This is a poem of a girl. A girl who is so cliché, that she needs to write angst-filled poetry to keep herself conscious and her thoughts free, but is too hipster to believe it. A girl who is too freckled to be fair, too fleshy to be flirty, too conspicuous to be classy, too prominent to be petite, but too small to be seen. A girl who’s piercing blue eyes absorbs everything and regurgitates emotions like a tampered slots machine—excessi vely and noisily. This is a poem of a girl who is so over-stimulated with color, texture, love, and life that the numbness in her head is a pink eraser. A girl who was brought up to have opinions and dreams as long as they kept her on the path to perfection, poise, and parenting. A girl who is experienced enough to know the difference between sorrow and guilt, manipulation and cowardice, hysteria and hyperventilation but is too naïve to know why certain boys are a bluish green, why math is a bafflement, and why ground up chili peppers in dark chocolate ice cream isn’t everyone’s favorite food. This is a poem of a girl who salivates at the mere thought of classical music, couture fashion, and feminine heels. A girl who breathes in culture like a caterpillar inhales hookah smoke. A girl who Alis volat propriis (flies with her own wings) but ultimately plummets to nosus decipio (Let’s just cheat) because her humanity held down her Heredity. A girl who thrives on music of every variety: as long as it can paint out her emotions in front of her. This is a poem of a girl who is so acerbically witty and harsh that she could unarm Napoleon but is so vehemently protecting that Mother Theresa herself would be awed. A girl with an attention span of a fish, short-term memory like sea foam, thoughts that outnumber armadas, and a bad habit of dehydration. This is a poem of a girl who talks but shouldn’t, speaks but doesn’t, and who is so badly burnt by the enticement of affection that her wallflower camouflage is now charred ashes around her stubby toes. A girl who has such infatuation that she could pin Lust against the wall and make Passion jealous. A girl who wears red lipstick because she knows it will keep a man’s gaze for 8.2 more seconds than with chapstick and the 50’s will never grow old. A girl too nervous and traditional to make the first move, but too strategic and over-analytical to lie back and forget. A girl who loathes the word mamihlapinatapai because it describes her every circumstance since the day she befriended the purple-brown boy who thought her personality tasted of Raspberry ice cream and to this day she still can’t pronounce it. This is a poem of a girl who needs a bed so crowded and protected with blankets and pillows that her monsters can’t penetrate her mazed-up mind. A girl who drinks tea with her lips, and philosophy with her soul. A girl who can’t spell the alphabet backwards but can make great mnemonic devices. A girl who can’t tie ends together because she doesn’t want to leave anything unsaid but whose tangents are kite-strings. A girl whose sentences are distracting fences in front of her literal eyes but doors for her mind’s eyes. A girl who has Synesthesia but keeps it quiet because of the condescending kids in kindergarten who called her a freak, and a liar. This is a poem of a girl who thinks about Death and whether he is a snatching thief or just the ferryman. A girl who dances with her eyes shut, her heart open and her toe-socks on. A girl who will clean her room at 2 am because she can’t handle the sight and the night is too lively for sleeping anyways. A girl who wears her heart not only on her sleeve, but on her chest, open as a blushing book playing poker with hockey players and still winning a game. A girl who’s emotions are kept in a Tupperware box and left in the refrigerator but if you shake it hard enough the lid just might pop open

It is full winter now:  the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

From the shut stable to the frozen stream
And back again disconsolate, and miss
The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;
And overhead in circling listlessness
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,
Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack

Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
And ***** his wings, and stretches back his neck,
And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

Full winter:  and the ***** goodman brings
His load of ******* from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet,—the spring is in the air;

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)
Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose
The little quivering disk of golden fire
Which the bees know so well, for with it come
Pale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

Then up and down the field the sower goes,
While close behind the laughing younker scares
With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
And on the grass the creamy blossom falls
In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,
That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons
With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine
In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed
And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,
And violets getting overbold withdraw
From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!
Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock
Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.

Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,
The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns
Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture
Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations
With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,
And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind.

Dear bride of Nature and most bounteous spring,
That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,
And to the kid its little horns, and bring
The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,
Where is that old nepenthe which of yore
Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!

There was a time when any common bird
Could make me sing in unison, a time
When all the strings of boyish life were stirred
To quick response or more melodious rhyme
By every forest idyll;—do I change?
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?

Nay, nay, thou art the same:  ’tis I who seek
To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek
Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare
To taint such wine with the salt poison of own despair!

Thou art the same:  ’tis I whose wretched soul
Takes discontent to be its paramour,
And gives its kingdom to the rude control
Of what should be its servitor,—for sure
Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ‘’Tis not in me.’

To burn with one clear flame, to stand *****
In natural honour, not to bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,
The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb,—
Were not these better far than to return
To my old fitful restless malady,
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?

Nay! for perchance that poppy-crowned god
Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed
Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.

And Love! that noble madness, whose august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs,—alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy,—O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.

My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,—
Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow
Back to the troubled waters of this shore
Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now
The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,
Hence!  Hence!  I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.

More barren—ay, those arms will never lean
Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul
In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;
Some other head must wear that aureole,
For I am hers who loves not any man
Whose white and stainless ***** bears the sign Gorgonian.

Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,
With net and spear and hunting equipage
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,
But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell
Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.

Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy
Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud
Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy
And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed
In wonder at her feet, not for the sake
Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!
And, if my lips be musicless, inspire
At least my life:  was not thy glory hymned
By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon,
And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son!

And yet I cannot tread the Portico
And live without desire, fear and pain,
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago
The grave Athenian master taught to men,
Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,
To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,
Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,
Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse
Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne
Is childless; in the night which she had made
For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed.

Nor much with Science do I care to climb,
Although by strange and subtle witchery
She drew the moon from heaven:  the Muse Time
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry
To no less eager eyes; often indeed
In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read

How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war
Against a little town, and panoplied
In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,
White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede
Between the waving poplars and the sea
Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,
And on the nearer side a little brood
Of careless lions holding festival!
And stood amazed at such hardihood,
And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,
And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er

Some unfrequented height, and coming down
The autumn forests treacherously slew
What Sparta held most dear and was the crown
Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew
How God had staked an evil net for him
In the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim,

Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel
With such a goodly time too out of tune
To love it much:  for like the Dial’s wheel
That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon
Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes
Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.

O for one grand unselfish simple life
To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills
Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife
Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,
Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly
Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is he
Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul
Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty
Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal
Where love and duty mingle!  Him at least
The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom’s feast;

But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote
The clarion watchword of each Grecian school
And follow none, the flawless sword which smote
The pagan Hydra is an effete tool
Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now
Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?

One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!
Gone is that last dear son of Italy,
Who being man died for the sake of God,
And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,
Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour

Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or
The Arno with its tawny troubled gold
O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror
Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty
Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery

Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,
Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell
With which oblivion buries dynasties
Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,
As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.

He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,
He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,
And now lies dead by that empyreal dome
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air
By Brunelleschi—O Melpomene
Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies
That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine
Forget awhile their discreet emperies,
Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine
Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,
And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower!
Let some young Florentine each eventide
Bring coronals of that enchanted flower
Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,
And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies
Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes;

Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,
Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim
Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings
Of the eternal chanting Cherubim
Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away
Into a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and clay,

He is not dead, the immemorial Fates
Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain.
Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!
Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strain
For the vile thing he hated lurks within
Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.

Still what avails it that she sought her cave
That murderous mother of red harlotries?
At Munich on the marble architrave
The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas
Which wash AEgina fret in loneliness
Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless

For lack of our ideals, if one star
Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust
Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war
Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust
Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe
For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy,

What Easter Day shall make her children rise,
Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet
Shall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyes
Shall see them ******?  O it were meet
To roll the stone from off the sepulchre
And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of her,

Our Italy! our mother visible!
Most blessed among nations and most sad,
For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell
That day at Aspromonte and was glad
That in an age when God was bought and sold
One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,

See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves
Bind the sweet feet of Mercy:  Poverty
Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives
Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,
And no word said:- O we are wretched men
Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen

Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword
Which slew its master righteously? the years
Have lost their ancient leader, and no word
Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears:
While as a ruined mother in some spasm
Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm

Genders unlawful children, Anarchy
Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal
Licence who steals the gold of Liberty
And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real
One Fraticide since Cain, Envy the asp
That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp

Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed
For whose dull appetite men waste away
Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed
Of things which slay their sower, these each day
Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet
Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street.

What even Cromwell spared is desecrated
By **** and worm, left to the stormy play
Of wind and beating snow, or renovated
By more destructful hands:  Time’s worst decay
Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,
But these new Vandals can but make a rain-proof barrenness.

Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing
Through Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the air
Seems from such marble harmonies to ring
With sweeter song than common lips can dare
To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now
The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow

For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One
Who loved the lilies of the field with all
Our dearest English flowers? the same sun
Rises for us:  the seasons natural
Weave the same tapestry of green and grey:
The unchanged hills are with us:  but that Spirit hath passed away.

And yet perchance it may be better so,
For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen,
****** her brother is her bedfellow,
And the Plague chambers with her:  in obscene
And ****** paths her treacherous feet are set;
Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!

For gentle brotherhood, the harmony
Of living in the healthful air, the swift
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free
And women chaste, these are the things which lift
Our souls up more than even Agnolo’s
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er the scroll of human woes,

Or Titian’s little maiden on the stair
White as her own sweet lily and as tall,
Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,—
Ah! somehow life is bigger after all
Than any painted angel, could we see
The God that is within us!  The old Greek serenity

Which curbs the passion of that

hand slaps shoulder knee rhythmically that’s called hamming the bone sitting on a street curb singing making up lyrics i got a transitor sister loves cossack named jake he rides Cherokee chopper all he’s ever known is hate he’s going down underground where a man can be a man wrestle alligators live off the land ebb flow i don’t know racing chasing hair-pin turning at 150 miles per hour downshift to 3rd spread the word sweet sour naked flower touching skin deep within defies all sin with a grin speed speed speed all i need i’m getting off coming on you tawny scrawny bow-legged pigeon-toed knock-kneed Don Juan Ponce de Leon Aly Khan all wrapped up into one going to have ******* good time good time tonight i feel like an orphan mom and dad seem so far away tonight i feel like an orphan you make me feel this way hand slaps shoulder knee rhythmically hand bone hand bone

Odyseuss drifts job to job construction worker office assistant waiter whatever he does not understand how road to recognition works continues showing portfolio to art dealers but they react indifferently he does not know how to attain notice in art world begins to suspect there is no god watching over souls instead he imagines infinite force juggling light darkness creation destruction love hate Mom and Dad insist he can earn respectable income if only he will learn commodity futures like cousin Chris Mom says you can work down at the exchange and paint on the side a part of Odysseus wants desperately to please his parents he considers perhaps Mom is right for the time being maybe build up nest egg it seems like sensible plan he wonders why Dad and Mom never speak about money how to save manage they treat the subject as forbidden topic Odysseus has no idea what Dad or Mom earn or investment strategies Odysseus is about to make serious mistake the decision to get job working at commodity exchange needs deeper examination why is he giving in to his parents what attracts him to commodities trading is it Chris’s achievement and the money? does Odysseus honestly see himself as a winning trader or does it simply look like big party with lots of rich men pretty young girls is that where he wants to be why is he giving up on his dream to be a great artist does it seem too impossible to reach who makes him think that? is he going to give up on his true self? he halfheartedly follows his parent’s advice begins working as runner at Chicago Mercantile Exchange several friends including Calexpress disloyalty for entering straight world commodity markets are not exactly straight in 1978 clearing firms pay adequately hours are 8 AM to 2 PM over course of next 6 months Odysseus runs orders out to various trading pits cousin Chris rarely acknowledges Odysseus maybe Chris feels need to protect his image of success perhaps in front of his business associates Chris is embarrassed by Odysseus’s menial rank and goof-off attitude maybe Chris senses what a terrible mistake Odysseus has made

Chicago suffers harsh winter in February Roman Polanski skips bail in California flees to France in April President Carter postpones production of neutron bomb which kills people with radiation leaving buildings intact in October Yankees win World Series defeating Dodgers in November Jim Jones leads mass-****** suicide killing 918 people in Jonestown Guyana in December in San Francisco Dianne Feinstein succeeds murdered Mayor George Moscone in Chicago John Wayne Gacy is arrested

darkness descends upon Odysseus his heart is not into commodity business more accurately he hates it he loathes battleship gray color of greed envy he resents prevailing overcast of misogyny he meets many pretty girls yet most of them are only interested in catching a trader it is rumored numerous high rolling traders hire young girls for sole purpose of morning ******* remainder of day girls are free to mingle run trivial errands commodity traders typically trash females it is primitive hierarchy Odysseus bounces from one clearing firm to another then moves to Chicago Options Exchange then Chicago Board of Trade on foyer wall just outside trading floor hangs bronze plaque commemorating all men who served in World War 2 Uncle Karl’s name is on that plaque Daddy Pat bought his son seat hoping to set him up after war Uncle Karl’s new wife wanted to break away from Chicago persuaded him to sell seat move to California Uncle Karl bought car wash outside Los Angeles with Daddy Pat’s support Mom and Dad encourage assure Odysseus commodities business is right choice they promise to buy him full seat on exchange if he continues to learn markets they feel certain he can be saved from his artistic notions the markets are soaring in profits cousin Chris is riding waves a number of Chris’s friends are sons of parents who belong to same clubs dine at same restaurants as Mom and Dad Odysseus is not alpha-male like Chris Odysseus is a dreamer painter poet writer explorer experimenter unlike Chris who has connections Odysseus starts out as runner then gets job holding deck for yuppie brokers in Treasury Dollar trading pit Odysseus holds buy orders between index and middle fingers sell orders in last 2 fingers arranged by time stamp price size in other hand holds nervous pencil he stands step below boss in circular pit in room size of football field full of raised pits everything is traded cattle hogs pork bellies all currencies gold numbers flash change instantaneously in columns on three high walls fourth wall is glass with seats behind for spectators thousands of people rush around delivering orders on telephones flashing hand signals shouting offers quantities every moment every day calls come in frantically from all around world space is organized chaos sometimes not so organized fortunes switch hands in nano-seconds it is global fiscal battleground rallies to up side or breaks to down side send room into hollering pushing shoving hysteria central banks financial institutions kingpin mobsters with political clout daring entrepreneurs old thieves suburban rich kids beautiful people pretty young females abound big guns **** in same air stand next to low-ranking runners everyone flirts sweats sneezes knows inside they are each expendable Odysseus is spellbound by sheer force magnitude he feels immaterial only grip is his success with girls it is not conscious talent he grins girls grin back Chris’s trader friends recognize Odysseus’s ability they push him to introduce girls to them it is way for Odysseus to level playing field he has no money or high opinion of himself he simply knows how to hook up with girls

1979 January Steelers defeat Cowboys at Super Bowl Brenda Ann Spencer kills 2 faculty wounds 8 students responds to incident “i don't like Mondays” in February Khomeini seizes power in Iran in March Voyager space-probe photographs Jupiter’s rings a nuclear power plant accident occurs at Three Mile Island Pennsylvania in May Margaret Thatcher is elected Prime Minister in England in Chicago American Airlines flight 191 crashes killing 273 people in November Iran hostage crisis begins 90 hostages 53 of whom are American in December Soviet Union invades Afghanistan 1980 in November Ronald Reagan defeats Jimmy Carter one year since Iran hostage crisis began

