First what I learned about business at six years old my sister and cousin were out in the pasture behind the house on Jefferson St
We were this messing around and we found these turnips in a line in these little piles with weeds piled on top they were covered
With little flakes of ice very cold on bare fingers we weren’t deterred before long the little red wagon was bulging or this was
The sales and delivery truck so now let’s find some customers so off we went door to door people were pleased and we did a crisp
Business success came to fast we were up at Beno’s little standard gas station spending our windfall so back to work well
Got back to the house and then I thought man uncle Fred was living in the office now defunct after the green house went down
We all have old uncles how sweet fun loving knee slapping koots hold on big sale straight ahead so I knocked on the door the door
Opens wide prospective customer is ready to be sold uncle Fred would you like to buy some turnips then it happened right above his
Collar red started to rise it was surprising to say the least it seemed like right then was when the ping pong game started in my mind it would
Bounce back and forth front to back one side was thinking this is wild then hey this looks like a thermometer how is he doing that
Then as it kept going to his full white head of hair one part of the Childs brain is it going to catch on fire about then the top of his head
Didn’t blow off the only place available came to life this great roar emits from his mouth if this was a peanuts comic strip our
Hair would all be blown straight back I also didn’t know he had been a sailor and I thought he had me confused with someone else I
Heard that happens to older folks he spoke as though he thought we had a hearing problem then the mistake he said you sons a b——-
No I’m Lavern’s boy your sisters daughter he said what were you doing in my turnips back to the back part of the brain I was thinking
Thank God we already cashed out our profits butter fingers baby Ruth’s bubble gum and all the other candy was all I was thinking
Well and how to go out of business gracefully mostly in a hurry how fast can you get a wagon in motion going the other direction
maybe it was me but from then on he looked like he looked on us with a birds eye and we were worms to tell the truth I’m still not a
Great fan of turnips later I learned the line cussing like a sailor I thought he must have really sailed long and hard.

How come your brain doesn’t have a red flashing light when you’re going to do something stupid Halloween night eight years old?
Costume or lack of one go out as Minnie pearl straw hat corn cob pipe and dress the late October wind was alive to say the least
Legs so use to cover and warmth now pop cycles so high then the thrill of cold wind whipping up you rear what to do slap your legs
Together that only would help the inside cross your legs then you couldn’t walk only thing left grin and bear it what else could go
Wrong walk up to the door the guy whips the light on why couldn’t a lady have come to the door an old lady so it’s show time for
Effect I **** on the pipe one problem the idiot who made the pipe didn’t clean out the dust when he drilled the well part of the pipe
No problem I cleaned it out the tongue barely felt it the throat got the whole load so for the next three minutes I choked gagged spit
All Over the guys yard he was quiet amused it seems later I found a piece of paper that said inspected by number fifty four I wanted to
Write a letter dear fifty four but I didn’t have any other address and I was to small any way so frozen somewhere from the middle of
My shorts down half strangled I hate Halloween.
Almost childhood
The Jefferson gang went to the lake to camp out we were in this hideaway deserted spot off the main lake at the end of a slough
It was as black as the end side of a barrel and cranes are almost extinct well why this one had to stay alive at our camp site
It would fly over the water right at you then make this terrifying sound it was like a white specter a ghostly sight and it just kept doing
It well what do the brave do I can’t speak for them but I can speak for five spooked cowards we all jumped into a pup tent for two all
Of us were armed with shotguns all I know is if a farmers bull or cow walked up and mooed it would have been cow dunnie everywhere
A tent hanging in tatters and all of us chocking from gun powder at close quarters and deaf somehow we ****** up our guts and went
To bed it was five thirty in the morning it was nice and cold but I had pants on I was down at the edge of the water the mist was over
The water and then the biggest boom it was like a farmer had been blowing out a stump with dynamite and forgot the last stick or it
Was the crack of doom maybe it was I whirled around and there was Jesus standing right in front of the camp fire his Indian blanket
Held straight out with both arms I heard how he turned water into wine but he turned our campsite into chef Boyardee spaghetti
Factory well at least Charlie Cole did he came late into the camp out idea he wasn’t there when we were told to punch a hole in the
Can Before you throw it in the fire to heat it up he had scalding hot spaghetti on his face in his hair all over the tree limbs he continued
His Christ like imitation like he was amazed or in deep worship where ever he was he felt no pain maybe he was where the can went we
never did find it I hope no one was blown out of bed by the blast well it didn’t make the paper I guess all kinds of crap happens at the
lake.

For those who could use a laugh

First what I learned about business at six years old my sister and cousin were out in the pasture behind the house on Jefferson St
We were this messing around and we found these turnips in a line in these little piles with weeds piled on top they were covered
With little flakes of ice very cold on bare fingers we weren’t deterred before long the little red wagon was bulging or this was
The sales and delivery truck so now let’s find some customers so off we went door to door people were pleased and we did a crisp
Business success came to fast we were up at Beno’s little standard gas station spending our windfall so back to work well
Got back to the house and then I thought man uncle Fred was living in the office now defunct after the green house went down
We all have old uncles how sweet fun loving knee slapping koots hold on big sale straight ahead so I knocked on the door the door
Opens wide prospective customer is ready to be sold uncle Fred would you like to buy some turnips then it happened right above his
Collar red started to rise it was surprising to say the least it seemed like right then was when the ping pong game started in my mind it would
Bounce back and forth front to back one side was thinking this is wild then hey this looks like a thermometer how is he doing that
Then as it kept going to his full white head of hair one part of the Childs brain is it going to catch on fire about then the top of his head
Didn’t blow off the only place available came to life this great roar emits from his mouth if this was a peanuts comic strip our
Hair would all be blown straight back I also didn’t know he had been a sailor and I thought he had me confused with someone else I
Heard that happens to older folks he spoke as though he thought we had a hearing problem then the mistake he said you sons a b——-
No I’m Lavern’s boy your sisters daughter he said what were you doing in my turnips back to the back part of the brain I was thinking
Thank God we already cashed out our profits butter fingers baby Ruth’s bubble gum and all the other candy was all I was thinking
Well and how to go out of business gracefully mostly in a hurry how fast can you get a wagon in motion going the other direction
maybe it was me but from then on he looked like he looked on us with a birds eye and we were worms to tell the truth I’m still not a
Great fan of turnips later I learned the line cussing like a sailor I thought he must have really sailed long and hard.

How come your brain doesn’t have a red flashing light when you’re going to do something stupid Halloween night eight years old?
Costume or lack of one go out as Minnie pearl straw hat corn cob pipe and dress the late October wind was alive to say the least
Legs so use to cover and warmth now pop cycles so high then the thrill of cold wind whipping up you rear what to do slap your legs
Together that only would help the inside cross your legs then you couldn’t walk only thing left grin and bear it what else could go
Wrong walk up to the door the guy whips the light on why couldn’t a lady have come to the door an old lady so it’s show time for
Effect I **** on the pipe one problem the idiot who made the pipe didn’t clean out the dust when he drilled the well part of the pipe
No problem I cleaned it out the tongue barely felt it the throat got the whole load so for the next three minutes I choked gagged spit
All Over the guys yard he was quiet amused it seems later I found a piece of paper that said inspected by number fifty four I wanted to
Write a letter dear fifty four but I didn’t have any other address and I was to small any way so frozen somewhere from the middle of
My shorts down half strangled I hate Halloween.
Almost childhood
The Jefferson gang went to the lake to camp out we were in this hideaway deserted spot off the main lake at the end of a slough
It was as black as the end side of a barrel and cranes are almost extinct well why this one had to stay alive at our camp site
It would fly over the water right at you then make this terrifying sound it was like a white specter a ghostly sight and it just kept doing
It well what do the brave do I can’t speak for them but I can speak for five spooked cowards we all jumped into a pup tent for two all
Of us were armed with shotguns all I know is if a farmers bull or cow walked up and mooed it would have been cow dunnie everywhere
A tent hanging in tatters and all of us chocking from gun powder at close quarters and deaf somehow we ****** up our guts and went
To bed it was five thirty in the morning it was nice and cold but I had pants on I was down at the edge of the water the mist was over
The water and then the biggest boom it was like a farmer had been blowing out a stump with dynamite and forgot the last stick or it
Was the crack of doom maybe it was I whirled around and there was Jesus standing right in front of the camp fire his Indian blanket
Held straight out with both arms I heard how he turned water into wine but he turned our campsite into chef Boyardee spaghetti
Factory well at least Charlie Cole did he came late into the camp out idea he wasn’t there when we were told to punch a hole in the
Can Before you throw it in the fire to heat it up he had scalding hot spaghetti on his face in his hair all over the tree limbs he continued
His Christ like imitation like he was amazed or in deep worship where ever he was he felt no pain maybe he was where the can went we
never did find it I hope no one was blown out of bed by the blast well it didn’t make the paper I guess all kinds of crap happens at the
lake.

Childhood
First what I learned about business at six years old my sister and cousin were out in the pasture behind the house on Jefferson St
We were this messing around and we found these turnips in a line in these little piles with weeds piled on top they were covered
With little flakes of ice very cold on bare fingers we weren’t deterred before long the little red wagon was bulging or this was
The sales and delivery truck so now let’s find some customers so off we went door to door people were pleased and we did a crisp
Business success came to fast we were up at Beno’s little standard gas station spending our windfall so back to work well
Got back to the house and then I thought man uncle Fred was living in the office now defunct after the green house went down
We all have old uncles how sweet fun loving knee slapping koots hold on big sale straight ahead so I knocked on the door the door
Opens wide prospective customer is ready to be sold uncle Fred would you like to buy some turnips then it happened right above his
Collar red started to rise it was surprising to say the least it seemed like right then was when the ping pong game started in my mind it would
Bounce back and forth front to back one side was thinking this is wild then hey this looks like a thermometer how is he doing that
Then as it kept going to his full white head of hair one part of the Childs brain is it going to catch on fire about then the top of his head
Didn’t blow off the only place available came to life this great roar emits from his mouth if this was a peanuts comic strip our
Hair would all be blown straight back I also didn’t know he had been a sailor and I thought he had me confused with someone else I
Heard that happens to older folks he spoke as though he thought we had a hearing problem then the mistake he said you sons a b——-
No I’m Lavern’s boy your sisters daughter he said what were you doing in my turnips back to the back part of the brain I was thinking
Thank God we already cashed out our profits butter fingers baby Ruth’s bubble gum and all the other candy was all I was thinking
Well and how to go out of business gracefully mostly in a hurry how fast can you get a wagon in motion going the other direction
maybe it was me but from then on he looked like he looked on us with a birds eye and we were worms to tell the truth I’m still not a
Great fan of turnips later I learned the line cussing like a sailor I thought he must have really sailed long and hard.

