and

you think you are done with it.
but the notion potion returns with your stolen free will
taunting and tearing, sealing and then dissolving
the seals

no retirement in this world from where human means pliable
and pliable means capable of being twisted; nay, retwisted...

last we left you,
we were weeping on the concrete sidewalk of
Third Avenue, the police, giving you a move on command,
as Jean Valjean earworms one into the incapacity of movement  because of the audacity to request to bring him home

such is the sorrow of the lost child; it comes with irregularity
yet, never failing to return, the child lost, the residual, resides
within like a violin adagio reaching the punishing silence
after a crescendo that  pretense promised momentary relief

we struggle to keep any and all keepsakes,
polished and fed; rust and time, no polish in the five & time dime
that does a good enough job,
but you buy it anyway

well aware that fate will inevitably rob you, it’s so purposed

twist you, retest you and re-will you, to never forget until
you have no need for forgetting but the peace of
constant remembering when all on that day
molecules and nucleotides
collide in the atmosphere,
dog licking, cat weeping purrs, meaning hallelujah home

the endless sadness of the lost lad-ness, dimly grow the recollections of the first word, the first delight, the confidence complete
that your babe is non pareil; the violin sweeps you along and the genteel tide still too string strong to resist

the woman comes into the room;
the reddened eyes no hide
the weeping outside and in the centerpiece of a soul;
why she asks, not surprised for she’s seen it
too many **** poem-times:
my Adam, I answer;
suffices and wisely
leaves me to
compose and decompose simultaneously
weeping weeping forever weeping even when not

furious eddies rock smashing,
curious they splash me with taunts
"you want for naught!"

but naught is the only possess
that owing it makes one impoverished

perhaps he will email me, ewail me,
does he know I am at the
Wailing Wall, Jerusalem,
insert parchment prayers for his safety

oh my Absalom, oh my Adam, my favorite first born,
come sit next to me on the sidewalk so close to where you live,
comfort me as in the days of your youth,
now that we are both
so very much older

sleep well all you lads and children,
never mind these unstoppable tearings,
never mind the heaviness,
for it has passed
as the tears shed
enlighten my embodiment

7/16/18 prone and alone

Tantalized by the fractious limerence of a vestigial habiliment of the old order, we conclude that hypertrophy leads to a limbo where random permutations alloyed by the rickety limits of concatenation subsume concepts that are equivocal but populate the imaginations of newfangled art forms that jostle the midwives of rumination to lead to unique pastures that are intuitively calibrated to correspond to definitive unitary events in conceptual space that sprawl unexpectedly towards the desultory but determinative conclusion of a meandering ludic sphere of rambunctious sentiments cobbled together to either rivet the captive audience or annoy the peevish criticaster when they dare to inseminate the canvassed and corrugated tract of intellectual territory created ad hoc to swelter the imagination with audacious ingenuity that is an inevitable byproduct of lexical hypertrophy. In this séance with the immaterial realm of concept rather than the predictable clockwork reductivism of a perceptual welter that is limited by the concretism circumscribed by spatiotemporal stricture we find that an extravagant twinge of even the smallest tocsin in the interstitial carousel of conscientious subroutines compounding recursively to pinprick the cossetted smolder of potentiality rather than extravagate into the vacancy of untenanted nullibiety can spawn a progeny of utilities and vehicles for dexterous abstraction that poach the exotic concepts we fathom by degrees of sapience malingering in lifeless bricolages of erratic abstraction in manners useful to transcend the repose of abeyance and heave awakening into the slumberous caverns of still-life to make them dynamically animated to capture ephemeral events that defy the demarcations of wistful indelicacy of the encumbered bulk of insufficient precision.

Today we embark on a quest to defile the anoegenetic recapitulation of canon that litters the dilapidated avenues of miserly contemplation that has a histeriological certainty and feeds the engines that enable novelty but ultimately remain rancid with the stench of the idiosyncratic shibboleths of synoptic alloyed impoverishment that leads to the vast wasteland of cremated entropy that is a stained foible of misappropriated context interpolated usefully as botched triage for daunting problems that require a nimble legerdemain of facile versatility that we easily adduce to conquer the present with the botched memorial of a defunct salience. Despite the travail of scholars to retreat from the frontier into the hypostatized hegemony of recycled credentialed information, we often are ensnared by the solemn attrition of decay as we traverse the conceptual underpinnings of all bedrock thought only to dangle precariously near the void of lapsed sentience because of transitory incontinence that is contiguous to the doldrums of crudity but nevertheless with mustered mettle we purport that the very self-serious awakening to our hobbling limitations is akin to a prosthetic enhancement of ratiocination capable of feats that stagger beneath the lowest level of subtext to elevate the highest superordinate categorization into heightened scrutiny that burgeons metacognitive limber. Marooned in the equipoise of specifiable enlightenment countermanded by the strictures of working memory we can orchestrate transverse pathways between the elemental quiddity of impetuous meaning and the dignified tropes of transitivity that bequeaths entire universes with feral progeny that modulate their ecosystems with both a taste of approximated symmetry and a cohesive enterprise for productivity that rests on the granular concordance of the highest plane to the indivisible parcels of atomic meaning that solder together to exist as intelligible if strained by the primordial frictions guaranteed by the brunt of motion incipient because of the metaphorical inertia created within insular universes to inform sprawling conurbations of mobilized thoughts designed to reckon with the breakneck pace of the corresponding reality to which they explicitly and precisely refer to.

We must singe surgically the filigrees that amount to the perceptible realities that transmute temperaments into the liturgy of routine conflated with the rigmarole of neural dragnets of reiterative quips in an elegant game of raillery with our supernal contumacy against the rigid authority of aleatory vagaries mandated by a dually arbitrary universe in a probabilistic terpsichorean dance with the depth of our dredge for subliminal acuity or the shallow bellicosity of common modes of glib contemplation characteristic of the basic nobility of improvisation. This basic interface with the world can either be mercurial or tranquil based on the interactionism of the enfeebled trudge of surface senses or blunt intuitions and the smoldering impact of the vestigial cloaks that deal gingerly with the poignant subtext evoked in the cauldron of immediacy rather than pondered with the portentous weight of imperative singularities of uniqueness derived from the plunge into the arcane citadel of microscopic introspection so refined that the ineffable drives we seek to fathom become amenable to the traipse of transcendental time that rarefies itself by defying the brunt of compartmentalized bureaucracies administered by the fulcrum of stereotypical notions of acquired gravitas imputed to mundane pedestrian quidnunc concerns that defile humanity rather than embolden the subaudition of gritty punctilios that show the supernal powers of the axiomatic divinity of sharpened sentience to reign with supremacy over the baser ignoble components of bletcherous nescience that leads to knee-**** platitudes that provoke folksy peevish divisions. We should rather orchestrate our activity by heeding the admonishment about the primogeniture of poignant sabotage buffered by the remonstration of innate tranquility and finding a whipsawed compromise of rationalization with true visceral encounters with the fulgurant quips of brisk emotions that grind industriously into amorphous retinues of the trenchant human imagination to either equip or hobble the leapfrogged interrogation of veracity and more consequently our notions of truth and fact.

When we see the hackneyed results of default ecological dynamics, we find ourselves aloof from purported transcendence because the whimpered bleats and cavils of the importunate masses result in a deafening din of cacophony because we strive throbbing with sprightliness towards the galloped chase of tantalization without the luxury of a terminus for satiation. Obviously a growth mindset is the galvanic ****** that spawns the imaginative swank of the pliable modulations of our perceived reality that, when protean, showcase the limitless verve of our primordial cacoethes for epigenetic evolution rather than the stolid and staid foreclosure of impervious sloth that memorializes the gluttony of speculation about fixed entities rather than imperative jostling urbanity that dignifies the brackish dance with dearth and the exuberant savory taste of momentary excess because it engages the animated pursuit of limerence rather than the exhumed corpse of wistful regret. Nature is a cyclical clockwork system of predatory instinct met with the clemency of the prosperous providence enacted by the travailing ingenuity of successive cumulative generativities that compounded unevenly and unpredictably to predicate a fundamental zeitgeist calculated to engorge the fattened resources of the resourceful and temper the etiolated dreams of the fringed acquiescence of a hulking prejudiced population of dutiful servants that balk at the diminutive prospects of a lopsided distribution of talent and means but slumber in irenic resolve created by the merciful hands of defensive designs that configure consciousness to relish comparative touchstones rather than absolute outcomes that straggle beyond a point of enviable reference to shield the world of the barbarism of botched laments clamoring for an uncertain grave from the gravity of the orbiting satellites of apportioned wealth both sunblind and boorish but simultaneously inextricable from the acclimated fortune of heaped nepotism and herculean opportunism. The intransigence of the weighted destiny of inequity is a squalid enterprise of primeval abrasive and combative tendencies within the bailiwick of the indignant compass inherent to the system that fathoms its deficiencies with crabwise and gingerly pause but airs a sheepish grievance like a bleat of self-exculpation but simultaneously an arraignment of fundamental attribution erroneously indicted without the selfsame reflexiveness characteristic of a transcendent being with other recourses to clamber an avenue to Broadway without malingering in the slums of opprobrious ineffectual remonstration against the arrangement of a blinkered metropolis of uneven gentrification.

