What does quality time together mean
When everybody's glued to their smartphones
Mom and dad buy new gadgets
and forget each other... again.

Meals are left cold on the dining table
Nobody pays attention
to homecooked meals anymore
Food is rather thrown in the bin
or reheat again and again...
What is the value of mom's kitchen
when Domino's Pizza can be ordered via online?

The magicof smartphones...
Homes aren't cozy place for us anymore
Everybody enjoys secrecy... privacy...
Living far  apart
but breathing under the same roof....

Dear daughter comes home in tears
Dinner date a sheer disaster, she said...
He checks his Whatsapp notifications
every now and then...and smiling
reading his messages..,
A total shame...

Technology is meant for convinience sake
Same time rapidly ruins our everyday life
What has happenened to real conversations?
Hiding behind the sophisticated gadgets
What good is that?
Get rid of of your latest Samsung
and show your true face...

from the bed shared

I offer ask,
"would you like me to reheat yours?"

and she answers no hesitation

"no sweetheart, I'm good,"

not realizing she just
simple and easy,
through her sweet goodness,
reheated my love
for her
1- 2 - 3

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

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

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

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

The dried petals of a once green love
snake through the beige carpet--
along with potato chips,
along with icy *****,
along with grey ash of cheapshit incense,
my empire soles trample in after work.

Susan smiles and tries to reheat the leftovers.
Our bulging bellies match from a marriage of coping strategies,
stretch mark'd and daydreaming of
other seasons; sweat on foreign sheets,
other napes; Mediterranean baby's breath,
other scents; a choice between gardenia and gasoline,
Susan's a liar.
Of deceit--I've grown tired.

Newspaper, newspaper bring me a bullet.
Doorbell, doorbell bring me a blushing nomad in need of bruising.
Ringtone, ringtone bring me DHS and an actual Friday.

Susan tucks me in to the Lullaby of the Infomercial,
her fingernail seeps into my lower lip.
I roll onto my side.

I love you in the morning light when the sun is in your hair
and I love you in the evening when the night is somewhere way out there,beyond the scope and did I not hope to find this?
in the melting furnace of your kiss,the shiver of your touch and I love you oh so very,
such is the muchness of my day that I can watch the light play on your skin,
If being in a heaven sent is where I went and where I want to be
then this life that you have given
is the only life for me.

Watching those two
Happiness and Envy
The green-eyed monster attacks me
And I am left defenseless against a force I will never attack

The smiles and cuddles
The trust and passion,
I wish I could console them all within my heart and life
But I cannot get grip
I cannot hold on to the sparks of my former self’s heart
And I am left as cold as the unlit fireplace

But something stirs
The spark within myself is starting to reheat my body
To reheat the passion and trust I once had
Then it hits me

The fact that I cannot truly love
That I cannot truly have passion
I cannot truly be in love
Because I cannot be loved

This hideous monster
The thing many hearts have wisely shut out
The thing that loves like a hunchback Quasimodo
And needs its Esmerelda to set it free from its isolation and pain

But she is long in the future
And all I can do is wait
Wait through the pain of happiness
And the pain of envy
The green-eyed monster attacks me
And I am left defenseless against a force I will never attack

