I is net sitter queen of net
I sit on net and no I am best
I is net sitter practice poem writing
net sitter is me who post and posts
I need to find better way
much better way than net sitting
posting and posting just to post
write poems
write poem
write poems
write poems
is what they say to help me with
bad time and losing job after *** change
now I mess up
now I messed up
poem writing helping me
see what I know
see what I do
write nice poem all the time
is what i need to do.
end of this one.

We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over

and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless

Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts

Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye

     and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
     and "yes we will continue safely"
     and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
     and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper

Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway

and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first

Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS

but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face

        and the room was a landfill
        and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
        and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
        and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots

but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple

who’s eyes were not dilated 
and the room smelled
lemon-scented

and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;

following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks

that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain

Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls

and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway

The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant

and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale

-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded

by moose roads
                             moose lanes
                                                     moose rivers
and everything mooses

ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless

and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:

"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"

Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days

and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had

and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:

and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words

and being on time with the trains across the plains  
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision

Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too

beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years

and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile

And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off

and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;

      Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
      and hovering 175 in slipstreams
      and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady ******* in dreamland Nebraska
      only 10 highway crossings counted from home.

Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;

     who formed as a snowflake
     in the light on the street
     and was gone by morning
     before I asked her name

and how are we?
and how many?

Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?

There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.

Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.

The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East

and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine

mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying

Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably

Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;

more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier

and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering

and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight

And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car

and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal

then two eyes

then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******* on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow

and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective

while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive

Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone

behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal *******
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller

Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high

climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones

and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze

and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside

in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells

Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”

and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;

running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by

but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday

and then a timezone was between us
 and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now

then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye

but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all

and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind

The rain ****** through a darkening sky.

The man's eyes grow bright and he smiles. Softly, he whispers, " Man, you're the biggest, whitest, what hell are you anyway?"

The pup sits up and Jack Delleto caresses her neck, but much to the mutt's chagrin the man stands up and walks away.

Jack has his hand on the door about to go into the bar. The pup issues an interrogatory, "Woof?"

The rain turns to snow.

The man's eyes grow bright and he smiles, "My grandma used to say that when it snows the angels are sweeping heaven. I'll be back for you, Snowflake."

Jack shivers. His smile fading, the night jumps back into his eyes.

Snowflake chuffs once, twice.

The man is gone.



The room would have been a cold, dark place except the bodies who sit on the barstools or stand on the ***** linoleum floor produce heat. The cigarette smoke burns his eyes. Jack Delleto looks down the length of the bar to the boarded shut fire place and although the faces are shadows, he knows them all.

The old man who always sits at the second barstool from the dart board is sitting at the second bar stool. His fist clenched tightly around the beer mug, he stares at his own reflection in the mirror.

The aging barmaid, who often weeps from her apartment window on a hot summer night or a cold winter evening, is coming on to a man half her age. She is going to slip her arm around his bicep at any moment.

"Yeah," Jack smiles, "there she goes."

Jack Delleto knows where the regulars sit night after night clutching the bar with desperation, the wood rail is worn smooth.

In the mirror that runs the length of the bar Jack Delleto sees himself with clarity. Brown hair and brown eyes. Just an ordinary 29 year old man.

"Old Fred is right," he thinks to himself, "If you stare at shadows long enough, they stare back." Jack smiles and the red head returns his smile crossing her long legs that protrude beneath a too short skirt.

The bartender recognizes the man smiling at the redhead.

"Well,  Jack Delleto, Dell, I heard you were dead. " The six foot, two hundred pound bartender tells him as Dell is walking over to the bar.

"Who told you that?"

"Crazy George, while he was swinging from the wagon wheel lamp." Bob O'Malley says as he points to the wagon wheel lamp hanging from the ceiling.

"George, I heard, HE was dead."

The bartender reaches over the bar resting the palms of his big hands on the edge of the bar and flashes a smile of white, uneven teeth. Bob extends his hand. "Where the hell have you been?"

They shake hands.

Dell looks up at the Irishman. "I ve been at Harry's Bar in Venice drinking ****** Marys with Elvis and Ernest."

Bob O'Malley grins, puts two shot glasses on the bar, and reaches under the bar to grab a bottle of bourbon. After filling the glasses with Wild Turkey, he hands one glass to Dell. They touch glasses and throw down the shots.

"Gobble, gobble," O Malley smiles.


The front door of the bar swings open and a cold wind drifts through the bar. Paul Keater takes off his Giants baseball cap and with the back of his hand wipes the snow off of his face.

"Keater," Bob O'Malley calls to the Blackman standing in the doorway.

Keater freezes, his eyes moving side to side in short, quick movements. He points a long slim finger at O'Malley, "I don't owe you any money," Paul Keater shouts.

The people sitting the barstools do not turn to look.

"You're always pulling that **** on me." Keater rushes to the bar, "I PPPAID YOU."

As Delleto watches Keater arguing with O'Malley, the anger grows into the loathing Dell feels for Keater. The suave, sophisticated Paul Keater living in a room above the bar. The man is disgusting. His belly hangs pregnant over his belt. His jeans have fallen exposing the crack of his ***, and Keater just doesn't give a ****. And that ragged, faded, baseball cap, ****, he never takes it off.

When Keater glances down, he realizes he is standing next to Jack Delleto. Usually, Paul Keater would have at least considered punching Delleto in his face. "The **** wasn't any good," Paul feining anger tells O'Malley. "Everybody said it was, ****."

The bartender finishes rinsing a glass in the soapy sink water and then places it on a towel. "*******."

Keater slides the Giant baseball cap back and forth across his flat forehead. "**** it," he turns and storms out of the bar.

"Can I get a beer?" Dell asks but O"Malley is already reaching into the beer box. Twisting the cap off, he puts it on the bar. "It's not that Keater owes me a few bucks, "he tells Dell, "if I didn't cut him off he'd do the stuff until he died." Bob grabs a towel and dries his hands.

"But the smartest rats always get out of the maze first," Jack tells Bob.


Cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and losing lottery tickets litter the linoleum floor. Jack Delleto grabs the bottle of beer off the bar and crosses the specter of unfulfilled wishes.

In the adjacent room he sits at a table next to the pinball machine to watch a disfigured man with an anorexic women shoot pool. Sometimes he listens to them talk, whisper, laugh. Sometimes he just stares at the wall.

"We have a winner, "the pinball machine announces, "come ride the Ferris wheel."



"I'm part Indian. "

Jack looks up from his beer. The Indian has straight black hair that hangs a few inches above her shoulders, a thin face, a cigarette dangling from her too red lips.

"My Mom was one third Souix, " the drunken women tells Jack Delleto.

The Indian exhales smoke from her petite nose waiting for a come on from the man with the sad face. And he just stares, stares at the wall.

Her bushy eyebrows come together forming a delicate frown.

Jack turns to watch a brunette shoot pool. The woman leans over the pool table about to shoot the nine ball into the side pocket. It is an easy shot.

The brunette looks across the pool table at Jack Delleto, "What the **** are you starin at?" She jams the pool stick and miscues. The cue ball runs along the rail and taps the eight ball into the corner pocket. "AH ****," she says.

And Jack smiles.

The Indian thinks Jack is smiling at her, so she sits down.

"In the shadows I couldn't see your eyes," he tells her, "but when you leaned forward to light that cigarette, you have the prettiest green eyes."

She smiles.

" I'm Kathleen," her eyes sparkling like broken glass in an alley.

Delleto tries to speak.

"I don't want to know your name," she tells Jack Delleto, the smile disappearing from her face. "I just want to talk for a few minutes like we're friends," she takes a drag off the cigarette, exhales the smoke across the room.

Jack recognizes the look on her face. Bad dreams.

"I'll be your friend," he tells her.

"We're not going to have ***." The Indian slowly grinds out the cigarette into the ashtray, looks up at the man with the sad face.

"Do you have family?"

"Family?" Delleto gives her a sad smile.

She didn't want an answer and then she gets right into it.

"I met my older sister in Baltimore yesterday." She tells the man with sad eyes.' Hadn't seen her since I was nine, since Mom died. I wanted to know why Dad put me in foster homes. Why?

"She called me Little Sister. I felt nothin. I had so many questions and you know what? I didn't ask one."

Jack is finishing his beer.

"If you knew the reasons, now, what would it matter, anyway."

The man with the black eye just doesn't get it. She lived with them long enough. Long enough to love them.

She stands up, stares at Jack Delleto.

And walks away.


It's the fat blondes turn to shoot pool. She leans her great body ever so gently across the green felt of the pool table, shoots and misses. When she tries to raise herself up off the pool table, the tip of the pool cue hits the Miller Lite sign above the pool table sending the lamb rocking violently back and forth. In flashes of light like the frames from and old Chaplin movie the sad and grotesque appear and disappear.

"What the **** are you starin at?" The skinny brunette asks.

Jack pretends to think for a moment. "An unhappy childhood."

Suddenly, she stands up, looking like death wearing a Harley Davidson T-shirt.

"Dove sta amore?" Jack Delleto wonders.

Death is angry, steps closer.

"Must be that time of the month, huh," Jack grins.

With her two tiny fists clenched tightly at her side, the brunette stares down into Delleto's eyes. Suddenly, she punches Jack in the eye.

Jack stands up bringing his forearm up to protect his face. At the same time Death steps closer. His forearm catches her under the chin. The bony ***** goes down.

Women rush from the shadows. They pull Jack to the ***** floor, punch and kick him.

In the blinking of the Miller Light Jack Delleto exclaims," I'm being smother by fat lesbians in soft satin pants."  But then someone is pulling the women off of him.

The Miller Lite gently rocks and then it stops.

Jack stands up, shakes his head and smiles.

"Nice punch, Dell," Bob O' Malley says, "I saw from the bar."

Jack hits the dust off of his pants, grabs the beer bottle off of the table, takes a swallow. Smiling, he says, "I box a little."

"I can tell by your black eye." O'Malley puts his hand on his friends shoulder. "Come on I'll buy you a shot. What caused this spontaneous expression of love?"

"They thought I was a ******."


2 a.m.

Jack Delleto walks out the door of the bar into the wind swept gloom. The gray desolation of boarded shut downtown is gone.

The rain has finally turn to snow.

His eyes follow the blue rope from the parking meter pole to its frayed end buried in the plowed hill of snow at the corner of Cookman Avenue.

The dog, Snowflake, dead, Jack thinks.


The snow covers everything. It covers the abandon cars and the abandon buildings, the sidewalk and its cracks. The city, Delleto imagines, is an adjectiveless word, a book of white pages. He steps off the curb into the gutter and the street is empty for as far as he can see. He starts walking.

Jack disappears into empty pages.


Chapter 2


Paul Keater has a room above Wagon Wheel Bar where the loud rock music shakes the rats in the walls til 2a.m. The vibrations travel through the concrete floor, up the bed posts, and into the matress.

Slowly Paul's eyes open. Who the hell is he fooling. Even without the loud music, he would not be able to sleep, anyway.

Soft red neon from the Wagon Wheel Bar sign blinks into his room.

Paul Keater sits up, sighs, resigns himself to another sleepless night, swings his legs off the bed. His x-wife. He thinks about her frequently. He went to a phycologist because he loved her.

Dump the *****, the doctor said.

"I paid him eighty bucks and all he had to say was dump the *****." He laughs, shakes his head.

Paul thinks about *******, looks around the tiny room, and spots a clear plastic case containing the baseball cards he had collected when he was a boy.

He walks to the dresser and puts on his Giant's baseball cap. Paul sits down on the wooden chair by the sink. Turns on the lamp. The card on top is ***** Mays. Holding it in his hand, it is perfect. The edges are not worn like the other cards.

It was his tenth birthday and his dad had taken him to his first baseball game and his father had bought the card from a dealer.

Oblivious to the loud rock music filtering into his room, he stares at the card.

Fondly, he remembers.

Dad.


                                     *     

It arrives unobtrusively. His heart begins to race faster.
Jack Delleto rolls away from the cracked wall. He sits up and drops his legs off the bed.

Jack Delleto thinks about mountains.

When he cannot sleep he thinks about climbing up through the fog that makes the day obscure, passing where the stunted spruce and fir tees are twisted by the wind, into cold brilliant light. Once as he climbed through the fog he saw his shadow stretching a half a mile across a cloud and the world was small. Far down to the east laid cliffs and gullies, glaciated mountains and to the west were the plains and cities of everyday life.

The army coat is draped over the back of the chair. In the pocket is his notebook. Jack stands and takes the notebook from the pocket. When he sits in the wooden chair he opens the book and slides the pen from the binder.

When he finishes his story he makes the end into the beginning.



                                           Chapter 3


"I want a captain in a truck." The 10 year old boy with the brown hair tells his mom. "I want it NOW."

His blonde haired mom wearing the gold diamond bracelet nods her head at Jack Delleto. Jack looks up at the clock on the wall. It is only 9a.m. After four years of college Jack has a part time job at K.B. Toy store. "We're all out of them," he tells her for the second time.

"Honey," Blondie tells her boy, "they're all out of them."

"YOU PROMISED."

"How about a sargeant in a jeep?

"OK, but I want a missile firing truck , too."

Delleto turns to the display case behind the counter. Briefly, he studies his black eye in the display case mirror and then begins searching the four shelves and twenty rows of 3 inch plastic toys. He finds the truck. His head is aching. He finds the truck and puts it on the counter in front of the boy.

"Sorry, we're all out of the sargeant," Jack tells the pretty lady. The aching in his head just won't go away.

"Mommy, mommy, I want an ATTACK HELIOCOPTER, MOMMMEEE, I WANTAH TTTAAANNNK..."

Jack Delleto leans over the counter resting his elbows on the glass top. The boy is staring at the man with the black eye, at his bruised, unshaven face.

"Well, we haven't got any, GODDAMED TANKS. How about a , KICKINTHE ***."

Finally the boy and his mother are quiet.

"My husband will have you fired."

She grabs the boy by the hand. Turns to rush out of the store.

Jack mutters something.

"MMOOOMEEE,  what does..."

"Oh, shut the hell up," the pretty lady tells her son


                                    

The assistant manager takes a deep drag on her cigarette, exhales, and crosses her arms to hold the cigarette in front of her. Susan looks down at Jack sitting on the stool behind the counter. He stands up. "Did you tell some lady to blow you?" She crushes the cigarette out in the ashtray on the shelf below the counter. "Maybe you don't need this job but I do."

"Sue, there's no smoking in the mall."

"Jack, you look tired," the cubby teenager tells him, "and your eye. Another black eye."

"I was attacked by five women."

'Oh, I see, in your dreams maybe. I see, it's one of those male fantasies I'm always reading about in Cosmo. You're not boxing again, are you Dell?" Sue likes to call him Dell.

"I go down to the gym to work out. Felix says I've got something."

"Yeah, a black eye." Susan laughs, opens the big vanilla envelope, and hands Jack his check.

She turns and takes a pair of sunglasses from the display stand. "You 're scaring the children, Dell ." Susan steps closer looks into Dell's brown eyes and the slips the sunglasses on his face. "Why don't you go to lunch."

                                              

It's noon and the mall is crowded at the food court area. Jack gets a 20oz cup of coffee, finds a table and sits down.

"Go over and talk to him. " Susan says. Jack turns his head , looks back, sees the Indian walking towards his table.

"Hello, Kathrine," says Jack Delleto.

"My names not Kathrine, it's Kathleen."

Jack pulls the chair away from the table, "Have a seat Kate."

Her eyebrows form that delicate frown. "My names Kathleen." As soon as she sits down she takes a cigarette from the pack sticking out of her pocketbook. "I had to leave. I told the baby sitter I'd only be gone an hour. Anyway you weren't much help."

"So why did you come over to talk to me?"

"You were alone, the bar full of people and you're alone. Why?"

"I like it that way. You've seen me there before?"

"Yeah, sitting by the pin ball machine staring at the wall, and sometimes, you'd take out your blue note pad and write in it.
What do you write about?  Are you goin to write about me..."

"Maybe. How many kids do you have?"

"Just one. A boy, and believe me one is enough. He'll be four in June," Kathleen smiles but then she remembers and abruptly the smile disappears from her face. "Sometimes I see Anthony's father in the mall and I ask him if he'd like to meet his son, but he doesn't.

Kathleen draws the cigarette smoke deep into her lungs, tilts her head back, and blows the smoke towards the skylight. Suddenly caught in the sunlight the smoke becomes a gray cloud. " I didn't want to marry him anyway, I don't know why he thought that."

She hears the scars as Delleto talks, something sad about the man, something like old newspapers blowing across a deserted street. She hears the scars and knows never, never ask where the scars came from.


                                    

As Jack walks towards the bank to cash his check, he glances out the front entrance to the mall. It is a bright, cold day and the snowplows are finishing up the parking lot plowing the snow into big white hills. That is the fate of the big white pup plowed to the corner of Cookman and Main buried deep in ***** snow. At that street corner when the school is over the children will play on the hill never realizing what lay beneath there feet.

The snow must melt; spring is inevitable.

His pup will be back.



                                           Chapter 4


The 19 year old light heavyweight leans his muscular body forward to rest his gloved hands on the tope rope of the ring. He bows his head waiting to regain his breath as his lungs fight to force air deep into his chest. Bill Wain has finished boxing 4 rounds with Red.

Harry the trainer, gently pulls the untied boxing gloves from Red's hands. "Good fight, he says, patting Red on the back as the fighter climbs through the ropes and heads to the showers. Harry hands the sweat soaked gloves to Felix who puts one glove under his arm while he loosens the laces on the other 12ounce glove. He makes the sleeve wider.

"Do you want the head gear?" Felix asks.

Jack Delleto shakes his head and pushes his taped hand deep into the glove.

The old man takes the other glove from under his arm, pulls the laces out, and holds it open. Without turning his head to look at him, Felix tells Harry, "Make sure Bill doesn't cool down. Tell him to shadow box. Harry walks over to Bill and Bill starts shadow boxing.

Jack pushes his hand into the glove. "Make a fist." Jack does. Felix pulls the laces and ties it into a bow.

Felix looks intently into Delleto's eyes. "How does that feel?"

"About right."

"You look tired."

"I am a little."

"Are you sick or is it a woman."

"I'm not sick."

