We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over

and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless

Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts

Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye

     and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
     and "yes we will continue safely"
     and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
     and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper

Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway

and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first

Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS

but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face

        and the room was a landfill
        and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
        and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
        and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots

but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple

who’s eyes were not dilated 
and the room smelled
lemon-scented

and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;

following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks

that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain

Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls

and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway

The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant

and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale

-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded

by moose roads
                             moose lanes
                                                     moose rivers
and everything mooses

ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless

and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:

"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"

Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days

and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had

and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:

and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words

and being on time with the trains across the plains  
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision

Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too

beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years

and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile

And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off

and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;

      Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
      and hovering 175 in slipstreams
      and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady ******* in dreamland Nebraska
      only 10 highway crossings counted from home.

Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;

     who formed as a snowflake
     in the light on the street
     and was gone by morning
     before I asked her name

and how are we?
and how many?

Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?

There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.

Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.

The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East

and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine

mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying

Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably

Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;

more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier

and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering

and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight

And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car

and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal

then two eyes

then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******* on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow

and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective

while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive

Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone

behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal *******
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller

Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high

climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones

and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze

and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside

in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells

Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”

and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;

running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by

but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday

and then a timezone was between us
 and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now

then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye

but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all

and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind

So it is a controversy. So they say,
Marriage sours if your parents are gay,
The idea of this seems like a self-centered
View, that gay marriage partners aren't
Well to do. Get over it, gays need rights as well,
It's not to decide, as if you were a god,
Whether they will wind up in this place
You call hell. Leave them alone, let their dream be,
You call this a free country where marriage is free?
Or maybe you believe in the idea that all marriage
Should be defined as only for straights, it's per my
Humble opinion that is a favouritism argument
Geared just against gays.

lovestruck Romeo sings the streets of serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like you and me babe how about it?
Juliet says hey it's Romeo you nearly gimme me a heart attack
He's underneath the window she's singing hey la my boyfriend's back
You shouldn't come around here singing up at people like that
Anyway what you gonna do about it?
Juliet the dice were loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded in my heart
And I forget I forget the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
Come up on different streets they booth were streets of shame
Both ***** both mean yes and the dream was just the same
And I dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real
How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?
When you can fall for chains of silver you can fall for chains of gold
You can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold
You promised me everything you promised me thick and thin
Now you just say oh Romeo yeah you know I used to have a scene with him
Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above I'll love you till I die
There's a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong Juliet?
I can't do the talk like they talk on TV
And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be
I can't do everything but I'd do anything for you
I can't do anything except be in love with you
And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
All I do is keep the beat and bad company
All I do is kiss you through the bars of Orion
Julie I'd do the stars with you any time
Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above I'll love you till I die
There's a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong Juliet?
A lovestruck Romeo sings the streets of serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like you and me babe how about it?
You and me babe how bout it?

I remember being told right from wrong when I was younger, but how can I understand the right from wrong when this generation is full of discrimination.

The discrimination against everything and anything a teenager does, we are told to follow in the footsteps of the ones. But how do we follow in the footsteps of each other if we are made up to follow in the footsteps of none other.

How are we to live in a generation that's full of discrimination against the blacks and the whites, the gays and the straights when we are all different to one and another but equal to each other.

Today I had a bout of acute-you shyness
one where I try to pretend I don't notice
but have you noticed how difficult it is
when outside idles but inside there's a race

to views like you leaning side to side
on the motorcycle ride slot machine
driving my eyes to sly around your slides
taking them wide as when I was eighteen
I'd look for curves at Southend pier's end
give out stares and start to take in scenes
of free amusement at the Fun Bump arcade

around and around the circuit you rode
I was lapping up your every move
sneaking a view through the coin drop
peeping behind the pinball of Dr Who
prying open the photo booth curtain gap
faux testing the mallet with your strength
playing air hockey with my thoughts
were your short chic bangs a wig?

