Bouazizi’s heavy eyelids parted as the Muezzin recited the final call for the first Adhan of the day.

“As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”
Prayer is better than sleep

Rising from the torment of another restless night, Bouazizi wiped the sleep from his droopy eyes as his feet touched the cold stone floor.

Throughout the frigid night, the devilish jinn did their work, eagerly jabbing away at Bouazizi with pointed sticks, tormenting his troubled conscience with the worry of his nagging indebtedness. All night the face of the man Bouazizi owed money to haunted him. Bouazizi could see the man’s greasy lips and brown teeth jawing away, inches from his face. He imagined chubby caffeine stained fingers reaching toward him to grab some dinars from Bouazizi’s money box.

Bouazizi turned all night like he was sleeping on a board of spikes. His prayers for a restful night again went unanswered. The pall of a blue fatigue would shadow Bouazizi for most of the day.

Bouazizi’s weariness was compounded by a gnawing hunger. By force of habit, he grudgingly opened the food cupboard with the foreknowledge that it was almost bare. Bouazizi’s premonition proved correct as he surveyed a meager handful of chickpeas, some eggs and a few sparse loaves. It was just enough to feed his dependant family; younger brothers and sisters, cousins and a terminally disabled uncle. That left nothing for Bouazizi but a quick jab to his empty gut. He would start this day without breakfast.

Bouazizi made a living as a street vendor. He hustles to survive. Bouazizi’s father died in a construction accident in Libya when he was three. Since the age of 10, Bouazizi had pushed a cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid; selling fruit at the public market just a few blocks from the home that he has lived in for almost his entire life.

At 27 years of age, Bouazizi has wrestled the beast of deprivation since his birth. To date, he has bravely fought it to a standstill; but day after day the multi-headed hydra of life has snapped at him. He has squarely met the eyes of the beast with fortitude and resolve; but the sharp fangs of a hardscrabble life has sunken deep into Bouazizi’s spleen. The unjust rules of society are powerful claws that slash away at his flesh, bleeding him dry: while the spiked tendrils of poverty wrap Bouazizi’s neck, seeking to strangle him.

Bouazizi is a workingman hero; a skilled warrior in the fight for daily bread. He is accustomed to living a life of scarcity. His daily deliverance is the grace of another day of labor and the blessed wages of subsistence.

Though Allah has blessed this man with fortitude the acuteness of terminal want and the constant struggle to survive has its limits for any man; even for strong champions like Bouazizi.

This morning as Bouazizi washed he peered into a mirror, closely examining new wrinkles on his stubble strewn face. He fingered his deep black curls dashed with growing streaks of gray. He studied them through the gaze of heavy bloodshot eyes. He looked upward as if to implore Allah to salve the bruises of daily life.

Bouazizi braced himself with the splash of a cold water slap to his face. He wiped his cheeks clean with the tail of his shirt. He dipped his toothbrush into a box of baking powder and scoured an aching back molar in need of a root canal. Bouazizi should see a dentist but it is a luxury he cannot afford so he packed an aspirin on top of the infected tooth. The dissolving aspirin invaded his mouth coating his tongue with a bitter effervescence.

Bouazizi liked the taste and was grateful for the expectation of a dulled pain. He smiled into the mirror to check his chipped front tooth while pinching a cigarette **** from an ashtray. The roach had one hit left in it. He lit it with a long hard drag that consumed a good part of the filter. Bouazizi’s first smoke of the day was more filter then tobacco but it shocked his lungs into the coughing flow of another day.

Bouazizi put on his jacket, slipped into his knockoff NB sneakers and reached for a green apple on a nearby table. He took a big bite and began to chew away the pain of his toothache.

Bouazizi stepped into the street to catch the sun rising over the rooftops. He believed that seeing the sunrise was a good omen that augured well for that day’s business. A sunbeam braking over a far distant wall bathed Bouazizi in a golden light and illumined the alley where he parked his cart holding his remaining stock of week old apples. He lifted the handles and backed his cart out into the street being extra mindful of the cracks in the cobblestone road. Bouazizi sprained his ankle a week ago and it was still tender. Bouazizi had to be careful not to aggravate it with a careless step. Having successfully navigated his cart into the road, Bouazizi made a skillful U Turn and headed up the street limping toward the market.

A winter chill gripped Bouazizi prompting him to zip his jacket up to his neck. The zipper pinched his Adam’s Apple and a few droplets of blood stained his green corduroy jacket. Though it was cold, Bouazizi sensed that spring would arrive early this year triggering a replay of a recurring daydream. Bouazizi imagined himself behind the wheel of a new van on his way to the market. Fresh air and sunshine pouring through the open windows with the cargo space overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a lifelong ambition of Bouazizi to own a van. He dreamed of buying a six cylinder Dodge Caravan. It would be painted red and he would call it The Red Flame. The Red Flame would be fast and powerful and sport chrome spinners. The Red Flame would be filled with music from a Blaupunkt sound system with kick *** speakers. Power windows, air conditioning, leather seats, a moonroof and plenty of space in the back for his produce would complete Bouazizi’s ride.

The Red Flame would be the vehicle Bouazizi required to expand his business beyond the market square. Bouazizi would sell his produce out of the back of the van, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. No longer would he have to wait for customers to come to his stand in the market. Bouazizi would go to his customers. Bouazizi and the Red Flame would be known in all the neighborhoods throughout the district. Bouazizi shook his head and smiled thinking about all the girls who would like to take rides in the Red Flame. Bouazizi and his Red Flame would be a sight to be noticed and a force to be reckoned with.

“EEEEEYOWWW” a Mercedes horn angrily honked; jarring Bouazizi from the reverie of his daydream. A guy whipping around the corner like a silver streak stuck his head out the window blasting with music yelling, “Hey Mnayek, watch where you push that *******.”

The music faded as the Mercedes roared away. “Barra nikk okhtek” Bouazizi yelled, raising his ******* in the direction of the vanished car. “The big guys in the fancy cars think the road belongs to them”, Bouazizi mumbled to himself.

The insult ****** Bouazizi off, but he was accustomed to them and as he limped along pushing his cart he distracted himself with the amusement of the ascending sun chasing the fleeting shadows of the night, sending them scurrying down narrow alleyways.

Bouazizi imaged himself a character from his favorite movie. He was a giant Transformer, chasing the black shadows of evil away from the city into the desert. After battling evil and conquering the bad guys, he would transform himself back into the regular Bouazizi; selling his produce to the people as he patrolled the highways of Tunisia in the Red Flame, the music blasting out the windows, the chrome spinners flashing in the sunlight. Bouazizi would remain vigilant, always ready to transform the Red Flame to fight the evil doers.

The bumps and potholes in the road jostled Bouazizi’s load of apples. A few fell out of the wooden baskets and were rolling around in the open spaces of the cart. Bouazizi didn’t want to risk bruising them. Damaged merchandise can’t be sold so he was careful to secure his goods and arrange his cart to appeal to women customers. He made sure to display his prized electronic scale in the corner of the cart for all to see.

Bouazizi had a reputation as a fair and generous dealer who always gave good value to his customers. Bouazizi was also known for his kindness. He would give apples to hungry children and families who could not pay. Bouazizi knew the pain of hunger and it brought him great satisfaction to be able to alleviate it in others.

As a man who valued fairness, Bouazizi was particularly proud of his electronic scale. Bouazizi was certain the new measuring device assured all customers that Bouazizi sold just and correct portions. The electronic scale was Bouazizi’s shining lamp. He trusted it. He hung it from the corner post of his cart like it was the beacon of a lighthouse guiding shoppers through the treachery of an unscrupulous market. It would attract all customers who valued fairness to the safe harbor of Bouazizi’s cart.

The electronic scale is Bouazizi’s assurance to his customers that the weights and measures of electronic calculation layed beyond any cloud of doubt. It is a fair, impartial and objective arbiter for any dispute.

Bouazizi believed that the fairness of his scale would distinguish his stand from other produce vendors. Though its purchase put Bouazizi into deep debt, the scale was a source of pride for Bouazizi who believed that it would help his profits to increase and help him to achieve his goal of buying the Red Flame.

As Bouazizi pushed his cart toward the market, he mulled his plan over in his mind for the millionth time. He wasn't great in math but he was able to calculate his financial situation with a degree of precision. His estimations triggered worries that his growing debt to money lenders may be difficult to payoff.

