Ruddy's was the place to be on Wednesday nights, cheap drinks, free hotdogs and the graceful presence of Times Square hookers late at night, what a wonderful scene, marines hookers and the best jazz juke box inn manhattan, rowdy and something almost always happened, better than life. I was a young man in a strange country, had my fists tested in FLA and Brooklyn for stupid prejudices on my behalf and others, words hurt only those who do not know their meaning and root. There was a black man sitting next to me, quiet and still, a true barfly, he turned and said;
- you are not from round here-
-  no - I said -I am from Mexico -
- you don't look Mexican, but let's go with it, I don't look African American either-
- r you from the south?-
-Georgia, as they call it -
-well, I've worked in FLA and met some rednecks, Cubans, blacks, but almost no Chinese-
-you mean yellow-
-or *******-
- or ****, you know men, I prefer racism down south, over there the distinction is cut loose clear, we don't like each other, but here, men I tell you, you wannanother beer?-
-sure men-
-Girls just wanna ******* cause I'm black, you know, to be cool and ****-
-yeah, Jewish girls wanna **** white Gentiles, different reasons same goal-
-I hear you, here it's all about being fashionable, but deep in the pit it's all fake as a 10 dollar coin-
  We kept at it until Beth started a fight with another ******, they were calling each other **** I've never heard.

Her expression is that of a child
Filled with wonder and mild
Panning deep blue waters
She is the gulfs daughter enthralled-
in the afternoon sea-breeze , longing for
sanddollars , tiny shells and dolphins ,
sandcastles and clapping palm trees* ..

Spy Kids (the original)
A 5 dollar matinee with your mom
A box of Bunch A Crunch
Or a plastic sack of
Dip N Dots

Ninja Turtle walkie talkies
Flare denim cargo pants
Bobby Jack zip up hoodies
With blue Fla-Vor-Ice stains
And hide and seek

Now That’s What I Call Music
Volume 17
Playing from a 10in x 10in
Silver box TV
And high frequency noise
To accompany
Akon’s latest bass line

A razor scooter
The foot powered kind
When the Preacher’s Daughter
Has a shiny blue one with a motor

Weeping to Secondhand Serenade
Because your mom won’t let you have
A Wii
And your crush checked “no” on the
Note you gave them last week

Detention after pre algebra
From shooting a girl two seats over
At “close range”
With a hornet
And she was unfamiliar with the school wide
NO SNITCHIN’
policy

The words
Beastly
And epic
Used to describe what your
8th grade field trip is gonna be like

A phone call from your best friend
About finally finding Ben Franklin
In Tony Hawk’s Underground 2

Now
The OK symbol is your most used emoji
There are too many guys with long hair
And beards
White girls all have a weird obsession
With house plants
We’re all at least 50 thousand dollars  in debt
And I think we all
Just really hope Donald Trump
Isn’t our next president

