It’s a slow slide to somewhere else...

He shuffles, stumbles stammers and he sleeps.

He knows I am his brother.
I help him go for a wee in a bowl,
we’re standing by the commode.

He shuffles back to his comfy chair

but only with my help.

“Are you my brother?”
“I am,” I say.

Six years is a biggish gap between siblings.

‘Our Brian’ tolerated me...

”Take Chris to the pictures”...
”Aw Mum, I’m 18... he’s only 12!!!”

He headed on out with his mates, smirking,
waving a *** and a ciggie.

But, when he needed a whizzo batsman for his cricket team,
who knew?
 I was strangely unavailable...
But, I capitulated and said “OK I’ll play for you!” We won!
At 81 he shuffles, he stammers, stumbles and he sleeps.

He employed 300 people in factories overseas,

spoke with authority, negotiating with emperors -
always with total ease.
Today he talks in whispers, his larynx squeaks;

clatters like a broken pipe, every time he speaks...

He shuffles, he stammers, stumbles and he sleeps
...for most of every day.
“
I am your brother aren’t I?”

“You certainly are”, I say.

He was the head of magistrates handing down the law...
I joked... I called him ‘hang ‘em high Bri’,

him judging slightly to the right of Atilla the ***.

I remind him of his past... We smile ...
(because of course it wasn’t true)....

The last thing to die will be his sense of fun.
He shuffles, stammers, stumbles and he sleeps.

He played prop forward for Birmingham Moseley’s first team, maybe his problems started way back when...

too many head clashes, line outs, scrum downs...

That’s the last thing you’d think about back then.
But there’s long term damage you might do...by just ‘being’.
He stumbles, stammers, shuffles, 
dummies
and scores in his dreams...as he sleeps.

He even went to garden parties at the Queen’s Equery’s behest
as well as, whilst in India, often - he’d be a Maharajah’s guest.
And, when you mention it, he just smiles wryly

and stares, with rictus grin. He IS in there!
That’s the trouble though... he sometimes IS locked IN!
He stumbles, stammers, shuffles, smiles -
and he does love to rest.
But sometimes he will rally with a string of memories
all lucid and true... and, if there’s food involved
he’ll be at the table way ahead of you.
That’s the quick shuffle!

He makes good progress 
through all his favourite stuff,
Then he’ll lie in his reclining chair 
and enjoy that customary nap

You watch him closely - making sure he’s still breathing
- thank heavens for that!

He stumbles, wheezes when he talks -

and shuffles when he walks...
He shuffles, stumbles...then he sleeps!
“You are my brother aren’t you?”
“You know I am - for keeps!
Love you Bri!”

velvet moon stammers
mark the coo l ****** of an a-

       lmost-summers-day

timid odors yawning across the closing buds
gossamer pallor strong fragile lilies tumbling
s    p      r        a    w          l over coloured filaments
revolting abyss shapeless rigid absolute drooping

scratch the cobalt fluid sky meadow tremendously tiny pillars
woundless bleeding bled chromatic shivers to wrack the
dying

            phosphorus

                                    sunship

                                                     noisy

                                                                  folds of silence

shine saliva;wax the fledgling night birds cold wings fluttering in myarms

a simply complex indivisible division comes to day and says

                "now shall come this end but: no fear; it will be so
again" so caress every ideal nothing and come into my hallow
and i will lacquer you with my imperfect kiss till rises the falling
star sheet. and plays the song of birth from crimson licked hills
wearing the crumbles of

                                                 a) such lovely      ...

Two fictional characters
walk into a bar

in Malta
( * Marsaxlokk - to be precise ).

"To...be....tooo beee. . ."
stammers Hamlet.

"Oh fer Gawd's sake...two beers!"
J. Alfred Prufrock snaps.

"You really milk that
"To be or not..." thingy."
J.A.P. scolds Hamlet.

"Tsk...tsk!" Hamlet tsk tsks.
( sticking his tongue out ).

Two Cisks are plonked
down before them.

"No...I am not Prince Hamlet or
was meant to be..!"
J.A.P. quotes him self.

"Awww fer Jaysus sake...loooook
just for the fun of it...the gas of it

we swop
texts!"

Hamlet interrupts Prufrock's
protestations.

"Ohhhh....o.....K?"
Prufrock ponders somewhat doubtfully.

And, so:
Hamlet the Dane

( for yea it is indeed he)
dares

(1) to eat a peach (2) wear the bottoms of his white
flannel trousers rolled (3) parts his hair behind even

(4) dares
to aks

the overwhelming question

"( Oh, do not ask, what is it! )"

Oh & (5) gets to hear
( ** ** ** )

"...the mermaids singing...."

Prufrock "Hum...."
kills the king.

Becomes the king.

Beds.
Weds
Ophelia.

" Buzz buzz...come come..go...go!"

"It's a very foreshortened
Hamlet...I know

but - what the heck!

"See..? slurps Hammy
". . . now, that wasn't so bad...was it?"

"Another Cisk?"
"Naw...I'll have a Becks!"

"Jaysus Prufrock now
...what's up?"

"Don't know..."mutters J.A.P.
wearing a frothy beer moustache.

"HURRY UP PLEASE...IT'S TIME!"
roars the barman in Maltese.

"I can connect nothing
with...nothing!"
Prufrock almost sobs.

"Like that time
on Margate sands..."

Hamlet cuts him curtly off.

"Don't even go...there!"

"But I still get that squirmy
...you know...feeling

we are just
fragments of

the imagination of
some *long haired Irish poet

sunning himself by
the waters of

the shimmering waters of
a Sliema hotel pool

...up up in the clouds!

Hamlet sighs.

"Yeah, me too
spooky...innit?"

Hamlet looks behind him
checking for what isn't

there. . .

"Ahhhh well, never mind eh?"

Prufrock attempts an attempt
at being cheerful.

Fails miserably.

"Let us go, then
you and I...

when the evening is spread out
against the sky..."

