In ’68 Hutch and me,
Sitting at the bar drinking
Our third cold beer.
In a semi Fern Bar
Laguna or Newport Beach
Which now, I’m not sure.
It was around nine or so,
A week day night,
The place more empty than not.

She came in alone, made
Entry like the dramatic host of
A TV show. As if she were the
Center piece on the nations
Thanksgiving Dinner Table.
Over dressed to the nines,
Lots of color, heavy make up
She didn’t really need.

Her perfume scent hovered
Around her like a cloud of insects  
On a hot summer night in a wet meadow.
Kind of made my eyes water up.

She perched daintily like a dancer,
Upon a bar stool,
Three empty stools down,
Nodded the bartender her regular order.
A martini, a double it was,
With but a dab of vermouth.
One green olive on a stick.
The glass was prechilled as if
It had been waiting only for her.
She pounded that first one down,
As if the stem wear was a shot glass.
Another full stem glass appeared,
That one also quickly consumed
Two bright red lipstick stains all that
Remained in or on the stemmed glass rim.

Her main task accomplished,
She audibly exhaled,
As if tired or relieved.
I couldn't tell which.
Turned around on her stool to face
Hutch sitting closest to her.
“You boys Marines.” She declared,
More than inquired.
The close chopped hair cuts
giving us away.

Hutch just nodded, he never did say much.
A ****** just back from The Nam,
A dark scary guy of few words.

She opened her fur trimmed cloth coat,
exposing two very nice stocking clad legs,
And just a quick flash of red underpants.
Rotating towards us so we got a better shot.

She announced her name,
like as if we should know it.
Our blank stares informed her we didn’t.
Her face was to me, somewhat familiar.  
From movies in the 40s or 50s.
We were early 20 guys, she much older,
Trying hard to look younger, not succeeding.

Soon she was sitting right next to Hutch,
Two more Martini stems had come and gone,
Her lipstick finger prints upon them.
And still Hutch had not spoken more than
Three or four words.

She bought us a pitcher of brew,
Hutch grunted a short bit of gratitude.
We didn't have to say much, she was in charge.
It was all about her, she rambled on and on
Speaking volumes saying not much at all.
Beating back her crushing obscurity,
With flowery reminiscence recall,
Of glory days, long gone away.
Important for the moment, if only to her.
It was all; “me and I, I did this, I was that,
I slept with him,
And him and him”.
How about so and so?  I asked,
“No Darling not him, he was gay!
Still is.”

It was not long and she was touching Hutch.
On the hand, the shoulder, she was working him
With languid hungry looks from her big baby blues,
And the message could not have been plainer,
Had she held up a large hand lettered sign.

I don’t believe she was a “Working Girl”,
Just someone very lonely seeking to find
Herself, and some company for the night,
All to prove that she was still alive.

Looking at her, I could only think,
How sad and pathetic she seemed,
How desperate her plight.
To humble herself so,
In that dingy bar, among strangers
She did not know, Acting yet, still
On the only stage she could find,
Staring in her own bad ‘B’ movie drama.
In that dingy smelly bar.

Hutch and her left after a hour or so,
He never told me much about it.
He was unofficially AWOL for three days.
I covered for him, kept his name off the
Missing Morning Formation Reports
and the Daily Duty Lists.
No one cared to check. Our unit made up
Of mostly guys back from the war,
A pretty loosey-goosey outfit.

Once in a while now I see an old movie,
most are Black and white, Film Noir stuff,
And there she is, a much younger her,
Looking pretty **** good,
Not real big roles they were,
Claimed she was in the chorus
Of "Singing In The Rain" in '52.
To this, I can not attest,
watched that film several times,
But I never saw her there.

Had parts Playing damsels in distress,
A mobster’s gun moll a time or two,
Or unhappy Play Girls on a bar stool.
I guess it was type casting that done her in.
Or maybe she got a little too long in the tooth..
A sad ending to a short B movie career.
Life ain’t easy, even for a so called “movie star”.
Fame is not all it’s cracked up to be.
A smattering of fame, apparently worth,
Nothing at all.

It was a cold night for a concert. There was frost on the windscreen as we got into the car for the short drive to this city church. We drove because we were going to be late, and it was cold, and would be likely to be colder still when the concert was over. I had wondered if part one would be enough. Could Bach and Rameau be enough? Might the musical appetite cope with Mozart and Beethoven too? Were we about to sit down to a large meal, possibly in the wrong order. Can the cheese course be a transcendental experience I wondered? Bach to begin certainly, a substantial starter with one of the mid period keyboard toccatas and two ‘distant’ preludes and fugues, but then a keyboard suite by Rameau?
 
When I listen to Beethoven though I want to hear a work on its own, unencumbered round about with other musics.  A recent experience of several hours driving to hear a single Beethoven symphony has remained close and vivid, and an experience that brought me close to tears. So I imagine that I might only hear Op.110 to make that opening sequence of chords so ominously special. The introduction seems to come from nowhere and does not connect with musical past, except perhaps the composer’s own past. It is as though the pianist puts on a pair of gloves imbued with the spirit of the composer, and these chords appear . . . and what is there that might possibly prepare the listener for the journey that pianist and listener embark upon?  Certainly not the soufflé of Mozart’s K.332.
 
The audience is hardly a smattering of coats, hats and grey hair. There is another piano recital in town tonight and this is but the artist’s preview of a forthcoming concert at a major venue. Our pianist is equipping herself for a prestigious engagement and sensibly recognizes the need to test out the way the programme flows in front of an audience, and in a provincial church where she is not entirely unknown. I admire this resolve and wonder a little at the long-term planning which makes this possible and viable.
 
Now a figure in black walks out from the shadows to stand by her piano. Coming from stage right she places left her hand firmly on the mirror-black case above the keyboard. She looks at her audience briefly, and makes a bow, almost a curtsey, an obeisance to her audience and possibly to those distant spirits who guard the music she is to play. We will not see her face again until the next time she will stand at the piano to acknowledge our applause after the Bach she is about to play. Her slightly more than shoulder-length hair is cut to flow forward as she holds herself to play; her face is often hidden from us, her expression curiously blank. Perhaps she has prepared herself to enter a deep state of concentration that admits no recognition of those sitting just in front of her. Her dress is long and black with a few sparking threads to catch the careful lighting. Without these occasional glimmers her ****** movement would be unnoticeable. As it is the way the light is caught is subtle and quietly playful, though not enough to distract, only remind us that though in black she is wearing the kind of starry sky such as you might perceive in crepuscular time.
 
Thus, we already sense so much before she has played a note there is a firm slightly dogged confidence and reverence here in her approach to instrument and audience. And in the opening bars of the Bach toccata that is manifest; and not just a confidence born out of some strategy against nervousness, but a ritual of welcoming to this music that now spills out into the partially darkened church. The sonorousness and balance of the piano’s tone surprises. It is not a fine piano, but it has qualities that she seems to understand. There is a degree of attentive listening to herself that enables her to control dynamics and act resolutely on the structure of the music. When the slow section of this four-part toccata appears there is a studied gentleness and restraint that belies any ****** led gesture or manner. Her stance and deliberation at the keyboard remain determined and in control, unaltered by the music’s message. She does not pull her body backwards as seems the custom with so many who feel they have to show us they are stroking and coaxing such gentleness and restraint out of the keyboard.
 
As the final fugato of the toccata flows at almost twice the speed I’ve ever heard it, my concentration begins to disengage. It is too fast for me to follow the voices, I miss the entries, and the smudged resonance of the texture hides those details I have grown over so many years to know and love. This is Glen Gould on speed, not the toccata that resides in my musical memory. I am aware of missing so much and my attention floats away into the sound of it all. It seems to be all sound and not the play of music.
 
In this stage of disengagement I sense the tense quality of her right leg pedalling with the tip of a reddish shoe just visible, deft, tiny flicks of movement. She turns her face away from the keyboard frequently, looking away from the keyboard through the choir to the high altar; and for a moment we see her upturned face, a blank face, possibly with little or no make up, no jewellery. A plain young woman, mid to late thirties perhaps, and not a face marked by children or a busy teaching life, but a face focused on knowing this music to a point at which there is almost a detachment, where it becomes independent of her control, flowing momentarily beyond herself.
 
Then she reins the toccata in, reoccupies it; she is seeking closure for herself and for her audience whose attention for a short while has been, as the Quakers say, gathered. Gathered into a degree of silence, when breathing and the body’s sense and presence of itself disappear, momentarily, and musical listening moves from a clock time to a virtual time. There is a slowing down, an opening out, even though in reality’s metronomic time-field there is none.
 
There is a hesitation. With more Bach to follow, should we applaud? With relief after holding the flight of time’s arrow in our consciousness, just for those concluding minutes and seconds we acknowledge and applaud - the beginning of the concert.

