Josephine, Josephine, Josephine, Josephine
I told you to leave my man alone

Josephine, Josephine, Josephine, Josephine
You did not listen, now you reap what you did sow

Your beauty was beyond compare
But now you're left with half your hair
And he seems to have lost interest in you, Josephine

I told you, "stay away from him!"
But your superficiality won him
Now, as it fades, the spell breaks, Josephine

I always knew my love was true
And without me, he would feel blue
He called several nights to say so, Josephine

Today he's back, regretting he left
But guess what happens, happens for the best
He wont leave love again for lust, Josephine

Josephine, Josephine, Josephine, Josephine
I thank you for trying to take my man

Josephine, Josephine, Josephine, Josephine
He's learnt his lesson - love him truly, only I can!

Road Trip: Thinking it's about time (find yourself within II)

This particular poem was born as a one line response to a message.  But in many other forms, half written, it exists still, un, unfinished, waiting for the next burst energy, the next holiday time, to reach a new finish line.

This is a different but similar to a poem posted on June 2nd, "Poetry Round (find your self within)"

Any error of omission is unintentional, but know that this took many hours, until fatigue won. If you never told or revealed to me your location, know that you will be called out, to and unto me, in another poem, called "your banner is my flag."

Fact about me:  You design me.
-------------------------------------------------------

th­inking it's about time for a road trip.

create an excuse
(reasons, I got a plenty)
to stop by,
to show you another side of me,
for a drink, a meal,
and some kind
of exchange, of
form and fluids,
manner to be determined.

to come to Minneapolis,
watch you create a heated sensuality,
verbally, from melted snowdrifts,
a hot time to be had
by all the poets
of the mini-apple,
I want to meet
and celebrate ann victory.

travel to Thiruvananthapuram,
tour the treasures
of gold and diamonds,
from whence come
the bejeweled poems,
that have earned visits from
thousands upon thousands,
pilgrims, devotees, followers,
to partake at that, his,
special temple.

Gomer, Gomer,  & MJJ,
I am in your Florida,
no, sorry, not in Ocala,
near to your homer,
and I feel you springer
ten times in the
November sun rays,
that have me locked
in a full Nelson,
your productivity,
endless,
a sea of orange sunburnt words,

Tennessee,
The Carolinas,
Georgia,
The South,
I rise with it,
now, again,
that I will need a slow
sunny all lazy summer long to
learn y'alls ways,
see the wolves,
in your forests,
helm the riverboats,
navigate the quaint tides
of Charleston,
the special places
where they heal, le ville,
where the ashes of
burnt children,
retuned to be whole.

learn y'alls ways,
walk in your boots,
of seeing poems
using your special
southern saber words.

missed the original
Thrilla-in-Manila,
but rest easy, assured,
that hotbed of creativity,
where I check the
PH of the mc waters
to comprehend its
wisdom and now, it's sadness,
will be an illustrious destination
on my itinerant itinerary,
stopping by Makati City,
after all,
it is writ in the good book,
this island,
the PhilippineS,
is the birthplace
of the letter S,
Samples: samson, sally,
and So many others?

in Nevada City,
which is of course in
krazy California,
wager philosophy, romance,
be available for
succinctly seeing
works in progress,
from which I
will imbibe,
so **** deeply,
may have to
stay awhile for...

while I am there,
will need to do
a search and
Hug Mission,
to find a special man,
his unkempt prose,
his mortal rhymes
disguise not his holy worth,
even to the grassy
cal-stratosphere,
to the mesosphere,
will I high fly,
to find his sweetest spot,
then and thereafter
going looking
further on to
Humboldt County.

in Leeds, in West Yorkshire,
(Hamphshirians, Northamptontonians,
patience please)
built foundries and factories
over the magical forest of Loidis,
near to the river Aire,
yet still hides a
magical sorceress of words,
casting spells over
men and beast.
no one has seen full
her half-turned away face,
but when she summons,
do I have a choix
other than obey?
even if I get lost,
my sorceress,
you know,
I am on way too.

to get there,
will fly I must,
to Heathrow hell,
will do it,
just for you,
faithful friend,
a man da gotta do, what
a man gotta do...for you,
but first a stop off at the
London School of Economics,
Hampstead as well,
for a tutorial about sonnets,
or sams in wells,
even if I come
in my bare feet.

even in New York Upstate,
a man da gotta do,
what he mulls over in his heart,
be not surprised at a knock upon
your door, to make comparative notes,
about each other's tattoos.

in the South African veld,
hid in the highland grasses,
crouches the poetesses and tigresses,
waiting to ambush you
with words that must be seen
to be heard, to be well understood.
perhaps I'll come at ester time,
under blue indigo skies over,
a golden landscape,
seizing all the gems
that can be seen
only at 3:00am

leeward,
north to Canada,
must I, transgress,
country of my momma's birth,
fly from Montreal to Toronto, Calgary
then over to Vancouver.
Canada,
a dangerous place for me,
cause there are beautiful
souls up there,
and maybe even a
warrant to
repossess mine,
they want their
poets back.

double down by ferry,
me to Seattle,
to see a man about river,
in the Pacific Northwest,
where I have happily
drowned so many times,
that The Lord is complaining,
am hogging all the baptismal waters,
but when reminded that
nothing lasts forever,
here tomorrow,
gone today, walk on,
I add my tears
to that river,
before hitting the road.

on that river,
gonna drive me a kayak,
down Daytonway,
on the Yamill River,
see a gyreene marine,
watching me do a beach landing,
in Willamette Wine Park.
he will teach me to salute,
I will teach him how to
shake hands,
and learn from him,
it's ok,
to stand down.

man o' man
there are a lots of poets,
in these here parts,
this grand
Pacific North West,
looking for one in particular,
who will be quite easy to spot,
as he is my very own
soul brother.

will be easy to find,
though we have never met,
he will be on his kayak,
I on mine,
tho when he paddles,
somehow he manages
to hold
never letting go
of, his lovely bride,
his best half's hands.

this will a problem,
for I must teach him how to
shake two handed souls,
while hugging and paddling,
even bailing,
with an old dented pail
simultaneous.
but you can teach old dogs
new tricks, even the ones,
that can't spell
rhymers.

have mercie on me Ohio,
like a mother has to her daughter,
done a three year sentence in Cleveland,
but no jail can hold an NYC boy,
but if requested, yes I will return
to set fire to the *Cuyahoga,
again! he he he...
but do not s mock me!
(now you know why the FBI loves
my poetry, my biggest institutional fan).

souls in torment,
where you be,
where you hide,
matters not where
you physical reside,
for we have found
each other
in each other words.

You, who live in
your very own
personal hell,
I think we met there,
because
yours was
mine too,
tho not found
on any map.

maybe I will meet the
Empress Josephine Maria,
rowing on the canals of
the Netherlands,
no longer will she be
alone.

but then again, some
very special things,
like
the purest of love
are on no map,
they are everywhere.

while in India,
will seek the many musings of many lips
of aged rhyme men
and complicated charmers
so I may kiss them
with spiced humors
to pour and pour,
more and more,
upon this western soul,
mysteries of the east,
to Kashmir, Bangalore,
wherever I must,
even take a praDip in the Ganges,
I will go, find you,
un-hide you,
among the
teeming millions,
millions of
jokes and rhymes,
that make the
world spin brighter.

in Germany,
all the university students
speak English,
in Wiesbaden, they know
poetic beauty is not in the format,
some in Bamberg,
with a peculiar
Missouri accent,
which is nicht gut Englisch,
so study hard the real way,
speak the language
the new yorka way,
which will require
study abroad,
which is quite funny,
now that I think about it.

but in Mo.,
the native drums roll,
long and slow,
making words
I know
better, different,
in a way never saw before,
leaves me asking for,
mo', mo', please?

to get there, to Allemagne,
land of my forefathers,
a ship I will take,
from Southampton
across the Kiel Canal,
before I depart,
will have my hair cut,
my words reworked,
by her Ladyship,
whose keen eyes and
maternal instincts,
see the joy of life in every
Livvi little thing.

Watt am I going to do if
I need to find a Tecumseh,
taker of my naked poems,
and enlarger of them,
so truth by her,
all revealed,
we are all naked
at least,
twice a day?

In Nepal I will purr at the words
gleaned from the markets and
train stations where
voyages from Lalitpur to Katmandu,
start and end,
where there is a miracle almost
sixteen years young,
where they call their schools
future stars and little angels,
so why should poetic miracles not be
as common as its subtropical clime?

though I despise the
Dallas Cowboys,
not my  America's team,
nonetheless there is a young woman,
a true rose of Texas,
who waits and writes
so lovingly of her airman,
in Afghanistan, I have placed
their names first,
in my nighttime prayers,
hoping to be there,
schedule my visit,
to witness his safe return
and their
joyous reunification.

there are no Mayans in Maine,
but poets of similar name,
kould be, mae be,
Julia's in Jersey, new,
in Auckland,
there are poets
who don't know it,
and Down Under, too,
where getting high is easy,
getting high at
and on words
well marshaled ,
but **** sure I will be
peering and prring,
all the way.

Oregon,
don't be gone,
those wide eyes shut,
when I come by,
who knows when I
will pass this way again...
on my way to Phoenix,
where sunrayes bend to the
desires of dessert breezes.

Kentucky to Korea,
one long road to travel,
but middle son,
if you can do it,
so can I, and,
I will follow.

in a beautiful city,
unsurprisingly called
Belleville,
the leader of the band,
still leads us in belle 'noise'
and when he finishes
fall leafing us in song, he still,
rises up in the mid of dark,
prayerful haikus to write.

off to Rogers, Arkansas
to meet an Italian from Mexico
who specializes in skinny poems,
something one day I will be too.

maybe I will go to
places it snows,
there are so many,
but your photo,
and tattoo trail,
clues, will follow,
no matter how hard
you make it a mystery.

you, who live in just
the world,
don't even think,
that crazy dotted lines,
unstraight,
or huge plains,
are sufficient,
to hide your
moody dust trail
from me!

somewhere in the USA,
roses grow in ground
that needs the
watering of tears,
though this place
is hard to find,
ha, turn around,
that is me,
tapping you,
on the shoulder!

will find you,
as I am searching for
a lovely pair
of stockinged ankles,
each with a heart tattoo,
but I sure could use
a clue,
before this hobbit searches
all the shire,
derby hatted,
to find your
heart real, and the real you...

my mode of time travel?
why I am just
a dude on a rocket ship.

