Crinoline filaments
Rolling over and over
Mid-flight the ochre velvet ribbons sailed to the left
Instead of to the right
Two feet retreating
But with one shoe on

Memory returns
For a few seconds of
the calamity
At that private house in Paris
She’d tumbled down the central staircase
Sailing with legs overhead
until she stopped miraculously with her ***
at the shining leather toes of the footman.
He kept his head up.
She wore a beautiful dress.
Her hair was quite precise and she hoped that that would be a sufficient enough apology towards an empty silence.

But this isn’t that.
I shoved her.
And she went willingly. They all do.
We’re roughly a group of fifty-three.

Gathering in the last few years
Whispering over drinks
of tumors
And vascular difficulties
Of pills and appointments and forgetfulness
They never mentioned that
In those climate controlled rooms with
Blackboards covered in Latin and Trigonometry
Of the body’s failure.
Now there’s no longer any mention made of the kids
or whether or not that husband was worth the bother

Did we notice atop
The balance beam not a peep was mentioned
About the moment when you can no longer walk or stand?
That the brain asks please but the body will not comply?
How cool the marbled floor feels against your cheek while you lay for hours in your own feces?
One can rest comfortably knowing at long last that that wallpaper was the right choice.
Kept one really engaged while waiting and waiting for someone.
And that is just the beginning, right?

Perhaps some assumed that the end would come with a daily circle reviewing the contents of their chamber ***
Grimacing and worn
While they recline in white nightclothes
Something akin to what they saw on the BBC

Perhaps a startled disquiet at the rebuke of their intent and gamely stares from a premiere specialist in Switzerland
an expert in alternative therapies
for what someone dared call
terminal
Anyway, this is quicker.

So we’ve come together
As sisters
And when the time is right I get the call
We go onto the roof
There’s an elevator now because
Otherwise that wouldn’t work
And one by one
In small batches
They are dispatched
It doesn’t take as long as you would think
We are confident and have agency
We were taught that we could do anything
And they are right.

The ones with a lot of metal can be a bit tricky
They have balance issues
But are always chic and always polite
There was a time when we were forced to be together when we clearly did not want to.
We never thought as one.
Some families are better than others.
But everything is different now

One day it will be my turn and
I wonder who will deliver me?
And what shall I wear?
Will I try to see where I’m going or will I rest comfortably in my finale.

I adore the way the wind catches the cloth.
How the crystalline beads are removed around the neck and handed over
so as not to add to any distraction
Or delay
The pinky coral mouthed “Thank you” and
And the sweet eyes that once were bright and shining say their
Goodbyes
Rippling
twirling
looping
interweaving
cascading
Down.

Shortly after 3pm on September 29, 31-year-old Olivier Rousteing strode through the shimmering, fleshy backstage area at Balmain's Spring 2017 Paris Fashion Week show. Along the marble hallway of a hôtel particulier in the 8th arrondissement, long-limbed clusters of supermodels were gamely tolerating final applications of leg-moisturiser, make-up touch-ups and minutely precise hair interventions from squads of specialists as fast and accurate as any Formula 1 pit-stop team. The crowd parted as Rousteing swept through.

Wearing a belted, black silk tuxedo and a focused expression that accentuated his razor-sharp cheekbones, Rousteing resembled a sensuous hit man. Target identified, he led us to the board upon which photographs of every outfit were tacked.

We asked him to tell us about the collection (for that's what fashion editors always ask). "There is no theme," said Rou­steing in his fast, French-accented lilt. "No inspiration from travel or time. The inspiration is what I feel, and what I feel now is peace, light and serenity. I feel like in my six years here before this, I have tried to fight so many battles. Because there is no point anymore in fighting about boundaries and limits in fashion. Balmain has its place in fashion."

And the clothes? "There is a lot of fluidity. A lot of knitwear, lightness, ponchos. No body-con dresses. But whatever I do, even if I cover up my girls, it is like people can say I am ******. So this is what it is. I think there is nothing ******. I think it is really chic. I think it is really French. It is how I see Paris. And I have had too many haters during the last three years to defend myself again. So, this is Balmain." And then the show began.

Star endorsements

Under Rousteing, Balmain has become the most controversial fashion house in Paris. Rousteing has attracted (but not bought, as other, far bigger houses do) patronage from contemporary culture's most significant influencers. Rihanna, all the Kardashians, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber – a royal flush of modern celebrity aristocracy – all champion him.

Immediately after this show, in that backstage hubbub, Kim Kardashian told me: "I thought it was very powerful…I loved the sequins, and I loved all the big chain mail belts – that was probably my favourite."

Yet for every famous fan there is a member of the fashion establishment who will sniff over coffee in Le Castiglione that Rousteing's crowd is declassé and his aesthetic best described by that V-word. The New York Times' fashion critic Vanessa Friedman reckoned this collection appropriate for "dressing for the captain's dinners on a cruise ship to Fantasy Island". At least she did not use the V-word. When I once deployed it – as a compliment – in a 2015 Vogue menswear review that declared "Rousteing is confidently negotiating a fine line between extravagance and vulgarity", I was told that Rous­teing was aggrieved.

The fashion world's ambivalence towards Rousteing is a measure of its conflicted feelings towards much in contemporary culture. Last year Robin Givhan of the Washington Post wrote of Balmain: "The French fashion house is always ostentatious and sometimes ******. It feeds a voracious appetite for attention. It is anti-intellectual. Antagonistic. Emotional. It is shocking. It is perfect for this era of social media, which means it is powerfully, undeniably relevant."

Since joining Instagram four years ago Rousteing has posted 4000 images and won 4 million followers. The combined reach of his audience members and models at this Balmain show was greater than the population of Britain and France combined. Balmain was the first French fashion house to gain more than 1 million followers, and currently has 5.5 million of them.

