I don't know when it became
Such a game
To just communicate
With you
Some power play

But dang I'd choose
Cups and strings
And walkie talkies
Over this "thing"
Any day

The Night King Ego died...

The time, the place, the setting:

T'is some hour for sleep, prescribed,
For me, the reality of sleep, proscribed.

The strains of Bach's
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major
Haunt.
Richard II's words
Give pause, precision refinement of my cause courant.

“No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the ***** of the earth”

Two am in New York, sleep,
As advertised,
Literally, a passing acquaintance,
Doesn't make it to
The side of the bed occupied by
100% of me.
Seems he went
From chimney to chimney
This past Sunday morn.
Not having a chimney,
He flue right over me.

No matter.
Company aplenty,
Ego and moi,
We, had a long talkie.
A bit of a wrestle, a staring contest
In a mirror, we watched ourselves,
In the pitch black
where clarity is perfect,
For nothing else exists,
But ego and me,
To distract us.

“I'll read enough
When I do see the very book indeed
Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.
Give me that glass and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds?
O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity
Thou dost beguile me!”

Called my lawyer just now,
ordered her to commence
the divorce papers, serve them ASAP,
I need to rid myself of
My oldest nemesis, my oldest friend,
Mine vanity, my ego.

Let me explain
myself to myself.
You may tag along for the ride.

Writing is more important
than any of the individual
Five senses
That feed this addiction.
Without sound, sight, touch, smell and taste,
I can live quite well,
Thankee.

But ****** boy mind needs to write
Simple survival.
No write, no life.

But ****** bad boy ego is a curse,
A contaminate of each and every
Line, stanza,word and verse.

"Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin”

At first, for an audience of three
I performed,
Me, myself and I.

But the suckiness creepeth in,
and etches my distorted face,
Salutations and gradations,
demanding confirmation
Of Shakespearen magnification.

Do you like me?
Do you love me?
****** all.

Curse ye King Ego and your vainglorious occupations,
Divorce me, from the sad isle of
Self
Self worth,
Pride, vanity insurance,
The most deadly of the seven
Deadly sins.

Ego desperate in kind responds:

"I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?”

Slime and slippery, want is what you feel,
Taste grief, need friends,
Sly devil, you twist thy cunning tongue,
The reverse, your plain meaning!
You need nothing but subjects,
In earnest and forever praise,
Absent them, you mood and whine,
A pretender, a poseur, a drug addict cursed!

Let us purpose to dispose of thy spirit earthly,
Slow starvation too good for you,
Poison, arrows, the hilt of my blade,
The neck, thine bowel,
Let me embrace,
Prefer your steel hot or cold?

If we both must expire, then it be so, for
My honor taken, my life forsaken,
My poetry in disrepute,
Until that day when I write for me alone,
And ally my scripts, in coffin, with me interred.

"My dear, dear Lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away
Men are but gilded loan or painted clay...
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one;
Take honor from me, and my life is done."

I’d get a call over the walkie-talkie, write down what parts were needed, find them in the parts’ warehouse tent, load ’em up, and deliver them to the job site. It was pretty easygoing. In between orders I’d just sit in the air-conditioned truck, listening to Howard Stern and napping here and there. When I could. After a month, they hired another guy to be my partner. He was a computer programming geek, married with kids, and he had these stupid cartoon tattoos all over his arms. Japanese anime **** and Hanna-Barbara characters. The guy really got on my nerves, one of those know-it-all nerds.
Our boss was the biggest Native I’d ever seen. Looked like a Navajo Andre the Giant, only he had a big, black, handlebar mustache. Which as surprising, because, I was under the impression Navajo’s couldn’t grow ****** hair. He stood at nearly 6’6” with long skinny legs, a barrel chest covered in silver and turquoise jewelry. When he got angry, his eyes went wild, like fire raging out of control. Like the time I got the flatbed truck stuck on an embankment and the back axle snapped off. “******* JUNIOR!” he shouted. My old man was one of the foremen there, so everyone just called me Junior. Oh yes, my boss, Darren, was a scary guy to say the least. So me and my delivery partner were making a run to the jobsite one day, the radio blaring “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, just getting into the fast final part of the song. The good part. Right in the middle of the guitar solo, my partner changed the station to Nickleback, of all things. I quickly switched it back to the Skynyrd.
“What’s wrong with you? Don’t change it in the middle of “Free Bird,” I said.
My partner rolled his eyes and switched it back to Nicklecrap.
“Come on, get with the times, man. This is the new ****.”
“Yeah, **** is right.”
I switched it back AGAIN, but the song was ending.
“You made me miss the song, ya’ ******’ *****.’
“Why don’t ya’ just cry about it then?”
“*******.”
We delivered the parts and parked the truck back inside the parts’ warehouse tent. With no calls coming in over the radio, we cranked the a/c and dozed off to Howard Stern talking about an “**** ring toss” game they were going to play. I woke up an hour later to Darren’s angry voice coming in over the radio. “Where the **** are you guys? *******, we got parts that gotta go out. I’m headed to the tent …”
I looked over to my partner, snoring away in the driver’s seat. For a second, I contemplated waking him up. Then I remembered the Lynard Skynyrd/Nickleback incident, and I left him sleeping in the truck. I walked out of the tent, to the Port-John to take a squirt. When I returned to the tent, Darren was staring at my partner, who was still asleep in the truck. Darren’s eyes were big and crazy; he was furious. He turned to me.
“What the ****, Junior?”
“I’ve been trying to get him up, but he just won’t budge. I’m having to do all this work myself!”
“******* …” Darren said, with a heavy sigh, before pounding on the driver’s side window.
“Andy! Wake the **** up, *******! Junior’s carrying all the weight here!”
Andy did wake up. He glared at me, and I smiled back with a ****-eating grin.
You don’t ever interrupt The Free Bird. I don't care what your name is.

I love spending nights on the lake.
Once the oven-like sun disappears,
things get suddenly quiet, except for
the occasional hoot of an owl, crickets, frogs
and the soft lapping of the lake on the boat.

When the moon rises above the pines
the sky lights up, like a fireworks bloom,
its reflection is brushed, in scatters on the lake,
giving insubstantial moonlight a sharp substance
not unlike a fractured, undulating, glittery lace.

This evening, there’s a rumble, stage left, off to the west,
and a thunderstorm’s growl, like a wolf on the prowl.
The wind was picking up, so we began battening down,
stowing things in the galley and taking in the flag. The wind,
had become almost solid with its insistent and restless energy.

The question, with these daily, southern, summer thunderstorms
is whether you’re going to catch the edge of it or get the full onslaught. The doppler radar, of my iPad weather app indicated the monster was headed right for us.

