Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I

To the man who made me who I am

Being with you was like learning without a textbook
I just watched and copied and made it my own
From gardening to maths
You made me my own genius

I didn't have to speak for you to know what was wrong
You didn't judge me for the silly things I said
Or how I never learnt at school
You taught me to teach my self

You were my Mr Miyagi
With less riddles more jokes
I learnt that laughter can flood rooms like tidal waves
And we were leaves to float in it

And now you're gone I wont mourn
You would tell me to stop crying and cut my hair
I will use laughter to put a smile on raggedy dolls
And the stories to keep the dark days down

Thank you for being the Godfather of giggles
Making Sunday dinners not the day to fear Mondays
Having gardening not be a chore but a way to think
Rest well Granddad.

I never really wanted to have an agent
Just one day I met this lady and she starting arranging my gigs and stuff
She gave me this kelly green handkerchief and told me to wear it in my left back pocket at all times
I have followed her orders religiously and now own more laser discs than all my friends combined

Do you know where the Trinidadian bakery is?
I'm supposed to meet the paperboy there and give him this pencil case

May the black cats of January be afraid to cross your path

Rivers flow
in volumes and refrains
the shadows of black phoebes
chasing waves
as they ripple
in quiet tones
a majestic scenery
tainted by involuntary lullabies
of atonement

To be loved or to be killed answers by Mario Antonio,
A beach signature novel, very guilty and very pleasure
Soaked in with characters of mafia and every targeted ******.

Shh!——He is whispering to me
“Keep your friends close but your enemies closer”
Who is under control, who cares about the battel

Whispering Shh! Some say the world has balanced ball
Godfather is a silent observer. With guilty but pleasure
He demands no power but friendship loyalty.
Struck fear in everyone he has known.

Shh! These are Five Families he plays with,
Still figures of glory. Shh! check the ground
The mud ******* dragon flight throats,
Stepping stones from Europe boot soles.

The Cloud, clouds. Under defence of greed.
The gilt and secure domes of Russia melt and float off
He commands dragonflies behind the clouds
with circled country borders. Across countries and spaces.

Like the drone, drone like shooting machine.
The invisible drone has got so far,  with 400 feet height!
The Pentagon calling Trafalgar Square
Russia, Ukraine game theory with Tianmen Square

Back and forth of tactical and strategic manoeuvring,
with every character shining in little part he must play
“Your enemies always get strong on what you leave behind”

The drone, The Cloud, clouds drone
He is a silent observer, the Godfather.

He intimidate.
Demanded loyalty.
Struck fear in everyone he has known.

Vicious to some.
Kind to others.
But controlled an empire that many rivals would compete for.

Some called him Love.
Some Mario Antonio Love.
But to authorities he Godfather of illegal gains.

A crook by any other name.

Never one to personally ****.
He gives the orders for henchmen to do them.
Until one accdentlly killed his daughter.

He repent and apologize.
While guilt tears him up inside.

I remember his smile
His embrace
His touch on my fingers
As he played beside me
We made such beautiful music
Why did you have to go?
I loved watching you
Prepare for concerts
The calone you always wore
Always making sure
The tuxedos were fitted right
You would play the melodies
Of your life for all that would hear
Just as suddenly it was over
The music lost its magic
I played one last time
As I closed my eyes
I began to cry
I felt you next to me again
As I finished the song and quietly stood for the final bow
I saw you
In white
In front of you crystal piano
Smiling at me as you played
The same melody
Now it lives on on me.

Dear God,
I humbly pray
That you allow
The God Father of Soul,
Who fills this casket of gold
A quiet place in Heaven
How do we judge a man --
Hard work flows through his hands
God dwells inside his heart

James Brown created the funky beat
He mix the horns and the drums,
So he could sing, dance,
And glide on his feet
He played in a funky band
God, you know this man

Introducing,
Mr. please,
               Please,
                        Please
                                Himself
Mr. James Brown

Befrilled Godfather, why tune Yours to mine
These Rightful Verses your Country observes
I, an Eastern Bun's Lord in Mind consign
Put my Pun in-place for their own Reserves
Now this, a Muse if your Clock does witness
Would burn me at stake or hang me condemned
All because such Organs defy Fitness
And thought the ****** I will reprehend
I grow tired of this evident Trough
Whilst you once scribbled Trademarks with your Quill
How, my Heart-Nosed Configure such enough
Yet wish to join you in your White Pipes, still.
Your Epitaph stays; I dare not complete
Just press these Roses your Approval, meet.

(Sorry Friends, for posting educational type of poems, I know Haiku are easier to read & comment! But if you happen to like this true story, kindly recommend it to your other friends! Thanks, -Raj)

STORY OF EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE: PART TWO

THE CITY-STATE OF FLORENCE :
The city of Florence lies in the historic valley of Tuscany ,
Along the banks of the Arno river, surrounded by hills
of scenic beauty !
Here during the first century BC , the conquering Romans
established their ‘Colonia Florentina’,
To settle the war veterans of Caesar’s army in Northern
Italia !
But later after the fall of Rome , it became a battleground
for the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope ;
But the independent nature of its people refused foreign
yolk !
They preferred commune rule led by a powerful leader –
called the Signore ,
Just like the city-states of ancient Greece, in those days of
yore !
But unlike Greece , Florence saw no Democracy ,
Since the Medici family finally usurped power in this
city of Northern Italy !
Unlike Venice , Florence is landlocked and not a port
city ;
Relying on banking and trade to prosper economically .
Their gold coin florin became the standard coinage
throughout Europe ;
While through the export of its quality textile and woolen
goods, great wealth got secured !
But to become patrons of art and letters mere wealth is
not enough ,
One must have a refined taste to become a true lover of
letters and art !
And here the Medici carved out a niche for themselves
under the Florentine sun !
Writers like Francesco Petrarca , Dante, and Boccaccio ;
And artists such as Giotto , Lippi, Dontello, Leonardo ,
and Michelangelo , were all born Florentines !
Even classical Athens couldn’t boast of such a vast
galaxy ,
Of artistic talents within such a limited time frame of
History !
These artists embellished their city with their literary
works, sculptures, architectures and paintings ;
Made Florence to reawaken, dazzle, and shine ;
Carving out a proud moment in history for the
Florentines !

CONTRIBUTION OF MEDICI FAMILY OF
FLORENCE :
Giovanni de Medici (1360-1429) :
This Medici family became the Godfather for the Italian
Renaissance ,
And I feel obliged to narrate their story tracing their
historical source !
In those early days Art was considered a lowly craft ,
There were no art galleries, and one couldn’t make a
living out of Art !
Without patronage the artist and his art couldn’t survive ,
So I speak of the Medics, who had originated from the
Tuscan countryside !
Gaining power through wealth and political astuteness,
And not through military force for dominance !
The founder of family’s fortunes was Giovanni de
Medici ,
An educated man with a simple life style , who
traveled on a donkey !
A humble man who had never aroused any enmity .
He established the Medici Bank with innovations
in ledger accounting system ;
And became a pioneers in tracking credits and debits
through a double entry system !
He opened branches of the Bank in Rome and Northern
Italy ,
Facilitated bills of exchange and credit bills, to multiply
his money !
After the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome ,
The Medici Bank was made the official bankers of the
Pope ;
And Giovanni became the wealthiest man in Italy , if
not in entire Europe !
In 1421 Giovanni was made the Chief Executive of his
city ,
And he commissioned its leading architect Brunelleschi , -
to glorify Florence city .
The challenging task for Brunelleschi was to build the dome
of the Cathedral of his city .
This was the first octagonal dome in history , a breakaway
from the earlier Gothic structures ,
And even surpassing the Roman Pantheon as a marvel of
Florentine architecture !
It took sixteen long years to complete this huge dome ,
And stands today as an icon of Renaissance Europe !
Giovanni had taught his son Cosimo to follow a simple
life style ,
To patronize art and letters, and to his people be kind !

COSIMO De MEDICI (1389-1464) :
After Giovanni’s death , Cosimo the Elder built upon
his father’s inherited wealth ;
Absorbed most of the 39 Florentine Banks, operating its
branches in London and Bruges as well !
The greatest rival of the Medici fortunes were the Albizzi ,
They plotted against Cosimo and the Medics ;
And in 1433, exiled Cosimo and his family out of jealousy !
But after a year the Medics were recalled back as heroes ,
Since the Florentine coffers without the Medici Bank , -
had become almost zero !
But both peace and prosperity are needed for flourishing
of art and culture ,
So Cosimo engineered the Peace of Lodi (1454) with Milan
and Venice , -
To prevent future wars and misadventure !
Scholars were made to collect precious manuscripts from
the East, and the churches and vaults of Europe ;
And an ensured period of stability , contributed to Early
Renaissance’s growth !
Sculptor Donatello’s bronze **** David stood up as an
unique art form ,
And with paintings of Fra Angelico, and Filippo Lippi , -
the style of art itself began to reform !
Architect Michalozzo built the famous Medici Palace ,
And Cosimo opened the Medici Library for the spread of
classical knowledge !
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 , the Greek scholars
with their classical manuscripts fled to Italy .
They flocked to Florence where Cosimo established a
Platonic Academy !
Renowned Humanist Marsilio Ficino became its President ,
And complete works of Plato got translated from Greek
to Latin !
Thus the growth of Early Renaissance owed much to
Cosimo’s patronage ,
And the Florentines inscribed “Pater Patriae” on his tomb , –
(‘Father of His Country’) after his death !

LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT (1449-1492) :
Cosimo’s son Piero the Gouty died within five years ,
Never achieved anything spectacular worthy of tears !
The Medici Bank had loaned large sums of money to
King Edward IV of England and Charles the Bold of
Burgandy,
Failed to recover getting into bad debts and insolvency !
So when Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo succeeded at
the age of twenty one ,
He focused on other areas of creativity, and the period
of High Renaissance begun !
Lorenzo , a genuine lover of arts, also wrote poetry in the
dialect of his native Tuscany ;
Following the footsteps of Tuscan born poets Donzella ,
Davanzati , and Dante the author of ‘Divine Comedy’ !
On 26th April 1478 , the Pazzi family in connivance with
the Archbishop of Pisa and backing of Pope Sixtus IV ,
Tried to assassinate the Medics during the High Mass, -
in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore !
Younger brother Giuliano was fatally stabbed , but they
failed to **** Lorenzo .
All the conspirators were hanged including Pisa’s
Archbishop !
Ecclesiastic censure was issued against Florence ,
And Lorenzo was excommunicated by the Pope !
But Lorenzo worked out a treaty of peace with the King
of Naples ,
And became the undisputed ruler of the Republic of
Florence !
Unfortunately , Lorenzo died young at the age of forty-
three ,
At the dawn of the great Age of Exploration and
adventures by sea !
During his rule Renaissance reached its Golden Age ,
And literature, art, and architecture blossomed with
Lorenzo’s patronage !
It earned him the title of ‘Magnifico’, now know to
us as Lorenzo the Magnificent !
Leonardo da Vinci , Michelangelo , Raphel , Giovanni
Bellini ,Titan, Veronese, Correggio , Tintoretto ;
All became superstars of the Renaissance era ;
Their works are cherished, valued and treasured to
this day of our Modern era !
In the year 1492 with Lorenzo’s death , Italy entered
a period of turmoil and instability,
And the Renaissance saw a period of decline in Italy !
But the flames of the Renaissance spread to other
parts of Northern Europe ,
And in the 16th century reached England’s shores !
The Medici Family had also provided three Popes to
Italy, and three Queens to France ;
Besides patronizing the growth of the famous Italian
Renaissance !
Now dear readers, to do justice to Renaissance art ,
architecture, and literature briefly ,
I propose to narrate its story in Part Three !
-- By Raj Nandy of New Delhi .
*ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR

Its a Friday night
And I chose to come relish in my last moments
In this little but yet so big
Room thats fully taken on so much.

