall I can't help but reminisce of that night we left the barn dance- it's where it all began, but I have yet to return to our spot.

Every time I think about it I can smell the remnants of her homemade apple pie and it brings tears to my eyes. Today, something told me to muster up the courage and get down to the Orchard, it was as if she had tapped me on the shoulder again.

Different it was making my way down there alone. A lot of the landscape has changed and they've added a few things. I'd have to admit, the smell of the autumn breeze still rings true to my memories of my her as I approached the Apple Orchard.

Heavy hearted I headed out on the farm. It was different to see all the children with their families, that used to be us. But the sound of their laughter quickly replaced my own memories as I made my way down the hill to our very first apple picking tree.

There it stood as pretty as an apple tree could be. Her leaves appeared to blow to the sound of the wind, her branches looked like they were smiling. Glancing up I continued to walk closer and I couldn't believe what I saw. Was it true?

Slowly I made my way around the trunk of that twisted orchard tree just to be sure I wasn't imaging something, but I'll be ******, every apple on that tree was gone.

The moment I realized it was true I knelt down and dug my hands in the dirt. A blustery tear rolled on past my lips. I clenched my fist and lifted it to my heart. The moment was too much, I had taken too long to get there. Just as I turned around and decided that I should go- a busy little honey bee flew right past the tip of my eyelashes. I stumbled back and reluctantly began swatting at an almost invisible contender.

Jumping all around like a **** fool I was shoutin' and cussin' going off like a firecracker. All of a sudden the honey bee flew from sight and when I realized that I was so **** worked up, I began to laugh.

You see, it was that sweet little honey bee that made it all possible. It came buzzin' by like a heated stroke of lightening and changed everythin'! That's the moment I realized, if it weren't for the things that made us upset, the moments that brought on grief and heartbreak, perhaps we wouldn't have any reflection on the things that made us happy.

That apple tree may not have had a single Macintosh left for my pickin' but it taught me that my wife had planted enough seeds of love and hope in my heart that I didn't need no apple- just the memories that went with it.
Brett Jones Oct 2011
Next time I act like a heartbroken Holmes,
do me a favor and let me drink it away.

Words hurt what whiskey soothes.

I catch your name drifting away on a nimbus,
past the trees of someone else’s hometown.  

Your eyes are bean sprouts and your scent
is divorce.  Your fingers are still placid,

not yet ****** from the scratch of anxiety.

Eyebrows bow to nose bone in speculative uncertainty,
confusing rainy prom nights with dreams of Hercules.

One more sip of wine will detonate firecracker cheeks.

I hold your hand in secret on desolate city streets,
remembering the practice of lost lovers and

drunk ******* in dead friend’s beds and falling down staircases
in mid-afternoon moonshine. Our pasts intertwine, just as

West-coast tourist traps fill family photo albums.

— The End —