Indebtedness pressed down on Bouazizi’s chest like a mounting pile of stones. It was the source of an ever present fear coercing Bouazizi to live in a constant state of anxiety. His business needed to grow for Bouazizi to get a measure of relief and ultimately prosper from all his hard work. Bouazizi was driven by urgency.

The morning roil of the street was coming alive. Bouazizi quickened his step to secure a good location for his cart at the market. Car horns, the spewing diesel from clunking trucks, the flatulent roar of accelerating buses mixed with the laughs and shrieks of children heading to school composed the rising crescendo of the city square.

As he pushed through the market, Bouazizi inhaled the aromatic eddies of roasting coffee floating on the air. It was a pleasantry Bouazizi looked forward to each morning. The delicious wafts of coffee mingling with the crisp aroma of baking bread instigated a growl from Bouazizi’s empty stomach. He needed to get something to eat. After he got money from his first sale he would by a coffee and some fried dough.

Activity in the market was vigorous, punctuated by the usual arguments of petty territorial disputes between vendors. The disagreements were always amicably resolved, burned away in rising billows of roasting meats and vegetables, the exchange of cigarettes and the plumes of tobacco smoke rising as emanations of peace.

Bouazizi skillfully maneuvered his cart through the market commotion. He slid into his usual space between Aaban and Aameen. His good friend Aaban sold candles, incense, oils and sometimes his wife would make cakes to sell. Aameen was the markets most notorious jokester. He sold hardware and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Aaban was already burning a few sticks of jasmine incense. It helped to attract customers. The aroma defined the immediate space with the pleasant bouquet of a spring garden. Bouazizi liked the smell and appreciated the increased traffic it brought to his apple cart.

“Hey Basboosa#, do you have any cigarettes?“, Aameen asked as he pulled out a lighter. Bouazizi shook the tip of a Kent from an almost empty pack. Aameen grabbed the cigarette with his lips.

“That's three cartons of Kents you owe me, you cheap *******.” Bouazizi answered half jokingly. Aameen mumbled a laugh through a grin tightly gripping the **** as he exhaled smoke from his nose like a fire breathing dragon. Bouazizi also took out a cigarette for himself.

“Aameem, give me a light”, Bouazizi asked.

Aameen tossed him the lighter.

“Keep it Basboosa. I got others.” Aameen smiled as he showed off a newly opened box of disposable lighters to sell on his stand.

“Made in China, Basboosa. They make everything cheap and colorful. I can make some money with these.”

Bouazizi lit his next to last cigarette. He inhaled deeply. The smoke chased away the cool air in Bouazizi’s lungs with a shot of a hot nicotine rush.

“Merci Aameen” Bouazizi answered. He put the lighter into the almost empty cigarette pack and put it into his hip pocket. The lighter would protect his last cigarette from being crushed.

The laughter and shouts of the bazaar, the harangue of radio voices shouting anxious verses of Imam’s exhorting the masses to submit and the piecing ramble of nondescript AM music flinging piercing unintelligible static surrounded Bouazizi and his cart as he waited for his first customers of the day.

Bouazizi sensed a nervous commotion rise along the line of vendors. A crowd of tourists and locals milling about parted as if to avoid a slithering asp making its way through their midst. The hoots of vendors and the cackle of the crowd made its way to Bouazizi’s knowing ear. He knew what was coming. It was nothing more then another shakedown by city officials acting as bagmen for petty municipal bureaucrats. They claim to be checking vendor licences but they’re just making the rounds collecting protection money from the vendors. Pocketing bribes and payoffs is the municipal authorities idea of good government. They are skilled at using the power of their office to extort tribute from the working poor.

Bouazizi made the mistake of making eye contact with Madame Hamdi. As the municipal authority in charge of vendors and taxis Madame Hamdi held sway over the lives of the street vendors. She relished the power she had over the men who make a meager living selling goods in the square; and this morning she was moving through the market like a bloodhound hot on the trail of an escaped convict. Two burly henchmen lead the way before her. Bouazizi knew Madame Hamdi’s hounds were coming for him.

Bouazizi knew he was ******. Having just made a payment to his money lender, Bouazizi had no extra dinars to grease the palm of Madame Hamdi. He grabbed the handle bars of his cart to make an escape; but Madame Hamdi cut him off and got right into into Bouazizi’s face.

“Ah little Basboosa where are you going? she asked with the tone of playful contempt.

“I suppose you still have no license to sell, ah Basboosa?” Madame Hamdi questioned with the air of a soulless inquisitor.

“You know Madame Hamdi, cart vendors do not need a license.” Bouazizi feebly protested, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Basboosa, you know we can overlook your violations with a small fine for your laxity” a dismissive Madame Hamdi offered.

Bouazizi’s sense of guilt would not permit him to lift his eyes. His head remained bowed. Bouazizi stood convicted of being one of the impoverished.

“I have no spare dinars to offer Madame Hamdi, My pockets are empty, full of holes. My money falls into everyone’s palm but my own. I’m sorry Madame Hamdi. I’ll take my cart home”. He lifted the handlebars in an attempt to escape. One of Madame Hamdi’s henchmen stepped in front of his cart while the other pushed Bouazizi away from it.

“Either you pay me a vendor tax for a license or I will confiscate your goods Basboosa”, Madame Hamdi warned as she lifted Bouazizi’s scale off its hook.

“This will be the first to go”, she said grinning as she examined the scale. “We’ll just keep this.”
Like a mother lion protecting a defenseless cub from the snapping jaws of a pack of ravenous hyenas, Bouazizi lunged to retrieve his prized scale from the clutches of Madame Hamdi. Reaching for it, he touched the scale with his fingertips just as Madame Hamdi delivered a vicious slap to Bouazizi’s cheek. It halted him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

A henchman overturned Bouazizi’s cart, scatter

In Japan, there was an ice cold assassin, that rose through the ranks of the Lin Kuei Clan.   Mid snow flurry, he could avoid every flake, and seize the brittle crystal without breaking it.  He could walk on snow without sinking in, japan's cold winter, is when he was unopposed and most ruthless--slaying debtee and their family.  His ice cold ego, came into contact with a shaolin warrior, who was trained to feel the cold, and never run away from it, nor get used to it, but feel the chill everytime without hardening his self.  Sub-Zero was defeated but not killed, and scorned to the Gods during a snowstorm, " I am the better, and was defeated by a lessor, I appeal to the powerful, give me the power of ice, so that no one shall adapt to my soul's chill, give me the power and my clan shall be in service to you."

Then a snow crystal fell, bigger than most, and he clutched it, and looked in his palm, the crystal was in the form of a pentagram.  The wind whispered, " The most cold and still realm of hell will be in your veins, if you partaketh of this crystal."  And the power of ice, that no man could withstand was at his disposal, and he was locked in a contract, that was unbreakable.

He rose to leader of the clan, and changed the color of the assasin uniform to the color of the cold region of hell, and he could not find the shaolin warrior who defeated him, and so slayed his mentor.
One hot day, his soldiers came back defeated, by a pearl diver, who refused to pay tribute to their mafia.  Sub-zero impaled the clan's soldiers who had their uniform in tatters--by raising jagged ice spears from hell.  The ice never thawed, and the men never fully died, but looked up at the high cieling from their bespearment to a mosaic of an icy and lonely realm-- a message to anyone who fails the clan--that you shall be pierced and preserved.  Sub-zero took the rest to pay a visit to the pearl diver who had stained the Clan's uniform with the blood color of disgrace.

The pearl diver, was in the bay diving down to the bottom for pearls.  He felt the water suddenly get cold, and swam upward to the surface, where he came in contact with the surface of the water, frozen over, and he saw the boots walking over the ice.  They were holding heads that leaked onto the clear ice underfoot and as the pearl diver struggled for air underneath, he saw the heads of his family dropped onto the ice.
Then Sub-zero kneeled down, holding his wife's head to the drowning pearl diver, and placed it on the ice, so he shall see the horrid picture as he drowned underneath.  The Clan took leave, from the bay.

The pearl diver did not fear death, but went mad, as he sank downward into oblivion, staring upward, rage took over his once good heart, and he turned away to look into the depths, shouting " Let me born again, so I shall live a life of fire, so that anyone who dares come close, shall be scolded, GOD OF REVENGE, LET ME BE BORN AGAIN."
The pearl diver breathed in the water unblinking, and his heart stopped, but still he lived as he sank reaching the bottom and there was a scorpion at his feet, and the depths spoke, " Let this scorpion sting both your eyes, and command the fire of hell, and be born again, to melt the ice."
He took the scorpion--who glowed hot in the dark depths-- and stung his eyes, his pupils went from his eyes, leaving milk swirls as his ovals of revenge.  " Now let it snip your lips and chin, so that you may breath the painfull sting of fire upon your enemies without singing your own flesh."

