FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

The numerals II Sir I to another
alphabet
ABC* confession
DEF feared_***
My bowl spilled my
heart soup

Have Merci Beau-coup
The S was left alone my survival
Do you love my eyes primal
He points widely- tribal his
marriage finger my editorial
Be kinder strawberry sugar high
Do you want me to bite down
on my wafers
-I for the Ivy League his polo loafers

He's my (Lifesavers)
The bow and arrow I met my
dark sparrow what a rainbow
So intrigued my mystery arrival

Why on earth do you want me down?

To focus staying upright but kinda
Tight-Net gown

I am not a falling we have eyes
The face to face prize to be eyed
The Carribean
That Native American
Johnny Depp
When I make my first movie wish

The pirate birdseye rash
Al Dente ziti  Eggplant Parmigiana
The headless horse Dante always neighs
kills me on
Valentine day hearts lucky horseshoe

Eyes have frozen bird's eye
They thought I was
the sweet pea
He knocked me off
My Twitter tweets
  
I am the writer don't flood
My words everything is shaking
This is the Godly earth

So confused we feel-tightly squeezed
The earthquake head over heels down to our knees

She is sipping her tears down
In her chamomile tea thumbs up
The world is evaporating
like the dead sea
Bring everything alive I am
counting to 1*2*3*4*5

Down to my last words
I'm staying alive my life is more than
A Saturday Night Fever
But feeling down to my sunrise
Your heart deeply graved
I will betcha life has
more downs downward

Even when you wake -up upward

No way out of expensive
price tags we need to save
The give or take to remake
We need to finish not at
the end of the line

Where we were left off
Whats yours is mine

Sometimes you think
you are down
But life has you
well planted

To say I do
With his mind enchanted
Let me go up---++

The spirit is a complicated thing
I got wits to carry on anything

I need more guts
Now Bill said I do
Oh! No love me to please
me as I do

My Bill is always waiting
at the upside down table
Like the will-hunting
For God sake who is on first
Going up with the bucket list
Feeling down to adore me
You're going down Oh! Christ
Don't push my buttons
the elevator
I saw your Realtor
going to
The Skyline Hilton

I-O-U trillion hearts that were
down and wasted

Falling eyelashes no surprise
That stock exchange stars fault

Money lip up and honey
eyes down
Do you want this in singing
or shall we both go down
drowning

I'm going to wash that
man right out? And sent him on
the way he's gone
The brainwashing Scientology
misery loves religious company
Like Humpty dump me
His "snoop dog so sad eating
like Pig whistle steak
Peeping Tom sales week
Anthony Perkins down to seek

The sprinkler shower
Hitchcock scene French Tickler
At Tiffany's Audrey
breakfast jewels Ruby
Hanky Panky pancakes

Like the Amazon in Prime
With fruit slashed smile
Love to love you baby at
Perkins eggs are dreamy
The shoot of ringlets hair screaming
Niagara fall and action roll fall down

You're a shade too hurtful
The red-brown chair or orange perk me
up the crown the Gala gown me

Life is so unkind why
do people smile
Going in and out the door
The rush the high like you could
mop her curls up but your hand down

Feeling inside the apple of the core

The teapot all fenced in pretending
The downspout- you're up-sprout
He's the roundabout -handle
A stranger is routing someone
is always cursing
You're going down

The game sports ball out
And your always looking
down at me when you
talk me out

Like a ring fight
falling black eye
Where is our coffee down
to nothing, she got a pink eye

Her words spilled over
upside down
pineapple printed dress

Having a breakdown
Do you want me down
I am the New York City girl
A clap of party hands
Uptown

A figure of speech when you get
lonely go downtown
To my number
address 13
what a lowdown
In the Wizard of Oz,
the  cowardly lion
crashed the window
My only lip Solo so low

My computer froze my red
rose wilted
I couldn't bring my smile
back to suit you

They were jumping for joy
Do you really want to
love a tomboy
Almond eyes of candy
Grease me down
Sandy
My pretty pink illegally
Blonde pill
Google on down with Bill

Joining the falling down crowd
But no one had a clue my face was
falling down all-stars feeling blue

ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little

so quick, so quick--
and it's over in appreciation's bloom
i run and kiss her- glad to be alive with you
adrenaline spread across
the slice of time i am
this life affirmed in downward rush
of vision    swallowing the whole
un    worded     awe
'i cannot be a poet now'