How come your brain doesn’t have a red flashing light when you’re going to do something stupid Halloween night eight years old?
Costume or lack of one go out as Minnie pearl straw hat corn cob pipe and dress the late October wind was alive to say the least
Legs so use to cover and warmth now pop cycles so high then the thrill of cold wind whipping up you rear what to do slap your legs
Together that only would help the inside cross your legs then you couldn’t walk only thing left grin and bear it what else could go
Wrong walk up to the door the guy whips the light on why couldn’t a lady have come to the door an old lady so it’s show time for
Effect I **** on the pipe one problem the idiot who made the pipe didn’t clean out the dust when he drilled the well part of the pipe
No problem I cleaned it out the tongue barely felt it the throat got the whole load so for the next three minutes I choked gagged spit
All Over the guys yard he was quiet amused it seems later I found a piece of paper that said inspected by number fifty four I wanted to
Write a letter dear fifty four but I didn’t have any other address and I was to small any way so frozen somewhere from the middle of
My shorts down half strangled I hate Halloween.

Almost childhood
The Jefferson gang went to the lake to camp out we were in this hideaway deserted spot off the main lake at the end of a slough
It was as black as the end side of a barrel and cranes are almost extinct well why this one had to stay alive at our camp site
It would fly over the water right at you then make this terrifying sound it was like a white specter a ghostly sight and it just kept doing
It well what do the brave do I can’t speak for them but I can speak for five spooked cowards we all jumped into a pup tent for two all
Of us were armed with shotguns all I know is if a farmers bull or cow walked up and mooed it would have been cow dunnie everywhere
A tent hanging in tatters and all of us chocking from gun powder at close quarters and deaf somehow we ****** up our guts and went
To bed it was five thirty in the morning it was nice and cold but I had pants on I was down at the edge of the water the mist was over
The water and then the biggest boom it was like a farmer had been blowing out a stump with dynamite and forgot the last stick or it
Was the crack of doom maybe it was I whirled around and there was Jesus standing right in front of the camp fire his Indian blanket
Held straight out with both arms I heard how he turned water into wine but he turned our campsite into chef Boyardee spaghetti
Factory well at least Charlie Cole did he came late into the camp out idea he wasn’t there when we were told to punch a hole in the
Can Before you throw it in the fire to heat it up he had scalding hot spaghetti on his face in his hair all over the tree limbs he continued
His Christ like imitation like he was amazed or in deep worship where ever he was he felt no pain maybe he was where the can went we
never did find it I hope no one was blown out of bed by the blast well it didn’t make the paper I guess all kinds of crap happens at the
lake.

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I'm dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run

to

***** of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef
and hot dogs by the scores,
or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.

Give me a fresh *** of your nips.
Ehh?? Give me a ******* turnip!
I went to Peterborough, came from Marrakech,
Which one should I rip to flesh?
In summer I love to chew icicles,
Whatever! It’s to die for!
I rode a bike and had a stew,
Never mind this poem, go and have a poo.

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park.
Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
Some of the oaken voices, from the roots
Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
Some let me make you of the water's speeches.

Behind a post of ferns the wagging clock
Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning
Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
And tells the windy weather in the ****.
Some let me make you of the meadow's signs;
The signal grass that tells me all I know
Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
Some let me tell you of the raven's sins.

Especially when the October wind
(Some let me make you of autumnal spells,
The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales)
With fists of turnips punishes the land,
Some let me make of you the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds.

Long live the king
All the peasants sing
They were slapped in the face
And fed him turnips
As he  did not turn up

The peasants sing
Long live the king
...
The turnips were poisoned

Clueless
Be careful what you wish for is the old saying what person hasn’t wished they had a monkey well I didn’t just wish I dutifully sent my
nineteen ninety five off to Florida one squirrel monkey please in about a week he arrived at Jefferson what a thrill he came in a little
Wood crate not much bigger than a shoe box at first I was upset by the meager delivery package soon I would be wishing it came with
A small monkey sized straight jacket you felt sorry for him all alone in a strange place it would be like a wagon train seeing a lone
Indian oh how sad he probably feels intimidated by all of us all the while he is the scout while six hundred are sneaking into position to
Attack so there we set him starring us staring back you know I had a mirror if I wanted to stare and least I would know what was
Being thought about out in Monterey the pastor had been a missionary to the apache in Arizona the custom you would go in set down
And not say a word for thirty minutes very nerve wrecking to say the least I could have made a sock puppet if I just wanted something
Lifeless to lay there well maybe he was hungry monkeys eat bananas here boy enjoy this he did he came to life a little if this had a title
It would be wild meets tame and stupid because the longer this went on the simpler you felt I don’t know what hidden button was
Pushed but he came to life and like a shot out of the box across the floor on the couch up on the back of the couch and seemingly
Straight up the bare wall onto the grandfather clock that set on a ledge shelf oh we found out he wasn’t constipated from his trip
Because as he went up the wall his banana straight pipe right through his system came flying out well by this time everyone without a
Tail had gone on high alert grandma mom aunt and sister and yours truly were in hot pursuit while he rested on top of the clock like
A monkey god if anybody walked up on the porch and looked through the picture window and saw all of us stretching and reaching
For his highness they probably thought we were worshiping our monkey god I don’t think the clock bonged but the banana or
Something caused another burst of energy later out home we would suffer a like fate with a toy poodle we were gone he ate a bag
Of chocolate cookies while we were out on a white cloth couch they said that was dangerous for his breed yes right the only thing
He was a little extra zippy that and when we left colored Easter eggs and went out I opened the door the smell hit me in the face they
Say big foot smells like eggs well he could have been setting on the couch I wish he had so off the clock a good seven foot drop then
Like a dream does instantly it turned to briar rabbit don’t throw me in that briar patch briar fox the monkey races across the floor
Shoots through the bedroom door don’t chase me into the bed springs oh stupid one how he fit in there I don’t know let me tell you
Fur ball from Florida hell I shoot pool at whitey’s pool hall every weekend this broom will do I looked like a Plummer snaking out a
Sewer as I shoved it through the springs time and again our new friend had this quickness one minute he is between the springs
And then in one motion he pulls himself out and up on the top of the bed time for sis to take a crack at the problem she approaches
With two big oven mittens on she sticks out her hand and says nice monkey at first he looks interested but then like a flash and I don’t
Know who was quicker it looked an old west gun fight that and a challenge to a duel because he bit the glove and then sis spoke the
Same uncle said about the turnips you s.o.b. and slapped his face in a duel your suppose to take your hand out of the glove well he just
turned his face with the slap then just stared at her but little did we know he put a monkey curse on her it came out later country girl
Ha s her own place clashes with modern connivance she gets a new Frigidaire it makes its own ice how nice well if not for the monkey
Curse it might have been nice the thing was like a super hen shooting out ice all day ever hour the tray would be full after a while you
Get tired of going to the back door continually throwing the ice out in the back yard not to mention the icy swamp you create
Something had to give it did she reached in there and tore its gizzard out or something who needs ice well at least not enough
For a block party every day or so I guess I might as well tell you the rest of the curse my mother was next on this vengeful little turds
Agenda well we never got to name him well **** isn’t quiet right more like splat any way we were living over by the fairgrounds in
Our luxuries digs I say that because we had a delicacy you know chocolate covered aunts well cake covered I was eating away
And to my surprise there I was eating an aunt city riddled through the cake far in the future I ate caviar on a diner boat as we sailed on
San Francisco bay but I don’t recommend the cake aunt variety not when it comes as a surprise well listen we were cleaning up we had
An appointment you heard of the sales man of the year well this was the sales failure of the year he was coming to sell us life insurance
Yea and soon as we got it signed then we could take the trip to mars as planned and if anything happened well you know we were
Covered well here right at the end we found this old felt hat how innocent mom even started a fire in the stove in it went my Endora
From bewitched starting coming out it didn’t take long inside the house it was magical it was pitch dark and how big was that any way
I’m sorry we must have already been to mars because we must have gotten the hat there and they made it from a supper skunk god the
Odor if we had termites they would have killed each other trying to get out of that stink bag well when this wonder of a salesman got
There he must have thought we were foreigners that conducted business out in the yard well that the monkey story o yes the end
I threw a blanket over him took him over on the river gave him to Lloyd I went back a few days later he was setting on his shoulder
Calm as a cucumber but he ignored me thanks nineteen dollars shot well it does make a story the people in this story their identities
Have been changed to protect the stupid.

"The question should not be in what ways writing and utterance trope each other, but how both are involved with number. Without relating the technology of writing to number (as opposed to sound or drawing), it is impossible to discuss it meaningfully as an aspect of versecraft."

          Courage to write and courage to not write. Read
          The great poets and highly accomplished letters
          Of leaders. Yet the war and the book have lives
          Of their own. Vacuum house, analyze mankind.
          His idea of himself. Ideas subsumed by
          Better ones unite people in melting pots.
          I watch from my little bowl of nuts. Watch
          The one red squirrel and the many gray.
          Watch the nuthatch pair, platoon of chickadees.
          Here is what I say: When we can go
          From planet to planet on nothing but air,
          Leaving behind a drop of water,
          No burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
          I’ll love my sons, and my dogs will be happy.

