I want to be spanked
HARD
held down in knots

Black tar dripping
From my
Porcelien body

Yours forever
If you'll
Keep me

I want to be begged
Jadded and screwy
All the ****** up
Things that we
both need

I need to be alivened
Dead and
Frozen
All at
Once

Hanging from
The ceiling
While you
Watch me

I                                                                ­            
I've never hit my children.
My own father spanked me perhaps ten times:
for riding my bike on a busy street,
for "acting up" in church.
I have no nostalgia for these beatings
(as in: "Sure glad Pa whupped some sense inta me as a young'n—
   don't know where I'd be if he hadn't.")
  
He would make me pull down my pants and underpants
enough to expose my buttocks,
position me between his legs so he could hold my own legs still,
bend me over his left leg with his left arm,
and hit me with his bare right hand.
What I remember as much as the pain
is his angry expression: Was he angry at me?
Or at something else?
I believe it was mostly an unpleasant duty;
usually done because my mother had asked him.
They were afraid we'd become juvenile delinquents.
  
I suppose his own father had spanked him--
and that he, in turn, had been spanked by his father--
a family tradition. . . .
  
There've been times with my own children--
God knows they're far from perfect--
where I've almost given in to anger.
Somehow I've always caught myself,
always remembered that unseemliness. . . .



            II
Our house is kind of ugly from the front, a split-level
with the whole left side facing the street being a solid brick wall.
Our picture window faces the grass and trees of the back yard.
Each morning, no matter how much of a hurry I'm in,
I open the curtains to this window--
that my children might see not just the man-made objects of our living room
but some hint of the grace and beauty of the whole, great, natural world.

I held you tightly in my heart before I knew your name.
I wondered what you'd be like and if we would be the same.
I held you in my stomach as I lay in bed at night.
I felt for every kick and move and smiled in sheer delight!
I held you as you cooed and cried before you learned to crawl.
I held you when you had a bump or took a nasty fall.
I held you as we rocked at night and sang our many songs.
I held you as you walked to me the first time 3 steps long!
I held you when you'd had a fight or when someone was mean.
I held you after you'd been spanked for making quite a scene.
I held you as I prayed for you when you were feeling low.
I held you when you were mad at me because I had said no.
I held you when you let me – as you were growing tall.
I held you less with my arms back then than I had when you were small.
But I always held you in my heart, and on my lips in prayer.
That no matter where you moved or lived, I had you covered there.
When adult friends hurt your feelings I'd want to hold you then
I never saw you grown up – or just as another friend.
But you were always my little child – someone for me to guide
Someone to protect from this vicious world – within my arms to hide.
But something happened the other day that felt like quite a blow
The Lord told me my job was done and that I could let go.
That I could still pray daily for all your hearts to soar
And I could love you from afar and each day love you more.
But the holding on just has to stop – you have your own lives (this I know).
And so with love I write this to you – to tell you I'm letting go.

What is death, I ask.
What is life, you ask.
I give them both my buttocks,
my two wheels rolling off toward Nirvana.
They are neat as a wallet,
opening and closing on their coins,
the quarters, the nickels,
straight into the crapper.
Why shouldn't I pull down my pants
and moon the executioner
as well as paste raisins on my *******?
Why shouldn't I pull down my pants
and show my little ***** to Tom
and Albert? They wee-wee funny.
I wee-wee like a squaw.
I have ink but no pen, still
I dream that I can **** in God's eye.
I dream I'm a boy with a zipper.
It's so practical, la de dah.
The trouble with being a woman, Skeezix,
is being a little girl in the first place.
Not all the books of the world will change that.
I have swallowed an orange, being woman.
You have swallowed a ruler, being man.
Yet waiting to die we are the same thing.
Jehovah pleasures himself with his axe
before we are both overthrown.
Skeezix, you are me. La de dah.
You grow a beard but our drool is identical.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not.

Today is November 14th, 1972.
I live in Weston, Mass., Middlesex County,
U.S.A., and it rains steadily
in the pond like white puppy eyes.
The pond is waiting for its skin.
the pond is waiting for its leather.
The pond is waiting for December and its Novocain.

It begins:

Interrogator:
What can you say of your last seven days?

Anne:
They were tired.

Interrogator:
One day is enough to perfect a man.

Anne:
I watered and fed the plant.

*

My undertaker waits for me.
he is probably twenty-three now,
learning his trade.
He'll stitch up the gren,
he'll fasten the bones down
lest they fly away.
I am flying today.
I am not tired today.
I am a motor.
I am cramming in the sugar.
I am running up the hallways.
I am squeezing out the milk.
I am dissecting the dictionary.
I am God, la de dah.
Peanut butter is the American food.
We all eat it, being patriotic.

Ms. Dog is out fighting the dollars,
rolling in a field of bucks.
You've got it made if you take the wafer,
take some wine,
take some bucks,
the green papery song of the office.
What a jello she could make with it,
the fives, the tens, the twenties,
all in a goo to feed the baby.
Andrew Jackson as an hors d'oeuvre,
la de dah.
I wish I were the U.S. Mint,
turning it all out,
turtle green
and monk black.
Who's that at the podium
in black and white,
blurting into the mike?
Ms. Dog.
Is she spilling her guts?
You bet.
Otherwise they cough...
The day is slipping away, why am I
out here, what do they want?
I am sorrowful in November...
(no they don't want that,
they want bee stings).
Toot, toot, tootsy don't cry.
Toot, toot, tootsy good-bye.
If you don't get a letter then
you'll know I'm in jail...
Remember that, Skeezix,
our first song?

Who's thinking those things?
Ms. Dog! She's out fighting the dollars.
Milk is the American drink.
Oh queens of sorrows,
oh water lady,
place me in your cup
and pull over the clouds
so no one can see.
She don't want no dollars.
She done want a mama.
The white of the white.

Anne says:
This is the rainy season.
I am sorrowful in November.
The kettle is whistling.
I must butter the toast.
And give it jam too.
My kitchen is a heart.
I must feed it oxygen once in a while
and mother the mother.

*

Say the woman is forty-four.
Say she is five seven-and-a-half.
Say her hair is stick color.
Say her eyes are chameleon.
Would you put her in a sack and bury her,
**** her down into the dumb dirt?
Some would.
If not, time will.
Ms. Dog, how much time you got left?
Ms. Dog, when you gonna feel that cold nose?
You better get straight with the Maker
cuz it's coming, it's a coming!
The cup of coffee is growing and growing
and they're gonna stick your little doll's head
into it and your lungs a gonna get paid
and your clothes a gonna melt.
Hear that, Ms. Dog!
You of the songs,
you of the classroom,
you of the pocketa-pocketa,
you hungry mother,
you spleen baby!
Them angels gonna be cut down like wheat.
Them songs gonna be sliced with a razor.
Them kitchens gonna get a boulder in the belly.
Them phones gonna be torn out at the root.
There's power in the Lord, baby,
and he's gonna turn off the moon.
He's gonna nail you up in a closet
and there'll be no more Atlantic,
no more dreams, no more seeds.
One noon as you walk out to the mailbox
He'll ****** you up --
a wopman beside the road like a red mitten.

