This is not a poem, this is a story of a an 83 yr old man, that
got away with lying aboat his actual age, so he could box,
for the light weight Dallas County Iowa, championship.

"Howard is the name and these are my two knock out fists, Tuffy and Tougher and I'm here to sign up for the light heavy weight championship boxing title of Dallas County."

That was my official registration to the County boxing Commission.
They of course ask me my age and some other questions related to
my boxing experience, to which I lied very convincingly.

By the way, the way to lie convincingly is to literally believe yourself what you are lying about. I had spent hours telling myself the lies I told the Boxing Commission, so they had no doubt about what I told them about my boxing experience. I even had some fake newspaper articles about my boxing experiences that I printed on my home printing press. I'll tell more about this later in this story.

What motivated me to do this, was the current champion was the
Grandson of one of my high school classmates that I detested, because he was such a proud blow hard, about every athletically thing
he did, from being a baseball pitcher, a running back football player,
a wrestler and on and on he bragged about himself. One time when
I could not stomach his bragging and pompous way he walked, I confronted him to his face, actually his chin, as that was as close to
his face I stood. He was about 6' 4'' and I was slightly over 6'. I looked him in the eyes and told him I and everyone else in school was sick
and tired of his bragging about himself.

He then sneered a me, reached down and grabbed me by the callar of my shirt, and said. "Why you little dumb pipsqueak, you aint nothing but a hog raising farm boy!" and shoved me hard against
the hallway wall, so I smacked the back of my head against it, and was
knocked out for a few minutes, long enough for someone dumping a cup full of water on my face to bring me alert. Then ol blow hard
spread it around that I had attemped to hit him and he "just naturally" defended himself and gave me a little shove.

But back to the main part of this story, I had been working out in the city gym, working on my cardio, that's my breathing. I had been keeping up with my physical condition all of my life, so for an 83 yr old man  I am in good physical shape. I have been punching the heavy bag on daily basis and have had someone bouncing a heavy medicine ball on my stomach five minutes every day, so I have those three muscle stand outs on my stomach, that everybody ooos and aaas about.

I also sparred with young boys around 20 and 30 years old, convincing them I was just 28, by my foot work and bobbing and weaving and left-hand jabs. I still had a good head of hair, which I
had dyed a light black, which also convinced the boxing commission that I was 38, actually the year I was born, 1938

My boxing bout with the young grandson of this high school classmate that I detested, was supposed to be just a warm up match for him, in preparation for a title fight. He was the Dallas County Light Heavy Weight champion defending his title against some unbeaten
opponent. My goal was to knock him out and disqualify his title fight.

Oh yes, I neglected to mention my boxing manager, who was a young 62 year old retired boxer. He didn't grow up in
Dallas County, Iowa,  so he had no idea of my background age. He came from New York or New something.  I had him convinced that I was just 38 yrs old also. I grew up in a small town called Vermillion about 60 miles from Des Moines, where the fight was scheduled. Vermillion was a town with a population of around 2500 when I lived there. Most of the people who knew me are living under ground now, or in a old folks' home, so the secret of my age will not be revealed.
,
This grandson of the school mate I detested, is just like his Dad, a smart mouth, bragging, pompous, cocky Strutton showboat. He has no idea who I am but has already started boasting about what he is going to do t me.

"Hey, I'm only 27 yrs old and this old man I'm fighting is 38 yrs old. Somebody will have to help him through the ropes to get in the ring." "What's an old man like him still thinks he is a boxer?

"He ought to be sitting on his back porch, watching the rabbits and squirrels hop around."

"He claims to be 38 yrs old, I'll knock him out in 38 seconds in round 3."
   ,
He came to the gym when I was working out one morning to scout me out; I put on an act of being slow and winded.

He yelled at me from a few feet away, "Hey old man, my kid sister
has a faster jab then you. You sure you want to fight me?"

My manager walked up to him, and gave him a double arm shove
out the door, so hard he stumbled. "You big mouth punk, crawl
back in the skunk hole you came from."

                           The Big Fight

I was in the ring first and was warming up with little dance steps I had had learned in a dance studio, which I intended to use on him, BTW  his name was Virgil Throgmartin, but he took pride in calling himself, "V T"=Very Tuff.

He was taking his time coming to get into the ring, and when he did decide to enter, he did so with a bunch of short, skirted cheer leading girls dancing to loud music being played. When he approached the ring, two of the girls, squatted down on one knee and VT than made a big show of standing on each of their leg, and pushed himself off, tumbling over the ropes onto the ring apron.
amid 40,000 loud cheering fans.

"Enjoy it while you can VT, because in about 15 minutes, five three-minute rounds, yu're gonna have 40,000 stunned fans looking at you, sprawled halfway under the ring ropes, watching the referee
waving the fight over."
                                ROUND ONE
VT came quickly to the center of the ring with a stupid looking
grin on is face, hands down, swinging back and forth at his waist level.

I took a couple steps toward him, then through him a big surprise,
that stopped him in his tracks. I did a little two step tap dance, and in the few seconds it took him to recover from surprise, I took a quick step toward him and shot out a left jab, purposely hitting
his right eye. Over my years of boxing experience, I developed a
fast twist at the end of the jab. This little twist would tear the skin
producing a cut in the eyebrow, which it did to VT. I don't think he had ever been cut before by the way he wiped his eye, leaving his face unprotected, of which I took advantage, and smacked him with
another quick jab on his nose, drawing another spurt of blood.

VT wasn't expecting such an early barrage of attack and started back peddling. Once again, I put on my little tap dance,
to a 40,00 applauding, whistling crowd of men, women and teenagers. By now ol VT had no idea what to do with me. He took a quick look over at his corner for help. And when he did, I took a big step forward and planted to quick left jabs on each of his eyes.

I heard the fight announcer telling the radio listeners, he had never seen such a show boating boxer like Howard is putting
on. He has VT totally confused, not knowing what to do with
him. He came into this fight as a warmup for his upcoming defensive championship fight with The Rock, Rocky Argo and he is being bloodied and cut up, by what in the boxing sport is considered old, a man close to his 40's but is moving like a 25 or 26 year old. Folks I don't recall Howard in any past fights, but uh, hang on a moment Howard is moving around VT, bobbing, weaving and talking to him, I can't quite read his lips, but something about going down in uh, some round. Meanwhile VT continues to back pedal away from Howard, who is trying to cut him off....Oh! now Howard stops chasing him and motioned with his hands to come in and fight. There's the bell ending this third round.

There is some kind of commotion going on behind me.... someone wants to tell me something but is being detained by the police.
"Hey officers, let him talk to me. Folks, this is the craziest night I have ever experienced, let's see what this old man, I'm serious about Old, He must be  "Uh how old are you, sir?"

"I'm just a couple years younger than Howard. We grew up together in Vermillion, Iowa. I'm 81 years old and that old man in the ring, he was known as "Howie", is 83 years old and...."

"Hold on just jack rabbit minute! Are you telling me, that Howard,
  what did yu call him? Howie, that boxer in the ring, beating VT, the current light weight Dallas County champion, is 83 years old? Is that what you are saying?"

"Yep, dats whot Im sayng.We growed up t'gether, in da same school t'gether, wrestled and boxed t'gether, and I'm 81 years old and he was alays 2 yars older'n me, so I knows he is 83 yars old.

Folks., getting back to the fight, VT is circling to his right to get in position to throw is left hook and then is right overhand knockout punch. I think Howie is aware of what VT is trying and keeps circling to his left.


This is the  the round Howard bragged he would KO VT. VT is coming out in his usual swaggering way, Howard had him intimated in the first four rounds, with his little dancing jig and blooding his nose and eye. VT wasn't used to that kind of pressure, but his corner manager and some others that joined him, gave him a little pep talk, and so he has regained his confidence. As usual Howard, try's his little tap dance as he approaches VT, it's gotten a little much and no one is cheering it.

I failed to ask you, old man, your name"

"I was known as "The Rock in Vermillion my real name is Rocky Argo. You said dis is da round Howie is going to lower da boom on this young feller?"

"Well that's what he told the fight reporters in the newspaper. But frankly, I have doubts that he can do it. Thus far all I've seen from your friend is a few left jabs. He hasn't used his right in the entire fight."

"Well you just keep your eyes on his right; what yor going to see is a flurry of left jabs, and out of nowhere his right and will suddenly show up and that will be the end of the fight."

Well folks there is just two minutes left in this round, if Howie is going to KO VT, he is going to have to get more aggressive than, OH! Howie just connected with a double left jab, and another one and he had VT weak legged from a barrage of jabs. He looks like he is about to go down OH WOW Howie hit him with a straight right hand punch right between his eyes and VT is on the canvas, trying to get up, the count is up to 5, 6,7 VT was up at the count of 8 but collapse. The referee is waving the fight over, and the Dallas County  light heavy weight champion has been knocked out by Howie Howard in the 5th round just as he predicted."

"Let's listen as the referee announces the winner of this fight."
"And the winner and NEW DALLAS COUNTY LIGHT HEAVY WEIGHT CHAMPION IS HOWEEEEEE HOWWWARD!!

Howie, the talk around the dressing room is that you are 83 years old. Now tell us your real age. I mean, a 83 yr old man can't do that little jig you did tonight and beat up a 27 yr old. So c'mon and let this crowd and thousands of radio listeners know your real age."

"I was born on the twelfth day of July 1938, if my math is correct that makes me eighty-three years old, and that's the absolute truth."

"Ok, so tell us how you have kept in such physical shape to be able to
dance and beat up a young 37 year old champion boxer as you did tonight?"

"Well, first of all, I have to give God all the glory f or entrusting me
with an extraordinary physique. I have honored God many times in many ways because of this extraordinary body, that I , or others could not have done with a normal body. The second thing I want to emphasize is when I was just eight years old, I was convicted that there was a hellfire, called The Lake of Fire, that unbelievers in Jesus Christ are cast. I was just a small child, but I knew in my heart that in God's sight I was a sinner for whom Jesus suffered and died on the Cross of Calvary, and if I just received Him as my sin-bearer and personal Savior, He would forgive me all my sins for the rest of my life. And I have done a lot of sinning in my 83 years of living, one of which has been a distain for VT's grampa, with whom I graduated from the Vermillian High School in 1957. He was the most egotistical, arrogant, vain and proud ****-of-the-walk person I ever knew, and VT was just like him. His grampa died about five years ago, but I have held a grudge in my heart for VT's grandpa all my life, I thought it would give me great satisfaction to ruin his opportunity to fight for the Iowa State Championship.  So I arranged with the Iowa Dallas County Fight Promoters to give VT a warm up fight for him to fight the current Iowa State light heavy weight champion. I studied VT's fights and trained for them these past three months, with the intention of doing what I did to him tonight."

