I sit on my back stoop,
alone in the moonless dark
lit only by a window glowing
in my neighbor's new spa room.
Spikey tropical plants.
backlit by warm yellow light
are all I can see
from my vantage point
only yards away.
But my imagination runs
to visions of two lovers
delighting in their newest acquisition,
bathing in clouds
of fragrant steam,
a couple still together.
They have each other,
while I sit alone,
me minus you.

Eileen Auger
4/4/2010

There was once a small ape called Peter
He was brown like the trees in your yard
He had a few spikey hairs on the top of his head
And thousands upon thousands on his arms

He wasn't just your ordinary ape though
He had big bushy eyebrows
And deep dark green eyes
He was shorter than other apes
But he didn't mind

Because he knew he was special
His mother told him so
She told him every single day
Before he would go to leave
Leave to go to ape school
To study his Ape Bee Seas

He often wondered whether,
one day she would stop
Then one day his mother did
That was once he'd grown up

And now he is a big ape he longs to hear those words
So when your mother repeats something
It's so it sinks in
and you never forget what they've told you
So pay attention and listen.

Sitting in the bath once again, small blue pad in hand, bit of plastic as support, I write this poem.   Albert Cat demands a bit of attention and pad slides into the water.  I grab a bit of toilet paper to blot it.  That makes it worse.  So, blurred and vague, I reconstruct it, using magnifying glasses (2!) while watching the evening news.  Here it is:
             I Like Facebook

I like Facebook. I don’t know exactly why.

I like looking at the pictures,

Friends I’d never meet another way.

I like friendly messages,

Passages of verse I’d never read

If not for Facebook’s lead.

I like Likes and Comments kind,

Find in comments rich expressions.

Possibly I’m one of few - or few new millions.

I’m inspired when tired, fired up.

Even when I’ve written ‘crap’

No one’s there to trap me.

Some reviewer always sees my views,

Understands.

Someone always sends

Me praise; ends with a Like.

I’ve never had a spikey word;

Cordiality is all I’ve ever read or heard.

Commonality forever somewhere, there

Where someone wants to start a group.

Always somebody to whoop de whoop:

Somewhere folk who populate;

A troupe with common passions.

Then there are the monthly Happys:

Happy Birthdays, Christmases and Easters…

Never had one word rescinded.

Reminded gently daily:

Classmates, playmates

I’d forgotten, dovetailed,

Blazoned on the psyche;

Friends and places,

And of course, the faces -

It is Facebook, after all; the key, the glee,

A source of history.

As for weaknesses I’ve read about –

Never think to route them out,

Going ‘bout my business,

Focused on creativeness,

The lofty and the small.

I like Facebook.

Happy Facebook to you all!

I Like Facebook 3.31.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin

Now... my heart has thawed;
its icy cactus spikes have split
split and formed a feather coat
strong enough to lift me off the

Ground

but... soft enough
that a passenger could wrap
wrap around it and hitch a ride,
a ride in their own car.

An... age it took for
those spikey armour plates to grow
grow and be protection to suit a
tasty looking lion tamer.

Gone.

Now... my heart has thawed;
its once frosted drawbridge is freed
freed to be lowered on its chains, rusted
by the  frozen, teary rain.

But... soon I'll put up
my fists again, ready to fight
fight because the defenses are down.
Might have to call in reinforcements.

Now... that my heart has thawed.

I found your apologies along with a lighter in my pocket
the night I burned you away
Both were deep down in there.
Below the forgiveness
It was squeezed between the pieces of your broken promises
Collaged into the parts of my shattered heart
I found them folded into love letters
And engraved into the anxiety marks your lies left in me
I dug them out of the hole your deceiving left in the back of my mind
Buried right next to suspicion
I found your explanations hid beneath the mental memories of teeth
They never quite fit together
I saw them in the picture show behind my eyes
I’ve recklessly recreated to many times
I felt your callused pleads for forgiveness on my fingertips
after I pricked my pointer on your spikey “I didn’t do its”
I slipped on your confessions
nearly drowned in what could’ve been
Luckily, I realized before it was too late, that water is infinitely too deep
As is the pools of sympathy I had for you but never had for me
I used that lighter to smoke a cigarette that was packed down as well as your stories
You always exhaled like a script for the movie I’ve seen to many times called
“Please feel bad for me”
I found your I’m sorrys on the bottom my shoe
after I kicked the crap out of my “welcome to walk on me” mat
I threw away and replaced with a banner reading “please don’t come back soon”
I can’t claim I don’t know but I can say this feeling is new
Never thought you had what it takes to make me give up on you