A smattering of stars
     Strewn across the sky
Little pinpricks of light
     Blinking in the soft night air

Planets and Moons
     Suns and Stars
Constellations and Galaxies
     Clustering together
Against the darkness between them

Light from far-off worlds
     Light visible to us
          Light visible to each other
     Light the language of the universe
Light the conversation in the multiverse

And yet we stand here
     Human Beings on this our planet Earth
Contemplating in the soft night air

Feeling large and powerful and in charge
     Our hand is larger than those pinpricks of light
We hold up our hands and block out the light
     And darkness swallows the night

Feeling small and insignificant and adrift
     We are programmed to seek the light
And in this seeking we come ever closer
     To understanding the true nature
          Of the conversation of the multiverse

We’d been to concert at the Town Hall. It was a Saturday night and still early for a Saturday Night Out. So many people on the streets. The girls barely dressed, the boys bouncing around in t-shirts. Older people threaded along the pavements walking purposefully, but ‘properly’ dressed, and now making their way, as we were, for the station.

I know He noticed her because He stopped, momentarily. We were holding hands. He loves to hold my hand. That evening I remember squeezing his hand firmly as if to say how pleased I was He was here and I was not walking to the station alone. I have done this, walking to the station alone, so often. It is good to have someone close at such times, someone to talk to about the performance, the music, what is going on around us. We walked right past them.

I noticed the man first and then the child. He was very tall, very dark, wearing a black leather jacket I think. He was not scruffy so much as untidy, dark and untidy, with curly hair that did not know a comb. He was busking. He sang an incomprehensible song in a language I didn’t recognize, playing an electric guitar plugged into a small amplifier by his feat. He turned from side to side as he sang as though looking for an audience. I remember his trainers and the soft guitar case open on the pavement with a smattering of coins. Then, this child.

Over the last two days I’ve examined the scene in my memory. I’ve sought to recall as much as I can about this little girl. She was not that little I think for her age, perhaps seven or eight. Stocky. Thick golden brown hair. A sensible skirt covering her knees, a fawn jumper with some sparkly decoration. Tights or long socks perhaps. Proper shoes. I keep examining my mind’s photo. What I recall most vividly was her large smiling eyes and her expression. This is my daddy, it said. He’s singing and I’m here looking after him. I’m his smiley girl here on the city street. It’s late. Other children back home would be in bed, but I’m here smiling at the people passing.

Yesterday we talked about this couple, the little girl mostly. He brought the subject up. He’d been thinking about her too. He’d been puzzling over the two of them. As a pair they seemed so physically different, hardly father and daughter. It was the (possible) daughter’s gaze, her twinkling eyes that had spoken to him - as they had spoken to me. This is my daddy, those eyes and that smiley face had said. And she was holding a bear.

Why did I not mention the bear until now? Of course, she was holding her bear. She had both arms around her bear. She was hugging her bear to herself. It was a mild evening for March – she wore no coat. He looked a good bear, not too old or small, not the kind of bear she’d been given in infancy, perhaps recently acquired but well-loved, well-hugged. A bear that seemed entirely right for her age, for her slightly old fashioned clothes. The sort of clothes I might have worn as a child. I think of a photo of me at that age dressed in a Cloth-Kits dress, with an Alice band, with glasses and lots of curly hair.  

He said ‘I’ve been wondering about the two of them. Did they have a home? Where would they go to when it became late?’ Was there a mother? Was she working somewhere on that Saturday night and the father had to take the girl. Was she wearing her best clothes? She looked OK. A glowing, healthy face, a face that reflected the bright, coloured lights of the city street.’

Suddenly, I realised there were tears in his eyes. I thought, He is imagining a story. He is imagining a story of this seven year old who should have been tucked up in bed with her bear, like my little boy with his blue blanket. He was imagining her life., her past in some Eastern European town, where she went to school, where she had friends and relatives, where she had been born and brought up, and been loved. And now the girl was here in this not so distant city. Perhaps illegally, without the papers, smuggled in as so many are. Her father, swarthy, even a tinge of the Roma perhaps, but she so different. It was the golden brown hair. Thick hair, a ribbon tied in it. A pink ribbon.

He had thought of his little girl, now fifteen, only when she was that age, seven. Oddly similar in some ways, the thick hair, the smiley face, a different but ever present bear, an infant’s bear, not a bear she’d take with her except in a bag. A bear not to be seen with at seven, but loved.

‘I’ll call her Katya,’ He said. The girl, not the bear.

And later He did. Every few days He would mention her – just in passing. ‘Do you think Katya’s  at school today?’ ‘I was in the city this afternoon, but I didn’t see Katya.’

He wrote about her and her father. A little story. I haven’t read it. He just told me He’d written it; He’d thought of following them in his imagination. He was a little embarrassed telling me this, and He didn’t offer to show me the story, which is unusual because when He mentions He’s written something He usually does. And so I wonder. I wonder how long this memory will stay with him and whether He will follow this couple (and her bear) into the future, create a story for them to live in.

Perhaps it will bring him the peace He does not have. The peace I try to give him when He is with me at home and we sit in my little house, at my table eating toast with Marmite after I’ve been out late whilst He’s sat on my settee and read – in peace at being in my home. I know He feels cast adrift from his family and He can’t be part of mine, yet a while. Perhaps it’s like being in another country. Perhaps He thinks, at least that busker had his child with him, his shining star, his ever-smiley girl.

Yet He is thinking of his smiley girl, smiley still at fifteen, still loving her dad despite what He’s done, despite the fact that she sees him so seldom. Despite the fact that He is only occasionally with her, and she knowing I, his lover, his young woman, his companion and friend, has captured his heart and thoughts.

I think of Katya too. I think of my older girl, so loved and circled about with love and admiration by her respective families and our friends. She is so special and so beautiful, as I was special at eleven, as I think I was beautiful at eleven, just on the brink of that transformation that will take her towards becoming a teenager – and the rest.  

We were lying in bed the Saturday morning before seeing Katya and I was telling him about my childhood. He’d asked me about zebra finches. Walking in his nearby park He had admired their bright red beaks in the park’s newly-restored aviary. I told him about a parrot in a park close to my childhood home, a parrot I passed as I went to school. I described for him my walk to school, meeting up with my friends, passing the parrot. I know how happy it made him to hear me talk about such things. He said so later, embracing me in the kitchen. ’I so love to hear you talk about your childhood.’ I could feel he was moved to say this. It was important. I realised then just how deeply he loved me. That it was important. That he imagined me as a child. That He wanted to know that part of me. He’s rarely asked about the stuff in between. Of my former lovers I’ve said a little. He has said a little about his past liaisons and affaires, but knows I am uncomfortable when he does. So we leave this. But childhood, That’s so different, because it is that precious, precious time of shelter and care: when we begin to discover who we are and who and what we love.

Where is Katya now? In a messy room she shares with her parents in a house shared with economic migrants, where she has a few belongings in three plastic bags. In one, her best clothes she wears to stand on the city street on a Saturday night with her daddy. In another a jumble of not so clean clothes she rotates each day. She has her sleeping bag, her bear, her warm coat and gloves. There’s a few magazines she’s found about the house. English is puzzling. She learnt a little at school back home, and from the TV of course, those American soaps. If she was here in my house I would stand her in the shower, wash her thick hair, put her clothes in the machine, sit her on my bed in my daughter’s clothes with some picture books, introduce her to my cats, we would bake some buns. I would give her a small gift of my love to take away with her and she would look on me with her smiley face, her sparkling eyes and let me hold her bear.

And later when I saw him I would tell him that Katya had been with me for a little, and tears would fall, mine and his, knowing that only in our dreams could we make this so.

My freckle flecked love
      stirs the speckled paintbrush soft, dousing it's hairs so that,
    as I pull it back,
all the bristles bend
     seamlessly, and when I let go
they ping forwards,
      smattering
a scattering of stars,
         onto snowy canvas.

Alone,
Mapless, clueless,

Now a year.5 later,
I am, not yet, more than I imagine.
What I do Is all that must be done,

no less, but only
my part, my talent which I have not,
if the parable is taken literal,
those talents in the tale,
those were money,

not charisma.

Deify, make a god
de-ify, make a truth. Yep. That, de-ifing,
I do that,
think of the oil in an engine,
slippery, slick, smooth fluid
resisting nothing,
rolling with the explosive ****** of life.

I breathe, being metaphorically,
Solomonically wise,
I feared God and kept his commandments,

and thought sure I saw a wink, but
that coulda been a gleam, a reflection taken
by my eye
to my hindbrain, a single quanta
of leavenish light from what the seer saw,

a gleam glistens, I think I see what Mercury,
the message, the medium, flowing twixt yen and yank,
reflects,
flexing,
shaking,
Vibrant un abrading wave bearing grains
of matter smattering to the shore,
immaterial to the wave,
where the power's
drawn, pulled,
not pushed,
listing not lusting,

air-ish heirily, heir of the wind, I go...

winds list whither they will, always
the path of least resistance,
no lie.
Any thing that refuses to fall,
whether it bends or not,
it stands,
under the push of the pull,
the dam
destructive
imbalance of heat, twixt air and sea and land,
the circuits of the wind, ventilator of life,
****** into hated vacuums
over physics forced channels,
down canyons
dammed by mountain titans eruptioned,
fractures in the firmament, formed
back in Peleg's day,
as the turmoil settled,
aftershocks, still, winding
currents formed chaotic energy cells,
swirls to hold
lower pressure pushed by high,
the life force of a planet, broken and frozen
and fried crisp,
if it weren't for air.
And water.

It works,
the biosphere,
but surely, as my friend Ben said,
"we live on the wreck of a world."

Life adapts to living, medium message.

Desert dry silicon
dust rides winds pushing its owned way
into places where...