they sit so still I long for the straights
then swing to one side with a leg
tight vibrant jeans in hairpin bends
ironing out where the centre line is damp
polishing the dashing leather saddle
vibrating with wrist twist contempt
loveliness revving up to red line

exploding in my face with daring
this bike crash heart of mine
please forgive not stopping staring
a race course habit never outgrown

I go too fast and of course I fall
in love as bad as deeply madly
but the fact that it's with you.. well
I have to forgive myself this malady

I'm a side-road heading for a spin
on ways to tell you you're beautiful
dangerously close I risk self harm
imagining that colour of pink and pale
the flush u-turn will be a charm

If I can get you climbing off
hot and flustered
I’ll have done my pit stop job
at once a chance encounter
and a fateful winning score
to let you know you've entered
into being my prize draw

I'll walk away but don't be sore
it's up to you to take it further
but just know one thing more
that if you call me to confirm
and tell me that I’m worth it
I would turn around so fast
the world would gearshift
and wait
but not in neutral
for us

Out on the road in the middle of the night,
I made my way with no one in sight.

Hugging all the tight corners and vrooming on the straights,
Burning tyre rubber at alarming rates.

Little did I know at that hour along the next turn,
There'd be another person.

With the wind in her hair and one of the most lovely face,
She rode her little pink vespa with amazing grace.

I happened to have crossed paths with her in a traffic rule breaking fashion,
A move I made with deadly precision.

Instantly she uttered that lovely swear word with a sweet loud tone,
"*******" she said, raising her ******* alone.

Wrong I was and would've apologized if I could stop,
But in a hurry I was and a high speed it all to top.

Late that night, those stream of events ran through my head,
I pondered on it as I lay in bed.

Swear words! Instantly blurted in the spur of the moment,
Yet originating from the heart's deepest cavity and vent.

Pure to the core,
No hidden meaning they store.

Swear words may have been considered in appropriate and shunned in the world,
Yet they convey what a person feels most appropriately when they are hurled.

To some it’s all conjectural,
Philosophically conceptual.
You think you’re intellectual
But your reasoning is ineffectual.
Reviled both by heterosexuals
Insulted as well by homosexuals
And some ugly issues contractual
We are the besmirched bisexuals.

While it is the opposite of equality
It is the essence of our reality,
A warped straight-centric morality
Based on a Christianist plurality.

The straights tell us we must decide
Then put the other gender aside.
The complaints range far and wide
Even gay people opt to deride.
We don’t feel welcomed anywhere inside.
Why doesn’t tolerance coincide
When nobody seems to take our side?
It’s freedom, get on the bus and ride.

While it is the opposite of equality
It is the essence of our reality,
A warped straight-centric morality
Based on a Christianist plurality.

We know, after years of research
Gender choice is not learned in church.
It can be shaped with rods of birch
But those are better for birds to perch.
Denying us freedom is an ugly lurch
Past including truth in a morality search.
Back to when we were ruled by a church
And any variance was besmirched.

While it is the opposite of equality
It is the essence of our reality,
A warped straight-centric morality
Based on a Christianist plurality.

There's a stream,
splashing and gurgling,
sending up in the air a single bead of water,
sun beams giving a lightbulb's twinkle
  and inside lying fragments of it's history,
 I wonder if it has a tomorrow
As I daydream about it's mysteries;

The path down the stream,
taken within the flow
with other waters,
weaves,
in and out of the gills of a baby minnow,
over and through smoothed rocks,
Seeping from a canal
racing through locks,
drifting down straights with no bends
Left from the **** of a stag weekend,
And before that a can of cider,
and before that a tube in a mechanical assembly line,
from a water tap,
that came from a reservoir,
Which fell from clouds above it's perimeter,
and before that splashed from ocean froth,
lifted up in a collision of waves like a table cloth
after being taken on the hull of a speed boat
carrying ******* from a river,
where it had once briefly been on a paddle
from a man fishing to make his living.
And further up the river where it divides into streams and then nothing,
and then famine,
moist ground from tears,
It had been someone suffering.