Just as our phones, watches and iPads began chirping
with National Weather Service, “Severe Weather Alerts,”
Charles asked, “You two still want to stay?” His voice fighting
against the stiff wind as he watched the tall pine-tree tops bob,
like boxers, afraid of the far off lightning flashes in the sky.

“Of course!” I chimed in, wearing a grin, I LOVE boat storms!
“Lisa, there’s a storm on the way but we’ll stay on the boat, ok?” I asked, trying to English the question with both a sense of adventure and nonchalance. Lisa, of course, followed my lead, saying, “Sure.”
“It’ll be ill,” I assured her.

Charles nodded and leapt to the dock, replacing the gunwale rope lines with longer dock rods to distance and secure the boat (lowering front and back anchors too).

“We’re staying,” Charles walkie-talkie’d Carol (his wife) below in the staterooms where she was probably making the beds. “10-4” she replied.
I love her, she’s so game for anything. While Charles worked, Lisa and I sealed the upper deck from cockpit (helm) to transom, putting up sturdy plexiglass windows and closing the transom doors.

Charles came aboard just as we turned up the air conditioning and thick raindrops started falling. Having finished our work, we looked up and the moon was gone, hidden by dark clouds that writhed like some angry, mythical, steel wool animal.

The rain went from a delicate pitter-patter to a generous applause and finally, a steady torrent. We felt it initially pass over us from port (left) to starboard (right). The wind whistled, like a giant’s breath, rocking the boat, alternately, in two directions. It was wonderful.

The far-off thunder had become intimate, bomb-like and personal, with its Crack-k-KA-BOOM! Every time such a concussion rocked the air, the boat and our teeth, I cackled, with joy, like Poe’s Madeline Usher, the madwoman in the attic.

“HOW DO YOU LIKE IT!?” I yelled to Lisa, but she made an ‘I can’t hear you,’ sign. Carol, who’d been working the galley, produced yummy tuna-fish sandwiches, potato chips and milk. We played a dominoes game called ‘Mexican Train’ until the rain stopped, then we watched ‘Jaws’ on the fold-down TV. Lisa had never seen it!

The boat had rocked, lightning had flashed, the cutting wind howled and the thunder boomed, but it was the clawing rain, like a tiger trying to break into the boat, that made it an unforgettable night on the lake.

How can he be so cocky, fight like rocky
talking in morse code, like a walkie talkie
how can he be so cold, like an ice cube to hold
so bold like a robot that can't be controlled

how can he be so sarcastic, ******* spastic
no fantastic antics seen in plastic
won't bend and won't stretch like elastic
doing flips like a drastic gymnastic

possessed with true ability, like a runners agility
but no flexibility when it comes to futility
a never seen utility with no docility
showing capability, breaking through the fragility

I shrunk down
To be an equal of one of those little green army men.
Not one of the weaponized ones.
That one with the Walkie-Talkie
Everyone made fun of for being useless.

I stole his walkie-talkie, actually.
I was scaling your mountain
So I needed some sort of communication.

From the sheets, I rose.
Carefully, clumsily climbed up you
Mount Olympus for mortals.

I almost fell
I almost dropped my radio
I almost got lost in you.
But I prevailed.

And when I reached the top
I said "I claim this"
But I couldn't really claim it
Because I didn't have a flag
And how do you claim something without a flag?

And in a way I don't think I should be able to claim you
Because claim is a word for lesser mountains.
You cannot claim what wasn't created by you
Or name it.

But I was two inches tall
With a tiny green radio
That just kept squawking
"Are you there, C? It's me, Ego!"
So I tried my best.

I found -in the shadow of a
Crane rigged and ready- that
I couldn't help myself.

Took a ladder to the huge sphere
Of chipped and battered iron,  
And threw one leg on either
Side of the chain.

Sang leaning and rocking
Into the walkie talkie
As my foreman spat his
Coffee not to choke; laughing along
With Swedes, Polish, Lithuanians
And Norwegians alike.

Miley. Bringing people
Together.

Vast, empty, midnight hour,
hunchbacked lampposts glaring over parasitic black earth
choking its host.

A parking lot,
an ecosystem’s blemish—
hot tar seeping into the pores of the earth
like a stubborn blackhead in a lip line.

When no cars burrow into the blackened hide
like lice
the great absence of life
is an atrocity.

I imagine myself skateboarding across the tier
as the small town cops
watch languidly with vague interest—

A skateboarder’s paradise
where wheels and accomplice minds roll across celestial barriers
blasting infinite pulses
into the microcosm.

What greasy punks have their mother’s van parked here,
huddling by the heat vents
and jerking off into a Pringle’s can?

Empty parking lot
looks like a cemetery
filled to the brim
where headstones meld
over a mass grave—

delineated by white lines,
the apparitions of vehicles and their hosts
haunt the frozen space.

Another horrible excuse
to waste land,
a wasteland in and of itself
where Tom Eliot saunters aimlessly
and buries the dead.

The saddest sight to behold,
this vacuous parking lot
littered with stray shopping carts,
phantasmal plastic bags,
gum splotches,
***** stains,
candy wrappers,
cigarette butts,
used condoms,
lonely cops
and patient drug dealers,
ambulant skaters,
tired punks,
bored teenagers,
somnambulists,
stumbling drunks,
hunchbacked ***** lights
prying for life beneath its sallow gaze—

The air encapsulated within the perdition
stifling,
the pavement below stifling,
a constriction only visible
when emptied of its contents.

A cop wakes from their choking nightmare gasping
to find themselves trapped,
****** in this parking lot
where the walkie-talkie buzzes
with the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The warehouse store
looming above the waiting room
lifeless, silent, dark countenance—
Big Brother sees all in the gaping maw.

Cascading before me,
stretching towards the highway passing by,
waiting for the panorama to finish scrolling,
the treadmill to cease its cycle—
all the while lamenting life’s absence
and reveling in the potentiality it possesses.

A GARLAND FOR NATIONAL POETRY DAY 2014

My Once and Only Garden

It’s no longer mine
But I pass it
Nearly every morning.
It’s untended,
Overgrown, autumned,
The camellia needs a prune,
The irises have gone;
The garden needs
A good seeing to.
A sad garden to pass
Nearly every morning.



The Chestnut Avenue

I came back to fallen chestnut
Shells, conkers, everywhere,
But the leaves are still
Thinking about falling.
No wind you see.
On other trees I pass,
The lime,the white-beam,
There’s a crinkly brownness
Scattered across the path.
So dry, no wind,
September sun.
The chestnut avenue
Has some way to go.
Wind, rain, frost perhaps
And the leaves will fall.


