i believe in a gentle kind of love
all soft and soothing and
just right
when i am so terribly, irritatingly fragile
fingers running down my back while we lie
rib to rib, heart to heart
listening to the beat, and to the breath
and perhaps it is that, in this world of rough and tumble
of screaming and aching, to believe in a love kind and sweet is
a naivety but i find that
because of all this roaring outside our window, i much prefer
to think of that love sweet and kind
and us, tangled around each other, i think, yes

i find that i believe in a gentle sort of love

Fifteen years old and thinking I was older.
'Assistant Maintenance Man' at a Public School
Summer Camp. Billy Deitz had just graduated
High School, I thought him the coolest guy
I knew. The first week was ended, the little
kids gone home, a new batch in two days time.

We did our work, cleaned and swept, sweated
in the summer sun. Took the old surplus Jeep
over to the creek and plunged ourselves in.
Deitz had some beer in an Ice chest, I drank
one, my first ever. We shot his .22 for a while
and ate PBJs in the shade. Then we heard it.

A train horn in the mountains is a haunting
call. It does not seem to belong there among
evergreen trees and massive granite boulders.
We drove the hell out of the Jeep and found
our way to the down grade tracks. And there
she was maybe 50 cars long, snaking her way
from the summit of the Sierras out of California
into Nevada. Through the Pass over a hairpin
filled course hugging the skirts of the rock face
mountains, slowly rolling her massive load
pushing her four engines, breaks a screeching
in protest. "Click Clack, Click Clack", her steel
wheels clanging upon the rails, a rhythm like
her train heart beating.

Deitz grabbed his coat and tied it round his waist,
looped a canteen over his head, "Lets go kid!"
I did what he said, and then we were running
along beside the box cars, more a trot than a run,
"Do what I do!" Deitz yelled over his shoulder.
A flat car with some machinery approached and
He grabbed on to it and pulled himself aboard,
I copied his moves and he helped pull me up
and then there we stood on the deck of that
moving, mountain ship, with her grunting and
shaking under our feet. We could feel all her
massive weight and power vibrating up through
that wooden plank deck of the flat bed car,
entering our legs and spines. . . It was thrilling!

I had not had time to think all this through,
"Now what?" I asked some what perplexed
"Reno Kid." Deitz yelled with a grin.  

We climbed atop a Box Car, our rail bound
ship crawled out of the upper pass and we
started to descend towards Donner Lake far
below.

Looking behind and ahead it was hard to
understand how they had cut those tracks
out of solid granite rock and how the rails
maintained their frail finger tip grip on the
sheer mountain side.

We ducked nearly flat going through the snow
tunnels, the clearance was tight and it seemed
that a guy could lose his head. The diesel thick
air made us cover mouth and nose with our shirts.
Two tunnels in we noticed our faces getting
smoke blackened. We laughed at the joke.
Soot faced on a boxcar in a tunnel of wood.
Two city kids playing Hobo.

We reached the lower valley, passed the place
where the Donner Party met their grisly end.

Truckee was next and the highway grew close.
We got back down onto the flat car, hunkered
down by machine cargo, more or less out of sight.

I thought of all the down on their luck men that
had ridden those rails, not on a some lark. That
whole Grapes Of Wrath, Woody Guthrie period
of no joke, for real ****. Pushed by poverty and hope.

I must admit at that moment, I felt more alive than
at any other time in my life. I felt grown up, like a man.
Until my belly began to rumble, the speed increased
and the wind began to chill. The Click Clacks of the
wheels quickened and grew irritatingly redundant.
The loud wailing of the engine horn no longer exciting.
Now only hurt my ears.

It was dark by the time we hit Reno, we jumped off
before the train yard. Walked into town with its
bright lights calling the casino gamers to unholy service
and nightly prayer. Proceeded over by hard-bitten
dealers in communal black, with cigarettes dangling
from their unsmiling lips, possessing the empty
dead eyes of the badly used up and down-trodden.
Through the ***** windows, the people there seemed
to possess no joy in their sluggish endeavors.
Both players and dealers all losers, merely Automatons
of those despairing games of chance.

Reno was still rough-hewn in those days, a hard
scrabble place full of cigarette smoke, ******,
card tables, slot machines and not much else.
It seemed to reek of lonely desperation.

Having seen our soot ***** faces in the
window reflection, we washed up in the
cold river that runs through town.

We walked around, ate hot dogs,
Downed a Doctor Pepper.
"Now what Deitz?"
"**** I don't know kid,
first time I ever did anything like this."

"What?" My world collapsed right then,
I thought he was much more than
he turned out to be. Maybe everyone is.
I even started to get a little scared.
No money, no place to stay and apparently,
like most of the denizens there, **** out ah'
luck. I'd never felt that way before, from
mountain high to valley low in two hours.
All that excitement turned to Dread.

