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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Humanoid.

Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric
That sleeked his tongue, and won so much on Eve,
So little here, nay lost.  But Eve was Eve;
This far his over-match, who, self-deceived
And rash, beforehand had no better weighed
The strength he was to cope with, or his own.
But—as a man who had been matchless held
In cunning, over-reached where least he thought,
To salve his credit, and for very spite,
Still will be tempting him who foils him still,
And never cease, though to his shame the more;
Or as a swarm of flies in vintage-time,
About the wine-press where sweet must is poured,
Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;
Or surging waves against a solid rock,
Though all to shivers dashed, the assault renew,
(Vain battery!) and in froth or bubbles end—
So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse
Met ever, and to shameful silence brought,
Yet gives not o’er, though desperate of success,
And his vain importunity pursues.
He brought our Saviour to the western side
Of that high mountain, whence he might behold
Another plain, long, but in breadth not wide,
Washed by the southern sea, and on the north
To equal length backed with a ridge of hills
That screened the fruits of the earth and seats of men
From cold Septentrion blasts; thence in the midst
Divided by a river, off whose banks
On each side an Imperial City stood,
With towers and temples proudly elevate
On seven small hills, with palaces adorned,
Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts,
Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,
Gardens and groves, presented to his eyes
Above the highth of mountains interposed—
By what strange parallax, or optic skill
Of vision, multiplied through air, or glass
Of telescope, were curious to enquire.
And now the Tempter thus his silence broke:—
  “The city which thou seest no other deem
Than great and glorious Rome, Queen of the Earth
So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched
Of nations.  There the Capitol thou seest,
Above the rest lifting his stately head
On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel
Impregnable; and there Mount Palatine,
The imperial palace, compass huge, and high
The structure, skill of noblest architects,
With gilded battlements, conspicuous far,
Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires.
Many a fair edifice besides, more like
Houses of gods—so well I have disposed
My aerie microscope—thou may’st behold,
Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs
Carved work, the hand of famed artificers
In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.
Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
What conflux issuing forth, or entering in:
Praetors, proconsuls to their provinces
Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power;
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
Or embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits, on the Appian road,
Or on the AEmilian—some from farthest south,
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
Meroe, Nilotic isle, and, more to west,
The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea;
From the Asian kings (and Parthian among these),
From India and the Golden Chersoness,
And utmost Indian isle Taprobane,
Dusk faces with white silken turbants wreathed;
From Gallia, Gades, and the British west;
Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians north
Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool.
All nations now to Rome obedience pay—
To Rome’s great Emperor, whose wide domain,
In ample territory, wealth and power,
Civility of manners, arts and arms,
And long renown, thou justly may’st prefer
Before the Parthian.  These two thrones except,
The rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight,
Shared among petty kings too far removed;
These having shewn thee, I have shewn thee all
The kingdoms of the world, and all their glory.
This Emperor hath no son, and now is old,
Old and lascivious, and from Rome retired
To Capreae, an island small but strong
On the Campanian shore, with purpose there
His horrid lusts in private to enjoy;
Committing to a wicked favourite
All public cares, and yet of him suspicious;
Hated of all, and hating.  With what ease,
Endued with regal virtues as thou art,
Appearing, and beginning noble deeds,
Might’st thou expel this monster from his throne,
Now made a sty, and, in his place ascending,
A victor-people free from servile yoke!
And with my help thou may’st; to me the power
Is given, and by that right I give it thee.
Aim, therefore, at no less than all the world;
Aim at the highest; without the highest attained,
Will be for thee no sitting, or not long,
On David’s throne, be prophesied what will.”
  To whom the Son of God, unmoved, replied:—
“Nor doth this grandeur and majestic shew
Of luxury, though called magnificence,
More than of arms before, allure mine eye,
Much less my mind; though thou should’st add to tell
Their sumptuous gluttonies, and gorgeous feasts
On citron tables or Atlantic stone
(For I have also heard, perhaps have read),
Their wines of Setia, Cales, and Falerne,
Chios and Crete, and how they quaff in gold,
Crystal, and myrrhine cups, imbossed with gems
And studs of pearl—to me should’st tell, who thirst
And hunger still.  Then embassies thou shew’st
From nations far and nigh!  What honour that,
But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear
So many hollow compliments and lies,
Outlandish flatteries?  Then proceed’st to talk
Of the Emperor, how easily subdued,
How gloriously.  I shall, thou say’st, expel
A brutish monster: what if I withal
Expel a Devil who first made him such?
Let his tormentor, Conscience, find him out;
For him I was not sent, nor yet to free
That people, victor once, now vile and base,
Deservedly made vassal—who, once just,
Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well,
But govern ill the nations under yoke,
Peeling their provinces, exhausted all
By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown
Of triumph, that insulting vanity;
Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured
Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed;
Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still,
And from the daily Scene effeminate.
What wise and valiant man would seek to free
These, thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved,
Or could of inward slaves make outward free?
Know, therefore, when my season comes to sit
On David’s throne, it shall be like a tree
Spreading and overshadowing all the earth,
Or as a stone that shall to pieces dash
All monarchies besides throughout the world;
And of my Kingdom there shall be no end.
Means there shall be to this; but what the means
Is not for thee to know, nor me to tell.”
  To whom the Tempter, impudent, replied:—
“I see all offers made by me how slight
Thou valuest, because offered, and reject’st.
Nothing will please the difficult and nice,
Or nothing more than still to contradict.
On the other side know also thou that I
On what I offer set as high esteem,
Nor what I part with mean to give for naught,
All these, which in a moment thou behold’st,
The kingdoms of the world, to thee I give
(For, given to me, I give to whom I please),
No trifle; yet with this reserve, not else—
On this condition, if thou wilt fall down,
And worship me as thy superior Lord
(Easily done), and hold them all of me;
For what can less so great a gift deserve?”
  Whom thus our Saviour answered with disdain:—
“I never liked thy talk, thy offers less;
Now both abhor, since thou hast dared to utter
The abominable terms, impious condition.
But I endure the time, till which expired
Thou hast permission on me.  It is written,
The first of all commandments, ‘Thou shalt worship
