smugness covers only skin
but it can't cover what's within
when there's nothing left to win
why would we want to live again?

smugness smothers other men
the stuff we cover with a grin
we are the same without within
but we would rather play pretend

"Over here"...
but nothing.
The scene continues
unabated by my presence.
Plastic smiles and lustful eyes
bountiful but not for me..never me.
In the mirror' s unforgiving gaze
I am unrecognizable
Replaced with a crude rendering
of my previous likeness
fashioned by children
with lumpy imperfect clay.
Silence replaces loving laughter
that used to follow my witty banter.
Silence and stares.  Sympathetic stares
tinged with smugness and fear.
"Over here...over here..."
still nothing.

I guess it was when I found the eviction notice on the front door, or when I was going on three months being unemployed, or maybe even the point where I questioned myself as a writer, is when I sat down and started writing out facts. I was a writer in love with fiction, and besides my non-fiction work that allowed me enough money to eat (mostly to drink, unless there were food specials at the bar) I was writing short stories. I never thought about writing about my life, because in my mind I was still young. I was wet behind the ears; a little **** that thought he knew everything. I know nothing.

Dr. Seidman asked me if I wanted to play a board game.
I didn’t respond, in fact I looked as if I was ignoring him purposefully, but I wasn’t. He sat patiently and waited for me to respond. The truth was that I was apprehensive. This was the first time I had been in front of a therapist, and I didn’t know what to say, let alone how to act. I found it odd that the first thing he asked me was if I wanted to play a game. I was ****** as well. Before I got in the car with my mother I sat upstairs in my bedroom, took out my “inhaler” and packed the bowl. (During this time in my adolescence I was fascinated with marijuana and also with the devices used to smoke it with. I didn’t like rolling joints, and blunts had not caught on at that time. Instead, I would make my own bowls. My inhaler became one of my favorites; it was easy to conceal). I got ******, headed downstairs, grabbed a water, lit a cigarette (my parents were adjusting to the fact their fourteen year old was a smoker), waited outside of my mom’s station wagon, finished my cigarette, flicked it at the end of the driveway, and got in the car. The car ride to Dr Seidman’s office was unbearable. Neither of us spoke, the radio was turned down to a low volume, playing music form the 70’s and 80’s; Elton John’s Someone Saved My Life Tonight was playing. It was ironic to say the least. By the time the song ended we were in the general vicinity of his office. My mother was gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles becoming white, her face becoming red. It was at this point that I realized she was just as nervous as I was.

“**** her,” I thought. She was the reason I was going to see this man. I didn’t ask to come here and she had the audacity to be nervous. She was being selfish. We could have turned the station wagon around and went back home. We could have taken care of any of our problems at home. We didn’t need to consult a “professional” and talk about our “feelings.” This was the point that I felt my life had become the stereotypical suburban life: a life that you would see on television shows; one that consisted of doctors, prescription drugs, confused youth, mid-life crisis, and of course the nervous breakdowns.

We are in front of the doctor’s office. The area surrounding us looks like an industrial park. I don’t know what to think of this, but I in any sense an exterior cannot speak for an interior.

My mother and I are still in the station wagon, seat belts still buckled, the radio still down low, when she turns to me. She looks at me, only the way a mother can, and smiles. I can only bring myself to return her smile with a smirk. I have always been known for my apathetic smirk. I’m waiting for her to speak. I know she is trying to think of the right words, but like me, we have a habit of saying the wrong thing. Our words are always misplaced even though we might have the best intentions.

“Don’t ******* him,” she said

“Okay,” I said in return.

There must be a catalogue book that caters to therapists.

Dr. Seidman’s office looked very generic, like I had fallen into a bad movie, or like the only furniture allowed in the office had to be leather. That is the one smell I will always remember from his office. Even now when I smell leather I think of his office.

On his desk was a calendar, assorted writing utensils (although he had a name placard with a golden pen inserted in the center), and a desk lamp with the customary green glass shade. The wall to the right of him, and next to the office door, was lined with assorted books; filling up the bookcases that took up the full space of the wall. I was sitting on a leather couch that faced the office door. He was sitting in his leather armchair in front of his desk. He looked at me; I looked at the elaborate stitch work of the carpet. The office was calmly lit and relaxing, even though I still looked tense. I didn’t want him to look me in the eye. They were dry and red and I was high.

“Would you like to play a game?” He asked me.

I continued to stare at the carpet. He kept silent while waiting for my answer. I was thankful for that.

When I was tired of the carpet I glanced up and over to where he was sitting to find him looking at a marble chess set. I was expecting his eyes to be on me. They weren’t.

“What kind of game?”

“What do you like? I have board games, we can play cards, or checkers, or chess. Why don’t you tell me what game you’re good at? I’ve played them all countless times, but I’m always looking for a good challenge.” He said with a subtle level of smugness. He was trying to entice me, to challenge me, and it was working.

I spotted the checker board. “Checkers. I’m good at checkers.”

“Then checkers it is,” he said brightly. He stood and grabbed the antique looking checker board and grabbed a table to put in between us. He placed the board on the table and moved his seat closer. We were now face to face and ready to start our first of many strategic games.

Our first meeting was spent in front of a checker board in silence. Very seldom did we exchange words. After three games of checkers (which he won), we shook hands and he told me our session was over for the night. He walked me to his office door, said hello to my mother with a formal introduction, and told us both that he was looking forward to seeing us both the next week. My mother asked me to wait in the car while she asked the doctor a question. I didn’t argue. I walked to her car and unlocked it. I sat and for once in a long time felt at ease.

I went into Dr. Seidman’s office with a pre-conceived notion of talking, or not talking, about my feelings and what caused them. Instead we played checkers. We watched each other’s moves on the checker board. He had a way of making a vulnerable situation bearable. He put my anxiety at ease. But while I sat alone in my mother’s station wagon I couldn’t stop thinking of one thing he said before I walked outside. He said he was looking forward to seeing both of us the next week. I was curious by what he meant when he said “both of us.”

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 what is the only variant of classical
music, heard on a radio?

    well... there's the fama radio night
sessions - with not adverts
   radiofama.com.pl -

it might be your take on what the french
tell the english, i.e.: euro-trash...

but no adverts...

                          and there is no reason
to concede to reviving punk,
hippy music didn't see a revival,
why should punk?

   a variant of classical music radio,
akin to bbc 2, or classic fm...

       that "oddity" of a morphed bbc 4
internet coverage, akin to lionel nation...
and what i mean by that,
is not h. d. thompson's gonzo...

          the allure of the, un-scripted...
and all of this is raw, flesh,
language at a smithfield
                   or a billingsgate...

talk-radio as the logical conlusion
of exposing your child to classical music...
it's genius -
   reverting back to classical music
once you're older, and don't play
an instrument?
                      what's the point?

dr steve turley bashing out a medieval
mash-up on the guitar...
            and that's "not" even
inspiration for a rock star status...
i like his smugness -
    it's... zesty, lime-like:
             certainty of the twinkling
of the eye that consists of:
    a remaining - intact, i.e., sane.

bbc radio 4?
      what, with zee archers nonsense?
this radio novella
that keeps propping itself up
like a bad take on eastenders without
the kray brothers?
          
                  talk-radio is all about
a non-existent "script":
       the flamboyance of spontaneity...
with the crux, being?
                