A million lives
entwined in a drop of water,
each one a coincidence,
coinciding just by chance
the spectrum of it's experience of us is wide,
and with each and every drop the water empathised,


Tears at a wedding,
At a funeral,
Christmas spirit in mulled wine,
A plume of sea water from the belly of a jellyfish,
Pushed forward through it's life,

A trillion drops of water helping to make gravity decide
How high or low to go to make the tide,
Unified in direction
helped by the sun's and the moon's light,
Does it take the love of one direction (not the band)
to be unified?

In dire straights
the human being's
collective
  conscience
   coalesces
    compassion.
Always to create
in those moments
nothing short of miracles.

.                    what's the difference between
thieves, and magicians?
not much...
   both have quick hands...
and an awake,
yet asleep public communal
presence...
the thief has a public of
the victim,
         and the c.c.t.v. "stage"...
the magician?
   has a public of the crowd,
and the "dajjal" stage of
a camera replenishing
   a concept of:
  not enough public...
    thieves and magicians are
bedfellows...
you allow one to flourish...
the antithesis will come
along, and in an indiscriminate
fashion...
   allow the "magic" / "thieving"
to take place...
     what is a magician,
a public figure... compared...
to a thief?
       i can't see the difference...
the audience was fooled
by the magician...
the individual was fooled
by the thief...
   are they... so much unlike
each other?
     magicians can own
a theater stage...
thieves, sometimes... just sometimes...
own the, basic...
    pointlessness of english
c.c.t.v. mechanics,
to make police officers make:
a follow-up investigation...
    oh, but i have genius
interrogation practices...
  no one wants to listen to...
like 10 hours straights of listening
to stefan molyneux...
or 48 hours, sleep deprived...
listening to BBC 24 hour news reels...
that ****... could crack anyone...
what the americans did to the Iraqis?
last time i heard...
they blasted the slayer oeuvre
down headphones into their ears...
Americans... feeding conquered
Iraqis with a slayer oeuvre?
BRAVO! BRAVO! ENCORE!
and didn't the encore come?
******* retards...
  crows feeding seagull chicks
with sinew and
        regurgitated scavenger meat!
if only they played them some
Bach...
    i'm pretty sure...
the Iraqis would still be left...
disorientated...
  but the American army "interrogators"...
ha ha!
   played them the slayer oeuvre!
WEE-TARDS!
anyone... and i mean anyone:
will relieve themselves as being
"tortured": doubly charged up,
and ready to ingest hyper-coffee
in the form of the Luftwaffe tactic
of ingesting amphetamines
                               (pervitin) -
night-raids... the londoonoirnischt
blitz, sloth krieg...
ya ya yawn...
                urgh... burp...
and always... those poncy -
english, gay, aristocratic men...
and their... psychotropic women...
so what's the difference between
a common thief...
   and a spectacle magician?
one "owns" cctv footage,
the other owns a stage...
   yet both share a: quicksilver
take on, what cannot be
interpreted in either handwriting
or stenography...
  hmm...
              can't be sure whether
both could be considered legal.

patterns reflect patterns reflect history repeating itself
I see problems in humanity because humanity corrupts
seriously, we can't have a movement for "better" without making it worse
listen, slavery, right?
whites hated blacks
deemed them lesser
deemed them nobodies, nonexistent
that's putting it generic
so what do we have now?
an era of white-haters!
so many "minorities" standing up and saying
"I hate the whites"
we have done a 360 and it kills me
it was supposed to be about blacks being seen as equals
being seen as people instead of blacks
and now, yeah, I'm going there
gays
I love gays, man
but y'all are killing me too
this is what I see
gays oppressed, dismissed, told they're sinners
unholy, bad, gross, wrong, backwards, ugh
they were beaten, bloodied, bruised, murdered, silenced
so the gays stand up
what do I hear?
"I hate Christians"
"I hate straights"
"I hate everyone who is not gay"
people hating on macklemore because
he tried to stand up
for THE PEOPLE!
they say
"a straight white man cannot represent the gay community"
I'm sorry

