a forest grows roots in my scalp
a baby touches the soft short bits and laughs
like there is no greater delight in her world
my spirit swells in her beams
i walk shoulders forward
collar popped
half-sneer that says “yeah that’s right
i’m a badass”
nobody sits next to me on the bus
once this bleach-blonde spent half an hour worrying
nail-biting, foot-tapping worry
before setting the clippers to my head
like she might hurt me
i intimidate the thing in me that is vulnerable
staple a wig to it, put it in a dress
build it safe bridges out of my body
so that on the street
the people who do manage to worm their grubby fingers
through the cracks
are ******* psychos
and i can imagine driving their nose up through their brain
without feeling guilty
or shameful
even though that is scientifically impossible
due to the density of bone
and this charred twisted gargoyle on my shoulder
who tells lies as long as the mississippi
like “you deserve this ****”
on really bad days my hair turns and shouts
“back the **** up gargoyle! you make no ******* sense!”
even when i decide to trim it
when i’m ****** out of my tree on sudafed
and haven’t eaten solids in five days
and it looks like, well, this
i am a magnificent peacock
swanning down the street
and everyone is a little bit better
for having walked through my glow
now if only i could make eye contact with the cute **** on the bus

it's great to be here.
i always say it's not
and i never feel like it is.
but its great to be here.

everything ive ever loved is here
in the meadow,
swanning for all of us.
singing our names.

i focus so much on the cold
i forget july
i forget august.

its great to be here
its always great to be here.

Don't talk to me about rules of Engagement
What's knowledge, wisdom and Truth
nothing but a tag on a Robert Grahame shirt
What do you mean decency, fair-play and Justice
was your God fair and just when he landed me in Goebbels
and give me to that drunkard thief and his street gal wife
Oh no, I don't deserve a silver spoon and a dad in Stockbroker belt
yeh, no Private School, no allowance, no frigging ski trips in Gstaad
Bollinger sounds like a gun, pink gins and cucumber wedges foreign

Don't talk living harmoniously with all classes and races
I live my way and make my rules as I go along
the first law is do it to them before they do it to you
education is ****, if God wanted me to have a mind he forgot
what he gave was a gob full of **** and a Doctorate in telling lies
in our world telling the truth means you're blind, slow and stupid
I ain't a mug but a mugger, I ain't a fool,I only live to fool the fools
Am a hater and proud of it, why was I assigned to the Losers section
What made God decide my gob is not good enough for a Silver spoon

Don't you dare give me that glib 'That's Life' ****'
keep your philosophizing to your bleeding self
we ain't buying claptrap anymore, it's war now, revolution
it's them and Us. no quarter given, everything taking from the rich
what gives you the right to live better than me. Mr High an Mighty
who brooker your deal with God for all the privileges you enjoy
swanning around thinking you're better than me in your Ivory gaff
hate burns relentlessly, my frustration unabashed I join satan's lot
Yes, it's not a frigging fair world so don't talk to about Justice an love

I Posed For Matisse

He uncoils me like a skein of yarn
Paying out behind beach glass lenses
Scouring the remains of the day
For watery sifted light

His hand spry as a piper through
Twisted Hamelin streets
Spavined fingers confounded by buttons
Quick and nimble once again

Fat bolt of graphite swanning
Around an empty dance floor
To strains of a silent waltz
While my skin pools in goose flesh

Bobbin spun free, hip, *******, neck
Described in a dearth of line
God struck mute as I slip
Demurely behind the screen.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 William Needs an Intervention

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 42

Will, we need to talk:
                                                       this is all your grief
Your friend and your lover aren’t grieving at all
I’ve seen them swanning around The Swan in Southwark
Catching Pembroke’s Men in The Isle of Dogs

They saw your Julius Caesar here at the Globe
But were mostly canoodling high up in the back row
I cannot imagine they were admiring your wonderful verse
Grieving over the deaths of Romans, or thinking of you

Give over your hoping, your moping, your sighing, your wishing -
The Avon’s down the road; we should go fishing