Smile, pose,
flawless, poise

Let's make another picture perfect square,
Perfect for everyone to stare
I don't care what you think,
what you see, what you think,
of what you see,
As long as I can fool my memory

Even if I sink,
even when everything stinks
If I can't remember, it won't drag me down

Let's find our true love,
One and only true love,
Starting from the superficials,
Oh yes, 'cause I believe from this
we can go straight to the nuptials

It's odd if you ask me these days be,
spent more time fighting off monsters that can never be,
Exploring Neverland,
truly being Peter Pan?...

Is it still called a social interaction?
When there is no communication,
More like with the green monsters, spending quality time
all kins of them,
And in plurals,
all these digitals
...

This is what she looks like when she's sad:
The human condition effective immediately.
Winter shades shift side to side,
exploding out of each iris.
Skin falling off,
when lunging forward to kiss me.
Fingernail daggers dig into my pores.
I'll bleed under her fingernails,
if she'll drag them down my torso
until her knees click the floor.

This is her tongue inside of my mouth:
We taste each other before we waste each other.
Hip bones parallel and our eyes rubbing shoulders,
my hands surfing her rib cage
and it's all the rage because she moans.
And when she moans,
color tones orbit around her head.
Planetary tumors dancing around her skull;
jump roping with her hair,
eating morals and removing plurals.

Those are her lips around me.
Her head moves up and down
but her eyes focus on me.
She makes eye contact
and I empty my dreams
into her mouth.

We are a public forum.
I ache with alcohol poisoning
and liberal undertones.
The terrain that is my face
bleeds oils that would lubricate
the axle of the car that she drove
into the tree
that we carved our name into.

Come back to me.
I miss you so much.
I watched you die.
I watched you die
and there was nothing I could do.

They told me that she wouldn't make it.
They told me that she might make it.
My hand gripped at blood stained blanket.
I think she said my name under the air mask.
I could tell if she saw me;
her eyes rolled back into her head
after she gazed a thousand yards away
into the field of black
that sheltered the tall grass
that we would chase each other through
and get lost in
as we got lost in each other.

I love you! I ******* love you!
My back, a membrane coil
that rises my stiff neck
that cares my head full of memories.
I turn on the light and you're not there next to me.
I put my hand on your copy of The Thornbirds
and know that you've read it more than the notes
I leave in your inbox,
hoping that it'll say that you have seen it.

Walking to your grave,
I am a darkness that the abyss has swallowed
and I have followed myself into nothingness
that is such bliss
that I forget
your kiss.

i. How the weathermen can predict happiness. Especially my mother's. Especially Swiss weathermen.
ii. I am glad that winter' is here, for finding warmth in the itch of wool, hat around ears, socks over knees.
iii. I am trapped in between walls and other people's walls and my bookcases and their bookends that may not ever end but can look like ends and ends and no no ends to the layers built in brick, all boxed in beyond this building. And my words are trapped in my mouth. They escaped from my mind to my mouth and now I don't trust them on my tongue.
iv. The strangeness of Roman numerals and the study of such numerals.
v. Is there a word for the study of numerals, specifically those of the Romans? There must be, as there is one for the act of eating whilst lying down, a fear of having fears, and the delusion that one is a cat.
vi. My wrists. No watch.
vii. Watch out for what you must keep a hold on, but know there are some things you need to just L.E.T.G.O.
viii. Morse code, S.O.Ss', plurals on top of plurals, mnemonics, anagrams, one blink for yes, lasts longer for no.
ix. Photoraph of my cousin on the day I found out she was going to die and we are kissing at the camera.
x. X for the kiss I need from the right one, or for the answer, and something telling me I got it wrong.
xi. Thinking is counter-intuitive when I'm thinking too much of absences. Silences. My thoughts don't know where to go and neither do my eyes and I can't look up because the photograph will look back down.
xii. Look at yourself. Steps: reflection; dissection; cut. it. out.
xiii. I cried harder than I have ever cried since I can remember a while ago and it's wasn't even a Wednesday or a Tuesday then, and those are my crying days.
xiv. When I get touched, I go back in time, sometimes.
xv. Transformations.
xvi. Condensation. Where do clouds come from? There are things we see everyday and we say we know exist with not a clue about how they work. How does a ball find its bearings? Where did the train begin to lay down its tracks?
xvii. Questions. Questions. Quote: Indecisions and revisions. Unquote: the more you cut it up, the more divisions.
xviii. How many parts am I divided into now? How many incisions? I can't keep count.
xix. The sun sets early in winter and the comfort of darkness is something you can count on. It stays longer, and you can count on that too.
**. Kiss kiss, one for me and one for you.
xxi. This doesn't count.

