I feel what the snubbed boy feels
When his name has been cast-listed
In the theatre stage by two's fun
And he has to make his errand in loo

I feel what the snubbed girl feels
When her hope is raised by a call
From the land which doesn't exit
And she yes the beckon to death pills

I feel what the snubbed twins feel
As they taste life's honey in warm world
And hear melodious wave outside world
But yet won't join in the outer world.

I feel what the snubbed two feel
When they first enjoyed a cozy life
And they were later dumped to cold
In a basket with one bottle of food

For they bear first hand of judas kiss
As they hear the thwart plans from in
And are helpless about what to do
For their cries and sorrows goes unheard

Indeed, I feel what the snubbed all feel

POET: OLUWATIMILEHIN A. ALABI

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.

Moths are swatted
butterflies kissed
Pollution in fog
but beauty in mist
Shades of skin
the lighter adored
Loveliest lauded
the average ignored
Wilting flowers
tossed and snubbed
Only the beautiful
are cherished and
loved

♥️   I had to play.
I had to play.
           my stolen heart turned rot, to ***** ♠️

Twas me snubbed.
Twas me who snubbed.
         ♦️ And glittery diamonds to dirt, were clubbed.  ♣️

But I had to play.
            I had to play.
               Cause he held all my cards anyway. 🃏
I had tried to run.
I tried to run.
      We were not there for love, but fun.
  And I HAD to play.
               I had to play..
I was his.  lonely desperate slave.

    Now he's moved on..
                 He's moved on.
                        and left his pathetic, little pawn ♟
                       I'd had to play
                       I'd had to play.
  so that from him, I could get away.

    He'd gotten bored
He got bored.
        He wiped away our checkered board.
       Now he's not here.
                       He's not here.
          But I'd do anything to feel him near.
                        
                         Come play.  
                         Come play.

From Potent Treasures despite Five Months past
The Sixth Great Angel suddenly appeared
Reminding my Lost Voice which Virtues last
And preached the Sermon of True Self revealed
How Wonderful must your Header advise
Being the Younger of your Sister's sprite
From there Unknotted Loyalty devise
Though snubbed by Pink Dandelions in spite
Now I can see why he chose over you
His Charming Sense knew your Heart was that Pure
And please keep on; Keep that Silver Disc blue
Coat them with your Wings from being demure.
Yes I Agree. Of your True Coating's stand
Thank you so much for reminding me at hand.

Remini also reveals in the book that Nicole Kidman’s adopted children Bella and Connor only spoke to their Australian mother when forced to.

The New York Daily Newsobtained a copy of Remini’s exposé, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology. In the book, Remini claims that Suri, who was then seven months old, could be heard crying throughout the pre-wedding dinner.

Remini writes she went to see what was going on, only to find Cruise’s sister and an assistant staring at the child as she screamed on the floor.

Remini says the women were staring at the child as if she was [Scientology founder] “L. Ron Hubbard incarnate”.

Remini also writes about Bella and Connor Cruise’s strained relationship with Nicole Kidman. Sharing a ride to the airport with the then-teenagers after Cruise and Holmes’ wedding, Remini asked the two if they’d seen Kidman.

“Not if I have a choice,” said Bella, according to the book. “Our mom is a f*ing SP.”

(Within Scientology, SP is reportedly a Suppressed Person and designated enemy.)

Remini says that Cruise and Holmes’ lavish nuptials at Odescalchi Castle in Italy was the beginning of the end of her involvement in Scientology. Prior to the 2006 ceremony, Remini — whose mother and stepfather were Scientologists — spent 30 years in the controversial religion and donated US$2.5 million ($3.5 million).

But Cruise and Holmes’ wedding reportedly pushed the actor over the edge.

In the book, Remini recounts how she finally convinced the women in the bathroom to pick up Suri and give her a bottle of warm milk.

Remini reckons her actions infuriated Cruise, and she was then treated like an outcast for speaking up. Tensions reportedly flared as church workers tried to separate Remini from close friend, Jennifer Lopez. Lopez was the daughter of a Scientologist, and the church hoped to use the Cruise wedding to recruit her to the cause. According to the book, Cruise reportedly even pressured Remini to invite longtime friend Lopez and husband Marc Anthony.

When Remini failed to co-operate, she writes that she was very publicly snubbed in the reception line by the famous couple as punishment.

The actor also describes in the book how Cruise was left at the altar for 20 minutes, waiting for Homes to show up.

As the 150 guests grew increasingly uncomfortable, Lopez whispered to Remini, “Do you think Katie is coming?”

Remini recalled the reception as being like a high school dance filled with amorous teenagers.

She writes that Norman Starkey, the Scientologist who performed the wedding ceremony, was “******* Brooke Shields on the dance floor”.

Remini was also outraged to see Scientology’s married Chairman David Miscavige treating his assistant as if they were on a date.

And she reported the high-level Scientologists attached to Cruise and Holmes, Tommy Davis and Jessica Feshbach, “were all over each other” at the festivities.

The two later divorced their spouses and married.

Remini also revealed that Cruise had seemingly replaced Hubbard as the church’s new figurehead. “Tom Cruise seems to be running our church,” she said.

After the event, Remini was summoned to appear at Scientology headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, to explain her wedding behaviour, with the most damning accusation made by Holmes herself.

In a report so punctuated with exclamation marks that it looked liked it was “written by a seventh grader,” Holmes contended that Remini’s wedding behaviour “disturbed me greatly. [She] made the party all about herself.”

Holmes recently apologised to Remini in a statement saying: “I regret having upset Leah in the past and wish her only the best in the future.”

After months of interrogation and a US$300,000 ($420,000) bill for the “auditing,” Remini was forced to launch an apology campaign.

She sent expensive gifts to all the important guests, including director JJ Abrams, who were reportedly upset by her attitude.

Remini also apologised to Kevin Huvane, Cruise’s powerful agent who also represents the likes of Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Aniston.

She called to personally apologise after hearing that he was telling others how “disgusting” her behaviour was.

