like that pill bitter Sunday morning (after)
with a nauseating hack
the previously uneventful Tuesday
derailed
in surrealistic tale
with Auntie and Jack (and a quarter of fate)
in the 748
on a night flight
from Sherwood to Lore

reverberating waves
of imminent summer haze
river flats
and flower fields
fly weights
and silver bait
shredders and shysters
and open gates
(into those everlasting
and sweated journeys of hope)

bloods and strays
and florentine grays
(reminiscent of Rockwell fame)
running horses
and overgrown country lanes
morning grace
and gentle cheer
eyes clear
on the river pass
blunted paddles for those ancient
and not so willing suckers!

duke making his own way
(to the corner club)
Parsons and Poe
stream from the torn screen door
cricket cadence
and symphony of the Deere
calm and deliberate
in the soft
and silent fields

meadows open for grazing
(guineas scamper across the till)
pocket apples fill
the country ripe air
drunken bees
and chestnuts
and electric fingers
strike the surface pool
(a cedar strip wedged on the white wash dock)

baited bull heads set to cast
evenings with hearts
and Nolten Nash
may flowers bloom
across the grass
~ time unmatched ~
with blue jays
and river bends
and channel cats
...and that warm
and recurring
Coleman drift

The night storm washed up infant squirrels at my doorstep.
One by one, they crawled inside, their heads too heavy to hold up high.
I watched them paw at the carpet, their tongues searching.
Their claws find your sweater, within it they scamper,
they are hungry.
They rumble by my stomach, and poke their faces out of your collar.
To stop their crying, I feed them raisins, and we look to you for more.
But they see your eyes are meant for your thoughts alone,
and fall off my skin and out of your clothing.
The squirrels have grown up, and yearn for expanse.
That's okay hon, I’ll return them to the forest
first thing tomorrow morning.

At the mailbox, again:
“Who loves me, baby?”
Well, let’s see: there’s a flyer from Mercury Insurance,
Reminding me that most middle-income customers
Save an average of $4 million smackaroons when they switch too.
The Penny Saver USA.com is here,
Thank God, almighty!
So now I know that Thomas Roofing & Paving
Is having a special on 20-year leak-free flat roofs;
"All work guaranteed & insured.
No job too big or small.
Free estimates/Emergency services/License # I8U-69."
And thank you, Jesus,
For another $4.99 Farmer Boys 3-Egg Breakfast
Combo with Coffee coupon, and that
Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready, $5.00 cheese or pepperoni,
Mae-West-“why-don’t-you-come up and see me sometime?”—mailer. And, of course, another technology Siren’s song:
Verizon FiOS delivers entertainment this big,
Dish me up some dish NETWORK, $19.99 a month . . .
Are you ******* me?
For 12 ******* months?
AT&T;: whack me off on 120 channels.
DIRECTV.com - DIRECTV® Official Site‎
Worry-free 99.9%  . . . cue Joe E. Brown,
"Some Like It Hot“ Osgood:
"Well, nobody’s perfect!"
Time Warner/Sprint/T-Mobile;
And ******* Leather, Polk Street, San Francisco.
******* leather?
Must be for my neighbor: that ***** ****!
And here’s the weekly 8-page color fold-out from Stater Bros:
Lowering prices every day, large cantaloupes
(Jessica Lange, are you back?)
10 for $10.00, 32 oz. Gatorade
Or 24 oz Propel in 30 assorted varieties @ 79 cents
+ CRV: California Redemption Value?
Nice euphemistic cover-up for a TAX.
Nice, nice, very nice, CA elected state officials;
Nicely done, Sacramento.
Everywhere else in the country you get real money—
A fixed number of pennies, nickels, or dimes—
For your plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
But in California, the licensed recyclers
Get to pull the market price out of their *** each morning.
California Redemption Value?
What ******* genius government kleptocrat thought that one up? Conspiracy Alert: who gets all that CRV money?
And what are they doing with it?
Feeling plain, Jane?
Marinello Schools of Beauty, want you,
Offer you hands-on training in cosmetology,
Skin care esthetics, manicuring and vaginal deodorizing—
Just kidding, Babaloo.
Food tip for the Third World:
Never try to write poetry on an empty stomach.
Sizzler 6 oz juicy & succulent.
RENEGADE DEAL:
El Pollo Loco guacamole chicken sandwich,
Coupon free, small drink and small chips,
When you purchase a guacamole or jalapeno sandwich,
includes pepper jack cheese and a southwest sauce.
Gardenas sandia con semilla, 7 lbs 99 cents.
GARDENAS: “en precios, servicio y calidad, nadie nos iguaia.”
Bud Gordon’s Quality NISSAN:
One at this price after a $1500 factory rebate.
TERMINIX: get them before they get you!
The Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta
Bug up my *** again.
And a form letter from the VA
Asking me to please update my whereabouts.
And a form letter from the VA asking me
To please update my whereabouts.
And miles to go before I sleep.
Bite me, Mr. Frost!

An outing, at last.
I am going for a walk around the inside of my gates.
I live in one of those gated over-55 lunatic asylums.
There are gates. It is gated. Get it?
GATED! We feel safe here.
Probably a good thing at our age:
Self-imposed institutionalization,
Putting oneself in an asylum to ferment and die.
The fact that so many of us
Need it so bad at only 55
Says something itself about the current state of
Baby Boomer metal-fatigue.
I am now standing at the far end of the golf course.
I wait at the far end of the 18th Hole.
A ball bounces past my head and
Rolls off past the green into the far rough.
The 18th Hole is perched atop a small plateau,
Out of sight, far above the horizon for anyone teeing off.
I am Puck, invisible and impish.
I pluck the ball up.
I scamper to the green.
I pop the ball into the hole.
Which is better than popping a hole in the ball,
Surely, kind of a drag,
As we were once fond of saying.
Deflated Ball.
Deflator Maus.
OPERA can be ****.
Bodice-ripping corsets, whorehouses and naked ******!
Hardly what you might expect from
A night with the Welsh National Opera,
But they found their way into this production of "Die Fledermaus."
Ripe language, contemporary jokes and
Toilet humor thrown in, adding immensely
To the pleasures of Strauss’s operetta.
"Die Fledermaus," or The Bat’s Revenge,
Is all about drunkenness and adultery.
Despite being written in the 1870s,
It remains equally pertinent to today’s pub culture of excess.
Daring; Colorful; ****: PGA golf.
I steal a golf ball on the far end of the 18th Hole.
I pick up the Titleist and stick it in the hole
(Steady Jessica, not yours.
I hide behind your bush.
(Cue up PSA, First Lady Bird Johnson’s 1960s
Nationwide Beautification Campaign:
“I want everyone in America to plant a tree,
A sherrrr-rub, or a booosh.”)
The golfer now searching frantically:
Why is the cup always the last place they look?
Then, wham, bam, he looks:
A legend is born.
A hole in one,
His name forever immortalized
On a plaque over the bar, the proverbial 19th Hole.

