Go on, my Son, go out and box,
don't wave this chance good-bye,
Switch from Southpaw to Orthodox.

The Judges have it Fifty/Fifty, an equinox,
apply yourself. . . apply,
Go on my Son, go out and box.

Keep it crafty, like the fox,
acid to his alkali,
Switch from Southpaw to Orthodox.

Jab, Jab, Hook! Unpick the locks,
it's time to modify,
Go on my Son, go out and box.

Unloading pallets of concrete blocks
until the day you die ?
Switch from Southpaw to Orthodox.

Win this Round, escape the docks,
would I tell you a lie ?
Go on my Son, go out and box,
Switch from Southpaw to Orthodox.

addressing my southpaw weakness...
don't know... my left hand is a bit...
weak...
   started to train it...
   by extinguishing cigarette
butts on each other knuckles...
have two vacant slots to fill...
and plenty of whiskey...
       why?
  i paid my Shylock...
  i was **** with the Gorbachev
**** on my right shoulder blade...
now comes the fun part!
the lesson...
of boxing, with not boxing gloves!
i want the ******* knuckle
to... hurt... the... the most...
like Tom Waits'
circus narrative...
  **** these teenage girls cutting...
how about their start burning
themselves,
with hot, metallic objects?
how's that?
less blood!
   ha ha!
                 two knuckles down...
two to go...
    i'm giggling with anticipation...
while, i, eat,
the, pain! ha ha!
who gives a **** about
predictability,
preachers / theologians
or stock brokers?
so who?
the Turkish barbers,
the English tailors,
the French chefs?!
      who?
              the roof, the roof,
the roof is on fire,
let the ******* burn...
we don't don't need no
water let the ******* burn,
let the ******* burn...
      i'm a simpleton...
catch the genie... catch the lamp
sort of scenario...
otherwise?
  bon voyage / bon soir /
    mon amí!
   god, i hate the french!
         it's like...
you want to lick them...
face to face...
and then... punch them...
        my type of ****** nationalism!
comes the third knuckle...
and the cigarette...
it will be put out onto!
- like an interrogator might...
you show the victim undergoing
the torture, with yourself
prior...
   and then?
  torture the **** out of them! ha ha!
i.e. who's the buckle,
who's the knuckle, and who's the knee?!
oh please! please!
don't mention the oysters
of the elbow!
  have some common decency!

I should have been a boxer....the way I stick and move when I write.  The only person I know that can make the sun shine at night.  

I should have been a boxer....the way i fight with words to paint a picture.  I'm using the jab to set you up for the knockout blow.  I'm looking for your tendencies and when i spot it......down you will go.

I should have been a boxer....float like a butterfly sting like a bee.   A sign of honor to a fellow poet.....and inspiration to me.....Muhammad Ali. I should be a boxer the way i study my craft and observe the legends of the game.  It's all all about the passion.....I could care less about fame.

I should have been a boxer.....you can't be good unless you train.  I have my book ....my pen .....ideas in my brain.  I have so many thoughts I may need another brain.  I'm on the speed bag so my brain is quick with the flow....switching styles like a southpaw.....which way is it coming? I guess you will never know.

I should have been a boxer....because i really like to fight.  Instead of gloves I utilize my pen to pulverize the paper and annihilate those foes and lost loves....father's who left their children at start.  They couldn't finish the fight .....was he a coward or a scarecrow.....born without a heart.

I should've been a boxer.....because my defense is always up.  I hide my poems inside a book .....it's highly guarded so don't try to look.  The thoughts inside are g14 classified....so I'm hiring security guards.....if you want to gain entrance.....you must present an identification card.

I should've been a boxer....because I'm always fighting.  My thoughts are knocked to the paper and bleeds black or red.  I write about life .....because I know nothing about being dead.  Although, I been knocked around .....and have had to take a standing eight.....I leaned on the ropes and learned to wait.  Still working the jab......which are the words i write.

