Thank you ~
for a life not to trade
blessings, in spades
tight spaces
behind laundry doors
packed closets
and open drawers
gator tails, tarnished brass
cracks in kitchen sliding glass
wet towels, withering plants
foundation filled
with carpenter ants
buckets piled with
shoes and tags
village clothes
and saddlebags
peeling paint
and broken walls
****** seats
in bathroom stalls
clogged pantry
frigid rooms
table scribe
and carbon fumes
comfort capsules
empty tanks
broken limbs
from children’s pranks
**** finger
double tongue
long goodbyes
and sidewalk dung
cluster flies
chavie’ clique
accompanying
the hypocrite
cracked back
and hidden smiles
chalk on board
with mr miles
atomic wedgies
closing doors
wrotten eggs
and open sores
jaw jack
nasty folk
dinner calls
for pig in poke
penny pinchers
double dip
yellow mouth
and silver tip
brown nosers
thick red tape
paper cuts
and pimple nape
gallivants
so out of norm
the joy of life…
in basic form

at a young age, my father taught me to love
insects.
instead of killing, my father would capture spiders,
centipedes, beetles in empty pickle jars.
he would show me the anatomy, let me admire
the different colors, the shape of the pinchers,
how each one moved.
we had a praying mantis hung up on the wall,
it scared my girlfriends.
we had a hairy tarantula encased in a glass orb,
guests could never stare at it for too long.

i compare these insects to my father.
elegiac, with pinchers hidden but
present.
like the insects, i could never understand my father.
when he disappeared for days, reappearing with nothing
but a frown and the scent of beer,
i imagined him with the wings of a beetle, and he had
to fly off to a faraway kingdom.

i compare these insects to my father,
beautiful, but threatening.
his scorpion’s tail was his hand with a bottle,
his poison was the amber liquid squishing
his blood.

i compare these insects to my father,
fragile, unwieldy.
as a butterfly glides through spring, it is similar
to my father discussing his favorite things,
or deep in thought in a novel, or how his eyes
glint when he sees me after a long
absence.
but my father is far more exquisite than
any butterfly.

i still am intrigued by insects, yet i do not
admire them in empty jars.
i set them free, imagining if my father ever longed
to escape his own
jar.

Whether weather withers
Heavy penny pinchers
Or orders hor d'oeuvres
Don't mean I'm richer
I'm just not a city slicker
Don't say I'm bitter
I got honey in my pitcher
Oh no wait that's pilsner
Sorry I forgot my censor
And she told my I got a ****** up
******
There's a reason I don't miss her
And I'm just trying to be honest
But she left with my wallet
And now I'm elbow deep in Comet
Paying for a dinner, faux gras, I said that like ***** grass to the waiter
I know I can't pronounce it
**** it he's a hater
And she said see ya later
Later on Imma be Dark side
Like Master Vader
I roll up like high tide
And my homies roll up to Eastside
And I tried to go nuts
Now I gotta run hide
'Cuz bacon munch next door on their donuts
Call me crazen, brazen, but
I was cravin' me a donut
So I strolled up
And then she showed up
Tryna get some tacos
And she was with her ****-o
Head look like a rock-o
And he knows bout them rocks though
So I zip-zap-skidaddle
Back to the Eastside
Now the bar died
So I try to find a quick ride
Down to mi casa
But the cars they passa
Without no second glance - uh
Until I drive myself - uh
Now I'm in a jail cell
Callin' for a lawyuh
Writing out my woes nuh
Hiding from my phone bruh
Cigarettes at home
And my heads all full of fog
I should sleep this off
Imma sleep this off

‘Tis the eyes of the Lobster: all beady and black
Little black pearls; but luster they lack
They stare and stare with nary a blink.
And heavens to Betsy if you know what they think!
With pinchers and crushers and blood of blue
I’m not so sure I’d want one in my stew!
The new year dawns and here am I
Writing of lobsters and I’m not sure why!
Oh, but I jest and of course I do!
‘Twas a bet! I lost! And now pay my due.
Sincere apologies to those who read.
I know it’s rough. I must complete this deed.
          I hope this ditty; whatever it be
          Fits the bill and you’re more than pleased, --!

