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Anais Vionet Oct 2023
It’s Sunday afternoon and several of us, Leong, Sunny, Anna, Lisa and her new BF Dave (well, he isn’t ‘new,’ he’s 26) and I are watching an NFL football game. The Eagles vs the Jets.

There’s a platter of wings, fries, celery and dips on the low-white table for grazing and everyone’s multitasking while watching the game. Leong, Lisa and I on iPads, Anna, and Dave are on laptops and Sunny has a book.

I’m rooting for the Jets, although they’re the underdogs and given little chance. Dave’s for the Eagles, he believes they’re SuperBowl bound and he may be right.

After every good Jets play, like a first down, or defensive tackle or a score, I start snapping my finger - like the dancing Jet hoodlums in ‘West Side Story’ and sing:

“When you're a Jet,
you’re a Jet all your life
all your kids will be Jets
and even your wife.”

When I did it the first time, Dave chuckled. Lisa patted his arm, saying, “You’ll get used to it.” I’ve only done it twenty or thirty times since then and everyone’s ignoring me.

“I could be a songwriter, you know,” I said, “just give up this life of college drudgery and hang with T-Swift”. No one denied my obvious talent.

A huge Eagles lineman bust through the Jets o-line, throwing QB Zach Wilson to the turf, “Jeez,” Anna said.
“That guy’s not an Eagle,” I protested indignantly, “he’s a condor.” I was hoping for a flag but none were thrown.

“I want some steak”, I announced suddenly, to no one and everybody, switching subjects as quickly as a brain synapse fires.
“Do you know,” I reasoned extemporaneously, “that a diet of nothing but healthy prime-rib or ribeye steak can practically eliminate the chance of coming down with mad-lettuce-disease?”

“Mad-lettuce-disease?” Sunny asked, looking up from her book with a smirk.
“Middle America,” I began, Leong groaned and Lisa rolled her eyes at Dave, who smiled.
“That’s where all our vegetables come from,” I said, “the red states on the electoral maps,” I clarified even further.

“Well, how can we explain simple, decent, hard-working people falling in love with a lying, craven, reality-TV huckster like Trump?” I asked rhetorically,  looking around for an answer. When no answer was forthcoming, I supplied it:
“Mad-lettuce-disease!” I proclaimed, “Those people are eating the ‘vegetables’ they grow!” Giving the word ‘vegetables’ the same scorn I might lavish on ‘cigarettes’.

“If we all just stuck to a healthy, all-steak diet, ‘Mad-lettuce-disease’ would fade away and America would be saved.” I concluded, like a lawyer finishing a summation to a jury.
I expected applause, or at least a few “Amens” but there were only a few grunts and maybe a chuckle.

On the screen, the Jets defense broke through the Eagles o-line and quarterback Jalen Hurts, under pressure, threw an interception. I jumped to my feet yelling,“YES!” and begin snapping again:

“When you're a Jet
you’re a Jet all the way
from your first sorry breath
to your last dying day”

I love football, and the Jets won!
FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99
Added today to commemorate the birthday of Carl Sandburg
Alan Black Feb 2015
Well Benny just bought some F-35's,
so he can hit Iran with no regrets.
He knows that Rupert will help him
and FOX will make sure the truth is supressed.

B-b-b-Benny and the Jets.

When Iran hits back then they'll spin the facts,
say the attack was unprovoked.
Benny thinks he's so slick,
but he's making mistakes
he might be the next one to get smoked.

B-b-b-Benny and the Jets.

He's got 400 Nukes,
chemical weapons too,
but you won't read that in a magazine, no, no.

B-b-b-Benny and the Jets.
F-35's are Stealth fighters, that can fly into nealry anyones airspace undetected, bomb a target, and be home in time for the counter attack, to pretend to be shocked at the agression of the evil Muslim Iranians. I wonder what we'll do when Russia and China jump in to support Iran.
Netanyahu's days are numbered.

www.infiniteunknown.net/tag/israel/
Robin Carretti Aug 2018
This is far from a
car S-p-a--C-y
Oh! My? Crossover traveler
The Phyton
Top of the rank
collision-course
New job space
planning tech magic cursor

Magical Podcast*

Do we have space
Sci-Fi-Hi Meeting
Googling creating playing
Cheating Overexaggerating
And faking our
(dead)lines

Not meeting our deadlines
What is the right time?
Spacewalking on the yellow brick
the road you are my sunshine*
"Million light years away from being rich"?

     Lucy in the Sky
       LSD-Little space devil
No/space for Jack the shinning
of diamonds, this isn't Oz
Emerald City or spin-off

Climb the ladder space objects clutter
Posh-Rich Witch is which
The last epidemic standup comic

Crawling having a ball Spalding

That Spiderwomen kvetch
Wolftie face switched
Fox lies moms moon pies
The collision of the moon
Space monkey baboon
The equation or burning
Sun people in devastation

Magic God

What time holds the
Mass control Einstein the professor
The brain exploding stars
Study hall those equations

In Princeton New Jersey
Those tiny particles lost in space
This corporation division
*
Space Between_

*Hard paper scissors and
Mr. Rock

It's time to money pound
The Big Ben clock
"Do we act like the only
one on this planet"                  
The Singularity
The multiplicity
The burning sun
*
War of the Military
Hot fun "Twin City"
Medieval twin planets

She's brace-space and he's
Well known physic
energy flowing one
step beyond collision of '
     Two Gods"

Magic space-lotus love of "Venus_
Pond

The Mall of America Star Spangle Banner
Next International flight became a winner

Plants and animals
The primal magic
Catching the
planets there both
emerging
The submerging eye
Space-out engaging

The civilization nightmare
On the cusp right here
Martian stripe and stars
Wipeout species of mars
Gravitatious collide of lovers
Confused about earthlings
More siblings another planet colliding

Like a space odyssey ground control to
      "Major Tom"
Fe fi fun on space run
Our Earth Mondadori
Spicy pleasure taste for
Chicken Tandoori
Magical dish
Make a wish

Magic hands believing

Metagalactic space and time
Holy God realistic
Osprey someone is the prey
In the movie magical classic
Breakfast at Tiffanys
Holiday mind dressed up window
"Out of our comfort zone
eating to the end twilight zone widow"

The extra enchanted evening
For the Moms only
Our heads over space
heels hit the ceiling

Eggs Benedict, the salt wasn't kosher
Artsy Audrey Hepburn don't push her

Celestial Ocean Space Steven Universe
The Christmas madness sale
Poison Ivy Pointsetta what
a vendetta
Interstellar meeting her
new race feeling out of place
Adulation like a prosecution
Space collide anytime
can explode

Two worlds become tragic
Space station not a game
A haunting catastrophic
Collision Titanic ship

Magically got more modified
Needing a space program the
spy to identify  

Dragonfly to Madame Butterfly
Space of magic crime-space
All spots, not Dalmatian
Space wings set up for Superman
Magic fan rising adrenaline
Monster cookies for Madeline

Fire and Ice Global warming
wildfires now the collision
On another planet warning
Miracle blessing of magic
Someone before or after
just to touch them

We cannot stop this craziness
The outburst goes pop the weasel

Magic place portal
Something in the way
to crumble like a baby
firstborn rocking her cradle

The curiosity space philosophy
Like breed of cats,
Licking tongue envelope
The cats eye Egyptian
Terrified space milk the tabby
Meeting my space hubby

Microscopic became two dots .-.
Space became a new buried plot
Is this all I got Twitter
Home run ball and
New York Dodgers
Brooklyn bat *******

So compelled to the computer
Designed the Rover robot lover
Magical Elton John
wedding
space planner
Across the Universe
John Lennon
Bennie and the Jets
Like a science
Teacher's pets

Eyes spaced out the magic place within**
So sacred magic hat Rabbit
Mountain bear Airspace Hobbit
Roll over Beethoven
The dog bone playing space I tunes

The spaceship magic
fingers piano
Plays one enchanted evening
Let me see the beautiful
new awakening
When Robin sings
Her magical wand
Lights up the world
of hands magical awaits

Remember "A Poem" can be magic
Collison in Space or Good earth how do we collide into one another planet some fire exposed in our words can we change the way we feel we collide again but what happens when our planets collide
1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body
were not the soul, what is the soul?

2
The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
     balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
     his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
     and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
     folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
     contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
     the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
     silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
     horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
     dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or
     cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
     horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, *****,
     good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown
     after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
     muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
     suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d
     neck and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s
     breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
     the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

3
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.

This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
     beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
     and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
     massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal
     love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the
     clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he
     had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
     fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
     you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of
     the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
     by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round
     his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I
     swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them,
     and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
     all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
     was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
     likewise ungovernable,
Hair, *****, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
     diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
     and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
     love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
     prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born
     of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
     outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
     exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
     daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
     sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

6
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
     utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
     the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
     soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the
     laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
     much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
     no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
     the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?

7
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.

In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized
     arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings,
     aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in
     parlors and lecture-rooms?)

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers
     in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
     through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
     back through the centuries?)

8
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and
     times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful
     than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
     that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

9
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
     nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the
     soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
     that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s,
     father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
     sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the
     jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
    ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
     finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-*****, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body
     or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, *******, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
     love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and
     tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
     meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
     toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
     marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
     the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
Tom Spencer Jul 2015
Summer morning -
pink jets of clouds
splash out
from the golden well of the east
falling just short
of an ebbing moon.

Streams of swallows
flutter and glide
over the garden -
they are all flying
in the same direction
as if erupting

from the sun’s waking pulse.
Just for a moment
one of the birds hangs
perfectly still -
like the top-most drop of water
from a fountain before it turns

to face the glittering pool.
Beneath them all
the hummingbird
makes her rounds
and a dove scratches the earth
below the feeder

keeping an wary eye
on the scribbling intruder.
So many summer mornings -
too many summer mornings
I have wasted
worrying about the world

and my place in it –
absent from my own body
and breath
the cage of my ribs
rising, falling, and pausing
without me. Meanwhile,

another swallow
stills her wings.
Buoyed by an unseen breeze
she is both feathered sail
and cresting wave as she slices
over my shoulder bearing west.


Tom Spencer © 2015
Marshal Gebbie Jun 2018
Steven my boy,

We coasted into a medieval pub in the middle of nowhere in wildest Devon to encounter the place in uproarious bedlam. A dozen country madams had been imbibing in the pre wedding wine and were in great form roaring with laughter and bursting out of their lacy cotton frocks. Bunting adorned the pub, Union Jack was aflutter everywhere and a full size cut out of HM the Queen welcomed visitors into the front door. Cucumber sandwiches and a heady fruit punch were available to all and sundry and the din was absolutely riotous……THE ROYAL WEDDING WAS UNDERWAY ON THE GIANT TV ON THE BAR WALL….and we were joining in the mood of things by sinking a bevy of Bushmills Irish whiskies neat!

Now…. this is a major event in the UK.

Everybody loves Prince Harry, he is the terrible tearaway of the Royal family, he has been caught ******* sheila’s in all sorts of weird circumstance. Now the dear boy is to be married to a beauty from the USA….besotted he is with her, fair dripping with love and adoration…..and the whole country loves little Megan Markle for making him so.