As you know, I speak for all mediocrities,
Safe in my 55+ gated-community.
I go next to the Club House,
"The Lodge" as it’s called.
Each afternoon, the usual suspects
Claiming first come/first serve tiered mini-theater seats
Where Netflix matinee gems are screened.
It is two minutes to DVD show time.
I walk to the front of the room.
I stare at my audience.
I count the house slowly,
Making meaningful eye contact with each wrinkled face.
I cup my hands behind my back and speak:
“I assume you are all here for my lecture on Kierkegaard.”
No one reacts.
I turn to leave but do a double-take and smile.
One old woman in the top right corner of the amphitheater laughs, Perhaps the one other human being within the gates
Who has also smoked a joint today.
For an instant, I am overwhelmed with paranoia,
Perhaps I’ve gone too far over the line:
No longer “oh-he’s-a-character;”
I am now “that creep is ******* nuts.”
Is it time for someone to approach my family,
My next of kin, my “who-to-contact-in-event-of-emergency” number? Who will make the call on behalf of the HOA—
The Homeowner’s Association—
The Tsars, the Duma, the Supreme Soviet in these parts?
They are the power inside the gates;
Those who determine the state’s enemies,
Who govern its community norms.
Power within the gates.
Law within the asylum.
Little Hitlers one and all.
Hopefully they reach my sister first.
She’s been briefed.
KEY POINT IN THE NARRATIVE:
The new narrative is non-linear.
We can no longer sustain a narrative understanding of ourselves;
We are each an individual stream of consciousness,
All of us random, non-linear and disconnected.
We grow more and more disconnected from others.
We may be neighbors in space and time,
But we remain deprived of any significant human contact;
Any spiritually significant human contact.
Our social circle narrows to what can fit in The Telescreen;
We become more intimate with a legion . . .
Did someone say a legion? SPQR:
Am I having some sort of genetic-linguistic seizure here?
Am I channeling Benito Mussolini again?
Il Duce speaks to me from the grave,
Still blowing smoke up my Hopi-Jew-*** ***,
Filling in my insecurities,
Plugging the holes in my character
With delusions of classical Roman grandeur, glory and empire. Hmmmm? Quite an appetizing pitch for the average *****,
A message so completely, so ethnocentrically slick,
Olive oily, and so seductive.
A non-Italian would have thought
American Legion or Legionnaire’s disease,
Or The Foreign Legion, The French Foreign Legion.
The French: a virulent, promiscuous people.
Do you want fries with that, Simone?
No, I don’t get out much.
Only an occasional brisk walk around the asylum,
In and around the golf course, around but inside the gates. (LINKS) Bill Gates. Daryl Gates. Billy Bathgate’s Gates? Ghiberti’s Gates? The Hot Gates? Thermopylae? 300 Spartans/700 Thespians:
“The noun causing idiots to think of
Two girls sloppily eating each other’s mighty vaginas,
When they hear mention of someone being an actor.” http://www.urbandictionary.com
Not even close.
No, I rarely venture out.
This is Hemetucky.
There are methamphetamine-stoked
Teenage zombies at the gate.
Note to costume control:
Perhaps camouflage clothing is the safe choice?
No loud red Hawaiian.
No garish Indonesian batik.
Fleet of feet are these Hemet tweakers,
These cranked up Riverside County teenage barbarians,
These Huns & Visigoths,
These amped up, ravenous jackals.
And why stop there?
These Vandals & Vandellas.
A Motown flashback:
“Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide.”
With or without Martha—
They remain dangerously lethal.
Yes, let it be camo clothes for me.
Those **** heads may be young.
They may be fast.
They may be able to run me down
On a dry grass dog-legged fairway savannah,
Tearing the meat from my carcass.
But the sons-a-******* have to see me first.
Besides, we know who are real friends are.
Hooray for our media peeps!
We become more intimate with a legion
Of television personalities on 125 different channels.
Most of these we know by name and context.
We know their families, their friends,
Their histories, their tragedies,
Their favored hyperbole and manner of speech.
Sometimes we establish intimacy with celebrities
Strictly on the basis of universal body language.
At times–in the absence of any other
Empathetic facility of identification–
We connect on instinct alone.
Instinct: perhaps animal at its core,
An animal kingdom affinity group,
Connecting on a bio-linguistic level,
Particularly when the Korean, or Spanish,
Mandarin, or Arabic,
Japanese, or even Hebrew language version is broadcast.
All languages cryptically alien,
A dense boundary, a barrio border wall,
Undecipherable, impenetrable concrete.
But we’ve never spoken to our neighbors,
Nor do we know their names.
Celebrities are the neighbors we know best;
Although the intimacy is an illusion,
Permission to invade their privacy presumed,
Tacit in the relationship between celebrities and their fans.
I am an independent contractor now,
An outside consultant to the NSA.
Try as I might I cannot crack the enigma,
Kim Kardashian remains far beyond my code-breaking prowess.
I repeat myself:
We can no longer sustain a narrative understanding of ourselves;
We are each an individual stream of consciousness,
All of us random, non-linear and disconnected.
We are more and more disconnected from others.
We may be neighbors in space and time,
But we remain deprived of any significant human contact;
Any spiritually significant human contact.
Our social circle narrows to what can fit in The Telescreen; we become more intimate with a legion . . .
Back to you, David Ulin:
“Sometime late last year—I don’t remember when, exactly—I noticed I was having trouble sitting down to read. That’s a problem if you do what I do, but it’s an even bigger problem if you’re the kind of person I am. Since I discovered reading, I have always been surrounded by stacks of books. I read my way through camp, school, nights, and weekends; when my girlfriend and I backpacked through Europe after college graduation, I had to buy a suitcase to accommodate the books I picked up along the way.”
Thank you, David L. Ulin.
I cannot help myself.
I grow more eccentric each day.
My eyeballs glued to that flat screen!

Cosmo Kramer: "The bus is outta control.
So I grab him by the collar, I take him out of the seat,
I get behind the wheel, and now I’m driving the bus."
Jerry: "Wow!"
George Costanza: "You’re Batman."
Cosmo Kramer: "Yeah, yeah, I am Batman.
Then the mugger, he comes to and he starts choking me.
So I’m fighting him off with one hand,
And I kept driving the bus with the other, ya know.
Then I managed to open up the door,
And I kicked him out the door, ya know,
With my foot, ya know, at the next stop."
Jerry: "You kept making all the stops?"
Cosmo Kramer: "Well, people kept ringing the bell!"
(Share this moment with a stranger.)