"What is needed is a way to pry apart the polar, mimetic fiction that undergirds discussions (even sympathetic ones) of writing and versification, and see how we can relate writing to measure. Roy Harris’ investigations into the origin of writing make this connection possible."

          Electronic millennium. A long silence
          Wouldn’t hurt. Not that the national debate
          Should cease, it should proceed, passionate
          And furious. Those who have studied the matter
          And have something to say should write cogent
          Opinion pieces on the totalitarian
          Tendencies of minaret Islamists,
          The terminal contradiction of advancing
          Democracy with the unitary military.
          George Washington would not have approved
          And even Lincoln vacillated between
          The practicalities of preserving union
          And the ideal of freeing slaves. The president
          Carries his burden of matter, the physics
          Of existence cannot change our aloneness
          Or the butterfly’s importance, the very
          Last insects at the screens of August.
          It is life we face and death we meet.

"He argues that the origin of writing did not lie in the drawing of figures, or attempts to imitate speech, but in the recording of number. According to Harris, the oldest ‘writing’ that we have, like that on the 11, 000-year-old Ishango bone, is in ‘lines.’ The surface is scored with rows of short, parallel strokes, which probably served a numerical function. We still use such scoring systems today on occasion."

          OK, different strokes. But reading North’s poems
          And his predecessors’ in which noun and verb
          Are so far separated by modifiers,
          Post-positioned prepositions, diversions
          Into ditches, gardens, heavens, I don’t know
          What to do laugh or put the book down and eat
          Several cookies. In other words, anything goes,
          There truth resides. 1/3 life in suburbs,
          1/3 on the subway, and the last third
          On the mountain. A fourth hallucinating
          In heaven. That’s how it goes. You get what you believe.
          Bones in mud. It’s always possible I suppose
          That for nine months analogous or symmetrical
          With gestation our souls wander call it limbo,
          Doing the limbo and harassing the living
          With unanswerable questions, finally accepting
          Free molecular rent in a cubic meter
          Of interstellar space, a rose hip.
         
"Harris speculates about counting by scoring:"
'What is relevant for our present purposes is the fact that counting is associated in many cultures with primitive forms of recording which have a graphically isomorphic basis... The iconic origin of such recording systems is hardly open to doubt: the notch or stroke corresponds to the human finger...'

          Partridgeberry, mugwort, mats of raspberry,
          Cranberry, bearberry, autumn eleagnus,
          Autumn Nocturne, Autumn Leaves, the changes
          To the tunes and the scientific names.
          When it doesn’t matter what you do
          You’re probably doing something new.
          That’s a woodpecker. That’s a moth. I’m bounded
          By my surroundings, I feel at home.
          Could be Schenectady. Could be Troy.
          One of many small cities in which to
          Await my anonymity. Be specific.
          Not asphalt but impermeable surface.
          Not trees but mature stems. Quercus rubrus—
          Quality veneer. Into such a garden
          Have a victor and a fool penetrated.

'In short, the rows of strokes are graphically isomorphic with just that subpart of the recorder’s oral language which comprises the corresponding words used for counting. It makes no difference whether we ‘read’ the sign pictorially as standing for so many fingers held up, or scriptorially as standing for a certain numeral.'

          In a crowded world every action results
          In an equal and overwrought reaction.
          Yet, all the energy recycles
          And there is not one thermal unit more or less
          When all is said and won. Even when the tribes
          Were isolated behind mountain ranges
          And rushing rivers, they sought each other out
          For trading and for taking. Humanity
          Is lonely. Humor is the only remedy
          And going to your daily discipline
          The only way past Monday. Join the torrential
          Flow of words, emotion, wit and erudition.
          It is embarrassing to see a good writer
          Work himself into a lather, having
          Something to say. A system of beliefs
          To illustrate, characters dressed accordingly.
          Gardens and wilderness in which to wander.
          A cave with a view. The plumbing problem never
          Resolves. But we will do what we can and
          Some things we shouldn't because that is human.

"Along with other evidence, this leads him to argue that the invention of writing–or the division of writing and drawing into separate functions–occurred when the graphic representation of number shifted from the token-iterative system that appears on the Ishango bone, to type-slotting."

          Electricity is occult enough for me.
          Excessive classifying could be fascist!
          Yet how else can one organize people
          Into contexts. By their associations.
          Family, work, habits, each assigned
          A day of the week, moon of the month.
          Poets rhyme, jazz musicians count time.
          There is more than one way to make war. By
          Declaration, by punishing offenses
          Against the law of nations, by granting letters
          Of mark and reprisal, by making rules
          Concerning captures on land and water, by
          Suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions,
          Erecting forts, magazines, arsenals,
          Dock yards and other needful buildings. Today
          I face the blank page between the finished pages.

"Harris gives the following example of what he means:"
'The progression from recording sixty sheep by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by sixty strokes to recording the same information by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by a second sign indicating ‘sixty’ is a progression which has already crossed the boundary between pictorial and scriptorial signs.'

          When my grandmother considered it favorable
          That I would be a writer, she had in mind
          Clear commentary from which many people
          Would derive meaning. No such luck. My writings
          Are like the flicking tail of that flycatcher,
          And I am the flycatcher, weighing but an ounce.
          My grandfather’s rough-hewn peasant chairs
          Are well known by my sons though they never knew him
          And the chairs were not hewn, just owned by him.
          One is in a corner of the room and two
          Are scrimmaged around a computer screen.
          Computers post-date him and cars post-date
          His father and so on. If the grid collapses,
          The crops fail and the roads close, some will be forced
          Across boundaries among boulders, naming snakes
          And stars according to memory.
          They will be hungry, mortal and strong.

'A token-iterative sign-system is in effect equivalent to a verbal sublanguage which is restricted to messages of the form ‘sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep...’, or ‘sheep, another, another, another...’, whereas an emblem-slotting system is equivalent to a sublanguage which can handle messages of the form ‘sheep, sixty’.Token-iterative lists are, in principle, lists as long as the number of individual items recorded. With a slot list, on the other hand, we get no information simply by counting the number of marks it contains.'
"When this change occurred it opened ‘a gap between the pictorial and scriptorial function of the emblematic sign’, which had been previously inseparable in the counting represented by rows of slashes."

          No book I know tells if blue cohosh
          Caulophyllum thalictroides—a barberry—
          Is edible. Other barberries are
          But that blue berry looks risky to me.
          And May-apple—Podophyllum—other
          Than the fruit itself which is definitely
          Sweet. So I read, not sure of myself.
          There is a patience with which to wait out anger,
          And a patience with which to endure ignorance.
          The job is everything. It is freedom
          And purpose and religion. It is acceptance
          And shelter and sustenance. Last night
          We were watching Tweet’s show: groveling before
          The rich pharisee’s judgements. I said no
          Amount of money could make me grovel
          Before that guy. His toupe’s gayer than his lisp.
          But who am I? You think bullets won’t ****?
          I’m the guy they put before a wall and shoot
          Then eat lunch. But that feeling passed quickly.

"This semiological gap, made writing possible because it meant that signs could be manipulated to ‘slot’, or identify, anything whatsoever. The open-ended quality of the scriptorial sign was a necessary precondition for the development of writing systems."

          Lately I’ve been copying wholesale
          From the great poems, lines and ideas not my own
          Or owned by all? It’s ok, I can be ignored
          Or appreciated in a future city,
          By a future shore. The honest man can
          Only recognize what he loves and point to it.
          That Borges poem called In Praise of Darkness.
          Emerson and snow. A meditation
          That bumps serenely, with acceptance,
          Between things and thoughts. It is said one should
          Know for whom, to whom one is writing.
          These are letters to those who love letter writing.

"As Harris points out, no writing system is accurately phonetic. Even the alphabet only highlights certain phenomena in the speech stream. The reason for this is that alphabetic writing did not begin as a simpler or more accurate way to record speech than other writing systems, but as an easier way to write."

          A possible cancer had taken me
          To the edge of my endurance. Pokeweed,
          Poisonous, became attractive. Red stems
          And juicy black berries. I had packed warm clothes
          And pain killers. Why the warm clothes if this
          Was to be my last walk? To die in comfort
          Without a fly’s buzz. Overlooking a ravine,
          Sea of mountains, dawn. But it proved a false alarm.
          Now Sunday will be a holy day of plant
          Identification. Nothing better
          Than lying in leaf litter, skin drying
          To a taut drum. Ravens stay away!
          Until cougar’s had his fill! Instead
          I showed the boys pokeweed growing among blackberries
          And taught them the differences and uses.

"Through a radical reduction in the number of signs, the alphabet simplified the scriptorial system in and of itself. The evolution of writing therefore may look like this: simple forms of counting preceded the complications of pictorial representation, which in turn led to simplification of the writing system in cultures that adopted the alphabet."

          I was running uphill, parallel to
          The Taconics extending northward into
          Vermont (I find Vermonters in their jalopies
          Annoying but admire them for planning
          To arrest the president for war crimes) when
          I happened upon a flock of cedar waxwings—
          Said to be a gentle and politic bird—
          Sharing—very orderly—dried frozen grapes
          On the vine. (Rose hips, buckthorn, ash, pokeweed.)
          I tried one, too, the two seeds in my mouth
          Keeping me company down the mountain.
          I see no downside whatsoever
          To compensating for global warming,
          Constructing the green energy economy.
          New inventions may facilitate
          Our transportation to other planets.
          Yesterday a young man, Barack Obama,
          Won Iowa. I’m hopeful he will
          Articulate an international vision,
          A world order in which each neighborhood’s
          Good as another. I have no particular
          Love for writers; they’re a dime a dozen.
          But so are chickadees and I love them!

"Discussing the power of inscriptions of number, Harris points out:"
'Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice at all is. For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched. Yet somehow they exist, and their existence can be confirmed in quite everyday terms by all kinds of humdrum procedures which allow mere mortals to agree beyond any shadow of a doubt as to ‘how many’ eggs there are in a basket or ‘how many’ loaves of bread on the table.'

