I used to cook for her all the time.
I wonder if she remembers. Can she?
Ramen noodles and toast
at 3:30 in the morning, churros at 8:15.
Sometimes in the middle of the night
she’d cat call my name and I’d always
run to her wondering- Is she hurt? and then
She better not have hurt herself.
I knew better though after the first few times,
yet I always went willingly enough through her
open bedroom door because she wanted me to.
But mostly chicken noodle soup on Sundays
and rice and jambalaya on Wednesday.
mmmmmmmmm.... Carminolas with a kick.
Pop pop pop and her buttons would fly across the room
and other times she’d be under the sheets, already
ready to press my hands against her caramelized skin.
And if we add a pinch of saffron, a dash a sumac,
and a teaspoon full of ajwain she will taste like
heaven and for those cherry lovers add a bit of mahlebi.
But I remember. She tasted like homemade chocolate and
marshmallows. Go make Mama something tasty.
She’d say afterwards and send me from the warmth of
her bed, a Saturday Night Live rerun echoing after me.
I’d bring her dumplings and udon and watch her while she ate,
wondering- Can she taste the arsenic?

"Wagons East (1994) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0111653/ Internet Movie Database Rating: 4.7/10 - ‎3,545 votes (stylized onscreen as ‘Wagons East’) is a 1994 western comedy film directed by Peter Markleand starring John Candy and Richard Lewis. The film marked one of Candy's last film appearances although it was not his last film release. His last film, Canadian Bacon which he had completed before “Wagons East,” had a delayed release in 1995. The film was notable for its leading actor Candy dying of a heart attack during the final days of the film's production. A stand-in and special effects were used to complete his remaining scenes and it released five months after his death."

And it’s Wagons East!
John Candy’s last mega-bomb,
Released 5 months postmortem.
Alas, even the sympathy vote stayed home,
Reject the we-owe-it-to-him-for
“Planes, Trains & Automobiles”(1987, IMDB).
The role, like money in the bank,
Earning diminishing returns,
Yielding interest but losing value over time.
The myth of INTEREST:
Das Capital, 2015.
The Prime is at 0%,
Yet, Inflation soars at, well,
At inflationary rates,
Digit-pounding inflation,
Higher food & shelter prices,
Masked ever so cleverly,
So deftly obscured by benevolent gasoline prices.

“Planes, Trains & Automobiles” (1987, IMDB)
Meet Del Griffith,
An obnoxious slob,
A complete schlemiel
(Also shle·miel (shlə-mēl′),
A serene shower curtain ring
Salesman and tour de force.
A film illustrative of everything
We love about farce,
(Merci beaucoup, Molière!)
And love about any
John Hughes/Steve Martin collaboration.

Needless to say,
I watched “Wagons East”
On TV the other day.
It was ten o’clock in the morning.
Will-o'-wisping in the ashtray,
Smoke from my first joint of the day.
The ashtray, a mosh pit carbonara--
Actually, an inverted exoskeleton dome--
One of dem big muthas,
I once free-dived for,
Offshore Mendocino Coast,
Back in the day,
Back when THE FRENCH LAUNDRY . . .
(The French Laundry: Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, www.thomaskeller.com. Chef Thomas Keller visited Yountville, California in the early 1990's on a quest for a space to fulfill a longtime culinary dream: to establish a destination for fine --314 Google reviews · Write a review 6640 Washington St, Yountville, CA 94533 (707) 944-2380. Daily Menus - ‎Make a Reservation - ‎Restaurant)
Back when THE FRENCH LAUNDRY
Paid beaucoup bucks for
Well-tenderized,
Sledge hammered slabs of illegal,
Black Market abalone.
Most assuredly, I digress.

