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Mateuš Conrad Feb 2020
.i have come to realiße that... it's not so much what you write about... but the mere fact of writing... i can't imagine myself being subjected to something, like a narrative, or furthering a character study... i can be the object of whatever is whimsical enough to come into my head of its own accord - i want to forget forcing something to come into this puncture, this dam, this incision that i am coordinating... and it's not that i'm objecting to something, but i am not going to subject myself to - no more than a whim, of its own desires... with no attached: i think so too... it's not about what i write anymore: it's the fact that i write... if i'll be able to spew 3 thousand words tonight... i'll be content... because... i know that i have crossed the threshold of not being left "satisfied": nonetheless constipated by an instagram haiku... mind you... that's a very troubling hindsight note you have in there... wouldn't an object the size of the earth... in a vacuum of space... create its own winds to imitate movement? there is no wind on the moon... yes... and we're talking hindsight from 420BC... the moon landing happened in the 20th century... let's give it some times before that becomes an obvious hindsight too... do you feel movement - rotating - did the turkish dervishes help at all?

the fine line between: competition and corporation,
otherwise known as a: very, very, naive poo'em...

by a definition alone:
it's not so much concerning whether this
would ever become a capitalism vs.
a communism "debate"...

after all - i'm ref. walking a tight-rope...

of the latter, verbatim:
'an association of individuals,
created by law or under authority of law,
having a continuous existence independent
of the existences of its members
and powers and liabilities distinct from
those of its members'...

can i just point out, foremost,
in an environment of competition laws can be bent...
to add to: the spectacle...
the athletics doping scandals:
it's within a spirit of competition...
the sprinters are not corporating for give
a spectacle... they are competing...
for the the spectacle...
ask me again the difference between...
what used to be a competitive event
done during leisure hours...
and what was a leisure event akin
to reading...
and ask me again: the difference between
taking part in the event of competing...
and watching a competition -
and what had to be involved to give
the spectacle its architecture...
i don't think it was so much competition
as it was corporation... never mind for now...

after all... how many times have laws
been bent when watching a football match?
the passing of law is hardly an objective
crux that so many "rational" and logic-"riddled"
people stress - can be made by one man...
sure... laws in vivo - science and what not...
these objective safety-nets...
that can lead to endless to-and-fro...
but i hardly think... man is capable of passing
objective laws: in vitro... notably in -
           in unum: omni...
unless that's a schizophrenic metaphor...
which is already a metaphor when
tested on a bilingual brain...

how many people did it take...
to pass: the earth rotates around the sun?

the heliocentric model...
genesis in the west from philolaus,
heraclides ponticus,
pythagoras (hindsight...
wouldn't an object moving in
a vacuum of space... create winds of
its own?)
aristarchus of samos,
then onto philolaus of croton -
anaxagoras; whoever was
debunked by ptolemy... then so many years...
until enough time passed...
before people could take the plunge and
be certain: for old time's sake with
copernicus - well the people have been sleeping
for long enough...
enough time has passed and we can pass...
this objective truth... that the heliocentric
model is true and that the pharaohs held
no authority as the sons of the sun
in the static geocentric model...
likes Xerxes ordering the sea to the be whipped
to calm down... and become a lake...
some pharaoh must have had a wild
idea telling a sand dune to stop moving
or seeing some mt. sinai said: shrink!
so instead be said: let's build us a... perfect pyramid...
a mountain that looks... geometric from
both afar and near!

or at least that's what Homer would have
said when visiting Giza: Δ'uh!

so a single man is somehow justified
in passing an objective truth?
unless the mob encores...
but what about the jury - a trial without a jury
is any trial at all...
murky ground if you ask me...
i don't expect man to pass...
judgement for a universal equilibrium...
but what i do expect is that:
he doesn't think he's capable of this: grandiosity!
clearly he's not... the objective reality
of falling... the subjective: i'm right as
allocated the status judge: therefore i'm standing still.

competition in a medical environment...
only in the realm of psychiatry...
and the mine-field of misdiagnosed misfortunes...
but i hardly think... competition is a catalyst
for getting surgery done...
corporation, yes...
among farmers? a rare treat....
a hobby pursuit for a selected fraction of
the crop... the dear-to-my-heart "g.m." tomato...
but all the other tomatoes... need to be harvested...
but this my pet-tomato... which needs to be:
THIS BIG! another matter...

sport and competition...
but work... and competition?
no wonder work and competition,
rather than corporation gives end results as...
who's wearing the most trendy sneakers?
who's social media account requires...
the most editing? who's child is the one with
the smartphone? etc. etc.

the bait of the poo'em is that it's naive:
but i think it is - so there's that to begin with...

i still can't fathom that "capitalism" was solely
promulgated on competition -
i'm still having to address the "model" as...
having to retain a "socialist" aspect akin to corporation
to get away with... what later became:
an all out economic "war" of competition...

naive utopian of me to somehow huddle
at the fireplace of corporation...
work - if so many people hate their work...
what would be the only gratifying
alleviation? and i'm pretty sure some places of work
are less about competition: and more about
corporation - as i write this...
the british national health service...
some people will compete by cutting corners...
competition will lead to doping scandals...
competition is... an Elisium for the few
and... a crab-bucket for the some...
call them the 10% cliff-hangers...

i've noticed it in poetry... slam poetics...
what not... this affair is already riddled with too many
****-up ****-wit window-lickers:
of which i am primo...
but i don't think it necessary to compete...
this was never about competition...
not every work is required to be
tinged with competition...
sometimes... it's just better to corporate...
do... undertakers compete?
do... postmen compete?
last time i heard: each is allocated his volume
of letters... it doesn't matter whether
he finishes his chores before the other postmen...
no postman is stupid enough
to take up someone else's allocated letters...
the first finishes his chores sooner...
the latter works overtime without pay...
it's a corporation of endeavours...
all the same... but there is no need to give these
postmen running orders when
they can walk the ******* mile...

competition within the realm of sport is one
thing... i guess a long time ago...
some people engaged in competition: sports...
to escape the general lagging begin plateau
of corporation... Rome wasn't build in
a single day... others dedicated themselves to
slouch and sloth of expanding the cranium
by reading a book...

the naive is still the bait...
is conscripting in an army...
about competition... or following orders and hierarchy
and therefore: not solely about corporation?
hierarchy you ask...
well... wouldn't that be something borrowed from
plutocracy / nepotism?
competition in an army environment...
what if you're in the royal guard
competing at what... shooting more blanks
into the sky expecting to shoot down the moon
at a wrestling-match fake
of staging of a state funeral?!
the cannons sounded... and that's all these
ever did... they were shooting with
empty wallnut shells! the wallnuts were
eaten by gunpowder gremlins long ago...
before the pomp & circumstance was shot
with: aenemic *****...

this is not a capitalism vs. a communism
debate... communism was riddled with nepotism...
come to think of it...
capitalism is not there yet...
but it's already there...
from what i've heard...
capitalism as this utopia ideal is not a meritocracy:
exceptions are made...
cicero was an exception of the roman empire
under nero...
exceptions and genetic freaks...
is this still a naive poem?

i can understand where competition works -
notably in what jobs it might work...
but most jobs require a stable work ethic
of corporation...
perhaps all self-employed entrepreneurs...
"perhaps" have no corporation in mind...
to a greater degree of orientating themselves...
in that corporation is: outside the bracket...
if everyone was suddenly...
self-employed... there would be no fear of...
the robotic onslought to come...
at least then... the microcosm would open...
and there would no longer be any employees...
just self-employed facets of...
"corporations in name only"...
which they already are...
corporations in name only...
given that... the corporations are no longer
competing with each other...
they have consolidated on a monopoly...
and since they are no longer competing with each
other... they have designated their former...
inter-competition into a hierarchal intra-competition
of "employees"...

can a bus driver, or a tube train operator compete?
by law... you can only drive a bus for 8 hours...
to operate a tube train... you can do X number of hours...
and these include breaks... necessary breaks...
can you find competition in these:
ultra-corporative environments? no!
capitalism might think it is necessary to scare everyone
into: the robots are coming! time to be self-employed
and compete! compete!
but some jobs are still: primed to corporation!

could i ever see undertakers competing?
in times of a spiked demand - during a plague...
what is healthy in sport -
is not necessarily healthy in a workplace -
after all... most people detest earning money -
it's a chore - mind you: do i enjoy writing poo'etry?
am i being paid for writing it?
no... i am "volunteering"... for the love of
the art... for ****'s sake... nothing more!
nothing less!

is this still a naive poo'em: yes... sorry...
i forgot to be caustic and there's no rhyme... my bad...
but this is not a capitalism vs. communism
tirade... from the yoke of the soviet union...
i learned from my mother that...
flues weren't really that prominent...
not until the 1970s...
by then it was a common theme...
biological warfare... while the crown-virus has
yet to claim a life outside of the mandarin
genetics: in the age of propaganda journalism:
you hear a "truth" one day...
three days later you're singing along to your
own "biased" / solipstic narrative...
after a while you have to adopt the "autism"
of solipsism: the world can only bite so much
out of you... you have to turn to standards of delusion
to match to their: from the many, one...

in sport, competition is the "zeitgeist":
it's not a metaphor, it's a misnomer...
but given the " " ditto brackets - i'm tired of looking
for the: "required" word... sometimes...

by the 5th definition of competition...
it's not as direct as corporation, competition
needs to borrow from an -ology...
again, verbatim: 'rivalry between two or more
persons or groups for an object desired in common,
usually resulting in a victor and
a loser but not necessarily involving
the destruction of the latter' -

what is untrue about this is that...
the destruction of the latter is paramount...
at least these days...
am i to believe that capitalism was not,
not ever, tinged with a belief in corporation...
that it was always, somehow, only about
competition?
what was communism born from?
when did the abolishment of serfdom happen
in russia? 1861...
the abolishment of slavery happened
in england in 1865... 4 years after...
but... but!
in russia? the slaves were thought of as...
people from within russia...
in england? the slaves? en route a trade from
one foreign place to another...
wow!
all slavery: either foreign, or domestic...
and to think that communism was a "failure"...
hard to imagine... truly hard to imagine...
given that... communism was born...
4 years prior to slavery in general was abolished...
of foreign to become "nationals"...
what does english he-he-history tell us about
native slaves? four years prior to the slaves
moved from africa to the cotton candy fields...
there were slaves that were not: ***** out of africa...

reperations who's who?!
why didn't capitalism bloom in russia...
why will it never bloom - oligarchs and...
currency of modern western capitalism:
nepotism...
who is jared kushner?
mr. cushions mr. cushtie...
mr. minted in: network baron...
slavery was abolished on the international scale
in england in 1865... four years after...
internal slavery was abolished in russia... 1861...
isn't that the sort of wow you were expecting?!
so when was slavery-slavery abolished
in england?
again... if internal slavery was abolished in russia...
4 years after slavery on an international
stage was abolished...
communism was a failure because: per se...
or... was communism supposed to be...
a short-cut attempt to catch up to capitalism?
was it a failure in catching up to capitalism?
in the 2008 financial clash...
where was Poland? recession free...
again... communism was a failure per se...
but... was it a failure in terms of catching up
to capitalism?
to me... it's still catching up...
when again... we're talking... freeing people...
only 4 years prior to people who would
otherwise still be... rummaging the romances
of Kenya and seeing no albino tourists sipping
brandy on their shores...
perhaps better for the whole load of us...

i ask, again, in my naive way...
that's the difference between competition and corporation?
not much...
a football team needs to compete with other football teams,
but it needs a corporative methodology behind it...
you can sometimes spot a maverick who wants
to be the solipsist in the team and become
nothing more than the top goal-scorcer -
then again: a kevin de bruyne and the number of assists...

if there was to be a level playing field...
everyone was to be self-employed...
what fear from robots?
competition on a ford's:
each man is a cog in the assembly line...
you can't compete... were you supposed to?
i thought that the only reason sport
was fun was to be compete and corporate...
it wasn't solely about competing:
not even in tennis are you ever competing...
unless you're serving a ****-ace...
competing but also corporating:
for the spectacle: with 19shot rallies...

to reiterate: this is a really naive poo'em...
is has to be!
- again... before capitalism became this hell-scape
spiral of: fear of robotics / a.i.:
let's just see if we get enough self-employed
people on board...
oh sure: the self-employed undertaker...
the self-employed bus-driver...
i'm sure there was, what's not called:
a "healthy spirit of competition" in work related
niches of existence...

i'm an alcoholic living among workaholics...
not a pretty sight... believe me...

i'm sure that capitalism... must have began
with: a "healthy spirit of corporation"...
that one henry ford would benefit more than
all the assembly line workers: fine...
the brains is allowed the conscious efforts
to move the eyes, close them,
use the jaw... bite... do magic with the tongue...
the liver has no knowledge of alcohol...
the heart isn't exactly aware of either veins
or arteries... fine... a henry ford cigar can get
away with thinking he's not adding
a chimney to the whole affair...
or a rhine-valley load of chimneys...
the stomach doesn't know what taste is...
sure as **** the small intestine knows
what it feels like to be a woman:
should it find itself unfortunate to have
a hitchhiker tapeworm attached to it... etc. etc.

but i imagine the capitalism had a sense of
corporation before...
it worked too many psychopathic sport analogies
into itself... precursor to the fear
or a.i. robbing people of their jobs?
testing people in a self-employed job market...
again: oh sure... the self-employed undertaker...
the self-employed busdriver!
perhaps a self-employed cabbie...
a self-employed surgeon?
how would that work?

