I have your (our) CD on my walkman
It's playing
all our fears and regrets
all our promises and dreams
It's playing the past
before people left
before we left
before everything
started to change.

SNOW FALLS

she wakes
to a morning
with no reason for living

cries in the mirror
to be
forgiven

puts on her make-up
takes off her clothes
sits there & bleeds

until she can’t feel
the blood in her veins
runs cold

the razor blade
bleeds
bleeds

the cat
cries
to be fed

the batteries in her Walkman
go dead
the Rachmaninov stops

a letter
she will never read
drops on the Welcome mat

a mobile
rings & rings &
...stops

a member of
a minor political party
looking for her vote

rings the doorbell twice
slips on the ice & ruins his coat
curses

a man laughs
at another man’s joke
it’s a big laugh...he’s a big bloke

laughter
invades the square
there’s a chill in the air

a friend calls for her
(to go on a blind date)  
...she doesn’t hear

snow...
...snow...
...snow falls

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Logosophiamag.c­om
Hellopoetry.com
Fellowshipandfairydust.com

                  ­            The Pastor Who Pinched my Walkman

He was on television receiving an award
Community service to marginalized youth
And chairman of a committee of community pastors
For the promotion of community somethings

I remembered him from the fifth period
He was a funny kid when term began
By May his eyes had narrowed and his smile was gone
So was my Walkman, but I wished him well

When after a few more years he was sentenced to prison
It wasn’t for pinching somebody’s Walkman

There's a voice on the phone
telling what had happened.
Some kind of confusion,
more like a disaster.
And it wondered how you were left unaffected,
but you had no knowledge.
No, the chemicals covered you.
So a jury was formed
as more liquor was poured.
No need for conviction;
they're not thirsty for justice.
But I slept with the lies I keep inside my head.
I found out I was guilty.
I found out I was guilty.
But I won't be around for the sentencing
'cause I'm leaving on the next airplane.
And though I know that my actions are impossible to justify,
they seem adequate to fill up my time.
But if I could talk to myself like I was someone else,
well then maybe I could take your advice
and I wouldn't act like such an ******* all the time.

There's a film on the wall
that makes the people look small
who are sitting beside it,
all consumed in the drama.
They must return to their lives once the hero has died.
They will drive to the office,
stopping somewhere for coffee;
where the folk singers, poets, and playwrights convene
dispensing their wisdom;
Oh dear amateur orators.
They will detail their pain in some standard refrain.
They will recite their sadness
like it's some kind of contest.
Well if it is I think i'm winning it, all beaming with confidence
as I make my final lap.
The gold metal gleams,
so hang it around my neck.
'Cause I am deserving it: the champion of idiots.

But a kid carries his Walkman
on that long bus ride to Omaha.
I know a girl who cries when she practices violin,
'cause each note stands so pure
it just cuts into her,
and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes.
Now to me, everything else,
it just sounds like a lie.

Is there anything more lonely than the sound of boy playing a banjo on a spring afternoon? Oh yes, yes, it’s the sound of girl playing a banjo on a spring afternoon. A boy would lean back on the porch chair and let the instrument fall and rest on his chest to feel the raindrop-plucked vibrations, one by one. This girl, she sits on a kitchen chair, but not in the kitchen, and folds herself over her Daddy’s 5-string. The banjo rests on her blue-cottoned thigh, the lower metal edge firm against her stomach, her slight ******* pressed against the upper wooden rim. If you were standing in the doorway of the workshop you’d see her blond hair falling, falling over her face. There would be that dead-centre parting and just visible the edge of her wire-rimmed glasses.  Then, the denim jacket worn over the kind of summer-blue flowered frock pulled from her Mummy’s clothes that with her passing have now migrated into her bedroom. The thought of clothes is what there is close to hand at the break of day.

When Kath woke this morning, when the morning woke Kath, the valley air was already as sweet, as fresh as any April morning could possibly be in this green hollow of her home. She had lain there feeling the air caress her forehead. The window, always open beside her tangled bed, let in the ringing song of the waterthrush. Newly returned this handsome brown migrant warbler, his whitish breast streaked with brown, more thrush than warbler, she’d watched in the stream yesterday wading on his long, pink legs bobbing his tail like a spotted sandpiper. Soon there would be a nest somewhere in the beech and hemlock hollow along by the stream in the interstices of some fallen tree.

Ellen was due home this morning. She’d hear the Toyota from way up the track, driven overnight from Philadelphia she’d have stopped and stopped. Tired and so tired, she’d go from truck stop to truck stop, the radio her only company and the thought of Joel between her legs arching into her to keep her warm. But she’d drive with the windows down swallowing the night air as the ***** brown car swallowed the miles. Kath would have the coffee waiting, potato cakes on the stove, she’d have a fresh towel placed on her bed, underwear warm from the dryer, spring flowers bunched in mug on the window sill.

Ellen would never come right in when she arrived home, but sit down with the dogs on the porch step and gather herself, watch the mist rise down in the valley, drink in the bird-ringing silence. Kath would steal open the door and crouch beside her with Mummy’s coffee cup thrown, glazed and fired at Plummer’s Fold. Head resting against the porch supports Ellen would allow the cup to be placed between her hands, her fingers uncurled then curled by Kath around its rough circumference. There would be a kiss on the back of the neck and she’d be gone back upstairs to sit with her notebook, those new lyrics she’d been fashioning, her Plummer’s Fold diary – yesterday had been a rich day as she’d walked the bounds of Brush Mountain on the Big Tree Trail singing and plucking an invisible banjo all the while. Those songs of her great-great uncle she’d discovered in a pile of Library of Congress recordings just echoed through her, had become part of her. They were as much a part of the hinterland of Brush Mountain as the stones on the trail. Garth Watson’s voice, well she knew every turn and breath. She’d been listening to them since she was thirteen. She saw herself at the old Victrola blowing off the dust, placing the forgotten disk on the central spindle, scratching the needle with her finger to test the machine, gauge its volume. Then, that voice surrounding her, entering her, as lonesome as the scrawny girl just out of junior high that she had been, the dumb silent girl from the backwoods with that cute clever sister who played guitar and was everybody’s friend, who the boys rushed to fill the empty seat next to her on the school bus.