I should've been a boxer.....one hitter quitter and then it's time to say "Goodnight!"

Ladies and Gentlemen......we have a unanimous decision.  The new poetic champion of the worldddddd!!! ......I should've been a boxer.....Yeah right.

Usually the underdog,
The weird -- the strange.
Unconventional in style,
But with an amazing range.
The distinction may be clear,
But he has already changed.

From the conformity to society,
To the death of Me.
To the tragic fate that awaits us,
Almost every single day.
We just try to fit in,
But who does that make us?
Just another one of them,
White-Collar with distrust.

Stories tell us to be different,
but in reality we shall halt.
The very thought of variety
Is to be taken with a grain of salt.

When it comes down to being true,
Just try to be you.
You won’t fail your own test,
Unless you catch the flu.
Sometimes it gets hard,
But trust me it gets better.
Play your own cards,
Just don’t be a setter.

In two years from now,
or maybe three.
Someone will ask you,
What’d you do with all that debris?
Tell them you left it,
Tell them wanted to be free.
And that now more than ever,
You can live peacefully.

As I said before,
Life can be tough.
But stand up and roar,
in that mighty Southpaw galore.

Bling Bang Boom
Tight little itty-bitty *****
If it don't fit, don't force it
You can lubricate it, so you can appreciate it

Oops, did I say that out loud?
Wearing Dr Dre is a *****, when you make a glitch

**** this gun like a real cool chick
It's barrels aren’t that hot or that ******* thick
And when it comes, blow your brains, while you’re still in cuffs
Elvis offended nerds, while doing those pelvic thrusts
But, he was merely having fun and just being ******* futuristic
While your parents were secretly playing with ***** vibrating plastic

I used to call myself at that time, ‘The Magnificent One’
Hell, I don't call myself that now, but I still believe it to be true
At the time, the frigid white kids would only spectate from the lower balcony
While some ***** white kinds, were leaping over with jealousy, to get downstairs
Because, that's where the black dudes would occasionally perform, their ****** affairs

Bling Bang Boom
Tight little itty-bitty *****
Protect yourself with a little soap bubble
If you want help, I can go pop, without getting into too much trouble

Oops, did I say that out loud?
Wearing Dr Dre can mean defeat when others hear your beat

How can I put the creeps down, when I've been creeping from afar?
I'm another mother ******' world wide pop star
They called me, ‘A Hip-Hop Bipolar Southpaw’
Always left swinging up and down like a friggin outlaw
They warned you that, I would drive all the the kiddies insane
So don't blame me for the way your kids now truly reign

Bling Bang Boom
Tight little itty-bitty *****
Thank you for being so sweet and ever so cute
Next time remind me, to always switch the ****** to mute

Oops, did I say that out loud?

The sun is out in Jacksonville
Me oh my goodness gracious alive
Now that the Richter scale has calmed down
I'm happy to say, we've all survived

Hoping from the beginning we'd go extra innings
And that our side would win
Between the Suns owner and the fans who are moaners
We are now the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp

So batter up you people
No need to be steamed it's just life
Though can you imagine the jokes from all of the folks
Might make us so boiling mad we could fry

And then there's the question of Southpaw
What's that mascot still doing here
I'm sure he can fetch but that's about it
Something smells fishy in this sailors beard

But I digress from where we should be
The theme is the name of the team
And I might be in hot water if I go any further
Without explaining what I really mean

Though you may not find
It very a-peel-ing
The way the owner did
In this fishy dealing

It might be to late but it's only a name
Try if you can to chow down on this
The teams still the same so come out to the games
No need for you to be so shellfish

It was an atmosphere
It was an oxygen mixed with southern fog
Southpaw gloves tied in sailor knots
Waves of golden grains in ocean wind
The rolling hills behind property lines

It was the question you asked
not with words but in the way you breathed against the window glass
as I leaned against your Corolla
And we sang under the overpass

It was graffiti
It was graffiti
It was the cavernous concrete cats with purple hair and acid wash jean jackets
melting the light of their city's street lamps into the obsidian void of moistened pavement

It was the way the reverb spread the major seventh across the sky with burnt orange cascading into the violet of the minor ninth
which reminds me of crickets and summer nights (and violins and cellos and midwestern jazz bars)
and how bar chords are a guitarists way of flipping off a crowd-
surfing the web for an answer to why I'm still single-
handedly the handsomest man in my car currently.

