This is a three-part, longer narrative poem, seen
as old photographs that follow the main character, My Aunt, Lillian Goldrick, across two decades.  It was written 30 years ago*
______

“Hey Kid!”     Part I

Photographs aren’t fair
stopping the soul where it’s not
in rectangular guffaws
surrounded by serrated edges, pickets, teeth?
to fence and stab in yellow, soft-covered booklets
with designated floppy phrase
“Your memories”

Happier than she could ever be...

A black and white day at Salisbury Beach, NH
hung over his hammock
Private pin-up girl
tilts her head against silver sheen of shoulder
Hair, dark chignon
except for a few wispy curls about her face
freed by wind
bleached by sun

Stopped

...for three decades
Legs slightly bent—long extended
that could stop trains, stop traffic

Stopped

Modest bathing suit, probably peach
cannot hide (not that she would)
the undeniable
And if there were question left
you could look at her smile—and love her
posed by he message scrawled in sand:

“Hey Kid!”

What kid? Where?
In the foreground?
In the camera’s eye?

In the background—
a Ferris wheel, a billboard
and  r-i-g-h-t  there—Can’t you see it?
Look again—behind her eyes
You can barely see it, but it’s there.
Remember?

The Depression
Only ten years before
It was April
Stroke, heart attack
Both of them gone, a year apart!
The priest came
Last Rites for mortally stricken
Candles, crucifix, the Catholic containment
of holy water that dams the tears

Kneeling around the bed
they said the Rosary

——————————

After VJ Day he came
to the house on the corner
of Commonwealth Ave.
She knew he was coming
but she could not be ready today
nor tomorrow
nor next week—or ever...

“Lill! Will ya come to the door?
She’ll be ready in a minute.
Hey Lill! Hurry up, will ya!
They’re waitin’ fer us!”

Upstairs in the dark hallway
her door clicks shut....
________


"Hey Kid"    Part II


The clock at Joe Rianni’s read 20 minutes to 12...

Crowd from the Phillip’s Theater—gone
though laughter lingers
in a Friday mood
in high-backed booths
where only an hour ago swinging free
were high-heeled shoes
legs crossed at knees....

Now on tables abandoned
deserted fields of French
fries lie cold in salt flurries

Only female straws wear lipstick
as do Luckys bent in ashtrays
Males, uniformly flattened
as powder burned, as mortar might
shells, casings—the evidence of war
Among explosions of tickled giggles
one was taken broadside...

listing     toward      stars
_______

...The clock read 20 minutes to 12

when she walked in--
And Rhea stopped swabbing black mica counters
long enough to absorb late-customer hate
and envy that such beauty can arouse
In voice hoarse and weighted like a trucker’s

“Whadaya have, Lill?”

“coffee”

The small answer settled at the soda fountain
and slowly struck a match...
She was falling from the slant
of her black felt hat
dripping off the point of pheasant feather
Gray gabardine suit
tailored from angle of shoulder
to dart diagonally
toward such a waist!
Turned to skirt hips
that arched and dove toward slit—
then seams that run the round of calf

that seem to flow
to ankles of naught—
...and all that seems

Black     high-heeled     above it

Coffee— cold, stale
Gray glassed-in stare
searches air and random walls
of coat hooks, menus, mirrors...
while lips ****** exiled words— replies

Dragging a demon from her Camel
slowly     purposefully
she exhaled a burly arm of smoke
that rose and laid its hand
against the ceiled atmosphere of embossed tin
Then leaning over her shoulder
in roiling emission of shrugs and sneers—

“Lill—There’s no way outa here!”
________


“Hey Kid!”    Part III

After kneeling backwards on their chairs
after nuns, catechism recited
After—
Five of them scuffed through leaves and litter
along the curbing
spotting cars that counted—
Bugs, beach wagons, flying bathtubs
A slower way home of hunting
shiny chestnuts and muddy finds
rare match book covers
and bottle caps that win ya things!

One breaks from bunch
and trials off to where
dimes turn to candies!
...at a dingy luncheonette...Joe Rianni’s
____

Here—behind smeary wall of glass
pleasure leers while holding back
those grimy fingers, lips that long
for jelly fish, gum drops, lollies
holding back the company
of Baby Ruth, and Mary Jane
O Henry or Bazooka Joe!
For less money but the same salivation
there were colored dots to chew and ****
from strips of paper that last forever!
For a little more, plus the sweet struggle
of desire denied
a kid could be proud owner
of a pea shooter or trading cards!
While in the mouth
were golden imaginings—
the chocolate foil of coins
and the candied pretense of cigarette adulthood
_____

Rhea didn’t see her in the line...

Only grownups with wallets and purses
Only grownups get waited on...
...because Rhea was a Gypsy!
Kids could tell!
by her big red lips and hair to match
by the nasty way she chased them out—
“****** kids!”
Only grownups get waited on....
_______

And the clock read 20 minutes to 12

While a child waits—
time stirs in a ceiling fan
   There’s a drift in attention
      along deepening endless walls
         toward a line of sleepy booths
              carved with

“I was here—in such and such a year”

Her aunt—at the last stool—like always
Their names too close
Confused too often

A little girl wonders
about the sight behind the sightless stare
loafers, ankle socks, the ‘40s hair
the gathered skirt that gathers ashes
as they fall from cigarette
held in yellowed fingertips
Tremors crimp the smoke that climbs—

              ...a strobing pillar

“Whataya want, girly?”