There's a sack over my head.
I can't see. I'm blind.
The sea collapses.
The sun is a bone.
Hi-** the derry-o,
we all fall down.
If I were a fisherman I could comprehend.
They fish right through the door
and pull eyes from the fire.
They rock upon the daybreak
and amputate the waters.
They are beating the sea,
they are hurting it,
delving down into the inscrutable salt.

*

When mother left the room
and left me in the *******
and sent away my kitty
to be fried in the camps
and took away my blanket
to wash the me out of it
I lay in the soiled cold and prayed.
It was a little jail in which
I was never slapped with kisses.
I was the engine that couldn't.
Cold wigs blew on the trees outside
and car lights flew like roosters
on the ceiling.
Cradle, you are a grave place.

Interrogator:
What color is the devil?

Anne:
Black and blue.

Interrogator:
What goes up the chimney?

Anne:
Fat Lazarus in his red suit.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not.

Ms. Dog prefers to sunbathe ****.
Let the indifferent sky look on.
So what!
Let Mrs. Sewal pull the curtain back,
from her second story.
So what!
Let United Parcel Service see my parcel.
La de dah.
Sun, you hammer of yellow,
you hat on fire,
you honeysuckle mama,
pour your blonde on me!
Let me laugh for an entire hour
at your supreme being, your Cadillac stuff,
because I've come a long way
from Brussels sprouts.
I've come a long way to peel off my clothes
and lay me down in the grass.
Once only my palms showed.
Once I hung around in my woolly tank suit,
drying my hair in those little meatball curls.
Now I am clothed in gold air with
one dozen halos glistening on my skin.
I am a fortunate lady.
I've gotten out of my pouch
and my teeth are glad
and my heart, that witness,
beats well at the thought.

Oh body, be glad.
You are good goods.

*

Middle-class lady,
you make me smile.
You dig a hole
and come out with a sunburn.
If someone hands you a glass of water
you start constructing a sailboat.
If someone hands you a candy wrapper,
you take it to the book binder.
Pocketa-pocketa.

Once upon a time Ms. Dog was sixty-six.
She had white hair and wrinkles deep as splinters.
her portrait was nailed up like Christ
and she said of it:
That's when I was forty-two,
down in Rockport with a hat on for the sun,
and Barbara drew a line drawing.
We were, at that moment, drinking *****
and ginger beer and there was a chill in the air,
although it was July, and she gave me her sweater
to bundle up in. The next summer Skeezix tied
strings in that hat when we were fishing in Maine.
(It had gone into the lake twice.)
Of such moments is happiness made.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not.

Once upon a time we were all born,
popped out like jelly rolls
forgetting our fishdom,
the pleasuring seas,
the country of comfort,
spanked into the oxygens of death,
Good morning life, we say when we wake,
hail mary coffee toast
and we Americans take juice,
a liquid sun going down.
Good morning life.
To wake up is to be born.
To brush your teeth is to be alive.
To make a bowel movement is also desireable.
La de dah,
it's all routine.
Often there are wars
yet the shops keep open
and sausages are still fried.
People rub someone.
People copulate
entering each other's blood,
tying each other's tendons in knots,
transplanting their lives into the bed.
It doesn't matter if there are wars,
the business of life continues
unless you're the one that gets it.
Mama, they say, as their intestines
leak out. Even without wars
life is dangerous.
Boats spring leaks.
Cigarettes explode.
The snow could be radioactive.
Cancer could ooze out of the radio.
Who knows?
Ms. Dog stands on the shore
and the sea keeps rocking in
and she wants to talk to God.

Interrogator:
Why talk to God?

Anne:
It's better than playing bridge.

*

Learning to talk is a complex business.
My daughter's first word was utta,
meaning button.
Before there are words
do you dream?
In utero
do you dream?
Who taught you to ****?
And how come?
You don't need to be taught to cry.
The soul presses a button.
Is the cry saying something?
Does it mean help?
Or hello?
The cry of a gull is beautiful
and the cry of a crow is ugly
but what I want to know
is whether they mean the same thing.
Somewhere a man sits with indigestion
and he doesn't care.
A woman is buying bracelets
and earrings and she doesn't care.
La de dah.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not.

There are stars and faces.
There is ketchup and guitars.
There is the hand of a small child
when you're crossing the street.
There is the old man's last words:
More light! More light!
Ms. Dog wouldn't give them her buttocks.
She wouldn't moon at them.
Just at the killers of the dream.
The bus boys of the soul.
Or at death
who wants to make her a mummy.
And you too!
Wants to stuf her in a cold shoe
and then amputate the foot.
And you too!
La de dah.
What's the point of fighting the dollars
when all you need is a warm bed?
When the dog barks you let him in.
All we need is someone to let us in.
And one other thing:
to consider the lilies in the field.
Of course earth is a stranger, we pull at its
arms and still it won't speak.
The sea is worse.
It comes in, falling to its knees
but we can't translate the language.
It is only known that they are here to worship,
to worship the terror of the rain,
the mud and all its people,
the body itself,
working like a city,
the night and its slow blood
the autumn sky, mary blue.
but more than that,
to worship the question itself,
though the buildings burn
and the big people topple over in a faint.
Bring a flashlight, Ms. Dog,
and look in every corner of the brain
and ask and ask and ask
until the kingdom,
however queer,
will come.

there's music
that makes you see
more *****...
and then there's music
that lets you see... other... things.

does it
make you wet
getting spanked
by daddy
for being
bad
and bratty

is it cute if i twirl my hair on my fingers
and talk at you with a sass in my lip
and tell you i think you're intimidating when you're the boss?
tell me how it's cute how i puff my cigarettes
and kick my feet in the rocks
and maybe
when you get tired of telling me
you can show me how cute i am
and how cute you can be
with eyes closed
and bums spanked

Janice adjusts
the red beret
on her fair hair
and pulls at the hem
of her dress
as she sits
on the wooden seat
of the swing
in the park.

I sit on the swing
next to her,
ready to kick off,
my feet on the tarmac,
my eyes glued on her.

She winces.

Gran spanked me last night
for saying
that four letter word
you taught me.

You weren't supposed
to tell your gran.

You never said
not to tell;
I didn't know
what it meant.

Sorry,
I should have
told you.