        what's that? the cult leader... would not find
a job status match... in a corporate market of ideas?
then a ******* maverick he is...
esp. with such dates as: the brian jonestown
massacre hovering over his head!

perhaps i am naive is reiterating:
work implies corporation rather than competition,
in that work implies chores...
i've seen this in my father -
he doesn't underand household chores
on the basis on corporation -
he understands them on the basis of competition...
and he's to somehow... take pleasure
in the "free bread and circus"...
when the circus is not what it used to be?
once upon a time: the circus involved
men... who were footballers...
but they also did part-time metallurgy work...
they would clock in at a certain hour...
then be let off work to play a football match...
they weren't paid: professional:
disappropriate wages...
because their "work"... was over-inflated
by the gambling syndicate dicta...

there was a utopia in Poland...
it lasted for... roughly 30 years... from 1945
through to 1975... after that the herrings
didn't want to be pickled...
the baltic sea started to boil and the fish
strarted to froth at the mouth...
it's not a nostalgia segment: i was born in 1986...
this is mythology: curating the temporal
standards of modern journalism...
history: what time ago?
50 years? elvis was abducted by aliens...
n'esst ce pas?!

slam poetry competition with fellow:
poo'em eaters...
can i jut take the armchair with Horace?
i don't feel like competing...
what am i competing for?
volume... a new YA novel?
i will not ***** language...
even if it is a language i acquired:
and it's not a tattoo native first come first served
expression...
this is not a capitalism vs. communism
affair...

all the: towel in champions of capitalism
have made it clear:
start a traditional family, start a farm...
milk some goats...
pluck some eggs... living the dream:
brown fingers and all...
                       way way out from competition
in the workplace...
so... no need to corporate...
solo does it...
                                and if i'll be needing some
milk... i'll likewise claim: an autistic
pension and enough barren land to feed
goats organic glue and toilet paper that
magically morph into... a propaganda poster...

olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum:
once i was a stump of fig,
a wood without use... this is my best Horace:
thank you, goodnight...

what is to be competed for?
rather: what it to be retained, kept, status quo
enclosed... this pride for corporation?
competition in the workplace can only go as far...
not all professions can allow competition...
some will forever retain their base:
corporation...
to compete outside the realm of sport...
sport... those with enough awareness
of the body would pursue it...
those with a bit more brain in tow...
wouldn't... the ghost limb terms:
there's nothing of note
when it comes to competing with i.q. in
mind... or corporating...
there's this ancient feat of "solipsism" and
self-bettering... rather than running
the "expected" mile...
was capitalism always this:
chicken-shack-shackled into... wishing to squeeze
out drinking water... from pig ****?

again... this is not as easy give-away
that it's a capitalism versus communism base scrutiny...
all the eastern european laid-deeds have made it into
their chandelier filled land-allotement sights of
better ****** that gynocentrism...
i don't mind...
      yes... because among the bulgarian strip-party
i'm the ottoman janissary turned
well spoken sheikh... when morocco is given...
a fictional name... and i'm the Ali
that rubs Muhammad's lamp and
averts the... most ****** schism...
oh sure... Islam would be a pure religion...
and they would be allowed to complain about
porky-pies...
but... you see... how long did it take
for a schism to emerge between the orthodox grees
and tha catholic italians?
how long did the islamic schism take
to grovel and dig trenches?
not that much...
after all... Shia... Persians... Ali Woke-oh-Haram...
and the ****'ite... the ***** muslims...
the Saudi bin-Ladens...
well... that schism... didn't take that long...
some whisper about a schism in the monotheism
of the hebrews...
ha ha! i write ha ha... but even i have to laugh
out loud... a monotheism an inbreeding
of something more than genes...
fix the idea... and continue!

by now even i know that christianity has reached
a status of polytheism...
it's the same jesus... sure sure...
via no other than the orthodox,
the catholic, the protestant (calvinist, lutheran)
standards... or the baptists... or the jay-***-***-V-and-G
standards...
next thing you know: the vegans are
the gnostic monks!
because it has to be a joke at this point...
if christianity is a monotheism...
i'm mother theresa and that albanian
that stole george w. bush' mickey mouse's watch
on a state visit...
so to complete the holy trinity...
i'll be... alastair campbell... always for the giggles...

an alcoholic among workaholics...
who always had the satan's postbox concerning
the niqab... the same ones who were to be always
quoted: the beast from the east...
jesus is coming! look busy!

i mean... no need to look busy...
when the high a tide is making a comeback...
would you believe it?
if you saw the words... united kingdom...
england, scotland, wales... ireland...
that this was not moldova?
this is a language these are letters so arranged...
by an island-dwelling folk?
if you're the first, driver...
shotgun! who are we smuggling in the passenger
seats behind us?

imagine my surprise at the rereading,
with the typo: a missing (s) in letter()
and a missing (d) in arrange(d)...
i call them... the lost key of solomon...
or my own personal, hybrid,
hard-on...
oh god kept me with a phallus...
while giving all the angels a proper chopper
of the ol' wood... **** to stump...
i'm the one that wasn't circumcised!

and all i now have to sing about... is...
a forest of pines! a forest of pines!
pines pines pines! yippy caye!
Helianthus May 2014
I haven't slept in my own bed in four months.
My car hasn't been emptied in four months.
I sleep on unsuspecting couches of friends and say "Oh, I haven't seen you in a while. Do you mind if I stay tomorrow as well?"
40 different couches.
Some friends knew. Some friends didn't. Some friends didn't care.
My favorite visits were the ones where I felt like my friend's family temporarily adopted me.
They'd tell me that I could stay for as long as I needed.
They told me that there was an empty room and closet upstairs.
I told then that I didn't own any hangers.
That's when I left.
I lived with my grandparents for a while and was never home.
They kicked me out.
"It's not like you were ever here anyway," they said.
I was kicked out of my mom's and my grandmother's.
That's why I don't own hangers.
@heliosflor
Arjun Raj Jan 2016
The local, strides through the rotten rails,
Metal to metal, rust to rust
The boggy sways and along with it, the hangers who
Hang in there, not by choice but by the might
Of time, distance, and bills to pay
The feeling is mutual as we stand, sway
Push, pull, and grab on to anything just to balance
Yet the journey never ends
It only begins.
Tie Nicks May 2014
Your middle name?
How long has it been since you wore a diaper?
How old were you when you first noticed you had feet?
How tall lying down?
A glowing thing or a burning dark,
Quick,
Pick one.
How many needles will fit between my eyelids?
How big was your first?
Your last?
This last light switch do I flick it?
Can you handle candles?
What’s it like to wear no skirt?
How many bras have you sniffed?
Define addiction.
Define a lover’s hip.
How many languages are enough?
How can you free yourself without getting committed?
And what’s it like inside yourself?
And I see your feet are like freaky small
And your hair smells like flies
And feels like fishes eyes
And you have three nostrils.
And the third one is for ****.
And that your eyelashes are made
From spider legs
And they move by themselves when you’re angry
Or turned on.
Can you believe me when I say
Your scent steams beautiful?
Did I stutter?
Did I stutter?
I don’t know, did i?
How many lines ago was that
Can you count the orange sticks
In the fridge honey and know that I’ll always want more?
What do you see from eyes so blue? Can you see that mine are glass?
Can you tell that they aren’t windows?
Can you quantify exactly more or less all you’d want my eyes to be?
Also, You have grass eye brows.
And one, two, too many tails
And your tendons are made of twizzlers
And you only drink Windex orange blue orange juice
And your hands are made of pancakes with lifelines
And your bellybutton has an eyeball in it
But we’re not supposed to ask who’s.
And your earlobes have lips and sometimes they
Whisper sweet nothings to the pigeons on the park benches while
You stroke your fingertips across various things,
Like pigeons,
Like me.
Like me?
Well, I broke up with my boyfriend and then spent the night,
And my roommate’s mom thinks we just need more hangers
And I start all my sentences with oh, well, look
And I ran through my apartment,
counted all my pairs of tights
And I noticed not a single
Tear looked like him
And I heard that song that he reminds me of
And it was the birds screaming the earth back awake
So I drank a whole bottle of V8 and went to sleep
And I broke up with that boyfriend and then spent the night
And my roommates convinced I can
Just go back tomorrow
and I dropped my sisters black vintage gloves in the mud.
I dropped my physics class and told everyone I’m a pyro
And I’m still not quite done with that last
Guy I spent the night with
And I’ll never be as high with anyone else
As I was with dell but I didn’t call him dell
When we were together
But I never understood people when they said they could remember a touch
Until I felt his thick palms four days after he left
And when he said he wasn’t coming
I ate a strawberry
And tasted nothing
And I haven’t eaten fruit since
And I haven’t made sense 10 days before he left
Now I’m way past losing track of who left last
And now I wear lipstick
With a disclaimer
when I dropped him,
I shattered.
Translation, no mans pleased me since.
But I’d like to watch you try.
So, your last name?
Do you have any pets?
Can you be with a woman you’ll never be able to please?
Ember Evanescent Nov 2014
No, I don't think you understand how rare it is for me to like you

To just find you attractive because that is fairly common for me

But actually like you like you

Because those are two very different things

Attraction and affection

No, I meant Affection

It should be capitalized

What I mean is

I don't like ALOT of things

Seriously

I’m freaking negative

I am the queen of all pessimism

I don't like:

Bad grammar

When people pronounce words wrong

People who say Pacifically instead of Specifically

Overly optimistic people Example:(Oh your family is in thousands of
dollars of debt your sister just killed herself and your boyfriend just
cheated on you with your mom and you're pregnant with the baby of
the guy who got you drunk and slept with you without your sober permission who happens to have just moved to Asia to escape having to care for you and his baby? Well, you have your health!) –stab-

The number 9 it sounds like it’s on the edge of something. I hate wishy-
washy numbers that don’t go all the way. Resolve to ten already!!!

Movies where there is a completely impossible happy ending thanks to spontaneous magic

Apple juice

Most flowers

Pink (the color)

The Sun

The month of April

Girls who don’t know how to wear pants. Or a shirt. Seriously. Those aren’t shorts. That’s just a belt that ***** at being a belt.

People who try to ****** me

People who freak out at me when I try to ****** them

Mondays

Tuesdays

Wednesdays

Thursdays

Fridays

Saturday­s

Sundays

F!CKING MONDAYS AND TUESDAYS

When people pronounce french words WRONG

PEOPLE who pronounce french words wrong

Reality TV

Holidays that don't even get you a day off from school

Ducks that are yellow. THEY DON’T EXIST the bath toy company is LYING TO YOU

Sticky hands

The color yellow

The color orange

Colors that just seem too… happy. It makes me want to light them on
fire. And impale them.

Obnoxious hair colors

Girls who wear jeans and skirts simultaneously

Overly colorful rainbows

When people talk into your ear and you can feel their warm breath.

Being drenched in water

Character or word limits

Signs

When I get all disappointed because I dreamed someone I hated got hit by lightning and it doesn’t come true

When I wish really REALLY ******* a star but it just doesn’t come true. Then I have to go and fill the grave I had all dug up for them.

Plastic hangers

Man, I HATE plastic hangers

Walking

Running

Standing

Any kind of action that doesn’t include limply lying around

When I look at someone with extreme loathing and they don’t spontaneously combust. It’s very sad.

Raisins

When you THINK it’s a chocolate chip cookie and it turns out to be
raisins. MAIN REASON I HAVE TRUST ISSUES!

But, I do like you.

That’s saying something.

I LIKE YOU.

Really.

Honest.

But you don’t realize how rare that is.

:P

…God, I’m so violent. I should have that looked at...

Well, there's your positivity for the day
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT AND ADD TO THIS LIST OF THINGS THAT ARE VERY HATEABLE
Meteo Aug 2015
in my mother's basement
once upon a time she ******* a clothes line
though most of the time
the line
was used to hang up
hangers
precariously hooked to a rope becoming less taut
as the years go on

the paradox of garage sale hand-me-downs of broken homes
as bodies for clothes become subtracted they make room for memories
we grow heavier by
as the hangers continue to multiply unused
clothes hangers are sacred
they are ghost as zygotes

back then there were days
I would wear my woven leather belt for an inverted neck tie
on those days
tie the other end to the wooden cross supports in the basement ceiling
then tip-toeing up
on a beat-up old stool
play chicken
a game of chicken with nobody
a side of extra mc chicken sauce for the soul

I wonder now
how if anyone would've wondered
if I had died never really learning how to wear a belt
or how to properly tie a neck-tie
kids today wear their pants too low
and parents back then were way too given to involuntary penance

to up the ante
I would write a list on the wooden beams in the ceiling
each time I got up there
for all the reasons I got up there
in attempt to embellish the exit sign
singing ugly duckling swan song echo
sedated by the attempt
training wheels for Icarus syndrome

it wasn't that my youth was in disillusion
I just never really learned how to measure distance properly
a pair of breaking parents
an unwanted pregnancy
"What's with in arms' reach?"
a game of catch
a game of release
a flight of stairs in one step
"it's not your fault kid
but you're gonna have to get hurt anyway"

funny how when you are teetering on stoic infinity
balanced like an idle pendulum
a noose becomes a life-support system
dance like no one is watching

I don't play those games anymore
my bones have gotten too heavy to bet against
memories I still wish to change
knees too weighted to two-step the precipice
on weekends

and since practicing how to use my legs again
and again
I now prefer walking this earth
wearing my belt around my equator
over drawstrings around my neck

the basement has since been renovated
no more wooden crosses
exposed in the ceiling
I don't play childish games anymore
I just do my laundry there
JJ Hutton Jul 2013
The first time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at Granny's Kitchen in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The waitress, a soft spoken white woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, had just dropped off my plates --- a simple mix of scrambled eggs, two pieces of greasy bacon, and a short stack of pancakes. Now, no matter how cheap, I always feel like I'm cutting loose at breakfast places for the sheer abundance of plates. While I'm sure the eggs and bacon could have shared real estate, each component had its own china.

