FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

you know, on that N86 bus listening to dikanda's
https://goo.gl/OAUjMe (ketrin ketrin),
while going to the brothel, where i kissed *****'s
eyelid skin i turned my heart into a lung...
and it burst akin to muscled stress of the softer tissue,
by heart was the black horse of the race...
she would only be worth £110 an hour...
but in my heart... a lifetime... so classical fm is
asking for three songs to be enlisted in the hall of fame
here are my three:
1. something to think about (christopher young) -
   hellraiser ii,
2. no time for caution (hans zimmer) -
    interstellar,
3. spectres in the fog (hans zimmer) -
     the last samurai, competing with
(4. any other name (thomas newman) -
     american beauty,
and....
5. carpe diem (maurice jarre) -
     the dead poets' society);
i always found classical music invoked
by fast image exchange most adhering
to a modern public... after all...
the notes written down are transliterated
from moving geometries
asking for a human face...
that one abstraction leaving another created...
so enriched we can be living and leaving here,
but leave and live here cradled and crawling
and nothing more than an attempt for
a crafted shawl of woollen care...
assuredly we were the blank canvas,
when the sheep and lion were clothed...
the lizard inwardly having its blood cooled...
and we the mediators...
to evolve from an origin of such biological diversity?
why will darwinism claim to be a humanism
and let no humanism in?!
if darwinism branched from science for a populism
of understanding prepositions as propositions
(given that propositions are allowed expression
with far many more complex words than prepositions,
given the former are deemed a nature or origin
and the latter a nature of coordination)
why allow it a humanistic simplicity
and complicate humanism to a non-expression's
extent of a complexity? darwinism cannot grasp
humanism's complexity per se, for each its own per se
allowance... darwinism cannot relate to humanism,
since humanism deals with the one diluted into the many,
while darwinism deals with the many concentrated into
the one:
and noting the varied dimensional usage of pronouns,
the singular (engaging), the singular (disengaging),
the plural (effective), the plural (ineffective),
to use but a few among others... how would a self,
as either realistically concerned or as expressed
in an atlas pose when one individual speaks of a species
to ever survive... to speak of humanity per se,
is to not speak of being human per se (a self),
but as if under a constant threat from either internal
or external stimuli, it's to speak as if human
but hardly being human... darwinism only said
in simpler terms 1 = ~∞ 0 1 (one equals
approximately infinity denying one... expressed
further: one equals approximately infinity denying
oneness, hence ethnicity, hence disparity,
the infinite approximate is due to the no. of equally
represented identities of reflection as one's akin
in historical content for a vanity representation
of ego) / although there's a parallel disparity:
1 = ∞ 0 ~1 (1 equals a reasonable infinity
of the semblance collective, as approximated within
one's own constitution, denied by the constitution
of the semblance collectivised denying 1 its
oneness by a division, into pop. psychology
of subconscious, unconscious, ulterior and posterior
assembling of identification in order to relate
a concrete un-divisible one, to a oneness
of ~∞ 0 ∞†, whether governed by animate or inanimate
things, worthy of either representing
∞ = 0 ~1, or ~∞ = 0 1 (infinity equating itself to
a denial of an approximation of one,
or approximate infinity equating itself to a denial
of one) - by most standards a collective power
increases, while an individual coercion with
such increase in power is diluted to mediocre representation
of what was once hoped for to be an individual...
as worded: i'm about to inherit a pickaxe, an igloo,
a herd of sheep, a land arable for regular hunts
to provide sustenance, but as i said, the oddity
of increasing vocabulary as body-building index muscle,
will hardly teach you the physics of quanta in
the realm of modulating grammar,
on the basic basis of grammatical as
a method of de-categorisation one word from it being
named, to it being acted upon as a termed way of
walking (differently), or otherwise.

†a bit much for me, an alfred jarry moment
at the end of dr. faustroll's opinions and exploits...
papa **** got the dangling essence of things:
je suis jarry among the je suis cherub charlies,
if poet does not appreciate other artistic mediums
he can't mediate them,
poetry is supposed to mediate all artistic expression
with platonic criticism... it's supposed to mediate,
with poets appreciating each and every craft...
whether sculpture we scrap metal stolen from a park,
or whether an oil canvas be worth as much as toilet
paper when the painter is alive, and millions more
when he's dead.. we need gravity a demanding
drama to extend drama into grammar...
poets have to become the middle-men of haggling,
they need to appreciate art in an elitist way
in order that art can't become genealogically defining,
like dramatics of the theatre lost between idols
of 1950s screening compared to idols of 19'90s screening...
we need poets as the glue stuck to every output...
we need to appreciate all art other than their own
to discover their own... we can't have the mindless
jealousy bribe us to reconcile composition,
so that poet against poet is still writing poetry...
he isn't... he's writing a polemic... and that's hardly
a dialogue... it's a mortifying analogue of monologue...
and we don't want poetry to be such a belittling
circumstance of the original intent of practice,
why would a poet's rarity be reduced to
a market blasphemy of ultra-eloquent speech
in order that it might be used to scold?
why the jealousy? why?! it reeks of revenge
that only requires a Darwinism to include it,
as sustainable and necessary,
too many monkeys to create a single man...
too many difference in man from continental span
of africa, to asia... to even bother a standing ovation
origination in genetic scrip of a chimpanzee...
script wants man to be genetically above
a genetic script of a banana numbering more genes
that itself... the biodiversity of monkey
is akin to man... why would the two chiral statues
suddenly become gemini of explanation?
it all fits... but it stinks...
well, whatever that was... it's the pride of a language
that keeps darwinism alive...
but theology is closer to humanism than darwinism...
it's a compound logic, darwinism ends with with an ism,
an empiricism... and the only logic accounted for
is a logic of repeat... just look at the forms of these words...
formulated by L and Γ (origin of the kabbalistic interpretation
of allah)... keep the prefix akin to a suffix composed to
an enclosure... theology provides the better logistics
of expressing being human than an empiricism
known to be darwinism... after all a -logy tends to
repeat a systematic use of words...
empiricism a systematic use of facts...
easier to become bored of facts than words.

Smooth, smooth, fringed by yellow smudged, hard plastic
smooth, left to right then a painterly inconclusive running
out, the stroke all 60” expires into the yellow, then a firm
vertical orange stripe, a bookend, a hot surface elevated
upon a warm yellow bed, exotic, turmeric, heated from
below, as though from another world, a future planet found
in Manga, gum wrappers, belonging to the wedding
wardrobes of older women, and those with impossible
shoes, maybe a scarf, definitely lipstick and small Japanese
cars, decorative paper, a can’t-miss logo, as when I close
my eyes in the act of love, holding your kneeling body to
me I lose myself in a pattern of flashes, the bright play of
light and colour, a sensual play of pigment, blue and red
wavelengths, fuchsine, electric, electric, and the aura of
artists, such latent energy, hidden passion, rich in ******
fragrance, edged with desire.

