1969 Hartford art school is magnet for exceedingly intelligent over-sensitive under-achievers alluring freaks congenital creeps and anyone who cannot cut it in straight world it is about loners dreamers stoners clowns cliques of posers competing to dress draw act most outrageous weird wonderful classrooms clash in diversity of needs some students get it right off while others require so much individual attention one girl constantly raises her hand calls for everything to be repeated explained creativity is treated as trouble and compliance to instruction rewarded most of faculty are of opinion kids are not capable of making original artwork teachers discourage students from dream of becoming well-known until they are older more experienced only practiced skilled artists are competent to create ‘real art’ defined by how much struggle or multiple meanings weave through the work Odysseus wants to make magic boxes without knowing or being informed of Joseph Cornell one teacher tells him you think you’re going to invent some new color the world has never seen? you’re just some rowdy brat from the midwest with a lot of crazy ideas and no evidence of authenticity another teacher warns you’re nothing more than a bricoleur! Odysseus questions what’s a bricoleur teacher informs a rogue handyman who haphazardly constructs from whatever is immediately available Odysseus questions what’s wrong with that? teacher answers it’s low-class folk junk  possessing no real intellectual value independently he reads Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium Is The Message” and “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci” he memorizes introductory remark of Leonardo’s “i must do like one who comes last to the fair and can find no other way of providing for himself than by taking all the things already seen by others and not taken by reason of their lesser value” Odysseus dreams of becoming accomplished important artist like Robert Rauschenberg Jasper Johns Andy Warhol he dreams of being in eye of hurricane New York art scene he works for university newspaper and is nicknamed crashkiss the newspaper editor is leader in student movement and folk singer who croons “45 caliber man, you’re so much more than our 22, but there’s so many more of us than you” Odysseus grows mustache wears flower printed pants vintage 1940’s leather jacket g.i. surplus clothes he makes many friends his gift for hooking up with girls is uncanny he is long haired drug-crazed hippie enjoying popularity previously unknown to him rock bands play at art openings everyone flirts dances gets ****** lots of activism on campus New York Times dubs university of Hartford “Berkeley of the east coast” holding up ******* in peace sign is subversive in 1969 symbol of rebellion youth solidarity gesture against war hawks rednecks corporate America acknowledgment of potential beyond materialistic self-righteous values of status quo sign of what could be in universe filled with incredible possibilities he moves in with  painting student one year advanced named Todd Whitman Todd has curly blond hair sturdy build wire rimmed glasses impish smile gemini superb draftsman amazing artist Todd emulates Francisco de Goya and Albrecht Durer Todd’s talent overshadows Odysseus’s Todd’s dad is accomplished professor at distinguished college in Massachusetts to celebrate Odysseus’s arrival Todd cooks all day preparing spaghetti dinner when Odysseus arrives home tripping on acid without appetite Todd is disappointed Odysseus runs down to corner store buys large bottle of wine returns to house Todd is eating spaghetti alone they get drunk together then pierce each other’s ears with needles ice wine cork pierced ears are outlaw style of bad *** bikers like Hell’s Angels Todd says you are a real original Odys and funny too Odysseus asks funny, how? Todd answers you are one crazy ******* drop acid whenever you want smoke **** then go to class this is fun tonight Odys getting drunk and piercing our ears Odysseus says yup i’m having a good time too Todd and Odysseus become best friends Odysseus turns Todd on to Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” and “Ariel” then they both read Ted Hughes “Crow” illustrated with Leonard Baskin prints Todd turns Odysseus on to German Expressionist painting art movement of garish colors emotionally violent imagery from 1905-1925 later infuriating Third ***** who deemed the work “degenerate” Odysseus dives into works of Max Beckmann Otto Dix Conrad Felixmulller Barthel Gilles George Grosz Erich Heckel Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Felix Nussbaum Karl *******Rottluff Carl Hofer August Macke Max Peckstein Elfriede Lohse-Wachtler Egon Shiele list goes on in 1969 most parents don’t have money to buy their children cars most kids living off campus either ride bikes or hitchhike to school then back home on weekends often without a penny in their pockets Odysseus and Todd randomly select a highway and hitch rides to Putney Vermont Brattleboro Boston Cape Cod New York City or D.C. in search of adventure there is always trouble to be found curious girls to assist in Georgetown Odysseus sleeps with skinny girl with webbed toes who believes he is Jesus he tries to dissuade her but she is convinced

Toby Mantis is visiting New York City artist at Hartford art school he looks like huskier handsomer version of Ringo Starr and women dig him he builds stretchers and stretches canvases for Warhol lives in huge loft in Soho on Broadway and Bleeker invites Odysseus to come down on weekends hang out Toby takes him to Max’s Kansas City Warhol’s Electric Circus they wander all night into morning there are printing companies longshoremen gays in Chelsea Italians in West Village hippies playing guitars protesting the war in Washington Square all kinds of hollering crazies passing out fliers pins in Union Square Toby is hard drinker Odysseus has trouble keeping up  he pukes his guts out number of times Odysseus is *** head not drinker he explores 42nd Street stumbles across strange exotic place named Peep Show World upstairs is large with many **** cubicles creepy dudes hanging around downstairs is astonishing there are many clusters of booths with live **** girls inside girls shout out hey boys come on now pick me come on boys there are hundreds of girls from all over the world in every conceivable size shape race he enters dark stall  puts fifty cents in coin box window screen lifts inside each cluster are 6 to 10 girls either parading or glued to a window for $1 he is allowed to caress kiss their ******* for $2 he is permitted to probe their ****** or *** for $10 girl reaches hand into darkened stall jerks him off tall slender British girl thrills him the most she says let me have another go at your dickey Odysseus spends all his money ******* 5 times departing he notices men from every walk of life passing through wall street stockbrokers executives rednecks mobsters frat boys tourists fat old bald guys smoking thick smelly cigars Toby Mantis has good-looking girlfriend named Lorraine with long brown hair Toby Lorraine and Odysseus sit around kitchen table Odysseus doodles with pencil on paper Toby spreads open Lorraine’s thighs exposing her ****** to Odysseus Lorraine blushes yet permits Toby to finger her Odysseus thinks she has the most beautiful ****** he has ever seen bulging pelvic bone brown distinctive bush symmetric lips Toby and Lorraine watch in amusement as Odysseus gazes intently Tony mischievously remarks you like looking at that ***** don’t you? Odysseus stares silently begins pencil drawing Lorraine’s ****** his eyes darting back and forth following day Lorraine seduces Odysseus while Toby is away walks out **** from shower she is few years older her body lean with high ******* she directs his hands mouth while she talks with someone on telephone it is strange yet quite exciting Odysseus is in awe of New York City every culture in the world intermingling democracy functioning in an uncontrollable managed breath millions of people in motion stories unraveling on every street 24 hour spectacle with no limits every conceivable variety of humanity ******* in same air Odysseus is bedazzled yet intimidated

Odysseus spends summer of 1970 at art colony in Cummington Massachusetts it is magical time extraordinary place many talented eccentric characters all kinds of happenings stage plays poetry readings community meals volleyball after dinner volleyball games are hilarious fun he lives alone in isolated studio amidst wild raspberries in woods shares toilet with field mouse no shower he reads Jerzy Kosinski’s “Painted Bird” then “Being There” then “Steps” attractive long haired girl named Pam visits community for weekend meets Odysseus they talk realize they were in first grade together at Harper amazing coincidence automatic ground for “we need to have *** because neither of us has seen each other since first grade” she inquires where do you sleep? Todd hitches up from Hartford to satisfy curiosity everyone sleeps around good-looking blue-eyed poet named Shannon Banks from South Boston tells Odysseus his ******* is not big enough for kind of ******* she wants but she will **** him off that’s fine with him 32 year old poet named Ellen Morrissey from Massachusetts reassures him ******* is fine Ellen is beginning to find her way out from suffocating marriage she has little daughter named Nina Ellen admires Odysseus’s free spirit sees both his possibilities and naïveté she realizes he has crippling family baggage he has no idea he is carrying thing about trauma is as it is occurring victim shrugs laughs to repel shock yet years later pain horror sink in turned-on with new ideas he returns to Hartford art school classes are fun yet confusing he strives to be best drawer most innovative competition sidetracks him Odysseus uses power drill to carve pumpkin on Halloween teachers warn him to stick to fundamentals too much creativity is suspect Todd and he are invited to holiday party Odysseus shows up with Ellen Morrissey driving in her father’s station wagon 2 exceptionally pretty girls flirt with him he is live wire they sneak upstairs he fingers both at same time while they laugh to each other one of the girls Laura invites him outside to do more he follows they walk through falling snow until they find hidden area near some trees Laura lies down lifts her skirt she spreads her legs dense ***** mound he is about to explore her there when Laura looks up sees figure with flashlight following their tracks in snow she warns it’s Bill my husband run for your life! Odysseus runs around long way back inside party grabs a beer pretending he has been there next to Ellen all night few minutes later he sees Laura and Bill return through front door Bill has dark mustache angry eyes Odysseus tells Ellen it is late maybe they should leave soon suddenly Bill walks up to him with beer in hand cracks bottle over his head glass and beer splatter Odysseus jumps up runs out to station wagon Ellen hurriedly follows snow coming down hard car is wedged among many guest vehicles he starts engine locks doors maneuvers vehicle back and forth trying to inch way out of spot Bill appears from party walks to his van disappears from out of darkness swirling snow Bill comes at them wielding large crowbar smashes car’s headlights taillights side mirrors windshield covered in broken glass Ellen ducks on floor beneath glove compartment sobs cries he’s going to **** us! we’re going to die! Odysseus steers station wagon free floors gas pedal drives on back country roads through furious snowstorm in dark of night no lights Odysseus contorts crouches forward in order to see through hole in shattered windshield Ellen sees headlights behind them coming up fast it is Bill in van Bill banging their bumper follows them all the way back to Hartford to Odysseus’s place they run inside call police Bill sits parked van outside across street as police arrive half hour later Bill pulls away next day Odysseus and Ellen drive to Boston to explain to Ellen’s dad what has happened to his station wagon Odysseus stays with Ellen in Brookline for several nights another holiday party she wants to take him along to meet her friends her social circles are older he thinks to challenge their values be outrageous paints face Ellen is horrified cries you can’t possibly do this to me these are my close friends what will they think? he defiantly answers my face is a mask who cares what i look like? man woman creature what does it matter? if your friends really want to know me they’ll need to look beyond the make-up tonight i am your sluttish girlfriend! sometimes Odysseus can be a thoughtless fool

