"Dog's Longevity Due to Tobacco Habit"**

The staple diet of Sebastian, a pitbull-miniature poodle cross-breed owned by Mrs Emmie Snaggletooth of St John's Road, Little Tittington, Berkshire, is Bruno Extra Strength Old **** pipe tobacco. He consumes two ounces of it every week and his proud owner keeps it in his very own tin.

The procedure is as follows: Mrs Snaggletooth rolls a cigarette and puts it between her lips. Sebastian then leaps up onto her lap and removes the unlit cigarette from her lips and sits with it for several moments between his own lips.

His mistress, who is a pipe smoker herself, then lights up and, as she sits contentently smoking her twelve-inch ivory carved Meerschaum, Sebastian eats his cigarette, leaving only the filter tip which he normally spits out into the fireplace. He has twenty cigarettes a day and enjoys his tobacco best after he has eaten his evening meal of Pedigree Chum (Older Dogs Recipe).

Sebastian, who is now seventeen years old, discovered his penchant for tobacco when he found an open tin of Bruno Old **** and ate the lot. "He became very agitated and barked for three hours non stop", says Mrs Snaggletooth when she fondly recalls the incident, "And we have not been able to stop him since. He's become a bit of an addict and has appeared on TV twice as a result."

Emmie Snaggletooth has smoked a pipe for over seventy years; she keeps her treasured Meerschaum on a cord around her neck. Born in Stillfockin in the County Cork eighty-eight years ago, she went on stage with her sister Catriona as part of the renowned music hall act, the Fabulous Snaggletooth Girls. Emmie picked up the pipe-smoking habit when she had to smoke a traditional clay pipe whilst playing the principal boy in **** in Boots at the old Queen's Theatre in Reading, before it was pulled down to make way for the Pay-As-You-Go Municipal Car Park and Disabled-Access-Toilets.

"All this talk of smoking being bad for your health is a load of old *******", declares Mrs Snaggletooth through her few remaining blackened teeth. And it would seem that Emmie and Sebastian are living proof of this. Emmie sadly points to the fact that her sister Catriona, who never smoked at all, died aged only 25 after being run over by a runaway bus and she emphasies Sebastian is the longest surving member of his litter. "Sebby is the only one of his family who ever liked tobacco, I'm sure of that", she says, "Although his sister, Mary-Jean, was fond of a glass of stout with her biscuits."

Readers are invited to turn to page 24 to enter this week's competition to win a year's supply of Bruno Extra Strength Old **** tobacco and a free ****** examination from Hilary Clinton (Mrs).

I don’t want to become a Creative Writer because I usually suspect that being a Creative Writer is a lot like having a Pretty Face.

When I wake up at 7:24 instead of 7:00 like I always plan to, and my nearly empty journal falls out of my bed, and I look in the mirror at my vaguely pink eyes and that cowlick I have on the right side of my forehead, I do not feel Creative. I also do not feel like I have a Pretty Face. Mostly, I feel very tried, and frustrated that I am going to be exactly seven minutes late to work like I am on every Monday and Wednesday.

Men and people who were almost-men have told me that I have a Pretty Face. At the poetry things I have gone to, the presenters have called me some variant of Creative Writer. I smile with all of my teeth when they say it, because it is a compliment and I know that when I receive a compliment I am supposed to smile like this, a little crooked and a little coy and a lot humble, even though I know that I am only an occasionally creative writer with a face that is pretty in the right light with the right liquid eyeliner.

The trouble with Creative Writers is that their paper crowns start to make them recognizable to people. People recognize them and then they are forced to wave their pencils around like the conductors of a silent song with whatever rhythm is currently in style in the artistic world, and if they hit the wrong note, people tell them they don’t deserve that crown. That Creative Writer is a faker if I ever saw one, the people say. She pretends to be something special. If she wants to get to know you, she will probably tell you a poem instead of telling you what she means.

The trouble with Pretty Faces is that people get so angry at them that they get called fake, too, if they’re lucky. The first day that the Pretty Face shows up to her yoga class without makeup on, or with a friendly zit in the dimple on her chin, people do a lot of pointing. They point and snicker, because that is what we are supposed to do with pretenders. When the truth gets revealed, we like to publish headlines about it and jump up and down with our index fingers out, screaming that we knew it all along. We love to find out that other people’s good things are not real. I don’t know why that is, but I know it is true.

The people in charge rarely give you any power for your titles. The Creative Writer’s paper crown is usually one that she made for herself—you can tell because she gets really frustrated when it starts to sag, weighed down by an accidental cliché about boys’ tears or the rain. Paper disintegrates in water, did you know that? And the Pretty Face probably had a snaggletooth until she was thirteen, so she feels like a fraud even if no one has called her one this week.

