Beat-Up Old Car
Vastly under-appreciated possession
In dull blue, a MK1, no less, with original rust
Inside lingering scents of Exchange and Mart
top-notes of WD-40 and miscellaneous mix tapes

A car like this gets into your life
in lumpy knuckle-barking unsubtle ways,
stays there in subtle ones

That long drive back to Yorkshire
in the quintessential exemplar
Clutch cable snaps.
****** and Crap.

Hardly helpful but can be accommodated
with enough thought
rough though it is
on starter motor
and nerves whenever
anticipatory powers inadequate
and we are forced
to a complete red-light stop

Brakes dodgier, exhaust noisier
than ideal or legal
Gender-ambiguous
elderly tyres flirt outrageously with slick tarmac
Showing their canvas underwear
and male-pattern baldness

Keeping this unstable, unsafe, unreliable
ultimately essential lump of metal
moving and on the road
is a fine art

Engaging, fluid and intense art;
The Clash and The Specials
Costello and The Cure in support

A distraction then
getting hauled over by plod
somewhere near Bury St. Edmunds
Thatcher's boys.

Tax? MoT? Insurance? ID?
No real interest shown

Any passengers in the back?
Clearly no.  Pickets?  
Pickets? What?
Please open the boot sir... Oh.
On your way lad. Drive carefully

I was, officer, I was
More than you will ever know

Each sorrow is the child of a happiness
you thought would never end;
Every happiness is a sadness
I may not survive—
a brilliant October day
lying back in dock hammock suspended
quoting bits of Rilke and starlight anthems
the shadows cast by buildings and frogs
ink drawings made on August nights
by our beautiful chain-smoking artistette
admiring a giant spider friend who’d
spun her majestic web and vanished
while we were swimming
backdrop of bay and boys and cherries
creaky boardwalks under bare feet
and stickiest pine and sand darkness
photos over wing clouds below
creepy call to prayer from ancient Mosque
at twilight punctuating strange dreams
perfect reconciliation on hotel balcony
McDonald’s after soaring from Black Sea
to Bosporus Straight, edge of Asia
visible on the horizon and all of life
a nightmare from which I can’t get woke
terrorized by ***** donor bonesaws
homophobic maternal afternoon rejection
peace that passeth no understanding
when you’re a ******* genius or just
a few points lower sorry never enough
compassion leaking through pores
drawn out by steam more darkness
Eucalyptus perfumed
another flaccid experience on a stranger’s
bed recalling Hippocrates on the drive
away after more bad ***
shots of sauces and grilled roasted
poached lentils bespoke chickens finery
malodorous wafts limestone smoothed
by centuries of acidity oily tourist touches
but they’re in Mexico Australia India
we’re back at home twins calling
each day an error of time rounded off
the incorrigible quark refusing
to cooperate with Einstein choosing its
own entangled path and lighting fools
what beautiful skyline
what amazing celebrity capture
what nostalgic group assemblage
what **** cute puppy who’s no more pup
what swanky tailored look
what smiles what smiles what seriousness
the soft and supple features curves lines
practiced looks and wayward hairs
a simple flourishing according to the lens
so much that skin conceals and eyes
beer garden sidewalk orations
wedding after party for April fools
we were who dance grabbing rings
swinging wildly discussing the vulgarities
of gastronomy and digestion
tumbling into diners midnight offices
brick lined streets magical talks
demonstrations and ideas unbounded
carving pumpkins into likable politicians
we think are statesmen and wailing
when she loses winning a trophy case
buckling under weight of moral victory
the thought of skyscrapers lit
shining under heaven unsubtle insinuation
we’re better than all this nonsense
and stronger having raised this glass
and steel by our own hands, our parents
rather now maybe that’s confusion
erecting higher stairwells to escape
encroaching seas and bums below
all memory all happy every laugh
each rumination on the hours
kisses cocktails cuddles laughter
that perfect vest completed outfit
those thrift store jeans that shirt
that secondhand one speed bike
those lunches with the priest
those brunches with the students
those happy hours with the coworkers
those dinners with the beard
all interchangeable parts in show
theater of recollection one subway car
one taxi ride one bus to NY or DC
one flight to Seattle or Vegas
or some Floridian seascape, mansion
each cog or bit like paper currency
imbued with no value but buying
the totality of lived experience
from which to draw upon in sad elsewhere
—but they cut deep, well meaning though
whenever was now isn’t and can is blind
to what day will ever be when I can say
in truth now sadness isn’t.