Loving his haters

As digital technology disrupts fashion, Balmain's seemingly effortless mastery of the medium galls some. Last year, the designer posted an image of a comment from a ****** follower to his feed. It read: "Olivier Rousteing spends more times taking selfies for Instagram than designing clothes for Balmain." Underneath, in block capitals, he commented "i love my haters".

Rousteing can be funny and flip – doing a video interview after the show, I opened by asking, tritely, how he felt. He replied: "Now I feel like some Chicken McNuggets with barbecue sauce, and then some M&M;'s ice cream."

When at work, however, that flipness flips to entirely unflip. The previous evening, at a final fitting for the collection, Rousteing had paced his studio, his face a scowl of concentration, applying final edits to the outfits to be worn by models Doutzen Kroes and Alessandra Ambrosio. The 30-strong team of couturiers working in the adjoining atelier delivered a steady stream of altered dresses.

"We are ready," he said from behind a glass desk in a rare moment of downtime. "This a big show – 80 looks – and I want a collection that is full of both the commercial and couture. But it's smooth too. All of the girls are excited about the after-party and interested in the music. And eating pizza." In the corridor outside Gigi Hadid – this season's apex supermodel – was indeed eating pizza, with gusto.

The fitting went on until far beyond midnight; Rousteing, fiercely focused, demonstrated the work ethic for which he is famous. When he was studio manager for Christophe Decarnin, his predecessor at Balmain, the young then-unknown was always the first in and last out of the studio. Emmanuel Diemoz, who joined Balmain as finance controller in 2001 and became chief executive in 2011, says that his hard graft was one of the reasons he was chosen to succeed Decarnin.

"For sure it was quite a gamble," says Diemoz. "But we could see the talent of Olivier. Plus he understood the work of Christophe – who had helped the brand recover – so he represented continuity. He was a hard worker, clearly a leader, with a lot of creativity. Plus the size of the turnover at that time was not so huge. So we were able to take the risk."

Clear leader

Which is why, aged 24, Rousteing became the creative director of one of Paris's best known – but indubitably faded – fashion houses. In 2004 it had been close to bankruptcy. In 2012, Rousteing's first full year in charge, Balmain's sales were €30.4 million and its profit €3.1 million. In 2015, sales were €121.5 million and its profit €33 million. Vulgarity is subjective; numbers are not.

Rousteing, who is of mixed race, was adopted at five months by white parents and enjoyed an affluent and loving upbringing in Bordeaux. "My mum is an optician and my dad was running the port. They are both really scientific – not artistic. So I had that kind of life. Bordeaux is really bourgeois and really conservative, I have to say."

After an ill-starred three-month stint at law school – "I was doing international law. And I was like, 'oh my God, that is so boring'" – he did a fashion course that he managed to tolerate for five months.

"I found that really boring as well. I just don't like actually people who are trying to **** your dream. And I felt that is what my teachers were trying to do."

Obsessed with Gucci

Following a three-month internship in Rome – "also boring" – Rousteing became fascinated with Tom Ford's work at Gucci. "I was obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. Sometimes the press did not get it but I thought 'this is like genius, the new **** chic'. Obsessed, full stop."

He wanted to work there – "that was my dream" – but applied to every fashion house he could, and found an opportunity to intern at Roberto Cavalli. "They took me in from the beginning. I met Peter Dundas [then womenswear designer at the brand] and he said you are going to be my right hand – and start in four days."

Rousteing counts his five years in Italy as formative both creatively and commercially, but when the opportunity came to return to France in 2009 he leapt at it. "Christophe said he liked my work and that he needed someone to manage the studio. So two weeks later I was here. I loved Balmain at the time, when Christophe was in charge. It was all about rock 'n' roll chic, ****, Parisian. And he was appealing to a younger generation. You can see when brands become old but Balmain was touching this new audience. I always say Christophe's Balmain was Kate Moss but mine is Rihanna."

When Decarnin left and Rousteing replaced him, the response was a resounding "who?". His youth prompted some to anticipate failure.

"It was not easy at all. Every season I had the same questions." Furthermore, Rousteing (who has said he thinks of himself as neither black nor white) was the only non-white chief designer at a Parisian couture house. In a nation in which very few people of colour hold senior positions, his race may have contributed both to the establishment's suspicion of him and to his powerful sense of being an outsider.

'Beautiful spirit'

As he began to build a personal vernacular of close-fitted, heavily jewelled, gleefully grandiose menswear – fantastical uniform for a Rousteing-imagined gilded age – for both women and men, that V-word loomed.

"They asked, 'But is it luxury? Is it chic? Is it modern?' All those kinds of words. But you know there is no one definition [of fashion] even if people in Paris think there is. And, I'm sorry, but I think the crowd in fashion are those who understand the least what is avant-garde today."

In 2013 Rihanna visited the studio, met Rousteing, and reported all with multiple Instagram posts. "You are the most beautiful spirit, so down to earth and kind! @olivier_rousteing I think I'm in love!!! #Balmain." :')"

Rousteing met Kim Kardashian at a party in New York – they were drawn together, he recalls, because they were both shy – and was promptly invited to lunch with her family in Los Angeles.

An outsider in the firmament of old-guard Paris fashion, Rousteing was earning insider status within a new, and much more influential, supranational elite. He points out that Valentino, Saint Laurent and Pierre Balmain himself "were close to the jet set of their time. What I have on my front row is the people who inspire my generation".

From them, he learned a new way of doing business. "I think it was Rihanna and the music industry that first understood how Instagram can be part of the business world as well as the personal. But in fashion? When we started it was 'why do you post selfies? Why do we need to know your life, see you waking up, see you working? Why don't you keep it private'. And I was like 'you will see'."

Rousteing cheerfully declares his love for Facetune – "I don't have Botox but I do have digital Botox!" – an app that helps him airbrush his selfies and tweak those ski-***** cheekbones.