(I didn't know,
but I don't tell her that).

She pushes off
with her feet
and she's air borne;
her sandalled feet
high in the air
as the swing goes backward
then forward.

I push off, too,
holding tight
to the steel links
on each side of the swing.

Maybe your gran
should have washed
your mouth out
with soap
instead of a spanking.

I wish she had, too.

My old man's aunt
swears like a trooper;
I used to go
to Sunday tea with her
and her husband
and my Nan used to say:
that's enough
of that language,
there's children present.

What did did she say?

They don't know
what it means,
she used to say;
but Nan'd say, no,
but they might repeat it
to people who do.

And did you?
Janice asks.

No, at least not
if my parents
were around.

I am swinging higher
than her now;
my feet seem to reach
the nearest clouds.

She tries to swing higher,
but I am still higher,
by swinging backward
and forward on the seat
and the holding tight
to steel links each side,
I am up there
with the gods.

Have you ever
been spanked?

I look at her.

Once when I peed
in my toy box
and my cousin
told my mum.

She pulls a face.

How ***** of you.

Yes, I guess;
Mum thought so.

I feel a breeze
in my hair and face
as I ride high,
swinging back and forth
on the swing.

She's beside me
trying hard to reach
as high as I am;
her feet reaching up,
her legs swinging madly;
her body going
backward and forward;
her red beret,
clinging on
for dear life
on her head.

I reach my maximum height;
my feet touching
Heaven's gates
or so seems,
my body going
back and forth
as much as it can.

She’s almost there,
smiling,
the wind riding
through her flowing
fair hair.

if pre 2000s pop was a twin town of chedder, then post 2000s pop has to be twinned with sodium hydroxide, or palmolive / dove; this pope is high on crack, reshuffle and scrub down the kareoke, please! soap opera just turned into sing-alongs, it became cheese opera due to the repeat for a century to come... now it’s all about cheese opera and soap... the sort of cheese that might give a mitchell a half-mined-mile into coal mountain... and the soap ready for the twitter democracy of the required comment that’s about a cried-on pancake eaten with cranberry chutney but not the turkey.*

even if i write the most spectacular verse
it goes with the geese into the couldron
of a second life / un-becoming...
the latter is very much true with regards to feeling,
you’re in a race to claim a zeno record
against the turtle... but but still the flea beats you,
going against kantian symbolism, concerning 0,
it could also be the decimal point, rather than negation,
like the way i was given the x-men collection
at £10, seven movies...
i started with multiplying 7 by 10... to get 700...
then i added the 7 of each film,
added the “symbol of denial,”
moving the rubric for seven movies, sigma £10...
that’s like £1.70 for each movie...
the remainder is abstract as to relate the arithmetic.
well i was in the best club ever on a friday...
the street.
i bought myself a three quid leffe beer bottle
nearing the litre and with a champagne cork...
opened it...
walked by the police swinging a jive of gulp
and un-repentant... you want me to repent
my alcoholism serialising alcoholism as the problem?
you’re the problem:
i never box drunk...
you know how many marriages have failed because
of over-cooked pasta or under-cooked potatoes?
too many.
ready-meals like school-meals in england prime
for the selling of pre-prepared digits of chips
also ready to spend more time in the glue / spiderweb
of the television, which forgot its place
as a pleasant distraction of
the news for the small-town folk or national
pride via sporting events.
but you know what really ****** me off...
it’s called illiteracy for a reason...
but it’s also called religion concerning the literacy from one  book...
like the koran... or the bible...
strange that that isn’t illiteracy all by itself...
but it isn’t... literacy is then measured by the secularisation
mechanism of homework...
children don’t lie... their social status does not expect it...
it’s more like: i don’t like you... snail goo in a shell missing snail...
i like you... butterflies at the lunch break...
so in this dream i’m sitting in my bedroom
with this little boy... two fiendish creatures enter...
the boy says: this is allah...
he’s fat and burned...
(i hate the freudian self-projection of dream interpretation)...
the other is “schizophrenic,” i.e. two faces inter-mingling...
then the second dream... the fat monster is there, on a throne,
and a bunch of muslims...
suddenly they run away...
i’m left with the crisp fat ugly one...
and i forge the twinned dream interpretation...
ah crap... that placebo schizophrenia experiment
lasting for 7 years worked...
i made medicine in-effective in england...
now i’ll just encounter idiots who think they know me better
than i know myself...
who will deny in order to amuse themselves...
who will not craft a doubtful mechanism to encourage
courting / polite thinking... the so called: end-of-all-implausible-possibilities,
reduced to all the pessimisms known as plausible realities
of english society.
by the way... after seeing the boy’s knowledge of that
deep-friend bulge of the double chin...
i walked from home to dartford bridge... and then to barking...
and then took the bus home...
if i didn’t run from that first impression...
i wouldn’t have been the re-interpretated “schizoid” twin...
missing in the second dream by the throne
with the muslims running for leather spanked...
couple dreams for a medium of thought entering the
unconscious...
i hate self projection... it goes against
that limit of the most sophisticated pigeon service
known as freudian mail...
imagine a more sophisticated system without
pigeon, postcard, poststamp, e-mail... can you, given dreams?

A question that should be on
Your mind this evening is why?
Why are the people of Greece--
Why is the nation of Greece--getting
Spanked & punished by their EU
German & French economic overlords?
We should be saluting tonight’s
Referendum NO vote results,
The Greek electorate voting against another
Devastating round of economic sanctions,
Voting NO on more years of austere living.
In fact, it should be U.S. foreign policy to
Support complete Greek withdrawal from
The European Union. That’s right:
“Euro No, Drachma naí!”
The EU is fiscal tyranny,
Led by the EU autocrats,
Angela Merkel & whomever is sitting in the
French baby high chair these days.
Isn’t it a strange coincidence that the
EU whip, always seems to be cracking on
Their swarthier brethren,
Their southern European members,
The Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians &,
The Greeks.
The Greeks have had enough.
One would expect nothing less from
These fiercely independent
Hellenistic people.
And you can **** the Greek people
Up their ***** all you want &
Many of them might like it, but
The Greeks will survive,
Survive as they have for nearly 3,000 years,
Give or take a Kalamata olive or two.
We breathe the air of Greek culture,
Deep respiration of so much of
What we still call learning these days.
We owe the Greeks: it was
Greek inception of so much
Math & science &
Countless other right-brain
Spatial ability & logical precision; not to
Mention so many left-brain contributions in
Sociology & ethics,
Politics & democratic government,
Geography & religion,
Education & philosophy,
Sculpture & art, philosophy,
Live theater & literature.
We owe the Greeks.
Had we interceded with the Brits on Greece’s behalf,
Reminding them that we bailed out their sorry ***-cheeks
After two 20th Century world wars, perhaps
The British Museum might have Fedexed
The so-called Elgin Marbles--
Those boosted friezes,
Jacked right off the
Parthenon façade,
Should have Fedexed them back to
"Eleftherios Venizelos,"
Decades ago.
George’s wife, that foxy babe
Amal Clooney sure thinks so.
We owe the Greeks.
The world owes the Greeks.
Let us all help the Greeks.
Let’s encourage them to quit the EU.
To Greeks I say: trust & patience,
You’ve got the sun.
You’ve got the sea.
A clean white landscape,
Ouzo & Retsina,
Spanakopita & Moussaka.
The Greek Islands:
Crete & Mykonos,
Santorini & Corfu,
Rhodes & Ios
Samos & ****** . . .
We owe you.
We love you.
We will come to you.