which makes sense eating an english breakfast
at 2a.m., and then whining:
where's the sunrise, and business of day?
but i do love how certain people can extract
a narrator out of me, a potential to be as such,
capable to exfoliate. and in my own secret
space i am milking the she-goat,
and i mean: that's quasi-Hindu given the lack of
vegetarian experts...
      i mean: having been
most benevolently excavated from placebo solipsism
a cure to experiencing schizophrenia,
i find the crowd once again, but that doesn't mean
i'm writing from a crowded scene...
i'm simply devoid of commuter squabbles, let alone
those prancing arcades of blinking lights that
are known as the protestor crowds...
   i sorta of don't get that scene...
i just don't see the need the rush for the commotion...
  wait... let me get my banner...
(enter snigger) -  i'd be more handy with a
kalashnikov or a molotov dead-end
that i will ever be.. sheep-shy-sheep-bound
to hoister a banner:
    i just think repetition is a bit of a dead
given samples in music, and how you can re- re- refresh
      on the scratched-vinyl altar...
(how a noun for again: in Latin,
  became shortened to a prefix re-, so that
it could be made into an adequate "grapheme"
builder to note things like: resaid, regained....
without it: on crutches, alone)...
maybe i'm not even zeitgeist,
and wouldn't that be a real worry for me...
   i'd start seeing the vietnamese
nail nuns... asking that it becomes hard, acrylic...
   feline grr... scratch that *******'s
scalp into an Ed Gein mask...
oh sure... the jokes are free from this point.
but i just *** it away,
farting like a zeppelin...
              and really, language could never
be poetic and alphabetical at the same time...
that bogus bow-tie bachelor of bloom
would never help to solve the daffodil's lack
of bloated turkey in april debate for
one Frenchman's vision of
         caging a > / < b...
                 subsequently c... no one new
whther a > b or whether a < b...
were either a < b or b > a? to later state a c?
talk to a greek: he won't know what the hell
you're talking about...
why is why greek didn't employ siamese
principles regarding vowels to expose
          the difficulty, of coupling consonants
into covert-graphemes... phi non-vs. theta, e.g.
perhaps ratio *******? a : b : c...
no? it's a lot to ask for when there's no real punctuation
to be sordid about... i already stated:
   how the Romans cut up words
isn't exactly how the Greeks cut them up...
  when you cut up a word
the roman way, you work from the principle
of a grapheme... or the φoνoς,
beginning with æ - some might call that
as merely: tongue tied, or tongue numbed...
ello ello... but there's a clear sound...
apart from the sounds encrusted in h, w, y...
     but it's exactly what the doctors ordered,
given they become sort of truant with
the Hippocratic oath...
   the φoνoς finally belongs parallel to the
Heraclitus λoγoς...
based upon the sole prime of how individual sounds
were noted...
i.e. it had to mean something, so Heraclitus
was looking for "the" word, only because
individual greek letters were giving a noun
status, rather than a sound status... there was
no φoνoς principle in the greek alphabet...
letters weren't mere sound units, they had the status
of nouns, which is why they became pivots
for keeping them as such, in a hierarchy of
optical superiority above the Roman encoding,
ranging from mathematical or chemical coordinates...
which is why the Greeks have no good music
these days: well, apart from rotting christ...
and aphrodite's child...
          the Greek tongue has no idea of a grapheme,
(μ, ν, ξ and π don't even come close...
  the grapheme principle needs a siamese graphic:
the cited examples would require
   a siamese of opposite sexes... and since i haven't seen
such an example... i beg to differ)...
there's no siamese entity in it, there's no æ...
nothing Greek is explicit in sound,
which is why i guess the lisp comes from...