he meets good-looking younger girl named Monica on subway heading home from work he has seen her running orders on trading floor she is tall slender with long dark brown hair in ponytail pointed nose wide mouth innocent face she confides her estranged father is famous Chicago mobster Odysseus recognizes his name they talk about how much they dislike markets arrant disparity of wealth between traders and themselves Odysseus says i hate feeling of being so disposable worthless Monica replies yeah me too he tells her if i was a girl i’d ******* myself to several handsome generous traders Monica acknowledges that’s an interesting idea but who? how? which traders? do you know? he answers yeah i know exactly who and how Monica says if you’re serious i’m in i have a girlfriend named Larissa who might also be interested i’ll call Larissa tonight following day Monica approaches Odysseus at work agrees to meet at his place after markets close that afternoon Monica and Larissa show up eager to learn more about Odysseus’s scheme Larissa is petite built like a gymnast giggly light brown hair younger than Monica he lays it all out for them cousin Chris and his buddies the money ******* both girls are quite lovely he suggests they rehearse with him he will coach them on situations settings techniques girls consent for 4 weeks every afternoon they meet at Odysseus’s place get naked play out different scenarios he shows girls how to pose demure at first then display themselves skillfully fingers delicately pulling open ***** spreading wide apart buns working hidden muscles he directs each to take up numerous positions tasks techniques then has them switch places he teaches them timing starting slow gradually building up rhythms stirring into passionate frenzy having two mouths four hands creates novel sets of possibilities one girl attends his front while other excites his rear he positions them side-by-side so he can penetrate any of all four holes he stacks them one on top of the other many other variations after reaching ****** several times making sure to reciprocally satisfy their eager needs Odysseus dismisses girls until following day finally after month of practice Monica and Larissa feel confident proficient primed Odysseus arranges for girls to meet with 2 traders through Chris most traders have nicknames Twist who is hosting event is notoriously wild insatiable on opening night Odysseus behaves like concerned father Larissa and Monica each bring several dresses and pairs of shoes Odysseus helps them choose suggests Monica ease up on make-up he styles Larissa’s hair instructs Monica to call him when they arrive again when they leave he requests they return directly to his place Monica wears hair pulled back in French twist pearl earrings sleek little black dress black stiletto heels she stands several inches above Odysseus Larissa wears braided pigtails pink low-scooped leotard brown plaid wool kilt just above knees brown suede cowboy boots he kisses each on lips then pats their butts warns them to be careful mindful Monica winks Larissa giggles more than an hour passes as Odysseus sits wondering why he has not heard from girls suddenly reality hits he does not want to be commodities trader and certainly not a **** this is not how he wants to be known or remembered Odysseus wants to be a painter and writer Monica and Larissa are good sweet girls whom he has misguided he calls Twist’s place Twist answers Odysseus asks to speak with Monica when she comes to phone he questions are you all right Monica answers yes we’re fine we’re having a fantastic time why are you calling what’s wrong he explains you were suppose to call me when you arrived i began to worry i think maybe this whole arrangement is a bad idea i want you to call it off and come back home i don’t want either of you to become prostitutes i love you both and don’t want to be associated with dishonoring you Monica says it’s a little late to call it off but we’ll see you when we’re done kissy kiss bye Odys another hour passes then another he frets wondering what they are doing after 4 hours as he is about to call Twist’s house again doorbell rings Monica and Larissa both giggling beaming Odysseus can spot they have a coke buzz Monica announces you should be proud of us Odys we got each of them off 2 times we left them stone-numb and tapped out the girls open their purses each slaps 5 hundred dollar bills unto table Monica says this is your cut Odys we both got a thousand for ourselves he replies i can’t touch that money we need to sit down and talk Monica demands no talking Odys take off your clothes he insists i’m serious Monica i’m never going to send you out again Larissa claims there’s no turning back for me i had too much fun Monica  pleads come on Odys we’ll be good we promise now take off your clothes Twist and his buddy never attended to our needs i’m ***** as hell Larissa where’s that little bottle of dust Twisty handed you

Chicago Monday night December 8 1980 Cal and Odysseus sit at North End they're on 4th round feeling buzz the place is lively adorned with holiday decorations Cal says you’ve changed Odysseus questions what do you mean? how? Cal says the commodity markets and your cousin and his friends they’ve changed you when was the last time you painted Odys? are you dealing coke Odysseus looks Cal in the eyes answers they’re so ******* rich Cal you can’t believe it one drives a black Corvette Stingray another a ******* Delorean anything they want they buy girls cars clothes condos boats yeah i’m dealing coke to Chris’s friends it’s my only leverage remember the Columbian dude Armando we met at tittie bar? i score from him and keep it clean Chris’s buddies pay up for the quality i don’t remember my last painting maybe the black painting i never finished after breaking up with Reiko Lee a girl falls off bar stool crashing to floor at other end of bar Cal says Odys, you better play it careful you’re messing with the devil got any blow on you suddenly bar grows quiet someone turns up TV volume they watch overhead as news anchorman speaks slow solemn camera pans splattered puddle of blood pieces of broken glass on steps to Dakota Building Cal looks to Odysseus John Lennon has been murdered Cal waits for Odysseus to say something tear rolls down cheek Cal glances away stares down at floor they drink in silence

sometimes you look at these people and think:
is it better me drinking whiskey, or is it better treating
them ontologically as zoological specimen
                                                  and worth of caging?
i think that the Aristotelian awe-principle
for the practice of philosophy was
overly-exaggerated with dues
that consider science, i think that science
confiscated the emotional
imprint of philosophy that's bound to awe
and said: willcommen unto die phobia-realm...
which i still ascribe to postcolonialism...
  the times' propaganda say:
             arachnophobia is perfectly suited
to match-up to a billionth remark of Islam,
which is why i find Islamophobia so weird...
   arachnophobia consists of only one spider...
minding the phobic in Islam?
                          it's not a case of one spider...
it's a case of spiders...
                             they can't reason with
the Big Brother opportunism, which exists...
turning the blind eye won't help...
  it will simply aggrivate such people...
and using this language has created such
frustrations... correctly? aggravate,
dance of vowels. phobias aren't big, they're small...
miniscule... tell people that something is
small when it's actually big enforcers
a postcolonial past more so...
   i see these children like the psychotic reaction
to a prophesy kindred ot Harold II's slaughter
of the innocents...
                  they're there to edorese someone...
      after all: who gives a **** about these people?
                                                         ­  (endorse)
the psychiatrist gets paid, the mental health nurse
gets paid... why would they give a **** in a way
that says: i wasn't paid for this bollocking!
  maybe up in Manchester... but down here in London,
they don't buy disguises, you're
labelled Romanian: you're bound home where
you could have been a plumber but are reduced
to a straitjacket because: some ******* said
you didn't **** her... Philip Collins and hey:
welcome to paradise.
                        down 'ere in Loon-town you get
your money's worth...      
                   i wish they took care of me...
   silence pays... you get your cringe's worth of ****
to the Kilimanjaro's worth of calling
               bottled crema-foam on a phallus
an anorexia... as i see it: anorexia in Freudian lingo
is an objection toward treating ****** artefacts
in culinary terms... means that paradox
of having a cake and eating it too...
                obviously you'll sexualise problems...
i think anorexia is a question of making
          ****** parts culinary aggregates...
                i'm not jotting: girl, aged, 16, ***-starved..
i mean in general... making ****** objects
equivalent toward a culinary status for a care
to make them more appealing in being ******...
the anorexic might start thinking: so i **** it,
and don't eat it?   penguin clap for an icecream cone!
ruffian yoga minus the slippers and the seal clapping...
the loudest revision of applause: i can guarantee....
cos the flippers were wet... hence the additional
aquatic acoustic.
                    this is very much akin to that quantum
theory of: tornado at coordinate a.,
         and a butterfly as coordinate b.,
          i can see anorexia as a substitute to sexualised
preferences in making body-parts partially edible...
            i see **** i think of the cow's ******-pouch / pillow...
    i don't know, maybe because being in my 30s
i can still fake arousal when looking at it...
       i am not the original alienist... some martian
took my title role...
          but i can understand anorexia as a way to rebel
against putting potato mash and a steak and a few
veggies with the same duty nod as one might put
a ******* object into one's mouth and having to
a Werther's Original suckling tactic on it and
never attach a bone to it, i.e. never eat it...
      anorexia by my standard is verily sexualised...
   you put something into an open space and
it's almost a trans-transgender movement...
      which is why i find the transgender "curiosities"
obstructs in art... post-transgender occupancies
           are not reserved for the easily pleased...
anorexics are such people...
             this is sexuality confused with dietary requirements...
this isn't a circumstance of pronouns politicised
and exploits of modern medicine...
                   i do tend to abuse seafood
whenever i am cringed by the suggested floral pattern
whenever i dare not see the benefits of cesarean...
and i just can't see islamophobia fitting the irrational
rationality of other conscripted phobias...
          poor choice of Greek to be honest...
                      i think they're referring to:
a subtler suggestion, minus the crusading empowerment
that's yet to be honed on...
                        well **** yeah...
once you've actually a philosophy book,
   you'll become immune to any writing advice...
                you'll actually become immune
to advice for writers.... bhy writers... because you'll
realise their opinions are disputable and therefore
disposable... because they forgot that the one thing
that democracy hates... is its subversion,
                     art is the foremost stealth-seeker of
despotism in democracy... because it simply loathes
plagiarism... art is despotism in democracy...
               and it knows it... it's just too "shy" (aah...
wee wee poo poo) to admit it...
                 from what i learned from athos?
the best advice? is to not give any advice.
                    athos? alex dumas, the three musketeers.
the moment you finish a philosophy book,
a creative writing workshop and a quote by
Hemingway will seems as nothing but a bad dream -
these quotes come from people who abhorred
the mere concept of spelling, due and through
it being an "inconvenience"...
this is from people who suggested you were always
an incapable narrator without a daydream to
escape into... these writers began sounding like
your english teachers...
              then again... is sexualising problem better
than abstracting them? personally, and
without due approval: and all the more happy for
such a circumstance having been presented for me...
            we know the sane are too numerous
because they are allowed to make too much sense
of their dreams...
                     i contend anorexia, not as an eating disorder,
but as a disorder of a culinary aversion toward
          sexualising non-culinary objects in culinary terms...
or adding cream to the phallus or melted chocolate
to the ****...
                 i find that certain culinary objects are
oversexualised...
   and this is the norm: that extends into what
quantifies as the norm, for the norm is always
a quantifiable parameter than a qualifiable
      exchange, since an exchange never appreciates
     a qualification, or a grocer's worth of norm
for a conversation of two quid's worth of earning
equates to 20 tomatoes...
    we have assumed to know it all
whereas we are congregating in a plughole
     of close proximity prefixes, i.e.
re-: reflect, reflection, reflexion, reflex,
  reiteration, reimagining, retraction, reaffirmation...
    it's a tsunami of language / lounging with too
many images... it's "lounging" with too many images...
it's the proximity of prefixes... twinned with
the opportunism of the genus of synonyms creating
a deaf-shaft of faking rhetoric...
     i still placard the whole circumstance
a dance of vowels, or the unforced deviation of
keeping up an aesthetic....
                     no, i can't claim schooling,
because i don't want to claim being indoctrinated...
     and perhaps my Freudian is a little-bit
copper-wired / ageist...
                  but isn't food for the anorexic
  a bit like turning a ****** object into food
          for the ennobled aggregational stereotype?
the jokes aren't jokes for anorexics...
  the cucumber is doubly manifest
                         as both edible, as both sexually
arrogant... and thirdly as "inspiration" for
an architectural project...
                      oh **** fame... little albino blondie
can **** on my testicular cancer for all i care...
               and say the bulge was: like
******* on a cowish ******...
                                      i like puppets anyway,
cos i'm a bit laxed in that way...
                         for all the things that might be
given, of the few things that can't be translated
from house or car, or a wife and 3.4 children statistic:
personal integrity.
        obviously certain people can only hum along
to the achievements of a zenith's worth of a house
and a car and a dog...
                            personal integrity is almost too much
for them, such "essential" components of being
a human rather than doing a human reaction
       later involve the cliche of the ultimate gamble...
and we all know how humans love to gamble...
well... few ever manage to gamble the stake of:
a leap of faith... and we all know how Nolan's inception
         ends...           that's me seeing the film a few years later...
      so how does man, the gambler fair
   when he's asked to gamble with the odds
  leap ratioed against a stumble?
                                      numbered is that 10:1?
it's just fascinating that vowels are the sole assured
                        proprietor of "dyslexia",
or as i care to mind: even with a language proficiency...
and tongue-tied waggle that's excusable for
anyone ready to write something down.
      i can appreciate being an individual,
but i can't celebrate it... i'll only utilise my individuality
to create a new plateau, a norm, the most
distinguished liberalism of my individualism;
     i will only utilise my individuality to create a new
norm - and anything that comes against it:
can burn in hell.