Draped in boundless pride
she strolled along the streets,
the town's flamboyant prima ballerina.
Still little did the debaucher know her.
Defenceless she laid
as he spanked and clouted her,
Her vehement howling and wailing couldn't stop
the yanking of clothes.
Motionless, emotionless she laid
while he plundered and mutilated her body.
Vandalised by an uninvited visitor,
Incapable of moving her body
the ravishing ballerina reclined.
The scars he made was not on her body but deep in her soul.
That gloomy night whistled away
for the sun to flare its first ray.
'18 year old violently molested and deceased'.
Hence the prima ballerina became a mere newspaper headline.

I like being in charge sometimes.

I want to be choked and spanked and ******* and ****** hard.

I want to wear a strap-on in bed.

I want to be used.

I think about spanking you until your *** turns red.

I want to be slapped and called a ****.

But I melt when you call me babygirl.

I swoon because you’re a gentleman.

I smile when you’re cute and girly.

I want to cuddle and watch Disney movies.

I like having hot wax poured on my body.

I like to play with the candles on the table at fancy restaurants.

I like ice too.

I like to watch your pupils dilate when I look at you a certain way.

I like when you look at me in that certain way that makes me lose my breath and giggle.

It calms me down when you call me owlet when I’m stressed.

You give me warm and fuzzies when you call me your best friend.

Maybe I like you.

So maybe this isn’t so complicated.

*Maybe it’s really simple.

There are actual people
half woman half man
running mornings and
dream people in movies
half language half light.
Tomorrow is John’s funeral.

* * *

This is my minute
my moment
Oops, gone!

Anything can happen
if you don’t resist
Resist!

* * *

But who am I? You think bullets won’t
****? I’m the guy they put before a
wall and shoot then eat lunch.

* * *

Long as yr livin
yr havin that dream in
which yr killin the villains
w/o even needin a weapon.

* * *

If it was fun, they wouldn't call it work,
but it is fun. It's what we do, a bird
sings, dogs bark. We work. Sing bark work.
Honey, put on your shorts, it's gonna be 90 today.

* * *

How right is the rabbi!
"What a good and bright world this is if we do not lose our hearts to it,
But what a dark world if we do!"

* * *

We saw a barred owl
camouflaged in winter branches.
Bird of death (in myth), hunts down the dark,
floats to a farther tree, turns its back, and naps.

* * *

The sadness of summer, the silence of winter
you can’t sum it up in one more metaphor.
So don’t complain about the epoch you live in.
Go to Big Hidden Lake and jump in!

* * *

Down to negative calories, in deep snow
we find soft wintering rose hips, gobble them down.
First time for me a wild edible made a difference,
not just a delicacy. Then we snowshoe out.

* * *

Spring morning
flycatchers, jays, thrushes, a woodpecker’s loony cry.
A toilet flushes.

* * *

Zach
awoke from a scary dream
I kissed him back to bed

He asked
are all the doors locked?
I said yes knowing they would not hold

* * *

The republic may expire
but birds go on traveling, singing
in their best attire.

* * *

My plump cashier
has a new love.
Her skin is clear
and her line moves.

* * *

Desafinado means slightly out of tune which is not a problem.
It’s a fortunate condition. Zach just called from school sounding clear
and happy to say there’s floor hockey this afternoon. For me, another       cold,
slow Spring. How lucky!

* * *

At basketball I was reminded
the better players in their private moments
think on the ultimate reward. Perfect rest.

* * *

You come in our backyard, we go in yours.
That about sums it up. Assuming there are definable, accepted backyards.
Suppose it’s all one backyard and time is all one sheet of ice?

* * *

My son Zach said as a toddler he liked the old house
and he’s having a good time now at the new house.
We were lying together in the window seat passing the early morning       time,
late September and happy as I was I thought what’s running out is time.

* * *

The young women’s bodies were awesome. I appreciated
the couple of Muslim women who kept their bodies
covered. That was easier on an old man’s eyes.

Not that I wanted to change the American girls’ ways.
They seemed comfortable wearing underwear outdoors
and unaware, more or less, of the longing it provoked.

* * *

To invade a clean house
searching for weapons or insurgents, I agree
with the enemy, that is a sacrilege.
Not that I accept their god, and there could be,
hiding, a mouse.

* * *

I tell my sons
If some man tries to pull you into his car, fight
kick bite yell run punch curse scratch knife
make him **** you right there in the street
use your feet your fear your hate.

* * *

If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.
—Mario Andretti

* * *

The river in its muddy symmetry
high water mark in Spring
is a god to me
in a way that I can be to a dog while thinking
or the sky is to the hanging apple.

* * *

A day, a new day, starts at 5:00.
Earlier than that it’s still yesterday,
the rags and dreams, the sweat and worry, the *** and laughter
of that day. The alcohol and aspirin, the sunset and machinery, the dinner       and toothache
of that day. The germs and friends, the sports and editorial, the gleam and
      dullness
of that day.

* * *

The key to success is cross out, delete, compress,
rub out, expunge, black out scratch out blot out,
censor, crop, shorten and silence.
Clip, cut, erase and eradicate.
Hate everything you write.

* * *

I will be saved
and spanked too.

* * *

Phil is on a movie diet. Bad movies in which the logic switch is turned off. Jumps from scene to scene like a cat.
Most ******* is hilariously obscene. Genitals like little animals. Snowplows hit potholes sending up sparks.

* * *

Make way for a future that’s irresistible!
Dust. Rest. Mist. Rust.
One day follows another until the last day.
And on that day, there will be weather.

* * *

Driving in traffic
80 mph, 80 y/o.
Turkey vultures shrug shoulders.

* * *

When an archangel
flies into your windshield
sing cuckoo!

