It always amused me,
How no one in the building
Had neither the time nor the inclination
To change that default ringtone...
That harbinger of problems upon problems.
It amuses me more that,
After a break and a change,
I find that default ringtone
Still echoes down the corridors,
Like incidental music in a bad horror
And how I still snap into action mode
Each time I hear that default ringtone,
How I enter crisis management mode
Each time I hear that default ringtone,
How I brace myself for bad news
Each time I hear that default ringtone.
What a thing the mind is!
Impressions made upon it,
Triggered by a catchy default ringtone!

Like a psychotic docent in the wilderness,
I will not speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences.
I draw my voice from a much deeper cistern,
Preferring the jittery synaptic archive,
So sublimely unfiltered, random and profane.
And though I am sequestered now,
Confined within the walls of a gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55 lunatic asylum (for Active Seniors I am told),
I remain oddly puerile,
Remarkably refreshed and unfettered.  
My institutionalization self-imposed,
Purposed for my own serenity, and also the safety of others.
Yet I abide, surprisingly emancipated and frisky.
I may not have found the peace I seek,
But the quiet has mercifully come at last.

The nexus of inner and outer space is context for my story.
I was born either in Brooklyn, New York or Shungopavi, Arizona,
More of intervention divine than census data.
Shungopavi: a designated place for tribal statistical purposes.
Shungopavi: an ovine abbatoir and shaman’s cloister.
The Hopi: my mother’s people, a state of mind and grace,
Deftly landlocked, so cunningly circumscribed,
By both interior and outer Navajo boundaries.
The Navajo: a coyote trickster people; a nation of sheep thieves,
Hornswoggled and landlocked themselves,
Subsumed within three of the so-called Four Corners:
A 3/4ths compromise and covenant,
Pickled in firewater, swaddled in fine print,
A veritable swindle concocted back when the USA
Had Manifest Destiny & mayhem on its mind.

The United States: once a pubescent synthesis of blood and thunder,
A bold caboodle of trooper spit and polish, unwashed brawlers, Scouts and      
Pathfinders, mountain men, numb-nut ne'er-do-wells,
Buffalo Bills & big-balled individualists, infected, insane with greed.
According to the Gospel of His Holiness Saint Zinn,
A People’s’ History of the United States: essentially state-sponsored terrorism,
A LAND RUSH grabocracy, orchestrated, blessed and anointed,
By a succession of Potomac sharks, Great White Fascist Fathers,
Far-Away-on-the Bay, the Bay we call The Chesapeake.
All demented national patriarchs craving lebensraum for God and country.
The USA: a 50-state Leviathan today, a nation jury-rigged,
Out of railroad ties, steel rails and baling wire,
Forged by a litany of lies, rapaciousness and ******,
And jaw-torn chunks of terra firma,
Bites both large and small out of our well-****** Native American ***.

Or culo, as in va’a fare in culo (literally "go do it in the ***")
Which Italian Americans pronounce as fongool.
The language center of my brain,
My sub-cortical Broca’s region,
So fraught with such semantic misfires,
And autonomic linguistic seizures,
Compel acknowledgement of a father’s contribution,
To both the gene pool and the genocide.
Columbus Day:  a conspicuously absent holiday out here in Indian Country.
No festivals or Fifth Avenue parades.
No excuse for ethnic hoopla. No guinea feast. No cannoli. No tarantella.
No excuse to not get drunk and not **** your sister-in-law.
Emphatically a day for prayer and contemplation,
A day of infamy like Pearl Harbor and 9/11,
October 12, 1492: not a discovery; an invasion.

Growing up in Brooklyn, things were always different for me,
Different in some sort of redskin/****/****--
Choose Your Favorite Ethnic Slur-sort of way.
The American Way: dehumanization for fun and profit.
Melting *** anonymity and denial of complicity with evil.
But this is no time to bring up America’s sordid past,
Or, a personal pet peeve: Indian Sovereignty.
For Uncle Sam and his minions, an ever-widening, conveniently flexible concept,
Not a commandment or law,
Not really a treaty or a compact,
Or even a business deal.  Let’s get real:
It was not even much in the way of a guideline.
Just some kind of an advisory, a bulletin or newsletter,
Could it merely have been a free-floating suggestion?
Yes, that’s it exactly: a suggestion.

Over and under halcyon American skies,
Over and around those majestic purple mountain peaks,
Those trapped in poetic amber waves of wheat and oats,
Corn and barley, wheat shredded and puffed,
Corn flaked and milled, Wheat Chex and Wheaties, oats that are little Os;
Kix and Trix, Fiber One, and Kashi-Go-Lean, Lucky Charms and matso *****,
Kreplach and kishka,
Polenta and risotto.
Our cantaloupe and squash patch,
Our fruited prairie plain, our delicate ecological Eden,
In balance and harmony with nature, as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce instructs:
“These white devils are not going to,
Stop ****** and killing, cheating and eating us,
Until they have the whole ******* enchilada.
I’m talking about ‘from sea to shining sea.’”

“I fight no more forever,” Babaloo.
So I must steer this clunky keelboat of discovery,
Back to the main channel of my sad and starry demented river.
My warpath is personal but not historical.
It is my brain’s own convoluted cognitive process I cannot saavy.
Whatever biochemical or—as I suspect more each day—
Whatever bio-mechanical protocols govern my identity,
My weltanschauung: my world-view, as sprechen by proto-Nazis;
Putz philosophers of the 17th, 18th & 19th century.
The German intelligentsia: what a cavalcade of maniacal *******!
Why is this Jew unsurprised these Zarathustra-fueled Übermenschen . . .
Be it the Kaiser--Caesar in Deutsch--Bismarck, ******, or,
Even that Euro-*****,  Angela Merkel . . . Why am I not surprised these Huns,
Get global grab-*** on the sauerbraten cabeza every few generations?
To be, or not to be the ***** bullgoose loony: GOTT.

Biomechanical protocols govern my identity and are implanted while I sleep.
My brain--my weak and weary CPU--is replenished, my discs defragmented.
A suite of magnetic and optical white rooms, cleansed free of contaminants,
Gun mounts & lifeboat stations manned and ready,
Standing at attention and saluting British snap-style,
Snap-to and heel click, ramrod straight and cheerful: “Ready for duty, Sir.”
My mind is ravenous, lusting for something, anything to process.
Any memory or image, lyric or construct,
Be they short-term dailies or deeply imprinted.
Fixations archived one and all in deep storage time and space.
Memories, some subconscious, most vaporous;
Others--the scary ones—eidetic: frighteningly detailed and extraordinarily vivid.
Precise cognitive transcripts; recollected so richly rife and fresh.
Visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory reloads:
Queued up and increasingly re-experienced.

The bio-data of six decades: it’s all there.
People, countless, places and things cataloged.
Every event, joy and trauma enveloped from within or,
Accessed externally from biomechanical storage devices.
The random access memory of a lifetime,
Read and recollected from cerebral repositories and vaults,
All the while the entire greedy process overseen,
Over-driven by that all-subservient British bat-man,
Rummaging through the data in batches small and large,
Internal and external drives working in seamless syncopation,
Self-referential, at times paradoxical or infinitely looped.
“Cogito ergo sum."
Descartes stripped it down to the basics but there’s more to the story:
Thinking about thinking.
A curse and minefield for the cerebral:  metacognition.

