I'm not a person of color
I'm not gay
I'm not rich
I'm not homeless
I'm not religious
I'm not an atheist

I am a whisper

I'm not old
I'm not young
I'm not famous
I'm unknown

I am a whisper

I may be helpless
But I am not numb
I may be shackled
But I will not lie still

I am a whisper

I have an opinion
I have thoughts
I have feelings
I have a voice

I am a whisper

I have a memory
I have hope
I have a fantasy
I have a dream

I am a whisper

I give freedom
I will not judge
I will not control
I will not hurt

I am a whisper

I don't believe you
Why must I listen?
Why do you want my mind?
Why do you want control?

I am a whisper

I see what happens
I know who is suppressed
I know you are buying time for yourself
I know you need to fool me

I am a whisper

I am in your way
I am an impediment
I am a risk
I am to be mitigated

I am a whisper

It needs to be shouted
It needs to be aggressive
It needs to shock
It needs to awaken

I am a whisper

I see the fear tactics
I see the power
I see the judgements
I see the ridicule

I am a whisper

I know you are a liar
I know you are evil
I know you will ****
I know you will destroy

I am a whisper

I know these things
What can I do?
I can only write
I can only feel the anger

I am a whisper

"Who is lying?"
They are
"Who would ****?"
They would
"Who would send your child off to war?"
They would
"Who are they?"
The one's who want your vote

I am a whisper

"What about your children?"
There is still time
"What about my children?"
There is still time

I am a whisper

Would a man **** for God?
What do you think?
Would a man **** for his flag?
What do you think?
Would a man **** for his party?
What do you think?
Would a man **** who has been fooled?
What do you think?
Would a man let you die in his place?
What do you think?

I am a whisper

"Why do you whisper?"
I'm not
"You say you are"
Can anyone hear me?
"I can"
Can anyone else?
"No"

I am a whisper

"Why won't you shout? "
I am afraid
Afraid of what?
Of losing my job
Of losing my children
Of losing my life

I am a whisper

"Who are you afraid of?"
A person
A book
True believers
Non-believers
The enemies are all around

I am a whisper

"Why are they enemies?"
They do not want me
They want me to be them
They want my mind
They want my actions
They want my life

I am a whisper

So I work
So I pray
So I smile
So I agree
So I submit
So I bend
So I die

I am a whisper

Is existence on the other side of a laugh?
Is existence in the void of silence?
Is existence in the breath of a whisper?
Is existence in the quiet of God's spirit?

I am a whisper

When God is silent
Even a whisper can be too loud
Silence is the empty room
No color
No artifact
No sound

I am a whisper

Listen to the whisper
Then listen to God
Then you will know
Because you dared to speak
You forgot to think

I am a whisper

Blessed are the peacemakers
Did you remember this?
Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
Did you remember this?
Turn the other cheek
Did you remember this?
Love thy neighbor
Did you remember this?
Judge not lest you be judged
Did you remember this?

I am a whisper


Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved. Mark Lecuona

Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old ******* her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here to Papa.
Sit on my knee.
I have kisses for the back of your neck.
A penny for your thoughts, Princess.
I will hunt them like an emerald.

Come be my snooky
and I will give you a root.
That kind of voyage,
rank as a honeysuckle.
Once
a king had a christening
for his daughter Briar Rose
and because he had only twelve gold plates
he asked only twelve fairies
to the grand event.
The thirteenth fairy,
her fingers as long and thing as straws,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes,
her ****** an empty teacup,
arrived with an evil gift.
She made this prophecy:
The princess shall ***** herself
on a spinning wheel in her fifteenth year
and then fall down dead.
Kaputt!
The court fell silent.
The king looked like Munch's Scream
Fairies' prophecies,
in times like those,
held water.
However the twelfth fairy
had a certain kind of eraser
and thus she mitigated the curse
changing that death
into a hundred-year sleep.

The king ordered every spinning wheel
exterminated and exorcised.
Briar Rose grew to be a goddess
and each night the king
bit the hem of her gown
to keep her safe.
He fastened the moon up
with a safety pin
to give her perpetual light
He forced every male in the court
to scour his tongue with Bab-o
lest they poison the air she dwelt in.
Thus she dwelt in his odor.
Rank as honeysuckle.

On her fifteenth birthday
she pricked her finger
on a charred spinning wheel
and the clocks stopped.
Yes indeed. She went to sleep.
The king and queen went to sleep,
the courtiers, the flies on the wall.
The fire in the hearth grew still
and the roast meat stopped crackling.
The trees turned into metal
and the dog became china.
They all lay in a trance,
each a catatonic
stuck in a time machine.
Even the frogs were zombies.
Only a bunch of briar roses grew
forming a great wall of tacks
around the castle.
Many princes
tried to get through the brambles
for they had heard much of Briar Rose
but they had not scoured their tongues
so they were held by the thorns
and thus were crucified.
In due time
a hundred years passed
and a prince got through.
The briars parted as if for Moses
and the prince found the tableau intact.
He kissed Briar Rose
and she woke up crying:
Daddy! Daddy!
Presto! She's out of prison!
She married the prince
and all went well
except for the fear --
the fear of sleep.