A big smile forms across the face of the former welterweight champion of Nevada. The face of the 68 year old Blackman is lined and cracked like the old boxing gloves that Jack is wearing but his tall body is youthful and athletic in appearance. Above Felix's eyebrows Jack sees the effect of 20 years as a professional fighter. He sees the thick scar tissue and the thin white lines where the old man's skin has been stitched and re-stitched many times. As he gives instructions to Jack, Felix's brown eyes seem to be staring at something distant and Jack wonders if Felix has chased around the ring one time too often his dream.

"And get off first. Don't stop punching until he goes down. You've got it kid and not every fighter does."

Jack and Felix start walking over to the ring.

"What is it I've got?" Jack Deletto wonders.

Felix puts his foot on the fourth strand of the rings rope and with his hand pulls up the top strand and as Jack steps into the ring, "You've got, HEART."

In the opposite corner Bill Wain waits.

"Will he be alright?" Harry asks.

"Bill's tired, " Felix replies, then he tries to explain. "It's not about money. I'm almost 70 and I want to go out a winner." Felix pauses and the offers, he can hit hard with either hand."

"Yeah, but at best he's a small middleweight and he only moves in one direction, straight ahead."

"Harry, I love the guy," Felix puts his hand on Harry's shoulder, he's like Tyson at the end of his career. He'd fight you to the death but he's not fighting to win anymore."

Harry puts his hands in his pocket and stares at the floor. "Do you want me to tell him to go easy." Harry looks up at Felix waiting for an answer.

"I'm tired of sweeping dirt from behind the boxes of wax beans and tuna fish. I'm sick of collecting shopping carts in the rain. A half way decent white heavyweight can make a lot of money. It's stupid for a fighter to practice holding back. Bill's a winner. Jack'll be alright."

Felix hands the pocket watch to Harry so he can time the rounds.

Bill Wain comes out of his corner circling left.

Jack rushes straight ahead.

Felix winks at Jack Delleto and whispers, "The Jack of hearts."



                                           Chapter 5


The front door of the Wagon Wheel bar explodes open to Ziggy Pop's, "YOU'VE GOT A LUST FOR LIFE." Jack Delleto steps over the curb and vanishes into the dark doorway.

"HEY, JACK, JACK DELLETO," The lanky bartender shouts over the din.

Delleto makes his way through the crowd over to bar. How the hell have you been Snake?" Jack asks.

"Just great," says Snake. "You're lookin pretty ****** good for a dead man."

"Who told you that? Crazy George?"

The bartender points across the room to where a man in a pin stripe suit is swinging to and fro from a wagon wheel lamp attached to the ceiling.

"Yeah, I thought so. Haven't seen Crazy George in a year and he's been telling everyone I'm dead. I'm gonna have to have a long talk with that man."

Snake hands Jack a shot of tequila. The men touch glasses and throw down the shots.

How's the other George? Dell asks.

"AA."

"How's Tommy? You see him anymore?"

"Rehab."

"What about Robbie?"

Snake refills the glasses. "He's livin in a nudist colony in Florida, he has two wives and 6 children."


Jack looks across the room and sees Bob O'Malley trying to adjust the rose in the lapel of his tuxedo. Satisfied it won't fall out O'Malley looks up at the man swinging from the lamp. "Quick, name man's three greatest inventions."

"Alcohol, tobacco, and the wheel," Crazy George shoots back.

O'Malley smiles and then jumps up on the top of the bar and although he is over six feet and weighs two hundred pounds, he has the dexterity and grace of a ballerina as he pirouttes around and jumps over the shot glasses and beer bottles that litter the bar.

Wedding guests lean back in their chairs as strangers fearful of his gyrations ****** their drinks off the bar. Bob fakes a slip as he prances along but he is always in control and never falters. Forty three year old Bob O'Malley is Jim Brown who dodges danger to score the winning touch down.

When Bob reaches the end of the bar he jumps to the floor, pulls two aluminum lids from the beer box, and with one in each hand he smacks them together like cymbals.

Some guests clap. The bemused just stare.

In the back of the room sitting at the wedding table the father of the bride leans over, whispers into the ear of his crying wife, "If I had a gun I'd shoot Bob."

The bride raises a glass of champagne into the smoke filled air and Bob takes a bow but then heads towards the kitchen at the other end of the room.

" Hey, Bob," Jack Delleto shouts to the groom.

O'Malley stops under the wagon wheel lamp and turns as Delleto steps into the  circle of light cast onto the floor.

"Congratulations, I know Theresa and you are goin to be happy. I mean that." Delleto offers his hand and they shake hands.

"Thanks, Mr. Cool."

Jack takes off the sunglasses.

"TWO black eyes. Your nose is bleeding. What happened?"

Dell takes the handkerchief from his back pocket, wipes the blood dripping down his face. "It's broken."

"What happened?" O'Malley asks again.

"Bill Wain."

"He turned pro."

"Yeah, but he's nothing special. Hell, he couldn't even knock me down."

O'Malley shakes his head. "Dell, why do you do it? You always lose."

"If you don't fight you've already lost."

"Put the sunglasses back on, you look like a friggin raccoon."

Dell smiles. The blood running down his lips."Thersa's beautiful, Bob, you're a lucky guy."

"Thanks Dell." O'Malley puts his hand on Dell's shoulder and squeezes affectionately. Bob looks across the room at Theresa. "Yeah, she is beautiful." Theresa's mother has stopped crying. Her father drinks whiskey and stares at the wall.

O'Malley looks away from his bride and passed the archway that divides the poolroom from the bar and into the corner. With the lamp light above his head gleaming in his eyes Bob seems to see a ghost fleeting in the far distant, dark corner. Slowly, a peculiar half smile forms uneven, white, tombstone teeth.  A pensive smile.

Curious, Dell turns his head to look into the darkness of the poolroom, too.

At night in July the moths were everywhere. When Dell was a boy he would sit on his porch and try to count them. The moths appeared as faint splashes of whiteness scattered throughout the nighttime sky, odd circles of white that moved haphazardly, forward and then sideways, sometimes up and then down.

Sometimes the patches of moths flew higher and higher and Dell imagined the lights those creatures were seeking were the stars themselves; Orion, the Big Dipper, and even the milky hue of the Milkyway.

One night as the moths pursued starlight he saw shadows dropping one by one from the branches at the tops of the trees. The swallows were soundless and when he caught a glimpse of sudden darkness, blacker than the night, he knew the shadows had erased the dreamer and its dream.

His imagination gave definition to form. There was a sound to the shadows of the swallows in his thoughts, the melody and the song played over and over. Wings of shadow furled and unfurled. Perhaps he saw his reflection in the night. Perhaps there are shadows where nothing exists to cast them.

"Do you hear them, Bob?"

"Hear what?" Bob asks.

"All of them."

"All of what?"

"Shadows," Delleto candidly tells his friend, then, "Ah, Nothin."

O'Malley doesn't understand but it does not matter. The two men have shared the same corner of darkness.

Bob calls to Paul Keater. Keater smiles broadly, slides the brim of his Giant baseball cap to the side of his forehead. The two men disappear through the swinging kitchen door.


                                          Chapter 6


"Hello Kate." Jack Delleto says and sits down. She has a blue bow in her hair and make up on.

"My names Kathleen."

She fondles the whiskey glass in her slim fingers. "Hello, Dell, Sue thinks Dell is such a **** name. Kathleen takes a last drag on her cigarette, rubs it out in the ashtray, looks up at him, "What should I call you?"

"How about, Darlin?"

"Hello, Jack, DARLIN," her soft, deep voice whispers. Kathleen crosses her legs and the black dress rides up to the middle of her thigh.

Jack glances at the milky white flesh between the blue ***** hose and the hem of her dress. Kate is drunk and Dell does not care. He leans closer, "Do you wanna dance?"

"But no one else is dancing."

"Well, we can go down to the beach, take a walk along the sand."

"It's twenty degrees out there."

"I'll keep you warm."

"All right, lets dance."

Jack stands up takes her by the hand. As Kathleen rises Jack draws her close to him. Her ******* flatten against his chest. He feels her heart thumping.

The Elvis impersonator that almost played Las Vegas; the hairdresser that wanted to be a race car driver; the insurance salesman with a Porche and a wife.  Her men talked about what they owned or what they could do well.

And Kathleen was impressed.

But Dell wasn't like them. Dell never talked about himself. Did he have a dream? Was there something he wanted more than anything?

Kathleen had never meant anyone quite like Dell.

She rests her head on his shoulder. "What do you what more than anything? What do you dream about at night?"

"Nothing."

"Come on," she says," what do you want more than anything? Tell me your dreams."

Jack smiles, "Just to make it through another day."  He smiles that sad smile that she saw the first time they met. "Tell me what you want."

Kate lifts her head off of his shoulder and looks into his eyes. "I don't want to be on welfare the rest of my life and I want to be able to send my son to college." She rests her cheek against his, "I've lived in foster homes all my life and every time I knew that one day I'd have to leave, what I want most is a home. Do you know the difference between a house and a home?"

"No. not at all"

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear, "LOVE."

The song comes to an end and they leave the circle of light and sit down. Kate takes a cigarette from the pack.

Dell strikes a match. The flame flickering in her eyes. "Maybe someday you'll have your home."

"Do you want me to?"

"Yeah."

Kate blows out the match.


                                        


"Can you take me home?" Kate asks slurring her words.

Kathleen and Jack walk over to where the bride and groom are standing near the big glass refrigerator door with Paul Keater. When Paul realizes he is standing next to Jack Delleto he rocks back and forth on the heals of his worn shoes, slides his Giants baseball cap back and forth across his forehead and walks away.

O'Malley bends down and kisses Kathleen on the cheek and turns to shake hands with Dell. "Good luck," says Dell. Kathleen embraces the bride.

Outside the bar the sun is setting behind the boarded shut Delleto store.

"That was my Dad's store, " Jack tells Kate and then Jack whispers to to himself as he reads the graffiti spray painted on the front wall.
"TELL YOUR DREAMS TO ME, TELL ME YOU LOVE ME, IF YOU LOVE ME, TELL ALL YOUR DREAMS TO ME."


                                         Chapter 7


An old man comes shuffling down the street, "Hello Mr. Martin, " Jack says, "How are you?"

"I'm an old man Jack, how could I be," and then he smiles, "ah, I can't complain. How are you?"

"Still alive and well."

"Who is this pretty young lady?"

"This is Kate."

Joesph Martin takes Kathleen by the arm and gently squeezes, "Hello Kate, such a pretty women, ah, if I was only sixty," and the old man smiles.

Kathleen forces a smile.

The thick eyeglasses that Mr. Martin wears magnifies his eyes as he looks from Kathleen to Jack, "Have fun now, because when you're dead, you're going to be dead a long, long time." And Martin smiles.

"How long?  Delleto inquires.

The old man smirks and waves as he continues up the street to the door leading to the rooms above the bar. He turns to face the door. The small window is broken and the shards of glass catch the twilight.

Joesph Martin turns back looking at the man and young woman who are about to get into the car. He is not certain what he wants to say to them. Perhaps he wants to tell them that it ***** being an old man and the upstairs hallway always smells of ****.

Joesph Martin wants to tell someone that although Anna died seven years ago his love endures and he misses her everyday. Joesph recalls that Plato in Tamaeus believed that the soul is a stranger to the Earth and has fallen into matter because of sin.

A faint smile appears on the wrinkled face of the old man as he heeds the resignation he hears in his own thoughts.

Jack waves to Mr. Martin.  Joesph waves back. The mustang drives off.

Earth, O island Earth.


                                               Chapter 8


Joseph pushes open the door and goes into the hallway. The fragments of glass scattered across the foyer crunch and clink under his shoes. The cold wind blowing through the broken window touches his warm neck. He shivers and walks up the stairs. There is only enough light to see the wall and his own warm breathing. There is just enough light like when he has awaken from a  bad dream, enough to remember who he is and to separate the horror of what is real from the horror of what is dreamt.

The old man continues climbing the stairs following the familiar shadow of the wall cast onto the stairs. If he crosses the vague line of shadow and light he will disappear like a brown trout in the deepest hole in a creek.

By the time he reaches the second floor he is out of breath. Joseph pauses and with the handkerchief he has taken from his back pocket he wipes the fog from the lenses of his eyeglasses and the sweat from his forehead.

A couple of doors are standing open and the old man looks cautiously into each room as he hurries passed. One forty watt bulb hangs from a frayed wire in the center of the hallway. The wiring is old and the bulb in the white porcelain socket flickers like the blinking of an eye or the fearful beating of the heart of an old man.

When he opens the door to his room it sags on ruined hinges.

Joesph searches with his hand for the light switch.  Several seconds linger. Can't find it.

Finds it and quickly pushes the door shut. He sits down on the bed, doesn't take his coat off, reaches for the radio. It is gone.

Joseph looks around the room. A small dresser, the sink with a mirror above it. He takes off his coat and above the mirror hangs the coat on the nail he has put there.

Hard soled boots echo hollowly off the hallway walls. The echoes are overlapping and he cannot determine if the footsteps are leaving or approaching.

The crowbar is under his pillow.

He grabs it. Holds it until there is silence.

He lays back on the bed. Another night without sleep. Joseph rolls onto his side and faces the wall.

Earth, O island Earth.



                                           Chapter 9


Tangled in the tree tops a rising moon hangs above the roofs of identical Cape Cod houses.

Jack pulls the red mustang behind a station wagon. Kathleen is looking at Dell. His face is a faint shadow on the other side of the car. "Do you want to come up?" she asks.

Kathleen steps out of the car, breathes the cold air deep into her lungs. It is fresh and sweet. Jack comes around the side of the car just as she knew he would. He takes her into his arms. She can feel his lips on hers and his warm breath as the kiss ends.

They walk beneath the old oak tree and the roots have raised and crack the sidewalk and in the spring tiny blue flowers will bloom. The flowers remind Jack of the columbines that bloom in high mountain meadows above tree line heralding a brief season of sun and warmth.

"Did you win?" Kathleen asks as she fits the key into the upstairs apartment door. The door swings open into the brightly lit kitchen.

Dell, leaning in the doorway, two black eyes, looking like the Jack of Hearts. "It doesn't matter."

"You lost?"

"Yeah."

Crossing the room she takes off her coat and places it on the back of the kitchen chair. When Kate leans across the kitchen table to turn on the radio the mini dress rides up her thigh, tugs tightly around her buttocks.

The radio plays softly.

Jack stands and as Kathleen turns he slips his arms around her waist and she is staring into his eyes like a cat into a fire. His body gently presses against the table and when he lifts her onto the table her legs wrap around his waist.

Kathleen sighs.

Jack kisses her. Her lips are cold like the rain. His hand reaches. There is a faint click. The room slips into darkness. It is Eddie Money on the radio, now, with Ronnie Specter singing the back up vocals. Eddie belts out, "TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT, I WON"T LET YOU LEAVE TIL..."

When Jack withdraws from the kiss her eyes are shining like diamonds in moonlight.

The buttons of her dress are unfastened.  Her arms circle his neck and pull him to her *******. "Don't Jack. You mustn't. I just want a friend."

His hands slide up her thighs. "I'll be your friend, " says Jack.

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear. "*** always ruins everything," He pulls her to the edge of the table as Ronnie sings, "O DARLIN, O MY DARLIN, WON'T YOU BE MY LITTLE BAABBBY NOOWWW."


They are sitting on a couch in the room that at one time had been a sun porch.

Now that they have gotten *** out of the way, maybe they can talk. Sliding her hands around his face she pulls him closer.

"Jack, what do you dream about? You know what I mean, tell your dreams to me."

"How did you get those round scars on your arm?" Dell wonders.

"Don't ask. I don't talk about it. Do you have family?"

"Yeah. A brother. Tell me about those scars."

My ****** foster dad. He burned me with his cigarette. That's how I got these ****** scars.

And when I knew he was coming home, I'd get sick to my stomach, and when I heard his key in the door, I'd *** myself. And I got a beating.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

When they didn't beat me or burn me, they ignored me, like I didn't exist, like I wasn't even there. And you know what, I didn't hate him. I hated my father who put in all those foster homes."



                                             Chapter 10



Spring. All the windows in the apartment are open. The cool breeze flows through her brown hair. "You're getting too serious, Jack, and I don't want to need you."

"That's because I care for you."

The rain pounds the roof.

Jack Delleto sits down on the bed, caresses her shoulder. "I hate the rain. Come on, give me a smile. "Kathleen pulls away and faces the wall.

"Well, I don't need anyone."

"People need people."

"Yeah, but I don't need you." There is silence, then, "I only care about my son and Father Anthony."

"What is it with you and the priest?" You named your son Anthony is that because he's the father."

"You're an *******. Get out of here. I don't love you." And then, "I've been hurt by people and you'll get over it."

Then silence. Jack gets up from the bed, stares at her dark form facing the wall. "Isn't this how it always ends for you?"

The room is quiet and grows hot. When the silence numbs his racing heart, he goes into the kitchen, opens the front door and walks down the steps into the cold rain.


"Anthony," Kathleen calls to her son to come to her from the other bedroom and he climbs into the bed, and she holds him close. The ghost of relationships past haunt her and although they are all sad, she clings to them.


On the sidewalk below the apartment window Jack stops. He thinks he hears his name being called but whatever he has heard is carried off by the wind. He continues up the dark street to his Harley.

High in reach less branches of the old oak tree a mockingbird is singing. The leaves twist in the wind and the singing goes on and on.



                                                  



The ringing phone. The clock on the dresser says 5 a.m.

"Who the hell is this?"

"Jack, I'm scared."

"Kate? Is that you?"

"Someone broke into my apartment."

"Is he still there?"

"No, he ran out the door when I screamed. It was hot and I had the window open. He slit the screen."

"I'll be right over."



                                         Chapter11


"How hot is it?" Kathleen asks.

The bar is empty except for O'Malley, Keater, a man and a woman.

"98.6," says Jack. The sweat rolls down his cheeks.

"Let's go to the boardwalk."

"When it's hot like this, it's hot all over."

"We could go on the rides."

"I've got the next pool game, then we'll go."

"It's my birthday."

"I bought you flowers."

"Yeah, carnations."

Laughing, Paul Keater slides the brim of his baseball cap back and forth across his forehead.

Jack eyes narrow. He starts for Keater, Katheen steps in front of Jack, puts her hands on his shoulders. She looks into his eyes.

"Who are you Jack Delletto? What is it with you two? But as always you'll say nothing, nothing." As Jack tries to speak she walks over to the bar and sits on the barstool.