              ...the only movement

“Hey! What’s it gonna be!”

              ...in a shot—

“HEY KID!”

              Snapped

only today i came across what interested Heidegger
after writing being and time, a selection
of essays, revealing that he came to be interested
in language - not knowing this, by mere study
of the introduction some things became apparent -
being quiet democratic in my reading it's a shame
i don't have the academic leisurely pace of becoming
a Heidegger specialist - it's the almost damnable
pulling-apart having to cite many influences and not
focusing on one, but since i don't have academic
leisure, the summary in the introduction
by jeffrey powell (editor) of the book heidegger
and language will just have to do: apropos this
being an antidote to those bemoaning that we only
write about reading books, carefully choreographic
our lives for mints and espressos and ammoniac
(inhalants in a boxing ring nearing a knock-out) -
hide pretty bird, hide, hide pretty pretty bird
first your song inside a cage, then the cage inside
the heart, and thus the song with the cage,
silenced inside the cage, raging mad inside the heart.
well, the antidote is that i already have some ideas,
and reading the essays contained in this book would
put me off what i was intending to write about,
so, in summary, read the major work, then read introductions
of critical books from those studying the subject,
invent an original approach from that, and elsewhere.
before i venture into the whole affair of having to
reread certain passages from the introduction as to
guide me in this Bermuda Delta i what to do a little
sidewinder interlude:
in chemistry there are two major bonds (for the purpose
of what i'm intending, let us just assume that
we're only talking about π and σ bonds) -
and while psychology dehumanises man to strict
theories without clear proofs to a universal standard,
i want to do what will come later regarding Heidegger's
take on language, for me there's no clear philosophical
vocabulary to be used - i'm not into orthodoxy and
rigidity which says

                piquant sun strokes against
                the bargains of spring's last
                hope for a kept bazaar
                to bloom to then deflower
                petals from trees fall to earth
                like glasses, the tree stands
                as a reflection of shattered glass
                the petals remain the tree intact
                worn at the Royal Ascot
                or in a woman's hair.

obviously something like this is a poem - what i mean,
however, concerning what's identifiable as philosophy is
to me the following:  
                                        blah = monotone x algebraic
                                                    for­ non-differential
                                                    purposes, just filling up
                                                    the page

            blah blah blah blah blah blah subjectivity blah blah blah blah blah blah essentially blah blah blah blah blah blah in-itself blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah thing-external v. thing-internalised blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah metaphysics blah etc.
                      
                          and so on and so forth, a fixation on using a certain vocabulary to be equivalent or justification to be "apparently" talking philosophy... yet still no gain from the words of grammatical categorisation... for me? too many propositions, the basis of what the academic environment deems to be "pure" verbiage, or none (akin Wittgenstein) - that famous quote about a lion and having tea on Tuesday... or as Buddha would say: said so to shatter thus the fear of ketamine thoughtlessness;

but that's beside the point, i want to return to
how any chemist might treat psychology as a science,
keep it up to date, given that psychology likes
to shove its nose in everyday activities for a strict
expression of equivalent rubric that mathematics already
possesses and shoves into a child's brain to make
the child become accustomed to symbol encoding;
so π and σ bonds, let's say between two carbons atoms...
but in psychology we don't have the luxury of
many alternative examples...
me and language: to write in terms of optics,
to encode images rather than sounds,
language as optometry rather than a hearing-aid...
so what "elements" do we have in psychology,
essentially what defines consciousness, its sub-plot
and its unfamiliar territory - the using the dusty
Freudian units, we know the concept of the superman
(superman was a bad bad boy) from Nietzsche
evolved into the super mm hmm, and we know
there are two other units, mm hmm and the id /
it or that? it is for me, that is for scalpel for the analyst,
the prober, unlucky for the person who took to
objectifying himself, but better than being objectified -
still, remember i'm working with language in terms
of optics rather than phonetics - enough organic chemistry
diagrams and you will see that the bonding between
mm hmm, the super mm hmm and the gemini id
(one the patient, the second the analyst) trapped inside
an electron cloud of bio-electric processes is rigid and
stable due to the opposite of π and σ,
i chose the optic route using the bonds δ and ψ -
symbolically δ is the mathematical term for sum -
summation, the total of - currently i have no clue about
the significance of ψ just yet, but ψ is a symbol of
psychology like caduceus is the symbol of medicine;
a brief expansion on the natures of the bonds,
quack-science δ bonds being all alike meaning uniform
meaning holding every aspect uniformly, meaning
that a δ bond is of the same nature between mm hmm
and super mm hmm in a petri dish within the
solvent of the conscious sub-plot, likewise other variations
δ bonds are uniform bonds, i.e. ensuring one detail
is related to the other, and so to others.
ψ bonds, not much expansion here as promising detail,
asthma the highest research of breath, and all
major theoretical squeezing through the Suez -
depending on the measure of breaths, we can depend
on the internal things - but never so much Pamplona encierro
cleaning-up to do theorising an affirmative sound
like mm hmm, or other affirmative synonyms -
if it were can *****, it would be mince rather than
a clean dissection - mince meat, should mm hmm be
not an *****, let alone a body. so many attachments
to mm hmm these days, it should be attached to zoological
studies than activities of breathing: theory as a cage,
one after the over, eventually not even cages but
the caged animal turning into matryoshka doll -
Kant doesn't venture into the dynamic of his thing-in-itself
represented by the matryoshka as ad continuum -
maybe he does, but to me here merely pinpoints it,
coins the phrase noumenon and ensures the thing
is opened, god or nothing is put in it, the thing is
closed, locked and the key to unlocking it is thrown
away and never found (i'll mention a short process of
his argument some other time, most notably his
three impossibilities concerning proving the existence
of god: ontological, physico-theological and cosmological).
yes, i know, when reading these ****** books
i have to paint the arguments, i need to simplify
them, a poet reading a philosophy has to paint
the words - the best poetic technique applicable to
understanding philosophical books is imagery,
not as a technique of for the purpose of writing my own,
but as a way to paint what was written by some boffin -
precursor to understanding the three impossibilities
of proof, i find it strange that such proof is necessary,
what would you do with it? prove it once on
paper, or in your head, show it to everyone and then
slowly everyone is able, then the so called "man in
the sky" - it seems strange that scientific positivism
of the Enlightenment supposed such a proof, the proof
is more implausible than the existence - Bertrand...
just smoke your pipe and sit in the easy-chair talking
******* with Wittgenstein... more on that later.
i promised quotes from the above mentioned book
(heidegger and language)...