It's the cloth in my empty passenger seat
soaking up the air of my A/C heat
and the scent of the soil spilt from the succulent I was given at a wedding last fall
and now I don't know if my trunk will ever smell clean at all

But I'll let this night be interstellar
I'll take a bath in the Big Dipper and write you a letter about Orion's Belt
or how I miss the stars sparkling in your eyes making contact with the E.T. in me.

Phone me home, darling.
I'm lost at sea.

-W.J. Thompson

I stared, stupidly, at his head
and the pool of red he bled
from the brass rail down onto
the barroom floor.

Had it been a half an hour
He, so cocksure of his power,
had first set foot
inside the barroom door?

I'd been alone but for the Doc
a Presbyterian Scott
who just come from
a hard delivery.

Mom and child were doing well
but the Doctor looked like hell
so I sat him down
and gave the man some tea.

I 'm the Pub man's assistant
and my job that Winter's morning
was cleaning up the place
for this day's trade.

Had I been out in the snug
I'd have never met this lug
who is lying on the floor
fit for the grave.

I am Irish from Tyrone,
He was from Lancaster-shire.
To his thinking I was
a blight on English soil.

He was spoiling for a fight
which he started with a right
that sent me sprawling
on the barroom floor.

He said "Get off the floor,
and I'll treat you to some more."
"You stupid ****!"
His boon companion smiled.

I'm not one to shun a fight
when I'm firmly in the right
and these arms were toned
by years of quarrying stone.

Was it surprise I saw
when He learned I'm a southpaw.
Satisfying was the sound
of fist on chin.

As he commenced his trip to earth
It was the foot rail caught him first
He cracked his skull
and then he was no more.

His friend ran for the police
as his pulse and breathing ceased
Doc looked up at me and said
"This won't go well"

" Take my bicycle and flee
Off to Scotland , listen to me,
unless you fancy
dancing on the wind."

So I rode like one possessed
on the narrow winding roads
Early winter darkness
coming down.

After, I worked on dairy farms
and spent three years in the mines.
Eventually, the case grew cold
and went away.

I emigrated to the States
where they too have
their loves and hates
but the Irish are accepted in a way.

there is,
in my opinion,
nothing like,
the determination,
of  four and half kilos
of grey feline.
that wants...
to be fed at 5:37am.

the pushing
and bumfping,
the disproportinate roar,
of the basso profundo purr, in your right ear.

if still not convinced,
or just,
downright lazy
a whack with a southpaw
to the back of the head.
your attention will restore.
no you're still resisting
the charm.

then be aware,
of the flying leap & twist; landing on the midriff.

but, from years of dilligent training,
i have deduced,
the cold, wet nose, trailing across my exposed flesh,
is to best be avoided.

simply, by stumbling up,
from your rest....
and succumbing
to the mantra,
the cat knows best.....
fill the bowl,
be done with,
the furry pest.....

and hope you
can snooze for a while,
before.... you have to get up
and feed the rest....

MY build to suit mind is designed for disappointing,
a warehouse space of dim lights, taunted by an l.e.d. retrofit,
TREPIDATIOUS, unable to sign my life's lease to own,
YEARS spoiled like produce, a dumpster gratefully digests.
I was 7, a little league southpaw, my arm, accurate on the mound.
PRACTICE of carelessly skipping stones over invulnerable ponds.
that day, the equation was misaligned, numbers squared roots and
CAUSED the answer to spawn seismic ripples of infinite affects.
it was the split second that was carelessly skipped and
THIS boy's vulnerable retina, the invulnerable pond.
although I was the expert marksman, I begged William not to Tell,
SO he blindly obliged my apple-shot withdraw request,
NOW spoiled produce my dumpster won't gratefully digest.
WHAT i regret most is not saying, William. Tell.

