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CHAPTER ONE

My geographic movements during the past year could be called “A Tale of Two Couches.” So as June draws to a close, I assume the position here again on Couch California. I am back in Hemet, the place the smug among us call Hemetucky--as if there was nothing a couple of Mint Juleps and a **** of Blue Grass wouldn’t cure. It is the year of our Lord, 2014: so far an interesting year for women. There was a woman who wore socks to bed. There was always my long-time, here today-gone tomorrow, long time companion, currently teaching somewhere remote on the Big Rez, a southwestern Navajo concentration camp near the 4 Corners.  Next, there’s my current object of affection, that fine and frisky lady from The Bronx by way of Bernalillo--currently at home in Laguna Beach, Orange County. Trixie: my main squeeze at the moment.

And now, completely out of the ******* blue this afternoon, my cell phone rings and it’s ******* Juanita--my all-time favorite woman, Juanita Mi Favorita de La Quinta--a Coachella Valley town and desert wadi, extending its lucrative winter tourist season to become a significant, year-round retirement venue and a robust service economy feeding off it.  Juanita arrived there in the late 80s, in middle of her early forties.  She was unemployed, homeless, just a suitcase to her name and a two-year old toddler in tow. Her parents were there, as was her Aunt Peggy.  Juanita was always Peggy’s favorite niece, her favorite child, actually, Peggy herself being childless, never married.  Aunt Peggy put her maternal instincts to work on Juanita Rodriguez, her Sister Rosalia’s second favorite twin daughter.

Maria, Rosalia’s first favorite daughter, Juanita’s twin sister—MARIA: lives in Newport Beach and acts as an extra in many commercial ads shot in southern California and elsewhere, an irony never without sting for Juanita. “Que lastima!” Poor Juanita: as her would-be Hollywood Movie star aspirations disintegrated over the years, along with her unrealized lower expectations to be TV star, and even those semi-glamorous modeling gigs at trade shows and fairs—the elephant’s graveyard of the acting profession—failed to materialize, and now her celebrity habitat shrunken even further, to that sporadic but consistent mockery of stardom, I refer to any would-be thespian’s ignominious one-celled visual protozoan: The Extra Call List.  And—*******-- what happens next? Juanita’s sister Maria starts getting these parts, starts getting hired by filling out a ******* postcard, starts getting paid to look good in the background. *******: no professional education or instruction, no agent, and no need to **** off both the producer, the producer’s cousin Morey, the director and the director’s wife’s huge Golden retriever, Genghis--actually a mighty handsome animal--or needing to spill $4K on that Derma-brasion, Juanita inflicted on herself last year.

Juanita, as you already know, was the second favorite daughter and the second favorite twin of the family. She became the third favorite child in her three-child family upon the arrival of her slick baby brother Nico-- the Golden Child, who grew up to be a glib Merrill-Lynch stockbroker, office and residence, Beverly Hills 90112.  (Enter forcefully into the narrative, His Nibs himself, Sir Nicodemus of Hollywood, Juanita and Maria’s baby brother Nico. He speaks: “Excuse me, stockbroker my ***, as it says in a 11 point Rockwell Boldfont, right here on my gold-leaf embossed business card: Senior Large Capital Investment Counselor.”)

No, Juanita had a hard time just treading water in that Cleveland shark tank. And though she lacked nothing in the cuteness department, she had this one fatal flaw, namely, the gift of ***** and sass and a reflex to speak truth to power. Juanita: rejected by Rosalia as a threat to her hegemony as Boss of the Girl’s Club, was cast adrift on a tempestuous childhood cruel Montserrat sea, out there on the briny deep . . .  
                

                                      



High Seas: where many a tuna has a Sorry Charlie moment: “Star-Kist don’t want no tuna with good taste; Star-Kist wants a tuna that tastes good.”

Finally, Juanita is rescued, taken aboard the Good/Soul Aunt Peggy—that wayward bark Elisabeta Rodriguez, home-ported in Southside, Chicago, Illinois—the rescue at sea performed in classy, rather low-key manner; no Andrea Doria drama, but understated:

{Camera One, Helicopter above, zooms over turbulent ocean surface. Peggy, an oasis of calm, aboard the raft Kon Tiki with Thor Heyerdahl and his crew, floats by, whispering, “Going my way, Honey? Climb aboard. Have a homemade oatmeal cookie and a small glass tumbler of Jack Daniels.” Okay, no, that’s not fair. Sure Aunt Peggy drank, but never got round to offering you a drink until you were well into your 30s. Let’s just say she offered you a warm glass of milk, the mother’s milk deprived you by your mother, her sister Rosalia. Dear Aunt Peggy: a seasoned survivor herself, flawed by early childhood deafness and grotesque speech.  Yet, she had refused to settle for life in an asylum. She made a go at life.  She learned; she prospered; she flourished. And when the time came, she was there for you in the Coachella Desert, there for her feisty niece Juanita Ann.  Aunt Peggy: a loving spirit personified, became Juanita’s special confidant and counselor, her personal cheer squad of one. Juanita, of course, a former cheerleader herself--an early hint of greatness to be sure, a highlight, perhaps the highlight of her life, shown off every Halloween, still celebrated at American high schools each Fall. She is the Principal’s secretary at a huge suburban high school in Indio. Each Halloween, if the date falls on a school day, Juanita arrives for work wearing that scrupulously preserved, vintage 1966 cheerleader uniform, looking real foxy still, snug now in all the right places. Eternal Truth: Juanita has always and will always be good looking. Life with Juanita is perpetual “ooh la-la.”

