ah, christ, what a CREW:
more
poetry, always more
P O E T R Y .

if it doesn't come, coax it out with a
laxative. get your name in LIGHTS,
get it up there in
8 1/2 x 11 mimeo.

keep it coming like a miracle.

ah christ, writers are the most sickening
of all the louts!
yellow-toothed, slump-shouldered,
gutless, flea-bitten and
obvious . . . in tinker-toy rooms
with their flabby hearts
they tell us
what's wrong with the world-
as if we didn't know that a cop's club
can crack the head
and that war is a dirtier game than
marriage . . .
or down in a basement bar
hiding from a wife who doesn't appreciate him
and children he doesn't
want
he tells us that his heart is drowning in
*****. hell, all our hearts are drowning in *****,
in pork salt, in bad verse, in soggy
love.
but he thinks he's alone and
he thinks he's special and he thinks he's Rimbaud
and he thinks he's
Pound.

and death! how about death? did you know
that we all have to die? even Keats died, even
Milton!
and D. Thomas-THEY KILLED HIM, of course.
Thomas didn't want all those free drinks
all that free *****-
they . . . FORCED IT ON HIM
when they should have left him alone so he could
write write WRITE!

poets.

and there's another
type. I've met them at their country
places (don't ask me what I was doing there because
I don't know).

they were born with money and
they don't have to ***** their hands in
slaughterhouses or washing
dishes in grease joints or
driving cabs or pimping or selling ***.

this gives them time to understand
Life.

they walk in with their cocktail glass
held about heart high
and when they drink they just
sip.

you are drinking green beer which you
brought with you
because you have found out through the years
that rich ******* are tight-
they use 5 cent stamps instead of airmail
they promise to have all sorts of goodies ready
upon your arrival
from gallons of whisky to
50 cent cigars. but it's never
there.
and they HIDE their women from you-
their wives, x-wives, daughters, maids, so forth,
because they've read your poems and
figure all you want to do is **** everybody and
everything. which once might have been
true but is no longer quite
true.

and-
he WRITES TOO.
POETRY, of
course. everybody
writes
poetry.

he has plenty of time and a
postoffice box in town
and he drives there 3 or 4 times a day
looking and hoping for accepted
poems.

he thinks that poverty is a weakness of the
soul.

he thinks your mind is ill because you are
drunk all the time and have to work in a
factory 10 or 12 hours a
night.

he brings his wife in, a beauty, stolen from a
poorer rich
man.
he lets you gaze for 30 seconds
then hustles her
out. she has been crying for some
reason.

you've got 3 or 4 days to linger in the
guesthouse he says,
"come on over to dinner
sometime."
but he doesn't say when or
where. and then you find out that you are not even
IN HIS HOUSE.

you are in
ONE of his houses but
his house is somewhere
else-
you don't know
where.

he even has x-wives in some of his
houses.

his main concern is to keep his x-wives away from
you. he doesn't want to give up a
**** thing. and you can't blame him:
his x-wives are all young, stolen, kept,
talented, well-dressed, schooled, with
varying French-German accents.

and!: they
WRITE POETRY TOO. or
PAINT. or
****.

but his big problem is to get down to that mail
box in town to get back his
rejected poems
and to keep his eye on all the other mail boxes
in all his other
houses.

meanwhile, the starving Indians
sell beads and baskets in the streets of the small desert
town.

the Indians are not allowed in his houses
not so much because they are a ****-threat
but because they are
***** and
ignorant. *****? I look down at my shirt
with the beerstain on the front.
ignorant? I light a 6 cent cigar and
forget about
it.

he or they or somebody was supposed to meet me at
the
train station.

of course, they weren't
there. "We'll be there to meet the great
Poet!"

well, I looked around and didn't see any
great poet. besides it was 7 a.m. and
40 degrees. those things
happen. the trouble was there were no
bars open. nothing open. not even a
jail.

he's a poet.
he's also a doctor, a head-shrinker.
no blood involved that
way. he won't tell me whether I am crazy or
not-I don't have the
money.

he walks out with his cocktail glass
disappears for 2 hours, 3 hours,
then suddenly comes walking back in
unannounced
with the same cocktail glass
to make sure I haven't gotten hold of
something more precious than
Life itself.

my cheap green beer is killing
me. he shows heart (hurrah) and
gives me a little pill that stops my
gagging.
but nothing decent to
drink.

he'd bought a small 6 pack
for my arrival but that was gone in an
hour and 15
minutes.

"I'll buy you barrels of beer," he had
said.

I used his phone (one of his phones)
to get deliveries of beer and
cheap whisky. the town was ten miles away,
downhill. I peeled my poor dollars from my poor
roll. and the boy needed a tip, of
course.

the way it was shaping up I could see that I was
hardly Dylan Thomas yet, not even
Robert Creeley. certainly Creeley wouldn't have
had beerstains on his
shirt.

anyhow, when I finally got hold of one of his
x-wives I was too drunk to
make it.

scared too. sure, I imagined him peering
through the window-
he didn't want to give up a **** thing-
and
leveling the luger while I was
working
while "The March to the Gallows" was playing over
the Muzak
and shooting me in the *** first and
my poor brain
later.

"an intruder," I could hear him telling them,
"ravishing one of my helpless x-wives."

I see him published in some of the magazines
now. not very good stuff.

a poem about me
too: the ******.

the ****** whines too much. the ****** whines about his
country, other countries, all countries, the ******
works overtime in a factory like a fool, among other
fools with "pre-drained spirits."
the ****** drinks seas of green beer
full of acid. the ****** has an ulcerated
hemorrhoid. the ****** picks on ****
"fragile ****." the ****** hates his
wife, hates his daughter. his daughter will become
an alcoholic, a *******. the ****** has an
"obese burned out wife." the ****** has a
spastic gut. the ****** has a
"****** brain."

thank you, Doctor (and poet). any charge for
this? I know I still owe you for the
pill.