No, it is not the fact that thought exists,
Or even the thoughts themselves.
But the information technology of thought that baffles me,
As adaptive and profound as any evolution posited by Darwin,
Beyond the wetware in my skull, an entirely new operating system.
My mental and cultural landscape are becoming one.
Machines are connecting the two.
It’s what I am and what I am becoming.
Once more for emphasis:
It is the information technology of who I am.
It is the operating system of my mental and cultural landscape.
It is the machinery connecting the two.
This is the central point of this narrative:
Metacognition--your superego’s yenta Cassandra,
Screaming, screaming in your psychic ear, your good ear:

“LISTEN:  The machines are taking over, taking you over.
Your identity and train of thought are repeatedly hijacked,
Switched off the main line onto spurs and tangents,
Only marginally connected or not at all.
(Incoming TEXT from my editor: “Lighten Up, Giuseppi!”)
Reminding me again that most in my audience,
Rarely get past the comic page. All righty then: think Calvin & Hobbes.
John Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year old boy,
Subject to flights of 16th Century French theological fancy.
Thomas Hobbes, a sardonic anthropomorphic tiger from 17th Century England,
Mumbling about life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Taken together--their antics and shenanigans--their relationship to each other,
Remind us of our dual nature; explore for us broad issues like public education;
The economy, environmentalism & the Global ****** Thermometer;
Not to mention the numerous flaws of opinion polls.



And again my editor TEXTS me, reminds me again: “LIGHTEN UP!”
Consoling me:  “Even Shakespeare had to play to the groundlings.”
The groundlings, AKA: The Rabble.
Yes. Even the ******* Bard, even Willie the Shake,
Had to contend with a decidedly lowbrow copse of carrion.
Oh yes, the groundlings, a carrion herd, a flying flock of carrion seagulls,
Carrion crow, carrion-feeders one and all,
And let’s throw Sheryl Crow into the mix while we’re at it:
“Hit it! This ain't no disco. And it ain't no country club either, this is L.A.”  

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

Once more, I digress.
The Rabble:  an amorphous, gelatinous Jabba the Hutt of commonality.
The Rabble: drunk, debauched & lawless.
Too *****-delicious to stop Bill & Hilary from thinking about tomorrow;
Too Paul McCartney My Love Does it Good to think twice.

The Roman Saturnalia: a weeklong **** fest.
The Saturnalia: originally a pagan kink-fest in honor of the deity Saturn.
Dovetailing nicely with the advent of the Christian era,
With a project started by Il Capo di Tutti Capi,
One of the early popes, co-opting the Roman calendar between 17 and 25 December,
Putting the finishing touches on the Jesus myth.
For Brooklyn Hopi-***-Jew baby boomers like me,
Saturnalia manifested itself as Disco Fever,
Unpleasant years of electrolysis, scrunched ***** in tight polyester
For Roman plebeians, for the great unwashed citizenry of Rome,
Saturnalia was just a great big Italian wedding:
A true family blowout and once-in-a-lifetime ego-trip for Dad,
The father of the bride, Vito Corleone, Don for A Day:
“Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I! Funicula, Funiculi!”

America: love it or leave it; my country right or wrong.
Sure, we were citizens of Rome,
But any Joe Josephus spending the night under a Tiber bridge,
Or sleeping off a three day drunk some afternoon,
Up in the Coliseum bleachers, the cheap seats, out beyond the monuments,
The original three monuments in the old stadium,
Standing out in fair territory out in center field,
Those three stone slabs honoring Gehrig, Huggins, and Babe.
Yes, in the house that Ruth built--Home of the Bronx Bombers--***?
Any Joe Josephus knows:  Roman citizenship doesn’t do too much for you,
Except get you paxed, taxed & drafted into the Legion.
For us the Roman lifestyle was HIND-*** humble.
We plebeians drew our grandeur by association with Empire.
Very few Romans and certainly only those of the patrician class lived high,
High on the hog, enjoying a worldly extravaganza, like—whom do we both know?

Okay, let’s say Laurence Olivier as Crassus in Spartacus.
Come on, you saw Spartacus fifteen ******* times.
Remember Crassus?
Crassus: that ***** twisted **** trying to get his freak on with,
Tony Curtis in a sunken marble tub?
We plebes led lives of quiet *****-scratching desperation,
A bunch of would-be legionnaires, diseased half the time,
Paid in salt tablets or baccala, salted codfish soaked yellow in olive oil.
Stiffs we used to call them on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.
Let’s face it: we were hyenas eating someone else’s ****,
Stage-door jackals, Juvenal-come-late-lies, a mob of moronic mook boneheads
Bought off with bread & circuses and Reality TV.
Each night, dished up a wide variety of lowbrow Elizabethan-era entertainments.  
We contemplate an evening on the town, downtown—
(cue Petula Clark/Send "Downtown" Ringtone to your Cell)

On any given London night, to wit:  mummers, jugglers, bear & bull baiters.
How about dog & **** fighters, quoits & skittles, alehouses & brothels?
In short, somewhere, anywhere else,
Anywhere other than down along the Thames,
At Bankside in Southwark, down in the Globe Theater mosh pit,
Slugging it out with the groundlings whose only interest,
In the performance is the choreography of swordplay and stale ****** puns.
Meanwhile, Hugh Fennyman--probably a fellow Jew,
An English Renaissance Bugsy Siegel or Mickey Cohen—
Meanwhile Fennyman, the local mob boss is getting his ya-yas,
Roasting the feet of my text-messaging editor, Philip Henslowe.
Poor and pathetic Henslowe, works on commission, always scrounging,
But a true patron of my craft, a gentleman of infinite jest and patience,
Spiritual subsistence, and every now and then a good meal at some,
Sawdust joint with oyster shells, and a Prufrockian silk purse of T.S. Eliot gold.

Poor, pathetic Henslowe, trussed up by Fennyman,
His editorial feet in what looks like a Japanese hibachi.
Henslowe’s feet to the fire--feet to the fire—get it?
A catchy phrase whose derivation conjures up,
A grotesque yet vivid image of torture,
An exquisite insight into how such phrases ingress the idiom,
Not to mention a scene once witnessed at a secret Romanian CIA prison,
I’d been ordered to Bucharest not long after 9/11,
Handling the rendition and torture of Habib Ghazzawy,

An entirely innocent falafel maker from Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens.
Shock the Monkey: it’s what we do. GOTO:
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey/
(HQ music video) - YouTube//
www.youtube.com/
Poor, pathetic, ******-on Henslowe.


Fennyman :  (his avarice is whet by something Philly screams out about a new script)  "A play takes time. Find actors; Rehearsals. Let's say open in three weeks. That's--what--five hundred groundlings at tuppence each, in addition four hundred groundlings tuppence each, in addition four hundred backsides at three pence--a penny extra for a cushion, call it two hundred cushions, say two performances for safety how much is that Mr. Frees?"
Jacobean Tweet, John (1580-1684) Webster:  “I saw him kissing her bubbies.”

It’s Geoffrey Rush, channeling Henslowe again,
My editor, a singed smoking madman now,
Feet in an ice bucket, instructing me once more:
“Lighten things up, you know . . .
Comedy, love and a bit with a dog.”
I digress again and return to Hopi Land, back to my shaman-monastic abattoir,
That Zen Center in downtown Shungopavi.
At the Tribal Enrolment Office I make my case for a Certificate of Indian Blood,
Called a CIB by the Natives and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The BIA:  representing gold & uranium miners, cattle and sheep ranchers,
Sodbusters & homesteaders; railroaders and dam builders since 1824.
Just in time for Andrew Jackson, another false friend of Native America,
Just before Old Hickory, one of many Democratic Party hypocrites and scoundrels,
Gives the FONGOOL, up the CULO go ahead.
Hey Andy, I’ve got your Jacksonian democracy: Hanging!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:   "… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. What’s that in the fine print?  Uncle Sammy holds “the trust assets of American Indians.”

