Hippie song circles,
Twist and turn your fate
Show me what's beyond the eye
Taste the absinth and watch the illusions.
Mold me to this earth
And soak me in,
I want to be whole,
I want to be whole again.
Close your eyes and we'll place daisies
In your unbrushed, long blonde hair
LSD, LSD, oh, sweet drugs
Drink my soul and breathe me out as smoke
Dellusions, illusions
Take me back in time
I don't feel right.
Keep me in these guitar kissed
Hippie song circles forever.

I took LSD about five times. That isn't often, but for me it was sufficient. I never had a bad trip. I enjoyed myself immensely. I still remember these experiences vividly. Psychedelics are not like other drugs. They seem to be about something besides pleasure and pain. They don't soothe your agony. They don't help you relax. They neither excite a craving, nor relieve one. LSD intensifies things. But it doesn't really make anything happen. It just brings into the open whatever is going on already. It makes you perceive things you'd otherwise ignore. It's an all-purpose catalyst for the brain. I never had any hallucinations while tripping. Everything I saw was perfectly real. It's just that my senses were enhanced. As I recall, light was streaming everywhere. Colors were more vivid than I had ever seen. Intricate, swirling patterns danced across the sky. Figure turned into ground, and ground into figure. Everything was alive, with a life and will of its own. Objects throbbed and glowed, and writhed in my hands. This was beautiful. It was also disconcerting. I didn't have control. Even the simplest tasks seemed beyond my ability. How could I possibly lock the door, for instance, or play a record on the stereo? But the key slipped into the lock of its own accord. And music boomed from the speakers, all by itself. Things just happened like that. There was no need for action on my part. The world was generous beyond measure. It offered me more than I could ever hope to absorb. The more choices it gave me, the less I was able to choose. When I tried to read a book, even the words on the page came alive. They wavered and jumped around and flashed rainbow colors. Somehow this made them seem richer and more passionate. As for other people, they became transparent. Their flushed faces gleamed above elongated bodies. They looked like cartoon images of themselves. In such a state, they could hold no secrets from me. I knew them better than they knew themselves. The most hilarious part was that they didn't notice my condition. I talked to them calmly, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Meanwhile the world washed over me in waves. A violent energy surged through my body. Its force left me breathless. My nerves tingled from the shock. Spasm after spasm swept through me in a rush. This was the outside, battering its way in. The objects all around me were coming closer and closer. I could no longer keep the world at a proper distance. It pushed right up against me. It grazed my skin. It pressed into my eyes. It filled my mouth, and churned in my stomach and bowels. I felt its alien presence coursing through my veins. I was more than vulnerable. I was exposed. All barriers, all defenses, had fallen. Even the lightest touch was enough to set me a quiver. The feeling was so intense, I could hardly stand it. Life gushed forth in all its splendor. I no longer knew where my being ended, and the world began. My body lay dispersed and scattered everywhere. It had become a vessel for forces I could not name. These forces converged upon me from the farthest reaches of the universe. This was the peak, the high point of the trip. Things were going so fast, I couldn't keep up. I couldn't even keep track of my own state of mind. By the time I noticed anything, it was gone. It had already changed into something else. I was out of sync with the world, and with myself. I tried hard to make sense of this situation. I struggled to focus my attention. I carefully pondered each of my actions. I repeated to myself the story of what was happening. But still I wasn't able to catch up. There remained a lag between events and my awareness of them. This was a riddle I could not solve. My efforts to close the gap only made it larger. Thoughts of all kinds were swarming through my brain. I grasped at them as they whizzed by. I examined them from every possible angle. I worked them over meticulously. I elaborated them into complicated structures. Soon I was thinking thoughts about thoughts; then thoughts about thoughts about thoughts. My mind was caught in an infinite regress. I needed more and more words, to say what could never be said. This prospect thrilled me. It convinced me that I was on to something profound. The secret of all existence seemed to be hovering just before me. If only I could pin it down for a moment... Of course, this impression didn't last. Time and again, it broke up in gales of laughter. The secret was that there was no secret. None of this really mattered. In any case, the trip did not go on forever. Some things are just too beautiful to last. Toward evening, the world gradually settled down. It was with regret, as well as relief, that I returned to ordinary life. Today, LSD continues to haunt me. It lingers in memory, long after having left my body. I don't think it means much of anything. But there's a certain feeling it gave me, that never goes away.

I ain’t got no intimate, ain’t got no stiletto heels
Ain’t got no Lsd, ain’t got no smack
Ain’t got no partners, ain’t got no drill
Ain’t got no slapstick, ain’t got no hanky—panky
Ain’t got no Lsd, no slot to mount

Ain’t got no castrato, ain’t got no crumpet
Ain’t got no conjoined twins, ain’t got no nuns or eunuchs
Ain’t got no whipcord, ain’t got no adoration
Ain’t got no *******, ain’t got no stimulant
Ain’t got no ******

Ain’t got no oscillation, no shags
No uniform, no parts
No smack, no drill
No partners, no peccadillo
Ain’t got no stimulant

Ain’t got no whipcord, no propagators
No titbits, no intimate
I jabbered, I ain’t got no uniform, no hanky—panky
No peccadillo, ain’t copulated till one is blue in the face to have a funny feeling
And I ain’t got no ******

Oh, but what have I copulated, oh, what have I copulated
Let me tell what I copulated and nobody’s going to enlarge telescopic

I got my ***** on my face
My extra—sensory perceptions, my knobs
My ******, peckers and my *******
I got my stuck—out tongue

I got my tentacle, my proboscis
My *****, my *******
My thingummies, my cockles of the heart and my posterior
I got my *******

I got my thingummies, my talons
My ball and socket joints, my forelegs
My hooves, my pincers and my snorker
Got my crest

I got *****, I’ve inseminated cheerleaders
I’ve got bottomgremlins and hacksawhoodoo
And Mephistophelian juggernauts too like you

I got my *****, my pistil
My ESP, my knobs
My vaginas, my peckers and my *******
I got my stuck-out tongue

I got my tentacle, my proboscis
My ***** and my *******
My *****, my ***** and my posterior
I inseminated my ****** sorbet

I got my thingummies, my talons
My ball and socket joints, my forelegs
My hooves, my pincers and my snorker
Got my crest

I got my *****, I got my slipperiness, my *****
I got *****

I wish i could talk in techni-colour.
I feel sorry for you,
If you can't see this.
If can't see, you'll never know it.
That's what death is going to be like;
And oh what fun it will be.
This is reality.
All the wavering and movement
Of everything around us.
And the fact that nothing is separate.
We are not islands,
we are a connected continent,
joined beneath the water,
Of our day to day lives.