Your poem is not too good
but at least I got your starch up.
most of your stuff is about as lively as a
wet and deflated
beachball. but it is your round, you've won a round.
going to invite me out this
Summer? I might scrape up
trainfare. got an Indian friend who'd like to meet
you and yours. he swears he's got the biggest
pecker in the state of California.

and guess what?
he writes
POETRY
too!

.good, send me to prison, dox... whatever... with my knowledge of obscure Islam... i might make some friends; come to think of it, i will be saved, from perpetuating this quasi St. Augustine soliloquy.

if there are these... young men...
of combat age...
  almost ready to play the pawns...
"eager" soldiers...
what the **** happened
to the women of fertile age?
frozen their eggs,
gambled biology
and gave birth to a down syndrome
expose aged 40+?
i too thought,
that Zeus could, but never would,
**** Hera...
  instead, seeking concubines,
to provide humanity with
the myths of the demigods.
so men... of fighting age...
    and... a ******* walrus harem,
with women,
of a fertility age...
supposedly, miraculously...
  "missing"...
throw me a danish, and a glass
of milk...
i need a laxative...
     to digest this piece of info.
as a man:
i'm done, defending the most
obscure existentialist statement
forced upon me...
      within the confines of:
cue: woman...
         i'm a dodo adherent...
and if there is no dodo
excavation to fulfill a continuum...
luckily...
i'm not some idiotic geneticist
spectacle of fanaticism:
ich sterben, alles nutzen...
         herr junggeselle Kant...
what are my genes,
as a worthwhile impetus?
        to procrastinate before
the altar of procreation?
               i thought that western
society pledged its allegiance
to "individualism", solipsism, autism...
         why should i pledge
an alleged alliance to a future?
       oculus per oculus...
     who are these people,
hardly dictating me, and more,
"persuading" me...
   to invest in this... project...
this...
first a celebration of independence,
and then, a shackling of
said independence,
  into a familial rigor, and discipline?
so said first...
   but not said first,
invoking the unsaid second...
   hitlerjunge...
             so said unsaid second...
people can have their global
speaking tours...
  i have gnat of an english neighbor
to deal with...
  who took the authoritarian
alternative... just shy of...
telling me when it was appropriate
for me to take a ****...
given, he, aged 50+ and his bride,
40+ gave birth, to a, ******* ******!
- at that age....
passing on the, "genes",
let alone "memes" (is no longer an
option):
                   but surrogate
parenting, in the form of adoption,
is...
  but of course, the neighbor
owning to his own business,
will receive the front of the parental
frustration, of a people,
too old, to receive the status
of fatherhood / motherhood...
more like... papa-grand-p'ah
and mama-grand-m'ah...
      i know my boat has already sailed...
i never wished to travel to las vegas
to take a gamble...
     why would i enforce some
obscure fatherhood desire
onto a woman, who has clearly
not established herself,
well enough, into 20+ years prior?

Like a child enlightened by heightened curiosity,
So is a native poet by poetic luminosity.
A verse in sight and sound devoid of modern flair,
For poetic convention the poet does not care.
So, take this vague verse as one roaring rhyme,
And take it as verbiage very overdue in time.
Unjustly sunken voices the poet seeks to hear,
Battling a torrent history...above, below, and near.
This inquisitive writer infers a present too dismal,
As around an angry sea lies an origin; abysmal.
Rejecting fables history’s assassins inked true,
The writer seeks fair chroniclers, but wreckage was their due.
Sought is Illyria, a place far from here.
Land said "not to exist," but its roots still reappear;
Fabricated history most poets cannot fathom,
Quelled grandiose splendor serves political stratum.
Calling curious minds to ponder this heck of a theory,
First, consider the writer's roots with impartial query.
What the Illyrian believed in was a life well spent,
Not man-led "guidance" begging cents to repent.
Since Illyria’s rebel ship sailed onto history a fright,
Shakespeare's pen amorously inked the 'Twelfth Night.’
Around Illyria’s outskirts sly mythology prevails.
Modern Illyria’s pervasion of such mythology still fails.
So, how does one interpret Illyria’s butchered will,
As her Godless schism fibbing history faux fills?
Her feeble-minded native is essentially to blame
For their grand, deceptive role in the imperialist’s game.
Brutal eradication of Illyria’s vocal reason
Deem all native conspirators of ultimate treason.
As the State buries the dissident's piercing wits,
A treasonous dog barks, upon foreign command he *****.
This wormlike betrayal, painted by his foreign master,
Is an art to be repeated in future governing disaster.
In the European south roam these bad hounds of species,
Anatomical sketches of Europe's rear excreting feces.
A pile all imperialists eject with laxative ease,
A pile all imperialists still smear as they please.
Above Illyrian graves (those below made to inspire)
The ***** dog dances, blind to his own fate in fire.
This ****** work of art, not a site for you and eye,
Is an emblematic governance gagging an eerie cry.
As today’s political pawns (in corruption they engage),
Illyria’s distinctive scions remain fools on a stage.
Our bodies dance and sway like silly puppets at play,
Our minds confined to idiocy as the socialist's prey.
So,  a poet's jingle jangle on probing minds they should linger,
As besought are worthy scions who must leave behind a "finger."