WHAT????

we act like no one has gone through HARDSHIP
we act like if you're white, straight, and a male, you're golden
free
happy
perfect
wake up.
what no  one discusses
is that the issue is right vs wrong
right vs wrong
right vs wrong
I'm not a straight white male but I know right vs wrong
I'm not an Irish Jew but I know right vs wrong
I'm not a Haitian Creole Indian goddess but I know right vs wrong
you don't have to BE the oppression to SPEAK on the oppression
you have to know right vs wrong
I say macklemore knows
I know
you know
let's speak up
what is wrong is discrimination
what is right is taking a stand to end it
so please
blacks,
gays,
minorities,
whites,
humans,
majorities,
stop obliterating good
or else you'll be confined to the chains of oppression and silence until the day you die and so on amen

I'm a human being
tell me what I cannot speak on

Us hippies and straights
from the baby boomer generation
grew up with two great television myths
which determined how
we turned out
and they are
"The Wizard Of Oz"
and
"Peter Pan"
and every year
as we grew up
they were the TV events
on Sunday night
so as we got older
we went to Oz
like on LSD and stuff
and realized
that we wanted to go back
to Kansas
but like Peter Pan
we didn't want to grow up
so we didn't
so here am I,
an old baby boomer,
back at his childhood home
in Kansas, Michigan
and I still refuse to grow up.
I wish I could fly.

I gazed across the straits of ecstasy
& on the horizon,
I spied granite-tipped peaks
rising & falling
to the succulent-motion
of my tender tongue.

I inhaled her
delicious-fragrance
smothered in
her pretty flower.

And arching,
she released
a cascade &
spoke to me
in tongues.

So let’s take a look at this story and I’ll tell you my theory.
In Another Country by Ernest Hemingway
You know, that dude you might of heard about back in the day.
Now, I’m not here to give you a plot summary
The purpose is to work your minds with an introductory.

Take a moment, and put yourself in the narrator’s shoes
Going to war and unable to refuse
You’re getting defeated, wounded in the knee
and taken to the hospital in a room full of machines.

He was able to make friends during his stay,
Three officers and a soldier with a handkerchief I must say
A kinship formed between him and the three officers,
So changed from the men they once were,
Sticking together was glorious when sharing the same experience
Especially when the outside world taunt and despises you
Saying quotes in their language once you pass through.
“Down with the officers!” that’s what they would chant.
What would you do, or perhaps grant?
A mock could only reveal a fight, but no you mustn’t, you can’t.
You’re trying to cure yourself mentally and physically
For the war has scarred you, and tortured you, literally.
You know there was always going to be war,
but you don’t want to go to it anymore.

Now, let’s move on to that discussion with the major,
formally known as a stager.
He asked one simple question to the narrator
"What will you do when the war is over, if it is over?"
Ha, never thought one would form a debater.
“I will go to the States,” the narrator straights.
Alarming the major that there must be someone he awaits.
“Are you married?” he replied, hoping for an answer he would side.
A reply that didn’t have the major agree
“No, but I hope to be.”
Now, I’m sure this is the part where you think the man has no heart
When he shouts that one’s a fool to want to marry
A man should never lose the one he marries.
But you see, he was speaking for himself
Trying to cope with his lost and tryna' fix the problem the narrator crossed.
The major’s wife has died from pneumonia,
A death that lasted from only a few days of being sick
The major was torn a part not wanted to look at another chick.
Thereafter, each time he returned to the hospital to use the machines,
he would just stare out the window,
rather than pay any attention to his treatments with all means

Now, I’m not one to know how that would feel
To go back to that scene, only a time machine can reveal.
But, one feels for the narrator instantly
when he uses the form of repetition blissfully.
Or when he feels distant from the officers,
like the first time meeting your long lost brothers.
They were presented with medals for acts of bravery
although he received his as an act of vagary.
For instance, playing a video game, noticing you’re just a newbie
While getting cheap achievements in halo or call of duty
He was injured before he could prove his courage
and lectured through the concept of marriage.

