I heard faint noises downstairs, and I decided to investigate. I pulled on a pair of cut-off jeans and grabbed the old pump shotgun that had served me so well in Viet-Nam from under my bed and crept downstairs to check. My Ranger training came into play, and I moved soundlessly, down the stairs and into the living room. An air of vague shadowy figures were searching through the cabinet that housed my collection of antique silver. I announced my presence in a sudden and intimidating manner: I merely pumped the action of the shotgun, then immediately moved to the right so if anyone shot, he would shoot where I had been, not where I was now. That sound was a language that everyone understood, including the two figures before me. They froze, and were still motionless.

"Mr. Steve?" one of the figures quavered. "Please don't shoot!"

I recognized the voice as belonging to Lisa, the twenty-year-old daughter of my nearest neighbor. I didn't know who the other person was or who else may be in the house, so I kept the shotgun pointed in their direction and hit the light switch with my free hand. Immediately a car cranked up in my driveway, and tires squealing, raced out to the road and away. I looked at my midnight visitors. I recognized Lisa and Julie, who was a close friend of Lisa's and a frequent overnight visitor of hers. They were holding between them a laundry bag containing most of my silver collection. I lowered the muzzle of the cut down shotgun.

"You sure know how to get yourselves killed," I stated. "Mind telling me who was in the car? You don't want to take the rap all by yourselves."

"Please don't shoot! That was Mike, it was all his idea! He made us do it! He said he would put us out and make us walk home if we didn't do it! Are you going to call the Cops?"

Now I could understand why the girls tried to burglarize my home. It was a fifteen-mile walk home in pitch darkness on a moon-less night for the two frightened girls. It was just what a worthless **** like Mike would pull. Knowing what I did about Lisa's boyfriend, I knew what he probably needed the money for. He was nineteen; the only job he had ever had was selling drugs, and I don't mean at the pharmacy. He was a charmer though. Girls fell for his good looks and his charm, and would do anything for him, and he of course chose the best looking one of the bunch, Lisa. She never realized what a slime-ball he really was. The problem was that Lisa didn't have a father to threaten to put a bullet in Mike's behind, and her mother was just as deceived as she was.

"You broke into my house and attempted to steal my belongings. Why shouldn't I?" I said with false sternness. I wouldn't really turn them in, now that I knew the situation. I would give the girls a good scare, then a ride home. Maybe then Lisa would see through Mike's veneer.

"Because we'll do anything you want," Julie offered, speaking for the first time. "Anything at all!"

Julie stepped over and ran her hand up my leg, pausing to tweak the head of my ****, which was hanging out of the leg of my cutoffs. I hadn't bothered to pull on any underwear. Julie was almost as good looking as Lisa was. Both girls had fabulous bodies, large firm ****, and smooth well-rounded *****. Julie had a cute face, whereas Lisa was absolutely beautiful.

"Yes, anything you want to do!" Lisa agreed.

The girls weren't wanton *****, but scared out of their wits and taking the only way out that they could think of. Of course they weren't virgins. It hadn't occurred to me to take advantage of the girls like this, and I would have declined Julie's offer if she hadn't fooled with my **** like that. You see, I was developing an outrageous *******, and with my **** hanging down the leg of some fairly tight shorts, the situation was rapidly becoming painful and serious. I had to get those pants off fast! Also, I hadn't been laid in quite a while. I decided to lay my cards on the line.

"You kids know me. I never had any intention of calling the Cops. I was going to give you a scare to teach you a lesson, then drive you home. Does that mean the offer is withdrawn?"

The girls looked at each other and both breathed a sigh of relief, big smiles on their faces. Lisa winked at Julie. "Nope," Julie said, smiling, "It still stands. Lets go upstairs."

I escorted the girls to my bedroom, pressed the magazine block on the shotgun, pumped out the shell that was still in the chamber, then put it back in the magazine. I tossed it onto the dresser with a loud thump.

I turned around and both girls were stark naked. Lisa came over, dropped to her knees, and planted a wet kiss on the head of my painfully throbbing ****. My ******* became harder still. I had to get out of those cutoffs! Julie solved that problem. She unzipped and unbuttoned them and gently worked them down around my rock-hard ****, allowing it to spring up to freedom.

"Lets get on the bed first," I suggested, "Then we have fun."

"Lay down on your back," Lisa insisted. "Have we got something for you!"

I complied, and Lisa leaned over and put my **** in her hot mouth. Her tongue swirled over the head, ran up and down the shaft, and started over again. I looked over at Julie and she was watching avidly. Not having anything better to do with my hands, I reached between her legs and caressed her ****. Julie gasped with surprise, then spread her legs. Her **** was already hot and wet, so I slid my ******* in all the way, then started finger ******* her and massaging her **** with my thumb. Her **** hardened and grew. Julie had her eyes closed and was erotically tweaking her ***** *******. She was slowly lowering her body, deepening the ******* of my finger, and rocking her hips back and forth, intensifying the stroking of her ****. Julie's hot ***** juices ran down my hand while Lisa's mouth was still working on my throbbing ****.

I began to draw my hand from Julie's sopping wet ****, but she grabbed it and held it tightly to her crotch. I pulled my hand now, and she came with it. I grabbed her thigh and swung her leg over me, so she was now sitting on my chest. I pulled my finger from her hungry ****, grabbed her ***, and pulled her ****** right up to my face. As soon as I flicked her **** with the tip of my tongue, she went wild, ******* my face, filling my nostrils with the sweet aroma of her **** juices. I thought I would give her all the licking she could handle. I rammed my tongue into her ****-hole with all my might, then gently nibbled on her ****. Apparently she had a low threshold, as this was all she could stand.

"Oh God, I'm coming!" she screamed, ground her **** into my face one more time, quivered, then collapsed sideways onto the bed.

One down, one to go. I looked at Lisa, still ******* my **** for all she was worth. I was nearing the end of my endurance, and I still hadn't had my **** in any hot **** yet. I grabbed Lisa's shoulders and pulled her mouth from my ****. I turned her around and held her up, her blonde ***** triangle just inches over my waiting tool.

"Give it to her! Now!" Julie whispered.

Lisa's **** didn't look wet or ready to take anything in it yet, but my **** was ready to take some *****. Julie reached over and spread the lips to Lisa's still dry *****, and began tweaking her ****. Lisa gasped her surprise at her most private place being touched by another chick. Within seconds though, her **** and inner ***** lips began to swell, and her juices started flowing. I slowly lowered Lisa to my rod, admiring her glistening pinkness. Julie guided my throbbing rod into Lisa's wet love hole.

"Please, be careful! Ah-h-h-h! Go slow, I'm so tight!"

I lowered Lisa very carefully, for her hot ****-hole was indeed the tightest ***** I had ever felt. With that in mind, I fought the urge to slam her down on my eager ****. As soon as she was down, I grabbed her *** and began sliding her back and forth. Lisa bit her lip as a tear trickled down from one eye.

"Stop, Mr. Steve! It's hurting her!" Julie commanded. Then to Lisa, "You haven't done it much, have you?"

"Just once, with Mike, and he isn't this big. It hurt then, too!" Lisa sobbed. "I wanted so bad to do it with Mr. Steve because he's been so nice to me, and I was so scared when I saw how big he was. Oh, it hurts!"

"You'd better get up then." I reassured, "I don't want to do anything to you that you don't want me to do."

"I want to go on, really I do! But don't you have anything I could use to make it easier?"

"Yeah, any Vaseline, or KY jelly, or something like that?" Julie asked.

"I have some KY jelly in the bathroom." I answered.

Julie jumped up and padded into the bathroom. I watched her naked *** jiggle as she left.

"You're gonna have to get up." I told Lisa. I gently lifted her ***. She bit her lip again and moaned as my **** slowly withdrew from her tortured hole. With a pop from her *****, a shriek burst from her lips as my **** sprung from her nearly dry ****-hole. She knelt on the bed next to me, softly crying, clutching herself where it hurt. I realized that she had been wrong in pretending to be so eager. A more gentle approach was needed.

I reached over, pulled her to me, and kissed her lips passionately. She ****** once in surprise, then melted into my arms, returning my kiss, forgetting the pain in her ****. I ran my hand around to her firm **** and gently stroked her *******, feeling them harden under my touch. I pulled my mouth from hers and kissed the point of each hard ******. She moaned and gasped with each touch of my lips, but from pleasure this time, not from pain. While I had her aroused, I lightly traced circles on her tummy with my finger, each circle going lower and lower, until I finally reached the blonde **** of her ***** hair. Slowly, I reached down and cupped her ***** with my hand, being careful not to press too hard or insert my finger. I would know when she was ready for *******. She responded with a **** and a gasp. I pressed again, and she gasped again. I kissed each firm ****** one last time, then started kissing down her tummy to her love nest, which was now warming and starting to respond to my touch.

I spread her legs and gently ran the tip of my tongue the full length of her slit. When I reached the vicinity of her ****, she reacted as though she had been shocked. She arched her back, pressing her **** against my face. Maybe she was ready. I probed again with my tongue, harder this time, hard enough to separate her ****-lips and tickle her ****. She went mad again, jerking and twitching in response to the touch of my tongue, moaning and panting. Then I felt her **** harden, her inner lips swell and spread, and her delicious juices start to flow. Now she was definitely ready for more. I probed her ****-hole with my tongue, licked all the way up to her ****, swirled it around, bit it gently, and then probed her hole again. When I started doing all this, she went even wilder. She spread her legs, ****** and reared against my face, and pulled my head tight against her hot cooze.

"Oh-h-h-h-h, **** me," she moaned, "I can't stand it any more! I don't care if it does hurt! Please, please **** me!"

I put her throbbing **** between my lips and gave it one hard ****, drawing it completely into my mouth, and pulled my head back sharply, causing her **** to pop back. She screamed, ****** her hips at me, and grabbed her sweating *******.

When she had subsided, her legs still spread, I mounted her in the traditional position. I started to position my throbbing pole for a gentle entry, but Lisa released her **** and spread her ****-lips with one hand and guided my tool to her sopping wet ****-hole with the other. She was much wetter now than when Julie diddled her ****, wet enough to ****.

"Please do it now!" Lisa pleaded.

I began to insert my **** cautiously, and found that due to her juices, entry was no problem. Lisa groaned like a ****** as I slid into her hot wetness. When she had taken as much of my ten-inch tool as she could, I still wasn't all the way in. But she began pumping her hips, causing the swollen head of my **** to ram against the back of her *****. She was as deliciously tight as before, but she must have been stretching, for with just a few strokes, my ***** were slapping against her ***, and I was in to the hilt. My tenderness and foreplay had paid off.

"Oh-h-h-h, that's good!" she purred when I began pumping to meet her rhythm. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and was pumping as hard as I was. With each stroke, I would completely withdraw from her hot, tight wetness, then shove my eager tool back in to the hilt, never missing her voracious target, always sliding easily in, jamming against the back of her *****.

