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.

***** *** and cigarettes
bad decisions, no regrets.
Painted lips and fingertips
lace, leather, gags and whips.
Cheap motels, steamy nights
sweaty flesh and candlelights.
Pushing limits, breaking rules
naked dips in swimming pools.
Getting high while living low
riding rails, pure white snow.
Playing games & telling lies
the look of lust in lovers eyes.
Rendevouz in seedy places
sloppy kisses, hot embraces.
Ménage à trios, or even four!
Anything goes behind locked door...
Shots of Jack make it all alright-
just another dirt-bag night.

Awaking blithe each morning,
with eyes upon the World,
I wonder, are we mourning
with ebon flags unfurled –
or are they but a warning,
some draped like snakes and curled,
stray stars and stripes adorning,
sent from the netherworld.

I wander through the garden
with nothing on my mind
and say 'I beg your pardon'
alarmed at what I find
as winds begin to harden
and fate begins to grind.

Confused, I watch my neighbours,
they're wide-eyed, unafraid
to halt all useful labours
and join the death brigade;
the ritters rattle sabres,
the frail and fragile fade,
morticians tap on tabors,
the potentates parade.

The military blesses
(in tunics somewhat browned)
its crimson-stained successes,
hell bent and heaven bound.
Such scenes no more distress us:
a ****** battleground,
dissevered heads with tresses
and arms and legs abound;
the fourth estate suppresses
the heaps of bodies  found
(collateral excesses
discarded in a mound).

Society regresses,
now living by the sword,
with torture and its stresses
upon a waterboard;
a captive kid confesses,
his innocence ignored -
fallacious facts and guesses,
the guts of justice gored!

With canting vindication
a big brass bully brags
(with pearls of perspiration
and swollen tongue that gags)
of third world  subjugation
for gelt and oily swags,
of human rights' castration,
and on and on it drags.

The manifold migration
of refugees in rags
while searching for salvation
soon finds compassion lags;
uprooted populations
are fleeing from their flags
else dying of starvation
as naked hunger nags.

With trump cards politicking,
two little hands (all thumbs)
may send the Mad Dog siccing.
Insane! All sense succumbs.

Atomic timepiece ticking
until the Reaper comes
as Geiger counters clicking
drown out the droning drums.

Cast out for not conforming,
I wander day by day
to find the earth deforming
as nature wastes away,
with bees no longer swarming
(expunged with garden spray)
and ocean depths transforming
(neath plastic overlay).

With CO2 performing
the climate's led astray,
the atmosphere's been warming,
the grasses ashen gray,
eternal tempest storming
while permafrosts decay,
and ozone holes are forming
in deadly disarray.

The people profiteering
descend a slip'ry *****
destroying, never fearing        
of running out of rope;
instead they sit back sneering
“our wealth’s your only hope”.

Yes, Armageddon's nearing,
it's doubtful that we'll cope,
for Evolution's jeering,
she's scanned our horoscope:
we'll soon be disappearing
with whale and antelope.


           Epitaph

The multitudes were jumbled,
some milling ’round the mall,
while politicians bumbled
when bracing for the brawl.

The World around us rumbled,
our backs against the wall,
as bombs were tossed and tumbled
across our broken ball.

My kneecaps creaked and crumbled
but I, too proud to crawl,
took but a step and stumbled  
yet found no place to fall.

And no one heard me grumble
although I tried to call,
or maybe I just mumbled,
as strength began to pall.

Well now the World’s been humbled
I seek an urban sprawl,
but since the feuds were fumbled
there’s nothing left at all.

that's 3 weeks without a keyboard,
that's 3 weeks on a dual-detox -
         that's that: roughly: antagonism
of: once upon a time...
           there can only be one Hans Andersen,
and as the story goes: ol' granny
   passed on the tales, without which:
no talk of posterity, and seances at
the theatre; alternatively: what if Kierkegård
opted for opera, rather than theatre?
    well: horrid is the task of dropping names,
as if being a village idiot, in that
capacity: giving directions... no such thing!
  nonetheless: a horrid task...
3 weeks... without this horrid world-entanglement...
amphetamines in the wild west,
                   and yet... everything slows down...
that's 3 weeks without such ''luxury''...
    and would you believe it?
3 weeks went by: in a blink of an eye.
             strange, or what 21st century writers
fail to recognise: the ******* canvas has changed!
any-single-one-of-them bothered to scrutinise
this new canvas? anyone?
     ah yes, it's still in its adolescence -
it's still: Dostoyevsky, scuttering in the grand
dungeon: that's the Moscow underground.
             the canvas! the canvas!
                             and indeed, if this be some
bellowing horn, from the depths of some forsaken
place... i'll go into the street, and sabotage
civilisation with graffiti...
                     then again: i have the least
expectations, such that capitalism works...
poetry... and what investment have you made?
nil, or almost nil... evidently: zilch!
      ah, but to have invested in canvases,
a studio, paints, brushes... see... no one sees
investment in poetry: primarily because the poet
has done the minimal...
            unless of course it turns out to ****
with a hot poker something once resembling
nations... which now resides in the insane asylum
(even though those, have been abolished)
                           , nation - ooh! what a ***** word!
the left irksome sometimes uses it:
in theory: the nation-state...
                        and then there's the resurgence of
ancient Greece... in a sing-along:
maybe 'cos i'm a Londoner... brother! brother!
Athenian! Athenian!
                                       but we are born into
a Spartan wedlock... no one really bothers to
**** our gob with Shakespeare...
    then again that is the schizophrenia (alias
dualism) in humanity... thus, to be frank,
psychiatry can be congratulated, it has provided
one useful term... and i will use it, over and over again,
in a non-symptomatic way, because, i find,
it stands, as if the Olympic Graeae (Zeus, Poseidon
and Hades) eating the carcass of some inhabitant
of Tartarus...
                               evidently: tartar steak...
doubly evident: tartars, or the remnants of mongols,
settled in crimea, and elsewhere in the Ukraine...
   tartar                      tra-ta-ta-ta... ku ku ryku!
a ja fu! krecha! a ja znow... fu!       radowitą
uprzejmość... skłaniam...  
    or what i call: rising spontaneously from the depths...
polymaths applauded, the tribunal resides in
bilingualism... trenches... history... perspectives
and current affairs... wicker man media...
                        so... an example of pedantry?
ó....               that's an orthographic dignitary -
        an aesthetic muddle... as is
c-ha                               contending with samo-ha...
     ch                            came from antagonism of
cz                                   which was later antagonised
by č               in česka.... say that: hen party
bound to Prague... in the Czech republic...
                                          ch      k..­.
i am, quiet frankly... standing at the feet of the tower
of babel... and i'm looking up, and i see
correlations, and i see decimal marks,
which, when given enough geography,
can seem like England and the isles,
       and central Europe...
    Iberia? phantom of Seneca...
  eureka! let's begin, once again...
  why is there a continuum beginning with
Plato and Aristotle?
                                           we could become
reasonable people... told to deal with madmen...
we could claim beginnings with Seneca...
and Cicero...
                      and why? the Romans loved poetry...
the Greeks antagonised Homer...
            the Romans loved Horace, Virgil,
                           Ovid... perhaps we should really forget
beginning with Plato and Aristotle...
       the former has become a church,
the latter a dentist's assistant (minus the ancients'
concept of a joke).
                      evidently i have to finish off reading
Seneca... his educational letters to Lucilius....
      moralising ******* that he was, thus, perhaps
a nibble at Cicero? but i must say:
                           it has to begin somewhere,
so not necessarily in stale-bread Athens...
                      and having such perspectives helps
in claiming casual conversation?
   assuredly - if it doesn't involve talking about
the weather...
                                which is always a great mystery
   if it's given enough aurora.
   onto the mystery of dialectics,
as discovered by Alfred Jarry in his Faustroll
Pataphysics contraband...
                                                nag­ging agreement...
nodding without approval... (chapter 10) -
beginning with αληθη λεγεις εφη
        (you speak the truth, he replies) -
   and ending with ως δoκεì
                              (how true that seems)...
and then some dub-step...
        know nothing dROP! boom! jiggy jiggy,
get the rhythm.
   as i always find it hard to look at
    diacritical arithmetic...
                                  given the following
represent a prolonging: hangman:
       å, ā and ä...
                             esp. in Finnish -
stratum: hedningarna täss on nainen.
                        rolling yarn, plateau, two dips;
and i will never say something profound...
i'll just say something no one else has said,
benefit of the doubt? somewhere, someone,
                                      kneels at the same altar.
  such are the distinction - invaders from the
north, and invaders from the south...
                                           even with
crusading Golgotha mann -
the times? many bats, supers, spiders,
but not enough readings of thomas mann...
                              easily befallen into prune-nosed
high-airs... it comes with the diet of literature...
   unfortunately.
                              and with yet another book:
i have burried yet another living person
i could have had a beer with, and conversed.
it always happens, every time i read a book
i have to attend a funeral... by reading a book
i have burried someone alive...
                          shame, in all frankness...
    i will sit in a congested train, touch a breathing
body, and consecrate the touch with
a warring genuflect - harbringer of a Teutonic
passion for initiation: a komtur's slap across the cheek.
   chequers played with passions...
           and some have to be approached like
caged animals, their vocabulary as cages,
                and the whole world before them:
cageless!
             some have indeed become so encrusted in
their daily: routine, that it would take a zoologist
(thrice oh, begs some sort of diacritical marking)
rather than a psychologist to understand them...
    like the darting dupes they are, enshrined in
20% gratis! smile! have a nice day! boxing day sales!
all but pleasantries, fathoming the grave.
   stiff vocab and all other kinds of perfume...
                           a king and his charlatan knights,
who are merely ditto-heads.
                  and not of this world, afresh -
among the nimble hands prior to birth -
surely there is: more grandeour in birth
   that entry via a ******...
                            the greatest pain of ****...
and when the ancient treaty was signed
under the name: Augustus Cesarean - or
recommended for a need of aristocracy -
    it was, for a time, the mana magnetism:
and such was the rule of poetry:
rather than a crown, donned the laurel leaves...
donned the laurel leaves...
    and such was the covenant from ancient
foes when trying to assimilate the Jew...
three kings from Babylon,
                         the child in Egypt...
          no good tides from Nazareth...
         a crown of myrrh - later overshadowed
by dogmatic sprechen, simpler: thorns...
yella things... or rzepak, Essex is filled with it...
rzepak... so why bother adding a dot above
the z, when you get capricious and use rz to
denote the same?! thus a science:
voiced retroflex fricative... Stalingrad!
                       can you really stomach this kind
of jargon? if it wasn't for science fiction:
science would be twice removed from gott ist tot,
*******' worth of pondering, given the close
proximity rhyme... nothing that rhymes should
ever be taken seriously, it should be hymnal!
                         Horatio! mein lyre!
   mein Guinness leier! rabbi krähe -
     and they deem that ****** white when talking:
thinking? i'd prefer Cezanne in real life -
   maggot wriggling and all...
                                          as much eroticism
as bound to a dog slobbering its testicles:
which means ****-all in an almighty stance
   for a dollop of halleluyah in Nepal.
well: pretty talk, pretty pretty pretty: i feel pretty,
oh so butter-fly-e.
                                    2 week stance,
***** in autumn... but so many Swiss hues
coming from the same concentration of decay!
shweet!  zeit-ser!        and that's me talking
kindergarten german: innovation begins with
a fork and a spoon, should the tongue come to it...
            i see a poem,
i see something worth bugging... c.i.a.,
f.b.i., hannibal's lecture in Florence, Venice for
the rats... bugging... shoving...
  shovelling... necro grounding, rattling...
    windy via north... Icelandic...
drums along incisors of abstract gallop:
violins... fringes of the mustang... airy airy...
all regresses toward the Vulgate...
         like ****, like said, and the only pristine
stress comes with vanilla ice-cream,
or a medium-rare beef ****! hmph!
                         fa fa fa excesses with that hurling
puff...
                      and i did finish Kant's
critique of pure reason... minus two calendars...
but, so help me god, the 2nd volume was hiding
under some corner...
                           thus, from transcendental methodology
came plump apricots, plums and pears...
             sweet decay fruit baron...
              and it's called sugars in the intricacy of pulp...
lazily grown, dangling on that caricature of
a formerly known: full crop of wheat-crude fringe.
    2 years... honest to god!
         but so many books in between...
i was given a recommendation...
i cited it already... kraszewski's magnum opus...
29 books...
                       although that's history fictionalised...
but nonetheless, it really was about
     the cossack uprising in the 17th century...
   and it was, as i once said, something i can forgive
sienkiewicz - the film version,
as in: i will not read a book once it has been adapted
to a movie... it's self-evident that too many
people have read a piece of work and are gagging
for a conversation... but where's the playground?
           ******* cherades!
  chinese whispers and a Manchurian candidate!
  i thought as much.
                          and whenever it's not a preplaned
escapade, what becomes of the day?
     was it always about a stance for carpe diem?
  syllables: di                em.
                            carpe is said with more lubricant.
corpus diem. well, that's an alternative, however
you care to think about it.
                and whenever you care to think about,
the proof is there: mishandling misnomers:
poets as tattoo artists... although no one sees the ink,
signatures on a reader's brian (purposively altered,
toward a Michael Jackon he-he, and other:
albino castratos the church venerates!)...
   that's 3 weeks in a catholic country...
  3 weeks... if only the football was better,
      i'd be called Juan Sanchez...
               but, evidently, the football is bad...
     so it's catholicism on par with a sleeping inquisition...
no one really expected Monty Python to conjure
that one... because it never really took place,
not until a trans-generational exodus
postscript 2004... once western brothels were exhausted,
and the Arab started ******* a hippo...
              then it was all about lakes and rivers
and Las Vegas 2.0 in Dubai!
                     you say quack... i say:
                                                    easy target.
and they did receive a blessing from Allah...
enough ink to write out Dante's revision of the Koran,
and some Al-Sha'ke'pir to write a play called:
the Merchant of Mecca.
  last time i heard, when the reformation was
plauging Christendom, no one invited the Arabs...
these days i think the little Lutherans of Islam
watched too many historical movies...
me? pick up a crucifix and march to Jerusalem?
  and is that going to translate into:
   blame the populists! blame the nationalists!
it's like watching a circus... why is the Islamic
reformation asking for third party associates?
                  i was happy listening to
the klinik... albums: eat your heart out...
time + plague...
                             once again: the world narrative
gags for enough people to conjure up
     a placebo solipsism... and that's placebo
with a squiggly prefix (meaning? how far
that ambiguity will take you) - ~placebo...
well: since existentialists were bores...
it's about time to head for Scandinavia
   and ask: is that " ''                 for passing on
an inheritance, or better still: ripe for
acknowledging ambiguity?
                          and if you can shove this
  into your daily narrative... you better be
a connaisseur of chinese antiques...
                frailty... then again, theres: ******;
well hell yeah *****'h, it's a murky underwold
after all.
                     and yes: that's called a petting word...
some say hombre, and we'll all be amigos
and muskateers at the end of the story.
                                    finally... i feel like i'm writing
a poem that i'll never end...
              why? it was supposed to be about
how John Casimir of Sweden championed
  the crown away from his brother Prince Charles
(volume 1)...
                      the bishop of Breslau...
a recluse... couldn't ride a horse...
    then again: nothing worthy imitation...
beginning with a donkey...
                               the transfiguration of palms
into whips... 2000 years later
talk of Hercules is madness... that other bit?
complete sanity.
                              well... if that be the case...
the book is there... i signed it, 2nd volume of
Kant's critique...
  