Wisconsin,
look for my ruby message
in the snow,
in the dust,
in the sand, the skies, the sea,
but will you answer me?

Pittsburgh,
patient, you've been,
you thought I forgot
all about you,
chimera  at the intersection
of three rivers,
all you need wonder,
upon which one
will my ship arrive
and why you still disbelieve
you are not a poetess!

ME oh my,
you too, a hidey hole got,
but, we are strange, we humans,
we would gladly bleed to please,
If we could but find
a combination of
new words that
would your heart gladden,
your eyes tear,
your lips wear,
a smile of pleasure
at our offerings poetic!
but still I know not,
the where!

Lagos,
where
I shall climb the tallest skyscraper,
calling out in Yoruba,
where is my Temitope?
where is mine,
worthy of thanksgiving
so I may carry my Popoola,
my pole of her of
written wealth?

Mombasa, Singapore,
Maryland, Rhode Island, Kentucky,
Huddersfield, Connecticut Joe, Ireland,
South Dakota,
where the merry elders
well ken somethings
about a moon and tattered clouds,
something about children and dogs,
and something about letting
tomorrow's wait.

Milwaukee, Atlanta,
chuck, in *PA., friend to all,
to all those scattered across these
United States of America.

can we dare not mention
"The Shaq" of Malaysia,
South Sudan, Pakistan,
of course not!

Suburbia,
beautiful, black San Diego, Detroit;

The BBB's -

British Columbia, Brazil, Breendonk, and
B'kara!
the goodness of *Boston,
flipping out in Flipadelphia,

did you think I would forget ya?

those of you hiding among 64 stars,
the groves of L.A',
on the lanes,
the special land of I-sia-Bella,
fellow citizens of Neverland,
those of you 'at home,'
in the land of nightmares,
concrete boxes,
those who post without a doubt,
and in the box,
this who think your birth year
is an identifying mark, not,
you never fooled me,
will visit each and everyone.

even and especially,
the grays of crosstown
NYC,
the red writers of my hood,
the tylers too.

I am exhausted,
forgive me well,
if thy locale,
I did not explicate,
for the hour is very late.

yet thru subtle fissures
in the clouds,
look for a tired old man
on the wings of a
chariot drawn by angels,
bringing you a dictionary
full of new words,
a present for you,
but truly,
a present to himself
for from it,
your future poems
will come.

*but the sun has come up,
so now I sleep.

It was the summer of 2014, I was just about to turn 13, spending June of summer vacation with my Grandmère, in Paris. Tonight we’re at a fundraising benefit for African relief (it’s always something). It was a coveted ticket, I was told, because Keira Knightley and Rita Ora were there - somewhere. It was being held at an empire-styled museum-estate in Paris, once owned by Josephine Bonaparte.

The rooms were ornate in the extreme, with dark, woodland, panoramic wall murals, large, finicky-looking furniture, heavy, with gold encrusted - everything. It made the small, dark rooms and tight passageways seem foreboding and claustrophobic.

A boy named Théo was my ‘date’ for the evening (NOT my idea). When my Grandmère was a girl, back when hoop skirts were the fashion and F. Scott Fitzgerald was just sharpening his pencils, a girl didn’t attend a function without a date. Théo was in my grade at school, but he was a couple of inches shorter than me, and his voice seemed different every time he talked. He was a surprise; I don’t even know how she found him.

As we snaked through the main house to the solarium, in a parade of otherwise middle aged, formally dressed guests, the dim hallway squeezed us down to a single-file line. Théo kept trying to take my hand, in the darkness, like he’s scared or something. “Stop that!” I warned him.

Then I saw a mirror - ‘Oh!’ I thought in surprise, stopping dead in the hallway to check my hair, straighten my dress, and pose for my imagination. I became aware Théo was talking, again - he always was - saying, “You're wa wa wa,” or something. Call me a casual and indifferent listener.

“Were you talking to me” I asked, “or just making words up?” He looked exasperated - why?
“You're blocking the way,” he said, anxiously, in a squeaky voice, the way he said it made me think he’d said it before.
He gently took my arm to move me along and I wobbled in my high-heels, I wasn’t very good with heels yet. “Easy,” I cautioned him, my arms briefly flailing.

“You know,” I said defensively,“ someone PUT that mirror there.. probably Napoleon or Josephine - they WANTED people to stop there.” Men are so illogical, it’s a wonder they survive.

As we finally entered the solarium, there was a jazz trio playing ‘C’est si bon’ (Arm in arm), what else? I said, “I’m starving.” A long table along a blue-glass wall featured desserts and champagne. My stomach growled.
I looked around, there was nothing for it - action must be taken - and Théo was useless.
“Want to go get something to eat? I asked him.
He lit up as if awakened, “McDonalds?” he asked. Our conversations were in French, naturally. His joy probably meant his parents didn’t like him eating there (American cuisine! = junk food).
“Bien sûr,” (of course) I said, grinning.

I found my Grandmère in a cluster of elegantly dressed patrons - and there was Keira Knightley - gorgeous, in a dress like she wore in that ‘pirate’ movie - she movie-star glittered, otherworldly.
“I’m starving,” I informed Grandmère, “we’re going to get something to eat,” I turned to show her Théo’s delighted face - he was her idea, after all.
“I was hoping to introduce you…” she started.
“Please!” I asked, bouncing up and down on my toes with some urgency, taking her hand.
“Very well,” she said, sighing, after a moment.

I turned away, wrestling my too-large iPhone-6-plus from my sparkly party clutch.
“Hey Siri, Call Charles,” I commanded. A moment later Charles picked up.
“McDonalds, Champs-Élysées,” I said, as Théo grinned, rubbing his hands in glee. “We’re in the solarium,” I added.
“Eyes on,” Charles said, indicating that he had me in sight.

you are a fool, Sophia. As I look up at these city lights, every neon sign seems to advertise you; they all remind me of what I'm missing out on. I pass strangers and hear them whispering your tender mercies: "so?" "fee" "ahhh..." I may be being quite forward so early on in our correspondences, but the theory that you are a scrap of paper that someone would allow to slip through their fingers is ridiculous to me. I say that because even after only meeting you once, by such a fortunate and faithful chance, I wanted to write screenplays, novellas, and entire manuscripts only based on how beautiful your name sounds when I say it. I will be absorbed in everything you admit me to learn about you. I only hope for your amusement when you discover my own scorched trails. I'm stupefied by your compliments, and I will catch every drop of your defrosting heart on my tongue. I felt so stupid but I beamed in pride seeing I could make you blush as pink as the roses on the bush behind you... such a delicate, feminine, sensitive color; white blossoming into red, purity blooming into passion. How I wish I could be the one to awaken a passion in you. I'm terribly sorry if I'm smothering, but you've an expert pen dipped in ink of naivety... in meeting you I crossed the border between respectable me and questionable sanity: the Sophia Line (your kiss would be turpentine, **** anything I used to be to become anything, everything you need from me). Ah... fee so... you've given me a lot to live up to. xo. Josephine.

She has skin like soft
midnight and eyes that shine like
the bright evening moon

Her laughter echoed
happily around the room
travelling through an

open window,  to
sing with the birds , her big smile
lights up any heart

Emigrating far
away to Dominion
Republic..her quest

for a brand new life
begins to take shape , her dream
ready to breathe air

Born in Africa
She's a lady of respect  
A jolly spirit

Her mother skills show
in her children , polite kind
loving and happy

She wanders through her
newly painted house with a
silent hum of smiles

She said to me 'Donna
you're getting married next week
and your here painting

my house , how have you
coped'  , I said I have a real
amazing daughter

who as taken charge
of all that needs to be done
We both smiled so wide

She wears a silky
scarf around her head , she as
the essence of

a free butterfly
I admire joesphine
I'm glad I met her :)

So, this was written to an unnamed ex a while ago. I ran across it the other day, and I might publish it in the collection I'm currently working on. To me, this is more than just a letter, it's a piece of prose. It's a pouring out of the soul in a way that few people take the time to do. Obviously written at a very rocky time in a previous relationship, I enjoy the clarity of thought that's displayed (not as an egotist, but as a stylist), and I enjoy the allusions and illustration. I'm proud of it, if not for the source or the outcome, then for the product of my turmoil. If I were to classify it? I'd label it, now, as a study of the mind. Enjoy it, and, as always, I welcome your comments and criticisms!