The scorpion greedily ate his lips, tongue and chin, giving him a mouth guard of skull.  " Now you are born again Scorpion, arise, and REVENGE."

Scorpion, screamed, no longer a human voice, but demonic, and grabbed the chain from his boat anchor, and climbed. Upon reaching the ice barrier, he touched his hands to it, and burned a hole and emerged forth.  He pulled up the chain with ease into the air from the depths, the metal barb on the end that served as an anchor, was now for impaling hearts and not the sea bottom.  He snapped his arm and the chain coiled around his arm, ready to sail out to impale and bring his enemies up to his eyes, so they can feel the painfull sting of fire up close, and see Scorpions eyes.
He walked to shore, his feet singing and melting Sub-zero's ice as he walked.
His walk was illusive, as a flickering flame, Scorpion could not be percieved directly without mesmerizing, as a fire in total darkness.

He reached shore, and found a Clan member, he harpooned him with his chain and barb, and brought him close to his face with his chained anchor, and melted the henchman's face with his hot breath.
He stripped him naked with his curved pearl knife, and donned the uniform of the Lin Kuei, ice blue, then the uniform turned yellow from his hot blood underneath, turning the uniform yellow as if it was boiled alive in a ***.  Scorpions' veins serpentined on his forearms, his muscles always a'sweat and full of blood .  The color of his revenge was yellow, mocking the blue Lin Kuei's uniform with the color of cowardice.

He tracked down Sub-Zero to his Clan hall that resembled the cold layer of hell with victims adorning his walls and floors that were pierced by ice sculpture and still a 'quarter alive staring at the cieling.  Sub-Zero felt the slight thaw of his ice, and knew the presence of Scorpion.  

Scorpion flickered from the torches that bedecked the walls, and burnt the guards throats with his hands so they crawled around uselessly.  When a clan member espied the demonic ninja, Scorpion was behind him, breathing on his neck, and the guard fell to the ground in three pieces.

Sub-Zero's throne room, had no torch, no fire, and Scorpion could only enter without his flame illusion through the front tall doors.  
" You have fought your way into my layer, just to realize it is a glacial tomb assassin," saithe Sub-Zero.

" Scorpions demonic voice echoed to him, " YOU HAVE MURDERED DOWN THE PATH OF LIFE, BUT THE PATH WAS THE THROAT OF A DRAGON, AND I AM ITS BELLY, YOUR TOMB OF STINGING ACID."

Scorpion took Sub-Zero's eye from him with his harpoon chain, and beat him mercilessly with kick and punch.  Sub-Zero's summoned ice but it only melted near Scorpions hatred.  But the water from the melt, slowed Scorpion--so it was hand to hand by their opposite powers, negating their satanicly endowed powers.  

But Sub-Zero was the creator of Scorpion, and so had the advantage.  Being beaten, and his face smashed, his nose flattened to his face, exposed rib slats, and his testicles smashed, Sub-Zero feigned mortal injury and non-defence as Scorpion walked up with his milky eyes to do his finishing move.

Sub-Zero's forearm protruded in injury from Scorpions kick before, and formed a sharp dagger, and this dagger sunk in Scorpions brain from beneath his chin.  Sub-Zero won with the treachery he knew best.  But Scorpion's body turned to hell's flames, and melted the layer completely drowning the wounded Sub-Zero, killing him, as Scorpion himself died the second death being extinguished in cold water of the clan layer.



They were sent back to hell, and forced to stand side by side of eachother, as Satan's servants of fire and ice--still donned in the Lin Kuei assassin robe,belt, and face-guard.
All of the magmatic, scolding statalactites dripped behind Scorpion who stood before the entrance to the fiery region of hell.  He stared forward with his scolding white phosphorus eyes.

Behind Sub-Zero, was the still and frozen layer.  He stood next to Scorpion, to the entrance of his own realm, with pupils bordered by ice frozen rivulets.  The proximity to eachother was their hell, and Satan was their master.  Scorpions pyscho hatred heat always attacking Sub-Zero's callous cruel cold, and vice versa, so as they never became adapted to the terms of hell and eternity.

“Yes, master.”
A shrill groan slithers
Across the gray stones
Of the tower, spiraling upward
Until it is trapped in loftier cobwebs.
“The lever is down, master,”
And the darkness is whipped by electricity.

I beat out these lines with a bare
Foot, tapping to every syllable,
As the madman donning
Green-tinted goggles and
A tumbleweed of hair curls
Closer and closer to the cluttered lab table.

“Need more light, master?
I’ll hold the lantern,”
And the light begins to praise his smooth hands,
Sloping precisely to pink fingernails
As the needle dips into his
Experiment like an eel
Flowing beneath the sea’s wake.

“Are you close, master?”
Illuminated are the gashes that mar
The ridges in my knuckles,
The calluses etched into my fingertips,
The wiry hairs that strangle
My throbbing, grey veins.
A life of delicate accomplishment,
Filled with a strictly inward turmoil;
It has never been mine to choose.

“It isn’t fair, master...”
And his lips purse in the effort
Of affording me a cursory glance.
“...That your genius go
So unrecognized,
Sir.”
Grunting satisfactorily,
He grins only toward his beloved creation
While I continue pondering
How a pencil might feel against
The paper if I knew how
To make the words.
“I want to write, master.”

“Poetry?” he mumbles to the scalpel,
and I nod my head vigorously as
His rumbling laughter becomes
Smoke that snakes leisurely toward
The skylight.

PER NOCTEM IN NIHILO VEHI
( TO VANISH BY NIGHT INTO NOTHING )

my death approached me
but: went on by without
recognising it was I...

i hid in the filthy alley
of a passing hour
Death now furiously searching for me

no...Here: here
no...There: there - either
this tiny piece of time

the once and once
only

but Mr. Death had missed the moment
had to return empty handed
I finding myself madly in love with

the next second. . .

**

Mr. Death elects to speak in Latin...thinks it gives him a certain je ne sais quoi...

It's always great to cheat Mr. Death and his henchman Mr. Heartattack. I swore to myself that I would love the next second with all my heart!

membranes bleed in classic fashion
seep into my brain with passion
pump my heart with fuel and tension
feeling like a villains henchman

******* baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
i see whiter than the snow
and i dont know how far i can go

mr rogers asks for entry
everything gets past the sentry
powdered sugar makes me antsy
for whatever suits my fancy

im too focused for my brain
all the colours look the same
bow to gods that i dont need
if it'll cause my nose to bleed

******* baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
i see whiter than the snow
and i dont know how far i can go

******* baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
i dont know how you could appose
i'll just lay here taking several blows

i need you cause i want you bad
the sweetest girl i've ever had
is whiter than the winter's snow
i love it when she's in my nose

oh, i've been told to get in line
that my whole lifes a waste of time
but i've got everything i need
as long as i can do the deed

******* baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
i see whiter than the snow
and i dont know how far i can go

******* baby, how did i know?
one more chance to powder my nose
hardly straight, no arrows bow
an early start for whole new lows

Tonsils set aflame
I can't complain
I've only got myself to blame

A legendary sweet tooth, had Lady Felicity Barratt
So swift towards the sugar bowl, so wary of the carrot
She dined on only trifle from a honey coated spoon
But tooth decay accosted her and left her in a swoon

By the time she turned just twenty, her two front teeth were gone
By thirty she was running short and on her final one
When that fell out, she sought a dentist, promptly one arrived
She opened up her grizzly mouth and in the fella dived

He took a cast and took his leave with dentures to be hewn
With satisfaction guaranteed by Friday afternoon
And never did the lady have a reason to suspect
The secret intervention of an evil dental sect

By bribing several bakeries and sweetie shops and stalls
A dossier had been compiled within their sacred halls
For crimes against good dentistry were nothing short of sin
Their retribution must be swift or people might join in

Upon that self same Friday, at the very cusp of noon
One Doctor Bingo Rogers and his burly hired goon
Came knocking at her premises with dental kit and drills
With a mission to sedate her and to exercise their skills

They knocked her out with ethanol and chloroform and air
And strapped her to a hastily erected dentist's chair
The evil teeth were lodged in place and ******* into her gums
The bill was quite extortionate, for monumental sums

The shamanic orthodontist, with his henchman in his wake
A martyr to the vegetable and nemesis of cake
Was keen to see his handiwork and kept a watchful eye
For curious occurrences as days went quickly by

By Christmas there was nothing, until on New Year's Eve
Her teeth got uncooperative and forced the girl to leave
They dragged her by her dainty face and led her to the shops
She stood and munched on sugar canes and giant lollipops

They stuffed her face with chocolates, still nestled in their packets
And then a rack of nylon shirts and seven leather jackets
On every size of shoe, she munched; from sixes up to twelves
She nibbled through the party food and gnawed upon the shelves

Then off she sped, into the street, to pursue a passing horse
Dragged along by wicked teeth and supernatural force
But dentures lack in vision, and especially at pace
So when she caught it by the foot she caught it in the face

She skidded to a grizzly halt with arms and legs all twisted
And next to her, a note with all her dental errors listed
So beware the wrath of dentists and obey when they command
And sleep with one eye open and a carrot close to hand

For though our poor Felicity was buried good and hard
Despite floral cupcake with the Dental Cult's regard
And though her body, to this day, lies safely in the ground
The horse escaped that evening and the teeth were never found...