We flicker sometimes between the strategic drivel of appeasement and the candor of audacious imprecation of the culprits of indignity or considerate nutritive encomium of the beacons of ameliorated enlightenment because we often masquerade a half-witted glib consciousness lazily sketched by the welters of verve alloyed with the rancid distaste of squalor and slumber on the faculty of conscientious swivels of prudential expeditions with an avarice for bountiful considered thought and wily contortions of demeanor that issue the affirmative traction of adaptive endeavor to cheat a warped system for a reconciled peace and a refined self-mastery. We need to traduce the urchins that sting the system with pangs of opprobrious ballyhoo and the effluvia of foofaraw that contaminate with pettifoggery and small-minded blather the arenas better suited for the gladiatorial combat of cockalorums tinged with a dose of intellectual effrontery beyond the span of dogmatism rather than the hackneyed platitudes that infest the news cycle with folksy backwardation catered to the fascism of a checkered established press that urges insurrection while tranquilizing dissent against the furtive actions of consequence hidden behind the draped verdure of pretense whose byproduct is only a self-referential sophistry that swarms like an intractable itch to devolve the spectator into a pasquinaded spectacle of profound human obtuseness that pervades malignantly the system of debate until the reductionists outwit themselves with the empty prevarication of circular logic that deliberately misfires to miss the target of true importance because of the pandered black hole easily evaded by creatures of high sentience but inevitably ensnaring the special kind of dupe into a cycle of bellicose ferocity of internecine balkanization. The vainglory of the omphalos of entertainment is also another reckoning because it festers a cultural mythos of glorified crapulence parading a philandered promiscuity with half-baked antics that gravitate attention and the lecheries of gaudy tenses of recycled tinsel alloyed by debased aberrations of seedy grapholagnia that magnetize as they percolate because of the insidious catchphrases embedded in pedestrian syncopation that ignite retention and acclimate to mediocrity the sounds of generations discolored by faint pasty rainbows rather than ennobled by majestic landscapes of ignipotent mellifluous sound that stands a supernal amusement still for the resourceful trainspotter.

Despite the contumely aimed in the direction of contrarians for deviating from the lockstep clockwork hustle of stooped pandered manipulation that peddles the wares of an entirely counterfeit reality, I stand obstinately against the melliferous stupefaction of entire genres of myth and subcultures huddled around the sentimental tug of factitious sophistries regaled by thick amorphous apostates that cherish the vacuous sidetracked spotlight with fervor rather than pausing on the enigmatic querulous inquisition about the penumbras that lurk with strained effort beneath or above the categorical nescience of the shadowy unknown that often coruscates with elegance even in obscurity. I fight with labored words to spawn a psychological discipline that invokes the incisive subaudition of the pluckily pricked exorcism of true insight from the husk of buzzwords that constellate auxiliary tangential distractions from the art form of psychological discernment that predicates itself on the concept that the rarefaction of rumination by degrees of microscopic precision enables the introspective hindsight of conscious events that can be parsed without the acrimony of cluttered conflations of the granular prowess of triumphant ratiocination that earns a panoramic perch with the added luxury of perspicacious insight into the atomic structure of the rudiments of our phenomenological field and the abstractions that linger beyond perceptual categorization. When we analyze the gradients of anger, for example, we can either be ****** into a brooded twinge of wistful resentment or we can decipher that through heuristics designed to cloister the provenance of subconscious repose with ignorance there exists a regimented array of tangential accessories embedded deep within the cavernous repository of memory that designates a cumulative trace of compounded symmetries of concordant experience immediately perceptible because of the tangible provocateur of our gripes and the largely subliminal tusk that protrudes because of primal instinct that squirms with peevishness because of the momentary context preceded by the desultory churn of smoldering associations swimming with either complete intangible sputtered mobility through the tract of subconscious hyperspace or rigidly fixated by an arraignment of circumstances with propinquity to the deep unfathomed flicker of bygones receding or protruding because of the warped and largely unpredictable rigmarole of constellated spreading activation.  
When we examine the largesse of the swift recourse of convenience we forget by degrees the travail that once bridged the span of experience from patient abeyance in provident pursuit to now the importunate glare of inflated expectations for immediacy that stings the whole enterprise of societal dynamics because it vitiates us with a complacency for the filigrees of momentary tinsel of a virtualized reality divorced from the concretism that used to undergird interaction and now stands outmoded as a wisp beyond outstretched hands straggling beyond the black mirror of a newfangled narcissistic clannishness that shepherds the ostentation of conceit to a predominant position that swaddles us with fretful diversion that operates on a warped logic of lurid squalor and pasty trends becoming the mainstays of a hypercritical linguistic system of entrapment based on the apostasy of candor for the propitiation of fringed aberration because of the majoritarian uproar about touchy butthurt pedantic criticasters with a penchant for persnickety structuralism. With the infestation of entertainment with the ubiquitous political cavils engineered by the ruling class to have a common arena of waggish irreverence we forget that sometimes the impetuous ****** of propaganda is cloaked by the fashionable implements of a rootless time writhing in a purported identity crisis only to gawk at the ungainly reflection of modernity in the mirror and remain blissfully unaware about the transmogrified cultural psyche that feeds the lunacy of endless spectacle based on the premise that one singular whipping post can unite an entire generation of miscegenated misfits looking for commonality to team up against the aging generations that cling to the sanctity of cherished jingoism against the intentionality of a revamped system that malingers with empty promises using exigency and legerdemain to obscure the mooncalves among their ranks that march on with quixotic dreams that tolerate only the idea of absolute tolerance and moderate only when feasibly permitted by the anchored negotiation of the fulcrum of totemic governmental responsibility between factions that wage volleys of invective at each other to promote a binary choice of vitiated compromises of mendaciloquence that ultimately endanger the republic with either the perils of hidebound conventionalism and nativist fervor or the boondoggles of fiscally irresponsible insanity cloaked with rainbows and participation trophies. Reproach can be distributed to both sides of the aisle because ironically in a world where gender is non-binary the most important reproductive ***** in the free world is a binary-by-default despotism that polarizes extremely ludic fantasies on the left met with the acrimony of the traditionalisms on the right that staunchly resist the fatuous confusions of delegated order only to the sharp rebuke of the revamped political vogue that owes its sustenance to a manufactured diplomacy of saccharine lies and ubiquitous lampoons that are lopsided in the direction of a globalist neoliberal bricolage of moderately popular buzzwords and the trojan horse of insubordinate flippant feminism that seeks to subvert through backhanded manipulation the patriarchy so many resent using lowbrow tactics and poignant case studies rather than legislating the egalitarian system into law using the proper channels. I myself am a political independent who sides with fiscal conservatism but libertarianism in most other affairs because the pettifoggery of law-and-order politics is a diatribe overused by sheltered suburbanites and red meat is often just as fatuous as blue tinsel and sadly in a majoritarian society the ushers of conformity demand corporate divestiture in favor of an ecological system of predictability rather than an opinionated welter of legitimate challenges to a broken system of backwards partisanship and wangled consent. Ultimately, I remain mostly apolitical, but I am a fervent champion of the mobilization of education to a statelier standard that demands rigor and responsibility rather than the chafe of rigmarole that understates the common objectives of humanity and rewards conventional thinking and nominal participation to earn credentialed pedigree when the bulk of talent resides elsewhere.

My depraved soul's unearthed
By the Holy Ghost's breath
And given new birth
Out of spiritual death

This wretch is turned 'round
Fit with eyes to believe
A lost sheep is found
And her Shepherd received

My blots are each edited
Out in Christ's fount
His righteousness credited
To my bankrupt account

A prisoner's been pardoned
No debt left to pay
A heart which was hardened
Becomes pliable clay

My life's set apart
Now from worldly regression
Picked out from the start
Made for Christ's own possession

I'm purchased with blood
Shed on Golgotha's tree
A slave bought by God
And fully set free

My sins were all laid
On the head of a Scapegoat
Who carried their weight
To a desert remote

Once an object of wrath
And deserving hell's fire
But Jesus took my bath—
Conflagration of God's ire

So an enemy no more
I'm brought into God's fold
Carried through His door
And out of night's cold

He calls me His child
His heir and His bride
Though once an orphan wild
Now seated at Christ's side

And soon He'll return
When salvation's complete
When no longer I'll yearn
For His own face I'll meet!

My depraved soul's unearthed
By the Holy Ghost's breath
And given new birth
Out of spiritual death

This wretch is turned 'round
Fit with eyes to believe
A lost sheep is found
And her Shepherd received

My blots are each edited
Out in Christ's fount
His righteousness credited
To my bankrupt account

A prisoner's been pardoned
No debt left to pay
A heart which was hardened
Becomes pliable clay

My life's set apart
Now from worldly regression
Picked out from the start
Made for Christ's own possession

I'm purchased with blood
Shed on Golgotha's tree
A slave bought by God
And fully set free

My sins were all laid
On the head of a Scapegoat
Who carried their weight
To a desert remote

Once an object of wrath
And deserving hell's fire
But Jesus took my bath—
Conflagration of God's ire

So an enemy no more
I'm brought into God's fold
Carried through His door
And out of night's cold

He calls me His child
His heir and His bride
Though once an orphan wild
Now seated at Christ's side

And soon He'll return
When salvation's complete
When no longer I'll yearn
For His own face I'll meet!

Part One
Nascent Craving

The insular heart unsealed; pearled eyes
Breach parapets of stone— periled shield,
The sweetest ****—
A threatening wonder and irrefragable synergy,
Nervous routes of cognition  
In this nascent, amorous craving.
Locked and abased,
Dissonance lends pathos — euphoric and onerous,
Disconsolate cries curb sublimation,
The regnant bleed diffusing — fervid lust
Fondled, tactile surfaces in throbbing anticipation.

Sullen, aft a veil of laughter,
Visceral aftermath, out of
The ardent ash,
Burns a thirst;
Insuperable numbness and ache.
Efflorescent intimacy,
Table for two
Enraptured in new alliance,
Élan vital (psyche);
Urgent dialect petitions
Equivocation, jocularity blending
Provocation with indecision,
Noted lilt of descending inhibition.

