Way back behind the high street
Down a cobbled, old, dark road
Sits a place of awesome wonders
And Christmas presents by the load

It's a little, tiny, Christmas Shoppe
It sits alone, with a small sign
It has sooty, frosted windows
And a door of painted pine

If you don't believe in Christmas
Don't carry Christmas in your heart
You'll never find The Christmas Shoppe
It'd be a waste to even start
To look for Christmas Magic
In a store you will not find
For to see it, you must carry Christmas
In your heart and in your mind

It's a place of magic and of wonder
It's only there one month a year
But, if you aren't a true believer
It's just best if you steer clear

Nick and Holly are the owners
When I say owners, I mean staff
They show up each and every Christmas
And these two know how to laugh

The door will open to believers
It can tell, you may be shocked
It decides for whom to open
For non-believers it stays locked

If you don't believe in Christmas
Don't carry Christmas in your heart
You'll never find The Christmas Shoppe
It'd be a waste to even start
To look for Christmas Magic
In a store you will not find
For to see it, you must carry Christmas
In your heart and in your mind

Once inside, the store is magic
It goes forever and a day
It's full of presents like no others
It's just a place you'd want to stay

Tell Nick and Holly your desire
What Christmas gift and tell them who
You would like to get this present
And they will find it fast for you

A gift for grand dad for his workshop
A special plate for your wife's mum
No request cannot be answered
You get your wish each time you come

If you don't believe in Christmas
Don't carry Christmas in your heart
You'll never find The Christmas Shoppe
It'd be a waste to even start
To look for Christmas Magic
In a store you will not find
For to see it, you must carry Christmas
In your heart and in your mind

The shelves are full of nothing
But, then again, you give your list
Then the shelves are full of wonder
And you see all the things you missed

The store is magic, that is certain
With gifts from many years gone by
It's full of gifts lost over eons
To find them now, you wouldn't try

There's extra men for playing soldiers
Made of lead and painted up
There's extra dice for snakes and ladders
And over there, a barking pup

As long as you are a believer
Nick and Holly, will come on through
They'll find a doll from 1940
They'll find a dress from back then too

If you don't believe in Christmas
Don't carry Christmas in your heart
You'll never find The Christmas Shoppe
It'd be a waste to even start
To look for Christmas Magic
In a store you will not find
For to see it, you must carry Christmas
In your heart and in your mind

It doesn't matter what you ask for
This store is full of what you ask
It knows exactly what you're thinking
It is a portal to the past

The prices, are within your budget
There's nothing here you can not buy
Even things now long forgotten
Nick sets the price, and not too high

The store shows up in every city
It's for believers and that is all
the one's who only think of retail
Well, they can do their shopping at the mall

There's toys and games from floor to ceiling
books and clothes and gadgets too
The store, it changes every minute
The things it has are up to you

Nick and Holly work their magic
Making dreams come true again
The help you find your hearts desires
The magic works on all good men

You must believe to gain your entrance
It's your one and only stop
You can find all you are wanting
At this little Christmas Shoppe

If you don't believe in Christmas
Don't carry Christmas in your heart
You'll never find The Christmas Shoppe
It'd be a waste to even start
To look for Christmas Magic
In a store you will not find
For to see it, you must carry Christmas
In your heart and in your mind

I was distracted from colors so bright
By the scrumptious cakes and chocolate bars
I walked through those doors, taffy past my height
Where I saw sweet teas and candy cigars

Bins filled with lollipops and gummy bears
Colorful gum ***** and chocolate coins
Chocolate dipped plums and delicious pears
Oh, how very sweet! The ache in my *****.

One man so strange tapped me on the shoulder
“Hello,” said the man, breath scented of smoke
“There is more candy out where it’s colder”
I follow him out. He hands me a coke.

But to my surprise, no candy outdoors.
In the trunk of his car and on all fours

The little bird landed,
the little tan, brown feathers, and
feet hopped, and beaked head, pecked at specks,
under the outdoor chairs.

I spied with my eye,
the carefree chickadee bird dance,
it may have pranced, while it found food to feed,
outside my window seat.

My chickadee friend would,
move from fleck to chunk, head
turning, quickly with ***** and flit if need be
to find safety, outside the coffee shoppe.

The flock would leave this harvest,
in front of me to the tree branches not too far  
from the cars and coffee drinkers, who smoked and
ate the pastries and the breads, crumbs dropped here
and everywhere, just payment for the dance.

3 AM,
Spanish Town
Under the silhouette
of the Capitol building
I sit in front of the old
shoppe as two lovers
**** in a red pick-up
truck behind me.

I wonder what lies
they tell each other
pretending they are
immortal.

THE PROLOGUE.

THE Cook of London, while the Reeve thus spake,
For joy he laugh'd and clapp'd him on the back:
"Aha!" quoth he, "for Christes passion,
This Miller had a sharp conclusion,
Upon this argument of herbergage.                              lodging
Well saide Solomon in his language,
Bring thou not every man into thine house,
For harbouring by night is perilous.
Well ought a man avised for to be        a man should take good heed
Whom that he brought into his privity.
I pray to God to give me sorrow and care
If ever, since I highte* Hodge of Ware,                      was called
Heard I a miller better *set a-work;                           handled
He had a jape of malice in the derk.                             trick
But God forbid that we should stinte here,                        stop
And therefore if ye will vouchsafe to hear
A tale of me, that am a poore man,
I will you tell as well as e'er I can
A little jape that fell in our city."