The Lord thy God, and only Him shalt serve.’
And dar’st thou to the Son of God propound
To worship thee, accursed? now more accursed
For this attempt, bolder than that on Eve,
And more blasphemous; which expect to rue.
The kingdoms of the world to thee were given!
Permitted rather, and by thee usurped;
Other donation none thou canst produce.
If given, by whom but by the King of kings,
God over all supreme?  If given to thee,
By thee how fairly is the Giver now
Repaid!  But gratitude in thee is lost
Long since.  Wert thou so void of fear or shame
As offer them to me, the Son of God—
To me my own, on such abhorred pact,
That I fall down and worship thee as God?
Get thee behind me!  Plain thou now appear’st
That Evil One, Satan for ever ******.”
  To whom the Fiend, with fear abashed, replied:—
“Be not so sore offended, Son of God—
Though Sons of God both Angels are and Men—
If I, to try whether in higher sort
Than these thou bear’st that title, have proposed
What both from Men and Angels I receive,
Tetrarchs of Fire, Air, Flood, and on the Earth
Nations besides from all the quartered winds—
God of this World invoked, and World beneath.
Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold
To me most fatal, me it most concerns.
The trial hath indamaged thee no way,
Rather more honour left and more esteem;
Me naught advantaged, missing what I aimed.
Therefore let pass, as they are transitory,
The kingdoms of this world; I shall no more
Advise thee; gain them as thou canst, or not.
And thou thyself seem’st otherwise inclined
Than to a worldly crown, addicted more
To contemplation and profound dispute;
As by that early action may be judged,
When, slipping from thy mother’s eye, thou went’st
Alone into the Temple, there wast found
Among the gravest Rabbies, disputant
On points and questions fitting Moses’ chair,
Teaching, not taught.  The childhood shews the man,
As morning shews the day.  Be famous, then,
By wisdom; as thy empire must extend,
So let extend thy mind o’er all the world
In knowledge; all things in it comprehend.
All knowledge is not couched in Moses’ law,
The Pentateuch, or what the Prophets wrote;
The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach
To admiration, led by Nature’s light;
And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,
Ruling them by persuasion, as thou mean’st.
Without their learning, how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee, hold conversation meet?
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute
Their idolisms, traditions, paradoxes?
Error by his own arms is best evinced.
Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount,
Westward, much nearer by south-west; behold
Where on the AEgean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil—
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And Eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
See there the olive-grove of Academe,
Plato’s retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the sound
Of bees’ industrious murmur, oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilissus rowls
His whispering stream.  Within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages—his who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there; and painted Stoa next.
There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
AEolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave Tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life,
High actions and high passions best describing.
Thence to the famous Orators repair,
Those ancient whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democraty,
Shook the Arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes’ throne.
To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,
From heaven descended to the low-roofed house
Of Socrates—see there his tenement—
Whom, well inspired, the Oracle pronounced
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe.
These here revolve, or, as thou likest, at home,
Till time mature thee to a kingdom’s weight;
These rules will render thee a king complete
Within thyself, much more with empire joined.”
  To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied:—
“Think not but that I know these things; or, think
I know them not, not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I ought.  He who receives
Light from above, from the Fountain of Light,
No other doctrine needs, though granted true;
But these are false, or little else but dreams,
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.
The first and wisest of them all professed
To know this only, that he nothing knew;
The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits;
A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense;
Others in virtue placed felicity,
But virtue joined with riches and long life;
In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease;
The Stoic last in philosophic pride,
By him called virtue, and his virtuous man,
Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing,
Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer,
As fearing God nor man, contemning all
Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life—
Which, when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can;
For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,
Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.
Alas! what can they teach, and not mislead,
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,
And how the World began, and how Man fell,
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the Soul they talk, but all awry;
And in themselves seek virtue; and to themselves
All glory arrogate, to God give none;
Rather accuse him under usual names,
Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite
Of mortal things.  Who, therefore, seeks in these
True wisdom finds her not, or, by delusion
Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,
An empty cloud.  However, many books,
Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge,
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
Or, if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find
That solace?  All our Law and Story strewed
With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscribed,
Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon
That pleased so well our victor’s ear, declare
That rather Greece from us these arts derived—
Ill imitated while they loudest sing
The vices of their deities, and their own,
In fable, hymn, or song, so personating
Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their swelling epithetes, thick-laid
As varnish on a harlot’s cheek, the rest,
Thin-sown with aught of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy to compare
With Sion’s songs, to all true tastes excelling,
Where God is praised aright and godlike men,
The Holiest of Holies and his Saints
(Such are from God inspired, not such from thee);
Unless where moral virtue is expressed
By light of Nature, not in all quite lost.
Their orators thou then extoll’st as those
The top of eloquence—statists indeed,
And lovers of their country, as may seem;
But herein to our Prophets far beneath,
As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The solid rules of civil government,
In their majestic, unaffected style,
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so,
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;
These only, with our Law, best form a king.”
  So spake the Son of God; but Satan, now
Quite at a loss (for all his darts were spent),
Thus to our Saviour, with stern brow, replied:—
  “Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts,
Kingdom nor empire, pleases thee, nor aught
By me proposed in life contemplative
Or active, tended on by glory or fame,
What dost thou in this world?  The Wilderness
For thee is fittest place: I found thee there,
And thither will return thee.  Yet remember
What I foretell t

