Man had wept
as he watched the fall of Lucifer,
not so much due to the tragedy itself,
rather than the cutting, crystalline
beauty of the Icarian descent

After the absence of three hundred years
since the forgotten burning of Magdeburg(1),
when the Devil had returned to Europe
from the smoldering ashes of
South Africa(2),
Namibia(3),
and Congo Free State(4),
the soft hills of Picardy were
embroidered in gold
with roses and clematises

And since our girl had been fed with naught
but the shimmering positivism of Auguste Comte
from a silver spoon manufactured in Manchester,
beneath the charmingly moorish face of a lover
and a Prada he wore
quilted with railway, nation-state,
Art nouveau, electricity,
and liberal democracy,
never in her wildest, most horrendous nightmares,
-one of which was mere few dozen Jews dying in pogroms-
could she possibly imagine
His robust fingers,
so caressingly wrapped around her neck and cheek,
concealing the bayonet claws
of mustard gas and industrialized massacres

A god whose name we only knew
and whose warmth we only read of,
had called for the blood sacrifice of utmost purity,
to be fed to its altars for the promises of salvation

As the Devil ravaged her body frozen as the Siberian gulags
and her soul smoking away to the chimneys of Auschwitz,
he raked his nail to her cheek seized by the throat,
lasciviously whispering,
‘Here, this,
This is the kiss of progress
You have thrown so warmly your arms around’

Ninety-eight years had passed
since that fatal kiss of a lovesome late June,
though the summer days had returned in Picardy,
roses and clematises
no longer bloom on her hills
except as tributes for silenced youth
which petals lay as a civilization’s tears
as shroud over a massive bomb-crater of La Boisselle(5)

And never again, could she fall in love,
notwithstanding all the lover’s whispers
of the rational organization of human society
or the ultimate liberation of the working class,
for in her heart have always lingered,
the shadow of the Devil
whose chilling warmth of the Lubyanka cells
and the fiery dearth of the crematoriums of Poland
we had shared as whole, consummate days of youth

For there lies a tragic aestheticism
in deflowering of a rose just about to bloom,
for one delirious sense of snapping off the stem,
we had burned away all ardor of love for a century

---------
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SackofMagdeburg
(2) Concentration camps were first used as means of civilian incarceration by the British against the Afrikaaners during the Second Boer War
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HereroandNamaquaGenocide
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CongoFreeState#Humanitariandisaster
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochnagar_Crater

A few things for themselves,
Convolvulus and coral,
Buzzards and live-moss,
Tiestas from the keys,
A few things for themselves,
Florida, venereal soil,
Disclose to the lover.

The dreadful sundry of this world,
The Cuban, Polodowsky,
The Mexican women,
The ***** undertaker
Killing the time between corpses
Fishing for crayfish...
****** of boorish births,

Swiftly in the nights,
In the porches of Key West,
Behind the bougainvilleas,
After the guitar is asleep,
Lasciviously as the wind,
You come tormenting,
Insatiable,

When you might sit,
A scholar of darkness,
Sequestered over the sea,
Wearing a clear tiara
Of red and blue and red,
Sparkling, solitary, still,
In the high sea-shadow.

Donna, donna, dark,
Stooping in indigo gown
And cloudy constellations,
Conceal yourself or disclose
Fewest things to the lover--
A hand that bears a thick-leaved fruit,
A pungent bloom against your shade.

Your eyes
are time capsules in my mind.
The memory of you there,
fingers lingering through my hair.
Begging me
to lock my lips with yours.
I posed from a distance,
sipping on my infidelity.
How it made its way
lasciviously
across your body
so meticulously,
intentionally
imploring you to want me.
You asked,
but I didn't know what to say
so I just kissed you.
I still see you sometimes
in the peripherals of my mind,
though the contours of your face
are beginning to blur as they do
with any beautiful stranger.
I can't tell whether the image of us
is a painting or a picture:
something I've carefully constructed
or a moment merely manifested.
But I do know
that it was the blue in your eyes
and the white in my lie
that had me stay til dawn.

