This woman speaks in tongues
Foreign languages roll from her mouth
Like summer fog ladled over the rim
Of Candlestick Park
In the not-so-distant
Far far away of long long ago

This woman speaks in rotund sentences
Effulgent with vocabulary
That shimmers with the electrified joy
Of lights over Ghirardelli Square
In the not-so-darkness
Of the clammy and cabalistic night

This woman speaks with her hands
Impresciable, implacable, and inconsolable
As she tries to mold untranslatable words
From air that is as thin
As the promises she’d preferred
And purchased with the shards of her heart

This woman speaks in lyrics
Arpeggios of adjectives and alliteration
That tumble acrobatically with the intricacy
And grace
Of a hummingbird in spring
On the kiss of a blossom
Rich and fragrant and giving as
This woman speaking in tongues

'i've only ever really read one poem. i, i have to admit.*  
You know, that, that one poem that everyone’s read, whatsit,
Howl by Ginsberg, 'best-minds-of-my-generation-destroyed-by-madness,-starving-hyste­rical-naked,' , yeah, that one;'
'It's just, I identify with it so strongly.' she says,
'That poem is soo me.'
It's funny how commentary on a generation 60 odd years ago come across as timeless insights..
how we learn that true spirit of rebellion and counterculture three generations ago,
  as it is taught to us by two generation ago countercounterculture academics.
but I guess, inevitably
                                         we
                                                  return,
  to those half drowned pontifications inevitably decried into transcendental truth by the onward spilling ratchet of cultural recognition;
  that sense of universal oneness generated by the unwashed ramblings of beat-generation hipsters dense innuendo in run on sentences running, running from their upper-lower-middle-class New York homes and their privilege of true vacant meaninglessness and despair,
   to those nervous tucked in shirted clean shaven scholars swooning over the same seme drugged, melancholic bearded men profussing the deepest of opaque truths only found up the furthest reaches of their own *****.
  As we push through to our lectures, the mosaic in motion of blazer wearing mac-users and mac-pac wearing blazers,
  As we hysterically interpret the formatting conditions for our reports, which could hang in the balance of whether the dreams we once had will ever be actualised,
  As we felt lost and found and found and lost at those park benches under the stars, where occasional strangers strolled by offering sessions and life-stories,
  As we paid exorbitantly to get out of our parents homes, and into tin-can flats with broken windows, absentee landlords and cracked paint only held together by all the moss, (the empowerment that is wage slavery,) for in our youth, poverty is not an ever-present pejorative, but the rite of passage to show that we are alive,
  As rituals of manhood are defined by two things and two things only; how much insomnia one can accumulate to meet insane and inane deadlines, and how much one can illuminate the walls in ***** from all the beers, spirits, cheap wines and questionable home-brews,
  As the government dismantles the human-rights commission, and we nervously attend the rallies initiated by the radicals, and the man on the megaphone calls on the crowd to chant and we can only mumble and laugh nervously at ourselves,
  And when the next speaker runs onto stage feeling the need to plead to this already nervous, placid mass that this is in-fact a PEACEFUL PROTEST, and that we are all true patriots and they insist everyone start singing the national anthem and we all look down and we again mumble, or pretend somehow not to hear them,
  and when, in this biggest independent rally around a unified cause our generation's ever seen, we have never felt so alone ,
  and isolated,  
                                  we
                                             remember,
                                                                    those earlier days,
  When we'd bleach our hair; we'd poison ourselves white, in the vain mystic hope that this was just the transition period to the time when we'd get true colour into our lives,
  Remember our wonder at the Eurocentric Asiatic television representations of the Abrahamic faiths, given transubstantiated holy revival by the medium of Saturday morning digital pastel pasture; when we were children staring excited and wide eyed into the Metatrons Fire of Sinai 'Random Almighty Mega Damage'; as Dante and the seraph class Tyrant-infused-Michael inevitably made battle with YHWH, -in the one True End,- as we grinded within the monolithic emerald obsidian halls, Mystical wonderment spilling forth from our reddened hollow eyes, at the beautiful unlimited expansive world contained within our console/consoling digital unit discs; conformally mapped and etched into the convex hull of our minds,
