A cruel Jack Frost blows icy floss
          (in front of spring a’ burstin’)
while shiftin’ sheaves of withered leaves
          near freezin’ streams a’ thirstin’.
A pack reviled runs roamin’ wild,
          the alpha wolf wakes howlin’
then scents a lean and lonesome scene
          while on the lurk a’ prowlin’.

A cloud revolts with spangled bolts,
          and starry skies start closin’
as wild geese soar beyond death’s door
          neath naked moon a’ posin’.
Electric shafts, like fractured rafts,
          sail night’s cathedral caldrons –
their cracking curse makes herds disperse
          in random splayed and sprawled runs.

A she-wolf sighs with hungry eyes;
          the ancient wolf waits, bayin’ -
with weary back, he’s lost the track,
          his bandied legs betrayin’.
The brood’s somewhere in shrouded lair
          with mama left to mind ’em -
the wolf, a’ drag with empty swag,
          is on his way to find ’em.

The pack rejoins with weary ***** -
          perhaps its days are numbered.
In evening’s night, he’s feeling tight,
          with aches and pains encumbered.
As morning nears, with shaggy ears
          (one droopin’ down, hung over)
he’ll set the course with renewed force,
          for, yes, he’s still the rover.

When snow enshrines the timberlines
          and skies are ripped asunder
though young, lupine, they’ll stifle whines,
          as gullies fill with thunder;
mid echoes in the mouth o’ death,
          they bid farewell the lair
while panting puffs o’ crystal breath
          float, hanging in the air.

Their path is black (they can’t look back
          for herds long gone a’ missin’)
as dusk profanes the snow-bound plains
          the sinkin’ sun was kissin’.
Neath northern lights, with barks and bites,
          he keeps ’em all in motion –
the speckled scars of fallin’ stars
          display the night’s devotion.

The sky’s a’ blushin’ in the east,
          and hollow wind’s are sighin’
while buzzards freeze in gallows trees,
          a’ roostin’, rapt and eyein’.
These ghouls of prey, they’re spooked away,
          like tumbleweeds a’ blowin’,
by tilted head, white fangs tipped red,
          and warnin’ wail’s a’ growin’.

With snout upturned the moon’s discerned
          as well as wafts a wendin’
and muzzled growls and shriekin’ howls
          mark wolves in quests unendin’.
With fragrant hint, the wolf’s a’ sprint,
          the pack begins t’ rally –
in swift descent they’ve seized a scent,
          that’s flowin’ down the valley.

The wolf moves on behind the dawn
          and shades the pale horizon
as she-wolfs vet his silhouette
          each time they lay their eyes on.
With trek discreet, a trail is beat
          across a river frozen –
when day’s complete, just mice to eat,
          a choice despised, but chosen.

A stillness jeers the shaggy ears
          (one droopin’ down, hung over),
while caribou, with much ado,
          drift, seekin’ blades o’ clover;
the wearied pack picks up their track
          (with stony stomachs pangin’)
through endless seas of barren trees
          with ice like daggers hangin’.

The wolf invades forgotten glades,
          the pack stays close behind ’im;
the caribou, in his purview,
          seem far too far to mind ’im.
Above, a baleful moonbeam wails,
          “oh god he’s gonna’ catch ’em”;
the scene is grim, the Reaper dim,
          the night has gone to fetch ’im.

A moanin’ mynah’s crying loud
          as birds of prey are preachin’
to cravin’ ravens prayin’ proud
          and wide-eyed owls a’ screechin’.
The wolf, unrushed, is breathin’ hushed,
          his hollow eyes a’ narrowin’
and focused hard in fixed regard
          on herds they'll soon be harrowin’.

The morning breeze is ill at ease,  
          a surge brings sudden silence –
then haggard swarms launch poundin’ storms
          and hurricanes of vi’lence;
the herd’s surprised and paralyzed
          all over hell’s half acre –
the leadin’ buck’s run out of luck,
          he’s soon to meet his maker.

The old wolf creeps, the old wolf leaps
          on prey he’s been a’ trackin’ –
a deer adorned with branchin’ horns
          is torn by beasts attackin’.
The morning quakes, a shadow shakes,
          tined antlers left a’ lyin’,
and spattered spots and scarlet clots
          repaint the point o’ dyin’.

A magpie flies with frightened eyes
          (on ebon wings a’ wavin’),
spies wolfin’ jaws and sated maws
          of wolves no longer cravin’.
The snowdrift clears, a cool wind veers,
          a dying breath, moreover –
a wraith appears, with shaggy ears,
          (one droopin’ down, hung over).

