Croaky Karaoke

You poke your eyes out,
you put your eyes in,
you poke your eyes out,
and no vision makes you shout,
You do the croaky karaoke,
and twist yourself around,
people next to you become astound.
You pull your ears off,
you put your ears on,
you pull your ears off,
now you can't hear the applause.
You do the croaky karaoke,
and twist yourself around,
no longer can you hear a sound.
You pull your tongue out,
you put your tongue in,
you pull your tongue out,
the blood starts to pour like a spout.
You do the croaky karaoke,
and twist yourself around,
now it's tough even for a clown.
You yank your teeth out,
you put your teeth in,
you yank your teeth out,
and that's what life's all about.
You do the croaky karaoke,
and twist yourself around,
by now your underwear is browned.
You rip your head off,
you put your head on,
you rip your head off,
people are using your eyes for golf.
You do the croaky karaoke,
and twist yourself around,
now you're dead, as you fall to the ground.
It was a party at the ***** colony,
the croaky karaoke was pure comedy.

the Islam of Malcolm X isn't the Islam of today... it isn't really the prescription of Nietzsche had before the Heraclitus flux took sway and said: waterfall or lottery... it really, really, really doesn't matter. the Islam of the 1960s isn't the Islam of today... too tinged with Sieg Heil... although less the Ave Caesar salute and more akin to: who's up for ****, *******? the Islam has changed... if i was wise enough i'd have converted, to mind you... but i thought: putting my faith by only having a library of only one book... i thought... n'ah... that's a bit extreme, can i at least have a comic book strip to add to that massive library? no? oh well, no, sorry, at least one book mentions several authors who tried to imitate but failed on the last hurdle, at least i can revise that, and completely erase the two extensions that borrowed from Hinduism; 'cos' like it ******* mattered.. don't test me, i'm anticipating death like  suicide-vest child... come on! let's start the Slavic crusade!

perhaps it's not about not thinking certain thoughts,
or feeling certain emotions...
but perhaps it just is...
i say, we need the Sophists these days to
apply the fishing-net tactic to deciphering or
simply selectively reflecting our vocabularies...
strait-jacket vocabularies are there in plain sight...
i mean... wait a minute...
i jumped from jazz into pop music on the headphones,
from Miles Davis' *kind of blue defining
moment of the flamenco sketches right into the bog
of one direction - so i guess this is where
the antidote for art being too subjective comes in...
well, they sorted that problem already...
objectivity in art is around us as we speak,
it means "artists" that are manufactured,
art in the age of mechanical reproduction
(Walter Benjamin), it means more props than artists,
the problem got solved, it means reaching an
autocratic plateau of plugging in and sharing
a non-individualistic stream of emotion,
the opposite of democracy is autocracy, it isn't
despotism... i don't know why democracy doesn't
understand that it's ugly sister (autocracy)
is the enemy and not a Genghis Khan style of government...
democracy in the form of autocracy is a failed
attempt at Utopia... it suggests the system is perfect...
it means the institutions go about their daily business
like children in the playground who ******* and wet
themselves (the bankers), and still not one does anything
about it... what was once a demo tape of a indie band
becomes an automatic big seller big grosser E.P.,
just because the tragedy came, and they drove the touring
bus off a bridge in Sveeden... *******...
you ain't fighting dictators, you're fighting your change
from democracy into autocracy... where things
seem so perfect they can hardly ever change,
they're automated, they're not demographically sound...
sure, i'm the clown, i'll juggle a few big words around...
but in term of art? well, pop music has reached
the limit of what "philosophers" argued against...
to be frank... jealousy got to them that argued
for counter-productive constraints...
now they rebel against this objective construct of
artists in the shadows, writing text and tune and needing
some amateur to perform... and where do you
seek their rebellion? in the subjectivity they once
argued against: that famous Rage Against the Machine
protest against the X-factor...
so wait, first you argue against the subjectivity
of the artistic expression, then you postulate the non-existence
of the self: countered as the dasein for all subjectivity,
then you miss artistic objectivity with the karaoke
and what comes as the **** utopia with French
euthanasia tourists in Switzerland and Belgium...
you missed the argument you favoured, i.e.
artistic objectivity, i.e. performers, not people who write
the hit singles, Hiroshima Karaoke,
well, aren't we all objective now, that we have to source
our feelings in the expressions we once made angst against?
odd, isn't it? you never knew how well established
the counter argument became...
it's pop culture, it's evidently going to become viral...
but you see the power of subjective art...
it spreads like an infection, no point arguing against it...
objectivity in art is already a well established
virus, it doesn't really bite into your soul,
it bites, but you just get the odd body chicken ****...
that's what i mean about how a self-assured-without-a-self
democracy morphs into autocracy...
the fake Utopia of the well-established social
institutions actually being bankrupt, starting
with the post-colonial charity companies,
lying sharks and interest rates at 2000% per annum
i'm starting to think of Islam... leeches and hypocrites...
so your pointless critique of the subjectivity of the arts
became your most sling-shot friction strained weapon
to aim at the industry of art objectified,
in the age of mechanical reproduction true art = dodo...
it's on its way out... i hardly think that
50 years from now you'll find someone as idiotic
as me writing poetry for the love of the **** thing...
you'll get Utopian plateaus, anaesthetic democracy in
the realm of humanism, and hanging over you
autocracy... immovable foundations, cos' everything's
just perfect, time to invade another Libya where
some genius ensured the people knew their place
and who kept order on the pretence of
keeping weapons of mass destruction and
dog leashes... but there you will be ****-strapped going
huh? i thought subjectivity in art was bad?
n'ah mate, that's the only thing that made art good...
you got your ******* Karaoke, live with it!
the English Renaissance of the 1960s ain't coming back,
even if you gave Belfast back to the Dublin crew...
i say we need another Protagoras to get
the vocabulary inflation up to speed...
i say devalue the words self, ego... and make the
psychologists bums..
i say devalue the words nation, british and hamburger
to make the anglophile influence on Europe
a bit like sniffing a mortar of ******* off a penny...
i say reestablish the virtues of Japanese feudalism,
scare depressed teenagers with the words:
your only way out is by Hara Kiri.
something must come from a poem like this...
i have rage... you reason with it...
i'm not going to reason a calm into my heart with the words
i just wrote... n'ah... n'ah n'ah... that ain't happening...
it only took one needle in a haystack to give me prompt...
the ailments of subjectivity in art...
that got me, bull's eye reddened mad...
you ain't turning me into Darwinian grey matter!
this is democracy at its most despotic...
let me try democracy first, before i join the legion of dentists
with happy middle-class lives in autocracy...
can't blame ****** in this guise of organising people,
'cos' there just ain't no ******...
that got me hot wired and hired to argue...
first they say: art deserves no subjectivity...
fair enough: 1 man draws a rhombus a 1000 men draw a square...
but now that we can finally see objectivity being applied
to art, we only get pop: **** jazz, classical, rock and speedy-indie...
we get manufacture... as you once hated those with
personal intention to add to the democratic demographic,
now you turn against them for disturbing the status quo...
well, happy are those that come to the sun's repeat jargon
and happily doubt the roundabout...
because criticising art as subjectively orientated
really spared you art having ascribed objectivity to its cause
of attaining mechanical reproduction,
and the subjective placebo... neither thinking nor feeling
anything deeper than nervous yoga twitching dances...
spare me the ******* details if you come up with
a more accurate historical pinpoint.

.you can never really write any poetry by not covering the "heartbreak" the loss of your own "printed" words: how much different is the internet, from "real" life? just asking... since: internet banking & internet shopping... to lose a poem / pre-scriptum is not exactly the same as losing a person to mind: father's day... i cooked the dinner, i took out the trash, i wrote an invoice... i guess that's much better than leaving a card of greetings... and, come to think of it? why are we the sort of people subjugated to nostalgia, with but also "without" a history? aren't we subjugated to nostalgia and a history as a "fiction"? the beginning of the 21st century, the end of the 20th century... the 19th century germans associated themselves with a nostalgia for ancient greece, we're the only people who have an inbuilt nostalgia "safety-mechanism"... the only people in time who are nostalgic about the life surrounding their own existence slot, which doesn't have a trans-temporal dynamic... i remember times when we would be teenagers... spitting on people from car-parks on imaginary tonsures, buying *****-magazines from indian cornershops, or belgian freebies of non-insinuations, white lightning cider while sleeping over at youth centers playing snooker throughout the night... even at school: attending a catholic school with the irish east enders... uniforms, sure... a chequered shirt: blue, red, white... tag? made in canada... and if only capitalism worked as it once did, made in canada? lifetime of a shirt? 20 years... now? made in china... not exactly real cotton, is it? 2 years... before ironing the shirt *****... once upon in gants hill, st. valentine's park, and the pub, recently closed, decent karaoke... in the park? golf, basketball, rowing boats in the large ponds... when the jews were there... gants hill roundabout... the hanukkah torches... jews scuttling wearing trainers come rosh hashanah: jews can't wear leather on rosh hashanah (judgement day)... shy like rats... when the jews were there (gants hill, ilford)... the park looked great... tennis courts... now, when neo-Bangladesh moved in? ****** place. what else do i remember from my original pre-scriptum that i lost? oh, that once time in gants hill... walking into a kosher bakery with ****** knuckles, having tested them on a canvas of a brick wall, buying some dough-fused-sweets? with the girl selling the sweets bewildered by fear? i like the look of fear in people when tested by uncertainty, and bleeding knuckles? later? climbing over the park fence, taking a **** while squatting in the darkened palace of the park, walking into a brothel, having my wallet stolen, not reacting in what would have been justified... high school... we wore uniforms... so no high school h'american culture trap / culture... school uniforms are the best idea, there's no chance to "shine" in telling apart the rich kids from the poor kids... there's only the standard... walking to a supermarket, past a thai surprise... sports bra, short hair... walking back... she's still there pretending to talk on her mobile to someone... you take her home with a few beers... play her some jazz... take her into the garden, the moon is a beauty... you **** her... hand in her underwear and you're still gambling... before the emergence of the nag hammadi library and the whole androgynous vogue, the thai were already readied with the lady-boys... when i reached in and found nothing but oyster... would i have stopped finding a wink-wink slouching worm? slap a trans in the face? no, not really... a thai surprise is, a thai surprise... i would have considered doing my first ****... "lucky" for me she was a she... a girl... ****** her in the garden under the moonlight... gave her my hoodie, which she drowned in... finally... the level of interaction where the female is not a mantis, i.e. a female larger than the male... she drowned into my hoodie as i walked her home... i like the familiarity with the mammalian, not resorting to insect superiority of females... these days... i find that males are strictly mammalian... while females? they are borrowing insect-esque ontologies... well, darwinism allowed the time-frame... males are mammals... females are insects, behaviour-wise... two time frame i do not appreciate the english for... darwinism is prime.... cultural-marxism my ***... what about cultural-darwinism?! no?! that doesn't exist?! cultural-darwinism is as real as cultural-marxism, and, in the former sense? it really does belong to the conservative right-wing politico spectrum! might i add? isn't psychology merely pop philosophy? i find psychology riddled with rubric cohesion, it's all oh so "self"-evident! i abhor psychologists... these gypsy philosophers... medicine-men with no pharmacological shadow of power... to prescribe drugs... arguments, persuasions, but no dialectics... psychology will forever be, for me, a philosophy primer, short-cut... pop philosophy... psychologists can treat people who have never read a philosophy book... r. d. laing... i remember this one instace... me and a fwend of mine travelled into central london, went into a bookshop shy of trafalgar sq., i spotted an edition of: the scarlet and the black by stendhal... i told him: i will trade you linkin park's debut album, if you buy me this... the transaction was made... the one book i read after seeing a film adaptation starring rachel (rakhel) weisz and ewan mcgregor... ra-kh-el: not ray-chel... we used to be humans once... at high school getting bullied back... putting pins on chairs once we got up, sitting on them... playing bulldog in primary school, slap-ball, tag, playing cards at lunchtime... 16 fatty boy... one summer in poland, comes back aged 17... the irish girls take an interest while eating a pomegranate... what was the success of your diet? don't go to the gym... excess skin, an aesthetic surgeon is not what you need... there are only two ways to lose weight... either via swimming or by cycling... cycling is the best... lose weight by also toning your body... gym is a bad idea... by going to the gym you are straining exclusive parts of your body, either the torso, your hands, etc., jogging? unless on soft ground, bad idea on concrete, arthritis... cycling or swimming... lose weight... tone at the same time, the skin is allowed the required time to adapt to shrink, and forget what propped it up in plump form with all that excess flab... ugh... i hated being attractive to the opposite ***, i never used it to my advantage! imagine... an irish lad comes up to me, on behalf of some girl while i'm donning a french braid: you look just like johnny depp in blow, impersonating george jung... 14 year old girls walk up to you asking what shampoo you're using... herbal essences... i never used my looks... *******... now i'm a heavy drinker... so much for looks... first girlfriend? a fwend had to call me telling me she called him that she felt butterflies when i dropped her at the train platform after a day's worth of dating: tate modern, edward hopper exhibitions, cinema: troy, starring rose byrne (briseis) - honestly, a man can go crazy over curly hair... and then a restaurant date... that **** just flew over my head... i wouldn't have noticed... honestly though... i missed the whole h'american cultural excavation genesis in high school... catholic... uniforms... jesuit army-esque formation... now, i'm ageing... i'm starting to find the company of cats to be: clingy... my shadow included... i once thought that dogs were needy... i'm starting to think that cats are worse, esp. the maine **** breed... "lonely" or "loneliness" doesn't really resonate with me, esp. when thinking something "feels" like a variation of claustrophobia: hence i write... without a dialectic in place, ever since plato wrote his dialogues... what is philosophy, primarily? isn't it an off-shoot of "claustrophobia"? we write because we are seeking escape from congested thinking, a variation of "claustrophobia"... now imagine a schizoid character... having to focus on an imaginary dialectic, actually... having dialectics enforced on him, with no clarifying exodus to posit a gensis with! now, a clingy dog i could understand, given the overpowering status of the leash... but a clingy cat, when there's no leash involved?! shoom! right over my head... gone, somewhere into the distance!

what, this is the part...
were i cite...
   the weimar ******
critical condition...
       a daft punk troop
of a song,
  end of line....
blow-up a hot air balloon...
worth of blaire whire...
play the tambourine
like a ******* video...
there are,
quiet, simply,
no nazis coming...
fashionista faux pas
examples...
i'm alive,
but i'm dead,
i just forget to don
a strap-on...
  "oops"?
   that **** go down well
with
the "in"-crowd...
usual... metropolitan...
verbiage surge of answers....
   many a fetish after...
we arrive at the sensible
aspect,
"toxic masculinity"...
when guns n roses wasn't,
and nirvana was just plain
gay...
              and then...
whatever that happened,
happened..
                 and people were like:
come to the "new" tomorrow,
there's always a yesterday,
in a dream,
in some phil collins
wannabe
studio...
or... some other random ****
that
excluded peter gabriel.

                 i died:
and just about right:
my harvest had come.

great book reviews...
"toxic masculinity"...
so all masculinity is
about a clockwork orange?
   if it is?
can i be pro abortion
anti mongolian horde?
yes? no?
  which is it?!
neither...
   **** me... that's just bad
luck...