Briar Rose
was an insomniac...
She could not nap
or lie in sleep
without the court chemist
mixing her some knock-out drops
and never in the prince's presence.
If if is to come, she said,
sleep must take me unawares
while I am laughing or dancing
so that I do not know that brutal place
where I lie down with cattle prods,
the hole in my cheek open.
Further, I must not dream
for when I do I see the table set
and a faltering crone at my place,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes
as she eats betrayal like a slice of meat.

I must not sleep
for while I'm asleep I'm ninety
and think I'm dying.
Death rattles in my throat
like a marble.
I wear tubes like earrings.
I lie as still as a bar of iron.
You can stick a needle
through my kneecap and I won't flinch.
I'm all shot up with Novocain.
This trance girl
is yours to do with.
You could lay her in a grave,
an awful package,
and shovel dirt on her face
and she'd never call back: Hello there!
But if you kissed her on the mouth
her eyes would spring open
and she'd call out: Daddy! Daddy!
Presto!
She's out of prison.

There was a theft.
That much I am told.
I was abandoned.
That much I know.
I was forced backward.
I was forced forward.
I was passed hand to hand
like a bowl of fruit.
Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help --
this life after death?

A dream you told me of:
Defusing a time-bomb embedded in the womb of your dead mother.
I don’t know if you were smart enough to flip the failsafe
Or if you indiscriminately yanked wires out, like your dangerous thoughts.

A dream I told you of:
at the midpoint of their parents’ anniversaries, by the ruins of every immortalized
kingdom, she is wearing her mother’s dress and he is too.
“father wanted to castrate or **** me,” he said, conversationally.
they have so much in common. they live the tragedy of armchair **** fantasies,
tend to ****** their own genitals when lost in thoughts of the obstruction of
their desires. (which, really, is pointless
because they don’t desire anything besides fondling their own genitals.)

Blinded Oedipus does not notice
Electra’s concealed ******* dagger. A thousand years between them, yet they’re still children conceived of
Mitigated **** and blood sacrifice for the sake of sailing, and
Defined by deficit from the beginning; her crippled mind sang
to his hollowed eyes. Kinslayers becoming kin,
Entranced by the illusions of the other but really
Loving only the unmistakable reflections of their own sins.

A broken shell, a living hell, and all I'm left with now is my regret.

Better days ahead were a pipedream after our relationship crumbled. Countless arguments. Disagreements. Every day! For my life, I can't believe we stayed together as long as we did. God knows I didn't want her to leave me. How much longer must I wrestle with these painful memories?

I just feel regret, unspoken, I just feel the pain; since she left, my life has been a broken shell, a living hell — I can't believe I let her go; it was foolish pride before the fall the day she left when I lost all — I should have held her closer, I should have made her see the feelings I have for her, what she means to me; I didn't say I love her or beg her to stay, instead, I stood in silence and watched her walk away, and all I'm left with now is my regret.

Justification is an exercise in futility. Knowing what I could have and should have done leaves an inextricable switchblade in my soul. Love's lessons learned too late — love's loss too great.

Misting eyes beseech as memories replay in my head, but they're too painful, and I feel dead. No joy to be found. Oh well, my self-imposed hell. Painful memories open like an oubliette under my feet, plunging me lost and languishing in isolation's labyrinth. Questions left unanswered, decaying in the debris fields of "what if.”

Reflection can be a catharsis for the soul, but it can also rip a hole in it, and soon reality roars from guilt's bottomless pit to devour all hope. Sometimes despair is mitigated by occasional reminders of us. Thoughts lingering on happier times, blessed moments mine to treasure. Until the damnable loop of regret dominates to decimate any respite of joy. Vanishing expectations. Weeping willow's silent wail. Xerox memories fade with time.

Years have passed, and my thoughts continue to haunt me over what we could have had. Zero-sum game — all I'm left with now is my regret.




Mark Toney ©️ 2023

*       *       *

April 22, 2023

I hope you found the above fictional prose poem interesting. I wrote it in response to a writing challenge I heard about.  Write a 26-sentence short story (or prose poem). Each sentence must begin with the alphabet's sequential letters starting with A through Z. One sentence must be 100 words long, and another sentence only one word. Would you like to try it?

The royal magistrate gives the laws,
the wind sails true,
the grass grows greener,
the sun shines brighter,
you dance in the meadows of youth
each day,
starting now.
The avant-garde ******* ends now
we are guided by the restrictions
we live in.
each day,
self-regulated,
un-mitigated,
joy.
Waves of acid-washed notes flash by,
each one dwindling longer than the one
before,
mingling in a pale composition
with each beat goading the next.

Once I noticed a great writer, and he had no comments.
To remedy this occluded justice,
I left a colorful comment upon one of his best.
Immediately a scathing message appeared from him,
Though he had never messaged me before;
I had an instant moment of understanding
Of why he had no comments; it was just too obvious
For my childlike mind to have avoided the trap.
A few more condescending messages,
And I deleted the comment; nothing more needed saying.
I had trespassed on hallowed ground,
I had merely to retrace my steps
And all should be forgiven.