Space and dread and the dark--
Over a livid stretch of sky
Cloud-monsters crawling, like a funeral train
Of huge, primeval presences
Stooping beneath the weight
Of some enormous, rudimentary grief;
While in the haunting loneliness
The far sea waits and wanders with a sound
As of the trailing skirts of Destiny,
Passing unseen
To some immitigable end
With her grey henchman, Death.

What larve, what spectre is this
Thrilling the wilderness to life
As with the ****** shape of Fear?
What but a desperate sense,
A strong foreboding of those dim
Interminable continents, forlorn
And many-silenced, in a dusk
Inviolable utterly, and dead
As the poor dead it huddles and swarms and styes
In hugger-mugger through eternity?

Life--life--let there be life!
Better a thousand times the roaring hours
When wave and wind,
Like the Arch-Murderer in flight
From the Avenger at his heel,
Storm through the desolate fastnesses
And wild waste places of the world!

Life--give me life until the end,
That at the very top of being,
The battle-spirit shouting in my blood,
Out of the reddest hell of the fight
I may be snatched and flung
Into the everlasting lull,
The immortal, incommunicable dream.

True love cannot be tampered upon
Or enclosed in glass and released at will,
It is not an insignificant slave
At the beck and call of its master,
For love has no master and its power so great
That once touched by love's endearing caress,
One must blindly obey.

True love does not follow reason
For reason could not understand a lover's heart,
It is not a pupil that can be taught
Nor a henchman that can be ordered around,
For love is free and unbinding
And all feeble attempts to restrain it shall be in vain.

True love cannot be grown from the seed of lust
Or plucked from jealousy's petals,
For once the desire has waned
The fruits shall wither and rot.
It needn't ask permission to reside in one's heart
For like a thief in the night
Love can come and go as it pleases.

Blessed are lovers' eyes
For they can see true beauty,
For beauty can only be seen
Through true love's eyes.

One for the man bunkered down in the trenches
sent in by his country as a henchman.
He's laying in the mud, praying for safety,
losing less blood than what's shed daily.
In this hazy hell, a drug buzz is needed.
Morphine seeps in, easing the beaten.
And in no man's land, a man cries for mercy
but his cries are cut off by the hands of Murphy.
Early in the morning, he packs his bags.
Rucksack on his back, heading back to base camp.
There's a damper in the room, sunken like the marsh.
Friends have fallen, it's clearly marked.
And his heart aches but they can't be dead.
Nah, he sees them every time he lays down his head.
From time to time, he jolts up out of breath,
but he never felt more alive, when he was close to death.

It's not a sob story, no it's just old glory

Two for the man bunkered down by the park bench,
clutching a cup, praying for penance.
He's laying on cement, waiting for change,
and trying to stay dry from the god-**** rain.
In this day and age, a drug buzz is needed.
Morphine tabs, tap in the defeated.
Lungs splitting, teeth gritting, he's wishing for mercy.
Two times the dose, he curses out Murphy.
Early in the morning he packs his bags.
Rucksack on his back, he heads back to PADs.
He grabs a tray, sits alone, and says grace
because there's no space open for the "nutcase".
Arm's race to golden gates, he dragged a debt.
He carried his country as heavy as regret.
He carries his friends, they dangle from his neck.
But the thing about memories is that you can't forget.

It's not a sob story, it's just old glory

© Matthew Harlovic

im a let that bass set
back to the view you
been checking me at
you be asking me questions like
do you not love yourself?
***** better check yourself
i would have taken my strap
to the back of my right cheek fat
sprayed my old gang with shrap
the blood and my skull by the scrap
so please bare with me
child will you ever see
we on the attack
this country that we born in,
is the enemy to the ones that we once had
turning itself into the biggest group of bang
so now that you are stuck in this whirlwind insane
ready to die, bonnie and clyde , two thousand and nine
when you gonna see that this dynamic duo
dont make the world turn with our voodoo
they dont know whats going on here
they too busy across seas in the world
so what we doing 85 when we ride
they just wiped out a whole **** tribe
two bullets holes instead of  their eyes
world dont even take this country seriously
they have us on every angle no peers
just the enemies, spitting prophecies
made in their fears
that we gonna collapse
everyone put money in us by the wraps

too many kids going to bed starved
when other fat *** mother *******
grow too many vegetables in their yard
turn nutrition into trash, so what if they compact
all you old *** troops, still living in the war that we had
were  a whole planet of warriors, let alone were the home
to the worst and the best of the wickedly out of the world
celebrate your serial killers, and dead rulers, not even with curls

so even tho it took Jimmy Henchman seven days
the reaper follows me in ever track that i lead
believe that I never write the realest **** i ever spoke
knowing the secrets of the underworld let me bleed
shouldn't have ever seaked out the truth they wrote
setting all the serpents septers after me, black cats
shotty caps, bullet scraps, hub cabs, and shorty tats
Grim Reaper oxyacetylenes in my dreams chrome gleams
Protected by the Prince of Air, setting things right first in my dreams

black coffee on the table,
clean cold steel-chiselled Glock

loaded and placed in the bed-drawer.
The sharp wire that smells of the skins

and flesh it has strangulated. A black pair
of gumboots, a black overcoat, a black void

of past. A distant daughter who loves strawberries,
cats with abhorrence for your existence.

Cadillac, a pair to tan gloves, a love for silence,
love for the sight of eyes turning red, pleading

A packet of cigarettes, a bottle of Miller’s
An emptiness that spreads, a death that patiently lives.

When I was eight years old I told my mom I’d play in the NBA.
And she believed me.
A year later, I was nearly dead.
A quick cough in January caged my lungs with such force
I could almost hear them fighting for breathing room.

I don’t remember much.

All that comes to mind is the panic
Like an animal that lives inside your skin,
That only awakens when he is least needed.

I came to with my mind split in half.
In reality I was on a stretcher, in a hospital.
In my mind, I was chained to a sheet of wood.
Floating in a pool.
Spread out like the vitruvian man.
I watched the water run through my fingers.
On second glance, I was not alone at the pool.
Men in all black stood around the edges
Staring like henchman do at helpless prey.
On third glance, I am in a stadium filled with cheering fans.
I could never really tell who they were cheering for.

One of the men shouts out, and I am drowning.
A godlike force pushes through the chain and I am engulfed.
No breath.
No sound.
Just blue and black
And the muffles of panic.
Only interrupted by a brief resurface
And the roar of an audience
Followed by blue and black.  

My mind began to converge,
And two worlds became one again.
As the water around me turned to tile,
My hands still felt wet from the pool.
The nurse asked me why I kept screaming to get out of the water.

I never learned how to swim.
I never played in the NBA.

{9/23/15 - 12:09 PM}  

[page 1]

“I’m Flagstaff.”

I'm borne-witness, to a splattered human corpse. I'm twice-over. Shocked. I'm doubled, where I'd have sworn, there were once three, of me. I'm the witness. I'm: the sequel. I'm the self that slept through my own screaming, for help.

[Somebody, stop me. Please, assist, with-this.]

I'm jaw-dropped. I'm probably halfway to heart-attacked. I'm trying to remember what an old boss had said, about that. I'm sure that this is traumatic enough, to ask, for a few days off.

I'm on my way, to officially knock, on the door, of the office (which is always locked). I'm hanging my hat, on a lamp, inside-it. I'm hitting the light switch, and melting-more, plastic. I'm crying the realest of tears.