They’d recorded this song on their Lonesome Pine album. Kath had it all arranged, had it all imagined, brought it to that session at One-Two Records. She had been so scared Ellen would smile gently and say ‘Kath, not this ol’ thing surely. Why I remember Daddy singing this song into the night over and over.’ But no. When Kath had sung it through, looking into the bowl of her denim skirt, she’d raise her eyes to see tears running down Ellen's face. Everything between them changed at that moment. The location studio in The Farm House disappeared and they were girls on their home porch. In an hour they had it down and Larry had said. ‘My God, Holy Jesus, where did that come from’. So they went straight home and listened to those old records all night and most of the next day. They rewrote the album they’d spent a year planning (and saving for).

So now when they came together on those country fair stages, in the cafes in Baltimore or Philly it was that haunting Appalachian music that ran through their songs. Kath still shy as a blushing bean, hiding in the hair and glasses, reluctantly singing harmony vocals, Ellen– well, that girl had only to look wistfully into the audience and they were hers.  

And so they were living this life holed up in their family place, keeping faith with Plummer’s Fold. Daddy was in a home in Lewis now. He’d taken himself there before his dementia had taken him. He played his girls’ CDs all day long on his Walkman, had their pictures in his near to empty room – just a rocker, a table, a pile of books by his bed with Dora’s wedding quilt.

This music, this oh so heart-breaking music, the loping banjo, the tinkling, springing, glancing accidental guitar and their innocent valley voices. They’d exhausted the old records now and, their education in the old ways done, were back with new songs and Kath’s ideas to only record in the Fold and build songs with soundtracks of the world around them. She’d been laying down tracks day after day whilst Ellen was on the road with the Williams Band and often solo, support for the Minna Peel as ‘an outsider folk artist from deepest Appalachia.’

Kath wouldn’t travel more than a day away from the farm. Every show was an agony, except for the time they were performing. She couldn’t bear all that stuff that surrounded it – all that waiting, the sound check, more waiting, that networking **** One-Two constantly wanted her to be part of. She’d ***** off as the guys gathered around Ellen. She’d take a book and sit in the Toyota. She couldn’t do people, though she loved her folks, she loved her sister like she loved the trees and stones, the birds and flowers on Brush Mountain. Always shy, always afraid of herself ‘Too sensitive for your own good, Kathy girl’, her Daddy had said. Never been kissed in passion, never allowed herself to fall for love, though her body drove her to feelings she had read about, and thus fuelled had succumbed to. There was a boy she’d see in Lewis just from time to time who she thought about, and thought about. She imagined him kissing her and holding her gently in the night . . .

i met him in 1989 in a study hall class
and haven't forgotten him since.

a month ago,
i found out he had died in 2014.

the girls liked him
he'de tell me what was playing on his walkman
so i listened, learned, put a penny in an envelope
and mailed it off to columbia house

some weeks later i received my 12 cassette tapes.

i quit eating and got creative with eyeliner.
i memorized a lot of cure lyrics and went to study hall
prepared.

the semester ended and we weren't in the same
study hall class anymore. he ended up transferring to another school.

but i still had hope.
i had memorized so many lyrics.
i had gotten my hair cut into an inverted bob
and learned how to dye it black.

it felt like anything was possible
and it felt so good.

the next year
i transfered to the other school, but he wasn't there anymore.

the year after that
i transfered to an even worse school
he was there

finally.

soon after that,
emily became his girlfriend

one day, i ran into them at the park and ride
as i was getting off the bus

we spent the night on the sidewalk
outside of emily's dad's house.
none of us were allowed to go inside,
not even emily.

but emily managed to sneak inside
and stole a jug of homemade alcohol,
which we did not call moonshine.

emily fell asleep with her head in his lap
while we talked, smoked three packs of cigarettes (all mine), and drank the homemade alcohol that her dad had made.

emily wanted to be a fashion designer.
he really believed in emily and her drawings.

the sun came up

and i caught a bus home.

we both ended up
dropping out of highschool.

Oakland...walkin with my Walkman
Collecting cans to get 10 cents so u can try to pay the man
Gang banging...ppl slanging that good stuff
Yup that's Oakland
Walkin to the corna store
Gimme more gimme more
Make sure I get the right kinda mint like the wood
Maybe I could try and get outta Oakland
Dreamin of a better life
Free from familiar strife
Shoot this is life
Sharp like a two edge sharp knife
I laugh cuz I kno I'm better than this
Oakland...walkin with my Walkman dreamin...schemin...believin

He shambles along picking the scabs off the street,
meet
the pauper
likes
Cyndi Lauper
and listens on an antiquated walkman
and he walks the talk man.

I met him in Stepney
a proper old Cockney
he asked me for cigarettes
I gave him
a quid.