There's the rub.
That's my part, at the moment,
Here, right here,
is how I know.

This moment is real. You dear reader
make it so.

Imagining there is no hell,
that's personal,
but on earth, as in heaven,
as a man thinks...
you know, I think that part never broke.

Don't lie, don't fret. Wait and see.
or watch and see, if you are the proactive type,
either way, don't lie about the seen and done.
And don't believe lies, about things you've seen and done.

Wishful thinking and a smattering
Freckles sprinkled across her cheek
A winking *** brought tight aloft
A slick line of buttery soft
Feathery light against my find
A curve brushed with a fingertip
My smile flipped slid away
Her mouth flashed a blurred flirt
She touched the flush
That brought the heat her lips flicked
Eyes closed with a bunched fist
Hair tangled as her fingers wove
Lips parted brushed a last kiss
Heat gone left with frayed thoughts
Wishful thinking as she slipped away

cc1210

Whining dog...we just went outside.
Wading through internet DATs and cogs and bandwidth hogs, outside still raining cats and dogs.
double-click trawling pics and blogs searching for remedies and laws that inhibit logs to saw.
Wide-eyed, face down I sprawl still awake, redefining  my character flaws,
fearing my falling into the trappings of urban sprawl or
investing your mind then hitting the wall.
Lose or draw,
a new artistic affair or creative outlet dares you daily to fall.
"Late" is now "Early"
Dawn's illuminating looming, night to be soon consumed.
Insomnia vacuums,
drama typhoons,
crooning tunes....
It'll be June soon.
Feeling marooned waiting for the opportune...well, I'm still waiting,
Whining dog...we just went outside...Fine!
Rain drains backlogged in the AM black...****** dog. Decide! He takes his time.
Three nights of showers,
cowering under this street corner lighted power tower,
unrequited efforts to stay dry.
Moon still high, clouded bright behind the wetness...
Wait, what if I see "her"?
Should I dare bare my soul, take control, or say simply "Hello?" just to know?
Do I want to know "yes" or "no"?
Grandmother always said "The truth is the most powerful force you'll ever face, trace, disgrace or embrace"
I remember my last pursuance of the truth.
You remember college...
The ubiquitous responsibility of apologies for the skewed knowledge sleuth colleges preclude.
A four, no five year matterless smattering reviewing the hows, whys and whos who of Impressionist imbued hues;
the politics of subdued Katmandu coups,
Homer's muses; many a Siren sank the boats I crewed;
news crews that flew the bird flu news coop and recouped,
skewed suing over Golden Arch morning brew,
tragedies, sonnets, and nothing adieus,
spewed formulas and equations notecard ques,
standing in long line registration cues every time we change Major views,
all fueled by a boozing, smokey ballyhoo of Tullamore Dew, hopped brews, tattoos, crude food, music muses and quoted virtues.
What’s even true and what would you do if you knew, ****** logic class…
And alas, you're through! “Here’s your paper, now choose.”
The ****** inequity of iniquity dams me so I can't break free.
Such an abrupt disruption could erupt great corruption,
the self-destruction is tempting, but doesn't pay rent.
Not today, but maybe soon.
June's coming...dryer and higher noon.

R.Craig David- copyright 2008
Redux Edition April 1st, 2013
Inspired by rain, blame shame, the game and a cute girl just 3 doors down that still remains a stranger in my old college town.

So let us now place monetary value on information.
Let us return to the source,
Mining & prospecting that fertile intel seam.
To wit: WWII and G-2 shenanigans.
Wild Bill and OSS-capades,
Artificial disseminations.
Partial recriminations.
And PSYOPS:
A literary nightmare--
THE CYCLOPS from The Odyssey,
For example,
If you lack your own,
Your own personal Bogey Man.
Or men. For me:
Allen Dulles or Richard Helms.

The Intelligence Community:
It was a small tightly knit crew,
Less than battalion strength in 1942;
A few myopic soldiers,
Who, although could barely type,
Were still too cerebral to
Waste as infantry fodder.
It was a huge converted Army-green warehouse,
Space strategically partitioned,
Sectioned off into cubicle-like spaces,
By giant 4-drawer file cabinets
Standing tall like MPs,
Sentinels & Guardians,
Monuments to pre-electronic storage,
Data relatively comprehensive, and an
Archive secretive & intimidating.

Within the Army-green incunabula,
Scattered throughout the intel landscape,
Here and there a few commissioned officers,
A smattering of college psychology majors,
Personalities with predilections,
And penchants for mind games.
These self same WWII vets,
Would morph into Cold War Mad Men.
Stalwart, stouthearted men of Eisenhower,
And J. Walter Thompson,
De-mobbed, as they say in the UK.
Consumptive.
Self-indulgent,
Particularly when it came to the kids;
Children of the peace,
Called Baby-Boomers,
An entire generation enabled & destroyed.
Who would produce little of value
Except medical marijuana and
Coupons, clipped by that sober ruling class—
Fat interest-bearing college-loan portfolios
Held by that neo-Calvinist Elect: The 1%.
Fat cats one and all,
Loaded dice & canasta cronies--
In concert a stacked deck,
“Una mano lava l'altra.”
The words of my namesake--
My grandfather Giuseppe--
His vowels reverberating,
Rattling in my dreams.
Not friends, but
Fiends in high places, like
The Fed and dark liquid pools.
Thank you, Barack, for
Fooling us again.
For giving us
“Belief we can believe in.”

But I digress.
It was when the Government Secrecy Act,
In all its transnational incarnations,
Embraced capitalism in a big way,
Elevating the ideology to whole-Earth saturation,
Systemizing the ethos of Darwin,
Into one global Moby ****,
One solitary leviathan,
A multi-level marketing labyrinth,
Where wealth is the end game--
Greed: pure, unbridled & unrestrained.
Bond--James Bond—
Did his bit, supplying catchy
Slogans & tag-lines:
“For Your Eyes Only.”
“On a need to know basis.”
“Confidential Information.”
“Top & Ultra-Top Secret.”
“Hush, Hush & a Bag of Chips.”

The sealed letter sits in a locked drawer,
In that stout desk,
In the Oval Office
In The White House,
“To be opened by my VP in the event of my death.”
Another staggering work,
Of achy-achy-heart breaking genius,
The culture commoditized,
A disease containing its own cure,
Assayed, graded,
Portioned & packaged.
Priced accordingly,
To a logic that goes something like:
“Anything this tightly controlled,
Anything the government deems to be
This illegitimate and/or & secret
Must be really, really God-awesome,
Must really be Da ******* Bomb.”

Brother Coolidge was right:
“The Business of America is Business.”
And INFORMATION:
“The Most Valuable Commodity on Earth.”
So said Stanford Stuyvesant Whitehead III,
19th Century robber baron, and
Consummate Fat Cat.
Get the picture:
We were smoking cigars and sipping cognac,
Mighty comfortable in leather armchairs,
Muted billiard clicks,
Punctuating the atmosphere
In this spacious lounge,
His East Side
Downtown & private
Manhattan club.
I, his guest, had not the slightest idea
Why I was there.
"By God, man," he went on,
My eyes speared by his laser gaze,
His bushy eyebrows,
His monocle.
His bulbous nose;
His thick wet mustache.
And those EYES:  
Those crazy,
Insane eyes.

"I am talking about a profound change,” he continued.
“Back when the steamship
Gave way to electronic wireless radio."
He puffed smoke,
Removing the cigar from his mouth,
Holding it,
Examining it critically for a moment.
"I'm talking about communication,
Instant communication
With business associates, &
Cronies far away,
Way out there,
Far beyond the places we know well.
Picture it:
You're running a fleet of
Ramshackle Filipino banana boats,
Out of some nameless cove,
Indenting the south coast of Mindanao.
A cyclone comes out of nowhere.
Good God--there’s sixteen banana-packed
Coal burners lying on the bottom of the Celebes Sea.
Think about it:
You've got telegraph radio.
Everyone else has the post office.
Now, I ask you:
‘Who's going long,
Who’s getting rich on the
Caracas Banana Exchange?’
Good Lord, man, it would be
Like being omniscient!"
“This very conversation,” he went on,
“Could well be a verbatim transcription
Of a conversation right here in this very room,
Between people like: J. Pierpont Morgan
And some lesser Gilded Age nabob;
Some Astor, some Rockefeller,
A Gould or Vanderbilt,
Whitney or Duke,
Some Frick or Warburg--
To name just a few, old sport.”
He stopped suddenly.
He looked down at his hands,
As we both realized he had counted these names
Out on his fat curled fingers.
He looked at me and smiled.
I was afraid.
Why had I been invited to this meeting?
I smiled back at him,
Doing my best to mirror his
Carnivorous menace.