I think back on it now
With that sweet nostalgia
I get so deeply caught up in
With earnest masochism
And the innate desire
To keep kicking up my heels
And get my **** together
I seem to echo in tandem
With those that pick and seek
Simplistic but belting desires
From me
And really, the not so little
Or big
I have to give.

This time last year
A great betrayal occurred
I'll never forget my hysteria over the phone
That was not my own
I called you in such a panic
My darling, I didn't mean for that to happen
Pacing in West Avondale
I had to go be on set in a matter of minutes
And I wept, for fear I had ruined
What I thought might be us.

And I find myself standing now
In little bo-peep pink with a glass of white wine in my hand
My soon to not be room mate seems disheartened
That everyone already knows me
And we jest but really we mean it and say
He's clearly
Just so gay.

I had a little tick in the pit of my stomach
Papa and I got so sweaty in the hot sun
A new bright, brave, strong man
Wraps his arm around me amid what we think to be
Honeysuckles and he teaches me a thing or two
About what I know
But he brings a new sense of wisdom
And I cutely tell him
I like your brain.

I decided to stay away tonight
After much debate
Its my last moments here after all
4 different parties to attend
I say no thank you to them all
Tonight
Burn some sage
Make sure I'm ready
But you're never fully ready

But I stare out my new windows
Am greeted in the elevator
Buy some cute bar stools
Mama told me to walk away
And never look back.

I paced in a long blue dress
The night before
Black
Felt so alive to be everyone's ***** on a film set
And now its me who gives the orders.

GOD GOES FOR A WALK

God goes
for a walk.

it is the depths of Winter
but, at a whim

he makes it
...Spring.

Because.
He can.

I also, as it happens
have gone for a walk

& am surprised by
the sudden change of

the weather. . ?
...whatever!

He is wearing a yellow
gangster style fedora.

He looks like Marlon Brando
being The Godfather.

He sports the brightest of yellow
waistcoats

which compliments
the purple shirt...purple trousers.

He strides along with His
Paisley patterned  Parisian walking stick

whistling the music of
The Spheres.

The World bows
before him.

He is well pleased
with Himself, un-

-til: He encounters me
coming towards him

dressed in a gangster style
yellow fedora

the brightest of yellow waistcoats
not to mention the purple shirt...purple trousers.

I, also, possess
a Paisley patterned  Parisian walking stick.

We nod politely
saying nothing but...

He is miffed at me
wearing His outfit and

I also miffed at Him
wearing mine!

We pass each other
God & creature.

And God...**** if He doesn't
make it Winter

on the very next step.

He was always
a Jealous God.

The Viet Nam era was a witches brew.Mission creep in  Saigon
The evening news brought the ****** trips stumbling into
my TV dinner, kicking over my Tang.

Bouncing Betty went bang
Beans and ***** out the can.

Guys in my age bracket  knew it was safe cause 18 was the magic Number.
RESPECT
Simon and Garfunkel ,The godfather of soul.
What we.
Had Here.
Was.
Failure to Communicate.

We were reaching for the stars with one hand and
squeezing of rounds with the other. Bobby was in the crossfire
Martin would retire,
I remember.

Guys slinking back home with broken minds
Baby killers all. No love ,No jobs. COMBAT FATIGUE.           PTSD     Came later.
Got a monster habit, Nose running of  like a racetrack rabbit.

Oh yeah Asian Strain Gonorrhea.
Penicillin
Penishmillin.  ***

Hendricks.

Yes, the Glass Slipper fits.

But I will not go with you.

You stand shocked in your magnificent Uniform,
Black shoes and Spurs sparkling
Sword shining in its scabbard,
Proud blue eyes wide,
Handsome face stunned

Prince Henry Alexander
Your father gave a ball to find a queen,
but you found me instead.
We will marry
BUT you will be the one transformed, not me

You rode to my house on your beautiful Horse,
descending from your castle,
to bring your future queen back to your life
of Privilege and Royalty.

No. I will bring you into my world of
menial work and sacrifice and exhaustion.

My fairy Godfather is here to help transform you.
You came with a glass shoe for my foot.
But now YOUR polished shoes and silk socks,
footwear of a Prince,
are coming OFF your privileged feet.

You are stunned and horrified
You resist and argue
You refuse and try to leave
Your pride and anger rise
But there is no escaping your destiny.

You are now the barefoot Prince among the cinders
Barefoot in your Dazzling Court Uniform
Would you ever dance barefoot in your elegant Palace
Naked soles instead of smartly clicking shoes?

Now we take your Royal Sword
You will not be fighting battles anymore
Your Medals and White Gloves are pulled off
You shudder as you surrender pieces of your
Royal self to our hands.

Here are the rough clothes of a peasant farmer
made of rough burlap.

What are these? You gasp

Strip off your magnificent Imperial Uniform.
Scarlet Tunic and pressed striped blue Trousers
Royal Sash and Epaulettes
that belong to your former Princely life
Step into your new uniform of labor and poverty.

You struggle with outrage and frustration
but a surge of courage gives way
and crumbles
as my Fairy Godfather strips you of your inherited
Nobility and Privilege

Send a message to the King and Queen
You are renouncing your Royal Throne
Your birthright
Your former life and former future
All that you once were
and all that you were born to be.

You are no longer Prince Henry Alexander
Soon to be King Henry Alexander IV...
What name is that for a peasant?
You are now Hank
That is all. Just Hank.

Renounce your Princely Education
your formal training
your upper class speech and manner.
We will help you strip yourself
of your High Position.
Do not worry.

Your Aristocratic identity is already dead.

We will sell your splendid Sword.
We will trade your former sparkling black shoes
for a pig
Exchange your former Brilliant Uniform
for a goat
Your former ring with the Royal Insignia
for grain and seeds
Trade in your former Spurs and black silk socks with
the monogram of your former name for a plow.

Your head of wonderful Golden hair,
the hair of a Prince on a Throne,
the hair of Warrior in Battle,
hair for a Palace, hair for a Ball.

I remember the palace lights
shining on your beautiful Golden hair....

All that glorious hair
must be shaved off.

Your handsome face already in shock.
Your mouth drops open.

Your Golden hair will be sold
to make a wig for a wealthy bald man.
Let him wear the Princely hair with pride.
YOUR pride and dignity are shriveling and
vanishing like raindrops on a hot day

You will work long hours in the fields
You will sow and reap, tend the animals,
Chop trees, you will be a beast of burden,
We have no Ox.
We will attach the plow to your Princely shoulders.
You will have no need of thick, full golden hair.

Your Princely hands and feet are smooth, clean, white
protected by shoes, boots, spurs, gloves.
But soon the earth and rain and wind
will enter and crack them.

Your beautiful, beloved Horse,
Groomed in the Royal Stables,
waiting outside the house
is no longer yours.
Yes, we will sell him as well.

Together we will live a life of drudgery.
We will have children who will never know
their Royal lineage.
You have descended to my level
and here you will remain...

I will name our new pig Prince
to remind you, as a gentle joke for summer nights...

Wiped out and broken inside,
I've been defiled.
'Tis there nothing that can remove this violation from my stained corpse?
It's doomed to be my own little secret forever,
And even if I never tell, it shall never be undone.
She took me.
She stole my innocence and I'm supposed to be ok with it.
But when I finally worked up the courage to reach out to someone,
They blamed me.
How dare I ever do something like that,
E v e r .
As if it were my fault, I began to spiral.
Socially I was never the same,
She ripped my body and soul in half.
My brain in pieces,
And my heart in shambles, I thought she was my friend.
From then and on I trusted no man,
God forbid another woman.
It was supposed to feel good is what she kept telling me,
That it wouldn't hurt,
That it'd be alright.
But she lied.
It was everything but alright, because we didn't have ***,
She ***** me.
She lied to me about everything.
She promised me she wouldn't put me in danger
That she wouldn't turn her back on me,
That we were like family.
I cried a little that night in the shower, scrubbing off the horror.

It's been almost a year and I can still feel the betrayal underneath my skin.
I still feel the lies and the soul-shattering sensation of her riding.
Every time she rode me,
I died inside more and more by the minute,
And now she's had her baby and thinks I should meet him and be his godfather.
She wants M E to be the godfather.
Why? I'm already his father.
And besides, I don't want anything to do with that monstrosity.

But I'll do it,
I'll be what she wants me to be,
because I can't stand the thought of that kid growing up to be anything like her.

There's this guy
Who new a guy
Who new this guys cousin

Who new this guys mother
Who new this guys father
Who new this guys godmother

Who new this guys godfather
Who new this guys gay friend
Who new this guys lezbo friend

Who new this guys gay dad
Who new this guys gay aunt
Who new my Boo

There is a Year part from which is assigned
Asides from your Truce to cover and rest
Till then, your Crafted Show to Fame consigned
My Girl's Centenniary will look its Best
This I Pledge, by the added Fifty-Four,
Honouring the Godfather I borrowed
If still, no Sound, least Assignment for more
Shall I conclude all my Efforts sorrowed
By then, to see and calculate for once
Despite I embrace this Familiar Ghost
This Truth - to Drill my steeling nerves upon
And cross-hair your Freedom which mattered most.
By that time, I should look for Someone else
Though in my Conscience I cast the same Spell.

Facebook
as the
Godfather?
I'd rather google off this mortal coil
than
have it
as my
guide.

Of course, I lied
you know I lied
I tried so hard to tell the truth,
but to tell the truth I lied and
I tried very, very hard indeed
I am an addict and I need
my fix of Facebook's
social greed,
but as a Godfather?
I'd rather fry my brains.

