i’ve given up on days that begin in late afternoon,
skipped breakfast and lunch,
days that fade slowly and end with
****** cut-out holes in eyelids because
the second i close them and it all goes black,
every moment with you comes back
played on fast-forward, the memories moving so quickly
that both our faces are blurred
and it feels like everything i’ve ever felt for you
is overflowing the tub, filling the washroom with
suds that take forever to melt

i’ve given up on those days.

i’ve traded them for ones that begin with
sunrises instead of sunsets,
days that are spent falling forward
instead of trying to chase the past, and i don’t
look back and see something broken, or
something that was better off left unopened

i look back and see our bodies so close together
that you can’t tell where yours begins and mine ends,
i see my heart that grew twenty-three times its size,
i see you and me wrapped up in something that
i didn’t know existed outside of blurry 35 mm
and overdue and falling-apart library books
that sit on the nightstands of middle-aged women
who are bored with their lives

and i’m just so happy i got to love you at all.

but i’ve folded up all the days spent with you
and taped them in the messy pages of my journal
and now i’m running into the sun,
running away from every lie that’s trying to
wedge its way in between my ribs,
running in the opposite direction of words like "regret"
and any feeling that insists that none of it was worth it

because all of it was worth it.

every moment we were together pumps
through my veins, and it will always be there;
it will be there when we’ve both graduated,
when you move out west,
when you kiss your family goodnight,
when you sit in your backyard with tears
in your eyes because you’ve lived a life
you are proud of

it will be there when i finally make it to new york city,
when i kiss someone who isn’t you,
when i find the answers you inspired me to search for,
when i sit on my rooftop with tears on my cheeks
because i’ve lived a life fuller than i could’ve ever imagined

and you and i will live these lives apart,
we’ll move on and forget what it felt like
to wake up beside one another;
we’ll find what we’re looking for elsewhere
and we’ll understand why this all had to happen the way that it did

but what we had will always exist somewhere,
in rotting apples and old mail and unplayed mix CDs,
in mosaics that line the city streets, in sirens and
red and white flashing lights that shine through
your window while you are asleep

you and i were magic,
we always will be.

He'd been conceived in Flamborough, so his little sister assured him some eleven summers ago, which was a tad hard for Rocky to swallow, she was a whole eighteen months his junior and then some... and at that age, well... what did she know, she was only a kid, "on this very rock" River insisted, kicking her heels in delight, "next to this very rock pool" they were both sitting beside, "one sunny afternoon eleven years ago..." and that was how he came by the name of Rocky... she taunted as the rest of the colourful story unfolded... and that she had it all on the best possible authority... although the more she thought about it, had she meant concealed... she wasn't quite sure now, it was all so very confusing at her tender age but thought it sounded close enough not to matter too much and that she would just wait and see which way the wind blew.
        
     It was conceivably an ill wind that blew no one any good that day, especially if you were a boy and just happened to be sat by a rock pool next to your little sister...  Having just taken a well earned drink from a neighbouring rock pool, Sockeye the floppiest Springer Spaniel this side of the Pecos decided that he was going to dig a hole and that he would be digging it deep, then changed his mind mid-dig and decided to have a more down to earth back scratching wriggle instead... then promptly flopped over and slid into the hole... life was sweet.  Now covered from nose to tail with every species of deceased shore life usually found frequenting the high water mark Sockeye, in a blinding flash of canine inspiration judged it would be in everyone's best interest were he to have a really good shakedown which always appeared to go down well on these occasions... and give everyone a good peppering, just so they could see exactly what they'd been missing all their lives.  

     "A rock of all places, for goodness sakes..." and what's more, it was this rock, "Yuk..." he jumped up and wiped his palms on the back of his jeans in disgust, then onto his tee-shirt, then sat back down again and began exploring his left nostril in quiet contemplation before finally jambing his hands back into his pockets... what in Heaven's name had his parents been thinking of..? what on earth was his little sister talking about..? and more to the point, what in fact did conceived mean..?  these were the questions that were uppermost in Rocky's mind as he poked an exploratory stick into the rock pool...  a baby crab marooned by the tide scampered sideways beneath a large pebble and stuck one beady eye out at him... Rocky's sister, seemingly in a world of her own, much like the baby crab sat on the edge of the noteworthy rock kicking her heels, an innocent smile curled the corners of her mouth as she quietly hummed a little song of tuneful bliss to herself and considered what further mischief she could possibly pass her brother's way.

     Rocky tossed a piece of driftwood over his sisters shoulder at a nearby flock of seagulls, squabbling over what appeared to be a discarded bag of fish and chips... Sockeye, simply knowing that his little master wanted to play a game of fetch gambolled after the stick, his ears flying courageously in the still Summer air and burst, amid a melee of feathers into their midst, only to romp back moments later, the stick all but forgotten in the excitement but now proudly sporting the derelict bag of leftovers and the odd splash of guano, his tail lolloping magnificently from side to side... and for the moment at least, leaving the fratching seagulls wheeling noisily overhead and to go about their daily business without further interruption... as for Sockeye, it had been a no contest situation.

     After fourteen years of valiant endeavour his father... Red, so named for his vivid shock of wiry hair, was still engaged in man's eternal struggle to win his significant other half's approbation with the manful art of deck-chair assembly, beach barbeque and other significant gentlemanly pursuits, all while strutting his manly stuff, sporting top of the range beach wear in accordance with the social etiquette of the previous decade... his masculine paunch slumping gallantly atop his waistband...  

     After the same fourteen terms of domestic servitude and the same thirteen identically overlooked anniversary cards a certain someone had no intention of allowing another certain someone to forget so much as one of them... his better half, so she insisted would ride rough shod, administering her own brand of justice at every given opportunity, in much the same way you'd brandish a royal-flush on poker night... or better still, a loaded revolver... and that she personally carried the burden of every ill-fated card that Lady Luck had dealt strung about her neck like Adam's original sin on Judgement Day.  

     Red much preferred the shorter, more condensed name of Rock for his son, rather than the longer more protracted Rocky, as he struggled with the wood and canvas lounger badly trapping the mound of his thumb in the process, "Aaargh...!!!" plunging his throbbing hand deep into the cold, soothing rock-pool "aaah...!!!"   Still marooned by the tide, the baby crab stood poised and ready for action as it considered giving this latest intrusion a good offensive nip, then hang on spitefully as it gave Red the final withering once over with the same baleful eye it had successfully used earlier.

     Acknowledging her husbands misfortune with a perfunctory grunt as she rummaged in her beach-bag for the thermos, she refused to be drawn in where thumbs were concerned right now, after all with his DNA sequencing she was convinced he could probably grow a new one within the month... whilst Tina, well... she was just plain worn-out... but still rejoiced in telling anyone who cared to lend a sympathetic ear in her direction... and who in turn was more than happy to listen to the woes of others and went somewhere along the lines of... 'and had she heard any more of poor Mrs Dorey's lingering martyrdom recently..? you know, the downtrodden lady who lives in the next street but one... and how they would all miss her when she was gone... and how she couldn't wait...' and as rumour had it, neither could her husband...

      Feigning to be otherwise engaged, Tina... as her husband, now blowing frantically on his mangled thumb, stumbled backwards over the half erected lounger and with a spine jarring "Ooomph...!!!" landed squarely in Sockeye's subsiding earthworks... professed total disassociation with the entire fiasco as she plunged her nose even deeper into the overdue library book she'd purposely brought on holiday for just such an occasion, making it perfectly clear that she was a tourist and furthermore, planned to stick with the same itinerary once they returned home... and that while she was here, she did not under any circumstances wish to be disturbed, the notice was clearly displayed hanging from the door handle... but if anyone should, then whoever it was did so at their own peril... and she was keeping score... although a mangled thumb she luxuriated, with the same roguish smile curling the corners of her mouth as the one normally found playing around her daughter's... was equally as heart warming.

      All Tina wanted was one week of uninterrupted peace and quiet in Flamborough, preferably with a certain someone out from under her feet then spend what might pass for several undisturbed hours sitting quietly by the rock pool comparing notes on eye makeup and the feminine merits of pedicure with the little crab who, still marooned by the tide was now sat busily knitting four pairs of matching leg warmers in the cool, still water but that was only if that certain someone... a shrill  "AAaargh...!!!" somewhat more desperate than the first, ****** itself upon the as yet unaggressive afternoon as it gyrated across the warm Jurrasic rock and recoiled out to sea... "now where was I", twisting her book uppermost "oh yes..! someone was going to pay..." only now it was going to be sooner rather than later, but only if that certain someone didn't finish the seating arrangements before the Sun disappeared and drift into some backstreet tea-room before all the lemon cheesecake sold out, or was that she reflected, simply too much to ask.