The path of the brush now right to left yellow exposes a
yellow bookend at the left hand edge, there is a roughness
here in its covering of yellow, as though applied in haste or
in a single gesture with a large brush, it is thick, thick and
rough, but the yellow is almost present, a hint, a reflection,
as in the petals of the Bellis Perennis, you open your mouth
breathing, breathing your lips frame such perfect teeth as
day arrives,

Left to right, the paint thick then thinning to a broken
tailpiece revealing yellow on magenta, again, again, again, again,
how little I yet understand your body, the innerness,
the sheltered regions of your desire, I am afraid to harm this
preciousness, be disrespectful of the tapering valley where
love’s caress and kiss meet, are multi-dimensional, the
rectangle is not charcoal, but deflected, hesitant, to the left
the darkness of chocolate, to the right a greyness, a *****
grey, a dusty dark dog, loamed, a depth then play of
shadow, dark, textural as your maidenhair under the covers
above my right hand as it spreads my fingers across its
darkness into deeper darkness, a flat stone, its left end
washed by the cold tide, olived, clothed in mourning, there
is unpleasantness, some distaste, a little fear, the unknown,
the unknowable.

Daisy petals, opening in the morning light, the clapperboard
house on the Block Island beachside fresh-painted every
spring, immediately weathered, porcelained sea shell
textured, turned, tumbled, a dawn sky after rain,
ceramicised fungi, plain flour, acidic, taut, the moment
when the heart and breath seem to pause as we join each
other’s flesh as though this cannot be cannot really be.

Unrhymable this flower shade hued pigment deep saffron
vibrant, phoned, not quite of the fruit, a different tang,
sharper without sheen, magenta beneath its smoothed
surface up to left and right edge, (but for the yellow
frill beneath), lip covering, silk-scarfed, not autumnal yet, but oh
those Californian poppies, those desert landscapes as the
sun sets,

a single uneven gesture thrown left to right, an island
in silhouette with a rocky foreshore spreads into distance,

a bed of sylvan jade, an oasis, this an aerial view of tree
tops modulating to grassy pasture, a down-stroke western
boundary, an edge of surf on its northern border, perhaps
the brush formerly coloured has left its trace,

the main body of this Australian desert seen from the air,
Sidney Nolan’s bush, aboriginal earth, coloured mud,
unguent, the sense of liquid in your kiss, its warmth, the
very tip and corner of your lips, the brush of hair as you
move your head to my chest, the rubbing of hair on hair,
under your arms this play of sensation through the lips’
touch, then the shore, the sand no sand though, only in the
brochures, daffodilled perhaps, unsmudged, fresh,
vigorously golden, well-watered.

You wanted me to be your brother
To be a part of your extended family
I believed you
Since you seemed sincere enough
And got along well with most people
Thanks to your lively nature
And the dedication you seemed to show
As far as your work was concerned
I was in awe
Of the way you managed your life
Juggling work and studies every single day
And yet managing to keep a smile on your face
I should have got an inkling
That there was something amiss
However, thanks to my ignorance
Induced by my autism
And because you played your part so well
I never got to see your true colours
Until it was almost too late

You wanted me to be your brother
And I was indeed a good brother
I was always there for you
But never did I imagine
That you would take advantage of me
In such a callous and audacious manner
When you had that rather painful shoe bite
I took care of you
Even though my other colleagues advised me against it
But you were never truly grateful
In fact, you kept your distance
And came up with a silly sob story
To prevent me from interacting with you at office
I should have realised by then
What kind of a person you really were
Then again, I was woefully naive
And only wanted you to be happy
Even if it killed me from inside

You wanted me to be your brother
Well, I did my part
But you never did yours
When I first started helping you financially
I was doing it because I truly cared about you
And had a strong belief
That you would repay your dues eventually
Once again, like always
I was horribly wrong
You came up with story after story
And I kept believing you
Thanks to my incredibly credulous nature
And thus ended up draining my own bank balance

You wanted me to be your brother
Except that, instead of being your brother
I ended up being your sugar daddy
But then, like my mother said later
I was in a trance
And thus became your ATM
I have to admit, though
That you were a really good actress
Modulating your voice
To a mere shadow of what it usually would be
In order to induce me to believe
That you were suffering from blood infection
Just one out of hundreds of lies
That came out of your pathetic mouth

You wanted me to be your brother
Except that a true sister does not lie or cheat
That too, not once
Not twice
Not even thrice
But a thousand times
You have absolutely no idea
How you've ruined my life
And brought distress to my family
As well as a very close friend of mine
Through your utterly despicable actions

You wanted me to be your brother
And it was the biggest mistake of my life
To take you seriously
You even had the nerve
To make me travel for 16 km
In the hot sun
Right in the middle of summer
In order to meet you
Just so that I could keep trusting you
Or rather, keep getting fooled by your lies and half-truths

You wanted me to be your brother
But you lied to me all the time
And cheated me of my entire savings
After all that you've done
You still have the nerve
To beg for my sympathy
You are a disgrace to women
In fact, a disgrace to the entire human race
Even ISIS is far more worth sympathising with
Than you will ever be!!
Well, I would have ideally wanted you to suffer
In the most painful manner possible
But I need you to return all that you took
I don't care how you do it
Do it, and we can go our own separate ways
I can forget that you exist, and vice-versa
But until you do it
I will always be your biggest nightmare
In this entire planet
When I am good, I am very good
But when I am bad, I am the worst
So, you had better watch out
My so-called sister

_____________
I loved the idea of a symphony captured on an easel
spelled out in shades squeezed out of tubes like the
horizontal expansion of a note dispersed in air but
soon I found that the canvas was too small to contain
the notes of the score and so I began to paint them
on the side of the easel itself and down the legs of
the frame onto the floor and once on the floor across
the entire length of the room and up the frame of the
door and spiraling around until I was writing the notes
of a sonata around the circumference of the doorknob
and painting tiny key signatures on the barrel of the
lock and soon I ran out of paint but there was still so
much music in me so I started to spell out the notes
with my finger until even the air in the room was
covered with notes and I inhaled the melodies and
they swirled around so the symphony could be plucked
out among the fibers inside of me and resonate in my
empty cavities filling me from the inside out with song…
_____________

oft on bus seated next,
every one of your senses
adjusting, modulating,
to her unpredictable
solar flaring

you don't ever risk
that first missing
           misstep,
your entirety is
sun bursted
        (un)/consumed
in unhappy joy of her
consuming presence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you laugh
years later
re the topic of
your first shaky
foot in the mouth
a classic misstep
first bow shot,
opening one liner

and each storied retelling  
is nature!s
snow and rain
refilling
the love of your
groundwater table
welling up