So, I am on the couch that afternoon, reading more of Gramsci’s prison notebooks, specifically the philosophy he calls “Praxis.”  Completely out of the ******* blue, Juanita calls me on a RESTRICTED phone, as I said, Juanita, a torch I’ve kept burning for years, flaring up like a refinery flame--oil still very much in the present energy mix--hope springing eternal as they say, and instantly my mission in life is rekindling our lost love. Juanita’s conceived her mission prior to her phone call:  using me to keep her son from being whacked by the local Eme--the Mexican Mafia—that ethnic-pride social club that the RICO-squad-- using family tree socio-grams and other expensively-printed graphics, the one RICO keeps trying to convince us is some sort of organized crime conspiracy. The Mexican Mafia: like everything else practical and utilitarian in this world: THAT’S ITALIAN! And, if you are starting to sense a bit of ethnic chauvinism on, between & below the lines, you are barking up the right tree.
                                                           ­     
      
                                                            
(AUTHOR’S POST-SCRIPT EDIT: And, an ad for dog food right here? Not the best choice of sponsors, perhaps, at the moment. Juanita was far off from the ****** ***** that start looking not half-bad at 2:30 in the glazy morning, not anywhere near those beasts you find lingering in the airport bars you usually frequent near closing time on Saturday nights. No, I remind you that Juanita was all “ooh la-la.” In my next printing—and my Lord, there have been so many, haven’t there, Paulie “Eat-a-Bag-of-****” Muldoon? I will change out the Alpo ad, plugging in a spot for Aunt Jemima pancake syrup or Betty Crocker whipped cream, you know, something more apropos.)

Juanita, I really must hand it to you. You showed the greatest staying power, year after year as I moved further and further away from La Quinta, California. Juanita: you embraced what was good in me, ignored my flaws and strengthened me with your love for so many years. As far as you and Peggy, I guess it was a case of the “apple not falling far from the tree” one of many endearing Midwestern metaphors you taught me.  Peggy taught you, taught you to be kind and then you taught me. No matter what bizarre venue I pulled out of my ***, you showed above-average staying power, continued to visit me wherever I went, Casa Grande & Buckeye, Arizona, Appalachia, West Virginia, and even Italy, when I thought I’d try Europe again after so many years.  With each move, each time, Juanita renewed her commitment to the relationship. Meanwhile, I continued to test her, quantifying her dedication, undermining her sense of mission to disprove my worldview on the expendability of women. Surely, you know that one: the unreliability of women, women who disappear without saying goodbye. That old deeply etched conviction to never get attached to a woman, any woman, based on the empirical fact that women have been known to suddenly die, a fact seared into my still tender metal by the surprise death of my mother on 11 January 1962.

1962. It was already an insecure world, to wit:  The Cuban Missile Crisis. Nikita Khrushchev, in his time both Dr. No and Dr. Evil, namely the Premier whom we Baby Boomers saw as Boogey Man of All Time (Although Putin is showing potential, lately)—the Kennedy ****** (what else could you call it?). All these events scary, whether or not I got the chronology right . . . I remained on high alert for any threat to my delicate adolescent psyche.  My mother-Rosa Teresa Sekaquaptewa-died at 2 o’clock in the morning, screaming in agony while apologizing to my father for not having his dinner on the table when he walked in from work that prior afternoon. She’d already been in bed since noon, attended by two of my aunts--both my father’s sisters--who loved their Hopi sister-in-law, Rosa.  Also present was Lafcadio Smirnoff, M.D.--last of the house call medicine men--a dapper, mustachioed, swarthy gentleman, misdiagnosing her abdominal pain as a 24-hour virus, while she bled out internally for at least eight more hours, her whimpers alternated with screams, well into the wee hours of the morning.

I was upstairs in that dormer bedroom listening to her die. An hour later, Father Numb-nuts of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish teleported in, beaming directly into my bedroom from the parish rectory.  Father Seamus Numb-nuts, an illuminated Burning Bush . . . not quite the bush I ‘d conjured at other times, so many times alone with Gwen Wong, ******* Playmate of the Year, 1961, one of Hefner’s hot centerfolds. No, give me a ******* break, you momo! Whacking off is the last thing on a libidinous, adolescent guinea’s brain when his mama is being tortured and killed by God. Even Alexander Portnoy, Philip Roth’s early avatar would have drawn the wanking line at that unforgettable moment.

No, perhaps what I’d had in mind was The Burning Bush Golf Course where so much of Fletcher Kneble’s political mischief and government shenanigans got cooked up. You remember his books, some of the Cold War’s finest: Seven Days in May, Vanished, etc.

Or better yet, perhaps the greatest political slogan of the 20th century: “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” Thank you, Jesse. “Thank you, Reverend Jackson,” I slip into my Excellence in Broadcasting mode, my very own private Limbaugh. Announcing my on- air arrival is El Rushbo’s unmistakable, totally recognizable bass line bumper, courtesy of Chrissie Hynde’s Pretenders band mate, guitarist Tony Butler: Dum, dum, dum-dum, Da-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum. Single, “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders
Rush Limbaugh Song– YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=SScW9r0y3c4

I become Reverend Jackson. I emerge from the vapors, an obscure abyss of deep family pangs and disappointments, ever-diminishing public relevance and fade to black (no pun intended) and media oblivion. The only thing left is that line:  “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” You will always own that line, Jesse--true political genius (to wit: Rainbow Coalition) Jackson that you are, despite El Rush-Bo’s virulent anti-Black animus, his predilection to mock you, Al Sharpton, Corey Booker, Barack “Hussein” Obama, and any other professional ***** in America. Isn’t it time someone came right out and tagged Mr. Limbaugh as the Father Coughlin of our time.

Meanwhile back in The Bronx, enter another man of the cloth:  It’s Seamus Numb-nuts, making one of his many well-documented spectral visitations, his splendiferous miracles and wonders. How much longer will the Vatican ignore this humble Bronx priest, this epitome of Sainthood; this reverent man, lacking only the stigmata for a unanimous consent vote? Quote the Numb-nuts: “God Works in Mysterious Ways.” An old standard to be sure, but a lovely, all-purpose bromide for explaining why evil exists in our world. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed; I lost God at that moment, consequently shooting myself in the foot--metaphorically-speaking-condemning myself to an unshielded life, life OUT THE BUSHES!  I went forth into the world without God, without that handy divine crutch, that Andy Devine metaphor for when one’s legs grow weary: a puff of smoke, a reverb twang and a nasty frog croaking “Hi-ya, Kids. Hi-ya, Hi-ya. Hi-ya.”