I like reading stories and theories by writers who we all took a vote on and decided are definitely both authentically Creative and Important, even if we did not give them those titles until after they died and became noble corpses with hardly any face at all. Sometimes I think that we are incapable of calling anything important until it is gone. I like writing about them because writing about writers is a marvelous loophole—no one but other academics ever questions it, so the popular opinion stays on my side.

One time, a man at a bar in a yellow polo told me that my Face was not Pretty enough for me to laugh like such a tease. I wrote a poem about it and read it at a conference with a toothy mask on, people loved it, and then I decided I did not want that to be my livelihood.

I see the cockroach
caress the counter next to a brewing
*** of coffee, striking a chord of
crystaline sweetness,
that God and Satan could both agree upon.
In the living room,
my best friends are killing each other,
kissing each other,
falling in love,
snagging,
splitting stitches,
chalk outlines,
black mail,
and hopes for a resurrection
swirl and spin with the scent
of perfume
and coffee beans.
My phone lights up with a message
asking for some real advice,
my response is to get a new religion,
and wait for the bombs to fall.
Outside
light pollution fills the sky,
an eerie day that just won't die,
negotiating with eager streetlights,
and all-night diners.
On the corner
of 23rd and Western,
a dancing grinderman,
a homeless woman with a snaggletooth smile,
and their prize of a monkey
are cutting the night with desperation croons,
and delightful foresight.
Just past the construction on the east side of the city,
a one-legged, heathen named James W. Green
is finding solace with
a defeated, overthehill harlot,
going to and fro in a motorized sanctuary,
and grabbing change from her coin-dispensing hips.
I discover a pen embedded in the carpet,
I spend the rest of the evening split
between Midnight Man poetry,
and dictating divine apocrypha,
while once bright-eyed friends of mine
mourn over marriage, self-medication strategies,
and scrape the bottom of the barrel
with their tongues to ensure it's tangible.

coldshoulders abound,
the gowns gather moss
on the carpeted plains,
with a snaggletooth
and a plainface,
         I kiss your blue lips--
         I kiss your blue lips--
         I kiss your blue lips--
if you love him,
why do you spend your time with me--
if you love to dream,
why have you been overindulging on grief,
we can build a family,
a torrent,
a tree,
a yellow bird,
and three graves--
call it real estate,
call it legacy,
just call it more than it seems--

coldshoulders abound
circling like vultures,
circling around the maypole,
taste turns mundane,
so we bite with sharpened teeth,
so we pull hair with renewed vigor,
         I kiss your blue lips--
         I kiss your blue lips--
         I kiss your blue lips--
until the hot red liquid of time solidifies.

Me and the missus live in decent
sturdy accommodations (formerly
Schwenksville Elementary School
ofttimes referred to as prison,
and manager as the de facto warden),
albeit not so shabby nor chic low income
quite modest (rather unmatchable cost wise)  
low slung building we rent,
for mere dime a dozen
pennies on the dollar,
which facility lacks no shortage

of gossip mongers
with mail delivery major event
whereby many old people smelling of unguent
housing faux superman
thumping flabby chests nsync
with hooking thumbs around
suspenders feigning to be affluent,
and self important as secret double agent
yeah, minus the countless snitches,
livingsocial buzzfeeding rumors
outside our one bedroom apartment

at Highland Manor ranks
as satisfactory ascent
to appease our taste,
and general environmental ambient
aspects compared to other
(mice and roach infested)
housing previous situations of ours
so, despite most every nosy, ancient
snooty, hoity toity...tenant,
particularly one butch,  
**** eyed louey, ****** accent

a perfect spectacle for circus big-tent
single bucked sharp front tooth
sparkles, mocks, glistens...
as if brushed with Pepsodent
of course displayed "FAKE"
seventh heaven-sent
friendliness, when poor us
being penniless with just tencent
copper piece experienced warm welcome
short time after moving here
(five plus years since July 1st 2022),

but demeanor thereafter went
postal stamping like the dickens
as if me an unrepentant
jokester, nonetheless yours truly minds
against hateful words adamant
lee averse to cast aspersions,
cuz a friendly gesture linkedin
preference to be cogent practicing
what this atheist doth silent
lee preach, sans attempt tubby tolerant
in the face of someone belligerent

attentive to credo, dogma, ethos
while alive in world be tolerant
of others, whether he/ she wuzzent
pleasant recalling days of yore,
I felt disgusted when hell-bent
to hurl expletives (adding insult to injury)
if  bad mouthed me, thus
object lesson not requiring fervent
fanatical religious fervor  
improving health of Clark Kent.