Here’s a ******* tip, Geronimo: if he trusted you,
It would ALL belong to you.
To you and The People.
But it’s all fork-tongued white *******.
If true, Indian sovereignty would cease to be a sick one-liner,
Cease to be a blunt force punch line, more of,
King Leopold’s 19th Century stand-up comedy schtick,
Leo Presents: The **** of the Congo.
La Belgique mission civilisatrice—
That’s what French speakers called Uncle Leo’s imperial public policy,
Bringing the gift of civilization to central Africa.
Like Manifest Destiny in America, it had a nice colonial ring to it.
“Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent,
Allotted by Providence for the free development,
Of our yearly multiplying millions.”  John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Our civilizing mission or manifest destiny:
Either/or, a catchy turn of phrase;
Not unlike another ironic euphemism and semantic subterfuge:
The Pacification of the West; Pacification?
Hardly: decidedly not too peaceful for Cochise & Tonto.
Meanwhile, Madonna is cash rich but disrespected Evita poor,
To wit: A ****** on the Rocks (throwing in a byte or 2 of Da Vinci Code).
Meanwhile, Miss Ciccone denied her golden totem *****.
They snubbed that little guinea ****, didn’t they?
Snubbed her, robbed her rotten.
Evita, her magnum opus, right up there with . . .
Her SNL Wayne’s World skit:
“Get a load of the unit on that guy.”
Or, that infamous MTV Music Video Awards stunt,
That classic ***** Lip-Lock with Britney Spears.

How could I not see that Oscar snubola as prime evidence?
It was just another stunning case of American anti-Italian racial animus.
Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky would see it,
Must view it in the same context as the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
Or, that arbitrary lynching of 9 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891,
To cite just two instances of anti-Italian judicial reach & mob violence,
Much like what happened to my cousin Dominic,
Gang-***** by the Harlem Globetrotters, in their locker room during halftime,
While he working for Abe Saperstein back in 1952.
Dom was doing advance for Abe, supporting creation of The Washington Generals:
A permanent stable of hoop dream patsies and foils,
Named for the ever freewheeling, glad-handing, backslapping,
Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF), himself,
Namely General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man they liked,
And called IKE: quite possibly a crypto Jew from Abilene.

Of course, Harry Truman was my first Great White Fascist Father,
Back in 1946, when I first opened my eyes, hung up there,
High above, looking down from the adobe wall.
Surveying the entire circular kiva,
I had the best seat in the house.
Don’t let it be said my Spider Grandmother or Hopi Corn Mother,
Did not want me looking around at things,
Discovering what made me special.
Didn’t divine intervention play a significant part of my creation?
Knowing Mamma Mia and Nonna were Deities,
Gave me an edge later on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Cradleboard: was there ever a more divinely inspired gift to human curiosity? The Cradleboard: a perfect vantage point, an infant’s early grasp,
Of life harmonious, suspended between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Simply put: the Hopi should be running our ******* public schools.

But it was IKE with whom I first associated,
Associated with the concept 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I liked IKE. Who didn’t?
What was not to like?
He won the ******* war, didn’t he?
And he wasn’t one of those crazy **** John Birchers,
Way out there, on the far right lunatic Republican fringe,
Was he? (It seems odd and nearly impossible to believe in 2013,
That there was once a time in our Boomer lives,
When the extreme right wing of the Republican Party
Was viewed by the FBI as an actual threat to American democracy.)
Understand: it was at a time when The FBI,
Had little ideological baggage,
But a great appetite for secrets,
The insuppressible Jay Edgar doing his thang.

IKE: of whom we grew so, oh-so Fifties fond.
Good old reliable, Nathan Shaking IKE:
He’d been fixed, hadn’t he? Had had the psychic snip.
Snipped as a West Point cadet & parade ground martinet.
Which made IKE a good man to have in a pinch,
Especially when crucial policy direction was way above his pay grade.
Cousin Dom was Saperstein’s bagman, bribing out the opposition,
Which came mainly from religious and patriotic organizations,
Viewing the bogus white sports franchise as obscene.
The Washington Generals, Saperstein’s new team would have but one opponent,
And one sole mission: to serve as the **** of endless jokes and sight gags for—
Negroes.  To play the chronic fools of--
Negroes.  To be chronically humiliated and insulted by—
Negroes.  To run up and down the boards all night, being outran by—
Negroes.  Not to mention having to wear baggy silk shorts.



Meadowlark Lemon:  “Yeah, Charlie, we ***** that grease-ball Dominic; we shagged his guinea mouth and culo rotten.”  

(interviewed in his Scottsdale, AZ winter residence in 2003 by former ESPN commentator Charlie Steiner, Malverne High School, Class of ’67.)
                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                 
IKE, briefed on the issue by higher-ups, quickly got behind the idea.
The Harlem Globetrotters were to exist, and continue to exist,
Are sustained financially by Illuminati sponsors,
For one reason and one reason only:
To serve elite interests that the ***** be kept down and subservient,
That the minstrel show be perpetuated,
A policy surviving the elaborate window dressing of the civil rights movement, Affirmative action, and our first Uncle Tom president.
Case in point:  Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman & Metta World Peace Artest.
Cha-cha-cha changing again:  I am Robert Allen Zimmermann,
A whiny, skinny Jew, ****** and rolling in from Minnesota,
Arrested, obviously a vagrant, caught strolling around his tony Jersey enclave,
Having moved on up the list, the A-list, a special invitation-only,
Yom Kippur Passover Seder:  Next Year in Jerusalem, Babaloo!

I take ownership of all my autonomic and conditioned reflexes;
Each personal neural arc and pathway,
All shenanigans & shellackings,
Or blunt force cognitive traumas.
It’s all percolating nicely now, thank you,
In kitchen counter earthen crockery:
Random access memory: a slow-cook crockpot,
Bubbling through my psychic sieve.
My memories seem only remotely familiar,
Distant and vague, at times unreal:
An alien hybrid databank accessed accidently on purpose;
Flaky science sustains and monitors my nervous system.
And leads us to an overwhelming question:
Is it true that John Dillinger’s ******* is in the Smithsonian Museum?
Enquiring minds want to know, Kemosabe!

“Any last words, *******?” TWEETS Adam Smith.
Postmortem cyber-graffiti, an epitaph carved in space;
Last words, so singular and simple,
Across the universal great divide,
Frisbee-d, like a Pleistocene Kubrick bone,
Tossed randomly into space,
Morphing into a gyroscopic space station.
Mr. Smith, a calypso capitalist, and me,
Me, the Poet Laureate of the United States and Adam;
Who, I didn’t know from Adam.
But we tripped the light fantastic,
We boogied the Protestant Work Ethic,
To the tune of that old Scotch-Presbyterian favorite,
Variations of a 5-point Calvinist theme: Total Depravity; Election; Particular Redemption; Irresistible Grace; & Perseverance of the Saints.

Mr. Smith, the author of An Inquiry into the Nature
& Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776),
One of the best-known, intellectual rationales for:
Free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism,
The latter term a euphemism for Social Darwinism.
Prior to 1764, Calvinists in France were called Huguenots,
A persecuted religious majority . . . is that possible?
A persecuted majority of Edict of Nantes repute.
Adam Smith, likely of French Huguenot Jewish ancestry himself,
Reminds me that it is my principal plus interest giving me my daily gluten.
And don’t think the irony escapes me now,
A realization that it has taken me nearly all my life to see again,
What I once saw so vividly as a child, way back when.
Before I put away childish things, including the following sentiment:
“All I need is the air that I breathe.”

  Send "The Air That I Breathe" Ringtone to your Cell  

The Hippies were right, of course.
The Hollies had it all figured out.
With the answer, as usual, right there in the lyrics.
But you were lucky if you were listening.
There was a time before I embraced,
The other “legendary” economists:
The inexorable Marx,
The savage society of Veblen,
The heresies we know so well of Keynes.
I was a child.
And when I was a child, I spake as a child—
Grazie mille, King James—
I understood as a child; I thought as a child.
But when I became a man I jumped on the bus with the band,
Hopped on the irresistible bandwagon of Adam Smith.