                                     ensō -

the only aspect of ζεν, a ταoιστ might
respect.

      p.s.
                  do i believe in u.f.o.  s?
(****, acronyms and the plural article
attached to them, mind boggling)
     no... but i've seen one, so the belief impetus
is, kind'ah missing in me...
             i've transcended speculation,
a question-worthiness on the matter...
since the question no longer manifests
      itself in the narration impetus?
the impetus for narrative, is narration per se;
and how lovely, it is to see
a noumenon...
      when the world of phenomenons
reads like this:

  the times newspaper, saturday, july 21,
2018,
               OVER 70,000 CHILDREN
PUT ON PILLS FOR DEPRESSION...

great headline...
     alas, a chemistry degree (3rd)
from edinburgh uni.,
     am i chemo-phobic?
                 i should ask myself that
same question, when i next
brush my teeth, apply shampoo to
my cranium,
   or wash my hands.

apart from genitals -
   i'm having this sensation of a tongue
contra mind "dysphoria"...
                 it's not exactly a limb...
it's not like an amputee with
a ghost limb...
                         more like:
                   a mind, a body,
   a soul... and then the wriggly worm,
raised up on high in novels...
and then groveling in areas
where rabbis didn't take to revision
with a pair of scissors...
   buttermouth from the oral ***.

Twiddled knifes upon glass eyes, cry the insight of reprise, amongst a galvanized pride, in flight from spotlit skeletons, denied of sunlight, without a fight of adrenaline and puking on the side of missed roads.

An abode, of foreboding wealth within a duffel bag, drags the corroding moral codes of trolls controlled by ignorant over lords over the coals, before another log is tossed in the fire.

Before the fog of the fading embers, dislodge the common splendor, from the lives of nine to fivers, tending to the totals of the dead versus survivors, in vocal onslaught of the names of the slaughtered daughters of liberty that faltered in the after glow of nevermore.

Anymore,  i only wish to dream.
dream of better things that sing in the blood, and shrug the smugness from drug-less fiends, in consumption of peeling seams, and paint-chips.
Cancerous fractions entrap us.
Just ask the plaintiff.

Sustain it ...

In stillness.

Mastery over illnesses.

Embrace the contaminants of my inanimate imagination, swallowed in the shallows of a nation lost to bacon and broken beautiful.

Tokened suitable with corporate suitors to the masses. Blinded in the flashes of dismal diobolitry ,upon uprooting the touting in the jealous shouting of the shenanigry of driven villains, knowing of the chronology of the buried devilry, toiling in the ecology of a dying star.

My gods aren't too far from yours.

My stars aren't too bogged for more.

My more, your cut off point.

Disjoint the facts, let the words womb themselves and slither in the delivery, of malicious adhering to the tongue, in the atrocious abominations of falsified accumulations of the letters manifestations of fruitful creations abiding to immaculate consummation of lost thoughts that prevailed in one long exhale of a run on sentence.

No penmanship in breathlessness, as i faint in my confessions of restless lessons learned in burned futures overturned in grief.
Burned in the disbelief of fractured animals, cannibalising the chastised cultures of the mechanical signals planted in our cores.

Arms forward and moaning for more.

Always more.

I claim victory in my plastic citizenry of pity and tragedy, where i too can proclaim my self godliness and engage in bliss with the rich.

Im an emo ***** with blood on his knife and a list of names read aloud from the braille niche upon glass eyes, where to see is to realise, the severed root of the bloodline, in slow chromatic decline over time, until the with, is without, and the made mark is gone and the new birth is spawn to embark upon, brawn over brain the simple rule shall remain, conned in the game of numbers, slumbering from under the wonder of man vs machine. Again ranting in my rhyming declining into boredom.
Seldom to abandon the foreboding doom i cant shake.
Stephen king meets Dr seuss for a lovely kick of the chair and a hug of the noose.
Never to lose when smiling.

Do you realize that races are overrated,
since God is no respecter of persons?
Colored perceptions of hatred and bigotry
may ultimately destroy our existence.

Who needs people that:
• Lack brotherly love and respect for others
• Lust for power, wealth and *******
• Lack vision and purpose
• Lack maturity and wisdom
• Have attitudes of superiority
• Are poor in spirit
• Lack discipline and self-control

Colored attitudes, regarding skin tones and hues,
pale in contrast to uncontrolled emotions.
Without responsibility and accountability,
people get themselves in trouble rather quickly.

Who really wants or needs:
• Red’s lustful, passion for someone other than your spouse?
• or Green’s destructional envy of others’ wealth or possessions?
• or Yellow’s fear, smelling of ***** from peeing ourselves?
• or White’s collection of powdered deaths?
• or Blue’s inner sadness or coldness towards others?
• or Brown’s poverty, shame and overall uncleanness?
• or Orange steadfastness for a Godless life?
• or Purple’s smugness from a self-conceived ideal of royalty?
• or Black’s foreboding sicknesses and death?

Our human collective needs to find real commonality,
within this brotherhood of man, as planetary stewards.
Under girded with a genuineness of concern and love,
true understanding can lead to harmonious relationships.
We all have the ability to commune with God’s Spirit;
however, we each must have a desire to do so.
Utopia may be unattainable, unlike… unity of community.
And yes, I forgive you, for thinking I might be racist.




Author Notes:

Loosely based on:
Acts 10: 34; Gal 2: 6; Deut 10: 17; 1 Pet 1: 17

Learn more about me and my poetry at:
http: //www.squidoo.com/book-isbn-1419650513

By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2012, All rights reserved.