So where else would I be?
My laptop was open & willing,
Legs spread, wet and waiting for
Whatever comes what may.
What came was a film
Earning pitch perfect
Dramatic chops for Candy.
We owe you, Del.
We owe you for this Anthem:
“You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you . . . but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I'm not changing. I like . . . I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.”
But that was then,
This is now.
Wagons East:
A disastrous ****** bomb.
A vapid character jambalaya:
(1) A defrocked doctor
(2) A sagebrush *****.
(3) A queer book vendor.
(4) A Donner Party Survivor
Sounds can’t miss, right?
Or was it a classic Broadway/Hollywood sting?
Redux: “Spring Time for ******.”
N'est-ce pas?
Four *******
Heading east by wagon train;
Giving up on The West,
Heading east for Saint Louie,
Where freaks & geeks go undercover.
Down go their guards.
Camouflaging the chimera,
Transits the urban Wasteland,
Vast & nasty, as it were.

St. Louis, Missouri:
A much more tolerant
Hideout place.
THE WEST:
Just too much of
A hassle, I guess,
Too much for one’s
Flat-lined human mind,
Bored too shitless by
Buffalo turds to venture thought.
THE WEST:
Neorealismo italiano.
Complete Jolting-Joe reality,
A veritable wake-up call
Devouring any & all
Residual romantic fantasies . . .
THE WEST:
Struggle & Drudge,
Life lived west of the Mississippi.

Rangeland Romances #9 Go West For Your Man! Kindle (www.amazon.com) Books Literature & Fiction Amazon.com, Inc. Start reading Rangeland Romances #9 Go West For Your Man! Get the free Kindle Reading App or read on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? www.amazon.com

That’s right: another advertisement,
Smack dab in the middle of
Of the ******* poem!
My invention, by the by,
Putting herein another plug for
A preferred memorial gravesite,
The Shrine To Me!
Situated in Scituate,
(Always wanted to say that.)
Scituate MA (www.scituatema.gov)
Knowing my kryptonite crypt,
My not-marble-nor-gilded
Princely-monument,
Had no chance to outlive
This fakakta rhyme scheme . . .
The Shrine To Me!
My final resting place:
My very tony, exclusive
Sub Zip Code?
The South Transept
Westminster Abbey
The so-called Poets’ Corner,
Of course!

Which brings me to my true purpose:
My true intentions for you this morning?
To publicize the strange Case of
CHARLES ROCKET:
(Go ahead, ******* Google him!)
“Charlie Rocket, found dead in a field near
His Connecticut home on October 7, 2005,
His throat had been cut.
He was 56 years old.
The state medical examiner
Later ruled the death a suicide.”
And if you believe the Coroner,
A Medicine Man &
Master of Self-Interest;
If you give that sharp-dealing,
Proverbial Connecticut Yankee his due,
Then you will probably also think
That millionaire Robert Durst
Didn’t **** Susan Berman,
Even as we see him
Getting away with ******.
Again.

Okay…
So…
my kids ain't all that regular
thats cuz my kids
didn’t get no regular mama
/ My kids got a / way making / hard working / kid feeding / plant growing  
/ source loving / puppy hugging / kitten saving / truth telling
/ baby kissing / spell casting / candle lighting / hymn singing / literature chewing
/ jambalaya cooking / *** kicking / loud laughing / soft hearted / hard drinking
/ powder digging / dream weaving / moon dancing / braid wearing /  barefooted
/ hippy of a poet-mama…
And I ain't sad that I’m peculiar…
cuz I’m the only me we got…

It's 10 pm and the heat just hit me
The AC is off but I couldn't be more happy
Touched my first palm tree and dipped my hand in the toilet
Grabbed a cab to the city, on the seat there was a death threat
For breakfast we had Bananas foster, po'boys and hash brown
When Amanda power walked I had to tell her to slow down
By the Mississipi river I drank a peach daquiri
The waitress wanted more tips and across the streets she chased me
Strippers gave me the finger, ****** begged for ******
We were stuck in traffic cause of the constant flash floods
In a Camaro and a Werewolf to creep with vampires and slaves
Talking about plantations by the old family graves
And you were so beautiful under that big oak tree
Even more in the rain outside that locked cemetery
On Bourbon street the homeboys were asking for hugs
And I gave away all my coins to some thugs
We ate jambalaya and fried green tomatoes
The ladies were halfnaked but no one called them hoes
In a blacksmith shop with no electricity
We drank Morgan and got wasted with some other swedes
Wherever we went we felt the smell of ****
From every balcony people were throwing beads
All the ***** sounds were drowned out by the air condition
On the floor Hoyt from True Blood was changing positions
Then Chris slept like a baby when the cockroach sang him lullabies
For some reason it made more sense than "bridge may ice"