from reading on the drive there:
absurd psychology, it marvels at me
similizing downward flight    to that of two rakshasas thrown
from Angada's leap on Lanka
    palace tower kicked, another symbol falling
likened to Ravana's ego doomed,
ordering to **** that messenger
who revealing imminence alights the fate
of endings we all share,
how could i guess
i blindly follow orders--
the ten-headed ego writhes resistance
at the incapacity in me, the failure  
    to speak    meaningfully,
or trounce the message-bearer
routing through the speech
of others only    intoning at ten thousand feet:
om  earth   sky    cosmos
    contemplating that original love
perfect fullness     within and out
    let us realize our unity
om  peace   peace  peace
at the silence    in the noise
eudaimonic under breath as engine climbs
in moments    (i don't know how i got here)
i chant remembrance into time--
the solar warmth    a touch of ease
amid anticipation's quandary--
he has a helmet    unlike me  
    "Don't let those two mess with you,"
the camera-headed lady says to me before she jumps
her finger wagging    some distant familiarity
of jests to lighten fears    or twirl them in the air--
so cold the wind     and thin to singe the lungs--
his body hanging out the door     waiting for
her flight into his falling grasp    the plane rocks into the slamming door
the door...    is closed again for me to kneel beside
and think of next and after what has come before
    inching    'i love you' at the back of the plane
where crouched the one who whisked me here
in mystery to allow unveiling here today
from reading epic only--gazing down--"no signs" to give away
the open spaces felt and bright  treeless    vast
and getting out of car with closed eyes--
"surprise!" and there sits a plane or twenty over there
and "SKYDIVING" written on the door
which i am happy to dismiss as we walk the other way,
she wouldn't have the guts to surprise me with this--
but yes we turn around and here we are
with sky-crazies in pictures    peace and love on palms
strapped tandem     falling    living     back   still far from earth
we sign the papers under those smiles
faintly listen to the video  squawking 'court of law'
and 'choice of your own free will'
paid and signed away  we harness in and search for fear
windex for the goggles  (but how clearly will i see?)
my ***** are safe from straps or so i think
i'm conscious of the need to quip
and John and Paul--our parachutes--
become a double headed meet-your-maker Pope
for me to flatly joke about.
"Pain is good," says the pilot as
we learn the way to fall
and pile seven in a tiny cockpit,
we're off the ground before i know it
i 'woot' to sign my joy.   as much as to assent
conversations of little more than two lines
keep us feeling human as we swallow
popping in our ears,
--she'll have to keep her gum--
smoke stacks, mines, gray grids of residential scapes
seem to **** the green from curve of earth.
faintly i recall ecology, pulled into the sun
stumbling to cage the meaning of it all
a sentence forms into a trailing nonsense.
my breathing tests the press of straps on waist and chest
deafened, chanting. cease to chant.
the meaning overcome with wonderment beyond my mind.
am i missing something?
thank the pilot as a "Sir,"
"Door!!" "How long?!" "When!?!" --i hear the buckles faintly clicking,
the distance imperceptible a rush
of air i am infused with global letting be
the ball of tight electric fear
a nostril flare of otherworldly falsity--
i am here.
and tilting, instructions gibberish, shouting go! go!!
a kneeling fetal hop into the gust of void
so full the eyelash burns horizonal










.

Pretty rich girl, softly dreaming, 
a woman is so newly waking
no use at all for dad’s financing, 
consumed by flesh that is desiring 
of wanton flows that force such rousing
to be taken far from here for using 
by men unfazed by city counting.

Then sudden blackness o’erwhelming, 
all sound and vision swiftly clouding
strong arms unseen and grasping 
to sweep her off her feet and making
sense of ropes around her tight’ning, 
with her arms together jerking
forcing back to ankles spreading
with ballgag muffled screaming 
she should now be strongly fighting 
instead there is a wild arousing.

Stripping cutting all that’s hiding 
until she’s held quite naked finding
that there’s a hood that’s closing 
round her head and isolating
from any sense of air that’s cooling
and rampant need that’s now arising
she feels excitement in so being
where she feels no fear abiding.

Put down hard after easy lifting
a lid above her slamming
the sound of engine starting 
spinning wheels now are speeding 
bound in dark she’s left a-lieing 
with mouth that gives no screaming
instead a wet arousal finding 
knowing of her inner needing.

****** rising almost blinding 
fighting, writhing, needing tying 
her tortured form now pounding
forcing every sinew twisting
with such unsought pleasure giving 
this wanton **** who has such thinking
of brutal taking and ill using
by men she should be hating.

How could juices start their flowing 
as crude hands began their probing 
carrying to places far unknowing.
Rough voices talking of their doing, 
arguing ransoms for demanding
then finding her with wet arousing 
cruel laughing at her needing
until there comes a sweet dividing 
of her eager self though darkening
roughly forcing them by wanting 
that she is newly there for taking
captors now in forced confronting.

There can now be no disguising 
that this is life not fantasizing 
these coarse brutes so crudely using
think they’re forcing her submitting 
now she wants them by satisfying 
her every silent wanton needing 
of each to feed obscene desiring.

An iron bed prepared for keeping 
till the time of ransom paying 
fully tight is now her strapping
legs apart, wide spreadeagling
ignoring all her protests mewling 
but her bucking body thrusting 
makes her needing so enticing
till they give her what she’s wanting.

There is now for each unseen taking
a welcoming and wet demanding 
so there can be no inflicting 
that but which is urgent wanting
opening each hole for filling 
not once or twice but oft repeating
taking turns in fully using 
till they are all quite lost in spending.