I must look like a train-wreck to everyone at this party. Emaciated-chic melting into the couch with shaky hands and sweaty palms has never looked good on anyone. I can’t tell if the bass pounding from the stereo has seeped through my skin or if my heart has turned into a battering ram, using all of its power to break through my sternum. You think I would have learned after all these years-- benzos and ***** are never a good combination. But I still have at least fifty bucks to make at this party off of over-privileged, toxin-craving youth. Besides, it’s a bearable feeling, and I can just sleep it off on the couch here tonight.
       I survey the room, attempting to remember where the stairs to the basement were located. After forcing my drooping eyelids to stay open, I watch a parade of lax bros make their way up the stairs and into the kitchen. They are a mess of scrawny limbs floating in pinnies and their air-filled heads are capped off with snapbacks. Their smugness is laughable and mostly, if not entirely, induced by massive amounts of *******. Please. The only reason people show up to this dump is because of the free ***** and the always-entertaining fight that is guaranteed to happen by the end of the party. Even then, the crowd is mostly freshmen, and they just don’t know any better.
       A booming yooooo crashes down the staircase and stumbles towards me. I refrain from rolling my eyes.
       “Hey, you!” I have no idea who this is.
       “Whatchyew got tonight?” asks the greasy manchild with a few scraggly hairs bursting out of his chin.
       “Depends on what you’re looking for,” I respond, wishing I had worn something other than an oversized sweater and leggings. You shouldn’t hide everything in your cleavage.
       “How much you want for the zannies?”
       Hoping to never see this scumbag again, I figure it wouldn’t hurt to scare him off by jumping the price to seven bucks a bar. But before I can even grab the plastic bag out of my bra, I’m momentarily blinded by piercing red and blue LEDs out the window.
       “Aw, shiiiit,” he says as he races toward the back door.
       I struggle out of the crevice in the couch and calmly follow the manchild, pushing my way through the crowd by the door. My car is waiting patiently for me in the cul de sac, and once I get past the herd of screaming freshmen, I’ll be in the clear. Anyone will move if you start throwing elbows directly into their ribs. It’s a nice party trick to use when the cops show up.
       I’m able to make it onto the back porch, but I can’t seem to find the strength that is located in my legs. My strong limbs have been replaced by jellyfish tentacles. I grab onto the railing of the steps, but I learn quickly that it’s not going to help. I trip over my feet, the stairs, the air, everything, until I am able to lean heavily on the driver’s side of my car.
       The booming yooooo reappears.
       ******* it. I can’t deal with this kid right now.
       “I just gotta text that the cops are on their way back here. Better get out.”
       ****. I face the car and begin to fumble with my keys. While I attempt to find the one that will open this machine, I listen to the wail of sirens a few streets down. I finally retrieve it, but I realize by the time I start the car and head towards home, the cops will be here, and I can’t ruin my spotless record. The knee-high hedges lining the circle would never be able to completely cover me, and every other house on this street looks unfamiliar. I press a small, blue button and hear a pop in the back. Normally at this time, my common sense would **** in and tell me that the trunk of a car isn’t exactly a good place to hide, but I’m starting to feel the cold through the numbness. And the last thing I want to deal with is explaining to my parents how their angel has taken herself off of her meds to make some extra cash.  Better get comfortable, I guess.
       I lumber into the trunk, thankful that there are at least some blankets left over from the last time I went camping with my family. Breathing heavily, I pull the lid behind me. From here, several familiar voices grow frantic and demanding: Dump that **** now... Get rid of it... I don’t care how much you spent, I’m not getting caught with it... I roll gently onto my side, careful not to shake the car, only to rediscover the plastic bag filled with Xanax.
       I freeze when I hear cars pull up nearby. The crash of heavy metal doors boom through the hectic sounds of the people trying their hardest to get out of the way. I listen to the rough growl of a sturdy boot as it kicks aside pieces of broken glass and plastic cups.
       “You think that after the fourth time we’ve busted this house, they would get the hint,” says a stern officer. I imagine him as they type with a faded buzz cut, bulging muscles, and aviator sunglasses even though it’s well past midnight.
       “Well, kids will be kids,” says a more seasoned member of the law. He sounds like my grandfather and has probably seen more terrifying images than an underage girl in skimpy clothing puking in a nearby flowerbed. It seems as though the stern officer is herding the party-goers towards the back of the patrol car.
       “That’s no excuse,” says Stern Cop.
       “So you’re telling me that you never went to a party or had a beer before you turned 21?”
       “Well, that’s different. I was in control.”
       Hearing your rights sounds much less dramatic in real life than it does on TV. For these underage drinkers, it’s a sped-up process that is muffled by their own sobs. The metallic clink of handcuffs echoes through the air and immediately hushes everyone. Soft Cop chuckles and gently closes the door, attempting not to startle the shaken-up criminals.
       I am finally able to exhale as a car drives away, but I don’t feel as if I’ve gotten away with anything. I shift onto my back and look up at the roof of the trunk, illuminated by the blue-green light of my cell phone. Glancing down at the screen, I see the time: 1:47 a.m. I’m going to have to venture out into the world eventually.
       As I gather my strength and roll towards the trunk release, I feel my keys in my pocket along with a tiny click. Immediately, my car begins to scream. I scramble for my keys, hoping that no one is here to witness the embarrassing mess I’ve made of myself. Once I finally get the car to calm down, I hear an intoxicating mix of chuckles and mild profanities strung together. It’s Soft Cop. He knows.
       “Is everything alright in there?” asks Soft Cop as he knocks on the trunk.
       What am I supposed to say? Yeah, everything’s fine. Just chillin’ out here. No worries.
       “Uh... yes, sir. Just give me a moment.”
       I unlock the trunk and start push it upwards, but Soft Cop has managed to get to it first. He is a tall, thick man with a glorious salt-and-pepper colored mustache. His soft eyes look tired like a basset hound’s. I see his name-tag–– G. Lewis. He looks like a Gary.
       “Didjya get a little stuck?” he asks.
       “Yeah.” I smile and try not to let my nervous laugh creep through.
       Gary looks around the cul de sac and back into the trunk, reaching his chubby fingers towards me. As he helps me out, I notice that he’s a lot stronger than he looks.
       “Sorry for breaking up the party tonight. Have fun?” he asks, tilting his head towards me, eyes curious and comforting.
       “For a little. I didn’t get to stay very long.”
       He nods his head towards my car. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he chuckles, “how’d you wind up in there?”
“I guess I just got scared. I didn’t want to get in trouble for being here.”
       Gary finds this amusing and swears that by now, every other cop has left the area. He explains that he’s been left to make sure nothing starts back up. He shoves his hands in his pockets and kicks around an empty Miller Lite can.
       “Listen, I can tell you’ve been drinking.” His voice has changed. I know this tone. This is the tone of Your Mother and I both love you very much, and we’re not mad. We’re just disappointed. He looks me straight in the eyes, concern written all over his face. “Correct?”
       There’s no point lying to him, but who wants to be the one throw themselves under the bus? I’m trying to put the words together, but all I can manage is incoherent babbling.
       “Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble,” he insists. “I just don’t want you driving away in this state. You seemed to have a hard time finding the steering wheel.” A smirk emerges on his face, eventually growing in size to a radiating smile. He’s proud of that one.
       “Yeah, I guess I could take a nap in the backseat.”
       “How about I just drop you off at your house. You can pick up your car in the morning. Sound like a plan?”
       “Yes, sir.”
       We look at each other for a second. No thank you is needed. No more words are necessary. I relax my shoulders and look up at the clear sky. I feel the wind blow, and I don’t seem to mind the biting December wind.
       “Didn’t bring a coat?” asks Gary.
       “Didn’t match my outfit.”
       “You sound just like my granddaughter.” He laughs. “You even have the same blonde hair and big green eyes. It’s uncanny.”
       He then stops and looks down on the ground, eyes growing wide and serious. I know what he’s looking at. I was hoping he wouldn’t see my stash that is now laying on the street: eight white pills in a plastic sandwich bag, sweaty from making a quick escape from under my sweater.
       Gary sighs and lets his lips purse, still looking at the bag. The salt-and-pepper mustache takes over his mouth. He gathers his hands on his hips, shoulders hunching forward. He stays like this as I avoid the opportunity to make eye contact. After drawing some air into his lungs, he finally has the courage to look up with sullen and wet eyes.
       “Well,” he says as he regains his composure. He kicks the bag into a nearby storm grate. “Let’s get you home.”

