(I)

Whose coat is this? Sure as hell isn't my coat. I ain't got no coat with this parka ****, it's *******. I ain't no furry flamin' ******. I ain't no ****** chochy Molly-May-Ze-**** chokin' down chickens and nasalin' a'sniffin' snortin' nasty-*** choch; that ain't me. That ain't me. Look at this coat– I'm like an Eskimo *****. I'm like a butch-**** bull-**** crotch-lappin' a'swimmin' laps in that guy's swimmin' pool. Who's that guy? Who owns that guy? 'Ey, anyone here the owner of this guy– guy ain't got no owner? Whose coat is this? It's nice, real nice. Bet she said, "Does it come from France? Where do I buy one?" I want to buy one, I think I need to buy **** more. I sure as hell need to buy one of these. "And I need one these too and one of them too and I need a petticoat and a tipper-tapper and a whimpratic garfielder and one of them new bartlemores, I need more of them bartlemores. I need more, more, more, more, more, more..." That ain't enough. ****'s from France. ****'s from Paris, that's romantic. You think I'm romantic? I eat hearts for dinner, I chew down nails like nuts for my midnight snack. I smoke cigarettes and spit on concrete slabs, you think that's ****? I'll show you ****. I'll show you Paris, New York City, Rome, romance you in Rome. I'll get real ******' Roman. I'll take you to the desert and make love to you. That's how a free man does a woman, and I'm a real free man. Who's ownin' this guy? It ain't you, it ain't me. I don't own you, you don't own me. I'm a free man:

I said,
"Fire and wood, fire and wood, fire and wood. It is late, it is late, it is far, far too late."

I set
fire to wood, fire to wood; feel that fire fired fresh from that firewood.

I dug the pit,
he gathered the wood,
she started the fire.

She really does make that fire start.

O' how she makes that fire burn,
O' how the wood's wrapped in white hots,
O' how they smoke their smokestacked pipes,
O' tobacco teeming teenagers, tormented by and through youth,
O' adolescence, trending topics, and forget-me-not flowers,
O' old age, Floridan coffins, and coughing  cancers,
O' writers in the mountains writing to be,
O' painters and **** bodies in studies by the sea,
O' thinkers in their mindset, mindsetting the table for dinner,
O' tables set to bursting,
O' wallets so thick,
O' community,
O' society, our social games,
O' hope,
O' peace,
O' that I may be at peace,
O' that I may be content and pray only for peace,
O' how about them true believers,
O' how about that love at first sight,
O' sandstone. My sandstone. That guy sittin' on sandstone.

That's my guy. That's my guy. I own this ****.

Is a man breathing on a mirror the sum of his breaths?
Breaths foggin' a'mistin' my view,
my view of a body and that face,
you're a body.
You're a workin' day's bell,
you're my chill in an Icelandic draft,
you're my spare in a Middle Eastern draft,
you're my pawn in chest-to-chest chess.

You've got this. You've got this. You own this ****.

And it is ****, too. I'd be set, real ******' set, with someone like you. I'll make you a woman, check this parka ****. Coat's mine. I'm a classy igloo runner, runnin' a'ragin' a'czebelskiin' meriteratin', I'll be reiteratin' your points. Check the time, it's late! It's late! ***** was in the grassy knoll turnin' trap tunes on her turntable. Would you listen to that? She sounds late to me, does she sound late to you? I like the music; I like the music. What happened to Woodstock? Where's my watergate, Nixon? Where's my generation, Ginsberg? Where's the meaning? This music's too loud! We're so profound! O' profundity!

Tell me something I didn't know, I'm craving' the new.
Give me the new while I spit on the old,
while I spit on this fine art finely art'd by and for fine artists–
******' fine artists. ******* fine artists.

(You can realize radical-realist realism but you can't be real with me?)

O' fine art!
What fine art!
Which fine artists are dead?



(II)

Looks like they're dead.

Looks like them ******* choked out all them ghettos, choked out all them rednecks, chokin' a'stranglin' by-God-oh-God straddlin' the breeders. I sure did like them babes– babes with their laughin' a'lackin' o' cynicism. They don't know the word "****."

I sure am forgetful–
I forgot that smoke doesn't dissipate,
I forgot how to smell autumn leaves,
I forgot to check the heart against the fingertips,
I forgot why my fingertips went numb,
I forgot to cue in the meaning when the sentence was complete,
I forget to complete my sentences,
I forget who you were wanting when you said, "I want you."