                               sundbeds,
sunflowers,
tulips,
sunglasses,
    plenty of staged
eager nights...
boring political affairs...
and...
         when gaming was
more about the narrative...
and never,
ever, about the microtransactions...

point being...
it's a game within a game...
time, is the prime concern...
you play a game,
by waiting...
you wait: by playing a game...

  microtransactions
are...
you ever move a sim3 avatar
to a computer,
and make it play a computer game?
what's on the macrocosmos spectrum?
you....

               "back in the day"...
you'd spend a saturday morning
engrossed in a gaming narrative...
metal gear solid,
tenchu, final fantasy solid...
20 quid...
and you played the narrative...
and a game became equivalent
to the worth of a book,
resident evil,

            you paid for a month's worth
of gaming,
you exchanged tips,
you sometimes bought a cheat book
because of the homework,
and that was your saturday morning
before hitting the shopping mall
or, whatever...

the current dynamic of
microtransactions in gaming?
i never, ever, do...
i'm an old gamer type...
i see the potential of extending
the life-expectancy
of a game...

   as long as you don't buy into
the microtransactions gambling habit?
as long as you play the "game"
within the game?
the game is an assured classic,
akin to chess...

              you have to play
the waiting "game"...
             time...
                           that's all it is...
whether war robots,
    or dawn of titans...
        comparison...
  you know that the best fruit,
is fruit, allocated
to the geography of it being sourced
seasonally...
you can't actually get better
strawberries,
than english strawberries...
from england, come june / july...
no ******* point sourcing them
from spain in late march / april....

    same thing with gaming...
the modern games haven't made any
elaboration...
apart from dislodging the player
from the concept of narrative...
**** me... that's almost an improvement...
given that now: time is the counter
measure, and the gamer...
   is having to invest,
in a narrative, outside of the confines
of the game,
once upon a time,
games had time-narrative
constraints...
     now: there's time,
and there are gamer narratives,
excluding them from time-narratives,
of a game...
         it's almost a faux pas...
more like a wet-*****...
****** pinky lodged into an ear,
an april fools' day scant...

        if you hacked passed
the microtransactions hype...
and didn't?
and instead took to patience?
it's free...
   where once,
a game would cost you 20 quid,
and a month's worth
of narrative,
back then, when games
resembled books,
when the gaming industry
was heavily influenced
by literature...
and now?
   the game's free...
sure...
it's "unfair", it's biased...
when you don't engage
in imported gambling
of succumbing to what, this is the part...
were i cite...
   the weimar ******
critical condition...
       a daft punk troop
of a song,
  end of line....
blow-up a hot air balloon...
worth of blaire whire...
play the tambourine
like a ******* video...
there are,
quiet, simply,
no nazis coming...
fashionista faux pas
examples...
i'm alive,
but i'm dead,
i just forget to don
a strap-on...
  "oops"?
   that **** go down well
with
the "in"-crowd...
usual... metropolitan...
verbiage surge of answers....
   many a fetish after...
we arrive at the sensible
aspect,
"toxic masculinity"...
when guns n roses wasn't,
and nirvana was just plain
gay...
              and then...
whatever that happened,
happened..
                 and people were like:
come to the "new" tomorrow,
there's always a yesterday,
in a dream,
in some phil collins
wannabe
studio...
or... some other random ****
that
excluded peter gabriel.

                 i died:
and just about right:
my harvest had come.

great book reviews...
"toxic masculinity"...
so all masculinity is
about a clockwork orange?
   if it is?
can i be pro abortion
anti mongolian horde?
yes? no?
  which is it?!
neither...
   **** me... that's just bad
luck...

                               sundbeds,
sunflowers,
tulips,
sunglasses,
    plenty of staged
eager nights...
boring political affairs...
and...
         when gaming was
more about the narrative...
and never,
ever, about the microtransactions...

point being...
it's a game within a game...
time, is the prime concern...
you play a game,
by waiting...
you wait: by playing a game...

  microtransactions
are...
you ever move a sim3 avatar
to a computer,
and make it play a computer game?
what's on the macrocosmos spectrum?
you....

               "back in the day"...
you'd spend a saturday morning
engrossed in a gaming narrative...
metal gear solid,
tenchu, final fantasy solid...
20 quid...
and you played the narrative...
and a game became equivalent
to the worth of a book,
resident evil,

            you paid for a month's worth
of gaming,
you exchanged tips,
you sometimes bought a cheat book
because of the homework,
and that was your saturday morning
before hitting the shopping mall
or, whatever...

the current dynamic of
microtransactions in gaming?
i never, ever, do...
i'm an old gamer type...
i see the potential of extending
the life-expectancy
of a game...

   as long as you don't buy into
the microtransactions gambling habit?
as long as you play the "game"
within the game?
the game is an assured classic,
akin to chess...

              you have to play
the waiting "game"...
             time...
                           that's all it is...
whether war robots,
    or dawn of titans...
        comparison...
  you know that the best fruit,
is fruit, allocated
to the geography of it being sourced
seasonally...
you can't actually get better
strawberries,
than english strawberries...
from england, come june / july...
no ******* point sourcing them
from spain in late march / april....

    same thing with gaming...
the modern games haven't made any
elaboration...
apart from dislodging the player
from the concept of narrative...
**** me... that's almost an improvement...
given that now: time is the counter
measure, and the gamer...
   is having to invest,
in a narrative, outside of the confines
of the game,
once upon a time,
games had time-narrative
constraints...
     now: there's time,
and there are gamer narratives,
excluding them from time-narratives,
of a game...
         it's almost a faux pas...
more like a wet-*****...
****** pinky lodged into an ear,
an april fools' day scant...

        if you hacked passed
the microtransactions...
       and didn't have the chance...
microtransactions are like
the old school cheat hacks...
but not quiet, but somehow quasi-,
       a modern microtransactions,
would be a cheat magazine
thorough-through
a game like final fantasy VII...
you have homework,
but you still want to complete the game...
modern games...
modern games...
there's an "end gole"?
  what modern game is worth
"completing"?
    
   again: tron, ready player one,
back to the future...
star wars just became dead
to me...
   sick people will plague hard-working
people, with a quasi-gambling
addiction,
needing to make microtransactions...
and they will,
my father was plagued by
an impostor, claiming to be a
tax office official:
and what if, that person had
an authentic position at the tax office?!

when gaming was for gamers,
the games were bought...
there was a narrative...
but now... now games don't have a narrative...
why would they?!
   who the hell plays games for
the narrative these days?
i know that on the crapper,
i need a game that allows me
to experience live-stream
interaction with non-bots...

       and these old gamers,
who still invest their money
in literature-esque-games?
so i was the sad one,
investing in vinyl?
   aren't the classic ******* gamers
just as bad,
investing in prepackaged
narrative gaming
experiences?
             a game with a narrative...
yeah... me buying vinyl
is: b'ah b'ah bad...
       what sort of game is alive and well...
when there isn't a crowd pushback
for the currency of microtransaction?

the narrative is time,
   the longer you endure the inadequacy...
the more you realise:
you're basically playing
the same game,
but in your scenario:
it's free...
   in some other ******'s scenario:
it cost him 70 hundred quid...

personally?
   i love this microtransaction dynamic...
concerning the people who
do not engage with it...
it's the perfect antithesis
   of what ruined the music industry
with genesis: napster...

you really are, playing the ultimate
game,
time...
         the one sort of commodity
that games,
without a clear narrative construct,
"forgot" to mention in terms
of them being exploited...
to their full capacity
of the one "commodity"
they "forgot", or rather,
couldn't "sell"...

              a tenchu PS1 game could
have lasted me a month...
now? a free game,
like war robots...
with absolutely no NPC?
hell... i'll be 90 and still be playing it;

what else? applause!

there was a little budgie he just love to sing
he was very clever and could sing almost anything
he loved the karaoke down the local  bar
hoping maybe someday he could be a star
they held a competition so they could find the best
budgie made his entry to him it was a test
then he began to sing in his budgie voice
and won the competition he was the peoples choice
now he was a star his dream it had come
he sings all time just like budgies do

One night while out in London
I chanced upon the Queen
In a karaoke bar in Smithfield
Singing along to the Kinks

She had the crowd all in a tizzy
With her rendition of the sunset at Waterloo
The more she sang, the more people came
Till there was barely standing room

She didn't do just one or two tunes
But their entire catalog
The Queen is quite the entertainer
As she had us all singing along

She was there to give the people what they want
As she took us around the dial
We were all starstruck to say the least
As she sang all day and all of the night

Word is she's a regular here every Tuesday
So stop by and have a cuppa tea
And watch the Queen get down with that UK jive
As she sings karaoke to the Kinks

there was a little budgie he just love to sing
he was very clever and could sing almost anything
he loved the karaoke down the local  bar
hoping maybe someday he could be a star.

they held a competition so they could find the best
budgie made his entry to him it was a test
then he began to sing in his budgie voice
and won the competition he was the peoples choice.

now he was a star his dream it had come
he sings all time just like budgies do

[Verse 1: Drake]
Things have been so crazy and hectic
I shoulda gotten back by now
But you know how much I wanted to make it
It's probably better anyhow
So if you gotta go
If there's anything I should know
If the spotlight makes you nervous
If you're looking for a purpose

[Verse 2: Drake]
You put the tea in the kettle and light
Put your hand on the metal and feel it
But do you even feel it anymore
I remember when you thought I was joking
Now I'm off singing karaoke
Further than I've ever been
So if you gotta go
If there's any way I can help

[Verse 3: Drake]
Isn't it ironic that the girl I want to marry is a wedding planner
And tells me my life is too much and then moves to Atlanta
****, of all the places you could go
I just thought you'd choose somewhere that had somebody that you know
I'm always up too late, I worry 'bout you there alone
In that place you call your home, warm nights and cold Patron
I hope that you don't get known for nothing crazy
Cause no man ever wants to hear those stories bout his lady
I know they say the first love is the sweetest but that first cut is the deepest
I tried to keep us together, you were busy keeping secrets
Secrets you were telling everybody but me
Don't be fooled by the money, I'm still just young and unlucky
I'm surprised you couldn't tell

[Hook]
I was only trying to get ahead
I was only trying to get ahead
But the spotlight makes you nervous
And you're looking for a purpose

poet, or philosopher, it doesn't really matter which is which, or whether the two are indistinguishable, notable in the former scenario, when someone has an eclectic bounty of interest is simply not love-scorned or love-nostalgic, love-idealistic, does it really matter? i was once called a philosopher: a teenage girl said in third person (as if she was a puppet and some-thing was moving her tongue): 'talk to this philosopher'... not in that sarcastic way that philosopher is an misnomer or an abused term of: self-gratifying grandeour, it was quiet genuine, but: imagine my shock... i had an ambition in life, it was to perform a service to thinking: without doing as much as hammering a nail into a plank of wood, that's the ambition of any thinking man: to borderline on telekinesis or telepathy... that was Hegel's modus operandi, his categorical imperative... after all: ego is a metaphysical tool, while thought is its metaphysical canvas... the mere suggestion that a copernican inversion can happen in physics "contra" metaphysics... it's already apparent, any word can behave like a hand touching the sacred object / subject of transfiguration and become something else, even a misnomer can find itself given solace to the user... for now i've forged a belief in the ultimate: away from the absolute in relation to omni in unum - one first has to learn to think, before having to learn to feel... mind you, i don't like the current nietzschean inversion of the cartesian equation: (ego) sum ergo (ego) cogito... esp. among the youtube political commentators, too many examples to give: i'm a classical liberal, i'm a progressive, i'm a liberterian... i don't really like seeing: i am, precede i think... i don't even like the origin-argument of this inversion: i exist for the sole purpose of thinking... after all: i think prior to being, since i can also daydream and not be what my thinking suspects as a possible truth-outcome... that's the nature of the freedom of thought: i don't have to be what i think, i can find thinking to be a pleasure, when the senses do not offer me any pleasure derivative, e.g. eating can sometimes be boring, chewing, chewing, *******... i eat because i need to live: i don't live to eat... i really have under-appreciated Hegel, i should really visit my grandparents for two months and read the phenomenology of the spirit: i'm trying to replicate the saying attributed to him (verbatim), but i doubt that i will, i don't have the patience to sift through all the quotes, but it goes along the lines of: beware oh wordly man, to not be a pawn in a thinking man's game... hence my suggestion of philosophy entering into the realms of telekinesis and telepathy: you get to see things play out and people express the origin story, of your own memetic generation of the original idea... how are poets finally alligned to philosophers? good thing that i studied chemistry at edinburgh university: we return to atoms, words are no longer enough, sure, they are, contrary to the statement...  (why did i under-appreciate Hegel? ah... had my head stuck up heidegger's and kant's *****...