With captive bound there’s no sating 
screaming begging ne’er abating 
always there is more demanding 
screaming all despite her gagging
each time her body hits climaxing
fighting , dragging now and forcing 
wearied jailers for more pleasuring
ignoring all their worn protesting
incessant in her primal wanting
who is using whom in this not knowing
when captors should be really scaring
but they have never known such needing
standing round and jointly fearing
of chewing less than was their biting
with this nymphomaniac in bareing.

Words in anger, muffled voicing 
some with reason in conferring
then a quick release of bindings 
a body hot for blanket wrapping 
with a fiesty female grappling
cursing now her wild desiring
yet unstilled with needy struggling
tossed in the car for rapid driving 
some miles back by unknown routing
while in the trunk much banging
till on daddy’s doorstep dumping 
ransom now in quick forgetting
as captors with relief escaping
while pretty rich girl leans back smiling
anticipating her next kidnapping.


From my Francesca Anderssen Poetry collection: **** Verse (Amazon)

I always wanted to be that random style of writer
Writing about things which have no connection
In reality but they are connective only by the ingenuity
Of his genuflection; the circumvention of his
Circuitous routing, his plaintive perturbing petulance
Which insists on stacking things of different orders
Flying birds together of different species
If I could write something of the ticking of clocks
Not as though the ticking were of premeditated duration
Embedded in metal tracks around perimeters
Of prevaricated die-cast hours; but as though the ticking
Were only a random fixture of a theoretical day
In which random clocks ticking played a minor role
During the still life of which a poet happened along
And copied it all down dutifully, not caring if
Ticking clocks were related to pitchers of Forsythia
Or falling off of cliffs into the Aegean;
The only task of the poet to capture it all
And let the reader sort it out later
In the random tracks of his circuitous brain:
Whether the pitcher was full of sea
Or the sea was stealing into the pitcher
One blue, serendipitous drop at a time
And where no clocks were keeping time.

Thy drunken bitterness

Extirpating under the exoderm

Had thee been laying_ poisonous

Enslaved by thy aromatic principles

Routing my breast thy nocturnal hush

Had thee been my god..

i saw a little dog he was on the roam
he looked like a stray looking for a home
routing through the bins looking for a treat
hoping he could find something there to eat

he looked very thin as scruffy as can be
so i called him over an took him home with me.
i gave the dog a bath brushed his knotted hair
there were lots of knots they were everywhere.

then i got a bowl filled it with some meat
mixed it up with biscuits a proper doggy treat
the little dog was happy he had found a home
somewhere he could live and didnt have to roam.

dog he settled down as happy as can be
and i love him so he means the world to me.

i was sitting in my garden on my little mat
when suddenly from no where there popped a little rat
he run across the plants then underneath a bush
running very quickley he was in a rush
he had a big long tail long and very thin
routing through the ******* sifting through the bin
he had big long whiskers and he could twitch his nose
with tiny little feet and tiny little toes
when he finished routing he went to rest his head
to his little home underneath the shed.

Same routing, same thoughts,
Leaning to the breeze as i rot.
Manipulated and doubtful,
I never knew that I'll end up as a tool.

Clean intentions but forced movement,
All the tracks are hard to be evident.
Whether to be or not to be,
The word "free" is far as I can see.

Attached strings throughout my body,
Struggling to get them out as a hobby.
Not having any hope as i feared,
Until someone cut my strings and cheered.

Guiding me without attachments,
You lead me to the world of intents.
As i stand up and together we walk,
We both smiled as we continue to talk.

The sound of the nether once sang,
It is a good that we both can hang.
Now i know what it would be,
To feel like what it is to be free.

Creases cemented in skin of ages,
bending forward ratcheting wrinkles
piled like a car crash, systemically dried
routing for moisture moguls, malfunctioned,
marked measures of time spelt skin attack,
pillowed ruts run deep, prolonging
their birthmark, plumping....out on a date
with new age spaces yet to be filled

Sarcasm streets, filching frowned brows
suns' stolen chastity, lifting out brown
messages spotted at random
grey mandarins, juiceless, bribing
to be heard, a manifesto hidden,
shrivelled prunes wallowing in dried skins
reaching out for the bottomless custard jug

there was an urban fox a cheeky chap was he
roaming round the city roaming wild and free
climbing in to bins searching for a treat
routing through the ******* for a bite to eat.

looking out for windows that were open wide
then inside the window the little fox would slide
all around the house while people were asleep
looking for some food the little fox would creep.

then when he finished eating back to his little den
take himself a nap then roam around again.

I went into the DeepWell this morning for another kinda,
wake up cup more like trying to be with some things need simmering down,
for the flames are bright and looking hot but but but warm and so soothing,
ooohing aaaahining awwwwweing inspiring rather blissfull kissfull blissing,
kissing idk bout hi'way 61 but for of you bro I know about your kitchen!!!!