A Pesky Pensee Of Two Leaders
  
I knew
Gerald and James
One took the world by storm
One took a nation gone wrong
Both on other side now
  
Tanstaaft 1
  
Godfather Brown
President Ford
Closer to Lord
  
  
Tanstaaft 2
  
President Ford
Godfather Brown
Now in the ground
  
  
  
Quinzaine
  
Gerald Ford and Ol' James Brown
Who has more guests
At their rests

I used to have 4 brothers
And loved them all the same
The eldest used us siblings
For where to lay the blame

Hoping reincarnation
Proves true after a while
Dan said his fondest wish was
Return an only child

Soon I arrived, his sister
Right after Dan turned 2
He fed me peanut butter
Until my face turned blue

Dan denied that he loved me
As kids did, once or twice
But he jumped in to save me
When I fell through the ice

Surviving eighteen months then
My baby crib moved on
I moved to the bottom bunk
My next brother was born

Named for our dad’s Commander
World War II not fearing
Ted was sent to Vietnam
Where he would lose his hearing

Neighbors once thought we were twins
Blond hair and Dad’s blue eyes
Family strife split us apart
Though close in age and size

He can’t hear but does read lips
That bomb, it took its toll
Seems no single moment’s joy
PTSD took hold

Next came Bill when I was 6
AKA “Sweet William”
Boundless joy and endless love
His broad smiles worth millions

When I loved chocolate ice-cream
That was his favorite, too
He is my son’s Godfather
His wise words helped me through

I have no clue what ended
Brotherly affection
Before 2 brothers died he
Cut off real connection

Sam was born prematurely
When I was twelve years old
Spent 5 months incubating
Before we took him home

Our father’s disappointment
Sam never went to college
Didn’t want to play football
Was seeking other knowledge

Sam learned how engines functioned
By disassembling cars
Made candles in the basement
An Eagle Scout-golf star

A heart of gold he suffered
Much doggerel and strife
Alcohol’s what dogged him till
Tragically took his life

Divided family members
I’m actor and spectator
Seeking to forge connections
Reunion instigator

Some gather for funerals
A wedding now and then
I mourn, alone, Dan and Sam
Lament what might have been

Hadn’t been able to finish this piece until I took a long vacation. I still have 2 living brothers, but neither responds to my overtures. One can't hear me, and the other is not speaking.  New Englanders are known for denial and take-it- to-the-grave-grudges.  I guess I really don't want to know why.

There are books that teach, that we revere.
There are poems that we remember because they are true.
But there are only a few movies that show us how to live.

Just as the Don prepared Michael for his life, his words guide us as well:

"Don't raise your voice- Improve your argument."
"Never hate your enemies, it affects your judgment.
"Great men are not born great, they grow great."
"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
"Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult."
"Time erodes gratitude more quickly than it does beauty."
"Never let anyone know what you are thinking."
"Forgive. Forget. Life is full of misfortunes."
And if that fails:
"Revenge is a dish that tastes best cold."

And when life serves us lemons, Clemenza offered us this:
"Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

Parker-Based Show, endow your Godfather
Hitch your Strings where your Public Pews invest
With him in Tan; Rake the Stars thereafter
Concern these Words; Or stab the Heart at best
So unexpected these foot Personnel
Hoping to match what others mostly fear
Ignore the Metres; Then impress his Spell
And release the Sound which they want to hear
Most, in Respite, make habit planting Flags
When such Ritual will discredit the Prince
Yet Millions, by three's, twice-timed winning back
That pop-corned Scale; Then worshipped ever since.
Fleeting predict, this Show in five-legs run
Least to endeavour; But mostly for fun.

I called to give you a rearrangement of irony and a bucket full of Jews, I tailor made a rebreather because the past connections were used . Indeed, just like a crossview that encouraged stars to collapse, then did a fix up for the X's and O's so every oxymoron followed with a laugh. A pail of shrubs, an ounce of yore, yesterday you were following your very own bated breath. Up until you challenged yourself to a duel, you didn't look so bad for a disastrous mess. Harms' Way could be the place in town where odds go to get even, or it could be the street where Blow-Pops aren't just made, but also handed out to toothless citizens. We the captured, please and thank you, sir and mam until our captors go, like if you imagine  The Godfather in The Graduate, describing how the Komodo dragon roasts. We haven't made it thru a single day since they've come in packs of seven, but today we'll have the chance to share some face time with the hours that we are being given.

Misty-eyed, mournful, and very sorry walked in separately from the yard. They drank cold-filtered PBR and joked about all the kids they may have fathered. Has it been four weeks or just four days, since the Ferguson, Missouri Captain resigned his post? I was always taught that for a captain to go out, he or she must go down with their boat.

In time where boredom lays around with dynamite by the loads, tomorrow remind me of the basorexia I've had since we met not long ago.

THE ALLAN FAMILY STORY




YOU SEE MY FAMILY WERE A GOOD CAMPING FAMILY

AND WE HAD THIS BIG ORANJE TENT, WHERE THE

FAMILY BROUGHT TO CAMPING GROUNDS, TO

ENJOY WEEKEND CAMPING, I REMEMBER CAMPING

EVERY WHERE AROUND NSW AND THE ACT

AND AS A WAY OF EXCAPING THE NORMAL LIVES

ME AND MY BROTHER PUT THE TENT UP IN THE BACKYARD

AND HAD OUR OWN CAMPING GROUND, AND I HAVE

SO MANY GREAT MOMENTS, LIKE NEW YEARS EVE PARTIES WITH LYLE

AND YEAH, I WAS LIKE A NORMAL TEENAGER, WITH SLEEPOVERS IN THE TENT

AND HAVING AN ESKY OF DRINK AND SAUSAGES AND OTHER THINGS LIKE

CHIPS AND I GOT SOME GREAT PHOTOS ME AND LYLE ARE HAVING A GREAT

PARTY FOR NEW YEARS EVE, WE CELEBRATED WITH POISON AND DEF LEOPARD

AND LYLE BOUGHT AIR SUPPLY, OH MY GODFATHER, I HATE THAT BAND

I REMEMBER WHEN ME AND MY BROTHER WENT IN THE TENT, WE WATCHED TV

AND WE TALKED FOR HOURS LIKE ME AND LYLE, WE HAD A HEAP OF ****** FUN

YA SEE I REMEMBER LYLE SAID HE WASN’T SCARED OF THE OLD BOOGIE WOMAN

AND I AM NOT SCARED OF THE OLD BOOGIE WOMAN EITHER

AND MY BROTHER LOVED TO JOKE AROUND WITH US

YA SEE, LYLE WAS ENJOYING PUTTING THE TENT UP

AND WE BOTH HAD OUR STEREOS, AND WE PLAYED GREAT TOP 49 HITS OF THAT ERA

YOU SEE, MY DAD WAS A GREAT CAMPER AND BUSHWALKER, AND BUDDHA’S SPIRIT

MADE ME INHERIT DAD’S ADVENTURE BLOOD, BECAUSE, OF MY LAST 2 HUMAN LIVES

BEING GREAME THORNE, AND PATRICK DUNBAR, BOTH KILLED AT 8

AND BUDDHA MADE ME AN ALLAN, TO KEEP ME SAFE

BUT I WAS A KEEN BACKYARD CAMPER, COOKING ON GAS BBQS

AND EATING CHIPS, AND HEAPS OF CHOCOLATES, AND ME AND LYLE BOTH WATCHED THE CRICKET

ON THE TELEVISION IN THE TENT AND NEW YEARS EVE, WE WATCHED THE GREAT

BICENTENNIAL NEW YEARS EVE CONCERT IN 1987, ME AND LYLE HAD FUN DOING THIS AS

WELL AS WATCH GREAT MOVIES ON THE VHS RECORDER,

BUT THAT ALL ENDED, WE RAGED A BIG PARTY IN THE TENT, WITH MUSIC AND GREAT FOOD

I CAN’T REALLY HAVE ***, I AM NOT THE *** TYPE, I TALK ABOUT ***** DONORS

BUT ONE THING I WAS GOOD AT, WAS TALKING, WITH LYLE, PATRICK MY BROTHER, SCOTT,

AND MANY MORE, AND THE BIG ORANGE TENT WAS FINALLY BOUGHT BY A FAMILY

I THOUGHT I SAW IT AT THE ABORIGINAL TENT EMBASSY, IT COULD’VE BEEN

IT LOOKED LIKE IT, AND IT’S GOOD THAT, IF IT IS, THAT POOR PEOPLE WITHOUT A HOME

ARE ENJOYING THIS TENT AS A HOME

GREAT ALLAN FAMILY CAMPING OVER

i remember the meningitis scare:
   oh... it was very real...
i guess it was supposed to affect a niche
proportion of the population...

so much for the "scare":
they would vaccinate us in the schools:
since children were more prone
to succumb to: and inflammation of
the lining around your brain and spinal cord...

and all that: press a thumb against
a skin... and if the skin returns to its original
colouring: there's no blemish of applied
pressure... pressing glasses onto the skin too...

the aesthetics have changed so drastically:
what can **** you is so subtle these days...
it's hardly a case of leprosy...
or... eczema of the zombie plague:
or miniature lilal mushrooms growing
out from your armpits:
suddenly breaking into song:
  'steve told us to sing... so we have
sprouted: to sing!'
       no... celeriac sized warts... hell...
i haven't seen any pictures of covid-19...
as i never saw pictures of ebola...

            death has been given: an anonymity...
but what's still kept in reserve?
shingles...
     like: hyper-eczema...
                i'm having to consolidate myself
on the luck of being 30+ and still having...
a skin on my face that i can't peel:
but i'm sure that belzeebub took a dump on...

they're either dead maggots
or dead white blood-cells...
        i guess i have so many of the latter that...
my immune system is constantly
on a over-charge mode...
          
    where are the lilac mushrooms about to grow
out from out of my armpits:
when will death become visible again:
outside her womb:
without any anonymity to behold:
when will everything... "ev'fing"
  return to the obviousness of a guillotine...
a hangman...
      a... hanged, drawn and... quartered?

the improved aesthetics of the threat is hardly
be sitting in an armchair...
welcoming this: paranoia precursor...
there's no phosphorescent yellow-green phlegm
being shot through the air with a sneeze...

i'm quite disturbed about all this...
        "sterility"...
                      well thankfuly i know that
a schizophrenic can't beget a drone-replica:
dead'ed brain: "schizz"... zombie-cult-esque
   brain: riddled with parasites like...
a disciple of burrough's fever might provide:
subsequently... by...
   by caughing a splitting-headache that might:
somehow: "later": arrive at some variation
of bilingualism...
          but never will... perhaps it should...

because: right now: i want to wrong about everything...
i want to ****** with a hard-on of doubt...
and perhaps: tease negation a little...
or rub-rub-'er very much...
but i do: most honestly...
    want to be wrong about everything...
esp. when it comes to...
   the aesthetics of the "problem":
    it's a problem-solution: solution-problem
  quadratic...
           i mean: if it was truly cosmic... and original...
would it really care for much of aesthetics...
can viruses becomes stealth assassins?
   is a virus a misnomer of plague?
or is... a virus a former case of plague...
  that couldn't be: prior... weaponized?
   the rampant exfoliation of: the obliterated
concern for aesthetics...
   oh sure... it's clean cut...
           god knows what happened to those old
curiosities of medicine...

otherwise...

   what will 3 hours spent reading nothing but
Dickens do to you...
me? i "somehow" managed to miss / forget
about a sunset...
   came the night and... yeah: when meningitis
hit...
   and i guess after the mad-cow disease...
break-dancing limp feet cows...
drunk cows... morbidly drunk cows...