Her pumping increased in tempo, and I sped up to match. Each pump became harder and more frantic than the one before. Lisa's breathing became harder and faster. She was about to come, and I wanted to come with her. I raised her legs over my shoulders so that I had a better angle at the depths of her tight hole, and started ramming as hard as I could.

"Don't stop! I think I'm gonna come! Oh-h-h, its so good! Come in me! Oh, please, I want to feel your load in me!" Lisa screamed. She bucked and reared and screamed incoherently, then went limp. I continued to pump. In just a few seconds, she began to pump anew. For more times than I could count, she orgasmed.

Once I felt my ****** approaching, I gave her one last hard ram and drove my weapon in as far as I could. I came at this point, spurting her sweet, tender Steve **** full of my hot sticky come, like an erupting volcano. She gasped, trembled, and fell back to the bed. I pulled out my softening ****. Our ****** energies were spent for the moment.

I glanced down at the foot of the bed, and saw Julie, whom I had forgotten. She sat in the chair at the foot of the bed, her legs spread, working a coke bottle in and out of her *****. She had found the KY jelly, then found us ******* away. Feeling left out but excited by the ****** sight of her best friend getting a good *******, she slicked up the coke bottle and began using it as a *****.

I saw that Lisa also was seeing something she had never seen before, her best friend's ****, gaping open, a coke bottle almost disappearing inside it. "Look how far in she puts it! And see how big it is to go in her like that. How does she do it?" Lisa asked, amazed.

"Why don't you get a closer look," I suggested. "Ask her." Lisa crawled down to the foot of the bed and sat on the end, astounded, watching Julie *******.

Julie finally looked down, under heavy-lidded eyes and saw Lisa so close. "Why don't you do this for me?" Julie asked.

"How?" Lisa queried.

"Just do what I'm doing now," came Julie's reply. Lisa watched for a few seconds more, then pushed Julie's hand aside and grasped the slippery end of the bottle. "In and out, and twist it a little bit. Oh, yes-s-s, oh, yes-s-s. Do it good, oh, that's so good!" Julie purred.

My **** was hardening again at the sight of one female ******* another.

I had an idea. If Julie was as promiscuous as she seemed, she might not object to what I had in mind. While Lisa continued to work the bottle in Julie's stretched ****, I helped Julie out of the chair and down to the floor, her heaving **** on the floor, her *** up in the air. She stayed in the position, crooning wordlessly, **** juice dribbling down her thighs, Lisa still ******* her.

I picked up the tube of KY jelly that Julie had used, and liberally covered my ***** rod with it. Then I stood behind Julie, straddling Lisa.

"What are you going to do?" Lisa asked.

"Watch and see!" I responded. With that I grasped Julie's hips and aimed my **** at the delicate rosette of Julie's ***. Using my **** like a weapon, I suddenly shoved my tool in as far as I could. Julie let out a scream, tearing out fistfuls of carpet.

"Oh God, **** my ***! That hurts so good! **** me harder, give me all you've got! Make it hurt! Give me more of that bottle!"

"I'm ***-******* Julie!" I informed Lisa, who was now completely mind-blown.

I needed no invitation, and neither did Lisa. Both of us gave Julie all we could, Lisa with the bottle in Julie's ****, me with my **** far up Julie's clenching ***. Julie rocked back to take us both in, then forward, then back for more. I couldn't see

“Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.”
                                                    ­ George Orwell, 1984* (published in 1949)

Which brings us, of course, to the subject of torture since 1949.
Come with me to the Casbah, Babaloo.
We begin in the 1950s with the French in North Africa,
****** baguettes in Algeria,
Couilles frits, anyone?
Electrodes wired to Mustapha’s *****.
And "Bigeard's Shrimps,” as the bodies were called,
Dumped over the Mediterranean from aircraft,
All things considered a je ne sais quoi,
Though Camus and Sartre gave it a whack.

Then the 1960s: the CIA dabbling in mind-control and LSD.
Later, a Phoenix Program,
Very secretive, sympathies with the Cong required,
Various elders selected,
The village disinfected,
**, **, ** and a bowl of Pho.

Apartheid anyone?
Thirty years of South African terror & torture.
Torment in the townships,
Shaka Zulu gold and diamonds,
De Beers in Swaziland swing.

1971: riots at Attica,
Prisoners abused and tortured,
Rockefeller’s overcrowded slammer,
An upstate New York katzenjammer,
Nelson’s finger on the trigger,
39 dead and counting,
But who’s counting?

The CIA, back in the news in 1973,
Torture chambers under Chilean soccer stadiums,
And the Khmer Rouge:
Those Wacky Cambodians with skull racks.  
And let us not forget the British,
With centuries of colonial experience behind them,
Occupy six counties in Northern Ireland.
Finally codify the imperial process,
The Five Techniques:
Sounds like a Motown group,
Satin smooth colored boys,
But more method than music:
(1) Wall-standing,
(2) Hooding,
(3) Subjection to noise,
(4) Sleep deprivation,
(5) No food and drink.

And there’s a bunch of horrible ****,
We still don’t know about the Argentine ***** War,
And other Mai Lai-like,
****-fest massacres in Vietnam.

How about torture since 1984?
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,
Come quickly,
(www.prematureejaculatorsanonymous.com)
To mind,
As do US-sponsored rendition facilities,
Spread throughout the NATO alliance.
And closer to home, it’s never a dull moment in the 5 Boroughs:
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx and Manhattan.
Take your pick from Giuliani’s Greatest Hits,
Rudy Kazootie’s campaign of law and order,
Not necessarily in that order.
More awful than lawful,
A bathroom plunger rammed up,
The Haitian voodoo ****** of Abner Louima,
While he be handcuffed at a Brooklyn station house.
Or, the NYPD partying like it was 1999.
When in fact, it was1999,
And a curious death it was for Amadou Diallo,
Would-be American citizen from The Republic of Guinea,
(No connection to Italy or Italians),
Abner & Amadou: a pair of cautionary tales,
Either/or reflecting standard procedure for the Po-Po,
Time and time again from coast to coast.
Either/or: poor Abner, no Haitian Papa Doc.
Poor Amadou, on his way home from night school,
When police squeeze off 41 rounds,
Most of them in his direction,
Hitting him 19 times.
Just the facts, ma’am:
Diallo had reached into his jacket.
A trigger-happy police officer yells “Gun.”
A jungle warfare quartet springs into action:
Shenzi, Banzai, Ed & Zazu,
Four equally trigger-happy colleagues,
Empty their weapons.
No gun was found on Diallo,
Only the wallet he tried to pull out,
Containing his Green Card,
4 U.S. dollar bills;
And a laminated,
Credit card-sized copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights.
(I just didn’t know when to quit, did I?
The wallet was there with Green Card and the bucks,
But I made up the part about the Bill of Rights,
Trying to add poetry to tragedy, as usual.)

I don’t have to say much about Rodney King (RIP).
You watched it on TV a hundred times,
And a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Or ten thousand or a million, I suppose.
“Can’t we all just get along?” asked Rodney Glen King.

Last but not least there’s Kelly Thomas (RIP),
Another incidence of police insanity,
It was July of 2011 in Fullerton, California.
Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man,
Schizophrenic, but unarmed,
Beaten to death at a bus depot,
During an altercation with six Fullerton police officers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019225/Kelly-Thomas-Poli­­ce-beat-taser-gentle-mentally-ill-homeless-man­-death.html#ixzz1e­3­4QnHtr

Mervyn Lazarus | Attorney | (www.mervlazarus.com) Police Brutality, Excessive Force and Jail Injury cases | California . . . Albuquerque

Jackie Chiles perfect attorney -YouTube, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpcEietIoxk) Nov 17, 2010 - 13 min - Uploaded by Kroeger22 All the scenes with Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld."Chiles is a parody of famed attorney Johnnie Cochran; both ... www.seinfeld.com

Perhaps the greatest torture of all,
Is that which artists subject us to.
Let us examine the case of Roberto Bolaño:
Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean writer,
Tells a fabulous World War II story,
About a Spaniard--an Andalusian--
Fighting for the Germans against the Russians.
Captured by the Russians,
He is tortured for information.
The Spaniard speaks no Russian,
He knows only four words of German.
The Russian interrogators strap him into a chair,
Attach electrodes to his *****,
Attach pincers to his tongue.
The pain makes his eyes water.
He said--or rather shouts--the word coño.
It is Spanish for ****.
The pincers in his mouth,
Distort the expletive,
Which in his howling voice comes out as KUNST.
The Russian who knows German looks at him in puzzlement.
The Andalusian was yelling KUNST,
Yelling KUNST and crying in pain.
KUNST in German means art,
And that was what the bilingual Russian heard, KUNST.
“This ******* must be an artist or something.”
The torturers remove the pincers,
Along with a little piece of tongue,
And wait, momentarily hypnotized by the revelation:
The word ART had soothed the savage beasts.
So soothed, the savage beasts take a breather,
Waiting for some kind of signal.
Meanwhile, the Andalusian bleeds from the mouth,
Swallows his blood liberally mixed with saliva, and chokes.
The word coño,
Transformed into the word *KUNST,
Had saved his life.
It was dusk when he came out of the building.
Light stabbed at his eyes like midday sun.

So, it’s a fact that I love,
Truly love the simple blunt Anglo-Saxon expletive ****,
****: I pray that while I am being tortured some day,
I have the dignity to scream the word out loud.
And if I am screaming **** at the very end,
When my nervous system finally fails,
When I **** my pants,
When my pulmonic heart and lungs collapse,
Is that so bad?
Is that so wrong?

Do you realize that 1984 came--
Came and went, without any significant cultural hoopla?
The networks ignored it.
As did the cable pundits.
No significant comparative analysis between,
Orwell’s book 1984 and the year 1984,
Was broadcast electronically or publicized in print.
Steve Jobs got it, but as usual no one else did.
Mr. Jobs (RIP) did his best,
To mainstream its profound cultural relevance,
But ultimately failed,
Despite the $1.5 million he paid one of the networks,
To air a one minute nation-wide commercial,
During the 3rd Quarter,
Of Super Bowl XVIII,
January 22, 1984.
Despite Ridley Scott’s astonishing spell-binder,
His 60-second spot for The Macintosh 128K--
Still considered a watershed event,
And an advertising industry masterpiece,
…YouTube it and watch it.  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ji0B98IMo).
See the hammer throwing athlete chick,
See her fling the sledge,
That huge sledgehammer,
Smash into Big Brother’s flat screen face.
Despite Jobs’ global presence,
Despite Steverino’s unfettered microphone access,
Whenever he felt an oraculation coming on,
Despite everything,
He was unable to move the powers that be,
To either hype the book or the prophecy come true.

So, what’s my point? I have two.
First, in April 1984 the estate of George Orwell,
And the television rights holder to the novel 1984,
Considered the edgy Jobs/Scott commercial to be,
A flagrant copyright infringement,
Sending a cease-and-desist letter to Apple Inc.
And the advertising agency that produced the spot: Chiat/Day Inc.
The commercial was never televised as a commercial after that.  
Score: Lawyers 1, Artists 0.