It's 10 pm and the heat just hit me
The AC is off but I couldn't be more happy
Touched my first palm tree and dipped my hand in the toilet
Grabbed a cab to the city, on the seat there was a death threat
For breakfast we had Bananas foster, po'boys and hash brown
When Amanda power walked I had to tell her to slow down
By the Mississipi river I drank a peach daquiri
The waitress wanted more tips and across the streets she chased me
Strippers gave me the finger, ****** begged for ******
We were stuck in traffic cause of the constant flash floods
In a Camaro and a Werewolf to creep with vampires and slaves
Talking about plantations by the old family graves
And you were so beautiful under that big oak tree
Even more in the rain outside that locked cemetery
On Bourbon street the homeboys were asking for hugs
And I gave away all my coins to some thugs
We ate jambalaya and fried green tomatoes
The ladies were halfnaked but no one called them hoes
In a blacksmith shop with no electricity
We drank Morgan and got wasted with some other swedes
Wherever we went we felt the smell of ****
From every balcony people were throwing beads
All the ***** sounds were drowned out by the air condition
On the floor Hoyt from True Blood was changing positions
Then Chris slept like a baby when the cockroach sang him lullabies
For some reason it made more sense than "bridge may ice"

“wordlessly watching, heartlessly helping “

an early morning insertion,
says writes a love poem of
necessity, no formal request,
but as I am quiet bound to
her chest rhyming rising, falling,
she, caught between eyes closed,
but ears open, in pretense of deep
sleeping,
leaves me treading words,
“wordlessly watching, heartlessly helping “
borrowed for reuse, as waves
that have been here moments ago,
but only now just splashing me
to a place of inspiration, I look
up at the jambalaya of verses,
and declare myself satisfied,
both in love and wish this:

a completed poem that satisfies a
noisy urging~surging to tell her I
love her without disturbing her
peaceful state of drowsy and
permitting me too
(thinking pause)
to
taste a piece
of peace, so
well completed

Now sit there, just a minute, hold on, hear my tale
for just a minute.
One of humanity, sincerity, tragedy
Of when I was there, live from the square.
Jackson Square.
Not the one of Coin Coin, the Nevilles, the Toussaints,
Allen or L’Overture.
This is one of a momma and her baby
in 2008.
Three years, three years,
three years after the flood, three years after the storm.
Let me paint you a picture of Orleans as it stood one day in 2008
as it stands today.

2008, NewOrleans:
What happens here, no one will remember in the morning.
The buskers, the tunes, why, even the voodoos get the blues.
Walking towards Bourbon
The lights, the sin, the history

New Orleans, where life ain't so easy.
There’s a family down there who don't survive so peacefully.
You can see them if you walk down Canal St., leisurely.
There, sleeping on the courthouse stairs,
A mother and her child who own only the clothes they wear.
The boy was young, elementary-aged
Curious too, I could hear him ask questions:
"Mama, why don't we got food?"
And her reply,
"Son, that's just the way it is, life's just hard for me and you."
Sitting there on the courthouse stairs.
I take my place on the opposite side of the stoop,
Watching the crowds go by.
The women in their high-heeled shoes
The men with their shirts half-open.
Grenades in hand, ***** in the blood,
Pockets full of cash and hearts full of lust

New Orleans
What happens there, no one will remember come morning.
The buskers, the tunes, why, even the voodoos get the blues.

There’s a family on vacation there
In such a sinful city, a family.
White, middle-class, suburban, all too WASP-y.
mom, dad, a daughter and a son,
elementary aged, with a pop in his cheerful step,
On the way to a nice restaurant
gon’ eat crawfish, gator, red beans and rice, jambalaya.
They’ll forget to tip the waiter.

