THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD IN VERSE
Dear Readers, I have tried to cover the salient features of this True Story in free flowing verse mainly with end rhymes. If you read it loud, you can hear the chimes! Due to the short attention span of my readers I had to cut short this long story, and conclude with the
Golden Era of Hollywood by stretching it up to the 1950's only. When TV began to challenge the Big Screen Cinema seriously! I have used only a part of my notes here. Kindly read the entire poem and don't hesitate to know many interesting facts - which I also did not know! I wish there was a provision for posting a few interesting photographs for you here. Best wishes, - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.  

                 THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD :
                        THE AMERICAN  DREAM
                             BY RAJ NANDY

           A SHORT  HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND
Since the earliest days, optical toys, shadow shows, and ‘magic
lanterns’, had created the illusion of motion.
This concept was first described by Mark Roget in 1824 as  
the 'persistent of vision'.
Giving impetus to the development of big screen cinema with its
close-ups, capturing all controlled and subtle expressions!
The actors were no longer required to shout out their parts with
exaggerated actions as on the Elizabethan Stage.
Now even a single tear drop could get noticed easily by the entire
movie audience!
With the best scene being included and edited after a few retakes.
To Thomas Edison and his able assistant William Rogers we owe the invention of Kinetoscope, the first movie camera.
On the grounds of his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory, Edison
built his first movie studio called the ‘Black Maria’.   (1893)
He also purchased a string of patents related to motion picture
Camera; forming the Edison Trust, - a cartel that took control of
the Film Industry entire!

Fort Lee, New Jersey:
On a small borough on the opposite bank of the Hudson River lay
the deserted Fort Lee.
Here scores of film production crews descended armed with picture Cameras, on this isolated part of New Jersey!
In 1907 Edison’s company came there to shoot a short silent film –
‘Rescue From an Eagle’s Nest’,
Which featured for the first time the actor and director DW Griffith.
The independent Chaplin Film Company built the first permanent
movie studio in 1910 in Fort Lee.
While some of the biggest Hollywood studios like the Universal,
MGM, and 20th Century Fox, had their roots in Fort Lee.
Some of the famous stars of the silent movie era included ‘Fatty’
Arbuckle, Will Rogers, Mary Pickford, Dorothy and Lillian Gish,
Lionel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentine and Pearl White.
In those days there were no reflectors and electric arch lights.
So movies were made on rooftops to capture the bright sunlight!
During unpredictable bad weather days, filming had to be stopped
despite the revolving stage which was made, -
To rotate and capture the sunlight before the lights atarted to fade!

Shift from New Jersey to West Coast California:
Now Edison who held the patents for the bulb, phonograph, and the Camera, had exhibited a near monopoly;
On the production, distribution, and exhibition of the movies which made this budding industry to shift to California from
New Jersey!
California with its natural scenery, its open range, mountains, desert, and snow country, had the basic ingredients for the movie industry.
But most importantly, California had bright Sunshine for almost
365 days of the year!
While eight miles away from Hollywood lay the port city of Los Angeles with its cheap labour.

                        THE RISE  OF  HOLLYWOOD
It was a real estate tycoon Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida from
Kansas, who during the 1880s founded ‘Hollywood’ as a community for like-minded temperate followers.
It is generally said that Daeida gave the name Hollywood perhaps
due to the areas abundant red-berried shrubs also known as
California Holly.
Spring blossoms around and above the Hollywood Hills with its rich variety,  gave it a touch of paradise for all to see !
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903, and during
1910 unified with the city of Los Angeles.
While a year later, the first film studio had moved in from New
Jersey, to escape Thomas Edison’s monopoly!    (1911)

In 1913 Cecil B. De Mille and Jesse Lasky, had leased a barn with
studio facilities.
And directed the first feature length film ‘Squaw Man’ in 1914.
Today this studio is home to Hollywood Heritage Museum as we get to see.
The timeless symbol of Hollywood film industry that famous sign on top of Mount Lee, was put up by a real estate developer in 1923.  
This sign had read as ‘’HOLLY WOOD LAND’’ initially.
Despite decades of run-ins with vandals and pranksters, it managed to hang on to its prime location near the summit of the Hollywood Hills.
The last restoration work was carried out in 1978 initiated by Hugh
Hefner of the ******* Magazine.
Those nine white letters 45 feet tall now read ‘HOLLYWOOD’, and has become a landmark and America’s cultural icon, and an evocative symbol for ambition, glamour, and dream.
Forever enticing aspiring actors to flock to Hollywood, hypnotised
by lure of the big screen!

                     GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
The Silent Movie Era which began in 1895, ended in 1935 with the
production of ‘Dance of Virgins’, filmed entirely in the island of Bali.
The first Sound film ‘The Jazz Singer’ by Warner Bros. was made with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology.  (October 1927)
Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, this decade along with the 1940s have been regarded by some as Hollywood’s Golden Age.
However, I think that this Golden Age includes the decades of the
1940s and the 1950s instead.
When the advent of Television began to challenge the Film Industry
itself !

First Academy Award:
On 16th May 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard,
the First Academy Award presentation was held.
Around 270 people were in attendance, and tickets were priced at
$5 per head.
When the best films of 1927 & 1928 were honored by the Academy
of Motion Production and Sciences, or the AMPS.
Emil Jennings became the best actor, and Janet Gaynor the best actress.
Special Award went to Charlie Chaplin for his contribution to the
silent movie era and for his silent film ‘The Circus’.
While Warren Brothers was commended for making the first talking picture ‘The Jazz Singer’, - also receiving a Special Award!
Now, the origin of the term ‘OSCAR’ has remained disputed.
The Academy adopted this name from 1939 onwards it is stated.
OSCAR award has now become “the stuff dreams are made of”!
It is a gold-plated statuette of a knight 13.5 inches in height, weighing 8.5 pounds, was designed by MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons.
Annually awarded for honouring and encouraging excellence in all
facets of motion picture production.

Movies During the Great Depression Era (1929-1941):
Musicals and dance movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers provided escapism and good entertainment during this age.
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it
backwards and in high heels,” - the Critics had said.
This compatible pair entertained the viewers for almost one and
a half decade.
During the ‘30s, gangster movies were popular starring James Cagey, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson.
While family movies had their popular child artist Shirley Temple.
Swashbuckler films of the Golden Age saw the sword fighting scenes of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn.
Flynn got idolized playing ‘Robin Hood’, this film got released in
1938 on the big screen!
Story of the American Civil War got presented in the epic ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939) with Clarke Gable and Vivian Leigh.
This movie received 8 Oscars including the award for the Best Film, - creating a landmark in motion picture’s history!
More serious movies like John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and
John Ford’s  ‘How Green Was My Valley’, were released in 1940 and 1941 respectively.
While the viewers escaped that depressive age to the magical world
of  ‘Wizard of Oz’ with its actress Judy Garland most eagerly!
Let us not forget John Wayne the King of the Westerns, who began
his acting career in the 1930s with his movie ‘The Big Trail’;
He went on to complete 84 films before his career came to an end.
Beginning of the 40s also saw Bob Hope and the crooner Bing Crosby, who entertained the public and also the fighting troops.
For the Second World War (1939-45) had interrupted the Golden Age of Hollywood.
When actors like Henry Fonda, Clarke Gable, James Stewart and
Douglas Fairbanks joined the armed forces temporarily leaving
Hollywood.
Few propaganda movies supporting the war efforts were also made.
While landmark movies like ‘Philadelphia Story’, ‘Casablanca’, ‘Citizen Kane’,
‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, were some of the most successful movies of that decade.  (The 1940s)
Now I come towards the end of my Hollywood Story with the decade  of the 1950s, thereby extending the period of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Since having past the Great Depression and the Second World War,  the Hollywood movie industry truly matured and came of age.

                        HOLLYWOOD  OF  THE  1950s

BACKGROU­ND:
The decade of the ‘50s was known for its post-war affluence and
choice of leisure time activities.
It was a decade of middle-class values, fast-food restaurants, and
drive-in- movies;
Of ‘baby-boom’, all-electric home, the first credit cards, and new fast moving cars like the Ford, Plymouth, Buick, Hudson, and Chevrolet.
But not forgetting the white racist terrorism in the Southern States!
This era saw the beginning of Cold War, with Eisenhower
succeeding Harry S. Truman as the American President.
But for the film industry, most importantly, what really mattered  
was the advent of the Domestic TV.
When the older viewers preferred to stay at home instead of going
out to the movies.
By 1950, 10.5 million US homes had a television set, and on the
30th December 1953, the first Color TV went on sale!
Film industries used techniques such as Cinemascope, Vista Vision,
and gimmicks like 3-D techniques,
To get back their former movie audience back on their seats!
However, the big scene spectacle films did retain its charm and
fantasy.
Since fantasy epics like ‘The Story of Robin Hood’, and Biblical epics like ‘The Robe’, ‘Quo Vadis’, ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘Ben-Hur’, did retain its big screen visual appeal.
‘The Robe’ released on 16th September 1953, was the first film shot
and projected in Cinema Scope;
In which special lenses were used to compress a wide image into a
standard frame and then expanded it again during projection;
Resulting in an image almost two and a half times as high and also as wide, - captivating the viewers imagination!

DEMAND FOR NEW THEMES DURING THE 1950s :
The idealized portrayal of men and women since the Second World War,
Now failed to satisfy the youth who sought exciting symbols for rebellion.
So Hollywood responded with anti-heroes with stars like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Paul Newman.
They replaced conventional actors like Tyron Power, Van Johnson, and Robert Taylor to a great extent, to meet the requirement of the age.
Anti-heroines included Ava Gardner, Kim Novak, and Marilyn Monroe with her vibrant *** appeal;
She provided excitement for the new generation with a change of scene.
Themes of rebellion against established authority was present in many Rock and Roll songs,
Including the 1954 Bill Hailey and His Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
The era also saw rise to stardom of Elvis Presley the teen heartthrob.
Meeting the youthful aspirations with his songs like ‘Jailhouse Rock’!
I recall the lyrics of this 1957 film ‘Jailhouse Rock’ of my school days, which had featured the youth icon Elvis:
   “The Warden threw a party in the county jail,
     The prison band was there and they began to wail.
     The band was jumping and the joint began to sing,
     You should’ve heard them knocked-out jail bird sing.
     Let’s rock, everybody in the whole cell block……………
     Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone,
     Little Joe was blowing the slide trombone.
     The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang!
     The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang,
      Let's rock,.................... (Lyrics of the song.)

Rock and Roll music began to tear down color barriers, and Afro-
American musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard became
very popular!
Now I must caution my readers that thousands of feature films got  released during this eventful decade in Hollywood.
To cover them all within this limited space becomes an impossible
task, which may kindly be understood !
However, I shall try to do so in a summarized form as best as I could.

BOX OFFICE HITS YEAR-WISE FROM 1950 To 1959 :
Top Ten Year-Wise hit films chronologically are: Cinderella (1950),
Quo Vadis, The Greatest Show on Earth, Peter Pan, Rear Window,
Lady and the *****, Ten Commandments, Bridge on the River
Kwai, South Pacific, and Ben-Hur of 1959.

However Taking The Entire Decade Of 1950s Collectively,
The Top Films Get Rated As Follows Respectively:
The Ten Commandments, followed by Lady and the *****, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Bridge on the River Kwai, Around the World in Eighty Days, This is Cinerama, The Greatest Show on Earth, Rear Window, South Pacific, The Robe, Giant, Seven Wonders of the World, White Christmas, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Sayonara, Demetrius and the Gladiator, Peyton Place, Some Like It Hot, Quo Vadis, and Auntie Mame.

Film Debuts By Rising Stars During The 1950s :
The decade of the ‘50s saw a number of famous film stars making
their first appearance.
There was Peter Sellers in ‘The Black Rose’, Marlon Brando in
‘The Men’, and actress Sophia Loren in ‘Toto Tarzan’.
Following year saw Charles Bronson in ‘You Are in the Navy Now’,
Audrey Hepburn in ‘Our Wild Oats’, and Grace Kelly, the future
Princess of Monaco, in her first film ‘Fourteen Hours’. (1951)
While **** Brigitte Bardot appeared in 1952 movie ‘Crazy for Love’; and 1953 saw Steve Mc Queen in ‘******* The Run’.
Jack Lemon, Paul Newman, and Omar Sharif featured in films
during 1954.
The following year saw Clint Eastwood, Shirley Mc Lean, Walter
Matthau, and Jane Mansfield, all of whom the audience adored.
The British actor Michael Cain appeared in 1956; also Elvis Presley
the youth icon in ‘Love Me Tender’ and as the future Rock and Roll
King!
In 1957 came Sean Connery, followed by Jack Nicholson, Christopher Plummer, and Vanessa Redgrave.
While the closing decade of the ‘50s saw James Coburn, along with
director, script writer, and producer Steven Spielberg, make their
debut appearance.

Deaths During The 1950s: This decade also saw the death of actors
like Humphrey Bogart, Tyron Power and Errol Flynn.
Including the death of producer and director of epic movies the
renowned Cecil B. De Mille!
Though I have conclude the Golden Age of Hollywood with the 50’s Decade,
The glitz and glamour of its Oscar Awards continue even to this day.
With its red carpet and lighted marquee appeal and fashion display!

CONTINUING THE HOLLYWOOD STORY WITH FEW TITBITS :
From Fort Lee of New Jersey we have travelled west to Hollywood,
California.
From the silent movie days to the first ‘talking picture’ with Warren
Bros’ film ‘The Jazz Singer’.  (06 Oct 1927)
On 31st July 1928 for the first time the audience heard the MGM’s
mascot Leo’s mighty roar!
While in July 1929 Warren Bros’ first all-talking and all- Technicolor
Film appeared titled - ‘On With The Show’.
Austrian born Hedy Lamarr shocked the audience appearing **** in a Czechoslovak film ‘Ecstasy’!  (1933)
She fled from her husband to join MGM, becoming a star of the
‘40s and the ‘50s.
The ‘Private Life of Henry VII’ became the first British film to win the  American Academy Award.  (1933)
On 11Dec 1934, FOX released ‘Bright Eyes’ with Shirley Temple,
who became the first Child artist to win this Award!
While in 1937 Walt Disney released the first full animated feature
film titled - ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarf ‘.
The British film director Alfred Hitchcock who came to
Hollywood later;
Between 1940 and 1947, made great thrillers like 'Rebecca', ‘Notorious’, ‘Rear Window’, and ‘Dial M for ******’.
But he never won an Oscar as a Director!

THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD:
This award began in 1944 by the Foreign Correspondence Association at
the 20th Century Fox Studio.
To award critically acclaimed films and television shows, by awarding a
Scroll initially.
Later a Golden Globe was made on a pedestal, with a film strip around it.
In 1955 the Cecil B. De Mille Award was created, with De Mille as its first
recipient.

THE GRAMMY AWARD:
In 1959 The National Academy of Recording and Sciences sponsored the
First Grammy Award for music recorded during 1958.
When Frank Sinatra won for his album cover ‘Only The Lonely’, but he
did not sing.
Among the 28 other categories there was Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie
for his musical Dance Band Performance.
There was Kingston Trio’s song ‘Tom Dooly’, and the ‘Chipmunk Song’,
which brings back nostalgic memories of my school days!

CONCLUDING HOLLYWOOD STORY  WITH STUDIOS OF THE 1950s

Challenge Faced by the Movie Industry:
Now the challenge before the Movie Industry was how to adjust to the
rapidly changing conditions created by the growing TV Industry.
Resulting in loss of revenue, with viewers getting addicted to
their Domestic TV screen most conveniently!

The late 1950s saw two studios REPUBLIC and the RKO go out of business!
REPUBLIC from 1935- ‘59 based in Los Angeles, developed the careers of
John Wayne and Roy Rogers, and specializing in the Westerns.
RKO was one of the Big Five Studios of Hollywood along with Paramount,
MGM, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Brothers in those days.

RKO Studio which begun with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the ‘30s,
included actress Katherine Hepburn who holds the record for four Oscars
even to this day;
And later had Robert Mitchum and Carry Grant under an agreement.
But in 1948, RKO Studio came under the control Howard Hughes the
temperamental Industrialist.
Soon the scandal drive and litigation prone RKO Studio closed, while
other Big Four Studios had managed to remain afloat!


PARAMOUNT STUDIO:
Paramount Studio split into two separate companies in 1950.
Its Theatre chain later merged with ABC Radio & Television Network;
And they created an independent Production/Distribution Network.
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope had been Paramount’s two biggest stars.
Followed by actors like Alan Ladd, William Holden, Jerry Lewis, Dean
Martin, Charlton Heston, and Dorothy Lamour.
They also had the producer/director Cecil B. De Mille producing high-
grossing Epics like ‘Samson & Delilah’ and ‘The Ten Commandments’.
Also the movie maker Hal Wallis, who discovered Burt Lancaster and
Elvis Presley - two great talents!

20th CENTURY FOX:
Cinema Scope became FOX’s most successful technological innovation
with its hit film ‘The Robe’. (1953)
Its Darryl Zanuck had observed during the early ‘50s, that audience  
were more interested in escapist entertainments mainly.
So he turned to FOX to musicals, comedies, and adventure stories.
Biggest stars of FOX were Gregory Peck & Susan Hayward; also
stars like Victor Mature, Anne Baxter, and Richard Wind Mark.
Not forgetting Marilyn Monroe in her Cinema Scope Box Office hit
movie - ‘How to Marry a Millionaire’, which was also shown on
prime time TV, as a romantic comedy film of 1953.

WARREN BROTHERS:
During 1950 the studio was mainly a family managed company with
three brothers Harry, Albert, and Jack Warren.
To meet the challenges of that period, Warren Bros. released most of
its actors like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Oliver de Havilland, -
Along with few others from their long-term contractual commitments;
Retaining only Errol Flynn, and Ronald Regan who went on to become
the future President.
Like 20th Century Fox, Warren Bros switched to musicals, comedies,
and adventure movies, with Doris Day as its biggest musical star.
The studio also entered into short term agreements with Gary Copper,
John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Patricia Neal, and Random Scott.
Warren Bros also became the first major studio to invest in 3-D
production of films, scoring a big hit with its 3-D  suspense thriller
‘House of Wax’ in 1953.

MINOR STUDIOS were mainly three, - United Artists, Columbia, and
The Universal.
They did not own any theatre chain, and specialized in low-budgeted
‘B’ Movies those days.
Now to cut a long story short it must be said, that Hollywood finally
did participate in the evolution of Television industry, which led to
their integration eventually.
Though strategies involving hardware development and ownership of
broadcast outlets remained unsuccessful unfortunately.
However, Hollywood did succeed through program supply like prime-
time series, and made-for-TV films for the growing TV market making
things more colorful!
Thus it could be said that the TV industry provided the film industry
with new opportunities,  laying the groundwork for its diversification
and concentration;
That characterized the entertainment industry during the latter half  
of our previous century.
I must now confess that I have not visited the movie theatre over the last
two decades!
I watch movies on my big screen TV and my Computer screen these days.
Old classical movies are all available on ‘You Tube’ for me, and I can watch
them any time whenever I am free!
Thanks for reading patiently, - Raj Nandy.
**ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR RAJ NANDY OF NEW DELHI

Hip Service
By Julian Malek

The zeal of cobblestone tolerance arrayed in fashionable hues masquerading as crimson secrecy, elevates the tide of man but some boats leak in their foundations. Therefore a cork to every exuberance and a triumphant torch for every sorrow lives onward in collective time. Larks that abound because prescience and PUGET sound, that brown has become the new orange which in turn prowls as a concealed swarthy black. To antagonize the willful and frenetic pace, a prodrome of lasting but memorialized disgrace. Should I move to a state by first or last name, or is the final appellation worthy of much more lasting fame. I scurry down the aisles, bemused by shimmering tiles and the beguiled audiences who see much in my limitation but doubt little about my debited elation. Ringmaster Barnum, how much horticulture is needed for assured superstardom, how many cloisters must we evacuate from the incendiary plumes of a metaphorical Harlem..  But know that no virtual reality can supplant the reality that does truly exist, or at least our time is too infernal and purblind to resist. Carrey the tops of mountains in the humor of wellsprings and fountains, we engage a menagerie of egos lilting of an etiolated pragmatic concern. Evicted from paradise, littered with say-cheese demise ensnaring three blind mice eaten alive by snake-eyed vice. To feel good without incorporated tyranny, we must see blue and red as alternatives to the same destiny. A world that reckons with the futilitarianism of pacified malcontent and astroturf monikers that lead the impressionable into a slaughter shed. Established or not, any enchantment under the sea must include fishes once a pastiche of me, but to them I avoid their courtesy flush and never even faintly blush as my egalitarian statements are lavish thrush.

Five TO Won baby one in 99, everyone here aboard the titanic stays alive, you got your boat baby and I got mine, gonna make it with babies numbered in surreal primes. Halt the slots game the nines, a stitch in time is going to turn out to be Mine. Flanger goals, girded piles, liminal like an aborted Harry Styles, we climb mountains we issue tithes, and the turmoil is etched into 45-notched bludgeons and two-tucked knives. Excuse you, where have you been all day, have you been sauntering in a gentle rain or a genteel pain, have you wallowed beyond the mires of doubt and ranked above David Blaine. I hope you tell me of your magic tricks, rather than your other flicks endeared I stand to fight an ineradicable itch. But if not, you placid pond dented by so many rocks and so many ripples give your heart over to me, before I clinch the special Olympics *******, we ran, we span the homespun garments of your left and right hand, but death is a specter that ghoulishly carouses along the carousel terminal disease we call life. I beseech your deepest affection and want to console you for your deepest struggle, to be there every time wed with time rather than a throttled scuttle. Moons make you guarded but maroons leave me desiccated, don’t ever let that wilted flower die, always water it with a rich but gentle ties and widened deck for all to at once marvel and pry.  Monsters of Mars Attacks once flanked my bed, as though the **** brain scared every gooseflesh and restrained every frisson of mystery. I lampoon myself for those cold Dark Knights and the protection ended by the plight of the poor mattering nothing to the deliberately internecine rich. I struck gold in a valley somewhere, an oxymoron of paradox that now you have the privilege to dock, to stay aboard to be a vessel of peace less widely deplored. Even if we don’t sprout wings, we garner the exactitude of measured things and our glass elevator though easily shattered by the glower of enslavement is actually our vista to heaven or listening to brethren tingles for rich mans trinkets and other things. For humanity deserves a legend and a princess, a regimented desuetude and a flanged lust but in our mistakes wildly flouted in momentary moments we become purified by the temptations of an alabaster palace.

***** the left-field wisdom of a pragmatic paragon ellipsis in prison, slip between the cracks and let my suburban muse become your urban ruse. To enchant a caged world beyond a reality delicately and deliberately unfurled. Squirming toads on highways enchanted but dead, are graves for the blue becoming purple in every dignified red. Gainsay assaults me with platitude, a repeated hitter quit on the first bunted ball into foul-line territory. Those gripes are swiped right in all circumstance no matter the plight. The pronged hearing of a trident sensitive to ambient collection, and suddenly we are all in the mad house even though the house of profaned pain is much worse. Glimpses of gambits that gambol for nickels in transit as occult grenades and known dice waddle through without artifice or device, and the laughter and slaughter that trains collegiate minds, differs no more than the tropes of a glamorous violence articled in sordid rhymes. This surfing movie means so much more than Surf Wax America pristine in limited but sacrilege nirvana. Teen spirits smell muskier than 90s pop dreams, the grasp and grunge of gouged eyes becomes a mummified staid, a scarecrow to those who disobey. Childhood flashes with blinding light, and new sight illuminates darkening blight, A blight eradicated only by two magazines and including one that houses the bullets that ***** themselves between death and comatose dreams both within astral sight. Littoral harbor on a seaside town, a shanty with a brackish gown that glides the gourmand to the cosmopolitan eatery on the outskirts of lost & found. But forever lost in embonpoint and forever gained in chavish that exonerates the gaunt, the etiolated prince in heart becomes irrefutable marrow in minded souls.