           das wort kommt zur sprache,
             das seyn bring sich zum wort.

working from phenomenology, to later reject it,
thus precipitating the school of deconstruction-ism,
and with Heidegger we do get to atomic elements
from words, from compounds, thank god there are
no sub-atomic ventures with language, quiet impossible
to de-construct language beyond this point,
let's face it, if you go as far as:
'as preparatory for raising the question of being...
language is one of three constituent moments in
the analysis of the being of the da in dasein (being there)'
furthered by equal atom bombardment replacing
the un-compounded sein (verb, be) with seyn (conjunction /
noun, being) - this is modern physics to my understanding,
i'm not particularly interested what he's saying,
i'm interested in painting what he's saying -
i'll spare you the details of what philosophical systematisation
is actually involved in: restricted vocabulary -
a certain limit is allowed, rigid meanings are involved,
rigidity of drilling in of non-deviation, philosophical
systems are not dishonest in that they are consistent with
a limited vocabulary - i will spare you the torture of
seeing one ball being juggled - the shrapnel of the English
language makes it even more distracting to understand,
as with the above, another e.g.?
'every saying of beyng is held in words and meanings
which are understandable in the view of everyday
references of beings, and are exclusively thought in
that view, but which as expressions of beyng,
are misunderstood...' of course i could be cherry picking
Heidegger like a Jehovah's witness cherry picking
the bible, but i'm not interested in what he's saying,
merely painting you the picture, to scale then:

books                      -              celestial objects
chapters                 -               cycles of celestial objects
paragraphs            -               prime features of
                                                 celestial objects
                                                 (e.g. Jupiter's red eye,
                                                  Saturn's ring,
                                                  Earth's oceans
                                                  and continents)
sentences                 -              
words                       -
syllables                   -
letters                        -             atoms / elements  
                                           ah, it was going oh so well,
i think i started too big, and went into too small,
which made visualising sentences and words and syllables
hard to compare what could fit between
Australia and and atoms of RuXe - by chance ruxe is
an actual word, no as stated ruthenium and xenon,
although that too, ruxir (ruxo, ruxin, ruxido) in Galician
meaning to roar.

I used to believe in diversity
until I was taught conformity
they installed a new identity
they made me follow uniformly
they took away my creativity
and expected me to embrace my individuality
I ask myself about their animosity
and wonder what it means to have equality

equality means
that We are all equal
We are treated equal
given the same and equal chances,
but no one is the same,
but unique in their own way.
There is beauty in diversity,
that's why we must inspire Individuality
,instead of conformity
with having people behave uniformly.
Give them a means to express their creativity
and not be put down because of their diversity.
We need world where equality is reality
and we have our own identity.

you began a man in your uniform
uniformly lined in manhood
but unmanned in your last line of defense
the soldier, bleeding in his solidarity.

his head held down by the weight of his thoughts
and his heart held high by his idealism
in this century, he bleeds for your sins
and you, bleeding for the sinners.

bleeding for the sinners.

bleeding from the cinders; burning holes in your flesh from the fire you'd put out in a last-ditch effort to save the "smokey the bear" imagery from your childhood.

didn't you know it'd burn down too
as you dreamt of being an adult
in this distant, futuristic adulthood
where you'd be bleeding out again.

not forming in singular lines
not forming anything but time
in the singular exsanguination of a generation;
they're bleeding for your singing.

bled out and torn about, they die.

dreaded and thrown about in the last ditch efforts of life, they cry out again to the demi-gods and goddesses they believed in for your sins.

they bleed.

Purely.

It is important to have a uniformly excellent life,
I repeat, an uniformly excellent life,
Unless you really want to think, to feel and to understand profoundly nothing.

The dead-bolts on the interior doors
Against the nephews most securely locked
(One is destructive; the other explores)
Ignored by their mother (usually crocked)

The brother-in-law babbles about his bowels
And surgeries over the festive spread
Ignoring his wife’s disapproving scowls
Detailing each grim therapy and med

The puppies are safely penned inside
Because of an incident with a crowbar
And a nephew who kicked and screamed and cried -
He wasn’t allowed to **** the dogs or bash the car

His mother comforted him in his tears
And glowered at me for telling him no
And comforted herself with a few more beers
Her special child is sensitive, you know

The brother-in-law’s colonoscopy
With lurid adjectives of graphic doom
Comes with the pie and more iced tea
His miseries circulate around the room

Then from the living room an expensive crash
“Not me!” “Not me!” More screams and denials and cries
An old family vase – it’s now just trash
“You shouldn’t have glass around,” their mother sighs

The brother-in-law offers to show his scars
He finds his shirt buttons, makes his move
We other men escape outside for cigars
Cigars!? The women uniformly disapprove

One nephew leaps upon a garden seat
And jumps and yells until it falls apart
Their mother says her boy is cute and sweet
“Are you all right, my dear little heart?”

