There it was on the calendar, Saturday May 11,2013. Big red circle around the date and written in black pen in the middle…SPELLING BEE. Plain as day, you couldn’t miss it. One of the biggest days of the school year for geeks and nerds alike.





Today was the day. In two hours, The 87th Annual Cross Cultural Twin Counties Co-Educational Public School Spelling Bee, would begin.  This was a huge event in the history of Thomas Polk Elementary School. It would be one of the biggest, if not THE BIGGEST in the history of The Twin Counties.



There would be twenty-one schools represented with their best and brightest spellers. The gymnasium would be full of parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and media representatives. Yes, invitations had been sent out to both of the local papers in The Twin Counties, and both had replied in the affirmative. Real media, in Thomas Polk Elementary School, with a shared photographer….the big time had come to town.



Inside the gymnasium, work had been going on all night in preparation of the big event. The Teachers Auxiliary Group had set up bunting across the stage, purple and white of course, for the school colours. The school colours were actually purple and cream, but, there was a wedding at Our Lady of The Weeping Sisters Baptist Church later, and they had emptied the sav-mart of all of the cream coloured bunting and crepe paper. So, white it would be.



It looked spectacular. There were balloons tied to the basketball net at the south end of the gym. It wouldn’t wind up after the last game, so something had to be done to hide it. Balloons fit the bill. There was three levels of benches on the stage for the competitors, a microphone dead center stage and two 120 watt white spot lights aimed at the microphone.  Down in front, was a judges table, also covered in bunting and crepe, with a smaller microphone sitting in the middle. There was a cord connecting it to the stage speaker system, taped to the gym floor with purple duct tape, just to fit in. Big time, big time.



The piece de resistance sat at the right side of the judges table. An eight foot high pole, with an electronic stop watch and two traffic lights, donated from the local public utilities commission, in red and green. The timer had been rigged up by the uncle of one of the competitors, possibly to gain an advantage, to help keep the judges honest in their timings. Besides, it looked fancy, and it had a cool looking remote control.











The gym was filled to capacity. One hundred and Seventy Five Entrants, visitors, judges and media were crammed into plastic chairs, benches, and whatever lawn chairs the Teachers Auxiliary were able to borrow, that weren’t being used for the wedding at the Baptist Church. It was time to begin….



The three judges came in from the left of the clock, and sat down. The entrants were all nervously waiting on stage on the benches. The media representatives were down front, for photo opportunities, of course.



Judge number one, in the middle of the table clicked on the microphone in front of him and turned to the crowd. In doing so, he spilled his water on his notes and pulled the duct tape loose on the floor in front.



“Greetings, and welcome to the 87th Annual Cross Cultural Twin Counties Co-Educational Public School Spelling Bee.” There was some mild clapping from the family members, along with a few muffled whistles and two duck calls from the back. The weak response was due to the fact that most of the parents either had small fans (due to the heat), donated from the local Funeral Home, or hot dogs and beer (from the tailgating outside), in their hands. Needless to say, it was still a positive response.



The judge carried on…”Today’s competition brings together the top spellers in the region of the Twin Counties to do battle on our stage. All of the words used today, have been selected from a number of sources, including Webster’s Dictionary, from our own school library, Words with Friends from the inter web, keeping up with modern culture, and finally from two books of Dr. Suess that we had lying around the office. Each competitor will get one minute to answer once his or her word has been selected. We ask that you please refrain from applause until after the judges have confirmed the spelling, and please no help to the competitors. We now ask that you all turn off any electronic media, cell phones, pagers, etc. so we can begin”.



He then turned to the stage and asked all competitors to remove their cell phones and put them in the bright orange laundry basket, usually reserved for floor hockey sticks. Each student deposited their phones, all one hundred and thirty-seven of them in the basket.  We were ready to start.





“Competitor number one…please approach the microphone and state your name and your school” said Judge number two. Judge number two would be in charge of calling the students up, it seemed. She was the librarian at Thomas Polk. She had typical librarian glasses, with the silver chain attached to the arms, flaming red hair, done up in a bee hive uplift, just for the event, and was called Miss Flume. She was married, but, being the south, she was always addressed as Miss.



The first student advanced to the front of the stage. She had bright pink hair, held in place with a gold hairband, black shoes, and a yellow jumper. She looked like a walking number 2 pencil. The two duck calls came from the back of the gymnasium along with scattered applause. All three judges turned and looked to the back, and then turned to face the young girl.



“My name is Bobbie Jo Collister, I am a senior at Jackson Williams School of Fine Arts and Music”. “Thank you Bobbie Joe” said Miss Flume. Bobbie Jo, smiled nervously and put on her glasses. “Your word is horticulture” announced Judge number one, “horticulture”.  Bobbie Jo took a breath and without asking for a definition, usage, root of the word or anything, just ripped through it without fail in three point two seconds, according to the mammoth timepiece at the end of the table. After conferring, the judges clicked on the green street light and she sat down, amidst more duck calls and clapping.



Student number two went through the entire process as did students three through eight. Each one had glasses, no surprise there, and were all dressed in monochromatic themes. Together, they looked like a life sized box of crayolas ready for a halloween party. Each child spelled their words correctly and were subsequently cheered and applauded.



Student nine then approached the microphone, stopping about a good seven feet short and three feet right of it. “My name is Oliver Parnocky” squeaked the lad. “I go to George W. Bush P.S 19 and am a senior.” Miss Flume, grabbed the small mike in front of her and said “Oliver…put on your glasses and move over to the microphone.” She leaned into the other judges, and said “He goes to my school, he doesn’t like wearing them much, and he’s always outside at recess talking to the flagpole after everyone else has come inside”.



“Oliver, please spell Dichotomy” said Judge number one. Judge two started the clock and they waited….and waited…then out burst this voice….DICHOTOMY…D I C H O T O M E E, , no, wait..D I C K O….****!” The crowd erupted in laughter, Oliver was busted. The judges conferred, and after informing poor Oliver they had never heard it spelled quite that way with an O **** at the end, they triggered the red light and Oliver left the stage to sit in the audience with his folks.



The next three kids, all with glasses, like it was part of an unwritten uniform dress code for the day, all advanced and sat down. The next entrant, number thirteen, luckily enough stood from the back and struggled down to the front of the stage. There were gasps and some snickering from the crowd. She was taller than the previous competitors,  and a little more pregnant as well. “Please state your name” said Miss Flume. “My name is Betty Jo Willin and am a senior at

Buford T. Pusser Parochial School”. At this announcement there was a cheer of “Got Wood at B.T. Pusser” from the crowd. The judges turned, asked for silence and the offending nuns returned to their seats. “Miss Willin, how old are you exactly?” asked Judge number one. “Twenty Two sir”. “And you say you are a senior?” “Yes sir” came the reply. Betty Jo was shuffling a bit as the pressure on her bladder must have been building standing there in her delicate condition. After conferring, judge number one said “That sounds about right, your word is PROPHYLACTIC”. The few people in the crowd that knew the meaning of the word laughed, while the rest continued eating their hot dogs and drinking their sodas and beers. “Please give a definition sir..I don’t believe I know that word”. The judges looked at each other with a definite “I’m not surprised” look and rattled off the definition. When she asked for usage, the judges really didn’t know what to do. Should they give a sentence using the word or explain the usage of a prophylactic, which regardless would have been too late anyway.

