fROM THE dESK OF THE pOET**

I'm embarrassed to admit this. The night before last I ate an excessive amount of Sour Chewy Sweettarts. If you've ever had them you know that just one or two have enough toxic chemical dust sprinkled on them to make your mouth numb for several minutes. Well I got into a rhythm of eating one, then adding one to it, then another for three, then four, then five, then  six all the way to seven at one time. In that experiment alone I consumed no fewer than 26 Sour Chewy Sweetarts and even that was after having warmed up with several single helpings.

Sour Chewy Sweettarts were at one time marketed under the name  "Shockers". Let me tell you they should have respected the truth in advertising inherent with that label. The intensity of tartness conferred from all these ***** Wonka treats was remarkable and very well could have been the most face-squinching sourness I've experienced in my fifty-plus years.

The unfortunate downswing of these hijinks is that I developed a chemical burn that spread across the entirety of my tongue all the back to and including the area where my uvula hangs.

It's my own stupid fault. I could feel the chemicals eating through too many layers of cells long before the administration of candy pellets had reached four, even five-count multiples. By the time I had the seven pack ****** down to gel the burning was so bad I had to squint my eyes. The question that found priority amongst all that came to me at that moment was "how long is my mouth going to be so alternately sensitive and numb that I won't be able to eat my beloved jalapenos and spicy vittles?" A couple of days later and that answer still has not been found, although progress has been made to the point where I have faith it WILL indeed heal...you know how paranoid I can think sometimes, surely my mouth will never heal from THIS god forsaken self-inflicted injury, after all, I deserve it, hence the term "SELF inflicted". It's nothing but payback being it's usual self. If I never get to taste the wondrous seasonings of a well-mixed chili recipe cooked to perfection by someone who really knows how to make chili...if I never sigh with uninhibited satisfaction after downing a swig of Dr. Pepper or Miller's High Life or Guinness Stout...if I never again will be able to tell the difference between prime Angus beef and succulent Maine Lobster it is for good reason that I've been deprived of these tender mercies. It's because I knew when to stop and I kept on eating, though tears had begun to form.

No, it's more than that. It's because Universal Forces were all the while begging me, whispering in  my ears, "Stop! Stop! Enough! No more!" What would have happened if Joseph had ignored the Lord on that cool December night? Gabriel let Mary in on what was going down, what do you think would have happened if she'd gotten jealous of Joseph and disregarded the angel because he didn't have quite as much clout as her husband's Messenger? What would have happened? Nobody knows. But I know what would have happened if I'd heeded the advice of the benevolent spiritual  beings who were trying to warn me to lay off of the Sour Chewy Sweettarts. I wouldn't be sitting here typing on the hp laptop about how I got the chemical burn from hell.

But it seems like valuable lessons may be learned at every turn. So it is that with almost every experience I am resigned to also look at this one as the hard earned silver lining. Just what exactly have I learned? Well, first of all I've learned that it would probably be a good idea in the future to regulate severely the amount of Sour Chewy Sweettarts (aka Shockers) I eat in one sitting. If I ever eat them again, If the emotional scars of the chemical burn will free me in my sweet tooth's cravings for Wonka Sugar to ever again opt for the sour stuff. I learned that eating Vlasic Kosher Dill Pickles with such a freshly de-sensitized/throbbing chemically-scorched tongue is a prospect that shares much in common with a full day of taste-testing ghost peppers. Only on a slightly smaller scale does the briny pickle juice pack it's own searing acidic punch.

Other lessons? Oh I'm sure I could fill a book with lessons this has taught me. Writing that book might be the most useful, benevolent gesture I ever offered my fellow man but I don't know if I can do it. But if I did, this would have to be the first couple of lines on the very fist page:

Make sure you're going to have a LOT of alone time the morning after.

But that's just plain good advice.

I used to think that all of them were just bodies. She-figures, they came and went, facilitating infinite happiness and following with hellacious heartbreak, aorta explosions galore. They pass. I stay. She goes. I remain. We all take a trip, but she falls asleep while I follow the road, I sing the song, make the lyrics up as the 101 heads West, and I careen against the Pacific. I see silvery-white plumes of whale breaths spouting, they break the rocks of my rock and roll. When the levee breaks, we'll have no place to go- I'm going back to Chicago.

California. Line 5. Verse 1. She is born in Arkansas, in Denver, in New York City, in the back of a taxi cab, her parents waiting for a table at Earth Cafe, 1989. There are concerts, balconies, elevator shafts, and on benches. The gain rises, the volume up and up and up, I offer her a cigarette, I ask her if she likes my dress, I show up with two palms full of a flame, and I say hello. Browsing in high-definition, the water is warm, my feet are planted and I have everywhere to go. Classical emporium of light fill me with ease, greatness, and belief. She asks me if I'm gay. Every great confusion can be proven to be fortuitous with enough time on hand. I kiss in cars, in bathrooms, and barrooms, in hallways, on staircases, on beds, church steps, and legs. I touched a leg, ran my fingers through her hair, my thumbs curved to the height of two ears alongside a size B head. I love art *****. i burn candles, and I swirl the wax around until the walls wear masks of white. I check-in to a hotel. I stop to buy wild flowers on the side of the road, or to climb down a ravine, we open a page into an enormous patch of strawberries, wind-surfers, and the golden Palo Alto beaches. I am in Bronzeville, on my way to Bridgeport, I am riding the train, browsing magazines, and singing new songs in my head. My lips are wet with excitement and the musings of the Modern Art Museum and the gift of a first kiss; behind the statue on Balcony 2, near the drinking fountain, the Eames couch, and two lips meeting anew. Bravery in twos.

Chapter 1, Verse 2. The chorus is large and exciting. New plastic shining coats. Smocks patterned with the Random House children's stories that we played with as children. We didn't wear gloves, or hats, or pants, or our hearts on our sleeves. I was up to my knees in hormones and very persuasive. My fifth birthday was at the Nature Center, you chased me into the boys' bathroom and kissed me with your wet and four year old lips in the second stall from the door. I eased up maybe 2% since then. The speakers are a little bit fuzzy, it's like listening to the spit of someone's tongue cascade the roof of their mouth while they pronounce the British consonants of the 90s. Said and done and saving space.

I am saving up for Grace. A crush in the mid 2000s, black hair, long legs, and the only brunette for a decade before or after. We played doctor, with the electric scalpel we turned our noses red with Christmas time South American powders. A safe word for an enemy, the sun for an enemy too. You bolted out and took my early Jimi Hendrix Best Of compact disc case too. While we're at it, you took my Michael Jackson cassettes as well. I go mid-range, think Kiri Te Kanawa in the whispers of E.T.'s Elliot. Stuffed-animal closet party for seven minutes in heaven. Your family came with butlers while mine came with over-educated storage. A blue borage sky in the intestines of life, a splinter in the shanty-town of invincible daily struggles- both of us were born again in O'Hare Airport's Parking Level D. Too many nonsensical arguments in two-tone grayscale ripping open the packaging of a course about trysting in your twenties.

Your stomach's history is overpowering. It is temperamental, mettled by spirits and sleepless nights, borborygmus, wambles, and shades of nervousness you were never comfortable speaking openly about. The history of your ****** was privatized, in options and unedited films shot over and over candidly by a mini DV desk camera, nine months to read you wrong to weep in strong wintry walks back and forth from The Buckingham to the Dwight Lofts, Room 408 without a view. All of your secrets in a little miniature of a notebook, bright cerise red. You captured teardrops in medicinal jars meant for syringes. You tied strings to your fingers, named your field mouse Ginger, and introduced your mother as Lady Darling. Captain with stingray skin, the hide of Ferris Bueller with the coattails of James Bond, dusted with daisy pollen, and clearly weakness. You ate me like bitter herbs on Thursdays, and like every other woman I've ever met, on Tuesdays you always kept me waiting.

I have wings for everything. Yellow wings for a woman in a yellow dress, Red, White, and Green wings for Bernice from Mexico City, Purple wings for  Mrs. Doolittle the doctor who worked at Taco Bell, the Jamaican priestess who was traveling through Venice Italy- we smoked hash with the grandchild of James Joyce on the Northern pier against the aurulent statues of Apollo and Zeus, Cupids' collection of malevolent tricks, SleepingB Beauty's rebuttal in fending off GHB attackers, my two dear friends who were kidnapped in clothes, abandoned in the ****, and only remember eating chocolate donuts with sprinkles and the bruises and dirt on the insides of their thighs. Nothing clever. Nothing extraordinary. Everything sentimental, built to withstand soot, sourness, and early female bravado.

