Microwaves are better in the daytime
where there is noise to block the beeping
and sound to mask the hum.
No one is awake but me
as the frozen Indian food heats up
at a time too late for dinner.

I pass the minutes,
watching the blinking countdown,
thinking of all the chances you had to kiss me.

Once I took one of those blot tests, the ones that that Rorschach guy invented.
Or maybe it's Rorscarch.
I don't know, but I call him Roar-shark.
Anyhow.
The ones with blots of black paint that you're supposed to find pictures in.
There was this one blot, and I saw the profile of a lady's face, with long windblown-looking hair.
I was supposed to find a butterfly.

I've always had a different take on things, a weird memory association.
Well, I guess I can't call it memory. As far as I can recall, I've never seen that Roar-shark blot lady in my life, or anyone like her. At least, anyone that I can remember. And I only remember the truly remarkable.

I had these really great microwave burritos that I would eat after school, before rehearsal so I could just pop them in and go.
They were warm and gooey and really realllly bad for me, but hey.
I'm in a hurry. I'm allowed to be fat.
They were soft and I could eat them in the car on the way to the theatre without spilling things on my rehearsal skirts.
But then my grandad got throat cancer.
I was house-sitting my Nana's house one day and opened the fridge to get myself a glass of milk while I fed her cats.
Those very same burritos were in their freezer.
The other day I shoved one of them in the microwave so I could grab it and go,
and I hopped in the car and took a bite
But I couldn't eat anymore.
I looked at it and my stomach turned and for some reason I could not eat that burrito.
My mind had decided that if I were to take another bite out of that food,
I would be eating cancer.
I told myself that I was being ridiculous and stupid and I was hungry, so eat it.
But I couldn't shake it.
So I threw it out the window.

My mind's ALWAYS doing stuff like that, playing tricks on me.
I can't touch the page numbers on the pages of a book. I think they're spiders.
Sometimes I think my oboe reed blades are actual blade blades
and I'm afraid to put them in my mouth.
Weirdness doesn't go away.

So now I've switched my before-rehearsal food.
Tortilla. And milk.
I don't know why this strikes me as appealing, but it does.
My mind equates tortillas and milk-- warm and cool-- with happiness,
just like it equates my face wash to orange and honeysuckle.
(Though it smells like neither.)
and Christmas angels to pillows.
Rugs remind me of Egyptians.
Theatre seats are associated with a certain animated clownfish.
Leaves are reminiscent of the Sistine CHapel.
Pleas don't tell Roar-shark.

Once my English teacher told my class to write everything important in ink,
which brings us back to that one guy,
in pen.
Since everything I write is important, I write everything in pen.
Of course, you can see everything I scratch out, too.
The unimportant of the always important.
I like to think I'm not afraid of mistakes.

But sometimes, when my iPod is on shuffle,
it decides to get inside my head and play that song
that reminds me of you--
back when I bit my lip,
back when you owed me a slow dance,
back when I actually LIKED the scent of apples and pine trees.
And my mind does this "freeze" thing that
makes me stop breathing for a second.
and I hit the next button really really fast and then
fly off to the kitchen to find a glass of milk
because nothing can go wrong when I've got happiness in my hands.
But it's no use.
The thought gets to me before I can stop it.
About
my
our
YOUR mistake.
And then I just get angry and the milk quivers in my glass and I have to set it down before I throw it at the wall or something drastic like that.
Because I am dramatic, maybe.
Because even though I have played it over in my head
because even though I try to think it's my fault
because even though I try to blame it on myself
I can't.
Because it's not.
Because I'm not afraid to make mistake.
But I'm afraid to remember you.
Because
Even if you were remarkable.
You aren't.
Roar-shark would have a field day.

Laugh all you want,
but when I was a kid
I didn't watch
Thriller after dark.

But I danced.
I danced my *** off in that lit living
room
with Joci.

All night long,
popping
and moonwalking.

Now that I'm old(er)
I know how to build spaceships
and I can put
the popcorn
in the microwave
myself.

I can take the popcorn out of the microwave
and watch Thriller all night long.

But
then
my little woodpecker
came.

When I was
Cynical
with power
now and then,
I became
Raw
and uncarved
again.

We dance over the graves all night long.
Our tombstones are smooth
and we make light
together
with our feet.

Little woodpecker
what are you beginning to etch
in me now?

Penelope Cruz
Used to muse
On the use
Of oversized microwave ovens
In the covens
Of Barcelona.

Give them their due
They know how to imbue
Broomsticks with fresh belladonna!

How to cook a gourmet (whatever the hell that means) dinner:

Step 1: Send your boyfriend a text inviting him over for a romantic, candlelit home-cooked gourmet dinner.

Step 2: Remember that you are forever alone and don’t have a boyfriend.

Step 3: Go buy mass amounts of chocolate and cry about it.

Step 4: Get over it and invite over your grandmother instead.

Step 5: Preheat the oven to 975 degrees

Step 6: Freak out about the fire in your oven and turn it off.

Step 7: Open all your doors to let the smoke out.

Step 8: Get out all the ingredients you need for the recipe you are
following.

Step 9: End up eating most of the ingredients before you even get to
use them.

Step 10: Spill oil and wine all over your recipe book (umm pffft the
wine is TOTALLY one of the ingredients, that’s why you had it out… heh heh… yeah…)

Step 11: Panic and try to dry it off by taking the book outside and waving it around.

Step 12: Watch in horror as all the pages in your book tear and fly off
into the wind.

Step 13: Chase hopelessly after the pages down the block screaming
swear words and having a heart attack.

Step 14: Politely smile and wave awkwardly at your neighbour who
hates you.

Step 15: Yell an apology across the street to that other neighbour who
REALLY doesn’t like you with the little five year old daughter who is
now repeating all of your colorful vocabulary words you just yelled.

Step 16: Reluctantly accept the fact that your recipes are gone. And also
that you have just contributed to the global problem of littering the
streets.