There is never nothing new
Just rearrange things

I don’t write poems
I just remove the extra words that are in the way

Hold on to the words like whispers and shadows and wings
Recklessly insert adjectives
Tie it all to your delusions of profundity

Dig down deep for pain
no matter how senseless
Pick at your emotional scabs
Bleed

No one likes poetry
Constantly remind people of that
Tell them that you make it sound good to you and **** them
(Even though their ovation means everything)

Slip, dip and weave
With ambiguous wet dreams
Full lips and thick tongue
Mouthing…
Come
to an understanding
***** is much better than clean
Make it filthy
Soil it

Make it nostalgic
People need to be reassured that you were really ******* up as a kid
and that this poetry **** doesn’t just happen to people overnight

Make it esoteric
That way, when no one knows what the hell you are talking about,
you will have a good word to explain why

Say things that are so ill mannered that they are weighty
I will give you an example
“I’m not looking for a girl that is beautiful
I'm looking for one just barely ugly enough to **** me”

Incite large groups of people to *****

Get so personal that it gives people headaches

Expose yourself until everyone is embarrassed for you

Spew it all over the bar
In a drunken stupor
flaunt it lasciviously with your genitals
Pour yourself into reckless collisions
Drink from your soul until it rots your liver

Write until you want to **** yourself
then write about that

Make it as bitter as a Wal-mart associate
Make it so sweet she will swallow it all
before looking up at you with eyes like tiny puddles
To say, “that was beautiful”
(even though it was disgusting)

It should be raw
It should make you itch
It should be like rubbing up against it spreads it
It should be like VD

Make really long
Like it’s your *****
No,
Make it really, really long
Like its my *****

Make it rhyme
I mean don’t
Don’t

Don’t ever write another ******* poem
because I assure you
if I did not write it
than it must ****

and that is how poetry works

Michael L Sutter

The Jester came to see the King one day ,
“these fools are no good they are full of dancing’.

Then the following day a joker came up to the king ,
“; these fools are no good for they are full of laughing .

And we are no good for we sit and moan for the crown we stole
has been a stolen .
The ring we borrowed ,
the knowledge we shared ,
the love we cherished ,
Is as loose as a hang mans noose .

The jester stands on our walls we built ,
just to tell us we are fools .

The joker on our bed laughs tingles his bells as we lay asleeping .
The minstrels have all but left to go a Caroling ,
the love we cherished lies
as empty as the grains of wheat to sodden to eat ,
to sodden to sell .
Christ’s love hangs in art
ripped flesh a truth of love lost
lies in rock umugst our sands .


We head off to the streets with laughter one foot to the right ,
the other to the left ,
the joker stands in the middle .
One foot to the left ,
then to the right
and we all sing lasciviously ,
as the plagues acoming ,
and we go asinging ,
for its. acarolling time ,

and it dos’nt lead to heaven .

For now the wine tastes sweet ,
and the barrels are dry ,,

our heads are kinda dizzy ,
We ***** and puke ,
then **** and poo as we
hung draw and quarter our souls as O
the boils will rise by the morning. The joker jokes ,
the jester sings ,
and we held hands ,
round and round and round we went
and it did not lead to heaven.

#Gals. Come home my dears come home my loves ,
for we will cook you pottage in the morning
and they didn’t end in heaven.

Men reply and we’ll all be dead by the mor ..ning #

And the boils arrived in the morning
and they didn’t. lead to heaven.

This is one of Barry Hodges' most inspired memories.

  'Twas morning time in times of yore and I, bold Barry Hodges, stood outside my store, my giant vegetables on display for all to see, when lo and behold! a luxurious limousine drew up, and from the back there emerged a gorgeous form of voluptuous statuesque feminity.
  "My God!" I cried, it is that beauteous lady from *La Dolce Vita, the wondrous Anita - and I gazed with joyous on her divine body, imagining it sprawled lasciviously in my bed, legs open as wide as a major road junction on the M1 motorway.
  "Excuse me", said she in that Italo-Swedish voice guaranteed to make any man wet himself copiously, "But I am a-lookink for a shop a-called 6B, and yet all I can-a-see is a Barry Hodges' the Master Geengrocer's, complete with a giant cucumber or two, which I 'av to say remind me of somet'ing tasty."
"Dearest lady, said I, you have come to the right place: 6B is the trading name of my sister enterprise: Barry Bodgers' Boil Bursting Beauty Bureau which is located upstairs, Barry Bodgers at your service, my dearest, most delightful Fru Ekberg."
"Shhhhhhhhh! I am een deesguise, not even dear Federico knows I am-a-here." And thus, assuring her of my utmost discretion, and forming a bond by saying that I too, the famous Geordie seducer, Barry Hodges, had indulged in a slight nomenclatural change in order to separate the two sides of my business interests, and in order to do a spot of money laundering on the side.  "But," I enquired, "How is it that you have need of the rather specialised medical services we offer, you who are so radiant and bella-bella?" She lowered her eyes seductively and promised to reveal her terrible secret.