If I am a spy you are an ESPY, and if I cry than you are a baby,but since neither are the case my wiseacres will cultivate lava lamp dreams for a new generation and suddenly Boston bets on Harvard, but who knows of this piped blather squirming for relevance rather than voguish but temporary chatter. My regatta knows how to swim, my life now knows how to cringe and yet still win and in stilted plays of bungled sincerity the God of peace reminds us of our transcendent personalities. That we in sincerity top the barnacles of invention a novelty but a rarity. But the guillotine quill of emboldened unscripted parvenus ruthless in their eager dues, outdate and outlive the sued swayed blues that indemnify Clinton and make the atomic dog an amazing Winston hill a church often in sheltered disuse. Imps and urchins sting the sentiment, cloy the alimony of repentant betterment, but neither touches the gilded skies of pleonasm striving for raspy disguise as to dissuade further diatribe investigation. Lurking in those scared days of youth, the gore of unalloyed horror scourged me with a limp, that compassion itself could ever become a gimp. Now years later athletics better and scoring goals making the mildew sweat and the years wetter, not a global warming that can be alarmed by global mourning. Take peace at heart if distanced spears of separation make Idiocracy as a pastiche look exceedingly smart. And spar only with the true antagonists bridging malevolence with expedience. Killjoys sure, will joy even more sure, but still boys fluttered heart stopping dead at a stop-watched alarm the worst tragedy of our sordid sort. Give an African Child a real home rather than a spatial roam, a palatial desiccation of momentary Jonas Brothers snapping back at captives with sexualized foam.

Narrative blinds shuttered in an Island among mountains hardly ever wiser to sanitize the sanitarium among the wasps of stung power. Police crumple their uniforms as they prowl down the avenues, looking for misfits and widened platitudes. Somehow that the vigilance of those corrupted by their very career choice, look even worse when megalomania of private is the limelight of public, to their defense few turrets I can muster but castles in the sky will be the apartheid judge. Those that cling to virtue to eradicate Porsche-driven faked or real deaths at the most breakneck speed, that Fast & Furious operation if disclosed completely would turn the Shire of the ring into the hatred curtailed by a song in Sing-Sing. Immunity must not Yoda implore, that livery Liverpool marooned on islands can also to deplore the R.E.D. and still whet the sharpened stead and the fly-by-night Manchester United alights like militant peer pressure for wranglers in tights. But beating the Beatles at a game of Walruses and egg-shelled eyeful towers likely impedes rinkside hockey from anything over bellicose ballyhoo…it exists as a transient fixated glower. But who knows about soccer speculation when love is the transcendent temptation, when nest-egg hens rather than neglecting rig Bens of clockwork and clocked words designed arise better for their token ken. Do I must repeat the subtext of submarines, yellowed as though ugly unused as though unseen, as though the quixotic earthquakes of tintinnabulations Avatar dreams. Wafted souls console the disheartened thoughts of a dashed dream that Berlin hates more than a Furor’s unbridled and useless scream.
Demotic clips slinging from the bedridden silence of a token moon and its token friends, swimming in a shore of ambiguity whether history mellows or whether its furor melts away momentary doubts. I want to avoid the sting rays exorcised by due providence and become the amalgamated talents gentry and of course the upstart swagger of Jack Dawson. But with the psy-op going on, the people manipulated on all sides of a gray picket fence will the relationship bloom without muttered dissent or pretended smiles. Will we take upon the shuffled shuttle and dig with shovels deep-rooted Christmas trees and toast our lives to Dos Equis. We may never go out of style, but the treacle of illuminated imagery when divorced from sentiment bristle shows a swagger that prioritizes rather than amalgamates all love. I love being brash and brazen and honest because when she finally ditches the grandstand of delayed frenemies fandoms of other tinsel decorations without any substance beyond meretricious thrill. You want a roller coaster on some days, but most often you want the nutcracker to elope to secret hiding places. Swim with adventure not just in love, not just in affection with the starlight now matter how luminous, sixpence all the richer is no centuries any poorer and we could be that gilded couple of star and screen and if we ever have to scream, let our screams unite us in passion, rather than a milquetoast deference to pedestaled beauty. but of course the end times don’t laugh at your crumpled wizened relapse. Not out of convenience wed by a discriminating genetic harvest moon but a deeper engagement that flatters when stylish and bristles when romantic but never defiled, never riled of specious pretense. Promise me that you will always remember me in my flaws and my faults, in my scause factory destructions and the penults of PEN-ULTIMATE wisdom that comes before the grace of God in the annihilation of passion for eroded omission. If your goal is to be remembered, check that out…but the most admirable goal is as the propinquities of souls dusted in the wind returning to a spring equinox of passion and if you find in yourselves reservations do not depart from sacred land, and never jilt me because of a boisterous and menacing friend. You are everything to me right now, and I Hope this persists despite the vicissitudes of star-favored afflictions mixed with utter benediction without the pontification of stilted Benedictines  or rather the hyped ludic effrontery of termagants being made of younger and younger women. Leave it at this ,32 leaves the royal secret in royal hands and the Knights Templar and us we altogether hold hands, if only a prelude for a masquerade ball. But the stilted embarrassment of crestfallen time, let that be relegated and emphatically lets embrace what is like to not ever need a real white horse to get back into your favor, because we never go out of style we can brandish the best elements and reject the sentiments of the too newfangled and the too stodgy. We in our crenellated pleonasm can eager ride the lightning to another tomorrow and another yesterday and if even not that, we virtually make an indelible impression of embroidered love not too distant in ivory towers and not to vulgary( catering to popular sentiments) to become a trash glam movement. We soar, others deplore but let their purblind doubts render them blind to our burgeoning love.

Forget the brisk trees dangled in the wind on winding paths through haunted forest or remember them because of ghoulish fortress but with our apotropaic lamp we can avert most evil and call the rest fun and gains and shun but fames never profaned, never inalterable a destiny to magical to be some whimpered catcall. Or we could linger beneath lambent street lights disguised as though wilted garb, attrition of circumstance waiting patiently for the matinee and the vintner to escort us beyond the garb of pretense in a city so abundant with it that it deserves castigation. But I digress, a beachside cliff overlooking tepid waters tumultuous in their power but august in their noises, the cadence of love will sing a half-moon bay on full-moon nights and we will frisk each other like grasping at straws of permanent tracks trammeled of the elite and a sidetracked basque bet. Trim those antlers and instead grow metaphorical wings, to us we all sing but few can match your elegance and everyone would be crazy not to see your ennobled age and together thrilling songs to emulate thriller in sales we will collaboratively sing.
Haughty sneers from lifeless lycanthropy straggling furtively along the pastiched sidewalks of grime, livid because they can’t share the lingering limelight, with as many guarded perks of privacy clambering like a hive of snarky sharks. Lets ditch the big town dreams in terms of posh and stature if only for a caressed moment beneath the unadulterated stars and if you find spars **** to the extent they are amiable than I say guess what my name is Lars! Or wait a second, paused in the big city spotlight our stenciled hearts will guide whatever progeny is yours or mine or ours together we will sing the most comforting lullaby, and caves no longer must we abide. Yearn and earn every inch, as I gripe with my delicate saddened pinch but I think the innuendo speaks . Ripen with our trips to Napa, long afternoon sunsets swim in our hearts as we taste the vanguard’s toast on elegant wine.I console with entreaty to disavow the omen of that San Franciscan church October 2008, the doom implied by Einstein, the raillery of a world grinding down the endless decadence of a railed future inalterable in destiny or partialy amenable to widespread coquetry.

Forget those rumbles in your past that made you feel partial to insecurity and learning the ropes you transcended all and live in all eternity. Thimble and brook, tolerant of all those tokes I took your rebellious side flattens the yeast of Exodus raspy in its begrudged clapping. But the Pharaoh of the modern world sheltered me under his prickly thorns, shielded me from the sickly things that life adorns. We have the numbers on our side, the weight of destiny on our shoulders, dedicate yourself to yourself and I will preen the most vibrant wisdom and love will leap like Apollo across all borders not for camel-****** hoarders. We are culminated destiny in the wings of the best daydream

there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia

by
Alexander  K  Opicho
Eldoret,Kenya
(aopicho@yahoo.com)

Ladbrokes, the online betting firm has once again nominated Ngugi wa Thiong'o as a candidate for Nobel prize in literature 2014.The firm arrives at the probable nominee through a highly polished probabilist mechanism.It also nominated Ngugi as the probable candidate for literature Nobel prize, but the final was Alice Munro the Canadian short story writress.The eventuality of Ngugi winning the literature Nobel prize is a long a waited event in Africa , especially among Kenyans.
However, Ngugi is not the only nominee , he is among others and even to make it worse he is not the top scoring nominee. He has tied with four  others at the score of 50/1 points.These  are; Umberto Eco who wrote the famous book In the Name of the Rose, Nuruddin Farah a Kenya *** Somalian veteran poet and prose writer   and   then Darcia Maraini.
There are eleven writers of global stature who are currently scoring above Ngugi wa Thiong'o.They are operating at the level of 50/1 scores. These include ;Margaret Atwoo d, Salman Rushdie, Cees Nooteboom, Don DeLillo, Amos Oz, Javier Marias, Cormac McCarthy , Bob Dylan, Peter Handke, William Trevor and Les Murray . The missing writer in this category of global writers is Yan Martel the author of Life of Mr. Pi , whose also on the list of the favourite writers of president Barrack Obama.His book Life of Mr. Pi once shared  a prize and equivalent acclaim with Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Legs. So, why Martel was not nominated remains the usual intrigues of Nobel nomination process.
Haruki Murakami ,Assia Djebar,Svetlana Aleksijevitj , Peter Nadas, Joyce Carol Oates , Adonis ,Milan Kundera , Philip Roth , Mircea Cartarescu, Ko Un , Jon Fosse  and Thomas Pynchon  are currently scoring below Ngugi.They are operating between 10/1 and 26/1 scores.However among them Haruki Murakami, Joyce Carol Oates and Phillip Roth were very story contenders and hence competeters for the same prize with Ngugi during last year.But Joyce Carol Oates is a weaker contender this year given than he recently wrote an offensive and tortuous poem against the eminent American  poet Robert Frost .  Oates drew from the book Lovely, Dark and  Deep  which   paints the  Frost  as an arrogant, sexist pig who gave up on his mentally ill children. The story has outraged Frost’s fans, biographers, and  his survivors.
Inspite of all these there is no literary value that can make Ngugi wa Thiong'o to deserve a Nobel prize reward for  Literature. Apart from his first  two books weep not child and the river between that had concrete literary position, his later works are pamphlets of communism , that keep of regurgitating communism as initially written by Karl Marx and France Fanon.His second last book Globalectics is written as annual lectures in respect of Rene Wellek, the books is a practical duplication of Paulo Freire , and Spivak Gavatri.His contemporaries at the University of Nairobi accusing him of tribalism when it came to supervising post graduate students. he was soft on his fellow Kiguyu's and discriminative agains Luo and Luhyia students.He lifestyle as communist ideologue is also self defeating as teaches in america at Irvine University , very busy amassing wealths just like any other capitalist.He campaign for vernacular writing is egually not water tight on the bench of praxis, as he himself teaches special English in America but not kiguyu language.
Another stunning revelation from the Swedish academy is nomiantion of Vladimir Putin the Russian president for Nobel peace prize alongside fifty something  organizations as competitors.the nominations is based on his role he played in the Nuclear disarmament of Syria.The Ukraine question has not been yet raised.But logic of these goes like historical imbroglio that puzzled the world in relation to the role of ****** in relation communism against the then gathering storm for the second world war.

Are you the one?
Whose words can soothe my soul;
The one with the heart of gold.

Are you the one?
The restless fowl in the night sky;
Scoring over the clouds up high.

Are you the one?
Who can bring me back to life;
Cause I am dead of being alive.

Are you the one?
Will you set me free?
Or, will you bind me to an eternity?

Are you the one?
Whom I have been seeking all my life;
Teach me, teach me how it feels to be alive.








Tanay Sengupta, Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved.

There are only two ways to truly know someone: sleep with them or take them bowling.
Phoenix Aime was the woman of my dreams. So, I took her bowling.

Paid for a game. Rented shoes. Got the little, sticky bracelet thingy that said Slippery Joe Lanes.
That way if we got in some sort of accident on the way home,
the guy at the morgue could identify us as bowlers. Anyway, here's the bulleted list of what I knew about Phoenix up to that point:

• She looked like Diane Keaton circa 1972
• She talked with great pretension concerning craft beer
• She only patronized two restaurants: Denny's and IHOP
• She was eight years older than me
• She kissed my sister once on a dare
• Her shoe size was 7
• She was perfect or a near synonym

The bowling alley was empty save a World War II vet in a wheelchair and his wife at lane six,
and they were barely there. Country music played over the loud speaker. And I felt cozy. Predictable. Like a payment plan on the QVC.

That was until Phoenix said, "I forgot something. I'm going to go talk to Mack real quick."
Mack worked the front desk, according to his name tag. Talk to Mack. She just talked to Mack. Mack was sleeping with her. I untied my shoelaces. Oh, Mack, love your red polo with blue tiger stripes.
I pulled my sneakers off. Oh, Mack, I love it when you dip your finger in nacho cheese and feed it to me. Slid my right foot into bowling shoe. Halfway in with the left, and my socked foot struck something plastic. A stick of tiny deodorant. Like unsavory truck-stop-to-truck-stop deodorant. Oh, Mack, I love it when you deodorize -- so hard. Pull the strings tight on the left shoe. Oh, Mack, rub the deodorant until your underarms are SO CHALKY AND WHITE.

"You okay?" Phoenix asked.

"Yeah, what do I look like something's wrong?"

She carried a seafoam green bowling ball with a ****** Mary insignia. "It looks like you triple-knotted your shoes there."

And I said something dumb like, better safe than sorry.

"Sorry about leaving you all alone. Mack holds onto my ***** for me," she said.  I bet he does. "I hate talking to that guy." What? "He's a vegan."

Now, at that time in my life, I was a vegan. And had planned some stirring remarks about the processing of sweet little piggies into cancerous hot dog machines on the way to pick her up. Thought she would think me full of passion, "on fire" for a cause, you know? The wise thing would have been to say, oh well, I'm a vegan. But instead I asked, "What do you mean?"

"You know serial killer's get a last meal before they're executed, right?"

"Right." Where the hell is this going?

"Well, have you ever heard of someone on death row requesting a last meal that didn't involve some sort of animal product? Gacy had buckets of chicken, Bundy had a medium rare steak, even uh, ****, what was his name, McVeigh, Timothy McVeigh he had two pints of mint chocolate ice cream. Dairy."

"I'm not sure how this refutes veganism."

"Nobody is a vegan for their last meal. Nobody. I'm not going to subscribe to a diet that I can't follow until the very end. Live every day like your last, that's my motto."

"That's your motto." I said. To be a great listener, just repeat the last three or four things anyone says to you and raise your eyebrows a little bit. (Examples: "My dog died." -- "You're dog died.", "I never ate breakfast burritos again." -- "Never ate it again.", "I love you." -- "You love me.")

Over Phoenix's shoulder, over by lane six, the wife wheeled the World War II vet up to the lane. And he tossed the ball. Good team, I thought. Want to know someone take them to the bowling alley.

Phoenix removed a glove from her pocket. She had her own ball. Brought her own badass, jet black bowling gloves. And if her carnivorous tendencies hadn't already put a ***** in the Golden Days of Josh and Phoenix, that glove did.

She typed her name first on the scoring computer. Didn't ask if I wanted to go first. That's fine. Approached the lane, three fingers inside the ****** Mary. She brought her bony arm back with the grace of a ballerina tucked away stage right in the shadows. Mary cut from grace slid down the lane with a spin.

Strike. I couldn't really see the pins from my angle. But I recieved a transmission via the "yes" and arm pump. That was two marks against her, and I was going to three. I'd call it strikes, but well, the whole bowling skew.

Here's a bulleted list of what a "yes" and arm pump immediately taught me:

• She takes bowling serious.
• If you take bowling serious, when do you relax?
• She'd never relax.
• My life would be tucked shirts, matching belts and shoes.

For six frames, I picked up fours and sevens. Phoenix, though, nothing but strikes. I threw a gutter on frame seven. Like a normal human being, I shrugged. Made a face out the sides of my mouth. Kept it light.

"I thought you were a grown *** man," Phoenix said.

"Me too."

What happened next, I willed. I'm not god or anything like that. At the time, just cosmicly ******.
Her step stuttered. 7-10 split. "Mack!" she screamed. "Floors are slicker than a used car salesman's hair."

From across the alley,
"Sorry, Phoenix, baby. I'll bring you some nachos. That make up for it?"

"Ain't gonna knock down two pins is it?"

"So, uh, no nachos then?"

"Actually, go ahead and bring those."

She lined up. Back straight. Legs together. She rolled her neck. "You're about to see how it's done."

And I didn't. She broke it down the middle. Field goal. In that moment, that holy moment, I was knowledge plateau. Vindicated.

For about 10 seconds.

Mack swaggered over, nachos in hand. "Phoenix, sweetie, you okay?"

"Do I look okay?"

"No, that's why I asked."

"Just give me the nachos."

"Ah crap." Mack had gotten his pointer finger in the nacho cheese.

"Let me see it."

And right there, right in front the ****** Mary seafoam green bowling ball, she slurped the cheese off his finger."

Frame seven, a good as time as any to call it a match. The wife of the World War II vet kissed her husband's forehead. Handed him a ball. As I walked by, hand on shoulder. "Struck gold, dude."

only wanted to enjoy the same unusual things
with like-minded people

the concierge of dystopia fnording *******
messing around with the octopus
cyberpunk nightmare with blue sky
expect a deluge and then wonder what happened to it

evaporated anxiety due for a downpour
catacombs rented by the hour
she typically cares about those
who don't care about her
abandoning me without consequence
don't ever come back
ungrateful swine of nowhere!

loyalty exists only in a parallel universe
where they locked themselves up
and destroyed the key
they feed the rich and ignore the poor

in the end the strugglers will prevail
and the ones who had it easy will suffer
game shows that punish the ignorant

rage that never ends
scoring infinite points in basketball
and still losing the game

only wanted to enjoy the same unusual things
with like-minded people

Ask me,
Ask me now daddy.
What I want to do when I grow up.
I want to be happy.
No, not happy
I want to be happiness.
I want to be joy and cheer and admiration
Confidence and peace and optimism

I don’t want to be like others, no, I want to be love.
The smile that comes across your face when they say your name,
The look that makes your heart skip a beat,
The song that makes you rethink every second you spent together.
I don’t wanna be the poem, I wanna be the emotion behind it,
Not the first kiss, let me be the nerves,
Not the dance, let me be the excitement,
Not the Officiant, let me be the vows.

When I grow up, I don’t wanna be a doctor mommy.
I want to be the feeling when someone’s told there’s a cure,
Or when a parent finds out their child will live to be a teenager,
Or maybe I want to be 3 in the morning when a mother holds her child for the first time.

I want to be affection and adoration and passion
Oh, I want to be passion.
Let me be passion.
So that you cannot do without me, because nothing without me has meaning.
So that when you are playing the final strain or scoring the winning goal,
Or writing the last chapter or finishing the last paint stroke,
You will think of me.

Maybe I’ll be allegiance or devotion or respect.
I won’t be the soldier, I’ll be the loyalty.
Or the surprise in a child's heart when their dad comes home early,
Maybe I’ll be the feeling when a father meets his baby for the first time,
And the child already knows his name.

I want to be piety and faith and worship.
I don’t want to be the pastor, I’ll be the lesson.
Maybe I’ll be the obligation behind the first baptism or first communion.
Maybe I’ll be the words when someone so low is told someone loves them.
I’ll be the salvation of the gospel,
The redemption to the guilty,
The forgiveness to the sinners.

When I grow up,

I want to be the opposite of sorrow,
The antonym of misery,
The reverse of fear,
The contradiction of rejection,
The antithesis of disappointment,
The inverse of insecurity,
I want to be the alleviation of anxiety,
The ease of pain,

When I grow up,
I want to be happy.

I have been cheated on. He shares me with her. She is a pretty little girl. She has pretty little outfits of purple and pink and green and she always smells clean. He is gentle to her, with his touch and his lips. He smiles when she’s sweet and he laughs when she’s rough. If I hurt him, he lets me go; if she hurts him, he blames himself. She’s very good at breaking the ice when he wants a new friend and in a matter of time he is sharing her with them but he would never share me. He buys her lavish gifts of stained glass and painted ceramics. He spends all his money on her and his pocket is empty for me. I watch my diet while he shares all the sweets in the world with her. (It must be a passionate way to make love.) He tries to hide her from me, but I can smell her perfume in his hair and I can smell her scented gloss on his lips, and I know when his eyes are twinkling from something more than me. When it is the three of us, he always picks her first and he’ll pick her again and again until she’s all worn out. Some people may think she’s no good, she’s a poison, he should break it off, but others congratulate him for scoring such a beauty. That smile she brings to his face and everyone else’s who breathes her in. I have always been second but he is my first. I do not share him with her, though I think I should. If I want to fit in, if I want to be happy, if I want him to love me more. She’ll never break his heart.

"The question should not be in what ways writing and utterance trope each other, but how both are involved with number. Without relating the technology of writing to number (as opposed to sound or drawing), it is impossible to discuss it meaningfully as an aspect of versecraft."

          Courage to write and courage to not write. Read
          The great poets and highly accomplished letters
          Of leaders. Yet the war and the book have lives
          Of their own. Vacuum house, analyze mankind.
          His idea of himself. Ideas subsumed by
          Better ones unite people in melting pots.
          I watch from my little bowl of nuts. Watch
          The one red squirrel and the many gray.
          Watch the nuthatch pair, platoon of chickadees.
          Here is what I say: When we can go
          From planet to planet on nothing but air,
          Leaving behind a drop of water,
          No burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
          I’ll love my sons, and my dogs will be happy.

"What is needed is a way to pry apart the polar, mimetic fiction that undergirds discussions (even sympathetic ones) of writing and versification, and see how we can relate writing to measure. Roy Harris’ investigations into the origin of writing make this connection possible."

          Electronic millennium. A long silence
          Wouldn’t hurt. Not that the national debate
          Should cease, it should proceed, passionate
          And furious. Those who have studied the matter
          And have something to say should write cogent
          Opinion pieces on the totalitarian
          Tendencies of minaret Islamists,
          The terminal contradiction of advancing
          Democracy with the unitary military.
          George Washington would not have approved
          And even Lincoln vacillated between
          The practicalities of preserving union
          And the ideal of freeing slaves. The president
          Carries his burden of matter, the physics
          Of existence cannot change our aloneness
          Or the butterfly’s importance, the very
          Last insects at the screens of August.
          It is life we face and death we meet.

"He argues that the origin of writing did not lie in the drawing of figures, or attempts to imitate speech, but in the recording of number. According to Harris, the oldest ‘writing’ that we have, like that on the 11, 000-year-old Ishango bone, is in ‘lines.’ The surface is scored with rows of short, parallel strokes, which probably served a numerical function. We still use such scoring systems today on occasion."

          OK, different strokes. But reading North’s poems
          And his predecessors’ in which noun and verb
          Are so far separated by modifiers,
          Post-positioned prepositions, diversions
          Into ditches, gardens, heavens, I don’t know
          What to do laugh or put the book down and eat
          Several cookies. In other words, anything goes,
          There truth resides. 1/3 life in suburbs,
          1/3 on the subway, and the last third
          On the mountain. A fourth hallucinating
          In heaven. That’s how it goes. You get what you believe.
          Bones in mud. It’s always possible I suppose
          That for nine months analogous or symmetrical
          With gestation our souls wander call it limbo,
          Doing the limbo and harassing the living
          With unanswerable questions, finally accepting
          Free molecular rent in a cubic meter
          Of interstellar space, a rose hip.
         
"Harris speculates about counting by scoring:"
'What is relevant for our present purposes is the fact that counting is associated in many cultures with primitive forms of recording which have a graphically isomorphic basis... The iconic origin of such recording systems is hardly open to doubt: the notch or stroke corresponds to the human finger...'

          Partridgeberry, mugwort, mats of raspberry,
          Cranberry, bearberry, autumn eleagnus,
          Autumn Nocturne, Autumn Leaves, the changes
          To the tunes and the scientific names.
          When it doesn’t matter what you do
          You’re probably doing something new.
          That’s a woodpecker. That’s a moth. I’m bounded
          By my surroundings, I feel at home.
          Could be Schenectady. Could be Troy.
          One of many small cities in which to
          Await my anonymity. Be specific.
          Not asphalt but impermeable surface.
          Not trees but mature stems. Quercus rubrus—
          Quality veneer. Into such a garden
          Have a victor and a fool penetrated.

'In short, the rows of strokes are graphically isomorphic with just that subpart of the recorder’s oral language which comprises the corresponding words used for counting. It makes no difference whether we ‘read’ the sign pictorially as standing for so many fingers held up, or scriptorially as standing for a certain numeral.'

