with hog jowl
and mole eye
he sentenced all
that I loved
to die.

without thought
of what we’d built,
who we were,
or why we did the
work;

he burned it
to the ground,
squinting in the
haze of his lack
of forethought or
the aftermath
wrought.

those that we serve
think that we know,
because we do.

we know.

yet,
as these changes,
these Trumperies,
these budget cuts
that slice and sear
the most vulnerable
among us…

these things cause
the unforgivable
“I don’t know.”
to escape our
collective lips.

but,
he knows.

with hog jowl,
mole eye,
and horse's ***
he sits upon
his liar’s throne
and
knows,
but won’t
say.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

dented but not broken
in the demon dark
the deep chasms
of the wilderness
and the forgotten recess
silence from tender slumber
has awoken
the synergy of temptations
on their merry dance
sip divines peach nectar
the naked flesh and heaving chest
unleash thy sporadic vital spark
the impressed intent
of thy chosen scent
fuels the interactive nodes
neon infused electronic spasms
that echo in the dark

a subtle jowl in latent jest
as twilights nimble fingers
unbutton what remains of carefree days
and the fallen angels
with such sweet caress
to touch the mystic
unfurl the arc of your rainbow
and shine your rays
on cobbled memories
of Paris in the rain
and Tokyo Blue
hustles in the backstreets aroma
blow the cobwebs a gentle kiss
on days like this
left unchecked and laid to rest

gathered in momentums voice
and uttered as a sensual breath
the nakedness of emotion
the arcane interventions
should not be left to fade
to fill the empty space
they call the void
these technicolour moments
we've made  
stumble on the waves
the fragrances of youth etched
in unedited stop motion
the contours of discovery
sparkle in the ether
the azure eyes
and the open arms
of the ocean

Inside your little mouth, a crucifix and a hula hoop plant great capers on the short hash marks on your glossy pinkish lips. Like a boardgame I can't win all by myself or a song without a tune, like the melody that chases strangers, or any words that precede goodbye.

The future is coming quickly now, serfs lining up to set fire to their nostrils, take the cue ball and whet their mass wicks for the apostles. Anecdotal anomaly that J-walk over crosswalks whose life then becomes an apostrophe. Morbid fixture on the substrate, creatures limitlessly nodding. A grape-sized egg fills its own unit and erupts to shape the outlet. Your verb-legs may appear demonstratively while you crowd surf, we should play the music louder while we practice all our dance work.

Sunday morning we wake up stiffly, my jowl hurts from mouthing softwords, the nights' adventurous perversity of thwarting dinosaurs with  Cobra Starship. Even the back room closet manager gave us enough bleach to see our eyelids, frothy nictitating flitters drop freshly severed lashes that inspire wishes and sultry playlists.

Consecrated mien market of company meals. Underneath the cable cars the dye blunders sores in my eyes. Said I had to go, said I had to die. Said I had an itch but I couldn't get in front of all of this and unwind. Between all of the bees and buttered flies he made it hard for us all to survive, or service this state of our lives. I recall schoolyards where children paid to their dimes for us to see the spaces in the middle of lines, the circles on the circles we liked, stuck in bubble baths with crayon all on their hands. For the price of staying alive I deliver a bribe to sway eyes from the crimes of street dwelling inner-city sinners with stomach contents' upsetted by the rough ******* of heavy petting. She eats red licorice rope with with my fingers rubbing on her tongue. A pedagogy I use to teach, but pretty much no longer have a use.

raise ourselves, rouse ourselves, rising to race up versus the sun,
to ferry dock, to catch the first, the 5:10am to the mainland,
which is just an island-too-but-longer,
on the first boat of the workweek, the first leg
of an island to island to island journey-poem, but that
for another morning, unless already writ, but forgot?

the north fork, an herb garden of vegetables and fruits,
family farms & rural suburbs, towns of English & Indian names,
all cheek to jowl, corn rows, tractor museums,
high school football victory banners of a prior year,  
and alas, always fresh, aged-woe reminders,
too many streets, ferries, bridges named for young boys who didn't return from foreign wars and whom we all knew by right sight

me, a summer sojourner, a summer visa, an off-islander,
a Hebrew, living among the native island born hareleggers,^
the Methodists, Quakers, and the rest of a varietal potpourri of "Egyptians," come here by choice, all, living in a paradisal
farmers market, all faiths enjoying seven times seven
years of plenty

Country Road (CR) 48, plainly named, snakes it way to the city,  
a  hundred miles, a hundred miles, as the song says,
to a distant, invisible emerald mecca,
which magically emanates
waves of gravitational pull powerful,
where I heard that human city folk go to do derring do,
battling with numbers, creativity and keenest human instincts,
game playing for a throne that may not even exist

as we go west, the sun sneaks up behind us
spotted in the steve sideview mirror, watching our
winking red tails,
moving away, asking us why, are we somehow dissatisfied,
with the rich purple soil of this little refuge it protects?