"So what are ..."Excuse me, I'm not finished yet. I thought I would feel good about beating the snot out of VT, but you know what? I don't. I was really enjoying it when I was blooding VT up, as though I was kicking the arrogance out of his grampa. But now that I've destroyed VT's  chance to fight for the Iowa State Championship, I feel empty inside, and feel sorry for VT. To all of you who paid out good money to see this fight, I just want to leave you with this one thought "A grudge is too heavy a load for anyone to carry"
     From Jerry Howarth's Book of Stories

only a ******* man could love a ******* poodle

everybody knows poodle one of the smartest breeds,
not exactly a manly man's dog, but great to have around to feed,
feed you, when alone, and you need a good conversation

had me a good woman

she would say:
"hon, kindly fetch me this and that,"

**** dog would get her whatever she wanted,
me, didn't mind at all, loved taking care of her,
but the dog loved her more and be there and back
before I could jack my feet off the couch

she would say:
"hon,  come near, give me a
nuzzle and a kiss, a  cuddle and a lick"

**** dog, double quick, cause it spoke better human than most,
was in her lap burying her laughing with affection infectious,
before I could jack my feet off the couch

she would say:
"honey love, meet me bed upstairs,
love me sweet and complete,
when done, please love me
over again twice as nice"

**** dog hearing the sacred holy word *bed
was up there in a flash, howling "what's taking youse guys so long,"
tail impatient drumming up a rock n' roll storm,
while we slow pokey, taking our own sweetest time,
humans messing around first with a little downtown downstairs,
prefatory, preparatory work,
both our feet lazy still on the couch kissing the cold away

when we got to our destiny destination, had to kick that
**** ******* foggy doggy outside, close the door,
say no more, **** dog did whine and cry like a baby chile,
till we couldn't take it no more and let that **** dog in

she would say:
"lover man, I love you better than twice I thought I could
ever love another, cause you two idiots two-gether make me
sweeter and completer than I ever knew I could be happier"

like I said, only a ******* man could love a ******** poodle

THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE DANCED ON SHERE KHAN’S HIDE

The Song of Mowgli—I, Mowgli, am singing. Let
      the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would ****—would ****! At the
      gates in the twilight he would **** Mowgli, the
      Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for
      when wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream
      of the ****.
I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother,
      come to me! Come to me, Lone Wolf, for there
      is big game afoot.
Bring up the great bull-buffaloes, the blue-skinned
      herd-bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them to
      and fro as I order.
Sleepest thou still, Shere Khan? Wake, O wake!
      Here come I, and the bulls are behind.
Rama, the King of the Buffaloes, stamped with his
      foot. Waters of the Waingunga, whither went
      Shere Khan?
He is not Ikki to dig holes, nor Mao, the Peacock, that
      he should fly. He is not Mang, the Bat, to hang
      in the branches. Little bamboos that creak to-
      gether, tell me where he ran?
Ow! He is there. Ahoo! He is there. Under the
      feet of Rama lies the Lame One! Up, Shere
      Khan! Up and ****! Here is meat; break the
      necks of the bulls!
Hsh! He is asleep. We will not wake him, for his
      strength is very great. The kites have come down
      to see it. The black ants have come up to know
      it. There is a great assembly in his honour.
Alala! I have no cloth to wrap me. The kites will
      see that I am naked. I am ashamed to meet all
      these people.
Lend me thy coat, Shere Khan. Lend me thy gay
      striped coat that I may go to the Council Rock.
By the Bull that bought me I have made a promise—
      a little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before I
      keep my word.
With the knife—with the knife that men use—with
      the knife of the hunter, the man, I will stoop down
      for my gift.
Waters of the Waingunga, bear witness that Shere
      Khan gives me his coat for the love that he bears
      me. Pull, Gray Brother! Pull, Akela! Heavy is
      the hide of Shere Khan.
The Man Pack are angry. They throw stones and talk
      child’s talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let us run
      away.
Through the night, through the hot night, run swiftly
      with me, my brothers. We will leave the lights
      of the village and go to the low moon.
Waters of the Waingunga, the Man Pack have cast me
      out. I did them no harm, but they were afraid of
      me. Why?
Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is
      shut to me and the village gates are shut. Why?
As Mang flies between the beasts and the birds so fly
      I between the village and the jungle. Why?
I dance on the hide of Shere Khan, but my heart is
      very heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with
      the stones from the village, but my heart is very
      light because I have come back to the jungle.
      Why?
These two things fight together in me as the snakes
      fight in the spring. The water comes out of my
      eyes; yet I laugh while it falls. Why?
I am two Mowglis, but the hide of Shere Khan is under
      my feet.
All the jungle knows that I have killed Shere Khan.
      Look—look well, O Wolves!
Ahae! My heart is heavy with the things that I do
      not understand.

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
      And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
      At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
      Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
      Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

you toss my feelings back and forth like a tennis ball.
It was so asinine to think you cared at all.
you make it out like you wanna meight, but end up stealing
my heart, which isn't condusev in my healing.
You make me six. With me, you didn't have a rival.
I used to think you were necessary for my surfivel.
therefour, from here on, I won't allow you to crush me,
no more threel seeing my reaction when you touch me.
I don't understand people who just get together
to make you think you won and blow you off like a feather.
I half had enough and this topic's not moot,
I have zeroed in on my target and i am ready to shoot.

the cherry blossom accord/equation

”perfumers use aromachemicals to recreate a cherry blossom accord...(an accord is a scent made up of individual aromachemicals, that when combined, create a harmonious blend where none of the individual ingredients are able to be detected on their own).”

the odor of our lustful eyes,

the sweat, a unique commingling,
a sheen of salted oils body bathing,

crushed green petals of peaches,
crumbled together with the softy fuzz shavings,
the sediment of aromatic fruit juices drippings

our blending bottled in our brains,
none other would recognize but we,
to too two smell each other through and over
floors, concourses, cities, disparate distances

our ingredients secreted (secret),
our flavors cell secreted (secreting)
the world’s silly tittering aroma inserted,
our sparking fingertips touching
add a bush burning burnt odiferous

we seat across from each other in an airport
plastic restaraunt and everyone asks out loudly,
what is that smell, feed me that, taste me that,
as we are irradiating the atmosphere,
as we renegotiate our cherry blossom accord,
fresh signatures, updated, harmony of harmonies, notarized

she smiles, I joke, winking,
we must continue
to meet like this,
the fireworks of we,
of us,
to-gather to-gether,
a getting of giving,
she answers:

take me home and
bathe me in love,
give our bodies shelter
from the world outside,
beside a new spice
have I uncovered,
this will require some
discussion+exploration,
the quantity to be added,
the when, and the how!

what is this new ingredient?
asking puzzled and aroused,
she laughs
(a spice already included),
why it’s called
only love poetry






8/23/19 4:55pm

In praise of Eliza, Queen of the Shepherds


See where she sits upon the grassie greene,
        (O seemely sight!)
Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene,
        And ermines white:
Upon her head a Cremosin coronet
With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set:
        Bay leaves betweene,
        And primroses greene,
Embellish the sweete Violet.

Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face
        Like Phoebe fayre?
Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace,
        Can you well compare?
The Redde rose medled with the White yfere,
In either cheeke depeincten lively chere:
        Her modest eye,
        Her Majestie,
Where have you seene the like but there?

I see Calliope speede her to the place,
        Where my Goddesse shines;
And after her the other Muses trace
        With their Violines.
Bene they not Bay braunches which they do beare,
All for Elisa in her hand to weare?
        So sweetely they play,
        And sing all the way,
That it a heaven is to heare.

Lo, how finely the Graces can it foote
        To the Instrument:
They dauncen deffly, and singen soote,
        In their meriment.
Wants not a fourth Grace to make the daunce even?
Let that rowme to my Lady be yeven.
        She shal be a Grace,
        To fyll the fourth place,
And reigne with the rest in heaven.

Bring hether the Pincke and purple Cullambine,
        With Gelliflowres;
Bring Coronations, and Sops-in-wine
        Worne of Paramoures:
Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies,
And Cowslips, and Kingcups, and lovèd Lillies:
        The pretie Pawnce,
        And the Chevisaunce,
Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice.

Now ryse up, Elisa, deckèd as thou art
        In royall aray;
And now ye daintie Damsells may depart
        Eche one her way.
I feare I have troubled your troupes to longe:
Let dame Elisa thanke you for her song:
        And if you come hether
        When Damsines I gether,
I will part them all you among.

I'm running across this uneasy ground
trying so hard to keep sticking around
facing a battle that just won't pan out..
so many people are falling down
it makes me wonder why I of all people
would continue to walk along this road
full of gravel and never-to-be-pieced-to-
gether-stone.
If only life weren't such a hard puzzle
to figure out, why is it such a struggle?
stress is all you've been inhaling lately,
and you've been trying so hard to avoid
it but that's just too bad.. **stress is reality.

.                       .                          .
    .             .          .               .
       .    .    .     .     .     .     .    .    .

     i     stare  at  a  docile  ocean
  
           waveless   sun   accosted
           dark and shadow edged
           tinned with men's brave
           history of misconception     i

                                   'Dragonne'.    
           'Colossuus'.    
                                   'Cetaecean'.
          
                           

           - Leviathan  ?



                       As sure as hope setting sail  -
                       Past shoal, past shallow,               
                       So each chase begins.
                       Lines parsing out,  
                       Expectations coyly
                       Embroidered,
                       Entwin-ned.


                       -  Leviathan  ?



                        Pray please this narrative be drawn :  
                        Truth for sake of safe harbour;
                        Stillness without caution;
                        Softly ripening dawn;
                        Jupiter and Venus descendant,
                        Celestial promise anon ?
                                               

                        -  Leviathan .




                Violence
         the casual violence of life
             the worst kind
    not casual really   but whats violence anyway
      few knew why    why ask why    the few
     once  the  dice  flipped  get
       its         a flying             a mind            a dunzo game
             gravity responds  we hope              hope together sake
                             to    gether

we   short the freaks   short em' all   them freakin freaks      freaks
           i want you I want yours
             i want to take  you over
                  take control  take over
                        29' run        kontrol        all night                                                        day
­                             long             time                                                                end  time

                  everthing happens forfurfor                                      fit                         ­ ur
              once and done     (nature)                                          forfeiture
                     reason                  or ur other        or ur another                         or ur a altogether reason
                                                          ­                    or simple GP          drunkworld
                                          ­                                                            reason                               (nurture)


                        surprise my ripest faither -                                                      less
                             5 rise  10 run                                                   huh
                   up the                   down and dumb
            dumb  ber                   right left        left                                                         right thum ber

                               number one                                                 number
                                                          ­                                      numb - ber
                ­                   one                                           ­            ones
          
                
                               another                                                                      
                                come
              ­                  under                           
                                 the
                               ­   (tumb)                                                           ­              
                                   .
                              
                     



All Rights Reserved.
James R. Morse, NYC  2013.

To my right, West stands the sun, no wait it is sinking slowly to the lowly horizon,
To my left , South East, the moon, becomes more as the sun is less, best keep my eyes on,
this.
I have both in the same sky, the other part of the planet has no day or no night, light
I am greedy and I am selfish, I want to keep them both, for more than these few nights,
a wish.
To early to tell if my wish will find the well and a bottom dry or filled with water,
Even if I am right or if I am wrong, I will give back freely not because, I oughta,
for you.


©DWE072013

6 happy songs

1. Oui hear
What we appear
What, we appear?
What
Where

Capturing the in
The expressable in it
Capped in it
In
Into

Together to gather
To Get Her - To Gat Her
Two Gets-together
Gether
Glather

Troubling isn't it
Very troubling
Trouble some
Some troubles in ning
Inklings
Inner rings

Der Rinks
Der

2. Vert
Over therr
Overt therr
Knew a woman who was livin
Oh Vert Herr!

Oh Vert Herr!
Over therr
Err a woman who is livin
Oh Vert therr!
Err
Err

3. Bleu
A cloud farmer
I eye the sky
Eye the sky
Eye the sky
A cloud farmer
I eye the skye
Eye the sky
Wide

4. Blanc
Here is the blank
The blanking blank
The blanking blank
The blanking blank
Here is the blank
The blanking blank
The blanking blanking blank
Blank


5. Rouge
They come to me in ones and twos
Ones and twos
Ones and twos
They come to me in
Ones and twos
Ones and twos it's
True


6. Noir
Brush away noir noir
Brush away noir
Brush away noir noir
Noir noir no
More No more
Noir noir no
Moe

Anguished lavish
laureates has driven
me slightly mad

tangerine lemon rounds

Erudites of oolong parties
flying on the wreckages
of forgotten sideral castles

ice cubes crushed in the psychadelia

Nuances of never tomorrows,
slicky dew drops
glistening
jadded wells of deep thoughts
callin'
green algae lakes
emerging

Pale planes oozing
silvery Neptune forks
n'waves flyin'from above

witchery wands in love with wondrous comets

Thou sparkling dispersive
master machine mind
feedin' on
oak wooden spoons
tightly, tenderly
sippin'
magnified tinder
from thy glances

daemons of thy unconsciousness breathing

me *******
flow and ebb
thou chest ebb
and flows

bonvivants bountyful beams

The inflamable black
powder burnin'
to take off
like a swift rocket
like a swell day's
endless delight

The gold
The pink
The brave new horizons

Openin' grunges and volcanic
desires
pinnin' lovers, gluein' them to-
gether in a desperate gloom
of unforgiven erotica

And The Poems
who make you tremble
as a luscious cream on the top
of Thou Vicious Beauty

*fenderstrater jaguars silent roar

This is not a poem, this is a story of a an 83 yr old man, that
got away with lying aboat his actual age, so he could box,
for the light weight Dallas County Iowa, championship.