          In a crowded world every action results
          In an equal and overwrought reaction.
          Yet, all the energy recycles
          And there is not one thermal unit more or less
          When all is said and won. Even when the tribes
          Were isolated behind mountain ranges
          And rushing rivers, they sought each other out
          For trading and for taking. Humanity
          Is lonely. Humor is the only remedy
          And going to your daily discipline
          The only way past Monday. Join the torrential
          Flow of words, emotion, wit and erudition.
          It is embarrassing to see a good writer
          Work himself into a lather, having
          Something to say. A system of beliefs
          To illustrate, characters dressed accordingly.
          Gardens and wilderness in which to wander.
          A cave with a view. The plumbing problem never
          Resolves. But we will do what we can and
          Some things we shouldn't because that is human.

"Along with other evidence, this leads him to argue that the invention of writing–or the division of writing and drawing into separate functions–occurred when the graphic representation of number shifted from the token-iterative system that appears on the Ishango bone, to type-slotting."

          Electricity is occult enough for me.
          Excessive classifying could be fascist!
          Yet how else can one organize people
          Into contexts. By their associations.
          Family, work, habits, each assigned
          A day of the week, moon of the month.
          Poets rhyme, jazz musicians count time.
          There is more than one way to make war. By
          Declaration, by punishing offenses
          Against the law of nations, by granting letters
          Of mark and reprisal, by making rules
          Concerning captures on land and water, by
          Suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions,
          Erecting forts, magazines, arsenals,
          Dock yards and other needful buildings. Today
          I face the blank page between the finished pages.

"Harris gives the following example of what he means:"
'The progression from recording sixty sheep by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by sixty strokes to recording the same information by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by a second sign indicating ‘sixty’ is a progression which has already crossed the boundary between pictorial and scriptorial signs.'

          When my grandmother considered it favorable
          That I would be a writer, she had in mind
          Clear commentary from which many people
          Would derive meaning. No such luck. My writings
          Are like the flicking tail of that flycatcher,
          And I am the flycatcher, weighing but an ounce.
          My grandfather’s rough-hewn peasant chairs
          Are well known by my sons though they never knew him
          And the chairs were not hewn, just owned by him.
          One is in a corner of the room and two
          Are scrimmaged around a computer screen.
          Computers post-date him and cars post-date
          His father and so on. If the grid collapses,
          The crops fail and the roads close, some will be forced
          Across boundaries among boulders, naming snakes
          And stars according to memory.
          They will be hungry, mortal and strong.

'A token-iterative sign-system is in effect equivalent to a verbal sublanguage which is restricted to messages of the form ‘sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep...’, or ‘sheep, another, another, another...’, whereas an emblem-slotting system is equivalent to a sublanguage which can handle messages of the form ‘sheep, sixty’.Token-iterative lists are, in principle, lists as long as the number of individual items recorded. With a slot list, on the other hand, we get no information simply by counting the number of marks it contains.'
"When this change occurred it opened ‘a gap between the pictorial and scriptorial function of the emblematic sign’, which had been previously inseparable in the counting represented by rows of slashes."

          No book I know tells if blue cohosh
          Caulophyllum thalictroides—a barberry—
          Is edible. Other barberries are
          But that blue berry looks risky to me.
          And May-apple—Podophyllum—other
          Than the fruit itself which is definitely
          Sweet. So I read, not sure of myself.
          There is a patience with which to wait out anger,
          And a patience with which to endure ignorance.
          The job is everything. It is freedom
          And purpose and religion. It is acceptance
          And shelter and sustenance. Last night
          We were watching Tweet’s show: groveling before
          The rich pharisee’s judgements. I said no
          Amount of money could make me grovel
          Before that guy. His toupe’s gayer than his lisp.
          But who am I? You think bullets won’t ****?
          I’m the guy they put before a wall and shoot
          Then eat lunch. But that feeling passed quickly.

"This semiological gap, made writing possible because it meant that signs could be manipulated to ‘slot’, or identify, anything whatsoever. The open-ended quality of the scriptorial sign was a necessary precondition for the development of writing systems."

          Lately I’ve been copying wholesale
          From the great poems, lines and ideas not my own
          Or owned by all? It’s ok, I can be ignored
          Or appreciated in a future city,
          By a future shore. The honest man can
          Only recognize what he loves and point to it.
          That Borges poem called In Praise of Darkness.
          Emerson and snow. A meditation
          That bumps serenely, with acceptance,
          Between things and thoughts. It is said one should
          Know for whom, to whom one is writing.
          These are letters to those who love letter writing.

"As Harris points out, no writing system is accurately phonetic. Even the alphabet only highlights certain phenomena in the speech stream. The reason for this is that alphabetic writing did not begin as a simpler or more accurate way to record speech than other writing systems, but as an easier way to write."

          A possible cancer had taken me
          To the edge of my endurance. Pokeweed,
          Poisonous, became attractive. Red stems
          And juicy black berries. I had packed warm clothes
          And pain killers. Why the warm clothes if this
          Was to be my last walk? To die in comfort
          Without a fly’s buzz. Overlooking a ravine,
          Sea of mountains, dawn. But it proved a false alarm.
          Now Sunday will be a holy day of plant
          Identification. Nothing better
          Than lying in leaf litter, skin drying
          To a taut drum. Ravens stay away!
          Until cougar’s had his fill! Instead
          I showed the boys pokeweed growing among blackberries
          And taught them the differences and uses.

"Through a radical reduction in the number of signs, the alphabet simplified the scriptorial system in and of itself. The evolution of writing therefore may look like this: simple forms of counting preceded the complications of pictorial representation, which in turn led to simplification of the writing system in cultures that adopted the alphabet."

          I was running uphill, parallel to
          The Taconics extending northward into
          Vermont (I find Vermonters in their jalopies
          Annoying but admire them for planning
          To arrest the president for war crimes) when
          I happened upon a flock of cedar waxwings—
          Said to be a gentle and politic bird—
          Sharing—very orderly—dried frozen grapes
          On the vine. (Rose hips, buckthorn, ash, pokeweed.)
          I tried one, too, the two seeds in my mouth
          Keeping me company down the mountain.
          I see no downside whatsoever
          To compensating for global warming,
          Constructing the green energy economy.
          New inventions may facilitate
          Our transportation to other planets.
          Yesterday a young man, Barack Obama,
          Won Iowa. I’m hopeful he will
          Articulate an international vision,
          A world order in which each neighborhood’s
          Good as another. I have no particular
          Love for writers; they’re a dime a dozen.
          But so are chickadees and I love them!

"Discussing the power of inscriptions of number, Harris points out:"
'Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice at all is. For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched. Yet somehow they exist, and their existence can be confirmed in quite everyday terms by all kinds of humdrum procedures which allow mere mortals to agree beyond any shadow of a doubt as to ‘how many’ eggs there are in a basket or ‘how many’ loaves of bread on the table.'

          True, nature would be a stern, unforgiving
          Mistress too, and man is but her right hand
          Acting on her command. How cold! How hot!
          The individual doing what he loves or not.
          Trees and cities. Herons, hawks. What we fail
          To govern in ourselves, nature will.
          We caught the killer and his gorillas,
          Now let’s go home, let the “innocent” choose
          Up sides. A good thing was done but the tyrant
          Should’ve been undone through global governance.
          Writing is divination using rhymes
          And estimations. Words like mammals
          Come near your sleeping head. Last night I emerged
          From the hum of our refrigerator
          Under a hazy, phaseless moon. The peepers
          Were an exact expression of my happiness.

"Or, one might add, for how many stanzas there are in a poem, or lines in a stanza, or stresses, feet, or syllables in a line, or occurrences of particular syntactical or grammatical patterns, and so on. As every serious student of versification has always understood, versification is about counting language."

          5:30-6 write poetry,
          6-7 ****, shave and shower, stretch
          Then get dressed, 7-7:30
          Clean house, 7:30-8 drive to work
          8-6 work (except Monday and Friday
          Work 8-4, basketball 4-6)
          6-7 drive home, shop, help make dinner
          7-8 eat dinner, read paper,
          Watch McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,
          8-9 play trumpet, study plants, type poems
          9-10 watch TV Mon: Murphy, Cybil,
          Tues: Frazier, Grace, Wed: Roseanne, Ellen,
          Thurs: Seinfeld, Friends, Fri: go out to dinner,
          10-11 read, except Tues watch
          NYPD Blue, Fri: Friday Night Lights,
          11 sleep. I could send this to the networks,
          Get a gizmo in my box. I hope my
          Schedule won't be interrupted for war.
          My dentist asked had I seen this morning’s
          Press conference, didn’t it just scare the ****
          Out of you. I said your bill is what scares
          The **** out of me. But here I am, writing
          And the sphere’s still turning. Or should I say
          Burning. As long as you write one poem per day
          You’ve left a little litter in the world.

"The reason to write verse is less to score the voice than to imbue words with the magical quality of counting. That is why meter, or measure, is at the heart of debates over all verse forms, including free verse."

          Vigorous wind, voracious ocean,
          Many merciless hard frosts, hurricanes.
          The bed of a human, its smell and warmth
          36 teeth, 46 chromosomes, 2 feet, a loose dime,
          61 summers, some soot, some sand,
          Thunderstorms. I wake up to a lightning strike
          And my dream incinerates. When they say
          Life is but a dream, that’s what they mean.
          The writer working hard, telling the story
          Of what happened yesterday or yesteryear,
          A man’s born to a country not his choosing,
          Let labor flow like capital, of mere being!
          Pomegranate juice, broccoli, arugula,
          Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower,
          Collard greens, kale, radishes, turnips,
          Garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, 2 lbs
          Swordfish, tomatoes (8 medium),
          3 cups almonds, carrots, a sweet potato,
          Winter squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, watermelon.
          2 daily writing exercises,
          50 words on any subject: complaint, headache.
          The imagination applies a
          Countervailing pressure to reality.
          Writing badly is the best revenge.

"Number is one of the creative grounds of poetry, and the idea that writing grew out of counting is the missing link in studies of the graphic in versification. It is almost uncanny that lines of verse look exactly like the most primitive ways of counting–parallel scorings that can be numbered."

          What you do to one side of the equation
          You gotta do to the other. Isolate
          The variable. Combine like terms. Metaphors
          And analogs are reduced to least common
          Denominators. Multiply through (parentheses).
          Write a new equation after each operation.
          Inscribe neatly. Check your work. Imagine
          That if you’re wrong, the astronauts burn.
          Change the signs which will avoid going
          The wrong way down the number line. Zero
          Is the middle of your universe.
          There it is, calm, comfortable as an egg
          On a spoon. That is, before possibilities
          Become probabilities. This is just
          Another equation manipulated
          With opposable digits. For at the ends
          Of your guns is the earliest calculator
          A magical machine which converts
          Numbers to words and words to numbers,
          Measures the mists, frequency and wavelength,
          Of the material penumbra.

"Verses are countable in exactly the way that token-iterative digits are countable, from either end of the sequence. Each one indicates only its singularity, not a number. Every poem in lines effaces, or predates, the distinction between writing and drawing in the same way as the lines on the Ishango bone."

1967 san francisco is transformed into city of missing children haight ashbury brims with scraggly orphans thousands sit on street curbs live in cars hang out on floors of shops roam streets parks sleep on sidewalks unthinkable social cultural phenomenon Odysseus embraces madness walking through different neighborhoods going without food sleep in golden gate park floral smells so strong he can taste flowers kids openly pass joints acid doses trip dance make music laugh Odysseus is risk-taker but he is not street smart along with flocks of totally wasted kids street hustlers abound Odysseus sets down backpack beside eucalyptus tree rests when he wakes backpack is gone he is penniless disconnected hitchhikes across bay to berkeley less congested more manageable meets some runaways like him but not like him they squatter in abandoned house off telegraph avenue maybe 20 hippies crashing in house Odysseus adopts enormous closet hidden in back bedroom as his space has small window feels like sanctuary sometimes he comes home finds 5 or 6 kids sleeping in closet in a way people in house become his family tribe some of people are suspicious especially older secretive man with 2 tongue-tied underage girls whom he claims are his daughters Odysseus suspects veiled ****** exploitation girls are lovely yet behave frightened repressed life on street does not come easy telegraph avenue overflows with lost souls searching to hook-up fragrance of frankincense drifts amidst music drug deals rip-offs bullying brawls hierarchy from hell’s angels down Odysseus stays high dances sometimes panhandles “i live in commune with 2 pregnant girls” whatever cash he collects scores acid **** subsists on diet of gum candy sunflower pumpkin seeds sometimes ketchup with french fries his acne crescendos he learns if he drops acid daily by third or fourth day he cannot get off no matter how much he doses tries peyote cactus buttons after waiting nearly hour to get off he suffers stomachache dizziness projectile vomits finally flies into freaky hallucinations he swallows mescaline capsules feels sick to his stomach forgets about his nausea trips for 9 hours tries psilocybin mushrooms laughing straight through night experiments with stp trips for 3 days Bobby Stern and Martha Quigley come out from chicago to visit they are curious about the scene need to hook up Odysseus introduces them to his friends shows them telegraph avenue he turns and they have vanished he does not know where they have gone everybody is losing everybody new kids show up everyday oakland **** named red rat kidnaps Martha is heiress from distinguished chicago family their disappearance makes chicago papers after week Bobby and Martha manage to escape they never reveal to Odysseus what red rat did to them radio plays doors’ “light my fire” and jimi hendrix’s "purple haze" Odysseus has crush on beautiful blonde Patty she  ran off for summer from her parent’s home in sunset section of san francisco Odysseus and Patty hang out go see country joe and fish in provo park on sundays hitchhike into city watch Jefferson Airplane play for free in golden gate park hitchhike to marin see Grateful Dead jam at muir beach dude hands out free acid Odysseus is total acidhead acid reveals everything in new intensified light *** on acid is beyond *** wilder than *** more primal *** so intense it transcends limits of eroticism acid helps Odysseus realize his true self his pain sadness tears lies crazy-*** side first tingling tremors in stomach chest hands then initial flashes of sparkle traces of color echoes of giggling laughter lucid thoughts sometimes he swallows such large doses all he can do is stare out at white light what is it about massive hits of acid? measure of how fierce his spirit? self-punishment? escapism? he wonders why he so desperately needs to escape from what whom? himself? Mom’s numerous efforts to convince him he is mentally disturbed? Dad’s fists? escape from real world to where? Odysseus hangs with Pluto skinny 16 year old ****-addict golden wavy hair rotting teeth finesse with girls Pluto claims crystal **** enhances *** more than acid needles frighten Odysseus he lets one of Pluto’s girls hit him up with methamphetamine feels sudden overwhelming rush through head body forgets about needle before it ever leaves his arm having been initiated Odysseus begins scoring with Pluto’s girls Pluto knows tons of girls Odysseus loves feeling numb free being out of control not giving a **** getting ****** ****** by pretty girl if he could have his way he would go from ****** to ****** with pretty girl all day every day deep in drug induced state because drugs lower inhibitions allow them to explore some sick disgusting stuff that is paradise for Odysseus he is rapidly slipping into street life drug addiction wakes up with ants crawling in his hair witnesses numerous fights freak-outs 2 different kids o.d. while he is present lots of creepy stuff  by early august realizes he might wind up dead soon or rotting like Pluto Odysseus has spirit but troubled by what he sees troubled enough to return home go back to school he feels lost desperate alone not thinking plots drug deal swindle double-crosses some people guilt and shame for conning people haunts him for years he gives Pluto half the money tells him to share with Patty with his cut buys ticket back to chicago Penelope is first to greet him she gives him big hug comments “you need a shower and shave real bad!” his hair is wild scraggly beard Odysseus holds on to her he has missed his little sister glad to be near her feels panicky his parents will punish him Mom and Dad are relieved but agitated their worry and shame at his flight have turned to anger resentment they rationalize he selfishly ran off merrymaking for 3 months they sternly make plans for his next semester while Odysseus was away in california Penelope has ****** ******* for first time in back seat of Jed Zurbeck's black pontiac Penelope in secret goes to see doctor for pregnancy test doctor recognizes Penelope’s last name calls house Odysseus answers phone doctor asks to speak with Mr. or Mrs. Schwartzpilgrim Mom picks up phone doctor informs her Penelope is pregnant all hell breaks loose doctor makes house call with Mom and Dad present offers 2 options for Penelope “you can be picked up by limousine on state street and blindfolded you will be taken to an undisclosed location where abortion procedure is performed then re-blindfolded and returned by limousine to state street or you can report incident as **** and get signatures of three physicians then have abortion in a hospital” Mom and Dad choose to report it as a **** fabricate story about Penelope walking home from school and being grabbed pulled into alley by black man who rapes her Penelope is made to tell lie three times deeply disturbs her after abortion is done in hospital Dad makes Penelope swear not to admit abortion to anyone insists she tell Jed Zurbeck she made up stupid lie and she was never really pregnant Penelope obeys and tells no one