-###-

                Before I say anything else, I want you to know that I love you deeply, and truly. I would give anything to make you happy, and I'd do anything you ever asked me to. I don't ever want to hurt you, and I don't ever want you to be unhappy.
                But I am unhappy. I sleep next to a woman I can't touch until she won't notice, who won't - or can't, I still can't figure out which - show me the affection I crave; and when I try to explain to her the physical and mental stress this puts me through, she doesn't understand or doesn't care (still can't pin that one, either).
                I once took a "Psychology of Affection" class. Evidently, the emotion we call "love" is a conglomeration of a number of different, smaller emotions. Chiefly among them are attention and affection. Attention was always defined by my professor as "the willingness of one to give their focus in degrees, and the blatantness with which they are willing to display that focus." He went on to explain that when one is willing to give their focus but not to display it, or willing to make a display but not to give it, then an imbalance is affected, and either one or both members of a relationship become unhappy. And degrees of happiness become apparent when degrees of willingness are shown.
                In our case, I think, I am both willing to give you my attention, and unafraid to do it regardless of place or time; therefore, I think I give you a very high degree of attention. How do you think you score? How do you think I'd score you?
                Affection works on the same principle: willingness to give, and the ability to do so in a way that is apparent to the other party. Along with these two, though, Affection has a third variable: frequency. The combination of these three and the balance that must be kept determines the amount of affection given, and received at an intellectual level.
                I am entirely certain that I have been willing to show you ample affection in any venue, I am quite capable of showing you my affection in a plethora of ways, and I have done so (in innumerable combinations) with staggering frequency, despite the lack of reciprocation that should have left me hopeless.
                Well, right about now, I'm starting to feel hopeless. Any relationship requires two very basic things, hon: cerebral and physical interaction. An intimate relationship, therefore, requires an amount of intimacy in both cerebral and physical interactions. In addition, any relationship, intimate or otherwise, requires equal participation in all areas to continue over any extended period of time.
                I have been trying for God knows how long, to make this explicitly clear to you: I do not receive enough affection or attention from you for me to stay happy.
                I've laid a foundation in a universal truth for you; you have the science of our interaction at your fingertips, now. You understand what I understand, so I'm going to be as forward as I can in addressing this situation.
                In order for me to stay satisfied with our relationship, the amount of affection and attention I get HAS to change. I am, currently, both mentally and physically distressed, and I am at a breaking point. I have tried multiple times to get you to change: I've tried being subtle and hinting at things I like you to do - things I'd like to see more frequently from you; I've tried being abrasive, being a **** - telling you what I don't like, and why; I've tried being manipulative - guilt-tripping you into thinking or acting differently; I've tried (God, have I tried!) to be truthful and sweet and kind - to tell you, up front, what pleases me and what doesn't in the un-charged air of plain discussion. Any, and all (!), of these methods have been met with selfish stubbornness. I have tried, very hard, to convince myself that it's just been me. That it's something I have, or haven't, been doing. That me flipping out so often is just me freaking out. That none of my state of mind has anything to do with you. I dread putting any of the blame on you because...I worship you, I don't want your flawless image tainted by these things! But, at this point, I've done so much, and tried so hard to get you to change, to open up to me, to act (just act!) like you want me in your head and heart and *****. But you've been stubborn and you refuse to change...and it is driving me away.
                I don't want you to drive me away. I know you love me; I'm convinced you think I improve your life. And I'm convinced you improve mine in so many ways. But there is an imbalance.... I've done as much as any man can be asked: I have been kind, gentle, sweet, gracious, caring, selfless, and loving; but I cannot be these things when you will neither receive them nor give them back. My emotion, my spirit, and my love are being swallowed up in a void, and I can feel the light in this relationship fading. I can't stay in this if I'm the only one showing how I feel. If you don't love me, anymore, tell me. But I can't stay here and not know. I can't give you so much of my heart, and not get anything in return. It's my turn to be selfish.
                I am banking on the hope that you want this to work, honey. I am praying to God, Almighty that you would rather change how you act than give me up.
                I have never given anyone I've been in a relationship with an ultimatum before. Maybe that's why I've been hurt so badly before. But I'm not going to sink this ship myself. I'm giving you an honest chance. I want this, more than anything. I want you more than anything! I don't care that we don't earn enough for food, yet. I don't care that you spend oodles of time with your friends; I don't care about anything you do with your life except this. This one thing will solve so many of our problems, you don't even realize!
                My peace...my serenity with our relationship and with you as my partner in life, depends, solely, on how you behave towards me. There aren't enough Josephine Collective concerts or pills, or parties in all the world that will make me feel like you love me more than you showing me your **** self. I NEED this. It is essential to my functioning as your lover and your friend; I can't love a stone. And I can guarantee you, right now, that if you can put aside your insecurities, put aside your "awkwardness" argument, put aside your doubt that I would ever, EVER, turn you away or leave you alone, and just show me every minute of every day that you love me, I would never worry again. Reassure me with a kiss. Say "hello" with a kiss. Warm up by scooting closer. Cool down by throwing off a blanket - not pushing me away. Act like you can't keep your hands off me. There will be no nights where I ask you distressing questions; there won't be times when I'm offended by your going somewhere without me; I will not get upset when plans get upset. If I knew in my heart of hearts that you loved me and you'd make sure I knew it when you saw me, then there wouldn't be room for doubt.
                But right now...I don't know whether you love me or whether you're just going through the motions. My thinking is "if she loved me, she'd show me." But you don't show me. You know this as well as I do! One passionate kiss every couple of weeks is not showing me. A wag of the hips a couple times a month doesn't show me. Part of the psychological validation for committing to a relationship is the fact that your partner's body is yours to use. And it should be a willing use! I am a male. Three-fourths of my interaction with society is conducted physically, or visually. I need to see and feel that you love me. And that's not very much to ask from you, is it? And it's not awkwardness. You've shown me plenty of times that you're not abnormally awkward. And it's not shyness; you've been perfectly happy to make a scene in front of others before. It's not ***, either. *** isn't what trips me up. I'm fine without *** as long as I know you'd give it if you could. If I was confident that you'd jump my bones before I ever suggested it, then it wouldn't be an issue. But I'm not confident. Hell, I could go another three months if I got a BJ now and then.... I'm tempted to say it's pure selfish stubbornness, but I know that's not true. I think you're afraid of something. Maybe of opening up - spilling your guts - for me. Maybe you've been hurt a lot worse than I realize? There are so many possibilities. But you're the only one that can let me in, baby.
                I know it's not your way. That's evident enough from all my failures. But this is beyond "my way versus your way," now. This is essential to our being together. I love you, selflessly and shamelessly; but if I am going to be happy with you, I need to know you love me back. This isn't an option, anymore, dearest. You have to change. I need to know on a daily, hourly, moment-to-moment basis that you prefer me over anything else...period. My heart is breaking because I can't tell if you love me back. So, I'm going to make this easy on you. I've brought this up to you before - multiple times, actually. Each one just as memorable as the next. Each one serious enough to tell you that something has to change. But you don't seem to get it. You don't understand that this is paramount to my happiness...essential to my functioning; and you don't get that yet. You've asked me to do multiple things differently; I have changed how I act - who I am - to cater to your peace and happiness, and I am happy to do so. I have asked this one thing of you and you won't do it? I have asked this one thing because it is the one thing that I need to change. I've told you that. But the day after, and the week after, and the month after I bring this up, nothing changes. I can't handle that. I can't handle that I can be so willing to make you happy...to change my thoughts and actions through my own will to make your life simpler, less worrisome, happier and easier; yet you are so unwilling to grab your own mind and make it behave as you choose to ease my mind and my heart and give me that little validation I need from you so I can tell myself that I am your whole world the way you're mine!
                I will always love you. Always.
                But I can't be with someone who can't show me they love me.
                This is your ultimatum: Change. Put me in your mind. Think about the things you do that make me happy, and do them. Physically connect with me. Touch me on a regular basis. Visually connect with me. Get my attention, and hold it every day. Act like you are my woman the way I try to be your man. And do it now. You do not get a week or a month or a year. I am out of time. I can't wait on this any longer. If you want me here, hold me here with your own two arms.
                If you can't hold me, then I won't stay.

-###-

Simula ng makilala ka,
Buhay ko'y sumisigla,
Lagi akong masaya,
Nalaman ko ang tunay na kahulugan ng tuwa at ligaya,
Aking pagsinta,
Bakit nga ba?

Naranasan ko ang mga pambihirang bagay,
Ang mundo ko'y naging makulay,
Binuhay mo ang diwa kong matamlay,

Ikaw ang aking lakas,
Pinakita mo ang aking magandang bukas,
Mula sa simula, gitna, dulo at wakas,
Ang isip at puso ko'y iyong pinatalas,

Madapa man ako'y iyong hinawakan,
Binangon mo ako mula sa lupang aking kinasasadlakan,
Napuntahan ko ang dulo ng kalawakan,
Ang mga puno't halaman,
Ang berdeng kagubatan,
Ang ganda ng kabundukan,
Lahat ng ito'y aking nasisilayan,
Daan ka nga ng pakikipag-ugnayan,
Ika'y gamit sa pakikipagtalastasan,
Daan tungo sa kaunlaran,
Ngunit ako'y nanghihinayang,
Dahil ika'y di kilala ng maraming kabataan,
Sabi nga nila hindi ka magandang pagmasdan,
Di nila namamalayan,
Ika'y maaari nilang maging kaibigan,
Taglay mo ang naiibang kapangyarihan,
Ika'y iniregalo ni Rizal sa kanyang buthing may bahay,
Kay Josephine Bracken ika'y ibinigay,
"Kempis "ka kung tawagin,
Ika'y,"Tagalog Christ"  naman para kay Ferdinand Blumentritt.


Alam kung di matatawaran,
Ang iyong kasiyahan,
Kapag ang mga pahina mo'y binubuksan,
Mabuti kang sandigan!
Sayo nagmumula ang di matatawarang panindigan,
at di-natitinag na katwiran,

Mabuti kang larawan,
Nagsisilbing huwaran,
Magpakailanman!
Maipagmamalaki kahit saan,
Pangako ko ika'y aking dadalhin,
Pupurihin, I-ingatan at papahalagahan,
Hanggang sa aking huling hantungan,
Sayo lamang...... Minamahal kong----aklat!

Give me a smile, that I may build on your assurance,
Kiss me, that I may have to thy kind heart entrance,
Love me less, and see how tumultuous life could be,
Give thy command, and see my loyalty to thee.

In thine absence, mine heart cannot from thee depart;
A moment's departure would rend my world apart.
I recall that very day I beheld thy face;
A lasting memory I will forever retrace.
That Sunday when thine eyes did my emotions disarm;
The day mine heart responded to thy Love's alarm,
The day you sat upon mine heart's epicentre,
To govern my feelings from their very centre.
Josephine my love, I bequeath my self-will to thee,
Let me thy world share, and make thine own tumults mine,
And come in to my own world, for all I have is thine.