Laura Rousseau Shane files for divorce from Bill she is exceptionally lovely models at art school she is of French descent her figure possessing exotic traits she stands like ballerina with thick pointed ******* copious ***** hair Odysseus is infatuated she frequently dances pursues him Laura says i had the opportunity to meet Bob Dylan once amazed Odysseus questions what did you do? she replies what could i possibly have in common with Bob Dylan? Laura teases Odysseus about being a preppy then lustfully gropes him grabs holds his ***** they devote many hours to ****** intimacy during ******* she routinely reaches her hand from under her buns grasps his testicles squeezing as he pumps he likes that Laura is quite eccentric fetishes over Odysseus she even thrills to pick zits on his back he is not sure if it is truly a desire of hers proof of earthiness or simply expression of mothering Laura has two daughters by Bill Odysseus is in over his head Laura tells Odysseus myth of Medea smitten with love for Jason Jason needs Medea’s help to find Golden Fleece Medea agrees with promise of marriage murders her brother arranges ****** of king who has deprived Jason his inheritance couple is forced into exile Medea bears Jason 2 sons then Jason falls in love with King Creon’s daughter deserts Medea is furious she makes shawl for King Creon’s daughter to wear at her wedding to Jason  shawl turns to flames killing bride Medea murders her own sons by Jason Odysseus goes along with story for a while but Laura wants husband Odysseus is merely scruffy boy with roving eyes Laura becomes galled by Odysseus leaves him for one of his roommates whom she marries then several years later divorces there is scene when Laura tells Odysseus she is dropping him for his roommate he is standing in living room of her house space is painted deep renaissance burgundy there are framed photographs on walls in one photo he is hugging Laura and her daughters under big oak tree in room Laura’s friend Bettina other girl he fingered first night he met Laura at party is watching with arms crossed he drops to floor curls body sobs i miss you so much Laura turns to Bettina remarks look at him men are such big babies he’s pitiful Bettina nods

following summer he works installing displays at G. Fox Department Store besides one woman gay men staff display department for as long as he can remember homosexuals have always been attracted to him this misconception is probably how he got job his tenor voice suggesting not entirely mature man instead more like tentative young boy this ambiguous manifestation sometimes also evidences gestures thoroughly misleading after sidestepping several ****** advances one of his co-workers bewilderingly remarks you really are straight manager staff are fussy chirpy catty group consequently certain he is not gay they discriminate against him stick him with break down clean up slop jobs at outdoor weekend rock concert in Constitution Plaza he meets 2 younger blond girls who consent to go back to his place mess around both girls are quite dazzling yet one is somewhat physically undeveloped they undress and model for Odysseus radio plays Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” both girls move to rhythm sing along he thinks to orchestrate direct decides instead to let them lead lies on bed while curvaceous girl rides his ******* slender girl sits on his face they switch all 3 alternate giggle laughter each girl reaches ****** on his stiffness later both assist with hands mouths his ****** is so intense it leaves him paralyzed for a moment

in fall he is cast as Claudius in production of Hamlet Odysseus rehearses diligently on nights o

Dedicated to stillborn fetuses, 99 cent Malt Liquor and Existentialism
1.
Nymphomaniac tree huggers
And overweight bisexual vegetarians
Swallowing phentermine poison to stay fit.

2.
Funky fresh *******  
throwing pigs at St. Augustine’s pear tree
and frolicking abortions over Moloch’s philoprogenitiveness,

3.
While sipping barbecue sauce dipped in Lipton tea,
dancing around adhesive bonfires
reciting memories of holocaust, the Kristallnacht nights
and beautiful words suffered by ancestors lost.

4.
Inhale chicken noodle soup, with a side of Lithium,
And prance to Literacy class to combat envisionment
With free association conceptual constructions,

5.
Computerized like Prometheus’ fire burning through SmartBoards
In classrooms where the poison of heterosexual history
Is fed to boys in skirts cursed by Adam’s apple,

6.
Baptized by social norms and locked away in hopeless closets
According to the Tautology of Leviticus…
until they cut their breath by the vein of soteriology;

7.
Misunderstanding of God’s words
Covets the innocent to early graves
In biblical paratactic irony…like God betting Satan for a Job.

8.
Rub fried chicken oil on Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ skin
and soil his white pride with ***** flavor,
for revenge  On the Properties of Things

9.
and howl out in glory of victory
over totes of  lickerish piper methysticum blunts
that beg the conundrum,
'What is the origin of this world?'
'Ether,' he replied.
But it is not ether!
Nor Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
It is Dada. Dada. Dada!
  10.
For this is a record of the life stories of the greatest minds and geniuses of your generation,
written in boys and girls
who mimicked Basquiat’s genius and tagged bathroom walls with abstract philosophies like “Love is a prime number” and “ the weight of Duncan McDougall’s soul can only be found on the 15th of October”
who drank vampirish gulps of Vicodin while consoling themselves with aphorisms such as: “don’t rue the misses, you don’t need a Mrs. when you’re elevated by chemical kisses”
11.
Who stood naked in mirrors, weeping, for they were a mystery to themselves, but a great talent and soon to be legend to some.
Who lit cannabis in loneliness and waltzed naked with their ghosts, fantasizing about ****** tomatoes and Corpus Christi Mexican Jazz.
Who composed psychedelic anthems from dreams that were lost in ghettoes where virginities were lost for loaves of bread, for the hunger of bread.
12.
Who wrote suicide notes on a toilet seat, contemplating the texture of Marshall Mathers’ favorite underwear and whether the color green was an invention of **** Germany.
Who used to love their lovers in darkness and colored the streets of Manhattan with rainbows on June 24, 2011 to mark the date lady liberty finally bought a new pair of glasses.
13.
Who lost musical talents to a Wine-house and ended up in a whine-house where lobotomy was subsequently prescribed by the milligram.
Who indulged in pharmaceutical vices and when asked why replied simply, every recursively enumerable set is Diophantine.
Who diagnosed themselves with “start ****-itis” and self medicated by eating Fifinellas at the stroke of each midnight.
Who rubbed paraprosdokians on their skin and occupied Wall Street in search of a new euphemism for being American.
Who poured Alkalizer on a dead moose and kicked it while feasting on the divine question, “why does Rice play Texas?”
14.
who got bored with conventional relationships and bought the Origin of the World on street corners from vixens nicknamed “Jezebel” and climaxed atop of them screaming  “I’m in Babylon, the great Mother of ******!”
Who attempted suicides upon suicides upon suicides, in Oakland, until they were shipped away to private catholic universities in Rhode Island, where the history of Colossus was being taught.
15.
who serenaded love interests with four letter curse words at open bars where Kubla Khan was read and Tartars kings were licked all over like holy communion *****.
Who drove home with the spirits of wine and crashed on telephone poles where their obituaries were written in their prime, leaving their mothers weeping and calling congress to reconsider Prohibition.
16.
Who mixed Redbull with Propofol and drank the juxtaposition galore only to be woken up the next morning dead in their sleep.
Who tattooed rat poison packages with goodwill messages such as “****** divided by Water =6th day of creation” or “Seroquel + Brett Favre = St. Patrick”,
who went speedballing with Basquiat during autoscopy and woke up wondering the cost of Nautilus in Albuquerque.
17.
who took 33 hallelujah 1800 tequila jello shots and daydreamed about laying on Mithras’ grave, yelling, beetlejuice, beetlejuice…beetlejuice.
who found the truths of the Bible invalid by the miscalculation of Pi in 1 Kings 7, verse 3, and mailed death on anthrax letters to Reagan in protest.
18.
who sat empty bellied at breakfast tables wondering the temperature of satellites at Lagrangian points,  only to soon catch fire in their tongues and speak Labyrinth soliloquies that ended in
19.
Zion,
Where Google knows every answer.
In Zion
Where the youth, tomorrow’s future, quote a ***** named Hova better than they can quote Jehovah.
In Zion
Where *******’s art was used as weapon during the Cold war.
20.
In Zion
Where sartorial geniuses where no pants,
In Zion
Where David Kato Kisule is the secret hero of these words, for he was taken at a time
In Zion
Where we were supposed to be our ancestor’s sci-fi.

21.
In Zion,
Where the youth bear the scarlet letter X for they are a problem to tradition and hold no definition for the future, for they have discovered
In Zion
That the origin of this world is in their living eyes, and not in the dictionary of their ancestors who lived
In Zion
when the epitome of the literature of life ended in Revelation of Amen and Shantih shantih shantih;
this is a record of the greatest minds and geniuses there ever was, written
in Zion
where the meaninglessness and nothingness of Dada reigns, and the trinity of life now lives in the Subject, subjective and subjectivity.

an Ode to Eppie

I once had what I thought was a brilliant idea
My friends listened dutifully without the eye roll the less loyal would have thrown in
Before announcing that I am not allowed to name any children I end up having
So I sure as **** better find a husband with an idea of what a name is

I wanted a daughter named Epic
Because I couldn’t imagine a bigger adventure than parenting
And there was no way I was dealing with the torture of pregnancy
To produce a child that was anything less than epic
I wanted a daughter with the world laid out for her
There would be no painful heart wrenching breakups for her
No gangly awkward phase
She would be the physical representation of the bond her father and I shared
She would be love incarnated
And I can’t imagine anything more epic than that
I wanted a daughter named Epic
Nicknamed Eppie
Bambi told me that nickname was even worse than hers
And I named her after a cartoon deer with a dead mother
I guess they might have a point in this who name thing

I wanted a daughter named Epiphany
Because if I am ever (crazy) lucky enough to bring a girl into this world
With my genes and the cruel ways of boys stacked against her
I will sure as hell had some major epiphany
If I am ever (stupid) blessed enough to have a daughter
I want every moment with her to be a grand realization of my life
This is who I am
This moment is what I was made for
Whether it’s picking her up after a scraped knee
Advising her that Alphie only hit her because he likes her
Or telling her that no, leggings are not pants
She would be the reason I went through all of this
The reason I got my heart broken by the world over and over again
So that it could complete me
I wanted a daughter named Epiphany
Nicknamed Eppie
“Like an EpiPen?” Fluffy (Patrick before I went about nicknaming) questioned
“No, not like an Epinephrine auto injector at all.”
Maybe naming isn't my forte

I wanted a daughter named Epitome
Because a name is more than a word
A name is a decision
I would make it clear that she was loved
She would be the embodiment of every hope dream and wish I ever had
Just by breathing each day
I wanted my whole life to be leading up to the day I met her
If I was ever going to give a new life
She would be everything
The epitome of my entire life
I wanted a daughter named Epitome
Nicknamed Eppie
Laci (aka Frida) whose nickname could be interchangable with that of a stripper
Laughed
And decided that 'Emily' would be just fine for any daughter of mine

Yesterday I looked at myself in the mirror
And although I tried to take the advice given to me by my therapist
I was unable to find a single thing I might even just tolerate about myself.
Instead, my mind and heart raced each other, trying to see who would win the prize of defeating me
as I scan my naked body for each and every inconsistency and insufficiency.