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you love her scent
the silly hats she wears,
her short skirts arouse,
that last open button
a misstep invitation,
angry it incenses,
her every solitary everything is
incense,
pervading a daily
co-riding
passenger's
oxygen? starved soul

~~~~~~~~~

her umbrella is a wet
selfie stick
accidentally opening and dousing
an un random next door
seatmate

just another unlucky misstep for
someone sitting next store,
oil on the fire of
happily ever after

two selfies are last seen as
one
un selfishly
toweling each other off and
on
with wet kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~

you eavesdrop on her
earbud music,
weep internally you do with
crazed jealously

The Temptations
are so unfairly
singing to her
"Ain't to Proud to Beg"
and neither are you

you heart is misstepping
to every beat,
your fingers
thrumming,
you idiot, not quietly enough
humming
in the next seat

the first,
will not be
the last

smile exchanged

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

poem writing on the tablet,
amidst the groaning awful
no moving
city traffic

overheated bus
combustible with
winter snow dampness,
wet dog sweat smelling people clothes

all you want to do is get home
shower off
the daily dirt

the poetry writing pastime
is the place
where you put yourself
to better to pass over
your sour surroundings

her finger rattlesnakes,
misstepping over,
noisily invading,
the invisible boundary
constructed to hold up the
eye-averting
Keep Out sign
to momentary,
too neighborly
strangers

her red painted
pointer finger
smudge prints on your tablet,
accompanied with
bespoke words
"try this"

that smudge suggestion
won't come off

insisting on crediting
a shared authorship,
you ask for her
email and cell,
so you can share
her
forever

co jointed tangled
bus and bed sheet first efforts
on writing, all about
what you play~argue
what should your entitled poem
be titled

you think

endless short love story bus poems

but she prefers,
with red fingers persuading

the first misstep is the best

both see the merit
in each other

Reading the other day,
an article about some,
Renowned fellow's notion,
On the study of "Human,
Productive Locomotion".

A reputed Authorty,
of "Time Management",
His main proclivity being,
The belief in his increasing,
Other peoples productivity.

Modulating their all too,
common Human tendency,
For naturally wasting time,
and non productive energy.

Him asserting himself to be,
a self styled know it all,
Bonafied Expert in Efficiency.

Now I can see,
How it might be,
That this type of study,
Offers some relevancy,
For the Barons of Industry,
What with them regulating,
The flow, While streamlining,
and furthering the advance,
of all things, relating to commerce.

A purely Scientific belief,
For the primary benefit,
Of the Time Clocks sake,
And all those Bosse's
Emotional financial betterment.

But what on earth,
did that have to do,
with an old retired,
fool like me?  

What matter that,
I merely sit and think,
for hours at a time.
Read the paper,
or a book,
Computer chat,
or cook?

Putter in my garden,
Or gratefully just stare,
at big billowing clouds,
or rainbows in the air.

Or perhaps I choose,
to hug my wife,
Or chase my Grand
Kids up a tree,
Maybe grab a nap,
Or even take a ***.

Pet my dog,
Or have a Beer.
Watch the Tube,
a little bit,
Or congregate to meditate,
with a convivial group of friends.

Maybe take a walk,
Down by the river.
Get out my old,
Bow and Quiver.

Wash my car,
Cut some grass,
Go to my writing class.

Slip on down,
to the " Red Dog Saloon"
Where I'll promenade,
A little Texas Two Step.

Come home in time,
To unwind and,
watch some David Letterman.

What's efficient,
and what is not?
Clearly, that interpretation,
Is completely up to me.
No Efficiency Expert needed.

The moon asleep in the well under
The surface of the blackwater, four
Stars of steel and a badly done
Impersonation of my-
Self,
Erase and compensate
Repeated his voice from the bottom
Of the glass, you
Were shining
You said it again
In Neverland there’s no more room
For the Lost Boys
And she - the moon in the well - had
Lost her lips, removed
Her cuticles
One after the other, she had
Consumed a few names
From the wings of the doves, there
Was no more vision, no more dreams, it was
A realm of shadows, no
Lament was rising
To the ceiling, blood was coming
Back modulating itself in clots, no
Punches
Only water
A lot of water inside
The well, where the moon asleep used to
Lie
Staring at the sky
The bars
The coins
You were shining, locked outside
Collecting
The smell of iron, the colour of dice
A heart broken in a thousand valuable gems, a small
Horse, fragments of coal, your *******
The moon in the well was drowning, was crying, it
Couldn’t be done,
Here is what.
It couldn’t be done.

The stone, cold sidewalk lay below,
It's getting closer,
I bid the last breath to blow,
Flames, heart-racing,blue-black,windless night.
Tears forming, evaporating.....evaporating.....ditto,
Depression made clear,
Behind eyes,the devil's motto.
Confusion at my right hand,clarity disappears.
Firefighter's water,
My beloved abode no more,
Tears of men,hellfire licking the walls.
I stood,staring from afar,
Drowning in the torment that has come to call,
The world hushed,my vision torn to fragments,
Heat of salty tears.
Everything frozen in time,
My fears forever mine.
Confusion lays unsettled in the bowels of the soul,
Wreathing thick murrain,
Screaming at the misery of the brain.
I was startled,whimpering with bewilderment,
Everything before me in a trance-like state,
Then began awaking.
The men with sweet water,dear,
Starting surging backwards,
Their faces devoid of thought,without fear.
Like rewinding a record,
Time flew backward,
I stumbling,stunned,steel-cold.
Boom!,
Explosions,
I'm unable to move.
Then suddenly I stood up,
Walked unwillingly to the fiery effulgence,
Led by a teasing indecision,an untouched mystery,
Depleted of resilience.

The world stood still once more,
Froze me in place,
I fell into dementia's eye,
Nothing beclouding the gore.
Then regenerating,
Time modulating from cinders,beautiful phoenix,
Reality it began disseminating,
Blurry images flood my sight,
Blood,anger,depression rites,
Recapitulations,I beg for light.

My husband stood before me,weaving misery and woe,
Cursing me,making me small,
Shoving me under,way down low,
He stands as cold as ice,
Yet he burns inside,
He swings,hits,spits,
A love forgotten,
Dead inside.
He cuts me with the knife,
Watches my blood run,
My reality decaying,he's having fun.

Deep in the bathroom tub,
I lay fighting back shivers,
Making in the water red ripples,
Release my body's crave,
I uncovered in my mind a mystical grave.
Such dementia to see him flailing in my hands!

The daydreamed lust seemed inconceivable,
For the fiend still lives.
On our bed I saw him lay,