The waitress lingered at my table, her fingers fidgeting with straws in her apron. I made eye contact. Well, my eyes contacted hers; she was staring at my lips.

Sure I can't get you something to drink? she asked.

This was approximately the tenth time she'd made sure. She was uncomfortable that I had supplied my own beverage -- a Big Gulp. But even more than that, she was uncomfortable by the deep red stain taking over my lips. Contents of the Big Gulp: merlot, boxed.

(That is an unnecessary detail. I've only written it so I never do it again.)

Before Greg hopped up on a table and announced to the restaurant, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, blah, blah blah, I poured a copious amount of syrup on my pancakes. Then I moved the bacon to my pancake plate. In my experience, very little in this life is better than syrup on bacon.

I shut my eyes for that first bite, just like the commercials. The syrup dribbled a bit onto my beard, and when I opened my eyes, I discovered it had also landed on my shirt. I grabbed a napkin. Heard a chair slide backwards. I started with my beard, peering around the diner, making sure no one saw. I think I heard someone gasp. But I was busy, working that napkin then against my shirt. Jesus, I thought. My grandma, who's got a splash of the Parkinson's, could eat with more grace.

If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, a very official voice boomed behind me.

I turned around to see if I recognized him as one of those cuffed jean-sporting, wild plaid-loving NPR hosts. He wasn't one of those. He was a sunburn with mop hair in a black tank top and hemmed jean shorts. He did, however, have a cleft chin. That's actually worth noting. Don't see a lot of them these days.

I know you guys are busy, he said. I know that like me, you guys are probably broke as hell. I mean no offense Granny's, I love this place, but it ain't exactly four stars. Or three. Anyway, all I want from each of you is five dollars. If you ain't got five, give me four. Ain't got four, three. And so on.

He started with the stringy Japanese couple on the west side of the restaurant. Nobody really seemed scared, not the freckled brat in canvas sneakers, not the liver-spotted gentleman with a copy of that day's paper.

My old friend Jerome used to say that white folks are the only romantic criminals. He tacked it up to that whole Bonnie and Clyde crap. Greg, it seemed, was privy to that information, too. He smiled and thanked each person as he robbed them of a few presidents. The victims, smiling back, seemed to be thinking of their names tagged at the end of some newspaper dialogue. A few even gave more than he asked.

Here, take fifteen. Times will get better.

Aren't you just a charmer.

It was all very moving.

So he gets to me, and of course, I don't have any cash. I carry a debit and an arsenal of credit cards like a normal American. I don't know how he made it to me before running into this particular problem.

No, I don't have one of those iPhone card swipers, he said. Well, you gotta give me something.

I offered a gift card to Harold's Clothes for Men, it had like two bucks on it, but he wasn't interested.

What's your name?

Henry.

How much do you weigh?

Enough to keep me prohibited from most amusement park rides.

I like you, Henry. Well, let me ask you something. Have you ever loved a man? he asked, pointing his smudgy revolver just past my ear.

I shook my head no.

Me neither. I've always been curious, though. You been curious?

There was a time when I was thirteen -- Blake Hinton was changing after basketball practice -- and I remember thinking, that is an incredible chest. These lines just sprawled from his sternum, lines leading to these almond *******, and I specifically remember wanting to eat them like, well, almonds. But that hardly counts as curious. So, I said, No.

To which Greg responded: Get curious, boy. You're coming with me.


In the spirit of honesty, I was in a bit of a haze before Greg made me climb into his beat up Cavalier. Not just from the Big Gulp brimmed with merlot, no, I hadn't slept in two days prior to the whole gun-in-face incident. Reason being, I was, as Greg would say, broke as hell, and the rent was due. I stayed up both nights conspiring (and drinking). So, really I was pretty thrilled to be kidnapped away from the whole situation.

I had visions. I guess from the lack of sleep. Maybe they weren't visions, maybe just dreams, or fever dreams, I don't know. All I know is I blinked, and we were in the Appalachians. And there was a grey longbeard in the backseat rattling on and on about how change is easy, movement is easy; it's that whole nesting thing that takes courage and strength, blah, blah, blah. I told him to be quiet. Greg told me to get some sleep. I blinked.

We were in a karaoke bar in Madison, Tennessee. There was a gin and tonic in front of me. I took a drink. There was a water with lime in front of me.

Greg asked, Where did you go?

I told him, your dreams, trying to be cute. He turned and asked the bartender for a Yeager bomb. Reaching for the server in -- granted -- an overly dramatic gesture, I said, Make it two. We made it three. We made it four. Seven. Then some vague, but perfect number, because my head rang right. The words came right. And I was a journalist, asking Greg all the right questions.

I'm not a criminal, he said.

I was just bored, man, he said.

You see, I was in a rut, he said. Last month I put up a personal on Craigslist. I know, it's pretty ******* desperate. I've read the kind **** people put on there. But mine was different. I just wanted some time with my ex-wife. Some couch ***, you know? We hadn't done it on a couch since I dropped out of college, and I hadn't even really thought about it until a couple weeks after the divorce. Then it was all I could think about.

A black woman, whose teeth glowed under the black light, began singing "Wild Horses." Then he read my mind, I think.

Yeah, she answered it. Did our thing on her sofa. It was nice and all, and like all nice things, you just want more, but she said I couldn't have no more, this was a fluke, a one-time, or no, a one-off thing, she said. Had to relocate, so that's why I did that whole thing at Granny's.

You ever get it on a couch? he asked.

No, I said. I've see a bra though --- two actually.

He took that as a joke, which was good.

Though wild horses couldn't drag me away, a gasoline horse could.


He handed me a courtesy breath mint after I finished throwing up. The Nashville skyline looks perfect, he said. Especially at night.

My stomach was gravel in a washing machine. Masculine love. At gunpoint, I had agreed to indulge it. I was going to make love to a man -- not just a man -- a criminal. Not something to write about on a postcard.

Mr. Winters, my esteemed landlord,
Apologies about the rent. Got kidnapped by a *******, and I'm presently banging and being banged by him in Music City, USA.


I blinked.

We laid on opposite ends of the queen-sized mattress.

I always liked Super 8s, Greg said. I don't see the point in spending so much on a hotel. A bed is a bed.

And I tried to be funny with something about the confidentiality of dark bedsheets, but it fell flat.

Greg cried. I love my ex-wife, he said.

Can I help?

Will you hold me? he asked.

The air conditioner kicked on in the already freezing room.

I'm sorry. You don't have to, he said.

I scooted against him. He smelled pleasant in a family-vacation-kind-of-way, like a fresh pretzel covered in salt. I put my arm under his neck. He buried his face into my shoulder. I blinked.


The front end of his Cavalier was held together with copper wire and coat hangers. It was a two-door. Both doors dented from, according to Greg, hit-and-runs. It had a Vermont plate on the back. It was red. I mention all of this to say: if we kept moving, we were bound to get pulled over.

In the parking lot of 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer, Greg asked me to retrieve his revolver from the glove compartment. You kinda have to uppercut it, he said. And I did.

I don't want to do it again, but we have to. I'm not staying put, not until I hit the ocean. But don't worry, I'm not going to hurt anyone.

He showed me the revolver. No bullets. I nodded, in approval, I guess.


The second time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer in Bellevue, Tennessee. Of course, it was the same man, Greg, but the circumstances were a little different.

I went with two orders of biscuits and gravy --- or B & G as my dear friend Chance affectionately calls it. Four bites in and I'd yet to hit biscuit. For a moment, I wanted to tell Greg, C'mon man, ***** the ocean. Tennessee does gravy the way God intended. Nobody would find us in this suburb. We could be sharecroppers. Do they still have sharecroppers?

Do you like fresh corn? I asked. It was the first crop that came to mind.

Greg didn't answer. I noticed his plate of hash browns and eggs -- sunny-side up -- were untouched. You okay?

He was, he said, trying to get in the zone, that's all.

Alright.

Our waitress looked like a poster child for ******'s Youth. She couldn't have been much more than sixteen. She had blonde -- almost white -- hair. Her eyes changed color with the intensity and direction of light, a gradient between seaweed and dark ocean blue. She appeared to be an amish girl gone defective, and I was about to inquire into that very supposition when Greg stood on the table, and said, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second.

Tennessee is not North Carolina. In North Carolina, they got a healthy aversion to firearms. In Tennessee, however, once a babe can walk, the *******'s got a BB gun and an endless supply of empty soda cans for target practice. I say that, to say this: when Greg stood on the table, so did three other men. Their three guns pointed right at him.

Lower that gun, brother. You ain't gettin' any money out of us.

Hate to shoot you in front of your boyfriend.

Coffee spilled and ran off the tray our waitress held. She shook so hard, it wasn't clear how many women she was.

Greg's cleft chin centered on one gunman, than the other, than the other.

Just drop the gun, *******.

We don't want to ruin no one's breakfast.

Fellas, I said, he doesn't have any bullets in his gun. We need a little money that's all.

That ****** is just trying to protect him.

I'm calling the cops, a purple-haired old woman yelped from under her table. Silverware clanged against the floor. Then the buzz of a fly. Then the pop of fries drowning in grease. Then the bell chimed as some idiot walked inside.

Greg's arm was shaky as he pointed the gun at me. Do you love me? he asked.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I put my arms up. Slid my chair back a ways. Stepped on the chair, then unto the table.

Do you love me? Greg asked.

His breath smelled like last night's alcohol and that morning's coffee. He was a child, a sunburnt child with a cap gun. He wasn't going to hurt anyone.

I put my hand on top of the revolver and lowered it. He crumpled, as if I were scolding him. They still pointed their guns at us. But for the first time in my life, I felt secured, tethered to a space.

I lifted Greg's chin up with my index finger. Covered his eyes with the palm of my hand. And I kissed him. I kissed him, keeping my eyes closed tight.
Nomen Jun 2020
Jason and the Argonuts

I heard about it from a coworker who thought it was a joke. Had seen it on an internet message board. Found it hilarious. I don’t. I’m certain I know what’s really going on. What’s hiding in plain site. And I want to see it for myself. Seems that most people who’ve come across it just write it off as kids messing around. After all, who would take this sort of thing seriously? If somebody were to do so, goodness knows there might be a pretty big mess.
Follow the directions I found online to this place called Joe’s Pizzeria. Find the brick oven. Press a secret button. The oven changes form. There's a mahogany door. I descend a stairwell, which opens into a small basement room. There are a number of chairs arranged in a circle. Four of them are occupied.
Without making it too obvious, I try to determine the safest place to sit. Across from some hipster with a pencil-thin mustache, I see a pair of identical, androgynous twins. Both wear identical jogging suits. A few chairs to the twins’ right sits a Native American looking fellow in full headdress. He stares blankly at the wall, making a slow chopping motion with his right hand. I take a seat closer to mister moustache.
Well, this is it. There's nothing to do now but wait.
A few minutes pass in almost complete silence, save for some giggling on the part the twins. Suddenly, the basement door swings open. In walks a portly redheaded man, wearing a neon yellow shirt and green cargo pants. He smiles and waves to everyone, then sits down next to me. I try to ignore the stench of what I believe is asparagus.
“Well, I see we have a new face here tonight!” He exclaims; “Always happy to see a new face!”
He looks at me and I realize it’s time to do what I came to do.
I stand.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
“Hello, my name is Dan, and I’m a serial killer.”  
“Hello, Dan,” the group responds in a collective droning voice, resemblant of worshipers at Catholic mass.
“Yes, hello to you, Dan!” the man in the yellow shirt huffs out, getting to his feet. “It’s splendid that you are able to join us. I’m the group leader, Jason. Welcome to Serial Killers Anonymous!”
I simply stare at him. I have no idea what to say.
“Okay, first and foremost, I want you to know that even though you’re new, I trust you like I would any of our more established members. Call me crazy, but I think we’re all in this together! So, it should go without saying that what happens in this basement stays in this basement. All members are prohibited from discussing group with outsiders, except when promoting the idea that it’s only an internet gag. Also, to help newcomers feel more comfortable, I like to share my personal history with them right off the bat, along with how it relates to the founding of this group. Once I’ve finished, one of our older members, I suppose it will be Mark, will tell the story of how he came to join us. And after that, you’ll get a chance to speak, if you choose to do so.
“Now, as should be obvious, I am a recovering serial killer. The news media referred to me as the Coat Hanger Killer. I was credited by our local Olympia County police with the murders of twenty prostitutes. In reality, though, there were a half dozen more. And there’s no telling how many more women I would have killed if I had not confronted just what it was that drove me to commit such atrocities and dealt with it.”
I return to my seat and it hits me...this man is the Coat Hanger Killer? The Coat Hanger Killer, also known as Hanger-Man to true crime aficionados, was a hero of mine when I was younger. He got the name because he was known for inserting straightened coat hangers into his victims’ vaginas. After the Coat Hanger Killings inexplicably stopped, authorities presumed Hanger-Man to be either dead or incarcerated for other crimes. There’s no way he could be this ginger with the loud shirt.
“I was born out of wedlock to a teenage mother,” he continues. “Raised in a strict Christian household. As a naturally rebellious person, my mother resented her puritanical upbringing and began engaging in promiscuous behavior at an obscenely young age. She thought it would be liberating, but her sleeping around led to an unwanted pregnancy It is not even clear who the father – my father – might have been.
“Well, my mother wanted to get an abortion. And knowing how desperate she must have felt, I cannot blame her. But when she went to a clinic, she learned that legally speaking, minors are not allowed to decide such things on their own, which lead to my being born. Mother was less than thrilled about this. In retaliation, she became more promiscuous than ever. And it did not take long for her to get pregnant again. However, this time, she decided to take matters into her own hands –’’
The narrative is interrupted when one of the twins suddenly blurts out,“With a coat hanger!” This elicits some chuckling from the other, which dissipates upon a severe look from Hanger-Man. He continues speaking.
“Yes, that's right. She went into the bathroom and after what must have been a grisly spectacle, my mother was no more. And there’s no denying just how much this damaged me. I spent a good deal of my childhood crying alone in my room, thinking about my mother’s licentious behavior. Thinking about her death. It absolutely tore my mind to pieces! To pieces! And eventually, all my obsessing over promiscuity and coat hanger abortions led me to become the Coat Hanger Killer.”
All the true crime books I’ve read dealing with the Coat Hanger Killings suggested that the killer did not hold himself in high esteem, which accounted for his tendency to violate his victims with an object so lacking in circumference. It's amusing how wrong they seemingly were...unless there’s some oedipal thing going on here, which wouldn’t surprise me.
“I was utterly consumed by my desires.” he continues. “I obsessively thought of new ways to ****** prostitutes and not get caught. Yes, the sad truth is that my entire life revolved around serial killing for a number of years.”
He stops talking and stares up at the ceiling, letting out a deep breath, apparently orchestrating some sort of dramatic pause.
“When I finally realized that serial killing had taken over my life, I knew I had to change. And I did. And you can change, too!”
At that, he looks at me with pleading puppy dog eyes. This man, who has taken at least a score of human lives, is now using the cutesy approach in an attempt to establish a connection with me.
“Do you want to change?”
“Yes,” I lie.
“Then let’s get to it! Let the healing begin!”
And it begins.