My second point is that in November 2011,
The U.S. government argued before the U. S. Supreme Court,
That it wants to continue utilizing GPS tracking of individuals,
Without first seeking a warrant.
In response, Justice Stephen Breyer (one of the sane ones),
Questioned what this means for a democratic society.
Referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Justice Breyer asked:
"If you win this case, then there is nothing,
To prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24/7,
The public movement of every citizen of the United States.
So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984 . . .”*

My third point,
(Yeah, I know I said two, but *******.)
My third point is that I’m just so ******* angry,
All the time, late and soon like Wordsworth,
(Was anyone more aptly named?)
I am angry about so many different things,
And every day that goes by I relate more and more,
To the thousands of Americans that occupied,
Zuccotti Park and Oakland,
And countless other venues,
Out into the streets.
Across the country.
Around the world.  
I am humbled by their courage and perseverance.
Yet, I am afraid for them.
I am made paranoid by the scope and power,
Of the government,
Of the ruling class that controls it,
And the technology they allow us to embrace,
Technology’s sinister potential,
Now that more and more knowledge and information,
Has been digitized,
Existing only in cyberspace.                                                      ­                                                 
What frightens most is the realization,
That anyone with a word processor,
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.
The scary part is—
Repeating myself for emphasis—
That anyone with a word processor
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.

Does anyone out there give a ****?
Does anyone out there share my nightmare?
Do it to Julia.
Do it to Julia.

My family is a bunch of animals.
My mother is a lioness,
strong, brave, and full of pride,
with claws sharp as knives,
for anyone that harms her cub she will strike.
my father is a hyena,
foolish, never serious, and a lazy scavenger,
that doesn't do anything but eat the crap that he creates.
My grand parents are elephants,
big and strong during the day,
blind and helpless during the night.
My aunts and uncles are the herd of gazelles,
they graze when they can,
but when the lioness comes they silence and run away with fear.
My dogs are the shade that comforts me from the burning sun of life.
The day has come when the lioness shall not roam the tall grasses of the Serengeti.
Without the lioness the gazelles are persistently grazing,
depleting the grass,
grazing and depleting until there was no grass left for me to hide in,
they rammed and bucked at me like I had no right to grieve.
I was a helpless cub on that day and I still am,
wondering when the lioness will show up to be my heroine again.
But as the gazelles buck and ram,
a kangaroo and a zebra rush in,
embrace me,
and take me in,
I now have a second family with:
a savage tiger,
Italian chipmunks,
boxing kangaroos,
kick-*** monkeys,
elderly turtles,
burly bears,
religious zebras,
and untimely rabbits.
My second family is diverse,
but they never do the worst just as my first.
This is a story that I usually don't tell,
but this my past life so I must tell, tell, tell...
This is what God raised me to be,
This for me and only me.
One day the light will show for me,
and me and the lioness will forever again be free,
to roam the plains in the skies above,
just like a dove.

EDNA:  I believe you recently had a gay little adventure, Vladimir. So why don’t you tell me all about it? I can see you are simply dying to get it off your chest…

VLADIMIR:  Well, Edna, it happened like this. I hadn't cruised the ***** toilet in the park for months and I was ******* randy, absolutely dying for a really good session, so I thought I'd go along here after the pub shut and see what was up, see if there was any ******* ******* action. I wore some **** ****** under my jeans, you know the sort of stuff: red open crotch *******, suspenders and black fishnet stockings. My **** kept dribbling as I was in the pub, just thinking of what might happen down the toilet.  At closing time, I left the pub, my carrier bag in my hand, with a big anticipatory bulge in my pants.

EDNA [gulp]  And then what happened, Vladimir, dear?

VLADIMIR:  Once I got to the toilet, I was surprised there was no one inside, but there were a few nearby shadows in the park, people smoking cigarettes, walking round, looking for it.  Once in the toilet, I selected the cleanest cubicle and took off my jeans and shirt and put them into the carrier bag. I replaced my normal shoes and socks with the white high heeled women's shoes I had waiting in the carrier. Then I waited in the cubicle for someone to come into the toilet.

After only a few moments, I heard footsteps and I looked under the door to see who was there at the ******.  It was a short muscular looking man wearing jeans and Doc Martens. I could see he wasn't *******, but just standing there, though I couldn't see his face. I opened the cubicle door and he turned around to see who was there, so I opened the door wide open so he could see me standing there in the stockings, suspenders and silk ******* with my stiff **** sticking out of the hole in them.

He was about forty and very butch looking with close cropped hair and I could see his **** hardening as he looked at me.  I went over to him and took his **** in my hand and he grabbed hold of mine and started rubbing it.  I got down on my knees and took his short, fat, uncircumcised **** in my mouth; it tasted salty and ******* gorgeous. He grabbed hold of the back of my head and forced his **** deep down my throat nearly making me gag.  I could smell the odour of his ***** hair and I loved it.  He said, "Keep ******* it, you ***** ****, or I'll pull your ******* head off." I loved him talking ***** like that to me.

EDNA [getting a bit excited]  That seems very bold of you both.  What happened next?

VLADIMIR:  In what seemed no time at all, I felt him tense and then I got an enormous mouthful of his hot *****.  I'd never known anyone come so much, he must have had a week's worth in his *****.  After he'd come, he took his **** out of my mouth, put it away and zipped himself up.  I started to get to my feet, but he pushed me backwards onto the filthy floor.  ‘You're lucky I don't knock your face in, you ****,’ he said as he went out.  I love my men to be a bit rough with me, so I was very excited by this.  I half hoped he would punch me but he didn't.

EDNA: [wiping forehead] Well, that’s really very interesting. Did you go home then, dear, or were you still up for it, as the expression goes, Vladimir?    

VLADIMIR:  I got up and dusted myself down.  I could taste his come in my mouth, it was ******* delicious.  I was still incredibly excited, my **** was absolutely rigid and I knew I just needed to give it a couple of rubs and I'd shoot my ***, but I wanted more ***, and I knew once I came, I would just feel like going home.  So I went back into my cubicle and waited to see if anyone else came in.

After about five minutes I heard footsteps, followed by more footsteps again and I looked under the door a second time.  There were two men standing there and, by straining my neck, I could see they were groping each other.  One had one hand on the other's **** and his other hand on his **** and the other man was working on the first man's **** as well.  

I let the door open and they both swung round as they hadn't known there was anyone else in the toilet.  They saw me and looked relieved it wasn't a policeman lurking in there.  One was quite young, about twenty or twenty five, but he was a bit skinny and effeminate-looking.  The other one was much older, about fifty, but he was much better looking and I could see he had a huge **** on him.  I walked over to them in my **** rigout and joined in with the wanking.  They both started feeling my **** under my *******.

I turned round and bent over, my hands on the toilet cubicle doorposts, stuck my **** out invitingly and pulled my ******* down to my knees.  ’Why don't you **** me?’ I said, bold as brass.  The older man, the one with the big ****, left the young skinny guy and took up the offer I had made.  He undid his trousers and pulled his underpants down to reveal the full length of his enormous **** and his big hairy *****.  He spat on his hand and rubbed it on his ****, but he needn't have bothered because I had already lubed my **** when I was waiting in my cubicle.  

He slipped his big **** up my moist ******* without much difficulty and then started ******* me gently.  I told him to **** me harder, to **** me harder than he had ever ****** anyone in his life, so he started to really ram it up my hole.  God, I loved it.

EDNA [sweating with mounting excitement and unable to resist touching herself down there]  Mmmmm. I wish I’d been there to see that, I really, really do.  But don’t let me disturb your narrative flow, darling….

VLADIMIR:   Then the young skinny guy got down on his knees in front of me and took my **** in his mouth.  Each time the man who was giving it to me ****** hard into me, I jolted forward and rammed my **** deep into the skinny guy's mouth.  I was moaning with ecstasy as I got ****** and ****** by two complete strangers.  The guy with the big **** couldn't last long and soon shot his load up my **** and as he did it he said, ‘O Christ, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm shooting my ***** up your ******* *******.’  This made me incredibly excited and I came off in the younger man's mouth.  The skinny youngster was wanking his own **** as he knelt in front of me and I know he came as I felt the ***** splashing on my stockinged legs.

As he removed his still fat **** from my gaping hole, a stream of the older man's ***** ran down my legs.  He said he wished his wife would let him **** her in the ******* like that.  I went to kiss him but when he smelled the ***** on my face from the butch one I'd ****** off earlier, he wasn't having any of it and left with a mumbled goodbye.

The younger man had now got to his feet and was standing in front of me as he buttoned himself up.  He said ‘We can wait a few minutes and then we can do it again if you like.  I'd love you to **** me, you've got a lovely ****.’  But it was no good, the magic had passed and I told him to ****** off.

So I went back into the cubicle, got changed back into my ordinary clothes and left the toilet.  I could feel ***** oozing out of my ******* and I could taste the first load in my mouth still.  I had a smile on my face. It had been a great night out.

EDNA:  [removing her hand from inside her ******* as unobtrusively as possible and trying to disguise the fact she has just had a cataclysmic ******]  Wow, that’s really a very exciting story. It’s made old Edna quite hot and bothered. You really are a very naughty boy, Vladimir.

VLADIMIR: Would you like me to tell you about what happened to me in the old cinema down by the docks?

EDNA: [still throbbing a bit] No, dear, that will be the subject of another interview. We don't want to over-excite our readers, do we?

*THE END

There is

the bitter taste of the last cigarette

on the roof of my mouth,

a sourness on my tongue

and i try to remember the last time i felt like this.

or rather…

the last time I DIDN’T.

seems like as time goes on, every day becomes a struggle,

and some days more than others.

I want everyone to be my friend,

but i wonder where this inferiority complex comes from?

it paralyzes me and i do not want to speak.

meeting people, seeing my ideas put into words

by other lips and others’ gestures,

and yes I agree,

but ******* you make me so tired.

no, i do not need your hugs,

and no i do not need your validation.

and hell no i do not need your apathetic agreement

because like hell you would understand,

like hell you would know that

you can’t bleach this brown skin of

all the slurs and all the stigma,

that you can’t flat iron out the

ethnic tangles of my afro-something hair,

that you can’t even guess,

cause even i don’t know,

even we don’t know,

if i’m black or native or forcibly half white,

if i’m 10% this or 50% that,

like I have to be broken down

into numbers and percentages

cause I just can’t be whole again,

cause we just can’t be whole again.



They took everything,

they came and took everything

*******,

and yes God ****** us,

your ****** God ****** us,

you came and you traded

our generosity, our good faith, our sustenance,

you took all of that

and gave us biblical ******* about a God,

some overbearing, vengeful Lord

that didn’t even love you,

oh God, and we were the savages?