I got as much depth as an in-depth discussion, high hats and electropercussion have got me going. I'm goin' downtown, uptown bourgeois tricked me out, johns and yellow Hummers laid me down and cussed me out. That's not a discussion. That's not my scent scenting my towel, this breath reeks of wintry air– my fingertips went numb.

"I want you."

"Oh would you look at that moon?
Take a look at that moon.
Look at that moon with the ******' mountains.
I love that moon.
That's my moon."

I love darin' a'dusty dareelin' derailin' your dreams, whose dreams are these? They ain't my dreams– ain't no dream derailin' a'nileerad radiatiatin' some hint of joy or Jamison Scotch Liqueur. Drink that ****. That's my ****, I own that ****.
I'm sittin' on this stoop like I own this ****, like this **** owns me; I owed me. I don't own me, you owe me:

Pay up man, feet off the stoop.
Pay up man, be real with me.
Pay up man, you ever thought of a man as a man?
Pay up man, give it in.
Pay up man, give in.
Pay up man, I need you to do me a solid. Do me solid from crown-to-toe, we're toe-to-toe let's do-si-do bro-to-** I'm ready go, **, jo, ko, lo, get low… Now I'm ramblin'. You say, "Ramble in to the stoop and tell me a story."

What's a stoop– who's a stoop? That **** ain't stoop– you ain't stoop. You're stupid. You're a joke, check out the joke. Hey ladies, you seen this joke– joke ain't been seen by them ladies? I'm a joke. We ain't laughin' with you, they're laughin' at you.

O' hilarity!
Such hilarity!
What hilarious histories have passed?



(III)*

"I said I loved him once. I only loved him once."
(And how long once has been...)

I sure did like them hand-holdins,
them star-gazin' moments,
them moon phasin' nighttime nuances,
them fingertip feelin' a'findin',
them sessions o'meshin' limber legs unto steadfast *****,
heads cocked like guns toward the sky,
beyond the horizon
but well
below the belt.

Them star-gazing moments seeing stars seemin' small, I love how they gleam- gleamin' a'glarin' comparin' shine to shine, shimmerin' a glimmer shone stumblin' her way home from the bar. She's drunk. She's brilliant, brilliance of whit and wantin' a'wanderlustin' gypsy nomads- that ***** gyp'd me, no mad man would take a cerebral slam to the face lest them moving pictures are involved. Read a ******' book, it'll last longer. Kiss me on the collar bones, clavicles shone shining with slick saliva pining for my affections. You're clammerin' to feel me, clammin' up (Just feel me.) I want to run my hands through long hair and peg the nausea nervosa to the wall. The writing's on the wall:

The sun bent over so the moon could rise, chanting,
"Goodbye and good riddance,
I never wanted to shine down
on them seas o' tranquilities anyhow."*

O' what a day. What a day.

And the wind ruffles leaves and it ruffles feathers on birds eating worms in brown soil.

What a day. What a day.

And the men under the bridge gather in traitorous conversation of governments overthrown and border dissolution and poetry with meters bent out of tune.

What a day. What a day.

And the billboards are dry for all the consumers to consume, use, and review.

What a day. What a day.

And hearts break messiest when you're not looking.

What a day. What a day.

And the ego and the id and the redwood trees are talking. They're sitting **** in the marshes, bathing in the bogwater while fondling foreign fine wines and whisperin' a'veerin' conversations towards topics kept well out of hand, out of the game, nontobe racin' in races, rampant radical racists betting bets on bent, bald Bolshevik racists wagging Marxist manifestos in the bourgeois' faces, yes. Make it be. Nontobe sanity as the captain creases his pleats, pleasin' her creases and the dewdrops of sweat trailing down the small of her back– down the ridge of her spine forming solitary springs of saline saltwater in the small of her back. Aye-aye, guy's pleasin' a'makin' choices a'steerin'– government's a'veerin' a hard left into the ice.