     It was his Surname that Rock found so objectionable, or it had been right up until his little sister's enlightening disclosure, now it was both names Rocky disliked, it would have been far kinder had Rock Salmon been sandwiched between sliced bread and given to Sockeye... who's solemn duty, from the first mouthful to the very last, was to gaze up beseechingly from beneath the kitchen table  and devour anything that passed his way, even the postman had to be quick about his business or have his arm follow the mail through the letter box... then Sockeye would just smack his lips and help himself to seconds.  

     All Rocky's mum had thought about for the last fourteen years was seconds... every last solitary one of them since she'd suffered with an infection of matrimonial neurosis which had deprived her of common sense and her maiden name, from Chovey to that of Salmon and how with hindsight she should have taken an Aspirin instead, wedlock she asserted was everything the name claimed to be and was without doubt the worst move she'd ever made... and what's more was seen as a bad move in whoever's wedding album you just happened to be paying your condolences to.

     Rocky would never be so fortunate on that score, unlike his sister he was stuck with Salmon for good, his grandma-Ann by all accounts had been dead set against the union from word Go and saw his father as someone who would always be out of his depth in whatever rock pool he found himself in, swimming against the tide as it were, rather than going with the flow... and it appeared that Rocky, almost eleven years into a life sentence, was about to flounder in the same murky undertow as the rest of the Salmon family... only he couldn't swim.

     "There"! her husband exclaimed "all finished... better late than never eh', who fancies trying it"? his wife luxuriated over the words 'better late' and wondered whether her new earrings, her latest acquisition would complement formal mourning attire.  Red dusted off the palms of his hands with the certain knowledge of a job well done and cautiously took one step back, looking with justifiable pride at the outcome of his manly exertions of the last two hours, this was what holidays were all about he declared, one man pitted against insurmountable odds...  His wife meanwhile was getting to grips with more odds of her own than you could safely expect to shake a stick at... her husband being one of them.  

     Having gathered her offspring with the promise of verbal earache if they didn't... and finished packing the beach-bag, Tina finally located Sockeye peering out from the shade of an adjacent rock, wisps of feathers poked tellingly from the corners of his mouth, his tail beating mischievously on the shingle decided in one further blaze of canine brainstorming, as Tina attempted to slip his collar on that a game of tag would just about round the day off nicely... Tina then devoted the next ten minutes chasing him amid unrestrained salvo's of cheering from the rest of the family... then bid goodbye to the little crab who, still marooned by the tide waved a friendly pincer in return... and trusted that she wouldn't have too long to wait for the next rising tide back home, then she slid off the rock with a corrosive... "the deck-chair attendant would have shown you" she snapped "and don't forget the deposit when you take them back" then double checking that she landed squarely on his foot she marched past, her floral sun hat jammed resolutely on her head at what she considered a jaunty angle with her equally jaunty, angular children scrambling in hot pursuit, back in the direction of their lodgings.  

     "Woof "..? said a bewildered Sockeye, bringing everyone to an abrupt halt... and with paws the size of place-mats, he wasn't going anywhere he didn't want to... he hunkered down with a look of hurtful accusation on his face, "oh yes you are my lad"! said his mistress "I've met your sort before" and knew exactly where to place the toe of her dainty size-5 as Sockeye, digging his heals in even further created swathes of canine furrows up the beach, leaving her husband the unwitting holder and in sole possession of the overlooked guest-house keys... and somewhat resigned to clean up his own masculinity and dismantle the recently assembled, now redundant deck-chairs by himself... as for Tina, well... she'd had quite enough excitement for one day thank you very much.

     Morning register was always the worst he thought, as they trooped back along the shingle beach, Rocky making surprisingly good furrows of his own... but the rest of the class loved it and saw it as the highlight of each day... Rocky's form teacher, despite showing a brave face was always hard pressed to avoid bursting into hysterics every time she worked her way down the register to the letter 'S' and would attempt to bypass it altogether, jumping from 'R' to 'T' and just prayed that no one else had noticed, but it hadn't taken the class very long to point out her oversight and... "please Miss" they'd all chant "we haven't had Salmon all week" and while the rest of the class were having convulsive fits, Rocky would elbow the lad sat at the next desk in the ribs... and promptly get one hundred lines for his trouble... thank goodness it was school holidays.  Why couldn't they have been given respectable names like Seymour Legge, Rock wondered, who sat over by the window or perhaps the teachers pet, Anna Prentice or even, Robyn Banks at a pinch, but definitely not what they'd been given and certainly not Salmon, they were the most hilarious names he could imagine and if someone was looking down on them right now he thought... then they had a very unique sense of humour indeed and Rock said so... "why" his little sister asked sweetly, "what's wrong with River Salmon".

                                                      ­                         ...   ...   ...*

a work in progress*                                                        ­                                                              240­6

And now, their desperation and panic sink to an all-new low. They actually begin an attack on my sexuality, my familial relations and even my ability to have an ****** ...

  An ******?

  When you stop laughing, take into consideration that they are also regressing throughout all of this because this dysfunction that they suffer from is deeply rooted in their youth. Thus all the silly name calling and accusations that they could not possibly be able to know or prove and yet they state them as fact, like a child. I.E: A child calling out: "Your mama is a *****". Now those words come flying out from a frightened child when they really have no idea whatsoever about this target's mother. It is just an attempt to hurt. Nothing more.

But in this next bit, you can really see this desperation and panicked choice of subjects to try and use "against me", as-it-were. They don't know what else to do. Their ego is on autopilot, telling their fingers what to type ... and their ego is regressing back to childhood. Thus the childish subject matter.


(Name Deleted) Jeff the TROLL..
Has never and will never reach ****** ****** with either female or male partners.

Has never had a stable and fulfilling love life.
Will NOT and can NOT never ever love anyone UNCONDITIONALLY.
Has never been loved UNCONDITIONALLY by anyone male or female.
Has always been consumed unto bitter and fierce hatred of anyone who has!!.
A deep and bitter jealousy leading to violent hatred consume this TROLL.
Get back under your bridge Jeff.
Any replies from you in future will be deleted unread-even your long overdue apology.
AUM

 0 
 1 reply 
15h

Jeff Gaines  SOOOO MUCH FUN!

Ok, (Name Deleted) ... THAT was your most humorous YET!

Your actions are truly textbook of a person with your deep psychological issues. So ... if you will not read any more of my responses to YOUR trolling, then I needn't worry about you then sending a new volley to this one ... Hum? Good, I'm glad. This is truly getting boring. It's not too challenging to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person ... and a predictable one as well.

Sadly, we both know that your silly, over-inflated ego will NEVER allow you to NOT read something written about you. And you not responding would be a cover for your pathetic attempt to have the last word. (Again, we both know THAT won't happen)

Funnier still, you call me a troll, then go to one of my pieces and begin yet another troll campaign on the same day that you claim to not read any more of my responses.

So, you are trying to say ... "I will continue to troll/bully you, but I will read none of your responses, so I win". (hands on your hips, stomping your tiny foot on the floor, no doubt)

You say you are married? I pity this person ... your behavior is that of a post-pubescent, angry little boy with serious ego and self-esteem issues. Her life must be a living hell, as I would bet money that you are an overbearing control freak with an intense king-baby syndrome to boot. Of course, I could be completely wrong and it is SHE who wears the pants in your household and THAT is why you must come here to find some sense of "control" in your world. But that is all conjecture that I do not wish to even BEGIN to address.

Your need to appear like some type of "guru" or all-knowing person who is better than everyone else is deeply seated, so I think it started very early in your life.

As I've said ... 'TEXTBOOK".

So textbook in fact, that I have decided to make this entire exchange into a piece about trolls/bullies and bullying. But don't worry about that ... I will leave it up long enough for you to read it, leave one of your hysterical troll responses to further prove my observations ... and I will have had the last word.

Then, predictably, you will write something about me on your page, then block me so that I can't respond (thus making your poor, decimated ego feel like it had the last word), which will not only further prove my observations about you, but it will lead folks over to my page to read my piece about you.

It'll be fun!

Now, on to your latest huffing and puffing:

"troll"

Once again, you accuse me of something that YOU are guilty of.

Once again, you are crying about me doing something that YOU did first. (I can't stop laughing about this. Just like a bully to cry and whine when he himself is punched in the nose and doesn't receive the response that he is seeking when HE does the punching!)

*** - Kettle/Gander - Goose, little man.

I am only guilty of responding to your trolling ... which is my right. Because, as is well established, you began this little soiree when you called me an "Unreconstructed alcoholic with no personal sense of shame" in a comment about a piece I had written about a friend that had recently died! Sadly pathetic, indeed.