   Andy's Gang - Pasta Fazooli vs. Froggy the Gremlin - YouTube
► 3:55► 3:55
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H35odPm7b3w Aug 8, 2012 - Uploaded by jmgilsinger
Froggy the Gremlin -Tuba ... Andy Devine (Aug 24, 1952)

Life for me became lonely and purposeless. And probably explains my susceptibility to military discipline and a subsequent career in clandestine government service. In 1968--the very day I turned nineteen, September 25th of that year—that fateful day when I should have shot myself in the foot—literally not metaphorically--earning that coveted 4-F physical rejection, a draft deferment to be desired, that 4-F classification of unfitness for duty, a necessary loophole in U.S. conscript service law.  The Draft: last used during that great commonwealth Cold War purge, that culling out of the unwashed, uneducated children of immigrants, that cut-rate, discount, lower socio-economic ***** bank—the only bank where after you make a deposit, you lose interest, to wit: most Black, Hispanic and Poor White Trash parents.  We were cannon fodder, many of us got to be planted at Arlington and other holy American shrines, still wrapped in black or olive drab leak-proof body bags, doing our generational bit to strengthen the gene pool left behind. A debt, some would say, we owed the country and, given the sorry state of the global wicket, increasingly an obligation to the species. And if I had to predict an outcome, Fascism in America will arrive riding the white horse of the environmental, anti-nuclear Bolsheviks. One could argue that Communism has moved so far left on the political spectrum that it’s now the far right.  Concoct a legislative policy goal, accomplish it legally as the bill becomes Law, signed by the President, endorsed and blessed by The U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

To wit: “Three generations of imbeciles is enough?” declared Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., an Associate Supreme Court Justice at the time, buttressing a majority argument harnessing the power of U.S. law as a legal means of purifying the race.  When euthanasia failed to win over American hearts and mind, the Federal Government played the war card again and again. Vietnam: undeclared and therefore unconstitutional--except for that Gulf of Tonkin ******* resolution. Vietnam: a cost-plus eugenics project, if ever there was one, although responsive, of course, to the needs of the Military-Industrial Complex.  ******* Ike: he warned us against Fascism in America. As usual, we ignored the man in charge.

Eugenics? Why didn’t the government just put all the retards on the stand, as John Frankenheimer did in Judgment at Nuremberg, a crafty Maximilian Schell humiliating a feeble-minded Montgomery Clift?  Why not, make everyone face a public tribunal, forcing all of us to testify in court, exposing our many substandard and borderline substandard cerebral deficits?  Why not force everyone to demonstrate just how ******* dumb we are, using some clever intelligence test, something l
Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious april walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air,
His gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower;
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.

How she longed for winter then! --
Scrupulously austere in its order
Of white and black
Ice and rock; each sentiment within border,
And heart's frosty discipline
Exact as a snowflake.

But here -- a burgeoning
Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits
Into ****** motley --
A treason not to be borne; let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.

And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either.
Caitlin Drew Nov 2012
Silently and scrupulously looking at my dad for a minute, I asked,
"What is it like to get old?"
He turned his attention away from the computer screen
Met my gaze
Took a deep breath in, and began,

"You don't realize just how fast life goes by, until it's gone.
One day, you look in the mirror, and realize that twenty years have gone by.
It's a different person in the mirror than what you expected.
Some days, I look at your mother
And it feels like I've only known her for a few months.
Other days I look at her, and she's just so different from the woman I met.
We've grown and changed so much together.
I am, to this day, learning new things about her,
And all of them make me love her more.
Yeah, she can't cook for ****, and she talks in tangential circles
Which I just can't keep up with.
But since day one I was smitten with her.
And to this day I'm surprised that she actually chose
To spend the rest of her life with me.
Getting old with the right person makes getting old bearable."
Whenever somebody would ask my mother how her day was, she would respond,
"Getting better, just like fine wine."
Now I know why.
The photographic chamber of the eye
records bare painted walls, while an electric light
lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw;
such poverty assaults the ego; caught
naked in the merely actual room,
the stranger in the lavatory mirror
puts on a public grin, repeats our name
but scrupulously reflects the usual terror.

Just how guilty are we when the ceiling
reveals no cracks that can be decoded? when washbowl
maintains it has no more holy calling
than physical ablution, and the towel
dryly disclaims that fierce troll faces lurk
in its explicit folds? or when the window,
blind with steam, will not admit the dark
which shrouds our prospects in ambiguous shadow?

Twenty years ago, the familiar tub
bred an ample batch of omens; but now
water faucets spawn no danger; each crab
and octopus -- scrabbling just beyond the view,
waiting for some accidental break
in ritual, to strike -- is definitely gone;
the authentic sea denies them and will pluck
fantastic flesh down to the honest bone.

We take the plunge; under water our limbs
waver, faintly green, shuddering away
from the genuine color of skin; can our dreams
ever blur the intransigent lines which draw
the shape that shuts us in? absolute fact
intrudes even when the revolted eye
is closed; the tub exists behind our back;
its glittering surfaces are blank and true.

Yet always the ridiculous **** flanks urge
the fabrication of some cloth to cover
such starkness; accuracy must not stalk at large:
each day demands we create our whole world over,
disguising the constant horror in a coat
of many-colored fictions; we mask our past
in the green of Eden, pretend future's shining fruit
can sprout from the navel of this present waste.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap
navigates the tidal slosh of seas
breaking on legendary beaches; in faith
we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail
among sacred islands of the mad till death
shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
bekka walker Jul 2016
Lying beneath the stars longing to feel your honest heart beet.
Returning to the dirt we came from, I can feel your breath hot and sticky filling the gap between us.
Scrupulously steaming us vegetables.
I can't help but imagine biting into your savory peel.
Some say the skin is the most nutritious part.
I inhale the ripe droplets dewing across you,
and wonder what we'd look like mashed together.
Stuck in a blender.
Ripped apart and delicately reassembled.
And then I remember,
That we already were.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 14
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”
(Henry V, by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE)

Morning into Mourning

<>

I speak it softly, for though battlefield is steeped in quietude
of the lively greenery, endless lawns of healing fields
surrounded by multitudinous shades of blue waters,
my eyes piercing , joining in
as sunrising separates the veil
dividing light from dark, new from prior,
a went-before and a
soon-to-be
and a familiar-what-to-be-hereafter,
but a skyed breech it is,
with sun ray stairs inviting my
upright ascension into this newness