  Where we were gods, doing battle with every possible creature in morphospace, filleted into overpriced cards and cartridges, for which our strategies meant so much to us though none of us really understood the game,
  When we could quote verbatim every piece of dialogue in GTA2, and get concerned glances from our parents as we conjured veiled imagery of bukake-ladled innuendo which we didn't really understand until six or seven years later,
  When sexuality was a special secret club our elders and the kids in the years above came across so wise for being a member of, rather than an anti-turing test; a farcical ritual where everyone tries their best to imitate the hyper-reality of MTV while hiding the nervous feelings that this whole thing was really meant for someone other than us,
  When creating a whole new lexicon for our self-hood (be it artistic, ******, political or philosophical) felt like existential emancipation; a transcendental rebellion against the normalising identities and semantics of old, rather than an impenetrable circle-**** taxonomy,
  When one day we'd unveil a new term in some text, and it would completely change our outlook on every corner of our lives,
  Or, the next day, when we'd give up and just sit back on rolling banks, and look out at a veil of stars,
  Or the next day, when we'd wonder desperate and painfully, which of the last two was the real pursuit and which was wasted time? (Or was it this day, the day spent building an illusory dialectic between them?)
  Remember when we were in kindergarden, and you had to pass through the kitchen, -the adults zone,- to get to the toilet, and you'd feel both shame and wonderment listening in of the snippets of conversation muttered by these titanic figures; discussing abstruse issues from the newspaper in foreign yet noble tongues?
  Remember when we were teens, and every form-checking observation and question from these same adults was so painstakingly pedantically banal and asinine, that one could only respond with monosyllabic grunts and silent hysterics?
  And remember as 'young adults', when we'd inevitably entered this same dull Aristotelian world of forms, how we'd ask the same adults for advice on filling these paperworks, at once still asemic gibberish, and at once the fine-print that contained and predicted our lives?
  Remember when our dreams for the future were not bounded by the economy of our grade point averages and just how much debt we were willing to incur
                                …
I've seen the best minds of my generation climb into pre-packaged little boxes; and pay through the teeth for the privilege of doing so.  
  Akin to a 'Howl' they call it? Our cry for selfhood? What a scream.
It's not even a cry. Barely a whimper.
More of a zombified groan, completely aware our intrepid Journey of Self is just a pricey guided tour. (Tv Ad's static commodified existential emancipatory platitudes; 'your place in the world' / 'well it's my place and it's my time' urgh.)
And so we march asleep; all lame all blind.
  Trudging through the mind-fields; arguing, unravelling the semantic distinctions between the empty boundaries and the boundaries of emptiness.
  Transcribed down for essay deadlines,  /  assessing our lives trajectory as dead lines,
Becoming increasingly aware,
  We are not the living beings, the dasein, the Übermenschen being actualised; we are the machinery through which the institutions, the factories, the markets and education facilities actualise themselves.
  (While the only acceptable language we can breathe in opposition to these ratcheting pedagogical machines is the lexicon they provide us..
  ('oh, you hate systemic neoliberal alienation; the deestablishment of ontological anthropocentrism? Tell me more about the esoteric uselessness of academic culture.') bluh.)

But

       the more we follow those phantom images we built of ourselves,
the more we become aware they are but sirens; hypnotic dreamlike figures luring us to our doom,
  and as this awareness dawns; and the cognitive dissonances and schizophrenia grows,
       We


                                just try to keep calm and carry on regardless.

Can we really claim the arrogance of having a better path?
The conceit that there's a better cliff we should be guiding ourselves to to top ourselves off?
I don't know,
I reaally
really
just don't know.