New Orleans,
What happens here, no one will remember come morning.

That happy family, walking down Canal St.
Like walking out the gates of hell
Where the lost souls sit on the stairs
Begging for something, anything at all
The happy family had ‘bout reached the courthouse when the young boy asked
"Daddy, why don't they have any food?"
His father covered his son’s eyes with his white hand and replied,
"Here son, let's go and find a toy for you to buy."
And the kid shrank after seeing this mom and her son
His innocent eyes died and he said,
"I don't want a toy.  I don't want anything"
They walked on by, the happy boys' head turned the whole time,
those eyes.  Stuck on the family that was stuck on the stairs
Mom dad, a daughter and a son,
Elementary-aged with a slump in his sunken step.

Now, in my mind I wonder:
was it more monumental that my life changed
or that a had life changed before my eyes

New Orleans, two thousand and eight.
New Orleans, today,
what happens there, no one will remember come morning.

Jazz music and drunken slurs,
Passing streetcars turn to blurs,
Bite off more than you can chew,
Seafood gumbo, thick brown roux,
On shoulders sit sons and daughters,
Ferry ships, Mississippi waters,
Dancers dressed like voodoo queens,
Clad in purples, golds, and greens,
Yell, "Throw me something mister!"
Flying beads barely missed her,
Pralines, king cakes, and beignets,
Maid of Muses smiles and waves,
Rex, Zulu, Endymion,
From Decatur to Bourbon,
Floats, masks, a feather boa,
Sweet iced tea, jambalaya,
Big Easy on Fat Tuesday,
Lent is just a day away.

Love is a dismal word. Its cold, and uncaring. Why should it care though, its so widely used these days that it bares no meaning. I’ve said it half a dozen times. And every time I swore to god I meant it. And every time they believed me. They took my word for it, hell, they all said it back too. And I just smiled crookedly and kept on doing what I was doing. I never had a shred of remorse. I never flinched. I could keep a straight face with a five high hand. I never even let on that I was lying.

You’re looking for a love story, maybe a chase in order to get the girl I’ve been striving and yearning after my whole life. But I can tell you now, that’s not what you’re getting yourself into. Instead I have strategically planned out a twisted tail in hopes that you’ll follow along and find something that you are familiar with. But even in the case that you don’t, that everything you read in my jambalaya of words is totally off base with everything that you’re looking for, I hope you have a good laugh, or a good cry.

I don’t want to get to off track though, lets go back to love. The word, in essence, is a metaphor for the human condition. It’s a total sham, a crook and a lie. At least that’s all I’ve ever seen. Between parents lying to each other, high school sweethearts, and the tails of misfortune that you read in magazines and the newspaper, I, like you, grew up in a word surrounded by a lie possessing what we wish love could be. It’s a terribly depressing thing, love is, that we all most feel like we’ve succumb to the social pressure of love.

We all want to feel needed, that’s something that I personally have been striving myself to avoid, strictly based upon the fact that I know what I become, who I become when I need to feel needed. We all get that urge sometimes, to do what ever you can to get someone to just say that they love, because you are in love with instant gratification. One simple word can dictate our feeling of remorse, and turn it upside down, and make it into something it simply isn’t.

It’s a terrible addiction that we’ve all acquired. You can disagree, you could just put this short few sheets of dead trees away, but inside, somewhere, sometime, you’ve agreed with me. I want you to dig down as deep as you can and realize that simple fact. Just please, listen, for a second. I want you to feel what I’m saying as if coming from your own mouth. I want you to know for a fact that the love that you feel for someone is simple a lie that you’ve built around guilt to shelter yourself from further damage.

I’m sure there is someone out there that has found the actual love, the true love as some might say. I don’t know the actually polls, the actual facts. But, in my book, all I ever see is a silhouette, a shadow if you will, of that love. Something bigger then it really is, something darker, colder. I want you to feel passionate is all. That is all.