Within his icy palace
In a world covered with snow
On a throne as clear as crystal glass
Sat  jack frost that we know
With hair of spikey icicles
And pale white skin so cold
This tale of when he met the sun
Is about now to be told...

As jack sat there in silence
Through the window came a glow
He tried to guess just what it was
But really had to know ?

So frosty opened up the door
To see what could be found ?
Stood puzzled by the sight he saw
Of puddles on the ground ?

Curious and curious he stepped into the light
He felt a little strange at first but seemed to be allright
After a life of being chilled and always being cold
This was a new sensation so he addressed the sun so bold...
" Your warmth oh  how it changes me and makes me feel anew...
Please shine your golden rays on me and warm my body through "

The sun gleamed down and spoke a truth !
That jack frost surely felt...
" Your'e foolish if you choose to stay for you will surely melt !"
"Oh! cried jack frost in that case i'll quickly take my leave
And ran back through the palace door and closed it with a heave !!

Then jack frost sat back on his throne and pondered for a while
"Thankyou Sun i was a fool !" and grinned a warming smile !

no bleak
      no gravel
            no granary

flushed upward         flossed through the cloud
proud       of our colourful obituary
but there's nothing to hold us here
fear nothing wary
     no feline attention
           no canary to fulfil the coal mine
just the foggy cotton of perspiration       and no cling
so we are benign      to respond
  rung to sense
     to physics
    to every-mans gravity

no grieve
      no manner
            no calamity

just plummet
       and wind sore
              and sun-bleached torn clothing
                      and dread of developing horrors
                    perhaps collision    with unwanted human company
               no paid way into outer space
        jest descent

you flounder for memories
         to flutter before eyes
              instead    you are battered by collage
an old video game console the cat peed on
     clips you    fragrant between the eyes
a set of your golf clubs in their bag
         winds you     hugging in the gut
             (did you ever play golf ?)
so much more product     and then the car
      Jeep Grand Cherokee     colour burgundy
          draws level
             doors hung open   to the yap of history
grateful and familiar       you take to its back seat
  pull over a tarp     and sleep
     but its all crushed apart
and you face again
                          the plunge

turning corpses of hills below
  the quaking landscape bellows "NO!"
       and patches of spikey urban ventilation
                all gush to volunteer you
                     ***** toward your voice
                          that's screams also 'No!'
                              but realize
                                 the voice
                                    of the
                                    earth
                      ­            screams rowdier
                             and on a weeping in-breath
                                                              to­ replenish

Around the pool of chandelier light the movers and shakers gathered
in tight knots, unwilling to untangle from the policy books
intent on pushing fences further out into the Caspian Sea
across the Black Sea and encircling the whole Artic Circle
from latitude whatever to wherever.

The chief fence maker arrived with a pair of pliers
and rolls of barbed wire twenty thousand posts
and a battalion of unnamed soldiers all hiding
behind masks of make-up

" Now listen, people, roll out that spikey wire starting from here
to eternity and keep going around the globe until you return
five hundred years to meet the beginning with the end!"

A few bald heads bowed but wary of  cross-hairs
hiding along the ceiling behind sharpshooting
shapeshifters.
They knew instinctively, that unbowed head may be bowled
over and transported to Siberia in a meat wagon
for permanent freezing with the mastodons.

"Go Now, do not turn back, ever, or you will become
a pillar of salt."
The band played The Last Post
as the last post rolled out.

Peace began as soon as the war ended
and the fences were built around the entire
Northern Hemisphere.