Immerse yourself until wholly submerged
in my unholy divergence;
Poor form tormented soul - 
Roll your pain in a J
then dip it in chloroform
Embrace my urges to purge
the remnants of sanity,
Spilling and screaming
all these profanities at humanity

Confuddling all posers
with my bastardized prose ~
Please, continue badgering
and nagging me
with your ****-******* menagerie
of trivial drudgery
I’m in misery so
go ahead and bludgeon me
Square in the noggin’
So that I can jog it,
whilst juggling all these nails
from my coffin

I’m awfully harmful and cruel
got these scoffing jealous skeptics
Acting a fool,
coughing up a lung-full of fuel
for all of the putrid mind puke I spew
My mixing *** skull’s
where the ingredients accrue
Just stew with me for a little
while longer though won’t you

I’m a cancer-ridden addler
babbling mad adages,
ravishingly tenderizing my meat
Laced with some dust from space, yes, no lackage/absence of it lining
within my nasal passages see
spun off some of that absinthe
In a cloud of burning trees
Please tell me you feel me

It’s staggering how I’m both crazy batshit,
**** smooth as rotten laxative cheese
Brain’s melting acidic beef
I’m like Randy Savage I got
Bombastic fat ******* in heat
Straight making my **** go flaccid post-weep

Don’t get offended women
just imagine
How painfully average the package
is within my lap that I’m packin
But now it’s wrapped
and I’m ready to fucken
fully send it no cap
My turnaround is lightning fast
In and out of your *** quick as a wink like The Flash

Faces contort in ghastly panic, actually
Dastardly antics unleashed in vast swarms
Plague the masses in pandemic proportions with them massive casualties factually once more
Give ya some relaxing action 
And skull-**** y’all
with such a passion *******
Your corpse falls to the floor
and right through the trapdoor

Candid, my pen-chance enchants
Heavy-handedly inanimate
in suspended animation
Supplant reality augmentation
Machinations of my imagination;
Implicating **** ransacking  
and seafaring through crab infestations 
Wreaking havoc and bequeathing vengeance
I’m a fire breathing grim reaper reeking of ****** ~

- Off is the nearest direction in which to ****
Dissect my ******* with your tongue
Turnt up ******* plumpies in the rumpus 
Just for the fun of it until I erupt
Remember, I’m avid for dismembering appendages
I expect you’re exceptional at accepting
a barrage of septic bombardment
Chance of success: logistics analysis zero percentage
(Cos I done ******* on all those *******.)

Superbly superlative and speculative
So fast on Adderall
I make Mad Hatter’s head spin
Quicker than you can snap: 
Giving your family heart attacks
Smack you in the face, 
While fapping my fabulous lap rocket

Thunderously plundering under covers
Spring-loaded with faux pas’ so hot
Make your mother’s ***** pop out
and say “hello”
like a Jack-in-the-Box

& U kno Those foxy grandmas
be jaxing off my **** -
Bingo wings beckoning me to flock
Choppin’ up rocks round the clock
with the glock in my pocket til I rot 
Undoubtedly
Caught em wit the molly-whop eyeballs pop out they sockets all dramatically
Whole squad **** swap the rod, on God
Blow my whole *** when I start spitting them double entendre fatality snowballs
Zippity-zop like Cosby’s special BBQ sauce
Bet I’ll dip my puddin’ pop and stay fresh with the drip til I drop
Y’all just holler when you want me to stop

Palpable, these **** butts malleable as putty
Barbarically barrel rolling into dat ***
rip it to shreds like confetti
Power Pole extend
Face pressed into your *******
Inhaling the wafting aromatic stenches
of distant French fish factories

Clearly getting dome from your dearly betrothed violently
Now she bridal and my seeds spiraling virally
Vital signs finalizing
Bounce that *** like jello
Swell; I’m in your hair like gel
Now swallow my jollies and don’t bother
Unless you hollerin’ and giving me dollars
Zealots idol my harlotry

If nose goes go slow grow low
Throwing those yoloing hoes out windows
This ***** simply bonkers
I conquer fear me

***** DON’T HARSH MY MELLOW
SWEAR I’LL MARSH YOUR MALLOWS

On a serious note
I'm just playfighting God,
Ring around my iris
Flightless little bird,
Bereaved and slaughtered at a daffodil's foot.
Correct me if I'm right,
Sense was made without me here.
Into sleep I sink,
I can feel the brink approaching.
Stalking through aneurysms bane veil, Dripping dream and stink
and hope.
Blind, naive, native, childhood hope is all I am.
I'm living,
I'm livid,
I'm living,
I'm livid,
I'm living,
I'm livid.

to me? Real with a certified S.King filtered -ly mod,
by god,
as the oh myers say. On Writing sans Shining.
Needful fiction,
Liars prosper. Okeh. Thus,
the poor we have with us, always.

Truth t' tell.

Entshallah allathat, OMG samesame
good mastah willin' creeks don't rise

Do the work. Come Sunday, someday,
we, all us, say.

You ever finish your own work one day and jest

sit back lax - lacks a daisy, taken easy,
laxative action,
gut synapse
synch-up, cinch that saddle on my wildest
old Nightmare, beat my plow
back to a oil drum,

set some feats t'dancin' in some ol'lady minds.

old man's angels seen t'be jiggin' on
the head o' some pen
in the hand

worth two in the bush.

Who know what ever mean, okeh.

period. point made signal.
that was said and it's writ.

set it aside, let it dry

crumble to dust and be scattered to the five great gyres
to settle
as sands
ifiable quant, to mortal mind, weighable
any worth assigned as
sought or ought,
a grain,
a mote,
as seen with five gee augmented
lenses
prestandards beeing raised in the buzz
from Utah

as an erranded boy's sail bike lifts into if
from the saline shore.
Bike tires adhered to passive-ly

by molecular
memories of being
in truth, as if
once and ever,
salt of the earth, see in the distance,
Lot's wife

as tiny as can be

Na and CL, for ever,
deja wuwuish it were possible… dream… or die…

no don't. There is a reason. I for get it can not right now but these
keys can be

used right by the sober one in the batch.
God, I love this process. This is the work. Living.
You can do it as long as you can pay attention…

selah

then it, the algorithm, I'll go rhythm, pauses,
Spelchkovian spells masters seem sorry we ever agreed she'd
leave me leavened as dust
lying around
on white linen
in the streets of Laredo, as cold as the clay,

back in the day,
we sang that song in school. We sang
in movie theaters, along with a
bouncing ball and other people,

big bio jump here. My step-brother was murdered,
and it never seemed relative…

my father married a wombed man with one leg,
whose family sang along with Mitch,

and played Spit in the Ocean.