Dawn’s sunbeams crowd, ignite a cloud,
          its threaded strands a’ weavin’.
The pack awakes and twists and shakes,
          for soon it’s time for leavin’;
it’s bleak, it chills on shallow hills,
          as she-wolfs come a’ nuzzlin’,
but north winds scold, the wolf lies cold,
          the pack stands back a’ puzzlin’.

On crimson snows neath perchin’ crows,
          the pack abides a’ guardin’;
while nights are tight with Harpy kites,
          the she-wolves wait an’ harden,
until a groanin’ blizzard stones
          the barren forest stowin’
his shaggy ears beneath the weirs,
          with icy hails ’a blowin’.

The storm abates and terminates,
          the glacial wind’s subsidin’;
the past is past or passin’ fast
          and life goes on abidin’.
The herds, today, roam far away,
          not thinkin’ of the dyin’;
the pack’ll stray from day to day,
          ’a stalkin’ hard and tryin’.

As spring sneaks forth upon the north,
          they’re lean without their leader.
A she-wolf (bound with belly round)
          strains neath a budding cedar.
Upon the morn a whelp is born
           (the future forest drover)
in new frontiers, with shaggy ears
          (one droopin’ down, hung over).

I can't play no saxophone
but I can hear it played.
Sometimes it's a lady sighin;
sometimes it's a workin man.
But when it is an orphan cryin
I wish I could hold that child
and play.

I can't hold that child
in these ***** hands of mine.
I can't stop his cryin.
I can hear it way down here
on the sidewalks of the streets he's a child of.
Why, Lord, can I hear that saxophone
but never play?

I'd grab a knife and let it tear through my flesh
to rip out this inner strife if it wouldn't lead to my death.
My soul shivers he beats on his chest in fact that's why I breathe
on this ****** to try and relax. My mind is stretched to the max
my head needs to detach, my soul needs to eject.
Hotheaded armed with an icepick.
Hacking away at this ice that my spine grips.
My thoughts are confined in a space as small as my iris
and I'm behind iron bars of anxiety that I constantly have to fight with.
I've become a mass murderer, locked in a psychiatric ward as I **** my parts within, erasing my kin, the ink from the teardrops darkens my skin.
Fallen to sin. My world in the dark. A void shaped like a heart.
Yet this Tinman retaliates against the wizard of Oz!
My torch an everburning question mark
answers? That's the past but Life throwing hooks so I HAVE to dodge.
Hits exit Pause-my-world which I create so I can spit back in the face of God!

You awoke a sleeping giant, a savage beast, a lion
My soul roars everytime you see me sighin
I won't ignore these tidings
A frozen force is rising
Close to war my broken core redefines defiance.

So I will stand my ground and fight
go bar for bar with life.
Proudly wear these battlescars
you'll be astounded by my might
A star upon my sky
My reach is long and wide
You see I'm strong you're weak and wrong
I no longer hide
Because I don't have a mind
I am guided by the light
my sight set on my rage
replace my blood with hate
bleed and rust and easily crush
this tyrant in my cage.

Shhhhh - Titanic was Sunk by a Bilderberg

Albino rabbis, the Illuminati,
Protocols of the Elders of Zion -
The evidence seemed a little spotty
‘Til a radio guy had us wonderin’ and sighin’

Fluoridation by the New World Order
Backed by the Trilateral Commission
A scheme to open our southern border
To crop circles – that’s his suspicion

Area 51, the Templar Knights
FEMA lurking in the Bohemian Grove
Perfidious Rothschilds through menace and fright
Guarding a Jewish-Viking treasure trove

Poor Newfoundland is Occupied by ****** rats
Who scheme in secret tunnels beneath St. John’s
Brewing magic potions in Macbethian vats
In Rodentian rituals from the Age of Bronze

The Priory of Sion, runes, swastikas, the Vril
Roswell and the Thule Society
No wonder the air is darkly chill:
We all live in a conspiracy!

Willow weep for me
Willow weep for me
Bend your branches down along the ground and cover me
Listen to my plea
Hear me willow and weep for me
Gone my lovely dreams
Lovely summer dreams
Gone and left me here
To weep my tears along the stream
Sad as I can be
Hear me willow and weep for me
Whisper to the wind and say that love has sinned
To leave my heart a sighin'
And crying alone
Murmur to the night
Hide its starry light
So none will find me sighing
Crying all alone
Weeping willow tree
Weep in sympathy
Bend your branches down along the ground and cover me
Listen to me plea
Hear me willow and weep for me
Willow
Willow
Weep for me

Bar me off, Useless! Cryin' a'sighin'– over cliffs, over.
She caught me a'whisperin' at the docks! Far, yea, far;
And when did compersion to the western wayside go?
Feeling let down. Staircase is a'goin' for a day or two!