they're eating custard every time i hear them talk
or whistling via a pigeon feather turned into
a flute... ****** fla fla... falaffel and theta cheese...
oh but there is, it exists in the realm
of consonants and vowels... rather than among
vowels, exclusively...
      but that is why Heraclitus invented the λoγoς...
he contemplated the λoγoς because he couldn't
see the φoνoς, given that α couldn't
be taking a seat in dentistry and saying ah...
   or that φ couldn't just end with phi...
but had to lead onto a complexity of φlosophy...
and god... look at the mutilation of aesthetics
with that one! the λoγoς isn't that enigmatic as it appears,
old, dusty and about 3000 years revised too late...
  not with what the Roman caricature of
the λoγoς actually is... a, b, c, d...
or how close proximity deviating from the λoγoς
makes the φoνoς pop out...
  why / i              y / why
                               see / c
        b / be
                              a / aye / i / huh?
     t / tea                     p / ***
                      q / queue / cue...
     this is the limitations of the φoνoς...
  and only with the φoνoς being presented will
Heraclitus ever find the λoγoς, that might
suggest to him: α, will never have to be suffixed
with -λφα: cue -λθα.
- the reason why he concenptualised it
is because Greek gave restrictions on how
the phonos could be constructed...
   it couldn't! it revolves around the Greek alphabet
being noun-based... logoístic... rather than
pure phonetic carrying the ideal shrapnel...
       Heraclitus thought up the logos
for the sole reason that Greek stated
α as αλφα... rather than αλθα... or merely α
(and then you'd sing the rest, say #a)
hence the concept of the logos... but not the phonos...
because even if α or β could attain a status
of being a grapheme... both would forever remain
a noun... a word: rather than a sound-unit...
or as the moderns like to call them: sound-bits...
only because of the roman concept of
a grapheme does this arise from: the æ
testmanet of an Adam and Eve, clearly making
******-***** differentiation appealing...
so a return to the thesis of androgony?
  what, make the world siamese?
you ******* kidding me?
listen, the only problem about being genius
in poetry is that: well... there aren't any shortcuts...
you want to write narrative like exponents,
but you are writing something that's to be read
standing up, like watching a canvas in an art
gallery... this isn't reading a Tolstoy reclining
in bed, the counter to turning on the radio and
listening to music to fall alseep...
   i can't simply destroy the narrative principle
that poetry is also prone to...
    and trying to provide the equivalent of
a mathematical proof / equation in purely
linguistic symbology, will eviidently mean i'll be prone
to spaghetti / digression...
     for example stating a + in language is really
a problem as to how you can comprehend me when
i write: i see a an auburn flame of a setting sun...
      is that only one + or many in that sentence?
   educated as a chemist, son of a roofer...
  am i really middle-class ponce concerning this?
do i ******* look like i'm gearing up for a tea-party?
   basics... well, better a summary than
giving a vanity project to this narrator...
poets indeed are anti-novelists: there aren't
any characters in their works,
the only thing more numerous in poetry than
characters in a novel... are the narrators...
   Heraclitus spoke about the logos working from
α = alpha...
   i'm speaking about the phonos working from
a = a multitude of sounds...
             which is why they revised this *******
alphabet with the NATO of alpha romeo...
     zulu and i should probably state: *******...
   that's the whole principle of the phonos...
to work back to the logos...
         and since Heraclitus is a bit vague about
the logos in itself...
      it has to come down to Hippocrates talking
about freeloading on ***** when
   you receive cancer's foetus and try to alleviate the pains.