All I want to do is trap
words in nets
like butterflies.

It won't make sense.

My feeling... as if by the mere
fact that this is on something so public
everyone will see it.
It must therefore live up
to some standard.

If it were only me...

If Myself were the only medium,
it could never be anything but
the truth.

Don’t tell me it can’t all be equally shared
Don’t tell me elections are fair
Anywhere
I know whose had the power
The weapons to prove it
The world in their hands
And the money to move it
Perpetual profit
New product to cell
Dwellin’ deep in the pocket
Of your lol

So don’t tell me with Twitter you’re not all Obsessed
When you buy every lie presidential address
Comin’ hot off the press
Not so free to inform
A pornhub tuggin’ ******
Publicity Storm
And another blackout
On my people uncovered
Like Firestone burnin’ through natives
Unrubbered

Don’t tell me you don’t have the cure
Or that war
Isn’t waged on the people
To sheeple the poor
To the industry slaughterhouse
Dream factory
Where success is a breath of fresh
Debt peony
I know slavery still puts
That food on the table
And big pharma’s FDA puppets, the label

So don’t tell me dope is what’s making us Dumb
Don’t tell me my God’s not the LSD sun
Or that guns aren’t hired
To desecrate my
Sanctified inner peace
Keepin’ graffiti sky
For my ties to this earth
Are invaluable worth
So don’t tell me my rights haven’t been mine Since birth

Saturated in steely blue clutches, sweating from the 75 degree Georgia night
strung up and washed out with a serpent woman that keeps bringing on the blight
Singing you a song of bliss and blinders.

A big brick red boot on your neck and a green collar that reads The Gardens *****
The Garden takes the taxes tightens up the lead and never relaxes
Hit ya where ya like, the pain is disguised, leather tastes like candy, The Gardens got ya hypnotized.
Your late night camping sight attracts the moon light parasite, that acolyte of appetite, Tonight your the Gardens Delight

You wanna run but she's got those hooks between your shoulder blades feeling like an inexorable **** of silk, smoke and skin.
She gives you every thing you need,
Fountain heads of intemperance and black out nights
Whole streets smelling like grease and charcoal charbroils
Men and women of dexterous lechery, feverous severance, and generous deference
Crystals for your cranium, high altitude dives and the lowest lows.
A cacophony of any entertainment you might want or need, just as long as its seedy.

The Garden keeps blinders on your head to make sure you can't see anything she doesn't want you to.
Try to remove em and the punishment is usually severe.
She might give you the greatest loves you've ever known and turn em to photographs, blot em with LSD and trip you out on memories.
And when you come back to what you think reality is she'll take those photographs and burn em up right in your face and leave you asking if any of it really happened while feeling like it was the realest thing that ever has.
She'll break you and build you up, build you up and break you worse. A cycle of bad things feeling real good.

The Garden will do everything in her power to keep you right here.

But if you can get all those straps and tight leather off, all those hooks and chains.. If you can escape her steely blue clutches,,

You'll finally see how wrong you've been done, and your still gonna want her back in some strange way..
but you might start to heal....
But know this.
No matter where you might run off to,
You'll still be hearing The Garden City call.
That siren song of bliss and blinders.

I would so give a ****,
I'd give you all my time.
I'd give of you my pocket,
quarters, nickles, dimes.

I'd tell you that I care.
Ideas and conversations.

So we can,
but split our hairs.
Ours is but imagine.

But it really doesn't matter
No one really cares.

For you can, but tell a truth.

Or lie with purple die.

A drug that made me
See the truth.

The rot upon the rye.

They can call.
Come now,
Be us,
The rust of sicophants .

With love of self
Such self romance.

For philistines don't cry.

Watery hands
Dripping from my own
Before the mirror.
Juggling with the unseen
Parts of me.

Portraits of the dearest ones
Long dead and gone
They're zooming out
I am zoning out.


--Eleanor Rigby

“Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.”
                                                    ­ George Orwell, 1984* (published in 1949)

Which brings us, of course, to the subject of torture since 1949.
Come with me to the Casbah, Babaloo.
We begin in the 1950s with the French in North Africa,
****** baguettes in Algeria,
Couilles frits, anyone?
Electrodes wired to Mustapha’s *****.
And "Bigeard's Shrimps,” as the bodies were called,
Dumped over the Mediterranean from aircraft,
All things considered a je ne sais quoi,
Though Camus and Sartre gave it a whack.

Then the 1960s: the CIA dabbling in mind-control and LSD.
Later, a Phoenix Program,
Very secretive, sympathies with the Cong required,
Various elders selected,
The village disinfected,
**, **, ** and a bowl of Pho.

Apartheid anyone?
Thirty years of South African terror & torture.
Torment in the townships,
Shaka Zulu gold and diamonds,
De Beers in Swaziland swing.

1971: riots at Attica,
Prisoners abused and tortured,
Rockefeller’s overcrowded slammer,
An upstate New York katzenjammer,
Nelson’s finger on the trigger,
39 dead and counting,
But who’s counting?

The CIA, back in the news in 1973,
Torture chambers under Chilean soccer stadiums,
And the Khmer Rouge:
Those Wacky Cambodians with skull racks.  
And let us not forget the British,
With centuries of colonial experience behind them,
Occupy six counties in Northern Ireland.
Finally codify the imperial process,
The Five Techniques:
Sounds like a Motown group,
Satin smooth colored boys,
But more method than music:
(1) Wall-standing,
(2) Hooding,
(3) Subjection to noise,
(4) Sleep deprivation,
(5) No food and drink.

And there’s a bunch of horrible ****,
We still don’t know about the Argentine ***** War,
And other Mai Lai-like,
****-fest massacres in Vietnam.