I intruded upon your life, which I could never really see,
Through a series of locks and channels
It remained invisible to me.
And again I invaded privacy, caused consternation.
Compliant, I withdrew all my excursions to your door
And with an effort, I mitigated any unhappy
Emotions remaining there.
I do this to spare everyone more pain.
But it comes at a price.

Did you ever wonder how all the people
Who go to the grocery store on Sunday mornings
Could have such well-defined niche lives?
They think they are defined by what they do,
By a synthetic order that's tacked over the hours of freedom.
There is an affliction, in which every single hour
Must be made to account for itself.

But what if they woke up some day
Before the grocery shopping was done,
Would they feel they had missed out on something
Inestimable and uncommon; worth sleeping in for-
And replaced it merely with something
Utilitarian and predictable?
Be careful what you trade your Sunday mornings for.

Why do we have a sick obsession with fleeting encounters and quick passions
We brush the surface of interaction

We brush lips
we brush hands
we brush lives yet
never pressing the surface
we never press our passions

We need to press our lips
we need to press our ambitions
we need to press our hands
we need to press our lives into symbiosis.

We are scared for what happens after the blissful, brief, mysterious moment
what happens once the surface is broken

We fear rejection.
We err toward safety- to minimal contact- minimal exposure- minimal risk
Our fragile continence’s are limiting our life- our passion- our love.
Turn down the offer for fleeting life, fleeting passion, fleeting love.
Dare to press deeper- life has more to offer than mitigated risk and passing romances.

there is a nascent impulse that
echoes in every heartbeat
living within our blood
to regard one another with the new eyes
science has built for each of us
to see the world independently
unaligned with ignorant ideology
untainted by nefarious nationality
but nurtured rather on the premise that reality
is the faculty of the mentally complete
who realize if we don't pause in our
crusade to exterminate each other we will
ultimately deplete what it is that makes us

sentient beings possessed with the will to
determine our own future
divorced from the vestiges of arbitrary
authority we might still muster the courage
to reject this putrid dichotomy that inundates
every aspect of our humanity with utter
lies and disjointed hypocrisies

we dare feign innocence when
blood saturates our hands
from the drones bombing
Yemen to the murdered children in Pakistan
our politicians are manufacturing new enemies
with every shot that rings out above
blood-soaked foreign lands
our taxes are their supply
endless war is their demand

it's written in our hallowed declaration
of independence which—of
late—seems groundless and impotent
that each of us are intrinsically
entitled to life and liberty
and the pursuit of happiness and that
it is not merely our right but our
obligation to abolish this
representative republic so destructive
to those ends

anarchy is our next great adventure

after all it seems glaringly clear to
me that there are few distinguishable
differences between the eighteenth century
monarchy and our present day corporate oligarchy
the interests of the people are mitigated to
pitched elections between two indistinguishable
political parties that infuse our world not with
democracy but with hegemony
they're content to watch the world rot

this is not the land of the free
it hasn't been since bison roamed
across midwestern plains and
Native Americans communed with
the Mother we all share
everything changed when white
puritans fleeing persecution
spread religion like a festering ulcer oozing
poison into the zeitgeist psyche
a hive-mind mentality that fosters
brainlessness and stifles free inquiry
gods gold and glory

we need to learn to disobey before
it's too late to erase the mistakes of
the apathetic elite who've apprehended
our liberty and co-opted our ingenuity
for projects feeding capitalist insanity

we must rekindle the insurrectionary spirit of
the creative, dedicated minority
who rose up in the 50's and 60's and
fought not with fists and guns
but with words and deeds
against war and poverty and
white supremacist patriarchy

nurture the embers and fan the flames
of the Black Lives Matter
organizers swarming the stages of
defunct politicians like Hillary Clinton
and Bernie Sanders who propagate
the status quo
pour gasoline on the fires raging
in the camps of Occupy
in Oakland and Wall St.
our modern day dissidents serve time in federal
penitentiaries for blowing the whistle
languishing in exile half-a-world away
they wear Guy Fawkes masks and hack
anonymously from the deep web
exposing state secrets and war crimes
sometimes they look a lot like you and
you'd best believe they look like me

no longer can we trust self-styled
leaders of the free world
if we labor to cultivate our
own communities that vaunt
authenticity above authority and
integrity instead of inanity
perhaps then we might recognize that
the impetus rests within the crux
of self-acceptance
and we all will say in unison
it starts with me