It’s the cool breeze on windless summer day.
Tall grass gently swaying on a poise afternoon.
It’s the mesquite tree in the yard tolerant enough to grow.
A dry lively summer brewing in the dead of night.
A cool gust comes from the west dragging a pail of water,
The flooding the cracked and thirsty Earth.
It’s a five acre pond replacing the countryside.
Grass and shrubs drowning as they take a last breath.
It a crackle of lightning playing in the background,
Along with the thrumming of rain on the forming lake.
Bristles of hay coming down the creek,
And clogging the ditches introducing the crawdads.
It’s the chocolate lab running joyously through the rain.
Two brothers playing football in the puddles.
A father starting a peaceful mud fight.
It’s a mother cooking jambalaya and baking cornbread.
It’s Christmas in July.

In twenty days I will be back in Georgia

and I will feel the cold air pierce through my lungs as I stroll through the streets of downtown Atlanta

I will hear the sound of thick, southern drawls singing country songs by a diminished campfire, releasing the smell of burning leaves and Tennessee whiskey

I will see my grandmamas gaze as she welcomes me home with a *** of steaming Jambalaya and White Diamonds perfume

And my sweet souls will smile at me with their crooked teeth that look like mine
They will approach me with their fast paced walks that move like mine
They will laugh at me with innocence, light, and love

Their simple love  
their pure, loyal love
The kind of love that liberates
The kind of love that frees me
from the solitude I hold
So deeply within myself

And I will return to my little apartment
on the eastside of the city

with a memory of enlightenment
With a memory of gratitude
With a memory of grace

To shower you in
To nurture you with
To guide you to
The clear light of day

Have you ever tried to save your life in vain?
A bullet to the brain
Your life is **** circling the rusted drain
Then you watch your self go insane
I begin to feel the judgment of my being being made by kids made from denim
So I exit the conversation

We sit pool side trying to conserve water
Falling off the wagon yet again
Packing it in
And calling it an early night
Would you pay to hear yourself sing?
To see yourself perform?

       -Tommy Johnson

Shes tired of being the peace maker for another day in paradise
Hes in a dark mood going midnight bowling
Plotting, scheming, planning dreaming
He won't make the same mistake twice
A big rig low rider
Har har snicker har!
Headed to the head shop
Dank

You egocentric snob
Talking about ecocentrism
Isocentric laser beams
Saying it's all esoteric and we're all simpletons
Mallrats
Wondering how they all got from A to B
It hurts so good
Cooking that ******'s jumbo jambalaya
Can you read between the lines on the wall in the bathroom stall written in permanent marker?
      -Tommy Johnson

i hate aretha franklin
(except for her hat)
and i hate old ladies
who leave lipstick stains
on otherwise perfectly
clean used coffee mugs
(i'm looking at you joan
because i know al, bob and ray
don't wear lipstick and kayla
drinks ***** chai so it's not her)

and i hate sunshine and
i hate rain and i hate people
but i also hate being alone
and i hate how loose these
jeans are but i hate how big
they make me feel

i hate dishes and potatoes and
***** floors and daily specials
(except the jambalaya but i'll
make exceptions for mckenna)

and i hate being tired and i
hate feeling down and i don't
hate myself more than usual i
just hate being in a funk
(why does caryl have to go and
leave me with only one coffee cake
i'd like to throw a long handled
spoon like a harpoon through the
biggest window available or just
the one with pedestrians outside)

She stood there, looked me in the eyes
asked in a quivering, cautious cadence,

"How long do half-elves live?"

And it would have been the most heartbreaking thing
If I had still had a heart
(After that girl who was more beautiful than she was living -
but it had to be done.)

But I still answered
As warm as I could
With Melora not by my side,
Not in my heart,
But, perhaps, cooking up a jambalaya
in my stump.

And in that moment
I know she would sacrifice herself
Sacrifice anything
Just to better the lives of others.

That girl is a treasure
And I hope not to forget it.

Startle response! Wake--

When danger is ante
cipated,0h
--0n
lego-h-overedge aver
age
verbage re sighin'

clinging vines from debunked strings and
threads twisted wit'em.