******* a Boat

There’s this girl,
A young woman really,
On a boat.
Not living on it yet
But plans are afoot,
Along with essential repairs.
It’s not ‘Offshore’
Like Penelope Fitzgerald’s
Boat on the Thames.
But in a quiet and placid mooring
On the River Lea instead.
I thought of sending her this book,
But it’s all about liminality,
People somewhere in between,
People who don’t belong on land or sea
. . . And the boat (eventually) sinks.


Still Waiting

We sat on the seat
Under a bower of roses
In the herb garden
And she talked in that singing
Way of talking that she does;
Such a tessitura she commands
Between the high and the low
With a falling off portamento
Glide - from the high to the low.
Her hair stills falls
Across serious freckles, auburn hair,
Gold with a touch of red
Like her mother’s only softer,
Like mine once was, and my mother’s too.
She has a slighter frame though,
and is still waiting, waiting
For a real life, a woman’s life.


Cyclamen Restored

I went away and left it
On a saucer, watered,
In a north light
Near a window sill.
Its pink flowers were *****
And nodded a little
When I moved about the room.

On my return it had drooped,
Its leaves yellowed.
There were tiny pink petals
Scattered on the floor.
I put the plant in the sink
For half an hour.
It revived,
And the next day
Seemed quite restored.


Driving South

Driving south through
Dalton, Shoreditch,
Hackney and Hoxteth,
The Hasidic community
Garnished the Sunday street.
Driving down the A10
South towards the city:
The Gleaming Gerkin,
the Walkie Talkie,
and further still,
a Misty Shard.

As a child, the buildings here
Were so much slighter
And a grimy black;
The highest then, the spires
Of Wren’s city churches.

Sundays to sing at ‘Temple’,
With lunch at the BBC,
Driving south from New Barnet
In my Great Uncle’s Morris,
Great Aunt Violet dozing in the back.


Gallery

Small but beautifully right
For her London show,
Good to see her surrounded
By tide marks from the shore,
Those neutral surfaces,
Colours of sand and stone,
Rust (of course) from the beaches
Treasured trove, metal
Waiting to become wet
And stain those marks with colour.


Ascemic Sewing

Having no semantic content
These ‘words’ appear on the back
Of a chequered cloth of leaves
Backed all black
Stitched white,
A script of a garden
Receding into
Trans-linguistical memory.


September Dreaming

Facing the morning
Above a barrier of trees,
Oaked, foxed, hardly birded,
I would  wonder while she slept
About the richness of her dreams,
Dreams she had spoken of
(Yesterday, and out of the blue)
And, for the first time, in all
These precious but frustrating
years we’d slept together,
shared together.
I had always thought her dreamless;
Too fast asleep to experience
Envisioned images,
Sounds and sensations.


Think of a Poem

She told me in a text about
Think of a Poem
On National Poetry Day
Just a week away.
That’s easy, I thought,
There’s always that poem
Safe and sure in my memory store
Once spoken nervously,
under a rose garden walk,
but there, there
for evermore . . .

Who says it’s by my desire
This separation, this living so far from you. . .


Missing Music

Today I read a poem
Called The Lute: a Rhapsody.
‘From the days of my youth
I have loved music,
So have practised it ever since,’
Says Xi Kung.

In his exquisite language
He then describes its mysterious virtues,
And all the materials from which it’s made.

How I miss my lute, its music,
And the voice that once sang to its song.


Drawing

I wonder if she’s drawn today,
And what? I wonder.
John Berger says:
Drawing goes on every day.
It is that rare thing
That gives you a chance
Of a very close identification
With something, or somebody
Who is not you.
I wonder if she’s drawn today,
And what? I wonder.

hyper-jinxed like an old talkie
scrap the fat off the cow!
swipe that smile off your face
to watch the sunset fade away.
batshit crazy
candidly rogue
an eventful leap from far fetched lore
gory details please spare me
a big fat ***** and a way to reap
the pretties from the twits.
but the lee-way from the stars beyond
sometimes gets trapped into hairy armpits.
then their neon pink hued blue eyed trolls
take their slippers to the snow.

rotting horse carcass.
green glowing filament by moonlight ******
& mistrust us.
radioactive drums of waste &/or dreams.
boys swimming.

fistfights at night
by headlight & tooth crackle. (spit) then bonfire pallets
lit & danced upon.
plumes
of gas-can outcries.

the days & abuelitas
& ghosts
pinched cheek - pinched cooler - grandaddy
on the grill.
his gasping yellow dogs.

judy is in the underbrush with a walkie-talkie
& a p.b.j.
desmond leaps from high rocks; he
descends into another world by way of molecular-mishap.
dove deep.
riding the portal boar.

wasps hover above spilt wine
& declare war upon brothers with b.b. guns
& firecrackers
& spf 50+. the saturday/sunday sagas
between beams of heat laughter breakdowns
to knees, to bees,
honey.

homecoming queen dead & wrapped
in plastic.
body found with
turtle bites.
fungi.
the slabs of granite.
old iron tractors bent & held by tree wives.
toast.
jam hewn hwedges of crisped bread.

Last night I dreamt,
that I was in the house of my chilhood.
It was stormy outside, like a hurricane.
I was looking everywhere for you- I think it was the apocalypse.
Then I recieved something in the mail, a package
and it was from you.
There was a ring inside the box.
The ring was also a walkie talkie, and you had one too.
As soon as I saw what was in the box, I looked up and you were there.
You began showing me how to use it, then
all of a sudden,
there were people everywhere
in all the rooms
all around us.
It became difficult to stay close to you, so we used our talkie rings.
I found you and the storm got worse.
Everyone around was shouting and you kissed me.
It was a really good kiss
and you didn't stop.
Then, I woke up, and I think for a split second I thought you were in bed next to me.
Today the clouds are grey
but there is no storm.

on this page i write pain, and the html censor revises it with flower... need for a positive vocabulary feedback of life in general?! what is this hippy ****, what's the point of writing the raw when you're revised as well done, missing the Tartar alt.?!