"Howath is the name and these are my two knock out fists, Gerald
and Ron, and I'm here to sign up for the light heavy weight championship boxing title of Dallas County."

That was my official registration to the County boxing Commisson.
They of course ask me my age and some other questions related to
my boxing experience, to which I lied very convincingly.

By the way, the way to lie convincinly is to literally believe yourself what you are lying about. I had spent hours telling myself the lies I told the Boxing Commission, so they had no doubt about what I told them about my boxing experience. I even had some fake newspaper articles about my boxing experiences that I printed on my home printing press. I'll tell more about this later in this story.

What motivated me o do this, was the current chjampion was the
Grandson of one of my high school class mates that I detested, because h was such a proud blow hard, about every athletical thing
he did, from being a baseball pitcher, a running back football player,
a wrestler and on and on he bragged about himself. One time when
I could not somach his bragging and pompous ay he walked, I confonted him to his face, actually his chin, as that was as close to
his face I stood. He was aout 6' 4'' and I was slightly over 6'. I looked him in the eyes and told him I and every one else in school was sick
and tired of his bragging about himself.

He then sneared a me, reached down and gabbed me by the coller of my shirt, and said. "Why you little dumb pimpsqueet, you aint nothing but a hog raising farm boy!" and shoved me hard against
the hall way wall, so I smacked the back of  my head against it, and
knocked out for a few minutes, long enough for someone dumping a cup full of water on my face to bring me alert. Then ol blow hard
spread it around that I had attemped to hit him and he "just naturally" defended himself and gave me a little shove.

But back to the main part of this story, I had been working out in the city gym, workig on my cardio, thats my breathing. I had been keeping up with my physical condition all of my life, so for an 83 yr old man  I am in good physical shape. I have been punching the heavy bag on daily basis , and have had someone bouncing a heavy medicine ball on my stomach five minutes every day, so I have  those three muscle stand outs on my stomach, tht every body ooos and aaas about.

I also sparred with young boys around 20 and 30 years old, convincing them I was just 28, by my foot work and bobbing and weaving and left hand jabs. I still had a good head of hair, which I
had dyed a light black, which also convinced the boxing commission that I was 38, actually the year I was bornd, 1938

My boxing bout with the young grandson of this high school class mate that I detested, was suppoe to be just a warm up match for him, in preperation for a title fight. He was the Dallas County Light Heavy Weight champion defending his title against some unbeaten
opponant. My goal was to knock him out, and disqualify his title fight.

Oh yes, I neglected to mention my boxing manager, who was a young 62 year old retired boxer. He didn't grow up in
Dallas County, Iowa,  so he had no idea of my bckground age. He came from New York or New something.  I had him convinced that I was just 38 yrs old also. I grew up in a small town called Clive about 60 miles from Des Moines, were the fight was scheduld. Clive was a town with a population of around 2500 when I lived there. Most of the people who knew me are living under ground,
or in a old folks home, so the secret of my age will not be revealed.
,
This grandson of the school mate I detested, is just like his Dad, a smart mouth, bragging, pompous, cocky strutton show boat. He has no idea who I am, but has already started boasting about what he is going to do t me.

"Hey, I'm only 27 yrs old and this old man I'm fighting is 38 yrs old. Somebody will have to help him through the ropes to get in the ring." "What's an old man like him still thinks he is a boxer?

"He ought to be sitting on his back porch, watching the rabbits and squirrels hop around."

"He claims  to be 38 yrs old, I'll knock him out in 38 seconds in round 3."
   ,
He came to the gym when I was working out one morning to scout me out; I put on an act of being slow and winded.

He yelled at me from a few feet away, "Hey old man, my kid sister
has a faster jab then you. You sure you want to fight me?"

My manager walked up to him, and gave him a double arm shove
out the door, so hard he stumbled. "You big mouth punk, crawl
back in the skunk hole you came from."

                           The Big Fight

I was in the ring first, and was warming up wih litle dance steps I had had learned in a dance studio, which I intended to use on him, BTW  his name was Virgil Thornley, but he took pride in calling himself, "V T"=Very Tuff.

He was taking his time coming to get nto the ring,  and when he did decide to enter, he did so with a bunch of short skirted cheer leading girls dancing to loud music being played. When he approched the ring, two of the girls, squatted down on one knee and VT than made a big show of standing on each of their leg, and pushed himself off, tumbling over the ropes onto the ring apron.
amid 40,000 loud cheering fans.

"Enjoy it while you can VT, becaus in about 15 minutes, five three minute rounds, yu're gonna have 40,000 stunned fans looking at you, sprawled half way under the ring ropes, watchng the referee
waving the fight over."
                                ROUND ONE
JT came quickly to the center of the ring with a stupid looking
grin on is face, hands down, swinging back and forth at his waist level.

I took a couple steps towad him, then through him a big surprize,
that stopped him in his tracks. I did a little two step tap dance, and in the few seconds it took him to recover from surprize, I took a quick step toward him and shot out a left jab, purposly hitting
his right eye. Over my years of boxing experience, I developed a
fast twist at the end of the jab. This little twist would tear the skin
producing a cut in the eyebrow, which it did to VT. I don't think he had ever bee cut before by the way he wiped his eye, leaving his face unprotected, of which I took advantage, and smacked him with
another quick jab on his nose, drawing another spurt of blood.

VT wasn't expexcting such an early barrage of attack, and strted back peddling. Once again, I put on my little tap dance,
to a 40,00 applauding, whistling crowd of men, women and teen agers. By now ol VT had no idea what to do with me. He took a quick look over at his corner for help. And when he did I took a big step foward and planed to quick left jabs on each of his eyes.

I heard the fight annoncer telling the radio listners, he had never seen such a show boating boxer like  Howarth is putting
on. He has VT totally confused, not knowing what to do with
him. He came in to this fight as a warm up for his upcoming defensive championship fight with Scrapiron Peel and he is being bloodied and cut up, by what in the boxing sport is considered old, a man close to his 40's but is moving like a 25 or 26 year old. Folks I don't recall Howarth in any past fights, but uh, hang on a moment Howarth is moving around VT, bobbing, weaving and talking to him, I can't quite read his lips, but someting about going down in uh, some round. Meanwhile VT continues to back peddle away from Howath, who is trying to cut him off....Oh! now Howarth stops chasing him and motioned with his hands to come in and fight. There's the bell ending this third round.

There is some kind of commotion going on behind me.... some one wants to tell me something, but is being detained by the police.
Hey officers, let him talk to me. Folks, this is the crasiest night I have ever experienced, let's see what this old man, I'm serious about Old, He mst be  "Uh how old are you, sir?"

"I'm just a couple years younger than Howarth. We  grew up together in Perry, Iowa. I'm 81 years old and that old man in the ring, he was known as "Howie" is 83 years old and...."

"Hold on just jack rabbit minute! Are you telling me, that Howarth,
  what did you call him? Howie, that boxer in the ring,  beating VT, the current light weight Dallas County champion, is 83 years old? Is that what you are saying?"

"Yep, dats whot Im sayng.We growed up t'gether, in da same school t'gether, wrestled and boxed t'gether, and I'm 81 years old and he was alays 2 yars older'n me, so I knows he is 83 yars old.

Folks., getting back to the igh, VT is circuling to his right to get in position to throw is left hook and then is righ overhand knock ut puncht . I think Howie is aware of what VT is trying and keeps circing to his left.


This is the  the round Howarth bragged he would KO VT. VT is coming out in his usual swagering way, Howarth had him intimiated in the first four rounds, with his little dancing jig and blooding his nose and eye. VT wasn't use to that kind of pressure, but his corner manager and some others that joined him, gave him a little pep talk, and so he has regained his cofidence. As usual Howarth, trys his little tap dance aa he approaches VT, it's gotten a little much and no one is cheering it.

I failed to ask you, old man, your name"

"I was known as Scrapieon in Perry, my real ame isRichard Peel.
Yo said dis is da round Howie is going to lower da boom on this young feller?"

"Well that's what he told the fight reporters in the news paper. But frankly, I have doubts that he can do it. Thus far all I've seen from your friend is  a few left jabs. He hasn't used his right in the entire fight."

"Well you just keep your eyes on his right; what yor going to see is a flurry of left jabs, ad out of nowhere his right and will suddenly show up and that will be the end of the fight."

Well folks there is just three minites left i thos round, if Howie is going to KO VT, he is ging tp alf to get more agressie than, oh,Howie just connected with a double left jab, and another one and he had VT weak leggedfromma barrage of jabs. He looks like he is about to go down OH WOW Howie hit him with a straight right hand punch right between his eyes and VT is on the canvas, tryng too ge up, the count is up to 5, 6,7 VT was up at the cnt of 8 bt collapst. The referee is waving the figt over, and tne Dallas County  light heavy weight champion has been kocked out by Howie Howarth in the 5th round just as he predicted.

We've been... a... part... so long;
We've not been... to...gether, a... lone.
Together alone.

I hear the lonely house sounds
Of dripping, creaking, and window wind whoshes;
The semi-muted fiber optic sounds;
The various vehicles dopplering past.
These I hear in my fractured second,
Before asking, "How ye doin?"
Which shatters into glass the silence
Held too long between us.
But now we are alone, together, alone.
A silent alone, together.