Reaching new population

From his office around the corner from Rousteing's, Diemoz adds: "When Olivier first proposed Balmain use social media, our investment in traditional media was costing a lot. Here was an alternative costing less but bringing huge visibility. It has been successful, quite rapidly…we decided to be less Parisian in a way but to speak to a new population. A brand has to be built around its heritage but we are proposing a new form of communication dedicated to a wider group of customers."

The impact of that strategy became apparent in 2015, when Rousteing and Balmain were invited to design a collection for the Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M.; Within minutes of going on sale – and this is not hyperbole – the collection, available at vastly cheaper prices than Balmain-proper, had completely sold out. In London, customers fought on the pavement outside H&M;'s Regent Street branch. "Balmainia!" blared the headlines.

You have to move fast to get backstage after a Balmain show. I was out of my seat and trotting with purpose even before the string-heavy orchestra at the end of the catwalk had quite stopped playing Adele.

Rousteing had taken his bow merely seconds before. Still, too slow: I ended up in a clot of Rousteing well-wishers stuck in a corridor blocked by security guards. A Middle Eastern woman against whom I was indelicately jammed looked at me, laughed, shook her head, then said: "We pay millions for a fashion house – and then this happens!"

In June, Balmain was bought for a reported €485 million by Mayhoola, a Qatar-based wealth fund said to be controlled by the nation's ruling family. As so often with Rousteing-related revelations, some declared themselves nonplussed. "Why Would Mayhoola Pay Such a High Price for Balmain?", one headline asked. Yet Mayhoola, which acquired Valentino four years previously for $US858 million, might have scored a bargain.

Clothes key to revenue

Despite its huge, Instagram-enhanc­ed footprint, Balmain is a small, lean and relatively undeveloped business. Most luxury fashion houses today – Chanel, Burberry, Dior, et al – will emphasise their catwalk collections for marketing purposes but make most of their money from the sale of accessories, fragrances and small leather goods like handbags and shoes. One of the big fashion companies makes a mere 5 per cent from its catwalk clothes.

At Balmain, by contrast, clothes bring in almost all the revenues. If Balmain had the same clothes-to-accessories ratio as its competitors, its overall annual income could be more than €1 billion ($1.4 billion).

The company is moving in that direction. New accessory lines are in the pipeline. "Now we have to transform that desire into business activity," said Diemoz. "Sunglasses, belts, fragrances, the kind of products that can be more affordable."

The first bags should be available in January, as will a wider range of shoes, and then more, more, more.

Six days after his show, on the last day of Paris Fashion Week, I returned to the Balmain atelier. Apart from two assistants, Rousteing was the only person there – everybody else had gone on holiday to recover from the frenzy of preparing the show, or was busy selling the collection at the showroom around the corner.

Rousteing sat behind his desk in the empty room, wearing slingback leopard-print slippers, sweatpants and shades. "I am not even tired! I am excited. Because there are so many things happening – and I can't wait."Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
"Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."
The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all;
To them the barber passed the wink his dexter eyelid shut,
"I'll make this bloomin' yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut."
And as he soaped and rubbed it in he made a rude remark:
"I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark."

A grunt was all reply he got; he shaved the bushman's chin,
Then made the water boiling hot and dipped the razor in.
He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused awhile to gloat,
Then slashed the red-hot razor-back across his victim's throat;
Upon the newly-shaven skin it made a livid mark
No doubt, it fairly took him in — the man from Ironbark.

He fetched a wild up-country yell might wake the dead to hear,
And though his throat, he knew full well, was cut from ear to ear,
He struggled gamely to his feet, and faced the murd'rous foe:
"You've done for me! you dog, I'm beat! One hit before I go!
I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark!
But you'll remember all your life the man from Ironbark."

He lifted up his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with nail and tooth, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And "******! ****** ******!" yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said "'Twas all in fun'
T’was just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone."
"A joke!" he cried, "By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark."

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape,
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough."
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

Hi! I’m a hamster on a Wheel!
Gamely running on my bony little legs
[I’m getting somewhere! I’m getting somewhere!]
Every once in a while, I look left or right
See my **** and my compressed pellet food sitting in the same positions
as an hour, a day, weeks ago – and I realize:

IT APPEARS THAT I’M ACTUALLY GOING NOWHERE!!!!!!!

Which surprises me each time it crosses my little hamster brain, until I’m distracted
By my pellet food, the call of the Wheel, and other sundry carnal desires

Roiling superficially in my hamster-angst
While working the Wheel, surrounded by the detritus of my saccharine prefabricated life

I fail to notice

Outside my cage
Hands, lifting, carrying
Thousands of miles traversed
Steaming deserts
Steaming jungles
Steaming cities
Brutality, kindness, sensuality, love, hatred, atrocities, age, youth, heat and cold
All flashing by my glass shell as hands carry me towards a final resting place

Until

A jarring, toppling blast shakes my world
Tearing me from my Important Work on the Wheel
I look up, pellet crumbs falling from my mouth
Just in time to see my cage tumble from hands

Over a rail
Down
Down
Flash of blue
Flash of brilliant light
Flash of blue
Down
Smacking into a vast expanse of water
Unimaginably immense
Outside of my realm of comprehension – I mean, I’d never seen it in my hamster cage before, so why should I even expect it to exist?
What is it’s purpose?
It makes no sense!
It has no place in the world!

And as I slowly drown in the secret withheld from every hamster since the beginning of time
I take one last longing look at the Wheel, the cage, the pellets
And curse them
Curse the Deception that told me they were all that mattered

They come by dawn’s early light


Just past Five am, they do an extended aerial search,
though well familiar with the shoreline and our oppo
campsites, they fly over in formation noisily debating,
which hunting grounds seem most secure, least guarded.

the scouts, numbering six, descend to the far edge of an
adjoining neighbor’s property, as always, remaining close
to the water’s edge, while the main body of these ghastly,
geesely beasts, numbering today a massive force of 42, land and storm our beach, after traversing up the earthen berms that buffer the bulkhead, and that also provides them a out-of-sight, surreptitious, secretive approach to the fresh green grass, that has emerged from two days of much needed sky watering.