"It's my birthday," she tells O'Malley.

When Bob turns from the horse races on the T.V., he notices her long legs and the short skirt. "Hey, happy birthday, Kate, Jack Daniels?"

"Fine."

Filling the glasses O'Malley hands one to Kathleen, "You look great," he tells her.

"Jack doesn't think so. Thanks, at least someone thinks so."

"Hope Jack won't mind," and he leans over the bar and kisses her.

Kathleen looks over her shoulder at Delleto. Jack is playing pool with a woman wearing a black tight halter top. The woman comes over to Jack, stands too close, smiles, and Jack smiles back.

The boyfriend stares angrily at Jack.

When Kathleen turns back O'Malley is filling her shot glass.

Jack wins that game, too.



                                                 Chapter 12



"Daddy," the little girl with her hands folded in her lap is looking up at her father. "When will the ride stop? I want to go on."

"Soon, Darling, "her father assures her.

"I don't think it will ever stop."

"The ride always stops, Sweetie." Daddy takes her by the hand, gently squeezes.


When the carousel begins to slow down but has not quite stopped Kathleen steps onto the platform, grabs the brass support pole. The momentum of the machine grabs her with a **** onto the ride, into a white horse with big blue eyes. Dropping her cigarette she takes hold of the pole that goes through the center of the horse. She struggles to put her foot in the stirrup, finds it, and throws her leg over the horse. The carousel music begins to play. With a tremble and a jolt, the ride starts.

Sitting on the pony has made her skirt ride well up her legs. The ticket man is staring at her but she is too drunk to care. She hands him the ticket, gives him the finger.

The ticket man goes over to the little girl and her father who are sitting in a golden chariot pulled by to black horses.

"Ooooh, Daddy, I love this."

"So do I," The father smiles and strokes his daughter's hair.

The heat makes the dizziness grow and as the ride picks up speed she sees two of everything. There are two rows of pin ball machines, eight flashing signs, six prize machines. All the red, blue and green lights from the ride blend together like when a car drives at night down a rain-soaked street.

Kathleen feels the impulse to *****.

"Can we go on again?" The little girl asks.

"But the ride isn't over, yet."


Kathleen concentrates on the rain-soaked street and the dizziness and nausea lessens. She perceives the images as a montage like the elements that make up a painting or a life. She has become accustom to the machine and its movement. The circling ride creates a cooling breeze that becomes a tranquil, flowing waterfall.

The ponies in front are always becoming the ponies in the back and the ponies in back are becoming the ponies in the front. Around and around. All the ponies galloping. Settling back into the saddle she rides the pony into the ever-present receding waterfall.

You can lose all sense of the clock staring into the waterfall of blue, red and green. Kathleen leans forward to embrace the ride for a long as it lasts.

Just as suddenly as it started, the ride is slowly stopping, the music stops playing.

Coming down off the pony she does not wait for the ride to stop, stumbles off the platform and out the Casino amusement park door. "****, *******," she yells careening into the railing almost falling into Wesley Lake.

She staggers a few steps, sits down on the grass by the curb, hears the carousel music playing and knows the ride is beginning again, and all of her dreams crawls into her like a dying animal from its hidden hole.

And it all comes up from her throat taking her breath away. A distant yet familiar wind so she lies down on the grass facing the street of broken buildings filled with broken people. From the emptying lot of scattering thoughts the mockingbird is singing and the images shoot off into a darkening landscape, exploding, illuminating for a brief moment, only to grow dimmer, light and warmth fading into cold and darkness.




                                            

"Your girlfriend is flirting with me," Jack Delleto tells the man. "It's my game."

The man stands up, takes a pool stick from the rack, as he comes towards Jack Delleto the man turns the pool stick around holding the heavy part with two hands.

There is an explosion of light inside his head, Delleto sees two spinning lizards playing trumpets, 3 dwarfs with purple hair running to and fro, intuitively he knows he has to get up off the floor, and when he does he catches the bigger man with a left hook, throws the overhand right. The man stumbles back.

His girlfriend in the tight black halter top is jumping up and down, screaming at, screaming at Jack Delleto to stop, but Jack, does not. Stepping forward, a left hook to the midsection, hook to the head, spins right, throws the overhand right.

The man goes down. Jack looks at him.

"You lose, I win," and Delleto's smile is a sad, knowing one.



                                                  CHAPTER­ 13

"It's too much," and Jack looks up from the two lines of white powder at Bob O'Malley. "I'll never be able to fall asleep and I hate not being able to sleep."

" Here," Bob takes a big white pill from his shirt pocket.

Jack drops the pill into his shirt pocket and says, "No more." He hands the rolled-up dollar bill to Bob who bends over the powder.

"Tom sold the house so you're upstairs? O Malley asks, and like a magician the two lines of white powder disappear.

"Till i find another place," Jack whispers.

Straightening up, O'Malley looks at Dell, "I know you 're hurting Dell, I'm sorry, I'm sad about Kate, too."

"Kate had a kid. A boy, four years old."

Jack becomes quiet, walks through the darkened room over to the bar. Leaning over the bar he grabs two shot glasses and a bottle of Wild Turkey, walks back into the poolroom. He puts the shot glasses on top of the pin ball machine. "We have a winner, " the pin ball machine announces. Dell fills the glasses.

"Felix came in the other day, he's taken it hard," Bob tells him.
Bill Wain knock down four times in the sixth round, he lost consciousness in the dressing room, and died at the hospital."

"I heard. What's the longest you went without sleep? Jack asks.

"Oooohhh, five, six days, who knows, after awhile you lose all track of time."

They take the shots and throw them down.

"I wonder if animals dream," Jack wants to know. "I wonder if dogs dream."

"Sure, they do, " O'Malley assures him, nodding his head up and down, "dogs, cats, squirrels, birds."

"Probably not insects."

"Why not? June bugs, fleas, even moths, it's all biochemical, dreams are biochemical, mix the right combination of certain chemicals, electric impulses, and you'll produce love and dreams."

                                                

Jack Delleto goes into his room above the bar, studies it. The light from the unshaded lamp on the nightstand casts a huge shadow of him onto the adjacent wall. Not much to the room, a sink with a mirror above it next to a dresser, a bed against the wall, a wooden chair in front of a narrow window.

The rain pounds the roof.

The apprehension grows. The panic turns into anger. Jack rushes the white wall, meets his shadow, explodes with a left hook. He throws the right uppercut, the overhand right, three left hooks. He punches the wall and his knuckles bleed. He punches and kicks the blood-stained wall.

At last exhausted, he collapses into the chair in front of the open window. Fist sized holes in the plaster revel the bones of the building. The room has been punched and kicked without mercy.

The austere room has won.

The yellow note pad, he needs the yellow note pad, finds it, takes the pencil from the binder but no words will come so he writes, "insomnia, the absence of dream." He reaches for the lamp on the nightstand, finds it, and turns off the light. Red and blue, blue and red, the neon from the Wagon Wheel Bar sign blinks soft neon into his room. The sign seems to pulsate to the cadence of the rock music coming from the bar.

Taking the big white pill from his shirt pocket, he swallows it, leans back into the chair watching the shadows of rain bleed down the wall. The darkness intensifies. Jack slides into the night.



                                           Chapter 14


The rain turns to snow.

With each step he takes the pain throbs in his arm and shoulder socket. His raw throat aches from the drafts of cold air he is ******* through his gaping mouth and although his legs ache he does not turn to look back. Jack must keep punching holes with his ice axe, probing the snow to avoid a fall into an abyss.

The pole of the ice axe falls effortlessly into the snow, "**** it, another one."

Moonlight coats the glacier in an irridecent glow and the mountain looms over him. It is four in the mourning and Jack knows he needs to be high on the mountain before the mourning sun softens the snow. He moves carefully, quietly, humbly to avoid a fall into a crevasse. When he reaches the top of the couloir the wind begins to howl.

"DA DA DUN, DA DA DUN, HEY PURPLE HAZE ALL AROUND MY BRAIN..."

Jack thinks the song is in his head but the electric guitar notes float down through the huge blocks of ice that litter the glacier and there standing on the arête is Jimi, his long dexterous fingers flying over the guitar strings at 741 mph.

"Wait a minute, " Jack wonders, stopping dead in his tracks. The sun is hitting the distant, wind-blown peaks. "Ah, what the hell," and Jack jumps in strumming his ice axe like an air guitar, singing, shouting, "LATELY THINGS DON'T SEEM THE SAME, IS THIS A DREAM, WHATEVER IT IS THAT GIRL PUT A SPELL ON MEEEE, PURRPPLLE HAZZEEE."


                                             


Slowly the door moans open.

"Jack, are you awake?" her voice startles him.

"Yeah, I'm awake."

"What's the matter, can't sleep?"

Jack sifts position on the chair. "Oh, I can sleep all right." He recognizes the voice of the shadow. "I want to climb to a high mountain through ice and snow and never be found."

"A heart that's empty hurts, I miss you, Jack Delleto."

"I'm glad someone does, I miss you, too, Kate."

There is silence for several minutes and the voice comes out of the darkness again.

"Jack, you forgot something that night."

"What?" The dark shape moves towards him. When it is in front of him, Jack stands, slips his arms around her waist.

"You didn't kiss me goodbye."

Her lips are soft and warm. Her arms tighten around his neck and the warmth of her body comes to him through the cold night.

"Jack, what's the matter?" She raises her head to look at him, "Why, you're crying."

"Yeah, I'm crying."

"Don't cry Darlin," her lips are soft against his ear. "I can't bear to see you unhappy, if you love me, tell me you love me."

"I love you, I do," he whispers softly.

"Hold me, Jack, hold me tighter."

"I'll never let you go." He tries to hug the shadow.


                                                *


The dread grows into an explosion of consciousness. Suddenly, he sits up ******* in the cold drafts of air coming into the room from the open window. Jack Delleto gets up off the chair and walks over to the sink. He turns on the cold water and bending forward splashes water onto his face. Water dripping, he leans against the sink, staring into the mirror, into his eyes that lately seem alien to him.



                                            Chapter 15


Someone approaches, Jacks turns, looks out the open door, sees Joesph Martin go shuffling by wearing a faded bathrobe and one red slipper. Jack hears Martin 's door slam shut and for thirty seconds the old man screams, "AAHHH, AAAHHH, AAAHH."
Then the building is silent and Jack listens to his own labored breathing.

A glance at the clock. It is a few minutes to 7 a.m. Jack hurries from his room into the hallway.  They pass each other on the stairs. The big man is coming up the stairs and Jack is going down to see O'Malley.

Jack has committed a trespass.

When the big man reaches the top of the stairs, the red exit light flickers like a votive candle above his head. The man slides the brim of his Giants baseball cap back and forth across his forehead, he turns and looks down, "Hello, Jack, brother. Dad loved you, too, you know." An instant later the sound of a door closing echoes down the hallway steps.


Jack Delleto is standing in the doorway at the bottom of the steps looking out onto the wet, bright street.

"Hey, Jack, man it's good to see you, glad to see you're still alive."

Jack turns, looks over his shoulder, "Felix, how the hell are you?"
The two men shake hands, then embrace momentarily.

"Ah, things don't get any better and they don't get any worse," shrugs the old man and then he smiles but his brown eyes are dull, and Jack can smell the cheap wine on the breath of the old boxer. "When are comin back? Man, you've got something, Kid, and we're going places."

"Yeah, Felix, I'll be coming back."  Jack extends his hand. The old fighter smiles and they shake hands. Suddenly, Felix takes off down Main Street towards Foodtown as if he has some important place to go.

Jack is curious. He sees the rope when he starts walking towards the Wagon Wheel Bar. One end of the rope is tied around the parking meter pole. The rest of the rope extends across the sidewalk disappearing into the entrance to the bar. The rattling of a chain catches his attention and when the huge white head of the dog pops out of the doorway Jack is startled. He stops dead in his tracks and as he spins around to run, he slips falling to the wet pavement.

The big, white mutt is curious, growls, woofs once and comes charging down the sidewalk at him. The rope is quickly growing shorter, stretches till it meets it end, tightens, and then snaps. Now, unimpeded by the tension of the rope the mutt comes charging down the sidewalk at Delleto. Jack's body grows tense anticipating the attack. He tries to stand up, makes it to his knees just as the dog bowls into him knocking him to the cement. The huge mutt has him pinned down, goes for his face.

And begins licking him.

Jack Delleto struggles to his knees, hugs her tightly to him. Looking over her shoulder, across Main Street to the graffiti painted on the boarded shut Delleto Market...

                               FANTASY WILL SET YOU FREE

                                                 The End

To Tommy, Crazy George and Snake, we all enjoyed a little madness for a while.


"Conversations With a Dead Dog..."

Trip Sitter Poem by Rob Sandman

We’ve all got a friend like this of course,
Istabraq, Seabiscuit the ould warhorse,
Snortin like a whale inhaling at the surface,
Smokes til just lookin’ at them makes your lungs hurt its-
Amazing grace while you’re off your face messed up,
They’re in the corner laughin' - not a hair mussed up,
Not out of place in the place to be,
The opposite in fact a life saver to see,
Always at your back with a friendly shoulder,
A spliff, skins smokes-well timed glass of water

Not immune or a ******- just seasoned,
When you’re lost-beyond all reason,
Lost the end of your sentence?-they’ve got it,
a well tuned part in the heart of the party chaotic,
The calm center of the whirlpool, Deadpool-
Quick with a line, not too cuttin’ but nobodies fool,
trip sitter, designated brain at the sesh,
A little OCD maybe, but  nonetheless,

We’re all thankful with a full tankful
Its gas havin' a laugh knowin' you can bank full-
Confidence in your mates if you trip,

But no mercy with the quips,  quick! zip your lips
If you’re not in full control of the tongue,
They’ll be followin’ the slips and zip down your lungs
You’re a wounded gazelle on the plains and they’ll lunge,
Like a cheetah once you’ve taken the plunge

I’m not talkin of only one person of course,
We all take turns as the tour de force-
goes round
Like a Merry go round sound friends abound
While you’re bewildered the wildebeest takes the crown,
Don’t know about you, but I’m blessed with a few true-
Trip sitters babysitters life fitters diametrically opposed to bullshitters

*Sideplitters with one liners that leave you gaspin’
For air beyond compare got the grasp and flavor
Best savour the moments-they’re all too few ,
Best friends are saviours  who help you pull through,
So lets all give thanks to the big hitters,
Thanks lads and lasses I’m always grateful for me trip sitters!

Oh sleepless night, why are your eyes red? Oh sleepless night, why do you gasp every time you close your eyes? Oh sleepless night, why are you paranoid? Oh sleepless night, oh sleepless night has all the sheep died, because you only see a fence without sheep to count? Oh sleepless night, do you want to talk about it? Oh sleepless night, why do you talk to yourself, have you finally lost it? Oh sleepless night, I think you have and I think I know why! Oh sleepless night, we are one, so really I'm just asking myself these questions. Oh sleepless night, was it because I heard my dad beating my mom? Oh sleepless night is it because I had a baby sitter that sexually assaulted me? Oh sleepless night, is it because after the baby sitter was asleep I killed him? Oh sleepless night,  Oh sleepless night, is it because I get bullied at school? Oh sleepless night, what do I have in my hand right now? Oh sleepless night, I tell you the truth I'm done with you. Oh sleepless night, Oh sleepless night, all it would take is a simple click...click...Boom!!!

The tree sitter of Nantucket
Lived in a tree and he dug it
He never went down
To visit the ground
So he would **** in a bucket

I am a sitter at windows, said Lucia;
I am a thinker of sad thoughts, a gazer
at stars and moon and the bright hot
afternoon sun. My thoughts taunt me

like bullying children, they repeat
words and images and strings of verbal
abuse like repetitive *****. I sit at
the window with folded arms, my ***

numb on the window ledge, my eyes
peering through the netted curtains,
taking in the sights, the people, the cats
and dogs, the cars and buses, the odd

cyclists, the women pushing prams,
children crying at the side. I see and
know my childhood ghosts, the locked
doors, the no supper nights, the starving

rumblings of an empty stomach, words
bellowed through the doors by angry
parents. I am one who stares from windows,
one who snoops through netted curtains,

taking in the sights, hearing imperfectly
the outer sounds, the stolen kisses and hugs
from teenage loves, the backyards fondles,
*** on the cheap, lives, loves, kisses and

holds. I see new moons, quarter moons,
half moons and full moons and the lunatic
surge pulls me in and pushes me out, my
moods change like the waves of the sea,

the deeps drowning me in depression,
the black dog’s bark, thoughts of death
in a bath, slit wrists, over doses, hanging
behind a bathroom door like mother had,

eyes popping, tongue protruding. I think
of past loves, dream of what might have
been, the boys who came and went, the
ones who stayed and spoiled, the girls who

stayed the night for sensual *** or schoolgirl
kisses, of visits to an asylum before mother’s
demise, the locked doors, the cruel cries and
lunatic laughter, the odd looking staff, the eyes,

the tongues, the finger gestures from closing
doors. I see the work of the gods in my daily
stares, the passing people on their way to death
or work or love or indecent *** with another’s

love, or a child innocent as a flower’s bud
plucked and pulled and brain washed by an
adult hand and tongue. I am one who sees
what’s come to an end and what’s sadly begun.

I met a girl when she picked me up while  I was hitch hiking back from the health food store.

Her name is, well, I’ll call her “Mirror”. She was seventeen, with three different colors in her hair,and she was driving this great big mafioso looking thing down an old country road.

AND she picked me, a hitch hiker, up. like it was it was no big thing to her.

My first response after the normal howdy do’s, was;” Okay, first off, we are on this desolate back road, in the middle of BFE ,and corn fields forever. How do you know that I am not going to pull out a gun or a knife and slit your throat, or blow you away for your ride, or WORSE?”

She snickered and said,”Cause’ I can tell .”You aren’t that kind of person!”

My responsewas ,”How can you even  pretend to know THAT?”

She comes back with; “I can just tell”!

“Anyway, aren’t you glad I picked you up?’

“Of course!” I said, “but you need to be more careful!”

She dropped me at my house, and that was that.

I was left with hoards of memories sweeping my mind. Memories of myself at her age, along with her responses to my concern, and her total disposition, I knew I was staring into a mirror of my past!

I would, for sure, be seeing her again!