Like a patient etherised upon a table!
they both sing outta time and outta tune

stumbling one
into the other.

A long hair Irish poet
smiles as he watches them

go.

"Għaġġel fil-għoli...wasal iż-żmien JEKK JOGĦĠBOK!"
the barman roars.

NOTES

Pronounced MAR SA SCHLOCK. Those Maltese Xs being really SHs in disguise.

* Pronounced CHISK but the new barman is obviously new to the language and pronounces it TSK which makes him think that is what our two fictional characters are ordering.

Not to be confused with mobile texting but rather the literary texts of which both of them owe their existence.

* The play bounded in a nutshell as it were.

One Donall Gearld Oliver Denis Dempsey is a good example of this sort.

* The No. 1 song all over Heaven...beating Sparks THE NO. 1 SONG ALL OVER HEAVEN  to the top spot.

** "Għaġġel fil-għoli...wasal iż-żmien JEKK JOGĦĠBOK!" Once again the new Irish barman hasn't got his tonsils around the Maltese lingo and comes out with this terrible mish mash of the typical barman's cry.

There he is
the loudest guy in the bar
Boasting about clandestine OPS
and battles he’d ‘prefer not to remember’,
But he does,
because he has an audience

There he was in Ramadi, Korengal,
Tikrit, Kandahar, pinned down by dozens,
no hundreds, of enemy fighters.
His best mate, was hit by shrapnel or an enemy round.
He screams for Doc
But no help comes
The barroom hero
applies a compression bandage,
but the blood continues to flow through his fingers
Minutes pass, his buddy worsens.
Doc arrives, finally.
The buddy is stabilized and loaded onto a stretcher
He’ll be on the first bird out

The battle hardened warrior continues his tale,
regaling his table with airstrikes, CQB, and
taking the battle to the enemy.

Someone asks, “What unit were you in?”
He replies proudly, “The Second Ranger Battalion.”

You set your own beer down and spin from your chair.
You make your way from your table to his.
You place a silver coin upon it,
“Second Ranger Battalion,” you say,
“Coin Check.”

The color drains from his face
Fear in his eyes and an ‘Oh ****’ expression on his face,
He stammers something about being ‘attached’
and having orders for Ranger School once.

Your icy glare tells him that he’d better
**** and **** before he is no longer able to do either.

He throws a $20 onto the table and finds his way to the door.

******* ****.

Crowded by the ceiling’s emptiness (the room sticky with whispers)
names carved into grimy tiles, final shadows
            of the footsteps now hugged in dust,
                        and the ashes dulled the slapping of
                        feet on the ladder’s last rung.

            Huddled in the sour dimness of his shadow
                        is where our parents hid the prayers
                        that went undelivered –
[cloistered, naïve faith off Jacob’s Ladder]

He asked me questions that pricked too deeply –
            that fingernail clipped too short --
            as the invading hand of ******* parted words and stammers
            to play shadow puppets with, what Plato called,
            “three times removed” from the Truth.
And when leaving the choir’s balcony,
one can find the thumbtack of feeling in which
the glass-saints sweat all the industrialized emotions onto one’s brow.
            Does it seem like suffering? Catholic’s suffering.
Giving room for error in your lapse in charity.

In elementary school, we left our classrooms --
            two-by-two like businessmen arguing on the sidewalk --
Every Tuesday at 2:10pm to the hidden alcove that the administration
            gave
            to us.
Mrs. Condon, a strictly fat woman, strictly speaking,
dressed in red vests
and constricting black slacks, with a white binder,
salted as the laughter left in her footprints, reproving us that
as the Gifted and Talented, we must exercise
those gifts and talents.

I wrote a 256-paged novel that bought me one year
of slacking off behind a wooden desk because I was
11 years old
and that fact bought a bulbous beet of conditioning into the
curriculum. Ms. Condon made me edit my peers’ essays, give them grades
when all I wanted to do was play four square.

As I perched on my stool in class, properly equipped with unforgiving,
admonishing, Catholic red pens to point out other
11 year old’s punctuation and proper word usage. Like a tie to a neck, I
fiddled in vernacular, phrases, and semantics
as I unconsciously stacked layers of social prejudice, thicker
than the walls between silent parents, between some students
and I.
Stacked as quaintly as words upon words – hand over hand.

Mrs. Condon, Mrs. CEO, Ms. Too-Good-For-This, Bourgeois vs. Proletariats, I am the Marquis.

Like hounds held by leashes, the others locked to rebel, then whimpered to trail back, tails in hand.

Gifted and groomed to stack one spurned cinder block on social mobility.

In a whirr of dandelions, dice, and tax breaks, I knew how it felt to remain aloft, aloof --
            Mrs. Condon rewarded me with the cherry Twizzler of my spine
            and patted my head like the lapdog that I had been.

I'm going to write this poem how I talk in real life so... don't judge how I talk!

T-The S-shy One
T-The S-Skid-dish One
Th-Those are m-my nickna-ames
E-Everyone s-says that I-I'm j-just like H-Hoodie from C-Creepypasta
Oo
W-Which I am
B-Because h-he stammers t-too
L-Look him u-up

E-Everyday I'm l-limping down the h-hallway because m-my foot is b-bad and I h-hear:
"There she goes!"
"What's up with the limp?"
"Hey! Hoodie! I have cheesecake!"
S-Seriously
E-Everyone knows a-about C-Creepypasta
M-My best friend is C-Crystal
S-She is my M-Masky
W-We both <3 ch-cheesecake

O-Or I could b-be Canada
Fr-om H-Hetalia
Hetalia i-s an anime o-on Netflix
So yeah that happened Oo

Colossal, climactic  clouds

Caught in a canopy of blue

Clear.
Cascading.
Calming.

Captures eyes within it's countless hues.

A blue of such hue my mind never once knew

Least that's what i felt

And it definately felt true.



Simultaneously I see sudden shooting sunlight

A seamlessly stupendous splendor, it stammers my senses

It shines, shimmers, sinks into my supple skin.