I knew it.
He knew it.
He knew I knew it.
Mr. Whitehead’s growling rabid jowls,
His slobbering canine smile held me steady.
“Okay. Touché. ‘Ya got me.”
He shook off the phony smile,
An absence, accentuating
His stare: lethal, carnal & rare.
“I never had much formal schooling.
I’ve been hungry.
Hungry enough to know for sure
That the correct fork,
Don’t mean ***** from shinola.
When I’m dining out, fancy-like,
Me manners is the least of me problems,
Far less important than
The dinner chit they
Hand me after I slake
My thirst & appetite.”
Again, he stopped suddenly,
Recognizing that, perhaps,
He’d revealed too much of his
Bedford-Stuyvesant pedigree.
He turned again and stared at me.
“None of that,” he said.
“None of that means squat to me, Boyo.
What matters now is I’m rich.
I’ve got mine, By God,
And ******* It!
Tough ***** on the rest of you losers;
The rest of you fecking whiners can go
**** yourselves over at Zuccotti Park.”
He pounded the armrest,
The padded armrest of the rich Corinthian leather—
( . . . ***, Ricardo?
Get your Montalbán
Mexicano ***, back in
Random Access Memory Land,
Where you belong.
**** ya’ Fantasy Island
Hospitality, Mr. Roarke,
Go be wrathful Khan Noon Singh,
Somewhere else.
Now is not the time, or,
Let me rephrase that:
This narrative will not allow your meme here . . .)    

Whitehead pounds the armrest again.
“My point is this:  
None of JP Morgan’s decidedly,
un-nattering lesser nabobs of negativity . . .”
BAM!  Again, he pounded the leather . . .

(Back in your ******* hole, Spiro!
Do you realize just how far back,
Just how far back
Maryland’s reputation
Has been set back by your venality?
Not to mention any shot at ethnic assimilation,
The rest of us grease ball non-Wasps
Have in this country?
You ******* Greek!)

I stopped thinking
When I realized Stanford Stuyvesant Whitehead III
Was reading my mind.
“So that’s what it’s really all about,” he said,
Rank smugness in his voice.
“So, I’m just a nouveau riche upstart,
A socially inept parvenu,
Yet they still let me
Join their tony clubs.
It chaps your ***, Boyo, don’t it?
I’m still Scotch-Irish, and
A WASP, Laddie.
Something your skinny
Greaser-Guinea-****-Spaghetti-*** ***,
Ain’t ever gonna be.”
But I digress, again.

So I joined one of Uncle Sam’s
Lesser-known clandestine services,
An assignment appropriate to my ethnic identity,
Namely GLADIO in Italy,
A NATO stay-behind operation &
Cold-War comedy.
I infiltrated the Brigate Rosse.
I drove the Aldo Moro kidnap vehicle.
I cooked minestrone for General Dozier.
I sliced off J. Paul Getty’s ear in Calabria.
Ironically, I lost my hearing during
The Stazione Bologna bombing.
I am consequently pensioned off,
Off both the radar and the payroll.
Years later now,
I live in one of those gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55, sunny southern California
Lunatic asylums.

Most days I am drunk at 9 AM.
I fill Bukowski mornings,
Conjuring up Jane Fonda,
Jazzercised in camo spandex.
She is high atop a Vietcong tank in Hanoi.
Or Daniel Ellsberg
Enjoying a second act in American politics,
Praising Snowden & Assange,
& Bradley Manning,
I summon up the ghosts of
Julius & Ethel,
Benedict Arnold,
Rose of Tokyo & Mata Hari—
And Ezra exiled at Rapallo,
And John Walker Lindh,
A Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Born in Washington,
District of Columbia,
By way of Afghanistan,
Taliban Americano,
Kangaroo-courted,
Presently residing at the
Federal Correctional Institution
At Terre Haute, Indiana.
Spies.
Traitors.
Saboteurs.
And Poets?
No longer capable of keeping secrets.
Desperate now to tell
The truth.

And now a little something for the ladies:

Stop telling men how to be men.
You are never satisfied with the
results of your interference in the
natural order.

Ladies want a man who is sensitive
and attentive to their kaleidoscope
of emotions, who enjoys heart-
warming moments, baby showers,
and shopping malls.  They want
this same man to not be attracted
to men.

Ladies want a man who will do
all of the above, plus be strong
and handsome, a provider, a
nurturer, a protector.  Just as
long as he never gets angry
with her.  And doesn't cheat.

Rapunzel, this man does not exist.

In caveman times, if you had
a man grab your hair, it was
because he was about to club you
unconscious and drag you back
to his real man-cave.

How barbaric...and Freudian ****, eh?

You see, ladies, we don't run the
male N.F.L. locker rooms the
way you run yours.

Men are brutish, vile, roid-raged,
and coarse in competition.
Just the way you like them.

But when you find one that
likes you, you can have a
smattering of those nice things
as well.  Because he likes you.

If you were lucky enough to
find a sensitive devil like
that, i know you wouldn't
do anything stupid to change
his opinion of you.  That
would just be foolish and
self-defeating, wouldn't it?

After all, Women's Lib didn't
teach you to stop being women,
did it?

If you want it all, you have
to take it all, good and
bad.

Just sayin'...

Trump STILL can't stand the thought
That Clinton won the popular vote.
In efforts to cause a major distraction,
He's keeping the voting fraud rumor afloat.

Clinton received two point eight
Million more votes than he--
Votes from voters physically present
Or votes from those voting absentee.

He says that he has evidence
Of widespread fraud. We can surmise
That he has his "alternative facts"--
A handy euphemism for lies.

It's a preposterous, baseless claim,
A mere BELIEF that he maintains,
Another false conspiracy theory,
An insult to people who use their brains.

Voting fraud is an issue
That Trump loves to keep in his sights.
For him it's a very useful excuse
To go after voting rights.

If there was so much voting fraud,
The chances of which are very slim,
Does Trump ever wonder how many
Fraudulent votes went to him?

The more he whines, the more he harps--
He's even driving Republicans mad!--
The more he loses the smattering
Of credibility that he once had.

- by Bob B (1-24-17)

Motherhood

Smothering mothering is what she is best at.

Gathering her smattering of children

and racing to grace them with her persistent worship.

Her life is outlined by her finding

new things to admire regarding her juv’niles.

Living and breathing her maternity;

feeding and cleaning and watching and working.

Defined solely by her motherhood.

To paint the scene of my former life
One must first take a look into a little dusky room filled with shady sunlight,                        
Streaming in through dusty blinds that  never actually shade the eyes.
They produce blinding shafts of light that burn the eyes like blades are hiding within red  fired laser beams.
Imagine a little rocking horse, painted black and gold, with a little red bell dangling off of the red reins attached. Nostrils flaring, ready to be ride out into the sunset, but never actually to be ridden.
Two comfortable twin beds shoved into the corners of the room, leaving indentations upon the slightly greying,
Off white carpet that had once been plush, now smashed into the ground with dirt and grime from children playing.
The comforters on the top of the bed lay strewn and rumpled; covered with dinosaurs and their names,
Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Brontosaurus.
All with goofy pictures in greens and oranges that a child could laugh at when frightened.
On the right side of that room, from when you walk inside, the walls are painted a malicious purple,
Like a swelling bruise had been inflicted upon the wall by some unseen hand that had forced a fist.
A big ugly bruised wall.
Accompanying that bruise on the left half of the wall is a faded blue,
The color of pearls painted over with a smattering of blue paints,
Enveloping the trim of the room is a metallic silver haze that was just beautiful,
Creating illusions of moonbeams and silver roses within it.
The ceiling was glorious as well. It was covered in millions of stars.
Although they were glow in the dark plastic stickers that could be hung anywhere,
I still saw them as fiery gases burning miles away.
Of course, at the time I was well aware of what stars were, as I had a love for them.
I would gaze upon them late into the night, often in awe and wonder at how it would feel to be one.
Would it feel as if I was enlightened and owned the universe,
Or would it be a darkened, frightening place, filled with loneliness?
I had always wondered.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~­~~~~~
There is much screaming. High pitched, it sounds like the whining buzz of an angry bee .
A scream nonetheless. So very loud, it is, and it rings like church bells in my ears.
Ringing, and ringing, and ringing...
The scream sounds so very close to me,
Perhaps this is because the wailing sounds some from my very own mouth.
The screams, crawling and digging their claws up and out of my throat,
Unburying themselves as they seep out in tormenting waves, leaving my throat a red and raw coated mess.
But still, I scream.
My throat resounds the despairing loneliness that had welled up in those short years of my life,
Finally taking their act of freedom, welling up and pouring out like caged birds,
Fleeing from the cage with freedom in their hearts.
Although this was never true, this was never to become freedom,
The fleeing screams do not pierce the veil that shrouds the deaf ears that were meant to hear it,
Turning away in ignoramus bliss.
“You are the banshee wailing,”  
My Mum says with a growling lilt to her voice as she pushed the door to my room closed with a glare,
Her fingers clenching the door, knuckles turning white with frustration.
Tiredness has already beginning to  line her once youthful face with spiderwebs of indecision of what she truly wanted. As I scratched my bleeding nails across the closing door, frantically searching for a place of escape,
My mind races and thus, I began to horde emotions of resentment for my parents.
I constantly wanted to free myself from the jail that my world had always seemed to be revolved around.  
My nails are bloodied and fingers bruised, I give up in defeat from the fear.  
Although it may only be pounding upon and freezing the insides of my veins,
It is exactly what created this insane version of myself. This wild animal who scratches, bites and roars,
The primitive animal comes from deep within the skin wearing it as a costume in the form of  a little three year old girl.
I was locked away for most of the three years I had spent with my cold and unfeeling parents,
Who wanted nothing to do with me, nor ever share their love.
(Or so I thought as a child, whose hopes of freedom were breaking away even before they were molded).
I have retained this in my memory banks for my entire life,
Even after when those around me told me I was too young to remember it.
But how could I possibly remember this in such crystal clear detail,i
If I had been a thoughtless, and blank minded child at the time?
This experience has obtained and earned one of the darkest places in my mind,
It has forced me to keep it inside my entire life.
I call it the dark forest, the place that remains shadowed, blackened and cold.
Most of my horrible memories are part of that forest, creating the trees that form it.
From this forest leaps the monsters that tormented me in my dreams, howling and baring their teeth,
Their shapes surrounding me like a thick and rank fog that was inescapable, their breath rolling down my neck.
The stench making my eyes roll back, turning the world black.
Then suddenly I would wake up, an invisible scream rising in my throat, sweat soaked and shivering with fright.
Even then, I could still see them.  
Their red eyes glowering at me in the darkness of my room that I shared with my sister Dakota.
Sometimes I imagine that I can still see them, and a paradoxical paranoia rushes down my spine,
Forcing every hair to stand on end, and cold fear to paralyze my body, to the point that I am immobile.
Like frightened prey trying to hide and fold the body in on itself,
From an  un-explainable fear that was reared from my childhood.
I was created at the hands of those who love me now, but at first were disgusted at the sight of me.
I was merely an obligation in which they had to feed and bathe on few occasions.
An abomination, something to be frowned upon.
Their indecision and ignorance was what caused one of my largest complications of the brain.
This experience created the driving need that I still carry with me today to be surrounded with people.
I feel as if I cannot survive without them, because my childhood was so filled with loneliness,
That I need to gain back that attention that was taken away from me.
Considering this, of how insane I had been as a child, like a froth mouthed animal, begging for scraps of food,
Only my food was social activity and freedom, in which I was explicitly not allowed to be given often.
My grandparents, if I have remembered correctly, their faces seeming more youthful than my parents,
Pouring experiences  into me like a mug, gracing me with feelings of wonder instead of blind fury,
Overwhelming me with their kindness and compassion.
They were the ones who changed me, took me in and made me feel like I was really alive and was of relation.
They made it seem as if I were still slightly human, not a craze eyed child who acted like a wild animal,
Who was feared and pitied by those who came to see me.
Although it did take time to recover from my horrific experience,
I have learned to gain control of my emotions through meditation, sometimes to the point  of becoming a blank slate.
I was the girl who acted as if I was not of this planet, as if I was off in another universe taking a soul vacation.
Tracing patterns in the constellations, my eyes star struck and filled with wonders that only I knew of.
Being so used to a constant state of harmony, that the world around began to blur,
Taking little notice of any change within it, even if the images crossed and passed within inches of my unseeing gaze.
Viewing the world as it was meant to be seen; with beauty and stained with emotions.
This is a story of a girl with the once crazed eyes who saw the world as a fearful place with no freedom,
Who behaved not unlike a wounded animal caught in a trap,
Whimpering and pleading with her mournful gaze for freedom.  
Only now this girl had been turned into a starry eyed child with wisdom from a past of tragedies.
~This is who I am and this is my story~