You know how to play the piano so you've said, but i only have the CD you gave me to prove it. I do have evidence of your addiction to men and *******. I have your collection of dresses with tags still on them (but every woman has some of those), there is the post office box in Kauai, the Halloween card from last November and the two videos I have stored on an external drive in a nightstand adjacent to the foot of my bed. You sleep atrociously, talk too quickly, and **** like your father abandoned you when you were five. Your talent for taking photographs is like your skill-set for playing the piano, but I don't have the CD to prove it. You don't believe in social media, social consistency, friendships, or hephalumps and woozels- with the exception of the classes we shared together in college, I've never seen you outside of the most glamorous of fashion. You hate flats, hats, and white wine, and for as sad as you can seem to be at times, I've only had you cry on me once. While we were on the phone, three days after your mother hung herself. That's when I last left California, and I haven't been back yet.

I love a Kristine, but once a Britni, a Brandi, a Joni, a Tina, Kristina, Kirsten, Kristen, and a Katherine and Kathryn too. I know rock stars who are my dearest friends, enemies who I share excellent taste in music with, and parents who've always had my back but show it in lashings of the tongue and of the belt. It's been two years and three states since I was two sizes smaller than I am now. I've never considered the possibility that I was the main character and not the supporting actor, but due to recent developments in antipathy and aesthete, reevaluation, and retrospective nostalgia. All of this is about to change.

I am me still evolving without my usually stolid and grim ****** features. i bare brevity to situations existing that would **** most or in the least paralyze a great many. There is one for every hour of every day, and one for every minute in every hour, second in every minute, and more than the minutes in every day. No one has a second chance, shares a different time, or works off a different clock. I have been called the master of the analog, king of the codependent, and rook to queenside knight. I share a parabola for every encounter, experience, and endeavor. I am three minutes from being a cadaver, one drink away from a drunk, and one thought away from being completely alone. I think upright, i sleep horizontally, and I love infinitely. I am the only finite constant i have ever known. I am the main character, the script, satire, sarcasm, and soundtrack are mine.

"I don’t care if you believe it. That’s the kind of house I live in. And I hope we never leave it.”
There's A Wocket In My Pocket by Dr. Seuss

My Sweetness
My Fruit
Little bits of sourness that I have felt from dealing with boys ,..that I’ve let come, …in my life,…and just pass on through,
Like Tita from Agua Para Chocolate
Pouring her energy
Her feelings
Her heart in every dish she made
I poured and poured
10 bottles of red wine…Passionate red vibes
Into that Sangria containing my sweet fruit
And just a little bit,…little bite of lime
That little bit of sourness I hold inside
My energy flowing through every smile, word, and laughter that floated in the air
And bounced from vibe to vibe
And what did I get in return?
Not only the satisfaction of seeing and feeling everyone have such a great time
Giggles from buzzed and tipsy steps of folks passing me by
But the collection of singles, overflowing in the cute bartender’s tip jar
It was your singles
And his singles
And even her singles that filled up that jar
The collection of singles that fed the creative force of souls that night
Fed the souls
Fed the minds
Fed us with creativity
But most importantly
Fed us with awesome tacos at 2:30 in the morning from a place we happened to find right around the block
My Sangria bought us tip jar tacos that night

Living freely in this world
My vulnerability, feels so lost
As it seeks the skies to escape all
Perched high away and hiding
My heart forsaken
For my vulnerability
Has left

The little bird has flown

My retreating heart lives behind
Many layers of frozen ice
The warm waters of my heart
Have all frozen over

Come back, come back little bird

A teardrop falls
For I see the loss of potential
In this frozen pond
Where waters should be warm
My heart should sing
Great rich jungles, it should bring

My pride wounded by this world
I stare into my murky depths
My standing in this world falling
As my legs are taken
By the jaws of a giant beast

Far away a bird twitches

My stomach twists and turns
Absorbed I am into the belly
Of a great giant crocodile
I begin to feel my vulnerability
In these dangerous warm acidic waters
As I merge into a crocodile
And high above a bird leaves his perch
As the ice layers break
With the force of my tail

New eyes see the self importance in people
Of this earth, with all their arrogance
I will bring you back to earth
For I am the last living dinosaur
Born from a time when T.rex reigned
And even the birds had teeth
For I still live in waters
Where Piranha's seek to
Frenzy on living flesh
And I am to be scared of you

I warn all of those who wish to disturb
My open and most precious heart
That rests in silence over my pond
For your flesh will quiver
With the sound of my ancient growl
And your eyes will panic
With the sight of my jaw

A quiet bird flutters closer

Bring your bitterness and all your sourness
For I am hungry and love rotten meat
And your disregard feeds my fury
Circle my pond
Where my heart rests softly
With rich and green waters
Bursting and growing in love
For I am not scared to feel

And I will lounge and grab
As a tonne of me, slaps itself
Bang, ******* this earth
For I am here to feel it
And not escape it
But you will be blind
And lost in my depths
I will turn you over and
Your arrogance will feed me
As I grow stronger
You will be ripped limb from limb  

A little bird comes closer

My heart free from noise
A silence nestles in me
And all innocence is seen
Beautiful souls float freely
Butterflies dance and play
And my beautiful vulnerability
returns in sweet song
And rests softly in my jaw

A strange paradox becomes so very clear
With a little bird we hold so dear

i was directed to this place by Marty Feldman, and he said i should say this password to gain entry: float like a chapati, sting like a vindaloo.

i' not good at making passes at someone's death,
just yesterday i was thinking
while a quiz show took place with haiku clues
regarding famous people, so i wondered
aloud: would it still be the correct answer if
you said: cassius clay? what a cool name,
colossus of clay - what the hell does Muhammad
and Ali have to do with african rooting
when you hardly speak Swahili? a bit pointless,
but a name like cassius clay... unstoppable -
already mythological, rather than a family
feud between Ali and the Caliphs after Muhammad's
death - maybe he should have confirmed his
baptism as Muhammad Ali with a confirmation
akin to catholic practice and added a surname, like
Khadijah, well... if Mozart is turning in his coffin
for his music being turned into a muzak
or a Porcupine Tree tree song, then the first wife of
Muhammad is turning in hers... a wise women
of sound economic acumen could be compared
by secular standards to Gabriel's voice, women tell lies,
just today i saw plain Jane turn into a stunner,
she was gagging to go on a date with a guy of her dreams,
by media standards a subsequent loser in Morocco,
at a photo shoot of practising flirtation a half-and-half
love affair between the Gothic island of the Caribbean
that's England and the Bahamas flirted with olive skin,
blue eyes and pecks, and an ego shaped like a woodpecker...
or an u.z.i., poor guy, got to make a show,
but the ***** is out! she noticed her eyes!
what further shahada of scheherazade?
just one more night, just one more night, one more, night.
demigods and men, traces of narcissus in man resides
in his eyes, nowhere else, man and woman fall in love
with their eyes, rather than narcissus and the complete
visage, but as i once said: imagine narcissus looking
into the sea - he might as well have fallen in love with
the stillness of the lake rather than the image represented
by it - across the seven seas he roamed, across the seven
zeniths, until he came across the Lake of Echo,
and heard the echo of footsteps beside him, to have seen
the natural mirror by moonlight, and settled to lie,
disguising himself as a flower worth recycling:
each god in polytheism his own individual, reigning ideal
in the pantheon of gods: solipsism - with man's intervention
a notably study of, himself.
although i'd love to chat thoroughly about this,
i'm not so sure i want to - hear the words:
you're a good man... you're a good man in a brothel?
you think a ******* would forget saying that
and continue? *persona incognito grata -
a golden crown on her tooth that i peered into with her
Ukrainian accent speaking polish, i lost my virginity
to a French girl without any connection - proceeding
from the way she decided a child learning a new language
aged 8 could not be considered a native speaker
for a psychology experiment - i gave her a silent lesson
in history concerning Napoleon and the last heroic act
of warfare, after that, civilians were utilised like bombs
or rifles, the many guilts after all the killing seized.
anyway, today i decided to cook two knock-outs...
the first was intended as a kolhapuri chicken curry,
the latter was chicken do'h pyaaza, with the later
the title, indeed the fenugreek incident, fenugreek
being a concentrated version of kasoori methi,
if the Turks invented hot & sour with a pickled chilli,
the blue Indians invented a whole palette of sour and hot
with this dish, and the crucial ingredient that's
fenugreek - although the crystalline form of this spice
is more potent - the recipe asked for one tablespoon
of the raw products, the leaves (kasoori methi) -
i added a teaspoon of the concentrated stuff -
what a disaster! i asked for two tasters to tell me that i
wasn't tasting bitterness in the gravy as if i added some
English ale revenge against continental beers...
because the excess of the component of intended sourness
of the fenugreek turned into an ale-like bitterness -
hence the notion that sour isn't an antonym of sweet,
but bitter is - hence sweet & sour rather than
sweet & bitter - you can have a turkish pickled chilli
and still have a compliment on the palette of hot & sour,
but imagine tasting bitterness - excess of concentrated
kasoori methi does the trick - and since Faust doesn't
have an Igor like Dr. Frankenstein, he turned himself
into a hunchback, and started picking out most of the
fenugreek crystals from the gravy, one by one, ony by one,
hunched over the sauces - until the bitterness disappeared
and the intended sourness came through -
it took a while, but Faust as his own assistant kept on
saying: stop lying, stop lying! i want to eat this sauce too!
that's the thing with chemistry and cooking,
i received a present not too long ago, an arsenal
of spices, which means i can punch-bag you a Peshwari
naan with raisin and almond stuffing (a bit of sugar too),
and i can add the raw ingredients - i'm richer with
spices than with drugs or gold: turmeric is also known
as saffron - although saffron is more potent,
turmeric does the same job... coriander powder, cumin
power (also seeds), mint the prime garnish for
do'h pyazza curry... garam masala made from scratch,
meaning i have: cardamom pods, cloves, black cardamom,
mace... and i can make you a kohlapur masala...
honestly... in this great culinary babylon of english society,
from pizzas to chinese to Kentucky to New York
street vendors... i'd give up the cuisine i was born in
and convert to India's palette... i don't need to convert
anything else... religion can remain with those who
barely read, or who read and cite only one book...
let them have it... i don't care...
i already converted to a non-religious fascination with
mystical Judaism (sorry Allah, couldn't do anything
with your name, it didn't fit the Latin revision of thinking
about it), and as such, converted to a dreamy everyday
of India's culinary prowess - Kama Sutra is nothing
compared to the recipes from Kashmir or anywhere
where the blue bloods fascinated the merchants rather than
scalped them in berserker rage among the puritan
envoys.