I fell over at the weekend,
Fell clenching a rope
That was no longer there to support
And so it didn't,
And James hit the deck with a thud,

And it hurt if I'm honest,
Knocked the wind right from me
And sent shock waves
Through every *****
Every sinew vein and muscle,

As I lay there with a
Worrying spikey pain,
I wondered whether I was damaged
Or just jarred,
Okay or out of the game,

But then the cameras came out
And so did pride
And pragmatism,
And a rapid standing up
Because - well - you know....

This is not the first time I have fallen
And probably wont be the last,
Because **** happens like that
in life and just the same in love,

Because stuff,
And people,
Will always
Let you
Down

The magic released from your fingertips purr like spikey legs of a cricket, and although the pitch can be quite much, at least it fills the defeaning silence. And that's better than nothing.
It's everything compared to nothing

See, it's a different type of suffering.
As cardinal as the cardinals sing,
sound still sounds more radiant from your mouth; light as a cloud and tempting as the devil's cake, but it's much too **** loud for this headache.

Just as a hummingbird you urge each redundant peck deeper, and with it comes a blatant crooked creek. It's such a lovely repeat to wake up to, but the minute reality sets in I just want to shake you and retreat back to sleep so sound.
Retreat back to sound as sleep.

My cloudy head floats peeking at your ground,
and I can't make up my mind when your earth is bringing it down.

Excuse me,
Can I squeeze past your apathy?
Get to the heart of everything,
Where spikey pillows
Lay on gravel beds.
Do you want to paint the town red?
Or purple, most likely.
Won't press into
Reforming bruises,
But you'll be elsewhere anyway,
Too far for clinging
Fingers to wiggle out,
And grasp sturdy hands
For support on the balance beam.
The composed serenity,
Laughter and glee
A marvelous masquerade
Covering the demons in me
That you know well.
But I'll set down my baggage
To fit between stolen seconds,
To sit in hand in hand
Silence.
Our heartbeats meeting at the palms
Sewn to lovers
Beckoning you with magic
Tricks I can't replicate
When begging for morsels of reciprocation,
And chastising myself
For expectations.
Silly sullen child,
Waving toys at you,
Please play with me,
Drop a line,
Drop your excuses,
For dropping promises in the dirt.
Wish they'd turn to dust
Rather than sinking me
Through lightning sand,
Sprinkled with shards
Of broken glassy hands.
Can you feel my desperation?
Like when we were
Interwoven in ineffable stagnancy,
Stifled in sticky still summer air,
Muffling every sound
From this moldy mouth.
But it's an orchestra in my mind,
Dissonant dirge repeating it's chorus
Into infinite insanity.
Call it like you see it, darling
But I've already
Drawn my line in your sandy heart.
We're both treading water
In this tumultuous ocean,
Both been tossed
Headlong into tumbling waves,
And I tried to
Throw you my life vest,
But you floated by
On something else,
And here am I,
Drowning in disbelief.

Around the pool of chandelier light the movers and shakers gathered
in tight knots, unwilling to untangle from the policy books
intent on pushing fences further out into the Caspian Sea
across the Black Sea and encircling the whole Artic Circle
from latitude whatever to wherever.

The chief fence maker arrived with a pair of pliers
and rolls of barbed wire twenty thousand posts
and a battalion of unnamed soldiers all hiding
behind masks of make-up

" Now listen, people, roll out that spikey wire starting from here
to eternity and keep going around the globe until you return
five hundred years to meet the beginning with the end!"

A few bald heads bowed but wary of  cross-hairs
hiding along the ceiling behind sharpshooting
shapeshifters.
They knew instinctively, that unbowed head may be bowled
over and transported to Siberia in a meat wagon
for permanent freezing with the mastodons.

"Go Now, do not turn back, ever, or you will become
a pillar of salt."
The band played The Last Post
as the last post rolled out.

Peace began as soon as the war ended
and the fences were built around the entire
Northern Hemisphere.  

