At the mailbox, again:
“Who loves me, baby?”
Well, let’s see: there’s a flyer from Mercury Insurance,
Reminding me that most middle-income customers
Save an average of $4 million smackaroons when they switch too.
The Penny Saver USA.com is here,
Thank God, almighty!
So now I know that Thomas Roofing & Paving
Is having a special on 20-year leak-free flat roofs;
"All work guaranteed & insured.
No job too big or small.
Free estimates/Emergency services/License # I8U-69."
And thank you, Jesus,
For another $4.99 Farmer Boys 3-Egg Breakfast
Combo with Coffee coupon, and that
Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready, $5.00 cheese or pepperoni,
Mae-West-“why-don’t-you-come up and see me sometime?”—mailer. And, of course, another technology Siren’s song:
Verizon FiOS delivers entertainment this big,
Dish me up some dish NETWORK, $19.99 a month . . .
Are you ******* me?
For 12 ******* months?
AT&T;: whack me off on 120 channels.
DIRECTV.com - DIRECTV® Official Site‎
Worry-free 99.9%  . . . cue Joe E. Brown,
"Some Like It Hot“ Osgood:
"Well, nobody’s perfect!"
Time Warner/Sprint/T-Mobile;
And ******* Leather, Polk Street, San Francisco.
******* leather?
Must be for my neighbor: that ***** ****!
And here’s the weekly 8-page color fold-out from Stater Bros:
Lowering prices every day, large cantaloupes
(Jessica Lange, are you back?)
10 for $10.00, 32 oz. Gatorade
Or 24 oz Propel in 30 assorted varieties @ 79 cents
+ CRV: California Redemption Value?
Nice euphemistic cover-up for a TAX.
Nice, nice, very nice, CA elected state officials;
Nicely done, Sacramento.
Everywhere else in the country you get real money—
A fixed number of pennies, nickels, or dimes—
For your plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
But in California, the licensed recyclers
Get to pull the market price out of their *** each morning.
California Redemption Value?
What ******* genius government kleptocrat thought that one up? Conspiracy Alert: who gets all that CRV money?
And what are they doing with it?
Feeling plain, Jane?
Marinello Schools of Beauty, want you,
Offer you hands-on training in cosmetology,
Skin care esthetics, manicuring and vaginal deodorizing—
Just kidding, Babaloo.
Food tip for the Third World:
Never try to write poetry on an empty stomach.
Sizzler 6 oz juicy & succulent.
RENEGADE DEAL:
El Pollo Loco guacamole chicken sandwich,
Coupon free, small drink and small chips,
When you purchase a guacamole or jalapeno sandwich,
includes pepper jack cheese and a southwest sauce.
Gardenas sandia con semilla, 7 lbs 99 cents.
GARDENAS: “en precios, servicio y calidad, nadie nos iguaia.”
Bud Gordon’s Quality NISSAN:
One at this price after a $1500 factory rebate.
TERMINIX: get them before they get you!
The Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta
Bug up my *** again.
And a form letter from the VA
Asking me to please update my whereabouts.
And a form letter from the VA asking me
To please update my whereabouts.
And miles to go before I sleep.
Bite me, Mr. Frost!

An outing, at last.
I am going for a walk around the inside of my gates.
I live in one of those gated over-55 lunatic asylums.
There are gates. It is gated. Get it?
GATED! We feel safe here.
Probably a good thing at our age:
Self-imposed institutionalization,
Putting oneself in an asylum to ferment and die.
The fact that so many of us
Need it so bad at only 55
Says something itself about the current state of
Baby Boomer metal-fatigue.
I am now standing at the far end of the golf course.
I wait at the far end of the 18th Hole.
A ball bounces past my head and
Rolls off past the green into the far rough.
The 18th Hole is perched atop a small plateau,
Out of sight, far above the horizon for anyone teeing off.
I am Puck, invisible and impish.
I pluck the ball up.
I scamper to the green.
I pop the ball into the hole.
Which is better than popping a hole in the ball,
Surely, kind of a drag,
As we were once fond of saying.
Deflated Ball.
Deflator Maus.
OPERA can be ****.
Bodice-ripping corsets, whorehouses and naked ******!
Hardly what you might expect from
A night with the Welsh National Opera,
But they found their way into this production of "Die Fledermaus."
Ripe language, contemporary jokes and
Toilet humor thrown in, adding immensely
To the pleasures of Strauss’s operetta.
"Die Fledermaus," or The Bat’s Revenge,
Is all about drunkenness and adultery.
Despite being written in the 1870s,
It remains equally pertinent to today’s pub culture of excess.
Daring; Colorful; ****: PGA golf.
I steal a golf ball on the far end of the 18th Hole.
I pick up the Titleist and stick it in the hole
(Steady Jessica, not yours.
I hide behind your bush.
(Cue up PSA, First Lady Bird Johnson’s 1960s
Nationwide Beautification Campaign:
“I want everyone in America to plant a tree,
A sherrrr-rub, or a booosh.”)
The golfer now searching frantically:
Why is the cup always the last place they look?
Then, wham, bam, he looks:
A legend is born.
A hole in one,
His name forever immortalized
On a plaque over the bar, the proverbial 19th Hole.

As you know, I speak for all mediocrities,
Safe in my 55+ gated-community.
I go next to the Club House,
"The Lodge" as it’s called.
Each afternoon, the usual suspects
Claiming first come/first serve tiered mini-theater seats
Where Netflix matinee gems are screened.
It is two minutes to DVD show time.
I walk to the front of the room.
I stare at my audience.
I count the house slowly,
Making meaningful eye contact with each wrinkled face.
I cup my hands behind my back and speak:
“I assume you are all here for my lecture on Kierkegaard.”
No one reacts.
I turn to leave but do a double-take and smile.
One old woman in the top right corner of the amphitheater laughs, Perhaps the one other human being within the gates
Who has also smoked a joint today.
For an instant, I am overwhelmed with paranoia,
Perhaps I’ve gone too far over the line:
No longer “oh-he’s-a-character;”
I am now “that creep is ******* nuts.”
Is it time for someone to approach my family,
My next of kin, my “who-to-contact-in-event-of-emergency” number? Who will make the call on behalf of the HOA—
The Homeowner’s Association—
The Tsars, the Duma, the Supreme Soviet in these parts?
They are the power inside the gates;
Those who determine the state’s enemies,
Who govern its community norms.
Power within the gates.
Law within the asylum.
Little Hitlers one and all.
Hopefully they reach my sister first.
She’s been briefed.
KEY POINT IN THE NARRATIVE:
The new narrative is non-linear.
We can no longer sustain a narrative understanding of ourselves;
We are each an individual stream of consciousness,
All of us random, non-linear and disconnected.
We grow more and more disconnected from others.
We may be neighbors in space and time,
But we remain deprived of any significant human contact;
Any spiritually significant human contact.
Our social circle narrows to what can fit in The Telescreen;
We become more intimate with a legion . . .
Did someone say a legion? SPQR:
Am I having some sort of genetic-linguistic seizure here?
Am I channeling Benito Mussolini again?
Il Duce speaks to me from the grave,
Still blowing smoke up my Hopi-Jew-*** ***,
Filling in my insecurities,
Plugging the holes in my character
With delusions of classical Roman grandeur, glory and empire. Hmmmm? Quite an appetizing pitch for the average *****,
A message so completely, so ethnocentrically slick,
Olive oily, and so seductive.
A non-Italian would have thought
American Legion or Legionnaire’s disease,
Or The Foreign Legion, The French Foreign Legion.
The French: a virulent, promiscuous people.
Do you want fries with that, Simone?
No, I don’t get out much.
Only an occasional brisk walk around the asylum,
In and around the golf course, around but inside the gates. (LINKS) Bill Gates. Daryl Gates. Billy Bathgate’s Gates? Ghiberti’s Gates? The Hot Gates? Thermopylae? 300 Spartans/700 Thespians:
“The noun causing idiots to think of
Two girls sloppily eating each other’s mighty vaginas,
When they hear mention of someone being an actor.” http://www.urbandictionary.com
Not even close.
No, I rarely venture out.
This is Hemetucky.
There are methamphetamine-stoked
Teenage zombies at the gate.
Note to costume control:
Perhaps camouflage clothing is the safe choice?
No loud red Hawaiian.
No garish Indonesian batik.
Fleet of feet are these Hemet tweakers,
These cranked up Riverside County teenage barbarians,
These Huns & Visigoths,
These amped up, ravenous jackals.
And why stop there?
These Vandals & Vandellas.
A Motown flashback:
“Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide.”
With or without Martha—
They remain dangerously lethal.
Yes, let it be camo clothes for me.
Those **** heads may be young.
They may be fast.
They may be able to run me down
On a dry grass dog-legged fairway savannah,
Tearing the meat from my carcass.
But the sons-a-******* have to see me first.
Besides, we know who are real friends are.
Hooray for our media peeps!
We become more intimate with a legion
Of television personalities on 125 different channels.
Most of these we know by name and context.
We know their families, their friends,
Their histories, their tragedies,
Their favored hyperbole and manner of speech.
Sometimes we establish intimacy with celebrities
Strictly on the basis of universal body language.
At times–in the absence of any other
Empathetic facility of identification–
We connect on instinct alone.
Instinct: perhaps animal at its core,
An animal kingdom affinity group,
Connecting on a bio-linguistic level,
Particularly when the Korean, or Spanish,
Mandarin, or Arabic,
Japanese, or even Hebrew language version is broadcast.
All languages cryptically alien,
A dense boundary, a barrio border wall,
Undecipherable, impenetrable concrete.
But we’ve never spoken to our neighbors,
Nor do we know their names.
Celebrities are the neighbors we know best;
Although the intimacy is an illusion,
Permission to invade their privacy presumed,
Tacit in the relationship between celebrities and their fans.
I am an independent contractor now,
An outside consultant to the NSA.
Try as I might I cannot crack the enigma,
Kim Kardashian remains far beyond my code-breaking prowess.
I repeat myself:
We can no longer sustain a narrative understanding of ourselves;
We are each an individual stream of consciousness,
All of us random, non-linear and disconnected.
We are more and more disconnected from others.
We may be neighbors in space and time,
But we remain deprived of any significant human contact;
Any spiritually significant human contact.
Our social circle narrows to what can fit in The Telescreen; we become more intimate with a legion . . .
Back to you, David Ulin:
“Sometime late last year—I don’t remember when, exactly—I noticed I was having trouble sitting down to read. That’s a problem if you do what I do, but it’s an even bigger problem if you’re the kind of person I am. Since I discovered reading, I have always been surrounded by stacks of books. I read my way through camp, school, nights, and weekends; when my girlfriend and I backpacked through Europe after college graduation, I had to buy a suitcase to accommodate the books I picked up along the way.”
Thank you, David L. Ulin.
I cannot help myself.
I grow more eccentric each day.
My eyeballs glued to that flat screen!