Assume, if ye may or plea or will as
ye wont, pray means ask.

That's all.
Here, wit'afewmisstook aitches and spaces:
here is what we got,

a fresh secret story, un concerning anything you
believed you believed of/from/about idea ifify ie able ity ness

Reason requires response, Will Robinson.
Hidden persuaded, almost,
but lost...

Really,
what sacrifice bought
young John Carson to sublimnal
top 0'the mind status,
for the first two tv
generations?

Who do you trust? Carson's tv game
show debut, aimed at after school,
junior high, latch key,
wait staff on swing shift or graveyard,
the entire set of doin' nuttin'
'round Tea, fancy goin'

head t' head wit' Mickey Mouse Club,
on all the UHF stations out west.

It's 1957, who do you trust?
Time's man o'the year,
The Hungarian Freedom Fighter Idea,
the first stiffed
equal-value re
belicose cold war victim
of the famine for the grammar
of kindness and good sense
associated with DNA,
little green apples, puppy dogs,the
straight up command to love them that hate ye,
enemies and other words for folk
who would just as soon **** you
as hear one more word
about peace.

VOG,
words were scrambled,
christic crypt vacuum
tube
signal to noise ratio, caliber calculater pro
jection on to the rerewall o'yeardamnedbrain,

VOG Cancel
Bozo. This ad will **** for us. We can own the
'earts and minds of every grammar 'ater ever.

Since Babel, since Eber 'is 'ebrew ef-
fective, fervent...strainer at jots and tittlishit
self.

This ad makes mistook rules po'man laughable,
punch'n'judy'ishit:

Whom
do you trust, the grammarian so like so many
Deweyish proguess
edumacated teachers, you had this teacher,

squint, wrinkle nose, tight jibbs
frameless wire rimmed specs, a greying bun,

flower print dress wit' the weest bit o'lace,
lipless snide corrector's face. A trope archetype,
heroes re
bel
on demand, that was the plan. It
started with

AN AD. Who do you trust? Black and white,
Here's Johnny standing under the billboard,
y'know,
for the show, standin' like *******, shoulders
shrugged, palms up, elbo's bent

(contenintal suit, note the skinny tie, why?)
Who do you trust? Innocent grin, wordless
"Who knows?" or "knew"?

Whodjewtrust, in 1957? Cronkite, nicht wahr?
See the USA in the USA

in yo' Chevrolet, ole!
Yew should try Ritalin, for pep.

Take Serutan tonight, and sleep, safe and restful,
sleep, sleep sleep

VOG (Scourby) and, remember Serutan is Natures,
spelled backwards. Cue the choir,

safe and restful, sleep, sleep fade away

----
Where were you in 1962? Off t'college,
watchin' Johnny of Johnnies,

Johhny Quest, Johnny Lighting, Johnny Carson on

Tonight, there's more...
after the news, the dayroom in the dorm,

this is whence the quips in the quad were to be
sharpened wit'

fashion able ible tips, to fit the Esquire *** Hef
uniform dress code of mutual hidden

persuadeds.

Some souls were spared the spread of the
original tv virus, VHF, couldn't penetrate
the canyon...never subjected
to Howdy Doody,
our brains were spared the
complexes planted via the sit
com cowboy war subplot
phase of novus ordo
secluremishitistcal
experiments in
alientated
mind control.
We lived in the desert, in a place

a lot like Oscar's Oasis,
a wordless Korean Cartoon
set in a desert much like mine. On Netflix, 2019.

I did not watch the mandated ten thousand hours,
even when the deadline for party affiliation

mental ascent was ex
tended, circa 1985, pre-
tending to be a measure of de
fencing public universities from the
effect of rock and roll,

since about 1964

with folk like Dylan and Baez and Hallelujah
Jubilee and Jambalaya on d'Baya,
Herb's brass on the Baja, where all the girls
work it,
like 'otel Kali phornia, sticky,

sweet, like a taste of Honey. Mr.Bond,
meet Miss
Galore. OH GOD, in the car from the speaker
she heard the idea the meaning

in the name, oh god, she squeezed my hand.