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | Y| | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

        an oak... in a forest of pine...
an oak in pine wood...

then onto the wood of sighs:

aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
          (somehow the surd escapes,
and later morphs into, but prior to)

a short script: variation on MW...

      pears' worth of blunting runes:
opulance s and ᛋ - versus z,
    congregation minor: the interchange, ß,
buttocks and *****, minus phantoms of erotica.
yet, taking into account trigonometry...
sine (genesis 0), and cosine (genesis 1),
or            M                                   W
(no Jew would dare believe the Latins have
the second 'alf of the proof: that loophole of all
things qab-cannibal-mystic - cravat donning
mystique - a flit's worth of sharpening,
or dental grit... flappy tongue,
flabby oyster, lazing for a crab's palette)...
so?

1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

of course there's an

the entertainment world mourns, a comic genius passes on
the entertainment world mourns, a comic genius passes on
he'd make side splitting gags, now the laughter is muted
he'd make side splitting gags, now the laughter is muted
now the laughter is muted a comic genius passes on
the world mourns the side splitting entertainment

to the stage in the sky he's gone, Heaven will welcome him
to the stage in the sky he's gone, Heaven will welcome him
a few routines he'll do, for the crowd up there
a few routines he'll do, for the crowd up there
the stage up in Heaven will welcome him
he'll do a few routines for the crowd up there

Good Morning Vietnam, we'll always remember
Good Morning Vietnam, we'll always remember
that was Robin's finest hour, a rowdy voice over the air waves
that was Robin's finest hour, a rowdy voice over the air waves
we'll always remember a rowdy voice over the air waves
Good Morning Vietnam Robin's finest hour

we'll always remember, Good Morning Vietnam
a comic genius passes on, to the stage in the sky he's gone
a rowdy voice over the air waves, he'd make side splitting gags
Heaven will welcome him, a few routines he'll do
for the crowd up there , now the laughter is muted
the entertainment world mourns, that was Robin's finest hour

teaching a wild creature to feed from your hand is a feat maybe maybe not Mom taught me from a young age then never let go in June 2013 the estate will cease all the coats hats shoes scarves skirts dresses blouses belts purses from Ultimo Saks Neimans wherever steaks from Gene and Georgetti’s Gibsons whatever will be consumed and she will be forced by the bank to resign her condo on lake shore drive and go live with her sister and i will be left with nothing

nothing feels better than fighting back gathering the strength courage to do that to fight until there is no daylight

the world is a mysterious place it is Sunday December 26th 2010 6AM pitch dark outside in several months daybreak will come earlier a remarkable surprise yet always been this way in several minutes firmament turns light i open eyes stretch legs look out window pink blue gray blue morning skies tree tops mountains watch flock of birds maybe 30 or 40 flying back and forth east west why do they do that how would you like to be one of those birds flapping around searching from above at the earth hmmm what if everyone had a ***** and ****** feathered wings fin distinctive tail floppy or pointed ears what if you could share breakfast or lunch with Kim Gordon Patti Smith work on poem with e. e. cummings James Joyce William Faulkner paint with Mark Rothko Anselm Kiefer play football with Payton Manning Drew Breeze jam with Jimi Hendrix Keith Richards race with Secretariat sniff with Lassie mix with Max Ernst Georgia O'Keefe Donald Judd meet with Gandhi and J.F.K. make love with Charlotte Gainsbourg Kate Moss dinner with John Lennon Friedrich Nietzsche dance with Albert Einstein Isadora Duncan share a smoke with Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) Sam Shepard last drink with Sylvia Plath Virginia Woolf then go to sleep next to Sphinx Pyramids wake with Cleopatra Mata Hari on Bali beach look up at tiny puffy clouds that resemble strange script do you understand the possibilities mysteries of everything

old is lecherous but i’m still trapped in childhood hurting wanting to be grown-up

i think i said i don’t know how to talk i was speaking to this **** greedy landlord trying to negotiate between 2 different spaces long distance and i meant to say i can’t talk right now i’m in a restaurant or shop but instead what came out was i don’t know how to talk he was insulting me bullying hollering at me on cell phone accusing me of dickering about price lease and it slipped out my terror from Dad my childhood fears repression inability to negotiate i froze fumbled finally uttering i don’t know how to talk then disconnected

i’m running scared gasping for breath heart pounding yearning praying crying for love beauty happiness success i’m smart creative powerful yet inept too shy or fearful to know how to properly spontaneously speak in person

what if consumerism is realized as a mental disorder a method to suppress genuine hunger with fetish products

what if money is identified as disease actual legal tender found to source fatal viruses

what if humanity is discovered to belong to an alien predatory race independent from Adam and Eve or monkeys

what if all knowledge is found to be deceptive invention concealing real world truth

what if existence is a chess game or trial enacted by higher forces and your every thought feeling recorded in eternity

what if progress is the enemy and primitivism the remedy

my whole life i’ve learned about infidelity my mom sister dad uncle i don’t understand i’ve never been unfaithful to a girlfriend (one is enough one is more than i can handle) why do people speak those vows then get married only to violate themselves their mates maybe that’s why i am afraid to ever get married infidelity is the most painful betrayal to find out your partner with all your shared secrets compromises them with someone else oh god

April 19th 1995 a bomb explodes in Federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people injuring 759 what are Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols thinking did they act alone there are so many lunatics running around out there so much misunderstanding disenfranchisement in America