The British are famous for their pageantry and pomp….everything is timed to the second and must be absolutely….just so. Well….Nobody told the most Reverend Michael Curry this…. and he launched into the most wonderful full spirited Halleluiah sermon about the joyous “Wonder of Love”. He went on and on for a full 14 minutes, and as he proceeded on, the British stiff upper lips became more and more rigidly uncomfortable with this radical departure from protocol. Her Majesty the Queen stood aghast and locked her beady blue eyes in a riveting, steely glare, directed furiously at the good Reverend….to no avail, on he went with his magic sermon to a beautiful rousing ******….and an absolute stony silence in the cavernous interior of that vaulting, magnificent cathedral. Prince Harry and his lovely bride, (whose wedding the day was all about), were delighted with Curry’s performance….as was Prince William, heir to the Throne, who wore a fascinating **** eating grin all over his face for the entire performance.

Says a lot, my friend, about the refreshing values of tomorrows Royalty.

We rolled out of that country pub three parts cut to the wind, dunno how we made it to our next destination, but we had one hellava good time at that Royal Wedding!

The weft and the weave of our appreciation fluctuated wildly with each day of travel through this magnificent and ancient land, Great Britain.

There was soft brilliant summer air which hovered over the undulating green patchwork of the Cotswolds whilst we dined on delicious roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, from an elevated position in a medieval country inn..... So magnificent as to make you want to weep with the beauty of it all….and the quaint thatched farmhouse with the second story multi paned windows, which I understood, had been there, in that spot, since the twelfth century. Our accommodation, sleeping beneath oaken beams within thick stone walls, once a pen for swine, now a domiciled overnight bed and pillow of luxury with white cotton sheets for weary Kiwi travellers.

The sadness of the Cornish west coast, which bore testimony to tragedy for the hard working tin miners of the 1800s. A sharp decrease in the international tin price in 1911 destituted whole populations who walked away from their life’s work and fled to the New World in search of the promise of a future. Forlorn brick ruins adorned stark rocky outcrops right along the coastline and inland for miles. Lonely brick chimneys silhouetted against sharp vertical cliffs and the ever crashing crescendo of the pounding waves of the cold Atlantic ocean.

No parking in Padstow….absolutely NIL! You parked your car miles away in the designated carpark at an overnight cost….and with your bags in tow, you walked to your digs. Now known as Padstein, this beautiful place is now populated with eight Rick Stein restaurants and shops dotted here and there.

We had a huge feed of piping hot fish and chips together with handles of cold ale down at his harbour side fish and chip restaurant near the wharfs…place was packed with people, you had to queue at the door for a table, no reservations accepted….Just great!

Clovelly was different, almost precipitous. This ancient fishing village plummeted down impossibly steep cliffs….a very rough, winding cobbled stone walkway, which must have taken years to build by hand, the only way down to the huge rock breakwater which harboured the fishing boats Against the Atlantic storms. And in a quaint little cottagey place, perched on the edge of a cliff, we had yet another beautiful Devonshire tea in delicate, white China cups...with tasty hot scones, piles of strawberry jam and a huge *** of thick clotted cream…Yum! Too ****** steep to struggle back up the hill so we spent ten quid and rode all the way up the switch back beneath the olive canvass canopy of an old Land Rover…..money well spent!

Creaking floorboards and near vertical, winding staircases and massive rock walls seemed to be common characteristics of all the lovely old lodging houses we were accommodated in. Sarah, our lovely daughter in law, arranged an excellent itinerary for us to travel around the SW coast staying in the most picturesque of places which seeped with antiquity and character. We zooped around the narrow lanes, between the hedgerows in our sharp little VW golf hire car And, with Sarah at the helm, we never got lost or missed a beat…..Fantastic effort, thank you so much Sarah and Solomon on behalf of your grateful In laws, Janet and Marshal, who loved every single moment of it all!

Memories of a lifetime.

Wanted to tell the world about your excitement, Janet, on visiting Stoke on Trent.

This town is famous the world over for it’s pottery. The pottery industry has flourished here since the middle ages and this is evidenced by the antiquity of the kilns and huge brick chimneys littered around the ancient factories. Stoke on Trent is an industrial town and it’s narrow, winding streets and congested run down buildings bear testimony to past good times and bad.

We visited “Burleigh”.

Darling Janet has collected Burleigh pottery for as long as I have known her, that is almost 40 years. She loves Burleigh and uses it as a showcase for the décor of our home.

When Janet first walked into the ancient wooden portals of the Burleigh show room she floated around on a cloud of wonder, she made darting little runs to each new discovery, making ooh’s and aah’s, eyes shining brightly….. I trailed quietly some distance behind, being very aware that I must not in any way imperil this particular precious bubble.

We amassed a beautiful collection of plates, dishes, bowls and jugs for purchase and retired to the pottery’s canal side bistro,( to come back to earth), and enjoy a ploughman’s lunch and a *** of hot English breakfast tea.

We returned to Stoke on Trent later in the trip for another bash at Burleigh and some other beautiful pottery makers wares…..Our suit cases were well filled with fragile treasures for the trip home to NZ…..and darling Janet had realised one of her dearest life’s ambitions fulfilled.

One of the great things about Britain was the British people, we found them willing to go out of their way to be helpful to a fault…… and, with the exception of BMW people, we found them all to be great drivers. The little hedgerow, single lane, winding roads that connect all rural areas, would be a perpetual source of carnage were it not for the fact that British drivers are largely courteous and reserved in their driving.

We hired a spacious ,powerful Nissan in Dover and acquired a friend, an invaluable friend actually, her name was “Tripsy” at least that’s what we called her. Tripsy guided us around all the byways and highways of Britain, we couldn’t have done without her. I had a few heated discussions with her, I admit….much to Janet’s great hilarity…but Tripsy won out every time and I quickly learned to keep my big mouth shut.

By pure accident we ended up in Cumbria, up north of the Roman city of York….at a little place in the dales called “Middleton on Teesdale”….an absolutely beautiful place snuggled deep in the valleys beneath the huge, heather clad uplands. Here we scored the last available bed in town at a gem of a hotel called the “Brunswick”. Being a Bank Holiday weekend everything, everywhere was booked out. The Brunswick surpassed ordinary comfort…it was superlative, so much so that, in an itinerary pushed for time….we stayed TWO nights and took the opportunity to scout around the surrounding, beautiful countryside. In fact we skirted right out to the western coastline and as far north as the Scottish border. Middleton on Teesdale provided us with that late holiday siesta break that we so desperately needed at that time…an exhausting business on a couple of old Kiwis, this holiday stuff!

One of the great priorities on getting back to London was to shop at “Liberty”. Great joy was had selecting some ornate upholstering material from the huge range of superb cloth available in Liberty’s speciality range.

The whole organisation of Liberty’s huge store and the magnificent quality of goods offered was quite daunting. Janet & I spent quite some time in that magnificent place…..and Janet has a plan to select a stylish period chair when we get back to NZ and create a masterpiece by covering it with the ***** bought from Liberty.

In York, beautiful ancient, York. A garrison town for the Romans, walled and once defended against the marauding Picts and Scots…is now preserved as a delightful and functional, modern city whilst retaining the grandeur, majesty and presence of its magnificent past.

Whilst exploring in York, Janet and I found ourselves mixing with the multitude in the narrow medieval streets paved with ancient rock cobbles and lined with beautifully preserved Tudor structures resplendent in whitewash panel and weathered, black timber brace. With dusk falling, we were drawn to wild violins and the sound of stamping feet….an emanation from within the doors of an old, burgundy coloured pub…. “The Three Legged Mare”.

Fortified, with a glass of Bushmills in hand, we joined the multitude of stomping, singing people. Rousing to the percussion of the Irish drum, the wild violin and the deep resonance of the cello, guitars and accordion…..The beautiful sound of tenor voices harmonising to the magic of a lilting Irish lament.

We stayed there for an hour or two, enchanted by the spontaneity of it all, the sheer native talent of the expatriates celebrating their heritage and their culture in what was really, a beautiful evening of colour, music and Ireland.

Onward, across the moors, we revelled in the great outcrops of metamorphic rock, the expanses of flat heather covering the tops which would, in the chill of Autumn, become a spectacular swath of vivid mauve floral carpet. On these lonely tracts of narrow road, winding through the washes and the escarpments, the motorbike boys wheeled by us in screaming pursuit of each other, beautiful machines heeling over at impossible angles on the corners, seemingly suicidal yet careening on at breakneck pace, laughing the danger off with the utter abandon of the creed of the road warrior. Descending in to the rolling hills of the cultivated land, the latticework of, old as Methuselah, massive dry built stone fences patterning the contours in a checker board of ancient pastoral order. The glorious soft greens of early summer deciduous forest, the yellow fields of mustard flower moving in the breeze and above, the bluest of skies with contrails of ever present high flung jets winging to distant places.

Britain has a flavour. Antiquity is evidenced everywhere, there is a sense of old, restrained pride. A richness of spirit and a depth of character right throughout the populace. Britain has confidence in itself, its future, its continuity. The people are pleasant, resilient and thoroughly likeable. They laugh a lot and are very easy to admire.

With its culture, its wonderful history, its great Monarchy and its haunting, ever present beauty, everywhere you care to look….The Britain of today is, indeed, a class act.

We both loved it here Steven…and we will return.

M.

Hamilton, New Zealand

21 June 2018
Dedicated with love to my two comrades in arms and poets supreme.....Victoria and Martin.
You were just as I imagined you would be.
M.
Kyle Kulseth May 2013
Gertrude, Stradbrook, River and Roslyn,
off of McMillan, my thoughts froze on Osborne
A drive through the Village on slippery streets
Bought records, drained pints
                        swallowed down summer nights
Back home in Wyoming--think I'll be fine
                         'til some night, filled to gills
                          trip through streets with a stranger
                          and sing "One Great City"
                          through swollen closed throat

And I remember...

Confusion Corner, commuting through cold streets
Watched you drive as the daylight died
I narrow my Focus,
                                     you eased into traffic
The Assiniboine ran and was watched by Riel

January.
Johnson's Terminal.
London Fogs.
Took Yellow Dogs for long walks
and Exchanged now for then. Snapped pictures, again and again.

Snow up to my hips
Spent a night at St. Boniface
We cased a cathedral, your friends seemed to like me.

Lines ran from reserves, over oceans and borders.
Your hair ran down shoulders, brown waves for a blanket.

Winterpeg, Manitscoldout
Portage & Main
Shivering, smiling
at a Tavern Uniting with friends,
'til we took the King's Head...
We took the King's Head.
Long live the king.

January.
Magic Thailand.
Curry soup, curried thoughts thawing,
melting, falling from pickled brains,
                      through lips chapping

I donned my Tuxedo, chopped down Seven Oaks...
Your Catholic heart spoke
     reached out for St. James.
     St. Vital answered behind Fort Garry's walls...

Our hearts, they were neighbourhoods
And the streets were all salt.

Blistered paint on your blue '02 Focus

To the City Center of the continent's middle
Form a Perimeter
Frame a city
Bullseye, center, a Gold gilded Boy
he leans into sky, as they sing, as I hear.
The road North Ended--November, it was.
I think, one year prior, in Robin's Donuts
front doors swayed, on hinges that sighed metallic,
I caught your eyes--organic, unplanned--
               through fog frosting lenses
Caught them, held on
               Held your deep brown
               In my gunmetal blue

Seasons will chase--haste to follow more seasons
White streaks to green
and the Red River runs.
When they score at the ballpark,
"Go Goldeyes!" the cheer sounds
Cheer. Cheer!
The Guess Who still ****,
but the Jets completed their round trip
"Go, Jets, go!" so the cheer goes.
"Cheers!" Cheers like bells.
             Bells
           Pealing
Peeling like your sunburnt back
            Bells
          Ringing
           Striking
Bells singing long
Bells sounding loudly from Grace Bible Church
  baptizing Baltimore as it kisses Osborne

Bells ringing. Round sounds.
Round rings for fingertips touching
Bells
Round sounds that hang on my neck
and sing me to sleep every night--
remind me how badly you wanted those bells
                I denied you.