1
Flood-Tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face
   to face.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious
   you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
   home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more
   to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the
   day,
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every
   one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on
   the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to
   shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the
   heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half
   an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others
   will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the
   falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

3
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many
   generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the
   bright flow, I was refresh’d,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
   current, I stood yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the
   thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,
Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air
   floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left
   the rest in strong shadow,
Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the
   south,
Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my
   head in the sunlit water,
Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at
   anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender
   serpentine pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their
   pilothouses,

The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the
   wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the
   frolic-some crests and glistening,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the
   granite storehouses by the docks,
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on
   each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning
   high and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow
   light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of
   streets.

4
These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
The men and women I saw were all near to me,
Others the same-others who look back on me because I look’d forward
   to them,
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

5
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails
   not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the
   waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon
   me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I
   should be of my body.

6
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,

The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality
   meagre?
Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me.
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not
   wanting,

Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these
   wanting,
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as
   they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of
   their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet
   never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing,
   sleeping,
Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we
   like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

7
Closer yet I approach you,
What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my
   stores in advance,
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you
   now, for all you cannot see me?

8
Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than
   mast-hemm’d Manhattan?
River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the
   twilight, and the belated lighter?

What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with
   voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as
   approach?
What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that
   looks in my face?
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?

We understand then do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not
   accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not?

9
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the
   men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of
   Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public
   assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my
   nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or
   actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one
   makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be
   looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet
   haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in
   the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all
   downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any
   one’s head, in the sunlit water!
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d
   schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at
   nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!

Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest
   aromas,
Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and
   sufficient rivers,
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate
   henceforward,
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves
   from us,
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently
   within us,
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,
You furnish your parts toward eternity,
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

I spent Thanksgiving
this year
not in the blue-collar comfort
of my aunt’s house,
nestled somewhere
within a well-buried suburb
of a quaint, but un-noteworthy neighborhood
with walls decorated with Budweiser signs
juxtaposed against portraits of the ****** Mary,
where a football announcer’s voice plays like
conservative talk radio
in the background.

Instead, to save the labor
of my weary immigrant grandmother,
we dressed in Sunday best
and drove ourselves in
three well-packed mini vans
to some elegant hotel restaurant,
ideal for people-watching
from the gaudy, art-deco staircase
while pretending to be in the Great Gatsby.

It didn’t feel natural, though,
that beside a modest turkey breast
with cranberry dressing, sat a beautiful
cut of prime rib, carefully ladled
with truffle au juis–
nor beside a humble dollop
of mashed potatoes and gravy,
should there be salmon to die for,
and berries slathered with brie.

The food I nibbled
with bites of nervous guilt,
as the impeccably dressed waiter
exhaustedly refilled our water glasses,
nodding his head reflexively
to my mouse squeaks of “thank you’s”

What monsters are we,
letting these people work on Thanksgiving Day?
Grandma said, calmly, that some people
are just happy to be paid,
recounting
her impoverished childhood
in war-torn Germany—
that to simply muffle
the aggressive rumbling
of a days-empty stomach,
she and her brother
would ****** a handful of
potatoes from a government farm,
not many, but just enough
as she grimaced
at the ever-so-slight mealiness
of her rosemary-infused pork chop—
the woman who couldn’t afford ham
until she became a citizen.

We nodded quietly and
swallowed our privileged guilt,
washed down with
politely cut bites
of perfectly cooked salmon.

Soft night emerged, came walking across the water,
Laid itself down in sheets
Across the heaviness of air
And all about became its bleak color of darkness.

Sounds however refused to
Alter their hues with the coming of their unseen makers.
From afar
Waves broke against the shore
And that tender climb reached up
And patted me on the shoulder, and I could imagine
As it shrank back down to its beach
In gentle ladled golden flows, the image of that sound.

A spirit remarking in the deep exercised its body.
The earth played like an instrument,
Or senses broken in half
And in that break is reached a hand to take
Its feeling straight from sources,
Those wonderful vibrations who were changed
By steps who filled their path, until the dawn.

