Firstly, I'm not a body-shamer.
To each their own
(a good phrase, though grammatically incorrect),
But sometimes I find it hard to understand
The tatoos, the piercings, the colors and placements.
The usual answer, if I dare ask:
     I'mhxpressthinmythelf.
Good for you.
Does the diaper pin through your cheek
Tell us you're a Dad or something.
     Na.
The quarter inch bolt and nut through your ear?
Are you a machinist or a plumber, or something?
     Na.
The doll-house plates in your lips?
Are you a Duck Dynasty fan?
A member of the Audubon Society or something?
     No. I'mapontingxprschmyselpth!
Sorry, what was that?
     I'mapontingxprschmyselpth.
I'm sorry. I don't quite get what you're saying.
I don't mean to be rude,
But could you express those plates for a minute... I... I get it.

We know it by the
Huge blinking lights
From rides that
Tend to make people
Throw
Up
Dairy Queen.

We know it by
Those big, intricate
Winding tatoos
That snake up the arms
Of half of the attendees
That have a message
That I can't read.

We know it by
Little children
Clinging,
Terrified,
To the hands of their
Irresponsible mothers.

And we know it
By inhaling so much
Secondhand smoke
That we're almost positive
That a little lung cancer
Has invaded our privacy.

We know it by
The Herndon Festival.

And we love it.

A collection of poetic tattoos
Permanent upon my heart
Fancy scripted verses
Beneath my chest
Illustrated hope
Penned deep
Artistic ink
Promised
Phrases
Of my
Love

"1)..You take your girlfrend. An go
clubbing,after you marry her you want to
stop her from clubbing.....my brother,you
think a miracle will happen??
2)...You have 8 tribal marks ,stretch marks
scattered all over your body,but you still
want tatoos......aahh my frend,are you a
zebra??
3)...You be 6 feet tall,you still wear 6 inch
high heels..my sister,you want to whisper to
God??
4)....You take pictures inside different types
of cars,yet you go say you are not a
cheater..aunty, are you a mechanic??
5)..You gather different pictures of girls in
your phone and you go expect your girl to
believe you are not cheating..abeg uncle,areyou a photographer??
6)...He gave you an engagement ring for over
5years but he never married you..my
dear,are you lord of the rings?
7)...You claim you ate pizza but you go *****
Polony and vetkoek..my friend,are you. a
magician??
8)...Your girl be licking ice cream but you be
drinking pure water.,.my friend,are you
diabetic??
9)..You are 18 years old and your sugar
daddy be 70 years old and you go call him
baby..aahh my sister,that one should be your
ancestor"

Hey, aren't you
That son-of-a *****
Whose mother jumped the wall.
Yea! You know who you are.
I spotted you hanging on the corner
Through the windshield of my car.
Were you talking conspiracy,
And planning your next job;
Dealing girls, drugs and guns,
Looking goth macabre.

You know who you are.
I saw you look right back at me
Through the side window of my car.
You were talking to your buddies,
I couldn't hear what you said,
I'm convinced it wasn't good,
By the tatoos on your head.

Yes, you know who you are.
You're still idley standing there,
In the rearview of my car.

This poem is for everyone who is reading it at midnight.
It's hard to be encouraging to you.
I'm writing this at midnight.
I can't sleep, either
The never ending rush of existence that lives inside of you,
I feel it
I feel it, too
At night I become a display case,
Showing everyone every shred of me
Every brutal scar that my clothing couldn't hide
Covered up by waking up
Or the clock striking seven,
Forcing another sleepless night
Slowly begining to fade the nightmares from before
Nightmares aren't dreams, they're memories
I show them on my skin like tatoos
All night,
I try and hand my consciousness to you
All night,
I try to convince myself there is a reason to wait for tomorrow
All night I face self loathing and terror
Every night I wish I weren't alone
Some nights,
I remember that I'm not

.slipknot's (sic) "vs."
  stone sour's get inside...

don't know,
sunglasses in the night,
beginning with a crescendo...

i'm pweetty sure that these
pro-life hags...
ever be presumed schizoid,
spending time with
fellow psychopaths
at some outskirt
London allotment...

     with a bunch of:
pick up, take elswhere,
    put down,
watch "it" dribble...
then expose itself
showing off a ******* *****...
and then,
a dave rubin,
finds it weird,
making an interview
with a pro-life advocate...
    well at least the mad
are not brain dead...
compared to these:
'here, by the grace of god',
wonders of the world.