The East is singing. Like a slug of happy Banshee
at a salacious angle across my decedent pillow, while my phalanges
***** for your waist like a sleepwalking magnet
to the sun-drenched ***** of an impossible Mermaid.
It's Josephine for Breakfast….and all is steam.
And I Amazed.

Young girl in blue, why must she be so pretty?
With thick copper curls and eyes to match
Still, someone so wicked has forsaken her yet
And so unwillingly does she sell her pure body

In grievous strain, how she sits on *****, stone steps
Head bowed down with chest wide open
Hands gripping at cold, goose-bumped flesh
Bruised from nights spent with a rough customer

And people may curse and stare on London's hostile streets
But still her eyes hold their defiant gaze
So young is she to have such a bitter stare
Does she know how my heart aches for her?

Young Josephine,  girl in blue,
Nearer below, to the ground every hour
And soon, she thinks, she'll let her heart freeze
Numb to feeling already, she might not even hurt
Oh, what a beautiful mess on the streets she'd be

So please, quick, someone come whisk her away!
Save her from the chilly air and save her from the pain
That shatters her so every time a man looks her way
She shudders beneath her pale skin

Oh, people of all ages, here, come and look!
See how she cowers in dark alleyways
How she shrinks and swallows her withered soul whole
So that only she has the key to pent-up sorrow

Strong, so stout, this unfortunate girl
So helpless is she in deep poverty
Dear man and lady, spare your vile thoughts and high virtues
And rescue her from this misery

Take her home, go now, raise her well!
Encase her in love from in and out
and rub her frozen, goose-bumped skin
Happiness, I swear she will bring

As fast as ocean sweeps the bay
legs of crescent carry away
a sea of wonder won't reject
the sweetest moons you collect
in the palm of your hand soft as peach
slender spine strains to reach
the sun in the sky too far for advice
on speaking to creatures fragile as ice
because the sweetest girl, dear Josephine
shielded by blue instead of green
has a smile painted upon the wall
off the museum fortress she dare not fall
because the places you venture will seem
only to exist before in your dreams
never so lonesome as an unshared bed
cluttered with thoughts of remorse instead
slamming doors in the old broken home
cover the windows high with stones
when travels far and wide resume
remember your home is always the moon.

It was the summer of 1954. David Ito was from the only Japanese family we had in our town. I was glad he was my best friend. Actually, he was my only friend. His father moved his family to our small town of Prichard, Illinois when David was only eight years old. That was three years ago.

Only two and a half months apart, I was the older one of our daring duo. I even was a couple inches taller than David was, so that settled it. In spite of being an awkward girl, our differences in age and height made me quite superior at times, although David always snickered at that notion. To me, theses differences were huge and monumental, like the distance of the sun from the moon. To David, that was typical girlish nonsense. He thought it was so like a girl, to try to outdo a boy.  And he should have known. He was the only son of five children, and he was the oldest.

At first, David was not interested in being friends with a girl. But I was Josephine Dunn, Josie they called me, and I was not just any girl. Yet, like David, I did not know if I really liked him enough to be his friend. We started off with this one thing in common.

I knew he was smarter than anybody I ever knew, that is except for my father, a self-taught man. The tomboy that I was, I was not so interested in books and maps, and David was almost obsessed with them. Yet, there was a kindred spirit that ignited us to become close, something coming in between two misfits to make a good match. David was obviously so different from the rest. He came from an entirely different culture, looking so out-of-the-ordinary than the typical face of our Anglo-Saxon, Protestant community, and me, never really fitting in with any group of peers in school, I liked him.

David knew he did not fully fit in. I surely did not fit, either. My brother, Carl, made sure very early on in my life that I was to be aware of one thing. And that one thing was that I did not belong in my family, or really anywhere in life. Mostly, this was because I was not of my father’s first family, but I came after my father’s other children and was the baby, the apple of my father’s eye. But that wasn’t the real reason why Carl hated me.

During World War Two, my father enlisted in the army. He already had two small sons and a daughter to look after, and they already had suffered one major blow in their young lives. They had lost their mother to cancer. Louise Dunn was an important figure in their lives. She was well liked in town and very much missed by her family and friends.
  
Why their father wanted to leave his children behind, possibly fatherless, made no sense to other people. But Jim Dunn came from a proud military family and would not listen to anyone telling him not to fight but rather to stay home with his children. His father fought in the First World War, and three of his great grandfathers fought for the Union Army in the Civil War. It was not like my father to back out of a fight, not one with great principles.  My father was no coward.

Not only did my father leave three small children back home, but a new, young wife. Two years before World War Two ended, he made it back home to his lovely, young wife and family. Back in France, my father was wounded in his right leg. The result of the wound caused my father to forever walk with a limp and the assistance of a cane. It was actually a blessing in disguise what would transpire. He could have easily came home in a pine box. He was thankful, though, that he came away with his life. After recovering for a few months in a French hospital, my father was eager to go home to his family. At least he was able to walk, and to walk away alive.

This lovely, young woman who was waiting for him at home was twenty-year-old Flora Laurent, now Flora Dunn, my mother, and she was eleven years younger than my father. All soldiers were certainly eager to get home to their loved ones. My father was one of thousands who was thrilled to be back on American soil, but his thrill was about to dampen. Once my father laid eyes on his wife again, there was no hiding her highly expanding belly and the overall weight gain showed in her lovely, plump face. She had no excuses for her husband, or any made-up stories to tell him, and there really nothing for her to say to explain why she was in this condition. Simply put, she was lonely.

Most men would have left such a situation, would have gone as far away from it as they possibly could have. Being too ashamed and resentful to stay, they would have washed their hands of her in a heartbeat. Having a cheating wife and an unwanted child on their hands to raise would be too much to bear. Any man, in his right mind, would say that was asking for way too much trouble.  Most men would have divorced someone like my mother, kicked her out, and especially they would hate the child she would be soon be giving birth to, but not my father. He always stood against the grain.

Not only did Jim Dunn forgive his young wife, he took me under his wing like I was his very own. Once I knew he was not my true father, I could never fully fathom why he was not ready to pack me off to an orphanage or dump me off somewhere far away. Why he was so forgiving and accepting made him more than a war hero. It made him my hero. That was why I loved him so much, especially because, soon after I was born, my mother was out of our lives. Perhaps, such a young woman should not be raising three step children and a newborn baby.

My father never mentioned any of the details of my conception, but he simply did his best to love me. He was a tall, very slim and a quiet man by nature. With light brown hair, grey eyes, and a kind face, he looked every bit of the hero I saw him as. He was willing to help anyone in a pinch, and most people who knew him respected him. Nobody in town ever talked about this situation to my father. To begin with, my father was not a talker, and he probably thought if he did talk about it, the pain and shame of it would not go away.

One of my brothers, Nathan, and my sister, Ann, seemed to treat me like a regular sister. Yet, Carl, the oldest child, hated me from the start. As a girl who was six years younger, I never understood why. He was the golden boy, with keen blue eyes and golden, wavy hair, as were Nathan and Ann.  I had long, dark brown hair, which I kept in two braids, with plenty of unsightly brown freckles, and very dark, brown eyes.  Compared to my sister, who was five years older, I never felt like I was a great beauty.

I was pretty young when Carl blurted out to me in anger, “Your mother is a *****!”  I cried a bit, wiped away the tears with my small hands and yelled back, “No, she isn’t!” Of course, I was too young to know what that word meant. When my brother followed that statement up with, “and you are a *******”, I ran straight to my father. I was almost seven years old.

My father scolded Carl pretty badly that day. Carl would not speak to me for months, and that was fine with me. That evening my father sat me upon my knee. “Daddy, what is a *****?” I asked him.

My father gently put his fingers up to my lips to shush me up. He then went into his wallet and showed me a weathered black-and-white photo he had of himself with his arms around my mother. It was in that wallet for some time, and he pulled out the wrinkled thing and placed it in front of me.

My father must have handled that picture a thousand times. Even with all the bad quality, with the wrinkles, I could see a lovely, young lady, with light eyes and dark hair, smiling as she was in the arms of her protector. My father looked proud in the photograph.

He said to me, his expression serious, “whatever Carl or anybody says about your mother, she will always be your mother and I love her for that”. I looked earnestly in his somber, grey eyes. “Why did she go away?” I asked him.

My father thought long and hard about how to answer me. He replied, “I don’t know. She was young and had more dreams in her than this town could hold for her”. He smiled awkwardly and added, “But at least she left me the best gift I could have—you.”  

I would never forget the warmth I felt with my father during that conversation. Certainly, I would never forget Carl’s cruel words, or sometimes the odd glances on the faces of townswomen, like they were studying me, comparing me to how I looked next to my father, or their whispers as the whole family would be out in town for an occasion. It did not happen every day, but this would happen whenever and wherever, when a couple of busybodies would pass me and my father walking down Main Street, or when we went into the ice cream parlor, or when I went with my father to the dime store, and it always made me feel very strange and vaguely sad, like I had no real reason to be sad but was anyway.


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


That summer of 1954, I was a bit older, maybe a bit wiser than when Carl first insulted my estranged mother. I was eleven years old, and David was my equal, my sidekick. Feeling less like a kid, I tried not to boss him too much, and he tried not to be too smart in front of me. I held my own, though, had my own intelligence, but my smarts were more like street smarts. After all, I had Carl to deal with.

David seemed destined for something better in life. My life seemed like it would always be the same, like my feet were planted in heavy mud. David and I would talk about the places we would loved go to, but David would mark them on a map and track them out like his plans would really come to fruition. I never liked to dream that big. Sure, I would love to go somewhere exciting, somewhere where I’d never have to see Carl again, or some of the kids at school, but I knew why I had a reason to stay. I respected my father. That is why I did not wish to leave. And David respected his father. That is why he knew he had to leave.