Remini considered leaving Scientology at the time, but didn’t as it would have meant cutting ties with her mother, stepfather and the many friends central to her life since joining the church as a teenager. Ultimately, Remini’s family would also leave the church alongside her.

After Holmes left Cruise in 2012, Remini aggressively ended her relationship with Scientology a year later by filing a missing persons report on Scientology boss David Miscavige’s wife.

In Going Clear, Lawrence Wright’s damning HBO documentary on Scientology, he dates Shelley Miscavige’s disappearance from public view to 2006.

Los Angeles police closed the case with a statement that Remini’s report was “unfounded”.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses

THE PROLOGUE.

THE Cook of London, while the Reeve thus spake,
For joy he laugh'd and clapp'd him on the back:
"Aha!" quoth he, "for Christes passion,
This Miller had a sharp conclusion,
Upon this argument of herbergage.                              lodging
Well saide Solomon in his language,
Bring thou not every man into thine house,
For harbouring by night is perilous.
Well ought a man avised for to be        a man should take good heed
Whom that he brought into his privity.
I pray to God to give me sorrow and care
If ever, since I highte* Hodge of Ware,                      was called
Heard I a miller better *set a-work;                           handled
He had a jape of malice in the derk.                             trick
But God forbid that we should stinte here,                        stop
And therefore if ye will vouchsafe to hear
A tale of me, that am a poore man,
I will you tell as well as e'er I can
A little jape that fell in our city."

Our Host answer'd and said; "I grant it thee.
Roger, tell on; and look that it be good,
For many a pasty hast thou letten blood,
And many a Jack of Dover hast thou sold,
That had been twice hot and twice cold.
Of many a pilgrim hast thou Christe's curse,
For of thy parsley yet fare they the worse.
That they have eaten in thy stubble goose:
For in thy shop doth many a fly go loose.
Now tell on, gentle Roger, by thy name,
But yet I pray thee be not *wroth for game;     angry with my jesting
A man may say full sooth in game and play."
"Thou sayst full sooth," quoth Roger, "by my fay;
But sooth play quad play, as the Fleming saith,
And therefore, Harry Bailly, by thy faith,
Be thou not wroth, else we departe* here,                  part company
Though that my tale be of an hostelere.                      innkeeper
But natheless, I will not tell it yet,
But ere we part, y-wis thou shalt be quit."               assuredly
And therewithal he laugh'd and made cheer,
And told his tale, as ye shall after hear.

Notes to the Prologue to the Cook's Tale

1. Jack of Dover:  an article of cookery. (Transcriber's note:
suggested by some commentators to be a kind of pie, and by
others to be a fish)

2. Sooth play quad play: true jest is no jest.

3. It may be remembered that each pilgrim was bound to tell
two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, the other returning.

4. Made cheer: French, "fit bonne mine;" put on a pleasant
countenance.


THE TALE.

A prentice whilom dwelt in our city,
And of a craft of victuallers was he:
Galliard he was, as goldfinch in the shaw*,            lively *grove
Brown as a berry, a proper short fellaw:
With lockes black, combed full fetisly.                       daintily
And dance he could so well and jollily,
That he was called Perkin Revellour.
He was as full of love and paramour,
As is the honeycomb of honey sweet;
Well was the wenche that with him might meet.
At every bridal would he sing and hop;
He better lov'd the tavern than the shop.
For when there any riding was in Cheap,
Out of the shoppe thither would he leap,
And, till that he had all the sight y-seen,
And danced well, he would not come again;
And gather'd him a meinie of his sort,              company of fellows
To hop and sing, and make such disport:
And there they *sette steven for to meet             made appointment
To playen at the dice in such a street.
For in the towne was there no prentice
That fairer coulde cast a pair of dice
Than Perkin could; and thereto he was free    he spent money liberally
Of his dispence, in place of privity.       where he would not be seen
That found his master well in his chaffare,                merchandise
For oftentime he found his box full bare.
For, soothely, a prentice revellour,
That haunteth dice, riot, and paramour,
His master shall it in his shop abie,                       *suffer for
All have he no part of the minstrelsy.                        although
For theft and riot they be convertible,
All can they play on *gitern or ribible.             guitar or rebeck
Revel and truth, as in a low degree,
They be full wroth* all day, as men may see.                at variance

This jolly prentice with his master bode,
Till he was nigh out of his prenticehood,
All were he snubbed both early and late,                       rebuked
And sometimes led with revel to Newgate.
But at the last his master him bethought,
Upon a day when he his paper sought,
Of a proverb, that saith this same word;
Better is rotten apple out of hoard,
Than that it should rot all the remenant:
So fares it by a riotous servant;
It is well lesse harm to let him pace,                        pass, go
Than he shend all the servants in the place.                   corrupt
Therefore his master gave him a quittance,
And bade him go, with sorrow and mischance.
And thus this jolly prentice had his leve:                      desire
Now let him riot all the night, or leave.                      refrain
And, for there is no thief without a louke,
That helpeth him to wasten and to souk                           spend
Of that he bribe can, or borrow may,                             steal
Anon he sent his bed and his array
Unto a compere of his owen sort,                               comrade
That loved dice, and riot, and disport;
And had a wife, that held *for countenance            for appearances
A shop, and swived* for her sustenance.             *prostituted herself
       .       .       .       .       .       .       .

Notes to the Cook's Tale

1. Cheapside, where jousts were sometimes held, and which
was the great scene of city revels and processions.

2. His paper: his certificate of completion of his apprenticeship.

3. Louke:  The precise meaning of the word is unknown, but it
is doubtless included in the cant term "pal".

4. The Cook's Tale is unfinished in all the manuscripts; but in
some, of minor authority, the Cook is made to break off his
tale, because "it is so foul," and to tell the story of Gamelyn, on
which Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is founded. The story is
not Chaucer's, and is different in metre, and inferior in
composition to the Tales. It is supposed that Chaucer expunged
the Cook's Tale for the same reason that made him on his death-
bed lament that he had written so much "ribaldry."

Dusk!

With a creepy, tingling sensation you hear the fluttering of leathery wings!