But I’m not here to give you the in depth
Let’s bring it over to Ashley, she has the breadth of the knowledge.
That will help you understand the reason for this course at this college.

I decided today when I woke up
To write a poem  for everyone
I'd start off with the very old
And end up with the young

In between I'd have kings and queens
Along with a peasant or two
A genius with a dozen degrees
Even a few without a clue

For the in-laws and the outlaws
Though at times they act the same
If right now they're sitting next to you
No need to mention names

I'd also write it for the Catholics
Protestants and Jews
So as not to leave anyone out
A Methodist marching band with kazoos

What would a poem for everyone be
Without rodeo and circus clowns
The ones that paint happy faces
Over the top of their life's frowns

The tall the short and skinny of course
Those that are tipping the scale
Which these days are most of us
But let's not dip into that well

And of course I can't leave out
All the gays and all the straights
Who never knew that they were straight
Until the gays knew they were gay

I guess we've all been labeled
I really don't mean to offend
Oops...I almost forgot to include
All the mustached women and hairy backed men

If you find you weren't in here
And think that your unmentionable
I'd like you to know my friend
My rudeness was unintentional

You may take this poem for everyone
And do with it what you wish
Perhaps the closest receptacle
Where it may join it's friends...the trash

bernie the cheese
collapsed at the side
of the road
his measured response depleted
he watches as she folds up
her neat and meticulously spelled words
plied on silver tongue into her rucksack
and through such ******* ******* of kings english
she entices him ever onward where
faint lines can be sought
and yet to be found
that echo the face of true madness
its laughing sweating continence
painted with watercolours and
can only be seen in the reflection of
a mirror reflecting another mirrors image

her face slowly releases its dire grip
and her eye looses it screaming aspect
as she finds herself alone on the ***** alleys cobblestones
the battered dumpsters spilling treasures for the divers to find
she begins to hum a beatles tune from '63
and fingers the lace shawl hiding her deformed mind
trying once more to capture that vast lost feeling from
girlhood that dances a
dubious little jig on her headstone of the heart
singing 'lookie here....look at whats buried here'
she remembers his face but not his name
he drove a silver buick with a skull painted on the hood
his blond features engraved in the notions
his words mixed with foul smelling chicken soup
he was a soup of the day in her salad years

bernie the cheese
chews on the charbroiled taste of his
blowup doll lover's lips and tries to say
the three magic words
'made in china'??
his own words spent he casts about
in terror for a phrase or two to quote from
the masters of deception
who gather round in long grey coats
sinister eyes on the fruits of his labour
their wooden faces warped by rain
their mouths only a dim perceived line of
mumbles written in childlike scrawl
on the backs of closet doors
we hide here because we cannot see
therefore we cannot be seen
you cant touch me because i cannot feel
they gift him at price unnamed some loose parable
naught more that glib reprise of his own perilous straights
his is the beast that labours in their stead
he is their human face
she is but the road they walk today

curve turn round.

only to fined straight there.

then circle, who was straights uncle.

curve knew him well and was allowed to past.

past was a munite.

curve was confused.

You have to move or you can not win at the time.

it was that i was. gurgling a valorous *** of cells at the bottom
of the notched brick habitat of sickly algebra. and i and. with all
the dirt meticulously skeletal. trenchant chaotic lips blathering
skinny vocal animals. the smooth monkeys pinstripe about the
square in my needle city. well and i am an we. with your habitual
pocket of blood and dust in correct lumps small and large proportionately
spitted on your ideal, at my hips your hips(hand in hand). we walk
bythe specific straights towering sky breakers hollering reflective
skin. the neon electric residue of light smacks my eyelets. and
some ****** **** with the night air agreeably. but i,m a yours
and only. yes. so let's make some drips of clear tremulous benedictions
to this vibrant lovely hell

Aug. 10. 1653.

