I left the electric bill in the mailbox. Along with one of those Get to Know Your Community at Christ's Church pamphlets.  One where Jesus sits holding a sheep, and oriental kids sit criss-crossed and apple-sauced at his feet. An advertisement for Great Wall Chinese food rounded out the lineup. How many trashcans must be filled?

But your letter, a mini-salvation at the sight of your name alone, came with me. My octogenarian neighbor with the heavy jowls and purple hair watched me rummage through the mail as her leashed shih tzu ****** in my yard.  Good morning. A nod. No response from my neighbor like usual. She's hardly a neighbor. More like a cop that directs traffic just past her property onto mine so traffic can **** my grass.  The shih tzu, though, that thing quaked as if I might give it a hard kick in the ribs. A satisfying thought.

My great pleasure dissipated when I opened your letter. Don't worry about Tim. I know he cares about you. He'd be an idiot not to. These are things I'm supposed to say. The sad truth being that Tim is a man. And like the rest of us, he's cheating on you. Probably with a thinner woman. A model that still subscribes to ****** chic. Or at least ******.

Before you take a kitchen knife to one of his neglected polos, make sure he's okay. Bizarre advice, I know. My mind only wandered when I did't feel like I was worth a million bucks. You always made me feel like two million. So, I'm sure it's something on his end.

Pour the whiskey until he opens up like one of those cashiers you make the mistake of acknowledging when they've been on the clock for five hours and still got three to go. He'll tell you about the baby he can't feed, the gonorrhea feasting on his urethra, and the titanic loan he took out from mama looming over his head. After he's said his piece, his load will lighten. The clouds will part. Fingers crossed.

The way you described his despondent behavior sounds like the lurking grey of bad luck. A black cat. I'm reminded of the time in my beat-up Cavalier when a black cat began to cross the street in front of us over on 86th and Western. Do you remember that? You have to. I cursed the bad luck. Then my curse seemed to stop the stupid beast in the middle of the lane. He looked straight at me. The headlights reflected off his eyes, and you grabbed the wheel. Turned it right into the cat. "I **** my bad luck," you said as the cat's end was confirmed with a thump. Then you said something like if they don't cross your path completely, it doesn't count. Find the bad luck before it snickers from the other side.

Colorless icicles hang off my hair
That has lost all of it's bounce and sway
Now resting on top my head
Looking like a disarray
Of sauced up spaghetti noodles

everything is backwards
figuring out forwards
giving it time
finally mine
if you think I'm lost
you're probably right
so I'm getting sauced
until I see the light

everything is backwards
nothing is right
but I think I might be
finally seeing the light
head is pounding
problems are mounting
somebody save me
help me with this fight

moving forwards
heaving fog is blinding
unclear the road ahead
maybe I'll just go to bed
dreaming the future
still feeling unsure
accepting this fate
makes me feel pretty great
considering this day
maybe I'll stay

I'll put a brick in my hood
I'll throw a brick to ya dome
I'll shove about anything
To get me through up my nose
And I still flatter them  hoes
And get their ******* all wet
Until they drip, drip outta the dryer
I'm washed up they said
Yeah, I'm sauced up too bad
Sick as **** in the head
Don't give a **** about bread
I'm busy countin' my lead
I'm about as sick as they get
So I break up some nugs
Have a *** count my stacks
Line my crib with straight thugs

One, two, three, six, click
Clappin' these sixes while she's suckin' my ****
Leavin' my Deagle 'cause I'm wantin' to live
Givin' heaven the finger 'cause I'm lovin' to sin

No one gonna stop me
Yeah, nothin' that can top me
I'd wreck a ******' Bentley
Then suit up on a Harley
Take a trip to Muncie
And load up on some chronic
And smoke until I'm smellin'
Like a farm of hydroponic
****, I gotta get my mind right
But I can't 'cause I'm livin' in the high life
Not a cent gets spent on a dime, right?
Wrong, I spend it all the time