They sing "Left and Leaving"
             and show me old scars
          they ring and peal and strike
                         and sing
                         unending.

I remember March of 2008
Dropping my toque in the mud-and-slush street
            We took Pembina Highway
              Ate Vietnamese.

I remember...

Confusion Corner,
Commuting through cold streets,
Watching you drive as the daylight died
In your blue '02 Focus
Ease us back into traffic,
The Assiniboine River.
And Louis Riel.

So tell me...

Comment-allez vous, ce soir?
Je ne suis pas comme ci, comme ça.
K Balachandran Jan 2016
After dark, energies flow in manners that pleases them most
braided together in lust, two king cobras were seen spiraling up
when darkness like a camouflage sets in thickly around,you're
the  marijuana of my mind, seeking far horizons of pleasure.
I willingly seek oblivion, when pink pointed goosebumps
like tarantula's love bites, results of mating time cruelty
infest all over my body's landscape, signatures of ecstasy.

I feel your lips become, moist, soft, honey from each drips
never enough,for me, is it possible to get inebriated more?
Your sighs and moans speak the vocabulary of a forgotten
ancient language love hurriedly resurrected for us from past,
brevity is the crux of that lingo of erupting jets of desire,
it teaches you to moan in fifty different tones in all;even more?

Your sharpened nails etch cave murals on my itching back
that has the searing taste of blood, in hot hot chilly red.
my taste buds of lust, begs for more and more of it.
You are the marijuana fueling my narcotic flights that land
in your misty land, enveloping my senses as a whole.
"The night is still young, hear what the darkness whispers"
I hear you speak like an oracle, on things about to happen.
The people of Canberra, yes they love it, oh yeah

you see I come here after getting ribbed by *******
And teased by so called friends
When all I wanted was to be treated like a Normy
And, yes I did normal things, like watch footy and exercise
And I also ran around town trying to enjoy being a kid
Yes, I was made to be such an *******, I hated it
Me and my brother played cricket in the park
And these two dudes tried to scare us off
I am too fit for them, but I found one city
Was nothing like that, yes the Canberra crowd were nice to me
The first word a kid I hardly knew said to me, was your like us, man
Because he thought I was cool, to his point of view
And I made more school friends, and I found this so fun
Then, I made a friend who ended up going to the Raiders matches
When they started in 1982, and we had a lot of fun going to those matches
Cheering them on till their first grand final in 1987
And we continued it in 1989 and '91 and '92 and then their last premiership back in 1994, and that was the year that I went down to Mawson, where the Raiders leagues club was, and saw the team come home, and I asked my friend we support the Raiders, how about we support the Cannons, you see we play basketball, how about we watch it, the cannons are playing well, so we supported the Canberra Cannons, who were our local basketball team, yes, we saw players like Herb McEachin and Phil Smyth, and Jamie Kennedy and Andy Campbell, and my friend saw him at a course he did, and Willie Simmons, played for them, as well as the Alabama Slammer, who did a add for Captain snooze, it went, ' the Alabama slammer, through on his pygamas, lying on his bunk dreaming of the slam dunk, yes, Canberra was on the map, but like the Raiders they stopped playing really well, like finals well, and unlike the cannons are no more, but then after the Canberra Kookaburras were popular in Rugby Union in the 80s, I think the tune went like this, kookaburras play in the ACT, merry, merry, kings of the Union field was he, play kookaburras play, and we'll win the Sydney comp, well I think that is how it went, but who cares, because later on we got a stronger team , the ACT Brumbies, they were so cool, they won two cups, but this rugby comp was harder to win, and at the same time, the best Canberra team, who won the most cups, were the Canberra Capitals, who are the women's basketball team, yes, 10 out of 12 premierships, yes they are so cool, well the capitals run I think is over, and the Raiders have been doing well in the under 20s, but last year they did well and were thrashed in the grand final, Canberra looked doomed, untill something happened to Canberra in February 2013, and that was a moment that changed Canberra forever, you see I have been following tbe Major league from the USA, and I drove my friend nuts, you see the whole city of Canberra got behind the Raiders, and the cannons and the capitals and the Brumbies, the kookaburras, and we support our local Aussie rules comp, we have the best local comp in Australia, it went national, yes, that is cool, we made mistakes with the implosion of our old hospital, which killed Katie ******, and we at least haven't got a right wing government, back in the 80s, we had no government, but back to where we're at, in February 2013, Canberra changed, yes this was the time of the Canberra winning the Australian baseball Claxton shield baseball comp, from the wooden spoon, yes Canberra us great, and we are putting some great apartments up, to bring people here to live up to it's aboriginal name, meeting place, you see I met some really nice people at sporting events in Canberra, and I don't want that to change, you see Newcastle dudes don't have a good sports following like the Canberra crowd has, yes maybe they have the Jets, in soccer, and the Newcastle knights, but we have the GWS, yes they play 3 normal season matches in our city, so we are the boys in our wonderful city of Canberra, we support the AFL, and the AFL is the greatest game of all. Newcastle local sports is just Newcastle, ours include a miniature national comp, we have the Kanga cup soccer tournament, which is better than the Newcastle jets, yes we are the mighty Canberra crowd, we are making our city so proud, we have better stuff, like sports to suit all walks of life, as well as having the best flower show in the world, called Floriade, how many flower shows have people performing songs at them the way we do, and February has the Multi cultural festival, so let's celebrate the 100 years of Canberra, we ain't shy, the rest of Australia, just thinks their the best.
The end


Sent from my iPhone
If only we could fly like  
those that tweet or hoot
without aid of jet or  
parachute

For I sure don't like  
wings that boom and roar
just so they can take off  
and soar

Ah, to fly without petrol, diesel  
or fuel
Oh, to halt that taloned midair  
duel *

Birds they don't pollute  
the air
nor need they any airline  
fare

So if only I too could rise  
and glide
and let the wind be my  
sole guide

I'd be happy to fly all the  
way to 'em' faraway stars
if I was assured I'd risk  
no charring scars.

Flying without aviation  
formalities
I could be sightseeing  
many more cities

Ah I so wish to fly just  
like a jay or jackdaw
Then I'd fly across all and  
every border
For I'd know nor follow
no man-made law!

If only we needed no darned immigration pass or visa
We could have visited so many more touristy places
Say even the spectacular and popular pyramids of Giza
And we could have known different cultures and races
Ah, a stylish photo next to the leaning tower of Pisa
And return with exotica like a framed pic of the Mona Lisa
*the. Starred line refers to the amazing midair talined fight btw  eagles I watched on the telly.

My  profile pic is from the Internet reflecting this newest poem.
MY FROG MASTERS

How thoughtful were the rainfalls
To water our gardens and flowers
The flowers spread wide garments
To celebrate their terminal beauty

The joyful frogs occupied my pond
To orchestrate their vocal prowess
They taught me to take blind leaps
Like lightning bouncing in the skies

Squatted, stretched, beeped down
I was a millstone on the pond floor
My slippery pond mates wondered
How soft I was in the maritime arts

Mortally rescued in a muddy mood
The clouds sent in rescuing showers
To confirm my firm loss to the frogs
Like a grain of salt cast into the seas


673. MONEY BAGS IN THEIR BODY BAGS

The money bags shopping for their body bags
Waggled through the makeshift supermarkets

Their ancestral homes they plotted modernity
Like the general gathering fine forces together

To the villages they made to return with pride
Like pregnant elephants caught up in the mud

Their desolate villages are deep and sickening
Glowing flamingly in the crucibles of local gins

The dusty and gravy pathways are like furnace
Burning the leather off from their frozen souls

Traditional birth attendants cut off their cords
And zipped the money bags in their body bags

674. A GLORIOUS DAY

The new day spoke powerfully
Like a war making superpower
And his voice roared forcefully
Like the skies forced to shower

The sunrays came dynamically
Like love responding to silence
Beauty crawled in submissively
Like the mixed arts and science

One eagle soared energetically
Like lions feuding in the colony
Far clouds relocated peacefully
Like souls betrayed to harmony

The breeze sighed thoughtfully
Like horses galloping on the lea
Inspiration unfolded thankfully
Crowns monuments with a pea

675.  THE FOG BANK

The sun had gone to pay our bill in the fog bank
The world foggily crawled into the strong rooms
Darkness demonstrated her strong mindfulness
Provided for the strong gale with lurking shrieks

The black paint billers snowballed to our dreams
With the bill of exchange for wild sunny excesses
Ghostly bats emerged with the bill of indictment
In demonstration of our acrophobic dispositions

We packaged the sunrays for our folk memories
To reassure the day of our eternal followerships
We cherish our follow-throughs in our dark beat
To usher the sunlight out of the hollow fog bank

676. THE PROTRACTED INTERNECINE FEUD

These things had happened before we were born
Like sulphur deep into our fresh hearts they burn
Now we stumble on the bumpy terrains in horror
Like one frightened by ghosts in a standing mirror

The internecine feud has razed our men of valour
With their carcasses dumped in their cold parlour
Our community cattle graze in the barren pasture
Like the unrepentant sinners awaiting the rapture

For our plight the once glorious sky is grown pale
Like the ***** fetching territorial waters with pail
The storms have rolled off the catalogues for rain
All our efforts to mop up the mess end up in vain



677. THE AREA LEADERS

They cracked coconuts on the heads for the crown
And embraced our days with their castaway pollen
Sadness and sorrow have dyed our garment brown
With the strongest song sung when night has fallen

These are the blinding dusts from our barn’s grains
They breed cunning serpents in the soft pasturages
They are failed cargoes on our broad societal trains
They dedicate our common committee to outrages

Now our days seek deliverance from their tentacles
Like the colourful fields immersed in gloomy beauty
They play our eyeballs with the stenciled spectacles
With our consciences to sight and found us off duty

To rescue us the colossal clouds were born gadarene
Our communal life was willed to pageants of gaieties
Then moonlight stories held us for a larger gathering
Now all the objects we sight dress up like cold deities

678. THE LAST DESCENDANTS

The rapacious thunderstorms ***** the skies for their tears
The hot embers were born to glow mourning the late forest
The moon crawled out of the blue like a great grandmother
Cuddling her descendants wrapped up in her ancient shawls

The wild waves were weird weavers weaving withering wails
The captioned wigs gyrated on stunning shoes upon auctions
The little creatures crouched in primeval baskets of the night
To gnaw at the generational tubers in the creative farmlands

The dazzling specimens of dentitions relaxed in water basins
Like bright red artistic architectures on potent ocean boards
Golden hearts glow in the threatening prisms of the furnace
As beautiful sunset defines her beauties in her nightly corset

It had been a sweet pill for the past descendants to swallow
Depending on the colonial masters for loaves, lore and lures
Our creativity had been packaged in their mortal depravities
Like the tranquil days resting sorrowfully upon the dark oars

The centenarian thunders downgraded our minute whispers
We had been kept upon our toes by the eternally sworn foes
At last our worthy artworks have worn their wormy catwalks
The refreshed dawns greet our easting days in their greenery



679. VICTIMS IN THE VALLEY

The victims in the dark rally
Caged, dried and browning
Therein their meanings tally
With waves born drowning

In the depth of a cold valley
Horrible nobles are cultures
Like pilgrims in the dark alley
Willed to ravenous vultures

