Like a psychotic docent in the wilderness,
I will not speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences.
I draw my voice from a much deeper cistern,
Preferring the jittery synaptic archive,
So sublimely unfiltered, random and profane.
And though I am sequestered now,
Confined within the walls of a gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55 lunatic asylum (for Active Seniors I am told),
I remain oddly puerile,
Remarkably refreshed and unfettered.  
My institutionalization self-imposed,
Purposed for my own serenity, and also the safety of others.
Yet I abide, surprisingly emancipated and frisky.
I may not have found the peace I seek,
But the quiet has mercifully come at last.

The nexus of inner and outer space is context for my story.
I was born either in Brooklyn, New York or Shungopavi, Arizona,
More of intervention divine than census data.
Shungopavi: a designated place for tribal statistical purposes.
Shungopavi: an ovine abbatoir and shaman’s cloister.
The Hopi: my mother’s people, a state of mind and grace,
Deftly landlocked, so cunningly circumscribed,
By both interior and outer Navajo boundaries.
The Navajo: a coyote trickster people; a nation of sheep thieves,
Hornswoggled and landlocked themselves,
Subsumed within three of the so-called Four Corners:
A 3/4ths compromise and covenant,
Pickled in firewater, swaddled in fine print,
A veritable swindle concocted back when the USA
Had Manifest Destiny & mayhem on its mind.

The United States: once a pubescent synthesis of blood and thunder,
A bold caboodle of trooper spit and polish, unwashed brawlers, Scouts and      
Pathfinders, mountain men, numb-nut ne'er-do-wells,
Buffalo Bills & big-balled individualists, infected, insane with greed.
According to the Gospel of His Holiness Saint Zinn,
A People’s’ History of the United States: essentially state-sponsored terrorism,
A LAND RUSH grabocracy, orchestrated, blessed and anointed,
By a succession of Potomac sharks, Great White Fascist Fathers,
Far-Away-on-the Bay, the Bay we call The Chesapeake.
All demented national patriarchs craving lebensraum for God and country.
The USA: a 50-state Leviathan today, a nation jury-rigged,
Out of railroad ties, steel rails and baling wire,
Forged by a litany of lies, rapaciousness and ******,
And jaw-torn chunks of terra firma,
Bites both large and small out of our well-****** Native American ***.

Or culo, as in va’a fare in culo (literally "go do it in the ***")
Which Italian Americans pronounce as fongool.
The language center of my brain,
My sub-cortical Broca’s region,
So fraught with such semantic misfires,
And autonomic linguistic seizures,
Compel acknowledgement of a father’s contribution,
To both the gene pool and the genocide.
Columbus Day:  a conspicuously absent holiday out here in Indian Country.
No festivals or Fifth Avenue parades.
No excuse for ethnic hoopla. No guinea feast. No cannoli. No tarantella.
No excuse to not get drunk and not **** your sister-in-law.
Emphatically a day for prayer and contemplation,
A day of infamy like Pearl Harbor and 9/11,
October 12, 1492: not a discovery; an invasion.

Growing up in Brooklyn, things were always different for me,
Different in some sort of redskin/****/****--
Choose Your Favorite Ethnic Slur-sort of way.
The American Way: dehumanization for fun and profit.
Melting *** anonymity and denial of complicity with evil.
But this is no time to bring up America’s sordid past,
Or, a personal pet peeve: Indian Sovereignty.
For Uncle Sam and his minions, an ever-widening, conveniently flexible concept,
Not a commandment or law,
Not really a treaty or a compact,
Or even a business deal.  Let’s get real:
It was not even much in the way of a guideline.
Just some kind of an advisory, a bulletin or newsletter,
Could it merely have been a free-floating suggestion?
Yes, that’s it exactly: a suggestion.

Over and under halcyon American skies,
Over and around those majestic purple mountain peaks,
Those trapped in poetic amber waves of wheat and oats,
Corn and barley, wheat shredded and puffed,
Corn flaked and milled, Wheat Chex and Wheaties, oats that are little Os;
Kix and Trix, Fiber One, and Kashi-Go-Lean, Lucky Charms and matso *****,
Kreplach and kishka,
Polenta and risotto.
Our cantaloupe and squash patch,
Our fruited prairie plain, our delicate ecological Eden,
In balance and harmony with nature, as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce instructs:
“These white devils are not going to,
Stop ****** and killing, cheating and eating us,
Until they have the whole ******* enchilada.
I’m talking about ‘from sea to shining sea.’”

“I fight no more forever,” Babaloo.
So I must steer this clunky keelboat of discovery,
Back to the main channel of my sad and starry demented river.
My warpath is personal but not historical.
It is my brain’s own convoluted cognitive process I cannot saavy.
Whatever biochemical or—as I suspect more each day—
Whatever bio-mechanical protocols govern my identity,
My weltanschauung: my world-view, as sprechen by proto-Nazis;
Putz philosophers of the 17th, 18th & 19th century.
The German intelligentsia: what a cavalcade of maniacal *******!
Why is this Jew unsurprised these Zarathustra-fueled Übermenschen . . .
Be it the Kaiser--Caesar in Deutsch--Bismarck, ******, or,
Even that Euro-*****,  Angela Merkel . . . Why am I not surprised these Huns,
Get global grab-*** on the sauerbraten cabeza every few generations?
To be, or not to be the ***** bullgoose loony: GOTT.

Biomechanical protocols govern my identity and are implanted while I sleep.
My brain--my weak and weary CPU--is replenished, my discs defragmented.
A suite of magnetic and optical white rooms, cleansed free of contaminants,
Gun mounts & lifeboat stations manned and ready,
Standing at attention and saluting British snap-style,
Snap-to and heel click, ramrod straight and cheerful: “Ready for duty, Sir.”
My mind is ravenous, lusting for something, anything to process.
Any memory or image, lyric or construct,
Be they short-term dailies or deeply imprinted.
Fixations archived one and all in deep storage time and space.
Memories, some subconscious, most vaporous;
Others--the scary ones—eidetic: frighteningly detailed and extraordinarily vivid.
Precise cognitive transcripts; recollected so richly rife and fresh.
Visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory reloads:
Queued up and increasingly re-experienced.

The bio-data of six decades: it’s all there.
People, countless, places and things cataloged.
Every event, joy and trauma enveloped from within or,
Accessed externally from biomechanical storage devices.
The random access memory of a lifetime,
Read and recollected from cerebral repositories and vaults,
All the while the entire greedy process overseen,
Over-driven by that all-subservient British bat-man,
Rummaging through the data in batches small and large,
Internal and external drives working in seamless syncopation,
Self-referential, at times paradoxical or infinitely looped.
“Cogito ergo sum."
Descartes stripped it down to the basics but there’s more to the story:
Thinking about thinking.
A curse and minefield for the cerebral:  metacognition.

No, it is not the fact that thought exists,
Or even the thoughts themselves.
But the information technology of thought that baffles me,
As adaptive and profound as any evolution posited by Darwin,
Beyond the wetware in my skull, an entirely new operating system.
My mental and cultural landscape are becoming one.
Machines are connecting the two.
It’s what I am and what I am becoming.
Once more for emphasis:
It is the information technology of who I am.
It is the operating system of my mental and cultural landscape.
It is the machinery connecting the two.
This is the central point of this narrative:
Metacognition--your superego’s yenta Cassandra,
Screaming, screaming in your psychic ear, your good ear:

“LISTEN:  The machines are taking over, taking you over.
Your identity and train of thought are repeatedly hijacked,
Switched off the main line onto spurs and tangents,
Only marginally connected or not at all.
(Incoming TEXT from my editor: “Lighten Up, Giuseppi!”)
Reminding me again that most in my audience,
Rarely get past the comic page. All righty then: think Calvin & Hobbes.
John Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year old boy,
Subject to flights of 16th Century French theological fancy.
Thomas Hobbes, a sardonic anthropomorphic tiger from 17th Century England,
Mumbling about life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Taken together--their antics and shenanigans--their relationship to each other,
Remind us of our dual nature; explore for us broad issues like public education;
The economy, environmentalism & the Global ****** Thermometer;
Not to mention the numerous flaws of opinion polls.