Our preparations are at the ready, the old faux velvet slippers by the door, next to it our weapon of choice, a white parasol, most suitable for a tour group of tourists to follow, but this day, it is an extension of a waving arm and low growling.  Once the bevy of heads are espied bobbing spotted coming over the rise that downward slopes to the beach, the battle commences!

The two forces well known to each other, we advance slowly,
with a deliberate mien on our faces and in our step, and the enmity, I mean enemy, sees us coming and the alert is squawked, and all heads raised. they the geese, are in full dress fight or flee modality.  

We get within but a few paces when they squeak retreat, and in good order march to the beach, hoping to observe us in an early retreat and plan a sneaky return.  But we  proceed closer and they beat their wings and head to safety, and seeing us close observing their action, wisely to the water go.

But we know them well. Uncannily uncanny, they pretend to hide evasively, with semi-wounded pride nursed, while under the cover afforded by the dock. Yet, seeing our presence in attentive attention,  go forth finally to a safe distance to the wide, broad Peconic Bay.  

But this day is not yet over, for these foul fowl, counting upon human laziness and the appeal of a quick victory, paddle over to our other neighbor’s unguarded land mass and start to clamber up onto dry land 100 yards further east.

We gamely observe and realize furthest action now required,
descend to the beach, each side warily observing, regrouping.
Our approach is well kenned, and the enemy decides this day their cause is lost, and to the water retreat once more, heading around the bend, onwards to Shell Beach and West Neck Harbor.

As we return to our encampment, the bunny rabbits who,live beneath the deck emerge to give us glorious applause, for love no lost tween these two mismatched species of the same Kingdom, who share the appetite for the grasses greenest nutrients, though the geese leave their dreaded cluster bombs most unpleasant, and fully ravage the grass as if it was theirs alone.

The rabbits bring us coffee in porcelain mugs, steaming hot, for they have witnessed before this dance, most progressive, this charade of derring do, and love the quietude of the early morning, happy to share it with the itinerant beach walkers of the early hours and our
Dawn Patrol.

We drink in  our victory in deep and hot, and note per doctors orders, that our heart rate never exceeded 125 beats per minute, as ordered.

Sunday Jul 25
Silver Beach Armed Forces (SBAF!)
Peconic Beach Division

Officer Natalino (his official code name]

He sang a tenor’s part-

No more a tenor really

Though aging cords may gamely try

It was disaster- nearly.



He lost the lyric line.

Poor fellow –must be blasted

Too much North Fork wine

Or maybe he’s just past it.



A singer lost for words

is clearly up against it.

A staircase that’s collapsing

can only be descended.



Some forty years or more have past

Since he sang at their Wedding

A rose cheeked boy with strong clear tones

He was, then, worth the hearing.



With time his talent vanishes

He cannot compensate

For lyrics he’s forgotten

And notes he cannot make.



His hopes to leave on a better note

Then disappeared completely,

Only a swan- at its last-

can be sure to sing more sweetly.

There were tales told of mighty storms that oft battered this coast.
The howling gale that struck this night was more powerful than most,
The lifeboat crews had been stood down, Who would venture out in this?
They gratefully all headed home for a night of fireside bliss

A girl stood on a towering cliff her heart was filled with dread
Somewhere in that maelstrom was the one that she would wed
The sun had shone when he’d left home before a steady breeze
A day so full of promise, but nature gives no guarantees

This normally astute sailor did not see the sky turn grey
His mind was on the woman, tomorrow their wedding day.
He was dragged back to the present by the sudden icy rain
The boat steadied, then surged forward, a ****** at the helm again

He quickly trimmed and set his sails to run before the gale
The speeding boat fighting gamely under the minimum of sail
Ten miles out man and boat still face the wrathful sea
With storm jib filled, and main full reefed he raced towards his bride to be

The man can see the lights of home, he’s just five miles from shore
With a fearsome ‘Crack’ the hull was split. Man and boat could do no more
Standing on the lonely cliff the girl sees his boat go under
She screams her pain into the night as her heart is ripped asunder

She takes a slow step forward towards the cliff edge high and sheer
Facing a life without her lover the drop can cause no fear
Her other foot moves forward, She is on the final ledge
Another tearful shuffle forward has her on the very edge

One more step. Into the void and she plummets like a stone
The sea has claimed her loved one but he shall not lie alone
As a wave approaches the stony cliff it draws a watery breath
Before crashing, straining, weeping falling above the lovers joined in death

I may have been the slowest child
to ever run in track and field
I was a foodie even then
with not the fastest set of wheels.

I still have the medal that I won
for finishing in second place.
awarded to our relay team
In a two team relay race

I was the anchor(aptly named)
they could have called me 'ball and chain'
The other three were none to spry
We were well matched those three and I.

By the time the baton reached my hand
My competitor neared the promised land
I set out full steam(for me)
as he crossed the line to victory.

I gamely tried to speed in haste
for what I knew was second place
and I was genuinely surprised
when they gave medals to us guys.

I never after won a race
nor finished either show or place.
I prize the medal that I got.
If I was a horse, they'd have me shot.

What is the substratum of each day
but mere

filler,
the in-between?

The contours roughly
pencilled in, we simply

flesh them out,
gamely connect-the-dots,

paint by numbers.
This, that we wake to

each day, that we reconstruct,
dumbly enacting

each scene, each encounter,
actors

simply wanting
to please, to cover the cost

of each curtain, the ushers
to soundlessly herd you out.