The moustached man rises from his seat.
“Yeah, I’m Mark You all know me, except for the new guy. I’m Mark and I’m a serial killer.”
I mouth along as the group drones its greeting.
“I don’t wanna be here, but I don’t have a choice. If I don’t go to these meetings, my wife says she's gona leave me. See, this one night, I had just finished up with something I saw in a Ranch Burger parking lot. Wound up getting caught by my wife, stuffing it under our bed! I like keeping my finds under there after I’m done. It helps me get my rocks off when I’m nailing the old lady. Trouble is, before you know it, the body starts to stink. Then you gotta toss it. Good thing my wife has asnomia! Anyway, I almost had the whole thing hidden, when she comes in the bedroom. I didn’t even realize she was in the house! See, I was having some trouble getting the head underneath the bed frame, 'cause this one, lemme tell you, this one had a huge ******’ head. And my wife, she starts screaming and ****. Says something like, 'Mark, tell me you aren’t shoving a corpse under our bed! Please, tell me you aren’t!’ So, I told her I wasn’t.”
Mark’s witticism leads to raucous laughter from the twins, again ended with a severe look from Hanger Man. I stifle a yawn. The Indian remains impassive. Our orator continues with his narrative.
“I’m glad you guys find it funny, because my wife sure as **** didn’t. She fell to her knees and started crying. I swear, if there’s one thing in the world I can’t stand, it’s to see that woman cry. Breaks my heart. Except all of a sudden, she stops crying and starts screaming about how she knows what I’ve done and wants a divorce! So, I go up to her, put my arm around her shoulder, and tell her how sorry I am. Then I promise I’ll never shove another body under the bed. She asks me if I mean it and I say yes, figuring that’ll be the end of it. But then she starts begging me to swear that I won’t even score anything anymore. That I’ll quit. Quit for good!
"Well, I’d do anything to make my wife happy, right? So, I kiss her on the forehead and tell her nothing bad like that is ever going to happen again.
“But I’ll be ****** if the very next day I didn’t start getting that old itchy feeling as soon as I woke up. It was so strong I just couldn’t ignore it! Knew I was gonna have to score something soon as I got the chance. Of course, being so desperate, I wound up snagging this ***** that was all fat and gross at some supermarket. I did my business, then drove home and decided to leave the body in the garage, because I thought my wife never went in there. But go figure, she just had to pick that night to go ******’ exploring! Winds up seeing me ***** ******’ the ugliest, grossest, fattest score I ever made in my life. It was embarrassing, you know? Especially with how flat-chested my wife is.
“Anyway, to my mind, I had sort of kept my promise. I mean, I wasn’t putting anything under the bed, was I? But she didn’t see things like that. Just ran off in tears. Went right upstairs and locks herself in the bathroom. I eventually talk her out, but get the silent treatment for a couple days. Eventually, when she’s finally willing to talk, she tells me about this group. Says I go or else she’ll pack her **** and leave.”
“Excuse me, Mark,” Hanger-Man interjects, “but you are misrepresenting the character of your marriage! At last week's meeting, while you were occupied in the bathroom, your visiting wife revealed very much indeed about how you really treat her!”
At that, one of the twins decides to speak at length.
“Hey! Our dear leader isn’t going to let you get away with lying about your spouse, you know. Why, I bet he likes your wife so much, he wants to stick a coat hanger up her ****. After all, that’s the only way of showing affection he really knows.”
Both twins again erupt in laughter, this time so strongly that they fall out of their chairs. Hanger-Man leaps to his feet and begins chastising them for their lack of respect, which only seems to cause them to laugh even harder. Sensing failure, he throws up his hands in frustration and apologizes to me for not getting to my story, then announces that the meeting is to end early due to Nat and Richard's unruly behavior.
I wonder which one is which, but my interest fades. I head to the exit. Walking past Mark, I hear him talking to himself. Think I catch him say something about his “***** wife leaving,” before he sits down and buries his face in his hands. It occurs to me that a group of serial killers meeting in the secret basement of a pizzeria is strange enough without one of them bringing along his wife.
Open the door and head up the stairs. A man with flour on his hands, who was not here when I arrived, watches me coming out from behind the brick oven. I’m sure I see him wink as I leave.

Five minutes pass. I am standing in front of Joe’s, having decided to take a taxi home rather than walk. I'm trying not to stare at the Indian, who's situated next to a woman who'd been waiting outside in a **** nurse costume. He rests on his haunches, slowly rocking back and forth, still steadily chopping away at nothing. Everyone else from group has departed, the twins notably in a chauffeured limousine, whose driver bore a striking resemblance to Gene Wilder.
I feel uncomfortable. Perhaps I should try to make conversation.
“I’m pretty tired. Hope a cab comes soon.”
A grin appears on the strange man's face, which seems to stretch all the way back to his ears. The tomahawking stops. I wonder what would happen if I were to reintroduce myself.
“My name is Dan, as I said inside, but I think I should make a more formal introduction. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve never met a Native American before.”
“Chief Killing ******, round eye. Pleasure is all mine. And the reason you haven't met any of us is because there are not that many of us.”
A taxi mercifully appears.
“Yes, you’re right. See you next time, Chief.”

Romance

All alone in my apartment. I can find no reason not to give in to myself.
Down the stairs. Make my way through the vestibule and onto the street. Experience love at first sight with the anorexic looking woman standing on the corner of Seton Place and Ocean Parkway, waiting for the R-13 bus.  Approaching her, I get aroused. Ask for the time. She turns to speak with me. I pretend to examine the bus schedule. I have not looked a woman in the eyes since I began ******* at the age of eleven.
She tells me the time and I thank her, then quickly turn away so she will not notice my arousal. Our brief conversation replays itself in my mind until the bus comes.
We board and I sit as far away from her as possible, trying to position myself in such a way that my ******* will remain unseen. I wonder what stop she’ll get off at. I’ll get off there, too.

Our stop happens to be 2nd Street, between Peters Avenue and Chambers. My ******* has subsided. I am able to rise from my seat without concern. She exits from the front and I from the back.
Hide behind a minivan. Peer around it and see her enter a nearby apartment complex. She lives right here. As she fumbles around in her handbag looking for the right key, somebody wearing a U.S. Navy “Fear the Goat” baseball cap storms out of the building, slamming into her. She loses her balance and falls. The man continues on his way. He reaches the corner and turns out of view. She stands and regains her bearings, giving me time to ready the handkerchief and chloroform that I always keep with me.
Soak the handkerchief in chloroform.
Look to the left. To the right. Nobody is coming. Dash out from behind the minivan and head for my patient, who is just now opening the door.
Before clasping the rag over her mouth, I realize I have not planned our session very well. Where will I take her? Will we be seen? It doesn’t matter. I’ll think of something if the need arises.
After a brief struggle, my patient slumps over, dropping her keys. I bend over to get them, trying to cop a feel on the way back up. Enter the building and head for the nearest apartment door. Suspect it will be hers.
I keep her arm over my shoulder. Hold her by the waist, keeping her semi-*****. The feeling of having her limp by my side I can barely describe.
Now we’re almost there.
Almost –
I feel the rudiments of an ******* forming as I lock the door behind us. Home sweet home.

We have been in her bedroom for long enough to prepare for our session. I gaze at my patient, supine and unmoving. Seeing such perfection makes me lose control. Open my zipper, reliving each moment of tying her wrists to her bedposts. How I bound her with old, unwashed *******. ******* I found balled up, forgotten under her dresser, just waiting to be sniffed. I start jerking myself off. And this, I believe, means our session is ready to begin.
"Well, to start things off, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself? Just whatever comes to mind."
Silence.
“How about your your name?”
Silence.
“What do you hope to get out of therapy?”
Silence.
“Where do you tend to purchase your feminine hygiene products?”
Silence.
“Do you generally get along well with your family?”
Silence.
“What is your favorite color?”
Silence.
"What’s your favorite word?"
Silence.
“Are you perhaps feeling a bit uncomfortable at the moment?”
Silence.
“Do you find me attractive?”
Silence.
“Assuming you no longer do, at what age did you stop believing in the tooth fairy?”
Silence.
“Can you name a word that begins with the letter ‘s’?”
Silence.
Stop mid-stroke. My patient has not yet moved a muscle, made a sound, nor otherwise offered any response. Perhaps it’s not surprising that she would show so little trust in her psychotherapist.
"If you are going to be this uncommunicative, there is no reason for our session to continue. Good riddance to whatever is lurking around in your id; I see that I have no choice but to terminate our relationship."
Shove my ***** back into my pants. Hands won’t stop shaking. Stumble out of the bedroom. Out of the apartment. Onto a quiet, empty street. Still shaking. Head for the bus station, but can’t make it halfway there before feeling on the verge of collapse. Make a detour into an alleyway. Fall to my knees. *****. Curl up on my side and my mind slips away...

Going Under

Apparently, time passes. I find myself standing in front of my place of employment, the Pointer Funeral Parlor. Grasping the doorknob with my handkerchief, as I can't stand to touch it with my bare hand, I open the door. Head in. Immediately see the old man, Mr. Pointer, the owner. He approaches me. As I put my handkerchief away, he shakes a newspaper in my face.
“Singer!” You know the news about that ****** downtown?”
“The ******..?”
“Look at this paper!”
He slaps the newspaper into my chest.
“Somebody smothered a woman to death with a rag soaked in chloroform. Used so much that her heart crapped out. They found traces of it in her nose and throat. Seems she died pretty quickly.
“But guess what? She came from a loaded family and we’ve got her! Sam’s downstairs with the body right now. Probably almost done.”
“I am aware of what happened, Mr. Pointer. I knew the girl. She lived just a short bus ride from my apartment. May I go downstairs? I’d like to pay my respects.”
The old man eyes me suspiciously.
“That’s what funerals are for. I pay you to keep this place tidy, not ogle the clients.”
“I will have to sterilize the embalming room when Sam finishes, anyway.”
The old man gestures around the room, “What about all the garbage here that needs to be cleaned up? I can’t have my place of business looking like an embarrassment.”
“Shouldn’t take longer than a moment, Mr. Pointer.”
“Make sure everything is immaculate! I don’t need a custodian who is unwilling to do his work. I know what you're up to. Did you think that I’d believe your story about knowing the client?”
“She was…something of a casual acquaintance. I did not know her very well. She was not in the habit of opening up. A quiet sort of person, really.”
“Well then your grief shouldn't hinder you in performing your duties here as my employee! I swear, if not for the fact that there just aren't many people lining up for jobs cleaning funeral parlors, I’d have fired you years ago. Now get to work. You can do the downstairs later.”
              Mr. Pointer scowls at me and takes his leave. When he is out of sight, I make my way to the basement.