Ah, would I were a German!
I'd trouble my translator
With nouns the size of Hamburg
And leave the verb till later.

And if I were a Welshman
My work would thwart translation
With ninety novel plurals
In strict alliteration.

And would I were Chinese!
I'd throw them off their course
With twelve unusual symbols
All homophones of "horse".

But as it is, I'm English:
And I'm the one in hell
By writing in a language
Impossible to spell.

I'm just a little apostrophe
So won't you please be nice to me
Use me when there's a letter missed out
Or when it's possession you're talking about
But when you write plurals just leave me out!

You know that feeling. Everyone does. But that certain feeling, when your gut is being pulled and twisted. And your chest ****** dry. Your eyes are sunken into your skull and your limbs made of glass. Dust in your mouth and your ears refuse to let in a single sound. Paralyzed. Your brain and your body. Get the hell away from me. No, stay! The first one is for everyone else the second is for me. Do I really mean that much? You’re smart, you tell me. Keep talking, keep thinking. That’s what’s keeping you here. No don’t talk. The secret will slip and then you’ll trip and fall. Just think, think, and think. About what? About anything of course! But there’s one thing that you can’t stop thinking about. Now keep it to yourself. Because, shh, we can’t let the secret slip, now can we? Cold air rushing in, gripping and tearing at the skin. You remember don’t you? Breathe, you have to, don’t stop breathing. Magnificent we got what we needed. No there’s more. But what? It’s not over so quiet! I don’t know what but there’s more. Tick, tock, tick, tock. It’s coming, wait for it. Time is our enemy. **** it, beat the time. You understand, don’t you? No, of course you do. What a stupid question. Stupid questions. And this is all happening right here, right now, right then, right where? Right here that’s where! Right then that’s now! Now do you understand? Yes, of course. Just what I thought, just what we think. What we think. Are we one? We’re one. Us. Him. Her. Them. They. All plurals, all together yet apart. Wait, what? I DON’T KNOW! Don’t ask me! I didn’t do this you did! I know I did but why didn’t you stop me! Save it! Please, I’m begging. Who cares? They do. Who does? No one does. Really? That’s what I thought what we thought. You have no idea what you’re doing do you? Of course I do. Why do you say that? Because I know you. Who doesn’t? I don’t. Yes you do. Never together always apart. What was that? What was what? You tell me you’re the one paying attention! To what!? To everything! I talk to you, you are supposed to talk to me back! It’s how this works. Make sense! Tick, tock, tick, tock. It’s closer! You can stop it! Just finish it! Cut it. What it? That it? What’s it?! It’s it! It’s over. What is? It. Don’t you understand? By now I don’t really expect you to. It is everything. It is everyone. It is anything, something, that thing. What thing? That thing! Don’t you get it now? Tick, tock, tick, tock. Spin around the clock. Life’s a clock. Tick, tock, tick, tock. When the bell rings. What happens then? What happens when? Secret, slipping. Flesh, peeling. I DON’T KNOW! Stop. STOP ALL OF THIS! Shh. Do you hear that? Hear what? I said shut up. Do you hear it? Exactly, do you hear, “it.” It is nothing. It is everything. It is time. It is our ally and our enemy. Our destruction and our life. When your gut is being pulled and twisted, your chest ****** dry, eyes sink into the back of your skull, dust, no sound, paralyzed. Tick, tock, tick, tock. It’s only a matter of time. Your life spins around and around. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Your life on a clock.

She's mine amare
I'll say it loud
Screaming bleeding
I'll rip out mine hair
Put mine soul on a plate
Blood in a glass
These eyes I shalt pull
And enlarge them on stakes!!!
I'll plunge into darkness
To find her queen ways
Kooky I am for her
An insanity ive become
I'll give her mine lips for plurals
I'll cut out mine tongue
To give her five minutes of happiness
Wherein we shalt be one
I'm wacky
Im lunatic
I'm batty
Im nutty
I'm chatty
When it comes
To showing off
Mine one and only
Amare!

For tis I loveth her so,
For others I dont care!!!

I could sing a love song
And never mention a name
And when I peruse through my mind
There's never a single face

I'm all plurals and dreams
Of perfect unity
Between one, two
Between four and me

I could sing a love song
I could sing them a sonnet
I could serenade them
I could make them want it

I could sing a vision of a perfect home
I could sing of two point five children
That understand our bond
I could sing a love song.