Cosmo Kramer: "The bus is outta control.
So I grab him by the collar, I take him out of the seat,
I get behind the wheel, and now I’m driving the bus."
Jerry: "Wow!"
George Costanza: "You’re Batman."
Cosmo Kramer: "Yeah, yeah, I am Batman.
Then the mugger, he comes to and he starts choking me.
So I’m fighting him off with one hand,
And I kept driving the bus with the other, ya know.
Then I managed to open up the door,
And I kicked him out the door, ya know,
With my foot, ya know, at the next stop."
Jerry: "You kept making all the stops?"
Cosmo Kramer: "Well, people kept ringing the bell!"
(Share this moment with a stranger.)

I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.
Boom Chaka Laka. Boom Chaka Laka.
Boom Chaka Laka. BOOM!
Isn’t it time Salieri tempted Constanze–
Frau Mozart–with a plateful of Capezzoli di Venere:
“******* of Venus.”
You had me at hello, Kidman.
I know you too well, Nicole.
I knew you from before,
Way before Tom’s Oprah couch freak show.
Listen to me, Nicole:
We are face to face
With the most profound question in American literature:
"What is the grass?
The flag of my surrender?
The flag of my disposition?"
I resort to Socratic maxims: Know yourself;
The un-****** life is not worth living.
Is it stress? Is it lack of conviction?
Everything Jeff Lebowski neither wants nor needs in his life?
I watched you *** in "Eyes Wide Shut," Nicole.
Now I know you with my eyes and your legs wide open.
Thank you, Sidney Pollack.
Sidney knew.
Sidney dealt us cards
From his Hollywood Tarot deck.
We are intimate, Nicole.
I watched you squat.

Trophies for last place,
And a Holiday for every weekend.
A taste of this and that...
OF Italy and Ireland and Asia and Germany
and every township in the county,
and 3 collective Miles of
Portable Toilets,
Strategically Positioned
throughout each event.
cause there is going to be a Lot of ****...

Hooray for whatever we are celebrating this weekend.
Whichever one of the 30 different Woodstocks
Or week long Music Festivals
That exist only so
the Hippest of Hipsters
can congratulate each other
on how Indie they are.

Ya know, it's happy hour somewhere...
Why not party
All Day, Everyday?
Devalue the weekend
Like we have thanksgiving
And New Years.
A Five Kay For the Common Cold,
And We'll even give trophies for last place.
Cause we're all winners here.
and we're all hungry.
And What represents your heritage better than
Pizza or sauerkraut or General Tso's
And endless flowing barrels of refreshing, Ice cold, Domestically brewed and Nationally brand recognized Alcoholic Beverages?

IT's The Great Dumb Down, Charlie Brown!!!
A symptom of the Universe
If there ever was one.
Mass anesthesia to keep us all content
With our collective mediocrities,
our Forfeit Potential,
Our Day Job that doesn't pay very well,
But kind has benefits.
So we stay on.
In fear of nothing better.
It makes feel important.
Like Wheel of Fortune makes us feel smart.
(Wow, you can spell?!)...
Dwindling returns in a world of Beige and Pastels
And the Muted Grays of limestone concrete.
We Accept less and we Get less and we accept less and we Get less
And On And on and on,
till we hit that lowest common cultural denominator,
where your race is what food you eat,
And we all qualify for the special Olympics.

To start --
being an adolescent with autumn eyes,
seeking a prophecy for long-standing bravery
to further the spinning spokes for minutes, five more,

I burned the drapes to reveal a humanity only I could see.

The expectations were elaborately existing, unsatisfying. Sons
and fathers, years refrained from matters
that reverse reverse reverse curses and maturity
without purpose.

Those idle accepted neglect, and the existence of an
unsalted bridge was quickly detained. Alone, the foolish described
to search for the future in geometric formation and coffee ring
stains fading the desk.

But the sense proposed in my decided equality drank dignity
straight from the bottle. The road that lead me between two cliffs,
Propriety and Statistics, with the rocks already pelting down,
could not diminish my enthusiasm for necessary absurdities.

There's no flesh in declared mediocrities.

I became a luminary for pleasures of eminence, hope with resolve,
opportunities in destiny. Blind gambles obliged the fear of exacting
sensibility. Passionate follies created no-regret-consequences,
satisfied stability. Only the **** are granted victories in eternal gaiety.

Mortality is irrelevant if you let mystery be your urgency.

I get off the Belt Parkway at Rockaway Boulevard and
Jet aloft from Idyllwild.
(I know, now called J.F. ******* K!)
Aboard a TWA 747 to what was then British East Africa,
Then overland by train to Baroness Blixen’s Nairobi farm . . .
You know the one at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
I lease space in Karen’s African dreams,
Caressing her long white giraffe nape,
That exquisite Streep jugular.
I am a ghost in Meryl’s evil petting zoo:
I haunt the hand that feeds me.

Safely back in Denmark, I receive treatment
For my third bout with syphilis at Copenhagen General.
Cured at last, I return to Kenya and Karen.
In my solitude or sleep, I go with her,
One hundred miles north of the Equator,
Arriving at Julia Child’s marijuana herb garden–
Originally Kikuyu Land, of course—
But mine now by imperial design &
California voter referendum.
(Voiceover) "I had a farm in Africa
At the foot of the Ngong Hills."
My farm lies high above the sea at 6,000 feet.
By daybreak I feel oh, oh so high up,
Near to the sun on early mornings.
Evenings so limpid and restful;
Nights oh, so cold.
Mille Grazie a lei, Signore *******!
Andiamo, Sydney, amico mio.
Let it flow like the water that lives in Mombasa.
Let it flow like Kurt Luedtke’s liquid crystal script.
We zoom in. We go close in. Going close up,
On the face of Isak Dinesen’s household
Servant and general factotum. (Full camera ******)
Karen Blixen’s devoted Muslim manservant,
Farah: “God is happy, msabu. He plays with us…”
He plays with me.  And who shall I be today?
How about Tony Manero for starters?
Good choice. Nicely done!
Geezer Manero:  old and bitter now,
Still working at the hardware store,
Twice-divorced, a chain-smoker,
Severely diabetic, a drunk on dialysis 3 times a week.
Bite me, Pop:  I never thought I was John Travolta.
But, hey, I had my shot:  “I coulda been a contenda.”
Once more, by association only,
I am a great artist again, quickly made
Near great by a simple second look.
Why, oh God? I am kvetching again.
I celebrate myself and sing the
L-on-forehead loser’s lament:
Why implant the desire and then
Withhold from me the talent?
“I wrote 30 ******* operas,”
I hear Salieri’s demented cackle.
“I will speak for you, Wolfie Babaloo;
I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.”

