You always read about it:
the plumber with twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.

Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son's heart.
From diapers to Dior.
That story.

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

Or the charwoman
who is on the bus when it cracks up
and collects enough from the insurance.
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
That story.

Once
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
The man took another wife who had
two daughters, pretty enough
but with hearts like blackjacks.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
Her father brought presents home from town,
jewels and gowns for the other women
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
She planted that twig on her mother's grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.
Whenever she wished for anything the dove
would drop it like an egg upon the ground.
The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

Next came the ball, as you all know.
It was a marriage market.
The prince was looking for a wife.
All but Cinderella were preparing
and gussying up for the big event.
Cinderella begged to go too.
Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils
into the cinders and said: Pick them
up in an hour and you shall go.
The white dove brought all his friends;
all the warm wings of the fatherland came,
and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.
No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,
you have no clothes and cannot dance.
That's the way with stepmothers.

Cinderella went to the tree at the grave
and cried forth like a gospel singer:
Mama! Mama! My turtledove,
send me to the prince's ball!
The bird dropped down a golden dress
and delicate little gold slippers.
Rather a large package for a simple bird.
So she went. Which is no surprise.
Her stepmother and sisters didn't
recognize her without her cinder face
and the prince took her hand on the spot
and danced with no other the whole day.

As nightfall came she thought she'd better
get home. The prince walked her home
and she disappeared into the pigeon house
and although the prince took an axe and broke
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
These events repeated themselves for three days.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax
and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.
He went to their house and the two sisters
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on
but her big toe got in the way so she simply
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
The prince rode away with her until the white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring forth.
That is the way with amputations.
The don't just heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood will.
The prince was getting tired.
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
But he gave it one last try.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
like a love letter into its envelope.

At the wedding ceremony
the two sisters came to curry favor
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
Two hollow spots were left
like soup spoons.

Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.

When I was a Girl who's only super power was sleeping and crawling
My mother passed away
Left my father to raise two young children all on his own
He gave up everything for us
Sold the restaurant he had spent years saving to build
The motorcycle he swore would always be his
The one that set off car alarms and ******* neighbors.

When I was a girl who's greatest superpower was my ability to make imaginary friends
I thought my dad was superman
He fixed scraped knees
Fended off scary bugs
And beat impossible levels on video games.
I never realized it but he did more noble feats than kiss booboos and squish spiders.
Money never came easy to us, most of the time my father stayed unemployed so he could raise two children with love
Raised us on the retirement from fighting like captain America for our country

When I was a girl who's super power consisted of seeing the good in the world I always wondered why my dad didn't eat with us most days
Or why the lights sometimes went off
And water was cold
I know now that my superhero chose to pay for food for us over bills
And spread Mac and cheese boxes to last a lifetime
He gave up the comfort of food so we could have full tummies
And for that I'll always be grateful

When I was a girl who's super power was selfishness
I hoped for a mother
Wished on every birthday cake and shooting star
Praying to one day have a mom.
I paid the price for my selfishness
My wish came true the day my dad brought his new fiancé home

When I was a girl who's superpower was invisibility
My stepmother told me my mom never wanted me
Called her a useless **** head
And called me stupid.
I saw my father less and less
And At first he swooped in to save me from the wounds of her words.
But she stole his cape.

I am a girl with the power to masquerade as a woman now
And I speak only a few words to my father a week
My stepmothers words still wound me
But she is my fathers kryptonite
Stripping him of his powers leaving behind a tired man.
she has pulled our family from poverty and for that I'm grateful
But I'll never forgive her being the reason my fathers cape lay folded in the closet.
And every time I hear my father say he misses me it sounds like an apology for the last six years!
And when I say it back
I hope he can hear the begging to see him more.
My dad used to tell me he loved me every night before I went to sleep
Now we go days without saying it.
Without seeing each other
And now every time I hear it whispered under his breath as he gives a quick hug so the hulk doesn't see
It still sounds like the booming voice of the hero who carried me all the way home at three after getting stung by a wasp on the webbing of my finger and sobbing like I was going to die
And I feel the lump in my throat swell every time I echo it back like sonar
And can still see whisps of a cape behind him as he diffuses dr.dooms time bomb by saying the dish in the sink is his and sneaking me a wink.
I refuse to lose my dad to distance before I lose him to disease.