Anywhohow way idk if I had much a drink at all with wake up or simmer down,
nor a nibble though some things are clear once in a blue year;

IDK like what's going on, down up once in a while or my preferred self setting dip flip switch's,
hahaha but reads are packing and that's good;

having to get back to too many responses 'um think 'bout the president,
the few who get through and we see a few presentations that should all be heard 'n seen too;

for I know we're all just blood bearing beings, counting on air,
but my cabinet I'm all of 'em unless you have more to say speak on this now;

staff, budget, readers, recorders, playback digitizers self routing pouting deciders,
all kinds of chaos chasers 'um not got;

I know so like all here 'um wat's wit dis cat;

what's he working three jobs or three wives 9 kids twelve ways;

nah not a drop so to say exactly 'dat way no more got a few getting on,
where I was and they was already born;

I'm thinking metaphysical then overly scrutinal to be careful both ways and wise,
she-it I can do more da better than a two way street try me I like 8's and 9's,
I lay all out there b4hand dey way den 'um say cats don't won't can't,
what ya ever think I've ever seen any reciprocity;

yah Solomon here we're working laughing crying all;

saw that movie "Anna Karenina" Leo Tolstoy novel base,
ya know the 'precious' 'Lord of the Rings' these sort of 'um things,
JC said along at least the 'Greatest b4 me Solomon' two kinds of exemplar,
(easy SO SO Bud Bud chill!!) one get demons off mans poor missions and happily,
doing 'Gods' love yet 'um well, I talk about these things with blood bearing beings,
I'm not even taking temperature into consideration;

just that I hear know 'dis 'da place gotta do 'da be greater things;

everybody knows Solomon a key why how hum 'um what ya kidding again,
oh so far off out heavy or fairy dust to me man, guess coming all together like JC,
just a bit may be out beyond such ganders of wonders what feelings lost looking down,
the land your feet are even upon, 'um man what about's;

'I'll be your solution if you'll be my remedy';

how does solution need remedy when they just bleed warm red blood a bit too bluish,
what if I say we need 'em all, does 'dat rhyme a chime of too like greedy who what me'eedy;

what ya want to "Possess Me!!!???"
hahahah !!!!<3<3##:):)!!!R

I just wanted to hit dat punchline while I was really in the middle,
but I do have a poem 'The Middle Riddle (in medias res)',

"When the middle is...
just right, there will be no will...towards an ending...!!!";

so back where we're we before the mention, no introductions say already too far gone,
as a wife would have to be  able to have an introduction of such a silly notion no more;

re: refer to as; X'yzzzzzleeeeping;

with that illegally separated easier straighter to say Fb have not figged 'dat one up yet,
Solomon is calling 'em up everyday/night;

let me tell ya man of the woes of Solomon and to me I coined the phrase myself,
so I Google'd it up, for I just thought those cats yonder dare' might have downloaded,
my brain and some well of it's keys and you've got the rest better;

know now I understand it's out there by book, I don't dare look yet before it's clear,
who wrote that stuff and I'll tell by what it won't, by omissions, excessive unwarranted permissions,
I'm wondering, I scan the great collections, not so invasive of more personally assured permissions,
there were days where there were a hand full of very warm open hopeful receptive set of beings,
along some tour that said go west as I was east and by a rather large pond;

do I need go on here now,
I start your clock too 'den what,
I'll get nine codes running inside out,
backwards inside of you,
'den just what can ya do!!!

She rises at dawn, chilled
by the lost embrace
of her sleeping pills, brushes

summer's blown ashes
with the shuffle of footsteps
on old stone floors.

She thaws her hands
around a coffee cup,
sits at her desk,

 ******* Ariel             arrowed from
 yesterday's tide           hoof-printing  
ocean waves                 jetting barnacles
telephone wires            a man's black boot

routing them through
cold English mornings,
a gold Sheaffer pen.

Words seep
across the page,
trail toxins of grief.

Light edges
between churchyard yews,
fingertips the curtains.

A thumb's worth
of breast-milk
stains her nightgown.

The vertical of the routing kinetics was far from the contemplation of the gods of the catastrophes, accepting that they had to save these souls that were tied before the inclination of the southern part of the island when it loomed in the height, related and when the lord He appeared to Saint Paul in Damascus for the reconversion of souls. Fury dried the air and became unbreathable as it exploded before the astonished gaze of those lacerated by the ins and outs of the earth, seeing that Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter came into conjunction, when the sun revolved around itself, accelerating its kinetics perigee. The misgivings took hold and the feet of all were static without, finding footholds in some astromethereology, to ask the archangels for the vindicatory fiery flame, far away in the arid atmosphere that Mercury produced when he wanted to abstain and block the unbridled Sun. The intense and changing winds emanated from the caverns, like micro hurricanes that constellated Aorion and Taurus. The darkness came out of the Pleiades from the dark Manes who envisioned the codes and omens for those who were not empowered by the claws when they aligned themselves in Taurus, and Mycenae anticipated said forecast in the Agios Andreas chorography, which on this occasion was trilocated, to resist in the same chorus of Patras, where the Apostle Andrew was announcing them between kings and generals. Everything argued from the veins of the meanders where it could be described that thunder came out from the clouds and that they were absorbed by the cracks preceded by the vigorous bells, and the bellowing of Vernarth as if they were in the hypocenter of the Arbela site, when all soldiers ran after other human species and Brisehal bellowed at them, emulating his master's senses of terror. The roar of combat was comparable to the convulsions of men running toward the lows of the earth, spitting foul-smelling whiffs from within. The galleries were hidden above and below the earth, the blows were overwhelmed by compact solid plates that flew over the lost earth, the Stymphans protected with their bronze wings the lacerated and Marie des Vallées, who in turn encouraged Vernarth who fought to protect Theus and Vikentios with Wonthelimar near masses pierced by the blast of the fiery wind. Some adobes were classified within the taxonomy of the brick that was fortified in the corners of the Hellenic temple that resisted with their flying buttresses when the parapet was raised, and they settled again after an undulating goal of venerable swaying to a Sybilla in trance. The waves ceased the high tide wind and the contrary Metelmi winds were made worse by any anger in the wreckage of a forge when the *** scarce to open the Apollo wasteland.