Every last one of us
apprentices, frenzied

cattle -
the grand performance,

back by popular demand!
Fodder for our

flighty
attention

        spans, meagre

senses of self.

Nextstoppleaseholdhow
areyouicanhelpyouhere
ithinkineedfin­deverything
youneededtodaygoodthanks

pillowed against the brute
fear

of boredom,
of silence.

Tis quiet now.
This day is done
A busy day
Chalk full of fun

Walks with the pups
in grass so tall
They leaped to see
or move at all

Flea markets toured
once junk ,now not
Now treasures prized
and gamely sought

We shopped a while
had stuff to get
all shops were full
On Sunday yet

Back to the camp
on busy roads
of folks and campers
Heading home

But no so us
Our time to play
two weeks is ours
on holidays

A charcoal fire
With cast iron grill
Dogs, fries and steaks
All bellies filled

While sipping  tea
a book is read
the tired pups
sent to their beds

My lady too
Is fast asleep
so to the internet
I creep

While of the day
my mind does roam
I take a sec
to write this poem

No work of art
on silver tray
just simple verse
of one fine day

i found this little poem
sitting unattended,
alone,
on a bench at
the bus station.

when i said hello...
the relief and elation,
on this little poem's face,
made me feel protective
of this, orphan creation.

so i took this little poem
home...
no longer lost,
it thrived
from three lines to five
and before
we wished it
happy cinquain
it had doubled in size,
again.

full, rounded verse,
in cursive copperplate.
as it entered puberty
its moods swung,
between...
love, anger, hate
and then struggled gamely through
depression angst and fear..
all jots and tittles,
with future, unclear.

but eventually it matured
as we all do....
into a thoughtful expression
of beauty and love,
a strong and independant
statement of grace.

and then it was time,
to say goodbye....
the little found poem,
needed to leave
and find it's place,
in the wider world.
needed to find
and impress a girl.

it said it needed,
to make a splash...
grab some cash...
it promised not
to become, just a jingle...

and to write when
he could....

but til then.... anon...

She chose to die to be with him
A love so dear but ended in grim
For she thought he was the only one
Who had the passion like a thousand sun

If only her parents weren’t busy
Fighting with the others so gamely
Then maybe they could have told her
There was a love greater than the other

She had eyes as beautiful as the sea
But what is the use when she could not see?
That beyond the spring of forbidden love
Someone had loved her from above

But now it is too late
For us to tell dear Juliet
And hope to stop and make her see
That before Romeo there was He

The seasons change, and so do people

The beginning never lasts and the middle just gets dug up

The end is always

I lay my chest to rest, down

As the gamely few follow the footsteps of window reflections  

The wind chases the leaves; the fire spreads beyond the glass

The bread to feed your bones has burned what you are

I may have been the slowest child
to ever run in track and field
I was a foodie even then
with not the fastest set of wheels.

I still have the medal that I won
for finishing in second place.
awarded to our relay team
In a two team relay race

I was the anchor(aptly named)
they could have called me 'ball and chain'
The other three were none to spry
We were well matched those three and I.

By the time the baton reached my hand
My competitor neared the promised land
I set out full steam(for me)
as he crossed the line to victory.

I gamely tried to speed in haste
for what I knew was second place
and I was genuinely surprised
when they gave medals to us guys.

I never after won a race
nor finished either show or place.
I prize the medal that I got.
If I was a horse, they'd have me shot.

Oh look, here’s another artist.
Nostalgic since birth and obsessed with their own mortality,
counting what is worth noticing before we are all exiled, cut
off from our own bodies.
Yes, we all know what’s coming, sh.
It’s all been heard before, all been seen.
So don’t raise your voice with worn out warnings,
dry as wind whispering through desert caves,
you are echoing the trumpets
that have sounded since the beginning of time.

Now here comes a lover coated in gleaming delusion,
confident in the supreme uniqueness of her experience,
asserting that no,
you cannot possibly know what it is like.
This is different.
        And when it falls apart, the uproar!
        The injustice of it! The tragedy!
        and the loneliness,
        as if no one else had ever felt rejection,
        as if no one else had ever discovered
        that love is painful and reductive.
        Disillusioned and duped she wonders why
        there were no warnings. Imagine!
        Living in this world and not hearing warnings,
        or hearing them and having the arrogance to say no,
        it does not apply to me,
        you cannot possibly know.

And now the green poet floats by,
driven on by spring breezes and the color of wildflowers.
Wide-eyed but never quite struck dumb,
he gawks and wonders and wishes,
plucking detail from gulls’ wings and leaves’ veins,
gamely trying to translate and bankrupting the dictionary every time,
saying “this is beautiful” over and over,
not unlike a tourist.
And like a tourist disappearing
before he sees the bleak and desperate side,
the side that rears it’s head with hungry eyes
and regards you as a stranger.

But still, to create something that absorbs all that people say about it.
To become something like that, finally.
Maybe … it is still worth something?

But no,
time to time, there has been time. Time
for the sun to rise and set,
and for the stars to be born and then burn out. Time
to hear the rise and fall of a thousand stories,
and a thousand more. Time
to be filled with curiosity and questions. Time
to stop asking questions. Time
to see the same patterns again and again. Time
for new patterns, but with the same trite components. Time
to say all that is worth saying, and more.
Much more.
The same voices, the same faces,
the same conversations, again.
The contrast getting grayer, going soft.
And once again all these young people
using their superlatives, investing everything right away,
saying “this is important.”
Children who believe the best and worst things
that have ever happened
are happening now.

Is it problematic to say I find my own heartbeat cliché?
Even the rise and fall of my chest as I breathe
exasperates me. It’s been done before,
it’s all been done before.
This is why I will never point at anything and say
“this is something.”
Nor will I say who I am or who you are.
I leave you to your own ugly assumptions.

The children place the cheese;
The father gamely nods,
For he knows there's no chance
To catch the little sods.