Our Host answer'd and said; "I grant it thee.
Roger, tell on; and look that it be good,
For many a pasty hast thou letten blood,
And many a Jack of Dover hast thou sold,
That had been twice hot and twice cold.
Of many a pilgrim hast thou Christe's curse,
For of thy parsley yet fare they the worse.
That they have eaten in thy stubble goose:
For in thy shop doth many a fly go loose.
Now tell on, gentle Roger, by thy name,
But yet I pray thee be not *wroth for game;     angry with my jesting
A man may say full sooth in game and play."
"Thou sayst full sooth," quoth Roger, "by my fay;
But sooth play quad play, as the Fleming saith,
And therefore, Harry Bailly, by thy faith,
Be thou not wroth, else we departe* here,                  part company
Though that my tale be of an hostelere.                      innkeeper
But natheless, I will not tell it yet,
But ere we part, y-wis thou shalt be quit."               assuredly
And therewithal he laugh'd and made cheer,
And told his tale, as ye shall after hear.

Notes to the Prologue to the Cook's Tale

1. Jack of Dover:  an article of cookery. (Transcriber's note:
suggested by some commentators to be a kind of pie, and by
others to be a fish)

2. Sooth play quad play: true jest is no jest.

3. It may be remembered that each pilgrim was bound to tell
two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, the other returning.

4. Made cheer: French, "fit bonne mine;" put on a pleasant
countenance.


THE TALE.

A prentice whilom dwelt in our city,
And of a craft of victuallers was he:
Galliard he was, as goldfinch in the shaw*,            lively *grove
Brown as a berry, a proper short fellaw:
With lockes black, combed full fetisly.                       daintily
And dance he could so well and jollily,
That he was called Perkin Revellour.
He was as full of love and paramour,
As is the honeycomb of honey sweet;
Well was the wenche that with him might meet.
At every bridal would he sing and hop;
He better lov'd the tavern than the shop.
For when there any riding was in Cheap,
Out of the shoppe thither would he leap,
And, till that he had all the sight y-seen,
And danced well, he would not come again;
And gather'd him a meinie of his sort,              company of fellows
To hop and sing, and make such disport:
And there they *sette steven for to meet             made appointment
To playen at the dice in such a street.
For in the towne was there no prentice
That fairer coulde cast a pair of dice
Than Perkin could; and thereto he was free    he spent money liberally
Of his dispence, in place of privity.       where he would not be seen
That found his master well in his chaffare,                merchandise
For oftentime he found his box full bare.
For, soothely, a prentice revellour,
That haunteth dice, riot, and paramour,
His master shall it in his shop abie,                       *suffer for
All have he no part of the minstrelsy.                        although
For theft and riot they be convertible,
All can they play on *gitern or ribible.             guitar or rebeck
Revel and truth, as in a low degree,
They be full wroth* all day, as men may see.                at variance

This jolly prentice with his master bode,
Till he was nigh out of his prenticehood,
All were he snubbed both early and late,                       rebuked
And sometimes led with revel to Newgate.
But at the last his master him bethought,
Upon a day when he his paper sought,
Of a proverb, that saith this same word;
Better is rotten apple out of hoard,
Than that it should rot all the remenant:
So fares it by a riotous servant;
It is well lesse harm to let him pace,                        pass, go
Than he shend all the servants in the place.                   corrupt
Therefore his master gave him a quittance,
And bade him go, with sorrow and mischance.
And thus this jolly prentice had his leve:                      desire
Now let him riot all the night, or leave.                      refrain
And, for there is no thief without a louke,
That helpeth him to wasten and to souk                           spend
Of that he bribe can, or borrow may,                             steal
Anon he sent his bed and his array
Unto a compere of his owen sort,                               comrade
That loved dice, and riot, and disport;
And had a wife, that held *for countenance            for appearances
A shop, and swived* for her sustenance.             *prostituted herself
       .       .       .       .       .       .       .

Notes to the Cook's Tale

1. Cheapside, where jousts were sometimes held, and which
was the great scene of city revels and processions.

2. His paper: his certificate of completion of his apprenticeship.

3. Louke:  The precise meaning of the word is unknown, but it
is doubtless included in the cant term "pal".

4. The Cook's Tale is unfinished in all the manuscripts; but in
some, of minor authority, the Cook is made to break off his
tale, because "it is so foul," and to tell the story of Gamelyn, on
which Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is founded. The story is
not Chaucer's, and is different in metre, and inferior in
composition to the Tales. It is supposed that Chaucer expunged
the Cook's Tale for the same reason that made him on his death-
bed lament that he had written so much "ribaldry."

Sense touch feel know Sense touch feel know Sense touch feel know Sense touch feel know Sense touch feel know Sense touch feel know Sense touch feel know Sense touch feel  

Lying spirits. Those are real you know. You know? Don't you?

Mad is ill defined, dis-ease, decease, desistere, eh? You Roman?
You serve a mad man you know.
And the Roman said,'I serve the empire, a' and he stopped…

Might right be virtuous and power called might
be not-right,
like hands, chirality? Right and not.

Shame, we should not know that.

Perhaps the vector was the chirality connection.
Hers was upgraded.
So when the shame bomb hit, it was him,
not her, who blew it?
He did that?
Yeh, I see how now,
It's the hypo-thalish, estrogen receptor steward system.
Who named that ****** thing?

No, left-right brain variablity was designed
to counter the estrogen-tester if it went mal.
This is the Left HIS Branch, a resistor,
it changed the way breath gets to that "It is,
good" receptor complex just inside
the ventricles
where the first sparks releaze
the ozone reaction.
The reaction to that lost loving feeling,
That was the shame bomb.
The action taken to a switch burned out
in a rush of knowledge of good and evil beyond
the heart's experience with expansion.
The opposite seems to have happened in the wombedman,
he comprehends hope is a new treasure.
Hope. Who coulda seen that coming?

A witness.
Some mind saw that happen and it was never washed into the sea of forgetfulness, so

Wow.