I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.
Boom Chaka Laka. Boom Chaka Laka.
Boom Chaka Laka. BOOM!
Isn’t it time Salieri tempted Constanze–
Frau Mozart–with a plateful of Capezzoli di Venere:
“******* of Venus.”
You had me at hello, Kidman.
I know you too well, Nicole.
I knew you from before,
Way before Tom’s Oprah couch freak show.
Listen to me, Nicole:
We are face to face
With the most profound question in American literature:
"What is the grass?
The flag of my surrender?
The flag of my disposition?"
I resort to Socratic maxims: Know yourself;
The un-****** life is not worth living.
Is it stress? Is it lack of conviction?
Everything Jeff Lebowski neither wants nor needs in his life?
I watched you *** in "Eyes Wide Shut," Nicole.
Now I know you with my eyes and your legs wide open.
Thank you, Sidney Pollack.
Sidney knew.
Sidney dealt us cards
From his Hollywood Tarot deck.
We are intimate, Nicole.
I watched you squat.

There was a cat named Crazy Christian
Who never lived long enough to *****
He was gay hearted, young and handsome
And all the secrets of life he knew
He would always arrive on time for breakfast
Scamper on your feet and chase the ball
He was faster than any polo pony
He never worried a minute at all
His tail was a plume that scampered with him
He was black as night and as fast as light.
So the bad cats killed him in the fall.

'Here's a nut, there's a nut;
Hide it quick away,
In a hole, under leaves,
To eat some winter day.
Acorns sweet are plenty,
We will have them all:
Skip and scamper lively
Till the last ones fall.'

Scraggly curl hair bounces in the air
wagging with whisky eyes breezy pleasing the eclectic electric hectic now mind
like finding a papaya inside an oyster
battery powered like a pomegranate passionfruit flower growing and glowing
around my trinity heart with the noise of a sphere's galactic ******!

Crystal Citrine Mountains provide water fountains of sunlight
as so tye-dye t-shirt hip-cat hippos smokin' coconut shisha bathe in barrels
of bourbon.
Lion snakes spit words of worlds hurling nebulous timeline's spiraling
and crashing and splashing baptism ripples together painting Pollack Splatters
with the aroma of Byrd Jazz Jam on rye-whisky bread.

Fractal Berries served by the Far Out Faerrie Ferryman Skeletan with bejeweled emerald eyes
winks while I read in the reeds panting in pan-flutes while water rabbits scamper
into clay enclaves to bathe in pinecone designed sand-tubs.

The hieroglyphic phoenix twists and skip-scats neon green vinyl
turning the wind inside out to x-ray flames of fireworks.

Fall and follow down the river
Walking the sacred streets in silence
How imbued with the ethereal mist of prayers are these tables
These wooden chairs I sat in and wrote the diaries of my youth
I wrote lies with causal power
Constructed the material from ideas
Spoke over the waters and found land

Eat a candy cane to cover the scent of rolled tobacco on your breath
And get on a plane
Green busses down cobblestone lanes
Follow them like purple orchids on the terrace

Fall and follow down the river
A brown bench,
Balding fog
Sit like kneeling at the altar of the saint of childhood innocence
Repeat her prayers
Chant her mantras
Sing her hymnals
Ritual tower chimes with hell’s fear behind it
Rope and brass that dare not fall or falter
Down the river
Ripples like innumerable green eels screeching through the sacred heart of our Lord and city centre

Mornings like Masala chai and sunshine
How infinite and unceasing the heartbreak of those who love too deeply
How inevitable the prolonged fall of the great
Like eighteen razor blades
Shot through the sunrise
Bitter fruit of memory merciless
No amount of sacrifice can atone for the imperfections that lie beyond the boarders of my control
But I hail Mary nonetheless

Fall and follow down the river
Mother Mary cannot hear over the pounding power of the current
So seal your lips with black clay
And do not cry
For there is nothing more to mourn
Morning comes ripping down the track like a freight train
Tarantula clouds and sunbeams scamper over the sockets of your log-laden irises
Bleeding indigo from parallel razor blade canyons
Filled with the ghosts of things you were never promised

Masala chai oversteeped like the strong scent of river memory
Tremble tell me I’m forgiven
In your white robe anointing oil
Tell me I’m the chosen one
Incense and ****** knees from kneeling at sandpaper pews
Getting drunk of Eucharist, the Holy See,
Oceans of archives, history, prophecy,
Frankincense and myrrh,
Frankenstein, the Light, the Vine and highways through the suburbs
Jump off bridges
Fall and follow down the river

An eye for an eye
And a stitch for a stitch
Mile for mile river prayers define and drown me
Thick slabs of scripture separate me from my sisters
Masala chai and sunshine
Vaseline and pale northern light clear the black river clay from your pores
Embrace the snow
Teach yourself to love the suffocating questions that burn and blind you
Retroactive sacrifice still requires fresh indigo blood
Donate freely.
Fall and follow
Down the river
To the sea
Salt water heals all razor blade wounds
Even the self-inflicted
The choices you make to be good or great are swallowed in the moon tide
Sticky tie-dye bruises erase themselves with time and prayer
Like cups of strong Masala chai.

The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer,
A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage,
A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air.
          But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust
          In shimmering exhaust
          Searching to slake
          Its fever in ocean
          Will play and be idle or else it will bust.

The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,
She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples,
Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect.
          But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach
          Disgorges its organs
          A scamper of colours
          Which roll like tomatoes
          **** as tomatoes
          With sand in their creases
          To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech.

The swallow of summer, the seamstress of summer,
She scissors the blue into shapes and she sews it,
She draws a long thread and she knots it at the corners.
          But the holiday people
          Are laid out like wounded
          Flat as in ovens
          Roasting and basting
          With faces of torment as space burns them blue
          Their heads are transistors
          Their teeth grit on sand grains
          Their lost kids are squalling
          While man-eating flies
          Jab electric shock needles but what can they do?

They can climb in their cars with raw bodies, raw faces
          And start up the serpent
          And headache it homeward
          A car full of squabbles
          And sobbing and stickiness
          With sand in their crannies
          Inhaling petroleum
          That pours from the foxgloves
          While the evening swallow
The swallow of summer, cartwheeling through crimson,
Touches the honey-slow river and turning
Returns to the hand stretched from under the eaves -
A boomerang of rejoicing shadow.

What blaze of fury has brought such decay?
Translucent hearts are all the color this picture
of hate. Can you see the broken ones? Can you
smell the hopelessness they wear like some
expensive perfume? Watch them cower and scamper
through bushes. Hiding their scorched skin like it's
something obscene. Watch as they scatter like marbles
from a child's circle. Building fire from scraps of oh-so
precious wood. Their smoke clouds the almost
non-existent breeze. What would their ancestors say?
Would they blush at the ***** rawness of this world?
Would they gasp at the events that brought us here?
Does it even matter? In the end the grass
is gone. The trees have died and the flowers have
fallen. Tell me what is sacred about this.