Some say,
better to be rid of them and
by them they mean the poor men,
but if we did that who then
would pick the scabs off the street?

poor buick good dog we’re almost done bad moon bellyful of big dumb blond last line i want uh a memory yes before yes atomic foreskins pink & fresh yes hunger for the womb **** **** **** *** junk food ****** with a walkman playing schumann to dilate woman oranges have more delicacy oranges orages oral fruit caught in the act the memory here it is a certain man crippled since birth caught in the act *** without hands his only defense: today today is only the beginning this is only the beginning a sick man’s argument okay last line

while in the street already leaves are falling

It was a hot summer Georgia morning.
The fresh smell of pine
The sounds of marching solders
Reveille played over the loud speakers

As cooks, we started our day early
Everything seemed normal
Normal for Army life, that is
Life that I got used to

I put on my uniform
Polished my boots
Walked over to the dining facility
Expecting to fail inspection, again

"Report to HHC Immediately!"
24th Infantry Division (mechanized)
"First to Fight"
This was serious

What was going on?
Confusion afoot
Kuwait was ambushed
Sadam must be stopped

We marched over to the gymnasium
There were stations set up
Line up for innoculations
Fill out your Last Will and Testament

March over to the barraks
Pack up your gear
Only what you can carry
Sneak in some comfort items

What about the rest of my stuff?
Someone will look after it
Don't worry, it's safe
Soldiers are a bunch of thieves

March over to the National Guard barraks
They look like the did in WWII
50 double bunks in a row
they smelled moldy

This was our new home
until further notice
I haven't slept
in 48 hours

No communication
to your family or firends
I snuck out
to the pay phone

Not sure what to say
other than don't worry
I love you
goodbye

I am one of
the first one hundred
soldiers to depart
Single, no close family

We board the ship
It is massive!
USNS Capella (T-AKR 293)
In the Savannah Harbour

Tanks, helecopters
Trucks, supplies
One hundred ARMY soldiers
Ready to disembark

We stand along port side
at parade rest
A tear rolls
Down my face

Thousands of civilians
Waving flags
Cheers of goodbyes
Crying children and wives

The ship leaves port
slowly pulls away
the cheers fade
into the ocean depths

First day afloat
The ship rocks slowly
Hard to get used to
Motion Sickness kicks in

I worked in the galley
T-Ration for breakfast
MRE for lunch
T-Ration for dinner

I ate with the Marines
A-Ration meals
Privilege of being
a Food Service Specialist

Trash accumulated
Throw it overboard
Alongside the bow
Death to the oceans

Many days pass
I read a book
Hyperion (Dan Simmons)
The only book I had

I sit on the deck
the sea in all directions
mystifies the soul
we are alone

I wake up to discover
Another ship next to us
USNS American Explorer
(T-AOT-165) Refueling ship

We reach the Suez Canal
Egypt looks beautiful
To the east: lush greenscape
to the west: barren wasteland

Egyptian Militants
watching intensely
along the shoreline
they saw my camera

Merchants come aboard
"Good deals for you,
American G. I."
I bought some batteries

I get to phone home
satellite communication
ten dollars a minute
worth every penny

We reach our destination
Twelve day journey ended
time to unload
organized chaos

All hands on deck
mechanized disembark
crash course
on driving a tank

Transported to my unit
in the tent city
they got there first
flown by commercial airliner

time to roll out
loaded my gear
WRONG TRUCK!
Ruck sack gone forever

Lost my walkman
lost my camera
lost my book
was in the ruck sack

to be continued.........

On my Walkman - 1986 Helbron flat 180 Pine Street.
Walking on a hot summer eve down pine street hill, those smells... ...Wilson toffee's melting on the hot pavements - and chicken roasting machines outside the local Portuguese shop.
Arcade machine music - Pac man & street fighter sounds in the corner of the café.
The smell of fresh chlorine and water after school.
The Green grass feels and tickles under my toes, and the taste of Oros juice.
Plastic table clothe with bees humming a tune.
The feel of heat evaporating the burn next to the pool.
The touch of baked towel from the sun.
Night life of adventure in Pretoria, was 16.
Memories of life and wonder as teen…

Pretty Persuasion

beginning

I skate around the mall
with a walkman tuned into
subversive sounds
I am in search of secret passageways
people of unusual genders
spaces of unabashed desire
The teenage girls with
nasty tongues never look at me
yet they tell me stories from afar
strange, exotic tales
they could never have gotten
from television
they dress in layers
in bizarre mosaic patterns indecipherable
I listen for simple truths
yet hear only complex lies
which, of course, are much more trustworthy
I purchase working class lingerie
(I mean, underwear) at Sears
from a salesgirl who KNOWS
but will never tell
I plead with her to scream it out
reveal the source of her despair
but she just laughs heartily and
steals away into the hardware section
I call the security guards
who arrest me for wearing plaid socks
with a leather skirt
I manage to escape between the cracks
and return unscathed to the scene of the crime...









middle

I light a cigarette
though I don't know how to smoke
it seems natural at the time,
I cross my legs
right over left, left over right,
then I refasten my garter,
smooth my skirt,
fluff up my *******
I'm anticipating something
but I'm not quite sure what it is
a recurring moment, perhaps
a (parenthetical thought), maybe
the merger of parallel lines
that's it, the merger of parallel lines
I remember vividly the secret dance
I used to perform
when I was nine and yearning
so awkward
so strange
so utterly incomprehensible
yet it could not be denied
it had a raw beauty to it that exhilarated me
I check between my legs
to see what gender I am today
I find nothing in particular except
an old beat-up baseball mitt
and two dozen rose petals
"I must be a boy," I say to myself,
though I can't be certain,
I never am, but I never give that away
there are much better things to give away
imaginary kisses
telltale signs
sideways glances
I dream of climbing Mt. Everest in my Maidenform bra
I never reach the peak
I wake up in a cold sweat...

end

We make love in a vacant lot
as it was meant to be
cold asphalt below
full moon above
crickets chirping madly in the background
He is my dada Daddy
I am his exotic drag princess in heat
when we kiss, our fantasies collide
explode
immersing us in minute particles
of lust and longing
He touches me as if I wasn't there
when I cry out for more
he gives me less
the pleasure is all too much
so I revel in the pain
He draws his sword
and I my water pistol
we duel for hours into days
he backs me into a corner
I dive between his legs
and make a run for the abandoned space
between provocation and allure
between outrage and surrender
between perception and scandal
He calls for me
he pleads for me
he paints his face by numbers
and recites nursery rhymes for me
remembering my name for the first time in weeks
I reach out and pull him deep within
and hope he hasn't forgotten how to swim...