David Ito’s father was a tailor. David’s parents came from Japan, and they hoped for a good life in their new country. Little did they know what would be in store for them. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, their lives, with many other Japanese Americans, were soon turned upside down. David was born in an internment camp designed to isolate Japanese people from the nation once Americans declared war on Germany and their allies. David and I were both born in 1943, and since the war ended two years later, David had no memories of the internment camp experience. Even so, David was impacted by it, because the memories haunted his parents.

There was no getting around it. David and I, as different as we were, liked each other. Still, neither he nor I felt any silly kind of puppy love attraction. David had still thought of girls as mushy and silly, and that is why he liked me. I was not mushy or silly, and I could shoot a sling shot better than he did. David loved the sling shot his parents bought him for his last birthday. They allowed him to have it just as long as he never shot it at anyone.

David Ito, being the oldest child in his family, and the only son, allowed him to feel quite special, a very prized boy for just that reason. Mr. Ito worked two jobs to support his family, and Mrs. Ito took in laundry and cooked for the locals who could not cook their own meals. Mrs. Ito was an excellent cook. Whatever they had to give their children, David was first in line to receive it.

The majority of those in my town of Prichard respected Mr. Ito, at least those who did business with him. He was not only able to get good tailoring business in town, but some of the neighboring towns gave him a bit of work, too. When he was not working in the textile factory, Mr. Ito was busy with his measuring tape and sewing machine.  

Even though Mr. Ito gained the respect of the townspeople, he still was not one of us. I am sure he knew it, too. Yet Mr. Ito lived in America most of his life. He was only nine-years-old when his parents came here with their children. Like David, Mr. Ito certainly knew he was Japanese. The mirror told him that every day. But he also knew felt an internal tug-of war that America was his country more than Japan was, even when he was proud of his roots, even though he was once locked up in that camp, and even when some people felt that he did not belong here.

If David was called an unkind name, I felt it insulted, too, for our friendship meant that much to me. How many times I got in trouble for fighting at school! My father would be called into the principal’s office, and I was asked by Mr. Murray to explain why I would act in such an undignified way. “They called David a ***** ***”, I exclaimed. “David is my friend!”

Because David and I were best buddies, we heard lots of jeering remarks. “Josie loves a ***! Josie loves a ***!” some of the children taunted. And Carl, with his meanness, loved to be head of the line to pick on us. He once said to me, “It figures that the only friend you can get is a scrawny ***!”

In spite of my troubles at school, Father greatly admired David and his father, and he thought that David and I were good for each other’s company. Mr. Ito greatly respected my father, in return, not only for his business but because my dad could fix any car with just about any problem. Jim Dunn was not only a brilliant man, in my eyes, but the best mechanic in town. When Mr. Ito needed work done on his car, my father was right there for him. It was an even exchange of paid work and admiration.

Both my father and David’s father felt our relationship was harmless. After all, everyone in David’s family knew and expected that he would marry a nice Japanese girl. There was no question about it. Where he would find one was not too important for a boy of his age. Neither of us experienced puberty yet and, under the watchful eye of my father, we would just be the best of buddies.

David pretended like the remarks said about him never bothered him, but I knew differently. I knew he hated Carl, and we avoided him as much as possible. David was nothing like me in this respect—he was not a fighter. Truly, he did not have a fighting bone in his body, not one that picked up a sword to stab it in the heart of someone else. It was not that David was not brave, for he was, but he knew the ugliness of war without ever even having to go to battle. Nevertheless, he used his intellect to fight off any of the racist remarks made about him or his family. He had to face it—the war had only ended nine years prior and a few of the war veterans in town fought in the Pacific.      

Because of the taunts David had experienced in school, I was not surprised what David’s father had in store for his beloved son.  Mr. Ito could barely afford to send one child to private school, but he was about to send one. David was about to be that child. When David told me that when school resumed he would be going to a boy’s school in Chicago, my heart sank. Why? Why did he have to go? I would never see him again!

“You will see me in the summer”, he reassured me. He looked at me as I tried to appear brave. I sat cross-legged on the grass and stared straight ahead like I never even heard him. I had a lump in my throat the size of a grapefruit, and my lips felt like they were quivering.

We were both using old pop bottles for target practice. They sat in a row on an old tree stump shining in the evening sun. David was shooting at them with his prized slingshot. I had a makeshift one that I created out of a tree branch and a rubber band.

“You won’t even remember me”, I complained.

“I will to”, he insisted. “I remember everything.”

“Oh, sure you will”, I said sarcastically. “You’ll be super duper smart and I will just be a dummy”. In anger, I rose up my slingshot, and I hit all three bottles, one by one, then I threw the slingshot to the ground. David missed all the shots he took earlier.

David threw his slingshot down, too. “For being a girl, you are pretty smart!” he shouted. “You are too smart for your own good! The reason I like you is because you are better than anyone I ever met in my entire life. Well…not better than my parents, but you are the neatest girl I ever knew in my life!”

For a while, we didn’t talk. We just sat there and let the warm, summer breeze do our talking for us. I pulle

there's something about Josephine
or is my mind playing games
the quick assembly Gatling gun
the lion doll that tames

i met her on the Waltzer where
she fed me tales so strange
the fermented dog in a salty lake
the rifle without a range

an evening in a sparse living room
one chair, one fire and a screen
an ensuite rubber holding cell
a kitchen cat and cream

there's something about Josephine
i love her smile for sure
her collection of multi-vitamins
Her urge to cure and cure

pop culture... yeah... that yawn...
borrowed from the t.v....

   belle delphine... makes a comeback:
                                                       ­    i'm back...

       i must be a real riddle...
                                              though...­

      there i was thinking:
sorry... i was on auto-pilot...
i started to think of...

                harley quinn -
ava max - sweet but a ******...

trouble: i know what a tease
of regret looks like...
i also know what...
a make-shift...
nazgul harem of bulgarian
looks like... too...

        a tease of regret:
a former girlfriend...
striptease of a follow-up
narrative...
very nice... oh oh so nice!

but this one is clearly not beyond:
being a push-over...
belle delphine is no harley quinn:
i.e. ******* seriously sober...
**** your entranced: drunk...
******* sober overtly sober twice...

but... for the bathwater...
and... no...
i am the omega man...
on the list... of... allowed...
men... to *****...
into a genocide tissue
of... banking on genes:
without a ****-up
mother and father sort of
narrative...

         for the drunk:
the sobering whirlwind of reality...
because when rich people
like... should... i... inject...
myself... with some... broown show-gar?!

like i once asked an aesthetician:
i guess in reverse...
i was put under the scalpel and:
the selfless dictum of medicine...
he asked me: what books?
i asked him: quo vadis?

                i thereby managed
to burn the bookmark...
who was sane enough to salvage
the book i was reading?

    clued in on the: beside the brothel
antics...
   this clearly aesthetic girl...
this money making
crazy wheel this buttocks of
supra-roulette...
   when man and death...
the trough... the rhine valley
of trenches and brick-making
tactics for the ***** pederasts
on top...
those cherries those readily...
and thereby... easily...
cusps of iced cream...

                prostitutes speaking...
their gimp and limp-sidekick...
hard-on...       "procrastinations"...
to rhyme to rap...
by the way it looks like:
to rhyme is to rap:
to rap is to rhyme:
  
cookie dough oh oh *******...
and crisp-et... cookie ok: dunking...
slippery and swoon... and sweat...
   boy george fickle...
somehow browning... and none of that...
best dead before:
there was ever a best before date...

and then....
                      MA-GI-C!

playing a game of caesar's thumb:
      versed... in pollice verso?
          how do you play a game of
caesar's thumb?

oh... well... you will require a female maine ****
cat... and some... adamant moth...
the game works... like:
you proving to the beast:
you are not... toying with the moth...
the moth is a lesser creature
to both of you...

how does one play a game of caesar's thumb?
when one only has...
an agitated moth to catch once in a while...
and a maine **** cat:
to give attention to...
with a clenched fist:
with the entombed moth trying
to wriggle its way with
a fluttering of the wings...

   there's also that female
mosquito...
clenched onto by a pinch involving
one of her leg-work limbs...
and being a female...
she pulled and tugged and made
a "dialectic" of the verbs associated
with that limb extension...
a male maine **** cat would
have made a feast of her...
like he would of the cobwebs...

she escaped with 5 legs... to her original 6...
but a month...
i can't disfigure...
too quick for the lassy...
i held the moth in my clenched
fist like a rattle of fluttering
wings teasing...
not enough...
top bored from having
the impossible catch of the night...

the moth always remains: intact...
alive...
either cat catches the moth...
or leaves ones bedroom:
with a blooming gloom
of boredome....

but that's how to keep intact
a "sanity"...
a visit to the brothel...
becomes... a typo-
       for a shop only butchers are only
allowed to... inhabit...
    the sentencing of meat...
the clarity of heaving a life
of a moth in one's clenched fist:
and there's a thirst...
of the fist: to draw that lost samble
of: the begrudged familiarity
of language: and given that...
it's all in 21st century crude / rudimentary...
and rhyme...
            
       no caged beacon of the heavens...
of a lost circumvent...
caged lottery of the rhyme
of being perpetually caged...
       for the loot of **** and cockrel loitering...
like: morn is the cry to whine!

a game of caesar's thumb...
there was once a clenched fist: and a thirst for
blood...
now... a maine **** she, cat...
and a moth... fluttering...
like... an agitated petal-wing-and-rose...
too many "bored"
marihuana junkies stalking these
english streets come twilight...
one almost bumped into...

agitated by my poker facing
the already agitating grey-ish...
by the number...
by the number:
                   what-what of...
if he be not the king george:
having to give up h'america...
then he's no helen mirren...

          a game of caesar's thumb:
any and if all be owned:
that antithesis of a game of chess...
a game of both
kings and paupers...
3D dynamic: and madmen!