The victims all robed in tears
With hearts like potter’s clay
For pains they have no fears
Only mimed games they play

For victory awaits the victims
Alien to a blind mimed game
Glorious are eternal rhythms
For death Christ died to tame

680. THE GIANT SCARS

These are our giant threatening scars
Engraved on our demonstrative heads
Our sympathies crawled on superstars
Weeping for us on their moonlit beds

They threatened us with nasal sounds
Like thunderclouds seasoned to burst
For us their galleries are out of bounds
Behind the iron bars plagued with rust

Our patience passed their wildest tests
Like the lions roaring in the thick jungle
On the heart of the Lord our faith rests
Like numbers posted on the right angle

681.  A LADY

In a lady’s handbag
Is her hidden hunchback
Stuffed with her heart ache
For the pains relieving groom

In a lady’s tender smile
Is hidden miles of similitude
Marked with the zebra crossings
For the ever winning marathoner

In a tender lady’s heart
Is hidden her cowboy’s hat
Soaring within the white clouds
To soothe the earth with the latter rains

682. BRING BACK OUR GIRLS

Bring back our homesick girls
Their vacant cradles are bleeding
Bring back our innocent girls
On the chariots of fire descending

Bring back our suckling girls
Their feeding bottles are weeping
Bring back our infant girls
Their mothers’ ******* are heavy

Bring back our harmless girls
The united universe is thundering
Bring back our dewy girls
In the sharp sun rising in the skies

Bring back our beautiful girls
Like light plucked from darkness
Bring back our glorious girls
Aboard the shore-bound waves

Bring back our worthy girls
On their fresh faces our lights seek to glow
Bring back our living girls
Our fountains of joy are bubbling to burst

For our returned girls the skies shall bear
Roaring rivers, singing seas, chiming clouds
With gongs and songs, pianos and praises
Dulcet dulcimers and documentable dances
With healthy hymns and eloquent embraces
All nations shall into a common cathedral flow

683. ****** GENEOLOGIES

They electrify their demonic high tables with old fears
Only their ****** genealogies are bookmarked to reign
The sight of their portables whetted our eyes to tears
We are reinforced by the clouds born to the later rain

Our skins have renovated the sickening cattle wagons
With our dreams flying upon huge smokes in the skies
Beneath their tables we abridge their creaking jargons
Upon their floors with our generational landmark tiles

The dew drops dropped like old crops upon our brows
To soften the veils falling to the flaming edged swords
The flaming hearted sword of the penetrating sunrays
Born to pluck us alive from our hotly bandaged bruises

684. LET US SPEAK UP

The light is climbing downstairs
And danger is sprouting abroad
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light is melted on the glades
And terror grazing our eyelashes
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light is late and lately buried
The mourners are on danger list
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light has divorced the grave
Her grave clothes are dew dyed
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

Silence is a forgotten tombstone
Lost in the din of cold morticians
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

685.  THE SUN

The sun smiles on all prescriptively
Like the waves spreading on shores
The green grass glows descriptively
Like the full moon upon dark sores

The sun is a tailor fixing the buttons
Preparing the sky for incoming stars
Like the weaverbird weaving cottons
To conceal the day’s damnable scars

The sun is a marker on diurnal pages
Tall grace he bestows on the flowers
The sun retains his graces for all ages
Bees and butterflies are his followers

Our common laughter is endangered
When sun bows down in big setbacks
All mortals have the starlets fingered
When the night comes on drawbacks

686. UNTIL HERE

(For Lou Lenart and his team)

Their floods came seeking Jewish bloods
Like streams they roared for our dreams
They emerged as columns of soldier ants
Like whirlwinds they zoomed towards us

Until here we were crumbs for the reptiles
Until here we were like airborne cloudlets
But here the sudden change unveiled to us
From here the elusive victory embraced us

With skeletal jets we fought like bold lions
Soared like eagles and spoke like thunders
We conquered columns of invading armies
The bleeding armies turned back and blank

From here we turned from victims to victors
From here enemies’ defeat our greatest feat
Upon this memorable bridge it all happened
Victories leapt upon our pool like joyful frogs

687.  JOY UNLIMITED

The fledging sun offers its rays
And the rays offer golden trays
For our joy a platform to spray
Rowdy paratroops like thunder
To scoop roses from pure oasis

Our joy is ripe upon celebrations
Our celebrations with decorations
Decorations with documentations
Documentations for all generations
Generations in our joyful habitations

688. ANOTER RAINING DAY

The dark clouds are wandering river basins
Spiral bounded by breakable outer casings
The rivers and the seas display empty cups
For the swift blessings descending the tops

The rains come as defense troops’ missiles
And the drowning lands look like imbeciles
Now we are groaning in the watered claws
With the liberated scales marking our flaws

The retreating clouds crawl away in a belch
Dumping the missing cargoes on the beach
The winds bow in a state of shock in a cord
Praying and fasting for a visit from the Lord

689. GRANDMOTHER

Grandmother, please wake and get up
The sky is quarreling with her husband
Soon they will spill their freezing sweat
On our bodies for us to catch dead cold

Grandmother, please sneeze not louder
The sky and her husband are quarreling
Soon they will send old floods like gales
To sweep mankind away from the world

Grandmother, you are everything I have
My moon, my sun and my morning stars
Provoke not the couples with your cough
Lest they refill their greasily wraths again

Grandmother, the big reptiles have come
With their lethal grandchildren following
They are laced with secret burial shrouds
With sympathetic tears tearing their eyes

Grandmother, I kiss you a shaky goodbye
With broken pains roaring within my soul
Grandmother, where are your groundnuts
To conduct my solo heart as you sing away

690.  A NIGHT WALK THROUGH THE FOREST

Lured away on an alluring dream by fables
I trudged along the grassy paths with fears
Upon my steps spilling the prevailing dews
The shadows bowed their heads in silence
Like the soul issued with a death sentence

The night crawlers emerged above boards
Throwing light upon contrary communities
In their hearts and eyes were painful tears
Crawling down their exaggerated eye *****
Like a handbag filled with rotten cosmetics

The shadows were bold animators’ shelves
Stage managing the horror motion pictures
In the ghostly commodities I met wild hosts
Lifeworks evaporated from my fresh breath
Like foreign tragedies in common comedies

The sorrowful shadows cast away their veils
Like the candles letting go of the weird wax
Sadly I sat in the sack for conflicting fetuses
Another sun appeared like a serial divorcee
Counting the testicles of another naked day

691.  SUBJECTIVE SUBJECTS

The sad sun descended upon her haunting melodies
Reeling from mysterious layers for electoral riggings
To harden the flowerbed for flower girls born tender
Disenfranchised voters came weeping in barren polls
Dressing the blank nest for the fat electoral parodies
With the mourners the faulty bells they came ringing
Like the angry water castigating a ****** port fender
And the smokes climbed upon their wide aerial poles
Arching over the emptied shelves with liberal singing
They subjected their subjective subjects to all objects
Bryce Aug 2018
And now there would come a time
a swift sharp clock on the bed
Blaring its little chime in between the hard bells
Like an angry little arm
Charming if not for the alarm

And everyday I slap the face of it
Like an unwanted *****
And she is silenced
Quick unlike
Said chick

But I am a cruel guy and have no sense of wet and dry
Nor cool or heat
There's nothing bothering me

Time just ticks off and I laugh at it

But my cells divide and turn into little old protoplasmic men
And yet I am not called upon them
Because they are stupidly designed and I have no sympathy for arts and crafts
No masterman
who failing to raise his hand
Clams up
With such poor artwork

Slap that ***** in the dilapidated sistan

Now In San Francisco
Where the alley streets stink of ***
And the European facades are just that
Crumbling
Poopy
And full of ****
And what yet are they dreaming to be?

The church that survived fire
Great conflagration
God didn't make a rainbow at the end of that,
Now did he?

He's a water-sign
Dolt
And water only jolts your mind
When it scatters true light,
Ain't that right?

But it's all the same
Just different hues
And the news
Isn't new
Just Blaring and yelling
And speeding television crews
Riding their stories
Up and down the many stories
Trying to build a city of angels
On a bituminous hill

Shills

No life skills

And I walk the city streets with a ugly old leather
Brief
Casing the joints and rolling my own
Unhappy and alone
Kerouac and the dreams on the monangular input where the triangular avenues meet
And he has no road

While airplanes shake their jets on the tarmac and trebuchet into the air
Going god knows where
Seeing a new piece of the sculpted pinball
Perpetually trapped in the machine

How bout Nippon
Or Hangujin
Or Han Chinese
Or Berlin
Anywhere but when
A little ways along the state
Of "in"

All these strange things
Nat Nov 2012
Let me tell you about something I saw the other day,
when I was out walking through a field of hay.
The night was quite pretty, the air crisp and clear,
when I suddenly encountered a cat who was drinking a beer!
I walked a little farther and encountered some mice,
sitting around a card table, all playing dice.
The mice looked quite serious, they all dressed like thugs,
I was dumbfounded, and simply stared down from above.
Then I saw something that completely blew my mind,
it was a variety of animals, dancing in a conga line.
For hours and hours and hours they danced,
more animals joined in, even deer came to prance.
This party was larger than any I’d seen,
a couple of badgers were even smoking something green.
“Innocent” deer were snorting lines off of snakes,
and a couple drunk farm dogs were fighting with rakes.
A cat and a mouse were sitting in a barn,
entirely too drunk, they took turn telling yarns.
From across the field, you could hear an owl retch,
while a gaggle of geese slurred “Benny and the Jets.”
Sheep laughed, “Bahaha!” while dancing on tables,
the horses were getting it on in the stables.
This party was crazier than any I’d attended,
a pig even ended up losing an appendage.
As the sun came up, things started winding down,
all the cows went home, and the "Keg King" took off his crown.
I took this as my cue, it was time to depart,
so a couple mice and I hitched a ride on a farmer’s cart.
"Sayonara!" I yelled, "It's been lots of fun!
Everybody get home safe, try not to hurt anyone!"
But enough about me, let's talk about you.
That was my weekend, what did you do?
Styles Jan 2015
**** this civilized **** I am set, like an object. So don't object. My eyes on the prize like my future subjects. All these haters is suspect, I pay them no respect. That's how a King treats his subjects. I blow minds like lare jets-- then take marks and get set. It could be the bad or the ugly, l'm as good as it gets. I'm raising the bar like I'm working my pecs, working hard, baring arms like I'm funk master flex. I'm laughing so hard it's hurting my chest. instead of getting money I'm enjoying my wealth,  weight a couple rounds, then rise up in belts. My Dawgs underdogs, like we training vets. I weigh the pros agasint cons, then Shakakon like I'm K. West. Extend my arm and drop a bomb when this mic turn on. My future brighter than prospects, standing on Prospect while the Sunset waiting to get it on
The people of Canberra, yes they love it, oh yeah

