Fragile egg-shell mind on dawn’s highway bleeding the segue between times traversed only in momentary dreams or in enduring excursions

We drag our droll and quaint 60s baggage like the luggage of a safari made of concrete girding a cavernous expanse of unheralded ground

With our ears oriented to the floor, we leap out of body never to deplore….never to ignore….never to miss the blue bus of our drafted imaginations, so carefully culled from brash elitism

I trounce the intervening time between being friendless and an ironic end, and an irenic comrade becoming the dearest amazed but always aplomb friend

We simper in our glorious traversal, and though bedraggled through an ornamented cavern we linger just long enough to be celebrated

Then a blues riff emanates from a vapid bar, and finally someone heralds my exhumed memory still rusty with the pavement of encased concrete on an empty or full tomb

So I wander in my mind to that roughshod Paris glassy tincture a romanticized gild of proper sensibility crafted in the tongues of lizards emulating the tongues of serpentine Anglicans

As the power of love transcends the love of power, both are afforded serendipitously upon the stately occasion of a fitful revolt where heads literally rolled and deaths still unfurl from the slippage of a violent malevolent eternity, crafting a new creative way to expedite the smite of preventable scourge

So, I see your picaresque side and your wide-eyed love for a listless ship anointed of a crystal blip just detectable long enough on RADAR to become the statistic to crack the slim WHIP

No wigs are needed at this formality, no figs grow from trees forty-five years buried and almost a full month unsung

Pitiable cretins of an invented insanity, they scoff at my ravenous and portentous heart for its excess and for aligning with an upstart verging on only a specious insanity

Why in all humanity could a month be mustered with every defense of history and yet for it to be so widely flouted as a risible exercise in futility

The irony that the artistic glamor of a past vogue becoming a revival that is often toked only to one song but never to the memorial of great cavernous and commodious imaginations, staggers with dismay where otherwise the mayday would be a disaster but still a great day

Then I look at a triggered-fingered omen of a death so ominous yet so brazenly confronted as the ambassadors of time provide plaudits to a fearless martyrdom

Why such a sad spate, why such a stringent but malevolent fate a malediction on a family whose crest is not crestfallen like rolling waves but ornamented with gravity impounding its own weight

A fugacious tomb, an eternal flame, a swan song announcing an independent authority on a prescient demise mashed and deprived

A single shot rippling through the broadened space between clasped eternity and a histrionic disgrace as a psychological confederate pays lip service to a reiterative applause

A cousin hardly American in a defected record of incendiary plumes of a hoarse hatred of waxen discs and flying discs alike,  climbs out of a bonfire mounted purely out of vindictive spite

Then upon a great white buffalo a wrapped package of Californian love before California ever alighted like something beyond an avaricious dove, saw a rocky park and a hearth of illuminated darkness the singular spark

Captain Morgan knows the jackknife applause of a botched deal morphing into a disbelieved spiel. A shibboleth of enormous mystical weight crashing down from an ethereal abode and heaven heavily saddened cannot hardly appeal

Then a loving spoonful of crystal blue persuasion led me to Ethel’s regimented keepsake and for once in my life nobility and I became a grateful waif. But temerity laughed, splintered spacecraft, and the wooden paws of a bearish applause led to resurgent clarity

Blinking stars shattered by knighted and raw applause punctured the liberated might of a sentient hortatory savior grasped by the internecine wrench of a waxen time

An indie track slides by unnoticed in an aleatory time, and the threadbare whine of centuries of lament becomes a dastardly barn set ablaze with the fury of ancients and the scurry of faineant patents

Perfidy slides in recess, and in gentle forbearance the winged angel lingers like a halo on conifer and spring above a remedial ring

I dial frisky celerity tingling the dangling claws of a raven’s screed and in plunder of all history’s pilfer secrets I eagerly weave a tapestry Indiana Jones himself would be proud to watch

Not the riotous ruin of a mystery tour of verdure crippled by genocide but overcome by the revived life of raised rain razing the moments of indelible pain

But the culmination of a proffered time taken at its word for its every careened bird, for its every brazen gird. The manger of proctored stars calls us home tonight and home forever. Life in quaked timorous stumbles suddenly no longer so fitfully absurd.

The quixotic plundered of pirates and emperors in direct emulation of some crooned pastiche of whittled integrity, surges above any encased blurb and any vain testament to a pyramid rigid in destiny and ragged in desultory and sturdy sincerity

Multiplying the ineffable by the division of arable divorced from edible is too creative to be eaten as pabulum when sparks curdle flickered moonlight crimson and that become golden only to the last laugh of ennobled ragamuffins

Frankly the desert of melliferous gorillas abetting the lark of a heavily vetted camarilla engaged in the sinecure of a rigged wall on a main street to block the tall from the lame bleat. Stocks grazed, costs engaged on a littoral beach at the end of a Bossy promenade

This prayer is a cutthroat collapse of a merry spare, a ribbed ****** waiting to plunge into the antithesis of female despair, but sincere in its restraint that vixens courted in love aren’t courted in litigation of a wagered dare

Ambulances chase Deloreans through the desolate moon-stricken skies of a time agape with fleets of phantasmagoria on a Cliffside too wise to ever mince words or excise cries

Skulking the red-teared caverns of entombed films and lampooned tinctures on a passion vetted only for certain and utter deracinated disguise, I wallop with winged men in a single soul Armed to the Teeth with inveterate tithes to eternal internments of poached and endangered gazettes