We hitched a ride with a long haired
guy of questionable gender, who kept
staring at me in the rearview mirror.
West, to a Truck Stop on the edge of town.
Found a trucker willing to give us a lift
back up to the summit.  Jumped in his rig
happy to find, that his cab heater worked.

Badly judged our get out spot, searched
and stumbled around in the shadowy dark,
dim moonlight looking for that **** jeep,
all that friggin' night.

When the guy that ran the camp returned
and found us sleeping at half past two,
in the afternoon in our tent, to say the least,
He was not amused.

Need I say, I felt much older that next day
and a little wiser too.

Decisions, decisions
One or the other
Irritatingly difficult
Why must I choose
Two terrific choices
Tormented by self
Distracted by nature
Forfeit attention
Lost in the barrens

An African sunset has once again,
not outlived darkness of its own sunset,
but the legacy of its poetry will soon
Set forth the new dawn in full brightness
Of the phenomenal African woman
Whose desire to sire human freedom
Irritatingly sings and will ever sing like
A bird in the cage of oppressor’s ploy
Singing the songs of freedom for all,
Invoking ears of the heart in mental realm
Of prejudice and bigoted self-exclusion
to see the self in the face of otherness.


I mourn Dr. Angelou Maya who passed on,
On the black Wednesday of may 2014,
A doomsday of dooms-month of dooms-year,
That extended the invisible tentacles of death
To curtail the breathes African daughter,
At the Wake Forest University, in land of the Yankees,
At her only ****** age of 8 and 6 compartments
Of twelve months swelling not even full in each case,
Leaving me to wonder in my African callousness,
At the magical reality in the sharp sounded words;
Of , O death!  O death! Why are you so untimely?
That echoed from whale rapacious jaws in the mandibles
Of capitalism that ruthlessly converts nature into ***** money
In the erstwhile onset of the dawn for new morning.


I mourn with grief, my dear sister; Dr. Angelou Maya,
She boldly stood up in the fullness of her melanin
Pronouncedly **** and elegant gap in her front teeth,
Blending to overwhelm the entire world with the beauty,
In the darkness of her African skin, provoking evil
Of the time, that let a white man to **** her
A Poor daughter of the an ex-slave in Americas,
And the ****** walked away scot-free at the helm of
Evil freedom in the apartheid civilization of the USA, as her humane
Heart forgave him, the white ******, seven times and seventy seven
occasions, a reflection of true piousness, true humanism,
Like a phoenix she still stood up, her head in fortitude like a tor,
as we the conquered and the enslaved  ones sat forlorn,
in the ******* of fierce slavery, at the nub of salve anguish
in the pangs of  nostalgia for  the banks of River Congo,
Yearning in equanimity for the life by the waters of the River Nile,
she had to rise indomitably  and sing for civil rights of the black souls,
Terrorized by the evils and wiles of Ku Klux ****, handmaiden
by the Jimmy Crow cultures in the days of Rosa Parks,
She sang tunes, lyrics and poor folks’ ballads together
with Luther King Jnr., Malcolm X and entire Negritude,
When we lived as slaves in the land of abundance,
Caged in the pigeonholes of black ghettoes
Mushrooming the entire Harlem in which
she were born, dear begotten daughter of Africa,
You rose and sang songs of liberty when the world
Was mum on the violations of gender,
Is when your thespic power in your magical
And surreal words, created the truth
In the phenomenon of phenomenal woman
That finds honour in un-bowing before the thrones
Of those who reign by perpetrating terror.
.

T-Tons of garbage shoveled all around the place
H-High mounds of ******* confronting ones face
E-Enormous amounts dispersed within this space

D-Dare one say how gross the piles of debris appeared
R-Repeatedly the offenders were advised to have it cleared
I-Irritatingly into the mind the image of trash seared
V-Vast quantities are certainly not well endeared
E-Eliminating this poppycock is never feared
L-Long one's eyes hath been with this stuff overly smeared

I keep writing the spaces between heartbeats,
I keep touching the things that aren't real,
I keep saying how I'm going to change into something,
I keep erasing the lines that I've written before,
and when will I write for myself.

it takes skyscrapers filled with polaroids
it takes little white lies and telegraphs
it takes reflective puddles of gasoline
it takes armfuls of daisies and paisley print napkins
it takes princes and paupers and slurpees and silver
plated bracelets and philosophical books and memories
of people sitting on cracked green-brown bus seats
it takes things I knew and throws them away; it takes crispy hot nights
when cheekbones are sweating and boys who know nothing
of what they want filling their hearts up with and euros in pennies and sitting
on six clouds of old medications and basements with just too much dust.

it's a matter of time,
it's matter of perspective,
it's a snapshot hold-back parallel circle of constant irrevocable dimensions of porch swings
and merry go rounds undeniably irritatingly provokingly making me sick.

swish swish go cassette tapes I keep within reach
I can pull out their insides and stretch out the tape to reach to the moon
past the treetops and over the sun and into my head while I sleep.
someday I'll tinker with those that dream nothing,
and someday I'll write for myself.