Forest Lake Academy
Writing, biology, anatomy
Where I first loved science
Found a word smith's defiance
Asian, male, teacher to blame
Don't remember his name
But he taught me well
And now I excel
White, female, teacher to blame
Don't remember her name
But she started me writing
Words come like thunder and lightning
And it's kinda exciting
Sensing synapses igniting
The proverbial bulb of light
An idea with untold height
The honor to write

Waters wrinkle at their destination
Lakes are born , the slate of yesterday
cleaned where the baitfish teem
Gulf Lady perfumed in salt , ocean myrrh and
sugar within her tropical breath
Hysterical gulls forage the breadth of her
shoulders , where picturesque blues rise and fall ,
where pelicans answer a silent call , where magenta
cirrus wisp disappear when the sun calls the day
to order , purple long casting hues and sugar sand
borders* ...

lyrically, I kind of feel like an assassin
at the task point & equipped with poison darts
for I'm 'bout to let fly an attack in
this b#tch with toxic bars
pointed, like v𝗜per's fangs, at an
outfit of office bo[ɑ]ds/do[ɑ]gs
kno𝗪n 𝗔s "Electro𝗡ic Ar𝗧s"
at the time it was found
a certain game of thine is shut down
like a chipmunk, I went nuts
'cause, for keeps, I'd lost 𝗠𝗬 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗦 (lost)
on styling which, several hours were spent
thanks for all the time wasted
don't even have screen captures of them
awesome, amazing!
——————————————————————
when it comes to discussions like games get
human noggins go crazy
it's not them themselves are stuff to put blame on
it's, among things not mentioned, such situations
——————————————————————
now getting 𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞
to those responsible for that scoundrelly act
and probably not giving an ounce of a f#ck
like a tire drifting down a speed track
[attire]
it's gon' get smoky & **[ɑ]t (for you)
barbecue; so go hit a dog & bone & ring up
[heat]
a local smoke eaters squa[ɑ]d
'kin to "Rebel", I scream f#ck the suits
[keen; ice cream]
like somebody chosen to o[ɑ]pt
for a punk-like look
but you can all get choked by asco[ɑ]t (lethally)
as if you were getting iced by someone who's
got Caledonian blood (a Scott)
appetite to hunt unful–
–filled; you're in it to make bread like *******s
[field]
but don't be swift to get laid-back, don't chill
akin to potatoes & sh#t
like that, better maintain your eyes peeled
better still is beating a hasty retreat
'cause it's me in the same freaking field
[freak in field]
the Creeper, in it to prey like a priest
[pray]
as if you were ****** in religion (horse?)
I'm speeding your way like a whip (vroom-vroom)
in other words, you're in fO̲r some moll-treatment
told I'm in it to prey since it's writ
large that you're being a game in this b#tch
which, in turn, is the reason I'm playing a bit (with words)
to say it in brief, you're simply collation to ge[ɪ]t
let me add a medievalish taste to this sh#t
[evilish]
arranging it akin to the H & the G
[a range]
not "H" & "G" as in hunter & game, though
"H" & "G" as in Hansel & Gretel
i.e. with you getting ablaze like a witch
with this one, might be given a place in a list
of ones given to making it lit
in the middle of taking a trip, the freighter's equipped
and fit for action like babes in dance clips
the cargo's like a pro[ɑ]stitute
becau[ɑ]se it's gon' go down on you
a kind of mood to bust the roof
of the "Arts" HQ; an armored loot
box, large & toom, will pro[ɑ]b'ly do
then dump on you a multitude
of fla[ɑ]sks produced
from gla[ɑ]ss & full of ga[ɑ]s, then use
a bottle of Molotov
like pirate dudes, I spark the fuse
the falcon shoots, the target's doomed
dead in the water, so a po[ɑ]ssible res–po[ɑ]nd from you (pond)
is nothing short of garbage-good (dead in the water)
[lyrical waters]
these bars being by the side of you are like balloons
within a reach of clowns
in other words, you might get it twisted now
but it's time for you to find a new **** jo[ɑ]b in view
of the lines above becau[ɑ]se it looks
like I̲'ve zilch short of go[ɑ]tten you
fired, which is why I̲ feel like a bo[ɑ]ss 'kin to
a vehicle used bY̲ whelps to get brou[ɑ]ght to school (bus)
exorcism bout
for it's like getting demons out
[letting demons out]
guess you, "EA", have already figured out
the amusement which shutdown
my pen is steamed about
it's "NFS: W"