I remember when you sat next to me
you and your curly Blonde hair
and those blue eyes cut me so deep
I remember so vividly

Man. your rough looking hands were so appealing
I just wanted to grasp them as they went towards my own
But instead of your hand fitting like a puzzle piece, you took my Walkman

"What are you listeing to?" you asked
"Marry you by Bruno Mars" I said. you took an ear piece and began to listen
you began to sing and I was melting
you turned to me and sang that song for me but you weren't serious
But still i melted

This memory and so many are fading
Like when we held hands as a joke
and you pulled back saying " I Never held another guys hand."


How cute you were.

or how bout when the times you sat next to me on the ride home and you would just stare at me when i wasnt looking yes I noticed
Man, I wanted to lean on you

those memories are fading, maybe
For I might fall for antoher
we are just talking but who knows
I can't have you because you are not gay, or bi thats what you say

I love you enough to just believe it
Anthony, man just saying your name is like a drug,  I love you
But you and these memories might be fading, maybe

I might have found another Guy
one who might like me and I might like in return
If you do like me but dont want to admit it then
Please hurry
But if you are really are straight then its good
that you might be Fading, maybe

is the tendency of the  reddish sunshine
to become drenched some more

let us hear
what the milky-way seamed by pins
says

and it’s you
how much can you be able to read
the venation of the Barringtonia acutangula

can you touch the season of making apples
in the aquarium

the empty bottles without any co-ordinate
that shoulder with endless grief
the hands of the wall-clocks

in a sudden depression
they’re also making crowd
at the beauty parlour

you have promised someday
to present a flower-vase to display some drops of blood
in the circled face

do you remember it

you haven’t floated that turnip
till now

here the month of trumpet-flower
covers everything
with reedy grass

with the festival of colours of the white horses
the new leaves of bananas become associated

the total dipavali rows
along the evening-balcony

taking it as daylight
will any bird fly towards it

then send a walkman
for the bamboo plants

you must go today
in search of the source
of the hand-woven lamp-post

from the pitcher-worship to the kantha-stitch
it is a  very large
twelve-horned deer

the mango-marrow
demands more land
demands more kingfisher

the breath of the Ravenala
touches the chicks of the black-pepper

in every evening
the flood that tears the button
touches the bowstring

that passes through the centre of  magnolia

Women who think like men
Men who act like children
Children who act like they're forty and think they're adults

I opened the box to find a crudely written IOU on the back of an expired Domino's coupon
We tried to assimilate the whole thing
My co-worker made a long distance phone call

It was to the peanut gallery
They told her she should have put another quarter in the parking meter so she could have avoided the fine

"Fredrick Brown"
Said my boss
That was the name he gave us when he made the reservation
Sounded like pseudonym the chiseler made up on the spot

But all he ate was side dishes
And a bag of corn nuts he brought in

Now the investigation was in full swing
The cops came
Asking questions
A description
A name
And what he ordered

"Burnt french fries, uncooked calamari, re fried beans, a salad with only brown lettuce, a can of cranberry sauce, a porterhouse steak medium rare with mushrooms and onions and a hot fudge sundae without any ice cream"

The officers perused the table and found that sundae and the steak were untouched
And the can of cranberry sauce was only half eaten

Days later a man was found screaming in the industrial park
Yelling obscenities and wearing a bald cap
While trying to listen to scratched skipping Cd's on his Walkman that had no batteries

It goes without saying the man was deranged

It was the very same man I waited on in the restaurant
Police only released one statement on the matter
They said when asked why he was in there in the first place
He told them he was looking for work to pay a bill the he owed to a local restaurant who had top notch service

His real name was Ercy ******

That name is now branded into my memory

always back in
a monochromatic society,
twice a year...
   a nausea -
    of only interacting with whites
akin to myself...
most people will not understand
the nausea...
   and there is a nausea -
within these anti-major
cosmopolitan hotspots...
but the nausea passes...
   but in terms of a personal
psychology?
  i lose something...
   a game a learned integrating
into english society...
the... chameleon game...
   i never have that
in Poland, i'm back to square
one, generic,
like the rest of them...
       i prefer the English
multi cultural society for
personal, "selfish" reasons...
namely?
i can play the chameleon game...
i can speak two tongues
and four accents,
   reserving a fifth for
some Muslim who thinks
i have the ****** features
of a German...
       back home i'm just
a Pole among Poles...
      nothing that couldn't
be conceived as lack-luster...
back in England?
ah nay.. not exotica for
the women...
             i prefer the chameleon
game...
as it turns out...
not all immigrants huddle...
at least not all Polacks huddle
together in... communities...
communities of workforce?
sure... Poles coexist together
only in work environments...
socially?
    like a ******* dog & cat...
i don't know any Poles in terms
of community,
  or social interaction...
      no chance in hell...
never will...
   which shows...
when i travel back to Poland
to visit my grandparents...
**** me the nausea of being
an ant in an anthill...
      i once landed in Krakow
and fooled around
by pretending to not speak
the native tongue...
only interacting in English...
i felt sick...
            how?
   i eased out an ear of
compassion and spoke to her
when she approached me
talking about how her son
hanged himself and she needed
money...
   and there was this
immigrant Anglo with
a Polish girlfriend,
and some Miroslav with a
broken French accent who
emigrated to France and
forgot to speak the native tongue...
and the girl of the "expat"
was like: huh?!
    England is unique in that respect...
well...
not England...
   London... and London
is not England...
    England is not London
and Londoners were never merely
Cockneys...
last time i heard?
Jackie the Ripe-Piper
was probably a Jewish Pollack...
    i was born in a small torn
just shy of Masovia -
every, single, time,
the monochromatic nausea
of only seeing white people...
i guess... it must be the same
for a Nigerian who grew up
in England and gets to visit his
grandparents back, "home"...
women are different,
i'm talking about males...