How about torture since 1984?
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,
Come quickly,
(www.prematureejaculatorsanonymous.com)
To mind,
As do US-sponsored rendition facilities,
Spread throughout the NATO alliance.
And closer to home, it’s never a dull moment in the 5 Boroughs:
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx and Manhattan.
Take your pick from Giuliani’s Greatest Hits,
Rudy Kazootie’s campaign of law and order,
Not necessarily in that order.
More awful than lawful,
A bathroom plunger rammed up,
The Haitian voodoo ****** of Abner Louima,
While he be handcuffed at a Brooklyn station house.
Or, the NYPD partying like it was 1999.
When in fact, it was1999,
And a curious death it was for Amadou Diallo,
Would-be American citizen from The Republic of Guinea,
(No connection to Italy or Italians),
Abner & Amadou: a pair of cautionary tales,
Either/or reflecting standard procedure for the Po-Po,
Time and time again from coast to coast.
Either/or: poor Abner, no Haitian Papa Doc.
Poor Amadou, on his way home from night school,
When police squeeze off 41 rounds,
Most of them in his direction,
Hitting him 19 times.
Just the facts, ma’am:
Diallo had reached into his jacket.
A trigger-happy police officer yells “Gun.”
A jungle warfare quartet springs into action:
Shenzi, Banzai, Ed & Zazu,
Four equally trigger-happy colleagues,
Empty their weapons.
No gun was found on Diallo,
Only the wallet he tried to pull out,
Containing his Green Card,
4 U.S. dollar bills;
And a laminated,
Credit card-sized copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights.
(I just didn’t know when to quit, did I?
The wallet was there with Green Card and the bucks,
But I made up the part about the Bill of Rights,
Trying to add poetry to tragedy, as usual.)

I don’t have to say much about Rodney King (RIP).
You watched it on TV a hundred times,
And a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Or ten thousand or a million, I suppose.
“Can’t we all just get along?” asked Rodney Glen King.

Last but not least there’s Kelly Thomas (RIP),
Another incidence of police insanity,
It was July of 2011 in Fullerton, California.
Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man,
Schizophrenic, but unarmed,
Beaten to death at a bus depot,
During an altercation with six Fullerton police officers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019225/Kelly-Thomas-Poli­­ce-beat-taser-gentle-mentally-ill-homeless-man­-death.html#ixzz1e­3­4QnHtr

Mervyn Lazarus | Attorney | (www.mervlazarus.com) Police Brutality, Excessive Force and Jail Injury cases | California . . . Albuquerque

Jackie Chiles perfect attorney -YouTube, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpcEietIoxk) Nov 17, 2010 - 13 min - Uploaded by Kroeger22 All the scenes with Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld."Chiles is a parody of famed attorney Johnnie Cochran; both ... www.seinfeld.com

Perhaps the greatest torture of all,
Is that which artists subject us to.
Let us examine the case of Roberto Bolaño:
Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean writer,
Tells a fabulous World War II story,
About a Spaniard--an Andalusian--
Fighting for the Germans against the Russians.
Captured by the Russians,
He is tortured for information.
The Spaniard speaks no Russian,
He knows only four words of German.
The Russian interrogators strap him into a chair,
Attach electrodes to his *****,
Attach pincers to his tongue.
The pain makes his eyes water.
He said--or rather shouts--the word coño.
It is Spanish for ****.
The pincers in his mouth,
Distort the expletive,
Which in his howling voice comes out as KUNST.
The Russian who knows German looks at him in puzzlement.
The Andalusian was yelling KUNST,
Yelling KUNST and crying in pain.
KUNST in German means art,
And that was what the bilingual Russian heard, KUNST.
“This ******* must be an artist or something.”
The torturers remove the pincers,
Along with a little piece of tongue,
And wait, momentarily hypnotized by the revelation:
The word ART had soothed the savage beasts.
So soothed, the savage beasts take a breather,
Waiting for some kind of signal.
Meanwhile, the Andalusian bleeds from the mouth,
Swallows his blood liberally mixed with saliva, and chokes.
The word coño,
Transformed into the word *KUNST,
Had saved his life.
It was dusk when he came out of the building.
Light stabbed at his eyes like midday sun.

So, it’s a fact that I love,
Truly love the simple blunt Anglo-Saxon expletive ****,
****: I pray that while I am being tortured some day,
I have the dignity to scream the word out loud.
And if I am screaming **** at the very end,
When my nervous system finally fails,
When I **** my pants,
When my pulmonic heart and lungs collapse,
Is that so bad?
Is that so wrong?

Do you realize that 1984 came--
Came and went, without any significant cultural hoopla?
The networks ignored it.
As did the cable pundits.
No significant comparative analysis between,
Orwell’s book 1984 and the year 1984,
Was broadcast electronically or publicized in print.
Steve Jobs got it, but as usual no one else did.
Mr. Jobs (RIP) did his best,
To mainstream its profound cultural relevance,
But ultimately failed,
Despite the $1.5 million he paid one of the networks,
To air a one minute nation-wide commercial,
During the 3rd Quarter,
Of Super Bowl XVIII,
January 22, 1984.
Despite Ridley Scott’s astonishing spell-binder,
His 60-second spot for The Macintosh 128K--
Still considered a watershed event,
And an advertising industry masterpiece,
…YouTube it and watch it.  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ji0B98IMo).
See the hammer throwing athlete chick,
See her fling the sledge,
That huge sledgehammer,
Smash into Big Brother’s flat screen face.
Despite Jobs’ global presence,
Despite Steverino’s unfettered microphone access,
Whenever he felt an oraculation coming on,
Despite everything,
He was unable to move the powers that be,
To either hype the book or the prophecy come true.

So, what’s my point? I have two.
First, in April 1984 the estate of George Orwell,
And the television rights holder to the novel 1984,
Considered the edgy Jobs/Scott commercial to be,
A flagrant copyright infringement,
Sending a cease-and-desist letter to Apple Inc.
And the advertising agency that produced the spot: Chiat/Day Inc.
The commercial was never televised as a commercial after that.  
Score: Lawyers 1, Artists 0.