"revision": belle delphine...
cold... hearted... capitalist at... brain-sizzle...
but... gravitating toward
two outlets of fiction....
   belle delphine ≠ harley quinn...
a little ******... oh so hot...
hot tender me oh my ***:
posion the daisy...
poison rose should... a rose be all
the more... already... poisoned...

a visit to the brothel:
a visit to the butcher shop:
for the cho- chop and chopping assurances...
the crooked crown on an already
crooked head...
the statue of charles II
in soho sq....
        
              i most certainly paid for much
less than this ****-tenure-of-a-tease....
but then... to have an argument...
you'd need to mingle with a bunch
of thieves... murdering slob-gatherers
of phlegm...

            poisoned red-bunch of
a wholly rosed-up affairs of loiter...
and time: such a prized dead-end of
eventuality...

            the father the god:
the sacrificial lamb...
because... god forbid she was
ever to somehow burden
a deity with a: one first...
once and a daughter...

                  ****** fun-fair for
the riddled ghosts...
       blank shot shrapnel...
                     better suited...
midnight blue of the alias black...
then at least:
best... towing two gaylords
with everyone's bet on
typo and a bullseye!

   but never... the sensibly...
      hetrosexual normative...
goody twice-tied...
shoe-and-shine:
pwetty: that girl and:
you best forget to whine!
that girl and you'd wish...
            her father was a shtalin....
because...
crude and rude...
and all that's ****...
before Lucifer peeks with
a... siamese cranium...
              
      death to all...
who have made it concise...
in making life:
hardly... a... pardon....

  yes... best equipped it making it:
magic! and all the more difficult...
but never difficult enough...
difficult enough...
when... somehow... never... citing...
an... albert fish...
needle in my pelvis...
to... exfoliate... with any...
and more... addition of...
pain as an... ******...

      i guess the plead of the shawshank
sisters drops...
it always drops...
when there's a "conflation"
of evidence...
surrounding... the lower-base...
extremity: the crab genus...
       crustaceans....
    child- this-and-that...
       ****-fiddler...
             but a cannibal to boot?!
you... talk...
or simply... electrocute said:
individual...
since... your... ******* 'ed...
is already fried by the magic
of norm-frequence...
and the already: herd... estasblished...
Norman?
you with me...
sptunik jimmy...
               you with me... cream-soda joe?
you with me...
finding aliens already bigger
than flies... the widow mantis...
blessed joseph josephine?!
*******-numb-wit?!

oh yes! all conession: avowed
to you!
               because...
who isn't...
      in russia... they vowed
to keep these cain canine brood phlegm
of an *******: freely to roam...
siberia... that was the promise...

when they would **** a birth-firvolity
of a: devil and the "by chance"...
when converting man to
the stature of elevating wolf or bear...
and all the better...
rather than... caging the odd-ball
parody of... lacklustre joke and...
moth-ball-rolling...
****-wits the: future!
supposed! narrative!
******'-h'america...
              celebrated feature of culture
most involving... a horror...
      and... bull-wrapping!
               a ******* for a skinning!

Etta James, oh the lady could sing.
Sarah Vaughn,when I hear Anita Baker in away it's Sarah.
If you never knew one of the two.
You would swear they was one.

Billy Eckstein, during his time.
Mister B, was smoother then Billy Dee Williams.
And he had away of mastering a song.

Which we saw when David Ruffin came along.
Who was a rival to Sam Cooke?
A master of the coolest romantic hooks.

He might have been a little different.
Except Chuck Berry can't be deny his dues.
Johnny B Goode, is nationally known.

The color country boy in his song could play.
Yes, he had to change the word to suit the segregation days.
But Johnny B was African American in everyway.

Who doesn't believe that when you see Morris Day?
That he owe his style to Cab Calloway.

The role of an African American diva could be trace to Lena Horne.
Or maybe actress Freddi Washington.
Or opera star Marion Anderson.
Who sometimes don't get recognition like they should.
Almost like Dorothy Dandridge doesn't.

Still they played on like Josephine Baker.
Who like George Washington Carver faces hostility and problems?

We still trying to educate people about Charles Drew.
Who fame is traced to the blood floating within you?

Against the greatest of odds.
They adapted and blazed a trail.
Through the roughest of times.
They was determine to be.

Who doesn't know Little Richard?
Who borrowed heavily off of gospel singer Billy Wright?
And soon was creating truth within his lyrics.
Until others came along and water them down.

We know truth still is avoided by them.
Except for the man that sung about a hound.
Which wasn't at all about a dog.
But about a cheating man.
Sung beautifully by Big Mama Thorton.

But then no man plays the guitar better.
Then Marva Collins or Rosetta Throphe.
Yes, these women could play.

Some people will never understand Malcolm X contribution.
Except, he left many that's seen today.
Just notice the way he never revisted the prison in any negative way.

We marched.
We protested.
And some of the best controversial stars comes from the musical side.

For no other side of music can touch the blues with truth.
Well, I guess country do.
But the blues takes many forms.

Could be about leaving.
Could be about loving.
Or that stuff you do in the dark with your love.

It could be the howlin'.
It might be the scoffin'.
It could be the chasin'.
But like many styles of music.
Some knows they was creating babies.

Which leads us to Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass.
Where the Love TKO and Let's Get It On still is the songs.

It's an African American tradition of the past.
That affects the future too.
For stars of yesterdays.
Are seen in stars of today.

A Legacy.
And we know legacies doesn't fade.

.why? why?! why would i even be, remotely,
concerned?
    esp. with a story from yesterday
akin to that of a feminist poster being
taken down, that read:

    woman
        women
    noun
   adult human female

because some, sorry... i love the word:
****** / doctor "thought" the word:
woman was endangering
transgender people...
                                                 wow!
looks like the homosexuals are on the attack...
can you be a misogynist and a homosexual,
simultaneously? well... apparently you can!
bravo! encore! encore!
    so should i be bothered when such antics
are taking place in: of all places, Liverpool?
**** it, i'm going to have a beer and watch
the sunset - or at least that's what i thought
a few hours prior.

the **** was i doing, watching channel 4
news?!
      i do remember watching it...
why was i watching it?
     for all it's worth...
                they do a pretty solid job,
**** me, they even reported on Iranians
using instagram...
                        gotta love the Shiites...
probably my favorite Muslims...
   given their Persian background -
proud face, like those native Americans
in the film hostiles:
   proud faces...
                        well... if you're going
to root for someone, root for the "underdogs"...
those Persians were never going
to bow down to the camel jockey Arabs,
sure as **** they wouldn't, and didn't...
ah ****...
  that's the problem with drinking,
and writing at the same time...
   in vino veritas...
     shh... it's a secret...
                    one downfall of drinking
and writing...
                      hmm...
                         ­     really hard to tell a lie...
by god it's hard to tell a lie
while drinking...
     why? there's no fun in telling a lie,
spinning a fictive narrative,
marketing character understudies or
fan-bait...
                a bit like:
Chopin...
                     versus a ******* orchestra...
(yeah, sorry about that...
   oath words, i swear,
   are compiled in the category of and:
i.e., they're conjunctions...
   otherwise i'd stutter, or something much
worse, like a writer's block & ****)...
wait...
   what was i going to say?
ah!
   channel 4 news... sure... it pure left,
globalism, multi- blah blah blah
and further blah to the nth term...
i couldn't believe it though!
   obviously the two stories were going
to be spoken about side by side...
     first... the second arrest of Tony Robinson...
apparently yet another, or another yet:
contempt of court...
     scenes from the Old Bailey...
and, d'uh, obviously,
   Jeremy Corbyn opening a placard of
a sq. dedicated to the far right
    "terrorist" attack on... ***...
  can't remember her name...
    Joe... hey Joe... where do you think
you're going with that gun?
Janie's got a gun...
                   this **** never gets old:
Chris Rea: Josephine...
       i send you all my love,
  and every single step i take
i take for you...
i would never believe that so much of
Van Morrison has that many
  jazzy accents in the oeuvre...
moondance:
   and a crisp, cloudless early
afternoon illuminating the birds,
the blues of flowers and the contract
of the about to shoot
  into embers of होली Holī
envious greens...
turmeric, chilli powder,
     cumin, fading cardamon,
garam masala,
                      coriander...
cinnamon,
           then the masalas:
   tandori, achar, tikka....
    then korma and the sri lankan
powder...
blue indians have their celebrations
in spring,
  i'm about to spectate the celebrations
of autumn... win win...
but that's still not the point...
channel 4 news...
  oh ****!
  Gavin!
   Gavin Mcinnes!
    **** me!
          hmm...
   love the tartan suit...
******* looks plush!
about as much style as matt preston
  (from Australian Masterchef)...
**** it,
   i forgot which of the chicken
wings recipes i am supposed
to make tomorrow....
                               *******!
the Azerbaijan recipe, or the...
oh ****... o.k. i can tell the difference
between the porcelain of the Japanese,
and say... someone from Thailand...
whatever... i'll cook something anyway.