A bisel: A little
A biseleh: A very little
A breyre hob ich: I have no alternative
A breyte deye hob'n: To do all the talking (To have the greatest say or authority)
A broch!: Oh hell! **** it!! A curse!!!
A broch tzu dir!: A curse on you!
A broch tzu Columbus: A curse on Columbus
A brocheh: A blessing
A chazer bleibt a chazer: A pig remains a pig
A chorbn: Oh, what a disaster (Oh ****! an expletive)
A choleryeh ahf dir!: A plague on you! (Lit., wishing someone to get Cholera.)
A deigeh hob ich: I don't care. I should worry.
A farshlepteh krenk: A chronic ailment
A feier zol im trefen: He should burn up! (Lit., A fire should meet him.)
A finstere cholem auf dein kopf und auf dein hent und fiss: (a horrible wish on someone) A dark dream (nightmare) on your head, hands and feet!
A foiler tut in tsveyen: A lazy person has to do a task twice
A gesheft hob nicht: I don't care
A gezunt ahf dein kop!: Good health to you (lit., Good health on your head)
A glick ahf dir!: Good luck to you (Sometimes used sarcastically about minor good fortunes) Big thing!
A glick hot dich getrofen!: Big deal! Sarcastic; lit., A piece of luck happened to you.
A groyser tzuleyger: A big shot (sarcastically.)
A grubber yung: A coarse young man
A kappore: A catastrophe.
A khasuren die kalleh is tsu shayn: A fault that the bride is too beautiful
A klog iz mir!: Woe is me!
A klog tzu meineh sonim!: A curse on my enemies!
A langer lucksh: A tall person (a long noodle)
A leben ahf dein kepele: A life on your head (A grandparent might say to a grandchild meaning "you are SO smart!")
A leben ahf dir!: You should live! And be well!
A lung un leber oyf der noz: Stop talking yourself into illness! (Lit., Don't imagine a lung and a liver upon the nose)
A maidel mit a vayndel: A pony-tailed nymphet.
A maidel mit a klaidel: A cutie-pie showing off her (new) dress.
A mentsh on glik is a toyter mensh: An unlucky person is a dead person.
A mentsh tracht und Gott lacht: A person plans and God laughs.
A metsieh far a ganef: It's a steal (Lit., A bargain for a thief.)
A nahr bleibt a nahr: A fool remains a fool
A nechtiker tog!: Forget it! (Lit., "A day that's a night.")
A nishtikeit!: A nobody!
A piste kayleh: A shallow person (an empty barrel)
A ritch in kop: Crazy (in the head.)
A schwartz yor: Bad luck. (LIT., A black year)
A schwartzen sof: A bad end.
A shandeh un a charpeh: A shame and a disgrace
A shittern mogn: Loose bowel movement
A shtik fleish mit tzvei eigen: A piece of meat with two eyes (insult)
A shtik naches: A great joy
A shtyfer mogn: Constipated
A sof! A sof!: Let's end it ! End it!
A tuches un a halb: A person with a very large backside. (Lit., A backside and a half.)
A volf farlirt zayne hor, ober nit zayn natur: A wolf loses his hair but hot his nature. "A leopard cannot change his spots."
Abi gezunt!: As long as you're healthy!
Achrahyes: Responsibility
Afn gonif brennt das hittel: "He thinks everyone knows he committed a crime." (a thief's hat burns)
Ahf mir gezogt!: I wish it could be said about me!
Ahf tsores: In trouble
Afh yenems tukhes is gut sepatchen: Someone else's *** is easy to smack.
Ahf zu lochis: Spitefully (Lit: Just to get (someone) angry.)
Ahntoisht: Disappointed
Ahzes ponim: Impudent fellow
Aidel: Cultured or finicky
Aidel gepotchket: Delicately brought up
Aidim: Son-in-law
Ainikle: Grandchild
Aitzeh: Advice
Aiver butelt: Absent minded; mixed up
Alaichem sholom: To you be peace. Used in response to the the greeting Shalom aleichem.
Ale:bais - Alphabet; the first two letters of the Jewish alphabet
Alevei!: It should happen to me (to you)!
Alle ziben glicken: Not what it's cracked up to be (all 7 lucky things)
Alles in einem is nisht do bei keine: All in one (person) is to be found in no one.
Alrightnik: One who has succeeded
Alrightnikeh: Feminine form of "alrightnik."
Alteh moid: Spinster, old maid
Alter bocher: Bachelor
Alter bok: Old goat
Alter Kocker: An old man or old woman.
An alteh machashaifeh: An old witch
An alter bakahnter: An old acquaintance
An alter trombenick: An old ***
An emmisse meisse: An (absolutely) true tale
Apikoros: An unbeliever, a skeptic, an athiest
Arbit: Work
Arein: Come in!
Aroisgevorfen: Thrown out, wasted, (wasted opportunities)
Aroisgevorfene gelt: Thrown out money (Wasted money)
Arumgeflickt!: Plucked! Milked!
Arumloifer: Street urchin; person who runs around
Aydem: Son-in-law
Ayn klaynigkeit: Ya, sure!! (very derogatory)
Az a yor ahf mir.: I should have such good luck.
Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde!: If my grandmother had testicles she would be my grandfather.
Az mir vill schlugen a hunt, gifintmin a schtecken: If one wants to beat a dog, one finds a stick.
Az och un vai!: Tough luck! Too bad! Misfortune!
Az tzvei zuggen shiker, leigst zich der driter shloffen: If two people say you're drunk, the third one goes to sleep. If two people confirm something, it's true.
Azoy?: Really?
Azoy gait es!: That's how it goes!
Azoy gich?: So soon?
Azoy vert dos kichel tzekrochen!: That's how the cookie crumbles!
B
Babka: Coffee cake style pastry
Badchan: Jester, merry maker or master of ceremonies at a wedding; at the end of the meal he announces the presents, lifting them up and praising the giver and the gift in a humorous manner
Bagroben: To bury
Baitsim: Testicles
Balebatim: Persons of high standing
Balbatish: Quiet, respectable, well mannered
Balebatisheh yiden: Respectable Jews, people of substance and good standing in the community
Baleboosteh: Mistress of the house. A compliment to someone who is a terrific housekeeper. "She is some baleboosteh!"
Balegoola: Truckdriver or sloppy person of low standing.
Balmalocha: An expert (sometimes used sarcastically- Oy, is he an expert!)
Balnes: Miracle-worker
Bal Toyreh: Learned man, scholar
Bal: Sure
Bandit: Menace, outlaw, pain-in-the-neck
Bareden yenem: To gossip
Baren (taboo): Fornicate: bother, annoy
Barimer: Braggart, show-off
Bashert: Fated or predestined
Ba:yekhide - A female only child
Bashert zein: To be destined
Batampte: Tasty , delicious
Batlan: Someone without a trade or a regular means of livelihood
Baysn zikh di finger vos: Regret strongly that........
Becher: Wine goblet
Behaimeh: Animal, cow (when referring to a human being, means dull-witted)
Bei mir hust du gepoylt: You've gotten your way with me.
Be:yokhid - A male only child
Benken: "To yearn for" or "to long for."
Benkshaft: Homesickness, nostalgia
Bentsh: To bless, to recite a blessing
Bentshen lecht: Recite prayer over lit candles on Sabbath eve or Holy Day candles
Beryeh: Efficient, competent housewife
Bes medresh: Synagogue
Bialy: Named for the Polish city of Bialystock, the bialy is of Jewish origin. A Bialy is a fairly large (about 6 inches) chewy round yeast roll. Somewhat similar to a bagel, it has a depression rather than a hole in the centre, and is sprinkled with chopped sauteed onion before baking.
Bikur cholem: Visiting the sick
Billik: Cheap, inexpensive
Bist meshugeh?: Are you crazy?
Biteh: Please
Blondjen: To wander, be lost
Boarderkeh: A female boarder
Boch: A punch
Bohmer: *** (masc.)
Bohmerkeh: *** (fem.)
Boorvisser fiss: Barefoot
Boreke borsht: Beet borsht which the wealthy could afford.
Borekes: Pastries with cheese inside
Borsht: Beet soup
Borsht circuit: Hotels in the Catskill Mountains of New York State, with an almost entirely Jewish clientele, who are fond of borsht; term is used by entertainers
Borviss: Barefoot
Botvenye borsht: Borsht made from beet leaves for the poor.
Boychik: Young boy (term of endearment)
Boykh: Stomach, abdomen
Boykhvehtig: Stomachache
Breeye: Creature, animal
Breire: choice
Bris: Circumcision
Bristen: *******
Broitgeber: Head of family (Lit., Bread giver)
Bronfen: Whiskey
Broygis: Not on speaking terms
B'suleh: ******
Bubbeh: Grandmother
Bubbe maisse: Grandmother's tale.
Bubbee: Friendly term for anybody you like
Bubeleh: Endearing term for anyone you like regardless of age
Bulvan: Man built like an ox; boorish, coarse, rude person
Bupkis: Nothing. Something totally worthless (Lit., Beans)
Butchke: chat, tete-a-tete, telling tales
C
Chai: Hebrew word for LIFE, comprised of the two Hebrew letters, Chet and Yod. There is a sect of Jewish mysticism that assigns a numeric value to each letter in the Hebrew alphabet and is devoted to finding hidden meanings in the numeric values of words. The letter "Chet" has the numeric value of 8, and the letter "Yod", has the value of 10, for a total of 18.
Chaider: Religious School
Chaim Yonkel: any Tom, **** or Harry
Chaimyankel kooternooz: The perennial cuckold
Chaleria: Evil woman. Probably derived from cholera.
Chaleshen: Faint
Challa: Ceremonial "egg" bread. Either round or shaped long. Used on Shabbat and most religious observances with the exception of Pesach (Passover)
Chaloshes: Nausea, faintness, unconsciousness
Chamoole: Donkey, *******, numbskull, fool
Chamoyer du ainer!: You blockhead! You dope, You ***!
Chanukah: Also known as the "Festival of Lights", commemorates the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. Chanukah is celebrated for 8 days during which one additional candle is added to the menorah on each night of the holiday.
Chap a gang!: Beat it! (Lit., Catch a way, catch a road)
Chap ein a meesa meshina!: "May you suffer an ugly fate!"
Chap nit!: Take it easy! Not so fast! (Lit., Don't grab)
Chaptsem: Catch him!
Chassene: Wedding
Chassene machen: To plan and execute a wedding.
Chas v'cholileh!: G-d forbid!
Chavver: Friend
Chaye: Animal
Chazen: Cantor
Chazenteh: Wife of chazen (cantor)
Chazzer: A pig (one who eats like a pig)
Chazzerei: Swill; pig's feed; anything bad, unpalatable, rotten. In other words, "junk food." This word can also be used to describe a lot of house hold or other kinds of junk.
Chazzershtal: Pigpen; slovenly kept room or house.
Chei kuck (taboo): Nothing, infinitesimal, worthless, unimportant (Lit., human dung)
Chev 'r' mann: Buddy
Chmalyeh!: Bang, punch; Slam! Wallop!
Chochem : A wise man (Slang: A wise guy)
Chochmeh: Wisdom, bright saying, witticism
Choleryeh: Cholera; a curse, plague
Choshever mentsh: Man of worth and dignity; elite person; respected person
Chosid: Rabid fan
Chossen: Bridegroom
Chosse:kalleh - Bride and groom; engaged couple
Choyzik machen: Make fun of, ridicule
Chrain: Horseradish
Chropen: Snore
Chub Rachmones: "Have pity"
Chug: Activity group
Chupah: Canopy under which a bride and groom stand during marriage ceremony.
Chutzpeh: Brazenness, gall, baitzim
Chutzpenik: Impudent fellow
Chvalye: Ocean wave
Columbus's medina: It's not what it's cracked up to be. (Columbus's country.
D
Danken Got!: Thank G-d!
Darf min gehn in kolledj?: For this I went to college? Usually said when describing a menial task.
Davenen: Pray
Deigeh nisht!: Don't worry!
Der mensch trakht un Gott lahkht: Man thinks (plans) and God laughs
Der oyg: Eye
Der tate oysn oyg: Just like his father
Der universitet: University
Der zokn: Old man
Derech erets: Respect
Derlebn: To live to see (I should only live to see him get married, already!)
Der oysdruk: Expression
Dershtikt zolstu veren!: You should choke on it!
Di khemye: Chemistry
Di skeyne: Old woman
Di Skeynes: Old women
Di skeynim: Old men
Die goldene medina: the golden country
Die untershte sheereh: the bottom line
Dine Essen teg: Yeshiva students would arrange to be fed by various householders on a daily basis in different houses. (Lit., Eat days)
Dingen: Bargain, hire, engage, lease, rent
Dis fayntin shneg: It's starting to snow
Dis fayntin zoraiganin: It's starting to rain
Dos gefelt mir: This pleases me
Dos hartz hot mir gezogt: My heart told me. I predicted it.
Dos iz alts: That's all.
Dos zelbeh: The same
Drai mir nit kain kop!: Don't bother me! (Lit., Don't twist my head)
Drai zich!: Keep moving!
Draikop: Scatterbrain
Dreidal: Spinning top used in a game that is associated with the holiday of Chanukah.
Drek: Human dung, feces, manure or excrement; inferior merchandise or work; insincere talk or excessive flattery
Drek auf dem teller: Mean spirited, valueless Lit.crap on a plate.
Drek mit Leber: Absolutely nothing; it's not worth anything.
Druchus: The sticks (way out in the wild)
Du fangst shoyn on?: Are you starting up again?
Du kannst nicht auf meinem rucken pishen unt mir sagen class es regen ist.: You can't *** on my back and tell me that it's rain!
Dumkop: Dumbbell, dunce (Lit., Dumb head)
Durkhfall: A flop or failure
Dybbuk: Soul condemned to wander for a time in this world because of its sins. (To escape the perpetual torments inflicted upon it by evil spirits, the dybbuk seeks refuge in the body of some pious man or woman over whom the demons have no power. The dybbuk is a Cabalistic conception)
E
Ech: A groan, a disparaging exclamation
Ech mir (eppes): Humorous, disparaging remark about anything. e.g. "American Pie ech mir a movie?"
Efsher: Maybe, could be
Ei! Ei!: Yiddish exclamation equivalent to the English "Oh!"
Eingeshpahrt: Stubborn
Eingetunken: Dipped, dunked
Einhoreh: The evil eye
Eizel: Fool, dope
Ek velt: End of the world
Emes: The truth
Emitzer: Someone
Enschultig meir: "Well excuuuuuuse ME!" (Can also bu used in a non-sarcastic manner depending on the tone of voice and situation.)
Entoisht: Disappointed
Eppes: Something
Er bolbet narishkeiten: He talks nonsense
Er drayt sich arum vie a fortz in russell: He wanders around like a **** in a barrel (aimless)
Er est vi noch a krenk.: He eats as if he just recovered from a sickness.
Er frest vi a ferd.: He eats like a horse.
Er hot a makeh.: He has nothing at all (Lit., He has a boil or a minor hurt.)
Er hot nit zorg.: He hasn't got a worry.
Er iz a niderrechtiker kerl!: He's a low down good-for-nothing.
Er iz shoyn du, der nudnik!: The nuisance is here already!
Er macht a tel fun dem.: He ruins it.
Er macht zack nisht visindicht: He pretends he doesn't know he is doing something wrong. Example: Sneaking into a movie theatre, or sneaking to the front of a line.
Er toig (****) nit: He's no good, worthless
Er varved zakh: Lit: He's throwing himself. Example: He's getting angry, agitated, ******-off.
Er zitst oyf shpilkes.: He's restless. (Lit., He sits on pins and needles.)
Er zol vaksen vi a tsibeleh, mit dem kop in drerd!: He should grow like an onion, with his head in the ground!
Eretz Yisroel: Land of Israel
Es brent mir ahfen hartz.: I have a heartburn.
Es gait nit!: It doesn't work! It isn't running smoothly!
Es gefelt mir.: I like it. (Lit., It pleases, me.)
Es hot zich oysgelohzen a boydem!: Nothing came of it! (Lit., There's nothing up there but a small attic.)
Es iz a shandeh far di kinder!: It's a shame for the children!
Es iz (tsu) shpet.: It is (too) late.
Es ken gemolt zein.: It is conceivable. It is imaginable.
Es macht mir nit oys.: It doesn't matter to me.
Es iz nit dayn gesheft: It's none of your business.
Es past nit.: It is not becoming. It is not fitting.
Es tut mir a groisseh hanoeh!: It gives me great pleasure!(often said sarcastically)
Es tut mir bahng.: I'm sorry. (Lit., It sorrows me)
Es tut mir vai: It hurts me.
Es vert mir finster in di oygen.: This is a response to receiving extremely upsetting information or news. (Lit., It's getting dark in my eyes.)
Es vet gornit helfen!: Nothing will help!!
Es vet helfen vi a toiten bahnkes!: It won't help (any)! (Lit., It will help like blood-cupping on a dead body.)
Ess vie ein foygl sheise vie ein feirt!: Eat like a bird, **** like a horse!
Ess, bench, sei a mensch: Eat, pray, don't act like a ****!
Ess gezunterhait: Eat in good health
Essen: To eat
Essen mitik: Eating midday or having dinner.
F
Fahrshvindn: Disappeared
Faigelah: Bird (also used as a derogatory reference to a gay person).
Fantazyor: Man who builds castles in the air
Farbissener: Embittered; bitter person
Farblondzhet: Lost, bewildered, confused
Farblujet: Bending your ear
Farbrecher: Crook, conman
Fardeiget: Distressed, worried, full of care, anxiety
Fardinen a mitzveh: Earn a blessing or a merit (by doing a good deed)
Fardrai zich dem kop!: Go drive yourself crazy!
Fardross: Resentment, disappointment, sorrow
Farfolen: Lost
Farfoylt: Mildewed, rotten, decayed
Farfroyren: Frozen
Fargessen: Forgot
Farklempt: Too emotional to talk. Ready to cry. (See "Verklempt)
Farklempt fis: Not being able to walk right, clumsy as in "clumsy feet."
Far Knaft: Engaged
Farkakte (taboo): Dungy, ******
Farmach dos moyl!: Shut up! Quiet. (Lit., Shut your mouth.)
Farmatert: Tired
Farmisht: Befuddled
Farmutshet: Worn out, fatigued, exhausted
Farpitzed: To get all dressed up to the "nines."
Farschimmelt: Moldy or rotten. An analogous meaning could be that a person's mind has become senile.
Farshlepteh krenk: Fruitless, endless matter (Lit., A sickness that hangs on)
Farshlugginer: Refers to a mixed-up or shaken item. Generally indicates something of little or dubious value.
Farshmeieter: Highly excitable person; always on the go
Farshnickert: Drunk, high as a kite
Farshnoshket: Loaded, drunk
Farshtaist?: You understand?
Farshtopt: Stuffed
Farshtunken: Smells bad, stinks
Farshvitst: sweaty
Fartik: finished, ready, complete
Fa:tshadikt - Confused, bewildered, befuddled, as if by fumes, gas
Feh!: Fooey, It stinks, It's no good
Feinkoche: Omelet, scrambled eggs
Feinshmeker: Hi falutin'
Fendel: pan
Ferd: Horse, (slang) a fool
Ferkrimpter ponim: Twisted-up, scowling face
Ferprishte punim: pimple-face
Fet: Fat, obese
Fetter: Uncle (also onkel)
Finster un glitshik: Miserable (Lit., Dark and slippery)
Fisfinger: Toes
Fisslach: (chickens'/duck's) feet, often in ptsha
Fliegel: Fowl's wing
Focha: Fan
Foigel: Smart guy (Lit: bird)
Foiler: Lazy man
Foilishtik: Foolishness
Folg mikh!: Obey me!
Folg mikh a gang!: Quite a distance! Why should I do it? It's hardly worth the trouble!
Fonfen: Speak through the nose
For gezunterhait!: Bon voyage! Travel in good health!
Forshpeiz: Appetizer
Fortz: ****
Fortz n' zovver: A foul, soul-smelling ****.
Frageh: Question
Frailech: Happy
Frassk in pis: Slap in the face
Freint: Friend,
Mr. Fremder: Stranger
Fress: Eat....pig out.
Fressen: Eat like a pig, devour
Fressing: Gourmandizing (By adding the English suffix "ing" to the Yiddish word "fress", a new English word in the vocabulary of American Jews has been created.)
Froy: Woman,
Mrs. Frum, (frimer): Pious, religious, devout
Funfeh: Speaker's fluff, error
G
*** avek!: Go away
*** feifen ahfen yam!: Go peddle your fish elsewhere!
*** gezunterhait!: Go in good health
*** in drerd arein!: Go to hell!
*** kaken oifen yam!: Get lost (Lit: Go **** in the ocean!)
*** mit dein kop in drerd: "Go with your head in the ground." "Stick your head in the mud"
*** platz!: Go split your guts!
*** shlog dein kup en vant!: Go bang your head against the wall
*** shoyn, ***.: Scram! also, Don't be silly!
*** strasheh di vantzen: You don't frighten me! (Lit., Go threaten the bed bugs)
*** tren zich. (taboo): Go **** yourself
Gait, gait!: Come now!
Gait es nit!: It doesn't work!
Galitsianer: Jewish native of Galicia
Gants gut: Very good
Gantseh K'nacker!: "Big Shot"
Gantseh Macher: "Big shot."
Gantseh megilleh: Big deal! (derisive)
Gantseh mentsh: Manly, a whole man, a complete man; an adult; a fellow who assumes airs
Gatkes: Long winter underwear
Geben shoychad: To bribe
Gebentsht mit kinder: Blessed with children
Gebentshte boych: Literally-blesses stomach (womb) (Said of a lady with a fabulous child or children,
Gebrenteh tsores: Utter misery
Gebrochener english: Fractured English
Gedainkst?: Remember?
Gedempte flaysh: Mystery meat
Gedicht: Thick, full, ample
Geferlech: Dangerous
Geharget zolstu veren!: Drop dead! (Lit., You should get killed.)
Gelaimter: Person who drops whatever he touches
Gelibteh: Beloved
Gelt: Money
Gelt gait tzu gelt.: Money goes to money.
Gelt is nisht kayn dayge: Money is not a problem.
Gembeh!: Big mouth!
Gemitlich: Slowly, unhurried, gently
Genaivisheh shtiklech: Tricky, sharp, crooked actions or doings
Genevishe oigen: Shifty eyes
Genug iz genug.: Enough is enough!
Gesheft: Business
Geshmak: Tasty, delicious
Geshtorben: The state of being dead.
Geshtroft: Cursed, accursed; punished
Geshvollen: Swollen, puffed up (Also applied to person with haughty pride)
Get: Divorce
Getchke: Statue
Gevaldikeh Zach!: A terrible thing! (often ironically)
Gevalt!: Heaven Forbid! (Exclamatory in the extreme.)
Gevalt geshreeyeh: good grief ("help" screamed)
Gezunde tzores: Healthy troubles. Troubles one should not take too seriously.
Gezunt vi a ferd: Strong as a horse
Gezunteh moid!: Brunhilde, a big healthy dame
Gezunterhait: In good health
Gib mir nit kain einorah!: Don't give me a canary! (Americanism, Lit., Don't give me an evil eye)
Gib zich a traisel: Get a move on
Gib zich a shukl: Hurry up! (Give yourself a shake)
Gitte neshomah: good soul
Gleichvertel: Wisecrack, pun, saying, proverb, bon mot, witticism
Glezel tai: Glass of tea
Glezel varms: comforting or soothing (Lit: Glass of warmth)
Glick: Luck, piece of luck
Gloib mir!: Believe me!
Glustiyah: Enema
G'nossen tsum emess!: The sneeze confirmed the truth!
Goldeneh chasseneh: Fiftieth wedding anniversary
Goniff: Crook, thief, burglar, swindler, racketeer
Gopel: Fork
Gornisht: Nothing
Got in himmel!: G-d in heaven! (said in anguish, despair, fear or frustration)
Got tsu danken: Thank G-d
Got zol ophiten!: G-d forbid!
Got:Vorte - A good piece of information or short concise Torahy commentary.
Gotteniu!: Oh G-d! (anguished cry)
Goy: Any person who is not Jewish
Goyeh: Gentile woman
Goyim: Group of non-Jewish persons
Goyishe kop: Opposite of Yiddishe kop. Generally used to indicate someone who is not particularly smart or shrewd. (Definitely offensive.)
Greps: Blech; a burp if it's a mild one
Grob: Coarse, crude, profane, rough, rude
Grober: Coarse, uncouth, crude person
Grober finger: Thumb
Groi:halter - Show-off, conceited person
Groisseh gedilleh!: Big deal! (said sarcastically)
Groisser gornisht: Big good-for-nothing
Groisser potz! (taboo): Big *****! Big *****! (derogatory or sarcastic)
Grooten: To take after, to favour.
Groyser finger: *******
Guggle muggle: A concoction made of warm milk and honey for sore throats
Gunsel: A young goose. Also used to describe a young man who accompanies a ***** or a young *****.
Gut far him!: Serves him right!
Gut gezugt: Well said
Gut Shabbos: Good Sabbath
Gut Yontif: Happy Holiday
G'vir: Rich man
H
Haimish ponem: A friendly face
Haiseh vanneh: Hot bath
Haissen: To hate
Haken a chainik: Boring, long-winded and annoying conversation; talking for the sake of talking (Lit., To bang on the tea-kettle)
Hak flaish: Chopped meat
Hak mir nit in kop!: Stop bending my ear (Lit.; Stop banging on my head)
Hak mir nit kayn chainik (arain): Don't get on my nerves; Stop nagging me. (Lit., Don't bang my teapot.)
Halevei!: If only...
Hamoyn: Common people
Handlen: To bargain; to do business
Hanoe hobn: to enjoy
Harte mogen: constipation
Hartsvaitik: Heart ache.
Hecher: Louder
Hefker: A mess
Heizel: *******
Hekdish: Decrepit place, a slumhouse, poorhouse; a mess
Heldish: Brave
Heldzel: Stuffed neck flesh; sort of a neck-kishke
Hendl: Chicken
Hert zich ein!: Listen here!
Hetsken zich: Shake and dance with joy
Hikevater: Stammerer Hinten - Rear, rear parts, backside, buttocks; in the rear
Hit zich!: Look out!
Hitsik: Hothead
Hitskop: Excitable person
Hob derech erets: Have respect
Hob dir in arbel: Lit., I've got you by the elbow (Used as a response to a derogatory remark as you would use "sticks and stones"
Hob nit kain deiges: Don't worry
Hoben tsu zingen un tsu zogen: Have no end of trouble (Lit.,To sing and to talk)
Hobn groyse oygn: To be greedy
Hock mir nisht en chinik: Don't hit me in the head. or Dont' give me a headache.
Hoizer gaier: Beggar
Hoizirer: Peddler (from house to house)
Holishkes: Stuffed Cabbage
Host du bie mir an avleh!: So I made a mistake. So what!
Hulyen: A hellraiser
I
Ich bin ahntoisht: I am disappointed
Ich bin dich nit mekaneh: I don't envy you
Ich darf es ahf kapores: It's good for nothing! I have no use for it. (Lit., I need it for a [useless] fowl sacrifice)
Ich darf es vi a loch in kop!: I need it like a hole in the head!
Ich hob dir lieb: I love you!
Ich eil zich (nit): I am (not) in a hurry
Ich feif oif dir!: I despise you! Go to the devil! (Lit., I whistle on you!)
Ich *** chaleshen bald avek: I'm about to faint (from sheer exhaustion)
Ich hob dich in ***!: To hell with you! (Lit., I have you in the bath house!)
Ich hob dir!: Drop dead! Go flap you ears! (Lit., I have you....!) (Americanism!)
Ich hob es in drerd!: To hell with it.
Ich hob im feint: I hate him.
Ich hob im in ***!: To hell with him.
Ich hob mir fer pacht: I have you in my pocket. (I know you for what you are.)
Ich hob nicht kain anung: I have no idea.
Ich ken dir nisht farfeeren: I can't lead you astray
Ich loif: I'm running
Ich vais: I know
Ich vais nit.: I don't know.
Ich vel dir geben a khamalye: I'll give you such a smack
Ich vel dir geben kadoches!: I'll give you nothing! (Lit., I'll give you malaria or a fever.)
Ich yog zich nit.: I'm not in a hurry.
Ich zol azoy vissen fun tsores.: I should know as little about trouble (as I know about what you are asking me)
Iker: Substance; people of substance
In a noveneh: For a change; once in a blue moon
In di alteh guteh tseiten!: In the good old days!
In di oygn: To one's face
In drerd mein gelt!: My money went down the drain! (Lit., My money went to burial in the earth, to hell.)
In miten drinen: In the middle of; suddenly
Ipish: Bad odor, stink
Ir gefelt mir zaier.: You please me a great deal.
Iz brent mir ahfen hartz.: I have a heartburn.
K
Kaas (in kaas oyf): Angry (with)
Kabaret forshtelung: Floorshow
Kabtzen, kaptsen: Pauper
Kaddish: A mourner's prayer
Kaddishel: Baby son; endearing term for a boy or man
Kadoches: Fever
Kadoches mit koshereh fodem!: Absolutely nothing! (Lit., fever with a kosher thread)
Kaftan: Long coat worn by religious Jews
Kakapitshi: Conglomeration
Kalamutneh: Dreary, gloomy, troubled
Kalleh: Bride
Kalleh moid: A girl of marriageable age
Kallehniu: Little bride
Kalta neshomeh: A cold soul
Kalekeh: A new bride who cannot even boil an egg.
Kalyeh: Bad, wrong, spoiled
Kam derlebt: Narrowly achieved (Lit., hardly lived to see)
Kam mit tsores!: Barely made it! (Lit., with some troubles) The word "Kam," also is pronounced "Kom" or "Koim" depending on the region people come from.
Kam vos er kricht: Barley able to creep; Mr. Slowpoke
Kam vos er lebt: He's hardly (barely) alive.
Kamtsoness: To be miserly
Kaneh: An enema
Kaporeh, (kapores): Atonement sacrifice; forgiveness; (slang) good for nothing
Karabeinik: Country peddler
Karger: Miser, tightwad
Kaseer: enema
Kasheh: Groats, mush cereal, buckwheat, porridge; a mess, mix-up, confusion
Kasheh varnishkes: Cooked groats and broad (or bowtie) noodles
Kashress: Kosher condition; Jewish religious dietary law
Kasnik, (keisenik): Angry person; excitable person, hot head
Kasokeh: Cross-eyed
Katchka: Duck (quack, quack)
Katshkedik (Americanism): Ducky, swell, pleasant
Katzisher kop: Forgetful (Lit., Cat head)
Kaynahorah: Lit: the evil eye. Pronounced in order to ward of the evil eye, especially when speaking of one's good fortune. "Everyone in the family is happy and healthy kaynahorah."
Kazatskeh: Lively Russian dance
Kein briere iz oich a breire: Not to have any choice available is also a choice.
Kemfer: Fighter (usually for a cause)
Ken zein: Maybe, could be
Kenen oyf di finger: Have facts at one's fingertips
Ketzele: Kitten
(To) Kibbitz: To offer unsolicited advice as a spectator
Kibbitzer: Meddlesome spectator
Kiddish (Borai pri hagofen): Blessing over wine on the eve of Sabbath or Festivals
Kimpe:tzettel - Childbirth amulet or charm (from the German "kind-bet-tzettel" meaning childbirth label containing Psalm 121, names of angels, patriarchs
Kimpetoren: Woman in labour or immediately after the delivery
Kind un kait: Young and old
Kinderlech: Diminutive, affectionate term for children
Kish mir en toches: Kiss my backside (slang)
Kishef macher: Magic-worker
Kishkeh: Stuffed derma (Sausage shaped, stuffed with a mixture of flour, onions, salt, pepper and fat to keep it together, it is boiled, roasted and sliced) Also used to describe a person's innards. "You sweat your kishkehs out to give your children an good education, and what thanks do you get?"
(A) Kitsel: Tickle
Klainer gornisht: Little **** (Lit., A little nothing)
Klemt beim hartz: Clutches at my heartstrings
Klaperkeh: Talkative woman
Klipeh: Gabby woman, shrew, a female demon
Klo: Plague
Klogmuter: Complainer, chronic complainer
(A) Klog iz mir!: Woe is me!
Kloolye: A curse
Klop: Bang, a real hard punch or wallop
Klotz (klutz): Ungraceful, awkward, clumsy person; bungler
Klotz kasheh: Foolish question; fruitless question
Kloymersht: Not in reality, pretended (Lit., as if it were)
Knacker: A big shot
Knackerke: The distaff k'nacker, but a real cutie-pie.
Knaidel (pl., k'naidlech): Dumplings usually made of matzoh meal, cooked in soup
Knippel: Button, knot; *****, virginity; money tied in a knot in a handkerchief. Also, a little money (cash, usually) set aside for special needs or a rainy day. (Additional meaning thanks to Carl Proper.)
Knish (taboo): ****** [this translation is disputed by at least one reader]
Knishes: Baked dumplings filled with potato, meat, liver or barley
Kochalain: Summer boarding house with cooking privileges (Lit., cook by yourself)
Kochedik: Petulant, excitable
Kochleffel: One who stirs up trouble; gadabout, busy-body (Lit., a cooking ladle)
Kolboynik: Rascally know-it-all
(A) Kop oif di plaitses!: Good, common sense! (Lit., A head on the shoulders!)
Komisch: Funny
Kopvaitik: Headache
Kosher: Jewish dietary laws based on "cleanliness". Also referring to the legitimacy of a situation. "This plan doesn't seem kosher".
Koved: Respect, honour, reverence, esteem
Krank: Sick
Kran:heit - Sickness
Krassavitseh: Beauty, a doll, beautiful woman
Krechts: Groan, moan
Krechtser: Blues singer, a moaner
Kreplach: Small pockets of dough filled with chopped meat which look like ravioli, or won ton, and are eaten in soup; (slang) nothing, valueless
Kroivim: Relatives
Krolik: Rabbit
Kuch leffel: A person who mixes into other people's business (cooking spoon)
Kuck im on (taboo): Defecate on him! The hell with him!
Kuck zich oys! (taboo): Go take a **** for yourself!
Kugel: Pudding
Kukn durkh di finger oyf: Shut one's eyes to....., connive at......, wink at.....
*** ich nisht heint, *** ich morgen: If I don't come today, I'll come tomorrow (procrastinator's slogan)
Kumen tsu gast: To visit
Kuntzen: Tricks
Kuni leml: A nerd
Kunyehlemel: Naive, clumsy, awkward person; nincompoop; Casper Milquetoast
Kuppe dre: A piece of ***** matter (s--t)
Kurveh: *****, *******
Kush in toches arein! (taboo): Kiss my behind! (said to somebody who is annoying you)
Kushinyerkeh: Cheapskate; woman who comes to a store and asks for a five cents' worth of vinegar in her own bottle
K'vatsh: Boneless person, one lacking character; a whiner, weakling
K'velen: Glow with pride and happiness, beam; be delighted
K'vetsh: Whine, complain; whiner, a complainer
K'vitsh: Shriek, scream, screech
L
Lachen mit yas:tsherkes - Forced or false laugh; laugh with anguish
Laidi:gaier - Idler, loafer
Lakeh: A funnel
Lamden: Scholar, erudite person, learned man
Lamed Vovnik: Refers to the Hebrew number "36" and traditionally each generation produces 36 wise and righteous persons who gain the approbation of "lamed vovnik."
Lang leben zolt ir!: Long may you live!
Lange loksch: A very tall thin person , A long tall drink of water.
Lantslaite: Plural of lantsman
Lantsman: Countryman, neighbour, fellow townsman from "old country".
Lapeh: Big hand
Layseh mogen: Diarrhea
(A) Lebedikeh velt!: A lively world!
(A) Lebediker: Lively person
(A) Leben ahf dein kop!: Words of praise like; Well said! Well done! (Lit., A long life upon your head.)
Lebst a chazerishen tog!: Living high off the hog!
Leck, shmeck: Done superficially (lick, smell)
L'che:im, le'chayim! - To life! (the traditional Jewish toast); To your health, skol
Leffel: Spoon
Leibtzudekel: Sleeveless shirt (like bib) with fringes, worn by orthodox Jews
Leiden: To suffer
Lemechel: Milquetoast, quiet person
Lemeshkeh: Milquetoast, bungler
Leshem shomaim: Idealistically, "for the sake of heaven."
Leveiyeh: Funeral
Lezem gayne: leave them be
Lig in drerd!: Get lost! Drop dead! (Lit., Bury yourself!)
Ligner: Liar
Litvak: Lithuanian; Often used to connote shrewdness and skepticism, because the Lithuanian Jews are inclined to doubt the magic powers of the Hasidic leaders; Also, a person who speaks with the Northeastern Yiddish accent.
Lobbus: Little monster
Loch: Hole Loch in kop - Hole in the head.
Loksch: An Italian gentleman.
Lokshen: Noodles
Lokshen strop: a "cat- o- nine tails"
Lominer gaylen: Clumsy fool (a golem-Frankenstein monster -- created by the Lominer rebbe)
Loz mich tzu ru!: Leave me alone! (Lit., Let me be in peace!)
Luftmentsh: Person who has no business, trade, calling, nor income.
Luch in kup: A hole in the head ( " I need this like a luch in kup").
M
Machareikeh: Gimmick, contraption
Macher: big shot, person with access to authorities, man with contacts.
Machshaifeh: Witch
Maidel: Unmarried girl, teenager
Maideleh: Little girl (affectionate term)
Maiven: Expert, connoisseur, authority
Maisse: A story
Maisse mit a deitch: A story with a (moral) twist
Makeh: Plague, wound, boil, curse
Mameleh: Mother dear
Mamoshes: Substance, people of substance.
Mamzer: *******, disliked person, untrustworthy
Mamzerook: A naughty little boy
Mashgiach: Inspector, overseer or supervisor of Kashruth in restaurants & hotels.
Mashugga: Crazy
Matkes: Underpants
Maynster: Mechanic, repairman, workshop proprietor
Mayster: Master craftsman, champion,
Mazel Tov: Good Luck (lit) Generally used to convey "congratulations".
Me ken brechen!: You can ***** from this!
Me ken lecken di finger!: It's delicious!
Me krechts, me geht veyter: I complain and I keep going.
Me lost nit leben!: They don't let you live!
Me redt zich oys dos hartz!: Talk your heart out!
Mechuten: In-Law
Mechutonim: In-Laws (The parents of your child's spouse)