If you come to me in the middle of the night
Don't presume that I will open the door right off the bat
Never question my sophrosyne, it is for my protection
For I was once a prey of pinchers, my great destruction
When I welcomed them with my open arms
They just robbed my house and did much harm

No mirror to keep me company
No reflection to satisfy my lonliness
A dying narcissism
A quiet relief
A tearful goodbye
A quickly deteriorating something of something of myself

Self image vacancy
Mirrorless existence
Me only inside of myself
No me projected into my own brain

Just me, with me, however I am, having no idea how I am.
Age old vanity plane that could reveal all the illness in my head, covered in king sized, pure white, Egyptian cotton sheets

Oh how the body pinchers have fallen

black coffee
6 a.m.
old garages
tomato sandwiches
toy planes still in the plastic

Margaritaville on casette tape
Sunday's are car dealership days
tabasco sauce on every dish
two-bite pinchers when we were kids  
every boy's name is Mitch

The sand beneath my body feels like a memory foam pillow, covered in a silk case, caressing me
Waves are crashing – they’re a lullaby
My eyes are closed and my mind is drifting like the wood caught in a current

Hotter and hotter the day gets
Droplets of sweat begin to gather around my crown
The sand ***** crawl against my feet
I feel their pinchers dragging along the sides of my toes

Something is wrong.

My eyes are still closed tight – the second I open them the sun will temporarily blind me
More and more sand ***** gather around my ankles and feet
The air is dry
My eyes are now open – there is no longer a beach

I am now in a desert
Sand ***** turn into scorpions, and I’ve been stung
Suddenly, I am parched
There’s no water – I am beginning to see black spots
My skin is burning, and no one to help

I’m overcome by a sense of panic
Hundreds of scorpions are herding towards me
They’re coming from where the ocean once lived

I can get up, but I don’t want to.
Is the sun beating down hotter, or is the poison burning me internally?
It hurts; I can’t tell whether I’m dead or dying.

My hands are pushed against the ground
I’ve decided to get up, but now I can’t
My skin feels like it’s being burned off of my body.

Everything goes black, I can no longer see
I am hyperventilating and my mouth fills with salt water
Have I been drowning this whole time?
I am all alone, and this is what it feels like to be dying.

tip tip tip toe
down the way to hell hole
stepping in the prints
left behind by the bell boy
waiting for a hint
that- ****
guess we all go
down.

Ant people is what they are
    teeth clattering together
        out-coming  syllables of
        insensitive, insufferable nonsense
  Pinchers cleaning after a feed
Some revolting alien dialect

Smash them, then
        into the gravel
        back to the maze-caves of the Underworld
             the holes from which they jitter and twitch
  but then pause to stretch cold joints
    long, black armor-limbs
    blink blank eyes upon the new sun's light

They too bask in its rays, like I
        awakening the mind for another grind
        warming sleepy muscles to pursue crumbs of bread
Like I

So smash, no
        let them crunch and spit out uselessness
Just play instead an in-head voice-over
        a compilation of wonderer's revelations
Let them crawl, let them be
        slowly exoskeletons shed to flesh
        antenna's recede to shags of brown
           framing lively eyes
           pupils recognized as Human
                       Humane

Words are intent
        should be meant as the sun
           beams to progress the colony as one
We are the same

They ****,
They Mame,
They steal,
They play,
They laugh,
They covet,
They test
Hell as an oven!!!

They backstab,
They backbite,
You pulleth and grab,
They moan in delight,
They cheat,
They lust,
They thrive,
Of bones and of dust!!!

Their uncharitable,
They murmer,
Their a narcotic using world,
Their explorers,
Their punks,
Their freaks,
Their madmen,
Their geeks!!!

Their warlords,
Their pacifists,
Their hatred,
Is all nonchalant!!!!!

They get high to get what they want,
Their complainers,
Their lazied!!!
Their pilled out,
Junkies,
Crazy!!!!

Their low,
In disguist,
They use perfumes of sixty dollars of more!!
A delightful expensive musk!!!

Their cheap,
Penny pinchers
Their losers,
Their winners

Their warriors,
Their jocks,
Taking selfies of shame,
Of perverted stuff!!!

Their tounges are asps,
Their hands are weapons,
They'll meet you in hell,
I looketh forward to heaven!!!!

Their babies,
Scaby infested,
Some get off on ***,
Others love molestation!!