You came and you stripped us naked,

took off layer after layer of dignity and prosperity,

we gave you firm hugs of solidarity,

and you groped our ******* like they were worthless,

we gave you kisses of peace,

and you rammed your tongues down our throats,

demanding we choked into silence,

and we were supposed to thank you.

You came and you ***** our land,

our mothers, sisters, and daughters

and we were supposed to be compliant.

we were supposed to be quiet,

and we were supposed to be content,

happy to fill our wombs

with children who would later struggle

with the realization that the reason the color of their skin

was neither yours nor mine,

that it was neither milky white nor toasted earth,

was because my people had been ****** by yours,

figuratively, literally but most significantly, forcibly

generation after generation,

subjugation after subjugation

for 400 ******* years.



And here I am.

400 years later and I don’t know who I am.

They say I could be Chicana,

or Mexicana,

I could be Mexico Americana,

I could be Latina,

or even, god-forbid,

Hispana.

I could be but what does that even mean?

what does Mexican mean?

a land where the majority of the people

descend from the great people of indigenous America,

or the great people of Africana roots,

or these chaotically beautiful blends

that result in the sweetest of dark coffee- soft caramel of spectrums,

still say “indio" like an insult,

still say “*****" like an insult,

still say “prieto" like an insult.

still say, “baby girl, get out the sun,

what you tryin to get darker for?"

still say, “hell no we ain’t african!"

like that would be a bad thing.



and ******* it i am ******* tired.

All is NOT well in the grasslands.
The animals are fit to be tied.
The actions of the crafty wolves
Have left the rest of them horrified.

"How will we EVER be able
To keep democracy afloat,"
The antelope asked, "if the wolves
Don't allow us all to vote?

"In many sections of these grasslands,
Shameless wolves are doing their best
To hold voter registration
Hostage, keeping voters suppressed."

"They aim to control voter turnout,"
The deer added. "That's their hope.
Their sneaky ways to manipulate
Elections push the envelope!

“They stall and seek petty reasons
To take names off voting lists.
Fair and honest elections are
In jeopardy if this persists.”

"It's so close to election day,
Our courts are reluctant to raise objections,"
The buffalo said. "Some of the wolves
Are even running in the elections!

"Humph! They stole a Supreme Court justice.
Then they rammed another one through.
Now they're still suppressing voters.
What more damage will they do?"

"Winnowing down voter rolls!
Their strategies should be illegal!"
The fox chimed in. Looking around,
He asked, "Where is our dear friend Eagle?"

The absent eagle wanted no
Responsibility tied to her name.
She couldn't stop the out-of-control
Wolves, and hid her head in shame.

-by Bob B (10-19-18)

Alone within my emotional wilderness

A reverie along memory lane when, this lviii sea sunned
row man (stills paddles in oarlocks and serenely quizzically,
lackadaisically, and harmoniously drifts) along the slip
stream of time. Awash on his figurative manual navigated
opportunistic prideful quintessential schooner reflects,
regales, and revisits ebbing lapsed instances (fast receding
into the past time, when psychological instability grounded
fragile my self esteem (generated venting, steaming, and
piping hot brickbats). As a newly minted harrumphing,
grubbing, and floundering dada enmeshment (analogous
to a fish caught in a net, hence quickly ricocheting, rabidly
splashing, and sloppily thrashing) predicated my foray
into das fatherhood. Aye experienced nearest approximation
Bing battered, rammed, and torpedoed from glomming
(par for the course riot ting heaps) necessarily imposed
adult responsibility. Such metaphorical motoring across
avast Battle Creek with no landfall in sight, this then nada
so Grand Turk (key in the straw) Otto man continually
snapped, cracked and popped. This human ping-pong
fitbit part player papa felt akin to subjection re: thralldom).
At this juncture in me cross currents of existence I can
harken back to those most exhausting, fatiguing, and
grueling endeavors. Hindsight offers this aging baby
boomer the luxury to cast astern. Retrospective leisurely
trawls along the shoals throes of fatherhood allow,
enable and provide and opportunity to scrutinize per
chance, where arises this on account of the empty nest
syndrome. Ordinarily the wife (i.e. missus to appear
more formal), would caw out my name nonstop….
”Matt”…”Matt”…”Matt”…, but she opted to organize
the cluster of assorted household items at the apart
ment (located in Crum Lynne – Ridley Township),
we hope to move within a fortnight. Thy spouse
volunteered her own mini reprieve by setting order
to the miscellaneous fixings gradually amassed,
appropriated, and gifted thru out the twenty plus
years of marriage, which hodgepodge of personal
possessions downsized whence circumstance dictates
evaluating goods having keepsake meaning versus
anomaly of belongings to be unloaded, repurposed
for someone else, or ordained as unworthy to schlep.
Alone asper like a very brief sabbatical from marriage
finds stillness amidst the white noise of the whirring
fan. Thus, I sit here ruminating how to dredge up
some idea for a poem,  (non) fiction or essay. This
husband became acclimated, conditioned, and em
bossed with a mate a tete for two plus decades,
whereby both thee dos delightful daughters on
Track 742 heading west. Honest to dog, I miss
the role of fatherhood when either off spring
(with an age difference of approximately twenty
five plus months) romped, scampered, and trotted
as toddlers, and upon childhood, thy little girls
found exultant excitement dashing higgledy-
piggledy, hither and yon, to and fro across the
playground as most glorious human indulgence.
Despite the plaintive wail vis a vis Juliet saying
goodnight to Romeo (…parting is such sweet
sorrow) haint pleasurable atoll. Hitherto un
known that during the most vexing, trying,
and quaking bouts when both kin of thy ****
fought like angry cats would there transpire
the occasion of sincere tearfulness ululating
vain warbling. Now a pang of nostalgia arises
when I drive past their happy go lucky stomp
ping turf, or reflect on answering the trumpet
call to chauffer one or thee other to amusement
park, play date, mall, favorite toy store such as
Fivebelow, birthday party, et cetera. Even
certain tunes recalled to mind and/or heard
being broadcast across the audio logical spec
trum a cause for moistened tear ducts. Wince
with sadness also mixed with sigh lent bundled
expostulations of joy. Both progeny metamorphosed
into able bodied, minded and spirited lasses,
whose attainment far exceeded any projections
internally forecast. Initial onset of parent role
found me all thumbs. Prior to begetting two
darling dames, this chap spent disproportionate
number of hours sequestered within some hide
away, which frequently happened to be the
designated bedroom at 324 Level Road, College
Ville, Pennsylvania, 19010. Never did thee major
rit tee days of mine life point to babysitting or
working with that chronological demographics
comprising the adoring blessed innocence,
murmuring newborn obliviousness, that bespoke
penultimate unsullied, utmost virtue necessitating
interaction with tender infants beckoning being
cradled, endearingly fondled, demonstrably easing
fondness gripping heartstrings issue jetblue kinks.
Aye felt pitched headlong into this foreign territory,
and initially experienced utmost awkwardness when
attending, pampering and pulling (albeit gently)
upsy daisy, the nascent hint of autonomy. Remembrance
and recollection of élan, joie de vivire, and yea those
ear splitting threshold of pain screaming tantrums
all boxed into tidy wholesome Zen announcing
nuggets of greater meaningfulness and absolute
value. The above long winded reverie intended and
meant tubby a semi biography, but leave hit up to
his hie n hiss, he went way overboard, and will give
a one line summarization to describe his i.e. yours truly
life sentence fate decreed. He (this Anglophile chipper
chap lived under duress of extreme anxiety, obsessive/
compulsive behavior, panic attacks and essentially
schizoid personality disorder for the greater part
of his life and hard times, which raw bits would
warrant fleshing out to extrapolate how these psychic
pitfalls represented critical factors at various and
sundry turning points in his life.

when i told people in my first block class at school, a science class, that my favorite movie was straight outta compton, they all laughed.
and i guess i understood why. im a little white girl that was wearing a skirt that day. okay, so thats nice.
i guess i cant like things because i live in a pretty nice neighborhood and im white and im a girl.
but guess what.
i like straight outta compton because i understand the people part of it. like oh god.
i used to love going to the movies because i could escape my reality, which ***** more than people know because i dont tell them things sometimes, but i havent enjoyed a movie in years because every reality in my life has completely taken over and defeated me.
but maybe i like straight outta compton so much because for the first time in years, i actually connected with something that felt real to me.
yeah ok, its just a movie.
but watching the movie, i got to meet these characters and they became my friends. i dont care about how lame that is.
this is a poetry site. look at all the angst. and my gosh, look at that fourth wall i just broke.
ice cube is my friend. ren is my friend. yella too. all my friends, and i watched them get shoved to the ground outside their own recording studio.
because they were black.
and sitting in the movie theatre seat in my nice neighborhood in my white skin, i cried.
i cried my eyes out, because those actors onscreen were telling me a story in the personas of these new friends of mine.
i cried when eazy found out he had aids. just when nwa was about to get back together.
it was like watching a personal potential victory slip right between my fingers. it felt so close.
and i watched his body shake in agony. eazy cried. he had months to live.
in my white skin in my nice movie seat in my nice neighborhood where ive never had to watch anyone die, i cried because in that moment, all of it was real to me.
you cant explain something like that, not even to your friends.
in my nice neighborhood where there arent streetwalkers and people doing coke and peoples houses getting rammed down by the cops, my friends dont want to listen to nwa because of all the cussing.
and i think, there is so much that you miss if you initially reject it because you dont like it, because you think that it hurts your character.
hear no evil, see no evil.
you dont want the cussing floating around in your head.
its bad. its sinful.
but my gosh, its only words.
i dont think that eazy wanted the doctors diagnosis in his head.
i dont think that he wanted to deal coke and get almost caught by the police. i think he wanted to stay in the safe neighborhood with me in the nice movie seats crying about some other character on the screen that had their dreams crushed and their life taken.
i dont think that ice cube wanted to be taken advantage of by his manager.
i dont think i would like that either.
i dont like that people think that my friend, ice cube, isnt as smart as the little white girl in her biotechnology class. people might look down on him because hes black, or because gangsta rap made him do it, or because he didnt come from the nice neighborhood with the movie theater that i was crying in because my friends were being beaten.
maybe im crazy for saying this, but....i think maybe the movies arent supposed to always entertain us or make political statements or educate us or wow us with light shows.
maybe theyre meant to give us new perspectives we dont get because we live in nice neighborhoods with our movie theaters and our friends nwa that dont get to live here because they came from compton and got thrown in jail because they used their right to freedom of speech or got aids and died.
my friends werent all good. they did drugs and abused women, and im not okay with that, but i love them anyway, yknow?
because theres just one type of folks. not real or fictional, not actors and audience, not black and white.
just folks.
just friends.