          True, nature would be a stern, unforgiving
          Mistress too, and man is but her right hand
          Acting on her command. How cold! How hot!
          The individual doing what he loves or not.
          Trees and cities. Herons, hawks. What we fail
          To govern in ourselves, nature will.
          We caught the killer and his gorillas,
          Now let’s go home, let the “innocent” choose
          Up sides. A good thing was done but the tyrant
          Should’ve been undone through global governance.
          Writing is divination using rhymes
          And estimations. Words like mammals
          Come near your sleeping head. Last night I emerged
          From the hum of our refrigerator
          Under a hazy, phaseless moon. The peepers
          Were an exact expression of my happiness.

"Or, one might add, for how many stanzas there are in a poem, or lines in a stanza, or stresses, feet, or syllables in a line, or occurrences of particular syntactical or grammatical patterns, and so on. As every serious student of versification has always understood, versification is about counting language."

          5:30-6 write poetry,
          6-7 ****, shave and shower, stretch
          Then get dressed, 7-7:30
          Clean house, 7:30-8 drive to work
          8-6 work (except Monday and Friday
          Work 8-4, basketball 4-6)
          6-7 drive home, shop, help make dinner
          7-8 eat dinner, read paper,
          Watch McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,
          8-9 play trumpet, study plants, type poems
          9-10 watch TV Mon: Murphy, Cybil,
          Tues: Frazier, Grace, Wed: Roseanne, Ellen,
          Thurs: Seinfeld, Friends, Fri: go out to dinner,
          10-11 read, except Tues watch
          NYPD Blue, Fri: Friday Night Lights,
          11 sleep. I could send this to the networks,
          Get a gizmo in my box. I hope my
          Schedule won't be interrupted for war.
          My dentist asked had I seen this morning’s
          Press conference, didn’t it just scare the ****
          Out of you. I said your bill is what scares
          The **** out of me. But here I am, writing
          And the sphere’s still turning. Or should I say
          Burning. As long as you write one poem per day
          You’ve left a little litter in the world.

"The reason to write verse is less to score the voice than to imbue words with the magical quality of counting. That is why meter, or measure, is at the heart of debates over all verse forms, including free verse."

          Vigorous wind, voracious ocean,
          Many merciless hard frosts, hurricanes.
          The bed of a human, its smell and warmth
          36 teeth, 46 chromosomes, 2 feet, a loose dime,
          61 summers, some soot, some sand,
          Thunderstorms. I wake up to a lightning strike
          And my dream incinerates. When they say
          Life is but a dream, that’s what they mean.
          The writer working hard, telling the story
          Of what happened yesterday or yesteryear,
          A man’s born to a country not his choosing,
          Let labor flow like capital, of mere being!
          Pomegranate juice, broccoli, arugula,
          Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower,
          Collard greens, kale, radishes, turnips,
          Garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, 2 lbs
          Swordfish, tomatoes (8 medium),
          3 cups almonds, carrots, a sweet potato,
          Winter squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, watermelon.
          2 daily writing exercises,
          50 words on any subject: complaint, headache.
          The imagination applies a
          Countervailing pressure to reality.
          Writing badly is the best revenge.

"Number is one of the creative grounds of poetry, and the idea that writing grew out of counting is the missing link in studies of the graphic in versification. It is almost uncanny that lines of verse look exactly like the most primitive ways of counting–parallel scorings that can be numbered."

          What you do to one side of the equation
          You gotta do to the other. Isolate
          The variable. Combine like terms. Metaphors
          And analogs are reduced to least common
          Denominators. Multiply through (parentheses).
          Write a new equation after each operation.
          Inscribe neatly. Check your work. Imagine
          That if you’re wrong, the astronauts burn.
          Change the signs which will avoid going
          The wrong way down the number line. Zero
          Is the middle of your universe.
          There it is, calm, comfortable as an egg
          On a spoon. That is, before possibilities
          Become probabilities. This is just
          Another equation manipulated
          With opposable digits. For at the ends
          Of your guns is the earliest calculator
          A magical machine which converts
          Numbers to words and words to numbers,
          Measures the mists, frequency and wavelength,
          Of the material penumbra.

"Verses are countable in exactly the way that token-iterative digits are countable, from either end of the sequence. Each one indicates only its singularity, not a number. Every poem in lines effaces, or predates, the distinction between writing and drawing in the same way as the lines on the Ishango bone."

no dead birds in the oven
no innards in the stuffing
nor fatty drippings to be scraped and poured

the smell of roasted veggies
wafts through  the wintry air
pumpkin and sweet potatoes
marshmallows  green beans  lentils
turnips  & collard greens
hashed browns & black-eyed peas
quinoa  sorghum cuscus hummus
carrots  leak  broccoli Romanescu
gumbo in southern regions
wild rice dishes in the north
tastily spiced with turmeric
cumin and baked paprika
Indian curry  soy sauce  chipotle
as well as with the usual suspects
of garlic  salt  and pepper
and whatever fits the taste of hosts

in short
a venerable feast to demonstrate
how nature feeds us a large cornucopia
of plants for our delight and sustenance

in short
no need to **** a bird

                * *

Who was there had seen us
  Wouldn't bid him run?
Heavy lay between us
  All our sires had done.

There he was, a-springing
  Of a pious race,
Setting hags a-swinging
  In a market-place;

Sowing turnips over
  Where the poppies lay;
Looking past the clover,
  Adding up the hay;

Shouting through the Spring song,
  Clumping down the sod;
Toadying, in sing-song,
  To a crabbed god.

There I was, that came of
  Folk of mud and name--
I that had my name of
  Them without a name.

Up and down a mountain
  Streeled my silly stock;
Passing by a fountain,
  Wringing at a rock;

Devil-gotten sinners,
  Throwing back their heads,
Fiddling for their dinners,
  Kissing for their beds.

Not a one had seen us
  Wouldn't help him flee.
Angry ran between us
  Blood of him and me.

How shall I be mating
  Who have looked above--
Living for a hating,
  Dying of a love?

Who, or why, or which, or what, Is the Akond of SWAT?

Is he tall or short, or dark or fair?
Does he sit on a stool or a sofa or a chair,
                or SQUAT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Is he wise or foolish, young or old?
Does he drink his soup and his coffee cold,
                or HOT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he sing or whistle, jabber or talk,
And when riding abroad does he gallop or walk
                or TROT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he wear a turban, a fez, or a hat?
Does he sleep on a mattress, a bed, or a mat,
                or COT,
        The Akond of Swat?

When he writes a copy in round-hand size,
Does he cross his T's and finish his I's
                with a DOT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Can he write a letter concisely clear
Without a speck or a smudge or smear
                or BLOT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Do his people like him extremely well?
Or do they, whenever they can, rebel,
                or PLOT,
        At the Akond of Swat?

If he catches them then, either old or young,
Does he have them chopped in pieces or hung,
                or SHOT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Do his people **** in the lanes or park?
Or even at times, when days are dark,
                GAROTTE,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he study the wants of his own dominion?
Or doesn't he care for public opinion
                a JOT,
        The Akond of Swat?

To amuse his mind do his people show him
Pictures, or any one's last new poem,
                or WHAT,
        For the Akond of Swat?

At night if he suddenly screams and wakes,
Do they bring him only a few small cakes,
                or a LOT,
        For the Akond of Swat?

Does he live on turnips, tea, or tripe?
Does he like his shawl to be marked with a stripe,
                or a DOT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he like to lie on his back in a boat
Like the lady who lived in that isle remote,
                SHALLOTT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Is he quiet, or always making a fuss?
Is his steward a Swiss or a Swede or Russ,
                or a SCOT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does like to sit by the calm blue wave?
Or to sleep and snore in a dark green cave,
                or a GROTT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he drink small beer from a silver jug?
Or a bowl? or a glass? or a cup? or a mug?
                or a ***,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he beat his wife with a gold-topped pipe,
When she let the gooseberries grow too ripe,
                or ROT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he wear a white tie when he dines with friends,
And tie it neat in a bow with ends,
                or a KNOT.
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he like new cream, and hate mince-pies?
When he looks at the sun does he wink his eyes,
                or NOT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Does he teach his subjects to roast and bake?
Does he sail about on an inland lake
                in a YACHT,
        The Akond of Swat?

Some one, or nobody, knows I wot
Who or which or why or what
        Is the Akond of Swat?

How far would you travel from where you were born?

She spends more on her dogs in one week,
Than the government provides for those in trouble.

She’s a naturally happy person.

The mottled concrete walls of the council block she’s moved in to,
Complement her pock-marked, pink skin.

For a rich person,
She’s ugly.

The doors to buildings are painted bright colours,
-blues and greens-
And stand out against the brown stone that is everywhere.

Kevin is a mousey young man with stringy brown hair,
Recovering from drugs,
And she thinks he looks like a very nice man.

They are playing football on cement outside,
-plants are expensive-
Now talking over vegetables, around a table,

About the young mothers who will be coming in to learn,
How to grow turnips -
Like growing confidence, they’ll be told.

Did you know that people move to Dundee from Warsaw?

Makes you wonder what Warsaw is like-
-who’s fault it is that people can’t eat alcohol-

She’s hanging knickers out to dry and telling me that she’s discovered,
She doesn’t need all the shoes that she has,

And would it do if she were to donate,
A hundred and fifty thousand pounds?

They smile when they receive their checks.

Their blue doors fly open,
And when they say thank you, they mean it,
The money is enough.

Round the back,
The husband is in tears.

JANE, Jane,
Tall as a crane,
The morning light creaks down again;

Comb your cockscomb-ragged hair,
Jane, Jane, come down the stair.

Each dull blunt wooden stalactite
Of rain creaks, hardened by the light,

Sounding like an overtone
From some lonely world unknown.

But the creaking empty light
Will never harden into sight,

Will never penetrate your brain
With overtones like the blunt rain.

The light would show (if it could harden)
Eternities of kitchen garden,

Cockscomb flowers that none will pluck,
And wooden flowers that 'gin to cluck.