As I ushered her up the stairs to the studio, my eyes on her ****-cheeks wiggling like two delectable beach ***** in a sack, she told me the sad tale of the immense boil which kept recurring on the middle of her back and which no amount of corrective surgery could fix.
"Aha!" I exclaimed, "Only Barry Bodgers, the world's greatest boil-sucker, can effect the cure for which you long, and I shall operate on you personally, not entrusting such a task to even the best of my boil-bursting minions." I added to myself, "Also I want to give you a good old bonking while we're at at."

Once we attained the privacy of my consulting room, I instructed her to strip off utterly so I might examine her, and I can tell you, dear reader, that her **** **** was a joy to behold. I too divested myself of my clobber, knowing that boil-******* can get a bit messy at the best of times. Jesus wept!, but the mighty boil betwixt her graceful shoulders revealed when de-plastered was a true horror, with a yellow tip as big as a Grade One Belgian Turnip. I explained that I would **** it out whilst I rogered her from the rear and that, when she felt her ****** on the way, she should scream out to that effect and I would then bite the core of the boil right out in a blaze of mutual ******* glory, before applying a dose of my exclusive Boil Preventative Cream, namely a handful of our conjoined love-juices extracted from her gaping ***** by hand a few seconds earlier.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" screamed the Swedish bombshell and with a mighty **** like an industrial Dyson FX334 on full power, I slurped and  razor-bit the boil, bursting it asunder, smothering my eager face in blood and putrid pus, thereby causing me to blow my *** as ne'er before. The green core of the boil emerged from its fleshly cavity with a deafening plop as we came together like a nuclear blast d'amour.

O, but only then, as my seminal outpourings soaked my jim-jams, did I awaken to discover yet another nocturnal emission. And, not unexpectedly, dear Nurse Nellie, having heard my cry of ecstasy, rushed in to my bedroom, head-shaking and tut-tutting as usual, as she knelt down and licked my tum-tum dry.
"Yum, yum" she murmured in her dulcet Northumbrian tones, "Ah've looked after three generation o' Hodges laddies, and I kin tell ye, your *****'s the tastiest of them all, ye bonnie wee man."
"Better than Grandad Charlie's?"
"Why aye, mon, yours is well creamier."

He left with the passing time
no farewells offered
no heartfelt backward glance
his footfalls ticking seconds
echoing in the Sunday parlours of the righteous he despised

He left with the passing time
no one mourned,no tears were shed
His sacred, bleeding heart
now but a tattooed image
on the chests of the dejected

He left with the passing time
on whispers of myths
and suspected tall tales
doubting his own truth
despising the lie of his creation

He left with the passing time
while pious mice sang of his glory
behind the battlements of faith
as the wars of the wicked raged in his name

He left with the passing time
while mothers wailed at shaken babes
and the disappeared sang from **** choked graves

He left with the passing time
as society shunned his brand
and drunken feet  danced lasciviously on his moral high ground

He left, with the passing time...

As the mind grows weary
in the plum void darkness
a hand twiddles and bends the
vibrations around your
body into a swirling
spiral, hazy lazy magic spinning
sound fog brushing and breezing
around your mind massaging your
brain and igniting a slow pulse
like an ember kissing a flame
in your chest as the warmth  winds
around your body like the ripple of
an opal Venus choral dropped in lava
lasciviously  lounging in your eyes
as if a phoenix sang an ode in the vast intersection
of time and space colliding together
to make a gravity that slowly compels you into the
wormhole of your self--
the door to many things and realms craving to be opened
if just to get some fresh, rain embraced air...
the smile says everything.

You're right, I agree.
We should sleep on the hammock by the howlite beach
and fall asleep as the indigo water lulls us to sleep.

I stare mesmerized at the dancing flames
cavorting like cheap ******
now red, now blue,
twisting and turning lasciviously,
each striving for my attention.