What glamour could possibly be gained from this untrusion
hiphiphappy happy happy days
all the live long [(sk-ii-p-ii-ng---sk-ii-p-ii-ng)]
she should've shifted shape and shelter
_______
now I lurk, thick-in-the-murk
underneath
-
a witches brew of acrid broth
quicksand | quicksilver
dwelling under porches (lucid) dreaming
tapping out thoughts with a six letter alphabet
we gather in the quarries: VIOLETMASS
underneath the newly linen husk of vapor
underneath the ethereal 0eye0
counterclockwisemarching --- total separation
------
At first, it was my grandmother's embrace that shattered the veil.
It was July and the tulips were in bloom; red and yellow
    - like bold comic panel fire.
She had picked me up from the tilled garden ground and placed the
    okra seeds in my hand to plant all on my own.
It was before the yard was fenced in, and before her mind was cloudy.
    Before the alley was paved, and before the preacher was replaced.
In those days, I could escape under a blanket and afternoons
    were a thing to be reckoned in the eyeseyes of a lie she saidin the neyeght kindlingsprinwintefalummer when christmas when birthdawndaynoondusknight iiwithwhatwhichii crippled finger
when the time is slower and the eyeseyesiiis are right and the skeye is wheyete with the sclera of 'SCYLLA'  that hangs ever still in looming presence for iiii am the all-maker the breaker of thine ****** tonguu003....             NO REACH
FAULT
crumbllllllllllllllllllllll 000000 lllllllllllllllllllllllll
                                       ­ 000000
                                          000000
        ­                                    000000
                      ­                        000000
                                  ­              000000
--undo
0
6
1
6
00:.,-..
.-undue::
.:-
momma­=bogmama=mulch=lather
kruksog
..-.:*
..:
-.:
.-:-.:
--:
63­ 72 75 63 69 66 79 20 74 68 65 20 77 65 61 6b 20 73 61 69 6e 74
-
marchingmarchingmarchingmarching
esiwkcolcretnuoc
chant the wave abackISAY with vestigia((nge((l wings
and stoke the fla(mes)merize with-or-out gallant spree
THOTHTHETHOUGHTTHINKER
THOTHTHETHINKEROFTHOUGHT
HERMETIC
HERMESOCYLCONE
we sprinkle the drops of cymbal tonic downward
in the pattern so elegant so rooted upon )we(
the ones who kept the secret in our teeth
that was told to mercurio and passed on to ego
sheltered by cernunnos//squandered by that !B/A/S/T//A/R/D G/O//A/T¡
to mark the coming of that with nine heads
that with eighteen horns for eighteen years
that with eighteen eyes for BABYLON'S HAGGARD ****
that with fivehundredfortyteethththth
spit powder faith upon the squelching pest
let him see him
let me son
I am the strongest of the creatures
-
-
-
cellar door dribbledribble--
no more are words beautiful-
-
-
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
DONOTLET­THEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
D­ONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
THATDOGWITHNOLEG
THATDOGWITHCR­USTYEYES
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUTJOHNNYSOHELPMEGOD
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUTJOHN­NYSOHELPMEGOD
DONOTLETTHEGODOUTJOHNNYMYSONSOHELPMEDOG
DONOTLETTHE­DOGOUTJOHNNYMYSONMYONLYSONWHOIKNOWSTILLLOVESMESOHELPMEGOD
THATDOG­TELLSYOUTHINGSABOUTMEIKNOWIT
THATDOGTELLSYOUIMAWHOREANDYOUKNOWTHA­TSNOTTRUE
-
-
-
;
UNDO
=oor

_
__
_­
----------------------
_____
underneath
I lurk, thickinthemuck
there''''''s bed for you
bed of you
bed of goo
bed w(h)eredog lay
licked clean
god in statue
no speak
not to me
maybe to the tip-toe man
but not me
knot anymhore
-
-
-
-
-
-
They told me I must go back to them, but I could see you later.
I saved the paper, the one you gave me.
They told me I could see you later.
They told me.
Dog told me.
Bless us.
Ysgramor.
         |
         |
         |
         |
         |
         |
-------------------
| r| o| o|t|s|
underneath
and I am sleeping
dreaming
feeding god

By WILLIAM LOGANJUNE 14, 2014

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — WE live in the age of grace and the age of futility, the age of speed and the age of dullness. The way we live now is not poetic. We live prose, we breathe prose, and we drink, alas, prose. There is prose that does us no great harm, and that may even, in small doses, prove medicinal, the way snake oil cured everything by curing nothing. But to live continually in the natter of ill-written and ill-spoken prose is to become deaf to what language can do.

The ***** secret of poetry is that it is loved by some, loathed by many, and bought by almost no one. (Is this the silent majority? Well, once the “silent majority” meant the dead.) We now have a poetry month, and a poet laureate — the latest, Charles Wright, announced just last week — and poetry plastered in buses and subway cars like advertising placards. If the subway line won’t run it, the poet can always tweet it, so long as it’s only 20 words or so. We have all these ways of throwing poetry at the crowd, but the crowd is not composed of people who particularly want to read poetry — or who, having read a little poetry, are likely to buy the latest edition of “Paradise Lost.”

This is not a disaster. Most people are also unlikely to attend the ballet, or an evening with a chamber-music quartet, or the latest exhibition of Georges de La Tour. Poetry has long been a major art with a minor audience. Poets have always found it hard to make a living — at poetry, that is. The exceptions who discovered that a few sonnets could be turned into a bankroll might have made just as much money betting on the South Sea Bubble.

There are still those odd sorts, no doubt disturbed, and unsocial, and torturers of cats, who love poetry nevertheless. They come in ones or twos to the difficult monologues of Browning, or the shadowy quatrains of Emily Dickinson, or the awful but cheerful poems of Elizabeth Bishop, finding something there not in the novel or the pop song.