sure thing, chief.

this, this...
pro-life advocate,
is going to suddenly turn around,
and play the priestly role,
of not being
the cabbage-kid caretaker?
really?
you know...
   when i was digging out
these potatoes,
i've seen more humanity,
when sheep were being
herded,
i've seen more humanity
when, even in their "claustrophobic"
setting laid eggs...
what i came across what:
wish you were in aushwitz
readied **** nurses...
about to shoot in
the back of the head
with these vegetable worth
of humanity...
    
        **** me, if they asked:
i would have brought an axe...
and this, pro-life chick,
so deluded from her experience
of the cabbage-patch kids,
well, sure as **** she won't be taking
care of these deviances,
will she?
                         it's somehow "life"
once the ***** passes the *******
"criteria",
    prior to? dead-tadpole...
something that would
resemble frog mating...

  people would rather prefer
petting three-legged dogs,
than any physical / mental
abnormality of humans...
   they would rather...
feel less of the "love"...
  and...
             squint at the spring blush
of a tomatoe...
         because people,
tell trimmed,
perfect nails...
expect others, to be "human"
when caring for the outliers,
like my grandmother said,
talking to an outlier
neighbour...
     so how do you feel...
with a heavily disabled child,
needing to express
his only ****** capacity,
you putting on the ****,
him jerking off...

while your healthy one
is roaming the rooftops,
readying himself to jump?!
i'm suicidal...
              claustro-**** or what?
like yahweh wasn't the purge,
the god of the purge,
against moloch?
    or beelzebub
                       or belial?

honestly, people who are pro-life,
don't even stratify in my screetch
at watching pro-life to its fullest
extent...

             cabbage-patch kids are far
from even hearing the arugment,
you have remnants of auschwitz nurses
herding them,
  i've see more tenderness
associated with herding sheep,
than what these people endure,
   and i call them "people"....
sure, the shape is there,
until the tongue and freelance
genitals come out with
a speech best associated with
onomatopoeia...

        it's always "pro-life"...
once you've made your argument,
and then did the Pontius Pilate
token of reply...
                    always the responsibility
of the argument,
but never, the responsibility
of the care...
              nice...

i've seen them, pretending to eat,
drool, strapped to what
euthanasia would have done
much simpler, ethically...
            you'd guess a *******
tapeworm would have more
existential focus to continue...

because... it's... not... supposed...
to... be... fun... or... easy...
              mind you, they're not kids...
30+ and almost brain-dead,
i've honestly seen humans
herd sheep with more humanity
than these, "people"...

           that's the "glorifying" aspect
of humanity,
it abhors abnormality,
i've been taught the lesson...
****** tatoos
over chernobyll birth marks
and subsequent scars...
   mediocre: rules!

              pro-life my *******
just became fused with a chilli-esque
rash...
        i wonder how it would fare,
if i just kept shooting blanks...
and women were shooting
out fertility,
   waiting for my shots of void...
would i "feel" less like
just doing a pol *** genocide
into a tissue...
more like: ******... better own that...

next thing you know,
you'll be placing your mortage
on a single roulette spin...

        i'm not laughing...
i know how the dichotomy of man
contra the inverted ontology
of nature prescribes relief
when subjected to the outliers...
it kills them off...

but these, petted,
prettied...
nail varnish....
   primmed hair...
       you think these arguments,
from these kind of people,
will solve the "problem"
of the cabbage-patch kids?
   ask me a different question...
like i said,
i've seen dogs treated with more
dignity to these half-brain-dead
outliers...
              and look how close
i'm standing on the ledge...

               hello england...
             hello the fwee wowld.

I watch men I do not know.
How they smile,
twitch,
scratch-
how the ***** steel bristles
cut through their cheeks and chins;
their tatoos
dull blue and grey
on sweat washed arms.
How they rub their hands,
push back their hair,
adjust their collars,
breath,
laugh,
belch.
I am looking for someone
I never knew.
I am looking for my father.
If he were near, I could not
let him pass by unseen, unfelt.

Meeting him,
I do not know what I would say.
hello
or
do you know me?
Maybe I would say nothing.
Maybe I would just sit and stare,
like a soldier,
seeing his own arm
****** and torn in the road,
wondering why the fingers don't move
when he tries to make a fist.