Honor Blackman plays that role, she whispered.

Trust me. It's a good plan. We got these kids!

Mom and dad just won the war, had six kids in five years,

Levittown di'n't work out, couldn't go home,
mixed marriage, from the war.

Things hap, cajun catholic wannabe aerospace engineer spy guy,
lands in Alamagordo and environs,
Summer 1944.

Here we are, Equinox, loosing season, 2019,

so some prayers were for real.

Red somthin'r'other butterflies are riding a rare breeze
from the south to the north through my
makepeace home. My peace I give,
he said,
all that passed is unexplored, take all the time

you can imagine.

My wife knows the names of those butterflies,
that's part o'm'peace. Knowin' she cares to remember
such improbably beautiful things;

soul possessed in patience, is she.

footnote 1: Despite Ciba’s efforts to market Ritalin as a ‘pep pill’, the stimulant failed to become a best-seller.  But that was not the end of Ritalin’s story.  As early as the 1930s, psychiatrists working at a children’s psychiatric institution in Rhode Island, USA had noticed that stimulant drugs could have a positive effect on the academic performance and behaviour of troubled children.  Although few psychiatrists took notice of these observations at the time, by the late 1950s, escalating concern about the educational abilities of American children during the height of the Cold War encouraged Ciba to consider a new application for their drug: underachieving schoolchildren.  They received approval from the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market Ritalin to children in 1962 and, almost immediately, it became a best-selling drug (google it I didn't write the footnote pard but I forget where I got it.)

I feel stupid
Am I even human
Just want to go to bed
Sometimes I wish I was dead
I think of all the ways I can die
Maybe it would help if I can just cry
But these tears are trapped
So I just have to adapt
Because im too scared to commit the crime
Shouldn’t I just end it when Im in my prime
I want to but I just can’t
I try to hype my self up and chant
“It will all be better once you leave”
The only goal I set in life, and that I can’t even achieve
Why can’t I do it
I am done with all this ****
Society takes ahold of everyone's mind
And makes them all blind
Am I the only one that can see
See how none of us are actually free
Everyone lives peacefully in all the lies
If I didn’t have eyes
Maybe I would be happy
But the cards I was dealt with was ******
None of these standards do any good
Makes people want to get rid
Get rid of everything
And you have to wonder why teenagers are always upset and cling
Its because they are trying to stay strong
Some of them don’t know if they are going to last long
We fight on
Wondering if we want to see another dawn
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to
Maybe if you knew
Knew how bad it was
And why I always need gauze
You would help
….oh….sorry…..your busy….
Goodbye….

There has to be more to Life

Than these fervent hungers

Bumper to bumper

Traffic

Jambalaya

Over powering flavors

Of cauldrons and ether...

                                The fevers of Need

Checklist buckets of Lusts

The Must-Haves, wanting,

All of it, for more... (and more)

More Over the rainbows

And the somewhere's

Else

Not yet devoured / eaten away

The molds fur-coat on rotten fruit

Grey a color of the unseeing,

Giving fever

Yearning for remedy /

                          Hand to mouth

Mc-Stuffin' and stuck

Without knowing our own feelings

Hurting ourselves just to relieve the numbness.

There has to be more...


In the loving eyes

of wakefulness, new

Without a fear or the fading becoming jaded

Green as Envy

The morning is at last seen / For the first time

                     Being alive / full on Wonder

And Beloved

                     More
                                 Over
                      Life ...

A rainbow of free will

And wide Freedom

Skies...

How should I thank all

this ...?

*(Tis of thee... Oh Life!)

The line - I never promised you a rose garden
and with me finishing it I added "at all"
The line - I'm here for the party - and me even
though they didn't put under my name in the high
school yearbook, "Where's the party" like a
hoody dropout buddy of mine got!
The line - Take her she's all I got - I added
"she's more than enough"
The line - I'm just an Okie from Muskogee with
my addition "obviously"
The line - Jambalaya crawfish pie - my addition
"sounds good to me even"
The line - Smoky Mountain Rain - I add on
"when it rains, it pours, of course, but when
I'm around it comes down in torrents."
The line - When my baby loves me -my add on
"when, though, I think".
That's all for now.