Distance between two points. Farther, father, fathoming depths.
Low, now! Lower bent! –you, so far bent, did ask him so.
"Chief Joseph– St. Joseph– Won't he have word with me?
Nonsensical, man. Understand! If only for a day or two."

Yea, some men never call. Some callers a'callin' do.
Blue collared jazz blues– You saving it for the morning?
Where the sea meets the land. Find him by the cowrie reef–
I say that's unnecessary. Stand by me for a day or two!

And them stories be so far bent,
all a'tellin' them so:

He fell out! What a falling out!
Talked about for years to come!
And hear they come 'round the bend–
Lessening distance between points. I see horizon.
O' horizon! Yonder horizon! And the sun all arisin' be!

Huddlin'– All huddled like. Beneath the comet's tail she caught me.
Found me all a'whisperin' at the docks...        and            I             say:

*"Seaside, O' Seaside! Beneath them netherskies you wait. Yea, if a fool's never foolish are his thought's so foolish, see– I never felt so transfixed. Them waters got a depth to them– Therein lies weight. I talk to still paintings– none be a'talkin' back to me! Minds racing backwards. Would you listen to that still? Silence, she finds me in unnerving non-natural states. Psychosis takes a seat. They say them waters at the western wayside foam! A real, true foam! Froth and cough into your sleeve, white foam! Kiss me on the lips and tell me secrets for a day– Frenzy! Riot on! Whitewaters, subtle sexes, and a midnight matinee. I say what a night– What a comet's shone today!"

**** life, I feel like death. I feel like dyin. Tired of sighin. Fed up with continuously fruitlessly tryin. Really high and im flyin. Cant stay up forever. Still though, ill never stop smokin, no never. Im too real to stay or be sober, thats how it feels. Burn my own flesh sometimes, just to feel. Into shadow shards I peel. On blistered and ****** knees I kneel. For this life is too heavy.

Words are wind and we are dirt. With disaster I flirt. ******* mother nature just to watch her squirt. Boiling tsunamis and enormous hurricanes. Breathing lava veins, losses but no gains. Im starving stains, water as it floods and drains. Im pain as it pours and maims.

Winter words and summer birds all call to me wonderfully. Woeful discontented rage never vented. Running in dry rivulets out of my gaping eye sockets. No skeletons in my closet, but there ARE dripping molding bones stuffed into my pockets. Lined with self loathing. My very favorite style of clothing.

Ill ramble and roll right on. Rollin and ramblin. Bettin and gamblin all of my hope away. If I were you I would bet against me. Trees and tears raised me. Look, see? Ive got bark for skin and my confidence is thin. I would write more. But I would not know how, when, or where to even begin.