      there was always that postcard reference:
now?
you could obviously see the bubonic plague
from a mile away...
you could see eczema...
you can sure as **** see a shingles belt...
        would a virus even care...
to appease the aesthetic concerns of man?
how doesn't cancer do that...
well... i just start thinking about...
the botanical cancer... viscum...
hardly seen in western europe: tree-foundation
societies... etc.
   half an hour on the road outside of warsaw...
that's enough...

oh sure: because of covid-19:
who could, "somehow" forget about...
                  metastatic tumors!
oh the joys of... <cough cough> the carousel
or that ol' chestnut!
            come to think of it...
    would ingesting a tapeworm make thinks and things
more real?
what wouldn't be bad
about acquiring a symbiote these days?
     all: postulations of the mundane...
without yet within the science-fiction universe...
the facts will simply not stand the test
of time... or will... but will be shelved...
given to the bookworms and their placenta
worm-queen...

it's actually becoming a sieving tool for acquiring
nothing lost: of the old mundane...
the sterile aesthetics of the whole under-taking...
it's too: invisible: too pure...
to be... a freakish byproduct of nature...
sending us back in time...
as the original: single-cell organism
about to usurp the crown of creation...

    my list of conspiracy theories begins
with: catcher in the rye "coincidences" and...
that david copperfield sort of *******...
      because if it's not Pickwican...
it's certainly not an account of count
smorltork:
        peek - christian name
                weeks - surname; good, ver good...

otherwise these days:
the intellect has become a sponge...
and the supposed underlying:
because it is "supposed" and there's an
"underlying" aspect to all of this...
that there is a "dialectic" and...
otherwise: the bestest of the best kind
of...            soap...

is it a revival of an "empire"...
when at the height of its decline...
there was that motto:

     panem et circenses...

     what's underlying in Dickensian prose?
well... some of the words used...
i'd sit with a page and check the dictionary
3 times on average...
because there's still that underlying:
we, Britons, prior to the "english"...
the anglo-saxons... are the Afghanistan
oopsies of the ancient world...
there are so many words with direct
connection: etymologically "speaking"
with latin...

now: the bread is still "here"...
   of the 20th century... you could see a ****
coming way back in 1933...
and the communist... whenever that happened...
and you could subsequently trickle the "evil"
archetype into movies... into gaming...
and have people hooked on a bullseye of evil...

now? greyish blips and blobs of
Kantian bureaucracy...
    
o.k. panem et circenses...
looks to me...
like the circuses are long gone...
the bread is still here...
but... of all the seismic shifts this is...
hardly a ffffffffffff-ucking Pompeii!
riddle me this: riddle me that...
what can possibly become so... overly entertaining...
about eating a slice of bread?
why are the vermin: multiplying:
what's with all this: "huddling" at a distance?
need a cape with that: herr ubermensch?

last time i checked: rats do no operated
under herd scriptures...
there's not need for a shepherd...
there is: fire! scramble!
peep-squeak and more!
          
    an impeding confrontation with a pack of wolves...
a vegetarian lion convert...
                 the bubonic plague: lack of aesthetic...
and now this...
this supreme aesthetic of: when the ancient greeks
thirsted to conceive of the existence
of atoms...
          not that i require proof...
what so of circus: though...
      is, this?!

- yes folks... in the current climate of labyrinths...
the Minotaur isn't here...
and we're out of stock on smoke...
and... mirrors...

citations of a possible prediction to allign with
some variation of borrowed horrors:
to usurp the status quo and sentences us for:
there's no "third time lucky" therein...

all that's happened though:
mental people who would never allow
their minds to riddle them...
become claustrophobic by mere thought...
can you?
translate thinking into claustrophobia?
oh god... no... we haven't reached this nadir...
have we?
thought didn't imply θ(ought)!
that erotica of a would be pronoun:
the moral quest...
                  not because i did something bad
in the past...
but because:
i did what others didn't do prior to me...
i ride the wave of what a *******
said to me once:
after an ******:
this is only the second time it has happened
to me: hello ***** envy thrown out of the window!
hello sisters of mercy in some convent
in Limerick!
'allo! 'allo!

beside the moral conundrum of θ(ought): ought i?
this narrative of the ol' 'ed...
is... claustrophobic?
             spread this negation-of-ease further:
dear kin!
   dis- prefix that denotes negation...
ah... and -ease! the suffix that complete the circle:
no contemplation is necessary!

i'm still seeing bread, though...
oh mein gott! die zirkusse! die zirkusse!
what can be done about the circuses?!

people are coupling thinking with claustrophobia...
people are implored to read
for at least 3 hours a day!
a dickens! a tolstoy! a dumas!
and then relax from congesting paragraph strain
and explore the airy side of what was
written into prose and paragraph with
the aid of poetics: that non-exclusivity of rhyme:
always missing... best missing!

i too abhor this synonym:
poetry is what rhymes...
            a set list of: knock-knock jokes...
about as tasteful as...
               roast beef: done well done...
eating the bark of wood:
now that's an adventure!

            or what's... the adjective riddle / riddled...
of: now...
permanent - adjective... these days a host
of "calling scheitmeiser for all his worth"
and what not...      
                               now: the experimental
history of yesterday and "oops"
now: the cameo cinema of yesterday...
and god willing:
you have a "savings account"
of: memories that can...
suffocate the future: the imagining...
of and for the nought of nothing...
the "conundrum": of being...
such and such... and somehow...
retain: personhood...
rather than... a mere... citizentry "status"...
of the ebbing flow of cattle meat and dung:
itsy-bitsy spider teeth itching...
before the bone!
and... after the bones!

load of crock-**** Lombardy is not
Italy... mantra...
and those rites of rats from
the sinking ship that's Wenice...
much too... quasi-important...

      H - surd of a letter...
but the skeleton supposed to behind:
laughter...

the hibernian folk know it...
the english: eh... somewhat...
          bound to θ and bound to φ...
in t'ought... but not in: t'aught...
who needs the apostrophe?
no me: not "you"...
         third: or... θird:
or... ****... or τ(au) says: "herd"...
                             and what's "spezial"...
the surd worth of π (pi)
     in ψ...
                    or      'sychology...
              then there's "all that" with...
chrome: the χ that becomes a kappa (κ)...
but not... exactly the...
the...      ah!                   CHisel!
chasing dog's tails?

                            but a hardy: hibernian:
it's not an F... it's a T...
we have to expose the H-surd! primo
pronto!

    but ψ can afford...
          πσι in that...
                      either the π... or the π...
is treated as a surd..
cited: the whittle canyon of eta (Ηη)..
            ha: if it's a definite article in 'ebrew...
or ha: if... you need a consonant
skeleton... to breathe when laughing...

toes when marching: chin ching chatter...
otherwise "K / kappa" the matter...
taught to think it all but a massive:
****!
   or... a θurd... which is exfoliating in
the gaellic concept of: third...

i'm not from 'ere...
              mind you...
              this is all disneyland for m'eh et moi...
hello whittle atom me...
hello whittle atom you...
hello: hyvä aamu... susie 'ere...
       rakastaa... että ulvonta...
                 "unohti" haukkua:
fins... drawfs... and other whittle people...
eskimos of the "narrative":
   "kaikki alkaen apinamaa"!
    pωl pυt ***...
             and there's "3" of 'em!
exactly... what about the V'em...
             perhaps a F'ought...
      but: V'ere!
            V'em!
                            who the **** gets to
assure me: this language "ving" or "thin"...
sure hands... sure hands...
it's not all grafitti from chernobyll!

and what if... Joycean would 'ave to begin
its pilgrimage toward Dickensian?
this Ezra of ours: what of this...Ezra of
Fahrenheit of "ours"?

           my atom "versus" your... "atomized" man?
my spaghetti english
versus your... i'll sooner choke on ß...
or SuS...
         or SaS
                  SeS...          sayß...
h'american spaghetti english... *** riddled:
ghetto crown-tongue...


me and finding a juggling of chuckles
with: wit... hiding the ha ha...
when θ = τ...
hibernian...
poland the playground of god:
greek... the plaground of men...
esp. those as being cited:
with origin of the barbarian tinge...

  exatly! what of WH when TH are....
thought of "wen":
this grafitti phpneticism...
this barbarism...
no code of "conduct":
what should have:
and did "have": a happen to...
when it came to the ratio
of consonants to vowels...
  of the latter there was a supposed more...
or the latter a less...

    h.i.v. vampirism romances
would have to die...
  a death... most... closely associated with:
psychopaths: or...
the general pathology is: soul-quests...
all "things" considered...
there is no "grand-Σ"
        "past-participle":
of the unconscious-conscious liver...
does the part: actor... functions
of... i robot: you, not here...

the liver does what a liver does:
even if: i r woke...
and i r: sleepz...
               eyes only on when...
orientating myself around:
a failure of a distinct "individual":
moi foie premier...
   moi estomac premier...
and of "me" or... a me...
given that... there's no: "the me"...
            load of ******* and a chewing tube
of "worded"... "circumstances"...
as: "the alternative" to...
sorry... no other alternative...
was... or would ever... be given...
errror message 404 commences: as of: now!

- or... can you?
compensate a word like... draconian...
with a word... the periphery word...
akin to... byzantine?!
the kite's high up in the ******* air
my dear lad...
can you? "compensate" this...
marry of all other:
never-poppin' up 'ins?!

that's one way of minding:
a grey-ginger...
or an albino-masai...
for "good luck"... of all t'ings:
the lerprechaun 'ucking charm brigade!
that's just 'ucking necessary: that is!

as.... the people have already mentioned
their freedom: to cite and keep up to
the rigours of salutations...
they said and they said... and they:
sad but nonetheless: they sad-***-made-"truth"-of...
"it": 'ucking wombat
multiverse l.s.d.: me typing on an old... cranky...
soviet "qwerty" imitation...

the freedom prior to the plague:
i am yet to see...
the **** covid... and the leprechaun...
and the tarantula...
and the... leech...
   **** me: raining cats and dogs:
what a scenario!
     i was supposed to get...
               not leech: not *****...
those fidgeting terse quizzes...
          *****... no... leech... no...
leprechauns: double no...
             szarańcza... old mother-tongue:
ah yes... "these":
                                 locust!

the third of the lard off the herd of the most:
"likely"... nosense to me:
something for you:              up!
otherwise know as:
quiet a bollocking... wouldn't you,
somehow... please... stage:
an agreed to?
               ****'s sake...

  tyrd the triddle twiddle torn und
towing: dublin the sorry-eye: und sore...
you freckled maverick salt
burner you... and... it's a ginger:
stick-prone... keep y'er eager distance...

eh? that's true: is what's through...
**** paddy **** and a poor ******
walk into a bar...
and the bartender is... a kippah-don
of a rastafarian:
the jokes end...
and there was never a conversation
to begin with... ha ha!
now that's a joke... to wake up...
a frankenstein!

      ginger pleb: ginger poodle!
the new africa: the new eskimo...
or... the finnish gateway: etymologically speaking...
an alternative to... *** and...
              the leftover mongols
stranded by the waters
of the empire: receding...
          the...        no: not the croats...
the...
          a very much elongating concept
of pause....
              "d" or the "v" of: v'eh...: the...
the  immortal savages
of: crimea...
      ah yes!
                  those...            tar-tars!
like the tartare steak:
or what was forever available as
the alibi for: sushi!