It was approx. two weeks later that I saw her, in a little mustang, as I was walking my dog on that same old road.

She pulled of as she turned the stereo down, I think it was blasting some new girl band, “Hey girlfriend” she says with this sweet little sideways glance, as if she’d known me for a lifetime, “whatcha up to?”

Having done the small talk thing, we decided ot hang out.
So she came over to the house, we talked.
As I got to know her situation a bit better, I knew.
... I was looking into the mirror of my past once more.
I had been placed into her life for a very special mission.

I also knew in my heart that, according to what she was telling me, she was headed for the same path of disaster and destruction, I had, not so long ago, put my own self  through.
It had all started at her exact age. but I did not, at this point know what to do about helping her.
...But it would come! ...yes, it would!

I found out, a little more than a year later, i could not have done anything to stop it from happening, when I met her. ...In her beginning...
It was during the “aftermath” or the “beginning of the end”, where I would be called back into her life to “play my part” so to speak.
So...
It was about a month ago, I just happened to be browsing through a thrift store, in Spruce Pine, with my neighbor. As I stood there, looking at an old quilt I wanted, but could not afford, I heard that  soft, sweet, little voice call me by my name.

”Romy?’ “Is that yooouuuu?!”
“*** I can’t believe it!”,
.....and so on and so forth.

My sweet friend from the road by my house, was there, was handing out Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Mind you, I knew what this meant...
...She’d gotten herself into some kind of trouble.
And now, she was doing community service for it.

Sure enough she had.

I gave her my  telephone number, and that was that.

It was about three days ago when I got a phone call.
It was her.
She asked if she could come by to see me that afternoon, after school.
She needed to talk.
She actually did come on by.

Here we are some years later. I am scared.
Not for myself , physically, but something told me my time was up.
The gig was up.
The angels had finally found a way.
For me.
For her.

Now.
I need to back up to two years ago, so that you can get a real sense
of what is really going on here…..

After our first meeting, after she came back by my trailer,  in the cow pasture, the first time,
She hung with me the whole summer, and then into fall.
I got to know her parents very well.
I n their eyes I'd become a big sister/baby sitter for her.
She thought of it as just hanging out.
...a place away from her Dad, but close to her home.
She had never been with a boy, she explained,
but she'd made an attempt at a relationship with a girl at school, which turned out disastrous.
It even landed here in trouble at school, with the cops, and with the DSS, here in Yancey County.
(a place no one would ever want to land!)

Her mom was going through chemo and radiation, and so was I.
I was uncanny.
I had at least SOMETZHING, one thing, in common with almost every member of her family.
I became part of her family!

I knew from my own life and my experiences,  
she was dabbling in some kind of drug activity.
I just did not know what at first.

Made myself a promise.
I would find out what was really going on with t his girl.

Once I got her to open up to me.
I discovered she was stealing her dad’s 40mg Oxycontin and his 1mg klonapin out of his locked box.
This only AFTER he'd been giving them to her when she turned fourteen.
She was not only snorting them, but she was selling them as well!

I also did some digging, and found, she was getting in with some pretty savory characters.
Of course it wan't long, before she met this guy...
He was handsome, manipulative, and cunning.
But most of all, he had a raging monkey, the size of Detroit, on his back!

Only I could see him for the ****** ******* he really was.
I tried many tricks to expose him.
Her partents were blinded by his enamering.
His story was easy:
..he had been in the military, only to come home to a trailer trash wife, on drugs, of course, who had neglected their four year old child.
He'd come home just in time to play the knight in all his armour....!
I KNEW better!

But when I tried to warn her parents
they would hear nothing of it!
They refused to see in him
the evil that i could....

So when she started seeing him, I went to her parents with my premonitions.
They told me I was over  reacting.
And that i had become attached to their daughter, that I should just stay away for a while.
Her mom’s exact words were:
”I mean really, Romy...
" He is a MARINE for goodness sakes... !"
"... and the only reason he is home right now, is to save that yungin' from his drug addicted mother!”

UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I had to let go....

Only years later, it would come out,
To her parents and everyone.
...He was a **** and dilaudid ******.
His mother was one, as well.
They used the little boy for food and money,
as well as their own selfish adgenda of feeding
that monkey from Detroit,
and the disease he brought with him.
They conned everyone from welfare, to  churches, to the department of Social Services.

I remember a conversation a had with her mom, while trying to get her to realize what he really was.
It went like this:
mom: “How could you even say such things about him!”
I never said another word.
Only
In my mind I was screaming;
"Because I know this *******!
He is addicted to drugs!  
He told me so, in the beginning!
He bragged to me about how he’d been doing dilaudid with his MOTHER for years.
And, all  of us junkies know, the only way to do dilaudid, is to shoot it up in your veins!

"*******!”"
I said to myself.

"PLUS, I even know his  other name."
"THE NAME is Daniel!"

"I know him well!"
"I ruined most of my young life trying to win his love."
"Only I did not know then what  I was up against...."
"This addiction was more powerful than another woman, or anything else, for that matter!"

"There IS no match
  for it!"

...I was screaming this all to myself.
...I knew then.
I was talking about my own life experience.
The years I spen, hurting myself, all the while attempting to impress my first, and truest love of my entire life.
He almost proved to be the ruin of me!
...The man on whom I waisted more than half of my life!
He, who became the beginning of my end!
He was the beginning of a lifetime of  ****** addiction, tears, disappointments, lies, and horror!

As I saw it, he and this ******* were one in the same.

More importantly, I also knew, in my heart of hearts, he would be the beginning of  HER end.
He would prove to be the beginning of her  horror.
I also knew, if she were to end up staying with this nobody *******, for any length of time, she would, inevitebly begin sticking needles in her arms.
My bet would be she'd start within one year.

Sadly,  I was correct.
she was,
and had been,
sticking needles in her arm.

The way I found out went down like this:
(and thus my reason for writing this)

She phoned me, upset, and crying.
Don't ask me how, but I knew she was dope sick.
...Perhaps it was the quiver in her voice.
The desperation.
A feeling I knew all too well.

I told her to come over.
She did.
I'll never forget.
She was working at Mc Donald's, to pay her way through cosmetolegy school.
So she still had that Mc Donald's uniform on. (The one, I knew, she loathed with every part of her being!)
And bless her heart...
...She brought me a pie.

I told her she looked like ****.
Then I asked her to explain why she'd gone so long without having any contact with me.
(although I knew the answers to each of my questions, I asked them anyway.)

I gave her motherly/sisterly hugs, while attemting to make her feel loved.
(something she had not experienced often, at least, not without a price!)

I needed her to know, that no matter what she had to offer , for the time I hadn't heard from her, I would love her, and I would help her, and I would hold her, until she needed me to let go.

So.
It was after hugs, love, some understanding eye contact, I made the promise of understanding. She had to know, that  no matter what she might reveal, I would ALWAYS be in her corner. I would always be hers. I would be whatever she needed me to be.
..As long as I was helping her towards her self understanding,  towards love, and  towards happiness.

It was a few seconds after our long embrace and our moment of connection and understanding, when she took me into the bathroom.
She uttered these words, nervously, and with shame;
”Romy, Do you really want to know how bad I've gotten, how far I have now fallen?”
...Or perhaps her words were, in actuallity, more like "Romy, look at how bad this has gotten."
I am not sure which of the two is more correct, but I got the message loud and clear, and my heart broke.
Litererally, it broke into a million pieces.
My heart broke for her, but it also broke for the girl I once was, before my own demons came to visit.

I knew then, from the depths of my being,
how the scene would play out...
I knew the ending,
before it ever began.

In a moment I will share with you, the dialog that went on between us on that cold, cloudy, winter afternoon in Nowheresville, NC.
This is one conversation I shall, forever, remember until I take my final breath.
It will remain with me through lifetimes to come.
...It has become a part of me.

ME: ”So. have you learned how to do yourself?”
“Or is that why you are here?”
"If it  is the later, you've come to the wrong place."

She started to cry.

"I know how to hit myslef", she said.
H uge tears runnig down her face.
"You warned me, Romy." "And I didn't listen."
"How DID you know, anyway?"

I could not hold back the tears.  
They poured straight from the depths of my being.
Again, he I stood, once again, in front this georgous girl, who was destroying herself!
Again, all I could see was myself in the mirror!

I have yet to felt such a sadness within me, as the one I felt at that moment.

As she rolled up her sleeve, there it was...
a site too familiar..
Uncanny, it was.
How could this girl be the SAME?
Seriously!
...The same arm.
...The same hole.
...The same sore.
...The same color.
..The same sad and bewidered expresion.
It said. No, it screamed;
"Help me please! I'm so ******* gone!"
"Help me please!"
" You're all I've got!"

I wanted to turn and run a fast and far as I could get.
Heer she stood in front of me
Here she stood.
The exact ******* same as me.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't think.
I wanted to puke.
She
was
MEEEE!

The silence was broken by her voice, and by her expression.
She obviously saw my transition from a strong woman who cared so much,
into a womean who had turned white as a ghost.
Then she asked;
” How did you know, Romy?”
“How ever COULD you have known?”

I did not.
I could not.
Begin to answer her then.

But I thought to myself;
"How could I not?"

I left that tiny bathroom not knowing WHAT to do, or what to say.
I, for once,was at a loss.
For the first time in my life,
the words  would just not come!

I couldn't speak my usual words of incourgment.

Until she came to me, and gave me a hug.

...she has just left my house.
My heart is heavy.
She'd  come to me today, for reasons,
she herself,
could never have understood.

I went into my bedroom, whee she sat.
I asked her what she'd been up to that made her decide to call me.
She said she did not know.
She'd been out driving after work,
and so she'd just ended up calling.
Now she was at my place.

I shared with her the importance of truthfulness.
With oneself even more than with others.

Then I shared with her my story, and my reasons for caring so very much for  her well being.

I told her about the mirror I saw between us from the beginning.
..of my battle with herion addiction.
But I told her  also of the stubborn dream I'd carried with me for eighteen years because of a guy, just like hers.
I answered all of her questions.
I completed her sentences.
She completed some of mine.
I felt her heart breaking.
And I helped her to let go.

She was so shocked at what I shared with her, about myself,
and about my own life,
that it  literally brought her back to her self. I had somehow, reached her inner being.
She was able to return to her own reality, away from the deceit.
And away from the web of lies which had been woven around her.

I feel good!
I feel like she will be alright.

May hope is, through me, she was able to see how easily we can fall into someone else's need and addiction. How we make it our own by allowing someone elses demons drag us down, down into oblivion, and how their misery can, so easily, consume us. Then take over our very life!
IF we let it!

....I held her for a long time.
We cried together.
I cried for her.

I also cried for me.

I cried for the girl that I once was.

...Before Daniel.
                              ...Before Manhattan.
                                                      ­                                                
                                                                ­       ...Before the misery.

She cried her own tears for herself,
her kind heart,
and for what would never be.
She cried, grateful tears, knowing now she will no tso easily loss her way,
she knows the angels now. She can feel them guide her every day.
She is not alone.

I will forever be there for her.
wherever she may be.
...we are connected now.
...Little Miss Kim and me!

Her spirit is strong.
She will succeed.
She recieved what she needed most.
... A friend
... A kindred spirit.
...and  a bit of wisdom from little old
me.
Oh, and now I know why my Blackie walked me down the old country road.....
My sister, Kimberly, needed me!

From baby
to sitter
in sixty flat;
Ozymandais,
Try speaking to that.
But I am here,
And He?

Her smile,
And drip
On my knee:
And then,
She looks up
At me.

If I could go back there,
to that day in first grade when I yanked my project (on bridges, yellow cover decorated in crayon) too fast from Allison's hands and her fingers blistered on the staples,
I would be standing there,
next to Miss A as she lined up the class,
ready with a band aid and a hug and I would say, "Be more careful next time, alright?" and Allison and I would get yelled at for skipping in the hallway to art class,
the moment of shock dissipating from my mind like so many accidents of the year.

If I could go back there,
to that night in April of eighth grade where I learned what true poetry was,
I would be there at ten twenty-four,
and I would wake the dead to keep myself from typing those fateful lines if I had to,
and I would save myself from skewing the feather-light foundation of our group of five
that later was heaped with bricks at odd angles
which came tumbling down.

If I could go back there,
to the last Monday before 9th grade began (whether it was Monday morning or Monday night I forget),
I would give myself a Mountain Dew and say, "He's fine, but go for her,"
and then as I ran down the b
to the day in fifth grade when I realized no one was laughing with me,
the day that I realized I was an outcast, and that "being different" wasn't good,
I would be waiting with my pink-haired baby sitter as I stepped off the school bus,
a Lilly Quench book in hand and a mug of hot chocolate (even though it was March) in the other,
and I would pull from my pocket the same necklace I was wearing,
a wire-wrapped amethyst on a crumby silvery chain
that was the first of many,
and there would be acceptance in the house that night.

If I could go back there,
to the moment I learned about eating disorders in health class from an over weight gym teacher who couldn't care less about the students,
I would bump the kid next to me from his seat (let him whine, he's a ****) and sit down,
a plate of chocolate cake and a spoon to eat it with making a mess of the plastic desk,
and maybe I would realize that I was already skinny enough.

If I could go back there,
to those nights when I learned the true power of words,
to the moment I skewed the foundations of a solid friendship of five,
I'd shout and scream and wake the dead to stop myself typing those fateful lines,
heaping bricks upon bricks to collapse my only bonds,
and I would give myself a mug of Theraflu to knock me out,
and whisper in my ear as I nodded off, "Stop being so **** impulsive."

If I could go back there,
to the last Monday before 9th grade started (whether it was the Monday morning or Monday night I never recall),
to the night where I should have closed my laptop for good when Joanne signed off but instead I reopened it at 12:17,
I would give myself a bottle of water and tell myself, "He's fine, but go anyway"
because it meant the world to Allison that I do so,
and as I ran out of the house in the opposite direction of our suicidal friend to meet up with her,
I would head toward's his house and tell him we were coming so he could be awake and his dad asleep when we showed up at the door at 2:23.

If I could go back there,
to March 19, 2012,
when I learned about life from Death himself,
when I learned that some things are worth living for and that isolationism doesn't work but it will have to work for me,
I would stand there at the foot of my bed,
freezing cold because I refused to turn on the heat,
I would hold my hand and be supportive because now I know that no one else will be,
that no one can be there for everyone always,
and I would stay with me for the months to come and relive the hellish months to come because no one should have to hold the world up alone,
knowing that they can't even maintain a grip on themselves.

If I could go back there,
I would save myself.