You see my first memory of self hatred comes from a place most people could not predict.
Imagine me at six years old standing in the shower, so proud of myself
For finally graduating from the bathtub I had associated with childhood.
I had just finished reading “Falling Up” by Shel Silverstein.
And out of the more than 400 poems by this poet one stuck to my brain
Like peanut butter on the roof of my mouth after eating a PB&J.

Now if you’ll forgive me for getting off track for just this moment
I’d like to read you this poem entitled “Scale.”

“If I could only see the scale,
I’m sure that it would state
That I’ve lost ounces...maybe pounds
Or even tons of weight.
‘You’d better eat some pancakes-
You’re skinny as a rail.’
I’m sure that’s what the scale would say…
If only I could see the scale.”

If you’ve ever read a poem by Shel Silverstein you’d know that each of them
Are accompanied by an illustration.
This particular poem is positioned next to a drawing of a person standing on a scale
Unable to see the number because their stomach juts out just far enough
To block their view of the information that scale is providing.
I remember looking down at my naked body
Only to realize that i also could not see my feet.
My childish, growing, prepubescent tummy obstructed my view of my toes.
And I remember thinking for the first time, “Wow, I am fat.”
And that same feeling has followed me throughout these subsequent years.
Throughout elementary, middle, high school and beyond.
My dysmorphic perspective has been a shadow of which I could not shake.
And try as I might, deep down I knew that this was my fate.

I started restricting what I ate starting in 6th grade.
-I counted calories lost and gained and measured my size by the tightness of a tank top.
I watched videos of people like Eugenia Cooney,
and inspired myself through the photos I saw of
Emaciated girls kept alive by feeding tubes.
I was 12.
-I was diagnosed with Ee Dee En Oh Ess in the summer of seventh grade.
EDNOS is a catch-all eating disorder characterized by the characteristics you lacked
To be able to gain the coveted name brand DSM-5 diagnosis of anorexia.
-This I considered to be my failure.
To not qualify because of a lack of being underweight was all I needed for motivation.
So I doubled down on my efforts to lose weight and by the age of fourteen
I had finally achieved that which I so...craved.
I was the best. The skinniest. The one people whispered about in the halls and I had all the attention I could ever dream of getting.
And I was happy.
Wasn’t I?

Skip ahead to now and you will know my comeback story.
Seven years of weekly therapy, numerous psych ward stays, and one near-death experience
I can finally say that I am at a stable and healthy weight.
I continue to despise my body, but now I have the tools and mechanisms to be able to fight off the demon I had nicknamed “Ana”.
-And while I still cannot say that I truly love myself the way I am,
Slowly and steadily I continue to improve.
And I hope that one day I can look into that mirror, take in all my flaws and still be able to tell little 6 year old Grace…
“Sweet girl, you will be okay”.

I wonder if you've noticed,
I'm becoming less appealing,
Our conversations are getting very...
Very, boring...
And I wonder if you've noticed,
That I'm becoming less appealing.

You can tell me,
I didn't meant to approach you,
It was a decision made in a split second,
And it seems like my heart's voice was louder than my brain's then:
I'm being honest,
My chest was about to explode,
My heart was a ticking time bomb
And I could only disarm it by giving it a voice,
Converting its electric impulses into sound waves.

But now,
It's been a while since then,
And,
We're drifting apart...
I haven't told you that I nicknamed you zebra because of that cute black and white shirt you had on...
Because,
I'm scared that would just trigger the slow end of our...
Our?!
I mean,
It will make our friendship awkward.
I told my friends I don't like you,
But apparently you like me -
But, I just have a question,
After getting to know me -
Ummm... Have I lost my charms,
Or are you still googly-eyed over the stupid fifteen year old boy that nearly tripped over his own words as he uttered, "You're very pretty"?

1611: Emilia Lanier became the first Englishwoman to publish and collect patronage from her original poetry with the publication of fifteen poems, all about or dedicated to particular women, in her “booke,” titled in Latin, Hail, God, King of the Jews.  She was the fourth woman in England to publish her poetry, but the first to demand payment in return for it.  The first to see herself as equal to the paid male authors of the era.

This was the same year that the King James Bible was first printed.  This was eight years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I.  This was 180 years after nineteen-year-old Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

                                                               ­      +

The Querelle des Femmes is “the woman question.”
Frenchmen of the early fifteenth century created a literary debate: what is the role and the nature of women?  Is it stemmed within a “classical” model of  human behavior; gnarled and rooted with misogynistic platonic tradition?  Should women actually be allowed into politics, economics, and religion?  There are scholars that say this debate radiated across several European countries for three centuries before finally fizzling out.  

                                                         ­                   But it is still there; has crossed
continents, has crossed oceans, is sizzling, sparking up fires, flaring out
into the night, leeching onto the trees, onto buildings, onto people, onto
anything flammable.  It is burning down monarchs and their thrones.  It is
raking back the blazing coals.  
                                                   Exposing the charred corpses.  
                 Proving their death.  
                                                   Burning and burning and burning them
                                              twice more to prevent the collection of relics.
                 It is chucking the ashes into the Seine River.

Lilith: who was made at the same time, at the same place, from the same earth, from the same soil as Adam, got herself written out of the Bible because she thought herself to be Man’s equal. Because she got bored of the *******.  Because she wanted to be on top during ***.  Lilith was replaced in the book of Genesis with a more-or-less subservient woman that was made from the rib of man instead of the same dirt and dust.  She was replaced with a woman that Adam named “Eve.”  She was replaced with a woman who served as nothing more than the scapegoat for Man’s downfall.
                                       The original Querelle des Femmes.

                                                                     +

1558-1603: Queen Elizabeth I ruled England in what is considered to be a masculine position. Although a woman can take the throne, can wear the crown, can wield the scepter, can run the country, the actual divine task that goes along with being a part of the monarchy, being a god on Earth, is thought to be the duty of a man.

Nicknamed The ****** Queen, Elizabeth never married,
                                                     never found a proper suitor,
                                             never produced a direct Tudor heir,
                                   (but this is not to prove that she was a ******).  
Chastity, especially of women, is a virtue.  ((To assume that she never had ***
simply because she never married
                                                                ­ is another Querelle des Femmes.))

For nearly forty-five years, Queen Elizabeth I did not need a man by her side while she lead England to both relative stability and prosperity; did not need a man by her side while she became the greatest monarch in English history.  
                                                She held the rainbow, the bridge to God, in her
                                                                ­                     own small hands just fine.

                                                          ­           +

Saturday, February 24, 1431: Joan of Arc was interrogated for the third time in her fifteen-part trial in front of Bishop Cauchon and 62 Assessors.  During her six interrogation sessions, she was questioned over charges ranging from heresy to witchcraft to cross-dressing.

At age twelve Joan of Arc began seeing heavenly visions
                                                                ­               of angels and saints and martyrs;
age thirteen she began hearing the Voice of God—was told to
purify France of the English,                          to make Charles the rightful king—
age sixteen she took a vow of chastity as a part of her divine mission.  

When the court asked about the face and eyes
that belonged to the Voice, she responded:
                                                      ­                      There is a saying among children, that
                                                         “Sometimes one is hanged for speaking the truth.”

Joan of Arc was declared guilty and was killed by the orders of a Bishop during a time when men were beginning to question the role and nature of women in society.  They thought women to be deceitful and immoral.  Innately thought Joan of Arc to be deceitful and immoral.  (Perhaps she was one of the catalysts for the Querelle in the first place.)

((The church blamed Eve for the
fall of mankind.  Identified women as
                                                                     temptation:
                                                               the root of all sins.))

Twenty-five years later she was declared innocent and raised to the level of martyrdom.
The Catholic Church stood back,
saw the blood,
                          the ashes,
                                            the thick smoke and stench of burned body that
                                                                ­               covered their hands, their clothes,
                                                                ­                    their neurons, their synapses;
        a filth that couldn’t be washed off by Holy water—
can’t be washed off by Holy water.

Four hundred and seventy-eight years later Joan of Arc was blessed and gained entrance to Heaven.  Four hundred and eighty-nine years later she was canonized as a saint.

                                                         ­            +

Lines 777-780, “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women,” Emilia Lanier, 1611:
                         But surely Adam can not be excused,
                         Her fault though great, yet he was most to blame;
                         What Weakness offered, Strength might have refused,
                         Being Lord of all, the greater was his shame…

Adam, distraught and angered that his first wife, Lilith, had flew off into the air after he had refused to lay beneath her, begged God to bring her back.  God, taking pity on his beloved, manly, creation, sent down three angels who threatened Lilith that if she did not return to Adam, one hundred of her sons would die each day.  

                              (This is where the mother of all Jewish demons
                                         merges with the first wife of Man.)  

She refused, said that this was her purpose: she was
created specifically to harm newborn children.  This legend,
dated back to 3,500 BC Babylonia, describes Lilith as a
                                                                       winged feminine demon that
                                                     kills infants and endangers women in childbirth.

In the Christian Middle Ages, Lilith changed form once more:
she became the personification of licentiousness and lust,
she became more than a demon, she became a sin in herself.  Lilith
and her offspring were seen as succubae, were to blame for the
wet dreams of men.  Taking it a step further, Christian leaders then
                                                                ­                           wed Lilith to Satan;
                                                                ­                              charged her with
                                                                ­               populating the world with evil,
                                                   claimed she gave birth to
one hundred demonic children per day.

Lilith is considered evil in the eyes of the church because she was insubordinate to Adam.  Both she and Eve are considered disobedient; are too willful, too independent in the way that Lilith wanted to be on top and Eve wanted to share a knowledge that Adam could have refused.  They are perceived as a threat to the divinely ordered happenings that men see to be true.

Men wrote the history books because only their interpretation was right.  
Emilia Lanier writes:
                                       Yet Men will boast of Knowledge, which he took
                                           From Eve's fair hand, as from a learned Book (807-808).