Smith:  “Any last words, *******?”
Okay, you were right: man is rationally self-interested.
Grazie tanto, Scotch Enlightenment,
An intellectual movement driven by,
An alliance of Calvinists and Illuminati,
Freemasons and Johnny Walker Black.
Talk about an irresistible bandwagon:
Smith, the gloomy Malthus, and David Ricardo,
Another Jew boy born in London, England,
Third of 17 children of a Sephardic family of Portuguese origin,
Who had recently relocated from the Dutch Republic.
******* Jews!
Like everything shrewd, sane and practical in this world,
WE also invented the concept:  FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The lyrics: if you were really listening, you’d get it:
Respiration keeps one sufficiently busy,
Just breathing free can be a full-time job,
Especially when--borrowing a phrase from British cricketers—,
One contemplates the sorry state of the wicket.
Now that I am gainfully superannuated,
Pensioned off the employment radar screen.
Oft I go there into the wild ebon yonder,
Wandering the brain cloud at will.
My journey indulges curiosity, creativity and deceit.
I free range the sticky wicket,
I have no particular place to go.
Snagging some random fact or factoid,
A stop & go rural postal route,
Jumping on and off the brain cloud.

Just sampling really,
But every now and then, gorging myself,
At some information super smorgasbord,
At a Good Samaritan Rest Stop,
I ponder my own frazzled neurology,
When I was a child—
Before I learned the grim economic facts of life and Judaism,
Before I learned Hebrew,
Before my laissez-faire Bar Mitzvah lessons,
Under the rabbinical tutelage of Rebbe Kahane--
I knew what every clever child knows about life:
The surfing itself is the destination.
Accessing RAM--random access memory—
On a strictly need to know basis.
RAM:  a pretty good name for consciousness these days.

If I were an Asimov or Sir Arthur (Sri Lankabhimanya) Clarke,
I’d get freaky now, riffing on Terminators, Time Travel and Cyborgs.
But this is truth not science fiction.
Nevertheless, someone had better,
Come up with another name for cyborg.
Some other name for a critter,
Composed of both biological and artificial parts?
Parts-is-parts--be they electronic, mechanical or robotic.
But after a lifetime of science fiction media,
After a steady media diet, rife with dystopian technology nightmares,
Is anyone likely to admit to being a cyborg?
Since I always give credit where credit is due,
I acknowledge that cyborg was a term coined in 1960,
By Manfred Clynes & Nathan S. Kline and,
Used to identify a self-regulating human-machine system in outer space.

Five years later D. S. Halacy's: Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman,
Featured an introduction, which spoke of:  “… a new frontier, that was not,
Merely space, but more profoundly, the relationship between inner space,
And outer space; a bridge, i.e., between mind and matter.”
So, by definition, a cyborg defined is an organism with,
Technology-enhanced abilities: an antenna array,
Replacing what was once sentient and human.
My glands, once in control of metabolism and emotions,
Have been replaced by several servomechanisms.
I am biomechanical and gluttonous.
Soaking up and breathing out the atmosphere,
My Baby Boom experience of six decades,
Homogenized and homespun, feedback looped,
Endlessly networked through predigested mass media,
Culture as demographically targeted content.

This must have something to do with my own metamorphosis.
I think of Gregor Samsa, a Kafkaesque character if there ever was one.
And though we share common traits,
My evolutionary progress surpasses and transcends his.
Samsa--Phylum and Class--was, after all, an insect.
Nonetheless, I remain a changeling.
Have I not seen many stages of growth?
Each a painful metamorphic cycle,
From exquisite first egg,
Through caterpillar’s appetite & squirm.
To phlegmatic bliss and pupa quietude,
I unfold my wings in a rush of Van Gogh palette,
Color, texture, movement and grace, lift off, flapping in flight.
My eyes have witnessed wondrous transformations,
My experience, nouveau riche and distinctly self-referential;
For the most part unspecific & longitudinally pedestrian.

Yes, something has happened to me along the way.
I am no longer certain of my identity as a human being.
Time and technology has altered my basic wiring diagram.
I suspect the sophisticated gadgets and tools,
I’ve been using to shape & make sense of my environment,
Have reared up and turned around on me.
My tools have reshaped my brain & central nervous system.
Remaking me as something simultaneously more and less human.
The electronic toys and tools I once so lovingly embraced,
Have turned unpredictable and rabid,
Their bite penetrating my skin and septic now, a cluster of implanted sensors,
Content: currency made increasingly more valuable as time passes,
Served up by and serving the interests of a pervasively predatory 1%.
And the rest of us: the so-called 99%?
No longer human; simply put by both Howards--Beale & Zinn--

Humanoid.

Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I

She picks up her phone
She just wants to hear his voice
Wants him to know how much she loves him
Wants him to understand why she has to do it
He doesn't pick up,she picks up the razor
She cant take it anymore
She slices one cut for every hate she got
The more she cut, the deeper they got
She wishes he would call before it is too late
Before she knew it she cut too deep
She hit the vein, now it is too late
The last thing she heard was a ringtone....
His ringtone

Which takes us on a direct path to:
THE  INCIDENT.
Say you are a normal man—whatever that means—
But say it’s late June of 1993 and you’re laying on the couch,
Scratching your *****, trying to intuit your LDL level
Based on the two bowls of the Old Lady’s Cholesterol Chowder.
The Old Lady-- you can call her Peg or Mrs. Bundy—
Served it up in her special legacy china,
An assortment of recycled tin foil casserole dishes &
Vintage melmac handed down by your mother-in-law.
You are on the couch giving digestion your best shot,
Still scratching your agates when Peg comes
In from the kitchen with your second glass of
Two-buck chuck and a smoking fatty she’s just ignited,
Miraculously without burning the house down.
The TV is on—the TV is always on because
The TV has had no off button since 1984
You are tuned to the CNN evening news &
A report comes on that makes you sit up,
Snap to attention, straight up and take notice:
"WOMAN CUTS OFF HUSBAND'S *****!"
The media shrikes in Atlanta have your attention now,
Your complete attention;
Your eyes are riveted to the telescreen &
Your blood pressure spiking at 240 over 140.
During the previous night of June 23, 1993,
John Wayne Bobbitt arrives at the
Couple's apartment in Manassas, Virginia,
Highly intoxicated after a night of partying.
According to testimony given by Lorena Bobbitt
In a 1994 court hearing, he then rapes her.
Afterwards, Lorena Bobbitt gets out of bed,
Goes to the kitchen for a drink of water.
According to a journal article in the
National Women's Justice & Defense
League of Psychotic Castrating *******,
While in the kitchen she notices,
A carving knife on the counter & "memories of
Past domestic abuse races through her head."
Grabbing the knife, Lorena Bobbitt enters the bedroom
Where John is sleeping & proceeds to
Cut off nearly half his *****,
Half his Johnson,
In this instance aptly named.
So you have some schnook who’s named
After the iconic Hollywood superstar John Wayne . . .
Now understand something, John Wayne—
The ******* Duke of Earl--
Personifies everything alpha male:
Physique, animal magnetism & a pair of
Huge ***** swinging in his chaps as
He sashays across the screen.
In real life he’s a bullfight & cigar aficionado,
A big game hunter and sport fisherman, &
A hard drinking Hemingway hero
Who spends most of his time aboard
A customized WWII U.S. mine sweeper
******* to a pier behind his house in
Newport Harbor, California.
He’s the proverbial man’s man, &
There’s no one like him in America
Until maybe Eastwood or Willis comes along.
There’s a statue of him out in front of
The Orange County Airport that bears his name.
I have a photograph of him hanging in my garage
Next to a Mad-Dog 20-20 poster.
But I digress.
We return to the Bobbitt story because
It gets better, keeps getting crazier.
After assaulting her husband,
Lorena leaves the apartment with the severed *****,
Drives around aimlessly for a short while,
Then rolls down the car window &
Throws the ***** into a field.
Only then does the loony ***** realize
The severity of the incident.
She stops and calls 911.
After an exhaustive search by
Volunteers from the local Humane Society,
The ***** is located, packed in the ice-slurry of
A banana-flavored 7/11 Slurpee, &
Taken to the hospital where half-**** John Bobbitt
Gets a short-arm inspection and treated,
Mostly for shock and awe.
His ***** is later reattached by Drs. James T. Sehn &
David Berman during a nine-and-a-half-hour surgery
Filmed by Ken Burns and broadcast in its entirety by
WGBH Boston, a stunning illustration of
Your tax dollars hard at work
At the National Endowment for the Arts.
An abridged version later becomes the season premier of
"Girls Gone ******* ******, Manassas!"
Lorena goes on Oprah to explain herself.