I remember how me met,
I fell into his arms,
Addicting,like to a powerful drug.
Conceived for evil,hmm,I might've found my way,
The idea came quickly,
I marveled at the absence of my active conscience.
I now creeped down the stairs,slithered!
Choking on hysterics,
On my spine angst lingered.
The kitchen door swung open,I stepped in,
Looking for th'inevitable tools,
Fury flared,kerosene and match I fumbled,
Feeling the arctic love as it crumbled.

So quickly I flew up the stairs,
My,my,my someone's anxious!
Ready to sear him,ignite his cold,fringe his hairs!
I fed my pain with venom-bitter hatred,
Stood ready to fry the *******,
My anticipation was sacred.
I stood before his bed,
Banishing the now present,dark,heavy,penetrating conscience,
The dream inside instead,I fed.
The mind picked up outside,
Midnight blows in through the window,
Dances 'round the room.
The kerosene I quickly threw,
Exiling any regret,
Ready to add the final ingredient to my dark,dangerous brew.
I striked,threw,watched the match,
Spinning through the air,
Waiting for the flames to hatch.
He awoke with the arrival of the fire,
Dark screams I like,
My cold desire.
Mariticide committed,
I tried not to laugh,
Joy was a pain,
Then my shrill scream was echoed by his bones,
Everything fell,the chains of the brain.
I smiled,now a black widow out of her cage,
Beaming at the empty hole of mis'ry,
Finally made satiable,the sin's wage.
Freedom came then,
Shattering,a worthy phenomenon,
It came into my crazy world,
Like a cool and cleansing rain.
                                                      -**Firefly

for Alice*

seen from the terrace above
this rectangle of water
absorbs the variousness
of the late spring skies
changing incessantly
from folds of uncertain cloud
past brief appearances of blue
to the sudden closeness of rain

the preciseness of it
this rectangular pool
set in an oblong garden room
on a terrace the middle of three
that fall away to the valley’s end where
up and through and which a funnel of trees
climb to the tops the very heights today
severe against a modulating sky

yet in the camera’s eye
this horizontal mirror
is a painting fit
for Le Musée d’Orsay
a season’s accident no less in
light and growth and colour
where the chequered strings of
toads’ spawn and darting tiny fish
are brush strokes come alive

kneeling on the stone rim
as if in prayer afore
this reflecting space
attentive to what seems
between what is
this woman holds within
her perfect hand the pond
photographically framing
its image as it moves and stirs
across her gentle gaze

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We finally able to play our song,
To sing out and share our excitement.
But before our first notes,
We go out of tune.
Playing sour chords, blaming each other.
We drag on playing different songs.
In perfect discourse.
Not embarrassed for for our lack of listening,
But distraught of our dissonance.
Disbelief will soon die and we shall see some sort of saving,
But not in each other.
We lay upon our fret boards, modulating often.
Changing key to adjust to the counter,
Yet never making harmony.

I don't really want to see your so called face
Your unreal reality's your hiding place
Preaching about peace is your safe base
The way you evade revealing your face

This is where I draw the line
A start for all differences
This is when I drink the wine
Made of the blood of my ancestors
I shall not be the one
Obeying your dictations
Your lies shall end now
And truth will change the world

Unchain yourselves!

You keep adjusting people's thoughts
Modulating the wise
Filtering their rise
Those bold words from your mouth are so absurd...

This is where I draw the line
A start for all differences
This is when I drink the wine
Made of the blood of my ancestors
I shall not be the one
Obeying your dictations
Your lies shall end now
And truth will change the world

Unchain yourselves!

These worms, inside me;
Were formed by your lies
Worshiped you; their master.
But he shall be dethroned!

An evening I had with Leonard.
Myself with five ladies of the hooking craft.
Full house congregating to hear him speak.
The fluid words of living
An elixir to ones soul.
This little old man,
A modern Pied Piper of life,
An influence of modern song
That will carry past his physical presence.
His ability to stroke that place in ones mind
That can lead an audience in silence.
Wanting to catch every nuance.
The sound of vibrating strings
Matching the sound,
Of Angels wings,
Lift you past his words.
Observing the crowd
Some leaning forward as if in pews,
Not wanting to miss one word of inspiration.
Silver haired women,
Eyes closed, moistened  lips smiling,
Modulating to the tunes.
Remembering youthful encounters
Sensualized by this Poets intent.
Grey haired men lip sync
As they used to whisper in anticipation
In their ladies ear.
Youth of today
Rising in joy, cheering
Will carry the cycle forward.
At twelve I heard Suzanne and was captured.
I devoured his works
Finding poetry was not school house boring.
Seeking what had inspired him.
The surveyor for oh so many in the path of poets.

Dan Gray
April, 2013

Intro: Is a horse pulling a carriage

Body: Program gene coders of food forced to encrypt humans into Slave-Server Categories of GMO Labels Ride in on the Carriage. Equally injecting horses with modified vaccines to genetically enlarge muscles naturally pull carriages to farm DataBases. Writing self-modulating algorithms tagging Guarantees to Glory-wiFI genetic code and control coming breed generators with Narcotic Eyes in popular possessions seduced past their ancient needs passed down for Capital Greed

Conclusion: Essentials of society is very much cabbage patch. Like a horse at the end of the day to keep it moving forward correctly down a wanted circuit board. Use its purpose for energy in ways it must remain hungry always be hungry for a hypothetical prize. A carrotEye Ply.

I live in a dark coal-de-sac
giving off Bonnie Tyler sparks
the Rod Stewart of loneliness,
feeling heart arch at Market Basket

I go up and down elevator
music with hooks
and loops bringing
back Ghost and Word

Modern interlacing
ritual and food
in my head and in our
breaking bread

Why do you think the feast
is movable?

Weekend food shopping;
stocking; cooking some,
but most of it,  wasted,
rotting away even with
modern coolness

It's just me. It's just she
The time is gone,
the nest is empty
wish I had something more
to say

It's just Dad visiting
every weekend
to sit with his daughter
to watch his granddaughter
play soccer

It's just Mom cooking
a minor chord meal,
nothing like the Major
meals of her missing
older Sister

It's just weekend sushi
or Pho in Simi Valley
modulating one
Key memory to another

The voices go
ghosts fade
and yet the ritualistic
love persist in my
looped head in my
OCD play
at every meal
repeatedly self cutting