Step 17: Walk back to your smoke-scented house in shame.

Step 18: Look through pictures of scrumptious-looking meals on
Pinterest.

Step 19: Get inspired and decide to put your brilliant idea of creating your own recipe into action.

Step 20: Get out your frying pan and throw a bunch of random ingredients in.

Step 21: Put out yet another fire and realize that marshmallows, sprinkles, raisins, baking soda, orange peels and liquid gasoline probably wouldn’t have tasted very good together anyway.

Step 22: Wonder what the hell is wrong with you.

Step 23: Get distracted by the television for half an hour.

Step 24: Try to microwave 2 week old mac and cheese you forgot to
throw out.

Step 25: Watch as your microwave malfunctions and spontaneously
combusts.

Step 26: Decide to clean it up later because you just cannot even deal
with it right now.

Step 27: Fill a *** with water to make pasta and try to boil the water.

Step 28: Somehow manage to burn the water.

Step 29: Wonder how that even happened?!!!!

Step 30: Give up and call the pizza delivery guy.

Step 31: When you grandmother arrives have her take a seat in the
kitchen.

Step 32: Call an ambulance when she has a heart attack seeing the mess
in your kitchen.

Step 33: Get ready to leave and drive after the ambulance to the
hospital with your grandmother once the pizza arrives so you can
bring it with you. Get a call from the pizza place.

Step 34: Listen to the manager explain that your pizza spontaneously
burst into flames in the oven and they are terribly sorry there will be a
delay in the delivery due to this.

Step 35: Pass out.

People show love in many ways
A note on the bathroom door
An extra brownie in your lunch box
Starting the car on a cold morning
For her it  was in her food
She cooked her emotions the way most chefs add salt
You could taste them clearly in every bite connecting your tastebuds to your heart,
If she was happy the steak melted on your tongue
If she was sad the soup made a tear glisten in your eye
But when she was in love with me
Every Bite sang in my mouth
She made my favorites every night
Life was good
But one day the bread wasn’t so fluffy
It held a melancholy note i’ve never tasted before
I asked what was wrong but she didn’t have the words to explain what she as feeling,
So I let it go
That was my mistake
Day by day, she started to crumble
So did her pies
She went from a wonder dancing in the kitchen and licking the spoon
To a hollow shell serving you lukewarm pasta that left you unsettled
I excused her behavior
I was busy she was stressed
The food was only cold because I was so late to the table
I didn’t realize it wasn’t dinner I was neglecting
It was her
If i could change one moment in my life, i’d be that night
The one where she finally felt up to baking again
We had some time together, she hummed a bit as she stirred the batter
But then she stumbled and dropped a glass measuring cup of milk she was holding
It was bitter irony seeing the woman i loved,
The light of my life,
Crying over spilled milk
That’d be the moment i’d change
I’d catch her wrist and hold her up
Just Like I promised I would
I wouldn’t fail her if I had another chance
Our kitchen is quiet these days
There's a thick layer of dust everywhere except the microwave
And around the edges of the room are tiny bits of glass
Glistening like diamonds
Or unshed tears,
Abandoned like me
But I can’t complain
After all, I abandoned her first
I should have read the recipe
I should have realized she was breaking
I didn’t see it at first
But every bite held a piece of her suicide note
If i’d only tasted it before it was too late
Now she’s gone
My hearts as broken as that measuring cup
And I’m the one crying over spilled milk

By Aknier     ~this is fictional~

It was a Friday night,
I was on the phone with my grandmother when I looked at the clock suddenly remembered,
it was time for the ritual.
I immediately hung up on my grandmother,
and stripped of my clothing.
The ritual required I be naked.
I then took some goat cheese out of my refrigerator,
and put it in the microwave.
I waited.
The goat cheese seemed like it took forever to melt,
but it only took a few minutes.
In those few minutes,
I just sat there,
and played with my left ******.
Finally, the timer went off,
and it was done.
I took the melted goat cheese,
and poured it onto my body.
It burned,
but I suffered through it.
I would do anything for the Goat Gods.
Anything.
Once the melted goat cheese was poured onto my body,
I began to lather myself in it.
Soon, I was covered in melted goat cheese.
The smell,
was horrendous,
but in a way,
I enjoyed it.
Then, I removed the goat blood from my refrigerator,
and poured it into a ***,
which had been on the oven all day,
waiting.
I began to boil the goat blood.
I took a sip of it.
"No" I said as a shook my head in disappointment.
I had been ripped off again by my goat blood dealer.
There was no flavoring in it.
It tasted like goat blood.
So I threw in some carrots,
and a dollop of horse radish.
While it was boiling,
I went to my bedroom,
to my closet,
where I found my goat mask.
A real goats head I had carved out and made into a mask.
I put it on.
When I had it on,
I felt like one with the Goat Gods.
When I returned,
the goat blood was done.
I poured it into a Tupperware container,
sealed it,
and put on my shoes.
By now,
the once hot and slimy goat cheese,
was dried,
and stuck to my body.
It was crusty,
like the crusties you get in your eyes,
just all over your body.
I walked out the front door,
across the street,
to my neighbors house.
I tried to open the front door.
Locked.
They knew I was coming this time.
Last week,
they forgot.
So I left the goat blood on their front steps,
and left.
When I got home,
I immediately went to the TV,
sat down,
and turned on "Antique Roadshow".
I looked out my window,
and saw my nervous neighbor grab the goat blood,
and bring it inside.
"Soon they will join the Goat Side" I said as I repeated it to myself, "Soon they will join the Goat Side".

