When Robots ruled And “The Guardian” went into liquidation
It will be a strange quiet world when robots take over
there will be no middle-class the ranting of the eggheads
in the Guardian will cease their utterings will be quaint.
At the time when robots were perfected a pill emerged on
the market  made women and men infertile until they
wanted to start a family, alas, it was irreversible and it only
Takes a generation. The poor was working for the robots
picking up trash such as screws, the streets were empty
and cars were obsolete.
Some robots that had received too much learning wrote
Books to each other – as they did now- and had literary
reviews, but since each book sounded like another down
to the ****** “,” it fell out of vogue, so much academia
and no one to buy their books. At the same time as it was
discovered by the human workers that when a friendly
robot accepted a glass of beer it made a summersault, froze
and became a piece of junk leaking oil.
The fight back began the robots had not been programmed
To tolerate Alcohol, the Achilles heel, and the workers were
Jubilant waved flags
No longer should robots- any robots with mechanical learning
whether university or not- to rule over them.

Saturday,
A blank slate placed in front of an adventurous child
My imagination took me across the globe,
While my feet danced across my backyard.
Freshly cut grass grew into a weeded jungle,
Only a six year old could appreciate.
The sun was only a summersault away,
And I reached up to the sky with my stubby fingers
To form marshmallow clouds into pirate ships, and circus animals
Back when the moon was made of swiss cheese and superheroes really could fly
No one dared to whisper the word ‘impossible’
To a boy who feared nothing

I am barely a mineral now, not yet a woman in the ground,
not yet growing gardens and begging people to cook my peppers.
My home is dizzy from my constant re-entry, which helps me to cheat,
in life I am looking for the harvest in  people. I am a thread of cotton pulling
every word like it is more porous than the next, which helps me.
I summersault through conversations rather read in sharpie,
on the last corner white space of bathroom stalls,
alone and blushed. I remember love like a tagline inviting a smile
and messages to strangers. When I look in the mirror I am always inhaling,
my mouth says O, O I am out of excuses. I tell everyone I’m tired of working,
which helps me to hide in my comet ways. I am tight-lined,  
which is to say I feel love on the hairs of my arms, the wind,
the blades of fans speak to me at night when I have nothing left to say.
I am licensed to moving. In the dark in the cities public spaces and
also in alleyways I am soft like a moonbeam. I am convinced the world is a sewer,
which helps me to explain the exchange of waste and skin and the secrets hidden
in tunnels of shadows. When I move the world blurs with me like a heartbeat.
I am underground like the sewer, rotten in negative spaces, which helps me,
to hear the echo ripple swish of every piece of trash call my name.
I have no response. Some days the world is too *****. One day I will learn
to quilt and stitch together every important face, which will help me
to remember my grandmother and how she loved to balloon to the sky.
I dream she is a large magellanic cloud beaming out of the universe, the force
of believing is the word Hallelujah sung from the lips of Leonard Cohen.
It is midnight. It is noon. I close my eyes for a second and I see myself as miles
from the moon. I am running every day now and there is nothing left to see. My heart
is a kitchen door swinging and it does not want to stop.

the morning after always hurts the worst
hazy brain
summersault stomach
and where in the hell is my car

i want a pizza
or two

it was nice to see you
i've missed your smile
and condensed stare
and the shape that your lips make while you confess your love to the beer bottle's neck

that explains the jameson
and all the beers at the bar
the beer bongs at the after party
and why i could stomach the strippers

it was all you
so nice to see you

why do i always feel guilty when the sun comes up

no one got a black eye
i didn't grab the mic
and my clothes stayed on until i was safely home
although
the cab driver may have caught a glance

to think
i'm "all grown up"

i'm not at all sorry
not for the whiskey gut
or the fire i'll throw up
or the kisses that i didn't plant along your collar
i'm still the same floral-print ship-wreck at the bottom of the bottle

my mother once said that the only people worth clinging to
are those who see all of your greatness outweighing your flaws

you still see the holes in my tights
and my falling hem line
not the honey sweet legs they shape
or the hips and thighs that the denim hides
i'll be just fine as the german genie in the bottle of irish whiskey

witty
and slack-jawed
and ready to kiss the lips off the face of the clock
and two shots away from dancing with the cops
i look great in hand-cuffs
i'll whistle the whole way to jail

small victories weigh the most
and right now
i feel like muhammed ali

thanks, babe

here's two asprin that glow better than your eyes
and they're mine
waiting to chase away the pain that came up with the sun
here's to endings that aren't a safe bet
here's to sleeping alone
here's to new mistakes
just waiting to happen

*water never tasted so good to me

Inspired by Shel Silverstien’s “Hungry Mungry”

They’re coming. They’ll get me.
They’ll get me, and hit me, and make me bleed my young blood that looks just like theirs,
With skin that looks just like theirs, but something in me’s different.
As different as my mothers before me.

It doesn’t matter.
They’re coming.
Their dark boots clomp down the hall, begging to bash my ribs, or my face, or my shins, or--

--They’re here. They take their fists and their feet and their words, taking turns finding the soft flesh
Covered by my backpack and my shoes and my clothes and my bones.

They found me, and they’ll beat me, and they’ll **** me--
That’s what I think until--
--I change.

I grow. My shins and my fingers and my skull and my toes.
My body elongates, it stretches and lengthens.
I’m still bleeding and bleeding and still bruising and bleeding.
But the blows stop.