The Querelle des Femmes is not just a literary debate in the fifteenth century.  It is a way of life.  It is the divine portion of Queen Elizabeth I’s job being fit for men, and men alone.  It is Joan of Arc being a woman and hearing the Voice of God; it is Joan of Arc being burned three times by the same Catholics that revered in Jesus, a man who, too, heard the Voice of God.  It is Lilith being deemed a demon for not wanting to have *** in the *******.  It is Eve having to apologize in the first place for sharing the apple, for sharing knowledge with her partner.  It is women holding positions of power and yet still feeling powerless to men.  

The Querelle des Femmes is wanting to use gender
to keep one group of people above another.  The Querelle des Femmes
is continually thinking that the ***** is greater than, but
never equal to, the ******. The Querelle des Femmes is
                                                       not understanding the difference between
                                                                ­       ***          and          gender
                                                                ­              in the first place.  
The Querelle des Femmes is me,
burning your dinner and telling you to eat it anyway.

There once was a Fairy
Who lived in a magical world
Her sweet name was Mary
And she loved to be held

She loved to watch the stars
Twinkle brightly at night
Even though afar
They were a great sight

She watched the dusky sun
Rise early every morning
Whilst the birds would have fun
And humans were yawning

She skipped over lakes
Making the lake waters laugh
And fishes would wake
And give Mary a jacuzzi bath

She flew with Butterflies
And Dragonflies too
They ate custard pies
And egg foo foo

She made her own dress
From red autumn leaves
She was nicknamed The Best'
By all the lovely trees

She wore spaghetti hoops
In her long golden hair
And jumped through potholes loops
To explore natures flair

She'd slide down mountains
Rainbows as well
She brewed coffee in fountains
And rang a lunch time forest bell **

Dear Ashley,

          Congratulations! Your parents decided to give you one of the most popular names of the 90s! This is your letter of introduction to being Ashley! However, be informed that your name will not only be just "Ashley". Since it's very common, non-Ashleys will need to differentiate between all of you. You may be nicknamed "Ashley #2" or "Ashley Last Name Initial". Preparing yourself for embarrassment is also essential. Instructors will call out your name, resulting in either you pointing to yourself mouthing, Me? or managing to chirp a "Yes?" in unison with three others, only to feel stupid when it's not you. With a name so stale and boring, you may grow a hatred for it. You will fall in love with unique signatures, wishing they were your own. Over and over again, you will fantasize about changing it. Keep in mind that other Ashleys feel the same. At least you can be thankful you weren't named Frances.

                                                       ­                                   Sincerely,
                   ­                                                                 ­              Ashley

P.S. - Although, personalized key chains are easily accessible!

Rewind this memoir back to my first foster home.   I’m reclining on the couch in the living room watching Superman, a whatever's-on-tv-saturday-afternoon-movie.   "Give A Little Bit" played from the soundtrack.  The Supertramp song reached out from the screen and into my own complicated teen-aged life.  Oh the words of that song blindsided me, hit me hard in the chest with a sad yearning, an emotion I had ignored forever like that elephant in the room too big to push out the door.  Because life was so hard, too hard, and lonely on and on, and the world gives only just enough that you keep breathing, but you wonder why.  Yes, please  someone  give just a little....
But at the time I hadn't known anything else and I just stuffed that overwhelming sad lonely feeling.  Too much need wears out a welcome in someone else's home.  It seemed most everyone else had family, security, some money for perhaps things like a pair of cleats to run in school track if you have the desire. Its called belonging or opportunity and I was acutely aware I wouldn't have it.

Fast forward 25 years; business for my glass art studio is rewarding.  I live in Cleveland, or what I called Purgatory.  I like the city though; I think the motto should be "Its Not That Bad."  A tough steel town, unpretentious to a fault, tenacious, it inspired the Clean Water Act because the river was so polluted it   caught   on   fire.  People who live there just don't quit, except that the biggest export is young people. The streets are eerily empty, the quiet steel mills are epic sculptures of rust.  But its not that bad.  Now they make a tasty beer called Burning River.  Sometimes they gamble on unconventional ideas because they've reached the end of status-quo.  One can even surf there, when the wind blows a Nor'easter in the fall, just before the lake freezes. The wave break is nicknamed "Sewer Pipe"; one can imagine why.

I biked with a club there; cycling part of my life-blood.  Life was pretty good, blessed with measures of contentment and happiness and family, even through so many challenges.  Except I'm stuck pedaling a trainer in the basement most of the long winter.  It was during an endless, gray February that I was inspired by an idea: a Velodrome.  Its one of those banked tracks people in America only see during the Olympics.  Cover it, and people could have a bicycle park all year-round with palm trees in the winter, in Cleveland.  Its a blast of a sport with serious American heritage.  A velodrome is a place where all a kid has to do is show up and with enough heart he or she can make it to the Olympics.  They wouldn't need money, just 100% heart.  It would be the kind of opportunity I didn't have when I was a kid.

So I decided to take on the responsibility to build one... not to be afraid of the price tag, or how to do it, or let a label like "disabled veteran with a head injury" daunt me.  I figured my role was to get the project started and motivate others to do other parts.  I decided not to discuss my shortcomings, introduce myself with that label, or use it as a disclaimer.   As many times as I wished I had a chalkboard sign around my neck saying, Please excuse the mess, I had to tell myself it was not an excuse.
There would need to be many others; but the fact that I knew only a dozen people on the planet didn't stop me either.  Two people inspired me.  Kyle MacDonald had a dream to barter a paper clip for something better, trading that for something else, anything else, until he had a house.  I thought I could start with an old laptop, a couple thousand dollars, and my idea. I'd work to leverage each bit of progress, not knowing what they were yet.  Thats how anything gets done, right?  Erik Weihenmayer is a blind alpine mountain climber, conquering even Everest.  He didn’t let anyone convince him what he couldn’t do, and didn’t let impairments keep him from his goal.  He didn't let blindness, the fact that he couldn't see the top as well as others, make the goal any less enjoyable for himself.  Also, there’s no way he could have done it without help.

There are no business plans for a Velodrome or someone else would have built more of them already.  I'm good at figuring things out, what with having to relearn things all the time.  I don't quit because that has never seemed to be an option.  Resourcefulness is my middle name, having to put my life back together every year or so.  Certainly the project was eccentric but as an artist I've never really cared about what others thought.  I certainly didn't have a reputation for sanity to maintain.  Professionally, I’ve had experience with so many factors of development: from paperwork at the back end as a Project Assistant, to designing it as a Mechanical Drafter, to constructing it as a Steel Detailer.  I understood this project.

Every time I discovered something needed to be done, I'd figure out how to do it.  I took an online tutorial and put together a website, attended communication seminars for better speaking skills, learned how to recruit a Board of Directors, took classes for fundraising, won a few grants, and started a non-profit.  I had to buy a couple of suits for meetings.  I kept hoping someone who knew what they were doing would take over, but that never seemed to materialize.  What I thought would be a few months turned into several hard years of work, learning new things on the fly like politics, business etiquette, computer programs, how to understand and write financials and business plans for stadiums.

It felt like cramming for finals, taking exams for classes I never attended.  I didn’t just burn my candle on both ends, I was torching it in the middle too.  Every challenge I had ever gone through seemed like it was a preparation for this one.  Many times I wondered if it was all for nothing; so many dead ends and frustrations and years where the project was barely on life-support.  Mistakes and wrong turns making people mad, losing faith in me.  Would it ever really happen?  I kept imagining what my bike wheels would look like under my handlebars as if I was ridiing on the track, listening to the same particular songs on my ipod for motivation.

A small tangent here, a digression back to the fifth grade and my favorite teacher.  He was about as tall as his students.  Mr.A (our nickname for Mr. Anderson) was a barrel-chested little person but I didn't notice it till years later because he was so cool.  He was the first teacher, the first person actually, who encouraged me to be myself.  I was a little kid, a couple years advanced and bright enough to be skipped again.  Tthat would have been ridiculous since I was already too small.  I would get my work done early in class, and he would let me spend time doing whatever, encouraging my creativity.  I distinctly remember making little scale models of parks out of construction paper.  I would start by making a rectangular tray, and then fill it in with ponds, benches, and oval or figure-8 tracks for bicycles, elevated roller-coaster paths for walking.  It was my way of creating a whimsical place that felt good in my difficult life.  No lie, I was building bicycle tracks when I was 9.  That memory faded away until I was several years into the actual Velodrome project, trying create a light-hearted park on the edge of a ghetto.  This was my life's ultimate Art Project; made with wood, steel, and tenacity.  It made me wonder about a life's purpose... still just a what if... but cruel if there wasn't anything to it.

There is a necessary role for the dreamer.  Visionaries help to break status quo, introduce new solutions.  Sorting through the banal with unique perspective, the random is reassembled into intriguing newness.  What is creative nature?  Is it obsession to improve things, the need for approval, resourcefulness within limits, or perspective outside boundaries?   Is it tenacity to the point of obsession, focus to the point of selfishness?  

Thankfully, a few devoted people did take over after a few years and worked hard to raise the serious money.  In 2012, Phase 1 of the Cleveland Velodrome opened to the public.  Presently they are raising funds for Phase 2 to cover it.   By chance I was there the day the track was finished and got a chance to ride it.  All I wanted to do was one thing: listen to those songs on my ipod and see my wheels under the handlebars on the track... in reality.  I didn't want to race or be recognized at some celebration.  I just wanted to ride a few laps, happy just to have a role in building it.  In less than a year there are already training programs, youth cycling classes, and teams competing.  Through community grants and volunteers, its all free to anyone under 18.  

Not to be forgotten, some thanks should go to one supportive teacher who helped a scrappy kid dream.    Schools measure math and science so valuable, for good reason.  But this favors one brain’s side of thinking.  Initiating and working for the construction of an urban renewal project and improving a neighborhood is traceable to the exact same idea assembled with clumsy school scissors, white glue, and construction paper, during 5th grade free time.

I can't wait to hear the news of some tough kid from East Cleveland getting to the Olympics.

Through grain fields with bayonets fixed,
from Belleau Woods the Germans came.
The sixth Marines in shallow pits
unleashed a deadly metal rain.

The French collapsed upon the left
Their flank exposed by craven fear
The Marines held fast when urged to flee:
"Retreat?, Monsieur? We just got here."

By June the sixth, it fell to them
to take a Hill to save the French.
A German company with machine guns
waited for them, well entrenched.

Their tactics from another war,
Audacious yes, but not too clever
"Come on, you *******" Dan Daly roared,
"Do you really want to live forever?"

With casualties high, so many dead
The Marine Corps held the hill by night.
Counter attacks were fended off
some times with fists and K bar knife.