there is something i must say before i can say anything else--
i have lost touch.
i have lost touch with myself. words fall dead from my lips,
dry rotted, caked in filth,
the conversation ended years ago.
it is too late to talk now.

i see a body. i see a body sparkling by the light of the tv, feet planted firmly on the carpet. i see it sticking to the couch, the boundaries between skin and upholstery merging, the face morphing, becoming unrecognizable. i see a brown carpet, spilled milk from 2018 that never got cleaned. a sully figurine on the shelf looks down at me. i see a hand, lifeless, ***** fingernails itching.
a light turns on upstairs.

i see a mother crying. i feel a father's guilt like a pill stuck in my throat.

i see the body now, again, sparkling under fluorescence on a metal table. a pair of white lips, the snaggletooth he always hated. i see them scraping dirt with their scalpels, cleaning puke with bleach and peroxide. i want to weep but i can’t blame them. it’s human nature to be rough with things that cannot feel.

there is nothing to be said anymore. he is never truly gone, he is in everything. he's in your ****** soundcloud playlists, in the mini ziploc baggies you never threw away from freshman year. he's in the mulch at beech park, the oil stains in parking lots, the writing on your shoes. you can still talk to him whenever. he won't respond, but he never said much of anything anyway. not when you wanted him to. so it's really not that different, is it? will it ever really be that different?

let me say this again--
i have lost touch.
i am craving an unattainable high, i am chasing it with everything left in me. if i thought poetry would get me any closer, i would write more.

i see a body, again, but for real this time. i see it lying in front of me, unrecognizable. i see this sadistic tradition for what it is, animated corpses parading around an excuse for them to cry and rage at anything else but themselves. i tremble like a leaf, i leave the voyeurs where they stand and i sit in the back.

your funeral is at the same church we went in to fill our **** in 2018. they're ******* playing "you raise me up" by josh groban. a woman i don’t know tells me i’m too pretty to cry, and probably thinks she’s a saint for doing so.

i see you sitting next to me, you're not a body anymore. you're holding my hand and laughing, laughing, laughing at it all.

My body is the bird
between a dog's gnashing teeth;
feathery and tossed. Potential
bruising in need of nurturing
or some ice. Even agony requires
a place to put its' head down at night.
For the comings and goings of
loveless transactions upon myself.
My body is also a broken bone,
desperate to fashion itself back together.

The whole of me--
empty pill bottle after pill bottle
hoping to fill itself up,
full of space, so capable of suffocation.
When tipped over on its' side, it's a spitting image
of the father I've only ever known
to run from anything that comes undone

I am also the snaggletooth
belonging to the woman of whom
I belong to. I have hit the radial artery
with my eyes

Bleeding out seems titillating,
but I refuse to touch my pout to
Death's puny ****. It's a danger to touch
skin-to-skin, bound to get addicted.

For fear of closeness,
for fear, we become too much alike.
My face is the same as the blood in the sink,
inspired by neglect and the old war in my head.
For fear, sour breath can't be manipulated,
for fear, we'll share the same pair of eyes.

Abound and lurk
within every nook and cranny
analogous to some annoying pest
here at Highland Manor Apartments.

They ****** and snitch packages -
meant for other than themselves -
think Grinch who stole Christmas
plus snoop, i.e. eavesdrop
big Dumbo ears as listening devices
(batteries not required)
or serve as rumor mongers
to don self importance
and trumpet "FAKE NEWS."

We (yours truly and his misses)
dwelled at aforementioned residence
about five plus years,
and no sooner did both of us set foot
on premises than hearsay
immediately promulgated
(metaphorically swirled about our heads),
and passed like greased lightning
thru the robust grapevine
purportedly wife of mine
brought in live snakes.

Oddly and interestingly enough though,
I never actually never heard nor saw
a fellow resident
talk (or whisper in hushed tones)
about me outright.

Rather than badmouth other feisty folks,
which leaves unpleasant virtual
aftertaste described as phooey zook,
thus comeuppance to reprobate recipients
I activate viz cluck
king silly reasonable rhyme,
(so keeps head up
for urbane adverse city slicker
you better watch out

(...better not shout...) just duck
and run for cover cuz poet took
effluvia enroute spouted by word huck
stir, he avoids naming
(chatterboxes whose lives
so devoid of meaning,
they figuratively kickstart tittle-tattle),
who vocally ramp up some juicy tidbit

taking page from former president playbook
letting their lips uncontrollably run amuck
totally oblivious to credibility factor
buzzfeed initial kernel of truth and truck
outrageous zingers suitable for National Enquirer,
tragicomical, cuz mistruths
courtesy tenants exhibit chutzpah to pluck
farfetched outright lies and innuendos

rolling of tongues of occupants such as:
"Bible Thumper/Holy Roller,"
"Bingo/ Phat Cathy,""Crooked Old Man,"
"Curvy Girl/Thunder Thighs," "Frumpty Dumpty
"Mush/Smash Mouth, "Snaggletooth,"
"The Bodyguard," "The Fossil," "The Schvartze,"
"Winkle," and last but not leased "Zha Zha”.