I -- A Pleasant Afternoon

                for Michael Brownstein and **** Gallup

One day 3 poets and 60 ears sat under a green-striped Chau-
        tauqua tent in Aurora
listening to Black spirituals, tapping their feet, appreciating
        words singing by in mountain winds
on a pleasant sunny day of rest -- the wild wind blew thru
        blue Heavens
filled with fluffy clouds stretched from Central City to Rocky
        Flats, Plutonium sizzled in its secret bed,
hot dogs sizzled in the Lion's Club lunchwagon microwave
        mouth, orangeade bubbled over in waxen cups
Traffic moved along Colefax, meditators silent in the Diamond
        Castle shrine-room at Boulder followed the breath going
        out of their nostrils,
Nobody could remember anything, spirits flew out of mouths
        & noses, out of the sky, across Colorado plains & the
        tent flapped happily open spacious & didn't fall down.
        

                                                        June 18, 1978

II -- Peace Protest

Cumulus clouds float across blue sky
        over the white-walled Rockwell Corporation factory
                                        -- am I going to stop that?

                                

Rocky Mountains rising behind us
        Denver shining in morning light
-- Led away from the crowd by police and photographers

                                

Middleaged Ginsberg and Ellsberg taken down the road
        to the greyhaired Sheriff's van --
But what about Einstein? What about Einstein? Hey, Einstein
                                Come back!

III -- Golden Courthouse

Waiting for the Judge, breathing silent
        Prisoners, witnesses, Police --
the stenographer yawns into her palms.

                                        August 9, 1978

IV -- Everybody's Fantasy

I walked outside & the bomb'd
        dropped lots of plutonium
        all over the Lower East Side
There weren't any buildings left just
        iron skeletons
groceries burned, potholes open to
        stinking sewer waters

There were people starving and crawling
        across the desert
the Martian UFOs with blue
        Light destroyer rays
passed over and dried up all the
        waters

Charred Amazon palmtrees for
        hundreds of miles on both sides
        of the river

                                August 10, 1978

V -- Waiting Room at the Rocky Flats Plutonium Plant

"Give us the weapons we need to protect ourselves!"
        the bareheaded guard lifts his flyswatter above the desk
                                                -- whap!

                                *

A green-letter'd shield on the pressboard wall!
        "Life is fragile.  Handle with care" --
My Goodness! here's where they make the nuclear bomb
                                  triggers.

                                        August 17, 1978

VI -- Numbers in Red Notebook

2,000,000 killed in Vietnam
13,000,000 refugees in Indochina 1972
200,000,000 years for the Galaxy to revolve on its core
24,000 the Babylonian Great Year
24,000 half life of plutonium
2,000 the most I ever got for a poetry reading
80,000 dolphins killed in the dragnet
4,000,000,000 years earth been born

                                                Summer 1978

/I dreamed that wrinkled fingers pointed me backward down the road to teach me about faith./

there’s this plastic imitation leather
peeling off of my steering wheel
and it caught the edge of my chin tonight:
like a fingernail if I closed my eyes.

I re-find that people are flawed,
that I value flaws in a certain lilt or lighting—
I fall deeply in love with confidence like that
but fail to pull it to my own cheeks.

we’re microwave dinners, have you noticed that?
showcasing our dreams in caricatures we later regret.
we’re rotating in heat—pressurizing for perfection,
warming our raw insides to blend with what we see.

(it felt like a fingernail if I closed my eyes.)

spines are expressive—they make us easier to read.
no spine is more inclined to bring eyes the rising sun than yours.
our spines are expressive—they make us easier to write.

Babies in the microwave
Babies in the oven
Babies in a shallow grave
Babies need your lovin'

Babies smoking cigarettes
Babies cursing with tourette's
Babies in the garbage can
Babies on the ceiling fan

Babies reading Dostoevsky
Babies cruising on a jet ski
Babies naked on the beach
Babies fuzzy like a peach

Babies crying cuz you hurt them
Babies take it cuz they must
Babies lying cuz you hurt them
Babies I will never trust

Babies all of us once were
Babies drooling on the fur
Babies in the soup we stir
Babies life is all a blur.

I sleep in a garage.
ten giant tricycles
standing on their backs
sleep next to me.
my bathroom is at sears.
or McDonalds.
or winn-dixie.
male prostitutes post shop
on the street corners
around here
"******* ****
for money
for crack"
as one such fellow
put it to a cop.
there's a blender
and a microwave
and plenty of bottles of ***.

Grandpa, tell me about the good old days
I want to hear of your younger ways

When there was no T.V. and there were no cars
When at night you looked up and could count the stars

About how you skipped stones across the lake
With no video games to entertain

What's all this about fun being free?
All this old I hear sure is new to me

Did people really sit and talk?
And where they went did they actually walk?

How did you survive without a microwave?
I bet cooking then must have taken days

You say your parents let you just run about
Were they not afraid you would be kidnapped?

And you didn't come home till dinner time?
Grandpa to me that just doesn't seem right

Did Moms and Dads really stay together
like they promised, till death do us part?

Cause they don't do that that much anymore
and it can really mess up some hearts

Did you talk much with your neighbors
even though you lived miles apart?

Cause mine are living right next door
and I don't even know who they are

You say there weren't warning labels on everything
How in the world did you feel safe back then

And without a cell phone in your hand
How did you keep up with all your friends

Grandpa, did you not ever get bored
Chasing down the wind in the great outdoors

And you say you had everything that you could need
All this old I hear sure is new to me

a grandchild
   for her 9th birthday
very happy
    to be away from her older
   as well as her younger sister
  for a while
spent a  long weekend
with her grands

   they picked her up
   schoolbag and bathing suit
   and guitar & everything else

she had already mentioned
   that French Toast for breakfast
would be REALLY nice
and that’s what she got
together with chocolate milk
   1 minute in the microwave,
   according to her wish
patiently reading her book
while the oldies got their act together
   in their slow morning routine

they all went birthday shopping
   & out for lunch
she read her book again while the oldies
    were snoring their nap
& then they all had great fun
    swimming and horsing around in the public pool

watching some TV  
   & improving her ping-pong game
happy & tired
after dinner some goodnight reading
doughnuts and hot chocolate for breakfast
next morning
   and then
    with grandma’s help
printing out a card for Mom on Mother’s day
AND baking real  brownies as a gift….

a happy & proud 9-year old
   was delivered to her parents
& presented her mother with the card
   & the brownies & the new dress
   & the homework all done

somehow
the guitar practice had gotten lost

yet she was the envy of her siblings
for the day

           * *

ghosts of slumber parties past.
just a haunted betamax & a stack of oreo sandwiches.
sisters braiding eachother’s hair far past the witching hour,
contemplating life without supervision.

blue house. yellow lawn.
silverback gorilla in one garage.
two garage: empty.
three garage: a woman entombed in exhaust.