Mechutainista: Mother-In-Law
Megillah: A long story
Mein bobbeh's ta'am: Bad taste! Old fashioned taste!
Mein cheies gait oys!: I'm dying for it!
Mekheye: An extreme pleasure, *******, out of this world wonderful!
Mekler: Go-between
Menner vash tsimmer: Men's room
Mentsh: A special man or person. One who can be respected.
Menuvel: A person who is always causing grief, can get nothing right, and is always in the way.
Meshpokha: Extended family
Meshugass: Madness, insanity, craze
Meshugeh: Crazy
Meshugeh ahf toit!: Crazy as a loon. Really crazy!
Meshugeneh: Mad, crazy, insane female.
Meshugener: Mad, crazy, insane man
Meshugoyim: Crazy people
Messer: Knife
Me zogt: They say; it is said.
Mezinka: A special dance for parents whose last child is getting married
Mezuzah: Tiny box affixed to the right side of the doorway of Jewish homes containing a small portion of Deuteronomy, handwritten on parchment.
Mies: Ugly
Mieskeit: Ugly thing or person.
Mikveh: Ritual bath used by women just prior to marriage as well as after each monthly cycle. This represents a "spiritual cleansing after a potential to create a new life was not actualized. There are some religious men who also use mikvehs prior to festivals and the Sabbath. Some Chassidim immerse every morning before praying.
Min tor nit: One (or you) mustn't
Minyan: Quorum of ten men necessary for holding public worship (must be over 13 years of age)
Mirtsishem: G-d willing
Mitn derinnen: All of a sudden, suddenly
Mitn grobn finger: Quibbling, stretching a point
Mitzvah: Good deed
Mizinik: The youngest child in an immediate family
Mogen Dovid: Star of David
Moisheh kapoyer: Mr. Upside-Down! A person who does everything backwards. Not knowing what one wants.
Mosser: Squealer
Mossik: Mischief maker, prankster, naughty little boy, imp
Moyel: Person (usually a rabbi) who performs circumcisions.
Mutek: Brave
Mutshen zich: To sweat out a job
Muttelmessig: Meddlesome person, kibbitzer
N
N'vayle: Shroud; inept person
Na!: Here! Take it. There you have it.
Naches: Joy: Gratification, especially from children.
Nacht falt tsu.: Night is falling; twilight
Nadan: Dowry
Nafkeh: *******
Nafkeh ba:is - *******
Naidlechech: Rare thing
Nar: Fool
Nar ainer!: You fool, you!
Narish: Foolish
Narishkeit: Foolishness
Narvez: Nervous
Nebach: It's a pity. Unlucky, pitiable person.
Nebbish: A nobody, simpleton, weakling, awkward person
Nebechel: Nothing, a pitiful person; or playing role of being one
(A) Nechtiker tog!: He's (it's) gone! Forget it! Nonsense! (Lit., a yesterday's day)
Nechuma: Consolation
Nechvenin: To *******
Nem zich a vaneh!: Go take a bath! Go jump in the lake!
Neshomeh: Soul, spirit
Neshomeleh: Sweetheart, sweet soul
Nisht geshtoygen, nisht gefloygen: neither here nor there
Nifte:shmifter, a leben macht er? - What difference does it make as long as he makes a living? (Lit., nifter means deceased.)
Nishkosheh: Not so bad, satisfactory. (This has nothing to do with the word "kosher", but comes from the Hebrew and means "hard, heavy," thus "not bad."
Nisht araynton keyn finger in kalt vaser: Loaf, not do a thing, be completely inactive
Nisht fur dich gedacht!: It shouldn't happen! G-d forbid! (Lit., May we be saved from it! [sad event] )
Nishtgedeiget: Don't worry; doesn't worry
Nisht geferlech: Not so bad, not too shabby (Lit. not dangerous.)
Nishtkefelecht: No big deal!
Nisht gefloygen, nisht getoygen: It doesn't matter
Nisht gefonfit!: Don't hedge. Don't fool around. Don't double-talk.
Nisht getoygen, nisht gefloygen: It doesn't fly, it doesn't fit
Nisht getrofen!: So I guessed wrong!
Nisht gut: Not good, lousy
Nisht naitik: Not necessary
Nishtgutnick: No-good person
Nishtikeit!: A nobody!
Nishtu gedacht!: It shouldn't happen! G-d forbid!
Nit kain farshloffener: A lively person
Nit ahin, nit aher: Neither here nor there
Nit gidacht!: It shouldn't happen! (Same as nishtu gedacht)
Nit gidacht gevorn.: It shouldn't come to pass.
Nit kosher: Impure food. Also, slang, anything not good
Nit heint, nit morgen!: Not today, not tomorrow!
Nito farvos!: You're welcome!
Nitsn: To use
Noch a mool: One more time
Noch nisht: Not yet
Nochshlepper: Hanger-on, unwanted follower
Nor Got vaist: Only G-d knows.
Nosh: Snack
Nosherie: Snack food
Nu?: So? Well?
Nu, dahf men huben kinder?: Does one have children? (When a child does something bad)
Nu, shoyn!: Move, already! Hurry up! Let's go! Aren't you finished?
Nudnik: Pesty nagger, nuisance, a bore, obnoxious person
Nudje: Annoying person, badgerer (Americanism)
Nudjen: Badger, annoy persistently
O
Ober yetzt?: So now? (Yetzt is also spelled itzt)
Obtshepen: Get rid of
Och un vai!: Alas and alack: woe be to it!
Oder a klop, oder a fortz (taboo): Either too much or not enough (Lit., either a wallop or a ****)
Oder gor oder gornisht: All or nothing
Ohmain: Amen
Oi!!: Yiddish exclamation to denote disgust, pain, astonishment or rapture
Oi, a shkandal!: Oh, what a scandal!
Oi, gevald: Cry of anguish, suffering, frustration or for help
Oi, Vai!: Dear me! Expression of dismay or hurt
Oi vai iz mir!: Woe is me!
Oif tsalooches: For spite
Oisgeshtrobelt!: Overdressed woman.
Oisgeshtrozelt: Decorated (beautiful)
Oisgevapt: Flat (as in "the fizz has gone out of it.)
Oi:shteler - Braggart
Oiver botel: Absentminded: getting senile
Okurat: That's right! Ok! Absolutely! (Sarcastically: Ya' sure!) Okuratner mentsh - Orderly person
Olreitnik!: Nouveau riche!
On langeh hakdomes!: Cut it short! (Lit., without long introductions.)
Ongeblozzen: Conceited: peevish, sulky, pouting
Ongeblozzener: Stuffed shirt
Ongematert: Tired out
Ongepatshket: Cluttered, disordered, scribbled, sloppy, muddled, overly-done
Ongeshtopt: Very wealthy
Ongeshtopt mit gelt: Very wealthy; (Lit., stuffed with money)
Ongetrunken: Drunk
Ongetshepter: Bothersome hanger-on
Ongevarfen: Cluttered, disordered
Onshikenish: Hanger-on
Onshikenish: Pesty nagger
Onzaltsen: Giving you the business; bribe; soft-soap; sweet-talk (Lit., to salt)
Opgeflickt!: Done in! Suckered! Milked!
Opgehitener: Pious person
Opgekrochen: Shoddy
Opgekrocheneh schoireh: Shoddy merchandise
Opgelozen(er): Careless dresser
Opgenart: Cheated, fooled
Opnarer: Trickster, shady operator
Opnarerei: Deception
Orehman: Poor man, without means
Oremkeit: Poverty
Ot azaih: That's how, just like that
Ot kimm ich: Here I come!
Ot gaist du: There you go (again)
Oy mi nisht gut gevorn: "Oh my, I'm growing weary."
Oy vey tsu meina baina: Woe is me (down to my toes)
Oybershter in himmel: G-d in heaven
Oych a bashefenish: Also a V.I.P.! A big person! (said derogatorily, sarcastically, or in pity)
Oych mir a leben!: This too is a living! This you call a living?
Oyfen himmel a yarid!: Much ado about nothing! Impossible! (Lit., In heaven there's a big fair!)
Oyfgekumener: Come upper, upstart
Oyfn oyg: Roughly, approximately
Oyg oyf oyg: In private, face-to-face
Oys shiddech: The marriage is off!
Oysznoygn fun finger: Concoct, invent (a story)
Oysergeveynlekh: Unusual (sometimes used as "great.")
Oysgedart: Skinny, emaciated
Oysgehorevet: Exhausted
Oysgematert: Tired out, worn out
Oysgemutshet: Worked to death, tired out
Oysgeposhet: "Well grazed," in the sense of being fat.
Oysgeputst: Dressed up, overdressed; over decorated
Oysgeshprait: Spread out
Oysvurf: Outcast, bad person
P
Paigeren: To die (animal)
Paigeren zol er!: He should drop dead!
Pamelech: Slow, slowly
Parech: Low-life, a bad man
Parnosseh: Livelihood
Parshiveh: Mean, cheap
Parshoin: He-man
Partatshnek: Inferior merchandise or work
Parveh: Neutral food, neither milchidik (dairy) nor flaishidik (meat)
Paskidnye: Rotten, terrible
Paskudnik, paskudnyak: Ugly, revolting, evil person; nasty fellow
Past nit.: It isn't proper.
Patsh: Slap, smack on the cheek
Patsh zich in tuchis und schrei "hooray": Said to a child who complains he/she has nothing to do (slap your backside and yell "hooray")
Patshkies around: Anglicized characterization of one who wastes time.
Patteren tseit: To lounge around; waste time
Payess: Long side-curls worn by Hasidic and other ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.
Petseleh: Little *****
Phooey! fooey, pfui: Designates disbelief, distaste, contempt
Pinkt kahpoyer: Upside down; just the opposite
Pipek: Navel, belly button
Pishechtz: *****
Pisher: Male infant, a little squirt, a nobody
Pisk: Slang, for mouth; insultingly, it means a big mouth, loudmouth
Pis:Malocheh - Big talker-little doer! (man who talks a good line but does nothing)
Pitseler: Toddler, small child
Pitshetsh: Chronic complainer
Pitsel: Wee, tiny
Pitsvinik: Little nothing
Plagen: Work hard, sweat out a job, suffer
Plagen zich: To suffer
Plaplen: Chatter Plats! - Burst! Bust your guts out! Split your guts!!
Platsin zuls du: May you explode
Plimenik: Nephew
Plimenitse: Niece
Plotz: To burst
Pluchet: Heavy rain (from Polish "Plucha")
Plyoot: Bull-*******; Loudmouth
Plyotkenitzeh: A gossip
Ponem: Face
Poo, poo, poo: Simulate spitting three times to avoid the evil eye
Pooter veren: Getting rid of (Lit: making butter)
Pooter veren fon emitzer: Getting rid of someone; eg: "ich geh' veren pooter fon ihr" - "I'm going to be getting rid of her!"
Poseyakh: Rolling out dough
Potchke: Fool around or "mess" with
Potzevateh: ******, someone who is "out of it."
Praven: Celebrate
Preplen: To mutter, mumble
Prezhinitse: Scrambled eggs with milk added.
Prietzteh: Princess; finicky girl; (having airs, giving airs; being snooty) prima donna!
Pripitchok: Long, narrow wood-burning stove
Prost: Coarse, common, ******
Prostaches: Low class people
Prostak: Ignorant boor, coarse person, ****** man
Proster chamoole: Low-class *******
Prosteh leit: Simple people, common people; ******, ignorant, "low class" people
Proster mentsh: ****** man, common man
Ptsha: Cows feet in jelly
Pulke: The upper thigh
Pupik: Navel, belly button, gizzard, chicken stomachs
Pupiklech: Dish of chicken gizzards
Pushkeh: Little box for coins
Pustunpasnik: Loafer, idler
Putz: Slang word for "*****." Also used when describing someone someone as being "a ****."
Pyesseh: A play, drama
R
Rachmones: Compassions, mercy, pity
Rav: Rabbi, religious leader of the community
Reb: Mr., Rabbi; title given to a learned and respected man
Rebbe fon Stutz: A phrase used to explain the unexplainable. Similar to blaming something on the fairies or a mystical being.
Rebiniu: "Rabbi dear!" Term of endearment for a rabbi
Rebitsin: Literally, the rabbi's wife (often sarcastically applied to a woman who gives herself airs, or acts excessively pious) ; pompous woman
Rechielesnitseh: Dowdy, gossipy woman
Reden on a moss: To chatter without end
Redn tzu der vant: Talk in vain or to talk and receive no answer (Lit. , talk to the wall for all the good it will do you)
Redlshtul: Wheelchair
Redt zich ayn a kreynk!: Imaginary sickness
Redt zich ayn a kind in boich: Imaginary pregnancy (Imaginary anything)
*****: Rich, wealthy
Reisen di hoit: Skin someone alive (Lit., to tear the skin)
Reissen: To tear
Retsiche: ******
Rib:fish, gelt oyfen tish! - Don't ask for credit! Pay in cash in advance! Cash on the barrel-head!
Riboyno:shel-oylom! (Hebrew) God in heaven, Master of the Universe
Richtiker chaifetz: The real article! The real McCoy!
Rirevdiker: A lively person
Rolleh: Role in a play
Rooshisher: Definitely NOT a Litvak; coming from Ukraine, White Russia; the Crimea, Russia itself.
Roseh: Mean, evil person
Rossel flaysh: Yiddish refritos
(A) Ruach in dein taten's taten arein!: Go to the devil! (Lit., A devil (curse) should enter your father's father!)
Ruf mich k'na:nissel! - I did wrong? So call me a nut!
Ruktish: Portable table
S
S'vet helfen azoy vie a toytn baynkes: Lit: It will help as much as applying cups to a dead person.
S'art eich?: What does it matter to you? Does it matter to you?
Saykhel: Common sense
Schochet: A ritual slaughterer of animals and fowl.
Se brent nit!: Don't get excited! (Lit., It's not on fire!)
Se shtinkt!: It stinks!
Se zol dir grihmen in boych!: You should get a stomach cramp!
Sh' gootzim: Plural of shaigetz
Sha! (gently said): Please keep quiet.
Shabbes goy: Someone doing the ***** work for others (Lit;, gentile doing work for a Jew on Sabbath)
Shabbes klopper: A resident of a neighbourhood who's job it was to "klop" or bang on the shutters of Jewish homes to announce the hour of sundown on Friday
Shadchen: Matchmaker or marriage broker. There is the professional type who derives his or her living from it, but many Jewish people engage in matchmaking without compensation.
Shaigitz: Non-Jewish boy; wild Jewish boy
Shaigetz ainer!: Berating term for irreligious Jewish boy, one who flouts Jewish law
Shaile: A question
Shain vi der lavoone: As pretty as the moon
Shain vi di zibben velten: Beautiful as the seven worlds
Shaineh maidel: pretty girl
Shaineh raaineh keporah: Beautiful, clean sacrifice. Nothing to regret.
Shainer gelechter: Hearty laugh (sarcastically, Some laughter!)
Shainkeit: Beauty
Shaitel, (sheitel): Wig (Ultra-orthodox married women cover their hair. Some use a shaitel)
Shalach mohnes: Customary gifts exchanges on Purim, usually goodies Shalom - Peace (a watchword and a greeting)
Shamus: Sexton, beadle of the synagogue, also, the lighter taper used to light other candles on a menorah, a policeman (slang)
Shandeh: Shame or disgrace
Shandhoiz: Brothel, *******
Shpatzir: A walk without a particular destination
Shat, shat! Hust!: Quiet! Don't get excited
Shatnes: Proscription against wearing clothes that are mixed of wool and linen
Shav: Cold spinach soup, sorrel grass soup, sour leaves soup
Shayneh kepeleh: Pretty head (lit) Good looking, good thoughts
Shemevdik: Bashful, shy
Shepen naches: Enjoy; gather pleasure, draw pleasure, especially from children
Shidech (pl., shiduchim): Match, marriage, betrothal
Shih:pihi - Mere nothings
****:yingel - Messenger
Shikker: Drunkard
Shikseh: Non-Jewish girl
Shlissel: A key
Shissel: A basin or bowl
*******: Sparse, lean, meager
Shiva: Mourning period of seven days observed by family and friends of deceased
Shkapeh: A hag, a mare; worthless
Shkotz: Berating term for mischievous Jewish boy
Shlak: Apoplexy; a wretch, a miserable person; shoddy; shoddy merchandise
Shlang: Snake, serpent; a troublesome wife; ***** (taboo)
Shlatten shammes: Communal busybody, tale bearer; messenger
Shlecht: Bad
Shlecht veib: Shrew (Lit., a bad wife)
Shlemiel: Clumsy bungler, an inept person, butter-fingered; ***** person
Shlep: Drag, carry or haul, particularly unnecessary things, parcels or baggage; to go somewhere unwillingly or where you may be unwanted
Shleppen: To drag, pull, carry, haul
Shlepper: Sponger, panhandler, hanger-on; dowdy, gossipy woman, free-loader
Shlimazel: Luckless person. Unlucky person; one with perpetual bad luck (it is said that the shlemiel spills the soup on the shlimazel!)
Shlog zich kop in vant.: Break your own head! (Lit., bang your head on the wall)
Shlog zich mit Got arum!: Go fight City Hall! (Lit., Go fight with God.)
Shlogen: To beat up
Shlok: A curse; apoplexy
Shlooche: ****
Shloof: Sleep, nap
Shlosser: Mechanic
Shlub: A ****; a foolish, stupid or unknowing person, second rate, inferior.
Shlump: Careless dresser, untidy person; as a verb, to idle or lounge around
Shlumperdik: Unkempt, sloppy
Shmaltz: Grease or fat; (slang) flattery; to sweet talk, overly praise, dramatic
Shmaltzy: Sentimental, corny
Shmatteh: Rag, anything worthless
Shmeis: Bang, wallop
Shmek tabik: Nothing of value (Lit., a pinch of *****)
Shmeer: The business; the whole works; to bribe, to coat like butter
Shmegegi: Buffoon, idiot, fool
Shmeichel: To butter up
Schmeikel: To swindle, con, fast-talk.
Shmendrik: nincompoop; an inept or indifferent person; same as shlemiel
Shmo(e): Naive person, easy to deceive; a goof (Americanism)
Shmontses:Trifles, folly
Shmooz; (shmuess): Chat, talk
Shmuck (tabboo): Self-made fool; obscene for *****: derisive term for a man
Shmulky!: A sad sack!
Shmuts: Dirt, slime
Shmutzik: *****, soiled
Shnapps: Whiskey, same as bronfen
Shnecken: Little fruit and nut coffee rolls
Shneider: Tailor; in gin rummy card game, to win game without opponent scoring
Shnell: Quick, quickly
Shnook: A patsy, a sucker, a sap, easy-going, person easy to impose upon, gullible
Shnorrer: A beggar who makes pretensions to respectability; sponger, a parasite
Shnur: Daughter-in-law
Shokklen: To shake
Shoymer: Watchman; historically refers also to the armed Jewish watchman in the early agricultural settlements in the Holy Land
Shoymer mitzves: Pious person
Shoyn ainmol a' metse:eh! - Really a bargain
Shoyn fargessen?: You have already forgotten?
Shoyn genug!: That's enough!
Shpiel: Play
Shpilkes: Pins and needles
Shpits: end, the heel of the bread
Shpitsfinger: Toes
Shpitzik: Pointed sense of humour, witty, sarcastic, caustic
Shpogel nei: Brand-new
Shreklecheh zach: A terrible thing
Shtarben: To die
Shtark, shtarker: Strong, brave
Shtark gehert: Smelled bad (used only in reference to food; Lit., strongly heard)
Shtark vi a ferd: Strong as a horse
Shteln zikh oyg oyf oyg mit....: To confront
Shtetl: Village or small town (in the "old country")
Shtik: Piece, bit: a special bit of acting
Shtik drek (taboo): *******; ****-head
Shtik goy: Idiomatic expression for one inclined to heretical views, or ignorance of Jewish religious values
Shtik naches: Grandchild, child, or relative who gives you pleasure; a great joy
Shtikel: Small bit or piece; a morsel
Shtiklech: Tricks; small pieces
Shtilinkerait: Quietly
Shtimm zic: Shut up!
Shtoltz: Pride; unreasonably and stubbornly proud, excessive self-esteem
Shtrafeeren: To threaten
Shtrudel: Sweet cake made of paper-thin dough rolled up with various fillings
Shtuk: Trouble
Shtum: Quiet
(A) Shtunk: A guy who doesn't smell too good; a stink (bad odor) a lousy human
Shtup: Push, shove; vulgarism for ****** *******
Shtup es in toches! (taboo): Shove (or stick) it up your ****** (***)!
Shtuss: A minor annoyance that arises from nonsense
Shudden: A big mess
Shul: Colloquial Yiddish for synagogue
Shule: School
Shushkeh: A whisper; an aside
Shutfim: Associates
Shvach: Weak, pale
Shvachkeit: Weakness
Shvantz: tail, *****
Shvartz: Black
Shvegerin: Sister-in-law
Shvengern: Be pregnant
Shver: Father-in-law; heavy, hard, difficult
Shvertz azayan ***: It's hard to be a Jew
Shviger: Mother-in-law
Shvindel: Fraud, deception, swindle
Shvindeldik: Dizzy, unsteady
Shvitz: Sweat, sweating
Shvitz ***: Steam bath
Shvoger: Brother-in-law
Sidder: Jewish prayer book for weekdays and Saturday
Simantov: A good sign (lit) Often used with mazel tov to wish someone good luck or to express congratulations
Simcheh: Joy; also refers to a joyous occasion
Sitzfleish: Patience that can endure sitting (Lit., sitting flesh)
Smetteneh: Sour cream; Cream
Sobaka killev: Very doggy dog
Sof kol sof: Finally
Sonem: Enemy, or someone who thwarts your success.
S'teitsh!: Listen! Hold on! How is that? How is that possible? How come?
Strasheh mich nit!: Don't threaten me!
Strashen net de genz: Lit., Do not disturb the geese. (You are full of yourself and making too much noise)
T
Ta'am: Taste, flavor; good taste
Ta'am gan eyden: Fabulous (Lit: A taste of the Garden of Eden)
Tachlis: Practical purpose, result
Tahkeh: Really! Is that so? Certainly!
Tahkeh a metsieh: Really a bargain! (usually said with sarcasm)
Taiglech: Small pieces of baked dough or little cakes dipped in honey
Tallis: Rectangular prayer-shawl to whose four corners, fringes are attached
Talmud: The complete treasury of Jewish law interpreting the Torah into livable law
Talmud Torah: The commandment to study the Law; an educational institution for orphans and poor children, supported by the community; in the United States, a Hebrew school for children
Tamavate: Feebleminded
Tamaveter: Feebleminded person
Tandaitneh: Inferior
Tararam: Big noise, big deal
Tashlich: Ceremony of the casting off of sins on the Jewish New Year (crumbs of bread symbolizing one's sins are cast away into a stream of water in the afternoon of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashoneh)
Tateh, tatteh, tatteh, tatteleh, tatinka, tatteniu: Father, papa, daddy, pop
Tate:mameh, papa-mama - Parents
Tatenui: Father dear (The suffix "niu" in Yiddish is added for endearing intimacy; also, G-d is addressed this way by the pious; Tateniu-Foter means G-d, our Father
Tchotchkes: Little playthings, ornaments, bric-a-brac, toys
Teier: Dear, costly, expensive
Te:yerinkeh! - Sweetheart, dearest
Temp: Dolt
Temper kop: Dullard
Ti mir nit kayn toyves: "Don't do me any favours" (sarcastic)
Tinef: Junk, poorly made
T'noim: Betrothal, engagement
Toches: Buttocks, behind, ***** (***)
Toches ahfen tish!: Put up or shut up! Let's conclude this! (Lit., ***** on the table!)
Toches in droissen: Bare behind
Toche:lecker - Brown-noser, apple-polisher, ***-kisser
Togshul: Day school
Toig ahf kapores!: Good for nothing! It's worth nothing!
Traif: Forbidden food, impure, contrary to the Jewish dietary laws, non-kosher
Traifener bain: Jew who does not abide by Jewish law (derisive, scornful expression
Traifeneh bicher: Forbidden literature
Traifnyak: Despicable person; one who eats non-kosher food
Trefn oyfn oyg: To make a guess
Trenen: To tear, rip
Trepsverter: Lit. step words. The zinger one thinks of in retreat. The perfect retort one summons after mulling over the insult.
Trogedik: Pregnant
Trog gezunterhait!: Wear it in good health!
Trombenik: A ***, no-good person, ne'er-do-well; a faker
Tsaddik: Pious, righteous person
Tsalooches: Spite
Tsaloochesnik: Spiteful person
Tsatskeh: Doll, plaything; something cute; an overdressed woman; a **** girl
Tsatskeleh der mamehs!: Mother's favorite! Mother's pet!
Tsebrech a fus!: Break a leg!
Tsedrait: Nutty, crazy, screwy
Tsedraiter kop: Bungler
Tseereh: Face (usually used as put-down)
Tseeshvimmen: Blurred
Tsegait zich in moyl: It melts in the mouth, delicious, yummy-yummy
Tsemishnich: Confusion
Tsemisht: Confused, befuddled, mixed-up
Tsevishe:shtotisheh telefonistkeh - Long distance operator
Tshatshki: Toy, doo-dad
Tshepen: To annoy, irk, plague, bother, attack
Tsigeloisen: Compassionate, rather nice
Tsiklen zich: The cantor's ecstatic repetition of a musical phrase
Tsimmes: Sweet carrot compote; (slang) a major issue made out of a minor event
Tsitskeh: Breast, ****, udder
Tsivildivit: Crazy, wild, overwhelmed with too many choices
Tsnueh: Chaste
Tsores: Troubles, misery
Tsu undzer tsukunft tzuzamen: To our future together.
Tsutsheppenish: Hanger-on; unwanted companion; pest; nuisance
Tsum glik, tsum shlimazel: For better, for worse
Tsumakhn an oyg: To fall asleep
Tsvilling: Twins
Tu mir a toiveh.: Do me a favor.
Tu mir nit kain toives.: Don't do me any favors.
Tumel: Confusion, noise, uproar
Tumler: A noise-maker (person); an agitator
Tut vai dos harts: Heartbroken
Tzadrait: Scattered
Tzedakeh: Spirit of philanthropy; charity, benevolence
Tziginner bobkes: Jocular, truly valueless. Also used to describe black olives. Lit: goat droppings
Tziter: To tremble
Tziterdik: Tremulous or trembling
Tzitzis: Fringes attached to the four corners of the tallis
Tzufil!: Too much! Too costly!
U
U:be-rufen - Unqualified, uncalled for; God forbid; (A deprecation to ward off the evil eye)
U:be-shrien - God forbid! It shouldn't happen!
Umgeduldik: Petulant
Ummeglich!: Impossible!
Umglick: A misfortune; (masc) A born loser; an unlucky one
Umshteller: Braggart
Umzist: For nothing
Umzitztiger fresser: free loader, especially one who shows up only to eat (and EAT!)
Unger bluzen: Bad mood. Swollen with anger.
Ungerissen beheiman: A totally stupid person. Lit., an untamed animal. Not wild, just dumb.
Un langeh hakdomes!: Cut it short! (lit., Without a long introduction)
Unter fir oygn: Privately
Unterkoifen: To bribe
Untershmeichlen: To butter up
Untervelt mentsh: Racketeer
Untn: Below
Utz: To goad, to needle
V
Vahksin zuls du vi a tsibeleh, mitten kup in drerd: May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground!
Vahksin zuls du, tsu gezunt, tsu leben, tsu langeh yor: May you grow to health, to life, to long years. (Each may me said when someone sneezes)
Vai!: Woe, pain; usually appears as "oy vai!"
Vai is mir!: Woe is me!
Vai vind iz meine yoren: "Woe is me!"
Vais ich vos: Stuff and nonsense! Says you! (Lit., Know from what)
Vaitik: An ache
Valgeren zich: Wander around aimlessly
Valgerer: Homeless wanderer
Vaneh: Bath, bathtub
Vannit: Where (from) "Fon vannit kimmt ihr?" (Where do you come from?)
Vantz: Bedbug; (slang) a nobody
Varenikehs: Round shaped noodle dough stuffed with meat, potato, etc. and fried
Varfen an oyg: To look out for; to guard; to mind (Lit., To throw an eye at)
Varnishkes: Kasha and noodles
Vart!: Wait! Hold on!
Vas:tsimmer - Bathroom, washroom
Vas:tsimmer far froyen - Ladie's room
Vas:tsimmer far menner - Men's room
Vayt fun di oygn,vayt fun hartsn: Far from the eyes, far from the heart. Equivalent to "Out of sight, out of mind."
Vechter: Watchman
Veibernik: Debauchee
Veibershe shtiklach: Female tricks
Veis vi kalech!: Pale as a sheet!
Ve:zaiger - Alarm clock
Vemen barestu?: (taboo) Whom are you kidding? (Lit., Whom are you *******?)
Vemen narstu?: Whom are you fooling?
Ver derharget!: Get killed! Drop dead! (Also "ver geharget)
Ver dershtikt!: Choke yourself!
Ver farblondjet!: Get lost! Go away!
Verklempt: Extremely emotional. On the verge of tears. (See "Farklempt")
Ver tsuzetst: "Go to hell" (or its equivalent)
Ver vaist?: Who knows?
Ver volt dos gegleybt?: Who would have believed it?
Veren a tel: To be ruined
Veren ferherret: To get married
Vi a barg: Large as a mountain
Vi der ruach zogt gut morgen: Where the devil says good morning! (has many meanings; usually appended to another phrase)
Vi gait dos gesheft?: How's business?
Vi gait es eich?: How goes it with you? How are you? How are you doing?
Vi gaits?: How goes it? How are things? How's tricks?
Vi haistu?: What's your name?
Vi ruft men...?: What is the name of...?
Vi ruft men eich?: What is your name?
Viazoy?: How come?
Vie Chavele tsu der geht: Literally: Like Chavele on her way to her divorce; meaning "all spruced up."
Vifil?: How much?
Vilder mentsh: A wild one; a wild person
Vilder chaiah: Wild animal or out of control child or adult
Vilstu: Do you want...
Vo den?: What else?
Voglen: To wander around aimlessly
Voiler yung!: Roughneck (sarcastic expression)
Voncin: Bed bug
Vortshpiel: Pun, witticism
Vos art es (mich)?: What does it matter (to me)? What do I care?
Vos barist du?: (taboo) What are you ******* around for? What are you fooling around for?
Vos bei a nichteren oyfen lung, is bei a shikkeren oyfen tsung.: What a sober man has on his lung (mind), a drunk has on his tongue.
Vos draistu mir a kop?: What are you bothering me for? (Lit., Why are you twisting my head?)
Vos failt zai?: What are they lacking?
Vos gicher, alts besser: The faster, the better
Vos hakst du mir in kop?: What are you talking my head off for?
Vos hert zich?: What do you hear around? What's up?
Vos hert zich epes ne:es? - What's new?
Vos heyst: what does it mean?
Vos hob ich dos gedarft?: What did I need it for?
Vo:in-der-kort - Capable of doing anything bad (applied to bad person; Lit., everything in the cards)
Vos iz?: What's the matter?
Vos iz ahfen kop, iz ahfen tsung!: What's on his mind is on his tongue!
Vos iz der chil'lek?: What difference does it make?
Vos iz der tachlis?: What's the purpose? Where does it lead to?
Vos iz di chochmeh?: What is the trick?
Vos iz di untershteh shureh?: What's the point? What's the outcome? (Lit., What on the bottom line?)
Vos iz mit dir?: What's wrong with you?
Vos kocht zich in teppel?: What's cooking?
Vos macht a ***?: How's it going?
Vos macht vos oys?: What difference does it make?
Vos macht es mir oys?: What difference does it make to me?
Vos macht ir?: How are you? (pl.); How do you do?
Vos Machstu?: How are you? (singular)
Vos maint es?: What does it mean?
Vos noch?: What else? What then?
Vos ret ir epes?: What are you talking about?
Vos tut zich?: What's going on? What's cooking?
Vos vet zein: What will be
Vos vet zein, vet zein!: What will be, will be!
Vos zogt ir?: What are you saying?
Vu tut dir vai?: Where does it hurt?
Vus du vinsht mir, vinsh ikh dir.: What you wish me, I wish you.
Vuhin gaitsu?: Where are you going?
Vund: Wound
Vursht: Bologna
Vyzoso: Idiot (named after youngest son of Haman, archenemy of Jews in Book of esther); also, *****
W
Wen der tati/fater gibt men tsu zun, lachen baiden. Wen der zun gibt men tsu tati/fater, vainen baiden.: When the father gives to his son, both laugh. When the son gives to the father, both cry.
Wen ich ess, ch'ob ich alles in dread.: (Lit. When I am eating, I have everything in the ground.) When I am eating, everybody can go to hell!
Y
Yachneh: A coarse, loud-mouthed woman; a gossip; a slattern
Yachsen: Man of distinguished lineage, highly connected person, privileged character
Yarmelkeh: Traditional Jewish skull cap, usually worn during prayers; worn at all times by observant Orthodox Jews.
Yahrtzeit: Anniversary of the day of death of a loved-one.
Yashir koyech: May your strength continue
Yatebedam: A man who threatens; one who thinks he's a "big shot"; a blusterer
Yedies: News; cablegrams; announcements
Yefayfiyeh: Beauty; woman of great beauty
Yenems: Someone else's; (the brand of cigarettes moochers smoke!)
Yeneh velt: The other world; the world to come
Yenteh: Gabby, talkative woman; female blabbermouth
Yente telebente: Mrs. National Enquirer
Yentzen (taboo): To fornicate, to *****
Yeshiveh: Jewish traditional higher school, talmudical academy
Yeshiveh bocher: Student of talmudic academy
Yeshuvnik: Farmer, rustic
Yichus: Pedigree, ancestry, family background, nobility
Yiddisher kop: Jewish head
Yiddishkeit: Having to do with all things relating to Jewish culture.
Yingeh tsat:keh! - A young doll! A living doll!
Yiskor: Prayer in commemoration of the dead (Lit., May God remember.)
Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement (the most holy of holy days of the Jewish calendar)
Yontefdik: Festive, holiday-ish; sharp (referring to clothes)
Yortseit: Anniversary of the day of death of parents or relatives; yearly remembrance
Yoysher: Justice, fairness, integrity
Yukel: Buffoon
(A) Yung mit bainer!: A powerhouse! Strongly built person
Yung un alt: Young and old
Yungatsh: Street-urchin, scamp, young rogue
Yungermantshik: A young, vigorous lad; A newlywed
Yusoimeh: Orphan
Z
Zaft: Juice
Zaftik: Pleasantly plump and pretty. Sensuous looking (Lit., juicy)
Zaftikeh moid!: Sexually attractive girl
Zaideh: Grandfather
Zaier gut: O.K. (Lit., very good)
Zaier shain gezogt!: Well said! (Lit., Very beautifully said!)
Zee est vee a feigele: She eats like a bird
Zeh nor, zeh nor!: Look here, look here!
Zei (t) gezunt: Be well! Goodbye! Farewell
Zei mir frailich!: Be Happy!
Zei mir gezunt!: Be well!
Zei mir matriach: Be at pains to... Please; make an effort.
Zei nit a nar!: Don't be a fool!
Zei nit kain vyzoso!: Don't be an idiot! Don't be a **** fool!
Zeit azoy gut: Please (Lit., Be so good)
Zeit ir doch ahfen ferd!: You're all set! (Lit., You're on the horse!)
Zeit (mir) moychel: Excuse me! Be so good as...Forgive me!
Zelig: Blessed (used mostly among German Jews in recalling a beloved deceased ----- mama zelig)
Zeltenkeit: Rare thing
Zetz: Shove, push, bang! Also slang for a ****** experience (taboo)
Zhaleven: To be sparing, miserly
Zhlob: A ****; slob, uncouth
Zhu met (mir) in kop: A buzzing in one's (mind) head
Zhulik: Faker
Zi farmacht nit dos moyl: She doesn't stop talking (Lit., She doesn't close her mouth)
Zindik nit: Don't complain. Don't tempt the Gods.
Zingen: To sing
Ziseh neshomeh: Sweet soul
Ziseh raidelech: Sweet talk
Ziskeit: Sweetness, sweetheart, (Also endearing term for a child)
Zitsen ahf shpilkes: Sitting on pins and needles; to fidget
Zitsen shiveh: Sit in mourning (Shiveh means 7 which is the number of days in the period of mourning
Zitsflaish: Patience (Lit., Sitting meat)
Zog a por verter: Say a few words!
Zogen a ligen: Tell a lie
Zogerkeh: Woman who leads the prayers in the women's section in the synagogue
Zoineh: *******
Zok nit kin vey: Don't worry about it (Lit: Do not say woe)
Zol dich chapen beim boych.: You should get a stomach cramp!
Zol dir klappen in kop!: It should bang in your head (the way it is bothering me!)
Zol er tsebrechen a fus!: May he break a leg! He should break a leg!
Zol es brennen!: The hell with it! (Lit., Let it burn!)
Zol Got mir helfen: May God help me!
Zol Got ophiten!: May God prevent!
Zol ich azoy vissen fun tsores!: I haven't got the faintest idea! (Lit., I should so know from trouble as I know about this!)
Zol makekhs voxen offen tsung!: Pimples should grow on your tongue!
Zol vaksen tzibbelis fun pipek!: Onions should grow from your bellybutton!
Zol ze vaksen ze ve a tsibble mit de kopin dreid: You should grow like an onion with your head in the ground.
Zol zein!: Let it be! That's all!
Zol zein azoy!: O.K.! Let it be so!
Zol zein gezunt!: Be well!
Zol zein mit glik!: Good luck!
Zol zein shah!: Be quiet. Shut up!!
Zol zein shtil!: Silence! Let's have some quiet!
Zolst geshvollen veren vi a barg!: You should swell up like a mountain!
Zolst helfen vi a toyten bankes: It helps like like cupping helps a dead person.
Zolst hobn tzen haizer, yeder hoiz zol hobn tzen tzimern, in yeder tzimer zoln zain tzen betn un zolst zij kaiklen fun ein bet in der tzweiter mit cadojes!: I wish you to have ten houses, each house with ten rooms, each room with ten beds and you should roll from one bed to the other with cholera. (not a very nice thing to say.)
Zolst leben un zein gezunt!: You should live and be well!
Zolst ligen in drerd!: Drop dead! (Lit., You should lie in the earth!)
Zolst nit vissen fun kain shlechts.: You shouldn't know from evil.
Zolst es shtipin in toches!: (taboo) Shove it up your ******!
Zolst zein vi a lom:am tug sollst di hangen, in der nacht sollst di brennen - You should be like a lamp, you should hang during the day and burn during the night!
Zolstu azoy laiben!: You should live so!
Zorg zich nit!: Don't worry!
Zuninkeh!: Dear son! Darling son!