First, I would like to introduce Grayasety. She was a young girl, had soft strands of medium-short caramel hair, and she had green-blue eyes that looked like miniature earths. She was indeed a pretty girl and she was of average height, and had a healthy body. She also had a slight southern drawl; her mother was from Texas. She loved going on boat voyages as her father was the captain of a ship named Gray Asety, named after Grayesty, so she was often training to go on voyages.
                  One morning, just like any other ordinary morning, Grayasety left her house for the next-door stable with her baby sitter, Kinberly, which was part of her father’s crew.  Today was the big day, the day when Grayasety was going to go on a voyage with her father as an official crewmember. Today was Grayasety’s 13th birthday; today was the day when she was old enough to work on her father’s ship! Therefore, she gaily whistled and skipped along the road. It had always been her dream to work on her father’s ship, and today, finally, her dream was coming true. When she got to the stable she blew her small, pink whistle that, to human ears would make no sound, and like every morning her best friend, (which had the ability to morph into animals) trotted tiredly out of the stable in the form of a beautiful brown mare. The huge animal yawned and said, “Morning Kin!” And then addressing Grayasety she said, “ Well, well, little missy what do you want me to be today?” Today Grayasety wanted Mila to be a green parrot, Grayasety was obsessed in the color green, and Mila had reluctantly obeyed, the trio set off for the fresh smelling bay.
Kinberly, and Mila worked on the Gray Asety. Mann Forumest, or Captain Daddy as Grayasety called him had met Grayasety’s mom working as a crewmember on the Majesty, a steamboat. Grayasety’s mother, Magnolia Scott Forumest was the assistant cook. They married, but kept their jobs until one day when Grayasety was about five, the Sea Bandits, a notorious group of pretty woman stealers, kidnapped Her mother.
                        While on sea, Grayasety shared a rather large suite in the ship with her father. In the Bedroom were two desks, one big and one small, and in the corner was a bunk bed, the top bunk badly painted in green and the bottom bunk still bearing its natural mahogany color. Grayasety was sitting in her little green desk, scribbling madly in her deep green diary. Grayasety *** a liking of scribbling and those who have know her long enough could read her scribbles like one would writing. She could read and write although she was nowhere near a strait A student.
                   After a while Grayasety decided to bother her father and, forgetting to switch into her lime green boots, shinnyed up the main stairs to the deck in her faded fluffy mint green slippers. Mila, perched comfortably on Grayasety’s shoulder, started telling her that she was wearing her slippers when Grayasety shoved a faded green pacifier in Mila’s mouth; Grayasety often did this to keep Mila quiet.
Mila, not enjoying the dusty, stale taste of the pacifier unhappily decided to keep her mouth shut until Grayasty got in a better mood. In truth Grayasety was in a marvelous mood and rather liked shoving pacifiers in Mila’s mouth. As the girl got closer to the deck, she started to hear chanting from the kind crew. She especially heard Kinberly’s familiar raspy voice chanting,” Laaa dee daaa, the Gray A rolls along,” and as she emerged to the *****, wet deck she noticed that her father was talking to someone else already. “Botherin’ will have to wait some,” she whispered to Mila. Then she took the pacifier out of Mila’s mouth and scolded,” why didn’t you tell me that I was still wearin’ my slippers eh? Wanted to make me look like an idiot?” Mila simply rolled her eyes.
                    Right then, Captain Daddy, apparently finishing his conversation, came over to the pair and said affectionately, “How are my darlings doin’ today?” Mila especially enjoyed this for Captain Daddy always gave a loving stoke on her back and a whole chocolate chip cookie if he had one. Although Grayasety always stole some of the cookie Mila was happy enough with half. Grayasety, on the other hand was happy with a whole cookie so she begged Captain Daddy to give her another one. Captain Daddy gave her another cookie but chided her not to steal any more from Mila.
                    After the lecture on not stealing other people’s food, Grayasety clambered up the crow’s nest and almost knocked over Franz, a tall, but gaunt boy a couple years older then Grayasty getting in. ”Anythin’ unusual yet?” asked Grayasety hopefully. “Nope,” answered the calm boy quietly. ”Hi Franz. Do you have any cookies?” asked Mila mockingly, Franz just laughed and said,” If I had any I would of eaten it by now! Gray, can you get me somethin’ from the kitchen?”.
                   Grayasety got Franz a basket of food and got her self the same amount; Grayasety was basically always hungry, and had a little picnic on the roomy crow’s nest. After they finished their meal Grayasety decided to let Franz rest and did lookout. Franz had a small room to himself, which was about the size of a normal bathroom with all the stuff taken out. In the corner was an old, squeaky army cot and next to it was a rotund desk with a stack of blank paper, a jar of Indian ink, and a fountain pen laid precariously on it.
                    Franz was quite a writer and he spent his free time eating, sleeping, or writing and unlike Grayasety he actually wrote not scribbled. He was working on a story about gargoyles that came to life at night. It was an interesting story, really. He would of loved to stop working on the Gray Asety and go get his books published but he stayed for his family was a poor one and needed his help to make a living and also, Captain Forumest provided free paper. And, his daughter was the first friend he ever had; Franz was convinced that she was the best one.
                   Grayasety enjoyed being on ships. She liked feeling the cold air rush through her hair and she enjoyed the great view of the vast sea that surrounded her. She even liked the feeling of being so small compared to the humpbacks that swam by. She thought that the ship food was good, and she felt that the sea was truly where she belonged. Grayasety was very cranky when she was not at sea, (though she did like their big, ocean green house), so her father tried to include her on as many voyages as he could.
                     Captain Daddy, or Mann as I will call him spent most of day in a booth on the deck. He often worried about his daughter’s mental health (even though it was completely unnecessary). He talked to Grayasety’s doctor about this and Dr.Metalos, Grayasety’s doctor, gave them a list of mental deceases she could have, but none of them seemed like some thing she would have. Mann was sure that his daughter did not have one sickness; Much Too Much Time At The Sea Syndrome. If any one knew where Grayasety belonged it was Mann and he knew perfectly well that his daughter would go insane if she wasn’t at sea for too long. For one thing she preferred to sleep on her uncomfortable bunk at sea rather then on her fluffy green bed as soft as a feather at home.
                        Right then the ship did a tummy- flopping lurch and knocked off the map and compass from Mann’s desk, which interrupted his thoughts for a while. Below deck Franz’s desk toppled over, and Franz accidentally made a long and ugly scribble across his writing and on the crow’s nest Grayasety was having trouble standing up and she almost vomited right onto Kinberly’s hair. This was rare for Grayasety for she lived on the sea and was used to lurches; she had once survived a shipwreck, which explains her golden earring on her right earlobe.
                   That night as Grayasety lay in bed Mann quietly crept out of his bunk and scurried up the stairs to the deck. He wanted some time to himself. Ahead was Cape Horn; a very dangerous place where so many ships had sunk it could fill the biggest port in the world, but more personally, this was near the Sea Bandits main head quarters, 8 years ago the beautiful Magnolia Scott Forumest was captured here. Even though it was impossible in the foggy mist, Mann tried to make out the cave that marked the entrance to the headquarters. Only few people knew this entrance, and publicity stated that it was a “mere mystery” why most captives were capture near Cape Horn. Mann felt a chill run down his spine and then he thought he felt someone’s hand grab his shoulder. He looked down and saw what he dreaded most; a hand tinged with brown firmly held his shoulder.
                      Grayasety woke up feeling wonderful but apparently Mila didn’t. She kept screeching something about Captain Daddy being kidnapped and soon she found that what Mila had just screeched in her ear was true. She stormed into Franz’s cabin and told him what she discovered and they soon agreed to do what no one else wanted them to do; steer the boat right into the Sea Bandits’ headquarters and take back what, and who was theirs no matter how hard it could be.
                      Grayasety had Franz steer the boat and she herself navigated, Kin was lookout and the rest of the crew helped out. Franz dropped the passengers off at Puerto, and Mila morphed back into a human; what she really is, and helped out. Separated from the frenzy, Grayastey was quietly thinking to herself. She wondered why the Sea Bandits captured her father. They were well known for capturing pretty woman but not average looking men. Just then she heard a knock on the door. “Grayasety?” said the raspy voice of Kin. “There ya are. I just thought ya might wanna know why ya daddy was captured.” “Can you please tell me,” asked Grayasety, trying not to sound too eager. “Well rememba when ya daddy would be gone when ya woke up at mid night an’ I told ya that he had gone to the store to get some groceries? Well if you had thought some you woulda noticed that the store was closed.” Grayasety interrupted Kin in mid-sentence and said irritably, “Of course I rememba. Just get to the point Kin!” Kin flinched at Grayasety’s frustration and mumbled,” Well ya daddy was a spy. One of the best ones at that. He did all he could to stop organized crime, an’ he specialized in the Sea Bandit’s. They captured him ‘cause one less police the better for them.” Grayasety sat with her mouth hanging wide open. She never imagined that her father was a spy. But now every thing made sense. “ Sorry I didn’t tell ya before. Ya fatha simply wouldn’t allow it.” Kin apologized. Grayasety managed a squeak and then Kin left her.
                      After she repeated this to Franz and then Mila, Grayasety went down to her bedroom, she hated having to be near Her father’s belongings but she hated having people see her crying much more and cry she did, leaving her father’s mattress a soggy mess. Then she decided to clean that mess up for if they rescued her father she was sure he did not want to sleep in a soggy bed. Noticing it, she picked up her dad’s picture of her dad and mom’s wedding and became suddenly aware of how much she looked like her dad. The hair, the eyes, the quirky grin, every thing. Her mother had soft blonde hair and violet eyes that almost made you smell the pungent smell of lavenders and had a beautiful smile with bright red lips. All in all she was the most beautiful woman Grayasety had ever seen. She almost made Grayasety feel jealous.
                     “Hey! Gray. So are we gonna bring any weapons? Kin was a whole chest full of ‘em!” Said the distinctively low voice of Franz. “Well, I dunno. I suppose we should bring a couple guns. Always nice to be well prepared.” Replied Grayasety.

                     Franz was on lookout when the carrier pigeon came. The note it had on its leg was from Mann. It said:

Dear Grayasety and friends,

Do not come to save me. I’m with my wife in their dungeon but they want you guys to come too. You see, I’m like a bait. You’re the fishies. They want to erase all traces of the Forumest family. That means they have to dispose of those who would remember them. I will manage okay. Kin, Please take Grayasety and Franz home and forget about me for you and the children’s sake. Grayasety, I love you. Dispose all of my belongings and try to tell yourself that Kin is your mother. Believe me. It’s all for the better. Franz, I meant to tell you but your parents caught tuberculosis and died the other day. Your sister committed suicide soon after. Please take care of Grayasety.

             Mann

                    The trio stood silent for a long moment and then without warning Franz burst into tears, and scrambled to his cabin. Kin and Grayasety looked at each other sadly and went to their cabins themselves. Grayasety tried to sleep that night but images of Mann and her mother strapped up in chains kept her staring into the darkness with wide eyes. She reached over and got her personal music player, trying to distract herself but after a few seconds she turned it off again, for she could not bear listening to the lyrics; “It’s past midnight and something evil’s lurking 'round the dark” of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
            The next morning, Mila and Kin steered the boat near the cave that marked the entrance to the Sea Bandits secret headquarters. Mila then morphed into a seagull and flew into the old, damp cave. From a safe distance Grayasety and her crew awaited Mila to return with some news. After swooping into the creepy cave Mila found the opening to the headquarters and perched on a ledge near it. There, she morphed into a rat, and scurried up into the opening.

                 After crawling along several hallways, Mila came across a steel door bolted very firmly marked “CELLS”. Luckily Mila was small enough to crawl under it. Scurrying along the bureau of prisons, Mila finally saw a cell with Mann and a stunningly beautiful woman captured in it. Mila slipped between the bars and trying not to gain the woman’s attention for fear that she would scream, climbed the steep hill of Mann’s arm to try to reach his ear. “Mann?? Don’t make any sound OK?? I’m Mila. I’m the rat on your shoulder. Kin, Grayasety, and Franz say they miss you a lot.” Whispered Mila. Then she saw a humongou

Saturday Saturn and Santa Clause Satan







Captain Crunch Kringle and Krampus cry madchen.
Bed sitter seniors sit back and lament.
Another day's Christmas ducats mis-spent.
When the log scrapes,
When the door bleeds,
When you hate your Dad.
Remember that you just might run out of food.
And that would beeee,
quite bad.

The first time I heard it, I could not believe it. Did I hear it right? My son, Kyle, had a girlfriend, and her name was Jezebel Kawalak. That was her true name, honest to God. I thought maybe Kyle was joking, but that really was it.  Kyle was surprised himself, thinking she was joking, so Jezebel showed him the proof on her birth certificate. It was her mother’s idea to name her Jezebel. Her father was against it.

“She goes by Jez”, Kyle told me. “Everyone calls her Jez”.

I was making dinner when he told me the news of his new friend. I stopped cutting up some carrots and looked at him with great skepticism. “Jezebel? Who on earth would name their daughter that? Don’t her parents know that the name, Jezebel, is a putdown?”

I remembered the old Betty Davis film, and she was supposed to be some kind of ******. I decided to look up the name in the Bible, and Jezebel was not a nice woman, but an evil seductress and the daughter of a king. I didn’t know much about that Jezebel character from the Old Testament, but I knew she was far from nice.  Now Kyle reassured me that Jez was not all what her name implied. She was a shy, sweet girl who lived across the street and twelve houses down from us. She was petite, gentle in nature, which added coolness and calm to the picture, for her sweet nature coexisted in tune with my son’s impulsively creative disposition.

“Jez wouldn’t hurt a fly”, Kyle told me.

“Oh, sure” I said back. “But will she hurt you?”

Kyle and Jez were both sixteen and both in the tenth grade. They also attended the same high school, making their friendship all so more convenient. They were even in one class together, an English class. Like Kyle, Jez came from a divorced home and both were only children. Jez’s mom, Tammy, worked three jobs to keep things afloat, and Jez was often left alone at home to fend for herself. It was not surprising that she got quite lonely and was in need of a good, solid companion.    

Kyle never had a serious girlfriend before. He had gone out a few times with a few girls, but none of them were ever more than a brief date or two. I was glad for that. I sometimes worked a double shift as a hospital nurse and, ready or not, I was forced to deal with this new path in my son’s life. I could not always be around to make sure my son was doing what he was supposed to do. And he was far too old for anyone to really watch over him. He was still working on getting his driver’s license, slowly gaining more freedom as he was gradually gaining more trust from me. I did not like this hesitation in me, for I always knew quite well that this time would eventually come. Yet everything seemed like it was coming too fast, and I could not contain the breaking dam of my son’s ever increasing entrance into manhood.

“It is probably not like you think”, my mother told me about Kyle and Jez. “They seem like just good friends, like she is the sister that Kyle never had”.

My mother could not convince me that she knew what she was saying, not with that remark. Come on! I wasn’t born yesterday!

For the longest time, it was just the four of us, which is until my sister moved to Miami.  Kyle, my mother and I lived in Cleveland, and that seemed like a stab in the heart to me when my sister first left. But I eventually convinced myself that I could not be so selfish, and I learned to adjust to just now only “the three of us”. Kyle saw his father but his father and I divorced when he was the age of four. Since that time, he had three strong women in his life, his mother, his aunt, and his grandmother. We were not a big family, but we were a tight family unit. Whenever I had to work and when Kyle was in need of a sitter, my mother watched him. She deserved the credit for raising my son just as much as I did.

Kyle reasoned with me that he and Jez could be good study partners for each other. I rolled my eyes at that one. There would be more of Kyle playing his guitar than anything. He loved his guitar, practically was self-taught, and I had to admit that Jez had a beautiful singing voice.  Kyle loved to compose his own songs as well as he liked to play some from other artists, and he was pretty good at his talent. The trouble was that as soon as made something up in his head he quickly forgot how some of the songs went. Sometimes, he could get it right and sometimes not. But that was not because Kyle wasn’t smart enough. Actually, he was very bright.  Kyle could dream in his sleep about music and wake up frantically trying to remember what new song he was dreaming up.

The two of them sounded really sharp together, Kyle’s strumming and smooth singing and Jez’s soft back up vocals. There was no denying that they looked just as good as they sounded together. I would study Jez over as she sat next to Kyle on the couch with her golden brown hair clipped up on the back of her head, her eyes peacefully closed, and her small frame swaying in the rhythm of the music they were making.  If they weren’t working on live music, they’d be cranking up the stereo or watching television much more than they would be hitting the school books.

I was shocked when Kyle and I were alone at home and he said something quite out of the blue and totally unexpected. “You practically gave up on men, didn’t you?” he asked me.

“I beg your pardon, young man!” I snapped at him. I gave him a sharp glance and that was all that I had to say about that. I never expected him to say such a thing. Frankly, I was dumbfounded.

I did not feel like I had to answer to my son, but driving to work that day I had wondered if he was right. If my life was not wrapped around the needs of my son, my energies were put into my career. I enjoyed my independence, not like my mother who never worked outside the home once she was married. And when my father died, my mother’s financial needs were taken care of because of all those years of his hard work. It seemed like my mother came from a dying breed, not that I faulted her for who she was, but I had to take care of myself. I felt it was the right choice and better than the alternative of marrying for convenience.

Was I really that fearful of another commitment? It seemed that no man I had met since my divorce could be a good enough stepfather figure for my son. At least, I believed that was a good enough reason for me to remain unattached. How could Kyle ask me that anyway?

One day, he was destined to leave the house and have his own life. I was always so smug about women who seemed to have no life outside of their children, but was I only fooling myself? Before I knew it, I would be coming home to an empty house. Would I be alright being all alone?

All I knew is that I wanted my son to be happy, and I thought I did a pretty good job of helping him be that so far. For now everything seemed fine, but I could see how Kyle was really falling hard for Jez. In my worried mind, there was no denying that.

“You assure me that you will do nothing that you cannot undo”, I warned my son. “When I am not here, there is to be nothing done under my roof. And you know what I mean!”

“Mom, come on”, Kyle answered me. “I would never do anything like that in your house!”    

I looked at my son with a mixture of pride and sorrow. It was now I who had to look up to him to talk to him. It seemed like yesterday when I was the one towering over him. Now he was almost six feet tall, was now shaving, and was handsome like his father, his dark shaggy hair dusting his light brown eyes. I sure could not stop him from growing up. Trying to control that situation was like trying to control heaven and earth. Slowly, I was learning that I had to let go of him, for his sake and for mine.

Deep down, I knew Kyle wouldn’t do anything in my house. But I also knew that those two did not need my house to do the unspeakable, what I would not quite say to my son in proper words. I knew I was being unrealistic for some silly fear that if I said “***” it would egg on his teenage desire all the more.  Nor could I keep my son under lock and key to stop those flooding feelings.
  
It soon came to be that Jez was over every day. Why didn’t they ever go to her house? But then I was glad they were under my roof, like that would keep them out of trouble.  Jez’s house was rented and much smaller than ours, even though ours was not spacious by any means. Jez seemed to feel more at home in my house, and soon she was growing on me. Before long, I was quite used to her, for she somehow crept into my heart and won me over.  I had to admit that she almost seemed like a daughter to me.

“You did not have to make these”, I told her about a batch of oatmeal cookies she baked me.

Jez smiled at me and said, “Your favorite, with no raisins”. She put them in a cake box that she ******* with a purple ribbon and handed them over to me. She had such a sweet disposition that I wanted to tell her to go yell at her mother for giving her such a ridiculous name, but simply smiled back and gave her a hug.  

“I can see you really like her”, said my smirking mother. She had come over for dinner and was sitting with me at the dining room table. “She is really good for Kyle and you know it, too”.

Kyle just came around from out of the kitchen. “Thanks Grandma”, he said to her, and gave her a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. He then gave me thumbs up as if to show that if Grandma approved, it was a done deal.

I could not disagree with my mom. Yet I wondered what Jez’s mom would think of everything. Even though she lived down the street I never met her. I wanted to invite her over, but she was always too busy working or taking care of things. How did Jez cope with her always being gone? She needed her mother just as much at sixteen as she did when she was a young girl.

“She works pretty hard”, Jez once told me. “I feel kind of bad because maybe she would not have to work like that if I wasn’t around”.

“Jez, don’t think that way!” I exclaimed.  I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. Kyle, sitting next to her, put his arm around her and gave her a good squeeze to make her smile.

Kyle admitted, “Jez’s dad always told her she is welcome to live with him. She could but she’s not so geeked about it. He lives in California, in San Diego”.

“And he has a swimming pool and a Jacuzzi”, Jez added. “So you think I’d be crazy not to go there”.

“I’d rather live in warm weather, all year round, with a pool to swim in every day”, Kyle confessed to her.

Emphasizing her remark by playfully dotting his nose with her fingertip, she said to him, “Kyle, you know that Cleveland has one thing that San Diego does not have”.

“What’s that?” he answered in a silly voice, gleefully playing dumb.

Giggling a little, she said “You”.

Kyle leaned over, and pecked her with a kiss on her mouth. I could feel the heat in my face, embarrassed that I was blushing over an innocent kiss. But I never saw my son kiss a girl before, not in a romantic way. I got up out of my chair before they could see my discomfort. How foolish I felt! After all, I was a nurse and nothing should have shocked me like this.

There were times I felt that I had more than a leg to stand on with my fears. There was a fine line between innocent times with each other and too much togetherness, and it seemed like Kyle and Jez were crossing it.

Usually on Friday or Saturday nights, Jez and Kyle would watch a horror movie. They both loved horror flicks, the more blood and gore the better. Both loved the classics, from the original Night of the Living Dead to the modern ones like Drag Me to Hell. They’d always snuggle together on the couch with the lights off and big bowl of popcorn, and if I was not working I would be extra watchful. They could be up till past one o’clock in the morning and, even if I needed the sleep, I stayed up right with them.

Often, Kyle and Jez would fall asleep together on the couch before the movie ended. They had gotten that cozy. A few times, Kyle would wake up to still find Jez sound asleep. She was quite a sound sleeper, more than Kyle was. Instead of waking her up to take her home, Kyle would scoop her up in his arms and carry her to his bedroom. In turn, she barely made a stir but rested her head upon his shoulders, letting him take her away from the living room. After laying her upon his bed, Kyle would come back to sleep on the couch.