Give me fruit flies, mice
and/or roaches any day,
or give me death!

Theodore Tooth
Refused to let loose
Like he was supposed to
Being long in the tooth

Although a part of the crowd
He would not go that route
Brushing often, up and down
Flossing himself where it counts

Staying ahead of the game
Sadly, his friends did not do the same
Ask him and he'd often say
What a doggone rotten shame

As they one by one fell out
Far too many now to count
Gone from the North, East, West and South
His friends no longer hang around

To tell you the honest truth
What is there for a lone tooth to do
But to change his name into
That of Snaggletooth

Its all tickety boo
Mnemosyne,
All the squirrels go swingeling along.
Here, have another.
How did you hear about yourself?
Perhaps from the flatware,
They all had lunch one us.
Voluptuous potato pancakes
In pickling brine.
Who would draw up such schematics?
Prudent farming engineers, that's who.
My lesions are legend,
I know them all by name.
They came up all Humpty Dumpty.
It configured a conflagration,
It was like a coming out party
We took up a collection,
It was a formal gratuity-
Like graduating from Radio school.
Who said "ALL ****"?
Sounds uppity at the cocktail convention,
With the swaggering lounge music.
Its really quite benign,
Like sipping soup through a straw.
Its been factory sealed for your protection.
It's safer than a school of sleepy piranhas.
Have I blown the 9 hour interview?
I wore my best Captain Crunch uniform,
It's standard issue.
I checked the latest at Phlegm Central,
They said I best check my shirt.
Then we had light refreshments.

Later that Century,
I was feeding the current machine.
Greedy Son Of A. B!#ch,
It was such a de-happening.
It became much to empirical.
Like a month of Tuesdays every other weekend,
That's the price to be paid
When you haul it up. Snaggletooth Mountain.
It was bemusing, if not hunderstruck.
We crossed into the International Sinus Zone,
From there it got a bit hazy-
All the trains were late.
It went well with the weather.
Cletus wore his camisole nightie,
While I was in my haberdasher hair shirt.
It effulgent, in mocking undertones.
It's peanut pastime of reinforced paint peels.
How does that make me an irregular object.
Let's all get up and March
To the swinging sounds of Sherezade,
Forgetting your conscience as we sidle along.
Hold up the Opera while I make up the lyrics.
How do you turn this **** thing down?

Sentient beings distraught
psyche rent asunder
courtesy false accusations
heated words exchanged like gunfire
pox upon the house of Deborah Hunter,
a vicious vindictive
girlish looking septuagenarian woman
buzzfeeding unfounded conspiracy
that the missus steals packages
ever since we moved here
at Highland Manor Apartments

force core and seven years ago
July first two thousand and seventeen
thee wife accused
unfounded rumor circulated,
she brought in snakes
courtesy whom I hashtag snaggletooth
blind as a bat
mistook large make believe
as voracious very hungry,
albeit friendly stuffed caterpillars,

nevertheless possessing
an insatiable appetite
for rumor mongers
especially for bony thin
older bonnie lass
or similar facsimile thereof
such as a small number of tenants
housed here at above mentioned
low income low slung building
formerly an elementary school

repurposed many decades ago
into accommodations
mostly catering to senior citizens,
and/or those receiving
social security disability
the latter classification pertains
to yours truly,
a psychologically tuckered out
egalitarian, libertarian, nonsectarian,
sexagenarian, solitudinarian Unitarian

frazzled, grizzled,
and puzzled wordsmith
who knows not why the wife
singled out and bullied, hastled,
intimidated, and threatened
creating hostile living environment
impacting me
indirectly caught in the crosshairs
wishing upon a star
to acquire monetary resources

to hightail out of
insufferable toxic shock
system of the down
slipping into the behavioral sink
suffocating - impossible mission
to catch my breath
brainstorming for solution
while pitched upon
horns of a dilemma,
whereat I shout out

thru the corridors of time
calling Bull Moose and Rocky
my childhood fictitious cartoon heroes
to deliver salvation out the maws
of an untenable situation
threatening life and limb
hankering for life, liberty
and the pursuit
of happiness birthing
nirvana linkedin to soul asylum.