variations on E.C.T. as catalogued by
Sylvia Plath in the Bell Jar -
Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest -
mute Indian the winner in that one -
Hubert Selby Jr's Requiem for a Dream -
or perhaps from?
never mind - the mild electric chair
for therapeutic purposes, gamer crew and
the virtual reality mask - so many profess
to needing one - IQ enhancing stereotypes -
but there's me with a bottle of whiskey
and some spare time -
the professionals speak of an undoubted
pain threshold -
so instead of outright killing each other
we masked it behind outright necessity of
turning **** sapiens into guinea pigs -
clap... clap... clap... clap... and that clap
already resounds prior to this marking and forth
toward another century of the desert of
Darwinism - ever hear that joke?
a chemist, and physicist and a Darwinist
enter a bar - a chemist orders Hapsburg 98% proof
absinthe, a physicist order a shandy,
while the theoretical biologist (Darwinist)
orders a gene atlas and pseudo **** safety pins to mark
his route should he be drunk, and should be,
but isn't, he's on a rampage of walkie-talkie steroids
befitting only the tongue - raps and raps
without rhymes - 'buddy, drink something!'
'i'll drink a smoothie of aborted fetuses,
in that Christian calendar: the feast day of a would
be Mozart', oh hell, a would-be ****** too...
you have to much capacity and the claustrophobic
area of expression, believe me, they won't let
you fill your full potential -
take to rank, take to surgical instructions -
the man in charge at Oxford says:
please don't use frightening words electroshock therapeutics -
but i swear that's what it was?
treating momentary lapses in apathy - angry,
jealous, psychopathy - i.e. people uncomfortable
with the idea of Σ (totality, given neurology and
the brain myth, found elsewhere, or in / as total) / soul -
leave them be, we need psychopaths to give us
consumer gratification for the and in with the existence
of corporate sister nationhood -
well, unless you want a start-up in the sense of
a French Revolution - that one's booked:
only in America - elsewhere we're just Palestinians,
throwing rocks and paper-drones at metal -
testing out Newton and not the Einstein's parabola -
algebraic notation *x (time) hyphenation y (space) -
which means given algebra there's a third missing,
from Kantian standpoint of 0 - a z... god?
or, wait, refrain from Darwinism's anti-social collective
of a personal will - oh i don't know, improvise!
but what critique came to Communism (post-theoretical
socialism) came to the project of a multiculturalism -
this time round it wasn't the Pope that undermined it -
still, people confuse an attack on Communism
with an attack on Martial Law - the actual critique
came against Martial Law years December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983,
we feared the Soviet invasion - why do you think
my communist party member grandfather lives
without complaint? of course the first to complain
are the farmers - before them the nobles drank,
got bored, cured boredom with borderline paedophilia -
the bemoaning - the king ****** me last at Versailles -
i lost my virginity and i subsequently lost my
ideal, i defined reality with a symptom.
so once we warred and killed each other -
but since we're a bit more pacified these days -
we decided to internalise warring with each other,
and instead of killing each other we decided to
experiment on each other - the reinterpretation of
E.S.T. into E.C.T.; prices start at £89.00 for the basic
kit to imitate death row simulation... you the funny
thing is... once you've experienced a brain haemorrhage
you became a slight sadist - you want the pain to come
to finish you off - some say the soul is bound to bones -
animation, pure and simple - that the non-existence of
soul is proved by the remain of bones - but that's
whiffed away with the Hindu practice of cremation -
and that's dark comedy given the Nazis -
it's almost like the Nazis wanted to end the debate,
the already Gothic practise of burial and bone-keeping -
as if invoking the geometry the soul would pick up first,
the abstracts of mechanisation, the canvas readied for
ether muscles and juice - ****** ended up
Hinduism on amphetamines; ****, i think i lost a bracket (
somewhere... oh well, i guess i must end with ).

Amelia, our baby first,
in nine  months have grown a third;
no speech, no talkie,
all she wants is walkie-walkie.

Being our first we naturally debate,
on how best to educate;
dolls for girls and guns for boys,
what nonsense, toys are toys.

Will she a doctor, lawyer or housewife be,
I live long hope to see;
right now she is just naughty,
and breaks the dining cutlery.

Of food she is choosy,
and eats most daintily;
she is chubby and she is fair,
we only lament her lack of hair.

Every now and then a few steps she takes,
tip-toe grace does not a ballerina makes;
like all parents our hopes high burn,
to a swan, our little Amelia turns.

Knowing games played by Fate,
we have decided, now of late;
to take the profit with the loss,
to let nature takes it's course.

The things of value we provide,
the self-life chart she decides;
this happy burden, we dare say,
is gladly borne, day-to-day.

As we look on her behalf,
down life's long and winding path;
we can only say, with a sigh,
sweet dreams and goodnight.

Listen like you're deaf
Like your very breath is dependent on
turning up every sense to the maximum
become one with each and every sign
this aint a talkie so align your whole self
to complete concentration
embody the revelation
until you're full in the face of emotion.

Listen like you're deaf
and then you'll hear the whole person.

Speak like you're deaf
Like your very breath is dependent on
turning up every sense to the maximum
become one with each and every sign
this aint a talkie so align your whole self
to complete concentration
embody self revelation
until you've released full emotion.

Speak like you're deaf
and then you'll show the whole person.

walkie talkie
boy like shawty
shy but naughty
but whose identity?
"that's so girly"
prejudice from early
10:23
who am I supposed to be?
pink fizz and blue drips
materialistic shizz and new kicks
is it that hard for me to fit in?
besides myself, I feel it heavier on my shoulders than ever before
who am I and what have I found?
three, how unlucky
egotistical, dependent, broke, dumb,
drop out of school kid
with dreams that are too big
still this age

I used to be hidden in my room
choking at my mouth's roof
as if stuck within a stutter,
exhausted from existing, hinging
like a wind-chime battered by a hurricane.

Then a troubadour with honey hair
had me humming to his ear-worm
of a melody, depicting a choreography
that jolted my legs into frenetic mania
like an early talkie starlet's.

For years, I have memorized
this intricate chord structure,
immersed myself in its crescendos
until I could belt it backwards.
It's the only song I know by heart.

There is this one tune,  though,
if you can even call it that,
this atonal reverberation that alerts
the darkest corners of my mind,
a slowly muttered siren song
leading to lands I never want to visit.

I can never fully decipher
the lyrics to an entire verse.

It's the excerpts, scattered
like dust mites in a concert hall,
that try to nibble at me piecemeal,
romanticizing the revolving door
of self-destruction, bruises
veiled as smudged calligraphy.

So please excuse the minor notes
that hiccup from my vocal cords
every other half moon or so.

It's just the ebb and flow
of awkward drumming
that disorients the ear,
causes me to trip up
on the patchwork of refrains
we've spent so much time weaving
into heavenly cohesion.

Above all, please remember
that no static or din
will ever shoehorn its way
into our ironclad harmony.

I

if I yelled into a walkie talkie,
would you melt, or burn,
blaring noise
glaring sun,
glaze the windows, someone!

                 II

fade away and radiate,
move the people dis-populate,
we may all glow,
there are leaks, they know,
but that is not all
they are going to build
an icy wall to STOP thoseleaksnow,
some one strong willed
                                      is taking charge of those positive and negatives
                                                       ­                        keep an i on atom, physically speaking.

         III


shake, shake
roll the water
shake shake
roll the dice
shake shake
what happens
in the kitchen
where it is hot
and you bang
plates together
the do break, explosively
this time, no
tsunami, so sue me
but it was a six point one
when we get a nine what then?