fell into a hole of myself--
i know too much

a bag of cheetos in an ill-fitting suit
runs the country - made the mistake

of reading what it had to say
awhile ago

all in the stirring of a feather
my ego, my ignorance

smattering albiet aggressively in an annoying
aggregate, dog-bark bird-squacking

grating my effing ears
these 7am mornings

Underlit by a candle
             Lightbulb reflections

Warming frozen hands
Lips smattering

Intettwining destinies

            Hands wrapped round
            No sound

Bees were swarming around the eastern
shallow end, a warning that the cherries
are deepened and smattering
the pond's bank with nature's jam,
the small tree a joy to the family, but
nobody around much now to keep them
picked and eaten.
The snapping turtles have had their fill
of the cherries and basked lazily in the
center of the deep end, at least two of them
and as I'm a frequent friend, they stationed
amiably as I walked, picked up and threw
grasshoppers to the fish in the water.
The spiders will appear in proportion soon
to the apples growing on three trees
at the edge of the woods, about 40 feet
south of the pond, with a jut of the creek
in between them.
Every year I get my sweet fill of those apples,
planted 50 years ago or so by my great-grandfather,
don't know what they are, maybe Braeburn,
judging by their mottled colors of red and yellow.

How strangely coincidental,
it is, how nothing inspires you
with age,
that a shy, withered leaf parting sedentary waters,
is dewy-eyed dead yet unconsciously graceful;
such profanities of nature,
no longer expands your soul
like a burgeoning bubble which whisks you to write
carelessly-composed poetry over forgotten dinner plates....
it's a tragic symphony of desperate piano keys,
a blurring condition of blacks and whites,
age, and nothing but overused, age, is.
And so on lonely train journeys,
you craft a smattering of shorthand poems,
about how crackled, aged people on trains only have capacities
for whimsical jokes,
and nothing but dear,
dear whimsicality as life's
gilded philosophy,
when their bodies are no longer covered with
magic leaflets of hand-strung poetry,
for they are barren,
and if gods were gods of stanzaic hymns,
they'd open bloodless wombs of literary nymphs,
or so boldly believed,
the aged once-artist say.

I’m finally waking up here is my mind--
A scattering of dreams, confusion.
The desert spread out, in soft clouds
I am awake here is my heart, the horizon
The only thing I can understand, now.
Pain is pain, be gone.
The smattering trail of mesquite smoke
The rising star
The thinning sound of thunder;
The sudden certain mountains
In the early morning rain.

do you know what hurts?
do you know what eats away at you
until you've been completely consumed?
leaving someone.
leaving someone you love.
leaving someone you care for so deeply
that the simple act of walking away seems to rip your heart in two.
leaving someone whose entire existence shaped your life
for one year,
two years,
ten years.
maybe you know that the life attached to him
wasn't the life that was best for you.
maybe that's why you're ending things.
maybe it's not.
it hurts and it tears and it burns,
but the one glimmer of hope to hold onto in the midst of all this pain
is found within a quick smattering of words.
they slip out before he's thought about them.
the saltwater they're mixed with only makes them stronger
and the gasping breaths they float away on only send them quicker to your ears.

                                               'i still want you in my life. i have to have you in my life.
                                                 even it it's just as a friend. you're the only one i've got.'

do you know what hurts?
do you know what re-ignites the pain
that sunk its teeth into you the day you had to say goodbye?
it's the moment he realized you weren't coming back.
the moment he realized you weren't wrong.
the moment he realized that the golden days of
******* you
were really and truly over.
after that enlightenment, friendship didn't matter,
history didn't matter,
you didn't matter.
suddenly, he didn't see any reason for you to be in his life at all.
you were far from best friends.
you cried and you bled and you mustered the courage
to be selfish for once in your life,
to let go for once in your life,
only to realize that you were nothing but a placeholder.
nothing but a body.

that's what hurts the most
and what will never stop hurting.

~

dark early pre-dawn

body suspended between the-dark ochre earth tones of night,
and the teal pealing notes of warning of an impending morning,
signs aborning, me rising with urgency of the leaden half deaden,
torn from the bed casket to venture into a different kind of twi-lights,
nature demanding both intake and outtake, a restoration of balance

but first a bumbling wobbling, the body as carnival bumper car,
installing soon-to-be-bruising for later examination-exhumation,
lurching from handhold crevices in the walls like crazy cliff climbers,
my balance disturbed, eyes try  tearing apart the sticky glue of night,
my sense of direction keeping me from free falling into green glass
edges of glass tables, barely, and not always, red cuts evidentiary

“my balance disturbed” words fresh formed, and a poem expulsion
required to balance the unjust scales of spirit soul and the body cage,
patch an negotiated agreement between warring cousins, just a
twenty four hour ceasefire to retrieve the wounded and the
corpses unfounded in the small copses of false shelter,
like my ancestors expelled from Spain, making escape to be
strangers in strange lands, or remain hidden in place neath disguises
of clothes of new poems, prayers for old and new gods

this new poem comes quick like a young man making first love,
for the poem has been written by thousands nights of practicing,
so ready for quick retrieving in a smattering of a few minutes,
expulsion expulsion
what a perfect verbiage to capture the night terrors, the differentials,
the procession path between what was and what will be,
when my balance restored and this poem’s completion installation
in the body of my work, as a nail disguised in the works of my body,
entering by command of the pitch black gods

She drowned
her past
in a cocktail
of pitch-black
venom with a
smattering
of lethal.”
|| shoo.shu ||

Your bedroom is a carefully preserved time capsule,
a tribute to a fondly remembered time long past.
Though I have visited this small square room less than
feels right since our once tight-knit group dissolved, it is
kept as pristine as a display about a foregone era in a dark
and cluttered museum.  The walls still stand wearily in that
same stubborn shade between periwinkle and robin's egg,
the only difference is one unfamiliar poster-the rest have
hung steadfast in the same positions since you moved into this
bedroom from the one next door many years prior.  In the
corner across from your bed, rests the desk you have
used to hold some of your most valued items for as long as
we have traversed the undulating cycle between friendship
and acquaintanceship, including the now-empty terrarium that
bravely contained a wooly tarantula.  Your closet, still noticeably
bare, informs me, through a smattering of neon yellow t-shirts,
that you are still employed for the same landscaper. As we pass a
meticulously re-rolled cigar between us, two old and distant
friends, my vision drifts towards the dresser under the plain
windows, which overlook your claustrophobic backyard.  It is,
surely, an Ikea affair, for though it has the coloring of mahogany,
the wood has the unmistakable sheen of faux; but what compels me
to gaze at this dresser is not its questionable quality but the years
of graffiti scrawled across its drawers and walls in the sort of thick
black marker that might give one lightheadedness if uncapped for
too long.  I realize, suddenly, that this dresser is our monolith.