           then again... ****...
a Nigerian can't exactly perfect
the chameleon game...
i've been Hungarian,
Swedish, but mostly German...
never a Pollack...

            back "home" you miss
the ethnicity roulette...
    i can understand the ultra-nationalism
of small towns of nations...
but i can also understand
the ultra-cosmopolitanism of
capital cities of post-nationalistic
states...

come to think of it...
    i'm only comfortable in East London...
west London is off-limits for
comfort, again,
equivalent to the monochromatic
nausea bound to urban Poland -
the tourists sticking out
like birch trees in a ******* pine
forest...

      it's all contradictory -
rural - small urban strongholds...
where people recognize you
via recognizing your grandparents
and your grandparents fill
the locals in...
   no problem...
   traveling through Warsaw?
a ******* gutting sensation
like some variant of William
Wallace being executed...
   Mongols, Ukrainians, Roma...
    the odd Lithuanian...

it's the nausea of the effect of
a revived commonwealth once seemingly
lost...
    unlike the British commonwealth
slowly disintegrating into
farce and: keeping up appearance...
pomp & circumstance
having replaced pride & prejudice...

i can walk down a shady East End
street and talk...
            and feel nothing but
a welcoming thrill of contempt...
   strap me to a crowded place in the center
of Warsaw...
and i'm disorientated,
like a fox in daylight...
                   wildly afraid...
all the time on my guard...

  and i'm! "supposedly" the native...
   merely having inherited
the language is no guard...
      i might speak "their" language...
but when it comes
to the several underlying
languages of human interaction?
****... i can walk down
some shady alley
of Whitechapel -
                           i've learned it from...
i guess...
that one time me and my three
friends were robbed
in South Park, Seven Kings...
two girls as bait...
and then 10 of them approached...
started kicking my crying
friend to the ground...
some **** about me asking
for my walkman back off of him
while he was getting kicked...

whatever it was...
   there are actually more languages
than the mere communicative
of a Fwench class of buying
groceries...
   there is the language that
extends into the surroundings...
   the sort of language
that allows you to visit a Goodmayes
brothel
and leave it
telling the girl:
   can i not shower,
so i can keep your skin's
perfume for a while longer?

  there is no chameleon game
when i visit Poland,
i don't visit Poland,
  i visit the dutiful grandson who
still has grandparents...
and that?
is the most boring game of chameleon...
i stop drinking, enforce
a self-styled rehab...
   read a book, watch Polish t.v.
befitting pensioners...
   sunrise... sunset...
   and give my grandmother
a holiday from cooking for
a dementia sufferer...

  but back in London...
              a parade of over 280+
languages... making the mold
in the shadows of off-limits Mayfair
and other, politico, ******-pots
of riches,
exhausted by the Sheiks
   and Mandarin Emperors
                 of the Lapis-Lazuli.

i

this reminds me of my first walkman
i paid one hundred pounds for that one
back in ´81..

after three month of a shared house
from hell..
i was so ill
with every scab and car
problems..

we liked st paulis..!
we sat in the rain..
p..would say
do you know what i say
when people ask me
what i do for a living
silence..
i say i go on picnics..
what our german hosts
thought..
they were drunk
we were ******..
b considered cricket
we sat in car
a court case on wheels..
i could not do the sums..
it was the most lethal
of times..too many..
times only in bad dreams
now..i had these red lines
that were agony..septic wise..
so i bought my new walkman..

ii

it meant more than any
other singular purchase
before or since..

iii

hear that lily..
kind of verse..
remember things
ordinary things..
a vauxhal estate
rained mud
schnapps and grass..
a picnic..arguemant
argued morning to night
sat on the porch
and argued there
went to the bar..
argued there..
went home..
...

iv

when it rained
i liked the still
we would stop arguing

and listen to the first drops..
here was some magic!
lets have a sandwich and
forget boys..

v

r broke through my door
like an avenging angel
armed with trident
i shat..

vi

b considered cricket
i listened to my walkman
s was homesick
chicken and chips..

impis..
we always
got
good grass..

< So how far back can you go then ?
How far down the Rope of Songs can you go ?
You were a Rocker weren't you, you liked Rock n' Roll
In the 80's you had a Walkman, you'd be listening to tapes and songs on the radio
You also wanted to be a drummer once, you loved the power and energy there
But what about the early days though, I'm interested particularly in the early days
How far back can you go I wonder
Yea! How far back and what memories do they bring up ? >

Back in the 70's watching Top of the Pops every Thursday evening on the BBC, essential viewing
With its exciting Whole Lotta Love intro
It was something exciting, thrilling
Waiting to see your favourite Band
And to see the Charts, how they were doing
In the Seventies there was Glam Rock, my eldest brother and me we were always arguing and fighting with one another, sibling rivalry I suppose
If he supported United then I'd have to support City...silly stuff
He liked the band Slade whereas I liked...I supported Marc Bolan and T-Rex
Solid Gold East Action I really liked that song
It was very fast, he rarely did fast songs Marc
Telegram Sam..."you're my main man"
Metal Guru..."is it true"
Twentieth Century Boy..."I wanna be your toy"
The hair on your neck would stand up when he'd come on...
Slade were good though, secretly I liked Slade too, they had great songs
*** on feel the Noise/ Girls grab the boys..
Coz I luv you...Mama we'er all crazy now...
Skweeze me Pleeze me "You know how to squeeze me..."
But there were lots of other good bands and so many great songs
We used to play cards for small money...pennies, a series of different card games, and we'd put on records while we played
We even learned to play Chess and we started a Chess League between us,
We'd always listen to the music as we played.