          [her bloated tongue]

a gang of bmx boys pizza-fed and friday-high,
hopped up on mountain dew and trading card collectible rituals ‘n rhythmics.
they conjure a demon just to **** and dismember it.
     for funsies.
     for keepsies.

a fang for the shrine at the foot of the old oak tree.
history on the skin, long history, long thoughts, long in the nod like a calm dead frog.
bubbled, boiled, toiled, and troubled.

the woods aren’t haunted.
you   are haunted.
you   are the conduit through which the darkness displays its vivid colors.

          [treefort aflame]

the seasons furrow/
                               / the leaves fall.
little plots of land etched out – subdivision and sprawl.
on the avenue, heaven
& hell made tame and tangible.
built, re-built, and refurbished – a lawn and a lantern.
a mortgaged glory of sparkle and decay.

          [dead cat is a new cat is the old cat ran away]

pictograms of morning light display on mom’s face
as she instructs us on the gusts of love       [scrambed eggs]
& teaches us the truth of nettles sprung
from violent pine.
                                      [toast with raspberry jam]
the television.
the microwave.
the blender beverages.
hymnals of an electric kingdom.
one mom dances, the other expires.

          [restless armless girls in orange sunsets]

girl with a gun at the edge of her lawn and selling lemonade.
girl in an old wicker chair.
save her horror story for another day.

boy with a bent frame bicycle limps his way home
from one end of the avenue to the other.
his pockets full of sparkly rocks found in the lime quarry pit.
one boy in a long line of lost planets.
the driveway.
the refrigerator.
the hum of a saturday night commercial-free cassette.
where’s dad?

                         the glow of an eerie crystal
                                                                     (continued…)

a zit—(white iceberg tip
                                             infection-floa­ting)

a heart (yours was always lipid-
                                                      ­  slippery)

an ember (firefly abdomen
                                                exhaling in black velvet)

a full bladder—(toilet-bowl relief:
                                                            a temporary prescription)

a bag of hot chips (extra habanero
                                                             for a spicy explosion)

a sink pipe (domestic artery rupture
                                                             ­     of your sledgehammer swing)

a water balloon, (concrete-spiked,
                                                              insoluble rubber jigsaw)

spaghetti in the microwave: (blood
                                                               stain pattern analysis of metal walls)

a seam. (sewn ending
                                       frays: leave the stitch, re-exposed.)

I think I might just be a lot of talk.
A dreamer.
I dream a lot and the reality doesn’t seem as good.
I’m on the third re-heat of my morning coffee
and the third time around it’s really really not as good.
But this time I put the microwave on high and set it for 2 minutes
so maybe it will be so hot it takes off a layer of my tongue.
I hope it does, but I won’t let it.
I can smell the microwave in the coffee which can only mean I’m drinking parts of the microwave.
And maybe the little parts of the microwave will make my dreams come true.
I picture the little microwave atom waves spinning and bouncing---
and taking me on a long journey.

a porcelain grizzly bear is on my desk table
I stole it from a gas station in Oklahoma
driving 100 miles per hour
in the hope for something hopeful
a tiny minuet grasp of freedom of the road
of the cigarette endlessly burning
endlessly producing knowledge
imagination
little scroll stories that flash through the mind like rain drops or
shooting stars at night
or the clock on the microwave turning from 4:00
to 4:01

A subconscious journey
a path
a walkway
a minor walkway into the many hallway'd mind
perhaps there are no doors
no official room or building
simply hallways binding into one another like ******* eye lashes on a woman of 47
and in these hallways there are rats that like to chew on the soles of your high heeled boots
leaving you
bare foot
then the hallway floors turn into your stomach
flabby
filled with chicken skin and peanuts
A subconscious dilemma
dementia
the dogs got loose
I'll trace them by the foot prints left in the desert like snow

“Ah” my money brother told me
a snow storm
I cover my eyes only to see that I am starving from the wind
and food is scarce in my belly
everyone is dying of hunger
but the poet eats on his fingernails and the poems he abortions through the vaginal mind imagination that creates in his skull made up of glue metal objects and pizza boxes left out on side streets for hounds cats and old serial killer'd military men have left the war only to find trash on the side street and windows with yellow lanterns flaming up in the night like a forest fire
or a **** girl of 16 running through the city streets high on methamphetamines
I called the doctor he's drunk on something I made up in my mind
and Beethoven is on the bathroom shooting up ****** which isn't mine
where is the poem heading
only the humming bird and and ant on the wall will because they do not care
I am hiding something beneath the crevasses of my fingernails of 5
of 10
of 20
of 15
“there's nothing to whisper about” I told her sleeping ear in the midst of drunk A.M. night with nothing to do but make love smoke cigarettes and comment on the noises outside city of sirens that do not attract but chase the negros of criminal car thieves and the drug dealers of KCMO

she took off her dress
something glowed in her eyes
on her belly
in her *******
her legs that grew like plants in a swamp
or in a pond where the deer feed and drink
I kissed her lightly
I saw the moon shake in jealousy
so I left the room through the window
I crawled on my highheeled knees onto the roof and sang
I sang
I sang a song that didn't make sense  and I puked up tiny words of
misleading information to the past of my life
van
desert city Michigan land of
rusting
rusted
old broken toyed up frozen over
antiques
the pond is frozen over
winter won't leave me alone
poking at my eyes
the wind plays a sad song
I miss the tree of life
I want to taste the forbidden apple
but I burnt my tongue on a hot iron
or was it boiling whiskey that I drank from the oven