And again my editor TEXTS me, reminds me again: “LIGHTEN UP!”
Consoling me:  “Even Shakespeare had to play to the groundlings.”
The groundlings, AKA: The Rabble.
Yes. Even the ******* Bard, even Willie the Shake,
Had to contend with a decidedly lowbrow copse of carrion.
Oh yes, the groundlings, a carrion herd, a flying flock of carrion seagulls,
Carrion crow, carrion-feeders one and all,
And let’s throw Sheryl Crow into the mix while we’re at it:
“Hit it! This ain't no disco. And it ain't no country club either, this is L.A.”  

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

Once more, I digress.
The Rabble:  an amorphous, gelatinous Jabba the Hutt of commonality.
The Rabble: drunk, debauched & lawless.
Too *****-delicious to stop Bill & Hilary from thinking about tomorrow;
Too Paul McCartney My Love Does it Good to think twice.

The Roman Saturnalia: a weeklong **** fest.
The Saturnalia: originally a pagan kink-fest in honor of the deity Saturn.
Dovetailing nicely with the advent of the Christian era,
With a project started by Il Capo di Tutti Capi,
One of the early popes, co-opting the Roman calendar between 17 and 25 December,
Putting the finishing touches on the Jesus myth.
For Brooklyn Hopi-***-Jew baby boomers like me,
Saturnalia manifested itself as Disco Fever,
Unpleasant years of electrolysis, scrunched ***** in tight polyester
For Roman plebeians, for the great unwashed citizenry of Rome,
Saturnalia was just a great big Italian wedding:
A true family blowout and once-in-a-lifetime ego-trip for Dad,
The father of the bride, Vito Corleone, Don for A Day:
“Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I! Funicula, Funiculi!”

America: love it or leave it; my country right or wrong.
Sure, we were citizens of Rome,
But any Joe Josephus spending the night under a Tiber bridge,
Or sleeping off a three day drunk some afternoon,
Up in the Coliseum bleachers, the cheap seats, out beyond the monuments,
The original three monuments in the old stadium,
Standing out in fair territory out in center field,
Those three stone slabs honoring Gehrig, Huggins, and Babe.
Yes, in the house that Ruth built--Home of the Bronx Bombers--***?
Any Joe Josephus knows:  Roman citizenship doesn’t do too much for you,
Except get you paxed, taxed & drafted into the Legion.
For us the Roman lifestyle was HIND-*** humble.
We plebeians drew our grandeur by association with Empire.
Very few Romans and certainly only those of the patrician class lived high,
High on the hog, enjoying a worldly extravaganza, like—whom do we both know?

Okay, let’s say Laurence Olivier as Crassus in Spartacus.
Come on, you saw Spartacus fifteen ******* times.
Remember Crassus?
Crassus: that ***** twisted **** trying to get his freak on with,
Tony Curtis in a sunken marble tub?
We plebes led lives of quiet *****-scratching desperation,
A bunch of would-be legionnaires, diseased half the time,
Paid in salt tablets or baccala, salted codfish soaked yellow in olive oil.
Stiffs we used to call them on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.
Let’s face it: we were hyenas eating someone else’s ****,
Stage-door jackals, Juvenal-come-late-lies, a mob of moronic mook boneheads
Bought off with bread & circuses and Reality TV.
Each night, dished up a wide variety of lowbrow Elizabethan-era entertainments.  
We contemplate an evening on the town, downtown—
(cue Petula Clark/Send "Downtown" Ringtone to your Cell)

On any given London night, to wit:  mummers, jugglers, bear & bull baiters.
How about dog & **** fighters, quoits & skittles, alehouses & brothels?
In short, somewhere, anywhere else,
Anywhere other than down along the Thames,
At Bankside in Southwark, down in the Globe Theater mosh pit,
Slugging it out with the groundlings whose only interest,
In the performance is the choreography of swordplay and stale ****** puns.
Meanwhile, Hugh Fennyman--probably a fellow Jew,
An English Renaissance Bugsy Siegel or Mickey Cohen—
Meanwhile Fennyman, the local mob boss is getting his ya-yas,
Roasting the feet of my text-messaging editor, Philip Henslowe.
Poor and pathetic Henslowe, works on commission, always scrounging,
But a true patron of my craft, a gentleman of infinite jest and patience,
Spiritual subsistence, and every now and then a good meal at some,
Sawdust joint with oyster shells, and a Prufrockian silk purse of T.S. Eliot gold.

Poor, pathetic Henslowe, trussed up by Fennyman,
His editorial feet in what looks like a Japanese hibachi.
Henslowe’s feet to the fire--feet to the fire—get it?
A catchy phrase whose derivation conjures up,
A grotesque yet vivid image of torture,
An exquisite insight into how such phrases ingress the idiom,
Not to mention a scene once witnessed at a secret Romanian CIA prison,
I’d been ordered to Bucharest not long after 9/11,
Handling the rendition and torture of Habib Ghazzawy,

An entirely innocent falafel maker from Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens.
Shock the Monkey: it’s what we do. GOTO:
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey/
(HQ music video) - YouTube//
www.youtube.com/
Poor, pathetic, ******-on Henslowe.


Fennyman :  (his avarice is whet by something Philly screams out about a new script)  "A play takes time. Find actors; Rehearsals. Let's say open in three weeks. That's--what--five hundred groundlings at tuppence each, in addition four hundred groundlings tuppence each, in addition four hundred backsides at three pence--a penny extra for a cushion, call it two hundred cushions, say two performances for safety how much is that Mr. Frees?"
Jacobean Tweet, John (1580-1684) Webster:  “I saw him kissing her bubbies.”

It’s Geoffrey Rush, channeling Henslowe again,
My editor, a singed smoking madman now,
Feet in an ice bucket, instructing me once more:
“Lighten things up, you know . . .
Comedy, love and a bit with a dog.”
I digress again and return to Hopi Land, back to my shaman-monastic abattoir,
That Zen Center in downtown Shungopavi.
At the Tribal Enrolment Office I make my case for a Certificate of Indian Blood,
Called a CIB by the Natives and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The BIA:  representing gold & uranium miners, cattle and sheep ranchers,
Sodbusters & homesteaders; railroaders and dam builders since 1824.
Just in time for Andrew Jackson, another false friend of Native America,
Just before Old Hickory, one of many Democratic Party hypocrites and scoundrels,
Gives the FONGOOL, up the CULO go ahead.
Hey Andy, I’ve got your Jacksonian democracy: Hanging!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:   "… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. What’s that in the fine print?  Uncle Sammy holds “the trust assets of American Indians.”

Here’s a ******* tip, Geronimo: if he trusted you,
It would ALL belong to you.
To you and The People.
But it’s all fork-tongued white *******.
If true, Indian sovereignty would cease to be a sick one-liner,
Cease to be a blunt force punch line, more of,
King Leopold’s 19th Century stand-up comedy schtick,
Leo Presents: The **** of the Congo.
La Belgique mission civilisatrice—
That’s what French speakers called Uncle Leo’s imperial public policy,
Bringing the gift of civilization to central Africa.
Like Manifest Destiny in America, it had a nice colonial ring to it.
“Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent,
Allotted by Providence for the free development,
Of our yearly multiplying millions.”  John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Our civilizing mission or manifest destiny:
Either/or, a catchy turn of phrase;
Not unlike another ironic euphemism and semantic subterfuge:
The Pacification of the West; Pacification?
Hardly: decidedly not too peaceful for Cochise & Tonto.
Meanwhile, Madonna is cash rich but disrespected Evita poor,
To wit: A ****** on the Rocks (throwing in a byte or 2 of Da Vinci Code).
Meanwhile, Miss Ciccone denied her golden totem *****.
They snubbed that little guinea ****, didn’t they?
Snubbed her, robbed her rotten.
Evita, her magnum opus, right up there with . . .
Her SNL Wayne’s World skit:
“Get a load of the unit on that guy.”
Or, that infamous MTV Music Video Awards stunt,
That classic ***** Lip-Lock with Britney Spears.