Such experiences ificate possibilities few knew
some survive.
There could be a contributory flow…

This ever lasting book of life.
See, a shore, sand bar
snag a thought rainbowing true to you

hang-ups from way back

Any boomer bubble popped too soon. Manifest at will.
P-pickup from scratch and
make a point
to infect the next pun unknoticing kid,

old -time slow hand-eye coordination special ed, Big Ern,
kicking chalk dust in far right field, noticing
patterns
in the leftmost vector straight home--

grand children, for the joy of knowing they happened,
caused,
to all outward appearance,
by my survival of several unbelievable

periences ex nihilo only
if "It don't mean nothing".

link link link something has broken, what do we con tribute tributary flow
too dammed salty, got to puddle around

waiting. waiting. waiting for one point
to be made
edged on all angles, to each mea culpa assured
quantifiability of reason,

inquizical sequence surpast
glistering

whetted and furbished for ever,

the keenness
the cut, precision decision

and how swiftly forms the scab,
a touch,

capillary seals, the grain, at HD,
one pixelish crystallin charge

change that,
by taking thought. It does nothing to your stature,

think allusive butterflies of lifenshit

it gets tiresome. A body wants some rest from ever
meaning ever and never was known
or heard
a dis cora zone age word, like

troglodyte or luddite Denisovan bracelet breaker,
ropemaker union with certain silky
threads
to which a little leaven always sticks
as would caterpillar spit.

Meandering, right, it's the play. My role.
I manifest the dance
as seen on the surface, from Jim's POV,

then my own POV,
then my own rivers of no return,
tribute

'ary a day goes by I don't re call that feeling,

flow is moving paster and paster the walls are
higher
shade deeper
colder'n'hell fersher, rapids.
Ah,

Kern River, I remember this.
Almond trees, Columbus clouds…
Hey, readerman, paperbackwriter wannabe,

we survived. What'sa-hell, right's right.

clap. there is a - an  STD joke there.
But those aren't funny

right,
standup guy says right's right, does a
Johnny Unitas stiff arm
and gets a case of
clap from the left, worse than meaningless

neo **** non clapping on the right.
Repent or perish.
****** if it don't feel good to say that.
It's true, once you know,

Gertrude Stein, I got it from her. Lesbian Jewish leaven
in passover brownies dipped in Mogen David,
she made me stand and say a rosary.

By any other name,

a rose is a rose and so on

There’s a time and season for every reason
no cookie bakes itself
cherries don’t burst on their own
cherries don’t burst *******!
a bottle doesn’t empty itself to full/fill
breaking clocks is a wonderful way to **** time
ironic glory hole of blood and glass
running out of test tubes, the ****’s too tight
****… reason!
INVEST!

Admiration is the state furthest away from understanding
pawns don’t need details
******* with teeth make ******* meaningful
smashing the cow softens it, …digest it well
meaning is derived from screening STD g string
of a starry eyed jail-bait that drowns in a sea of ******
obtuse and absolute are the only submissions
failure to comprehend results in *******
cuckolds worth….
IMPROVE!

Lexicon laxative
this antipathy won’t last
stimulate thinking with cankerous drinking
***** ***** need no season or reason
to drown ****** who never show
the tears of heaven that understood
misled admiration and adolescent aberration
that silently candle deplorable fornication
time stays unchanged
counting doesn’t prove progress in this game
falling short… half beat hesitation
ITERATE!

The way is blocked
Hurting only you
You can still help others
But your creativity stopped
You have Creative Constipation
And there is one way to make it stop

Face your fears
Try something new
Make a memory
Get scraped a few
Take a Creative Laxative
Get those juices flowing again

Then you’ll have
Creative Diarrhea
Ideas flowing forth
In the forms
Of line or verse
Movie or paint
Everything you see
Will be touched
By your creative spree

my skin is more of a vessel that captures steam
rather than that of an actual human being
count down the days until i evaporate
and you ******* loved me
and i tried
believe me i did or do not believe me it is of no consequence
do as you feel but
always remember that

(truck-drivers, bar-boozers, loser-bar yokles, blue-collar rednecks will all love this smash hit song!!!)

Rockin country genre

"Big Mouth Surgery"    
  (by david John Clare)

(rockin' country drunk hick juke-box mix)

Wow!  She sure does talk a lot... could almost cause a riot

But we don't get... just what she's trying to say

We could hear her fine before... when she used to be quiet

Guess all them new school-words get in the way

We took her to see... a gypsy-psychic-magician

But he wanted more... than we could pay

So we took her down to see... our local town physician

And here's what old doc... had to say

Boys...

"She needs Big Mouth Surgery"

Her tongue is on the blink

She just talks, sqwacks and talks some more

'Cause she don't know how to think

So please don't be stallin'

Her brain is now corrupt

Can't you see that she has fallen'

And she just can't ''shut-up!"


Big Mouth Surgery

Cause no pills seem to work

Hurry please now doctor

Before she drives us all berserk


Big Mouth Surgery

But will it work without a doubt?

Better make it a lobotomy

Before she starts to shout!


(solo)


Our reputations are expensive

While her talk is **** cheap

You just can't tell her nothin'

'Cause a secret she can't keep

No one seems to know

What the fuss is all about

We're just waitin' for her brain

To catch up with her mouth


She needs Big Mouth Surgery

Her mind is on the blink

She always talks, talks and talks all day

Why can't she just please stop & think?

So please don't be stallin'

Her head is all corrupt

Can't you see that she has fallen'

Her fat-mouth can't shut-up!

Big Mouth Surgery

We need to find her a shrink

Hurry please there doctor

Before she drives us all to drink

Big Mouth Surgery

She's heard north, east, west & south

Who gave her brain a laxative?

Got diarrhea of the mouth!