How strange.
The dragon,
which I'd trained so valiantly for,
expected to breathe fire and
spit flames,
turned out to be more like
a cowering puppy.
Hiding behind his hair,
eyes rarely meeting mine,
I could put the sword back in it's case.
I felt more of a beast than you.

How strange.
The struggle I'd imagined,
the whirlwind battle,
where I defeated my demons,
and the dragon,
turned out to be nothing but a mere
pillow fight.
I entered the lair,
to find nobody there.

How strange.
The dragon I thought I'd
fall in love with,
failed to flame the spark.
My heart remained
irritatingly unscorched,
nothing more than the odd
plume of smoke
wafting around us.
And that was mainly your cigarettes.

How strange.
The 'dragon',
with his timid tone
and reserved demeanor,
roared
"F R I E N D."
This knight in
not so shining armour
needs a dragon
who can grip her heart with their claw,
and turn it white hot with desire.
You,
my little 'dragon',
are not that.
But you will make a great
friend
anyway.

the fluttering has begun inside my gut, again
that irritatingly charming warmth of feeling something other than sadness

little cracks of light show through the gaps in your teeth when you smile
and I see more than just the stars shining, tonight

I know I can't be right,
but I'm okay with being wrong
if it means I get to feel this

Freezing rain drizzles
off of my apartment roof tonight
I'm afraid of driving on sheets of ice
and I've only got six hours to go
I should be asleep by now
The numbers on my clock are an
irritatingly sharp red
and they stare at me all night
reminding me that they run things
Not sleeping is one of my hang ups
I have this bad habit of leaving my coat
on the floor
so this isn't my hang up
because someone
usually hangs it up for me
Although I'd feel like less of a burden
if I hung my own coat up when I come in
from the freezing rain
so I try
They know I'm just forgetful
so they don't get mad
They think I'm brilliant in other ways
which is comforting
Sometimes my hang up is wondering
if I am at all brilliant
if I am a good person
I run my fingers along all my old scars
and fight the urge to make new ones

I’m not always a fan of poetry - if I actually take time to ponder it
- it can be so irritatingly rhymey, kind of fussy and needlessly intricate.

Compare my love to a summer’s day and I’ll probably yawn and walk away.

Take a nuanced look at the transactions of *** and consent,
and as adults, we may wonder where the romance went.

You know, it only happens once in a while,
that someone with wit and individual style
comes along with something to say
and scribbles it down in a poem or play.

Here’s to the creative visionaries,
to Dickinson's unique and dreamy imagery,
to Shakespear’s highly stylized, run-on sentences
that manage to speak to us over the centuries
or challenge our stifled, bourgeoisie banality
like Nabokov’s use of stunning vocabulary.

I believe love has an evil twin,
But I could be losing my mind.
There are petals on thistles,
And thorns on roses;
I can turn 360 or 180
And ride off in any direction.
Tales run like a loop in my brain,
Not recalling who's heard what,
I preface:
I've probably told you this before, but...
Is how any old story begins.
Deja Vu is my new life.
Every thought was once a poem
To be polished and revealed.
Today, they are intermittent.

I've been trolling old television series;
The Monkees were terrible then,
Terrible still;
The Three Stooges were best left in the memory vault;
Bonanza still has Ben wearing his beige vest;
Elizabeth Montgomery is still bewitching;
Jeannie is irritatingly attractive.
I must be leaking grey cells;
Rationality is creaking in my bone-head.

Seeing him causes a pain so acute in my chest I fear that my heart might burst
Seeing him causes a rush of memories that used to be happy but now are filled with regret
Seeing him makes me wonder if I'm a bad person or if it's him
Or maybe it's neither of us at all
Maybe we are just two different types of broken
The types of broken that cannot quite understand each other
Because they are far too broken in their own ways to see anyone else's pain
But I can see his pain
Can he see mine?

A boy who used to be one of the select few people I trust
Gave me more reasons not to trust people
And assume that everyone leaves once they've taken from you what they wanted
Once they've gotten your trust
Once they've gotten your secrets
Once they've gotten your adoration
They find the escape hatch
They reach for the rip chord
And they leave.

I've often felt that people left me for good reason
I'm too loud
And I'm not all that smart
And I'm irritatingly full of love
Full of so much love for anyone who needs it
But when someone leaves I decide I love too much
I push too much
I'm too open, too trusting

Every person
Every single one
Has caused a need in me
To build up walls
To build up an incredible fortress
Because if anymore scar tissue were to cover my heart
I'm positive it would just stop

But it should have stopped with him then I suppose
Because the amount of pain he has caused
With every scornful glance
And every part of a friendship twisted and snapped
Maybe my fortress will be impenetrable now though
Maybe I'll be stronger

But I don't feel stronger
I feel broken
And hurt
And a special sort of lost
Because I know exactly where I am
But it's not at all where I thought I'd be

Is it possible to love with every part of a shattered heart?