I'm not wiping [page 2] them away anymore. I'm distant, from a once prioritized fear, of a nap on the floor. [Or, a drug-saturated, and dark-eared, dirt-sleep.] I'm considering the wax I'd left, on that dirt, near the splatter-stain. I'm calling out my own name.

I'm thankful for any opportunities to recharge your batteries, but I've told you before of my power outages. I'm outraged.

I'm waking up to the Grim Reaper, in my rocking chair, every morning.

I'm forgetting, "who made that chair for me?  I'm not sure, "she did much more, than paint it." I'm too big, "to fit-in, it, any way?"

"He can ******* keep-it." I'm not sure who said that. "I'm right here, you glorious fool." I'm far-from, and a Good Word Away, from a fool.

[page 3]

"You've spent so much ink, on your Kryptonites. Can't we just shoot some cans, off the over pass, with our laser vision?" I'm stuck-on. The idea's that I must do-good. "You're better, than done-good. You're the Great-Best-Unfinished." I'm confused...

"Well, I'm not. I've been taking over, for years, but you've ignored it with tears, and the salt you spit angry, at selves, far more jangly. I'm the S on your chest when it stands for success, or your second-half, or your superpowers."
I'm Superman!

"Sure, but I'm Flagstaff. This is my sword. We've got an army of angels on the way. Suicide is a coward's [page 4] out."

I'm not professing any bravery. "You've pretended you were better to brothers, and sisters, for almost two years. Your responsibilities outweigh your rare ability to regret your existence. Rally-up, Mr. Wizard." I'm not as well-versed in the old craft, as I used to be. I'm not really writing fantasy. I'm self-centered, "in the middle of," a really nice day.

I'm aggregating all the energy I can use, to arm my amazement. I'm splitting my personality, to prevent feeling so-pulled, apart.

"Now you're getting it."

I'm spinning gems, looking for lost contacts, and rebuilding, a burnt-bridge... [page 5] I'm just gonna need one day asleep...

[...]

at your house... in Right City...

[...]

I'm gonna chop my horns off, on the rails of the train tracks. I'm simply gonna rest my head...

[...]

on the platform...

[...]

and wait.

I'm not sure where Flagstaff went.
[...]

"Get the ******* the floor." I'm not sure I'd call this the floor. "Get the **** up, we're going to bed."

I'm not tired. "Well, you're gonna be."

[I'm halfway to the decision to get back on my feet, before the screaming subway shuttle smacks the wrong-side of my right horn. It splinters and cracks and spins me, slicing the [page 6] lesser half of the left-one, on the lip of the first car.] I'm checked for head trauma, quarter-horned. I'm hoping the devil was bid: "back down."

"Sleep now?"

I, uh... I'm not sure who I'm talking to... this time.

{9/27/15 - 12:28AM} An angry redhead operates farm-equipment (the heavy-kind) with an Xbox controller, from inside my television set. My eyes are trained on the answers, with which, I had, typed-in, responded, to his voice. A skunk walks by outside. I can't tell if it was attracted to the ****, or the weasels.

I'm just about to lose myself, again, along [page 7] with everyone else.

"Stop letting yourself get bored! I see you there! Your eyes, glazed-over, like this'll be just another ******* poem you read, over, and over, again, to yourself.
"For yourself! I beg you to wipe the cobwebs, from your eyeballs, and break a little bad here! **** it, man!"

**** it indeed. I'm too clean to fight the **** machine. So roll me a fattie, and sell-off my spleen. I can be mean, but I hate when I show it. You-zhuh-Lee trip, when I'm flowin', but  find ways, to keep  goin'. And I don't wanna do wrong by my friendships. Want them to know, [page 8] when I'd said, I "love" them, I meant it. But I don't have the money they've been lookin' for, I spent it. Bruising up my knees, begging: "leave my skull un-dented!"

Rented out the couch, before I stole my brother's bedroom, for the afternoon, in my dreams, I was singin' show-tunes. Doomed to sound. Like "rip-off-Danny Brown." This clown, that clown. We still around. Came back to your hometown, and ended up inside, your little blue notebook. Said "you shoulda read it!" When you spat-that-****, the Earth shook.

Forgot to ditch my henchman, as I entered fourth dimension. Words are sentient, and mention, more than definition. Hush up, listen, see! We be the glorious ones, without a gun, but weapons that, from our tongues, are flung, and they're still unheard. Weapons are glorious words, see-through, the story.

I'll purge all the toxins in your mind. Like oxen, farmed for hides, by the shepherds we were finding. But the field is made, of food, and that dude's always been rude. It's time we charge, with-horns down. Buck the rodeo clowns.
Off the cliff's a better-tread, head above water, 'fore we drowned. On bottom-rocks we'd woke up dead, yet still without the farmer 'round. So if instead you swim to nearby islands, start your grazing. Freedom never came by anyone who can't endure some hazing.

nestled in the fist of fury
followers following followers
machine numbers generated
to the size of egos

the devils henchman lurks
saturated by cryptic code
destruction embedded
in his fused brain

waiting

to puncture your alterego
and spill your conscience
into a crucible of sacrifices
on the altar of recognition

indecent pictures
bloated for primetime consumption
on the sidewalks of galley slaves
surfing social media
with oars of phony cosmetic
happiness. where do you stand?

welcome to a world of make-believe.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 27 days ago

Face as pale as snow, hair like ebony, and lips red;
Red as the blood pricked from the dainty finger which bled
From the waters of a treacherous womb, the fairest one of all was born
To compassionate father, the King, and wicked *****, the Queen; forlorn
By the news from mystic mirrors vile with dark knowledge, the fairest one of all
She would be the one to rule them all beneath a gentle rule; herald of the Queen’s fall.

Though the insidious murmurs of her Mirror, upset the Queen, she did not remain
“Forlorn” for long. No, she used the time to gather magics, beneath the sane
Façade and the façade of tears when it became known the King had died
Her daughter, grown to ten and four years, to be moved off of her head
Then the Queen, the Queen alone, would have beauty and power.
To her throne room, did the Queen invite a Huntsman upon the hour
In which was meant to mourn the good man’s loss
The soul of the King immortalised in bronze wherein sickly moss
Did grow, a dour shawl that did crawl around his eyes
Much like his mistress who for fourteen years did feed him arsenic and lies.

“Take her heart so I may feast upon it; proof of her death,” did instruct the Queen
Unto her henchman, the Huntsman, she did instruct and he left. The sheen
Of determination emanated from him, illuminating his understanding that would turn.
Into the forest, he did chase the Princess until he cornered her; looming over her,
Her beauty sing sweet sorrow upon whimpering lips and a charismatic curse
Was laid upon the huntsman’s eyes
And from that, he could take no lives
So, he felled a boar and fed the heart to the Queen.
But the flesh upon her tongue, it did not taste it ought to mean.

The Princess fled further into the forest and happened upon a melancholic hut
That housed seven dwarves, wary folk at first but
Upon hearing the Princess’ begging, they let her stay and for them,
She cleaned their abode and once cleaned, the Huntsman’s deception came clean also
And so, the Queen grew vengeful and spurned a deep spell to **** her daughter, so
She travelled into the forest and disguised herself with the clothes of hags
A poor, poor hag in need of money – money for an apple red as blood
The Princess, fooled and compassionate, took from a hand with rancid skin that sags.

A single, crisp bite was all it took for the Princess with lips of blood and face of snow
To perish, from her hand the poisoned apple withered and in a glass box the dwarves laid
Her to rest, her final rest, and from her porcelain hand the apple tumbled,
And with that echoic fall, the Queen rose once more: beauty, fame, power: she has it all.

And for the existence of such a miraculous corpse to prove true, rumour became myth
And myth inspired Prince to go out and search for the truth clouded in mist
Within a deep, damp forest run foul with monstrous foliage, the Prince found her
He found her with the one of ivory face and scarlet lips; hair in inky curls
From her glass casket, he removed the lid and his decency; assailed by
The perfume of ever youthful flowers, he leaned down next to her and with a gentle lie
He told himself she was asleep. That’s all she was: a peaceful, deathly sleep;
And upon those perk, scarlet lips, he gave her a kiss that was deep.

Tongue within her cold, rotting mouth.
He kissed her and he kissed her thorough, hoping his warm breath would breathe life
Into this long-dead corpse; perfect as though blood remained in motion in her vein
But from her glass coffin, the Princess did not stir so the Prince’s ghastly act was in vain
With the back of his hand, he smeared her memory and the myth remained myth.