Must I wind up in the same
Viennese loony bin with Antonio?
Note to self:  GTF out of Austria post-haste!
I’ve been called on the Emperor’s carpet again,
My head, my decapitated Prufrock noodle,
Grown slightly bald, brought in upon a platter.
Are peaches in season?
Do I dare eat one?
I am Amadeus, ******, infantile,
An irresistible iconoclast and clown.
Wolfie:   “I am called on the imperial carpet again.
The Emperor may have no clothes but he’s got a
Shitload of ******* carpets."
Hello Girls: ‘Disco Tampons!
Staying inside, staying inside!
Wolfie: "Why have I chosen a ****** farce for my libretto?
Surely there are more elevated themes . . . NO!
I am fed to the teeth with elevated themes,
People so lofty they **** marble!"
Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis.

So, I mix paint in the hardware store by day.
I dance all night, near-great again by locomotion.
Join me in at least one of my verifiable nine lives.
Go with me across the Narrows,
Back to Lenape with the wild red men of Canarsee,
To Vlacke Bos, Boswijk & Nieuw Utrecht,
To Dutch treat Breuckelen, Red Hook & Bensonhurst,
To Bay Ridge and the Sheepshead.
Come with me to Coney Island’s Steeplechase & Luna Park, &
Dreamland (aka Brownsville) East New York, County of Kings.
If I’m lying, I’m dying.
And while we’re on the subject now,
Bwana Finch Hatton (pronounced FINCH HATTON),
Why not turn your focus to the rival for Karen’s heart,
To the guy who nursed her through the syphilis,
That old taciturn ******, Guru Farah?
Righto and Cheerio, Mr. Finch Hatton,
Denys George of that surname—
Why not visualize Imam Farah?
Farah: a Twisted Sister Mary Ignatius,
Explaining it all to your likes-the-dark-meat
Friend and ivory-trading business partner,
Berkeley (pronounced BARK-LEE) Cole.
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

Oh yeah, Tony Manero, the Bee Gees & me,
A marriage made in Brooklyn.
The Gibbs providing the sound track while
I took care of the local action.
I got more *** than a toilet seat, a Don Juan rep &
THE CLAP on more than one occasion.
Probably from a toilet seat.
Even my big brother–the failed priest,
Celibate too long and desperate now–
Even my defrocked, blue-balled brother,
Frankie, cashing in his chips at the Archdiocese,
Taking soave lessons from yours truly,
Taking notes, copying my slick moves with chicks.
It was the usual story with the usual suspects &
The usual character tests. All of which I flunk.
I choose Fitzgerald's “vast, ****** meretricious beauty,”
My jumpstart to the middle class.
I spurn the neighborhood puttana,
Mary Catherine Delvecchio: the community ****
With the proverbial heart of gold &
A backpack full of self-esteem deficits.
I opt out.  I’m hungry and leaping.
I morph again, grab *** the golden girl.
Now I’m Gatsby in a white suit,
Stalking Daisy Buchanan in East Egg,
Daisy: her voice full of money;
My green light flashing on the disco dance floor.
I, a fool for love; she, my faithless uptown girl,
Golden and delicious like the apple,
Capricious like a blue Persian cat.
My “orgiastic future” eluded me then.
It eludes me still. Time to go home again to the place
****-ant Prufrocks ponder their pathetic dying embers.
Time to assume the position:
Gazing out from some trapezoidal patch of green
At the foot of Roebling’s bridge,
Contemplating an alternative reality for myself,
A new life across the East River,
In the city that never sleeps.
I crave. I lust. I am a guinzo Eva Duarte.
I too must be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires:
THE BIG APPLE.
But I am ashamed of my luggage,
Not to mention my baggage.
It’s like that last thing Holden Caulfield said to me,
Just before he crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge,
Crossed over to Manhattan without me,
Leaving me alone again, searching for our kid sister,
Phoebe, the only one on earth we can relate to:
“It’s really hard to be roommates with people
If your suitcases are much better than theirs.”
Ow! That stung; that was a stinger.
I am smithereened by a self-guided drone,
A smart bomb full of snide antigravity,
Transformational and caustic.
My meager allotment of self-esteem
Metastasizes into something base,
Something heavy and vile.
I drop to earth like lead mozzarella.

I am unworthy, unworthy in the maximum mendicant,
Roman Catholic mea culpa sense of the word.
I am now Umberto Eco’s penitenziagite.
I am Salvatore, a demented hunchback
(Played flawlessly as a demented hunchback by Ron Perlman),
Spewing linguistic gibberish in a variety of vernaculars:
“Lord, I am not worthy to live anywhere west of the Gowanus Canal.”
By East River waters I weep bitter tears,
The promise of a promised land denied.
I am a garlic-eating Chuck Yeager,
Auguring in, burnt beyond recognition,
An ethnic trope, a defiant Private Maggio
From here and for eternity,
Forever a swarthy ethnic stereotype
Trying to escape thru a small but significant
Hole in the ozone layer above South Ozone Park,
New York, zip code 11420.
That’s right, Ozone Park.
If you don’t believe me, look it up.
GO ******* GOOGLE IT!

And I just don’t know when to quit.
So why quit there?
Work with me, fratello mio, mon lecteur.
Like you, I took the LSAT so long ago.
Why am I not a distinguished American jurist
Asking the one question that seems to be on
Everyone’s eugenic lips today:
“Aren’t three generations of imbeciles enough?”
I am Charly from Flowers for Algernon,
A slow learner with a push broom, swept up in
Some dust from Leonard Cohen’s cuff.
Lenny: a grey-beard loon himself now, singing
“Hallelujah” for fish & chips in London’s O2 Arena.
“Suzanne takes you down, Babaloo!”
At last, I am Jesus Quintana—
John Turturro stealing the movie as usual--
This time in a hair net and a jumpsuit,
"Made of a comfortable 65% polyester/35%
Cotton poplin, you can even add your own
Ribbon leg trim and monogramming
For just the right look to be one of
The Big Lebowski’s favorite characters.
Mouse-over the thumbnail below to see our actual style
(Color must be purple). Style #: 98P, Price: $55.95. On sale: $50.36.www.myjumpsuit.com."
Fortunately, I am a savvy marketeer:
I understand the artistic potential, the venal
Possibilities of product placement. Go with me
To that undiscovered country.
The humanities uncorrupted till now by
Crass gimcrack television ads. That’s right:
******* commercials smack dab in the
Middle of a ******* poem. Why not?
Great literature has always been about
Selling something, even if only an idea.
Hey, **** me, Herman Melville!
We both know the publication costs of
Moby **** were underwritten by the tattoo artists &
Harpoon manufacturers of New Bedford,
Matched by a small research grant from some
Proto-Greenpeace, Poseidon adventure in some
Great white whale-watching swinging soiree.
Murray the ******* K, pendejo!
At last, I am The Jesus, a pervert & pederast,
According to Walter Sobjak—another post-traumatic
Post Toasty, like me, still out there in the jungle,
Still in love with the smell of ****** in the morning.
My bowling buddy, Walter, comfortably far to the right of
The Dude, and Attila the *** for that matter,
But who gives a **** if Lenin was The Walrus?
(“Shut the **** up, Buscemi!”)
“Once you hang a right at Hubert Humphrey,”
Said the streets of 1968 Chicago,
"It’s all ******* fascism anyway.”
That creep could roll, though, and as we know so well:
“Nobody ***** with The Jesus.”
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

INCOMING!
I just heard from an old girlfriend who is miles away,
Teaching school in Navajo Land.
The Big Rez:  a long day’s interstate katzenjammer,
A Route 66 nightmare by car, but by email,
Just down the block and round the corner.
I had previously closed an email to her with a frivolous
“Say hello to my stinky friend.”
It was a total non-sequitur, an iconic-moronic,
Ace Ventura-mutant line from Scarface,
Which may have meant–in my herbal lunch delirium—
That she should say hi to some mutual acquaintance
We mutually loathe, Or, perhaps an acknowledgement that she–
My surrogate Cameron Diaz–has a new **** buddy,
Of whom I am insanely jealous.
Or maybe it was a simple Seinfeld “about nothing.”
Who knows what goes on in that twisted *****’s head?
She spends the next two hours in a flood of funk,
A deluge of insecurity.
A veritable Katrina ****** of self-consciousness,
Interpreting my inane nonsense in terms of vaginal health.