They back away, at least I think so, but my body pushes them farther and farther,
I’m pressed against the ceiling, pressed against the lockers, until I feel them give, and I’m free.
I break through the ceiling, I break past the rain, I--

--Stand up. My head skims the clouds, misting my face. I feel myself drift away from this place,
As my head reaches farther, my neck, my chest, my stomach, my legs.

Trees break beneath my feet.
They crack and splinter, just like the houses, just like the schools.

The ground gets farther and farther away, my feet so big they spread across the land and the seas.
I’m blowing up like a balloon, like Violet-*******-Beauregard, from that book I read in in the second grade.
I push back against mass under my feet,
Let them feel the fire, let them feel the heat.
Earth is flying too close to the sun, as I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

The stars drift around me, popping blistering holes in my skin as I grow and push against them too.
I stick my hand in Jupiter, in Neptune, in Saturn.
I crush Mars like a dirt clod inside my fist, and slap nebulas together with a flick of the wrist.

I am the sun, and I am the storm, and the wind and the waves,
From the place I was birthed--

--The place I was birthed? Where was I? Where’s that?

I look to my feet and see naught but a speck,
I do a summersault to examine it closer--

--Not an inch from the Sun, my home withers and dies.

But still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

Earth is now too small to hold

Still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

I see so many things from here, but I shan’t get closer, for fear they’ll disappear.
But that’s not enough, still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

Pushing them away like so many I know.

I hope and I dream for this ride to stop, still I grow, and I grow and I grow.

I grow, and I grow, and I grow.

Whenever I close my eyes,
I become a sketch of myself, on paper.
My body, and the world, is two-dimensional.
Shadows only slant, and I am without substance;
there is only one visible side of me at a time.

In these moments, I only fear
someone ripping me up
or burning me to ashes.
I feel lighter too,
like I could just
summersault  
      cartwheel    
                     swan dive.


Once my eyes open again
I am weighted.
I am tired.
I am full.
I’m whole.

The looming grey stone sits eerily beside me,
whispering haunting memories in my ear.
They skip and summersault around my kneeling form,
reminding me of the time we were welcome here.
Only until that mocking wooden box violently enclosed you in its embrace,
suffocating you underneath the complaints of the green blades as they bump into one another when the wind blows.
If you were here we could face the ecstatic world together,
but I’d rather just let the musty earth ease me into slumber
beside you.

watch me daddy!
she yelled at 6 years old
she does a summersault and he didn't pay attention.
watch me daddy?
she asks at 10 years old
she takes her first dive and he didn't even notice.
watch me, dad
she tells him at 17 years old
as she walks up to receive her diploma.
he didn't even look up not registering her success.
But she paid attention, she noticed, it registered that he didn't care.
watch me daddy...
she whispered and weeped
as she jumped of that chair with the rope around her neck and ***** on her breath.
he noticed, he paid attention, it registered he had forgotten and now he had lost his little girl.
he realized actions speak louder than words.

-been

I am a butterfly
opening bitterly

to something
eerily comforting

intoxicating are you..

intrigued of your stance
& magnified is my love

I behold my fears
& place them
into your hands

taunted by your gracious
banter

my stomach summersault
twisting & turning

my spirit soars high
higher than a human
ever made me climb

my knees buckle
from the pressure
of your heart

I am heated
& drunk off this cloud

hoping to let go
but daring myself
to never climb down

to the person I once was

before you claimed me,
as your special,
treat..

The flicker of last nights midnight memory rushed through my head
the heart gave an obligatory thump while it tried to double summersault
it was the slightest touch bare skin on bare skin but I felt it so deep
magnatised by the heat in your stare, hips arching to its target
lips parted hanging in the air sending out invitations without care
it was a moment locked in eternity and you bent your head everso slightly
I swore swore you leaned in just before your phone rang
and love had brought you back to your senses and left me with
sweet nothings and a ache gouged deep across my pelvis
that tore me unexpectedly all the way through my heart

because you texted to say hey.

a sea of
Scottish startling
organic soup
burst and sway
through
Indian white clouds
their
swift wings
jack knife
and
summersault
through
Solomon blue sky

traitorous
how each face you turn
is another cheek for me
to meekly reach toward

an attraction to
rate of change

the first one was coy
it held me in its gaze
and built a house of straw
for me to crawl in

the second, more familiar
a me in you for me to see
and dive into head first
familiarity scratching at the scalp

the third, half smile and half frown
the kind of face that martyrs itself
on a crown of need, a list of to dos
that cause a summersault inside me

the fourth, set in glass
fixed, permanent, fragile
one misstep and it's bad luck
seven years of wandering

away from you

After  twenty -one
years of
marriage

our love
still plays
in one
another's
eyes,

like back
yard
children

on a
summer's
day.

not taking
rest,

nor needing
shade,

summersault
smiles
and gypsy
wish
day dreams

paint our
day.

and I
wouldn't
know
what do

without
your
heart to
take me

there.

I wouldn't
breathe

now would
I ever want
to again...

My money is
burnt over the edges
Like a tender togetherness
on the soil of boredom

I like having
conversations about
the last solar eclipse
and broken jet planes
Fighter planes
not repaired properly

I like to
know more of
what happened yesterday

I regret waiting
for the tomorrow

But
it will eventually come

Come like a
summersault over
a franchise of well established
educational institutions

And break like a
fragrance under a bloodthirst.

I know of you
And you just know a
part of me
But how will you convince
of not knowing what I still don't know about me?