this soil, blessed, brings forth the babies of summer,
truly a fruited plain cornucopia, the famed potatoes,
fresh eggs, for sale by unseen and oft unattended hands,
plant it and it will come, the peonies flowers, the sod, tomatoes,
the Christmas trees, local duck and fresh caught striped bass,,
over flowing fruit stands endless,
where they debate no politics but only
which fruit will become tomorrow's pies?

and always, first and foremost, the vineyards, the vineyards

not yet six am, sun still too weak, to do the ***** work burn,
fields full of snow white mist lying over man tall vines,
the mist, ground swelling up to the chest level, then north
to the nostrils and head, intoxicating the lungs, the brain,
inculcating the chest with a salve of moisture,
a blend of sea and farm fresh air,
containing the designer's secret arts of earth creation

the fine mist so thick, no different than a snowy white out,
leaves me marveling and a-wonder, why do I leave,
dictated to by boxes on a hardware store calendar?

why not bide and hide in the morn mist,
never will-would we-be found, the vineyards and corn rows,
my protectors, the bay and sound, my natural moats,
is the music of wind + leaves, symphonic insufficient,
isn't the theater of the birds, wild turkeys, families of deer, osprey,
tern, visiting Canadian geese, and the hard to spot, Broadway stars,
those little foxes, wondrous enough?

this guising vineyard mist offers solutions to questions
I should not be asking, especially, primarily,
where is shelter,
for that is asked and answered

You’ll find them in all such establishments,
(Be they graceful small-town former Victorian homes,
Or cinderblock edifices mindful of some campus multi-faith center)
Sitting in the basement, cheek-to-jowl
With moldering burial records and banking statements,
Yellowed newspaper clippings, faded prayer cards
Small squared-off boxes hastily tabbed together,
Ostensibly temporary containers which have acquired
An unintended and wholly unwelcome permanence.
The whys and wherefores of their subterranean placement
A mixed bag of foible and outright foolishness:
Unresolvable squabbles concerning possession and burial,
Families that skipped out on the bill, leaving mom behind,
Cases of outright not giving a good-*******.
And so they remain, in lieu of repatriation and redemption,
To sit for something akin to perpetuity in some cases
(Members of the profession resolute in their respect
For the dignity of life,
Though their sincerity enjoys less unanimity)
While others wait for mass burial
Once legal niceties have been satisfied,
While still others, in care of firms not so scrupulous
About crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s,
Are flung, albeit somewhat surreptitiously, out the back door,
The remains to take flight if the grass is dry and the wind is brisk,
Otherwise to be left to the vagaries
Of curious birds and creped soles.

Although your friendly demeanor
Helps mask your vexatious vibe,
What's hidden under your trench coat
I can effortlessly describe.

Your ignorance is beautiful
Complimenting your facetiousness,
Which gets people to laugh,
Following you like a princess.

The amiable attitude masks
An ugly judgmental jowl
Which tends to spark
A camouflaged scowl

Your playful features are
No more than soft and cushy wool.
The transparent grin you flaunt about
Is just a bunch of bull.

Now grapple my ideas
Don't throw them out if sight.
Just listen when I say
"You're stupid and I'm right"

In the morning, I gather my thoughts of yesterday
Like the foraging chipmunk, collecting acorns
And stuffing them miserly in my jowls
The past is sustenance for a somnolent soul

As age condemns my faculties
I pull, from my once copious jowl
A jewel of sorts
A garnet set in fool’s gold

My memory is manufactured
Assembled and disassembled
No longer what was or is or will be
But was and is and never has been

I confine my thoughts to winter
Where barren fields and sterile trees
Offer less to recollect
And empty my jaws of these useless reminiscences

3rd Ward, Houston, Texas; where the ancient layers
Exude the art of living.  Living cheek to jowl,

Hand to mouth, foot to road, bullet to head, head to heart.

Under these paved streets beats a heart of history
Mortared with ground bones, and sweat, and blood.

I call to you Soil teeming with our mothers and our fathers.
There is no rejoicing when I meet you, face-down,

And I am pushed and shoved down by hands of any color.

Inside your little mouth, a crucifix and a hula hoop plant great capers on the short hash marks on your glossy pinkish lips. Like a boardgame I can't win all by myself or a song without a tune, like the melody that chases strangers, or any words that precede goodbye.