Lorena Bobbitt ((née Gallo) was born in Ecuador.
Her maiden name, ironically,
Means **** in English.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix had this to say:
“Deport the *****. She may have an INS green card
But there’s no way she had a government permit to
Go around lopping ***** off in Virginia or any other state.
Who does she think she is, Janet Napolitano?”
Napolitano could not be reached for comment.
Shortly after the incident, episodes of "Bobbittmania,"
Or copycat crimes, were reported.
The name Lorena Bobbitt eventually became
Synonymous with ***** removal.
The terms "Bobbitt Punishment" and "Bobbitt Procedure" gained
Social cache with a radical break-away sect of N.O.W.
COPYCAT Catherine Kieu Becker, 48 (Garden Grove P.D.)  
Woman Accused of Cutting Off Husband's *****
Pleads Not Guilty/ VIDEO: Watch Jennifer Gould's Report
KTLA News   10:40 a.m. PST, February 3, 2012 /SANTA ANA, Calif.
"A 48-year-old woman accused of cutting off
Her husband's ***** and putting it
In the garbage disposal has pleaded
Not guilty to all the charges against her.
Catherine Kieu, of Garden Grove,
Was indicted earlier this month on
One felony count of torture &
One felony count of aggravated mayhem.
She also faces a sentencing enhancement for
Practicing surgical medicine without a license."
Sign up for KTLA 5 Breaking News Email Alerts
Comments (130) Add / View comments | Discussion FAQ
Happy627 at 10:35 PM January 18, 2012
"So my x-wife is a violent drunken *****?
Never once did I ever think of hurting her
But now I see I was wrong.
Vengeance's is the true answer & payback is hell.
So basically I should put an M-40
In her *** and light the fuse.
I should be acquitted from any wrong doing
Because she was a violent drunken *****.
Maybe all men should do this to their
Violent wives/girlfriends & teach them a lesson.
Cyanmanta at 1:10 AM January 11, 2012
In response to Doreen Meyer:
"So you're assuming that because he was the victim
He must have done something to deserve it
In some small way?
Typical of convenient feminism:
Assume all female victims are innocent &
Pure as driven snow,
While dismissing all male victims
With the idea that 'he had it coming.'
I wish I could pander shamelessly
To the media for preferential treatment,
But sadly, I am male (or as feminists would say)
The Evil Gender."
Westfield at 5:47 PM Jan.09, 2012
She should get her own show on the ***** channel.
(Bravo). KABC radio's John Phillips & his girlfriend
Nathan Baker would love to watch it."
Sluff it off, take a load off, baby.
Take a load off?
“Take a load off Annie,
Take a load for free;
Take a load off Annie, and
Bom bom bom bom
Bom be bom— & Dddddddddd,
You can put the load right on me.”
Send “The Weight” Ringtone to Your Cell

. . . Snipped, fixed, neutered, gelded,
Emasculated, eunuchized, or castrated?
(Castrating Forceps  (www.alibaba.com/
Showroom/castration-tool.html).
Bobbittized!

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.

4:00 am
And you know
I keep the volume up on my phone
Just in case you call.
Even change my ringtone
Before I go to sleep
To something that will wake me up.
It's stupid.
I know.
But I do it because
No matter what time it is
I always want to be talking to you.

There's something wrong
It hasn't rung
That very tune I love to hear
Love...
What's the point anymore
Just heartache and disappointment
Like an empty voicemail
Thinking maybe I missed it
Fell asleep in the middle of the day
Forgot to charge it
A relationship is all about communication
Yet there's none
You want me to tell you all my feelings
But maybe its pointless
Telling you I feel like a third wheel
Always being on the back burner
It feels as if you're toying with me
Like maybe there isn't one man here
But why wouldn't there be
We aren't together
Maybe that's where I keep fooling myself
My emotions blind me further
I've never felt this way
All this love and cheesy lines
Trying to get you to smile
I should just give up
Just stop
Like the ringtone that never rang

****...
Frock..
Flock.
Bock!

Bock bock bock!
Mother mother bock,
Mother mother bock bock
Mothercluck mothercluck
eggsh eggsh eggsh

1 2,
1 2 3 Crack!
Eggs eggs cheese,
Baking biscuits
Frying spud
Mix'n roux
Squashing beefs,
Squashing beefs beefs beefs.

Rolling patties,
Flipping bacon.
Who eat the bacon?
We eat the bacon!
Roll'n patties-

-uuuh yeah, let me get a bacon'n'egg

In'a'tick little man.
I'll put that **** in my pan.
If the thank you doesn't show,
You can owe me *******-

Imperial March ringtone

-Checks cell and ignores call-

"Who was that?"
"What? Oh,
Just another annoying memory."

-OH!
My kitchen love!
Ovee Ovee Ove-n
I think I wanna roast-ya toast-ya!

His hands were callused and cracked
They were rough on my cheek
I had never been pulled in the way Clark Gable pulls them in
Like in all of those movies I had seen when I was a kid
The way I had always practiced
Back then my ringtone was the sound of bells chiming
More specifically the bells of Notre Dame
As his stubble grazed mine they rang out
He let go of my face, his untrimmed nails scratched my chin
I would weep for hours that night
Stare into the dark corners of my room
Trying to identify all of the shadows I used to think were scary
I knew now what scary really was
Scary was his hand on my rib cage
Scary was liking it
He never did call
I changed my ringtone to the whistle from Robin Hood
I was set up on a date by my best friend
She was kind
Her hands were soft and smelled like Love Spell by Victoria’s Secret
She had no stubble to graze mine
She pressed her lips on the scratch he left on my chin with his untrimmed fingernails
And I flinched
This too was scary
This too I liked

Every blink of the screen,
she sees his affection
through pix elated font forming
into I Love You.

She can feel the radiation
keeping their relationship, alive and electrifying.
The satellites are always on their side.

Her heart beats so fast
to the ringtone of his high-tech heart.
Every keypad pressed
are thousand sweet words expressed.

The radiation won't keep us apart,
signals will bridge our undying love.
Cause, as long we have this electronic gadgets,
I know we are in love.

I feel it in the tenderness in your expression,
when you call me baby over the phone.
I feel the  charm of your masculinity.
Something deep inside of you transfers esoterically
inside my soul.
I want you to get deeper into our merger.
I want to be your dream come true.
I want to cradle myself next to you;
a blanket on the floor, a pillow on the bed,
a tent in a back field in the middle of the night.
it doesn’t matter where we are, as long as I lay next
to my man.

I will be happy, I will be whole.
I like it when you call me baby, I am fully aware that
I am yours.
I am dedicated to my African King, and I know that you are
devoted to me.
When you call me baby, I know you mean it.
You arouse a fireside of warmth inside my wet harbor,
and when you call me baby, you make me feel like Black Beauty!
I feel the sensations of your heartbeat, jiving to music that
only we can hear..