Tessellation & Interstices


”A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface,
often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes,
called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps…In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of geometries.”

the insistent need to be distinguished
means many are not,  
indeed,
this hunger
to be an influencer
and never just an influencé.

creeply creates a linear surface,
a flooring to be trod upon,
a tessellated plane,
were we each fit in
right-tight juxtaposition
and we are noticeable for our
uniformity and

the scuff marks of having been trod upon,
well used.

it is in the chips of irregularities,
the overlaps and the gaps
where we touch and connect
with our individual Ah Ha’s,
where our Venn Diagram Lives
intersect, infect, interfere, inject,
in the tiny
interstices
tween us,
the jagged, irritatingly edgy
rubbings
that the friction of creativity
is comedically inseminated.

I love a good tense sweat,
that invasive, deep boring burring,
that demands
instant creative solutions lest the angst of
an unwritten-in-the-moment-poem
is even more annoying,
before it is annoyingly,
befogged, lost forever.

that is why with old age,
fearsome fast
short term memory loss,
some turn to the speedy freedom of
free verse,
unconstrained by socks
and well fitting shoes,
and the slip on sneakers
of rhyming,
so insistent on perfection,
that the
burr is absorbed,
the irritant rubbing is creamed away,
and that loss of
a pouring of the soul’s ******* of
Done!
is
our exclamatory mutual curse

Creature mother referred to as benevolent to salvage his miscarried stride, brother said his wingëd arms were ordnance and that was the workings of a good man (rather a tool I suggested), father thought his wide ego was equitable, a trait lacking in most boys, and I thought they felt like the hands of someone who grappled with your body in pool water, the exception to “pool boy” was that you had every right to elbow them hard in the windpipe, you close-lined his smirk with the same forearm that you used to cradle your niece, your arm was stuck to your hip bone -- by now you’d supposed it hard as cement and requiring the effects of a jackhammer, all night you underwent the pain and once the adults getted and got together the world came to a closing -- you got a slap to the spine indicating “job well done”. But. For this irritatingly foolish“pool boy” you faked flustered when he botched his cries with a surprised expression and you never got in trouble -- it was an accident, and their mothers needed them to learn anyways; for their interest in curves was now only game for the land sharks and you ruled the riptides. You made it clear that if you couldn't take a bruised lip then you should learn to drown in other places, and his webbed chest soaked up the minty fresh breath that your throat excreted when you dealt to the devil a hard “no”, and got back humor, and you both with your red skin, each burning the other amidst many. short. touches. Decided you had no choice but to laugh.

Humiliation touched me so
The feather touch of shame,
In having dwelt the weathered blow
Of embarrassment in my name.
From dynasties of ages past
My forebears strove to be,
Procurers of the portals in
The family names’ integrity.

Dank there, in the background,
Lurked a mystery of Jobe,
The riddle of impeachment
In the silken theft of robe.
A murkiness in origin,
The doubtfulness of frame
And the odour of a lie
Within veracity's dark stain.

Seeking through the archives,
Questioning those few
Old survivors of the family
Has left me here, adieu?
The recollections misty,
Most anecdotes, demure
And records from the Parish Church
Irritatingly, obscure.

Just can’t put my finger on it,
Or actually part the mists of time,
Or establish the candidacy
In this querulousness of mine.
But due to some portentous queries,
Innocuously made,
And some snide, salacious whispers,
Maliciously laid?

Thus, despite the searing,  livid flush
Of humiliations hue….
I’ll resume my quiet quest
To energetically, seek, anew….
The very confirmation sought,
Without a trace of blame,
In the voracity and honour
Of my good family name.

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ
6 July 2021

I hate her smile, you thought
You hate the way she speaks and walks
She's too much, she's too loud
She's irritatingly confident and proud
She's too loving, it's annoying
You find her dumb because she thinks and speaks without thinking

"I don't like you " you said
but still she smiled,
shook her head and bid goodbye

Good riddance you thought
never knowing the implications
your word had brought
You'd never know how much she cried
You'd never know the pain she felt inside
You'd never know how she blamed herself
for loving you to the brink
You'd never know how much she truely cares
Even when you made her heart bleed

They say that loving is
accepting someones flaws
Did you ever even think that she
had accepted yours?
Or maybe you're just too selfish to see
how she shows that she cares
for you deeply

My being is slipping
through your fingers now
like sand
the me I used to be
falling at your feet
tiny graduals of me
irritatingly present
transparent
incomplete