  integration? great!
but i'll meet you halfway...
    i'll eat your fish & chips,
your englush breakfast,
  i won't sing your anthem: god save the queen,
****** anthem, too short,
but i will whistle through:
the british grenadiers' fife & drum...
like i might through la marseillaise...
i'll meet you halfway...
i'm not a former colony member,
commonwealth,
   i'm not some ****- paying bribes
to the british powers
to join in on a world cup of cricket...
this is what happens when immigration
turns sour...
they either lesrn the host tongue,
or they don't learn it...
or they can't distinguish the two:
speak polonaise at home,
speak the hosts' sprechen outside of it...

   if the ******* aren't suspect:
by not being bilingual...
the arab beatles... jihadi john...
          ringo star h'ahmed...
  george ali...
                paul mecca rashid...
oh i'll settle for integration...
but don't you ******* think i'll give
up my mother tongue
for "c.c.t.v." close-ups back home,
home being my private lodge...
like ******* will...
  i'll speak your tongue in public...
but i'm not ******* former commonwealth
****- riddled with a need to play
cricket, "forget" my tongue in order
to compensate for olives
              and sun-burnt bananas!

a former colony ****-**** is about
to dictate the rules for fellow
europeans, on the tram-ride from
Birmingham to Nottingham?
seriously?
        but of course the englishman
will favor the former colony pet bush-monkey
from sri lanka...
since the brit can't really dictate
to a fellow european his superiority
complex... which he can...
with a petted copper skinned
toy-ting...
who brought 'im a korma curry!
nice one, ol' laddy...
        right on the plonker...
                 i'm not finished!
                        i'm just getting started!

gehirnablassen:

perfectly respected immigration,
given that so many english girls just love
the attention their **** minders,
sexually abused,
not really making it as nurses
or... ahem... karaoke superstars
worth the while of britain's got talent
or voice of britain,
or...whatever the ****** show was
that gave birth to one direction...

so a.... brain-drain? good immigration?
the best!

i can sit awhile by myself and count...
1. the sparrows,
2. the swallow,
3. the starlings,
   4. the crows,
5. the magpies,
6. the pigeons,
7. the woodland pigeons
(fatter, with dog collars),
8. kestrels
  (one is enough to begin
the count)...
9. the blackbirds....
10. seagulls... seagulls?! 25 miles from
romford to southend! seagulls?!
this far in-land?! fair enough...
11. a robin...
                   12. goldfinch...
i just sit and watch these birds
in my garden, i sometimes spot
a darting frog in the garden,
i'm more english than the english...
i actually enjoy owning a garden...
the "english" surrounding me
exemplify a bbq. as a luxury parade...
what's so luxury about marinating
some meat, and then grilling it?!
please! enlightend me!

    gehirnablassen...
                   brain-drain immigration,
the type asiatic tiger-mums brag about
at child olympics...
   for the required rubric stature...
******* mothers, basically...

1. χaron χaos - cha-cha-cha       khaos
2. theaetetus - so / ma   letters / syllables:
     graphemes: sz phi theta
      compound syllables (caron s) - Na (sodium)
3. music choice...
       brain damage perturbator ft. noir deco
    virga iesse floruit, gradual of eleanor of
britanny...
4. pride / stubborness (not equal to) honour,
tolerating islam is not the same
as respceting islam...
   german 19th century fascination
with islam...
     θought and φilosophy...
   greek in warsaw, giving him directions,
talks: sounds so much like spanish...
5. england a nation of singletons,
idiosyncracy... social pressures in poland
and even in h'america missing in england
to marry...

1.

chamaleon tongue,                    shape shifter,
bez akcentu w piśmie - więciej akcentu poza pismem
(trainspotting scottish), welsh, cockney,
east london altogether, pakistani english, etc.
e.g. rather, or raver, i.e. not rayver
(someone who parties at night on ecstasy pill)
but ra'ver, like verging on a new discovery,
it's not even the = ~v but is actually v...
english is a chamaleon tongue, you say 'nostic
when you write gnostic, i say diagnostic,
therefore say gnostic, you say 'nome, i say gnome,
as cf. with diagnostic;
then there's the case of the per se:
you say chamaleon - no kappa there apperent, eh?
but there's chappie, chap, chuckles,
no kappa in a millionth chance
to also say nough'ledge for knowledge,
a bit like that gnome of yours...
as i said before: a language without
a written insertion of stressors / distinctions
will produce a massive array of diacritical
stressors / distinctions outside the written format,
but it will also become as complex as to
allow adults with learning difficulties e.g. dyslexia,
and that horrid internet slang of shortcuts:
i ate my 8 when i was late for my disco date
with the cha cha cha melon.

p.s. if there's a hay patch at the beginning, the nasal flute
will ask larry 'the lynx' saxophone to hark it out with rasp
gritting of phlegm... but if it's somewhere else down
the piccadilly line... it will act like a nudist spy and resonate
less than expected; probably mingling with f, i think.

“My dream date is after we’ve already been dating for a few months and decide to go out on the town. We meet a cute guy, buy him drinks, and spend the next few hours laughing together and maybe slaying it at a karaoke bar. Afterwards we invite him back to my place and get into some role play. I become Israel, he Palestine, and you The Goddess that helps them finally come together, even though Israel has to bend over a little bit to make it happen.

Confession: this is a dream date. I have to become really committed to physical therapy again in order to get my singing voice back for karaoke and I live with old country people so it’d have to be at your place.”

And it's difficult to remember something as the very name of Eisenhower
Or flowerbaskets
And tired movies made of silicone and
Aftersex
Or sixteen candles echoing out of an imaginary suite with cigarettes at every table
And green lawns
Barbershop conversation
The reflection of the sun in special trees
Or my best friend Jesus Christ
Or the smell of the theater that one day with the cynics who just got back from a tennis match and barbwire still laced delicately around their thoughts and
Nihilism
And automotives
And priestess Jane or Henry's gloomy doppelganger who reads alternative magazines and loves the aesthetics behind broken glass
And fine tuned musical instruments

It's difficult to remember
Lonesome Fridays smoking on a park bench trying to finish the puzzle
Or synagogues you've never been in
Or insurance
Or newspaper articles detailing the misadventures of Mr. City
(Of course of course! Take your shoes off at the door and make yourself at home)
We're tossing all our sewage into the ocean
that's far from clean as it
LOOKS anymore these days
That's anything
And everything except for the glowing mountains seen faded and wintry behind Apartments and the
"Glorious Mexican House of Spices"
Never been in there either

It's difficult to remember
Times of Mr Twin Sister
Or Joan Jett in the hallway
In a highschool who's psychology classrooms have become a time capsule in the ground/
Or the gentle skinny ******
Wearing Broadway makeup and
Kafka tattooed on his shoulder
I like his hat
He looks at me suspiciously
Or the guy who is yelling his order at the counter when it's quiet here anyways
Or the mariner who has a hobby of the saxophone
Or 1970s *******
Or the sheepskin bikeseat fad that's yet to come but I'm predicting it now!
Or two dollars and twentyseven cents at the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's America
"I've given you all and now I'm nothing"

It's difficult to remember
The Oriental
Sacramento flies
Midnight Moon
Quarter to four
"The Immortalization Commission"
Remodelled hotels downtown
Where mandalas on the floor became a
Tiger lily luminous
And the kimono is yesterday's painting/
Dearest Darling
When I was feeling down!
A staircase in reverse (??)
The sound a kiss makes
It's difficult to remember
Colleen's earrings
Or Washington State
Or air conditioners in Bali
The Indian ocean's daybreak hymn
To Seminyak
Or whatever happened to Steve from the Airplane out of Taiwan
On 3 days awake
Hello Kitty nursing stations
****** (Kubrick's version)
Cardboard taking up half my bedroom
It's difficult to remember until I jot it down and then its a sudden forever
Sunshine Superman in a cafe spontaneous
drawings with someone I just met who has some ******* attitude/
Who hops fences and has feral ideas
People! En Masse! Te Amo!
You're all in wolven liberty
And vague postulators
And holy prostitutes for the dollar
Sad eyed intellectuals
With undergarments made of breakfast cereal/
Seaferry poetry is different from
Trestle in August poetry
Or henna handshakes
Or the Napoleonic era
Sweet Cherry Pie
The tulip's tongue
Garabajal
Cloudy first day of July
Was hotter yesterday
But not too hot

It's difficult to remember
Antiquity
The pale horse Studebaker outside the clinic
With a glossy red trim and **** I wish that was my ride
Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable
Nearsightedness
Angels and their ability to shower with a a snap of their fingers
Distant harp music
Better him than me
Bananas almost ripe
Green aquatic
Reclusive junkies
Palomo's appliances
Questions for the next time
How much I like what you like and how I like that you like what I like
Ahh that's not my bus
I'm trying to get to the city!
That one quote Socrates is known for about knowing nothing as true wisdom
Supermarkets being built on top of liquor stores burned down a while back
Monopolies
Tragedies
"No Love Lost"
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
Your guess is as good as mine
Never tried to eat Asian food in Asia
It was all pasta and good cider that tasted like pineapple
Rain hitting the window and I'm
Drowsy again
God Save The Trees!
Curly hair looks good on boys
Torn up blinds
Queer as a three dollar bill
If Bill costs 3 dollars I'm sure he's caught something better safe than sorry
Sage advice
I'm the very model of a modern major general
Golden yen and international currency
Incense in the bedroom and how good it smells
There's my bus! Applying for a better job than the one I got now
But that's how it always is right?
Chasing satisfaction
1007 apt
Porch ornaments
Unique names
Unique style le style
The extra charge on foreign ATMs
Cordoroy polo shirts
Flooding in New York!
When someone's face screams *******
"Slippery when wet"
Dine N Dash
Grass gone yellow
Confidence in dyed hair and capes as long as wedding gowns
But less expensive
Doors that always seem to be locked and I'm wondering 20 year later what's behind them?
Albino animals
White thoughts as clouds or
Abstractions
Weathers nicer in Florida but who cares
Festivities this early in the day
Automatopeia
Do sad orphanages still exist?
Just like the movies
Midnight in mirrors
That sick puppet at the shoe shop used
To know how to really hammer it down
And now he's weak and forgotten
Never heard the words of a true prophet only Oceania
Or the private temple near Apollo Bay
Like Japanese gardens behind that gate
Will I ever see it
Make a proud example outta ya misbehavior
Form without function
Exhausted spiritualism
*** Kettle Black
negative photographs of dark rooms
And there's laughing coming from SOMEWHERE
Essays on kleptomania
Had a bad dream I became a cliche
Surrounded by other freaks and there was a lovely ***** I fell in love with her
We married in Oregon by the sea her name was rosy
***** rosy
Check your mailbox for nails
And what you don't wanna hear/
If you were a vegetable you'd be organic!
Empire
Satirical bubble gum
Satori
Linda Lovelace and her special party trick
That's someone's fantasy
Diamond in the rough
Mister guy with two black eyes frequents the adult playhouse
Hes fully stocked on fishnet leggings
He's too proud to put them on himself but
Has nobody else around
Boo hoo
Swigs back the whiskey and trips down the stairs getting a third black eye in the process
Marion came by with her dog the other day
Wanted her box of clothes back but he loved to sniff them to remember her
But she wouldn't have it

"Honey I'm going to call the police!"

"Ah they don't give a **** they have bigger things to worry about"

"Yeah you got that right shrimp **** enjoy my unwashed *******"

And she never came back again
He started losing the vertebrae in his spine 1 by 1 and you know where this is going
I won't say he was a poor man because he had it all coming to him the *******
But he coulda had a better start if you ask me.