Welcoming the exposure of my trembling, though it is not fear that causes my shaking, but the colored warmth barely warming, yet,
stoking, stroking the drape of chill
away, away! from my night-sealed pores

the majestic surfacing of the waters peinture impasto, with its roughened but genteel thick, dabs, dots, swirls, swishes belie the overall atmosphere of calm it conveys, and Shakespeare’s rallying cry of men rises to the mind forefront, for the bay is my battlefield,
the day’s new light the breeching of the sky’s
envelopment of our world, summons to rise and
step forward intimately into the tableau of morning

into the breech, into the unknown,
to lift one more poem from breast,
shed tears of welcome, and death fears banished,
a battle to the unknown from the foretold past,
and, but


you shout
no!
<>
tis a day like all others,
of rectitude sans gratitude
another quantity of known drudgery, another,
“Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup”

The breach is within me,
a splitting of the head,
laid flat out upon my desk,
writing down scrupulously
officiously,
the same figures inconsequentially,
letters deranged, daily merely rearranged,
prison vista,steel and glass appearing with
the same exactitude of every day ever prior,
the sun invisible, the unceasingly unchanging
dark deep of the shadowy of manmade canyons…

speak to us no more of views, vistas,
but the fistulae, the empty places
where interconnected dots and dash’s,
light and ombre blends of dark ochre  
gradations of bland de~gray~ding
are our time’s patchworks of familiarity,
cursed with annualized daily reciprocity,
a *** for a tat,
a woolen watch cap,
a  black Balaclava,
drawn over our heads
lest the drudgery be too readily apparent!


<>
mere mortal am I,
mortal wounded by our disparate
and desperate differing points
of view,
and we split ourselves in two,
hoping for a way forward of
reconciliations,
successful hostage negotiations,
pushing these contradictions,
back inside my heads,
until confronted
once again,
and find new words coming,
to bind me of the divisions between
or even,
to blind
me to the gaps between
my left and right
brain.

for I am both men,
one and the same,
forever
battling


until the morrow, then…
morning into mourning
June 14 2024
tween 3:30 AM ~ 10::00 AM
fitful sleep, fistfuls of vision's pieces
Rama Krsna Sep 2021
here,
by the bustling west side
a vintage Rothko in the making!
as the setting red sun
smooches a shy, dark-tanzanite sky.

her succulent strawberry lips,
seemingly
nowhere in sight.
there’s gotta be a portrait of this rose
somewhere......

the search now
ever since this bird has flown,
is for the missing piece of me,
which i keep scrupulously looking for
on every street


© 2021
poem inspired by a beautiful sunset on the west side of Manhattan that looked like  a painting from Rothko’s “color fields”.
Carl Halling Aug 2015
I seldom indulge in letter writing
Because I consider it
To be a cold and illusory
Means of communication.
I will only send someone a letter
If I'm certain it's going to serve
A definite functional purpose,
Such as that which I'm
Scrupulously concocting at present
Indisputably does.
It's not that I incline
Towards excessive premeditation;
Its rather that I have to subject
My thoughts and emotions
To quasi-military discipline,
As pandemonium is the sole alternative.
I'm the compensatory man par excellence.
                                                              
Deliberation, in my case,
Is a means to an end,
But scarcely by any means,
An end in itself.
This letter possesses not one,
But two, designs.
On one hand, its aim is edification.
Besides that, I plan to include it
In the literary project upon which
I'm presently engaged,
With your permission of course.
Contrary to what you have suspected
In the past,
I never intend to trivialise intimacy
By distilling it into art.
On the contrary, I seek
To apotheosise the same.
                                                              
You see...I lack the necessary
Emotional vitality to do justice
To people and events
That are precious to me;
I am forced, therefore,
To at a later date call
On emotive reserves
Contained within my unconscious
In order to transform
The aforesaid into literary monuments.
You once said that my feelings
Had been interred under six feet
Of lifeless abstractions;
As true as this might be,
The abstractions in question
Come from without
Rather than within me:
                                                              
My youthful spontaneity
Many mistrustfully identified
With self-satisfied inconsiderateness
(A standard case of fallacious reasoning),
And I was consequently
The frequent victim
Of somewhat draconic cerebrations.
I tremble now
In the face of hyperconsciousness.
I've manufactured a mentality,
Riddled with deliberation,
Cankerous with irony;
Still, in its fragility,
Not to say, artificiality,
It can, with supreme facility,
Be wrenched aside to expose
The touch-paper tenderness within.
                                                              
With characteristic extremism,
I've taken ratiocination
To its very limits,
But I've acquainted myself with,
Nay, embraced my antagonist
Only in order to more effectively throttle him.
Being a survivor of the protracted passage
Through the morass of nihilism,
Found deep within
"the hell of my inner being,"
I am more than qualified to say this:
There is no way out
Of the prison of ceaseless sophistry.
There are many things I have left to say,
But I shall only have begun to exist in earnest
When these are far behind me,
In fact, so far as to be all but imperceptible.
                                                              
I long for the time
When I shall have compensated to my satisfaction.
I never desired intellectuality; it was ****** upon me.
Everything I ever dreaded being, I've become
Everything I ever desired to be, I've become.
I'm the sum total of a lifetime's
Fears and fantasies,
Both wish-fulfillment
And dread-consummation incarnate.
I long for the time
When I shall have compensated to my satisfaction.
I never desired intellectuality; it was ****** upon me.  
I'm the sum total of a lifetime's
Fears and fantasies,
Both wish-fulfillment
And dread-consummation incarnate.
I'm the compensatory man par excellence.
"The Compensatory Man Par Excellence" possessed some kind of autobiographical novel written around 1987, and whose ultimate fate was, so I recall, to be destroyed with only a handful of scraps remaining, as its starting point.
Danny C Jul 2013
I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life:
all the pictures you see of me weren't goofy moments
with friends and family whose cameras sympathize.

I'm not one for portraits or photographs.
And I don't do well with a candid capture
of the face I see every morning.

Each angle is meticulously planned and preordained.
Every gesture, the charming smirk you see in my smile,
is scrupulously rehearsed like a Broadway show.