There is

the bitter taste of the last cigarette

on the roof of my mouth,

a sourness on my tongue

and i try to remember the last time i felt like this.

or rather…

the last time I DIDN’T.

seems like as time goes on, every day becomes a struggle,

and some days more than others.

I want everyone to be my friend,

but i wonder where this inferiority complex comes from?

it paralyzes me and i do not want to speak.

meeting people, seeing my ideas put into words

by other lips and others’ gestures,

and yes I agree,

but ******* you make me so tired.

no, i do not need your hugs,

and no i do not need your validation.

and hell no i do not need your apathetic agreement

because like hell you would understand,

like hell you would know that

you can’t bleach this brown skin of

all the slurs and all the stigma,

that you can’t flat iron out the

ethnic tangles of my afro-something hair,

that you can’t even guess,

cause even i don’t know,

even we don’t know,

if i’m black or native or forcibly half white,

if i’m 10% this or 50% that,

like I have to be broken down

into numbers and percentages

cause I just can’t be whole again,

cause we just can’t be whole again.



They took everything,

they came and took everything

*******,

and yes God ****** us,

your ****** God ****** us,

you came and you traded

our generosity, our good faith, our sustenance,

you took all of that

and gave us biblical ******* about a God,

some overbearing, vengeful Lord

that didn’t even love you,

oh God, and we were the savages?

You came and you stripped us naked,

took off layer after layer of dignity and prosperity,

we gave you firm hugs of solidarity,

and you groped our ******* like they were worthless,

we gave you kisses of peace,

and you rammed your tongues down our throats,

demanding we choked into silence,

and we were supposed to thank you.

You came and you ***** our land,

our mothers, sisters, and daughters

and we were supposed to be compliant.

we were supposed to be quiet,

and we were supposed to be content,

happy to fill our wombs

with children who would later struggle

with the realization that the reason the color of their skin

was neither yours nor mine,

that it was neither milky white nor toasted earth,

was because my people had been ****** by yours,

figuratively, literally but most significantly, forcibly

generation after generation,

subjugation after subjugation

for 400 ******* years.



And here I am.

400 years later and I don’t know who I am.

They say I could be Chicana,

or Mexicana,

I could be Mexico Americana,

I could be Latina,

or even, god-forbid,

Hispana.

I could be but what does that even mean?

what does Mexican mean?

a land where the majority of the people

descend from the great people of indigenous America,

or the great people of Africana roots,

or these chaotically beautiful blends

that result in the sweetest of dark coffee- soft caramel of spectrums,

still say “indio" like an insult,

still say “*****" like an insult,

still say “prieto" like an insult.

still say, “baby girl, get out the sun,

what you tryin to get darker for?"

still say, “hell no we ain’t african!"

like that would be a bad thing.



and ******* it i am ******* tired.

Dear Nike,

No better felling then when I get that new shoe smell
Fresher than a spring breeze
Like a wizard making a new spell
I reach out and grab my Nikes
Pull them on my feet
They are
Comfy as a the softest cloud
Smooth as the purest silk
Magnificent as a majestic eagle spreading its wings to fly off into a deep red sunset
They make me feel relaxed as  sitting in the shade on a warm summer day

When I wear you
I feel as strong as the Rock lifting a thousand pounds
faster than Usain Bolt shattering a world record and hearing fans cream his name
All the pressure off
It's just my Nikes and I

I'm a blur with my nikes
Fast as a cheetah sprinting after a desperately bounding antelope
Can't even see me

People try to keep up
All they do is trip up
When they glance up from the cold hard ground thick mud covering their face
All they see are my beautiful piercing green Nikes

Running down the court
Legs pumping
Muscles flexing
So much sweat pouring off my face its like a raging river
I taste the sourness of salt in my mouth
Next thing you know
It's all over
The buzzer roars
Everyones jumps on their feet
All eyes locked on the ball flying through the air
Fans screaming like angry banshees so loud it could make you deaf
Swoosh
And it's all over

There's a reason Nike means victory
It's because no one can even compete
Before the battle is started they've already been beat

People who don't wear them
Just haven't realized
that the shoes they wear are inferior
Do their shoes give them the power to jump one thousand feet
Sprint at the speed of light
Make exery shot they take
No

On the torn up field
On the scuffed up court
It doesn't matter

When I wear my Nikes
They make me fly
Around the world
Through white wispy clouds surrounded by beautiful baby blue sky
Across the endless oceans full of green and turquoise churning water and silver jumping fish
Through fields full of long dark green grass
Feeling the wind blow through my face like an angry hurricane
Its like I'm in the flashing streets Hong kong
Nike shoe game is just too strong

Love, Zach

There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself --
Infinite, green, utterly untouchable.
Angels swim in it, and the stars, in indifference also.
They are my medium.
The sun dissolves on this wall, bleeding its lights.

A grey wall now, clawed and ******.
Is there no way out of the mind?
Steps at my back spiral into a well.
There are no trees or birds in this world,
There is only sourness.

This red wall winces continually:
A red fist, opening and closing,
Two grey, papery bags --
This is what i am made of, this, and a terror
Of being wheeled off under crosses and rain of pieties.

On a black wall, unidentifiable birds
Swivel their heads and cry.
There is no talk of immorality amoun these!
Cold blanks approach us:
They move in a hurry.

When I rang in the morning, amma asked ‘who is it?’

‘who is it’
In the same voice that she used in the olden days
Worried that she would have to serve coffee and snacks
When Jinu, Pradeep, Riyaz came calling

Amma, it is not the nair boy nor Pradeep from pallippuram, nor the Muslim boy Riyaz,
It is your son

‘who is it’

Amma, this is me,
What else shall I say?
Your son.