You make me melt like heat to ice, when you touch my lips,
and kiss me goodnight.
I feel exclusively special when you call me your Lady!
I can’t help but hold a torch for you.
I like it when you call me baby, it makes me feel rather
profound for you.
When you call me baby over the phone,
I want to add your sentiment as my preferred ringtone.

You know it's bad
When a simple
Two-note ringtone
Feels like
A shard of glass
Slowly edging its way
Into my heart.

That ringtone means
Trying not to anger you;
Dancing around you
To keep things okay.
But it also means
That you still
Want to talk to me.

And the really ******* stupid thing
Is that that means
More than his I love yous,
More than nights spent with him,
More than countless messages from him.
One text from you
Makes everything better

And worse. Again.

Please
Pick up my call
For the sky will fall
And the last thing I want to hear
Is your soul.

Suicide calls me.
I’ve never answered before.
Well then.. why not now?

I cannot sleep
Or at least I choose not to
Until the sun breaks the horizon
I wake up to a typical ringtone
But sometimes my heart hurts
Like it used to when I smoked
And after 12 hours of rest
I can still barely open my eyes
I cannot convince myself that
There's a real reason to wake up
I am so alone aside from my love
That any social interaction crashes over my body with
guilt and embarrassment that have no purpose
I swallow a few conversations but they hurt
I miss the friends I used to have but I know
We changed so much it could never be the same

And through recent interaction
I realize how much I miss my community
Surrounding myself with those who understand
My fears
My pain
My experiences
Without me having to explain it
Validating my emotions and
Reminding me that I am allowed to feel the way I do
Simply because I do

Suddenly woken from my nap...
I heard the running tap...
Heart pondering, with sweat rushing...
I jumped up moving nearly crashing...
Ouuch, I think I hurt my knee...
But forgetting the pain I searched for the key...
Alone in the house where can it be...
Remembering the place I tracked the key...
Opened the door to see which tap could it be...
To my astonishment, I couldn't see...
I chilled myself relaxing on the couch...
Holy mother, the sound came from my pouch...
Reaching to see what it was, then realized...
I bought a new phone with features customized...
Ringtones set as water splash inside...
And here I assumed evil running sitting outside...


©sim

I loved you, you made me hate me
You gave me hate, see it saved me and these tears are deadly
You feel that? I rip back every time you tried to steal that
You feel bad? You feel sad? I'm sorry, hell no, **** that

It was my heart, it was my life, it was my start, it was your knife
This strife it dies, this life and these lies
And these lungs have sung this song for too long
And it's true I hurt too remember I loved you

And I've lost it all, fell today, it's all the same
I'm sorry oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry no, no
I've been abused, I feel so used because of you
I'm sorry oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry no, no

I wish I could I could have quit you, I wish I never missed you
And told you that I loved you every time I ****** you
The future that we both drew and all the **** we've been through
Obsessed with the thought of you the pain just grew and grew

How could you do this to me? Look at what I made for you
It never was enough and the world is what I gave to you
I used to be love struck, now I'm just ****** up
Pull up my sleeves and see the pattern of my cuts

And I've lost it all, fell today, it's all the same
I'm sorry oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry no, no
And I've been abused, I feel so used because of you
I'm sorry oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry no, no

Seems like all we had is over now, you left to rest
And your tears are dried up now, you just lay without a sound
Seems like all we had is over now, you left to rest
And my fears are over now, I can leave with my head down

And I've lost it all, fell today, it's all the same
I'm sorry oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry no, no
And I've been abused, I feel so used because of you
I'm sorry oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry no, no

Im sorry, Im sorry, Im sorry
Im sorry, Im sorry, Im sorry
I'm sorry no
Send "My black Dahlia" Ringtone to your cell

Raindrops on my phone
Sitting out in the open air
Have to change my ringtone
Or write a poem and share

Raindrops on my phone
Have to go in now
Still about that tone
What about the mooing of a cow

Raindrops falling outside
More and more
What if it causes a tide
That won't happen I'm sure

Cold seeping into my bones
My blanket is near
About these tones
There's none I prefer

Rain has stopped falling
I'm out in the open air
No one is calling
I'll write a poem and share

Cindy Prine's bee buzz ringtone ripped her from
her deathlike slumber,
"Hello. Oh, hey Mom. What? Yeah, I'll be in tonight.
I agree...no, no I won't be brining Mattie. The Wilks
have her. They are wonderful with her. I love you too.
No, it'll probably sevenish. Not seven. Sevenish."

The Candy Corn Suite reeked of ****** fallout.
Sheets still wet and sticky with sweat.
The checkered floor covered in beer and discarded condoms.

Her ******* ached.
Most of the men had been awkward,
frightened, and easy to finish.
Hank, the porky 'friend of a friend', however,
had been brutal.
By the time he had finished,
her *** turned a light purple,
her back covered in spittle;
her scalp felt barely intact.

Cindy smelled pancakes and went downstairs.
"Good morning, darling. You want some hotcakes
and coffee?"

"Sure, Mama."

In the lobby, the Children's Funhouse looked like a ****** continental breakfast. Patrons from the night before and the workers
often sat side-by-side for what surely can lay claim to the
worst breakfast environment in the history of mankind.

"Will I have the pleasure of your company for a while, this time?"

"I'm afraid not. I need some time away from everything."

"Everything?"

"Todd, the baby, it's just depressing.
I'm twenty-*******-years-old, ya' know?
I did not sign up for domestication."

"Right on. Hell, neither did I," Chung-Ae Phun laughed
and curtsied, "So, where you going Cindy Lilly?"

"Back to my mom's for a bit."

"Are you two close?"

"Um, she is a brilliant woman.
We've never been able to talk,
but I guess you could say
I respect her."

"Fair enough. Cream or sugar?"

"No, thanks."

"How was Hank last night?"

"Oh, God, that ****! He--"

"What about my ****?" Hank blurted with a sinister, crinkled edge of lip.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I had no idea you were still here!"

"Why the **** should that matter," he snarled grabbing her tiny left arm.

"Hank, leave her alone," Madame Phun said sternly.

"She's just a little *****, Chung-baby."

"Hank, you need to leave."

"**** that. Not after the money I wasted on last night.
You promised me she was top rate.
I want my money back."

"Hank. This is not some fast-food joint,
where you come back to the counter
and ***** after you've eaten your burger!
Judging by the panting, sweaty mess you were
last night, she did just fine."

Cindy Prine reached for the intersection of her *** crack and belt line,
wrapped her trembling fingers around the hammer.

"Well, then I think I deserve another one on the house.
Can we make that compromise?"

"This isn't ******* Craig's List either, Hank. Get out!"

"I want another lay with this Lilly broad."

"Absolutely NOT--"

Cindy interrupted, "No, no it's okay, Mama."
Hank grinned, his gut seemed grow, the
hair around his arms spread like vines.
"Is it okay if we do it in your truck?
My room is an absolute mess."

"Fine by me. How I usually do it, anyway."

Hank opened the door for Cindy, in faux chivalry,
then proceeded to his side.
The cab felt like hell, and the metallic seatbelt burnt Cindy's skin.
"Where should we start?" Hank asked staring at Cindy's chest.

"How about you just relax for a second."
Cindy rubbed his crotch firmly, Hank closed his lids
and sunk into his chair, as he let out the first sigh,
Cindy snatched the hammer with her right hand and
quickly struck him
one-
two-
three
times.