In the kitchen you must light
Flames as staring, red and white,

As carrots or as turnips shining
Where the cold dawn light lies whining.

Cockscomb hair on the cold wind
Hangs limp, turns the milk's weak mind . . .

Jane, Jane,
Tall as a crane,
The morning light creaks down again!

well, thank you England, but bye bye,
but hey! the blonde ferret  will be your guide,
anally sniffing Kentucky. say bye to Hong Kong -
say bye in Bengali to India বিদায় (bid-aya). oh sure,
feel pride, but there's the Zeppelins missing,
Focke-Wulf Fw 191 too... Londoners Yorkshire proud
as turnips.... horse and carriage people... blame the Poles!
invite the Syrians... the Hair-rash gingers
from Dublin never mattered... feels good not feeling racist once
you greet the Syrians unable to work the coal-mine, doesn't it?
a bit like donating to Oxfam?
go **** forward mind i guess where the triceps will
come from... remember that my
great paternal-grandfather was a **** with a
Wehrmacht dagger - adding to your closure on debility,
and the Irish jingle - or as someone said:
the show must go on... i just laugh at your little
racism nibbles - never heard a viola in an Irish jingle -
heard the Titanic, for sure, the perfect pub buddy
had a self-conscious moment - there's always the KKK
and the graveyard - unless you're not being
democratic, which i am aware of;
dogs and as suits the master - coagulating glue
for the thick thick contrast between φ and θ, esp.
in ascribing the title genius to a child, via spelling,
when φ and θ are side-by-side, e.g.:
as women said: i knew better than your concern
for digestion, so i grew a foetal-turnip while
you harboured a thought;
i guess the continuum mattered greatly to the thought
excavated, but i held life dearest,
and the foetal-turnip mattered most...
well, as Moses wrote: i'm anything but man,
so loving you (woman), will always be like
digging up turnips along with fishing for shrimps,
a bogus affair needing fishermen and half the sea
of awaited selectivity for the metaphor
there being other fish to catch; whatever;
****** come cheaper than dating, and dying for the third
or fourth time, i can't wait being aged 40;
by this point... it really doesn't matter if there'll be
a gathering to celebrate my name in Trafalgar Sq.;
by now there are other priorities, like turning on
the radio and not stealing MP3s; i only compound
the self with consciousness given history -
history makes me self-conscious, a shame of not having
invented the refrigerator or the kettle, or having
a thought concerning gravity to no use for someone
climbing the god-body of Tibet that's Mt. Everest.

Let your Life be a sacred garden,
planted with genuine, saintly seeds;
properly nurturing your crop daily,
yields blessings for personal needs.

Begin with three rows of peas:
“Peace” of mind, heart and soul,
for it creates a basic foundation
that leaves you healthy and whole.

Next plant four rows of squash:
”Squash” vain gossip, indifference,
grumbling and unwelcome selfishness
to reap real, spiritual brilliance.

Add four generous rows of lettuce:
”Let us” be kind, walk in His Love,
faithful, and patient with each other-
being reflective of the Kingdom above.

Follow with three rows of turnips:
“Turn up” for meetings, service
and to regularly help one another.
Not to do so, would be a disservice.

Finally, plant three rows of thyme:
”Time” for family, friends and others-
seeing that we’re really related through
our humanity, as sisters and brothers.

Sow your seeds often; water with patience;
prune and cultivate them with His goodwill.
By transforming into a master gardener,
the desired results, you’ll… eventually see!
.
.
.
Author Notes

Inspired by:
2 Cor 9:6-7; Hos 10:12; Gal 6:7; Luke 6:38
and the anonymous “Planter’s Guide”.

Learn more about me and my poetry at:
http://amzn.to/1ffo9YZ
    
By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2014, All rights reserved.

I bring hotdogs and turnips to it
gladly sit in the unpopular rows
with people who know their **** stinks,
not those who feel a need to condescend
degrade and comment on others here
I would gladly bring 'tato chips
and nachos and pass on the high brow
caviar some think they are
for you smell
when you judge others
like you are the beginning end and class of the show
when you are just
pretty versions of *******
in better clothes
with store bought words and
stupid wits.

Now I'm in the turnips and string beans of poetry:
It's like, you think you'll grow up some day
And live in a two story house with swimming pool,
And a two car garage, with a six pack driveway.
Things turn out differently, though you might think
You'd spend whole days devouring Dickinson, Keats, and Shelley,
Drinking fine wines with tidbits of exotic cheese.

Then you find out you'll live in a one car rented garage apartment,
Over a couple always yelling or making love-
There's no in-between; and you never know which it'll be
And if you're mistaken for the significant other you might get
Bopped with a lady's spiked heel or an army boot.

Then you find out that you're the couple
But you're always too busy to make love;
Love is no longer scheduled like bowling night,
It all depends on uncluttered horizontal surfaces and spare minutes-
And the wine turns into beer, when you can afford it
And the nightly budget pizza is the only dough you'll get
It's constipating; but the words still get squeezed out.

And the poets you're reading now aren't dead:
They're urbanely unkempt, and you know them personally,
All their quirky habits; writing poems at bus stops
In a voluble rush; writing words on cafe napkins,
On discarded want ads and torn paper sacks;
And none of them are well known, and none of them are rich.

But they're poets all the same, they live and breathe
The written word, and you're no different, certainly no better,
All of you shooting up words and slang nightly,
Weighing out the soul of the latest idiom,
Choking on cheap cigar smoke and wishing you'd written that,
And thinking you could have done it worse-
And suddenly some night, you look around you

You realize you're living poetry, and you don't care anymore
About rich and famous- because now it's your addiction;
None of that mattered anyway, for only poetry holds any reality now.
Everything else is imaginary, and all the poets started out this way;
Nobody knew them or gave a rat's ***,
And they went on writing just the same
As if it were the most important job on earth they'd been given.

The Afghan army insisted things
Were more secure in 2013

But they had to close down the schools
One man said the Taliban threatened to attack the schools

Now the men fight with Soviet era weapons
The American troop levels reduced

In one village
The people can farm and work freely
Because of patrols by the Afghan police and
The police took over the patrols after the Americans left
The police report what is going on to the military

The people want clinics and schools
To be built

The army leaves day to day security
In the hands of the National Police

The Police Chief says
They have gained the trust of the local people
And they discuss how to punish the warlords

May God be with the national army and police force
May they protect the people and keep them safe

Some Afghans
Living in Pakistan
Were forced to return to Afghanistan
After a school was attacked in Peshwar, Pakistan

The Afghans suspect
That local officials are taking advantage
Of the situation
To expel unwanted refugees

More than 33,000 undocumented Afghans returned from Afghanistan
In the first six weeks of 2015

Even some registered refugees
Have been driven out of Pakistan

Many returning Afghan families have nowhere to go
In Jalalabad, the closest big city
On the Afghan side of Torkham
Families pitched tents along a canal
Lacking any other resource

Their children pulled turnips from a nearby field
The most reliable source of food

One woman is worried
How her children will fare
They no nothing of the country
And what it is like

Their is great mineral wealth in that country
Perhaps that is the main reason why
The U.S. has plans to stay there
For an extended period

I doubt life for the Afghan will ever get better
Or be more secure
The Taliban are there to stay

33% of people live below the poverty line
I doubt that figure will ever improve either
Even if the country prospers from their mineral deposits
The common man won't benefit

Well, that's just how the cookie crumbles
In Afghanistan

Turnips & Silver King,
onions & string beans,
carrots & radishes,
lettuce & potatoes,
yellow squash & bells,
the brown eggs
sure look swell.

Honey of all shades,
homemade jams & jellies
& wildflower arrangements
made to glorify God.

People here smile & nod
their friendliness
& what matter
if they have any teeth or not,
they will never be forgotten
for their gifts to mankind.

And if it were their last penny
& you needed it,
it would be yours.

Maud And Star Mirror
Surazeus 2011 01 16

Little Maud walks to wooden barn
where she milks a cow in early dawn
then trudges back through thick mud
in freezing cold to castle kitchen hall.

Flash of light from thick wet muck
blinds her blue eyes for a moment
so she kneels and grasps a long stick
and pulls star mirror from dark dirt.

Dunking mirror in freezing stream
little Maud washes strange object clean
and gasps to see round silver disk
that reveals face of a beautiful queen.

Hiding star mirror inside her cloak
little Maud steps inside hot kitchen
where large Alis shouts you ugly pig
what took you so long to bring us milk.

After baking fifty loaves of bread
and dicing seven bushels of turnips
little Maud runs to her small shack
leaning against towering castle walls.

Little Maud gazes in shining glass
with awe at beautiful elegant queen
whose eyes are blue as summer sky
and hair is gold as shimmering wheat.

What strange painting is this she smiles
full of magic from hand of a sorceress
that she moves and talks in time with me
and always smiles at me like a friend.

What a pretty gown of scarlet silk
sewn with pure white pearls of light
and what a bright tall ring of gold
studded with diamonds and rubies.

Little Maud hears church bells ring
so she steps outside her frail shack
when a dozen women in white robes
whisk her away to a warm bath house.

Washing her clean in tub of water
and dressing her in a scarlet gown
they braid her long soft golden hair
and place a crown on her bowed head.

Riding a horse with attendant ladies
little Maud gazes in mirror surprised
wondering why they treat her so well
as if they thought she were a princess.

Galloping from woods of wild crows
tall man on a horse rides to her side
then grasps her braids with a shout
and pulls her down onto dusty road.

Shouting as he glares into her eyes
he cries so you refuse to be my wife
declaring you are far above my station
because you are granddaughter of a king.

I sent you a letter with a romantic song
hoping to win loyal love of your heart
but when you rejected my proposal
I rode straight to Flandria on my horse.

So I am a ******* because my mother
was daughter of a poor flour miller
and you are too high and mighty for me
then you can reign over wind and dust.