                “Dan Singer! You little snake in the grass, what are you doing down here? Don’t you have work to do upstairs?”
“Your grandfather said I could take a break and see you.”
“Ha! I’m sure he did. “
Samantha rushes in my direction. She smells strongly of formaldehyde. I pretend to find the odor unpleasant, so as to be able to look around the embalming room as she approaches me.
“I’m so happy you’re here. I could use a little break, myself.”
My eyes settle on the body of my former patient, which rests on a table on the far side of the room. Everything else seems very far away.
“…I don’t know why I ever got into the profession of ******* around with dead bodies. Stupid family business. It’s gross. Well, I do tend to enjoy the macabre. But the way you Jews handle things is far better. Just put the corpse in the ground. Be done with it. I know you haven’t been religious since you left your family, but…”
Our session seems as if it had taken place a lifetime ago. It's almost as if it couldn't have been real at all.
“…And the fact that I’m stuck working for my grandfather is just one more pain in the ***, you know? He really is one stereotypical grumpy old man. Hey, Dan? Hello! Earth to Dan!”
“Oh, sorry about that. I’m a little bit distracted. I was a friend of that woman over there.”
Samantha’s voice takes on an almost annoyed quality.
“You were? I’m so sorry. A close friend?”
“No. More like casual acquaintances, really. I just find it strange that she'd wind up here.”
“Pretty ****** up, isn’t it? So many young women disappearing, or plain turning up dead these days. It had me on edge for a while. Remember a few months back when that lady disappeared from the Ranch Burger? I eat there all the time! Couldn’t believe it. Thank goodness I read about that goof serial killer group. Helped me laugh about the whole thing.”
“I’m sure whoever thought it up must be a real character.”
“Oh! You should totally check out the site it was on, if you haven’t. Didn’t I send you an email with the link? I forget the name offhand. With the Slinkee logo. It has all sorts of weird ****. There was a great joke on there yesterday. Something like, ‘Did you hear about the guy who liked to play Russian roulette while *******? He really shot his load!’ Ha!”
I force a smile.
“Samantha, don’t ever let anyone tell you that you don’t have a great sense of humor.”
She seems very pleased and smiles back at me, drawing a bit closer.
“Uh, Sam. What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Closer.
“Uh, Sam?”
“Huh?“
I turn toward my former patient, looking for help. She is in no position to offer any. “Dan, are you all right? You don’t need to be so shy when I’m around. We’ve known each other for years. I know that you're upset about your friend. You can talk to me about it, if you want.”
“I'm sorry, but I don't.”
Samantha frowns.
“Well, if you do, you know where to find me. Anyway, I’m going to take a trip to the  restroom upstairs, then speak with my grandfather. Maybe you can say goodbye to your friend while I’m gone.”
“Oh, yes. It was nice chatting with you, Sam.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Samantha fusses with her hair a bit and heads to the stairs.
Up the stairs.
The basement door closes.
Now.
Rush across the room. Within seconds, aroused and exposed, I empty myself over the face of my object of affection. Fumble about in my pocket for the handkerchief. Clean her nose and mouth. Run to the stairs. Out the basement. Out the building. This is the last time I will ever pass through that door. I do not even think of looking back.