Hank's skull sprung a leak. Blood spewed onto the dashboard.
Cindy shoved him to his side, snagged his wallet,
and proceeded
to crack three or four of his ribs.

when your first "boyfriend" breaks up with you
put down the can of frosting
forget the melodramatics
don't buy the jesse mccartney ringtone
skip to the part where you make out with your best friends neighbor
trust me
when your next boyfriend cheats on you
put down the razor
where did you even learn that?
don't take him back
it doesn't matter that "you gave him everything"
you will have given everyone after him everything as well
When your first high school boy doesn't love you back
move on
or you will forever be the crazy girl
he may be charming and have a mesmerizing smile
but you will do dispiciple things along the way to have him
those stolen moments
will not be worth the awkward moment(s) with his girlfriend(s)
When your second high school boy doesn't love you back either
wait it out
it will happen,
on multiple occasions
but know when to move on
because waiting gets old
When you fall for your **** buddy
don't decide to make that your "slutty year"
because one year is a long time in high school
hide away in your dark room
watch charlie st. cloud on repeat
when your friends try to cheer you up-let them
the feelings will go away, but he will not
so know when to say no
but you can say yes, too
however, don't abandon real people for fake intimacy
When you fall for your friend
don't ******* tell anyone
you know it will never happen, ever
stop trying
for the love of God, stop trying
And When you think you've found what you've been looking for
turn around
go back up north
it was all a trap
*trust me

Dear Gentlemen,
May I share with you a secret?
Some of you have already known,
some might overlook it.

No matter what your Lady says,
she loves it when you call her.

Her "If you're busy it's ok" is really not ok.
Your "I'm too busy to call" is definitely not ok.

No matter how busy you are,
you can always make time for your beloved.

A phone call, even with no conversational substance,
makes her believe you two are closer.

A phone call, even just a quick "I just miss you that's all",
strengthens her devotion.

A phone call, every now and then,
lets her known she is on your mind,
reminds her of you,
makes the sense of togetherness shine through.

So, Gentlemen,
no matter how much poetry you have written for her,
how much love you dedicate to her,
how many flower bouquets you send her,
every now and then, do yourself a favor,
put everything else aside (no multitasking!)
to call her on the phone.

If you are married,
call from work.
If you share the same place,
call from outside.
If you meet way too often,
call when you do not.

The more frequent your name appears on her little screen,
in her smart, love-coated mind,
The more grossly exaggerated your time of devotion will be.

Dear Ladies,
sorry that I slipped out our secret.
It just ***** not hearing that special ringtone
(you know, the one only his calls make)
a little more often,
doesn't it?

When he calls again,
Do Not pick up the phone,
do not wonder about lips that judge
ignorant of the fines he owes.

When he calls again,
Do Not throw the phone,
you have ran as far as runaway thoughts,
a shattered screen won't carry you further.

When he calls again,
Do Not scream at the ringtone,
the cacophony of broken sounds
will not chip away at the memory of his sins.

When he calls again,
when he begs for forgiveness,
DO (Not) tell this manchild that
to forgive is mercy,  
and only God grants mercy.

I woke up
to a nightcalm-shattering
cell phone ringtone.

"Can I come over, baby?"

"What time is it?"

"I don't know 3, 4."

"****," eyes roll, sigh,"yeah I guess so."

"Don't sound too excited," Molly said, Molly laughed.

"Are you going to be long?"

"Nah, I'm already outside."

"Awesome. Okay, let me put on some pants."

I opened the door.
Her hair was up.
Her skin was the color of milk.
Her eyes were grey.
She held keys in the palm of her hand.

"I like your hair," Molly said, Molly laughed.

I said it was getting ridiculous,
she put her hands on my chest,
the tension in the tips of her fingers grew,
exploration, exploration.

"Do you want something to drink?"

"Nah, can we just sit on the couch?"

"Sure."

"How's your fella do-"

She kissed the words, to lock them in.
She started to tear at my shirt,
I stalled her advances,
turned the tables,
I'm done with being prey.

I pulled her up gracelessly,
I fell through her crimson shirt,
through her black bra,
I drank each ounce of her chest,
I grabbed her nape gracelessly,
her eyes briefly frightened,
turned sinister,
turned to validation,
turned to encouragement.

I mapped her stomach,
made quick work of her
cotton shorts,
I bit the waistline of
her lace,
she clung to my coagulated hair,
I laid her to the ground,
we warred atop notebooks and
***** t-shirts,
kissing vigorously in an attempt
to stay far ahead of morals, of reasoning.

I feasted on her hip bone,
she tugged at my shirt,
no,no,no.

I removed the lace with my teeth,
her breath was exciting,
I feasted on the insides of her thighs,
she convulsed,
cursed,
grabbed tight to shirt, to hair, to every piece of furniture near.

Molly's pupils, irises, all grew.
Molly's panting *******, moans all rose.
Howling.
Peaking, breaking, releasing, falling,
sighing,
sighing,
breathing.

I wiped my lips with the back of my arm,
got up,
went to the bathroom,
used some mouthwash,
Molly walked in behind me,
"Things have been going better with him, lately, actually."

"I'm ******* happy for you guys."

He didn’t respond for five hours on the Fourth of July
It was warm
I was tired
Cell phone rested on my thigh
And I sat
And I waited
Another hour passed by
He was mad
Or maybe his phone was dead
Or he was with that girl,
Autumn,
He said she was giving him the eye
So I picked up my phone
And sent a message that read,
“Hey baby,
I miss you,
So, can you please reply?”
He was my world
My everything
The who made me sigh
As I listened to silly love songs
He made me want to try
To spend each moment
Speaking not from my mind
But from my heart to his
Two more hours went by
His soul with mine
Intertwined
It was dark now
Cool
Into a chair I reclined
And I sent another text
“Hi, hope your day is going well
Text me whenever,
I’m getting by.”
I missed the moment when
My brother managed to embarrass himself
Yet again
And why it was so funny
I’ll never know
Because on the phone remained my eyes
Another mindless hour went by
And finally
The phone’s ringtone chimed
But I didn’t pick it up
Let alone waste my time
With someone who made me feel so confined
I felt the wind brush against me
Smelled fresh, crisp, summer air
And I spent the night
Sitting in the grass
Watching the stars
As they danced and conversed as the fireworks burst
And I realized
I could love myself

When we first met
I was the cold breeze on the summer day, or a new used car that you couldn’t wait to drive
Uncomfortable at first, but kind of nice when it you got used to it
But, instead of waiting for the chills to go away, you embraced me
You took my hand and smiled at me
Reassuring me that everything was going to be okay
You promised me that you would never walk away
So, I took your hand, and I smiled back
I thought I was finally sound
I believed you would take the pain away
I remember every memory you left me with
From the sketches you would imprint on my back with your nails as I shouted your name
To the screams of regret you repeated like a ringtone as they rolled off your tongue
Every time you said my name
It was a form of art
Like your bass drum and guitar
Like your voice in the choir
Your trumpet wailing on high
But the paint was wearing thin on this masterpiece
and I was no longer your muse

As my late night drives got shorter and the air got crisp
So did our conversations
and So did our kisses
You got sad
I realized you were more broken than I, but I had no idea what to do
I was a car missing seat belts, and you got in
Every worry from before we met flooded into my head
I was sure I could hand the wheel to you
And you took it
But when I told you I couldn’t drive,
you forgot to tell me
neither could you


Your best friend was your ex
now she was gay, it was okay
She would “never swing that way”
again
Is that why you left the theatre in the middle of my very first play?
I waited for a praise, for you to take my hand at the end
Give me a rose and kiss my lips
If only I’d known that she took those instead

Here I was, along for the ride
Speeding down that highway with my hair in the wind,
I put myself in your hands
But they got shaky
You asked me to drive for a bit
Of course I was scared
I still hadn’t learned
But it was you
No wouldn’t fly

While you sat back
And grabbed that wheel, knuckles white
I bit my lip until I tasted blood
I went in head first and I hit the gas,
Telling myself