My second point is that in November 2011,
The U.S. government argued before the U. S. Supreme Court,
That it wants to continue utilizing GPS tracking of individuals,
Without first seeking a warrant.
In response, Justice Stephen Breyer (one of the sane ones),
Questioned what this means for a democratic society.
Referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Justice Breyer asked:
"If you win this case, then there is nothing,
To prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24/7,
The public movement of every citizen of the United States.
So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984 . . .”*

My third point,
(Yeah, I know I said two, but *******.)
My third point is that I’m just so ******* angry,
All the time, late and soon like Wordsworth,
(Was anyone more aptly named?)
I am angry about so many different things,
And every day that goes by I relate more and more,
To the thousands of Americans that occupied,
Zuccotti Park and Oakland,
And countless other venues,
Out into the streets.
Across the country.
Around the world.  
I am humbled by their courage and perseverance.
Yet, I am afraid for them.
I am made paranoid by the scope and power,
Of the government,
Of the ruling class that controls it,
And the technology they allow us to embrace,
Technology’s sinister potential,
Now that more and more knowledge and information,
Has been digitized,
Existing only in cyberspace.                                                      ­                                                 
What frightens most is the realization,
That anyone with a word processor,
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.
The scary part is—
Repeating myself for emphasis—
That anyone with a word processor
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.

Does anyone out there give a ****?
Does anyone out there share my nightmare?
Do it to Julia.
Do it to Julia.

create a message
and receive it the same

Whisky, I neglected you
For mushrooms and amphetamines.
For ket and **** and LSD,
And Mandy too, to name a few.

Needn’t I have looked so far
To be the greatest of cliches.
The drugs and raves led me astray.
For writers, scotch is more on par.

Half your bottle drank away,
Half full in my state of mind.
Every sip; sublime and kind,
Every **** a harshened spray.

Now I’m stuck, a drunken haze
Has washed and swept the ways of rhyme.
In its tide is also time,
As by the sun, the night decays.

Whisky, polished, final sip.
Like the bottle, I am dry.
So, I tried, to write not high.
This poem *****. I’m off to trip.

(10/13/12)

At the beginning of “64” - I packed up my uniform
And walked out the door- it was the beginning of
The Vietnam war.
By August of that same year
President  Johnson started the draft
Under protests and jeers.

Then he made it a full scale war
And sent our soldiers to Vietnam shores.
The Beatniks in Greenwich village
With their long hair, beards, and
Flip flop sandals - wrote their poetry
About this undeclared war, and why
Our men were going to those shores.

This created a new generation called ‘HIPPIES”
The hippie generation was groups of protesters
Against everything that they found wrong
The draft , the war , pollution
And loved to stay high with ***, hashish
Coke and acid (lsd) which kept them blasted.

This also created the “ flower children”
Who like the hippies loved to be high
And on certain flowers they would fly.
But they spoke of loving one another
And gave out flowers as a sign of peace
Which to the president was a relief.

They all started painting this “53 Chevy impala”
With the words “ flower power”.
Now the “ flower children and hippie movement
Was in full swing, and everyone was doing their own thing.

They had  Greenwich village under their control
And not one coffee shop would ever be sold.
Every coffee shop had a poetry night
And going there was such a delight.

Then in AUGUST of “69”
The WOODSTOCK festival was on the rise
Over half a million people drove to that farmland
And set up tents , hammocks, sleeping bags and such
And the police found it was much to much
So they had no choice but to see it through
Because there was nothing else that they could do.

The WOODSTOCK  festival had become world wide
And to this day it still thrives.

© L . RAMS

rainshod: oppressive cold winters in pacific nw
tinjesk: Poker-Faced villain
qwiss: Orgiastic non-contact make-outs
repcrevel: Venality on Wall-Street and the Capitol Building
drass: Useful lingerie
pinhoke: Cause an idea or a campaign to sink
ribbacle: A shibboleth of pretended intellect
fuly: auras of lightning on LSD
renvard: auras of synesthesia
plackique: sports memorabilia
ponkoss: beach-dweller
klipfrag: ancient movie footage
skrimch: haunted cities
roerik: kingpin of secrets
wespian: breezy fall leaves
rintinole: covert voyeurism
qaest: a fake life to replace a real one
brumble: fight among drunk people
bilkey: knowledge about the stock market insider information
wreggle: blackwashing history
hoyjoipolloi: free drugs and bubble-gum for every Canadian
qwartion: wicked schemes that involve abortion and clones
flipcrave: switching  drug cravens (tim tebow)
teaboat: to be aboard a flailing vessel before it gets ransacked by reason and logic
sollow: hollow and sadness percolating over a victim
strollow: people evil enough to deserve being alone
chenkenwhich: prestidigitation in fake time travel
glickstorm: a hail of gay ******* rick-rolling
wrikpond: The betting pool aggregate form at any casino
histeriological:someone who understands historical trends
tribance: Prerogatives of esoteric knowledge handed down to native americans
hilswop: changing nearby universities
slore: lore for mentally handicapped people
rigamorhole: the information about where elite people hang out
qazz: gurgling soda down
pleckigger: An agricultural apportionment of land that is rational and logical
Ruby-Tuesday-blues: song meaning
halliformatic: person who goes to heaven
squalorformatic: a person who goes to agony
fitterformatic: borderline on both
syvil: nurturing old people
jeccha: democrat trap
oinslew: a large catholic family
erlap: a short confiment
tawy: chewy and sweet
pordeg: high degree mason that is poor
kallince: shrieking with terror at movie theater
groussaints: best house music
rindkline: best EDM
wrepolis:city owned by musicians
ilkengor: similar military strategies
qwarth: wars fought for vain reasons
bracking nudes: ugly women naked *******
swarp: time warp speed
swarpollock: nonsensical UFO lie
WHOLOGANS: spies that always attend international matches between rival countries that get the best information

I pass back and read late at night
write poetry,
eat yogurt, things I had sworn off and return to with ever more vigor
I am caught in an orbit,
the gravitation is just enough to keep me spinning and too much
to let me go free, I fight it,
I fight it with stolen cigarettes and late nights
and tumbling over and over on a golf course
I fight it with drinks by myself and the purchase of ridiculous items
song lyrics composed on the spot and bold winks across the room
smiley faces and pickup lines to people I should not dare
a fantasy of LSD and the hope I'll see a dragon
so I can finally stop dreaming of them.

The reason on this trip we came
was to forget about superficial dames
chasing money and fame

Our senses piercing through the veils of reality
stuck in a vortex of time and perpetuality
questioning the true nature of reality.