Magnets;
lock and key;
and, the unsubtle,
bolt
and *****.
These are things that collide harmoniously and do not dispute

We are not such an archaic, mechanized metaphorical construct.

I feel us as primal,
torrid decadence;
a deliberate impassioned vulnerability:
an animalistic exposé.

Unfocused, infinite black holes
expanding
to be lost within

Quivering circle of solicitous, engorged fuchsia
steaming harsh,
needy
attempts of oxygen recovery

Soft powder snow
melting over olive tree trunks,

quaking with endless echoes resonating from beyond the hills above

A thunderous harbinger centers chaos,
rampaging gust-like vibration through taut roots,

a volcanic eruption.
Lava geyser

blazing till all energy
enthralls the earth.

What I see for us is a metaphor in nature.
I will be the seismic activity
and you
will dance above me.

Your world will collapse against me

in my relentless motions.

And when you stand again,
I will bring you to
your knees

in my aftershock
and show you strength that will move you mountains.

my eyes are exhausted from seeing things
i need not want to have a glimpse

from looking at people
i need never want to love at all

from catching melancholic eyes
i need in no way want to sympathize


my eyes are exhausted
from observing faces of reality

the crooked
unsubtle kind of hypocrisy


―a.t.

Join me, embrace me.
Take me in and call me your own.
Adopt my religion and experience my nirvana.
Give into me. Come to me.

Thus is the title of today's Media's agenda.
The title which fuels their un-endless propaganda
To recruit as many of us as they possibly can.

Join me, embrace me.
Take me in and call me your own, goes their slogan.
Give in to me. Come to me…

They grab our attention by showing us light and turning it into gold.
That or any other materialistic miracle that never gets old.

Those of us who need no more persuasion are hooked and are welcomed with open arms.
Those who defect are labelled renegades and rebels and are welcomed with open arms. Ready… Aim…

And you know it's not a game when, out of the silence, a hollow voice whispers.
Not quite a baritone… Insidious as sin.
The voice says, "It's safe to say that I'm ok.
Come to me and I'll take you away.
Don’t be scared, just let me in.
Don’t you want to be my friend?
Come and see what my followers have become!"
And then the television switches on…

The chorus of Rihanna's Disturbia plays and cross fades into Jay Z's Run this town only to be mixed with another song and another after that.
The music is almost tantric but nothing compared to the laser light show provided.

What is this I see inside?
Behind the rainbow and beneath the sky.
A steady shape grows from deep within the Fantasia-like backdrop.
Then appears a bright silhouette of a woman's bare back top
Or in other words, her shoulder.
Hidden amidst the uproar of colours.
Then as I keep on watching, or in other words, behold her…
I see her… I feel like I know her.
Even more so, I feel like I want her!

The temptress in the red dress.
Nothing is too outrageous for her; I can't look away as she begins to sway.
At first she moves so elegantly, with the grace of Astaire and the confidence of Xena But then she twists and turns her sweet ballet into something that even the Lambada would call seductive.
What am I supposed to do? ...
She dances on a checkerboard floor.
Her dress flows like gushing blood.
She looks like she moves and she moves like she knows me…

I steal another glance at her. She wears big earrings with pyramid shaped ornaments dangling from golden chains. Inside them a single eye... Just lovely.

Men want her. Women want to be her.
Come to think about it… Isn’t that how they promote goods nowadays?
****!

What happened?
I look at her again and all I see is nothing???
Why was she taken away from me?
Maybe it's because I'm not allowed to ask any questions!
Because using my mind is old fashioned right?

Now I see what time it is. Now I see that she was false.
As false as the voice's promise.
It was all a mere figment of real life, it must have been.
Because never has my imagination let me down like that.
I blame myself for letting them get to me.
He, the voice and her, the blindfold.
They knew me.
They know us.
They've shaped us.

They have been shaping us since the dawn of time.
They, along with their leader have been trying to lead us astray all along…
In truth I was not surprised when I came to this realization. Simply because it was written in all four books but I was still in doubt.
I guess they got to me and I didn't even realize. Wow…

Clever they are. Give them that I will.
Possess infinite knowledge of the dark side they do.
They plague us with mind tricks and play us like chopsticks.