Shannon, Mariah, Serena, Maria
Meridia, Midian, Sharon, Alliah
Rochelle, Camille, Rose, Halo
Trenna, Jessica, Ashley, Georgia
Marla, Olivia, Sofia, India
Daniella, Diana, Christina, Caroline
Isabella, Amelia, Amanda, Matilda
Nadine, Haley, Bailey, Francine
Eliza, Annabelle, Kathryn, Sandra
Melinda, Audrey, Aubrey, Emily
Tara, Emma, Ginny, Kathleen
Josephine, Helena, Charlotte, Laura
Chelsea, Arkady, Megan, Kelsey
Kayla, Karliah, Moana, Vivien
Kaysea, Macy, Stacy, Lorraine
Theresa, Felicia, Cecilia, Darlene
Holly, Brianna, Alexa, Ariel
Marianne, Miranda, Jennie, Coral
Korra, Daisy, Penelope, Rayne
Zoey, Cassandra, Grace, Stephanie

Josephine, the train carriage in front of me wobbles and it is eerie, I wonder what it would be like to press my hand into its rubber sides, testing out for some sign of reproach. I love you something rotten. Like a stuffed bear toy with the nose chewed off, a book dropped in the bath, something where my toes won’t dare stop to uncurl and sighs, slow down into somewhere around the place of deep, warm comfort. Eric Clapton’s Layla played slowly, Elvis hasn’t stopped, can’t stop falling in love with the way your eyes close, Fleetwood are still waiting at the bus stop where we left, and the Lumineers croon in the voice of Cleopatra. You’re crying on a train listening, thinking ‘Oh dear. I can’t get enough of this’, it’s like burying my head in the sand. It’s a nice crinkle in the corner of his eyes, it’s like coming home to everywhere at once. Like seeing it all hug you into one, the place where you lost everything welcomes you home, you find your house keys, your blue scarf, the basket of odd socks. Josephine, you seem like the road sign for stop and road works and this way to the Midlands all at once. You’re the last human left.

the life of patrick youngspeer


young patrick youngspeer, is a very nice kid, but in one year he lost his dad

and that made him devastated and patrick was so determined to keep his dads

spirit alive, he went on a trip all over outer space, but the problem was his dad

didn’t want this, and held his mouth saying to patrick, don’t do what you used to do, buddy

because i really hate being known as the old digger of the block, i hated being called the

great big old fogie, just to protect my son patrick, but patrick who was so devious and cunning,

like a little kid at as pre school, and patrick’s dad was really worried, he went down to try and find

where his next life will be, but patrick wesn’t sure he wanted his father to move on, oh well, he wanted him

to reincarnate, bur not move on, oh well, maybe move on, but patrick wants to meet his father’s next life

one of these days, but mr youngspeer hated the idea of meeting his first born son patrick more often than the others

but patrick wasn’t getting what he wants, so on the street, patrick youngspeer, yelled to his schizophrenic paranormal voices

****** oathe i am a cool kid, your a yeah mate yeah kid, cool kids do, what i do, yeah, only yeah mate yeah kids do what you do, yeah

and mr youngster said, nobody’s teasing you patrick, so why are you worried, and patrick said, they are trying to take my beliefs away

when i am powerful enough to reincarnate people from death to new life, but mr youngspeer said, no, i need to reform him, because he is

looking at the meat on the kids legs, on the youtube clips, but patrick said, i am not, i am keeping up to date with dead members of my family

i am not taking this further, i know it sounds weird, but just to christians points of view, and patrick, who is a nasty writer, and over half of his

pieces of writing, were rubbishing christians, one online dude on writers cafe, over the internet said, patrick should stop hassling christians

because it is a lovely religion, but despite patrick apologising to this lady, and the fact that patrick not meaning it,she told patrick that he was a

very nice person, and patrick went on to write songs and stories and after his mother went on a holiday to visit her sister josephine, who was a

healthy person, never smoked, never really did drugs, was diagnosed with lung cancer and patrick felt bad for his aunty josephine,he decided

to write a little poem for her

my aunty jo, my aunty jo

i really feel for you aunty jo

you don’t deserve what god brought to you

i really feel for you aunty jo

i might be a tad naughty and led you astray

i might have never given you a chrissy card today

but i care for you, oh my aunty jo

i care for you a lot, my aunty, yeah

i don’t want to see you die, jo, i thought you were too healthy

i know that you could beat this, so i will pray for you, yeah

i will pray for the powers of athena will come down and whisk and whisk and really

really whisk your lung cancer, away

you see i know yiou have grandchildren, who don’t want to see you go, love

you see, though i don’t want her to suffer but i don’t want us too either

please save my aunty jo, from this awful cancer shock

i want you to cure my aunty jo, miss athena, please save her now

she is too nice to die, the world ain’t ready to lose my aunty jo mate, no, athena please cure her now

please save my dear aunty jo

and as patrick was finishing  his poem, his father brought to planets together to make sure aunty jo will be alright, by releasing athena’s magic

and he did this with patrick youngspeers help, you see what a fabulous team we have trying to keep the family alive, but the only way mr youngspeer

will help his son like this, is to be dead but now his dad is dead, patrick is helping with his spiritual healing, and patrick said, drink plenty of coke, (party juice)

to save the workl, yet again, eventually mr youngspeer said, i don’t care if you don’t work, help people with me, because nobody really cared for you, nobody cares

unless you converted to christinailty, patrick said, don’t **** me into your christian ways, you fucken christians, i am your cosmic friend, but this christian said

i want to go up to outer space to help my father, patrick said, we are not ready to see the back of you yet aunty jo, and mr youngspeer said, no patrick, we ain’t

ready to see you go, no way, you see my pal, patrick youngspeer is based on my life

I'd like a sometimes-shallow river.
Just enough to dip my feet in deep until they land on smooth, cold stones.
I'd like a tree to hang a swing on a cliff that hovers over my cold water river.
I'd like a road soft on my wet toes
(moss will do)
-that leads to my swing that hovers over my sometimes-shallow river.
I'd like the mossy path to start at the front of a white wrap around porch
that hugs a cottage of the palest of blue with creaky steps to  my squeaky screen door that opens to my hardwood floors.
My wet footprints will leave ghost steps in my parlor beyond the porch.
I'd not sit in the fine couch that I'd  have only for the company.
I'd like to have some tea to warm me after my swim... I'll drink it in the sunroom
just beyond the white kitchen.
I'd like to see a vase of white daisies with sunshine yellow center white on white on yellow in the pristine kitchen of mine. The daisies-I've picked them fresh,
...From the garden
...that's in the back off my cottage and set them in an old jam jar on a worn-with-love wooden table.
I'll hang my daughter's summer jumpers on a line that runs from the willow tree
(she'll have auburn ringlet curls that gleam in the sun as she dances through the drying sheets)
-to the cherry blossom tree that I'd like to think would be right just below my bedroom window (so I'd smell them in the morning when I'd like to think of me yawning and stretching in a bed of pale pink lace and soft wide pillows)
I'd like to think the cat would meow and he would pet her lovingly.
I'd like to think he'd be kind to animals and to me.
Perhaps handsome with his crooked smile.
I'd like to think we grow old here. And grow happy.
And the children. Oh how the children have grown, lives of their own now.
I'd like to think we can dip our feet in that sometimes-shallow river, not that they are older and settled and it's just him and I.
Now that all the years have lovingly passed with ease.
I'd like to think.
Yes. I'd like to think so.

Sahn 4/30/14

The thunder was rumbling overhead
As we walked toward the church,
I whispered, ‘What are you doing, girl,
Are you leaving me in the lurch?’
She looked so fine in her wedding dress
But her face was set in a frown,
‘You had your chance,’ she gave me a glance,
‘You’re always letting me down.’

I wasn’t supposed to be there so
Her father gave me a nudge,
‘Sit at the back if you really must!’
He’d always carried a grudge.
‘I couldn’t sit by to see her tie
Herself to that freak, d’you hear?’
‘Just make a sound and I’ll knock you down
And throw you out on your ear!’

I looked at the six foot three of him
And knew he meant what he said,
But I couldn’t part from Josephine
In truth, I’d rather be dead,
The thunder rumbled and lightning cracked
Exploded the Wishing Tree,
Dropped it across the Vestry path
As if it was meant for me.

The tree had blocked us off from the Church
As the rain came pelting down,
Josephine raised the front of her skirt
And screamed, ‘We’re going to drown!’
We turned and ran way back to the car
But they locked me out in the rain,
And Josephine turned her eyes away
For my face was racked with pain.

My clothes were sodden, my hair was drenched
As I wondered what to do,
‘What can I say to change your mind,
To prove my love for you?’
She wound the window a tiny way,
Said, ‘This is a practice run,
The wedding’s not until Saturday,
And by God, you’d better come!’

She’d planned it all and had set me up,
Her father sat and grinned,
‘I’ll be along with a shotgun, so
You’d better be there, my friend!’
I danced out there in my soaking suit
As the rain streamed down my face,
The ‘freak’ was simply a cousin of hers
I’d thought was taking my place.

She told me we were having a son
Just after I said, ‘I do!’
I said, ‘Well aren’t you the sneaky one,
Why didn’t you tell me? True!’
She waited ‘til the reception, then
She really took me to task,
I asked her, ‘What of the practice run?’
‘I thought that you’d never ask!’

David Lewis Paget

i.   on our first date, you ask if i want to learn how to fly. guiding my trembling fingers over the yoke, you introduce me to an old friend, a mechanical anatomy you’ve had memorized since you were sixteen. the first time your hands leave the two of us alone, you watch my terrified eyes and laugh. flying is the easy part, you say.

ii.   there was a time when explorers would name new lands after people they loved instead of themselves. somehow i’ve never found that idea comforting. it worries me that places out there exist that can wear my name better than i do. on nights when you’re gone, i spend hours trying to picture what an island looks like when it smiles.

iii.   even as she was bathed in the icy blood of a dying vessel, rose sang a love song to the stars. when i think of romance, i think of hands that dissolve into air so that hearts have to sprout wings just to find each other on the way down. i think of ships of dreams and flying machines.

iv.   these days, i have stopped waiting for the silhouettes of planes to paint demolition across the sunset. when i’m lonely, i play fleetwood mac records and spin around the apartment until i exorcize all the ghosts. i try to convince myself that when loving rhiannon, no one gets to win.

v.*  on our last night, i ask you what the hardest part of being a pilot is. you unstitch your eyes from the cerulean-sewn skyline and look at me. *landing, you say. your hand feels warm in mine.

He was certainly whipped,
a passion like none other,
and sadly broken,
they departed,
heirless,
but never forgetting
their passionate-feelings,
their internal fires,
for one another,
burning eternally.

If Napoleon had read
Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'
he would stay in bed all day long
with Josephine instead of waging war in Russia.

I (Reverie)

Thisbe senses diamonds in the dusk/
Turner protects himself with cozying ash created from the minerals of adoration

The street is a hundred constant cinders
Communicating with mystic language
Repeating itself

While the newsstation weeps
And front yards hold their damp cheeks
Cherishing the child who is now gone

The envisioned tower, embarassed with its Windows n lack of decorations/
Not even the cobwebs will settle in vicinity!