        because tokyo is just one of those...
forever huan: new... beijing chicken shacks...
and "tokyo"...
or some other anime typo *******...

irish catholic intellectuals...
and... the none existence of whatever
would have required a magna carta:
believe it or... eat **** sort of
mentality...
            the russian doctors
are already abiding to be hunted
if not huddling in churches...
because: co-vex said: co-vid...
co-vid: sharing blockbuster intrusion
pokes was: that last resort to
mortality: and oh...

          this should have happened a long...
a long long time ago...
  transparency tourism...
where you going?
nowhere...
  and "where" is "going"... "nowhere"...
a bit like france... and the eiffel tower...
and there's no speaking french to have
to be resolved...
because like: "**** it" and what?

the ginger-ninja... the ginger-ninja...
the ginger-ninja and...
when the reality of *****...
reaches... an escalation "reality"
of: synonym with... oh god! beards!
ugh!           vot                          ven?!

yep... and the irish were always:
the horse-breeders..
they always were...
always the catholic-intellect juggernauts...
because the hey'talians and
the spoon-innards...
and... mon deu: zee: fwench!
forget the ****** cathos-pathos...
*******-of-os...

and in me:
the gravitas for a disconcerting ambivalence...
almost a compound:
misnomer... but no...
i like the spaghetti though...
yeah: it looks nice on paper...
and off paper...
and anything to cite: the godfather with...
because: boo is a ghost story
that a solo would sell... and ******* like
that...                   yup...
which is a word: to replace the ideal trajectory of:
would be: ghost limb...
james bond...
                          roulette...
you the actors "faking it": no of course...
dylan thomas bob dylan...
"faking it" i.e. stunt actors!
what's "bob": when there's a ******* roulette:
and a devil's dozen of rich, russian...
oligarchal chick... pretending plastic is not...
new world... ******: comb-over...
creaking chair... stlye-on... style-off...
plastico-supermanoh... dynamo-oh-oh...
those "soz" and "whatsevers"...
works well...
the times column...
when your parents are... conscripted...

             mammoth playdough oh oh oh...
irish is cheap...
catholic is cheap-oh...
******...
ha ha... let's not go there...
becauße that's like...
   goldberg variations: the bwv 988 aria...
   yeah: "soz"... but... i'll ******* eat you:
if i have to: for the purpose assigned
to a hard-on... most associated with...
sparrows...
and... the pirates of the confines...
the magpies...
          
             in every period of congregational
"sanity" there's that interlude into:
madness...
howl how! oh dear world of:
that lost appetite of surprise!
        you begin to wither... and die off:
by the slow culmination of hours...
like... a picture to entomb the perfecting
affair of a decaying pear... or apple...
               and...

            and....                 and...
trickling of sentiments...
and sounds...

                           and there are commentaries...
and there are... catholic bishops...
and protestant cardinals...
and ****** popes!             ah ha!
am i to.. truly... die... from laughter?!

to my (future) husband,
as i sit and write this, i don't know if i've met you yet.
but i honestly hope i have.

if you're reading this,
thank you for honoring my ridiculous request
to do the final dance number that baby and johnny did from ***** dancing
at our wedding
(if we didn't do the lift, it's okay)

thank you for always being there.
through the breakdowns,
the rants,
all the bad.

thank you for always being there.
through the endless summers,
the sunny days that turned into fire lit nights,
the endless godfather marathons,
all the good.

i will always be there for you -
through all the bad
and all the good.
through your successes
and failures
i will be there.

and i will love you until the day i die.

Once upon a time I had a friend who went by "Klander"

He was quiet and observant and an ever-mind-expander

He may be the only person I'm aware of who I trust

with deeper subject matter, vital, to be openly discussed

if ever there were a person considered Godfather my k9

it's surely Klander/Picojoule, because I know he'd Godfather fine.


And feed him good food, and spoil him til he's rude,

and tolerate the attitude, and not mind the dog seeing him ****.

And he'd clothe him and not loathe him.

I'm younger and far left
He's older and far right
And he's my godfather
And I'm his godson
Long after I flushed the holy water down the drain
Our relationship has remained the same
I guess we're all somebody's child
And if we have to call him God than so be it
Because sometimes I wonder
If we didn't know each other
If he'd think I was a ******* ******
Or if I'd think he was a **** bigot

This is chapter one; your opinions  are a blessing?!



As Obliteration Comes...

What is there to think of a man who goes, so far, out of his way in the destruction of the woman who loves him; Years beyond the assault she could not, would not speak about… a woman, … within her devastation tries to dissociate and desperately tries to make it… not be?!  Of this day…, she tells no-one; … only those there knew, they were there in the aftermath and saw. There at the place she’s works and holds a different name;  a place where she could not report  to police…, not without turning her world inside out, a destruction which becomes impossible to avoid?! Considering such a thing leaves behind evidence of its unspoken crime. Unknowing all … He hates her for acts of duplicity; as if she’d want any other than he, who owns her heart?!
The day
I know Denise’s men; for the most-part, their ******* Freaks! I’d never normally go near any of them?! But, this man had pleasant eyes; I knew Denise was going to be in before I leave… so I sat with him.
He tells me he and Denise know each-other through my other Agent, Lisa; I worked with more than one agent, AI-Talent and Top Entertainers Talent Agency all for my NY, Conn. and NJ gigs. I had Lisa for all gigs at after-hours and for those long-distance clubs.    
(Lisa’s the agent which was going to give me up to the Rode Island police, when we were all on the way home from a four week gig we did in Boston’s Pussycat’s Lounge. An unforgettable time to say the least ;)

Kal walks over around 3:30 and whispers “Denise is a no-show tonight could you stay until her replacement gets here?”

What, as-if I would say no?
It was one extra set and I would be out of here at 5pm!
” No problem! But, I need to be out of here by five?!”

“Janice, cool! Callie lives on the other end of the Market; she said she’ll cab it down!” Kal looks relieved.

  But as it goes with Denise’s friend; he was, to say the least, miffed!
“Denise told me to be here! Why…? If she wasn’t going…”  
I tell him, “If Denise told you to be here? She’ll stop by later or she’ll send someone in to get you! Right?”
He orders me another drink; he stews about where Denise could be…; Meanwhile, Denise’s replacement is nowhere to be found?!
It’s now 6pm?!
“There’s no-way, no way in hell, I’ll make it out to Rockaway’s by 8pm!” thinking to myself …, ‘I can’t be late?! I’ve never been late!’
“This is not my day!?”
Denise’s friend turns to me and says,” I’ll drop you down at the train; Hell, I’m going down to midtown; the hell with waiting for Denise! So, if you can use a ride down to the city?”
As he says this Callie flies through the door.

As you know; I’m an *******!  I was totally elated thinking of the possibility about being out there with Joe by 9- 9:30! ‘He’s saying he can get me down to the A train and from there… One straight run! Oh, Baby!’
What a ******* *******; I’d never… I wasn’t thinking.

“That’s so nice of you; thank you!” Stupidly, “You have no idea; Let me go in the back and get my stuff!”
I never before..; “You can’t know how much this helps me out! Thank you! “      

   I tell Kal he’s was giving me the ride.  Kal smiles, “Thanks man! She’s a good girl… take care of her! “
  
He takes my bags to carry them outside for me; It was so bright outside. After a seven hour long day of being inside drinking with that pounding music and those pulsating lights; the outdoors seem so foreign?! I look to see where his car was parked?
He laughs saying, “I put it in the lot across the street! Willey’s lot was full when I got here.”

Still thanking him for driving me downtown while crossing over Hunts Point Avenue; we reach his car he opens his back door to place my bags on the seat… fumbling the bags one of them falls to the ground. I remember hearing his laughter as I bent over to get my bag; all the bags were flying towards me!? Before, I could… I …   the back of my head hit the edge of the door… my bags were on top of me … and all the weight? I try but couldn’t make a sound! I was in the back of his car. All my bags moving, cutting into me and him pressing down; …clawing, pawing all over! My bags cutting into my skin; His arm pressing against my chest!  I heard, “Don’t… **** … Die!”   I couldn’t feel… Breathe? And; Snap! …Blackness.    
Then, I remember… falling!? I was…. a body empty nothing-more as it’s pushed out the door and hits gravel! Bags slam hard onto…, all of what remains left of it.  
There’s sound of an engine? There’s shower of gravel? Car-horns are heard blaring in the distance; still breathing.  
I’m not sure how…??? I pick stuff off the ground. My mind’s numb, thinking all I could… I need home to clean this… I’ll make it gone??? I’ll make it… not have happened!’
I took a cab from *****’s; All the way from the South Bronx! I still don’t remember that time to my home; I only remember getting out of the second cab, The Rockaway’s Play-land; I remember watching for the A-train to go by… thinking; ‘I’ll tell Joe I took the train out. He’ll never know… he can’t?! He told me not to go; he told me to be out here with him to meet his friend. This is my fault.’ The head’s not… Hide, it didn’t happen just forget the last twenty-four hours?! I turn the corner and walk down the block towards the bungalow; he was there.
‘He’ll leave you; it’s your fault you went to work; he told you not to go… No, nothing happened?! He loves me? I love him!!! Nothing happened!’
When he saw me? He didn’t even ask anything about my not having all my bags? I always carry my three extra large duffels and a pocketbook?
I walk in the yard with only money in my pants and not even one bag?
If I were here straight from work and had left the club when I suppose to off I’d been here no later than 8pm?
I show up ten moments to four in the morning, without bags and he doesn’t say a thing about it; not even a single word about this long-sleeve shirt covering my cuts and bruises?
He smiles; he tells me his friend’s still sleeping but when he wakes-up we’ll all go to breakfast. His friend comes out and we sat and talked for a few moments. Joe hadn’t notice but his friend asks me if I was alright: I said, “Yeah hadn’t eaten all day; Joe says we’re going out for food. His friend took his car and Joe and I met him there. The whole time sitting there in the Crossbay Diner with his friend I kept thinking;
‘If Joe and I were with each other it would be as if nothing happened? It will be it never happen?! That’s what I need to do!? I’ll be fine. Everything… fine.’
  After breakfast his friend got into his car and left;
Joe says he needs to head home to get some rest later-on he’s taking his mom, Rose, out to her other son’s house.
And, he says he’ll come for me once he drops her off… and we’ll go to the place underneath the Throgs-neck bridge  
How hard it was…
Joe parks and takes out his jug of ***** and grapefruit then begins talking? He’s talking???
As if there wasn’t …?  Like nothing happened… nothing??? He was simply sitting there saying something about Vincent and Helga???
“They’re going to drive mom home!”
He’s smiles? Saying, “They’ll take mom home from their house so we can stay here as long as we want!”
Every time he tries reaching for that jug or reaches out to put his hands on me…; I’d jump!?   I felt my skin crawling; there was a bubbling sensation all over in every last place that was touched; I felt my skin as if it going to burst out with blisters of poison! I needed to get home!? I need to wash this..!? I need not to have his hands touch… This thing I was???
‘He touches me, so help me God, I’ll open this car and run and throw myself into that water! I was shaking, I was sitting on the arm-rest of the door and I began yelling!? “Take Me Home! “
“You son of a …!  Can‘t you see; Can‘t you see!”
“I need home! I don‘t feel well!? “
“You, *******!  Get me home!”
No Clue. Still, He’s clueless to any difference??? He yells back at me, “What’s your problem?  You on the rag or something?”
He drove me home.  I open the door before he could try to park and I run inside; I locked myself into the bathroom. By time I was out the sun was up!