The brother-in-law holds his tummy and groans
And tells us all about his flatulence
And just which foods lead to what moans
(Perhaps he should practice some abstinence)

The women come outside to cough and choke
With practiced puritan disapproval and sneers
About the satanic scent of tobacco smoke
The world’s best mother chugs a few more beers

The brother-in-law explains why he can’t drink
It’s about his digestion (be surprised)
And we shouldn’t smoke; if only we’d think
And we (got a match?) are properly chastised

Then at the end of this mandatory day
Of mandatory Hallmark merriment
All of them finally go the (space) away
And how did the mailbox get broken and bent?

But the brother-in-law pauses at the garden gate
“Say, did I tell you about my new pills…?”
And so dear solitude again must wait
While darkness slowly falls upon the hills

Have you ever come to my country to Russia?
It may be nay or yes, but Russia is a strange country,
It is people are funny and lively, with strong sense for success,
Those from Moscow are tall and confidently walking in a bounce,
Those from hinterland Russia often display inferiority on the face,
But conventional Russian has a keen nose for property and success,
A scientist in Russia is a beacon of interest like a pastor in Africa,
All Russians are somehow intelligent with humour and strong success motive,
Like once the case of a Russian barren woman, in the city of Moscow,
She was a Muzhik by class disposition, but proselytized into Bolshevism,
By the then Bush fire of Vladimir Ilyanov Lenin through his song of workers,
She was thus a dear comrade or comradess? Her Name was Sofia Ludwickfna,
She had been barren, o no! Childless for generations and generations,
Her marriage had been on-off and on-off due to this misfortunate pale,
Of inability to bear a child at most a son to be name after Lenin,
Every Russian man condemned her after a short while of marriage
To public distaste whenever it was discovered that Sofia was barren,
As usual, Russian men hinge their love manners on the native wisdom that;
Bogy Vysoky Tsar Dalyko; meaning God is far a way but the tsar is near,
But one day when Sofia had celebrated her menopausal day of 40th birthday,
She realized that something like a lump is felt in her tummy,
She rushed to the medic at the high street Moscow
For clinical service lest the lump grows in to cancerous tumor,
But to her stark surprise; the medic declared her pregnant,
In fact two months pregnant, and nothing else,
She asked if the pregnancy carried a boy or a girl,
For she feared to sire a boy as it was only a peasant,
That mated her in the fields during the previous full moon,
But the medic declined a comment, as his technology was not fit,
To establish the fetal gender, may be she better tries America or Germany,
But any way, she walked home happy, whistling her best lyrical
Perhaps a sonnet to the revolution and Vladimir Lenin,
The ninth month came, and Sofia delivered peacefully,
In fact a bouncing baby boy, with strong jaws like a Moscow Muzhik,
It was a moment of her joy as the gods of Russia had remembered her,
The baby grew and developed so well, it suckled and swallowed with sound,
It kicked nicely and waved its spatulate hands; a young son of Russia,
And indeed the joy of the baby made Sofia to grow fat and fat,
She named the baby four names; Tsar Alexander Tolstoy Vladimir Lenin,
On one warm after noon, Sofia chose to have a nap under the jacaranda tree,
To feel the breeze as her baby suckled, light slumber over took her nerves,
Then she fell into a deep sleep, the baby was on her teats suckling and waving,
Making soft nice sounds of thaa thaa thaaaaaaaa!
Sofia began dreaming; she saw a very huge African man,
Utterly naked with bush hair on his deeply black ***** skin,
He was not circumcised; he came unto her making stupid sound,
Like wild Russian swine chasing a rhino, he came straight to her,
She began fighting and kicking the ***** away,
She kicked mightily in the style of Russian woman,
But the ***** was strong; he began biting off her *******,
One by on, he was biting and making gnomish ***** abracadabra,
She jumped at the *****’s kneck, she began strangulating him,
She pressed tight and tight, the ***** began making stupid sounds
Like a chimpanzee, again and again as she pressed hard into his Adams’ apple
Finally Sofia managed to **** the *****, and then she woke up from her sleep,
Only to realize it was not a ***** that she had killed, but her baby, it was dead!
She was a arrested by the KOSMOSOL and taken to the judge, accused for infanticide,
She recounted the ***** story on her defense, the judge and all Russians were agog,
They uniformly blamed the misfortune of Sofia on the increasing number of Negros in Moscow,
The judge ruled that all Negroes to be thoroughly beaten and chased out of Moscow,
To be confined in a more remote bushy area in the hinterland beyond the prison of Siberia.

Barbie screams for help in her dream house
as you rush to the scene, a towel tied loosely over your shoulders,
a pillow beneath your shirt in place of a Kevlar vest,
and only oversized sunglasses covering your identity.


As you rush to save her, Elmo – your first rescue –
clings tightly beneath your underarm, bobbing gently
as you scale the ottoman and jump from couch to couch.