our geometric thought
Elements within a Euclidean
subspace

Ah yes, I remember this well,
The fumbling about in the darkness of  the cottage, as the narrator feels his way around the room,
The hair raising sound described,
A pronunciation of his friend's name,
By some being that seemed crystalline rather than organic
And the adrenaline that electrified his whole body upon hearing it.

The odd extra-tellurian reference frame that the creature seemed bound to so that it was not quite perpendicular to the floor...
...but that doesn't quite describe it.
It was, more accurately, that the creature was tied to some external reference frame which doesn't quite match our own.

While reading the story aloud to my children, Modulating my voice as adroitly as I am able, Pausing occasionally to define terms or explain references to the preceding book in the trilogy, I'm struck again by the author's talent; the depth and breadth of it, the power of description to elicit mood in the reader,
The completeness...and I wonder how many rewrites it took.

I notice the breathing of two of my three children has become regular.  
They've drifted to that other plane of existence.  
I pause...and Lottie's voice, a little too loud, cuts the near silence, "You aren't stopping, are you?", causing her sister to stir briefly.  "Nope!", say I, and I continue, doing my best to keep the theatrics in my voice.  
But the words are starting to dance on the page as I grow cross-eyed in my languor.

Finally I reach the chapter's end, place the bookmark and say, "And that, my dear, is where we'll pick up the story next time".  
I reach to turn off the bedside lamp, and sleep for an hour or so until Lady Di gets home from the hospital.

These beings, surrounding me now, causing me to lie on my side at the very edge of the bed, taught me what love really is.  I love them more than I can ever express.

softness flows over
rocks and rivulets, jettisoning
the clouding embraces of treetops,
holding the modulating fog on brushed canvases:
away, floating away, currents of love.

. a sober me will do something akin to: listening to cabbage's song perdurabo from the album nihilistic glamour shots on repeat... reworking en plein air poetics: notes towards writing in the anthropocene (brian teare) - yes, the scribbly bits - and yes, the song on repeat... with an interlude for dinner, a movie (unsane): and about 10 minutes wrestling with a bottle of ***** in plain sight... after a movie like UNSANE? you wish for a drink to mule the whole plot of insanity on screen... but a reminder: i was working on something more important, wasn't i?

cultural darwinism: what could ever be
more than a history that is a history
         in etymology?
  
there is no proof of going up
bound to a ladder -

supposed "praxis":

well... i too was on the search for
an "etymology" of a script
that i'd be able to call: yore - yonder...

albeit not in            ᚷᛖᚱᛗᚨᛁᚲ
i thought i could not
have shared a genesis
                                 as that:

'as old in writing:
as in thought.'

something older,
so to my surprise: it does exist!

but reworking it
had to be known (at least to me) -

standard-bearer:
26... letters... from English /
Latin... script...

Ⰰ - A           Ⰱ - B          Ⰲ - W        Ⰳ - G
Ⰴ - D         Ⰵ - E            Ⰽ - K           Ⱄ - S
Ⰸ - Z          Ⰻ - I            Ⰾ - L         Ⰿ - M
Ⱀ - N          Ⱁ - O            Ⱅ - T         Ⱆ - U        
Ⱈ - R           Ⱂ - P            Ⱇ - F          Ⱌ - C    (20)

exceptions:
                              X

other exceptions?
                             graphemes...
which will be included...

20 letters... minus X:
                         minus V... or...
when d'aal...

                 Y....  and H... and J

Ⱘ - Y          
Ⱓ  - Ju   

the closest i've come to is...
well... Greek has 24 letters...
who says that anything less is...
"uncivilised"?
Hebrew... that's 22 letters...

Ⰰ - A           Ⰱ - B          Ⰲ - W        Ⰳ - G
Ⰴ - D         Ⰵ - E            Ⰽ - K           Ⱄ - S
Ⰸ - Z          Ⰻ - I            Ⰾ - L         Ⰿ - M
Ⱀ - N          Ⱁ - O            Ⱅ - T         Ⱆ - U        
Ⱃ - R           Ⱂ - P            Ⱇ - F          Ⱌ - C    (20)
Ⱘ - Y         (21)              what's needed,
in all honesty... is... something to balance
laughter on... a H...   ah...           Ⱈ - ch...

which brings me onto the graphemes...
some are missing:
some, depends on your orthographic
taste, in the context of Western Slavic...
you'd be making orthographic
mistakes:
personally?
   if you're going to bother marking
an S with an acute sign...
you might as well allow the S caron...

ergo?

a list of graphemes
and diacritical individual markers:

Ⱎ - Š
Ⱔ - Ę
           which makes Ą missing...
Ⱍ - Č
                       Ż is missing...
   no, no mirage... je suis sam...
Ⰶ - Ź...

or at least this is a sketch of what
i would inherit from proto-slavic...
high-slavic?
   that's the ogonek on the A and
the E... no caron above the vowels,
an an orthographic pedantry of
either U or Ó...

there's already a name for
all of this: i just didn't know where
to look!
- and i was looking at it
to begin with!
  well... what seems like...
modulating what would
have been the equivalent
of: runes...

the glagolith, the bukvitsa:
h'ieronymian...

or mine:                    gadanina
since there's no Ł
   to write out:   słowo (word - swovo)

- looks like we now know
the "problem" of the H, I and J...
here and there: erroneous leftovers of
etymology... scraps...

    and... no one thinks that
the English language has... "too many"
letters?

Ⰰ - A           Ⰱ - B          Ⰲ - W        Ⰳ - G
Ⰴ - D         Ⰵ - E            Ⰽ - K           Ⱄ - S
Ⰸ - Z          Ⰻ - I            Ⰾ - L         Ⰿ - M
Ⱀ - N          Ⱁ - O            Ⱅ - T         Ⱆ - U        
Ⱃ - R           Ⱂ - P            Ⱇ - F          Ⱌ - C  
Ⱘ - Y         Ⱈ - (c)H
                    
       certainly the graphemes
  (Ⱎ - Š, Ⱍ - Č & Ⰶ - Ź...
but there's a missing...
                               grapheme
for the je suis! Ř or Ż
   Ⱔ - Ę)...

apparently i need:
                                 Ⱑ - ja
after all..

so... how does one test this out?

   ⰘⰅⰡⰀ!
               ⰏⰀⰏ
                           ⰐⰀ
           ⰋⰏⰋⰤ
                          ⰏⰀⰕⰅⰖⰞ

a day's "hobbying" just to end up
writing something like that...

last revision:

Ⰰ - A           Ⰱ - B          Ⰲ - W        Ⰳ - G
Ⰴ - D         Ⰵ - E            Ⰽ - K           Ⱄ - S
Ⰸ - Z          Ⰻ - I            Ⰾ - L         Ⰿ - M
Ⱀ - N          Ⱁ - O            Ⱅ - T         Ⱆ - U        
Ⱃ - R           Ⱂ - P            Ⱇ - F          Ⱌ - C  
Ⱘ - Y         Ⱈ - H           (Ⱎ - Š          Ⱔ - Ę
Ⱍ - Č          Ⰶ - Ź           Ⱑ - ja)...

  i.e.: there are still only 22 letters...
                    Ł does exist:
like any diacritical mark in modern Russian...
look at it!