I took a step into a hole
the subconscious mind began the breath like a young man that crashed in a blue volvo in 1963 on a street next to a ***** house and the lights were loud and the women were thin with
thin
thin
thin
thin
and their ******* pointed
and there eyes shifted only to God
only to 1 dollar bills and the 1 whiskey and 1 more pill of the serene night
of that
hope of finding beauty in a high
but the Trees burn
and the soil is over used
bare no child dirt
the children are deaf and blind and cant run up a mountain
reach the stars
reach the ravens
reach for the
violin
that corrodes the mind like lice
like bleach on the bathroom floor
like termites in the basement
chewing on a sound
gnawing on the night's temple
this may be a problem
painting you
I'm out of oils
and the fridge is warm
that is where I keep my pistol
turn the heat on
turn the water off
lets go out dancing
lets make love
lets ****
lets kiss
lets talk about the sky
as we sit
on our bellies
drinking wine
drinking the dogs breath
drinking the hands sweat
drinking the intellectual thoughts of a book
the book is dead
Savio stands with a sword and cuts his own throat
yet nothing pours out
what is next
where does the Van go from here
where is the next highway thought
the next Used Car Dealer Ship
where is aluminium bathroom
the dishwasher with no dishes
the light bulb that dangles like a child's loose tooth in his molding to man mouth

Look over there
child
mother
indian man with no hair
old?
80?
50 probably
look over there God
look over there
look over there
behind those strange purple white blue trees
I think I see myself
standing in water
with toes
with fingers and fish circling my ankles
look over there
a deer spine
a dogs leash
an unwashed sweater that cost 50 dollars

all my pants have holes in them
all the paintings in my house are fake

her bodied was patina'd
by a kiss of lipstick

soothing
the ride back home
a swig of alcohol
as the city night ***** dominated
quietly burns
where is the loud jazz?
bursting like ******* through windows
where is the passion?
where is the drooling for a womans touch?
where is the television with a baseball in it's skull?

where is the wisdom?
I can only hold onto this rope for so long
my hands are soft
and sore
and this hole is deep
this hole smells like New Mexico
this place stinks of dog and a man who cannot wake up from a dream
because the woman he loves
is in an ocean
and he's chasing her
his eyes are strong and wide
his mouth is full of salt water
and as he looks up
there is snow
there is snow and the water freezes over
and his lover is far
she is on the other side of the shore
she is beautiful in the snow
and his eyes grasp onto that beauty
before he is frozen still


a seagull in winter flies with the crows
what a beautiful sight
I once met an ant
on a leaf of a tomato garden
the ant didn't say much
I complemented him on his life span of a day
I asked him if he ever contemplated suicide
but I guess he never got the chance
the garden dies
the tomatoes grew ill colored
and the stems
that were once straight
like young women in sun dresses
now bends
like an old man reaching for his glasses on the pavement in a sand storm of pain
he hollers out in his used up antique washed out voice of time and too many cigarettes too many women's lips and too much coffee at 5 Am
cursing death
to come
cursing god
to reveal himself
like *******
and the Garden begins to decompose
like that of a squirrel in a suburb street
or a mouse in the cats feline belly
the garden descends bent-wardly to death
to the ground
to the origin of life
of  seed.

A journey into a subconscious mind
or maybe the glance through a dying man's eye glasses.

.a woman's place is not in the kitchen... **** right! about time someone made that observation, the times i've eaten under-cooked baby potatoes and over-cooked pasta? i'm actually ******* surprised that the kitchen was ever intended for a place for women... what the **** are women doing in kitchens? given, that their offspring don't know where milk comes from... or how peanuts grow... huh?

somewhere between eric dolphy
and frank o'hara:
    in terms of lunch...
            i have to gloat over this one...
it was... simply... pristine...

                   women do not belong
in the kitchen the more i'm supposed
to belong dangling off a ceiling of
a cavern emple for bats -
men don't want women in
the kitchen...
  i don't like the idea of a woman cooking...
women can't cook...
          well, for the majority...
   what's this? fast meals,
     junk restaurants -
i'm about to eat something that's
equivalent to me having ******* it out?
sorry... no...

not when i tell what i had for lunch...
iceberg salad,
carrot,
   pepper,
mild green chilli,
         em... ****...
    turkish goat's cheese -
a pear, a ******* FIG (skin intact),
    schwarzforst prosciutto -
chilli infused ****** olive oil,
balsamic vinegar...
        
women, do not, belong,
in, the kitchen...
              a kitchen is no harem...
where... i believe...
Sappho escaped from...
                  but fair enough:
nudge budge: bear a grudge... ha ha...
it's like this teasing contest i had
on my way back from an off-lice
at quarter to 11 one night...
a boyfriend,
    a scaffold(er) and his girlfriend,
drunk, d'uh...
  joking about her height...
this: smurf -

                       we laughed
she was evidently ******* -
but in a way that we could have cuddled
and kissed falling
      acorn leaves in autumn
to imply a next annum of revival...

  but **** me, what a trinity -
a FIG a pear, (a) goat's cheese -
   and that balsamic vinegar
transcendence medium of sweet contra
sour?
        
  oh wait... that was sexist?
             fine, enjoy the microwave
    spaghetti and cheese -
      like some diabolical version
of an electric ballerina twirling -
        
   i have the neo-**** gig covered too...
don't mind, being a *******
****** and all,
   having talked to my great-grandmother
about her experiences on the Eastern Front...
giving my grandmother opiates so
she wouldn't cry and become a beacon
for the Wehrmacht...