Occasional sparks flash and fizz
as each flame tries to o'er leap the next
until, exhausted, they are ****** back
into the charcoal darkness,
turning deep crimson,
hissing and spitting
like a cornered cat and
sinking still further into the blackened remains

Until all that is left
are the dying embers.

worn, well loved pages of books yearn for her touch
and the words themselves long for her tender gaze .
tea cups count the seconds until her lips are pressed to them
while firelight flares to lasciviously lick her skin at her passing.
clothes cling and caress like a lover when music moves her
light bends as the whole universe cleaves to her, and so do i.

What is it she whispers?
Outside..
The brittle bleach decor rustles shy applause
Inside….
half encumbered slumber wins
The aching World to part made play
Arcadian chapels hover in folds
That form in the fields of gathering grey

and still she whispers.

Damp calico dales murmur and shift
in the twist of a tremor.
A cold palm press upon temples that pulse
for the touch of another that passes
high over the way…

What is it, she whispers?

Witch-fingers lift at the filigree latches,
saltwater patches salivate free…..
..lasciviously.
beneath the list of chalking blinds
rim- shot eyes scour windswept causeways

Always searching,

Always waiting,
For some unknown.

And still she whispers...

I.

On the surface easily gliding,
  are my hands. I keep on the table
  an ajar carton of cigarettes. Then slowly
  becoming in my pocket, taking form of a hand,
  a crumpled cinema ticket when straightened,
  ironed by plainsight, walks with lines, the end credits roll lasciviously like an estranged lover
   whose face I can almost touch.
  When let go of closure, air thins and I move
  secretly with fluency. This is how objects
  escape my grip.

II.

  In front of the eatery, a transit.
  I had a dream once in a depthless sleep,
  a figure in stilts studded with guilt.
  The face next to me, disquieting the music
   of currencies, naked in sound as the truth shaved
   like a beast. The nearby tarmac resounds with
   another throng of absence. As a substitute
   for beings shackled to duty,
   the oncoming woman assumes theirs,
   borrows their faces of dreariness and ***** a thousand times like white sheets harassed by
   the wind through opened windows.

III.

    Define space as a venue for collision.
    Say when a red-haired woman straddling
    a duffel bag and myself confused as a peripatetic.
    She ascribes her presence to my footing
    and from where she left off, I take form
    of her expired movement.
                     Found strangeness is that space
    is what happens when remembered. But hold no
    bearing and rear contrivance,
     trying to be bold by definition -- space solicits
     the in-betweenness and then transmutes
     an occurence,
             say the volatile shape of a hand when
    clutching and releasing, the fugitive manner of
    feet when avoiding puddles, the unsolicited
    reticence of a troubling question.

IV.

            A man carries a take away and is now
     amongst the populace, waiting under a shed,
     housing a familiar language. Home.
    
      But first, trivialized. Haggles with the cab driver,
    trying to transact a being angled towards home.
    They agree to a fault, money's perfume clinches  the fingers and is given to a calloused hand.
             Air once stale, is now succulent with the
      resonating memory of a child's excited laughter,
      and is now presumably waiting behind a gated
      home. Like the palm of the hand, the number
         of times the vehicle trundles within
     the nearby avenue is the force it enkindles
        with rest. He is home,
     unloosens his clothing. Like a fine specimen
          freed from a vitrine.

When I get really decrepit,
I will wear mismatched clothes
on purpose; fill my pockets
with useless pennies; leer
lasciviously at girls far too
young; mutter arcane
wisdom to myself just loud
enough to hear but not to
understand; eat everything
that makes the health Nazis
cringe; smoke in inappropriate
places; get drunk in the
mornings if I so desire
and smoke *** in public.
It will be an ecstasy to
not give a rat's *** what
anyone thinks. My only
regret will be that I
did not start sooner.