How could I not see that Oscar snubola as prime evidence?
It was just another stunning case of American anti-Italian racial animus.
Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky would see it,
Must view it in the same context as the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
Or, that arbitrary lynching of 9 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891,
To cite just two instances of anti-Italian judicial reach & mob violence,
Much like what happened to my cousin Dominic,
Gang-***** by the Harlem Globetrotters, in their locker room during halftime,
While he working for Abe Saperstein back in 1952.
Dom was doing advance for Abe, supporting creation of The Washington Generals:
A permanent stable of hoop dream patsies and foils,
Named for the ever freewheeling, glad-handing, backslapping,
Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF), himself,
Namely General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man they liked,
And called IKE: quite possibly a crypto Jew from Abilene.

Of course, Harry Truman was my first Great White Fascist Father,
Back in 1946, when I first opened my eyes, hung up there,
High above, looking down from the adobe wall.
Surveying the entire circular kiva,
I had the best seat in the house.
Don’t let it be said my Spider Grandmother or Hopi Corn Mother,
Did not want me looking around at things,
Discovering what made me special.
Didn’t divine intervention play a significant part of my creation?
Knowing Mamma Mia and Nonna were Deities,
Gave me an edge later on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Cradleboard: was there ever a more divinely inspired gift to human curiosity? The Cradleboard: a perfect vantage point, an infant’s early grasp,
Of life harmonious, suspended between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Simply put: the Hopi should be running our ******* public schools.

But it was IKE with whom I first associated,
Associated with the concept 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I liked IKE. Who didn’t?
What was not to like?
He won the ******* war, didn’t he?
And he wasn’t one of those crazy **** John Birchers,
Way out there, on the far right lunatic Republican fringe,
Was he? (It seems odd and nearly impossible to believe in 2013,
That there was once a time in our Boomer lives,
When the extreme right wing of the Republican Party
Was viewed by the FBI as an actual threat to American democracy.)
Understand: it was at a time when The FBI,
Had little ideological baggage,
But a great appetite for secrets,
The insuppressible Jay Edgar doing his thang.

IKE: of whom we grew so, oh-so Fifties fond.
Good old reliable, Nathan Shaking IKE:
He’d been fixed, hadn’t he? Had had the psychic snip.
Snipped as a West Point cadet & parade ground martinet.
Which made IKE a good man to have in a pinch,
Especially when crucial policy direction was way above his pay grade.
Cousin Dom was Saperstein’s bagman, bribing out the opposition,
Which came mainly from religious and patriotic organizations,
Viewing the bogus white sports franchise as obscene.
The Washington Generals, Saperstein’s new team would have but one opponent,
And one sole mission: to serve as the **** of endless jokes and sight gags for—
Negroes.  To play the chronic fools of--
Negroes.  To be chronically humiliated and insulted by—
Negroes.  To run up and down the boards all night, being outran by—
Negroes.  Not to mention having to wear baggy silk shorts.



Meadowlark Lemon:  “Yeah, Charlie, we ***** that grease-ball Dominic; we shagged his guinea mouth and culo rotten.”  

(interviewed in his Scottsdale, AZ winter residence in 2003 by former ESPN commentator Charlie Steiner, Malverne High School, Class of ’67.)
                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                 
IKE, briefed on the issue by higher-ups, quickly got behind the idea.
The Harlem Globetrotters were to exist, and continue to exist,
Are sustained financially by Illuminati sponsors,
For one reason and one reason only:
To serve elite interests that the ***** be kept down and subservient,
That the minstrel show be perpetuated,
A policy surviving the elaborate window dressing of the civil rights movement, Affirmative action, and our first Uncle Tom president.
Case in point:  Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman & Metta World Peace Artest.
Cha-cha-cha changing again:  I am Robert Allen Zimmermann,
A whiny, skinny Jew, ****** and rolling in from Minnesota,
Arrested, obviously a vagrant, caught strolling around his tony Jersey enclave,
Having moved on up the list, the A-list, a special invitation-only,
Yom Kippur Passover Seder:  Next Year in Jerusalem, Babaloo!

I take ownership of all my autonomic and conditioned reflexes;
Each personal neural arc and pathway,
All shenanigans & shellackings,
Or blunt force cognitive traumas.
It’s all percolating nicely now, thank you,
In kitchen counter earthen crockery:
Random access memory: a slow-cook crockpot,
Bubbling through my psychic sieve.
My memories seem only remotely familiar,
Distant and vague, at times unreal:
An alien hybrid databank accessed accidently on purpose;
Flaky science sustains and monitors my nervous system.
And leads us to an overwhelming question:
Is it true that John Dillinger’s ******* is in the Smithsonian Museum?
Enquiring minds want to know, Kemosabe!

“Any last words, *******?” TWEETS Adam Smith.
Postmortem cyber-graffiti, an epitaph carved in space;
Last words, so singular and simple,
Across the universal great divide,
Frisbee-d, like a Pleistocene Kubrick bone,
Tossed randomly into space,
Morphing into a gyroscopic space station.
Mr. Smith, a calypso capitalist, and me,
Me, the Poet Laureate of the United States and Adam;
Who, I didn’t know from Adam.
But we tripped the light fantastic,
We boogied the Protestant Work Ethic,
To the tune of that old Scotch-Presbyterian favorite,
Variations of a 5-point Calvinist theme: Total Depravity; Election; Particular Redemption; Irresistible Grace; & Perseverance of the Saints.

Mr. Smith, the author of An Inquiry into the Nature
& Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776),
One of the best-known, intellectual rationales for:
Free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism,
The latter term a euphemism for Social Darwinism.
Prior to 1764, Calvinists in France were called Huguenots,
A persecuted religious majority . . . is that possible?
A persecuted majority of Edict of Nantes repute.
Adam Smith, likely of French Huguenot Jewish ancestry himself,
Reminds me that it is my principal plus interest giving me my daily gluten.
And don’t think the irony escapes me now,
A realization that it has taken me nearly all my life to see again,
What I once saw so vividly as a child, way back when.
Before I put away childish things, including the following sentiment:
“All I need is the air that I breathe.”

  Send "The Air That I Breathe" Ringtone to your Cell  

The Hippies were right, of course.
The Hollies had it all figured out.
With the answer, as usual, right there in the lyrics.
But you were lucky if you were listening.
There was a time before I embraced,
The other “legendary” economists:
The inexorable Marx,
The savage society of Veblen,
The heresies we know so well of Keynes.
I was a child.
And when I was a child, I spake as a child—
Grazie mille, King James—
I understood as a child; I thought as a child.
But when I became a man I jumped on the bus with the band,
Hopped on the irresistible bandwagon of Adam Smith.

Smith:  “Any last words, *******?”
Okay, you were right: man is rationally self-interested.
Grazie tanto, Scotch Enlightenment,
An intellectual movement driven by,
An alliance of Calvinists and Illuminati,
Freemasons and Johnny Walker Black.
Talk about an irresistible bandwagon:
Smith, the gloomy Malthus, and David Ricardo,
Another Jew boy born in London, England,
Third of 17 children of a Sephardic family of Portuguese origin,
Who had recently relocated from the Dutch Republic.
******* Jews!
Like everything shrewd, sane and practical in this world,
WE also invented the concept:  FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The lyrics: if you were really listening, you’d get it:
Respiration keeps one sufficiently busy,
Just breathing free can be a full-time job,
Especially when--borrowing a phrase from British cricketers—,
One contemplates the sorry state of the wicket.
Now that I am gainfully superannuated,
Pensioned off the employment radar screen.
Oft I go there into the wild ebon yonder,
Wandering the brain cloud at will.
My journey indulges curiosity, creativity and deceit.
I free range the sticky wicket,
I have no particular place to go.
Snagging some random fact or factoid,
A stop & go rural postal route,
Jumping on and off the brain cloud.