What other title do I have

Your Youngest
Born in old age
One who is supposed to look after his amma
Who left home
Who lived as he pleased
Who married without consent from those at home
Who failed many exams
Who used to wander around with strangers
Who used to drink and shout obscenities at the clergy

The butcher knife in amma’s chest

When again the question ‘who is it’
Falls in my ears,
Amma, what should I say?

The dark one of yesteryears became fair
Because of not going in the sun, amma
I cannot become dark even if I pretend, amma

I drank and drank and got all swollen up, amma
I smoked and smoked and became tired, amma
I shouted and shouted and became hoarse, amma
I read and read poems and overflowed, amma..

When amma asks again ‘who is it’
As though she didn’t know anything

I felt like answering I have become Thadiyantavida Naseer, having read too much news
I felt like answering that I have become A P Abdullakkutti  having hankered after whatever I heard and saw
I felt like answering that I have become MA Yusuf Ali, tallying accounts again and again
I felt like answering I have become Kunjhalikkutty, having lusted after everyone I saw
Who is it, who is it, when the voice cracks asking, what more am I to say

Amma, who are you?

Why do you start as though you heard the question ‘who is the father?”

Do crows still visit the breadfruit tree on the northern side, amma?
Do you still scold, ‘hey breadfruit tree, you little minx, do not fall before you are grown enough!’, amma?

Is amma listening?
Do you understand?

What about Biran?
After his girl got married,
After his boy went to the gulf,
Biran doesn’t come
He is prosperous now,
Good fish are not available nowadays..

…

Was the tamarind tree fruitful this year, amma?
Did you dry the tamarind to make it into cakes to preserve it, amma?

Cannot down a morsel without buttermilk
In the morning, when I looked, all sourness was lost
moreover, the milk got curdled
…
Amma, wont you get up fast
Don’t we have to go to church?

There are lots of people there
There are lots of people there

I have taken the matchbox
Buy two candles (small, cheap ones)
Come, I will be here
It has been long since you lighted a candle for your father

…

I wrote my name
At the tip of a huge tree in our genealogy

It sways in a gentle wind

Brethren with whom I grew up
Say that it is because
Of  intoxication

People say it is acting the fool
Some say that all that is needed is a beating

…

On the roots of a huge tree in the genealogy, amma,
You sprout little greens of new awareness

Still even in heavy winds

Your children, fruits of your womb, who knew the labour you went through
say it is because  you are not in your right mind

People say it is acting the fool
Those who watch recommend tying up

Amma,
for me
and you,
what is consciousness,

I used to think that all of them were just bodies. She-figures, they came and went, facilitating infinite happiness and following with hellacious heartbreak, aorta explosions galore. They pass. I stay. She goes. I remain. We all take a trip, but she falls asleep while I follow the road, I sing the song, make the lyrics up as the 101 heads West, and I careen against the Pacific. I see silvery-white plumes of whale breaths spouting, they break the rocks of my rock and roll. When the levee breaks, we'll have no place to go- I'm going back to Chicago.

California. Line 5. Verse 1. She is born in Arkansas, in Denver, in New York City, in the back of a taxi cab, her parents waiting for a table at Earth Cafe, 1989. There are concerts, balconies, elevator shafts, and on benches. The gain rises, the volume up and up and up, I offer her a cigarette, I ask her if she likes my dress, I show up with two palms full of a flame, and I say hello. Browsing in high-definition, the water is warm, my feet are planted and I have everywhere to go. Classical emporium of light fill me with ease, greatness, and belief. She asks me if I'm gay. Every great confusion can be proven to be fortuitous with enough time on hand. I kiss in cars, in bathrooms, and barrooms, in hallways, on staircases, on beds, church steps, and legs. I touched a leg, ran my fingers through her hair, my thumbs curved to the height of two ears alongside a size B head. I love art *****. i burn candles, and I swirl the wax around until the walls wear masks of white. I check-in to a hotel. I stop to buy wild flowers on the side of the road, or to climb down a ravine, we open a page into an enormous patch of strawberries, wind-surfers, and the golden Palo Alto beaches. I am in Bronzeville, on my way to Bridgeport, I am riding the train, browsing magazines, and singing new songs in my head. My lips are wet with excitement and the musings of the Modern Art Museum and the gift of a first kiss; behind the statue on Balcony 2, near the drinking fountain, the Eames couch, and two lips meeting anew. Bravery in twos.

Chapter 1, Verse 2. The chorus is large and exciting. New plastic shining coats. Smocks patterned with the Random House children's stories that we played with as children. We didn't wear gloves, or hats, or pants, or our hearts on our sleeves. I was up to my knees in hormones and very persuasive. My fifth birthday was at the Nature Center, you chased me into the boys' bathroom and kissed me with your wet and four year old lips in the second stall from the door. I eased up maybe 2% since then. The speakers are a little bit fuzzy, it's like listening to the spit of someone's tongue cascade the roof of their mouth while they pronounce the British consonants of the 90s. Said and done and saving space.

I am saving up for Grace. A crush in the mid 2000s, black hair, long legs, and the only brunette for a decade before or after. We played doctor, with the electric scalpel we turned our noses red with Christmas time South American powders. A safe word for an enemy, the sun for an enemy too. You bolted out and took my early Jimi Hendrix Best Of compact disc case too. While we're at it, you took my Michael Jackson cassettes as well. I go mid-range, think Kiri Te Kanawa in the whispers of E.T.'s Elliot. Stuffed-animal closet party for seven minutes in heaven. Your family came with butlers while mine came with over-educated storage. A blue borage sky in the intestines of life, a splinter in the shanty-town of invincible daily struggles- both of us were born again in O'Hare Airport's Parking Level D. Too many nonsensical arguments in two-tone grayscale ripping open the packaging of a course about trysting in your twenties.

Your stomach's history is overpowering. It is temperamental, mettled by spirits and sleepless nights, borborygmus, wambles, and shades of nervousness you were never comfortable speaking openly about. The history of your ****** was privatized, in options and unedited films shot over and over candidly by a mini DV desk camera, nine months to read you wrong to weep in strong wintry walks back and forth from The Buckingham to the Dwight Lofts, Room 408 without a view. All of your secrets in a little miniature of a notebook, bright cerise red. You captured teardrops in medicinal jars meant for syringes. You tied strings to your fingers, named your field mouse Ginger, and introduced your mother as Lady Darling. Captain with stingray skin, the hide of Ferris Bueller with the coattails of James Bond, dusted with daisy pollen, and clearly weakness. You ate me like bitter herbs on Thursdays, and like every other woman I've ever met, on Tuesdays you always kept me waiting.

I have wings for everything. Yellow wings for a woman in a yellow dress, Red, White, and Green wings for Bernice from Mexico City, Purple wings for  Mrs. Doolittle the doctor who worked at Taco Bell, the Jamaican priestess who was traveling through Venice Italy- we smoked hash with the grandchild of James Joyce on the Northern pier against the aurulent statues of Apollo and Zeus, Cupids' collection of malevolent tricks, SleepingB Beauty's rebuttal in fending off GHB attackers, my two dear friends who were kidnapped in clothes, abandoned in the ****, and only remember eating chocolate donuts with sprinkles and the bruises and dirt on the insides of their thighs. Nothing clever. Nothing extraordinary. Everything sentimental, built to withstand soot, sourness, and early female bravado.

You know how to play the piano so you've said, but i only have the CD you gave me to prove it. I do have evidence of your addiction to men and *******. I have your collection of dresses with tags still on them (but every woman has some of those), there is the post office box in Kauai, the Halloween card from last November and the two videos I have stored on an external drive in a nightstand adjacent to the foot of my bed. You sleep atrociously, talk too quickly, and **** like your father abandoned you when you were five. Your talent for taking photographs is like your skill-set for playing the piano, but I don't have the CD to prove it. You don't believe in social media, social consistency, friendships, or hephalumps and woozels- with the exception of the classes we shared together in college, I've never seen you outside of the most glamorous of fashion. You hate flats, hats, and white wine, and for as sad as you can seem to be at times, I've only had you cry on me once. While we were on the phone, three days after your mother hung herself. That's when I last left California, and I haven't been back yet.

I love a Kristine, but once a Britni, a Brandi, a Joni, a Tina, Kristina, Kirsten, Kristen, and a Katherine and Kathryn too. I know rock stars who are my dearest friends, enemies who I share excellent taste in music with, and parents who've always had my back but show it in lashings of the tongue and of the belt. It's been two years and three states since I was two sizes smaller than I am now. I've never considered the possibility that I was the main character and not the supporting actor, but due to recent developments in antipathy and aesthete, reevaluation, and retrospective nostalgia. All of this is about to change.