She's delectable
Her every word titillating
Her every touch ******
Lips meant for biting
Her voice meant to moan
Her body's meant for me
Her ******* meant for my teeth lips and tongue
Her *** filling my palms *** its pulled ,grabbed, spread an spanked
Her ******* waiting for my every touch an pull grab kiss and bite
Hips call to my teeth to be bitten,screaming for my hands for more grab them pull them
Legs begging to be kissed nibbled and caressed
Her shoulders and neck meant for my lips my hands my teeth
More I crave them all, the the taste calls to me screaming my name
Her ****** calls to me echoing in my mind forever to trigger my cravings driving me crazier ever time I see her
She's my fetish my craving my desire
My lustrous dream of craving.

She rose the lifted gypsy smile
Little women Big-spender
Gimic
Desperate housewives selling
their soulful tears epidemic
This wasn't 666 Satan heart broke
Got to Lee Remick when she spoke
Going to Denmark Gypsy booth

You could feel the white satin
Saturday in the park dictator
with Stalin, her lips moistened
with her watermelon
But why so manic
Zero tears to panic

City frantic the Rose sensual ******

Over a tear-drop dangling
Love waiting anticipating
How she smiles her earring
drops down waves
fight her fear
The big whale
don't flip my tear

Holiday she's the jingle cash
register Knighting meets Gale
nothing didn't register
Let me entertain you, shy tease
Natalie, Clue lounge tears Grunge

So strange they stripped away
scarecrow harvest October
Remember the Nile love
November
The nightmare gypsy
unfortunate events
No comments

The holiday wasn't
exactly a  Supercalifragilistic
*$ ++ monarch
But she wears herself whip cream
lick
Going for the blue crying her eyes
out "Blue-Terry Cloth"  was sick
eye velvet' the men of the cloth

So religiously afraid of the
Goth  Rosy Lee path
Left her aroma mark
The world is a blackout
Her shoutbox rosy boot
So creepy like a fox-trot
So much to upkeep
Memory lane yellow
brick road

Brown-coffee-accident spilled
she yelled demons allowed
  The buyer made me
Accountant clicking tears

Gypsy  tug of war
Doll Raggetty Annie Oakley
Crystal Expensive tear
doesn't come cheap money
50 winks who wants to sleep
Rose Pomedeur widow weeps
What a square Mr bigfoot
Get off of my cloud boot
Moved her rolling stone


Her tear was in the plate he didn't
even have the heart to pick it up
French danish pastry so prim and
proper  
Another naked spy bad romance
Her cry needed to be homemade
like her rose candles
The roaring twenty- she's 13 going
on thirty
Gypsy of forty your getting old
but flirty
  (Shes so Harvard) Sugar daddies
forever young
Help me Rhonda teardrop tipsy
Graduation Cap the eye owl gypsy
Jeremy the beamer drummer
Gypsy Rose hummer
A thousand tears her death card
People have no regard

Living on a crystal tear end
He's her bookend so beat in
her beatnik house
All staged Cher the Gypsy outfits
Cry babes girl product
What conduct Rose -Lee spanked
on her knee tears popped the waterbed
He never showed one tear
Cry me a river crystalline diary
All preliminaries
We missed her lonely sober tear

Mona Lisa Mona Lisa how the men
have met you how death becomes
you
I'm not buying your cry I was deeply
hurt it set such an impact
The -new- Boy George culture of tears
Over-erase she highly medicated
More I see you having affairs
happy, sad, overjoyed,
you have been had

Carribean Depp Pirate rotten teeth
Statue of liberty is crying at birth

I am not going to lower my
standards just skip
Cinderella so sinister to sweep
Wizard at her boutique
Mysteriously eyes unique
Best tear to enhance is always
the antique now start crying

The bar  was empty .
The bartender like always made another run through making sure all was clean and in order.
When like some weird mental ninja she found someone sleeping in a booth.

The man seemed so peaceful lost in perfect drunken slumber.
So she did what any kind hearted soul who stumbled apon some sleeping drunk in a booth
would do.

Kicked the **** outta it and said.
Look ******* how many times have  I told you stop passing out here dont you have a *******
home!?

But this wasnt any regular drunken sleeping beuthy of a ******* .
It was everyones favorite drunken *******.
And the misspelling  madman of hello Gonzo.

Oh my lord someone  catch that donkey for he finds out Taylor Swift's in town.
Yes the kids went for a braindead bubblegum **** fest and  ended
up with nature show  or more like a donkey show  but what *******
hadnt been with Taylor Swift?

What the hell are you talking about.!
The barmaid said to me looking angry yet still there was that strange look of hey if this were a ****  something was about to happen.

Hey there Susan, Becky,Rebbeca whatever the hell your name is another round please.
Are you ******* nuts!
The woman seemed tense but I had to ask myself was this a trick question?

I thought long and hard yet stayed semi soft in thought that is get your mind outta the gutter ya perves.
Look miss lets not kid each other theres a reason im here besides the fact that im a drunk
that and im avoiding  the cops.
Cause duh!
No one would ever think to look for me in a bar.
Yeah you sit behind that bar looking at me asking  will that be all  but lets cut the crap.

The woman was silent  as I could tell there was a connection  on one of thoose
deep level's  like in one of thoose ******* romance books women read  
like the Notebook  yeah thanks Nicholas Sparks now women want you  to hang with em till they go senile and I like to usally leave after I   pay.

Not that I read that book.
What do ya think I am a ****** duh thats why they make movies.
It was for research only.
Well that and this chick I was trying to bang wanted to see it.
Look I had to go cause she was to young to go by herself.

Im kidding well kinda.
But enough with the foreplay hamsters.

Miss I  say we turn down the lights maybe put on some music have a couple cold one's.
You can serve cause you know after having a few drinks your not supposed
to operate heavy machinery.
Its a ******* bottle opener you idiot! she said.

Shh  I  said to this madien of the *****.
Yeah thats what grandad thought now look were he is?
He died ?
Yes he did and there isnt  a moment  I dont linger to hear him say
Hey **** for brains!
Get off your dead *** and get me a beer!

Wow he really sounds like a *****.
Yeah come to think of it he kinda was.
We sat there in silence togather deep in reflection yet not really cause it was
kinda dark and  everyone nothing refelcts in the dark  but some things
glow like condoms but thats enough about my glowstick.

Hey the barmaid asked.
Did he really die from using a bottle opener?
Well it was more of the semi truck's fault but if he hadnt of reached for that *******
he's probaly be here as we speak and I wouldnt be the only one.
Telling you you have a marvelous  set of *******.
Or annoying the **** outta you.

Look ****** I put up with annoying drunks everyday.
And when I say lastcall your cutting into my time.
So although you got nothing better to do  then drink your liver silly.
I wanna get the **** outta here.