When Leonard Cohen Met Charlie Daniels, The Devil Went Down to Georgia

~~~
The Devil Went Down to Georgia ¥
https://youtu.be/wBjPAqmnvGA

Charlie Daniels, the country music legend who died July 6, 2020, was part of the 1970 Leonard Cohen tour. (see notes)
                                            
This one is a gift to a recovering addict and a poet, for whom that peculiar, par-articulate, addictive passion, thank the Lord, got no cure.

                                                      <£>

two country boys, ok, so different countries, but both intimately
a-cquainted with the Devil, his song & music-making-copious
a-bilities, his other trois backup ***-sin-tants, The Sin Sisters,
a/k/a wine and women and sweet poetry...

now the Devil mostly gets his due, you pay his price twice, in daily
wear ‘n tear on body and soul, always trying to keep one step ahead,
taking his best, sometimes leaving the rest, but ha! not always cause sometimes a...

bargain needs keeping, gotta keep your word honest, still if you can find a wile e coyote-wriggle-way to be a tad faster, keep them ten  fingers crisscrossed, you might steal a tune or three, before you chanter la finale, sing/pay the last installment...

now these boys were multilingual, one spoke french, the other, southern, but two-gether, they could harmonize the Lord’s Prayer on a banjo, fiddle and a guitar, in une langue ancienne#, formerly spoke in those United States and Canada, now only in the heavens above...

cannot truthful say I ever saw them play on the same stage, no matter,
cause the parallels are clear as a night sky starry moon, the stories they told, in lyrical verse, different cuzins, slightly incestuous, and
infectious too, cause you catch yourself singing redneck in a foreign
language and you’re liking the way women looking at the big star on
a tour bus...

now the devil wanted these bad boys real bad in his pantheon, went
down to Georgia and back up to Montréal au paradis, said to them “no more diddling, just fiddling and singing, time to make that finale payment, principal and interest, come to collect my country boys  and all what they got left...alors allons en enfer mes bébés..”##

now the sounds they made was just too good, the Lord heard it, it was like Picasso painting the sky, and came to collect Charlie yesterday, (07/06/20), Leonard had come up earlier, and if you need to learn how this story ends, well, there’s a poem listed down below avec tous les détails.

but as my straight laced pappy, use to say in his German accented english, in his morning suit, striped pants and Homburg hat, all’s well that don’t end in hell

or something like that anyway.

it has become
cliché
we know
the once delicious
alien
names are
only
everyday
not
fiercesome
not
fiendish
not promises of
blood
drenched
daggers anymore.
these names were
standards
rally around the flag wear the flag
proudly
pin-striped lapel on porch on bumper
these names
fail
fall
flat
we must seek
something new flavored with
just the right taste of
wet
iron
new
rallying cry to
gather in
constructed
terror
behind
architecture
unknown
shelter
united deflected covered wrapped
against
this
shiny new promise
seductive new enemy more
toothsome
sharper
and
we are re
focused dis-
tracted
bound to-
gether
against
new pre-
fabricated
foe
with tasty new name
and we can watch mouths agape
drooling
fascinated
seduced
titillated
the new-fashioned series waiting for
next
exciting
episode
while outside
elsewhere
plump ravenous generals
masticate
digest
defecate
small
carcasses
empty
skulls
s­hredded
skin
under a
building-powdered
once golden
dome

~for yocum~
<>

the quality of commitment is not
restrained by quantity, nor by size,
impressed by nylon sheerest volume,
avoirdupois grams, Imperial weight,
steeled feathers, immeasurable, one ton
tips no true scale into red lined sincerity

the necessary respectful silences it requires,
the social nearness of geo-distancing,
all need prodigal acceptance,
like a long lost son, welcomed without questioning

we flawed, banded by many weaknesses, poorly confessed,
yet, no excuses tendered, to it, long ago surrendered,
but understand this, constancy is  not judged
by the frequency of our waves, but by the fervor of an

undertow of unwavering constancy

one that unceasingly rages, beneath superficial, steady waves,
and through the thickened, roughed old skin separating atmospheres,
I have grasped your heartened essence man,
found its depths, blessed it with words, you’ve never fathomed

surely you will growl at this, claiming obfuscation,
excuses not in your vocabulary, nor should it be,
though you require the steady reassurance of frequent brevity

so and yet, but and still,

I deny your claims, what you think, incorrect,
cause I know my heart, and well it kens what lays in thine,
what’s in yours is in mine, deep planted, a full nut grove flowering,
your complaints, mine as well, all part parceled, with grace accepted

for what is friendship but the path
through parted seas, joining two borders,
the best part of that is the landed connectivity,
leading to where we two ends,
meet in laughing two-gether
old fools, younger-then-than-now,
committed, grumpy men.

Two
stars
shining -
as
One.
Aging
gracefully
surrendering.
Love
unending.

This stray amongst the lions, singing
Songs about the motions, while he
Shuffles on his feet, and dreams of
Birds and trains and oceans.
Inside a cage of pens and desks, his
Mind a whirlwind blowing, and his
Instinct rarely showing that there's
No real way of knowing. Be-
Neath the towering eyes of stone, he'll
Charge forth into worlds unknown. And
Maybe he'll make us all so very proud.

The jewel within the junkpile, reading
Classic works of old, and telling
Stories of a life she dreams on
Starry nights so cold. She
Takes a subtle gesture, turns it
To a work of art, and then she'll
Take a few steps backwards, turn, and
Then she shall depart. Be-
Tween two realms of parapets, she
Takes her time, but still forgets to
Return to the heavens she is from.

A seething mass of paper, screaming
Mindless riddling tricks, bent on
Giving you your fix, of heady
Sciences, for kicks. They share a
Bleak appraise of life, but still
Together it's alright, because
There's nothing they can't face, if they just
Shine a little light. Be-
Mused and disillusioned glances, and
Gaily executed dances. The
World just fades to white, and all is well.

A satin mix of music, and an
Air of discontent, disguising
All who can't repent and left to
Pick their cold descent. She
Strokes aside her hair and puts her
Hands around your waist, before you
Narrow up the space and dance to-
Gether, face to face.
Alone without a single care, the
World is left to stop and stare; and
Rain falls from the stars in darkest skies.

He stumbles round his words, and offers
Meaningless remarks, which don't il-
Luminate the dark as well as
How he set his mark. An
Awkward, crowded scene conspires to
Rid him of his dream, but still he
Doesn't let it seem as though his
Nature doesn't gleam. A-
Lone with just a pocketbook, he
Takes his turn, but doesn't look to
See if she has found her way back home.

He carries his emotions to a
Private place he knows, where the
Jokers never go, and all the
People walk below. She
Meets him at the bar, but doesn't
Take a seat beside, because she
Doesn't like this ride, and so her
Feelings are denied. He
Stares into her ashen eyes, that
Earthy depth that never lies; she
Sits and plays a tune for all to hear.

Got the Covid shot.
Got the word that I have no cancer.
Got the will to form a
door
into this day far in our future, from then,
just
a moment ago, it was now, and
some how you  
knew ex- out
action to {perience hap}
change the time
to your now, my future and my now, your past.

just that fast/

--- lickity split, {as if it never needed meaning}

Any whole time invested in an old oath
to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but… when you pause

what comes next is ever, and
the state of never is
unattainable from here.
---
I know a guy,
he deals in evil, the idea, scare-tactics, terror, horror
all that
Lovecraft literal realm, words may lead a mind to let
be
a bit, a while, not a whole time, but
a bit

a par-sec or a plancksec, or so, you know,
a little bit of time,

taken as granted for now.
Are you tested,
proven, reused and re
tested? Experience is something more than
a novice mortal can claim. Honest, sharpenedest point,
the life unexamined is worth more than
the life unlived.

Okeh. You live in these lines, this is the literal book
life is…
along these lines, it
just is. Really, the nextifity can never **** the was,
and the was can never reach past
now
-- the junction, re
conciliation all pairs re
sounding harmonious ohhhhhs and ahhh,
yess
yes, we do know knowing itself is good.
How did we imagine
knowing good and evil, the difference, was separation
from the way through life
in truth,
with no added sorrow?

See, truth is,
…Death has no sting.
But, you gotta do it twice,
sorta…
it's a kludge, what can I say.
Truth functions fully now,
lying can never hold you,
person-you, dear reader you, lying
can never subject you to ******* for fearing death.

You may cease being after your final idle word is working right,
but no mortal really knows.

Hell is a mortal imagination, as is purgatory and limbo, et al.
As a mortal of our sort thinks in its core, CPU,
so it is… Mac or PC. {Joke, kidding… it is a division,
elite sorting division, elite
mechanisms
in the collected subconscious ifery per
white lit apple where there was
a rainbow,
yes
yes
I remember.
inanely great

aha- I know - I was tricked
- who told me I was naked?
signaling the same bite,
knowing good and evil and the connection
at the chthonic level of life,
where roots and fungi merge and share
information,
no more
no less}

the more you know the less you don't, but don't
be
deceived, your reading genius is a gift, the eye that sees, the ear
that
hears, all the senses sensed as a nation might
sense
us-ness in all the inhabitants of the atmosphere -- whosoever…

-- you paid no price, yet truth you don't think you know
draws you to
sneer at a thought that we ought fear death,

after all the virtual nexts…
really
deep mythic revelation festers
pops
The totally Disneyfied home of the future… from an Amazon
or-if-art-if-ice,  Marvel Universe where unbelief
is released… almost like books

The Age of Ultron
is set to rumble with
Enuma Elish?

Who'da thunk it? The oldest of stories,
swirling to gether,
all but one,
the good one, truth the trait tendency in any
given word
made up in minds since
Enuma Elish,
the surviving story, for a seeded cultural embodiment,
a mind made of us,
we, the artists and the art observant, seeing as we wish,
thinking as we may, if there is a way.

You? you think life is funny,
but not fun.
No fun for no reason play?
Nay,
they say, they said in the final days of the iron empire,
while the ants steadily absorbed the scent
of trusted friend, and the marching ants selected on edge-
wise vectors,

to copy'n'paste, past to now, nope… no match, but
watch…

spread all you ever knew, one thing thick, like lipids
reflecting ever before
or something… sorry, think gaspumps on the lake, at sunset.

That beautiful film on the water, ain't good.
But the beauty is. Ants feel sensibly, the whole mass
of ants,
the message ants send that says we do not **** each other,
humans are learning that now.

One at a time. Bit by bit.

Called to be the sluggard, as an actual ant,
in a colony the size of California,

we imagine you think
with stars as reference points,
being photon tied to you, and all whoever, who
considered the ant,
after a great course on esteemation of ever lasting worth.
Effectual
communication
with comforters sent to comfort not terrorize…

consider the message: Consider the ant, thou sluggard,
consider her ways and be wise.

Right. Fabre said, or is recorded in the 1916
current opinion magi-
zine:
"... I should like to see a few small facts."

Years along this trail and we were unaware
of warez we might imagine in a marvel usiverse, an usity
of me and thee,
word and pen,
surface and ink,
what do you think? how many messages fit on the head
of a tack?

A pin? Ist that the proper imagination? Do children
among the elite
ever see a pin,.. perhaps some ultra-elite see tailors,
we all see them on TV, dressing James Bond,
or a bride in white, chalking stitch marks

for the future… in that reality,
the next scene,
all the sewing done, all the pins put away, save one.

Stick to the plan. Tack this one on your clue wall.
Every 2021 seeker has faith in the pattern
emerging.

As if the words rise from the page and you know
none mean anything you may never know.

These are beyond Ultron,

these wild old man insights on olden ………..

Back in the ant den, we imagine interpersonal feeler-
a touch and all we know is known to all,
ahhh
it feels good to know
all I know is now known to all I know, in ant level knowing.

We can do this.
We have done it all our lives,
step into the scene, as an extra.

An extra ant of the 40% who have no care,
need no practice in any ant-craft,
and - seem to serve as assurance
needful for the peace of mind we use as invasive species,

the super-colony survives on peace within,
this is new, this is us, as ants
having certain tasks to keep the climate in the soil,
perfectin the motives of beauty.l

salt from distant seas
subtile tastes to tie the tongues to good to know,