The poor Princess was laid to her rest, her final rest, in a glass coffin; a perfect corpse
A corpse that did not wither;
A corpse with blood red lips, hair of ebony, and skin snow white.

this is death
the irreversible-you're-not-going-to-make-it-out-of-here-in-one-piece­ kind
the "we're going to break you down until there's nothing left to break"
"but bones"
"and then we'll break them too"
i swear! i paid the piper
i paid the piper
i paid the piper
but Piper doesn't care-
he wants more tears
more lies, more lives
more fear
the piper wants you dead
and no blood on his hands
i am not the willing henchman
but my hands are caked in dirt
and i couldn't stop digging these graves if i wanted to



or is it just the truth?

I chase the Scarab until the morning glows
With a winged friend I mistreat following a henchman's horse
To the Dunes we ride eyeing the night sky waning
The face of my child entreats for me to be weary.

A diamond in the raw, uncut was never the most valuable.
a board game logic parks upon the boardwalk of Santa Cruz
A friend would never charge for you to stay in a hotel they owned,
a game is a game only if one refrains from believing in consequence
as reality, that time is a space left between motions created by decision
evidenced by interaction precise a dreams manifested sequenced as love ever after.

A price is one custom we have all come to be adapted too, yet how are the best things in life free, if Jewels are the most expensive?

For the last five hundred years, posh “society,” is where the wealthiest and most influential people in the world mingled, inter-married and conducted business. If you’ve ever watched “Downton Abbey”, “The Gilded Age” or even “Crazy Rich Asians” you’ll know what I mean.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - a psychological pyramid that describes human fulfillment - states that part of our human nature (once your basic needs are met) is the desire to attain social position. Having mere wealth is just not enough once you are in the top levels of achievement.

In the 1970’s Arab money started pouring into the west. Arab petro-dollars bought swaths of land in the UK, in London and New York. The Arabs dazzled everyone with their wealth and bling but they never penetrated posh society.

Then in the 90s the second, Asian wave, of new wealth washed eastward and they had a bit more success in society. But starting about 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians started coming to the west with new money to invest - in the UK, in particular.

Russia became the billionaire capital of the world, oligarchs were everywhere buying anything not nailed down and eventually trying to insinuate themselves into posh “society”. Tatler (THE magazine of society) even began publishing a Russian version. If you were a wealthy Russian, you were moving up. By 2022, they weren’t too far from the edge of REAL success.

That’s what evaporated three weeks ago - with the invasion of Ukraine - Russia’s luxury infrastructure and their hopes of acceptance into posh society. Gucci, Chanel, Hermès, Dior, Apple and Tatler (just to name a few luxury brands) have left Russia to rot. If you’re Russian now, the chances of being admitted into posh society are gone for the next 20 years - at least.

You may say “so what?” Well, one way a dictator holds onto power is through mercantile largess. The granting of rights within the Russian sphere of influence - to control and distribute goods and services - is how oligarchs are created. The support of these oligarchs is important and transactional.

A man with a 100-million dollar yacht - looking at what chunks of their wealth may well be confiscated in the west - or lost to the Ruble’s collapse - could easily offer life-changing wealth to any henchman willing to end Putin one way or another.

Will this happen? I don’t know. But this is the system they’ve set up for themselves.

drinking warm whiskey... isn't so bad...
it could be much worse:
it could be warm *****:
     not cold enough to reach a gomme syrop
consistency...
life's so tragic... sometimes...
       a warm ***** is like a warm beer...

what am i supposed to say?
i'm just tired of wanting to be in love...
i'm tired of hating...
   i'm tired of being angry...
i'm tired of being preditable and also:
slithering in pickling juices...
i am tired of love because...
               when it was "love"...
it wasn't dog eyes and a leash...
         or: never mind the solipsism of cats
when they still desire to mark your
forehead when sniffing it...
or come up and greet you:
with a "bodzio"... a head-****...

    so much of my cognitive capacity
became a wasteland from having
both woman and love on a peddlestool
of the ideal...
                   it's terrible waking up...
but that "terrible" sometimes becomes
as... exhilarating as taking a cold shower...
or watching a flock of sparrows chirp...

and the ***: cocoon ***... under bed-sheets...
all my one-night stands happened this way...
under the bed-sheets...
i'm happy to give a comparative literature of:
well... at least in the brothel we did it
under dimmed lights...
****-naked on the sheets...
having showered first
and downed a slacker of ms. amber:
oh you know it's bad...
that i have to call whiskey a very personal
investment narrative...
it's not whiskey... it's... ms. amber...

i should have been drinking long ago...
come shoulder to shoulder with
both my paternal and maternal grandfathers...
cocoon ***...
and if you don't think a man can be "*****"...
at the brothel?
  there's the concept of: creaming-up...
if the oyster isn't salivating enough...
yes... "****"... cocoon *** with a sawdust ****...
sanding paper **** more like...
oh the agony: but to my liking...
yeah bud: stick your lesser want of limbs
into a meat-grinder:
is that penetrating enough?
      who would forever suppose...
it's a kangaroo pouch of safety...
the nadir of lucifer's birth:
     free-falling: head first... but not through
a ****... not some floral pattern...

     cesarean... cesarean... are we going to give
births to kaisers or dull-eyed: deer...
i very much like to imagine a band
of mad-laughter hyenas...

               coal-burning black eyes...
      i am tired of giving up my thinking to any
and all ideals of love...
i could have invested my (th)ought i
into... conjuring up an electric bulb...
        a frankestein...
                i became so tired of love...
i had to come across a brothel:
to steal kisses from prostitutes
     and attempt a theft of the halo of st. augustine...
mummify letters in books...

which i have done...
        but love is such a never-dog...
                    one relationship that involved as cooking
together: beside the already necessary
prerequisite of *******-for-free...
her period, the ******, and cooing her
to do it in the bathtub with the water running...

or this: moment when enough ms. amber
is in me... and i turn to...
         the chants of the templars:
            crucem sanctem...
                   dum pater familias...
          da pacem domine...

that clarity of a transaction...
              the growling dog overwhise
teased with food already presented to him
in a bowl...
          count of fingers...
                    
     i'm tired of love... of all of my body...
this nail blunt head from being hammered
too often...
           it escapes me:
why should my libido be compensated
when it requires: exhaustion...
to find the most fanciful thought:
only when the libido is exhausted:
   and if i have to do it myself: so be it...

but of so many people worried:
i am indeed... "worried"... when will it...
subside... die off...
this quills': marquis de sade:
leverage of: to read books using only
one hand...
                        if the acne is so prolonged
to make me...
belzeebub's favourite ***** of:
what precedes ****** / anti-wrinkle creams...
one maggot 'ere... another...

it is simply exhausting to love:
as one is expected to love via fiction...
and it is too costly to love:
poetically... anything but language...
esp. acquired language:
a language learned... most certainly
not passed from a grandmother to a mother
to a son...
some could claim to call these words:
in vitro...
         and on that matter...
which part of me is experimentally "dead":
the mind... or the body?
i am not... a native of these parts...
a native...           a native...

this is the part of the year when
winter is crucified... and reborn as spring! no?
all ******* rose buds and sparrows chirping!
who can love... so... ideally...
idle though: to make the burdens
of the most... boorish matters needing:
stressed concerns for "detail"...

  am i one of the last ones that still
bought a *****-mag when
the free **** was available online...
                     twitch... i'm an old ****:
in a 34 year old body... because:
keeping up... became synonymous with
being distracted...
                  cam-girl... etc. etc.
            "soz": but there just isn't any bragging
to be minded...
or a:        h'american striptease... d'uh: tease...
the carnival of the wriggling maggot
came to invoke
kissing the eyelids... gently teasing
the tip of the nose with a bite...
                             this body... or that body...
an a sculptor...
   in the brothel i was only robbed... once:
well... "robbed"...
this coke-head distrated me with:
do you want to use this *****...
          the proprietors' henchman...
a little turk by the time: i presume to be:
Osman came up with a bundle of stolen cards
and asked me: which one is yours?

that's a pretty good effort...
        i must have been up to no good...
once we stopped ******* because: she started
seeing downton abbey in an epileptic flicker...
yes: and me ******* her wasn't,
exactly... a ******* chocolate fondant...
          
it seems so... pristine when...
two bodies are allowed to touch...
without all that extra baggage...
that is desired to... "beside" the otherwise...
readily available carnality of the act...

e-girl vidoes: teases...
                                    what can be the best
compliment... one could possibly give to...
byzantine culture / the "modern" greek?
   ah... Αγνή Παρθένε... the singing...
                          
   mulier... no... not a woman or wife...
             hardly a property right...
something to boast and concern oneself for
the rattling of feathers of peacocks...
     mulier... the french playright...
ugh... molière - yes, him!
            molière donning a mullet! yes...
and not one of those charles II wigs...
from one wig alone...
               you could have made...
oh... roughly... an orchestra's demand
for violin and cello bows...

              pissy-pant french of 14 year old
past: one direction fandom...
                            for every male fan of tool...
a declared ownership of a *****...
better still... a screwdriver...
    that would be something...