Just because you are a great princess
granddaughter of wise King Robert
and descendant of Charles Magnus
does not mean you are better than me.

I am good William Duke of Normandia
and though men have tried to **** me
a hundred times since I was but twelve
yet I reign supreme over all my land.

Flipping his cape with an angry growl
William turns to leap back on his horse
but Maud grips his arm with a smile
and kisses his mouth with eager desire.

Pressing close to his heaving chest
Matilda slips hands behind his head
and opens soft lips to taste his soul
and two hearts beat as one wild hawk.

Leaving him stunned with wide eyes
little Maud leaps back on her horse
and smoothing her long scarlet gown
she smiles and rides forth to her chapel.

Sitting in chapel by sparkling river
little Maud gazes deep in star mirror
and smiles when she sees William
appear behind her with flushed cheeks.

William and Matilda sit side by side
in small stone chapel by crystal stream
and drink together from holy grail
smiling at each other with loving eyes.

This is what I want
A little house with an a frame top
And giant colored strands of lights in every window
With a huge tree , too big most definitely for the room
And a ridiculous mixture of old and new just covering the walls

I want wallpaper
Peeling from the walls
As though it almost hurts it to remain stuck on so hard
And I want it so be intricately ugly and old an’ discolored
In a cozy way

I want to live on a street of little houses
With potluck suppers
Small gardens that are improperly tended
Maybe with some oregano spread throughout

I want a little cozy life
With a tall cozy boy
We can pick our oregano and our turnips
Cook us a stew
Peel the onions
Like the wallpaper from our little walls

I want a Polaroid camera
So I can take instant pictures that I cannot regret
That I can keep in a tin beneath my bed
Forever they will stay etched

I want to ride trains everywhere
Sitting in my seat
Glaring out at the window at the little houses
With A-frame tops
Yellowing lights
Covered in that glinting snow

Today the snowflakes looked like real flakes
Like the ones you cut out of paper
And hang on the wall of your dorm
To cover up the stains and cracks
In the yellowing paint
As is peels from the wall
Like my dream wallpaper

The wind in Buffalo makes me cry
From my right eye
My wrong one just sits and wonders
“What makes the right one so weak?
It is just a little storm,
Why can’t the right ones just hang in there?
Without drowning us in their sorrows…

We all have our favourite flavours, be it what you will
Add some stock or a can of soup, anything but chilled
Pick a pack from the shelf,
Carrots,
Celery,
Turnips,
A clove of garlic,
All good for your health
A side scoop of fresh mash, potatoes mixed with butter
Bought from the farmer down the road, Mr Smith with the tedious stutter
Straight to bakery for some bread, to soak up that lovely mix
All the ingredients clumped together, every box it does tick
Served with a feeling of a homemade dish, pretty simple when you know how
Delicious and tender and a joy to eat, especially that winter has come now
It warms you up, puts a glow to your cheeks, feels good and livens the soul
Now dunk that bread and sip that wine,

Delicious with Casserole

JJB

Biscuit and sorghum syrup happy faces with Georgia peach butter and blackberry muffins , childhood favorites that tickle the palette !
For a bag of Fall persimmons , a handful of roasted pecans I would gladly cross the Alcovy River naked as a jaybird !
Rutabagas , turnips and cracklin cornbread would be my staple of choice if marooned on an island , a Frosty Root beer and mothers egg custard !
Peach ice cream and scuppernong jelly , fig preserves and tomato gravy !
Columbus grits and Claxton fruitcake , Vidalia onion rings , Elijay apples !
In my next life I relish the very thought of becoming a Cardinal , turned loose in a muscadine arbor ! The most heart stopping  , meanest scarecrow ever made would be no match for a wise old crow in a watermelon patch ! Mockingbird busy in a old plum tree , a honeybee in a clover field as far as the eye can see !

Lunch!
Diminutive organic beasties.
The beings not of humankind.
They love them or they hate them.
You can never over rate them.
Not really Belgian.
But make some Flemish (phlegmish).
Rather sick.
Those sprouts from Brussels.
I say yummy.

The swede is not from Sweden but yo ** **.
I love it so.

Turnips, so very lush as long as not boiled to mush.
Roasted is much better.
With butter and pepper.

Forget the meat.
Forget the spuds.
Bring me in a platter of veg.
With piping hot gravy.
Maybe I'm so cheap to feed.
Because I need no meat.
Not a vegetarian.
Just love veggies for my tea.


By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

When the King came down to the counting house and found all his money had gone
he ranted on as only Kings can in the Kingly way
for a year and a day,
which was surprising but only in that it reminded me of the pea green boat and the ***** cat
the loss of his dosh had nothing whatsoever to do with that.
The King was now potless
not a penny to spare
he couldn't sell knighthoods or forested woods,
he was as they say,'boracic lint'
skint
a pauper.

His Daughter,
the lady Jamille
cried a lot
for now she'd to deal with the peasantry and pleasantly so,
she had to learn how to grow,
cabbages,turnips and broad beans it seems she did well enough to feed the family with vegetables
she could stuff tomatoes with mince because quince was 'orf' the menu
she made ragout and that was a mess,spilled it all down her best lavender dress and she cried a lot more.
Being poor was not good and being knightless and single was worse,she was sure she'd been cursed by some well versed old witch who was concocting a spell to leave her quite naked,not even a stitch to her name,
I did mention her name was Jamille?
yes
Jamille learnt to steal and to lie and to cheat
a normal occupation
if you have to stand on your own two feet (in shoes which she stole)
She got caught in the end and in the courts of the justice was ordered to mend her ways.
The old King was ashamed but could hardly be blamed for this circumstance which caused him such grief
it was down to the thief who stole all of his money and the same thief pretends now to be posh,
well he would do with all of that dosh
but we know different don't we.

Clothes may make the man as much as any amount of money can but
it does not make you a king and vice versa,

It is warmer

In Paris
They talk about
The weather
Eat frugally
Hamburgers made of
Indian cows
Turnips from Sweden
Potatoes
From Holland
Gobbledegook
And sign on
The dotted line.

allow me to sting the tip of my tongue to lick
every drop of disappointment
each of these failures
let me drink,
if there only be a God

The god,
a wise one cruel and cunning.
forecast me into a fight grim
fatal and frightening,
wrestle the nails from my fingers,
lay before me the lamb to slaughter for the grin
of knowing:
I do not wake torchless
in the caverns of a beast
(rest, I am no coward)
in place, that I am one
shiv of cement grains more
ahead of the rotting moments
yet to come.

if not,
I pull the recorder
too far,
my humid chest
floods the sacred synapse
pansied blood and frantics
the light dwelling there

I did it idiot I do it to
myself, no else
let there be a light
**** a light
make it turnips, pounded eyeballs
give me
give give give give give
a dry well with a bottom
the color of dust.

for a drunk: i can manage
                                  the cannabis induced
                                       chill...

   what, with england and
                      the laughing gas epidemic...

oh yeah, you can spot about
9 bullets of
the concentrated stuff
  in one evening's walking
                                                    session...

who would have thought
that english humour,
black as the advances of
melancholia
                                    required a: booster...

but then i've never heard
of: (and now it's a concept)
dyslexia in slavic languages...
no wonder

given my: not-so-bright observation
of -
            perhaps its a dialect
of east germany...

one example...
    the tinniest of "errors"...

                rammstein's ich will...
    past the veil and Volford...
      like counting knuckles
whenever not teasing
a punchbag,
      or a stomach on the *******...

there's an apparently missing S...
       what i hear what i hear:
what i see, but don't hear is ich...

and back into language games:
in slavic that's
literally translated as:
                  theirs -
mind you:
i also find the use of the apostrophe
sometimes confusing in english,
it's this one aspect of english
i'm still groveling over...

   have to forgive them for not
concerning themselves with this, minor,
detail...

       theirs,

                        the plural possessiveness
of the collective other...

               hardly a case to unload
with: there's -

     which in hounddog
                gobble gobble down
a goebbels as in:            
                                      there   is,

ya, i know, prostitutes for an hour,
the part of me that's supposed
to feel jealous of owning a car
when i own a pair of legs,

                    and you get to mind
road tax, while i concerns myself about
spaghetti al dente and shoelaces?
i'll take the shoelaces,
  thank you, very much.

   but this is a recurrent theme in:
well: at least sort this "orthography" out,
the english use of the apostrophe
when concerned with
            the plural, the possesive,
and the: "slang" add-on of is...

notably the problem: St. Paul's
             and what if not many Pauls?
you can't exactly note that,
depending on your aesthetic genesis...

                   Pauls's - paul-sysyz...
god forbid i be the one steering
           the hindenburg over London...
    
but clearly there's a dispossesive
pluralism involved in the possessive
article of apostrophe S,
                                                      's...

ich can imply: not the german first person
pronouns, subsequent with
                                        ()Pad...
                cheap, monetißing on grammar...

but in the çited song?
              there's an "enigma" of a missing S...
if you just listen...
it's not ich: closing in on
a lost harking...
         missing phlegm of course...
         there's clearly a sentence
bound to...                                   isch...

details of linguistic technicality
are like itches:
or tooth-aches,
   can't seem to fathom the irritating
S+ in                singing:    ich will....

     namely isch...
             or how the germans managed
to consider a phrase for:
                              shutting up!

a hornet's needle jerking off on
an ear drum...
  one russian lass once suggested
that i spoke too much: sh    sh sh    sh...
and never               hagh-shhh'd...

i know, the U would give up
the Hugh...
    not the ******* Freckled Heffner...
that: faking i'm not spanish
english actor, you know:             (  
                                                      
                                                         (
those eyes,
bypassing a fringe and not even settling on
a raised eyebrow...

******* want to dance...
   łired...
                łorth...
                         which is basically W:
who the hell calls a letter so rigid as
an upside ranging M and double-U?

      is that a real name,
                                or a prison, ksyva?
there is no iota in why or Y
               but a hollowing out,
          a mummification process...