The phone begins ringing.  It’s Kelli Ann, “Sometime last night my grandma, Rose, died. “
I dropped the phone. My sister got on… with Kelli.
I just stood there numb; thinking how…
‘Dear God! Joe and I were at the bridge!  
If I told him what happened he would have been with her.”
He would have left me; But, He would have been with Rose?

Rose was the most amazing person to me; I adore her, I denied her… and I stopped him from being with her.
‘I didn’t want to lose him; I couldn’t see losing me again?!
And, I made it so he wasn’t there… for her.’
All the times he’s walked away from me, so many times; He’d say nothing and show up at the house with some girl.
And introduce her to the family; that was his way telling me just how important I was… That was his way of telling me he didn’t want me. And, I would stand there… act as if it wasn’t a big deal… ‘It must be nice… no feelings?’
But then after a while he would come back; It be like none of them knew a thing?! Yeah, not even what I did for a living?! When asked, what I did for a living, I’d tell them; I work as a Entertainment Manager for bars throughout the Tri-State area; Yeah right; I was entertaining and I did Manage… (I manage to get to and from my gigs and I was entertainment!) So, it’s not complete truth or lie. And, HELL, Joe can’t think too poorly of what I do; after-all it was his idea?!

It’s only three days before his birthday and here’s Joe having to make the arrangements for Rose’s ( his mother’s) wake; He turns to me and says,” My mom had these spills often before..; But, she’d always come back to me! I’d hold her hand and I’d call to her!  I wish I had been out by Vincent’s. She maybe…. Maybe she’d still be here with us.”
I felt… numb.
That night we were all at the wake;
I hover in doorways watching every person go in than back out again. I kept looking at Joe; I didn’t know why, but my mind, I wish it was him in that **** box. Isn’t that sick!  As much as I love Rose I’d wish her son could trade places??? How that would have been unbearable for Rose and yet…
The biggest reason Joe and I kept our being together a secret was her; She was by no means the only… not by a long-shot!  But, she was a most important reason. I could have never dealt with even a thought of her hating me for loving her son; I fear… loss; now, she’s gone. I love her; I want her back! I want her to know; I want to tell her! She never knew… he’s her grandchild? She’ll never know now.  Here knowing…, seeing everyone around feeling this loss for Rose; because of me… she might have still been here…? Only if…?
Thoughts, ‘My life is imploding; it’s all moving in slow motion. I don’t know how far… I don’t know if… I’ll survive this… this time? ’ I cling to straws; I can’t lose Joe; I can’t make my sister leave home? She’ll never make it on her own; I can’t tell Joe what happened? Then he’ll know all of this, everything, is my fault?!  I stopped him from being with Rose when she needed him most.
What if he’s to ask about little Joe…? With the way he feels about my sister? I never gave him an opportunity to ask out-right if he’s his before; it wasn’t me who told him. When I let him know I was having a baby I told him,” You could be the godfather?! He agreed to that… He didn’t ask, he didn’t want to know; and I couldn’t ever take the chance… Not then, not now; He’ll take my child away; He’ll take him and leave me?! I’ll have nothing I’ll be…?!
Say nothing; …perform as you go; Stay in survival mode!

The day of the burial:  We went to church and everybody goes up to the front. I didn’t know where to sit? None of the family told me where…?  Then, Kay Young, a neighbor and friend of my mother’s pulls me over and says to sit in the last row near her; so that’s what I did. Afterwards, when we were all outside someone told me to get into a car; a car which turns-out to be Lynne’s car!? Lynne and Kelli together were the ones who made it that Joe found out about the baby.
Thoughts, ‘… imploding; It’s all moving slowly… don’t know how far… or if I’ll survive, All this … this time? ’

After my son was born Lynne was the one who told Joey that others are saying little Joe was his… Joe wouldn’t ask me if he was the father and I was more than glad not to tell him! Yes, I know it’s extremely selfish; but I couldn’t risk losing another one. But, if I did I would have turned Joe’s life upside down for nothing.    
(My Joe was a preemie; barely six months along when he was born. My tiny baby boy needed to stay in a hospital from June 6 until Aug. 31st.. )  
It was June;  
We, a whole crew of us, were out at Rockaway‘s;
Kelli Ann and Lynne were making drinks and I had maybe five big drinks in those 20 oz. cups. To say I was blotto is beyond an understatement!

The two of them get going; they were told and they know that my baby was Joe’s; And, I have to tell him!

“I don’t know what you girls are talking… You’re wrong! Leave it alone!”  
“Everyone knows how you feel about him!?”
“What? Leave this alone! You don’t know what you’re talking…”  
“You’re going to have to tell him….?”
“Leave this alone; this is none of you business and you haven’t any idea of what you’re talking about!”  
“If you don’t tell him I will!”
“I’m telling the two of you to leave the man alone!”
“Well, he needs; he has a right to know!”  
I got up and say, “Apparently, I do need to talk to him about something? Don’t I?!

I turn to go find Joey! I need to talk to him about what Lynne and Kelli are saying to me…??? There, in mid-turn, I slap in face into his chest; Joe’s standing there hearing every word of what was being said.
He yells at me; saying, ”What… This is ******-up!”
I start crying; I run towards the beach! Thinking, How am I going to tell him? How can I say I couldn’t tell you, I could trust you! How do you say to the man you love that you left him to believe he wasn’t… because having this baby means more than he does; And, if he knew he was the father when he was told about the baby he would have just been another person, in this life, trying to stop this baby from being born. I lost too many; He’s mine! No-one’s taking him from me. Not even his father.  How do you say this…  
I went up to the bench on the boardwalk; I would always sit in that same spot; I was crying.  
Joe comes up behind me;
He says,” What are you going to do now? **** yourself!?”

I didn’t try looking at him; I just spoke holding my tears, ” No…, You’re not worth that!”
A long time passes as the two of us stare out at the surf.
He said,” So…?”

Painfully, I remind him his words he told me, at Christmas time, when we first…;
“Joe, do you remember, what you said to me? The very first time I told you how much I love you? Do you remember?  Joe, you told me, “Don’t!”  
Then you told me, “You’re just for now?! No attachments! Remember?”    

Joey turns and goes back to the bungalow; He gathered up his stuff, takes Lynne and leaves. He wouldn’t speak to me again until mid-October after, I got little Joe back after my mother and my grandfather kidnapped him.
When I got my baby back his stomach… There was something wrong? Every time I try to give him his milk it wasn’t staying down in his tiny body?!
I was so frightened; I saw Rose outside the house and I ran-up to her for help; she goes downstairs with the baby and gets out baby cereal she mixed it with the baby-milk?
“Rose? The doctors told me I’m not to give the baby anything but the baby-milk?”
  
Rose said, “Don’t worry; I’ve seen this before… Don’t you get scared?”

She force-fed Joey some of mix and in moments the baby threw-up every drop of what Rose gave him; she cleans him up and shoves the bottle of plain baby-milk into his mouth; He was drinking it on his own!
She tells me the baby’s stomach was shut-down. She says, “Sometimes baby’s go through this failure to thrive when there’s too much turmoil around them. But, this little guy here is alright now.” She hands him to me and says, “Now, He has his Mama.”
Joe came down stairs from his room he must have heard the yelp I made as the baby threw-up the cereal-mixture.
Rose saved the baby’s life that day, her grandbaby.
And, now, I’m sitting in this *****’s Lynne’s car; I’m going to say goodbye to dearest woman I ever knew… ‘I wish it was me going into that hole.
Later, we all went to eat out at a place on the Blvd and then the family came back home. We stayed up late and Joe’s brother from Florida with his wife and their two kids went upstairs. They bunked-down in Rose’s living room and Joe and I were down the basement in the kitchen. We finish cleaning the dishes and he tells me to come with him to his room;
“They will sleep ‘til three; Both, Butchy and Sandy have been drinking since seven this morning.”
I went with him; I felt so numb. I belong to him; I love him. I just need to let this happen then everything will be the way it’s…I am his.

I kept saying, “My Love, I belong to you! I need you! I love you! Joe, you are everything to me!  You are my life! My head kept whispering” You didn’t stop it; you allowed another to take what belongs to Joe.
You are nothing.
I kept repeating to Joe, “I belong to you Always, I’m yours.” I kept saying the words over and over to him; I didn’t want to stop telling him, I am his…
When he fell asleep and I was sure he was asleep; I got up and slipped out of his room. Sandy caught me leaving his room; I saw her and I stood there like a deer in headlights!
Sandy just asked, “Is he still up in there?”
I said, “No.” and, I went fast out the door and ran home.
I need to check on my sister and my son; I didn’t want Joe’s brother or any of the rest of the family getting any notions. Running into Sandy as I left Joe’s room scared the hell out of me! But, she was … Sandy didn’t remember seeing me. She says she doesn’t remember anything after she ate dinner down-stairs.
That was the last time him and me…              
Joe was pretty busy while the out-of-towners’ were stopping by and with all the paperwork needed to be done…  I just hung-out with Kelli; I figure, when he’s not too busy he’ll talk to me.
It was a few weeks after that night; Joe comes up stairs where Kelli and I were; he asked Kelli to leave us alone.

He handed me all the papers he was holding for me and told me,” Don’t you ever talk to me again! You are a nothing; do you hear me? A nobody! You’re a worthless ***** and I don’t want to ever have to look at you again!”
Then, he went down and locked the door, hard.  
Kelli Ann comes back in and asks why he’s acting like that towards me; I told her, I don’t know?  And, I didn‘t?! I didn’t until nearly two months later when I went to the doctors; then, I knew.
I have gone back to work; But, I will never go back up to *****’s!
I met-up with Denise a few days after I went back to work; we were both at the Golden Dollar; she was just leaving as I’m walking in…  She slaps $350.into my hand saying, “Thanks for taking care of my friend! Gotta’run!” She’s out the door before I could tell her what happen to me wasn’t, by any means, by chose.
Time passes; it’s now, nearing my birthday; I’m hearing about how Joe’s spending his time with Lynne; So, I decide I to write a letter to Kelli. I could stop kelli from mistreating Joe, for what wasn’t ever Joe’s choice in the first place, and I can stop Joe from being convinced into taken my child away from me by that *****, Lynne.
Joe wants to be with that… that’s his business; she thinks the two them will take my child? Not that *****!  That ***** won’t ever get to put her hands on my child! After what she did on June 4th and 28th and so many other times… With his wanting to be with her it makes it a whole lot easier for me to feel a deep disgust towards him. Joe thought me to be such a no-body; he thinks me so cheap… He left me months ago unaware… in pain and he thinking I would want…
  Fine, two birds’ one stone?!   I don’t want her mistreating him for our not being together… It’s not his fault I went to work; but if he’s going to try at any point to come and take little Joe away?! I can’t let that to ever happen!
I wrote Kelli a letter saying his in no way my child’s father and for her to stop mistreating him like he had done something wrong his mother has died and you are being nasty to him. I can’t be friends with you anymore I have too much in my life I need to take care of my son and my sister and I told her I hope the best for her in her life. I wrote… using six pages of words but this is the full gist of it.
I thought if some day things are different and he and I find our way back to one another again; Kelli would have a chance to confront me in front of him about the letter and I’d be able to ask Joe for a signed a waiver of parental rights and then I could ask him to have a DNA test done. But for now, my son will remain where he belongs…with me.