My Stimulations soaking; I submit from within

I succumb.
I smirk.
I think and say


'Surrounded by shivering delight, Surely I am safe today!'


Least, that is what it felt to be true.

But as if i actually knew.




Whilst waning wrapping waves

Of whipping white-water

Washes out to a wide horizon

Willingly captures my once wandering eyes.


Wait though.


It's all sinking in now. Woe.


Weeping with what I wanted to be  joy

I wail

I whisper 'Where does the water start, and the sky begin?'

And that question, triggers it within.

The last word really

Begin.

When did this begin?

And a blanket of black, blinding blankness, descends.

I blame

I whimper

I whisper

'Did it really have to end?'

But it has the better of me now.



And harsh reality I cannot shake.




I wake.

The perfume of warm caramel married to spiced pumpkin permeates the amiable atmosphere
The stifling heat stammers a tired goodbye and welcomes the blushing breeze
Shorter days feel interminable as the lethargic sun sleeps behind comfortable clouds
Courageous colors in leaves, calming colors in the sky
The pure scent of rain washes over parched life and pushes people indoors

chew your thoughts with your mouth open

i want to see
all of you
teeth, tongue, throat, synapse, neuron
stammers and spasms and
flashes of crippling vulnerability
streams of lucid genius
speechlessness' met with
one single look that utters sunsets
giddy ****** kid

i want it
glitch and all

There is an uncomfortable ledge on the tip
of your tongue. It is the place where your
flimsy thoughts uneasily sway, and in these
debating moments of loosely hanging on,
you decide to spit or swallow. For you, it is
the worst place for words to stoop, and
sometimes your tongue just flicks them out
like cigarette buds and all you can do is look
down the ledge in disbelief. I catch the words
at the bottom, salvaging rusted-penny-like
sentences. If I pocket enough, I know I will
be able to give them worth. I will surely turn
uncertain stammers into something much more
amiable and toss myself up the sill; our anxious
balconies colliding and combining. I absorb
the last fretful words, out of your mouth,
and sip the apology slowly off your lips.

At Fuller's emporium of whiskers and wine,
As matches are struck on the no smoking sign.

Mr Terry Fuller, of reddened face refined,
Regiments and orders his elbows aligned;
With stories of rumour, football, *******,
Thieves, my boy and across Texas by trucking.
  
He loudly regales to the spirits of faces,
"Me and my boy have been to some places,  we've seen some girls, he gave em' rub,
As I was too busy running the pub."

Howling as they're told, sighing in ease,
Mr Daniels accusing "who's round is it please?"

When shadowed in doorway, tip-toes, a pale boy.  
Stringy, svelte and painfully coy.  
Debate is lulled, as men catch scent.
"Don't come in here boy, or your money'll be spent."

Roaring,rumbling, the boy  unsettled in mirth.
"He can't buy any beer, he's only just had his birth."

Half-pint of breath, the boy stammers to say.
"I just was curious, i mean, I ask, if I may-"
A bellowing fanfare, "Speak up or go away!"

"I just wanted to know what you do with your day?"

Mr Fuller, heaving his pink smirking bulk, anchored by his drink.  
"We work, we go home and we pub till we sink."

Troughs raised in toast, raining down on bald heads.
As the boy puzzling thinks what the bulbous man said.

"Then tomorrow" yelped the youth.

"What do you do after that?"
"More of the same, till God's on the mat!."

Throned by grey faces, blanketed in smoke,
As the toothless, eggs titter at the nonsensical joke.

Raising a tiny limb, "So this happens everyday?"
Mr Fuller rubbed his hands, "I wouldn't have it another way."

The alphas puffing , guffawing, dribbling beer down chins. And for blood-vesseled faces another story begins.

As the silhouetted boy under a veil of tears, whispers "I'm so sorry" and leaves.

In Fuller's emporium a silence ensued,
The sound sat between them and quietly chewed.
Every brow furrowed, as the beer didn't flow.
A quiet conclusion.
"The youth of today what do they know!"

JWS

Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?

Instead, you play the part fully
As the intellectual bully
Disregarding the tears
Throwing misspelled word spears
Wielding grammar hammers
Pouncing when someone stammers
Hey, Bro! Don't you even know
What time it is?

Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?

You say you're a godly player
But you're really a Sibboleth slayer,
An ill will conveyor,
Grand total naysayer,
Once you went away but then came back
Unbelievable, you're even more whack!
Hey, Bro! Don't you really know
What time it is?

Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?

TONEY OUT - BOOM!

Love came along in my life. Hell...Christ...Cigarettes! I couldn't forgive my passion, the way it made me feel as I looked to jesus drying up in the sun. The metaphors deserve all the glory don't they? Thinking of big nights and warm lips, and all while just wanting to ****. Golden eyes resting on the gold of god, who was really just burning to see me a cowboy pacing west like a turtle. Still standing on tight-line-friends yearning from a choir of grace and speachless as nothing happens save the rise of an old moon, rest it's soul. Yet I simply cared to think of days without the open smoke which was lighter than my fingers as I touched you hard within stammers of each breathe. Years gone by and still sure he'd lost; swearing on everlasting angels.