As growth older in wizened skin bets on epithets rather than epitaphs for rinsed peace and triumphant clefts we leap above in orbit of only the bellowing nether of blown tolls and untold souls aggregating the esoteric grasp of Alexandrian tomes

The denumeration of certainty is a carousel of wonder, a splurge of time ripped asunder with majesties of paparazzi scuttled impacts a throttled iniquity of regalia’s indicted blunder frenchified but still clean with inestimable sheens

With twenty-five dollars, a dime an assist and a nickeled reiteration of currency already so personable it is divine and sublime in crazed desist I watch the embroiled natives clash in denatured violence with the warriors of a crossed repast hearkening to an old land much of ire but too much of grandstand to ultimately last

Itching for a holy field husk of peerless ties listed as rumpus and beer, a two-packed smoked by bludgeoned blokes careless in irascible sputters of a muffled doom, a Vegan becomes the author of too many sacrosanct homilies becoming defiled witchcraft brooms dead on arrival too many lionized tombs

In plaudits and the scause of an amplified “what if?” of an olfactory nightmare of petrified fog of effluvium bogged in Wade and in heat it is always clogged, sinewy libations of toasted preemptive revenge become a powerballed hog

A castle in the sky founded on Franklin but scourged of wineskins brimming with a distilled time, a swift repartee becomes the whispered ladder of saints blather becoming not rather other than a Dan Rather spatter

A door breeched by a broached inconvenience of amphigory beyond common reach, I clamber excess and whisk the lingered love into destiny beyond any word other than a beseeched preach of nothing tired but everything inspired of noble love with abundance often to teach

Fireworks of turned tides of fallow tithes to aliens beyond any conceivable bribe the bushwhacker writhes but survives Stayin' Alive without even a hint of garbled jive a 27th floor glass elevator is quite a resplendent ride

Wellsprings knowing radical rolled tides of errant dice also themselves guilty of confessional tithes to the monolith of avarice at the nooked cranny of an evaporated time we whine as the police sting the album rained with songs too lugubrious to sing but in their elegy every lonely heart has a propinquity phone of souled resonance ring

Iterative mastery of a mathematics of love, loss decay and the dross of a dental Occidental floss, the sweep of screened queues become questions of inestimable importance to foreign dues on A Horse With No Name but so consumed with fumes

A fright occultist Thriller prowls in a waylaying daylight, masquerading an innocent confection for a rescued triage of a dawn stabbed with knives in our last dying days of trembled plight

He resurrects only the wraiths of detest, squinted at by the putrefaction of summoned cardiac arrest and littered with bullets that somehow can penetrate even impregnable bullet proof vests the wrapped carcass of the mummified husk of ready despair offers itself a ghoulish and raspy prayer

Synchronized in a low roaring swathe of rollercoasters too immersive to ride, the terpsichorean obscurantism of deliberately shattered fragments becoming blurbs dismissed with hijacked deride the carnival of a summer sun becomes the ocean of limitless love becoming endless fun

We forget the drawl of the droll old tales that haunt like specters in the closet and beneath the bedridden valetudinarian of an effrontery of shackled fright, we sprawl the innumerable caverns of prophetic insight afforded by the pantheon of history enter stage left, depart stage right

And with their insight I write and write, I grasp the tusk of democracy and wage an insurrection against the doubt of plodding limitations in otherwise immaculate sight

*** and tyrannosaurus rex, of litigable offenses leading to pardonable arrests, the gated entryway of a poetic splurge leads to the demiurge of a demotic enlightenment and suddenly the frank becomes the frazzled retirement and that haunting hounding bunny transmogrified by a shattered eye averts the car crash that careens ponderous engines out of limitless twilight blue skies.

Diamond lightning in pristine skies escorts the telegraphic totems of riddled modems from distant forbearance to nescient ultimatum and suddenly all venerable personages converge on a teeming scene of a union unified by a universal dream. To become everything and yet nothing and out of light and darkness to become a beatific beam

‘I am…’ 'Or am I’? Who can say?
‘A posteriori’ leads the way
For the extra and the ordinary
Axiomatic sway,
In the gravity of corollary,
‘A priori’ interplay
Ataraxic overlay of anxious automation,
As the innocence of dissonance delay.
Practicing semantic contemplation,
In willfully prevenient interpolation,
Civilly disobedient in expediently seeming disarray,
Forecasts in vague extrapolation
Contrasts the millennial contagion
Already underway,
Filling nihilistic voids with particles in waves,
To interpret dreams of Freud to free Oedipus’s slaves,
A degreeless scholastic who never misbehaves,
Simulated humanoid dramatic in the affect that he craves,
Inflating linguistics in acrobatic raves,
A thespian who plans conation with legacy engraves.
The probabilistic determiner of cosmogenous debates,
An apperceived inquirer of qualitative states,
Inspiring proprietor of dismality abates.
Challenging aporia as epistemic oscillates,
Stoically, heroically, ‘one’ who amalgamates,
Circling the infinite in hermeneutic calibrates.
An escaped prisoner from depressive disillusion,
Of an introspective extrovert who finds solace in confusion,
The personable recluse fighting an illusion
Breaking down the nuances of every institution.
Calculating consequence as time goes to infinity
Revolutionary commonsense of principal utility,
An opinionated adversary,
to the realist without evidence,
Theorizing in futility,
Stipulating every sense leading to the virility of the pretense that dominates community.
Divergently converging all the efforts we’ve personified,
Inadvertently submerging old traditions that unethically were codified,
Hastening the urgency for purging that which cannot be modified through the merging of the certainty that will no longer coincide,
Stationing the levies to finally stem the tide,
Of periodic enmities disguised to be necessities so blatantly deified.
Observing moral sentiments, perched upon eternity,
As consequential regiments are expounded universally,
To unstratify the residents indiscriminately
And identify quantum elements spiritualistically,
Changing collective behavior individually,
Socializing constructs in joint ventured logo therapy.