Their tactics are ingenious yet very unsubtle.
They control us through fake dreams,
And through low self-esteem, enslave us.
They know what they are doing…

Join me, embrace me.
Take me in and call me your own.
Adopt my religion and experience my nirvana.
Give in to me. Come to me…

Ever since mankind had learned to learn,
He was taught and bought.
The infamous "They" have been picking away at us as if we were a giant iceberg, non-stop using only a needle… They have been doing it for over a thousand years. Now we are almost the size of a thirteen inch ice cube and they are in charge.
Our days are numbered and we are melting fast.
Our 40 days aren’t up yet but time is against us.
It's time for us to choose.

Either dance with the devil, and join his rebellion,
Or go with the Ring and switch off your television.

Peace.

this one starts where so many have
bed-begun

a weekend morn,
sun flooding the chamber,
we swap YouTube fav's,
over cups of almost
hotter coffee

I ******
with
"Roxanne" by Police;

she subtlety point counterpoints my
unsubtle advances, parrying by
sending me dreams of
the **** promised land of

"El Tango of Roxanne,"
from Moulin Rouge

I concede,
she pleased,
pleases me,
that her triumphed victory came so easy

not realizing my plan all along,
realizing, my all along man plan

ah,
Saturday, Naturday,

making natural spring water
poems
drawn from the saucy source
mother (bed-sun-music) earth

this one ends where so many have
bed-begun

The mix and match of minds at hand with attitudes diverse
compel me to make comment that some may find adverse,
Some may find a reason to launch to fierce attack
Whilst others choose to spectate sipping beer and sitting back.

It seems we have proponents of a new unsubtle mix
Who breeze in with their verbal fangs and talons fiercely fixed,
Who at the slightest pretext take offence and go to war
Leaving innocence astounded, open mouthed, upon the floor.

Some here  can handle criticism, others clearly can't
And some perceive this helpful and others simply shan't,
But our greatest single asset is this freedom flow of words
where opinions and convictions are divested and diverged,
Where compliments and attitudes should be taken in our stride
And barking, fierce rejoiners must, perhaps... remain outside.

Ruffled feathers agitate but few intend offence
Interpretations differ... but in truth, with common sense,
Accommodation can be made without hot anger's flame
So let's bury the invective and get on with Shakespeare's game.

M.

The best made plans of mice and men often go awry
So why make plans you cannot keep, why d’we even try?
Why does man seek comfort in familiarity?
When familiarity breeds contempt
Why do we miss this unsubtle hilarity?
Within all the things we’ve dreamt

I’m not giving in just giving up
I’m going to let life wash over me and overflow my cup
I’m going to take all that it offers, even if it’s not expected
And live each day as they come as if they’re not connected
I won’t get what I want, I’ll get what I need
I shall cast off the shackles, unbridled and freed

I shall walk bare foot through the grass and savour the cool crisp air
I shall live only for the moment as if I just don’t care!

Here it is; my body of work
Lately I've been showing off the other kind
Not that I'm complaining though
It has been such a long time

So what is going on inside my head?
Feeling fear, and doubt, and nervous
Pretty soon I'll start confusing you
Accidentally on purpose

With all this space around me
How can I feel like I need more?
"You should know that I'm nothing but a lousy,
Selfish, drunken man-*****."

These and other ways to leave your lover
Before the loving even starts
Paul Simon never wrote this tune
I've got that **** on lock

Burning bridges while they're being built
Such an unsubtle self-saboteur
Way to go there hot shot
What the hell did you do that for

Not death

Breathe slow

Past coil

Jealous?

We don't know

Sad as plain sight

Fake intents

Misdirection and dense

Regrets for tomorrow

Until the demon runs

Mind will be blank

Conscious without reprimand

Disgracing self

And projected shadows

Into millenium of words

That trick only inside

Gross and perfect

Figured somewhat insect

Fear of movement

Ready to read

Never to explore

A monster that is a bore

No true faces

Just stolen ink

Anger in three ports

Without the eyes to close

Ever so unsubtle

Render one cold

With love as slow as shell

Until they grow the verdure fungus

i wonder why i disappear
texts unread
missed calls
half-written messages
cancelled plans
faded into the crowd

i sleep in too late
i don’t sleep at all
because it’s easier to explain those things
than the heaviness in my chest

but the thing is,
they don’t go unnoticed

And there I felt a sense of elation.
Seeing it for the first time.
A sense of interest.
Soft spoken, somewhat political.
Funded by interest.
The likes and dislikes of what lures the climate of smile.
It felt surreal.