“How are you going to explain this to her mother?” I asked, confronting him about it”.

“I’m not sleeping with her, Mom!” he argued with me. “You can see I am staying on the couch! Jez’s mom has some new boyfriend, so why would she feel like she even belongs home? Yeah! That’s right! He is crowding Jez right out of her own house! Do you have to look at me like that? Like I am the bad guy, or something? He is living with her mom, sleeping in her bed. Why do you think Jez never wants to go home? The guy’s a total loser! He creeps her out.”

I knew I had to eventually talk to Jez’s mom. I needed her input and she needed mine. As much as I liked her, I just did not feel like Jez should be around so much. It seemed like she lived at my house when she really did not.  The only news I heard about her mom was that Tammy was angry at her daughter for not helping to clean up the house more. So now I found a sound excuse to help Kyle to listen to reason.

I had to tell him to listen to me, to trust my better judgment and experience in spacing out his time with Jez. Perhaps, he needed to see her every other day. To Kyle, that was a hard sacrifice but, along with becoming an adult, came some necessary lessons.

“If Tammy wants her daughter to be more responsible at home” I told him, “you have to learn to respect that”. Deep down, Kyle knew I was right.

So those in between days, with no visits, Kyle was either instant messaging Jez on our computer or talking to her on the phone.  He may have listened to his mother, but he was finding enough ways to not take me as seriously as he should have.

I found myself wishing that Jez would just go away. That feeling did not last long before my guilty conscience got the better part of me. Jezebel Kawalak really was a sweetheart. Everyone who really knew her loved her.

“Do you feel like she is competing with you for Kyle’s time with you?” my mother asked me.

At first, I was ready to tell my mother how out-of-line she was with that statement. Did I seem that selfish? This was the time in Kyle’s life when the childish diversions in life were being replaced with more important things like earning his own money and planning what college he wanted to go and what he wanted for his future.  Or maybe I had to accept that he would tell me that college was not for him. Now he could play his guitar and dream of being a rock star, but reality was ready to kick in for both of us.  More carefree days like these were beginning to look scarce.

I had to admit that Jez became a threat. I worried that she had a high likelihood of ending up pregnant. What would happen then? Kyle was not mature enough to deal with that possibility. I still had those desires to see Jez just go away.

One night, I was going to get what I wanted. But it was something what I never would have wished for.

It was a long day at the hospital for me. I had barely the energy to eat the diner that Kyle had made for me. He was a pretty good cook as he had to learn to make his own meals when I was working. I was brushing my teeth when I thought I heard a knock at the door, but the television was on and I wasn’t sure.  

“Kyle, is someone at the door?” I asked him.  I heard no answer.

I went into the living room and the front door was open. In the dark, I made out the two silhouettes of Kyle and Jez sitting on the cement on the front porch.

I turned the porch light on and gasped. Jez was leaning on Kyle, her face battered and her lip bleeding.

“Let’s get her inside!” I ordered Kyle.

He helped her up but she was stumbling badly. Kyle lifted her up into his arms, and she winced in pain as he carried her inside.

Kyle sat in a chair and kept Jez cradled in his arms, caressing her bruised face with his

so you say you’re a bad ***** huh
so you prefer to be identified by bad ***** instead of ur real name huh
so you prefer to be valued by money instead of your worth
so you are a bad *****,i ain’t tryna judge you,this ain’t no court

the term “bad *****” can’t end you up as a wife
those instagram pictures wont work,you can’t put a filter on life
you were born original,now you chose to live as a copy
look colourful on the outside but your life is sloppy

the beauty of having beauty is a lot more than being beautiful
the path to life you follow isnt geting any where meaningful
so you say”love *****,i chase paper”*** to you love is just a verb
no cure for your attitude so you take drugs and herbs(****)

anything that has a monetary value is worthless
you used to value more but the tag”bad *****”made you less
you are now defined by pictures of you kissing the air,
exposing you ***** and *** looking for the next prey on facebook or instgram

we follow our dreams but a responsible man wont follow a”bad *****” on twitter
so you can say,you are not any responsible man’s dream
be a bad ***** all your youth and when old a baby sitter?
you raise the stakes for yourself and still cant cross the beam

life is not rosy and even if it is,roses have thorns
those things you do will hunt you,they’ll come with horns
lipsticks,eyelashes,short gowns,expensive wrist watches and purses
money first and then back on the ground,now thats a curse

bad ******* exist amongst us,they are our friends on facebook
"*******"sounds bizzare so she says shez a "bad *****"
the person you are still searches for the person you should be
and i hope youre eyes dont remain shut for you to see

and the younger girs see you and want to be like you
they want to dress all thight and paint their faces like you
no one wants to be like margareth thatcher
they all wanna be nickky minaj

these days there are more bad ******* than wives
and to responsible men it’s like stabs from 100 knives
because a bad ***** will follow men
but a lady will cling to a man

and if you say youre a bad ***** and you need no man
tell that to yourself when you turn 40
a lady isnt defined by how bad or ****** she is but how elegant and classy she is
a bad ***** is pretty but the beauty of a lady is defining

so choose today to be a lady and start the change for our generation!#thepoet
.

Jeg kan høre det milde havskummet,
Det berører bakken så nær hjemmet sitt.
Skjønnhet vevd i sitt rustne gylne hår,
Jeg har ikke kjent henne lenge, men *** lar meg gå på lufta.
Det er noe *** har, en slags nåde,
Det skinner som en gemstone gjennom ansiktet hennes.
Hennes øyne kan være gjennomsnittlig på noen andre,
Men i hennes ser jeg himmelen, et hjerte smelter meg.
*** har barnslig lurer og jeg elsker det så,
Og *** gir av det mest lunefullt lys.
Selv når vi står på den kalde betongen,
Jeg kan se blomster spring opp rundt føttene hennes.
Jeg tror jeg elsker henne, ja, det gjør jeg!
Nei jeg gjør det ikke, det kan ikke være sant.

-Det tynne barnet bak deg.

~
Here is an assertion
and showiness
in the expanse
of white skin – from her
high forehead,
down her graceful neck,
shoulders, and arms.
Although the black
of her dress is bold,
it is also deep, recessive,
and mysterious.

He stalks her
as one does a deer,
his palette composed of
lead white, rose madder,
vermilion, viridian,
and bone black.
A dash of light rose
over the former
gloomy background,
you see, and
the élancée figure
shows to much
greater advantage.

Her body boldly
faces forward while
her head is turned in profile.
A profile of both
assertion and retreat.
The table provides support,
and echoes her
curves and stance.
One strap of her gown
has fallen down
her right shoulder,
suggesting the possibility
of further revelation;
one more struggle
and the lady will be free.

Everything converges to
imply a distant sexuality
under the professional
control of the sitter,
rather than offered for
the viewer's delectation.
Her untamed wilderness
remains unseen.
~

"Can Poetry Matter?"
by
Stephen Dobyns

Heart feels the time has come to compose lyric poetry.
No more storytelling for him. Oh, Moon, Heart writes,
sad wafer of the heart's distress. and then: Oh, Moon,
bright ******* of the heart's pleasure. Which is it,
is the moon happy or sad, ******* or wafer? He looks
from the window but the night is overcast. Oh, Cloud,
he writes, moody veil of the Moon's distress. And then,
Oh, Cloud, sweet scarf of the Moon's repose. Once more
Heart asks, Are clouds kindly or a bother, is the moon sad
or at rest? He calls scientists who tell him that the moon
is a dead piece of rock. He calls astrologers. One says
the moon means water. Another that it signifies oblivion.
The girl next door says the Moon means love. The nut
up the block says it proves Satan has us under his thumb.
Heart goes back to his notebooks. Oh, Moon,, he writes,
confusing orb meaning one thing or another. Heart feels
that his words lack conviction. Then he hits on a solution.
Oh, Moon, immense hyena of introverted motorboat.
Oh, Moon, upside down lamppost of barbershop quartet.
Heart takes his lines to a critic who tells him that the poet
is recounting a time as a toddler when he saw his father
kissing the baby-sitter at the family's cottage on a lake.
Obviously, the poem explains the poet's fear of water.
Heart is ecstatic. He rushes home to continue writing.
Oh, Cloud, raccoon cadaver of colored crayon, angel spittle
recast as foggy euphoria. Heart is swept up by the passion
of composition. Freed from the responsibility of content,
no nuance of nonsense can be denied him. Soon his poems
appear everywhere, while the critic writes essays elucidating
Heart's meaning. Jointly they form a sausage factory of poetry:
Heart supplying the pig snouts and ****** tissue of language
which the critic encloses in a thin membrane of explication.
Lyric poetry means teamwork, thinks Heart: a hog farm,
corn field, and two old dobbins pulling a buckboard of song.

(from Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides, 1999)

as ever, the English got something right! i adore sport... and what i adore most about these Commonwealth Games? the Olympians are competing at the same time with the Para-Olympians... that's brilliant! when the usual Olympics takes place... the abled bodied Olympians that have their games in the first two weeks... then there's a break... then the Para-Olympians have their games... ****'s sake! the two games should be coupled-up! what's that i hear? games for the "spezial kidz"?! what a load of *******... when i was completing my NVQ for crowd safety i was asked the question: what are British values? i replied... aren't they universal? i didn't even mention the details of the question: i thought the question was self-evident in that it was universal: British values are universal because they can be understood by anyone and anywhere... ergo? the Para-Olympics should take part at the same time as the able-bodied Olympics... why muddle-coddle these wheelchair bound ******* to a later date?! ****'s sake! they should compete at the same time... i'd probably run a slower time than some of these wheel-snuggling swimmers of the air... it's not fair that the Olympics is separate from the Para-Olympics... and the former Olympians turned media pundits wonder: why aren't the Para-Olympics getting the same coverage as the "original" Olympics... hell... if it would have to take 3 weeks rather than 2... so be it... these people should compete in the same time-frame! that's ******* discriminatory! what special status? no special status! they compete at the same time... they get to entertain the same crowd volume! i don't care! they should... how does it feel cycling past someone in a wheelchair? i forget to ask... i always forget to ask a question about the weather... or the taste of quails... silly me... well... it's slightly different when i see a: POKRAKA... "freak"... that's a result of the irresponsibility of a certain adults inter-breeding... cousin-*******... someone people should have learned a valuable lesson a long time, a long long time ago... i don't blame the half-witted eighth of a Forrest Gump... i just look at the "mother" and "brother" and think nothing but disgust... not even donkeys get their reproductive conduct so wrong... for a creature so highly evolved: we're stuck with cousin-******* and the "myth" of Oedipus... but at least Oedipus was an exception... i imagine that he didn't gauge his eyes out... instead became an ******... then again: what are myths? stories better than any journalistic affair... myths > history > journalism < fiction < poetry... but Para-Olympians should be competing on the same stage as the Olympians! take an extra week... but don't do what's already being done! done segregate the two camps of competitors! take an extra week! let both compete at the same time! it's not fair that once the original Olympics are finished: the crowd isn't there for the Para-Olympians! i know it will be harder to attract the same viewership for women's club football... female boxing... female rugby... i'm already baking my own cakes... cooking my own food... cleaning my own house... today i surprised myself... what herb is most abundant in my garden? beside rosemary? mint... i was cleaning the garden and i had to cut down an overgrowth of mint... well... how many ******* mojitos would i have to make? how much tzatziki? a lot... there's me: bloated... lying under a floating table: drunk but probably also hallucinating Aztecs ceremonies of human sacrifice... MINT ICE CREAM... wow... i'm getting good at this ice-cream business... i simply hate chocolate ice-cream... but mint ice cream? ooh... and chocolate chips... the crème anglaise is ready... just chilling overnight... i'll churn it tomorrow... by then the chocolate chips will be added... and i didn't even need to add any food flavourings... it's this pristine green... fit for ice... a bit like that Frank Zappa song: don't eat yellow snow... ha ha... because someone has ****** into it... i love green... pale green... then again... no wonder i dress up like a tree from time to time... my irises are green... gween boyo wonder(s)...

sometimes i have to admire thespians...
as much as i despise the whole lot of them:
esp. when they come together
and self-congratulate themselves...
mind you... there are actors and there are
"actors":
       most notably "actors" as depicted
in Singing in the Rain: prior to the talkies...
but at the same time...
actors like the fictional Gloria Swanson -
or i fail to tell her apart
from the very real Norma Desmond...
i can attest to two stand-out performances
in the past few years...
i wouldn't be wrong in calling them
their life-performances...
                     and it's not even in the medium
of movies...
movies have lost everything movies
once were...
i used to enjoy movies: i'm pretty sure
everyone used to enjoy movies...
in school we'd gather in packs of 7 guys
and sometimes 7 guys and 3 girls
and we'd go to the cinema to watch
a movie...
      then grab a bite to eat...
or we used to go on dates to the movies...
Troy... she wanted to see that...
because i guess she thought
i looked like Achilles or Brad Pitt...
but that wasn't a date: date...
it was an entire day... first to Tate Modern
for the Edward Hopper exhibition...
some minor strolling...
then back to Romford to see the movie...
and then some food at a sushi bar
and some sake...
but movies these days are unwatchable...
i'd rather watch the Godfather (no...
part II is not better than the original...
sure... Terminator II is better than
Terminator and the Empire Strikes
Back is better than New Hope...
no... not the Godfather)...
i'd rather re-watch that than any new movie...
i usually switch on for about
10 minutes before switching off...
i need a cigarette break... i need to water
the garden... i need to take a ****...
i need to scratch my *** in private...
- but that's how the story goes...
"back in the day": there was a profession
of a baby-sitter...
the parents would have a date-night...
they'd go to the cinema...
i once had a baby-sitter... i forget who...
it was probably a male if my memory
serves me correct... probably my now estranged uncle...
while my parents went to see the movie
SE7EN at the now "mythical" Odeon on
the Gants Hill roundabout...
these days? movies are comic books...
i prefer serious books...
          and in terms of comics...
oh man... the first time i had a *******
i think the two girls were having a *******
for the same time too...
threesomes are disappointingly
disorientating...
       they like the execution of Isaiah...
being cut in half... the upper body is twiddling
with ******* and lips...
the lower part of the body is being treated
along the lines of *******...
it being my first time: terribly disappointing...
i couldn't keep up...
we settled on the anti-pornographic
solution... hand-job and imitation ******
into the "other's" *****...
             i was limp on first take...
nicotine... better than caffeine and ******* combined
to give a man arousal...
i had to have a smoke...
               i was new to the arrangement:
they were new to the arrangement:
the three of us were N00BZ... literally...
it wasn't like in a pornographic flick...
hell! far from it!
   what put me off was the changing of condoms...
and... once knew what to do with the *******:
pull it back... while the other one
didn't know what to do with it:
i'd circumcise her... so she might get a better
picture...
hardly an ego boost...
she implored me to reply in the affirmative
when asking the question:
you must feel like a king...
eh... i'm not the one who suggested having
a *******...
i rejected you twice: *****! you butted in!
i never had a ******* on my palette...
i like the ******* where i'm
almost tentatively looking into the woman's eyes
while rubbing forehead against forehead
before quickly jumping down below
to perform the crab-bucket maestro tongue
twirl of imitating gulping oysters
and flowers of KAHUNT!
                ****... oral *** on a woman...
she's already readying her hands to pretend to rip
the hair on your hair out...
she does that specific roll of the eyes...
it's beautiful to watch...
peacocks courting is probably the nearest comparison...
thank the gods on my part for
reading Ovid... someone was necessarily
born to combat these exploits of *******...
of ugly ***...

i don't know when i'll have a ******* ever again:
i like the one on one intimacy...
threesomes feel so pedestrian...
there's always that unwanted third party...
i don't think i gained an ego-booster...
i think along the lines of "p.t.s.d."...
                              the unwanted girl orchestrated
the whole enterprise...
the girl i wanted was the one i was snuggling up
to trying to steal a kiss:
me: thief... trying to steal kisses from
prostitutes... the unwanted third-party...
fake milking cows
and duck lips... she was just a canvas
for my *******...
                    once is enough...
i don't care what ******* portrays...
they're a nuisance...
i like ******* while eating eyes... with eyes...
plus the hygienic approach doesn't help
for the fluidity of threesomes...
you can't be hygienic and irresponsible at the same
time...

stealing kisses from prostitutes is one thing...
but ******* them without any ****** protection...
come the zenith...
actually asking: can i?
   with agreement:
                    yes, you can...           oh wow...
well... i'm talking about Turkish women...
different culture, different tactic...
i live in England but by now:
i ****** well hope to never **** an English
girl...

girl, let me just water my garden...
admire the night for a while:
believe me... you can have your sway
in raising the next Oedipal myth in your
sisterhood motherhood of loneliness...
i'd love to teach the ******* some things...
the pleasures of the hammer...
the KANGO concrete drill...
the everywhere and everyone within
the confines of the loneliness
of walking in a forest...
         chemistry! English! i'd love to learn
vocal Deutsche with him!
but no... fair enough: no's a no...
back to the brothel i go...
               oh no no...
              
me and hook-up culture? nothing's for free!
- i sometimes wake up the next day:
mein gott! what damage i must have i cause:
it's a cruel addiction:
to drink and to write simultaneously:
Bukowski and Hemmingway
figured out this problem...
one in celebrating old age
the other in the shotgun...

                    tear skin, grow more skin...

mein gott! i became so carried away with myself
that i actually forgot my original theme
for this poo'em...
            literally: maybe that's why i inserted
the word BZDETA...
                 oh... it's an actual word... not in -ing-leash
of course... but i'm sure most English
speakers are familiar with African surnames:
M'Bepe Mgabe etc.
   that's hovering consonant...
        B'z'deta...
               i love how the English folk break their tongues
when speaking my mother's... tongue...
they would sooner learn Czech or Russian
than learn ******... such puritans of the tongue
we folk are... and now combine the fact
that i identify as an Anglo-Slav...
     listen: England or at least English is a playground
for me... i was implored by some deity
to come to these isles, given a ***** and bucket
and told: here! there's some wet sand over there...
go and play!

                 now: many a happy returns to the father
of the English tongue... i have to return and tease
at some Deutsche...
           Franz Friedrich: AHUND!

my original adoration for the Thespians... it... can...
happen... personally i'd rather not...
i don't see the point of these shadow-thieves...
these dopplegangers... yet artistically?
it's the most celebrated medium...
           sure... painters are celebrated... post-mortem...
poets had a weird spell of "conundrums"
in America in the the 1960s...
   but i'm not willing to write ******* for a "me"
that's either asthmatic or exasperated:
equally short on breath...

well: given the modern equivalent... everyone is going
to be the next Allen Ging-Sperg?
i don't think so... more of a composer: than an entertainer...

anyhoo...
  BZDETA... an actual word...
it's sort of in between the English equivalent of:
trivial (thing) and a pointless (thing) -
the actual "thing" is hidden within the pointlessness
of an implied "thing" / the triviality of
the implied "thing": ha! modern English grammaticians
and their hyped up focus on pronouns...
wait till they figure out that adjectives verbs
and nouns and conjunctions and adverbs and...
a- the-     -ism: the indefinite and the definite article...