There will always  be an Autumn spat
where the cat foils the dormouse
and the Annual taster chocolate box
arrives as nonchalant
as the  mysterious sender.
Sometimes I wish we were  boxing hares
to really celebrate an outlet for renewed anger.
Munching on my bagels, i feel a pang of Hypocrisy.
I run fickle,  planning out the chequered
season.

The picnic bench foils under the body weight of my half drunk self
There is a cat cuddling up to me, with her tail

Pink Floyd plays in the background, as the cat brushes up against my legs
Brings a feeling like something of the loch ness Nessie

Shirley sits beside me, watching the night sky
And focussing on my presence and cigarette smoke

I pet her, and she stays
Smoke and inhale
The cars bustle by

The final places of another busy day
The wall is built and she stays beside me

But she now has disappeared
Inhale, exhale
Smoke my smoke
And drink my 4th beer

"236 miles into the Atlantic.." the captain crackles,
I find the foils of snow and sand here,
dust and ridges etched ashore on Andes
mountain tops and the way
the wind seduces the elements to dance only
for her to laugh and slap down.

The escargot and garlic alligator
shift, below in crates. The drunken
feet stumble to the jazz of the
ocean and the timbre of the coconut ***
on their way to the formal dinner promised
in  this passage of escape. They saunter
but the ocean's sighs harmonize with her laughter.

"At night the opal blue sinks beneath black
but," she says, "I still see the jovial mist's blue dance."
So we toast with Shiraz and join the drunken
music with our drunken neighbors, souls drunk
and eyes feasting on oil candles and neon CARNIVAL
shot glasses that aid us, the broke, to run harder
into the night and away from the damnation of land.

I, you all, know that is what this is,
what vacations, rest, water, Advil, sunscreen
all promise and whisper and ****** until
they force your feet to dance so they
can laugh as they slap you down ashore,
awake,  thirsty, throbbing, burnt into the reality
you left for the past five glorious days.

Ah, and glory- you see?
The majesty of the waves and allure
of purple and green fade when compared,
remember? Nature is symmetry and
the depravity of pain pales in comparison
to the glory of salvation. Look to the sea,
see where Christ walked.

Such a light and stealthy feeling
It enters you by peeling
Through layers of your hardened skin
Then pushes past all beliefs you hold within
Before finally arriving at the porcelain cage
Which all free flowing blood call center stage
And having journeyed it settles down to rest
Yet when that person comes back around, it awakes feeling fresh
And slowly crushes everything inside your chest

Fate, fate, fate
well what an awful mess I've made
tried to solve this jigsaw puzzle
ended up hardening the shapes

Oh fate
falling like a thousand bricks in my way
foils my plans
of loving you properly
destiny, you tender tease

Why?
Why'd you shatter my bones?
Leave me lost, void of control
in a shallow grave I made
lay my former misguided passions
covering shackles on my legs

lose lose lose
all I ever seem to do
when all that I comprehend
I try to hang it on a noose
inside a

room room room
filled with opaque absolutes
and curried apprehension
broken bottles with no excuse

Remedy, oh remedy
my free will thinker
embodied by poisoned truths
I dream of only you
sweet, sour dues of resurrection
have yet to stumble in my life,
promising no goodbyes

But fate fate fate
Led my former love astray
It's better this way
It's better this way

Autumn is icumen in,
With all its tricks,
Its treats and whims.