Arlington Street Asheville North Carolina June 1995 Odysseus and his dog Farina keep mostly to themselves something is wrong with his voice he sounds hoarse when he speaks it is uncomfortable to talk he goes to free clinic and waits half a day elderly doctor attempts to stick long metal instrument down Odysseus’s throat Odysseus gags coughs elderly doctor becomes irritable he warns Odysseus to quit smoking Odysseus wonders what it would be like to be loved possibly married in loving positive relationship to know all the endearing enduring connections between caring couples other people manage it why can’t he? he thinks i’ve never been a good provider nor placed enough value in money i believe in freedom and love i chose to make art and pursue a life of self-discovery experiment dang i am wrong from the moment one’s work hangs in a gallery the artist’s integrity is compromised individuality becomes commodity typically people who buy paintings have so much money they scatter a trifle on art the artwork provides the consumer with a look of ‘soul’ to be shown off to their envious friends the artist becomes needy pet of dealer and client maybe converting one’s spirituality into commercial merchandise is like making deals with the devil he thinks about Native American artists whose work is immediately esteemed and utilized in their culture he has spent his whole life seeking validation in art world he wonders how many other unknown artists feel similarly useless discarded he considers i’m forty-five years old now and i don’t have a penny to show for all my troubles i still believe i have much to give insights to reveal but no practical plan for survival i don’t know how i’m going to get through this existence the world wants young promising talent not some older painter striving for another chance women want nothing to do with an impoverished aging dreamer my dog loves me she knows who feeds her i’ve got academic degrees a long resume of legitimate shows i know how to use a computer solve problems fix toilets sinks strip and paint serve food and liquor but i can’t land a decent job i never learned how to properly market or barter my work and i’m not interested in the position of sacrificial lamb i want a home and female partner like other men have i want to be needed respected loved a creative member of a community instead of an expendable outsider working menial jobs for minimum wage what good are paintings if no one looks at them what good are noble values in a corrupt society the world runs on money and greed not freedom and love

Every now and then
I go deep inside my mind
Just to have a little rest
And see what I can find
I don't go in there often
It dark and I must say
That sometimes I'm afraid
That I may lose my way

There's a little corner café
Where Groucho sits alone
Stan Laurel sits there writing gags
And Greta Garbo sits and moans
Sinatra sings for all of them
John Lennon talks to God
Brian Jones gives swimming lessons
There's Liz Taylor and Mike Todd

Over in the distance
At a table in the corner
Hemmingway sells movie scripts
To mogul man Jack Warner
Elvis does a hip shake
Ruth and Gherig playing catch
Bud and Lou do Who's on First
Humphrey Bogart lights a  match

Charles Dickens playing darts
A red balloon comes floating by
Andy Warhol sits with Nico
Where German pop songs go to die
Marilyn and James Dean
Sit quietly talking on the stairs
John Kennedy and his brother Bob
Just pretend that they are both not there

Chico  plays piano and
Harpo  with his  harp
Bad jokes float around the room
being told by silent stars
Phil Everly and Phil Ramone
They're new here so they're woozy
Sit talking of the songs they'll miss
Rick Nelson sings of Susie

You see it is a mad mad place
in my head when I may wander
I don't go in too deep
And I've  met Henry Fonda
There's images, and icons
Family, and  friends
on a little street inside my head
That's a circle with no ends

Marsha Lenihan once wrote, "People with BPD are like people with third degree burns all over their body, lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement."

I used to cry when I said goodbye to my father after our weekly Tuesday night dinners
I'd play out games of Go fish and Rummy like there was no winner, but I was victorious next
to my daddy.  
His eyes still crinkle in the corners and his smell will always be long car rides with blankets, books on tape, and a wide range of conversations even though he was always late
But I'd weep like he actually just dropped dead every Tuesday night because I was petrified

My small but portly frame would crumple and I would mumble the worries I was too scared to say
I was afraid I'd see my daddy for the last time that day
I thought I had asthma because I was always fat and sometimes choked on the air in my lungs as if it was strangling me but I had my first panic attack in grade three

I was sitting in Mrs. Arlotta's classroom ladida
just like any other story about a schoolday when I was punched in the stomach
with a fist of "I miss my ******* dad"
there was this bully beating the **** out of me with no prologues warning
Just to remind me Despair
is not some abandoned pit people place their pity into
Despair, can be like an earwig, you use hope like tissues to squash out intrusion
but earwigs are smart, experts at delusion
earwigs know where to hide until you go to sleep

Every other weekend I used to sleep at my dads house with his british girlfriend
and his lovely cats and soothing hot tub
and his british girlfriend
and the fireplaces and the tribal music
and the british girlfriend
and the beautiful homemade pond and the greenhouse
and the british girlfriend

I liked roasting marshamallows until their crisp outer layer began to bubble but not for too long for if they fell in the fire there was trouble
Bort are you seriously letting the girl eat sweets tonight, god knows she doesn't need them

I liked riding my bike through Elizabeth park their flower garden was absolutley breathtaking
"you know Haley if you got off your *** more often moving your legs wouldn't be such a chore"

And I loved dinners with freshly picked herbs and seasonal tablecloths tucked in the curbs
"go ahead, have another helping, you're just like your mother, disgusting"

Well Karen I hope I'm like her and I hope she's disgusting
I hope she tasted disgusting on the leftover edges of my fathers lips
when you two were thrusting, could you also taste the hasty goodbyes he tossed like
rubber ducks to a family
waiting in line for him to come home
and waiting and waiting for him to never ******* come home

I loved my dad.
yes despair was everywhere but seeing my dad was like finding religion
if a child could comprehend the task of going to church

Christine Ann Lawson once wrote, " The borderling queen expreiances what therapists call oral greediness.  the desperate hunger of the borderline queen is a kin to the behavior of an infant who had gone too long between feedings.  Starved, frustrated, and beyond the ability to calm or sooth herself, she grabs, flails, wails until the last ****** is planted securely and perhaps too deeply in her mouth.  She coughs, gags, chokes, spits eyeing the elusive breast like a wolf guarding her food.  Similarily, the queen holds onto what is hers taking more than she could use, in case it might be taken away prematurely."

Did my eyes taste sour when you few times you kissed my lids goodnight maybe that's why there wasn't one ******* hour without a glass of wine, another beet, hide your shots of tequila behind the birthday cards I made you.

There was an ache of despair that you wouldn't always be there that when you decided you wanted to participate it was way past the expiration date
I said goodbye to my dad after dinner last night without a second look back, I forgot he could be dead when I was blowing lines to stay alive

Experts say a key symptom of borderling is chronic emptiness
Maybe if things had been different dad, I wouldn't be such a ******* mess
and you would have to pay Connecticutcare less.

Before walking through the doorway
Made of trash bags
A woman checked our ID’s

We passed the booth with the feathers and the ball-gags
Passed the woman selling *** toys
Just a white awning with plastic chairs

We sat and watched a man dressed in leather
He was the kind of expert who understood his passion
But for him there was no teaching it

Beer saturated my white shirt
As I sweated it out
I could feel the alcohol in my lungs
I breathed slower as if it would hide the sensation

He explained to us puppy play
The dynamics

He had his own puppy with him
A man so good at making wet eyes
So good at seeming lost

He barked and wagged an invisible tail
Chewed on rope
Probably he thought about burying his bone
What his wife might be making for dinner
Wondered if I had recognized him as a regular
At my work

While taking questions the leather man said
It takes time to discover the puppy inside

It makes me think of how
In order to view ourselves as anything
We need a filter

I want you to **** me
With a ****** full of yes

I told them
If I were a puppy
I would be very stupid
But great to cuddle

We can admit these things about ourselves
While in character

If I tell you
I am pretending to be anything
I can still find ways to pretend to be me

It is like an electric chair
Disguised as a lazy boy
It will not hold you for long
Your skin does not fit proper

It makes me think of my father
The Clown
Who bent me into shape
With his balloon animal breath
Only he had asthma
The empty static

My inner puppy
Is a half deflated balloon poodle
Ends pulled tight like amputee sausage link limbs

Looking lost and lonely isn’t hard
What’s hard about it is
Looking like that was your intention

In character
Some invisible narrator
I can admit anything

"I'm just tired..."
Excuse one for the silence that ensues.
She listens as he tells her he refuses to hurt her
...even though she aches as the words leave his lips.
Triple chocolate chocolate chip frosting is all she wants.

"I didn't sleep well..."
Excuse two for the agitated responses.
Her best friend has distanced herself
...but expects her to just sit by and wait to be wanted again.
Triple chocolate chocolate chip frosting gags her.

"It was a rough night..."
Excuse three for the silent tears that stream down her face.
Her father tells her she's a spoiled, stupid *****
...but acts like he's a genius that's greater than God.
Food loses its appeal entirely.

"I don't need a mirror to see myself..."
Excuse four for her avoidance of reflective surfaces.
Her mirror has become her worst enemy
...reflecting her flaws and screaming her issues.
She no longer has an appetite.

"I'm fine"
Excuse five... and six for all the things she does in a day.
She's breaking, crying, and dying
...but its been repeated so many times her friends have begun to believe it.
Food now makes her want to throw up.

"Excuses, Excuses"*
seven, eight, nine, ten for all the things she needs to deny
her mask of a smile makes everyone believe them all
...no one realizing how unhappy she is
she eats...but only because she doesn't want them to worry.