She—an unrepeated motif—waxes precocious like her ancient self.
Never mind the counterfeit eccentrics,
strange enough to be noticed but not doomed.
Their only burden is imperfection.
She’d die for these people, but they don’t realize omniscience is boring.
In preschool, she learned people are mean for no reason.
There’s no sense in spiting the inevitable,
so she gave away her quarters at bake sale.
Her mother would say, “That money is yours.”
The girl would ask, adjusting her overalls,
“If it’s mine, can’t I decide what to do with it?”
In the future, when repeating this story to a potential motif,
she’d know he’s The One when he’d say,
“What do four-year-olds need to know about capitalism?
Thanks to Walt Disney, they want to conform
and follow their hearts at the same time.”
She’d get off on his grumpy, and then notice his ring.
If he had met her first, would he still have married his wife?
It’s not worth hoping for divorce. He’s built to mate for life.
Instead of turning twenty-six, she’ll choose a chair in purgatory—
trapped between what should be and what is.
As long as she’s sitting, she may as well start smoking.
It’s a fine day for oral fixation.
At least she doesn’t smoke Parliaments like the counterfeit eccentrics.
She’d wonder if in a past life she was a dusty vacuum cleaner,
covered in what she was meant to destroy.
It’s too easy to claim hypocrisy,
too easy to cry genius for discovering what works
when for so long, failure was the only place to go.
She hasn’t been happy since she was thirteen.
The day before her first existential crisis,
her mother said, “Stop being so melodramatic.
You must want to be depressed.” Her response:
“I’m not too young for a mid-life crisis. I just won’t live to see thirty.”
She owes her life to a fear of hell,
knows we all experience hell differently. Hers is a banquet.
The proceeds will go toward ending world hunger.
At the end of the night, the keynote speaker complains
that Alfredo sauce doesn’t reheat well, so the leftovers get thrown out.

8am-light is bursting through
My shades as I take my shower.
Once I dress myself, I reheat
The coffee my wife left me.
I step outside to be met by
The crisp air of waning summer.
Like every day, I notice the
Vibrant boa scarf of purple wildflowers
That adorn the shoulders of
Wheeler and Monitor.
The sky is not falling, and
It is true what has been said,
'The fear of something happening
Is worse than it actually happening.'

3 hands


kidding hands,
an autocorrection title,
was supposed to be
kissing hands but either works

man overcome with an elixir of Sunday bed warming/charming/chilling, lukewarm "hot" coffee,
melodious love songs inducing
languorously hand-to-mouth,
five finger fore play love making

a potpourri of knuckle gnawing and gentling kisses
upon a hand borrowed from the a tablet holder,
while she reads the paper bemoaning the sorry state
of the world, the government permissions bad guys...
and weeps for the world we are leaving behind

a mood changer with 100% effectiveness

newspapers- a safe *** condiment

think I'll reheat my coffee

<•>

my hand

she cant sleep knows that I'm up at 2:08am composing.  
and showed her earlier today
the kidding hands poem
just as the lights were going down, downtown on
William's Measure For Measure

so at 2:09am her hand snakes over and wrap itself
around my thumb as if she was weaning an infant from
what infants like doing, or weaning grownup old men like me from doing at 2:09am, what they should be best leaving alone,
like writing poetry or it could just be the woman
pseudo-******* a poets thumb as a way of saying
can't sleep head buzzing and in between I love the
livening lying of living with your hands thumb in me

<•>
the facement of your hands*

dr. mandy is handy with a needling drink of boo boo bo-toxin
that auto corrects the face's reflecting times drawing upon it,
our bodies facement; an effacement I suppose, or maybe a
defacement.  

very little to be done to keep the *hands couture covering
from revealing what devolutionary year it is for you: why I write of the facement of your hands and why I kiss them, your hands,
lovingly, hoping the natural  toxins on my lips can ****** their aging,
and if they can't, then it is a great way of saying
I love you

<•>
  2:53am

You see, it's like this:

Every night, right around
Beer number 4,
With the beginning
Of the Daily Show
Airing on the tv
At the foot of my bed,
I look out my window
Diagonally to the left
Out onto the street that
Is dark because the city
Hasn't fixed the streetlight
Yet, even though it's
Summer and I'd like
To think that the kids
Walking the streets
With their hoods pulled
Up could be able
To have some light
To blow their smoke by.

Anyway, I look out my
Window diagonally
To the left
Every night
And I see a 1995
Rust spotted grey
Oldsmobile 88
Pull into the driveway
Of the green
Double level house
With the ugly
Maroon shutters
And then the same
Woman climbs out
In her scratched
Half inch heels
She bought at the savers
On route 44
And this night she's
Wearing her pale blue
Conservative skirt
And a delightful
Vertical striped
Button up
Office building secretary shirt
With the mix of cool colors
And her brown hair is
Pulled back in a tight
Bun that's been tugging
At her forehead for
The eight hours she sat
At her desk and the
Six hours she waited tables
At the ****** chain sports
Bar on Branch ave
For ****** tips
And ****** looks
From ****** drunk perverts
She has to smile at
And flirt with if
She wants to make rent
At the green double
Level house with the ugly
Maroon shutters.