yes it has long been so, the mouth tastes what comes out.

And flesh is a feeling spirits must live to know,
one may never
pretend to have been, without dying once,

minimum,
try the spirits. See did they ever love a lie?

An imp once asked me, when I was 72,
a little younger than I am in your now,
if I escaped Christianity,
how did I rest so peacefully staring death down.
The imp asked, not me, so that is technically not a quest
ion sufficient to warrant a full days wage of sin,

disconnect…
total lost the thread, mazed in the face, hands up, drop
everything…

call it art.
Crazy,
who says crazy is evil if it lives in the bubble
where ants are making peace, and
poets are given truly magic-tech
to stitch stories
to times.

Attenborough called the world to consider
The Ant… as had Solomon, it's been said.
And I heard, but I understood not:
then said I, O my Lord,
what [shall be]
the end of these [things]?
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel:
for the words [are] closed up
and sealed till the time of the end.

pop

Escape? Nay, knave, nigh-ifer misser
of myriad points
of light,

I escaped the name of god for good.
True,
let good be true and every man a liar,
as mortal instant man
remains

a we, at least, very least, I'm sure,
of me and thee, you and I,
lefts and rights and tops and bottoms
fronts and backs

we be in time…
who rah, the hero, uh oh hubris mystery,
curios sort
who wishes to know
the way of the blade parting soul from spirit,
in a
bit of reality we all believe, some how,
does exist,
soul and spirit realms, we all imagine these, we do.

Sniff, if my myth had babies with yours, watchathank?

my life
is at
a stand still
everything is
broken
into these tiny *******
little
pieces
that i cant put
back
to
gether
and i dont understand any of it
and i cant move to change it
its like a nightmare
its like quick sand
its like nothing
but all at once
and
i
feel
so
alone

Wow
You did a number on me
It was 8 letters
Times 3 words
With 1 meaning
That equaled
2 gether
4 ever

How much you built me up
Lovely words
Typed back and forth
The things you said
On the phone
That caressed my ears
How much
You loved me
And then you
Walked away

I guess
I’ll never really know
Except I can
Guess
It wasn’t enough
Enough to respect
My feelings
And before you get
All defensive
Really
They are
My feelings

I had my concerns
About you
And I really wanted to
See it thru
Such a little thing
Ended it?
Well
Then
It wouldn’t have lasted
Anyway
But no
Hard feelings
Am I upset?
Yeah
And angry
Just a little
But I’m mostly
Thankful
Thankful for the experience

I learned something from you
I learned something about
Myself
About what
I want
I learned that
I have the strength
To stand up for
Myself
To assert
Myself

I don’t know
If you ever really were
Who you said you were
I want to believe you
But I will always question
Were you true?
Too good to be true?
Yes

Now I pick up my
Bruised
Dented
Chipped
And dinged
Heart
Tuck it back under my arm
And walk away
*****
Stronger
Prouder
Smarter
With more love to give
I hope no matter what happens
That’s how I live my life

Yes
It hurts sometimes
The pain is palatable
Tears fall
That’s just so
When it’s good
You know it
So
I say goodbye
I hope you find
What you are looking for
I’m glad you let me go
And didn’t keep me hanging on
In the in between

Maybe someday
I’ll drop you a line
Let you know
I met someone wonderful
Amazing
Someone who
Erases the memory of you
So completely
That I have to struggle
To remember your name
Not that I ever will
You were
And will always be
Amazing

831

The first Holy Book of The Word
In Nonsense we Trust

Assembled from pre-existing works by John Burroughs, Ryan P. Kinney, Jack McGuane, Cee Williams, Don Lee, Susan Grimm, Joe Roarty, Russ Vidrick, Dianne Boresnik, Mitch James, Tanya Pilumeli, Julie Ursem Marchand, Vicki Acquah, Terry Provost, Adam Brodsky, Lennart Lundh, Raymond McNiece, Hannah Williams, MaxWell Shell, Tim Richards, Ayla Atash, RC (Bob Wilson), Chuck Joy, Katie Daley, Solomon Dixon, Mary Weems, and Gordon Downie
Mostly taken as quotes during live poetry readings. Some stolen from other sources.
Additional content from predictive text by JM Romig, Linkin Park “Powerless,” “Saga of the Swamp Thing” vol. 1, T.S. Eliot, Amalgam Mythos, Kurt Vonnegut, Kevin Smith, and Psalms (chap.):13
Added original content by Ryan P. Kinney, Lennart Lundh, Barbara Marie Minney, and Gabriella Ercolani

“Lords Temple Basement Men,” it says on the door in a badly photocopied sign, replaced freshly each week. The original was built from torn up pieces of bootleg band vinyl stickers left plastered all over the windows of some teenager, surely passed into decaying adulthood long ago.

They gather in the bottom of an abandoned house in the heart of mostly warehouses. Something, someone long ago forgot to bull doze in the wake of morbid industrialization and the zeal to just get more men more jobs while giving them no life, no place to live. They built in their own obsolescence

A Man stands outside; half catcalling, half showman barker; daring, tempting, bribing people to worship with him. In paint stained torn jeans, long shaggy hair with the bald spot landing pad directly in the center of his head, and shoes barely hanging together on his feet, he bellows out The Word. Somewhere between slam poetry performance and theology lesson, he entices and seduces people to enter. Here, they do not call him Father, or Brother, just person:  Man.  “Hey, Man,” is how they great him.

“This is the original Church of the world's scraps.
The body of the body of the body.
Burning in the sun.
‘Me and my son were born in the sun,’ They say.
He is willing to do it.”
The Man says, in a soothing voice.

People enter a crooked doorway. The Man pulls the peeling door behind them, scrapping the ground as he does so, and leads his flock down the concrete stairs to the basement. They come to a dingy dirt gravel floor and spread out; filling the space like gas expanding into a cylinder.

Background chatter already fills the room with low whispers before the performance-service,
“I am happy to hear that you are safe”.
“I am not sure that you are”
“You will be missed.”

The Man steps upon his usual milk crate to open the service. He intones the Capitalist Mantra,
“God Save the Queen
Long live the King
Hail to the Chief
The Lord of all Lies”

And the people chant, “I will not kiss you. I will not bow. I will not bow. I will not be moved.
I love the idea of what I have to be”

Mama Evil steps forward to explain their purpose here,
“This is a strange, mad religious service. Everything is out of place, nothing and no one seems to fit together. We all gather here, but no one seems to-gether. This is less a sermon and more a discussion where the gospel is debated. The Word is critiqued, modified, disputed, and changes between its members at each meeting. At any time for no reason, people can interrupt The Man to deny, confirm, suggest, or challenge his statements. The group then decides on the next bit of gospel to be made up on the spot or if what has already been said is still the current phase of perspective. There is no central thought or plan, just a plan for thoughts. We, people, call this Faith. Our membership makes up a multitude. There are Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Satanists, Buddhists, Capitalists, hippies, goth kids, Starbuck’s sipping bloggers, just plain weird kids in the back working on their latest D&D campaign. We are just people. And he, is just a Man. The only interconnecting philosophy among us is, ‘Anything is possible at any time for any reason.’”
“As the recovering Catholic Kevin Smith wrote, ‘It’s not important which faith you are, just that you have faith.’”

The People are ready to receive The Holy Spirit and his unique brand of performance poetry,

“In the beginning, there was only The Word, a word. And then more. Which were collected into a story; The Story. And from The Story came creation.
And then came the questions. And The Question was man. Who are we? What are we? Why? Who am I?”

The Man explains,
“The whole point of The Word is to make up new ones. To defy God’s Word by creating ourselves.”
“Do you see the animal’s asking questions? Wondering who they are. They simply know that they are.
There are no fish in Purgatory. Only us.
The Garden of Eden is colonized by serpents
There was no place for the demons to go, but further in.”

A Hindu Yoga instructor rights himself from walking on his hands and decides to take the first initiative, “Puff the Magic Dragon says, ‘Jesus loves me, but I need to talk to a human.’”
A furry cosplayer responds, "I need to talk to a human."

A Wiccan Princess retorts, "Nature is not as inventive as she thinks she is; Neither is God"

The Man answers,
“We are a beautiful blasphemy to God’s word (because we question).”

“Heavy is the crown that wears the head,” says the child prince.

The Drag King quotes, “Psalms (chap.):13
You will tread on the lion and the cobra.
You will trample on the great lion and the serpent.”

"...And God teaches the cricket how to play his music," says the bookish-looking woman sitting in the corner, trailing off as she adjusts her literal Coke bottle frames.

A gym rat, wearing a holey muscle shirt, extends arm to point as he says,
“Humans begin as *******.”

“Humans are also stardust.
Which means we are golden,” replies the scientist

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust,” says the derelict businessman hobo hero,
“God made mud in his own image and we are the leftover **** that rose out of it.
And if all life is really God’s sacred mud, then every **** storm is God’s Wrath.”

The Man quotes T.S. Eliot,
“What are the roots that clutch. What branches grow out of this stony *******. Son of man, you cannot say or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images.”

"The grapes of wrath transmuted into the harvest of imagination,” illustrates the painter

The automaton states, “**** the earth, to make a certain sense of it all.”

The Man attempts to regain control,
“Some future digger after truth,
alien or human, kneeling with
trowel and brush at this grave,
will note in clear, careful script
the wonder that a people would
be so deliberate with the smallest
of their gods' creatures,
and so careless of themselves.”

A soccer Mom asks,
“They say I shouldn’t be so tired.
They say I should get a job.
They say I should get off this couch.
They say I shouldn’t be a blob.”

“It takes but one step to enter the grave,” says The Man.
“So much can be lost in crossing that threshold. How did your grandparents, born in separate countries, meet? Did your mother kiss your father first, or vice versa? These are questions we don't think to pose, but without the asking or other evidence, Death will redact the list of begettings. Are you prepared for that void in memory? Or have you made notes for your children to leave theirs?”

"My Dad keeps their honeymoon receipts in the family Bible,” says the Unknown.
“After Mom moved on, he would take the Bible off the shelf every evening after supper.  He would first stare at it for what seemed forever while pouring himself a huge tumbler of bourbon and lighting a huge cigar that smelled like month old underwear.  Eventually, he would open the gold clasp and raise the deeply cracked leather cover of the Bible and first look at the family history written inside the front cover in the delicate and intricate handwriting of Mom, before pulling out the well worn honeymoon receipts, which he would shuffle through like a deck of cards before spreading them out on the worn and scratched kitchen table like a kind of dead man’s hand.  Sometimes, he would weep quietly.  Other times, he would pound his fists violently on the table shaking the cans of beans and potatoes on the shelves above.  That is when I knew it was time to make myself scarce.  He never ever opened the Bible any further than the front cover, which made me wonder about the nature of the book itself.  I always pondered the same questions over and over.”  
“Is Bible a filthy word? Is it the animal? The Man, The Woman? Should we burn the book?”
“Is the Word filthy?”, asks The Man, “What are the filthy words? What are the power of Words mired in ****? Who do these words define? Who are you?”

Mama Evil commands a presence,
“****? ****? ****? *****? Broad? *****? Are these the words you use to define me? When that which defines me is the holy chalice, life's catalyst, mia figa, my ****: stand us all on our heads and we all look the same. Regardless of our skin color, or the shape of the bones in our face or the skin around our eyes or the texture of our hair, those folds of flesh, that tunnel to the precipice of the universe, that little happy happy joy joy button, these are what we all have in common and what the whole world simultaneously wants and reviles. It has that much power. A lexical reclamation is taking place. One that will lift up the collective feminine spirit instead of dragging it down to the depths of all pejoratives. ****! The taking back of all pejoratives is an essential part of the reclamation of the collective self-esteem of woman kind! She is a Hindu Goddess! She is the Roman Goddess who is the protector or newborn infants. She is cunctipotent. She is all powerful and creates and destroys the world with her blood sugar **** magic. She is the princess and savior of the Mahabharata, renowned for her hospitality, who willingly receives any traveler who requests food and lodging. She is that benevolent. Durvasas bestows upon her a powerful mantra as payment for that hospitality and with it, Princess Kunti has the power to call on any God in heaven to lie with her and she will bear a son then by the next day. When her husband is rendered sterile as punishment for shooting the Stag King as he mated with his queen, Princess Kunti bears three heirs for the kingdom. She saves the kingdom. She saves the day. She is **** magic at its finest hour and she dwells in all of us who have ever been slandered. So go on, you ignorant *******. Call me a ****. Only you in your infinite small stupidity are skint the knowledge that you have just called me a princess and a savior.”