The future is coming quickly now, serfs lining up to set fire to their nostrils, take the cue ball and whet their mass wicks for the apostles. Anecdotal anomaly that J-walk over crosswalks whose life then becomes an apostrophe. Morbid fixture on the substrate, creatures limitlessly nodding. A grape-sized egg fills its own unit and erupts to shape the outlet. Your verb-legs may appear demonstratively while you crowd surf, we should play the music louder while we practice all our dance work.

Sunday morning we wake up stiffly, my jowl hurts from mouthing softwords, the nights' adventurous perversity of thwarting dinosaurs with  Cobra Starship. Even the back room closet manager gave us enough bleach to see our eyelids, frothy nictitating flitters drop freshly severed lashes that inspire wishes and sultry playlists.

Consecrated mien market of company meals. Underneath the cable cars the dye blunders sores in my eyes. Said I had to go, said I had to die. Said I had an itch but I couldn't get in front of all of this and unwind. Between all of the bees and buttered flies he made it hard for us all to survive, or service this state of our lives. I recall schoolyards where children paid to their dimes for us to see the spaces in the middle of lines, the circles on the circles we liked, stuck in bubble baths with crayon all on their hands. For the price of staying alive I deliver a bribe to sway eyes from the crimes of street dwelling inner-city sinners with stomach contents' upsetted by the rough ******* of heavy petting. She eats red licorice rope with

two gun shots
circled around your brain
like the world

you heard the bullet
crunch through his head
like it was your own

remember when you were five,
and you played army together?

remember when you were twelve,
and you started smoking **** in his basement?

i remember

you wrapped your body around him
bleeding into the pavement
like bandages around wounds

michael
you are not made of gauze

michael
this is not your fault

michael
don't feel guilty for the laws
you've broken

you are not broken

michael
your friend is not gone

his body has been stolen
by bullets to the neck
and the jaw
you are not alone

this is not your fault

blow may numb your nose
but it doesn't change this
guilt

don't punch walls when you're angry
you're knuckles are not a letter
to the men who killed him...

i know it's hard to let go
of the past
but ****** clothes can't stay
crammed in zip lock bags forever

standing in that parking lot
waiting for a second chance
so you can taste the limp limbs
of killers
won't give you a reason
to stay alive

it's time to take out the ***** laundry michael
listen, listen to me when i speak

don't you dare believe
you deserve to feel this way
michael
i will show you the utmost sincerity
even when you sexualize me

michael
you laugh at group therapy
like we're watching a funny TV show

michael
we play catch with a rubber duck
and you tell me
you don't remember who ***** you

stuttering childlike michael,
you don't believe in the inner child
but you have one
he just doesn't act his age
you don't know how to swim
but you are wet behind the ears

your brain is a novel
not a blank page
don't look away when i say
you are bright
let those words keep you up at night
instead of the nightmares

michael
it's okay to be sad
it's okay to say
you are afraid
you keep tripping
over rock-ribbed pavement
replaying the moment
you couldn't save him

in another life
you must have been a pit bull
your teeth clamped fast around
faceless men in black trucks
you're allowed to cry
so loosen your jowl and look up

you can treat compassion
with disdain...
and rush to meet it
with a propane tongue...
setting fire to everyone
you love

but eventually you will
combusting in on yourself
you are yearning to communicate
burning up like
alkane C3-H8

slipping your pinkies through *******
you are a powdered-nosedive
you have survived
the underbelly of trauma
now come back up
michael you can
break the surface

i know that echoing hallways remind...
you have seen too much
too young

but michael
you are good...
you just don't know
what's good for you

He’d been close to the big time,
If not a god of the fight game, perhaps a demigod;
He’d been possessed of considerable brute strength
And the ability to shut out concern for the well-being of others,
But there had been the odd ***** in his armor:
An overhand right which announced itself too early,
And arrived just a smidgen too late,
Plus an unhappy tendency to lose focus,
To stray from those plans his corner had set up chapter and verse,
Choosing the forbidden fruit of the quick knockout.

He had, after losing a bout to a top-ranked fighter
(He was eighth in the world, he would chuckle ruefully,
And I fought him like I was eight years old.)
Decided to chuck it all in,
Enrolling in a scruffy little bible college
Sitting just off an interstate on-ramp,
Cheek-to-jowl with a Wendy’s and 7-11,
In order to facilitate the transition from mayhem to ministry.
He’d soured on the process in fairly short order;
He understood instinctually that he, like all men,
Was a sinner, and likely unworthy of salvation,
And the faculty accentuated the notion daily, if not hourly,
Like so many jabs to the midsection.
He’d inquired, gently, as to the approach one should take
To addressing the worrisome paradox
That all men were imperfect beings
Marooned on an imperfect world,
Yet their fallibility was all they had to build on,
(A rickety ladder to scramble upwards, for sure,
But the only way to reach that golden fruit
Held out for him, though just beyond his grasp.)
The responses varied, from sputtering and vague parries
To the suggestion that such notions were heresy,
And so he’d returned to the club-and-casino circuit
Makin’ the best use of the gifts I have, he would sigh,
Before heading out once more,
Hoping there was one more short right at least one more time.