After a modicum of control was reached, she attempted the word, getting all tongue tied and naturally messing it up. The red light was triggered and she left the stage.



More strange outfits, bowties, hair nets, jumpers, clip on ties, followed. It looked like a fashion parade from Goodwill and The Salvation Army rolled into one. Most attempted their words and were green lighted onwards to the next round, while those who failed, were red lighted back to the crowd and the tailgate party in the parking lot. As each competitor was eliminated, the betting board that was being manned outside by one father was updated with new odds and payouts.



The first round was approaching an end with only three kids left. “Number nineteen please approach and state your name” said Miss Flume. He plume of red hair was starting to sag and was sliding slowly off of her head due to the humidity in the gymnasium.



Number nineteen came forth, glasses, tape across the bridge like half of the previous spellers. He was wearing the most colourful shirt that any of the judges had ever seen. It was not from Dickies, they surmised. “I go to J.J. Washington P.S 117 and my name is Mujibar Julinoor Parkhurloonakiir”. The judges froze. He obviously was new to the district. They had never heard a name like that before, ever. Not even in Ghandi. This was a powerful name. There had been sixteen cominations of Bobby, Bobbie, Billie, Jo, Joe, Jimmy, Jeff, Johnson and Jackson prior to Mujibar. Stunned, judge one asked “Son, can you spell that please?”

Mujibar, not sure what to do, spelled his name, unsure of why he was being asked to do so. “Thank you son” said Miss Flume. The odds on the betting board in the parking lot changed right then.



“That boy is gonna win fer sure” said Jimmy Jeff Willerkers. Jimmy Jeff ran the filling station two concessions over and had fifty bucks on his nephew Bobby Jeff, who had already flamed out on “yawl”. “How was he supposed to know  it had something to do with boats?” asked Jimmy Jeff. “That Mujibar is gonna win…jeez, he’s been spelling that name for years….anything else is gonna be easy breezy.” The odds went down on Mujibar and the money was flying around that parking lot faster than the rumour that the revenue people were out looking for stills in the woods.



“Mujibar…please spell SALICIOUS”…asked the now red pancake headed Miss Flume. Doing as he was told, Mujibar, spelled the word, gave the root, a definition and a brief history of the word usage in modern literature. Judge number one was furiously scribbling down notes, and trying to figure out how he would get a bet down on this kid before round two started.



Entrant number twenty from Jefferson Davis Temple and Hebrew school advanced which brought up the final entrant from round one. “Number Twenty-One please advance to the front of the stage”. After adjusting his glasses, after all he didn’t want a repeat of what poor Oliver did, he approached. “My name is C.J. Kay from William Clinton P.S 68” Judge one, confused by the young man’s name asked him to repeat it. “C.J. Kay” said C.J. “What is your full last name boy, you can’t just have a letter as your last name….what is the K for?” “Sir, my last name is Kay”, said C.J. “It’s not a letter”. “It most certainly is son…H I J K L…rattled off judge one. “It has to stand for something, you just can’t be CJK, that sounds like a Canadian radio station or worse yet, one of them hippy hoppy d.j fellers my granddaughter listens to. What is the K for?”. C.J said sir “My name is Christopher John Kay… not K, Kay” and then spelled it out. This only confused judge one more than he already was, and the extra time figuring out his name was doing nothing to Miss Flume’s hairdo.



“Christopher John….please spell MEPHISTOPHOLES “ said Judge one, after realizing he was never going to find out what the K was for. The crowd was getting restless and wanted to get to the truck to get re-filled and change their bets. C.J. knocked it out of the park in 2.7 seconds…”faster than Lee Harvey Oswald at a target shoot in Dallas”, one man said.



After a ten minute break, to get drinks, ***, re-tape some glasses and prop up Miss Flumes ruined plumage round two was set to begin. This went faster as the words were getting tougher, although randomly selected, judge one was inserting a few new words to keep his chance of winning with Mujibar alive. PALIMONY, ARCHEOLOGY, PARSIMONIOUS, TRIPTOTHYLAMINE , and many other words were thrown at the competitors. Each time the list of successful spellers was reduced, and the amount of clapping and the duck calls were less.

The seventh round began with just Mujibar, B.J. Collister and C. J Kay left. Before the round began the judges reminded the crowd that the words were random, and to please keep the cheering until the green light had been lit. There were more duck calls at this announcement and very little applause. Jerry Jeff was still manning the betting board, the tailgate barbeque was done, and there was only about thirty people left in the gymnasium.



The balloons on the basketball net had long since lost their get up and go, and were now hanging limply like coloured rubber scrotums and were flatter that Miss Flumes hair, which incidently, was now starting to streak the right side of her face from sweat washing out the dye. She was beginning to look like an extra in a zombie film with a brilliant orange red streak across her forehead.



“C.J.” said judge one, “please spell ARYTHMOMYACIN”. C.J. gave it a valiant effort ,but unfortunately was incorrect and the red light sent him off to the showers. This left B.J. Collister and the odds on favourite, Mujibar. The crowd was down to twenty seven now, Bobbie Jo’s folks and Mujibars immediate family.



Round after round were completed with neither one missing a word. Neither one blinked. It was a gunfight where both shooters died. These two were good, and it was never going to end. Judge one leaned over and told the other judges, “we have to finish this soon….I’m due at the wedding over to the Baptist church for nine o’clock to bless the happily marrieds and drive them both to the airport. They’re off to Cuba for their honeymoon.” The others agreed…”C.J. please spell MINISCULE said Miss Flume”. She did so, without a problem. This caused judge one to yell out “Holy Christmas” just as Mujibar got to the microphone. Thinking this was his word, he started as the judges were giving him his word. Seizing the opportunity to end it…judge one woke up judge three who red lighted poor Mujibar, ending his run at spelling immortality. “Sorry son, you tried, but, today a Mujibar lost and a B.J won.”. Before he tried to correct himself, knowing what he had just said didn’t sound quite right, Miss Flume congratulated both finalists and began the award presentations.



Thankfully, next year the eighty eighth version of The Annual Cross Cultural Twin Counties Co-Educational Public School Spelling Bee will be in the other county. Now the job of sorting out the cell phones in the orange basket begins. By the way, Betty Jo Willin had a boy …you can just guess what she named it!