Come and walk with me!
I take your hand and allow you to push open the heavy, creaking door to my thoughts.
Together we pause at the vast emptiness before us, creaking dreams beneath our feet, memories and beliefs casting shadows on the vast walls.

We move cautiously inside the entrance, tread carefully on my forgotten memories and dreams, their hold on me lost through time.
Please ignore the twitching corpses and further explore darkened, hidden, cobwebbed corners.

Gliding through the room, I pull you down, ducking as another thought flies through the air hitting the opposite wall with a loud splat then landing in the pile of screaming thoughts below, where they stay, awaiting the inevitable time when they will either be dismissed or built upon.

Allow me to guide you through the room, dodging the memories best forgotten, notice the shame and fear apparent on my face as we view them together.

Take a moment to scan the dark room, breathe in the fresh hopes and dreams; their bright bodies hung carefully on the sun drenched walls, waiting for the eventual time when they will be realized or floored.

Their hopes shimmer in vivid brilliance to the limited few who are trusted enough to view them. Laugh as you catch glimpses of the insane images before you, cry at those of more morbid times. Feel yourself being dragged into the moment, your sleeve being tugged at by a crying child.
And in the blink of an eye that same child scrambles over to you.
Pull yourself back into the present, realizing the child before you is me.

Explore the room further, try to avoid the tear filled pool, where all tears are recorded and verified at being shed…wept through time.

Stop and hover at the shrine of the memories of my life.

Images and clips are projected throughout me and are now available for your viewing.
Notice how the salty pool of tears deepens while you witness me recounting the losses, the pain.

As we walk further into the room, journeying through time, moving closer and closer to the present…remember to observe the moments and memories of time, suspended in mid-air, burning in a golden light.

Now witness the smugness…the only part of my mind visible now, its golden beauty being cast throughout my body, washing me in an aura-like glow.

The warmth of the complacency keeps me sane, urging thoughts to be formed, its magnetism pulling words from the neglected pile and painting them into pictures, parading them in the room until they are given attention and brought to life.

As we move toward the door, look over your shoulder at what you have witnessed the room now a hub of excitement, never before viewed by anyone.

The air thick with scents of raw emotion, its nakedness daunting and yet liberating.
Its shadow and mediocre existence no longer locked away but instead camouflaged in an attitude and personality of an unexpected level.

Pursued by many, their relentless banging, wasted energy, their persistence jamming the door further, while the rusted lock twists tighter and tighter, until the eventual breaking of the lock, shattering all ties with the pursuer.

We step over the threshold, out of the house and into the sun.

I close the heavy doors to my thoughts, and replace the rusted lock on my soul.
I glance over at you and you catch my gaze.
You nod your head at me and reach out your hand.

I am unable to reach for you… I don't believe in myself, I don't love myself.

But I hope that eventually I will find peace from the inner turmoil that has me vice grip, tightening with each passing day.

I look at you with desperation in my eyes, longing to believe the wisdom you speak is "truth".

Heavy Metal Lovers


A rolling stone gathers no moss the only time I was good at something all it took was four wheels
And you could be a Genius I guess the wheels gives it away this isn’t about bad boy bands heavy
That broke many a levees of the mind but it is inextricably wound together with music and how apropos
To write about it today when the music of all heaven was called to silence and then a whole lot of
Shaking began When **** Clark walked through the gate don’t waist it just taste it it’s all right to be
Burly and squirrely “Get lost in the rock and roll” amp it up Bob Seeger everything comes with rules
There was time before Elvis but it still applied cool cats had one command be cool don’t break the
Jackson rule of Cool Square is not the fit you want to project oh the sixties the place the strip in
Hollywood the car an Austin Healy convertible if they even had hard tops which I doubt reading Michael
Canes auto biography he spoke of him being there I didn’t see him but he got swallowed up by the
Great beast it flowed out of those clubs into the street the sidewalks full of hot babes and cool dudes
We were so low it was like you were on the payment it even got into the act there was a raw energy
That electrified every ounce of your being it rose out of the payment and cruised those Hollywood
Streets plus every street in America felt its heat and heard it s roar red cherry glass pack mufflers
Then songs took up the anthem I had fun fun until my daddy took my T bird away shutem down GTO Jan
and Dean’s Drag City, Dead Man’s Curve, The little old lady from Pasadena and many more but the king
of cars that held the title was held by no other than the Cobra we were a couple of brazen GIs with a
Seventy two hour pass we met the enemy at a stop light the Austin Healy sounded so throaty in that
Southern California night air and we lived the song do you know the way to San Jose LA isn’t nothing but
A bunch of old freeways we would roar up the entrance to the ten the Malibu highway the Five to Dego
The 710 to long beach and the Queen Mary this southern California kid from Compton a suburb of LA
Was giving me the grand tour Disney and Knox berry later in the day the big sad Walt had just died
And then there was this monster next to us it was towering before we felt so continental a slight British
Smugness as we drove this fine European sports car but when the lion roars your purring becomes a
Little puckish it was bulging in comparison we were like a joke your mother won’t let you have a real car
What did they paint the light red how many shades of red did we turn as we set in this shadow of green
Paint and death for any idiot that tossed out a challenge when he took off it was like our car was
Wearing a smug British suit and the force he generated when he accelerated tore every stitch off down
To just underwear praying the smog would quickly envelop us the rest of the way didn’t happen so you
Do what anyone does you choose the less of two evils and rattle on about how they put Porches engines
Into VW bugs like who cares why is one of those suckers behind us well they are cool and this is about
Cool cars you could always tell them by the tail pipe instead of a round rifle barrel it had a wide round
Funnel at the end like the old blunder bust guns of the colonists then an era and times needs a voice
The male was a mix of Lou Rawls and Berry white doing the singing but also any time introduction was
Needed Aretha took care of the female side Jimmy Hendrix took care of the instrument on his
Supernatural guitar Hugh Masicali African Jazz drummer follow the beat every teen Idol was making
The girls swoon then you add in the mix the American auto chrome and steel dreams see the heat rising
Flashes that were blurs running wide open filled with teens and thrill filled screams and then there was
The exit and the entrance there was a royal distinction that rubbed off on its occupants the cool look
And clothes and hair for both sexes dreamy stars in all places not just the bright lights of movie magic
For girls it was they rode well but if they took the wheel this sealed the deal how can you add curves to
Curves they had the saying your blowing my mind man it in toned them as perfect inter changeable the
Womanly softness the interior the lines outside truly defined you are in the presence of qualities that
Run deeper than just the surface you see so much more how blessed when both car and women
Continually amaze you think you discovered everything oh foolish one you just stepped into another
Power zone that was built in at creation somehow the car was somewhat accidental but the woman’s
Was on purpose cheating would cease to a great extent if the truth was only known you got more
Excitement than you will ever know and for the man let him step out rise to his full height there is
Something sweeping and grand about it how could it be any different muscle and brawn distinction
Used as in art subtle but by being so it is so telling appeal runs no stronger and it effects effortlessly
Adds maximum benefit and joy girls find it unmercifully enjoyable packaged like fine wine in a wooden
Box with straw in other words perfected delivery of romance simply a soothe that washes over you
With lasting ramification the golden straw has glistening particles as well as star dust that make other
World tastefulness abide in two lives equally shared so drive into the setting sun in your own heavy
Metal dream that we love so well