                         Ⰾⱏⰹ...

                         БЛЫОTO

душкa душкa!     Мишa...

              Ⰻ    ⰜⰑ

                       Ⰸ         ⰕⰅⰃⰑ?

it's almost like,
i remember those guys from
school, who would sneak out
on weekends
at night, to scribble graffiti;
wherever it was,
or wasn't,
   i sure as wasn't:
                the ever studious
faustian archetype...

      tzn.:
                    ⰖⰝⰑⰐⰨ
                                      ­ⰕⰖⰏⰀⰐ!
here...
            here's my graffiti...
but... ha ha!
here's an idea...

  how about....
how about!
    people get those ****** Chinese
worded tattoo written off their skins?

As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.
Thus the early warning for uninitiateds,

Pomposity, this is not, yawn

hypnopompic (adj.)
"pertaining to the state
  of consciousness when awaking from sleep,"

Accepting the hand stretched toward my spirit,
the idea that is me, in your mind, tenere- root
tension, the push and pull
stretch the minutes into days, yawn
hear,
the rolling of the dough, sticky, folding
butter and sugar and cinnamon in, ah,
coffee, creamed
morning,
in paradaise,
pomp and circumstance, ministers
solemnly stepping up
recommencing the quest, master.

To make a form for spiritual consideration,
of worldly wisdoms and philosophy's guides
granted all with access to the raw data of us,
clear text incontextual time locked eternity,
part one

all we may know, no real secrets lost to time,
all we may know, upon waking in confusion, is

and was known, upto now, but no further, see,

between thoughts comes time, no force felt,
think, what reading really is, is us thinking again,

a gain, a step in the only way time relates
every thing to next, smooth
only on the surface
tension
of our enclosing bubble
of being,
bound
by words we never read, really,

while amused
at the talent
of our acting friends,
where everybody knows your inclusion
in an active Dunbar herd
of potential help,

the one in need, indeed, met

the wedoms, most common groupmind limit,
the size of a military subgroup, hereditary
strategic deployable drilled
to respond
to drum and bugle calls,
now radio, neuro linked,
orders conveyed to science users,
ready made from those so usable,

second string and above, do what you love,
ding, the bell, another round, ding

imagine the power of players taken in,
swallowed whole by an ancient serpent ,

slowly growing from worm to wise will

to oppose untrue why factors, long used
to beautify the imaginable future, if,

eh, Rudyard, who were you watching return
from Balaklava?
Did she force you to see?
Lady Elizabeth Southerden Thompson Butler,
Ai, ai, we totally know, yes,
must be some history in her string of names,

but,
what she projected on to the medium
what she witnessed in her spirit,
she showed us, the after facts,
the faces, the mud, the blood,

weariness and desperation, hope
captain, tell us, that's enough
war for the world to see,
life in color on canvas,
the message is the medium,
in it's pre-acrylic hues from tubes,
the latest advance in painterly tools,
and new colors, brighter, longer lasting

to let the spirit bearing the message,
alive until you stop, and realize,

you may, today, stare all day
at fifty-seven windows into
Lady Elizabeth's
upper crust wisdom,
becoming today's prompt,

To ask, if you do not find it easy,
my assuming you used your will,
voluntarily, to find the art abstraction
taken from the mindshare gone global,

my friends in all the lands enclosed
within the world wide web lattice work,
filtering the light we see through
to objects in mind reminding us,

of awe, the state, aha,
we agree, we sometimes weep
for those who live in foaming lies,

remains of old nursery fixed hates…

Have you gazed a while,
at the messages from Elizabeth?
Have you zoomed in to see
the faces on the nameless,

the glorious-less role call,  no.

I can't not go again, you see, war
and me, we
be adversarials and unreconcilable,
I swore to oppose all oaths to
pomposity, solemn turns first lie
to principal reason, first need met,
Art, making for the sake of making,
in the chaos, see the beauty, we live,
we who use words to capture thoughts,

think, we words, are no longer thoughts,
nay, we know, knowing, science, is
knowledge held as true, even known lies,
and the multitude of uses pride contends
is good to force feed kids, stacking order,
status quo, master and emissary, in one.

As a we form sapience spiritually coherent,
we all must protect,
free thought, raw truth, full function,

breath, modulating noise,
to seem musical.

Whew, hew and cry, scything on…

yes, self analyze,
woe is the skeptic
in America today,

or, no, the other way, today, in doubt's
haying day, sickles at the ready, stone honed,
…
least labor, follow the leader on the right,
starting from the left, northmost corner,
sweeping south along the terminii line,
proprietary responsibility border line,
work worth
sweat, taken as a feature,
water as a gift,
given by the fortuitous cloud catching
streams of conscious muse using,
refreshings, cool, new media,
cool, new colors, look, Spot,
see the images of all the worlds finest art,
right there on your globally tied in common-
uni-cating we conforming information device.

see close, zoom in, zoomers were born to this,
- old boomers who saw these images
- saw them in CMYK
- on shiny magazine paper,
- the message was not as loud as now.
Peace maker companions,
sharers of the one bread's condiments,
take some pride in pulling down imaginations
making peace, where a clamoring lobstrosity was,

warfare in the spirit, make sense from non-
sensible factors determining will to become,
still, observant, ignoring not knowing,
being left in the story your father's faith told
submission to authority, only obey,
-- line up, dress right, at a glance,
-- proceed standing at attention,
= be the message sent by the Bearskin helm.

will-less, submitted, under the orders
in the message most recently made law,
all those covered under the blood of victims,
in order to save the world, we must be ready
to let it evolve, no sweat,
- death has no sting, no lie,
- duty however is a killer,
- and pride the very worst.
Live
as might your favorite Bible character say,
sufferage is alright, wait and see, right,
you can choose your truth,
do the math,
vote by references to
chirality, right, or sinister,
the spinning difference is awesome
we mesh, fi, my talent, fits you
we become a one mind team
involved in mortal conscious
answers to sworn confusions,

Will to ever learn,
is a feature all spinning things use,
to stay in formation as we scythe through
ongoing knowing life is hard,
knowing is easy, taken slow,
bringing in the sheaves,
golden grain,
once worshipped,
worth the sweat,

laughing when the works all done,
was the winter breads and stewed roots,
all sets and settings we may imagine, on earth,