Like in the mountains, that ozone,
first breath feeling, that's great!
No, like that first free hit. That's it. You will pay…

Like, this first reaction is not "That's wonder-filled",
but it's
"that was not deep enough,
not good enough,
too shallow,
faked it".

On every breath the man takes,
a voice in his head is saying,
"not good enough, keep
trying/dying/breathe/harder.
Sweat it all.
Shame on you."
Shame.
That was the trick.
Make him think he is not related to God,
on any level?
Make him think he does not have a knower
in good working order,
save for that tiny electrical glitch in the
official HIS bundle builder gene. That's nothing,
Who told him she was naked?
That's evil.
What he knew was good, what he believed was evil.

How did it work out?

Okeh. It took several millennia longer
than first estimates.
Starts out kinda dun'dat, don't it?
Things get brighter near the end.
According to the legend I learned.

Knowing liars lie does not make every man a liar, I think,
Only the ones who say they do not
lie have no truth in them,
if they can truly believe that.

It's a chapter, a colloquy of consciousness grounding out.

The story is told,
this is the way men were built, original specs,
able to do anything they agreed to do.
But their hearts had been corrupted because
the whole heart building system in Adam
was dis - turbed, mixed up with that sweet deceit.
If it weren't for mitichondria the sifting needed,
could have taken forever.

By Noah's first beard, the gene pool was so turbid, no one could see the bottom.

Living water flowing from men's bellies,
ta, lemme say,
that be some evolvin' involvin' some
a priori
somethin' or anotha.
Ax that wombedman at the well, what the hell?

There, here, is a whole story about ****** and the seeds of all the myths that point so straight
to Jesus as they red-shift into historical
mysteriums twisted and warped by time and chance tyrannies.
Holiness hierarchical hegemony funds
that sprang from Eve's first hope,
have no hope at all for
cowards and fools and fraidy cats.

Heroes, those compound interest, all things are possible,
except
God can't lie, or die, or fail.

Is living heroic, no. We choose to live.
Life favors life.
That's easy.
All things are possible with life,
as a whole.
Very complex plots and schemes and schemas and media
and magi-level tech
this is working, you know.
We agree. Who could make us enemies?

Still, any plan men made was clear in the minds of all the planners
and the builders and the men they used as tools to
multiply the strength of the ideas that possessed them.
They built cities that way.
By agreeing together to do it. Gobekli Tepi?
You know, what was that ? A
thousand years of CCC park bench building and trail
marking benignly buried with never a mark of destruction?
They, the men planners and builders and laborers, right after the Ice pulled back from the Caucusus
or the Levant lifted up, 12,000 years ago, or so,
somebody builds this place called Gobekli Tepi
about a morning walk, a Sabbath Day's Journey, from
Terah's Local god shoppe in Urfa
the Turks are said to say..

----
Original specs, reset, it's all software.
We can cipher this out,
if we keep our heads
while others about us are losing theirs.

Men with the new softer hearts can do that, they can,
when they put their heads together,
they can make anything happen.
Knowledge is increasing, as we know it.

Nothin''s done in darkness that shan't be made known.

That's no threat.
Never was.
It's a promise. Like, the meek inherit the earth.

About tea
Skinny tea, sweet tea,
Elixir exiling youth's ungainly exit
Tea and a lover, vogue tea,
Tea post ******, closing shoppe
Last call tea, homework, tea-and-a-boy
A born again tea boy
Cause she promised it was better than coffee
Kinda boy, the second steep
Citrus and swords battling them free radicals
Tea in a kiss, a sweet kiss, an oooooolong kiss
Third steep to keep and keep
Expensive swishy flower vase tea
Delicate butterfly **** **** tea
Tea time, closing time,
A steep for the road
Sleep off the load
Tea night,
Tea girl
About tea.

Let's go grab the money
Hidden in the Christmas Tree
Shoppe mason jar with the
Frosted stencil designs,
Ornate and resembling flora.

Let's take that money,
The three separate wadded
***** of once crisp
Green pieces of paper
That somehow reach the
Arbitrary total of one
Thousand, three hundred and
Twenty dollars and
Fifty lonely cents.

Let's take that 1,320.50
And go see the desolate
Stretch of sprawling
Humanity deferred between
These hiked peaks and the
Dangerous mountains
Separating the west
From the rest.

Let's go there!
Let's go there!
We'll make it across,
Be sure of that,
Be sure of nothing
But that!

Let's use the remaining
Seven fifty
To buy some
Seven Eleven sustenance
To have while
We walk backwards
Down backroads edged
With the encroachment
Of the wild back into
Negative space some
Long-ago engineer
Carved and paved.

Let's tell the driver of
This beat-up
Time-worn down
Overcast grey
Buick LeSabre
That we can pay her
Ten dollars to replace
The juice necessary to get
Us back to our sick aunt's
House in Poughkeepsie.

At the gas station
We'll tell her to stop
Real quick
And hope she leaves the
Auto to go
Pay the schlup at
The teller's booth
And jack the beater
And hope we won't
Have to bolt
Again if she doesn't.

Let's call my cousin
And find out who will give
Us four hundred dollars for
The stolen used parts store
And take that four hundred
And buy:

Two (2) greyhound tickets to get us
Back to our ****** apartment
In Stamford: 64.50 American

Three (3) damp-bunned flimsy
Beef patties glued between
Pieces of government-issue
Yellow American cheese
With all the fixins we please: 3.24 American

One (1) zip of dried out
Seeded and stemmed breaks
From the boredom of
Our own conscious
Processes: 120 American if lucky

At least eight (8) servings
Of amphetamine based
Pressed little buttons
Of confused energy: 200 American

One (1) bouquet of
Red yellow and oranges
Mixed on the petals of
Your mother's favorite
Species: whatever's left American.

but my still, heavily-beating heart

just longs for a little more—

unsatisfied

with what is graciously given.

and yet-

appeased by things all too simple

not to enjoy.

where my cravings lie,

my assuagement lie elsewhere—

in Your word &

in Your people.

so as I sit & wait for the

signal Lights to beckon,

a sojourner among its radiance,

I will instead turn to meet the Bridegroom

who tarries for me

at the other end of the ocean.