I await him, naked, head bowed, kneeling
With leather and rope he binds me tightly
Deft hands’ feather touches send me reeling
Melting candles ready, burning brightly  
He blindfolds me then gags me with a bit
And through the darkness, slowly I am led
To a place where in pleasure I shall sit
‘til ecstasy claims me upon the bed
He’s summoned the small death from me thrice now
Three rounds; it does not end with my pleasure
“You’ll take and like what I give you,” he growls
We’re done when he pleases —at his leisure
After all the teasing, pleasing, and pain
We collapse together —one, once again

And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and the blood and the black and the birds and the gags and the stew and the stewing and the hate and the cries and the wood and the prince and the tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and today.
Curtain

"I love you."
My fingers froze:
dark eyes on a list
as long nails clacked
on gray keys which
stuck with age and use.
I dreamed of love,
sweet hordes of
doves escorting me
to my desire of
love, love, love.
Such dreaming flags
floated in my mind,
wishing to be a hot ***,
body made of rag,
a delicious mess
of hearty gags.
I wanted promiscuity,
in all its forms,
shed of all its innuendo
and flimsy disguises.
I wanted hard action,
man on man,
cheap rides and
cheaper thrills.
I wanted to be a little
pornographic princess,
a tiny-dicked seductress,
big ***** conductress
of all his passions.
My flag flew up as a
hormonal reaction,
attraction,
smooth bodied and
tight lipped action
running up and down
my jaded cadaver.
He wanted a **** *****,
a promiscuous witch,
casting love spells and
**** glances to make him
itch.
He entered my love nest,
the back seat of a car,
to destroy my frame,
to rid me of my childishness.
My folly melted away
in sexyhot sways
of my hips as
my lips would say
lust filled nothings
that would be filled by
empty sighs and
****** filled
"I love you's."
My fingers froze:
as brown turned to white,
my body turned to snow
and rained down around
his swollen flagpole.
He was incompetent,
inept at the deed
and unable to satisfy,
but it was my ego that needed
this gratification, not my
libido.
I laid in the aftermath of the attack,
calm,
demure,
sad but
ultimately relieved
Finally,
I am ravaged.
I have soiled my nation
and salted my own fields,
laying waste to my youth,
my innocence.
I wanted to be conquered
and so did I receive,
being taken and
yet somewhat untaken.
I remember his voice,
that dumb accent.
I remember his preconceptions
of what this was supposed to be.
"I love you."
My fingers froze:
as lungs filled with air,
and brain filled with contempt,
my jaded body grew
to desire--
God, I really wish I had a cigarette.
I remember how he thought
I cared,
how he though that
anybody did.
I remember how,
I thought I had, too.
"I love you."**
No, you don't.

I need to know something. I don’t know if you want to tell me or not, but I really don’t care. You’re gonna tell me or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. I’m already ****** and it won’t take much to push me over the edge into dangerously angry territory.

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

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

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

Where were you when I was falling in love?

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

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

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

“Nope. Not that I can think of.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

****.

God help me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is that where you were? I need to know. Where the hell were you when I was falling in love?

once rastafarianism entered language ploys with wittgenstein's language games in mind it misplaced pronouns, existentialists just dittoed the signifying moral singular with the un-signifying immoral plural; like i was partly holocaust bound, ha ha (example); cherub and a scotch bonnet of my opinion tingling a contest of: chilli v. pepper v. horseradish. let's just say i'm a plasterer rather than i.q. me as a drinker. slaps in chequers on a bench to sober up momentarily.*

trust the saxon, trust the saxon to speak worse german
than the bavarian, and entrust german to the turk
above the saxon; trust the audacious saxon to leave the alphabet's
diacritic out, to spell like a roman would, from the celtic netherlands of gloom
in scotch egg on a couch, the potato of them all,
trust them with audacity and vocabulary  to conquer the world:  
relieving us norse with ****** never mind
the geese of brazil; exact roman care for all dwindles and fibrous excesses,
conquer the world what have you,
at least you have black skin and opera sunsets
while i have white skin and grey clots of 7pm in september,
or as the censors announced:
rather my vanity than the proof of god,
rather me than you in the minotaur's prison of winding zigzag vocabulary;
you're left politico correct i have three thousand
longboats waiting, you're right i have the same number
awaiting wind and sail. trust the saxons among bavarians to do the following:
but you have the caribbean and that's worth more than kenya
in a 100m sprint. you have the caribbean and i'm african,
nuance the scandinavian proust waging war with
a burnt toothpick not giving enough warmth. each me of the lost tribe walks asking:
blondish in the sea i dare you to walk and reason
the heraclitean suburbia of the river of emptied housed-in arsons worth a life.
come alaskan winters come!
trust the saxons to conquer the world without a holy implied for empires
and lost tracts in order that the romans might utilise proper a and proper o
while the saxons in **** with normans and celts said:
we'll roman-speak about the amazon girlies while our girls party out
a craft of whitened cotton for champagne ship-sailed virginity!
trust the saxons to speak worse german thank turks in order to bind by migration
an island as a ship, and sail away sail away wondering
why the roots of other european nations used the goggles to speak
as much microscope as microphone when accenting
and, in so doing accepted dialectics rather than a pompous excess of fibrous ginger plastic
known as dialects: in england dialectics is known as dialects - caged owls elsewhere
didn't coo coo but mooed with gags in nostrils sneezing when snorkelling:
we say error in sussex and say wok cumin seed sizzle in essex;
close enough to be a cockney in hackney rhymes up a mango.

you call me *****
label me with broad brushstrokes
to paint onto the tableau of
my life a permanent stain where
you think i don't already see one.

the joke's on you.

trying to sully an already *****
contaminated crime scene
you won't wipe away fingerprints
seared into my skin
by those who also
saw me as that *****
were you disappointed when you saw
i already had ruby red marks
of hands wrapped around my neck?
because your flying shrapnel
accusations make me wonder
if you wish you had
gotten there first.

*****.

though the declaration stings
it certainly doesn't take me
by surprise when i
see that word stamped across my
forehead any time i look in the mirror
the syllable lives between my legs
and bleeds my secret shame
but i can't let you see me cry
i can't let you know it hurts
i can't let on that i would do
anything to purge this stain.

how could you understand
that i see my reflection in
***** in the toilet so i
shove my fingers farther down
my throat to recreate
that feeling of drowning
the gags that created me.

*****.

i want to blame that
violation
or even my erratic neurotransmitters
for morphing that flaxen-haired
nice girl
into the gnarled old
shame-riddled creature who sits
silently before you
being named *****.

but it was no one else who
led myself to this place
who traversed dimly-lit rooms
of iniquity
and was reborn as this contemptible creature
i take up my cross
my new mantle
my ******* scarlet letter.

you make me want
to run through the streets screaming
to stand on a street corner
preaching the gospel
of my culpability
have you heard the news
of our ****** executioner
the *****
the label feels even more
familiar than my own name.

i don't deserve a name.

take my clothing and dress me
in rags
strip me of my name and address me
only as *****
my life will now be only
passive acceptance and
those hands will explore my hidden places
though they are as unknown
as Disneyland on a gilded
summer day
but you can watch my searing shame
in the invisible white hot tears
only i know.

don't touch the *****
or you might fall victim to
my contagious disease
of optics and opinion
myself the lowest caste of society
relegated to empty halls
and abandoned structures
where i am abandoned as well.

you seem surprised that
the *****
would be fiercely independent
would be accustomed to
being alone
but who stays with a *****?
who takes her home to
meet the family
my independence was merely
an adaptation
Darwinian evolution ensuring
i would survive
to suffer another day
another trial
another sentence.

i understand now why
criminals are handed
multiple life sentences
because i'm punished daily
deservedly so
i would **** myself and if
i came back i would
cry out for more
more pain
more lashes
lay me bare and cut the skin from
my bones and call me *****
never stop
never let me forget
what is burned into the back of
my eyelids
a memory connected to
that word
my name.

i was given that name
by violating vandals
who spray painted my guilt
all over myself
and i can't escape that night
whenever i close my eyes and
pray i won't wake up
or pray i'll wake up in some other body
uncontaminated
a form that was never touched
virginal purity i wish i could
somehow repackage and
re-insert into my ****
to purify the orifice of all
those who branded me
*****
the mantle i took on myself
and made manifest.

There are no ways to safeword out of this life.
I know, I’ve tried them all.
Elephant, apple, Alaska, amen.
Tried screaming anything into the pillow my face is pushed down into,
Whiskey, tango, foxtrot, stop
Exhausted my vocabulary against the blanket my fists are balled into fists against,
Anything to make the beatings stop
But they just
Keep
Coming.
In ****, having a safeword is like wearing a seatbelt.
There are rules about having one
And the ones who choose to do without
Are taking risks.
We are born without lifejackets, without seatbelts and safecut scissors
Without breakaway glass or rubberized mats
Without any way to make the world slow down
Let us catch our breath,
And jump back in.
There are no hard limits in the real world.
So we bite into our gags and wait for the session to end.
Elephant, apple, Alaska, amen.

The Entertainer

Warmth soothes my soul on this beautiful July morning.
A stark contrast to the dream I had the previous night that was the complete opposite of charming.
A violent storm tore apart my home leaving me in shambles, perhaps it’s a warning,
because the dread left behind in the pit of my stomach is concerning.
Tomorrow is my sons 8th birthday party, I fear it will be boring.
The last thing I want is for my sons’ friends to be unimpressed and fill my son’s ears with negative talking.
It may take a few stiff drinks but I’ll do my best to be charming.
A happy, gracious host can influence the guests into returning.
For my son Austin, that enough will be rewarding.
I have a man coming over soon who will provide me with details on what services he can provide to make sure all the kids view the party as being entertaining.
I hope and pray that he’s good at performing.
This is the first birthday I’ve had to plan on my own, so I’m sure I’m in store for some learning.
I’m hesitate whether or not I should pick up my video camera and begin recording.
I may record a complete failure or an event that proves to be rewarding.
Either way the children will be roaring
with either boos or cheers.

Food wise, I plan on keeping it simple.
Pepperoni pizza and pop to keep all the kids civil.
Two piñatas filled to the brim with candy for all the kids to lust over sinful,
while I watch from a dark corner letting out a giggle.
Still I need more fun things for the kids to do so that’s where the entertainer comes in.
To get a better price I might try to sooth him over with some gin.

Knock.
Knock.
Knock.

I answer the door to discover the middle-aged man smiling rather creepily at me.
He supports a trimmed beard along with a beer belly that sticks out rather beastly.
I have a sick feeling in my gut that something is off about him to a certain degree.
Having him makes me feel uncomfortable, I’m not sure if I trust his websites satisfaction guarantee.

He goes to speak, his breath reeking of cigarettes and alcohol.
His clothes are weathered, torn, smell something putrid and in need of a dousing of Lysol.
His eyes are bloodshot; it appears he has had a long night.
His presence here in front of my home fills my heart with fright.

He hands me his business card and tells me his name is Chester Pennyworth, entertainer.
It’s not in my nature to be a complainer,
but I wouldn’t hire this man even if he was my next-door neighbor.
I’m certainly not willing to pay the hefty fee for his retainer.

He hands me a booklet explaining all of the services he provides for children’s birthday parties.
I believe the only talent he actually contains is passing along genital ******.
I close the book as fast as he opens it and tell him I’m not interested in his services.
He snatches the book back from out of my hands laughing rather manically since I just deemed him purposeless.
I thank him for stopping by and for his time trying to be merciful,
but the frown that quickly appears on his face tells me he’s taking it personal.