And time keeps tickin'
My watch looks broke 'cause I can't stop spinnin'
Run outta smoke so I tryna hit some resin
My lungs stuck up, but I just keep rippin'
Them souls apart, them hoes apart
Nothin' but the best for my bros so far
I am the number one in this
God-forsaken little blip
Midwestern farmer ****
No one here allowed to spit
But I do everyday
While all my ******' neighbors be balin' that hay
Hooray, we got another couple mouths fed
'Til I force-feed 'em an entree of straight lead

or that worth of gimp, the hotted sauced out
cradle of predatory amusement              banked on,
                        i have the notes,
mind you, you're clearly laden
with khaki material,
to mind the blackshirts of the SS,
a Vandal epiphany -
                 less khaki juice
and more blackcurrants -
                  or so the motto stands,
asserting brief and all that thought
of tomorrow.
                   all i'll add with this
vague blunt alcohol ridden self?
the vampirism of the abandoned trill
of the R...
                   that's the Vlad-blatant
abandonment of the trilling of the R -
and the competent disregard for
linguistic laws...
                 until tomorrow,
until i find my sobering-up manicure
and in rewrite the notes i've made
when inspired...
                      and i have made them...
it's all about me being nicknamed
a Viking for my tolerance to drink
you under the table, and dabble with nods,
or the blatant hiding of the tetragrammaton
with ghee (said gee) and otherwise,
                  (Indian butter) -
or dhal - or quiet simply daal / dāl:
against the aesthetics, ouch.
     again in French: je t'aime: ř - adding zero
hour to the said: sharpening the shrapnel -
                       jaded temp. / jay temp. /
                  j-j ****** or the rue flu.
oh it's there, in the notes,
as i benign the thought: unfit today,
payday tomorrow.
wait... i might have a sober moment tonight...
         encapsulate that with a question
about Iran, and a quasi-stop in conversation...
        or counting the strokes in a handwritten
variation:
              Yen ( ¥‎) = 4
                      pound (£) = 2
    matchsticks...
                             elsewhere also matchsticks:
º (red)
                = R E D (3, 4, 2) matchsticks,
                 º (
writing is termed another variant of arithmetic,
the total is 7, for one ideogram) -
             the sigma for red
   is 9, but divided by three means
        the European model falls 4 short
of optical indigestion.
     ř (caron) - caron of the missing z -
         not the variant of caron s and c with z:
czekam (i'm waiting), or szukam (i'm looking),
English has this pronoun priority
                   to be included in every phrase,
or what provides the British Empire fabric:
            how a-  (indefinite)
     and the-    (definite) articulation secures
pronouns with excess modifications
  as already apparent conjunction modifications
worthy of exegesis into the exotic / excess.
there are 7 pages worth of notes,
   but i have three quarters worth of whiskey to
drink... give me an Andy Warhol moment
suggesting: in the future, people
will have only 15 minutes worth of rechargeable
         infrastructure; hence the pending /
ongoing / will return to in a minute.
reintroducing the trilled R vogue:
    is a bit like incubating a vampiric
in English,
                    rzekomo (apparently so)
       řekomo -
                         variant of: as already stratified.
               still, the trilling of the R
is so out of fashion in English it's necessarily
a vampirism qualm -
                   never nearer the French hark
when the R summarises a rolling effect -
      by imperial standards charred.
howe then to resemble a trill?
           r̭ ?
                   or wave akin to wavering
                       (ñ) that's necessary above an r?
i need the trill represented!
    for thrill a better word -
                  or 0 and the minded gambit.
as said caron the missing H...
       twins in
                 Y or three-dimensional space,
and W
              of trigonometric absorption...
waves hunny, waves...
                          and three dimensional space
and rabbis... honey cluedo pooh bear...
i still need to find the trilled r!
**** me, the trilled r! virgulilla:
or thus said, a patent otherwise.
        yet again a ******* Yeti,
    counting matchsticks in Japan
   rather than in Iowa...
             cos it really ******* mattered
given the knots -
       and other reminders...
         yen, or Jenny,
      v. p o u n d
            (2 1 2 2 2);
          ś (acute) half-missing caron
      inc. grave v. š (caron)
             or the Sean Connery effect -
e.g. środa (wednesday) or škodaª
             (insert a H or a Z)
           for pronunciation
                        of the Czech car manufacturer,
already the Tetragrammaton descends:
   ªwhat a shame, it's such a shame.
       Mishter Bondè:
                                tequila sunrise?
ney - ney shaken nor shackled to a shtir (
šush it, and wise up, mš. moneypenny).
    just say Sharon and write Šaron:
dimples!
                         or how to paint a Kabbalistic
anatomy of the mouth to slow variation
between ś (acute) / no consonants will ever
acquire a gràve - necessary: the e isn't said
accenting / syllable scalpelling cutting up...
but still the coran s (š - to mention
ch in cheap, and šiš kebabs too).
variation of cutting up the caron into
acute and grave?
      ś: the tongue is primarily squeezed by the psyche /
breath and the mouth rekindles eating a lemon
tightening it's juiced up and juices the tongue
to sting with missing saliva -
š? primarily a serpent's hush -
  the mouth hollows out -
         the breath enters a so does a pufferfish:
antics of hollowed out mouth follow suite,
the diamond or double L