It's difficult to remember
And even more difficult to forget
After the fact

Seagull opera
Giganticism
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Losing one's pencil when the best idea of your life drops down from heaven and into your sorry head
Signs graffitied to have funnier meanings
Cruelty
Impassive
The Loyal Lioness
And Bangladesh has too many kitchens
And not enough dishes
When I was young I used to say Island as "is-land"  
Which is true it is land
But the Europeans probably stole it from somebody else anyways/
I left my future behind
And objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Im no illusionist
I'm terrified of the cracken
Father feels the same way about
Hotels
Why bother/
This has been going on and on for a while are you tired yet
Is your patience being tested
Mine isn't because this wasn't an all-at-once kind of rambling
It's extremely important to laugh at least
Once a day
Otherwise you'll find yourself a politician
In no time at all
Rockefeller
(         ) Quaint home to die in
I think
Trains create great music
Float on
Sink into yourself
Roses in a crooked alley
That's people
Busy busy busy busy
Let's describe a situationist
I'm not a fan of bright colors on clothes
Your best shade is blue
Bricklayers transcription of Don Quixote to a skyscraper
Rocket thyme
& Garden
Erratic children's
Insomnia
The doorbell repeatedly
Vancouver riots/ I saw that live on the news!
Pictionary with the surrealists
N Dada TV set MC Escher
Antenna
You're in the Twilight Zone now
Dear Ramona
I'm trying to make it up to you
With a brightness only seen when you're ready to see it so please for the love of God don't blame me when it's not appearing
The tapestry hidden
Keep your blankets clean
And avoid hospitals unless you're fine with fishbowls & the halogen
The water gestapo
Storage lockers full of unacted plays and
Antique microwaves
Emitting the nostalgia of the cold war era
And what a waste of time that was /
Walter Wanderleys presence in Autumn universities
The opening of Vivre sa Vie
Salvador Dali's pluvial taxi
Lightbulb epiphanies
Aquariums and their protestors
Zebras in the shade
Two wrongs dont make a right
Elizabethan theater
Saloon shootouts in a fever dream
I lost and bled out all over the rustic wooden floor
A maiden reached out for me and El Paso did play I woke up and pretended nothing happened/
Funerals for bad People who did bad things
My first memory of a cat beneath the mattress
Hello Dolly!
Auditory learning
Psychotherapy
Lillian the landlady lost her ladle and labeled little Lyle as a lair
The Black panther movement
Reading symposium some years ago and
Making note that Phaedo was still my favorite dialogue/
Zen Buddhism
Xoxo xoxo
The day Gypsies were replaced with
Surface ****** appetite
And not the real thing
Newspaper clippings
Hypnotism when all other options are out
Mystical visions of sidewalks
And the love of your life stepping through a door you've never seen
Maybe Yes No I Don't Know
Creature comforts
Che Guevara's problem is that his beard made him too easy to recognize
(Also that little hat!)
Chinese cough medicine didn't work
For long I still wheeze sometimes
Domestic violence thru the wall
Ceiling fan probably doesn't even work!
Dimpled laughter
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
In skytrains to Commercial
Bermuda in her mind
And courtesy in her voice
I'm no Arthur Rimbaud
But you already knew that
Alcazar of Seville
Filling up the shipbottle
Here's your paradise
Now relinquish it as it is
False!
Hare Krishna
Nowhere Fast
El Diablo and the
Portofino loaf left rotting on the countertop
Latin children speak of the sacred viper
You'll hear of it after this but we'll never see what the ******* meant
Heads alternating round the social current
Of my lively city
There's a dog soaking up the rain
And songs are made in honor of
Recent catastrophes
Trials are dealt
Cards cast to the gutter
New York quiets down for the news of another war
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours
Skeleton key
Ballad of the last wailing zoo
THE ATRIUM
Complexity in simplicity
That's how Brainard got me!
Elderly overcoats
Hiding purest LSD
Is a fan of Hawaiian T shirts
And a communist
What if I was a Freemason
Or owned a tanning salon
Faint crimson
What did Marv look like again?
"You're surrounded by people who love you"
Coffee when one needs it
GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY
Tattoos on the wandering man
Oriental chimes and the people who own them
Bus stop regulars
Vines overtaking power lines
The hypnogogic state
Strawberry light softening
The mind
Sister Ray LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
doitdoitdoitdoit
Passing the graffiti n Pluto neon
Halal wide awake another Saturday
Where's the Karaoke
Flashing by here
Those who find comfort in a bridal scavenger hunt
Or expensive beer
And here comes the hooded clown
Clamoring about his favorite
Loudspeaker
Telling me my time is soon and the noise
Drowns out the drowsy bliss
After hour spirits the perfect time for
Writing and trying to read distant Chinese
Indecision on the tip of the tongue
"NOW WHO IS THAT KNOCKING
ON THE CHAMBER DOOR?
COULD IT BE THE POLICE?"

I'm completely off the topic
And into Apartment lobby photosets
Low battery phone calls
Confessions
Nauseated reverb
Trying to see the attachment people got with bingo halls
And moving companies
Ah no luck again
Eve is at it with her showtunes
Halfway methodology
Triage
Paisley headbands left
Distraught on the quivering
Heater
Dwindling sunsets
We're truly disciples of the moon spirit which grants us more energy
(This is according to a drunk I met one night)
Or ***** old men
When the horizon is engulfed with
A winking cinder
Suitcase at the door
Last time
First time
Magician never reveals his fetishes
(They all have to do with bags under your eyes)
Employment office dramas of my friend the one who blinded a social worker
And the one who blamed Islam
And the one whos philosophy entirely consisted of Spooky Action at a
                                            DISTANCE
Parisian riots
Queer youth
Didn't make the team! Jester
'cross the hall who's beard suggests
Ishmeal n car battery n expired vegetables n rain which crosses the line n
***** cranberry n
Poorly fitted suits n
Harsh pigment n incense shops n
Bocca     secret towns
With churches more beautiful than any you'd find in your own city
n the cultural market
Xylophone ear to ear
Soul cleansing starting at only
$89 (with a 6 month guarantee)
Sophie's birthday and her picnic at Victory Park
The nearby bums trying to sell tea mugs and
Loose wires beside gated convenience stores
I'm an Island away attempting a poem
And never bought a scratch n win
Or heard the same song more than seven times in a row or been in a column
Or escaped the washhouse
Invested in a birdcage for next year
Been to a palm reading
Visited Oasis
Smoked salmon
Told anyone else about Montana
Screamed the things I'd like to scream
** Word of the day
Or kissed a lunatic or swallowed the corpse of yesterday
I keep her on my neck until
I'm too anxious to let go
Counting streetlights
Jeans worn in and faded to be sent off to
A lonely caffeine addict
Christmas Eve I'll be reading a postcard from San Francisco
Asking the same questions
My imagination is made of a different material than last week
Now it's the same color as your hair
HEY that's a good pickup line to use in the heart of the Canadian Embassy
Drinking discarded music resembling a sweater you may have said YES to if it wasn't so unsure of itself
And now Mr. Acker Bilk ascends thru the window of an August home
Like a lazy hornet
I'm still lost without identification
Or a nice belt
As happens when one uses a quality item too casually
How did uphill suddenly seem so downhill?
I'll claim a waterfall
For SALE that inevitable Indonesia
Greyhound O another greyhound O another greyhound
I'm fretting too much about not enough
Delayed the Airport and the yellow question

????

II

What if I knew how to read the curb?
Or translate drunken droll
What if I was never tired again and could
REALLY do anything I set my mind to?
What if I was the first cigarette that cured cancer instead of caused it?
What if I could end superstition
And walk underneath any ladder I wanted?
What if I could make it with a young Audrey Hepburn!?
What if I stopped pretending to be a microphone and got on with "it"
What if the grocery store closed later
And I opened earlier?
What if parking lots werent so sad
All the time?
What if gravity simply had enough of exotic birds and specifics?
What if we stopped trying to recreate what is truly lost?
What if foreign children embraced
Wasting time instead of
Midnight starry bicycles
And the antics of a monk
Disguised as a romantic?

There are those that worship God
And those who worship the Sun
And those who worship nothing at all
But I suppose on the last bus
We're all the same exhausted
Voice who can't wait for next pay day
What is an empty bank?
Or authenticity
What is there to prove anymore?
I hope I don't die tonight and regret
Being impulsive for once
You're a smart shadow
And a dull character
Pushing the last of the daisies
Get the lamp to turn on again
Give the pavement something to look forward to with your walk
Be consistent in being inconsistent
If there's a word there's a ***** and a poem for it!
We all oughta worship
Nothing at all except
Clarity
Compassion with ones neighbor who either forgot the pay the electricity bill or couldn't afford to
We're a swimmin

Aki for Autumn,
Haru for Spring.
I hate karaoke,
Because I can't sing.

My mother had a thing about locking me in the bathroom. She’d force an audience out of me to her bearing all to pat benatar through her tears. I buried my ears so deep into that karaoke machine because I swore I could hear her secrets. My ears would bleed so I could feel her pain. As if that could help any. It would keep her sane. In those years I learned it’s not ladylike to look someone in the eyes while they cry.

My mother never told me about emo boys. The kinds that would draw me in by bearing all in screams and strumming strings. I buried my ears so deep into the voices of these, telling secrets I’d again make my ears bleed to feel his pain. As if that could help any. I’d still try. It was a good thing I learned  it wasn’t ladylike to look someone in the eyes while you cry.

Sing with me,
I've slept with bloodshot eyes
I've dreamt of a sunrise
that erases everything  
Oh, every thing

Move with me
You won't have to be alone
Wrap your hand around a microphone
And sing with me until the sun comes

Sleep with me
Talk to me about yourself all night
We'll grow tired as the dawn bites
And lay side by side,
with no where to hide

Too tired-
we can pretend to be dead
Too bad it's all in my head
It's all in your head
We'll never be dead

Trish had an uncanny ability to pick all the wrong ones. Like a friend once told her, “You always try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!”  If there were a hundred available guys in a room, she always managed to zone in on the worst one there, not the kindest one, not the one with the greatest character or honor. It's like she had a special gift for finding a man—a cursed one—yet she had only herself to blame—not  fate for it—like she tried to point her finger at for her troubles. In this regard, Trish was often her own worst enemy. And none of her bad experiences seemed to deter her from her defeating patterns, for it seemed that having a ****** choice of a man in her life was better than having no man at all.

A Friday night without any date was something she desperately wanted to avoid. At the age of fifty-six, trying to meet men was getting old, as old as she was feeling, lately.

At Pete’s Place, a local bar down at the end of her street, and two blocks over, Trish could at least feel like she was among friends. It was an old hangout that always felt like a safe haven to turn to, familiar territory that she could call her own turf, her home away from home. Often, Trish encountered regulars, down-to-earth faces who have been going to the family-like establishment as long as or longer than she has. Drinking really was not her thing, not more than one or two, at the most. But if anything, if worst came to worst, she could say she was not home alone and left out while the world seemed to go on its own merry way without her.  

Pete’s Place was far from a glamorous hangout, but it had a cozy charm to it that made it irresistible to Trish. In the back were a pool table and a dartboard that provided some harmless enjoyment. With a couple of flat screen TVs, there usually was some sports game to watch. And every other Saturday, there was a DJ conducting Karaoke that always attracted a regular crowd. Trish couldn’t sing a note, but she loved to watch and cheer everybody else on. She just felt so welcome here, so at home, that even if she felt depressed or lonely, the atmosphere eventually lifted her heaviness of heart.  

Entering the bar this time, Trish hardly saw a familiar face at all—that was except for the bartender, Henry, who worked this job since forever. For a Friday night, business seemed surprisingly slow. There was only an older couple watching a baseball game that was at Pete’s Place, a couple that she did not recognize.

“Where is everybody?” Trish asked Henry.

Henry smiled. “Hey, Trish! Good to see ya! Yeah, it is like a ghost town tonight, isn’t it? I guess there are too many good things goin’ on down in Buffalo. I think there are some big boat races goin’ on. And, for sure, there is the jazz festival”.

“Well, I’m here, Henry! Look out, everybody! Let the fun begin!” she said jokingly as she sat herself up at one of the barstools. She looked around. Even the wait staff wasn’t around, obviously gone home early and not needed.

“Would have been nice to go somewhere fun like that. I mean the jazz festival. I like jazz”, Trish said to Henry.

Henry was trying to stay busy by wiping down the bar, cleaning every nook and cranny behind the counter. “You should have called up one of your girlfriends to go over there. I am sure someone would have gone with ya”.

Trish rolled her eyes. “What girlfriends? They are often too busy with their own husbands or men in their life to care about what poor, old Trish Urbine wants to do!”

Henry felt bad for her.  The more she frequented Pete’s Place, the more he knew she was all alone, was in between having some man in her life. And, lately, she was coming quite often to the bar by herself.

“You are not old, Trish! Hell, I am older than you!” Henry exclaimed.

Trish just frowned, not convinced at all by what Henry said. “Not old?” she asked. She pulled a small mirror out of her purse and looked at herself, giving herself the inspection of a drill sergeant. “That is a joke! Look at those bags under my eyes. Look at those crow’s feet, for pity’s sake!  Look at that droopy skin in my neck! Horrible! I am trying to save up for a face lift. I really need it! Been needing it for a while now!”

Henry shook his head. “All you women are alike. My wife does the same, **** thing, the same putdowns to herself. Says she’s fat. Says she’s getting old and ugly. Says this and says that. But let me tell you Trish, after thirty-six years of marriage, I still see her as my sweetheart. I’d have it no other way than with my Bernadette. He patted his belly and added, "Hell, look at me. Believe it or not, with my job, I don’t even drink that much beer. But look at the gut I am getting”.  

Trish scoffed at what he said. Henry looked nearly as lean as he did the first time she met him. He was just being nice. .Under better circumstances, she would have found what Henry said as endearing and charming. To say he still loved his wife as his “sweetheart” was incredibly adorable and rare.

“Hey”, Henry said. “Enough of my jibber jabber. Pardon my manners. What can I get for ya, dear?”

“Just a Diet Coke for me, Henry. I have to watch the calories myself. You know me—don’t want to get frumpy, lumpy and dumpy. At least not more than I am!” Trish smiled. She thought that her self disparaging remarks were a cute way of getting her point across with humor, but Henry couldn’t see anything funny about it.

He filled her glass of pop from the tap and handed it over to her. “Hey, how’s that daughter of yours doing? Is she still living in Albany?”  

Trish cupped her hands up to her forehead and rested her head on them. “She is still in Albany, but she might as be on the moon for all we ever talk to each other”. She looked up at Henry and he could see the frustration written all over her face.

“I didn’t mean to upset you”, he said.