Here the waves rise high and fall on the icy
seas and white caps chew the driftwood logs of
hemlock and toss them wildly upon sandy beaches.
The steep mountains rise straight from the sea
floor as the December sun shines through the dark
clouds that hang heavy with snow near the top peaks.
Blue icebergs drift slowly down the narrow channel.
This volcanic island is one of many that are scattered
along the coast of Southeastern Alaska.
On the South end of the island is another
tiny island and on it stands an old lighthouse,
a shambles. It has a curving staircase and an
old broken lamp that used to beckon to ships at
sea. Wild grasses and goosetongue cover the ground
and close by Sitka blacktail feed and gray gulls
circle. There is a mountain stream nearby and
in the fall the salmon spawn at its mouth. The
black bear and grizzly scoop them up with great
sweeps of their paws, their sharp claws gaffing
the silver bodies.
Walking North along the deer trail from the
South end of the island are remnants of the Treadwell
Mine. It was the largest gold mine in the world.
In the early 1900's the tunnel they were digging
underneath Gastineau Channel caved in and the sea
claimed her gold. The foundry still stands a rusty
red.
The dining halls are vacant, broken white
dishes are strewn inside. The tennis court that
was built for the employees is overgrown with hops
that have climbed over the high fence and grown
up between cracks in the cement floor. The flume
still carries water rushing in it half-hidden in
the rain-forest which is slowly reclaiming the
land. The beach here by the ocean is fine white
sand, full of mica, gold and pieces of white dishes.
Potsherds for future archeologists, washed clean,
smooth and round by the circular waves of this
deep, dark green water.
Down past the old gold mine is Cahill's house,
yellow and once magnificent. They managed the mine. The long staircase is boarded up and so
are the large windows. The gardens are wild, irises
bud in the spring at the end of the lawn, and in
the summer a huge rose path, full of dark crimson
blooms frames the edge of the sea; strawberries
grow nearby dark pink and succulent. Red raspberries
grow further down the path in a tangle of profusion;
close by is a pale pink rose path, full of those
small wild roses that smell fragrant. An iron-
barred swing stands tall on the edge of the beach.
I swing there and at high tide I can jump in the
ocean from high up in the air. There is an old
tetter-totter too. And, it is like finding the
emperor's palace abandoned.
There is a knoll behind the old house called
Grassy Hill. It is covered with a blanket of hard
crisp snow. In the spring it is covered with sweet
white clover and soft grasses. It is easy to find
four leaf clovers there, walking below the hill
toward the beach is a dell. It is a small clearing
in between the raspberry patch and tall cottonwood
trees. It is a good place for a picnic. It is
a short walk again to the beach and off to the
right is a small pond, Grassy Pond. It is frozen
solid and I skate on it. In the summer I swim
here because it is warmer than the ocean. In the
spring I wade out, stand very still and catch baby
flounders and bullheads with my hands; I am fast
and quick and have good eyes. Flounders are bottom
fish that look like sand.
Walking North again over a rise I come to
a field filled with snow; in the spring it is a
blaze of magenta fireweed. Often I will sit in
it surrounded by bright petals and sketch the mountains
beyond. Nearby are salmonberry bushes which have
cerise blossoms in early spring; by the end of
summer, golden-orange berries hang on their green
branches. The bears love to eat them and so do
I. But the wild strawberries are my first love,
then the tangy raspberries. I don't like the high-
bush cranberries, huckleberries, currants or the
sour gooseberries that grow in my mother's garden
and the blueberries are only good for pies, jams
and jellies. I like the little ligonberries that
grow close to the earth in the meadow, but they
are hard to find.
Looking across this island I see Mt. Jumbo,
the mountain that towers above the thick Tongass forest of pine, hemlock and spruce. It was a volcano
and is rugged and snow-covered. I hike up the
trail leading to the base of the mountain. The
trail starts out behind a patch of blueberry bushes
and winds lazily upwards crossing a stream where
I can stop and fish for trout and eat lunch; on
top is a meadow. Spring is my favorite season
here. The yellow water lilies bud on top of large
muskeg holes. The dark pink blueberry bushes form
a ring around the meadow with their delicate pink
blossoms. The purple and yellow violets are in
bloom and bright yellow skunk cabbage abounds, the
devil's club are turning green again and fields
of beige Alaskan cotton fan the air, slender stalks
that grow in the wet marshy places. Here and there
a wild columbine blooms. It is here in these meadows
that I find the lime-green bull pine, whose limbs
grow up instead of down. Walking along the trail
beside the meadow I soon come to an old wooden
cabin. It is owned by the mine and consists of
two rooms, a medium-sized kitchen with an eating
area and wood table and a large bedroom with four
World War II army cots and a cream colored dresser.
Nobody lives here anymore, but hikers, deer hunters,
and an occasional bear use the place. Next door
to the cabin is the well house which feeds the
flume. The flume flows from here down the mountain
side to the old mine and power plant. An old man
still takes care of the power plant. He lives
in a big dark green house with his family and the
power plant is all blue-gray metal. I can stand
outside and listen to the whirl of the generators.
I like to walk in the forest on top of the old
flume and listen to the sound of the water rushing
past under my bare feet.
In the winter the meadow is different: all
silent, still and snow-covered. The trees are
heavy with weighty branches and icicles dangle
off their limbs, long, elegant, shining. All the
birds are gone but the little brown snowbirds and
the white ptarmigan. The meadow is a field of
white and I can ski softly down towards the sea.
The trout stream is frozen and the waterfall quiet,
an ice palace behind crystal caves. The hard smooth-
ness of the ice feels good to my touch, this frozen
water, this winter.
Down below at the edge of the sea is yet another
type of ice. Salt water is treacherous; it doesn'tfreeze solid, it is unreliable and will break under
my weight. Here are the beached icebergs that
the high tide has left. Blue white treasures,
gigantic crystals tossed adrift by glaciers. Glisten-
ing, wet, gleaming in the winter sun, some still
half-buried in the sea, drifting slowly out again.
And it is noisy here, the gray gulls call to each
other, circling overhead. The ravens and crows
are walking, squawking along the beach. The Taku
wind is blowing down the channel, swirling, chill,
singing in my ear. Far out across the channel
humpback whales slap their tails against the water.
On the beach kelp whips are caught in wet clumps
of seaweed as the winter tide rises higher and
higher. The smell of salty spray permeates everything
and the dark clouds roll in from behind the steep
mountains.
Suddenly it snows. Soft, furry, thick flakes,
in front of me, behind, to the sides, holding me
in a blizzard of whiteness, light: snow.

Flipped through my comic
And there I eyed
Free ride on the batman slide
Got so pumped I nearly cried
Got so pumped I nearly cried

Took my ticket
Drove to the fair
Let the wind breeze through my hair
Kind of cold but I don't care
Kind of cold but I don't care

There it was
Past flume log
Was it worth this sudden slog?
Chomping on my chili dog
Chomping on my chili dog

Gave the ticket
Crawled on in
Beaming with a goofy grin
Taking this ride for a spin
Taking this ride for a spin

I slid down
Then I barfed!
Losing all my debonair
Chili splattered everywhere
Chili splattered everywhere

Off to ride
Carousel
Handyman would come with broom
Walking past the scary flume
Walking past the scary flume

I lived inside a hope that was birthed inside a promise
that was meant to last beyond when time had forgotten us

In security I breathe the same breath you used to cherish
while hoping in my arms was where you would perish

Now here we are alas and the whole is back to halves
creating a devastating fork splitting our two paths

Only left to wonder where without me you roam
my feet began to wander to a place we called home

Wander to the home I still envision your standing silhouette
staring below at my cold shadow immersed in the tears that I wept.

You pass the flume. You pass the time.
Waiting in line, Reading signs by flickering light
Cozy and vaguely threatening
You may get wet!
A clatter, screams,
a flash out of the corner of your eye
like southern lightning (with no big thunder) down into the bottomless abyss.