They all had to wait forty-five days, sheltered in the meanders. When the sea was collected after having overcome the masses of hydrosism, in any exhibition in front of anyone saying goodbye with inept imploration. Vernarth was possessed in some declines with the support of his donkeys, who had come from the Eclectic Portal to assist him in the face of this typology that only with them could he minimize. In the sixth version of his reposes, Vernarth gave them up due to the delirium of repentance, which revealed the image of the Twelve Apostles, before the scientists approached from Vernarth's Rhema who quantified the approach to austerities, which could not even be gathered in all the libraries of the World, not least in the insight of who can describe it extrinsically in the Parnassus or the Acropolis. The whole irrational focus was deified in the externalities of all the slight edges of the Milky Way, creating arcane incense fires in what is said of the trials adjacent to the springs of knowledge, to console the mourners towards a Tractatus where they will revolutionize the meanings of the signifier.

Zefian says upon emerging: “what collision affects the movements of the world when the body vibrates with confusion and not with emotion! The Fourth Sagita collided with Mercury and the Sun, everything took hold from the Aurion Belt, for them, the uneasiness is reflected in the death, by not resisting the rude speed of the ancient episodes, which in turn are in the geological testimonies from where all geological ethical matrix is born. As dignity is aquatic given its immense containment of the sinful solid, the solids want to get out of their penitentiary causes, with a habitual bustle breaking down in the valleys and mountains, which only the land contains and not the sea. When the ocean shakes, it lashes with the Aurion club at its antagonists, who could be imaginary or its own ethics that cross the seas and takes hold in amphibious larvics lands "

Zefian leaves and begins to order and incur in the surfaces that became tenuous and discreet in the labyrinth of the Tractatus and in the linguistic signs of retro life, which came to redeem their progeny that lay in the same spheres that the earth itself possessed, flooded with silt in the superimposed light of the fire as a collateral external factor that moved with all lightness, throughout the circular surface as if snatching the dynasty that the Peri Kosmous claimed, leaving it in the fractal of the nullity of the excursion, with the factorial of starting Relevant areas that do not tremble, until the soul of the world was in the trance of the same excursion, while time froze as inert matter, and real-time emerged from the thread of the excursion's digression when the mountains were not sinking, probably being so. ? That verisimilarly it would pre-exist after the final excursion where it showed its splendid chorography authentically intact.

The wind plays a music that swells my despair

Paints darker the setting of my lonely lair

Where I would recover from dreams kicked aside

My  eerie tormentor  comes back like the tide


Whistling and keening from high pitch to soft

Stirring the pigeons awake in the loft

Screeching  a branch on my window of stars

Playing the drainpipe in monotone bars


Resting and racing then altering course

“I saw your loved one” says its haunting voice

Routing the season of flowers and sun

Clearing the path for a desolate one

In grandeur of eminence the Sun celebrates her power
In the thick forest of the darkest the Moon flourishes in her glory

The tidal wave is in tinder of a brand new glory, catching fire of a mad harmattan, refining gold and diamond in the expansive field of a glitzy pearl

And transcendence on our way it's roaring of the tidal wave, uprooting dark moons and burying scourging suns in infernal graves!

See our warriors surfing on the tidal wave of this season of victorious glory,
manifesting us to the world, declaring the glory of the Glory, shooting pearly flames in clouds of glory and power

As quotidian stinging tides are being uprooted in routing defeat with eerie eruption of volcano of joy and power in uncommon grandeur.

Oh! Alluring sun of glory
Oh! Alluring moon of majesty
Festooning our sky with power-stars
As rain of victory drowning us in splendor!

Oh! Tidal wave of beatific season, harvesting us barn-full glory at morning dawn of the victory crow!

My daughter he said
is a born again..
What in its depth
does this phrase
oft repeated mean..?
A crucial first
question seems to be:
Is the utterance coming
from a place of
self-awareness
with energy exchange..
An alignment with
perennial experience..
Another routing:
a belief formulation
of external birth
which  awaits arrival
of new bearings..
Where are you
dear daughter in
sprouting new life…?

i was sitting in my garden on my little mat
when suddenly from no where there popped a little rat
he run across the plants then underneath a bush
running very quickly he was in a rush
he had a big long tail long and very thin
routing through the ******* sifting through the bin
he had big long whiskers and he could twitch his nose
with tiny little feet and tiny little toes
when he finished routing he went to rest his head
to his little home underneath the shed.