I am a girl learning how to control the power of the world around me
My father is dying.
Liver giving out from years of untreated disease after years of putting his health aside.
And he pulls oh his cape every time he smiles like a rain after a 100 year drought and tells me
'I'll be okay. You know I'm invincible.'
And I always say that I do forcing insincerity out of my voice.
I can see the weight of the cape he has worn for so long take its toll
His back is arching from the weight of having to be strong
A bulletproof savior of this family.
So I will take it from him.
Bear the burden of being strong and putting others needs before me.
I will shelter him under it whenever deadshot's bullets of insults come flying.
Because even though at times I thought I lost him.
With or without a cape
My farther is still my hero.

And I am a girl learning to be his.

Analog, anabasis… trip, short, burn the bug to carbon dust…

Seeking in my treasury of books, pared down to ones with personal attachments,
- I sought a Welsh-English pocket dictionary, gifted me
- by a taller and older, by experience, Overmeyer… Bob,
- but he was one of a few in the corp, band of brothers,
- who sang along with me, when he heard me humm,
- he knew the words, worth-ship fixing words, yes,
- we shall gather at the river that flows by the throne of truth. Mmmmhmm, so we shall see, so we shall see,
Oldman river, you know,
you wait, and wait, fishin' wishin' cogitations got from *** go,
known good, known evil, and evil comes for effect, not cause,
clean up, aisle five
hell, in a target store. And a Walmart, #26.
-- I recognized the anti particle, passing through either or,
becoming here, from there, your thinking my thinking,

wall of text, in your current context, this wall has hat

hooks to insights marked pertinent someday, in the wide ocean
at the end of any river mind me and error master,
as awareness, meandering as all fluids do.
Aligning in honed most saline crystaline form, as
current opinions shapened from dust and ash originally,
then spit the idea out as a word,
imagine
matter… mater, really, bottom first bit, was realized after
paterialization falled to manifest self reproduction…
patterned thought, fabrication, plane geometry… which we
as a team, a man and his tools, gunslinger, plus accoutrements.

Yep. Adam, did not work alone. The egg was first. He named eggs.
And chickens, full of eggs, no, hope, and chaos, nada mas…
- morals from old stories, we had lost all hold on those…
Stepmothers after The Hundred Years war, like as not was
first slave, with only obey believed enforce,
as far as
holy vows spoke allowed, but in a whisper…
hear us,
old folk, we scatterbrained old rockers by the fireplace
listen, this is living, right.
Pursue haps as haps occur, in thinking one thing or this other,

Our kind, fixed position ears perpindicularly augmenting per-
iferal vision, if, just, if. Immeasuarable meanings, justice, yes,

we settled at that point. All the Promises - in any living faith,
even dying proves life is a chance, we all go through it, and some leave marks, while others leave a heart felt
oxitocin, not cotin, red on yellow, **** a fellow, -tocin. Oxitocin,

Rush!- Kettle DRUM after a cello up run, or an old familiar rif,
Goin' up country, ' bought a map for a dime,
from a time lain aside in book, as I was seeking that Welsh word for these experience in side, feeling inside, but being mere, yes, not a limiting adjectival modification, on a word, intended to soothe,

NOT ******, soothe, as said of gentle rolling seas, calm as constant as Jupiter's ever near there, right there, red spot, there,
that is an anomoly, yet, there are those who claim clarity, that

Red spot, Ted-talk phaze, ease in, get a buzz, mmmm, slow, slow

slow
whoa, so slow, what difference can plain-people, just us,
can we ever just know, this is the way, no obstacles,
and we leave trails, and trails widen, and widen, and widen,

wide as the milky way as seen from North Korea.
What a blessing, right?
--- God made these chickens we are eating,

no, child we selected these big red hens, people, like us, we can
know how earthly goods grow and we can help, as gard'ners,
retired guardians and priests can, make soil richer,
by leaven from the native soil,
fresh after fire, sparks the bloom

Patience, paid close attention, over time,
pay is as interest always is, compounding…
complex knots
slipping infinite loops generation systems
spinning straw to gold, bricks to build a tower…

to grow mustard into brocolli and cauliflower, prosper-o

we can engineer squash blossuming
be.. not spelch-pstpst-offt-listen,
- laughing
in my home are children, aged 6 to 13, across a seven year gap…
in my home with complete 5G internal Wifi, with cable
- copper, ah
- the humm, copper wire interference, acceptible as soft
- sub-spectra sfumati self-edged,- cut from whole cloth
abrupt.
Con, is with, fuse, is
blown… but, click, we are past that, where I live, on a pension.
I survived an oath in a war. And in America, the we, as
represented in Congress after Korea, and UCMJ, reach, reach,
- remember the ears that read, need to know
right, MP talk, uniform, all the exact same alignment and weave… for forsake, forsooth, forgotten gains, -- un-fore-gotten
upright walking, living concept, Phoebe Zeitgeist
- she made a word nest in my mind, on March 16, 1968.
- On a Douglas Flying Tiger insertion mission,
Flying to a foreign land more foreign than any thus far, redux.