Based on a movie (not available in the gift shop)-- a retelling by whites
of a story written down by whites
told by black
slaves born South

You're a brare, like Rabbit
Prey to Brare Fox
Under the darkness you pass under dim lights that take you back to a time that was, but never way,
Logs that were never trees
Moving through the canal like a slave, sluicing through the swirling sluice
Prettygoodsureasyerborn Prettygoodsureasyerborn

No interaction here in the dark outside-inside
Nobody borne dry, bone dry, unbloodied
By water or unclaimed by the canal full of logs which were never trees
Moving like a slave on display for white birds who, smiling blinking singing, extend
their white wings to show you off to their cartoon friends—a conversation
which you can never be in on
though they look at you.

And then you dip into dark and doom
Quivering rabbit children cower
--clatter, flash, scream--
You begin to suspect your time is coming
And your log, now defying gravity, leaves you without doubt

So, you're trying to find your lauighin place. If only you could. We've
got your laughin place right here.

The mouth opens wide for you
A mouth with briar teeth
A flash like southern lightning
And big thunder fills your ears

Zippadee-do-dah, Zippadee-ay
Your pain will stick to you like wet clothes as you float, swim in the clear swirls
and back into the dark where there's light and singing alligators.
Zippadee-do-dah, Zippadee-ay
They look at you with mechanically blinking eyes
that cannot see you, another guest—another stand-in
for Braer Rabbit, a character who looks nothing like you but who sings
for you and speaks for you.
Zippadee-do-dah, Zippadee-ay
His voice is high and cloying with a Huck Finn twang and a Shirley Temple cry.
He's relaxing at home and you are wet and he is warm in home's golden light.
Yet he speaks for you, sings for you, but he does not see you.
A cast member made of person who has no lines to speak will pull you from your log.
You will laugh as puddles form at your feet and as you find your
photo—your moment of unbridled, child's
horror now passed, past

You'll pass the flume on your way home—clatter, flash, scream--
You're dripping, drying, the salt of the day now washed away
But there's brine in your sensible shoes, squishing between your insensible toes
And making your feet heavy as you leave.
Braer Rabbit is home and cares not for your troubles.
Zippadee-do-dah, Zippadee-Ay
Magic words, shrill, laughing tragic words
You will remember when you look at your souvenir photo
And smile.

She had stopped crying.
All evening in her black-mesh coup de voodoo.
On the plane she had been crying
For her Summer pal. Yesterday she had been to market
Big brown bags and white bags, little pink bags filled with crimsony scents,
Capricornia, looseleaf newsprint, postcards, and colored pencils,
She had hands full of handles, bags bundled, stitched in strict Saturday fashion.
He could barely break a step, he could fake dance with her feet on his tip toes.
She was only three quarters the perfect size to fit inside his frame.
The grand disappearing act. And she was only ifs and suicides.
A stranded ray of sun-draped hair on a cooly porcelain forehead, the segments were all just wrong,
Something so wrong, trembling heart cries over a mute coo through a flattened tongue.
The sickle tongue, dodgy on Tuesday's, She had a simple mug, oh! But so cute and soothing, the nape
That wrapped around, my arm lapped its hands in a clapping ginormous duck's bill!
Lapping rhythmically. Thwack! Thwack!
Like no crying I had ever heard. Nor Earthen beauty I had never seen.
Her little lamb legs lumbered over, her awkward thinness and long limbs spilt on top of her,
Her tiny shoulders searching for support from her hips. White aurulent doll head on a stick,
She had sad defeated eyes, whimpering, pathetic,
Too small, and she shuttered and she shook,
And she shivered out every teardrop her body ever made. And she fell back on her bottom, and looked
Up as if to see a white steed standing with her guy striking a poised hand down to her,
He split down the middle, stammering, broken pieces of words crumbling out of his mouth
With eager intentions. He was too weak
To give her his feet, or pull her up in, he hadn't the gumption. He was fully occupied standing,
He wept too; then shuffled a little
Towards where she had fallen. He knew she wasn't right
She couldn't get the devil out of her piercing blue pupils, she couldn't
She lied.
Then she just piled on top of her knees and fumbled as if to rise like a demure lamb trying to rise off its Newborn legs, she just curled her legs,
So stiffly built, and narrow footed, built with such inequality to her siblings,
She got in the way of herself, a little lamb that could not manage.
Too whittled for him, he tried, he really tried, but three years had drained his strength, no real help.
When he sat her upright on her bottom, she opened her eyes, and for a moment smiled, grabbed for His hand but then after awhile she was lost, she lost interest, her pupils wandered.
He was orchestrating everything.
A real project, much more urgent and important. By nightfall she could not stand. It was not
That she couldn't smile or laugh or love, she was born
With everything but the will to live -
That cannot be destroyed, just like a love.
Melancholy was more important to her.
Life could not get her attention.
So she died, with her handles still in her hands, green grass stains her legs.
She did not survive another warm summer night.
And then he wept uncontrollably again.
"The wind is oceanic in the elms
And the blossom is all set."

2

The boy has come back
From the seashore, and atop the plateau.
The woes of women are like a genocide
In the morning, when the killing is over,
And the heat begins, and the bodies lie,
And stark life moves for its sobbing bones,
The curved women move with fire.
Father Father Father the girls
Are weeping, and crying and I cannot resist that gentle frailty
They are shucked in their skin suits rising from their soporific slumbers
In decadent leathers and frou frou dresses. They cling to bold faces,
Nothing can escape that cold crying of women weeping for their princes.
Blood-letting rage cannot overthrow the meadow from the pebble brook,
As a laden head bleats its tarnished tongue across a milky breast, it cannot
Escape the sounds of blue-stained teardrops cascading across the plains,
The sounds of woolbirds braying while their skins are sheared against the
Sluicing sound of water rushing through the flume.
All summer they have lamented, gorging on melancholy, tottering their cotton pyramid heads,
Shaking their cries in deliberation, bald skinny victim women screaming out!
Cotton-mouthed clams yaffing, hearts in panic, wholes of bodies clambering in a *** of woe.
They roost useless, pollard and wethered, jealous
Squinting out the last droplets of desperation from their eyes, screaming their mouths in awful
Togetherness, this cacophony of tortured tongue-song
They curdle the last notes of despair out under knotted breaths
With every inch of strength left inside them, they bray this way and that.
Their mothers scream out in wretched despair, ahhh!
On distant cliffs, on scrawny legs
Their stiff pain goes on and on in the September heat.
"Only slowly their hurt dies, cry by cry,"
Whipped bodies toting wergeld on a shore.

The Day She Died

Was the gloomiest day of the new century,
The first of calamitous, unfortunate autumns to come,
The first dying breath from piceous lungs.

That was yesterday. Early morning, soft rime droplets
Frosted to every blade of grass, not like any other
Earlier June day we've ever had. In the deep twilight
The syzygy announced the moon and demoted the sun.

The Earth-crisp frost nuzzled snow droplets.
Black bands of ravens whipping. Martens littering
Fresh kills of red-eyed rabbits on stark white stale
Summer lawns. A fox grayed, its cold bones
Mapped by ravaged feasts. A possum prowling
In a spot of tawny light.

The concrete spread into a maze
Of black veins ripening in the acute niello
Destitution of its widening cracks,

And when the summer left
It left without her. It will have to accept,
In the paley dim light of this vengeful wilderness -
She is gone.
But for now the warmth has not returned but a naked, half-pomegranate
Rotten moon for us two.
And a great vacancy in our memory.

I'd give up used bookstores, libraries,
old love, and free chai tea lattes
to be alone with you.