She will kiss in public while she’s young enough,
old enough, in love, or bored enough,
without any damns or ***** to give you.
Her hips move at a cant, leaning eager
like the legs of new-limbed lambs.

She waves them on
with twin fingered salutes,
all for a moment,
of ****** hands, tilted necks,
for heels popping off the floor
in rejection of restraint.

So watch.
Drop your jaws
and shove your sweat-lined hands
deep in your lint-filled pockets
while she pours her endorphin soaked joy
into that boy's mouth
surrounded on all sides by Technicolor
sweetness wrapped and bottled,
anticipating its own undoing.

Cobwebs collected in
four corners , tins reflecting
sunshine along the wooden borders ,
a cash register from the fifties
was ironically up for sale , a mirror
from the sixties , gold leaf shot glasses
glimmered , mason jars and fondue sets ,
a tea service , Corningware plates , thimbles ,
candelabras and goose quill pens shimmered
A mannequin with costume jewelry ,
old Army outfits , icepicks , bread pans and shaving kits
The air was stale , like grandmothers house ,
Several traps within eyeshot in hopes of a mouse ,
The days lunch stood open with late morning coffee
perusing a giant ceiling fan overhead , old time
rockers and brass bed sets
A clerk with bifocals and white apron nursing a wood
pipe with black cherry tobacco ,
A shelf with horehound , licorice and rock candy ,
guitar strings , sewing needles and 'medicinal' blackberry brandy* ..

I am the trusted family spatula,
the curve in a Slinky,
the light refracted from antique shoppe crystal,
the distrust that sits at the back of the mind while reading a movie review,
the subtle humidity of the end of spring that goes without remark.

Also, I'm a flamingo.
Never forget that.

Okay.

You used to be a *****.

Now don’t get self conscious. We all used to be *****. Check out the period at the end of this sentence. That tiny little dot is around 600 microns wide. When you were a ***** you were about 40 microns wide. And you were so cute back then too with your little tail wagging all over the place and your love of swimming. Boy could you swim. In fact if you hadn’t outswum your siblings, you might be a slightly different version of yourself right now. Maybe you’d have a higher-pitched laugh, hairier arms, or stand two inches shorter.

You had a great life as a ***** but always felt incomplete. The truth is you weren’t whole until you met an egg. And then you two began a nine month project to make a cool new version of you. It took a while but you grew arms and legs and eyeballs and lungs. You grew nerves and nails and eardrums and tongues.

For a ***** to meet an egg it means your mom met your dad. But it’s not just them. Think about how many people had to meet, fall in love, and make love for you to be here.

Here’s the answer: A lot. Like a lot a lot.

Before they had you, none of your ancestors drowned in a pond, got strangled by a python, or skied into a tree. None of your ancestors choked on a peach pit, were trampled by buffalo, or got their tie stuck in an assembly line.

None of your ancestors was a ******.

You are the most modern, brightest spark of years and years and years of survivors who all had to meet each other in order to eventually make you.

Your nineteenth century Grandma met your nineteenth century Grandpa down at the candle-making shoppe. She liked his muttonchops and he thought she looked cute churning butter.

Your Middle Ages Grandpa met your Middle Ages Grandma while they both poured hot oil from the castle turrets on pillaging vikings. She liked his grunts and he thought the flowers in her hair made her heaving bosoms jump out.
Your Ice Age Grandpa crossing the Bering Bridge in a woolly mammoth fur met your Ice Age Grandma dragging a club in the opposite direction. He liked her saber-tooth necklace and she dug his unibrow.

Your ancient rainforest Grandpa was picking berries naked in the bush while your ancient rainforest Grandma was spearing dodos for dinner. She liked his jungle funk and he liked her cave drawings. If it wasn’t for the picnic they had afterwards, maybe you wouldn’t be here.

You’re pretty lucky all those people met, fell in love, made love, had babies, and raised them into other people who did it all over again. This happened over and over and over again for you to be here. Look around the plane, coffee shop, or park right now. Look at your husband snoring in bed, your girlfriend watching TV, or your sister playing in the backyard. You are surrounded by lucky people. They are all the result of long lines of survivors.

So you’re a survivor, too. You’re the latest and greatest. You’re the top of the line. You’re the very best nature has to offer.

But a lot had to happen before all your strong, fiery ancestors met each other and fell in love over and over again for hundreds of thousands of years …

So let’s stop for a second and pull back again. Let’s pull way, way, way, way back.

Okay.

Let’s go on a field trip. Put your shoes on because we’re heading outside.

Take a bowling ball and drop it on the edge of your driveway. That’s our Sun. Yeah, the ball is only eight inches across and the actual Sun is eight hundred thousand miles across but that’s our scale for this little brainwave. Okay, now walk down your street ten big paces and drop a grain of salt on your neighbor’s lawn. That’s Mercury. Take nine more paces down the street and drop a peppercorn for Venus. And then take another seven paces, so you’re now two or three houses down the block, and toss down another peppercorn.

You got it.

That peppercorn is Earth.

Here we are, basking in the blazing sun, twenty-six big steps away from the bowling ball. Our giant planet is just a tiny speck in the middle of nowhere but here’s the crazy part: It gets a whole lot bigger.