Now the cannon of both sides
rained steel where the combatants stood:
A once beautiful preserve of princes
was turned into a shattered wood.

Through mustard gas and cannon fire
The Marines advanced into the Wood.
Silenced machine guns and cut bared wire
till the enemy fled, this time for good.

Before the flag at Iwo flew,
Before  the Canal's jungle squalor
Marines were nicknamed "Devil Dogs"
by the Germans who admired valor.

I might have told you some of these things,
If you were alive.
 
You had an amazing body from the moment we hit seventh grade.
Your ***** just sat, round and high,
Your ******* pointed straight outward,
Like a freak of nature, or an action figure.
Cheering at football games
Girls hated standing next to you because
You peeled their boyfriend’s eyes from their skirts to yours.

One summer night on Garrett’s roof,
After making turkey sandwiches at two in the morning,
******* the fumes in your thin lips,
Watching the smoke twist in the air
In front of your ice blue eyes,
And your white blonde hair,
We talked about ***.
About how it’s ****** up
      how it is so much harder
For girls to have *******.

Then I dated Jesse,
After you.
We were 16.
Sometimes I think about the night I told you I was sorry,
In the parking lot by the river.
Your breath smelled like Doritos and cherry *****,
You fooled around with your pink shirt
Telling me it was ok.

We talked about our secret handshake.
We talked about how you used to want to be nicknamed cupcake,
We talked about the time we had a séance.
Age eleven bringing back ******,
On your screened-in porch,
Warm air swayed the candle flames,
Crickets in the darkness around us,
Suddenly,
A biker knocked over your trashcan in the ally.
 
You are dead now.
But you did it.
 
Sometimes I’ll eat too much,
Or *****,
Or smoke half a pack of cigarettes,
When I think about you.
One night last summer I ate an entire half-gallon of vanilla ice cream,
Alone in my kitchen.
My stomach felt sick for three days.
 
I walk the trail behind your house,
The one where you think you started your period.
The first place we ever smoked ***.
I talk to the trees about you.
When the wind blows the branches
And the dry leaves sound,
In that gentle shudder,
Along the cold ground,
My skin prickles,
And the hair on my arms rises towards the sky.

no matter what pronoun use is in place, there won’t be time
to decipher it as personal or impersonal, subjective or objective,
singular or plural... to write a book of philosophy pulsating
existentialism:
i miss the rugby world cup, i miss it,
the gay referee too,
i miss the hugging and blood mushroom sprouting
from the cartilage of smeared sneeze and sniff to a hark
of semolina saliva in the up-shoot...
i miss it in the scrum... away from
the balancing mary antoinette and ballerinas,
modern lawful facade: he anchored me! gone sail the titanic!
he anchored me! foul! see? precisely! a guillotine on the ready
for those insured legs of footballers...
i miss the rugby... i fancied playing it once in school...
we had p.e. (jerseys) on the reverse with a yellow stripe
going across all maroon... football was favoured...
even though i got the ball and walked 1/4 of the field in that sloth
of being fat... why do people always have such negative memories of youth,
esp. in school?! i don’t know... all i know...
when i walked for a bottle of brown whiskers tonight,
the streets of essex were filled with that fabled smog of 19th century london,
it wasn’t guy fawkes' night but the night bling bling was out...
the firework smog settled into the streets and i started gesticulating
‘trouble breathing! trouble breathing!’ using sign language...
i couldn't translate gasping into an onomatopoeia,
let alone sign-language... mime mime mime!
3 words: film... beginning with seismic shifts... severn!
it’s an american holiday for god’s sake
(the slavs are sombre remembering the day
with virgo mort of mexico... you’re out partying
******* and ******* on graves)... have some decency to be
remotely commonwealth in attitude... like australia!
i wished they won, 2nd half, 21 to 3 i thought they were whitewash flushed...
then they bounced back to 21 - 17... then the drop goal from carter...
ah it was a knockout...
never mind the mary antoinettes and ballerinas of football...
i said it once... i’ll say it again: ref! oink ref! police officer!
you missed a spot, this tile will not have anyone slipping!
it’s how you get a working man’s sport audience impassioned...
no middle-class sensibility in a sport...
make him give a wrong decision many a times...
and you’ll get the pub rumble...
not time-out... no: let’s see it on the BIG screen...
get the referee on the side of the masses and get them impassioned
through his bad decision / multitasking... i was imagining
a big mac / watching nickers being slingshot onto the pitch...
get the referee behind the crowd and orientate them
with william wallace at stirling crying - war war woad! tadpole ooh! tattoo! blue 28! blue... grr!
in rugby you’ll just get as much passion as a workable middle-class
english marriage... oops **** daisy loot the loo (with stressor r missing trill missing h):
bloom!
and your uncle was nicknamed ***** harry?
was he ginger and donned a beard?
must be royalty.
ah man, i miss the connectivity of rugby,
where everyone's making a sandwich... with football
you just get the replica of english sociological etiquette...
saying hello 5 metres apart...
so no french chequers kissing on the cheek
to feed intimacy? problem sorted...
let me just get my umbrella... seeing the teardrops
of feminism shower me under a roof salivating from the chandelier.

453

Love—thou art high—
I cannot climb thee—
But, were it Two—
Who know but we—
Taking turns—at the Chimborazo—
Ducal—at last—stand up by thee—

Love—thou are deep—
I cannot cross thee—
But, were there Two
Instead of One—
Rower, and Yacht—some sovereign Summer—
Who knows—but we’d reach the Sun?

Love—thou are Veiled—
A few—behold thee—
Smile—and alter—and prattle—and die—
Bliss—were an Oddity—without thee—
Nicknamed by God—
Eternity—

I remember my old street. (North Overlook)
The people there never changed, like a television with the **** broken off.

I remember my boxer, Brutus. I would let him lick the inside of my mouth to freak out the other kids.

I remember eating honey suckles in the back yard. I also ate a whole bottle of Tums in the medicine cabinet. (I thought it was candy)
I once drank a whole bottle of nail polish remover, but I puked it back up.

I remember having a jungle gym and a swimming pool. My sister and I swam naked in it once.

I remember when we touched each other’s private parts in a fort we built in the closet. She made me smell my fingers afterwards. My nose crinkled upward and I thought it was gross.

I remember when my mother came home crying one day because the hair stylist cut her hair too short and she looked like a “****.”

I remember spending mornings at grandma’s house. I would watch The Price Is Right and Days of Our Lives. She would fall asleep and I would clean the wax out from her ears with a paintbrush. I remember enjoying it.

I remember my first ****** nose (I used a whole roll of toilet paper). I could taste the blood running down the back of my throat.

I remember all the other ****** noses and calling mom from the nurse’s office

I remember Mr. Iles (3rd grade) screaming at his class for being idiots. He drove a motorcycle to school everyday.

I remember doing times tables in his class. I was always terrible at math and thought I was stupid. We watched the twin towers fall on television. I didn’t know what was happening so I continued to doodle on my times tables.

I remember in middle school being the only one at my lunch table wearing yellow.  My friends became gothic. I didn’t know what that was, but I knew I was different.

I remember my first art class in high school, thinking I was better than everyone, and I was.

I remember the first time I masturbated. I don’t remember how many times I did it that day but my **** hurt for a while and I walked funny.

I remember my mother trying to teach me about God. I never told her that I didn’t believe in him. I’ve always felt guilty.

I remember my first girlfriend. We dated for 7 months. My friends hated her, and I stopped talking to them. I remember hating them for it.

I remember the first time we had *** it was **** ***. I didn’t use a ****** and my **** was covered in ****.
She was great at *******. She once ****** me off in the backseat of her grandma’s car while her grandma drove. I forgot about the time she threw up on me.

I remember she loved Disney and nicknamed my ***** “Captain Hook” because it curves to the left.

I remember the day she found out she had ******, she told me over the phone. I cried because it was my fault. In high school health class, they didn’t teach us that if you have a cold sore and eat a girl out, they could get ******.

I remember when she broke up with me and went back to her ugly ex-boyfriend (now ex-ex-boyfriend). I cried again. Her friends stopped talking to me.

I remember it was on my birthday. (Friday the 13th)

I remember the threats over texts to leave her alone. I told everyone at school she had ******.

I remember eating lunch alone. (A lot)

I remember shutting myself in my room and not eating.

I remember when I tried to **** myself with a steak knife in the kitchen. I didn’t do it right. My mother asked me what happed, so I lied and told her it was an accident. I don’t think she believed me. We still don’t talk about it but I still have the scar.

I remember making art. (A lot)
I did nothing but art (That’s all I had.)

I remember making friends in my art class and how my teacher would dress like a Jedi.

I remember meeting Bobby, and Brandon, and Tyler.

I remember thinking that art had saved my life.

I remember the first time I smoked ****. It was in the parking lot of a Best Buy with Brendan and Kristiana. I didn’t feel “high” and we ate cupcakes after that.

I remember drinking a beer for the first time and hating the taste.

I remember, “It’s an acquired taste.”

I remember, “Drink it, *****!”

I remember the first time I got drunk. It was at my brother’s house and I almost fell asleep with my head on the toilet. He carried me to the couch, emptied a bowl of pretzels and set in under my face. The smell had me dry heaving all night.

I don’t remember the first party I went to.

I remember my mother worrying if I would make it home those nights.

I remember making friends with people from Sayler Park They were in a band with my brother, but liked me more. I felt bad for him, but I was drunk. I went to other parties they had. There were always sweaty teenagers and *****.

I remember the guy who ****** on everyone in the mosh pit. The support beam broke under us that night and the floor almost caved in.

I remember ******* in the front yard. It rained so we were mud sliding in puddles.

I remember the two girls making out in the bathtub naked. Bobby took a video of them on his phone.

I remember when he tried to get this girl to sleep with me. Her name was Lauren Luckey and it was her birthday. She found out I went to art school and had me draw smiley faces on her and her friends’ *******. She started kissing me over the sink (her hair got caught in the garbage disposal.) She bit my neck and broke skin. It was 6 in the morning.

I remember she took me up to the bathroom and we had ***. I remember her taking off my boxers with her teeth. Bobby tossed me a ****** but I lost it. Curtis (he owned the house) came in and ****** anyways. He told me I had a cute ***. When he was done, he left the bathroom door open. There was a line waiting to come in that watched the two of us **** on the eggshell colored floor.

I remember waking up the next day and finding out she was engaged.

I remember the first time I had a pizza from Dewey’s and fell in love.