(Circuit Breaker)

You read somewhere that the rich get richer and richer
and sit on the yachts with staff in the kitchen
you apply for the staff and surprised by your inbox
you made the cut as a waiter to clean for the richest.

Buy the gear, take a ride, kick back on the boat
where you’re treated like a spy with a knife at their throat
the world keeps spinning as sparks fly down wires
but you're sick of this prison, where you lie ’til you’re tired.

Bottle up and float out to ocean, the back of your mind
is still hopelessly broken, one day you snap the wrong way
while this tax dodging sociopath sits laughing and lolling
the sun hides before him, you take the tethering rope;

snapped, ill, broken and bitten you rise to the bait
and run down to the kitchen, the chef chops away
you slip in behind him, chop chop away he doesn’t
bat a lid to you routing through the draws throwing

most to the walls, you find what you need and run
to the top deck, a suit tells you to step back
but you give them the slip, knee to the stomach
they flop on the deck, groaning and hunched

they step back up, a crack of the wrist, an almighty punch
over the railings they curse, yell, and cry for the boat
but the captain is networking about his lunch
you pull out the cheese wire and stroll to the pool.

The toff is surrounded, near empty yuppies
photographing themselves perpetuating the fourth
section of sinning ‘though shall not fool yourself
that mankind is winning' with the wealth squandered

here we could afford houses for the women and children
of the war your involved in, to fund the oil sales of the one
in a billion, so they can provide you with a classier
place to abstain from the real life and ****** up system.

Run over and clear the robots of richness, tell them all
'go ahead, keep taking your pictures’ while you strap the wire
around the neck of the fattest cat in business,
they all cry in horror as your grip tightens the purple

-faced smart-mouth shouts out for help but calls his helpers
a 'bunch of ill mannered sirens’ as they step back afraid
a single one daren’t come to his aid as that glint
in your eye shows the will to die to **** the tyrant

who’s gasoline fights killed your mum and your dad
and threaten your kids, you thank god that it’s over
though the system's corrupt, this wars been reinstated
reissued so that those above, know the people

aren’t fooled by their false promised lobbying.
Your death row grin comes back at dinner
as a copycat killing claims the next victim
you were the gush that unclogged the piping.

i was sitting in my garden on my little mat
when suddenly from no where there popped a little rat.

he run across the plants then underneath a bush
running very quickly he was in a rush.

he had a big long tail long and very thin
routing through the ******* sifting through the bin.

he had big long whiskers and he could twitch his nose
with tiny little feet and tiny little toes.

when he finished routing he went to rest his head
to his little home underneath the shed.

I need a job.
To start living, start earning some money, am begging.
Begging you like Madcon
The cv handout goes on, and on.
Like a record that's skipped,
beginning to feel like I've been tricked.

It's not like I wouldn't work hard
I'm willing to work hard for my pay,
willing to work everyday,
willing to earn my way.
I ain't fed on greed,
I only need what I need,
only one mouth to feed.
I'll even work on my knees
scrub till my fingers bleed

I'm like a seed sprouting, roots up routing,  with stem as long as my sadness has resided.
Pent up emotion continuing to grow.
As the roots begin to take hold below.

Take hold of my tongue and its words, my heart and its love, and my lungs and its breath.
Got Nothing left; to push through to the surface beginning to feel its all worthless
What's the point here?!
I'm stumped.

"I JUST NEED A JOB YOU... Chumps"

Feel like I should take a jump.
Not a jump of suicidal intention, just a jump for attention
Attention for a life to begin.

For a business to take me in
give me the experience I lack.
In return I'll give back: hardwork, effort and sweat.
Which will help me to show that I'm able to grow.
And I deserve to leap out
from this pit,
trudging in ****.
From the depths of this dirt and weeds
where it all began as a seed.

A seed, a thought, a prognosis.
So now it's my time to show this;
Show what I've got on the surface.
Show that I am not worthless.
Show from a seed I have grown.
Show that I deserve a home.
A place to call my own.
Then once I am there I will know...

How?

I'll have blossomed

Run, they said to me
I have always been told that life is like a race and in my young mind I believed it was a race against everyone around me, but as I grow up and mature slowly into the person I am meant to be, I realise the only person I am running against is myself and the one person really routing for me to win is my heavenly father ( God ).
I also think we run in different places, because we face different challenges and we are given different blessings or should I say gifts. Some may run  on a track field and others may run on a road full of potholes, but I would like to believe I run around the netball court and I have reasons for that, first being the fact that I set goals and when I reach them I set more, I guess you could say I don't believe in finish lines... there's always place for improvement and secondly I believe in life after death and after this life of flesh I believe I'll be an angel in heaven that just keeps on running.

Run, I say to myself
RUN!