Big Mouth Surgery

No pill can take effect

Hurry please now doctor

She is a mental wreck

Our minds: she made us loose

Her words: just seem to ooze

It's so hard: to take a snooze

We just drown all-day in *****

Beer, Whisky, Wine & ***** . . .

To wash away our ear-ache blues!


Yip Yip Zip Lip!  ...Yee Haw!

(c) 2009    David Wayne Clare

CLAIRVOYANT MUSIC / BMI

all rights reserved

in perpetuity

i have a great thinking capacity
but my thoughts feel like a mystery

my dreams
are eating me
faster than chipped concrete
breaking me
emotionally;
mentally.

thoughts translate
into garbled words
that i cant really communicate
i try to emulate
desires that
seem unattainable
probably unbelievable

brain-eating nightmares
like electrical cords
shock me
like a thousand swords

i am disintegrating
my mind seems to be decaying
probably rotting
or maybe i had just been dreaming

(b.d.s.)

Do you know any good doctors?
My pen needs a laxative

"You're so thin, what's your secret?"
It isn't cutting out carbs,
My secret isn't a diet in a magazine,
My secret is hidden under baggy sweaters,
My secret is the scale hidden under clothes in my closet,
My secret is exercising until I pass out,
My secret comes from feeling fat every second even when I'm being begged to gain weight by doctors,
My secret is placing my entire self worth on a number and the belief that others judge me by the same numbers,
My secret is a voice that is always yelling at me, telling me I take up too much space and need to be sick to be acceptable,
My secret is looking in the mirror at all the weight I think I've gained since the last time I looked, an hour before,
My secret is the desire to slice my fat right off,
My secret is the hidden food in my dresser that I told my mom I was taking for lunch,
My secret is hidden at the bottom of toilet bowls,
It's an empty laxative package,
It's fainting every time I stand up too fast,
It's numbers. It's all numbers. Calories. Pounds. Kilograms. Clothing sizes. Calories. Inches. BMI. Calories. It's counting, recounting, then deciding I don't desire it anyway.
It's striving for the lowest number, to have the lowest number, to be the lowest number,
My secret is comparing myself to everyone I see and always thinking I'm worse,
My secret is turned down coffee dates, parties, and sleepovers because there will be food there,
My secret is the word "fat" carved into my inner thigh with a blade from a pencil sharpener,
My secret hides behind every "no thanks I'm allergic" "I'm vegan" "I can't have gluten" and "I already ate",
It's being told curves are beautiful and nobody wants to date a skeleton but still not being able to believe it,
My secret is paranoia that everyone is trying to make me fat,
My secret is having nightmares of eating an almond then waking up with a racing heart and panicking,
You want to know my secret?
My secret is in the tenth grade my bmi was lower than my age,
My secret was tears shed in hospital beds,
My secret is being begged by everyone I love to just have a bite,
My secret is being afraid of eating fruits or drinking water because I think it'll make me fat,
My secret is getting on scales then off of them then on them then back off and still not trusting it,
My secret is a constant demand to be thinner with no point that will ever be enough,
My secret is that the only curves I want are the curves my ribs would make poking through my skin,
My secret is squeezing my fat until my nails pierce my skin,
My secret is feeling like I'm being suffocated by my own body,
My secret is dizzy days and cold skin,
My secret is that even through years of therapy I can't get the same amount of satisfaction from any person or accomplishment as I can from losing weight,
My secret comes from every hit from my mom, from every nasty word spoken by the girls who thought I wasn't good enough, from every guy's touch I didn't ask for,
I didn't get thin due to having willpower,
I got thin from becoming powerless
to a mirror that will never tell me I'm good enough until I'm dead.

What is it with the Americans-?
With their endless cups of “Joe”
Starbucks on every corner
At least it seems that’s so.

Those who overdose on coffee
Are always on the “go”
With palpitating heart beats
And hands that shake like so.

Billions of cups consumed yearly,
The landfills awash with debris
If only my Dad had a Styrofoam mine
Imagine how rich we would be.

Chocolate is much more civilized;
antioxidant rich and sweet.
They say it’s a mild aphrodisiac
and a laxative for the effete.

Those people addicted to coffee
Wake up “Grumpy and groaning”
While those folks addicted to chocolate
can be sure they’ll be coming and going..

Authors moan of Writer’s Block:
They can’t unpick their inner lock.
A black expanse is all they see
Their rhymes are but a tragedy.

“The Block” is writers’ constipation,
A failure of imagination.
What laxative is there for this?
You feel like you’ve been sent to Dis.

Oh where did those ideas go?
That blank page fills them full of woe.
Play with words is what I say,
Then soon a poem is on its way.

Don’t try so hard is my advice:
Perfection can be such a vice.
Watch telly, films, anything you like,
And let your mind just take a hike.

Listen to music by all means,
Like you used to in your teens.
Watch the news, or take a stroll,
Drag yourself out of that hole.

Take a nap whenever you like,
Sleep will get you ready to strike.
Toy with words again I say:
Best inspiration springs from play.

Paul Butters

honestly? it was the best part of the day,
drawing those electron-migration diagrams
when conceptualising organic compounds...

       plus i like the culinary aspect of the whole enterprise...
ever sniffed esters?
            sweet *******...
          if i remember correctly: the basis for
                            the art of brewing perfumes.