Finding myself dismissed
For my slow speed
And small size
I see there is no use for speed in the eternal
As there is no use for size in the infinite
For I have the tortoise way
As God has given me this glorious shell
That the world may throw down
Its smugness and contempt on me
For it just rattles like rain of a roof
As I draw my head in
I hear the pitted patter
Of the world's pain softly
Raining down on me
I relax in the warmth of my own shell

They may keep their childish ways
Their one upmanship
For I do not seek the high road
But the low
Where my heart brushes with earth
And I feel close to God
For I love the earth so much
That I did not choose to be born
On two legs and tall
But on four legs and small
With my heart as close
To the earth as possible
For I love the earth so much

Bound to the earth I appear to all
As they laugh and chuckle
In their disregard
As I am humbled by the earth
And my own limitation
But God rewards me with long life
As he does many gentle souls
For I will be hugging the earth
When they are long gone
And their empires have fallen

Listening to the whispers of a tortoise
Will bring you great joy
For seldom will such love be matched
As they guard the earth
With their warm heart
And shield it from the harshness
Of the World
With their beautiful shell
Where underneath an intimacy
With the earth is fostered
and can only be known
By the beauty of a tortoise

Lifetimes ago
Behind a sofa, on hard floor, we slept entwined,
Warmed by lust – and those eyes.

Waking early
Another appetite took her
She wanted bananas
Not coffee, nor toast, or foie gras
But with whispered twinkle –
Bananas.

So I braved the detritus of folly
The beer can minefield, the tangled bodies of fallen angels
And stepped silent, into Finchley Sunday morning.
Welcoming the early sunshine of Maggie’s suburb
With the smugness of a man fresh loved.

The corner shop, door wedged in anticipation of heat to come, was dark
Looking up the old man fixed me with dark, dark eyes

Raising one eyebrow said he, “Bananas?”
“Yes”, smiled I

And I knew there was so much to know

Lifetimes ago.

Learning still.

I used to laugh at my mother
when she told me that I'd go crazy
from reading all of those books and that
I'd lose my mind trying to get my PhD
attempting to unclothe the universe.
Now I wonder why she didn't laugh at me
and my ignorant smugness and speeches
as I struggle to piece my sanity back together
from the countless blows of all this learning
which has failed to make me whole.

Where do I begin?

Should it be at the height of fog hours,
doping up infallible images of affection,
among sifting smugness,
end over end in my sun-stroke mind?

Should it be it all tore down from closed doors,
every imperfection, every cyst, reworked by
some sort of Mortician,
consumed by grandeur for his practice?

Or should it be at the exact
moment
that all was realized– astuteness to
how fragile every meter of my unused offal really is?

Second to sick second, and day to well day,
all woven itself into a tapestry thats harder and harder to recall

Sew the squares, and caress the texture with tips of printless fingers
Each inch calls– no, howls –out into the basin where I sit

Howls of pain
                                 howls of stone
howls of criticism
                               howls of analysis
ripping through the brail that's sung to the bone

Tell to beg, where do I begin?

BATTERED CHILD’S TESTIMONY


Ayad Gharbawi

1995

A sunshine that sparkled quietly
Rainbows of necessary ambitions that wilt
Oceans of hate collapse in evil
Evil for fun, evil for no reason
A sunshine someone dreamed of
Dreaming from the sorrows of the crooked,
Twisted and repeated years
Where a little girl receives **** as Man’s
Reason and desire’s needs.

Life anywhere continues
Ancient woman weeping
Modern woman crying
The intervals and gaps mean nothing to me
For the bleeding ones
They march in circles
Circles vague as their lives prescribed.

Irrelevance is a powerful concept today
I exist here today
Soon, I shall be as ancient as the others
While the intelligent people continue
With their words of reasons and smugness
Students in classrooms I have never seen
Pour out their literature on sanity and its values
And are repeatedly taught
The intricate values of zero;
Out there, children on drugs and dull careers
And learning Evil’s persistent wisdom.

Trust the none
Hate the all
Survive for the only one
That is you.

And you may feel
And achieve a measure
Of dust’s worth
While the storms of the powerful
May stampede upon your heart and love
What you feel, my imaginary friend
Is an act of irrelevance
Irrelevance to the globe of toiling people
What you feel, you must forget
What you love, you must abandon.

And, as you shall wilt soon
You too must turn away
And face the death of the Meek
The death of the unknown Christs.

I’m angry at the world
For not playing fair
And then mocking me
When I do

I hate all the apathy
That stands and observes
And makes no attempt
To enforce the rules

I’m angry at all
That I have to give up
To wait for my turn
And take only my share

I hate that the meaning
Of good has been altered
To apply to group ethics
That are coated in shame

I’m angry to see
How the cheaters will win
And honesty comes
A poor second

I hate all the smugness
(Check Paul Ryan’s face)
And those who are like him
Cheating their way to their goal

I’m angry to be cursed
With the gene of fair play
Permanent - same as
The brown of my eyes

I hate that I have to
Spend so much time hating
Hate is an acid
Dissolving my soul
                    ljm

The more poetry I read,
The more I feel sorry
For consumer culture
And middle-class smugness.

They take such a kicking -
Yet they struggle on.

After the incident
we gathered in the reception area
Stalling
Making small talk
Vaguely excited and vaguely bored

We were leaning into
Little gala tables
Covered in white linen
Raised for conversation or
Fashionable idleness

Why look who’s here!
You were slipping by
Like a noblewoman
Floating in her day-dress
so the human machinations didn't show

Why it’s been thirty years if not a day!
It’s not like you were exactly moved
My friend, your friend
barely roused you
Are you plastic?
A formally once-was?
You looked at me as if your eyes were
Marbles
Made of glass and somewhat pretty,
Just for decoration
It was hard to say in such darkness
Your darkness in particular
It may have been the suit.