I politely ask him to leave wanting to slam my front door hard behind him.
Chester then closes his eyes and begins to sing a hymn.
I forcefully ask him again to leave, he’s wasting valuable time I could be spending at the gym.
His eyes shoot open deranged; my soul instantly feels grim.
This man needs to depart from my presence now!
Him working my party, I simply disallow.

I go to push the man out of the door in an attempt to get him to leave.
He grabs my arm and squeezes my wrist hard, not the outcome I had hoped to achieve.
The forces me back into the house and with his free hand closes the front door behind him.
The outcome of this encounter for myself is starting to look grim.
He’s a large man, much stronger than I am.
Now I’m at his mercy, ****.

Now squarely in the middle of the living room, he squeezes my wrist even harder forcing me to my knees.
I look up at him as he admires down at me looking pleased.
He tells me I look good for being a middle-aged mom and am quite the **** tease.
I beg him to let me go and promise to hire him if he does so, in hopes he agrees.

With his free hand, the man drops his pants exposing he average sized ****.
He demands me to milk him dry and to end the small talk.
Hesitate, but with no other options, I slowly take all of him in my mouth.
I bob my head back and forth ******* him off while in my mind I pretend that I’m on vacation down south.
His manhood taste terrible, like he hasn’t showered in weeks.
I hold back gags as he pulls out of my mouth and slaps my cheeks.

He then shoves himself back into my mouth and I continue to ****.
I’m tempted to bite down and cause him misery but with the tight hold he has on my wrist, I’m afraid he would shatter it in retaliation, so I’m stuck.
*** starved, it doesn’t take long for his **** to fill up with cream and begin to throb in my mouth.
Excited, he moans and whispers that he’s going to keep this day as his Sabaoth.
He quickly blows his load down my throat and lets out a smile of pleasure.
It seems my mouth was quite the treasure.
I ask him if we are even and tell him I’ll let bygones be bygones.
He immediately frowns and tells me no, he’s going to put me where I belong.

He tells me to get back up to my feet and leads me into my bedroom.
He lies me on the bed, strips me naked and tells me he’s sure I have a nice womb,
but tells me my womb is not what he’s interested in.
He begins rubbing his hand over my leg commenting on my delicious smooth skin.
He licks his lips and tells me he bets I will make a tasty meal.
Panic cripples my heart as I plead with him to work with me and make a deal.
I have a young son who will be home from his friend’s house soon.
I don’t want him to walk in on us like this, I rather have in walk in on a cartoon.

The man, not caring what I have to say, climbs unto the bed and sits on my chest.
He places his right and above my left eye and tells me my son will soon be addressed.
Without warning, he slams ******* into my eye sock and rips out my left eye.
A loud piercing scream escapes from my mouth, God I want to die.

The sick, depraved lunatic smiles at me and shows me my eyeball.
I’m too busy screaming out in pain to be appalled.
He tells me the eyeball is the most delicious part of the human body and can’t wait to eat mine.
He reassures he won’t harm my son, that he will be fine.
He then sticks ******* into my right eye and rips it out as well.
The world as I know it goes black as I’m left in one terrible place to ******* dwell.
----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------------

The front door of the home squeaks open as a young boy enters, the son,
freshly back from his friend’s house where he just got done having a lot of fun.
The smell of cooking food enters his nostrils pleasantly, rumbling his stomach as he is hungry.
He’s a boy whom enjoys his food even though his mother warns him eating too much will cause him to become chubby.

He drops his overnight bag on the floor and yells out, “mom I’m home!”
She doesn’t answer, she always answers!  Something is not sitting right up in Little Austin’s dome.
He walks towards the kitchen then stops immediately in his tracks.
There is a strange, unrecognizable man cooking, wearing ***** slacks.
The man turns around and smiles, “Austin you’re home!
Dinner is almost done, please take a seat next to Jerome.”

Austin sees a puppet sitting in a chair at the kitchen table and takes a seat in the chair next to him unsure of the whereabouts of his beloved mother.
He’s not sure who this man is, a stranger or possibly his long-lost father?
“Where is my mother,” he finally asks.
The man flashes Austin a warm smile that disguises his true ugly identify like a mask.

“Your mother will be here shorty, she had to run and pick up a few last-minute things for your birthday party tomorrow.
She asked me to stay here and keep an eye on dinner you know.
My name is Walter and I will be providing entertainment at your party tomorrow.
Your mother only hired me for an hour although
so, you and your friends will have to make the most of that hour.
Dinner is ready Austin, o don’t look so sour.”

The man sits a plate of meat down in front of Austin then joins him at the table to eat.
The man tells Austin to take a bite and try it, it’s delicious meat.
Austin takes a bite and discovers the meat is rich with flavor and very tasty.
He cleans his plate rather hasty.

“Good stuff isn’t it Austin,” asks the man.
“Yes, what kind of meat was it?”
“Human meat Austin.”
Austin giggles thinking it’s a joke, “No really what kind of meat was it?”

The man drops his voice to a sinister low level and repeats, “Human meat Austin,
Your mother’s meat to be straight forward.
She did make one tasty meal.

Austin, visibly shaken by this revelation feels his heart sink in his chest.
He begins violently shaking and falls to the ground quite traumatized as you guessed.
He curls up into a ball and begins whispering to himself, “it isn’t true, it isn’t true.”
He didn’t want to accept the truth but deep down he knew,
his mother’s meat was just fed to him by a lunatic.
He now needs to act to save himself and act quick.

“You want desert Austin?  This is the best part.”
The man picks Austin up, sits him back at the table and tells him to have some manners and a heart.
The man places a dish in the middle of the table then removes the lid,
exposing two eye ***** ready to be eaten, his mothers.”

Screams echo around the house as Austin loses his composure and makes a break for the front door.
The man grabs Austin and tells him he still has to see his mother one final time in all her glory and gore.
“She’s still alive,” he whispers into his ear.
“It’s the only way to keep her meat fresh.”

“No, no, no, no Austin trembles uncontrollably as the man drags him into his mother’s bedroom.
A heart wrenching, ear drum piercing, earth spin stopping scream shatters the sound barrier as the boy comes face to face with what’s left of his mother.
Two ****** holes remain of what use to be her beautiful blue eyes.
Her tongue has been removed, leaving her unable to speak.
Her legs are missing from the knees down.
Her breathing is faint; death is nigh for her.

Tears fall relentlessly from Austin’s eyes as the man handcuffs him to his mother, forcing him to spend quality time with her mangled body.
-----------------------------------------------------------­--------------------------------------

The front door of the home slowly squeaks open as Dr. James Allen Burke enters the house.
His appearance here will surly cause a rouse.
Walter is sitting in a recliner in the living room, his eyes make contact with Dr. Burke’s.
Walter has been expecting him since he himself is one of the doctors failed works.

“Good evening Doctor, it sure is lovely to see you again.
Please tell me, your walking into the den of a mad man with a solid plan.”

“Walter, what have you done now?
I was supposed to help you control your urges, that was my vow!”

“Is that why you cut into my brain time after time, to help me doctor?
Because if you ask me, experimenting on my brain means you have no honor.
You’ve tried time and time again to get my brain right but each time you failed.
It’s about time I think that the police find out about your experiments and to a cross you should be nailed.
Do you want the public to know about your current experiment with your mother?
If you want my silence, turn around, exit the house and no longer ****
with me!”

“Walter, when I discovered you fifteen years ago, the police were ready to hang you.
You were lucky I was able to convince them to allow me to help tighten your screws.
You were found near death after being poisoned by your best friend Pete,
who was found with a bullet hole in his head from a bullet that was traced back to a gun owned by you that was found next to your body lying on the street.
You threatened to ****** your ex-girlfriend.
You threatened to ****** your son.
I’ve been performing procedure after procedure on you to fix your brain,
but all my attempts over the years, I’m afraid have been in vain.”

“I guess I should have been allowed to die in peace on that street instead of being revived doctor!”

“I’m sorry I failed you Walter, but I can no longer allow you to carry on with your rampage of destruction.
The crimes you have committed under my watch are too much for my soul to bear.”

“So you are here to **** me doctor, is that it?”

Doctor Burke, unfazed by his failed experiments aggressive nature towards him, smiles and nods as a gun shoot rings out.
A bullet, shot from a gun carried by Amanda who’s now standing behind Walter, hits Walter square in the head putting an end to the failed experiments fallout.

“Thank you Amanda for helping me…”

“Thank me later Doctor, there is something you need to see this instant.”

Doctor Burke and Amanda walk into the bedroom to the horrific sight of Austin handcuffed to his mutilated mother shaking and crying uncontrollably on the floor.
Doctor Burke takes in a deep breath greatly disturbed at the sight, he can’t even begin to enjoy the fact that Walter isn’t around to cause chaos and destruction anymore.

“Doc, the Woman is somehow still alive we need to put her down.
What do we do with the child?”

Doctor Burke takes the gun from Amanda and tells her he will do what must be done.
They need to clean up their mess to avoid and cops discovering their dark ***** deeds placing them on the run.
Doctor Burke points the gun at Austin’s head and pulls the trigger placing a bullet right between his eyes.
He had no chance on growing up and living a normal life, I’m not going to lie.
He would have been traumatized for life and unable to function in the real world.
Placing a bullet in between his eyes is a mercy **** and hope now his soul can be at peace.

Doctor Burke shifts the gun over to the mother and pulls the trigger,
also placing a bullet right between the dark holes of what use to be her eyes.
He looks over at Amanda and speaks,
“Let’s clean this mess up and cover our tracks.”

I've been still,
Caught in a sweet stasis,
Buried under the same, baseless
Candied gags, slippery hags, body bags ー
But I can't go back.
Haven't moved forward either,
So I still sit silent here.
Maybe I'll someday wither ー

Like dandelions as they scatter in the wind,
I will feel no more the weight of societal sins.
Staying awake in anticipation;
That feeling you get when you see a road blocked
and a wrecked car hoping it was an accident
Eventful; excitement to see that tar black
Crimson on tarmac
and those trampled, broken-pretty shells ー

I want to be a doll.
A pretty hollow pale porcelain
you still can't hurt when I slip through your hands,
Or when you let go and drop me,
Or smash me into the ground ー
It's all the same, isn't it?
You buy, bore, break, blame, build, rebuild
Rebreak, reblame, replace...

I remake real-fake love into stanza-sized stories
Just to rebrand them as poetry;
A molded part to inspire some abstract art.
They're better off that way,
Locked in and stationary;
Sweet standstill sanctuary.
And I'll stay to watch their models fail and break,
As they too, disintegrate ー fellow ******* degenerates

This time I was at your disposal,
But we're all just glorified disposables ー
Ever-hungry, hedonistic at heart.