Then, as I've stood up to you, you have spiraled down, like a burning airplane, in your pathetic child-like name calling and such to the point where you did schoolyard (at best) name-calling ("Electronic ****"? I LOVED THAT ONE!) and attacked my race, my religion and political stances (I picture you, a terrified little schoolboy, trembling in a schoolyard, shouting these things as you wee your pants in fear).

Then. you actually threaten me with physical violence (punching me in the nose). Now ... when NONE of that ridiculous posturing and panic-stricken chest-beating has worked, you take a jab at my sexuality and interpersonal relationships?

You are the one with "No personal sense of shame" here. You are publicly getting more and more pathetic and your ego won't even let you see that! Your imaginary pedestal is way too high, (Name Deleted). The fall from there is really going to hurt you.

Attacking my sexuality, love life and relationships?

Really?

There are few straws left for you to grasp at, huh?

Again, having never met me, something you couldn't POSSIBLY make accurate conjectures about. ANYONE reading this would laugh, knowing where this is truly coming from.

My FAVORITE was the bit about me never achieving an ******! It took me SEVERAL minutes to stop laughing about that one.

How old are you (Name Deleted)? 12 ... 13, maybe?

No matter your actual birth age, these silly claims and insinuations are definitely NOT those of a grown-aged man. They are straight out of the playbook of an early teen. To make such an unfounded accusation is nearly disturbing on SO many levels.

Wow ... just ... "WOW".

You spew them from your imaginary ivory tower, the one that makes you believe that you are above everyone else, so they MUST be facts, right?

And in true (Name Deleted) form, you state them like facts to the public.

A public that can readily see that it is all coming from a wee little man, standing on an imaginary pedestal trying to convince the world that he is a "somebody". You should have taken my earlier advice and just closed your mouth. But it is all too late.

Deep nasal breaths (Name Deleted) ... DEEP nasal breaths.

I've no need to respond to this silly notion with tales of my ****** bravado or adventures, nor my past love life. That is none of your business and a true gentleman NEVER kisses and tells.

Besides, THAT is the action of schoolboys and men who are lacking in the "endowment" department ... as is attacking OTHER men about these issues.

I won't bring my family into this either. (Taking shots at my familial relationships (Name Deleted)? Hmmm, I wonder if this a Freudian confession of your own family issues. But I won't go there. It's a can of worms best left on the shelf, I should think. It does pose some possible explanations for your behavior and persona though, doesn't it?)

So ... I hope you stick to your word and "not read/delete" this so that I needn't respond again. But, (long sigh) I highly doubt that you will. Your life AND your behavior are CONTROLLED by your fully delusional ego.

Watch for my upcoming piece, which will feature this exchange for ALL of the world to see. It will be cut and pasted verbatim, and I will even add a few additional notes.

I'm going to use it to help educate others on how to recognize and handle egotistical, cowardly, wanna-be bullies such as yourself.

Please, allow me to at least thank you for writing all these responses and demonstrating in such a textbook fashion, how your type acts and reacts and even letting us see inside of you a bit, thus letting us see what makes you tick.

And most importantly ... THANKS for the laughs.



This last one is where we can see the bottom of their barrel. As predicted, they can NOT “not read/erase” something that is written about them. Their ego would NEVER allow this. They MUST read and respond because THEY must have the last word. So, we are back to schoolyard names like “**** wipe”, attacking my sexuality and chest beating by attempting to assert that I have somehow “FAILED”. (You see? They HAVE to win, so it is easier to just let them think that they did.) After this, they can only lash out with slurs against my Mother and such. I think I've made my point here.

And now you, dear Reader, will have seen nearly the complete downward spiral of a bully/hater/troll when you stand up to them. I thank them for their 'help” in making this new piece and then show that I am the better man and offer to let them have the last word. I've no idea what that will be, but if you would like to see it, just go to the piece titled “Message To A Friend” (Link in notes below), it will be there soon enough. Their desperation to be dominant is so readily apparent here, it is sad. As I said, they can't help it. Their ego is on autopilot because these issues are so deeply ingrained in their self.



(Name Deleted) To Jeff the TROLLISH LOSER.
WOW so many words just to prove you are a piece of white liberal **** wipe.
You must really hate life with your filthy mouth spewing out
non stop TROLL NONSENSE--as if its a Fight or a Battle to be fought with any stranger just to prove you are a MAN!!!.
WELL JEFF YOUVE FAILED.
YOU are not a MAN but you do have a Male Body.
Never will be a Man.
Always a sexless TROLL.
.
 0 
 1 reply 
13h

Jeff Gaines Well, (Name Deleted), I want to sincerely thank you for all of this. You don't realize it now, but you have helped me to compose something that will, in turn, help other people. It is very admirable. I/we have taken something awful and made it into something positive.

Balance in the universe doesn't get any better than that. Besides, from here, there's not much left but you making verbal attacks on my Mother and such. Even I won't let you reduce yourself to that.

I wish you well. I hope all of your dreams and wishes come true, and moreover, I hope you get the help you need to finally find peace. A peace that will let you stop trying to belittle others with your condescension and bullying demeanor. I truly hope that you can release the tortures that keep you with this agonizing persona. It must be horrible for you.

And again, THANK YOU!

Leave any message you wish after this so that you can sleep well, knowing that you had the last word. I know how important that is to you and your ego, so have it ... as a gift from me to you in appreciation for all of your help here. I promise ... I won't respond. It's all you, Dude. My job is done here.



This one, sent to me on a completely different page/post, involves the “truce”. They did this on the comment section of another piece called “I'm Sorry If You Miss Me” (Link in notes below). They couldn't do this where we had been in our volley, that might appear as a weakness to someone who'd been watching it all.

They offer an olive branch (for all that's worth), but with it, they also offer to take me to enlightenment and save me somehow. None of this is sincere in ANY way. It is once again, them, trying to condescend to me that I am in need of THEIR help. That I am less, and they are more. Just as I described in the beginning of Part I.

(Also note that upon realizing that this has all been an analyzation of them and their behavior, they attempt to spin it around that it is THEM analyzing ME. Once again, textbook predictability)

If for some silly reason, I took this “truce”, they would feel that they have dominated me and nothing would change. As you read it, you will see just what I mean, especially in the way they go on and on about how accomplished they are at 'helping” others and how they can lead me to some new and better existence, as I am such a “sick human being”. The megalomaniac is really showing through here:



(Name Deleted) Dearest TROLL,
TRUCE?

Though you so obviously write vicious TROLL Gibberish you so obviously cant spell the word gibberish correctly.Not very Self referential eh?.
Diminishes your projected self mage of being a 'nice guy' somewhat eh?.
I have analysed your crippling problem and can offer you the only way out of it.
The presence of an individual Mind superimposed in strategic command over all your brain centres in the last hour before birth has led to you being NON Self Realised(which is your problem basically).
You don't know your Cosmic Identity--and the Mind in your head has led you to believe that you are not the Individual Isness but are the Mind created operating device the Conditioned Identity.
This replaces the ID and takes control over the Glucose and Oxygen supply to all Brain centres from the Individual Isness.
Send me a Poste Restante address and I will send you(for FREE)a copy of my only CD--on which I play Alto Saxophone and Alto Clarinet andAmplified C Silver Concert Flute and my wife who is my life companion plays Electric Bass.
We use the name Maneesha which is Sanskrit for Beyond Enlightenment.
The CD which is called 'Rolling Home' is as recorded--every track in one take-no electronic messing around!.
It was recorded under strict Tibetan Tantric rules of performance--I was a Flute playing Pujari in a Temple on the Burning Ghat in Varanasi where I played for Hindu Cremations for 6 years in the 1970s.
The intention is that the listener--you--will become Mindless .According to the sacred texts of the Vedas one must become Mindless as that is the only openly accepted way to reach the final end of Yoga Meditation.
Temporary union with the Isness of the Unverse.
Yes I know you will go off into paroxysms of laughter at my very absurdwritings but I must offer as you are a very sick human being--and your TROLLISH sickness will only get much worser as you age.
I have offered.
You will ridicule me.
Your choice.



And there you have it, dear Reader. A (disturbing) look, into a very disturbed mind. I am not, nor would I ever condone or recommend doing what I have done here. I did this for you. I had the idea while reading one of their demeaning comments on someone's daily. So, when they came to my daily … I put my hook in the water. The best thing you can do is give no reaction. Soon enough, they will go off in search of the attention they so desperately need and leave you in peace. As I have shown you here, engaging them brings a never-ending string of buckets … buckets FILLED with waste-of-time.