I know that they’ve fêted you here before.
A king returns!
Is it the magma chamber
for your imminence?
Or a mere
Alcove?

The face doesn’t really move
Much anymore
Forever frozen in a slight smugness
Your mouth that strikes me as
somewhat meta
if that’s at all possible
And it seems to be
A bit rude
A noirish marvel
A dark star

Funny you never once looked at me really
Never said Hello
Nor Good Evening
And the things that
I could have said
Do you remember how you tried to drill a hole into a poured concrete floor
with a cheap tool
while we laughed about dentistry
as opposed to *** practices
How I tried to find a cherry picker
through the yellow pages
on a Saturday afternoon
How you quizzed me about my practice and how I played dumb
How your dealer ate my dinner when I was looking to the right

But I remained silent
bemused more than disgusted
It has been a long time and
Why would that
forgotten phospherence
be me?

I wanted to say
Did you know
that that penthouse after-party
at the
Marmont
was one of the saddest nights of my life?
I leaned over the balcony and stared at the Marlborough Man
puffing rings onto Sunset Blvd.
Desperate.
How has it come to this I asked
shocked myself
This has all gone so wrong.
I looked down upon the street
watching the rings echo
and cars swerving off to nowhere

No amount of drink can fix this night
and they killed the joint without me
being boys.
One is now dead by hanging.
I’d have preferred the other.

But here you are.
Silent
with absent eyes
after all these years
I never opened my mouth
I couldn’t seem to configure the lips precisely
I don’t know why
Perhaps they refused to comply
despite my feathery efforts.
No need.

Don't look at me.
Don't see that I am raw with something like loss
Like the loss of something that
I haven't ever had.
Don't look over here
And see tears in my eyes
Because I don't know why they are here
And I want them gone.
Rarely
Do people show me a flipped image
Of how empty I feel.
Mostly I can forget.
I know you are like me.
To the very core of you
You light up when you love somebody.
And from the shadows I
Have caught some sunlight on the way by
And it is charring my skin.
It bubbles and blisters
Red and white
And I feel so ugly I hold my breath.
Did I lose that?
Did I have that?
It's not envy,
Not of either of you.
It's too pure for that.
Has too much surrender,
Too much grief.
It is simply that
Right now
I want to shrink into this wall
Like a smudge.
Maybe if I could just be so insubstantial,
Maybe I could be the smoke you exhale,
Pretty against the stars,
Vitriolic in your lungs,
And that
Temporary.
I wish you all
Could forget me like a sigh,
Like a sigh on a frigid night that shows white
For a moment
And then dissipates.
I wish I could forget me like that.
I don't understand
The tears in me tonight.
They've been rising for a while,
All quiet and cold.
Now they're everywhere,
In my veins and in my fingertips
Making them heavy on the keys.
They are slowing me down,
Weighted and cold as
Hell
And I know I can't be the one
To turn to you and let them flood your moonlit heart.
I am freezing them, bit by bit,
To keep them here.
What kind of person would I be
If I were to cut through your haze of happy
And tell you I need you now?
And moreover
That I am drowning
Because I saw somebody who got saved.
No,
No I am not terrible that way.
I am terrible
This
Way.
I would sink to the floor
But it takes more energy
Than I want to expend
And there is a sort of smugness in restraint.
I learned it last year,
That if you try for long enough not to cry
The crushing pressure becomes almost a relaxation,
A thick, noxious mist that you can rest your weight upon and succumb to.
My grief tastes like giving up.
And I always say to the world
That I do it out of spite,
That I do it so that I hurt me before it does.
But it's just not true.
Giving up is a disease,
And it's killing me.
I have borne my wrists to the bloodthirsty,
Unsurprised at their zeal
When they bit down hard.
Something about a passive face
Makes me feel like I've kept something
Of myself
Even as I lost everything else.
What kind of awful would I be
If I asked for comfort now?
No,
I have weathered many silent storms
And frozen many tears
Calm- a sick calm that feels like pitch in your lungs- and clear as glass,
So thick you can't see through it anymore.
There's nothing to see to.
That is the secret.
When you break the ice,
There is only blackness.
The only thing you find beyond the tears
Is the place that births them,
And its only purpose is to be
Achingly empty.

Felled canvas, blushing colors my life’s stitch ceaselessly applied
What portrait stretches and looms it’s casement to my soul?
If all deeds behold with no aid of cloak, for sins sore shame to hide?
Needle pricked fingers recount thy yarn.
Shall I gaze upon a short winged angel, laced in gutters, where sensuality is defined?
How skillful the likeness of my windblown heart?
What shades of scarlet ooze that aching part?
Will I hesitate looking at past reckless deeds?
Woven with flare but so careless of needs.
Does smugness suspend me in self sapid stitches and ghost like thread for inches and inches?
How large the spool my decent breadth hold, done in shimmering shades, subtended in gold?
Dare I hope it be worthy to admire when shown?
Humble glory, my life, hung behind a King’s throne?

His smugness cannot be captured, its like trapping water with a net.
Yet his foulness attracts the masses, and leaves me deathly sick.

Thugs and tyrants tempting fate?
Fallen kingdoms threatening war?
Hordes of immigrants at the gate?
Hang this placard on your door:
good intentions cannot fail;
liberal smugness must prevail !

Children ***** while cities burn?
Tortured corpses, sudden blasts?
Armies surge, regroup, return…
your gentle snowflake counsel lasts.
Smug and godless never falters;
smug will save your sons and daughters.

Hilarious, this global village.
Flags of doom unfurled on high…
throats are slit as death-squads pillage;
****** madness stains the sky.
What matters most: you’re open-minded
(smug beholds the world unblinded).

Christian faith?  You blow a fuse,
babbling to your New York Times;
crusades with jihads you confuse
apologizing for their crimes.
Hashtag snark will save our day
smug, enlightened, global, gay…

“Have you been to the Melrose café?
I heard they have the best lunch there”

“I always go downtown for coffee
helps you avoid the goons
and the smell of trash coming in through the door”