I can't mourn
Summer's passing;
Those days
Of idle slumber.
Summer suns
And midnight moons,
The silhouettes of June;
Holiday highs,
Mad July;
The robust garden
Lust of August.

I won't.

Autumn air
Affronts my senses,
The Arctic cool
Dips and rules.
The moss has left
The trees;
Arthritic twigs
Let lose
The leafs.

     *Autumn is icumen in

Autumn,
With its foils
And foibles,
Rakes us in
With harlequin sins,
And all its
Wherewithal.
Embrace your fall.

     *Winter is icumen in

The swampy heat draws swarms of bottle-glass
eyed flies who I'll buzz with their Christian name:
dragon. They hover, dive, then skim tall grass;

Cellophane wings beating hurricanes. Game's
afoot, but where? I've seen the solo flight,
pairs mating, but never so many flames

bounced off blue-green foils by the sun's white light.
Their gather's a check for black plumes of beasts
gone unbalanced to these hunters' delight.

If on mosquitoes they make seasoned feast,
my meek blood inherits to this world's least.

There's something cooking in my brain, but I'm intrigued by what it may boil
Ripples cover the picture frame, through pouring tears my vision foils
The clock has stopped breathing, where is the beloved Tick and Tock?
The black curtains are freezing, or could it be my cold blooded hands that caused the shock?
I've taken nothing to be in this portrait
Looking at it, all you can see is sin
I am who I am
I've done what I've done
Go ahead, be a *****..
See what you become
Your reflection will taunt you:
"Show me that chest.
Lets see what he might find tomorrow under that dress.
Oh, you look so good!
Love the red lips..
But the best part is when you're naked and they compliment your hips."

The money is on the nightstand
Adventure is all you crave
Just for one day..
Don't be a slave
This addiction is pleasure
But it brings so much pain
I lie and I cheat my family and disappoint my friends
But hey... I'm selfish and occasionally vain
I'm getting ready to go on the town, today will not be a waste
I have something that I want.
And when there is something I want, I go for the chase..

I've waited so long, I'm walking to you
If you'll walk to me by dawn.
I'll give you red diamonds and the black pearls
Give you something for your finger to have on
I'm standing in the street waiting for crunch time to calm me,
I thought I knew you better than this, I know you knew me better
Than you would ever let on.

The way you wore your father's Captain's uniform,
You are the stewardess and pilot both,
I'm the admiral of this flotilla racing across the Aegean to meet your coast,
But often it seems I'm rowing a dinghy into the arms of the storm of your ghost.

Meet me in Palo Alto
Where the devil's giving me dollar for dollar on my soul.
Three thousand miles of traveling the brainwaves
To California, to San Francisco I go.

Some women wait, others they lie, some they hate just for sport
Some men find it troubling to live in their sins while the rest of us
Weather the storm.

Brown paper poetry scribbled on bags,
cut throat couplets, haikus and prose
Drinking and tripping and looking for junk
Just a collection of madness in its throes.
The petals have draped themselves over your body,
Can you taste God in your foils?

I'm just waiting to collide into the skin
My fortune said you'd bring
I can do without the tertiary friends like that red-headed *****
Megan whose company you keep.
When it comes to taking every piece of treason don't underestimate
Their thievery. They'll drink from your fountain of abuse, until their
Goblets sear their lips and burn away their tongues.
The universal language of O- blood lust, is just beginning to be enough.

Doctors say you've died, but your heart's on fire
I'm just a conflagration where there used to be a man
My veins sweat the poisons of quiet disease,
They can crash while we burn alive,
Sitting quietly together in Dolores Park,
While our toxicity kills us inside.
Let's just wait here and burn alive.

I.

He’s
put on
the ****’s watch,
a peaked tower
who stands at far reach
to throw shadows with square
limbs. Loose-draped in rough
skins, he’s wary
of Dawn’s creep,
its lies.
He
sips fire
to fillip
flagged spirits, fix
the one-hundred eyes
rung monstrously about
his uncrowned head. Sleep
comes as well-timed
jaunts, its blinks
rolling
round
in thin-
lid cascades;
these hoodless winks
non-stop projecting
scenes from green grazing fields
where he keeps a girl-
beast, the jealous
prop of fast-
fading
robes.

II.

She’s
ill-changed
by blind rage,
a punishment
brought down for baring
another’s intentions—
his wont of too much,
never sought for
or seeking.
Her sleek
nymph’s
lines were
well-drawn till
smudged and pulled wide
they broke open, spilled
a dark spotted bulk, she
awkwardly carries
on spindly legs.
A mind’s led
circling
back
to gnarled
trunks that clutched
at blackened soil.
The tether’s chain, forged
silver with heavy links,
stretches taut to cut
circumscribed arcs
through bitter,
dying
blades.