All of the things I once believe caused feeling—
Just moments and memories

in a great spectrum of
*"I forgot—just being happy. being happy.

So I prioritize
and keep going,
close my eyes.
close your eyes."

Let's dance to the boogie in the room.
Hearts pound, energy abound, the hips sway.
Cyclical time baby caught in the flume.
Fall into me sweetheart, your soul's astray.

Arm spread eagles escape into the sound.
Could we maybe find peace in this madness?
Further gone, blue, red, green, and white abound.
EVERYBODY! This love we must address.

One more hit, swig, swag, tab, maybe a dab
and we're off on the moon again singin.
Lay all your innocent out on the slab
cuz darlin o girl their love'll be ringin.

I can feel you laughing down my neck just like it was yesterday
I can feel those beige walls pressing in
Slow dancing on an open grave
Twisting the knife into my skin
           This isn't self harm this is processing
           This isn't nostalgia this is letting go.
Winter air wrapped in red so many layers I almost couldn't hear what you said
All draped in ice and grace  
The world isn't as small and snug as it used to be
The world is too near and is not gentle with me
I remember
The way it felt when you crossed the room
And I remember
How it felt to leave too soon
I am not my brothers keeper
And you are not the boy I thought I knew
But winter rises ominous and waking before me
and my hands are already turning blue
I'll hold you if I want to.

Hallucinating Bureaucracies and auditory Hallucinations : When the voice in your head speaks when you don't want it to, to head's of State not present. I could snuggle in bed if I wanted to, but I've got to orchestrate and reorganize the Clinton dowry. It started outright with trying on a purple, yellow, and blue button down shirt that had Scabies in the sleeve- and now you're all going to know why Mr. and Mrs. Obama don't want to talk to me about potentially increasing livestock traffic across the Americas. I think could practice will follow from such a manure, I mean maneuver. I pick up 10 or so bottles of plastic single-serve water for consumption in my apartheid room. It's awful in here. The gold disappears from the mines, and even the hands I used to work with are blurring up in the twister, and as much as you call or don't call I have no business managing your intentions- only mine. Some barrge of women over thirty. But still there isn't a problem. The river is beginning to flood, and the fishery's stockpile is running low. Maybe we ought to empty out an African mass grave and fill it with blacklists of co-conspirators and then make a drake or a flume out of the narrow walkways between the cities. Then maybe we'll have water to last us through the dry season.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------------------------- Where in the world is Sam in Hammond, Can Diego? Forklifting pillars, bribing monkeys, playing with his Mickey Mouse and Michelob, catching the taller, eighteen and up crowd catch the last car riding the rapid drop from Space Mountain through, "It's a Small World After All:"  

It's a world of laughter a world of tears, it's a world of hopes and a world of fears. There's so much that we share, that it's time we're aware- it's a small world after all."  

And then he takes the biggest gulp of water into his mouth that I've ever seen the man take, and he puts it in a small cooler that's strapped to the back of his calf, and he swears to me that the aeroplanes are going to come loop around, and when they do their glorious water-landing, he and I, or rather, the both of us, will be saved. Saved, hm? I don't even bother sharing insights or my insides. I quickly flash him the most-pod horrific a tryst that irons down a photo of Egon and I back in the Old City, what was it, Chicago, or something that very much sounded like Chicago. Could be totally awesome and I'll chime in that now is the time when we do our work best. That's all. Intrepid,

Knees moist, they sink into the earth.
Eyes embracing an endless river
In front of me

Hands trembling, gratefully
Heart full of love
I reach towards the water flowing
With the body of a god.

Pure Endless Infinity condensed
Into molecules of  some divine nature
Forming,
generating,
creating
This river.
Fiume.

It’s time to take down all the decorations,
They look tatty with no celebrations
to give them purpose,
Bauble’s shine turns to rust,
The tinsel starts wilting
Like flowers left in a vase.

Fragments of sellotape cling to the wrapping paper,
And grab at the walls and window ledges it passes on its way to the fire
Trying to escape death.
At least a kind of death.
Floating up out of the flume to be part of a white Christmas for next year.
A flake of ash that ice molecules wrap themselves around to become a snowflake,
And to think you used to be wrapping paper.

So much tasted of last year,
How much is recyclable?
How much to care about complacence of wastage?
How much should I shed a tear?
How much should I care for carbon footprints and ******* tips?
I don’t want to care at all
It’s too much baggage.

All I want is to fly this year,
I’ll make a kite from the bones of the Christmas tree,
The baubles and tinsel and snow spray stripped,
Now bare of all personality.
Maybe it will fly…
If it doesn’t,
There will always be next year,
Until there isn’t…
…And even when I die someday,
Maybe I will get to be a snowflake.
  And I’ll get to fly that way.

Perched in front of a fireplace
One could be thinking of anything,
Distant castles and battles to be fought-
Dragons and demons and lovers lost
But as I curl up on the brick and place myself only inches from the flames
I think about how I wish the fireplace were real
And that it was in a much smaller house
So the warmth could chase away the cold and darkness from the farthest corners of the room.
Suddenly I remember my aunt and her fireplace
Situated in a house even bigger than this
As I watch she sits down on the cold marble hearth and reaches for a pack of cigarettes hidden in plain sight, puts one to her lips, and lights it
Exhaling the smoke into the flume
In my imagination I see myself taking one from her
Lighting it
And I inhale
And I exhale
Finding myself once again alone in front of the fireplace that isn't real,
the house still cold and dark as ever.

Settle into darkness, naturally, and take your cue from unoiled gears jolting forward only to lure you into false stability and lose velocity, stop suddenly, merge the definitions of stopping and falling by balancing the cart on the back of the tongue as sherbet dip dab’s your gums in 3…2…swallow down it drops FLASH past the oesophagus there’s your photo op show us some teeth show us some skin darlin’ begin to dissolve in stomach acid bile’s vile hold it down we will use force if necessary like handcuffs to a headboard excuse me sir may I see your ticket? Right you can’t sit here, you’re 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphphetamine, that’s upstairs you need to swing a left then straight up to the top floor not a bad view, you can’t miss it it’s got a hundred golden bulbs flashing hypothalamus, no we’re not really bothered about our environment take the lift elevate heart rate
                                           C-C-C-CRANK IT UP
to the cerebral cortex’s House of Mirrors home of distortion. What can we do for you sir? We like to pride ourselves in our ability to mess around with the wiring and stimulate receptors, all part of the Deluxe Mega Deal complete with moving walls, disco ball skin and a talking butterfly the size of a car crash for a limited time only whilst serotonin stocks last they fall as fast as the lubricated log flume SPLASH. Please remain seated until the end of the ride. Thrown out into the gift shop. £30 for a 12 hour come down. Come again soon.

foam floral caps, work of wet hydrangea,        

                          or pulse of caucasian lilacs in a sky-relieved frieze.        

                                   cambric pennons swag reconsidering      

                                          margins of wimpling burn,      

                                        wherein the stars…twiring stars,    

                                    the declining stars, moon and planets        

                                                            tur­ned--



                                      purchase light with morning-hands:        

                                         ­         green-bedizened;      

                                              amber trammeling bud.      