How it is that all this started; why must this be...

as ever, the English got something right! i adore sport... and what i adore most about these Commonwealth Games? the Olympians are competing at the same time with the Para-Olympians... that's brilliant! when the usual Olympics takes place... the abled bodied Olympians that have their games in the first two weeks... then there's a break... then the Para-Olympians have their games... ****'s sake! the two games should be coupled-up! what's that i hear? games for the "spezial kidz"?! what a load of *******... when i was completing my NVQ for crowd safety i was asked the question: what are British values? i replied... aren't they universal? i didn't even mention the details of the question: i thought the question was self-evident in that it was universal: British values are universal because they can be understood by anyone and anywhere... ergo? the Para-Olympics should take part at the same time as the able-bodied Olympics... why muddle-coddle these wheelchair bound ******* to a later date?! ****'s sake! they should compete at the same time... i'd probably run a slower time than some of these wheel-snuggling swimmers of the air... it's not fair that the Olympics is separate from the Para-Olympics... and the former Olympians turned media pundits wonder: why aren't the Para-Olympics getting the same coverage as the "original" Olympics... hell... if it would have to take 3 weeks rather than 2... so be it... these people should compete in the same time-frame! that's ******* discriminatory! what special status? no special status! they compete at the same time... they get to entertain the same crowd volume! i don't care! they should... how does it feel cycling past someone in a wheelchair? i forget to ask... i always forget to ask a question about the weather... or the taste of quails... silly me... well... it's slightly different when i see a: POKRAKA... "freak"... that's a result of the irresponsibility of a certain adults inter-breeding... cousin-*******... someone people should have learned a valuable lesson a long time, a long long time ago... i don't blame the half-witted eighth of a Forrest Gump... i just look at the "mother" and "brother" and think nothing but disgust... not even donkeys get their reproductive conduct so wrong... for a creature so highly evolved: we're stuck with cousin-******* and the "myth" of Oedipus... but at least Oedipus was an exception... i imagine that he didn't gauge his eyes out... instead became an ******... then again: what are myths? stories better than any journalistic affair... myths > history > journalism < fiction < poetry... but Para-Olympians should be competing on the same stage as the Olympians! take an extra week... but don't do what's already being done! done segregate the two camps of competitors! take an extra week! let both compete at the same time! it's not fair that once the original Olympics are finished: the crowd isn't there for the Para-Olympians! i know it will be harder to attract the same viewership for women's club football... female boxing... female rugby... i'm already baking my own cakes... cooking my own food... cleaning my own house... today i surprised myself... what herb is most abundant in my garden? beside rosemary? mint... i was cleaning the garden and i had to cut down an overgrowth of mint... well... how many ******* mojitos would i have to make? how much tzatziki? a lot... there's me: bloated... lying under a floating table: drunk but probably also hallucinating Aztecs ceremonies of human sacrifice... MINT ICE CREAM... wow... i'm getting good at this ice-cream business... i simply hate chocolate ice-cream... but mint ice cream? ooh... and chocolate chips... the crème anglaise is ready... just chilling overnight... i'll churn it tomorrow... by then the chocolate chips will be added... and i didn't even need to add any food flavourings... it's this pristine green... fit for ice... a bit like that Frank Zappa song: don't eat yellow snow... ha ha... because someone has ****** into it... i love green... pale green... then again... no wonder i dress up like a tree from time to time... my irises are green... gween boyo wonder(s)...

sometimes i have to admire thespians...
as much as i despise the whole lot of them:
esp. when they come together
and self-congratulate themselves...
mind you... there are actors and there are
"actors":
       most notably "actors" as depicted
in Singing in the Rain: prior to the talkies...
but at the same time...
actors like the fictional Gloria Swanson -
or i fail to tell her apart
from the very real Norma Desmond...
i can attest to two stand-out performances
in the past few years...
i wouldn't be wrong in calling them
their life-performances...
                     and it's not even in the medium
of movies...
movies have lost everything movies
once were...
i used to enjoy movies: i'm pretty sure
everyone used to enjoy movies...
in school we'd gather in packs of 7 guys
and sometimes 7 guys and 3 girls
and we'd go to the cinema to watch
a movie...
      then grab a bite to eat...
or we used to go on dates to the movies...
Troy... she wanted to see that...
because i guess she thought
i looked like Achilles or Brad Pitt...
but that wasn't a date: date...
it was an entire day... first to Tate Modern
for the Edward Hopper exhibition...
some minor strolling...
then back to Romford to see the movie...
and then some food at a sushi bar
and some sake...
but movies these days are unwatchable...
i'd rather watch the Godfather (no...
part II is not better than the original...
sure... Terminator II is better than
Terminator and the Empire Strikes
Back is better than New Hope...
no... not the Godfather)...
i'd rather re-watch that than any new movie...
i usually switch on for about
10 minutes before switching off...
i need a cigarette break... i need to water
the garden... i need to take a ****...
i need to scratch my *** in private...
- but that's how the story goes...
"back in the day": there was a profession
of a baby-sitter...
the parents would have a date-night...
they'd go to the cinema...
i once had a baby-sitter... i forget who...
it was probably a male if my memory
serves me correct... probably my now estranged uncle...
while my parents went to see the movie
SE7EN at the now "mythical" Odeon on
the Gants Hill roundabout...
these days? movies are comic books...
i prefer serious books...
          and in terms of comics...
oh man... the first time i had a *******
i think the two girls were having a *******
for the same time too...
threesomes are disappointingly
disorientating...
       they like the execution of Isaiah...
being cut in half... the upper body is twiddling
with ******* and lips...
the lower part of the body is being treated
along the lines of *******...
it being my first time: terribly disappointing...
i couldn't keep up...
we settled on the anti-pornographic
solution... hand-job and imitation ******
into the "other's" *****...
             i was limp on first take...
nicotine... better than caffeine and ******* combined
to give a man arousal...
i had to have a smoke...
               i was new to the arrangement:
they were new to the arrangement:
the three of us were N00BZ... literally...
it wasn't like in a pornographic flick...
hell! far from it!
   what put me off was the changing of condoms...
and... once knew what to do with the *******:
pull it back... while the other one
didn't know what to do with it:
i'd circumcise her... so she might get a better
picture...
hardly an ego boost...
she implored me to reply in the affirmative
when asking the question:
you must feel like a king...
eh... i'm not the one who suggested having
a *******...
i rejected you twice: *****! you butted in!
i never had a ******* on my palette...
i like the ******* where i'm
almost tentatively looking into the woman's eyes
while rubbing forehead against forehead
before quickly jumping down below
to perform the crab-bucket maestro tongue
twirl of imitating gulping oysters
and flowers of KAHUNT!
                ****... oral *** on a woman...
she's already readying her hands to pretend to rip
the hair on your hair out...
she does that specific roll of the eyes...
it's beautiful to watch...
peacocks courting is probably the nearest comparison...
thank the gods on my part for
reading Ovid... someone was necessarily
born to combat these exploits of *******...
of ugly ***...

i don't know when i'll have a ******* ever again:
i like the one on one intimacy...
threesomes feel so pedestrian...
there's always that unwanted third party...
i don't think i gained an ego-booster...
i think along the lines of "p.t.s.d."...
                              the unwanted girl orchestrated
the whole enterprise...
the girl i wanted was the one i was snuggling up
to trying to steal a kiss:
me: thief... trying to steal kisses from
prostitutes... the unwanted third-party...
fake milking cows
and duck lips... she was just a canvas
for my *******...
                    once is enough...
i don't care what ******* portrays...
they're a nuisance...
i like ******* while eating eyes... with eyes...
plus the hygienic approach doesn't help
for the fluidity of threesomes...
you can't be hygienic and irresponsible at the same
time...

stealing kisses from prostitutes is one thing...
but ******* them without any ****** protection...
come the zenith...
actually asking: can i?
   with agreement:
                    yes, you can...           oh wow...
well... i'm talking about Turkish women...
different culture, different tactic...
i live in England but by now:
i ****** well hope to never **** an English
girl...

girl, let me just water my garden...
admire the night for a while:
believe me... you can have your sway
in raising the next Oedipal myth in your
sisterhood motherhood of loneliness...
i'd love to teach the ******* some things...
the pleasures of the hammer...
the KANGO concrete drill...
the everywhere and everyone within
the confines of the loneliness
of walking in a forest...
         chemistry! English! i'd love to learn
vocal Deutsche with him!
but no... fair enough: no's a no...
back to the brothel i go...
               oh no no...
              
me and hook-up culture? nothing's for free!
- i sometimes wake up the next day:
mein gott! what damage i must have i cause:
it's a cruel addiction:
to drink and to write simultaneously:
Bukowski and Hemmingway
figured out this problem...
one in celebrating old age
the other in the shotgun...

                    tear skin, grow more skin...

mein gott! i became so carried away with myself
that i actually forgot my original theme
for this poo'em...
            literally: maybe that's why i inserted
the word BZDETA...
                 oh... it's an actual word... not in -ing-leash
of course... but i'm sure most English
speakers are familiar with African surnames:
M'Bepe Mgabe etc.
   that's hovering consonant...
        B'z'deta...
               i love how the English folk break their tongues
when speaking my mother's... tongue...
they would sooner learn Czech or Russian
than learn ******... such puritans of the tongue
we folk are... and now combine the fact
that i identify as an Anglo-Slav...
     listen: England or at least English is a playground
for me... i was implored by some deity
to come to these isles, given a ***** and bucket
and told: here! there's some wet sand over there...
go and play!

                 now: many a happy returns to the father
of the English tongue... i have to return and tease
at some Deutsche...
           Franz Friedrich: AHUND!

my original adoration for the Thespians... it... can...
happen... personally i'd rather not...
i don't see the point of these shadow-thieves...
these dopplegangers... yet artistically?
it's the most celebrated medium...
           sure... painters are celebrated... post-mortem...
poets had a weird spell of "conundrums"
in America in the the 1960s...
   but i'm not willing to write ******* for a "me"
that's either asthmatic or exasperated:
equally short on breath...

well: given the modern equivalent... everyone is going
to be the next Allen Ging-Sperg?
i don't think so... more of a composer: than an entertainer...

anyhoo...
  BZDETA... an actual word...
it's sort of in between the English equivalent of:
trivial (thing) and a pointless (thing) -
the actual "thing" is hidden within the pointlessness
of an implied "thing" / the triviality of
the implied "thing": ha! modern English grammaticians
and their hyped up focus on pronouns...
wait till they figure out that adjectives verbs
and nouns and conjunctions and adverbs and...
a- the-     -ism: the indefinite and the definite article...