I’m predisposed to Italian food,
  even when it’s bad

I’d rather live in a period house,
  old windows poorly clad

I tend to favor contact sports,
  over all the other kind

My mind was trained to like these things,
  though better I would find

It wasn’t out of malice,
  or a sense that I was best

I drank the open chalice,
  never beating on my chest

With time my views have broadened,
  and my edges softened too

My life a jambalaya
 —and the truth a changing stew

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

Panoply of mystical elements of holly day style
breathe prez sense frostily exhaled aired
per millennia athwart
(this terrestrial spaceship planet Earth)
two plus seventeen carousel rides resonated
veritable pantheon of pagan rituals
and quirky superstitions lit
(akin to a lit Christmas tree)

starry eyed imagination
as catalyst viz **** Sapiens
furrowed stern brow of forehead
aft stemmed whilst Santa oft puzzling
(allocating suitable gifts)
inducing him to tug thought generating beard
pondering, whence agents provocateurs
receive just desserts

fueled hodge podge, mish mashed, helter skelter
eclectic December twenty fifth
encompassing tens of thousands previous generations
bred despacito fixtures via paganism,
Manichaeism, Jainism, et cetera
ancient brutish credos, ethos, faiths
brewed nebulous concoction
within mindset of early mankind

loose confection, confederation, conglomeration
indiscriminately torquing, vetting, whetting
disparate constituent beliefs
contagion wrought spirit paradigm
inculcating oral tradition Madonna and child
occupying high chair
whereat superstitions birthed patchwork
comprising divergent ensemble heralding

tender petsmart impact, where world wide web populated
with sacrificial pacification sans deity
via oblation, immolation, flagellation appeasing *******
borrow wing, vis a vis amalgamated viz Roman sol invictus
wrought fiery brimstone tempting those who dared
assert contrary fledgling jambalaya outlook
provoking regally supreme sacerdotal wiseman
punishing opposing incorporating

novel modus operandi explaining sacrilegious worship
such heretics pitched headlong
into fiendish frothing furnace
forcing obeisance toward primitive popular
identified, honored, glorified father figure
expressing devotion re:
decking the halls of the mountain king,
whence boughs of Juniper sprigs contriving wreaths

sanctifying twisted brambles via sprinkling angel dust
(actually cremated remains of malefactors
stripped of habiliments) during bleak winter
unwittingly interweaving nascent (futuristic)
formally codified bona fied religions
unknowingly, tacitly, silently rendering
quintessential premises obliging
layperson to foreswear locally rooted secular treatises

trounced, trumpeted unction voided
wishy washy antithetical blind faith coalescing edicts
over course of time became established
Greco-Roman imposed group think
disallowing cynics,
diametrically emerging fanatics, skeptics
who (if he/she did not recant
recalcitrant recommended recourse

faced torture amidst throng of madding crowd
as entertainment and forewarning gall
asper those who held steadfast dissimilar views
taught since birth, when citizenry reared
as just a little drummer boy/ girl pipsqueak
taught to stay the course (sans straight and true)
bound without freedom to express contrary aspects
of ways and whyfores, which accepted traditions
controlled each green day

and silent night, wherefore unimaginable ogres
lined straying hip cats
eventually ensnared within warpath,
whence law of the land lend scimitar to smite
any mortal man, woman
or child with flaming torches
licking the heretical body electric,
while defiant individuals
left to burn into decimated
charcoal blackened, ashen corpse.

I eat the pearls in my oatmeal eye
as perfect defects and ravens jambalaya.
moon-****** and a taste acquired…
I gather where I mostly disperse
No Self Required.

Just books and Islands.

But flies got in.
And grapes died on the vine.
your teddy bear watched you
Lie to Your Self…
and thunder spoke your language
when a wailing
was a polite
hat.