It was an atmosphere.
It was an atmosphere.
It was oxygen mixed with southern fog,
Southpaw gloves tied in sailor knots,
Waves of golden grains in ocean wind,
The rolling hills behind property lines.

It was the question you asked,
It was the question you asked,
Not with words but in the way you breathed against the window glass,
While I leaned against your Corolla,
And we sang under the overpass.

It was graffiti,
It was graffiti.
It was the cavernous concrete cats with purple
hair and acid wash jean jackets,
Melting the light of their city's street lamps into the obsidian void of moistened pavement.

It was the way the reverb spread the major 7th across the sky with burnt orange cascading into the violet of the minor 9th which reminds me of crickets and summer nights (and violins and cellos and midwestern jazz bars), and how bar chords are a guitarists way of flipping off a crowd,
Surfing the web for an answer to why I'm still single-
handedly the handsomest man in my car currently.

It's the cloth in my empty passenger seat,
soaking up the air of my A/C heat.
And the scent of the soil spilt from the succulent I was given at a wedding last fall,
And now I don't know if my trunk will ever smell clean at all.
It was how my energy dripped away into the floods of San Jose,
And how her eyes began to sink into her iPhone 7's screen.
It's in how I long for prolonged eye contact,
It's in how close the answer is but never slips,
I'm not interested in the electric work of fingertips,
I'm interested in connection.

there is,
in my opinion,
nothing like the..... determination
of a four and half kilo
of blugrey feline,
that,
wants,
to be fed ......
at 5:37am.

the pushing and bumfping the disproportinate roar
of the basso profundo purr, in your right ear,
if still not convinced
or just,
downright lazy,
a whack!!
with a southpaw
to the back of the head,
your attention will restore.

no you are,still
resisting the charm offensive.
then be aware
of the flying leap&twis;;, landing on the midriff.

but from years of dilligent training (on the part of the cat).
i have deduced....
the cold nose,
trailing across my exposed flesh is to best to be avoided.

simply by,
stumbling up from your rest
and succumbing to...
the mantra,
the cat knows best!!!
fill the bowl,
be done,(no never)
with the furry pest
and hope...
you can snooze for a while

Die a failure
No I could never..
Succumb to the pressures
Of the worlds threshold
Die a follower..
No I could never
Imitate another man
With a brain just like mine
Orthodox
And I'm southpaw
The outlaw gangster
Pledging to conquer
Uncharted territory without a conscience.

sleeping in til nine
put contacts in the wrong eye
outside getting rained in
listeing to micheal cera palin

different cold the wet and dark
the body and soul drift apart
coworker said "running late"
no need to worry, there is no hate

o how happy i am again
o so happy my friends
im doing just fine
on my daily grind

feeling out my insides
there's been a lot to realize
just trying to figure this soul out
acting like a **** fool, no doubt

always check the left
never been right i guess
born not normal in the right place
been left to find out, im a disgrace

all because my hands are southpaw
it's become my greatest flaw
not something i can change
not something i want to change

In the times before the current ontology being right was easy; a gift from a dextrous God. On the other hand, the world was beautifully sinister. The ‘metaphysics of the sinister condition’ propelled Immanuel Kant to conclude, that: ‘Looking at your right hand in the mirror you see a left hand, identical to right, but unable to replace the other, which, like God is right.’ Wittgenstein, a patient soul, was rightly amused and replied 200 years later, (that’s the kind of guy he was: prepared to wait a couple of centuries in order to deliver a dexterously sinister reply), ‘A right hand glove could be put on the left hand if it could be turned around in four dimensional space’. (Neil Armstrong, Captain Kirk and Doctor Who have ordered two paisley patterned pairs each).            
Machiavelli absconded from this digital count, citing an ‘a priori’ engagement with the Inquisition as a not unreasonable excuse for his point of departure. Aristotle replied: ‘Might is Right’ was true Philosophy
and fitted the world like an un-left handed glove, but he didn’t want to hang around to debate it, because his brilliantly sinister protégé, Alexander, played a very destructive ragtime with his band and was quite decidedly a great southpaw, who got dextrously cross being labelled ‘sinister’ and imagined himself to be rather charming, in that mirrored image kind of way.