We’d known him, back in the day
At dear old Millard Fillmore Elementary,
As Three-Desks Tommy, highly imaginative monicker
Deriving from his decidedly unimaginative first name
And the fact that he, indeed, had three desks,
Each of them stuffed chock-full
With uncounted numbers of pencils and erasers,
Any number of homework papers
(Usually A’s and A-pluses,
Though there were the odd B’s and B-minuses as well,
As he was a bright, in fact inordinately bright, child,
But sometimes given to sloppiness and stray pencil marks
And a predilection for not reading the directions completely)
Eerily accurate renditions of dinosaurs,
Wildly inventive stories featuring rainbow-hued dragons,
Noble and voluble talking bovines,
And knights and knaves of every size, shape, and suzerain,
Stories which resided cheek-to-jowl with some bit of uneaten sandwich
Until such time it made its existence
Abundantly clear to the custodial staff.
We’d never stopped to think much about his miniature Maginot Line;
It was what Tommy did and had always done
For as long as we could remember,
Though there were some teachers and an assistant principal or two
Who thought the whole thing was permissive bordering on coddling
(His teacher was a veteran of the wars, and well-insulated by tenure,
But she had grown weary of over-glasses glares and snide asides
When Tommy’s name came up in the staff room,
A death by a thousand cuts and all that),
And one day, while moving one of his desks
To clear space for Simon Says,
It had caught on a sticky spot,
Overturning onto a soon-to-be-fractured toe.
When he came back to school, accompanied by an ungainly cast
And an equally ungainly pair of crutches, his teacher took him aside.
Tommy, she purred, Maybe someone is trying to tell you something.
The other kids all make due with one desk,
And I’m sure you can find a way to as well, don’t you, Tommy?
So Tommy embarked on a great cleansing of his little fiefdom,
Filling several garbage cans with his collected works,
(Math papers and mastodons, bologna and Brobdingnagians)
And afterward he’d kept himself to one standard desk,
Duly filing, returning, and circular-filing his paperwork
As the occasion demanded
(Though one time Murph Dunkirk
Asked Three-Desks if he minded downsizing;
Tommy just shrugged, and said Well, it’s better than a broken foot)
And maybe in his dreams he had a thousand desks,
A thousand tops to fling open,
A thousand repositories for light and legend
Or perhaps he never gave it so much as a second thought,
No way to know now, one supposes,
Though if anything out of the ordinary had come his way,
We would’ve probably heard.

It was a dark and stormy night
The moon was like a ghost
New, it was a sliver
Misty. Foggy. Lost.

Lightning all around it
Dancing on the breeze
Thunder took it in its arms
To Tiptoe Through the Trees

Liquid glinted on its face
Flowed down to cheek and jowl
A madman's laugh arose from it
As the wind began to howl

Yes, if raindrops are as tears to him
They are tears of Mirth
For he looks down upon us fools

*And laughs for all he's worth!

I guess it's
Been four years now
She turned up here homeless
She was old
Even then
Those used teats
The grey on her jowl
Lonely. So loving.
She's followed me
Like my shadow
Ever since
And don't believe
A dog can't smile
In my absences
She'll sit by the door
Until I come back
I'm 60 now.
Just had a birthday.
And this black Labrador
Beauty gave me the honor
Of crawling up next
To me as I went to sleep
She rarely has done before.
And it made me wonder
How I want to die before her
I don't think I could stand
Losing her
But thought
Of what would happen
To her
If I went before
And this isn't poetry
It's a love story
About two lonely orphans
Who found someone
Who loves them more
Than life itself
And how
Much love
Can mean

Stolen warmth gone for now,  followed by melancholic uneventful sounds. When I walk, I walk away from seeing. Everything I thought I might've been. This skin trying to fly away from me, like a misplaced shadow searching for a body to shrug off its grief. Bending, arcing, aching thumbs that have too much memory to allow them any fun. The old time might have agreed, with the girl lost for at least three weeks. Sugar and a can of milk condensed, heated up over campfire coals in the woods near Libereć.