you see I come here after getting ribbed by *******
And teased by so called friends
When all I wanted was to be treated like a Normy
And, yes I did normal things, like watch footy and exercise
And I also ran around town trying to enjoy being a kid
Yes, I was made to be such an *******, I hated it
Me and my brother played cricket in the park
And these two dudes tried to scare us off
I am too fit for them, but I found one city
Was nothing like that, yes the Canberra crowd were nice to me
The first word a kid I hardly knew said to me, was your like us, man
Because he thought I was cool, to his point of view
And I made more school friends, and I found this so fun
Then, I made a friend who ended up going to the Raiders matches
When they started in 1982, and we had a lot of fun going to those matches
Cheering them on till their first grand final in 1987
And we continued it in 1989 and '91 and '92 and then their last premiership back in 1994, and that was the year that I went down to Mawson, where the Raiders leagues club was, and saw the team come home, and I asked my friend we support the Raiders, how about we support the Cannons, you see we play basketball, how about we watch it, the cannons are playing well, so we supported the Canberra Cannons, who were our local basketball team, yes, we saw players like Herb McEachin and Phil Smyth, and Jamie Kennedy and Andy Campbell, and my friend saw him at a course he did, and Willie Simmons, played for them, as well as the Alabama Slammer, who did a add for Captain snooze, it went, ' the Alabama slammer, through on his pygamas, lying on his bunk dreaming of the slam dunk, yes, Canberra was on the map, but like the Raiders they stopped playing really well, like finals well, and unlike the cannons are no more, but then after the Canberra Kookaburras were popular in Rugby Union in the 80s, I think the tune went like this, kookaburras play in the ACT, merry, merry, kings of the Union field was he, play kookaburras play, and we'll win the Sydney comp, well I think that is how it went, but who cares, because later on we got a stronger team , the ACT Brumbies, they were so cool, they won two cups, but this rugby comp was harder to win, and at the same time, the best Canberra team, who won the most cups, were the Canberra Capitals, who are the women's basketball team, yes, 10 out of 12 premierships, yes they are so cool, well the capitals run I think is over, and the Raiders have been doing well in the under 20s, but last year they did well and were thrashed in the grand final, Canberra looked doomed, untill something happened to Canberra in February 2013, and that was a moment that changed Canberra forever, you see I have been following tbe Major league from the USA, and I drove my friend nuts, you see the whole city of Canberra got behind the Raiders, and the cannons and the capitals and the Brumbies, the kookaburras, and we support our local Aussie rules comp, we have the best local comp in Australia, it went national, yes, that is cool, we made mistakes with the implosion of our old hospital, which killed Katie ******, and we at least haven't got a right wing government, back in the 80s, we had no government, but back to where we're at, in February 2013, Canberra changed, yes this was the time of the Canberra winning the Australian baseball Claxton shield baseball comp, from the wooden spoon, yes Canberra us great, and we are putting some great apartments up, to bring people here to live up to it's aboriginal name, meeting place, you see I met some really nice people at sporting events in Canberra, and I don't want that to change, you see Newcastle dudes don't have a good sports following like the Canberra crowd has, yes maybe they have the Jets, in soccer, and the Newcastle knights, but we have the GWS, yes they play 3 normal season matches in our city, so we are the boys in our wonderful city of Canberra, we support the AFL, and the AFL is the greatest game of all. Newcastle local sports is just Newcastle, ours include a miniature national comp, we have the Kanga cup soccer tournament, which is better than the Newcastle jets, yes we are the mighty Canberra crowd, we are making our city so proud, we have better stuff, like sports to suit all walks of life, as well as having the best flower show in the world, called Floriade, how many flower shows have people performing songs at them the way we do, and February has the Multi cultural festival, so let's celebrate the 100 years of Canberra, we ain't shy, the rest of Australia, just thinks their the best.
The end
Geno Cattouse Oct 2012
I had Joe Willie from jump. The Jets were off the chain
Baltimore benched Johnny U cause he knew the game. And played it too.

The AFL was full of bells and whistles.Speed kills
Three yards and a cloud of dust. Get real coach. We shootin rockets to da moon. High tops . Cmon pops.

Change the guard.
Them people ain't done nothing to me said Ali.
Da Nang ain't my thang.  He was the greatest. Still is.

The Haight was great.  Oh yeah Kent STATE.
1968. Open the gate to the house of the rising sun.
Joplin. And Jimmy. Marvin and Tammy.

The Doors and Hair. ****** in the air
What rhymes with Agent Orange...... Nothing.
Inevitably when I write I drift back to the sixties , seventies and even the eighties . Those times were scary and normal/safe at the same time. A convergence of many things that are  seared into my being forever.
shaffu shafiq Feb 2016
....................terrorism......................
I Opened my window and peeped through.
Heard the loud panicked voice of screams.
Just I saw the world of dreams.
People were shouting'crying'runing here and there.
Destructions and dreadful scenes seemed everywhere.
Streets were covered with huge blood.
Just like I lost in terrific flood.
Dark smoke raised over the sky.
War jets and gaints were so high.
When i glanced all the round.
And didn't believe what I found.
Street lights were broken and dim.
Everywhere laid down the corpses of muslim.
Muslim children and muslim babies.
Their white shrouds turned into red.
War jets bombed,killed,left crippled & then briskly fled.
Only innocent people were on their list.
People were wraping them and taking away by cist.
My eyes burst into tears.
By the thought of terrorism whom everybody fears.
The thousands of people are now lifeless.
And remained so helpless.
Taken away the poor children's future brightness.
with War,conflicts,disputes and violent fray.
Unjustly killed so many people also by slaughter and slay.
Everything for them is just like a game to play.
By the war demons everywhere,everybody is sad & depressed.
Why Only innocent people are being harassed & oppressed?
Violences and wars only left miseries and sorrow.
Nobody can imagin what will happen tomarrow.
that's such a big shame.
blaming only muslims and giving them terrorist name.
Why the Muslims are only labeled of terrorism and extremism?
Come and recognise the real face of terrorism.
In the name of religion why people usually fight?
open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light .
Terrorism has no place in Islamic religion.
It teaches the supreme wisdom with real vision.
I pray when will come in this world that day.
One person will unite the world and bring peace oneday..
.............
((((By shaffu))))
Alhamdulillah I am a muslim but not a terrorist.
softcomponent May 2014
Betwixt of any sense beyond experiment, I sat on the bed between shifts and out-whipped the bag of Concerta given to me by Matt, o'timey hard-worker-soft-souled Matt, who felt, perhaps, that I had a legitimate reason to explore this legal avenue of pharmaceutical mind-manipulation for reasons he would rather fathom in retrospect. I popped a single pill, and voilà, the legal-cocainnabinoid began to flow between my red and white blood-cells playing cops and robbers.

It is when I feel nostalgic that I feel the need to write. I remembered, at work, with all those strange everyone-elses faces gliding past (and myself annoyed at the general lack of positive reception "Hello there!" "h .. i ." is one sour-looking businessmans sultry whispered reply.. once, a woman told me 'look, I know that you are told to say hello at the door to everyone who enters, but I don't like it. I just want to shop in peace, and no, I don't need any help' and without case to what my managers could say, I somewhat-hissed-back, "if you don't want to be greeted, then perhaps you shouldn't walk into big private corporate establishments to find the books you're looking for," and she shrugged and muttered some ****-talk under her breath and glided upstairs to find a copy of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead or Machiavelli's The Prince to validate her bitter attitude, I bet, the sour witch), my time spent living in that backwater Esso suburb of Port Coquitlam back in 2011 when Occupy Wall Street was still a hungry potential, not yet bogged down in procrastinates over herbal teas and talk of chakras and enlightenment and how the typical Wall Street businessman probably never had a real ****** and hence had never truly satisfied the energies now burnt-to-crisps inside his Root Chakra or whathaveyou, where I believed I would find a better, more interesting world further from the musty-smallness of forest-drenched rain-drenched Powell River, only to discover I may be right outside my front door, but that's EXACTLY where I was, no further than right outside my front door.. I mean, for Goddaskes, I was born in Vancouver, this isn't a culturally-shocking move to New Delhi or Kathmandu--- and so on and so forth is how I once berated myself thru constant cycling thoughts of no-escape, I, a little walking hell of devils-advice and panic disorder-- the Great Big Port City of George Vancouver only succeeding in further overwhelming my already delicate attempt at false optimism thru self-voided Buddhist smalltalk as I travelled from bookstore to bookstore reading Alan Watts in shady attempts to save-myself but only digging my walking grave even deeper into the soil of feared-insanity.

Port Coquitlam itself was a small-town wearing a business suit and holding hands with an angry father forcing him to college for computer networking as it's the most economically viable market at hand.. at first, I did not see this. I saw my idolized imaginings of Vancouver (never Port Coquitlam), the shining water-reflected skyline of my past and present legacies, where my father once snorted ******* with a bohemian group of someones, and my mother tried LSD just to prove to her friends how bad it was (and lo and behold, what a terrible time she had!), all this Otherness, Strangeness, yet still Connected-- an Otherness with which I was taken, left to whisper into empty Campbell's cans so-as to speak with the city from a distance, two children growing older together 'til my inevitable return and our agreement to share costs on rent.

I returned, as planned. I returned, and found that old-best-friend hating the Homeless and loving the Rich-- spending time with the Peppy Plutocracy whilst enslaving the Middle Classes (first Letter Capitals to Assist YOU in Grasping my Anger with All Five Thumbs) and the horrors I saw in my already delicate state, all the starving addictives slouching-inching down the sides of ***** old walls, the only thing missing a smear of blood to follow their corpseish collapse, all just footnotes to history, footnotes to wealth and progress-reality, all footnotes with no shoes O my God O my Goodness and O Canada, Our Home and Native Land!

It hurt like it did, but I felt powerless and gaited. Felt like it were just as well me (*** it just as well is), I, in Vancouver.. *Great Big Port City of George Vancouver
.. saw the end-stretching-cold-legs of Nietzsche's Dead God.. those in cutthroat-black-suits armed with calculators and wives could afford private jets and yearly trips 'round our globular strangeness whilst others had to beg and berate and debate and break-down to get a crummy old bagel and a past-due mostly-empty jug of old milk and perhaps a 'side of fries with that order.'

What crushed me so much about this playing a Witness to God's Death (or, not so much a 'witness' as a relative asked to the morgue to identify the body) was my intuitive grasp that this is the poverty of the First World.. this is not as bad as it gets and on a scale of 1 to 10 this would only be a 3.. all the poor and displaced of Eastern Europe.. Moldovan families indifferent to the whims and what's taken.. someone called me a Socialist and said I would later grow out of it as 'reality' angled its rearing-ugly head to chop me smithereens like it did so mercilessly to the Poor and Irrelevant.. I looked at them and still look at people like them and think 'that is evil unsure of itself.. that is evil unaware... that is evil and evil is  evil to watch..' the Evil Act being the use of Money to purchase the world, demanding us all to pay royalties (mass royalties) for the privilege of life so afforded by them.. (the Sons and Daughters of God first stabbing their father then stabbing themselves then locking away and ignoring their young brother with cerebral palsy '*** he could never be armed with a calculator, nor wife)..

I learned, thru practice, to cope with these evils as laws-for-now. Coping did not mean tolerance, nor did coping mean agreement.. I had charged at life expecting hugs and bottles.. what I got was hugs and bottles.. all while I watched over the shoulder of whoever embraced me and saw young-others doing the same, where are the hugs and bottles..? they sank into the nether as the crowd ebbed past, ignoring the cries of pleading love, pleading love over time so traumatised as to distort this love (so inherent and implied in the Heart) into confusion, confusion into loss, and loss into hatred.. as the crowd ebbed past, the crowd ebbed past..