I remember when I started smoking. My mother gave me **** for it. I always complained when she smoked (I used to break her cigarettes.)

I remember the summer my grandmother died.

I remember staying the night at her house the day before.

I remember when my mother called everyone into the room. I remember, “It’s almost time.”
My family crowded around her.
One of my uncles fainting while the other vomited in the corner.

I remember my mother crying. I remember crying.

I remember “Amazing Grace”

I remember when time froze.
July 11th, 2013, at 1:26 p.m.

I remember my uncle walking over to her, pressing his hand against her mouth trying to feel her breathe. His brain wouldn’t let him accept that she died. I remember him looking up at me like a lost boy, looking for an answer. (I didn’t have one.)

I remember my mother told me she was with God now.

I remember.

Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the **** of the Magazine Wall,
  (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
           ****, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
  (Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!
           Jail him and joy.

He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us
Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare's milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion's reform,
  (Chorus) And religious reform,
           Hideous in form.

Arrah, why, says you, couldn't he manage it?
I'll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
  (Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
           Butter his horns!

(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt
   on ye,
Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!

Balbaccio, balbuccio!

We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chicken-pox
   and china chambers
Universally provided by this soffsoaping salesman.
Small wonder He'll Cheat E'erawan our local lads nicknamed him.
When Chimpden first took the floor
  (Chorus) With his bucketshop store
           Down Bargainweg, Lower.

So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we'll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery
And 'tis short till sheriff Clancy'll be winding up his unlimited
   company
With the bailiff's bom at the door,
  (Chorus) Bimbam at the door.
           Then he'll *** no more.

Sweet bad luck on the waves washed to our island
The ****** of that hammerfast viking
And Gall's curse on the day when Eblana bay
Saw his black and tan man-o'-war.
  (Chorus) Saw his man-o'-war
           On the harbour bar.

Where from? roars Poolbeg. Cookingha'pence, he bawls
   Donnez-moi scampitle, wick an wipin'fampiny
Fingal Mac Oscar Onesine Bargearse Boniface
Thok's min gammelhole Norveegickers moniker
Og as ay are at gammelhore Norveegickers cod.
  (Chorus) A Norwegian camel old cod.
           He is, begod.

Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil, ye! up with the rann,
   the rhyming rann!

It was during some fresh water garden pumping
Or, according to the Nursing Mirror, while admiring the monkeys
That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey
Made bold a maid to woo
  (Chorus) Woohoo, what'll she doo!
           The general lost her maidenloo!

He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded philosopher,
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.
Begob, he's the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
  (Chorus) Messrs Billing and Coo.
           Noah's larks, good as noo.

He was joulting by Wellinton's monument
Our rotorious hippopopotamuns
When some ****** let down the backtrap of the omnibus
And he caught his death of fusiliers,
  (Chorus) With his rent in his rears.
           Give him six years.

'Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won't there be earwigs on the green?
  (Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,
           The largest ever you seen.

   Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!

Then we'll have a free trade Gael's band and mass meeting
For to sod him the brave son of Scandiknavery.
And we'll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and the Danes,
  (Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,
           And all their remains.

And not all the king's men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there's no true spell in Connacht or hell
  (bis) That's able to raise a Cain.

Shouldn't we all be studying?

dedicated to M M Jones from Montana,
where I guess big skies make people think
about big questions and young poets thrive.


the butterflies of child-awakening
to the certainty
that school and
shame and embarrassment
were only minutes away,
once again,
is as fresh as
the flowers my love
buys every Friday,
fifty plus year later.

I would awake,
climb into bed with my mother,
telling her I did not feel well,
that my
stomach felt gray.  

I could not tell her that
the mocking I received by
my richer classmates at the
multiple lines in the fabric
of my corduroy pants
where she let my pants down
made me cannon fodder
for what we call now
bullying.

I could not tell her
of the heartbreak
when somehow the parents
of my supposed suburban friends
forgot to
pick me up for the weekly swim,
leaving me to watch
the sunset fall as I sat
on the stoop of our old house,
tucked away in an out of the way,
unfashionable street,
the shame still wet.

I could not tell her
of how two bothers tortured me
as I sat in the back seat
of their station wagon,
spitting seeds
on me like curses.  

Their older brother died of cancer
when that was still unusual,
and the mother wrote
a beautiful book
about his life.

I still hate them, those two,
fifty years later and it gives me
unusually great pleasure to
announce it to the world.

So I studied.  

Not my schoolbooks,
but lovely and ***** literature.
Friday afternoons, three children,
me the baby brother,
(anonymous, for they nicknamed me
brother as if  I was nothing but
checked off category)
to the library went.

Five, five was the max
they the austere librarians
and their coda of holy silence,
would let me withdraw.
(god I can see my library card still).  

By Friday night,
I had finished one or two,
ruining my eyes in
the lousy lamp light
in the living room,
falling asleep on the couch.  

this, reading addiction,
which afflicted the entire family,
I did well into my teens.

I have stopped reading
which amazes the very few
who know and care.

do let us re-pose,
let us repose,
the question:

Shouldn't we all be studying?

the answer of course is
yes and no.

my studying blue period
is long since ended.
now, my biographer,
will call this my red period.

for red are the memories that my remembrances
come back to me.
crystal is the clarity
of the indignities
I recall, though red,
is the anger
at the shame and
abuse I took.

now I can write what I have always held in my heart.  

those two awful brothers,
who loved to torture me,
I was glad their
wonderful brother died.

so this is my red writing period,
when the studying of a kind,
has long since ended
but the smell,
the memory of
fresh textbooks still can
make me nauseous.

Yet, I still study life around me,
as I clean countertops,
walk deserted beach isles
in early September...
this studying,
is the product of years
of studying the inside out
of me, and turning that study
fruitful into poetry.

why?
why am I writing this at 2:00 am on a Sunday morning?

I did not pose the question.

but it posed me,
and the dialogue in my mind came
sugarcane fresh and tumbling out
and will be both
recorded and recoded
("in the truth will out eventually" file)
after a fashion.

these days I sometimes study
my older poems,
whose titles I recognize,
but whose content
I cannot recall.  

so double digit delight
when I
meet again old words,
wondrous and trite,
that make believe
that all my studying
somehow paid off after all.

It was one of those mornings
where you peer out your bottom floor window,
and look up at the raindrops freshly fallen.

You feel broken,
and yet rushed with an unexplainable emotion.
but you know it’s a good one simply with a bad aftertaste.

You see people everyday, no, you stare at them.
You wish for relationships you once had.
Others you wish you could hold,
and those you could never give up.

Have you ever heard the saying about faking a smile?
It’s an understatement.
It’s not sadness, or anger really, just pain.

It doesn't start out as pain, it just evolves, over time.
The madness results in Emotionally caused Physical pain.
The pain doesn't hurt, it just...sits.

This emotion that we've nicknamed pain, rushes through the body,
Arms numbs, legs shaking, eyes holding back, everything.
It’s all caused from sight, with a drop of longing.

You see this person everyday.
You long for the same people every single day.
And your body just longs for them.

It’s not as lustful as it sounds.
You just possess an attraction to these people.
An attraction that even the most specific and descriptive of words could not describe.

You sit there and you are bound by society’s lock on intermingling.
You are bound by the mock and disgust of others.
You are bound by that person of which you desire.
You are bound simply by yourself.

All this.
All of this Emotion, if you will, was bound in that little drop that clings to the window.
That was but a drop of what I feel every single day.

You can’t imagine
but don't let me sound as if I am exaggerating.
For I am not.

I have felt wonderful things.
Things I am not sure most of you have felt.
Though I wish you could.

I wish I could place my hand on your chest
I wish that all of that energy, that emotion, would flow into you and then back into me.
I could look into your eyes, and I would know, that you know, how I feel.

You could understand everything.
You could sympathise.
but the fact of the matter is, you simply can’t.

I do not believe you have felt what I have felt too, no.
Different version and variations, yes.
But this feeling of impossibility, I know you have not felt.

You are common rebel,
this is not bad, no not at all,
you have more opportunities to release this emotion than I ever will.

And i envy you. All of you. Every Last one.

You look away from the rain drops.
You go back to living.
You go back to hiding.
You go back to solitude.

Yeah, it was just one of those mornings I guess.

I was not good at Hide and Seek,
So I was always chosen the last in a team.
I could never tell a lie,
So my friends and family never told me their secrets,
They nicknamed me tell tale.
I could never fight my battles,
My siblings and friends were there for me.
Now that I have a broken heart,
Wounded and scarred,
I have learned to hide my pain and tears  behind my veiled eyes,
I have learned to hide my sorrow behind my fake smile,
I have learned to make my silence my strength,
To face my ordeal, heal and move on.
18/2/2019

Barnacles crunch like fast food under your sneakers,
my gnawed-on boots.

We pass over cat-eyed shards of glass
still spicy with beer bubbles
and still fizzy with teen rebellion;

It molds like an infection here.
In a town nicknamed "Little Norway." ~

This place hoards candy-colored suburbia in its pockets.

Houses like skittles weigh down its pants
and it belches out tourist traps weaker than expired pepsi,

yet it still manages these moments
where I can trot by your gazelle legs
and blast Julie Andrew's confidence.

And I want to heap myself on the oyster shells, say
STOP
Put this moment in a snowglobe,
sigh into it before we move on,
do anything before the wind whips it away.

Etch it into your hand if you have to.

But breeze dimples the water like a golf ball
and rips at the seams of the shore.



Please don't forget me when you leave.

it's a college party
even though i never finished and the rest of y'all are spending money you don't have on the ingredients necessary for homemade sangria so you can drink the crippling anxiety of not knowing how to pay off your student loans away

there's a man living in a tent in the backyard, and i'm pretty sure we put one too many pieces of scrap wood in that very-hard-to-maintain bonfire. that has to be a metaphor for the state of most of our lives. stop throwing things i'm unprepared for in what already feels like a situation that is going to **** me.

is this a literal housewarming

i'm drunk, and sitting on the deck, counting the christmas lights. i smell ****, and there are white people dancing and singing to blink 182 inside.

i paint my name on a drywall with a brush and canisters i find on my way to the living room, where i'm asked to referee a game of beer pong. i lose interest quickly.

i scroll through my phone, sober enough not to text you but drunk enough to desperately want to. someone sits down next to me because i've apparently become that person at the party.

i talk about rent with a guy who really wants to connect on the fact that we're both middle eastern, even though i'm not middle eastern. he smells like PBR and completely believes what he's saying. he says he's proud of me for following my dreams of coming to new york and that he likes my "crazy hair" and that he wants to **** me.

i raise my eyebrows, more in disgust than interest, but he then takes his perceived cue to shamelessly ask me if i have a ******. i don't, and i leave before he brainstorms any alternatives i am just as aversive to.

ironically, i find a ****** dispenser attached to a tree on the walk to the subway. considering the amount of catcalling i experienced on the way to the station, my level of discomfort is amplified by the fact that the neighbourhood literally, physically implies, ******* is going to happen in the streets. it's 2am, and i just want to go home. and i'm sitting on the J train, recalling everyone who's told me it's shady and unreliable and makes you feel like you're going to die.

a few months later, i am nicknamed J train.