The Watch
The watch kept right on ticking, as if nothing had changed. It was like a sixth person at the little round marble table. The stone was cold on my arms. The funeral director pushed it across the table. "This was the only thing on him." My aunt took it graciously, set it by the folder full of everything ever recorded about Donald P. Baca, and from that moment on, it drew the eyes of everyone there, irresistible as a corpse, and as gruesome. tick tick tick as if nothing had happened. I found myself thinking that if he were my brother, I would keep that watch ticking forever, change its batteries, a type of insignificant immortality.

Funeral Homes
The air of calm in funeral homes has always disturbed me. It's cloying, somehow. Too strong. Like the overwhelming scent of peony flowers if you put them in a vase- it darkens your whole house with sweetness. I think I resent knowing that my feelings are being influenced by soothing beiges and classical music. A tissue box and a little bottle of Purell sit on every surface big enough to hold them properly. I find that the anticipation of my "needs" as a griever... offends me.

Survivors
Funerals are not for the dead. They are for the survivors.

Tears
Death is not about trying not to cry. You have to hurt yourself with it to heal from it. There is no shame in funeral tears. They, like death, are inevitable and natural. (My own dry eyes, they shame me.)

Looking In
That is the problem with us writers- every private, gauche little moment of impropriety is fuel for our art, and we must record it. (Intrude upon it.)

Paperwork
1953
***: Male
Color: White
How different it was then.

Grown Up
This is the first time my aunt, whose respect I have always striven for, has even asked my opinion on something "grown up". I thought I'd want her to, but I no longer care. Maybe that means I am finally "grown up".

Absurdly
My aunt gives her email to the man across the table: her name, first and last, no spaces, and the number 1. I find myself wondering irresistibly, inappropriately, absurdly, if anybody ever sits here with a "FaIrYpRiNcEsS4963luv4eva" and has to dictate it to him like that...

Mourners
There are 5 of us here. We are all different, in grief. I am on the outside looking in, an observer, offering the perfect hug or well timed touch of the hand because I feel emotions like room temperature, but not like fever. I look in on tears, silence, on the grip like a vice: on the propriety of being personable to a man who knows your brother has just died, as if that- even death! - gives no permission to be less than polished. And one of us is absent entirely, his truancy a palpable response, just as present as my mother's strangled tears. Her shame frustrates and saddens me- I admire the sincerity of grief, especially when I cannot reach it.

You're Here With Me
The funeral director answers his cell phone. He has the same phone as you, ****, and having seen you answer it yesterday, my mind overlays the images strangely, like a double exposure photograph. It should disturb me, but it only makes me miss you- my mind seeks to erase his image and leave only yours.

Age
Everyone looks older, right now- sunken collarbones and wrinkles weighing down faces. As if they age in sympathy that my uncle is finished with that.

Fishhook
My mother struggles against tears like a worm on a fishhook, and it is agony that ****** my arms, in the air and sliding along the walls. It clashes oddly with my aunt- like a still pond- her polished charm and practiced smile don't feel forced, which only makes it all feel more wrong. I know she is struggling inside, too.

I am an escaped prisoner from barred disillusion,
A personable recluse fighting the illusion
Of an introspective extrovert who finds solace in confusion.

I wonder how it is that I find optimism alone,
When collective pessimistic thoughts condone
The woeful tales that howl and moan.

I hear voices of people that aren’t there,
Yet find myself in calmness aware
Despite their tormented accusational affair.

I see ideals living and thriving out there
Even when apathy or indifference ensnare
Battered hearts and worn out minds in despair

I want nothing more than to ‘want’ so desperately
I hold onto desire so restlessly,
That I’ve tired the being of my entity,

I am an anomalous paradox captive to the sea
Where waters churn in active disharmony,
Yet comfort as it may my tranquility.

I pretend that I’ve already staked my global legacy
As if my words, thoughts, and feelings,
Have changed the world entirely.

I feel everything as I believe it should be,
Riding the waves of intensity
In emotionally humble serendipity,

I touch the stars in remote prose,
Wandering the vast expanses without close,
Wherever my mind goes, it goes.

I worry about the future of humanity,
As if I was merely here to watch observantly
From some unknown eternity.

I cry for those in silent pain
With fake smiles of disdain
Who dare not speak for thought in vain.

I am a quiet observer of the human condition
Checking and balancing sedition
Though never granting my submission.

I understand the fallibility of the mind,
Gathering as many perspectives I can find,
Theorizing everything to which I’m inclined.

I say it’s all relative but it’s all relevant
Prone to be dominated by the prevalent
Missing the subtleties that are heaven sent.

I dream when I’m awake through my ideals,
Even when they’re still just spinning wheels,
Hoping they gain traction as time reveals.

I try to be better than the day before,
As that’s the best way to keep score,
When the world has us compared to others so much more.

I hope my legacy is genuine,
I regret nothing even when I sin,
As time wears down my wrinkled grin.

I am only human, to live and to die,
That’s about all we can be or rely,
And honestly this notion breaths me a sigh.