All you need to do is keep in mind this one simple thing when they write horrible things in your comment sections, or you encounter one in your life …

Something you are doing, or have done, is SO amazingly awesome, that it brought out ALL that darkness in them!

Just ignore them and they will go find someone else to pick on. Give them an “LOL” and ignore all that follows, or just delete their comment and block them. Your time is limited and so very precious. Don't give one second of it to these types of people. It simply isn't worth it.

Besides … You have MORE amazing things to accomplish!

                   Big Love,
                           ~Jeff

Through the years of transparent existence, a void of illusion becomes apparent and slowly becomes nothing more than a side-show. The dribbling glimpses of truth fade like the bones of old. No man can create such an indentation in the mold of space and time that the observers at the end of eternity will render their imprint upon the infinite gaian consciousness and body of universal proportions of any significance. Even the earth laughs at such ridiculousness. The ego is a strong bind - it can create maya and attachment to such fantasies easier than a bear can find it's ideal location for a winter hibernation. It's a world of craziness, where nobody knows whats going on.
The man woke up from his deep slumber. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Squinting, he looked around, studying his surroundings and taking mental notes. His thoughts are ***** scribblings on a subway wall. His heart is beating, searching for a band to play in rhythm with. His soul is aching from loneliness and desire. His feet lifelessly surrender their position up on the couch and find the floor, shrieking from the cold of the linoleum. His presence is that of a bird with a broken wing still attempting to fly. He stands up and stares at the ceiling.
The room is small. Four walls of white, one window and one door. The window looks out over the grey city. The door leads into another room - the room most would call a kitchen. In the small room before the kitchen, there is only a couch and a blanket. No lamp. No television. No electricity. No electricity in the entire apartment. The kitchen holds no refrigerator, no oven, no toaster, no pantry. It's called a kitchen because that's what it would be if somebody else was living in the apartment. There are two bananas on the floor along with a box of wheat flake cereal. No milk, no bowl, no spoon. The bananas are almost entirely rotten. The box of cereal is on its side, leaking bits of wheat flake, resembling a dying soldier on a battlefield who's losing all his blood through the wound on his neck rather than a box of the West's favorite morning go-to breakfast.
The man is observing the cracks on the ceiling, along with various stains with no known origin to him. His eyes dart from one corner of the room to another to another to another and back to the first. Spiderwebs. Dust. Decay. A perfect example of life's ability to take care of itself. Biodecomposition. When no one is around to look after a house, over time, Nature will take over it. Vines will grow and overcome the walls. Rain will fall and wear away the roof and general structure. Winds will blow, taking blindshots at the weakened building, eventually cause it to fall. Nothing lasts forever. Everything goes back to where it came from.
The man now steps into the "kitchen", where he begins to study the stains on the ceiling in this room as well. His mind is electric, with no thoughts in the usual sense, but rather just a vague presence of void to help the ceiling stains feel important. He is the space through which everything around him can exist to their fullest potential. After a measureless amount of time, the man walks over to the sad bits of food on the far side of the small room. He picks up one of he bananas and studies it. He feels where it came from. The tropical skies and smells and earth of Costa Rica. There's a little sticker on the banana that says so. Each bit of fruit in the markets nowadays are individually stickered...for prosperity, one can only assume. Though it's best to never assume anything, and instead be open to everything - afterall, anything is possible, at any time. Likelihood and probability are also important factors in the universal constitution of existence. What was the likelihood that this man, when he was a little child, figured he'd be holding a rotten banana from Costa Rica in his hand inside of a kitchenless kitchen? Who knows? The man wouldn't be able to recall his thoughts from early childhood - he barely remembers waking up and experiencing the chilling sensation of early morning linoleum. In any case, everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be, for it wouldn't be if it wasn't meant to be.
He slowly peels open the banana peel to reveal this brown, soft mush of tropical fruit. Just the way he likes it - soft enough to chew with his toothless mouth. He takes his time consuming the fruit, savoring every particle. After a good bit of time, the fruit is gone and all the man is left with is the peel. He takes another good look at the peel, once again imagining where this particular banana came from. Then, in two swift bites, he devours the entire peel - sticker included. He figures the sticker came from Costa Rica as well, and thus must carry that Costa Rican tropical vibe of health and longevity. His eyes then focus on the wheat flake cereal lying next to the other rotting banana. He bends down and picks up the box. The box is upside down when he picks it up and so the cereal spills out all over the area of the "kitchen" floor that seems to be dedicated to eating food. The remaining banana is now covered in wheat cereal.
The man drops the box back onto the floor and takes a seat alongside of it. His fingers hold his face from drooping onto his knees. His knees are keeping his torso from melting onto the floor. He screams with no sound. The pains of existence seep through his hollow eyes and into the receptors of his soul. He screams with no sound. He’s as empty as the American Dream.
The cobwebs are spreading from the corners of the room and are aimed for the human form sitting in the “kitchen” screaming silence with all his might. The cobwebs grow. The commuters of the city highway are commuting. A thousand birthday celebrations are being had. A thousand people sexually uninhibited, joyously seizing the moment in disgusting miraculous unity of mortal physical desire. Junkies are roaming the street for their morning fix. Teaching are teaching their students absolute lies. Governments are stealing the lives of billions and counting. And the cobwebs are growing, encompassing entire walls. The the ceiling. Then the floor. Then they crawl up the lifeless legs of the man who sits screaming in silence and the spiders overtake his body. They stitch his mouth shut and close his eyes with their spun proteinaceous spider silk. The man withers into the wind of time and vanishes from the world without a single soul taking notice. Leaving nothing behind except an empty apartment, overdue rent, and a number in the system of Western Society. His spirit cries sorrowfully as it flees the clutches of molecular existence into the realm of eternity and space. Heaven. He made it. He looks down at the people of the world he just left and sings a pitiful song for them. He’ll see them again. Afterall, they are Him. And He is Them. His Heart, the Sun, burns as the world he left turns. The lessons He left are slowly being learned. One by one. But still, there’s a space between the atoms, between the cells. And that space can never disappear. Without it, there would be no point to the story. All would be one, as it is, and there’s be nothing to overcome. No triumph. Just an endless loop of bizarre beautiful experience and pattern.

“leave at your own chosen speed”

always,
Dylan inserts a phrase that haunts,
indestructible permafrost,
played in slow and ever slower reverb all life long,
for it’s intuitive and you recognize it too well
as the best companion to the sour ending of another love affair

(but! this one differs; called love yourself)

the sad of a dying love, remembering the steady drift away,
capped by a casual remark that doesn’t sting but
cuts a Y on your chest, a lover’s coroner courtesy,
the bad humours permitted to at long last healthy escape

you’re staggered but say nothing for
speed
is a changeable elf, a mischievous devil,
requiring constant monitoring cause you moving,
but the speed limit alway a reflection of the road you’re on

speed is a tag along to show the overall fit still works,
though now far from the obvious and familiar
and the inspiration modifies,
so you retrofit untill the parts are incapable of
bending to new demands, contours unfamiliar, old plans no good

“leave at your own chosen speed”

for I am leaving you as I leave myself,
beaches erode,  lighthouses corrode, the salt cannot be refused,
the earth demands your return as the lease is deemed
non-renewable and the space where the date shall be inserted,
is parcel of the contract and though blank, certain to be fulfilled

the body erodes, the ***** parts corrode,
and this season of the new year^ comes with the usual disclaimer
recited on the tenth day from today

‘who will live, who will die,’^^

taught to you as a young-in, a child who can comprehend
even before manhood arrives, comprehend that life ends,
all good things and it ain’t no use, born compromised, but
“don’t think twice, it’s alright”

the slate you have written overdue for a prudent clean wet erasure,
so you begin to leave at your own chosen speed,
which is kind of nice, even cool, organizing your papers,
write with contented softness that so long eluded,
now come easy heady peasy

after a life of reciting poetry, good bad and always too long,
the pressure is on and off, side by side, even a dimming bulb
sheds some light, revealing what yet needs revealing

that Day of Atonement annual visitor,^^^ he/she of impish humors,
makes Pandora play a new station,
‘dimming of the day,’
reminder that it gave you a piece of an unowned heart to hold,
leased temporarily but the temp is roaring,
who, boo hoo, for you?

life and love is all about leaving,
the pen in penitent gone dry, no refills in this new world,
wish that **** rooster would stop crowing at
the break of sundown,^^^^  when I'll be gone
I'll be travelling on, for when the new day begins,
that’s my own signature personal gravestone marker,
the sundown poet
------------------------------------------------------------­-------



~the first day of the new year on the Jewish calendar
  Mon, 10 September 2018 =  1st of Tishrei, 5779