Bats!

Glowing red eyes and glistening fangs,

These unspeakable giant bugs drop into view.*

Fibrous wings furred like a moth,

Big ears are just a membranous extension of antennae.

Flying in search of a flower’s pollen laden froth,

Silent except for the hum and squeak of echolocation.

Trap bats in attics, butterflies in nets.

No rabies feared, no bedbug bites to itch.

Clawed feet ****** and grab like praying mantis pincers;

Bloated stomach slopes like a pudgy beetle.

Jaws manipulate like an ant, excise like scissors;

Soft hair rustles like a wooly caterpillar.

They live in darkness, centipedes do too,

Come out at night like cockroaches tend to.

Skittering through the night like daddy long-legs,

Noses snubbed like bumble bee faces.

Wind turbines endanger bats,

Like fans endanger lightning bugs.

Only one percent of bats are vampiric,

Like only a small percentage of spiders are poisonous.

Dawn!

With a creepy, tingling sensation you hear the fluttering of leathery wings!

Bats!

Bats are bugs, aren’t they?

Brackets

Your mum picked you up in daddy’s BMW,
we had to wait an hour while they scrubbed the brains of another son off the roof of the 125

(Why they built a multi storey car park on top of the bus station is a mystery to me.)

You carefully colour coordinated your files and scrutinized your revision schedules,
we watched nicked CCTV footage of two blokes smoking crack and burning down the bowling pavilion next door

(the old boys never did raise enough to repair it.)

You snubbed each other because of different tastes in jumpers,
we watched acid casualties talk politics with football hooligans

(a hastily rolled joint bridged the obvious gap.)

You lounged in the common room in your study periods,
our lesson got cancelled because John had been smashed in the face with a fire extinguisher

(and our tutor used to be a lifeguard.)

You worried about fashion and discussed the injustice of last night’s X Factor result,
we watched Neil’s head crash into his keyboard after he’d scoffed all his methadone in one go

(again.)

it is 1975 Saigon has fallen to North Vietnamese flower children resistance Watergate have all come and gone economy still in recession unemployment at 8.5 they sit on floor listen to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” then Patti Smith’s “Horses” Bayli rolls joint lights it passes to Odysseus he speaks “you know i ******* hate working for Dad what do you think i should do?” Bayli suggests “you love San Francisco why not move there? you’d fit right in with West Coast hippies.” he answers “what would i do in San Francisco? i don’t know anyone besides i don’t want to hang out with hippies i’ve got bigger plans” “you’re an artist Odys you’ll figure it out” he asks “would you come with me?” Bayli whispers “Yeah for sure once you’ve settled in” Odysseus tries to imagine becoming Bay Area painter thinks to listen to Bayli’s prompting remembers all the drugs craziness in Haight Ashbury Berkley that compelled him to return back east to school Mom and Dad would never support such a move he feels insecure about his abilities to survive as artist in business world easier to further his education with benefit of family’s sanction Bayli runs fingers through her hair Odysseus watches thinks how beautiful she is roar of jet engine passes he looks out window late afternoon shadows cut sharply he comments “Bayli it’s October already leaves are changing days getting shorter if i apply for January semester at Art Institute what will you do?” she answers “hang out with you? i don’t know do we have to talk about this right now?” he says “it’s going to get cold soon did you bring enough clothes?” she answers “no i need to buy some” he asks “will your parents help you?” she hesitates explains “i don’t know my father might be transferred to new assignment in D.C. my folks have their own worries i can’t burden them right now Odys you know i’ve been looking for a job something is bound to turn up soon” he stands paces her hands rub knees as she gazes up at him he says “Bayli i’m confused i wish we were older and knew what to do maybe we both need some time to consider things a little space to get perspective to be certain what we’re doing i’m getting pressure from my parents i can’t think clearly” one side of Bayli’s face makes strange grimace “Odys what do you want? Are you waiting for a sign from God? who are you searching for? is it me?” he answers “yes i love you you are only one for me” she asks “well then what are you saying? Odys what’s happening to us? i sense your thoughts drifting where were you last night in bed?” his voice grows stressed “i don’t know we were happy in Hartford Chicago is different tougher money security play more important roles maybe my doubting hasn’t anything to do with us maybe it’s environment around us character and weight of this city my parents figuring out how to pull this off” Bayli’s voice rises “did you ever consider maybe returning to Chicago and me coming here is mistake? if anything maybe we should have stayed on East Coast and faced challenges in New York City coming to Chicago is like a test a big ******* test! Let’s go back to Hartford” suddenly memory flashes through his thoughts remembers first time he brought Bayli to Toby Mantis’s loft on lower east side Toby stretches canvases for Warhol other times when Odysseus showed up with female art students Toby routinely pawed them Toby eyed Bayli and asked “Who’s she?” Odysseus quickly turned to protect but Bayli spoke up “i’m with Odys!” Toby still grabbed but Bayli pushed him away her devotion thrills Odysseus on numerous occasions she assures him “i’m happy just to be with you” he looks at Bayli holding breath as he speaks “no we can’t go back to the past there’s no opportunity in Hartford Chicago is home it’s what i know do you remember when we were partying on Rauschenberg’s roof? remember how all those New York artists sized us up like we were fresh meat? you looked so defenseless in white turtleneck i don’t trust Toby and all those people” Bayli cuts in “Toby Mantis is a drunken idiot!” Odysseus continues “maybe my thinking is all messed up there’s something else Bayli what if the more fame you achieve the more complicit you become with sin? what if reaching top means being used and abused by everyone? what if it requires betrayal deception whatever else it takes? once you sell your soul you can’t buy it back i don’t know if i’m ready to get that serious leap into heap maybe my talent isn’t as good as theirs i need time to develop grow returning to Chicago just makes more sense am i embarrassing myself? maybe you should run from me go find someone stronger i feel like i’m not good enough for you i hear what i’m saying and feel ashamed” tears well in Bayli’s eyes as she questions “Odys what are you saying?” he answers “i don’t know i don’t know what we should do i know i love you Bayli i apologize for upsetting you let’s talk tomorrow” he reaches holds her in his arms needle keeps skipping at end of Patti Smith record