For Robin & Emilie Stammers  

They say the universe is full of smells  
In fact tests on astronaut's suits  
Have indicated this much was true  
It seems- they say- that there are faint  
Traces of metallic smells you see?  
Not the stink of leather and bourbon  
Which emanates from my friend Robin  
Or the sweaty funk that lingers  
Where my obese neighbour goes  
There are- to put it quite simply-  
None of the rich earthy smells  
That one associates with life or living  
In the cold realms of outer space  
There are just the smells  
One would find in a science lab  
In other words metals and the  
Faint perfume of vaporous gasses  
Seeping from stars and planets  
In perpetual extra-terrestrial fartings  
Out there- where there are  
Strange cosmic happenings that  
Would blow your mind-  
The universe they say is positively stinking  
Reeking to high heavens  
You could say...  
Though of course, we can really never know  
For sure  
And that is what bothers us-  
Humans, in general, that is-  
We don't like being reminded  
Just how finite we are  
When we are surrounded  
By all that marvellous infinity

A whisper of a tale
For the father's
We knew to love
And admire through treachery
And unsought of honor -
You loved us Son's, if only the right amount

A breathe
For the mother's
Whose wear always showed
But were never bothered to ***** about
Tears invisible streamed down your face
Yet the eye's never appeared bloodshot - only your soul

A sigh
For torn sister's whose
Love was never fully embraced
Dreams embittered with stammers
Of a brain torn in two by hands
Given to you by the wicked will of chance

A laugh
For the grandparents
Whose war will never be forgotten -
Only lied about in history books
And false ideals with dollar signs for politics

A soft touch
To old love's
Their memories are the base
For a perception I am branded with,
Live with, and deal with and the
Days where I think not about the effects
Of the past are the better ones

A nod
To the enemies of this world
For they give me the right
To repress the animal within
For violence always seemed
So easy

And a drink
For all the friends
I do not see
For on this day
I do truly wish
To be near thee
Your heat
Your madness
Your stark raving genius
Of living on the edge
Of life and death

Revealing to me
In a crippling finality

They prove to be

One
And
The
Same

“Just like sparrows,
You'll never see one dead.
Must be millions of them,
but you'll hardly ever see one dead.”
What happens to them?
“They get over it.”
Over what?
“Over being there.”

They simply lie with stale fear
reaking from their skins,
for death cannot heal them.

Slowly, they let go of
each others fingers
and sink, numb,
into that thick silence.
They drown there.

A thousand soffacating creatures,
choking in a bombed-out town.

All the candles in their churches are out,
and death is a bone that stammers.

And suddenly,
they are guiltier than hell.
History counts every smudging thumbprint.

Middle-school adulthood
Picking on people is cool.
Nothing important is going on
That has anything to do with school.
Glasses make people four-eyed
Not being thin means they’re fat.
Stutters and stammers are funny
And being snotty is where it’s at.

Ding **** bell, being rich is swell
Don’t  be wimpy, not a smidge
Tree-hugging liberals can go to hell.
Revel in your white privilege.
You want to vote for a Democrat?
Have you lost your silly head?
Just check all the GOP boxes
With Daddy’s choice instead.

Now you’re all grow up today
And have a lot of political power
Which grows and grows  stronger
Each hour by Republican hour.
So don’t weaken now, baby
Do what you know is right.
Stick to your supremacist guns.
Because you know white makes might.

So use your sarcasm as a tool
Secretly whisper against the weak.
And those weak-kneed pacifists,
Those flag burning, long haired creeps;
Ignore them all; give their nose a tweak.
Just like the women you dated and married
They need to follow your lead in life.
After all, they don’t count the same as you.
The important thing is they’re just a wife.

Ding **** bell, power is swell
You never suffer, not a smidge
Don’t worry if you can’t spell.
Revel in your white privilege.
Never vote for a Democrat,
Don’t be that kind of stupid head.
Just check every the GOP boxes
Faithfully keep your state red.

I don't have the voice for spoken word
It shakes and it s-s-stammers
And I'm not too sure if it's too high or too low
But it's missing something

There's a power that wont pass these lips
And a commanding tone that can't quite rally its troops

This is no smooth, jazz inspired tongue
This tongue has been bitten
There's a metallic feeling of blood and it's pooling into deadweights
So, on this tongue lies a thousand pounds of blood stronger than feeling

And I can't quite get it out
When these words are weighed down,
These feelings sink back into my chest and the metallic taste passes these lips and forms a deadbolt

I don't have the voice for spoken word
It shakes and it s-s-stutters
And I'm not quite sure if it's just an extension of myself
Where the feeling stays inside and the blood collects
And there's always something missing

I've hauled my boyhood master -
old Mr Television down the stairs  

Now he blinks and stammers on the pavement  
even though he's not plugged in

But someone's tapping at my window -
who is she here - who leans into my room?

Long-limbed she is and dressed in green
as the mountain-ash in summer

And I climb into her arms beneath a single star - O
Mr Television - if you could see me now!

i will collect all the words you miss-spoke
it's alright,
i like them.
sincerity comes easy to you -
taking into consideration how much effort it takes to talk in the first place
you figure that you might as well say something that's ******* honest.

i like people who have stammers.

I melt with the way you look at me
Rejoicing in the sunlight that is your attention
I feel as if I could float
Until a meteorite hits
The reminder that you don't feel the same
The reminder that I'm not what you want
I hate that I feel this way for you
Because no matter how I admit it
I feel so deeply
So much more deeply than an average being
Because my emotions are intense
This feeling flows in tidal waves
Crashing against me in a pattern of warm and freezing
Warm being the moments I feel like a star in your constellation
The freezing being the reminder that you're a galaxy away
My heart stammers consistently
Whether skipping a beat at the positive attention
Or stuttering at the depression at every turn
You do not want me
As I want you
And I tell myself that's okay
But it truly hurts

It’s Friday afternoon. Anna, Lisa, Leong and I are sitting around our common room - sagging actually - after a long day.
“I need a break,” I said, “now’s the time - today, this day -  it's been a long week.”  “Document,” Leong affirmed.
“Sometimes you gotta..” Anna faded out letting an arm flop like a dead soldier.
“Let’s go OUT to dinner somewhere,” I said, “my treat.”
“We can eat for free here,” Leong said.
“We might have to economize someday,” I said, a little annoyed, “but it won’t be today.”
“Can you believe we just came back less than a week ago?” Lisa asked.
“I can’t,” Leong said.
“It’s shocking,” Anna sighed, winding a ring of her auburn hair around her index finger.
“I’ve lived many lives since then,” I admitted.
“On Wednesday,” Leong began, “I was like, I feel like I’ve been here for weeks.”