She checks her mail box
And with weary eyes
Scans the envelopes
Of bills and spam and third notices
No letters from friends
Or family or old school suitemates
And she goes inside
To reheat her dinner for one
And I lay here in my boxers
Cracking open beer number
Four and listening
To Jon Stewart point out the
Obvious absurdities
In our ****** up system
That everyone seems not
To notice and take as
Just jokes on a fake
News program but are
Really symptoms
Of a ******* society
That puts value in all
The wrong places
And as I sip on
Rolling rock number five
And watch the woman across
The dark street fumble with
Her keys I think about
How lonely it is here in my
One bedroom apartment
And how lonely it is there
In her one bedroom apartment
And I wish oh I wish
One of these nights I could
Stand outside and smoke
A cig and wait
And when she gets home
Ask her how work
Was and laugh when
She jokes that it was terrible
And know its not a joke
Because it was terrible
And I'll ask her if she has any
Late night plans
Knowing she will tune into
The Colbert Report
And watch until she
Falls asleep in her full
Size bed
And if she smiles and says
No I'll ask her to come over
And have a drink and if
She says yes I'll give her
An Octoberfest because
Harpoon is classier
Than rolling rock
And then maybe she'll
Want another one
And maybe she'll see
Something in me.

As I open rock number six
Every night the same thought
Breaks through the cloud,
That if I could just do
What I want to do
Maybe this bed wouldn't be
So big and maybe
This heart wouldn't hang
So heavy and maybe
The tv would have an audience
Instead of a solitary observer.

I fall asleep again
Having never learned
Her name or which high
School she went to
Or what makes her laugh
Or what sad movies she
Loves to cry along with
Or which secluded areas
She likes to go to to think
Or what she thinks about me.

~for me~

no food in this house, badly bruised fruit,
leftover congealing overdue-past pasta with ketchup and cheese,
moldy bread testing the outer boundary of edibility,
jeez, even gotta drink water direct from the tap!

the worn out endemic pandemic comatose wakes up next to me,
“even this fickle friend is thinking its time for them to go, who knows,
cause we no longer count the time, where time goes, it just goes”(1),
don’t want it to go, because the ideation of life totally alone terrifies

looking out at the water, waves relinquish their sooth-me-ability,
now, they looking like masses of commuters and tourists weaving,
pushing, on Fifth Avenue, everybody trys gain a step in this old get-
ahead life we used to liv, believing that the way to, the right place

a poet here has cancer, doesn’t answer me when I’m checking on him,
another has memory sickness, cannot ever let go of her life’s losses,
as well she shouldn’t, some losses are wars by definition un-winnable,
and me, drifting in and out of this poem in the early morning thinking

if I could get back to sleep, that’ll be a couple more hours used up,
don’t want to mislead, no answers any to the perennial flowering
question of where shelter can be found, this wretch like me, can’t see,
grace has fled (2), see it, rowing away, can’t blame it, I would too

so many come to me with pain, wasted opportunities, looking for
guidance, or worse, absolutions, the dishes in the sink, last weeks,
saying they deserve a second chance at a useful life and the coffee
machine flashes “Empty Grounds or Leaving Town,” a decent rhyme

don’t give a **** if you’re thinking this writ, gotta quit, too long,
take your tiring eyes and scram, skedaddle, mine until I get a decent
answer to questions that never let go, they’ll keep coming back and
somehow that prospect, is crazy way is comforting, for all parties

can’t let go, only thing that gets me outta bed, the need  reheat, reheat
old, cold coffee that someone stuck in fridge just in case, the electric
gets hurricaned, stormed, another tree comes down this time that doesn’t just miss the house, like last week, that a stupid way to die

answer to where shelter ain’t, gonna start a collection of awnings, keep one handy, no matter time and luck take me, a stopgap answer to the quest-ion at hand, I’m liking that word,  it’s emotive, aaawww-ing, comes ready, handy guttural name, & to the beat, flapping wind

thought I’d get answer by writing this all down, none come along, meaning I’ll write some more some day soon, when the eyes open, should they open once more-row, the questioning, the pandemonium blues, wake up beside me asking where I’ve been, they’ve been

waiting all night for some bad company.