Because lord help this man, if I let them see what I am,
there ain't a body who'd love someone like that.
Isaac Grimm Feb 2013
Would that my life
carried the pomp and confidence
of a bombastic poem
an overwrought daytime drama

that bad action movie with the guy
who’s too cool for this world

Would that my rhymed greetings
always trumpet a joyful salute
blasting awake the tired and sad
rendering all introversion moot

Would that an invitation
for a beer a my place
be a more coveted prize
than a free trip to space

Would that every whipped up snack
be a culinary masterpiece
gasping in ecstasy my houseguests
cling to their seats

Would that the very tone of my voice
render women to squirm and swoon
render babies to giggle
and songbirds to croon

Would that any awkward silences
be scrupulously sifted out
cold cut conversations segued from hours
to clipped and cleverly crafted banter

Would that I’d compose the songs
that bring young lovers close
that wrench tears from the eyes
of those more cynical than most

Would that the clip of my canter
be the cadence of the soundtrack
of enlightenment

Would that my goodbyes be
an epic flood of emotion
my friends and colleagues
all so grieved to see me going

Would that in life
I be bigger than death
and in death I be
bigger than life.

...

But what would all that be
would that even be me?
Tyler Adams Nov 2014
She always sang smoothly,
startlingly scrupulously,
after studying the stanzas for mere seconds.
Anglerfish Annie I called her.
A voice as pure as heaven lit her lure,
the one-way ticket that swallowed those kids
into an inescapable abyss.
I watched as those thirsty jaws grew dull,
and that mesmerizing light died out.
Hanging over the windowsill, atop that disturbed building,
her hauntingly beautiful voice showered down once more,
reverberating through my bones as it always had.
As the last note hurried to accompany its creator to the ground,
It was shrouded by the yells and sirens booming from the Institution.
I saw all the lost souls pouring out of her mouth,
And thought of how they knew Annie more than I did.
Allania Berkey Mar 2016
The fear of rejection haunts my taunting soul
The eyes of god illuminate through the illusion of hope
Silence
Misery creeps among the stars
Honesty lingers mindlessly around the moon
Anxious
Reality twists and turns
Insecurity starts to flow
Outbursts and thoughts dance with one another
Thoughts travel
From the mind
Through the guileless heart
Midnight skies thunder in contemplation
Omitted while resigning from solitude
Lighting beams impressions
And strikes unforgettably
Remorse
Rose are quandary veiled in thorns
Glamorized secrets
Planted with tulips in the Spring
Vibrations spirit forth the branches of trees
Fog
Masks the anthropomorphic perception
Triggers instinct of intuition
Rationality halts, wills relish
The eyes of god forsake hope
Fear taunts thoughts
Rejection haunts souls
Misfortunes recollect the bitter anima
Lightly, the amity surrenders in the panicked streams of night
Soundly,
Charitably,
And Sincerely,
Tongue tied she scrupulously riveted
Across the room she neglectfully obscured the chair that supported his back
Togging on strands of denigrated comfort
Grains of sand that endless lay the shore
Mindless their eyes gravitated in contact
thirty seconds of encrypted reflections
Breathless laid rejection
She consigned to oblivion
Gathered by curiosity he sternly attends the strength
“What’s wrong?”
Admiration beams from the brims of his eyes
Grim of Frustration leak from her ****** expression
Hesitated
Continuously and distract she roamed away from him his thoughts
And admiration
Paralyzed by fear
Silence drives her composer
deeply and thoughtfully she inhaled
Breathlessly
— “A cup of coffee would sound nice, wouldn’t it?”
lmnsinner Jul 2017
he arrives around 10:30am,
after the morning rushers
and multiple malingerers
have surrendered to the orange clocker's
rocket red glare stare,
that little dictator of time that
rules lands far and wide,
well before the hoped for lunch crush,
every restauranteur's faraway *******

most days, to the last counter stool,
he beelines,
the least desirable seat in all of diner-land,
adjacent to the noise of kitchen,
and its higher risk perilous,
two way swinging door "entera-ance,"
a residence to be avoided most studiously
though hardly a corner to go unnoticed,
by virtue of its iffy existence,
unless one likes the increased chance of
being a victim of a crashing accident

Mr. Condiment Man
goes in and out,
silently unremarked
in our land of spacious skies
and amber waves of plastic

customarily any "regular" is
happily accorded a
rousing Sousa welcome,
but that mistake now twice made,
a historical hurry up-to-be-please-be-forgotten incident,
the Condiment Man's invisibility
second only to the
Famous Cinema Actors
seeking breakfast
amidst the common people

no words are passed,
no pleasantries are planted,
the rule of incommunicado silence,
for both sides now,
most happily observed,
like a UN peacekeeping boundary

quick appears Cream of Tomato soup
accompanied by  ever multiplying handfuls
of packages of Nabisco crackered packets,
with a ketchup Heinz handy

a soupçon of five iodized salt shakes
into the soup interred,
released from the prototypical
stainless topped, glass shaker
whose universality of usage seems to be
a Federal law o' the land

the meal in silence arrived,
silently but oh-so-slowly-consumed,
it's extenuating circumstances
lengthily enhanced by intermittent deliveries
of additional cracking crackers,
and an unrequited, unacknowledged,
"topping off" soup refillament

this one act play presented daily,
with a free tall glass of water in red plastic
also refillable,
as needed
a play with no official ending,
no white topped, green lined,
ripped from the ubiquitous diner pad,
scribbled, billing ever presented

but the loose change precisely,
scrupulously counted then
upon the counter left,
materializes by the hands
of the Condiment Man,
which is sourced from pockets various,
in places where no pocket belongs

you can set you watch by his timed departure
at five minutes of Twelve,
he is no longer,
the play thus ended,
the audience to feet leaps
relieved and appreciative
of the quiet man's drama
and his most excellent
silent soliloquy