planets and stars align at precisely certain times sometimes planets and stars meant to join pass by each other instead the universe balances within delicate loop a lot of forces influences are at work any hesitation or minuscule deviation in rotation can make all the difference in the world

his stomach knots eyes wet maybe he senses he will never again have chance like Bayli maybe not in morning he suggests she should find her own place for a while Bayli’s eyelids close heavily quietly complies he feels deep sadness sensing crucial innocence perishing cannot justify himself believes her moving is only temporary reasons if Bayli is truly the one then they will figure it out upsets him to see her go does not want to lose her does not comprehend how devastating his decision concerning Bayli will be in a way his life ends here Odysseus is never same Bayli moves into tiny studio apartment off Broadway and Surf gets waitressing job at fashionable restaurant on Halsted Street Odysseus wishes Bayli refused to leave she could have put up more fight if only she insisted “i'm not going i want to spend my life with you” why did she give up so easy? Bayli is not self-assured assertive like Mom and sister Penelope it is wrong of Odysseus to blame Bayli no one to blame but himself he should have stood up against Mom Bayli is right he is waiting for sign from God but God keeps silent glimpses his own cowardice near-north side of Chicago is small-town familiar in 1975 he hears rumor about tall strong **** who forces Bayli he goes to see her in tiny apartment does not mention what he heard Odysseus asks “are you all right?” sitting with legs crossed on floor Bayli speaks remote dispirited answers “yes i guess” their conversation is brief after he departs feels sorrow guilt is there a way back to Bayli? she seems so separate defeated far away some months later he hears she is engaged to marry shady guy who lives several doors south from restaurant where she waitresses Odysseus is stunned dumbfounded he did not realize how eager Bayli was to get married after Odysseus lets Bayli go he reasons Mom got her way not that Mom openly rejected Bayli rather she subtly snubbed showed no support he needs family’s approval Mom birthed him  he believes he owes her he recognizes losing Bayli is entirely his own fault vaguely ponders might never marry until Mom is out of picture what girl can stand up to Mom’s scrutiny demands? maybe Mom wants Odysseus all to herself? perhaps she fears girlfriend or wife will come between them? maybe his whole life is struggle to be free of Mom

This man has lost all twenty-seven emotions
Like a robot -
Any whiff of emotion even feels too much
Every word this man says is snubbed
Every sleep - his heart beats slower

          From the pain this man suffered

The drugs this man used to be
So afraid of -
Scares him no more
For it had almost wounded him
Right by his own bed

          Which he saw as a liberation

This man is tired
He's ended up becoming
What he used to fight against
It has consumed his soul
To the point of no recovery

         Which is no longer necessary

This man has zero life
He lives for no one
To be precise -
To pay the price -
This man shall die tonight

          At this point, death would hurt less

Lion, dweller of the desert
with gleaming fur and crushing paws
      wandered, searching, thirsty, wanting
when only yards away was fresh-rain ponds
   just barely out of sight
           and the lion was almost satisfied
For now, it was patient


But then, from its dark, dry hole
a snake, red, long, its body curled in waves
   it came and teased the lion
     selfish, ignorant, it swam through sand
right in front of that thirsty lion
                Not counting its consequences


The lion's fur rose as it watched the snake go
      It's heart, mighty, proud, longed to ****** the serpent
or chase, at least chase
  But its clever mind scorned-
The lion needed water, its thirst growing great
           The fresh-rain ponds were just over the sand hill
The heart fought the mind
      The mind finally gave
         Knowing the worst with great disregard


It leaped through the gold dust and pounced on the snake
         But there-
   its heart was great
       but its mind was resentful with spite
              thirsting to wound that heart's lazy pride
  so it let that scarlet snake slipped
right through, free from the paws
      to retreat in its hole
           until morning

This lion's heart, it beat and swore
This lion's mind, it smirked and snubbed
         And it sat in the sun of the desert, much greater than it
      Just wrinkling to nothing
           Bitter with loss for drink and food
No compromise to be reached,
        The lion withered for nothing
To have its ashes mixed with the sand
and blown
         away

Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:
Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.

Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:
Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks.

Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:
Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!

Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:
Each young man that calls, I say "Now tell me which you MEAN!"

Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one:
But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?

Five showy girls - but Thirty is an age
When girls may be ENGAGING, but they somehow don't ENGAGE.

Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more:
So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!

Five PASSE girls - Their age? Well, never mind!
We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:
But the quondam "careless bachelor" begins to think he knows
The answer to that ancient problem "how the money goes"!

Tiffany Trump has been viewed as the least known of Donald Trump’s children. The 23-year-old, who was raised separately from her siblings and made a late appearance on the presidential campaign trail, has been dubbed the “forgotten” Trump.

All the same, this has not made her exempt from the fury of her father’s detractors. This could be most clearly glimpsed during New York Fashion Week where there were reports the President’s second youngest child had been snubbed by fashion writers.

Former Wall Street Journal style columnist Christina Binkley shared a photo of Ms Trump sitting with two empty seats beside her, saying: "Nobody wants to sit next to Tiffany Trump at Philipp Plein, so they moved and the seats by her are empty”.

Fortunately for Ms Trump, who is the billionaire developer’s only daughter from his second marriage to Marla Maples, Whoopi Goldberg swooped in to save the day.

Despite the fact Goldberg has been an outspoken critic of Mr Trump, she suggested it was unfair for anger at his policies to be directed at Ms Trump given she was simply there to enjoy the catwalk.

"You know what Tiffany? I'm supposed to go to a couple more shows. ... I'm coming to sit with you," Goldberg said on The Viewwhich she hosts on ABC on Wednesday.

"Because nobody is talking politics at the [shows], you're looking at fashion! She doesn't want to talk about her dad. She's looking at the fashion!"

Goldberg, who previously said she would leave America if Mr Trump became President, argued the incident was "mean”, saying: "Girl, I will sit next to you because I've been there where people say, 'Ooh, we're not going to sit next to you. I'll find your a*se and sit next to you."