Last night I asked Mother Sky
to lay me down
under the stars.
She covered the long day
with her black/blue quilt
tucking away
my rapid heart.

Brushing the unkempt hair
from my eyes
she warmed me
with deep sea breaths
and showed me how much
she loved me.
Her finger drew
a shooting star
as she measured
herself in a whisper,
"From here, my dear,
.........................to there."

Mother offered me
a drink from her ladled cup.
I chose the big one
with both hands
consuming every drop
until my lips finished
with a satisfied "Aaaaaaahhh".
I handed her the twinkling chalice
which she hung again
by the North Star.

I resigned my head
to the grassy pillow
my eyes lost in retreat.
"Will you sing to me?"
I asked sightlessly.
From the corners of Endless
she coaxed
soft soothing melodies,
while the Sandman
strummed willow trees
to her song.

I like watching you in the kitchen.

Your motions are swift,
from the stove to the food processor
to the sink to the dishwasher
it's one seamless flurry.
A graceful hustle.

Country music is playing in the background.
You don't know all the words,
but every once in a while
a lyric escapes your honeyed mouth.
I smile
because it's a line filled with weight.
A heavy pondering
with careful reflection.
I can see that in your smile.

As I sit here,
eyeing you with adoration,
you approach me
with a petite sample on a silver fork.
I do not hesitate
to open my mouth,
like a baby bird begging for a secondhand worm.

Just like everything you have ever given me,
it is marvelous.
It's of good quality and impeccable flavor,
ladled forth
from a generous heart.

I like it here in your domain.
My eyes will feast on this view
forever.

.
O the trender souls who keep
Spewing their ladled ornaments,
Words even a dull, starving bird
Would not gobble, plastic pieces,
Rambles of thought, unthought,
Pretty sounding, shiny trinkets,
Merely nailed by some old book,
Or a dog eared dictionary, maybe,
Some pulpy article wherein hacks,
Dreamt with loss, sad aspirations,
These are the dug trailings of fools,
Lazy, writers who fancy themselves,
Fancying themselves, in a black mirror,
Merciful as imagination and delusion,
O how the neophyte sings without any
Voice, nor depth, nor taste, nor blood,
Conscious revels in unconsciousness,
O but lame awaits the vain, the shallow,
The self proclaimed, the peacock, but, their
Showtime is only something base, something
Not and ghost peculiar, something only a carny
Would know to mock, revile as he promotes.
How glittering are the newest word baubles,
Blathering speak to mask all faceless souls,
Twaddle, twitterings, revered by simpletons.

It is said in time,
That beauty to the beholder is a sensation.
The most powerful statement of forgiveness to a human being is the ability to behold and practice creation.
Ice figurines can’t hold under heat,
Yet their demise creates life sustaining substances,
Like dangerous chemical concoctions,
Company never really felt completely perfect.
We kept masks on when we gathered,
It seemed like my friends could have always made it to Hollywood,
The way our lives were just mere performances.
Highlights of high times,
Quality, picture perfect film reels burned into cyberspace,
But the ladled space between our fingertips became foreign as the next new emotional overhaul was just fingertips away.
Obsessed over why perfection isn’t an issue yet imperfections are celebrated,
Yet not the ones you have.
What is desire if the object sought is someone else?
Elsewhere, the first half of the year is spent trying to remake the second half, pretty in pink,
Only when it didn’t rain.
So soulless, our bond became,
The hollowed Ravens became vultures,
Clearing the pathways to prepare for a feast,
Not caring whether death would actually take us,
But what would be broken would cause the death of our own ways,
Our own souls terrified,
Shocked to the security of a coffin.
Do we merely search for what is rightfully ours?
No,
For we are dream catchers,
Simply grasping for a reality that would be a shame to the creator,
Formed by the realtors,
Sell your self worth for a secular sense of selfishness,
Steal the dream,
And be complacent.
The worst part wasn’t when I lost you,
It was what became of my dreams when I lost myself too.
My first half is done.
I wish no longer to live the second half in misery through.