but it had to happen... i was going to become
     a heretical linguist of some sort, having taken to
the organic chemistry diagrams
                              that state how electrons migrate...
well... "state"... first they tell you they're in orbit,
then they tell you they're in clouds...
                         and then... they go back to the orbit
theory with how            H H
                                        |   |
                                   H-C-C-OH
                                        |   |
                                       H  H                  (ethanol)
is broken down, or used... to make something
else... it's usually a canvas chemical...
                    you don't want the impurities of
water...
                        **** knows what breeds in that
liquid... ethanol? you know that whatever could
have bred on a microorganism level would die
off from the fire aspect of ethanol...
                    what is funny is watching this website
over the past few days...
                      are these critiques concerning
   the improvement a bit like:
                               oh no! digital eugenics!
     christ quote: seperating the sheep from the goats...
                       i'm more bothered about being
constipated and trying to figure out
                     a laxative from natural materials than
buying synthetic products...
                on this level of medical advice: i'd be
considered a quack-doctor... but then best before
yogurt mixed with milk... **** me...
             considering my bowels?
                         i'd be a 100m sprinter
                          all the way through a marathon...
    oh by the way: ʒ is covert way of indicating
                           ż - which, as you can see,
has a diacritical distinction encapsulated...
                         capital version?    Ƶ -
                 and that's rare, it's a bit like seeing a yeti
on a page... rare as ****...
                                      so i'm thinking... is this
the spot where the german (es und zed) ß came from?
              chopping off the head on the particular?
            oh look... they correlate... Ƶ and Ł -
    but that really depends on your linguistic palette -
depends what century you were born in,
                and what the vogue of a tongue invoked.
   but now for the critical part....
       several things... all at once...
               ever made a schnitzel / a schabowy?
                                            sh       ­         s ha    v
you know... when you get a pork fillet
  and you have to flatten it out with... tłuczek...
      o.k. (hand signal... index + thumb
   touching for an O... and the remainder:
         K = III... that's middle, ring and pinky fingers)
               the only transalation i have that's even
remotely accurate is                "pestle" -
but you see, to flatten a pork fillet you use something
akin to a maczuga / a culinary bludgeon -
                   then you put the flattened pork fillet
into egg goo... and then into breadcrumbs...
                               anyway...
    the archimedes bit...
                          it's the opposite of having that quote
ring true: give me a lever long enough and i'll
move the earth...
                                to really flatten a fillet of pork
you have to hold the tłuczek close to the tip
          of the metal-head...
                                i don't know why that's true...
maybe because this isn't a problem for archiemdes
to use a lever, and lift something up...
             but it's a case for hammering something
down, flattening it into a schnitzel form -
                             you need to hold the instrument
really close to the metal-head tip, rather than
    at the end of the wooden stem...
                             it's just the opposite of what's
true within archimedes...
      and yes, i know that schnitzel refers to chicken fillets...
but do know you what else?
                 when you wake up the next day
and have a nicotine hangover?
                        and you're coughing?
              it's also called: coughing up a schabowy -
                                     sssss    ha              bo'h     v  
            and by now you realise this y
                                          is not related to an i -
rather a "dried" out sound... equivalent to the metaphor
of swallowing your tongue;
                                        i.e. enter hades.

a balloon floats over a child’s birthday party that the fat girl wasn’t invited to.
the balloon is the art of maintenance.
let some air out, blow some in, until it’s just right, and then tie it off.

when i was born, i weighed ever so slightly more than six pounds.
that was the last time i’d be slight.
i grew big and grew bigger
years of eating, years of blowing hot air into a balloon hard and fast
with thick, humid inside filling and filling
no longer clear but cloudy and clotted and sick and bigger, and bigger, skin ripping, breaths uncaring, breaths unwavering—

my mother was terrified i’d pop.

i came close in high school, weighing in at two hundred and eight pounds
at the doctor, when i accidentally saw the chart that i was so afraid to see
that i hadn’t seen it in years
and now, here, i saw the weight that i was so afraid, all of this time, to know that i carried.

but i felt it qualitatively
not in the knees, where they tell you you’ll feel it
not in the tightening and narrowing of my overstuffed clothes and arteries
plaque lining them, hardening into tunnels that the blood
can’t find a way through in more than needle thin streams
little brooks in a body born with rivers

not in the heart pumping hard to keep up
not in the swollen, alien stomach that i am sure does not belong to Kate Moss
but i am unsure truly belongs to me.
it looks nothing like the plus size model’s tanned, toned, macro version of a micro Moss
flawless and shiny and glazed with the flecks of photoshopped light
i am a photographer myself, i know the tricks
i felt it in the way the world treated me.

and i know that woman, my designated sister in size who couldn’t fit in my pants and whose shirt I’d drown in, the predetermined champion of my cause,
my implied, targeted marketing role model gimmick and plea to the outraged girls with thick thighs to settle
for someone shopped, just like everyone else.
edited, audited for body parts like stretch marks and pale skin and lines of hair
called happy trails but are sad
that scream desperately for air and an ending when someone,
someone they call brave, runs his tongue along the clearing where they ripped out our flowers and called them weeds, a sad reminder
that i call him brave, too, because they told me he was.

they told me he was brave for adventuring my hills and valleys.
he is no explorer, most of the time.
he is simply a tourist.

they tell me to settle for a woman who still doesn’t look like me.
and they set me a new standard to aspire to—
“FINE, BE BIG, BE PLUS, BE CURVY! YOU CAN BE THEM, BUT YOU CANNOT BE FAT. YOU CANNOT BE FAT. HER FAT IS IN HER *******, IN HER HIPS, IN HER THIGHS… BUT YOUR FAT? YOUR FAT? YOU’RE JUST FAT!”

so i looked in the mirror, ****** it in, twisted, manipulated, tried on this bra and these underwear
and yes, my waist looked slim and yes, my hips had breadth and yes, my ******* were massive and yes, I looked like her.

but then, my mother screamed.