The sound of the pouring rain from the roof woke me up.

I got myself a chair in the patio of our house. I sat there comfortably, sitting in silence for a good whole minute.

I closed my eyes, letting the sound of the pouring rain immerse into me. Imagining myself getting soaked, as if I really am in the middle of the pouring rain, drenched, and laughing carefree in the distance.

"Being outside is nice huh?" I heard a pleasant voice behind me. I let my eyes stay closed for a moment, letting the cold wind meet my face to wake me up. I also welcomed his words, nodding at him with acknowledgement. I was then met with a chocolatey steam; he prepared us two cups of hot cocoa.

"Figured you're a bit cold." His voice sounded raspy, sleepiness still evident in his tone. I turn to him as he got himself another chair close to mine. He looks up a bit, seeping the rain onto his porcelain-like skin. He doesn't go out that much to get some sunshine as to why.

I hummed absentmindedly, warming up to his presence. There was a small smile across his lips, his eyes warmer than the hot drinks he have at hand.

I mirrored his smile, getting my cup from him.

"I kinda like the cold feeling but I wouldn't want to waste your effort." A chuckle escaped my lips, and his crescent-like smile appeared before me.

He drank from his cup as I sipped on mine, letting the vibe from around me flood my senses.

I love these little instances he would think of me. Slipping a thought into his tasks, gestures that show that he does take effort in remembering things I love. Like how I prefer hot chocolate over tea in rainy days, and how I love seeing his smile on early mornings. Even as he loathes waking up and moving off the bed so early. Oh how I love this man before me.

And we sat there in silence, side by side, letting the sky pour out its rain. Our cups at hand, the aroma of the cocoa steam over our senses, full to little to none, with the cold wind howling a bit in the distance.

This went on for an hour or so; I still couldn’t wrap around the idea of how much I love these instances. I had always found comfort in him between our silences and exchanges of glances. Just in him in general; he’s my blanket, my safety— the personification of home. My umbrella; my shade to my blazing sunny days and cover to cold rainy days. I looked over his broad figure from the back, I sigh in contentment.

And as if he heard the drizzle in my heart, he gave me a faint smile; a radiance just enough to soften the hues all around us. But just enough that he stands out amongst the drizzling rain over the sunlight peeking through the clouds.

I could see the raindrops wash over the dewiness of his skin, and it looks like it's starting to show signs of stopping. But I just want to stay, stay out here a bit longer.

Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes, --
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur nor hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accouterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost.

The pain. 
The agony. 
The tenseness of your body. 
The rage. 

Everything inside is burning. 
Everything raging inside. 
Everything out of control. 
Everything inside is chaos. 

Your body is mad. 
Your body is crazy. 
Your body is weak. 
Your body is terrified. 

To cry alone. 
To lay alone. 
To pray alone. 
To die alone. 

Rage going crazy. 
Rage is on fire. 
Rage is mad. 
Rage is taking over. 

Bliss is sweet. 
Bliss is perfect. 
Bliss is rare. 
Bliss is fleeting. 

Fear is hateful. 
Fear is terrible. 
Fear is common. 
Fear is there. 

Weakness taking over. 
Weakness fighting for you. 
Weakness dying inside you. 
Weakness is you. 

Fighting inside consumes you. 
Fighting outside loathes you. 
Fighting everywhere reaps you. 
Fighting is you. 

Failure isn't an option. 
Failure is a path. 
Failure is in us all. 
Failure is imminent. 

Leadership is in us all. 
Leadership is dangerous. 
Leadership is for a good soul. 
Leadership isn't meant for all. 

Goodness is a great thing. 
Goodness is an uncommon thing. 
Goodness is hard to find.  
Goodness is easy to make. 

Brokenness is my thing. 
Brokenness makes you stronger. 
Brokenness builds you up. 
Brokenness defines us all. 

Happiness is so amazing. 
Happiness makes us better. 
Happiness makes us wake up. 
Happiness is all we need. 

Love is a wondrous being. 
Love is only a rarity. 
Love will fill your soul with goodness. 
Love can make the worst the best. 

For us all we shall be happy. 
We will all be respectful. 
We will all be happy. 
We will all fail. 

The key is to accept some defeats. 
The key is to be all you can be. 
The key is to disperse from bad. 
The key is to embrace the greatness.

There are three versions of this poem. only one of them is available on the internet. This first version is from the New Yorker in a 1941 issue. It is the earliest version and the one that is quoted all over the internet.

To My Valentine

    by Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oaths,
That's how you're loved by me.

The next version is the lyric of a song from the Broadway musical "One Touch of Venus" (1943) by Ogden Nash, J S Perelman and Kurt Weill. Nash wrote this lyric. It is not on the internet that I could find. I got it from the sheet music.

HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

As a sailor's sweetheart hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a wife detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than a hangnail hurts.
I love you more than commercials are a bore,
And more than a grapefruit squirts.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As a bride would resent a blessed event,
That's how you are loved by me.

More than a waitress hates to wait ,
Or a lioness hates the zoo,
Or a batter dislikes those called third strikes,
That's how much I love you.

As much as a lifeguard hates to swim,
Or a writer hates to read,
As Hays office frowns on low cut gowns,
That's how much you I need.


I love you more than a hive can itch,
And more than a chilblain chills.
I yearn for you in an ivy clad igloo,
As a liver yearns for pills.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As a dachshund abhors revolving doors,
That's how you are loved by me.

The third is from the book "Marriage Lines: notes of a student husband" It was published in 1964 and contains a revised version of the poem with a much different ending. This too is not on the internet. I got it from the book.

TO MY VALENTINE

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or an odalisque hates the Sultan's mates,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than commercials are a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you truer than a toper loves a brewer,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I love you more than a bronco bucks,
Or a Yale man cheers the Blue.
Ask not what is this thing called love;
It's what I'm in with you.

A breadcrumb I am - the morsel of my old dough,
     a piece of chewed bread rotten, missed near a toe,
shredded by the sons of righteousness and “normality”,
     entombed I am under the carpet to fulfil “morality”.