Julius Caesar like Jimi Hendrix before the fall
Playing a right handed empire upside down
Until only decadent ruination was left
Second handed down to instant history
Carved in stone upon an ancient broken glory
The experience never left his soul alone
Unlike it left the beautiful Saint Joan
True righteous in all her blossoming
Left to solitary incineration at the end
Leonardo always painted in the mirror
Reflecting images from right to left
And made the distant appear quite near
A smile gazing in the closer distance
But there’s miles of mystery in the eyes
Everything else is just as he rightly left it
Beautifully left vertical on the right horizontal
Restoring your faith in renaissance artistry
Bounarroti worked the Sistine ceiling
With God outstretched in dextrous touch
Toward Adam’s innocently sinister reach
In that other Eden; Adam was left handed
Not dissimilar to the artist and the vision
Set high above the holy sepulchred floor
With its tabernacle likened door
Left so far and distant down below
The hell of all those dazzling heavens right above
Inspired Napoleon to abandon his rags
For a brightly coloured bespoke coat
And a gorgeously tailored left-ways hat
The woven garb to free a continent
And safeguard the very precious joys
Of Liberté, Justice and Egalité
The food, wine and song of democracy
In a very left handed kind of way
That was so right-on you loved him for it forever
And Moscow never looked the same without him
It’s much more Left Bank now in its Russian ways
Catherine thinks it’s Great, and in that style she left it
Then left was right an’ wrongs were righted leftly
Until everything left was rightly wronged in cruelty
And left a scar that rightly shamed a century
Nothing lasts as all things pass to dust and history
Yet the phoenix flies in the face of burning misery
While the ever salient Homer left us his republic
And his equally luminous sinister revelation
That Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler
But worst of all, Ned Flanders were all lefties
As it is in the end, so it was in the beginning
The ever brilliant Elvis has left the building

gulls squawk angrily on our roof
they argue about survival
forgetting they carry the souls
of drowned mariners

we argue in our bedsit
penned into a miniature life
fighting for identity
the right to be ourselves

we could be by the sea
but those angry squabbling scavengers
have never seen a wave in their lives
just gulls not seagulls

forgetting ourselves
we spar around the furniture
you are southpaw
I am orthodox

they root through *******
scattering it everywhere
no use to man nor beast
disease ridden vermin

wrapped up in life
forgetting how to fly
but we can all soar
if we ride the thermals

at what point that the sense of taste before
subjectively exclusionary
to the point of teasing itself as being
synonymous with objectivity?

beside: taste as subjectively inclusionary
is somehow a: bias
for example in two statements

(a) the Indian-subcontinent cuisine
is superior to the rest of the world...
  
   (b) Baltic "sushi" is superior sushi-sushi...
sushi-proper... Japanese "mushy" - no shy-moo
in sight...

well... question is... what can be objective
about taste...
perfect example... pasta al dente...
no one can argue with that one...
pasta is either just underdone and therefore
perfect or it's overdone and it's
only worth to put in some chemo-tomato
soup canned...

you can also overcook rice...
objectively you cook without salt...
which implies that if you don't cook with salt...
you're not exactly cooking at all:
as i once heard: food without salt isn't food...
it's produce...

it's not subjective to say: under-seasoned...
but still... the statement -
the Indian subcontinent cuisine is superior
to all the rest...
since there would be an argument for
south-east Asian cuisine... Chinese cuisine...
Italian...

there would be but...