  Rosh Hashana 5779

Like a child enlightened by heightened curiosity,
So is a native poet by poetic luminosity.
A verse in sight and sound devoid of modern flair,
For poetic convention the poet does not care.
So, take this vague verse as one roaring rhyme,
And take it as verbiage very overdue in time.
Unjustly sunken voices the poet seeks to hear,
Battling a torrent history...above, below, and near.
This inquisitive writer infers a present too dismal,
As around an angry sea lies an origin; abysmal.
Rejecting fables history’s assassins inked true,
The writer seeks fair chroniclers, but wreckage was their due.
Sought is Illyria, a place far from here.
Land said "not to exist," but its roots still reappear;
Fabricated history most poets cannot fathom,
Quelled grandiose splendor serves political stratum.
Calling curious minds to ponder this heck of a theory,
First, consider the writer's roots with impartial query.
What the Illyrian believed in was a life well spent,
Not man-led "guidance" begging cents to repent.
Since Illyria’s rebel ship sailed onto history a fright,
Shakespeare's pen amorously inked the 'Twelfth Night.’
Around Illyria’s outskirts sly mythology prevails.
Modern Illyria’s pervasion of such mythology still fails.
So, how does one interpret Illyria’s butchered will,
As her Godless schism fibbing history faux fills?
Her feeble-minded native is essentially to blame
For their grand, deceptive role in the imperialist’s game.
Brutal eradication of Illyria’s vocal reason
Deem all native conspirators of ultimate treason.
As the State buries the dissident's piercing wits,
A treasonous dog barks, upon foreign command he *****.
This wormlike betrayal, painted by his foreign master,
Is an art to be repeated in future governing disaster.
In the European south roam these bad hounds of species,
Anatomical sketches of Europe's rear excreting feces.
A pile all imperialists eject with laxative ease,
A pile all imperialists still smear as they please.
Above Illyrian graves (those below made to inspire)
The ***** dog dances, blind to his own fate in fire.
This ****** work of art, not a site for you and eye,
Is an emblematic governance gagging an eerie cry.
As today’s political pawns (in corruption they engage),
Illyria’s distinctive scions remain fools on a stage.
Our bodies dance and sway like silly puppets at play,
Our minds confined to idiocy as the socialist's prey.
So,  a poet's jingle jangle on probing minds they should linger,
As besought are worthy scions who must leave behind a "finger."

Sunday will come
Just a few days from now
An eternity to wait
To say what is long overdue

Sunday will come
And we will confess ourselves
Fear will hold us
Hope will push us closer

And on Sunday
When we both shake in emotion
My hand in yours
We will find a way to work through

I feel invisible
Yet you claim(ed) I am the air you breathe
And perhaps like air I am always present,
But presently forgotten

The heaviness of your hush is crushing me with empty blows
This silence leads me to wander down a path cloaked in a heavy mist
That whispers harsh truths such as:
Our hopeless, fictitious, drawn out infatuation is like
A library book that was checked out last March
You underlined and doggie-paged the first few chapters
And then left it on your shelf to collect dust all of April and May

I foolishly kept begging you to finish the book
Read the last sentence
Take time to skim over the epilogue
Please
Find your way to the back cover

I foolishly ignored your “I can’t”s

And now it’s late August and our love is long overdue,
In the opposite sense of what the phrase typically means

I write with angry lead because
I am too stubborn to admit I just filled a trash bin with tissues
And that the cuffed sleeves of my flannel
Are damp like grass’s morning dew

I have so much more to say,
Although I cannot find the words
To say anything more than



You should’ve written.

Because two weeks of nothing
Was enough for me to realize that you are just a passing breeze
Seldom present, presently becoming something of the past.

If I must have three reasons
Two good, one overdue
And if the two are true
Then if I can help me I will
Learning to help you
Something I might like
So whisper sweet your nothings
Say then just three
to contribute, make them true
So I can believe
As I am counting on you
False things fall apart
Let one have me
If one is you
Then the last will be
Three... Overdue.

The mug stains leapfrog a linoleum asphalt countertop, sunbathing in the breakfast nook.
A magazine proofreads a hole in a bagel. Scanning for clues to the whereabouts
Of a Jewish heart. Beads of Oolong tea archipelago from a resting kettle
All the way to the 'good ' China. A cup on a pearl, laying flat… ear to the ground.
Listening to the stories only Formica can tell. Deciphering the steam
Rising from a steep. Curling whiskers into omens, embroidered upon a shaft of light
Heaven sent. Postage dew. Gilding quaint luxuries, tucked in a cozy roost
Smelling of oak musk and slow roasted dreams, evaporating before memory may lay claim
To the riddles of Morpheus. There’s an aire of Return.  
It molts in the bacon fats hovering in the strata unique to kitchen islands lousy with active volcanoes that shuffle in stocking feet and terry cloth bathrobes. Restless and foggy minded.
Looking for the keys. And...
Chewing a thumbnail. Staring out the window. Where there used to be a car in the driveway. But the officer flagged a taxi. Explains the migraine, like a Vulcan; stoically flipping switches in a fuse box wired to a vague recollection of a soiree.
All the while holding a pitchfork and today's horoscope.
For irony and street cred.

{ But out of cream cheese. }

Concurrently... This part of the house still has the rustic naivete of a celibate beatnik picking teeth with a signature pen presenting an Hawaiian girl with a vanishing skirt; blinking in and out of Vaud-villainy, like Erwin Schrödinger’s Cat. A kind of hole in a barge with an ornate cubby; loitering with sugar cubes and a bendy plastic fern.
Like the foyer to a room, still under construction.
      A busy little metaphor, lounging around the east wing of a humble abode… like news clippings in a mason jar… it’s superfluous handle threading a ceramic eye.
Like a stainless steel joke under a refrigerator magnet, pinned to a plate in your forehead. As any lamp-shade with ambition.  
      Playing to a rough Cloud, hung over an ashtray; that has seen Better Days - envy the baroque occlusion of monotony and routine, merging a hangover - into morning traffic. Replete with modest gains.
And Horizons that stab bleary eyes that would know a gypsy
By the weight of her purse…
     When the day begins, it gains a foothold by the spine of an overdue book, reclining adjacent runcible spoons and antique kitche. As a bathroom light squeaks between a door and a frame.
As ancillary and precise as a beacon for a blindfold.

Like turpentine palming a brick. And Wagner.

A note slid underneath my door.
How marks on a page can crush the heart worse than
steel breaks the bone.

The oceans tide has come to take me away.
I dove twice as deep.
In laughter apon the first.
In regret of that which I could not grasp.
Glimmers of light lost in the waters depth cast
so far away.

Missed lines the old sometime must think young.
I found  hope on nothing's  promised embrace.
A ring of lies one moment of truth.

Remember  me for times  I can no longer attend.
Troubles untold  sometimes outside is easier than
A insiders view.

The cards werent  right and thoose at the table
knew a jokers laugh was a far off cry.
No words can be spoken in the emptyness
of loss for which there is no return.

A shore apart a heart jaded but always true.
no blame  is to be placed for a road must surely
one day end.

The words read last a souls release.
The tide must always kiss the sea.
A city of emptyness reflects all that is left
inside of me.

Stay  as was my plea.
Crazy how could anyone truley know the madness
that is seldom understood by even me.

Words apon a page ive traded ink for life blood
of my soul.
I left the note  unread.

As spiders cast webs woven of time.
Cold as the peace final rest to torment.
That is the barbwire  within my head.

It was time for a much overdue rest.
A co writter in life is better than apon the page.
Niether is my path no  hope as the clock
points to a dark hour shadows have returned to stay.

Heaven was mine for a moment.
Hell is more my style I  guess.
As in stories and legends im already on my
way.

Voices all speak within there own key.
Torment, addiction and isolation.
Are all thats left of me.

i saw the greater part of creation succumb to the piracy of numbness-
the nimbus rage of torpedo cigars blowing blue-grey smoke into the dark lashes of love-struck little *****-
thirsty angels with tangled curls of hair bashing their heads against bathroom walls
screaming under their breath,  not enough.
i saw the green plastic- and her orange eyes
and the soap-bubbles on the sidewalk
and the soap frothing all over the sidewalk
and the glass that took off like pristine bullets in every direction
and-
blood running over the ***-covered lip of the curb, flowing into the street-
down to the drain, dripping into the hungry orifices of the big metal grate
into sewer pipe salvation-
destination unhindered by your humanity.
god, this must be insanity
and not even the good kind.
but
let's go watch the fire-works up on the roof-
crawl out the attic window
i let you go first to watch the electric calico
trickle down your legs like a promise.
i like the birds that fly in and out of your hair-
the handkerchief at your hip,
i like the crazy and the cool-
the too cute for comfort
and the fake angsty danger of your darkside.
like morphine-
the band or the drug?
you're ironically detached
with your semi-satanic languidity-
and overdue serenity
[i got a few overdue books at the library.]
[they closed the library a long time ago.]
i like to play catch with your presence-
our eyes with the back-and-forth,
the half-sent glances when we think the other isn't looking.
but we were always looking-
or at least i was always looking at you.
i could see half inside of you.
you were always half-naked-
in the scanty rags of the latest fashion.
when you breathed it was like nectarine noises-
and muffled yelps of love.
i watched your shirt move up and down on your chest
and told you about "never knows best"
it seems
i've seen the greater part of creation succumb to the supreme softness
and the best laid plans of motorcycles and mini-vans fall to pieces in my palms.
and you were the greatest creation i saw on the roof that day.
don't bat another pretty little eyelash at those tiny flashing pieces that go past like ricochets
it's just one more night of strangeness
and then you can be free again.