I express to you my incredulity that you have kept this dresser,
of all things, for so long, as a wry grin splits my mouth in halves.
Too many memories, you say, a melancholy tone suddenly echoing
through the small bedroom.  My grin fades, and I look closely,
recalling in a bright flash a multitude of intoxicant-fueled evenings-
you were always in that black pleather computer chair, while
always I sat on the bed, squished between or beside the
on-again-off-again couple.  The exact words inscribed upon this
Ikea monolith, I realize, are no longer of importance, for they
are largely insensitive, pejorative, and crude.  These words are
the spirit of a fading adolescence wasted in suburban bedrooms
and backyards, or in city basements and roofs, spawned by
countless cases of the cheapest beers available, by handles of
off-brand *****, by bags of substances in every shape and
size imaginable.  I am staring at a proclamation of a girl's
promiscuity on this very monolith when you exclaim that you
would give anything to have a time machine, to go back to those
days, that they were the happiest days of your life.  Though
outwardly I smile and offer a noncommittal expression of
sentimentality, inwardly I frown, struck by a wave of pity.  

Halfway between twenty and thirty, I am no longer the shy,
hasty, or withdrawn teenager who spent hours cooped up in
a stagnant bedroom, ****** and bored. I can suddenly perceive
exactly how little you, my old friend, have changed, and I am
ashamed of my inability to say so.  But that couple imploded
years ago in a neon display, temporarily destroying all that
surrounded them; all of the satellites that orbited our group
have moved out of our gravitational field, some going off
to college, some getting good jobs, some moving to big
cities, some starting bands.  Graduations or birthdays
might bring us together for a few hours of drunken
reminiscence, we all know, somewhere, that we have
grown apart, while you hide in this bedroom,
a lonely hermit.

This room is not a time capsule;
it is a tomb, and the Ikea monolith might as well be your
headstone.

Hand keys
To my heart
What a start
To another fatal
Chapter
After
The utter shatter
And the picking up again
Love’s abusive
Friend
Sadist archer
With fiery arrows
And a gate I can’t defend
Keys missing
This may be my
End
Before I’m even beginning
Key tucked safely
In your hands
And my stupid mind
Thinks I’m winning
Final inning
And I’m coming
Up
Short
No retort
Here I am again
The ubb
And dubb
Of a key
Made of me
I’m in love
I’m lacking
I pierce
Shattering
Smattering together
The same chorus
Forever
In offering of lovers
Like livers
That keep growing
Back
Back to the rock
And in offering
I lack
Maybe it’s me
But in order
To be free
I must offer my key

Heartbreaking and entering

the French palate doth enjoy a little horse
a batch of it hath been recognized
their meat products ill categorized
consuming countries seeking some recourse
a mix up at the meat supplier's end
hath drawn many persons to keenly question
the thoroughness of factory inspection
bovine and equine meats differ in blend
the affair hath been verily upsetting
those who didn't follow with consistency
now have a smattering of egg on face
the episode is most embarrassing
food items should guarantee authenticity
once they're on the market they cause disgrace

Staring at the night sky.
Back to the asphalt,
waiting.
The stars are dimmed by a thin cloud smattering
hanging above relentlessly,
the result of a windless evening.
Only here on a lampless island
could you see through to the stars.
The water laps rhythmically against the dockside.
Consistent.
Reassuring.
It seems I’ve been out here forever
awaiting my shooting star.
Irritating clouds matched with crisp night air,
make the search troublesome.
It’d be irrational to wait much longer.
Reconsidering.
Then she tears across the midnight sky.
Brilliant and promising.
Perhaps the brightest one yet.
I’ve never been a man for wishes,
but I have an urge to make one right now.

We arrive at the place
Water running off our faces;
Looking like disgraces
Glibly explaining
That it is still raining.

Just a smattering patter.
Not that it matters.
We'll just sit and chatter
Like social Mad Hatters
At a move-down afternoon tea.

We're all hooked on surreality.
The ladies-who-lunch bunch;
Character assassination over brunch.
Some gossip while we munch
Embroidering on a hunch.

Anything to stay in out of the rain.
After all, it's not our personal pain.
It's some other sucker's sorry.
We will forget it by tomorrow.
For today, while we quickly forget
We just sit and watch the streets get wet.

Sometimes it rains a bit
And you aren’t prepared
But it can be rather pretty
So, don’t be so scared.
It cools the temperature
From the clouds above,
Makes a walk the kind
The kind you grow to love.

You won’t need an umbrella;
So what if it’s a smattering?
Nothing wrong with that,
A bit of misty spattering?
Just a bit of a shower
Nothing bad in that.
Be a very happy person,
Under the brim of a hat

A bit of a puddle at times
Depending on your shoes.
It is not a big tragedy
No reason for the blues.
It’s just you and nature
Enjoying the day together.
Mother Nature and child
Spending time with each other.

So go ahead and wander
Out in the misting rain.
Take a cleansing saunter
Let weather clear the brain.
Celebrate just being here
A world gone squeaky clean
Like a painting by Monet
In an artist’s magazine.

To the Poets of Hello, Hello!

We write, we share.
We hope there’s someone there
To read
Perhaps need
Poetry,
Precisely as we
Say it,
Hoping that they see it
As we do.
(They seldom do, but
It’s the memo
Of the heart,
Our smattering of art
That matters.)

Hello, Hello,
My fellow poets.
Ego-less
I come to you,
Admiring, commenting,
Caring for the things you dare to share.

Over simplified, naïve maybe,
Never diva we,
The weavers of profundity.
Hello, Hello to poets and to poetry,
Its crystal-gifted company
And you who take in what you see
Here.

To The Poets Of Hello, Hello! 7.4.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Hello Poetry; a site encouraging one and all to submit & share their oeuvre.

Beams shoot, pierce, being.
Cross light, torch, hydrogen star seams.
The universe fabric'd slightly, by photon lattices,
Making salad, for ingestion purposes, of lettuces
Energy. Chlorophyll. Gathering.
Spectral blue/red (465 nm/665 nm) Smattering.
Frankenstein piece of art worn leather.
Earth is stitched lava, magma sewn together.

Forming the lawn face of all reality.

Reality is suburbia to the string.

If I hedge thus a drooling wager and cash in
on my thrice-foiled cravings for her overdue bites
(plus a guilt-free laugh at his expense), I can
use minced steps to sidle around too-lively
trunks, and avoid the need to heed thugs
barking mad from within their crevice-laid traps.

How those bug-eyed brutes'll clamor and claw at me
to discard this protective wrap, clued in by my rep
of never bending willfully to anybody
but her. "Come on, shed! Get, uh, new set of scales,
for you we will — promise!" is how she'd stammer,
roughly translating their not-so-twee chatter,

if she were there. Rather, in that lavishly apt way
she has, she'll be away picking suitable pelts
to adorn her newly uncovered, quite public shame
while fending off an advancing clod, who won't go
easily, but who does go on ad nauseam with
a penchant for naming every God-**** thing

that haps vitally across his cocky path. Beyond
a simple relish of mischief, I'm doing this (mostly)
for her benefit. How could a persimmon
be forbidden, as if he had permission to make
such bargains? He's dismissed it as an ungainly fruit,
and mocked its likelihood to "lava thy lips"

with an orange pulp, but in that chance smattering lies
the matter to inflame my soul. I'll feed her
the pudding-fresh flesh, and strip it down
to its delectably small seeds. In their splitting
I'll glean the silvery utensils to spill
a man's wholly worthless future. Let's tuck in.