            don't worry... i'm supplied
in neo-**** music...
just in case...
   oh lookie look over 'ere...
that song -
   feindflug's größenwahn:
bought the album about a year ago
for £15... now? it's worth £40+...
                     never mind wumpscut:
               i like the fact that there is
such a position of interests that
confiscates a magnetism of
eclectic tastes...
        and please...
   the only reason you would have your
toddler and subsequent child
to listen to classical music is
not an I.Q. resonance -
   it won't make them smarter,
fat chance in anorexic hell -
         hell, let them listen to classical
music, but entrenching their I.Q. is
not the main byproduct...
    how many people, do you know...
who have lost interest in music?
   i know a few...
   some people really, really do lose interest
in music...
                by the time when they've been
fed classical music,
   been exposed to pop, perhaps even
rock...
   and never reached the antithesis of
classical music, namely jazz...
subsequently having the zenith of
having read a Jane Austen novel...
but not a Mary Shelley -
      and not divulged into espresso quick-step
******* jargon of
poetry contra performance, bloated vocals -
and that... annoying,
generic voice, apparent throughout
the spectrum of all vocal performers -
that asthmatic quasi-exasperation
   performance...
                    
true: i could perform...
   drinking got in the way...
the prime vice...
   secondary vice?
       cooking...
              
true though...
   women don't belong in the kitchen...
what sort of man would
allow a woman in the kitchen?
   i've tasted undercooked potatoes
and overcooked pasta...
   let's just say...
  we're not on friendly talking terms.

/   adverts say: living with your parents... BAD... FIRE... BAD... NOT IVF CHILD... but what would you make of a man, in his 50+... who applies for a neighbour complaint, about a man he's complaining about, while making a complaint, to the mother, of the man he's complaining about? surely it can't be the old fashioned unfathomability of fear... if he can't approach me... why does he boast a complaint on a canvas of my mother? hmm... might have to look into this... /

and i thought i was living next to an englishman....

but wait...
  what i thought, turned out
to a misnomer...

i was living next to...
a ******* ****!

  (bronson style approach
in giving the gift of
the gab):

so he comes over that i'm
smoking outside my window,
and that the smoke
is somehow, "magically"
flowing through the window
into a room where his
new-born sleeps...

ha ha!
   "new-born"... the ****** is
50+ and his bride is 40+...

there are two alternatives
to a psychiatric waiting room...
a brothel, where the body speaks,
and a dark forest: where you
can scream insults, rather than
mutter them under your breath...

with this **** of a man,
this castrato wannabe cossack
of an, "englishman"...
   i thought i'd go one further...

beginning with...
so he complained to my mother,
but didn't complain to me?
does he believe in property rights?
there's a "his" air that
   otherwise gives us a parallel
expression of life?
      the **** high or sumthin'?
well i know he's not punjabi...
**** reeks of black pudding
and microwave dinners...

          **** says something?
says what?
                 oink?
  **** it... let's eat everything
on him... apart from the snout...
might get a lurking kuru
infection...

so an absolute ****, with and without
a ******* sack: one could
attempt to call "it" an
example of an englishman...

anti-psychiatric treatment:
1. a brothel for the body,
2. a darkened place on
the outskirts of urban society
to give out a: shout out to bronson!
kant! you ******* chewing-gum
aspect of phlegm!
  you ***-crack of a dodo alzheimer's
with a cocktail of down syndrome!

so i'd ask...
   if your "child", or should i say
herr pinguin, you're so over-protective over...
why don't i see a baby buggy?
or why doesn't the baby ever see sunlight,
or ever leave the ******* house:
O mighty landlord of loft essex!
don't be afraid to show us the ******...
we don't mind retards...
but it's not you're complaining
about me smoking, outside my own
window, inside my own bedroom,
like you might be harbouring
the next usain "ya man" bolt!

imagine an england when the next
english native... thinks the white, immigrant,
is treated, as if the native is:
king pompous philip zee dritte!
   or whatever charlie will become -
hope he does...
  but when, every, ahem,
  englishman thinks i'll wipe his
***, in my own home,
  while he'll appear stupendous
gorging on curry and kebabs?!

       i'm about this close        | |
              to ****** this ****... with my thumb;
and this is my neighbour we're
talking about.

i.e. he owns the dictate of personal
property rights?
   because he gave birth to a *******
pokraka?
        yeah: blame the hunchback
for breeding upright children...

  and they say the mood in america
is bad...
      mood in england,
with these sort of "englishmen":
    i'm starting to think of
a liver + kidney pâté: of the rare sort...

     because the ****** doesn't own
our shared air!
      i rather smoke a cigarette out my
window than in my room!
his room... is non-inclusive in the matter!

but then again... they say venezuelan
living arrangements are congested...
sure... in england?
   it's just constipated.

rolling in the rosy dish of my tongue
it returns in my mouth to
its most basic elements
a primordial alabaster foam
of corn syrup and gelatin
and unpronounceable would-rather-not-knows
i think: marshmallows
are the juxtaposition to my quaker pallet
microwave tap water&Fr;;'s Cocoa
awash and dissolve
my saccharine oral fixation
in jealous slurps of heat
that radiate down
down down
heat, you see-
(as a sakura flush
blossoms 'cross the
pale of my throat)
-has always been the key
here's a secret:
in solitude i
i'm a homunculous girl
all lips and all hands

As I close my laptop
and it snaps shut

my dog sits up
ears perked,
chest puffed, and

at the ready for
me to stand up
and grab a leash
and a plastic bag

for his ****.

And he knows this routine
because it has been seared
into his brain with the white-hot
branding iron
of repetition.

A force of nature.
A category-five hurricane.

We laugh at them
for chasing their tails
when the microwave dings,
for salivating at bells,
but
I am no better than they are.

The same routines
are seared into my brain, too—

stimulus, response
stimulus, response
eat, sleep, ****, walk, ****,

love, reproduce, etc.

and I will continue to do so
aimlessly
just like Ivan Pavlov said I would.

One day I’ll find myself
like he’ll find himself—
lying on a cold slab
in a sterile room
only half alive
aghast at how quickly youth slipped away
but otherwise numb

as loved ones circle around,
hands over their mouths,

horrified
to press the button.