Surreal stepped up to real, realms of preception, Metaverse/
uniform code under it all, we wished for this, can we, can we,

please, walk back in and watch the shadows morph to home sized I-max with true-fi dolby optimized to your very own, humanity
verified self--
- eyes up, look where we were when ever, then be come you now known as dear reader, responsibility free, cookie or no?
Be any mind you find you can wear with no wish to lie,
the wrong mind set with the ears and eyes, and we cannot lie…
you lose.
The whole ritual of prayer and supersites, tics, ****. We glow…

once illegal exposure
confidential, super-secret, super-positioned tyrannical systems,

whole cloth leprosy, black mold to dust time sequence…
-- such minds as fed us Elliot and Thorough Error-prone Poses,

as seen from the repressed mind of an unassimulated inate-ifity,
We are none of us, Adam sons, his model had nor repro circuits.

Hey, once there had to be something akin to ****** birth,
really, mitochondria developed virally, just fine, so, so fine,

imagine, we got the cell, a wall, with enzyme will efforts on the doors, we open to need, and useful matter is accepted,
as in another phase we open to expel the uselesshit, which then fills the red corpuscles, which use iron to hold the load.

Flushing blushing bride, Mito-mom, her daughters, imagine…

trackless wasteland, aftermath of minor miscalculation
in the dancing cosmos, whirling
whiling, smiling
inside…

I made it. 2022, Everest Pax, is the real name
of my youngest grand son, who randomly
reassures me he loves me, as though he wishes me
to not let that slip, naturally, his version of me is fragile,

what he imagines I am can disappear, in a day,
like Uncle Mike, and Uncle Dennis, and Uncle Richard,
and Uncle Remus…
none of whom were alive, when Everest Pax was named,
by his mother, with no input from me, save
the covenant aspect in the who gives this wombed man…
common pagan ritual adapted to post-Jesus Christ-sanity.

X-mas, nada mas. Agree, and take the cookie,
or risk another death,
on the real wrong battlefield… Well, what the hell… hero
or legend in my mind, thinking, what would any who do?

What if Snow White and Sleeping Beauty
Never woke up?
Prince Charming was detained;
the dwarfs and fairies ran out of ideas
Hope disappeared at the first bite and *****.

What if Cinderella's shoe never fit?
Swollen bunions or a twisted ankle
hindered the sparkling slipper
the Prince went away discouraged
And Cinderella was stuck, forever in the cinders

Happily Ever After.
What every little girl wants.
A fairy tale ending, with stars in the sky
the credits start to roll, leaving you with a smile
Pleasant dreams, dancing princesses in your mind

I hate to burst your bubble, but -
Some nights, princesses just don't feel like dancing.
Sometimes, they'd rather stay at home
spend the night alone at once,
the weight of their world on their shoulders

Princes can cause more stress than joy
Evil stepmothers never really disappear
Most mirrors won't tell you what you want to hear
leaving most of us girls disillusioned and dazed
in that moment we discover we're living

a Happily Never After.

Childhood is sacred,
No matter how good or
How bad.
For it is a time of blissful ignorance,
Before you learn that your mom's 'medicine' was just a shot of ******
And that your dad's 'friend' was just
His newest ****-buddy
Before you realize that you're broke
Because your mom is too busy drinking
To get a job
And your dad doesn't give a ****
Because he has a new family now.
Before you've been beaten down by the responsibility of caring for
Yourself and your brothers.

And before you know it that foolishness, that divine foolishness, has been ripped away and there is nothing left
But reality.

But years down the line you find yourself
Listening to your favorite song from when
You were five for the nostalgia
And sobbing while flipping through old photo albums
Even though you know that the man who brought the cake on your 3rd birthday was your mom's supplier
And that the woman behind the camera
Would become your first of many stepmothers.

But the look of joy on your face brings you to tears,
For it is a look you haven't seen
In fifteen years.

There, is a story little known,
Which came to light when the ruse had worn.
Of membranes torn;
And gallantry ill-worn.

Now you see, Snow-White as all of you’ve read,
Was not as boring as you’ve been fed.
She was a maiden fair,
That to question I do not dare.

But, besides that there is more to the tale,
Which is not as stale,
As the same pompous banter.
That, without having uttered two words, they lived happily ever after.

There, you see is a simple formula to this potion,
Of grand love, and romantic notions.
Where the man is a Prince, Oh! That simply cannot be altered.
And a fair maiden whose virtue has never faltered.