It’s lace, leather and love
Ladled into the lobe of my left ear
It’s a joyride, a truth and a mystery
As I swing into your arms again

You know how to make a boy
Forget his past and ignore his future
And in the lounging area we sit
Laughing about my kaleidoscope visions

You love me in your foggy glasses
They tell you what no one else will
My car crash ran slow
And yet you didn’t care

It’s panoply, purity and pride
That stops you from seeing elsewhere
It’s a mess, a sadness and a beauty
Being back into your arms again

A standardized suit.
A universal fit for
all those
who do not feel the nourishment of food.

A career path
cut
through the hem of childhood
and choked by a cheap thin
patterned tie.

The mothering
of a paranoid system;
“it’s not my fault,
just jump through the hoops.

I get paid to read you this book.
Lend me half your ear
and I will half teach you:

Think.
Don’t think.”

Spot the simile.
Dot the t and circle the i.
And I.

I am all in a room painted
with flyers.

They work like road signs,
luminescent with lasered ink
and ladled with pictures
of success.

You can.
You can’t.
You shall.

They hang
like smiling convicts on the wall.
A warning shot to remember
every time you catch yourself
staring into the sky.

Hieronymus Bosch, who was only four,
Had toddled right out of my life,
I didn’t know whether he’d gone on his own
Or left with the trouble and strife.
She’d rave and she’d threaten to fly the coop
As she said that my ways were strange,
But whether she’d bother to take him too
Would have meant a remarkable change.

‘Why did you pick such a horrible name,’
She’d say, as she ladled the stew,
‘You gave him the name of a painter insane,’
(As he baited the bears at the zoo).
‘How can he live a commonplace life
With a moniker he can’t spell?
You’ve sentenced your son to eternal strife
Like that panel, a painting of hell.’

Hieronymus, he didn’t care about this,
He wanted to picture his world,
He’d flop and he’d slop in the mud, in his bliss,
And paint, till his toes had curled.
I knew that he’d be a surrealist when
He played with his mash, and was cute,
He swished it around on his palette to look
Like a man with a nose like a flute.

‘That kid is so gruesome,’ the wife had exclaimed,
‘He’s set on a roadway to hell.’
He’d crayoned a picture of me and her sister
Entwined on her favourite bell.
‘He isn’t like others,’ I used to exclaim,
‘He sees what he sees inside out,
He doesn’t like others, like hair-splitting mothers,’
And that’s when she started to shout.

I’ve searched and I’ve searched for Heironymus Bosch,
I’m trying to follow his trail,
The long line of beetles he captured in treacle,
The dead dog that’s eating its tail.
I know that he’s not with the trouble and strife
For she went into hiding in Greece,
He should be called Chester, the lad’s such a jester,
I guess I’ll be calling the Police.

David Lewis Paget

i am the father of these words yet,

these mischievous children
run away in the loquacious dark
chasing lithe-clothed, supple-limbed
girls whirling up and about the prairie
of these versifications without home
     in mind or remembering —
(the home of my mind wary of
the past and its old cobwebs,
or the slaughter of ordinariness
with a dull blade poised to cull,
these mindful creatures assassinating
diaphanous muses disrobing themselves,
serpents shedding their integuments.)
   oh and when they return home sullied,
after a day's squalid scamper past
  the muck, the twitch of atmosphere,
    the horizon ladled with clouds
  in white metamorphosis, i remove their
  clothes and send them to the fences of sleep — impish dream-callers,
  yes I am the father of these words
and they flourish, swelling up, learning
   to harangue their own father, sending
    him to borderless retreat.