Addendum to title:
Boyhood Digs in Collegeville, Pennsylvania 19426

Oft times forced exposure therapy spelled rustling quiet
Pyrrhic punitive onslaughts noisome moody linkedin kicks
jarring inxs harbored grievances foo fighting essence
denoting cannibalized august boy aghast to confront reality
returning home meant compromising autonomy
acceptable collateral casting leftist strides rite
constituting timid steps circumscribing childhoods’ end,
comprising reluctant trudge treading toward adolescence
where wold wide webbed magic ride
rode ruff shod o’er carped hooked
synthetic threads re: fibrous veld
whence extolled impressive footprints
measured triangular wedges rung duff feet
expediently dragged churlish badinage afoot
stretching across Scottish tartan
Harris Tweed unwelcome matt despite frustrated parents
whose vitriol unleashed tough-love,
smacked regularly quasi planned
threatened ultimatums venomous viz witches
yawping against my brand
falling out of good graces,
though hatching escape merely fanned
actions hightail me to bedroom, a secure space,
not exceptionally grand
yet despite rapacious and relentless rage
against the sole son, who hand
did lee managed inciting wrath
of me papa and late mama,
this parcel of land, now entombs nostalgia
namely 324 level road, Collegeville,
Penna, 19426 make believe pal Joey and this creator
passively succumbed to withstand
invisible jetblue lobbing onslaught of slingshot barbs,
wharf fear to rely on self way past primetime,
which solo endeavor didst demand
absent belief, confidence and faith in innate survival skills,
hence countless admonitions recurred
razed quest qua pursed lips
those who begat their only male heir,
provoking predictable panned
da moan he hum in tandem
with concomitant wickedness akin to eland
caught in cross hairs getting pistol-whipped
with many barking explicit derogatory gerund formed
expletives, that did not dislodge this immobile body electric
defying logic, now in retrospect clueless why I suffered to withstand
incessant verbal, venal, and n’er vampire weakened blows
inexplicable, how this soulful, ruminating,
and tortured walking wounded blithely weathered turpitude  
though devoid of sense and sensibility, how no man iz an island
though at times incontinent, where jocund this bard for’er opened
Pandora’s box, but hindsight softened cleft pride and prejudice
whereat bulldozed site of once grand “Glen Elm” tears me up inside
fading memories refreshed, via priceless gift
from beloved younger sister
unwittingly mitigated hammer blows of pain to confront the void,
whence away from obliterated complex edifice grief felt ******!

A world of starss between them
their hearts reached out for eachother at the end of each passing revelation
revolving in the same matter
as if the distance could be mitigated somehow,
by touching the same space only worlds apart
he traced their names in the stars and she traced out thier hearts intertwined
alas, the end was ne’er in sight
the mysteries of why were too mystical to ponder
and creation filled the void with challenges, love and light.
thinking back to when they were new
they had shone brightly with innocence
the span of things was endless, but had allowed limited exploration
the One had called them unawares
and rushing back like obedient children
with great anticipation of what grand joy was at hand
immersed in the mysteries revealed
it was then they lost eachother
caught in different planes by a different set of stars
beyond the eye of the black hole created by the break in his heart
and the shattering of hers.
Searching in opposite polarities aeons apart the matter ever expanded
passing eachother withn a blink of an eye
but without words a universe was said;
Iris to Iris, soul to soul,
touching the same matter as eachother
only, aeons apart...

Ach, my amygdala
agglomerates ridiculousness,
a ****** laden froth
of other possibilities and lives
and loves, loves
and mitigated losses
to address the hurt

Your utter complacence is
Perpetually mitigated by your patience;
Yet, since we've met,
Your ubiquitous,
Splendidly liquidous,
Serendipitous humor,
Like a tumor,
Has beguiled me,
Defiled me,
Riled me.

Your delicious,
Surreptitious,
Obfuscation of superfluous condemnation is
Erroneous and felonious
A frantic and pedantic antic.

An imagined being,
The mitigated reality,
Beset on all sides,
Makes you wither,
in comparison,
to the deception,
To enhance the enviournment aboutnd,
that fits upon themselves the wworld,
Under watch,
kept under lock and key,
the universal truths,
hidden under their *******,
the single timeless entity,
That turns the world over,
in onto itself,
keels into oblivion,
touching back to the abdominal,
fact that it retaliates,
fought behind reason,
Love behind common sense,
The world undone,
By the limitless one,
The being that lasts,
Something,
Beauty,
In repetition,
Found to be prevalent,
In excessive inquiry,
What's and Who's and Why's,
It means no difference,
When facts speak for themselves,
Examples are found in the outside,
Shuddering ample reflections
In the tide pool,
Spiraling.

.within these words is the simple question... i'm a misogynist? i'm a misogynist? i'm such curious as to how i could get away with all of this if i, truly were a woman, but as being a man, i am prescribed the sentient double-knocker of: a ******* mea culpa!