notes
__

(1) “Who knows where the time goes” Fairport Convention
(2) “Amazing Grace” Judy Collins

I want you to consume me as I do you
put me in your mouth
chew me up
swallow me to be absorbed in your system
because you have been drained of me

the smell of cooked meat is
too strong in my nostrils to ignore
the sizzle of oil in the pan is
your fingers running across my stomach
the steam from that *** is
the way my heart flurries when you look at me
I can’t consume anything
because I want to consume you

and you can control the temperature of the pan
and you can check the doneness of the meat
and you can whisk the homemade gravy until it thickens
but can you find me hidden in your meal?

we marry together
like pork and apples
like steak and potatoes
like crepes and dulce de leche
but my shell is cracking
and my form is melting
and my alcohol is evaporating
I am being sautéed, julienned and sous-vided by you
I am losing my flavour

do you promise your pigs you won’t hurt them
before you carve the meat off their bones?
I don’t wish to be hung in a cellar with all the other carcasses you’ve left
hanging by a hook and swinging,
the blood draining from their bodies

I can’t cook
but I would cook you:
reheat your stock,
and rehydrate your fruit,
and flash fry your heart
so your colour returned
and you were mine,
on my plate,
at my table,
holding my hand,
and I could consume the only thing I want:
you
yes, chef
you.

Louder, louder!
Breathe me a storm, blow into
My eyes; force tears from a frozen
Stone.

Touch me with lightning, run your
Palms against my scars until
Your fingerprints wear down and
All evidence of our sin washes

Away like blood from a September
Crime scene flooded with rains.
Louder. Louder!
Shut my thoughts out with slaps and

Painted nails clawing and digging at
My chest in search of a heartbeat.
Once a man has gone cold, he's
Impossible to reheat.

Throw all your love on the fire, I'll
Only slip through your fingers like snow
Brought to a boil, kissing blister farewells
On your hands, rendering our

Love an open cut you weep into.
Louder, Louder!
Cry my name into my absence,

Cry the pain of love passing away in your
Arms like a wounded child soldier's blood  
Onto battleground soil.
Arise to avenge your hopes.

Take this frozen stone and name it Heart.
Cain to your Abel. Apple to Eve.
When love is reduced to a shadow, it's
Barely called ******.

In the bain marie of life
The boiling,
evaporated
water underneath,
Scolds untrained fingers and hands.
Unscathed are the extremities of workers who serve:
Little Hitlers and Maos,
awaiting to have their egos inflated, and their endowments stroked.
All so they can perpetrate atrocities in a world craving for more, entertainment.
All so they can penetrate their
animosity
towards girls craving for more

containment.

Prepare ingredients in metal tray, made from
Futuristic technology. Erected steel, carved and shaved,
moulded to perfection.
Finesse in
Postmodern civilisation,
Allowing hungry
Delinquent to stuff
cake holes with garbage.
Gruel, bangers, tripe and trotters, spotted ****, black pudding, haggis, bulls testicles.

Plastic.
Gum, and wrapper.
Thrown,
in bin.
Mess and stink.
Perforating orifices and permeating nasal passageways.

Kitchen sink,
The end of day arrives
Sanitation process occurs.
The end of shift awaits.
She takes off sweat filled hair cap,
Takes off juice stained chef pants.
Kicks off steel capped boots.
Pulls out
Smelly,
Sock.

Rest in bed,
to awake for new day.
Gravity raises the sun.
Rinse and repeat
bain marie
reheat.