I inverted my cast iron pan while getting my cake batter ready

And ladled in globs of batter against mirror black

I stacked fruit into corners to get nice and crusty

And I'm burning inside to get fat.

how each day comes to me
burdened with the sorrows
of yesterday
my hope for overnight calm
   diminished
    shattered
with the gaping dawn

how each day drags for me
ladled with added suffering
   and worry
building to a crescendo of torment
    deafening me

how each day ends for me
head pounding with explosive thoughts
my mind begging for sleep
    and unconsciousness
weary with the expectation
of facing another day

Warm and smooth
Orange mayple syrup
Sun rays ladled upon my back
Absorbing the goodwill of the sun
I lay on the concrete like a hot rock
All tension set aside
Fingers dip in the water
Where the lights bounce and play
Cool to the touch
This simulacrum of the sea
Smell the salt and get swept away
To another time, long ago past
I turn my gaze up to the sky
The big bright blue expansion
It draws me in.
I want to dive into it's unfolding depths.
I want this momentary bliss
To stay with me forever.

The Perseus Cluster declination
650,000 light years; 54 billion degrees
Her day is ladled in breaths
Sawdust of stars encircling her feet

The sun in Minor A; a wonderful remark
(For manners lie undisturbed in the dark)
A need for a poem to define Celestry
Her heart is lost to gravity

Maybe I cry too much, love too much, and feel too much
I’m sorry if that makes you feel uncomfortable to talk to me
I can be too sensitive, I try, but I can never win
So sorry if my heart’s too big to fill the box you put me in

And I wish you could see all the love I have to give
Inside a brain that thinks so fast that it forgets that I am breathing…

And I know I shine the brightest when I haven’t got a clue
Of how whatever hell is wrong with me takes all the fun away from you
I know that I shine brighter when I cannot understand
How I can never fill the shoes you try to fit onto my hands

And I wish that you would take all the care I have to give
Inside someone who loves so much she forgets she should be eating…

Maybe I hurt too much, talk too much, and think too much
Perhaps that makes me less than worthy of the friendship that I need
I could call you up again, but maybe I’ll just let them in
The ones who treat me like I’m not a burden ladled onto them

The ones who hold me while I cry and think I deserve better
And ones who drive out to my house no matter what the weather
The day I let you go was when I knew that I was free
I knew I shined the brightest when I let you walk away from me

If you took all the books in the world
And stacked them up in a tower
It would still, be shorter than my desperation
I am a weakened flower

I search all the pages for answers
And I cannot find your face
I would tear the world apart
To put you in your rightful place

Next to me, inside my heart
To dance in my veins
Draw on the walls of your prison
And drown out all the names

Desperate times call for desperate measures
I ladled in to much worry and doubt
And my hopes would rise
I loaf around in search of a way out

Time is of the urgency
This clock ticks to fast, to slow
I crawl inside my mind
For it is the only place I know

I have no friends hidden in there
Yet am not completely alone
I can speak my own mind
Without worry to condone

Thoughts of mine drift past
As sharp as shards of glass
I think to grab them
But they cut their way past

A ****** hand sometimes
A ****** heart always
Hooks are not the answer
To put a fire in full blazes

My grasp, you so easily evade
Do I really seek to catch you
So desperate in my own ways
But you always seem to slip through

Strong am I? Never strong enough
Of all the lovers in the world
I have the worst of all the luck
To be drawn to you, with fingers unfurled

You dance to fast
And I sing much to slow
But you pull me tight
And I cannot let go

I search for you and find
To see your beautiful face
In the mirror next to mine
That is the best place

A morning good
A night less than bad
If this moment was
The best we ever had

It would be enough
It would have to suffice
Or be thrown to the wind
And scattered like rice

The wind can have it
My heart deserves better
I give it your worlds
Ever heartfelt letter

Desperate I am
And a child I was
But a girl knows better
Than to dance with love

broken glass
bottles
trash

strewn
brutal
flowers

runners
joggers
shiftless drifters

along
once an
industrial river

now
cold
dead pond with

lumbering barges
up down
pushing

rust
junk
sometimes coal

eerie
sad
in between

or

say
strangely
beautiful

brutal lunch
ladled
raw

on a big
steel
serving spoon

© Whit Howland 2019

Fruitless effort squeezing figurative juice
Pandora called triggering
helter skelter to get loose
necessitating Bullwinkle J. Moose
to usher at yours truly
(an aspiring wordsmith) vamoose!

