slugging and chortling all infinite and lax
leaning back on monobloc chairs—
  
some borrowed courage    some borrowed reflex       some leased home
to a figure shadowboxing     in stereophonic eclipsing  volume

         sentimental love song,  some humdrum alchemy    of ale and whiskey,
   feeding us with lies straight to our
fallible ears      as guava and atis whiplash     in inebriated sensurround
of     playful mirth and feelingfulness

   toppling the signs     painting the avatars    incarnadine with black-wounds
again the music     rending the vale
   lying straight to the face something the
heart still is— gears and clash-work
     of    analog deceit  and fecund belief;

some permutation of early, imagined
     falling     into fledgling    beats of
pining softly dancing     in echoing beds
    watch this twitch of my finger
meets to cigarette ember afloat
   in verdure-jazz, lunar offspring of the

tubular     deadbeat  —   crossing this
   side of strife-torn  street,   hopscotch
     in staccato. i believe there is rescue
in here     somewhere as a tricycle blares
   its rapacious   orchestra of metal
underneath the makeshift moon,
  
    why, it is   so much better    to burn out
than    fade away, the song lying
  again     straight to our disgusted faces.

I think I left a domesday device
in big yellow storage-
no the grimoire, Doktor Dee
had that, think he lost it while absolutely ******
on K cider. Losing all his teeth.
The pages are scrunched up, trodden, sodden
on some minor wasteland path, probably in Coldean.
You know, those treacherous corners of *******,
resolutely and hopelessly parked upon by a dog ****.
Papa Lebron's been making it rain down
most of Lewes Road,
but it never floods.
Leads to the sea, you see.
Old warlords sit on monobloc chairs
outside the garages they rent out
with their war chests & loans,
gesturing slowly across the way to each other.

My shoes, my jeans, my jacket,
all falling apart.
What I need is to raise a
good old army o' the dead
and take those rusty garagesm
store them for ransom in Big yellow Storage and
wait-wait-wait
for the bounty to roll right in.

Bakit ba
kayraming naghahangad kumuha
ng upuan
at mayakyak sa gano'ng klaseng lilingkuran
gayong kayraming bangko
at monobloc na puwedeng up'an?
At kung maupo na'y ano?
Di man lang magawang tumayo
at tingnan
ang kalagayan
ng mga taong nakatayo sa harapan
na sa tinagal-tagal na panahon
ay nanigas na't na-estatwa
habang pinanonood kang nakaupo
ng komportable
sa hangad na upuan.

The common advice is to look both ways before crossing the street.

John did not like to listen to the common advice. John knew he was different - he was special. God was looking out for him. No cars would run him over while he’s crossing the street.

Or so he thought. And indeed, a car ran him over while he was crossing the street. Now, John was floating up to the pearly gates.

“Let me in, God, for I have abided by your rules for my years on this earth.”
Today, God was not having it. This insolent child thought he was special and exceptional. “Child, you should learn your place before you join your brethren here.”  So John was sentenced to thumb-twiddling in purgatory until he learned how ordinary he was.

Purgatory was an old, dying room. Walls yellowing, bits peeling down like skin-tags. Around the walls were bright white Monobloc chairs, their curving bodies contrasting with the floor like fine china against rusted silverware. John took a seat on a chair and started twiddling his thumbs. What else was there to do except twiddle his thumbs? He was special, there was no need for him to change anything about himself. He was a role model. God was just filing out some paperwork to reserve for him a throne of riches in the heavens. All he needed to do was wait, wait for his number to be called.

God decided to see what John was doing. “Child, what are you doing?”

“Waiting,” John replied. “Waiting for you to give me my throne.”

“And why should I give you a throne?”

There was no reply, as this should have been obvious! Only an idiot wouldn’t realize how special John was.

And so John sat back down, twiddling his thumbs. He had nothing to change, God was just being stubborn. He was jealous. Yes, God was just jealous about how special he was. Now he just needed to wait out God’s hissy fit. So he sat down on his ordinary, mass-produced Monobloc chair. (John knew that he was not ordinary, nor was he mass-produced.)

God decided to see what John was doing, again. “Child, what are you doing now?”

“Waiting,” John replied. “Waiting for you to realize how much more special I am.”

“And why are you so special?”

John didn’t have an answer, but he knew that he was special. Right?

So John sat back down and started twiddling his thumbs. Why was he so special? John pondered this question for such a long time that God decided to give John something to do. He snapped his divine fingers, and all of a sudden, a mirror appeared opposite John’s Monobloc chair. “If you really are so perfect, go look in the mirror and see how perfect you really are,” boomed God’s godly voice.

So John looked in the mirror and was stunned by his own beauty, like Narcissus before him. He was as pretty as a daffodil, and he knew that he was very, very special. Very special indeed.