Fifteen years old.
He welcomed
A small glass bottle.
Perfectly brim filled.
The blue sticker reads:
E&J;
VSOP.
Ernest & Julio
Very superior old pale.
Or even,
More accurately described as
Evil jab to
A healthy liver to
Visciously, yet slowly, strike
A life from the earth.
Because it's an
Odious poison.
He started a family young.
But with 3 kids,
2 baby mamas
1 kid on the way
And no job,
Well no dependent, legal, or for sure job;
Living was difficult.
He consumed the
Liquid venom
From the glass bottle
Like it was the air he breathed.
He drunk it
When he woke up in the morning.
He slept with it.
He drunk it
With his dinner.
He spent days
Without food
Just to devour
The ****** liquid.
He reeked of
The awful stench
Of a few shared 40s
And 1 lonely E&J.;
He abandoned his children.
He traded his daughters' childhoods
For reclusive evenings
With only him, the stars and a bottle.
Occasionally,
He'd be in a isolated corner.
With a shadeless lamp
Laying on it's side.
Taking a sip every time
He thought of an event
He'd miss in each kid's life.
Taking a sip every time
A cockroach crawled across his foot.
Taking a sip every time
He realized he let another person down.
Taking a sip every time
He thought of a
Shoulda - Coulda - Woulda.
Taking a sip
And taking another sip
And yet another until
The whole 40oz were gone.
Only because the warm liquid
Was the only thing
That soothed the pain.
That placated the misery.
That stopped all the bad
And left room
For all the possible good.
But the high only lasted
Just a little while.
Then he'd cry himself to sleep
Because he realized
He was truly forsaken.
He didn't have family.
He didn't have friends.
Not even a trick
On the corner can help.
Who do you turn to
When someone told you: Jesus
And someone else told you: Allah?
Where do you go
When you overwelcome your stay everywhere?
How do you know
You've overdone your rumspringa?
When is juvenile rebellion compete?
He could never answer these questions.
He could never
Find the root of his issues,
So he created more just from bad habit.
And when I was just 2 years old,
I lost my father to E&J.;
Où t'es, papaoutai
Like Strome said
Where are you daddy where are you?
The worst disaster in a kid's life.
Stronger than a nor-easter.
More tenacious than
Katrina or Sandy.
No one to
Dust me off
After I fell off my bike.
No one to
Defend me in the park
When bullies stalk on the little guys.
No one to
Teach a young lady true love.
A shovel,
To dig a black hole
In the space of my heart
To **** up all the pain
But never be filled
Without the affiliation
Of a father's affection.
Just to reassure you,
He's not dead,
His liver maybe,
But he's fine.
But,
He's, sadly,
No father of mine.
A mere ***** donner
Who laid with my mother
One night some time ago.
My love for him,
It will never die.
But the pleasure he finds
In a bottle,
Must decease,
Before he does.

I've never had pc snooch, no,
I have--she was a crew-cut
German girl from Dusseldorf
& an avowed lesbian; she was
a staffwriter for the Village Voice;
she was a black poetess whose
mother was a doctor; she was a
Latino alcoholic who also slept
w/ her Jewish professor; this
was all before millennials
were invented; she was Amish
on a rumspringa ******; she
was a blind street musician
who'd do anybody; she wore
glasses & protested apartheid
back in the day; she was a hippy
in the East Village older than
my mom & a feminist; she
was a bi-racial drug addict
who didn't take **** from anyone;
she was a Slovak film theorist
who barely spoke English; she
played bass in a ******* band
& let me pull her dreads like a
horse's rein; oh & a lesbian
& I also slept w/ her gf; so I guess
I have had pc snooch; plenty now
that I think about it; what was left
today will be right tomorrow;
what was so wrong last night
in perfect hindsight was so right

Yours truly issuing a deafening rebel yell
bursting forth with such might
courtesy cooking under pressure
analogous to volcanic upswell,
forcing me quickly to flap vestigial wings
(at the speed of sound)
while simultaneously karaoking William Tell

overture apple lied courtesy top of the line
supra-aural ('over the ear') headphones
since altruistic anonymous
philanthropist gifted me
I bought the most expensive,
which enveloped me
analogous to pumpkin shell

essentially vacuum or void created
hands free contraption
settled, and kick/jump started,
and bathed noggin
silencing external cacophony,
whereby virtual realm didst quell
chaos assaulting, bombarding,

and enfilading sixty
plus shades of gray matter
like bats out of hell
swarming infidel locked alone in his cell,
who notified beefy warden,
he (the prisoner) wanted sustenance
by wantonly ringing a cowbell.

Out of wedlock philanderer
condemned did breed
tasting verboten fruits thee did buzzfeed,
when clear as water requisite
Nicene dance creed
deemed out of compliance
heinous née violation
in sum re: siring offspring
necessitates extreme unction
viz hits fallen into utter adulterer disgrace

before pledging one's troth
analogous to insubordination
thus life sentence decreed
blithely humming along
riding ******* (qua absent prophylactics
during heat of the moment) abomination
begetting children deprived; freed
spermatophytes liquidated
courtesy ***** goat ****
before sanctified nuptial coda agreed
registers as fate worse

than hearing one's death knell
from deep within the bowels of Earth,
yet now I play the devil's advocate,
and claim what more precious miracle than
experiencing (namely participating)
planting seeds of life within womb
allowing, enabling, and providing
deliberate propagation ideally
of healthy human species
warranting ******* when ovulation
most favorable to fertilization.