To the unseeing world you are Batman,
Wolverine, the Flash, and all of the Avengers –
ordinary men made heroic through radiation and tragedy.


But I see beyond the alter ego, past the acrobatics
and death-defying maneuvers that merit the oohs
and aahs within our general definition of heroic.


I see a boy truly worth admiring, the boy I’d call for help
if needed, because in you I see all boys, In you
I see the beauty of biology, the lovely product of a number
of atoms I will never have enough lifetimes to count.


If you could only see the splendid hue of your wide-eyed
innocence as you tie your teddy bear villain to the chair leg,
unaware that the seemingly simple steps of your chubby fingers
require a million more steps within you.


The sheer energy coursing from nerve to nerve
with each dip of your head and bow of your lashes
is more incredible than any power
induced by gamma rays or infected spiders.


When you place your hands at your waist in glorious victory
and lift each rain-booted foot over entire civilizations
of Lego people, I am made aware of the social circles
present within you, the cliques of tissues and cells
moving uniformly inside, carpooling toward their respective jobs,
their kinetic messages traveling faster than
the water-cooler gossip of any terrestrial worker.


And while you separate your plastic dinosaur army
by rank – in this case color, shape, size, and title –
you show the world that the truths you contain
in your four year old brain could rival
any super computer or evil mastermind.


A Pomerian named Lucy yips at your feet,
making me keenly impressed by the relatively few genetic signals
that separated you from her in creation, the same genes
that invented the stormy gray novelty of your eyes.


In truth, being superhuman is only a lofty dream
because the awe of being human
is our most overlooked achievement.

But we do not realize this truth until
we’re older – If we ever do – once we’re past
the age of dress-up, too old to announce this fact
by wearing tights in our favorite colors
and a cape with our own initials.

XXVI

The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly

by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them—

all the exciting detail
of the chase

and the escape, the error
the flash of genius—

all to no end save beauty
the eternal—

So in detail they, the crowd,
are beautiful

for this
to be warned against

saluted and defied—
It is alive, venomous

it smiles grimly
its words cut—

The flashy female with her
mother, gets it—

The Jew gets it straight—it
is deadly, terrifying—

It is the Inquisition, the
Revolution

It is beauty itself
that lives

day by day in them
idly—

This is
the power of their faces

It is summer, it is the solstice
the crowd is

cheering, the crowd is laughing
in detail

permanently, seriously
without thought

The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly

by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them—

all the exciting detail
of the chase

and the escape, the error
the flash of genius—

all to no end save beauty
the eternal—

So in detail they, the crowd,
are beautiful

for this
to be warned against

saluted and defied—
It is alive, venomous

it smiles grimly
its words cut—

The flashy female with her
mother, gets it—

The Jew gets it straight—it
is deadly, terrifying—

It is the Inquisition, the
Revolution

It is beauty itself
that lives

day by day in them
idly—

This is
the power of their faces

It is summer, it is the solstice
the crowd is

cheering, the crowd is laughing
in detail

permanently, seriously
without thought

He manages to free his thoughts
as he gazes the television
for news from a distance,
while continuing to sample
his supper of rice,
and sauteed vegetables
on a aluminum serving plate.

The restaurant he owns
dimly lit this mid-afternoon
with ghostly lanterns,
and artistic impressions
of times past on the wall,
while customers
walk and gingerly pass
ordering from an eclectic
menu of indo-latin-euro-oriental cuisine.

A neapolitan of condiments
dancing among garlic chili sauce,
and mayonnaise.

Mahogany grained panel walls,
and formica woven
seats, uniformly
scattered among
porcelain white
plates; traditional.

Engraved Jade pieces
hung with colors of luck
on each entrance.

I approach the counter.
A sepia toned
picture of his family
hanging by his register
no first dollar bill
or recognitions.
Just family held,
through time,
as he hands me a check.

the sign on the railway station says "Common Destination,"
the ties of our tracks are uniform, creosote covered, splintered,
spaced uniformly as is the wont of the arm-in-arm soldiers,
different regiments in the same army, though as they march,
some on the high, some the low road, in defense of the values,
right, right, right.

no believing in forever land, dreamt of poems forever burning,
real life farenheit bonfires lit by brown uniforms and such, thus,
now, when a poem completed and shared, 
it is instantly disfigured,
by flames harnessed to lick
the slate page clean, immediately, 
presenting yet  another opportunity,
to protest, persistently,
endless be my own turnkey hands renewing,
my write to right.

my write to right,
my pupose; my only intent, even in love poems,
ogdiddy witty ditties, long dialogues with the creator, all purposed,
all written while standing one on left foot, are we not all
poets of the ways to increase the sum total of
righteous and kindness in the world.

'tis right to write,
but go further and farther,
write to right.

to ease, comfort, shoulder and hand extensions, be the lean-to,
the shelter when there is no shelter, for there is no
owning words, and no limitation on clear vision and
the right to write.

I scrub down the entrails
cast now in wire
forcing fast horsehair to form
audible friction,
with wood, metal, keratin, and navel craft
comprehensible tension;
and I study such tension to
form a portfolio of frequencies
from which to draw
and cause
emotion on cue:
to tease my tactile habits
is to hone my habitual expression (they say);
I ask the doctor and take this aural tool
--a theory of not colors but a fifth wheel--
as directed,
and use it to forge links between acoustic flailings
to turn feelings into gears that line up
just as the label instructs.

And so I train my instincts to match the mold taught in
this cramped and unfamiliar womb;
and I teach my hand to tremble uniformly.