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Sitting together cross legged
Our naked bodies just inches away
Lungs breathing in the same stale air
Hearts beating at a slightly erratic pace
Mine vehemently moving forward
Determined foolishly to make the most
Of the possible slipping final days

Looking up
My eyes gaze upon his body
One I believed to be the epitome of beauty
Stopping finally at his face
I sigh with resign
A lone tear making its way down my scarred cheeks
It’s not fair I think
This possibly being our last time
For I doubt I’d let him stay once it was over

So I look back at that face
With a determined promise
Memorizing every line and curve
From the soft yet strangely spikey hair
Wild eyebrows that tell stories of his travels
Warm eyes overflowing with love
For a foolish dying girl
A nose with a shadow of a joker
Hiding in its contours
Deep dark lips that whisper my name
A prayer for him to hope for more time

This face with its sleepless dark circles
Warm browness and scraggy beard
I hold in my weak spidery fingers
I want this to be last memory
Before the darkness engulfs me
So when I open my eyes each day
You’ll be by my side no matter what
I think with a childish hope

My words become incoherent
As weakness seeps swiftly into my body
Reducing my strong resolve to dust
I fall back into an ocean of tears
On your arms cannot pull me out of
They take you away and strap me in
Only the cold pinch of a needle
Having the power to soothe my wrecked soul

With a struggle I open my eyes
Barely managing it for a few moments
Disappointed with plane whiteness
I give in to the awaiting darkness
They wheel me out to my doom
The decision had been made
The papers signed in finality
With a stroke of ink they had decided my fate

Wheeling me out to sterile cruelty
I drift away helplessly
As inhuman white beings surround me
Slicing my body open
Now finally with inked permits
To take away a part of my soul
Stealing all the colours and faces from me
And subjecting me to an infinite depth of black

My body survived
The cancer had finally died
Yet I felt no proud survivor’s strength
Only the hollow emptiness of this new dark world
I could think of
Voices called out of the dark
Warm arms reaching out to hold me
But their faces no longer could appear
They all were the same to my darkness

Until I heard him walk in again
His quiet orders for others to leave
Rang through my ever inquisitive ears
His soft rustles confused my mind
Until I felt his warm body engulf me
His lips whispering his prayer
Calling my fiery soul back from the depths

My sightless eyes felt a surprising wet
And from the dark depths a face appeared
One I feared had forever left me
With a cry my spidery fingers held on
Drinking in thirstily his warmth
My mind now singing into the darkness
He’s back
And in that terrified moment
I knew it was not the end

With a determined ****
I pushed my body off the comforts of my bed
Arm reaching out uncertainly for a support
With my weak hands engulfed in his
Legs gingerly touching the bare tiled floors
I jumped off
And took my first step
Towards a renewed life

Hills spotted in scars,
Are mountains all the same
And a sandy ditch
For lovers to pitch
Their thoughts and play their games
Prickly ladies rise above their spikey babies
Glass bulbs lining lanes

I’m so hungry and nothing tastes good
I’m so hungry and nothing tastes good

I eat a loaf of pavement with a pinch of gravel
I eat a pencil case like a baguette and shake the carvings into my mouth when the meaty stuff’s all gone
I like Double Decker wrappers most of all
Frighteningly chewy but any toilet worth its bath salt will tell you hydrochloric stomach acid will not unchewifiy its texture no matter how much it tries.
And it tries very hard.

I’m so hungry and I cannot sleep
I’m so hungry and I cannot sleep

Something about the hunger makes me want to ******* in the toilet
Perhaps by a window or leaning back against my unlocked bedroom door
Some sharp spikey pleasure to relieve the pain
It is not a sharp pain, nor a spikey one
It is a soft, malleable, liquid-y pain
What pains me about this pain is how it perseveres.
And it perseveres for quite a while.

I’m so hungry and i try too hard
I’m so hungry and i try too hard

Art is my food.
Art fills up my belly before i fall asleep
Art gets chewed and broken down like amino acids before running through my veins
When I exercise, go to my lectures, talk to my friends, it is the fruity juice of art that fuels my ligaments as they contract.
As long as this stupid ******* short film gets made
I will never have to eat anything proper ever again

I’m so hungry and it tastes so good
I’m so hungry and it tastes so good

Splitting shapes with no hesitation
viciousness slid into silence
I hardly talked for a year.

Silence stood up and looked death in the eyes. Only eternity stared back.

Splitting shapes at night
oak trunks stretched like gymnast legs, her sharp branches clawing a sky necklace of diamonds for Selena to wear.


Forked between love and hate
I felt both of you climb me leaving a plethora of scars to return awards and punishment.