(b) raw herring with gherkin, apple and dill
in a creamy sauce on a slice of toasted rye bread
is... well... what's the alternative...
a slice of raw salmon on a cushion of mushy
rice dipped with soya sauce / a green horseradish...

(a) a curry is... in all fairness... a gravy...
a stew...
   yes... but what over gravy / stew has an arsenal
of spices that could match you
to the Soviet stockpile of atomic warheads?
even yesterday as i was recovering from (a propos,
more on that later)

i came about a curry base recipe...
most other recipes involved merely
throwing some Kali dust mindlessly at tinned
tomatoes with the usual suspects
of onion, garlic and ginger...
however many times i did make this
recipe: turns out there's a difference between
a korma and a pasanda
        and since i was defrosting some lamb...

- but that i have a korma powder in my arsenal...
it's never enough to just... use a "swiss army knife"
when cooking...
i can't stress it enough, for the base:
onions, garlic, ginger... carrots... a green pepper,
a red pepper, chopped tomatoes,
say... madras curry powder, cumin, coriander,
turmeric, SMOKED paprika...
and of "course": ground fenugreek!

there's only an exclamation mark
after fenugreek since once i followed a recipe
that said to use seeds...
the first time i used fenugreek... like the first
time you use... Szechuan pepper...
or a black cardamom...

and then obviously... some sugar...
sultanas, ground almonds... coconut milk...
the best ****** sauce i ever tasted:
but there was more to it... you can't just
throw Kali dust at a can of tinned tomatoes...
or restrain yourself to merely onions, garlic, ginger...
what if i were a priest and i'd frown
at garlic? well... that i know:
                 asafoetida (a fennel like the scent
of rotting garlic)...       anyway...

am i being objective or subjective?
          for me the Italians can't just cut it with...
rosemary, oregano, fennel, thyme, marjoram...
plus... the health benefits of turmeric
and ginger?
it's essentially a stew... a gravy...
but no other cooking allows you to play
chemist once more...
  and i sometimes do miss those organic chemistry
experiments at Edinburgh
that could sometimes last for weeks...

subjectively this... objectively: under-seasoned,
not al dente, overcooked, too salty...
too spicy... bland... but there will always be some
h'american comedian who'd say:
burgers and frankfurters make the world
go round...
yeah... and in Russia you have this
pancake fast-food outlet that serve you...
well pancakes... with caviar...
because you can drive a car and eat a hot dog...
apparently...

the Indian-subcontinent cuisine...
give me that... and i can forget the rest of the world...
with one exception: Baltic "sushi"...
that food is ingrained in me like bone
or a croak-and-gargle to a crow...

- but if taste cannot be subjective to be a "respected"
opinion...
then it's back into the robotic, objective:
edible... inedible...
and the minor-objective cues of... al dente...
spicy... salty...
   this whole "superiority" statement...
                                  even though the amount of spices
& the kaleidoscope of nuances
of say: merely fennel...
                          a tulip is not a tulip is a rose
isn't a rose is a blimmin' buttercup...
nonetheless, elsewhere: a tomato is a tomatoe
is toad-matted-o... hiccup...

which brings me to... the toothache...
this close to a second astra-zeneca jab and
i might be on course for a second round of health
tourism...
it's not like i haven't tried...
over a year ago... visiting my local NHS
dentist...

- can i register? i was registered elsewhere
but i neglected that practice
plus i moved from the Ilford vicinity...
no i haven't been to a dentist in over a decade...
but now this 15+ year old filling has come loose
and...
- we are currently not accepting any new
NHS registrations...