Twice I'm too scared to talk. After a boxing match with a raging bull. Staleness lingers over these sweating hips, where half a moon quaffs down Verdi's Requiems. I told you I'm hiding in the jungle now. Through these cufflinks I speak through a startled jowl. First that dying tone, the startling sound of a fading D Minor song. The mines of the forest grieve, until the hours born sell the rights to sleep. Taken and away from grief, where wiggling children's fingers are seen. Only to find the child was not a realty.
Let your hands make amends to me, whether you're here for the pistachio ice cream or vanilla almond dream. Princess pleas for a pauper's being.

Looks like the child bit off half it's tongue, to ignore all inquiries into where its gone. Minute games and clauses of flesh, I tie her up using her own belt.  Chasing The Rockies for a festive blue, then I gorge myself while she enrolled me too. Quiet bandits filled with starlight.

At night the time is ripe enough to mate:
In close proximity, we duly prowl  
Thro’ slumb’ring streets advancing, cheek by jowl,
With caution like a tiger’s guarded gait.

For us, our claws convey both love and hate,
Into the sea, our songs we shriek and howl
Of treachery and longing hear us yowl;
Bewitching all with beauty is our fate.

For you, I am your ever-loving slave -
Upon your feline charms I’d happ’ly sup!
To have you by my side is all I crave,
Like cream tea we could lap each other up.

Oh! What loving phrases we could hiss
While resting by the hearth in endless bliss.

Face down in the mire, head weighs three tons.
Ants marching, he longs to be among their
shimmering ebony ranks.
No morality, no war of will.
Only repetition, only eye and jowl, red and black,
simplistic nature.
Love lacking, spiritless life, bearer of the stone
always East of Eden.
Outcast.
Cyst of society,
unknown.
City walls crumbling, tears crushing their noble courts.
Ten thousand limbs pressing new earth, as the innocent scream at the sun.
Beautiful this unseen inside,
the coursing lifeblood below sand skin.
Steady chaos, as drones rise about carnage,
unscathed on whipping wings.

Down her cheek there rolls a tear
Lowered eyes reflect the fear
She feels that others see the pain
She tries to hide to mask the shame.

Shame of what she has become
Despite her efforts to succumb
To good intentioned, sound advice
Delivered at preposterous price.

Shame at how the mind deplores
Those temperamental personal flaws,
Of slights inferred and insults hurled
At friend and foe with flag unfurled.

Friend and foe who tried to help,
Who lowered guard  to feel the welt
Of verbal horsewhip to the jowl,
To violently recoil with howl.

Betrayal in its basest form
All sympathetic help withdrawn.
She furiously stands distraught
In isolation’s cold white thought.

Down her cheek there rolls a tear
Of distain for the eyes that jeer,
Direction of the darts of blame
From whence no help will come again.

Marshalg
Collateral damage
4 February 2012

Time runs through her promises
and discounts them
one by one
for such are these cart wheels
made to unravel the stony path
and yonder the Ash
jowl to cheek
their  longevity snaps
soiled by the wood-colliers

we tread  pebbles
that fornicate with the dead
laying  haphazardly
to unburden their endeavour,
de-fragmented
a Memory of un-feasibility
proclaims  the broken Path  
and purchased here for eternity

He enters. A stiff morning jowl
can be heard clicking.
And, in early grievance,
the second man’s clock speeds its ticking.
He lies lulling himself (lamenting)
while lockjaw bends down,
knees cracking.
Behind the fold that blinds the floored man
a “D” engrained from cigarette ads,
After smell of the first’s wafts over.
An emphysemic growl is left ringing
on the ground; tumultuous hacking
kicks in like the cops that reside down in Brixton.  
Wheeze, hack, and cough, and cough. And cough.
(Silence) bearing down from the **** erectus
leads Remington to the Clark of the floored man’s
pounding chest.
Rest, rest; he tries to protest, but the cavalry
can’t hear his signs of duress.
And now slitting wrists, from inside the veins;
the invisible smoker never could be restrained.

There once was a poem
Of which was spoken
Then taken away
Never to be heard of again

Jowl pressed against
Oven rack
Eyes placid
as a holy cow
Breathing whispered line

Giving
Taking life

Incantatory orbs sworn
Coursing forming
transfixing
The torpid
Into tor
One last time

One more
Poem
Hers
And hers alone

Conjured up rungs of rack
Her impromptu ledger
Bowed
By the weight the weight
Of galloping mouthed axes
Running full speed past
The rush the crush

Into the margins

A clever trick!
Gone from us

Handful of whitened knuckles
Inside usurped fist ******
******* no more
Open to the magnificence