Getting Ready
On the go
Doing things
Need a blow

Giddy gaggle
Endless Gags
Toothy giggles
Tongues a wag

Dressing up
Getting down
Goofing off
Clownin round

Pretty girls
Wearing pearls
Dancing Swirls
Fluffy Furls

Blowing Kisses
Giving Hugs
Singing Ditties
Cut a Rug

Buoyant Banter
Flashing Smiles
Bubbly Blabber
Smoking Milds

Shakin *****
Gettin Down
Wigglin *******
Goofy Gowns

Keep a Groovin
Boogie all night
Shake Them Legs
Les Dames et Dynomite

Oakland
8/23/01

Music Selection:
Jackson 5
Dancing Machine

The funding of my own little massacre,
my own precious little war crime. My smoke
is everywhere. My father coughs in his sleep.
My mother gags, hangs her head out the window, sick.

My cheap *** before and after cheap ***.
I chat up some high-waisted pastiche on Alberta.
She tells me collage this and that and looks
so lit up and skinny, it's a dream.

Where I go to brand myself. I have this image
of a spark on my arm sitting stovetop red,
sinking into the skin, losing color as it digs,
turning to grey and then nothing like the drowning
of a comet's tail in atmosphere. My burns look so good
in the pale dormitory bathroom shower light: so baby tulip
and teeth, so how-I've-made-it-through-the-wringer.
Christ, I should be a film, look at me: so bent and bright,
such a cute boxer, such a prize fight.

When your souls that
    *****, the devil gags

    And spits it back out.


Then has to wash
the taste out
    Gargling on a ******..

My wife is gone and our baby is crying
Oh,lord, what shall I do ?
The fields lay fallow and
the hounds they  lay dying

All my sorrows split open anew
Sweet Angeline, I never seen a vision the likes of you
But now you are gone and I must carry on
To avenge you with plots on the brew
She was taken away by old  Simon Legree

Now my Angie is buried and the child that she carried
Remains with,shining with vigor
Why were you left behind when  her body was consigned to a ditch drain
is more  than I can figure

Now I've wailed my woes up and down the town
Not one good man will take him down
Though I sing his name nine times inside this song
I seen no reparations for his wrongs

So I studied up a plan to see him suffer
For the worst he done to me, I'd  show him rougher
I hoped with him to parlay
I crept down to Legrees place
The moon looked wicked full and livid
The frost lay on the barley
The wind made 'me away so the stalks bid play a tune both bright and vivid

The wind slashed me cruel with claws like a ghoul
Till my cheeks burned hot and red
To the servants door I knew well from before
I prowled like a thief and slipped in
My jaw tight-clenched
My guts were soon wrenched
By the stench of his black den of sin

I pressed firm to the wall and soon found the hall had opened up to Legrees great  chamber
The hearth lowly burned and  my heart made a great turn
See,ol' Simon had come there to slumber

Then I  trod without noise
Though I'd fumbled my poise
To a hatch in the floor of the room
I left the wrench to snore,in his chair
In his  lair, and sank deeper into the gloom
I closed the trap above my head
And,being a good Christian, said a prayer to quell my fear
The match I held between my teeth
I struck against my stubbled cheek
The spark shot up and gradually
I saw where I had fell
The hole was like a charnel hell house
Except that some were living among those poor unhappy girls
Those seven desperate, starving women
Four of them were breathing still
One was pregnant, one was deaf
The other two so near to death
They hardly held the strength to move clear


A sickening smell right out of hell
Exploded In my skull
It was human filth, and tears and guilt
I saw that death was so close
I realized that hell ain't a place
but a mindless, gnawing fear
I knew then that hell's where Simon
Legree ought to dwell
So I said, right then and there

Sisters, there will be deliverance
Tonight, there will be retribution
The man who has done you violence
Will here taste christ's  absolution
Now gather round, here's my solution :

I loosened their  bonds and their gags
And till dawn gathered the things for a purpose

I was terribly pleased once the steps had been greased and found we had rope to surplus

Next ,I Tommy flask of roosters blood and my mask
For I knew my turn at last, with my turn to unmask the devil atlas
Then I asked my friends to paint my skin with a ruby taint
Then bark and bray like demons at their revels
Our howl's were like a breeze bourne plague
An ungodly din,to make the ceiling sag
Like someone cooking crickets in a funnel

I can proudly tell you,sir
It weren't long before something stirred
And the door flew up,and a head peered in the tunnel

"LISTEN  up ,you bitchs!"
he roared " I need your yowling like grit in my eye!"

I noticed then he had eyes like mud
He went still for a spell and my heart gave an echoing thud

Then he hooted loud and slapped his thigh
"Master ",he said,
I said "yeah  "?
He said, "mister devil "
I said ,"I like your style "
He grinned "I ain't seen you in quite a while
He shouted to his slaves for a barrel of wine
Then stepped on the gangway and chattered on  in his head
For a long godawful minute I thought the ******* was dead
But before long he sat up and shook his porcine head

" I have a taste for mortal wine ",said I " My drink is for fine blood and burning turpentine "

"Now drop on your  knees and prove that you are loyal
There's no rest for the wicked, and the slacker reaps no spoils"

I had him fetch a drum pitch instead
"Tie this rope around your ankle
Make sure it's your left" I instructed
"Can't say I understand", he  instructed  " It ain't yours to ponder.
Now rest your worry wits and do as I  command you"!

And he did

" Now, will you kindly dangle from that aforesaid left ankle?"
And I saw his skin, and it was pale as a  lady's powder
I strung him up like a side of pork
Then I approached the young lady with a brush dripping pitch
I'm real glad she me here
For the first time in so many years Simon Legree felt the clutch of fear

When I saw to it that his skin was as dark as his heart,I lit another match a d he reared up with a start

"Do you ever recall speaking these words: (I asked him)
"******* never bruise . They're skin already black  enough. Their backs are lazy and their skin is tough. You can beat 'em all you want and they'd never show it"?

Simon Legree let out a low,ugly  growl. He wriggled, and he whimpered and he shook. " Thats right?you can beat 'em all you want and they'd never show it"?
"Some fool said the meek'll inherit. Though you wouldn't know it."
Then I set him ablaze. And sent the sucker down to hell. His screams were like a symphony, if art could aspire to torture. The women licked their lips and flashed their eyes and the swelter of the beat down on me tell I felt just like a forger.

An ear- rending, soul-bending shriek went up and he  went slack and still I bowed like a good blacksmith and tears wet my face. The spectacle was better than I'd hoped

And Simon Legree went down to the devil.
Down,Down, Down, Down.
With Simon Legree.
Did you ever hear about the bounds in the well of hell
Down to the devil.

You could say that Legrees is my life's great bane. But you know, it just wouldn't tear it. So pick yourself off that cold hard ground ,'cause some of us weren't made to grit and bear it!'

I hate him every bit you do.That back-breaking buzzard with eyes like a ferret!. If love will lead us blind and such. Known that I hate him yet as much. itch.My servants of help,will blacked  you, she's a good  faithful witch

The first thing you should know is that he doesn't care
He shows up randomly and doesn't wipe his feet off or help around the house
He whispers to me how much he loves me but then he turnes his back when I need him most
He wants me to eat and then tells me I'm fat and ugly
He keeps me in bed way past when I should have got up
He forces himself apon me and makes me swallow him down
He screames at me and then when I try to tell someone about it he gags me and won't let me leave my house
He tears apart my life
He tells me about all the things my friends say about me,
That they think I'm worthless,
That I'm nothing
He said that he is the only one who loves me
He gives me little presents of cuts and scars,
bruises along my les and arms
He kisses me goodnight and wakes me up in the middle of the dark to scream about that stupid thing I said to the guy at the store
He uses me for his own pleasure and leaves me broken and lost
He lurks over my shoulder and scares off my friends
He pulls me to the bottom of the pit and kicks me,
Ribs snapping like twigs,
Flesh and skin tearing like paper,
Tears flowing like a river.

He goes to the basement, without a word he flys
To grab a sufficent sourse of numbness
To write freely and speak not so clearly
But to engage of times of the unknown and times of Modern times
The weather tide, the things of our demise
And the music rides, and the glass clinks
Goodbye to on time
hello to sweet dreams highs

Rummy is a card game
*** isn't for the hard weak
It's not win to fame when you're
Slugging back ***

It's not fun, it gags and try's to overthrow your reflexes
To misconcept your reasons
Why *** is for pirates and not for mere kitchen writers

we grew up together:
postcards for parents
and cigarettes
for fireplaces
we were best friends.

year twelve
//september//||||
“welcome back, boys and girls.”
knees together. shoulders back. chins up.
welcome back, she means, to the routine of
eight am target practice,
courtesy of the handbook.
they get to dolly first
“immaculate as always, dolores. how is your father?”
then hermia
“i see you failed to purchase proper burgundy over the summer”
i hold my breath
“mary dear, my how you’ve grown”
and let it out as they move onto
“good heavens, alice, put on some clothes.”
she rolls her eyes.

in the bathroom i tie my shoes
to a soundtrack of gagging
and spray perfume down the toilet
when she’s finished.

she locks our pinkies
like we’re back in year nine
don’t tell dolly

//october//||||
the lower the sun sets
the more we’re in dolly’s room

she brews coffee in her contraband *** --
she won’t smoke with us, but coffee
is worth breaking rules for --
and tucks us into her bed
to tell us fairytales

yet somehow, it always ends up being hers

she talks about him
like prince charming
like he doesn’t have
a face of zits and
a weird haircut
like she can see
a future in him

alice gags under the covers
this time not out of self-hate
but disgust
and dolly laughs like a grown up
you’ll understand one day.

she does a little spin into her bathroom
to fix her makeup; “seeing him later”
and alice whispers
“if she weren’t dolly
i’d swear she was on the hard stuff”
i find myself trying to remember what it’s like
to be so happy
i could pass a drug test.

//november//|||
we’re smoking by the pier when it happens
with some sad boys
hermia seduced for cigarettes

she smokes the prettiest
and we’re convinced she doesn’t swallow
but a cigarette is a cigarette

alice always smokes like its her last
and i guess the boys like the way
she lights theirs for them

i’m not much of a smoker
but a boy from alice’s algebra class --
math for future ivy dropouts, as she likes to call it --
lights one for me anyway
and tells me his name
but both are forgotten within minutes

partially due
to my adhd [diagnosed by alice]
and partially due
to the security guard that rounds the corner
algebra snuffs our cigs and alice’s clan snuffs theirs,
but hermia isn’t so lucky
after a streaking incident last year
she’s been convinced they’re out to get her
and i guess she was right.
we offer her the coffee ***
as a goodbye present
but she pierces our ears instead --
what she promised to do for christmas --
and tells us where she hid
her lighter.