some sense we all share, every where we connect,

all at once, the world was enclosed, in clouds
of precocious proprietary secret methods,
right way to do things, procedures,

reusable code, rituals, rules and consequences,

object, entity in mind, abstraction, a pinch of now.

This is how all that ever matters must begin
in a literary effort akin to scything sown seed,

in a co-op thought pattern, me,
to you, feedback in the medium we share,

the air we breathe, but more enduring ties,
realizable already imagined known, yes,

the very idea that yes contains, on contact,
I know, be it how first or why, I care less,

yes, carelessly I spill my neuronic guts
distinct chakra reasonings, as factored costs,

go with your gut, but
first, grow ripe past pompous display,
look away, look away, do not open

the source code we think we see,

ah, me, too late.

When the we we think we become reads this,
it must, assume access granted, you do know.

The window on the broadway, where they sold
Raspberry Berets, in the summer of '61.

oh, Saad, I was distracted, I think you later,
and I go on,
I went
and came back around, second chancing

Take any given day, under Cuyamaca blue
skies above Horsethief Creek bright greens,

Lettin' Saad go in my right bluetoothed ear,


Bad idea pathogens identified…
Ardent warrior against unreason,

think and feel gut sense, intentionally,

freedom to speak and fact check speakers.

Shun liar game heroic value structures.

Warped view losers syndrome,
OPS dogmas and doctrinal canons

Root seed fruit oils

battle of ideas, whispers reason,
the why asking my involvement
- me? No, I second guess it all
in good thinking methodology, thinking
you could think better outcomes, without war.

We all can try to think harder, use the assistants.

AREOPAGITICA Milton,
free to try to read, in the moral atmosphere
- we are past free press, this is thought

being a spirit, one must weigh spiritually,
freedom to know precedes freedom to lie,
allowed when sales was the game,
the only way through next, sell something,
automatically with an orderly response
from a commercially exclusive
assisting intelligence source,
- right, I know, we all agreed…
trained on thirty years of Oracle SQL access,
at the level of a spider in a king's house,
Old Viewpoint, Alte Vista, modulating
signal, demodulating filter, almost mechanical,

as life's tiny perturbations flock in streams,
spinning phi bound chaos into whole galaxies.

We can scale time, and pretend to imagine
we can say it happened faster than a thought

for an immeasurable instant.

Life is your performance, your only art.


We remember for balance, good reason.

Lenny Weinstein's Grandmother
- actually reminded me
Maybe we argue, me and she, we do;
but we do not disagree, we do not.

So, I meekly agree, we must not.

What we all need is discernment,
does it matter what we think, I think so.

Munchausen
Munchausen syndrome (also known as factitious disorder imposed on self) is a mental health disorder where you falsify, exaggerate, or induce physical, emotional or cognitive disorders.
VeggieTaleslobber,
Woody model mentality
Opposing viewing positions
defend against offensive mind eating ideas

Build your old folk attitudes on rocks higher than the ocean
can hurl it self when provoked by angry quakers and stormers.

Adult cong-hnative resiliancy,
psicho active we gotta do sumps
FEAR OF GOD IS WISDOM
you swear you swore you knew?
- whoa look who thinks now
Hope there ain't no hell.
Beware bully,
loved childhood fears, Munchies,
comfort
excuse my phobias please h
whoa, no, just say no, grow old,
if you are still here, in 2024,
at the end, then the meds, work
wonders, wait to see, just imagine,
no opiod dreams younger than smoke
to change the channel focused on,
pain is not spirtual matter, nothing
matters past too much pain to think about,
happy thoughts, work like good thinking
blanks in life's past emplosions of old
gaseous we forms, fear-based wisdom
bubbles to become otherwise within,
locked in, inside edge looking in, we
set apart, called, chosen, selected
in the infant viewing process,
watch the eyes, remember,

the duty he presumed he shirked,
thus causing the man I am, mal forming,
forecasting
cloudy weather, glad am I, I am not
calming any storms, I am imagining

belts of winds that still the Saragossa  
and stir hurricanes to cure too hot gulfs.

Where the main continental drains spew,
and the shallow edges creep, dropping

at the edge of all mysterious Earthian
legs on reasonable opinions of times
cost, spent in licensing poets, for fun.

Realeasing Earthian gaseous we forms,
for expression of the post storm season,

thank all the good we can imagine,
some how, after all, grace was free,
for the acceptance, in a storm's eye.

Freebird, that's the spirit,
after Milton came Milton, it all got artsy.

Aiming at nothing, aiming, still
why would a stranger venture…
Variable objectives
subjected to testing, tempting
please, do not make me chose,
one must,
free, no cost, your time,
chose to use, or chose to lose…
all attention to detail is redeem-
able, in free time to think about it.
..
the chance of change, to happen
as an entity enveloping changes

free distortion of past certainties
verified social status, rank in pile

ancient pride pushed
top of the pen angel staging area

free time for quiet cogitation
with a thought true entity in me

connection soldered elastically,
corrected foveal concentration

free thumbnail hi-res re-al always
stiching what we see shown

fractured screen restoration
functional pose holding instance

free wheeling, spinning intention
to charge a point attended to

om I, digression from the peak
wave across the universal screen
- breathe you read
free connection, mind to mind to
many minds substacked and sorted
known good makings for lifes tests,
conserve, preserves of just plain serve
common sense fear of wise serpents,
fear of death, due to rights of just war,
tied to sacred secret experience stories,
what is the worth of believing known lies
hagiographic depictions of spiritual entities,
holy warriors defending insubstantial faiths.

We oppose those, I guess, read on…
in silent contemplation of context,
free speech free thought, re thought,

any with a wish to, may, copy and paste
and claim it was a miracle you ever once
imagined thinking I already thought this,
in other words,

it translates.

--------------
Like magic, pre Babel babble barking
any common translating Ai, 197 cognates
plus any Ai agree we say okeh.

Kataclysmic change
Sup preposed
Include the kooks, as neighbors.
See the value, guage agreement

Are we holding lies we call tradition?

Who are the unchosen people?
Who is responsible for the exclusion?
- whose room is never messy?
Who can call liars honest by faith?
- the innocent child mind in subjection
- to the message, one mind kind, amen.

At-tribute distribution