She had had
All there ever was to be
For a time

I have been wandering how mommy
Sweet did come by such a tommy
Big, enquired the pretty darling
Of her dear dad. It's the Lord's doing.
A boon so marvellous to behold, that's true
And priceless. I can't take thee now thru'
The episode whole. But it did wilfully happen
Tween me and her, said more the pop, when
We blithely together laid for a marital affair,
Cheek and jowl, that we might perfectly pair
And have in unison our amorous-laced passion,
Melting them into one inseparable fermented fusion.
From that act of affection came her womb large,
From which a life precious like thou will emerge--
God willing--soon; after nine-seemingly-slow months of
Steady evolvement and care, it will be time enough
To bring forth. It might be twins or more, or a boy
Or a girl only; but when a scan is employ-
Ed, you can confirm the very gender and number prior
To the hour of parturition of that gift of honour.
Thou wilt be wise, pray i, my peering daughter,
As thou by age by and by dost begin to muster
In life empirical knowledge and understanding
To unravel the mystery behind a protruding
Belly of a woman firsthand thyself. In school
And everywhere prithee, my child, be nobody's fool.

How Marjorie dances
cheek by jowl,
we could never be strangers-
her face countenances
with comely candle light .
Parfait Oysters and Rose  -
a double diamond of moonlight.
Only in France's nord pas de calais
could we rejoice,
redolent in vintage Boulonge
our hearts aching for one another.

The lonely wolf raised nose to the sky and decried his terrible plight
He let out a sound to pierce the night, a sound both frigid and yet bright
This paradox alone can tell the tale of one who’ll never say
To friend or foe, how do you do, dear sir?
His soliloquy freed to assault the air, a sound not despicable, no, nor fair
Roam alone dear wolf and find that solace which will free your mind
Ever lonely, yet never alone, his sound decries his mortal life
A timeline drawn as through the sand to tell his tale, his life, his woe
Brother lend me your ear, your eye doth not shed its tears
Hear the sound, hear it anon; it calls upon a lonely hour
Tales that wander the misty woods, to prey upon dear children’s fears
Lonesome meander, tooth and claw, hear the raven’s mournful caw
Yet by the by on the wind blown vales, another’s voice catches the tale
Drawn by the winds the sands of time, beat back the advance of the years
Catch the quarry, sustenance bring, or malice cut within the groove
The jowl low, the sneer held high, the mournful sound carried on the tide
Of morning come with its sweet light, breaking the wolf’s call at last on fright
Flee for darkness, flee for shade, the wolf’s call must at last abate
Or so it seemed on that bleak morn, that night’s reign had died in light
When basked the morning’s light, the wolf’s dark coat did shine so bright
With a yelp he leapt about and saw, the dew turned to steam, an end of night
The light it crept up and briefly illumined the wolf’s brethren ‘pon a distant hill
Nor more was he the lonely wolf, his charade exposed, his howl, choked
The rabbit ran, the hound dogs bayed, the wolf gave chase, the farmer dismayed
For this great sound carried away, to the ship docked in its lonely bay
The captain heard this wolf’s dark howl, but did not know it from visions on the hay
Tossed and turn by wind’s fancy, this his plea in his dark hour
The sun advanced, it’s onslaught indomitable, give light to this fell day
The captain rang his bell, hung high, the yardarms above to shade the deck
Wolf, rabbit and at last hound, all advanced in their own way, came at last to wreck
One and all upon the shore, they all fell to the ocean floor
Tumbled forth from o’er the cliff, they cascaded down amid the drift
Mixed with falls from the river bend, they calls mingled to one great sound
Carried over the morning winds, this sound the captain did not comprehend
The lonely wolf raised his head, surrounded by his quarry and his hunter
What more friends could be wished to have surround on this the end
Then these he found himself with here, he shed one joyful tear
Not the cry of sorrow before heard but a new sound he raised that morn
A call to all at last to see, you’re never alone, not you nor me.