Hey, you want to ruin a woman’s day?
Tell her, her **** smells.

belgravia on itv... and the world is filled with...
odes to charlemagne -
or rather: the emperor has risen...
in the form of a bonaparte...

       i lost my virginity to a french girl
from Grenoble - a one ms. psychologist
Isa-bel-l'ah...

              and i had three pictures hanging
in my student accomodation overlooking
the salisbury crags...
           one i put my amp on the windowsill
and did a rendition of...
                            something from the movie
crow / last days...

there was plato... there was the marquis de sade...
and then there was napoleon...

i was immediately reminded...
but napoleon did x y and z...
       i could swear the zeitgeist for us begins
with the end of the 2nd world war?
well: i lost my virginity... didn't i?
          
             and come to think of...
there is the trafalgar sq. in London...
      and there's the monument when it came
to Austerlitz victory...

           napoleon and that old bias...
for all those that encompassed in the duchy of warsaw...
or from under the partition
shared between the prussian the russian
and the austro-hungarian empire...

a short-lived affair... but...
        she minded napoleon but not marquis de sade...
come forward 200 years...
what are the monuments of the 2nd world war?
what are the... ******* monuments of the 1st world
war?
the cemeteries at Ypres for western europe...
the death camp memorials
   and the little ghetto lockets of memory and:
gypsy good fortune in the east?

a picture of the mushroom eating
and clinging onto the flesh of men and animals
in a symbiosis and mind-control dynamics
of the fungus keeping the host alive...
unlike a virus?

   where are the monuments for all that was
achieved in the two wars?
where's the trafalgar sq. where's the arc de triomphe?
between 1803–1815
   or between 1939–1945... well...
              12 years is not 6...
                  i guess you can't achieve much of any
sort of "meaningful" war if...
there's not a decade included in the mix...

oh i'm sure it's going to be hard to imagine
the führer as the kaiser...
     because: dressed in khaki like a whittle
hanzel schoolboy when all the big boys
started to wear schwarzgekleidet of zee SS...

from a perspective of history...
                             i am unsure as to why...
this ms. psychology major would grieve
the affairs of napoleon...
                             perhaps if he was a bit taller...
she might have a fancy for him...
then again... as kaiser... as emperor...
come to think of it...
the notation: Frank would included
the swiss... the belgians the dutch...
luxembourg...
       but not those rascals...
in the rhineland-palatinate...
            or north-rhine-westphalia...

schubert symphony no. 4 in c-minor, D. 417...
i always thought that schubert...
was the pianist competing with violins
to tackle shumann... never mind...

     then again: illuminating life of those
that still have a toe in the remaining posit
of life... yet 3/4 of what life is willing to offer
has both feet in the coffin and a last nail
to beg for the closure and funeral procession
of that chapter of human details
to be: ascribed to the realms of solely learning...
about it... there's no great-grandma with
her wheelbarrow of memories to grant
you "perspectives"...

he was a führer... but not the kaiser...
come to think of it...
the rise and fall... from the confines of being
rejected from an art-college...

today one of my cats (i only have two)
accidently burned the hairs of her tail
when she signatured it (the tail) across
a burning candle... and... you wouldn't believe it...
the smell of burnt cat furr...
i can imagine escaping my episodes of
solipsism when venturing into sniffing
someone else's farts to be more appealing...
than the smell of... the burning of cat furr...

i did remark... i don't think it was all that
pleasant working as butchers in those concentration
camps... if the burning of cat furr smells so bad...
if the burning of skin, nails...
bones... i'm starting to think it was a hell-hole
for both the camp "workers" and....
those about to be forced on the altar
of the belly of Moloch...

                          and when the hebrew god
conquered the gods of the philistines
and the caanites...
      did he "fall asleep"...
    thinking they wouldn't somehow use
people that wouldn't otherwise pay direct
homage to them... for their devilish enterprises?

where are the monumets from world
war I or world II that aren't cemeteries
or memorials or the death camps themselves?
there's not point merely seeing...
imagine going to Handel's messiah
at the royal albert hall...
           and only seeing an orchestra play...
most associated with seeing are:
the quality of either inanimate objects
or moving objects...
but there isn't a mention of the sounds locked
in brimfuls in these things...
but most importantly... i can't smell that
death circus...
well... no matter... i don't need to visit those
death camps and pay some spezial ode to
memory: it will just take a cat accidently burn
its tail furr brushing it over a candle...
that's enough... thank you...

           i don't need to see those camps...
not out of denial outright...
but... without the scent of burning hair
and flesh... the infamous cracow's winter
snow of cremations...

but the smell is missing...
i don't need to visit these places
for a picture of unused hammers and nails...
in their pristine gothica of still slippery when
kept in a mummified state of being
oiled for use... i don't like to rumminate in
echoes of: what this oven was used for...
the scent has subsided like a tide
and all that's exposed is never the living
proof... i have archeological proof...
that it is so sudden... doesn't matter...
i don't have the "perfume" to riddle me
with an immediacy of a recoil!
for that? i just need a cat to accidently burn
a few hairs of its tail over a candle...

it's one of those needle injections straight
into the nostrils...
seeing the oven will do very little to give
an expanse of my: sisyphean weight to tow
along...

faster than the speed of light:
or the digestion imprint of a photograph...
faster than the speed of sound...

    ssssssssssssssssssssscent...
          i don't need to see what other people decided
to want and see...
the burning of flesh and most notably unwashed
hair and furr...
       that's plenty...
i don't want to discourage myself from
cooking anything else in the future...

sometimes my room becomes a hotel for
either moths or flies...
i currently have an early waker...
she must be nearing being a year old...
you can tell... her flight is more methodological...
it isn't that usual flurry and all
that excited presence of itself: unique
in a bounty of life...
i will not bother this fly...
        if she was a mosquito... perhaps i would...

i am longing to see the spawn "maggots"
of moths eat and curl up in cotton...

where are the monuments to call it:
the end of world war I and world war II...
it's as if... it has to be shamed...
this whole genesis story from half-way
between the past century...
and into this... swamp-en-masse...

          last time i checked... that "something"
between the serbians and the croats
and the muslims of yugoslavia...
                    the 13th waffen mountain division...
or head east... the ukranian infamous
insurgent army...
        only recently i heard some major
****-wits decided to drill holes into the tires
of ambulances... near bristol...

as a perfectly just cold blooded heart...
is the crucifixion the epitome of a demigod's death?
what about... being spiked?
being forced onto a pike via
the architecture of where the intestines
meet the coccyx... the *******...
the ****... and the pelvis?
with hands tied?
what about hanging off a meat-hook...
with the meat-hook making the incission under the jaw?
hands and legs tied?

the crucifixion is just an out-dated symbol
of sacrifice... no wonder all that came after
had to become so... more... adventurous...
wouldn't we be foolish when it came to slacking
on the chapter of torture?

but at least one aspect of life can be still felt
to be pure, "aryan"... un-disturbed...
pain... is so un-interrupted by competing
subjectivities... that... well...
it's almost akin to cross paths with god...
pain is pure in that it is true...
forever: there's that other great democratic force
at work than mere death...
by the time we're through death is but
a bureucratic notation of a statistic:
a near miss of anonymity...

                there's that great leveller of pain...
from a simple toothache...
it's as if an ****** that comes on the wings of
being... a sedative of consciousness...
pain as that...
   pain is an inoculate agent against reality...
against consciousness...
all for that ****** of dreams...
lucky for me... i don't dream so well...
i forrest gump the whole affair...

some would think pain as a defining moment
an event horizon for their numb-skulled
crossword puzzle zeniths of "life"...
     i see pain more in favour of...
      i want to be cured from having to curate
so many mediocrities of this life:
as served and as service for others...
so dilligent at being busy-bodies in the shelter
of hierarchies and the shadows of:
the impossible perfection of mountain
replicas of Giza...

pain is illumination...
    beginning with a toothache...
once this temp. filling is ready to be scrubbed out...
and a root canal is to be fitted...
i think i'll begin with an oyster-esque "typo"
readying myself for an ******
when asked 'would you like an anaesthetic'
and the reply will be... 'no'...
                 clearly i don't have as many
avenues as are readily available
when it comes to a holy trinity of mouth,
******... *******...

      self-serving pleasures of the extensions
of pinching... by either crap pincers
or the cold of virus simulation of crowns
when having an ice-cube placed into my palm...