Stream of photons bathe
top heavy fountainhead of sunflower.

Analogous to Atlas
shrugging, hoisting, grappling...
with planet Earth, the heavyweight
discobolus buoyantly held aloft
upon robust stem
tracks the heavenly orientation
of said hypothetical nearest star.

This immense distance,
nonetheless still affects majestic seeded head
tracing weighty radial
circular motion in miniature, along the ground.

Imperturbable rotation evokes
invisibly linkedin plumbline
stretching approximately 92.96 million miles.

This number represents
average distance calculated
between solar body and oblate spheroid.

Greatest (more accurately farthest) interspace
separates sun and namesake
(scientifically identified inflorescence,
particularly called capitulum)
during late summer/ early autumn.

Said aphelion approximately
coincides with full blooming bouquet,
which quiet rioting,
snapchatting, twittering birds,
(who reddit in Daily Sun)
immediately golong orderly
pecking, kickstarting, buzzfeeding...
capital one fancy feast.

Nothing but mush shelled husk remains.

These gouged out hollowed insides
represent most successful plant
regarding said species.

Oft times newly planted seeds,
and/or transplanted shooted seedlings
(I bore witness),
and watched in horror
as tendered, nurtured, kindled...
vulnerable inchoate fragile tendrils
indiscriminately, gamely easily
plucked from ground zero.

***** nilly free for all allows, enables,
and provides ample opportunity
to observe fair and equitable distribution gifted
courtesy cornucopia fulfilling the maws
of hungry diverse terrestrial mouths to feed.

Invariably predators harbor taste
for unsuspecting oblivious
indulgent gourmandizing aves,
and quick make short shrift
despatching captive bird done deal.

Such happens tubby caw of the wild,
cuz copacetic, holistic, organic,... paradigm
embraced by yours truly steeped
within ethos, whereby the mighty heft
wielded by **** sapiens must not signal
green light for deadly pesticides
to exterminate delicate of world wide web.

Despite being one crazy and fungi,
I feel him mold dinned
to relish resultant morning glory
awash with beaming, strapping, waxing...
yellow petaled ray flowers offering me
an Uber spiritual lyft shining
upon countenance of
returning native son!

Roman thunderstorm crashes
around our ears.
The Forum gurgles gamely
under water.
Rain pelts, ricochets off
slippery stones, shrouded ruins.
History drowns before our eyes.
No road back stands passable.
So let us swim through the ages.

He fell asleep for the
final time surrounded by
three generations of
loved ones and friends.
He had planned, before
the accident, to run some
errands and get to the
bank the next morning.
He'd written it down in
his ratty old day planner.
For years his oldest grandson
would struggle to decide
if the great old man had
gotten the semi-mythical
Happy Ending
or if his unfinished banking
chore proved there was
no such thing.

Bury me in concrete
so I can't claw my way out.
When it's over I wanna
be finished and done
but I'll probably always
need help sitting still.

I could while away infinity
in the stone cask in
which I will be interred,
what a word, what a day.
I suppose I'll wait to hear
someone undoing my works
so I might begin, gamely,
to spin in place.

Should I be awake when
it's over, when it all ends
I don't know if I'll want people,
family and friends,
to surround me or not.
I don't know if that's
The Happy Ending
and I have given it much
great thought.

I do my banking online, now.

They hurried after me
pattering like angels’ wings
but it was of no use
asking for so much
the stars were pinned onto a blue felt sky
and the white hot moon let fall a small strip
upon which my fortune had been written gamely

I shouted again at the too-tired birds
open this garden’s gate
and let me see within!

(in an attempt to cover up
(overlay) fruit fly waste byproduct)

At four feet eleven (fifty nine inches),
the spouse longitudinally challenged
hence she browbeats her husband,
(who only stands five feet ten inches)
but boosted in height
courtesy lightweight bench.

He gingerly maneuvers selected picture,
(i.e. wife artfully cut from magazine),
where ceiling meets wall
(right inside apartment door)
as beloved (oompa loompa) sweetheart
otherwise known as me said counterpart
carefully scrutinizes positioned snapshot.

"...More toward the right
and smidgen lower down"
impossible mission quite
challenging, I feel her smile or frown,
yours truly consigned to present plight
since he pledged his troth - downtown
Norristown, Pa (xxv plus years ago) knight

in shining armor agreed
to secure marriage license deed
since unicellular seminal seed
planted - while sowing oats we'd

both threw caution to the wind
(and nine months later
after surrendering to call of the wild
proud parents of beautiful child),
she long since flew the coup exiled
her father (me) and mother
to empty nest syndrome initially riled
with painstaking sadness.

In retrospect methinks how role as dad,
I blundered with countless faux pas - my bad
to mismanage challenges - and exclaim Egad,
albeit silently reflecting back many years
of course now glad -
both daughters overcame being mad

toward him who helped beget
while gamely gamboling, scampering, romping...
with barenaked lady
of course willing poet
(thrusting shaky spear) at large also unclad
(mine eventual permanent counterpart)
bedded upon mattress pad.

Even while solitary bachelorhood (aye
attest said status earthlinked me by and by
completing approximately three+ decades -
whoa how time did/doth fly)
one garden variety generic guy
(who e're since being little boy

felt extremely shy),
a characteristic, he now doth decry
cuz being socially withdrawn,
(yea... think figurative fly
on the wall, or wallflower
mein kampf devoid of healthy development
thus fashionably late socialization went awry

particularly when learning
contra dancing, although
juvenile behavior exhibited plying gal inapropos
became brazen and quickly learned not act slow,
when asking pretty thing, this bozo
genuflected and gesticulated...

ofttimes quickly made to eat crow
communicated with immediate revulsion,
(no matter I imagined myself
modest nonpareil beau)
actually eventually met young lady,
who took me as husband material "hugo
*** yarself a mate" -
track played within mind (mine)
lest celibate state worse than death - ya know?