some strange human need satisfied,
sated, and pleased
for all parties concerned,
when the New York Times
revealed that this condo man
left a 50 million dollar estate
to Meals-on-Wheels,
here was no shocked groaning,
only some perfunctory observing
that frugality had a place,
and that this fantastick show,
now closed, would be
sorely missed,
for it had become a condiment itself
in the lives of so many
March 2017
JR Rhine Nov 2015
Be a regular somewhere.
Ask for the usual.
Turn head up from the facade
of reading the by now memorized menu
to the smell of peppermint chewing gum
and a voice like old rubber treading gravel.
Notice that she did something different with her hair,
asking about how her kid's soccer game was
over the weekend.
Blonde curls--as opposed to waves--streaked with white dangle and bounce restlessly
encroached on an oval face
movement synchronized with fast and tight lips dark wrinkles formed around a bad habit swore to quit after her second child
but conversations and routine keep her body
and mind moving
their weakness frozen in place.
Nod to the chef, a dark-mustached thick-skinned and coarsely-coated fellow;
he tips his hat in greeting, smiling mostly
to himself as he looks down half consciously to chop the tomatoes.
You catch in the air the familiar scent
of coffee brewing, your ears perk up
to the sizzle of bacon as it
slaps into the pan.
The chatter of dishes and silverware
clinking together as they're
scrubbed scrupulously by an oily ambulant adolescent in the kitchen.
You look around, spotting the elderly man
enshrouded in the brown overcoat
patches at the elbows
on the stool, hunched over
the counter, orders coffee black
and graces hot sauce on meals like an elixir.
The lines on his face
seemingly not from the assumed winces
one would have from eating such a spicy meal
in the waking hours.
Wiry fingers coated in aging spots
reach out shakily to the coffee
like a saving grace
thin lipped breaks formation
solely for the formulaic
meal to be consumed.
You watch him now
as you're prone to do
His eyes look forward
and beyond
the kitchen's outer walls
where to in time
you wonder,
and think better of it all.
There's an atmosphere of peace,
not so much the calm before the storm
but the walk before a trot
to a jog and then a sprint.
This is the moment
before the preparation
for the moment,
frozen in time before
the blink of an eye
or the exhale of breath,
before the stretching of muscles
or the cracking of stiff bones,
as the eyes open from sleep
still carrying a few seconds
of the dream
before awakening to reality.
To have this moment all to yourself,
in the presence of others.
To share an atmosphere,
dense with the allusion of dreams
faith
metaphor
axiom
illusion.
It's in the appreciation
of the mundane
as a sign of life,
in the shared atmosphere as a
sign of community.
To see less blurry faces,
and maybe just a few good ones.
To see the imperfections
of others patiently,
or in awe,
perhaps at the work of a creator,
or of nature,
or to wander between
fact and fiction
unlike two sides of a coin,
but more alike two bodies of water
on opposite sides of an endless isle;
currents break onto the shore
with crashes full of yearning,
as if a call to the other side.
You walk amidst the cacophony
interpreted as a symphony
the sizzle of pig meat
the clinking of dishes
the monotonous yet
harmonious chatter of
ritualized conversations
with nuances you've interpreted
and analyzed, memorized;
you could sing it like the refrain
of an old folk tune.
This is your song
this is your orchestra
clinking dishes
sizzling bacon
chewing gum between yellowing teeth
you write this symphony
and rehearse it everyday
before it fades into the world
of chaos and conundrum.
But for now
you are on the shore,
with the coffee wind
carrying the sizzling and clinking
breaks awash white foam like milk
with a peppermint gum-
flavored saltwater mist that
kisses your face as it asks
about a refill.
Of course you say yes,
sitting upon worn leather upholstery
on the beach side,
feeling yourself settle
into a familiar crease
you sigh with relief.
Tucking away the urge
to anxiously wait
for the moment to cease.
I am a fan of routine on a (sub)conscious level. Something about going to the same place, sitting in the same seat, and analyzing your environment to take note of any changes from your last visit is... intoxicating.
Smith Oct 2013
My love, I cannot write to you a word,
For any word requires a treatise true,
Each chapter, then, a jury for review,
Whose jurors must be scrupulously heard--

Each letter would be faulty in its sound,
And seem to need another or one less,
A clause to justify would just digress,
And never would the proper print be found--

To write to you a play descends to plot,
A choir, perchance, would make an honest show,
Yet shows are sharp when high and flat when low,
So base a stage cannot portray my thought.

In love, I must allow mere words to err,
And credit them for carrying us there.
T Jan 2013
The ripe fruits of language
call to my greedy tongue
I inspect each morsel scrupulously
all so delectable
I make my choice
and pluck it from the branches of ether
breaking the skin
I indulge in the sweet sound
as it rolls off my tongue
tumbles past my lips
and lands neatly at your unsuspecting feet
Joel M Frye Nov 2016
To: Career politicians and insiders
From: The great unwashed rabble beneath your feet

Over the next few years, and into the foreseeable future,
Your past and present performance
Will be scrupulously reviewed
With an eye toward
Eliminating hangers-on and dead weight.
No cow is sacred
When so many are starving.
The heiress apparent to the retiring CEO
has been shown the door;
the head of sales now the head of state.
There will be regular meetings
With the new HR director.
Those of you who've been with us
For a while will know him well.
His name is Howard Beale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS4aiA17YsM
emily Oct 2015
The stranger in the lavatory mirror
puts on a public grin, repeats our name
but scrupulously reflects the usual terror.
        -“TALE OF A TUB”, SYLVIA PLATH

But I, incompetent fool of mortality,
have appeared in the mirror as nothing
but stretched skin and pained bones
with diluted features robbed
from ancestors before me. Ah,
the recognition of prior greats; it
strikes me in the soul, knowing
that I will never live to the expectations
held before me, dangled above me
like raw, dripping veal over the unfed
lioness of my heart, plucked away one by one
like grapes being fed to Caesar. Appropriate,
perhaps; the phrase of “Et tu, Brute?”
slips from my disarmed lips far too often.

A world of nothing sacred leaves me
lost in the swirling cyclone of cracked glass,
where fighting only brings deep, jagged
lacerations of mind and body
with struggling glances of withered reflection,
of girl battling demons upon demons
on the brink of crippling surrender.
Bonded to this body of paper and lead,
but filled with notions of ink and poison,
the sight has become an old friend, breaking
through the fogged haze of glorified reality.