sliding your slippers against the wooden flooring
for the grit, the sand, the rattle, is very much like playing
the jazz drums while shaking the maracas... jazz drummers
with brushes, ever so slightly the sand-timers' expression...
horace silver's sighin' n' cryin'... it's sandy, shaky,
a 40 degree heat  off the isle of Celsius...
boom boom bara boom... ta'dum  ta'dum tapas baked at noon...
i love the all the instruments can break away from their rhythmic
roles and do a solo... everyone is minded, no one is dismissed...
everyone take a part... once the base freed from rhythm,
takes to solo, another instrument takes the leading
role in providing the rhythm, the many
handshakes in jazz, the merchant's ergonomics,
then the piano solos... then the sax,
and then the drums... while some other instrument
takes the lead for the rhythm...
maybe my love of jazz stemmed from
never getting to grips with rap: the deviation
from the puritan practices of poet-speak...
but we're far removed from philosophers...
they can take their comparisons and
arguments elsewhere...
compared to philosophers and novelists...
who **** out a constipated 600 page novels
weaving, constantly weaving...
we're journalists in the ozone layer...
poetry forgot the old grievance with philosophy,
it just said: i attire myself with journalistic ambitions,
that's where i preside, and nowhere else...
indeed, jazz means much more than it did
in the 20th century, in the 21st century we are just
about seeing it's status improved as equal to a Mozart,
adding the spontaneity... forever divorced from
mingling with poetry... because no one would
dare to mash-up a session with Mozart playing
in the background... well, adding the Operas...
no jazzy operatic would ever work, even
with Porgy & Bess...
but still, the sandy rhythm of the drums...
like rain on umbrellas, but in reality like
Sahara dropping on an umbrella in Algiers...
the laziness and fulfilment...
i simply can't despair like some poet
commenting on a Liszt performance...
i love the lazy Caribbean approach...
if it ain't broke, don't fix it...
and if it's broke, allow at least a few days of
fermentation... never be too busy as to later
bust on what life means to only relieve yourself
with a meaning: just work, therefore it works,
life just means work... they've been selling
us the Auschwitz slogan for a long time.
it wasn't a wet crash cymbal, crash or splash as such...
it was the sand-paper scratch of the brush-strokes
on the floor tom and the snare;
as some might consider arithmetic the quantum
physics of the other linear expression of counting -
quantum (a particular source of all our mental
blockages, call the plumbers of our blanks) -
so too the keeping of rhythm as superior against
keeping count... just when the two seemed identical,
keeping rhythm: 1, 1, 1, 1
            rather than keeping count: 1, 2, 3, 4...
came on top... just like 1 x 9 made more intellectual
improvements to sentence the symbols to
that hide & seek of binary (0-0, 1-1, 2-10, 3-11, 4-100, 5-101,
6-110, 7-111, 8-1000)...
keeping rhythm and the original spontaneity,
keeping count and the precursor of pre-ordained script;
i don't see what certain words should become like castles,
with moats and bridges and hot-melt poured on
the attackers... but they have become like castles...
totally deviating access with our request for accessing them...
while other words lie about like pennies on the pavement...
where everyone can pick them up and exploit them...
flick them, make them crowd gathering utensils,
shame that some words ended up so sacred as to be
commonplace in our adventure into ignorance...
while other words became the crowd-pleasing
five loaves of bread and two fish... sure enough
certain words became just that...
other words became elephants... like calculus... or
evolution... it's not that people wouldn't reach a zenith
of sustenance with them, that their stomachs would be
filled... it's that eating such words was impossible...
because they couldn't stomach / digest them...
it was really like trying to eat a whole elephant in one
go, rather than a small portion and freezing the rest...
these days people still try to compete in the eating races,
trying to eat the entire elephant in one go...
and every time they try it, they fail, by simply regurgitating
what they couldn't eat for another person to eat...
given the span of 2000 years from that famous
spectacle of 5000 x 5 x 2....we hardly know whether
1 multiplied by anything will be adequate to satiate us
to have the cement dry and
allow certainty to provide us with established norm,
and the process of forgetting the instigator of
the original idea.

Shhhhh - Titanic was Sunk by a Bilderberg

Albino rabbis, the Illuminati,
Protocols of the Elders of Zion -
The evidence seemed a little spotty
‘Til a radio guy had us wonderin’ and sighin’

Fluoridation by the New World Order
Backed by the Trilateral Commission
A scheme to open our southern border
To crop circles – that’s his suspicion

Area 51, the Templar Knights
FEMA lurking in the Bohemian Grove
Perfidious Rothschilds through menace and fright
Guarding a Jewish-Viking treasure trove

Poor Newfoundland is Occupied by ****** rats
Who scheme in secret tunnels beneath St. John’s
Brewing magic potions in Macbethian vats
In Rodentian rituals from the Age of Bronze

The Priory of Sion, runes, swastikas, the Vril
Roswell and the Thule Society
No wonder the air is darkly chill:
We all live within a conspiracy.

Startle response! Wake--

When danger is ante
cipated,0h
--0n
lego-h-overedge aver
age
verbage re sighin'

clinging vines from debunked strings and
threads twisted wit'em.

Assume, if ye may or plea or will as
ye wont, pray means ask.

That's all.
Here, wit'afewmisstook aitches and spaces:
here is what we got,

a fresh secret story, un concerning anything you
believed you believed of/from/about idea ifify ie able ity ness

Reason requires response, Will Robinson.
Hidden persuaded, almost,
but lost...

Really,
what sacrifice bought
young John Carson to sublimnal
top 0'the mind status,
for the first two tv
generations?

Who do you trust? Carson's tv game
show debut, aimed at after school,
junior high, latch key,
wait staff on swing shift or graveyard,
the entire set of doin' nuttin'
'round Tea, fancy goin'

head t' head wit' Mickey Mouse Club,
on all the UHF stations out west.

It's 1957, who do you trust?
Time's man o'the year,
The Hungarian Freedom Fighter Idea,
the first stiffed
equal-value re
belicose cold war victim
of the famine for the grammar
of kindness and good sense
associated with DNA,
little green apples, puppy dogs,the
straight up command to love them that hate ye,
enemies and other words for folk
who would just as soon **** you
as hear one more word
about peace.