“Oh, you didn’t”, she returned. “I appreciate you asking, but you know the situation with Patti and I. It is either that we are at each other’s throat or we just don’t talk. Truth be told, we haven’t really got along since she was a girl. Once she hit those teenage years—oh, man they were a nightmare! I wouldn’t relive those years for anything!”

Henry rested his elbows up on the bar counter. “Oh, I know what you mean!. My second son, my boy, Steven, and I had a terrible time once he hit about fifteen. Man, him and I bucked heads all the time. Yes, indeed! It could get ugly, and it sure as heck did! But now I’m proud of him! In Afghanistan, fighting for his country—that is somethin’ that makes me glad! Now, I say that I couldn’t ask for better sons. I’m proud of him—of all four of my boys as good, strong men that they are!”  

Trish sipped on her coke, a hurtful look upon her face while reflecting on her daughter, a daughter that she named after herself.  Both were named Patricia, but the same name did not mean two peas in a pod, actually far from it. Trish definitely preferred her name, short and sophisticated—so she had liked to think—and the name, Patti, seemed cute and carefree. But Patti seemed anything but cute and carefree, not like she was when she was very little. But the name stuck with her, as she preferred to be called

“Yeah, but Patti still lives in the past” Trish said. “She still blames me for everything wrong in her life. Nothing has changed, and I am still the bad guy. Trish thought for a second. “Well, her dad, too. He’s bad, too, in her eyes. She always says she raised herself, that she never had real parents. That’s crap because I raised her and I was around—unlike her useless father!”

“Sounds bitter on her part”, Henry agreed. He thought to say that Trish sounded a bit like that, too, but he did not think it was his place to say it out loud.

“Bitter is right”, Trish said in disgust.  

Bartenders have always been seen as good listeners, like the working man’s counselor. People, like Trish, often came in for a drink to try to forget their troubles, and wanting to lean on a trusty soul in need. Henry has seen plenty of this in his twenty-four years on the job, and he has honed the skill quite well, the skill of providing a listening ear. Sometimes he had good advice, but he knew he was no psychiatrist.    

Frustrated, Trish went on. “I mean who else was there for her? When her dad and I divorced, she wanted to stay with him just to spite me! But would he have her? No, he only wanted to be with his under aged, ***** wife!

“And who else would do what I did? When my step dad died, and my mom couldn’t handle my little brother anymore, who was it that took him in? It was me! He was eleven and I was almost twenty-two and living with my boyfriend. I helped to finish raising him, kept him at my place right up to the day that he was grown—and more! And I did it because it needed doing, and nobody else was stepping in! When my sister moved to Colorado, and one of her kids, my nephew, Craig, wanted to stay here to graduate here from high school, I agreed to take him in for two years until he finished high school. And yet I am such a bad, selfish person in Patti’s opinion! It makes me sick to think of how she sees me as her mother!”

Henry poured her a refill of pop in her half empty glass. He knew that Trish was on bad terms with her daughter, that their relationship was shaky and strained. Patti was Trish’s only child, and it troubled him that they didn’t have much of a relationship. Yet Trish did not need pity. She needed to refocus and find a new direction. Henry knew that she has needed a new direction for quite a while now.    

“Well, you know I love my daughter”, he replied. “I know your heart must be achin’ bad—real bad. I couldn’t imagine my life without Jocelyn or me not talkin’ to her. She’s the apple of my eye, ya know!  And my boys know it and get that she’s special to me—Daddy’s little girl. With four older brothers, she has always been outnumbered. And myself and the Mrs. never expected her, neither. One—two—three—four, the boys all came right in a row! She came way after, Ben, the last one—a big surprise, I tell ya! But I was tickled pink and couldn’t have been happier to have my little girl”.  Henry smiled warmly, and added, “No matter how old she gets, she will always be my little girl.”

Trish’s mood wasn’t influenced by what Henry said, not for the good. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Henry looked a bit embarrassed. “Oh, I ain’t tryin’ to rub it in to ya! No, no Trish!  I’m just sayin’ you should see Patti as someone special, no matter what it is like now. She still is your daughter. And ya lover her! You know ya do! Try to get through to her. Keep on tryin’ and don’t give up hope.”

Trish didn’t look convinced by his little pep talk, so he said, “One day she will have her own children, and realize she will make mistakes, too. You sure will want to see those grandkids. Trust me! I live to see all of mine! ”

Patti sniffed at that comment, putting forth a laugh that seemed so phony and snarky. This behavior was not like her at all, not the bubbly Trish that Henry used to see coming into the bar. “Grandchildren? Are you kidding me? Patti wants nothing to do with men! She avoids them like the plague! Says she doesn’t want to end up like me…married and divorced four times…she says there is no excuse for it. But she uses me all the time as an excuse! I think she is just scared to death of relationships with guys!”

“I thought you were married three times?” Henry asked. He had a surprised look on his face, but then he tried to think differently. “But I don’t want to **** in on your life. It’s your business, not mine to judge”.

“No, Henry, it’s ok. My last marriage lasted only seven weeks”. She turned red in the face now, but she wanted to set it straight. “Patti thinks it is disgusting that I married all those times. My last husband tried to clear out my bank account, and I left him. Patti says she will never marry. She won’t touch a man with a ten foot pole to save her life!”

She paused as Henry stared intently at her, listening. “She does not want to end up like me”, she added, her voice throaty. Tears welled up in her eyes.  

Patti was the product of Trish’s first marriage to a man named Earl Colbert. When Patti was six, her father divorced her mother. Since then, Patti had seen plenty of men come and go. In between her other three husbands, there were too many boyfriends to even keep track of. Trish was also engaged twice, but the engagements were eventually broken off.    

She sat in silence as Henry was still thinking of the right thing to say to comfort her. Soon, two young couples had entered through the door, dispersing the air of awkwardness, and stopping the conversation between Henry and Trish.  Henry continued to clean up around the bar as he waved to them and welcomed their presence. One of the guys came up and ordered a pitcher of beer before joining his friends at a table.

It was no more than a few minutes later that another customer approached inside Pete’s Place. It was Jake. Trish rolled her eyes at Henry. He was a regular here, too, like she was, and about the same age as her.

Jake immediately came up to Trish and put his arm around her. “Buy you a drink, darlin’?” he asked. His breath already smelled of alcohol.  

“Oh, Jake, get away!” Trish scolded him. “You know I don’t accept drinks from married men, so move on!” She waved her hand in the air to clear the bothersome odor of his ***** away from her.

Jack just laughed, and moved to the other end of the bar, his usual spot. Henry kept his calm although he did not like Jake acting like a fool to Trish, or to any of the women who came here. He had to do his duty and serve Jake, but if he had his way the guy would be just a step away from being told to leave. Henry always kept a close eye on how much Jake was drinking, and he often cut him off when it seemed he had his share.

“Whisky, Henry”, Jake ordered. They both knew the routine.

With his whisky in hand, Jake smirked at Trish and asked, “How come you ain’t at that big jazz festival downtown?”  

“How come you ain’t?” she echoed him, sarcastically

“Cuz I don’t have a sweet lady to go with me and keep my company”. He winked at her, and downed a gulp of whisky.

“Oh, you mean like your—wife!” Trish said.  Jake and Trish often bantered like this to each other. “You will never change, Jake. You are a rude and obnoxious flirt, and you ought to be ashamed!”

Jake just laughed her off.  “Sweetie, my wife knows I’m a big flirt. She’s OK with it! She says ‘as long as you are peeking and not seeking, who cares what you do!’”

The two young couples that came in a while ago overheard Jake’s conversation and started to crack up in laughter. It seemed that he was the entertainment for a lackluster evening at the bar, a court jester of sorts. Trish looked at the four, young faces that were laughing at her expense, glanced at Henry in silent agreement that Jake was an idiot, and quickly turned red in the face.

“Jake, shut your big mouth!” Henry intervened. “You lie as much as you belt them down!”  When Jake was more sober, he seemed pretty reasonable, but he was nauseating when he was on a drinking binge.

Henry exited into a room behind the bar for a moment. Jake whispered loudly to Trish, like an impish, little boy who knew he might get caught, but loved the thrill of it. “Psst. Hey, Trish! Look! My wife’s no fun at all! Won’t go out with me no more. The festival is going on all weekend. Just give me your number and I’ll call you tomorrow and pick you up to take you there”.

Trish pretended like she did not hear him, still rattled up a bit, but trying her best to hide it, and Jake soon devoted his mind to his drink.

She turned herself around in the barstool and pretended to watch the baseball game. The scene in the room was still practically the same way since she first arrived. Only now there was an edgier atmosphere with the four younger people in it. The older couple was still sitting together in the corner, intent on watching the ball game. The two younger couples were drinking down their pitcher of beer and talking away. One of the young man had his arm around his girlfriend, gently caressing her back, and the other young couple, that was sitting across from them was holding hands.  

In longing, Trish looked on at the young couples. How she m

Tonights the night to party
Not just because I say
Tonights the night to party
Because it ' s the ending of the day
Throw up your hands
and yell yee haw
Grab a drink and hit the floor
Dancing without caring
That's what this party's for

The band is slightly out of tune
But, hey who gives a ****
They sound better later on
When you are really lit
By two a.m you'd think that they
Were Alabama and  George Jones
While you're trying to record them on
Your prissy little phones

This place don't karaoke
You're singing with the band
You're singing country music
It's the best in all the land
No running shoes, just cowboy boots
Will get you in the door
If you come in with a cowboy hat
Make sure it faces to the front
All the dude's they wear them backwards
And they look like a dumb c*

Tonights the night to party
Not just because I say
Tonights the night to party
Because it ' s the ending of the day
Throw up your hands
and yell yee haw
Grab a drink and hit the floor
Dancing without caring
That's what this party's for


You can listen for the steel guitar
It's there in every song
Hey man, this here's a country bar
And steel guitar , it just belongs
There's always background fiddle
Drums like Levon from The Band
Piano played like Jerry Lee
The floor's all blood and sand

You've come on out to party
Now show them how a redneck does
Knock back a few and get up here
And when you dance, you cuss
The music here will rock you
It's American through and through
It's a good old country party
It's all red white and blue

pst... they read too much fiction and philosophy, they keep forgetting poetry is akin to music... you know, mozart mozart mozart... they think they’ll definitely orate a revival of the roman empire with poetry... but it’s μ... it’s moo... it’s moo... it’s ha ha ha ha. let’s face it, attacking poetry is attacking music, hence ascetic islam, i don't know why philosophy forgot musicology when stating grievances with poetry: oh i know, karaoke.*

but when you wonder what nietzsche expected concerning god’s panic on the 1 / seventh day, i might as well speak the lines:

and god’s indolence master crafted satan.

so you see, the timing is relevant, no spontaneous combustion with snow white eve and the envious ‘mirror mirror on the wall,’ just the fact that a force of insurmountable creativity slouching like a couch potato could only craft satan.

evolutionary biologists don’t panic! don’t panic! the evolutionary theologians are on their way! they said: too much drunk history going from a. present times to b. the epic of gilgamesh to c. monkey - it’s just that the artists depicting kings and queens made them look ugly, such unsympathetic depictions of such beauty... where’s the irony, eh? i do mean it, one university lecture started the whole of of history by citing the epic of gilgamesh as the begetting of the tempted eve - not that there’s much correlation between the two - but imagine if she wasn’t tempted and man could not differentiate himself from all other animals? of course the byproduct would have been a surreal take on vanity.

satan is the activity of what is otherwise repeat, repeat, repeat of the stars and crow pecks and perks, he’s the randomised activity overseer, the whole karma of the thinking stone, but obviously stones don’t think, so there’s man in all of this: sooner a mountain will meet a mountain than man with man - some desirable ******* like that.

it’s the bored in reflection - but how can i say that in my “group therapy” sessions in the park - perched high up are the dog walkers, who barely known the word wolf... leashes and leeches all the same, cats roam free and i’m free from them, but a dog is like a fascinating emblem of the person walking it - the leash - i necessarily exist because i’m attached to this dribbling driftwood that begins talking with woof, woof! i let the cat go, and i drift into the same serialisation of fearlessness before death, having encountered it several times i’m almost certain there’s an angel behind it, punishing me, eagerly anticipating me to have a career, a wife, a child, a puppy, a car, a mortgage. no can do, me and pavement are opera if things come to the clinical stages of peering in the lives of others on a sunday. me? eyed myself wonky testifying the success of an old couple with one of them dead the other soon follows in siamese fashion. so i drink the beer get a suntan in the shade, and write what the auburn colouring could provide in letters.

now we’re talking inspiration, brief, sudden, lightning strike... we’re not talking stephen king and lumberjack.

The first time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at Granny's Kitchen in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The waitress, a soft spoken white woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, had just dropped off my plates --- a simple mix of scrambled eggs, two pieces of greasy bacon, and a short stack of pancakes. Now, no matter how cheap, I always feel like I'm cutting loose at breakfast places for the sheer abundance of plates. While I'm sure the eggs and bacon could have shared real estate, each component had its own china.

The waitress lingered at my table, her fingers fidgeting with straws in her apron. I made eye contact. Well, my eyes contacted hers; she was staring at my lips.

Sure I can't get you something to drink? she asked.

This was approximately the tenth time she'd made sure. She was uncomfortable that I had supplied my own beverage -- a Big Gulp. But even more than that, she was uncomfortable by the deep red stain taking over my lips. Contents of the Big Gulp: merlot, boxed.

(That is an unnecessary detail. I've only written it so I never do it again.)