A breath of fresh air.
A simple reminder of the smallest thing.
Not once did it feel that it was too much.
Not once did it feel that it was vain.
Off beat.

Watching episode after episode,
Subtle unsubtle laughs.

The gist of different references.
Spontaneous in the avenue of conversation.
I drove to get a second look. Then once more around.
The freedom of advertisement.
Officially elected in detailed statement.
A festival of sorts.
I would turn the corner and see all of my favorite characters 
represented by my most favorite character.

To compliment surprise her cheeks rose like a billboard. 
If marketing research counts, I was instantly sold.
Finding she was a avid merchant.
Her infinite knowledge for detail.
The gap bridged between listening and speaking.
A new experience to a different sector of my brain.
The rescue of a struggling smile.
A festival of bright smiles and laughs.
Corners of strong jawline and spontaneous conversation.
It was incredible.

Catching the most important reference,
My favorite character in life.
Wearing a Bob's Burger t-shirt
Granting smile in a instant

all my past
      imposes on my breath today

i enter a grand mosaic public building
        and on goes my medical face mask
i join the back of the queue with my documents in one hand
            and my numbered butcher ticket
                          in the other
i admire the mosaics
               a jarring tide of art against the bureaucratic purpose
                     of these rooms
gauzed in with own product exhaust
       all my past  is attending    
exhumed
  patted  into my breath
    baiting remembrance with unsubtle notes
for example :
   integrated spittings of 'drum' tobacco (i quit a decade ago)
horning catches of cologne every boy used as a teen
seasonal scents  unweaned from deep in my system
(some reigned in from the different countries
                                                    i lived in or visited)
then i am frisked back to infancy   with breast milk and rusks
it's all there    a basking flippancy
all there in musk about my face
  one fragrance after another

it's an honest relief
     to host an alternative to my 'old man' breath
           but odd and concerning
something of the brain ?

Sub-human thing.
Unsubtle sting;
a barb that pierces.

My body sings a song that echoes owl screeches.
The moon, it gapes;
my one escape to the farthest reaches.

Out on the fringe, my fur is tinged by embers burnt into the skin
to be met with gnashed teeth and claws that grasp at meat within.

Sub-human form;
body transformed into a nightmare.
A howl that drowns out all and every modern trapping.

Run away and I'll give chase.
Red blood boiling through my veins.
Tearing flesh with filed fangs;
enamoured with the taste.

The thing about the word unhealthy is that it can only exist
in comparison to other, more appealing options.
In the absence of vegetables,
a diet consisting of processed sugars, caffeine,
and American Spirits raises no red flags.
Broken individuals seem to shine brightest
when they cannot be referenced against those possessing more admirable qualities.

You are the dent in a beautiful spine,
telomerase granting immortality to the cancer.

She is dive bar songs for everyone,
for her,
for this half-drunk moment,
but secretly for you, really.
Dusted in neon smoke your body can’t breathe
but still delicately pack into the corners of each lung,
knowing it can never be exhaled.

For someone so self-professed anxious,
She says lots of words that are not “yeah”.

She is a kiss that tastes like mornings spent reading The Bell Jar.
Long legs twisted into thick comforters, bare skin
close with the desperation of two people who have everything to lose.
Morning hair spread wide and thick. On your backs,
not wanting to move, wondering how
much time you have left. Doing
the math together.
The wrinkle following you through an empty apartment.

Here is proof, evidence.
A human alive; a body in operation.

When She crashes her smile into what’s left of your teeth
it feels like a jaw being broken by sunlight.
Closer to her than anyone,
without knowing a thing about the ashes in the corners of each eye.
Rings with an unsubtle sway from striped dress,
to the edge of your timid fingers.
I know how little a man can do with two hands.

Abandoned toys and worn out shoes have a past
, like the people who used them.

Don’t tell people the reason you have to leave parties early without saying goodbye,
why you stay so close to the exits, ready
to push away any innocent bystander who might be able to help you.
Don’t tell them She’s the voice mumbling
beyond the edge of your lamplight.  
Wondering what Hope means,
if the other end of the text message knows
and what it means to find out.