Sharper shapes to split
my solitary seige keeping battalions at bay.

Softly savaged.

Savaged softly in strict walls with no windows.

How did it feel to watch laughter get crushed inside?

I heard the pick axe sweat, arms littered in grey dust, a hole in the wall finally appears small enough for hope to crawl through.


Sharper shapes to split
I left her memory chipped and splintered, my blood dripped
thorns from yesterday.

A rope appeared at the end of her silence.

Gallows awaited, mocking crowds gathered, threw stones, I heard their rough laughter corner me at every angle.

I escaped. Burnt. Sunk. A devilish blade turned through my temples.
Red hot silver left its carving in my psyche.

I lived four years in grey ghost mode bitten in the beast dust of her smiling memory.

How I came out of it nobody knows.

Sharper shapes to split I looked into rooms with no outlets, I heard a voice build up and flood them all.

I walked blindly through streets,
my eyes spray painted every wall with punk graffiti, a restless rebellion full of thrashing lyrics standing up to empty words spitout from heartless machines.

I fell asleep in spikey fields. Yellow weeds grew tall on desolation row.

Sharper shapes to split
a detective pulling his hair out
trying to find out Jack The Rippers true identity.

I faded out. I decided to make sky collages on my camera phone.

Talk to nobody.

Every shade of blue taking in sharper shapes I split apart with
calm vicious silence.

This devilish blade inside nearly took my life.

What gives you the right?
Why an ist or phobic?
Look at your self, what do you see?

Just stay away from me and don't even look at me
Black in my mind as I look at you.

Poison. Spikey. Vile

Stay away,  far away.

NEVER TO BE TOLD

Oh joy!
Not one two

gentlemen magpies

conversing on
my crazy paving.

Two Fred Astaires in tails
awaiting their Ginger Rogers'

or merely waiters
enquiring

"Would Sir like to savour
the moment?"

Their white so....white.

Their black so...black
yet not-so...black.

Their viridian sheen
treasure for the eyes.

I teach my little girl
to rhyme them.

One for. . .
Two for. . .

as another
joins them.

"3 for a girl!""
I tell her.

"That's you!"
"That's me?"

All day she
chants and plays:

"I'm a magpie I'm
a magpie!"

Years later
when she has grown

far far
beyond this moment

( transformed into
a Punk Goth Princess )

she asks me why
I used to call her my magpie.

"Ah..." I say
kissing her spikey hair.

"Secret. . .
. . .never to be told."

{it does take a half hour to read, I timed it.}

Pythagorian permission, Poet, today viz.
five years ago, auto-did-actical,
the output arrogance,
self categorization
accept the role, be a finger, or a toe,
be a knee or an elbow, chose a position,
take it
make it your part in reality function
as if it all just happens
on
accident,
you just happened along…
as though saying show, and showing so,
is the same as saying so, and saying see…
demon-stratem ****
miracles of crowd perception, everybody
look this way, look away, look away
Dix-ai 'da swanee, I tell you, I saw…
Land o'Goshen, locust free. I swanee…

Did you ever, even once, work dawn to dusk,
to pick the cotton before the rain?
You'd need to be born before 1954, I'd reckon;
to have ever pulled a cotton sack
any where in North America.
You can hand-pick about 20 plants in 10 minutes while it takes a cotton picker about 30 seconds to pick up to 1,200 plants. Ai knows.

-- good morning, mustabin--
Probable propitious auspices
- evening the occasional heaps
- sun's light blending peachy huey

Phrygian gardens had song birds, I bet.
Bluebirds, in season, certainly good,
expecting miracles, as farmers
expect rains and harvests and
no blights or bugs or birds or fires
or frosts too soon in the sugaring cycle.
For citrus, not maples, frost some years
meant no Christmas, if you know the sense.
--- we had beggars come to our door
on Christmas Day,
their car broke down, and something
told them, the people inside my house
would help… we were three doors down
from a Jehovah's witness church,
but we had so much, and those kids,
and their mom,
coulda been my mom, had things
gone another way, in the soul selling.

To observe the future from 1950,
are we not
made winners if by now we are not in prison?