I am PRISSY
I am WINNING
I am a DAUGHTER
I am a MOTHER
I am a LOVER  ...a wife
I am ******  ...and I write it wink
I am a PROFESSIONAL
I am SILLY
I am BUBBLY
I am CURIOUS  ...but I'm no cat
I am SUSPICIOUS
Yet
I am TRUSTING
I am BEAUTIFUL  ...Inside and out
I am LOVING
I am FLAWED
I am PROGRESSING
I am KIND
I am MEAN  ...for a second If pushed

I'm only HUMAN with
Super Human capabilities
I am a BUTTERFLY
I am a STARFISH
I am a RARE FLOWER
Its name is YELLOW YHAMA

I have an ACTIVE IMAGINATION
I have LIVED
I have LOVED
I have LOST
I have GAINED
I have TATOOS  ...I want more
I have an alter ego named €HINA
My PROS outweigh my CONS

By day

I am Teyhama Harden

you can call me

"Butterfly"

amongst other things ...ADVENTUROUS!


~ButterFly εїз 2012 ©

All it takes is 1 song to bring it all back.
All the memories I have.
Your touch at the back of my Neck.
Your heavy breathing against my Ear.
The smell of your cologne when our bodies intwined.
As I roll my eyes back and you scent lingers in my nose.

Closing my eyes at night with that 1 song on repeat....
As my mind paints a picture of you, of your tatoos.
My mind reminisce your cologne.
Your hands painting a picture on my back.
That firm grip on my thighs.
All the evidence you leave behind....
Traces of bruises I discover.

Lord help erase all these memories.
I swear water falls everytime I think about you.
Your skin all over mine.
Your heavy breathing.
You always got the reaction you wanted out of me.
Even from a distance you still do.

As the Break of Dawn aproaches.
I still think of you.
As I fall into a Deep sleep.
I dream of you.

Did you ever wonder how an Alien from outer space really look?  Maybe they  have a "Big Head" with a nose like a hook.
If they were to travel down, to our atmosphere, would they be afraid of us, as they draw near.
Some people have their bodies, covered all over with hundreds of tatoos.  They have lost their identity, you have to ask, "Do I Know You?"
You may be smart and highly educated, signing up for a job on the internet or blog.   Once you step foot into Human Resource, do you think you are going to get a job?
It's important to think, before putting a large cobra snake all over your face.  If you are looking to get into Education, this will be a job you cannot take.
By, Sandra Juanita Nailing

i kept but one name-given namesake -
finally!
now it has become clear:
the german definite article -
die: implies definite article plural -
der: implies definite article singular -

i've become prone to german songs -
more than i'd like -
but i'd sooner die than have to recount
'hej hej sokoły' -
as the only folk song my ear was lent to...

an hour well spent:
a sudoku puzzle and some workhorse
germanic folk -
or listening the pearls and wisdom
of shane macgowan:
point being: the words come from
the tooth -
but only the french and the irish girls
can pull off... wearing short hair like
she'd be a boy...
perhaps those physiognomy details
of shy and porcelain:
faces that were only ever kissed
by the moon - the hair was was only
ever combed by the wind -
and she can come among the brothers
as a amber nectar gem ruffian in disguise...

sinead o'connor, alizée jacotey -
how the hell does tuba büyüküstün come
into the mix? ever so slyly...

bbc4 : 'when it was unpolular and unfashionable
to be irish in england'...
"unfashionable"? the drunken paddy -
the respectable ireland and its own...

conrad - conrad of masovia -
perhaps i just liked the names given unto me
that i chose not to be confirmed
at the brentwood diocees -
all whole lot of it: with a bishop clad in thistle -
the surname was always insignificant:
paperwork -
but at least the names allow you derive
meaning -

poor you alexander -
no minor roles to attach yourself to -
beside the glaring obvious...
st. levi: my former...