He is rich, she is fair.
All’s well with the world, so have no care.
They will see each other just once.
It does not matter if he be a dunce.



Love will certainly flow, there’s no point in taking it slow.
So off they will go,
Riding into a mandatory sunset.
With satiated readers and expectations met.

Now, as you know, in this tale of love and woe,
There must be a wicked woman, there is no other way to go.
For, it is a fact known to all.
Women are the wickedest of them all.

For, how could step-mommy leave it be?
That Snowy was getting prettier than she.
Tell me, have you heard of such a rarity,
Where women who are so full of vanity,

Managed to love a child that wasn’t her own.
Hence, stepmothers are the stock villain, and that is a fact well-known.

Now, Snow White was, as you’ve guessed, white as snow;
And being fair does a long way go.
Mommy dearest couldn’t stand that, women are petty we all know,
Even if they don’t always show.

So, she sent her lackey to chop off Snowy’s head;
And the queen was sure, Snowy was dead.
But the lackey had gotten soft and fuzzy.
And had let Snowy run-off after getting a little cozy.

Now, Snowy ran and ran and came to a small house.
Fit for none but a rather big mouse.
But dainty as she was,
She crawled through the moss.

She entered the little house and saw a warm cozy den.
She had run a long way; and was in a good deal of pain.
So, she lay down on one oddly small but cozy bed.
And slept for hours as if she were dead.

When she awoke, Snowy lay amidst stubby little men.
All in all they were seven.
They weren’t ugly little midgets at all.
But granted, they weren’t really that tall.

Well, they did look quite good.
Sadly, Snowy’s stomach lurched only for food.
Days went by, the little men kept Snowy safe and sound.
And now a strange feeling in her heart was found.

Snowy had a courting Prince back at home.
Funnily, who hadn’t even noticed that she was gone.
But all the while as she thought of her Prince and his face,
He faded far off, and she went into a daze.

Now, there was this handsome stubby dwarf, his name was Sneezy,
And his manner rather gallant and breezy.


He wasn’t the plump, bulbous nosed oaf so old.
As you’ve so often been told.
He was a jaunty good lad,
Snowy liked him better than the Prince; even if a tad.

Snowy in her heart felt warm and fuzzy,
And her little bed was amply cozy.
One day when the other six stubbys were off into the forest,
Sneezy professed his love for his dearest.

Snowy was smitten.
The pompous Prince forgotten.
One kiss followed another kiss,
On that odd cozy bed, they found their bliss.

Snowy and Sneezy lived happily for the time being.
Till, her oblivious Prince was alerted of this scene.
Of a happy Snow-White living with her chubby, little mate.
He rode through the forest, and knocked at their gate.

He was livid to see that Snowy had found, of all people a Dwarf.
The thought itself made him ****.
Better dead than compromised he frowned.
“Oh! I wish you were drowned”.

“How can you live with men?” he blubbered.
Now, here is a maiden with virtue altered.
To avenge his honor, he challenged Sneezy to a duel,
Seeing that he was half his height, wasn’t that rather cruel?

Now, somedays before this had occurred.
Snowy’s news by the evil stepmother was discovered.

Learning she was still alive and well,
With anger did her heart swell.
She decided to take matters into her own hands.
And thereby took up a disguise, as it stands

She set out with a poisoned apple.
Well, there again for every mischief an apple is a staple.
On Snowy’s door she knocked to peddle.
The crimson, yet deadly apple.

Now, Snowy here was smarter than she did look.
Didn’t I say, she wasn’t as boring as mistook.
Having well recognized mummy dear,
She took the apple and tossed it near.

Presently, with a repentant look, and show of care,
Before the Prince she laid out her snare.
Knowing well her beloved Sneezy,
Though gallant would die in a tizzy.

She offered this apple to the pompous Prince,
Who bit into it without so much as a wince.
Believing it to be an abject offering,
For her indiscretions, and virtue faltering.

His Royal Highness plonked on the ground.
In a deep slumber, so sound.
Thus, was saved her little Sneezy.
Gallant, stubby with a manner so breezy.

Well, the Prince, he slept in utter peace.
Awaiting to be woken by true love’s kiss.
But fair maidens you see, do not kiss.
For fear their reputation go amiss.

As for Snowy and Sneezy,
Their love kept them busy.
And they lived as happily as one could.
When living in a small hut, down in the woods.

eyes narrowed down
slits
forever
i gaze and they're digging into my arms
teeth bared like poisonous snakes
a hiss and you're not human, no
you were never human