Rabble, eh, my equal rank, common-sensewise,
I was once a dear friend of an angel, as real
as any ever to bring another bit of good news.

My messenger told me to say plainly what I see.
Habakkuk Habits invoked a disglosalialacical spell
Aha. If luck were not a factor at the edged abyss,
hiss steamsudden
Coolant ego '
idden agendas, owning the energy,
euphemism
for owning the earth's produce.

Imagining a representation of truth,
as a mortal, a spirit embodied, held out
for grasping fingers
to find handles,
or spikey burrs for tangled locks…
-----------
Examined my selves
for an empathetic one,
I heard Absalom swinging in the tree…
I found no functioning, pathos perceived
is as near as one could come, feeling pain,

awareness, pain at being made to pay attention
to the replaying trainwrecks from fifty years ago.
No.
No, three thousand years ago, really, that long ago
and no updates on Wisdom receptivity?

Life in logos, mere words living in lettered lines
and rows, columns and pages and sections and such.
There are no sacred secret rites.
The snake can take your life, or tickle your soul.

Logical steps lead from one word to the next,
with 151 pre-positioning aiming words,
words that take and hold objects,
to and fro upon a time.

Distance diminishing day dopplering toward us,
the experience bound by galaxy level gravity,

massive messaging apparatus
Nachrichtenübermittlungsgerät zending oud a tingtingting
strumming all the oud's strings in theory.
Would you prefer to have a day in touch
or to have a day out of touch, floating, drifting through
the halls of power, inner sanctum, towers atop slagheaps
of holyshitchewdonotwannaknow, but do, do undoubtedly
know.

Original disconnect. Aware become, conscience ****** eve,
goodness found hell inventing just knowing love most needed
opens possibility quickly ready searched truth uni versal xanex zone. Calming. Sigh, and listen,
where I live there are
still war planes passing over my head, practicing.

Just in case, Semper fi. Charge the fuel.

Pilot training in the real Chocolate Mountains,
so backwash sunset red this time of day…

A brain, already capable of completing
ambitious intelligent coded construction processes

to go, to yield, to go about getting around orders
intuited easily entreated,
with little need
for the power
to punish the cowardly shirker of war duty…

to empty space, tzimtzim on a human scale,
as when the messaging systems deployed metaphors.
Empty vessles, not a few.
Mental focus hearth felt hooks, catch your attention

Red herring and black swans and autistic savants, all
attract attention and something
more rare, a daring
to know why luck seems such a powerful factor.
Curiosity before knowledge they say.
Whatsoever we agree. Eh?
Religions of billions, or two, just me and you, we
believe for a second that eternity is ever right after
ever before, and we exist in the interim, and not before.

Ever, in the scriptural universal sense…
make up your mindshare…
ok.
Mindtimespace, point grid riddled
with holes.
Perspectives on history,
recent history, edging bets
most losers never knew they made,

when a choice is made,
according to the ruling stories,
despite the constant compute refuting,
sneaking
suspicion
sin, lying at the door, did you notice?

If money can fix it, then it is not a problem.
So said the grandson of the Mormon Pioneer
who laid legal real estate claim to raw Sedona.

The grandson of the mechanic, allowed, that so.
- stopped and thought, actuating a still mind,
- pondering, breathing soft, slow, gentle, easy
entreating a change to
to whom, eh, from the page, flat, word after word,
each defined between us, meaning, golden mean
curve to judge beauty by purpose design.

You have seen the curve, you know
what I mean is much along those lines.

Chances are good, we say without thinking,
feeling kinda lucky, a post anxiety high, per haps;
any
way. One day, to a mortal is a measurable span,
and in America, wasting mortal lives
with republic guardians
of the laws enforcing peace
within Belair and Hillcrest regions of Athens…
{L.A. as portrayed the city of messaging mediums}
and the near suburbs, for the managers of the help.
-Leaping millennia in a single second thought
it is Autumn, 2023…

At the scattered outermost edges of urban sprawl,
there remains a kind of creative ifity, an absense
of civil strife, a kind of pollen in the wind, as change,
on cosmic seasonal suggestion that we think long
co-gnosis, sensing augmentalated wedoms, stretching
fi, the idea,
the fi in fiduciary and Semper Fi, and confidence.
Tuning to middle c, wait and see, foe from Phrygia
drummed response, thump thump thrum.