I will **** trees, miss fleas, hiss bees & kiss cheeses like nervously-
nervous nut jobs with neurotical, nerve-racking, miss-ease diseases
Half way up from the bottom down, left of center, tilted backwards,
is the contorted stance that cripples contortionists lunging forwards
Charles Puffy's jumbled diphtherial litter & rot got him caught cold
& brought to higher authorites who knew that Puffy needn't be shot
I must **** freeze, miss fleas, kiss pleas & sis knees like nervously-
nervous **** aces with a neurotic, verve-backing, mist-fees disease
in prison abuse programs for los Indios maricones of British Belize
where we choke Chinese grocers often for greenish imports of peas
from divine Cathay where Falun Gong worship's a Maoistical tease
for the likes of Planters honey peanut butter franchisee John Cleese
who unites skin-sloughing French sheep with shepherds who fleece
along knee, shoulder & pelvic joints & where pink **** ***** crease
which is alright with ****-flap pervert, the flitty queer Edwin Meese
who seeks gay normality & normal gayety with 32 gym locker keys
that unlock a twilit exo-scientometrical face that God frozenly frees
under the gun like a he/she; as known by goys blown in shot breeze
through statues soiled by pigeons above ½ moon toenails of tweeze
long after the decapitation of 91-year-old screen writer Robert Lees
whose bid to keep head & torso as 1 died like Yukio's Shogun pleas
whose fight to keep his head & frame attached died in ½-assed seas
just like ****** Bruce Jenner showing he's a she by varying degrees
that has his ill family of mule-******* climbing like chimps up trees
that has his donkey-******' family climbin' like apes up jungle trees
where syndicated-business-share-differentials run like a viral sneeze
brought on anaphylactically from the sting of gay Cuban killer bees
I caught what you got: a catchy social malady, a red, twisted nose, a
splintered bone sprain & iliac crest pain from a celiac disease strain
as our fiery Icelandical love derailed your icy Africanical soul train,
new A.P.S. screening for Chinese students made Dutch folks insane
as a homosexy Irish turn would flash a burn with Gay Gaybo Byrne
who worshiped all beans save, of course, the stringy mung, because
1 dead Martin Luther King hung sun bred rotten puker string strung
on *****/spine/pines/Ipsen, as anagrammatically fill words are sung
by Ted Nougat & Steady Nugget, Cud New Ghent, Bed **** Gent,
Freddy Knew Chant, Bad Gnu Jaunt, Red Glue **** or Ted Nugent
Ted often changes his name as a dodge for Earthen-plane espionage
with his squatting-over-a-milk-bucket-trick because his heifer's sick
'cause for you I lie to everybody else: Darryl, Charlie, Keef & ****
& lush Woody, whose affair with ***** made the Small Faces click
while avoidin' having massive holes drilled into his filthy neck Ron
managed to remain not dead to complete his homosexy concert trek
while the 2 flat signs of ratty liver brings on thrills + chills, it's only
after you abuse your flat, ratty liver that a flat, ratty liver rat squeals
squeakier than gay drug store cowboys on patented analgesical pills
washed down in ginger beer, tainted by the gooey guts of harp seals
that were buggered by moon-lying *** wipes, 2 gay Buzzes & Neils Lyrics of a geriatrical age that play epidemiological reflect old Paul McCartney's 1960's albums proving that bold jowl pigs aren't knees
as the 2 symptoms of ratty liver disease clog you with rat droppings
atop promontories, in gullies & beneath Algerian cliff outcroppings
where fleet of feet sheet beat tweet bird **** after we eat Crete meat

lips part, two strings, the puppet master yanks
in eager yearning to see her smile,
he laughs at the blood spilling down her cheeks
she laughs back. spitting and swallowing in turn
biting on hooks. shift to point; she spins.
wires tense straining at any held purpose.

gritted and mounted to station wires
cut deep into flesh, fat through bone
until cracking free to fly with severed
manipulators and flowing blood.

the stage set slippery. sanguine
Bambi skids and falls. Disney
without the artifice. The mother seen
to die the exhilaration of death vivid
in the killers eyes.

the final cut. hooks join chummed
with jowl and tongue.

as one the audience stand.
****** silent.
faces lit with praise are but stitched arcs
applause a vacancy of hands.



............................
The writers Iniquity and MrQuipty
collaborate again
©

tchaikovsky's violin is so emo --- no,
it's sylvan undone, or
it's sylvia plath in
the hot seat

this isn't me being cheeky
-as if my jowl were up against that cold oven rack-
it's, obviously, me acting out, me being difficult, me wanting your

attention

ahem

i once got off to her in the school library bathroom stall
her Words
were hands that day
and i came unrequited blackberry skies

i sometimes wonder if
she hadn't realized, just then, how silly it all reallytruly was
and that -that- realization was a place she could, finally,

get to

and

in the sudden rush to pin it down with chikoffskii violins that wept syntax tor,
she bumped her head upon attempting to get out

and she was
going
to sing
i mean really sing
for you
too

Oh dear, say it ain't so
I have tumbled once more into the Ensorcel rabbit hole.
Such beguiling charisma and perplexing dexterity wound up inside the man seated next to me.
Perhaps he has broad branching toes like a stoic Tarzan type, nesting in foliage and kissing the stars goodnight.
Or maybe, just maybe he's a beatnik poetic pulsating with the rhythm the earth has bestowed in him.
His finely aligned scruff and quaintly poised glasses may suggest his love for musical classics.
Oh treacherous day, what ever shall I do?
This man of such illusive origins glazed in nectarous morning dew.
Logistically you could precipitate more interaction to decode the cryptic fabric  fostering this bizarre attraction.
But...
Enshrining and alienating yourself from said object is the best way to circumvent its truthful product.
He is feverishly contaminated by the condition of human, fettered by the society's rubble and ruins.
Ah, no matter I say. I can jowl upon my pumpkin pie and wistfully ostracize the pestilence shreds of reality away.
Anyhow, I do much prefer the aggrandized lofty plot of land transcended from our fickle mortal hackneyed plans.
A throne of land so void of reality my fabricated man could lie beside me in all his Tarzan beatnik classical music glory.