Here's to the...

Calorie counter
Long sleeve wearer
Excessive water drinker
Mirror believer
Professional over-thinker
Clever liar
Hair puller
Tongue biter
Thigh hater
Toilet bowl hugger
Magazine lover
Belly fat ****
At home cryer
Bedroom hider
Internet follower
Social stink bug
One sided therapist
Friend loser
Terrifying truth
Reality dodger
Space-brained
Nicknamed
Love rejector
Anxiety collector
Roller coaster rider
Personal antagonist
Perfection chaser
Hopeless dreamer
Nothing achiever
Unnoticed angel
Silent rainbow
Blood seeker
Soul-searching rebel
Wilting rose

I guess we were bored,
Or looking for something new.
And there was a party coming up.
Someone's hosting debut.
So we thought we'd ask around,
See what else was to do.
And our **** dealer told us
He sold other things too.
He nicknamed it dizz,
And it sounded quite fun.
So we talked all about it,
Decided to get some.
We all pitched in,
Asked for five or ten pounds.
And went and collected it;
Tin foil bound.
Accompanying us
Was a sober mate.
He said it would be fun
To watch and spectate.
So we unwrapped it,
Crushed it,
Poured it,
And drank it.
The taste was disgusting,
Of abstract chemicals.
But we swallowed it down,
A moment; seminal.
They said twenty minutes,
So we sat and waited.
Our hearts were pumping
Way before eight.
And we went downstairs,
Sat on a sofa,
Biding our time,
Sipping on cola...

And there.
What was that.
A feeling.
It entered the chat.
Some warmth,
No stress.
And then a
Very deep breath
Of fresh air
And emotion.
Like emerging from the bottom
Of a very deep ocean
You had been down for years.
Reggae was playing
At very high volume.
And none wanted staying
Where we were.
So we got up keen,
And started dancing.
One even went on the wet trampoline
And bounced
Up, down,
Up, down,
Could've gone till sundown.
And the sky was gorgeous;
Metallic, steel blue
Mixed with orange and yellow.
It was quite the view.
But time was
Moving on,
So we packed up,
And were almost gone
Before keys jangled,
And the door swung open.
A parent walked in,
And caused a commotion
Of boys rushing out,
Mumbling words and plans.
We left quite abruptly,
And sprinted and ran.
Once round the corner,
We couldn't care less.
Nonchalant as usual,
We enjoyed the success.
And we walked and talked
About pure, utter, *****.
The iPhone X, some girls,
And the absolute banger that would be tonight.
So we strolled around,
The sun on our faces,
Feeling elated.
Going some places.

You hide behind a wall.
Wear a mask & act as if the world is as you want it.
Your sleeves & jeans hide the scars that can't be seen.
Your face with such a thin layer of lies fools everyone without the need to second guess.
You hide so deep as if you can't be seen.
The wall with poor construction, begging to be broken down but no one stands up to the plate.
No chance is made.

~C☆J~

Neon is rare on earth,
hard to find.
But I bet it’s harder to find
any second of the day
where your warm,
monotone voice,
reading an old picture book,
doesn’t echo through my ears.

Did you know that
after adding eight thousand volts
of excitement to helium,
it glows?
Yet my own face
lights up by counting down
the slowly melting
seconds,
minutes,
hours
and days
of excitement, leading up to your arrival.

Your own engraved dog tags,
silver and shiny,
metal magnesium,
hang from neck
like a personal reminder
that you’re not too far away.

Arsenic is nicknamed Poison of Kings
because it had been used to numb
and **** royal family members.
Although no poison in the world
can numb the tingling sensation,
that reaches to my toes,
as your camouflage boots
descend from the plane.


At this point
the only thing that separates us
is the carbon dioxide in our breathe
and the oxygen in the thick,
humid, Texas air.

So when I see your face
the tears will rush out
like water out of a faucet,
simply because
there is no scientific equation
to explain how slow
these thirteen months
have passed.

Threw a couple benzos in the mix yesterday
which was very unlike me, but it paid off;
The time was spent at a good friend's house.

Started with clonazolam (not to be confused
with clonazpam), this designer benzodiazepine
is as potent as xanax but with a longer duration
of between 6-10 hours. Abuse often leads to blackout
states and it has been dis-affectionately nicknamed 'clam'.
Being cautious of any compound active in the microgram range,
At first I ingested only a fifth of the illicitly pressed tablet.
It had light but noticeable effects which cooled my mind enough
that I consider dipping my toe in my preferred class of compound.

Perhaps an hour later I insuffulated 2mg
of 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylthioamphetamine,
Better known as DOT, the first of the Aleph series.
This produced a bare threshold of effects, including
minor thought acceleration (to counter the benzo)
and a hint of warmth throughout my body.
I left it at that. It is a good sign for future inquiries
into that rather mysterious series of compound.

Later still, I wrestled with whether or not to try another benzo
which was gifted to me when I mentioned I had never tried it.
Chlordiazepoxide, in this case going by the brand name Librium.
Prescribed to treat anxiety, insomnia and symptoms of withdrawal,
It has a half-life of between 5-30 hours. However,
An active metabolite of chlordiazepoxide (and also diazepam)
is nordiazepam - active for between 36-200 hours.
Can you imagine taking a drug which lasts eight days?
Hence my hesitation.
After some consideration (fifteen minutes of quick research
followed by fifty minutes of feeling the psychological weight
of the pill on my palm), I ingested a small black and blue capsule
marked "LIB 10mg". Of course, such a small amount
would not be in my system for so long.

Shortly thereafter two of us went down to the shop.
I floated through the isles, settling upon a carton of apple juice.
A slight but nonetheless uncommon feeling of happiness struck
me during our walk back. The fresh air was good, I could feel
the vague comfort of distinct experience. Perhaps this reads
as if it's nonsense, and I know it, but a sensation reached
out to me from my past, recognition of the pattern of being
I was currently pursuing, a mindset.
I suggested we split a small dose
of an exotic trip I'd been saving.

It's duration was appropriately
short, 3-6 hours. We ate 7.5mg
of 5-Methoxy-N,N-diallyltryptamine,
Commonly referred to as 5-MeO-DALT.
I believe I have had the honor of bestowing
upon it the colloquial name Foxtrot.

It probably did not effect us much,
I certainly could barely distinguish its
effects in the mix. Silly of me really, I don't
even like benzos, I had just been in a bad place
recently; this session reminded me I did not need
to escape anything, everything I once loved
is within reach. I'd give some credit for that insight
to the influence of psychedelics, despite the
quieting presence of axiolytics. Ultimately,
Insight is not a product of any drug. It stems
from experience, and no substance can dispute
the immutable metaphysics of mind,
Whatever its form may be.

I can feel the changes
You are my addiction
I used to think you're a dentist
You give me some kind of filling
I blame the way that we living
That has my feet on the edge
Nicknamed your love Wels Fargo
How I was putting in check
My friends would talk and say you weren't loyal and give it a rest
But you impress me
No need for yelling
You handle the stress
You used to handle a tech
When you were so out of place
Initials double H
So that means double hate
But all the fellas who've seen you
Knows that you keep a reliever
You've seen more L's than the bobcats arena
You keep it incognito
But you're far from a bully
When it comes to ink you're a monster
Mike wazowski and sully
You're a diamond in the rough
You have a special shine
There is no competition
You're the hottest thing out
Them others may claim you
But they know that you're mine
Girl
I'd Jehovah witness for you
I'm out here knocking doors down

I'm one of those blessed I know
To get along with my toes
So I took time out in my day
To give them all different names

The big toe I have on the right
I gave him the name of Frank
You may ask the reason why
But frankly it's escaped my mind

The one that's sitting next to him
I went ahead and named him Slim
Skinny is as skinny does
And he's the skinniest of the toes

Then there's the one in the middle
He's the one that loves to wiggle
So he needs a special name
And that is why I call him Dave

The toe that is next in line
Has gotten crooked over time
So I nicknamed him Senator
Which seems to suit him fine

And then there's little Pinky
But doesn't everyone I'm thinking
Try as hard as I might a new name to find
Pinky's the name that comes to mind

Don't you know when it comes to toes
And you have more than one of those
To cut out on the confusion
I gave them all names of my choosing

Over the course of my tenure
I've noticed something about
These concrete walls and me.
Something's changed i n m e.

Over the course of these days
It has completely eaten away
My tongue . Cutting a w a y
Neatly and p a i n l e s s l y  .

It even has a personality, I've
Nicknamed him C l e e t i s P.
However, instead of parasiti-
-zing my life. It u p - graded

Me. Replaced that uncouth T
Somewhat enlightened m e  .
Above the soloists -no longer
"I" or "me"; but "us" and "we"

you see self-communality i n
"we". It's slimy-self now fun-
-ctions as o u r newest *****;
A mouthpiece & a voicebox

It lives off of small drops o f
Blood from my tongue-stub
That won't ever, ever c l o t!
My business has a s e c r e t

I t s a y s t o m e                     :
Regardless of  Earthly losses
Give y o u r everything to us
W e are your dearest bosses .