Before Greg hopped up on a table and announced to the restaurant, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, blah, blah blah, I poured a copious amount of syrup on my pancakes. Then I moved the bacon to my pancake plate. In my experience, very little in this life is better than syrup on bacon.

I shut my eyes for that first bite, just like the commercials. The syrup dribbled a bit onto my beard, and when I opened my eyes, I discovered it had also landed on my shirt. I grabbed a napkin. Heard a chair slide backwards. I started with my beard, peering around the diner, making sure no one saw. I think I heard someone gasp. But I was busy, working that napkin then against my shirt. Jesus, I thought. My grandma, who's got a splash of the Parkinson's, could eat with more grace.

If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, a very official voice boomed behind me.

I turned around to see if I recognized him as one of those cuffed jean-sporting, wild plaid-loving NPR hosts. He wasn't one of those. He was a sunburn with mop hair in a black tank top and hemmed jean shorts. He did, however, have a cleft chin. That's actually worth noting. Don't see a lot of them these days.

I know you guys are busy, he said. I know that like me, you guys are probably broke as hell. I mean no offense Granny's, I love this place, but it ain't exactly four stars. Or three. Anyway, all I want from each of you is five dollars. If you ain't got five, give me four. Ain't got four, three. And so on.

He started with the stringy Japanese couple on the west side of the restaurant. Nobody really seemed scared, not the freckled brat in canvas sneakers, not the liver-spotted gentleman with a copy of that day's paper.

My old friend Jerome used to say that white folks are the only romantic criminals. He tacked it up to that whole Bonnie and Clyde crap. Greg, it seemed, was privy to that information, too. He smiled and thanked each person as he robbed them of a few presidents. The victims, smiling back, seemed to be thinking of their names tagged at the end of some newspaper dialogue. A few even gave more than he asked.

Here, take fifteen. Times will get better.

Aren't you just a charmer.

It was all very moving.

So he gets to me, and of course, I don't have any cash. I carry a debit and an arsenal of credit cards like a normal American. I don't know how he made it to me before running into this particular problem.

No, I don't have one of those iPhone card swipers, he said. Well, you gotta give me something.

I offered a gift card to Harold's Clothes for Men, it had like two bucks on it, but he wasn't interested.

What's your name?

Henry.

How much do you weigh?

Enough to keep me prohibited from most amusement park rides.

I like you, Henry. Well, let me ask you something. Have you ever loved a man? he asked, pointing his smudgy revolver just past my ear.

I shook my head no.

Me neither. I've always been curious, though. You been curious?

There was a time when I was thirteen -- Blake Hinton was changing after basketball practice -- and I remember thinking, that is an incredible chest. These lines just sprawled from his sternum, lines leading to these almond *******, and I specifically remember wanting to eat them like, well, almonds. But that hardly counts as curious. So, I said, No.

To which Greg responded: Get curious, boy. You're coming with me.


In the spirit of honesty, I was in a bit of a haze before Greg made me climb into his beat up Cavalier. Not just from the Big Gulp brimmed with merlot, no, I hadn't slept in two days prior to the whole gun-in-face incident. Reason being, I was, as Greg would say, broke as hell, and the rent was due. I stayed up both nights conspiring (and drinking). So, really I was pretty thrilled to be kidnapped away from the whole situation.

I had visions. I guess from the lack of sleep. Maybe they weren't visions, maybe just dreams, or fever dreams, I don't know. All I know is I blinked, and we were in the Appalachians. And there was a grey longbeard in the backseat rattling on and on about how change is easy, movement is easy; it's that whole nesting thing that takes courage and strength, blah, blah, blah. I told him to be quiet. Greg told me to get some sleep. I blinked.

We were in a karaoke bar in Madison, Tennessee. There was a gin and tonic in front of me. I took a drink. There was a water with lime in front of me.

Greg asked, Where did you go?

I told him, your dreams, trying to be cute. He turned and asked the bartender for a Yeager bomb. Reaching for the server in -- granted -- an overly dramatic gesture, I said, Make it two. We made it three. We made it four. Seven. Then some vague, but perfect number, because my head rang right. The words came right. And I was a journalist, asking Greg all the right questions.

I'm not a criminal, he said.

I was just bored, man, he said.

You see, I was in a rut, he said. Last month I put up a personal on Craigslist. I know, it's pretty ******* desperate. I've read the kind **** people put on there. But mine was different. I just wanted some time with my ex-wife. Some couch ***, you know? We hadn't done it on a couch since I dropped out of college, and I hadn't even really thought about it until a couple weeks after the divorce. Then it was all I could think about.

A black woman, whose teeth glowed under the black light, began singing "Wild Horses." Then he read my mind, I think.

Yeah, she answered it. Did our thing on her sofa. It was nice and all, and like all nice things, you just want more, but she said I couldn't have no more, this was a fluke, a one-time, or no, a one-off thing, she said. Had to relocate, so that's why I did that whole thing at Granny's.

You ever get it on a couch? he asked.

No, I said. I've see a bra though --- two actually.

He took that as a joke, which was good.

Though wild horses couldn't drag me away, a gasoline horse could.


He handed me a courtesy breath mint after I finished throwing up. The Nashville skyline looks perfect, he said. Especially at night.

My stomach was gravel in a washing machine. Masculine love. At gunpoint, I had agreed to indulge it. I was going to make love to a man -- not just a man -- a criminal. Not something to write about on a postcard.

Mr. Winters, my esteemed landlord,
Apologies about the rent. Got kidnapped by a *******, and I'm presently banging and being banged by him in Music City, USA.

I blinked.

We laid on opposite ends of the queen-sized mattress.

I always liked Super 8s, Greg said. I don't see the point in spending so much on a hotel. A bed is a bed.

And I tried to be funny with something about the confidentiality of dark bedsheets, but it fell flat.

Greg cried. I love my ex-wife, he said.

Can I help?

Will you hold me? he asked.

The air conditioner kicked on in the already freezing room.

I'm sorry. You don't have to, he said.

I scooted against him. He smelled pleasant in a family-vacation-kind-of-way, like a fresh pretzel covered in salt. I put my arm under his neck. He buried his face into my shoulder. I blinked.


The front end of his Cavalier was held together with copper wire and coat hangers. It was a two-door. Both doors dented from, according to Greg, hit-and-runs. It had a Vermont plate on the back. It was red. I mention all of this to say: if we kept moving, we were bound to get pulled over.

In the parking lot of 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer, Greg asked me to retrieve his revolver from the glove compartment. You kinda have to uppercut it, he said. And I did.

I don't want to do it again, but we have to. I'm not staying put, not until I hit the ocean. But don't worry, I'm not going to hurt anyone.

He showed me the revolver. No bullets. I nodded, in approval, I guess.


The second time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer in Bellevue, Tennessee. Of course, it was the same man, Greg, but the circumstances were a little different.

I went with two orders of biscuits and gravy --- or B & G as my dear friend Chance affectionately calls it. Four bites in and I'd yet to hit biscuit. For a moment, I wanted to tell Greg, C'mon man, ***** the ocean. Tennessee does gravy the way God intended. Nobody would find us in this suburb. We could be sharecroppers. Do they still have sharecroppers?

Do you like fresh corn? I asked. It was the first crop that came to mind.

Greg didn't answer. I noticed his plate of hash browns and eggs -- sunny-side up -- were untouched. You okay?

He was, he said, trying to get in the zone, that's all.

Alright.

Our waitress looked like a poster child for ******'s Youth. She couldn't have been much more than sixteen. She had blonde -- almost white -- hair. Her eyes changed color with the intensity and direction of light, a gradient between seaweed and dark ocean blue. She appeared to be an amish girl gone defective, and I was about to inquire into that very supposition when Greg stood on the table, and said, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second.

Tennessee is not North Carolina. In North Carolina, they got a healthy aversion to firearms. In Tennessee, however, once a babe can walk, the *******'s got a BB gun and an endless supply of empty soda cans for target practice. I say that, to say this: when Greg stood on the table, so did three other men. Their three guns pointed right at him.

Lower that gun, brother. You ain't gettin' any money out of us.

Hate to shoot you in front of your boyfriend.

Coffee spilled and ran off the tray our waitress held. She shook so hard, it wasn't clear how many women she was.

Greg's cleft chin centered on one gunman, than the other, than the other.

Just drop the gun, *******.

We don't want to ruin no one's breakfast.

Fellas, I said, he doesn't have any bullets in his gun. We need a little money that's all.

That ****** is just trying to protect him.

I'm calling the cops, a purple-haired old woman yelped from under her table. Silverware clanged against the floor. Then the buzz of a fly. Then the pop of fries drowning in grease. Then the bell chimed as some idiot walked inside.

Greg's arm was shaky as he pointed the gun at me. Do you love me? he asked.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I put my arms up. Slid my chair back a ways. Stepped on the chair, then unto the table.

Do you love me? Greg asked.

His breath smelled like last night's alcohol and that morning's coffee. He was a child, a sunburnt child with a cap gun. He wasn't going to hurt anyone.

I put my hand on top of the revolver and lowered it. He crumpled, as if I were scolding him. They still pointed their guns at us. But for the first time in my life, I felt secured, tethered to a space.

I lifted Greg's chin up with my index finger. Covered his eyes with the palm of my hand. And I kissed him. I kissed him, keeping my eyes closed tight.

1.
Lively out of tune,
Songstress with liquid courage
Croons, frogs in her throat.

2.
Sake’s bad English,
Raw fish / pronunciations,
Glad songs for drowning.

Into a place far away but too familiar,
I push open the rusty purple gates,
Inhale a lungful of the province air,
Kick away blue pebbles on the dusty ground,
And then
Mano my lolo, my tito
Beso my lola, my tita
And give my cousins a nudge on the arm,
A pinch on the cheeks.

I squeeze between four people
In a rickety wooden bench and
Pass around plate after heavy plate.
I fill my banana leaf
With spaghetti too soft too sweet,
Almost like pudding,
With crispy chicken dripping with oil.
I wash it off with a cool glass of gulaman,
Chewy beads and gems in sugary water.

Fathers talk about basketball, boxing, billiards;
Mothers browse through photo albums and magazines;
While we children argue about Superman or Batman.
Our laughter fills the humid air
And goes up, up, up to the ears of the neighbors.

In celebration of the time we have together
And a nice sunny day
We devour our meals
And go ahead and
Climb trees and
Get our faces sticky with sweet fruits,
Lick chocolate ice popsicles,
Chase each other in the weedy playground,
Bike around town,
Pick colorful flowers,
Wrestle with each other,
Play badminton on a windy day,
Scare around chickens and guinea pigs,
And play patintero under the dull orange street lamps.

We nervously creep inside the back door,
All sweaty, bearing bruises and scratches
But still with wide smiles on our faces.
All is futile though.
An angry grandmother awaits,
Scolding us for
Coming home past sunset.

More and more stars glitter the sky
As the night gets deeper and deeper.
The gentle evening breeze whistles a note
As it enters through the window.
The karaoke blasts grating voices
Interrupted by hearty laughter.
Playing cards and corn chips litter the table.
We children exchange jokes and ghost stories.

And then,
We bid our goodbyes,
Sharing hugs and kisses
Stained with discontent and sadness.
Our hearts about to burst
In excitement for the next
Reunion.

Take me back to June 12th, the day we first hung out together, drinking beers and ***** shots, singing karaoke to Green Day, Michael Jackson and the out of place Lady Gaga at our favorite bar called Villains.

Take me back to all those days we'd hang out at Milk Coffee Bar and laugh at horrible things like the Columbine Shootings or the 9/11 attacks and *** smokes off our mutual friend Jean; drinking beers and listening to horrible local indie bands play their horrible, airplane sound/ white noise, indie music.

Take me back to "the perfect 90's couple".

Take me back to the first time I kissed you by accident, causing the caterpillars in my stomach to induce metamorphosis, letting the butterflies to spread their wings for the first time.

Take me back to the first time we slept together, with no ***. You caressing my back, me slipping into a peaceful slumber to the sound of your heart beating, a sound I've never heard before.

Take me back to July 10th, the day we told each other we liked the other and I talked you into asking me out.

Take me back to the time you said I was worth it.

Take me back to the nights we'd stay up till 4 in the morning talking about nothing in particular or talking about everything and anything that came into our heads.

Take me back to the day we were on my front porch and I said "I love you, you're funny" and you replied "I love you too".

Take me back to the first time we had ***, making love, and you made fun of my blushing and called it cute.

Take me back to your birthday party I can barely remember because I drank so much and you ended up taking care of me and checking my pulse to make sure I was okay.

Take me back to our first official date at Bubi's where I dressed up for you for the first time and was so nervous I could've ****** myself.

Take me back to the talks we would have about moving in together, or when I was sad that you didn't want kids and I did so you said "I might hate children but I would consider having children with you".

Take me back to the Loop where I showed you I could be stupid and dance like a fool.

Take me back to the Cards Against Humanity game where I showed you I can be a bad *** girl and make you laugh at my dumbassery.

Take me back to Korey's end off summer party where I got to watch you fail at the NHL game and record your cute silliness  when you actually scored.

Take me back to when we started to drift apart because you had to go back to University to start the semester, where I should've suggested staying over for weekends even if you had to study.

Take me back to when I got depressed and said "I have no reason to live" and made you think you weren't good enough for me to stay, even though that was far from the truth. You were my only reason.

Take me back to when you needed some space and time to think.

Don't take me back to when you broke up with me.

Take me back to when you wanted to give it another shot.

But don't take me back to when you decided to break up with me again.

**It's been years since then, and all I can say is that, I loved you. I'm glad we could've dated, cause you showed me what love was, even though we didn't last, and for that I am grateful. Thank you, Nektarios.