Insanely insane
No program in brain
No chain to attain
No page to stain

No need to repeat
Issues to reheat
The past doesn't last
Anyway

Speculation is ******
And the son of disorder
Like a drama recorder
Playing again and again

The anxiety's claws
From the head to the toes
In a circle it goes
Reoccurring pain

I am charcoal cooking out for the summer
loading boxes into a freight truck
like coals into the furnace
powering America's materialist engine
the boxes rising like greed
until I've filled that truck's needs
exiting the trailer smoldering
like a coal in the furnace
powering corporate production
steam is all that rises as I melt into the ground
trucks leave like emissions into the air
obstructing my vision as I gaze down the street
through the haze of summer streaks
another truck approaches for repeat
a microwave set to reheat.

My eyes itch,
My throat burns
The coffee in the pots burnt
And my mugs cold

The TV's on in the backroom,
Someone's been skinned-
Stripped of all fleash-
Screaming,
Screaming,
Silence.

My computer screen stares back at me
And my eyes water at the light.
They try to close

My heart beats
Ba boom
Ba Boom
BA BOOM
Each thump hurts more and more

Typing, typing, typing

I love you

My mouth turns upright
And I feel my heart settle a bit

I love you too

Night

Night

Nicotine and coffee

I wiggle and scream
Much like the TV did
Only to wake to lonely silence

Shower and reheat the dark muddy drink
One quick cigarette
And

**Good morning my love,
       I've missed you.

There's a fly in my oatmeal, and now I won't eat it.
There's a fly in my oatmeal, get it out please! I pleaded.
It's just a raisin, my father said.
Well now it's all cold, and you'll have to reheat it.

Your eyes are the colour of my tea
when I've forgotten about it for hours.
When I find it, I end up not even wanting to drink it, but I do, because it's there and I'm here.
I don't think this makes any sense at all but I guess that why I'll always try to reheat you; us. Because you're there, and I'm here.
But don't think we'll ever be the same.

I know I can work him.....for what I may need...
but is that bad and for my own greed?

I do care for him but not like the others....
I don't want to be with someone "small" after the "bigger" brothers..

I know that seems shallow and kinda selfish..
but why try to reheat something that isn't a tasty dish....

I don't want to lead him on and I don't want to be with him anymore...
Been there done that....don't need to do what didn't work before.

I know that he isn't my love or my mate for life....
He isn't the one I forever and to become his little wife...

These strange fellows
Still record on videotape
Abroad an outdated
Insufficient spacecraft
The shape of
An interstellar bowling alley

By night they hunt for
New age wine
Radio waves
And a slew of hitchhikers

Some they greet
Some they cheat
Some they mistreat
Some they eat

Convenient store gangbusters
Crop circling has seen its better day
Soundtrack enthusiasts
They've a score to settle
With John Williams

They came from a fruitless world
In search of pomegranate skies
And the Big Apple
Even from the far flung
Reaches of space
Everyone's an actor

Some they unseat
Some they beat
Some they reheat
Some they eat

We're odd to them
Because they're gods to us
In a technologically challenged
Unidentified flying object

It's not war they want
Nor invasion
Just dinner theatre
And a reliable map

I'd prefer to stuff my love for you
in a concise, zip-locked easy to reheat bit,
rather than let it sprawl across fields of space.
I'd rather have a zealous moment than
a dull eternity.
I'd rather love you fervently for a second
than spread thin over an hour.

Just let me give you what I have, and ask for nothing more.

Heard about it a few weeks ago.
A star that has defied the known laws of physics.
(Oh yeah, I really am intelligent)

Twice supernova over 60 years!
There's hope here.
This star refuses to die.
She is a stellar queen.
Something to eclipse.

I've already gone supernova, and accepted my fate.
What a fool I am!

I too have more to give.
More powerful eruptions and displays.

Dig, I must.
Find my once powerful core and reheat it.
Watch out naysayers,
Here I come!

A walk with fire
to reheat and warm my heart.
A flight through wind
to blow away the sorrow from the start.
A swim in water
to help me breathe.
A walk on earth
to be guided safely

back to where I belong.