Night thoughts
Where do they come from nocturnal musings and dreams I have done my best to push back deaths pain if even only an inch that is a gain for you a little bit of space a touch of comfort if you ask me what do you know about pain. In a six year span I lost my only living sister four years later her only daughter two years after that a mother that I never had to lose in the first place. Now for some of the names I know personally Jack Jeffrey Jack Cloe Buck and Josh, Howard Greg’s wife’s dad big Tom **** P. Jim M. Homer Rick there are others that read this I don’t know your loved ones but it written for you as well because God knows. So many times people ask well why God doesn’t do something. I can’t answer fully and I surly don’t want to give some small folksy half hearted attempt. I will answer a couple of ways God hates death he could have said anything in any language but the first thing he said that would be destroyed is death he didn’t create it it is the unalterable fact that springs from sin he dealt with it I will speak about it in a minute. Another part of the answer I said this is unreachable Why did Socrates die after drinking Hemlock he didn’t have to yes he did truth left him without a choice God is the same way sin demands death truth for Socrates was death rather than betray the very men that killed him he willing to his spirit the hemlock was sweet as life giving water. He became a part of truths everlasting fountain Jesus circumvented death all of our sins are bitter to him let me relate these stories and drive the point to the deepest level. The first one is personal my wife and I went from the bay area eighty miles south to Monterey California we spent the day at the sea shore and our final stop was at fisherman’s Warf four to five hours later Mexican gang bangers pulled up to two young female students from the Presidio and shot them dead then went over on Fremont street in Sea Side shot down a middle age Mexican woman animals don’t have a race true to the predators code everyone is fair game. This was all done so they could earn their gang colors. For two and a half years I lived in and out of Monterey and Sea Side after getting out of the service I had a painting job on the Presidio. It was personal but this came even closer to home I told my cousin if you go hunting you have about fifty percent chance ending up the prey in someone’s gun sight. Two months pass a kid up the street on Blacow Rd I Lived on this street for twenty five years all he was doing was pedaling his bicycle a shot rings out broad day light he is gone his crime his mother country flies a Mexican flag. Two nights later a mother misses her ride to work she is scared of the dark streets her teenage daughter walks with her it’s two in the morning it’s just unjustified fear at a corner in the better part of Fremont a car pulls up along the mother and daughter the human thing would have been can I give you a lift this was no human the monster picked up a fallen limb and beat them both to death as they screamed to their family in the cell phone they were poor Mexican immigrants. This is gut wrenching writing but this is the very reason your savior hung between earth and heaven this didn’t have to happen this is human evil in the extreme.
The evil perpetrated against the pure innocent Son of God was explained in search for truth a bible study program our church has if I knew what it contained I wouldn’t have read it I wouldn’t put it here I’m trying to drive death’s initial pain and it’s lingering effects off of souls that they can breathe a little freedom. It described the crucifixion in two ways the physical and emotional or moral revulsion Christ felt. First they beat him we all know that then they took a cat of nine tails and tied to each end they had fixed metal or bone then they beat him with it forty times until it cut him open leaving entrails exposed pulled out his beard. Rammed a crown of thorns into his brow then mocked him calling him king of the Jews. Then there were the sins and their raging affect was put like this take your sainted mother out of her home away from her family then install her in a ***** house. Jesus felt even more no one can feel the depths that he feels and has suffered because he loves us the cross his Hemlock It was not sweet but the rivers of living water you can know were dug at Calvary I don’t know it but I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t the many tears he wept before Calvary and after. I can’t verify this but I can verify he still cries today you decide I was working at a car auction it was late I was by myself as I walked up to Karen’s desk she had a picture where she was sitting on a car the sun was shining bright she had her arms over her head in exhilaration it was a beautiful picture. I knew her story minimally I never talked to her I knew she was nineteen a single mother and had a fifteen month old little boy. Then unexplainably I started to cry uncontrollably this went on for an hour I had been praying for the people who had desks there I thought that was it. The next day I showed up the place was closed the guard told me Karen was killed when her and her friend were on the golf cart they used to get from building to building it was such a big place. Her friend driving in fun ****** the wheel it threw Karen out on the asphalt breaking her neck. There is a song that says he saw my need I stood by her desk Jesus was there he knew what tomorrow held I was just caught in the blow back from his sorrow and tears he was shedding. Yes he agonizes for you he carried into his domain the agony I felt was tremendous though I was unaware of what was going on. I’m sorry I can’t finish this as I was going to I wrote to many sacred things then even to express even those things for your comfort isn’t right to put them here.
-----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------

Casper was ****** in the *** by fifty Muslims.
He was ****** twenty-five times on top.
He was also ****** thirty-seven times bent over a wheelbarrow
And eleven more times at the bank.
He was ****** at night in the ***.
His *** was a bit ruptured.

He was born for getting ***-rammed!
Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper
Casper the homosexual friendly ghost!

Casper got ****** in the *** brutally
And the fifty Muslims' ***** was ****** on his tonsils.
He was up to his eyeballs in Muslim ****.
He was so full of ***, he had to ****.
This guy really took a ****, pushed away the Muslim ****
And took his own *******
And started ******* himself in his *** brutally.

Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper
Casper the homosexual friendly ghost!

Casper was taken to a hospital by an ambulance.
At the hospital, he told the doctor to say "******* licker".
After the doctor said "******* licker".
He got on top of Casper and started ******* him in his *** brutally.
So far, Casper was diagnosed with holy freakaholic
And became loose for super duper maneuvers!

Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper
Casper the homosexual friendly ghost!

Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper
Casper the homosexual friendly ghost!

Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper, Casper
Casper the homosexual!
Casper the homosexual!
Casper the homosexual!
Casper the homosexual friendly ghost!

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago!
Western Union: It's the Fastest Way To Send Money!

In your past, this past
they weren't valued
no one said they were members of the family
what walks on four legs and is furry and cute is only
to last as long as nature intended and then to be disposed of

Veal calves in crates, taken from mothers on the day of their birth
to make more milk for humans, horse slaughter for glue
and foi gras, ducks and geese locked in a vice grip of their cages
metal tubes rammed down their throats and force fed until a liver disease
develops, painful, but given no respite
and served as a delicacy and
fur coats from animals skinned alive right here in America
still when mink farms are outlawed in the Netherlands and  
two million dogs and cats skinned in China every year not to mention
other horrors and no one cared or looked their way because they are
only animals, and voiceless and helpless and no one cared to give them
a voice or advocacy
"that's why they're there, for our use, people still say" who profit from an industry
of suffering

And today, there are people who try to give them a voice and there are veterinarians who will try to help you with your member of the family, as he suffers, in his old age
a bag of fluids hangs from my exercise  bike, and intermixed with my medications
is the painkiller and anti-nausea pills for my dear old friend
whose pancreas is failing
and father, this is foreign to you
you pretend it is a crime
silence is the only thing connecting us now

I hope you enjoyed your last barrage of unkind words
I think you did. The saddest thing I've learned about people like you
is
you feel better after such an attack, to see me reeling, bleeding on the ground
and you feel better, calmer and purged.
A kind of misbegotten peace settles over you
an exploitive peace from another's tears and pain

And yes, father, there were no agencies to give a voice to children
when you were young
no CPS, to aid my nine year old ***** friend
as a code of silence enveloped her attacker
to protect him, the one who destroyed her

But today there is a small brigade of a modern kind of love
to give a voice, protection, soothing to the ones who can
only suffer at our hands and not protect themselves from
our wrath and exploitation

and it is a better world for that, father
for my furry pancreatic friend and for any other
nine year old **** victims here

There's this guy who constantly gives me grief online
as if I need a reminder that I am not funny or smart
that I am incapable of posting any story without his remark
as if he should impart and bestow all of social media
with his divine and seraphic academia:
what is with that?

He posts comments about how illiterate my poetry is
how it doesn't follow the rules; the do-nots and the do's
pontificates how its not properly punctuated
as if I should give up altogether and just shine shoes
and forget trying to construct sentences
just wander in the carousel of nebula's
eternally seeking the tentacle of enemas:
what is with that?

This guy enjoys winding me up like a persistent hobby
the reverent devilment of sadistic entitlement
pushing my head under water for a digital baptism
that I should thank him for his rhetoric enlightenment
as if he was blessed with a correspondence talisman:
what is with that?

This isn't even a poem.
I am letting off steam like an overused kettle
fed up of his mortar forever rammed in my pestle
the temples are raging and my brain is just draining
to explode on cue on the next digital heckle
the cracked and broken vessel
into a vengeful steam-driven projectile:
what is with that?

This, < here > , is my only escape
and creative cathartic vent
I'll post this lament
with the stench of discontent
and tag his name and then just wait
for his feverish malcontent
that I should dare to
prevent his God-like dissent:

memo to self
to a digital antagonist
and his verbose verbal cyst
and the keyboard of twists
when you push
sometimes you get
a big shove back
so don't be surprised
by my riposte
and this poetic attack.

Where do they come from nocturnal musings and dreams I have done my best to push back deaths pain if even only an inch that is a gain for you a little bit of space a touch of comfort if you ask me what do you know about pain. In a six year span I lost my only living sister four years later her only daughter two years after that a mother that I never had to lose in the first place. Now for some of the names I know personally Jack Jeffrey Jack Cloe Buck and Josh, Howard Greg’s wife’s dad big Tom **** P. Jim M. Homer Rick there are others that read this I don’t know your loved ones but it written for you as well because God knows. So many times people ask well why God doesn’t do something. I can’t answer fully and I surly don’t want to give some small folksy half hearted attempt. I will answer a couple of ways God hates death he could have said anything in any language but the first thing he said that would be destroyed is death he didn’t create it it is the unalterable fact that springs from sin he dealt with it I will speak about it in a minute. Another part of the answer I said this is unreachable Why did Socrates die after drinking Hemlock he didn’t have to yes he did truth left him without a choice God is the same way sin demands death truth for Socrates was death rather than betray the very men that killed him he willing to his spirit the hemlock was sweet as life giving water. He became a part of truths everlasting fountain Jesus circumvented death all of our sins are bitter to him let me relate these stories and drive the point to the deepest level. The first one is personal my wife and I went from the bay area eighty miles south to Monterey California we spent the day at the sea shore and our final stop was at fisherman’s Warf four to five hours later Mexican gang bangers pulled up to two young female students from the Presidio and shot them dead then went over on Fremont street in Sea Side shot down a middle age Mexican woman animals don’t have a race true to the predators code everyone is fair game. This was all done so they could earn their gang colors. For two and a half years I lived in and out of Monterey and Sea Side after getting out of the service I had a painting job on the Presidio. It was personal but this came even closer to home I told my cousin if you go hunting you have about fifty percent chance ending up the prey in someone’s gun sight. Two months pass a kid up the street on Blacow Rd I Lived on this street for twenty five years all he was doing was pedaling his bicycle a shot rings out broad day light he is gone his crime his mother country flies a Mexican flag. Two nights later a mother misses her ride to work she is scared of the dark streets her teenage daughter walks with her it’s two in the morning it’s just unjustified fear at a corner in the better part of Fremont a car pulls up along the mother and daughter the human thing would have been can I give you a lift this was no human the monster picked up a fallen limb and beat them both to death as they screamed to their family in the cell phone they were poor Mexican immigrants. This is gut wrenching writing but this is the very reason your savior hung between earth and heaven this didn’t have to happen this is human evil in the extreme.
The evil perpetrated against the pure innocent Son of God was explained in search for truth a bible study program our church has if I knew what it contained I wouldn’t have read it I wouldn’t put it here I’m trying to drive death’s initial pain and it’s lingering effects off of souls that they can breathe a little freedom. It described the crucifixion in two ways the physical and emotional or moral revulsion Christ felt. First they beat him we all know that then they took a cat of nine tails and tied to each end they had fixed metal or bone then they beat him with it forty times until it cut him open leaving entrails exposed pulled out his beard. Rammed a crown of thorns into his brow then mocked him calling him king of the Jews. Then there were the sins and their raging affect was put like this take your sainted mother out of her home away from her family then install her in a ***** house. Jesus felt even more no one can feel the depths that he feels and has suffered because he loves us the cross his Hemlock It was not sweet but the rivers of living water you can know were dug at Calvary I don’t know it but I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t the many tears he wept before Calvary and after. I can’t verify this but I can verify he still cries today you decide I was working at a car auction it was late I was by myself as I walked up to Karen’s desk she had a picture where she was sitting on a car the sun was shining bright she had her arms over her head in exhilaration it was a beautiful picture. I knew her story minimally I never talked to her I knew she was nineteen a single mother and had a fifteen month old little boy. Then unexplainably I started to cry uncontrollably this went on for an hour I had been praying for the people who had desks there I thought that was it. The next day I showed up the place was closed the guard told me Karen was killed when her and her friend were on the golf cart they used to get from building to building it was such a big place. Her friend driving in fun ****** the wheel it threw Karen out on the asphalt breaking her neck. There is a song that says he saw my need I stood by her desk Jesus was there he knew what tomorrow held I was just caught in the blow back from his sorrow and tears he was shedding. Yes he agonizes for you he carried into his domain the agony I felt was tremendous though I was unaware of what was going on. I’m sorry I can’t finish this as I was going to I wrote to many sacred things then even to express even those things for your comfort isn’t right to put them here.