So your saying you wanna go home maybe take a nice warm bath.
Walk around half naked call up your girlfriends wrestle and maybe make out.
While a strange demented man films the whole the thing or joins in cause  
im all about inprove acting  and filmaking.

It seemed this strange gatekeeper to the ***** wasnt a lover of the arts.
Cause befor you could whistle dixie while being spanked by a dwarf dressed as
Dolly Parton I was chased from the bar.

Cast into the cold depths of darkness and alone  it's okay.
it would'nt have worked out sure we coulda dabbled in the arts gotta a few thousand
hits off of a adult site really what romance doesnt start that way?

But me I was a  loner a cowboy who couldnt ride a horse  but hey someone has to break the ******* mold and besides  that's what cars are for.
So I was off but i'd see the barmaids face again  sure she had knocked me down
like a group of braindead teenie boppers would a security gaurd who stood
between them and Justin Bieber.

But are paths would cross again.
Duh im a drunk  and besides  it wasnt all a loss.
cause as she was pushing me out the door  I felt her ****.

See kids you always gotta look  on the brightside.

Untill next time stay crazy.      

Gonzo

Life is not measured by seconds or minutes, but by memories. An old, white lady in a white uniform trying to teach me how to tie my shoes, a red wagon, lying in that space above the back seat of the Hudson coming back from Grandma's watching the tree limbs go by above as we drove home, snow--lots of it--sliding down the big hill on our sleds, saying hello to Darrell, the bully, in 3rd grade as other classmates literally ran away from him because they were afraid of him, my friend, Bruce, who would not trade me Mickey Mantle for my Allie Reynolds, Ms. Perrin, my 4th-grade teacher, one of the best I ever had, who died of cancer two years later, Virginia Bright, my first girlfriend, who took me to her church Sunday nights to learn how to square dance, my dog, Cinder, my best friend growing up, my red bike that took me everywhere, embarrassed at the Y because my right ******* was not fully descended, Maggie, my Black mother, who fed me breakfast--two poached eggs, buttered wholewheat toast, and grits--every morning, washed my ***** clothes, spanked me when I needed a spanking, hugged me when I needed a hug, loved me when my mother couldn't because she was so depressed, always making straight-A's, my dad taking me to Kansas City to take a test (he never told me it was an IQ test), asking Patty to dance the first two dances--we danced alone at the center of the basketball court  as the music began to play at the SnowBall Dance when none of her other classmates would ever get near her--being elected co-captain of the football team and the city-championship basketball team, elected president of the Student Council at Roosevelt Junior High, elected president of the Sophomore Class at Topeka High by my over-800 classmates, pushed by my dad to Andover (arguably the best prep school in the world) my junior year, chose Columbia over Yale (the Core Curriculum and New York City), was a member of Blue Key, Nacoms, and, most meaningfully, elected by my over-700 classmates one of only 15 to lead the Commencement procession, couldn't sleep in law school, dropped out, couldn't sleep for four more months, spent a year-and-a-half at Menningers (saved my life), started writing poetry when, through therapy, I realized I had my own feelings that coalesced with my intellect in my unconscious, slowly emerging through my subconscious into my conscious mind, when I had to write what was coming out of me, otherwise I would lose it forever, seven months at Topeka State Hospital after dad disowned me, founded and edited TALL WINDOWS, The National Public Magazine, moved to Phoenix in 1977, had an involuntary Kundalini arising (took me six years to revover from it, and did, but only because of the exceptional use of unguided imagery practiced by the most loving person I ever got to know, Dr. Patricia Norris) when my girlfriend, who had wanted to marry me badly, lied to me and ****** her new next-door neighbor to make me jealous (I found this out because I saw her bruised ***** that I knew I had not bruised), still unconsciously traumatized during my childhood by mom and dad's miserably unhappy marriage, selected one of 25 alumni out of over 40,000 to serve three two-year terms on the Board of Directors of the Columbia College Alumni Association (1990-1996), traveled the country as a human-rights activist meeting, talking to, eating with, getting to know the hungry, the homeless, the hopeless that populate our yet unrealized democracy, Jorge Luis Borges writing that the most important task we all have in our lifetimes is to learn how to transmute our pain into compassion. That's what I hope my life has been about.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

say my name
say it again
louder
you know who i am
you like it
it turns you on
when you play
pretend
to be a little girl
pulled down *******
spanked behind
when its stings
you feel the welts
rising on your skins
the lack of control
submission
being told
your sighs and wetness
tell me so

billboard's calligraph --
past the haze of Manila infested
by car sprawls and belching machines.

magnanimous treatise of tarpaulins,
people chin-up asking God
with askance

something like this
"o god make this bearable
like a mound of fresh fruits
from ****** labour."

maniacal sensurround:
earth-shattering frequency
of footsteps trampling the mouth
of monolith shadows - the peak
of this quake is our complete silence.

rain's catharsis in effect
sousing us in the blood of unreal light.
this diastolic shrinkage
jamming the beat of constricting vessels.
the adrenaline surges
within the dermis of this pretension.

a collective of tired beings heeding
the recherché of voice metamorphosing
into form, a dagger-butterfly
paring us skin to bone, cranial
to visceral, soul to nothing -

catapult of a trajectory spit
plummeting in eased-up pace
from Taft Avenue flyover
to a subjugated wagon of scraps
and empty wine bottles.

today's paper reads:

"Palace hits hiring
   of **** dancers"

fancying to fall right in the
spanked curved of this
insatiate melodrama - something
  prayer could not save from
this land's mutinous ignominy.

   we resume to fulfill our madness,
hundreds of tack-headed people
  rolling down the streets of Makati,
drenched with rain's trilling aftermath.

squinting to look at
  no sun, only the grieving of skyscrape,
thumbing down unidentified objects
  in the depth of loose pockets,
    desperate for home.

The dark depths of a fifty shade
Whipped, gagged, spanked
Dominate to give oneself pleasure-satisfaction
A man of his words, harsh and gentle
A woman desire for more intimacy, less with earth shattering
is love in fact dark, dangerous and painful?
Does it really hurt?

Five years old and they
   could not hear me in the backyard --
   I called out, the gate was locked and
  the screen door, mesh frayed at the handle,
  was locked too -- I could see it --
  and they still couldn't hear me and I
     was afraid and the mesh
     was frayed and my little finger
         just barely fit through and then
             aunt Lucy came and made sure
                 that I was punished.

(The reward for my fear was
the most frightening and humiliating
experience of my childhood)

                   I hid.

"Get out here!" my father yelled
and his voice made me flinch and
trembling I unhid.

       my uncle and aunt watched
as my father spanked me
harder and angrier than ever before,

       my uncle and aunt watched
the shock of every blow
reverberating
through my tiny body
                                    until

       my uncle and aunt watched
everything let go
and I ****** myself on the floor
in front of them

weeping and violated

I do not remember what was said after

they left the room and
I was alone with my shame
while the sun fell the walls
faded blue the ride home
was silent --

-- all over some torn mesh
      and doors they should not have locked.