so i spent the afternoon making
two curries...
   by now... cultural appropriatio:
whatever the hell that means
having an arsenal of indian
spices that would scare both
the russians and the h'americans
with their nukes...
but like i said:
i concede:
                 the blue indian cuisine,
i.e. from the Bengal
or the Punjab?
superior to my bland salt &
paper...
although...
when it came to the chicken chettinad?
i'm not here competing
for the white-boy-eat-a-lot-of-chillies
olympics...
one standard red chilli,
four kashimiri dry chillies,
and yes... some standard chilly
powder...
       if i want to burn my tongue:
i'll drink near-to-boiling
water... thanks...
don't know... i sometimes make
so much curry in one afternoon
i'm happy to forget doing
the stereotypical male thing of...
watching the 6 nations rugby,
or the skii jumping competition
from Letho (Finland)...
   it's like... i'm transported back
to Edinburgh,
  doing 12 hours of lab. training
once more...
              hell... no lab. work for me:
but i guess... blue indian cuisine
is the closest thing to a chemistry
experiment, notably an organic
chemistry experiment...
mind you:
   have you ever wondered why
you tend to eat a little bit more
of the sauce...
   if you don't dice the chicken,
move away from dicing chicken
*******, and instead fry (which will
come later)
       whole chicken thighs?
or... marinate them prior to...
          curating them via
                   the method of poaching
them in the sauce?
diced chicken: so bland...
         esp. from the breast....
but the meat... cooked whole...
esp. as a thigh (the best bit of
the chicken, and with the bone
intact? oh god!)...
my few favorite curry though?
the one i made later...
    a... sali murgi...
   (yes, the H is always a surd...
   moor-ghee...
    butter of the moors)...
      with those beautiful sali
crispets...
          on top...
   also... who would have thought:
dried, apricots... in a curry?
oh i don't mind this...
   "cultural appropriation"...
me cooking curry is...
so much more than someone
donning dreads...
and... by the looks of it...
          i might even, slyly,
cook better than some natives...
well i already know that
i can speak a more orthodox english
than some of the natives,
i knew that back in high-school...
  started in class 2B...
moved a year later to class 1B...
(class... tier, same thing)...
a year later i was in class 1A...
and it went like so:
    1A, 1B, 2A, 2B,
              1C... 3A, 3B,
                      1D, 2C...
and no... there was no 4A or 4B...
(it skipped every two numbers
and every two letters)...
so... me worried that i might
not cook better than some
Indian's grandmother?
   not in the least...
              a, woman, cooking?
please... give me a break...
             what's that story:
if she overuses salt...
she's thinking about something...
if she underuses salt
she's fostering ill-will...
she over-cooks the pasta
she wants a divorce...
she under-cooks it...
she wants you to start recreationally
running because you have
a "beer-belly-flab"...
yeah... i'll say it...
WOMEN DO NOT BELONG
IN THE KITCHEN...
        mind you...
i was helped by a standard-bearer
to the antithesis of saying so...
mother dear...
   mother ed gein mother dear
(this better freak some people out)...
ah...
but you know what?
frying the potato sali...
last time i used a *** and a standard
cheese grater for the potato...
ingenius...
however many chemistry
experiments i ever did...
no cliche american high-school
"faux pas"...
          but then...
like men are supposedly unable
to tell the difference
between
burgundy and cordovan...
         the **** is a...
               julienne peeler?
yes... mother dear...
or... grandma dear...
                 any other woman in
"my life"...
   no really... but i always like
to keep the ed gein joker card
in play...
   for breathing space...
             all the other women in my
life were...
    for two worthy exceptions...
the nurse in the hospital
where i was born...
                     birth-mark scared...
thought it was better to
shove suckle of a feeding bottle
into my mouth so hard
that i would suffocate,
and almost die from
a premature heart-attack...
ended up with an.. "enlarged" heart...
last girlfriend...
  now... i don't even want to begin
with that story...
in full agatha christey
alias poirot paranoid-mode...
****** her for 7 hours one night
prior to leaving St. Petersburg...
****** her in the batch while she was
on her period and it was
the first time she told me to put
on a ******,
after she first told me to take it off...
so yeah... the curry was great...
we lated sat together
like jesus mary & st. joseph
watching the t.v.
   ah... China's one child-policy...
back in Europe
i'm a dormant serial killer
and my mother is actually my sister...
and my father is a *******
Anglican priest...
or myth, or ghost,
  counter... "god"...
of me turning to the public stage...
BUMPER STICKER
RETRACTION FROM H'AMERICA...
if he died for "our", "sins"...
why is the mantra still:
  the mea culpa of...
"allowing" him to die on the cross?
so we watched a movie...
book club...
staring...
   jane fonda...
  that guy from miami vice...
that woman from ms. congeniality,
that woman from back to the future
vol. 3,
          that woman from
        father of the bride...
                       and DREYFUS!
fifty shade of grey...
   cameo by e. l. james, walking
the dog?
                         yep...
        anyway... watched that...
prior to, dressed up real fine...
was asked where i was going...
to buy some beer...
   walked to the local for some cider...
had to endure a interlude
with a drunk west ham supporter
talking to the colt cashier about
working in outer east london
but being an arsenal supporter...
the movie though...
book clup...
          so it ends on a:
and they lived happily ever after,
didn't it?
            yeah... it did...
but as i was walking about...
the demographic...
   my "neighbour"...
a single mother who still has her
son living with her -
who should look like he's ageing
but... to me he's still
a stunted cabbage-patch
                       of a 13 year old...
a daughter who sometimes
crashes...
      walking home with
a... "catch"...
                           a man...
                 who i would seriously
make ******* antagonisms of...
elsewhere? in the... vicinity?
similar stories...
                      around here
i'm the jesus, the messiah's
mother and my father,
                 the ghost of st. joseph...
last time i wanted to play roulette...
my mother was visiting
     her parents,
both of them slept at my uncle's
house,
i hosted a birthday party...
                and...
  ended up ******* a black girl
in my room on a chocolate couch...
how's that?
      don't even ask me how
i managed to persuade a thai
    bisexual with cheap polish beer
and jazz...
        done brutally / i.e. realistically
in the garden...
with a my own persistent zenith
of surprise...
the thai surprise...
           of reaching into her *****...
really... sport's bra...
and you just picked her up
   from a park bench lamenting
into the phone drinking beer
at the same time, + the short hair?
really? no... moment of "suspence"
           of... the thai surprise?
there were always the odds:
3:1 - she's a woman...
        or 4:2 - she's... he's she's
                               she's he's a man...
oi! shem?! what's up?
which is it?
(3? mouth, the floral pattern,
and the ***...
                1? choice...
  well... if you've already started
courting?
              there isn't one...
4? how many points of entry
between two men? 4...
   but how many choices?
the... teasing *******
literature and wanting to experiment
or...
   the "homophobe"...
which only applies to...
   ****** taqiyya...
                        or the thai surprise...
oh i'm pretty sure i've met
a few homosexuals in my life,
but all of them had
the courtesy to... dismiss homophobia...
what was "homophobia"
and became "trans-phobia"
was forever some borrowed
from Islam... ****** taqiyya)...                
    