The Elephant of Everyday comes stomping through my door
roaring and tromping and crashing about
blowing his trumpety horn

the prowling Panther of Performance
from the closet slides into the room
and circles my bed, growling, as he passes my head
hideous goals he lets loose

the Snake of Selfishness and Self-Centered Living
slithers from under my bed
he slides up the frame and under my sheets
as he curls up and warms my feets

the Black Lion of Pride struts into the room
strong and boasting and loud
living with no help, providing, perfect
telling me how I'm not him

the Otter of Overwhelming Panic
slaps into my room, jabbering and fretting about
running into my desk and my chair and my walls
worrying and biting his ever shortening nails
trying to find his way out

the Shadow Lady strides into my room
eye contact trying to make
the envelope pushes, seduction gushes
objectification she offers me to take

first I try to kick and pry
the snake off of my legs
but he tighter clings and up my torso climbs
his scales piercing my sides

with a snake on my neck
I sit on my bed, my feet touching the ground
and kick and shout at the panther as he
around me continues to prowl

he slashes and bites at my feet and legs
cutting and gouging my flesh
the panther still fighting, I manage to rise
and focus on the Black Lion of Pride

he sees me coming a mile away
and talks me to my knees
I yell and scream 'till I am hoarse
and shake as I weep bitterly

as I kneel, below me runs
the otter, stammering anxiously
I chuckle with malice as he bumbles away
misery loves company

quickly I jump up, out of the way
of the Elephant of Everyday
I kick his foot as he continues to thrash
he does not notice, or even sway

I turn around and face to face
the Shadow Lady's eyes
back me into a corner as I
fail to look away, but feebly try

so on my knees I whimper and cry
as the Gorilla of Guilt comes in
his padded feet near, his thick body looms
as he raises his huge tight fist, to close the tomb

I deserve this I've fallen
I'm no use at all
I can't uphold myself
on whom can I call?

I'm ****** and broken
inside and out
I fight and lose
then I cry and shout

"Stag of Solace, come near to me
I fail at fighting, this is my plea
thrash these menaces, clean my heart
I want to feel near you, never to part"

immediately, a rumbling sound
came from the hall, increasingly loud
they looked at each other, anxiously
then watched the door, slowly backing away

the Stag of Solace smashed through the door
splintering, crushing, a wood shrapnel shower
through the door and into the roaring
Black Lion as, through the window he's rammed,
slashing and crying

strong, poised, graceful he stood
his sharp eyes narrowed, eyeing this zoo
slowly the animals backed away
into the darkness, for now, to stay

his fur was short and sleek and brown
he wore compassion, ivory peace his crown
he came to me, I could not look
he lifted my eyes, bade me come
his shadow, protection, I took

To me he whispered:
my child you strive, you fight on your own
you think you can do this, you can not alone
your sin will never separate you from me
I save you, I purify, I set you free

he nuzzled my forehead
my wounds went away
he spoke once again
this time to me and the fray

the day is coming when I will return
to get rid of the zoo, it will surely burn
for you no more wounds or tears or fear
those things that burden you, never again, will be near

look and wait, for when I come
I come to save and restore
it will be done

until then you will have
trouble when you run
but take heart, for I am near
I hear you, I answer, I have overcome

he nuzzled again and strolled to the door
turned and looked, and let loose a fierce roar
charging away, he powerfully ran
his echo in my head, "I will help you be a man"

and slowly I got up and began to dress
thinking upon the Stag and me
his sin filled, ugly, made beautiful mess

I will still, to my dismay
entertain this masquerading zoo
but the Stag is in and with me
all things he makes new

and I fight and lose and strive to this day
but because the Stag of Solace helps me
I shall never, not ever, be put to shame

Night thoughts
Where do they come from nocturnal musings and dreams I have done my best to push back deaths pain if even only an inch that is a gain for you a little bit of space a touch of comfort if you ask me what do you know about pain. In a six year span I lost my only living sister four years later her only daughter two years after that a mother that I never had to lose in the first place. Now for some of the names I know personally Jack Jeffrey Jack Cloe Buck and Josh, Howard Greg’s wife’s dad big Tom **** P. Jim M. Homer Rick there are others that read this I don’t know your loved ones but it written for you as well because God knows. So many times people ask well why God doesn’t do something. I can’t answer fully and I surly don’t want to give some small folksy half hearted attempt. I will answer a couple of ways God hates death he could have said anything in any language but the first thing he said that would be destroyed is death he didn’t create it it is the unalterable fact that springs from sin he dealt with it I will speak about it in a minute. Another part of the answer I said this is unreachable Why did Socrates die after drinking Hemlock he didn’t have to yes he did truth left him without a choice God is the same way sin demands death truth for Socrates was death rather than betray the very men that killed him he willing to his spirit the hemlock was sweet as life giving water. He became a part of truths everlasting fountain Jesus circumvented death all of our sins are bitter to him let me relate these stories and drive the point to the deepest level. The first one is personal my wife and I went from the bay area eighty miles south to Monterey California we spent the day at the sea shore and our final stop was at fisherman’s Warf four to five hours later Mexican gang bangers pulled up to two young female students from the Presidio and shot them dead then went over on Fremont street in Sea Side shot down a middle age Mexican woman animals don’t have a race true to the predators code everyone is fair game. This was all done so they could earn their gang colors. For two and a half years I lived in and out of Monterey and Sea Side after getting out of the service I had a painting job on the Presidio. It was personal but this came even closer to home I told my cousin if you go hunting you have about fifty percent chance ending up the prey in someone’s gun sight. Two months pass a kid up the street on Blacow Rd I Lived on this street for twenty five years all he was doing was pedaling his bicycle a shot rings out broad day light he is gone his crime his mother country flies a Mexican flag. Two nights later a mother misses her ride to work she is scared of the dark streets her teenage daughter walks with her it’s two in the morning it’s just unjustified fear at a corner in the better part of Fremont a car pulls up along the mother and daughter the human thing would have been can I give you a lift this was no human the monster picked up a fallen limb and beat them both to death as they screamed to their family in the cell phone they were poor Mexican immigrants. This is gut wrenching writing but this is the very reason your savior hung between earth and heaven this didn’t have to happen this is human evil in the extreme.
The evil perpetrated against the pure innocent Son of God was explained in search for truth a bible study program our church has if I knew what it contained I wouldn’t have read it I wouldn’t put it here I’m trying to drive death’s initial pain and it’s lingering effects off of souls that they can breathe a little freedom. It described the crucifixion in two ways the physical and emotional or moral revulsion Christ felt. First they beat him we all know that then they took a cat of nine tails and tied to each end they had fixed metal or bone then they beat him with it forty times until it cut him open leaving entrails exposed pulled out his beard. Rammed a crown of thorns into his brow then mocked him calling him king of the Jews. Then there were the sins and their raging affect was put like this take your sainted mother out of her home away from her family then install her in a ***** house. Jesus felt even more no one can feel the depths that he feels and has suffered because he loves us the cross his Hemlock It was not sweet but the rivers of living water you can know were dug at Calvary I don’t know it but I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t the many tears he wept before Calvary and after. I can’t verify this but I can verify he still cries today you decide I was working at a car auction it was late I was by myself as I walked up to Karen’s desk she had a picture where she was sitting on a car the sun was shining bright she had her arms over her head in exhilaration it was a beautiful picture. I knew her story minimally I never talked to her I knew she was nineteen a single mother and had a fifteen month old little boy. Then unexplainably I started to cry uncontrollably this went on for an hour I had been praying for the people who had desks there I thought that was it. The next day I showed up the place was closed the guard told me Karen was killed when her and her friend were on the golf cart they used to get from building to building it was such a big place. Her friend driving in fun ****** the wheel it threw Karen out on the asphalt breaking her neck. There is a song that says he saw my need I stood by her desk Jesus was there he knew what tomorrow held I was just caught in the blow back from his sorrow and tears he was shedding. Yes he agonizes for you he carried into his domain the agony I felt was tremendous though I was unaware of what was going on. I’m sorry I can’t finish this as I was going to I wrote to many sacred things then even to express even those things for your comfort isn’t right to put them here.