           IV
they have politics,
they have unrest,
they have strife,
put the ad in
the paper, some
one misunderstood, vehement
denials, sabres rattling cementing
bad relations blame the propagandist
bad formula blame the chemist
bad politics cost elections
bad people take lives
that are not theirs to erase, displace
or otherwise disgrace, I know we will
never know what has gone on,
but it really comes down to ONE,
all it takes is one to die,
and it - whatever the point is
is wrong,
all it takes is a million refugees,
not one in power will listen if we
say   STOP                    please,
think of the creative talent who have died,
think of the number of times you have lied,
think of the geniuses unable to breath through their face,
oh wait, if you did think, in the first place,

you still would have done it anyway,
because that is who you are, makin' people wear sarin, eau de ... deathly
                                                silence is a grave filled with the cries
                                                of the innocents
                                                chaos is a grave filled with violent
                                                death with intent
                                                lashing out first and with such force
                                                is a grave filled with numbers of
                                                the lost, who now are no more
                                                the cost is too dear to bear
                                                except with sadness, and mourning
                                                but there is no time there is danger
                                                          ­                              and warring
                                                         ­                                                   while the world dithers uncertain,
close the blinds
draw the curtain,
cover your ears,
we are doing something
here, umm, there.

It was midnight in Manhattan and the cats were out
they donned themselves with their scarves, and their masks
the caper was set to hit each flat
cause boy were they hungry for some tasty rats
To be in The Feral Cat Club was as cool as it got
See -they'd developed a language that kept them on top
Hell, they ran that town like a bunch of Capone's
but they ran in packs instead of alone
There was Fatty, n' Johnny, and Frankie n' Joe
paired up with Sally n' Bonnie, and Talkie n' Moe
between Broadway, and 42nd they made their move
Meow, meow, meeeeeeeeeeeow,  said Fatty to Moe
(this was the call they needed to duck n' lay low)
It meant The Animal Cat wagon was passing by slow
Meow, mow, said Frankie to all
which told everyone he saw a major haul
Sally whispered she was tired of rats n' could they please try
a wonderful place they had all just passed by
it was the new restaurant with meatballs out back
(cause some lame waiter had thrown out a sack)
So they all had a vote, and the meatballs won
placing white napkins beneath furry whiskers for fun
They're all so glad that they've upgraded their style
Now when you see them they can do nothing but smile!

“22½ euros for a Martini,” Peter remarked, when he first scanned the menu.
“It’s not like we aren’t going to get them,” I said, “we’re not going to cheap our way to abstinence." The waiter came and I gave him my card, “Put that table on this card too, please,” (pointing to Charles’s table).

It’s a cool night in Paris and doof-doof music’s slammin’ from a stack of Mackie DJs. It’s about 53°f, but they have those umbrella heaters at every table and other heaters that blew warmer air on the dance floor (maybe not a great idea). Peter and I have a table on the terrace, out under a muted, light polluted starfield.

We danced, we debated the issues of the day, like, when will Taylor dump Kelcie and what were the best Oscar movies? (We chose ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Past Lives’). We ate Steak au Poivre with Red Wine Sauce and then we danced some more. We were having fun.

But when a party turns into ***** mayhem it’s time to leave - or is it? Watching the shadowy edges of things, I asked Peter, “It’s getting CrAzY, wanna go?”
“It’s just getting interesting,” he answered.
I squinted at him, was he serious? I couldn’t tell - martinis scramble my amygdala.
I decided to flow with it. “Ok, freak, get me another then.” I said, calling his bluff, and sliding my glass his way.
As he left for the bar, I glanced at my watch, 2am. It felt like 10 pm to us American east-coasters.

I looked around and Charles and Chinthia (Mrs.Charles) were laughing and chatting away.
‘You GO, old people,’ I thought - not unkindly.
Peter came back, two martinis in one hand, snapping pics with the other.
“Stop!” I barked, holding my hands up like I was fighting off paparazzi, “stop!”
I’ve learned things, like how, in early pics, when we arrive at a party, I look like Mary Poppins - but in end-of-party pix l look like Norma Desmond. Peter doesn’t see it  - but I do.

I sipped at my new drink - It tasted sour and bitter as sin - I made a face. Peter cackled like a villain in a low budget flick. “It’s a Winston Churchill,” he reported knowingly, “they were out of vermouth.”

When the bar runs out of vermouth, it means something. I pressed the walkie-talkie app on my watch and asked Charles, “You guys ready to go?” He didn’t look around but gave me a thumbs-up just before they rose.

My mom and (step)dad have joined us, at Grandmère’s, for this vacation. I was gleeful, at first, but it’s like my mom hasn’t noticed I’m not in high school anymore - that I grew-up in their three-year absence. I get pressed when she thinks I’m slouching, rearranged when my hair’s out of place and shown a pained, icy face if I order a martini.

She’s piercing the membrane of my privacy and expecting obeisance! I tried to explain it, like an adult. “There are multiple value systems,” I gently reminded her. My Grandmère even suggested Peter move into his own room. Luckily, Peter and my rooms adjoin and she put my parents on another floor (in the suite she grew up in).

I’m secretly afraid they’ll be up when we get in, that it’s 10pm for them too and I’ll get ‘the face.’ I told Charles about my situation and he said, “Look, she’s missed you, she’s just lavishing you with attention, she’ll relax,” but his oceanic optimism seems.. hopeful. We’ll see ??

Writ and posted here,  one year ago today, and one ego later, progress made...




The time, the place, the setting:

T'is some hour for sleep, prescribed,
For me, the reality of sleep, proscribed.

The strains of Bach's
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major
Haunt.
Richard II's words
Give pause, precision refinement of my cause courant.

“No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the ***** of the earth”

Two am in New York, sleep,
As advertised,
Literally, a passing acquaintance,
Doesn't make it to
The side of the bed occupied by
100% of me.
Seems he went
From chimney to chimney
This past Sunday morn.
Not having a chimney,
He flue right over me.

No matter.
Company aplenty,
Ego and moi,
We, had a long talkie.
A bit of a wrestle, a staring contest
In a mirror, we watched ourselves,
In the pitch black
where clarity is perfect,
For nothing else exists,
But ego and me,
To distract us.

“I'll read enough
When I do see the very book indeed
Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.
Give me that glass and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds?
O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity
Thou dost beguile me!”

Called my lawyer just now,
ordered her to commence
the divorce papers, serve them ASAP,
I need to rid myself of
My oldest nemesis, my oldest friend,
Mine vanity, my ego.

Let me explain
myself to myself.
You may tag along for the ride.

Writing is more important
than any of the individual
Five senses
That feed this addiction.
Without sound, sight, touch, smell and taste,
I can live quite well,
Thankee.

But ****** boy mind needs to write
Simple survival.
No write, no life.

But ****** bad boy ego is a curse,
A contaminate of each and every
Line, stanza,word and verse.

"Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin”

At first, for an audience of three
I performed,
Me, myself and I.

But the suckiness creepeth in,
and etches my distorted face,
Salutations and gradations,
demanding confirmation
Of Shakespearen magnification.

Do you like me?
Do you love me?
****** all.

Curse ye King Ego and your vainglorious occupations,
Divorce me, from the sad isle of
Self
Self worth,
Pride, vanity insurance,
The most deadly of the seven
Deadly sins.

Ego desperate in kind responds:

"I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?”

Slime and slippery, want is what you feel,
Taste grief, need friends,
Sly devil, you twist thy cunning tongue,
The reverse, your plain meaning!
You need nothing but subjects,
In earnest and forever praise,
Absent them, you mood and whine,
A pretender, a poseur, a drug addict cursed!

Let us purpose to dispose of thy spirit earthly,
Slow starvation too good for you,
Poison, arrows, the hilt of my blade,
The neck, thine bowel,
Let me embrace,
Prefer your steel hot or cold?

If we both must expire, then it be so, for
My honor taken, my life forsaken,
My poetry in disrepute,
Until that day when I write for me alone,
And ally my scripts, in coffin, with me interred.

*"My dear, dear Lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away
Men are but gilded loan or painted clay...
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one;
Take honor from me, and my life is done."

I’ve got it - woot!  Well, we’ve (Lisa and I) have it. The Covid.
After living carefully serpentine lives - for the last half decade - we both have it.

Lisa started feeling ***** Friday night, after work. Saturday she had some sniffles and we both took Covid tests, coming up positive. By Saturday evening, Lisa was laid-low and looked a flu-like death warmed over. I am asymptomatic, not a cough or a sneeze, although I do feel some fatigue and an occasional little dizziness.

“I hate you,” she said, in a moment of clarity and focus. I think it’s a temporary, fever-driven hatred - but time will tell.

Charles, our escort and consigliere, who goes everywhere we go, didn’t catch it. He’s become our designated shopper. When I asked Lisa if she wanted anything she said, “Orange juice and mango gelato.” Twenty minutes later, Charles handed me (masked and gloved through a door crack) two bags - one contained a large, extra-pulp orange juice, the other had a $70 selection of various ice creams, gelatos and ice cream sandwiches (the receipt was still in the bag.)

Saturday night, I texted my mom, who’s spending yet another summer overseas with “Doctors Without Borders.” She Face Timed me not two minutes later, from somewhere in Poland, or Ukraine - 4,170 miles away - and after checking I was ok - delivered what I think of as “family infectious disease lecture #17, full of “If you’re going to be a doctors” and “You know betters.” I love technology.

My sister Annick, a doctor herself, was knocking at our (her) door twenty minutes later. She gave us both mini-physicals and left a list of things to periodically check (like blood-oxygen levels) as well as two boxes of Paxlovid, “Do NOT take this unless or until I tell you to.”
We all have Apple watches and are now walkie-talkie connected for even more instant communication.

Rebecca, my fellowship surgeon, was, of course, very sympathetic and supportive when I told her but displayed a careful, verbal, clinical distance - addressing me as “Mz Vionet” once - instead of her usual “Anais” or the even more usual “excuse me.”

I’ve been promoted to nurse, cook and bottle washer - but the ice cream, topped with a little Bailey’s Irish liqueur, is spectacular.

Anyway, here we are. We’ve finally joined the Covid parade. I guess Covid isn’t over after all.

i smash my guitar one day,
start listening to
b.b.c. radio 4
the next day,
what in god's name?!

p.s. it's a talkie station,
no music,
first up the diet problem
of finland, esp. in the
dairy rich region that
inspired sibelius,
about how: real men
don't work on vegetables
but on fat, because vegetables
are for animals...
and how a national intervention
demanded berries on the menu
of these men;
a list of fruits i used to eat:
pomegranates, passion fruit,
apples pears pineapples bananas,
cantaloup melons water melons,
sharon fruit mangos,
strawberries blackberries blueberries,
lychees oranges mandarins,
white grapes black grapes,
sour weeds cherries and above all else
gooseberries; and that's not
mentioning the vegetables.
but about listening to b.b.c. radio 4,
how did i become so middle-aged
"middle-class" english so quick?

I met a girl I may not meet
I love this girl I cannot touch
I love this girl who lives far away
beyond reasonable doubt
we cant ever say
when it will ever start.
It's getting too close
its like I'm in love with a ghost.
She in a life but
not the one I wish to live.
100 times a think of this
and still we kiss we kiss we kiss.
I'm afraid I'm worshipping a mark
that I will never be able to rub off
I want to be honest and tell her
I want her,
And I'm lost because I can't,
I talked to her because I was lonely,
now I'm lonely because I want more.
That's a little bit my fault.

I told her everything,
except when I cheated on her
from across the sea,
because I gotta get it.
I can't help it.
And it kills me to know she prob does the same.

In tonight's dream we met again
but she was with another man
and all I wanted was to leave
this world of dreams and seal
this deal.

So I'm getting too close to a cold sun.
I let myself do this,
here's to you Vic:

Let's be honest,
Let's share life,
Let's be crazy,
Let's be fast,
Let's be slow,
Let's be forever,
Let's be a show,
Let's be the ground,
Let's be the nothing,
Let's be hole,
Let's be the stuffing,
Let's be a team,
Let's be together,
Let's be supportive,
In any weather.
Let's be happy,
we found each other,

Don't cry because it's mortal,
Smile because it had the luck to be.

Let's be the dirt,
Let's be ****,
Let's be a thousand
more days of luck.
Let's be Juillet and Roméo,
Let's be two strangers in the know,
Let's be an ******,
Let's be my dream,
Let's be The light
that can't be seen,
Let's be that thing
you never touch
Let's be the Light that can't be seen
but that you see,
Let's be that thing you can never touch
but that you touch,
Let's be a walkie talkie,
Let's be one,
Let's be a story,
Let's be sung,
Let's be boring,
Let's be numb,
Let's be worried,
Let's be hung,
Let's be something,
Let's be almost nothing
but still something,
(where already that)
Let's be Sumner,
Let's be winter,
Let's be all ages together,
Let's be lucid,
Let's be wise,
Let's be my sister just came back home really sad from failing her exam and It sort of bring me back from reality. One where you have to sign bills and dreams break in pieces. So now I have to get back in the mood of writing this without failing the general idea. I just reread the whole thing and it seems stupid.
Let's be synchronised,
Let's be doubtful,
Let's be sad,
Let's be mad,
Let's be alive,
Let's have a dream
I'm just realising the only reason I'm feeling good is that I have a dream you.
Let's break the boredom,
Let's melt the chains
and make our own
Let's build
Let's break,
Let's gjxzl
djzksls
cjxjs
coco
eosoc
ekdks
cjciwl
vj jzpa
gogo
vic

I don’t know how the quiet, invisible love affairs don’t break your heart more--you have to swallow it back down every couple of seconds, build it a coffin and bury it six feet under before anyone notices and still.