Pursuit for elusive prey
teases yours truly
into treacherous catacombs
dangerous mentally
challenging pitfalls,

sets small hairs of back
on camp creeks edge
of night, where dark shadows
evoke outer limits
of twilight zone

prompting me constantly questioning
purposefulness, qua hair raising pursuit
embarking these modern roman times
all for naught,
nonetheless I chide self

failing to heed
emotional, mental, psychological...fallout
in sum re: springing Jack in the box reflex
to sally forth and earn kudos,
asper potential Prince Valiant.

Thus situated with blank computer screen
capacious external Lenovo for myopia
(and incessant squiggly floaters to boat),
this literary glutton for punishment
feverishly fixates to plumb depths

measuring morin 10,000
leagues under the see
ming lee impossible mission
to ensnare nearly extinct
fluttering, lyfting, shutterflying...

smarts to outwit unsuspecting
beak henning quest
tendering, tasting uber victory
quivering crossbow
targeting yawping

zoological discovery - channeling
primed with taut fletched arrow
on high alert for stool pigeon
cautiously optimistic kickstarting
another futile attempt dagnabbit
experiencing prestige,

oh...and by the way...,
no animal harmed
regarding made for video poem
gamely capturing quarry scotched,
nor gruesome scene

synonymous quasi abattoir
representative bird den sum
bloodless coup deeming
endeavor par excellence.

Fingers madly scramble
to poach skittering idea
fry day most ideal
omelette ya know,
aye feel yolked to defeatism,

one after another faux
promising brainstorm egging
quickly flitting inaccessible
potential flash in frying pan
just as fast dashing

into bajillion pieces
shell shocked scrivener
scribbling lame as duck
goose laying golden egg...
dropping immediately out of sight,

maybe best resigning forlorn
inchoate never albumen,
albeit quite linguistic stretch for
(all be human success story)
prospects beyond reach

ova this wretch
New York Times
bestseller author jinxed
forever dooming yours truly
grinding poverty my ill fate.

Roman thunderstorm crashes
around our ears.
The Forum gurgles gamely
under water.
Rain pelts, ricochets off
slippery stones, shrouded ruins.
History drowns before our eyes.
No road back stands passable.
So let us swim through the ages.

Ah... methinks legal tender
could be a boon to help me bolster
mein kampf with necessary material equipage,
which prospect to acquire essential
commodities sabotaged
at the altar of gullible travails,
thus perhaps thee could make
a contribution to mine gofundme page.

Castaway stranded on figurative
deserted island pitted with absolute
zero salvation, sole recourse
finds scant consolation with prayer
lifetime atheist draws futile faith
within himself grudgingly accepting
feeble accomplishments ditto permanent
estrangement among kith and kin tortured
more punishingly versus death sentence of
choice: firing squad, gallows, guillotine...

nostalgically sentimentally, and zealously
yearning fore gone girl(s) of mine, one
spouse two grown offspring long since
severed emotional home ties even when
under same roof appalled, embarrassed,
jarred particularly regarding good for
nothing hang dog looking papa, mentally
unfit father, who wrought misery
upon heads he begat chronically dirt poor
Mainline moocher never earning a ******

cent claiming psychological disability
(verity substantiated with professional
assessment attests to psychological mental
illness probably present during inchoate
biological development in utero, and most
definitely congenital) unfortunate no
supportive resources, thus experiencing
grievous incalculable relentless scapegoat
treatment - me no kidding
inadvertently subjected with cruel, diabolical,

exponential sucker punches
while riding the bus sitting stone temple pilot
faced during class, belittled, defeated,
framed unfairly as spitball culprit during
eighth grade mathematics with Missus Labosh
subsequently painfully shy lad threateningly
harangued, and nearly paddled courtesy
Methacton Junior High School principal
Mister Clock believe me you, aye remained
mum about said incident til...this moment,

not surprising since every unpleasantry
suppressed unwittingly festering within
psyche in tandem with threatening rapier
sarcasm ostracizing jibes cumulative
wrath unwaveringly smoldering, passively
brooding, visualizing punching meanies,
screaming... wanting to **** - sublimated hurts
glowering, exploding... decades later -
more often surfacing unannounced at odd
times venting bile at wife directly, and barking

at deux daughters subjecting innocent progeny
with mine anger, or rerouting, harboring,
channeling... pathological addiction answering
and posting personal classifieds, yours truly
guilty attempting to appease call of wild at mental,
physical, and spiritual expense additionally setting
poor paternal example accompanied with detached
avoidance maybe costing yours truly king's ransom
and/or receiving my just desserts, yes?

Thus yours truly imagines
whizzing backward at light speed
to reverse engineer
and rejigger space/time continuum
many stupid blunders
that cost me being knocked out cold
courtesy rock em sock em life size robots
compromising opportunities
the figurative ball
slipped out of my court
bungled, fumbled, mulcted  
courtesy naiveté I did excede.