“It’s coming up on time to leave!” Anna exclaimed.
“And leave for a WHILE,” Lisa undogged.
“I’m VERY excited to leave for a while,” Leong laughed.
“It’s going to happen,” I said, like a prayer.
“Then we can come back and be like, I’m glad to be here” Lisa said
“After you’ve been gone for a while, you DO miss it.” Anna admitted, shrugging.

A hot moment later, I asked Lisa, “Should I use this for a poetry pic?” Turning my iPad in her direction, “Yeah,” she says laughing. “My hair looks like I’m coming out of a cocoon.” I added.
“You know when you don’t have enough pictures for an Instagram post?” Lisa asked, looking critically through the pics we took last night. “Look,” she says, sharing them up to our 55” TV.

After a few, I said, “Lisa and I were talking about this yesterday,” turning to Anna and Leong, a little exasperated, “Lisa, has all of these pics of me with my underwear and it’s like..”
“Wait!,” Lisa gasped, NOT on purpose! That makes it sound.. don’t SAY THAT like THAT,” she laughs.
“And it’s just like.. you don’t need to share those,” I laugh, waving my arms.
“You’re making me sound like a *******..” Lisa snickered.
“I’m not a baby!” I hooted.

“They're not at ALL ******,” Anna noted.
“I’m not saying THAT,” I winced.
“When we're drunk, at home, snapping pix and we’re wearing these little dresses..” Lisa begins, “it’s not like I’m taking pictures of your underwear” she stammers laughingly.
“There are angles and there are angles where you see!” I point at the example on the screen.  
“We were drunk!“ Lisa said, “I wasn’t trying.. YOU were drunk too!” She said, counteroffensively.
“But you were CrAzY,” I laughed.
“Crazy,” Lisa laughed, “Yeah, anyways - why’d you have to say that? You took similar pics.” Lisa added, smiling knowingly.

“No one gets to see them,” Leong said, she’s new to Instagram and Lisa is usually her mentor.
“They do if they’re public,” I noted, pointing to the little icon.
“Shut up!” Lisa snapped, “I EDIT them before I post them - blur things or whatever!”
“Ok, I said, “We don’t need to do this now.. you brought pix up.” I held up my hands in surrender.
“Jesus Christ, merzy, murble flurble,” Lisa muttered, her voice fading out into incoherence.

“But If you wait, save the good picture for a dump - then, it’s too far away to post.” Leong said.
“Well, that’s not true, I don’t believe that.” Anna chirped in, “a cool pic is always welcome.”
“I don’t like dumps,” I said, “I don’t want to scroll through a ton of someone’s pix, it’s tiring.”
“If you’ve A cool pic or even one kind of cool pic, then everyone knows what’s up, Anna offered.
“Ethos 2024,” I pronounced.
“Post whatever,” Lisa updogged, as I dabbed my lips with lip gloss.
“Can I borrow your lip gloss?” Lisa asked me, rubbing her chapped lips.
“Sure,” I said, handing it over. Yeah, we argue like sisters but friendship involves nuance and shared understandings.

“Your parents are back in Ukraine - ya? Leong asked me, “Are you going to Lisa’s? (for Christmas)”
“It’s been agreed,” I confirmed, smiling.
“We gonna tear it UP!” Lisa laughed and we high-fived, smiling in anticipation.

Slang..
Document = true, fact

I am here alive flustering
in the aroma of abusive fathers
abused mothers
of one night stands with someone’s name
you can’t recall
With a cigarette between my teeth
i remind myself
its to kick a bad habit
you are a bad habit
i’ve felt my skin cells relapse
underneath your touch
I’ve felt them sob in sobriety
often found with a glass in
my grasp i continue to
drink my liver
lucid of any transparency
because there are no
stutters in your stride
and no stammers in your sentences
for christs sake
i hear your laughter echoing in the hallways
my ears are bleeding
and my cup has gone dry darling
i can’t seem to stand
because your goodbye knocked out my knee caps
and this sobriety will **** me if I come back.

He awakens in a darkened room.

Where have I been? He thinks.
What have I done? He thinks.

He puts his feet to the floor.
Feels the texture with his soles.
Then stands up.

Rubbing his head with his tender hand
He stumbles toward the bathroom.
And looks at himself in the mirror.

A mostly unfamiliar face stars back.
Unsure of what to think
He takes a ****.
And fumbles for the TP.

He stands up.
And glances again.
Brushes his teeth.
Shaves.

Awkwardly dressing:
He belts his belt,
Ties his tie,
Laces his laces.

Out on the street,
He tastes the air.
Waiting for the bus.
Checks his watch.

9:45 am the bus arrives.
Exactly 2 minutes late.
He boards.
Finds a spot to sit.

Takes his hat off.
His overcoat.
And settles.
Paying little attention.

"Hello" she says.
He pretends not to notice,
And sits.
"Hello?" she says again, a question this time.
"Oh!" he says, surprised.  At first trying to avoid this, but realizing he cannot.
"How are you?" as if he knew who she were.
She senses his uncertainty.
"I'm great!" she says with a smile while crossing her legs towards him.
"I, uh…" he stammers, "I can tell"
"What makes you think…" she stalls. "That you can tell how I'm feeling?"
He waits, unsure of how to respond.
"You just, seemed so happy." He finally succumbs.
She smiles.

Back at her place they viciously make love.
A sub-human ****.
Afterwards, she asks him to leave.
He does.

They never meet again.

Hole in Hollow


The end was brought by men of sand
born creeping blood and streaming water.
Apocalypse fought in the heart of nature
by the hands of her heartless keepers.

In these glorious hours, mourn the grieving
this last morning, this gory evening.
Victory swept when they were dead in treason,
the ****** drenched in sweat and the wet bodies lie bleeding.

This is the end of everything,
the final fall season.