III.

He’s
foggy
as he spies
morning ride in
rosy on the curled
back of low-rising mist.
Its errand breezes
were sent to spell
a lyric’s
deceit—
blow-
whispers
to drowse him
with wedded tunes.
Needle-sharp leaves spin,
making olives hum, while
their twigs clatter-knock
dull drums and lull
fifty pairs
to close.
What
was kept
is loosed with
thunder-less flash—
the quickening catch
that foils Argus by writ
mischief and wraps him
in its coiled tale
of never
slipping
free.

IV.**

She’s
twisted
and drags clanked
metal tangles
behind, while ahead
lie the first halting steps
of her re-formed path-
ways. They spoke out
a blurred wheel
beyond
the
sentry’s
fallen bulk,
but malodor
beckons to its sky-
enthroned mistress who tasks
cloud-effacing pests
to descend and
buzz-beat words,
erstwhile
known,
to non-
sense. The winged
confusion goads
Io, who released
from cowed thoughts will make mad-
apparent wanders.
She’ll chase earthbound
love and birth
mortal
time.

In the dark room
Sparks fire—
Whispers of the sun
And silence blankets the sky,
I was born amongst the ruins
Of gentleness and wounded love,
By the dug kurgans of the Amazon,
The brands of rains ever burning
And foils of hope, fated, turning,
An outer beast eyes and howls,
The merciless stars ever sweep
And cowl in coldest sparkle flame,
Merest minded words, fainted, stab,
Drop in the down volumes of space
Evaporating under the brooding
Mortal emptiness.

I am eager to express
This is not a playground,
nor a hawking station
adrift in a saline breeze.
I am not surprised at this reaction
personal pride foils this wanton randomness
toddling home,
I feel surrounded by poetry books
and before long I lie to myself
inventing that I have endless possibilities

In the dark room
Sparks fire—
Whispers of the sun
And silence blankets the sky,
I was born amongst the ruins
Of gentleness and wounded love,
By the dug kurgans of the Amazon,
The brands of rains ever burning
And foils of hope, fated, turning,
An outer beast eyes and howls,
The merciless stars ever sweep
And cowl in coldest sparkle flame,
Merest minded words, fainted, stab,
Drop in the down volumes of space
Evaporating under the brooding
Mortal emptiness.

I know you
All of you
You the spores
The tendrils
The green shoots of a mighty tree
I know you
The perpetually in-the-back-ground
Those wallflowers
Silent spectators
Standing as character foils to the revolution
The anti-rebels
The sedentary
I know you
The viciously unchanging
I have seen you
I have felt your inert presence
Your supreme lack of influence
Your defining apathy
Your ignominious existence
And your abhorrent sanctimony
Yes, I have been one of you
But I have grown from you
And I hope to, by my mere existence
Prove
That you are not permanent
That something can become of you
Because, as I have said
I was you
But now
I am not.

We men at best are only crimson kings
Who’re caught between the diadem and throne;
We wield the power, weep at what it means-
Miles to conquer, and none of it is home.

We laugh at jokes and toasts, as it's expected,
Reward well both the Jester and the Count
Though little things of kingdom get neglected,
While we the weary battle foils must mount.

But there's one crown of curls, upon one head,
That I'd go farther than the oldest tales;
She sleeps so near now, in her downy bed-
Most men stay free, inside their private hells.

Some night I'll bribe the Moon, in his far space
And build within my heart, a special place..

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good rumor as much as the next guy. Some of them are actually quite lovely and kind. Some of them have come from a really kind heart who gave one of the most amazing grains of truth. Sometimes rumors are the truth. It’s just that, most often, they are not. For shame.

Perhaps I have gone way too long being jaded by the idea that people really are generally good and that they would never want to hurt others. This may be the worst idea that I could make in my life, but I am choosing to believe that it is in fact one of the better ones. Maybe I want the world to be good.

See, you all go around, thinking that nothing good comes without a price to pay and neglect to mention that the same is true for bad things. You cannot do something bad without giving up something that would otherwise delight you. These two ideas have become fois, and, as foils, they cannot come without the other.

It has come to my attention that one can think anything which she wants. This is only the beginning of the wrongdoings. When one can think anything, what is to stop her from doing anything? There is no way to stop actions when you have so boldly fought for the right to think them up.

But she asked about my forearm. I did not want to answer. And she did not push me to say anything about it. As it always goes, I don’t know what she should have done instead, just that I did not like that, which she did do. It is so very complicated when someone wants to help. I don’t want it. But she does.

It is not as though there isn’t a lovely backstory. Believe me, there is a large book somewhere that I could call my backstory. It would chronicle my entire life’s doing, from the first time I was hurt to the first time I hurt someone else. It would say everything that I cannot.

When I was five, I broke my arm for the first time. I ran into my mom’s car. It was parked. I was trying to steer a bike. Turns out I couldn’t. Years later, in 3rd grade, I would finally stop being afraid and learn how to bike. Still didn’t like it. Years later, in 7th grade, I would find out that it was actually my elbow that I had broken.