- i have only met one woman who ever
wanted to fiddle with my beard -
does it matter that she's my grandmother?
itchy fingers reach in and
pluck out a quartet of violins...

lie eines tambours:
die toten, die toten des regiments
(the dead, the dead of the regiment)

der tod in flandern:
der tod reit't auf einen kohlschwarzen rappe
(death rides on a coalblack horse)
in flandern reitet der tod
(in flanders death rides)
der tod reit't auf einem lichten schimmel
(death rides a pale horse)

teutonic marching party hum:
no wagner! murmurs and mumbling of disgruntled
baritone:
rataplan don diri don!
back from the east and there was
no cleavage to the british ways...
there was always the old one,
the alles vater of germanic roots and rot...
even in multicultural Loon'don...

but now know of the definite article distinction
in german:
der tod: definite singular...
die tod: definite plural... ja! jetzt isch sehen!

fa'lalala... fa'lalala... tamtaradej! tamtaradej!
niemec norweg duńczyk szwed!

a television - a phone no one rings -
all the blessings of the age -
better still - ghost in a skeleton suckling off
flesh - or staging: no soul welcome...
congested and freed from the loitering of
labour -

i would hardly imitate the irish as the dogs
of the british - sinking teeth into gaelic -
i would -
but since i do not have to...
i'd lend my ear toward speaking:
father german - of what this british brat
is worth...
father... alt-vater ßaß!
tease him, or tickle him...
give him a peacock as a gift for the missing
eye...
watch the crow zeppelins come knowing
how to knock...

i very much believe in a linguistic integrity
of a people - a language is beside the waving of
the flag - perhaps i am inclined
to skin of the supposed irish that do not
speak a word of gaelic: more so...
if they have tatoos on their skin?

the welsh have been given a strict overlord -
even though the english claim they
are the one *****-slap shy of donning
a gimp suit...
loud mouths from scotland...
but nothing in their native spreschen!
exfoliating "orthography" glaswegian...

oh but i would be willing to succumb to
this leprechaun sing-alongs...
i'm a workhorse of folk -
i need the drums and the vocals will do the rest -
no need for bagpipes -
or fiddling or dread the banjo...
old continent yawns...

who is the father of the english?
when the english start to... become too over-confident...
arrogant and atypical islander mentality that
doesn't borrow anything from the isolationism
of the Faroe Island people?
the forbidden fruit of the same language
being spoken "across the pond"...
unlike island dwelling people...
who want to be left alone...
strange... that so much media attention must
be given to a people:
that clearly do not want to be left alone!
who said the british didn't just generate
4 years of journalistic pay-cheques for
newspapers and other outlets?
stalling tactics... feeding tactics...
feed the propaganda hogs who will
gobble down anything and regurgitate with
an alistair cambell at the fore...

i was expecting to read some keneth koch,
listening to something beside german folk songs...
solving a sudoku...
and finally deciding... it would be worthwhile
to invest almost 30 quid in a complete works
of this poet...
one thing i've noticed...
the price of books has gone up dractically!
i once thought: paying 30 quid for heidegger's
ponderings VII - XI and II - VI is a bit steep...
but not all the poetry books i want to buy
cost just as much!

30 quid... em... that's almost a carton
of cigarettes...
and i've been hoping to save up to visit a brothel
and forget something:
of no immediate concern...
but poetry books were never this dear to buy...
i was rather spontaneous when
making a recommendation: kenneth koch...
perhaps i should read some more
before i buy this kilogram's worth
of compressed forest of a book...

but that's all the way into a tomorrow's
sitting before: this will never become
a Balzac 14 coffee work-ethic output...
writing: making sure the reader
has no chance to reflect -
nothing to introspect with or for...
then again:
what's any of this supposed to do
with: beside the reflexive?

man's transcendental love will never compensate
for the pragmatic love of a woman
in need for a, kettle...

shady lots of the unforgiving blue-snippet
of jazz and all the better:
that could happen that didn't originate
with british punk...
1960s screaming girls -
1970s and the boys could come around...

yeah, i've been to Ypres - where as pseudo-children
we played hide-and-seek trade-offs
in the trenches...
where the anglo-spreschen graveyards
have signatures: names -
and individual graves...
the german graves? the german graves
of 1st world war?
wilhelm! are you listening?!
apparently the jews were also
trafficed into the slaughter camps...

i have stood in the graveyards
of the germans - the en masse graves sites -
i have witnessed the silence of these graves...
camaraderie of the dead...
nothing of which the english
would ever learn...
in the graveyards
of a "communal"...

the mass graves of the fallen german
"hitlerjunge"... alles im schwarz...
keiner im khaki: senf hinter abendessen!