                 oh but reality is brutal
on this level...
                         no... not rosey ****
friends, best buddy psychotic
                  lingering ex-girlfriends...

so i drank one cider,
watched match of the day
for all the premiership highlights...
drank two more ciders...
in between taking
a king's salute of one's
most worthy subject:
    a 10cm length of fudge-like
****...
forgot to *******...
and found myself thinking...
'what if the opening
for david bowie's song
from the man who sold the world,
the width of a circle...
could ever become something
-esque shape of things to come
by audioslave...
that subtle rhythm section...
what if all rhythm sections
of songs could have more
a more subtle air about them,
so that the rhythm section
doesn't have to compete with
the vocals...
   harmony...
                very much unlike
the rhythm guitar of Metallica...
what then?

i'll speak my mea culpa...
but i'll also imagine myself
nailing him to the cross...
and then dry *******
the erected crucifix
                         with him on it...
yes...
    and he might have died,
but i somehow managed to live,
in order to understand,
rather than forget the omni-****
banality for...
    the spec-attache-of-the-wrongly-
reattached-to-the-omni-****
as-stand­ard-the...
                            particular man.

inclined to be on a, "jonestown massacre"
style... motiff?
         please...
                  i'd need to dumb
my language down to a level of
understanding that
could no longer be riddled
with idiosyncracies,
          and, subsequently
become: peppered with rhetoric...

who doesn't,
made of flesh,
borrow a segment from
     idolatory,
of these, of all of all
of the possible days...
                oh.... subtle translation
of the german reality
at the peak of the 19th century...
what was the twilight,
or rather... who were the idols
of that frame of history?
wherever i look now...
i cannot see what twilight
there's is to speak of,
other than via my own
post-mortem...
    and by then...
             i only seem to want to convey:
but i am only making
a snippet of what an status
would perform
otherwise:
full swing wholly engrossed
in idolatry do...

        nibbling...
to better explain metaphysics...
id est:
       as simply as possible...
with a...
                 underlying principle
of metaphor...
   and subsequently:
   a literalism that only dabbles
with ridicule of,
what centers around...
self-worth,
    and self-worth-attainment,
best mitigated by
   a self-deprecating comedy...
         that... is provoked
as a modus operandi...
                by an undermining,
tragico-comic...
         of a... noumenon,
self-excluded:
              deprecating comedy per se.

thus:
   the self, returns to the "self",
returns to "the box"...
               which ends up being...
something almost bearable
to have to endure,
esp. when stacking shelves
in a supermarket.

Goddesses blush upon your arrival. Is it survival or just a coping mechanism? Balance on your legs for a thousand centuries and still i’d deny you your certitude. Perfume is a cascade of scents. Fences are reticent at best. What is relevant is not often necessary and what is necessary is rarely self-evident. We select our endings. Like ballplayers place bets on their enemies. We keep the bases clean and covered with dirt. Perfect your hurt and your punishments will be well earned. Lunches are times for nourishment and I am amused by this divertissement.

Plus one please. Receipts are a dollar short and much too cheap. I sleep in pools of butter. Stuttering your way through the crowd. I am proud of my accomplishments.
A lot of stress was mitigated by your watery eyebrows. I am a crowd to myself. Less wealth than merriment. So much mirth and perplexity in the same place. Her body was just a fantasy. Lands of ladies who seek honey for their military campaigns.

I am dreaming of millions of kangaroos, bouncing on top of a plateau.

Join me in the snow. I plowed it all for you. Look into my eyes and read the lines you could not find. I am blind to your joy, like similes of kindness written in braille. The scent of love is hidden between blankets and sheets that you could never again wash clean.

Goodbye forever, fleeting spotlight.
I’ll remember you
But the stage is no longer mine
So long I feared the dark
I was afraid to step out
But the dark cannot be avoided
Or mitigated
Or even contained.
It covers the ground you walk,
Encasing the trees and their roots
The flowers’ lack of colour
The roadside curb and accompanying footpath.
It’s everywhere.

To the shadow that pleaded me to stay,
I’ve stopped listening to you
You took my form and enclosed it in darkness
You thrived in the spotlight
But now you’re gone.
All that’s left is me
and the dark.
The inevitable darkness

I'm walking through some grass now
My hands reach out and feel
A variety of stones and flowers and petals
Of a sprawling summer field.
With a cautious **** I opened one eye
I squinted at the neon yellow
But soon I saw a broad blue sky
bolstered by a vibrant meadow

Though confused at first, I now realised
That what lies in the dark isn’t so bad
It’s a beginning as much as it is an end
The birds sang freedom
as they soared the skies.
That wretched shadow
Filled my head with lies.