Many arts have flourished in one period, then found a smaller niche in which they’ve survived perfectly well. A century ago, poetry did not appear in little magazines devoted to it, but on the pages of newspapers and mass-circulation magazines. The big magazines and even the newspapers began declining about the time they stopped printing poetry. (I know, I know — I’ve put the cause before the horse.) On the other hand, perhaps Congress started to decline when the office of poet laureate was created. The Senate and the House were able to bumble along perfectly well during the near half century when there was only a Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress — an office that, had the Pentagon only been consulted, might have been acronymized as C.I.P.L.O.C. instead of being renamed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/sunday-review/poetry-who-needs-it.html?_r=0

broke, scared, high, uncared - ******.
too in love with love to let him go.
hands ripping skin around fingernails to shreds.
contemplating the existence of religion and of ambition,
(remember they say work is worship,
your purpose you cannot shun).
fingernails scraping the desperate bones between which a beating heart once bled.
in the shadows of the darkness you see the past -
another second passed, time flying so fast, one cannot last.
treading tip-toe across a tightrope
stretched thin between your rising expectations
and his fla(il)ling patience.
nature’s infinite scream tearing through dimensions, leaving you haunted.
there’s a lot you hoped you’d never be in your twenties.

slow, shallow, low, hollow - stop.
diaphanous landscapes leaking into memory’s slippery crevasses.
no longer aware of the here and now.
battling desperately against reality’s sting.
questioning the bitter metallic aftertaste that punctuates
every seemingly-cheerful conversation.
self-worth slashed into strings of cynicism
hanging around a sorry neck.
inhaling air thick with the dregs of a life
suspended between conflicting timelines.
the past and present collide angrily to disfigure the future.
the past and present, two words that cease to exist in the future.
glassy eyes staring proudly at shattered crutches scattered around cut feet.
there's a lot you never thought you'd be in your twenties.

bold, bitter, brave, better - ready.
ready for the solitary walk,
a lifelong talk with only the voices in your head for company.
ready to dance to the vibrations that distort carefully laid plans.
ready to survive stormy seas on stormy nights
with no lighthouse waiting to shine on.
ready for what's incredible, what's impossible, what's magical;
only not for what's mechanical.
ready to face more no's and less yes's
no heroes and angry villains  
but carry on anyway.
ready to say yes when your ego says no,
ready to say yes when your brain says no;
never ready to say yes when the heart says no.
**there's a lot we've become in our twenties.

Ever                        Fla-
since                       min-
I set                         goes
my eyes                  seem
on a                         to
fla-                           be
min-                         e
go                             v
                                  e
                                  r
                                  y
                                  |
                           W-h-e-r-e

There are tiburones off the Fla. Keys
Believe me, out there in the aqua deeps
Sometimes they swim up into the sandy shallows
But not often;
And usually only at night while you’re on a veranda sipping a
Glass of red wine,
Safe in the glimmer of a tropical neon beer sign
Underneath palm trees.

These tiburones swim off shelves and under cantilevers
Continental shifts in deeps
Sandy bottoms, they cruise by
Like missiles
Fired from dusky deep ephemera
Assimilated by the amorphous ocean infrastructure
Flotsam and careened ships off gray coasts
Rusted and dead steel under the raining ash
And the sea foam that pools around their husks they falter, canted, and tipped
And lost as quick as were, gone, betrayed to the deeps again.

But, sometimes, tropical shallows
A Latin lover's osculant kiss
A fumbling of the belt buckle
Swimming dark waters under moonlight
Dark eyes, red lips
Surl breath dlipped wet
Held in ocean's gentle soul
Pearls aligned distant metaverses
Transcendent, therefore, only Beautiful

They don’t care to bother with you, mostly, the tiburones.
They’re curious, a dorsal fin to cut the surface, an indifferent pass
You are not the wine they seek to drink.

But if you find yourself afloat;
Lost or hurt,
If you venture too far from your shore,
Carried by the gentle waves, the inverse gravity of water
When the ocean seems benign...
...They’ll come cruising.