Analogous to albatross greater than weight
Atlas shrugged, severely over burdening
fountainhead, yours truly intermittently
wavered, sputtered, petered... out bumped
uglies fumphered, rutted, née languished
along since birth, (possibly while in utero,
or even moment of conception nada so
thoroughly good by George) or well resigned
***** deeds done dirt poor deeply grooved
within very self restricted comfort zone,

eventually digging deep black hole sun,
infinite void everywhere exit prohibited,
whence twilight o' mine waning existence
awakened sober inescapable realization
impossible mission to garner je nais ne
quois joie de vivre, thus officially reeling
courtesy psychological angst (strumming),
whereby galactic dash board pluck pitted
against frantic ethereal desperation) eek
clip sing el sol lure rays refracted back

rendering blind did as a bat sightless
wayward son helplessly, rustling grimly,
futilely groping, lumbering, resigning,
scarce tenacity clutch slipping
automatically bing foisted transcendent
state, where absolute zero soundcloud
bereft succor – meadow fore enshrouds
hermetically sealed turin soul (mine)
cocooning grubby human forever
pinwheeling within otherworldly realm

timelessly suspended within infinite void
n'er aging, rather regressing toward
infantile state, unable to distinguish
familiarity after aye promise never tug
heave fanta see piquing curiosity
acronym spelled out regarding above
soda describing bubbling sensation
"** And Never Touch Again,"
red alert universal emergency advisory
button commencing countdown to

Armageddon, but subsequently resign
quintessential pregnant outcome
housing grimacing deathstill blackness
unbeknownst to constitute afterlife,
or less disconcerting, disheartening,
disenchanting... prospect namely
imperfectly square discombobulated
chaos betokens palatable alternative,
perhaps revelation (cryptically spelled
courtesy Chinese fortune cookie) less

dim sum more tolerable conclusion possibly
incorporates being rezoned, repurposed,
reassigned... within parallel universe fast
D'Cell rating indicative approaching
beginning space/time continuum, where
cosmos concentrated into microscopic
speck sagely, taste fully, gingerly...
handled... courtesy garden variety
budding ***** **** sapien.

An armature linkedin to robotic divine
creator, who never tired plying matter
into big bang dang boomerang contraption
only to release stretched material with
frisson cold snap, crackle, and pop
indiscriminately, haphazardly, gamely...
flicked teensy weensy itty bitty cosmic
dross - poofing into immeasurable shift
shaping said vast bajillion mile wide
instant karma credit witnessed umpteenth
birth expanding into former vacuum of
nothingness simulating an all encompassing
immense awesome kaleidoscope when
viewed thru virtual reality goggles all
the while frustrated wordsmith toying
with incomprehensible far out mind
boggling notion defying elaboration.

during and after a moderate snowfall
today January 19th, 2024,
within Southeastern Pennsylvania
and elsewhere across the Eastern Seaboard,
whereby blanket of whiteness
muffles sounds of civilization.

I hate a spoiler alert
regarding weather forecasters prediction,
especially when meteorologist
wannabe spouse doth blurt
out impending blizzard
which never materializes,
thus no need for yours truly to exert
himself shoveling and yet denying same
to frolic and gamely flirt
with Khione, the Greek goddess of snow,
daughter of Boreas, god of the North Wind
and Winter, and sister of Zethes and Calais.

I feel humbled and enamored
when Mother Nature
singly and/or nsync with old man winter
looses propensity to bestow majestic scene,
when expanse of pure white
individual ice crystals
that grow while suspended
in the atmosphere—

usually within clouds—
and then fall, accumulating
on the ground,
where they render further magic
changes landscape into blanket
of pure ****** whiteness;
I fondly think back
remembering '96 storm of the century.

At that time January 1996
me and the missus while timesharing
at Shawnee on the Delaware
ardently, diligently, and persistently strived, yet
unsuccessfully conceived Blizzard Baby.

Now wife far beyond procreative age,
(though nevertheless I wistfully envisage
begetting another progeny -
simultaneously stretching credulity
to breaking point)
all things considered
exhaustion would peter out
after capitulation of divining rod
announced, *******, and issued forth little squirt
necessitating lifetime to recoup energy.

Bound within figurative four walls
of Schwenksville, Pennsylvania domicile
courtesy appreciable snowfall,
I direct energy crafting poem.

Yours truly will actually
refrain comestibles despite feeling hungry -
(plus he will be undergoing a colonoscopy
five days hence and abstain eating fiber
unless inclement weather determines otherwise)
lest metabolism to digest food
decreases potential alertness,
and full belly finds me
able, eager, ready and willing
to lie supine, study
the backs of my eyes and digest.

"Mother Nature" commences
to baptize spilling
purity from sheltering overcast sky
bajillion year celestial tureen
while refulgent weak solar beams
desperately massage tender shoots
thawing frozen earth,
where frigid cold icy sheen
hermetically sealed, asper
horizontal frozen walled in pond,
Thoreau and thru,

when skaters waltzed
stealing lovers kisses unseen
soon thaw melts pools
of frozen precipitation
all a buzz with feeding
Gabriel donning primped
orange coiffure trumpeting
"NON FAKE" arrival herculean
kickstarting powers unleashed
since time immemorial worship,
and/or sacrifices made

to deities of webbed skein
viz, animal and/or plant
wide world rejoicing when
harvest yielded cornucopia
primitive, yet over keen
superstitious shutterfly scattered
bands of hominids plentitude
linkedin to sugar daddy's
favorite colored jelly bean
benediction, and veneration rituals
also included pagan dispensing

prayers believing
obeisance necessitated cyclopean
appeasement lest death
and destruction would rain
purple pearl drop monsoon,
traced to angry spirits
subsequently drowning
helpless prehistoric hygiene
cleansed **** sapiens
ancestors possessing gene

and chromosomes latent
within dormant flora lean
fauna coming alive
with the scent of fragrant bouquet
while the hills burst
with creativity healthy panacean
liberating tentative "cabin fever"
wrought by polar
vortex, the spell of warm weather,
a respite sunscreen

applied to ward off deadly
ultraviolet solar radiations
something in magnitude
bajillion extinctions obscene
spate of lost species
as seasons greetings witness hot
untenable global warming
affecting every calm serene
nook and cranny incumbent
to relish approximately

twelve weeks of cold temperatures
while sipping my ovaltine
reminiscing about Lake Wobegon days
recollected from fictitious boyhood,
when snowfall covered roofs
tops inconveniencing Rudolph,
and his deer friends a teen
nee tiny bit, and school cancellation
necessitated state requirement
resulting summer vacation
shelving reading Pygmalion
for Shaw!