I am me still evolving without my usually stolid and grim ****** features. i bare brevity to situations existing that would **** most or in the least paralyze a great many. There is one for every hour of every day, and one for every minute in every hour, second in every minute, and more than the minutes in every day. No one has a second chance, shares a different time, or works off a different clock. I have been called the master of the analog, king of the codependent, and rook to queenside knight. I share a parabola for every encounter, experience, and endeavor. I am three minutes from being a cadaver, one drink away from a drunk, and one thought away from being completely alone. I think upright, i sleep horizontally, and I love infinitely. I am the only finite constant i have ever known. I am the main character, the script, satire, sarcasm, and soundtrack are mine.

"I don’t care if you believe it. That’s the kind of house I live in. And I hope we never leave it.”

The word is evil
yet the feeling is sweet.
Revenge is something we all want
no one can disagree,
though i never thought i ever would.
Love, peace, smile, happiness is what i used to think..
i wanted to be the sweetness like in the movies
the princess who are ever so kind,
in the end they get everything they dream of!
...but that's not what life's about now is it,
we all know its about this one, simple word,
Revenge...
Well of course i have met some nice people in my life
not everyone can be considered bad as most,
but some people just drive you insane!
to the point that you just want to...
get revenge of course.
Yes i do believe the action is just as evil as the word but
we all need to have a bit of fun every now and again
and im sure everyone can agree on that.
I mean what better way is to see the sourness,
the betrayal, the hurt! on your enemies face...
or friends, but you know most friends are enemies.
Trust no one! that's what i say
because everyone wants it...
they all want revenge...

Sorry mom I couldn’t be
The child prodigy
You always wanted
Me to be

Sorry dad I couldn’t be
The most intellectual
Of them all like you imagined
Me to be

I couldn’t be the dutiful
Trophy daughter
You always wanted
Forgive me Papa

Though I know not whose
Fault is the sourness
That dwells between us
Maybe, it is the fact,
That you wanted me to
Stand out in the crowd
And I chose to sink
Deep in the ocean.

~Manu M.

Sorbian, meaning, tickling the armpit of Germany
in terms of what's the desired encoding;
the variations of person:
            čłowjek (upper sorban)
               cłowjek (lower   "    )
     čovjek (croatian)
                           člověk    (czech')
człowiek (polish)      clawak (polabian)
              człowiek (kashubian)     človek (slovak)
                                 człowiyk (silesian)
         чoлoвік (ukranian).

' well, there is a little misunderstanding with the
  czech caron e (ě), mind this later.

yes, the peasants spoke more softly
compared with urban sharpening of accents,
so that you knew that in urban areas South
London has hardly Hackney Cockney,
and never Richmond, like Essex never spoke
good Yorkshire -
                             so they sharpened the letters
and that translated into involving accents
to later be abused -
                             the recipe? yes,
i was cooking Ukrainian Borscht today -
apart from the fact that Borscht isn't exactly classified
as a soup, a Borscht is a *Borscht,
   it transcends the category of being a soup,
just like rosół transcends the same category of being a soup,
           it's a very fine version of what is otherwise
chicken soup -
                            and as a critique of western cuisine?
why are all western soups like puree? they have
snot consistency, they ever never see-through -
they're all ******* creamy, like toddle-pulp of mauled
faeces - as if a bird feeding its chicks with regurgitated
products - eastern soups are see through,
floating bits you can see, a bit like the sea turned into
a Narcissus clarity. let me tell you,
the nurses love hearing the answers to the questions:
do you do any exercise?
                 yes, i walk everyday, once a week a take on
the miles.
             do you smoke?
        i try to fit within a packet of 20 a day.
do you drink?
                   only on alternative days.
        do you eat your five-a-day necessary ration
of fruits and vegetables?
          i don't like fruits... i avoid them...
vegetables? sure.
the basic ingredients of an Ukrainian broth?
        carrots, beetroots, celery, parsley root,
potatoes, leeks, fibre: green broad beans,
                   mushrooms,
                         red borscht concentrate
           white borscht concentrate for the sourness -
garlic.
                             (base? chicken, salt to taste).
well, coming back to the czech variation of the word
person... i feel there's a need to somehow find
diacritical uses coherent -
                                  i can only see it as
the nakedness of the original phonta (variation
on quanta: a specified sound being encoded with each
letter) -
                      it's diacritical marks akin to punctuation
marks and a few mathematical deliberates -
                  e.g. caron:
                                                        z
                                                      š
the z is invited to be applied to the s to make a shush
stress -
                                       arms wide open looking to
the sky for manna from heaven -
soon enough and y and j were confused with
yaks, tetragrammatons and some Spanish conquistadors
named Jesus - whether jumping or yanking the
shortest straws while sitting in a kayak -
or as Jacky said yards ahead if himself -
                   for every Jew there's a yew tree blossoming.
              there should be a rule of law stating:
only such and such diacritical marks to be applied
to vowels, and such and such marks to be applied to
consonants - but, evidently, this is not the norm -
             these are not merely unconscious accepted
aesthetic consideration, when i was being taught
French at school, i was never taught that
    ê (circumflex e) does as much damage to pronunciation
as does the è (grave e) - i.e. the circumflex is binding
the two letters in-between the stressed vowel,
while the incisor e with è cuts the word off when it's used -
              so the caron (mathematically more than? i.e. >)
  asks pleading to the skies for a letter to balance on?
   and the circumflex looks to the earth to find the seashells
and pebbles?
                             as in less than? i.e. <     ?
i rose above language, i rose above spelling because
i decided i could say to Bukowski's claim of genius:
tie your shoelaces before you talk to me:
simple as simply said: whatever lessons in life
i have to learn i'll learn them by my own accord -
               being drunk in Europe is the norm,
as is prostitution -
               last time the police booked me for drinking
i wasn't there... last time i talked with the Bulgarian mafia
i went back to get my debit card back,
            the **** showed me a wallet with 100 or so more
credit cards, i said: none of these are mine...
          the police cruised pretending law abides to the
standard imposed by politicians...
                   prostitution is fair game, but
keeping the girls contrary to self-employment is abhorred....
            me? i just don't do the dating scene,
should i be harrowed from that hide & seek of western
society's women woefully fishing? can i?
i can't be bothered with the games and the Geisha.
                       - you reach the proper level of appreciation
when you start to ridicule your heroes -
                                  you overpower them,
there's no point brown-nosing them with excess over-quotation,
you brown-nose them for a while, but then the gimmicks
begin... and they know it to be true:
    i' peg down Mr. B like anyone critical of getting an
education: learn to spell, and punctuate, and tie your shoelaces.
       you can't let them get away with it... those dumb-*****,
you can't: we all have a sad story...
    does anyone give a ****? m'eh... probably not.
it's the part when he says he read philosophy
but never bothers the ideas behind into a narrative:
                                   with him your end up *******
before Sophia rather than ******* her...
                        you have to **** her at some point...
                  no point ******* women and simply
******* before the deity -
                  better nothing ******* women and not
******* before the deity of worded fertility -
i was brown-nosing him for much too long...
                 whatever he said in his defence,
i'm aiming to capture the imagination akin to ****** addicts.
                      and that's hardly a feat to undertake.
so yeah, punctuation marks and some mathematical marks
above the Latin... Greek went wholly toward the Cyrillic -
oddly enough a Persian, Cyrus, entombed it into the strength
it possesses, rather than some Saint...
                                        so if i'm a loser at considering
myself a citizen of the world... what is Syria to me?
                                               Syria to me being Anglo-Slav
is:                    when Ramses destroyed Syria...
            don't come here with Westminster, please don't,
leave it out in the open with the paedophiles...
                                            i'm a citizen of England,
not of this world: you keep concerns over Syria where
you're at... if i can't be a citizen of thee world in a world
of globalisation, don't include me!
                                    diacritical marks, punctuation
alongside mathematical Copernican -
                                             yes, umlaut and the colon:,
what's the list? an extra oh... the latter phrase for
          omicron.
                                               Boršč or z z (zed zed)
             or h h (tricky, hay hay? ****** ******?
                               hatch hatch?)
            evidently the pronounced: shoo!
                                                        stinker that one:
given z morphs into h when given s or c...
                                i guess it's easier with      šč,
                   a.k.a.           shch...
and the most frequently asked question in English?
(by the middle class), how do you pronounce this?
                   you know why gangsters don't attack
educated people?
                           they love the fact that people made
the effort to learn reading and curtail other peoples' efforts
in changing perceptions -
                  for me it was always about being taught bad
French and rewriting the laws of stress -
                       i'll never understand the caron on vowels:
sure, the French makes it assured to make the circumflex
and the grave accenting above vowels synonymous...
  &