Their racists,
Their rapists to!!!
Of mother earth,
And mankind's tombs...

They turn on each other,
Sister and thy brother,
They gaze in mothers purse,
As with dad arguments stay cursed!!!

They are disobedient,
Disloyal in their love!!
No god do they worship,
Just Shaitan's to Satan's club!!!

They eat on organics,
They eat pesticide!!
Some live on freely,
Others seek thy easy way out(suicide)

The have no one to turn to,
Except their vain imaginations,
Their nonhumble,
Proudfully tumbled!!!!
Their fall is bound to occur!!!!

These are the humans!!!!

Welcome to earth!!!!

a deep breath of fresh air and not a care
   knowing i will never return to that hell of a place
a place where every window is covered
   in dust and child-sized hand print smudges
a place where everyone who is anyone judges
a place where no one cares
   unless you get a couple drinks in them
a place where cockroaches and mold clash for power
   and we must not speak or think of them
a place where money flows like
   rations in war times, a trickle
a place filled to capacity with penny pinchers
   coupon abusers and the generally fickle
a place where we are paid to appear and disappear
   and politely appear to enjoy your presence
a place where no one knows your name
   because, "Its a caste system, kid, and you'll always be the peasant"
a place, a zoo, where they-that-pay come and go
   while we-that-slave stay grinning in our grease-coated cage
a place no matter where you are
   you are center stage
exit stage-left
so i left this hell of a place
  with a **** paycheck and a smile on my face
the fresh air is too good to breathe just once

Through the telephone wire (remember those?)

crawled in an earwig, such a talented insect. He

would take over, chew and choose the words,

words heard or not, from time after, a stranger

called to tell me you were dead. This bug in my ear,

sent by a stranger to allow a coping mechanism in.

That voracious little beetle heard everything since.

What he does not spit out, relayed through pinchers

immutably clamped upon my right eardrum. This

strange and pleasing tic of mine, my earwig

is evolutionary. Something I consider gifted from

Late Triassic period, a time I refuse to remember.

A transmitter and editing device, only letting in

what is endurable, so I need not wrestle with rest.

My happy parasite, working so hard to eliminate

pain of many deaths that came after first one,

all the lovers lost. Pestilence still vibrates

through a tuning fork on back end of bug.

Chaw and discharge, seeping out my ear can

no longer be ignored. No longer holds on.

Death looks at his reflection in the mirror
Weeping tears of sulfuric ash

"You were never given a childhood old boy!"

I suppose

They are right

Humanize one's worst and only true fear

The release
After the storm

A place where sanity can only be reached
Through this work
And the work after that
And hopefully

The work after that and that

Plays are written for the penny loafers of penny pinchers
And a step is memorized
For its imbalance
And blasphemy

When I hear the church bells ringing
And the organs echoing like light missiles
I know the stuff
Is getting worse

How many heads are within this place?
How many mad men truly have a case?

The windows are chuckling for they have seen all
Even the pictures blush as they hang upon the wall

Meek
&
Maneuvering

For their own
******
Sake

Tables are cleaned for the next round
Of grub shovers

When her mouth voices love
I try to believe
That it is
Enough

Enough to satisfy
The greedy game
Of feigned liberty

We try
And we'll try
Again and again

And
So on

Ah ! If your blue then it's me too !
We can go to the Zoo
And see a blue back gazelle
Or go to Cape May
And get ***** that are blue
Watch out for those pinchers !
Those blue tennis shoes are paper thin
Then we can go to the show
And see "Blue Lagoon"
Then we can go for a drive
To the Blue Ridge Mountains
Stop and eat at the Blue Star Cafe
Then from a mountaintop
We can watch the flow of a river blue
Then you can lay your head on my
Blue corduroy jacketed shoulder
And I will sing to you ,"Love Is Blue"

She would put on lipstick at midnight,
because her favorite show was on
and she always liked to look good when she was appreciating something
as if the novelty could be French-kissed unexpectedly.

Her lunches were always spent alone,
with a used book from an online vendor
and her throat would always close up when someone asked to join
as if they had interrupted her touching herself.

She had a self-designated seat on the public tram,
because slave laborers are always penny-pinchers
and she needed to close her eyes in order to see the light dance
as if she were a paradoxical vampire feeding off the sun.