Adrift, the incessant Now;
As occasion inexorably diminished;
Resonant simpatico tending,
Numinous amity;
Heard conversant, cognitive idioms—
Lassitude, time-eaten pangs of the unhinged heart,
Wounds axiomatic,
In disquieting synergy,
Nibbling, the circumference—
Misery’s permeating truth;
None immune, all trundle incongruously past,
Facing intrepid savages.

Licitly felt, reverberations of Amor
Whence the heart behaves;
Measured cadence, pulse elevating—
Treasured lover, contemplative muse;
Undulating clasp, inflated bone of absence;
Incarnation — a woman,
Beyond prosaic;
Ineffable adoration pours in certitudes of verse,
Elenita, enclothed —virtue unvarnished;
Reservoir intrinsic, poised advocate of the innocent:
The crooked lines of insolence,
Brazen culture of neglected youth.
Perceptive blue stare, sensitized tears—
Plaintively, evincing her injustice ago.

Part Two
Tendered Senses

Siren silence, eruptive blush, ampler between phrases
In dulcet tones — stirring discourse;
Foments rebellion, the strife beneath— his ****,
Out of its vast reserve,
Penetrate the narrowed ambit, vaguely announced.
Groping hands, migrating the sensual member
Stern faces grimacing— mirror in abrasion,
Under the blind surf of consent;
Burrowing ambiguity, emerging torsion,
Plunge, enlisted and content in the sea;
Subsumed in the nonverbal cue,
Persuasion’s plea,
Quelled in the post cerebral assent.

Piercing eyes parallel crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe.

An untouched portion of his awareness remains aloof,
Palpable in the subsequential quiet,
Obsequious and febrile, they sinned on sofas;
Peregrine predilections quenched and viscid—
Serenely requited, the room breathes her presence,
Limp, figures *******, mantled in adolescent torpor.

Erudition in bloom, trust undoubted,
Illuminating, satiating; tempest calm—
Under canvas
Terrain soaked and sodden,
Postliminary — rains of invalidation.
Allowance and permission
Recalibrate, salivate, shortly only—
Initiate, obliged consecration, appraising
Curvatures of the spine,
Stuns him obeisant, her femenine pulchritude,
Propinquity inciting vigor,
Emergent allure, the updriven
Tower of wood sprung from the blanket.

Suffused in ether, purring streams of remembrance
Vaginal honeyed dew, sung into
Orchids, remnants of remember;
Drenched down the cynosure of devotion;
Succulent view, diaphanous pantied bottom;
Halcyon mist, saporous wine — compliance of the will,
Freed fires wander,
Pliable rind, twin plums dripping,
Abject confession, dispatching doubt
In tendered senses,
Pivotal tree, lavender Jacaranda holds the key,
Unfurled, cindered vulnerability.

Half-denuded skin invites confessional savor
Acutely bubbled rear, fleshly furnished denim;
Sultry visit, San Ramon Valley in the fall,
Strewed limbs splendid, flowing filmy;
Imagination yields—
Bursting silk congealed
Across deft thighs, ambrosial thong draping ankles,
Grazing ascension, the curvaceous trajectory
Nose inflamed with fragrance,
Inhaling, climb of acquiescence,
The ****** weal, amid the globed fruit,
Focal intention — ploughed lance thrusting,
Absconding, the ancillary perfume of essence.

Perceiving avid validation,
Swimmingly, amid the monstrous gaze.
  
Humid skies simper dank, set swell the incense of Eros,
Surge of poetry engorged
The flame levened shaft,
Nimble ******* flounce, spill the harboring mouth;
Moist hands merging, unfettered,
Weave in supplication,
Vicinity voicing, enmeshed diversion;
Supple and spherical behind
Posterior arch, milky-skin against the lip—
Ripeness jostling their complacency;
Lapped the mooring, ridden decisively;
Recapitulating— spumed forth, bellied over hips warmth.
Abandon the dirge of self-pity
Late under ego’s trance.
  
Part Three
Present Tenses

Tempting trespass across sacred gardens,
Flowering, scandal set luminous: attachment—
Consensual, their corresponsive fear;
Protean manifestations— evocative, perpetual
Unutterable contention in a fictive resolve,
Deliberating the merits of their widely disparate tastes in coffee,
Amorously touring wine, let’s drowse through the gnarled vine.
Sundry deficiencies pale, once contrasted;
The beatific vision—
Material substance unaccompanied,
Imperceptible, tear-streamed cheeks in synch,
Ventral kiss, peak of carnal perfection,
Reminiscence— flesh violent with Love.

Fiction knew to meander the innominate rift,
A tincture of irony soften misdeeds
Immense as the sea.
Insolvent beast stippled with sapience—
Unmasked, the fabric of delusion;
Dependence smothering the disciplined heart
Resentment put up for release.

Waste of residual years
Fate’s apportion, scars bleakly observed;
Chastened by heartache, engulfing fervor
Too faint to recapture.
Vague glimpses dry—
Hypervigilant his defenses,
Veritable suspensions, embers lit linger;
Slender walls of solidity, the horizoned self,
Faith and reason in concert — stone levels of elucidation.

Fractured bones of distance, emanate a rigid salience,
Another ponderous night of absence—
Lingering, cauldron of dearth as indifference ushers,
The quotidian coil of contrition.
Tearful pallor, sequestered —ciphering time and solitude;
The unkissed mouth, his restive brow;
Suspend in the approximate span.
                      
After Lucid alliterations are spoken
Devoid of her face, his lover’s nudge—
The man nurtures his hurt.
Anxious as seldom unscarred,  
Venus’s susurrations,
In present tenses,
Kissed by her serenades of integration—
Notwithstanding metaphysic intrusion,
No chain stays unbroken,
Postponed drifts of deferment left unspoken,
Reverberations of amor.

© 2013 W. S. Warner

For all the people who tell me I can't be a feminist

My feminism ruins my chat up lines
So much so that you couldn't call them that
I feel pathetic, ironic
Less of a man
Because I haven't touched a girl without her permission
Girls spill their drinks on me in clubs (with no apology), boys don't
Boys ask permission before they touch my entertaining hair
I love women, they're better to be around
I'm not gay, bi maybe but don't stick labels on me
Actually girls do that to me all the time
Literally, they rub their wet hands on my clothes
And stick stickers on me like I'm an object
But no a man is not objectified
Male equals misogynist
Equals creep
I can't criticise a woman's actions, thats sexist
They're in the struggle
This makes me wish I was a girl
I want informal privileges
I'm a ****** is that clear by now?
I don't know if I can **** a girl with my *****
With all of HIStory behind me

I suffer under patriarchy, but not like you do
I understand even non feminist girls,
Or bad feminists,
Still products of this gut wrenching, repulsive system
I'm crying now, an emotional wreck
My mates, some female, will tell me not to act like a girl
But that joke isn't funny anymore
It's too close to home and it's too near the bone
(or *****)
Literally the **** in my trousers is a curse I can't control
An animalistic cage that traps me within expectations
As I write outside a club, three people grab my hair
One male, so I'll take back the generalisation that they ask first. He didn't.
Girls look cold out here
They've come out like this for me
And I shouldn't feel guilty but I do
In the club I'm genuinely objectified
Girls get slurs, sexually abusive labels, they're human there
I'm literally shoved aside like a door by girls eager to look hot at the bar
The only feminist in a room full of chicks

I tolerate this because I love women
Is that sexist?
Is that gay?
If so that's very disappointing
But I've masturbated to **** involving girls
Is that sexist?
Female friendly ****
****** **** - Is that sexist?
I'm academic, I 'get' the gender binaries
Transcend sexuality labels - Is that arrogance?
Why don't these ******* love me?
Note the ironic slur
(Males can be ******* too)
So maybe I'm just the *****
But...I'm sorry
This is poetry, or prose dressed up like it
Emotional inadequacy dressed up like it
I've seen like minded men dispense with the term 'feminism' in pursuit of popularity
That tears me apart because women do the same
I'm not gay
I'm not gay
Stop with the labels
**** me with a strap-on if you have to
Get us back
But I'm not submissive, just overly dedicated
It'll hurt because my **** is virginal
Pure
Sure, I'm a feminist
But stop with the labels
This has become obscene
Put me on page 3 and call me a hero

I'm being sexist here
By noticing gender
Real feminists, please improve me
Fake feminists, how dare you use my views against me?
If I wasn't ugly I wouldn't be a feminist
(Product of my environment and all that)
Like you but with a rather different inferiority complex
As I said, please love me?
Or at least, let me be your friend because the average boy repulses me
Maybe we have at least that in common?
These men cause me to
Try to emasculate me
Women too even but it's understandably rarer
Though on the rise in our modern age
As feminism "succeeds"
But this is my pathetic emotional venting
My male sense of self importance
Or am I too harsh on myself?
Ok so I'll self aggrandise
I transcend your petty, completely logical movement
Look at yourself in the mirror
Metaphorically
(I'm fat too, and some girls make me feel the pain of it)
Yeah I'm a feminist ally
But I'll school half of you

"You've" made me leave the club now
I can't look at these amazing women the same way they want me to anymore
But by 'you've' I mean 'I'VE'
The emphasis is on me to remain rational,
Calculating (my chances with who in the club),
Hardy,
The breadwinner
The one with the jeans
Look, I'd wear a dress if it wasn't for the connotations
Ramifications
I'm ahead of my time, let's agree on what we can
I'm on your side can't you see?
I'm big, I could hurt you and I hate myself
For representing what could be
What is
What my brothers do behind my back
(Because my sickly chivalry would have me try my hardest to pummel these ******* into the ground to protect the damsel in distress)
But I'm not a violent person
As I text, I cant go back into the club but to say goodbye
to my female friend who I came out with alone despite the ****** undercurrent
I half notice two men try to charm this girl
I hear echoes of 'This Charming Man'
(Later I will go and stand on my own, leave on my own, go home, cry and want to die)
These ******* 'gentle' men