2 cups of atta flour
mix it with a cup of lukewarm water
add a pinch of salt
Ready to knead the dough
Knead it soft, knead it hard
Throw it on the air
Roll it on the table
Rest it for sometime
While you check on your curry
Perfect TENGGIRI fish curry
Put it in microwave, Nuke it
the aroma fills the air...
Smells good... salive drops oppss...
Heat the pan now dear
8 chapati all together fresh in a bowl
one by one roll it well
make it really round
a little bit of ghee, hmm... smells like heaven
my daughter waits with a plate in her hand
one chapati ready,
two chapati ready,
three chapati ready,
Mummy I leave the plate on the table now
I want to switch on the tv
My daughter comes back
all three chapati are stolen...
She screams out loud
WHO STOLE MY CHAPATI?????
And the chapati war begins.....

Click “Lowes, you can do it we can help”
Click “Dolly comes with everything you see here including stroller, bottle, and bib”
Click “Destroy your enemy with NERF guns”
Click “Play kitchen with real opening oven and microwave, learn to become a mommy just like you’ve always wanted”
Click

We live in a free society, one where we are independent and free to make our own choices....right
We live in a country where anyone can become anything.....don’t we?
Then every time I turn on the TV why am I flooded with heteronormative racist propaganda?
Why is my future daughter forced to work in a kitchen and take care of the baby from age 5 and up?
Why is my future sun told to fight against the evil invaders with nerf guns?
Why are my future neighbors portrayed as white people with picket fences and perfect lawns
I sit down click after click white after white, heterosexual after heterosexual, gender role after gender role.
Pounded into our heads, indoctrinated by elegantly crafted hate speech.
Rhetoric that has become so naturalized it fails to be seriously questioned
Well I will question it!
I will look for answers
I will not sit by and watch our youth be molded into perfect Americans by the “free market”
I WILL STAND UP, AND I WILL MAKE CHANGE!

Missing the whistle of the teapot.
A big tin thing, dented, spouting
Warnings, careful baby, I am
Really hot.

The hum of the microwave,
The machine noises of coffee being made,
Them noises just ain't the same.
There is no poetry in
Whirring hum, beans bump 'n grinding.
They don't talk to me.

But in the middle of night,
When I rise, get dressed,
Still put on mismatched socks,
My t-shirts inside out,
The same jeans been wearing for weeks,
Cause they are right handy,
Lying on the floor, feeling so good,
Covering up my old fashioned
Keds.

Someday, I guess there will be
A machine that hoses us down,
Shampoos the mind while your fingers idle,
Then becomes a wind Chunnel to dry us up.
Will it have octopus arms
To dress us, having  looked at our daily schedule,
Taking into account the weather channel forecast,
Where n'  when we gotta be?

I suppose that if I ask nicely,
The replicator will make me perfect coffee,
And even whistle if that's what makes me happy.
But as long it don't try help me write,
That ****** function, that ****** need,
Human,
And only I can
Whistle while I write.

6:13 AM

Somewhere between
space
(and)
Gd
there's a star
made out of all the seconds you
cleared on the microwave
just before it was done because
you didn't want
to hear
it beep.
That is where time
goes when it's mad
at its parents, to play
old records and smoke
cheap cigarettes and
complain that its
best friend is dead.
My best friend/is dead/And although she would never sleep in the bed with me/And although she doesn't fit in the dollhouse anymore/I  dreamed she was gone the day before it happened/and dreamed she took a part of my life with her. That
is where
your thoughts go
the first time
you
don't miss someone as much as you did yesterday. I am not proud/that I am waiting/for tomorrow/you are that star/and I will sit on you and dangle my feet in the water/Meet me/in the Mediterranean/so I can kiss your toes goodbye.

Somewhere between
you
(and)
me
(and)
washing my hands in the morning,
I learned
how to lose things.

Waiting for the subway and talking on the phone with her, he asked: pepperoni or cheese? You choose. “Pepperoni would be good,” she said and he hung up. The 7 train arrived, blowing back his hair. The doors opened with a dull beep and he stepped through into the air conditioning.

He sat down in the plastic orange seat, putting his backpack on the floor in between his calves. When he stopped by at their favorite, Franco’s, “Pepperoni or cheese? You choose.” Pe – Cheese would be good, he found himself saying. In a strange act of deviousness, he decided it would be a brilliant joke.

At home, she was disappointed when she saw and went to heat up spinach leftovers. As she opened the microwave door and put in the white ceramic bowl, a great sadness came over him, and he only managed to swallow down a few bites before dropping the profane slice back onto his plate.

The time would be 3:00, had it not been hidden behind the countdown
10
9
8
The wavering vrrrrrrrrrrrrr of the microwave is not enough to wake
The naive parental mind, causing the ideal image to break
7
6
5
The ping
Of the microwave waits
4
Torn between warmth and fear
3
2
It is this moment when the panic sets in,
lunges
for the door

and

stabs
the miniature metallic square
The pop of door
The stench of soggy noodles

And so she is safe

Until another 3:00

I am a tin can.
The most average tin can
Your eyes did ever see.
But leave me in the sun
and, baby, I'll glow
You better believe
I'll be 1E10K
Burning

Some more about me,
Because honey,
You should know:
I'm curvy
Easily grippable
Touchable
Gropeable
The perfect size
For your hands
To wander in so tight
To find..
I'm not tin,
I'm soup.
And baby,
I spill easily
If you hold me upsidedown
Like that.
I dent easily
When you press me
Like that.
And baby,
I grow cold
When you forget
I'm soup
And I need a heat source
To taste right.

No one likes cold soup.

But when I'm hot
I'm sure if I asked
You would eat me all day.