                                          absolve qualm suffusing tyre,      

                                             violet’s violent leniency--        

                                            a­nd feel, o’bask! in velvet      

                                                   ­ flume of veins,        

                                          as beams of conspiracy raise      

                                                  to­ post and lintel,      

                                         crutching a young god’s legs--



                                      and feel, o’supplicate!  bathe in      

                                                day’s anatomies,      

                                   til greave deposit in lacunary sleeves,    

                                   and a genuflecting sun bow eternally--

We all know when we are not wanted as it seems that many do,
A jolly up in the town, everyone there but you
Your work mates are friendly but only for the day
Theyve spoke of their home lives and that they think the dog is gay
A bit of what is known as banter wouldn't go a miss
Your mates of old all married now, your still searching for that bliss
Facebook and Twitter can be the final hurrah with pictures of their lives
2 kids and a dog to boot, only way to get them out is a free drink as a bribe
Your best friend and their new found buds, all arms up on that log flume up north
We had days like that at Chessington, 18 and ******, before your kids were spawned
We pretend we live alternative lives, who needs that wholesome charade of a perfection
A City flier, on all the apps, a wit you could not section
You tell the world your happy as, a life now ruled by Tinder
But tell the truth, your home in bed, fish finger sandwich probably from Findus
But it pulls at the heart, those pictures of happiness and a life that you thought was right
I'll get there someday, just ignoring the now, I'll say it again,

Thanks For The Invite

JJB

We were all there
The anime girl and the flower child
Surf boy and the Queen of the Pixies
The lads with the tattoos and ***** in pink coolers
And many others with us
And many many more around us
Holding beer cans and buckets of Hot Chip(s)
Stuffed into The Flaming Lips
We sat on the hill where the sun sat next to us
Smoked grass in the grass
By our Beach House
People sliding up and down the hill like a Flume
With a Boy & Bear for company
And a First Aid Kit
And the Village Brass Band
From Pleasureland
We had to hand it to them
They knew how to use those horns in the wee hours
As we marauded around the hillside
The valley and the Enchanted Forest
With its lemmings and white tigers, kookaburras and pixies
All vying for the title of the Best Sense of Humour
Where the sun came up between the trees
And everything went pink
You couldn't tell the canopy from the clouds
In the alien sky
With the moon in dark night at one end
And the ****** first light at the other
Until the light wins and day Falls

An almost stillness came about as she strode into my door,
like breath itself refused to move,
fearful of touching her mysterious beauty

But her obsidian eyes betrayed her.

Sharp and gleaming,
with a silver sheen
she looked at me,
and I knew…

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

Molten lava spilled forth from her mouth, melting our clocks—
eighteen hundred nightmares compressed in two hours.
Long hand moving forward, as the short hand moved backward
How can memories persist in such an acrid life?

She spoke of a beast in the guise of a man,
one who ravaged innocence with the flick of a click
A coward that collected milk teeth for hardened bones
of other ***** beasts with no spine

That throaty tenderness when she spoke,
sprinkled crystal seeds of frustration in me
She says she loathed him, denied she loved him,
but her obsidian eyes betrayed her

There she was, a bud he plucked from the nuns’ garden
He grafted then he pruned her,
spreading her pollen, wafting her scent
yet folding her petals to himself

Caterpillars feeding upon her leaves,
she lets them devour her,
yet once they are wrapped in their cocoons to sleep,
she stabs them with her thorns.

Tears then slid down from her midnight lace eyes
and it was all I could do to catch them
She said she was weary of curtailing butterflies,
of tearing their wings before they can even fly

I had to ask, how many… how many winged gems?
She lifted her sleeves, and showed me her scars
One ugly mark for each innocent child plunged deep,
my heart getting slashed at least three hundred a beat.

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

A certain stillness came about as I strode into her door,
like fear itself refused to move,
letting breath touch her mysterious beauty for the last time....

Her obsidian eyes had betrayed her.

Sharp and gleaming,
with a silver sheen
I looked at the knife beside her.

Maroon-mapped sheets, a stunted womb.

Strains of Bon Iver’s “Flume”
flit past the sighing air like a butterfly,
and I knew…

there was light--
rupture, rapture, flare and flume in the sky--
your hair was the milky way, bellissima, mellissima,
prima donna of the Scorpio sky
gold and white in the night,
stars or diamonds dance and flow
and your hair cascades, ripples, gleaming gold:
He said light, and there was light.

All the worst things in life
Start with a:
A-social
A-theist
A-******.
A-bominations to be corrected, but,
And although, in the hands of a body
The blame must go
Tight-gripped and freely clasped
A smile hangs like a necklace.
For, they ask, what grows,
On what shore that glance a thirsting road
Where no artisan of wells
Lets run his craft
Burst with life?
What vines may couple, transect dead veins
Still in a bed of salt
But dead and grey shades of the true?
None,
It would seem, can carry the sweet
Of fertile seeds along the water’s edge
It is but passing as its plumpness
Withers and drops
Apart, epistle, a dogma.
This vampiric little heart takes no form
In Narcissus’ pool it does not
Glisten in the waters calm
Despite the furious mouth
And, gone, lost of all that made it whole.
I go back to the source of the
Grey valley flume
Unknown to impetus,
Cannot find its way in the endless roads
And paths in the sun-baked skin,
The wind may blow salt in my eyes though
The music of its basin fills my ears:
Waves breaking and pressing
On soft earthen lines, scrap-book memories
Faded at the edges like Polaroids
Unfold from the waves of purity
In the sand of an empty shore.
I peer idly into the glimmering stream
No red heart beating,
But a grey heart; one simply searching, pining
For a grey love to begin
And the world that I know
They belong in.

This summer day
is terrible,
My body is
inoperable.

The temperature
is 78.
Sandals or shoes?
choices I hate.
The sky is too
bright a blue,
The suns cruel rays
burn right through.
And those few clouds
take no shape-
My imagination they
do ****.
Oh the flowers
bright with bloom
All the colors
a painful flume.

Bees buzzing
a hellish tone
Within my kingdom?
so near my throne?
I loathe the children
and their cheer,
The slightest thought
so hard to hear.
Yet to be *******
by the sound-
of people running,
No solace found!

For no one cares
no, not for me
Bound to chair
while you are free.

My body is
inoperable,
This summer day
is terrible.

The Clouded Sea

The sea lies flat setting just off shore a billowy cloud tenderly rests this sky voyager floats on the waves a misty guest
The two always complement each other one widely flows the other bestows willowy snow like scenes to enchant
The air stands between the swells and the moist over hanging shell set among azure blue once flight was the quest
The painter’s mind it does spark illuminations submerged in soulful wells truths transferred on canvas holds you in its spell

Who writes in the wind to the closest friends he sends these weighty thoughts stirred he will enclose them then disclose all
Yes the sea will tell of richness the boundless waves in their glorious spray will touch with magnificence this tribunal voice
Speaks every language has and knows the most dramatic utterances that blend with silence the soothing on the soul it falls
Text books widest roads it runs them all to their ends it investigates with tender’s breeze or with a squall it may favor a call

You sit among the cool frothing suds the sands grow no buds but oh what sights sea grasses grow amidst the dunes flume like
The gulls sail on the wind and delight with their aerial antics Pelicans fly in squadron formation seal and otter amuse and delight
The chill spreads inland, sweaters appear couples huddle close generating warmth cherished feelings rise ever as high as a kite
Smiles spread no Nordic blast can take away pleasure that is seated in oceanic sprawl the emotions deepen with the tide