i stood in the graveyard of the world war
german en masse graveyards...
no sparrow will sing: when the dead sing among
each other...
i will not visit the slaughterhouse
of auschwitz... the cow-towing...
i will not bow before those that were naive...
but i will nonetheless...
succumb to the idiots...

and the Helmut: die eisenhelmkopf: knock-knock...
echo? echo?
among the english...
one is supposed to reach toward
loving the german
(then again one isn't);
feeling indifferent to this lot...
not being quiet the h'american expatriates
they could have been...
old father sax...

the world can heave: settle for the concentration
camps...
i must savor the bounty found in
german en masse graveyards from
the first world world war
if any slaughterhouse is willing to open
its gates to an esque auschwitz...
so be it... but the graveyard
to the youth of germany, wilhelm youth...
camaraderie: freundschaft-im-tod

mutter-tod!
i need not see the concentration camps,
i've seen the graveyards of germany from
the first world war...
if you've seen one sardaine crammed closure
ground...
and the silence...
what does it matter, regarding the people
so naive?

vier! 4th! alternatively: fear!
the mass graves of the youth under Wilhelm
in the vicinity of Ypres...
that acidic silence...
piquant...
and i am supposed to visit the concentration
camp the slaughterhouse?
what will always die
with being naive... trust... and love...
and disinhibition and...
lingua franca ergonomics of
selling stale wood in the form
of antiques...

i know one way of failing to integrate
into english society...
look down... learn some german...
learn what the old father spoke when
he started to brew these unforgiving children
of the chandelier maze...

i'll be singing these germanic folk songs...
x-ray flag of cornwall -
teutonic - black cross upon the white flag...
muslims nearing jerusalem -
old pagans of lithuania
remnants of the golden horde having settled
in ukraine's crimea -

best felt: of what it feels to be alive,
in england...
tinging the old ****** with a dalmation specker
full blodied worth of:
zee ols: germanicus inhibutus -
because there's not need for *****...
as far as the british go...
in... ***** first: welcome! the conquering
par'tayh!

******* soft-ball dodgers and ****-*******
pinzetteblödsinnausweichmanöver:
ease a coming... you *******
weiser herr misers!
lovecraftian video vermont
aenemic *****-liquor...

poetryfoundation.org poet:
is he / she dead?!
they're dead? they're dead?!
oh thank god there's a dead...
and body worthwhile to **** with...
because safety... safety...
and no bit of h. h. holmes
will ever grace the pish-poor pasrty...
party... oops...
******* yankies...

horror is a fetish...
poor croat poor yugoslav...
unless you mention
the serbs and the balkan "muslims"...
high-brow expectation -
until i am willing to meet
not meat...
my fore-bride... death...
honk honk!
i am more than willing top die
via the swizz affair than all this,
******* fawty towers agony...
pristine and puritanical...
the living better excused to live...
enough to buy them life insurance...
and, otherwise... the remains of
dead willing to pop the cork...

the sane always have their: two pence shave
worth of flip: they know-it-how...
the sane will alway know what to write
about insanity...
problem? when the insane write about sanity...
and the mole-hills and whatever it left
becomes the windowlicker down-dyndrome
chop-suey "oops"?
retro-****: or simply: re-...
the sane have authority over the insane...
what happens when the insane have a crab-bite
on the concept of "sanity"...
people elsewhere also die... no?

sanity that requires grey-matter peep-show
peoples to run miles for:
the dying auntie and her cancerous loved-up
"french"...
the sane speak of the insane
i almost forget: the insane would never
speak about the sane... because...
it's nostalgia: papa roach:
between angels and insects...
as dostoyevsky said:
for angels... the sight of god's throne...
for insects... something associated with
succumbing to soap opera and itchy ***
disinhibitions...

why would i visit these concentration camps?
living in western europe first world war
was more important than the 2nd world war...
i've visited a german world war I mass grave...
why would i subsequently visit
the remains of a concentration camp?
a site near Ypres where no sparrow
will cling to branch or to song...

for no reason: don't tease... stop teasing...
if you life is all mud and mediocre and
soap opera... stop teasing!
i will not visit a concentration camp...
appeasing the hebrew...
only when... the graveyard of the en masse
dead of german youth is visited from
the 1st world war...
where... bullet, mud...
fingerprints not welcome...
citizens non-anon...
auschwitz and death the addressee...