in that i am wholly sympathetic to pain...
well... what good did reading walter benjamin's
illumination(s) essay do to me...
beside what i already know about...
the difference between collecting books...
and collecting books and reading them...

              my personal library would shrink somewhat...
given that i own pretty much an assortment
of what has already been read:
i'm not my grandmother:
unlike watching a film... i can't re-read a book...
give me 2 years reading one...
but i will not re-read it!

this extension of a mollusk's zenith via
a ******... of all that's the sensation that rhymes
heart with brain...

         tow the bones...
       tow the bones...
                   come to the horizon where
the soft tissue blitzkriegs past the bone to the marrow...

arable lure of the prosthetic ghost, limb...
and limp...
       soft zenith pleasure...
while at the same time...
entertaining "things" that only secular
sensibility measures can instill...
do not cross paths with mythology:
goodness! you might forget being
snarky and insensible come tomorrow's year
monday when journalism catches
up from... "somehow" being detached
from her de facto and carpe diem
mantras of modus operandi!

i might call it: the moth's seal of the lips...
enough to lick a postage stamp...
hardly enough to actually kiss...

sold: christianity: metaphorical cannibalism...
i would rather taste the real thing...
if ever such an opportunity should
give sway...

       a führer is not a kaiser... back in the day...
there was respect in post-napoleonic war London...
in belgravia...
how did the h'american white house originate...
the Belveder of Warsaw...
vermin, peoples of the world: nibble...

                   i'm here to claim my future:
my anonymity... i'm here to scatter with the dues
of the frail... waiting for no clarity of
locked: stature worded in baron...
no stature worded in kaiser... führer...
      i am on the sole minding of... the gnostics...
the heretics...

i want to burn blue when all other dogmatic
breaths burn yellow...
           that i drink is of no solace...
bribe the reader! inner vacuum otherwise
a handshake with my shadow... by candlelight...
which is a bribe for an audience of death:
that personification on a theme of romance...
thanatos... chilling the spine...
and the serpentine...

                    i want to see the gallows...
and allure of seeing ***** and rot come oozing
from their baptised fleshy bits...
i want to be curator of the last abolished screech
of existence... i wand to hush them...
by sharpening a knife...
i want to find the idle fork...
i want to find the crown of ferns...
and kick and stab... the house of already dead
roman emperors... sitting... nay...
loitering... the anger of pride on their
laurels...

             napoleon... even with a name like that...
you can stomach the usual: steak becoming
a lump of minced beef...
but when it's ****** or stalin...
czopek or elert...
                    you'd wish for a horsehoof
to be dubbed: smith...
                     -smithy...
or some other... lucky you: frauman...
                      fregel...            made it up as
we went along...

yep... yep... i get it... drinks a whiskey...
****** out a lemonade...
and for whatever "genius": genius...
that third tier of being... not spawned by the gods...
but by man... in between angels and demons...
the geniuses...
that autistic master-class of...
****'s itching kinda eerie!

   i'm drunk: most of the people are sober...
i'm not going to have to
give an apologetics lecture on the sober
sods... am i?
romance period... a bit like being
a modern brit and all that wham!
sputnik dazzle of the: grit brighton!

jokes aside... the winged hussar...
                   also mongol...
******* that clad themselves in dog ****
to imitate... what would later become...
the 365 harem of an alexander...
          
   would it be any good reading
the greeks?
     can you really want to "catch-up" on so
much... when in fact you should be
reading the people who have re(a)d...
the ancient greeks?

here's me taking heidegger's advice...
spend 12 years reading aristotle...
          martin... oi oi... that leaves
me doing more work than the already
work required in pretending to be catholic...
and doing a spin-off sunday...
how about me just reads up on yous...
how's that?
2 years worth of you... is about...
       whatever it took you to "master"
aristoteles: ah-chew: chow-mein sucker...

     life is or at least has become or will
become... too impertinent...
  then again... lassitudes of being kept
in the confines of one's own allowances...
i can't expect... in the same way...
i can't become expectent...
it's a two-way-swoe-order in the guise
of a phoenix... (missing phenotypes)...

             the best held advent of:
if you weren't a part of pappa's genocide of
a clarifying sputnik's *****-out
into frog's dream-alike all mammalian
when you're already on your way out
with the moloch altar sacrifice of
no foetus would be born...

call it a... champagne bottle uncorking
ritual when it comes to...
and all that other drifting ritual
of "entropy" whenever a sobering / ***
note would awake a hannibal lecturer
for and what more...
that was necessary...

           stipends of: gotcha...
eagles - witchy woman...
ol' cliff does a little number:
like no intro for a jazz megahit
quintet when the bass comes along...
devil woman...
or the totally camp...
  dale winton...
because turning totally gay only
arrived in full bloom and daffodils
in the trenches...
when true gay arrived...
well... any other hole to fill...

              this hole's better than
any ****** eye's...
who's that backdoor man of
assorted gifts, to begin with?

          rhyme rhymes rhyme rhymes...
easily to make a happy than no
alcoholic into a: no thank you...
  
                                   discretely...
suburban... those desperado... casa-esposa...
the pride of the son: a mother...
that's usually enforced...

las orgullo de hijo: una madre...
           bad spanish... bad german...
mongrel of the either and some anglican
and some ****** catholic...

                                        if there was still something
of a worthwhile partition of time...
****** was never going to become
the next napoleon...
even though... invading russia was
a plagiarism... and the retrdo-event of all
that waste of time... 200 years
and the waste of time with the air onslought
for the battle of britain...
the u-boats...

     no mention of waiting a while...
     in that "what if" universe of revising...
one two three four... with:
einz zwei drei vier...

or... the eager panzermensch...
and that tunnel under the sea...
         it can be noted that a 100 year war
did exist... between the english and the french...

if the napoleonic wars have the monuments...
for what sort of reasons were
the 20th century "ende von alles kriege ende"...
******* proxies of the yugoslav conflict...
vietnam...
        
the monuments of the greatest wars of man...
monumets? cemeteries... or the death camps...
was this the turning point where...
death by war was to be... lessened by
omittance: "keep calm and carry on" *******?
the celebrated en masse of one single
male *******?

how isn't citing german...
an exfoliation from speaking mere peasant
english?
der zunge ist berufung die gegenwart:
ein vater: ein vaterzunge!

scheisse und höllegrube mit es!
                der "vaterland": fathers of daughters
of would be mothers... mothers of sons
of would be fathers... motherland... fatherland...
mothertongue... a ******* great big itch
of grammatical concerns! blah!

where are these monuments akin to trafalgar sq.?!
what's to be so... gloated... about defeating the nazis?
where is the gloat in mere words...
but sorely missed when it comes to sacrificing
bone and marrow and muscle
to focus on making escapades of marble?!
where... are... these... monuments?!

      my own shadow overshadows the testimonies
of... two... very... minor... wars...
perhaps world war I had covered one or two
hurt prides... hurt egos...
but... after all... a khaki attired boyscout...
when all the bad boys
were later... morphed by hugo boss
into schwarzgekleidet steinherzimmobilien...

ein führer ist nein (ein) kaiser...
not like the title napoleon acquired...
napoleon was cited as: emperor...
        a reicarnation of charlemagne...
   too bad for whoever barbarossa was...
  rutger hauer?! yes... but rutger was, dutch...
for ****'s sake!

napoleon was crowned emperor
in a church...
****** walked into an opera house...
heard some wagner...
some wagner not in that anemic proposal
of the walhall from das rheingold
via michele campanella...

              all that becomes the litany...
prior to the peeling to the basic grammar...
and then an attack on pronouns...
as if all languages had...
gender-neutral nouns of the anglican-sphere
of "talk"...

strip me down the the Diogenes' basics of
sodden cloth and dogs' **** to attire...
perhaps i'll show you Cleopatra smile...
or Mona Lisa frown...
             whatever might be the eventuality...
this is not it; nor could it ever be... "it";
the "it" of what you seek.

May I lay to rest
While I still might be missed,
And my unaccomplished dreams
May be spoken of,
Not my successful mediocrities
Forgotten--
When my potential may
Be actualized in the
Generous imagination of
Those who mourn
Instead of my living disappointment
Realized in old age,
When none of this amounts
To anything more than
The life of a person
Served better by early death
Of breath
Than by early death
Of spirit.