"Everything is gonna be okay"

then I saw the tree
Blocking the path
We were both getting bad

I was left at the wheel again,
I was shaky, short breaths

You were the elongated sigh
As you jumped out the door

And I crashed

On a cold winter night, a rusty old car you couldn’t wait to get rid of
Uncomfortable, and you couldn’t get used to it
When we first met

You promised you would never walk away

You were right

You ran

Just hear me out,
Before you get frustrated.
Lol
One of the new most commonly used terms in a teen’s vocabulary.
***
The new starter of most sentences in a text message.
Put them together,
You have a full sentence.
Wow, magic.
Just like that!
But then you have jk jk lol.
Brb.
Ttyl.
And those don’t even scrape the beginning of “text language”
Whatever happened to the real languages?
The real conversations?
See the thing is, most of us couldn’t go a day without our electronics.
Are world is digitally ruled.
When you feel your phone buzz, what do you do?
You immediately go for it.
When you hear your ringtone, what do you do?
You go for it.
I’m sure we’re all guilty of it.
We text, we post, we call.
Our life story.
Whatever happened to going outside to play football?
Because now it can be done on Madden.
With the touch of a button,
Our whole life can be occupied, mixed, and transformed.
Cyber bullying.
Plagiarism.
Pirating.
All crimes based on technology.
Our world has turned to the future,
When maybe it should’ve stayed in the past.
It’s become like a bird, flying too fast.
It seems like our lives have begun to revolve around when the next IPhone comes out.
Did you know a girl tried to **** her own mom when she took away her phone?
There’s clearly something wrong there.
We stare at our screens,
Like we owe them respect,
But then we forget
The color of our lover’s eyes.
Video games,
The love in a teens life.
How fun it seems
To build, destroy, and plat
But we forget, what it was really like
When these things required work, and energy.
This generation has relied too much on our everyday actions.
We don’t do anything new.
We haven’t done anything new…
Except when we got the new ps4 and the new IPhone 6 plus of course.
I feel like my world has been taken over.
The tyrant is the tech.
And its trapped me for years.
Its trapped schools, workplaces.
Its trapped the world.
And I don’t know how…
Oh wait…was that my phone?
It’s taken over our banking, our transportation, even our security!
We trust our tech more than our best friend!
And it doesn’t even have a soul!
In fact, that’s how we reach most people.
Social media.
Ah there it is.
Facebook
Twitter
Snapchat
And Instagram.
The addiction is real.
We check them every day.
Every night.
Memories fade to the rapid typing and clicking.
My parents laugh
When they see something from their childhood,
That I don’t even recognize.
And I ask myself, will our children be the same?
So oblivious to everything,
Because we never bothered to see?
We text. We type.
We can do it all night.
When will our thumbs get tired?
Because when you power your phone on,
I’m trying to turn mine…off.
Hold on, I gotta take this call.

Tonight i ride the couch we used to sleep in
The moments where our eyes met their binocular view
You were there in front of me
Your heart, your body,
The soul i yearn to grasp
The beauty I can't stop my mind of thinking

Right there
Her pause of words inhaled my oxygen
The sound of her voice became my ringtone
Awakening the memory of love and heartbreak
She's there
I felt her, I touched her
She was the flower inside my lifeless garden

Right there
The look she wore that dark dreamy lovely night
Staring through my skin deep beneath me
Her face turned red and the sign left me clueless
I was enchanted
The brown eyes, white skin
The beauty that centuries forgotten to age

I was there
She was there
I held her soul from the heart her chest hid
I felt her and suddenly the flower blossomed between us
Her brown eyes became my view every morning
She became the sun inside my universe
The moon in nights like this
In this couch
I miss her in these good nights
But her nights are not the same like mine
No longer

That stupid song, by Owl City
With gentle words and sounds so pretty

But waking up in the middle of every night
To that peaceful song, to start a fight

"This is the end." You state, matter of fact.
And I begin, again to pull you back

"I cut again." You admit to me.
And I know your wrists just bleed and bleed

I sigh, "It's 3am, wait for the sun,
Your day has only just begun...

... It can get better, my ill good friend,
And now is not the time to end."

I beg and plead for him to stay
Off the edge of the busy highway

For a year, I was the only one that knew
Of all the pain you went through

And in the end, a Saturday in January
You sang to me like a caged canary

You thanked me for the love I gave
But you were impossible to save

I begged and plead for you to try
Said that with my help you would survive

When I called the police you ran away
To the edge again, of that ****** highway

I was too late
Thanks a lot mate.

Hope you can see me from up there
And know that I am worse for wear.

Vanilla Twilight. That stupid song
That was my ringtone for so long.

I wish I could hear it one more time
Cuz that would mean my best friend was still mine.

It always catches me off gaurd whenever he moved hair from my face. Like static eletricity. A sudden shock then numb. I excel at not noticing though. If I take it too seriously then it'll be forever until I get him this close again. I hate that. If I ever saw it coming then I would have the sense to move out of the way of his hand. I would mindlessly move the wisp behind my ear, then call it a day. Nothing to see here. Move along. The worse is over so go back to your homes and forget everything. Yeah right.

Thump

There would be mornings when I practiced what I would say to him. It would be quick and deep. He wouldn't know what hit him. I would never bring up anything that happened a week ago. Hell, even one night ago. As soon as the daylight hit us, we were to act like strangers with goldfish memories. Slightly grazing whenever we swam near each other. Barely touching. I'd mimic over and over again the words that I would have said. And then I would see him...****, what was I going to say?

Thump

Music doesn't help either. Whenever you're going insane over someone it's like the force of nature knows. So everything that has a remote form of sound has to remind you of him in one way or another. I have to keep the radio off whenever I go driving or else I think too much. I get sentimental. If he knew that then it would just get worse. I think guys like it better when you act like you haven't thought about them all day. Then they don't feel responsible about letting you down in the end because they haven't thought about you unless you're right in front of them sometimes. That's alright though, it gives me a reason to keep busy. His favorite song is going off...why was I so stupid to put it as his ringtone?

Thump

It's me and him. Finally. Just driving. All I needed was five minutes notice before he came around to my house and I was ready. I made it point to never sleep at night, just in case. Our memories came back. Everything is just fine. He's perfect. And so am I. Nothing else matters except the road. Now I can breathe for one more week. I think that over and over again as I inhale another drag of the cigarette that we're sharing. I wouldn't call it love. Hell, I can't even call it friendship. I don't want any of those complications to get in it again. I excel at not noticing. I excel at letting things go. I can count how many times I let him go when he wanted to go. If he's happy and doesn't hate me then when he's done with whoever...I'll still be there. Open door policies are great. I'm playing hard to get and easy to lose all at the same time...

Thump

The sunlight came back. And it's taken over for a few weeks. I wish the stupid sun would super nova already. I'm pretty sure if that happened then that would be a good enough to talk to me about. "Did you see that????"
Not everyone gets what they want. It's easy to think that when you have nothing. It's easier to know it when you know you don't stand a chance at getting it. I excel at not noticing. I'm a freeze frame just for you. I'll stay where we left off and whenever you say so I'll move again. I'll be your best friend forever. And all I'll ever want is your happiness cause I'm greedy like that. Yet, one day, I know I'll move your hand when you come close to my face again. Sometimes static electricity loses it's shock and I can't afford to be numb just for you. For now, though...I'll pretend I don't notice.

Thump

She picks up her phone
She just wants to hear his voice one last time
Wants him to know how much she loves him
Wants him to understand why she has to do it
He doesn't pick up the phone so she picks up the razor
She can't take all the hate anymore
She slices one cut for every name she was called
For every punch she got, for all the hurt she received
She wishes he would call to save her before it is too late
Before she knew it she went too deep
She hit the vein and it was finally all over
The last thing she heard was a ringtone...
His ringtone.....