Fashion writer, Binkley, has now said Ms Trump was not actually snubbed at the show. She said the seats remained unoccupied for two minutes or less and the first daughter seemed unaware of what was going on.

Nevertheless, Nikki Ogunnaike, senior fashion editor at Elle, said the actual show started late due to frenzied last minute seating change, with editors at the show “fleeing” so they would not have to sit around Ms Trump. The tweets made headlines, with fashion designer, Plein, even weighing in to defend her by saying she is not a “politician” and merely a “teenager”.

Ms Trump, who thanked Goldberg for her show of support on Twitter, was raised separately from the other Trump siblings. She moved to California at the age of five and was brought up by her mother, Ms Maples, while her father and siblings were based in New York.

In a 2015 interview, Ms Trump said of her father: “I don’t know what it’s like to have a typical father figure. He’s not the dad who’s going to take me to the beach and go swimming, but he’s such a motivational person.”Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

I woke up with a noose around our neck.
I thought it wasn't real,maybe,
a scene from a dream?
The snapping of the tree branch.
You use your nocturnal carte blanche
for just this one thing, it seems?
Every night you're given another chance.
Perchance;
Shrubbery snubbed your success, this time.
Instead of being caught by the bushes,
We could've collided into those boulders below!
Luck decided to show.
Intervened when there was no one else to.

I stranded us both on this island:
it's just me and you.
What delusions helped shape your one truth?
This island is a (psychological) poker table for two.
I deal from the deck.
We play a game reminiscent
of four-hand Omaha.
Sitting across from each other:
It always ends in a draw.

You know I can read your poker face.
You know I detest the one desire you chase.

Make your excuses:
They won't help you leave this place.
I see the ace up your sleeve:
It has always been homicide.

I wish you saw this body same as I-sacred.
Its purpose is to serve us,not be desecrated.
Everyday I pray in its name.
you prey.
plotting its demise at night.

One temple.
Two temperaments.
Your one-way fight.

at the Altar I pay tithes.
We are two alters-tied.
You wish to ***** out my life,
Yet abhor the idea of suicide.

I will never leave your bloodlust unchecked.
Your worst intentions(what do they reflect?)
You once could reside in the heart of the city,
Near the coast, by a bustling transit station.
I emerged that day to save them all from you-
You planned to derail a monorail
with a distraction,
Disguised as an altercation.
denied you your reverie
Of a premeditated killing spree,
stranded us intentionally far out at sea.
your constellation prize now
is trying to **** me.
You plant your ***** traps in the dark
while I'm sound asleep.

One morning
I
awoke
and water welcomed our lungs.
Weights wound round our feet,
took us down deep where fishes sleep.
One morning
I
awoke
and smelled smoke clawing at our throat.
Only one entrance in and out of our cave.
and of course: you'd set the entrance ablaze
One morning
I
awoke
and was in a daze
You had consumed something similar to peyote.
Slathered our skin in spices with a savory glaze,
then left us to be eaten in a den full of coyotes.

One morning
I
    awoke   And
One morning I
awoke
And
This morning I
Awoke
and this time. instead of death traps ...
my notebook was nestled in my lap.

ripped out pages I had written
-directed at you-
you glued them to trees with their own sap.
Splayed them out like Hansel and gretel,
for me to follow like a trail or a map.

But I'm no fool.
Luring me on a paper trail to buy my trust.
Where are the trojans that you've hidden?
Trying this new scheme
to occupy my attention.
I know you wish to slice and dice.
If I lose and you win:
we both will pay the price.

Yet, still I follow your route.
I have hope for what you want me to see.
I will always love you
because you're a part of me.

Maybe we can play a new game?
Learn from one another?
I know you think I'm your enemy,
but I've always seen you as my brother.

Shudder-I smell death.
I approach a clearing in the woods.
why have you brought me here?
Atop an amalgamation of numerous dead fowl, fish, rabbits, (those same) coyote
and deer.
A single piece of paper;
clear off the guts and grime.
Tears in my eyes, holding the paper dear.
That single sentence you wrote down:

I never thought I'd live to see this day.
That one line,

that one line was all I ever hoped to hear you say:

           
        "Together at our Altar we will pray."


-

I am yours, always yours
For as long as I am useful
As long as you will have me.
I am a ****** idol,
A divine ***** who
May not be the classiest but
Certainly gets the job done.
You were unsophisticated,
Uneducated,
Crude.
Rude.
My mood may change but
My feelings never did.
You left me in the gutter,
Kind,
Knowing it to be my
Place of birth;
Cold,
Knowing it to be the
Place for my death.
I am yours, always yours
Until a more fit replacement may come.
It is more, is more,
Is more rain-spickle,
Spack-tackle, shoe-**** love-drunk easy
To miss my train.
You alighted onto the next platform,
Passing me by on the way
To being busy, to pretending to have a delay.
Don't carry your head so high
When everything you told me was an utter lie.
Why
Would you pretend your life could be shared with me?
Your sweet-warm friendship could
Slip through my fingers,
Keeping the arthritis of
Loneliness away.
So I tried to help you
Carry your back,
And I carried you out of
Immaturity,
But now
I'm ***-snubbed into your snow,
Snowy skin which smothers me
In spring feelings gone cold.

'She could be great
if she lost the weight.'--
These words burned into my mind

And I find that brand on my skin
In the form of slaps and bruises,
Grabs and pinches, trying to
Determine the length, the number
That is always over, never under.

Measurements
Measurements
Measurements,
Wait, don't go,
stay, be late.
I'm sure I can bite off the extra space I take,
I can rake my nails over thunderous thighs,
Compromise my breath
by wearing bras not my size.
I can be slight and slender
In my demeanor,

Look how invisible I am when I'm not on stage,
When I'm not in the dance!
You might glance me in the beginning
As I'm wearing a winning grin
And a sheen of sweat,
Worried to be found out as fat.

I promise I can dance,
See, look at all this art that I craft
With my hands and my heart.
Yes, my body as well
But you can barely tell.