But I'm ever-cynical, I know who I am
When I think of love, I'm not in the plan
I'm ever-realistic, I know my face
I could sing a love song but it'd never take.

I / Before

I moved slowly,
always wanting to reach
the end of the narrow roads.

I found deceptions and satisfactions;
more deceptions than satisfactions
and more plurals than singulars.

I coveted everything
beyond these high walls,
even so I didn't rush my life.

I believed in other people's beliefs
and I hoped which from me
the time to slip away... killing me, then.

II / During

However, neither it I could get.
I followed so many ways
and neither they could help me.

Ocasionally I sighted daisies
blossoming on the walls
and among the tiles of the streets.

Sighting so many daisies was madness.
Well, to hell with sanity!
And what would be of life without its paradoxicality?

Much suffering for little time!
Little contemplation for much beauty!
Much anguishe for little heart!

III / After*

Oh, the other side:
feared by a few,
coveted by others.

Although the labyrinth
seems infinite and sufferable,
we can find the exit together.

The question is not how we can get out,
reaching, at last, the afterlife;
and yes, how we can end with so much suffering.

To start over, we must wake up!
To wake up, we must exist!
And like this, life will wait for us!

everyday i'm discussing with everyday, myself as i make out to the glamouring
the inches and dashes of every self i have
and stitches of sinew here in which lies the me that is this i, i that am

i walked in leaves of grass, of wriggling splendor's summers of shoulders
and achy crimsoned necks by the suns meters of light
measuring the stints of our crawling opaque days and suns of many sons

it's very that is that even when sun should repose his ***** of uncadenced
carefully miraculous shimmering blood
like orange and ardent flesh he'd go on us it, giving his very stuff our bodies

to wear on our wheres and whens and whys. is night not also beautiful?
it is naked beautiful. **** and beautiful
plenteous and beautiful with all its hearts in tinder palely igniting every

atom of copious earth. bowls of copious illuminant children, the things
which will become after us
the us that we were before their coming. but they are gorgeous and neither

would i weep if in my going they should take that space where were was
i. resting the shouts of my self
in the orchards of youth, i am now so but it's quickly running, flitting

eagerly from my this. in vines and plurals i am single and many. neither
none nor many. but many ones,
little bubbles of tranquil vile fluid guttering the songs of wind.

i go to streams and they are me. i go to mountains and they are me. i go
to valleys and they are me.
can i be streams and mountains and valleys? can i not be streams and

mountains and valleys? they are weeds and i am a ****. a **** is a rose.
i am rose.
i am blossomed in full spring. able of petals. i am turned to the sun, with my

root between the lips of earth. who is my lover. the earth is woman.
she is a ****.
a **** is a rose.

by another name. they smell just as sweet.

it’s not perfect... but **** me... there’s a life to be lived... even if it’s just defined as walking the dog, or drinking a pint! let’s just rearrange the solar system spheres with a game of snooker to make summer random with winter of the least expected follow-up.*

you catch me playing with my fox / cat
purring his ****** slingshot
arousal
just where the spinal cord in music begins
and the evolutionary testament ends...
you catch me there in the drift of night...
and i’ll bet you 5 quid to have found quantum physics...
a particular instance in a universe of innumerable
stasis plurals of decipherable energy
to pluck and theorise, like autumnal flowers readily drifting
from the tsunami of green of summer to brown mahogany of autumn.
here’s one for the puppet engineered to dance
tugged at with its tail the solitary cursor;
paw print dot dot dot? i had my two thumbs on it,
squeezing out the hallucinatory juice of neglect,
with scoffer ready bouncers of peeled wallpaper about to
tattoo me in political conversation of slime slogans to shout!
i heard squatters were about... i didn’t hear anything from newcastle,
i guess the second mongolian invasion / investiture
came from the north... rather than east anglia / saudi arabia.

They want to take me,
They want to maketh me be what they want me to be!!!
They want to break me,
Shake me down, floor to ground, where mine blood boils to a freeze!!!

Medication wilt not soothe,
Ridiculers smile for a **** to get thine fill of empty sensations lost pools!!!

They want a capture,
I'm left in thine rain,
Tempering pains, lord oh lord or where is thy rapture?

They want to use me,
Showeth me off,
Abuse me,
Thou sick personal hero!!!

Thy dollar amounts to nothing!!!

Thy thoughts are made up of everything,
Yet no plurals!!!!

Leteth me escape in peace thou no gooders,
You petters of soft emotional beings!!!!!

Isn't English fun to learn--
Especially spelling and pronunciation?
It's hard enough for native speakers
And is the cause of a lot of frustration!