Some girls who I thought were my friends picked on me for it. It may have been my first experience of getting picked on for being different. It did not matter one little bit, though. I had my friends. We were five. We all make mistakes. I just learned that not everyone can be trusted with anything.

At the age of six I was in kindergarten and there was a girl who did not like me very much, if at all. She picked on me. I was a skinny little thing back then. I have seen pictures. But that did not contribute to the picking on me. Nope. I was picked on because I really liked to eat salads. Salad. I was bullied because I liked salad.

And I was always very nice to her. I can attribute this to a lot of different things, but I think it was because I knew that fighting back wouldn’t accomplish anything. So, I ended up choosing to hang out with guys. There were more of them at the school, anyway. And so I learned that different people can be beneficial.

This girl who bullied me was never someone that I was mad at. I remember that she had a lot of animals at her house. I remember being so jealous because she had every type of pet imaginable and I only had a fish. I named my fish banana head. It was yellow. But this girl had so many pets.

It is funny, in a way. I know that years later it would be told to me that her home life wasn’t exactly perfect. Maybe I hadn’t known that much when I was that little, but I did know not to throw fire to extinguish fire. I think that I was so willing to find good that I did find it. I learned that everyone deserves to be cared about.

In third and fourth grade, there were these two girls. They were nice enough. I can’t exactly pinpoint why it was that they did not like me, but I have my suspicions. I was the fat girl at that point. And, to top it all off, I was in an advanced academics program. I was prone to all the bullying. Didn’t know it.

But this is not the point. The point is that they hurt me and wrote me a letter in my yearbook telling me that I should apologize to them. And so I did. I felt so terrible for having hurt them that I asked for forgiveness. I did get it. They were not without hearts. And so I learned that the loser must give in to demands.

To talk about the next few years is a crazy mess. But there was one time when I saw this guy cry. He was talking about how his sister was mean. I guess that this is a common thing with older siblings. He was this guy that everyone thought was rude and immature. But, from that day on, I had a soft spot for him.

Jump ahead a few years and he and I are in the same German class. He is there, talking with his friend. They begin by having a puzzle solving competition. These guys, who are brilliant, are racing to solve a puzzle. But they talk about the funny things they did in second grade. There was a stick one of them found.

They were the type of guys who had a lot going for them and perhaps I was the only one who saw that one guy who all others had found immature as being absolutely brilliant. He just didn’t try. People are so much more than the facade they lead you to believe. That’s how I learned to look before judging.

But I know that my appearance has always made me feel like the ugly duckling in the room. I have been waiting for so long to become a beautiful swan. A lovely, skinny, beautiful one. Once I was tricked into seeing a therapist about it. Had I known, I may have given it a shot. Thought it was a weight loss clinic.

In eighth grade this new girl came into school. She was from Florida. She was pretty and skinny and blonde, which should have gone without saying. She was everything that I could never be. And my group of friends came to the realization that she was better and picked her over me. Can’t blame them.

In middle school, my theatre teacher gave me roles that were absolutely gorgeous roles and told me I did wonderfully. I believed her. She allowed me to be a lead when there were better actors out there. I was made to think that I was someone with talent. So I tried from then on. I will always thank her for the confidence.

And then I entered high school. I discovered that it was only the same people who got cast. They all looked the same; petite, skinny, and gorgeous. Of course they would get the part. It was made for them. I was then lead to believe that I had no talent. I was swimming on dry land. I learned that people only want certain things.

Still I adored theatre. I decided that, since I would never be pretty enough to be an actress, that I should at least design. At least I could be a part of things that way. And so I took a summer arts class in which I learned the basics of makeup and applying it. It may have been the highlight of my summer.

But that was the summer that I realized that I would have to be proactive in changing my appearance. I did some things that I may not be exactly proud of, and certainly not enough so to mention, but they did happen. I cannot lie. It was seen as the only solution. I learned that mind over matter wields great truth.

Two years later and I would have designed once and been stripped of a crew head title as well. I had told her I would be gone that week. She said it would be perfectly okay. But then she changed her mind at the very end of it all. Some other girl wanted the points. But we all knew who was the first choice: me.

Then comes the piece de la resistance, you could call it. There was this girl who decided that I could show up to all of the rehearsals show week, stay until late at night, but then could not be there for the actual shows. She did apologize to me and I was only mad at myself. I confirmed that I really was not good enough.

So here I am, right now, at the point where tears have run dry and my thoughts are overtaken by daydreams. I have all these lovely times in which I am running away. off to a foreign land. And everything always works out in my favor there. I am allowed to love whomever I please. It is perfection.

Because now I am in love with a beautiful foreign girl. Her demeanor is lovely and when she smiles, she has the cutest dimples. I cannot help but smile and act like a fool whenever I am around her. Love is strange like that. But I am not allowed to love a woman. I have learned to not add another strike on my list.