But here I'm being arrogant
Self indulgent
Assertive
Typically 'male'
I see a fight break out
The women aren't allowed to be involved
Their voices are drowned out though they push themselves between combatants
Men, we are responsible for wars
**** all of you (*some)
I'd trade social and political male privilege for free 'freedom from guilt'
I'd trade my **** away so I'm not called one callously
(You could even use it as a ***** if you wanted, but its not as big as the shop-bought alternative)
And the funniest thing is, I think my words are important
Think I can say all this and be a controversial,
Exciting
Challenging figure
Asserting my intellectual dominance
Now that's ironic
Ironic to the core that eats at me
That makes me feel like your plaything
Because these ironic jokes like me calling you ******* are too close to home, too near the bone
The bone I gave away, possibly to you (but it hardly matters)
I'm too 'above it all' to be loved or to love faithfully (like Morrissey?)
But all I ask is for your love

That's all I ask
For me to **** on the **** of your respect and trust
Like I did my mother, using her for milk
For sustenance
So my kind survives
And now I go back to the wild,
To the looks that barely notice me as they smash or glance off me
That label me a pig
Or a creep
Or a ****, a *******
Or a gay,
Or a man
Or a feminist

---

So next thing I know I'm with a load of girls again
(Rugby playing girls my mate knows)
I'm the only 'lad' (Irony really hurts)
I'm told my presence makes them claustrophobic
I give them five minutes
(Because my male voice counts for nothing when deciding on a club)
I tell them I'm a feminist
The more honest way out than pretending I'm gay
Its OK now
Thanks, labels.
I swallowed and dealt with the rejection because I'd just had this emotional vent
Thanks vent
And thanks girls for trying to make me feel small and unwelcome at your table
Because it makes me better
Makes me stronger (like men desire to be)
Only I was a step, a poem, a vent ahead this time
So I wasn't crushed or pierced under your high heel
High horse
You weren't willing to flip the tradition on its head and buy my entry to the club
When I couldn't pay
But it's OK.
At least you were real with me
And I'll be there in spirit
In my dreams
Checking you out while you buy drinks
Then wake up and hate myself again

Tears were in my eyes when the girl said that to me
But I, like a true misogynist,
Fought them back and remained a gentleman
Polite and robotically rational
Pliable
But really, how painfully ironic are these semantics?
To 'fight' emotion
To 'fight' honesty?

Like men do, because we're all the same

She is the vindictive snow
Beautiful, cold causing her chilling touch to leave me numb
She creates an overload of dopamine for me
But like I said she left me numb
She compressed limerence upon me
The concentric feelings I have for her  linger
This contours her opaque heart
Leaving her pliable words lay rendering in my mind
She applies this solvent to it leaving me broken
Forlorn she left me
Yet, the tactile, numbing sensation keeps me going
For she is the one I love
Causing our hearts to be diptych artwork off our hinges.

Dough making
with flour and water
Salt and butter
Calls for kneading
In ritualistic candor
As parts come together
To an irreversible matter

The soft cushion of dough
between the palm and the bowl
pliable with every push and shove
stretched and compressed
In sheepish conformity


Blistered on  skillet
Puffed up to a chapati
Heavens thanked with each bite
For flat bread with savory curry
Fills nostrils with soft aromas-
Relished as heaven on tongue-
One is contented of this flat bread

I wondered if I was too soft, too pliable, to bendable, to breakable

I wondered if my sensitiveness would be better served on a censorship list

if it would be better to weather my own emotions until they eroded

a road not known to be so gentle

because when you're always spoken to like a mistake

it starts to be the only thing you can taste and you end up feeling less like great and more like pain

my mother swears that I am the air that she breathes

so when they diagnosed her, I hope the doctors didn't blame it on her environment

and when my friends would talk about that chick and wanna bone her

 bone would carry me back to the skeletons in my closet

while they were only concerned about getting in between that girls hips, when they ***** her

              I wanted to be that girls hips, the bones inside of her

                    because without me she couldn't move alone

                                   and without her heartbeat

                                           I'd just be bones

I can't tell you how many times my friend Maddy was battered up on   homeless plate

but we still dug out love

she was rocked quite often, but was one hell of a mountain climber

she payed a hefty price to wear his fists, and they were the most expensive eye makeup I've ever seen

when my friends would brag about how many lamp shades they would look under in their room, how many metaphorical lamps laid on the nightstand surrounding their bed

my mother always said if I let them shine in my mind, I wouldn't need not even one night stands

    I hold them high

                   spell a woman

                                a woman is a
                         man
                   on
            wo

and you can still be fly if you land on one

disrespect them, and we're kicking dirt on the land from which we all grow

while most guys are treating the inside like a candy store, I found that all the getting inside in the world don't matter until you feel like you've found your golden rapper

while most guys are wishing that girl is blind enough to see their ulterior motives

they've forgotten most women have super powers

all they see are invisible men, and I wanted to make her feel my words like brail to the unseen

I wanted to bring life to those frozen in time words once told to her

because those 'I love yous' and 'I miss yous' from her exes were paralyzed from the neck down

they were just trying to get ahead, and once alive, need oxygen to live

and sooner or later she was only living to breathe life into those words, and I wanted to breathe life back into her

my mother taught me things

she said, just because someone before you  

                             spent time in her boiler room
    
                                 doesn't mean they turned

                                              the heat on

she said, no matter who smashed you make sure you love that girl to pieces

a girl's past is like cremated ash, it's been lived already

my mother said, kisses are like stitches, they heal all wounds as long as they don't remain hidden in a bottom right corner of special occasion birthday cards

       because every kiss does not begin with k, they begin with lips

                                         and so does every life

                       It's time for us guys to start

                 respecting where

         we came

    from.

eye sometimes go to bed wearing an old hoody. It has a metal zipper  to close the front and the zipper is always cold, unpleasantly so, on my bare skin.  After awhile though, my body temperature warms the metal just enough, that it is no longer a cause of discomfort though the metal still remains inherently cool to the touch

While science can easily explain this I guess, I felt this to be a major miracle.  That flesh pliable and heart-heated to 98 degrees could conquer the molecules of metal that were made in China struck me as extra ordinary (always two words, please!) and nothing short of a personal intervention by a personal deity

When I put the hoodie on at first I would think
******* (that's cold)
When I awoke, cosy and warm, I would think
******* (that's so cool)

having studied philosophy in Cleveland,
I knew that the logic of the situation,
what I had experienced was not an
interregnum, but the invisible intervening handiwork of god, who, also knocked my glasses from the nightable to the floor,
just cause she/ he was in a bad mood, on account of having to come such a long way, just,
to reheat me
one more time.

Storm in the morning hours.
You caress me,  like I am suppose to know.
I let you.
Excited where this will go.
Pajamas make *******  me that more easy.
I am as pliable as those pajamas  on days like this.
Don't get mad, I like being submissive on certain days.
You always throw my pajamas in such a crazy way.
Takes longer to retrieve them.
Longer than how much time  you play.

This one time,

12. or 13, when me
And a bunch of other kids
From a different neighborhood
Played. Outside. From about sunup
To 9:00 at night. I dimly remember
(This light-bulb memory is the barest bit of energy
In an ancient filament of thought:)

It was a nightmare come to life.
There was this one kid across the River
(Rock Island)
They found him naked and dead,
In a discarded pile of coal.
His life brutally taken from him.
But that was the only time
I'd ever heard of something so horrible. Happening.
It was as commonplace as school shootings.
Which is to say, it didn’t happen in the
World that was ‘As Far As I Knew’.
Outside, everywhere, as far as I knew;
Was just where you went. No matter what.
It’s just what we did. And we did a LOT.

We played. On a job application, I would have
Written that. “Player”. As in: “Hey, I’m a kid.
I mess around. I’m unhygienic and smelly and
My hair is long and arms sunburned and sweaty
And tired and about as happy as any kid
Could be in 1975.

This one time,
I go in this dumpster and grab a
Sandwich the Mgr. of the 7-11 mistakenly threw out
It smelled. Badly. I pretended to take a gigantic
Bite out of it. My buddies weren’t ROTFL.
That stupid phrase was pre-born.
They laughed so hard they fell off their bikes.
Probably painfully so.
I worshiped this praise. Ate it like
Seinfeld eats applause.
They were rolling
On hot Iowa summer pavement, laughing fit to split.
On top of that dumpster, that day, in that single moment,
I was the King of Whatever

The manager heard some kind of ruckus.
The sandwich was in my hand, a cheesy spoiled grenade.
Which I promptly threw at him. ‘Cause he was the Adult
And I obviously wasn't Victor Mature.
He waddled back inside and called the Cops.
Not amazingly,
They were literally right around the corner.
My buddies took off like scalded dogs
I got on my homemade trail bike, laughing so
Hard I pedaled into a sticker-tree.

I didn't know what "irony" was back then.
Back then, I was so inherently goofy, that funny
Hilarious crap was somehow attracted to me.
Ironically, when I tried being funny on purpose...
Fill in the blank. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
I'm pretty sure.

We met at that French word I still can't spell.
Ron Day View.
Cackling like
Loony loons. We laughed out little butts off.