World leaders thunder denunciations

          But my dachshund puppy annoys the cats

Bombing planes fly in nuclear drills

          But my dachshund puppy just ate a moth

Religious leaders are shredding their files

          But my dachshund puppy barfed up that moth

I don’t know if I’ll lose my job next year

          But my dachshund puppy got spanked by Queen Cat

The fat boys on the radio yell a lot

          But my dachshund puppy is barking mindlessly

My senator says he stands up for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is stealing the cat food

My president seems to play golf for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is napping in the sun

          And the cats are quite happy about that

So under under they clapped like thunder.
Rolled it over and dove around.
Picked up love and held it till it broke and splashed on their heads with a
           soft wet sound.
Drenched in jelly oozing warmth they licked their lips and spanked the
           season unforgiveness not forgotten they mash their fists til winter
           knows their name.
"Dread us winter take what's coming you're on time-out til we're famous
            not ambitious never stressing eat your veggies and blow your
            storm.
But not here no we're the North and you've been dried up stop your crying
            have fun south now count your blessings we'll talk later if you're
            game."
We've got dancing, we've got sunshine, drenched in jelly all the same.
Lick our lips cause we're relaxing how's it taste like raspberry chocolate?
They're not happy we'll be for them just like jelly not a crying shame.

I've been going right on, page by page,
since we last kissed, two long dolls in a cage,
two hunger-mongers throwing a myth in and out,
double-crossing out lives with doubt,
leaving us separate now, fogy with rage.

But then I've told my readers what I think
and scrubbed out the remainder with my shrink,
have placed my bones in a jar as if possessed,
have pasted a black wing over my left breast,
have washed the white out of the moon at my sink,

have eaten The Cross, have digested its lore,
indeed, have loved that eggless man once more,
have placed my own head in the kettle because
in the end death won't settle for my hypochondrias,
because this errand we're on goes to one store.

That shopkeeper may put up barricades,
and he may advertise cognac and razor blades,
he may let you dally at Nice or the Tuileries,
he may let the state of our bowels have ascendancy,
he may let such as we flaunt our escapades,

swallow down our portion of whisky and dex,
salvage the day with some soup or some ***,
juggle our teabags as we inch down the hall,
let the blood out of our fires with phenobarbital,
lick the headlines for Starkweathers and Specks,

let us be folk of the literary set,
let us deceive with words the critics regret,
let us dog down the streets for each invitation,
typing out our lives like a Singer sewing sublimation,
letting our delicate bottoms settle and yet

they were spanked alive by some doctor of folly,
given a horn or a dish to get by with, by golly,
exploding with blood in this errand called life,
dumb with snow and elbows, rubber man, a mother wife,
tongues to waggle out of the words, mistletoe and holly,

tables to place our stones on, decades of disguises,
wntil the shopkeeper plants his boot in our eyes,
and unties our bone and is finished with the case,
and turns to the next customer, forgetting our face
or how we knelt at the yellow bulb with sighs
like moth wings for a short while in a small place.

Tessa stirred, lifted her head from the pink pillow, saw bright daylight coming through the gap in the yellow curtains. What day is it? Saturday. Good. No rush. Can lay here for a while. She laid her head down again. She felt beside her with her hand. No one there. Good. Sometimes she invited a man back if he seemed ok and she liked him enough. Obviously, last night she’d not met anyone worth the coming back with. Just as well. She wasn’t in the mood for waiting on them over a breakfast table; talking about the previous night, what it had been like for him or sometimes for her if she had brought back a girl. No one. Just empty space. Although Teddy was there. His one ear was smooth; his fur was thin and sparse. She brought him to her lips, kissed his small head. Hello, Teddy. His glass eye seemed to gaze back at her; the button eye was darker, unseeing. Poor Teddy. Battered and worn. We’ve been together now for…how long? Twenty years? She laid him beside her; kissed his nose. He lay there looking at the white ceiling. Silence. Not a great conversationalist was Teddy. He’d not said a word in all the years they’d been together. Although as a child, she thought he had, would talk with him, play games with him, told him all her secrets and worries. Moreover, of course, he had witnessed things, seen her play with her dolls, with men, the occasional girl, and seen her with all kinds. She brooded for a moment; let the idea of what he may have seen swim around her mind. She had become so used to him being there in her bedroom that she’d given no thought to what he may have seen over the years. Good God. He’d seen all that, never said a word, or moaned or complained or judged her. Too many did that; judged her. But never Teddy. She turned her head, kissed his furry cheek. He didn’t always lie on her bed, when she had company she put him in the armchair in the corner, or on the dressing table by the window. Once one of the men she’d brought back has tossed Teddy across the room, she had become cross, swore at the man, picked up Teddy, kissed his brow, cuddled him against her cheek, told the man to go, leave her because if he could do that to her Teddy he might do it to her. The man shook his head, left thinking her slightly touched, ******* up one of his eyes as if he thought she had lost the plot. Maybe she had, she didn’t care. Teddy had seen her as a little girl, seen her cousin creep into her room, seen him climbed into her bed and do things to her, seen her squirm, seen his hand over her mouth, heard his threats. She hadn’t thought about that; hadn’t given it any thought until now. Remember that, Teddy? He threatened me with all kinds of things if I told anyone what he did. What a *******; what a creep. He’s married now, Teddy; got kids of his own. Poor things. Makes you think. She sat up in bed, stared at the daylight through the gap in the curtains. She got out of bed, sat on the end looking at the wall. Never said a word. Never told anyone, except Teddy; she’d told him. Everything. How it felt; how she felt; how ***** it had made her feel. Teddy listened; never judged. Always there with that look about him, that wise gaze. She sighed. If she saw her cousin now, she said nothing, just stared at him and he stared at her, a knowing look on his fat face. She looked back at Teddy in bed, saw his gaze on her, saw his uncritical gaze. She loved that about him. Loved that look. Breakfast, Teddy? Like I used to make you? She mused on her efforts to get him to eat his breakfast as a child, but he never did. You were awful at eating your breakfast. Mother told me not to give you any, but I always did; always gave you some of mine. It made Father cross, made his face become all stern and cross looking, and he threatened once to throw you out when we moved from that old house to the new one. But I hid you so he couldn’t. You saw him when he spanked me; heard my cries. Mother never came or said anything, but you were always there; I am sure I heard you say you loved me, would always be there for me. She nodded her head. Sighed. The strong silent type was Teddy. Always there. With his one glass eye, his balding fur, his one ear. Haven’t seen them for years now, the parents. They’re in Oxford; I’m here in New York. An ocean between us. Miles and miles. We’re here, Teddy, you and me. Just the two of us. Just us, this apartment, the paintings on the walls, the jazz on the CD player, our secrets, all our own secrets. Just us. Just you and me. Eh, Teddy? Eh? Silence. Teddy, the strong silent type and me the mouthy *****. What a couple. What a pair. Me here, you there. She laughed, looked at Teddy’s moon shaped smile, the smile was always there, a welcome smile, a smile to warm her, to tell her she was good, she was loved. Yes, loved; wanted for whom she was inside, not for what she said or did or didn’t do. Just you and me, Teddy. Just you and me.