Seeing things for more than what they seem
like how rain resembles life’s intricate themes
and our union, God’s great schemes

Forget the scientific name
and what love looks like conventionally
for LSD means love, serendipity, and dreams

The heart pumps borrowed blood
a celestial transfusion
Banished to terrestrial life
One step from outer darkness

Prophet, Liar, and Revelator

Washingtonians, this Wednesday afternoon, come to the Starbucks on 1600 K Street to become acquainted with some young, interesting, average income level Asian American guys and gals. Instead of meeting Asian American doctors, lawyers, and consultants, you’ll meet Dr. Dre copycats, alcoholic paralegals, and T-Mobile wireless salespeople.

These guys and gals are looking to meet new friends that include: white, black, Hispanic, or any other race of people, just as long as you aren’t a F.O.B. Because after all, they don’t want to perpetuate the stereotype that Asians only hang out with other Asians. Just kidding, we love our F.O.B brothers and sisters! But **** stereotypes.

If you are a Washingtonian who likes drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, stop by and make a new Asian American friend who will provide mixers and match you on a blunt. Please, do not ask these guys and gals for college study notes for Math or Bio, because all of them have dropped out of college to pursue their artistic passions, like: writing a novel about having a white group of friends and being the token who reads Tolkien and likes Toking; playing electric guitar in a grunge, punk, post-emo garage band with your black buddies who like Fugazi and bad brains but ******* hate Green day for selling out; and drawing sketches and painting portraits of the half-Asian girl you’re dating on a wide canvass, but really you’re secretly into selfies and taking photos of breakfast on Instagram.

We don’t discriminate against the kind of alcohol you drink, whether it be wine, beer, or liquor—within reason please don’t bring Franzia or Rolling rock, this isn’t college anymore. Yes, we get it, you’re highly considering attending this group because you’re a huge Haruki Murakami fan and you’re wondering two questions: are our Japanese American patrons also huge fans of the author, and do our patrons behave in a similar fashion to Murakami’s characters like Toru Watanabe and Toru Okada?

First, our Japanese American patrons are huge fans of Murakami and they own books like Sputnik Sweetheart and The Windup Bird Chronicle, but they also think the author often is obsessed with Western culture, in a way that possibly, and seriously possibly transforms him into a Brett Easton Ellis derivative based on Ellis’s American ****** and Glamorama.

Second, no these particular patrons do not behave like Murakami’s characters, because they’re real, living, breathing human beings, and not some fantasy figure or made-up person! But enough of the rant, please come though and let’s have conversations about jazz and talking cats.

While we respect Asian American actors like Ken Jeong and Randall Park, we really aren’t interested in having a lengthy dialogue about The Hangover’s Asian **** scene, or how Park was kinda offensively funny in The Interview. Although Park is awesome in Fresh Off The boat! All we really want is to just drink jack and cokes and smoke Marlboro lights and have conversations about the latest trends in indie rock and Hip Hop culture, and whether Citizen Kane was better than Casablanca, or vice versa.

At the meeting, we will have our guest speaker Jeremy Lin’s college roommate George Park answer questions about Lin, as well as a special appearance by Steve Yuen’s ex-girlfriend Marcy Abernathy who will give us an inside scoop to Yuen’s fetishes as well as his quirky habits. We will also be providing free snacks like LSD Pho noodle soup and Marijuana Mochi ice-cream. On a serious note, we’ll be giving out guilt-free Twinkies.

Before you arrive at the Starbucks, you’ll be getting a name tag and a free A.A.A T-shirt that wasn’t made by little children from China; instead, the shirts are made by Ronald Mai, our aspiring fashion designer whose twitter handle is @thatsmyshirtwhiteman! If you’re interested in coming out to the group our first meeting is this Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Leave your apprehension at the door and walk in with a warm smile, as you’re greeted by an expressionless face. And phoreal if your car is messed up and you require a ride, please call A.A.A’s number at (202) 576-2AAA (we know we’re phunny). Hope to see you there, and if you don’t come, you’re a ******* racist! But seriously come out and meet some cool *** people.

Oh you know
The usual
As

The usual
As
Well- copio

As
Well-copio
us amounts
of

us amounts
of
LSD, Listening

of
LSD, Listening
to the
Doors, eatin

G to the
Doors, Eating
Sum

Doors,eati
ng sum
yummy

ng sum
yummy
kiwi fruit

yummy
kiwi
fruit
with a big

kiwi fruit
with a big
mug of

with a big
mug of
Tea- and

mug of
tea- and
The glow

Tea-and
the glow
from the

The glow
from the
mobile is

from the
mobile is
COZY

but unless you integrate
really do the inner work
not just Be Dazzle your ego
with illumination memoirs

after something
skims your surface
you might go from repping
solfeggio frequencies
to singing, get on my level ***
finger flinging in the face
of head-spun girl wondering
what the **** have I done
got to Ctrl + Z
trapass stuck keys

undo
undo
undo

patterns will reemerge
unless you hack the ****
outta perspective lit up

(be it LSD or other
luminous peaks)

She laughed like a Furbie
With broken voice box
Somehow digital and shrill

(Low bitrate ***** )

All discreet ones and zeros(um) game
I know how to fix her with
Aqueous solution seed
Fry her circuits like LSD
Bring down Skynet
With my ****

lost in the forest
i've misplaced my mind
gone for so long
i can't figure out the time
my eyeballs dilate,
the mind becomes twisted
i'm living in hell
at least i'm consistent

with predatory instinct found
under siege, underground
Birch II, my ward, my home
before I leave pages turn to tome

with rehashed food and smuggled items of variety
cigarettes, chew, and paper clips, decaffeinated life

suicide attempt
breeding contempt
smash at walls
scream at captors
claws of raptors

manic I was, manic I remain, new rage, I am insane

line by line by line
empty words of horror’s sound
with LSD’s aftershocks ringing my ears
and feeding my eyes that hate your normalcy
with all the confused dread I can muster

one word, madness
shaking fool, lost cool
tremolo-plastic-breakfast-spoon
lifting bits of sanity to my mouth parts

Freshly-washed ****-head desires the woman
I left in the real anti-world called home

close my eyes and see my last trip
bathroom tiles explode and cover sink, tub, garbage can, mirror, telephone, and leg-arms
bad trip, but it was better than your unreal world

take your meds now

two-******, bipolar, mixed-manic, one-eyed, living, breathing, copulating monster under eternity’s bed

anger pounding at my ******* coming out as a giant, stinking ****

the them that sit behind the desk
regulate lives of poor inmate crazies
eat their meals and take my soul
others play cards, I write, **** time, **** tension, **** myself, with treatment plans, unreasonable demands in ******-babble B. S. words like suicidal ideation, that doesn’t apply to me, does it?