If you keep walking, Mars is only couple more houses away, but Jupiter ends up ninety-five big paces down the street, out of the neighborhood, and halfway to the corner store. By now a dog is probably slobbering in the bowling ball finger holes and kids are flying by you on their bikes, slurping drippy popsicles, and wondering what’s up with this nut tossing crumbs on the sidewalk, acting out some demented suburban version of Hansel and Gretel.

If you want to finish up our solar system, you’re going to have to start taking two- and three-hundred paces for the remaining planets, eventually dropping a grain of salt for Pluto half a mile away from the bowling ball. You can’t see the bowling ball with binoculars and it’s getting cold out for your long walk home.

But here’s the crazier part: That’s just our solar system. That’s just our bunch of rocks flying around our big bright bowling ball star.

Turns out our big bright star and all its salt and peppercorns are racing around a cosmic race track with two hundred billion other big bright bowling ball stars. You’d have to cover the entire Earth with bowling ***** eight thousand times to represent the number of stars in our race track. Did we mention this race track has a name? Yup, it’s called the Milky Way galaxy, presumably because the scientists who first noticed it were all eating delicious Milky Way candy bars late that Friday night down at the telescopes.

So basically our bowling ball, salt, and peppercorns are flying in the fast lane around a ridiculously giant race track galaxy called the Milky Way with billions and billions of other bowling *****, salt grains, and peppercorns, too.

But are you ready for the craziest part: That’s just our galaxy. Guess how many giant racetrack galaxies are in all of outer space? Oh, not many. Just more than we can possibly count. Honestly, nobody knows how many galaxies are out there in the big blackness. All we know is that every few years somebody stares out a little further and finds millions more of them just shining way out in the void. We don’t know how deep it goes because our rocket ships don’t blast off that far and our thickest, fattest telescopes can’t see that far.

Now, all this space talk might make us feel small and insignificant, but here’s the thing, here’s the big thing, here’s the biggest thing of all: Of the millions of places we’ve ever seen it appears as though Earth is the only place that can support life. The only place! Oh sure, there could be other life-giving planets we haven’t seen yet, but the point is that Earth could easily have been a clump of sulphur gas, be lying in darkness forever, or have a winter that dips a couple hundred degrees and lasts twenty years like Uranus.

On this planet Earth, the only one in the giant dark blackness where anything can live, we ended up being humans.

Congratulations, us!

We are the only species on the only life-giving rock capable of love and magic, architecture and agriculture, jewellery and democracy, aeroplanes and highway lanes. We’re the only ones with interior design and horoscope signs, fashion magazines and house party scenes, horror flicks with monsters, guitar jams at concerts. We got books, buffets and radio waves, wedding brides and roller coaster rides, clean sheets and good movie seats, bakery air and rain hair, bubble wrap and illegal naps.

We got all that. But people, listen up.

We only get a hundred years to enjoy it.

I’m sorry but it’s true.

Every single person you know will be dead in a hundred years — the foreman at your plant, the cashiers at your grocery store, every teacher you’ve ever had, anyone you’ve ever woken up beside, all the kids on your street, every baby you’ve ever held, every bride who’s walked down the aisle, every telemarketer who’s called you at dinner, every politician in every country, every actor in every movie, everyone who’s cut you off on the highway, everyone in the room you’re sitting in right now, everyone you love, and you.

Life is so great that we only get a tiny moment to enjoy everything we see. And that moment is right now. And that moment is counting down. And that moment is always, always fleeting.

You will never be as young as you are right now.

So whether you’re enjoying your first toothpicked turkey cold cuts and marveling at apples from South Africa, dreaming of strange and distant relatives from thousands of years ago, or staring into the blackness of deep, deep space, just remember how lucky we all are to be here right now.

If you feel that sense of wonder and beauty in all the tiny joys in life then you’re part of an international band of old souls and optimists, smiling on sidewalks, dancing at weddings, and flipping to the other side of the pillow. Let’s all high five and keep thinking wild thoughts, dreaming big dreams, and laughing loud laughs.

Thank you so much for reading this.

And thank you for being

AWESOME!

In this salon of sobriety
I feel like
someone's got their eye
on me

think I'll pay the bill and leave.

two hearts

stampede through a china shoppe

like huge

huge like

looking up at the hoover dam

saying ****

****

is something that leaves my lips

when i can’t wrap my heart around

something impossible for my head

pronounced

probable

proust would say

“let us be grateful to people who make us happy

they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. “

pruned

blooming

watered and spoken to

fed from the pail from the leak in the roof

to marcel, warmth

the proof

Tied to the mailbox,
no letters to come,
I wait for the
arrival of your
printed thumb.

Down by the creek,
near the old piano
shoppe I seem to think
of you and your words
as they roll off my tongue.

Russet brown hair,
and hazel grey eyes
I align your lips
with the stars in the sky.

Your meager frame,
and taciturn disposition
leaves me standing on the
edge of repetition:

"I love you,
I love you,
I love you," and I retract
"But I know I cannot have you,
take my love
to be like the moon
in the sky
above the stars
and you can sit on me
my boy
with the many spoons
and I'll love you forever
if only in this dream,
this abstract
non-existing
dream
where you and me
cease to be
but come together
to be one
my boy
with the many spoons
let me be your sacred moon."