Francis St.
The neighborhood with the crooked spine streets, the intolerable hunchback it was in the armpit of Korea-town.
The snake stealth slither you acquired to get to the 7/11 down the street without your teeth being pulled out by a gun. In the 80’s the back wall of that convenience store was littered with
no-do gooders, the typical teenage gangster with ironic ****** white shirts and a mouthful of *****. An army with no motive.
Buzzards learning how to haunt instead of hunt.
In the afternoons it was speculated that they melted into the hot cement, an intimidating presence that smoked marijuana and made their cars jump.
With fear?
warmth?
happiness?
Who’s to say.
But times have changed. The hungry graffiti on the wall became the emblem of what had been, and what had survived. It was no longer us vs. them, it was me vs. you.
There’s a hostility that sinks into the earth and made the children more aggressive in playgrounds that endorsed healthy living; a melting *** reserved only for the diversely attacked and passive aggressive scrutinized bunch.
I lived on that street in the peach palm, salmon slapped building where I witnessed a domestically abused woman with a shattered nose smear her blood across the windowpane of the front door while I checked for the mail. Her hair was bleached and it hung dead on her scalp like sun rays that had gotten seasonal depression. Her face was a gauzy mess of a nosebleed. I felt for that woman the same way I felt for the slugs that people threw salt at. A sadistic addiction for soft things; There were bruises where there shouldn’t have been and I felt like the imperfections on the wall looking but unable to be seen. And I wondered if she could see me. She crouched on the corner of the steps and waited. I didn’t know what for. I could hear sirens, I could hear footprints of her abuser coming closer and picking her up like a rag doll. Opening the door and disappearing into the night with the sound of high heels slowly going mute. I stayed there until the blood dried. The next day the stain was gone and I wondered about all the other blemishes around the building and if they had the same disgust to them. Were the discolorations on the carpet of the hallways just violent memories?
I could smell the poverty inside that apartment. It clung to me like it held on to anyone.
I was guilty of it creeping into the beds of my nails while I tried in futility to wash it off.
Despite all the books I read, all the times I refused to step out of my room in fear of experiencing too much I was not saved from observing a lot of things. There was a cathedral church a couple blocks away that you could see outside the living room window and when the sun set. It almost felt like the presence of god looming just beyond, always assuring me that yes, I had not been abandoned but it wasn’t abandonment I worried about but about becoming what was inevitably seeping into the tap water, into the people with the olive skin that can’t unlatch their own cages.
Of becoming the shadow of a civilization that revels in the darkness.
I wanted to be a pageant queen on television with the pink lipstick instead of a statistic on the news of most likely dropping out of school and hiding in the crevice of welfare.
I wanted the palm trees without the choke-hold. I wanted the cool California weather without the open fires on July 4th, the firework setting flames to nearby homes telling me that this was the hell that came with freedom. The American dream was served in the oven and why won’t you accommodate to these standards you ask me and I don’t know how to reply.
While other kids played in their backyards and learned how to ride bikes, I learned how to survive, how to walk the streets without being murdered. These are good skills that transfer into college resumes.
So the roots of trees would come out of the ground like fists and demand reparations, they would sneak into the pavement and break car windows with the intention of stealing radios that they sold for a good penny. They carried knives and cackled at the neighborhood watch because all eyes were on them and yet nothing changed but I want to change, I want to change you chant.
Nothing will be the same since I lived in Francis st.
Named after the saint with the smugness in his smile and the gluttony blistering out of his dress.
Will you comfort me in my hours of need oh gracious one?
will you drink these sins like Catholics drink Jesus' blood on Sunday morning?
Is this blasphemy a reason to instill death between the hours of 2 and 4:30?
I’m always chasing on my knees for the knowledge that is taken away from the destitute culture that the ghettos become. I wanted to go back to the mud and dig all those lives that crossed mine and tell them that they could run after their intelligence. Save them from the quicksand. That one doesn’t have to be shot at a party for being raised by criminals. That cars that drive slow at night don't always have bad intentions.

But if I do, I’m afraid I’ll sink


I’ll sink

I practiced my sassing in the bathroom mirror
in all seriousness until a grin and a giggle escaped in spurts.
Watching unfiltered laughter chase after
the string of bad words exiting my ****** mouth.
Lethal darts trailed by curls of silk ribbon.

Insulting my reflection wasn't nearly as satisfying as racing around on my bike
letting filthy words fly into wind that tangled my hair.
As far as I was concerned there were too many things to curse at
outside, where I belonged.
Less spankings, more freedom.

It's fair to say I was an active *******,
never waiting around for reactions.

This was my first time trying on the four letter word sweater.
I certainly didn't know how to wear it. Felt funny,
the way your stomach feels when it drops.
I liked this swearing business.
I liked it a lot.

My days were rich with aimless curses
tasting of cotton candy and I fancied myself quite the sass master.
Telling chattering squirrels that they were "stupid *****"
as they spryly leapt limb to limb.  I was filled to the brim with
pleasure found in profanity.
I rode on towards the frosty haired couple driving my way.
I considered ditching the bike to run laps around the snail paced Pinto
while chanting all of my favoritest swears.
But they were "old *****" so I left them to that.

I continued to grace cats, curbs, and cars with cross words,
smiling all the while.
It felt good
Real good.

I told off every ****** thing on my block
several times a day.
My seat melded to heinous purple bike's.
Handle bar tassels whipping my wrists, shaming me.
Beads on my spokes telling me they were sick
with the click and clack of my wheels turning, covering every inch
of that dead end street.

One day I rode swiftly down a retired grassy path behind my little house
towards the majestic tree that had cradled me in its branches many times.
It's massive leaves had raised the hair on my slender arms
as I hung with my crown
upside down, legs halved over steady limbs.

It had met my mother as well.
Her gentle voice coaxing me from its arms for supper,
sitting pretty on our back porch,
petting our fat grey cat and pondering things beyond the tree and I
in the early evening glow.
Upon my approach I can only assume that the tree was pleased to see me
despite my new found nastiness.
Wise enough to know that it wasn't a "dumb *******"
and that it wasn't going to "go to hell"

and neither was I.

So it moved from an ancient position and proceeded
to lace its twiggy paws into my hair,
yanking me and my deep seated smugness
promptly off the old bike.
Contrary to my prior endeavors mastering the casual cuss,
I opened my mouth finding curses replaced with crying
for my mother, who couldn't hear me,
resting 40 miles away through 6 feet of still soft soil.

Rooted in the same dirt, both my mother and the tree.
Silently vowing to love me well. Keeping each other company
in sediment whispers, echoing.

plagued by lethargy i am led through the internet
by an unseen monarch whose name is Boredom
until i go cross eyed

what does the good king Boredom seek?
not wenches or jesters or feasts to quaff.
the good king Boredom seeks to cease

but it isn't as easy as that
a battle looms...