A personable person propogated passion
Beneath my heavy heart
Alas, cried the caterpillar
You are not dead!
Though I have spent hours molesting your windowsill
Rapeseed!
Huckleberry!
Gingerbread Pie!
All these things and more have I maliciously misunderstood
But the lies of the soothsayer are frequently true
They are passionate pomegranates from me to you
The obelisks of oppression overpower your heartstrings
And there's nothing you can do

My villain!
My thief!
The princess of my misery!
The fiery orb and the blasphemous pirates!
Staring at your shoulders I see only my reflection
Turning on your heel my eyelids sparkle and linger at your doorstep

It's Goliath's head
Salmon and bread
Those deathly ideas which you purposely said
Tic tac guru
Just what is he to you?
And which of my words have you read?

Wow you are amazing
You look very sharp today
You came over here so smoothly
You are so clever
You brighten my day whenever I talk to you
You are so good at your job
I can't believe you remember me you are going to go far in life
You are so personable which makes you a great employee
Hey I remember you...You are the guy with all the jokes
Awe you are so cute
You look like you run this place

I am receiving all these amazing compliments but I cant help feeling trapped
Screaming underwater while my lungs fill with water
Trying to swim but the more I try the further I sink

in the closet across from the delivery room, a janitor disguised as a hospital janitor sits on an upside down bucket under which he’s trapped what might be the world’s slowest rat.  in his mind he is attempting to clean his mother’s body while supplies last.  his hands are curled like the receivers of certain phones con artists used back in the day to convince people they could talk only to ghosts.  the young and personable volunteer assigned to the hand he doesn’t answer is speaking so softly the man leans forward.

While in the midst of playing solitaire
(with losing outcome foreordained
after a couple moves), I became gripped
with combinations predicated on thirteen
ranks each of four French suits subsumed:
Clubs (♣), Diamonds (◊), Hearts (♥) And Spades (♠).

I  totalled a sum of fifty two variations.

If one of four possible draws for king available,
(which could be either Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts,
and Spades), that would automatically determine
every subsequent card diminishing in rank
topped off with an Ace.

Please feel welcome to challenge my presumption
within a dark alley late at night.

The above calculation logical since a standard deck
(not surprisingly) comprises 52 cards
(4 suits of 13).

Each suit (Clubs ♣, Diamonds ◊, Hearts ♥, Or Spades ♠)
contains an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
Jack, Queen, And King.

There are no duplicates.

No Google search yielded results
asper this nagging question, but unexpectedly
whet an immediate appetite describing
the history of plain old vanilla playing cards.

Said legacy encompassing the four suits
i.e. collectively represent four elements
(wind, fire, water, and earth),
the seasons, and cardinal directions.

They represent struggle of opposing forces
for victory in life. Each suit on a deck of cards
represents four major pillars of economy
during middle ages: Heart represented
Church, Spades represented  military,
clubs represented agriculture, and
Diamonds represented merchant class.

King of hearts is the only king minus a mustache.

Face cards (Jacks, Queens, And Kings) so called
"face cards" because the cards
have pictures of their names.

One-eyed Royals (the Jack of spades
and Jack of Hearts often called "one-eyed Jacks"),
and King of Diamonds drawn in profile;
therefore, these cards
commonly referred to as "one-eyed".

The King of Spades ♠ ranks
as one of three immovable Fixed Cards
in the Cards of Life and resides
in the Crown Line of both Master Scripts
(Spirit and Life).

Said card, in situ, the most powerful card
in the deck.

A Jack or Knave is a playing card,
which in traditional French and English decks,
pictures a man in traditional or historic
aristocratic dress generally associated
with Europe of the 16th or 17th century.

The usual rank of a Jack, within its suit,
plays as if it were an 11
(that is, between the 10 and the Queen).

Charming, resourceful, personable and easy-going
best defines Jack of Spades.

Blessed with a creative mind,
this one-eyed Jack of the deck manifests
jais nais sais quois salient scrutiny
jest via virtue of lightness of his being.

The four card suits that we know today —
Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs
(rooted in French design) circa 15th century,
but the idea of card suits is much older.

The written history of card playing
began during 10th-century Asia,
from either China or India,
as a gambling game.

That idea found its way to ancient Muslim world
before 14th century.

The oldest known deck of Muslim playing cards,
like the playing cards of today,
had four suits: Coins, Cups, Swords, and Polo Sticks.

These decks of cards then showed up
in southern Europe, but because polo sticks
were unfamiliar to Europeans, that suit
eventually changed to Scepters, Batons,
or Cudgels (a type of club).
In France, Parisian cardmakers
settled on Spades, Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds
as the four suits.  
    
The first adaptations of German card suits
constituted Leaves, Hearts, and Hawk Bells
(Acorns rounded out German suit).

Considering cards strictly made
for French upper class, tis little surprise
cardmakers chose expensive
Diamonds over common Acorns.

The French advanced card making utilizing
flat, single-color silhouettes for suits.

These images created with simple stencils,
made manufacture easy, quick, and inexpensive.

Innovative new, cheaper cards
flooded the market in the 15th century,
became popular in England,
and then traveled to America.    

Contrary to contemporary belief four suits
meant to represent four seasons inaccurate.

Equally questionable 52 cards linkedin
to 52 weeks of the year.

Many numerological and religious
explanations asper composition  
analogous to deck of cards postulated,
but these explanations purportedly created
ex post facto, perhaps to give deck-holders
a solid argument, that role deck of cards
maintained existed other than for gambling.

Marble.
Smooth granite, melting, molding.
Lust making my legs heavy like I am fighting quicksand.

This is my call.

Seduction is an art, just like my body.

With curled toes and an arched back I fight my woes.
I can scrub their hand prints off with hot water,
douse my body in bleach and wake up clean.