You need to shut down your brain;
find the switch and press it.
Once you’re alone with your thoughts,
they’ll whisper things to you and
drag you deeper into the darkness.
Don’t let them.
2. Stop waiting;
stop waiting for that person to text you—
text them if you really want to talk;
stop waiting for the bus—
take the day off, walk, breathe in the air,
and just remember you’re alive;
stop living the same day over and over—
change something,
find what you’re yearning for.
3. Get drunk;
do and say everything you
never had the courage to do.
Kiss a boy, kiss a girl,
break into an abandoned swimming pool,
skinny dip, or tell someone what’s hurting you.
If you regret it later,
pin the blame on the poor *****.
4. Watch the sun set and the sun rise;
let it teach you that if a blazing
sphere of gas can fall and rise again,
so can you.
5. Ask people what they think;
it doesn’t matter what the subject is—
just ask.
You’ll begin to see everything in different ways.
6. Sadness can be inspiring;
write about it. Write a poem, a song, a story.
Create a character loosely based on the pain you feel.
It’s relieving to take your suffering and put it onto a screen.
7. Little things can be amazing;
buy yourself your favourite food,
stop and admire the flowers,
watch the unspoken love between a dog and their owner,
be happy that your skin looks good today,
or be excited to wear your new shoes.
8. People are also amazing;
spend time with them.
Talking online or texting is fine,
but go see someone,
too.
Spend time with your friends,
tell them about your day and listen to theirs.
Hug and hold hands. Comfort is bliss.
Go to a party and talk to a stranger—
listen to their stories.
People can do the most incredible things.
Laugh with people and love with people—
just be around people.
9. Allow yourself to be free;
clear your schedule and don’t worry
about the mediocrities of life.
If something is bothering you then get rid of it.
If someone is making you upset,
erase them from your life.
You don’t have to surround yourself with anything
that doesn’t make you happy.
10. When your sadness creeps up to you,
know its okay to feel like this;
you’re not the first to experience this,
and you won’t be the last.
You’re like the sun—
you can fall and rise again.

Quick lives painted,
By the yellows, reds, and blues.
Colorful lives they were,
Intensely hued in shades.
Kaleidoscope lives.

Chromatic colors of this world,
Not the next.  Although,
Flashes of heaven seen,
Built on moments,
Of crazy subdued!

Essences of bright colors
brought to bear,
For love, against hate.
A spark among mediocrities,
Starting blazes to change worlds.

Splashes of color,
In a darkening sky.
Fireworks streaking to explode,
Falling, extinguished,
Lacking flame for going on.

With their absence,
A vista left more dreary,
Yet carried to the next world,
A sparkle of color heaven gained,
Giving God a smile.

© 2016 Jim Davis

He paces his room
Like a man in a cell
Waiting for something

Perhaps a deep understanding
Of war and greed
Wondering what could have planted this seed?
Sit and watch other men bleed
Do nothing, it's not for greed!

Perhaps a deep understanding
Of politics and societies
Lies and mediocrities
Unfaithful wives and false democracies
Do nothing, it's for the creed!

Perhaps a deep understanding
Of love and hate
A reason why we practice the late
Day and night
Dark and light
Do nothing, it's not our need!

He paces his room
Like a man in a cell
Waiting for something
If only he could tell

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed…”

                                       -Allen Ginsberg


No. He didn’t.

He helped mediocrities self-destruct
Through formless howlings in their lonely minds
He pushed them to their deaths with obscene smirks
No more connected than foul faeces flung

Against the good, the beautiful, the true
He pitied himself, and called it rebellion
He squealed out his pimply scatologies
He destroyed the weaklings he could have helped

The best minds of his generation pitied him
But kept their children far away from it

draft enclosed below... prior to?

    whiskey, always with the whiskey...
                         there was, some, "pressing" matter,
to give me over to grief...
     a grief that was never going
to be a grief...
                  more, a, bewildering in situ...
something unavoidable...
                        like finding respectable
homosexuals akin to douglas murray...
             ah! that's what it was...
watching the premier of rammstein's song
ausländer? thoughts?
                 "teaching" colonialißation in reverse?
truly... france, england,
   perhaps even spain...
                              teaching...
good teachers...
                   they were always going
to be good teachers...
                     the only colonialißm
the germans ever ventured to address was
of their neighbours...
       ****** choice...
                   oh but i'm pretty sure
you would come back from Warsaw
with a homogeneity nausea sickness...
   i know i do...
         every single time,
   the homogeneous ethno-representation
is nauseating...
       even though, i'm stepping back
into a throng, of, "my own" people...
   i lived on the outskirts of loon'don for far
to long, i don't see an ivory beauty,
the pearls of Ghana,
      or some ***** and blue indian,
i start to "worry"...
                              i once traveled to
Cheltenham... and it, felt,
     like i was walking through Warsaw...
i don't even know whether i was surprised,
or whether i was experiencing the same
homogeneity nausea sickness...
                    each step of passing through
the city, i wanted to puke...
                         well not out an aversion
to being white among whites...
                        i guess i'm just the remains
of the globalist narration of so many
different people living in close proximity...
hub...
             as if revising a city akin to Rome...
when once in a year, gladiator slaves would
come for a month of festivity,
and the whole world was revelead
  with all its faces and hues...
                    but the germans know this...
inverted colonialißm -
         of being "colonialißed"...
                         i'm pretty sure the folk
in Warsaw are less understanding
     to the chocolatiers of Brussels...
                          because, as far as i am concerned...
Brexit, really, really came...
        when... the privileged status
of former British Empire citizens put to
question, a sudden surge in the floodgates
being opened for the former iron curtain countries,
you could have told these Pakistanis,
these Indians...
         don't worry... these people have come...
but... don't think they'll stay...
some will...
                   but most of them come
from an environment of homogeneity...
perfect example...
              a flight from Warsaw to Stansted...
talk about "racism",
     talk about "multiculturalism"...
i said jack ****, i just listened to the debate
behind me between a "racist" man
and a youg, impressionable young woman,
who cited the book why i don't talk
to white people about racism...
            i came here aged 8...
            and as a first generation expatriate...
oh yes, i can use the term...
which is weird...
since if i really didn't sink into this tongue
i'd call myself an immigrant...
just like the english immigrants
to h'america or australia call themselves,
the alternative: expatriate...
               the "racist" cited an evolutionary
predisposition as to why same attracts same,
a contradiction of magnets,
but, then again, we're not talking magnets,
but people...
               i'm dissociated with my "fellow"
ethno-centered peoples...
       sure... memories of childhood friends,
digging holes and playing a game
of throwing marbles into them...
hide & seek at night...
   kicking each other in the ***...
                     my memory bank reaches
as far back as being aged 4...
so... yeah... i have a lot to work with...
   again... i woke about how else to describe
that supermarket cashier from yesterday,
how she wanted to become a paramedic...
how her perfect skin,
   without a bout of hay fever looked
radiant...
                            the words:
       like a lake of milk,
                                       illuminated by
a full moon in a night of frozen constellations
of stars, or perhaps only her love spots
   of moles.

    well... that's that... now i'm ready to cite
and translate some Horace...     

sunt quibus in satura videar nimis acer et
  ultra legem tendere opus; sine nervis altera
quidquid conpusui pars esse putat similsque
    meorum, mille die versus deduci posse.
Trebati, quid faciam? praescribe.
              <quiescas>
       <ne faciam, inquis, omnino versus?>
<aio.>
              <peream male, si non optimum
erat; verum nequeo dormire.>
    <ter uncti transnanto Tiberim,
            somno quibus est opus alto,
                   inriguumque mero sub noctem
corpus habento. aut si tantus amor
                             scribendi te rapit,
          aude Caesaris invicti res dicere,
multa laborum praemia laturus.>
   <cupidium, pater optime, vires
deficiunt; neque quivis horrentia pilis
agmina nec fracta pereuntis cupside Gallos
aut labentis equo describit volnera Parthi.>
<attamem et iustum poteras et scribere
fortem, Scipiadam ut sapiens Lucillius.>
      <haud mihi dero, *** res ipsa feret:
nisi dextro tempore Flacci verba per
attentam non ibunt Caesaris aurem:
      cui male si palpere, recalcitrat undique
tutus.>
<quanto recitus hoc quam tristi laedere
versus *** sibi quisque timet,
                           quamquam est intactus
        ed odit.>
                  <quid faciam?      

i guess this would be the perfect time
to write a translation before disclosing the draft...
well... it's Horace...
          who did Dante take to walk him
through hell?           wasn't it Virgil?
only a naive-****-show of a man would
take with him a Greek poet akin to Homer,
or Sappho...
       well... not exactly...
not if poetry attracts poetry...
     James Joyce decided upon Homer,
but i'm not a James Joyce...
if Dante desired to take Virgil as his guide...
i've decided upon Horace...
  and here's the translation:

some say, that in the art of satire i am too acute,
that i go beyond established confines (of the art),
the others, that i write without talent and that
the poems i write in a simialr vein,
can be written into their thousands, every day.
Trebati (a serbian name, etymological
meaning: to need;
point of conjecture... well... if the medieval
world is to be made concise...
and the etymology of slav, implying slave...
it... only appears to hold true for the southern
slavs... the balkan region...
  as far as i am concerned,
the northern slavs... didn't exactly
make it to slave status,
the southern slavs might have been
of the roman empire...)
       Trebati: what do you counsel?
say something!
     stop writing!
            therefore throw my poems
into a corner?
           yes!
         to the executioner, that might be best,
  but then what do during the night,
when it's impossible to fall to sleep?
   rub your body with oil,
thrice swim the length of the Tiber,
in the evening drink some wine -
          you'll thus banish insomnia;
and if still, you have an irresistible desire
to write, then write for the sake of passing
  the victorious deeds of Caesar for posterity;
a generous reward you will receive.
   willingly, but my strengths are modest,
for me to sing about the death of the Gaul
javelin throwers with their broken spears,
or the wounded Parthian,
                      when he's dragged by a horse.
celebrate then, because of this,
   his bravery, his sense of justice, his wisdom,
just like...