Foreword: My Plague

   This is that dream.
   I found myself on a long barren road, winding, far from the city, civilization for that matter.  My road meanders, slowly reaching my destination in what could have been a straight and focused line.  The curb reads my mind and takes me further as I try to escape it, following me.  I stutter in cursing and the clockwise becomes counter, but I age.  I age more rapidly than ever as the tape rewinds, or the record spins backwards.  My record sings supposed messages from the Devil as my existence lessens yet my sins become more.  How can I repent when there is nothing left?  There will be no wrong when I am done, but I will suffer for what wrong I had.  I will be a lie when I am not here to give the truth.  If this pain cannot be corrected, it will be shared.  This is my plague.  I will drown in this sea only knowing that I've spilled insanity's seed to blemish the water, blot the page.  This is my plague and you will feel it with me.
   I am telling the story and you are listening, with every page you read, you are the sinner's dream.  I have you.  This is my plague.  Action.

Chapter One: Love and Marriage

   "Oh, God, Bill, you must be ******* me."
   "No, Drake, I am never ******* you," I nearly shoot myself in the face and respond.
   "Same lady?"
   "Same lady," I think about how ugly she must be to keep calling and how much makeup it must take to bring her face to a tolerable state of viewing.
   "Drake, it's an outstanding fine of five thousand dollars, it's not even that big of a loss for you."
   "Then it sure as hell isn't that big of a gain for Master Rentals, BILL.  Are we even talking about the same money-******* corporation for Christ sakes, Bill?"
   "Drake, this will end in a lawsuit.  You don't have much of a choice."
   "Bill, God ******, BILL!  Stop repeating my name.  This is the reason I shouldn't have hired a male secretary in the first place, I'm entirely stressed the Hell out and have no one to comfort me because I'm not even the least bit attracted to you."
   "Drake, you're getting married," casually.
   "Bill, you're getting fired," seriously.
   I throw the phone and its base out of the open window, screaming in a wave of relief as it leaves me, and again, in pain, when I find the line still connected to the wall, and the unit hanging outside of my 12th story office which pans a great view of the Los Angeles sky and the pathetic bums beneath it.  At this point I would much prefer the phone's position in hanging from a ledge to mine, sweating in hatred, with a possibly homosexual secretary.  "Homosexual ex-secretary," I shed a tear of happiness upon this remembrance and see him in a daydream bleeding from several moderate wounds, with the only real puncture between his legs.
   I leave my office and would proceed to stab to death every male co-worker wearing a tie with a graphical pattern, but I have to get back to my apartment as soon as possible because I miss Sharon, my soon to be better half.  I am confronted by a beggar upon my exit of the building.
   "Amazing!  Two and a half seconds into hearing the door open you're already asking me for cash.  I bet you would be happy with yourself if you weren't such a worthless *******.  You'd make your father proud, but he's probably dead by now."  I remember the phone and shove the homeless Mexican to the ground, where he probably thanked me for acknowledging him.  I turn to my office window and wave a ******* at the device, dangling, swaying back and forth still.  I realize now that I had left my lights on when I came to work, but it doesn't really matter because I've only been here for a half hour and I'm already leaving.  I use a handkerchief to open the door because the handle is ***** and I fear the *** may have touched it.
   I remember on the drive home that people are **** when I see the passenger of the car in front of me throw assorted trash out of his window.  I consider beating him and the driver to death with their own exhaust pipe in the next ******* toll booth we pass through, but notice a police car following directly behind me.  The rest of my drive is calm and quiet and I try not to push too ******* the gas, as an inconsistency in acceleration is considered illegal in Los Angeles because these inconsiderate ****** don't have anything better to do than harass people who make more money than they do, maybe even by doing less work, of which I am incredibly proud to be in that sort of a position.
   I take a deep breath and enter my apartment.  I smile firmly as I notice my fiancé's puppy leaving a surprise on the welcome mat and carpet before me.  Startled, he stops abruptly and skips gleefully into the kitchen where I'm sure he will soon finish.  I apologize for interrupting.  I see the blood of my lover puddling on an expensive leather sofa that, to my memory, wasn't even present on my last visit, and follow a trail of the substance leading to the bathroom.  I realize I am fantasizing when the bathroom door swings open and Sharon smiles to my own disappointment.
   "Hunny, you're home!"
   "Hunny, I'm home.  Why did you buy that dreadful couch?"  I light up a cigar and pass her open arms for a fall onto the sofa's cushion on which she should be lifeless.
   "They say smoking causes cancer, you know?  It will **** you," sarcastic, but at the same time realistic.
   I shake my head back and forth, looking up as if I were falling, then looking down as if something fell in front of me.  Rolling my eyes in dismay, I'm thinking of something else to tell her.
   "They also say professionally trained dogs don't **** and **** on expensive carpet," quick, but at the same time commanding.
   "Why are you always so **** negative?" She screams softly, tearing up more quickly than usual.
   "Why are you always so **** positive?" I wonder if she's ever thought of dying her hair a ***** sort of blond, or dying at all.
   "Drake, you are killing me!" She screams, at the top of her lungs now, confirming my subconscious inquiry to be as positive as she is.
   "I'd have to see it to believe it."
   I am now calmly and cleverly reading the sports section of an outdated newspaper, wondering if the dog's already claimed territory on today's, showing neither affection nor displeasure in my response.
   She leaves the room crying in a manner too painful and obnoxious for me to ignore.
   "I LOVE IT HUNNY, I LOVE IT!  Keep it coming, baby.  The cameras are going wild!"  I mention this in reference to her joke of a career she took with modeling.
   How I love that woman so.  I confuse myself as I dream about making her swallow that engagement ring I got her at some point for a reason I don't understand or have lost the compassion for.
   "Did you know it was supposed to rain last month?  Have you seen today's paper?"  She had already left.  I know this because I heard the door shut two minutes ago and she left the way I came in.