I trace the ink on the edge
of this crisp & yellow envelope
and map out trace remnants of
your fingerprints

You are the sun
to me
and I reflect all your
beauty
back to you and the world
yet I only show this secret
to strangers
in the night
& to the stars
dancing their lonely
dance
waiting for a friend
alone
in this dark and empty
sky

Days sometimes blind me like hotel rooms-
all stuffy air heating over zesty grey radiators,
I want to lift the blinds; I already see the light shading through.
That’s not enough; I want to feel orange again,
play with the sunning glow as it re-imagines beauty in skins devilish pores.
I want August’s comfort in afternoon naked towel naps
dreaming that cable dishes are just fish carcasses in the wind,
imagine its possible to watch nails grow,
bed them in earth’s soil, and let it remind me of ***
and the unevenness of intimacy strewn oddly when ***** sweaty limbs
can not keep up with eyes that dart faster than the sway, stay of pendulum pressure.
I want to remind myself that everything exists in contexts
casting emotion on stripped layers, crusts of being.
So I invite my nearest tempest, maybe that moon soft roof
to captain ships of candy shoppe imagination over my starving anxiety  
and chalk them out on cemented buildings. I talk to myself loudly.
I tell myself, isn’t it funny when words become tools of composition?
But its ironic because I weigh them with as much suspicion as a glass of milk –
I hesitate to think I ever really have to question anything,
when really, quite possibly, anything is possible
in a sentence pure and ending.

An awesome place at which you will want to stop
The Closet is a charming little posh Shoppe

Come meet the staff and all the volunteers
They will gladly help you and are very sincere

They have countless apparel and lovely dress suits
Stunning hats to trendy shoes, purses and boots

There is never a dull moment at the closet
Everyday there are many clothing deposits

Assistants who sort, steam, hang and tag
Life at My Sisters Closet is never a drag

Boundless deals numerous times a year
Continuously makes you want to cheer

Several dozen bridal gowns and vivid color dresses
Your chosen style no doubt will be quite impressive

We’d love for you to come donate, visit or buy
Please come before six, now don't be shy!

Copyright 2015
All Rights Reserved

I can't wait to fall asleep because when I do you are not across the country. You are with me in the places we once were.

In that hammock by the lake making up fake names for stars.
On that bench outside the Ice cream shoppe watching people and licking the sticky from our fingers.
In dozens of hotel rooms and arenas against the closed door, Your wide mouth hungry and brutal. Your hands greedy and knowledgeable.

In dreams the complications are gone. The goodbyes not said. The hurt isn't there.  

In dreams are where you say the things you haven't when we are wide awake. The things that could fix us if you really wanted us to be fixed.

Sometimes in dreams it is just your face. Those amber eyes on me. So intense filled with hurt, need, and desire.  That mouth so wide and ****. It parts and art pours out. I know what it can do. I know how dangerous it is and yet always arch up toward it. The smile sometimes more of a smirk because you know how pretty a man you are. And, when that smile is full a double row of smile lines appear across that face i know so well. In a full room all eyes fall on you but when we are alone that smile is just mine. In dreams it doesn't fade. Your voice doesn't shake. The promises are never spoken so could never be broken.

Alarm clocks are a cruel reminder that we may never have that again. We may never be able to fix us. Because, it takes more than pretty words from your too pretty mouth to make the real things last.

A clear umbrella
that let people glare
past the dewy tears of the sky
and into the mirror-like
platinum hair.

A constant clicking
of shoes on wet cobblestone
click, clack
like a clock
tik, tok.

A small tea shoppe,
with pastries and coffee,
the Italian roast just as awakening
as the refreshing rain.

The chime of the clock tower,
oh, is it midnight already?

I suppose I should retire,
a fine day it was,
I cannot deny that I love
Tuesday in London.

Sons of Belial and sons of

whatever is riding the wave of re
ality crosswise carrying
other kinds of whats
so ever
in an umph-epiphanny-trypac,
while balanced on the very
edge
of eternity, sharper than any twoedged everthought,

twixt soul and spirit,
is never
more confusing than now.

whe-
never was, a long, long, doppletop,
oweroath, a cutcoven (blood'n'all)

mental, mental, nothing is real, it's
a project

some kinds of ideas are working in re
ality,
like sci-fi, back in Hubbard's day,

crazy is owned by Patsy, in my mind
and I was not sixteen,

not like you thought. K'oughtcha.
I was fifteen

Historical ideas come in sub
kinds. That's new. Wow works here as a word
denoting proper awe,

that's good, after wattwe done t' awesome 'n' awful.

======
Time kinds of ideas differ in classes and speeds.

======
Balancing and Valencing equivalency ideas,
at the core are gravitational
deter
meaning ful syn chro no ifity ness, aside.
did that make sense?
it might.

might not.

sensibility evaluation, aha. It's here in this set
of kinds of
ideas we all thought possible.
Boo Yah'll 'n'all that..

=====
That peace past standing up under knowing
good and evil and allaboth atthat,
that
peace past real under standing, that

True rest, trust me. Winning right is worth

the effort to play the game. But I learned too late.

======
loser ideas, innumb-mersable fixet functions, not
ideas at at all, states inwaiting attributable

to the whole one feels not part of, a wheel in
the blind
watchamacallit maker's shoppe o'kurios 'n' kachinas

wheels in wheels in belts and straps and beams and nails
and stones
and chisels...

this could be the grave, we can see
it's empty.
Where's my body gone? Aha. Y'know, y'know it's about

time is all. No lie lives forever. Yet
any word once yoost to lying
may be deemed phor
worthy of all we agree to let be in it.

--- flash--- we had eight in a 55 vw, to sneak into the drive
in, drunk on somebodies seventeenth birthedays---

We interupt this broadcasting process from time to time

to stock new seedy ideas, re
deemed worth repeating,
doubletap oath idea from old sicilian proverb untwisted.

Score. Sorry, I thought. You were reading. If you got this far,
you call the winner. But the score remains
a hist oracle idea of a very old kind.

The metagame was won in time.