Goodbye forever, fleeting spotlight
My act of pretending is done
Gone is the glare that distorted my vision
Gone is the glare that you once shone.

-                              
                               sometimes I wish you didn't exist
  because you stab knives in My back
                  and bend me until I break.
                                 the feelingS i feel
                                 cannot be Substituted or
                                             allaYed, mitigated;
            the weapon and the wOund are both
               permanently etched Under my skin.

i have no other means to see,
only through the intervening vacuities
of the word — out in the field
there seems to be no end seething
to the very beginning;
these words now
appear limbless yet still make
their way deftly, scrunching
against the wall enough to toss the
body out of sleep.
i have nothing to offer
only my despair
and in this, myself, have seen all
too pristinely without a sensible trace
of fear or a mitigated feeling

i am all words and no conversing,
addled by the thoroughness of it,
ample warmth of a makeshift fire
  thwarting the involuntary shadow there,
  hiding behind the renegade
  of thought or a portentous rearing
    of imagination's hearth:

i am all words, no other than this alone—
having achieved this noble sense of
  swift perpetuity, no other means to
    this end than the poetry of impetus.

it was coming,
arriving on a train --
some silent, mouthed anticipation
recalled to life,
finally.
soon the house had no walls;
we were living in huts made of twigs,
trying to kindle a small fire
in the snow.
surrounded by darkness
and the occasional passing car,
we leapt from star to star
in the cobalt haze of the night.
there,
a bright spot,
a sort of celestial fortuity.
all of the sudden I was not so alone.
I walked in your footsteps
on the path to your house.
knee deep in snow,
being careful not to stop moving,
but still wary to move at all.
I remember we were falling,
falling, falling down
(well, I was falling,
you were helping me up)
then running, running,
racing through the streets
to ensure our return
before anyone knew where we were,
or who we were.
I remember you taking my hand
which was wet with a layer of snow
and numb to the bone.
I couldn't feel yours at all.
maybe that was the idea.
there is always a guilt,
but it was mitigated here;
for one night
that terrible swelling in my throat
did not swallow me whole.
but you cannot open the floodgates
and expect to stay dry.
I am slowly learning why this is true.
I only hope that I will live to tell about it.

You want more?
Of course you do
everyone always wants more
and so you strive
and you push
for more
never settling for simple breathing.
But is this direciton
just a mitigated distraction?
A subconscious reaction
to the subtle changes
of your very humanness?
You don't deal well
with the fluidity of existence
the unparalleled persistence
of ever present change
emotions flooding
thoughts bombarding
heart is beating
theory discarding
body thudding
thrusting and lusting
contentment oh sweet contenment
and on the heels
the clutch of grief
despair
you don't care
why wake up?
You can no longer participate
the movement towards more
you cannot initiate
but wait
upon the rays
of golden starlight
lingers a distant pang
of tired delight
and again
you want more

hollow inside
lucid body
lost
confused

goals emerge to
ensure fulfillment
relieve pain
ease anxiety

the sounds of mitigated speech
consumes you until you lose control of yourself.

I wish I knew
I wish I could figure out
at what point did I lose my mind?

of this earth i will cursor with octopus
suction a lung in spring
to tame the readied earth
for harvest,  should i fail
blotch with soaked feet
in ink a followed route readied
for future grime
known as generational gaping
a form of yawn -
but never leave poetry singled-out
worded with only one word -
craft more syllables to mind -
at least enough syllables to rhyme,
i know that haiku does not rhyme,
but excessiveness of knowing so
will leave poetry without technique altogether...
at least keep what pop music decided
to make of poetry: rhyme -
at lest keep rhyme, at least write enough
syllables to craft a rhyme!
curating syllable usage to make
identifiable a poetic technique -
without enough syllables no poetry -
because of lost technique stressed via
syllable rubric spoken of
no rhyme to be multiplied into echo
for a coercion to mitigate:
i.e. rhyme -e- with please & ease -
mitigated meaning a lessening
with the echoing rather than the rhyming
resound -
for indeed in optics the words rhyme,
but in practice we care for echo rather than rhyme:
i rhyme we eat
                          and we seat -
but in fact opting for echo to be the curator.

All lives matter
the madder I get
At the matter of public opinion
madness of this meteorological  rise
Defies logic and the projects have become project
For white bourgeois hipsters in tight pants
Which maddens me further –
Mothers in moccasins mobilize
In Mobile, Alabama
Misrepresenting the million man march
As a method to success
Monarchic movement
Mitigated by the masses
Is madness –
Medicated and misguided muthafuckers
Maligned and misinformed
Marry in May during the full moon
To better understand Mormon culture
And the issues with lead
In Flint, Michigan –