Boredom rallies his armies with the deafening cry of a tyrant with a cause
and we descend with the dull and vacant hum of somebody who has work in the morning

storming the gates of the internet
we google things and browse youtube
we play meaningless games
and curse our broadband.

all while scrolling through a virtual popularity contest
a bottomless cesspit full of our hobbies, our thoughts, and pictures of us on holiday
we sit and judge eachother
the stench of jealousy and false smugness hang in the air
facebook is indeed, the great masquerade of our generation.

a battle ends
no wars are won
still the good king stands tall
still he looms. we are enthralled.

and so the cycle continues,
a swirling void of
acronyms and bigotry
of arguments and fallacies
no empathy, all lies.
stopping us from doing anything productive
or real

and like lambs to the slaughter
we are sent to our doom
by the good king Boredom
his cause is just, but he'll never learn

take advice from myself,
and instead of spending time doing something useless
find an outlet for your creativity
i ****** out a load of hyperbole
and here i am now
free of the Good Kings reign

. genocide, or contraception? jobs... the export of jobs? technological advancements... it's not genocide... but it is a variant of contraception, isn't it? it's slow: slow implies: non-existent in the journalistic wortsprechen... which implies: covert, & metaphor... but we are talking about a contraception variant... it's not genocide... it's... well... the basic economic utility of you, = nul. automation is... sniff sniff... smell it? well yeah... poetry got no soul... just some bogus depressive antics for what doesn't even register as: tabloid.... fringe encounters of the tabloid kynd... but we are talking about a slow genocide, economic migration is war: in slo motion without brutes und goons... it's condoms: for... why wouldn't we?!

well... it's not exactly genocide...
given that it's slow
implies something, natural
and coincidental
to allocate an justifiable
association with it...

you know what happened
when the iron works
were undermined in Poland,
people were displaced,
i could have worked
a job in a metal work factory
like my maternal & paternal
grandfathers,
like my father...
  eh, **** it,
economic migrant:
     which is an alias
of what isn't exactly a cold
war: with hot egos
lodged into red buttons
and fidgety nuclear warheads
itching for that:
firework display!

everything economic is
a testament of sloth:
in decay...
    a media attention broom
of bored egotistical
ambitions facets:
the virility of
the other, sided argument:

that whole
"just" economic migrants...

war is a variant
of economics,
why are those migrating
for economic reasons,
not given what
is given to:
the immediacy of
the violent squabble?

delay, sure,
      and that is all,
it will ever be...
            you think i like
speaking this tongue?
you think i like
having to parody
the citizen?
  you think this tongue
is all that will ever
be: like a circus virus,
like nothing more than
a parasite?

the english in me
is a parasite...
i am: succumbed to its
presence,
for a "polite society"
rubric...
        i die:
i want this slithering
slob of an "invitation"
to be begone from me...

i, host,
   see nothing but
the mortal transcience of
a suited use for this...
string of words...

it has infested me
with a presence that
ignobles me...
no brown intact or
a pale hue of a skin's
colour:
   this... grits my
very fundamental
posit of verb: i think...

i am more bothered
by ethics
and not by etiquette...
the english don't
know that!
they're yet to discover
en masse,
the application
of diacritical marks...

   zee: Ęգλíш...

have you ever watched
the stew of rot
and abandonment
become: porous...
as in:
over time, time is
both the economics
of war,
and war biding:
                to & fro...

          if only: "just" an economic
migrant...
which is why i stashed
a dozen swords in my attic...

so? just war...
     you move: i move...
    
  i will only baptiße my soul
upon the altar of death
in being able to:
unlearn this parasitic
entity of the familially
cordial exchange of / for:
   having an inclination
  for a deviating purpose;

but of said things,
i am already too late to govern
a frictive foot
for a standing
    of attention and
convinced basin's depth
inclusive...

     how could have this looked
like... in a cosmopolitan
environment,
whereby a simpleton's
bilingualism would not
be curated as a schizophrenia...

                in a cosmopolitan
environment...
   of, say, Switz origins...
this could have been:
a hindering hybrid of
    stagnant cues...
for:
       no labour in the waiting:
for a bogus
      variant of a gem...

yet i find myself
stunned...
by such phrasing as...
home-grown terrorist...
some jihadi....

   and here, i am,
speaking the tongue
of the parasite,
this... acquired, tongue...
and i dare not speak
this tongue beyond
the necessary public...
and yet, there are those,
as foregin as i,
who forge a whip-for-will
in demands
that: outstrip the farce
of casual conversation...

no matter...
  however much
this nausea for the people
who would understand
ja, tym, gadam...

              gadanina:
gadać:

                  ­ yet still...
i die, this tongue
becomes tomb...
        borrowed,
acquired...
              something...
­        worth: an impasse's
worth of a conundrum's
worth of justification...

let's just say:
i became tired
of snoops,
of the natives asking
the question:
where are you from...

if only i acquired
the diacritical differentiation
of a foreigner,
and were not
forever justified in:
suspect...

                by speaking:
closely the native
narrative...

         a man to inherit
the assort of labour
to plough a field,
given but two left hands
for the smugness
of a work ethic's worth
of invest.

   this tongue dies with
me,
      oh i hope for a death,
that opens up
a horizon for
erasure,
      of my current
utility of:
                       said, tongue.

Music is so much more
Than just rhythms on a page because
I can hear the bass in someone's chest
Or jazz in their laughter
And I can find music
In the way people's voices rise and fall
Or the sound of their lungs
The low trill that comes from the smugness in someone's voice
Or the fast strings of someone panicking
Some people sound like a piano, smooth and quiet
While others sound like the thunder of the brass,
Unable to be missed, but capable of tender moments
Because no one is less than an orchestrated piece
No one notices the subtle parts at first,
Like the vibrato in the solo of their thoughts
Or the sudden accelerando of passion and arguments
The forte pianos of being tired of fighting
Or the single flute of absolute euphoria
But when you return again and again
You fall in love with the way
Words seem to rise from their feet and wash over you like fog,
like a bassoon
Or the quickly improvised comments that fills you with a sense of warmth and safety  
play with the strings of your heart like a saxophone
Because nothing compares to noticing the people
Who are made up of nothing else but music

with each step they trample
the confidence of the women
astounding to onlookers
yet incredibly dim on the inside
they are creatures of privilege
with each step they spit
on the unfortunate they pity
with their smugness
they think they are the truth

perfomrer between recitation:
the crescent moon chin between recitation
revealing smug
(huh? blue = noun, bluish = adjective,
but smug = adjective and smugish = noun,
even though smug is closer to verb
of the doing part that modifies itself: a noumenon,
and smugish is a name of a quality kindred...
but blue, and bluish?! yeah,
smugish, wrinkles nearing the comedy stretches
marked by consistent smiles...
yes smugness is a definite article
and smugish is cryptological half-revelatory
indefinite articulation);
poet between recitation:
i’ll just fill up vanity with as many heart attacks
to **** me as i have hearts.

They sweep into the cave, swirling about the abridged quietude of their presence;
Constantly smiling at all events that may occur or not, and the testing of resolve;
Dark air pervades, and hangs  still, as perfidy nibbles at the feet of a companion;
A hot dizzy essence enters the mind of an exhausted, prostrate,pleading traveller;
Nor is the dweller moved by the entreaties nor realities of other existences within;
Sweltering sobs penetrate all those who enter the self-contained residence-beware;
There is no caring force amidst the eerie egocentric joys-the megalomania here in;
Habitually unmoved and mired in the smugness of some perceived elevated state;
Only terror flows as the bats eye and circle the treasure of impending importance;
A blinding light impels the occupant to stagger toward the entrance-the issue lost!