Id love a big fat ****
Or a wrinkled up *******
An ugly looking hag
Who wants a ******* ****

If I had a big fat *****, with a big fat bucket
I'd lay between her fleshy thighs, and definitely **** it
My thrusting **** inside her ****, is where I'd like to tuck it
Spunking up would be sublime, when I lick and **** it

When your about to **** the fat, it takes a certain knack
Stuffed up fishy **** *****, or **** ******* round the back
A nice piece of chunky ****, with a big long sweaty crack
Fatty *** holes make you hard ,my **** would not be slack

I would ride a big large Gal, just like a waterbed
Bathroom ******* would be fun, as well as in the shed
Spunking up between her legs, cream cheese would then be spread
When both holes are full of ***, she can **** my **** instead

And after I have finished, with all of those fat *******
Something different I would want, maybe some old wrinkled witches
All wearing apple gatherers, and big large ******* britches
Older ***** long overdue, scratching long lost itches

A lot of fun I could have, in an old folks place
Disrobed willing grannies *****, stuffed right in my face
At least eight bits of gristle ******, a display of my disgrace
With each granny ****** in turn, if they can stand the pace

As I lift their skirts up their knickers I would sniff
I'm hoping that old fannies good, and they don't smell or whiff
The smell of old used granny ****, is probably just a myth
But I won't let it bother me, as long as I get stiff

I wouldn't even care, if they wore crap NHS glasses
As long as I could **** and ***, inside there wrinkled arses
I would **** them old ****** , all from different classes
Some of them in wheelchairs and some with heart bypasses.

It's irrelevant how fat you are, I really do not mind
As long as you are willing, and your *****'s wet and kind
And if you like it up the ****, then I'm that way inclined
******* ***** is quite fine, so is ******* from behind

So come on girls fat or old, all slags are a possibility
Your sexuality can flood out, there's no need for negativity
I'm willing to **** who comes along, to the best of my ability
Just make sure that I stay stiff, and maintain my agility

An ecosystem found upon
An outer crust of dust
Inside abode without a lawn
With tenant taming rust.

Sitting stagnant, songs of stellar
Sing sublime lines
Through minds that remain in cellar,
Never seeing the pines.

Many stagnant years have passed,
Detectives overdue,
The body brought them all aghast,
The stench, the dust, and view.

An ecosystem found upon
An outer crust of dust
Inside abode without a lawn
With tenant taming rust.

i want nothing to do with you
the way your bones once held mine
i wish they would all fall apart
collapse at the sight of me
independent
melt into mine like they once did
wake up and realize the sensations were real for once
it wasn't a dream you woke up from
but that you and i never fell asleep at all
awake
lost
deep in thought
too stubborn to realize whats in front of us
dropping on hands and knees
screaming why
my hand is held out to you
but this is long overdue
i don't know what else to do
just grab on already its been long enough
swallow your pride
and for once
we can finally say that we're where we want to be
just like always
you'll turn and take it as a joke
and leave me tangled undone

The sun shone on your last morning,
2 hours later snow fell.
Maybe this was you, gracing us once more.

You stood as a contrast to our black clothing,
your innocence, kindness,
against my guilt.
I should have called, I could have heard you one last time.

I am overdue for this apology.
It has taken me nine days to write this,
I'm not sure what was stopping me,
but I couldn't possibly utter these words.

We sat in a row, listening to old relatives speak about their past with you,
and all I could feel was your cold, thin hand grasping mine,
your large blue eyes looking for me with hope,
your beautiful voice singing me to sleep:
"in der Früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder erweckt"...

I wish I could convince myself;
God decided it was your time to go, as you had told me he would.
But I know you suffered and I know that He wouldn't have taken you
before I could have said goodbye.
Or maybe this was His plan, to make us suffer for you, for once.

In response to a sardonic essay written in the recent Saturday Nation by Proffessor Ekara Kabaji, wryly  disregarding the position of Kwani in the global literary movement within and without Kenya , I beg to be permitted a leeway  to observe that any literature, orature, music,drama,cyborature,prisnorature,wallorature,streetorature , sculptor  or painting can effortlessly thrive and off course it has been thriving without professors of  literature, but the reverse is not possible as a proffessor of literature cannot be when literature is not there. Facts in support of this position are bare and readily available in the history of world literature, why they may not be seen is perhaps the blurring effects from tor like protuberant irrelevance of professors of literature in a given literary civilization.
A starting point is that literature exists as a people’s subculture, it can be written or not written like the case of orature which survive as an educative and aesthetic value stored in the collective memory of the given people. The people to be pillars of this collectivity of the memory are not differentiated by academic ranking for superlativity of any reason, but they are simply a people of that place, that community, that time, that heritage, that era and that collective experience. Writing it down is an option, but novels and other written matter is not a sine qua non for existence of literature in such situations. This is not a bolekaja of literature as Proffessor Ekara Kabaji would readily put, but it is a stretch towards realism that it is only people’s condition that creates literature. Poverty, slavery, colonialism, ***, marriage, circumcision, migration, or any other conditions experienced as collective experience of the people is stored or even stowed away in the collective memory of the people as their literature. Literature does not come from idealistic imagination of an educated person.
Historical experience of written literature informs us that the good novels, prose, drama and poetry were written before human society had people known as professors of literature. I want you my dear reader and You-Tube audience to reflect on the Cantos of Dante Alighieri in Italy, novels of Geoffrey Chaucer in England, Herman Melville and his Moby **** in Americas, poetry of Omar khwarisim in Persia, Homeric epics of Odyssey in Greece and the Makonde sculptures of Africa and finally link your reflections to Romesh Tulsi who grafted the Indian epic poetry of Ramayana and Mahabharata. At least you must realize that in those days literature was good, full of charm, very aesthetic and superbly entertaining. This leads to a re-justification that, weapon of theory is not useful in literature. University taught theories of literature have helped not in the growth of literature as compared to the role played by folk culture.
Keen observation will lead you dear reader, down to revelations that; professors of literature squarely depend on the thespic work of the people who are not substantially educated to make a living. Let me share with you the story about Dr. Tom Odhiambo who went to University of Witwasterand in South Africa for post graduate studies in literature only to do his Doctoral research on books of David G Maillu. Maillu is a Kenyan writer, he did not finish his second year of secondary school education but he has been successfully writing poetry and prose for the past three decades. His successful romantic work is After 4.30, probably sarcasm against Kenyan office capitalism, while his eclectic, philosophical and scholarly work is the Broken Drum. Maillu has many other works on his name. But the point is that Dr. Odhiambo now teaches at University of Nairobi in the capacity of senior lecturer in Literature. What makes him to put food on the table is the effort of un-educated person in the name of David Maillu. Dr.Odhiambo himself has not written any book we can mention him for, apart from regular literary journalism he is often involved in on the platforms of the Literary discourse in the Kenyan Saturday Nation which are in turn regular Harangues and ripostes among literature teachers at the University of Nairobi, the likes of Dr Siundu, Proffessor wanjala Chris and Evans Mwangi just but to mention by not being oblivious to professors; Indangasi and Shitanda.
No study has yet been done to establish the role of university professors on growth of African literature. One is overdue. Results may be positive role on negative role, myself I contemplate negative role. Especially when I reflect on how the African literati reacted on the publication of Amos Tutuola’s book The Palm Wine Drinkard. The reactions were more disparaging than appreciative. Taban Lo Liyong reacted to this book by calling Amos Tutuola the son of Zinjathropus as well as taking a self styled intellectual responsibility in form of writing a more  schooled version of this book; Taking Wisdom up the Palm Tree. Nigerians of Igbo (Tutuola being a Yoruba) nation cowed from being associated with the book as it had shamefully broken English, broken grammar etc. Wole Soyinka had a blemished stand, but it is only Achebe who came out forthrightly to appreciate the book in its efforts to Africanize English for the purpose of African literature. Courtesy of Igbo wisdom. But in a nutshell, what had happened is that Amos Tutuola had taken a plunge to contribute towards written literature in Africa.
One more contemplated result from the research about professors and African literature can be that apart from their role of criticism, professors write very boring books. A ready point of reference is deliberate and reasonless obscurantism taken Wole Soyinka in all of his books, Soyinka’s books are difficult to understand, sombre, without humour and not capable to entertain an average reader. In fact Wole Soyinka has been writing for himself but not for the people. No common man can quote Soyinka the way Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is quoted. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart when he had not began his graduate studies. However, he did not escape the obvious mistake of professors to become obscure in the Anthills of the Savanna, the book he wrote when he had become a proffessor. This is on a sharp contrast to entertaining effectiveness, simplicity and thematic diversity of Captain Elechi Amadi, Amadi who studied chemistry but not literature. He does not have a second degree, but his books from the Concubine, The great Ponds, and Sunset in the Biafra and Isibiru are as spellbinding as their counterparts in Russia.
Kenyan scenario has Ngugi wa Thiongio, he displayed eminence in his first two books; Weep not Child and The River Between. These ones he wrote when he was not yet educated, as he was still an undergraduate student at Makerere University. But later on Ngugi became a victim of prosaic socialism, an ideology that warped his literary imagination only to put him in a paradoxical situation as an African communist who works in America as an English teacher at Irvine University. His other outcrops are misuse of Mau Mau as a literary springboard and campaigning for use of Kikuyu dialect of the Gema languages to become literary Lingua Franca in Kenya. Such efforts of Ngugi are only a disservice to Kenyan literature in particular and African literature collectively. Ngugi having been a student of Caribbean literature has failed to borrow from global literary behaviour of Vitian S. Naipaul.  Ngugi’s position also contrasts sharply with Meja Mwangi whose urban folksy literature swollen with diversity in themes has remained spellbinding entertainers.
The world’s literary thirsty has never failed to get palatable quenching from the works of Harriet Bechetor Stowe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare, Alice Munro, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, John Steinbeck, Garcia Guarbriel Marguez,Salman Rushdie, Lenrie Peters, Cyprian Ekwenzi, Nikolai Gogol,I mean the list is as long as the road from Kaduna to Cape town. Contribution of these writers to global literature has been and is still critical. Literature could not be without them. Surprisingly, most of them are not trained in literature; they don’t have a diploma or a degree in literature, but some have won literature Nobel Prize and other prizes. Alfred Nobel himself the author of a classical novella, The Nemesis, does not have University education in literature. What else can we say apart from acceding to the truth that literature can blossom without professors, the Vis-à-vis an obvious and stark impossibility.