This charity now
from a bored wolf
gorged on habit
unmoved by thy flaunt and flight

little rabbit
it is of no track
nor concern to hunt thee-
even thy tears, dear rabbit
are only tasted when pranced about

And always;

Always, of the 'morrow
at pitiable pace and slack
of silent bark and jowl
gnaws the trap 'round thy leg
fitful of thy freedom, lo rabbit
'ware this bored wolf of habit

On an overcrowded street,
where bright and darkness never meet,
where voices barter to be heard
from faces hidden behind veil or beard.

Aromas, perfumes, pungent smells,
wafting forth from wishing wells,
coffee roosters wake up the souls,
Bazaars of ochre in sun drenched bowls.

Minarets with nibs of lead
scribe crescent moons on skies near red,
Seraglio Point, which marks the Horn,
where Marmara is Bosphorus born.

The sky blue mosque mocks Mecca's name
but leaves no doubt to which bears fame.
Constantinople or Istanbul,
no place, no name, can be so full.

On one goes, by cheek, by jowl,
eclipsed by fading light in cowl.
No talk of morn, no night yet come,
no curfew called, nor quiet but hum.

Of dreams Aladdin's, of wicks, of lamps,
of sesame, pariahs, tramps.
Of sounds from far off citadels,
of glamour, clamour, peal knell-toll bells.

No sleep, no sheep, no counting herds,
no mudlark talk, no listening nerds.
Romans, Greeks, have gone and come,
left names on stones; Byzantium.

Where west joins east, nigh one the least,
by bridge shake hands, an eyeful feast.
The spawn of dawn, once far, now here,
a call to all, to kneel in prayer.

Here we live cheek by jowl with weather
mad storms of wind and tide
exhilarating and powerful forces
its majestic, awesome, claims hearts
we are close here with nature, entwined
she claims a crown, Queen of our Archipelago
nothing can be achieved without her blessing.

Stranded without a line
to pull me back in time
Blinking through snowblind
to try and see a sign

As I stumble through the snow
Where loose footings follow
With my panic held in tow
I cry out my tears of woe

I survived the fall down
Tumbling along the ground
I don't know if I'll be found
This far away from town

Taking shelter in the trees
Away from the piercing breeze
Fashioning my broken skis
To take the weight off my knees

I'm scared that I'll hear a howl
Of a creature most foul
Hiding teeth atop its jowl
As it seeks me on its prowl

Or does something else await?
A slow and more frozen fate
Now that the day turns late
The cold night does not wait

I push the thoughts from existence
For I must be persistent
Or else be gone in an instance
Oh, what is that in the distance?

I was at the end of my tether
As I breathed the brutal aether
But I was found in the weather
And now we're back together

Have you seen the newest
subdivisions they are building
these days? Tiny two story
******* box things all alike
standing cheek to jowl with
maybe three feet in between,
one might be ok standing alone,
but thirty in a row is shockingly
disturbing. With no yard front
or back to plant any flowers or
even let your dog take a crap.

I suppose they are affordable
for new first-time buyers in
this everything overpriced
world we seem to be living.

As for me, I would rather live
in a van down by the river.

He is unsure at this point if the soft pings and dings
Which inflict themselves upon his ears
Are courtesy of the wired-up grotesqueries
Stuffed cheek-to-jowl by his bedside
Or from the ubiquitous phone perched forlornly next to him
(Even at this stage, he has his inevitable newsfeed,
And he imagines he will be tagged in Facebook posts
Long after he has been exorcised
From the concerns of this workaday world)
Chronicled nattering of people
Tethered to him in the most tenuous of manners,
Or the fifteen or so seconds of flashing come-ons
Purveyed to capture what passes for our attention
On those three-inch billboards
Without which our very existence
Would have only the most speculative of meanings.

As he totters toward the final reckoning,
Remaining breaths perhaps few enough
To be counted upon his desiccated fingers,
He would, though he has nothing left to pawn,
No collateral left to barter upon,
Give all for just one more trip around the sun,
Even though he remains nonplussed by the notion
That we leave as we arrive,
Bereft of clues or whys and wherefores,
Not unlike those came before us,
Whose weathered and indecipherable stones
Stand as mute sentinels as some staid convoy
Brings our pitiable refrain to a full stop.