I was never the daughter that my parents wanted. They tell me that this is not true, that they love me no matter what. But I know better than that. They will love me more if I am into science or math. My mom keeps on telling me to not stop math, because there is a way to creatively use it. What lies.

She just doesn’t think I can make it in the art world. Maybe I can’t. Oh, but what if I can? Don’t I owe it to myself to at least try? Oh, that’s right, she’s the one who fought for years to get me to become skinny and gorgeous. I understand the reasoning, but was it necessary? I am not enough for my own mother.

I have not become secluded because of one event. I have not shut myself out because of one person. It has been a series of thoughts. It has been a long time in the making. It has been a lot of decisions. I have not undertaken this change lightly, and neither have those around me. Poor them.

This is something that scares me, too. I used to be willing to face the world head-on, and now I don’t want to even think it exists. Who have I become? The product of a society, which teaches girls that they are worthless if they are not classically beautiful…
The product of biased marketing. That’s who I am.

Happiness does not come packaged in prescription bottles
Or plastic baggie, top carefully sealed
It cannot be found at the bottom of empty shot glasses
Or finished beer cans, that is not where it's revealed.

Joy will not be found rolled up in a joint
Not discovered in a small cardboard box
Or scattered among powder lined on a mirror
I have scoured many vials stocked with shiny rocks.

Smoking herb might cause you to laugh and smile
Hallucinogens can open your mind
Fun feelings fade you'll feel worse than before
Without aid of drugs contentment will be hard to find.

Soon you will spend time chasing chemicals
In form of a ****, tab, straw, or syringe
Whether you puff, eat, snort or shoot
It comes down to the same unhealthy binge.

Do not waste your life wrapped in burnt-up foils
Foraging through crumbs for a shroud of hope
We all have different ways of escaping
Some fall too deep and never climb back up the steep *****.

the distant, dull, the dreamy star,

of all the orbs in the sky so far,

plight it had–of the strangest kind,

reaping the foils of its curious mind

alone it was amidst the crowd,

gales of time whilst thundering loud,

youth was to come, its youth is to fade,

abashed of its shine, its fancy charade…



yet incomplete :(
shekhar suman.

Do you remember in the mist
When we kissed those ships goodbye?
Riding high on the Spanish Main
The reign supreme

And bearing down on Phillips fleet and crown
Cannons roar and fencing foils
Gaining spoils?

Then somewhere up Tortuga way
A sheltered bay
Brandy and the local fare
Do you remember being there?

The salt..the spray did have a way of making life so real
The steal of winds across the bow
And how we hid when storms arose
The rosy glows
The lantern lights
The endless waving starry nights.

I remember all of this
The final Kiss as we went under
The gentle thunder in my ears
We buccaneers were born to die
To fly our masts on another Isle
I while away eternity in what could be
Forever.

In the dark room
Sparks fire—
Whispers of the sun
And silence blankets the sky,
I was born amongst the ruins
Of gentleness and wounded love,
By the dug kurgans of the Amazon,
The brands of rains ever burning
And foils of hope, fated, turning,
An outer beast eyes and howls,
The merciless stars ever sweep
And cowl in coldest sparkle flame,
Merest minded words, fainted, stab,
Drop in the down volumes of space
Evaporating under the brooding
Mortal emptiness.

you drive me to hurting myself,
I become insane when your no longer there.
The insanity, creeps up on the walls of my house,
bedroom,
like a nightmare it fills up my bed,
foils itself around me,
mind,
filled with thoughts that you might be with someone else.