//december//|||
it’s just alice and i over break
since dolly has family
that actually comes home for holidays

i get a card from my parents
and alice doesn’t get anything
but when we walk into town
she treats herself to some hair dye
after all, it’s a five-fingered sale

my heart doesn’t beat in my chest
when we pass the security cameras
but i find myself wishing it did
wishing i remembered
guilt

an hour later
alice rinses the dye out
and emerges from the shower
the stretch marks on her legs
reminding me why
i let myself go numb

//january//|||
it’s new years and
we’re in somebody’s dorm room
watching fireworks on tv

everyone’s paired up;
dolly with her prince
alice with the same dude
hermia slept with,
rubber in his pockets
and me
with the sad boy from the pier
laying in the dark

he smells like the boy i lost it to
and i want to be sick
but when he kisses me at 12
i let him

some ******* pulls out a sparkler
i hear the fire alarm
then suddenly we’re drenched and
screaming, wet rats in the street

they call roll
no dolly
no prince

we wait for her in her room
alice falls asleep
until she comes in sobbing
a mess of
it was perfect
until the fire alarm went off
and
they’re shipping me out tomorrow
and, the quietest
he says there’s no point
in long distance.

//february//||
there’s snow up to the windowpanes
and everybody’s depressed
alice stays in my room
and they let her
knowing she has a history
when it comes to february’s

i.e. if they make her get out of bed
she’ll call her father

nobody has to know
that she lost her phone
in the snow last week
or that
even if she hadn’t
he hasn’t picked up
in months.




she likes to talk to boys instead
when she’s lucid
she brushes her hair
and opens the window
and hollers back at them
when they whistle

nobody has to know
she’s wearing her pajamas.

//march//||
when the sun comes out, so does she
“i’m going for a walk”
she says, in her pajamas
she borrows my phone to make a call

but that’s the morning
and soon it’s noon
and i wonder
how long one phone call
could possibly take?

when she isn’t back by dark
the school’s 911 call
only takes a second.

//april//|
they find her  body
at the bottom of the lake.

//may//|
“and what legacy have you given back
to the academy?”
i put on my graduation cap
and wonder
if the cigarettes
the sparklers
and *****
in the bathrooms
aren’t quite enough.

i was about to start writing this up when i thought:
another whiskey Quincy? **** storm,
spilled the remains of the one i barely touched
before having to pour myself a:
puritan Scot in Cheltenham.

now, i heard people say any town in Essex
is a ****-hole...
                            fair enough...
but there are darker recesses of England you
must get to know before making that
assumption...
                  sure, London, proper London,
zones 1 - 4, E17 (post code, outer reaches,
Walthamstow, used to have a dog racing
track - played there once,
like a typical Paris catwalk, those hounds)
can skive off Greater London
                    like New York can laugh off
New Jersey, it's pretty much like that...
the only thing is: Londoners don't know what
exists outside this area: the buffer zone.
this is the buffer zone...
                 you experience England outside of
this very sensitive area of integration,
take for example a 3 hour coach trip to
a little town of Cheltenham in Gloustershire
not far from Oxford (a hub of learning)
and Bristol (Massive Attack, and that
bridge by Brunel - funny, engineers are above
architects, in that engineers build things
that *work, architects are like science-fiction
novelists rather than scientists -
do you know how many problems workers
experience, because an engineer
"forgot to mention" something essential in the plans?
at least an engineer gives you a read table,
all architects work for Ikea -
          ah, here's pieces a - z,
put it together yourself) - anyway...
              spilled my Quincy whiskey, now i'm a puritan
of scotch - unlike that damning quote from
1950s Hollywood: whiskey with a drop of water...
   ok ok... a little **** of ice floating about...
when will the nagging stop? no one says jack
about putting water into authentic absinthe...
      why? cos it goes cloudy green when you do!
(too much digression, news paragraph).

   i was leaving London on Friday,
murky the way i like it... Albert Bridge never seemed
so out of cinematographic urgency -
               but the west end with its grand buildings
appealed to me to start imagining
                    Oscar Wylde ghosts leaving these places
for promenades in top cats and tiaras for the ladies...
                     west London... the best way to see it
is in transit... preferably rather urgently...
                    and in a coach with other people not paying
attention...
                       the Thames receded into the estuary (
as it does), those housed in boats experienced a wake-up
call with a 10° ***** into the mud -
                                past the Chelsea pensioners' abode,
past many monuments to be exact...
   and then onto the open M4... past Windsor Castle
and the streak of aeroplanes about an aerial mile
apart landing at Heathrow -
                                  3 hours later, there i was,
in Cheltenham - chitty chitty bang bang,
apparently dubbed the hub of all English literary
endeavours - well, if you're going to host
a literature festival, wouldn't you claim to host
it with at least one patriotic son of the word?
did i see any statue of a famous poet or writer in
that little rugby stockpile of excess triceps?
nope.
           well, at first i thought it was cute...
                                a little Portobello, albeit
without the St. Petersburg paintwork on the houses,
houses as grey as the skies...
                                           got lost looking for
the b & b hotel i was supposed to be staying at for
the night, went into a gas station, asked,
i was apparently only adjacent lost -
                           old school, map printer and no
g.p.s. on foot -
                                  i once read a map and navigated
a car from an obscure Essex city,
to an even more obscure city in eastern Poland,
past the dreaded Penta Germania consisting of:
Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal and
obviously Dortmund -
                                           i call it the whirlpool
of navigation...
                            anyway, so i found the abode,
what a nice little place it was, shied away from
all the traffic - a lovely garden,
a room fit for a journeying writer,
          actually, everything a writer could hope for
to lock himself away and write,
            tunic scenic - everything to ease the literary
constipation - the surroundings, the whole decor,
i even took a picture thinking: shame if no
Balzac were to not emerge from these rooms...
                           i sure didn't,
i dropped all the things, took a shower,
went into town to do the g.p.s. topographic of
the city so i wouldn't need a map in the future -
bought a bottle of whyte & mackay with a huh?!
apparently this brand isn't popular...
               went back to the room and found myself
drinking in front of the dreaded sight...
well... it was a room fit for a writer...
               but it had a double bed in it...
and a mirror at the desk...
                                    i downed one puritan glass
and looked in the mirror: i don't need your company.
looked away and found to my amazement the
truth of modern writing: the industrialisation
of writing... it emerged in the 20th century when everyone
did it by himself, with a typewriter -
        the industrialisation of writing on an individual
scale can be quiet debilitating when trying to
rekindle the quill... i didn't write anything, i doodled,
and those were bad doodles, it wasn't writing,
it was doodling... i drank a quarter of the bottle
and went out...
        went into the first bar, ordered a Guinness and
and sat down by a table with a
(later disclosed) Gloustershire University student,
a Canadian, jacking-off a script for some
B-short-movie in a public place: to catch the oozing
exfoliation of inspiration from crowded places -
if ever that worked, it might have ever worked
in a graveyard...
                             we were joined by his friend,
some peasant, we got chatting, boy, it was such a thrill
to exchange names... the Canadian's name
i did remember: Darcy...
                          he had that look about him that made
it worthwhile to remember his name,
ah, when names fit the image...
                         chubby, pig-blondish, hairy...
i'm guessing a native of Quebec...
                               but i could be wrong.
so a few hey hey, yeah yeahs later i asked if they
knew something about this gig on the festival slot
that was starting tomorrow, 5 p.m. and for free...
sure sure... got to eye the guide... so i asked:
so, maybe we could meet up at this place at this time
and go from there....
                                  Titanic looked more graceful
sinking than the reply...
                                                 i had to really check myself,
this isn't London psyche chess, this is:
we are small people from a small town,
we think a charming stranger is a serial-killer...
                    the Yorkshire ripper case scenario,
not last... first.
                              i might have been ******* a lemon
by then and pretending to be drunk squirming
a Buddha look - i pretended the polite noting down
the details: suddenly i didn't think like attending
this ****** venture that would start at 5 p.m., end
at 12 a.m. and according to my travel diary:
having to wait 2 hours to catch the 2 a.m. home.
so i went to the first instalment of the "literature"
festival... lemn sissay and salena godden -
and i have to admit, it was a corker - a true
a champagne cork popped and hit the crystal
chandelier and i laughed... and that's how i lost my
virginity to "spoken word",
                                         i wasn't listening to poets,
but i was thoroughly entertained, i swear that
at the end of her performance Salena pointed into
the dark (great tactic, how can they be nervous
if they can't see anyone? they stand on a pulpit of pure
light and see black ahead, where the nerves?)
and said: esp. to my friend over there...
                i might have involuntarily back-laughed /
snorted like a pig trying to catch enough lung volume
for a ha ha...
                          got chatting to this lovely middle-aged
couple: told them: i'm being ***** with gags.
                prior, i was watching the queue build up
into the room, with a god-awful grin on my face...
i couldn't take it off...
                         perhaps because i was looking at
the demographic and thinking: where are my peers?!
i spotted about three people in a close age proximity -
the rest were farts and soon-to-be-farts...
                             now Sissay freaked me out...
in a good way... i met the two after the show,
i brought two copies of my own printed work to give to
them... i had to ask their publicist if i was allowed
to touch the Aegean marbles... luckily i did,
but then i asked the stupid question to Sissay:
so who were you trying to imitate when your eyes
were bulging out nearly gauged out like a Pink Floyd
song video of: teacher! let these children go!
               i should have associated something African
freakish in mask, a strengthening - the sort
of look that New Zealander rugby players put on
to frighten people off when dancing the haka -
he really did talk like that...
                                       the little devil voice didn't help
either... but i only asked that "stupid" question
while mumbling something about how hard it was
getting published and how anyone aged nearing 40
forgot the free press of the internet emerging and
how he asked for a q & a after the performance...
and... hand on my heart:
                                   got asked one question...
          and answered... only one question...
                                        a complete and utter ******* meltdown...
   not: oh yeah, so who's your major influence...
                      a Samuel Beckett moment from not i.
later i standing outside and smoking, a grand English
dame of the west approached me,
chitty chatty kiss the hand later i got to say the most
famous line known to the current Englishman:
unfortunately... from Essex.
             honest. anyone asks you in Essex the question
they always ask: so where you're originally from?
                         anywhere else in England
they just ask you: whe

My musings always pun me through a wide range of vividly exulted grimaces. I think like an ***, act like an ***, assassan-ing a conjugal of my mind and soul. 'Why', my only friendly foe stares at me, giving out a roar of laughter as if I'm his slave. He seeks pleasures by caging me in his castle where beauty meets an imperfection, heart rejoices with brain, and imagination treats a trick. When I peek through the orifice, the wreckage of my wrong decisions welcome me gleefully. My devilish side gets overwhelmed by such a warm welcome. It asks for more cutting out the pinions of my angelic side.