Answer me when I call
God of my righteousness;
In straights and in distress
Thou didst me disinthrall
And set at large; now spare,
Now pity me, and hear my earnest prai’r.

Great ones how long will ye
My glory have in scorn
How long be thus forlorn
Still to love vanity,
To love, to seek, to prize
Things false and vain and nothing else but lies?

Yet know the Lord hath chose
Chose to himself a part
The good and meek of heart
(For whom to chuse he knows)
Jehovah from on high
Will hear my voyce what time to him I crie.

Be aw’d, and do not sin,
Speak to your hearts alone,
Upon your beds, each one,
And be at peace within.
Offer the offerings just
Of righteousness and in Jehovah trust.

Many there be that say
Who yet will shew us good?
Talking like this worlds brood;
But Lord, thus let me pray,
On us lift up the light
Lift up the favour of thy count’nance bright.

Into my heart more joy
And gladness thou hast put
Then when a year of glut
Their stores doth over-cloy
And from their plenteous grounds
With vast increase their corn and wine abounds.

In peace at once will I
Both lay me down and sleep
For thou alone dost keep
Me safe where ere I lie
As in a rocky Cell
Thou Lord alone in safety mak’st me dwell.

Dublin is soaking,
ink running on sentences, churning on the page.
America is splintering,
(the suburbs specifically, not the nation)
into  leftovers of Ticonderoga No 2.

These streets breathe in and out and
up to clouds illuminated by the Temple Bar,
as people stream through Dublin's narrow straights,
running thick and bright and damp
soaked with the scent of amber,
brimming with warm words like barley and hops,
the world reflected through the half-empty glasses
abandoned to rest stale at the bar.

This boy is a livewire to a madness,
quivering gasps flying to spark on her tongue when
she finds the kiss in the corner of his mouth is
tightly stitched in with the sound of each smile.
Her hand still clings to the smells of sweat and beer
with miles of backtracking ahead.

There are some mornings
When I look at you asleep
And know,
In fact,
That you are not,
But thinking through
Those steps and plans
That occupy your resting state
Before you have to face the day,
Propelling into action
All and more there is to do,
All and more that must be done.

Do know I so admire the tenacity
You hold, the way you navigate
The shoals of life’s narrow seaway
Through salty straights and tidal floes,
Your own pilot
Keeping faith
with the hand-drawn chart
of the diary on the notice board.

Dearest, I am lost at sea,
My small boat sail-less,
Drifting, turning this way and that.
As you rose from our bed
That hand you placed
On my shoulder seemed
For the briefest moment
A tweek on the rudder.
Brought into the wind
And before the canvas fills,
There was a moment’s calm
A second’s rest.

The call of the open roads, a city still asleep…

The slow burn as the dawn takes a bow, and sets the stage for another show...

Of curves and straights, and odd complexities of  going under or over…

Of freedom.

Of pain and sweat and sweet victories. Chirping birds and jarring horns...

The familiar silhouette of wagging tails, and jagged paths...

Of people... Strangers or just familiar faces.

Of friends. Same places and faces.

Conversations punctuated with heavy breath.

Of silence amidst noise. Of solitude in crowds. Thoughts meandering in rhythm with the motion, sometimes not…

The brake and breaks. Seeking pleasure  in the usual, which seems same and yet unusual…

Day dreaming, lost and yet aware. Fast and slow. Laughing and cringing…

Gleaming legs and the last leg. It's time to get back to the 'other' life, the other side…

Until, it's back to spinning again.