A comic nerd asks, “What of Power? What is power?”

Mama Evil holds up a single flame, spewing from a cheap blue lighter in her hand. She asks, “What is the power of The Word.” Is it in the book? Or in the air.”

She answers, “The power to choose. Do I set the world on fire, or put out
the flames?”

The room goes dark as she abruptly steals The Man’s usual send off,
“The Word has evolved, my friends.”

It's what keeps
your world to
gether
Stops you from
falling a
part
Ray of hope
on a rain
y day
The ship
of friends
never broken

1 a.m. and I'm in
2 deep because it's
3 strike outs and
4 the first time it's
5 times harder than I ever expected when

1 time it all seemed
2 good to be true hearing those
3 words that were
4 me and only me but
5 thousand times apparently loses luster, still I miss the

1 love that brought us
2 gether for those long
3 years going strong
4 each other but
5 months was much too long to wait without

1 last chance
2 make everything
3 hundred times better than ever be-
4 I now would have to drive
5 hours just to look you in the eyes instead of
6 minutes through the old neighborhood to
7 Valleywood Drive where we
8 tortellini in the rain and by
9 p.m. each night we've already forgot-
10 the demons of the day in each others arms

Fasces and olive branch on one side, tails;
wing-ed Phrygian cap on the head
of an image of the spirit of
Liberty, a fem.
Heads.

Dimes in the olden times,
when I was born,
1948,

dimes in America in those days
symbolized a long known
goodness for all men,
included in
we, the people, which includes
me.

Me and thee, we are we, only by virtue of my
words being written and your reading
of the same within our
terms of endearment
cookie.

Each we we are in, let us call a set,
but that confuses us, fuses us
to gether.
So, let's seee

See it like this. I am good. I repel wrong and
act right,
asif I were
polarized live in op
position to evil

evil live, have you seen it? Live,
did it prosper in your presence or was peace the final state?

Just, now. Please plea with your knower, don't lie.
Say never all you wish, however never lie
against the truth.

To thine own self, et al... y'know

in each generation of earth borne,
one hero is reared to play your role, dear reader.
Fret not,

know wisdom has been maligned as
calling us through each position
of the fool... there is a map
of these positions in a statuary garden
behind the temple of the golden buddha

in Bankok, visited with Mr. Boo in 1968.

I remember none of the poses but ai knows they form
a pyramid,
i
imagine it
peaks in some backward
footed kundalini pose,

which is *******. I imagined. Wisdom is gentle
and easy to be entreated, okeh, heko.

Lords Temple Basement Men
The first Book of The Word
In Nonsense we Trust

Assembled from pre-existing works by John Burroughs, Ryan P. Kinney, Jack McGuane, Cee Williams, Don Lee, Susan Grimm, Joe Roarty, Russ Vidrick, Dianne Boresnik, Mitch James, Tanya Pilumeli, Julie Ursem Marchand, Vicki Acquah, Terry Provost, Adam Brodsky, Lennart Lundh, Raymond McNiece, Hannah Williams, MaxWell Shell, Tim Richards, Ayla Atash, RC (Bob Wilson), Chuck Joy, Katie Daley, Solomon Dixon, Mary Weems, and Gordon Downie
Mostly taken as quotes during live poetry readings. Some stolen from other sources.
Additional content from predictive text by JM Romig, Linkin Park “Powerless,” “Saga of the Swamp Thing” vol. 1, T.S. Eliot, Amalgam Mythos, Kurt Vonnegut, Kevin Smith, and Psalms (chap.):13
Added original content by Ryan P. Kinney, Dr. Benjamin Anthony, and Ayla Atash

“Lords Temple Basement Men,” it says on the door in a badly photocopied sign, replaced freshly each week. The original was built from torn up pieces of bootleg band vinyl stickers left plastered all over the windows of some teenager, surely passed into decaying adulthood long ago.

They gather in the bottom of an abandoned house in the heart of mostly warehouses. Something, someone long ago forgot to bull doze in the wake of morbid industrialization and the zeal to just get more men more jobs while giving them no life, no place to live. They built in their own obsolescence.

A Man stands outside; half catcalling, half showman barker; daring, tempting, bribing people to worship with him. In paint stained torn jeans, long shaggy hair with the bald spot landing pad directly in the center of his head, and shoes barely hanging together on his feet, he bellows out The Word. Somewhere between slam poetry performance and theology lesson, he entices and seduces people to enter. Here, they do not call him Father, or Brother, just person:  Man.  “Hey, Man,” is how they great him.

“Come in and be amongst our broken people (pieces).
Mingle with our shards.
See which cut is the deepest”

People enter a crooked doorway. The Man pulls the peeling door behind them, scrapping the ground as he does so, and leads his flock down the concrete stairs to the basement. They come to a dingy dirt gravel floor and spread out.
The people in the room greet one another, then swarm around one woman,
“You are a good worker.”
“You will be missed.”

The Man steps upon his usual milk crate to open the service. He intones the Capitalist Mantra,
“God Save the Queen
Long live the King
Hail to the Chief
The Lord of all Lies”

And the people chant, “I will not kiss you. I will not bow. I will not bow. I will not be moved.
I love the idea of what I have to be”

The woman swarm, Mama Evil, pushes her way to the front to explain their purpose here,
“This is a strange, mad religious service. Everything is out of place, nothing and no one seems to fit together. We all gather here, but no one seems to-gether. This is less a sermon and more a discussion where the gospel is debated. The (holy) Word is debated, discussed, dissected, compromised, altered, changed, shredded, reused, updated, recreated. It is burnt to cinders, then rises as a phoenix, built out of the broken pieces of all that was said before; what used to be true, but is now casually agreed to be fallacy. We, people, call this Faith. Our membership makes up a multitude. There are Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Satanists, Buddhists, Capitalists, hippies, goth kids, Starbuck’s sipping bloggers, just plain weird kids in the back working on their latest D&D campaign. We are just people. And he, is just a Man.”
“Dual Spirituality is a possibility. In fact, it is encouraged. Multiple realities are possible. Poly-spirituality is acceptable. The only interconnecting philosophy among us is, ‘Anything is possible at any time for any reason’.”

The People are ready to receive The Holy Spirit and his unique brand of performance poetry,

“In the beginning, there was only The Word, a word. And then more. Which were collected into a story; The Story. And from The Story came creation.
And then came the questions. And The Question was man. Who are we? What are we? Why? Who am I?”
The Man explains,
“We are a beautiful blasphemy to God’s word because we question.”

Let me start with a parable,
“Once upon a time…
There lived a shy little boy and a chatty little girl. Though the two lived really close they never knew each other. That was until one day, the girl entered high school. They met for the first time on the school bus. The boy eavesdropped on her and for the first time spoke to her. Although she was especially irritated, the boy responded. It was with those words that a lifelong love blossomed…
‘You love me, you just don’t know it yet.’

Through the many trials and errors of high school life they grew together. And so, They lived happily ever after.”
“…Except, she didn’t. In this reality, she ran off with a rich older man while taking care of his dying wife, 5 years after those high school sweethearts were married.”
Years later, he would lament,
“It started with a broken heart. Through the crack seeped liquid fire. It engulfed me, burning away all that I was. The flames shall purify me. Boil me down to my base components, and then rebuild me. From the ashes will rise a new entity.
Who am I?”

“What can we learn from this,” asks the Man.

The first interrupter states matter-of-factly, “You are fire. You are love.”
A tie-dyed burnout rants, “Love is fire, Man. It burns. But it also warms and protects… Praise Allah.”
“Amen.”
“Bless you my son.”
“Hail Satan.”

“The last time I hear my heart…” says the bookish-looking woman sitting in the corner, trailing off as she adjusts her literal Coke bottle frames.
Now with ignition to her words, she quotes, “The last time I hear my heart was like a galactic ******. The ****** that made you and touches everything you made. Faith is attempting to live as though we are loved.”

A Drag King high fives her and says, “I liked the galactic ******.”

A torn up, steel-studded, leather clad punk continues, “Promise me you will live…
For nothing…
But the next moment.
No forgiveness, no damnation, only the match I strike on the heel of my boot.”

And then the automaton asks, “What of the devil: the original corruptor, the source of all evil?”

A gym rat, wearing a holey muscle shirt, extends an arm to point as he half sings, “The devil is a wicked man and wears a suit and tie. The devil checked in at noon and asked us, ‘What is the sleep of reason?’ You woke the devil I thought you left behind.”

“The Devil is due; the Devils do,” coos his boyfriend, the semanticist-*******.

The Man answers, “Is not the source of evil the same as the source of creation. Is it not evil to be so selfish as to create, with no concern for how creation will change everything.”

The Wiccan Princess retorts,
“Creation can be bought and sold.
Motherhood is a commodity.
Venus is for sale.
The nativity is shrouded in black.

We've streamlined your desire.
She was only offering an apple anyways.
And filled in that hole in her heart.

Here, we give her to you totally domesticated.
This one is costly, but so worth it.

You never will be worth it.
Earn enough
Be enough

Taste the salt of her tears on your tongue;
the salt of the earth.
She refuses to wear this crown of thorns.

In the eyes of your maker.
You should be ashamed.
To look your Maker in the eyes.”

Mama Evil attempts to chill her blaze, “Dear, the Anger is caged. It is the custom to call children who go to war, men…children of war die like men.”

Their daughter, the littlest girl in the world, coughed. A runny nose explained it, she had the sniffles. Nothing to worry about normally, but here, now? Right now the end of the world was in front of her. Flying saucers were floating down to slaughter the entire world with burning laser jelly. She coughed and picked up a remote with a wheel shaped dial.
“i drank too much pop and i gotta ***.” She said to no one in particular.
She turned the wheel shaped dial and a chorus of voices sounded. The chorus formed itself into an immense wall of sound made of bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians from another dimension. The littlest girl in the world kept turning the dial and saw the bureaucrats wash over the saucers, sending them back into space. The earth was safe, the littlest girl in the world smiled in relief.
And coughed.  

“It seems where demons fail and monsters falter, angels may prevail,” her mothers laughed.

Still incinerated, a goddess queen shouts, “We are the granddaughters of the witches you failed to burn.”

The crowd jostles and pulses like a living being. They are moved by the words they have heard. A chatter rises from them, much like the midnight sounds of the forest. "Who does she think she is?" "She said it. She sure said it." "I'm going to tell Moira all about it." An old woman near the back takes a swig from a bottle of wine she carries under her coat before passing it to a young woman in front of her.
"From fire, new life is born, too," she smiles, a crooked twist of the lips.

Rendered speechless and impotent, The Man abruptly closes this meeting with the usual send off,
“The Word has evolved, my friends.”

…ah um
quit the pandering and
spin a pipe’s worth of Mingus or
maybe Baker or Parker
(They know how to Say What You're Livin'
a guide to the soul of the sleep
or talkin' like a train on the brink of de-
railing for 30 miles
       but makes it safely to Wichita as planned.)
3:30AM it’s junkies for some kinda animal fix w/
old hip & old ****** tastebuds up
this late, or early I’m trying to re-
   -lapse here;
mechanism too open a-
live nerve
          for ravenous divinations &
spirited conquest(s)

I pray not to other gods but
move on the winds that blow dust in my eyes
let my language blur in-
between
the lines; surgically
to let me
bleed it out
        not betray my civility
not let my opinion
        betray my humility