         ******* deutsch-schprech-*****...

nibbi-nibbi: imitating a goose-quack
with the four primes above,
   and a thumb as base:
             of the hand...

        oh i agree, oxford english profs.
have nailed it perfect...
      even though there is no concept
of loan words in english
******* over hindustan...

             but there is the antithesis
of deutsch genesis,
       just shove in the hyphen and
people will read you
           Mendeleev no problem...      

remnants of old Saxon can only be found
among chemical nouns:
      hydrocrabons doesn't require
  a: cut up technique akin to
   Burroughs and Tzara
                 to mind: hydro-carbons...  

look at that ******* aesthetic!
    ugly as a hog snuffing a human
**** imploring to ask at the altar:
grovel grovel grovel:
                    turnips and birch leaves!
       truffles and caviar...
  
most impressive...
    sooner the breath of Miles Davies
squeezed through a horn,
than a sneeze let out from a pork
snout...
            both deserve applause
nonetheless:

there's a missing S, in rammstein's song
ich will:
                 must be an east berliner
"hidden" plot to harvest the dyslexics.

- because playing the grammar game,
fused with only the pronoun
category...
             well... that's not going to vork...

- mind you, in poetry,
     is like... saying: a beginning of
a "paragraph" in poetry,
   not an interjection as such,
  just a "grievance"
         with what's already in
full momentum...

              - did i mention my concern
for the apostrophe usage in englsih?
      basis of: not      use?

hence the stability, and its perpetuation:
hence: usage.

         oh we can go on and on and on
with the technicalities of "hidden" english
"orthography":
   which is really a concern for
either the aposthrope, or the hyphen....
    
reigning superior over
the literacy monopoly of priests...
    degenerate ******* suddenly took
the human route...
and did... what any new-found-literati
would:
           play the fox in a chicken-shack...

miser *******...
                   good to know who i'm
up against...
                      and i can do more in
an hour with a *******,
that you might cling to with,
a post-scriptum nasal cavity being
called a ******* with a boy
     being 30 years his senior...

  these days ****** would not have
been published...
      
fashion's playthings that are called:
the sojourn of days...
  what the french call the yewish sabbath...
   nothing out of the ordinary...
just...
               a formidable
   perplexity with a damnable reflex...
an assorted
comparison of: feeding a tiger.

           it's still a concern for me,
to mind a pluralism of the pronoun,
with a possessive article,
  and: the "innocence" of hding
letters that the english know all well
how to employ...

        ich:              theirs...

                ich:             belogning to them...

          ich:  which is i, in bavaria...

              i(s)ch to propagate speaking
german in a song, or with:

             shish kebab ***** or something?

ich:
                  chappy chappy non cheerie
chop of...                         ich...

    i hark to assert your presence, dear sir...

call it hyperbolic on the literacy
scale...
               but you move beyond
the "concern" for pronouns...
  and revel in the fact that:
   no philosophy book has ever utilised
the shortening-script
   of acknowledging grammatical
pillars...

                   you can inhale into
a rubber ***, call it a balloon, minus
the evidently loss of injecting helium:
and than -benign- the other
              with a case for a ******* umbrella!
fungus party: unlike the tree -
stood on one leg,
         and branched out in a Y -
or gott-tore?
                one revisionist argument
with:
        since the incubated pawns
of a pine forest...
                        no schizoids near an oak...
        farther that i might: "see".

               cut in:
        Pauls'               (with a zee?
                    seppelin *******!)

         certainly: Paul-seßez:
   or:            Paul's: ßyz,

    ha ha... funny alternative of cis,
which is congregational surmounting:
                    çis -
    which is not: sister.
  
what?
               ka-ka macaques *******?!

how come the close approximate
of there's and theirs?
see?! don't know how to lodge in
an apostrophe with the latter example...
but you almost itch thinking
it's necessary...

                       mind you,
i'm bilingual, i don't hide behind
     a /wəːd/ for word encoding
    to: vaguely imitate computer coding...
but there are people who
pursue this: second tier of
       a former, exhausted literacy...
              
reduced 2: not 3: as in free,
                    and that's not: too, either.
when prior to secularism
the power dynamism of the clergy
was obvious, and...
                 but now the deviat
literate can only be mad...
       where's the fun in what
continues to constitute the, grey,
everyday?
              there really is a tomorrow
to mind...
            in writing this?
         i'm just making claim that
there might be a yesterday to
contend with;

but clearly there isn't...

               ich: plural in the possessive
form,
             whatever "it" there is
that belongs to them -
                                        there's
an otherwise unexplored
          existential celibacy to not mind
this writing...

        such obscure testimony of
not: winning...
                        
    a mind in two formats:
soft- and there are virus
ridden repercussions...
   and hard- and there are...
  virtually sessions of reiterating:
there's nothing to worry
about...

   comes the age old conclusion:
there's an age-old
             sub- / ob-ject
         splinter('s) worth (an) ego
lodged in the timber of a mind,
in "metaphor" descriptive
element to attune a shovel and
                 the bristles of broom to...
mind as dust, and mind hiding...

you can't exactly "hide"
a shadow, with a hand
enlarging the capacity of your trouser
pocket to suddenly
become anti-narcissus:
      mesmerizing by staring
at your shadow,
           let alone the stillness
of the lake-water,
          or rather:
          catch-up with him by
the shoreline of a sea...
     troubled waters breed no
                                     death: sarcasm.

- and all this, to mind being in possession
of a wife, and fireplace as counter?!
            as all such comfort are
welcome...
          i can't but find a blister of a burn
i, simply can't help, but: scratch!
    it's the oink-pink hidden beneath
the unparalleled agitation
that demands my closing-in
                      of attention parameters.

A sky in purple hue!
Of turnips, roots, and green!
A purple-starred tree-blowing veil!
The stars in sky not black or mean!
And piercing winds that eat sinew,
That sheds the sky in fabric leaves;
I couldn't more describe this night
Its colours awe as I inscribe!

Another day and what to make of it? Tu Du list.
Things start to happen, don't worry. Don't stew.
Water down darkness. Ask the sun for a light.
Loot Frederick's of Hollywood. Cultivate pompous grass.
Rewrite Moby **** as free verse. Irritate life with art.
Plant Rhino rhizome and grow *****. Turn over an old leaf.
Take a road trip to a state of anxiety. Try chewing gun.
Play the Jew's harp in a mosque. Pray for drains.
Steal a cop from a donut. See if LSD still works.
Listen to Rockabilly noir. Experiment with dysentery.
Set out buckets to catch sky. Talk with, not to, turnips.
Insist on having the last word. Get it. Die.
   Or just admit another wasted day,
   lonely as your heart, not as grey.

you'd always come home via the garden path, reveling in the crunching of the twigs, the slooshing of the leaves, the endless clackering of misfound footfalls. till the day, after a particularly satisfying stomp snapping, you looked underfoot and saw the remains of the fallen sparrow's nest


it took you five days to soak out the blood


tonight's supposed to be the biggest moon in 68 years. Biggest moon! Wow.


a girl at the party says it's stupid to care what others think. i agreed with her. She agreed with my agreeance, and then burst into tears. i ignored her and walked away. i'm a frigid *****, but theys' gotsta learn, they


God, the flies, it's such a cliché, but it's true, as you trek down into the sludge you can't see them but you can hear it, the buzzing, you can always, from everywhere, the buzzing


when our flatmate left, he deconstructed his bed. he didn't take it with him, he just, took the mattress, threw it in the water closet, left the headboard on the stairway landing, and the sides and springs'n-**** in the garage
                      i really respect the gesture


in the gully between the graveyard and the mine, they built a highschool. a ******* highschool. lord knows why. it looks like a ******* campers lodge, all the kids climb up the banks and the uni students sell them acid in lolly mix nickel bags. everyone i've ever known came from that school, one way or another. heavens know why. hey, look at the big chimney, guess the furnace is on. it's still in use, huh? probably shouldn't be loitering. anyway-


the big diggerman's dig up the concrete, put it in a bucket.
the big diggermans with the big digger truck, with all the cones and stop signs.
Bawm! Bwam! the big muscle arm, full of strewn piping and pistons, bab's the ground bab bab. Take that, ground! Bab Bab!! the spinning chair vibrates, the man gyrates, and the big arm up's and downs, down down, swivel, dump.


remember when we were thirteen, and the idiot boys made a game of standing in a circle, trying to **** into their own mouths? you wanted to punch them in the face, but didn't want to get your hands *****. if only you'd known, back then, that your limbs were really just overgrown turnips, would you of been so insistent at keeping your distance? keeping the world at arms length? that's always the irony, isn't it. the world was inside you all along

–

At the end of the cemetery, past the hedges, a car park, overlooking the hill, where there's a huge oak tree, and all the concrete is just fractured under its weight, and the asphalt is in tar stricken colours a blackbird in mid-dive splatter. Anyway. Sorry,-

god, you're making porridge? Porridge? *******, are you even hungry, or did you just ******* want to see the ******* oat-*****-muchus coat everything you

-just, there, in this graveside car-park overlooking the city but also in the middle of nowhere, there's two cars. One, a ******* Mitsubishi GT, all slick and weltering plastic, pure pristine millionaire CEO's toy phallus, and beside it, a banged up old Datsun, and it all seems like an allegory for something, but it isn't, it's just, someone dumped these two ******* cars here, but they're not even dumped per see, the registry in the windows are up to date and everything, but they're just there


      all the damp men take the STOP out the truck, stand on the road, hold the cones, watch the digger man seat shuffling; gotta shuffle move up the pavement before you big hand down


You were too clever, weren't you? to bash her head, right there, in the corner, there, above the left cheek bone, so i couldn't tell, right? to make her look like just one more corpse, among the rot? obscure that one side, turned away? left to decompose, mid-perch, on a desert highway? well, maybe it wasn't, maybe it was just someone else, but the fact that you knew, you knew i'd check above the left temple, and that you ****** chose that as the point of rupture, it shows, it just ******* shows, the


the flies never gather, at the point of death, they just breed in the damp, the gulleys surrounding it, why is that


and just look at you now, sitting there, naked as a newborn, crying to yourself, wiping your weepy eyes with your simpering turnip paws, and it's just pathetic, isn't it? And i love you, i do, it's the one moment i can say it, i can feel it with burning, simple purity, with self effacing truth and clarity, because, here, i don't matter. you don't need me, you need a body to hold, an arm to hug you. in loving you i can be absolved of all qualities, and so, for once, i do, i do