Mmm baby,
Its so bittersweet
That a can could love the sun.
Your dawn
Captivated me
Intrigued me
As much more welcoming
Than the microwave.
And honey,
When you lay your head
Just above the horizon,
Illuminating every white flower
With your breathtaking red-orange haze
You are the most beautiful thing
I've ever seen
And I am the luckiest can
In the whole **** world
And I try to pinch myself
But I don't have arms.
I wish I did.
Because the way
You, so quickly,
Drop below the horizon
Vanish from my sight
Leave me warm for a moment
Until the cold seeps in
Makes me wonder
If maybe I'd be better off
With the stability of
A microwave.

yes, i know he said he was a vegetarian, delicate counter-priesthood prince - a manner of vegetarianism that expressed an abhorrence of the practice of Eucharist, i too think the Eucharist as a metaphor is a bit porridge: i.e. yucky.  but as Wagner said to him: up north, either you eat meat or you lose the plot (loose - ß - again, not scharfes S - but die scharfes'zart - sharp-tender - already prerequisite of what sharpening omega meant for the w); mind you: salt & pepper to taste according to your own palette - if you're not a sugar ****** you won't over-salt the sauce... and you certainly will not overcook the pasta, halfway between dreadlocks and poodle hair: desirably experience bound al dente, and here comes Socrates with his knowledge of al dente: me no muffin! true that... like all these excess sugar breakfast cereals - ******* the outside, soft inside... or like the idea of ants having an exoskeleton... that's pure culinary theory - al dente exoskeleton; did i already mention salt and pepper to taste? yeah, the beef stock cube is salty, but not salty enough, given the already unsalted meat and vegetables: i cook, i take care of a toddler - Nietzsche keeps bragging: cooked by a cyclops.

who would have thought that a personal
revision of mama Italia's classic
could end up being so tasty;
Nietzsche is the foremost diner in my humble
abode: i just like the way he says:
who let woman into the kitchen?!
that's right, i deviated from the standard recipe
of mama Italia's cooking for papa don
Giovanni - honestly? in lonely times at
university when everyone was into ******
ad drunk debaucheries, and ****** fancy dress
parties? Aria Giovanni saved the day...
just look at the classic beauty, plump as a plumb
in between two cream bergs - such
exfoliation... where's that daddy long-legs
on the catwalk... come on! shove a malteser up
her *** like a suppository escutcheon - i'm sure
the salad leaves will keep her starving even more,
or walk her in Gucci with a drip-pole -
intravenous therapy while on the job -
but can you believe what only a quarter of a teaspoon
does to the Bolognese sauce recipe?
wonders... you don't add the carrot, or the celery,
among the vegetables you add button mushrooms,
and the three colours of peppers -
onions and garlic (a lot of it) as standard -
oregano, rosemary and thyme too,
some Italian five-spice - but the fennel seeds!
the fennel seeds! after i learned to cook i see
ready meals are diabetics in disguise,
and restaurant foods as defunct -
what? we're all expressing our capacity to
make choice, apologies if you made the sort of
choices you now hate... hardly a reason to
complain about my exercise in freedom,
i don't blame you, i'd have chosen differently
if i were you too... but there we go...
i'm cooking Bolognese from scratch because i like
to tickle my sense of smell and the buds of
the palette garden, i look at the sauce and
write fiction: the plot thickens...
                                                     and that's the great
3 minute microwave sequence on the other
side of the spectrum... because we're all so *busy -
busy bees and that's merely the generation Y
dads getting hormonal treatment from tending to
babies - choices choices choices -
                                                          oddly­ enough
the mediocre work that goes on in those glass
shards - by comparison, the default argument is
pretty obvious: i too would have not invested
in caring for art, or as i once said:
you can't get good art and raise a family -
you can create good art that will support the family,
you'd end up being a great technician,
an artistic engineer - the standard model of bridges /
already in your head - is refining yourself
via plagiarism - you end up plagiarising yourself -
but come one! a quarter of a teaspoon of fennel seeds?
well, i'm not talking cumin seeds...
or maybe it was the turmeric powder that
coloured the onions yellow while frying?
2 tablespoons of garlic - for sure, enough garlic
and we're already talking Dracula -
~5 strips of bacon too -
                                          no, not necessarily involving
carrots and celery - why be boring?
this is me in my furore days in an organic
chemistry class at university - back to the esters
and perfumes, but this is raw, it's analytical
chemistry, it's nothing synthetic -
birds and the bees and some hippy buckles over
a giant butternut squash - which is why i find
people who ably memorise and recite poetry
are the same people who probably write polemics,
and do the peacock verbal dance for a woman
in a restaurant - rather than give her raw grub
of your own calibre - 1 cube of beef stock
dissolved in water - simmering for about 40 minutes,
tomatoes chopped - obviously tomato puree -
500 grams of mince beef -
                                                ever think that poetry
could reinvent journalism and also the way of
writing recipes? FENNEL SEEDS! that's what goes
in first, you roast them in chilli infused olive oil -
let them sizzle for a bit - and yes,
you pour some oil into salted water where
you'll be boiling the spaghetti - the oil means the
spaghetti won't stick together, plus pouring
oil into a saucepan of boiling water is the other
famous pastime of chemists... the former?
watch paint dry. i'm pretty ****** sure i missed something,
like mama Italia missed something to keep
the recipe a secret - well... there's Parmesan cheese
to garnish and fresh basil -
                                                and if i were raising a family,
i wouldn't be listening to the dead skeleton's album
dead magick... oh sure, the reward would be:
i'd have a little crowd at my funeral, some gibberish
about how many people knew me so well... but really
didn't... the whole street profession...
                i never got the idea of solitude and how it
might be sad from the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby song -
don't know never became an impressionable counter -
oh yeah, Darwinism helped! it helped a lot
in creating a world view, a world view that said:
don't touch this ****... leave them to it:
these people are more influenced by opinion columns
of newspapers than philosophy books -
in England, where, i dare say, the daily telegraph
is actually respectable, as is the guardian -
and the central of the two opposites? tickling
tabloid, i call the times posh tabloid, because it is
a posh tabloid: i like the way fame
desired for sales becomes toilet paper
the next day... or the newspaper on the street
that gets the footprint on the plastic surgery escapades...
love it! mm, yes darling! lovin' it!