My soul is one of the few things harder than my heart.
My soul is a brick through your windowpane
in the dead of a black night.

They call me names they do not know the meaning of.
I do not mind this,
they do not know how lonely I get without fingers exploring me, painting me like I am a canvas in need of
the perfect finishing brushstroke.

I am a woman, not an exceptionally beautiful one,
but I can still make your head turn when I walk by.
Not exceptionally personable,
but i know the power of a compliment,
and I will shower you in them until you think you have won me over.

You have not.

I do not belong to anyone,
I do not even own myself.
Remember you will never truly know me,
so go on and forget about having me.

it hurts
when you can feel an ocean inside
waves crashing into the boundaries of your mind
begging for release
to reach the shore
denying them, holding them back like a well-built dam
not a single drop gets through this facade

I’m an actor
in a role I never auditioned for
one I never wanted
one thrown upon me by the cruel hands of society
family
is this life better than none?
three months
I whisper to the face in the mirror
one I have never recognized
one that is not my own

i hope one day to look
and find myself looking back
a true reflection
real and not imagined
but for now I do my best
with whispers
the tears I cannot release
sweaters in the biggest size
corners to curl into
alone when I can imagine
how I’ll look when I’m me
not you

be friendly
personable
but always know your place
only speak when spoken to
perhaps if you behave you will find a nice husband
be a good wife

raising me in her image
it’s a facade
I’m fractured
a picture from long ago
broken and never properly repaired
the shards put back wrong

a smiling photo of a girl i don’t know
darling daughter
know your place
smile but not too long

I used to worry
that they'd send you away
to a life of imprisonment
because they hated you so
for no reasons they could explain
I used to worry
because their tread marks
were in our driveway anytime
they needed someone to try and pin things on
though you were never less than honorable
polite, personable, my genuinely good brother
I never used to worry
that they'd one up my worries
and send you somewhere further away than prison
I never used to worry that the forces
meant to uphold law and justice
to serve and protect
would walk blindly past the line
of no return, to botch their expected standards
while watching you slip away
I never used to worry
that there was an evil force within some people
that could destroy the glue holding our family
together, then again I was so young
so naive, to think that people were instinctively good
that people, having families of their own
would never purposefully tear apart another's
but I don't suppose they ever thought of me
and your kin, or beyond that need to bring you down
I never used to worry that the system would fail
allowing guilty parties to walk free,
to have families of their own; to not even recognize the fault and
to protect the ones who took you away
I used to worry that they'd try to send you
to a life of imprisonment, and in the end
they did send you away,
but it is a place where I cannot visit
and instead it is us, who love you so,
imprisoned in what we call life, where the fences are
the breaths I take, the steps I walk, the beats of my heart
the walls that confine me and separate me from the world
are the memories and lost time, and of only knowing you
through my childhood eyes
and the guards and wardens are the haze which clouds
my thoughts, unable to still hear your voice or see your face
in my mind
and my day of release will only come
when I walk through the gate, past the fences
to the afterlife, where my life will finally begin again.

Exhaled

motionless,  in this, fervor of unearthed notion, upon an ocean, of allure.  Birthed of worth, in potions of piety, thinning the stream, and depleting the anxiety, in the pure pleasantries of personable enemies, tempting me, to play to the poetic subtlety of society.

if I am not near them, I do not long for music by them.  at my lowest, they are hardly men and women on all fours eating garbage.  you seem to know they’re naked.  what they cannot eat they pause above.  a baby’s black crib beneath a dream.  the dream a charred tree bent over a rabbit turned inside out.  the ark was Noah’s belly.  the gods and the devils

simpletons dumbly yearning for a more personable abandonment.  

I am not alone but am its aphrodisiac.

Growing up ugly, alternately fat and thin
eating scars for breakfast and time for tea

having almost climbed out of a buried bin
only for it to be upended & held in place with
1939's world atlas; the one that got europe all wrong
& like me, was designed with accuracy in mind

Personable birds of prey prodded, persuaded
and set free the mean old biped growing inside

beach ***** jolly popped and sandcastles raided
just to see the looks on hope & holyglow faces
their defeat in optimism: my triumph as ****
full circle towards schematic self-sabotage

Once again i am bitter drunk and to be wed
we improvised trite vows and cut ourselves

spare keys for access to one another's sickbeds
In attendance: maternal ghosts and retired reapers
hurting with knowledge & witholding screams
Liver-spotted harbingers of age and all its mistakes

Older now than I ever thought was likely:
refuse to fight against the alarms of everything

as everything and everything change around me
But there are too many different colours of skin
and i never was a tolerant, I was always just witch
Now finally alone enough to weigh my empty chairs

Surprising, that when black hands  materialise
my own teeth flash & spit through septic spells
make even him blink, in his absence of eyes
For in his face is a nothing that stills me

It's the same nothing that i've rotted with
All my sorry life i'd settled this way, instead of that

To ask for one more would be greedy, wouldn't it?
Now it feels like I've begged before, i'll beg again

I think when he kisses me  it will be over

Define perfect.
Is it a pretty face, nice hair?
Is it thin as a rod, or ripped with muscles?
Is it smart, witty and brilliant?
Is it funny and personable?
Is it friendly and kind?
Is it honest and true?
Is it in the way you walk, the way you talk?
Is it in your nature, in your core?
Is it inherent or attainable?
Is it even real, or just an illusion?