The Sweet's "Blockbuster" with its intro of police sirens, it spent about 5 weeks at No.1 in the UK Charts...
It reminds me of...of Fish that song...Fish on Fridays, we used to have fish every Friday, I didn't like fish there was bones in it
I wouldn't eat it then Mam would get angry
One time she took a mouthful of my fish trying to prove there were no bones in it
Then suddenly she started to cough and splutter and choke
A Bone had actually got caught in her throat
I thought it was my fault, I thought I'd killed her
She had to go to hospital to get it out
I was going to tell her "I told you the fish was dangerous"
That memory just came back to me when I thought of that song and that time

Yea! I liked Marc Bolan and T-Rex, songs like Metal Guru, Twentieth Century Boy
I remember I didn't like the lyric "Twentieth Century Boy/ I wanna be your toy"
It sounded silly to me that lyric, I suppose I wanted things to make sense
And when he did that song "New York City" with the lyric
"Did you ever see a woman coming out of New York City with a frog in her hand"
I thought then he was maybe losing it a bit
< You...you were a very serious child then weren't you ? >
I suppose I was...like a lot of children are...maybe I just wanted things to make sense.

< I'm interested in the early days, even the very early days and the memories you have
How far back can you go ? What about the funny novelty songs ? >
Chuck Berry had a No. 1 with "My Ding a Ling" playing with his Ding a Ling, we all thought it was very funny
Stayed at No. 1 for several weeks
"Gimme that thing, gimme gimme that thing (or Ding)" was another funny song
"Mouldy Old Dough" by Lieutenant Pigeon a keyboard song with the constant refrain of just "Mouldy Old Dough"
Cat Stevens had a song "I can't keep it in/ I gotta let it out/ gotta show the world..."
Novelty songs were important, they'd interest even your parents
They'd pass a comment "Ha! Ha! That's a funny song"
< And there were sad songs too, weren't there, really sad songs ? >
"Billy don't be a hero don't be a fool with your life" by Paper Lace about a young bride trying to talk her young fiancee out of going off to war, he doesn't listen and never comes back, he gets killed
The Government sends her a letter, she throws it away...
"Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks, 'Goodbye Michelle my little one/
We've known each other since we were nine or ten/ We climbed hills and trees skinned our knees...ABC's / O! Michelle it's hard to die when all the birds are singing in the sky..."
You'd nearly be in tears listening to it.
We used to buy Top of the Pops compilation records with lots of hits on them
Sometimes Mom would like a song, 'Stay with me' by the band Blue Mink
"Stay with me, lay with me/ Love me for longer..."
Always reminds me of my Mom that song
'Killing me softly with your song' Roberta Flack was another
'Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree..."
At school every Friday the teacher would have a spelling test, I used win it a lot, I was good at spelling
The teacher used to give some sweets as a prize, I used bring them home to my Mum.

The Eurovision Song contest (all the European countries would put forward a song), I remember being let stay up to watch Abba win in 1974 with 'Waterloo'
In their fabulous outfits...they looked like Stars, Giants to us, Norse legends from Sweden.  They were amazing!
And what about our own Dana, the young Irish girl from Derry who won the Eurovision for Ireland for the first time with 'All kinds of everything...remind me of you"
I was too young to be allowed to stay up to watch that one
But you could probably hear the adults shouting for Joy from the room below
Happy Nay amazed to see one of our own having done so well, being recognised, flying the flag for Ireland
And then there was seeing Thin Lizzy playing 'Whiskey in the Jar' on Top of the Pops, the first Irish Rock band ever to appear on the show
It was so exciting watching them on our old Black and white TV...an Irish Band one of your very own up there on the World stage
And what about Gilbert O'Sullivan from Waterford I think reaching No. 1 in the Charts with his lovely song 'Clair'
We thought it was a love song but at the end it was revealed it was in fact about a little girl he used babysit for...so sweet.
We used to get comics and magazines secondhand, bought at jumble sales (remember jumble sales)
There was a music magazine for young kids, mainly for girls I think
It was called 'Jackie', there'd be a few in our bundle
They'd have big pictures of all the current hearthrobs
Donny Osmond, David Cassidy, the Bay City Rollers
The young fans would go crazy for their idols
I remember Donny Osmond singing Puppy Love and his version of The Twelfth of Never...
"I'll love you till the bluebells forget to bloom
I'll love you till the clover has lost its perfume
I'll love you till the poets run out of rhyme
Until the Twelfth of Never/ And that's a long long time"...
They were beautiful words about loving, a forever love
And Baby I love you by The Ronettes "Baby I love you/ I love everything about you...
All singing about this wonderful mysterious thing called...called Love.

<Can you go back further than that?>
When we'd go up the village where the amusement arcade was
There'd be songs playing, there were dreamy songs
Albatross by Fleetwood Mac, A whiter shade of Pale by Procol Harum
There was an instrumental I remember called "Sylvia" by the Dutch band Focus
There was a lovely leggy blonde girl named Sylvia in my class at school
And yes! I think she was actually from Holland
(We had a few foreign girls in our class)
Y'know I think she fancied me...did Sylvia
She used to smile at me a lot.
I have a memory of being at the fairground in the Summer with its swing boats and bumper cars
It's roundabouts with the horses and swings, the shooting gallery, the stall for throwing rings over things and taking a prize home
I remember candy floss and ice cream cones
I remember playing the penny slot machines in the amusement arcade, all the different machines
I remember a song "California Man" by The Move... wonderful Summer days.