  ****! another googlewhack!

                 lucyliusz w scypiadzie
       https://tinyurl.com/y5u7uelu

       just like... Lucius in Scythia.
           maybe i will not tempt, when the right
time comes. the time isn't right, Caesar's ear will
not succumb to the compliments whispered
by Flacci...
           do not stroke the steed in time,
    which will with its hoof kick.
better that than by reproach via a poem
      of these mediocrities,
     like the clown Pantolabus or the grandson
of Nomentano -
        who without blame, and even as
being untouched, hates.
                               and what of it?
        
hell: now the draft...

when all seems bleak upon the blank
plateau and the calm seas of
thought being voided -
    i tend to find scraps of language worth
keeping,
  odd bits of letters no written,
      interrupted narratives -
conversations never had - or pivoting
upon an alternative choice of words,
never mind...
    i acquired english and made myself
its father -
              audacious, i agree -
but psychopathic? i hardly think so.
              to out-speak a native means:
doubling down - standing ground -
digging trenches...
                 i have made english into
the equivalent of an armchair,
    sitting pretty, sitting cosy,
   in some shady part of an east london
pub: peering into the stage, attempting
to differentiate the actors from the props
and the props from an: authenticity.
trick is... well, i can't read in my native tongue
when in england...
  which is why i am extremely anticipating
the december hiatus impeding...
immersed in an environment filled with
the nativspreschen - notably from
devices such as the radio and the t.v. -
   i can digest a book in my nativspreschen
with as much ease as:
  spreading butter on a slice of bread...
        but that's because when in england:
i'm wholly dedicated to the language,
   perhaps not the culture which i mimic -
but i have allegiance to that ******* comfy
armchair that's the english language.
- i remember this one incident of being
thrown out from a local pub on the grounds
that i "launched a glass pint in rage across
the pub floor" - xenophobia tickle -
                 i spoke too much like oliver reed
to one schizophrenic and some other lost soul...
a few days later i tap the shoulder
    of one of the bar mistresses and ask her
if she's feeling o.k., if you want
a depiction of constipation, you should have
seen her, she has harbouring a hedgehog in
her *** by that point...
          a complete ******* of a pub anyway...
you see, even with an acquired accent,
if the question is asked: where you from,
and you say: not from around here,
   even if you've lived here pretty much
all of your life: you're not puritanical enough...
mind you... i'm the pedigree breed,
surrounded by mongrels...
                 i am, but a mongrel of the soul
nurturing an adopted tongue, while
   "trying" my hardest to forget my native tongue...
*******, i'm not going to turn into
a terrorist, which, by the way,
english society has bred...
                  polish is not omnipresent -
it's not the king-quack-**** sitting on
the throne of hippo-******* that's
the meridian - you have you dream,
taken from the spanish -
       die ***** von sonnezunge
ständig suchen  für die mond:
       die schlaflosigkeitreich -
the empire of (the) sun-tongue -
perpetually looking for the moon -
  insomniac empire.
      hell, have it, maybe by having it
you can have your, little elaborations
of the dream fabric...
             point being:
my native tongue is an equivalent of
the iron maiden by comparison...
       the merovingian was wrong:
you truly wipe your *** with silk
by speaking english...
                notably by introducing the
amputee R's worth of trill to sound old-school
and a knowledge of latin always helps...
but nothing quiet comes across
as speaking the native tongue better than
the natives...
        i think that's called ambition...
      or a heckling of some sort -
a heckling where no one is staged or is
telling a joke...
                   a bit like being generous
to the turk and his predicament...
  he owns a store, the local council comes
to him, he literally has a caravan outside the store...
and he's worrying about employing
lawyers to solve the matter, he doesn't
know what the problem is...
two bottles of wine and some coca cola
and i peer outside: ah!
         so i tell him: you're obstructing
an item of public property...
  the simple answer is that you have to
revise your makeshift caravan shanty and
expose that bench...
did i get a thank you, or a free bottle of
whiskey... turks... what do you expect,
  he thanked me by increasing the price of beer...
if people older than me have no
standards of etiquette - why even expect
any study of ethics? you first learn aesthetic,
then you learn etiquette,
    and then comes ethics...
         you think i bought anything from
him ever again? loser.
     - became a corporate ***** -
but then again at 16 quid a litre of ms. amber scot,
i can't complain.
                  - but come one,
you've been given free legal advice and
you can't even repay a debt of being given
advice... ah... i see...
it would have made the proprietor look
                     stupid, i.e.: d'uh! a bench!
funny you should ask (without even asking):
whenever i go back to poland i feel grounded...
nay, cushioned - after all i am not there
to visit my countrymen as such,
   more or less imbued with a sense of
proximity to my neighbours,
  the germans, the czechs, the white russians,
lithuanians and the ukrainians....
               and to read a book...
but mostly about feeling the vicinity of
the neighbours...
                      and inhale a breath of
authenticity, in historical terms...
                     because back in england -
  well i have a patriotism for the language:
but not the people -
                    the language i can cherish -
the people mean diddly-squat to me...
  after being barred from a pub on false accusation,
well... expect any different?
                if only i were black,
i could call that racism...
                        alas, i have the ****** luck
of the irish...
                 then again...
                                       none of this even matters
beyond a squabbling defaced impression
of a memory...
                              it still stands:
i'm comfortable writing, since i deem
english to be an armchair -
               but the nativspreschen i find
as an iron maiden...
            although when wholly immersed
in an environment when the only words
in english you hear are: weekend, etc. -
                     there's this aura of oddity that
surrounds me:
         either i'm a ghost among the living -
or i'm alive, immersed in ghost town...
i can never tell...
                           all in all:
continental air is so refreshing having spent
an entire year on an island...
   the almost complete lack of moisture,
the crispness of dry cool,
           the crackling of the foot on snow
in imitation of walking on egg shells -
  and the mere snow - notably falling crisply
during the night...
            islanders are a very strange people...
whether the british, the icelanders,
the maltese, the cypriots, the irish,
                        you name them...
                      islanders have this knack at
believing themselves to be superior
to kontinentalvolk -
       notably when it comes to the basic
etiquette of tourism...
                  in was in paris, twice...
each time i had the luck of a fellow tourist
who spoke french...
                                     once it was this
italian girl, another a canadian girl with
russian roots: a pole's luck, i guess.

this life is not always about our dreams that are expected

instead the reality of our life becomes merely accepted

it's not wonderful nor is it bad

something about realization is sad

we just accept the mediocrities

when we wish to attain our wildest abilities

The tallest poppy sprout refined and majestic in rarefied inner peace

In wisdom, knowledge and truth he embraces his charismatic rays

Self-assured, confident, stoic and compassionate, sincere in truthful pleas

That duly in the service of others, our world would be a better place

Where each and all finds in true hope, their deserving nirvana undismayed

And with honest toil and gainful endeavour, bright smiles will grace every face



Alas, the land is filled with psychopaths, deviants, louts, charlatans and knaves

Mindless simpletons, arrogant buffoons, deluded malcontents, shepples and fleas

Racists, liars, Lilly-liver ed cowards, inadequate bullies and stained underclass with knives

Hedonists, drunkards, pedophiles, lying hypocritical vicars and inglorious common thieves

Fathers and mothers with no control over off-springs and hapless aged locked away in fear

Whilst the shameless cowardly reprobates, uncouth, unwashed declares, we rule the hives

And as the wont of sad degenerate mediocrities,  mesmerises a gang of fools in similar dire



Some say they are the barbarians of Europe, uncultured, arrogant, mindless, jingoistic ***** dusts

Basking at once, then denigrating a proud history made by the elites, who now patronise them

And indoors, sip iced Bollinger, nibble on caviar, and shake their saloon ed heads in disgust

The educated professionals indulge them and offer liberal platitudes, the problem is at the stem

And the pitiful ingrates, dosed on *******, hyped on beer and moonshine from a Polish den

Stagger and pounce about pathetically, and hiss through yellow uneven teeth, power to the people

"This is Democracy", they pontificate, we can terrorize the likes of the Tallest Poppy, that silly Zen



So how does one explain what 'piffling contempt' means to deranged, deluded, inadequate psychos, then

How do indulgent semi-illiterates class, limited by a benevolent nanny State see they project their angst onto better men

And vent their spleen and the frustrations of their limitations and insignificance on to others who they fear and envy.