There it lay, abandoned for all to see.
In the dead of night, I have come to seek;
reveling in the unadorned beauty of
a little red wagon.

The gleam of the water reflected from the stifled red;
the splendor of the day, uniformly admired;
the brimming moon, spilling light unto us.
Amidst all, the sand, the shore, the path;
the little red wagon.

The beauty of simplicity,
all captured in the directness
of a wagon
perhaps forgotten.

The little red wagon,
glorious in nearly every which way.
Thank you for the splendor of night,
shining furtively upon your handle.
I shall now part ways.
For it is that I now see the many paths that yet
lie untrodden.
Floating midst the sea of sand and the stars of night was quite simply
a little red wagon.

Electric bulb glows brightly
proudly converting electricity
to light and heat.
A single water drop
Shatters the glass, the pride
the price it pays, as heat distributes
Non-uniformly, the expansion
uneven.
Only a faint glow of tungsten
filament remains still thinking
wondering, Only if it had remained
switched off, of pride
the drop would have gently
trickled down the glass surface.

It's a phrase I often playfully use to describe my queer self.
("Were you ever?"my beloved Alison uniformly says in jest).
But now it seems unusually apt in another way:
As I swann around this empty house, the decor, the photos, the ornaments and old perfume bottles overwhelm me.
My head is brimming with memories as I glance past these fragments of our shared lives.
My loss is palpable and yet inescapable under this roof.
She surrounds us on the walls, hanging over us with her beaming smile amidst the family photos.
I want to escape but I can't:
In a mad way I want to believe that something of these relics around us can bring her back somehow.
She did after all carry something of the old Irish paganism with her.
But, no, this ancient shamanism is sadly absent in a room drowned out by every token of Catholicism you can think of.
It's all too much for this first born to take and yet she is still here in the tiny gaps of these precious artefacts.  
Hidden away where you can't see her.
So, no, being honest right now - I'm not quite straight yet.
The head and heart will realign soon but not with this gnawingly painful grief.
Pray for me.

1

I will drive you to the beach today,
Because winter has outstayed its welcome.
We have no tolerance for rude guests.
After all, it’s been a pair of months since
We had our last snowball fight.

We can undress to the least amount of
Decent clothing the law permits.
We will take sandals that clap our heels
Uniformly with our strides through the sand.

I’ve already packed our wicker picnic basket.
We will have ham and cheese on white bread,
Because we both agree peanut butter is unpleasant to smell.

We’ve cuddled all winter long to keep warm.  Now,
We want to hold each other for the innocent pleasure
Spring promises.  Now, we’re going to the beach.

2

She and I held our anticipation together
With every rotation of our odometer.
We—together—would enjoy the simple pleasure
Of watching the overbearing nines
Give way to a fresh thousand.

She pretended the AM stations
Received alien transmissions at the ends
Of the dials.  When we listened, we heard music.

She had the idea to buy one another
New bathing suits.  Now, I wear too short blue trunks
With green dots, speckling me like an ill duck.

3

Skipping, and kicking up sand with uncommon grace,
The sun began to set as she pranced around
Our fire.  The blaze was burning out, as the sky
Took the light away.  I could only barely make out
The purple of her new one-piece, that so starkly
Contrasted with her pale legs.

As the sun almost hid beneath the west, like a fawn
Her silhouette casually strolled my way.
She held her head to the stars, presenting
All of her neck.  The only sounds we heard
Were the tide and her toes crunching sand.

She stopped, just toe lengths in front of me,
Arching her head back, as if deep in thought.
Her mouth opened like a growing crater
And when, in her shadow, I joined her skyward stare,
We—together—both watched the Moon come out.

There is no greater force than to consume a burning sun
The chemical reaction measured but the megaton
But when slowly done in a most diabolically methodical fashion
Each helium neutrino ripped apart by atomizing pure passion
Like helpless water circling down a drain pulled hopelessly in
Time will move ever so slowly once within

        With no beginning......and no end........

Every particle similarly blasted into basic atomic makeup
There is no bearing size of space for matter to take up
With each consumed substance its dark potential uplifts
Uniformly placed all things amazingly fit
In a place where nothing so exponential should sits
All melting into an event horizontal pit

        Every last light will parish.......not one bit will survive........

This force will never desist
Yet everything will still exist
On the great spinning disc of time
That has merely yet to reverse in our puny mind
To bang all possessions in unpredictable directions
Never really thinking of correcting imperfections

        Because everything has always been there......and never was.....

In tedious fashion, as uniformly descried,
stumble these thoughts with bumbling pride.
And though they would, in sequence, march fluidly,
each solo intent breaks tangentially.

A web will insert with some links between chains
And focus diverts into scattering trains.
Manifest indeed, your yield must unwind
in cacophony, useless to the mind.

Don't think these excuses and don't think me excused,
nor elaborately spoken, nor plainly confused.
I push full comprehension in a manner unwise
because thoughts about thoughts are a thoughtful demise

I’m sinking.
At that night the grass
is embracing me velvety.
And it seems to me unreal
that I’m an island sprung
in milky ways.
Yes.
That night I’m spilling
with the tide.
And the joys of directions
into the worlds are fusing
in a kernel.
I’m breathing uniformly and deeply
under the arch of your arm
and a cradle.