There's a guy dressed up as Freddie Kruger for Halloween
Freddie Kruger can't sing the high part during Eye Of The Tiger
I murmur something to my friend
Me: Freddie Crooner
My friend laughs more than he needs to
We aren't sure whose whiskey sour is whose anymore
My roommate doesn't want to sing in front of people
She'd rather hide in her glass and mingle with the ice
But I make her duet a Nirvana song with me
Which we scream and she starts having fun
The crowd claps with relief when we're done
Freddie Kruger offers me a fist bump
A group of sweet plump ladies takes turns singing love ballads
They all have pretty voices and work at Bubba Gump on the pier
The one that sang the Adele song is studying business
She tells me while we smoke outside during Wonder Wall
I sing nine minutes of Meatloaf
My voice cracks and growls like feedback
This guy buys me a shot afterwards
My throat is so dry that I have to drink it in tiny sips
This guy thinks me and my friends are fun
I duet Desperado with him and we knock over stools and laugh
He has clearly never heard the song Desperado before
Me and my friends invite the whole bar to sing an Aerosmith song together
I think that this may be the only way to really appreciate Aerosmith
I drive my roommate and my self back to our apartment
I'm drunk but I pretend I'm sober so she won't get scared
Then sometimes I laugh bizarrely to scare her a little bit
But always end up lying and reassuring her that I'm sober
We start talking about Lou Reed because he had died that day
I guess Lou Reed didn't like when people said RIP
Which I had written in my facebook status about him dying
I don't really care much because Lou Reed wasn't really a friend of mine
I just liked his music
And he never mentions in any of his songs anything
About people saying RIP
When we got to the bar the first thing I did
Was to look for a Lou Reed song to sing
But there weren't any
So I sang other songs instead

Let's do Karaoke
and pretend we are on key
Sing our hearts out loud
Dance like no one is around
Every lyric might be symbolic
don't worry cause tonight we'll be alcoholic
Let your emotion out
and use a song to tell me what is it about
Sing to me all your fears
but don't drop a tear
And just to be clear
remember I am always here
This night might never end
just like our friendship that will not bend
For we will sing together,
Until we achieve our forever.

watching a German substitute come on is a bit like watching the opening scenes of Gladiator... the German tribe north of the Rhine resounding to the decapitation of an envoy... painting in writing, ascribing the appropriate diacritical marks to the Venus bathing the alphabet the Anglos kept as source of their demise; naked unsupervised to stress certain sounds and thus unsupervised the slang emergence, and total ignorance of diacritical marks of football commentators, stemming from disengagement from dialectics as the supreme proof... from the film: 'tu bista ***! aß sēhta'h fuhta'h ūnna'h!' - das längezeichen, ein verlängerung (two definite articulations of the definite article, a quarter das, a quarter die) - the macron, an extension;
one H the vowel / breath catcher, former H the precursor of catching breath, the latter, a breath shortened, mildly operatic... from the cradle... to the grave... but watching a German match is like watching the battle speech in the opening scenes of Gladiator... a substitute comes on, the announcer says his first name, the horde bellow out: bastian... Schweinsteiger! macron v. umlaut, when did - also mean a horizontal colon above a letter? just now. i'm still surprised that the English are too proud of memories of the Empire to even allow the greeks to utilise diacritical marks, and leave themselves jaded with computer encryptions, ugly emoticons ( :) as a perfect e.g.) and acronyms... what a waste of when revelling in Ave Britannia, Empire of the Pond... ruler of mirror ripples rather than turbulent waves - but it's like that, whether in the Bundesliga or the UEFA championship... a substitute or a goal scorer... like a ******* german tribe antagonising the Roman expansion tactic, the bellowing grooming of a beast.

in terms of song subjects, i can't feel the vibe
of urban socialites and heavy affairs,
any more chromatics' songs akin to
the velvet underground and i'll just keep
staring at only having done marijuana,
whiskey, and the deadly Salvia Divinorum,
many a good Aztec died from this plant,
very few fared to become Proustian shamans
of changed perception - but seriously,
a second more with the haunting female voice
enticing me and i'm done.

but there are some extension i made from
having the oeuvre of Iron Maiden and Slayer,
post-2000 music to me is hardly represented:
the chromatics (**** for love),
the besnard lakes (until in excess, imperceptible ufo),
uncle acid & the deadbeats (blood lust) - i need
to get mind control for one song, under your spell,
naam (self-titled),
dead skeletons (black magik),
tame impala (lonerism),
wooden shjips (west),
moon duo (circles),
black ox orchestra (nisht azoy),
pop levi (medicine),
                                     allah las (self-titled)...
i mean, it's out there, the alternative, it's out there,
but people don't like sharing their personal tastes
for a public reason, but a personal reason,
as long as personal interests are necessary all
public coercion is lost in the art world for
a scrap heap... so true the myth and so also tiresome
the idea that art is best kept (at least the obscure type)
for a Don Giovanni adventure - i mean,
had i more money i'd invest in art more -
but the retaliation was inevitable,
the karaoke culture of philip k. ****'s prediction
of the *man in the high castle came true...
well, it wasn't a prediction but a fantasy...
karaoke culture took over, pop is karaoke, the few
brave souls are there, but the general public is starving,
1950s American cinema and 1970s American cinema,
music prowess in the 1960s -
well, if you steal from artists... why expect any art to
exist if that art isn't simply advertisement?
ever used the radio? i would have, kept my honour...
how many thieves prowl in western society
under the disguise of technological progress?
too many.

*if i were polish, i'd add the Czech utility, to change -sz- with š, and -cz- with a sharpened breve / upside-down circumflex above... and not learning the specific encoding of diacritical marks gave us the linguistic alphabet... -sz- with š as replacement, -cz- with č, to simply drop the z... this is painting, and the only painting you can have is with stresses on the sounds... so in example:
škoda że tak mało času
it's a shame that there's so little time.

Karaoke night on Tuesdays was, until recently,
My only release
The half-hour drive across Lake Ponchartrain
And into New Orleans
Has become at least a weekly ritual for me
Last time I went, I saw a friend there
One who I made a few months earlier

I sang a song, and then sat down to talk to her
Catching most of what she said, but not all
My mind wanders as it always does

Somehow we start talking about dating
And soon I'm planning with her a trip to Baton Rouge
To meet her single friend
Asking her to be my "wing-woman"

But then I realize she is a little incoherent
And I have to repeat things to her, and she seems confused
She says, "They made my drink a little too strong"
And soon she is in a drunken haze
A few tears come down her face, and I sit silently for a minute
Unsure of how to comfort her
I ask if she needs to step outside; she nods

She follows me out the door, arm in mine
I slowly move outside, making sure she doesn't trip
And then we sit, and she cries
And soon I find out she is mourning the distance between
Herself and her boyfriend

I tell her about my closest experience with a long-distance relationship
About my Brazilian friend who could've been more
But then she moved, and we fell out of touch
This friend seems humored through her tears at the story

"She moved to Hawaii?" she says. "Yeah", I reply.

"Hawaii?"

I nod. We talk some more, our conversation moving into
Our mutual love of stargazing
She looks up at the cloudy sky and mentions the light pollution
And the lack of stars in New Orleans

"Hawaii?"

I tell her about the stars across the lake, where I live
And how, far enough north, you can see all the stars on a clear night
And then the DJ for the night calls her up to sing
And we go back in, into the loudness and enclosed chaos of the bar

She sings, nervous, stumbling through the songs and holding onto
The stripper pole in the middle of the little stage
She finishes the song, steps down, and we go back outside
And we sit down and talk a little while

"Hawaii?"

An acquaintance comes out and says he ordered onion rings for us
I ask if she needs a ride home, even though I work the next day
And she does too
The acquaintance says he can give her a ride
Since he's unemployed for the time being
So we go back inside and wait for our onion rings

I get my acquaintance's phone number, and ask him to text me
When he gets her home
And then I tell her to text me the next morning
To let me know she made it to work alright
She says she will

On my way back home, the acquaintance texts me: "She's home."
And the next day, at work, I get a text from my friend
Thanking me for listening to her
I replied back that it was no problem
And then I go back to finishing my closing shift

I died on a Tuesday and found my way in the news
Caught between a commercial and karaoke singing girl
Was the appearance of the killer but they only had his shoes

I approached the desk and rang a little bell
Saint Peter took out a pen, found my name and said
"You're not on the list, you must be looking for Hell."

I tried to appeal for trial in Heavenly Courtroom Twelve
Judge Jesus and Judy had to declare a hung jury
And during recess I had to find a bed in Purgatory Hotel

In Room 237, I met a man named Avery
He was a little cynical and said that this was typical
That "it took them 18 years to finally save me."

In the morning I finally I got to hear the verdict
Led by a jury of peers such as writers and queers
They said hell awaits those whose life isn't worth it

it’s been foggy for the past two days,
i blamed fireworks on halloween
rather than guy fawkes’ celebration to
burn the magna carta... i still prefer the beltane
festival of burning rubber skin tires of pensioners
extending for a plastic surgeon’s career;
it was foggy these two past years,
i can almost start an art movement or set-up an art school
ensuring all paintings are painted with fog-overtones,
as i blow cigarette smoke into the air...
but this is the zenith of autumn,
the earth has started to breathe, the muddy field soil
has started to turn into mush, to mush,
it’s begging the plughole sepias of a hectare into easing into
moisture so the boots land a footprint into flemish tired in the trenches
for the toilet plop...i’ll dismember onomatopoeia spelling
and retrace the origins of dyslexia... i will!
insert this anti-intellectualism of england laughing at the words
sartre and *****... piston... etc.,
then become content with en masse surveillance.. everyone’s happy!
win win situation!
he he he... giggles for rounds of ***** shots and double-glazing...
keep the van gogh canvases... we need pristine voyeurism sights
across the street and never bothering to chip in to the gallery funds.
it’s autumn at its zenith with two foggy nests of the moon exposed
and i’m forcing cigarette smoke into the air to match up...
i’ve heard news that a lady psychologist and a professor are interested
in my works... back home in poland,
they are announcing a secret reading of my work
in the underground chambers of a church in szewna, akin me to a gombrowicz,
i’m about to become a merchant of poetry.... here’s cinnamon for words,
here’s chilli for specified terms that tingle the tongue.
back home i can reclaim this misunderstanding of all necessary jokes
in england...
so this article comes along... stresses the difference between england and france...
the difference?
in england: a. i’m trying to write a book... b. how much money did you get upfront?
typical of bank of england signatures being given with a safe investment...
in france? a. i’m writing a book... b. what’s it about?
that’s europe, cross-continental, with the isolationism of england
like the isolationism of england if f.d.r. was the prime minister
and everyone spoke gaelic, so there...
frogs are princes... with such cares the article mentioned...
it mentioned rousseau as the joker card of blames
for the french revolution...
well i know that scientist is a misnomer of intellectual,
after all, the scientist is the man with a ruler and centimetre
and the intellectual doesn’t bother to count up the centimetres
of welsh words... but a scientist is hardly a cobbler...
so i give darwin... the english intellectual exploit surfacing as
the modus operandi of the holocaust...
‘it’s almost like a darwinian pact,’ said faust,
'i peered into the monkey and knew of the trouble it would translate,
this collective categorical translation that didn’t say:
orangutan is chinese and chimpanzee is greek, the gorilla is italian...
how the hell could we have evolved from the monkey
if there is no single species of monkey, we’re already as diverse
as the ****** monkeys! so a chimpanzee ****** a gorilla
and the first humanoid was spawned?' ******* you english colonial
******* and your limb-for-limb relativity, oh wait...
i’m writing in english... now isn’t that paradoxical...
but the f.d.r. akin isolationism craves for artists that not only perform
with their backup cognitive singers, i.e. song writers...
(like the song by vanessa paradis - joe le taxi -
being almost like ellie goulding's on my mind)...
how did it all become defaced with karaoke and a prenuptial of fame...
i just want the original rolling stones... i don’t want people turned
into adverts... i don’t want artists turned into slogan pushers...
i rather keep the kites of drugs.... i can’t do this... my heart’s broken,
but that's because the audience that's being sold
the art is too young to respect the go-along practice of drug use with the arts.

you know what i find funny? the phrase: i could eat you. juxtaposing vide cor meum against... this is the part where punctuation marks are never collision prone diacritical marks... but then again, there's that dietary joke... i could eat you... dependence on your bones not being properly disavowed within a langoustine broth... and there you are: a grey area mindful of Stalin... *****! i'm trying to humanise ******, stop interrupting! where once a moths' flutter, later a rainbow in the nacht! mind that niqab... nicht would mean nothing. some insinuated cappuchino, some cackles... some said cutie-pies invoking rouge cheeks... every time i watch these culinary shows i get thinking about cannibalism to counter veganism... and then i laugh... i don't want to find stinking socks and political correctness as "my way, did it to suit Lascaux cavern graffiti"... i preferred wanking than keeping up with women... it's the song i heard before lambs stiffened and muslims became muslims, and falafel was mince... ******, get under the hosepipe and you're there, all freely gagging for the fizz... a touch of tinsel... vide cor meum... return of policy... as half-heartfelt kaleidoscope returning to define a rainbow... i love that phrase given the palette opportunity... i could eat you. it's the demonic encouragement that solidifies the stench into what's to be seasoned properly... i don't know.. the phrasing: i could eat you sounds more formidable in delayed practice than: i can **** you... plus the gazpacho... which means: Batman ate cold cauliflower soup and slurred to slurp the question: but it's cold? Baldwin replied: it's supposed to be! they said orthography as a rigidness of aesthetic, i said... that's questionable whether any is applicable, given we're talking about graffiti.