A paranoid Sculpter cant sleep and so takes to Spanish poetry

"You're giving out your tarot cards to
Yusuf what will he do with them!"

A mother says to her child who
Incidentally goes blind in that exact moment

An epitaph for the ashtray sitting precariously on the stainglass table on the porch where an
Empress seeks shelter
Carving at her senses with
Violent monologues about religion
Courtesy her friend

(A stranger to risk,
Some tired dull balloon rises up within her consciousness going higher and higher!)

II (December in Moods)

Mauve temporarily fills the room
Your soft breathing brings an elation
To the dresser at the foot of your bed
I can't rest here beside you
I want to kiss you
And your sleep

The discontent arrives
In shrouded form
You resign yourself to the kitchen watching logging trucks forever heave around the bend of forestry
Threatened with the possibility that they'll lose balance and collide with the house

I visit during Holidays with marigolds and fantasies of Asia
& with sweetness on verge
of imancipation
You kiss my face
attempting composure
As the radio promises
That this Winter will be especially
Frigid.

I apologize for my arrogance!
In losing friends, betraying my past beliefs for
White wine & phenomenology

You recite a foreign anthem with whispers, curious of the mathematics of romance.
Questioning yourself but especially yourself in relation to me.

III (Josephine, Burial)

In contemplation
A dog listens to nearby whistling
Of a young girl home from school/
In six months she'll fall victim to the divorce of her family/
And in twelve months
Accept that her mother had a lot of problems
It isn't her fault
It was never her fault/

In sixteen months she'll chip her front teeth on the coffee table

In three years she'll decide on a better first name
"Josephine"
In four she will legally change it and

In five the previously mentioned dog will be buried
With his owner's favorite scarf

IV (2015)

The August heat causing distant roads to waver in illusion while
A home catches fire

Luckily not my own

I save my mind one night before it loses itself to pure imaginative flow
In midsts of 108 repititions of the Gayatri Mantra
I remember that!
The portrait of a french woman robed in sunset colors is taken off the rotting walls of a Cabin, auburn with evening rain.

Silence!

V (The rosebush blushes while being painted)

Yggdrasil is being renovated a few blocks away & a garden is unable to answer
For its
Unusual poetics

The local raincoat impressionist observes
A fantasy hidden in the soil
Nurturing itself
With percieved
Infant curiosity

Its tough to bring up a child on your own



You ser Roalyn joan Parkse was a single mum who every day, struggled
Through life, trying to raise her 3 year old daughter Katie, you see Katie's father
Was a ******, and yes,,Roslyn was ***** into being pregnant, she wanted an abortion
At first,,but then she was thnkimg, she always wanted to be a mum, so she decided to take
The risk and give birth to her daughter, but it's hard because, every day she went out
She kept looking at her daughter,,and then she'll have a horrible thought, that, what if,,she
Met her ****** again,,and she made a pact not to tell Katie who her real father is, mainly
Because, Roslyn wanted to make sure that Katie knows that she loves her.
The day after Roslyn gave birth to Katie, the father was sentenced to 45 years gaol, and
When Roslym heard that, she was relieved, because she can be at peace, and that made her live her life, making sure Katie is protected.
Roslym had her hands full trying to juggle raising her baby, on the little bit of money that the government gives her with the baby bonus, and she was told she wasn't eligible for any type of pension,,but if she, is willing to sit in on an interview with the men at centrelink, she might be able to receive the single mothers pension in 5 months, and Roslyn was a bit hostile about sitting in on an interview because, that's how her life with Katie's father was,
You see, Roslyn's parents hated Katie's father because they knew that he was bad news, and another thing too, they also knew that he was capable of anything.
You see Roslyn, as a child was easily led into any relationship, and also she was easily to be taken advantage of, and even if Katie's father appeared nice to her, he really was a really horrible man.
You see he started to muck with Roslyn, to keep her away from the family, and then when
He did that successfully, he will lure her into his bedroom,,and make sure that Roslyn was unaware of what he was putting her through, when Roslyn started to see sense, he gave her an illegal drug, which he said was a panadol after trying to calm her down, yes,  go felt better, but she was under a stupid dillusion that Katie's father was Mr Wonderful.
But she was drugged when she was showing signs of understanding that she is in the wrong relationship.
Roslyn's parents were frantic, as they were really worried that Roslyn was not calling .
them, and even when Roslyn's father died when she was 25, Roslyn was given another illegal drug to make Roslyn be really spaced out, so she can be too out of it, to attend her father's funeral.
And despite Roslyn's mother worrying why her own daughter wouldn't go to her daddy's funeral, she started to worry, and went on a mission to try and find and rescue her daughter, because, she was thinking that this is stupid, this horrible man, whose name was Jack Robsrts, was trying to force her daughter just to keep away from being a family person.
And when she eventually found Roslyn, of course when she knocked on the door, and Javk answered it, and when he saw Roslyn's mum standing there, he tried to shut the door into her face but as he did that, Roslyn's mum, used what she learnt in self defence class,,and knocked him out with one punch and she went straight up to the top bedroom and there she found Roslyn spaced out on the illegal drugs that Jack gave her, and when she was bringing her down the stairs, Jack got up and then grabbed the nearest knife and decided to hold a little hostage situation, but Jack was unaware that Roslyn's mum called the police, and despite the police sitting outside Jack's house for 2 hours,,they finally rescued Roslyn and her mum, from Jacks evil clutches, and they were put into an ambulance to be checked over, while Jack was arrested and yes as we told you, he was sentenced to 45 years behind bars,,but as Roslyn was being checked out by the doctors, which they saw she was drugged and also she was pregnant, and despite having an argument with her mother about it,,she decided to do what she wants and keep the baby,  because, Roslyn knew as long as Katie was unaware of who her real father was while being young, everything will be alright.
But her life was a complete nightmare, trying to raise Katie, always looking over her shoulder making sure that nobody was following her, and even though Roslym tried to keep a brave face, she was really suffering, looking after her baby, and she started to wish she
Listened to her mum when she said to have an abortion, but she wanted Katie to be unaware of how she really felt.
Each birthday that Katie had, Roslyn tried to make sure that Katie had heaps of friends to play with, and her first birthday Roslyn thought it was cute that Katie was doing baby talk with all her little friends, and she tried to make Katie feel so special, on her first birthday, and since then Roslyn struggled through life, trying to juggle her social chit chat with friends as well as giving her mum babysitting duties,,yes she started to feel good about her decision to keep Katie and at Christmas Roslyn met a man, and because of her track record with men, her mum was concerned even if she had met him and thinks he s charming but so was Jack, but that's in the past and Roslyn's mum told herself to trust her daughters man, and not think about Jack, because it will be good to have a father for Katie, so she kept it under her hat.
And on Katie's second birthday, yes she had a party and yes she made a lot of new friends, and Roslyn was happy because she was fooling around with her new man, whose name was Kenneth Kopland, and Kenneth asked Roslyn for her hand in marriage and Roslyn accepted, and when she told her mum, she tried to keep a brave face, hoping that she wssn't about to make a big mistake.
And 3 days before the wedding in November of that year,,Roslyn heard that Jack had escaped from prison with a couple of inmates and she was so worried she told her mum and despite days of putting it off, she eventually told Kenneth who made Roslyn feel protected by this man, and he told her, Roslyn, just stick with me, and you'll be safe, and after her honeymoon and then Christmas where  Kenneth dressed up as Santa for Katie and on New years eve, Roslyn was pregnant, with her second child but she was still worried that Jack was out to get her, and when Roslyn was out with her girlfriends, Jack noticed her with a little girl who looks like it could be his, but because she wouldn't touch him with a 30 foot pole, he had two arrange a little hostage situation for her,,and mate, if Jack doesn't get what he wants, he will ****.
So the day before Katie's third birthday, Roslyn and Kenneth were getting ready to go
To New York to visit Kenneth's parents but while they were doing that, Jack paid a little visit on Roslyn's mum, where he held her hostage, untill she tells him where Roslyn lives, and after 4 hours of yelling at Jack to leave her be, she told a little white lie, that Roslyn died in hospital that day, and then Jack left, knowing she was lying, but he will plan this little situation for her and then in a couple more weeks when Roslyn returned to her home town,
With Katie and Kenneth, Jack saw Roslyn in the car, and decided to follow her and yes he knew exactly where she lived now,,and it was only,a matter of time for him to make his move.
And the next day, Kenneth left for work, and Roslyn stayed at home and just kept an eye and it wasn't till she decided to go for a little walk,,she noticed Jack, and she suddenly let out a big scream and then had a yelling match, till Jack got out his pistol and shot at Roslyn, hitting her right in her chest and then kidnapped his daughter Katie, but after 3 hours of searching, the police found Jack nursing Katie at a railway station and the arrested Jack and put him back in prison and 3 hours later, Roslyn had passed away and she lost her baby as well and this made Roslyn 's mother and husband very scared as they move in to help raise Katie together because Kenneth didn't want to give her up, and when Katie was,,she was told the truth about her mother and father, and when Roslyn's mum passed away, Katie read the horrific story of how much pain her mum suffered being ***** back then, and after her grandmas funeral, she lived happily ever after with Kenneth and his new woman Josephine.

On love and astral travelling,
Through the stars we're wandering,
On the universe we're pondering,
My eternal love, Napoleon,
Intangible man, but  full of fun,
Our jewelled cloak of stars,
We've journeyed from afar,
Shape shifting, glittering,
On love and astral travelling,
I'm no Carlos Santana,
I have no scarlet bandana,
I am the oestrogen,
Old Josephine,
Where haven't we been?
I have no testosterone,
You're my "Yes, master!" Napoleon---
On love and astral travelling,
Sentimentally wandering,
Are you Angelus or Incubus?
Reminiscing, reflecting,
Comical groupies for loving,
On love and astral travelling......