Where is the god you prayed to?

The Wilderness
The vast trees tower above
All looking down
The bird sing and fly
The animals scamper through

The fish swim about
Down river into the pond
All to see
The fishes nemesis
The king of the forest

The mighty bear
Not far over a moose
Towers above
Above all this a eagle sores

Then a roar
Everything quiet except for
A diesel truck storms through
To call the wilderness

Home

Swift swallows sailing from the Spanish main,
O rain-birds racing merrily away
From hill-tops parched with heat and sultry plain
Of wilting plants and fainting flowers, say--

When at the noon-hour from the chapel school
The children dash and scamper down the dale,
Scornful of teacher's rod and binding rule
Forever broken and without avail,

Do they still stop beneath the giant tree
To gather locusts in their childish greed,
And chuckle when they break the pods to see
The golden powder clustered round the seed?

"See they come, post haste from Thanet"

See they come, post haste from Thanet,
Lovely couple, side by side;
They've left behind them Richard Kennet
With the Parents of the Bride!
Canterbury they have passed through;
Next succeeded Stamford-bridge;
Chilham village they came fast through;
Now they've mounted yonder ridge.

Down the hill they're swift proceeding,
Now they skirt the Park around;
Lo! The Cattle sweetly feeding
Scamper, startled at the sound!

Run, my Brothers, to the Pier gate!
Throw it open, very wide!
Let it not be said that we're late
In welcoming my Uncle's Bride!

To the house the chaise advances;
Now it stops—They're here, they're here!
How d'ye do, my Uncle Francis?
How does do your Lady dear?

I wish I was a big fat brown furry squirrel
Up in the walnut trees I'd scamper and twirl
Collect my delicious nuts for the frigid winter time
Invite squirrl friends over to party and dine
Take sweltering summer days to run, jump and play
Frighten some silly song birds along the way
No worries of the coming days
No bill collectors at the door to pay
To just live wildly free
Like nature was ment to be
Live out my life in a comfy hole I made in that old walnut tree
That tree was here in my grandpa's days, it's as sturdy as can be
In the winter curl into a warm ball and try to remember
Of where I hid my stash of nuts,  come December
I want to be a big fat happy squirrel
Never angain a sad woman-girl

Dear Scamper,
Things have been weird since dad became the First Lady.  We spend most of our time on bear mountain, watching the snow fall over Belgium. And the fairies waving their golden wands at the clouds. And the buck-toothed lizard scrambling to find a tree. And the old Gnome Brigade  trying to investigate where the traveling carnival was on the day of the St. Patricia parade. And The President of the United States of Hungary is going insane, but people wont say anything because he still believes in the robes that he is "wearing."  And just when we think we can live happily ever after... a meteor came down and hit Mandy Warhol in the brain, causing her to go 1n5ane, causing her to sing like a Zebra, and dance like the speckles on a tree frog. And when those speckles run away, It turns out that the frog had a mind of its own and it said: "This planet is a Madhouse."
But that is life now....See you Tuesday!

Sincerely,

-Fish kid

I am the Lorax, who once spoke for the trees
In the hope of bringing progress to its knees
But now I have grown somewhat older and tired,
My outlook and thought process being rewired
(Sometimes to see forest, you must clear the trees.)

Examine the case of the Brown Bar-ba-loots
Whose interests for so long I worked in cahoots.
Could such timid beasts truly thrive in the wild
So innocent, trusting, submissive, and mild?
(My former assertions I strongly refute.)

Why, see how they frolic and scamper in zoos;
How can one watch them and steadfastly refuse
To see how much better their lot is today
As joy for our children as opposed to prey
(A happy condition where no one can lose.)

Ah, scoff the nihilists, but Truffula Trees,
Those havens for birds and those homes for the bees.
Why, what do you say now that they are all gone,
Removed to make way for some suburban lawn?
(These angry young men—O Lord, take them all please!)

I gently remind them it’s just nature’s way,
That some species go while other ones stay,
The carrier pigeon’s no longer alive
Yet somehow we manage to live—indeed, thrive!
(In the face of brute logic, they’ve little to say.)

So don’t be dismayed or frightened or leery
Of doomsday projections outlined by theory
Suggesting that our time on this earth may be done;
Consider the caged Bar-ba-loot having fun
(And we hear fish do quite well in Lake Erie.)

The rain falls softly on the sleeping city…. Cloaked in the blanket of a monsoon lull…. A few stray dogs scamper for shelter as the first storm of the season colours the dawn a deeper crimson…..
The thunder rumbles from the north east…a deep slow sonorous sound coming from the underbellies of the moisture laden atmosphere…..
The soft drizzle forms a hazy blanket of morning mist around the city…..already stirring with the first signs of life…. The resurrection of the everyday work-a-day world…….
The musical tinkling of a bell echoes around as a pushcart brimming with flowers rushes down the street, hurrying to the market…fresh, preened and ready…to be sold to the highest bidder…
The soft music of the approaching storm inspires a boatman, out on the holy river, to sing…… his voice echoes over the bass of the thunder……a plaintive pleasant humming……the nuances of the bhatiali fill up the empty cracks in the morning……
The rain deepens…………the drizzle expands into the monsoons first downpour… pitter-patter sings the rain, reverberating off a thousand tin roofs……the sky darkens……enveloping the dawn in its grey being…..
Somewhere, someone tunes a harmonium…..clears a throat…a hand draws a curtain aside…..
The peaceful reassurance of the daily azaan spreads out from the mosque…..calling the faithful to prayer…..
The flower vendor…now setting up shop, attaching an extra strip of plastic sheet to fend off the rain…. Stops a moment and bows his head as the nearby tolling of a bell and the sound of a conch shell being blown announces the beginning of a new day in god’s abode….
A woman kneels down in a pew…..praying…..the calm of the church mirrored in her peaceful face…..
The rain looks down at the city……..now, half awake…slowly stretching its limbs……..stirring from the depths of a restless rest…………awakening to the jangling of a bread earner’s faith……
The shower relents……..probably giving in to all the Monday morning groans and grumbles emanating from a city forced back into consciousness…..
Finally, all that remains is the moisture on the flower vendor’s tarpaulin and the shadow of the boatman’s song on the rippled river…….

***** from the bottle,
Warm.
Hot dogs from the package,
When your down and *****
The grotesque becomes magic.
Pawning a guitar for a pellet gun,
To procure breakfast.
Squirrel stew in the back of a scamper camper.
Spotlighting bullfrogs,
And mopping floors for a hot meal,
And a cold beer,
And a sympathetic ear.
Nights when the blacktop turned into void,
And the painted lines became a tightrope to nowhere.
Full circle,
Bangor to Frisco,
Any woman who was willing to sleep in the bed of a truck
Was a queen for as long as she stayed,
Always had **** concealed on me,
The copper piece of road currency,
To the gold and silver, of *** and gas.
The exchange rates would change overnight,
But syphon some gas at a truck stop
And it all will be alright.
Misspent youth, following bands
And getting lost along the way.
***** from the bottle,
And hot dogs from the package.