After 3 and a half months, I moved back home to Powell River.. the soggy ol' calm of what I already knew.. the warm arms of the rest, the warm arms of water-reflected sunsets.. and I got my hugs and bottles.

but was this really a happy ending?
and the sun weilds mercy
but like a jet torch carried to high,
and the jets whip across its sight
and rockets leap like toads,
and the boys get out the maps
and pin-cuishon the moon,
old green cheese,
no life there but too much on earth:
our unwashed India boys
crosssing their legs,playing pipes,
starving with ****** in bellies,
watching the snakes volute
like beautiful women in the hungry air;
the rockets leap,
the rockets leap like hares,
clearing clump and dog
replacing out-dated bullets;
the Chineses still carve
in jade,quietly stuffing rice
into their hunger, a hunger
a thousand years old,
their muddy rivers moving with fire
and song, barges, houseboats
pushed by drifting poles
of waiting without wanting;
in Turkey they face the East
on their carpets
praying to a purple god
who smokes and laughs
and sticks fingers in their eyes
blinding them, as gods will do;
but the rockets are ready: peace is no longer,
for some reason,precious;
madness drifts like lily pads
on a pond circling senselessly;
the painters paint dipping
their reds and greens and yellows,
poets rhyme their lonliness,
musicians starve as always
and the novelists miss the mark,
but not the pelican , the gull;
pelicans dip and dive, rise,
shaking shocked half-dead
radioactive fish from their beaks;
indeed, indeed, the waters wash
the rocks with slime; and on wall st.
the market staggers like a lost drunk
looking for his key; ah,
this will be a good one,by God:
it will take us back to the
sabre-teeth, the winged monkey
scrabbling in pits over bits
of helmet, instrument and glass;
a lightning crashes across
the window and in a million rooms
lovers lie entwined and lost
and sick as peace;
the sky still breaks red and orange for the
painters-and for the lovers,
flowers open as they always have
opened but covered with thin dust
of rocket fuel and mushrooms,
poison mushrooms; it's a bad time,
a dog-sick time-curtain
act 3, standing room only,
SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT again,
by god,by somebody and something,
by rockets and generals and
leaders, by poets , doctors, comedians,
by manufacturers of soup
and biscuits, Janus-faced hucksters
of their own indexerity;
I can now see now the coal-slick
contanminated fields, a snail or 2,
bile, obsidian, a fish or 3
in the shallows, an obloquy of our
source and our sight.....
has this happend before? is history
a circle that catches itself by the tail,
a dream, a nightmare,
a general's dream, a presidents dream,
a dictators dream...
can't we awaken?
or are the forces of life greater than we are?
can't we awaken? must we foever,
dear freinds, die in our sleep?
RW Dennen Sep 2014
I remember how slow
time flew in my
boyhood days
when everything was
unsophisticated, uncomplicated,
when a joke was a joke
that lasted days on end,
when a walk down the street was endless
And besides,
you felt as if an ice-cream cone
was so enormous
that it would take you
an hour to eat
And greeting a friend
became frozen in time
and somewhat endless
In fact, almost every act in life
was set in slow motion
for just like you,
we were flying through life,
at that time,
just with little propellers

But like you and so many others
we ate of the tree of knowledge
thus expanding our vision
A vision that hasten our life
and accelerated us
into adulthood as time quickened
Now greeting a friend is like eating
at a fast-food restaurant,
not quite remembering
fully what was said
and even listened to
An ice-cream cone has emotionally
dwindled to the size of a thimble
and passes our
taste buds so quickly
we can't remember when we
started and when we finished...
And like those sophisticated air jets...
         for all
                  time
                        flies..       ­  towards oblivion...
Sombro Sep 2015
The river valley was cleaved beneath the rushing horse’s hooves
As dragons beat against the sky, to roar, and so to prove
The might of beasts against the foe, this ‘mankind’ they oppose
But black the night was, truly so, Sir Crowshirron composed.

His lance flew banners, dark as jets, into the dragon’s keep
He split the fire with shield and steed in one almighty leap.
The castle stood of smelted glass as grey as stormy skies
Each tower stood as instrument to ring the dragon cries.

The sturdy gate split as a twig, weak to the black knight’s sword
And then the drawbridge split asunder, board by petty board.
Inside the court the black knight strode, cape flayed the dragon fire
Up marched the knight, dark steel alight up to its crooked spire.

There he saw the demon’s claw clutching ill-gained prize
A screaming child, from pastures wild, with terror in its eyes.
The Black Knight gave no motion and no outcry passed his helm
He stood up taller, prouder still and challenged the dragon’s realm.

They say that lightning split the sky about the battle field
And that after days of endless rage the knight refused to yield.
Down swooped the dragon, teeth and claws, to shower fire and rain
But still the knight would hold his sword and stand to fight again.

Until the moon propped up the sky and broke the dragon’s flight
The black beast  smashed into the keep, split by the black knight’s might
There it lay, curled in dismay, smote by mortal hand
He told the dragon, word and sword, to leave this fragile land.

But dying breaths of stricken foes stilled breathed their poisoned fire
The dragon’s head, eyes running red, made clear his cruel desire
‘Finish me whelp, lest you do, I’ll return and seek your defeat,
But if I die, know this, you shall not be thanked for this brave feat.

A black knight you are and so shall be until the end of days
For all will see a soulless husk, not worthy of their praise.
For dragonslayer you are within, a man with strength and might.

Yet your soul will know that they see only a Black Knight.
They’ll run you from their homes at dawn, they’ll make you see the light
For words from mouths as black as tar make weak the dragon’s bite.’


The Knight looked down upon the beast and ‘fore he stabbed his lance
He showed his smile unto the brute and broke the dragon trance
With floating heart he took the child back to her anxious town
He set her down in front of those who gave a blackened frown.

‘We cannot take this child again, her soul is sure corrupted
You and the beast, two monsters, have held her uninterrupted
For though we good folk try to live there are demons such as you
And now that you have seen her she is not the child we knew. ‘

The black knight took the child back to the shattered dragon’s keep
And seeing the slain corpse of the beast the child began to weep
‘He kept me here, with gifts and love and laughter for my heart
He told me he’d no family and now he had a start

‘Sweet daughter’ he would call to me, ‘I wish to see you please’
And still you slew him, seeing threat, not person, with great ease.
We are a kind, us three poor souls, not like the ‘normal’ men
we give ourselves to people who will ne’er love us again.’



There the knight stood, till the moon lit the sight
Of gentle dragon without his might
‘Family.’ He said softly, and shut his eyes tight,
‘I could have had a family.’ Wept the black, the broken knight.
A comment on prejudice and discrimination, not only based on physical attributes, but emotional as well.
J Arturo Dec 2017
A little bird tried to fly through the screen door and I thought, 'if only there were more air up here'.

The view from the second story deck encompassed miles of low scrub hills, piñon, and was daily growing less hazy as the fires subsided. The little bird was dead. Was not even twitching or rolling or whatever idiot birds do to fight or hold onto life. Or maybe it was unconscious. If it was a head impact, it could just be out cold. I could take it in for a bit, see if it revives. But the brains of birds are very small... maybe not large enough to switch out of consciousness without damaging the whole system. It could wake up brain damaged: amnesic, whistling gibberish, unable to collaborate or co-worm-locate or sit on eggs or whatever other higher functions birds perform. Angry, all the time. Likely a burden and a danger to the community. Condemned to either death or a life of lonely suffering. I'd rather not be culpable for that.

Prospective buyers are arriving at four, the realtor as well, for a tour, so I grabbed a broom and swept the quiet body into the shaggy juniper that surrounded the house. Swept up with maple leaves that had settled on the porch since this time yesterday, together a mass of decomposing matter, under the railing and into the dark.

I'd spent a lot of time alone in the house on Grand. Watched nature slowly creep through the iron fence and into the faux-pond, up under the patio bricks, purple flowered and needley plants growing taller and more hostile daily. Increasing numbers of little brown birds mistaking the reflected sunset in the plate glass doors for real sky.

"If only there were more air up here." A little joke I repeat out loud while sweeping broken bodies into shrubs. The thickest places, where they wouldn’t be seen when (if) someone ever dropped by to view the house.


I don't live here, the house is soon to be foreclosed. But a friend of mine knew I needed a place to stay and offered this, his third home, empty of everything except a coffee maker, some landscaping tools, a few boxes that had yet to be moved. I have a twin sized mattress in what must have been a child's room: a strip of Denver Broncos wallpaper runs the circumference, every other surface painted complimentary blue.


The couple arrived at five. She wears a salmon coloured shawl over a white blouse. They’re performing the theatric act of young couples in love (with the idea of a larger house): she ecstatic over the seven jets in the master Jacuzzi tub, he hesitant about the people-paths in the wall-to-wall-carpet, the everpresent pastels we know were once in vogue but will take weeks and at least two layers of base to fully eradicate. It’s the realtor’s job to showcase the place but I often stand outside the plate glass windows of the living room, keeping an eye. Playing the role of groundskeeper because hitchhiker is so much less glorious.

So far it’s been the same. Always she with a genuine smile that will be gone forty minutes after she’s left the driveway. He, always in t-shirt and “trying to be casual” jacket calculating the square footage of each room, the viability of the fireplace. Opening cabinets, but not concerned with storage space. He wants to see if the brass hinges really have brass pins. Is it wood, linoleum? Look closely at his eyes and watch them dance across a virtual blackboard, adding up the gallons of primer and paint needed to cover up the colour mistakes of a before-his-decade.

  2

You can almost watch his eyes dart across the blackboard. A house is a house but the home must be shredded, burned, before making it yours.


But they all do this. A dozen or so now, this summer. And I spend a lot of time alone. Injecting my thoughts into people who think they know what they need next, before getting in a small car and checking out a properly closer to town. Making little jokes to myself as I sweep the porch. The isolation even maybe altering small parts of my self. The social parts, perhaps. I feel good, most days, but find myself repeating the same phrases: “****. Shower. Shave”, “If only there were more air up here.”, “I could learn to love a leopard”, even recently a little Old Testament, which like a ******* I’ve been taking to bed with increasing frequency and a growing selfish guilt, repeating,

“As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.”


They won’t be back, but for the first time now there’s a deer in the yard. Meaning there must be a hole in the fence. A doe, and fawn too, and I can sit and stare with my broom in hand because my job is to sweep the deck. Dead birds and maybe rats, leaves of course, but with all the water the bank is wasting on this waste of a lawn, come deer: come all ye deer, come and eat. Maybe you will even eat the frighteningly thistly things. Regardless, in exchange for this room I was given a broom and deer are far too large to sweep.



When my student visa expired in Canada I left the country with no identification, five Canadian dollars, a five litre backpack mostly occupied by a camera, and in my mind some distillation of the romanticism from On The Road that I’d managed to power-read in a Heathrow bookstore four years before (lacking the pounds to actually purchase the book). I crossed the border via ferry, and entered the country without identification. I thought this was impossible but it turns out that when you have no time but your whole future ahead of you, and nowhere to get to anyway, insisting “I am a U.S. citizen and you need to let me into this country” does in fact work, if you repeat it enough, and are willing to wait. In my case border patrol even gave me a twenty note and a pat on the back before sending me on my way.


How I ended up sitting on the floor watching birds die, backlit by a desert sunset, in the mountains of New Mexico, is a long story, and to be honest the details have largely escaped me. I do remember I was reading Hemingway. “The Innocents Abroad”, and trying to find myself in any character I could lay my hand on. The word “Innocent” in the title, I suppose, far moreso any actual character, struck the most.


It’s the middle of The Great Recession. Or The Great Depression. The Great Compression. I can’t remember any longer which economic period this particular episode occupied (why can’t they name them more sensibly, like hurricanes?) Call it, then, The Great Introspection, as I narrated myself through the dozen rooms of a million-dollar house: the material self still alive and thriving inside in a self-congratulatory spiral over the personal ROI that left Canada on five dollars and put me, rent free, in a home worth that multiplied 200,000 times. The home where I first had my own key. The home where I learned to drink a glass of water before my morning coffee.