The original:

Във тънка мрежа на звездите

се отпускам.
През тази нощ тревата
ме обгръща кадифено.
И нереално ми се струва,
че съм поникнал остров
в млечни пътища.
Да.
Тази нощ разливам се
със прилива.
И радостите на посоките
във световете сливат се
в ядро.
Дишам равномерно и дълбоко
под арка на ръката ти и
люлка.

*Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved.

Quiet, the bamboo grove—
from each drooping leaf-tip hangs
a drooping dewdrop...

The same footprints,
coming and going, coming and going,
along the long trek path,
changing shape,
uniformly...

Naked feet tapping down the steps,
I halt—the pond in dawn-chill haze...

Mynahs a dozen—
hop, hop, hop, pick...hop, hop, pick—
dewdrops on wet grass...

And in the visitor’s room,
the chair tilted at this angle,
I see,
reflected on the window pane,
the entire stretch of an empty corridor—

Surely, a great omen!

“...But didn't your mother die too?
Back before we came?”
Some thoughts, Dad?
That day for you?
How was it?

Tell me how you woke in gray –  
dressed so uniformly in it
Tell me how you turned away
from all those helpless flowers on the ground
Came back empty to her kitchen
Still filled with the smells of her

Let me see her!  Hear her!
Once!
With any words –

besides the ones about the meat juice on her dress
The roast flung back
to splatter rage
upon the gentle curse
I see reflect
in my own image
across the table from him...

I want to know about the picture on your bureau
Do silent eyes still tuck you in?
She has a kind face that seems unending
I understand why things have gone unsaid

Do you know?
I have been wondering
Sneaking in your room
to pull her down from heaven?
To melt the years
of frosted glass between us?
to touch her face?
To look into her grayish eyes
pretending for a moment – she can really see me
To lay my head against her calico embrace?

Celina Arnell Rodier, 1872 – 1941  (Dad's Mom)

Waves traveling uniformly in the culmination of reality
Elusive perfection never meets our eyes
It is carried
In the messenger of colors
Reflecting within these portals
Directed towards the medium of awareness.

I am within the vast expanse of harmonious order
Breathing in the cosmic bonds
As a composition of ancient dust
Experiencing the mystery of happen
And the equivocal breadth of our surroundings.

In the middle of the wood there are five dead
vowels, forged by greedy linguists from the
first line that they perceived as sound.

The first was bent until ends uniformly faced the
heavens, and it was balanced on it's rounded
arch, catching acorns away from hungry squirrels.

The second was bent and bent 'til ends met so
there was not a space around, and it was elevated
unawares by tendrils of vine that it banded together.

The third was taken further, no spaces were left,
and a tail was formed to hold its tattered shape
above the filthy floor of rotting leaves and mud.

The fourth was twisted further still, until it was
a surgical needle, threading sentences through
its eye and pulling them with sharpened leg,
helping spiders web their branches at night.

The fifth was spared from bending and twisting,
for it was pulled end from end, until one finally
broke free, and they didn't see the need to paste
it back together, discarded with the dying twigs.

Time frozen, eternity's remnant
A kiss unbroken by the threads of fate
A bond unshattered by the weaves of destiny
A moment untouched by the strings of life ethereal

Time frozen, eternity's remnant
Their lips caressing one another so graciously
Their hands interlocked together so uniformly
Their beings resonating as one so perfectly

Time frozen, eternity's remnant
Uncertain future created afterwards through unknown factors
Uncertain future sustained during the unclear present
Uncertain future diminished before they truly became one

Time resumed, eternity's progression
Reality sabotaged by instance of luck
Reality abolished by happening of chance
Reality undone by development of coincidence

Time resumed, eternity's progression
Moved on from childish thoughts
Became more than desired
Left behind as nothing more than a still frame

Time unfrozen, eternity's remnant
Initial beginnings—eager love which knows no bounds

Time resumed, eternity's progression
Followed events—realizations of the truth and awareness of reality

Time collapsed, eternity's absence
Final ending—comprehension that a pause in history cannot define its entirety

Sometimes I am in the center of all things intentional and accidental.
My conquest lies somewhere in between its execution. When this happens,
I am ready: I will wear a white shirt. Keep mum like a leaden chapel.
                              My eyes will be red like surgery. My precision of stasis,
                               impeccable – like mother gutting fish in the kitchen,
                               or a door unhinged by my father. Each exploit

drawn   out of the mundane. Hearing the sinking dreaded music of shovel excavating
   the Earth,
   taking the image blurred. Clarified like clearing of a throat is my reckoning
   of a dull Wednesday. Rain descending like a flower. Bathes the world like soiled
   linen where we are cut from uniformly. Sometimes I am two abysses in one place:
  the gap of the ground and the horizon, sometimes cut-rate like pothole.
                   I know a day exists and can neither be decent nor loutish. In this frame,
  I can be sepia. Whitewashed like wall, hewed like linoleum on floors.

   In this center   I can be the forever grass
    when all things expire by morning

  washing me with dew.

I pause at the marriage of boulder and river .. Along brimming , turquoise pools where I find my loves reflection ..
River Birches that yearn for their freedom ..The cool recompense of shaded ferns which uniformly line her red clay escarpments ....
Cobalt blue wildflowers ..The cover and color of my dreams paint both shores seemingly forever .. Red , black and green dragonflies patrol the riverbank trails , Pileated woodpeckers and Cardinals exchange their
riparian oaths before Orioles and cooing Doves ..
Cicadas rhythmically repeat whimsical , ancient melodies .. The songs of Utopia charge the abundant sights and smells before me ...