The swell of my ******* rise and fall
With the breath in my chest, but
I can't rest, comforting words are
Too frail a nest.
Witness my hyperventilation
in this body fixation,
This determination that I can't be enough
because
There is far too much of me.

But I'm pushing, pushing back
I ask for gentleness,
  I begin to allow my bones to enjoy
   their cocoons
    Of muscle and fat and sinew.
     This is a body.
      And this body moves.
It reaches and teaches
  Grasps, gasps, hands clasp,
   Knees collapse, voice rasps,
    It's all valid.
    Eating salad won't fix what isn't broken.
    
The space I take up
Is my entry token into the world,
It's my ticket stub that can't be snubbed,
My admittance isn't denied
Because of my thighs.
My lungs are given permission
To the air, my heart receives
A knowing nod that I too may be cared for.

Life and love,
They love me all the same.
I must not blame and shame my size,
Using my eyes as daggers
that try to cut and carve away the excess.
Let my eyes be a balm,
To calm and to soothe what once
Was an abused and used,
And refused vessel.

I ask for gentleness,
Something new.
I ask for gentleness
From you, too.

Two weeks ago, on a day that I'm making up for this story,
I was in the city.
I don't prefer the city, because you can't see the stars.
They are being snubbed out by streetlights
and to me it makes everything seem uglier, without the stars.

Anyway, I was sitting on a ***** riverbank.
It wasn't actually dirt though, because people in cities
have forgotten
what dirt smells like
and tastes like
and feels like between their toes.

It was the city kind of *****:
spent condoms and cartridge rounds
syringe needles and bags of brown
scraps of metal and wrappers of plastic
gooey globs of gum and broken glass bottles.

I won't lie, I had a glass bottle to call my own,
about half full of the Good Stuff
and I was feeling mighty fine about killing it alone.

When I looked skyward and off to the right,
I noticed a city bridge, what with its' running lights
and dangling cables and roaring traffic,
it was standing in stark contrast to the
quiet county bridges of my home.

At this point, and it may have been the *****,
but I could've sworn I could see someone
on the bridge
clinging to a tether
swaying in the swift city breeze.

I had only just convinced myself
otherwise, that it would actually turn out to be
a bag of fast-food garbage hastily tossed out
by a careless city-dweller,
that the man let go
                               and
                                     he
                                         fell.
he flailed his arms and failed
to gain traction
and kicked his legs but
they abandoned him in midair
                                                 and
                                                       he
                                                          fell.

I was close enough, and listened
and I heard him go
                               splat
                                      against
                                                 cold water.

I was jealous of his bravery.
I envied his resolve.
I admired him.
I lusted after his finality.

Rubber faces.  Foreheads sweat, stream clown makeup when cheeks meet.  Sweet blood: corn syrup, water, starch.  Lick then smell.  Vampires pick jolly rancher debris from teeth.  Blue fangs.  A skeleton in the closet undresses a nun.  Open door open window sit three cats.  Watch the sun set.  Crows murdered around oak trees.  Darkness.  Lights, music, karaoke, Elvis sings Franki Valli.  Richard Nixon gropes a slutty nurse.  Left hand, right breast.  Alcohol permeates air.  Skin, sweat.  Touch.  Marilyn Monroe hoards candy corn souped with beer broth in her stomach.  Passes out.  Steve Irwin wears a sting ray through his chest, ***** tail through his shirt, surrounded in blood.  First place in the costume contest.  Alter egos.  Fred Flintstone feels snubbed.  So does a saran wrapped girl.  ******* hidden with black fabric circles.  Black balloons.  Orange ones.  Red balloons.  Popped.  Silent girl in white stands in the corner.  Caresses a small bottle of cyanide in her fingers.  Thumb, middle, pointer, pointed at Marilyn.  She knows she will not wake up.  They’ll call it suicide.  Elvis finishes his song in a falsetto,
Oh, what a night.

sometimes i wonder if shakespeare was behind the pen
that fiddled and diddled in that old church parking lot
i drove by it the other day but there was no one there
nobody freezing their buns off in the wake of the open door
nobody trying to canoodle in the back seat that wasn't folded down
nobody even thinking about pulling into that darkness.
would you even do that again? i would a hundred times think.
what even happened to that kid who used to write songs
and play them as if he were playing in front of a hundred eyes
but they were all your eyes and there wasn't a flame in existence
that was brighter than they when each lit up in its own way.
what even happened to the girl who showed that boy her house
and the colonial colloquial drapery and carpeting wall to wall,
her little sister sticking her finger into the brownie batter
and protective mother who i've gotta admit was 100 percent right:
stay away from the bad man with the non-leather patagonia jacket
and all of his sassy ideas that got him good grades in k-8
but really started to expose his weaknesses steeped in frivolity
when he got into the upper level courses and advanced placements.
[a GD mile wide and an inch deep, that's what me thinks jar jar binx]
stay away from the burnt out eagle scout who let his guard down
and allowed your guard down both metaphorically and not sooo... but
remember that coffee shop show that you never came to?
strange, it feels in this moment like an aching sore thumb.
i listened to joshua radin all the way home and thought
christ what am i even going to do about this can this work and
if it can work how can it work but if it can't work why can't it work?
because lord knows this lady is easy to please when we drink. but
silly,you're tough as ***** ****** nails when you need to be told no.
& i aint never heard of sucha thing as a dude who's charming as hell
when he's telling a gorgeous woman sum'thin she don't wanna hear;
make me a pill for that and i'll sell it on The Street for days without end.
[so how much supply you got when the thing aint even fda approved?]
"lose yourself in what you're doing and you'll never work a day" is
what they tell me while they cast me into this steel bending furnace
and demand me to find a way to be cool and relax and chill the f out-
been doing that on my own and there's no milky white ear to listen
or a record to put it on or even a GD vocal box that feels like working
unless it's singing showtunes in the car or harmonizing to justin bbr
like i'm the **** 6th man in the pentatonix or however many there are.
capitalistically useless thing i was born with and worked really hard at
until one day it told me i don't have the capacity to scribe anymore.
so i'm forever speechless like the kid who got coal for christmas last year.
& you'd catch me in that backyard again with all the 15 year old girls
still kinda trying to impress them but mostly you, & give my shirt away:
wear it and be proud that you snubbed the bad man who passed through
with the non-leather patagonia jacket in the old church parking lot.