I wonder why everyone can't just
flat-out, God-blessed, love each other-
freely, purely, and explosively-
why are some people allowed to hold hands on the street
and others must keep it in the privacy of their homes
some bodies must be hidden and others can be exposed
some kisses must be kept secret from those who love you the most
some heartbeats must happen outside of your own house
some moments cannot exist in the presence of others
and some lovers can only love a certain type of other lovers.
Why is it that I must be fearful in a group of people
that they can see my brainwaves and know what I am feeling
and that it would be dangerous if they knew?
Why must it be this way that I have to be in the vast minority
and that the chances of me finding someone to love is
minuscule and difficult; everyone is at a different stage regarding
my certain type of love, and it carries a baggage straight people don't have
it carries a complication, a heartbreaking rope of knots and pain and confusion
and 'do I even feel this way' because you have been taught that you shouldn't
and 'why isn't there straight pride' and 'just don't shove it down my throat'
these type of misunderstandings create this impossible disharmony
'stop queering the straights' 'oh so you're basically a lesbian'
no. I am not a lesbian- please stop classifying me and while you're at it,
please stop acting differently around me because you're scared I'm into you
chances are, I'm not. Please stop asking me why it's necessary for me to come out and say it,
its because every single other person, me included, is assumed to be straight,
and makes comments about dating boys and just boys and it's this eternal 'no ****'
and my own parents want me to bear children and it's part of me, okay?
It's me and it's my self expression and it isn't shoving it down your throat
I just want to know that I can still be completely me and still be completely loved,
that's all, that's why I have to say it out loud,
because it carries with it a kind of suffocation that builds and builds
because everything around you pushes you down and tears at your foundation
and when you finally say it, there's a pain that's gone that you know will never hurt again
but it will always sting, little daggers when your friends won't get quite
as close as they used to and your mom gives you different looks in public
or I am constantly misunderstood and misperceived and it's scary, it's
a scary world for us, it's a scary world for us, it's a scary world for us
and it will be that way until we speak loud enough that we are heard.

Split personality,
I'm losing my mind.
Don't want to hear your story,
I'm busy with mine.
Not a pretty picture like Gogh,
It's an awful sight.
I'll cut you off from my ears just to avoid a fight.
Tunnel vision in a starry night.
I don't care about squares or straights I only see circles
like copyright in my line of sight.
My frequency is two-toned like morse code,
makes it hard to recite.
I've been gone for too long It's time to phone home,
I hope you copy right,
Over.

Men are ******* each other over with no waiting,
Yet we still can pass proposition eight, the hating
Inspires new generations of children by baiting
Them with lies, telling them that it’s not too late
To save themselves from the others, standing on soap crates
Preaching God and the morals while the kid decorates
His pages with blood and his sorrows, writing straight
But thinking he thinks sideways, and the pressure’s too great
To overcome because the hate won’t let him live at a normal rate,
His heart beats on a different beat, not rap or country, but he creates
Music of the soul that transcends the forced ideals he ate
Directly from the mouth of the pressures, the hate,
And does not give up even in the most dire of straights
Not giving in to what some old man describes as a fate
Not of his own choosing, telling him who to date, don’t gyrate
Those hips it could be ****, so he grows up under an ******
Of false appearances and flawed beliefs, never feeling he can escape
From the hate, isn’t it great, this world we so decorate
And doesn’t it frustrate that no one can relate
That he’s on a never ending track on a train full of freight
In order to power an engine of hate, sating
His thirst for individuality by the fires that proclamate
His burned identity and when given the chance to extricate
Himself from the chaos of the tracks, it just exacerbates
Everything around him, all the hate reanimated
To the point where eighteen is the same as eighty
All he needs is a bullet, a gun, and some potassium nitrate
To stop the violence and state as his own mandate
That he is free from the belated strangers berating
Him for eating off another man’s plate
****** over by the hate, but wait,
It’s too late.

I loved you so
White as the swan
In purest snow

O white love
I will hover high
Let me sail above

I loved you true
Real as sky, oak on hill
Dancing in blue

O white love
Sing me eternal
In healing flame

I lost my one self
In the narrow straights
Sea depths, outer shelfs

O white love
I remember our face
Prideful without name

I wanted to wake
But was drowned in dream
A daymare you would nae break

I can write like Don DeLillo in Americana.