Brace me against the past, dear
strength, I ask of you, and allow me
to plunge beyond this frosted pane,
to shatter the veil of uncertainty in a manner
to be immortalized for generations of dust
to see, to believe, to trust more than the
painted smile dancing upon my haunted lips
in the belligerent light of the medicine cabinet’s bulbs.
the girl in the mirror is me, but I cannot be the girl in the mirror anymore.
ogdiddynash Apr 2017
Mr. Condiment Man

he arrives around 10:30am,
after the morning rushers and multiple malingerers
have surrendered to the clocker's red glare stare,
the little dictator of time that rules lands far and wide,
and the lunch crush is but a restauranteur's faraway dream

most days, to the last counter stool, he beelines,
the most least desirable seat in all of diner-land,
adjacent to the noise of kitchen,
and its associated higher risks perilous,
a two way swinging door "entera-ance,"
a residency to be avoided most studiously

though hardly a corner for one to go unnoticed,
by virtue of its iffy existence,
unless one likes the increased chance of
being a  victim of a crashing accident,
Mr. Condiment Man goes in and out, silently unremarked
but very noticed

in our land of spacious skies and amber waves of plastic,
customarily any "regular" is happily accorded a
rousing Sousa welcome, but that mistake now twice made,
is a historical hurry up-to-be-please-be-forgotten incident,
and the Condiment Man's cloaking invisibility second only to the
NYC's Famous Actors seeking breakfast amidst the common people

no words are passed, no pleasantries are planted,
the rule of incommunicado silence, for both sides now,
most happily observed, like a UN peacekeeping boundary

quick appears Cream of Tomato soup accompanied by
ever multiplying handfuls of packages of Nabisco
crackered packets, freshly fracked, with a ketchup Heinz handy,
a soupçon of five iodized salt shakes in the soup then interred,
salt released from the prototypical glass shaker whose universality usage seems to be a Federal law o' the land

the meal in silence arrives,
silently but oh-so-slowly-consumed,
it's extenuating circumstances lengthily enhanced by intermittent deliveries of additional cracking crackers,
and an occasional lip smacking,
and an unrequited unrequested unremarked
  "topping off" soup refillament,
this one act play presented daily
with a free tall glass of water in red plastic also refillable,
as needed

a play with no official ending,
no white topped, green lined, ripped from the ubiquitous diner pad, scribbled, billing ever presented,
but the loose change precisely, scrupulously counted then
upon the counter left, materializes by the hands
of the unacclaimed Mr.  Condiment Man,
which he sources from pockets various
in places where no pocket rightfully  belongs

you can set you watch by his timed departure
at five minutes of Twelve, he is no longer,
the play thus ended, the audience to feet leaps,
relieved and appreciative of the quiet man's drama
and his most excellent silent soliloquy

some strange human need satisfied and pleased
for all parties concerned, when the New York Times
revealed that this C.C. man left a 50 million dollar estate donated
to Meals-on-Wheels,
a fortune amassed by speculation in
condo's (ha!),

there was no shocked groaning,
only some perfunctory observing that frugality has its place,
and that this fantastick show, now closed, would be
sorely missed, for it had become a
condiment itself
a spice in the lives of so many


~
O.G.D.N.
Scarlett O Mar 2014
Never trust a Prankster
on this Merry bus.
Heads;
And beats;
intellectuals and,
Flower children all.
In the heat of passion
or the distance of disease.
I mean what I say
and say what I mean.
But they;
With ill intent
or goodwill ecstasy,
Always in dissent.
Plague of lies
and ill begotten fantasies,
scrupulously denied.
Sui Generis.
Out of the Abyss.
River Aug 2015
Vacant Streets
Barren homes
Concrete rubble scratching beneath my feet
Am I all alone?

Towering viridescent leaved Giants
On the other side of the road
Wind swiftly whispering hollow secrets
Into the grove.

I intently observe the grooved bark of a tree
What species is it?
I don't know, but I would like to know
My eyes scrupulously make their way up to the reaching branches at the very top
Next to this tree I observe is a tree stump
It doesn't look like it was cut with precision, it looked like a flash of unpredictable lightning chopped it right in half
Incapacitating it to no longer grow, ragged shards of raw inner wood
Now blackened with death.
The difference between the stump and the outreaching tree was one proliferated while the other did not due to death.
I felt my heart in my chest and arteries transporting blood to a part of my mind neglected and depressed
As the realization swooshed and then swelled into my heart,
that these conditions of my mind and circumstances were not forever
But temporary lessons
Yes, that's all these bad things are,
Temporary lessons
A tree can be cut but if not cut through all the way to cause death, it will grow around that cut, and everything else about it will eventually become bigger than those few times it experiences pain
The key to all of this was to move forward, grow
With limbs outstretched to the sky.
A wandering glare catches on those who pass
And judges them based on class
Scrupulously picking every soul apart
Based on the apparel within their shopping cart.
...........................................................­.......................
He speaks of intrinsic worth
And models himself on Colin Firth
Despises the idea of beauty as a single minded ordeal
And clothing worn with the inability to conceal

And yet, every woman he dates is a stick
Well versed in ******* ****.
With a mind as blank as an empty page.
And clothing better suited for a stripper's stage.
..........................................................­........................
She speaks of a lack of care for material things,
And spits in the face of wallet fuelled flings,
Says she cares only for the mind
And those who appear overly kind.

Yet, every man she dates is a ****
Worried only about gorging her on his *****
They all buy her every form of earthly delight.
And each raise their hand to her, as is a property owner's right.
wordvango Jan 2018
Scrupulously second by second
A timekeeper sits at his desk
Near the tallest mountain
Riding a cloud one would guess
Tabulating only plusses and minuses reams of paper accumulating
Behind him
Keeping scores almost blind
Deaf and dumb
To secular or pagan
Reasonings and mores
No more
And no lesser
Just calculating
Everyman
For everything

Almost I want to help him
Throw in my impressions
But ignore
Me us


He does
Balances

The ledger
Joseph Zenieh Sep 2018
THEIR EYES DRESS MY OUTSIDE LOOK.
Give me a clean inside and l don't care
for all my outer state if foul or fair.
Let all the people say l am a thief
if l am certain that l lead clean life.