Some stories end with four shoes on a subway platform,
not caring if you’re stepping into the right train.
Others end in the fields
as the ants clean the bones.

Drilling through flesh to find something worth sparing. Yanking out veins, arteries I'm tearing.
A drastic change from who I used to be. In unsubtle ways this world has altered me.
I'm searching for something worth nailing to my cross. But my search turns up nothing, and my intestines are in knots.
Digging and sivving, through heavy, labored, breathing. Rending and bending, through tendons I'm teething.
Im dredging up the dead that lay in my mind. I'm trying to find the peace of a sweeter time.
But I only go so deep, because of what lies bellow. A skull full of dead rabbits where even Alice wouldn't go.
Tying sinew to their paws I make them dance and jest. I fear what I've become because I'm alone and have killed the rest.
And yet I'm still smiling through the blood, and the tears, and the pain. Because deep down in my past I've found that I am the one to blame.
I have scorched my skies, I have charred my earth. I was my own downfall, to You my Friend.
Signed.
For what's it's worth.

Dear previous flame,

For whatever you may feel, know we are mirrors.
For whatever insecurity you may look to cure, through searching hard and unsubtle in the profile I choose to share,
Know that I’m a shadow, searching hard through a shared room that was yours before it was mine—
Looking for any sign of superiority, a crack in the impenetrable armor I built for you.
I know you’re my reflection on the outside looking in.
You’re his past but my potential future and the empathy I feel runs deeper than the credit you’d dare give me.
The truth is I see you in every girl who could remotely fit your description, despite knowing your exact image.
You are not a threat, but a curiosity nonetheless.
Because after all, any record broken is only as good as above second place.

The storm was raging
Unsubtle changes!
The circumference of the area
was lit up by lightning
flashing down
in the blink of an eye.
All the birds were clustered together
It was quite scary

I loved being me,
I liked knowing where the boundaries
Between myself and others were.
Lord Apollo has no boundaries,
Especially not with women.
Can you blame me for running from him?
Big game hunter,
Bright like the sun,
Widely praised as having
The most fabulous hair?
When he met me, he said
"I'm Apollo,"
And that's it.
He looked at me expectantly,
I barely knew what he wanted.
He was trying to bleed over into me,
And I'm not into that.
Yeah he knows what people think of him,
And he agrees,
And I don't know if I want
To hang out
With people who don't know others' worth
As well as their own.
Lord Apollo doesn't,
Cause he's chasing me like I'm a deer,
Worth a trophy,
Like the ones that line Zeus' banquet hall.
No thanks,
I'll have no part of
Motionlessly
Watching over others' happiness
For eternity.
He's still behind me when I turn to look back,
And he keeps shouting out the name of love,
But it's Ares' eyes,
Not Aphrodites',
That I see leering at me through the trees.
This isn't courting,
This is a War of Attrition.
He'll chase and he'll chase even if,
At the end,
He'll only have caught up to my dead body,
Stretched out in exhaustion,
Tongue lolling out.
No matter, he'll just
Hoist me up by the antlers
And take a picture.
I call out to my father,
Because who else do we trust to
Run off our unwelcome suitors?
He says there's little he can do
To curb the lust of a man who so outranks him.
Because that's all that matters among men, right?
So I say "what's the little you can do?"
And he says,
"Fight fire not with fire,
But with the things that grow plants:
Water, time, and patience."
And I feel a seed sprout in my stomach.
Yes!
Trees are notoriously unfuckable!
I still have to outrun Apollo for a little while,
But the transformation is already starting,
And what's a better way to evade ****,
Than  just not being a woman?
It's getting hard to run,
My lungs are already wooden,
And when my knees bend, they creak.
I have to stop now or I'll certainly crack and break,
But it feels lovely to take root,
Feet pushing down into the soil and
Becoming feet no more.
Oh, but here comes Apollo,
And he melodramatically sighs,
"Oh! To behold the transformation that now
Ends your lovely life!"
What a stupid person,
I'm not ending,
I'm becoming.
He's finally caught me,
And for a few seconds,
Flesh touches flesh,
But, thankfully,
I become a tree before he can get a ***** in.
I settle into the bark walls I have made part of myself,
And get ready to eat sunlight for a near eternity.
If I still had a face, it would be smiling,
That is,
Until Lord Apollo,
His most highly unsubtle deer-mangler,
Rips a ******* limb off of me.
Now my consciousness is split
Between myself the tree,
And myself, the laurel wreath trophy,
Which Lord Apollo wears,
And Heroes, in his name, wear.
Oh, I should have known that to
Him
And men like him,
Whether I was a woman or a tree did not matter,
They only wanted to use me,
And they were Hellbound to find a way.