Hey ****** ****** the cat and the fiddle
went off to see a crooked man and woman
whilst cowards jumped over moo-ving little
pair of mismatched
calf fully ambling muggles,
who both walked from scan
din navy yah,
(nor-way could action be stopped
otherwise den-mark would be left),
where dog goniff imps
jousted with brittle

shaky spears, den did mark
neither path to norse east, where pan
demon yum erupted over adult
playing monkey in the middle
and bear witness to such sport
as dishabille donned dude named Evan
spoon fully ladled insults adrip
with indignity of loosing - bubbling spittle
spluttering trumping monitor
to claim game rigged,

which assault whipped a ban
she against being accosted
from mish shuga,
a towering ebony Amazonian,
who didst tittle
late tad evincing groan nips quibbling
over what appeared to be a van
knit tee fair of bruising egos essentially
fighting for dominion
over right to urinate i.e. piddle
and defecate in non

gender specific restrooms wan
ever the urge
to empty the bladder or ****** -
(even if poo peas, the size of a skittle)
fraught major firestorm ratcheting,
synonymous with dandy rhyme
blues clues without reason -
dime a dozen cents less ditty -
snap, pop, and crackling
as hot cakes on a griddle.

Actually, the above
juiced a freaky Friday sideshow
displaying, hurraying, layawaying,
portraying and tracklaying dis-obeyed
rubric of respect, where decent
honorable linkedin maturity laid
waste to politesse, whar all stops pulled
sans presidential debates shade
no light on meaty issues,
but mudslinging as faux hit parade
housing and trumpeting an offer

to make America Great Again
thru yelping vanguard,
uber up lyft promulgating,
and intimating 4 years
times 52 long weeknd rock'm sock'm
bash re: hollow wean
qua vamp pyre avast
state farm riotous quacking,
whence life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness decayed

into growling pedigreed mishmash made
for kickstarter bullied
prize **** fighters
indeed jimmying stockade
bag of tricks viz contesting scalawags,
tearing like rabid animals inlaid
with bared teeth,
and mouth frothing foam,
who just barely evade
coming to fisticuffs,

while presenting scathing hair-raid
nada so hill a re: us political pugilists
making up rules on shutterfly
spotify, and not afraid
toot change horses in midstream
to fix outcome of game
of thrones spouting
unfair sands casino trade
thus, billy-clubbing husband
of opponent indulged

in many a rapacious escapade
smear tactics and mistruths
essentially, he sung hiz zone
battle hymn of republican party,
a mockery and charade
driving donnybrook conspiratorial
billed Jefferson muttering arcade
guarded by ensconced
male and female Petsmart Weimaraner,
attired in a Thom malt chew wuss
Nast tee getup

elephant and donkey costumes respectively
while viewers entertained,
who succeeds as next blade
runner, and earn chance
to run country into the ground,
then a fancy feast for morticians,
one world wide webbed graveyard
moss lee tubby
taken back by Mother Nature,
thee indomitable ace of *****.

I cleared my crusty eyes with Visine after a half hearted attempt
to better clean up the mess made of my glass ***** of heart.


Stammered pockets of red hot sauce have been ladled into our
signature oak-barrel bed spread.


So, in everyone's best interest, breakfast has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning, and we will be happy to see if you're not dead.

with kindness. Sang
me a song. Flowered me
in rose petals and smiles
with shoulders mountains

strong.  Skipping hours,
like stones, day after day. My umbrella,
when showers turned this blue sky
to grey. Spoon fed me honey

dripping from his tongue. Painted
me green. Made me feel young, like
a babe swaddled and swung in
a cradle ladled in hugs. So high on

a pedestal, wearing white gloves. I clung
to him like a tight sweater. Clung so tight
I lost all my feathers. I couldn't fly. He killed
with kindness. And dropped from the sky.