there's nothing personable about wintry skies above the boston harbor
it gets ugly along the ridgepole of rhode island and providence plantations
this time of year

i ink off the dome
along the varicose veins of these violent streets

we smash more
because life indoors
is the gateway to new manners
or points of psychosis
if your boo doesn't get you
enough to get along

it storms snow where we bump

some think it's fine
or that it's by design lakes freeze over here
and mold mirrors made with angels in mind
but it's a terrific tragedy
the death of colors, inhibitions and innocence
choked away from the branches certain seasons undress

the way no one knows enough to mourn

but mother nature's a chameleon
and new england is the skin that won't keep

it's the backend of the wannabe springtime middays in may
when shorties lose their minds again
a few hours every other day
rock cutoffs and capris
because the sun showed her shine again

but she's so premature
and we've dreamed dreams before this way
against the grain
so we get high to get by like smokeheads do

but i need something sexier to wake up to
like garden birds and backyard bird feeders
american robins and the orioles
that i imagine must use their sugar water to maintain better bongs

because it's a slow burn...
the backside of northeastern calendar months

and my consequent mood swings
are 1 of 2 things that need adjusting
but it is what it is, and too cold anyway
so smiles crack beneath the pressure
like glass poets in poetry slams

When you think about it:
We spend the majority of our lives
Behind closed doors.
Whether it is in the privacy of our homes,
Or in our offices, schools, or church.
Most of what we do is hidden from the world.
And you never really think about what
Other people might be dealing with,
But a simple word could have them in tears.
We don't take the time to ask about
Their scars or any defining aspects of their life.
We live in a world of small talk,
And artificial friendships.
Talk to a veteran. Understand.
Find people that you have known for years,
But never truly got to know them.
Many of us don't know each other's full name,
Let alone what takes place in their household,
Or what their financial situation is,
Or why they stopped texting you back.
In reality we assume that we grew apart from them,
Or that they are mad at us; melodramatic.
But their phone service got cancelled because they
Couldn't make the payments,
Or their house got foreclosed and they're embarrassed
To talk about it.
If we consider ourselves to be their friend,
Then we should be there for them in every situation.
Be personable with everyone,
Forgive people who do wrong to you,
Love people; not just some people,
Love everyone.
We spend to much time and energy
Hating people and things.
How many times a day do you say,
"I hate"? And how many times a day
Do you say, "I love"?
That is what is wrong with people today.
Don't forget to pray
To keep it away
Keep the hate away,
Love everyone.
Inhale the future,
Exhale the past.
And pray.

A famous alumnus is visiting the university. I got an invitation several days ago to a small, socially distanced, masked, focus group. It was to be early on a Saturday morning - so, why not? I was excited to see her - I’m a fan.

We were a diverse group of about 20 (covid tested before admittance) students and I was in the back row. Seating was offset so everyone could see everything perfectly. I craned and swiveled, when her entourage came into the room. Then, there she was - I’m sure I was grinning ear to ear (behind my mask), we clapped, excitedly. She wore a navy business suit. A jacket over a black blouse with slacks and black shoes.  

She gave a talk, about the challenges America faces. On YouTube, her speech-giving voice always seemed artificial, cold, harsh and brittle. Here, she was low-key, motherly, whip smart, personable and humorous - everything I had hoped for.

Then there was a question and answer session (NOT easy questions - did I mention whip smart?) followed by a no touching reception line. And ***, she’s a foot away. She seemed a lacquered and corrected sort of person - professional - I guess you’d say.

Everyone was gently elbow bumping with her, so I did too. You’d say your name and class. “Anais Vionet, freshman,” I said. I wanted to say “I’m a BIG fan” but I thought I might come off as either fawning or even worse someone bent on wasting her time.

We both smiled, me behind my mask and I bobbed a goodbye nod, but as I went to step away she said, “How’s your Grandmother?” I was shocked but I managed to say, “She’s fine, thank you.” To which she replied, “Please tell her I said hello.” I just nodded, “yes” as a sort of “I will,” and stepped away.

I glanced around, there was no handler by her side and she wasn’t wearing an earpiece - how she knew me I have no idea - but now I think she’s considering a run in 2024. My grandmère would be a whale of a donor.

What a bizarre encounter.

evaluating descriptions
of myself and what it means
to have high arches
and elbows that crack.

or angry base ****** expressions.
I don’t look friendy.
or personable
or happy.

what I’ve found is I don’t fit
into a perfectly shaped puzzle piece
hole (that was made for me
to help identify who I am)

I am unidentifiable by choice.

or maybe it's not willingly
but rather an unfortunate truth
I have mistaken as my own decision.

all I really wanted was
someone who fit into
the puzzle with me.

like two nesting birds
that stuff their feathery bodies
into too-tight spaces.
(we don’t fit)

instead I am just one
lonely bird in a too big nest.

my feathers are ruffled
from frantic, panicked waves
of agoraphobic episodes.

this immense space
looks ridiculous
for one body

I can't be the only one who feels so

alone.

A saunter down the byways of familiar paths and passages
A stroll in the company of long forgotten friends,
The magnificence of memories of outstanding types
Who meld in my mind in the way friendship blends.

A walk in the park with the ghosts of my memories
The personable warmth of their breath on my cheek,
Familiar phrases, a hand on my shoulder
Our companionable sauntering company we keep.

A solitary walk in the lane by the willows
Enjoying the phantoms who stroll with me there,
Reliving the joy and the laughs of the bygone
Whilst feeling the sunshine of now in my hair.

The glow in my heart for the warmly remembered
The ache in my soul for the ones left behind,
How lucky am I to be one with my memories
When many sit there recollectively blind.

Shaking the hand of a good man respected
Kissing the wrinkles away from old eyes,
Feeling the realm of a joy rediscovered
Sauntering time with my ghosts in disguise.