My father was a coalman ,when I was a little girl
Five ‘o’ clock each morning, coal-sacks on his shoulder he would hurl
Behind the wheel of a lorry at fourteen years of age
No driving licence did he have, for he was under-age

My dad he was a strapping lad, what you would call robust
Handsome, though you couldn't tell, face covered in coal-dust
When he would come home at night, he was quite a scary sight
All I could see was big brown eyes and teeth so pearly-white

He'd perch me on his saddle and wheel me up and down the lane
Even though he'd worked a ten hour shift and was in a lot of pain
He used to tell us stories, they always made us laugh
He told us about a lady who wanted her coal put in the bath

One day he was approached by an expectant mum called Florrie
She told him that her waters had broken, so he took her on the lorry
When she arrived at the hospital, her skin and clothes were black
She'd got there safely in one piece, surrounded by Nutty-Slack

Some customers would pay upfront, my dad his lesson learnt
When customers refused to pay for coal already burnt
If someone was short of money, he would fill up their coal-scuttle
But if he told his dad, the boss, his response would be unsubtle

Hardly anyone has coal fires now and this makes me very sad
But lots of people in the town remember the Coalman, ‘my dad’

And for some reason
At the depth of it all
I have fallen back into
the deepest groove of my own suffering.

I do not know how or why
this pain has come back.
Or why it refuses to leave.

Deep down
at the bottom of everything
I am surrounded --
By perfect monstrous silence
Echoing gently the constant reminder
Of my own isolation.

I haven't felt this alone in years.
At least not consciously so.
Face to face with failure:
The deepest kind of suffering.
The very essence of sadness.

The darkest part of darkness.

Nothing but this:
Alone again as always
Irrational misbehavior
Living always in a tortured instance.

The world isn't so bad
But the experience itself
Is a whole different thing.

I'd rather die right now
than walk inside and put on a happy face.
Splice myself open and drain away.

The inexplicable suffering of my life
Has taken hold of me
Mysterious, unsubtle.

Always and forever.

the sky is so blue,
the ******
topsy-turvy vase dribbling sun-spit
crashing around
with its mucus rays
stumbling, heaving on doorsteps
punching drunkenly through windows
giddy and chaotic as it *****
air greedily upwards
windmilling glory
away from us as we exhale-
"what a perfect day
the perfect day to stay
inside
the perfect day to **** away"
the swaying, nauseous people say,
and the sky, the tipsy ******,
giggles as it throws itself
blue, unsubtle, with ripped tights,
glistening thighs, come-hither eyes,
unsteady, with love,
at the trees.

I wish i could undo what she did to you.
I wish i could undo all the awful things you've had to struggle through.
But life doesn't work that way, you & i, we work in two's.
Like a vastly complex machine, with bolts and screws.
I'm trying to be something that doesn't fail you-
Someone you can hold onto.
  
Have you ever wanted to give someone the world;
as if they were the world itself?
I'd like to offer you all of me.
The depths of my mind & the unsubtle rumbling inside.
Maybe then you'd forget her in your untold dreams.
Honesty isn't always just quite what it seems.

Like a shadow hanging over you, she haunts you as i'm holding you.
Telling you i won't stay, that just like her- I will be the same.
Shut it out, for you & for me.
I'm here, as long as you'll have me. 

(s.m)

The only voice I wish to hear
Like the padding of the deer
And the misty Falls approach in trees
Which whispers here, and
With wandering footprints, there

Like the only sky I've ever been
Before being rush back within
To an eternal indoors
Full of plastic stars which burn out slow
And the hum of air which,
Once conditioned, streams

It's such a beautiful sound, I see
Such a lovely thought, that now I feel
You, my flooded mind, in ears
Begs this of my most unsubtle me
Let me drown anew
In this memory, please