“you are going to die! this is so unhealthy! we have to do something!”
because my high school sent a letter home telling my mother that i was abominable based on three letters and three digits:
BMI- 37.1
WEI
GHT
203
i took off my control top *******.
i undid the latch on my push up, padded bra.
i deflated my stomach.
i deflated my pride.
i looked in the mirror in shock and horror like viewing an old time slasher flick in the back of a drive in in the middle of the night in the days where maybe there’d be a hook on the handle when he came to open my door.
i did not look like her.

i let out the air in slow and painful pinches.
and sometimes it swam, doing pirouettes in the bowl like a little dancer
a teaser of the kind of thin lean woman i am not unless these dinners keep spinning
clockwise down the toilet before i feel them weigh in my stomach
and i am wise to the clock – wait just 30 minutes and you take up half the calories.
do it now, now, now, you have to, you have to – and you’ll take up half the space.
Ana told me to and she is only looking out for me.
the numbers decline to 199 and i think 189 could be mine if i put in the time
and i’m wise to the clock so i start the countdown from 199 to 189 to 177 and i quit

because i let the air out, and for once in my life, when i left my house in two months’ time for the first time,
for once in my life, i wanted to let it in.

some days it leaks out of me.
one more laxative won’t hurt and i don’t care if the weight is fat, water, or ****, it still counts
155, 159, 163…161, 159, 155
and sometimes i still think
Ana is my friend.

but when i’m weak and jealous and out of my head
and angry at the explorer i’ve met who tells me he has so enjoyed his visit
that he’s decided to move in forever, enchanted with the landscape and the history and culture in the area, in the country i’ve built through disorder and plants and bread and loss and skin bunching and ribs you can feel and an *** you can grab so hard sometimes it hurts
sometimes i still think Ana is my friend.

but when i am deflated and counting and wearing out my plastic, and I think one way or another, I’m going to die
I’ll **** myself, with razor blades or Ativan or cancer from these ******* laxatives or these appetite suppressant menthol 100 cigarettes or maybe I’ll just jump like I wanted to
But any day, if I keep going, I’m going to pop—
I realize something about my friend Ana.
when i’m sickly and tired and ******* my brains out
and wishing i hadn’t hurt and built walls to keep out the man that filled the vacancy in my hotel heart who i promised to marry to keep in my country, the one built from feminist strength, brick and bone and stars and skin and roses and muscle and fat and beauty,

baby, take your visa back and let’s knock down these walls and we can tie me off.
Ana is not my friend.
She’s holding the pin.

Are you ready for the main course?
Prepare the condiments
Thin oven mitts
Teas cozies
Lace doilies

It's just a decoy
Here lies the kid who was left home alone while is parents visited The North Pole

Try to consolidate the front door
And here's a laxative called LSD to aide your constipated mind
Now go on with the insurrection
And fight Parliament for the sake of the proletariat
Who's names are always written in lower case lettering

The limousine drivers
The skrimpers
The savers
The single mothers with bad habits who have to dance off skimpy clothing to buy formula for their babies because they're milk is tainted with junk

The weary recipients of justice obstructions
And catch 22's
Who have been singled out because they have monetary deficits

Console them
Until Eureka!
Grab some Q-tips and clean out your ears
Stop gritting and grinding your teeth
A new realization  is in bloom

When did be aware turn into beware?
When did alertness become fear?

Forget and get over your
Remanding-accursed-sweet-tooth-fatigue-that you let in
Because it's all in your head along with the idea that hyphens make things look more important and scary

I contest all that *******

My mind is constipated, I try to force
upon the bowels of my mind but nothing
is versed, only flatulence of syllables
that linger in the air.

Gagging on the stench was released outwards,
others cringe at what was versed in
needing of a release. I look upon the laxative
of imagery and I feel my mind soften up.

My pen sits on the white waiting for a release,
without warning a vocalization is forced slowly.
I spray my syllables on to the white, relaxed that
the congestion is released, words flow eagerly out.

Give me some Tramadol
Panadol
a laxative
a fixative
just
give me some peace.

Give me a new lease on life
a wife
a home
a new hip
(just thought that I'd slip that one in)

Oh Christ on the cross
how do I live with the loss
how does one start
when the heart has been shattered
and what does it matter?

Let me be drip fed on a bed
and out of my head
give me indemnity
against
whatever I've said or am likely to say
Give me
Today.

The splitting of hairs
Anti-oxidants
Numbers that are easy to remember
And the counting of sheep

Sure enough
The Penny Pincher is bent out of shape
Clean as a whistle
And secretly queer as a three dollar bill

My life is an open book
Case closed
Looking for the special someone
Who will see my half closed casket half opened

Fast acting laxative
Are you chicken?
Reopen all the wounds
For what it's worth
Will you go by the rule of thumb
If it's all the same to you?

Every

Every tunnel has a light,
Every flea has to bite,
Every food has been bitten,
every word has been written.
On those days that seem dark,
soon you will spot your spark.
On those days, where all goes wrong,
pack yourself a big fat ****.
When things are looking down,
life seeming like a ghost town.
Things will always get better,
******* makes a girl wetter.
Every dog has its day,
every person finds their way.
Every rose has its thorn,
every man will always watch ****.
Sometimes life can be so happy,
smile and stop feeling ******.
Always be thinking positive,
let it out like a laxative.
When the sun starts to set,
in the garbage, throw all debt.
Every baby has a mother,
every day is like no other.
Every story has an end,
every person needs a friend.

Eating more than that
                      they can chew.

laxative dreams explode
                             in slumber.

I seem to reward myself for bad behavior, and while others don’t understand it to be bad, it gnaws at me. Grows like a tumor, because even if an accident, or happenstance, I still seem to shrink, but not before my body rebels and solidifies into making me gorge on fiber until I lose the nerve and rush to other means. I’m not supposed to do it on purpose, not like Lori, and I hold myself back, convinced that my weight-loss is not an extension of my personality, but I cant help but admit I’m obsessed with the scale. Obsessed with an anti-me. My therapist doesn’t see the pattern, and maybe she is right, but I am too busy worrying about becoming obsessed that I have become obsessed with being obsessed. A hundred and seven pounds, and I have had to seriously fight to control myself not to create harm, and when my stomach doesn’t seem to want to let go of food after days, I can’t help but go to my medicine cabinet, find the laxative, and let my body suffer in such an embarassing way.

I watched Lori do it, and I swore I wouldn’t. But I am, even if for the sake of relief, of release. And I swear it’s not a habit, but that means nothing come every Monday when I have to be the beacon at the group weigh-ins, to mark some kind of false sense of hope for others. They call me an inspiration, and even if not intentional, I feel like I have been cheating.