As eighth month of the year
both within Gregorian and predecessor,
     the Julian calendar, where
said month originally
     named Sextilis in Latin
since averred month ranked sixth
     in ancient Roman calendar veer
really changed to August in honor

     of Augustus Caesar
     pinpointed eight Earthly
     steeplechased rendezvous roundabouts
     clocking viii sun danced orbitz
thru metaphorical solar turnstile,
     sans common era there

after retaining a trace
     of antiquity doth square
lee tug at mine olde ink
     quiz hit heave egghead noggin
     heady curiosity shoppe,
asper how lunar place name

     linkedin as rare historical tidbit
thus, when at a loss,
     what to write poem about
an unexpected brainstorm
     found me not to doubt
Google when literary eureka
     came to this lout
(only I own license to debase self)

just on the verge,
     and ready to pout
fearing writer's block
     as if creative juice
     yielded nary a drop from thine figurative
     fountain oft times
     gushing water spout.

As a poetic foot note, aye
frequently ponder about
     millenniums gone by,
and peoples, who
     dotted with graveyards
     of lovely bones after they did die
     the four corners of the globe,

     this twenty first century
     chap doth espy
harem there, a debauched prurient
     hot pocket of mankind
     (woman too of course)

     begetting, fostering, mothering
     ancestors of this guy
retaining genetic characteristics
     that got pooled watering
     survival of the fittest well nigh.

Save the Date

O how I do hope you will Save The Date!
It’s a special occasion, so don’t be late
Be sure to sign in with the guard at the gate
I leave on the twelfth; I simply can’t wait
That’s when I’ll be executed by the State.

*Registered at Coffins ‘n’ Stuff, Thibodeaux’s Funeral Home,
& Jardin d’Memoires and Gift Shoppe

Learn how to detect, contain and mitigate threats faster,  

that' why our kind studies war.



War against chaos and all it's spawn

Since the dawn

Never lasts forever.

Ever-y story's hero in the end

Wins.

No exceptions. That is the rule.

On the scale of grav-it-a-tional forces,

This muthas-hell-vier'n hell i'self



In yo face spell chick ain't nobody

Got no papers on me

I am the teller of this story in this book

And you, there, are the readers.

Welcome to my collection of clichés that click

In time to the echoes of the spheres



A.I. *******. In a gotta d'feata! We allus try umph, first.



Say you put a spell on me

Correct me if you must, but

Later, spell chick.



Now we have guests who've never known

A hatter at all, mad or otherwise.

I have known three, all saner than me,

You shall see



What I mean but

Do not fear

Fear is a terrible thing right

Here here

We need God's Grace by everyname

Any of you can think or say or know fore sure

Carries hope and peace to nullify victory.



That legend was lost but indeed did hap

Upon a time when songs

Lived the stories and the stories were legend.



So few survived the chaos at Babel and

Those few that did are t'ain'ted all to hell

One's I heard tell 'em as well

Say it ain's so. All to hell. T'ain't

Whacha thank ye know ye know



Crazy old coot pushin' her Safe Way Cart

Cat-a-corner from the zoot suit shoppe

To Walgreen's, middle o'fift n'Broad Way

Downtown LA, back in the day



Can you see that man. That really happened

Jus' the way you

Saw it.



Onliest thing is it only happened now then



Get that it's like getting' all wrapped up

In light no shadow at all

Doubt to the power of the farthest prime

Fails to fragment such light

From the outside.

Ever-y fire-y dart that twisted sucker shoots…

Quenched by the light.

Good news always seen from every perspective

Same thing, perfect

Peace full nothing broken nothing missing

Shalom

Get that, too.



Now, just watching old Mrs. Crazicuk

Makin' Her Safe Way Cross Broad Way



Famous image. It looks exactly like you imagined

It would

Had you imagined it and

Not just me I mean

I think we all are lonely for

No reason for some reason



Notice Mrs. Crazicuk's book cover

Upper right corner

JESUS SAVES in ten foot tall daylit neon

Top'o Fift' n'Hill. That's real.



I got a picture. From the internet.

(Hello Poetry don't take images, so Google-it)

Look real

close

If someday somebody explains that  

Castle Gothic crenelated thing in the back ground.  

that  



I know ain't real.

Please point out I point out  

the otherwise overlooked – image

If you ever see what I mean



I imagine there's more mystery  

than here at the moment



You see we wee are at peace  

ever-when you find us

Lying

Legends have never turbed us in such a way

As to cloud the waters  

Stirrin' mud

o' cludin' weak light to simulate more dark,  an old trick/

an angel-like message troubles the water
stirs up the muck and mire.

Jump in

Then walk home the long way



This book we're in, life we're in, what ye may call it, we say here,

So it is.

Amen.



Little people. Legendary little people survived

Babel's chaos?

Not that I know, no.

The Olde Worlde Tea Shoppe
established
nineteen sixty-nine
tells me all I need to know
about
the condensing of time.

The village green has seen
better days,
the people too.

pink moscato from
bottle shoppe liquor
the man at the counter
said is that all sweetie?
no, it isn't.

I pulled these thin blonde hairs
from his bedspread this morning
not even really thinking about it
just about how fair she must be
to have such delicate strands
and how mine somehow always
seem so coarse, like wire or cord
perpetuating the notion that I am
too dark, too brown, too much dirt
too much sweat, how do people
replace others or use them to
mask pain, lord, someone tell
me, is it a trade secret? someone
fill me in, let me know what it's
like to let someone else slip into
the role I was supposed to have
as she slides into my skin, shoulders
gliding through the air,
he looks past me at the ceiling
and I wonder about her blonde hair
throw mine over my shoulders
curls damp and black
damp and black
damp and black

Now, what we were thinking
we could do together, for fun…
we can't
with this tech, too soon- we tried
Audio recording started: 1:12 PM Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Ifery is, this is a magic pen and can contain audio,
I'll have you know, I imagined this,
I'll have you know, so farther down you know it gets back
to the time when Amazon Web Services read all the small print
and the metadata associated, socially servicing aching needs
Information wants to be free
Little Shoppe Feed Me, we few old fools recall the vegemental
protest at the time,
we could feel dead trees in our hands,
how wrong I was is a crime. In reality, I did my time, on the line,

and I'm still on the line, and life ain't been no opioid dream,
soft hmmm
seems drunker, this
repositioning for interesting clause, riddles are blessings, not lies.