Still the heart is so determined, it claws its way back up, your waking, vital, beating nightmare, and it falls in love again.

It makes you remember simple, but terrifying things like your name on his voice over the walkie-talkie or how small his waist is when he tucks his shirt back into his pants. It gives you a burgeoning affection for baby blue pick up trucks that you can’t explain away except that maybe your heart hopes he’s sitting in every single one you see.

But it doesn’t imagine, that’s the thing about quiet love affairs that hurts the most. Your heart refuses to overstep, preferring to tear off all its skin crawling back to the surface, over and over again, than to imagine it’s worthy of having what it truly wants. What it’s making you want.

Love is measured in loss, though, isn’t it, and you have lost him more times than anyone else by now, your heart rising and dying when his eyes turn to you or they don’t. He says things to you that you don’t hear because you’re so busy counting your losses and that can be love if you want it to be.

Your heart is not insecure and your heart is not afraid--of him or anyone else, not anymore--your heart is not trying to be a martyr or a fortune teller, it is just living the nature of things, the nature of a quiet invisible love affair.

It’s not inevitable, it can be tipped either way with a word, a thought, and it’s not unique, but it is shaped by him, the corporeal him and the bits of him your heart drags down to its grave, a magpie with your name on his voice, his small waist, and baby blue pick up trucks, and even if these things are not really him, they become living, breathing parts of you. The vengeance of your heart every time it bursts free.

It’s chaste, these quiet, invisible love affairs. Because your heart doesn't live long enough to catalogue enough of him to blueprint a plan--all you have is this haze of want, a maddening desire that won't’ take shape. It feels like your blood is one giant magnet, pumping through your leaden heart with great difficulty, stuck to your iron skin and grating as all the magnets in his blood scream at your magnets.

And it’s all over in a couple of seconds, nailed in with your heart, stronger for only having lasted that long.

And I guess the worst part is that he doesn’t know because your heart makes it so hard to get to your lips. Maybe he’d be kinder if he knew: he wouldn’t say your full name, he would tuck his shirt in before he was on the floor, he’d move the truck.

Or maybe he’d be crueler: smiling the way that pulled the hardest at all of your magnets, lifting his shirt up and out of his pants on more occasions, raising your heart up to **** it himself.

But he does none of these things, the quiet, invisible participant in the love affair he doesn’t know your heart is having, and he keeps doing all of the things that make your heart spring up, live its transgressions, and die.

To be reborn to the same mistakes.

It’s the worst part, but it’s not the saddest part. The saddest part is that one day, because your love affair has been so quiet and invisible, your heart will grow weary and it won’t break out of the coffin you built. You will have to build a tombstone for the love affair and you will want to put his name on the marker, as remembrance for all of the things your heart kept of him to bring with it into the afterlife.

But instead you will have to put your own name and live with the fact that he has no permanence when your heart doesn’t live and die by him anymore.

No, really, truly, the saddest part is that your heart is a graveyard full of tombstones with your own name on them.

It was a dark and stormy night, or at least it was for our single-parent family. The rest of the neighbourhood was enjoying the kind of clear skies which meant a hard frost overnight and a slippery ride to school in the morning.

The barometer in our neat, wee house at the end of our short, ordinary street was falling rapidly, as it often did these days. My father, an Iraq War veteran - ’Honourably discharged for dishonourable reasons, and don’t you forget it. ****** fascists!’ - was in charge of our weather. From blue skies with candy-cotton clouds in the morning to an eerie half-light of silent anticipation by late afternoon, we would end the day huddled around the kitchen table waiting for the maelstrom to hit.

We ate carefully trying not to scrape our plates with our knives and forks, and avoiding each other’s eyes. The cauliflower cheese was examined as closely as every other vegetable my aunt Kate - ‘I’ll not have my family eating slaughtered animals!’ - served up to us. You’d think the food on our plates was the most interesting thing in our precarious little world. Peas were my favourite because you could count them over and over...until they were finished.

Wind and rain lashed our evenings regularly. Sometimes we were treated to the automatic-rifle fire of hail, but worst of all were the sandstorms which ****** all the air out of our home and stymied any hope of sleep. On those occasions we all huddled together in my sister’s bed - ’No, Alex! It’s Livvy’s turn to hold the torch. You can look after the phone in case we need to ring Dr Matt to help Auntie Kate.’

We updated our worst-vegetarian-creation notebook and talked in close whispers about the weather. Mostly, we sat quietly and longed for blue skies and sunshine tomorrow, while the captain cowered in the cubby-hole beneath the stairs and screamed into my six-year-old brother’s plastic walkie-talkie. ‘Man down, man down, man down!’

or priceless, last night
when the couple at the table
next to us at this little pizzeria
unexpectedly paid for our dinner
after I was fairly sure we had been
disrupting them, being well, six -
talkie, wiggly, silly, droppy...
we thanked them and then he said
you have a really well-behaved kid
which was, like, a really big deal
as most days I feel like
an inept kitten herder
except my herd is one
or two, if you count feistypaws
think they both don’t know
I’m the legit pack leader
and are vying for alpha
against one another, but
maybe I’m not doing
so bad
after all

after that
we made penny wishes
in the fountain outside
which is something I
never do alone, because generally
way jaded re: assigning my lofties to
depreciating currency deposits
in chlorinated public fountains

his: for me to get a thousand dollars
(to share with him)
mine: for him and me to have
all the love in the world
and for everyone everywhere
to be happy, free and get what they need

decided to toss in another penny
in case that sounded greedy
to the public plumbing fairy

and still my
insecurity is processing
whether they really thought
he was well-behaved and
enjoyed watching us or just
felt sorry for me
two-top charity...

I should prolly
take out my bad brain
that made me think that thing
and put in my good brain
as my kid likes to say

The pounding on the door
Hammers in your heart
Each fist thumps to bruise the skin
Clipboard and red knuckles

Official uniform 
Stern face
Walkie talkie at the ready
To radio in his colleagues

He just wants to chat
But only you seem to know that
It will not be over
The sick feeling in your stomach

Rolling as a sixth sense
He starts making a scene
So you can't pretend you never heard it
As quick as a flash

Their eyes catch the twitch in the curtain
Can't hide, can't pretend, can't ignore
It ever happened
Never an action you so despised

As you opened that door
And let the flood in
Bad news
Had found you

i just came back from the supermarket,
just shy off the closing time:
ten minutes to eleven:
   that eleven prior to a midnight...

i bought a liter of *****,
a czech beer,
    and a lemon...

    in between i tired
of the impersonal cordiality
imitated by people
whenever: they somehow interact...

i think i bought the lemon
to **** on to **** off
that trite glum poke into
a window of a circus of
bones, marrow and fiddly bits
of muscle...

       oh how many times
that hello is more of a:
    yes, you again,
         can we just
press the mute button
on all of this?
               can we imitate
feeling awkward and...
   i feel...
            sometimes it would
be better to just...
   learn sign language...