Chapter Two: Milk and Eggs

   I try to act surprised as I answer the phone, but I'm entirely too fake.
   "Hey darling, I'll be home in about an hour, I decided I should get some milk and eggs before the supermarket closes."
   Milk and eggs?  Does she realize she was having a nervous breakdown only ten minutes ago?
   "Shannon, milk and eggs?"
   "..."
   "Sharon, milk and eggs?" A smooth recovery.
   "Yes, milk and eggs.  We're all out." Alright.
   I hang up the phone slowly, stalling when the receiver almost touches, waiting... nothing.  Disappointed, I walk into the kitchen and forget what I was going to do.  I remember my high school sweety as my first real loss, Shannon.  Thirsty, I reach for the milk carton and upon lifting its weightlessness, I scream and hope Shannon knows what to expect when she gets back.  Sharon.  I look at my watch, quickly realizing I had spaced out for a time period of at least forty-five minutes.  I have fear that she will get back sooner than she expects, so I leave and choose to head for my office, but panic at my choices in transportation.  I never have this problem in the morning, I'm always wholeheartedly Bentley or Mercedes, but the afternoon is an entirely different story.  Sporty or speedy?  An eye at my watch tells me I don't have time for this, so I sob and hail a taxi.
   I can't become comfortable upon settling into the cheap interior with the non-leather backseat and realize I should have taken the Mercedes.  It's too late now because Sharon might be back.
   "Whey' you wan' go?"  The hardly English-speaking driver wails like a Puerto Rican, but upon further study, seems to be quite a Mexican.
   "Wan' go office."  The driver gives me shifty glances after this, squinting with a suspicious paranoia, first into the rearview mirror and secondly after turning around to face me.  I laugh and tell him to just go straight and stop stealing all of the American jobs.
   We pass by my office building where I wish my phone had fallen to some young child's death, or a welfare-dwelling tax-money-******* minority, but it hangs, relentless to my hunger.  I aspire to one day not think of ******, but I could stab the driver and roll him into a pond and be on my way just as well.
   On the walk home, I notice the relationship between the night sky I sleep under and the monster of which it makes me.  I'd try to elaborate, but I'm not quite sure I could.  My sleep is done when I wake up with Sharon nudging me, taking the best of one world and murdering it with the worst of another.  It is so unnecessary but happens nonetheless, hopelessly.
   Here I am, on my bed soaked in a cold sweat, Sharon crawling naked over me, salt on my tongue from my cheeks' streaming.
   "Good morning, sunshine.  Why the tears?"
   "What happened to the evening?"
   Upset, I'm sure now that I should remember something of the night before, probably better than I just made it out to be.  I've just had problems caring since she began speaking to me two years ago.  She flattens herself, chest to my lap, smiling to my reaction.
   "That always happens when I wake up." I try my best to **** her satisfaction.
   "I'm so sure."
   She has a great body, I'm just not sure I want to remind her.  The television suddenly turns itself on as the button on the remote must have pushed itself under the sheets, her eyes roll and she stammers, then passes out on top of me.  I slip out from beneath her, making that light slurping sound that means you're being careful with my lips tightened to the muscles in my neck.  I realize that was entirely unnecessary when I see the empty pill bottle on the counter, Xanax, prescribed yesterday.  I slam it against her face and pull her off the bed by her hair.

Chapter Three: New Girl

   "So, what's been in your system lately?" Roger asks lightheartedly.
   "It's been a heavy rotation between Bright Eyes and Chevelle."
   "Bright Eyes can cry me a freaking river with Justin Timberlake for all I care.  Goodman, the indie scene *****, get over it.  Have you listened to the new Hawthorne Heights I loaned you?"
   "Maybe."
   "Well, did you like it?"
   "Yes and no..."
   "Eh?"
   "Yes, I liked it... and no, I lied."
   "What's wrong with it?"
   "You know how you said cry me a river with Justin Timberlake?"
   "Whatever man, they scream and stuff though."
   "I'm leaving."
   "What did you do with my CD?"
   "I don't remember.  I would check the surrounding dumpsters of the place at which you forced it onto me."  I almost interrupt myself.  With frustration, "Again, I'm leaving."
   I get out of the car and walk around the traffic jam around us.  I arrive at the office thirty minutes before Roger's emo ***.
   "I thought you were carpooling with Roger this week, Drake?"
   "I don't carpool, I'm rich."  This nameless ****** is wearing a tie with a Christmas tree on it, out of season, and he will regret it one day, if I have to do it myself.
   I'm sitting at my desk and my view of the new secretary's skirt is brought to a sad closure when Roger bursts through my door, interrupting her sorting of my files and sending her backward about two feet in fright.
   "Where is my CD, Goodman?"  He has this real joke of a ******* look about him and it really makes me want to see his small intestine hang from a ceiling fan.
   "I'll get you a new one once you apologize for what you said about Conor."
   "Conor?"
   "Yes, Conor."
   "... Oberst?"
   "Yes, Conor Oberst."
   "Oh my GOD, you are still not over that whole Bright Eyes thing?"
   "Get out of my office, you little ******!"  I seriously pelt him with tens of pencils from the intricately placed holder on my desk and he leaves, feeling my superiority reign.
The phone rings three times and I let my machine pick it up, I thought it was set for two rings.  I remember now.
   "WHO the HELL put the PHONE BACK IN MY OFFICE?  WAS IT YOU?  YOU LITTLE *****!"  I'm sure she hears me and is petrified, wherever she has run off to in the time of my distraction.
   "I'm sorry I can't make it to the phone right now, I am at an important meeting with representatives from an almost higher power.  If you are calling for business discussion, leave a message at the beep.  If you're Sharon, take the phone and-"  Click.  They forgot to leave a message.  I paper airplane a death threat into the back of a fellow employee's head, he's been standing outside of my office looking at something on the floor for at least thirty seconds, ***** looking skater hair.  I quickly get back to reading papers of a nature similar to the one I just used.  He turns ninety degrees and reads, almost aloud, I surprise myself as I read his lips to remember what I put.
   Another ninety degrees and I see him glance at me in the corner of my eye.  I lower my forehead to see past my reading glasses, raise my eyebrows, and then tighten my chin, waving ninety with my left hand leisurely.  He turns as my waving registers, entirely stiff, ninety to the left, robotically, and continues on his way, probably to a cubicle.  I shake my head.  Left, right, tilt down seamlessly, left, right.  I hope my secretary saw that, as it was a rather smooth execution.  She already left.  ****** at this, I throw my papers outside of my window and the phone rings.  "Who put my phone back in my office, anyway?"  I'm ******.  Sharon leaves a message this time, still at the third ring.  "... I was just wondering if you wanted to go with me to church tomorrow.  That's all."  This just reminds me that I'm at work on a Saturday, I don't remember why.
   "Idiot."  I swear I hear her digestive system breaking down a variety of entire pills, maybe whole bottles, as she hangs up.  "Sunday ****** Sunday" by U2 surprises me on the radio.  Nothing that good ever gets played around here.  I'm not going to church and I'm leaving work early today to wring some dove's neck in the park.