Lunatic calling....... Earthling.........

Yes, you...fool..... tiny Earthling!
Wake up, you intractable iota of pulp
I watch you on your little planet, with relish
Playing depraved games on your spiritless  ilk.

I inhabit a moon much larger than your scrap of sand
You already appear so infinitesimally  small
When seen with a magnifier, from this innocuous distance
But now, you're even less than a speck of dust.

Seemingly important, you prance and preen and strut
Your feathers ruffling so easily, I do note
Look how you fret your heartstrings and gnaw away
And I didn't get to say that much....yet!

But fear not: collide with each other, we will not
For conversing amiably with my solar sibling, I've pled
To wield its forte and rein out all magnetic fields
So's we never make acquaintance of regret.

See how bloated and full of yourselves you have all become
Feeding on yourselves, sick with bilious envy
Scurrying like ants, at least THEY know better
For when you reach inside you, there ain't too much of note!

You try aimlessly to prove your dull existence
By crawling all wild-like and filling up the gaps meant for silence
Instead, you leave gruesome tracts of rotating noise
I constantly quake at the revolting  mess on Earth.

Scamper along now, as you are wont to do, brain-scooper
You can hardly hold still a thought in mind
You seek and ferret out answers not meant for your likes
Soon you will sever and break up into little pieces insects love!

You think that what you do, is so gripping
But don't you know we're all varying on the same theme
Roll up the deified curtain and you might find
Everything's an inflated rerun of what passed before.

So, even here on this jaunty moon where I live
I'd rather you not join me in my solitary abode
This lunatic prefers the osculating of kind craters
And communing in the solace of orchestral stones.

You delude yourself with ludicrous ideas
That you have the swell of sultry oceans at your disposal
All tied to deceptive spider-like strings, kited fraudulently in your hand
Hoping to catch that salty surge and drift away.....

My scathing  job perchance, is to spot that pattern of power
And when Eros comes rolling in on that mighty tide
I plan and do my best to make you fail spectacularly
Oh, to climb on and ride that sweet wave for all it's worth!

There is nothing to lose, cos you have nothing!
But your acquisitive nature lets you think you do
Yes, go and ape your latest hobby: quickly run to your house
Check that  no-one has stolen the dust from your gate!

Temporary custodians of that rock, is all you are.
But you......You're absurdly afraid to lose what isn't.
Tiers of neglect show how little you learn of what's around you
Hello, look up.......please. Do you see me? Oh, you do.

Well, well now ! Grand planes and happy steaks to you!
Two swell ticks bestowed on you......for neatness.
But even as I study and decimate your paltry existence
Turning, I'm growing painfully aware of three eyes on me.......

Hey, hang on.....wait, wait, WAIT........help!
Earthling.....please!!
Lunatic calling....... Earthling.........
Somebodyyyyyyy....?

Lunatic calling......dear Earthling.........



Star Toucher,  10 March 2013

MY TREE HOUSE 12-02-09

Hi. I’m hyper-active. I also don’t pay attention very well. They say I have “attention-deficit” but I’m starting to think that it’s not a deficit, it’s an attention overload. I get distracted easily because so much flows through my brain at one time. Add that to hyperactivity, it’s no wonder I’m accident-prone. They wanted me to wear a helmet but I flatly refused.

I have a tree house. I’ve always had a tree house or a fort of some kind. I’m not a kid anymore, but each year that passes by; I get younger, by one year. If I get back to age 30, I’ll be amazed. But that’s a long ten years away. It’s better than turning sixty.

I’m short. I’m small, and I can climb like a monkey and drink like a buffoon.
Sometimes this combination is very entertaining. Sometimes it’s just completely annoying…to others.

There was only so much I could do as a kid. By the time I was six, my younger brother, at age two and a half, was as tall as me. I punched him regularly, if he annoyed me. But I took up for him, a lot. He remembers me wailing on a kid twice my size, because he’d hit my little brother. I don’t remember, but my brother recalls me swinging and yelling “You don’t hit my brother! Nobody hits my brother, ‘cept me! Take that, you *****!”

As the giant fell from a kick to the groin, I’d haul my little brother home, by his ear, telling him to STAY OUT of trouble. I couldn’t be there every time he needed me.

I’m not 6 years old anymore, but explain that to the neighborhood kids. Each year, they get taller and I get smaller. Time and again, I am outgrown. When they get to a certain height, they try to lean their elbows on top of my head, or tussle my hair. That’s when they learn what I’m really made of! These are kid’s I’ve been scaring at Halloween since they were toddlers.

Even though my tree house is for me, I must say it does attract a lot of attention, from adults and kids alike. There is not one neighbor, young or old who has not climbed up there.

With a whimsical fascination, a whisper comes out….”I’ve always wanted a tree house…just like this…”

Yep, me too. That’s why I keep working on it. That’s why I have more scrapes, scratches, abrasions, tears, bruises and bug bites than anyone I know. And I wear shorts all the time, so they show. I sometimes appear to have chicken pox. But it’s just poison ivy.

Everyone that knows me doesn’t really notice; it’s just a part of me. But sometimes, strangers will look at my tanned, scraped, burned and just plain injured skin and gasp.

Before they know it, they’ve commented behind their hand. “Good Lord, child, what happened to you?”

“Ooooohh, just life”, I say as I scamper out of the liquor store.

I sit upon a park bench
mentally piecing together
a utopia

You steal along silently
to sit upon my throne
of wooden slats and cement

I quickly turn and look at you
and say inwardly,
"your tree is not my tree
with squirrels that scamper about,
but a table top or a chopping block
even tooth picks lined in a row."

I bend to feed the pigeons;
a saintly feeling fills my soul,
to be abruptly taken from me,
by your sudden pounding feet;
a turbulence of wings
that nearly touch my eye

I finally begin to rest
in reverie,
a peaceful rest
of blue and white

You even steal this rest
and talk about muggers in parks

I hide my ears between my hands
to stop your thieving voice
I suddenly SHOUT at you
but you leave suddenly as you came
FOR YOU STEEL AWAY YOURSELF FROM ME
              to take from you
                               YOUR STEALING BLAME!!!

Tiny feet scamper across dewy seas
Firefly eyes dart amidst blades of dark green
Moonlight shines softly on faces that tease
Tiny feet scamper across dewy seas
Bobbing and hoping between limbs of trees
Teeny folk dancing that no one has seen
Tiny feet scamper across dewy seas
Leaving no footprints to tell where they've been.