Today, I want to weep.
It's giving me pain. And this much pain I cannot handle. I haven't felt it like this before. What is this?
They killed them. They killed children! 84 of them! They killed school kids! Those beasts. Those animals. Those heartless, inhumane murderers. They killed innocent creatures, they took lives. Lives of so many.
And what am I to do? What are you to do? What is anyone to do?

Why are people talking about lands and religions? Why aren't they seeing what the families are going through? Won't they learn a filthy promise is nothing but that-- a filthy promise? Those ******* liars. Those politicians and haters scoring points, what even is this?

And that's how this will end, like ever. Drink tea, relax, watch movies maybe?
Die.

The whistle is blown
The ball is thrown
Up into the air
For anyone it's fair

Grab it up quick
Get ready for the pick
Here it comes, there you go
and now it's two to zero

A few seconds on the clock
The other team is in shock
I can still move faster
And blow right past  'em

Scoring right before the bell
We say farewell
To the worry we had
Of losing too bad

.perhaps in my company we wouldn't be... opening a bottle of red wine... to let it breathe... or pouring it into a bowl to give it more air to breathe with: otherwise on life-support machine through the bottle-neck... right here, right now, we have... a glass bottle of beer (13, guinness hop lager) and 4 cans of stella artois (the wife beater's lager, so they say)... yes... beer in cans... for all intesive purposes - a good way to transport beer... in aluminium cans... but we're not bums... we don't drink beer straight from cans... we pour our beer into a tall glass and wait... so the beer can exfoliate like aladdin's jinn in the glass... away from the confines of the can... we don't drink beer from a can... we can drink it straight from a bottle... but if it comes in a can... we pour it into a tall glass... just so... so there's some head on top... we're not english in that respect either... of cutting the head (of foam) off the beer... which is probably why i always order a stout in a pub... you can't pull one without the creme de la creme on top... a head on a beer is what makes it look less like carbonated **** or concentrated lemonade... we're not bums... we drink beer from glasses... never directly from cans - the metal gets in the way... a beer like a wine needs to breathe too.

i found that there are only two types of music styles
that are suitable for drinking -
that's... drinking and not going out -
playing a cat with an imaginary fireplace...
the less imaginary fireplace being:
a stare confined to... watching a pillow...
and the general schematic of a bed...
and sitting hunched in imitation: all crow because
no crow doesn't get you far
on golgotha of daydreams: if only i...
humble servant of dusty feet - the tourist,
the pilgrim - would set off...
         on an amphetamine riddled skew into
a messiah complex adventure...

                     but not me...
                once upon a time the only music
worth drinking to was the blues...
            a long, long time ago...
                hell: once upon a time any music
would do if we all decided to go dancing...
or at least waited for the dance to come of its own
volition and not mine: i.e. the me in i would
just be dragged under the teasing waves
and slurped out to sea...

                   a thousand waves are all but the single
tongue of some swindling kraken...
drinking and random shamanic interludes in
the youth of the night-club...
when there wasn't a tally for score or...
the ones shot down by manfred...
good thing he was called manfred...
   and not some swabian helmut! oi oi!
                                             von Richthofen!
and that was when...
           until came the five beers and on
the 4th it became apparent...
                                  the red garland quintet...
soul junction...

   and it's not... a gerry mulligan's night lights...
piano sentimentality and the ode
to all things urban, cosmopolitan...
                        yes... it's not grenadine in that
sulk of yours... it's cranberry juice...
the city and... the sewers and...
                                 jazz for the urban scenes
of: anywhere but the park...
the graveyard... a choo-choo slowing into
a station... and billy joel come:
mid-life crisis and a new york state of mind...
while over 'ere we have...
     teasing the woods: where concrete ends
and mud begins... thus we can have our Adam...
and...

only today i was walking past his bride...
doing my odd citizen duty of recycling glass...
and buying the amber sedatives (carbonated)
for an evening with some cannonball adderley
or some donnie byrd... or a horace silver...
that's the beauty of jazz...
the music is all there is... the names come and go...
sonny rollins and the story behind
the bridge... and how he would pretend to
but not pretend to... retire and go off and practice
on the bridge so as to not disturb his neighbours...
all the details are there: on the vinyl sleeve
from 1963...

now that's jazz... i don't even want to mind
how pretentious this might sound...
but... it doesn't in that: jazz is jazz in that there
might come some great improv. -
after all: it's all somewhat improv. -
   but you can't really make such basic
generalißations...
        speedy-shoom-of-a-choo-choo whizzing past...
schematic!
   classical music is all a priori...
                              jazz... it's all a posteriori...
how? when people phone in between
1pm and 5pm to classic.fm and they make requests...
they sometimes ask for something specific...
but usually... they vaguely allude to... a feeling...
something "uplifting" - play something "uplifting"...
ergo... there's this... a priori "item"(?)
in the music that's... an expectation...

          i do know what jazz sounds like
a quintent: drums, bass, piano, trumpet, sax...
yes... the guitar... asking the algorithm:
a quintet is five - what is six?
        sixtet - d'uh... sextet... well that's the basic
"i know what jazz sounds like"...
but with jazz there's always this lag...
it's this lagging behind:
    i don't exactly know what i'll feel until
only after i've heard it and in the meantime too...
jazz is all a posteriori -

while classical music for me is all a priori...
given that... it's not exactly improvised:
there's the orchestra, the movie, the script...
   and it's such a music that doesn't worship
itchy fingers of improv. - the stale or rather:
the head-about-to-explode of scoring the music like
a dissected **** of beef...
the cuts for the violins the cuts for the woodwinds...
more so: the almost shy drumming...
the wet-drumming... like rain playing
rattle fingers on tin (roofs)... or what rain would
sound like... if it was made from sand...
either way... jazz is a baggage...

hardly any sort of envisioning a journey from
(a) priori through to (b) posteriori -
and at least with jazz... you never have to really
cite who's playing... in a passing gesture
for all necessary bookmark purposes
of: where i am in the library of jazz...
unlike in classical music... where...
it's either Mozart, Beethoven or then again...
some obscure composer... perhaps ola glejlo...
but it's less about the music per se:
it's about the music of THE composer...
bonus marks for keeping to a rigid diet of one
and completing the herculean task of digesting
his entire oeuvre...