Lost on white streets
Hanging in between buildings and the eerie
Afternoon air that holds a promise of the gathering dark

The young eyes darting over the place
A growing mind that goes bump in the night
On unsteady legs watching meaning colour beside the lines

Then a flash of lightning sets off a schism
A slash, division down to the deep middle
Pilot light blinking as it drifts of into neural space

Left to grow stunted in isolation
Animal protocol takes over
Unusual growth detected, quarantine affected parts

Discontinuing memory lines 0 to 13
Incoming sensory override
Reboot soul system

Initiating memory dump
Re-awakening neural connections
Re-routing discontinued channels

Connecting...

Connecting...

Systems online
Current memory line: 29
Review memory dump?

Y/N

/

I've been panicking lately.
Not the kind of panic that has reason
But a panic that stems from nothing
or maybe something undefined.
I've been worrying lately.
Not the kind of worry that is logical
but a worry that is scattered
and splattered without lines.
I can't makes sense of it because
my stomach isn't sick.
I'm not ill from out dated food
or an airborne virus.
I'm not coughing and sneezing or hacking or weezing or panting and grunting or sleeping disgruntled because of a flu.
Maybe I'm just tediously thinking while overly planning and counting the days and routing the ways when I'll see you.
I need to stop counting
Every
Little
Thing.
One two three, one two three, one two three.
“It will be okay.”

Beyond the realm of ev'ry living thing,
If testaments of old have any sway,
Therein resides a man born to be king.

Upon a lowly path, he sought to bring
Goods news to those who seek a better way
Beyond the realm of ev'ry living thing.

His guiding star, an angel on the wing,
Beckoned the wise unto the place he lay:
"Therein resides a man born to be king!"

He healed the weak, he helped the lame to spring!
And led the blind to see the coming day
Beyond the realm of ev'ry living thing.

His life betrayed, he felt the mortal sting
Of death; And of his tomb the wise would say:
"Therein resides a man born to be king."

Arisen by his father, angels sing
To preach the gospel, routing out dismay:
"Beyond the realm of ev'ry living thing,
Therein resides a man born to be king!"

She's principled. So is he.
Islam is their way of life
so they understand one another.
Committed to it, dedicated to it
is the only way, she and he are free.

She and he are not afraid
to stick their necks out.
Kaepernick, wouldn't you agree?
Though hers is covered
by her own choice
and his is not covered
Both refuse to get broken
Their moral resolve with a noteworthy shout.

Her hijab
takes her places
to public places
without the need to be center stage.  
His solo self
flies through the air with a basketball in hand
on basketball courts
in his homeland
and in other places
on God's world's page.

Anytime, we wearing hijab
walk outside of our home door,
we stand
Yes, we stand
Yes, we stand proudly
not for our country
not for nationalism
not for a puffed chest
not for a pat on the back
Yes, we stand
with inner beauty
doing a grand job
of minimizing our outer beauty
We stand
We stand even when others choose not to
Even when others feel they cannot
think it's too hard
they'd rather fit in
We stand

We stand for You Most Magnificent Allah
We stand for You Most Lovely Allah
We stand for You Most Beautiful Allah
We stand for You Most Brillant Allah
We stand because of You
And we stand forever for You

We stand because of Your Love
We stand because of Your Light
We stand because of Your Fellowship
We stand because of Your Assistance
We stand because of the strength You've given to us
We stand because of Your Smiling Face Upon Us
We stand because of Your All Blue Skies
Yes, we stand

Thank you, dearest Allah
Thank you so much for ordering us to stand
Thank you enormously for showing us how to stand
"Thank you for everything" said Sr. Marzieh Hashimi, you, who in hijab stand everyday
Ya Allah, Dearest Allah, you're the reason we're able to stand
You're the reason we can confidently stand
You're more important than
You're more significant than
any distasteful look
any disbeliever's ill judgement
any person wanting not to see a hijab as not to be reminded visually of his God, wanting to dodge an in-your-face symbol of God
any human wanting to avoid digesting the message of fulfill your responsibility to God, and need to regularly express gratitude to Him
any individual who knows it isn't the piece of cloth that modestly covers he has issue with, it's God he has issue with, it's God he is distant from, it's God he's uncomfortable with, it's God he fears, it's as my unforgettable Muslim, young brother forced out of his homeland, mine, and yours, that of Syria (Every person has two homelands. His own, and Syria. -Andre Parrot) who carrying my bags to assist me said,
Often, it's not the dark we're afraid of, it's the light

Thank you, Imam Asi for making sure we understand
The One Who manufactured our stand