It happens all of the sudden.  One day it’s just one time and then it’s need.  That’s when you run into trouble.  After that, it’s a whole other ballgame.  It isn’t addiction until you need.  

I remember the first time.  You always remember your first time.  It’s like opening the biggest present at Christmas, it’s like sledding on that extra icy hill you knew was just a little too slippery, it’s like skydiving shooting stars high flying crazy.  

Instant exhilaration.  

It’s like that millisecond licking your lips before you go in for the kiss, that steamy shower on your cool skin.  

Absolute seduction.  

You just smile, lean back and say

****.

My first time I said no.
No way.
No how.
I don’t do that.

It was a door in the back of my mind I had branded with a Do Not Enter sign.  I argued morals, I argued boundaries.  A secret promise to myself I kept safe behind lines I swore I wouldn’t cross.  But what really stopped me dead in my tracks, what kept me away from the forbidden fruit was fear.  

Maybe even some paranoia, or a little indignation at the idea of putting things up my delicate little pixie nose, scratching the thin tissue of my sinuses.  

But suddenly your friends are doing it, and they look just fine.  That security blanket of fear dissolves, a scary story to tuck away under your pillow like the boogieman.  They call it peer pressure, I think of it more like peer assurance.  Or maybe an experiment.  And that’s all we’re doing right?  The first time I said no.  The second time suddenly those lines were disappearing up my nose.

And then just, ah hah! This is what it’s like, this is the hype.  Like the first time you sit in the front seat of a car.  And think to yourself, well

That was pretty fun.

But nothing serious, just a fling.  One **** one night stand, no biggie.

But it’s nothing like that.  It’s like someone running up to you and whispering in your ear the biggest, darkest secret of life.  And that’s the funny thing, because that’s just it.

It starts with want.

And you have fun.  You get lost in your own lust and you take all you can get.   And you crave those little white pills because you just feel sosososo good.

And then one day you’re tired before school and you don’t know how to pep yourself up.  And you get this idea.  This crazy idea.  And you rail a little white pill.  And as you walk out the door, you feel like a million dollars.  You feel like you slept for 10 hours, like you just got every question on a test right including the extra credit.  And you breeze right through your day, high flying on autopilot.

That’s the ***** secret with the whole thing.  It makes everything so **** easy.  

Tired? Have a line.
Hungry? Have a line.
Sad? Have a line.
Bored? Have a line.

It becomes a ritual, it becomes a secret club no one else can know about.  It’s that lover you sneak off to in the middle of those lonely nights, when your thoughts endlessly thrash against your skull, doubts echoing into the dark room surrounding you.  

But it’s not your life.  More like a habit, like a friend from the wrong side of the tracks.  

What happens from then on is hard to say.  For me, it was when my world shut down around me, when I felt like I was absolutely alone.  When I felt like I was free falling and I had nowhere to land.  Like I had just been beaten in an alleyway left for dead.  I needed someone to hold me.  And all I saw was the Ritalin.  

For me, it was falling in love.  It was giving my soul to you and having you rip it apart.  It was the way you looked into my eyes and stroked my hair.  It was the echo of you closing the door.  You left me behind.  You made me love you and then you just kept walking past.  It was getting my heart broken for the last time, it was a moment of weakness.  As my world crumbled, I took a whiff on courage.  

And suddenly it’s need.  

It tricks you, it makes you forget that once upon a time you were fine alone.  It manipulates you and makes you think you can’t live without it.  Suddenly, there is no life without drugs.  

You’re avoiding people, you’re skipping lunch to powder your nose, your eyes are bugged open and you’re chomping gum 24/7.  People insist you look fabulous from the lost weight and you feel ******* fabulous from your lost hate, buried under the influence.  You are up for 3 days and asleep for 20 hours.  And the crash.  Your head pounds and your hands shake.  You yell at all your friends and you’re late to work 4 days in a row.  And you just needneedneed to go up again because you just can’t take it anymore.

You scamper up as high as you can reach and you’re afraid to come down.  But your body can only last so long.

The big OD is not something taken lightly, a grey no-man's land where brittle lifelines tend to snap.  I was lucky.  I didn’t break, didn't get the 911 nightmare, just took too much too fast, and I felt SO good.  But then, I didn’t feel so good.  Suddenly, I felt pretty **** awful.  I didn’t go into cardiac arrest or anything, but it scared me shitless.  Scared me right off the ****, minus a binge or two.

At least, it did.  For a little while.

Now that voice I know too well is whispering again, and I don’t always feel like saying no.  

I remember when I used to flaunt my new hobby to my friends.  I felt like some sort of glamorous superstar that knew exactly how to have a good time.  Like it was some sort of VIP club that they just had to get into.  And then I didn’t wanna talk about it, they just don’t get it.  They don’t get it.  I need it.  But only sometimes.

Yeah yeah, stupid.  I get it.  You think I’m asking for it.  I lost control and I’m gonna lose it again.  But I made myself stop before, of course I can do it again.  I am cool, calm, collected and totally in control.

Right?

 I felt so cold when you left me here.  I never want to feel again.

She wails at me
From her forgotten cove
Perched atop a steel mast.
I listen to her,
Though shrill her voice rings,
Yet I do not run.
People scamper away like ants
Escaping extinction,
But when she beckons,
My feet stay locked.

The fire cleanses all
As it nears,
And her voice
Shall lead me to...

Eterni-

I've been living on the redline,
under the shadows of the souls who scamper above me,
the lifeless and the mindless,
walking in straight lines through the city.

Concrete womb that cradles the broken,
enables them and helps them lose their minds,
to the place they call home, they scamper blind,
I tell you now, this is no home of mine.

I'm living underground,
beneath the city that buried me,
and left me for dead,
in a metal coffin,
hoping I'd wash up in a new prison.

Amongst the filth and rats,
I'm a lesser but I have more than many,
to most, I'm just a burden,
only a few can see that I offer plenty.

They stare as they squabble,
so many words fill the air without a meaning,
depriving us of peace and unity,
the trains steel as cold as the community.