-       so i was walking past the most usual scene...
a car stopped... and she got out...
she must have been no more than 16 pushing 18...
the heavy make-up hid her otherwise boyish
contorts... a short black dress...
and as she got out of the cab...
she had her high-heel shoes in her hands...
   she was walking the cement barefoot...
i peered into her eyes... the lights were out...
perhaps her soul was screaming - perhaps this was
her first disappointment - and it was only... what...
not even 10pm on a saturday night...
my nights of youthful regret usually came after 3am
having to wrestle a berserker...
or how a dog looks like when it takes
to beer with a fond heart and only three legs...
god forbid but "they" would also cut my tail off
to further throw me off balance...
the walked passed and i looked into the cab...
a very, very nervous asian was looking at me
and then her... this didn't exactly look like...
she was ***** or was fighting to escape...
           aren't those scenarios usually stage in and around
woods - without any pedestrians walking past?
call it a trainwreck a carwreck...
                      or just running mascara...
that bad, eh?
at this point... society is a cruise ship...
and i'm stuck with ottis and none of that sentimentality
of the dock: running away with a bag of
chips wrapped in newspaper away from
seagulls... who... are apparently prone
to kleptoparasitism - a real thing... i swear to god...
the animals that want to eat in the realm
of trans-species... dogs have had their
kleptoparasistism repressed: crumbs from the table...
the chicken bones with hopes for
cartilege and someone who... is bad at
cleaning the flesh off the bone: pucker up...
move aside leech... watch this slurp...
ol' hank mobley and wayne shorter...
        one cascade after another...
5th beer in and...

yeah... so that's what a carwreck looks like...
for a girl in her late teens...
the cute black dress...
   getting out of the cab holding her high heels...
walking home barefoot...
she wasn't crying just yet...
but i could see puffy tender demon baron
of the soft cheeks readying to turn into
medussa's stare-grip... but not there yet...
this must have been her first time at "life"
and the night life and saturday...
         the cab driver looked scared shitless...
as if frozen in time... about to have his photograph
taken by a more sensible shadow of his...
i did think she just escaped a bad
session of prostitution...
but not even prostitutes look so ******* gloomy
as she did...

the ******* ***** it up -
the pundit ***** it up - the show goes on...
stage or no stage... an audience or no audience...
those eyes though... not yet crying...
but they felt... like wheeping oysters nonetheless...
you know when eyes are like that...
teasing bulging out... they appear dimmed
at first... but that's a dimming before
the sparkle of tears...
it's the 29th of febuary - yes...
mr. zodiac wasn't kind to those who still believe
in the horoscope but never tried
gambling on a winning team or horse...
it's still winter and those poor feet of hers...
she must have told the cab driver to stop...
hell... half a mile before she would get home...
a 6ft2 115kg sore thumb up with a beard
up ahead: stop! let me walk past him...
that's why i gave an inquisitive stare at the cab driver...
the cab driver was looking at me...
aren't the **** victims the ones jumping
out of the cab as it speeds off or whatnot?
so this was... staged?
              i read the "situation" wrong...
well no... i didn't find a lancelot in me...
there was no door to be held open...
           not tonight...
                                           i was in a mood for
beer and jazz... and luckily for me...
marvel of all marvels...
     haig club (1627) was sold at a bargain...
                        down from 25 quid to 16 quid...
goodbye excessive drinking the cheap *****...
hello: clubman haig... is it whiskey...
is it ms. amber... or is it chanel no. 5 -
                   is it whiskey or is it a perfume?
a snapper of a dinner standing-up...
   the scent of the last bite still on my moustache
even though i had washed my teeth...
the beer bottle opened - a drizzle on the hand
and then the hand smearing the liquid all over
the stinking hairs from an unwelcome scent...
i don't mind stinking like hops...
                  but hops is better than smelly food...

- regrets? ah yes... the "what if" universe at large...
that "whaf if" this and "what if" not...
"what if" yes and... when a man takes to walk
the street at night... he's only looking for empty
streets and... the hope of not seeing his reflection:
which is never about abruptly stopping
a cab and taking your shoes off
and walking in a tight-knit black dress
having met the world and...
                     was it heartbreak or just...
disappointment that... there are no unicorns
and she isn't daddy's precious?

any of the rudy van gelder editions...
                      "what if" i had more than just these
words... a barren wasteland of a flat
with no furnishings, not a book to call it a genesis
of a private library... not a single record
to play... no bed no curtains...
and she was the: honey-catch and snare and...
what if i were still in my late teens and
didn't have these invisible tattoos of historical
dates and the tattoos that riddle bones
that are... "habits of hygiene"...
      by hygiene i imply: ontological fixtures...
immoveable objects of accumulating my mortal
years for this formal circumstance of
the worst magic trick of all...
                   transient and... packaged elsewhere...
apparently going nowhere...

if this was a truly urban scenario...
but we're talking essex...
the outskirts of greater london...
if i bothered myself tonight i might go
to a place where i'd sit on a throne of a stump
of oak and listen to owls...
spot a rabbit, spot a badger... the foxes would
come of their own accord...
and perhaps even a deer or two... or three...
there's no glit of a picaddily circus romance:
when a girl decides to get out of a cab early
and put her porcelain toes on the wintry cement...
as if: supposing she be enticing me...
as i was thinking about the scared-shitless
cab driver...        

to have once upon a time believe in love:
the sort of love you'd see in movies...
but that's of course...
before you'd get a chance to see love...
in opera...
blue pill red pill... spiderweb of fiction...
blah blah...
watch the sort of love in movies...
then go and see an opera...
most notably verdi's la traviata...
  the movies fizzle out and you don't really
need to read this to begin with...
        i was in love once...
it was a love that was in love with itself...
          a mirage a carrot on a stick...
probably something akin to this sort of impromptu...
rescuing a girl walking barefoot home...
oh sure... happens almost every other saturday...

- the beer is for these musings, for the jazz
and for... cleaning the kidneys and a work-out
for the bladder... the shot-at-a-crescendo
will come with the haig club whiskey...
is 70cl really worth 25 quid?

- there's a difference between food with a USE BY date
and food with a BEST BEFORE date...
most notably goat's cheese...
once the best before date expires...
which is way way down the line from
the use by date... the cheese starts to taste
like... ash...

i should know since i know of the alternative
to doing shots of tequilla...
the salt is replaced with licking some cigarette
ash...
the tequilla is replaced with *****...
and the slice of lemon is replaced with
black peppercorns...

so i do know what ash tastes like...
piquant tastes: this omelette of an octopus and
of tongue...

- society is a cruise ship and i'm waving it goodbye...
welcoming a sunset of a sea as calm
as a mirror... telling my feet to take root
and stand... inaccessible...
otherwise... i am barren when it comes to having
some (h. p.) lovecraftian sensibilities from
maine... aloof and anemic... anemic with bloodshot
eyes...

- of course she isn't a mystery...
the narrative would run: the little match girl...
hans... hans! hans?! hans andersen is drilling
a hole into my head about... a woman walking
home barefoot...
yes... but she is walkig home...
unlike the little match girl...
and unlike the little match girl...
this girl was carrying a pair of shoes with her...
it's not my problem whether
i'm the sore thumb that "got in the way"...
a fork in the road: like any other fork...
like any other road...

do you have to reach being 34 to see these
teenage break-ups and regrets come and bump into
you after you've done...
that most spectacular feat of towing a backpack
full of glass for recycling?
where is one to recycle bones?!

- right not all the ***** in the world is...
something of an adhesive... a hitchhiker pollen...
a hard-on of: ****** yourself for a hard-on
just because even flapping a pancake will do right now...
to ease constipation whenever necessary...

- it's a torilla... but it's wrapped like a burrito...
well... it's a torilla... kultur shock -
sarajevo - the entry level shock-awe and
blitzkrieg of drinking from the fountain
of the Haig...

- second tier... to treat pornographic movies
like... early cinema... silent...
otherwise a return to the magazine form...
and the ripe imagination readied for:
improv... or... when was the last time
my left hand didn't feel like an oyster...
and an oyster didn't feel like a leash...
and a woman's ****** stopped being
an hour worth 120 quid? -

             - third tier... the haig club whiskey
is not worth 25 quid... it's over-rated...
you're basically paying for the bottle...
i'll stick to my guns...
only the irish know how to make whiskey
on these isles... bushmills: mellow, tame...
the picts have decided to lodge
a smoking salmon into their barrels to die...
i'm supposed to have an aftertaste of vanilla...
with all that smoke... i'd be happy to taste
hungary and smoked paprika! that would
be a bonus to boot! -

- i can appreciate the picts for trying...
but let's just leave brewing whiskey to the irish...
and let's keep the english away from hops...
they'll make an undrinkable ale from it...
never the lager...

   - armed with balkan rock... standing before
the h'american monolith of tongue and culture...
or... just before what's filtered for the export...

- no... of course i don't think h'americans are dumb...
i just think there's only a naive majority...
i'm going to find the vermin and huddle among
them...

- sooner or later we'll be calling the germans
come spring... for winter provisions...
"keeshond" or: hund... i much prefer the latter...
from under the iron curtain forged from
a broken jaw when biting the curb of:
under the silicon veil... nowhere else to go...
beside Ishrael...
                        
          remains of the ottoman - which is hardly
me put into an iron maiden of akimbo...
where's the geisha and the samurai?!

- is your beard long enough?
      like mine... i tease it... catch it with braille
cardinals: the thumb the index and middle fingers...
twirl it... wait for some thread to tie it together
into a hanging ******* of a bundle...
while at the same time:
          before you... a throng of vermin...
this beard... a magic flute!
the zenith of my thinking...
and ultimately: the nadir of any narrative
that might be inclined to escape and
not become 3D...

- i listen to songs in german...
i put on airs of pride - my chin starts to contort into
the moon's scythe and sickle...
even if the night is overcast with beard,
or cloud...

- then i put on a record that's 20 years old...
deftones' white pony...
and i remember being a teen...
hungry for hormonal diet...
a diet to stop the bones from aching
as they grew extra sprouts:
adverse to the skin and photosynthesis...
bones that were expected to grow
entombed... not in flesh...

- sketches from the gasoline additive when
it comes to a beer, starter...
otherwise: elite... gonna breed on top
of the general... pucker up the tremor for a vibrato
kiss and leech her lips off...
to expose her most pristine:
todlächeln -
                           not a chelsea grin...
the joker lapse... i mean... extending the shaving
lines and just, completely, forgetting there's
any botox involved to grow a peach
from a duck of the reinvention of
the deflating balloon...

   leave no selfie without it...
                   herr grinsen: die / das / die / das...
i keep forgetting the definite plural and
the definite singular... feelz... feels...
maximum impromptu: das bösartigwimmern...
anything in german at this point...
sounds better than...
wenigbruder englisch...
                       dies, mein krawatte beste...
alle schwarz alle weiß:
      say to me... nein pinguine willkommen...

anything to keep these mosquitos these
zeppelins away... alt vater großartig Schwab
from this... herd of minor dicta
of the children of the house of ßaß...
translated nomad from the high pressure
***** basin of:
later, trajectory... later... the yawn and canyon...
and the sky above...

- beer first... whiskey after...
shrapnel... and gasoline... no car... no speeding...
fast but otherwise still walking...

            - a hurrah and the cohort of a hum...
to match the echo of the centipede...
         the silence and otherwise the simplified
complications of a conversation...
the bed torn between *** and sleep...
between saturday sunday and monday through
to friday...
   and the need to drink with someone else...
"the need"...
          
the skulls breaks at the sight of sea-riddled-and-*****
cliffs... daggers persuaded to be forever sharpened...
the fiddly parts of ***** as accountants when
it came to the pennies, copper, and granules
of sand... seized: the rivers of time...
constipated shock value elevated...
                            
                                am i to find a lover when
the orchestra tells me...
these words will never find a dear sir / madam
or circle round for a yours sincerely...
                godzilla... the theme i remember from
the days when the japanese still had control over the beast...
otherwise... an overweight t-rex with...
arm extensions... the lotus feet of the chinese...
which also includes...
the savory diet of... tendering dog meat...
i.e. beating the dog to a plum softening...
which is: then again... not curing the already dead
curated meat...
life aware needs to be involved...
brick by brick brick on brick...
the status quo: made in china...

         cheap whiskey... although in an expensive bottle...
that is the haig club whiskey...
        so much for ezra pound admiring
the ******* ideograms...
what's to admire... when...
it ends up being a crude...
current latin emoji-infiltrated grafitti
equivalent to: CUL8R...
               chow-chuckle-mein-hong-shui-chew?
all that intricacy into the ideogram...
and all that remains is...
bat soup... and an advantage at playing
poker... omnivores...
you'd think that Islam would be...
more geared to break ranks among the omnivores...
like all the fickle gods... a good joke...
they abhor / are told to herd sheep
because: what sort of pig would survive the desert
and not become crispy bacon...
camels are fine too... as are their testicles...
never mind the pork leather shoes and pork
leather belts...
but the chinese omnivores are fine by
Allah: Muhammad & Co....

                               khadijah **** khuwaylid..
wrote the first surahs of the quran...
she was the literate:
the stephen vizinczey epitome:
                          in praise of older women...
last time i heard... muhammad was illiterate...
pray! that i've exhausted sympathy on
him being an orphan...
but not a ******* oliver twist thrown into
an orphanage! b'ooh h'oo...

                     the end... the whiskey isn't going
to drink itself;
as i have exhausted the patience of my bladder...
while there's the remaining concern
for a bewildering and a simultaneously
bewildered peacock... on the hunt for coy;
which is not exactly the darwinian daydream
of the short-hand greek alphabet...
the α-β male thermodynamic...
          the Σ-Δ female harem...
salmon swimming up-stream to spawn...
                             and... Ω-man / unicorn...
                     sha! schtil!

Lily Kesha Gump

Sittin' on the curb of Bronx and Main Street

How I wish I could wrap my arms around you

Sweet little lady, lookin’ grown with a picture of her mama’s stare frozen on her face

Wrists slung through the spaces of her thighs, waiting for a daydream

And she sees me as I’m twirling by in my ruby reds and thigh high leather grace



There you go darlin,

She says to me  

Scoring on my indigo smile

She bites men to sleep

With the crevices of her curves

As her voice weakens wicked

she pulls me out of my gloom



There you go darlin,

She says to me

With a time bomb ticking

On my pain pain pain

And the pen is in my hand

Before she even leaves my sight



I love this city

I love these women

I love their shoes

I love their smiles

Cheeky little laughs  



Someone once recommended

When I was dancing under the shades of a neon lamp  

From Homeless to Harvard

by a woman named Liz or Marie

Or maybe I read the title off of a screen
when I walking with Maryanne on north Peachtree street


And I remember


Lily Kesha Gump

How I wish I could wrap my arms around you

And give you the life some white woman

who doesn’t even know you

Thinks you desire.

what is average??
an understanding
in terms of scoring
In the years
1940-65 scoring 35 to 45%
was considered Average
In 1965-80
scoring 45-65%...
In 1980 to 2000
scoring 65 to 80%...
In 2000-15
scoring 80 to 90%..
Now,
Average means 95%
I don't know.....
Why??
Some Economist says
Average is over..

The word scars has always had a negative connotation behind it. A common name for Mental or Emotional injury is referred to as mental scars or emotional scars. Medically speaking scars or scarring is a step in the natural process your body undergoes to heal. Even though the healing is happening when a scar appears it tends to leave behind what some people see as an unattractive mark or area. Emotional scars and mental scars follow the same rules; a broken heart, the death of a friend or family member. All of these things can give us scars of some form. Having many scars myself I can relate with the desire to cover up or be rid of the unattractive areas on my body or in my life. It can become increasingly frustrating when those scars don't fade over time, or take longer to vanish then we hoped for. However this doesn't have to be a bad thing as quoted by a musical group AA-" How Stubborn are the scars when they won't fade away, or just a gentle reminder that now are better days".

I've had my fair share of "scars" whether emotional, mental, or physical. Each one has a different story, each one is riddled with wouldas, shouldas or I wish; but like the choices I've made to obtain them they are permanent. A Great example of scars as a story is the process of tattooing. Tattooing is the process to scar the skin by injecting ink into the second layer of skin causing it to be stained in the patterned it was scarred. People are in most cases proud of their tattoos, yet try to hide the natural tattoos of life. The body is a blank canvas when you’re born. Through trial and error we have been painted with life experience. Where I’m from scars are worn like the patches on a jacket. “I've been stabbed here or I've been shot there" is a badge of honor. Maimed knuckles were on the hands that lead us to adulthood. We grew up believing that our scars were how we were defined. If my face wasn't torn or my legs weren't spotted from the bruises then I’ll never fit in. Although it’s looking beyond the superficial, I was convinced we still were missing something. We were missing the beauty of those distorted knuckles, the grace in that scraped up knee. We never stopped to realize that we were actually bonding over our flawed skin instead of boasting about, "You should see the other guy".

We shouldn't hide behind the outcome of something that happened but instead smile that we learned from it. It took me a long time to realize just how special each blemish I carry truly was to me. When I look at my shin I don't see I fell and it was painful; I see my wife and I playing soccer and she juked right pass me scoring the winning goal. Something my grandmother always said to me, “You’re only as interesting as the scars you can smile at". For me that sums up things beautifully. Bad things happen to everyday people and even when that scar doesn't fade just remember that now are better days. I can successfully say I’m smiling because now these are truly better days.

While you were playing FIFA
I was scoring with you mum.
Could hear you through the wall,
as I came in her net, I'd home
goaled in her just for fun.

But it wasn't to disrespect you,
I never wanted to hurt anyone.
Your dad came home when you
were at collage, and I told him
shut the door and sit in the corner
               till I'd finished his wife off.

See he didn't shout or run his mouth
off, cos I knew who he'd been doing
behind her back,
                    none other than my mum.

Now my dads a good man and he loves
my mum, now I'm not making excuses
for her but your dad knew we were happy
and played the unloved man
                   that just needed love.

Well your dad thought she had morning
breath, but na, she's taken my length after
I off loaded in her ***.

But I stayed and watched as your pops  
kissed her passionately.
Dang that must have been a salty kiss
          breath like the sea with raw sewage
and a hint of peppered sweetcorn.

            Now this isn't about you,
this is about men should respect another's
mum, ok I didn't yours, but she knew
that I was a length and your dad was just
             a millimetre short stop.

And I always hit her spot, so god knows
what my mum
                      saw in this old punk.  


After that day, he never did any odd jobs
around my house, and I confided in my
mother that I knew and that I didn't want
anything, I wasn't telling dad. and she cried
and said it was only a kiss and only once.

But she hadn't instigated it, and she'd been
a little drunk. But I saw him ******* coming
out the bedroom sweating? Ye he'd been doing
some DIY, why what have you done.

Nothing Ma, I just told him he wasn't welcome
anymore, are you going around there's again?
Na mom, I'd played a game done to many home
goals, and they suddenly moved on.
   I'll miss my friend but I'll deffo miss his mom.

Hey young man, wanna join a frat?

Cool wife beater and a backwards hat?

Come with us, be one of the "bros"

And help us pull some cute little hos.





All you gotta do is follow our rules

Play along and we'll provide the tools.

To be one of the coolest kids here.

Just take a shot and slam a beer.





******* come your way as soon as you join.

All over you like you got loads of coin.

Scoring ******* left and right.

Getting ***** every night.





Frat boy Brad must have forgot since he was drunk.

With this kind of attitude, you'll surely flunk.

But if you don't care about your future, stand up and say:

"I compromised my morals, but it's O.K.!"

Glacier,
Flake
Time
Crystal
Collective
Mass
Gravity,
Flow
Breakin­g
Celibate
Monastic
Oath
In
This
Cathedral
Tower
Bedrock
Cracking­
Groans
Moans
Under
Exponential
Cave
Crush
Crevasse
Plowing
Scori­ng
Tearing
Mush
Melt
Calving
Diving
Block
By
Block
Headlong
Into
­Wave
Reflecting
Clouds.

I lock myself in places - so no one can see me crying,
So no one can see my tears
Or my pitiful face.
My mind explodes as my thoughts torment me
It all gets so overwhelming
And I can feel the tears prickling my eyes
I close them - and they sting
But no tears fall - although I can feel them,
Scoring their way down my cheeks
Outlining my faults,
Outlining my weaknesses,
And forcing me to atone for them
By keeping them suppressed in my ****** up mind
And not permitting my tears to fall...

These are my restricted tears.

AUSTRALIA DAY, BY THE BBQ



CHEER CHEER FOR THE CROWD YS SEE

THE PEOPLE WHO COME TO YOUR BBQ

YOU SEE YOU COOK SAUSAGES A VERY NICE COLD COKE

AND EACH MAN HAS BEER

YEAH YOU SEE EVERYONE YOU SEE WILL PARTY YESEREE

YEAH IT’S ANOTHER AUSTRALIA DAY BY THE BBQ

I BRING OUT 6 ESKIES WITH 400 BEERS

THIS WILL MAKE THE MEN HAPPY

OH BLODDY ****** DEAR

YOU SEE, THERE IS A FEW WELL DONE STEAKS AND A FEW EGG AND BACON ROLLS

OH YEAH, ****** COOL

YOU SEE WE SIT BY THE LAKE IN OUR BLUE AUSSIE GEAR

AND WATCH THE LOVELY FIREWORKS, YEAH, LET’S GRAB US ANOTHER BEER

DON’T FORGET, THERE IS OUR THEORY, DUDE, LAMB LAMB LAMB OH DEAR

YEAH LAMB WILL PUT IN THE A IN AUSTRALIA DAY, YEAH IT WILL OH YEAH

THEN A MAN CAME UP TO ME, AND TOLD ME WATCHA DOING

ARE YOU ENJOYING AUSTRALIA DAY, LIKE IT’S A DAY WORTH CELEBRATING

I HAVE BEEN TO CITIES, THAT HAVE A LOT OF PENANG

FROM FLORIDA, CHICAGO AND THE GREAT BUDAPEST

AND NO MATTER HOW FAR OR HOW WIDE YA ROME

YOU CAN ALWAYS CALL AUSTRALIA

A PERFECT PLACE TO HAVE BBQs, ON JANUARY 26TH

AND WE CHEER COME ON AUSSIR COME ON, YEAH, COME ON AUSSIE COME ON

YA KNOW EACH BOWLER IS COMING DOWN LIKE A MACHINE

THE OPPOSTION IS PLAYING NUMSKULL GAMES IN THE GREEN

WE ARE SCORING RUNS, THROW OUT YA CHEWING GUM

AQND THIS IS THE GREATEST AUSTRALIA DAY, THAT WE’VE EVER SEEN

GO AND HAVE LAMB ON AUSTRALIA DAY

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, OI OI OI

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY DUDES

I break my back again;
a gymnast I never was,
scoring a 6.5, never a perfect ten,
putting myself through hell because
being flexible for your needs
has always been at the top of my priorities.

but you never were a chiropractor
and my desires were never
even considered as a factor
when you chose your next endeavor

so I just keep bending backwards for you,
nearing my demise
as the life drains from my eyes
and my face turns a deep shade of blue.