It won’t take long.

Doll-eyed and mechanical, they’ll swim by
Just to say..... Hello.

I have not seen many tiburones but they impart,
Even to those who have never seen them,
This unspeakable fear:
Not so much of the Ocean—Few ever enter the Ocean
But of some assimilation of thought
Where it passes by from dark end to dark end
Sunrise to sunset, and a portentous silhouette beneath you,
If not of the wry toothed smile, and the porcelain ghost…

Then of what?
Could it be of the thought of teeth?
Or of a malicious ghost agnostic of your importance?
Of the specter that cares not of your potential,
Disregarding your position in this world.
Something that treats you with true Equality-

Could it be the things in this world that say Hello with teeth?
There are abbreviated bits of flesh rent in life.
I wear these battle worn scars.
And not instead of love but because it’s the only way
They know how to smile at you.
It’s how they say Hello.

I only have seen their reflective eyes in the shallows
Off the verandas where I have sat and drank
Drunk myself into a stupor, a vibration in my fingertips, in my mind
No sommelier am I.

The red liquid fills my mouth and paints my teeth an indelible red and drips from my mouth from my ****** lips
I have bit too hard,
And spilled my red wine onto the table
Watching it drip viscously off the table and stream to the floor
And pool in great deep redness on the veranda’s floor
Drops and drops and then, restless, I drop back into the depths
In the dead, burnt-out center of the wine’s pool
And watch it assimilate into the porcelain.

And the deep darkness of the red miscegenates with white porcelain
And it all fades in and out standing on that perfect precipice of wine and violence
The wind and flux of ocean waves and darkness
Those eyes down there, refracting moonlight, deadened orbs
The wine deliquesces from veranda’s precipice to waves
The great adulteration, the miscegenation, it all goes flux.

And I drop off, assimilated into darkness, there:
Where the bits of flesh torn from teeth and I swim away
Dismembered, deformed

And a flutter in the shallows,
A quick, precise splash,
A perfect torsion
Writhing bodies.

And those black eyes roll over white,
And those archaic teeth descend,
And pulled under the dark ocean
Without even the moon to give me my light
And in my breath’s last seconds,
I’m perfectly assimilated into this structure,
Deliquesced, relaxed, and gone into the depths,
Swimming in the sulfuric bottom
Of my glass of red wine.

Parkland, Fla. February 14, 2018

One more senseless mass homicide
   twas the sole arbitrary aim
as a former student nonchalantly
   sauntered empty hallways
   seconds preceding blame
brazenly intent to maximize total killed

   matter of factly telling police
   (his incomprehensible)
   (ill) logic he did explain
when cornered, he willingly,
   unflinchingly, reticently admitted guilt

Nikolas Cruz rocketed
   to instantaneous infamous fame
   pulling a fire alarm
   ("FAKE") emergency,

   then going leisurely ambling
   along his killing spree
total of seventeen slain (comprising 3 faculty
   and 14 students)
   mercilessly gunned down
   as if they were wild game

when handcuffed, an innocuous
   19 year old did readily admit
emptying one firearm after another
   at a fairly rapid clip

then at some predestined
   or spurious moment didst dip
and dive out amidst
   the chaotic madding crowd
   before reality flopped then did flip
as lower teeth nervously bit upper lip

made feeble getaway
   at a nearby eatery casually flirted
   with cashier and made no move to flit
upon his seizure as cornered prey

   subsequently large tract
   massively cordoned off
   strong arm of the law
slightly halting in speech
   detailed his gambit

deliberately staking
   a stance to maximize hit
and once again afflicted parents lit
up with rancor and rage pit

toughly battling sorrow
   which will not quit
til death doth
   those grieving family visit.

My beloved She
went up to Heaven
but I hear She wants
to come home

Maybe I'll send
Her a letter and tell Her
I've been waiting here alone

Because a man like me
could never make it
up there unto Heaven

A man who is destined
upon the Earth must
forever and always
walk on.

-R.

(9.14)
-FLA