I want my trip back, I want to live in another place with another face
I want my trip back darling
I want to watch the words explode, I want to watch the tiles grow up my legs again
to watch as paper becomes pen, to bathe the tiles off of my inhuman skin
I want my trip back baby
I want to breathe in prism air where nothing and eternity collide
in spectacular displays of sonic-boom, emotional madness
incredibly---------------edible-------------sadness

I see the me looking
from inside LSD’s mirror and want to rejoin
the missing-hated-wasted-rain-forest
blackened by man’s desire
with silk-rose-petal-eye-bomb-shell

LEAVE!
leave me, for what I did or did not do or have or think or say or what

style means nothing more nothing less, you know?

it takes confusion to produce effective illusion
to produce base desires feed the fires
smoky the bear at the demon’s lair
with broken feet suckle the ****
of unused, aggressive, possessive MADNESS!!!!!

natural-organic-popcorn-hulls in rotted-bleeding-tooth-socket-decay-pain
elusive means justify idiot ends, so dig the pick into the hole in my jaw
as I scream the insanity away from my ears and into your eye-ball-socket-hole-skull-spot

clipped fingernail
package in the mail
next time I won’t fail

sleep, sleep won’t be my lover tonight, her arms won’t touch my shoulder
I won’t feel her finger-touch-tip or rub my ***** on her ******
I want my trip back
love me, love me, love me
for love or money, for emotions mistaken, for idiot sensation, for all the things you do for me, for my insanity’s sake

my world slowly fills with unbearable ills, chemical need so deep it erases my soul

feet sore from pacing
door to door to door to door

on and on seconds bleed out minutes, bleed the hours, tears bleed out the poison self-inflicted, pen bleeds ink onto paper

thoughts coagulate and scabrous emotions take

The night was long
And the stars were singing softly as the moon danced around them
I could feel the air
Entering my body
I couldn't feel my feet touching the ground
Maybe I was flying
Flying in the air
All alone
With my acid thoughts
My mind was exploring
My eyes grew
And felt my eyes were turning like the  earth
I saw myself in a reflection
I barely recognized myself
Music was becoming a part of me
And I understood how it worked
Water slowly dripping down my ribs
A waterfall in my body
Who was I
Only my heart knew
... Morning came
And the sunrise was beautiful
I could almost drink it....

Check back soon to resume and consume
every tight-lipped, slack-jawed fool in the room.

See, it's all what you know
as the fires start to grow
and the future burns slow.

Keep your eyes on the ceiling,
and your antenna feelers feelin',
for when your senses stop reeling,
you will finally start believing.

Kick-back to the basics,
not too far from the basement,
and close enough to show
that **** really isn't basic.

It's another mid-west, ******,
******-up freak show.
Another evening drinking whiskey
with the seedling's peep-show.

So, it's time to relax and relapse
into acidified broken synapse.

The lights keep flickering
and the couples keep bickering:
“*****, I am not above homicidal snickering.”

I steer clear of these diversions,
and wander past the sermons,
just to chew up all the crooked talk
and spittle out inversions.

I shovel mockery to hypocrisy,
pin-***** the empty *****
whose passions lack predicates,

and in the background, I'll be complexifying my medic-kit:
ketamine, morphine, ecstasy;
marijuana, mushrooms, LSD.

Watch those ******* jitter-bug college *****
procreate while sloppy drunk,
but keep an honest eye
on the flies that will rise above –

then fall back down in existential angst, like:
“Dear God, why must I be free?
Oh, God! Why is every universal eye on me?
I'm just another acid war veteran,
sneakin' through these gutters
with pestilence and bitter sin.
When they reach the promised land
of golden clouds and holding hands,
I'll be underground with the slugs and the spider band.”

Yet here I sit, sick of sippin' poisons with illiterates.
So, let the skies fall and the buildings crash,
as you stand on the wall with a fist full of cash.

I'll be on the front lawn,
picketing for dawn,
while the night around me slowly ambles on.

Betwixt of any sense beyond experiment, I sat on the bed between shifts and out-whipped the bag of Concerta given to me by Matt, o'timey hard-worker-soft-souled Matt, who felt, perhaps, that I had a legitimate reason to explore this legal avenue of pharmaceutical mind-manipulation for reasons he would rather fathom in retrospect. I popped a single pill, and voilà, the legal-cocainnabinoid began to flow between my red and white blood-cells playing cops and robbers.

It is when I feel nostalgic that I feel the need to write. I remembered, at work, with all those strange everyone-elses faces gliding past (and myself annoyed at the general lack of positive reception "Hello there!" "h .. i ." is one sour-looking businessmans sultry whispered reply.. once, a woman told me 'look, I know that you are told to say hello at the door to everyone who enters, but I don't like it. I just want to shop in peace, and no, I don't need any help' and without case to what my managers could say, I somewhat-hissed-back, "if you don't want to be greeted, then perhaps you shouldn't walk into big private corporate establishments to find the books you're looking for," and she shrugged and muttered some ****-talk under her breath and glided upstairs to find a copy of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead or Machiavelli's The Prince to validate her bitter attitude, I bet, the sour witch), my time spent living in that backwater Esso suburb of Port Coquitlam back in 2011 when Occupy Wall Street was still a hungry potential, not yet bogged down in procrastinates over herbal teas and talk of chakras and enlightenment and how the typical Wall Street businessman probably never had a real ****** and hence had never truly satisfied the energies now burnt-to-crisps inside his Root Chakra or whathaveyou, where I believed I would find a better, more interesting world further from the musty-smallness of forest-drenched rain-drenched Powell River, only to discover I may be right outside my front door, but that's EXACTLY where I was, no further than right outside my front door.. I mean, for Goddaskes, I was born in Vancouver, this isn't a culturally-shocking move to New Delhi or Kathmandu--- and so on and so forth is how I once berated myself thru constant cycling thoughts of no-escape, I, a little walking hell of devils-advice and panic disorder-- the Great Big Port City of George Vancouver only succeeding in further overwhelming my already delicate attempt at false optimism thru self-voided Buddhist smalltalk as I travelled from bookstore to bookstore reading Alan Watts in shady attempts to save-myself but only digging my walking grave even deeper into the soil of feared-insanity.