You know, she was always forgetting the past,
never knowing how everyone else could remember so much
and she would roll around cold liquid in her mouth
as if life was too surreal to not look pensive.

She never understood what people did with their time.
She never understood how they could fit more pieces into their 8 by 4 plots.
She never understood how classical music could not move them to tears.

With invisible pinchers you grab hold of me,
second after minute after hour,
you are in control of my emotions,
I am strapped to all that you empower

Your words magnetise me,
I am bound to them,
they draw me closer to you,
I become nothing but a gullible lamb

But there is something you should know,
I am glass, & you, gravity,
you don’t realise I am fragile,
until in pieces I shatter, broken so easily.

after running through terminal after terminal after plane after plane—you grow a certain melancholy love for flying. the pinchers of whiskey and short glances out of the small window really gain appeal. life is fast. new words every week, new lessons every day, new moments every minute. you either learn to enjoy it, or suffer through the nights (perhaps both if you're lucky). bad and good aren't that bad and good. getting drunk at 3pm tastes a lot like a job promotion or a kiss by a lonely girl.

Frightening spiders light the hallway too
Galore of cattle pines and fractals
Nevermind the beastly ports of air diminishment
Suckle out the messing games of heat traps and despair
Go to fill me up, try to sell your luck
Miss the blue man’s tide

Sober on the solid ground
Kiss the rain goodbye
When it comes to wasting time
Hole in one to come

Jill on the blue hill
Four generations ago
She whimpers out on the snow

Celeste on the bar of raptors
Balloons in cattle graze and pinchers
Gold and gallions with a few
Salooning down the street
Been a long time, wait for now
Maroon establishment

Go alone and pack your bags
This is no guessing game
I’m the ******* of this town
For a long time now

Wind inside the wind
It’s not a secret to me
My mind was a capitalist greed

Soap of laughter fill the spot
Soaked me up, enjoyed a lot
With blood filling up the room
My instincts tell me truth

oculus per oculus -
    an eye for an eye...

it was my first time seeing an eye
doctor - only yesterday:

oculist - not occultist -
coo coo
should i change my favourites
from crows to pigeons?

change my scouts
to messengers?

once upon a time we would
sail across the horizon of
where the seas would
merge with skies
with at least two crows

to scout for dry land...
the boundaries thus established
between seas and lands
there is an earnest need
to levy
a rest for horses and for crows
and invest in the theology
of:

replacing Huginn and Muninn
with Fantasiss
     og
               Havhimmel -

never mind...
the Hebrews are as guilty of trivialising
knowledge as the gentiles
and their astrology bull.... ****...

the Hebrews and their gematria
the gentiles and their astrology -
same ****, different cover...
to allude to A = 1
to suggest that words can be influenced
by a meaning in number
is a blasphemy against
the dictum primo (first saying)

initio erat verbum
et verbum fuit *** deus...

in the beginning there was the word...
so much for the fall of man
as the fall of word
into the lasp, grasp and grub of man's
intestines kidneys
brain and a grieving soul (search)

almost simultaneously:
the fall of word and of god
and the rise of man
and the subsequent acquisition of words
as communication as that equivalence
to the harnessing of fire
gifted to us by Prometheus...

words and fire met somewhere
in a non-dialectical exchange:
for this is needed, and was...

funniest football hooligan chants
i ever heard came from Millwall -
or the London Scoots - Scots, dockers,
who call West Ham (Cockneys)
pikeys...
and call the north London Jewry
penny knackers, pinchers, nibblers...
4 x 2s...
             ha ah ha... tenet (almost)

                               aha!

the most marvelous time... against QPR...
two weeks ago...

also recently: a burglary...
had a PTSD episode last night where i made
my mark on the night air with my breath:
as you can imagine
my mother was woken
as i grieved a lost privacy a safe haven
of my garden...
with a prophetic armistice and fury
i tried to ensure that the burglar might
hear me in his sleep...

nein! nein! nein! du klein sheiß!

oh that it is one of my "neighbours" is certain...
a juicy thumb he left as proof of presence
for the CSI officer...
officer...
that too...

      my mother doesn't take my work
seriously... like i don't take her housewife
"work" seriously...
but during the initial investigation by a PC
when asked about profession
i answered: SECURITY
to which he duly noted: security OFFICER...
hmm... what a moral boost
concerning status...