The Golden Fleece

It's that day again. On my way to group. I have not returned to the Pointer Funeral Parlor since reuniting with my patient. Samantha has called me several times and left messages inquiring as to my whereabouts. Mr. Pointer has called once and informed me that should I not return to work, I can consider myself fired. He seems to not have considered the possibility that I might have quit.
Approaching Joe’s Pizzeria, I see the twins. They are engaged in what appears to be a lively conversation.
“You see, ****, here’s what it is. I fear death just slightly more than I hate life. That’s what keeps me from offing myself.”
“We all appreciate that you're hanging in there.”
“Oh, *******. I’m glad you can find satisfaction being a nabob trust fund baby, but I’ve never given enough of a ****.”
“I employ my position in a number of ways that enhance our fine city’s cultural standing.”
“What? You mean like giving money to museums and the opera? You think anybody cares that you’re a patron of the farts? Opera only exists so that fat Italian guys can get laid.”
“*******.”
The twins stare at one another for a bit.
“You know, I appreciate the arts. Really, I do. I once stuck my **** in a copy of Hamlet.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. Your copy, in fact.”
“Disgusting.”
“Then I stuck it in a copy of Othello. After that, Hamlet just wouldn’t do it for me anymore.”
Both twins are overcome with fits of laughter. After the better part of a minute, it subsides.
“Ah, Dan. Good evening to you.”
“Hello, Dan!”
“Hello.”
“Off anyone recently?”
“Oh, don’t put it so boorishly.”
“No.”
“Oh really?”
“Even my sibling reads the Times.”
“There was a great story recently.”
“A crime story.”
“A ******.”
“A woman was found dead in her apartment. ******* all *****-like to her bedposts with her underwear. Nothing was taken and the woman hadn’t been sexually assaulted. She hadn't even been undressed. She'd simply been given a fatal dose of chloroform.”
“How strange so much information would be given in the paper.”
“It is curious, indeed, ****. But this is a strange world and these are strange times. And I’m willing to bet that our friend over here has been contributing to the strangeness of things. I mean, this chloroform killing was quite obviously not done by us.”
“We prefer little boys.”
“No. You prefer little boys. I also like little girls. And I have to endure as best I can our monotonous and boring escapades. Ours, as you know, is an associated effort.”
“Little girls irritate me.”
“Well wouldn’t you want to ******* **** them, then? Ugh. Brother. Anyway, we know we didn’t do this last ******.“
“And it certainly wasn't Chief Killing ******. He’d have made a far bigger spectacle of the thing.”
“So, since Jay’s no longer active and leaving bodies behind isn't Mark’s style, that leaves you.”
“It might have been somebody from outside of group,” I suggest.
A half smile spreads across one of the twins' faces.
“What! Are you denying it? Why the **** would you attend a serial killer support group if you aren’t going to dish out all the greusome details of your ***** deeds?”
“Some things are best left private,” I respond.
“Yeah, like a *****’s privates?”
One of them chuckles quietly.
“Hang on, are you intimating that our friend was unable to perform sexually?”
“I think he was limp as the left side of a stroke victim.”
“Oh, was that the case, Dan? Were you unable to attain arousal?”
“I do not want to talk about this.”
“Oh, of course you don’t. I wouldn’t.”
“Me either.”
“Well then, about what would you like to talk? We do so love making friendly chit chat, you know.”
“Nothing. There's no time. Group is about to start.”
“Oh, he's right. We should get heading in. I bet Mark has some great stories about his **** of a wife for us this week.”
“I am certain that he does.”
Wondering why I even came back for another meeting and strongly wishing that I were not in the twins' company, I enter the pizzeria. They follow closely behind. We make our way to the basement.
Everyone from last week's meeting is present, along with an excited seeming man. He wears a grey fedora and grey trench coat, under which he appears not to be wearing any pants.
“Welcome, welcome!” Hanger-Man exclaims in greeting. “We've all been waiting for you, but me especially. I must make a very important announcement! We will not be having regular group. Sadly, this means that Dan will not be able to tell us his story. Sorry, Dan. Still, everybody please be seated, so that we may begin.”
Everyone takes a seat.
“It is so wonderful to have the whole lot of you here. The twins. Mark. The Chief. Dan. What a splendid group! Truly, just the sort of people I think I need to begin the first stages of a wonderful project on which I have been working with my very good friend Marvin. Say hello, Marvin.”
“Hellooo, Marvin!” exclaims the guy in the trench coat, waving his arms above his head.
“Really enthusiastic guy, isn't he?” sneers Mark.
“I find his enthusiasm infectious!” retorts Hanger-Man. “And I am certain that you all will as well, once you hear a little bit about what he and I have been planning. You see,  I have always seen our meetings as potentially being much more than just a support group for individuals sharing our particular affliction.
“So much more! You guys don't even know the half of it!” Marvin exitedly chimes in.
“That's exactly right!” exclaims Hanger-Man, giving a thumbs up. “For you see, given my personal history, I knew I could help others overcome their murderous desires. After all, I was able to overcome my own. However, I realized that beyond simply assisting people in learning to control themselves, it would be better to also focus their energies in a new direction. Yes, to focus their energies in a new, profitable direction! For what I envisioned would function not merely as a support group, but as the core of what can only be called a great exercise in entrepreneurship! Isn't that right, Marvin?”
“Yep. Jason used to talk to me all the time about how he had these wonderful ideas, but lacked the people he needed to put them into action.”
“Excuse me!” interrupts one of the twins. “But just who's this Marvin guy, anyway?”
“I was wondering the same thing, myself,” adds the other.
Hanger-Man slaps the palm of his hand to his forehead.
“Ack! I suppose I should have made a proper introduction, what with the sensitive nature of our dealings here. Well, you see, Marvin is an old friend of mine. We grew up together. The two of us lost touch as teenagers, but rekindled our relationship a few years ago, after bumping into one another at an upscale cat house in Las Vegas.”
“I was there to **** a ******,” explains Marvin. “I'd never ****** a ******. Always wanted to, but never had the chance.”
He looks around the room as if hoping for a sign that someone else might share this particular interest. Not finding one, Marvin sighs.
“I'd seen a TV show where a guy went to Vegas and was able to **** a ******. It's how I got the idea.”
“Hey, whatever floats your boat, Marv!” shouts one of twins, barely able to refrain from laughing.
“All right, all right,” says Hanger-Man. “As I was trying to explain, Marvin and I wound up reconnecting after many years of not having seen one another. It took no time at all for us to pick up our friendship right where we had left off. And even though I was a bit wary of doing so, I found myself admitting to him that I, his old friend Jason, was the notorious Coat Hanger Killer.”
Marvin solemnly nods his head.
“It was a bit of a shock.”
“I know it was, Marv, but you took it in stride.”
“Excuse me!” again interrupts a twin. “But why the **** isn't this guy wearing any pants?”
Marvin, apparently embarrassed by this remark, attempts to adjust his trench coat so that it will hang lower below his knees. It doesn't.
“Enough!” erupts Hanger-Man. “No more interruptions! I'm trying to tell a story, here!”
He scowls at the twins. They adjust themselves in their seats and cross their hands in their laps, each smiling mischievously. Hanger-Man clears his throat, then resumes his tale.
“All right, it was not too long after my confession to Marvin that I began to reflect upon what I'd been doing with my life. I suppose finally opening up about my activities to someone else allowed me to also be more honest with myself. I searched my soul and was able to trace the origin of my behavior back to what had happened with my mother. Not too long after that, I abandoned serial killing. Yes, Marvin was the catalyst for my abandoning serial killing.”
“I was very proud of you,” says Marvin. “It was a big change to make.”
“Indeed it was, my friend. But I was able to make it, thanks in no small part to you. And so,  after forsaking the murderous path on which I was traveling, I began contemplating what I next wanted to do with my life. And it was at this time that I first began to develop the idea of forming our group.”
“We started discussing it, you see, over drinks at a return visit to the ***** house,” adds Marvin. “Jason told me that he wanted to do some outreach. I told him it would be a great idea and everything picked up from there.”
“It occurred to me,” continues Hanger-Man, “that the group should encourage its members to focus their energies on something other than committing murders.”
“You mean that entrepreneur ****?” asks Mark.
“Entrepreneurship, yes,” answers Hanger-Man.
“Jason had such a great idea, I immediately signed up,” says Marvin, “and I think all of you should as well.”
“Signed up for what, exactly?” Mark asks him.
“A no fail money making opportunity!”
The twins look at one another, grinning. Mark's face lights up.
“Well, ****! I could use some extra cash,” he says. “I need to buy a taller bed frame.”
Hanger-Man smiles in elation.
“I think, Mark, that this might be just the thing for you!”
“Well, how's it work?”
“It's quite simple, really” explains Marvin. “You first join the program, which Jason has named 'The Golden Group,' by paying an initial fee. Then you convince others to join. With their payments, you begin making back your original investment. When the people you recruit begin finding new investors, you get to collect on what they earn. So, as time goes on and more people join, the money just rolls right in!”
“Stop! Hold it right there!” cries out a twin. “You're trying to get us involved in a pyramid scheme!”
“Why, you scoundrel!” shrieks the other.
“Now just a minute, guys,” whines Marvin. “You have not even heard us all the way out.”
“Nor will we!” say the twins in unison. They clasp hands and rise from their seats.
“Hey, what gives?” asks Mark. “You telling me that this whole time we've been here, the group was really some scam?”
“That's right,” says a twin. “Jay and his friend have been waiting for enough people to arrive so that they could begin fleecing us all out of our money.”
“Come on, now,” pleads an offended looking Hanger-Man. “If I were really trying to do something like that, why wouldn't I have just targeted the two of you? You’re so well off that I'd imagine you have more money than everyone else here combined will see in their lifetimes!”
Chief Killing ******, who has been sitting silently throughout the meeting, suddenly springs to his feet and cries out at the top of his lungs. Everyone in the room looks at him. He shrugs his shoulders and walks out as if nothing happened.
“What the **** was that?” Mark wonders aloud.
“Who cares?” snorts a twin in response. “My sibling and I are out of here, too. Let's beat it.”
The Twins bow toward Hanger-Man. Before he can make an attempt to dissuade them from leaving, they turn and begin skipping away. I hear them laughing as they make their way up the stairs.
Hanger-Man tells them to wait.
“Will somebody explain to me what the **** is going on?” Mark demands. “This group's seriously just some scam?”
Hanger-Man looks at him pathetically.
“No, no, there's been a misunderstanding, Mark. Only a misunderstanding, that's all. Perhaps I should not have invited Marvin to sit in tonight. I thought that with the recent addition of Dan, the time had come to introduce everyone to my greater plans.”
I have had enough. Stand and rush for the door. Head up the stairs. Hanger-Man and Marvin yelling at me all the while. Exit the pizzeria and light a cigarette. I am halfway up the block when I hear someone call out to me from an alley not far off. I go to investigate.
“It is true, indeed, what they say. You cannot trust the white man.”
Peer into the alley and see Chief Killing ******, standing idly with his hands by his sides.
“Come here, I have something for you.”
Not entirely sure why I am doing so, I drop my cancer stick and enter the alley and approach the Chief. He smiles strangely and removes a silver whistle from behind the feathers of his headdress.
“I wonder, do you know why I am called Chief Killing ******?”
“No, I do not.”
“Then let me show you.”
              He places the whistle to his lips. A piercng shriek echoes through the alley.
               “Now you will see.”
              Nothing seems to be happening. I stare at the Chief in confusion for a few seconds, before I hear the clinking of high-heeled shoes. Dozens of pairs of high-heeled shoes, all of which sound like they are heading for the alley.
“I would like to introduce you to my *******.”
I see a series of strumpets, walking single file. They break line. Cover the wall to my left, to my right. They take formation in front of a dumpster at the back end of the alley, then finally close off the entryway. All wear pink miniskirts and black corsets. Black garters. Overly large, golden hoop earrings dangle comically from their ears as they take their places. The Chief stretches his arms above his head and yawns.
“Now they will show you what they do.”
More quickly than I can react, several of the prostitutes grab me from behind. One whispers into my ear that it will be fun to **** on my severed ****. She kisses me gently on the cheek. I am unable to refrain from getting an *******.
“Farewell, friend,” says Chief Killing ******.
A short, Arab looking ****** emerges from behind those standing at the alley's entrance. She makes her way in my direction, licking her lips and slowly drawing a forefinger across her neck. She holds a machete in her left hand.
I make no effort to struggle as I am forced to my knees. The ***** raises the machete above her head.
“This will not hurt a bit, my beloved.”
Close my eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. I know it won't.
An ironic and contemporary take on the classic Orpheus myth by a modern Beatnik
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
Dreams of a Child
Created: Jan 23, 2011 5:44 AM
Finished: Jan 30, 2011 4:23 AM
Posted here  Jan 2014
Warning:
a very, very long poem, but within , I promise,
there is a precise stanza about, for you.  
Take it as my gift.
Let me know which you took home to play.

~~~~~~~


Some poets care not
for the
discipline of rules,
laws of punctuation.

Why bother brother,
with putting poems
in antiquated jailhouses,
prisons of vertical bars,
or afford the reader,
the courtesy of horizontal lines?

Question and quotations marks
these day refuted,
as a Catcher In The Rye
conspiracy symbology of big lies,,
political interventionism,
to the creative, most natural
right to be crude.  

Inconvenient impositions,
symbolic flailings, of an
over regulated civilization
in the throes of declination

Punkuation is but a
societal annoyance to
today's creative geniuses,
periods, commas,
nothing more than
a pause to think -
who needs 'em?
when we want to stink
up the atmosphere with vitriols
of half truths and inhuman
but oh so gleeful,
concentrated disparagement
of any person worthy of
nationwide late night mocking merriment.

Such free spirits, vivid animations,
within me do not reign,
though upon occasion,
boy got permission slips  
for breaking bad by invention
of an occasional new word.

New words, white truffles
vocabulic incantations,
my own cupcake creations,
meant to burr, or purr,
their tasty meanings, always,
were readily apparent.

Sometimes we rhyme,
sometimes  we can't;
doth not a reading of a
poetic periodic table
of rants, chants
love poems, and paeans
to a shhhh! pretend,
overarching, poesy ego
require some minimalist format?

How I envy you,
kind observer,
possessor of literary powers
untoward and untold,
delicate touches of a fingertip
rule and rue
poetic invention.

You can zoom away or in
for a closer examination
of unscripted revelations,
incinerate them like an
yesterday's newspaper,
thus demonstrate contempt for
less-than-historic ruminations,
as time has done before.

Witness the crumbled ruins of Ozymandias,
king of kings,
and how the critic's machinations
with a dash of tabasco time,
his works, now museum pieces,
in the Tate Modern's room of
Laughable Human Aspirations.

Don't panic, sigh or groan,
kind observer,
infection inflictions,
content of discontentment,  
ancient whinings that the publisher
long ago listed as discontinued,
will not herein unfold.

What has all these mumbled asides
to do with the Dreams of a Child?

Apologies prolific I distribute
for this long winded profligate prologue;
and even for prior invasions
of your contemplative fantasias,
but my intention certain:
**** out the weak chaff eaters,
feigners of faux interest,
who stanzas ago deserted us,
this confessional lore.

These prior lines conceived
to mislead and deceive,
to refer and deter
send away, the hangers-on
who litter our lives,
with whimpered falsehoods.


So, we begin anew:

Today's lecture entitled
Dreams of a Child
were formatted on a silver disc;
this communication's originations,
seedlings of block
roman black letters
on background of cleansing white,
re things that jar me in the night.

Easy slights that waken
from a fitful, pitted rest,
mental paintings
natured in gem colors,
tourmaline auras,
and vibratto hues
of blue zircons.  .  

I have never lain upon the couch,
in the inner holy of holies,
where one whispers
to the Father Confessor
an original composition,
subject, title and inspiration
of said unique origination,
decidedly of one's own choosing,
roots of the essay's telling,
harvested in the root garden
of one's dreams,
where grow herbs,
spicy ones,
flavors of childhood.

The lush and wooded smells
of a forest of childhood scars,
and it's concomitant
putrefying, fruited rot,
awoke and brokered
a stilted, tremulous sleep.

Went to bed a a man
of modest success,
of modest scenes,
a bond trader, who trades
exactly that:
his word, his bond,
his blessing to his
deal constructions,
all of which, ended with an
irrevocable cri of "Done!"

Yet like you,
I am oft undone.

Dreams.

In truth, not dreams, but
spectral moments of
our lives relived,
a melange of ancient lyrics,
taunts of childhood abusers and
peer humilators
who could
teach the CIA
torture techniques
of WORD boarding, par excellent.

Angelic faces of human ****
that birthed in me a holy duality,
anger and a,
love of words,
my vaccination serum.

Granted a love of
human kindness
from teachers who cherished their
high and mighty tight
to publicly humiliate,
knowing full well
that human laws could not
attempt to have them
justly incarcerated.

Where, where were
the supervisors
who let me be spit upon
in the back seat of a
Fifty's station wagon,
by the brothers of
a sainted dead shepherd?

I am still eight,
sitting on a stoop in the
modest side of town,
towel in hand, so handy,
to wipe the tears shed
for cause,
for the car-pool of suburban boys