'Berg! 'Berg!
Danger in the icy 'berg!
None too soon a 'berg!
Bound to bump a 'berg!
O' inevitably unnerving 'berg!
Authoritative 'berg!
Totalitarian 'berg!
Surveillance of *** and the sexes 'berg!
O' fatalist fetishist 'berg!
Benevolent big brother 'berg!
Homosocial socialization 'berg!
Romanticized Roman 'berg!
O' virginal mother 'berg!
City on a hill on a 'berg!
Subtly socialist 'berg!
Nongovernmental 'berg!
O' illustrious libertine 'berg!
Freedom of the people 'berg!
Water privatization 'berg!
Alcohol idolization 'berg!
O' corrupt and courageous 'berg!
Church and a stately 'berg!
Pray to your ceiling fan 'berg!
Biblically borne 'berg!
O' godly and gorgeous 'berg!
Ferocious freedom fighters launching lackluster demonstrations far too post-demonstration feeling liberty and love, la vie en rouge, revolving revolutionist ranting on revolution tangible as
an ice cold 'berg.

'Berg! 'Berg!
O' the 'berg, the ****** iceberg–
You'll be the death of me.

He’s a palm wine tapper
His bicycle for the journey
His calabash for the palm wine
His waist tie for his balance
But
Calabash will not be filled
Palm tree will not shed tears
Bicycle will not ride itself
Palm wine tapper is dead

There once was a man
Whose livelihood was rubber.
He worked long and hard; and wore a tan,
He was a plantation tapper.

One night he packed,
In haste after a long day of toil.
Quickly had his belongings all sacked
Under light from a lantern that reeked of kerosene oil.

He was ready, flame from the lantern he did ****.
Overhead, the midnight moon brightly shone.
Bound his sack to the rack above the rear wheel,
Mounted his bicycle and soon he was gone.

The dirt trail leading back,
Undulating with gravel all strewn.
Almost treacherous this forgotten track
He only relied on light from the moon.

The air was cool just like any other,
But something was different about this night.
Squinting ahead he spotted a figure.
Flagging him down was a lady in white...

The new day still saw the man
Whose livelihood was rubber.
He had worked really hard; earning his darkened tan,
He was the plantation's tapper.

The evening sun had long set
Leaving the plantation in a shroud of darkness.
Relying on what little light the moon would let.
He treaded carefully; sidestepping potholes and jutting buttress.

His sack slung over one shoulder,
He found his way to his trusty ride.
Nightly routine he would execute over and over
Mounted his bicycle and rode off with the moon as guide.

All day long, he had been thinking of the night before.
He had then learnt that he was the target of a ghostly trick.
As he cycled, he got worked up, more and more...
He cursed the spirit who had made him the fool so quick!

As he looked ahead, straining his eyes to discern the sandy track.
His eyes caught something that came within sight.
Standing by the side against a background of black.
There she was again...all garbed in white...

He motioned for her to take her place on the back.
He braced himself steady as she slid herself onto the rack.
Once she had settled, he handed her his gunny sack,
He told her keep it safe as he tackled the offbeaten track.

The night was quiet, save for the crickets chirping in unison
Hiding behind the clouds, the moon gave out a dim ominous glow.
The tapper finally felt a tiny sliver of trepidation
He wasn't sure of the outcome, that night would eventually show.

The whole time, he was thinking in his busy little head...
He tried to devise ways to thwart this playful, mischievous being.
But those thoughts of his were quickly derailed instead.
For her perfumed presence was very much intoxicating.

Soon they had arrived at the foot of the hill
He hastened his pedalling to meet the uphill *****.
He would have continued slamming on the pedals until...
He felt her hand on his shoulder clench into a tight *****.

He tilted his head back towards his beautiful passenger.
In a calm manner he mouthed the words asking, "What's the matter?"
Her voice came right after in a nervous stammer,
*"Would you mind slowing down because last night this was where I had fallen over..."