(Five years and $98,000 in college expenses later that was, easily, the best advice I’ve ever received.)


Eventually the phone was disconnected, the water, the power. The jacuzzi, though dry, was still a good place to lie and read. And the piñon and snakes, cacti and juniper, then inklings of pine trees came in steadily. When you would look at them they would freeze. But every morning something new was growing, some new pink flower popped up promisingly to crack the mortar in front of the door. Sweetly at first, then growing thorns, and I walking the perimeters saying “if only there were more air out here”, saying, “can not feel her anymore”, as if the decadent madness of the lawn could be silenced by speaking out loud. Trying to walk the edge of the fence, increasingly losing it in the encroaching bush, then resigning myself to the living room, the **** carpet flattening into a forest path while I impressed miles into that offensive floor.



words. seeds. thistles. marvin morales.


Sleeping on that filthy mattress, the Denver Broncos looking down, still optimistic about their upcoming trophy, or cup. Whatever it was that a bunch of cartoon horses could win. But the sweeping gave me solace, even though the growing thistles made the bricks uneven and caught in the bristles of the broom, leaving little shards of transplanted pink flowers emedded in the yellow polyethylene. I loathed them, but looking back I can see I played straight into their plan. Transplanting little seeds to new weak places in the cement, where they could grow tall again and **** up what little good was left of the land. Bring deer to eat them. Bring little idiot birds to pick the seeds out of the faeces, recycling with pure intent, and flying off into the bright light of sunset. Then crashing broken to the floor.

And like the lawn, like the porch, like what happens when you read Twain, something in me changed. “If only there were more air”, yes, but there is never enough air. Piling up among the deer, among the doe, among my now all-consuming pacing and talking to ghosts who don’t live here anymore, among the many birds who ate their worms and went on to hatch a dozen more, flew into a plate glass sunset, and were ignored.
9/22/2014
Connor Thomas Sep 2012
Took the 17 down nicollet
Passed the City Center
Passing time
Passing men on the streets with an open guitar case
Passed the kids with their skateboards
Passed the guys covered in ink playing fight night on the street

Fifth street
Yellow cord
Brake peddle
Bus stop
Sidewalk

The sharks fight the jets
Romeo goes to Juliet
Old men with canes talk on their cell phones
Nicollet and 4th feels a little heavy tonight
11:47 comes my bus

Down 4th ave
Passing time
Passing the former home of the Twins
Passed the cops with their lights on
Passed some kids in their visors

Red light
Doswell street
Yellow cord
Brake peddle
Bus stop
Sidewalk

Out on the street
Street lamps glow fluorescent
New moon fixed in the stars
Tilted, slightly

The tweakers stay in the shack down the block
They’ve got the rocks in their socks
And they’re sleeping on the carpet
Welcome mat turned over
Shades drawn tight
And an icy cold feeling runs in their veins
And they roll back into a dream

Apartment building
Stairwell
Door 10
Living room.
Steele Jan 2015
I was thirteen when I broke my wrist for the first time,
Miming Cinderella Man's fists as they jabbed faster than jets through the sky.
He was blue collar, blue jeans, blue bruises and blue eyes;
Waiting for his chance, and then taking it by the blind-side,
He taught me the meaning of a left hook to life and coming back from behind.
I was raised on Cinderella.

She was thirteen when daddy read her the tale that first time,
and she grew up wishing to be Cinderella, miming her words and her stride,
She wore blue dresses, smoked blue crystals, cried blue tears with blue eyes;
Waiting to be saved by a prince with blood bluer than money could buy,
Cinderella taught her to sit back and wait for her princely perfect guy,
She was raised on Cinderella.

We were raised on Cinderella,
We were twenty and change when we locked blue and green eyes,
Mine had darkened to green by that eye-locking time,
Life tends to darken things; It's just how it goes, and when mine
took that hue, things were no longer so blue.
Because even though we were both raised on Cinderella,
Princesses and Paupers don't find love; When they do it isn't "true"
Because no blue crystal smoked could cloak the pain and disguise;
No fairytale magic can hold back real tears from real eyes.
My Cinderella was a prize fighter;
Her Cinderella was the prize,
but the stories are different, and in the end, both are lies.
To this day, I remember your eyes, and the memory brings back only love and heartbreak. We weren't meant to be, and I stand by my words when we went our separate ways. Love isn't a fairy tale. I'm not prince charming, and your princess belongs in another castle. I hope you find him one day.
they
travel
overseas
seeking surgery
the cost is cheaper
in those destinations
yet medical tourist
can acquire those many unforeseen
infections after operations
the theaters of surgery lacking hygiene
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
our health services need to act quickly
surgery should be made affordable
then folks from here wouldn't require
cost saving operations
in countries overseas
those staph infections
would cease pronto
our jets not
landing
there
Butch Decatoria Jun 2017
Rain dancers

Children bring forth

The deluge

Joyous and ****

Boogie away the heat of our Cebu

Wash away the grime

The worries of Times

The sufferings

Of war, in Mindanao, in you...

Dance oh Children

Of Sulu seas

Blissful droplets

Mini Filipinos me

Though the air force jets

Thunder overhead

Weep not lil ones

They are further dead & gone

And now in these drops of sky

We drank

Bathed in the Life

Which we give thanks

So, bring forth

All earthly deluge

We babes of Cebu

Shower

In the sacrosanct

Blossom in the truth.

(this is my Philippines)

I am You.
Hi.
My name's Blair and
I'll be your instructor tonight.
Defensive driving with a class full of
Deviants.
Even the instructor had
Five Tickets
His first year and a half in San Antonio.
But, hey! We get an insurance discount.
Sometimes people get to the front
And they're not sure if
They're supposed to have a book.
What book?

You still have time before class--
Get those donuts!
Do I have the right book?
Everybody needs a pen--
If you have a fairy pen, that won't do.
Today we're going to learn about driving techniques...
Don't worry.
No matter how far off track I get,
We still get done early.

What's the real policy on pecans?
I was wondering
If you could cut the jet noise
Between, oh...about 5.30, sixish?

Split-second decisions
Spot the hazards
You're driving along 1604
And the speed limit changes to
Fifty
Overnight.
Where were the warning signs?
Is this the book?

How hard is it to drive your car if you're not in the driver's seat?

Did anybody get the donuts?
Where's the pizza he was talking about?
Why isn't he in the driver's seat?
Why am I?
Out of hundreds of architects,
Why did Newsweek ask
A nearby park resident?

Your jury isn't attorneys.
No, it's people.
Your punishment isn't
The Red Square.
No, it's--
               CUT THE JETS!
               WHAT BOOK IS HE TALKING ABOUT?
               I WANTED PEPPERONI.
List common signs of an impaired driver.
First, he's not in the driver's seat...
Sometimes people get to the front...
Of donuts and pizza
And they're not sure
Which one should I choose?
If they're supposed to have a book.
No matter how far off track I get,
There isn't a policy for pecans.
We still get done early.
You can't stop the jets from flying.
The jury isn't attorneys.
Drive within the speed limits and
The jury is people.
Pay attention to your driving.

I found the book!
All right--class is over;
I'll see you on Thursday.*
I thought we were going to have pizza.
I'll bring donuts...next time.

I was wondering...



How hard is it to steer
Your car if
You're
Not in the driver's seat...?

~Christa Elise Cannon.
My very first speeding ticket.
dj Jul 2012
I've been searching these deserts
I've been rummaging through my closet
I've been eating more than usual
I've been spontaneously bursting into laughter
I've been attentive
I've been regularly missing taking my anti-depressants
I've been crying hard all at once (expectedly)
I've been very extremely me

This is okay - this is okay
Thank you life
I'm okay.

I'm at this airport and it's like a chorus
The people go up the ramps
Fly away for 3 days like Horus
The returner's come home now
Waiting families embrace them with love
Jumbo jets zoom outside these giant windows
Visitors, excitedly saunter
Into this new and open place...

And this is okay
Thank you, thank you airport
I'm okay.
This will be my last update until I return from my vacation :) Fittingly.
I could sail far away for a year and a day or
with a **** in the boat I
could just
float.
Redshift Jul 2015
you haven't known me long enough to have the privilege of being rude to me
at least put a label on it before you get offended when I put down your demands for attention
like I owe you my time and affection
if there is anything I've learned over the past year and a half
it's that I don't owe anyone anything

so cool your jets *******
this *** isn't yours yet.
Frisk Jan 2014
January brought cold weather, as well as a igloo shaped as home
fabricating a sort of warmth in a desiccated environment, it's a
sandpaper type coarse tip toe around the tacks scattered on the
floor type cold, childishly misplaced and a childish ignorance.
February brought one of the purest primrose flowers out of the
field, stuck in drought drowning in murky waters, covered in
dirt, and i washed away the dirt marks that i recall, was all over
you. It's a sobering feeling to find someone who completes you.
March brought lightning, but clouds shook the strikes away into
Davy Jones locker collected in mason jars, but lightning is not a
controlling virus. It doesn't hide it's burn marks or it's scars left
on vulnerable bodies that are at their tallest height, their peak.
April caused me to be a narcissistic but raucous child, enjoying
the effulgence showered on me, as well as the rain that poured.
This smile was stuck climbing to my ears, and I let life take the
rains as I stayed acquiesce to my worries. When it rains, it pours.
May brought a forest of doubt, growing introverted and placing
dynamite in my path, these mirrors won't show me anything but
the truth, anathema's bile spilled onto the yellow brick road and
I was dragged along for the unfortunate ride constantly mocked.
June was the end of the road and the start of a new and brighter
one, like a window flying open with all of my hopes and dreams
being carried by owls. My algorithm is being solved, one step up
without a tyrant. I'm going to dissociate myself from everyone.
July let the mirage give in, five years of desire to visit arizona
with it's rusty colored mountains and spiky tumbleweeds
sprawling hope back into my lungs that there is bandages
for the wound imprinted on my heart back in soggy April.
August showed me that it smells like burnt hair here, but the
good kind, if it makes sense, with hot air brushing against
my skin twirling with excitement that I've arrived, bringing
a bit of Texas with it. I've never been more happy to see rain.
September introduced me to jets at seven in the morning and
trains at ten, mountains that are almost an optical illusion, like
cardboard standups I could push over, and feelings of a lost friend
brought back after glancing back at my ex best friend of five years.
October was dressing up as my favorite movie character, kids
are quoting the movie as we fill our backpacks with dozens of
candy bars and filling me with the fresh october air and freedom.
Texas never provided that comfort. It's so real and overwhelming.
November was the interlude, 1,000 miles back to Texas brought
melancholy but i unraveled my roots back to the Greyhound,
an akin aching grandmother I brought back to her feet, as well
as got back to my feet when i slammed on my brakes and hit hope.
December brought me slamming my feet back onto the ground
when i left her walking home alone, but it taught me to love hard
and let go when you're given up on, that Christmas is all about
soft piano playing corny songs that are meant to bring you cheer.
Today brought me here.

- kra
Lawrence Hall Nov 2018
The old order changeth, yielding place to new

-Tennyson, Idylls of the King

Like dinosaurs our institutions gasp
In spasms of existential death; they pass
At first unnoticed by the casual unobserver
Who trips over a covenant that isn’t there

If you vote they give you a sticker

The ephemeral Constitution changed
Like sweaty skivvies by each president
Law libraries catalogued for pulp
By obedient functionaries in tees

If you vote they give you a sticker

The faithful escorted out of the cathedral
By a bored security guard on overtime
The altar linens for sale at Goodwill
And the sanctuary repurposed on T.V.