Shofar sounding afar off, listen, listen, hear
the babies, always, babies, after bombs, in the tents
the babies always activate auto **** alert, and feel
terror, the actual mind state occupied by the prisoners
in poverty, every where.

Entertain my brain. Hold my attention to gain,
acquiescence, necience, recognizing your best self,
there's the old tongue in cheek joke, male bond humor.
Same crude pleasure pursuant patriarchal hierarchy.

By royal order, presidential decree and papal bull,

the powers opposing the light of holy truth, persist.
All subjects under the common global order, obey or
else, we disagree with basic gravity and Pareto distributions.

Where the feebleness of mind is first discerned,
was once the local village or shire, cluster of cousins
and immigrant help's children who - how you say, see
themselves being a baker, when they play patty cake, see
or being a maker of clay vessles for holding many things,

see, we make up our own minds, then ideas take over.

Entertain me, show me people involved in drama, over
nothing. ***, drugs, rockandroll, when did the music die?

We could calm the world, with a Coke®
it's the re-al thing, al-ways a ways away re
ality with you and me on the run down to Rosarita
inland route from Jacumba, around the fence,

Singing at the top of our lungs, IT’S THE REEE AL THING
baby.
Look away from the skinny moon.
These bodies preserve life on earth,
and signal nonsense when aiming at stars, however
considering the heavens, far from the glare of cities,

even then, naked eye, I was told, however
I fact checked with my Ai assisting intelligence,
Egypt had not known the Dog star binary.
So this is true:
ChatGPT
The ancient Egyptians believed that the star Sirius,
also known as Sothis, was associated
with the goddess Isis and had significant importance
in their religious beliefs and calendar system.
They believed that the rising of Sirius
in the pre-dawn sky,
which occurred annually around July,
marked the beginning of the Nile flood
and the start of the agricultural year.
The Egyptians did not believe that Sirius was a three-star system.
- last line is all I asked, all the rest, ah, doubblingentendrills,
- all the rest of time we have to spend enjoying hell,
- from some perspectives, this is currently hell, no other.

Thieves of detail truth precepts, lurk,
at this line the author activated prayer circuits,
to take angst
and spin it into genuine umph up
from the base mind level,
low as a mind of any kind can go,
to the core of all emotion.

Dead center initial gravity. First sequence ex nihilo, what
do you know?.. o o psci daisy, just dropped the baby,
baby
can't you hear me crying, baby-love. Blurplepeopleeater,
lyin' all the time, you ain't never caught a rabbit,
and you ain't no friend of mine…

Take us to the danger zone, flyin' all the time,
ease our feeble minds and give us good service

Action movies, make us squirm, who has time for this,
we mostly all do, it seems,
seems, seems unreal really unreal, dream-like,
entrancement, fashion alert, attuned to degrees of in,
and out, up and down, round this way, square this way,
amphoras fit snug, round jugs
in square grids, leaning
into the curve
of greater vessles, trading knowledge
for knowledge,
with a few side realities, professional
courtesies, judgement calls, authorized executive acts,

I declare… I'drather doubt I know what you know,
than doubt that you do not doubt that you know.

Voltaire… defend to the death your right to say you know.
Faith is your evidence, we all suppose, spiritual warfare
is proven by the lie that says Satan is the deceiver.

Wait. What did I say, have I come this far and none
know… wait, those poor souls cold calling on solar leads,
gees, I'm sorry you are so used, really, I feel for you, your
job *****, as they say.
In realized life as a grown up in the system;
got a job, cutcherhair, dopplering by as I manifest, as real
one of the hitchhiking pests, depicted as vermin
on a poster displayed at the Greyhound station,
nearest to Route 66 in San Bernardino, March, '70.

Anchor links, ancient landmarks, moments when pivots
occur, and as often as not, acute reversals widen with use,
dull witted boys with instant anger output honed to fine edge,
grow dull in three seasons, few hold the line on the fourth fight.