VOG,
words were scrambled,
christic crypt vacuum
tube
signal to noise ratio, caliber calculater pro
jection on to the rerewall o'yeardamnedbrain,

VOG Cancel
Bozo. This ad will **** for us. We can own the
'earts and minds of every grammar 'ater ever.

Since Babel, since Eber 'is 'ebrew ef-
fective, fervent...strainer at jots and tittlishit
self.

This ad makes mistook rules po'man laughable,
punch'n'judy'ishit:

Whom
do you trust, the grammarian so like so many
Deweyish proguess
edumacated teachers, you had this teacher,

squint, wrinkle nose, tight jibbs
frameless wire rimmed specs, a greying bun,

flower print dress wit' the weest bit o'lace,
lipless snide corrector's face. A trope archetype,
heroes re
bel
on demand, that was the plan. It
started with

AN AD. Who do you trust? Black and white,
Here's Johnny standing under the billboard,
y'know,
for the show, standin' like *******, shoulders
shrugged, palms up, elbo's bent

(contenintal suit, note the skinny tie, why?)
Who do you trust? Innocent grin, wordless
"Who knows?" or "knew"?

Whodjewtrust, in 1957? Cronkite, nicht wahr?
See the USA in the USA

in yo' Chevrolet, ole!
Yew should try Ritalin, for pep.

Take Serutan tonight, and sleep, safe and restful,
sleep, sleep sleep

VOG (Scourby) and, remember Serutan is Natures,
spelled backwards. Cue the choir,

safe and restful, sleep, sleep fade away

----
Where were you in 1962? Off t'college,
watchin' Johnny of Johnnies,

Johhny Quest, Johnny Lighting, Johnny Carson on

Tonight, there's more...
after the news, the dayroom in the dorm,

this is whence the quips in the quad were to be
sharpened wit'

fashion able ible tips, to fit the Esquire *** Hef
uniform dress code of mutual hidden

persuadeds.

Some souls were spared the spread of the
original tv virus, VHF, couldn't penetrate
the canyon...never subjected
to Howdy Doody,
our brains were spared the
complexes planted via the sit
com cowboy war subplot
phase of novus ordo
secluremishitistcal
experiments in
alientated
mind control.
We lived in the desert, in a place

a lot like Oscar's Oasis,
a wordless Korean Cartoon
set in a desert much like mine. On Netflix, 2019.

I did not watch the mandated ten thousand hours,
even when the deadline for party affiliation

mental ascent was ex
tended, circa 1985, pre-
tending to be a measure of de
fencing public universities from the
effect of rock and roll,

since about 1964

with folk like Dylan and Baez and Hallelujah
Jubilee and Jambalaya on d'Baya,
Herb's brass on the Baja, where all the girls
work it,
like 'otel Kali phornia, sticky,

sweet, like a taste of Honey. Mr.Bond,
meet Miss
Galore. OH GOD, in the car from the speaker
she heard the idea the meaning

in the name, oh god, she squeezed my hand.

Honor Blackman plays that role, she whispered.

Trust me. It's a good plan. We got these kids!

Mom and dad just won the war, had six kids in five years,

Levittown di'n't work out, couldn't go home,
mixed marriage, from the war.

Things hap, cajun catholic wannabe aerospace engineer spy guy,
lands in Alamagordo and environs,
Summer 1944.

Here we are, Equinox, loosing season, 2019,

so some prayers were for real.

Red somthin'r'other butterflies are riding a rare breeze
from the south to the north through my
makepeace home. My peace I give,
he said,
all that passed is unexplored, take all the time

you can imagine.

My wife knows the names of those butterflies,
that's part o'm'peace. Knowin' she cares to remember
such improbably beautiful things;

soul possessed in patience, is she.

footnote 1: Despite Ciba’s efforts to market Ritalin as a ‘pep pill’, the stimulant failed to become a best-seller.  But that was not the end of Ritalin’s story.  As early as the 1930s, psychiatrists working at a children’s psychiatric institution in Rhode Island, USA had noticed that stimulant drugs could have a positive effect on the academic performance and behaviour of troubled children.  Although few psychiatrists took notice of these observations at the time, by the late 1950s, escalating concern about the educational abilities of American children during the height of the Cold War encouraged Ciba to consider a new application for their drug: underachieving schoolchildren.  They received approval from the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market Ritalin to children in 1962 and, almost immediately, it became a best-selling drug (google it I didn't write the footnote pard but I forget where I got it.)