who "forgot" to pick me up for
Sunday swim night.  

In high school,
in the back row,
I silently ******
the juice of a Sarte lemon and
essayed a term paper,
upon multiple mirrored
reflections of a man
called Camus.

As another self styled, only living
teenage expert
on "alien nations"
received with pride and trepidation,
a sentence of Ninety Eight,
on my term paper,
but the pedantic predators
deemed it an accident
for I, was  inscribed in their
Upper East Side
Coda of Prejudice,
as merely,
"just" a
man of USDA,
B grade quality intellect.  

Hand me downs
I did not get
as I was the
younger, sole brother,
but worn lint lines
of humiliation
when and where my pants
were "let down"
to accommodate growth spurts
were my growing marks of Cain.

Those growth lines
were economic reality signs,
and were rich fodder for
childhood monsters,
Scions of Income Superiority
who lived in ranch homes in
two car, color tv garage slums,
wearing band new Levis.

In the Sixties,
time of my unsilent spring
wore a cross of
teenage hood,
my hair,
worn long,
Jesus style

Worn with labor pride,
for it was
Made in the USA,
I was a most conventional
revolutionary.

In the parochial jail
of educated guesses,
where society's lesson plans
of all that was bad
were O so well taught,
I was apart, ahead,
of Our Crowd,
but not too, radically.  

But a spiteful
Principal of No Principle,
deemed my locks a
disruptive influence,
so to exorcise my rebel streak,
so to crucify his "Jesus Freak,"
so to exercise his diminutive spirit
a pompous uber man,
he had me shorn
like a sheep,
thrice
in just one day,

He loved his full employment
of his pharoic entitlement,
The Educator's Power of Abuse,

I was so denuded
of human strength,
the Italian barbers of the
East 86th Street subway station,
wept for me,
their cri du coeur,
Angels in Heaven did hear
and from God
did dare demand
an explanation!

He roared in manner celestial,
"Is he not my child too,
and if he be treated
in style *******,
it is purposed and willful."

Pornographic compilations of
slaps across a child's face,
I've got plenty
of and in My Space,
should you care to
add your own,
down under,
got plenty of room
for all comers    

In a Facebook world,
I pride, not pretend,
that having fewer "friends"  
is my honest and true
reflection of who I am, and,
life lessons learned -
quality, not quantity.  

Victims of discrimination
can be most discriminating
in matters of
human games, associations.  
****** or word,
lack of taking care
is not heart healthy.

Tried to forgive
the despotic progenitors,
of some of that which
is good within me
that, irony of ironies,
they can claim the title,
creator;

Tried to give them
what I had gotten -
from the happy malcontented  
evil spreaders,

That grace, grace is
the only methodology,
an inestimable but
valuable lost leader,
the only way
to survive on
this planet of
hardtack and
caste striation.  

Though still quick to anger
at the cutters and denigrators
I am quick still to
confess my own failings, and forgive those
of plain and honest folk.

Unfortunately, kind observer,
you had to share my brunt,
syllabic Iwo Jima battles
of a decaying verbal moonscape
to reach the denouement,
for now we have,
mostly arrived

Most likely you too
have long ago
deserted me like
so many others,
no matter,
this modulated breath
was born and released
from my heaving chest and
as I knew it,
know this:

My Absaloms
where ever you be,
presumably and hopefully in hell,
I give you thanks
and a mini bar drink
of absolution.
a tin medal of appreciation,
for the
Marked Improvement
you inadvertently nurtured
in this restless,
voyagered soul.

My ancient enemies
till now, be advised,
forgive and forget
was and has not  
fully formed
in my penitential template,

Unlike your natural capacity
for cruelty and mean
birthed unto you
in your third rate
genetic melange,
forgiveness is taught
in a Master Class
at a famous school of Ethical Drama,
that I did not attend

Though resident in
a better place,
my root garden,
the bitter herbs you planted
still grow but,
are welcome in sweet brotherhood,
until the selah days
of just one flavor.

Though the universe's expansion
is of a pace such that
time and space definitions
will stretch and warp
and need be
refined, replaced,
the governing principle here.
need not be rephrased.  

For goodness
from evil
doth come
and should your
evil spectres
once more try
for resurrection
in my benighted
dream world.
you will find the doors
locked and barred,
upon them a sign
not verbose,

**Done.
Whew.
second match lit and gone
cinders burn and hearts forlorn
the curse it summons haunts the head
with terrors of happiness that could have been
yet light seeps in through half-open eyes
though distorted with tearful disguise
as pain brings no warning, leaves none secure
as jealousy hidden in palms, submerged

the blush leaks in, roses bloom in the fall
the demise of your companions the source of it all
as you dream of the kiss you exercised on your lips
with the faint gossamer trails of a butterfly's bliss
the chill of winters creaks in your bones
the scratch of a pencil strengthening your woes
no amount of perfume will cover the cologne
no amount of tears shed with forget what you've known

four times the curse has struck the heart
and bled loves juice through every part
through wrecked veins and bruised bones
metastasizing, leaving you all on your own
through love's gentle heart brings peace to the world
a violent disguise for the pain it truly burns
candlelight vigils carry sorrow no longer
for love's vicious hand strikes down younger and younger

given sunshine rays to be brought to the soil
trotted on by millions worrying of their sorrows
problems; as if they have so much
insulting those who dare not live, dare not touch
the shreds of life they hold so dear
and those in tow they hold so near
tears. wet drivers run dry
is it always truly better to try?

sk
Bard Dec 2018
Sentience is life
Sanctity a lie
Sayin it alive

"I think therefore I am"- Descartes
So may as well be a slab of ham a part
Ship the guts off to a lab grow a heart

Social value before Science breakthrough
Society lies before Society lives
Public hysteria some Hateful euphoria

Cloud regulation
With false allegation
Corrupt litigation
By holy congregation
A rights desecration
In an uptight nation
Libby DeLand Jan 2016
Crying for each others attention, it's all they ever do.
Who can be louder?
Is it her, or is it you?

She throws her hangers, he punches the wall.
But truthfully,
he isn't trying to hurt her at all.

Never-the-less, she tries to win the fight.
With fear trembling through my body,
I stay quiet in my room for the rest of the night.

I hear the words, "Move the **** out"
It catches me off guard.
She rolls her eyes, as she seriously doubts.

They scream for each others attention its all they ever do.
There is no denying the obvious tension, for that, I know is true.

The fight settles down while it's just for a second,
They get really quiet,
Then he beckons.

He pulled her near, and hugged her close.
but she just stood there.
I swore she saw a ghost.

He loves her now, but just 5 minutes ago,
he despised her
He said it was time for her to go.

She was hurt and battered
within the day, hour, minute
All of a sudden, she mattered

Bipolar is the official diagnosis
but over the years, shes stopped caring
Fell out of his hypnosis

He plays his unintentional mind game
he doesn't get it.
We never want to play, we don't want to be shamed.

We know who screams louder, it's you.
not knowing how to respond.
Because you follow your own social cues.
Adelle Oct 2014
i hated the empty closets
at my father's house
and i could never trace the smell of his bed covers
back to my mother

and so when you hug me
please don't be angry if i cringe

cause those empty metal hangers
left scars on my ribcages
and they hurt when you hold me.
RIGAAL Oct 2010
Chairs are just coat hangers
couches are beds
and clothes are just hand rags you wear

my cell phones just a flash light
and the shower is a neighborhood *****
bank
that doubles as a hairsalon

(so..
what the **** does that make me?)
Laying around
about the dorm room
Bored
Looking for quick
Stupid cash
We came upon a listing
My roommate and I
in the local paper
Artist models needed
No experience necessary
That was key

The guy on the phone was chirpy
He lived
Close by in Oakland
He gave us directions to where
He would pick the two of us up
We
Would take the bus
He would be in a station wagon
Beige

He met us sure enough
Old
Old as the ******* sea
Formal suit and tie
Maybe a hat
We drove back to the apartment
And entered
First my roommate
And then myself

A ****** yellowed set of rooms
Where we will be heading to the right
To the kitchen
I’ve noticed the battered ***** *****
Mattress
Also
To the right
Stains and an attached clamp lamp
A single stark bulb

We were greeted by an even chirpier young lady
She was like a baby Joan Jett
All rocker black and leather
Sleek hair slicked back
She seemed somehow to like
really really old men

She took over and reached
for the plastic folder
She handed it to us
“You need to look at this before we go on
This is what we do”

Obediently, we cracked it open
and peered inside
Bent over we studied
Sticky plastic pages
Of brightly faced girls
Page
After
Page
Smiling with awkward innocence
No bright eyes nor youthful effanescance
No desire
Nothing wet
Except their palms with thoughts of escape
And 100 dollars

I only remember the girls whose makeup faded around the neck to betray
the true color of their flesh
Not flushed at all with sticky expectation
They left no impression in their nakedness
Ghosts
Shades
They should have been in class or doing something else

But our Joan!
Joan was a star.
Her photos were full of sass and delight
She was more than happy
to show you her ******
Over and over and over
She said
Actually
it’s a club
The guys pay a monthly fee
And they come here and shoot
In the apartment or maybe outside
They cannot touch.
There is no *******.
Mostly they shoot
Me.

Alone.
A Pixie Star.
This was were that old man’s money was.

I don’t remember what she told us
What she used to do before
this had to be a moment
A rather short moment
She would move along because
This kink was overstuffed with
impotence
and ineptitude.
Kink that might be easier to deal
With
On a properly lit stage
Or a quiet motel room with the shades drawn
Cash up front.

But for now
She was the enterprise.
And what would he do without her?
We three giggled and guffawed
in the little kitchenette.
We weren’t game for the arrangement.
She knew that.
But she liked to talk.
Men like that are pathetic.

Seriously why would we do this?
All those faces in the book!
Four on a page
Excitedly, we thought that we recognized
One or two
I know her!
Look I know her! I’ve seen her
in the Poli-Sci Building!
I’m sure we did not know any of them.

The mattress.
I could not fathom what happened on that thing.
I don’t want to know.
I had to look the other way as we left.
Did he perform
Abortions?
With hangers and kitchenware
Can ******* be that messy?
Just opening your legs?

We said goodbye to her!
She was wonderful.
She would sparkle forever.
Joan Jett!
Piling back into this hoarder’s
station wagon amongst
the musty boxes and newspapers
strewn all over the backseat with us
He drove
to the bus stop
A waste of his time
Disgruntled
Failure

He asked
How should this ad read
so that
this doesn’t happen again?
We offered no suggestions.
It had been fun
However idiotic.
I don’t remember
how long it was that
we kept our bus trip
secret.
wanderer Nov 2013
chaste pecks from the super-sonic youth
numb lips flutter to the hollowed cheeks of normality
no longer the hand-prints on the guide book to hostility
a pamphlet of rudimentary teachings;
the principles of tolerance and rebellion and acceptance of human beings
a concoction of suppressed psychotic behavior, quick wit, and center of satirical tease
constantly moving with heavy footsteps and heavier hearts
their minds and bodies plagued with actions from a deserted youth
soul lusting over the naivety of people before self-actualization; how crude
do they call it an existential crisis or the daily life of a agoraphobic nobody
shouts from the depths of caged fears that scrape the oblivious flesh in their brain; a bit gaudy
mother, sister, brother, father how your words crush the knots of comfort that line my internal organs
bleeding from the pores of my screams; streams of moon-beams shooting out my eyes; oh, not again!
stomping our metaphorically spiked toenails against the idealism of pop culture
oh, my, how adolescence is the worst kind of torture
cherry slushies lined with cigarettes to create a whirl-pool of nostalgia
recreational drugs and ironic situations to ease our instinctual sense of proverbial nausea
loud-mouthed demons spawned out of clothes-hangers and emotional turmoil
show up in our nightmares that we nick-name ‘a good place to contemplate suicide’
repeated imagery stacked like flap-jacks in the mouths of blissed-out sociopaths
too self-indulgent to include us in to their personal stories so we can observe, record, and assess
i don’t perceive doctors to be particularly and predominantly just and true
but i one time met a doctor who told me ‘being a teenager is perhaps the hardest thing you could ever do’
Emily Jones Jul 2015
We are an echo of our past
Like an empty hanger in the closet
All bare and cold
Memory serves as the foundation to something beautiful
As long as those shoulders
Bare something new.
And our closet doesn’t stay empty but rather collects a rainbow of hues.
In the time between the worlds feuds
A mighty crash left our country subdued
Infertility plagued the land
While everyone put out their hungry hand.
People so fragile, plunged to their death
Not even taking a second to hold their breath
Women were forced to give up inside life
Turning to coat hangers, instead of surgical knifes.
While many men turned to a homemade noose
To be found in a closet by those they would lose.
Thursday became known as a blackened date
As a reminder of countries’ terrible fate.
vic May 2017
I stand before you
A target for the bullets you spit
I didn't realize we had to read these claims out loud
Now I'm hearing you tell me I made a choice about who I am
You tell me I chose this path.
Your words are acid seeping into my skin slowly deteriorating the pride I used to hold
It's hard to be prideful when you're caught up in the accusations and drowning in disrespect
Please tell me more about how you are an expert in being gay
It's not like I'm a lesbian or anything
I obviously know nothing about the topic since I told you
People obviously choose to be gay and my experience as a gay person doesn't matter
It's not a choice though
It's a curse blessed upon you when you are born
A trait you find incredibly hard to love, I didn't choose the self-hatred and suicidal thoughts that came with this
I didn't choose the ****** harassment and public embarrassment
I didn't choose any of this
Being gay isn't like when you're at the amusement park and you decide to ride the rainbow roller coaster because it looks pretty
It's not a fun ride, it's a deadly one full of insults and discrimination that's hard to get back up from
It's being a target for people like you
You don't even realize how horrible and toxic the words you spit are to LGBT+ people like me
We swallow our words because we know you won't listen
Just like how so many lgbt+ youth swallowed a plethora of pills and didn't wake up
Wake up.
63% of these teens have attempted suicide in the past year
Do not tell me we choose this.
And if you think that it's fun to be gay you literally know nothing about our issues
Don't tell you're an ally then tell me you think you choose your sexuality
I didn't choose the life I was given
But you chose your words carefully in a way you thought would pierce me so you could win an argument
Not with actual fact but by just picking at your opponent till she feels like nothing
You probably never thought about it again that day
Yet here I sit, 24 hours later dreading the hour I have to spend in this classroom studying for my finals with homophobia
Wondering if running out could be the right answer.
I don't like running back to the closet but your words are shoving me into my hangers
I hear your voice whenever another guy puts his hand on my thigh and tells me about his lesbian fantasies
I hear your voice telling me I chose this
Hearing millions of voices telling me that I shouldn't complain because this was my decision
Not even asking me what I was wearing because being lesbian makes me enough of a **** already
I don't like your toxic spit because I know it'll spray on to the other gay kids around me that are vulnerable and insecure about their sexuality
I know your words will deteriorate their pride just like they have done to mine
You don't think you're homophobic because you don't shout the word “******” at gay people
But there's a lot more to homophobia than that
Like completely diminishing the past of LGBT+ individuals and belittling us down to choices
Believe me, if I had a choice I would have chosen to be straight because then I wouldn't have to sit in front of you while you disrespected my sexuality
I could be another blind ally that doesn't speak up when this **** is happening
I'm trying so hard to make things better for the kids like me
But you insist on ripping us open.
We bleed rainbows and a sense of pride you will never know
You don't have to find pride in your sexuality because no one hates straight people for being straight
No, we hate straight people like you who insist on being ignorant
This worst thing is is that you take pride in your arrogance
Holding your American flags high as you belittle my equality
You didn't have to fight for anything, you're a straight white guy who takes pride in his privilege
One that only insists on spitting toxins
I wish I could say I am stronger than your poisons but it's hard to find strength when so few people hold you up
If you really think I chose this path, then you should be worried about my mental state
Only people who hate themselves would choose this kind of pain
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find my pride again.
mark john junor Nov 2013
pastel monotone thoughts paint
an image of me in her mind
complete with shrinkwrap
and a bright smiley face sticker
her eager hand sweats the dealt moment
she awaits with impatience for
her daily christmas time package
her daily reprise of her happy moment
she remembers it with fondness
her pastel colours spread slowly
like an intellectual STD
a malfunction of the common man
she is a true modern miscreant
she wants a pretty girl lover
that comes complete with emo look a like
laptop gamer girl
attached the hip down to matchin **** selfies
a hundred smooth moves and cheat codes
she wants the complete package at the discount rate
shes a card carrying member of
some fan girl fandango
she calls me captain saveahoe
street nasty superhero with kung-fu grip
trailing through the dank alleys
in search of the legendary ultimate dumpster
the prize of every divers wet dreams
wandering all night with a few vampire hangers on
looking for a fashionable means to a glorious end
meanwhile the corner girl is waiting on me
thinking i'm just trying to find her a safe place to be
she is my safe place and i'm hers
the few of us that survive the moment
stroll on through the rain
to the dairy queen
to see and be seen