Most mornings are not clear.
Most mornings are not the type with a
ten-state view from the top of
Clingman's Dome, and two very expensive
tanks of gasoline. You're welcome.

No, most mornings are battered
by some kind of weather condition -
rains and drizzles and nebulous fogs,
unhappy bedmates, a productive cough -
or else the sun just remits,
stays dozing until it has slept enough.

Then you get that gray sky-
chalkboard, the punitive slap of
humid cold on your early walks, your
coffee rendezvous. Then you have
too many garments at 3 because you put
on extra at 8. Morning, in short,
wishes you ill.

Be aware that if you were born
this century, you lurched into no
midwife's hands, full of love and wet, but
a surgeon's, gloved and powdery,
who spanked you firmly, knocked you
down with a commanding stare, and gave you
the first of many cuts you were to receive.

But for having woken up, let's say,
on the wrong side of the bed (if
even there's a right one), I would
like to think we've done alright,
are not too warm or upset at midday,
not too disappointed in ourselves, our moments
of astounding social gracelessness
that we leave like bits of sneaker in our wake.

Still, though, a question:
where grows happiness? Where sprouts
the silver trunk, the cypress or birch? Or
ficus or orange or ginkgo biloba? Tell me.
I would tap that tree 'til it withers, and die
under its trunk, and the two very expensive
tanks of gasoline it took
to get me where I am.

Green mint breath,with a predator’s thirst,her hot steamed plunder,spanked to affection;some candy man love.Her tom-tom palms,such smooth pony thighs;candy requires perfection,ride, boy ride.The monkey house screams,call it a wild girl whisper,her hot scripted words;I believe in love.Candy riders, where’s this going?Going to slaughter,touching her thighs;riding the animal slide.My candy girl,little steamed fluffer,she sweats warm venom;I feel her love.You’re pretty slow, if you still don’t know.It’s called taste of the savage,for ponys and monkeys,a sweet attraction;for candy boy love.She was hired to please,to guard, above the knee.You got it now.It was ‘62 and I was hot.2010 Barry Comer

He is an unpopular character this old man
Who sits and draw cartoon character
in memories of the dearly departed.

He said that he felt like crying,
but he wasn’t going to cry
Because if he did,
he might not like the taste of his tears
Those loose cells in the tears
is mostly of his mother and father.

He resented  them for not aborting him
He wishes that he was never was born.
Due to the facts that all his life he was scorned

He was in and out of intuition
Always in a state of confusion
Month too months he never saw the sun
He never felt the rain upon his face,
Only long session with the nurses and the
Physiatrist who thought of him as a disgrace

He recalled taking the train for the first time at age fifteen
And that didn’t turn out as expected,
He wets his pant, so he sat in his seat and slaps his head furiously
He was spanked by the nuns, ridiculed by Sister Margaret the head hunter,
Got a huge ****** thermometer roughly up his **** by a ******* dude
Suffered daily due to his severe autism behaviors

He is an unpopular character this old man
Who sits and draw cartoon character
of all his childhood abusers:

Between these sheets of satin love
Violence breaks cherries
Serenity found in screams and moans
Yeah babe this is a *** poem
About how I'm going to take from you
The last of your innocence
As you put my demonic instincts on a leash
There will be blood
As if Jack the Ripper
Found his way between your legs
The pierced silence quivers as lips curve back
Hiding under your teeth
Moans rupture as hair gets pulled
*** cheeks spanked leaving clues
As to whom it was that made you a ******
Begging, pleading, praying for more
As the width of my **** grows
Pushing harder onto your ***** walls
The gravity defying length of its throbbing prowess
Plunging ten thousand leagues into your soul
The violent serenity of our *** life
Becomes a perfect portrait
We paint every night with the stains
Our love produces onto bed spreads
Needing to be burned after such defilement

We're on a bomb site
behind the tabernacle
looking for some
ammunition for

my catapult
which I carry
in the back pocket
of my jeans

Fay is looking
amongst the debris
of old bombed
out houses

or just area  
left where
houses stood
it's a sunny day

holiday time
no school
-makes me happier-
is this one too big?

she asks
I look over
no that's a good one
I say

she brings it over
to where I stand
she holds it
between her

thin finger and thumb
and she drops it
into my palm
I weigh it up

and down then
drop it into
my pouch
-a knotted handkerchief-

she looks at me
her blue eyes
searching me
her fair hair

brought behind
her head in
a ponytail
have you ever

thought about self?
I look at her
self?
I say

what do you mean?
the I of us
what we call me
I look nonplus

and look down
for more small stones
a nun at school
said the I

in Christianity means
the I crossed out
in the form
of a cross

in other words
our self is not
more important
than that I or self

of another
and as a Christian
we should put
the self

of another first
I find a small stone
and pick it up
and finger it

so the cross is
supposed to show
self crossed out?
I say uncertainly

she looks at the stone
I'm holding
yes that's what
she was saying

self denial I think
is what she meant
Fay says
scratching her head

this nun at school
does she ever
tell jokes?
Fay frowns

no not as far
as I've heard
well I could
tell you one

O'Brien told me
but it's not for girls
to hear
not girls

as good as you
I say
Daddy says jokes
are sinful to say

and to hear Fay says
when I innocently
told him one
the other year

a girl at school told me
he spanked me
and said never
to hear or say jokes

ever again
what was the joke?
I ask
shouldn't say

she says
there's only you
and me here
no one will know

if you tell me
except God
and I guess He's
heard it before

I say
she looks at me
her blue eyes
staring

ok but don't
tell Daddy
I told you
she says

I promise not to tell
your old man
I say
well a man took his wife

to the cinema
and as they waited
in the queue
a man in front of them

passed wind
and the husband
said to the man
how dare you

pass wind
in front of my wife
and the man said
sorry I didn't know

it was her turn
I laugh and so does she
and I like how
her eyes sparkle

when she laughs
and her face lights up
like a summer day
then she's looks

at her hands
that was good
I say
but it's sinful

she says
but the brightness
in her face and eyes
didn't go away.