Painting of oblivion

The is uniformly white
A screen depicting nothingness
There is immobility.
Occasionally a red dot appears
When the mas of the void is moved.
Into the form of life
A beast or a human?
The mystery is no one knows
Why does randomness occur

My little birdie, let's call her Donnie, didn’t die with me. She was the sky, the ocean, the air; always there; before there was me; before there was Lily and the schizophrenics she so dearly loved. She chose me through three miscarriages; clung to my slimy wet shoulder from birth in an old British town, and after my heart said, “**** it. I’m done.”

Donnie, who knew me well; whose laser eye cut through my survival shield. Who was there with the ******* and the priest in his long white gown, red, sputtering scooter, and bifocals that saw me before I slid under black sage bushes on Bleak Street. “We must learn to forgive,” he preached, as if he’d previewed the ****** fantasy with the teenage butcher and 12-inch blade; who dreamed of severed jugular veins; who knew their precise anatomical position from Biology 101; who raged through life buoyed by his noble struggle to overachieve, kick poverty in the *** and please his mother. She wanted him to be a shrink who performed lobotomies and lived in a mansion on the hill. But instead, he peddled anti-psychotics and sildenafil.

Donnie, who nixed my flirtation with cremation with her thesis on Casper’s Law. Who waxed poetic on the cycle of life and the critical role of clostridia in butyric fermentation. Who stoked my angst of guns and God; and the Talmud’s curse that justified subjugation of blacks for five hundred years, and gave us Jesus, blond and white with sky blue eyes, and prosperity preachers with a penchant for private jets, Bentleys and pews packed with faithful followers seeking salvation and eternal life but fearing death and the neighbor’s son with sagging jeans, snapbacks and kicks by Kanye West.

Donnie, who worshipped only supreme reality. Who scoffed at the devout deacons and their elegies of compassion after protracted nights of drunken bliss and fornication at the bordello. Who challenged me to read and think independently; and unlearn the trappings of blind faith in a deity unseen that failed to intervene when Baba and Phoebe were yoked, *****, chained, stripped of name, culture and natural identity; made to slog like two-legged mules in a land far, far away; for missionary masters who ****** black men in public for dissent, and threw black babies, naked, screaming, into giant, snapping jaws of bull gators for fun.

Donnie, who inspired me to explore the theory of applied nothingness; that nothing is something and everything is something and nothing; that nothing is the silence from which a baby’s scream emerges and to which it returns; that singular forces of expansion and compression move the universe to an inevitable state of oneness. That the world is the laboratory of the independent thinker who knows the only constant is change; whose mind is constantly moving and learning new tricks, not stuck in the static biblical paradigm of many interpretations, including that curse of Ham, that seismic slight of hand that shifted and redefined tectonic geopolitical plates of master and slave by race.

Donnie, who knew the moving mass of maggots feasting on my rotting flesh were merely spokes in the cycle of life and death. Who knew heaven was a myth like the devil; that both lived in me, on Earth, a duality that made me love and hate and share and steal that shiny red apple from the Korean grocery store on Utica Avenue, just for the thrill of it. Nonetheless, a part of me wanted to confess, just in case that nothingness theory was just applied ******* and John 3:16 was real. Just in case, mother, who prayed five times a day, and sent four-figure checks to Benny Hinn whom she’d never met, and gave me a black bible to help me find the Lord, was right all along. But a few Berettas and bump stocks intervened.

Donnie knew I was dead when the bullet split my head in two back in 2032 at Times Square. There would be no 2033; no ‘Happy New Year’ toast, no kisses, no cheer. Just rat-a-tat-tat, screams and mayhem on 42 Street. There were 175 dead at the scene when the giant ball completed its 60-second drop; New York City’s second worst mass killing in modern history. Children missing limbs; gaping holes in the chest of men that held beating hearts at 11:58 pm; chunks of brains, eyeballs and other human remains swimming in blood near headless victims. The three white terrorists did not discriminate. Every race felt the deadly force of guns meant for war but fiercely defended by Second Amendment zealots and the NRA.

I should have migrated to Tokyo back in ’85.

Donnie disagreed. She’d stayed connected to my departed, restless soul in the after-life. Together, we observed the protracted decomposition of my earthly shell in a loosely-sealed casket somewhere under the red clays of Georgia. Donnie, who knew I needed therapy after that morbidly brutal exit from the physical realm of palpable matter; back to the golden eternity of nothingness from whence I came. Who reminded me that my brief sojourn among the living was not inconsequential; that I’d left an indelible mark in my sphere of influence, real and virtual; that I’d found and used my gift of write for the greater good of preserving naked truths of humanity; that my ancestors were pleased, including my deceased mother, whose long position on pious options had filled the coffers of Benny Hinn and other preaching predators like pastor Mike at the Bootleg Church of Brooklyn; yet yielded nothing which is something as hitherto explained.

“Your mortal life unfolded exactly as nature intended,” Donnie counseled, in her infinite wisdom, adding, “even the biologically immortal pine will die when struck by lightning or swept by a tsunami or snapped like a toothpick by a giant tornado.”

“And those pines produce oxygen to support life on the red clays of Georgia, now uniformly enriched by your final contribution to the world.”

clambers thus far, the
small-clawed creature inside of
me now; in dreams said
she misses me, but dreams
are just that. classical
case. eyes untouched. gaze
unmet. notions uniformly
forgotten, or forgetting, at
least. the sun rises, the sun
rises oh, am i warm or just
asleep?