                                or when stand-up comedy
was communist enough to entertain:
a cabaret form... an **** oddity (bottom)...
can't enough not tire of
stand-up solipsism...
the stand-up solo project of...
back-and-forth with an audience of canned
laughter?
cabaret... doesn't have to be switz
ja herr doktor voltaire...
         but some sort of ping-pong...
a game of squash...
i do not know... of a single concept of
sport... where there's only one...
concept-riddle of engagement...
can comedy... or rather... should comedy
have "evolved" beyond the cabaret...
famously: in theatre-land...
stones in his pockets...
two bodies on stage...
  with a plethora of...
how the sequence went...
   BRONSON...
bronson "vs." or rather:
"nursie" vs. "mr. petersson"...

          two names: Conleth Hill and
             Sean Campion... oh look... capital! letters!
yes: of note... circa 2001...
and that's when...
   this... stand-up... hard-on "comedy"
of stand-ups...
no... no cabaret format...
internal-monologues extending into...
an octopus attempting cliff-skimming:
climbing... failing miserably...
   if it's such a "comedy"...
    where's heidegger's hammer?
last time i heard: even by ol' martin's standards:
you'd require two people to talk
about philosophy as a "side-project"
when hammering in nails...
how can one person tell a joke?
oh but they can...
on special occassion(s)...
         the joke is better translate via a dialogue...
rather than a monologue...
last time i heard...
  
comedy doesn't require these stand-up
geniuses...
imagine... ******* is actually...
a *** act...
taking a **** is actually a...
        get together meal for three...
and that's the loaf... equally spread...
for the devil's dozen...
   ******* will satisfy any champagne socialist
get-together...
      
   i have to become bored of love...
the sort of love that would never come with:
the impetus of darwinism's ideologues...
for: now that i have become a father...
           i'm less and less: a ***** satyr!
               wish me 70+ age and being freed
by dementia to curse like a cobbler
and a seafaring man...

              that overbearing: no room for impromptu:
when solo...
otherwise... no otherwise...
just that strict: regime of... an expectation
for and with: canned laughter...
all that's missing are two tin cans
and a placenta of stiched-up tongues...

... for all the movie buffs...
it's not enough to blunt your eyes on movies...
actors: and their subsequent roles
in 3D... why did up stand-up...
the grand mass-orchestrator of giggles be
allowed to cue the audience...
like any minor dictator might: from
argentina or romania?

                 back toward the ***...
yes... stealing kisses from prostitutes...
this was never going to be one about Wordsworth's
"celibacy"... which you would be expected
to partake in... just having bit into
the forbidden fruit of ****** with your sister...
or so... they might say...

daffodils and that "doris" of the...
will the word ****... somehow prevent
you from seeing ****** ****...
or ******* ****?
then at least there's the hope...
to make minors of ettiquete standards
of the: proper social contract approach:
with civility... or therefore: none...

i am finding a rare occassion for:
an as to why, i would ever do anything to begin
with... grow a beard (1)
grow a beard to stop myself shaving (2)
grow a beard to hide my double-chin (3)...
grow a beard because
growing my hair long became boring (4)...
grow a beard because i wanted
to scratch my ***** on my face rather than
scratch them on my "eden region" (5)...
the other reasons congregate under
the status of... rubric and tally...

(6) to grow a beard is better than growing
the hair long...
no chance of becoming bald...
long hair attracts too much female attention...
last time i heard a woman who grew a beard
became a circus-act...
a beard is the safest territory to mind...
when there's a woman that...
somehow needs to compensate!

         all of a sudden: i have forgotten *****
envy... when i came across
beard envy...
   i am... very much so...
envious of mel gibsons beard...
in general: but esp. so in the role...
of prof. murray... with him donning
a cravate and a top-hat to boot:
the epitome of what all men of the world
could have wished for:
the victorian gentlemen...
fiercer still: an autodidact...
a dog without a leash... eh?

     i pity the tattoo of ethnicity:
given that: i would be english...
an ukranian would be scottish...
or a lithuanian... the tattoo of ethnicty or a past...
that i would be the ******...
and there was this tide of cossacks...
i would be... the ******...
           and there would be some
ingenius pict equivalent...
            in my abode...
                      
    i am tired of love...
the most attired love of idealism...
as i am tired of hate:
and anger...
i am tired of both of these latter:
when there's no boxing match interlude
to match-up with...
i'm tired of love as i am tired
of retribution and of justice...
i am tired of gambling...
what right is there fore me:
to steal from the blind?
           i am tired from: expectations...
i am tired of ideals...
i am tired of hate because:
if i wasn't i'd still find it...
egregious to spot the minor offences
of citing the prefixing n-...
                                        as... nothing short
of an "oops" of b-               and -igger!

i'm tired of being: a civil monkey...
if i'm tired of love...
if i'm tired of hate...
i can never tire of language...
but if i become:
zoologically kept: inept...
                      ha ha! ha ha! ha! ha!
i: dodo: tire: and Tod:
of: ******: improm:     p'tooh!
         savvy or the sinking ship?!

                       RATZ!

better a concern for prostitutes:
seeing that... there's no...
jackie ol' myth to be cooked from my "affairs"...
i thought about:
how about... now was the best time...
to not **** prostitutes...
i stole kisses...
an exercise in making videos...
bring back blockbusters!
             bring back blockbusters!
**** the content creators of youtube!
give, me, back, my, *******, jukebox!
give, me, back, my... thesaurus algorithm!
give, me, back, my, *******, jukebox!
give, me, back, my... thesaurus algorithm!

           once upon a time: dubbed:
paupers... the homeless...
prostitutes... now... eh... one sly loss of calling
these... the... leeches of: welcome tomorrow!
so the price of... being...
astounded... that's it?!
                the magnified statement
of karma-phobia...
there has to be a concept akin to:
karma-phobia when islamophobia is already
too bogus to touch...
there has to be: karma-phobia...

a ******* a canvas:
i went down this alley because...
i just... wanted to show-off...
for myself...
the most better part of myself i could never
show with... a girlfriend...
and showing my best:
armed with merely a dog and a leash:
just wasn't enough:
or a fabergé egg: missing a matryoshka doll
"detail"...

like kicking a dog in the *****...
like... attempting to catch a mosquitos
by the ******* donning boxing gloves...
the lowest of the low:
of picking the "fruit"...
jackie ol' burrow: ripe-kipper...
and that merry-o-round of...

                give me enough upper-body volume
to rummage and ruminate...
to clearly identify the psychopaths
leisuring themselves over a thursday's
afternoon worth of sun-soaking
a metaphor of bath...
         and all those minor grizzly detials
of swathing a mosquito or two...
because we are inclined
to spare the flies...
because: we just, are... thus inclined...
i hear an argument: i will: without a doubt...
also hear a guillotine do us all a favor
of detailing the: "chopper"...

my my: that ripe keeper of a pulsating
neck's worth of a rhubarb...
salmon teriyaki...
                                       n'est ce-pas?!

in between: calling it learning to tie one's
shoelaces...
having no better synonym detail
of comparison other than...
             with depeche...
                                no song to be worth
any particular: sort of... originality...
and or in... detail...
                   there's only a hope for
giving a particular sort of wind:
associated with a month...
and with a month: a sorting-out of a year
within and beyond a decade...
a century...
                    
this had to be forever: and one...
enough for the worth of tonight...
and with it... no other, better, compensation
other than my own input;

ha ha!                          grace?!