We were woollen
as the coach pulled up
alongside the C of E school

our swimming provided free
and municipal
so the stung eyes and barked, sodden ideas
were mitigated

at least if we fell
into the rank brown swells nearby
our inevitable drowning
could be offset:

the boy could swim
and was a king at buying the 5p
Highland Toffee from the machine

insistent banging
hot air on cold steel
keeping pace with the second hand
replacing the drum track
placed on the education floor –
sliding iron door
electric lock
shocked at the space
misplaced faces race against the case
chasing freedom thought computer tutorials
and changing attitudes
challenging inner platitudes
shrewdly scouring the ‘self’ for shreds –
surpassed expectations mitigated by short-sighted controllers
crushing spirits while building for retirement
smiling on break, sharing war stories
without consideration for rehabilitation
only condemnation –
watching light-bulb moments
day after day
inspired by other’s achievement
I sit awestruck
the stories of prison might as well have unicorns
for the reality they express
from my desk
this cesspool
smells like fresh beginnings and wider horizons
these dregs of society
move me to be the best version of myself
as they seek only to be considered by society
as equal and accepted –

The winter falls as fast as hailstones. White wonderlands crossing every horizon, except from my bedroom window. Then she comes, in a fearful mood, mitigated by what, I am uncertain. Maybe I did something, maybe I did nothing. As a child I am almost certain it is my fault.

            A hand crashes forcefully against my face. Then again and again as I am restrained by the collar of my shirt. I can hear it stretching to its limits and tearing. I can hear this because I have stopped listening to her. Which makes her even angrier.

            I disappear. Why bother existing at all? There is a dull sensation of pain, but it is nothing. When she is done I come back. This is how I remember it. Although, I am certain this is wrong. I am just covering up the horrible stuff with some form of acrobatic escapism.

            When the fury ends and she is physically and emotionally spent, I am sent to my room. It is a safe prison, a place where I cannot confess my shame and hers to anyone. She is safe from the prying eyes of DCFs and I am safe from her.

            Ten to thirty feet away from window I watch the world go on without me. There is a painful longing. My neighbors enjoy the day unsullied by my darkness. I wonder how bad I must be. I cry and wish to die. This is a fact unclouded by time or wishful thinking.

            I read the bible. I sneak a real book and read it. The book is wedged between my bed and the wall. I conceal half of it in the covers as I read the other half, adjusting it carefully and as quietly as possible. When I can’t read I sleep. I sleep so much that I get tired, then I sleep some more. I work as far ahead in my assignments as I can. Thank goodness the teacher is predictable.

            I think, I breathe, I live, but it feels like death. When my sentence is over I am free for a week or so. Then she is angry again. Whatever, back into my cell as I watch the world change. Winter is in its full bloom. Sometimes, I **** in a cup because I am only allowed a certain amount of bathroom visits.

I sit. I think. I sleep. I dream.

I am not even safe in my own dreams. In every dream I am pursued. A monster in space, Freddy Krueger, or just her. I run but spikes start sprouting from the ground, and every step sends spasms of sharp pain through my feet. I can fly but only so far and so high. Electric wires act like rubber bands and sling me painfully back to the spike filled earth. There is no freedom.

            I am out for a day. Then back in again. Sad songs repeat themselves on my cassette player. This only perpetuates and deepens my agony. The children laugh and play slinging snowballs dangerously fast at each other’s face. Why am I the freak? Why can’t I be free?

            The violence subsides. Now there are only harsh, well extremely harsh words, hundreds of sentences to writes, and longer confinements. I come and go so fast that it feels like I spend more time in my room then I have ever spent anywhere else.

            Summer comes, and thank goodness she has to work. I have some free time. However, summer passes and the spring brings with it the same dullness. Now, I am back to winter. My life has become a sad echo. The kids can see that I am weak. Of course I am weak. I must be weak, because I can’t handle what must be normal.

            The snow comes, so deep, white, pure, and humbling. I watch it for days.  No one goes outside. My room becomes a strange universe with me at the center spinning but never moving. I never leave this room, except for meals and the occasional ****. There is something building up inside. I open the window. Then I slam it just as quickly. I open it again feeling the full frosty force of Mother Nature. What a glorious breeze. I shiver with pleasure and with the coldness of it all.

            In the past I have tried to **** myself, but I can’t seem to die. God won’t let me go, and neither will she. So, the window comes open again. I am overcome with another impulse. With no shirt or shoes I jump out the window. It is only a two foot drop. My feet bury themselves in the cold snow. I run around as long as I can stand it, till my feet ache with the pain of cold, then pull myself back in.

            The next day I do it again. I run about a block or so and return. It feels amazing. My mind can barely take in the magnificence of it all. I hope that winter will last forever. The pain and pleasure of it all excites me. My feet go from warm to frosted then I focus on the sensation of them warming up again slowly. It is like they go from alive to dead then come back alive again.

            There it is. The grand pleasure of a small release. No fairytales or dragons. I come and go as I please. No one is outside but me. Me reveling in the cold; me dancing like a madman. I do not get sick. The beast never catches me. She is defied without pain. My dreams don’t change. The world doesn’t get that much better.

            Then when the snow fades and children, come back out to play I am trapped again.But, but this minor pleasure remains. For a bit I came and went as I pleased, free to freeze or not.

And you know in your heart,
your secrets are your own.
Wrapped up in your own armor,
yet lost in confusion,
mitigated by chance.
And when you've given your all
true adage advice will ring.