well sure, with the pandemic and "pandemic"...
so i called the emergency number
and managed to squeeze in a visit for
a makeshift filling that... if i wouldn't bit into hard
toffee could last me well into 4 months...
apparently...
but when an opportunity arose circa June of last
year i hopped on the chance to travel abroad
to see a dentist...
well... it's been almost a year & that one hiccup
when that tooth hurt again:
why have we lost out intuitively-superstitious
grasp of sensations? it hurt to the bone...
when my grandfather died and... what... nothing?
here it is... at it again...
a year later and i still can't register...
i'm guessing... another year to wait for registration
and then... maybe 5 years to see a dentist proper:
for the root-canal treatment!
or... get that second jab... ******* to Poland
to see a dentist... privately...
well... even if I saw one privately in England
based on the quality of the temporary filling?

well... the filling is still intact...
what came across as a toothache might have actually been
a gum infection...
but since any sort of acute pain first disorientates...
antibiotics all that painkiller sobriety:
mr. zombie dr. sleep...
after the feud with the brain passes...
after your mind has opened up to nonsensical dreams...
the alleviation of acute pain brings back focus...
tooth-tip below the berg of gums...
rat's a labyrinth clearly i don't care much
for the jab to meat-head through a moshpit at some
festival, or turn into a copperneck on some beach
in Greece...

elsewhere: simultaneously... a cacophony from the news
outlets...
when Christine Chubbuck shot herself in the head
because her toe was too small...
and a movie was made about her...
with the end scene of her being strapped
to a hospital bed... because... well...
she didn't use a cockcroach buster of a shotgun...
a Shasha Johnson... and her litany of race-baiting...
it's like that butterfly effect:
one man's toothache is another man's bullet in the head...
or a woman's in this case...
Christine Chubbuck wouldn't die from
that urban myth surrouning headless cockroaches
dying from starvation...

the list though:
      CLINDAMYCIN-mip (clindamycinym) 600 μγ-
the antibiotic...
    codeine phosphate hemihydrate / paracetamol 15 / 500μγ
      CO-CODAMOL...
and since this painkiller is prone to give
you constipation...
   something for your stomach-lining:
    OMEPRAZOLE 20μγ...
    
but of course... a curry would help... to get your
digestion up to speed...
3 days of constipation and a mere thought of an Indian
arsenral of spices... a whiff of them...
charge of the **** brigade!

- and for someone who loves food... chewing more than
yapping with a red-hot poaker of a propaganda juice toong'...
however est. or anti-est.
   one brain-wash less either side of the fence...
but i know which side is a rhetorical cascade
and which side is a mantra machine...
which side is grizzly-arghh and which side is...
boistrously waspish...

but that's not all of it... you'd have to be familiar
with the Marathon Man...
Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier...
   whoever said all nazis were evil?
   Christian Schell...
               well... it's a joke...
EUGENIA CARYOPHYLLUS...
              syzygium aromaticum... if you've seen
the movie... aromatherapy? clove oil?
em... sure thing... yeah... it's primarily aromatic...
sure, the bottle reads: only for external use...
insufficient evidence to suggest analgesic properties...
hello mr. rat... hello mr. chimp...
hello mr. southpaw chubby-jab brigade...

time's for experiments... anyone and everyone to their
scepticism: what works best for you...
chance of me getting root canal treatment...
a drowning man will grab a razor's edge...
a drowning man wilbb grab a razor's edge...
because all medicine is beyond rancid beyond
chalky... i wasn't expecting the clove bud oil
to be... syrupy sweet mind you...
but as someone who wants to return to evenings with
ms. amber whiskers and the basic point
of the mouth and teeth: to ol' chew-chew...

lessons learned... waiting in line -
       to bypass the waiting game with placebo scepticism
of the otherwise effective painkillers and
antibiotics... but as a man who's irresistable
to any sort of agitation & momentum...
the immediately available: whatever proof or lack
of it there is...

in the back of my mind: it's hardly arsenic;
for now it's just me, the tooth and Christian Schell
and a song: 'if i had teeth made from diamonds,
             if i had teeth made from diamonds,
             i'd be on a diet of milkshakes!'
          
p.s.

original title: by
original "work":

bitter sweet
myopic
glutton

    anything to push through Eugenia & Herr Schell.