Let me take you out to lunch
Mrs Bryce said
(she was a middle aged dame
old enough to be his aunt)

o.k if you like
he said
but her friend Lilly
didn't like the idea

(some jealousy
of the lesbian kind
maybe he later thought)
and was quite reserved

as they went to
the posh upstairs restaurant
he one side
and they opposite

Lilly giving him
the cool stare
her pinched mouth
wrinkled forehead

Mrs Bryce studied
the menu
her glasses on
her eyes focused

what you having Lilly?
she asked
and Lilly scanned
her menu and picked out

something in French
and then she asked him
and he said
o the stew will do

and the waitress came
and took their orders
and went off
wagging her behind

which he noticed
but they didn't
being that part
sexually blind

and then came
the small talk
the casual chat
or this and that

and Lilly straight faced
thin lipped
and icy eyes stare
but he knew

what Lilly didn't
she had no idea
about the ***
or how the middle aged

dame had it still
could still turn on the fire
could **** off his desire
but Mrs Bryce

never said a word
not a hint
she wore her middle age
and middle class morals

very well
a mask of gentility
or cultured good humour
good manners on show

but he knew
she was hot
and could go
(her husband

some middle aged guy
with sourness
and boredness
in each greying eye)

and she sat there
giving it the small talk
sipping the wine
one finger raised

her eyes pure
as cut glass
behind the specs
and Lilly listened

in soft admiration
wanting to be nearer
breathing in
Mrs Bryce's scent

dreaming of the two of them
doing whatever in
some bedroom spent
but he had the real

not a dream
and as he watched
Mrs Bryce sipping
her wine

thin lips
on thin glass
he remembered her
that time lying there

bright eyes
greying but dyed hair
he bringing her
to a seventh heaven

of yes and yes
and more
and Lilly sour faced
sitting and listening

to the small talk
but wanting
something other
for sure.

Friendship
It looks like the beautiful multiple colors of a double rainbow
That emerges from the sky after a rainy day
But it also looks like a huge flame of fire engulfing your body and burning it up
As your skin sizzles and starts to melt away

It smells like the sweet scent of lavender
That calms you like it should
But it also smells like nasty, spoiled, rotten eggs
That no one wants to go near

It feels like you are bonded by an imaginary leash
That can never be broken
But it also feels like you are getting stabbed with a knife
Over and over again and the pain won’t stop

It taste like sugar sweetness
That can never be bad and makes your heart sing
But it also tastes like the bitter sourness
Of a lemon that makes you scrunch your face in disgust

It sounds like a sweet little bird
Chirping on a warm sunny day
But it also sounds like the angry roar of a fierce lion
That is loud as thunder and shakes the ground

Friendship it goes one of two ways
It’s good or bad, happy or sad
It is friendship

'Life is but a dream,' I question the value of it;
at the edge of life, the edge of time, the edge of our reality;
at the edge of this cliff, we edge ourselves to a falling death.
But what if the fall to our death is like a dream—falling into
a hole, gaining speed close to it's undersurface? We'd wake
up before we hit the ground.

But would I wake up in a cold sweat; or in tears, of longing to
find what lies in the somber of a deep hole? Maybe my soul?
Haha; it's outline must of been shaped by the mind's many dreams,
my child. For what good was it; in the spirit ties of it being lost in the world?  A world at times that doesn't feel as real:
but just a life of a dream.

So by this edge, clutched by the winds of background; hold your
breath before you and I jump. Time may, or may not slow in the
plunge to the valley's undersurface. Still perhaps, this all could be
a dream, and we'll both wake up before we hit the bottom.

Surely it must be, because I don't know a reality to be as brave
to commit such an act. Why pinch yourself, when you've been
pinched by pillars of salt in life—sourness and bitterness?

Oh my inner child, life is but a dream:
and soon we'll both wake up from it.

So what if I have squint
Or money I don’t mint
I know my eyes blink a lot
Or most of the tasks I just forgot

What is the matter if I am a buffoon
Or my life is much more doomed
I know I hue and cry
Or talking to chicks I’m a bit too shy

To those who understand
I extend my hand
To the doubtful I demand
take me as I am

not under your control
I know where I stand
Won’t change to suit your plan
Take me as I am

From childhood I did what you said
From waking up to going to bed
I am sorry I missed that one mark for DU'
Now don’t look down at me in dread

I deserve that seat more than that OBC" guy
Or the seat that rich dad did buy
Sorry I could not prove your expectation
Courses are full, don’t worry ill do animation

I’m facing blasphemies of life
I’ll write satires on Modi or the wife

To those who understand
I extend my hand
To the doubtful I demand
take me as I am

not under your control
I know where I stand
Won’t change to suit your plan
Take me as I am

Sitting in the dark I forget,
Sweetness, sourness is all I get
Everyday having the bitter pills of fate
Missing the time we chatted till late

We bunked periods to find solitary places to sit
You asked me to love you and I did
Traded my emotions for a counteract to commit
Now you know my faults and have gone so far

Your confessions in my name
Now just give you fame
What all we dreamt now and then
Now you have got someone to blame

To those who understand
I extend my hand
To the doubtful I demand
take me as I am

not under your control
I know where I stand
Won’t change to suit your plan
Take me as I am

I keep my secrets in my skin
What all I did with innocence and ignorance
Now dealing with my sins

What all is left of me is in a cage
To protect death from dying from my carnage

I have done much, don’t expect anything from my life
Let me be me, done enough truce and strife

I doubt,
Therefore, I think
Therefore, I am.

I see.
I take in the colours around me.
The patterns, the lights, the rainbow.
I see the night, and the stars that glow.
I dream.
Therefore, I think.
Therefore, I am.

I smell.
The perfumes, the roses.
The stench, the rotten, the putrid.
The aromas, cooking.
The green, the forest, the trees.
I inhale,
Therefore, I think.
Therefore, I am.

I hear.
The noises. The people, the cheer.
The wails, the screams, the tears.
The rejoicing and happiness.
I hear.
Therefore, I think.
Therefore, I am.

I taste.
The sweetness, the fire.
The treats and savoury delights.
The sourness, the bitterness.
I eat,
Therefore, I think.
Therefore, I am.

I speak.
Short messages. Long speeches.
Quiet whispers. Bellowing noises.
I scream,
Therefore, I think,
Therefore, I am.

I feel.
The despair, the fear, the anguish.
The joy. The pride. The seething.
The envy, greed, and jealousy.
The cold, the heat, the shivering.
The pain, the sickness, the ageing.

I die.
Therefore, I lived.
Therefore, I was.

A quiet kid,
lonely in the rain,
fingers the nickels and pennies
in his pockets, waiting for the bus
to splash around the corner,
so he can get to work.

He lives with a demon of a roommate,
and shares snores with the roaches,
Bathing in the shower of their incontinence.

After college, he lost it and wrecked his mind
in a haze of liquor so foggy it
swallowed the moon for awhile.

He stumbles through pitch black nights
with an ugly soul and redemption on his mind;
The worst kind of late night wanderer.

Coffee and sugar keep him alive--
just like war and famine are the black angel's wives--
bringing him back into this liquid reality.

In the mornings he breathes in this world,
totally sober.

It tastes like sourness
and the milk of ***** entrapped in blue jeans
in 100 degree weather
all day.

It was the worst kind of sobriety.
All the horrors of birth.

He lives many lives:

One for his mother,
where he plants fruitless kisses
on her cheeks.
Little wreaths of future disappointment.

She hugs him so warmly.
It makes him want to suckle his .45.

One for work,
all smiles
and plumb submission.
9-5.
5-2.
12-9.
6-3.
4-12.
And if he's lucky
12-4 on saturdays.

All this in 5 dollar clothes
and a rumplestiltskin attitude;
trying to weave his own ugliness
into truth.