Just sampling really,
But every now and then, gorging myself,
At some information super smorgasbord,
At a Good Samaritan Rest Stop,
I ponder my own frazzled neurology,
When I was a child—
Before I learned the grim economic facts of life and Judaism,
Before I learned Hebrew,
Before my laissez-faire Bar Mitzvah lessons,
Under the rabbinical tutelage of Rebbe Kahane--
I knew what every clever child knows about life:
The surfing itself is the destination.
Accessing RAM--random access memory—
On a strictly need to know basis.
RAM:  a pretty good name for consciousness these days.

If I were an Asimov or Sir Arthur (Sri Lankabhimanya) Clarke,
I’d get freaky now, riffing on Terminators, Time Travel and Cyborgs.
But this is truth not science fiction.
Nevertheless, someone had better,
Come up with another name for cyborg.
Some other name for a critter,
Composed of both biological and artificial parts?
Parts-is-parts--be they electronic, mechanical or robotic.
But after a lifetime of science fiction media,
After a steady media diet, rife with dystopian technology nightmares,
Is anyone likely to admit to being a cyborg?
Since I always give credit where credit is due,
I acknowledge that cyborg was a term coined in 1960,
By Manfred Clynes & Nathan S. Kline and,
Used to identify a self-regulating human-machine system in outer space.

Five years later D. S. Halacy's: Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman,
Featured an introduction, which spoke of:  “… a new frontier, that was not,
Merely space, but more profoundly, the relationship between inner space,
And outer space; a bridge, i.e., between mind and matter.”
So, by definition, a cyborg defined is an organism with,
Technology-enhanced abilities: an antenna array,
Replacing what was once sentient and human.
My glands, once in control of metabolism and emotions,
Have been replaced by several servomechanisms.
I am biomechanical and gluttonous.
Soaking up and breathing out the atmosphere,
My Baby Boom experience of six decades,
Homogenized and homespun, feedback looped,
Endlessly networked through predigested mass media,
Culture as demographically targeted content.

This must have something to do with my own metamorphosis.
I think of Gregor Samsa, a Kafkaesque character if there ever was one.
And though we share common traits,
My evolutionary progress surpasses and transcends his.
Samsa--Phylum and Class--was, after all, an insect.
Nonetheless, I remain a changeling.
Have I not seen many stages of growth?
Each a painful metamorphic cycle,
From exquisite first egg,
Through caterpillar’s appetite & squirm.
To phlegmatic bliss and pupa quietude,
I unfold my wings in a rush of Van Gogh palette,
Color, texture, movement and grace, lift off, flapping in flight.
My eyes have witnessed wondrous transformations,
My experience, nouveau riche and distinctly self-referential;
For the most part unspecific & longitudinally pedestrian.

Yes, something has happened to me along the way.
I am no longer certain of my identity as a human being.
Time and technology has altered my basic wiring diagram.
I suspect the sophisticated gadgets and tools,
I’ve been using to shape & make sense of my environment,
Have reared up and turned around on me.
My tools have reshaped my brain & central nervous system.
Remaking me as something simultaneously more and less human.
The electronic toys and tools I once so lovingly embraced,
Have turned unpredictable and rabid,
Their bite penetrating my skin and septic now, a cluster of implanted sensors,
Content: currency made increasingly more valuable as time passes,
Served up by and serving the interests of a pervasively predatory 1%.
And the rest of us: the so-called 99%?
No longer human; simply put by both Howards--Beale & Zinn--

Humanoid.

I.
Identity?
For so long, I've felt like I had none.
I am a piece of college-ruled paper
ripped, torn, taped to a back alley wall
with names and dates and places
all written in a rainbow of Sharpies
by people with faces I cannot remember;
my handwriting with the cursive "f"s
nowhere to be seen,
words I'd written so long ago
buried beneath the influence of everyone else.

Who are you, when you're no one
except everyone?

II.
I'm sick.
I am years of not getting out of bed.
I am missed school days, late-passes,
a truant.
I am doctor's notes.
I am a pile of handwritten prescriptions.
I am one white
two orange
one pink
and two multi-vitamins.
Misdiagnoses,
tests,
exams.

My feet melt into the blue and grey carpeting,
my arms turn brown like the worn-down stain of the armrests,
the receptionist knew me by name
until "next week's appointment" slipped off the calendar.

I am episodes of crying in crowds
or crying alone.
I'm haunted by mistakes remembered only by me.
I am up or I'm down
without knowing what's between.
My brain leaves my body and I can't feel my hands
so the bottle of Advil moves up one more shelf.

I am told to lie on my medical forms
so I won't be held at arms length,
or treated like someone who's different or strange;
but that's just how I'm treated at home.

III.
I am nothing more
than the result of years of torture.
Two bra sizes too small.
Four dress sizes too big.

I am nothing more than a waistline,
which would be fine
if I had one.

I am not pretty enough.
I am not beautiful enough.
I am not good enough.

And I will not be joining you for dinner.

IV.
I push people away
but long for them to come closer.
I run, keep my distance
but, when you're not looking, lean in a bit closer.

I text boys 300 miles away
but pretend he's right there beside me.

I'm gullible, I'm weak.
I fall for anything, I fall for everything.
I forgive too quickly and I love too much,
I set myself up for the fall.

V.
I'm a disappointment.
I'm wrong.
I'm wrong.
I'm wrong.

I forget my chores.
I forget responsibilities.
I forget rules, I forget deadlines, I forget lines in the play.

I forget numbers and facts and formulas.
And when the grades come back
I remember
what a parents' giving up looks like.

VI.
I'm difficult.
I'm needy.
I can't drive,
can't make my own appointments.
Can't sign my own papers, can't run my own errands,
can't buy my own dinner,
can't call my own shots.
I'm difficult.
I hear myself say that I don't have a choice
But the sigh in reply says,
I'm difficult.

VII.
I love the wrong gender.
I swing the wrong way.
"I always imagined my daughter walking down the aisle
with a man who reminded her of her father," he says.
"I'm just disappointed," he says.
So I bring home a boy
and Mom says,
"Thank you -
I promise, it's easier this way."

Some girls tell their families when they find their first love,
but mine will stay hidden
in the box with the K
filled with letters and gifts and "thinking of you"'s
collecting dust between the wall and my bed.

VIII.
I am numbers, and numbers, and numbers.
Weights, heights, exes, mistakes -
too high.
Grades, standardized tests, word counts and successes -
too low.

IX.
I'm deluded.
Always telling myself that if Mom really loved me
she'd put me before the glass of wine.
Convincing myself that it's my fault
and that I'm selfish, petty, judgmental.
I'm hurt.

I'm hopeful.
Waking up to the overhead light in my room at 10
when Dad comes home from work -
asking me how my day went
and closing the door before I can reply.
I'm silent.

I'm lonely.
Clinging to the siblings of friends and partners
desperately wanting a family.
Constantly jumping from partner to partner
desperately needing a hug.
I'm alone.

X.
With all my shortcomings
with all I do wrong
it's hard for me to find when I do something right.

But of all the things I'll never know,
I know how to feel, I know how to care.

I'll show you passion like you've never seen passion before.
I've seen gods in mortals and mortals in gods,
I've felt fire inside me when it's icy around me,
I've painted the Sistine Chapel with the notes of F. Doppler,
I've sculpted the moon and the stars and the sun with my heart,
I've loved with the urgency of the wind of a hurricane
and I've forgiven like the sand did the Atlantic high tide.