My grandfather asks me every time I tell him about my weight-loss, “Are you sure you aren’t hurting yourself?” and I am reminded of the decades of humiliation he wrought upon me due to my obesity. What right does he have to ask of harm when he helped drive me to four hundred and more pounds? Maybe this is punishment for all the times his words cut deep enough to make me keep eating in anguish. Maybe I’ll just keep losing long after I hit my goal until there is nothing left– not even dust to be carried along with the wind.

Thoughts like that make me worry that it has evolved from lifestyle change to pure, unadulterated obsession. The kind I have seen time and time again.

My family has always been riddled with addicts.

ever drink coffee on an empty stomach?
no, i mean, two, three...
      and ever get this ******* sensation
in your stomach,
            this grandiose perv ******* at
you telling you: feed feed feed me!
             might be a sadistic answer,
but at least not as sadistic keeping
  a skeleton on a medical drip,
                       i.e. an anorexic girl
'coffee is the natural diueretic'
    reads one quote: diuretic shmaturetic
laxative bogus...
            if you haven't eating anything:
what the **** are you going to **** out?
  your intestines or a ******* tapeworm?
3 coffees in and i get this humongous
appetite... but never mind that,
          had me a thought,
         while in movies: they always aim
for the head, as if that's the "easy"
            solution,
            . + . = ...        1 + 1 = 2...
quote (a): well perhaps he's wondering
someone would shoot a man,
    before throwing him out of a plane...
  quote (b): well,
                 perhaps he's wondering why
you would put a man in a prison cell,
         before shooting him in the back
of the head - well, wondering why
you would put a man in a prison cell
and then shooting him, subsequently
closing the door...
                            you get the picture...
it's that cockroach "myth"
        that a cockroach without a head
can survive for two weeks
  (enter andrei romanovich chikatilo)...
and i watched this criminology channel
once... no one said a word about
what really happened...
      oh hell, they'll document all of his
evil deeds... but what happened in
that cell, after he was shot in the head?
zilch! took me a while to imagine it,
i have to admit;
             because sure as **** that bullet
in the head was not going to be spending
two weeks in a coma.

Oh, the wave of insincere condolence
that drowns the tragedy of a heroes true legacy.
Why don’t you play a record and stop your whining?
Why don’t you read rather than reach for the tissues
to wipe your forced, phoney tears?
You’re not fooling me. You haven’t even fooled yourselves.
Did parading your opinion like a ****** with his **** out
really gratify your ego as much as you hoped,
or did it just show you to be more full of **** than
a politician stuffed full of laxative with a sewn shut *******?
But what do I know?
I’m the kind of guy that writes about you.

Self examination
snap the nitrile

blue gloves up in your ventricles
grab a *******

or two
we're gonna stretch and

pull down the protector
3,2,1 avant garde

no sound, but your life was hard
I noticed

you spoke it
credits were rollin'

down your cheek
so you smoked it

and laughed at
nothing certain but death and taxes

laxative breakfast served
a generation

you miss it you miss it
a life that hurt because you

scavenged for Christmas
the little blessings

a life worth living
by killing optimists

penetrating defense
to pillar high with indifference

to intent
now you can't ascend

you stash it
in Easter baskets

in sillicone lashes
push the ashes together

then burn the mattress
dust to sand

through fingers, a fist
3rd grade principal

pulled from detention
a stretcher pulled you

white to trenches you fought in
when all you needed was

a breath of attention
who said you could end it

win it
prescription of tribulations

from whatever God you'd scavenge for Christmas
he put you through it

all the abuses
the habits

the black and white canvas
silent obscuring angles

of mannequins
30 seconds of a dancer

who prayed for this madness
who pays for the therapist

who even lets you have it
who kept you out of church

and into church basements
who writes the book of curses

that force fed you the sedative
given by laxatives

that say they went to college.
their Suit is stained in coffee

Yet you have the vices
The film is over

the light flickers darkness
we sit in the coffin

smokin' and screamin'
blood is flowing, but there's

no fire
we're just speakin'

what happens after 3PM
witching hour that one scene

when the camera angle was
blurry.

it spoke to me
said self examination can't be

latex
you gotta get nitrile

they're cut resistant
cover five fingers

not just a lover
a stranger

they protect you from more than danger
so button your blanket

take down the ink curtains
sun was always shining,

closed it
to blurry focus

could take our macguyver theater
wallpaper canvas stretching

hit us in the temple
like a parsha

finished another session
the blessing of human language

the messenger
malakh, without expectation

we fumble to understand
Scalpel in our hand,

ventricle in tact
we're just holdin' a feather pen

talkin' in white and black
we stick our hands in the past

take a look at examination
then take a look at our self.

Lines like a laxative for tongues,
The individual pieces become greater than its sum,  
Summer time therapy dialing up in increments,  
Wouldn't know the difference between the butterflies and chrysalis.
Syzygy in spirit as sympathy in the impetus,
Synergy  in serendipity makes symmetry seem ubiquitous.
Flummoxed, I fell face first flying into fellowship,  
Feeling fusion in the furrows of my fingertips,  
Figure this,  mistigris,  implement mirrors  for the synthesis,  
Taking root  in the underground,
This is censorship on stimulus.  
Kaizen from the get-go,
How did silence ever get gold?
Climate of the  biome discernible by  petrichor,
Some of my greatest allies are people I've never even met before.  
Mumpsimus with metaphors, metatron or metamorph,
A mess of Mesozoic memoirs  drowning in a reservoir,
Reserve my right to write a mire of a  message board,
Desire an empire of satire to conquest; explore,  
Buyers,  sellers,  best befores,  
Crying out to be adored,
The expiration estimation rivals rivals' primal repertoires.
Rhymes like mycelium,  climbing up the  parapets,  
Embrangled mosaics interceding abstract arabesque.