dont cha' hate that whole show up
to show off
she lives to die for it
but thats ok
cause i love her just the same
C Sep 2014
empty black purse
old love notes
all wrinkled
now molding
damp and limp

boat trips and fancy dinners
airplanes and hangers
ocean views and hotels
princess treatment

promises made
one plastic ring
fit
if taped

texted pictures
a portrait
a yacht
videos shared

two months
later invisible
me and my quite room
and an empty refrigerator

let go

empty black purse
wild goose chase
just a distraction
a fantasy

let go
Joseph C Mar 2012
Can you **** me before you go?
I can't spend another night alone after knowing you so well
And I'm staring at the ceiling listening to you breathe
I've still got a lot of goodbying to do but I can put 'em off
As long as it takes
Put my faith back in love

So what do they get by sitting on fences?
Your feet will never touch the ground
You can't walk
You can't run
You can't sleep in the sun
You can't dance until the sun goes down

Dreams are something you have to steal and drag them into life
I dreamed of Jackie O and I dreamed with her two weeks
We were cold and we were starving so I left in the morning
And she said "Once you leave you won't come back."
She carried a bottle whiskey.  She was neat and she was dizzy.
We spiraled out

Then I dreamed of a girl from Ohio
Who was a trail of excuses that circled around and around her neck
An off-brand noose

I learned the hard way to hold on tightly and let the wind carry you away like a seed
You gotta leave quick so you can be the first flower of the season
And you'll pick it without knowing it's the first for a reason
And nobody will ever see us again
Danny Valdez Mar 2012
Within twenty-four hours everything changed.
The old man kicked me out again
so I was back in that twin sized bed
surrounded by my mother's boxes & plastic bins
my clothes in big piles
with the hangers left in, just dying for a home.
And the day I got kicked out
I got the call
the one I didn't think would ever come.
It was for a transcription job
doing reality t.v. shows
typing what the cast members said
in the interview room
word for word
every burp, ****, and studder.
A foot pedal is used to stop, play, rewind, and fast forward.
She asked me to come in for an interview
but then the next day
she had someone call out sick
so she called me back,
"**** the interview. Do you just wanna start? Like...today?"
So I went in that day and got typing.
The office was located in a 1960's trailer
in the middle of a small trailer park, next to a little house.
The boss was a middle-aged Rasta lady
with straight brown hair
and a very kind face.
Turned out she also ran the trailer park.
I asked her about one of the trailers with a 'For Rent' sign
the only one available in the whole lot of seven trailers.
She said it was a one bedroom and less than $500 a month.
Two days later
I got a few hundred bucks from my financial aid
that I had been waiting on.
It was my only way out
my only way in.
After I paid the move-in expenses
I only had $13 to my name
but it was alright
my good luck just kept on rolling
I found a $200 balance on my food stamp card.
At the end of the day, my face hurt
from smiling so big, for so long, I'm not used to all this.
I have a porch that's mine
Mason jars with ice water
good food in the fridge
It's only a short walk across the trailer park
to get to work everyday.
My rasta boss landlord lady
has two little boys
around my sons age.
Ever since we moved in
all he's done is play outside with them
running around with rocks, sticks, dirt, and random objects
the way kids are supposed to play.
I almost can't type this
can't put into words
what this means to me.
No more father looming over me
or mother yelling my name.
To be able to
step out onto my porch at night
seeing the Gilbert water tower lit up in white light, the scent of Joe's Real BBQ blowing in the breeze
or to walk the downtown streets
with it's old west, wooden awnings, hanging overhead.
the old tyme tattoo shop
with it's old style custom flash.
the wooden little two window, one door, the front
of my Dad's former bar
'The Mustang Lounge', where I watched him sling drinks, while I played the entertainment trivia touch screen, sipping Shirley Temples.
But the best part
and it's such a simple thing
just walking the sidewalks of my neighborhood
which are stamped, AA Beardon, 1930.
It's everything I've ever wanted
but
it's just dumb luck.
To find a job and a home
in one fell swoop like this.
I feel like I've run off and joined a commune or something
I'm on a writer's retreat
where I practice typing all day
and then cook myself dinner
at sundown.
T-Bone Walker's voice fills my little trailer
as I take in a sunsets from my porch
leaned against the railing
a jar of ice water in my hand
my stomach full
having that after dinner smoke
not having a care in the world
besides
the next cigarette
and
the next page here.
Finally.
I can put my feet up
and hold my head high.
Give away her gowns,
Give away her shoes;
She has no more use
For her fragrant gowns;
Take them all down,
Blue, green, blue,
Lilac, pink, blue,
From their padded hangers;
She will dance no more
In her narrow shoes;
Sweep her narrow shoes
From the closet floor.
Sophisticated elegance
Pornographic decadence
Psychedelic trip
The past, present and future
Of what is the Sunset Strip

Hot spots undiscovered
History recovered
Dig in and take a dip
The past, present and future
Of what is the Sunset Strip

Darkness in the daytime
Sunlight cleans the slime
It's easier to grip
The past, present and future
Of what is the Sunset Strip

Tales of olden Hollywood
Hangers on and hoods
Changing what is hip
The past, present and future
Of what is the Sunset Strip

Sophisticated Decadence
Pornographic Elegance
The Chateau for a nip
The past, present and future
Of what is the Sunset Strip
mark john junor May 2013
he seeks shelter from the rain
in the coffee shop
she offers him a cup of joe
she offers a moment to reflect

the hipsters and hangers about
fill her world with sight and sound
fill her senses with smiles and joy
but inside she know she needs something more
that this place is just an emblem
and cannot sustain a soul like her

she could have anything
she just need ask
but she cant find the words to describe
cant find an image to convey
her souls need

but its clear to him
its a ship sailing to distant spain
its a road leading out into a western desert
its a train rolling thru a dark stormy night to a northern town
its a footpath thru mist
its a man seeking shelter from the rain

he leaves with her smile
which she gave with a hopefull heart

now
wrestle with the shadows in his heart
but its her face that lingers
in the late hour
in this last time he will stand

the standards of the champions
the fighters for truth
the liars
and the ones too dark to do else but die
they gather in harsh light
and prepare to do battle and stand their ground

a prince of the beasts proud and fair
a champion to the ones who have no strength to call their own
the frame of time captures only the movement
but the fickle thought of who he is
prince of beasts proud and fair
champion of the clean linen uniform
regal bearer of the standard of a rising sun

reflected only in the young eyes
those cheering champions like him on from the side
but its only her smile that lingers for him
as his life flows spent onto the sand

she never did catch that train
never did escape that shop
never did grow beyond the borders
of the hipsters and hangers on
but least they loved her too
in their way
and that is some comfort
the girl, the coffee shop, the cup of coffee all happened...the rest was changed to incriminate the innocent

edit: the cup of coffee may have been a illusion. it has been redacted from reality
The cloth bazaar was quietly breathing rest.

I was scanning rows of hangers for summer shorts
picking up here and there
dresses without skeletons
smiling in the revelation
why skeletons don't need shorts.

I found a poem in one of those hangers
**** with no words
begging me to drape it with some
enough to make it one summer shorts.

Something welled up in my eyes
bare as the poem and as true
and thinking of it
I bought summer shorts
not one but two.
March 16, 2018, 1pm
When my body can't take it anymore
I go into the closet- not to pray, but to worship;
I kiss the complacent coat hangers there, orderly on their metallic racks,
My lips on smooth plastic; eyes closed,
All senses centered on my mouth;
Enraptured, I can't see any colors at all..

The surface doesn't soften, as I beat out my lips
Against the mild anvil; altar of pain, loving the more distant you
Somewhere on a compass that the heart knows best;
This pain is merely a devotional exercise, to take my mind
Off the fact that the hangers can't actually kiss me back.

The wool blazer has your blue eyes;
The polo shirt has some, not all, of your softness.
The shoes delicately waft a heavy, calming manly odor of leather.
The weight of the clothing leans back against me, sighing
And muffles most of my cries and exclamations

While I sway, to their soapy limerance of fabric softener and dust.
If I push far enough into them, they enclose me all around
Just like a lover's firm grasp, of aching seams and  straining stitches,
Loving me soundlessly, from many directions at once.

To silent, undanced waltzes, we hang together, in furtive salute;
For they are not free, and neither am I;
But we can dream together, in the small cottony, worsted room,
For we are old friends, we have known both sunshine and rainshower together

And long, undying afternoons, of tears and questioning why.
They have known many of my beloved's names,
And I in turn have seen them both inside and out, plush and threadbare.
We have no secrets any longer; I know their every scar by heart
As well as they know mine:
I can never discard even one of their kind,
I have to keep them closer than skin.
judy smith Sep 2016
Local designer Vanessa Froehling has denim on the brain. Stonewashed, herringbone print, chambray, stretch and black denim, to be sure.

In her home studio, Froehling flips through hangers of designs, including sailor-style high-waisted women’s shorts, a men’s blazer and a women’s jumpsuit.

“It’s something that’s in everyone’s closet and it will never go out of style,” says Froehling of the French-born fabric (denim’s etymology comes from “de Nîmes,” the French town where Levis Strauss first procured the tough cotton twill for your 501s). But, she adds, “people are stuck on what denim can do.”

The line is called Carpe Denim and it’s Froehling’s entry into FashioNXT (self-described as “Portland’s Official Fashion Week”) — not to be confused with Portland Fashion Week — three days and nights of runway shows in early October. She will present Carpe Denim in the UpNXT competition, the “emerging designers accelerator,” alongside four other Pacific Northwest designers the evening of Oct. 5.

The fashion week has a cozy relationship with Project Runway, the fashion-designer reality show running since 2004, and, in fact, two of the judges assessing the competition are Seth Aaron (winner of Project Runway season 7) and Michelle Lesniak (winner of season 11).

In 2015, Froehling applied to both Portland Fashion Week and FashioNXT, but was only accepted by the former that time. She says auditioning in front of the FashioNXT judges was intimidating.

“My nerves were like, ‘What do I do with my hands?’” Froehling says, shaking her hands by her sides and laughing. The judges were tough, she recalls, and they recommended that she develop the marketability and cohesion of her line.

Over the past year, she took their advice to heart and decided she would try out again, this time with a denim ready-to-wear line, a departure from the couture gowns that have distinguished her style. She took inspiration from the city — recalling watching the denizens of Portland walk by, falling in love with their street-wear style — and the layers of people, buildings and traffic.

Eight jean looks — five for women and three for men — will walk the runway, but rest assured, this will be no **** of Canadian tuxedos. Although denim is the common thread, the designs feature smart juxtapositions against black leather and a colorful textile that looks like a cross between gas puddles and graffiti.

The self-taught designer has also developed several innovative details: a woman’s denim peplum jacket that unzips at the waist, transforming it into a more casual cropped jacket; women’s stretch leather pants that zip open at the knee, a nod to ripped jeans; and a men’s chambray shirt with the illusion of a double collar creating a fresh origami effect.

This summer, the judges welcomed Froehling on the FashioNXT train.

Froehling says one judge told her that she’s the first designer to return the following year to try out again after being rejected.

“It’s the highest fashion production in Oregon,” she says.

The winner will be announced at the after-party Oct. 5, and the prize package secures a spot for the designer in the main runway show in 2017 and includes business mentorships, feature stories inPortland Monthly and Portland Mercury, and a strategic marketing course at Portland Fashion Institute.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses
L B Jun 2018
Drifting off in mid-day
She is there in my parent's house
Where she should not be
She's never met them
been inside their home

...and besides
She's dead...

Don't know where I drop my brains off
or my heart
when sleeping
I so clearly know this
but I dismiss it
for the moment--
go along with joy
to have her with me once again

She looks so well!
Her pale skin flushed
below her ragged, reddish hair
Wearing peacock blue sateen
as always
dressed to ****
to go somewhere
anywhere
away
from loneliness
from cancer

...and she had included me
on her glorious outing
without title
without honor
I had been her teacher-friend
like an elder wedding guest
she had grown
beyond ...

She helps me dump my canvas bag of poems
on my parent's bed
Where I conceived them
or they conceived me

“What about this one?
Or this is a good one too!
I know you can do this!
You read so well!”
she says
I'm thinking, “This is not like Jenn,
so reversed
for her to give a thought...
and besides, it is not even my event!"

Now she's in my mother's place
in her 1950's closet
pushing hangers across the rail
She would find it--
something
I could wear

I am so transported by the smell
of memories
that I don't care
mothballs, lavender, perfume
I get distracted deep within
almost losing track in the euphoria
to have found my friend again
I lose a moment in the soft fur of mom's mink
clipped together mouth to tail
to form the stole
an ouroboros
With its beady eyes
on me
like death
would drape across my shoulders
given half a chance

When from its mouth of glamorous lies....
Jenn shoves me through life's opened door
She has found that dress!
I wore...

the one with hope, and future's
purple flowers
dropped waist and scalloped neck
Yes, It would do, “Yes!"

But now,
she makes excuse to leave
...of meeting Joe
...of going on ahead...

I know
she must

as this is all some clabbered past
a gift of dreams
Still, I want to hug her
just one last....

but she feels empty...

In embrace
she turns to ash
Jennifer was my friend of fifteen years and a fellow poet.  Dreamt of her yesterday-- like she was actually here.
Richard Jan 2013
the closet has our *** noises on wire hangers
not because of the four babies we lost
but because we can never have them
we can never bear pretty pictures
even with all the efforts of our puzzle-making
love-making, puzzle shuffling
because sometimes we get to put the wire hangers on and wear them around like beetle's wings
we are magic
with our four lost babies
and our questionable marriage license
because we still have each other
T Zanahary Dec 2012
Stuck in this burning nightscape
knees replacing feet as
trees combine protection
and inevitable regression
to some beast's detection,
it's a call of mayday
to belay
the nights bereaved.

I missed the days
when fathers lay silent
in their posturing prose,
I missed the day
when fathers play, silent
in their organized rows.
I missed the day
when time took its lull
and silently stood still.

Now it's dropping me
in hallowed peace,
sacred work
left taming beasts.
And women need
their reason to seethe
last thought as
I'm lacking
air to breath.

Too bad I see
that vacuum piece,
or else I'd let
you ****** me.
But now they've named it
Suicide,
this fading high
on which I ride,
leaving this world
to ensure
I get
the girl,
leaving this life
tattooed with knives,
blades too dull for her taste,
to provide the tears she's cried.

And tears become oceans
growing from puddles
to seize hold of perception,
I'm stuck riding through motions,
salt water potions
growing devotion,
single drop notions
exposing the quotient
that U plus i equals,
but the answer's
chosen a different formulation,
and me and you
are dividing all we have
so we don't have to remove
our individuality any longer,
so we are an individual
duality no longer,
so I have to hold back
this duality no longer,
and my mental reins
no longer deal with the strain
of convincing you I'm another.
It seems as though the Sun's daughter
couldn't stand me any stronger.

The troubled nature of
how we'd come to be a
singularity was the very story
holding my prosperity,
from death to life,
I brought naught strife
but adventure, just matters
on what perspective you use.
And my third eye prism
made it seem as though
the Moon's daughter
found a life with
a demigod a bother.

Life had gotten boring riding the backs of these gluttons,
so she thought it about time to release the dogs
and left me hounded by a mind forgetting all the swine,
left The Year of the Rat with its hands tied firm 'gainst its back

Now she's singing in Spanish
of past lives' damages,
using dialects unfamiliar
and languages unheld,
words not understood
but meaning seeping through,

so I take away
to let her relapse,
releasing thought patterns
to comprehension of all but her
and the language which makes dreams.
Sleeping,
let her switch back
to those dreams which make the words we use,
the dreams which make the words we abuse,
dreams which make the worlds we peruse
to relearn languages.

We're screaming at each other again
birthing hatred from ideals left on skin,
and I let her draw with knife's edge,
still dull as memory serves its purpose,
from that swelling source named inspiration.
I left here to let her this hedge,
separating us through this break
I can't go back to giving in,
I can't relapse to my begin.

Too far gone
we're born in mangers
and to this day
gifted by strangers
gold borne of silver, china
topped by the latest craze.
But you are missing the noose
floating alongside sheepskin hangers
as we're falling from the rafters
they helped us hang from.
Sam Temple Feb 2014
spirited ferret
rare, ear hair tipped white
frightened pip carefully snaring
darting pairs flipping
clipped wings, carted
shipped riggings sing
lark songs
darkness brings
wronged Nips
angered and singing
ears ring banging hangers
tearing string Narcs protest
ingesting *** freeing boxes
rocks bling
****** tracks shear hearts
parked rack blesses
black guests
I have this idea for poem-art in which substance and context are replaced with emotional responces to word sound combinations and the look of differnt ideas placed together that have no place along side one and other....we'll see how it goes

— The End —