Yeah no! In sixty-eight years! What even is the moon



it's amazing, i've eaten nothing in the last thirty-six hours, except a single dried apricot. yet
                                   i need to *****

  you know that feeling? What a feeling. You need to retch, but there's nothing to retch, and there you are, just standing there, at 5am gagging to yourself in a damp field. A stomach, trying to turn away, fold upon and shaft itself a vicissitude. A stomach, no, no, yes, you see?  You need to empty yourself of this bile. What bile? Exactly. There's nothing. Nothing up-emptied onto nothing. And that's all there is, right, that's all that life is, is given right there; the gag, the convulsion, the upturning unto itself, the attempt, attempt, you understand? Of the cathexis, of the innerworld, taken to contain only the unspeakable within itself, miserly bile, a concomitant of all the worlds ills and would be ills and then upon it taken as an ill unto itself, a single nebulous fluid husk of malignant umbra, held in *******, bound in fleshy lining. But then the expulsion, the retch, is attempted, to take all the seething disease of the inner and to project, upturn it onto the outer world. Where? It doesn't matter. In the bin, into the shrubbery, Anywhere but in here. Once it's gone, it gone, that's all that matters, gone, go, go, get. The body tries to push the malaise of(as) the internal unto the external, the outer, but in doing so, finds itself(boundary) empty, where it thought it incubated only vile, there was instead, only nothing, but still, somehow, the convulsing, the retching, the act itself, remains. And that's it, you see? That's all it is, all the emotional turmoil, all the half-hearted hallucentric episodes, the all of everything, is just that, just an, an emptiness trying to upend itself but finding there's nothing to upend, but it still asserts itself as process, as an unending nausea, unresolvable nausea, both grounding and thrown, the throwing and that-which-is-cast, bent under itself,  nausea



the swamp reclaimed the garden last summer. flood season, after all. some days the stagnant waves came right up to the brickwork, can still see the lines, see? your old swing set's a gonna though. all the rabbits either abandoned their dens, or were drowned out. lord knows how many micro-organisms died as well. lot's of new ones were probably borne though, right? hear those flies, bzzt, bzzt. life loves damp heat. you can never tell, never tell really.

Young chicken turned into fricassee
How hot is your gravy?
Such sizzling goodness
Smells so fresh in the pan
Having a fry
Don't really know why
Cooking at such high temperatures
Makes me crazy this way
But I've got to have you frizzle
Cut tenders spitting grease about
Think I'll dice up a side of
Turnips, greens and roots
There's an unwritten law about it
Even so
Availability finds comfort in handiness
A little splash of wine on that
Ought to make it all
Come together

Through turnips
and year old hay
unnamed till then
I saw her yellow mane
flaming in the morning sun
and named her Golden.

There I saw the filly rise
into a spring song and wet her
nose in the pond
shake  her head and bray
proud I was of her.

Who shall be mating?
My youthful filly, growing into
her maturity, Black shadow, or
Orion, or Majestic, the white Arab
long and tall.

Gallop to my fence, my sweet , take this candy.
Absorb the sun and all the oats you can eat.
Run, like my forefathers free
and innocent.
Golden.

You would find me occupied with tomorrows weather , flat pickin' guitar , a recipe for minced meat pie , the color of the moon and the stars in the sky ..
A grandson changing everyday , granddaughter posing for a picture , turnips in the garden , the chickens in the yard , junk mail in the box , a Persimmon tree up the road ..
Horehound candy , pitch black coffee , toasted rye bread with blueberry jelly...
Dirt roads , antique barns and tractors , cattle on the move and a plug of tobacco .

This Eminent Night paste your Birthday Bed
And once beyond the Lines did Celebrate
Which soon enough most Leavened Hands instead
Cry for your Return-on-Turnips belate
Yet come these Savours invite your Prunes wash
As far-fetched Dames sowed Yeast to spice their Grin
Hoping to raise each their Best Flavours cast
All the whilst One already placed therein
Which in her Form - her Greatest Gift offer -
Of her Warmth wrapped your Little Man hugs neat
And in her Jump - Nerves blew your Mind asunder,
Back-and-Forth rub this Hour's Hormones repeat.
Still the Candles blew; Ignored the Musky Air
Which both Cherries broke; As Predicted there.

I blame the Tarzan films I watched as a kid. Tree houses. If they were good enough for tarzan...!  I chose the tallest tree in the wood, a birch with massive branches and plenty of them. Iwill build my tree house right at the top, no one will notice it unless they look up, I started work, gathering planks of wood where ever I could. I needed help, Barry and Peter were strong, their granddad had a shed he didn't use, it was dismantled and hauled piece by piece up into the crown of the tree. things were beginning to take shape in the dizzy heights above.
It was great, from our lookout we could see all of the wood, and even the turnip field and distant farmer ploughing with the blue tractor. of course we couldn't remain quiet and build our tree house, there had to be a certain amount of sawing and hammering which attracted some suspicious locals, but when anyone approached we stopped the noise and remained undetected. The tree house was twelve feet by six, and we painted the outside green before we hauled it up. Of course it didn't all go according to plan, there was the time that my helpers thought it would be funny to let go of the rope that they were hauling on to hoist one of the panels up, we got it two thirds of the way up when they let go, (they said they were atacked by wasps, a likely tale.)
The result was that I was catapulted up into the tree in spectacular fashion, and left hanging about forty feet above the ground. I managed to swing to a nearby branch, but when I let go of the rope, the wooden panel shot past me, almost knocking me off the branch!  In spite of many setbacks, we finished it in November,  It was very draughty due to the multitude of gaps in the wood panels, "We need an old carpet for the floor, and some dry grass to shove in the gaps, then we should be allright. Slowly the tree house filled with furniture. We had a table, (three legged,)  some chairs, from who knows where, and a bench seat which had a habit of tipping up suddenly when only one person was left  sitting on it. had we known it at the time, this bench seat was a disaster waiting to happen"  The tree house was still draughty, no matter how many holes we plugged with dry grass the wind still got in. Clearly we needed more grass!  Dry grass was beginning to be hard to find. "We can use dry leaves instead." Sack upon sack was gathered, (we had a bunch of willing helpers now, all eager to join us .)
The floor of the treehouse was now about two feet deep in grass and leaves, but it remained cold! On November the fifth, we climbed into our treehouse, fortified with ginger cake, bread and jam, some turnips from the nearby field, (always a favourite) some brought bottles of pop too. We settled down to watch the bonfires, We could see at least three, and some had fireworks!  As it got darker we lit our lanterns. "Candles stuck to the inside of jam jars.)  all went well, to start with, and the party became more boisterous. Then it happened, someone upset the bench seat, and in the confusion jamjars were knocked over and lighted candles fell among the grass and leaves. The speed with which the fire took hold was incredible, I suppose the strong wind helped to fan the flames. The scramble down the tree was frantic, we were showered with burning pitch. (from the roofing felt I suppose) and clumps of burning grass and leaves.  it was all very sad, and very spectacular. Friends still talk about it I believe. We moved from the North East after that, and went to Sunbury on thames, "The Thames! Boats, fishing! now that was more like it!  
                     More anon.

poets were forever deemed the Peter Pans
of the adult world -
where once the sonnet reigned,
was sooner replaced succumbing to
gangrene by a Ferrari, or another polished diamond
of more diadem count in Pythagorean -
they really looked at poets like they murdered
the profession of accounting or plumbing...
god bless the poets, god bless the poet who
made it to a brothel... the only poets that escaped with Cain
and the murderers and the thieves, and the ******..
i forgave my enemy to escape... let him earn
fireplace respect and custody of children should things
take a sour turn... only poets are welcome...
Jackie Chan, Billy the Kid and Dante...
******* worship bound knights of auto-suggested
failures selling turnips and charcoal
writing poems like writing a signature in digital
imprint; they called us the children of
fervent art expressed -
a matchbox filled with huff-heaving-******* that was snarled-at
scratching the effortless geography of hind and
itch of the tabernacle to gallop toward a bloodless
Crusade - as Papa Urban promised unreal -
welcome the cocktail shakers of the crushed craniums
of Jerusalem's innocents - we come in
peace, come in the name of the un-spiced potato
gulags of the supposed stews of the many promises
the Pope twerked for granted in the raised *****
of the Ancient Mosque - **** praise be to Allah -
god / dog - but faithfully, anally yours...
**** a **** - nine dead, it's day-to-day Germany:
i like to dream... yes yes right between the sound machine...
you don't know what we can find...
why don't you tell your dreams to me...
close your eyes girl...           papa fried Freud squirrel...
tripped on a white horse galloping standstill
in a 1sqm balcony - everyone swore it was Zorro....
but i corrected them, it was: Zoroaster (colon,
former fame for listings, otherwise the italics,
colon the synonymous variation of italics, pressurised
theatre pause - no listing).

Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.*

Another day and what to make of it? Tu Du list.
Things start to happen, don't worry. Don't stew.
Water down darkness. Ask the sun for a light.
Loot Frederick's of Hollywood. Cultivate pompous grass.
Rewrite Moby **** as free verse. Irritate life with art.
Plant Rhino rhizome and grow *****. Turn over an old leaf.
Take a road trip to a state of anxiety. Try chewing gun.
Play the Jew's harp in a mosque. Pray for drains.
Steal a cop from a donut. See if LSD still works.
Listen to Rockabilly noir. Experiment with dysentery.
Set out buckets to catch sky. Talk with, not to, turnips.
Insist on having the last word. Get it. Die.
   Or just admit another wasted day,
   lonely as your heart, but not as gray.