In the Sixties an Elvis or a Beatles film was a big deal
I remember A Hard Days Night in brilliant black and white
And then "Help" in wonderful colour
Trying to get a fabulous Ring off Ringo the drummer's finger... great songs
Watching The Banana Splits "One Banana Two Banana Three Banana Four/All Bananas going right through the door...
Remember The Monkees"Hey!Hey! We're The Monkees/You never know where we'll be found... We're the young generation and we got something to say"
Last Train to Clarksville, I'm a Believer... great songs too
Remember The Age of Aquarius "This is the age of Aquarius..."
The Sixties yeah!

<Did your Mom and Dad have a Singles collection, the old 45's. Do you remember?>
On our old Dansette record player Roy Orbison singing In Dreams and its B side Sharadoba a magical Egyptian sounding song
And also It's Over about a love affair breaking up
And its wonderful B side Indian Wedding, that was my favorite song among the 45's
It told the story of Yellow Hand and White Feather two Indians getting married
But then going off into the swirling snow never to return
Gone to the Land of the Rising Sun...
You'd listen to them over and over again those songs and that wonderful haunting voice.
<And what were you thinking about, what would be running through your mind when you'd be listening to those songs?>
I remember I wanted to be special that I'd have some special powers and be able to do great things
Something that would make me stand out and that people would be amazed
Maybe some of the girls too, would be very impressed.
My Dad he liked Jim Reeves, he had a lovely velvety smooth voice
He sang Billy Bayou 'Billy Billy Bayou watch where you go/ You're walking on quicksand/ Walk slow/ Billy Billy Bayou watch what you say/ A pretty girl is gonna get you one of these days...
He sang a lot of slow love songs "Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone and let believe that we're together all alone...
Anna Marie... Anna Marie
Four Walls to know me...

<Tell me about Christmas, the Christmas songs?>
Christmas was a magical time in our house, we'd have the Christmas tree with all the decorations and coloured lights on it
We'd have long concertina like decorations going from wall to wall, so colourful
And lots of glittery things
The songs... Slade singing 'Happy Christmas Everybody', Wizard singing 'I wish it could be Christmas everyday', Mud singing 'It'll be lonely this Christmas (without you to hold)' sounded like Elvis
Johnny Mathis singing 'When a child is born',
'Little Drummer Boy'...
In those days because of school and family you had a strong sense of belonging, having friends, attending birthdays and sports and community events and church
I remember the Christmas party in Primary school (Kindergarten), you had to bring your own treats
I'd only have some biscuits and diluted orange juice
Most people were relatively poor in those days
I was a bit embarrassed having so little
There was one boy and all he had was a bottle of milk to bring
Some used make fun of him, kids could be cruel sometimes.

I remember the teacher brought in a tape recorder once and taped every boy and girl's voice and then he'd play them back
I used dread when my voice would come up
'Cos suddenly the whole class would erupt in laughter
For some reason my voice sounded funny when taped
Even the teacher used smile
I felt so humiliated nay destroyed with them all laughing at me...
I remember... I remember singing the Christmas Carol 'Angels we have heard on high' with its chorus
"Glo..ooria, Gloria in Excelsis Deo"
It was Latin I think but I didn't know this
I thought we were singing "Gloria in a Chelsea stable"
I thought to myself "Jesus must be a supporter of Chelsea football/soccer club" heh!
We had Perry Como's Christmas album with the story of 'Frosty the Snowman' and 'The Christmas Song' ...
"chestnuts roasting on an open fire/ Jack Frost nipping at your nose/ Yuletide carols being sung by a choir/ And folks dressed up like Eskimos..."
And Bing Crosby of course, singing White Christmas
I think we all dreamed of a White Christmas
At school we'd sing 'Away in a Manger' and 'The First Nowell'
Y'know if I sing those songs even now to myself, I can... I can almost remember...

<What about the other songs you learned at school, funny songs, sad songs and the memories they bring up? >
There was a song 'Those were the days (my friend we thought they'd never end)' it was in the Charts
I think the teacher taught us it
The people in the song would be having a great time laughing and drinking and dancing in the taverns
But as they'd grow older their lives would change and they'd get lonelier and sadder...
'Puff the Magic Dragon' I remember there was a very sad bit in this song
Puff and his childhood friend would have so many great adventures together
But then one day, his friend he came no more (he'd found other toys to play with)
Poor Puff was left bereft, he slowly slunk back into his cave... this used to make me sad...
We did patriotic songs 'Roddy McCorley' (goes to die on the Bridge of Toom today)
We had a songbook at school, I still have it
It had lots of old folk songs
Oh! Susanna, Skip to my Lou, The Camptown Races
"Michael Finnegan beginagin/ He had hairs on his chinagin/ Poor old Michael Finnegan"
We used laugh at that song
"What are we going to do with the drunken sailor... early in the morning "
'Marching through Georgia' "Hurra! Hurra! We bring the Jubilee/ Hurra! Hurra! The flag that sets us free...a rousing song
The teacher would play a musical instrument, a melodica I think it was called
She'd blow into it and it had keys on top that'd she'd finger to create the notes
She divided the class into those who could sing and the others, the Crows she called us who couldn't
I was among the Crows
It made me feel bad being called a Crow.
In Primary school we used to play soccer during the breaks
It was usually the Boys from the Housing Estate versus the rest of us from the Village
There was never any tactics, the whole team en masse would just run after the ball LoL
I remember I used to get angry sometimes probably because of something someone had said to me
When I was angry I'd become like The Incredible Hulk
I'd go through the whole lot of them, beat them all
I was Unstoppable
I was the first boy in my class to ever score a goal using my head
The school would also have soccer leagues and we'd get put onto teams
But we were so small compared to the bigger older boys we'd hardly ever get a touch of the ball
But I... I managed to get a goal once which was unheard of from someone in our year
I was so happy.... delighted! My teacher even announced it to the whole class
That I'd scored... I was so chuffed
When I went home and told my parents though they didn't seem to think it was anything special....
My Dad he liked accordion music, he liked The Alexander Brothers from Scotland
They had a song 'Nobody's Child'
"I'm Nobody's Child, no one to love me/ No mother's kisses no mother's smiles/ I'm like a flower just growing wild..."