If you vote they give you a sticker

Some of The Just Plain Folks cheer for the Reds
And the others cheer only for the Blues
As the reincarnation of Jack Chick
Blesses their four-wheelers and plastic caps

If you vote they give you a sticker

Election placards on abandoned buildings
Promise again prosperity for all
The **** lab cooks behind The Kute Kidz
Private Academy of the Dance and Math

If you vote they give you a sticker

An outreach of the Bright Light Free Will
Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ
Of the Lamb Sanctified 501C The Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Billy-Bob Hairdo PhD, DD a-brangin’ Messages and His Esteemed Lady Apostle Heather

If you vote they give you a sticker

And blessed be the Holy AR-15
God gave to His People to defend themselves
Here in the freest country in the world
Which you can find behind the barbed-wire fence

If you vote they give you a sticker

While fleets of luxury presidential jets
Arc high over our public housing projects
Reminding us of our prosperity
Here in the richest country in the world

If you vote they give you a sticker

And them Jews for Jesus I guess they’re all right
But them other Jews they just ain’t no good
Nor them Cath’lics nor them Mormons neither
And don’t you get me started on them Baptists

(We seem to have been otherwise engaged)

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new” –
(But neither cares at all for me or you)

But if you vote they give you a sticker
5/6/00 3:49 PM
I am transcribing this mornings’ writings.
It is 11 a.m. I have been naked all day.  So many windows to look through, both physically and in the mind.  
I have been near silent the whole time I have been in this house.  I find it so strangely familiar here.  It fits; it all fits in the mysterious cosmic way I have yet to discover.
*I am a person who visits ‘his house when he is on trips.  And here I find myself on a trip or two indeedy.  The house, thought 1, I love his style.
It makes me think of what I want for myself.  There is fantasy and reality to indulge in here.
Reality is the space and freedom.  Space for all things special and ordinary.  I miss space and order.  He has all the thought provoking areas of interest of a real home.  The colors are rich, deep blue, burgundy, and browns, all used in an artful mix of styles.  Oddly pondering here because I would choose many of the same pieces myself.  Every room has space for dancing, which I have done naked a few times here now.
Everyone else is watching big screen movies.  I am in the other living room on a big brown leather couch; still naked, touching all of ‘his things with my body.  
I awoke this morning to the sound of the modem.  I swear it is the perfect alarm clock for me!  You know I get excited every time I here the perfect connection.  
My dreams were vivid awake and asleep because ‘he is on a trip and I am sleeping naked in the master bedroom.  There is the possibility he could have come home at anytime.  I had spent 6 hours already that night naked in his home without his knowledge.  Everyone is used to me being naked when we come stay here.  I don’t want to put clothes on here, in this house.
It is not the people around seeing me naked in the yard sunbathing, or running around the big house with big windows which have no coverings btw.
It is the space and atmosphere that draws out my facets.  This space sparks my exhibitionist in a feisty way. * All the ***** massages for me to relax and enjoy, just being papered to highs. *  
The white leather couch and a 60-inch screen for movies- others are sitting in the chairs and on the floor.
One joins me on the sofa.  Everyone is watching a movie, so am I when my eyes are open.  I am on the couch on my stomach, with a pillow under my hips and my head.  My legs spread wide, there I am being touched inside and out constantly.  I moan, open my eyes and see the many eyes on me and the ’s.  I close my eyes and smile and say “watch the movie you guys geez”, giggle, wiggle and moan again.  The surround sound covers some of my whimpers.  
As soon as the movie was over I walked to the master bedroom and turned on the light.  HIS clothes, files, and suitcases were still on the bed.  WoW he really could come home.  I wanted that bed!
-We- cleared the bed and I jumped in the middle and put ‘his pillow under my ***.  I don’t know ‘him, but I love his style and I wanted to *** on his bed and pillows.  The fact that I come here and stay naked all over his things excites me, and he has no idea.  And yes, I came all over the master bed, we ****** madly!  I know the others heard my bells and chains clinking at a feverish pace.  I listened to the sounds ‘his bed made.  I fully enjoyed his headboard, grabbing his oak poles, feeling each one up and down, as I was getting closer to coming.  Ahhh my hand finds a broken bar, I think how it must have been broken by ‘him doing what I was at that moment.  That moment I came.
My mind was so in this “space”, that after we were spent I jumped up and ran to the pool.  Everyone else was still wake and followed me outside.  Skinny-dipping after hours of pleasure is the best recovery!  Wooo Hooo!  
I was the only one naked – still, I didn’t mind and neither did anyone else.  They were announcing to me when the pool jets came on, giggles, they wanted me sitting on them.  A wind picked up and I went inside, everyone followed me in.  
We all watched Eyes Wide Shut, and then everyone went to his or her separate rooms.  
I took ‘his room, I love the big space, the many doors and windows all left open, so nice and free.  I stood beside ‘his bed and slowly dropped my chains and bells beside his slippers on the floor.  I sprawled about on his sheet and fell into a light sleep.
I was dreaming that there was a camera taking pictures of me, while I was replaying in my dream the real conversation I had with ‘him the night before.  He was asleep on the phone, I called and he never fully woke up to give my message to his roommate.  I listened to him breath, and I spoke quietly to him, softly and sweetly, he spoke back a few times and then I hung up.  But in the dream I was having it was *******, and I was talking in my sleep, in ‘his bed.  What a twist of cosmic ways.  With all the dreams: of the snap shots and the discovery of me in his bed, ****, alone and moaning **** me.   In my dream I was saying it, and I know the other people in the other rooms could hear me speaking my mind in my sleep.  The rooms are close by indeed.
Awoke by the modem with 5 hours of sleep, I was stiff bodied, yet excited to wake up in ‘his bed.  It was 8:30 a.m. I rolled over and moaned loud enough to draw attention to myself, knowing it would work .
I kept my eyes closed and softly said how sore my ribs and back were.  The hands of the night before returned to rub my body once again.  After a few minutes of morning massage, I smiled, giggled and rolled off the bed and darted to the pool.
Naked morning sunshine, I love it, jump in the pool and by the time I got fully wet the coffee came to me.  Everyone was eating breakfast poolside while I skinny-dipped my body into a limber state.  After breakfast everyone jumped in the pool with me, but I was the only one naked.  We all swam for 30 minutes or so.  I spotted the lounge chair and decided to sunbathe Seconds after my body reclined, the hands and oil came to pamper me once again.  I was spread out in full view of all in the pool, getting slicked up al over, with oil and such.  It felt great inside and out, I didn’t care that everyone was watching me get my ***** satisfied.  I was vividly aware of where I was, out in the open space and the freedom of space, as I thought my *** rose in the air and my body twitched repeatedly.  I heard the voices in the pool, and felt the sun on me as I came hard, right there in front of everyone.  Hell, I needed help getting up off that chair, and an oiled hand took mine, and led me to the master bedroom.
The master’s bed now has oil on the sheets and the headboard, and the wall.  I left myself all over his things.  He will know some of my essence whether he knows it or not, I will.  Here I sit naked in his den loving every naked minute of it.
I am back from being oil girl.  Being bent over people spreading glistening oil on nakedness, my *** got a lil bit to much sun!  I go to the master bedroom again, everyone is still poolside.  I try on things, because they are left out on the bed.  You know how I always ask what a mans' favorite pair of pants are?  Well there was 501’s in my size, I couldn’t resist sliding him on me, loving how they fit my ***.  I went back outside and paraded around showing how good ‘his pants fit me.  “Do you have underwear on?” I was asked, I laughed and said no.  I got an odd look from the people.  I danced off to the bedroom and put them back, knowing how he fit was enough.
Right now I am sitting outside writing and a camera is pointed right at my *****.  So I shall stand up for a few shots.  I got up and stood on the table and spread for some close ups, ****, ok enough sun, my **** are red.
After delivering a few drinks poolside, I return to ‘his bed, laying on my belly, thinking, pen in hand.
I hear the shower turn off and I close my legs, I feel the wet drops hit my back, as he sits on my legs.  He is holding them together with his weight.  I feel the oil hit my back, sliding down the crack of my ***.
The lower back massage becomes two bodies sliding against each other.  At first his hands slide between my tightly pressed thighs.  My hips grabbed and lightly lifted, raising my *** in the air, yet tightly holding my legs together.
A breath on my neck touched me at the same time he entered my ***** once again.  My pen never left my hand.  I was focused.
I go for a smoke and jump back into the pool, knowing its time for me to leave soon.  As I enter the main room, in just *******, I pick up my lotion and start putting it on my arms.  Hands from behind gently take the lotion and begin putting it on my sunburned back.  I defiantly feel the fact that I have ******* on as the hands reach my lower back and slowly pull them off……
This was my first husbands last attempt to keep me as his wife by taking me on a weekend to his friends house with a pool.
The story is very telling that my mind is truly not on present, but on what is not there. By saying this I almost ruin the erotica of it..but the psychology of the the story is rich too..
I wrote that day and the next paragraph by paragraph, each hour or so.
Who else was present is everyone who always saw me naked and saw it as no big deal. I was a nudist, they knew it. Its all very true...
Dennis Willis Dec 2018
Of emotion
Roar thru this day

These new gaps
in my life

Places nothing matters
ever escapes

Circle each other
Like big time wrestlers

Throwing sparks
From clever costumes

And it's hard radiation
sleeting chest high


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
How far from nature and life it is
the gray clouds, airplanes in them
the night cooing and pigeons roosting
Sirma's garden gone to roses and seed

                        That airplane overhead!
                        pointing the way
                        pointing to war

War being an aggravated condition of what
we already know

                        Flowering beneath the noise
                        of yet another jet passing overhead.

                         --------------------------------------

Why this much sadness in a world so beautiful?
We are sad for the weariness of everything, including earth
(that will go on tropically flowering long after we are gone)
we

            who are nothing
            in powerful time's
            grip

history, passionate history, coffee between
neighbors.

                         --------------------------------------

            Enter into alliance
            With the sweet darkness, night!

            Night and day, day and night
            Everybody knows when the moon is bright.

            We dance by the light of the moon
            All night.

                         --------------------------------------

We dance by the light of the moon.
We dance by the light of the moon and setting sun.

                                            We drive
                  we crow and call
three pigeons!
                  and make the world alive
                                            even bricks.

                                            Jets
two pigeons!
                  Milk-skinned doves
                                            enmesh

Two gray-skinned sharks, jets,
embrace in the sky, a blue green oil truck takes
the hill, cobblestoned, in low
steady gear.

                         --------------------------------------

Zazen position
      to remain so
            unmoved
                  yet moved
                        by the stillness

the movement of the car uphill
      part of your system of beliefs
            unmoved by it, parked
                  necking in the front seat
                        hawks diving for pigeons' eggs

and so you are compelled to move
      by the force that created you. but
            you impose your own small order
                  departing from traditions
                        human history understands

                  a mutant

such as those currently developing
the human mind beyond its past capacities.

                         --------------------------------------

                  Two straw sandals
                        blue jay call
                              two sea gulls

                         --------------------------------------

The jets return
      flying low.
            Laying low

and breathing low
      mists
            of pure noise.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
nivek Jul 2014
dancing calling flight of the Seagulls
cuts through the blowing of the wind
as fast as fighter jets dipping dives
and reeling upwards into the distance
freedom wild as freedom was always
from the dawning of the feathered
sailing now on wings strong honed
masters of air currents and updraft

— The End —