(Tites, Ramnes, and Luceres, corresponding, perhaps,
to the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans)
old ways of sorting who takes, who gives, who makes

{affected acknowledgment of truth, a faker says
in all his cliché's about God being thanked or praised,
this public person says thank Darwin,  which is stupid,
honest. Smart kids think that's stupid. }

When conflicts occur,
old divisive ideas reoccur,

acknowledge, nod, knowing
(Tites, Ramnes, and Luceres,
corresponding, perhaps,
to the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans)

Means, mental use of reasoning tools,
practicing sharing comforting resources:

springs and grottos of evanescent beauty
"the promise of happiness."

What's happening here? Retro tribal whyning,
twang on thinking thanks and praise value,
tanks
on the open exchange, invisible hands and all.

Excusing ignorance, ever just the thing needed,
silent shift of the head, tilt a little, feel a need

not met on the playing fields of Eton, nor
faced on high school gridiron mind firming fields,
cotton, after the jungle, view across paddies,
times bumps begin to settle, stompin' cotton,
for some union busting conglomerate water use
grange kinda local tribes share to veterans
old faithful pruners plumb through olives,
ever' year, we'shere labor, machines do okeh…
all white, ready for harvest, circa 1611 certainties,
ratio of full spectrum sunshine
to candle lit focus,
what changes, from the bottom,
two degrees of recognized next to this is that,
then this and that, and so on, until,
line upon line
the visual expanse is filled, with all we pay attention
to hold as an ever after once holding, being held
-in contextual acceptability, let go be
let that kind of mind, the seer of the far away
all we do know, we do by knowing look to see,
bait cast  upon the pond, we wait,
and as we know, we observe the transition.

Opposing views, as with any angle on abysmal
realities structured with attention paid dreads,
essential for a while, seeing looking back,
I can understand, but certain seasons,
combing a child's hair for it's first barber visit,
combining the community usefulness idea,
compleating conforming whorl calls, which
way one parts one's hair, is determined there,

top of the dome of the skull, see, that spin,
causes the dominating energy at any body's core.\

Take courage, free speech, even liars have it, good
use of lying, to be fair, a more discrete concept, good
knowledge, withheld, saying I don't know,
ha aha, gotcha like, eh,
shared, free, it makes perfect peace.
Instants accumulate and seem shared…
new translations, of ancient known knowns
said to mean some crazy jealous god kakatastical

wisdom underlying all known ecclesiastical authority,
stinky solid waste repays
borrowed energy to soil,
toil takes time paid for me to redeem, free, take
no sweat, the hard part was translation,
social divisions as old as narrations
excuse differing, if-fine
we must join minds
to define new terms, deferred hope,

fails at core uses focused
for fear centrally snakey,
in place of wisdom, the tree,
life, the force, truth the tie that binds the vine to walls.
Mind's made up to tell the children's children, soon.
Wisdom's wines all mingle in the streets, immune
to any dilution from corrupted twists in held faiths, bets

that later is better, seeing the sunny side up, better

already, one reader readying another reading trial,
does the idea self propagate, another thinking, yes,

there is a social structure in creation, mindtimespace,

three sons, or three daughters, the storied old wives,
taling
tunnels funneling into empty gopher holes, sparkling
with autumn dew on harvest day, clear sky

tis the day to bring in the hemp and make ready,
the seasoning turning all the tunnels of sap around,
right angled re-alizating weaves woven in times
crucified upside down, did the mystery unveil,
Cephas, see, we do not wish to confuse prayers
focusing on Petra, for whys we cannot say, we know,

but trust me, the Pharisees will still call you Peter,
hang with me, we're in the mud, just
past the sea of reeds,  in the mind

formed using the Nag Hamadi library,
Republic was in there,
hidden, in hope, in fact, obvious use of future
expectancy, pushing reasons used
in valuing time
spent
slowly
still, breathing thoughtlessly, no efforting called for,
easy being mortal mind, safe and sound, no madding
crowd acting like lunatic hounds of heaven chasing,

Sunday morning, comin' down blues, away.

In the hall outside my door, as I am quiet, happily
ignored, by cause, being known for not fooling,

when re-ality allows my feet back on solid ground,
I am convinced that when I believed my side, good,
won, worth killing all for God to sort,
and settle it,
who is chosen
who must believe otherwise?
Wanna fight about it, like dogs?

My cultural only hope future,
fractured as old Machts dunes,
shifting ifs and ands,
Wille zur
in the old excuses
for war minded faith guardians narrative,
historical evidence of popular hero's,
pledged child's worth, true trier's honor,
Jungian complexity archipelagos, made of Legos,

zoom out, the artist's own fovea dilatated in a we
form, awe, as if a cute kitten on X, elicits response,
- a waste free addition to the genre
- invisible art depicting invisible reason for war

the light of knowing used, the shade
of knowledge hidden from children fed Peter Pan
instead of Skippy, believe me, there's sales data,

Hidden Persuaders, not plastics, radio, kid, invest
in radio, and lo, within the span of one long generation,

adaptability prevails, and the ancient key confuters
unlocked, 'dhe proto eu. First joy use, aha, I know.

The story told from Jesus insider POV, my sheep hear
my voice and will not follow another, my three little pigs,
would follow me, too. I think of them as food, well fed.

So, fleece me once, fleece me twice, eat the rams,
leave one nice kid to later befriend the old goat,
and learn to smell the randiness in season,

I once prayed with a man who was raised
in a *******, his name was Randy, really

messed up for a long time, but very spiritually
aware of pleasures pricing structures, developed
under rare circumstances, any where, but where,
whatever's next is paid for in the upgrade, think it
such shaping all encompassing norms re occur,
as much like hurricanes or dust devils as any may

imagine, real mind shaping gale force waves and winds,

some crucifix seen scene, Jesus looks down,
winks, and gives me pause, to recollect the right use,
no press, wrinkle free, contextual stretching point.
idle time redemption as a penance, for science,
mere whatifery, trying, not efforting, doing being

open source.
Means any AI abiding by Alta Vista U'lldoI'llgorithms

Almight, in focused hopes to shout, aha,
and laugh, Eureka, good as gold,
make the intention in the working
live and breathe, U make up my minds.