I've been living on the redline,
a vessel away from all the smoldering hatred,
some think we're forgotten,
but they're the ones we're trying to forget.

to me
Niagara is represented
by the seasons

it starts off
as a new year,
fresh snow on the ground,
endless possibilities

you step out of your house,
maybe on Devine Crescent in Thorold,
and that first breath
of crisp winter air
fills your lungs
and freezes you to the bone
and reminds you that you are alive

everything is always
so still
on January 1st

like a clean slate,
an empty canvas

and then movement begins to paint the beginning of a detailed picture

[migrating geese,
the rustle of a tree,
a car alarm going off,
the sun trying to peak through the grey clouds,
a friend shouting your name]

and the moment shatters
and the new year officially begins

maybe it starts off
with breakfast at Lester Dees
and quickly, but silently,
unfurls into a whirlwind
of school and work and birthdays and holidays and movies and dates and a trip to Niagara Falls and a stroll through Niagara-on-the-Lake and a hike through the Escarpment in Grimsby and joy and happiness and sadness and laughter and tears
and moments

spring blossoms
you feel drenched by the April rain
and weighted down from melodramatic February

but you also feel that sense
of hope
that tingling in your toes
that something good is coming

so enjoy a drink
on a patio in Port Dalhousie,
and crank the volume up
a little bit louder
before a concert at Mansion House,
and take in the scenery
as you run along the Welland Canal

because spring is here

as the days get longer
and the sun gets hotter
summer, lazy as a sloth, engulfs Niagara

Crystal Beach is in full swing
and summer becomes home
to barbecues, camping adventures, road trips, hiking at DeCew Falls, late night laughter, reminiscing around a campfire, the reuniting of old friends, dips in ice cold pools and water gun wars

and as slow and nonchalant
as it entered your life
summer slips away,
like the golden sunsets that it harbors

the leaves change to brilliant shades
of red, yellow and orange,
we wrap ourselves in scarves
and hats and mitts

the world quietly changes around us

fall gives us
warm nights by the fireside
and hands locked while walking along the Escarpment, the city stretched out below

while the squirrels scrounge for food,
we, too, scamper around,
wondering where the year has gone

some will exhale,
a sigh of relief
and some will allow
a large, satisfied grin to stretch across their face

and fall is just that,
a time to reflect
on all that has gone right
and all that has gone wrong

what resolutions did we keep,
and what did we let melt away,
with the humid summer heat

Niagara changes every year
but it is consistent in its ability
to mold new life, to stretch itself, to immerse itself in every season, to provide outlets to enjoy life, to be that friend that is always there to fall back on
and to provide those memories that bring a smile to your face
and leave a warm feeling in your heart
Niagara is home.

I pace around, adoring each flower.
I’m not nervous. I just have bipolar.
I’m tapping my fingers for ten hours.  
I’m not restless. I just have bipolar.

I wake up four times during the nighttime.
My heartbeat flies out of my very chest.
Awake. It’s been hours since watching crime!
Alive. I begin prepping for a test.

My words bounce back around the four drywalls.
Like a child, thoughts scamper through my mind.
Abruptly I laugh. Then I start to bawl.
My emotions begin to intertwine.

I make mindless plans with seven people.
I say something out of pocket to Van.
Now I try to use a tattoo needle.
****! I just tossed and broke my only fan.

You chatter away like
an angry squirrel,
I watch you scamper
off and finally resemble
a fading flower.

Times like these turn your mouth into a gullet
your frown into a scowl
your yawn into a howl

Times like these make drunks alcoholics
you scamper then you walk
you scream then you talk

These are glorious times, my dear
They turn our boredom
into your fear

Little azalea
on the corner;
You gave me quiet joy
year after year.

I promised you;
vaguely, as I scampered past
that one day I would snap your picture,
crop it just so
press you in a tender frame
and adorn you
above the fireplace
or in the gentle gazebo
watching as we sip lemonade
and murmur about the weather.

But you have withered
and your buds no longer clasp the dew.

I told you that it was no matter;
that the picture will always live
in my mind.
Yet my memory fades
and I can't even recall
that subtle twist of your fresh limbs
and what was that shade of pink?

I must confess to you
that in the Spring
I will plant a little azalea
above your cracked, buried, splintered bones
and scamper past to hang a dimestore sketch
of some nameless azalea
in the gazebo.

Mirror is merciful  

Lambs sleep in the willow  
Rough leaves carry heaven up  

Delivering the sinner 

Cold black mirror still love his lips
Lamb off the living

Hearts over
Hearts asthma
Hearts lie with no one
Hearts frozen
Hearts mirror
Hearts asthma
Parts Madonna
Hearts eczema
Part scoundrel
I will walk low
Harsh eczema  
I die past a week
Hearts nirvana
I don't need no lessons now
Hearts taking over
I wish I could wake up
Hearts over
Hearts eczema  
Hearts asthma  
**** your theory, and just **** everything
Love must be ashes, that's blood in the blue forest  
Ya it's the age of pure ahead of us  
Hearts over
Hard seller
Mercy I have in the imaginary nation of us
You don't want me here jerking off
Your force, I was sorry
I saw the mirror I thought off when it was all over
Heart scold ya
Oh I am every man
Watch no longer
and in the shadows
corpse scamper
Who moves even slower?
Part suffer
Move **** all day monkeys
Hearts scamper
The holy case of us
Hearts worth of love
In there walks the sheep
Part scabbed up
I was sad and got blue
Hearts taking over
Hearts never
Hearts never

I done some bad
and I've killed obviously
no sweet people, hogs, and dogs, pets  I have no beef with them
Offered me the exit till they locked me in
Harsh scalper
Harsh scalper
Lock in here with nuts that are just like me
Love must be a pacifistic
There's blood  in the small forest  
Out here in the near cosmos  

Delivering the sinner
All woman in the center
iiiiiiiiii
I fear hes lost his nerve
I'm over  living it
I'm over living it

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
iiiiiiiiiiii

IIIiii'mmm
delivering the sinner
AAAaaalllll
woman in the center

In swimming willows
Luxury feast on the edge of love
Luxury feast on the edge of love


Mirror in the sonnet
Mirroring us and them  
I heard he'd lost his nerve  
I'm over living it
I'm living it

To sit upon this wooden chair
Before this plain white wall,
May seem, to you, to be quite odd
To me it does enthrall.
I take in all the vacant space
And let my eyes caress
The symmetry and peacefulness
…And I really must confess,
The nothingness before me
Draws me in, in such a way
As I wrap myself in plain, white wall
… my mind begins to play

From that tiny smudge of blue emerge
Kaleidescopes of clay
Which carouse across the vacant space
In a most artistic way,
In small concentric circles
In a patterned, frenzied style
They fill the background with mosaic
Of a gold and reddish tile,
With rooster tails of livid green
And dancing through the scene,
A spangled hand of aqua blue
Paints off a sequined theme.,
Some dancing naked maidens
Cavort pinkly in the pool
And a flight of silver satyrs
Scamper in and act the fool.
The roaring sound of raindrops,
The rush of welling tears,
There’s the thrill of my involvement
…and then “Ping” It disappears!

My plain white wall’s in front of me,
I’m sitting on that stool.
I sneak a peak, to check and see,
If someone’s being cruel.
My sister caught me out one day,
She roared with earthy glee
And pointed her fat finger
That girl made fun of me.
It’s really a small price to pay
To be a strange oddball.
I’d rather suffer this than leave
To watch ANOTHER wall.

I sit upon this wooden chair
Before this plain white wall,
May seem, to you, to be quite odd
To me it does enthrall…..

Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
24 January 2008

welcome to light-city
where a dead-****** is on the back of a golden goose
head thrown back in rigor-mortis, days old

1.
the plaza is on fire
one man walks out his delirium into a derelict-town
with so many glittering-lights on
an unhealthy-sheen to his face.. some melted skin
   he seeks the looted-gold the long-plaited one assured was his
   he can't hear the dark-whispers right behind him
   his shoulder-blade itches with a fury no typical-scratch can relieve
nor can he sense the violent-energy half-crackling in the air
hovering in the wings of that dry-wind.. in sullen hiss-spits


2.
elsewhere, many give thanks on the prairie
where daffodils fly free in love
            a motorcade of bikers with a moon's view
            bespectacled-waiter can ask for help
            one child holds in hand.. so many open-answers that adults just fail to see
and dreamers dream *the same dream
in a broken, incredulous world
(you can't hide away in your dreams
   they over-foam your running-legs)
                                      yes.. scamper..!
beware those pretty-wigs who tug at firm-minds
                                              who force you to skirt the true-issue
you plain-refuse to see what you're tripping over
in case it resembles that.. stuff inside


3.
there's a hue of bright-orange in the distance and you can't deny it
it is there
      you can't see it yet
      but you can smell it
within an arc of heightened-paranoia
it has started burning inside the back of your afrighted-eyes
drying out any recollection of estranged-promise
             in a hopeless land of artifice
be not perturbed by fumes which rise in choking-plumes
the workmanship of assiduous imps, dutifully-bound
beset to task all goodness and beleaguer any hope
that only the blind-man can feel in bones-vibrated


(bring forth your legs
tarry not
sing with fully) heartened to glory of light
there be a breaking in the pattern
not everybody made it
so less power to the battle


                                                        ­               the circle is not done..



static.. static.. static.. // static.. static.. static.. // static.. static.. static.. // static.. stat.stat.stat....... //




with a half-smile of patience (she says) -
within your dream.. I'm there
I call you forth
into real-light
here..




S T - 30 nov 13

Being male, I wander
Mom dares not wonder
What kind of monsters she birthed
She brought her own equipment
I was aggressive but shy

Her womb is the most magnificent
Temple I’ve ever visited
There is nowhere else I want to be
Sister insisted
I stiffened then gave in

Children tease, squeal, scamper
Adults know unspeakable reality
Dizziness of first love
Mayhem, ******
Solemn whisper of infinity

After an uncertain age,
No one wants you anymore
Old women bond
Confer their anger
Old men tread alone

She knew from moment he laid eyes on her, she had him. She wore no make-up, anemic complexion, chin and jawline slightly broken out with red spots, cobalt blue irises, aquiline nose, hair dyed dark, fuzz-balled scarf, light blue fluffy sweater, big buttons, canvas shoulder bag, skinny jeans, leather boots, little boney black dog with ashen appointments. Instantly he fell in love. He confessed, “Your Chinese Crested pup stole my heart.”

In ******* position, neither lover sees other’s face. The top sees backside. The bottom sees what? He didn’t know.

She unlocks the door. He enters room. She tells him what to do, making demands. He follows her orders. She questions, “Why do we dance to these tunes?” He answers, “I want to smell your smells, ****, drink your darkest juices.” She articulates, “Stay,” then kisses him goodbye. She wakes wearing his ring, around her neck. They are each other’s slaves. Ceiling leaks, floor creaks, light beams through window as they waltz arm in arm.

She demands, “I want roast rack of lamb, or thinly sliced Serrano ham on buttered toast for dinner. And then I want to go home alone. I need some down time, away from you. I don’t belong to you, god-****-it!” Deep in financial debt, he hands the waiter his debit card.

And because canyons
sever the earth
as tremors widen the divide
Go ahead, pick a side.
I'll stand to the north
where headwinds blow
as mustangs run wild
And you'll scamper to the south
when hurricanes begin to collide
As earth cycles and days turn to night
an eternity passes, plain in sight
Mudslides will fill the valley
and make things once more new
but until that time comes
I'll wait right here for you

The house is cold.
The house dark and lonely.

The hum of the dishwasher,
The thump of the dryer.

Her bare feet scamper across the tile floor.
She pulls on her favorite hoodie,
Caccoons herself in blankets,
And sleeps a long,
Dreamless sleep.

Sky is a taut, grey net spread,
at its  best in creating panic,
relentless day a brutish marauder,
drained of color of every kind, bleak,
even thought of you distant, my nectar
plays hide and seek, I am plunging
in a hallucinatory spin, down, down.

From inside a furnace closed
with a tight lid under which heat
in it's fiery glory permeates
like never before, a full- throated roar,
without any sound it travels around,
in waves after waves after waves,
to scorch every single thing under
the blood thirsty sun, on a hurried
march for revenge,green turbaned
trees and scarf adorned branches
changed all those embellishments
gone bone dry,now stand apologetic
like kids that made bed wet and caught
red handed, shrunk in shame and pain.

Narcolepsy reigns, drowsiness
day and night, like marijuana haze
follows.
            This summer makes its name stick
in bad books,making T.S.Eliot look
shame faced for calling one past tame April,
uncharitably the cruelest of it all.
But this, this is an unbridled wild horse
none can in no way do anything to stop.

When even the last drop of water from
the pond evaporates,sunburn peels the skin,
sun stroke down people, who are unaware,
cruelty of April, becomes monumental.

Perhaps in few days time May could barter
that bad name from April,I'd easily guess.

Buildings , in rows and rows lie, til horizon,
like blood drained corpses all though the day,
the  appetite for life, they evidently has lost.
Song birds on flowered trees, have gone mute,
doves scamper, dart in to the air, with hope
to get few drops of water  from somewhere

Kindhearted few fill water and feed on containers
for stray birds,taking cue from the practices of forefathers.
Change in climate is an ogre, that could with bare hands
smash pompous attitudes  and other human constructs!

Will there ever be a limit, to the red eyed monster,
avarice, we all pamper, within our inner courtyards,
that forces human beings to to do "Harakiri"
like a proud Samurai does with his own sword.

The sky was beautiful,
a million glimmers of light flickered while dancing with the dark sun,
time became invisible,
days, years and empty time has passed,
and I still am gazing up when the world puts on its cloak.
Mother died again so I ran to the galaxy,
it was red and sharp,
glimmering like treasure,
seducing me to take it.
Then father's cries came again,
and the moon stung my tongue,
with the bitter taste of water.
When the moon began to droop as if it were milk being poured in the soil,
I would scamper and crawl into the wound that frosted my mothers stomach,
and the night would begin to spin,
the stars sunk into my veins,
a needle,
that was rusted and long,
stitched beneath the thin walls,
larking in the torn bricks of a broken home.