There were many times
When I came close to leaving my wife.
I would take some clothes
and my favorite movies with me
to my parent’s house,
dead set on not going back.
But then she would come over
And talk me out of it.
When it finally happened though
this is how it went down:
It was the Fourth of July
and I was driving home
from my job at a group home for the developmentally disabled,
Fireworks bursting all around me
up in the Arizona sky.
I was caught up in a full-blown panic attack
from the thought of my twelve-hour shift
the next day with no pain pills or any relief
whatsoever.
I have a severe back injury from a car wreck
and that day I had hurt it worse
moving someone from their wheelchair into the shower.
It felt like a railroad spike
had been rammed into the center of my spine.
Driving home
then walking up the stairs to our apartment
I couldn’t stop crying.
I had lost all control.
Walking in the front door,
my wife was cooking and my son crawled on the floor.
I went straight to the bathroom,
Needed to calm down and compose myself,
but I just couldn’t stop crying.
Hell I couldn’t even catch my breath.
My wife walked in.
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“I hurt my back really bad today at work … and I have a twelve-hour shift tomorrow
and no pain pills, no nothing. It just hurts so bad …”
She rolled her big blue eyes and scoffed at me.
“Ugh. That’s no reason to be ******* crying. Quit being a baby.”
Out the door she went with a slam.
THAT was my wife? My true love?
The thought drove me insane.
Growing old with her hateful eyes
always glaring at me.
I ate dinner in silence,
put the baby to bed
and smoked so much ****
I felt nothing
neither physical nor mental.
I couldn’t smoke **** before or at work, however,
I did have morals.
Those people in the group home were my responsibility.
The baby woke up crying around five a.m.
I had to start my shift at eight a.m.
It was the wife’s day off.
“Hey … hey … wake up. Can you get him? Please?”
“Arrgg. No. Just get up with him.” She groaned and rolled back over.
“Please? I gotta be up in two hours.”
“Ugh. NO. It’s my day off.”
“Exactly. You can take a nap with him later. I gotta work twelve hours today.”
“I said NO. I didn’t want a baby in the first place. Remember?”
She said that all the time. It made my blood ******’ boil.
“Then maybe you should’ve kept your ******* legs closed.”
I said
turning away from her, on my side
The baby kept crying,
screaming, now a blood-curdling sound.
The next thing I saw were
flashes
of red, black, and white
as her small, but bony,
rock hard fist
hit the side of my temple.
“YOU ******’ ****,” I screamed
jumping up and out of bed.
Picking the baby up,
he rested his little head on my shoulder,
and finally stopped crying.
I walked the floor,
pacing back and forth,
my back aching,
my head throbbing & pulsating
as the goose-egg lump
swelled.
She sat upright in bed.
Her arms crossed, her icy glare
burning a hole through my head.
She didn’t look the same anymore.
When we met
her eyes were full of good
burning churches
love.
Replaced now with
little saggy *******,
wiry, stringy, mess of hair—
like a Barbie doll left outside too long.
And that face
held so much hate.
My God, that face of hers.
She despised me.
Everything I did and said
just ****** her off.
From the bedroom window
I stood watching the cars
move along down the street,
thinking of it all.
The fights,
all the shiners, lumps, goose-eggs, cuts, and bruises
she had left on me over the past nine months.
When she used to look at me with those
big blue eyes,
there was love, lust, and a future.
Now it was hate, hate, hate
I thought of all this
watching those cars drive down the street
when it suddenly became clear to me,
I could be in one of those cars too.
Driving somewhere, anywhere, far from her.
My son, was my son
I'd always be there for him
and have my time with him.
But her time?
Our time?
It was up.
The switch in my mind was flipped. And broken off.
I kissed my son, put him on the bed and
went into the closet.
Getting my ****.
“No, no, no, no. You can’t leave. You CAN’T.”
She started to panic.
“Watch me. This is it, you hateful *****. Get out of my way.”
She ran behind me,
followed me down the stairs, all the way to the car,
shrieking, screaming continuously,
and slobbering and gasping for air,
throwing herself in my path.
Tears flowed
From her over sized eyes,
now filled with tiny red veins.
“We can go to counseling, we can work it out.”
“I don’t WANT to work it out. I don’t love you anymore.
Now would you get back upstairs? You left the baby all by himself up there.”
She didn’t hear me.
Just kept on trying to convince me.
I managed to get my clothes in the car,
but then she wouldn’t let me
close my door.
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you. You’re just leaving your child?”
“No. I’m leaving YOU. Now get back upstairs and be a mother.
You’re done being a wife.”
I had to pry her claws off the driver’s side door to leave.
Looking in the rear view
I saw her skinny body running up the stairs
back to our apartment
and the baby.

My first meal as a free man
was an egg & cheese biscuit.
I sat in my parked car
in the parking lot of a park
listening to my iPod
on shuffle.
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Bob Dylan
suddenly came on.
I took it as a sign

i swallowed the sunset like a pill;
and drowned it with a bottle of nyquil;
so my dreams involve stars instead of your hands;
and my brain contains gradients in place of your arms.
i clawed my own eyeballs out, mistaking them for yours;
and what i thought was your skeleton i rammed with my car;
was actually just a mailbox.
i’ve screamed at the top of my lungs;
but you are still jammed in my throat.
i’ve opened up my skin;
but your poison is stuck to me like a sunburn.

*(a.m.c.)

I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking
Through the rotating shell, strong
As motor muscle on the drill, driving
Through vision and the girdered nerve.

From limbs that had the measure of the worm, shuffled
Off from the creasing flesh, filed
Through all the irons in the grass, metal
Of suns in the man-melting night.

Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, costly
A creature in my bones I
Rounded my globe of heritage, journey
In bottom gear through night-geared man.

I dreamed my genesis and died again, shrapnel
Rammed in the marching heart, hole
In the stitched wound and clotted wind, muzzled
Death on the mouth that ate the gas.

Sharp in my second death I marked the hills, harvest
Of hemlock and the blades, rust
My blood upon the tempered dead, forcing
My second struggling from the grass.

And power was contagious in my birth, second
Rise of the skeleton and
Rerobing of the naked ghost. Manhood
Spat up from the resuffered pain.

I dreamed my genesis in sweat of death, fallen
Twice in the feeding sea, grown
Stale of Adam's brine until, vision
Of new man strength, I seek the sun.

STRETCH towards the moonless midnight of the trees,
As though that hand could reach to where they stand,
And they but famous old upholsteries
Delightful to the touch; tighten that hand
As though to draw them closer yet.
Rammed full
Of that most sensuous silence of the night
(For since the horizon's bought strange dogs are still)
Climb to your chamber full of books and wait,
No books upon the knee, and no one there
But a Great Dane that cannot bay the moon
And now lies sunk in sleep.
What climbs the stair?
Nothing that common women ponder on
If you are worrh my hope! Neither Content
Nor satisfied Conscience, but that great family
Some ancient famous authors mistepresent,
The proud Furies each with her torch on high.

That smile will be with me forever
on the day it all went wrong
the two of us trying to be clever
our journey was too long
deciding to take a different trail
thus must recount the tale!

That smile will be with me forever!

Desperate to try and save our marriage
after both drifting apart
had we passed that irreversible stage
our love was there a start
yet the tension high I drove to fast
and our destinations cast!

That smile will be with me forever!

Into a tree we rammed I was powerless
to avoid the collision
the anger had created this foolishness
shaping the final decision
my side undamaged just shaken
realising I was mistaken!

That smile will be with me forever!

Why had I been such a stubborn man
had shock awoken me
you the only one in my earthly plan
at first what I did not see
there hurt with that angelic smile
how bad I was in denial!

That smile will be with me forever!

Somehow got a signal to call assistance
talking more than before
why now could we seem to be consistent
doing my best to reassure
that any problems we would transform
our love overcame any storm!

That smile will be with me forever!

As the rescue team arrived we tenderly kissed
such a magical moment
how such tenderness for so long I had missed
she had been sent to me
that smile I shall never forget or guilt fade
too late true feelings displayed!

She died from her injuries soon after!
that smile will remain with me forever!

The Foureyed Poet.

You come along... tearing your shirt... yelling about Jesus.
     Where do you get that stuff?
     What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few
     bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem
     everybody liked to have this Jesus around because
     he never made any fake passes and everything
     he said went and he helped the sick and gave the
     people hope.

You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist
     and calling us all **** fools so fierce the froth slobbers
     over your lips... always blabbing we're all
     going to hell straight off and you know all about it.

I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don't
     throw any scare into me. I've got your number. I
     know how much you know about Jesus.
He never came near clean people or ***** people but
     they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your
     crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers
     hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out
     of the running.

I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into
     the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined
     up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men
     now lined up with you paying your way.

This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened
     good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful
     from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands
     wherever he passed along.
You slimy bunkshooter, you put a **** on every human
     blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching
     about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who
     lived a clean life in Galilee.

When are you going to quit making the carpenters build
     emergency hospitals for women and girls driven
     crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish about
     Jesus--I put it to you again: Where do you get that
     stuff; what do you know about Jesus?

Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash
     a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance.
     Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your
     nutty head. If it wasn't for the way you scare the
     women and kids I'd feel sorry for you and pass the hat.
I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when
     he starts people puking and calling for the doctors.
I like a man that's got nerve and can pull off a great
     original performance, but you--you're only a bug-
     house peddler of second-hand gospel--you're only
     shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this
     Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.

You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it
     up all right with them by giving them mansions in
     the skies after they're dead and the worms have
     eaten 'em.
You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need
     is Jesus; you take a steel trust ***, dead without
     having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of
     age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross
     and he'll be all right.
You tell poor people they don't need any more money
     on pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a job,
     Jesus'll fix that up all right, all right--all they gotta
     do is take Jesus the way you say.
I'm telling you Jesus wouldn't stand for the stuff you're
     handing out. Jesus played it different. The bankers
     and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and
     murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus
     wouldn't play their game. He didn't sit in with
     the big thieves.

I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.
I won't take my religion from any man who never works
     except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory
     except the face of the woman on the American
     silver dollar.

I ask you to come through and show me where you're
     pouring out the blood of your life.

I've been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha,
     where they nailed Him, and I know if the story is
     straight it was real blood ran from His hands and
     the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red
     drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed
     in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.

It’s thirty years since I travelled back
To wander my childhood home,
To check out the trees I used to climb
And the fields where I used to roam,
I remembered the friends that used to play,
Wendy and Paul and Mark,
And the local bully that had his way
Back then, in the Boating Park.

We’d go up there on a Sunday, pay
Our money and hire a boat,
That fourpence each to the gatekeeper
Saw the three of us afloat,
Each boat had paddlewheels either side
You could turn, and stop or start,
Or spin around in a circle, just
For fun, at the Boating Park.

The Park, laid out in a rectangle
Took an hour to paddle round,
Once out of sight of the gatekeeper
The banks would muffle the sound,
We’d scream and shriek and laugh and beam
As we rammed each other’s boats,
I often thought it a wonder that
We didn’t puncture the floats.

Then over beyond the halfway mark
We lay in the shade of trees,
The sun would sink, it was getting dark
And we’d hear the murmur of bees,
We had to pass there under a bridge
And duck, for the bridge was low,
And that’s where the bully McPherson stood
On the bridge, those years ago.

He’d jeer, throw stones and catcall as we
Tried to get under the span,
Then climb and drop into Wendy’s boat
He wouldn’t have tried with a man.
He’d paddle over the further side
And make her get out of the boat,
Then paddle it back the way we came
Get out, and leave it afloat.

One Sunday I sat under the bridge
With Paul and Mark beside,
While Wendy came along on her own
As if on a solo ride,
The bully tried the very same thing
But we each pulled on his coat,
And when he came up, he couldn’t scream
For the water lodged in his throat.