So this is a twist to tighten, widdershins loosens,
guilden rule. Righty, tighty.
Who said that?
Right
mechanical me mind, hear-sed
By whose authority do you make crys
for peace, where no crys were?
Smoke Fire
Is something wrong old man?
Is there something of yourself you see,
afar, as seen
on TV, No Country, Pretty Horses, Road
weary
been there, in that novel state of mind,
new to mankind, only a few centuries old,
the art of lying to make an unthinkable, thought.

A meme, make a meme, flash a fict, a second thought
Per haps make up a mind, and let it form in mindspace
time to time,

we catch a novel experience unfolding compacted
scrolls of gnosis knots blown to cover our tracks,

through the highest parts of the dust of the Earth,
embedded capital classificators exist, many signs
mean almost any thing that stands to prove patience

works.
Wait and see.

I waited until I was certain someone among everyone
loves the idea that dying is not to be feared, never was,

it is part of life, and, I dare say, done right, it is the best.

Alone and lonely are not the same feel,
see a said word as a said word, is a thought.

First, principle principle, pal. First ever eternal pre-time
instant wisdom pops up in the mind of Christ, allatime, man.
Magi
School, we live,
we learn, we linger, listen, did you wish you
had done more good, did you think you earn
rank
play the role you audition for, or go home, old man.
Serpentine wisdom bent left on a bet, my point.
?
Okeh, I got a back up, in case we disagree and bring down
the conceptual internet with wizardly gamey loungeers, seek
-erefteaaaaaaaaahhush

lurkers averse to flame wars.
Does the name Barry Rudd mean anything to you?
Does the word Hiroshima evoke images for you?

When the Spaceshuttles were built in Palmdale,
the assembly hangar was so voluminous a bubble
as to create a micro weather system, in the building.

What the Arpanet imitation game intended to use it for,
was as secret as any cold war secrets are, timelocks slip.

When AT&T was as real as any evolved ideal communication
of private information on a secure as money can make it,
network, hyphenate at will, the economy, stupid,
one that can survive mutually assured destruction, 1954.
Contract for the concrete, stamped 1954
Let time slip, be the boomer kid, like on TV in the commercials,
real every day as Silver Dollar Billy Baxter, totally typical, Jungian

Ranking higher, trending below Freudian slips in eugeniusisity
Your Holiness,
no, I
insist, stand for nothing less, a title,
for a soul, so, easy, you imagine, no, it was not so easy.

It was never imagined easy, now it is.

That makes it easier, believe me.
- he cops watch out
Oy, feel the old rage,
at Ed Childs's child's nursing home,
Al'heimering mindtimespace adrift, ifery
wasery, we can remember laughing at knowing

Ed Childs was a quiet man, for real,
and he went into real estate, when Hamner and Limonite
was in the sticks.

I can ruminate on wealth and worth, healing and measuring
worth of the scar to prove the contestant worthy,

boomer bunch panting
Queen For A Day, golden Cadillac, drool
old school applause-ometer….

I can take it from here,
but who's listening, 'm seemingly directional point concept
precept point widdershins introducing true cause chirality,
is up or down turned sideways,
a property of asymmetry,
you see, we work inside a set of six cardinal, pivotal points,
each of us, and all of us,
can make sense of most anything at once
we think ourselves sane, all at once, or once and for all,
go bigtime Alzheim extremist POV, being, happy
with the package.

A joint for a retired K-9 cop in Anaheim, a boomer,
never dropped out, nor tuned in, went with the game,
got good enough to know when to quit, and then he gets

Alzheimer's. Just so happens, thoughts, wishes or prayers,
chants, incense, any thing you think might help, does help.

It's a very ancient kind of love,
a love that laughs at fearing death, as we laugh today,
at children dressing in roles from mystery religious oathes.

Jesus, says in his own time and voice, I told you so.
We both laugh; secret oath wink.

-------------------
From the sign on the bridge saying
life is worth living, no 1-800 rukidding
- any body could but it was William James
- madjathinkit
Yeah, novel events grow stale if they sit,
mistaking thinking and doing, as mirrored
in the realm where prayers are answered
and made up minds are tested for repurposing.

Perhaps a variety of a general irreligious fine mind.
---------
That's a thing, back to the Hangar, now, you know
where you go when you link through the poet facet.

Here, below the western highside of the great basin,
we dug-in, we hired The Boring Company,
all telepathically, to investigate the likelihood
of any mortal good ever eliminating the evil nature

nurtured in warring cultures time immemorial,
-seditselah
eliminating cost of living, leaving being all we do.

matrix, make up your own mind, live with pain

and that's just not right,
and we twist the entire story out the window
and into thin air we know is there, because,
cause being aitia and I agree we be causing

so much silliness of the original intentional sort,
as to make old men wish,

the world were not so reassuring, until

we all selah and listen holygnosishitsreal, side reality,

minds intwined in mysterious old stories, when gay
was only happy, and buttoned up, as secret Edwardians
would that it were forever so,

oh, ** **, ye'll deal with a devil for a tale, you tell me,
let me test yer mettle, curse god, and die.
Iyobe
Did you think that and continue, such faith,
commends ye to the circle that eats, what the bull eats.

We intend to think our God's thoughts, right after,
hot, steaming prophetic gnosishit, not gnosisnot, that's
strange
very
strange, did I catch a meme from Sunshine Superman,
should 2525 arrive.
Just in case.
This was all worth it, this time.