One for his girl,
the one who'd hurl her tongue at Appollo,
puke up her month's sugar intake,
and curl her fingers so tight that she cut the cappillaries,
making a red and white fist like a christmas cinnabon:

If he ever told her who he really was.

His love for her is secret.

One life for himself,
to keep the mirror happy.

This kid.
He's all or nothing.

In my garden, feral and overgrown,
I bear with branchings of the apple,
Hunched and grey, laden with fallow
Fruits, the tired, knottted fingers die
Each year, under which are baubles
Of sourness and stray, poorly drawn
Circles of fodder even hungry deer
Will not graze upon.  The elder tree
Slowly casts itself into Bonsai stone.

Down a valley, in the grades of sun,
Lay a stand of madrones in redden
Fire, with deepest eyes of burnished
Green leaves, some immortal Gorgon
So beauteous, in form and branches
Divine, of Olympian flame, held, atop
Heavenly escarpments by the loving
Skies.  I see it for what it is, my love,
Your body and hair, so tawny, so fair,
Though, ever lost to me but in dream,
Are dearly those red branches, a fable,
Your eyes, green as sea, those leaves.

I so badly want to say it back.
It's on the tip of my tongue but
Memories from before seal my mouth.
They press my lips together to prevent the words from escaping,
Forming a kiss.
Your eyes lock onto my mouth and I know
You won't give in until you taste
The sourness-
Though you mistake it for sweet.
Despite my silence I have said it.
I cannot seem to prevent myself.
I go in for another kiss.
This time I don't need the memories to move
My lips.
There. I said it.
Are you happy?

The air is damp and fresh,
the scent of new rain perfumes all that surrounds me
and thin mist lingers in the atmosphere.
It caresses my face when I walk through it's path,
a simple, happy path,
like moth's wings on silk, and it no longer stings.

A large oak tree stands tall and mighty, a magnificent display of solidarity -
but not imposing.
It is kind and bare and humble,
and I see that we are both stripped in some way, raw and defrocked.
I touch the last trace of green it possesses,
the last bit of hope and the last reminder that things come back
and that things move forward,
soft moss under the pads of my fingertips, soaked and sponge like,
and just there - clean and true.

I turn up my collar against the wind and tighten the wrap of my coat around me,
still clinging,
but at least I'm shielding myself from the cold.
I'm still allowed to cling just a little, I think. Sometimes we need to cling -
to help us let go.
And anyway, I know that change has arrived at last, no matter how small it is,
because although the only embrace I receive here, aside from the fabric of my coat, is the bitter cold,
I am not bitter.
And this chill does nothing but bring peace,
and somehow warm my heart this time instead of freezing it.

A ruby under the wet russet leaves
is what I see through the remnants of the rain.
Peel away the outer layers so that I can remember what is beautiful.
These colours do not look like blood anymore;
they're a sunset: fading but with a guaranteed return.

Beginnings, endings, departures and returns -
that is an existence.
But a life
is when we look back with both longing and acceptance,
to never forget but never dwell too long
on what has been.

Sweetness, bitterness, sourness:
a weary traveler making his way along a path
with Autumn meadow on one side: tranquility and rest,
and Autumn meadow on the other: Summer is ended and so are you.
I know which side I'm ready to seek now.

For what is taken in Autumn,
is also returned.
And the evidence is in your being on this side of the path with me.
I know - because I see the good things now.
I see only the beautiful colours and the chestnuts and the mercifully short days.

Yes. This Autumn will be different.

In my garden, feral and overgrown,
I bear with branchings of the apple,
Hunched and grey, laden with fallow
Fruits, the tired, knottted fingers die
Each year, under which are baubles
Of sourness and stray, poorly drawn
Circles of fodder even hungry deer
Will not graze upon.  The elder tree
Slowly casts itself into Bonsai stone.

Down a valley, in the grades of sun,
Lay a stand of madrones in redden
Fire, with deepest eyes of burnished
Green leaves, some immortal Gorgon
So beauteous, in form and branches
Divine, of Olympian flame, held, atop
Heavenly escarpments by the loving
Skies.  I see it for what it is, my love,
Your body and hair, so tawny, so fair,
Though, ever lost to me but in dream,
Are dearly those red branches, a fable,
Your eyes, green as sea, those leaves.

When life gives you lemons,
You squeeze them in your eyes,
You don't think twice, regret
Or get to question why.
For it is written in fate
For it is how it is to be,
You don't get to choose it ,
And you don't get to cry.

You'll fight it, hate it, neglect it and whine,
You'll curse it, resist it, run from it and hide.
But it'll catch you one way or the other,
It's better if it catches you this way than the other.
For it stings like a bee,
Then pains like a wound
And you may think you are enough to take it,
Before it comes back and bites you in the moon.

One shot, two shot, three shot, four
Glasses become empty but the lemons keep coming more.
It's no fun with the acidic
Sourness creeping into my soul.
Yet it keeps coming more, more
And more...

Call it fate,
Call it luck,
Call it magic,
Whatever you must,
It is easier to blame others
Than to put myself under the bus.
A *****-up here,
A ****-up there,
One by one my life has scattered everywhere.

So I take these lemons that life owes
And the ones that I already own,
Trying hard not to put them all in my drink,
Days go by but it feels like a blink,
Maybe I do down them all
Maybe that's become my thing.
But hey, I don't whine about it anymore,
Or fight it, hate it or neglect it
Life keeps changing erratically,
This is the truth, this is my new reality.

My sweater smells like cigarette smoke.
When I got out of the shower
I put it back on.
It's funny how things evolve.
That scent used to mean cold nights
And neon lights,
A crowd of people full of piercings and my dad's silhouette ahead
Pushing through the crowds on St. Marks,
Lungs full of thick second-hand soot,
Heart full of excitement and love for my city.
It was a tunnel of smoke I had to get through fast,
And I would hold my breath that entire street,
Not wanting the burn of it in my mouth.
As I got older it also started to mean
That my best friend had found a new way to hate herself.
I noticed a sourness to it,
Something that hurt my throat,
Like the feeling right before you cry.
I never did like cigarette smoke.
To me it meant
A gruesome marriage of death and the desire to die,
A ****-you to a world whose clarity amazed me.
I never liked cigarette smoke.
And then I met you.
And now here I am, with a bit of it clinging to my sweater,
Comforted by burying my face in the soft fabric
Because the fragrance reminds me of you.
Funny, how things can change so completely.
Whenever I smell smoke, now, I think of you,
And I have noticed that the scent itself has changed
Into a richer one, like incense.
It's funny what loving someone can do,
Huh?

Sweet n' sour is the taste you get when you drink lemonade,
Sweet n' sour is the taste you get when you eat Sour Patch Kids,

Sweet n' sour is the feeling you get when you think someone is telling you the truth,
Then you find out that they aren't,

But somewhere in between the sweetness,
And the sourness of it all,
You find the happy medium,

Not sweet,
Not sour,
Just somewhere in between,

Kind of like the color grey.

Walking on highways
Lighting as byways

Smiling with sourness
Eyes held distress

High on pills
Dancing on heels

Way is too hazy
Eyes are too blurry

Suffering to self
Squealing to cars

Back home tardily
On bed sadly

Waking up greasy
Back to routine as daily

A child is our ancient world's greatest gift.
So ignorant to ignorance they drift
through life, not seeing why we war or how
we hate the heartbeat of our life, but now
we try to stifle 'childish fantasy',
not seeing peace on Earth as they can see.

A child can make an instant, lifelong friend,
a common name or age will make them spend
their years together, joined at hip and heart,
each whispered secret promising the start
of stronger bonds and brighter days,
each hand in hand, traversing life's black maze.

A child may fight you over something small,
they kick and scream and bite and swipe, but all
their conflicts can be solved with one embrace,
forgiveness instant, smiles now back in place.
No secret sourness stored within their soul,
all faults forgotten; friendships, morals whole.