Rancor,
Swashbuckling with a sawtooth grin and sacrilegious shouts, selcouth with an unsound mind, the commonness of uniqueness, the commonness of opinionated onions cutting their teeth on life and crying, again, and ready to saw off the limbs of the opposition out of revenge!
Rancor, relax, you're not a Twitter matador, I wish you were because I’d love to watch the show.
We cuddle with exotic nylon fibers and squeal about our weight and status and how someone insulted us and how terrible it is to be alive while sipping on easily accessibly high fructose corn syrup! Life has never been this sweet, but I guess we’re getting sick of honey.
I complain about the complaints, I am the anti-complaining complaint club president.
I am a writer, an iPhone thumb tapper.
Hear me
These mental gymnastics will somersault and summerset you right, child,
Don’t listen to Rancor,
That man’ll grab your gaze and stir your attention into a cocktail while winking at you from behind the bar
he’ll leave your brain a little woozy from a life that used to be sweet until you left it out in the sun a few years too long,
I wonder if some of the dead watch us from the corners of our bedroom or the trees along the freeway, waiting for greatness to unfurl.
I’ll bet they do and I’ll bet you’re a glitch, I’ll bet a little piece of another galaxy hit you in the head and made your finger twitch.
How many hot car hours have been spent in a parking lot,
the skin dries, the phone dies,
the spirit once lifted towards the outlines of the mountain peak now seeks memes, transcendent in their own right.

"Ähoy" a sudden call, that speaks so much ; looking up I see,
a face familiar for ages,up above the dark, sturdy Palmyra tree,
thirty feet high, amidst  the lush canopy of thick green leaves,
his toddy tapper's gear, unchanged for generations, around his waist,
just a breast plate to protect from the rough trunk, while crawling up,
a broad smile, time couldn't wither, on that countenance.

An ancient avatar, he jumps out  from a favorite story book,
of  childhood, he animated a lot of memories of those times,
walking through the narrow path among trees,a loud "Ähoy"
would  unexpectedly greet dad and I,  from where the wind reigns,
unaware there is world above, ready to reach us, any time,
cut in to our animated talk on atlas moths with broad wings,
or amazing things, Malabar squirrels that fly from tree to tree.
"Ähoy! Raman!how'z toddy flow today? All fine?"
his voice booming  from below, dad would cheer our friend;
more like talking to the wind and trees, pleasantly surreal.

"Ähoy"makes all fall in place, Raman hasn't changed a bit,
time flows only down here, up there  it seems standing still,
my little village too has a trap, I suspect, time has no way to escape,
if it makes the river languid, no, Raman seems not to mind!
"Master" the old familiar endearment, "Ẅhat's the matter?
from here, above the clouds, I can see those brooding eyes,
The city, shall I say took all those smiles, you would gift
as a village boy , going to school with your chums, this way"
I know what comes next, fresh toddy served with love as an antidote,
right here under the tree, a brew that  brims with memories
of many guilty pleasures of adolescence,can I ever reject?

No worry lines on that gentle face, Raman is ageless, cool,
we sit on a pre historic rock, that extends  seating arrangement,
in to container, he made with braided Palmyra leaf,
Raman pours limitless love that for others would look like toddy,
to me this milky liquid, is a magic potion tapped from memories,
of a past that I thought has winged  away from me but still here.
I gulp it  and get transported to a time, I don't want to forget,
Now the wind, I can hear hums an old haunting tune,familiar
In mild intoxication, we chorus the wind's song on Palmyra leaves.

A toe-tapper with dapper deities dancing amongst my dreams, whilst whispering the seeds of hidden keys

Interloper of the thieves

Charmer of the fleas

A Powerful peon, seceding from the teams

Daring to believe in the sea, swallowing the cities in its grief

Dare to achieve the belief of flight and fly away

Contemplate and fall in over thought

Just do not

Stop

Doing the undo-able

Fate is renewable

Outwardly controllable

In what you think you see in the deplorable hues from the hopeful news of better days, lead astray in satisfaction to the complaints of saint-less ways

I debate creating another other place, and drifting away through space, but hey, maybe its a phase and i'm just late to the show

Last to know your nothings

Im [Spinning]

In place

Your beauty is a mystery,
The ęwa that the sun can not
Withstand,
Your smiles that scholars
Can not fathom.

Ajoke, the aręwa of our village,
I had known you since you came Of Age.
Adesina the only heir to the Oba,
The Queen said he hasn't be sleeping since
He saw at the yam festival.

Balogun, the warrior of our village,
Promised the King 300 victories to have you,
Ayankola the prominent drummer,
That performs at the village square,
His 'konga'  gives vulnerability to hips,
He wonders what have become of yours,

Odewale, the best village Hunter,
He has sent his wives packing to have you.
Alamu, the village woodcarver,
That carved even Oduduwa,
He has no clue how to carve your beauty.
Bashiru, the son of omowumi,
The palmwine tapper,
His is ready so supply 300 kegs to have you.
Olaniyi, the biggest village farmer,
With plenty of barns, is ready to
Give all this for your beauty.
Ajoke Ashake you are the goddess
Of beauty!