- everything coming of America (culturally) is corrupt:
once the beacon for the world to admire...
i'm regressing to find alternatives...
i stopped listening to music with a tinge of
the English tongue... i've thrown my laurel wreath
toward German neo-folk...
**** it... i might be living, physically: in an anglo-sphere
but my mind is elsewhere...
i wouldn't go as far as Frank Zappa and adore
Bulgarian music... but certainly not anything
in the vein of modern-modern (post?) English...

- another word that's dear to me: akin to
   how Italians call a child a BAMBINO...
the Polacks call a child a BOBAS...
             English is so strict... rigid sometimes...
the mere fact that the ****** tongue employs
so much diminutive "accents" is amazing sometimes...
a mountain: (gurhau, no... sorry... guhrau!)
i.e. góra can become a little mountain
via incorporating the diminutive tense górka...

and although the word RZECZ denotes: things...
rzeka is river... while a small river?
rzeczka...
            i don't think there's the antonym for the diminutive
in ******... it's sort of boring in English:
there are only adjectives... actual nouns
do not incorporate a diminutive tense for something
being described:

KACZKA (duck) kaczuszka (small duck, duckling)
wow! that's actually a good example of
the English ZUNGE applying the diminutive
construct of a word...
young and youngling springs to mind...
but English is altogether a very rigid tongue...
so... i don't understand how these current
grammatical-magicians and their pronoun-hyper-focus
are trying: you can't trick an old dog
into learning new tricks... these aren't tricks:
this is equivalent to: a baboon...
smearing his naked plump pink *** with his
own ****... calling it woad...
raising it up in the air like a Muslim during prayer:
before battle... shaking it...
taunting the opponent... come fight me...
and then...
                       what? of the two kings of ancient
Israel... who would i like to be?
David or Solomon?    hmm... clueless question...
DAVID! he got to fight Goliath and enjoyed the lyre
and wrote pslams into ripe old age...
Solomon? who couldn't compete with
his father... resorted to "wisdom":
writing aphorisms / maxims is the worst genre of
literature... it's untested proofs...
just ask Srinivasa Ramanujan...
                                   he was always neglected by
the establishment for having no proofs...
great idea: 2 + 2 = 5... but how? where's your proof!
the same with Solomon's supposed wisdom:
no proof... the same with Nietzsche's aphorisms
or for that matter la Rochefoucauld...
it's all true... but it's most probably just perhaps true...
i've tasted a sample of both the lives
of Solomon and David...
            each time i return to David...
i just do what the Nazis did to the *******...
i turn it clockwise...
                 tilt it... what do i see?
i see a reading-mat and an open book...
              i peer in: i ignite out...

now i'm thinking: i still need to mop the floors of the house,
i need to shine my shoes and iron a white shirt...
and gear up to waking up at 6am...
as much as i love waking up at 11am
without needing to be awake any hour sooner...
i love waking up at 6am with a necessary:
i'm expected to be at X by the time Y...
algebra simplicity...

esp. since today i fell out of bed: too humid...
i fell out the bed at about 6:30am onto the floor...
how compact the floor feels...
i could feel my strained spine relax on the hard surface...
i even used my folded hand for a pillow
in and out of a coming day-dream...
what i wouldn't give to imitate David...
and scorn Solomon forever more...
no wisdom did i find...
   no man can speak wisdom to men when he has
an abundance of "thirst-quench" of ****...
          
              in a polygamous society... thank god i don't live
in one... but there have always been women that
aspired to the cult / altar of the phallus...
i'm content with the fact that i can bypass any thirst...
that i have hygienic standards in place
that make me disregard any satisfaction in the realm
of a *******... it's equivalent to:
running an 800m race... come the 400m mark...
you're told to change your socks and shoes...
and then run another lap...

                           it's nothing like in *******...
monkey-pox is a real thing...
you need standards... cleanliness is the greatest:
and only standard that must be constantly stressed
from one human to another...

only Michel de Montaigne can surpass both Nietzsche
and la Rochefoucauld:
well, at least by my "under-estimation"...

- now for the caveat... what i was originally to write
about...
two example where Thespians can be adored...

                                   Logan Roy i.e. Brian ***
Peter III i.e. Nicholas Hoult...

even they: themselves have figured out that films
are on the way out...
people have changed...
                               i know i have changed...
i don't have the mental capacity to watch movies:
and i'm not some senile old man...
strange... in ancient times old people
were never this senile...
   they still had intellectual rigour...
they accumulated "****": perhaps it wasn't intellectually
stimulating: but it was intellectually mesmerising...
it was called wisdom: once upon a time...

and when my father criticised me for
reading philosophy books in my youth...
expecting me to regress to the optometric notion
that only old people are wise:
no! nein! old people these days are like
children: there's nothing to learn from them!
that's why i'm thinking about going
into primary school teaching...
i can pour my ever more clear water into that pool...
of clear water...
i don't need to teach them chemistry...
i don't have to teach them the tongue:
i can watch ontology sprout out of seemingly "nothing"...
i adore children:
            like i could never adore women...
i adore children like i adore animals...
i don't know what sort of man one must become
to adore women in order to exploit them
in the way that they are exploited...

hypocrite? because i place my silver on the table
and expect what's expected by the meaning
of transaction, or...
rather... place the silver on the table...
receive a shared meal and then expect something
in return? such backward ways
of the American culture...
i hope that England will never become infested
with these practices... freakish: ghoulish...
of the four-eyed beast...
a desecration of Shiva: one winking eye on
the forehead... one blinking eye attached to the ****...
with the two eyes that are supposed to see:
stapled shut...

how marvelous to wake up...
with a want to make mint and dark-chocolate chip
ice-cream... surely the best ice-cream i have
ever made! to hell with chocolate ice-cream!
i hate chocolate... turning it into ice-cream is even worse!
mint! oh... that marvelous invention of
the gods... almost equivalent to ferns...
almost equivalent to nettles...
how the ancient Roman centurions used to cure
an itch... they would run and jump into
a bed of nettles ****-*******-naked...
i.e. fight fire with fire... fight an itch with an even
bigger itch... second to the nettle? the thistle...
i'd love to see those guys jump into a patch
of nettles...

Rome will never die... even with the crucifixion
of its supposed surrogate son of man...
nope...
    the alphabet it still here...
the coliseum has morphed into a raised
meteor crater of a football stadium...
               Rome is, Rome was, Rome will be...
even with the Arab "invasion" of Europe...;
Rome is, Rome was, Rome will be:
we'll just be soul-chasers... soul-thieves...
they'll enter the arena of this tongue...
neglect their heritage... and they will learn our ways...
somewhat... not always...
mind you: on a racial-bias...
skin-colouring dilutes during *******
with a 2nd generation...
  
you asked for a Latin man... a Latin man came...
what now?
you asked for a Latin man...
i'm forever employing myself to date a single
mom with a boy or a girl...
i'm not a Darwinist... genes are like atoms...
i don't care much for them...
but... i wouldn't date a single mother
for the ***... i'd be sneaking out
to the brothel on a whim...
i'd be there for the child...
                    i'd love to make him or her ingest
my psychology:
i'd make them ingest my soul...
i'd pass on my ontology...
     he or she would have to be bilingual
in the least... i'd learn Deutsche with him...
he would be a miracle of a Switzerland outside
of Switzerland!

i'm still bewildered why America is not a bilingual
quest (of a nation)...
  WASP pride? or ignorance?
the worst of the English went to America:
while the supposed "worst" of the English went
to Australia...
                 funny... really funny...

to wake up and have: i need to make mint &
chocolate ice-cream on one's mind...
that's how one wakes up to celebrate life!   LIFE!
LAíF!

Say you don't love me, woman
But your eyes speak brighter than
Any green ******* light in any God ****** book

Quote them authors I've never read
Tell me about heartbreak and letting things go gracefully
But though you may think that we're over
I can promise that we've only just begun
- Aries

I have lived
And I have grown
In this garden
And nothing,
Not even the clinking of your anklets
Long after you have gone
Will convince me to leave
Even if this means that my tears
Are what water the jasmine bush
That you so smelt of
Everytime we made love
After the first rain showers
- Taurus

The butterflies have come early this year, I know,
And though you are humming my favourite song
In my grandmother's kitchen this dawn,
I know that it will be someone else doing so when next they swarm
- Gemini

Each day is drenched in memory
From my head to my toes, I still feel your kisses
Drowning the rat tat tat of rains
Against my window

Bombay hides you in it
And I,
Despite all my shallow pride
Cannot seek you out
Because while every breath you breathe
Is stolen from against my chest,
I know that your stone heart will seethe inside me forever
- Cancer

In anguish I shatter the mirror
That once held so much Promise
Because no matter what time of day it is
I can only see your sunset eyes
Reflected in mine
After an afternoon
Of red wine
- Leo

I folded my heart
And put it in your sleeve
And you left it there
Even as I stared at you across the hallway kissing her

Thirty years later
She hands me your first child
And asks me to be Godfather

I smile through heartbreak and remark
On just how much her lips resemble yours
The very rosebuds that kissed me that one night
At 3 am during that sleepover
When I became a man
- Virgo

They buried me
In rolls of fabric
Giggling at my tears
Thinking they were bride's fears
Not knowng that
Even after all this time I hear
Your terrible poetry ringing between
Every toll of my wedding bells.
- Libra

You have said many loud things
As I politely hum our song
While burning your best shirt

I am the witch, the crone, the scorpion hidden
Underneath your sheets, you say,
But through five long years of excellent ***
It was only today you bothered to say
That mummy dearest thought
My skin too dark for a wedding gown

Do not doubt karma, my love
Know that four years from now
As you hold my children (Each the colour of a midnight sky),
It could have been you
And not your brother
That they call 'father.'

- Scorpio


You tired of the chase when you finally knew
That I was running not from you
But into the arms of
A universe I was hell bent on making
With or without
Your stolen kisses on the back of my neck.
- Sagittarius

You held me as I
Splintered against the cruel night
Bones shattering like crystal shards
That slip into the earth's ears.
I'm sorry because
I was never in love with anything but
Your steady hands
That held my sorrows
For this little while
- Capricorn

You were nothing more
And nothing less
Than my favourite idea
But you were not meant to be trapped between
The pages of my bookish heart
And no matter how many times my lips studied
The almonds of your thin fingernails
You were never meant
For me
My bed
This quiet, scholar's nest

So when the universe called
You stood up, packed up your bags, left them behind
And floated on to your next vice.
- Aquarius

Lost in the ever widening oceans of your silence, I succumb and take a deep draught of you.
At last the teapot does not rattle when I serve us evening tea. 
- Pisces