I'll show you your personal Patrick Bateman. How childish Palahniuk is. I'll show you advertising matters. Brands. My brands. Shinola. Dire Straights. Colour TVs. Refrigerators. Blisters on your thumb.

I'll show you my shoes, this shirt. These pants. My hair.

Fist over knife. Forks over food. Jerking off into a wishing well with next month's bonus.

I'll show you when enough is enough. I'll show you what it means to be hungry. Thirst. Blood. Sweat.

I'll give you an idea and take it out of reach.

I'll find your consumer segment. I'll find your scalpel too. I'll show you who you should really be.

Hiking in a musty wood,
A path is laid in mulch and fern,
Dark and canopied, rung evergreen
And deciduously rooted.  My one goal
Set to plateau, reach of hilltop meadow,
Others had told me, lay a pond in the sky,
Was there to experience a peek, where tall
Grasses and dry luster of flowers wild, sang
In highland clearings of golden lace and tarn,
Set with sun to fly and by sharing the long ocean
Straights, beyond the wildest, white horned mountains
Of the moody pacific and with eyes casted once more of
Youth, after sanded sleep and then to steep in wandering
Cloud, as eagles, robed in light and gleems of night, drift,
Careening wistful and free as running dream or simply roam
A foot as the wise, bearded, mountain goats sure and snowy
As they ruminate and forage.  
                                                 At elevated breaking point,
Of storied, pristine clearing, a smoking, lone marmot knotted
His voice in plead and alarm as I was about to breach,
As brigand, the sun clad forbidden, citadel unbidden,
Home of pious souls, of cerulean still waters, intact
Peace, untrampled sanctuary.  As made, that day,
Unwashed interloper, I gazed through threshold
Ends of trees and respectfully circled,
Reverent in spectacle and joy,
Back, down, earthwards.

Careful plot of line and form,
Perfections drawn shapes to blend
The face as a porcelain doll
Cast in light robe backdrop.

Long neck white, unblemished
Tender to touch and eager
Traced lines to *******  still pink
Untouched by nursing strains.

Simple straights, lingering curves
To legs of runners envy
And feet carved by artists old
With eyes a tempting, piercing cold.

Colors washed from imaginations pallet,
Leave the sculpture bare and cold,
But oh the minds dear dreaming,
Can touch each sense, through seeing.

Careful plot of line and form,
Perfections drawn shapes to blend
The face as a porcelain doll
Cast in a light robe backdrop.

Long neck white, unblemished
Tender to touch and eager
Traced lines to ******* still pink
Untouched by nursing strains.

Simple straights, lingering curves
To legs of runners envy
And feet carved by the artists old
With eyes a tempting, piercing cold.

Colors washed from imaginations palette,
Leave the sculpture bare and cold,
Oh the minds near dreaming
Can touch each sense through seeing.

.
Hiking in a musty wood,
A path is laid in mulch and fern,
Dark and canopied, rung evergreen
And deciduously rooted.  My one goal
Set to plateau, reach of hilltop meadow,
Others had told me, lay a pond in the sky,
Was there to experience a peek, where tall
Grasses and dry luster of flowers wild, sang
In highland clearings of golden lace and tarn,
Set with sun to fly and by sharing the long ocean
Straights, beyond the wildest, white horned mountains
Of the moody pacific and with eyes casted once more of
Youth, after sanded sleep and then to steep in wandering
Cloud, as eagles, robed in light and gleems of night, drift,
Careening wistful and free as running dream or simply roam
A foot as the wise, bearded, mountain goats sure and snowy
As they ruminate and forage.  
                                                 At elevated breaking point,
Of storied, pristine clearing, a smoking, lone marmot knotted                          
His voice in plead and alarm as I was about to breach,
As brigand, the sun clad forbidden, citadel unbidden,
Home of pious souls, of cerulean still waters, intact
Peace, untrampled sanctuary.  As made, that day,
Unwashed interloper, I gazed through threshold
Ends of trees and respectfully circled,
Reverent in spectacle and joy,
Back, down, earthwards.