       bone                                    soul
               L muscle                            L teeth
  tendon                               tongue

synonyms and Γ apart -
                                 of the LL, or ΓL
                    or LΓ or ΓΓ.
                      the diamond diadem -
assertion of bone: whether caprais or
   cousin in the mandible family...
    is a tongue a muscle?
            still the Kabbalistic anatomy dynamic...
  the kinned appearance of H or the
variant of bone...
     or?
              a-
                     (+)
                              -theism,
it doesn't mean that God doesn't exist,
it just means that God has no logical attachment
to man's sprechen,
            the omni- can be rightfully disregarded
in that rubric consolidated within
categorisation of: lazy...
      a- (i.e. without)  
                            theology,
              ­       or our abhorrent freedoms of will,
nurtured by a universal lack:
       atheism contemplates talk of god
without a contradictory circumstance of the
human endeavour to find itself a *******
     lacklustre of comparative Raphaelite
                 illustration...
                           always the favourite,
aren't they, the crucified ones, rather than
those enthroned? aren't they? so why are the
Japanese asking about their ****** culture?
over-sexualised west?
let's ask Yokote,
   let's ask Takeshi,
let's ask Masahiro,
             sure... you can ask me:
  i prefered prostitutes because i actually
knew i was using my phallus rather than representing
a ******* identity of some egocentrism
regarding the skyscraper -
                     and the last girlfriend i had?
i wouldn't wish her to be a companion of
any kind of a Mongolian invader as part
of a horde... i had an argument with her
and was so unhappy i actually wished i was dead...
          jerking off never seemed so holy
as when encountering this woman who
stood by the motto: life is ****...
           but i guess money does that to you.
**** me! i never expected to be so Japanese in
my outlook;
tragic, i know, but what can you do,
    you unlock the floodgates of feminism
and you think that lions will start to provide for
the household? then you aren't lionesses; obviously;
or reluctantly so:
           i find the 21st century is withstanding
  any kind of revision, given the 20th century's
revisions aren't working
        for any worthy necessitation of reciprocated
stipend.

I have no soul

I have been cored harshly like apples ready to be sauced

The only things in my life I willed to keep were stolen away

Too afraid to do it myself could Kevorkian help me out?

Oddly, after all the talking I've done, I've no fight left

Just tears of self-pity

Two innocent lives will relive the cycle of my life

Due to the meddling of a horrible girl

Too obsessed with her own gain to realize their loss

If there were a God, He would strike her dead

If I were God...

Those things are better left unsaid.

Miss Pinkie
and her son
at a bar

and I was
near to them
sitting down

in a chair
and he said
things to her

as he looked
back at me
she told me

he was in
the police force
and married

and said things
back to him
looking back

towards me
and smiling
I think he's

probably
saying to her
he's too young

young enough
to be your
oldest son

and he's right
I am young
enough to

be her son
but what he
doesn't know

or maybe
doesn't want
to know is

I've shafted
his mother
to the music

of Mahler
both of us
well sauced on

Scotch whiskey
sometimes on
her blue couch

other times
on her bed
with moonlight

coming through
her bedroom
wide window

and moon glow
playing on
my naked

rising ***
Miss Pinkie
and her son

return with
all our drinks
and sit down

I watch him
wondering
what he thinks.

Did Descartes say
"I’m drunk, I thunk:
Therefore I am’nt, Sam…?
And is that now a can of spam, Ma’am?”?