I kept my hands clean today
No unholy things for me today

I snubbed my neighbor twice
For twice the heathen greeted me
I gave him barbed advice
For each time he had cheated me

I kept my hands clean today
No unpleasant things for me today

I went nowhere where one could find
Sinning folk or those in need
I chastized a beggar who was blind
Accused a friend of pride and greed

I kept my hands clean today
No ungodly things for me today

I avoided adulterers and ******
And gluttons, thieves, and tools
I gave a penny to the poor
And two cents to a fool

I kept my hands clean today
So God, why didn't you bless me today?

Greenland's not for sale
Greenland's melting
Green forests burning
Greenback flooding
Greed and fear ablaze
fed and preyed upon by AI
Chosen by the wicked
but snubbed, the King sulked

Bleeding earth,
Of motioning limbs,
praying to the tethered sunset,
wooden seasons snubbed,
abandoned and slathered,
Between almost everywhere,
Unnamed and shrub covered,

Something found in the endless,
plain and comprehended,
Civility manifested,
cottoned on to,
scratched out with plastic implements,
roaring blood cascading,
mechanical timidity,
tongues are on a journey,
naked and dead.

we break into the graveyard after hours. no purpose, but it's just there, down the road. and it's nice the way it overlooks the ocean.
   climbing over the hedges, we see a middle-aged couple already there, blasting dixieland on a portable radio. we share a confused look, and just leave again, a tad indignantly. it's the kinda thing that's ruined if someone else's doing it.

                                                  summer drags on,


the sound of trucks. bubbled wallpaper in pavement creaks.
wonder with the directed slice of soft fallen pillow lumps.

we
          round the way to the two parks, one with the children mewling on the wooden
stumps and the other with the cigarette butts, sports grounds, snubbed out sunday radio. the wind make a steady jaunt down the long
forgotten corridors. there's little to see here, but it's an easy place to make home. the trees sway something rotten that would make a newcomer uncomfortable, but you learn to shut it out.

we're
standing in the road, hands in pockets, against the chill. no one's sure what to say. not sure if saying anything really helps the fact. it just embroids the situation with complexity, detracting from an otherwise pure, if unpleasant, tone. we settle for a 'see you around.' the claim, if it is a claim, is false. the movers come early the next morning. and the house down the way stands vacant. the boards rot away. a year later the building is knocked down. rebuilt. craftsmen and diggers. but the same lot. same dirt. chewed up and digested. every winter the worms die. are replaced. tendrils expanding and contracting. sit down. it becomes so wearisome, but sometimes the sun's mild presence  makes it okay. the boards buckle in the damp morning light. the
  water filtration system hums down the road. the neighbour's kid crosses the road to the other park. kicks a soccer-ball for a few hours, gets dejected, and returns home, is reswallowed by the painted timber.  


the bible pushers did the usual rounds on wednesday. Mrs. Grensten would always let them in for tea. we'd watch from the other window, and imagine infidelities, convoluted fetish play that they'd get up to. a game of enticing disgust. eyes on the window in the hope they'd slip up, and we'd see a shot of tired flesh among the drawn curtains. a vacant voyeurism. laugh in the boredom of a dreary sin.
       they haven't visited for some years. after Mrs Grensten died, the next time they came Mr Grensten chased them away with his walking stick among coarse shouts and tears. the downstairs windows and now left open, but there's nothing inside


your pen-pal in Romania sent a postcard. they didn't write anything, but there was an old chapel in a field on it


some days the sea is quiet. generally in the early morning, during lowtide. under the moon the sand takes on this expansive pale blue luminescence  
        usually it's either too crowded, or the waves make up for the lull in people. i thought i had a point here, but i didn't


  she stands in cotton robes, stained and dyed with gin. mother says to ignore her. she rings a small ornamental bell. you don't really get it. you ask why she's ringing it. with a finger to the mouth she shushes you. you look offended. as you 're about to persist in demanding explanation, she steps out into the road, just as a courier van speeds round the corner. she wears a soft smile. the tiremarks on the cotton makes a pattern that reminds you of something, but you're not really sure what.


a humming light on an old oak table. there's a peacefulness here. you loose tempo, and the crowding figures look at you with irritation. you feel small and wish to melt, to become liquid and drain away, move in motions already dictated, they ask the next question. Who are you? Why? Justify your reasoning.
       a half ****** caramel drop. sticky.
       pavement grit. coarse.
   they
                closed the walkway due to wasp nests.
you're not sure which route to take. you pass
     by the graveyard instead, and look out to sea. there's a gentleness here. it reminds you of something, but you're not sure what


   we used to find bugs at the pond edge. the area had a piercing smell, but that was part of the charm. it meant we'd never dare enter the water, though. one day in teenage bravado, we did. it was slimy in texture. suddenly, you pushed my head down among the green folds. there was something there. a soft, but solid texture, like jelly. electric scatterings. old tire tracks folding out, like a deconstructed rubiks cube. i shoved your head in as well. we laughed and splashed in viscera.  wye's spoke in empty folds and promised us the world in reassuring tones. the warmth of a log fire on a winter eve, crackling sparks glowing in undulation. the muffled tones of a showerhead, blanketed in feathers. a mellow smile of the certainty of an inviting future. we lay on our backs and the sun shone down through the trees. as it passed the yardarm we headed back to shore, lost rapture of the soft kisses of meadow-banks. you grabbed a rock and bashed me in the head. a solid but glancing blow. this too, was fine. no fear, just laughter. i grabbed one too. with blunt instruments, we chiselled skin and bone. small enfolds of the rising moon. we stretched out, fingers entwined. no fear. possibly regret? but a soft regret, the kind that tracks the passing of time, that lets you register the ceaseless withering of the past, and hopefully, see beyond. rivulets of blood. i breathe in your gaze, and melt into grass. just laughter.


the stitches in the corner of your mouth are rotten. that's good, that means the healing is done. flesh reunited with flesh. you feel it with your finger. there's a bumpiness, but little sign of much else

Tables scattered--
Round illuminated islands.
A snubbed cigarette whispers its last words to the room.