Marshalg
In the lane with the willows
Mangere Bridge by the estuary.
15 December 2010

Pitter-patter;
     pelting peaking the poignant hearing of a peering, personable
     person.

Awakened she walks;
     waiting for water to weaken against the small windows,
     withering away.

Flourishing souls;
     stemming from spring came spitting droplets, refreshing flora.

Drab days;
      dead development dawdled by dreary dates - winter is gone.
    
Joyful cheers!
     Carrot's stones cherished close for colder days.

Winter disappears for departure.
    Spring reappears for resurgence.

Swat the butterflies whose wings
Decieve the poem and inscribes
Its colored brilliance on gilded flights;
There is no grace to his clunky
Flying and brings repetitive hooplah
To the natural poem and steals
Its personable voice.

Every language has a flow of poetry
Whose inner soul derives of the
Course of one's harmony and rhythm,
And using a star of butterflies in every
Poem brings about the very sameness
We all suffer from daily.

See the beauty in a vulture
Whose glide is magnificent
Spreading his wings in silent
Flight above rolling hills.

His beauty is not that of the
Butterfly, but it's flight is undeniably
Graceful and finding its natural
Poetic flow is deeper still.

There was once,
A pretty colour, so vibrant as it attempts to bleed itself
out in your name. A petty tyrant, in whose talons your life and death
are gripped.  Caressed even, by the sharp attack of an avatar of self-importance.

"Speak back to me!" it screams as if a trap. This may be a dangerous p0rtal
towards necessary frequency.
Maybe,
The moment can speak
if you let it.
Jump in.

OH! To tune in when someone is trampling
bringing such impetuous force to the fore-
-play. Such violent noise, hastily moving towards
your space.  All of this reminding
of control,
blessed like a desert rain.

However such patience is not easily bled from this raging heart.  What then is
forbearance in the face of such solid, personable disgust attempting so sanguine a victory?

The room, though it is darker
now.  If you're careful
you might see the outline of the colour's scream;
A sin wave sculpted in fury
and projected in great hurry, as if a fisherman stumbling
to throw his last net around a future pet.

Though at this moment, you are
patient

as the hidden moon behind the clouds
waiting in simple joy happily holding its light back
until timing,
such a beautiful quality
governing the release of all

makes it’s move.

In this room, while the colour is fading to grey-scale
you make one last attempt to scale the dam

constructed as it was through control, discipline and forbearance
searching as if you had eternity

for the Achilles heel of the pinches tiranitos,
knowing that time is the gate of that dam.

If you focus ******* the stone
you might be able to read

The mossy inscription, round
about the frame's border.

"Don't worry
Mama gonna
wash it
all away."

Your steps

Soft.

Each an embrace,
as you walk

towards the setting sun.
Waiting for time
to end.

As a reformed anonymist, I'm not one to look down on drunks.
But today at the bar, I looked up at one and saw a beautiful disaster.
Long dreaded hippie girls have a soft spot in the corner of my heart. From the patchwork dresses to the oxymorons of a vegan ****** addict, I've loved many.

But it's sad to watch someone create themselves through liquor.
To create a persona through drugs because that's "counter cultural."
To create another line of ******* about not wanting to be a robot.  
A message so timeless and repetitive that it's...

She was actually kind of personable.
The few times that day she could speak, she was even funny.
She carried herself with a grace that was quite remarkable for someone who could barely stand.
But she was on the run.
From a halfway house.
From a boy friend.
From a drug.
From herself.

There's no truly meeting someone who is already halfway out the door and already in the bag.

There was a desperation in her smile that I've seen before in my own reflection.
I don't believe in God.
But if you do, say a prayer for her.
I believe it's worth it.

Down a glass of wine and hold it to your ear.
A mock ocean swirls in its holy emptiness.
You are sitting at the bottom- with nothing but death wishes
and sweet kisses.
A small hope for real love oozes from clasped fingers.
But you squeeze it away to sing karaoke at the next bar.
They love you because you are free and boundless like the red balloon
that floats in their heads,
simultaneously.
You can own them all with your laugh- how personable you are.
A pseudo sociopath on the verge of make-believe
horror stories, spilling out on to the bar-
with your last drink.
Let them think you don't play dumb.
Let them think you don't drink yourself numb.
Stomp away with your cigarette-
Do they know you know they know?
It doesn't matter- call the next one over.
The ocean will always crash in your glass-
an empty temple of company.

I feel I am a true educator
Standing in front of my class,
And the time slips away.

A teacher when I fake a smile
For the sake of my students;
Unwilling to cry in front of them.

An instructor at heart
When I am willing to
Show that I am human as well.

A teacher in vulnerability.
Personable in profession.
Tenderhearted in being.