Here and now and then besides
Later perhaps, sometimes betides
Then once again I hunger for:
Tinted eggs and ham once more.

The bronze-scorched mud knobbed unhinged sculpture grows
Cinderella down to root knots, ground is grubbed

chapped hats of acorns hit porticoes before snows
honeybees cake their hives closed and wax hubbed

humiliation hardens as color dapples
swelling seed-commas split beneath the frost

piety’s ignored until next year’s apples
night sky is grape-leafed, blackberry sauced

ineffable brutes grow cold to the pinnacle
rhetorical dross groundswells legislations

the long-legged wind tramples our spectacle
rains mock each leaf into pickled munitions

rocks are nothing but hermitages sent by the moon
prescient hardness sets its chin to the ground

hankering for battle, totalitarianism thrives by noon
each soldered twig unloomed, unraveled, uncrowned

we have severed ties to reason’s substantial contents
in the muddle it’s not the empowerment you had

democracy dies bewildered blind with miscontents
unhinged, unconcerned to find the hanging chad

we’re scissored down to our primary chaos all
paralogisms who dwell in a dream that justifies our fall.

Away he galloped
The gallant savant
Over hill and dale

The sun shone
On his anointed head
And flashed on his mail

With sword in hand
(The sword he'd got
From the Lady of the Lake)

He skewered through
(And sauced it too)
A tender, juicy steak

Go from who you are to who you want to be
Nothing is stopping you except for yourself

I see the workers in the back spitting in our food
Greaseballs
Brands are better than tattoos
Get over yourself

Sauced at sunrise
Waking up next to her brings a smile to my face, I feel the breeze
My heart picks up the pace when shes with me

Self-pity
Regret
Doubt
And unnecessary grief are incredibly unbecoming
Avoid the truck in your life

It's hard to be happy when nothing is good enough for you
Laugh at your life
It's just a series of never ending twist endings and what-the-**** moments
"Oh, the cleverness of me!"

I'm feeling saucy
There's no point, never will be
But why am I here?

Fate is a funny bird,
The way she breezes in,
like a tipsy traveler,
tinkering with the scenery,
bumping switches,
with a head toss and a laugh,

Then flitting off,
to the next hapless reality,
leaving not so much,
as a blueprint,
or a crudely sketched,
cocktail napkin,
in her wake.

And so began the story of us...

I had seen the inside of that bar,
but once in a decade,
it was the sort of solo-cup,
frat haven,
of the type I staunchly avoided,

But the city was a Sunday night,
ghost town,
and she snd I were diligent,
two chicks desperately ,
chasing the night,
we wandered onto Boston Street.

And you were there,
slinging drinks,
to a smattering of people,
peanuts,
A handful of bar snacks,
in semi formal wear.

And then there were three,
I'll never know,
if it was boredom,
or a  mutal wish
to be anywhere,
but our respective homes,
that kept it going,
or if  something,
in each of us,
recognized the other,
that night,

Gypsy dancing into the dawn,
sauced on your private recipe,
lemonade warlock potion,
my frienzied twirling stitching,
a spell in the darkness,
while my friend,
assured of her superiority,
tried to ****** you,
With that cocked-brow smirk,
you looked past,
and watched me.

Was I burning bright?
Or burning out?
A superstar in your midst,
or a supernova self-destructing?

I think we've yet to see it
the same way,
at the same time.
Is this our strength,
or our impending demise?
To this day I can't be sure.

And somwhere,
in a dank speakeasy,
our mistress fate,
is taking a long sip,
from a dry martini,
and throwing back her head,
with a throaty laugh.

I miss the place of the rising sun;
For nothing makes my hair stand here.
No one to sing me my very ‘oriki,’
Nor the slightest ‘se dada loji?’

I miss the place of the ‘gangan’ beats;
For no meals shakes my tongue here.
No one to make me ‘efo oni kpomo’ with ‘iru,’
Nor the slightest ‘garri’ of ‘ijebu.’

I miss the place of the ‘aso ofi;’
For no clothes touches my sight here.
No one to tap me that very ‘emu oguro,’
Nor the slightest good-sauced ‘eja odo.’

For if not for the clarion call,
Oh! let ‘egbe’ come take me home,
With the real speed of ‘monomono.’

Oluwatmilehin Adejumobi Alabi