The beauty bird sing for,
That attraction men speak of,
The smiles poets write of,
Your beauty is a mystery!


To her who never noticed me
But her name protest to leave my lips.

One Sunday
On one of our many births  
We
must become the Pappa and Mamma
of an ancient Nazrani tharavadu.

I will go in the morning
And return with
A kilo of beef  meat
With bones
Two kilos of tapioca
And may be also a *** of toddy
From the toddy tapper.

While I slice the meat
You will crush the coconut mix
In the grinding stone.

I will come, now and then,
And wipe my face
In the chatta and mundu
Draped folds of yours.

Go away you shameless man
You will dub  
The slogan of a coy mistress.
Meanwhile
I’ll drum quick rhythms  
On your buttocks
Graced
With pleats.

The kids will see
You’ll repudiate, with your eyes

With the sun
Our bodies also will get warmer
Drops of sweat
Will make studs
On your
Nose.
With the fold of
My chequered mundu
I will wipe them off.

The sun will grow warmer
The toddy inside
Will simmer
In our bodies
An insatiable hunger will torment.

The aroma of
The beef curry with the coconut mix
That you cooked
Will drift into my nose.
Unable to control the craving
I will pick
Tapioca pieces from it and eat.
The hot bits will smolder my tongue.

“You Glutton”  
You will then
Whisper to my ears

By the time I wash my hands and sit
Calling out to the kids
And you, to come for lunch
The 12.30 bell will ring in the church.

From that unexpected
Sunday
Which we spent
Stingily
We will set aside
Some memories
for the next creation.



**Trans: Shyma P

Because my mom once said,
Life is a journey
And it won’t be that sturdy.
Crawl like a creeper
Or dance like a tapper,
It would let you decide
But still will push you over the tide.
There will be a day
It will hold you back,
Fight the tears
Dread the day
There is a light in you
Don’t see others fly away,
You are there to fight the grey.
Those who’ll go out of your sight
Could not make your home bright,
Don’t count on people
They are not for you,
Look up to those stars
That’s where you can hide your scars.
There will be days
When all you’ll sense would be darkness,
Don’t forget to look through it
Colors will be waiting
To fill your emptiness.
Feel the breeze
Open your arms,
Drink the rain,
Love the wind,
Let the smell of the flowers
Cover you,
Let the music of the birds
Be your language,
All you will learn is to smile
Because all days won’t be alike.
Because my mom once said,
Promises are like rivers
They don’t have any shape,
They begin from an end
And those ends seldom meet.
Don’t wait for any soul
Winds are born to be blown,
What they take
And what they leave
Is another story
Little told and so untold.
There will be days
When you’ll get tired
You’ll crave for love
You’ll wait for someone to hold you,
Breathe and begin again
Because some cries go in vain.
It won’t warn you before the fire
Not even when you will be half burnt.
It won’t collect the ashes
But that end
It will go in your name.
Because my mom once said,
Life is like a game.
You’ll never win
But you won’t mind losing in the end,
This loss would bear what you are
Like a mirror to your sabotage.
It won’t flow with happiness
You’ll be the struggler
And you’ll have to be the believer.
Because those who don’t believe
Throughout they bleed.
Even when you don’t find the reasons
Remember, autumn is also a season.
Beauty is not in fulfillment
It’s in half said quotes
Musical notes
Unsung melodies
Quite soliloquies.
Happiness is not in the balloon that flies high
It’s in the wings of those nestlings
Who so adamantly try,
It is not in victories
But joyful histories
Curious mysteries
Unexplained madness
Self created sadness.
Because my mom once said
This life is your creation
A battle without destination.
Catch all the butterflies
Live all your cries
Rise like someone will catch you,
Fall like someone will push you.
Because one day you’ll start this journey
All over again
Not because this won’t be enough
Enough is never the word
It’s always more and even more
But because you’ll once again become my sword
And I’ll not hold you ever
I’ll let you sway.
Because my mom once said,
I am born the brightest sunray
Life is just a child’s play.


-Prachi Bhardwaj

Why can't it be a time for me to be what ever I want to be?
I want to be a rapper, a hip hop snapper, a rhythm tapper.