XI.
I forget so much,
but there's so much more to remember.

I'll remember your dreams, your hopes, your ambitions,
I'll remember your tears on the sleeve of my shirt.
I'll remember the days of the sweet uncertainties,
bus rides and text messages and scarves and "good morning"s.
I'll remember the day my heart fell for yours
(ticking, ticking, like the bomb in the birdcage).

I'll remember the album with the songs named after planets,
and I'll remember when you couldn't meet my eyes to the lyrics.
I'll remember the confessions from the football field bleachers,
even next year, when there's an empty chair in the orchestra.

I'll forget all our fights, even the ones you never will,
and I might lose some of our laughs,
but I'll never forget passion at 4 in the morning,
or slow-dancing like middle schoolers at high-school dances,
or your body against mine to old SNL re-runs.
I'll always remember the times you let me in
and I'll be here in silence for the times you still can't.

I'll remember our promises
of dreams and forever -
plantations in Greece, Italy, Spain.
Love letters and presents hidden around our camp cabins,
four years of love, friendship, promises
dissolved in a haze of disdain.

I may not remember the quadratic formula,
I may not remember Newton's third law,
but I'll never forget how you make my heart hammer,
even when you forget me.

XII.
I am
forgettable, only wishing to be remembered by someone, someday,
sad, looking for joy in things big and small.
A hypocrite, begging for proximity then crawling far, far away.
I am miserable, but passionate.
I am identical, but a glaring mistake.
I am what-if's, maybe's, and might-have-been's.
I am quoting Jethro Tull songs in my confessions.
I am words in my head that will never escape my lips,
I am words on my lips that should never have escaped my head.
I am things I'll never say and stories I'll never write,
I am singing in the shower, dancing in the halls,
I am running across busy streets in April
and sleeping in screened-in porches in June.

XIII.
And every time I wake up alone,
I'll stand in the yard, look up to the sky
and remind myself that the sun, too, is alone
but can still warm the earth with its love.

Morning

the alarm goes off
I wake up
I turn it off
I go back to sleep
My mom or dad comes in
they wake me back up
I lie in bed
for 10 more minutes
then I get up
I go to the bathroom
and stare at myself in the mirror
I sigh...
I pretend to wash my face
I go back to my room
I stare at my closet
and decide what I'm going to wear
I get dressed
I go down stairs
I eat one of the following items:
oat meal
   -Chocolate chip
   -Maple brown sugar
   -apple cinnamon
Whole wheat bagel with almond butter, peanut butter, cinnamon, and/or jam
cereal if there are any good options
   -Peanut butter bumpers
   -GOOD granola
   -organic chocolate *****
with coconut milk
toast with the same things as bagels
I say good morning to parents
I argue with my sister
I drink my orange juice
eat my vitamins
bring my stuff up to the sink
go up stairs
I lie on my bed
I go into the bathroom
I brush my teeth
I go downstairs
I pack my backpack
I pick out some shoes
I yawn
I go to school

School
I go to advisory
We play cake(a game)
First class
I space out
I draw pictures
unless that class is of the following:
PE
Writing lab (if it's not about grammer or spelling)
Art
Music(Because all the string instruments make it impossible)
I go to math
I get too confused to know what the hell is going on
I go to writing lab
we write and then teacher goes into some speech about commas
I go to french
I have no idea what the teachers talking about
I go to PE
If we aren't playing soccer, basketball, dodgeball, batmitten, capture the flag, or volleyball than I ****

Lunch
Yay!
I eat
I talk
I chill

More classes
Art
I tell my teacher how much I love her outfit
I read the board
and I make art

Music
UGHHHH
THE TEACHER IS SUCH A GRUMP!!!
I listen to her yell at people
I play my instrument

Study

Almost done with school
I finish a bit of homework

Going home (Or going nordic skiing)

I get a snack
I do homework
I have dinner with the family
I do more homework
I get ready for bed
I read
I go to bed

Every day is the same
the weekend is just a bunch of chores
hanging with friends some times
and stay up late watching my favorite shows:
Bones
Glee
CSI NY
CONAN
SNL

Ugh I need a change.

(edited, updated, bigger, longer, richer, and better than ever)
(hilz says hi)
#obviouslyshepaidme
#idonthaveamindofmyown


when your opponent’s husband
(who, by the way,
is an entirely different
human being
than his wife, and is not
running for president)
has an affair,
or is accused of
****** assault,
the claims are
absolutely
100% true.
the women
must be believed.
he* is
a criminal.

your candidate will go
so far as to invite
some of those women to
the debate to
shame his opponent,
and show
how *supportive he is
of these women.
(because they are
serving his purpose).

your opponent’s husband
is a liar,
a ******,
a pig.
absolute filth
that should be
thrown in prison.

in fact,
your opponent
is even worse than him,
she attacked
those women. she
didn't believe them.
this is proof of
her hatred
of women.
(oh, the irony is
not lost on me, no sir.)

(also,
let’s pretend that
your candidate didn’t call
that exact man, your
opponent's husband,
a “victim” in regard to
the exact same situation
in 1998.)

oh wait,
i forgot you don’t care about things that
happened any
longer ago
than yesterday. unless we
are talking about
the opponent. because then
OBVIOUSLY
it doesn’t matter
when in time
she said or
did something.)
duh.

(this is what we like
to call a double standard.)

moving right along.

if the same thing
happens to your
own candidate,
accusers come forward,
OBVIOUSLY
everyone else on earth
is lying EXCEPT
him. in fact,
every accuser (i lost
track of the number)
is an absolute liar,
too ugly for assault,
and getting paid
by a massive
worldwide conspiracy,
controlled by your
political opponent who
you also describe as never
having accomplished anything
in her life.
(strange how that works.)

when your candidate’s
wife does pretty
much the exact same
thing your opponent did,
(stand by her husband)
proclaim his innocence,
and discredit the claims,
(for which you
label her
a liar,
an enabler,
an enemy of women)
it doesn't matter
anymore, because it
was your wife
saying it.
think about that for a second.

i’m just checking, guys.
i’m just trying to figure this out.

-

you do not like
that your opponent
has money. or seeks power.
that makes
her a disgusting,
horrible,
conniving,
***** *****.
(and DEFINITELY
has nothing to do
with the fact that she is
a woman).

and i guess the thing
that we are all
pretending
(right? we are
pretending this?)
that
she has
more money
than he does.
(she doesn’t).

anywhoo,
but because she has money,
she pays off literally everyone
on this blue planet.

she's probably even
paying me right now.
i'm probably a liberal
operative,
born in a lab,
bred for vengeance,
and the destruction
of these united states,
and this is
the culmination
of my life's work.
i jest.

but in fact,
your candidate has
MORE money
than her.
at least he says he does.
of course to you
this does not
matter and you
see no contradiction
in your thinking.

we don’t even
consider for
a moment that
he pays
people off.
because, yeah,
billionaires don't
have any political
connections).
but how can we
even prove it?
he refuses
to submit his
tax returns to
the public, after saying
on record that he
would, but
don’t worry about that,
we don't care that he lies.
that’s not suspicious at all.
(for the love
of everything holy,
can you imagine the
fire and brimstone
if obama refused to
release his?!)
i mean it's so
ridiculous it makes me laugh.

alrighty then, moving along, once again.

when she
changes position
on a policy,
she is a liar.
a manipulator.
cannot be
trusted,
a flip-flopper,
being swayed by
special interests.

when he does it,
he is “evolving.”
i can't even say that
with a straight face.
(and let’s not for one
second pretend
he hasn’t flip-flopped
on almost every single
issue (guns, immigration,
foreign issues, his opponent,
nukes, wars, abortion, etc.).
see link at bottom for ***** and giggles.
-

she lies. she’s a liar.
we hate liars.

you use that
as your shield.

he never lies. (a-hem)
he LITERALLY LIES on
video, contradicting
HIMSELF, and his
own campaign,
within minutes.
not even years. minutes.

i mean geez,
it’s not like you
can scour
the internet for
proof or anything.