Mum added the yeast for me to grow, as well as flour,
     Hoping my crust would golden as a vivid live flower,
She sprinkled little salt into me, to know the grimes,
     Sugar too, for life brings out the salt to eyes, at times.

Dad poured the water, to soften toughness uncalled,
     For man is kind too, not merely clay masked, walled -
And above all, they added affection and compassion,
     They wanted me to satisfy mineself, not one’s ration.

Into the oven, 9 minutes, under fire: I show colors,
     The warmth turned the heart warm for all others;
I am left to rest, to harden the shell and eternal body,
     To be perfect as ma and pa wish: not adverse, shoddy.

But the stale, unpuffed, unfresh bread of this world,
     covets but loathes what is good and not yet twirled,
It wishes for me to inhibit mold and evict dignity,
    Mais allez, étrange moi, expose me not to malignity.

The least of their gurgling sounds puncture heads,
     And the weakest of their advice the spirit dreads;
The making of me is the capacity of mine flexes,
     Your ingredients suit not me, mortals and sexes.

Days yearn for you, not this battle of complexes:
     You, mine old dough who suddenly “complex” is,
My parents baked me on low heat nice and gentle,
     And they sear me with words not for me, mental!

Know you: Pita, Kmajj, Brioche, Shrak, or Baguette,
     Bread is bread, could be different, but it is no threat.

Curls.
Lengthened, stretching
Auburn curls.
Winding around the delicacies
Of profound life.
Growing incandescently
In a newfound, unsound method.
Vibrant with innovation,
Yet in the same instance, arid.

Questionable.
Irresistible.
Undefinable.
Desirable.
Allego­rical.
Many are awe-struck by this oracle --

She loathes her curls.

Barely Walks.
And does not sleep

day squinting
night in trance;

Moonblinked


& Anomie doesn’t speak 
What she thinks
Until she drink
Apart; life projector spreads in sheets




Anomie not loveable
so off she goes
with dogs in sheets
that bark and bones

& in the padded womb
zaps milky-Light
synthetic-filtered-bright
A spotlight for the bees
Getting Drunk between her Knees

Confusion explodes confetti
disorientation takes the plow
*** the only how
An ******; or a fake hopeless meow
She lives in mental corners
watching window borders
They push in; she falls out

Brand new day
Teeth on pillows crack
Anomie's mind
has to react
She's fast to split-
Spit out a rebuttal
method witty-tactix kit

No one tells her time to go
But when Bee's belly full
She-goes - Self-loathes
Morning Glories still shriveled in their pods
They own the glory of her story and her song

Hiding in sarcastic retreat for clean feet
under ***** water bathes
wipes off the meat

Not your friend
She's trouble to love
The dirtiest dove

Anomie is naked and she's hated
Take away the curtain glove
eye slit under sunlit
She recovers

Don't judge
it's all her love
but you ****** Anomie anyways
just because
The Thrill

melancholy blanketed the whites
scarred voices muffled by
a ****** mind.
an avalanche stuck in my soul
severer than a bee at a forked road
   how confused!

red-cheeked petals and afternoon birds glare
    in confusions at the footsteps :
unbalance, shaded, muted!
the green umbrella's warm, so scorchingly cold!
all embittered, by solemn beams of the soulless sun.
     their eyes widen,
     for they had never seen such lone,
for such lone, rare, is forbid to the sons of nature,
never belong to happy child's arms,
that dreams in a mother's charm.

grieving droughts in the air and grass,
no dews, why!,
   yawned the madden, soporific rabbit
Ah, so wild.

the windless noontime cross, my quivers stopped, mild.
lashes waxed, blacken like a coal,
  mind stuck in a haze, or maybe a threatening maze.

stiffness of the air injected to my nostrils
into my white tongue they will soak, like perfumes to a clothe.
Selene will gaze angrily at this and say,
      why no, it shouldn't be in there!
the midnight orchids waver and frown.

soon the frothing dreams peter,
but the bolded letters in a white board stay,
my chair stays.

creaks of an abominable burden became a din.
The smudges of grey-white dust I smelt
hover gaily in the air of pompous breath.
    spellbound by the stagnant languor,
mazy, in hallucinations of the heat and homesick.
    I sought the fount of hypocrisy and vile,
my hiding nonchalances rosen
(towards a flock of friends)
and loathes to an abominable sun frozen
(I wished it to die!)

Tilted to the windows,
I saw nothing, but fatal secrets of a heart rosed
like window dust to a nose.

Lizbeth holds the dress against her. It's new, her mother had bought it for her. The cloth is smooth and soft, but she doesn't like it. She looks at the dress in the mirror inside the wardrobe. She puts the dress down on the bed and takes off the dress she is wearing and lets it drop to the floor, kicks it out of the way. She picks the new dress off of the bed and put it on and pulls at the hem to pull it down fully. She twirls, looking at the dress and how it looks as she twirls. The colour's all wrong; the hang of it she loathes. It falls beneath her knees; too far below. She lifts the dress until it comes above her knees. She twirls again. If only Benedict was here, see muses, if only his eyes were here looking beside me. She lifts the dress higher and smiles. Mother would never approve of that length. She lets the dress drop to the given length. Boring. The material is old fashioned, she thinks, ******* it, pulling at the hem. The dress she pointed out to her mother while shopping in Midhurst was shorter and more colourful and didn't have silly bows at the back. Her mother didn't like it. It would make you look like a ****, her mother had said, like one of those tarts on that pop music show prancing around semi-dressed. She hadn't thought her mother had watched the 6.5 Special Show, but she had. She twirls again and looks in the mirror for any saving details of the dress, but there aren't any. The dress is drab and she will not wear it; she'll put it at the back of the wardrobe and forget it's there. She takes it off and lets it fall to the floor and stamps on it, then kicks it away. She sighs and gazes at herself in the mirror in underclothes and bra. Where is Benedict when you want him? She muses, putting her hands on her hips. Probably on the farm; working in the milk sheds weighing the milk or clearing out the cowsheds, as he did on weekends or after school. She had managed to get him to this room once while her parents were out, but it was to no avail and nothing happened. Her mother is downstairs preparing lunch; she can hear the pots and pans being used; a radio playing some classical stuff. She picks up her old dress and puts it back on. The new dress she hangs on a hanger and puts it at the back of her wardrobe and shuts the door. The old dress, black with red flowers, is becoming small and tight. It reaches just above her knees now and her mother said it was not decent to wear any more, but she wears it and loves it, even if it is tight and holds her firm. She walks the length of her room like a model, swaying her hips, hand held aloft, head tilted. She flops onto her bed and throws out her arms and looks at the ceiling. To think she had Benedict here on this bed that time and nothing happened; God how frustrating. There is plenty of time to think of boys, her mother had said, you're just thirteen, why when I was your age I was playing with dolls and skipping with a rope. Lizbeth hadn't played with her dolls for years; her skipping rope was at the bottom of the wardrobe unused. She sits up and looks at her room. The record player is on the floor by the window; an LP of the Everly Brothers in on the turntable; the sleeve is on the floor next to a cup and saucer, partially covered by soiled underclothes. She was a lazy girl, her mother said, too lazy for her own good. Her father(when he was home at all) said nothing much except how far he had travelled and how many orders he had managed to obtain. A girl at school( in a higher class) had given her a book with illustrations about *** with orders not to let other see it. She had gone through the book umpteen times(mostly gawking at the photos and illustrations) and trying to put into practice what she had read there. The book is at the bottom of the wardrobe in a brown paper bag tied with string( just in case her mother snooped around.) She wants *** with Benedict. She has tried to get him to perform many times, but he is reluctant, makes excuses. She doesn't want other boys. She wants one boy. Benedict. The book has an illustration what the boy has to do and the girl also. She has studied it so many times it is printed on her mind. There is also other illustrations about other things which she finds a bit distasteful. If her mother ever found the book, there would be hell to pay(providing her mother didn't drop with shock). She sighs. Closes her eyes. Embraces herself. Kisses her arms; pretends it is him, his lips kissing. She opens her eyes and stares; he is not there; he is missing.

losing thoughts to the margins in
some great depression of creative
outlet. taking inked works from a
revered Shakespeare born of the
Moorish states, filling out cata-
combs of this one's entombed
thoughts. and pondering Paris
of some earlier century, how
those writers flocked together.
how this one loathes his current
centuries other writers.
and these, are we, birds of a feather?
flocking, so to be better caught
by twelve-gauge scatter shot?
perhaps we are of a generation
lost, with blinders grown thru years.
expats stranded in a sea of comp-
lacancy in isolation with warring
souls raising higher parapets for
safety? this one's soul may have
raised too high fortifications,
forcing attrition upon the inhab-
itants. this one's soul may have
slaughtered the others for fear
of a low-cat staring up to
the eyes of its King. and
lone heart-beat echoing off
solid stone walls built of mortar
mixed with sweat and tears from
desecrated - of the desolated - and
now forsaken culture only a
quarter-century out. this one's
dogma consisting of self-martying
psychopomps pre-proclaiming ..
     'I went out myself into
     an immortal body, and
     now I am not what I was
     before. Now born in mind.'
this one's canonized martyrs only
seeking migration and division.
seeking the Kepigori for hopes of
retrieving knowledge lost - placed
without qualm of forgetting - the
ancestors bore unto still setting
mounds of clay mixed blood. and
when finally set, when finally full-
formed, when finally upright and
springing forth the common know-
ledge which was taught once in
truth. and, now breaking in thought
while this one's hours rot, while this
one leaves an abrupt end.