And we rode bikes EVERYWHERE.
Through the trails. There were bike
Trails trailing everywhere, short-cuts from point
Hay to Tree. And oh yeah, I climbed trees.
Constantly. And ate apples and plums from
That mean lady’s yard. She stood in her
Kitchen and glared through cat-eyed glasses,
Daring us. Daring me.
GO AHEAD. PICK JUST ONE SINGLE PLUM.
THEN I'LL CALL YOUR MOTHER!
(Interestingly, we didn't hang out with the
plums which didn't fall too far from Mrs. Tree)

Ate whatever was edible. Wild clover.
Yeah. Grass. And
Crab-apples that held the promise of
Painful bowel movements squirting out of
Your ****. Not ‘***’ because cussing wasn’t
All that big of a deal. You heard it in R movies.
But it hadn’t permeated the marrow of
Our entire culture. Not yet. It wasn’t all over
TV after, say, 8:45.

Nothing about ***. Absolutely Nuttin' Honey.
'Cause I'd be making stuff up in 1975,
When I was 12. Kissing was just...
You know.

We messed around, got into and out of trouble.
We laughed. The future hung over us like
Those mean-sounding thunderclouds,
Miles away, but moving from the North-East,
Because severe weather in Iowa always came
In the same direction.

It’s what we did. It’s just about
All we did as kids. Man, we were crazy, and had
Crazy fun.

We built bikes out of spare parts. They were low-
Slung and cool. Mine was always breaking.
I did a lot of stupid things, and somehow,
Somehow I got away with doing a lot of
Stupid things.

I believe in God. Now.
Way back then, I was Catholic. I don’t
Know if that sufficiently explains it
Or not. We ate fishsticks on Fridays during
Lent. We went to church sometimes
On Wednesday nights, the Guitar Mass,
And on Sundays. The Mass felt like it
Lasted 93 minutes, like our services do
Now. But it seemed to go on forever.
It as about 45 minutes, and we would always
“Leave Early” which meant, we’d take
Our Communion, solemnly, eyes
Downcast and humble, but I would slow,
Then stop, lost in the visage:
I looked up at the Man on the Cross and
Wondered when the Priest would ever
Get around to explaining why He
Died for my sins.
Someone would wake me from my
Reverie, and whisper, “Please move ahead.”
Shamefaced, I would say, truthfully,
“I’m sorry, Ma’am.” Because, in 1975,
When I was 12, I really was.
Sorry.

Then an hour
Later I was dressed in
Salvation Army rags (today)
And I would jump in the creek with my
Jean-shorts and off-color shirt on.
Sometimes, the bikes weren’t in the picture.
So we hiked. Never ‘walked’ but “hiked” which
Was moving with a greater purpose.
Great distances. The distances weren’t the great
Part. I forget what the great part was, because
This was when I was a kid. When I was 12.

The things you did
As a kid
You store them in a secret kid-locker
In your heart
And your heart, it grows, along with the rest of
You, like a quarter pounded into the meat of
A young tree. The tree envelops the quarter,
Taking it in to itself, swallowing time
That you only try to clumsily relive
(Like I’m trying right now)

It used to be cold, icy, and snowy in Iowa.
I know this; I was out in it most of the time.
Does anyone sled anymore? Toboggan?
Round-saucer spinning uncontrollably at
About 12 mph? Metal sleds with runners
And power steering? Down crazy-steep
Barreling down frozen white hills, crashing
Into copses of thin pliable young trees.
You only see this kind of stuff on Youtube
In somebody’s ‘All-time Epic Fail List
The failure is epic, alright. We’ve moved on.
And not necessarily to a bigger, brighter future.

Ice! I skated on long-bladed racer skates.
I could stop on a dollar’s worth of
Dimes.

And this one time
I
Fell right on my knee hard enough to
Grind a hole in my jeans. It looked like a ******
Meteor crater. A pretty girl named Tina
Felt sorry for me and sat right next to me
She wore pink pom-poms and I fell in
Puppy with her for about three hours.
Then she smiled and hugged me and
I was more frozen than the ice outside
And she left, her Mom picking her up
And eying me balefully as I stood
Pink-faced and flushed and utterly
Confused about the randomness of
What had just happened to me.
Girls from my town all knew
More about myself than myself knew
About me. They had me PEGGED, brothers
And sisters. But not this girl. She was from
The next town over.
That was a good day, if I’m remembering
It correctly. If. I’m pretty sure I am.
Or, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter.

We played a game called ‘Blackman’
Like a tag game in Gym, where
One kid is “IT” and a mass of skaters
Goes from one end of the ice pond
To the other, and the people you capture
(I couldn’t catch an old man in front-wheel
Drive figure skates and I got so frustrated
I gave up to jeers and yells and found the
Trees were good listeners to kids
Who couldn’t skate as coordinated as
They wanted to.

So ten minutes later
I would go into the Warming House, and
Listen to am radio. All the Hits! KSTT! Davenport,
Iowa. On ******* Blvd., which was really
River Drive, because the Hostess Plant stood
Sentinel on top of the hill, pushing out
Sponge-cake filling and HoHos and Cupcakes
And those awful coconut snowballs, and
This one time, in high school, I shoved one
Inside my mouth and tried to swallow it
And about choked to death.

I walked to Mark Twain Elementary School
And ran home for lunch, and was usually
Late because I was easily distracted
And when the school day ended,
I walked or ran home, hurrying, because
Captain Ernie and Bugs Bunny Cartoons were on,
And then Gilligan’s Island from about 4:00 to
5:30, when the news would come on,
And then Dinner,
And I couldn’t stand to sit still
To save my life. I have ADD. I
Know this now. I didn’t know it
(Nobody knew what it was)
I knew something was wrong with me
Or not-right. It was just the way
The World Turned.

Back then. I had no sense of ‘self’.
I was a changeling. I tried to fit into
Whatever people expected of me, which
Was very often extremely difficult, because
These people I emulated and thought were
So **** cool were just as messed up
As I was, maybe more; But I
Didn’t have the emotional maturity
(Or I couldn’t face the awful responsibility
That went with that awful truth)
To deal with it, so under the rug it went.

I was moody and happy and singing
One moment and crying in the shower
The next.

This one time, I was stuck
In the borderlands of childhood
And the beginning of a man
It was safe, for awhile
This one time.

i.
I’ve heard people say on various occasions “if it’s meant to be, it will happen.” I don’t buy it.
Lots of things never happened that should have.

ii.
Talking to Jimi was like having a conversation thru the plexi-glass of a prison visitation room.
They could see each other, they could almost touch each other, but a layer of bullet proof glass stood between them and true intimacy.  Yet, there were times when the wall was more like the shell of a bubble—thin and pliable and sticking to her fingers when she pressed against it. And Jimi’s shape
would begin to take form with her touch, and the reality of his true self would show in defiance of his expectations.

iii.
Jimi just didn’t seem to get it. It was like he thought every word Mango uttered about her crushed spirit and just trying to survive was some sort of manipulation tactic.  
“You don't act like you did before.” She said.
“I'm sorry for that, you never leave my mind though.”
“The things going on in your head don't talk to me or spend time with me or hold me....they just
stay with you and I am all alone.”

iv.
“Jimi, I can’t focus, I can’t concentrate on anything! The sound of my thoughts are so loud that reality is just background clamor and white noise!”
“I’m trying, I’m doing the best I can. What more do you want me to do?”
“Move out! Make the leap! If you’re not happy there, if you don’t want to be married to her you shouldn’t be there. If being with me isn’t enough motivation to leave, then leave because Lizi deserves more than a fake husband.”
“I’m ****. I’m just a coward. I don’t like myself for what I’m doing.”
“The only one who can change how you feel about yourself is you.
Sitting around thinking about how ****** you are isn’t going to change a **** thing.”
“Neither is yelling at me.”
“Then I guess we’re at an impasse.”

v.
Something in their relationship had died. Not unlike the many times Mango’s heart had been broken and her hope had been lost. But it was harder for Jimi, taking that leap of love in the first place was
the most difficult thing he had ever done.  And now, he had never experienced such intense levels of pain, he thought his heart would literally stop beating, and he would be swallowed up by the enormous cavity in his chest.  Mango wanted to know if he could love her again, and he didn’t know, he honestly didn’t know. He wanted to, but now the part of him that feared he would not be enough for her had taken over, and his sense of fear and overwhelm was too much for him to bear.

Poor stone. You’ve wrapped it, hidden its serene and uncomplicated self. I can no longer feel its smoothness, its emptiness embodied in touch. You have brought it in from the beautiful silence of its solitary state and covered it around: a net, a bag, a coverlet, a coating of thread through which we can only see something of itself.

There is a consistency here: in this doing, a reflective doing as much as conscious making. You’ve moved from the mending of damaged acorns, splintered leaves, forlorn detritus gathered off the sea strand to making tiny homes, shelters, enclosures, that sometimes have no perceivable openings; so some stones are wholly netted, completely wound and threaded around so there is no escape. But some, it needs to be said, are like the lasts of the cobbler, there to provide a form to hold the stone shoe firm, in place, and around which the woven thread in your hand can ply and knit . . . and then it is sometimes cast away, this last of stone, having only provided a stone shape; so only its shape-memory persists for the viewer. And when touched - this garment, this cloak of thread is pliable, and moves with the fingers’ touch and press.

I should like to capture this stone in the process of its enclosing; what seems to be from a viewer’s stance a not wholly planned journey with the needle - around and about, in and out and under. So I imagine a stop-motion sequence of photographs, beginning with the lonely undressed stone in your hand. As time lapses we watch the intricate play of your hand, your deft fingers, that particular pinching and holding to place the thread here and here and here, the pulling through, the special holding in place while one thread knits together with another thread by going underneath and up and along, and all the time the hand turning, the fingers dancing in the hand.