I ("fist" with an extended pinky
finger: thumb visible)

   A ("fist", i.e.
    clenched index through
to pinky...
   and the thumb finger
  not hidden in the index
through to pinky finger fold)

   M ("paw" / crow's curled
claw...
                  fingers
  index through to pinky resting
a folded thumb
        hidden)

     F (king crimson -
in the court of the crimson king
album sleeve:
   showing the palm,
  with a folded index touching
a folded thumb: but not O.K.)

I (as above)

   N (fist, i.e.
the thumb finger poking its head
between the middle & ring finger)...

E ("paw" / crow's curled
claw...
                  fingers
  index through to pinky resting
a folded thumb
        exposed)

how does a boxing match look
like, for deaf people:
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SSS­SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS­SSSSSSSSSSSS

anyways...
    sometimes:
                 i'd much prefer to
state a presence with
a language like: sign...

                  for the casual
encounters of the everyday
with a complete disregard for
that anglo-saxon
    acting out:
           an important role
of: me, the person buying
something,
and she: the auto-check-out
attendee,
needed to bypass
   the age check for buying
alcohol...

this was supposed to be some
grand-revelatory script...
  a day prior:
   Żubrówka:
  bison grass *****...

sure... but i remember times
when each bottle had
a shaft of grass in it...

   (but only with apple
juice)

it started to snow,
i almost forgot
that frank o'hara
  mentioned some
            pierre reverdy
in the poem
  a step away from them...

i turned on
queens of the stone age,
with the song auto-pilot
on repeat...
   (where's the promised
desert?!)

        for about 20 times...
hell: i'm the barbarian,
who doesn't need to hear
some variant of a Buddhist
mantra?

              it snowed some more...
and...
   i drank the remaining
bison grass ***** with
the apple juice...
   cut a slice of the lemon
and swam into 10cl of
russian standard *****
   with that:
glorious smile of
eternal sun: make us shine!

p.s. so that sort of
French art, i.e. a paragraph
poet?

      how's this?
how about:
   how i would never be
a painter
  because i thought it
impossible to spend money
on paint, canvases
and brushes...

   om-chapati-fucky-fucky-over-a-walkie-talkie-fidgety...
mantra like any other...
    
seems that:
i'm forgetting to endure
an ordeal of serious
care for anything,
with and prior to all this.

You always fight like a ****
Taking and receiving blows like robots
Talking like a parrot
You forgot that the dark moon is near




You run from place to place
Like a cheetah
Barking like a dog
Laughing to the back of the tree like a hyena
You forget that the dark moon is near.

You eat as if you are swallowing stones
Chewing the sand of the air
Opening your mouth like a yawner man
Jumping from woman to woman
From man to man
Like monkey
You forgot that the dark is near.

Are you a soldier?
Carrying sticks up and down

Marching from hill to valley like soldier ants
You forgot that the dark moon is near.
You work in the government house
Acquiring the whole into your pocket
Making noise like a walkie talkie
Forget your home like wild animal
Jumping from pole to post
You forget that the dark moon is near.
What is that dark moon?

The air was thick with brothers arms entwined
in a fence that stretched beyond the battery lines
of police men, in truncheons at the ready to crack
and bleed any radical  dream of freedom.

The lines advanced at each other, one
sheltered in sheet metal solid while
the other hidden behind worn woollen masks
with holes to see freedom beyond the barricades.

The firecrackers split the screams wailing
as rubber bullets tore out advancing flesh
and spilled red roses of blotches on the snow
of yesterdays mourning for the dead.

The lines at the face of the glare
and all hell stopped short of shouting
The silence crawled in between the ready
boots about to burst through the ranks.
But no one moved out of position.

You could their hearts pounding in fear
of death and freedom. The first shot
never fired was whisper over their heads
as the deep breathing misted their misery
One side commanded, the other demanded.

From high above the roof tops the cross hairs
closed on the opposite heads near the ears
which would spill  their protest forever.
But fear has a way of withdrawing into
pockets to crack open masked skulls  another day.

The voice on the walkie-talkie crackled
"Withdraw. Withdraw. Slowly. Slowly
the World is now watching". The lens have closed
and captured the commanders eyeballs
for the world press. "Withdraw slowly
we will return when we clean out the parapets
of all these ******* photographers
who don't know what real  "peace" means".

Let the tyres burn and squelch for today.
"Dinner is ready in the barracks
You are all brave men. You love your country.
Guard it with all your might. Withdraw today.
Return tomorrow. We have a job to do!"

Author Notes
The revolution continues.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

You sit boredly in your seat, scrolling your phone and taking notes when the texts start rolling in

Your name
Three dots

Worry sets in, your friend is downtown, she's probably safe with others
So why the sad texts

"I just threw up"
More worry
"I'm sobbing"
Slight panic

It must be something about her family
It has to be
He has to be fine

"You're scaring me"
You send, tears brimming in your eyes
He has to be okay
Everything is okay

"We need to hang out after school, promise"
But you can't promise
Not until you know what's happened
Not until you know he's okay

"He's gone"

Your body goes numb as a shock wave shoots through you
The tears start falling
You raise your hand to leave, the other covering your mouth

"I'm sorry"

You call out the teacher's name, everyone looks as you ask to go to the office
Everyone looks as you leave the room crying

You meet a teacher half way
The voice coming out of the walkie talkie is saying your name
The voice says they're looking for more of your friends next

You walk into the office and see them all there
None of them know what's about to happen
None of them know how much they're about to break down

You're led in to a room in the back as you ignore the violent buzzing of your phone
And as you see his family
The reality of this hell begins to set in

They tell you all he's gone
And everything inside everyone snaps
Everyone's sobbing
Everyone's shaking
His closest friend sits next to you
You two are crying the hardest

You begin to check your phone
And you're practically just a vessel as you respond
Tears streaming down your face
Emptiness in your heart

You can't stop sobbing
The memories all flash before your eyes
And you remember how happy he was when you last spoke

You remember the last few conversations you had with him while others begin writing their last messages

You remember the last thing you said to him was in a snapchat days ago
And the final thing you told him as he lay in the hospital, lung infection slowly destroying his body

You sob again at what it read, your last parting words

"Hey kiddo...get not sick..."

Opened: Friday, October 8