Port Coquitlam itself was a small-town wearing a business suit and holding hands with an angry father forcing him to college for computer networking as it's the most economically viable market at hand.. at first, I did not see this. I saw my idolized imaginings of Vancouver (never Port Coquitlam), the shining water-reflected skyline of my past and present legacies, where my father once snorted ******* with a bohemian group of someones, and my mother tried LSD just to prove to her friends how bad it was (and lo and behold, what a terrible time she had!), all this Otherness, Strangeness, yet still Connected-- an Otherness with which I was taken, left to whisper into empty Campbell's cans so-as to speak with the city from a distance, two children growing older together 'til my inevitable return and our agreement to share costs on rent.

I returned, as planned. I returned, and found that old-best-friend hating the Homeless and loving the Rich-- spending time with the Peppy Plutocracy whilst enslaving the Middle Classes (first Letter Capitals to Assist YOU in Grasping my Anger with All Five Thumbs) and the horrors I saw in my already delicate state, all the starving addictives slouching-inching down the sides of ***** old walls, the only thing missing a smear of blood to follow their corpseish collapse, all just footnotes to history, footnotes to wealth and progress-reality, all footnotes with no shoes O my God O my Goodness and O Canada, Our Home and Native Land!

It hurt like it did, but I felt powerless and gaited. Felt like it were just as well me (*** it just as well is), I, in Vancouver.. *Great Big Port City of George Vancouver.. saw the end-stretching-cold-legs of Nietzsche's Dead God.. those in cutthroat-black-suits armed with calculators and wives could afford private jets and yearly trips 'round our globular strangeness whilst others had to beg and berate and debate and break-down to get a crummy old bagel and a past-due mostly-empty jug of old milk and perhaps a 'side of fries with that order.'

What crushed me so much about this playing a Witness to God's Death (or, not so much a 'witness' as a relative asked to the morgue to identify the body) was my intuitive grasp that this is the poverty of the First World.. this is not as bad as it gets and on a scale of 1 to 10 this would only be a 3.. all the poor and displaced of Eastern Europe.. Moldovan families indifferent to the whims and what's taken.. someone called me a Socialist and said I would later grow out of it as 'reality' angled its rearing-ugly head to chop me smithereens like it did so mercilessly to the Poor and Irrelevant.. I looked at them and still look at people like them and think 'that is evil unsure of itself.. that is evil unaware... that is evil and evil is  evil to watch..' the Evil Act being the use of Money to purchase the world, demanding us all to pay royalties (mass royalties) for the privilege of life so afforded by them.. (the Sons and Daughters of God first stabbing their father then stabbing themselves then locking away and ignoring their young brother with cerebral palsy '*** he could never be armed with a calculator, nor wife)..

I learned, thru practice, to cope with these evils as laws-for-now. Coping did not mean tolerance, nor did coping mean agreement.. I had charged at life expecting hugs and bottles.. what I got was hugs and bottles.. all while I watched over the shoulder of whoever embraced me and saw young-others doing the same, where are the hugs and bottles..? they sank into the nether as the crowd ebbed past, ignoring the cries of pleading love, pleading love over time so traumatised as to distort this love (so inherent and implied in the Heart) into confusion, confusion into loss, and loss into hatred.. as the crowd ebbed past, the crowd ebbed past..

After 3 and a half months, I moved back home to Powell River.. the soggy ol' calm of what I already knew.. the warm arms of the rest, the warm arms of water-reflected sunsets.. and I got my hugs and bottles.

but was this really a happy ending?

. i'm not against psychedelics... ****... syringe in excesses of LSD... but memory is also a psychedelic drug... albeit there is no excess of colors, and it's not b & w, but sepia tinged... i like the notion of a sepia curtain... maybe that's why i have my head ******* on so tight, and a hardened heart, to be able to write this... while others write, having drunk as much as i have, like kindergarten 5 year old, children!

i'm not here for the 80+ years that don't matter,
lying lethargic, semi-conscious,
demented, in a care home bed
where i'm abused for ******* my nappies...
i'm here...
   for the 16 or so years that really matter...
hence?
   i like to watch the metamorphosis of skin...
i never understood women who
cut and wait for some"magical" revelation
of internalized pain...
   those four stumps worth of knuckles
upon which i exhausted the amber of
a cigarette burning?
   second look?
      nice to see the many layers of skins,
prior to, and not including the bone...
     liver damage, whatever, bring it on...
i'm waiting...
  i can't, but i'm hoping...
to sow unto my skin the faint tincture
of a gangrene tattoo to
boast ink in Frankenstein green...
mingling with tongue numbing
yuck of bruise plum, and a dash of
Vishnu blue...
       oh i'm waiting: i can't wait...
   death is such a farce:
like i explained to my mother...
  you know... sometimes you're after
the pain: since you've reprogrammed
yourself, to enjoy it...
                  no, no *****-whipping
wimp diarrhea -
   i want the "furry" liver...
              i'm waiting, and i'm waiting...
and...
            nose-bleeds are past my worries...
i've had one in school, during
english class...
    no problem...
  can you believe it?
my neighbor's cat, Bella,
an albino climbed roofs, climbed into
chimneys...
   was knocked by a car,
presumably...
               and is in need of an operation,
might have one of her hind legs
amputated...
but she's also anemic...
so she might die during the operation...
poor ******, she...
                    heterochromic to boot...
      the sort of beast, which,
if being a Saudi Sheikh...
you'd love to put an Afghani burqa
over...
            Fonz... eeeeeeeeeee...
why bother with a counter argument?
the European variant of the niqab is
already in place...
sorry... the women you see in movies
or *****? ever see the same quality
shopping for underwear?
      not once...
                 it's such a sad little world
out there, jealous men...
who can't afford keeping
            castrato men for their, "harems",
and, evidently, don't poke enough
****** to keep the concubines entertained,
whole strap-on ******?
well... they're just strap-on ******...
ha ha!
                  ha ha ha ha!
        oh sure, i'm a loser, honey bee...
point being: i much prefer the company
of whiskey to that of a woman...
oops... did i say something, sheepish,
i.e. b'aah b'aah b'aad?!
   couldn't figure out the stuttering A
in diacritical markings...
since there isn't one...