Bes



It's high midnight and I'm up to my old tricks again.
Bes came by my apartment last night, ostensibly to see why I've stopped answering everyone's calls but harboring more ulterior motives than a presidential charity event. I let her in, mumbling some vague, ******* excuse about how I'd simply been busy. She stood in my living room, her hands demurely folded in front of her as her eyes swept the scene, a quick appraising glance that took in the leaning towers of paper and rows of empty bottles, the rings under my eyes and the cheeks grizzled with god knows how many days of growth, and when at last they met mine they seemed to ask what exactly it was that I had been busy doing. Her lips said no such thing though, held in check either by innate tact or single-minded purpose. Instead she smiled, that old, slanting smile that was more a twitching of her cheeks than an actual moving of her lips, and asked if I liked her dress. It was the first time that I'd seen her dressed in anything but jeans, and the change was as unexpected as it was becoming. The dress was short, black, simple and elegant in its simplicity. In the expected places it clung to her curves and invited you to do the same, but elsewhere it hung in loose folds, folds so deep that she seemed almost lost in them, and when you did catch a glimpse of her body -the delicate line of her collarbone, the thin ridge of a rib- the force of the contrast struck home with calculated, bewildering power. She looked incredibly fragile yet fraught with danger, like broken glass swaddled in a black flag. I gave her an exaggerated once-over, then said, "Do you really need me to answer that?" She laughed, her voice high and breathy, and dropped me a theatrical curtsy. "What's the occasion?" Her eyes narrowed, and the ghost of a smile twitched its way back onto her face.
"We're going out tonight."
"We are? And why are we doing that?"
"It's ladies' night at Stoa, and that means free drinks."
"Free drinks for you, kiddo. I doubt that I could pass as a lady, even in that ****-hole."
"For me, yes. But if I were to get those free drinks and then decide that I didn't want them, well, what would happen to them? It would be wrong just to waste them, after all. I suppose I should have to give them away, perhaps to a good friend?"
"If you should change your mind." I said flatly.
"Of course. Woman's prerogative, you know."
"Are you trying to bribe me with free liquor?"
"Well, if that isn't enough I could always throw in a 'please'. Limited time offer, though, non-negotiable and nontransferable."
"Unlike the drinks, you mean."
"Rules are like bodies; they aren't meant to be be broken, but sometimes it's fun to see just how far you can stretch them."
"Far be it from me to tell a pretty girl no when she says please."
"Pleeaazzee?" She batted her eyelashes at me, lower lip stuck out in a burlesque pout.
"Okay."
"Put on a fresh shirt and grab your coat, I'll get a cab."
"Yes'm," I said, snapping off a quick salute before about-facing toward my bedroom. She laughed again as she left, the soft chuckles punctuated by the click of her heels on the concrete steps outside. I dressed quickly, taking roughly three minutes to apply fresh deodorant, sniff-test and shrug my way into a shirt with marginally less wrinkles than your average nursing home and grab my keys. I walked out the front door to find Bes ready and waiting for me, having snared a cab with the same brisk efficiency with which she had beguiled me into escorting her. She stood at the curb, toe of one black pump tapping impatiently as the taxi idled next to her, engine panting like some exotic animal brought to heel. The ride there was silent. The cabbie was one of those garrulous specimens of his trade who seem always to have something to offer his customers in addition to the transportation for which they had paid; some tidbit of folksy wisdom, or a sage prediction of the weather, no doubt buttressed with countless examples from the days of yore. He brought out several of these chestnuts for us, but after a few failed gambits even he lapsed into what for him must have passed for a taciturn state, contenting himself with humming along to the radio, albeit loudly. He had sloughed tunelessly through several songs and a commercial break by the time we arrived, and had begun to sing under his breath, apparently unaware that he was doing so. This unwitting serenade had been steadily growing in volume, and he was working himself into a rather heartfelt rendition of Black Velvet as we disembarked.
It was just past eleven, relatively early for a nightclub, but the line was already stretched ten yards from the door. It wound around the side of the building, surprising me in spite of myself. I really hadn't been out in a while, and had forgotten all about waiting outside, that desultory purgatorial period where people shifted restlessly from foot to foot and chain-smoked, anxious for admittance, though in all likelihood less concerned with being able to dance or mingle (which they could have probably done just as well out here) than they were with losing the buzz they had brought with them. Some of the people had clustered into loose groups and those who had looked more sanguine, almost serene, and no doubt there were a few water bottles filled with ***** stashed in their purses and jacket pockets. I started toward the corner, intending to join the rest of the sad-sacks at the back of the line, but Bes grabbed my arm, giving me a slight shake of her head. She walked directly toward the entrance, deftly sidestepping the little pockets of people and putting on a smile of almost predatory brilliance. She sauntered up to the bouncer posted at the door, one of any number of interchangeable drones whose charge is to prevent just such flouting of protocol as she undoubtedly had in mind. She said something to him and he shook his head. She spoke again, raising up on tip-toe and looking directly into his eyes, and when she spread her hands in a comely now-do-you-see gesture he looked around furtively then nodded. She waved a hand at me and he nodded again, though more apprehensively than at first, and the hand pointed in my direction now wiggled its fingers in a come-hither gesture. I walked up and looked a question at her but she merely shook her head again, though this one was accompanied by a slight smile that said nothing and hinted at everything. She took my hand, dragging me forward like a she-wolf dragging a rabbit into her den, and as we passed into the club she favored the sentry with another smile, so warm that I could have sworn I saw him blush.
The interior was dark, cavernous and redolent of a thousand mingled perfumes, a heady, dizzying blend spiced here and there with the dank odor of marijuana. As soon as we were past the bouncer, Bes stopped and pivoted on her toes like a ballerina, spinning so quickly that I almost stumbled into her. She said something to me then, but despite the sudden and shocking proximity of her body to my own her voice was lost in the car crash of voices from the dance floorahead. I cupped a hand to my ear in the commonly understood signal for deafness, and she responded by cocking her head at a questioning angle and forming an elongated y with her thumb and pinky finger, tilting them toward her lips in the universal gesture for drinks. I nodded my assent and she took my hand again, pressing it gently as she threaded her way through the tumult of writhing flesh on the dance floor. We found seats in the corner of the bar, the one place where you could actually sit with your back to the wall instead of the rest of the club, a place that I privately thought of as Paranoiac's Cove. I dug out my pack of Lucky's and set to work on trying to find my lighter as she flitted away, returning moments later with a pair of highball glasses, each filled to the brim with a curiously green concoction that was so bright that it seemed almost as though the glass was filled with liquid neon. She handed me one, her fingers momentarily brushing mine as I accepted it, visions of the cauldron from Macbeth flashing briefly through my mind. That smile twisted its way onto her face again as she offered a silent toast, raising her glass toward me with an oddly solemn gesture. I raised mine in return, noticing the way her eyes sparkled in the shadows, green and impossibly bright, almost lambent, bright like the drink though her eyes were a deeper, truer green, closer to jade than to the grassy color we held in our hands. We touched their rims together, the clink almost inaudible in the howling bedlam of the club. She threw her drink back at a single draught, surprising me into a laugh and I followed suit, barely tasting the liquor as it ran down my throat. What I did taste was a rather poor attempt at artificial apple, cloying and somehow thick, like melted jolly ranchers. It was saccharine sweet yet bitter, a harsh undertone that matched the crisp tang of a real granny smith about as well as the sweetness did, which is to say not at all. Not that this bothered me; alcohol and bitterness have always gone well together for me.
She leaned over to me, fingertips resting lightly on my shoulder, breath tickling confidentially in my ear as she asked, "Dance with me?"
I demurred, not bothering to waste words but simply waiting until she pulled back to look at me and then shaking my head. She didn't lean in again, catching my eyes instead and mouthing the word with an exaggerated care that was almost comical. "Okay." She hesitated momentarily before adding, "Maybe later." She didn't wait for a response, instead sliding off her stool with easy, doe-like grace and disappeared into the throng. I stayed at the bar for some time, an hour perhaps, drinking steadily and watching the growing chagrin of the woman behind it as she realized that I had not intention of tipping her no matter how drunk I got. Bes reappeared periodically, staying long enough to grab each of us a free shot and steal one of my cigarettes before vanishing again. I whiled away the time by counting the necklaces that came bobbing and heaving up to the bar. The vast majority were crucifixes, their forms and sizes as varied as those of their bearers, but there was a smattering of other ikons as well; Celtic knots and stars of david, pentacles and hammers, and once, nestled incongruously in the ample and expertly showcased cleavage of its wearer, a crescent moon and star. The owner of that particular pendant also happened to clutch a drink in one hand, and while it may have been a shirly temple or club soda, the glassy eyes above it and the boneless, disjointed movements that arm described in the air spoke to a more potent brew. I wondered what they meant to the people who wear them, those chains of devotion donned voluntarily. A symbol of their faith, they would probably say, though it's a faith betrayed by virtually every action that they take, and if there's one thing that I've learned about people it's that their vows and promises may be lies, but their betrayals never are. Even a virtuous act, an act of unequivocal good in the face of overwhelming temptation, even that can be a lie. It is concealment, a denial of the temptation, of its reality, of the fact that the desire for what tempts us exists. But in betrayal, in succumbing to temptation, people reveal themselves, for they are true to their desire and desire is the most accurate mirror, the truest reflection of who we are. Most people wear masks to cloud that mirror, false faces that sometimes fool everyone and sometimes fool no-one. But truth always asserts itself and so most people betray; others, causes, even themselves. But even the betrayal of self is also an act of honesty, the final acknowledgement of who we really are.
There was a time, of course, when these signs and symbols of faith were a business of deadly seriousness, when their betrayal would have begotten swift and sure punishment, when the mere display of one's allegiance was both a pledge and a challenge, but no longer. Now they are carried as casually as their wearers carry the name of some obscure fashion designer on their underwear, and given the reverent attention paid to the latter and their blasé hypocrisy regarding the former, one has to wonder which is really more important to them. Yet the symbols persist even when the meaning has been forgotten, and the majority still carry signs of fealty formed from counterfeit gold and beaten nickel, sigils that flash quicksilver in the strobing lights, leading the way like the wooden maidens which adorn the prows of ships. I used to have one of them, you know, a rough loop of rawhide the carried three little trinkets, a bunny a book and a small golden heart. It's gone now, of course, and fittingly so, the heart having fallen after the bunny down the rabbit-hole, and the book remaining unwritten, though I suppose if your reading this, that if these disjointed ramblings ever manage to make it onto the printed page, refugees finally transplanted from the wilted notebooks or the cocktail napkins that I even now sit scribbling madly on, it has been written after all and you're reading it. You poor *******.
I realized my thoughts were drifting, meandering on their own down paths that I have expressly forbidden them to tread, rambling like unsupervised children in an amusement park at sundown. I gathered them up, scolding them, trying to exert some authority in my own mind, telling myself to just take a deep breath and shake it off. I can't though, and for once it's not because I can't quiet the thoughts but because I can't seem to take a breath that is deep enough. I realized that I was panting, well nigh hyperventilating, my breath coming in quick, shallow gasps that seem to crystallize in my longs like spun glass. I take stock of myself, trying to assure myself that I'm not going to have a heart attack or a ******* stroke, noting with some alarm that my hands are shaking and my vision has narrowed into a twisting, undulating tunnel. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, the darkness behind my eyelids streaked with purple and red, and gradually I became aware that those explosions of color are rhythmic, recurrent. They happened not with the pounding of my heart, as I would have expected, but in time with the music, sunbursts of color appearing each time the bass kicked. The panic diminished, replaced by curiosity, and I realized that without the shrill yammering of panic in my ear and the terror of impending death in my mind, the combined sensations are not only pleasant, but oddly familiar. It's then that I realized what happened, belatedly doing the mental arithmetic and realizing that unexpected invitation, the free drinks and the first's oddly bitter taste, the secretive smile with which it was delivered, that it all added up to a single thing. She drugged me, of course, spiked my drink with something and I didn't even notice, naive as a sorority pledge at a keg party, and oh **** was I high. I stayed at the bar, knowing from hard experience that there was no sense in fighting it, and so giving in to it. If you can't put out the fire you might as well feed it, feed it all that you can, because the sooner the fuel runs out the sooner the fire dies. So I stayed there, focusing on my breathing and letting my thoughts spiral out, catching the waves in my head as they rose and fell, finally learning to float on their crests, in some semblance of control. Calmer now, I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one, the process taking an eternity, empires rising and falling in the time between the moment when the spark caught and the flame exploded into life and the one when it reached my lucky. I breathed out a plume of smoke, a pillar of cloud that also seemed to go on forever, and as it cleared there was Bes, materializing out of the smoke like a Cheshire cat.
"Ready to dance?"
I looked at her, unable to speak for a moment, not the drug this time but something entirely, a thing that came surging up from some unsounded depth within me and caught in my throat, because when I looked in her eyes, wide and wet with excitement, her pupils telescoped into pinpricks that told me she was in the grip of the same I saw myself. Because she was looking at me the way I looked