His words crash around us, his miserable dark dampening everyone’s light. Your blue eyes roll high, then low, letting his hanger catch on your shoulders. I protest, claim love and want hope, but he’s well prepared; bible, violence, and stereotype in hand.
  At first, he locked his anger up tight, disguised the resentment, fought the archaic nature of his values, the great expanse of his hatred, hidden. He kept it in, fought it, failed to understand it. Finally, internal battle lost, he started leaking. Any hope for happiness killed by a diet of frozen pizza, polish sausage, and spaghetti westerns. He respects men who don’t respect women, loathes anyone who dares to think or feel more than necessary.
His eyes shift, and a creeping moustache has begun above his upper lip, framing a mouth spewing misunderstanding. You say: He makes everyone miserable. He says: Its all the cigarettes and alchohol they’ve been using. You shake your head, knowing an argument only spreads the contagion and inflames the rash.
   I forget, ask him how he knows so much about things he’s never done.  “You don’t have to try it to know,” He replies, the creeping moustache more and more evident. I roll my eyes, lay back and listen as he preaches theories  about women he’s never known, never had. How many times can he fail to realize he’s no better than anyone else. He preaches God and Christianity, but hates more than anyone, has no hope, or faith, or love, and lacks any shadow of compassion. He’s filled with violence and anger, yet claims to follow a God of love.

   He’s not tough, or hardened, or experienced, he’s afraid. Afraid to love, to lose, to understand, to hope, to accept, because it means a change.  It means growing up, throwing out comic books, drawing mor than Batman, finding friends who are real, feeling the pain, understanding the gravity, and embracing it all.

Some would say mysterious

I say dark and devious

from experience previous

He loathes strong women

doesn’t value their opinion

treats them as minions

He hides from my presence

doesn’t like my essence

petrified I guess

I find this hilarious

I’m just gregarious

and think he’s precarious

I should take it as a compliment

he finds me a worthy opponent

thought fills me with merriment

John Mann
Well meaning and average
Hard working and normal
Accumulates much.

Accumulates wealth
Accumulates knowledge
Accumulates self respect
Accumulates an identity.

Confident in his knowledge, and
If you do good, you will get good
If you do bad, you will get beat
Reward comes from work, and risk
And self respect.

Mann is self motivated
Self educated
Self respected
Self sufficient
Self made.

Yet Mann
Self doubts
Self loathes
Self harms in his mind.

Mann is in an everlasting kingdom
Yet lives in a self destructing world
And lives a self depreciating life,
But with an everlasting God
Who has a multi-faceted and a many sided wisdom
Mixed with love from an everlasting power...

...the cocktail mixed by God.


God calls this cup, "glory"

Why ?.

He doesn't always tell
But He always knows
It always works...

It works deep
Hard
Is an incisive scalpel ,
Yet most powerful,
Past finding out.


One night,
A black night,
No moon to reflect the sun's light
A place where he has never been
A place where he has never seen
A place where no one else has known; they who criticize,
Where accumulated knowledge has no answer
Where accumulation of experience brings confusion,
Brings a great horror of darkness.

There is no one there
Except Mann and Jesus.

John Mann uses all his strength
And his accumulated wealth
His accumulated knowledge
His accumulated self respect
His accumulated identity
His self education
His self respect
His self sufficiency
His self made mental creations
To defend himself against this vulture.

But Mann gets exhausted in the fight
The exhaustion bring doubt to his doubts
Brings questions to his accumulated knowledge
He is misunderstood,
Self respect starts to dissolve
Identity is stripped away...

Mann feels naked.

His fig leaves of self sufficiency is not sufficient
He doesn't respect his self respect
His education was in the mind; not in power
His identity was misplaced
His wealth of knowledge made him bankrupt.

God's cocktail begins to work
For John Mann must now rest to survive
He must stop.

He screams , "let this cup, this cocktail pass...
Isn't there a better way ?
An easier way
More convenient ?
That gives respect" ?. 

In His sleep
He breathes
Rests
And realizes...

There is nothing left...
Only Jesus.

His Kingdom
His knowledge
His wealth
His sufficiency
His position
His rest
and more powerfully, His identity.

John Mann starts to see
He is not God's counsellor, and
That the questions of God become more satisfying than the answers of the world.

This was a most expensive drink
It cost Mann everything;
Yet gave him everything.

This cup is now always full
Instead of always needing to be topped up.

When the vultures come, from the externals
He just sits and smiles,
Resting in work of the black night and the cup he drunk from 
For now Mann's source is not self
But that which has been imparted deep within,
Deep has connected with deep.

Mann is forever altered,
He doesn't look the same
He doesn't feel the same
He doesn't think the same
He is not the same.

He walks with a limp
He sings with his heart, not his head
He talks with a new tongue
Poison no longer harms him.


He loves what he used to hate
He hates what he used to love,
Now his prayers start with thankfulness
Gentleness has smoothed the hard edges,
Through grace glasses he sees differently.

From the black night,
The uncomfortable cup,
The inconvenient cocktail of night and horror...
Is the stripping process...
Brilliant, clever, loving and eternal.

Always works
Always powerful
Always better in depth and richness.

Now Mann doesn't need external virtue
For John Mann was stripped of himself
And now possesses another life in exchange,
Internal.


The day breaks
The night is far spent,
John Mann is now ready for the next time night comes,
With power.

As I lay on my deathbed in the hospital room,
The awareness of my soon doom,
Exudes feelings of gloom,
But more so it ensues feelings of regret,
So many stupid decisions which in my heart beget
Feelings of indecision, unaware of what is next.

The disease that’s ripping me from my life is unknown,
All I know is I had to leave my son and wife at home.
Soon I’ll have to leave from the life I’ve known.
I remember my last words to my son,
Looking sympathetically I looked at him pathetically,
And said so empathetically, I loved him,
So death could see.

But it doesn’t matter, because talking doesn’t work,
So I’m patiently waiting for the coffin and the hearse,
And then all a sudden I started coughing and it hurts,
Then I pressed the button which was calling for the nurse.

The door flew open
But it couldn‘t be her,
Instead I got the black hooded death,
Known as the Grim Reaper.
He approached me, I got cold, time froze,
His hand hit mine.
He got close to me and told me, that it was my time.
Filled with frustration I couldn’t control,
Snatched my arm away from his hand so cold,
Looked him in his eyes, because it was time he was told,
He’s not taking any more lives and it was my time, I spoke.

“If you reap what you sow, why reap souls?
You’re the creator of none, but you can take them and run?
How is this so, the keeper of the souls,
Reaper who sold nothing he sowed?
He only stole, and away he stowed ,
Until he bestows them to the one below.
And we all know that he has no soul.
So your envy controls and even he knows
In heat he chose to fight those he loathes.
Despising those whose demise,
You own.
Spiting foes, despite inside he knows,
That it was he who has chose,
The life as Reaper of Souls.”

After I finished my speech,
He roared with laughter and disbelief,
Then, up I leaped and for his sickle I reached,
Chopped off his head, which fell to his feet.
Now death is dead, just grim from defeat.

But to my surprise, death did have a soul,
And into my body, the spirit arose.
The Grim Reaper’s hood then covered me whole,
From the inside to out my body became cold.
I was no greater than he, reaping what I did not sow.
I was just as Grim,
And now the new Reaper of souls.