The pain and miseries of their unfulfilled, mundane and superficial, empty lives, means others should suffer too

So again, So how does one explain what 'piffling contempt' means to deranged, deluded, inadequate psychos

How do you catch a *****, extricate the coward bully, and revive a dead brain, capable of aspirations and higher ideals

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Macbeth, Doctor Zhivago, Captain Call, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Allen Ginsberg, and Rod McKuen Visit the Dentist but Have to Wait for Beowulf's Root Canal

         In gratitude for all the wonderful dentists, hygienists, and
                       technicians who keep us chewing!


                                  Macbeth Visits the Dentist

Is this a drill which I see before me
The whirring drill outstretched to my teeth
O happiest gas! Come let me clutch thee!
Before my body I throw my dental shield


                            Dr. Zhivago Visits the Dentist

Poor dental hygiene is for crowds of mediocrities
Only individuals seek dentistry
And they shun those who tolerate bad teeth
How many things in the world deserve our loyalty?

A dentist whose papers are in order


                            Captain Call Visits the Dentist

Call saw that the dentist was looking at him
The nitrous oxide drained out of him
Leaving him feeling tired
“I hate a bad tooth. I won’t tolerate it.”


                 Yevgeny Yevtushenko Visits the Dentist

For a tooth to come out
Some of the pain must be devoted to Stalin
Soviet dentistry demanded happy endings
I knew I could floss and brush better than Mayakovsky
Bella’s teeth were second only to those of Akhmatova
Only I could make Babi Yar all about me and my teeth
When I saw a dentist in Zima Junction
I saw the truth of the Revolution in her little mirror


                     Allen Ginsberg Visits the Dentist

I saw the best teeth of my generation destroyed by sugared sodas and a failure to brush and floss

dragging themselves through the medical complex at dawn looking for a fix

thinning-hair old hipsters burning for relief from aching jaws at the healing hands of dedicated professionals among their shining instruments

dedicated professionals who did not drop out of the University of Arkansas and never saw Mohammedan angels among the rooftops


                                   Rod McKuen Visits the Dentist

I am like a molar; I have chewed alone
Gnawed a hundred hamburgers
Never found a bone
Still and all I’m toothy
Reason is you see
Once in a while along the way
Dentists have been good to me.

MARÍA DE ESTRADA
            Freeze, *****! It’s your mistress bids you halt.
            Let’s see what trulls the latest nets have trawled.
            Not bad, sad slave. You’ll fit your new career:
            A teenage tartlet to refresh their tents.
            Don Alvarado keeps a natty ring
            Pranked up with goads, whose stingers top its face,
            To spur reluctant steeds through rocky rides.
            You’ll buckle underneath such battery.
            I hope your yelps won’t stir my husband’s sleep.
            María de Estrada, at your service, serf.
            I reign sole victrix of this manly camp,
            For I’m not fit to mince and kiss my hand,
            Like all those gingerbread girls back in Spain.
            No, Cuba was a rowdy, lax frontier
            Where I was raised to tussle with the boys,
            And now stand champion in these warlike ranks-
            For boundaries built up by prejudice
            Are not reformed by mediocrities.
            Once I have overmatched your Amazons,
            I’ll force those tomboy squaws to nurse my brats-
            If but a single, over-muscled pap
            Can fortify the husky chaps I’ll breed.

                Enter GARRIDO with baggage, and passes over the stage.

            Look to your maidhood, miss, or be dismayed.
[to Garrido]
           Hold, boy! You’ve got my bag of needments there.     Exit.

MALINALLI
            What gibberish! So much chin-music to me,
            But something of her drift I comprehend.
            I must assert my merit here. But how?
            My ***? A trump card every girl here holds.
            But what my prodigy at languages?
            I’ll trail their chieftain, and my gift of tongues
            Shall lift his veil unto this ****** world.                          *Exit.

It seem like the world has been silent enough to **** paint poets
with man ruling and running history all in the adventure to discover the value of the soul.
For an unquenchable fire within that has been set ablaze by the drumming heart of a fervent soul that bleeds with free domain,
so dominant and illuminate in an illustrative manner like a mitric star that fell from a stella nest to nurse nothing but cowardice that evolved and blistered with scars that never healed.
So i pose a question,what is a man?, except a dark creature that roams freely failing to dominate the world yet calling himself a conquer.
Conquer and divide is said to be a mandate,Iron in ironing out ironic facts makes one bleed in terror and shrink in fear, only to freeze and fade with time.
What is a soul?
It is empty. What is an idle mind if not the workshop of the rumors, rumors that gave birth to suspicion between two brothers and later contaminating the whole society with hate.
Indeed rumors are Lucifer and pregnant with ignorance, and ignorance is never a defense but a bullet fired without recoil only to destroy the future, and to shamefully tell the world that sword is more powerful than the pen yet the pen puts a clause and instills war and battle fire with fire, ashes to ashes in prying eyes of the metric world that fall with mediocrities of the world above putting a silent mode to the test and screams
IF ONLY I KNEW.

the days get dark early, even just gone  three

yesterday.

the book looks boring ,the same entry

each day

descending.



all other mediocrities  cancelled,

including festivities.



the days are darker,

we gets thinner.



sbm.

She'll kiss a word, covered in blood,
She'll dignify mediocrities aloud,
She gives me motive to blossom,
Into an entity I've long despised.

She isn't much of a salesman,
Though salesmanship is her passion,
Nearly driving herself to oblivion,
I sedate her with words that are preprogrammed.

Like a *** of water and salt,
A patch of Leather and with a yarned lace,
A cup of oil and a splash of vinegar,
We go together as if it's a curse.

To make sense of it would be senseless,
Since senselessness is it's meaning,
A shadow covering a timid silhouette,
It's passion for construction that seems most logical.

nature's way of saying
I love what you do with your tongue
mom used to lick her hanky
to clean my face of imaginary dirt
for this I can only seek revenge
my allies the hobo armies of doom
also want revenge and maybe a banana
now I have a sweet tooth with no answers
for the impenetrable slits of her eyes
the matinee audience was aghast
so I knew we hit the glass jaw
now back to the scheduled program
our man on the scene Swigheart Backhoe
sends this report from Flat, Nebraska
on the next Heads of Kings exhibit
down at the tent city Crusader camp
as we try to figure out why ***** motility
hasn't created a master race yet
The best of millions fighting upstream like
Steelers' running back Don Quixote
over a million years and we still end up with
politicians with red putty noses that go honk
and readers of the Weekly World Snooze
who renew their state of alarm by the minute
we're not one step closer to Kingdom Come for it
***** motility then is as effective an indicator
of Darwinian uber selection
as a chicken on a rotisserie spit
is an indicator of barnyard vitality
you are alive right give yourself a pinch
let's use ***** science to give the 2nd raters
and mediocrities a chance at the brass ova
the modern science of magnification
their committees can certainly arrange for a
shiftless layabout unimaginative spermatozoa
to take a hero's poke at the moon
enough with this Mother Nature swill
put the couch potato, the hysteric
the derelict pants ******* wino *****
up the beanpole and see who salutes
Mother Nature eats her young
and writes fat checks for the
Eugenics Foundation of Savannah, Africa
so does God have someone
telling him what to think
beyond reason most absolutely
they all have the same mouthpiece
so go for it you little tadpoles
get in there you little champions

From "Pageant of Naked Mischief" available on Amazon

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               A  Former President and his Former Ambassador

                          “…a drab assortment of mediocrities.”

   -William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third *****, p. 1142

There is a very obvious thing
About that kissing that shouldn’t be missed:
It wasn’t the former president’s ring
That the former ambassador kissed

22 May 2024