It’s a contest in Fitness talent that one has
But it is a competition to see if the competitor has pizzazz
It’s a matter in showing your body shape off
Being determined and destined of course
As part of the fitness competition, one must dance
It’s a matter in putting the audience into a trance
But it’s the scoring in how you advance
The razzle and dazzle being in the spotlight
It’s about showmanship in becoming a champion
Perfection being great
How your diet and exercise come together in relate
But one must pay critical attention and watch carefully what you eat
This is competition of shape in how you will compete
Having the right routine being the regime
Nutrition being nice and clean
Not cheating, but having a theme
Exercise and tone all combined
But in the winning circle, you can’t drink any wine
It’s about becoming Mr. and Ms. Everything Fitness
The audience is there to take it all in and witness
One must have the right positive approach
There can be humor and jokes
But it’s a combination of exercise, shape, commitment, dedication and smile
This is the competition during while
One who is caught in the Fitness Sting
However, it is fitness being entertainment having the right swing.

To Lose Everything and Die for it


Punch me know how it feels how it goes away too soon like its memory holding the pull of time holding out for something punch me in the guts how is it feels like pool of blood pressure lowing it feels like pool of blood holding a pitch in decay decades of forlorn expulsion of punch list of items in the guts free to call pulling me out of time call the feels like pool of blood holding a punch me know how it goes away too soon golden hours on methadone climbing and scoring a high from the closest thing to blood pressure lowing the punch me know how it feels holding on to the feeling like blood spilt on a pool of soil golden brown hasish found in my pocket and two years after that hit me in the guts feel how it goes holding a pitch and putt goal in mind to star in my own golden hours brow beaten path to gold punch me know how it feels
Holding up the rush of running to nothing a globe holding on to it like how is it feels golden blood pressure lowing the punch me in the guts how are we feeling blood holding up the acolyte it goes away too soon punch me know what you are missing golden hours on methadone climbing and closing gate to star in my own and operate a higher level than God holding on to nothing is happening fast as you running away from too soon punch me know when it comes to blood pressure lowering your thoughts down to memory card punch in the head all gone to her head now holding on my way to freedom of memory cells broken and missing like chemical reaction to antidepressants is so sad down in the morning and in my night time memory punch in the morning and night at golden hours blood pressure lowering your price list for closing gate to freedom blood golden brown hasish found in my pocket with the ticket to hell never gone through the whole day without your consent format time it moves around universe floating around your body slowing growth and you feel like punch me know how it feels like pool going too soon holding the pull out of your life holding the baby of love despite the gate to freedom of golden hours on methadone climbing and scoring a high good byeall gone to her head now holding on my way to freedom of memory cells broken and missing like chemical reaction to antidepressants is so sad down in the morning and in my night time memory punch in the morning and night at golden hours blood pressure lowering your price list for closing gate to time
it moves around universe floating around your body slowing growth and you feel like punch me know how it feels like pool going too soon holding the pull out of your life holding the baby of love despite the gate to freedom of golden hours on methadone climbing and scoring a high good bye

Sprawled out across his back.
Contouring the bean bag chair into something shapely beautiful.
Knees expelled in opposite directions,
Expelling my imagination into a furious sea of frenzy.
Silence.
Except for the constant clicking of the video-game controller.
The constant flicking of his fingers soon lead my imagination
Elsewhere.
The traffic-jam of words inside of me soon slip uncontrollably to thoughts
As I sit behind him.
My heat undecoded.
Legs crossed, just as a lady should.
Girls from all over must tell him he's beautiful.
But beauty in itself is a limitation.
I'm not sure if he is aware that he is beyond
The liberal definition.
I find myself soon forgetting the awkward of the situation,
Instead savoring the surreal reality of such a moment.
"Are you winning?" I shortly ask him, breaking the heavy incredible silence.
But I had to know.
He can miss as many goals as he likes. Laugh it off.
Because inside of me he's scoring.

I sit
Helping my mom
Sticking stickers on various ribbons
I look back on today's swim meet.
During freestyle, I was put in a heat only with a girl who hardly knew the stroke
I touched the wall over five seconds before her, scoring a new high score for my freestyle time; 42 89, which is 42 seconds and 89 milliseconds.
Next, I had backstroke to do with a friend of mine a lane over
Although I was placed for success, I barely came in last for my heat.
Then, all I had to do was read.
Pretties, by Scott Westerfield sat open in my hand, with me absorbing all of the words as if I wrote them myself
Tally was watching her former friend Shay become a monster. Nice story.
After awhile, I started helping my mom put identifying stickers on ribbons.
How lovely

Lie back think of England
Tuck into toad in the hole
Cider with Rosie,  peaches and cream
Juggle dumplings scoring a goal

Oats in the nose-bag, flip-flop away
Doggie do in the park
Scream shout, dip in and out
On the side after dark

Wellies squidgy in the mud
Carpet burns tickling trout
Marigolds in the soap suds
Eyes askew, up the spout

strangers hold up scoring cards as I pass by
6
4
8
3
i pretend not to notice them, but I do

I try to pretend like I enjoy talking about myself
when people ask me stupid questions about my life:
"where do you work?"
"how are the wedding plans coming?"
"are you going to school?"

all of which hold very little importance
so I shy away from them
perhaps it is because I do not feel worthy of such attention
cannot grasp that some people genuinely wish to know

I don't show love or interest like that
sometimes I am afraid that I am not capable of loving at all

but that-
is a silly notion
scrawled up on Lucifer's drawing table
he wishes for me to be miserable, as he is
why do I succumb to the lies

I feel incomplete sometimes (always)
and I wonder if Pacman feels like an incomplete ball of sunshine, too

"Sunshine," he calls me.

and I shrink from my lover,
because I don't know what to do with my darkness.

.english colonialism used to be passive-aggressive, english post-colonialism is a strange dynamic of former colonial nations playing the endgame of colonialism with non-affiliated nations of the british empire (affiliated by trade anyway, although not based upon origins of the ruling elite's extending arm), there's a hot topic in england between the irish and the polish, the irish are provoking the polish into racism so someone else can look smug with a pakistani friend on the london tube.

you know the amount of pain i see writing my father's
invoices of manual labour with the irish *****
apparently running
the show protecting northern
irish outputs of poetry and cigarette smuggling -
keeping us migrants "in check"?
god the loathing,
i try to improvise each invoice
with an excess knowledge
of the english tongue to break through,
but my sole considering comforter
is still death,
**** this *******, i rather die
than see my father's eyes eye me
hurtful hopeful of seeing my "bright new life"
when i was nearly murdered by
an egyptian school-friend / childhood friend
and later told: boy you better pretend you're
mad... boy my ***, your father is just
an x-ray technician... go back
to the northern africa of your
pretending to be a semite and build
another pyramid... *******, **** all of this,
days of casual pretentious squeaky clean
non-offensive poetry are over...
gentlemen - let's broaden our minds... swear a little
take up oaths with truth...
we were born to down a pint of concrete before
ireland was born, rushing out of pubs
when the call was made: concrete has arrived!
run, run run run! break legs and whatnot,
because in an irish pub talking to a homeless
person in akimbo giving him a cigarette
is cause for argument with an irish girl
trying to get, familiar;
unlike the sword, a stick has two ends...
you can smack someone with it,
but then someone can rebel and grasp the same
stick and smack you with it, for a suckling
taste of a kiss in memory of reprimanding manners.

- and i do remember the good stuff coming
out of h'america...
    i once owned a copy of blue valentine
by tom waits on c.d.: scratched that record
from over-playing it...
found a vinyl copy in the shop today...
splashed out a staggering £20 on it...
lucky for me the mp3 record comes free...
     £20 is a lot?
       well... better that £20 which played
in the background as i finished off decorating
the kitchen...
   rage 2 deluxe edition for ps4 -
      £44.99... so sure... i splashed out...
          thank god i'm not a gamer...
with games it's like with movies...
   notably? vikings season 1...
     i thought i could watch it a second time...
couldn't...
   a bit of a hit and miss...
    with games and movies...
      when the narrative gets exhausted...
and you're still honing in on the narrative
whether a passive spectstor or the role player
in the game...
but investing in an album?
       background background...
and an almost infinite array of the comeos
against the record...
   one cameo decorating a kitchen
another cameo finishing the day off with
some cider on a windowsill...
   but once upon: that's what h'america was
about... united we stand,
divided we fall... blah blah...
           and it looks like that right now...
the cultural export zenith peaked and it isn't
coming back...
   not for a while at least...
now we only look at not the united
         but the balkanized states of europe...
the states pulling at each other:
where once there was a cohesive collective
      export of pure cancan h'americana...
tom waits' blue valentine...
                          now i'll am getting
"culturally" is a bunch of vlogger content...
export of problems,
existential qualms without support on
existential pillars from continental thought
of 20th century europe...
   19th century doesn't count:
   not even nietzsche does: but kierkegaard
doesn't.

what are those lyrics from that vomito *****
song enemy of the state?
we shall send you, in ever increasing number:
ships, planes, tanks, guns: that is your purpose
and, our pledge... (1941 state of the union speech
sample)

most americans are not aware that soon
the primary export of our national economy
won't be cars, or food, or microwaves.
instead we'll be exporting death.
instead will be exporting death.

   perhaps, once upon a time...
now the export is quiet different,
   at its cultural zenith of exported values...
it would seem h'america choked on
a bitter pill... h'america no longer provides
the sort of culture worth exporting,
notably in cinema in music...
                               in literature...

the behemoth lost all of its juggernaut
momentum... and stumbled into rehashing old
ideas... it's not plagiarizm as such:
more a plagiarizm ex per se...

norman davies: god's playground -
   1795 to the present:

the Belweder is a palace in Warsaw...
(belvedere: a beautiful view)
constructed in 1660 -
  the White House in Washington D.C.
constructed in circa 1796...
by god, what a similarity!

   polish emigration to the u.s.a.:
in social terms their educational and communal
organizations are less effective than those of
the ukranians,
   in political terms their problems
command less notice than those of the blacks,
chicans or amerindians...
in the vicious world of the american ethnic jungle,
the 'stupid and ignorant Pole' is a standard
stereotype... once the noble lord...
reasons no doubt exist: like the irish and
the sicilians... the greatest influx came from
Galicia containing a large number of
the 'wretched refuse': people so oppressed
by poverty and near-starvation:
supressed linguistically, religiously...
the instinct of mere survival...
accepted the most degrading forms of employment...
exploitation: 'industrial *******'...
they were the gangers of the great american
railway age...
a canadian textbook can be cited
(j. s. wordsworth, strangers within our gates,
toronto 1972):
'it is hard to think of the people of this
nationality other than in that vague class of
undesirable citizens' -
   very much like to today:
   to think of canadians being a people
beloning to the making of mankind -
    without the canadian concept of mankind
being: peoplekind...
even woodrow wilson (then) prof. at prince-ton
deemed the Poles to be 'inferior'.

- but who was to ever to keep grudges...
grand torino - the movie, starring and directed
by clint eastie-boy-sparking-wood...
waldermar kowalski... dumb pollack...
why do poles no integrate within a community
bias as such?
                   the proverb:
if you want to succeed within a framework
of immigration: steer away from your
fellow countrymen...

                     almost all other cultures that
come, but the host's nitty-picky:
oh look at our asian labradors...
why can't you lick our ***** like they can?
etc. one example out of the many...
some people, i guess: prefer to be in
the background...
post-colonial powers need tokens...
akin to a sadiq khan:
papa was an immigrant bus-driver -
quick step up from daddy being a bus driver
to the position of mayor of london...
browny points!

the english are smug like this:
you hear even today -
WE WON'T BE SORRY FOR OUR
FATHER'S AND FOREFATHER'S SINS...
not for our colonial past...
they say that consciously -
but subconsciously they are scoring
brownie points...
        i can't say they're doing this
unconsciously: since if they were:
there would be a unanimous concensus
and no: "diversity is our strength"
agenda...

             besides... you can't exactly
conquer an island...
the norman conquest of 1066? it wasn't really
a conquest: for a conquest to actually take
place you'd require the native population
to be displaced / replaced by the invading
force - akin to the saxon invasion...
'don't touch, their, women...
we don't breed with these people...
what sort of people would you think
that would breed? weak people... half people'
(king Cerdic from the film king arthur 2004)...
proof being?
when the normans invaded and "conquered"...
they simply replaced the ruling saxon elite...
hence? the domesday book...
the ruling elites were being replaced
and the new ruling elites wanted to have
an account of who they were going to rule...
it was less a conquest and more:
a change of guard... since...
            the locals were first investigated
and subsequently left to their own devices...
there was no conquest:
               as such...
                but you can get on with your
day-to-day life on an island with natural
fortifications (the ******* sea)...
and produce your little whizz-kids down
the years...
   but imagine being squeezed by:
prussia... russia, the ottomans,
                  the mongols...
                             the swedes...
                and subsequently by the austro-hungarians...
matka królów (the mother of kings),
i.e.: Elisabeth von Habsburg...

   in conclusion... oh to hell with the whole
"incel" label... you have to pay for something
in the end... why not skip the *******'s worth
of pleasantries: the dating masquerade
and not get into the nitty-gritty with a *******
in one smooth stroke of a count worth an hour?
no hard-on shyness that way...
no ****-teasing...
whatever is an erectile dysfunction outside
of the brothel... doesn't seem to bother
whittle wichy while in a brothel...
so go figure...
                and relating to the stories of incels...
hmm... maybe it's the fickle women...
last time i checked...
i picked up a thai bisexual in a park,
a random stranger...
                took her home,
some beer, some jazz...
                  ****** her in the garden...
        i don't even think it's the case of
"i can't get laid" with these incels...
     english women: nuns on the outside...
latex gimp suited **** black boot licking
*** fiends in the bedroom...
   the madonna-***** complex...
the only aspect of Freud that resonates with me...

you know what, never mind...
      i'm just happy i collect vinyls...
free mp3 copy to boot...
and instead of spending 40+ quid on a game
that will become exhausted after one sitting /
completion (these are not arcade games,
nor are they the "free" new wave of games,
the ones where you play "superior"
opponents with a handicap -
since you didn't pay any in-game updates,
patience is a virtue,
   and someone people invest real money
into these games, but are still **** at them,
plus, these new wave games never really end...
i'll be dead and i won't be able to finish them,
added bonus? there's no NPC dimension
to them, added strategy: with a complete loss
of narrative / story-telling, genius!)
plus... how much does a vinyl player cost?
you can get one for under 70 quid...
sometimes vinyl bargains: under a tenner...
this one though, for 20 quid...
1 vinyl worth 20 quid once every two months?
oh yeah... i really splashed out on this one!

woman is a grand idea though...
    there is so much of woman i would be able
to love, if only the practicality of woman
wouldn't be associated...
alas: reality bites...
                       regrets...
                                  aged 33 and i feel as if...
i have managed a good enough sample
where both sexes can coexist within the confines
of me entertaining them:
as if they were to never meet and "preserve"
the "fate" of "humanity"...
      i'm pretty sure there are plenty of people
who have been bullied into this trap
associated with the otherwise "intelligent"
dodo mentality...
                          besides, i'm about to find out,
whether or not, they sell liter bottles of whiskey...
using my braille tally:

            ⠁ ⠃ ⠇ ⠧ ⠷ (⠿)
            1  2  3   4  5  (6)
             a  b  l   v  à  (é)

                        from what i drank yesterday
for that lullaby... i'm starting to supect that:
what they label as a liter... is actually more -

    if after ⠷⠻ ⠷⠻ (i.e. 50ml  20x) i'm not left
with an empty bottle... well then i'm not left
with an empty bottle.

Peering up from the precipice, a cyclops! – a
Many-fanged and mono-eyed beast,
Flesh a sickly sea-shell and putrid yellow as a
Series of pustules pulse rivulets of green-black blood,
Staining scarred surfaces and shadowing engorged strength.

Reaffirmed grip on haft,
I plunge the sticked-spike a shade-shy of horizontal,
Missing the mark obvious but finding purchase,
Shattering clavicle and spraying sinew in a perverse sort
Of macabre rainbow arc, yet met with instant,
Abject terror: spear now not merely stuck but gripped
By mine beholden nemesis, and he shifts, twists the
Leverage and I, trained in the art of never-surrender-never,
Have not his primitive power to resist and thus fall,
Giving way to laws of momentum – and the world shudders.

Eyes-wide as fist-eclipses-sun, a quick scramble,
Desperate-probing-reflexive grab for the half-arm length stabber,
Unsheathe, roll, aim and ******:
A scoring glance, slicing more pox and pus than
Bone or gristle, but desired effect achieved:
Nemesis rails, howling, orb clenched and pointing skyward,
Arms guarding reflexive at bloodied torso, leaving precious,
Glorious goal unguarded:
A backwards roll, leaning into the earth like Atlas,
I push, spring, and the world gleams in high-contrast
Blood-red and silvered-steel-sword as I’m propelled skyward –
Blade-and-hand acting in concert, a conductor in a symphony
Of prospective gore seeking to punish the cyclopean’s dissonance,
I plunge deep, scoring a bassonic rumble from
His jugular and cacophonic crackings as his cerebral
Column gives way to the superior song.

His shuttered eye now open as he slumps, falling to the
Ground ilke a dead god, it develops a strange sort of calm,
As if he’s hearing his own song of slaying – but that
Sizzling, that pig-eating-slop sound, that wasn’t my song –
That must be his, and awareness dawns as adrenal sets –
Blinded by blood and battle, I’d neglected to heed
The refuse of the beast’s bilious eruptions,
Blown back from the force of my blade, and now, immersed
By the nauseating, liquid-green mass, I am devoured from
Without.

I lay now, eyes alternating skies, and weep that I
Am sapped entirely of strength enough for noble suicide:
I shall die here, propped astern like a failed Atlas, a
Boneless, gibbering mash of grit, guts, and warm, soupy glory,
muted and deafened to the howlsong from above of vultures.

Seems to me like the Grim Reaper would have some sense of humour... Just look at his job description....

   He was staring at the fire with a horrified expression on his face.

   I quickly hid the stick with the marshmallow squished to the end of it behind my back. I frowned slightly at the look on his face and shook my head, thinking 'Nah, he’s not ready for that kind of humor' and I just stood slightly behind him and let the firelight dance in the night.

It certainly was a time for reflection…

  I go to touch him softly and he slowly turns his head away from the fire and as his eyes settle on my hand hovering above his shoulder and he shudders and jerks away. I’m offended at first until I realize I forgot my gloves that day.
Opps, scary, bony hand. Right! A real turn off and I duck my head to make sure the cowl is covering my face.
No more mistakes!

   “Where am I?” he grits though clenched teeth while his head swings between me and the fiery conflagration upon the motor way.

   “Who the hell are you”

“Me?” I ask, exasperated. Like the scary, bony hand didn’t give me away!

   “Am I dead?”

Oh ****, he’s now hyperventilating… not a good sign

“Not yet” I answer slowly… Hmmm, how to explain? “ No, your not dead, but you will be. I took you early because well…” and I wave my hand in the general direction of the car that just exploded, which quite nicely scored a point in favor of my benevolence. “I just swooped in a bit early because, lets face it… do you want to be there?!!”

He throws his hands over his head and ducks at the loud explosion and looks at me like it was my entire fault. Well I wasn’t the one that thought I was okay to drive home after drinking all night but I’m used to being pegged as ‘The Bad Guy’… rolls eyes Sheesh!

   “Where’s Janet?” he asks quietly then with an ear piercing scream (I don’t really have ears but by the howls coming from the forest behind us (because I can hear animals, I'm not completely deaf) I’m assuming his voice ratcheted up a notch or two…) JANET!!

"Calm down dude. She’s gone already."

   "Gone already? What do you mean gone already? You got me out and left her in the car?!?" He seems really ****** now.

"No! I didn’t! I mean that Gabriel has already been to collect her. Hey you’re a lucky guy. Gabriel doesn’t just shuck his wings to swoop down for nobody. She must be a real nice piece of… well a really nice lady for Gabriel to come collect her."

   "Gabriel?" He's shaking his head slowly like he's trying to dislodge a twig from his hair and his eyes are growing wider by the minute. "Gabriel? As in Archangel Gabriel? So she's going to heaven?"

He seems relieved which in turn makes me breath easier until he focuses again on me with a crazy eyed stare which makes me think he's about to get hysterical again.

   "Then what the hell am I still doing here? Why aren't I with her?"

Oh, tricky question. I hate the tricky questions. I'm so not paid enough for this **** and tricky questions. Why can't they just ever come along quietly?

"Umm" I hedge, with a little twitch right about where my eye muscle should have been. "I believe it has something to do with your secretary?" I deliberately leave it ending in a question.

   "My secretary? What the hell does that... Ohhh..."

Bingo, there you go. I love it when the penny drops quickly.

But I'm saddened because I know for a fact that his secretary was a scheming ***** that came onto him and he sidestepped all her advances at every opportunity but he was caught late night at the office with a big case and she took advantage of the late hour and even though nothing happened he still fantasized occasionally about the almost moment.

I pointed this out to Gabriel when he came to collect Janet and also advised that Janet was less innocent than she looked and he just sneered to me in that pompous angel way...
"Yeah? So what. We're really bored up there and this one is pious enough to escape notice but just enough down and ***** we can have some fun.
Back off Death!

You've already touched this one.

You just make sure you clean up the mess left over and make sure her man doesn't come sniffing 'round our domain or we'll make sure Lucifer hears about your little mistake with the last Pope and how you let him escape upstairs when he was meant to take the elevator south... Yeah, you know what I'm talking about...."
and then he was gone. All shining light and white wings and trumpets and fanfare.

Pfffttt... the mans exit is the most exciting thing about him so I guess Janet really is going to get what she deserves...

   "So what about me?" he said to pull me out of my reverie

"What about you?" Oh! What about* you? Okay, well I can put you back in the car and you can be burned alive until you take your last breath and get just a small taste of where you are heading"

He didn't really seem to like that answer and by the look on his face that is when I decided to toss the stick with the marshmallow squished onto the end of it far into the treeline. I really didn't think I was ever going to be able to pull that one out of the bag. But I was still really ****** at Janet (on his behalf) and I'd ******* this one up to royal proportions so I didn't think my next suggestion would be any less worthy of the moment.

"Or, I could bust you through the windshield on impact before the car sets alight."

He's not sure but he's nodding his head slowly and he's listening.

"Now, you have to remember, you were traveling at speed and not wearing a seat belt of course so you have to know that where you land after skidding a bit.... well, there will be scars..."

   *"Scars, chicks dig scars" he murmurs thoughtfully

"Yes, they do" I warm up to the thought. "And don't forget, you'll be a Widower too... Chicks dig that too"

   "Yes, a widower, scarred and tragically losing their wife. I like, I like"

He's warming to my idea.

I'm so smart!

Because he wasn't supposed to be the one I was to escort to Hell.
It was supposed to be his ***** of a wife Janet, but who in their right mind fights an Archangel for a soul? Not me, I'm the biggest wimp of all time. I just touch them and they fall! I'm not a fighter. Janet, for all her sins was to be mate to Lucifer tonight. I could have just touched Gabriel but I noticed he didn't get close enough to me to allow it and I didn't push the cause because I knew his payload wasn't anything he should gloat about and I wished him well...

So I really did '****' two birds with one stone this night. Janet got what was coming to her (Gabriel is the biggest sadistic ***** of the bunch) and her husband is a little banged up but the sympathy vote is scoring him some serious chick points.

Me?
I love my job :-)

Bielsa’s Boys go bombing on.
Hear it, hear it,
Hear our song.

Running further than the rest,
Leeds United are the best.
Scything through the opposition,
Scoring goals our only mission.

Top flight teams are running scared,
Afraid of a team that’s uncompared:
Players drilled on “Murderball”,
Making them feel so very tall.

We’ve even a Brazilian in our team.
Bielsa buys only the cream.
Brazil themselves are doing great deeds:
They say they’re playing just like Leeds.

Shame about those missing fans,
Still busy washing their hands.
Can’t wait for that Elland Road roar
Celebrating every score.

Before too long we’ll be World Champs,
Shining bright like electric lamps.
Bamford scoring all those goals,
Shutting the mouths of Keane and Scholes.

Bielsa’s Boys go bombing on.
Hear it, hear it,
Hear our song.

Paul Butters

© PB 1\1\2021.