The final pleasure you can’t ignore this chance to inter a cloud bank puffs of crystal standing two stories high float into the mist
Reach out swirl your hand in a circle make portholes turn slowly you are now engulfed in chiffon elegance a cumulus ball awaits
Step by step walk on moist softness feel the lightness as it springs then leaves delightful delicate prints only the unicorn will visit
The untraceable path through earthbound cloud at the sea shore for you it came to be just a puff of magic fluff for your embrace

The Clouded Sea

The sea lies flat setting just off shore a billowy cloud tenderly rests this sky voyager floats on the waves a misty guest
The two always complement each other one widely flows the other bestows willowy snow like scenes to enchant
The air stands between the swells and the moist over hanging shell set among azure blue once flight was the quest
The painter’s mind it does spark illuminations submerged in soulful wells truths transferred on canvas holds you in its spell

Who writes in the wind to the closest friends he sends these weighty thoughts stirred he will enclose them then disclose all
Yes the sea will tell of richness the boundless waves in their glorious spray will touch with magnificence this tribunal voice
Speaks every language has and knows the most dramatic utterances that blend with silence the soothing on the soul it falls
Text books widest roads it runs them all to their ends it investigates with tender’s breeze or with a squall it may favor a call

You sit among the cool frothing suds the sands grow no buds but oh what sights sea grasses grow amidst the dunes flume like
The gulls sail on the wind and delight with their aerial antics Pelicans fly in squadron formation seal and otter amuse and delight
The chill spreads inland, sweaters appear couples huddle close generating warmth cherished feelings rise ever as high as a kite
Smiles spread no Nordic blast can take away pleasure that is seated in oceanic sprawl the emotions deepen with the tide

The final pleasure you can’t ignore this chance to inter a cloud bank puffs of crystal standing two stories high float into the mist
Reach out swirl your hand in a circle make portholes turn slowly you are now engulfed in chiffon elegance a cumulus ball awaits
Step by step walk on moist softness feel the lightness as it springs then leaves delightful delicate prints only the unicorn will visit
The untraceable path through earthbound cloud at the sea shore for you it came to be just a puff of magic fluff for your embrace

It is a night where I must craft my words
or try to weave lines on a broken loom.
To think a poem will spring forth is absurd.

Stillborn inspiration can't be stirred,
emotions drained away. I must assume
it is a night where I must craft my words.

My prayers to Muse fell back to earth, unheard.
All artistry has booked a separate room.
To think a poem will spring forth is absurd.

Striving merely churns my brain to curds,
its thin gray whey runs down some gutter's flume.
It is a night where I must craft my words.

A cadenced resolution's been deferred,
the last two lines will surely be my doom.
To think a poem will spring forth is absurd.

A peaceful flow of writing is deterred
until my buried spirit is exhumed.
It is a night where I must craft my words,
to think a poem will spring forth is absurd.

Undercoverism, teenage soot inside of dry and crusty eyes. When the morning begs alarms to die, and she brings that familiar rain again. Some one that unknowns us, sheds a brutal light. Where the hole inside each child's head, may be disarmed across a deck of cards. In an anti-climactic exposition, where aces climb the sleeves, young Caucasian children find themselves in minorities.

Bubbling voodoo-hoodoo, soda water succumbing the Oro-Quincy spillway until the men have wept and every other woman gleans her brow. When we wake up in the poppy garden, when we've fallen asleep to one hundred cowardly clowns lifting themselves off the heap of a Volkswagen Rabbit. On Broadway heading to 14th Street, avoiding the sidewalk cracks via a jog through alphabet town. There are self-righteous no-ones, famous, auto-inflicted vicious inextricably ordinary and sub-par, barely scratching at their own averages, and hardly shaking words out of their id-sized corner offices at Avenue B & St. Marks.

By the shivering hands can tell, of which lowly smoking dactyls accentuate their currish farce, and amidst a stack of newsprint and cardboard, boxes and the bothersome, the most personal stranger no person should ever greet. Nor mahogany or oak manifold shall ever be select, and the hollowing sheath- Earth in her brilliant hues of green should forever keep unbeknownst to any selves heeding their milky skies' retreat.  

The oder fresh, from digits bending, collapses on the archway round the bed. Its hardened crime, it fails in pretending, like a lust in a sand plume, an eight-shaped glass ornament, arenosely erupting in a drizzling circumstance. We call it time.

It is a noise that summer caught on to, a broken heel, running up ways and ways to concrete squares, like California was only just pretending.

Goodness knows. Godness never around us. Healing can't be done, no book or prose can satisfy her, inasmuch as she belonged, creeping up eyes leapt to their suspension. Nibs erode into the conchoidal zone, some pressure to the ilia fossa. Some work furnishes settlers to the hips, cool wool and linen make an aperture of threading. Dreaming when the moon begins to permeate a looming glow, in an arc during achronychal silvery mists, withering beneath this flume of fancy.

Some of the wet cuts a hole-mess into  us. Wethered nymphs introduce the suffix of their succubus, is this the surreality the ethereal vapors make for our nexus. Beasts in a bold way, crimsony gore-dom, comes dominating greens to overgrow in this show.

Water soaks into the empty breath of words wrapping up tonight's syphon. Some hours of the past inside an alarm's sound torture. Hidden by inches, filling up the glass, every minute, every poppy, all the numbers seemed to help her.

Covers that fixe anew such random sleep, brings the devilish horror to pervert absent beeps. Until  the dots begin to close on us, and in slumber we rotate the words to assemble an acute understanding of being sorry for  sleep that will always continue to be out of reach.

L'heure verte

The mountains. The heaps of their bountiful gravels, and earth, and soil, large oversized masses of half-frozen water teetering on the precipice of subzero masculine *******. Francophilic cleavage jetting out of this deserted white pastoral dressing. The inaugural bawl, wanton fixations of putting the imperialist foot on every spot of tree, each and every shrub, until the limbs' cast reaches each dimple that foliage braves, where that blue eagle of patriotism dredges its claws to form every river, rill, estuary, creek, channel, flume, littoral, and waterway where the iron-rich gullies once brimmed in the interamnian basins, rich crimsony waters riffling through fruitful and extravagant aquifers. Beyond that, where an inexplicably feral wind rips vines from their dendritic housings, where barely an eye can see, this place of exsanguination and abysmal phytocide.

At the end of this lamentable torture, only a desert of human interest remains. There is no reason to laugh, or smile, or cheer, or put a leg up, to call on a friend, or to have ice cream. There will be no more ice cream. There is only the loathsome incredulousness and avarice in the semblances and familiarity of those with whom we thought we once knew. Little can ever be known, for there is much to gain in the absence of knowledge, and even greater that can be acquired in the alms of wisdom through patient examination and thorough silence. Here on the buttes and cornices, the thwacking gavels of evil power deities throw down their lust for more and soon become adjoined to these grand discrepancies greed mistakenly loses to a lack of awareness and to self-aggrandizement.