O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we ****** ourselves into the wind
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds.
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one.
And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware,
in their magnificence, of any weaknesss.

But we, while wholly concentrating on one thing,
already feel the pressure of another.
Hatred is our first response. And lovers,
are they not forever invading one another's
boundaries? -although they promised space,
hunting and homeland. Then, for a sketch
drawn at a moment's impulse, a ground of contrast
is prepared, painfully, so that we may see.
For they are most exact with us. We do not know
the contours of our feelings. We only know
what shapes them from the outside.

Who has not sat, afraid, before his own heart's
curtain? It lifted and displayed the scenery
of departure. Easy to understand. The well-known
garden swaying just a little. Then came the dancer.
Not he! Enough! However lightly he pretends to move:
he is just disguised, costumed, an ordinary man
who enters through the kitchen when coming home.
I will not have these half-filled human masks;
better the puppet. It at least is full.
I will endure this well-stuffed doll, the wire,
the face that is nothing but appearance. Here out front
I wait. Even if the lights go down and I am told:
"There's nothing more to come," -even if
the grayish drafts of emptiness come drifting down
from the deserted stage -even if not one
of my now silent forebears sist beside me
any longer, not a woman, not even a boy-
he with the brown and squinting eyes-:
I'll still remain. For one can always watch.

Am I not right? You, to whom life would taste
so bitter, Father, after you - for my sake -
slipped of mine, that first muddy infusion
of my necessity. You kept on tasting, Father,
as I kept on growing, troubled by the aftertaste
of my so strange a future as you kept searching
my unfocused gaze -you who, so often since
you died, have been afraid for my well-being,
within my deepest hope, relinquishing that calmness,
the realms of equanimity such as the dead possess
for my so small fate -Am I not right?

And you, my parents, am I not right? You who loved me
for that small beginning of my love for you
from which I always shyly turned away, because
the distance in your features grew, changed,
even while I loved it, into cosmic space
where you no longer were...: and when I feel
inclined to wait before the puppet stage, no,
rather to stare at is so intensely that in the end
to counter-balance my searching gaze, an angel
has to come as an actor, and begin manipulating
the lifeless bodies of the puppets to perform.
Angel and puppet! Now at last there is a play!
Then what we seperate can come together by our
very presence. And only then the entire cycle
of our own life-seasons is revealed and set in motion.
Above, beyond us, the angel plays. Look:
must not the dying notice how unreal, how full
of pretense is all that we accomplish here, where
nothing is to be itself. O hours of childhood,
when behind each shape more that the past lay hidden,
when that which lay before us was not the future.

We grew, of course, and sometimes were impatient
in growing up, half for the sake of pleasing those
with nothing left but their own grown-upness.
Yet, when alone, we entertained ourselves
with what alone endures, we would stand there
in the infinite space that spans the world and toys,
upon a place, which from the first beginnniing
had been prepared to serve a pure event.

Who shows a child just as it stands? Who places him
within his constellation, with the measuring-rod
of distance in his hand. Who makes his death
from gray bread that grows hard, -or leaves
it there inside his rounded mouth, jagged as the core
of a sweet apple?.......The minds of murderers
are easily comprehended. But this: to contain death,
the whole of death, even before life has begun,
to hold it all so gently within oneself,
and not be angry: that is indescribable.
___


Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

James
Trying to find a place to ***
I went behind a big o'l tree
She saw me there
Completely bare
Then we became a WEE!!

TF
Oh the deepest trouble, *****
Playing with girls, that sin
just ware these words
don't think her absurd
when she wondering says, "is it in?"

Cné
So glad for you, on getting some
while relieving yourself, on the run
Girls that sin
worderin'
bored, did she ask, "Did you ***?
Or are you done?"

Sorry boys, just having fun!

James
Hey, welcome aboard
if you're feelin' bored
just give it a rub
but not a snub
that's how we scored

TF
Y'all are so bad, yes it's true
just tell me when your through
pushing, pulling
tweaking, fulfilling
your hands now full, of goo

Cné
How could I be bored, with the likes of you two
in need of rubbing, please don't be blue
Make no mistake
I have what it takes
especially, for men well overdue

TF
Talented and beautiful too
always pulling it through
it must be fate
it's always so great
getting a tugging, from you

James
Walking the streets before dawn
you looked and her light was on
you saw her fare
but didn't care
and wonder where your money's all gone

James
Poor Bill, he never did learn
he saved all the money he could earn
to pay a sweet lady
at place that was shady
and wonders why his pecker still burns

TF
Bill never learned his lesson
the burn just grew, not lessened
he never went back
his pecker he lacks
no more ****** sessions

TF
The ladies of the evening
sights beyond believing
the things they do
while making you
penniless, and leaving

Cné
A working girl, works it
with Johns, turning tricks
*******
and f¥€king
can't blame her, for getting you sick

TF
The doctor told her to take a break
her body one day, might break
all that cavorting
and oral contorting
she just really loved, her tube steaks

James**
He told her to take a seat
when she really wanted a treat
she was feelin' dry
and wasn't shy
And so she went after his meat

James
Cruising the streets just chillin'
searchin' for a chick just millin'
She shook her ***
I couldn't pass
Oh, well, another shot of penicillin

TF
Something's wrong with Suzy
something oozing, from her coozie
she scratches at an itch
her john's just call her a *****
that's the sum of it, laying down, with floozies

Cné
Suzy was rode hard, put up wet
with men on the street corner she met
Wiggling her ***
for just a little cash
***** status. she earned, you bet

Disclaimer: It just gets sicker from here...

James
Went to the bathroom to sit on the ***
I like to **** while I'm on the clock
There wasn't any paper
I used a finger scraper
I might better had used my sock

TF
Now if there's one thing I know
being a clock, that's fast, and not slow
fingers be scraping
flecks are escaping
****, will under the fingernails, go

Cné to James
Please wash your hands before you eat
Be careful cruisin' down the street
or chillin'
with penicillin
I fear a terrible peril soon, you will meet!