For all ladies who believe in The One
And with whom make The One, Number One
There will be no sitting in public here
There will be no rest for us here
Because rest belongs to the Heavens
Rest is waiting for us to join it, to stop with it
if we've been given not a red light
but a green light
Oh, we want that green light
You and I
Isn't that right, Br. Mahmoud?
You want that green light
More so, because you've tasted that green light
You've tasted that green light
Who said it's a red light that starts a blaze
No, it a green one
Your STAND over 25 years ago
Got you tasting green
Got you tasting peace
Got you tasting harmony
Yes, we want that green light
Yes, ladies in hijab and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
We want that eternal sit
That sit up close and personal with Allah to see HIS platinum gold, shining face
That sit intimately with Allah's beloved Messenger and his beloved
That sit happily with our deserving kin and deserving friends we met on earth and in the heavens
That sit on canopy beds
That sit on the greenest of pastures
That sit on gold and platinum benches
in front of gardens we can't unsee
You said so, Br. Mahmoud
You said so with your ACT OF SIT
and your ACT OF STAND IN PRAYER
during the playing of the national anthem in 1996
And you said so with your words in 2022
So, as is required
We graciously STAND temporarily
for however long temporary is for us
We STAND
AUFSTEHEN, STEHEN I repeat
And we STAND with the man
whose STAND has helped change how we see ourselves
whose STAND asked us to ask ourselves
If we were Br. Mahmoud,
would we have done the same as he did
And whose prayer while standing on the court
Caused an uproar
Forced people to have to look within
and for a quick few seconds ask
Why am I singing but not feeling
Why am I honoring but not respecting
I am a contradiction
This country is a contradiction
This stolen land is a grandiose fake
Why have I abandoned my STAND

But in fear,
But in their desire to be associated with a false deity,
But in their need to feel superior
because of their inner feeling of low self-worth and insignificance,
they stopped reflecting
They stopped thinking
They stopped asking
And instead of facing the music
Instead of facing their inner voice
Instead of facing their God
They again turned to idols
They again turned to false deities
They again turned to their ills  
They turned their very backs on
the super star they had been cheering for
and routing for all along
It was easier for them to cause ruckus
Easier for them to cause pain and grief
More satisfying to scream and yell obscenities
offer death threats
Like the way the unbelievers, the hypocrites
treated our beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
More satisfying to speak the unbelievable
You're fired.
Like the Monster, Donald Trump,
if he were the commissioner
would have said
Instead, David Stern said it
to a fellow human
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
a practicing Muslim
a still NBA basketball star
not former as is often written and spoke
like Imam Muhammad al-Asi
still The Imam of The Islamic Center of Washington, DC
you, a married man then
a father with children
You're fired
for your STAND
for GOD
for morals
for principles
against tyranny and oppression
against injustice and hypocrisy
against thievery and slavery
You're fired
for your refusal to STAND
for a country's anthem
for a nation's flag
for disobeying slave (Thank you, Imam Asi for not wanting to even say or speak this word 'slave' as pertaining to a human referring to another human using this word) masters
and obeying The Only Master
You must pay,
they cheered
You must pay,
the NBA said
the then, David Stern said

GOD
The ONE better than
the basketball fans
the NBA
the then, David Stern
tells us that we never pay,
when we STAND
As a Muslim
on the court
when we STAND
As a Muslimah wearing hijab
in public
when we STAND
We don't pay
We gain

Gain is what we obtain
A reward is what we earn
And
For as long as we keep standing
in a jersey
or in a hijab
they'll keep hating
And
For as long as we
in a jersey
or in a hijab
keep standing
we'll keep shining God's light
and
we'll keep scoring

By: Najwa Kareem

If my thoughts were like blossoms they'd drift away.  Lifted on the air to float off to the distance.  I would remain rooted, grounded but blissfully weightless.

Choices are paths of determination, routing life from cradle to grave.  Roads of decision and bravery lead to fulfilment.  Roads of indecision and cowardry lead to regret.

Oh routine you are gorgeous
Let me feel nor old nor young
Oh routine, all my emotions
They are simply dead and gone
Cause routine, you are here
And you're making me flow
From the minute to day
To the week and Monday
All the way to the night
You're my day-satellite
Nothing new on my way
And as long as you stay
There won't be a single creation.

All I have is the routing vane
And the color of hay
Lighting everyday
Even blood of my veins
And the pulse of my brain
Have the same and old color
Of routine-blinded pain.

naked, sprawled across my bed,
flaccid ***** out of view, obscured by
flaccid technology, this impotent
old thing, 4 years old and
working perfectly fine for me;
lighting strikes.

there is magic, isn't there, in
the way she says your name
not unkindly when she is
with her friends and
without pre-alcohol inhibition;
lightning strikes.

I've been here for
hours, I fly out to
FRANKFURT in the morning,
routing through CHARLOTTE, NC,
cool, isn't it? how we conquered the world with
a pair of wings and some landing gear;
lightning strikes.

Heaps of mountains in gold and diamonds running rivers in perfect glory into ocean of abundance.

Rampaging beasts in rumbustious death errand,  pushing​ darkening the air of glory and gorging out the eyes of the earth in violent showbiz.

Bowels of the earth gushing out in falls cascading rapidly down in galls of shame and infamy.

Whirlwinds​ in whirlpools, thundering down powers in thunderbolt, routing down powers of darkness in triumphant victory.

It's the dawn of light in rainbows in canopies,  shooting earth to vortex  of power transcendental,  praises in glorious colors, with cherubims and seraphims dancing in colony of glory.