If my poem arouses you then I know
I am doing something good
I am the poet,
the narrator of this poem
I write what I feel,
I say what I like
Somehow, I captivate my audience
Who I am, and who you think I am
or what you think of me.
Have no bearings  
on this poet's work

Therefore, I am who I am,
without the smearing
I am from this Century
where I am free from *******,
my words spread in a nanosecond,
across the internet,
however, my lip are sealed
my poetic spirit guides me:
until it’s time to orchestra
an forgettable vogon list of  poems
with my unique vernacular

I can take you the mountain top and
Make you believe it’s easy to climb
I can make you reach for the star,
Knowing that it’s unreachable by far

Life has a way of making you fall on your behind
The language I use, it far too complicated
Because I celebrates life with poetry
As well as I loathes it

So what’s your question?
I probably knows the answer

On a rare starry night
dead silence prevailed,
with them all unsheathing
their very own plight.
The moon turns envious,
as she appears in sight,
for it is but a torn kite
before she in her own right.
She turns her records on,
echoing in the silence,
let the humming commence,
all are safe and all are sound thence.
As they all sink in the tune
She confides in the moon,
in the planned secrecy,
she confesses how she
loathes his absency,
even more than
she loathes to admit this.

The mighty grizzly bear
Waiting by the waterfall
Watching the crashing waves
Listening to their mystic moves
The first salmon leaps,
Just to make sure it doesn’t run into a famished bear
It’s mind panics, as it realizes what is happening
The bear’s mouth widens
And clamps down its jaws
Satisfied with his dinner, but wanting much more.

The wolf cries out from above
Depending on the moonlight to show her the path
She’s drifting away, too tired.
But remembers she needs to feed her cubs
She lurks in between black spruce trees
Her sons, closely following behind.
The creatures of the night watch where they run
Making sure they don’t catch the attention of death.
Though she doesn’t realize, the scampering rabbit
Just two feet in front of her
The rabbit is lucky enough to have a snow white coat
To blend into god’s blanket, laid across the land.
Mother wolf isn’t so blessed, for tonight is one more night
Her cubs will have to go unfed.

The eagle
Mastering the art of flying
Swimming in the skies
Looking for a tree, too perfect to live
Skimming the land
Just the perfect tree is all he needs
To sleep on tonight
For the sun is coming down
And moon is rising up
The stars become visible
The eagle is getting worried
But finally, he finds a tree
Swings down and places its claws onto a branch
So peaceful, listening to the wolf’s howl
Like the theme song to his life.
Unlike the “woof” that the same animal makes
It pierces his ears, the eagle loathes it.
Finally asleep, eyes closed.
Dreaming is his favorite thing
A television for his mind.

Sound the horns before the crash of the drums,
Reign forever the promise,
only as long as does not perturbe the ageless splendor of it's denial.
The angry man is vain in his resentment of luxury as he toils,
and so he proceeds in vain of his resentment.
The happy man is foolish in his love of life, forgotten to that horrible heaping part of himself,
sprawled with constricting joints and bleeding that blood,
Pay he luck not to remember.
Always eager was accepted by the Earth.

Always downward impress the power and cascading mountains of the horizon.
Ever so that the dwindling height impresses the speck at the edge of it's microscopic lense.
From what pestle were ground these grains of what the body shivers to behold?
From what tree was made sacrifice and ripped the shreds of this beautiful scenery?
From what point does the needle steer it's compass,
Pulsates the ebb of the magma of power.

The excretions of raw turmoil brews,
Below the vats of anamorphic hell was raised,
And up was risen low on high and behold that it was seen.
The slumber had encroached upon itself,
Flitting it's tail at the flies and leftovers of the night.
The spoils of day at hand make clear the path of the arm.
I am stretched about it's expanse and yearn the pangs of inward loss.
The melting hot aftermath boils my blood dark and red,
I am ready to sanctify these old bones with new fire.
I lurch my eyes upon the stocks and bundles,
I am in love.

Flesh loathes the indulgence of the mind,
masked in the light by its submission.
I have made acquaintance with the tonic of breath upon the bellows of breast,
I met the waves that mirror this and thine.
Well met are they, and I said that it was good!
To the heavens which impress me impress myself!
Know my mind you manifold of high towers!
Know me that lightning had stricken the chapels of your Kingdom, my name in blazing stars.
Know my name to the inextricable folds of your searching rebuttal.
And behold my pride,
erected there with bricks I would bet against mountains.
Was my blood so bold to creep back whence it came?
If not so, then was made slave to my own boldness.
So there it was,
and so wept the Earth for a thousand years.

Tears falter to the sun, and my cheek is dry.
You know me, but what are you hiding?
Amongst the flags of nations the sweat of day unfurled,
There in the depths must be hidden.
Feed me or be refused the exhilaration of my tongue.
Set loose the fruit into my view,
I will do the rest.
Having filled my bucket of what belongs to me, harken to my plea for more,
To the adoption of my whimsy,
flicking fast the worm of yesterday.
I had worms in my thin stomach.
Aside it, the froth of snails had savored,
molding the lowest of all my opinion.
Better is the least of my gripes,
entrust me this day or all days hence I will mock you.
The threat twas modest now cast into hard metal for the shackles of a generation of tender feet.
What had inspired now falters,
I can weep no more.

Love is a thief.
I never asked for my
focus to be stolen.
You never meant to
take it from me, I'm sure,
but its gone now.
I've always said love should be a synergy of
two whole people. Despite this claim, I find myself
newly unwhole. I lust for wholeness.
You cliched me.

Love is a humaniser.
All my life I've been
an alien, grey specimen
trapped and bound in pale white skin.
I've never felt comfortable in this form.
I want to be light, energy, flowing out of here
and through the world
and the stars and all.
Only, you
make me now feel human.
Breath comes easy.
I still yearn for outer space,
but maybe we could go together.
If you wanted.

Love is a would-be assassinator.
It possesses your mind and your fists,
a dark green spirit. It targets wandering
eyes, and it loathes
replacers.

Love is a fear of inevitable "see you later"s.

Love is an all-conquering now.
The past is dead and
the future isn't real
but we believe in those illusions
until we come together.

Love is half-burnt coffee on a dark November morning, as mist haunts the air outside of the old kitchen we inhabit.

When I fingered the thin skin on my left, vein-bulging limb
Where the forearm adheres to the costly little hand
I realized in all my intense ardor for pain
That there in my penitence, self-pity, self-loathe
I am a narcissist.
Laden with self-obsessed sorrow
There is a selfishness in being a dreary,
To feel for oneself,
When others care too much
An aggregation of sympathizing sobs and tears
Too much for an egoist
Who would rather wallow alone
In the orange-tinted hue of twilight turned nightfall
A ray of the luster in all subtle shades,
Can I summon the force to recall
Why I hate myself
Is it not that all despise me for a purpose?
And those who are inept at reasonable loathe
Are marooned in deep shame
That they had degraded themselves for what?
For a felon? Such as myself?
Deep in such sorrow,
Deep in my self-loathe
I have encountered the truth of all fruitless self-regard
I am a narcissist, egoist, one who self-loathes
Who slashes and severs and cannot speak love

There was nothing he could feel, he thought,
nothing but the surging of words blotting his sleeves,
creating marks of what he should've said
yet he never did.

There was nothing he could see, he thought,
nothing but the reflection in the mirror he loathes.

There was nothing there, he thought,
nothing but the menacing screams
of his abandoned self
bouncing off the walls of his home,
pleading to be brought to life.

For a second he thought he was getting benumbed,
like those he senses were just a delusion,
a disguise that he wasn't in agony
for the tormenting hands of reality.

I wish I could whisper
sweet nothings into his ear
But he hates kitch
Loathes sentiment
And besides
He's hard of hearing

I guess I shall look for another night
By which I canst find precious sleep.
Love, who has gone arrogantly from my side,
As though my soul is too old to weep.

I guess I shall wait for another dawn
To think about loveliness again;
I have no tears; nor a lover or friend,
A famine lies in my cold heartstrings.

Ah, but after t'is gracious bliss,
Shall I see another delight?
A delight, like a furtive light in a tunnel
T'at has startled our amorous night.

Ah, and after this pale jubilee,
Shall I catch another sunlight?
My red sun has run out of blue rays
And now is writhing in its autumn,
Faint with dark flaws and decorated agony.

And t'is prayer, be my witness,
Shall vanish the night and die today.
Perhaps all has just been a dead dream,
And let's not think t'is but a poem.
For a poem is real--and not just a perilous fantasy,
A fantasy t'at thinks of him, like t'at of a sweet dream.
And in my dream, he will be Immortal again,
Whom I fell in love with on a November day
And sought to see over everlasting nights.

And t'is prayer, be my listener,
Shall fear prejudice but fight it not;
For it wants to scream, but it screams not;
For it wants joy, but loathes its malicious taste.

And t'is passage, be my guide,
Demands returns but no turning back,
I hath been betrayed, hath I not?
Perhaps my faith shall rot, and be wasted.