A child will speak with honesty profound;
the truths they speak to you are not yet bound
by pressures of society to lie
to save themselves - the words they speak will fly
through clouds of foggy falsehoods, set you free,
and open up your eyes to let you see
     just what you are, and what you've done,
and what monstrosity you could become
if you insist on murdering their world,
for it is worth its fragile weight in gold.
Ironically, materialism tries
to **** their tender, unpolluted lives:

"It's time that you grew up. You're not a child.
Don't let these frightful fancies grow so wild.
You've got to get a job and earn
your own money, quite soon you'll learn
the adult world is not so nice; no second chance,
so wake up from this stupid, silly trance.
     No time to idly sit and daydream dear.
It's time we got this situation clear:
a life of student loans and debts await.
Your choices now affect your life-long fate.
Bad grades, you say? Well, that's so awfully sad.
But don't expect our help. You'll only add
     to costs it takes to get you lot in work.
Although, those grades will only make this worse.
Who wants to hire a failure? No one does.
So get it right first time, my pet, because
you'll be ignored and shunned and judged, although
we'll masquerade, and claim we care or know."

But what if I don't want to choose this way?
I've got a voice, but you won't hear me say
that I don't want to live my life like this.
The future you have carved for me, your bliss,
is hell for me. Why can't you realise?
This world looks better through a child's eyes.

Only yesterday that your glass blew
The flame was burning untouchable
The disk spinning fast, un-reversible

No home in a town so inhospitable
A world where questions are daft
Drafted to unravel an inbuilt psyche

I stand out in the jungle countryside
Strumming listening to “wild world”
Each rhythm a wavy walk on a path

Steps and strolls always sidetracked
The poppy field faded in sheen redness
When it turned cold and bled sourness

It was me who was left by the riverside
I sat by the bank and dreamed away
Then viewed my mirrored reflection

Melted in indecisions and intricacies
Extreme ongoing cognition appraisals
Silenced in the sound of the stillness

The flash of the grassed field called me
Embraced me as I paraded on the verge
A resolving embrace of a stab erased

I plead not to be understood or wanted
For these riffles are fixated on our heads
Bolted in our thoughts, wants and desires

I (fabrication)

Arthur Quincy folds his arms together
Sensing that interfering desire again!

Cant shake this fugue
Or forget the bad stuff he used to take/
Its a lingering presence/

The residual ash in his eyes blinking coffins & dazzling premonitions to the other smalltown poets writing in
Their kitchens to the sound of
Wheatgrass dancing outside in June and
A vacuum's warm considerate hum
From upstairs.

Post office on strike and
Cars being made with straw MAN he thinks
What happened here???
The day crossed out with faulty watches
And parkbench *** fantasies
& the crude laughing regular here
Sipping his tea
Wondering if he'll ever be as much a hit with the ladies as he was in the 1970s

Former beggarman Quincy lays himself out in an empty parking lot feeling invulnerable to the snow

As it collects over his shirt he whistles a happy tune from a date he went on before

The great sourness shelled him out of
Social fulfillment.

Now he keeps to himself
Making stories out of his bedroom and
Crying
crying for
His first love &
The laundry place shut down now wheres he gonna go/

Old Quincy used to smoke expensive tobacco but has since decided to save it for whenever he remarries. Or a brilliant morning where the neighbor sleeps in so he can sleep in too.

The view from his window is a continous rotation of wet crows who peer in and for a brief moment see the man's hands to his head making sure his hair hasn't fallen off yet..
House walls heavy with age
expose themselves occasionally
With an after image of past inhabitors,
The essence of their dry lips
Or olive cotton sweaters hanging from a rocking chair,
The enthusiasm of a corner lamp
Unappreciated by all
Past and present.

II (veteran romantic)

Arthur Quincy shelters his mind from strange ideas
Or conspiracy he hasn't "lost it" yet at least!

He has a hobby of painting the active society and
Expresses mood as colorful clouds
Floating out the skull of us to
Blend in an energy pollinating the
Deli and antique shop and yoga studio
V A P O R
to be swallowed by accident and catch the empathic disease of the
Depressed and jubilant simultaneous,
Makes easy living confusing and
Impossible to achieve in an absolute way!
He carries this belief
When interacting with others
Arthur Quincy understands
That balance is key to fulfillment
(so far as his life is concerned)

However, hardly anyone has seem him laugh and so assumes he doesn't have the ability to.
In reality he saves his joy and holds it to lift his lungs from despairing all day long to be released
Late afternoon in the comfort of home
As a display of feral bellows and supernatural ecstasy. This seems somewhat overromantic and exaggerated but someone has claimed to have had the rare pleasure of witnessing it!

Arthur calls the same address once a week, an anonymous voice speaks from the line opposite and while mysterious
It is clear he adores this voice. He adores the unacted subtlety and passion in this voice.
He smiles when he hears this voice which is simply enough.

Nearby those naive poets use Arthur as a muse sometimes too directly
Often referencing rumors of his hermetic life
Or retreating into his headspace
Unrealistically blowing his experiences into fable
And turning even his stirless sleep into a fabulous fruitbasket of language.

On the surface he appears forlorn and
Bitter with the winter gradually molding to his skin. Like anyone can tell you he has felt this before! Haven't you? But through all the stories and impossibilities of Arthur he is reserved in his
Knowing of important things. He is reserved in revealing that he not only knows how music sounds but where music comes from. He never reads the newspaper out of habit to feel in-the-know. He never lies about his feelings or his intentions.
Arthur exists in the
Glow of himself
And persists on breathing the glow of the street,
He is a wordless poet and veteran romantic.

III (funeral)

One day Arthur passed away a few weeks from Thanksgiving.
His name put on the paper he never read
And examined by a young girl
Who was only hearing of him now.

"Arthur C. Quincy/ 73/ passed away this Saturday. To be remembered as a quiet and misunderstood man envigored with the lightness only percieved by a rare and special few"

This description came as a surprise to those who knew Quincy as the claustrophic and uninteresting grump
Who's sidewalk idlings were unexplained and strangely hostile.

He saw the sky and its shifting canvas,
He saw the distant cats leaned on balconies impressed with the daytime ambiguity in firestations and libraries.
He would conjur a grin
From the passive conversation between a mother and her son.
He once saw two strangers fall for each other on the bus! A conjoined sun had bloomed between them.

Just a few attended the funeral. Upon inspection of his house following Arthur's death, someone found a will left for Helen Ashbury. A 55 year old woman who lived a three day drive away in Michigan..An identity to his weekly telephone fantasy!
It assumed all of his belongings to her, among them a military grade flashlight with his carved initials, a photograph of his time as a lumberer signed to "Peter! All the best in Costa Rica" and a copy of W.C Williams collected poems. Where folded on page 206 as part of the poem "Orchestra" was highlighted

"I love you. My heart is
innocent.
         And this is the first day of the world!"

Eventually Helen Ashbury received the news of Arthurs passing, as well as these things.
At the sight of the poem she wept,
the man she only knew through a voice after years of correspondence.
Upon being questioned she refused to explain their meeting in the first place. That was a special time, a time which the public would misinterpret or slander with rumor.
While Arthur wasn't widely loved in the town during his life, he was a popular topic from death on. As more information came out! Serving in world war II and his companionship with a parisian ***,
Who shared the wonder of the rooftop and spoke on the value of tea as a food replacement.
He once met a girl there at a dance and in a show electrified with lust they moved to Lucienne Boyer without the knowledge of who would win the war.
He had a son with her, Who resided in France most of his life as Quincy regrettably
Abandoned their situation to
Pursue other things, in his journal he admits his wish to have connected with him more, referring to his leaving as the worst mistake in his life.
All of this masked behind his firm neutrality. His walk lacking suggestion and his wrist without the delicacy of a painter (not that people knew he painted and so didn't pay attention to anything like that)

He was buried by noon. Some say his son was at the funeral. People gave their partings, and Helen wanted so badly to say goodbye to him. Instead left with his curios and his infinite voice.

IV (i'll be around)

The following year at a yard sale Helen came across a series of musty and used records. In the stack of them was a Cab Calloway compilation. Nestled in his desperate wailings and hi-de-** was the track "I'll Be Around" a slow and patient song that Arthur sang to her once. She recalled that night with ease, and felt her shoulders sink at the thought.
The album was $4, on the drive home she watched the trees shake with the wind, their leaves transluscently pale at the angle she was going. She could feel a weight there in her chest. The weight of him, of his heart supposing itself onto hers magnetically. She rolled down the windows and let the wind surround her, blowing her blonde hair back and forcing her to squint a little.

"I love you. My heart is innocent"

she recalled the poem he left for her. Of course not written by him but it felt as deeply personal as if he had.

"-and this is the first day of the world!"

Helen lifted a cigarette out from her purse. The drag extinguishing immediately as it's trail left the car. A bewilderment slowly consumed her.