Then will come moments of rest where the stone moves from the hand to a still surface. It regains its shadow - and rests. The hand moves away and we are left with the silent stone, the journey of its dressing interrupted by life’s necessities. The maker’s hand moves to other tasks; the preparation of food, the writing of notes, the tapping of virtual symbols on the mobile phone (now there’s a surface that shares with the stone a hardness and smoothness – once we held stones for comfort in the pocket – now we stroke the mobile to remind us that we’re safe in the dark street, not ever alone, connected to our thousands of followers, admirers, friends, our loved ones, and that repository of what is and where to go, and the whole world of music and photographs - of woven stones).

Let’s go back to this stop-motion. To lift the stone from its precious private place, usually alone (no other stones around), index finger and thumb come together to lift our stone from its shadow – a shadow that disappears, magically, into the surrounding light. Oh surely no more, the stone cries in its shadowless voice. No more of this twisting turning, upside downing, the sense of the stone recalling a time beyond time when in a storm-laden sea one dark winter’s night it, and countless companions, were lifted from the sea bed and rolled round, around, round, and swept, afloat in a turmoil of waves that break and break and break until finally onto the sloping beach - where the stone is left – alone, motionless – at rest - to dry in the morning sun.

Gradually the movement in her fingers becomes slower, even sporadic. She is looking at this stone with her grey-blue eyes, intently. There are pauses; moments of reflection where our stone is set down and viewed, picked up again and moved into a different light (its shadow returns momentarily, fitfully, knowing perhaps any stasis is only temporary). The camera keeps clicking; stop, a 300th of second motion, stop for a second. Already there are thousands of images collected in the camera’s silicon memory chip.

And so movement gradually becomes stillness. The light changes. The camera’s incessant stop-motion ceases. The stone is placed on a white surface for a final photo-call – a single click. Once naked; now clothed. There is no longer the possibility of return to its original stoniness. It becomes an ‘object’ to place on a surface for wonder and admiration – not the stone of course but its clothing, its covering, its embodied shape in thread, perhaps that thread soaked in mud that in itself holds a distance memory of water, even water that has moved from sea to the coastal strip, the estuary, the river’s bank.

Later, after being wrapped in tissue paper, perhaps boxed, and moved into a total darkness, the stone is brought again into the light. It finds itself placed among other stones, stones and shells, rusty objects even, and laid out variously on a pristine white surface. Its stoniness is now shadowed with words: a description, a title, its ‘found’ location, a date of finding – a date of making. That this stone, once beached, and picked from the sand, from amongst so many other stones, and thought unique and carrying potential as a last, a shoe-maker’s frame, a steady 3-dimensional surface for wrapping, now becomes something more that a solitary stone. It has been given a new life, a life of an object imbued with the thread of a maker’s curious mind; that in so threading has come to know this stone so intimately, and with so much love and care that its clothing, whilst having no pre-formed pattern, becomes something in its maker’s eyes that seems  - meaningful, poetic, ‘right’?

Through this stone-weaving with thread, this stone-covering and describing in thread, you have made a poem of the nature of stoniness. Your fingers now know this stone, and perhaps, if we can in our imagination follow that partly accidental / partly planned journey, we can read your poem – of touch, of turning, of minute viewing, of so careful observation of every millimetre of its surface. Yes, perhaps that’s it, what this is all about . . . only our stone has had its wonderful serenity and solitariness, its smoothness and surface taken from us. It will no longer lie in the pocket to comfort the hand. It will no longer lie on the desk to be a tangible remembrance of a place and time, treasured.

                                                       ------

‘And now I remember a poem, portraying a stone, a pebble placed in a child’s hand, picked up on a pebble ridge. A pebble to place in the pocket where we finger it until it becomes warm. Its shape and certain¬ty is firm and sure. It consoles us. And, as we change and decay, it remains lodged with us: *a thing that contains nothing save the mystery of life.’

I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man:
The man who sat on your right in the morning train:
The man who looked through like a windowpane:
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
Morning pipe smoke.
I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom.

I am the man they call the nation's backbone,
Who am boneless - playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.

I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.

I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round

See the Rabbi.  See him tormented by choice.  See his people.  See them wracked by hate.  See the others.  See their anger radiate outward in glowing spokes, exploding firebrand in a tinder city.

On a night like any other, the moon at sixth house, fulcrum of pinwheel zodiac, the Rabbi, awash in lidless starlight, rises somber and makes his choice.  And when the sun is furthermost, he and three of his others gather at the murmuring riverbank where the brown clay is most pliable and begin to dig, sifting rock and root from trundled earth.  Hours spent exhuming the clay, molding it, kneading its muscles, tracing its veins, baking its skin in the starlight.  More hours spent in whispering prayer, the words bent and somersaulting over themselves like tumbling books.

See Truth drawn on its forehead, life etched from clay and word.  As the sun rises, so it does, wavering at first, but steadier, lapping at the river, and their faces move slowly across the water.  See the Rabbi speak to it, his words winding its mechanism.  See it stride past the ghetto, wade through the market, and into the borough, siege unto its own.

See the others scream for mercy from the kiln of its stare, from their flaming tenements, their crumpling rooftops.

See it wade back through the market, past the ghetto, back to the riverbank to kneel in the underbrush.  See it tilt its head to the lilt of a stranded daisy caught in a vagrant gust.   See it caught, too, and see it see.  It sees the colors of Eden in the ferns.  It hears the river churning sediment, fossils, gravel, whirling over driftwood.  It touches moss on a rock; gently rotates its hand to let a grub complete an oblivious circumference.  See it sit in silence.

See the Rabbi meet with the others, then his others.  And on a day like any other, when the sun is at its apogee, they slip down the riverbank where it still sits, still.  It ignores their autonomous logic, their homunculus rationale.  They are perversions of variety cloaked in righteous intention.  So it remains.

See the Rabbi and his others gather at the murmuring riverbank, shadow conclave in shifting sunlight, then rise somber and decided.  They pin it to the earth as the Rabbi chants, invoking the void in which forbidden knowledge spirals.  It squirms under the power of the Word, mind-forged manacle as incantation.  See the Rabbi draw to a close.  His hand is arbiter, swooping down to smudge Truth from its forehead.  What is left but Death.

See its hand crumble in its passage as it reaches for the stranded daisy.  See the colors of Eden darken in its eyes, its own body the dust that denies it light.  See it collapse into itself, the clay that was once animate spilling onto the riverbank.  See the Rabbi and his others shimmer then fade into city grey.

The daisy stands still.

Flexibility is the presence of structure
In the absence of rigidity.
Like the valves in my veins
That keep my blood flowing in the
Right direction.

As limber beings we can sway and bend without snapping.
Even under intense pressure,
We are able to return to normal
When we call upon our inner strength.
Our minds, like muscles,
Must be consistently stretched and tested
To remain pliable.
Allowing us to become more accepting of ourselves and others.

Nothing is stable
I'm just waiting for everything to collapse around me
Or maybe morph into something unknown because
nothing feels real right now and
I'm not sure I believe in existence anymore

It's probably just an illusion and we've all
been playing into the hands of a higher
power's experiment.
We are the guinea pigs of life and I refuse to be a mere
scientific "what if".

Now everything shatters, I've broken the curse
of the glass house.
Tell big brother he's now an only child and I've killed his flies who just so happened to
fancy perching on my walls.

I've uncovered your veil of secrecy
And I intend to expose your lies.
Goodbye im off to a place composed of
realacy for ground and infinity for skies.
Don't forget the perpetual hope for humans that is found so very seldom here.

Oh, what a place.

Swoon to a tearful night, unknown to its grief
Dialogue of peace, and those of plight
Ringing of morphology, raindrops on the roof.
Such things heard from the peasants’ seat
In the many wet heads sopping
In the sonorous waves, upright in the city clime
Untending to their beds.
At the bottom of that something
All told are destined they will find
Be pliable to the ills they’ve dealt
To carry on, to work, admonishments
Said once to justify these red romances
That in every rain storm melt
As pity through the night, forever unclasped
From shackles of their blame
Since life and ideology somehow are the same.
‘Tis destiny for abating storms
As some will rose from their thickened thorns
These nights deliver their gentle morns
All the same as hemlock grows as poison
And is best to be avoided.
How—this, I fear only rain my know—
Can we still bathe in fraternal glow
When some still heal from Death himself
Each breath that enters is quickly prayed to leave
High on seated thrones
Those mean so quick to thieving, the poor
The lazy deserve no quarter
Those dusty pockets afford not one
So steal the heart upon his sleeve.
May we help man wrought our kin and kind
By common tongue, free, as we are ought?
Since another may make my world
He is mine to protect, not throw to bytes
So ludicrous and feeding back upon themselves
For destiny can be remade
If hatred weren’t so blind.

Am I that easy?
To corrupt, to change,
to turn into something I never intended to be?
Or is my will just weak,
and I am pliable under your strong hands?