police officers, firemen, ambulance personnel,
security officers...
and all the moral principles of:

come the age of man in his mid 30s...
time to start looking for a serious woman:
an older woman...
i would have never gone down the rabbit
hole of seeking an younger woman
to have some sort of advantage:
i wanted an equal and an equal
i found in an older woman...
in the footsteps of Macron and Wolverine...

anima per anima
duo per duo ut unum

now for the geometry of seeing with only one eye:
hallucinations in the night,
how the closed eye merges
and disrupts the night
or rather how the night invites itself
to quasi dream -

geometry by letters, one eye and that annoying
nose...
always present however missing
with ().     () two...

it must have been so that
Polyphemus had his eye placed above
his nose to never engage in a nasal entanglement
quiet like the crows are emergent
in flight and peck:

L Γ

peripheral vision of the ape
180º
              but i think that crows and horses
have... an almost 360º vision...
if not 358º vision...

    (a) clepsydra funnel sight(s)

        ∇
        Δ

             stars stars and some David:
this is my colateral,
this is my Balaam moment with the Israelites,
because of gematria
being akin to astrology
such foolish waste of cognitive resources
sheer boredom!


     O
                ∇
                Δ
                       O

cubism - Picasso lettering
that is a face, striking how i can't really tell apart
a nose from a nose or a noose,
protruding or retracting?

ever see a hawk chase a prey?
i'm pretty sure the prey can see the hawk
honing in...
ergo? 358º vision...
given that birds fly into glass buildings
but then glass and air
indistinguishable...
like mirror and water...

Edie Edie my honey bear my peaches
this i ode unto you...
R           ya'R               Ar         R
pi              R           i didn't eat:
but you ate: my hairy chest your *****
and all that floral of flesh of you
i can be unabashed in public
for public to scrutinise:

     since i'm not me now but am me
with you...
given: if everything is ****-
pride charged: i'll create an advent for
the binary cis ****
a nudge in the opposite propaganda dictum
of a culture of a sunset...

cite Trinity in the matrix of:
dodge this...
                              i:              pride this...
and it only took roughly a ***** dozen (13)
of like minded individuals on
an SIA course to get a membrane
going - the walls of Troy have risen once
more...
none of this English
liberal *** nonsense middle class jargon
newspaper friendly opinion section
"journalism" of opinions
without a dialectical scrutiny...

the editorial section i can at least respect
for its impartiality and commitment
to a non-person ghost-like allure...
having opinions makes you less than a journalist
when not debated...
a sort of *****-like ATM
an inflated egoism... which is no heroism at all...

but i digress - having in mind
the poor opinions concerning poetics:
enough said:
too many practitioners not enough
craftsmen...
then again: poetry in a democratic crisis?
at least poetry adheres to democracy:
in principle and above all in practice:
why vote when x
   why not grasp for a voice...

in vox electio -

     in voice a choice: one can choose to either
speak or not speak...
carefully listening to thus carelessly speak:
how glorious that:
to carefully listen but also carelessly speak...
it is this freedom
not libertas per se
but rather on grounds of:

audite diligenter
                                                     loqui neglegenter

and amend and retract
with not fear of prosecution with no
******* mental gymnastics
                                    of censorship:
speech like water - speech like thought

as far as selfishness is concerned:
we all owe ourselves this sort of "selfishness".

oh how i desecrated the initial origin
of these words... from high on...
to this lowly human
and fragile and

'you can't make this **** up...
so i'm still reading Knausgaard's mein kampf
vol. 6 and i'm in this interlude
where he's talking about
a Paul Celan poem,
the symmetry the words, adjectives,
pronouns blah blah
and the symmetry of a poem
resting upon the middle with a focus
on a wet eye....
the past the future, disembodiment etc
and there i am... a day later...
with a ******* eye infection and an eye patch!'

The local creek winks in the midday sun, beaconing us
to silently slip our barefoot feet into its cool.
We wait on the grey-brown crayfish to appear;
their bluish-gray pinchers raised, ready to do battle.

Carefully, we cup our fingers behind them,
along the clear water’s surface in wait,
as each scoot backward into our human nets,
clawing for release, we earn our battle wounds.

Midday comes too soon as we break out our bag lunches,
and we devour our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
We lie on the creek bank and close our eyes
as the August sun lulls us into a late summer bliss.