Why can't we rhyme all the time for a nickel or a dime, it would be sublime?
I'd rhyme love and hate, end to ****, clothes to cape, and fat free to cake.

*** praat jy met 'n nagmerrie stem
waar jou uitroeptekens soos 'n slu foks-stem
in 'n koue marmer gaap besterf?

*** druk ek my ore toe
as my hande agter my rug gebind is
met drade van sielsdiep verse?

7 biljoen stemme , maar joune rys uit:
'n metaal orkes in 'n wereld van vyandlike vriende
en godslasterlike psalm-gesange.

*** droom ek stukke van jou op
in al die gifte van 'n barmhartige maan
wat my geliefde aan die bitterbessie bosse hang?

Ek probeer verwoed om my monsters
soos silwer gekwaste honde te verdrink
, maar selfs in die beursie-tapper lawaai water
is hul swem tegniek onverbeterlik.

Vergewe my stilswye en klapperwoorde
, maar ek sukkel om my drome te deel
met klaasvakie kerels wat hulle
voetspore ongeskonde laat
en liederlike drome aandra.

Ek bevraagteken soms die vraagtekens
en die puntlose stellings wat
tenstrydig die onbeperkte moontlikhede kortknip...

Soms wonder ek...
soms droom ek...
soms hoop ek...
-maar ek skrik altyd wakker
, altyd.

The White House sent senior adviser
Stephen Miller to CNN
To blast the recent publication
FIRE AND FURY. Once again,

Jake Tapper must know when they
Invite White House racist slime
To CNN for interviews,
They're wasting both his and our time.

Miller merely had talking points
And wasn't there to be interviewed.
Seeing that it was going nowhere,
Jake Tapper became unglued

And stopped the interview altogether.
Trump tweeted that Miller destroyed
Tapper, but what else would we expect
From Trump, a man who lives in a void.

It's funny: it's not at all surprising
How Trump and his team, by hook or by crook,
Resort to using antics that
Confirm everything in the book.

They and Republican members of Congress
Haven't just been caught unawares.
All of them have drunk the Kool-Aid.
What a sorry state of affairs!

-by Bob B (1-8-18)

tip tap
tip tap
tap tap
dipper dapper
tipper tapper

mind the gap
between the lines
between the letters
in the confiines
of the context
of the next word
the last word
the next line
and the last line

and the voids between words are
plump with delicious mountain ranges

queries reveal hidden trails
born by the scurrying
of many a thoughtkin

rustle rustle

Tinker thought a tanker
The tank t'was the tinker
Took a titter tapper through
Turn the twinker too
Tap the *** *** the tap
Then tinker tapped
The tanker til it toot'd

MAYBE on the lips? Because there I like to interpret bitterness.

Or on the arm? A pair that is not long enough, but enough
to always embrace, dim, nervous.

Or on the neck? The circular ladder, like a rubber tree, and
I was a tapper who could not bring heart to wound there.

Or on the forehead? A thin line of hair, always silent.

"Ah, do not have much guessing," you say, "let me read it,
The old verses of poetry, which I have always kept secret ...

Life is a struggle
A place where no one goes without a cut
This I wonder looking up to the hill before me
The hill of age!
.
Could this be a disease ?
As each strand of my dark hair refashioning into grey
.
Could this be an aliment?
My dimples renovating to wrinkles
My skin losing his smoothness
.
Could this be amnesia?
My brain on strike?
My memories are fading like sunshine at twilight
.
Climbing the hill age
Full of struggles like a
Tapper climbing a palm tree
Climbing the hill
To join the ancestors
Climbing the hill to
Begin the journey to the another phase!

Do not live my life it's hot and boren
Do not wish I swing pin and Paul,
Do not wish my throat were dried from my thoughts that drown my chin,i wish I were younger to change what I have become ..a masquerade on the ledge...
Be as my binary fill with even numbers match.. for you wouldn't understand, free from a cage..catched by your eyes
I find myself in the middle of two walls, one on epifany the other on dialogue,
You bleed me dry from your work and  sweat...
I please all but myself ..now I am pleased no more ..
I clap and you dance... Strange sounds of my land
A drum on a stick with a pack of frankincense
You beg me for unbelievable understanding when thy good dispises me..
Amitu the palm wine tapper was once a farmer so you said..
I will stay quiet till I meet you that day where the scorns and chains rebel for freedom....