- everything coming of America (culturally) is corrupt:
once the beacon for the world to admire...
i'm regressing to find alternatives...
i stopped listening to music with a tinge of
the English tongue... i've thrown my laurel wreath
toward German neo-folk...
**** it... i might be living, physically: in an anglo-sphere
but my mind is elsewhere...
i wouldn't go as far as Frank Zappa and adore
Bulgarian music... but certainly not anything
in the vein of modern-modern (post?) English...

- another word that's dear to me: akin to
   how Italians call a child a BAMBINO...
the Polacks call a child a BOBAS...
             English is so strict... rigid sometimes...
the mere fact that the ****** tongue employs
so much diminutive "accents" is amazing sometimes...
a mountain: (gurhau, no... sorry... guhrau!)
i.e. góra can become a little mountain
via incorporating the diminutive tense górka...

and although the word RZECZ denotes: things...
rzeka is river... while a small river?
rzeczka...
            i don't think there's the antonym for the diminutive
in ******... it's sort of boring in English:
there are only adjectives... actual nouns
do not incorporate a diminutive tense for something
being described:

KACZKA (duck) kaczuszka (small duck, duckling)
wow! that's actually a good example of
the English ZUNGE applying the diminutive
construct of a word...
young and youngling springs to mind...
but English is altogether a very rigid tongue...
so... i don't understand how these current
grammatical-magicians and their pronoun-hyper-focus
are trying: you can't trick an old dog
into learning new tricks... these aren't tricks:
this is equivalent to: a baboon...
smearing his naked plump pink *** with his
own ****... calling it woad...
raising it up in the air like a Muslim during prayer:
before battle... shaking it...
taunting the opponent... come fight me...
and then...
                       what? of the two kings of ancient
Israel... who would i like to be?
David or Solomon?    hmm... clueless question...
DAVID! he got to fight Goliath and enjoyed the lyre
and wrote pslams into ripe old age...
Solomon? who couldn't compete with
his father... resorted to "wisdom":
writing aphorisms / maxims is the worst genre of
literature... it's untested proofs...
just ask Srinivasa Ramanujan...
                                   he was always neglected by
the establishment for having no proofs...
great idea: 2 + 2 = 5... but how? where's your proof!
the same with Solomon's supposed wisdom:
no proof... the same with Nietzsche's aphorisms
or for that matter la Rochefoucauld...
it's all true... but it's most probably just perhaps true...
i've tasted a sample of both the lives
of Solomon and David...
            each time i return to David...
i just do what the Nazis did to the *******...
i turn it clockwise...
                 tilt it... what do i see?
i see a reading-mat and an open book...
              i peer in: i ignite out...

now i'm thinking: i still need to mop the floors of the house,
i need to shine my shoes and iron a white shirt...
and gear up to waking up at 6am...
as much as i love waking up at 11am
without needing to be awake any hour sooner...
i love waking up at 6am with a necessary:
i'm expected to be at X by the time Y...
algebra simplicity...

esp. since today i fell out of bed: too humid...
i fell out the bed at about 6:30am onto the floor...
how compact the floor feels...
i could feel my strained spine relax on the hard surface...
i even used my folded hand for a pillow
in and out of a coming day-dream...
what i wouldn't give to imitate David...
and scorn Solomon forever more...
no wisdom did i find...
   no man can speak wisdom to men when he has
an abundance of "thirst-quench" of ****...
          
              in a polygamous society... thank god i don't live
in one... but there have always been women that
aspired to the cult / altar of the phallus...
i'm content with the fact that i can bypass any thirst...
that i have hygienic standards in place
that make me disregard any satisfaction in the realm
of a *******... it's equivalent to:
running an 800m race... come the 400m mark...
you're told to change your socks and shoes...
and then run another lap...

                           it's nothing like in *******...
monkey-pox is a real thing...
you need standards... cleanliness is the greatest:
and only standard that must be constantly stressed
from one human to another...

only Michel de Montaigne can surpass both Nietzsche
and la Rochefoucauld:
well, at least by my "under-estimation"...

- now for the caveat... what i was originally to write
about...
two example where Thespians can be adored...

                                   Logan Roy i.e. Brian ***
Peter III i.e. Nicholas Hoult...

even they: themselves have figured out that films
are on the way out...
people have changed...
                               i know i have changed...
i don't have the mental capacity to watch movies:
and i'm not some senile old man...
strange... in ancient times old people
were never this senile...
   they still had intellectual rigour...
they accumulated "****": perhaps it wasn't intellectually
stimulating: but it was intellectually mesmerising...
it was called wisdom: once upon a time...

and when my father criticised me for
reading philosophy books in my youth...
expecting me to regress to the optometric notion
that only old people are wise:
no! nein! old people these days are like
children: there's nothing to learn from them!
that's why i'm thinking about going
into primary school teaching...
i can pour my ever more clear water into that pool...
of clear water...
i don't need to teach them chemistry...
i don't have to teach them the tongue:
i can watch ontology sprout out of seemingly "nothing"...
i adore children:
            like i could never adore women...
i adore children like i adore animals...
i don't know what sort of man one must become
to adore women in order to exploit them
in the way that they are exploited...

hypocrite? because i place my silver on the table
and expect what's expected by the meaning
of transaction, or...
rather... place the silver on the table...
receive a shared meal and then expect something
in return? such backward ways
of the American culture...
i hope that England will never become infested
with these practices... freakish: ghoulish...
of the four-eyed beast...
a desecration of Shiva: one winking eye on
the forehead... one blinking eye attached to the ****...
with the two eyes that are supposed to see:
stapled shut...

how marvelous to wake up...
with a want to make mint and dark-chocolate chip
ice-cream... surely the best ice-cream i have
ever made! to hell with chocolate ice-cream!
i hate chocolate... turning it into ice-cream is even worse!
mint! oh... that marvelous invention of
the gods... almost equivalent to ferns...
almost equivalent to nettles...
how the ancient Roman centurions used to cure
an itch... they would run and jump into
a bed of nettles ****-*******-naked...
i.e. fight fire with fire... fight an itch with an even
bigger itch... second to the nettle? the thistle...
i'd love to see those guys jump into a patch
of nettles...

Rome will never die... even with the crucifixion
of its supposed surrogate son of man...
nope...
    the alphabet it still here...
the coliseum has morphed into a raised
meteor crater of a football stadium...
               Rome is, Rome was, Rome will be...
even with the Arab "invasion" of Europe...;
Rome is, Rome was, Rome will be:
we'll just be soul-chasers... soul-thieves...
they'll enter the arena of this tongue...
neglect their heritage... and they will learn our ways...
somewhat... not always...
mind you: on a racial-bias...
skin-colouring dilutes during *******
with a 2nd generation...
  
you asked for a Latin man... a Latin man came...
what now?
you asked for a Latin man...
i'm forever employing myself to date a single
mom with a boy or a girl...
i'm not a Darwinist... genes are like atoms...
i don't care much for them...
but... i wouldn't date a single mother
for the ***... i'd be sneaking out
to the brothel on a whim...
i'd be there for the child...
                    i'd love to make him or her ingest
my psychology:
i'd make them ingest my soul...
i'd pass on my ontology...
     he or she would have to be bilingual
in the least... i'd learn Deutsche with him...
he would be a miracle of a Switzerland outside
of Switzerland!

i'm still bewildered why America is not a bilingual
quest (of a nation)...
  WASP pride? or ignorance?
the worst of the English went to America:
while the supposed "worst" of the English went
to Australia...
                 funny... really funny...

to wake up and have: i need to make mint &
chocolate ice-cream on one's mind...
that's how one wakes up to celebrate life!   LIFE!
LAíF!

You were the Barbie jeep engineer.
You were the 5-card pinochle player.
You were the gripe to do the dishes.
You were the patient mall bench sitter.

You were Elvis Presley records and
paper backed crime novels.
You were my new antivirus software.
You were the chatter in the middle of an
NCIS episode.
You were the "It's okay, sweetie" on the
other end of the phone.

You were the voice of every bathtime storybook.
You were the baking soda on my first wasp sting.
You were the green Ford Escort parked
outside my middle school every afternoon.

You were the loudest clap at my graduation.
You were the sticky caramel corn crumbs in the
living room that held the place together.
You were the laughter

You were the toolkit when my pictures hung crooked.
You were the cornerback baker, the pecan pie maker,
dance recital seat saver and the road trip driver.
You were the puppy-dog pill-giver and the
broken heart mender.

You were the church goer and the goodness seeker.
You were the black-haired teaser and the
very best secret keeper.
You were a prideful wig wearer and
wheelchair rider.

You were a cancer fighter.

You were my first call.
You still are.

I was celebrating as normal I'm not sure why besides oh yeah duh I'm the most awesome writer in the history of this site .
The bar was empty as usual the old crowd had been abducted by aliens and replaced by children whom seemed to believe I truly gave a **** that there five day relationship had just fallen apart yeah live on your own bust your *** to exist then tell me how ******* hard life is okay kiddies.

It came through the wire a message that read.
Dear Gonzo I just read your recent co write and wow was I impressed
It's so great to see established writers giving new writers like yourself a break.

It appears this juvenile hamster had smoked a little to many bath salts today for they had no clue as who my ego fed **** was how dare they.
Yes kids isn't it a shame when all the kick *** drugs were discovered by your grandparents ?

Look don't reinvent the wheel if it gets you ****** up stick with the **** that hopefully doesn't make you trip ***** and lock yourself in a closet with a butcher knife .
That's why I stick with the mild stuff like herion.

I was just about to write this writer wanna be a long and thoughtful response telling them in a mature way to go **** themselves when yet another message came in .

Hey Gonzo loved your co write I always wanted to co write with a true writer any chance you could ask Helen if she would write one with me ?

Dear lord man these kids were higher than Justin bieber's  over inflated ego yeah he's going to put out a new album yeah you been warned .
.
Another message came in in one after the other it was like I was driving a ******* ice cream truck on a hot summer day every bed wetter and ****** picker running down behind me with there snotty little dollars clutched in hand didn't these children know I hate kids .

Well all except for barley legal hot ***** with low self esteem cause I truly love helping misguided ****** yeah I know I'm such a thoughtful ******* aren't I?

I couldn't take it I slammed the laptop shut and turned up the jukebox as I poured myself a stiff drink .
At least here at the bar I could escape this insanity .
But the nightmare was far from over .

As I herd the squeal of airbrakes as a school bus came to a stop outside the bar ****** I was being invaded **** why hadn't I infested in those rabid coyotes Lilly Mae  had tried to sell me .

The little ***** hit the door like invaders across are unguarded boarders yeah do you know how many millions of those ******* Canadians slip through every day .
Yeah if only we had snipers then we never would had to listen to Nickleback.

They jumped on the pool table laughed played and really started to **** my buzz as they played there modern crap they called music .
It was like being ***** by a ****** clown and the rest of his fifty buddies that could fit in one car I swear those  *******  can pack a car better than any Mexican I've ever known and for my fellow Latino friends out there I truly meant no disrespect please don't stab me or bounce up and down on my skull with your low rider  .


Hey Gonzo the leader of this dwarf cult spoke up we want a co write with you.
Um like hell I will Frodo just take your sawed off *** and return back to the shire  okay.

**** that stupid lord of the rings joke dork don't you know harry potter is the in thing *******.
The little man had said a mouthful there and being he was a Harry Potter fan I could tell he was probably used to having his mouth full of assorted things like his nerd friends magic staff .

Look sparky or ******* or whatever the hell you name is note to anyone if you don't have *******  I probably wont care what your name is .

I truly hate kids okay and there's nothing in this world that would make me ever write anything with you so just carry your *** cause I'm sure you are missing out on some kickass time to sulk in your room that is more furnished than my entire house and post your bleeding heart sonnet all over your ex girlfriends face book wall alright.


Okay the little hamster replied .
You know Gonzo I'm real sorry you feel that way cause I was going to overlook the fact that you offered me and my friends ***** and tried to get my underage sister to flash her ******* .

It's a real shame I hate to see such a talented co writer go to waste sitting in prison but you don't want to co write with us so I fully understand .

I couldn't believe this little **** was going to blackmail me it almost brought a tear to my eye how demented he truly was .
Reminds me of myself at that age when I blackmailed my sitter into showing me her ******* ahh the preciouses memories .    

I weighed my options co write masterworks of true demented genius or play basketball with guys who had been in so long that they let me win cause I was a hot ***** .

Hmm I had to ponder that one cause I never was very good at basketball duh I'm white and slightly bad humored with racist jokes that if do offend get over yourself it's called a ******* joke okay.


Okay sparky you got yourself a cowriter but can I ask one thing first?
Sure Gonzo shoot.
Well being that I was going to be falsely accused of seeing your sisters ******* maybe I could actually see them?


I don't have a sister you perve I just said that to trap you into co writing for us and finish this stupid *** write cause it's drinking time and I got places to be people.


Until next time hamsters stay crazy Gonzo.

To my ex (you know who you are)

It's been over a year, guess what???

You've got a lot of nerve. First of all, it is you, the one with the insecurities. The one who CHOSE to carry your past into our future. By doing so, you destroyed us and the fake family you portrayed to everyone while I was "Daddy" to that ******* baby since he wasn't man enough to be a father. You use people to get what you want and when you drain them of every single last little bit you throw them away and act like a victim. But I digress.

Do you know what it feels like to live your life in fear? Oh wait, you do! Then why the **** would you have subjected us to that abuse!?

The games you played with my mind. Making me think I was the one with the problem. Making sure EVERYONE thought it was me. The lies that would come out of that hole in your face with that messed up pretty smile. The constant yelling, mental abuse, and your physical abuse of hitting me in the face several times and then lying about it!

*******, *****! You thought you were the "man" of the house. The one who wore the pants. Everyone was wrong and you were always right. Constantly putting me and others down....*******.

You had me feeling lower than dirt. I thank GOD for sending me a guardian angel disguised as a disagreement at my business. It was the kindness from a business partner that woke me up. Gave me hope and gave flight to my dreams.

God knows the truth. Be glad it's not up to me to judge you. I'm just glad it ended when it did! I thank God EVERYDAY for the strength he gave me to get out from under your thumb and start new. Yet you lied to everyone again trying to be a victim.

Now I'm bigger, better and stronger. If any women did that **** you did to me, now, I'd knock them flat on their *****!

Every time I think of you, I get ******. You make me sick to my stomach! You don't deserve the people in your life that you still have fooled and one day they too will wake up and see who you really are. Even more you don't deserve that son of yours that is just a pawn to you. He deserves better, much better than you will ever be able to give him.

What's ******* ridiculous is that you CONTINUE to play these mind games with other people who haven't a clue to your deception and fall under your spell.

Your son needs a mother who loves and adores hims. Not some drunk loser pretending to be something she's not.

That's what you were doing right since losing your job for abusing seniors, drinking, smoking *** and ******* ******* again? That's what I hear your new hobby is anyway.

And by the way I don't need your forgiveness for anything!!! I was falsely blinded by your ability to pretend and deceive people, while you spent all my money, ran my businesses into the ground, used me as a baby sitter, then when things finally fell apart you lied to everyone and managed to convince several people that I was the problem, the lier, insecure blah blah blah. Guess what ***** your time will come. Under that fake *** front you put on (which fails when your drunk) you are nothing but an insecure loser who hangs out with people whom you think are "below" you in efforts to make yourself feel adequate... I do have to say you have a gift to play people, you learned from the best, look what it's done for your Dad lol, by the way what's it like having a stepmom & grandparent to you son who is only three years older than you? I mean you both are in your early twenties! and your dad is how old?? Your time will come! Hopefully I be around see...