not let my privileges
in certain contexts negate
my perspective
No I don’t pick between sides that’s where you
over
&
oversimplified
implied a divide
w/ language bastardized
& sanitized;

Ain’t a justice I could speak that would last a sentence
in any good book of his/or/hers who slime
when wet, gush & *****, cold statues
in busy-international-style-hotel-lobbies
silk’d swollen appendages & curly greasy-
    -haired oven spread
                               for POWER, power brunch boardroom glory
gory foreplay mocking dirtypoor magnolia seed, plucking peony petal
like a Shrink in shadow of a pedigree now
a judge, small & snide in righteous court-dress for play-
            time.

...Brothers & Sisters

(they) drink my fluid’s ******
-You, eat the will
of my friend the human pet
Slither your plasmic bones in fetal mix
unclaimed foundlings
        pink genitalias
go you writhe on-top uh i ou-
        -r taxdollars
fossilized uh programmed sickness squirm
in maggotmouthed machinations for
the egg of uh saint in lieu of true hue
Them Birds
          (onna island) of parasites;
crass utensil in aid your digestible
stasis-


You Sheep Boy
You? Sheep Boy
You, Sheep Boy?
You! Sheep Boy!
You Sheep! Boy felt the transformation
          when you were told. How’d it feel?
I lost my madness when I let myself die
inna only dream If I had a voice
half as clever as Joyce…
If I had a voice, it’d make-a disassociated rant
into a plea for sanity! it be a salt-stained sailor up
against his Nature to caress a braindead angry sea into
a wise & benevolent guide;

Not uh god I know
gave me a compelling answer not uh one
an I wish they had b’
         cause I don’t always feel so well
I could use another crutch…
Not uh one
head talking on my TV
can be-hold the spectrum to apply
just one, single colour, in your carnation’s eye
If it was so simple how come uh monkey can’t do it?
Ain’t uh monkey I know
         that-a keep its spine upright
that
ain’t gotta taste for its own kind
You’re right
but so is he right she right we will fight
left        right
up
down
uptown downtown outtatown
North South East West
babble on O babble on everywhere
ah um do please hit your marks
         & follow the rhythm
       of the next body over;
Pass around worn-out clichés uh penny given
you put 2 of them to-
gether
we call that uh valid opinion
where I’m from;
Not uh man I know mean what he say
and
sometimes not uh thought in
my brain make any of those
Words
not any of my
Words
mean anything not even the noise they produce
not like Mingus’ fingers talkin’ on that bass.

To Destroy, First Build  (The Construction of Human Dissolution)



steely Ironies begin as the end nears, leather torn by fabric,
when humans begin the separation protocol, when first
we intend to dissolve, we need construct, *****., barriers

so true, good fences make good neighbors...no. great enemies.
the invisible ones, freight train tracks running down the middle
of the bed, new lands of “his side, her side,” shut your light off!

he makes a joke, she don’t turn her head, maybe she, offers instead
a secret grimace, thinking inside too little late, bothering/thinking
go write your breakup poetry, that’ll keep you truly invested and

ocupado, lock door’d, why is my toothbrush in a moving van, that I didn’t hire, no destination home, notes passed via refrigerator door, what was  that “have children chatter?” months+words recent, huh?

just months ago, not confused, don’t touch his diet drink! man-o-man,
thank god we didn’t do a vaca drive up the West Coast, hanging with relatives in SF, LA not your town, you hate tinsel and pretense. BS.

arguing when we need to add gas, a wonderful double entendre, when was the end of detente, we abrogate the Treaty of Versailles, another place we won’t ever get to go-gether, that just makes me sadly happier, and

I think; now I understand why he always booked us seats on airplanes separated  by the aisle, no head upon his shoulder, in my lap, holding hands needs disinfectant, social distancing solves many problems now,

need now, no asking how, to conceive destroy, imagine concrete:

first you must build, it’s how one does it, human dissolution requires work, malice aforethought, we both master builders, see yeah,  that’s a joke, a good one too...let’s laugh not together at us, our edifice crumbles

Lords Temple Basement Men
The first Book of The Word
In Nonsense we Trust

Assembled from pre-existing works by John Burroughs, Ryan P. Kinney, Jack McGuane, Cee Williams, Don Lee, Susan Grimm, Joe Roarty, Russ Vidrick, Dianne Boresnik, Mitch James, Tanya Pilumeli, Julie Ursem Marchand, Vicki Acquah, Terry Provost, Adam Brodsky, Lennart Lundh, Raymond McNiece, Hannah Williams, MaxWell Shell, Tim Richards, Ayla Atash, RC (Bob Wilson), Chuck Joy, Katie Daley, Solomon Dixon, Mary Weems, and Gordon Downie
Mostly taken as quotes during live poetry readings. Some stolen from other sources.
Additional content from predictive text by JM Romig, Linkin Park “Powerless,” “Saga of the Swamp Thing” vol. 1, T.S. Eliot, Amalgam Mythos, Kurt Vonnegut, Kevin Smith, John A. Kinney Jr., and Psalms (chap.):13
Added original content by Ryan P. Kinney, Eli Williams, and Kadie Good

“Lords Temple Basement Men,” it says on the door in a badly photocopied sign, replaced freshly each week. The original was built from torn up pieces of bootleg band vinyl stickers left plastered all over the windows of some teenager, surely passed into decaying adulthood long ago.

They gather in the bottom of an abandoned house in the heart of mostly warehouses. Something, someone long ago forgot to bull doze in the wake of morbid industrialization and the zeal to just get more men more jobs while giving them no life, no place to live. They built in their own obsolescence.

A Man stands outside; half catcalling, half showman barker; daring, tempting, bribing people to worship with him. In paint stained torn jeans, long shaggy hair with the bald spot landing pad directly in the center of his head, and shoes barely hanging together on his feet, he bellows out The Word. Somewhere between slam poetry performance and theology lesson, he entices and seduces people to enter. Here, they do not call him Father, or Brother, just person:  Man.  “Hey, Man,” is how they great him.

"God not only loves a sinner, he prefers them.”
“Come to my parish. Sinners only”
“The lostness of the found, the blindness of the seeing, the spirituality of the atheist, the silence of the spoken.”
“The Covenant of the Sacred Heart.”

People enter a crooked doorway. The Man pulls the peeling door behind them, scrapping the ground as he does so, and leads his flock down the concrete stairs to the basement. Some newbie looks nervously into the stairwell.
From the rear, a maternal voice coos,
“You will be used to the treatments.
Don't worry about it.”
They come to a dingy dirt gravel floor and spread out; filling the space like gas expanding into a cylinder.

The Man steps upon his usual milk crate to open the service. He intones the Capitalist Mantra,
“God Save the Queen
Long live the King
Hail to the Chief
The Lord of all Lies”

And the people chant, “I will not kiss you. I will not bow. I will not bow. I will not be moved.
I love the idea of what I have to be”

The maternal voice steps up to explain their purpose here,
“This is a strange, mad religious service. Everything is out of place, nothing and no one seems to fit together. We all gather here, but no one seems to-gether. This is less a sermon and more a discussion where the gospel is debated. The Word is critiqued, modified, discussed, and changes between its members at each meeting. At any time for no reason, people can interrupt The Man to deny, confirm, suggest, or challenge his statements. The group then decides on the next bit of gospel to be made up on the spot or if what has already been said is still the current phase of perspective. There is no central thought or plan, just a plan for thoughts. We, people, call this Faith. Our membership makes up a multitude. There are Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Satanists, Buddhists, Capitalists, hippies, goth kids, Starbuck’s sipping bloggers, just plain weird kids in the back working on their latest D&D campaign. Dual Spirituality is a possibility. In fact, it is encouraged. Multiple realities are possible. Poly-spirituality is acceptable. The only interconnecting philosophy among us is, ‘Anything is possible at any time for any reason’.”

The People are ready to receive The Holy Spirit and his unique brand of performance poetry,

“In the beginning, there was only The Word, a word. And then more. Which were collected into a story; The Story. And from The Story came creation.
And then came the questions. And The Question was man. Who are we? What are we? Why? Who am I?”

The Man explains,
“The whole point of The Word is to make up new ones. To defy God’s Word by creating ourselves.”

The first interrupter asks, “How do you say No to God.”

The Man answers,
“You don’t like The Question. You are The Question.
We are relearning how to get lost, hoping to return to the birth of The Word.
Worship yourself and serve only humanity.
No one made you.
You created yourself.
It’s all the same story. The Story of I.”

“We are a beautiful blasphemy to God’s word (because we question).”

“How do you say No?
You don’t.
By understanding there is no such thing as,
No, I can’t. Only I won’t.
It was.
It is.”

A torn up, steel-studded, leather clad punk responds,
“we see others as they are
we see ourselves at every age
and all at once”

And the Man once again responds,
“All that we can think. All that we can imagine. All that we can write, paint, create, feel. All of this is real; somewhere. Depends on which universal perspective you are tuned to. Don’t like the current program playing. Change the channel.”

The professor sitting on the floor, shoeless, begins to riff,
“Yes, this is like that piece about imagination being the genesis of other worlds. About how imagination, all thought, is really tapping multiple frequencies from other universes. Our imaginative creations spawn, tap into, and play back all alternate universes in a non-linear time sense. Cause and effect are not in sequence. All that we think, all that we can come up with creates new worlds, but also accesses those already in effect and plays them. We create worlds that already existed by the time we come up with them in our imagination. They were already there and human minds are organic quantum analog receiving-broadcasting devices. We randomly switch channels with nonlinear frequency, simultaneously, and with varying signal strengths of each universe. We receive, but also feedback into a greater signal. So, we unknowingly create these universes, while also being fed from our own creations. Never, in order. We are the Father and the Son. Our own creators and creations. Our words are the genesis of all the other worlds, but also speak the gospel of the programs already in progress. All that we can imagine is as real as we can conjure.”

A black goddess queen asks, “Then, what do you call God?”

The Man retorts,
“You don't need his name, because you remember the man.
The idea of a memory of a man.
Perhaps the idea is better, stronger, more important than the man.
The idea of a man.
Sometimes, people are the absence of themselves.
And the absence of man is God.”

The semanticist-******* unzips its mask and chimes in, “When you name something you separate it and take ownership of it. We never name ourselves. So I ask you, what is your name? What do you own?”

A tie-dyed burnout rallies a battle cry protest chant,
“Who's the Boss?”
“You.”
“Who's God?”
“You.”
“Who are you?”
“I am (me).”

Another voice screams from the crowd, "I'm a monster, I admit it."

Like a rolling wave, the chatter once soft, “I’m a monster” becomes a chant. Faster and faster the adrenaline rises up, the voices rise up, thunderous shouting fills the room, threatening to burst through the walls and escape into the sky. No longer fearing what others might think they raise their fists and beat their chests, unleashing the monster they tried so hard to hide. Shrieks and guttural instinctual roars, animalistic crawling and seething anger, move through the crowd like a pack of wolves ripping apart a coyote.
The screaming voices spill out,
“God has left long ago and has taken no pity on the lonely wanderer.”
“We are not Abraham or Jesus. We are forgotten.”
“We are the forgotten demons pushed out of Heaven.”
“Or maybe we never belonged there in the first place.”

The maternal voice returns, feeling the scorch of the unrequited emotion, seeks to soothe, “Thus mollified she goes, harsh words forgiven, down highways in the dark by demons driven.”

The Man, the original instigator, adds more fuel to the fire,
“And what drive does she possess that we do not?  To seek out, to be blind to the trapping of the darkness within this corridor? We must look and see how we too can move past the shame and blame of others.  To move past the trappings of our own guilt.  To take within ourselves, our demons, true, but take and guide and build the new.  A new life that we can’t ignore, and when we fall, we feel the scorn.  We feel the bad faith and lies that keep us entangled in the want-to-be-with, the fear to be-without. But we also have a fear to be, to exist in the place of a true “self” and live out our dreams. Though time keeps happening, we remain stagnant, we remain in the place of an inauthentic being, a being-for, not a being-with.  We must seek to be-with.  To be-with our demons, our past, and our temptations toward the dark, toward the place in which the I becomes.  To be. To exist. In this.  That is the place where the divine can breathe.  Though we must remember to always embrace change, for everything is temporary, including our own pain.”