6 days of work
On the 7th day you rested
Seeing all was good
In all you had invested

Took the hand of man
And gave to him the charge
The taste of freedom and
You his loving God

To ward off loneliness
Made for him a helper
Inside of Edens bliss
Paradise the shelter

With only one stipulation
Listen what you're saying
Do not eat from the tree
The only rule you're making

Listened to that snake
Lying in his hissing
Made the fatal mistake
He was just a henchman

**********

Eating from the tree
Who told you, you were naked
Sin has been set free
Paradise has left ya

Look what you have done
Kicked out of the garden
Hear the whole earth moan
Nothing's more alarming

Nothing now has been the same
Since the apple then was bitten
Think I'll give this poem the name
Let the festivities begin

Flickering like a tentative alpenglow corraded from profaned time
A whisper jostles through a crowded rumpus prescient of teleology and design
Jolting with pangs of panic a screech emanates from the brontides of tomorrow
A chagrin outpaces the gingerly apprehension of a peevish sorrow
Among the ruffled plumes quaffed from pedigree and put to disuse
A banausic electricity galvanizes the ****** of the amalgamated acuity pinched from the sordid, the obtuse
Refracted like off a darkened moon that clenches the darkness in an abstruse tomb
Combs through sentience of Saturn presiding over ineluctable doom
A silence louder than a plangent ****** of phantasmagoria debased
A looming victor erodes with the putrefaction of sworn and utter distaste
How to obtrude on the evening with triaged fulmination
Is an affront to the rudders of a piecemeal civilization in tatters with exacting doddering calculation
Graveyards bustle with the eidolons of scurrilous spite
Congregating around a blackened epitaph on an alabaster palace gilded in the swanky pinnacle of light
Scuttling the outmoded flanks of an abortive war
Against a henchman of state too ostentatious to hardly ever ignore
We clamber with insistence hoping on fortuitous deliverance
Yet we are deranged of the clasped distance between the crevasse of the clerisy and the satisdiction of futures passed with meticulous diligence
Absconding with furtive furrows on a wizened guild an entrusted world we helped build
We witness the silence creep over us like a trepidation contained as lethal killers of the cartel willed
That which frightens a self-fulfillment is a fatalism gone awry
Someday soon omens excavated from immolated tombs will beseech a more universal backlash, an alienated sorrow that will one day cry
But until that fetched disaster occurs
Let us meditate only on the process of emanation among wayward words
That dance with a destiny that the hegemony of momentary circumstance much prefers

Proponents of the plague
Henchman
Obedient cogs in the endless wheel
Blooddrunk money ******
We feel your oppressive ways
Your boot against our neck
Your hand in our pocket
Your lidless eye on us
Your lash upon our back
Your hunger to enslave the next generation

Hide the Children

".Nothing is what it seems, what we see is just a mirage, what lies underneath, is the truth."

What do you see when you look at me
Harmless dog that I am
Fawning at your feet
Piddling all over myself to please you
This shabby mongrel you shoo from your table
Haughty in your pedigreed inclinations
Wipe my spit and dander from your petaled hands
I am nothing but a casual diversion
Banished from your hearth
Steward the beautiful things that catch your eye
Chain me up out of sight
I will always adore you

You cast this sadness
whips of words against my hide
I bleed out in the shadows
You've made me crazy
When all I wanted was your love
Curled up next to you
But you were too ashamed to let me in
Now here we are
My teeth in your throat
Your personal henchman
A killing machine calibrated
By your hatred
Surprise in your failing eyes
I would have rather died for you
But you left me to my own devices
I cannot stop myself
From survival
behind the mask of civility
Perhaps I've always been
A monster of your own creation
I can taste your poison
Beauty only the cast
Shadow on your surface
Tear the mask from your face
I cannot bear to see
Another monster staring back at me...

TLBoehm
05/21/10

After today's four steps
I'm sitting in socks by the fireplace
My heavy boots are standing straight
and my back is still rattling

I am a henchman
I push the boundaries
of the ladies in love
and the rich gentlemen

I leave horse **** behind
and take the scent of freesias with me
The water in the bucket sloshes
like yearning love

I don't travel alone
We are armed
The papers are precious
Sealed letters

Beginning and maintaining
of relationships and major interests
Between the stops, the reins
of fate are in my hands

A legendary sweet tooth, had Lady Felicity Barratt
So swift towards the sugar bowl, so wary of the carrot
She dined on only trifle from a honey coated spoon
But tooth decay accosted her and left her in a swoon

By the time she turned just twenty, her two front teeth were gone
By thirty she was running short and on her final one
When that fell out, she sought a dentist, promptly one arrived
She opened up her grizzly mouth and in the fella dived

He took a cast and took his leave with dentures to be hewn
With satisfaction guaranteed by Friday afternoon
And never did the lady have a reason to suspect
The secret intervention of an evil dental sect

By bribing several bakeries and sweetie shops and stalls
A dossier had been compiled within their sacred halls
For crimes against good dentistry were nothing short of sin
Their retribution must be swift or people might join in

They cast her teeth from coffin nails beneath a devil's moon
With Jack the Ripper's upper set, extracted from his tomb
Then polished with the handkerchief of ******'s former cleaner
Stored in Machiavelli's purse, to make them all the meaner

Upon that self same Friday, at the very cusp of noon
One Doctor Bingo Rogers and his burly hired goon
Came knocking at her premises with dental kit and drills
With a mission to sedate her and to exercise their skills

They knocked her out with ethanol and chloroform and air
And strapped her to a hastily erected dentist's chair
The evil teeth were lodged in place and ******* into her gums
The bill was quite extortionate, for monumental sums

The shamanic orthodontist, with his henchman in his wake
A martyr to the vegetable and nemesis of cake
Was keen to see his handiwork and kept a watchful eye
For curious occurrences, as days went slowly by

By Christmas there was nothing, until on New Year's Eve
Her teeth got uncooperative and forced the girl to leave
They dragged her by her dainty face and led her to the shops
She stood and munched on sugar canes and giant lollipops

They stuffed her face with chocolates, still nestled in their packets
And then a rack of nylon shirts and seven leather jackets
On every size of shoe, she munched; from sixes up to twelves
She nibbled through the party food and gnawed upon the shelves

Then off she sped, into the street, to pursue a passing horse
Dragged along by wicked teeth and supernatural force
But dentures lack in vision, and especially at pace
So when she caught it by the foot she caught it in the face

She skidded to a grizzly halt with arms and legs all twisted
And next to her, a note with all her dental errors listed
So beware the wrath of dentists and obey when they command
And sleep with one eye open and a carrot close to hand

For though our poor Felicity was buried good and hard
Despite floral cupcake with the Dental Cult's regard
And though her body, to this day, lies safely in the ground
The horse escaped that evening and the teeth were never found...

The lips of the sky breath a sigh of relief,
freeing spirits fallen, to go dance among the sleeping world
whispering in broken ears, "please remember, life is not grief."
Dreaming of swimming though stars blinding with a beauty unfurled.
Ancient shadows crawl along the horizon painting tales long forgotten,
as a piano sings with a voice of shivering leaves,
the moon is the hero, the sun is a villain,
while the frogs are henchman playing washboard in the reeves.
Please remember that music is wind trapped in a box,
raging waterfalls pulling drum beats down into its murmuring heart.
A scream of fear uninhibited by dark tricks and locks.
Haunting echoes, flavors and alluring aromas tear a past apart.
     Remember, each breath we take is the soft summer wind
     Please, do not let your life end... let it begin.

we do not want let into the room, we want to smash the ******* walls

call it diversity not ‘decentering whiteness’ not, smashing white supremacist cis hetero patriarchy,
not THE CANON IS ******* RACIST
THE CANON IS FOR MEN BY MEN PRAISED BY MEN
FOR THE BOURGEUIS BY THE BOURGEUISE OWNED AND RUN BY THE BOURGEISE
THE CANON IS AS WHITE AS THE PAGES YOU TURN AND THE PAPER YOU WIPE YOUR *** WITH.
THE CANON IS A CLOSED ROOM WITH A BARRED DOOR
WITH QUEERS ON THE STREET NOT EVEN BOTHERING TO KNOCK
BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THE DOOR WILL NOT EVEN BE CRACKED OPEN IN THE SLIGHTEST.

WE DO NOT WANT LET INTO THE ROOM,YOU BUILT THE ROOM YOU OWN THE ROOM, IT IS YOUR HENCHMAN WHO CONTROL THE INS AND OUTS OF THE DOOR.

WE WANT TO SMASH THE ******* WALLS.

IF YOU DO NOT LEAVE, YOU WILL BE PART OF THE RUBBLE.

YOU WILL LEARN WHAT IS LIKE TO HAVE YOUR HOUSE BROUGHT TO THE GROUND.