Power is the weapon of inexperienced wielders. Passion is the immortal frequency that is worn by artisans and artists, poets and painters, it is the business of quietness to learnedly evolve to protect our tomorrows from personal needs, but to instead preserve the integral parts of society. The words of languages, artifacts, and cultures, rather than the skeletons of ****** and the deeds of possession. Each who sleeps knows their bedfellows to equally be at peace. For no wealth can exceed that of comfortable pillows, soft quilts, and sheets. We are all the same while we sleep.

after an oil spill mowed the lawn
for eleven an hour,
tiny migrants crowded the greenhouse gate.
the bug ****** moonwater muddied
the steps of the tenderhearted
community (of seed undertakers),
and made its way by means of caked rubber
into the cytophotocycle,
where the moonwater volatilized.
liquid volery.
vivid luck.
awoken like post-dream nap perspirants -
oneiroceiving precipitate;
the greenhouse grew murals in condensation,
the accidents si quieros.
a misty opacity attrited
like deskinning a spider,
with a definitude of exo scaling tons;
memories shed,
shies misled.

        ⌂ the greenhouse stands where a glacier once
        slipped, clumsy as steadfast could be.
        foreign fruit fits inside it.
        it knows not what it grows.

        🌢 the moonwater was salt-lipped for a while.
        where it passed through, it was soiled.



you’d be surprised how many things hit glass.
the moonwater didn’t realize what volume
seizes space
until it heard its kind on the outside. from the inside.
Venus has a reassuring kiss when a drone is dampened.
there were three rows for puddling;
one for naps,
one for not naps,
and one for knotted gnats laying hot eggs
in lustrated bloom.
flume frustrated.
somewhere far up the chain, a worn-out manager
ordered inventory off-brand,
and enchanted a horticultural hobbyist.
the devil is ennui and god is curiosity.

        ⌂ there could be a greenhouse next door, but
        it would be an accident, a leaky shed
        with errant sprouts.
        as it would seem to my lustrous heart.
        lagging and callous.

       🌢 the moon was uninterrupted that night.
        mighty sky drifters never passed between them.
        like a parent with patience or a friend with faith.
        like a husk that stole your pose.



the maceration was mutual with leaky infusions
of purpose and imagination
materializing into groundskeepers
that tamed the pressure of an ever encroaching periphery.
one time the moonwater nearly fumed its way dry
after a political candidate entered the greenhouse
with scissors promising bonsai.
but pesticides pass by.
and pictures of fabric mean less than bird song
or beetle guides.
for the frame never mattered to the moonwater.
no more than a furnace in winter,
than a flower in summer.

        ⌂ when it comes time for the greenhouse to deracinate,
        to throw her vines like limbs over garden walls
        and access roads, eye to eye with cumulus
        monoliths; her moonwater sweat will slip
        through the glass glue and slide down to
        her fingers . . . to feel what she feels

        🌢 i love pooling here
        🌢 i love steaming and raining here
        🌢 i will love being the halo in your refraction

That little trumpet has lost sound
Go ahead and ask around
Picked up in a house I found
Nesting on the burial ground.

Contorted notes filled the room
After a dusting with the broom
False promise joined in soon.
Perched upon a dim lit flume

The night slipped by, no refrain
It blasted on through the pouring rain
Howled on in the excruciating pain
Of having sheltered existence through a life in vain

When daylight came, it was still the same
Brass with no name, playing for a dame
Really quite the shame, an ever-growing flame
Held within a picture frame, was a revitalized search for fame

As darkness came, I grew tired
Felt like it was about time I retired
Set down the trumpet I acquired
And left the shack feeling quite expired

There that little trumpet lost sound
Now there’s no need to ask around
Left it in the house I found
Somewhat near the burial ground.

Shaking hands to match my insides
Where a meaty heart quickens neath a milky bone cage
Uneven lungs twitching
Half filled with soot slithering up throat
Twining to ebony flume
Shaking head to match my hands; asphyxiations byproduct

“And only the azure painted sky to shake the rain from its sound,” so the plain falls, opening its mouth through a bed of headstones dotted with the hollowed trunks of magnolias and cedar at afternoon and that cameo of calamansi velour interwoven with the softest glaucous velvet. Inside that whirlpool of sacrosanct textiles a blur, that shocking shrill of coolness catches the skin- this hole-covered schmata oozing cesious acronychal threads pull tight across the hooves, branches, and stream. Only the thin repelling flume of winter’s height eschews this ianthine material over the sinews and map-lined bones. A corpse shortening its gaze, eyes stone-free, empty of nictitation. Nothing stings more than autumn’s filemot sins scraping sideways down a tiled balcony, and the dove’s beg like circus rats, shaped by the finite breaths of decade’s old poetry edging its moods like a bold inflammatory conflagration of the  de-evolution. While the fulvous trammeled dirt abounds.

Nyctophilia

Undercoverism, teenage soot inside of dry and crusty eyes. When the morning begs alarms to die, and she brings that familiar rain again. Some one that unknowns us, sheds a brutal light. Where the hole inside each child's head, may be disarmed across a deck of cards. In an anti-climactic exposition, where aces climb the sleeves, young Caucasian children find themselves in minorities.

Bubbling voodoo-hoodoo, soda water succumbing the Oro-Quincy spillway until the men have wept and every other woman gleans her brow. When we wake up in the poppy garden, when we've fallen asleep to one hundred cowardly clowns lifting themselves off the heap of a Volkswagen Rabbit. On Broadway heading to 14th Street, avoiding the sidewalk cracks via a jog through alphabet town. There are self-righteous no-ones, famous, auto-inflicted vicious inextricably ordinary and sub-par, barely scratching at their own averages, and hardly shaking words out of their id-sized corner offices at Avenue B & St. Marks.

By the shivering hands can tell, of which lowly smoking dactyls accentuate their currish farce, and amidst a stack of newsprint and cardboard, boxes and the bothersome, the most personal stranger no person should ever greet. Nor mahogany or oak manifold shall ever be select, and the hollowing sheath- Earth in her brilliant hues of green should forever keep unbeknownst to any selves heeding their milky skies' retreat.  

The oder fresh, from digits bending, collapses on the archway round the bed. Its hardened crime, it fails in pretending, like a lust in a sand plume, an eight-shaped glass ornament, arenosely erupting in a drizzling circumstance. We call it time.

It is a noise that summer caught on to, a broken heel, running up ways and ways to concrete squares, like California was only just pretending.

Goodness knows. Godness never around us. Healing can't be done, no book or prose can satisfy her, inasmuch as she belonged, creeping up eyes leapt to their suspension. Nibs erode into the conchoidal zone, some pressure to the ilia fossa. Some work furnishes settlers to the hips, cool wool and linen make an aperture of threading. Dreaming when the moon begins to permeate a looming glow, in an arc during achronychal silvery mists, withering beneath this flume of fancy.

Some of the wet cuts a hole-mess into  us. Wethered nymphs introduce the suffix of their succubus, is this the surreality the ethereal vapors make for our nexus. Beasts in a bold way, crimsony gore-dom, comes dominating greens to overgrow in this show.

Water soaks into the empty breath of words wrapping up tonight's syphon. Some hours of the past inside an alarm's sound torture. Hidden by inches, filling up the glass, every minute, every poppy, all the numbers seemed to help her.

Covers that fixe anew such random sleep, brings the devilish horror to pervert absent beeps. Until  the dots begin to close on us, and in slumber we rotate the words to assemble an acute understanding of being sorry for  sleep that will always continue to be out of reach.