Chapter Fear: Satisfaction

   Fear is a funny thing.  Some people claim they've known it all of their life and then they go on to say that they can smell it.  You can NOT smell fear, if you could I would be among the first of its acquaintances.  You can see fear, you can hear it, feel it, sometimes I think I taste it, but you only smell sweat and body waste.  Sweat can be brought about by many different methods, but it smells the same within all of them.  Fear is only one of these occurrences.  Jogging too fast makes you sweat, even I sweat.  Seeing someone's eyes grow wide with awe is fear.  Watching their body twitch before you've even touched them is fear.  A grown man crying is fear.  Hearing it... the certain deep breathing not attainable by jogging too fast is fear.  It sounds as though his or her life is about to end and he or she wants to take as much air as he or she can with him or her in one breath just in case it is his or her last.  I feel as though I've rambled or that you've lost yourself somewhere, but far beyond that, it is disappoint

Ear worms during zen prove that left to nothing, popular culture will take my attention.
So let them create their music: an evil in the Hadiths of Islam, and a degradation in the Pali Canon.
Music's flames burn away the veins and stupify the mind.
The heart is replaced with straw and the liver is poisoned.

Baha'u'llah said music is lawful as long as it uplifts the spirit.
But I say:
It eats the organs, toxifies the blood.
It makes me forgetful of liberation.
Its words are idols against the Path.
It masks the senses.
It trivializes reason.
It points the disposition into darkness upon darkness.
It deafens the ears.

It lightens the body.
It stammers the sense of smell.
It invades attention and enslaves the mind.
It dries the throat.
It displaces the sense of location.

With a nervous chuckle,
He stammers frantically
about desire.

I sigh and turn away,
Giving his concubine
A little bit of privacy.

It didn't matter anyway.
I never expected
Love to exist.

My expectations were correct.
This is what I get
For caring,

"
                                                               ­                                                                 ­                  s
                                             ­                                                                 ­                                o  
                             ­                                                                 ­                                                    r
           ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­ t
                                                              ­                                                                 ­                           o
                                    ­                                                                 ­                                                     f
          ­                                                                 ­                                                      b
                                                               ­                                                                 ­     r
                                                               ­                                                                e    
                                                           ­                                                                 ­         a
                                                               ­                                                              t
                                                               ­                                                                 ­        h
                                                       ­                                                                 ­         i
                                                               ­                                                                 ­     n
                                                               ­                                                                 ­ g

                                                              ­                                                thing
           ­                                                                 ­                                    breath gulping leaves
                                                          ­                                                          you
   ­                                                                 ­                                                   stand sternly sweet
                                                           ­                                                                 ­(in night you do)
                                                             ­                                                               y
­                                                                 ­                                                         o
      ­                                                                 ­                                                     U
          ­                                                                 ­                                                         stand neatly
                                                          ­                                                                 ­    between heaven
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                    and aching dirt
                                                            ­                                                                 ­  you heave an errant sigh
                                                            ­                                                                 ­  and thrustward falling
                                                         ­                                                                 ­     eaves you mingle pinkly
                                                          ­                                                                 ­    (your heart stammers)
                                                       ­                                                                 ­        between beauty
                                                          ­                                                                 ­     and i arrive on your
                                                            ­                                                                 ­   naked impossible skin
                                                            ­                                                                 m
                                                               ­                                                            y
                                                               ­                                            own
                                                             ­                                      skin
                                                            ­                        and sweat
                                                           ­                                 r
                              ­                                                           i
                                                               ­                                g
                                                               ­                          h
                                                               ­                                 t
                              ­                                                                 ­     into
                                                       ­                             your
                               ­                                                     clefted heap
                                                            ­                       my ardent
                                                          ­                                sting




                       ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                                    '

i sing for all mama but
give it up for single momma
i applaud to her names which is
uttered in murmur
in a society inebriated with ignorance
her name is whispered
in stammers
behind stunners you are looked down
on
you are regarded with scorn and
disdain
with abuse and insults your names
they stain
'single?'
politically incorrect
you are a plural;parents
you play the role of a mother and a
father
yet the society try to push you further
forget you've been there during joy
and strife
calming down all the storms in life
you are that rifle that combats rivals
your bullets saves during upheavals
life with you is always a win owing all
to you
a blue letter a baloon to blew later
BINGO
raising kids in absence of a man who
sired them
then grew tired and treated you like
a hired maid
left you with no aids
sorry he only donated AIDs positive
you deserve more than negative
a woman who has been in the receiving
end
of blows is entitled to a bow
it hurt more than a thorn to see a
woman heart
torn,her soul burdened by tons of
grief
it really ****** to see her shredded
into pieces
then treated like faeces in the faces
of chauvinist
till when shall they impel single moms
to hide behind sunglasses
as their son glances?
you deserve more than back biting
hypocrisy blinds them from seeing
your hard fighting
this society is hand biting
you are strong beings mentor you've
been
in physical and mental
though some view you like a zero
hell no
to me you are a hero
who can heal all