Having spent all his feeling and words carelessly and frivolously, The Man abruptly closes this meeting with the usual send off,
“The Word has evolved, my friends.”

The first Book of The Word
In Nonsense we Trust

Assembled from pre-existing works by John Burroughs, Ryan P. Kinney, Jack McGuane, Cee Williams, Don Lee, Susan Grimm, Joe Roarty, Russ Vidrick, Dianne Boresnik, Mitch James, Tanya Pilumeli, Julie Ursem Marchand, Vicki Acquah, Terry Provost, Adam Brodsky, Lennart Lundh, Raymond McNiece, Hannah Williams, MaxWell Shell, Tim Richards, Ayla Atash, RC (Bob Wilson), Chuck Joy, Katie Daley, Solomon Dixon, Mary Weems, Cat Russell, and Gordon Downie
Mostly taken as quotes during live poetry readings. Some stolen from other sources.
Additional content from predictive text by JM Romig, Linkin Park “Powerless,” “Saga of the Swamp Thing” vol. 1, T.S. Eliot, Amalgam Mythos, Kurt Vonnegut, Kevin Smith, and Psalms (chap.):13
Added original content by Ryan P. Kinney, Mitch James, Ellie St. Cyr, and Evan Spooner

“Lords Temple Basement Men,” it says on the door in a badly photocopied sign, replaced freshly each week. The original was built from torn up pieces of bootleg band vinyl stickers left plastered all over the windows of some teenager, surely passed into decaying adulthood long ago.

They gather in the bottom of an abandoned house in the heart of mostly warehouses. Something, someone long ago forgot to bull doze in the wake of morbid industrialization and the zeal to just get more men more jobs while giving them no life, no place to live. They built in their own obsolescence.

A Man stands outside; half catcalling, half showman barker; daring, tempting, bribing people to worship with him. In paint stained torn jeans, long shaggy hair with the bald spot landing pad directly in the center of his head, and shoes barely hanging together on his feet, he bellows out The Word. Somewhere between slam poetry performance and theology lesson, he entices and seduces people to enter. Here, they do not call him Father, or Brother, just person:  Man.  “Hey, Man,” is how they great him.

“But when your empty heart is weighed”
"What are you really worth?
These people call this Faith,
bring them to my table
the next bit of gospel
I wrote on a napkin”

People enter a crooked doorway. The Man pulls the peeling door behind them, scrapping the ground as he does so, and leads his flock down the concrete stairs to the basement. They come to a dingy dirt gravel floor and spread out.
The people in the room greet one another, then swarm around one woman,
“You will be used to the treatments.”
“I am not sure that you are.”
“You will be missed.”

The Man steps upon his usual milk crate to open the service. He intones the Capitalist Mantra,
“God Save the Queen
Long live the King
Hail to the Chief
The Lord of all Lies”

And the people chant, “I will not kiss you. I will not bow. I will not bow. I will not be moved.
I love the idea of what I have to be”

Princess Mommy steps up to explain their purpose here,
“This is a strange, mad religious service. Everything is out of place, nothing and no one seems to fit together. We all gather here, but no one seems to-gether. This is less a sermon and more a discussion where the gospel is debated. The (holy) Word is debated, discussed, dissected, compromised, altered, changed, shredded, reused, updated, recreated. It is burnt to cinders, then rises as a phoenix, built out of the broken pieces of all that was said before; what used to be true, but is now casually agreed to be fallacy. This Faith makes up a multitude. There are Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Satanists, Buddhists, Capitalists, hippies, goth kids, Starbuck’s sipping bloggers, just plain weird kids in the back working on their latest D&D campaign. We are just people. And he, is just a Man.”
“As the recovering Catholic Kevin Smith wrote, It’s not important which faith you are, just that you have faith.”

The People are ready to receive The Holy Spirit and his unique brand of performance poetry,

“In the beginning, there was only The Word, a word. And then more. Which were collected into a story; The Story. And from The Story came creation.
And then came the questions. And The Question was man. Who are we? What are we? Why? Who am I?”

“I am the mask wearing the man of eternity. In me, you see the face of history. A history we make up as we go.
The God of fallen leaves, leaves us... waiting for eternity to begin.
The Prophet Vonnegut says, ‘The question echoes back through time and disappears.
History. Read it and weep.
Tonight is a verb.”

From the crowd come the First voice, reading from his screenplay, "I was the table of contents, a footnote... running away from the beginning of the book. Perhaps no one knew we were living happily ever after until the book was over."

The Mallrat replies,
“Of all the words of Mice and Men the saddest words are ‘It Might’ve been.’
No need to despair
It was
It has
Somewhere else
Your soul is saved
All that Might’ve has already happened. ‘

“We are charming little liars,” retorts The Man, “We are a beautiful blasphemy to God’s word.”

The comic nerd slowly whispers, “All is truth, but every man is a liar. Sell me another artificially-derived slow suicide.”

A scientist cleans his glasses as he recites, “A world full of smoke and mirror nonsense -
It’s a religion of smoke and mirror nonsense
Only The Word is true and we make it up as we go.
In Nonsense is strength”

“So it is spoken, so it is true,” The Man energetically agrees.

An alien voice asks choppily, “Touch me
if you want to
believe in me
and the nothing I know”

“Sing the praises of the Holy Unknowing,” croons The Man, “We know nothing, therefore, we know all.”

And then, he drops into a haiku,


A bi-gender beauty asks no one (for permission), “Let me sling a little freestyle verse,

I'm steeple chased because some animal church wants to make me foxtrot in tempo with the braying boy
Pinnochio wants to make me hog its slops like Pigpen McSomething grateful and dead.
A fountain of youthful talent chemically imbalanced.
...with a grey skull full of He-man."

"Look at him!" they say.
"Give him a gun!" says another.
"A bomb!" a third spurts.
"Shows us your trigger finger!" they yell.

"My little boy," Princess Mommy whispers below the rush of gruff voices, her words staccato.

They answer her, "So I CAN taste the infernal darkness,” as the crowd falls silent

Princess Mommy chides them, “We know there is a sweetness in that which we cannot see. We know there is danger in that which we cannot hear.
Our bodies shake, our minds quake in anticipation of his words. It is almost time.”

The Man speaks again.
"Surely it is known, my brethren, that we are the Third Coming, the Breaking of the Seventh Seal that will signal the end of our oppressors. When we emerge victorious from the fires of battle, there will be no value left in the binary. No twos, only two or more. The Old Ways shall perish. We will shake off the chains, pull out the nails from our hands and feet, and the world which rejected us will rise anew under our leadership. Surely, it is known. Surely, it has been spoken. Jesus themself is at our back, and therefore we shall not fail."

“What a wealthy country, but no one’s coming to pay my bail,” sings the rainbow man, “They’re bragging they own my soul.”

"I don't want to bother anyone with my prayers,” prays the bi-gender person, secretly proud of leading the riot.

Sensing it is time to take to the streets, The Man closes the meeting with the same send off,
“The Word has evolved, my friends.”

Flow Synical
Hugging A Coat
Drinking from A Chassel
Declaring A Toast
As I Gaze In The Mirror
I See Me Deeply Pericing A Ghost
Life And Deaths Pull Tugs
A War With My Soul
Gravyards Are My Home
I Breathe Beneath A Tree
Percieve The Breeze As It Blows
We Need To Come To Gether If We Feel So Alone
Truth Is A Must
Lies Blind Desperate Minds Bury Us Under Stones And Dust
Im Glossing Up My Aura
Getting Rid Of The Rust
I Speak For The Ones Bleed To And Get Shushed Or STUCK And Get Close But Combust
I Meditate Channel Healing POWER In Me
No Dimensional Being Can Shatter This Matter I The Portal INfINITE MAGNIFICENT IMMORTAL  Judgement Free Universal Morals
Roots So Deep
Sleep In Diffrent Worlds
Purifying My Heart
For My Twin Soul Flame
We Are A Star

it’s november when
the meds kick in, it’s
december when i feel
human again. (or maybe,
for the first time?)

i lack less.
found an appreciation
for something or another
dug up in the front yard
by a half-blind dog.
appreciation for
the living
and the
quiet
small
moments.

i used to know empathy,
used to take her hands
between mine in
cut scenes
but those were
   trembling eras
    of seconds,
    caught between
  an intensity i’ve since
        given     away.

an inferno.

of being
in love
with
wheat
grass bet-
ween
high
ways
and

last bit
of clouds
eating sun
like nectar
in the rearview:

or sweet talking
directly into his eyes
at midnight, hearing
a smile in the smoke
that separates our
houses.

cats with twigs
and dirt swimming
in their bellies.
ghosts in the
woods beyond
my car,
yowling at
the full moon
as if they
were born
to.

i now know
the silence and
warmth of
sleep.

i exist alongside
unfamiliar calm,
a quaint silence
that does not
burn at the
                 touch.





but

the world is
almost softer
            almost
                       lighter   --

my skin is
held to-
gether
with
some
thing
more
than
glue.

     (maybe
      stitches?)

i wonder
if i was
human
the whole
time.

two songs, when i played guitar, before i shamed it silly into firewood? of my favourites... silverchair's shade, and link wray's rumble... otherwise the standard blues chords... under the bridge? yeah, i could do that... but since: chłopak z gitarą, był by dla mnie parą (a boy with a guitar, would suit me fine)... satan speaks better lies than a woman, so no, no thank you; oh please, knock yourself out... for one honest woman, there are about two male thieves waiting to stalk the night... for one dihonest woman... there are no males in sight.

not much music with atheists...
   jabba jabba jabba joobi job...
alt.?   dziabbah dziabbah
             dziabbah whom serve's
the sneeze's worth of argument...

theists?

  well... at least there's:
    fiddler on the roof...

   either silence, or song...
but conversation?!

   if i were a rich man...

  *yubby dibby dibby
            dibby dibby dibby
   dibby dum...

            i stopped talking after discovering
that english has no diacritical
distinctions... and doesn't treat
ch or sh as digraphs...
          
          this language is ******* barren in
technical terms...
  and then tha natives complain:
ooh, ooh, oog'ah oog'ah... ***** accent... huh ha huh...
******... begin with first base of
encoding your own waggle before
   talking to people about "funny" accents...
to me... you have a funny way of writing
with latin script... it's no wonder you had
an empire, and how suddenly it collapsed...
     by hiding your own diversity of accents,
from scottish, to australian, to south african,
to essex, to cockney, to welsh, to irish...
   yo' faackers r foo-king funny...
                             born 'n' bred... me ayes..
please... show me, a start of diacritical
    implementation on the ancient alphabet...
that you didn't actually invent,
      you're just a ******* stuart of latin...
you're no king, no more than i'm
     a beggar asking to peer into the cipher.

    oi! "adam"! put on some underwear,
dress the language up with some diacritical marks!
oh, oh wait... you can't...
             there are too many variations,
to many necessary exceptions to be made...
    
  y'all like drawl... americana nasal...
        wee *** some knee-jerks aww awound az...
                 wee ginna fwy sum kin-tuck-e
                             chee-ken fighs.
no ketchup i gether...
       n'ah mate...
                           we be coo-kin wi'
   a barbie sáùs;

        oh cool cool, b. dylan's blonde on blonde.

Just-
ice
to-
gether
our-
selves
a-
lone?

No.
Know:

Just
us
to
gather
are
selves
a
loan.

since the meds kicked in,
i lack less, i think.
i've found an appreciation
dug up in the front yard
by a half blind dog

an appreciation
for the living
and the
quiet
  small
moments.

before, i cared, but
those eras were
intermittent
      seconds
        cut scenes
  caught between
    the intensity i've since
            given away.

but
moments

of being
in love
with
wheat
grass bet
ween
high
ways

and

last bit
of clouds
eating sun
in the rearview:

or sweet talking
your eyes at midnight
to hear your voice
smiling in
the smoke
separating our
houses:

cats in the
woods behind
my car, yowling
at the full
moon as if
they were
born to:

the silence
and warmth
of sleep.

i exist alongside
unfamiliar calm
a small breath
but a longer pause -
no more perfect
than dollar store
cellophane

but the world
is almost
softer
and my
skin is
held to
gether
with
some
thing
more
than
glue.