Think of female deer, does,
And then the form of "do," "does."
Consider the "a-s" found in "as"
And how it is pronounced in "was."

We have ears on our heads.
Add a "b" and you've got "bears."
There's also "e-a-r" in "earth."
And a funny "e-i" found in "heirs."

Look up and see a star.
Add an "e" and you've got "stare."
That is not so hard perhaps.
But why does "stare" rhyme with "where"?

"Say" is easy to say, all right.
But add an "s" and you've got "says."
But if you add an "s" to "hay,"
You do not pronounce it "hez"!

Back to "where," which rhymes with "air."
But look at the "e-r-e" in sphere.
"I" before "e" except after "c"…
But what about the weird word "weir"?

"Tough" and "though" are always fun.
Then there's "through" and "ought" and "drought."
Don't forget to drop the "b"
When you say both "debt" and "doubt."

Throw in apostrophes,
And English teachers really have fits
When they are used for writing plurals
Or when "it's" is used for "its."

Forget all the silent letters
In words like "write," "knot," and "pneumonia."
If you said, "I made the rules,"
I'd have to say, "I disown ya!"

It wouldn't work to try to write
All the words phonetically,
For Easterners and Southerners
Don't say all the words like me.

For many years I've been around English--
Hearing, speaking, discerning it,
Exploring its countless nuances.
I guess I'll always be learning it.

-by Bob B (8-28-17)

Here comes the rain
crashing on window panes and lane ways
thumping on brownfields long shaded by tents of homeless
in parks and under bridge.
dragging in cool draft air into crack windows, into
frat houses bog down with heat.
pool water accumulating then draining into city basin
for the city demands of us of all she needs.
leaving ourselves in retreat to within as the rain
spreads its blanket on both the good and the bad.
the almanack foretold of the rain
as i contemplate for the right time to plant my seed.
that was then, and now the terraces are
overflowing
accusation spilling from where ever least resistance might be.
nothing impedes the rain
for she is the bringer and taker of life
the singular in the many plurals of distraction, the fortune that does not change throughout time.
here comes the rain, there goes our actions adjusting to fate again
beating down on the roof of our hearts
singing a tune on which our patterns weave back & forth to dance.
is it time to plant my seed, i ask of the almanack again?
as i cuddle in my blanket observing the formation of the clouds
while the city's crier beat its gong in request again of all that i have
then the almanack said, its time to sow tears

Since the day I awoke, within myself,
among the dead men, walking amidst the beginnings ending,
into a more serious version of mine
self... there I awoke.
Now in my forties / a toys-r-us type of young homie, I carried on without worry;
the laid back kid--type of guy,
who’d love to be in love with love,
the romantic idea of... a perfect kiss supernovae.
Something more than the mundane now,
We’re all at war with our doubts,
the lies every ****** person is spewing out
I wanted more than something not like this.
Why wake now, now when everything
begins to end / the child now must grow up. (Freudian)
Do not be depend/dent.

Alone alive / separated from that human connection,
feeling complete, a recognition of precious lives all the same,
or somethin’ intrinsic to mortality
every requiem Dream ...

All as one as life as grand as vast... as love,
as cosmic as... heaven up above.
Since that day I woke,
I begin to miss it the most, to be more
Participating
That human experience, once carefree & dreamlike
Paradise,
we are amiss of the truthfulness of it
We still sadly resist, existence still imperfect
Life already dismissed, taken,
advantage / playing pretend
losing Love to survival mode.
I feel lost, yo!  without that feeling connected...
Fathers and sons, bro to bro, each other know, y’know?
Since the day I awoke

to childhood’s end, at war
with the souls of men, again ourselves we harm,
the pain without... and on earth, a home,
A world full of soul...
plurals about, praying to one,
just one to know. To heart.
Since sad these bitter times just before the night,
let us bask in the last rays of Golden
sun, the light t’while the green miles
before we are undone... before
Any hope of getting woke
Humanity as a whole...

At war / in hell—a hell of pitch dark,
drowning in the black
The fear, the space time, its infinite width
that men want to claim / themselves define
It’s shores polluted skies ...

(****** upon to gorge, we parasites blind)
Men made / manifest more a destiny beyond barbarian,
past angst and hungry
For purpose, for a shared experience as a whole / a world,
For something more than what’s real, made here,
earth bound and heavy...
I awoke.
As Human as Experiment, flagella in Terra’s petri-dish.
Amidst the suffering, our beautiful breakdown, I awoke.
I see it now, now at dead ends... here’s looking forward to childhood once again. Before. Gone.
Only human. An oxymoron,
I am the great experiment.