-

he respects women.
hmmm...let us
look at the evidence, shall we?

calls women accusing him of  ****** assault
ugly, out for money, liars. all of them.
because i guess
attraction = rapeability?
(it does not)
(even though he admitted to doing whatever
he wants to do to women, without asking, in his
own words)
it's on record.

he talks about
young girls
in sexualized terms.
it's on record.

he agreed
that he doesn’t
respect women.
it's on record.

he agreed he was
a ****** predator.
it's on record.

he said it’s dangerous
for one’s wife to work.
it's on record.

he said he loses his
**** when
dinner isn’t on the table.
it's on record.

he said
he can do whatever
he wants to
women because he
is powerful
and rich.
it's on record.

women who
breastfeed are
disgusting.
it's on record.

he doesn’t like
flat chests
or fat girls
it's on record.

all women
are gold diggers.
it's on record.

he doesn’t like to
give a woman
negotiable assets.
it's on record.

dogs,
pigs,
it's on record.

he wants to
repeal roe v wade.
it's on record.

he bragged about
walking into
beauty pageant
dressing rooms
full of naked
teenage girls.
it's on record.

hmph. it’s so hard to
figure this out.

(if i could roll my eyes
any harder they would
pop right out
of my head).

these aren't even
ALL THE THINGS.
straight from
the man's own
godforsaken mouth, unedited!
not opinions.
facts.

-

although his campaign
has received millions
of dollars in free
advertising,
and his entire
life is based
upon being in
the media spotlight,

the entire media
is a left wing
conspiracy.

(unless they report
something positive.
then it's not a conspiracy
anymore, then it's true)

side note.
i guess if he wins,
we can expect to see
just a SERIOUS
overhaul of the election
process, you know,
because it's so rigged.
and the whole thing
will be brilliantly
torn down and remade
within 4 years,
and be without
criticism
before it's time
for re-election.
because he wouldn't
want us all to go
ahead and try to vote
for him again in a
rigged election.
he cares about us.

and the media will just
be torn to shreds,
you know, but still free
and everything is
going to be so fair, you guys.
i mean things are going
to be so fair you
are going to get sick of it.
and really,
he's a super sweet guy
if he accepts the
presidency in an
election he
knows
is rigged.
cuz that's what
any upstanding
citizen would do.

-

she is an insider.
(i.e., what some of us like
to refer to as a professional)

he has been
talking about
running for president
since the
1980’s,
but OBVIOUSLY
HE would never
take money
for favors.
HE hasn't been planning this.
HE would never
seek power.
HE would never
politicize things
for his own best
interest.
only politicians
do that, and
he isn't one.
HE is for
the working man.

-

please, tiny, sweet baby jesus
with tiny jesus hands
help me.

-

it’s not hypocritical
at all for
him to constantly
talk about how awful it is
that jobs are
going overseas,
even though he
does THAT EXACT THING
with his own companies.
jesus, guys.
obviously he's just SMART.
(really? is that the word
we want to use? is that the
word we use to describe other
business owners who do
the same thing? uh, no, it's not.
i'm pretty sure they are
compared to criminals,
and labeled unpatriotic.)

because if you
believe something passionately,
like you claim to,
like american goods should
be created and manufactured
in this country,
and you are a billionaire,
with vast resources,
that owns businesses,
employs people in this country,
and you love your country
and all it's people,
and you have a sense of
right and wrong,
you don't cheat.
you don't take advantage.
other businesses do it the right way
why can't you?
that's what IT ******* MEANS
to have principles.

he is an opportunist.
he takes.
see the difference?

-

when she
calls your supporters
a bad, bad thing
(a basket of deplorables?)
she is a
disgusting,
unpresidential,
elitist
***** that
can never
be forgiven.

he would never,
EVER even
think about
calling anyone names.
never ever.
(i seriously don't have
the time in my life
to even attempt to list all
the examples.) although
the new york times
did a pretty decent job.

but you do recognize sarcasm, yes?

-

jesus,
people shouldn’t get
so friggen offended
all the time!
he says.
being
politically correct
is stupid.
it’s better
to be honest, like him.
(except he's not honest)
he just says ALL
THE THINGS
we are ALL thinking
but don't have
the ***** to say.
(um...really? you can
count me out of
that particular
generalization.)

-

he is not weak,
or a coward,
or a liar,
or corrupt,
everyone
else
is.

he would never
get offended
by an snl skit
and cry like a baby
about it,
because that's absurd.

or claim
that literally everything
is unfair,
because that sounds
like a whining child.
(which his wife
compared him to).

-

when someone
accused him of rigging
a pageant,
he sued them.
because "proclaiming
fraud is serious."
the accuser is clearly
just a loser. a bad loser.
(that's what he said).
OBVIOUSLY this
does not apply
when HE
claims elections
are rigged.

also, he doesn’t care
that the GOP Primary
was rigged,
(whoops, did you
forget that was
rigged too?)
because he won.
(yep, he said that too.)

-

i see patterns here.
(i learned about patterns
in kindergarten.)

-

he spends
campaign funds
on his personal
businesses.
(we don't care)

sued
for unpaid taxes,
discrimination,
****** assault,
fraud,
ripping
people off.
(again, we don't care. actually,
all these things are
probably just
further proof of his
very level-headed,
thoughtful, and
superior intellect.)

bankruptcies,
failed businesses,
using charitable donations
to benefit himself,
(while viewed as bad
things for all other
human beings, are
actually strengths of his.
because up is down.
and quite frankly,
we.
don't.
care.)

has sued literally
thousands of times.
(i thought people
who sued all the
time were jerks?)
welp,
not him.

-

when other people
settle lawsuits
that is an
admission of guilt.
(yep, he said that)
(so did his campaign manager)

when he does it
OBVIOUSLY the
opposite is true.
and he's done it MANY times.

-

he mocked someone
with a disability.
it's on record.

-

he mocked someone
who is deaf.
it's on record.

-

he has made
disparaging remarks
about the military.
it's on record.

he incites and
encourages
violence.
again, on record.

i'm gonna go ahead and say,
not so much
into the brown people?
or the gay people.
or the woman people?
or the poor people.
or the fat people.
or the refugee people.
or the science people.
or military people.
or government people.
or journalist people
oh yeah, or education people.
or people that disagree with him.
or stupid people who pay their taxes.

but like, totally into
everyone else, like
white, male people.
that agree with him.
that are into violence.
and are rich.
and cheat the system.

he maybe sorta kinda
(ok, just flat out said it)
hinted at using the
second amendment
to **** his opponent.
on record.
god, you guys, seriously,
learn to take a joke.
because murdering your
political opponent is super funny.
i mean, it's fun, right?
it's especially funny in those
other countries. and for the murdered people.
it's not like kids are listening.
or like there are any crazy card carrying
white *** people
that think that might be a good idea.
gosh, get a grip.

said he could
shoot someone
in broad daylight and
wouldn't lose votes.
for realz? yes, for realz!

having one standard
for yourself
and the opposite standard
for everyone else
is dare i say,
the very definition of
i n e q u a l i t y.

if you think
you are
superior,
then just say so.
own that ****.

if you desire violence,
proclaim it.

if you desire inequality,
then shout it
from the rooftops.

if you think one
group should get richer
while others get poorer,
say it. support it.

if you think
women have no
value other
than the size
of their *******
and their *****,
by all means,
let us know!

because that's what he would do.
that's what he does.

don't hide behind
this excuse
of a man.

don't paint
yourself a
patriot,

regurgitate
outright lies
without doing
any research,

and don't think you
speak for
all of us.

because you don't.

pretending something is real
does not make it real.

i’m getting
tired of this.

hypocrisy
is gross.