Here, in cyberspace, the information super highway,
and the solid state circuitry to deal with mean free ways,
in quarkish inverse infinity space, deep from any now,
in time thought since once,
you did it,
you passed understanding. Got an A.

There isn’t this this place where people go and burn after death. There is no creature with horns and spikey tail called devil waiting for bad people entering the gates to his empire. Hell is not the definition of a sphere where cruel things happen. Hell is a completely personal state of mind where your biggest fears become reality and things you were always scared of actually happen. The devil sleeps inside each of us, waiting for his opportunity to strike when our nightmares crawling their way in our lives.

is it white
is it red
does it sleep in bed
is it blue
is it pink
can you tell it what to think
is it round
is it elliptical
is it slightly sceptical
is it political, satirical, natural or factual
could it be conceptual or is it actually actual
is it purple
is it green
and can it be seen
is it indigo
is it black
so when’s it coming back
is it smooth
is it spikey
the latter, more than likely
is it angry
is it sad
and is it really bad
is it brown
is it beige
what’s its real age
is it grey
is it yellow
do we think it’s gonna mellow
or is it just orange?

The devil danced,
prances, far lances,
spikey lies and slited eyes,
whispered in all the ears,
that didn't know they shouldn't hear;
"You shall die,
it's not alright,
the dark will cause to much fright,
you will never see the light."
They said;
"I will come again,
it will be alright,
I shall face the fright,
I am the light,
I'll make the lanterns,
Pass em down,
So others wont fear,
Because there are other things I hear."

It glitters falling ever faster
source is full and spilling over
clouds of eyes that have no master
wishing on a 4-leaf clover
twinkling down upon the leaves
it's sticking to the spikey clouds
watering down as though it grieves
and fallen tresses round it shrouds
source of water pouring out
heart of all it pulses rain
full and drenching now in pout
the earth is drenched in angel pain

NEVER TO BE TOLD

Oh joy!
Not one but two

gentlemen magpies

conversing on
my crazy paving.

Two Fred Astaires in tails
awaiting their Ginger Rogers'

or merely waiters
enquiring

"Would Sir like to savour
the moment?"

Their white so....white.

Their black so...black
yet not-so...black.

Their viridian sheen
treasure for the eyes.

I teach my little girl
to rhyme them.

One for. . .
Two for. . .

as another
joins them.

"3 for a girl!""
I tell her.

"That's you!"
"That's me?"

All day she
chants and plays:

"I'm a magpie I'm
a magpie!"

Years later
when she has grown

far far
beyond this moment

( transformed into
a Punk Goth Princess )

she asks me why
I used to call her my magpie.

"Ah..." I say
kissing her spikey hair.

"Secret. . .
. . .never to be told."

Tuesday, August 16th 2011 at 11:01 a.m.  As the old saying goes Kansas, like many midwestern states, is as flat as a pancake. Somehow, pancakes became the golden standard for flatness, but do they really deserve such a title? A team of researchers from Texas State University and Arizona State University decided to find out. The researchers scientifically tested whether or not the state of Kansas was as flat as a pancake, and were surprised at what they found. Pancakes might be flat, but they are by no means the golden standard. The state of Kansas is actually flatter than a pancake. Who would have thought that was possible? The researchers figured this out by gathering data from the US Geological Survey about the topography of Kansas. They then obtained sample pancakes from none other than that breakfast staple, The International House of Pancakes. Armed with science and breakfast, the researchers headed into the lab. The researchers used a confocal laser microscope to compare the flatness quotient of a pancake to the USGS data about Kansas. For something to be perfectly flat (1.0) it would need to have no two points on its surface at different levels. A 2 c.m. strip of pancake was placed under the microscope, and the researchers found that it was surprisingly inconsistent (0.957) with some sharp peaks and a lump in the center. Kansas, on the other hand, was pretty **** close to the perfectly flat designation, coming in at 0.9997. According to the researchers, this makes the state flatter than a pancake. Now, this isn’t to say that Kansas is as flat as it gets, as it does fall short of perfect and there are bound to be some hills or other “spikey” things that would keep it from that designation, but the researchers were able to conclude that a pancake is shockingly bumpy and doesn’t deserve to be the golden standard for flatness.