Take a deep breath, dont stress
Your face is sweaty, plams are heavy
Your attitude is fire, up for higher
But on the surface your calm and nervous
Never forgetting with what you have was over
NOT
Get on the cabby, change your abilities
Hit up the blasphemy with your rice burnin *** to me
Punch me not, you had one hit one chance to take
Make amens and hit the spot but where you rock
Is where my chance failed,
it turned around an hit the ground
Faster than the fat man who fell to the ground...
BALLED FIST HURL AT YA
WHILE YA FALL TO YOUR FEET
GIVE ONE CHANCE AND HE'LL **** YA
IN THE MOMENT
YOU GOT ONE CHANCE TO MAKE THE RIGHT
WRONG IS SOMETHING THAT KILLS THE LOT!
Blood drips down your face, your a putrid disgrace
Tears are hot, feeling like a Melting ***
The skin boils and foils yet your regrets toil mercenaries who are paid to retort their moral
Make you grasp your souls strength
Call it hard knock, call it half cocked,
Give me a scent that replenishes with repent
Reprimand me for all that I said
NOW I GOT THE WORLD ON MA SHOULDERS
LITTLE TO LIFE WITH THE NEW WORLD ORDER
GIVE ME GOLD OR ALL THE BOARDERS
BRING IT NOW OR BACKHAND THE RULER
AND ILL BE ****** IF I EVER LET YA GO
IN THE MOMENT
YOU GOT ONE CHANCE TO MAKE THE RIGHT
YOU BETTER FIGHT IT OR TAKE FLIGHT!
Get up on the edge where the place is the when
Would you put yourself on your feet again
If you had that problem progressively following
Facilitating itself itchin'
Where it kills itself in digression
With your dreams fulfilled
The grudgeless tension
Feasting on the suspension
You'd have never let it go
IN THE MOMENT
MOMENTUM FLOWED AS THE FIRE GOES
GHASTLY DENYING OUT OF THOSE SPYIN
OVER THE HORIZON SETS THE GOOD KAISER
SWOOPING OVER LOOMIN YA OUT
In deseption you fall from the aggression
This fight has driven out of sight
From what you thought was right
Might is what you had, now your nothing
And the enemy has won!
IN THE MOMENT
YOU LOST YOUR FIGHT
GIVE THAT DISREGAURD TO YOUR BLITHE
BELLIGERENT BUST YOU POPIN YOUR MOUTH
MUFFLED MATTER COMES OUT
ITS RED RULE
SO IT NOT COME FROM DOWN SOUTH
so cold and broken
Merely unspoken
Coughing up lament
Showing yourself........ Truely some self disrespect
Take your loss and uphold it
Create something more than a foiled moment
Get back up cuz
IN THE MOMENT
YOU GOTTA MAKE WRONG TO RIGHT
SET YOURSELF UP FOR ONLY WHEN REDEMPTION ONLY SEEMS RIGHT!

I have returned
Although I must,
To this glittering bowl of dust
I had to,

In this so similar form
The jackals recognize my shade
In the dark, they watch and stalk,
My moon to daylight sun

The seasons of my change.
The pupae without
Awaiting for grand mals
Or some winged departure
Of my light

Expecting me to fall...

But seasons stir with lightfoot
Pages turned,
Between the numbers in all that
Man's made
Hands knocking hours
Ticking seconds
Minutes crawling
Under every door

Like a shadow unnoticed underfoot
Moments walk on wires
As life watches from below
Or is it vice versa?
The Circe du foils
The urchins that we drown to be
Voila! Not much ventured
In the rings and side shows
We spectacles
Of flesh
Fallen and fearing
The feelings

Of just before
Steps
(Beyond)
If catlike careful some nimble beast

I must be
To return from the place
That once birthed and attempted
****** the unlearned me
I am too
American in the humidity
The parasitic biting
The heat

I'm a stranger in strange islands
Beautiful mystique
Of superstitious super strength
The beliefs become aswang legends
Come true life
The slaughtered pig as sacrifice

I vomited and **** out
My inner being
Waters of life projected out
The length of tongue and the depth
Of insides
Gushing out
Even through my tears
And delirium...
Possessed as tho' a lever had been pulled
To reverse what flowed in
The nutrients
The rehydration of excretions
Sucker punched to spew

And thru the pain I knew
The swine and its smug snorting laughter
And the old ones in the villages
Living among their own dead
In the trees and sands and sea
Their jealousy of City boy me
The threat I must be
Fearful of what I might ****
Tho I dare not and have not
Done
Unto
As they have now done to he
I have karmic grace
To make them mine,

But what and why would I want
Such long gone then and agains
Or rage against
In revenge?
At my beautiful motherland
The face of my race
The home of my blood

I keep my silence as their defeat
Render them
As a breeze through palm trees and hiss of sea
Rumors of the weather
Food poisoning

In the dark room
Sparks fire—
Whispers of the sun
And silence blankets the sky,
I was born amongst the ruins
Of gentleness and wounded love,
By the dug kurgans of the Amazon,
The brands of rains ever burning
And foils of hope, fated, turning,
An outer beast eyes and howls,
The merciless stars ever sweep
And cowl in coldest sparkle flame,
Merest minded words, fainted, stab,
Drop in the down volumes of space
Evaporating under the brooding
Mortal emptiness.

I remain a shell of what was once human,
a walking talking deception to the world,
i remain as though everything in life didn't change me,
for the better of which it has.
I remain a scale of what was once something colourful,
not the most colourful, but bright to the masses I traversed,
I am an ocean that has lost its habitats,
calm and stormy but lifeless at the very least.
I remain a mere spectator in what some may call my story,
a rare interaction with the ensemble at times,
I play all the roles and manipulate their foils,
everything but the outcome is within my control.

.
In the dark room
Sparks fire—
Whispers of the sun
And silence blankets the sky,
I was born amongst the ruins
Of gentleness and wounded love,
By the dug kurgans of the Amazon,
The brands of rains ever burning
And foils of hope, fated, turning,
An outer beast eyes and howls,
The merciless stars ever sweep
And cowl in coldest sparkle flame,
Merest minded words, fainted, stab,
Drop in the down volumes of space
Evaporating under the brooding
Mortal emptiness.