I love Him and him and Him again,
But not with this kind of fatal love,
For I want long endurance, and not mere promises,
For I want one land, and not two premises.

I long for Him and him and Him again,
But such cynicism shan't just go away;
Ah, for I think I shan't ever love Him still,
For my love is betrayed and in great peril.

For love is fragile and evil,
Futile, tenuous, and full of sensations.
For love is too dangerous to have,
And yet it's chosen to have me not;

For love is fake and lyrical,
'Tis itself unvirgin at all,
It itself embraces falsehood,
A lame princess and a dire knighthood.

For love is bland and musical,
Quaint, fanciful, and whimsical;
T'at it mocks but forgives me not;
T'at it forgets but loves me not.

For love is pain and pain is love;
A biased sky of pranks and lies;
For love itself is a feral wound;
Unreal, unfelt, and unfulfilling.

For love is but a slimy substance,
T'at burns and wastes itself away in our presence,
Like my Immortal, t'at has gone through me,
And on one occasion sped through my soul
With a mad charm; bland, fishy, and cold.
I look through the rainbows and cannot find him,
As he's left now, the crystals of my dream,
And journeyed to find indignity in sorrow.
He is not in Sofia again today, but someplace away
Whose name my poetry is not g'na say.
My Immortal, who I dreamt of with life and death,
Now has left me torn, in my distant breath.

And who says lovers shall remain,
Whenst I cannot but feel his presence,
The one who has too important an existence,
The one whose chest was my exile.

And who says love shall come again,
Whenst 'tis all about rigorous pain,
And a lust t'at is never g'na end,
In dust and water, in thunderbolts and rain.

And who says love is pure and solid,
When 'tis something t'at my Lord forbids,
Neither caring nor kind nor gentle,
As ****** and futile as the worlds,

And who but says love is holy,
T'at 'tis all about matrimony,
Whenst I cannot even find marriage,
A love t'at lasts, either chaste or unchaste.

And by one day of rain, I hope for love to die;
I shan't be present there to say goodbye,
It has its own summer and pretty lovers;
It needs me not to release its tears.

And one day by the moon, I'll **** love with my hands,
T'at it'll feel terrible whenst I feel not,
T'at I canst count merrily its dying pulses,
T'at I canst throw it 'gainst its own curses,

And one day at dawn, I'll tear and rip love's mouth,
To rid it of its evil false poems,
To stop it from pricking my veins,
To cut its blood into eight dead parts,

And one day by noon, I'll have love torn in two,
Just like I'll rip those lovers' necks,
And curse against them a long drought,
In which they shall hath naught to eat.

And one day by dusk, I'll have love smashed by rocks,
T'at 'tis too dead to climb the cliffs,
T'at stormy saline shall **** it down,
T'at in plain minutes it shall be gone,

And one day by night, I'll have love crushed into stone,
T'at it'll threat me not on its own,
T'at it comes not whenst I am alone,
T'at it shall die by its own loneliness.

And soon at midnight, I'll pull love to the shore,
And crush and devour it to the core,
T'at my hungry heart shall be glad,
T'at end shall all its drowned feelings,

And at dawn again, I'll bury love in my blood and heart,
T'at it shan't live again anyway,
T'at I shall live to torture it,
I shall live more to burn it away.

And by sunrise then, I'll put love at death's stake,
T'at it won't again be able to wake,
T'at it won't again sing a song or say,
T'at it won't cherish any night and day.

And by my life then, I shall swear my heart;
T'at I shall never fall in love again,
'Till I and my soul are torn apart;
'Till my last breath, 'till I've died in pain.

She invested much of her time into something that, in the end, proved to be worthless and a waste of time

She didn’t know where, but she could feel herself moving away from anything that could be beneficial towards her.

She allowed her uncertainty to grasp ahold of her.

Discouraged as she was, whenever she sought, she was disappointed with what she had found.

She feels herself becoming as idle as the worn-out people she loathes.

She doesn’t know what to believe. The external world has a way of disguising too well inner turmoil.

Is it even there?

I have no interest in anything
insofar as a warm pitcher of spit.

there is a lineage of a plainspoken truth
that agonies itself, a slow ticking of clockwork.

all the pubs are filled with
the ugly and the beautiful.
so much the naked darlings,
so much the people writing,
and reading poems wrung dry
like unattended cornerstones.

when the flower dwindles,
the petals begin to shed.
I see people slower than drizzle,
tread the long line of existence.

as I write all words washed away by the shore,
all separated and lonely,
deeply departed as a parting hand of a wave,
all people continue their sameness.

inside me, a well-placed margin
divides flesh and bone.
overwrought the soul, untended to
like drops of water from a spigot left open.

sound of silence like the reproach of fires.
my mother loathes me for my heavy drinking.
my godfathers attenuate the smoke furling
above my brows back to its fetal nature.
somewhere, somebody is making a killing
in front of the billion-blooded.

misshapen. lungs struck harshly by a barrage
of quiet. i can barely keep my soul together
past the horrible billboards of EDSA.
the lampposts, the sun that looks like a lazy eye
magnifying everything that hurt.
I thrive with faces whose existences have nothing
to add me – damage further
I keep working up the old moon’s wane.

we will all fall to the ground,
we will all have our skin scraped out
of the body
and we will hear the paring of the flesh
sifting away from the bone
and it will hurt
like old haunts revisiting us

not because we are out of choices
not out of weakness;
the simple truth that teaches us
to be kind does not have its same potency.
there is an epidemic of death
crawling past hills crunched to the death
by the unrests of horses.

pain sends its
tired battalion of people
lining up across the turnstiles.
the ****** utter
the flimsiest of moans.
the soldiers beat their
wives to the ground with nothing
but bare-knuckled discomfitures.
I fear that soon enough,
what keeps the walls together may soon
touch the end
while I assault the windows

with photographs of slow mornings
reduced to slower evenings.
such falseness teems where
truth should have prevailed.

someone’s time is up
and death strays in the room
proud of its stench championing the perfumes
of boys and girls in the flesh -

we’re all next,
first one to go
finds the impasse all the same.

Fragile Minded,
Gullibility that leaves me in embarrassment,
Causing an obvious departure from my notability.
I weaken as my former friends migrate to someone new,
Forgetting that it is time to move on.

I have struggles to let go from my past,
Nostalgia makes it impossible to achieve,
Those days have been long gone,
But my memory will always cherish them,
Even if they carelessly forget my name.

I'm wondering if my sadness is because I'm moving on from this place,
Or that I'm having trouble giving up the idea of it,
Whichever one my path leads to,
The lost art of smiling behooves me to feel blue.

It's meaningless and useless in regard to my successful future as a man,
But the emotional scarring will always be with me,
Part of me mourns my mistakes and lost notoriety,
But another part of me loathes the other part of me,
As it is someone I never truly wanted to be,
But had to be, in order to survive.

There were as many good times as there were bad,
But the bad times sinfully destroy my chances of retaining bitterness,
I've lost many girls before,
And friends who then became rivals.

Life in these years are like being guided by a safety net,
But the following year the world gets dropped in my hands,
Like a melted piece of clay,
And yet I have to be the one to mold it.

I'm not afraid of being a grown up,
I'm afraid to let go of my youth,
Not matter how petty and senseless these experiences may have turned out to be,
I'll always be me,
The teenager who refused to grow up.

My brain and my mind are a vendetta
truly my Achilles heel
they lash at my soul fiercely
to take refuge is only to kneel
my cries for help are coarse
a slew of inevitable babbles
for the Armageddon loathes help
turning speech and thought into mindless scrabble
my consciousness was exiled from my brain
to my mind it was abandoned
for the benefactor manipulates with perfection
its victims never at random
if i don't repossess them soon
I'm bound to end up in a bedlam
squawking the misfortunes of my odyssey
I'm a poor helpless ***

My heart is full of love,
It’s soft like a rose pedal
Yet my head is filled with hate,
Like a bucket of shrouds of metal.
My heart is warm,
It has learned to let things go.
But my head is cold,
Like a winters first snow.
It never forgets anything,
All the damage that has been done.
The harsh words of  a loved one,
That still pierce it like a gun.
My heart forgives,
It only wants to love.
It’s filled with it,
From the man above.
My brain keeps yearning,
To reach a similar level.
Yet it keeps punishing me,
Like it is straight from the devil.
My heart only seeks peace,
To be filled with joy.
My brain is always at war,
Like the battle of Troy.
My heart forgives others,
It fills my day with glee.
My brain is a constant reminder
It loathes me and betrays me.
My heart will never give up.
I hope it will lead the way.
Maybe my brain will ease up.
I so yearn for that day.