A sneer,
A snide
remark
graces your skin,
Tingling despite
the smile.
I'm disgusted.
I'm irate.
I'm alive and
burning with rage.
I'm storming.
Clouds gather
At my fingertips,
Clouds gather at my
Lips.
The lower
Are troubled,
Churning and spurning
The gentle hand
That often lies.
The upper are
Sweet, soft,
Cotton candy
Falsities,
Covering up any memory
Of personal taste,
Of individuality.
I exist to please.
I'm a saucy
Sort of servant.
I'm disgusted.
I'm irate.
I'm alive and
Burning with rage.
I'm forming.
Forming infinitesimally
Tiny shapes,
Bits of broken
Anger and slander
Printed fresh like
A book.
Smaller and smaller
The pieces will shrink,
Pushed away
Into
The farthest
Corner of my cortex.
Flash,
Bam,
And with a puff of smoke
It's almost gone.
I'm a magician.
I'm disgusted.
I'm irate.
I'm whatever
You please.
I'm cotton candy
****-sticking,
White and pliable;
Olive will give away
If you just keep hitting.
I'm disgusted.
I'm irate.
I'm barely hanging on.
I'm burning
With rage.
But,
I'm alive.
Yes,
I'm alive.

Oh Muse! endow my verses like the
grease
which in a pliable state, straightens
the choppy motion.
Dear Apollo! enlighten my words like
the hell fire
that light gives, yet a sharp gaze
broils the eggs.
Oh wretched Hydes! weep but one
more time for me
for the constellation bears rain no
more.
Oh Jove! rain the one pacific upon me
for I will to drown myself today.
Ah flora! the color of spring has
blanched away
for the pompoms bloom ashen
Lovely Aurora! why you withhold
yourself from me?
She's glum with me, why trying you
too be?
Eye some Aphrodite! take care of and
preserve the winsomeness.
for the lass* knows no value, it has to
me...

The padlock on the continuous barnstorm of a transcendent time whose bunkum is transmuted consciousness aligning with parallax to a congruent worldview is not axiomatic but certainly a veridical property of reality. The universe is as much concept as percept and both properties of consciousness that lead to adaptive behavior are tethered to the eccentricity of the observer rather than the oblong nature of the observed where errors in prima facie judgments delineate the saplings of humanity to beaze under the proctored sunlight of an eternal sunshine that withers seldom to the whims of capricious arbitrage of those whose hubris exceeds the limits of the intellectual frontier because they are gilded with bricolage mentalities that scaffold the skeletonized worldview rather than apprehending the concretism and synthetic arraignment of interrogable reality in a manner that acknowledges the factitious intersection of pioneering understanding and the corporeal existence of realities both transcendent in spatiotemporal mapping and reversible propinquity to the sensible acquisition of tangible knowledge. I contest the worldview of many philosophers as a callow retread of basic logic whose ambition is underserved by a desire for prolix pellucidity rather than cogent succinct promethean formulations that dare to muster the herculean task of demystification even if the entropy of formulation is always flawed by the jaundice of the observers rather than the disdain of the observable consensus. We swing by a filipendulous thread that dangles speculation and reifies the blinkered piebald world of spotty concatenations among neurons recognizing that incomplete associations become the staples of philosophies that are precarious in some logical foundation but sturdy enough to weather the vagaries of the bluster of mendicants who verge on comprehension but pale in comparison to the monolithic edifice of so-called truth when the defalcation of figureheads supplants the clerisy as the new proctor of knowledgeable assertion. I contend that foofaraw is a primeval instinct of community ecology that expedites the balkanization of otherwise unitive properties of society and ravages them with bickering based on clashing predilections that are bellicose and combative rather than irenic and balmy. The acerbic fates of many leads to a rudimentary pessimism or a chary optimism that chides against the fortified exegesis of divinity that can be both proclaimed and stultified for its latticework properties of buttressing society in a permutation that is nimble in some respects but too turgid and rigid in others. The goal of humanity is to become a pliable instrument of a pliable universe that does not rely on buzzword dogmatism or the masquerade of hollow punditry but that relies on self-reliant principles for ascertaining veracity and impugning mendaciloquence with vigilant alacrity rather than casual sportsmanship that reaches finality only upon the handshakes of a battle waged that concedes the impotence of gladiatorial spectatorship as just a gambit of the half-witted cockney witticisms and shibboleths of sportive diversion rather than consequential and decisive reckonings with the subaudition that undergirds all events of any consequence with either a clinched victory or a callow defeatism of a futilitarian worldview that stoops to reconciliation only to propitiate antagonism and buffer against the truculent brunt of weaponized coercion to checkered flags that arbitrate the outcome of a binary polarity of humanized affairs. The majesty of creation is that reversible boundaries can be permeated in a bi-directional manner through the artifice of concerted thought rather than the orchestration of a linear traipse through the deserts of an inclement fate won immediately when projected upon the tangent of any given velocity at any point of acceleration away from the targeted impetus that grants only a partial vantage, a cantle of reality that is fragmented and piecemeal rather than circular and emergent. The most dire battle that humanity faces is the attrition of circumstance by the purposive declarations of imperious authority that seeks to muzzle the ingenuity of many for the deliciation of the few creating an accidia among the clerical institute of thinkers that imposes hogra that few people can grapple with that they are marooned into a cloister that reaps fewer rewards for an ascendant intellect than a virulent libido can clutch with predatory gallops against the also-rans that fight for carnality rather than the ethereal principles lingering within the grasp of many if it became a cynosure of worthy heralded acclaim. We witness the mass fecklessness of giftedness as a shackle of those whose plaudits come intrinsically fortified but sustain none of the abuses that the pedestrians would like to obtrude upon enlightenment to curtail and abridge the art of invention like the coagulation of blood to rob the vitality of throbbing pulse of importunate self-discovery of its macroscopic vista and its telescopic foresight about the future hodgepodge of a recursive fractalized reality besieged by the enemy of linear logical formulations implemented by ivory tower psychologists to muzzle the empowerment of abstruse language in order to make savory the nostrum of the apothecaries of delegated truth bereaved of recourse beyond certain leaps they cannot fathom well enough to flicker with even a faint transient wisdom that is designed to be amenable only to the supernal nature of ideation rather than the caprice of bedazzled humanitarianism. We need to forswear the -isms that flicker with doctrinaire dogmatism and flirt with forceful harangues that exhort a codified message and launch veridical properties of recondite etherealism into an immovable orbit whose inertia can broadcast a singular message of recoil against puritanism in science or skepticism in faith. The bedrock of this message is the deployment of useful extravagance without inordinate delay, the drivel of malcontent transmogrified into the prattle of estimable giants that have stature among the leviathan enough to recriminate against the autarky of self-smug simpletons that infest the world with barbarous indecencies and crude prepossessions that abortively crumple when met with the acerbic teleological gravity of ulterior consequence rather than blossom under the siroccos of manufactured wind designed for windfalls that always create a crestfallen aftermath from the anticlimax of understanding leading to the desiccation of consequence and the engorgement of precedence. These frangible realities become buoyant because the physics of the public dialectic insulates the creaky rickety vestiges of canonical knowledge as a sworn precedent inviolable and immune as a building block of all scholasticism, a retread of parchment recycled over and over again to entrench the past as the titanic vehicle that dictates the future of thought even though the porous inconsistencies of the vagrants of crude formulation make such a vessel less seaworthy than scientism and dogmatism of the monolith would have you believe to be true. The querulous quips of the uninformed predominate with such clutter that the armamentarium against useful idiocy is stagnated into a resigned accord with infernal subjugation of the public volition to insubordinate against a system of parochial enslavement rather than a catholic enlightenment whose universalism of principle ensures a steadfast society guided by scruples rather than undermined by the prickly thorns of abrasive contrition and the magnetism of empathic concern that sabotages the clarity of intelligence and provides a welter in the place of a well-arrayed code of peculiar but defiant distinctiveness that acts as the splinter that cracked the intangible but refractory borders of human inclination and demonstrated the sheer force of golden consistency rather than fickle withering resolve. I exhort and implore the world to heed the best minds that realize the syncretism is answerable to contradiction rather than scuttled from beneath by the impudence of its assertions against the common propriety when it stakes controversy as a gamble to aver the veracity of worldviews that violate orthpraxy with gusto as a brazen gallantry to rescue a foundering planet that seeks disequilibrium in harmony rather than an equilibrated sensibility that is proud to discriminate properly and honestly to clinch fact rather than kowtow to factitious slumber of somniferous kumbaya that is too deferent to maxims that are unduly polite only because charisma supersedes genius in its efficacy to mobilize people to fulfill their roles. With the miscegenation of justice that occurs because of expedience we find holes in many legalistic precedents because they anoint pettifoggery over sensible jurisdiction and face a leaky and ramshackle fate to foment paternalism and divide the clerisy among certain key considerations in order to save face rather than to impose a clarity of orderly supervision that seeks to dissipate the embroiled spiderwebs of dodgy prevarication and quacksalver logic to once and for all ascertain the truth that lurks beyond the primal jaundice of Kafkaesque confusion.

Heathens -
in heaven's lobby
flock
to barter
for Magic 'Shrooms
with pop rocks... and pancakes
and leaf-green brownies.
new to the scene;
the Son of Man
holds a motley court,
then wanders off
to fetch Picasso - Lassoed
from his cups, his Love that must Love
his genius... doubtless,
cloud-scrawling
huge pendulous *******
in Elysium; for no one at all.
better Pablo
should tend bars      that set mobs free
than one god's toddler, with long odds
against Bacchus - should ever
small-talk-speak
to the godless
or worse...
preach.

" Better Sins to love.. " The Spaniard once taught...
A Lover's Urge is born in forms of weakness.... adorned in all Might -
bathed in blessed contradiction,
a Lingam for a Yoni's dream of stiff drinks
and pliable men, with strong arms.
a blue fiction  on Calvary -
nailed to the softest
cross.

Between thieves,
an honor, double
parked

with bucket seats brimming with moonlight,
and her knickers
tossed.