   ~mce

A Poets quest.
An ABCDERIAN poetry form.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Avant couriers of final solutions
Battalions left fighting by the way
Condescending world powers twittering
Deeming all they say as gospel of the day
Everything under the sun or darkest shadows
Foolishly not admitting their own failings ever
Gathering hatred at each turn of every corner
Happy that their heads were in the sand.
Indiscriminating constant betwixt good n evil

Janissary exterminates all cause or principal
Knowing nothing of the true skill of judgement
Lasciviously take good from good for no good
Microlithic walls of stones to cover errors
Navigatiors using ancient charts for guidance
Outrageously heralding credit for the route
Perchance they knew no natural pathway
Quadrature at ninety between the sun n moon
Revived old Christian scruples long forgotten

Saviours ? Save all states from self destruction
Tablature of a tragic outcome hard to face.
Unequivocally tough on any creed or religion
Vededictory taken two thousand years to build
Wrapped indiscriminately up in just one missile
Xenelas now mankind from each world corner
Yea from peaceful pastures grazed for years
Zion heaping up evangelical dogma.
              Pray to God and let us learn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip.
December.  11th . 2018.

Lasciviously
as the wind
blown from afar,
you arouse
my insatiable
eagerness:
a gentle breeze
across bare skin,
naked desire flares.

  ~mce

some say home is where the heart is
to mean that
there is an immutable place
magnetically manipulating
and tearing out my heart
keeping it lashed lasciviously
to that cold concrete
and steaming thunderstorms
that warmed my childhood face
and wet my bare feet
running wild

i don't miss my home
though i balk at the definition
of a part of myself that
is irrevocably tangled up with
that place where i burned
and razed myself to the ground
leaving only shimmering coals
abandoned in a lost forest of pain

my heart has no connection to that place

except perhaps the inescapable
the dripping bloodlust for
my own destruction
flames licking my ankles
as i threw gasoline on the blaze

that place was the incarnation of my loneliness

the weighted blanket
wrapped around my shoulders
me
a beast of burden expected
to carry the anvil of my anxious thoughts
whose fiery white heat kept me up nights
Atlas supporting the earth on his back

that place was the Sisyphaen interminable task

why would my heart attach itself to that pain

i don't believe home is a place
a warmth of welcome upon
my return into its
loving arms that cradled my childhood
those arms are not my comfort
they are the blades that
shredded me to ribbons
left me bleeding on the ground
until i limped away
and swore i'd never return

my home must be just as much
of a vagabond as my
meandering soul
and yet the refuge in the storm
that i can run to when
the demons come knocking
to abduct me and
leave my corporeal vessel
with glazed eyes
an empty shell

i've tethered my heart to you
intertwined those secret places
into the great hall of your heart
trembling with the unavoidable fear
of opening those chained doors
and making that ephemeral place
exposed
vulnerable
establishing a connection with
my wandering emotion
seeking the warmth of
a crackling fire on the
brick hearth radiating the heat of
my trust in you
my might-be love that
crashes into the barrier of my teeth
racing up my throat like
the bulimic ***** i used to spew
into toilets along with
my shame

no
for me
home is wherever you are
if you carry in yours the hearts of those who love you.

A string plucked:
Soft, supple, pliant, auriferous,
Full-bodied.
Vibrations traveling in determined waves
Fill the chambers
Joyfully cascading down walls,
Ringing down halls,
The symphony crescendos and falls.
A string brushed:
Gasps, sings, tender, melodious,
Wanton.
Whispers traveling in hopeful skips
Dance on air
Lasciviously over-pleased
To be teased
And so subtly eased.
The string un-plucked:
Grows cold
Anticipates
Grows rusty
Wants for just one touch
Grows restless
Sits in silence
Oppressive silence
Until it snaps.

An Exercise in Alliterative Acrostics.

Ernie, ebulliently enthused,
But battered and bruised,
Understandably uneasy and upset.
Leaves lustful Larry, a ***** lad,
Lasciviously longing to live
Innocuously. Ivan, integratesvolves integrating
Every expeditious and essential
Needed necessities, necessary to negate  
Terrible teasing Thomas, to terminate

All appropriate and aggravating
Noisy Norman notes!  No negotiations can negate
Diabolical devilish deeds.  Determination dictates

Exuding excessive energy, exterminates and excoriates
Nasty native nonentities.  No naive niceties
Tackle tricky testy tasks, for tender tendencies,
Having hyperbole hopes, are hypothetically helpless
Unless usurpers unveil unsung university union
Sympathisers, seeking salvation, as sympathising.
Evangelists, exemplary and enthusiastic experts
Doctors, and dentists doggedly determine details definitely decide,

Ebullience and Enthusiasm exist!