Rumspringa extant within/
without Amish youth world wide
impossible mission despite
scriptural strictures rightly stride
to put a lid on libidinal drive
analogous to holding back the tide viz
celibacy as restraint against
pang of **** ought best be granted liberty,
an emerging truth nationwide
a state of concupiscent nature
whether hetero or homosexual
one beast of burden an adolescent
ought not be forced to hide
similar to severe imposition of apartheid.

Once union of two
sexually latent human beings
looses gametes, which
unsurprisingly yield zygote
when without absolute zero
doubt pregnancy occurs
gravid state cannot be
shrugged off nor ignored.

No matter whether precocious post pubescents,
or legally aged coupled partners
salient proactive investment measures wise
such as ultrasound signaling healthy gestation
validation of impending motherhood
constituting testing blood for hCG results
in earliest detection of pregnancy
subsequently witnessing barenaked lady
exhibiting maternal physiological transformations
courtesy haploid gametes
rendering woman with child,
whereby abdominal area balloons in girth.

Only twenty two days after conception
or five weeks and one day gestation,
the embryo's heart starts beating
ultrasound evinces whooshing sound
triggering perceptible unsuppressed mirth

Prenatal visits also important precaution
to keep tabs on presence of vital signs
of unborn baby.

In chorionic villus sampling CVS,
a sample of tissue is taken from the placenta.
The main advantage
of having CVS over amniocentesis?
CVS is done earlier than amniocentesis,
between 10 and 13 weeks of pregnancy.
The chance of miscarriage with CVS
slightly higher than chance
of miscarriage with amniocentesis.

Pity the poor truckstop *****
standing roadside by the highway  
where her grandmother stood &
her mother the ***** ranking steerage
by a miracle & pregnant already;
fresh from the Old Country
& Indian country joined in a soupy
DNA that leave cowboys,
bankers & con men looking back twice
at the trailer trash b/c it's good
as beefy red meat; the fields wild w/
them; the grass high, Amish girls
vanishing before our eyes; daughters
giving in to Rumspringa
(moon-a-June-a & a-spring-a) never
getting close to the motel's
portal of emerald heresies

Eli walked the yellow fields amazed
by the time it took the sun to go
from one end of the sky to the other;
Eli kept his typewriter in the hayloft
he'd cleaned & swept & made his
writing den; Eli had wi-fi & an ipad

He still had chores to do  
when not writing; milking the cows
& feeding the chickens; rumspringa
had been good for him; he was now
a famous poet & painter

but no one knew
where to find him when he wasn't
dancing in the club & doing blow
until his nose bled, smoking ****
during interviews

journalists seeking him out on the farm
to get his garbled words on paper;
& showered w/ awards
from around the world, Eli secretly
married Amy who quickly got pregnant;

Eli bought his family's farm & fell
in love w/ the much younger
Becky Jones,
left Amy
humiliated & ashamed;
openly living in wedlock w/ Becky,

Eli's parents moving for the air
to Nevada where a small affluent
Amish community was thriving

Courtesy a plethora of marriageable females
*******, hounding, and lowing the living daylights
forcing yours truly to go undercover and into hiding
within the heart of darkness
at a remote undisclosed location in Perkiomen Valley
changing my name, rank and serial number
to protect what little remaining innocence
(analogous from the salvaged wreckage
of the Edmund Fitzgerald,
an American Great Lakes freighter
that sank in Lake Superior
during a storm on November 10, 1975,
with the loss of the entire crew of 29 men),
whereat nearly thirty year old anniversary,
since yours truly pledged his troth
wedded bliss severely
put thru the paces
as I get bombarded from text after text
compliments of celebrated barenaked ladies
brazenly showing me
their anatomical wares
mostly augmented ******* and tuckus,
and asking me to do likewise,
but "No way Jose" emphatically stated
falling on deaf (emoji symbolized) ears
no not mine but the young thangs
invariably seeking a gold digger
versus literally avowing
to be dirt poor substitute,
yet honest to goodness
writer of these words
possesses heart of gold
(cue Neil Young song lyrics,
and his song by the same name),
who values decency, honesty, literacy, poetry...,
and much prefers intelligent conversation,
(whether with himself or a receptive ear)
versus poised to experience a lucky strike
romping (think Rumspringa - a time
when young people
can explore their identity
and decide if they want
to join the Amish) church
kick/jump starting, enmeshing
when all along the reason without rhyme
I accepted friend requests
from Facebook (Meta) Messenger
constituted an ambition to foster
(not just a child of mine),
but intelligent conversation
linkedin to the cares and concerns
of an uncertain world,
at which point tis only to divulge
an inconvenient truth
with earth in the balance
regarding this rare breed (me),
that he considers himself
(YES free and clear
without any inhibitions)
a liberal democrat
now prone to temper his fulminations
toward the Republican party in general
and demagogues in particular
reserving vitriol lest yours truly
finds strong arm of the law
rapping on my door,
and if any pipe dream
could be brought into fruition,
that wish upon a star
would be relocating, hightailing,
emigrating to Canada or returning
to my boyhood home
just south across the border
into the heartland
of Norwegian bachelorhood
videlicet Lake Woebegone
as the next best choice,
the little town that time forgot,
and the years could not improve,
but dearth of financial resources
disallows any remote likelihood
for yours truly and the wife
to pack up our troubles
in our old kit-bag,
thus I will hunker down
for the next four years
bestowing divine faith healing;
jimmying, lording (no pun),
raising the roof of churches,
albeit damaged since the Great Flood,
and Noah way will I abandon
figurative house of mankind,
whereat the flock of lost tribes
aimlessly wander in the wilderness
after their experience as crash test dummy
bailing out from fiery B-52s
found their fear of flying unshaken.