Vanes spinning--
Records circulating air.
Hypnosis settles like a dusting-- coating the mind's past troubles.

Her voice--
Softly traveling in waves.
Weaving a blanket-- alms soothing a once cold vacuum.

I now know bliss.

I snubbed a woman who said good morning, she in turn was offended and ignored a homeless veteran, who in turn became desperate and tried to rob a street vendor, who was injured and went to the hospital, while the homeless man ran away and became a fugitive. The injured vendor could not work, so his family was evicted and put into the street and thus became homeless, like the veteran, who was cornered by police and shot trying to escape, a tragedy for which no one cared. Now the vendors family has taken to stealing in order to survive, while the man recovers but cannot pay his medical bills and thus gets poor treatment and dies. Now what if the picture were painted differently and things were turned around. I helped an old woman who said good morning get across the street, she saw a homeless veteran and gave him ten dollars, the veteran bought a lottery ticket and a sandwich. He scratched it off and won 50000 dollars, the street vendor from whom he bought the ticket was given a cash bonus for selling the winning ticket. The vendor took the 2500 dollar and had his daughters teeth fixed so that now she laughs and smiles. The homeless veteran got his life together and gave some of his money to help out a homeless shelter where he used to stay. The shelter bought new beds and food to help more people. So is the domino effect, one small thing can turn into a greater thing, it depends on which way you decide to go.

I can't sleep at night,
So I'll go buy some melatonin.
I don't smile enough,
Another round of serotonin!

You've become so much more than a habit.
I am snubbed.
I am fiction.
I am the ******* Velveteen Rabbit.

O Flame,
curiously swaying in the wind.
How too I endeavor
To dance with my destructor.
Your careless swing,
In the blue mystery of the dark.

In this moment you are all I care for.

The illustrious glow more becoming than sixty sirens
Coated in sterling silver.

You
Harmful to touch but enthralling to watch
I adore you my dear
Simply as I know of your fate.

My empathy runs deep as we are both
Snubbed by the wind.
Sing to me my muse,
Let my end be Joyful
But only at hands of you.

Why did I ever love you
What is there to love?
Going to sleep, feeling snubbed?
What about the criticism about how I spend my money?
You think you can control me, you got another thing coming honey.
Manipulating me with lavish gifts, loving words and poems.
Thinking I'm stupid enough to not see our relationship is broken?
Throwing a fit when you don't get your way,
Ignoring my needs every single day.
Denying me of the love I crave,
You are slowly digging my early grave.
Shattering my self esteem seems to be your intent,
When I try to say anything, you always dissent.
My words don't matter, I am worthless,
Still your tirade continues, you are merciless.
Please let me go and stop this oppression,
Time to allow someone else the pleasure of this succession.

skirts rustle across the floor
whispers of movement
and conversation, the conversations!
voices fill the room to the rafters
brimming with that peculiar sound
(and the occasional snubbed toe)
while in the background,
unnoticed save as the source of everything
fists raised for the next passage
black and brown in synchronized movement
the body drones, chucks falling in heartbeats
but the mechanics do not worry him
while his background hums in boredom
he is thinking about the prince in common time
stately marching fanfare
with a tinge of melancholy
so vivid in his eyes
the picture so vivid as if he was marching in that very room
destined to marry the girl
arranged by his well meaning parents
pretty enough but...
that other girl catches his eye
his heartbeat
his passion
how does he choose?
here come the boom chuck chucks
that elusive three four
cueing waltzes with each and both
whirling around the floor
a reflection of reality…
but this is their reality
how, can he choose?
but in the end, it’s his duty that calls him
his duty calls
in this big bright burning yellow room
no happily ever after for this fairytale prince

I'll lie on my back
with dignity's shadow blanketed
over me. The clouds are in the shape
of an hourglass, and they spell out
my glory days
in shades of goodbye.

Unwarranted and unlocked memories.
Closed doors that I
clawed at, snubbed
fingers and blistered emotions. There are novels
filled with what ifs underneath the dirt
of my fingernails. I'd like to resubmit my
application
of trying again
to whoever has the time to
listen to hallow words.

After all this time
I have been as vapid as a dissipating
cloud. My legacy will be
sinking my teeth into
forbidden fruit laced with
ambition. Its the worst drug. You only
need one taste for it to
affect you forever, and one mistake
for it to choke you.

March 2008
I found my legs shaking
trembling before my schoolmates
somewhere
I hid it under the table, under the first
bottle of Generoso, yes, so local you puke with hate

There with me is the formidable lesbian
I fell so badly in love with back then
at first I knew coming along was a bad idea
but let me tell you, first times are as fickle
as those ******* your **** got used to

and yeah, the first drink of the grape
straightened my frightened legs
gave me courage
but no, it’s not what you think it is

I snubbed her all the way
that is right
after she got a little bit tipsy in the middle
and told me how she’s gonna tell her
big brother that she’s gonna get herself
a boy friend

and more fellow schoolmates came
most of them look up to irrelevant
people like Tupac, Snoop and whoever
it is that can speak fast on drugs.

we reached the denouement
of the unplanned gathering
I wasn’t able to handle myself
for I was ******* everyone off.

three of them even tried to gang up on me
but the tides sided with me
as Deo who almost died last year
sent me home.

my father was so ******* furious
when he first saw, smelled and heard
his son drunk
it was a replica in progress.

It was a long fought battle
and I accept I lost
but the hardest thing to fathom
is the part of me it cost
I would have gave it gladly
a casualty of war
but now I see its sadly
just not worth fighting for
I flew this flag for love
but now its a white banner
my resolve left snubbed
because its not what I'm after.