He splashed about and he tried to grab
The boat, but his clothes, like lead,
Were trying to drag him down, while Paul
And Mark, they stood on his head.
Wendy had clambered up on the bank
Controlled, and well in command,
For every time he tried to get out,
She’d stamp and stomp on his hand.

The paper said it was very strange
That he must have put up a fight,
But hadn’t the strength to pull himself
Up out of the cut that night.
His hands and fingers were shredded, where
He’d tried to climb up the bank,
But the weight of his heavy, sodden clothes
Were the demons he had to thank.

I went to visit the Boating Park
It was just the way I feared,
I met up there with an older Mark,
A man with a greying beard,
He told me Wendy and Paul were dead
Weighed down with a sense of sin,
And the gatekeeper at the Boating Park
Had gone, when they filled it in.

David Lewis Paget

Thomas O’Keene, like most little boys,
imagined great things when he played with his toys.
In the big room that he shared with his brothers,
he would make a big tent with all the bed covers.
Inside his great castle, he played and he dreamed
of far away places and fabulous things.

He played giant robots, who came from the stars
with swords made of lasers and dinosaur cars.
He’d pretend to be the hero from his video games,
who ate yellow flowers and then shot out flames.
Thomas would tell tales of all that he saw
like the one-eyed stink monster with the big yellow claw;
a noisome creature to others unseen,
but was always around when Thomas ate beans.
Or how purple aliens had taken his juice,  
it was to fuel their invasion, of this he had proof.

“Thomas stop telling stories,” his mother would scold him.
Oh, how many times had she told him?
She sent him to bed,
and away slunk poor Tom hanging his head.
It was only ten past eight,
and he never got to stay up late.

Then Tom had an idea; he knew just what to do.
He’d show them that all of his stories were true.
He would build a machine so they could all see
the wonders thus far known only to he.

He found a box,
some stinky socks,
parts from a clock,
and a few small rocks.
Some peanut butter,
a toy boat rudder,
a number 2 ,
his brother's shoe,
and about two bottles of school glue.
A broken video game controller,
wheels from the baby stroller,
some batteries from the remote,
a rubber ducky swimming float.

He pulled and stretched,
pushed and vexed,
hammered and rammed,
and ******* and jammed.

Finally complete,
though not very neat,
he sat down for the start of his job
and slowly turned a big red ****.

But nothing happened. What could be wrong?
He didn't know why it wouldn't turn on.
The machine was no good, and this made Tom sick.
Frustrated, he gave it a great big kick.
The machine came to life. It sputtered and whined,
and up rose a wisp with a faint scent of pine.  
Then, came a rumble that shook the whole room
followed shortly by a great big kaboom!
Thomas covered his ears and shut his eyes tight,
and what he saw when they opened was quite a sight.

There crouched down in his room
was a giant robot from an alien moon!
Then right beside it, as big as a could be,
was his dinosaur car, the T-Rex X3.
But this was not all that came from the machine,
other strange things began to be seen.
He had done it, they were all here,
here in his room so perfectly clear.
“You stay right here,”
he said with a cheer.

Now he ran to get his mother, father and brothers
to show them that these were not make-believe others.
Then, he heard a loud crash that came from his room.
He stopped in the hall and then came the boom.
Thomas rushed back and found a giant hole in the wall
almost 10 feet wide and 8 feet tall!
His robot was gone and so were the others,
and then he heard a call from his mother.
“Thomas O'Keene! What was that noise?!”  
Thomas thought quickly. “Um, just playing with toys.”
“Get back in bed!” was his mothers reply
to what was not really a lie.

Thomas was scared and didn't know what to do.
How could he fix this, he was all out of glue.
Then he saw a blue crayon and snatched it up quick.
He hoped this would work, it must do the trick.
On the cardboard box side he scribbled "reset."
then drew a big circular button and pressed it.
Thomas held his breath and thought as he did,
Why, oh why had he not built a lid?
He waited there silent for a moment or two,
then opened his eyes and just saw his room.

No holes in the wall, no great robot man,
just bunk beds and toys and the lamp on it's stand.
He looked down before him and beheld his machine.
"Never again..." thought Thomas and went off too his dreams.

I

Head, shoulders, bees, and hands.
Stings and wings apart,
From the anatomy of art
Despite the stills and shakes.
Two of twos for many stands.

Though at the fore reside the restless digits
Every thought, they spark and fidget.
The point is impolite, but that widget-
My leg knuckles buckle thinking of the quakes,
It tore through my index like new nectar glands…

II

One for rest the other for tests
And one s for the possibilitie
None are hidden from the complete set
of peering palms

right like the leaves,
left like the breeze.
Like the future
Told with tea.

Where these wrinkles will write their say
While these prints will match their way
Whistling while working; these knuckles will play
Whether it be told or felt- make it chalantly
Waiting with a tale for two in every day

III

I set them
With just enough pressure
To hold a frog for fun
Or to annoy a lame nun
Squeal
Down, the cuticles cry

Chuckle cackle fiddle,
Ruckus rackets and riddles
Are really a lot of fun you should try it.
Simply pry the favored tendon
Over that big red button
Yes yes, the American kanji of dissonance!

Excuse the madness, I refuse the discord.
Sounds do not have to be met with pain,
And fear can avoid disdain...
It’s an odd thing that jesters are paid for.

There is an education…
But there is no degree.
I also, cannot waive its fee.
What I paid was from within me.

IV

I had known a good friend fellow
Who once let out a grand belch bellow
About his crimes of cheese and wine

Toward a beauty so sweet and discreet
Her spinning feet fleeting from new feats
Whereabouts to doubt, still flies more than fine

I said to him “your sense is jagged
and your breath is haggard-”
so he interrupted with one of brine…

The failure is in my nature’s course!
Then my dammed machinations make it worse,
It seems as though who I intended to be

And who I wanted you to see,
Are wholly revealed as two separate scenes.
I must leave your metals unmatched sheen.

Well…As I trust you heard before,
Your bust appears to be a dusty lore
I say, you can’t expect her eyes to wait for rust!

A firm grasp on the glass.
She clasps a diamond overhead.
I pointed out with a wave.
A slam,
     Then rotating prints on his glass.
The hopeless *****,
     At the cheek she turned.
Whilst I drew on a napkin the-
Legendary Ten-Pronged Opposition Foundry.

Of course, those lights would close..
Excuse me, one other blueprint is exposed.
Canvas of humility, lines drawn like, self-drawn pens.

Perhaps three could wring something useful from this science

V

Her plans! her plans!
They dance, they dance!
As my matrix unravels,
The hiding holes disband,
Its light skips through the land.
This heat, though discreet,
Will shoulder like a man!
Torching every grain of sand
In to a castle of glass
Where the magic is as-
Crafts…of her own hands.

This is where she sings, here
Ask for where, and no song is there
The Tale is strained into strands
She sings there,
Now, she sings there


VI

Imagine, the swinging trees
And busy birds between fronds
Of these leaves, of mine, you see?
To ensnare and percuss
With your singing wrist
Yet you persist,
to pant and seethe
in these gauntlets and greaves…

A moronic oxidative process it is,
To be here and be there both.
Now that I see more strings
I would rather design dreams
Than to meddle a mess
Out of the mettle you chose to test.

VII

Why would one bother,
Vex the metal man’s nerves
Of alloy he dare not name

Mecca’s bolts smother
The work his death deserves
So he limps slow shocked by shame.

Reliquary shammed,
In sardonic preserves
Dark like the grace in his dame

Her bolts monogrammed
By her lack of wild game
Blinded by white in her cold

Her arms gently fold
His rebirth now retold
His machinery, untame

These split heart horns rammed
Dancing, a light the lame.
Dreams may anchor another

Inspire the lover,
You musical mother
I know it,
Your arts heal hearts after any worked hurt.

VIII

Until vissictudes
Crash down,
I lay my back on grazed meadows
With only the sky to cast shadows
Spinning clouds
Of those crafts
In their hands.

The eagle searches, circling, senses strum like spider silk.
Sorrow’s scent slides up on a sea breeze.
A solitary slave spits sullenly into the spray.
Silently, suddenly, the sentinel streaks down.

Beak breaks skin, breaches bone, crimson blots the ocean’s foam.
Defenceless, relentless, the bird blurs in a barrage of blood.
Banished, betrayed, the ravaged titan sways -  
between the rocks that form his cage.

His foe retreats; a closing caw as crooked claws cleave meat.
Head bowed in defeat, our hero strains as chains bind
hands and feet.
Enduring bonds cut deep and bleed him bittersweet.

Cast against the crags,
this castaway’s castigated cries call out
to no-one.
Chastised, he squints with hollow eyes
towards a lifetime of the bird’s reprise.
  
Furious. Fists flex,
thrashing against his fortress.
Face furrowed into a frown he flings forward
and for once finds his foot…
unfettered.  

Bindings broken, his bonds bite terra firma,  
as first a foot and then a hand finds favour.
Boundless, he bellows at the sky
as the flotsam of his freedom floats on by.

Reprieved. Aggrieved. He is restless in release.
An errant righteous line repeats.  
Relentless in its beat, it rings out like raw steel on teeth.
A ricochet that disturbs his sleep

“Is this victory, or defeat?”

Racked by reminiscence,
his reality and responsibility remain.
Warped roots rammed down
with rock-filled boots.
Resistance seems obtuse against such reoccuring fruit.

Reluctant, resigned, he rattles out a sigh -  
the last gasp of this transitory high.
Reaching for the rope and tack he re-binds the knots
that hold him back.  
With one last glance towards the past
he hoists his soul upon the mast.

Ceaselessly.
Senselessly.
The
sentinel
streaks
down.

You wanna know what it's like to love?
When you feel so lost in time and every second that's passing feels so unreal?
You wanna know what it's like to feel like choking on tears at 3 in the morning?
When time refuses to pass and every second feels like a ticking atomic bomb?
You wanna know what it feels like to be ripped off your sanity?
You wanna know what it feels like to have *** for the first time?
You wanna know what it feels like to try so hard and fail?
You wanna know what it feels like to fall out of love and experience the kind of sadness you never thought you'd feel?
You wanna know what it feels like to be kissed in every spot that drives you insane?
You wanna know what it feels like to have someone talk about you behind your back?
You wanna know what it feels like to smile like nothing has happened?
You wanna know what it feels like to get wasted on your birthday?
You wanna know what it feels like to have cigarette smoke filling your airways?


Then you **** right feel it.
Then you **** right experience it.
Then you **** right give yourself a chance.

By the time you're 20,
No one gives a **** if you're a ******,
No one gives a **** if you were the top student in '09
No one gives a **** if you were so drunk you couldn't remember your own name
No one gives a **** if you were so choked by cigarette smoke you thought you were suffocating to death
No one gives a **** if you almost rammed into a tree on your 16th birthday
And sure as hell,
No one gives a **** because let me tell you this.


It is your **** life,
*So you **** right do whatever the hell you want to do.