pen, paper, stereo, a tapper
me with Eric B a nice plate of fish
before you begin to take the great plunge with the pen
hold your breath and count to the number ten

box, dice, loose change & credit card
we get tide up with knots
hands that welcome new pursuits
never relent in your pursuits

rejection letters
there is a part that explodes in me
e mails in the delete function
learn to think before you write

what did your contemporaries do
perhaps we have bitten off far more then we could chew
a renegade that's got it made
faces in the window with storms in the night

learn proper grammar
put into the right format
working to hard can give you a heart attack
learn from your mistakes

call it fate
yet someday you will succeed
it's called determination
knock you to your knees

You’d had just enough change to pick it up at the Hall’s gift shop,

As you’d ate sparsely at the down-on-its luck diner

Where the bus had stopped halfway or so through the trip out

(Just as well, given the place’s obvious indifference

To culinary innovation and cleanliness)

And you’d all but sprinted with it

From the cashier straight o the batting cage next door,

Inadvertently ending up in line for the machine

Which threw curveballs

(The kids ahead of you older, most likely high school players

Who made but weak contact with the pitches,

A dream dying a little with each weak tapper and foul-back)

And you went through a handful of futile swings

Before the final pitch came out of the machine,

Spinning oddly and refusing to break toward the plate,

Hitting you in the back with a dull, rubbery thud,

And your teacher, thick-middle man

Who had played a couple seasons in the Indians farm system,

Where he had faced Juan Pizarro (Son, his hook looked

Like it was coming in from first base)

Chuckled softly as he rubbed your back,

Saying It’s like I told you, kid,

This is a hard game.

Nkoyo, the beautiful girl
The daughter of a farmer
The wife of a palm wine tapper
Nkoyo was as charming as mud
Nkoyo is beautiful

Nkoyo the beautiful girl
Her hands were like iron
And her fingers were like old dry wood
She had bicycle legs
And her toes were like stones
Nkoyo was as clean as dirt
Nkoyo is beautiful

Nkoyo the beautiful girl
Her backside was like olumo rock
It never shook and had no form
Her hips were a carpenter's craft
And her waist, a crooked staff
When Nkoyo danced
She was like a monster about to die
Nkoyo was as gorgeous as an ostritch
Nkoyo is beautiful

Nkoyo the beautiful girl
Her face was like a dog's dung
Her teeth shone like darkness
And her eyes were colorless
She farted through her nose
And it killed my pet goose
Nkoyo was as pretty as a bull
Nkoyo is beautiful

Nkoyo, the beautiful girl
Nkoyo was my wife
Because of her wretched looking face
I vomitted every now and then
I wish I had paid dowry
But her dad had given her for free
I was no handsome either
She screamed when she saw me naked
But I was no worse than her
We lived in our old ancient cave
Bearing ugly ugly children

Her name was Mr's Tapper,
I called her Sugar Ray
and she worked for Mr Rothman
hand rolling cigarettes all day,

she told me
he was a tiny man
with a voice that filled the room
and all those ladies sat within
sensed some impending doom
as he counted up stray tobacco strands
with his nicotine and age stained hands.

Mr's Tapper left us
back in eighty-seven
no doubt she's rolling cigarettes
at Rothmans factory
somewhere in Heaven.

The Great Horned Night Owl
screeches my name and
I whisper back that it’s wrong.

Look around the block, across the coast
there is the soul that you seek.

She shifts to the closest oak limb
tapping just outside my window.

Bruja Buho both witch and owl
my grandmother called her,

this white night tapper
defiantly staring into my soul.

I listen to her caw, trying to detect
the trapped echo of others inside
but hear only my own.

It ruffles its plumicorns
reasserting its power over me
even in the past blinding light.

Its fluting has always
followed silently behind.

The final shape of this shifter
has always been me,
its imitations always my song.

She takes flight and
stands in the sky
denying me heaven.

She commands my ghost
to roam the earth forever,

my fate to be a
warning to my children.

She denies them her guardianship.
She denies them her wisdom.

She curses their sleep  
to nightmares.

They will only know
her banshee screeching.  

Her appearance will be
their disease and punishment.

In the bony circles around her eyes
they will see my torment
and my mimed warnings.

And when they **** her,
denying their fate,

they will see the sky again and
wear her feathers in their hair.