.just when you begin interacting with Turkish pimps and Bulgarian prostitutes stealing your debit card(s), just when you interact with English marijuana growers subjecting Hanoi youths int their suburban houses at night, high on coke... criminals... then you can start making a focus of your couch love pristine immunity to me... not until the knit-of-grit... not until you're in the Glasgow bus station, learning chords from a man waiting for his brother to be released from prison, teach you chords of the left hand's fingers' schematic on the outer-side of the forearm... of all my childhood friends... i'm probably the only one who hasn't been to prison... ****... then again there's Rafael... up in Manchester... but i grew up alongside criminals... or rather, kids, who would later become criminals... but i'm guessing Rafael made it in Manchester... i always wondered what happened to that guy i played with, everyone nicknamed Ukraine; Rafael i remember... we went to a football match back in 1997 / 1998... when KSZO Ostrowiec played ŁKS Łódź in the extra-class (premiership league)... and chanted the slogan: ŁKS jebał pies! ŁKS jebał pies! (dog ****** your team).

certain fields of study require a comparison
without a congregational
same-medium expression...

               like... you can talk, rather than sing...
you can think, rather than talk...

but sometimes the odd happens...
                           a shared interest of time...

philosophical literature?
it usually takes a decent three years to finish
a philosophy book,
and that also includes some books
in between...
       hell... it took me about 3 years
to read Kant's critique of pure reason...
given that...
the ending?
   transcendental methodology
at the end of the 2nd volume?
   it was the easiest part to read...
i just like the anti-atheism of that section,
and how god,
is not an infantile concern of
adults trying to explains origins
to children by adults...

and then i came across a synonym...
literally...
something that takes years to mature...
SNL's donald trump vs. hillary clinton
debate cold open (1 October 2016)...

guess how many years it takes to
filter out the canned laughter,
and find yourself, actually the only person
in the room laughing?
   what's the date?
****!          8th November 2018...
well... over 2 years!
   the sketch from 1 October 2016...
is... to be honest... only funny... now...

whiskey, whine, philosophy, comedy...
it needs to age...
you can't exactly drink yesterday's
whiskey or wine...
you can't exactly read a philosophy book
binging over 3 days: more like 3 years...
and comedy?
the real poignancy of a jokes
comes with a minimum of a 2 year delay...
you need that over-layer of
reality to sink in,
to expose how...  
   people were surprised...
i'm actually laughing at the canned
laughter of the then,
given the caricatures of the then
of potential, with the now
of the executive order...

this is a rare find...
but yeah, it was obvious, wine and whiskey
need to age,
a philosophy book can't be read
like some YA vampire teen-flick...
and some jokes: never exist
in the immediacy of da-sein...
            some jokes transcend the immediacy
of history, and are only funny
some years later...
      no... now that Alec Baldwin
impression is funny...
    because?
      well... isn't it obvious?
      it aged...
it transcended the lampooning and inverted
lampooning onto itself...
it did the Kantian inflection:
when a phenomenon becomes
a noumenon...

   a Kantian inflection is when a phenomenon
becomes a noumenon -
it implodes and gains the momentum
of the implosion
with an unhinged will momentum
of unpredictability...

i like delayed comedy,
         i can filter out the canned laughter...
because...
it's not a mocking laughter...
it's not a collective anticipatory
laughter of the "certain"...
it's the p.s. kind of laughter...
and your worst nightmares came to pass...

i'm the laughter within a throng
of lamentation.

Listening to “The Chieftains” again,
Their Long Black Veil CD: a gift to
Marijuana smokers. N'est-ce pas?
**** Jagger singing the title track,
A sweet, lugubrious ode to black widows.
Could there be such creatures?
Women you would **** for,
Offing your best friend for?
She had better be as good as it gets.
Could such women exist?
Beautiful & toxic;
Duplicitous, cunning,
*******-worthy.

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**** would have licked her **** as
They led him up the scaffold steps,
She was a woman worth dying for, to be sure.

And Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor?
Isn’t it time we forgave her?
So she shaved her head.
So she shredded the Pope’s photo on SNL.
He was, after all, the Polish Pope,
The one that kissed the ground
Whenever he got off an airplane.
How could you not love the guy?
Shot while riding in his Pope Mobile,
He later visited Mehmet Ali Ağca in prison,
Forgiving his would-be assassin face-to-face,
Exonerating the Bulgarian kreplach, for all
Special Victims Unit “especially heinous offenses” &
Proto-Islamic terror.
Surely, he could forgive the little Irish ****?

Can’t we? Leading by example?
I don’t know what you’d call it.
In any language: powerful.
Oh, Sinead, my sweet Sinead,
We miss your sweet sad dulcet tones.
Consider yourself exonerated.
Consider yourself free to be loved again.

And let’s not forget Tom Jones,
Come on ladies: you threw your sopping
Wet ******* to the stage for him.
His “Tennessee Waltz” breaking my heart,
Losing my wife to my best friend.
No wonder I shot the Sheriff.
Surprised I did not also shoot the Deputy.
And “The Chieftains” themselves,
Transporting us to the Coast of Malabar.
We are all Irish sailors
Infatuated, hopelessly enchanted by a
Swarthy Dravidian shiksa.

Hello World,

If you could ******* isolation
you would ***** fifty shades
of I wish I were as easily pleased
as you.

If I could be happy with simplicity
and the birds and the bees
and the SNL and cable
and the drone, drone, drone.

commercial break
I have no channels left
all flowing into the image
of the ******* I hold
to the past.

you will know me
as the disaster
who tried.

I will throne above
the artificial sunshine
coming through
the window of your
domestic screens.  

-r0

Laughter
as we watch our comedies on
nbc nightly tuesdays
Ben and kate
two broke girls
what the ****
As a secret slaughter goes on
And the genocide of a million minds
happens without us evening knowing what's going on
we laugh and we laugh
as our children get fater
our oceans get dirtier with foriegn oil
our earth aches in pain
our tv keeps distracting us
as the sun is waiting to explode
I hope a solar storm happens
so it knocks out every network
so our minds are free
and then maybe we will look outside our window again
maybe then we will see what is truly going on
the true terroism is just a click away
Fox news and media flaunting there depression pills
and the main predator is these pharmaceutical companies
telling us were sick and need help
so we rush to get the fix
when really its a sick twisted david copperfield trick
but whatever
let's keep watching 30 rock and snl
as our lives slowly fall into a hell
a living hell
a living comedy
what a disgrace
what a waste
take a look in your community
poverty is next door
its funny how we think were so safe
in america were like a mouse in a maze
cept there is no exit
were trapped
were trapped
not me I free my mind
and spread the word
threw words and writes
because if anything
Ill make this right
ill carry on the fight
ill make it right
and ill open that door
to shine light into this blind folded world