My fingers tangle and trip
over sloppy knitting
like a deer
learning to walk on crooked
pencil legs.
Like a song I don't quite
know the words to.
I move unsteadily,
uncertain, with short shaky breaths.
Remember when I taught my lungs
to breathe again in August?
After so many mistakes that
I didn't know how to
reconcile.
I wanted to die out back
of a hotel in Montana, dramatic
in the weeds and grasshoppers.
Needles fighting, I
spread a mess of mustard yarn
across my fingers like
I need a napkin.
Has anything changed?
Dropped stitches, weary knots leaving
gaping holes.
I think of how I ran away
from it all.
There are days I still look back.
But I look straight into the sky
as if demanding an explanation from
God himself.
I have to shade my eyes
sometimes,
seeing blinding brilliance
in the sun now.
I can't live any longer only
by the light it sheds
everywhere else.
No, in births of light and bursts
of truth and slow, overdue breaths
is a song I'm finally learning
the words to.
You will not defeat me.
I rip out my knots
and begin again.

Recovery is a long and painful process.
Its a lengthy, twisting, one way road.
It is not fair, life never is.
You need to accept that that is just the way it goes.
Broken hearts, they will never shatter even.
We were so close until the day she said she was leaving.
It was so easy for her to let us go.
She left me here alone and why I still don't know.
She thought I would be broken, as soon as she was gone.
Now it's time for me to prove that she had thought wrong.
Yes I cared about her; she had said she cared about me.
Those were empty words, burdened with all the lies that I now see.
It was far too perfect that I should have known it could never be true.
It hurts even after so much time; my recovery is beyond overdue.
I was blindsided; she always knew exactly the right words to say.
She made my heart race and I had never considered the chance that she would just walk away.
I wish I had known what she had planned to do.
Because she only proved why trusting people is not what I should do.
Now there are no more lies and I’m no longer waiting.
No more time of mine is she taking.
I am so done; I wasted so much of my time.
All on a girl who couldn’t even consider mine.
My heart still stands, as if it was never broken.
It is as strong as her lies, so easily spoken.
But the time I had with her I will never regret.
She taught me a few lessons that I will not soon forget.
The first thing I learned is to not trust someone with your heart,
Because in the end, it will likely end up ripped apart.
Then there’s lesson two, and this comes from a different part;
Do not be with someone if you already know you’re going to break their heart.
I’m done lying to myself and not completely accepting me.
It only took a broken heart and then the recovery.

I was standing at the corner
Of Yonge and Bedlam Ave.,
When I spied a chap across the way,
The image of my Dad.

He had one thumb in his pocket,
The fingers hung outside.
His other arm craddled a book,
As often in his life.

His weight was shifted to the right,
With head cocked to the side;
He wore his cap over one eye,
Tweed jacket open wide.

He raised his head,
As I did mine,
Looked to me and nodded;
He smiled and touched
The edge of his brim,
I did the same as him.

We crossed with the light.
He passed
And went
Where he belongs;
Me, to the library,
My book was overdue.

You bought the house with lavender
seeded in the front porch.
The scent flutters between the doorsill
and through the letterbox
like bills overdue and invoices outstanding. A postal aroma,
envelope glue smells like flowers to me.

I was never granted the privilege of rearranging flowers
You said, there was more to life than flora,
these emerald, sap dripping, saturated stems
Swelling petals fascinated under my untried eyes,
You said I must not even graze the things.

I longed for a taste of the forbidden flora.
Did buds taste like honey? Were they sour like you told me?
Would they poison these supple
and innocent lips, turn them pink to grey?
Could tastebuds kiss the perennial vines,
the posies, the spray of efflorescence
A taste of simple sweetness -

I remember when you ripped the front-porch-lavender.
The roots could not resist your claws.
You sweat to mutilate strained flowers,
You always work harder. Verdure spoiled.
Ravaged, ruptured, tanked soil.

stripped naked in the figurative sense, I see a girl that is far overdue for a dose of joy. so much emptiness in her eyes, blood flow has become invisible. beauty. oh so much beauty in the way she cares absolutely too much for those that are unaware of her favorite color nevertheless asks how she feels every blue moon. perfectionist could quite possibly be her middle name by the way her heart beats in sync with the spontaneous moods that show their appearance every two days or so. anxiety equals a rapid beat. "if you feel worried then you must act on it" seems to be her philosophy because when she's sad and shaky the heart must go slow.
for,
she.
is.
slow.
when the depression hits and vulnerability only shows its face behind closed doors im sure she would say that she feels as though she's suffocating. suffocating in the figurative sense, where everyone is there watching her but no one can differentiate heavy breathing in basketball practice from a ******* asthma attack.
idiots.
so numb. she's so numb in the figurative sense. you ask her how she is and each time it's an automated "good" as if practiced hundreds of times before a theatre performance. an actress. she's an actress in the literal sense. planting a smile from ear to ear even when it's an obvious gloomy day for everyone else. she puts on a show of happiness that could very much earn her an oscar, if only she were literally in the entertainment business. I can see her falling in the way her back hunches just 10 degrees lower than it had a year ago. I would recommend a doctors appointment but im hoping she learns to fix it on her own. I'm hoping it begins to appear in someone around her that maybe she isn't as okay as she seems. this beautiful perfectionist doesn't just have bad days and doesn't just spare her low moods in spite of upsetting those around her. this beautiful perfectionist doesn't see herself as beautiful. this beautiful perfectionist is so far from perfect.
maybe if someone looked a little deeper in the literal and figurative sense, they would choose to ask, after her automated response of "good", "are you really?"
-mxy

He held my hand,
freshly wrought from
my mother's womb,
torn through a hole in
her belly and spilled from
a hole in his heart.
He smelled of Old Spice and
body odor and
marijuana,
he wore gold chains when
he was born to rags and
stacks of wood.
His grip on my hand,
so firm and strong and settled,
his gentle cooings and
warmth;
I miss the safety of it.
You can't be held
when you're the same size,
when the holder is the one
who might need to be held.
What nightmares had you seen
in white-washed walls and
halls of ravings and throwings and
the violence of a withdrawn mind?
Father,
it is you
that I have become,
that I still fixate toward--
my heart is heavy and
my head is torn apart.
You are my North Star
that guides me through life's oceans,
my scale to balance
my heart to a feather;
I wonder if it might be weighed down
with regret?
Father,
it is you
that I march toward,
that I find myself morphing into,
plucked from the cocoon of maturity from
a hole torn in its belly.
I had left one womb
for another,
it seemed.
Did I ever truly tell you
what you meant to me?
Even when
you weren't around
I turned to the air
to the warmth around me
to a stranger's grip or
the embrace of another.
Even when
you had left the world
for the one in your head
I only looked up to the twinkling of the night
to find my guide;
I remember
reaching a shaky hand
out to the skies.
The starry curtain
wrapped around my arm,
flowing like a gentle ocean,
like the fluid in the womb
then solidifying
like bedrock
like bottoms
like bases.
Even when
I hadn't seen you in months or
spoken to you in years,
I still held on
to that firm grip,
that far-too gentle
hand.

Karma is a *****.
You heard the saying so many times.
What goes around comes around.
The golden rule.
Whatever.

Karma is a *****.
But not to the people who deserve it.
The people who were the nice ones,
Who have  been suffocated;
Their payment is long overdue.
I know a lot of people, including myself,
That have struggled to be kind for so long.
They have completely possessed the person
They once were.


Lately I've been a *****.
Please forgive me.

Ive tried for so long.
And I can not deal with this anymore.
I feel the need to rebel.
Because it is something to do.

You would do it to.
And most likely have
If you have been as caged in
As I was.

~

Dreams may find us where we sleep
Wrapped up for the night
Safely in our chambers dark
Neath our covers tight

Drowsy under moon beam glow
Comforting the feel
Born within a fantasy
Something close to real

Far beyond the deepest stare
Vanilla coated skies
Rolling hills to anywhere
Breaths of passion’d sighs

Sunset laughter, twilight seams
Footprints in the sand
Leading to our every wish
Strolling hand in hand

Yet often we may find a dream
Waiting at our door
When the sun is shining bright
Brighter than before

One who sends a perfect view
On a summer breeze
Blooming through the countryside
Echoing the trees

You I find are such a dream
Before my eyes to see
Bumblebees and butterflies
Fragrance flowing free

Mountain streams of aqua blue
Clouds of whispered white
Daffodils and lavender
Enchanting is the sight

As each day does start anew
Dew drop clover sings
Melodies of what you are
All your smile brings

Proving now that as I sleep
My days are overdue
For when I wake, if you I see
My dreams have all come true