The realness i preach should not be discarded
dont frown and scroll down,but this piece should be regarded
regarded because this ain’t no tutorial
because those who get to know this are in memorial

being real isn’t based on the fact that you are a gentleman
no,it is based on the fact that in private you can still be a gentleman
unrealness circulates and is round ike a tyre tube
and there is no tutorial on realness on you tube

unreal things become more attractive to us
we try to be who we see on tv instead of the real us
realness is making your natural hair and droping the wig
realness is walking away from a fight with a punch to swing

so are those eye brows,fingernails and hair real?
or does the chains,gun in your back pocket and tatoo make you real?
realness is when you stick to a friend in times of trouble
realness is when you shelter the man on the streets when the thunder rumbles

so i say to all you ladies;love yourselves even if nobody does
this is why you do not belive when you are told you’re beautiful,after a heart break
realness is when you delete the term ‘excuse’ and the word “because”
realness is when a white kid shares food with a black kid during a lunch break

so you think you are real because you can read a lie”manifesto”to people
win the elections and not do ****,not even see us as equals
realness is when you are friends with the opposite *** and dont complicate it
realness is when you work hard and the critics critisise but you still work at it

so dream big but when you make it dont forget to still be real
we strugle to be who we aren’t instead of being ourselves,what an irony
so dont try to be a model because you’re not,and a model is an imitation of what is real
and realness isnt having money but having money that is real(through straight means)

realness is when christians can live freely in islamic countries
and black men can walk freely in white countries
realness is when you work hard,make it and help your community
realnesss is when you dream of changing the world but starting with your viscinity

you drawing breath and being physicall dosn’t make you real
and saying she wants to be just friends shouldnt change how you feel if you are real
these things i write are aimed to the world to teach
so i say R.I.P because it’s the Realness I Preach

1 week ago
BAD *******


so you say you’re a bad ***** huh
so you prefer to be identified by bad ***** instead of ur real name huh
so you prefer to be valued by money instead of your worth
so you are a bad *****,i ain’t tryna judge you,this ain’t no court

the term “bad *****” can’t end you up as a wife
those instagram pictures wont work,you can’t put a filter on life
you were born original,now you chose to live as a copy
look colourful on the outside but your life is sloppy

the beauty of having beauty is a lot more than being beautiful
the path to life you follow isnt geting any where meaningful
so you say”love *****,i chase paper”*** to you love is just a verb
no cure for your attitude so you take drugs and herbs(****)

anything that has a monetary value is worthless
you used to value more but the tag”bad *****”made you less
you are now defined by pictures of you kissing the air,
exposing you ***** and *** looking for the next prey on facebook or instgram

we follow our dreams but a responsible man wont follow a”bad *****” on twitter
so you can say,you are not any responsible man’s dream
be a bad ***** all your youth and when old a baby sitter?
you raise the stakes for yourself and still cant cross the beam

life is not rosy and even if it is,roses have thorns
those things you do will hunt you,they’ll come with horns
lipsticks,eyelashes,short gowns,expensive wrist watches and purses
money first and then back on the ground,now thats a curse

bad ******* exist amongst us,they are our friends on facebook
"*******"sounds bizzare so she says shez a "bad *****"
the person you are still searches for the person you should be
and i hope youre eyes dont remain shut for you to see

and the younger girs see you and want to be like you
they want to dress all thight and paint their faces like you
no one wants to be like margareth thatcher
they all wanna be nickky minaj

these days there are more bad ******* than wives
and to responsible men it’s like stabs from 100 knives
because a bad ***** will follow men
but a lady will cling to a man

and if you say youre a bad ***** and you need no man
tell that to yourself when you turn 40
a lady isnt defined by how bad or ****** she is but how elegant and classy she is
a bad ***** is pretty but the beauty of a lady is defining

so choose today to be a lady and start the change for our generation!#thepoet

Theres so much that I notice,
And things that I hear,
I use to be so hopeless,
But now I have no fear,
I seen your picture the other day,
You were in that sun dress,
I can remember thinking,
"Without you I'd be a mess",
That I'd simply fall apart,
That I'd be incomplete,
You name was branded on my heart,
But I just couldn't take the heat,
Its funny looking back,
All the memories we share,
I was ready to make a pact,
It doesn't seem very fair,
I'm not really bitter,
But I haven't totally moved on,
I was your baby and you my sitter,
Its hard to believe that your gone,
I'll still be your friend,
But I must redirect my focus,
And realize its the end,
And let go of all the things I notice.

Pet sitter from Saturn
Notices the pattern
Of floating rocks
Round kitty socks
And counts them as they go-

In twilight’s hush the sitter comes
With gentle hands, she greets the hum
Of furry hearts, once bright and bold,
Now singing softly stories told.

Interstellar, deep, where memories cling,
She feels the pulse of everything.
A wagging tail, a purring sigh,
The warmth of love as moments fly.

But time, that thief, it creeps and steals.
Now all that’s left are tender feels.
The blankets kneaded and graveyard heeded
And the sitter is left defeated
In the ash of the life she now chided.

The tourists all jostle for a look at the falls
At the point where the water just drops
It goes over the edge, crashing down far below
And then it's all over, it just stops

But, further up river before the falls are in sight
Where the river's hypnotic, dull and oh, so boring
The dark voices are waiting, hiding and calling
This is the place that the powers are storing

Beware the dark voices
They come and they go
They infect your mind
You've heard them, you know
The dark voices are different
But, they always are there
Turn away from their callings
And as always....beware

A dark, gloomy bar on the wrong side of town
Where the waitresses all dance for their tips
A strip joint so defined, but really not so
This is where one's morality slips

A sniff of a perfume, so fragrant yet cheap
Blurs your connection to the ring on your hand
The dark voices are calling, telling you things
Get the waitress and prove you're a man

Beware the dark voices
They come and they go
They infect your mind
You've heard them, you know
The dark voices are different
But, they always are there
Turn away from their callings
And as always....beware

You've returned from  a movie, back to your home
You must now take the babysitter back
Your wife stays home waiting for your return
But, with the babysitter you kind of lose track

You see a young body, and a glimpse of her breast
She crosses her legs, but you don't look that far
You share idle chatter, as you flirt like a kid
And you take the girl to the back seat of the car

Beware the dark voices
They come and they go
They infect your mind
You've heard them, you know
The dark voices are different
But, they always are there
Turn away from their callings
And as always....beware

The voices keep coming, just block them out
They feed on your weakness and pain
You have to ignore their pleadings to break down
For nothing good comes of them, there's nothing to gain

Jump in the water, go over the falls
Go with the dancer, surrender your life
Lay down with the baby sitter
Feel the voices twist the knife

Beware the dark voices
They come and they go
They infect your mind
You've heard them, you know
The dark voices are different
But, they always are there
Turn away from their callings
And as always....beware

just living
is a rebellion
the singing and the screaming
collide into one
each day
I work for someone
who I do not know
I give them money every day
because we all have to pay
just for living
the composer turns his hand
he asks for us to stand
and we do
as the sitter is exiled
and the new rules are filed
we look to the stars
a world in denial
to freedom
who’s your father
beg for martyrs
because we all
do nothing
at all
like hermits in a shell
inside the cage
we walk the streets
and work the wage
circles of beings
and tireless days of occurrences
with brand new acquaintances
living just the way
they were yesterday
giving everything
to someone above us
equality irrelevant
I don’t like the smell of it
something’s gone cold
we all grow old
let us all blossom the way we desire
be the pet’s owner
that sets the pet free
look in the eyes
of a soul
and let it be
we will surely be thankful
for all the degrees
a smile and laughter
will come from beneath
take off your role
throw in your sheets
uncover your lost soul
find what you need
powerless fusion of hope
grind your teeth down
do what you please
no stress over spilt milk
we are the meek
don’t open your mouth
simply to speak
say something worthwhile
or silence indeed
waking on pillows
justice to sleep
with a head so heavy
that it is light
and a dance so quick
that it goes something like
rapid melodies drifting
into a time
a time that is new
something that’s right
with wishful thinking
you gain delight
but think or think not
I know what I don’t want to know
it fairs me well
while you fancy the rest
the drill is in the ground
just close your eyes
don’t make a sound
give out a smile
come hang around
because just living
is a rebellion
each day
I work for someone
I don’t even know
I still walk with my feet
for now
even though

I must have been so loaded,so loaded that my head exploded,smashed to smithereens,reminiscent of a scene in one of Dante's paintings and painted tight into a corner,I turned, burnt black against the washed out white and looked out from the canvas screen.
What has been will always be and I'm some figure hanging in a gallery,gawked at by the crowds that pass me by,who do not see the tears I cry behind the cracked and flaking strokes and yet more than the brush which set me here to look magnificent to those that peer at me,poor me,no man knows more than history but all who look know more than I can see,me and my eyes are fixed and staring out when all I want to do is shout,'release me from the frame',and so odd it is that the artist did not give a name to his creation .placed upon this wall.
I look on all who look on me and my life is this gallery wherein I hang in misery,where once I sang in harmony,poor me,poor me,look upon and you will see,poor me,poor me,
an unknown in the gallery never hanging free,
just hanging.

She was a lovely looking thing,
A beautiful young blonde girl/woman
She hadn't been with us long... at
   work
She was smart and sassy, even a little
   scary
Held strong opinions on some things,
She lived close to where I lived, only
   a few miles away
So I was sitting amongst them one
   day, the girls/the ladies
They were a little bored that day and
   for some sport
Were trying to draw me out, to get me    
   to open up a little
To reveal some more about my ways
   and my life
So I thought I'd have some fun with
   them
I told them I did some painting as a
   hobby
And that my speciality was 'the
   female ****'
But alas! I had a problem, I had no
   one to sit for me
"If only I had some beautiful nymph, some haughty Queen, some dazzling princess", I lamented
And then I'd gaze over at Her, give her
   a longing look,
Then of course, someone upped and
   said the obvious
" Jen....don't you live close to where he lives, would you not go sit for him "
My face it lit up and I smiled
"No! I would not!!! she said
   emphatically, disgusted
Now I knew from the Christmas party
   she liked to drink Gin
So I said enticingly "I'll throw in a
   few bottles of Gin"
"I'd never pose **** for anyone", she replied again emphatically, "it'd be embarrassing, it'd be degrading! Sitting naked before some man!",
" But ", I replied, " you wouldn't be embarrassed sitting for me
'Cos when I paint a **** I insist on
   being in the **** myself as well
So as to make my Sitter feel more at
   home, more at ease
Yeah, Me! I'm very... Avant Garde"
(said with a devilish twinkle in my eye)
Still she resisted my painterly
   charms
So as to further entice her I said
"I'll even cook you breakfast, no one can resist my lovely sizzling sausages".
I felt as though I'd dangled my carrot
   right in her face
But still she wouldn't take the bait.
I suppose I was lucky she hadn't for if
   she had of (agreed)
I would have had to have learnt how
   to paint Nudes real fast
And how to cook sausages and other
   breakfast repast.

When i was ten I asked mom to hire a stripper instead I got a sitter.
Still I saved my allowence in hopes cause im no quiter.
In highschool I got busted drinking in the parking lot.
So I ratted on the teachers on the lounge who to which I sold ***.

My first girfriend was math teacher.
She said I was the devil dumped my **** now she's the wife of a preacher.
Its hell to drink alone thats why you can find me at the bar.
that guy cutting jokes hitting on anything in a skirt yeah hampsters you know who I are.


I been behind bars for some things I say I didnt do.
Trouble loves me so.
Im at christmas like santa how I love a **.
cant figure my direction to the this mystery you really dont need a clue.

Got eight dui's fifteen drunken in public a partridge and a pair tree.
When the judge asked son are you insane.
My reply was hell amigo im just being me.

I borrwed a car and took it for a short five state trip.
And when the cop pulled me in Atlanta I just raised my glass and asked hey friend wanna sip.
They call me Gonzo.
I love whiskey strippers and *******.
Ive dated a **** star  who left me cause she was worried id hurt her image
cause she  thought I might be insane.

Burned down the highschool for lack of nothing better to do.
Yeah schools out  wanna marshmellow  mister long fellow.
I'll pass on the long walk on the beach why not just head for the dunes and have a
cheap *****.

***** old man whos still kinda young.
Living till I die  lets hit the bar I'll take another hit till im in the iron lung.
Im so good at being bad.
***** the truth just make up how many ya had.

One last round till I hit the ground.
Do ya ever wonder how it would be.
To cast care to the wind and hang with me?

Nobody likes ya well sure i do.
Well maybe till I wreck your car  call you at four in the morning to ask hey ya sleeping?
Light fire to the forest just taking a **** and borrow your life savings maybe throw a party at your expense.
Just have some innocent fun and forget to check ID's.
Tape the preachers daughter  getting nauthy sell it straight to dvd.
look a girls got expenses im just saying someone slap me.

So really wanna hangout?
Come on im not that bad trust me.
Im worse.

So enjoy that life so normal  take your pills.
Work your **** off for the weekend and sleep ease as you nap.
That you really dont run with the Gonzo
So stay crazy hampsters and of course avoid the clap.


                          Cheers from your favorite
                                         Madman

da Vinci convinced me that art was the key and imagery in its many disguises could unlock many a door,
after all,
what would this life be without the mesmerism of artistry,
I for one want some more.

Paint me vermillion, mineral rich, daub me a sea from deep blue, put me in a picture to hang on the wall,
immortality,
after all, that is all that I need.

And what of Academia, blood racing bulimia, burning the late evening oil?
Exactly
what of it.

I'll stick with da Vinci,
because in the Codex
I  see much
more than
a cartoon of me.

Maybe this is our opportunity to finally see change
we've endured a system archaic and strange
we've watched the world revolve quicker than us
because we are stranded while the rest shift on the wheels of revolution
maybe this is the time you made that resolution
to constantly remind your brother and sister
Father and mother that that position needs a new sitter
maybe this is the time to say enough is enough
however much it instills in you fear, however tough
maybe it's the time we finally say to hell with the past
because like they say to stone nothing is cast
and the only thing that doesn't change is change itself
otherwise for how long will one old man exploit our insecurities?
For how long are they going to tell us that change is unsafe
A different time a different king even the monarchs say
what are we saying in our deafening silence today?
maybe this is the time to tell even the most ignorant by the country mile
that only and only a different king will dry their tears and give them a smile
we've been told he's the only man with foresight
come on,how are we to judge the rest without chances
for so long change has been a distant vibration along the threads of time
and opposition to conservatism a crime
maybe it's time for that to change too
and guess who can do that, only me and you
maybe it's time to flip the page for this great country to start another chapter
And it doesn't have to be all smooth a flow to happily ever after
Let other dancers step to the podium
and only then can we judge their dances
maybe it's time to another hunter we handed the arrow and bow
maybe now is the time for a different color on the rainbow
It cannot forever be a constant yellow
for even God saw however beautiful they look
the skies shouldn't always bear a sparkling mellow
sometimes the sky is cloudy, orange and most times blue
maybe it's time like I clearly think from my own view
for as a generation we are being denied the opportunity of comparative history
what will we tell our children happened to democracy
where did we throw, they'll ask all the resilience and efficacy?
maybe it's time to get back our country from the liberators
who use the same cuffs of the past regimes to manacle this country
and have since grown tall and firmer than palm tree
we have watched them wallow and buzz for so long
but for an idea whose time has come nothing is that strong
maybe it's time to save the embezzled donations and every single grant
a time to say confidently "to Hell with the tyrant"
maybe it's a time to be the change we want, the answer to all of our questions
and shove those that think we can't
maybe it's time to go past the roughing waves of conservatism as they whirl
maybe it's time to save our lovely nation
for at the moment, in very wrong hands lies the Pearl.

“I am sorry I called you a fat assed ***** in seventh grade. You were smarter than me and you had your life bundled up and handed to you. I was…jealous.” Is what I imagine Keisha would say in her apology letter to on her deathbed. The white blonde hairs falling out of her head as she shriveled up like raisin.

When I knew her, her skin was always *****. She wore fluorescent clothes with spaghetti straps and she had a stick and poke tattoo of butterfly behind her ear.

Before I met her, I was scared of her because I accidentally confused her for the 6’6 ball slaying giant who could dunk it faster than you could say “we’re running sprints next practice” was also named Keisha, but then I found out Keisha didn’t play basketball (well) and was white.

Keisha rolled with her crew of other fourteen year olds. They wore matching hi-tops and hoop earrings. They were tsunamis scaring the innocence out of the other pre-teen kids. They spewed sewage on any slide-rider or sea saw-sitter that set their sights on.

She would scream obscenities at me from the sidewalk. Too proud to let her toes touch the sand that I stood on.

In my ignorance of the consequences, I said “stop” and she shouted, “say it again” and defiantly I did.

Her jaw would come unhinged like a snake as she lunged fangs first. She laid her hands on my shoulders by the swing set shoving slurs into my face in a way that said “I didn’t fall far from the tree; I was dropped by hostile hands the first time I tried to say ‘no’.”

I stepped back from her fury and I wiped the verbal ***** from my eyes. I walked away, understanding at that vulnerable age that there was nothing I could do to quell the rage of someone with venom in their veins.

The tables always turn, but I would have stopped that Lazy Susan with my grubby fingers the instant I fully swallowed the fact that her front door was a mouth of its own. From the moment she walked in, she was chewed up and chewed out. Drowning in stomach acid, to be spit up back on to the street. The child of chaos covered in caustic burns they said she “earned.” Mutilated by their incisors, canines, and molars. They drained the very life they had expelled into her bones, digesting the marrow of her wire hanging. As a result she was starving. She was bare ribbed and hollowed out. She lived with her hands stretched out before here, blind, breaking her wrists from trying to twist her way out of the straight jacket of her situation. Slashing the souls and skin of anyone she came in contact with because she was scared of the monsters that birthed her, that sang her to sleep in the next room with livid lullabies.

Hate germinates hate. It is an airborne infection eating away at the soft tissue beneath your skull, overtaking any capability to function lovingly.
So to Keisha, as you hang in holy suspension between here and somewhere else, you were corrupted by a corroding covenant and lived in absence. You lacked self-control and displaced your damagedness on anyone more available than the wolves that raised you, but you are not a laughable collection of Mr. Vultura’s failed general science quizzes, forged parental signatures, and blue bruised knuckles. You are just as human and bursting forth as me and every other person on this planet. You are vines and branches yearning for the sun, for the brightness of hope and peace. Now rest, because you are forgiven and now infinite.

i am stability. i am happiness. even better i had only ever dreamed of contentedness. what is stability? without its counter? a rigid line. a frozen mind. stuck in its parameter. lungs that inflate. exhale too late. thumbs are good for things. like ******* on and pointing blame. i blame you. for all the things ill never do. my clothes were full of mud. fingernails and blood. i thought to take them off. throw them in the wash. soap would turn them clean. i lay down to dream. now that ive awaken seems that ive mistakenly forgot to hang them out. to dry. to whither and to crack apart. to decompose back to the start. plant toadstools on my grave. i am chaos. i am despair. restlessness was that which only ever brought me anywhere. what is chaos? with no weapon to wield? a seed tossed on wet winds may germinate. never to yield. the fruit i bear is underdone. worm hole ridden. weakly hung. ill go back to bleaching my bones.

I ne'er half thought of you as best
Painted, frozen on canvas, still, set?
Static & unmoving...  but I do rest
In my bet you feign'd it. The man Thus, he is as a criminal! If hold he Must you as possession -Beauty's Pageant.
A sun proving to ne'er grow Stagnant.
Go'th then, swept in wind, smooth &
Seminole, with no frame to so seal In
YOUth within his lines -rather reel In
Lines of my rhymes to sustain YOU Ever
Both A's & Q's. No pause, Sure Forever.

Inks & links rather than oils soon Cracked &
Dried out, faded with careless Neglect
And old Time, proving Spell checked
Words, ripen'd on a vine, (freely repro-
Duced,) is better than stretchers 2 show
In one place, wired/hooked on a dim wall
Of your captor. His penchant 2 refuse call,
Or to face, why your smile wert so small.
Unbeknownst to the brushed up painter,
Who with gobbledygook stained your
Heart, but took you as his Sitter bitterly.
So if your Silence art your bitter Mystery,
Then book Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall
As my pen chants only 4u -a wonderwall.