the black night is stiflingly humid, eliciting
a glistening sheen of beaded sweat on the
tanned faces of any being who dares to
enter the boiling summer evening.
a thick smattering of clouds create a
downy blanket, the foreground to
hundreds of intermittent stars and
the round, glowing face of the full moon.
i seat myself on the stair closest to the ground,
and as it is passed around between us four,
i light one long, chemical cigarette and place
it carefully between my lips, cracked
by the harsh rays of the summer sun.
jagged, angular faces grin and laugh
at us, formed by the gaps and holes in
the beautiful, intricate cloud cover.

suddenly, a summer breeze softer than
than the winged seeds of a dandelion
caresses frizzy hairs and cools the dew
drops upon our moist foreheads.
a split-second shift in the clouds creates
the most resplendent sight my eyeballs have
ever encountered in their twenty-one years.
like an imposing rock formation, or the
billows of smoke from a great forest fire,
the fluffed gray structures have aligned
themselves with the radiant orb in the sky,
and her face casts beams of light through
them, projecting long, fragile arms of
brilliance through the dull backyard.

with our four faces stretched upward as
far as our craning necks will allow, we
absorb the sublime, pure moonlight.
i lock this picture in my mind, certain
that this moment, trapped in infinity like
a mosquito trapped in amber, could be
the refreshing breeze or the hurried gulp
of ice-cold oxygen imperative to survival.
as she shines her vibrant headlight through
the cloudy fog, i breathe slowly and allow my
cigarette to extinguish itself, and i think that
this must be how it feels to really, truly be alive.

Countdown to Armageddon precariously hinges
   potential apocalypse outcome, mere smattering days away
if the brazen, fierce-some dragon doth don
   trumps presidential throne -
   ships with whistling  Dixie missiles at bay
will be synchronized with aerial bombardiers
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   to parlay a view to unleash nuclear weapons on cue
destroying a vast swath of flora and fauna,
   and most life forms (inn oh cent), but pay hefty due
to assuage the aggressively cruel, enjoyably
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   growling at his goalie indubitably
   kick *** mindset worse than dengue fever will ensue
a combustible domino effect fueling global horror -
   analogous to kindling tinder logs smoke
   the color - jetblue streaming up fireplace flue
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
witnessing sovereign magnum opus trans
   forming much of animal and plant life into flakes of goo
far scarier than any macabre production
   dreamt up by human frightful scenario and no hero
she ma to rescue self or other from deadly debacle,
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   nor any safe haven such as a cool igloo
forsooth complete annihilation will far surpass
   any prior world war, no one will be spared,
   neither gentile nor Jew
which total mortal kombat, and attendant laying waste
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   organisms livingsocial instantaneously cremated,
   where ashes spread dispersed faster than Kudzu
rendering world wide web fetid, offal, and putrid
   far more noxious than the common loo
yet even this general description falls short to where mew
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
tinny sans hardy species (according to Google search);
   such as tardigrade, mummichog, and cockroach
decimating, heaving, leveling, poisoning
   every cubic inch of Earth evincing voluminous vaporization
   extant eradication emphatically nixed, punctuated, and radiated
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
   pulverization eviscerating the bowels of mankind,
   where nary a survivor could weather and withstand
   hollowed out no mans land bereft of sustenance or water
   where seeds of white lily when coalescence
   of oblate spheroid birthed, nursed, and weaned new
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
life especially proto **** sapiens
   and subsequent kin grunting with ah and oew
fast tracked primates, yet inherent within genetic coda
   (perhaps poison ingredient bubbled
  within primordial soup) - steeped quantum mechanical pew
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
tar nation housing crucible-
   analogous to planetary size mortar and pestle) queue
sans predestination, where rue
brick, dogma, and fealty honoring justice slew
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
by paws of one cancerous, fractious and idolatrous Lothario,
   who opened Pandora Box (rigged shut tight) thorough
lee rendered civilization a footnote
   of cosmological history and universal view
-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   -    -
BUT.... eligible voters can choose alternate
   (Democratic) candidate -
   the majority will exhale a collective gustatory whew
and allow, enable and provide continuance of the human zoo!

His matriarch set off in the brilliant burn
Pre-monsoon summer skies as she flies
Home to Big Blue and strawberry fields, rolling sand dunes
Studded with peaches and cream stalks full corn ears
Past the gunmetal  hulls - Motor City madness
Send that cheap crap back to China
Import ratchet dreams that obsolesce faster than a preteen’s
Boy band crush
We left our polite goodbyes on padded benches in the Sunport
Trekked the cement labyrinthine path back to the car
Sprawled myself out in the backseat
Marinating in my bipolar haze of relief and regret
Two weeks of my soft under parts presented  
Respect for the Alpha who never hacked up a rabbit
At the mere sound of my keening cries
Sate the pack tomorrow I’m off the forest floor
In all my ears back, feral, foaming at the fangs glory
Salient thought abandoned on the crest of a stressed induced migraine
And the whelps yipping for pricey coffee with caramel drizzles

She broke my bleary eyed unfocused reverie
Wrangling two carts corralled by bits of ragged twine in the parking lot
As she ferreted through her peculiar tinsel adorned collection
Scraggly plastic wreaths, sad ghosts of Christmas past
And her grizzled locks wound round a red velveteen door decoration
Muted hues against her transient mantle
I caught myself looking away…
A triad of flies buzzed her presence
The dull thrum of something important forgotten
She shuffled to a center table
Arranging dusky floral skirts and kohl layered clothing
With hands caked with cracked black grit
Fingers studded with grimey chunk costume jewelry
Dug at the lid on a generic bulk bowl of noodle soup
While baristas and capri clad patrons skirted her table
As though they were restless waves
Fleeing before the power of God across the Red sea
And me ******* spun fat from the top of an overpriced iced concoction
Without pittance in my pocket
Caught myself staring…
Waiting….
For someone else to do the Christian thing

Is that how a Freak rolls?
Tongue lolling for the opportunity
When crazy plants itself
In the high backed chair in front of you
And pops open a styro container of “stroke in a cup”
Do you flash that cash wrapped round a tract
Put a hand on her weary back and pray
Do you simply look away
Caught up in awkward indecision
Uncomfortable in your urban bubble
This is latte day at Starbee’s for God’s sake
And she never put a hand out for help
Or spoke a single word
As if a bag of Oprah’s cut leaf tea would
Change her world.
Or yours.
Pride goeth before Christmas wreaths, and shopping carts
And *** metal costume jewels

Under the cool blur of my ceiling fan I glance skyward for answers
Offer a smattering of plaintive prayers
For matriarchs
And mavens with dull velveteen bows in their hair
For my children
For release from the pain at the back of my brain
And the constricting grip of entitlement torqueing my brittle heart
God breathes in moments missed
When we simply look away…
TL Boehm
08/21/2014