   as i asked my Jewish convert into Islam...
i don't mind the Quran...
but what's your opinion on the, Hadith?
no answer... dumb look...
akin to: how do you know about that?
it's my eight's in a row right
to know what i consider, hostile.

         well, given that in Hindu...
the H... is a surd, rather than an authentic letter...
e.g.? dhaal...           that veggie
curry made from lentils?
there's no H in the name...
it's not a letter... it's an orthographic
inclusion of: consonant (d), surd (h)
                      vowel(s) (a, a), consonant (L)...
unless you of course deduce
there being a microcosm of the macron
hovering about one of the A,
deducing the other A is not necessary...
i drink...
because my excuse rests on the argument:
i'm not here for the 80+ years,
a life filled with an exhausted memory
bank,
    that is of no use
when it doesn't allow itself an
immediacy of convergence in
    what bicycles are founded upon:
teeth and chain, overlapping...
immediacy of overlapping -
memory... that alternative to psychedelic drugs...
some people take this over-bountiful
drugs to exemplify colors,
hyper-inflate them...
i just remember,
   and i know what memory is,
compared to the educational rubric
of, say, learning the Pythagorean equation,
how modern schooling is...
primarily?
   a memory erosion tool,
of a personal life, but more esp.,
  a childhood...
                  you want a drug more
potent than the Amsterdam legal mushroom?
RE-MEM-BER.
               like i said:
i can do what others won't do in
80 years... i can be content with
the zenith of doing what i do,
within a space of what excess drinking
allows me...
      the rest?
   either nostalgia... or regret;
i don't have the time preference to entertain
either...
esp. if what awaits me is
a sober case of dementia,
   and bedsores (odleżyny)...
             but sure, **** me,
go for it!
                   i pray to god that i managed
to fulfill my "evil genius" plan,
of drinking myself to death...
**** it... i have to match the sensible
life expectancy of the poorest of
the poorest African nations...
    don't really feel like living up
to the European turtle, neck,
demands for glorifying medicinal advancements.

I pass back and read late at night
write poetry,
eat yogurt, things I had sworn off and return to with ever more vigor
I am caught in an orbit,
the gravitation is just enough to keep me spinning and too much
to let me go free, I fight it,
I fight it with stolen cigarettes and late nights
and tumbling over and over on a golf course
I fight it with drinks by myself and the purchase of ridiculous items
song lyrics composed on the spot and bold winks across the room
smiley faces and pickup lines to people I should not dare
a fantasy of LSD and the hope I'll see a dragon
so I can finally stop dreaming of them.

Clad in vinyl
Bound and gagged
My whip cracks
Cleave clefts of flesh
And the blood trickles
Lightly
Pain is pulsing
Penetrating prior unknowns
Chains and leather
Inclement weather
The pain and pleasure
A pinnacle of understanding
Transcending
Our reality
Like lsd
A mind ****
Of the brutal but beautiful
An ode to those beyond
Rather above the pale
I tie your hands
Bind your feet
Kiss your face
And release
The Master.

I am the Individual Isness incarnated in this body.
I am not the body.
I have travelled through many lifetimes in many bodies.
always learning learning learning.
I have developed nous from my experiences only.
I WILL NOT EVER-
accept a mind in my head.
accept any conditioned identity as being  me.
cede control over my brain centres to any mind or groupmind
that exists anywhere..
I WILL NOT EVER--
cede control over my brain centres to any conditioned identity or
group conditioned identity that exists anywhere.
or accept that any other but me,the Individual Isness, using my brain centres,using my brain the way I,the Individual Isness,want to and can do
to be in charge of the brain centres in the head of this body that I,the Isness,am incarnated in.
I WILL NOT EVER--
be prey to opinion-formers and experts and  pie charts and
focus groups and surveys.
be manipulated by PR men and women in shiny suits.
see Edward Bernays book--Propaganda.
be manipulated by GroupMinds into thinking  their way.
be taken in by brutal security forces posing as "guardians of peace.
respect in any way any member of any military forces anywhere
no matter how fancy the uniforms or excuses for ****** they wear.
I do not respect these parasites anywhere as they are nothing more than paid mercenary murderers on behalf of various Oligarchies..
see Jaques Ellul's book--Propaganda.
I WILL NOT EVER--
take any dangerous addictive cancer causing drugs
such as Alcohol and Tobacco primarily--
food additives...
No one has ever died from any cannabis product.
or from LSD or Mesccaline or Psylocybin.
believe in any so-called "god" or "goddess".
believe in any so-called "prophet" of any so-called "god"or "goddess".
accept any so-called "holy" book as valid or truthful
or valuable in any way except as
emergency papers to roll a grass joint
or to wipe my **** on.
be taken in by depraved words and concepts in any of these so-called "holy "books that have led to endless wars and still ongoing terrorism and atrocities in the name of one bloodthirsty "god" or "goddess".
I WILL NOT EVER--
accept anything as reality unless I can see clearly that
it is beyond duality.
accept any Conditioned Identity as me.
For I am the Isness which is a small but equal,individual,
autonomous and independant part of the essence of the Isness of the Universe--!.
which is not a "soul" or Atman or spirit
or any other religious concoction.
I WILL NOT EVER---
accept Mind as a necessary evil
accept GroupMind as a necessary evil.
I WILL NOT EVER ---
eat junk food of any kind.
drink tap water anywhere except in direst emergency.
eat white sugar or any other pure carbohydrate.
be a hypocritical moralising vegetarian.
become stoopid through bowing and scraping
and stooping at stupas.
I will be just a Self realised man living on a big ball in space
with a Self Realised woman playing and singing and dancing the Song of Our Lives.

www.thefournobletruthsrevised.co.uk

please, may i run?
with a wind in my lungs enough to fuel a truck speeding down
the highway and headed west to a place where imagery and
songs make lasting impressions; even on those who have never been there.
please, may i run?
grow tired of only dreaming in my sleep and with
blank stares at walls during NA meetings listening to a
fifty year old child speak of his glory days.
Please, may i run?
i need to be somewhere in order to be and it's
gotta be far from here because here there is no being.
please, may i run?
until the souls in my shoes are no more and left unjudged
for their actions or lack of.