here i've prepared a couple of jokes
why did the girl cross the road?
because she thought she was being followed home by the boy who threatened her that he would hang her and so she ran five blocks to get away from him
ok here's a better one
why didn't the girl go to the party?
because she was told she was worthless seven times that day and that everyone is secretly laughing at her
here's my last one
what did the cruel middle school boys do when they got bored?
spit on me, push me around, threaten me, spread rumours about me, and more!
wait why aren't you guys laughing?
see, i didn't think that was that funny but then
when i begged for help
they asked if maybe the people who  did that stuff to me were just joking
apparently they were just kidding so they shouldn't be punished
boys will be boys right?
i was probably just too sensitive, too thin skinned to understand their humour,
maybe you guys are too
or maybe i said something that made them say that?
but that makes no sense...
how would you provoke a joke to be told?
oh i know
it wasn't a joke
that's why you're not laughing right?
see daily death threats really don't get five star reviews in the comedy clubs
and i don't think there's been any skits on snl about being spit on because people thought you were garbage
so why did all the adults assume that the boys weren't to blame because they were just messing around?
messing around implies there's a mess and when there's a mess you clean it up but it's hard to clean up a mess that everyone thinks you made up
and I don't think clorox is going to wipe up the feeling that all of the people i trusted the most thought i deserved to be bullied
so i guess what i'm trying to say
is that people shouldn't have to walk through the hallways everyday  knowing that in a few short hours, the boy in their p.e class will tell them that they shouldn't be alive
and when they tell five separate teachers
the teachers will all ask
are you sure they weren't joking
are you sure you didn't deserve it
i'm pretty sure that when he pushed me to the ground i didn't break out laughing afterwards
and their laughter wasn't contagious when they made fun of how i looked
their stand up comedy made me back down
sometimes i hear people say
oh bullying is stupid, how could it actually you
why wouldn't they just tell someone
and here's my answer
have you ever shouted so loud that you lost your voice?
probably shouldn't do that again right
well I screamed so loud that when i lost my voice I never really got it back
it's because you want to learn from your mistakes
learn that when people say that you can always tell someone, you should keep in mind that "always"  is apparently conditional
don't assume that if you were in their shoes you would just tell someone
and everything would be fixed
some situations can't be fixed with a talk to an adult you trust
some situations you actually did nothing to deserve it
some people make the messes and some people can never clean them up
some jokes aren't funny
some jokes aren't jokes
I don't want any more back down comedy
this is my stand up piece but only this time I don't care who's laughing

Nothing fancy
Just little stuff.
Using our real voices
Not the shallow mockery
To sing in the car.
Confessing our crushes
Honestly and gleefully
Dreaming and scheming.
Shoving our cold feet
Under each others' warm butts
With ice cream and SNL.
Nobody's perfect
(Least of all us)
But we certainly have our moments.

I haven’t been feeling good lately.

I don’t want to draw, I don’t want to write,

My room is messy.

My feelings for my ex who could so easily be mine again are

Cold.

My feelings for my professor, who I felt so much for, draw

Cold.

I guess I cannot function without love driving me to madness.

Even my old love for fictional characters, just anything to fill that void,

Gone.

I keep telling myself that I have to lose these last 15 lbs

But without love, nothing drives me.

Music too, I don’t want to listen to anything,

I was dancing myself into great moods last week,

In front of the mirror.

Where did that go?

Nothing tastes all that great either.

And maybe, my dreams have pushed their way into the forefront of my mind.

But it is difficult to lay in bed awake, with my eyes shut, fantasizing about starring on SNL.

That would not come as easy as running different scenarios between my professor and I does.

Not to mention my dreams are multifaceted.

I want to be a singer, an actress, a comedian.

So many possibilities.

I can’t focus on one.

I have no one to idolize but myself, yet that is difficult to do when no one likes me.

I knew becoming single wouldn’t change anything.

That I’d still go unnoticed, but one small part of me had rather hoped that I might get some attention from any guy I found relatively attractive.

But no, the answer is always no, and yet I don’t have terrible self-esteem.

I am fully aware that I am quite attractive, especially when I try.

Long, thick, ***** blonde waves surround my face and reach down to my waist.

Cat-like blue eyes with green in their center.

Pronounced cheekbones.

Triple Ds.

I’d say I stand out well among other girls, even though I hate my smile.

Yet I get nothing, and I’m not the type to sit around and wait to get approached.

There was a time, not so long ago, when I was willing to confess to my professor for God’s sake.

And those aren’t just words I assure you.

But in my experience, men don’t like forward women, nor do they like funny women, or confident women.

I can’t win, whether I speak up, or keep it to myself.

I feel like I’ll never have true reign over my own life.

I guess through writing this, I’ve discovered what’s really bothering me.

This is why I’m unhappy right now.

But I’m sure it must be this way for many other people.

Who feel as though no one ever likes them, and they can’t figure out why.

I lost 20 lbs last semester.

I get all As.

I got my license after waiting forever and feeling worthless without it.

I know I have so much to be proud of.

But I don’t care, this life isn’t worth living if I don’t feel fulfilled.

And my heart speaks the loudest.

My heart has the final say.

My heart has treated me to the most powerful happiness I’ve ever felt.

And that came from love.

Something I have no control over.

So, I guess it’s going to be a dry spell for a while.

And that’s the way it works.

This is a mean old world
Try and live in all by yo self
Need some help from Gandalf
And from Legolas the Elf

In my solitude
Movies and my bookshelf
Can't be with the one I really love
She's out ballin' someone else

The Transition to Sameness
Means psychiatrists make a lotta money
I like Billy Crystal
Steve Martin still is still is funny

So is Kate McKinnon
Saw her on SNL
Fear at times of phoning
Fear of Eternal Hell

I like Life of Pi
It is the better story
Wonder where I'll die?
This train Bound for Glory

                 Charlotte!

Football is for him and the hers that enjoy it
Enjoy other sports
This one not for me
Fed the squirrels
Watched them play
Awaiting the raindrops on their way
Researching the recipes and planning their adaptation so we can enjoy them with no worries
Remembering places we visited and wish to return to
Hoping to travel no new places with new tastes and faces
Hating that SNL today is not SNL yesterday
Though hold out hope since 1975 was long ago
There is no place to go
No friends to visit today
It's a cloudy Sunday

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Because Men Who Betray Women are so Amusing

                  Bang-Bang Baldwin and the Too-Cool Audience

A man shoots a woman
For which another woman takes the fall
And Saturday Night Live
Is okay with it all

Alec Baldwin as Trump: I've been treated very poorly.  Even worse than they treated Lincoln.

Devin:  Wasn't Lincoln assassinated?

Trump:  I'm not taking questions bebop.  I'm only telling you the truth.  Lincoln would agree. He's probably smiling up at me from Hell right now.

Will Ferrell on George W.
On SNL

Washington, Lincoln, and
I wanna say .... Kensington
I dunno

O, but I know George W.
As do the millions of Iraqi dead
And tens of thousands
Of dead and wounded
American soldiers

Kensington is referenced
In the medieval English
Domesday, which is to say,
Doomsday Book

Said to be unalterable
As irrevocable as

                The Last Judgment.

He said Welcome to New York
I hope it was sincere
Susan Darlene Meek
I whisper in your ear

The Man of La Mancha
Mr. Brian Stokes
Mayor Mitchell is killed
The Batman is provoked

Little Sage Ridge School
Big blue Reno sky
Something, please something Good
Before my time to die

He said Welcome to New York
I laugh with SNL
Will I be remembered?
Only time will tell

      Jack Burden. Jonas. Ishmael.

Kensington where Chesterton was born
And where T.S. Eliot died

Kensington on SNL
Where Will Ferrell shows George W. Lied

A stupid, unjust, and criminal war
George W. destroyed Iraq

Killed hundred of thousands of innocents
Can never take that back

Created ISIS as well
With his Shock and Awe attack

He stands condemned by history
May his memory never come back

3:07 a.m.
I am awake and vigilant

Will Ferrell on SNL as George W.
Washington, Lincoln, Kensington

Does me, nor my family,
No good to intensely hate myself

Not perfect, just better
Mr. Markson on my shelf

Will Ferrell in Stranger Than
                 Fiction
Will Ferrell in Elf

Will Ferrell mocks George W.
SNL is real intelligence wealth

Continuous convalescence
For my family and their health

                     Amen.

Yes, I'm a bit ridiculous
But so is life itself

Steve Martin on my screen
David Markson on my shelf

Dave Chappelle on SNL
Kate McKinnon too

Ethics isn't complicated:
Do unto others
As you'd have done to you

My friends, My friends
I remember anew!

The American intelligentsia
Currently corrupt

No real resistance
Merely fluttering up

A kind of moronic farce
This society of money

But I do like SNL
Kate Mckinnon - She's funny!

Will Ferrell as George W. On SNL

Will Ferrell on SNL as George W.
     Washington, Lincoln ....

                   Kensington