Picasso asks for absinthe
to be sent
post haste
and polished off -
by all
his better angels he had guillotined
with dull snails,
and fallen  
harps

ones -  he stole,  to de-tune
a flat fifth of Cuttysark
for a deaf
****,  [but no mute ]
a portrait, ****
and is soon
bought...

lust
sleeps then -
with both Eyes;  
Locked on
One of
God's.

like a deer
in a Head-light's
Gospel...
now, a Minotaur on the
Autobahn -
stalking
it.


II

Heathens
in heaven's lobby
recite ' Howl '
as Ginsberg, walks over hot coals
and spicy psalms; glowing wanton
in white grass; with a very
cherry ****.
And a wise throng, cobbles...
****** -
they rob
Peter of his  toga,
leaving nothing wrong.
but no less ' On '
they laugh hard;  and wake the dead
asking  them for new songs
to set    their false alarms
in lofty Tic' Tocks  
of Eternity's
clock.
Bible on a snooze bar
for at least that long
or  someone
knocks.

As if  "Hello."  
Spoke the Whole World into Being -
And " Goodbye."
misspoke, and
trailed
off...

we built a teepee in the woods out back,
hoping for a fortress where we could avoid
my parents' calls for us to come inside
and out of the pitch black of a tangled forest.

it wasn’t perfect – there was no hide
with which to cover it, decorated with
red and blue creatures of the earth, dancing
upon geometric patterns.

some of the branches we used to craft this teepee
stuck out, thin, pliable fingers
with budding leaves instead of nails, gently swaying
and conducting some silent melody in the breeze.

these branches were leaned in a circle, supporting each other
with circles of young, green sinew layered beneath their bark.
we bound them together at their peak, unwinding a ball of string
that would fray and disintegrate with every rainstorm.

we failed, also, to consider our chosen place for this Indian home.
rather than soft grass or spongy moss, we sat
uncomfortably and shifting, on layers of dirt
and dead, dry leaves, decaying beneath us
as we stared into a leafy ceiling,
framed and outlined by the gold sunlight,
before the fiery sky turned to purple and red, and
mosquitoes bit at our ankles, driving us from the forest
and into my home.

there we lay, staring up at glow-in-the-dark stickers
mimicking Orion and Ursa, Libra and Gemini,
on my plain and darkened ceiling.

Trick tricky on a radiant platform

Jezebel, arms full of gnashing curs
She loves everybody, that girl
She always meant well
The most dangerous thing in the world

Riding the dragon straight into the apocalypse
Nine heads slavering, always hungry
Swollen with decades of wasted debauchery

Brimstone falling from the rafters, pillars of melting wax, melting faces
Tongue to the iron, proving my lie
A deception of self, it’s a ******* masterpiece

The garden lush that falls to rot,
Lunatic blight, land that salts itself
Spending what was spent until it is finally dry like wither.

I,
I run hot and cold, a cheap parlor trick gone bad
Changing phase to phase and back again, losing a little more each time

Tiamat to fire the kiln, I wait
Too polluted by far to continue this way any longer

Wrapping myself up small for you, so helpless and inevitable
Hell-bent on teaching you how to better abuse me
Help me to recreate myself, oh yes please

I am, you will find
More pliable even, in the heat of your hands

You promised you'd fight for us
But if I were to end this
You would encourage me to go
Your words get caught in a spiderweb
Spawn up then ****** dry
Guess your vision of us was misled by your own eyes
I promised I'd never take a break from you
But I forgot to messaged you two days in a row
Some promises are meant to be broke
You must think my words aren't reliable
I easily stuffed them behind the wall of flaws because there pliable
The promises we made should be buried beneath the ground
Silence forever
If they could speak lies would be their only sound
Both bound by this undeniable love
But missing the necessary pieces to crown our words as kings and queens
Instead they've been impeached  
Some promises are meant to be broken
At least the ones we've made

Just once,
I'd like to be normal,
Average.

Or the median,
Mode,
Or range.
I'm not picky.

Too smart for my own good,
But actually stupid.

Too clumsy to play a sport,
Yet I play anyway.

Either the pliable,
Gullible,
Easy to mess with nerd.

Or the weak link,
On the basketball team.

Is fitting in,
Just once,
Too much to ask for?

Is one real friend,
That big of a request?

Is knowing what to say,
Really that hard?

Is being pretty,
Too big a wish to grant?

Why can't I be normal,
For once in my life?

We are young!
We are strong!
Lungs to the heavens
as our hearts sing along!
We run as thousands
but we stand as one!
Souls in the heavens
with eyes on the gun, fun!
Pound our feet in the ground,
rumblin' rhythmic footsteps
move mountains with its sound!
Our words heat the air
as the ice cracks loud!
Their shiver is shared;
Let them stare, we don't care
Melt into the crowd,
and we still stand out!
Individual
Indivisible
Indescribable
Indefensible
Yet still feasible to stay reasonable
No treason is seasonal
No wall is that pliable
Withstand hate with strength undeniable
Vicious, and still likable
Quick to bite; to heal a wound
Get hurt, get chewed
Get back up, Get out soon
And we stand up in rythum
And get back in tune
Singing a song, to sing along
Where we all belong,
Where none is wrong
Mass hysteria with a flex of a muscle
Show them all just how strong
Long in the tooth
or still young
You too can have youth
melt in the crowd, stand your ground
or get swallowed up by the swiftness of our sound

From a distance I watch her
Wind whips the long mane around shapely curves
The waterfall in front of her disrupts any sound
made byst me
First the cotton frock falls to the rocks
Followed next by a chemise

Frustrated to no end
I can nay see that succulent flesh
Seconds seem like hours
As the petticoat is removed

Sharp intake of air almost chokes me
The skin is  exquisite
From my stance it seems to glow
Watching as hair is pulled off one shoulder
Such glorious beauty

I must wonder if she knows
Knows? Knows what you may wonder
If she realizes
Can she see it in the eyes of many beholders?

Her body is tantalizing
Curves riveting
Tresses encircling
If I were closer I know those eyes
They would be the most splendid of any in the universe

The mane of blonde hangs past her rounded hips
My body responds intimately to hers
I feel my heart quicken and skip beats
Palms grow moist
Manhood throbs

She turns around startled like a doe at the snap of a twig
Yet she can nay hear or see me
I curse myself over and over
Turn around, don't watch
Yet I can not, no I will not

She steps into the water
Her heart shaped bottom soon becomes covered
I can hear my breath as it comes and goes in short bursts
Watching as the arch lifts her ******* high in the air
Head moves under the water

Oh my God!
She is an enchantress
Must be, No woman has ever affected me so
There is no way I can walk let alone ride my horse
All I can do is just watch enthralled

My mind wanders as I begin to have a conversation with her
"You are most beautiful"
"Your skin of golden peach"
"Hair of spun silk"
"Do you know how magnificent you are?"

"OUCH!" as something takes a bite of my shoulder
"**** horse"
Deep blue pools refocus on the gorgeous creature in the river
Mounds of brown tips stand so perfectly round
Hands reach out cupping, almost feeling the flesh there

Watching from a distance she leaves the water
I wait for her to dress before mounting my steed
His movements are as graceful as hers
He closes the distance 100 ft
50 ft
30ft
10ft basically on top of her

I jump to the ground  
Grasping her shoulders, clothing damp from her bath
Boldly gripping hair and tilting her back
My stern lips capture her pliable soft ones
No fighting from her
Taking the kiss as much as I

Suddenly, our tongues meet
Molten lava fills my staff
It throbs, filled with the rush of blood
I having never had a woman do this to me
Wondering what she is thinking
The kiss intoxicating like the sweetest liqueur

Stopping the kiss before I take her here
My senses having left my brain leaving my body in control
Finally I see her eyes as they open and look deeply into mine
They are heart stopping
The deepest clearest green ever seen

Lips part to say something
Neither of us speak
Lips meet once more and break
A loud noise interrupts the trance

A burly 7ft man
Profanity is all I hear
A nice leather whip snaps in the air
My dream is gone that fast

I wake, to the loud sound of cracking whips
Thundering hooves
Realizing it was all just a dream
She was nay real

Jumping up and mounting my horse
I rejoin the group rounding up mustangs
A sadness consumes my soul
Thinking I had finally found her
My life's mate

Sighs as we pass the waterfall
My dream just out of reach


Written by :  Jennifer Humphrey all rights reserved. Please do not post elsewhere or try to make this your own for it is copyrighted.

knitted on a dodgy bobble hat
or a favourite chunky jumper
from scandanavia, or yorkshire

untasteful but definitely practical..
smelly and friendly like a wet dog
pliable like warm playdoh...

patulioi oil
will always remind me of you...
'a hippy place in my heart...'
like a beachnut,
no, a beach hut
shelves littered with the flotsam of our throwaway society,
flip flop corner...

19:10
some random hermit crab making his escape from
the dripping bundle of just found fishing net
down through the crack in the floor...
into the sand
and back to the sea.
the moths and midges gravitate towards the fossils and rock shelf
because that's where the gaslamp gently hisses.

suncracked and faded
pieces of
70's buckets and spades flicker in the corner
between the scraps of rope
and the deflated inflatables
and the bottlecap damian hurst
next to sea purse corner,
biological tendrils contrasting the ever stoic rubber ducks
who escaped from the pacific gyre...

panning around, the smartphone registers,
the garish tatty windbreak
and the 90's ghettoblaster
which still has some juice left from those batteries
we bought at the gift shop...
last year...
for our imaginary beach hut....
in the outer hebrides...?

you take the camping gaz from the cupboard
and put the kettle on...
the beach is desert island white
the sea azure like a gaudy 70's postcard
the wind tugging relentless through our hair.
but the pub is warm and friendly
where grizzled fishermen philosophise
hardily. by the fire.
between warming shots of smokey single malt.