There he was, Archibald Walker, like every mornin standin on the riverbank starin across the water as the sun began to rise.  He would just stand there with his lunch pal in one hand and that funny bowlers hat in the other.  That boy always had a big ol’ grin stretchin across his face from ear to ear.   Archibald Walker the third was actually his name.  A college boy from down south, he came from ol’ money.  You’da never knew though.  He came up here to escape he said.  I had always wondered why anyone in their right mind would give up money and education to come be a logger, but there was Archibald just starin across that river as happy as a peach.  I used to ask him what he learned down there in school and he would always reply the same way, “Good Jokes”.  I never could tell if he was being serious or if he just didn’t care too much to talk about it.  Archibald was real good at his job though for being a college boy.  Came in before everyone else and worked ten times as hard. Never did see him ***** up either.
He liked to keep to himself.  I was the only one he ever really talked to and even then he never talked about much.  Took me a year and a half just to figure out he was educated and from money.  I looked at that boy funny for a week after he told me that.  I was dumbfounded as to why someone would give that up for this gruelin job.  Funny thing is, he seemed to like it.  He had to clear up logjams and keep the wood flowin smoothly down the river.  Boy was he fast.  He would skip across them floatin logs like he was walkin on dry land.  There he’d go just a bouncin up and down across them logs, big smile across that baby face, with that funny lookin bowlers hat on.  He always had on that goofy thing.  Looked like someone had glued a bowl onto a plank’a wood.  I asked him why he liked wearin it so much one day and he just laughed and said, “Now what makes you think I like wearing it”.  Still don’t know what that boy meant, but I never took to tryin to understand him.
Everybody called him Walker cause he walked across them logs all day and it was his last name I suppose, but mostly cause he loved walkin them logs.  It was a dangerous job, but he never hesitated to go runnin out there with his push pole and clear the jam.  I told him to be real careful what logs he pushed outta the way cause if he got the wrong one, well he would end up crushed out there between two of those god-awful things.  He told me we all end up stuck between two pieces of wood in the end anyhow, so he didn’t care.  Boy shoulda listened.  Wasn’t a week later he went walkin out on them logs, smile and all, and wouldn’t you know it he sliped, got crushed between two big ole trees then sank all the way to the bottom of that river.
We searched the river for three days and never did find Archibald’s body.  It was sad to see that boy cut down so young.  We hired a new boy about a week later and he wasn’t half the walker Archibald was.  He wasn’t even a walker.  Nicknamed that boy crawler cause he was so scared of them logs he would lay down on his belly and crawl out there to fix a jam.  Three separate occasions we picked him up a mile down the river clingin to a log for dear life.  Boy was something else.  Needless to say we let him go down the river the fourth time and politely told him to not come back.  Symbolic in away.  Archibald got taken by the river and that’s how we let crawler know he was fired.  Just let it carry him away until he finally reached the bank a mile or so down river.
I finally took Archibald’s post after we couldn’t find anyone to replace him.  I won’t lie I was scared at first, but then I remembered what Archibald had told me about all of us endin up stuck between two pieces of wood in the end.  I figured he was right so I would just go boundin across them logs day in and out just like he woulda.  I still didn’t know why that boy was always happy.  Even though I did the job, I still hated it. For a while anyway.
One day I came in about the same time Archibald used to and I stood there on the edge of the river and watched the sun come up.  I knew why he was so happy all the time.  Boy it was the most beautiful thing seein that sun comin up.  It was like for a second the world was just explodin with life. I’m not sure what it’s like to have money and be educated, but I’m sure it’s nothing close to watchin that sun come up like that over the river.  Wouldn’t ya know it though when the sun was done risin and I was about to finally get to work there was that goofy hat of Archibald’s washed up on the bank.  It was a little soggy but not in bad shape.  It was like that boy knew I was gonna be there and had just left it for me.  That hat didn’t fit to well and it looked awfully funny, but I wore it everyday I went walkin them logs.  Now I start everyday like Archibald did, standin on that riverbank with my lunch pal in one had and that bowler hat in the other watchin the sun come up.  Still don’t know why that boy wore the thing, but I’m glad he did.

I'm from the land  overflowing with  milk and honey and my mind is more rich that The Europeans useless green paper money yes far from a dummy and like the dawn of day my personality is Always sunny.
I am a rare soul
On the outside I am just another hueman but on the inside I'm a being of the supernatural
I am a radiating rainbow
Shinning in between blue and purple
I'm the canvas of the star child so paint me Indigo.
I'm a lantern in the darkness of the heavily wooded forest, I glow.
My heart is as pure as the whitetess  snow
I am a farmer planting seeds, So, I reap what I sow.
I expand my horizons because the more you know the more you grow.
I am  vibrant just as  the stained glass window.
My soul is  a strong and fierce bolt of  lightening, quite powerful.
I am Fearlessly and wonderfully made in the image of  The Most High, Quite beautiful.
I'm an individual whose  energy is a current thats just flows.
Maybe because Love is My religion no matter where I go.
I was Created from the particles of stars hidden in the cosmos
Mixed with the elements of earth
Descended from the heavens, past the galaxy and from the wombman my spirit and body became one at birth
As it bursted thru my Earth mother, The Universe.
this body became both a gift and a curse
My life became as song unrehearsed
I guess thats why they nicknamed me lyrics because my words were my  hook and verse.
I am like many phases of the Luna very diverse
I am the moon that rises to rest in the midnight sky upon the evening shore as the cool ocean passionately kisses the sparkling sand.
I am the wombman with a vision and a plan.
I am India Arie, boosting your souls immunity. Healthy for you like vitamin C.
Loving me unconditionally
Embracing the Queen in me.
I am free!
I am Lauryn Hill opening your eyes to see the things that Are Real.
I am the peace that is still.
I express the way I feel.
I am Jill Scott giving you some food for thought.
Pay close attention because lessons are being taught.
I'm am Erykah Badu giving you something you ain't use to.
I'm Alicia keys Feeling the music putting my mind at ease
As the nature gives my skin goosebumps with its cooling breeze.
I am Janet Jackson giving you that that fire and passion.
lacing it with that poetic justice style and fashion.
Yet  I will have you talking to and looking at that man in the mirror like Michael Jackson.

"SNOGGO And The Giant Sea Beast" (Another Egregious SNOGGO Adventure)

written by
Edna Sweetlove
on behalf of
the one and only
SNOGGO*


  The shore lay peaceful in the warmth of the sun, a seemingly idyllic picture. The beach was completely empty even though it was high summer. The whole town was void of visitors: usually at this time of the year it was crawling with tourists: fat white slobs ready to absorb maximum sunshine and sunburn before going back to the city with their ugly kids, back to their humdrum and drab lives of sedentary drudge. But not today, today they were nowhere to be ******* seen.

  Glum shopkeepers stared glumly out at the glum, empty streets, knowing they faced ruin unless the terror which had engulfed their town and which would bring calamity to their traditional summer occupation of fleecing the tourists could be sorted out. And only I, the wonderfully brave and intrepid SNOGGO, could save the town.  They knew it and I knew it. It was an established fact. Q.E.D.

  As I drove my specially designed truck down the main street to the seafront, people cheered, calling out 'God bless you, dearest, gallant SNOGGO' as I went by.  I was so ******* proud that everyone knew who the great SNOGGO was. I cautiously inched onto the sands as people watched from behind their curtains, hoping against hope that I would be able to save them from looming disaster. I motored down to the water's edge and carefully turned the vehicle round so that its rear pointed out to sea.  The tarpaulin on the back of the specially constructed SNOGGOMOBILE flapped in the wind. What was under the tarpaulin?

  I dragged a steamer trunk from under the tarpaulin, opened it and hauled out the stinking carcase of Geoffrey, my neighbour's Rottweiler who had inexplicably gone missing last week.  Or it may have been Gerald, Geoffrey's twin brother.  Next I hauled Gerald's corpse out of the trunk (or it may have been Geoffrey's, the two mutts were identical and repellent in death, just as they had been identical and repellent in life).  The pong was something awful.  Nearly gagging with the rancid and stomach-churning stench, I dragged the two dead dogs down to the shoreline and, grabbing each by its hind legs, hurled them out to sea as far as my mighty strength would permit.  About five yards, as it happened.

  I returned to the SNOGGOMOBILE and drew back the tarpaulin to reveal what lay underneath; my secret weapon, whose secret only I knew. I made my preparations carefully but rapidly; I knew I had no more than five or six minutes’ leeway. And sure enough, after precisely five and a half minutes, I heard the sound I was expecting and I saw the sight I was expecting.

  The mighty fin of the dreadful fish cut through the water with a dreadful whoosh.  And Geoffrey disappeared beneath the waves (or it might have been Gerald, who cares).  The other dog would be next: such a mighty shark as the one enjoying dog tartare in the bay would not be sated by a single Rotweiler.

  I climbed onto the back of the SNOGGOMOBILE, and leaped gracefully into the seat behind my secret weapon.  I aimed quickly at the focal point of the blood-stained thrashing waters, pressed the red button (marked "Fire" for ease of reference) and WHAM!, what a Hell of a big bang, and off went my thermo-nuclear torpedo, whizzing down the beach and SPLASH! into the water, then WALLOP! as it hit the shark amidships and BOOM! as it went off, blowing the shark into ******* smithereens.  Myriad bits of shark (mixed with bits of Geoffrey and Gerald) rained down on the beach; how fortunate that I had thought to put up my extra-size golf-umbrella (complete with colourful SNOGGO logo) to deal with this eventuality and no lumps hit me.

  The enormous shark (wittily nicknamed “that ******* great ******* shark” by the locals) which had terrorised the entire coast for some time, gobbling up paddling kiddies whole, chewing off the limbs of dozens of swimmers, and generally being a major pain the ****, was no more. It was mincemeat. The whole promenade was alive with cheering townsfolk, as I smiled in happiness and pride at my wonderful achievement. They started singing my favourite song: “We love SNOGGO, SNOGGO the brave” which brought ******* tears to my eyes.

  Now SNOGGO's reward beckoned: ten thousand lovely wallet-warmers (plus expenses) plus a night of unbridled lust with the mayor's buxom wife Shirley and his sister Deidre too, as previously arranged. Yes, SNOGGO the famous shark killer (and ******* fan) had killed yet another predator of the deep stone ******* dead.

THE END
~~~~~~~~

When night shimmers away and dawn appears,
Awakening all living things from slumber,
The sun is welcomed by all with cheers
As its heat signifies everything warm and dear.

Flowers arise in glory and bloom,
While butterflies carry on their endless pollination.
The first sign of day sweeps away all gloom,
And the sun is nicknamed,” god’s greatest creation”

And birds spread their wings and soar the skies,
Aiming to reach for the sun,
While the hapless baby bawls and cries,
And while the labourer butters his bun.

When the sun shines upon them,
All living things know,
That everything happy and new is brought about by the bright yellow gem,
And hence with joy does their life glow.

Because it’s the beginning of a brand new day,
Fresh, unique, and different from the last,
Fun and fulfilling in every way,
To help forget history and the past.

And so, also, as I look at the world around me,
Taking in the view,
Whatever I see,
Is not what I saw yesterday, but something new.

And as the bees store up their honey,
And businessmen store up their money,

My heart, warmed by the sun does sing
Gleefully welcoming a brand new day that’s just beginning…