Rhymer.  March 10th, 2018.

The moon self-eclipses,
hiding her battered old face
in stygian lunacy.
Below,
we bounce light in different directions
like prisms
hanging in the window of a curiosity shop.

In strobing shadows, we grin
lasciviously-
dangling, drooling shrunken heads
on red strings of fate.

It hardly matters.
From a distance our oddities are almost...
endearing.

You are welcome in my bubble,
room for two.

consistency is defeat
going to work every day?
coming home?  every night?
TEQUILA!
***** BONGWATER!
look
my totality changes
every day and a half
i’m one slippery *******
so if and when i tumble out your window
it’ll be a nuclear event
molecules exploding
lasciviously recombining
promiscuously bonding with whatever
carnal stray matter catches my eye
by tomorrow morning
i’ll be snowing
all over the universe

Searching eyes shine blue,
looking through the sea
of never ending humanity
for the only you.

Luscious lips lick lasciviously,
salivating suddenly, sun shines
upon her glorious find,
she will fight tenaciously.

Holding her love close,
defending her righteous claim,
marking her territory visually,
so all others know.

With gripping soft hands,
and little kisses placed
upon lips and cheeks
in sight of others.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

            The ***, ***, ***-Obsessed Oklahoma Legislature

         Oklahoma Bill Would Ban Sending **** Selfies Unless You're
         Married (reason.com)

The Geriatric Anti-*** League of Oklahoma
As sponsored by Senator Dusty Deevers
(And let the puns on “Dusty Deevers” bloom)
Want to save all prurient thoughts for themselves

The senator lasciviously lists the forbidden:
"****** ******* which is normal or perverted…
"lewd exhibition of the uncovered genitals
buttocks, or, if such person is female, the breast…”

That stapler in jiggly Jell-O
Had better guard its virtue in Oklahoma

She hugs the life out of me,
Not in that second of passion
Before the moment of death
When an animal is chased
And grasped in lioness embrace.

She kisses the life out of me,
Not with mid-day sun lips
Which smoulder dangerously
Like a dampened forest fire
Lying in wait for that first shallow breath.

She loves the life out of me
Not with the garment of childlike innocence
Lasciviously cast aside by a woman in earnest.

And with all the emotion of someone
Glancing up at the station clock
Then turning a magazine page
On a deserted railway platform,
She scares the life out of me
When she says quite simply,
It is time for me to go.

Within the luxury of her embrace, I felt safe



Fervidly her lips trailed down the surface of my neck



Ever so keenly detouring to meet the crease of mine



Without a hint of dubiety, a dazzling thrill voyaged



Throughout my physique, devouring me completely



She was a ravenous creature who wanted me to herself



Who was I to deny her the pleasure of her wildest fantasies?



Willingly I succumbed to her lasciviously exuberant desires



A seductive sphere of passion and lust dawned between us



Unveiling the myriad of secrets unbeknownst to my heart

MEETING HIM AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME

a flock of nerds
grazing upon
the cocktail sausage table

"...nerds/bores..."
she corrected herself
their spectacles flashing at her

all eyes were upon her
they licked their lips lasciviously
as if the one man

they sipped in synchronisation
their Adam's apples
bobbing up & down

she felt like a gazelle
amongst a pride
of rather skinny lions

he stood there
oozing caddishness
"Any port in a storm!" she smirked

she was aware of his
reputation
the hair on her arms bristling

"I say..." she said
"Is it true what people
make up about you?"

"All lies 'cept the true bits!"
he grinned
biting his moustache

the pack of nerds/bores
looked at her amazed
"Surely she. . .!"

ah but surely
she was
she laughed a little too loudly

their Adam's apples
reminded her of ballcocks
in flushing toilets

"Well, to be honest..."
he admitted mathematically
"90% true...10% lies!"

"...and so it was
I met your grandfather
and he became my chap!"

he always claimed
I tamed him with a smile
"...easy...easy as that..."

he was as delicious
as his reputation suggested
but I had the monopoly on him

a rather raffish looking
Raffles type
smiles salaciously in b&w

now
even the light
is growing old

we put his photo
back on the mantle piece
she always tells this story

we leave her
talking to his photo
as if it were real

she's always meeting him
for the first time
again and again

we drive away
the large nursing home
becoming smaller and smaller