Ah! Clipped wings-------No wings!

Soon, devilish side overthrows my angelic side usurping a ******* over me. It collapses my self-esteem, laying entwined in the arms of my ego. Ahh! I combat, show the feats of courage but, a mistake became a lifetime regret. I put off my veil of courage for a second to pacify myself. Now, I'm all naked from head to toe. In the mean time, my opponent injure me by an arrow of self-pity. I, I AM destroyeDD. No shelter. No armor. No cloak. I'm NOMore. I try to find a lost-me but lose a remaining part of me. I try more, I lose a part again. The more I try, the more I lose. Now, I'm physically a non-existent but my soul still wanders. My soul still pursues the answers. My soul is in desolation. My soul tries to comfort himself but stops as someone whispers,


'Great things never come from comfort zones'
(An unconcerned-illusionary-truth fooled my soul, Badass soul!)

Now, my soul wants to re-surrect in a way that he get his body again. My soul imagines the days when his gestures were heard by the body terming as ****** gestures. My soul enlivens his morale, wears a smile but, still seems incomplete. Once, my soul finds a body but can't find a place in it. It is preoccupied by another soul. When my soul asks for a companionship, it denies. My soul is not even in a state where it can make sly innuendos. He still feels those oblique marks, disparaging comments, shadowing hîs path. Those feels still make him sweating out bullets. My soul finds a body whose soul is longing to depart. My soul rejoices thinking that this is something what he wants. Soon, my soul houses in a ****** paradigm of a lady. My soul gives a new life to the lady. Her spirits are high, and confidence is a multiple of her spirits. My soul elates, leaving an olive branch. My soul befriends her body. She is a merry-go-lucky lady but her melancholy changed her. Her bewitching beauty is a plus to her nature. My soul remembers my ugly face and but still send positive vibes my way. After sometime, my soul gets busy with the lady and forgets me. I try to send him signals but he doesn't respond. I try more, still nudges from his side. I forget my soul too. When I feel lonely in my grave, I wander here and there. I try to befriend the people resting in other graves, I fail. All graves are scented with the perfumes of love, which their beloved spray on them.They are brimmed with the gags of laughter, murmurs of joys, and clicks of wonders. My heart still throbs for my soul, and I. over and over again.

Placing my life on a bet
I lay on a motel bed
With heart pounding
And long loud emotional howling
That screams at the ****** inside me.
All throughout the act
I remain ‘inert’
While that pervert!
Gags and squirt.

Forcibly moaning
So as to earn a loaf of bread
for a family whose chieftain is dead.
This is the reason why I lay on bed.

Despite all this they make me culpable
Knowing very well with this I am feeding incapable.
If this is the law then answer me whether in true sense it is justifiable?

My only cry is my body has been taken for far too long
Does anybody want to take my heart along?

what is it, gaggles, giggles, hiccups, frivolities of nonsense, you can stream me all of them to perform the rightful description - point being, like any "ally" to an idea, i move up the chain of history, beyond pole, czech, russian... there's the pearl, the oyster to attach myself into the ethnicity counter-germanic, slav, with a missing e? well, słowianin (swovianin - sw'oh-via-nin, you alright on the consonant count, brat?!) słowo = word. i could be called mad, but then i write parallel to what i see, and what i write is what happens before my eyes, obviously mismatched to say the least, and never the perfected hindenburg perfection of "waiting for it"... but this isn't a back to the future prediction of lightning either.

e-ver -
            i-ver;
  talk about a need for a grapheme...
             it's just: ha ha ha ha... funny...
     i remember this one time,
my ex-g.f. younger sister...
  the one that became my muse:
cushioning lips -
  almost ***** -
     you know: fat, plump to invite
cordiality -
                         you know the problem
with poles migrating?
  they don't congregate,
hammersmith is an exception of
an area highly concentrated by poles,
otherwise?
    a pole meets a pole in england:
what a surprise!
    i saw you buying polish beer...
  żywiec?
          a **** good beer...
                     mazo mazo mazowsze (sz = sh
cz = ch, yzwz) -
                  one hand knows:
the H catches the vowels - but it also
serves as the pivot for laughter -
  aH hA hA hA!
           batman? probably the only
"superhero" worth investigating,
   given that all the baddies are batman's
alterego...
              two-faced joking billionaire
who's enigmatic with a pet penguin to boot...
a "superhero" who's only "super power"
is a **** load of money...
and some grease in the cranium...
          really, the russians are behind all of this?!
i find that the germanic tribes of lore
can never find themselves agreed-upon
singularism of an origin -
the french will remain french,
the germans german,
       lost the spaniards -
the english were always a tad bit paddy
mongrelling themselves with celt...
                in an anglophone realm of
language -
    it's much easier to identify yourself
as a slav, than a pole, a czech, a slovak,
       a russian,
                             a bulgar,
      a roma,  
                          a croat,
                     a slovene,
     funny... it's almost desirable, to be able
to identify yourself in the most accessible
           and broadest spectrum of tattoo...
   in the end there's only western europe
   that's described as western at the limit of
berlin...
       never helsinki...
                     and my god, so much land after
berlin -
            tilting toward *anadyr...
                        the process of subsetting in
the anglophone world -
          if only welsh and gaelic was more pronounced
in this realm,
perhaps then the english could identify themselves
along a more germanic heritage,
embrace it, and not treat their affairs
down the simpleton route of a football skirmish.
i actually can't find any "english" in all
honesty - on these isles it's easier to
name a gael and a pict, a wael too,
  but an anglican?
                what are they, really,
  anglo-swabians, anglo-saxons,
   anglo-pomeranians?
     these days you're already talking about
                            anglo-slavs & afro-saxons!    
i'd still prefer a blackbeard sharpshooter
  (3:1 mixer of *** & pepsi) -
                    or a flaky monotonous-****
cosmopolitan;
  just saying, who am i to judge,
       i once tried laughing gas -
                  and didn't even laugh -
        as always, the sometimes apparent banality
of cogito per se came up with all the necessary gags;
because it shouldn't be, the prompter of
all "necessary "gags"?
     to consider the brain as devoid of thought genesis,
since man tends to think about the entirety of
his body-geography -
     nuisance, or nuance?
                       thinking is the unnecessary
action that resolves no necessary "action" -
         it's a free-falling limb -
                whenever a prompt to kick,
to throw, to spin,
                            to mix - never is there
an equivalent prompt to think...
             that said: to truly meditate is to harness
a slingshot's worth of straining -
to refrain from thought -
                     to allow the building up of strain -
prior to a release such as this...
                  and from what i found is that:
thinking revolves around a quasi-claustrophobia...
its boa constrictive presence suffocates -
   until it reveals what is its most naturally
ontological about it: pathos & irrationality;
obviously if scrutinised beyond this -
   a homing device for specified interests -
               thought in autism -
                                thought in specialisation;
but by a majority rule-of-thumb:
          a pathology and the most
                 irritable irritability - irrationality:
the random selection of non-coherent set of
"intertwined" set of facts.

Here I stand upon this stop,
It's my ritual every day,
With all the other zombies,
Tired and looking grey,

The thought of public transport,
Irritates my brain,
As the bus arrives at my stop,
Packed like a commuter train,

The usual faces look away, 
Thinking please don't sit with me,
I park my **** upon their bags,
I pretend I didn't see,

The huffing and the puffing,
People late for work,
The woman sitting next to me,
Thinking...he's an effing ****,

Trying not to look at her,
Or the hairy man in front,
I look at the condensation,
As her elbow gives a shunt,

Getting up from my seat,
Needs balance and an awkward grin,
The bus brakes late upon this stop,
As she heels me in the shin,

My eyes welling up,
As I let out a massive ****,
The poor old lady gags,
Pulling up her winters scarf,

Embarrassed by my actions,
I pressed the button quick,
The odour travelled up my nose,
I think that i'll be sick

Fighting past the commuters,
Trying to get some air,
I knew it was too late....
Throwing up on some ladies hair,

So now I drive to work,
Past the Bus Stop that she waits,
We are married with two children,
Some people call it fate,

loitering in German is repulsive
always inebriated, even –
understand?

repetition and throat plug
pronouns (she gags on “du”
bleats “mein”)
exotic?  nah.  adored?

well

they tell me “das Gift” peals a
heavy cognate; it also
answers to “poison”

but Gifts in King’s
is “toxic” not
sorry
are – not – toxic

so flash me that
yellowbird
lather, anchor in strand

these quicksilver
nothings, murmured
honeydew venom


overheard myself last night
calling du but your scent
killed by mein pulse
almost fooled me, nearly

sounded like
the antidote
and other delicious gifts
you’ve given me

mediocrity isn’t
something to be strived for
and being a nonentity isn’t
a relief of pressure

it’s heavier than any weight
that could be strapped to your back,
larger than any expectations
you delude yourself into thinking you must meet
emptiness fills
more than you would think

your feeble body on the ground
stirs no pity in me
i hope the steel-toed boots
striking you from every direction
leave bruises that last
i hope the stench of your rotting flesh
gags you and brings up the lack
of what you hold inside
i hope old scabs are ripped open again
and your hands lay weak by your side
unable to stop the flow of blood

let me hear you say that you are nothing,
           that you have nothing valuable to offer
let me hear you say that you are a waste of space,
            an unwanted burden
let me hear you cry and plead for an end,
            although you don’t deserve that escape

i want to hear you say that you’re a murderer

i want you to go back:
             look into his eyes
             watch them dilate with fear
             and then see the light leave them

             feel his blood on your hands
             leaving a permanent mark
             that doesn’t wash off under water

             feel his body turn cold
             as the life inside him stops
             with his heartbeat

your sniveling apologies do nothing
but turn my stomach over
don’t touch me,
i don’t care if the blood is gone

being a nonentity isn’t
a relief of pressure
i hope you never get away
from that weight