1.** black coffee

lipstick stains I always have to clean,
not from mugs
but
from his shirt collars when I forget the cream
“Two creams babe. Why is it so
******* hard to remember two creams?”
I don’t have an answer so
I continue to scrub the lipstick stains and
swear I’ll get it right
He’s messing up worse, no one is keeping count
So I swear I’ll get it right

2. wrinkled shirt sleeves

my favorite time is
in the morning before he’s up
when I get to take time and iron his works clothes
Today is not one of those times
He’s up early, and he’s risen irritated
He has a meeting
he told me, I needed to wake him up early
I forgot
He grabs his shirt and pants
whining incessantly about the shirt sleeves
I missed them because I was
not finished
He doesn’t care, “You’re worthless, so why should I be surprised?”
I don’t leave the bathroom all day

3. dog-eared pages

sometimes,
he has to “work late”
and I get time to myself
I’ve been reading a memoir about Vivaldi
I flip to find the most recently creased page
and settle into the soft couch
He thinks it is ridiculous and childish
that I don’t use a bookmark
I told him it makes the books
just that much more personable
He isn’t one for sentiment so
he laughs
and asks if I want him to pick me up one on his way back from work
I don’t say yes, but I don’t say no either
The bookmark he bought me
makes a really nice
coke liner

4. ivory piano keys

when I was younger
before the addiction
I played piano
In the basement of my great aunts
four story Victorian
sat the most elegant baby grand
it was out of tune, and dusty
but that never stopped me
from clunking out thunderous melodies
and driving the cats insane
now, in the emptiness of this apartment
I dream of that piano
it’s long white keys and low, low seat
I hear its music
never a note right but
it never sounded sweeter

5. crooked lip liner

“we’re going to be late to the banquet, babe.”
erratic nodding, yes yes yes I know but
I’m shaking again
he knows why he always he knows
“I need more.”
I don’t say of what, he knows
there’s no time is what he tells me
I know that but
god, I can hear my heartbeat in my ears
ragged breath and it feels like my skin wants
to be separate from my body
I hate when I’m like this
he’s so responsible
I hate him
fingers twitching and teeth itching
red lip liner was such a bad idea
I don’t bother filling it in neatly
if I’m to play the role
of cracked out wife
well goodness, I must look it
he doesn’t lay an eye on me all night
whispers let me know
if the people aren’t aware, they’re guessing
I don’t bother to uphold
one semblance of normalcy
knock back one glass of the
fancy bubbly champagne
the shaking subsides
knock back a second
my vision no longer whirls
the drunker I get
the more normal I feel
my outward appearance is a mess
but
I feel good inside

I walked a long mile
with a Girl long forgotten,
she was loud and personable,
bright red ringlets sitting on the shoulders
of white and pink ruffles
with dark eyes that never cried
yet she tells me
"I'm scared of the dark,"
I could not embrace her,
could not discourage her fears.
instead I looked into those dark eyes --
full of innocence,
brimming with ignorance,
and told her
"I dreamed for your eyes,
and I wished that you might never have mine."

he was going to teach me how
to pick a lock and hot wire a car
but he went back to prison
I swear, he had a good heart
he was just livin’ the life he knew

adopted in infancy
an idyllic ranch life
going out barefoot and shirtless in the snow
to feed the horses
still, divorce happens
his mother got custody
but blanked out in permissiveness
allowing him whatever
she wanted to play good cop
as divorced parents sometimes do
he would disappear for a week
communing in the canyons; survival skills
drinking water by the rocks
checking jack rabbits for spots
“everything is seasonal” he would tell me
when his mother remarried a drunkard
my friend would don dark clothing and a ski mask
to rob his drunken step dad every payday
to put food on the table
you see, he had a good heart
just livin’ the life he knew

leading a life of drugs
and not just using
he could drink his stuff but also liked Perrier
a life of crime
store front window smash and grabs
in stolen cars
getting involved with big time dealers
still, I swear he had a good heart
just livin’ the life he knew

once asked him why
he never offered me drugs
“Why would I?” he replied
you see, a friend would never do that
he would jump up and say, “No!”
if I pretended to reach for a cigarette
--a regular cigarette
he knew well their addictive nature
knew his lungs were tweeked
and didn’t want me to ruin my voice
I had a beautiful voice
he had a good heart
just livin’ the life he knew

sent to the fire camps up north
in his element in the woods
at peace with himself out in nature
knowledgeable, skillful, personable
upon release they told him
"stay clean till November"
he would have a job waiting for him
he had a good heart
but went back to the life he knew

the last time in prison
he “stuck” someone
it scared him because this time
he didn’t feel anything
didn’t ask him what he meant
we never talked about it again
still, I swear he had a good heart
just livin’ the life he knew

he was in the hospital
last time we talked
he knew he was dying
his sister told me he was scared
it’s been a long time
but I think he was in his twenties
a life of hard times
a death in regret
surely God knew
he had a good heart
he was just livin’ the life he knew

There’s a strange cold, appraisal with a straight and steady stare
Which leads a man to wonder, exactly what is happening there,
Leads a man to ponder if it’s even now worthwhile
To persevere with contact with the rudeness and the guile?
It all leaves me apprehensive whilst examining askance
This peculiar reaction to my pleasant, frank advance?

What’s the ****** story here, right up and down the Coast,
Where initial stiff behaviour paints appallingly, the host?
Perhaps there’s cold distain for all the people of the North
Or inadequacy’s pink finger wagging guilty, back and forth?
Perhaps the ****** weather with its constant moody pall
Has afflicted them with gloominess, which could explain it all?

Geographic separation…that’s the answer, I suspect
With the hand of subjugation interfering, if correct?
And the constant ****** hardship and disaster at the mines
With suspicion they’ve been cast adrift to weather their hard times?
And the lack of any sympathy to coalesce at best
In a resultant indifference, now directed at the rest.

But…..
There’s a funny turn of fortune here for after a short while
Indifference turns quite pleasantly towards a welcome smile,
Communication warms to a chortelled stream of fun
And the beaming face indicates an acceptance has begun.
Just as soon as you acquiesce to a personable degree
And identify yourself as being one with them, you see….
The Coasters will embrace you with uncommon earthy grace,
And it’s Identified so easily, by the grin upon your face.

M.
Karamea
Wild West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
11 May 2016