i got tired of sensing other people's jealousy,
and tried to love them,
which ended up to be as much as a matrimony
toward one woman, ambition-bound
to incarnate the matrimony of swans...
  and the poor old ******, left to fantasy in
his days as a widower...
   every time i look at a lonely swans
i try to duck-quack the thing into existence...
            but there are variation of marriage...
a west london accountant can speak terrible
crap against an ethnicity i try to not identify with...
but i am courageously borne from,
    and therefore have to express some affiliation...
as a matter of principle...
  i rather not, but iu must, even though i sprechen
a host tongue... and am, therefore,
embedded with claims of socialite elitism...
                 but then i compare...
and these these comparisons are the due phrase...
Marilyn Manson's *a minute of decay
is a chance to hear the bass guitar overpower
           the drums... a bit like a culinary pistachio
moment in a risotto...
   i want room to breathe in!
     i want vaughan williams' fantasia on a theme
by thomas tallis... i sanctify the need
   for prokofiev's lieutenant kíjé's suite...
(dots are optional, the syllables aren't,
a classical dot above the iota might revel in
being the defining moment of tonguing /
dissecting a word... but it doesn't have to be so)
i need air to breath in, a moment to whimper...
why do the **** love Chopin and not Liszt?
   a bid ******* odd... i don't like either Chopin
or Liszt... because as Kaiser Yoseph said
in amadeus... to many notes...
and i agree... vivaldi made violins into cherub
       pumpernickle sparrows -
you danced, you joyed, you came across St. Vitus' dance...
   you were doing arithmetic as concord speed
within a framework of even (white) and odd (black)
numbers... once you played the nocturnal Fabergé -
someone suggested you move the ******
  goose to the Hermitage, and frame it!
why are the Japanese are the only Europeans in Asia...
      never mind, they just are,
hence they compete for playing Chopin like they consider
sushi to be a culinary exception of the tartar -
minus the influence, obviously, hence the stress to
impose Chopin... but never Liszt... odd...
          template virtuoso and you think of Liszt
than you might conjure Chopin...
           better than that... conjure champagne
bottles blundering to the volcano's worth of fizz...
still... the Japanese are a curiosity...
first of all: they abide by Chopin and chopsticks
not being utilised when gobbling sushi...
   they have the ambassadors of kimono,
samurai, origami, karaoke, bonßai (zye, rye),
          Fukushima... Hiroshima... yep, that place
were stanley lee derived the concept of x-men...
          still, they have permanent ambassadors in
opur midsts... words that can't be "translated" due
to etymological puritanism...
       finally the Portuguese sailed away, and founded
Brazil on the promise of an infinite supply of toothpicks
from the Amazon -
or? hai sensei!           hatch that with the catchphrase:
     kajagoogoo: shy-shy, hush-hush, eye-to-eye.
          we're storming the labyrinth right not,
and i still can't believe that poetry revolves around
the rhythm of rhyme... play any ping-pong, lately?
     no wonder poetry is a peacocking dollop
of clogged-up cow dung... it's just asking
for a *****-slap in a playground.
           but why Chopin and not Liszt?
the **** are what Napoleon was to the Duchy of
Warsaw... they love that arithmetic of
a pebble-dasher's *******...
       wet dreams... some authentic curiosities of
civilisation still have them... i wouldn't recommend
listening to them recounting the fables, personally...
i'd listen in on the succubus jerking them off...
  and just recently i was walking the deaf streets at
night with a bottle of beer and felt the bottle
of beer almost being tugged from my hand...
  and some say that eating a woman's umbilical-chord
is what's necessary to live as a man to later
sing some aria; or like drinking a pregnant woman's
**** will ensure you don't become myopic...
             i don't like Chopin,
i don't like Liszt either... i want a room, and a chance
to breathe... at the end of the classical expression
summarising the wind, we had a return
to the rooting in Africa... earthly delights
and a grumbling stomach in need of feeding,
  jazz did the work for us, jazz still had
an orchestral element to add a Lacan of all things
worthy of deconstruction...
       but then the French came along and shoved
fondue into our ears... and we said
alight with an eureka moment... pop!
             n'ah... the moment when the bass overpowers
the drums... i really have this wild fascination
with the bass guitar...
                 because i don't get Mozart,
and i do think that Handel did much more than
even the sacrificial lamb that Beethoven is...
                  listen... poetry doesn't have to be
music... rhyming is ping-pong anyway...
but as long as you feel in debt concerning music,
the music will come on its own accord...
today i was rattled by a mix of dub (without a step)
and beck's odelay... cruise-missile dylan...
give or take...
      well, given the italicised pr.s. (pre scriptum) -
much later an aged blonde boasted about snorkeling
******* and young ****... and missing out
when she teased me coming back to her abode...
           moth steals from a butterfly,
butterfly never turns into a daisy...
                       you're still a **** and i'm about
half of the total worth of being a ****...
which makes as equal... or queue more.
           variably condoned to be synonym with
mosque...  but i said mannequin...
     it's this **** with the five a day....
Christendom mentioned fruit & veg...
Islam mentioned variations of a murmur...
   is prayer classified as fruit, or vegetable?
you're as bewildered as i am...
   i too thought tomato is a fruit...
turns out it's a vegetable...
primarily due to basil, feta, and the mediterranean.
               herring belong in the baltic,
******* attempting that sort of ballistics...
ask about the relationship between
              a. yan sobieski
         b. ******
                    c. window on arabia (vienna,
counter st. petersburg) -
     oh you'll get many thanks...
sure... you'll end up becoming assured
that dogs don't need petting, but training,
and that you have to make all friends bound
to be kenneled, because they won't learn otherwise;
it's a bit sad...
          for about a minute...
                   you tried being peace-abiding,
peace-mindful...
   you wanted to state compassion...
  in the end people need a slap... or as 2000 years of
history proved... a crucifix.

1.  Shoot *****
2. Ski
3. Free-dive
4. Sky-dive
5. Vote Republican
6. Eat raw fish
7. Play naked volleyball
8. Eat haggis
9. Walk on coals
10. Yodel
11. Visit Somalia
12. Jell-O shots
13. Learn Klingon
14. Fish
15. Sell *****-wigs
16. Drink Genesee Creme Ale
17. Run a 5K
18. Pay mortgage
19. Divorce
20. Shoot ******
21. Go to Tupperware party
22. Drink Gatorade
23. Visit Poughkeepsie
24. Tend bar
25. Serve on a ******* trial
26. Eat glass
27. ****
28. Trump rally
29. KKK rally
30. Watch Sally Fields in The Flying Nun
31. Attend a MegaChurch
32. Listen to Death Metal
33. Watch American Dad
34. Moonwalk
35. Eat brussel sprouts
36. Watch Fox News
37. Turn 20
38. Turn 30
39. Turn 40
40. Turn 50
41. Turn 60
42. Turn over in my grave
43. Eat a tern
44. Teach Fall term
45. Terminate a solemn vow
46. Take a vow of silence
47. Disavow core beliefs
48. Operate a snow plow
49. Forget that I do know how
50. Insinuate
51. Dissemble
52. Lie, cheat and/or steal
53. S'Mores
54. Wet my bed
55. **** my thumb
56. **** a duck
57. Watch Little House on the Prairie
58. Rent a yacht
59. Not rescue animals
60. Not neuter pets
61. Not give to Food for People
62. Not appreciate Public Radio
63. Not appreciate Public Television
64. Knot like a Boy Scout
65. Play Parcheesi
66. Pay credit interest
67. Feign interest
68. Pinterest
69. Instagram
70. Eat spam
71. Exam cram
72. Karaoke
73. Jet-ski
74. Snowmobile
75. Pretend what the ******* are going on and on about matters (whoops; that’s number 67)
76. Blame my parents
77. Not take responsibility for my choices
78. Invest in oil futures
79. Renege on promises
80. Waste my time listening to telemarketers
81. Waste my time listening to zealots
82. Waste my time listening to racists
83. Waste your time
84. Waste my time, I hope
85. Not seek truth
86. Not seek answers
87. Not be authentic
88. Not be xenophobic
89. Accept lies
90. March lockstep
91. Buy the latest and greatest
92. Be consumer extraordinaire
93. Not be present
94. Not be conscientious
95. Not be good to my fellow human beings
96. Consume too much
97. Waste too much
98. Boast too much
99. Post too much
100. Not think about consequences
101. Not be me

Those poor, misunderstood teachers,
Counting down days till retirement.
Like grunts in The Nam,
Waiting for a reprieve like it was a
Papal dispensation or a Presidential pardon, or
Last minute stay of execution from the Governor.
Teachers: dying a slow death
On the same lame stage day after day,
Performing amateur comedy,
Hosting their very own Karaoke Club;
Filling barely enough seats in the joint
To crack their daily job satisfaction nut.
The kids who do show up for class are too bored,
Or too apathetic to stay awake,
Heckle you or walk out.
Most teachers hate their jobs.
So many teachers, so many miserable mooks
Wishing they had some other job, any other job,
Like plumber or astronaut,
Mortgage broker or CIA assassin,
The last two with similar personality & career profiles
On The Myers Briggs Type Indicator MBTI® Step I Interpretive Report. Anything’s got to be better than being
Trapped in a 40 by 40 foot box all day,
Stuck in some Dungeons & Dragons classroom
All day with 40 chaotic, evil, teenage
Gary Gygax-ed kids, used to entertainment
Of higher quality and sparkle.
The cardinal sin of teaching:  Thou shalt not be boring!

Teachers complain constantly about how bad the money is,
Having to work almost 185 days a year,
Whining about only getting 8 weeks off in the summer &
Every freaking holiday on earth known to man.
Snap out of it: you get paid what may be one of
The last livable, middle class salaries in America,
Not to mention health and defined retirement benefits, &
You’re still kvetching.
Meanwhile, Good Teachers—
Those deliriously happy few,
That small rare band of subversives,
Maybe you can count them on one hand &
Still feel lucky you had that many—
I’m talking about the good teachers,
Who view teaching as an art form,
Atypical teachers with both brains and heart.
These are the teachers that make the difference.
These are the vital early role models we need
To encounter when we first leave home as toddlers.

I can still hear you, Mr. Feeny:
“I want you to go home this afternoon and open a book! I don’t care what you had otherwise planned, I order you, nay, I command you. Go home and open a book.”
Books are sine qua non.
Good teachers start out by reading a lot of books—
That’s the brain stuff.
It is life lessons of the heart, however,
That really counts,
Stuff they’ve learned the hard way,
The pain they’ve felt personally,
Particularly while young themselves.
That’s where the heart comes from.
And for **** sure they never read about it
In whatever passes for textbooks in
Most graduate schools of education,
Largely lame crap masquerading as academic rigor
In the diploma mills serving the education profession these days.
I taught in 15 high schools across the American southwest &
I’ve known some really breathtakingly dumb,
Essentially illiterate teachers.
Even at the highest institutions of higher learning,
The average educator of teachers is
Rarely known for intellectualism.
With the possible exception of Diane Ravitch,
Jonathan Kozol, Paulo “The Brazilian” Freire--&
Maybe that Marxist hold-out, Eric “Rico” Gutstein--
Instructional staff at most university
Graduate Schools of Education are not
Taken seriously by the rest of the academic faculty.
What was your source of heart, Mr.Kotter?
I can assure you, it was not something you
Picked up at a teacher in-service, Gabe, &
Welcome back, by the way.

If you remember one thing about
Teacher licensing, remember this:
Albert Einstein, at the height of his fame &
Intellectual prowess, could not walk in
Off the street from out-of-state, or
Anywhere else in the universe, &
Qualify for a secondary single subject
Preliminary license to teach physics.
Not in any public high school classroom in
California or in the state of New Mexico.
He simply lacked the requisite education,
Hadn’t taken the plenitude of pedagogic courses,
Expensive college credits in such vital subjects as:
Methods of Teaching Science for Dummies;
Educational Technology for Idiots;
Band Aids & First Aid;
Tae Kwan Do for the Inner City;
Teaching & Testing the Test Takers;
Touchy-Feely 101, 201 & 301;
Understanding Special Kids:
Gifted Kids, Not-so Gifted Kids,
Kids with Attitude & Kids with ADD;
Curriculum Simulacrum;
ELL/Cross-Cultural Learning;
Self-Esteem for the Worthless; &
Last but not least, Foundations of Education:
Sarcasm & Humiliation for Fun & Profit.
And I didn’t even mention taking & passing
That sublimely subtle CBEST or NMTA/NES,
Teacher licensure tests,
Essentially 8th Grade literacy exams
Quite a few applicants take 3 or 4 times
Before earning a passing score.

Blame society?
Blame the parents?
Blame the politicians?
No, teachers:
Blame yourselves.

Two years ago on Valentine's Day
We had an attempt at reconciliation
And did 69 on a small sweaty couch
In a karaoke bar.

One year ago on Valentine's Day
You avoided eye contact with me and this year
You'll probably kiss someone else
And not talk to me but
That's okay.

Because it'll be just like three years ago
When I didn't know you and
I had a pretty good day.

I don't know. Maybe it won't be exactly like that.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to deceive myself or anything,
It's just hard to say what real and what's
An admission
Of incompatibility.

Drunken
Drunken skunk in
Nostalgia
Waste.... waste.... wasted.
What was that shot.
Strong
Eeeeeeeeeeee
Buzzed.
That hit the spot
Redhead ****
Take me home
Country **
Asian chick
Touched my ****.....
Slick.


**** me......