Let all accuse my honour and my name
and all my friends indict me for deep shame.
If l look inside and find myself clean,
I feel as fresh and pure as winter rain.

Nothing can disturb my inner clean white
if that pure ****** snow lives in my heart,
but whiteness can't be true when dressed as clothes
as it can hide the dirt that the heart loathes.

I scrupulously dress myself inside.
Let people dress me as my deeds decide.
If they have ***** eyes, that is their flaw.
That can't smear my heart or change its hue.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
Kristina Weeks Jul 2018
I know how it may seem
Maybe a bit obsessive
To watch my flower
Nearly perpetually
So scrupulously
Noticing the tiniest change
Springing into action trying to fix
Whatever is wrong
I guess I’m just scared
That one day possibly
I’ll turn my back for a second
And my flower will be crumpled
Scentless and dead
This Citizen Banker
     safely in his compound doth attest,
sans donning his typical
     gabbling and trumpeting ways,
     while legally tendered,
     currently being cents
     less lee swept away
     soul fully - bellow

     wing from my chest
(with fortissimo, the
     whirling wide webbed
     watery tidal swells
     rivaling the peak
     of Mount Everest)
reef furring to being
     nearly reduced to poverty

     hence, essentially buck
     king the tide while washed out -
     since day short and dollar late
     circumstantes force me
     to cash worthless buffalo chips
     astutely as you correctly guessed
from deep pull horrible
     United States economic situation,

     where option non
     existent against invest
ting, nesting, and squirreling
     financial resources jest
accessible for wealthy people
     to sync investment portfolios
     region of popular tax haven,
     viz Cayman Islands lest

hefty costs accrue
    keeping scrupulously stashed re:
     sources untouchable,
     where Uncle Sam canst
     access ex cell lent
     healthy maturing outlook
     king monies, and understandable
     at rage against the machine

     if rainy day funds messed
up, but solvent versus
     debts drowning oneself
     unable to stay afloat,
where declaring Chaper 7 bankruptcy
   doomed to bobbing
     within a sinking boat,
and where pointless

     to pull out all the whistle stops
     including abandoning resorting
     to heroic measures
     while additionally futile
     to shed tears and emote
only kidding self to seek out goat
tam ma Buddha, nor will
     I resort to gofundme

(cuz ma last name NOT Kardashian),
     but matter of fact lee
roll with the figurative punches
     feigning tubby Jew Dee
or an incarnation
     of Muhammad Ali
during his ready for prime time Box
sing rebellious jabbering

left fist out fox
sing prize fighter un
     defeated champ with mox
see, his champion modesty
     oozed muscles like rocks,
a bankable one man
     Gibraltar with precious
     mettle to the core,

not wanting with his pugilistic,
yet homegrown genteel
     ringing true mark
solid core state athletically valued
bankable bonded stocks.
In an act of offering, a century-old love was forsaken

The memories of naked showering now swim
In a tank of rapacity, in the suit of purity
Slowly from one end to another
Holding the scripture of ignorance
And intolerance

The collection of roadside fortuities, so scrupulously made,
Now also swims in the tank of rapacity
In the suit of cordiality
Slowly from one end to another
Holding the scripture of impatience
And negligence

In the nights of obscurities, climbing the ladder of lust
Sins are toweled dry
Hymning is performed, smelling delicious
When few more desires rise *****
Eyes are welled up in contempt, yet in compassion

Standing on the ruins of confessions, the promise was protected
The promise was protected, on an act of offering
Austeja Jan 2019
You
Your body is...
An art that was created by nature
All the curves that was sculpted scrupulously
Your soul that looks through the eyes
Their colours inspired hundreds of writers
Your smile that makes me feel high
The warmth  of your body that keeps peace in my heart
And I won't  even talk about your touch
A feeling like this have no words to describe how powerful it feels

A.C
Love you the way you are and you should too.
Jena T May 2020
Jasmine leaves
Blended into tea
Fragrent scents of the day
Petals white or gentle pink
Dragons teeth
Sewed scrupulously
For war someday
Fields in bloom
What will they be?
Dragons teeth
Come to slay you and me
Or Jasmine leaves
Whispering in the steam
Who Tell lies?

“Hey, this is the internet everybody lies.”
this was a throwaway sentence in a TV program
forgotten by the one who spoke the line or when
it sounded right.
It made me think is the world less honest now we have internet?
If this is so is it because we don´t see the people we lie to.
What about me do I tell lies?
Yes, at times when intrusive people ask questions
I find no ground to answer. I´m also a writer and use things I have
heard or read what happened in my and others live to tell a story.  
but in my private life, I'm scrupulously honest and take a dim
view of lies told to make the teller bigger
to borrow money because they have fallen on a temporary
a hard time when in fact they try to use people.
Ryan O'Leary Apr 2020
(
Crescent moon.
         Meade honeysuckle.
Nocturnal leprechauns
                     scrupulously
count.
                             Dracula.
Yenson Apr 2020
I get ME from A to Z
so, how can you who's still trying
to learn A B C
from Western Taliban Teachers
who thinks they are Oliver Cromwell's
and in modern day Britain
sees King in normal man
and spend invaluable time
plotting revenge and beheading
go on, tell me how you think
you can advise me
or heed anything you say or do

Do I live with you
in Cloud Coco Land
where your brains has frosted with the chills
and you believe that I'll leave a woman I really want
and sit around waiting eating cheap chocolates
or worry about my height though I have a mighty sword
or believe I have a horse head when I know you are all blind
or sit guarding possessions that do not define me
did lin and lisa see any shingles while gobbling away
go say your **** to your skid marks
cause I know I am scrupulously clean

I get ME from A to Z
all i see from the aggrieved unwashed
is that mudslingers have ***** hands and ***** minds
now I know faceless cowards are faceless cowards
projecting their inadequacies terrified of exposure
pedos and perverts talking about love
crooks, thieves and charlatans preaching democracy
demented Western Taliban's on ******* crusades
anchoring their shame and disgrace on the innocent
the ragged rabbles, our modern day Cromwellites
the sad laughable obsessive sickos
Neo-Croms are stalking the land: these are the new Cromwellites who want to deprive society of all beauty, joy, rite and ritual.

— The End —