the sane and their stipends concerning insanity!
but then one diagnosis falls foul...
and the straitjacket jack starts speaking...
oh! oh then!
the usual story...
the usual *******-become-bells-and-church-uvulas...
and the rest is just a cry, a sigh,
a boring reminder of the british raj...

learn some german...
the peasants will retain theirs with some velsh...
and that's how you
react to be... "leisured with a caption
of being measured via
the focus of having a father"...

liebe: zu nicht lassen gehen...
liebe: das alles ich können behalten!

i rather speak some german on these isles...
this is not ******* h'america...
this is the old continent..
england serves for *******'s worth of nothing
when it is excused to speak german...
while english is relegated for chinese tourists...
and... the faroe island farmers of sheeps' **** and wool...

it's not like you'd expect to become welcome
these days, or any other days...
as a tourist or as a ******* trader...
of "goods"...
made in chine is the broker's deal to begin with...
on the broken bone signature...

i too thought the english were prized on
giving stipends on how:
how to best keep things cordial...
champagne, oysters... the eton mess...
a good round of polo and ******* wacking...
no?

i do admire the early exits of the suicide prone...
i would too...
but i do crave... for the platic 20 quid banknote...
and what would become of charles III
should he chose a different name...
and i really wish that lizzie lives her most...
but then... her current grin is already
tombstone... and she...
well... she's bothersome in that she's pradictable...
and that's boring and bongo-bongo boorish...

****'s sake: two popes teamed up to try
and topple her off the throne and play snooker
into a dead-8 with her crown...
better speak some german: for jokes...
among... the british... that did live through
the 60s of the 20th century...
but... will never relive the same cushioning
of history to somehow "compensate"
the rolling stones dinosaur of the:
most welcome pensioner rock & zimmer framers...
roll with that sort of shaky stephens
park-on-eire-n-son?

just drop the delayed nuke...
we're all done and b.b.q. readied
recounting what's interpreted as "trauma"...
superiority / the messiah complex
of the english...
but you speak a word of german...
you think a word of german and...

do these people care, to, remember,
their, natural, neighbourly...
competitive streaks with the fwench?
it's just like "us"... the polacks with the russians...
with the germans...
i too thought that the ukranians were
better represented by competing with
leftover mongols of crimea.

Pretend to be crazy so you can get away  
with  doing  what's  right.

Remove yourself from situations where
you have trouble being and feeling your
true self.

Decrease your connection with anything
that tends to demean  your spirit, shrink
your lust  for life , limit  your  freedom,
ignore  your  soul,  compromise  your
integrity,  inhibit your self-expressiveness.

Love  your enemies in case  your  friends
turn out to be jerks.

Whoever  you're  longing  for has  been
changed by your pursuit of them. They are
different from what they were when  you
felt the first pangs of desire.

To make them yours, then, you'll have to
modify  your  ideas  about  them.

Be careful what you wish for because if your
wish does materialize, it will require you to
change in ways you didn't foresee.

Give yourself another chance, pretend your
wounds are exotic tatoos.                                              Jon York   2022

When we can't sleep
What did we do

I never wrote
I had nothing to do

Just like in prison
I was bored to death

I then took pen and paper
And wrote about life

About my past and people in jail
Such a strange place
Like nothing in this world

It is so very different
Nothing like TV

There's still plenty of heart ache
With a lot to see

A lot of tatoos about people's lives
Many different cultures and a lot of fights

I had more laughter then words can tell
****** up lives of people who thought it was hell

Me I got lucky was facing 15 years
From nothing I did wrong
someone didn't like me

It could of been envy or jealousy from what I had.

Whatever the reason, it was something I had

I stayed there a while
Yet they had nothing

Nothing on me
Yet they tried very hard

The time then came
They had to let me go

It taught me how to write
And how to live my life

You
I wanna know what keeps
You
Up at 3 am telling stories to an animated audience
Who
Makes a wild guess about what you've been through
but I wanna actually know about
You
I wanna know everything about you

Tell me about where you grew up
Tell me what your favorite color was
then and what it is now
Don't leave anything out
Tell me what your tatoos mean
And more about the sounds from your guitar strings
Did you like your home town?
Don't leave anything out