I used to sleep alone in my room
You'd be afraid there in the Dark on your own
There'd be a nightlight on the wall all lit up
A religious picture, the ****** Mary holding the child Jesus
I'd get Mom to leave the door open so I could faintly hear the voices downstairs
Sometimes I couldn't hear anything and I'd be afraid everybody had gone and left me
So I'd get up and sit on the landing listening
There was a few times when I'd actually go down the stairs
I'd be so relieved to see them all still there
I used sing songs in the dark to keep the fear away, songs we learned at school
"We're going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo/ How about You You You/ You can come too too too..."
Old MacDonald had a farm E-I-E-I O! and on that farm he had some...
"10 green bottles standing on a wall/ And if one green bottle should accidentally fall/ There'd be nine green bottles standing on the wall...
Sometimes I used recite poems we'd learned
"Two little blackbirds singing in the sun/ One flew away and then there was one... One little brick wall lonely in the sun/ Waiting for the blackbirds to come and sing again "
I also remember trying to recite to myself the multiplication tables...

<There were funny rhymes and nursery rhymes wasn't there? >
Christmas is coming/ The Goose is getting fat/ Please put a penny in the old Man's hat/ If you haven't got a penny a halfpenny will do/ If you haven't got a halfpenny God bless you...
Hickory Dickery dock/ The mouse ran up the clock...
They could be strangely violent sounding
Jack and Jill went up the hill/To fetch a pail of water/ Jack fell down and broke his crown/ And Jill came tumbling after...
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall/ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...
Three blind mice/ See how they run/ They all run after the farmer's wife/ She cuts off their tails with a carving knife...
Girls are made of all things nice... sugar and spice/What are little boys made of/ Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails...
Adam and Eve went up my sleeve and never came down till Christmas Eve...
I remember the early games we played, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, Tiddlywinks trying to flick little plastic counters into a tiny plastic bucket, also playing draughts and marbles...

<Can you go back any further ? >
My Mom singing in the kitchen doing her daily chores singing some song off the radio
Dickie Rock an Irish showband singer singing
"Come back to stay/ And promise me you'll never stray/ I promise that I'll be true...
Sean Dunphy another Irish singer singing "If I could choose" (came second in the Eurovision Song contest)
Tom Jones 'The Green green grass of Home '
There was a lot of easy listening type songs on the radio Burt Bacharach type songs
Andy Williams, Englebert Huberdinck (Please release me let me go/ I don't love you anymore), Doris Day maybe
There's a lot I can't remember now
Val Doonican another Irish singer who'd made it big in the UK
(Had his own TV program for many years on the BBC)
He had a big hit with the song "Walk Tall"
"Walk tall and look the world right in the eye/That's what my mother told me when I was about knee high...
I remember one magical Christmas we got a present of a plastic projector
It came with several slides, they had wonderfully colourful cartoony pictures on them that told a story
We'd turn off all the lights and project it onto the wall
I remember it was like magic, the colours they were so vivid, they were like the colors off stained Glass windows...
The colour of things was very important when you were a kid, they'd almost create feelings inside of you
Colours came first... before words ever did
We often didn't understand the grown ups with their big words...
I remember getting collections of different kinds of toy soldiers and then staging battles
I remember collecting little toy Dinky cars they were called, that was their brand
And Matchbox cars (another brand) ... even today when I see certain colours of cars I am reminded of those old toy cars I used to play with... strange

<What are your earliest memories then? >
There was a question I always wanted to ask the adults but I never did, I thought it kind of funny and didn't want them to laugh at me
The question was "Why does Life always show me ?" An existentialist question even then.

We lived by the sea so you'd be lulled to sleep every night by the flowing up and flowing back of the sea... the tide... its gentle swaying back and forth motion
We had a black cloth picture/painting on the wall, a night scene with swans on a lake and an exotic house in the background with the Moon shining
It was so quiet and peaceful to look at...
My bedroom wallpaper had lovely red or pinkish roses
There was a colourful flower design sewn onto my pillowcase
It used to be lovely getting into bed with fresh linen...
I remember I used to get funny dreams even then, sometimes scary dreams
But I remember you were always safe 'cos in the dream you had a special ring you could put on and then the scary dream would go away (I've often wondered after was that maybe where Tolkien got his inspiration for The Lord of the Rings and Wagner the music composer for his music opera "The Ring")

<Can you go back...any further ? >
Going back further, you're almost falling off the edge of the world there
To a time... to a time when there were no words
When a child comes into the world they have no words
There's only... only The Silence... The Great Silence,
Silence is a strange thing, you can hear Silence
The fact that you can hear it means it must be changing from moment to moment
It too is just like a music, it's probably the first music
Without it there could be no other
The Music of the Spheres someone once called it
It just stays there in the background... glistening... your constant companion
Probably the first sound you ever heard, and probably the last you'll ever hear
It can grow very loud
It wasn't threatening, there were no monsters in it
Not until you went to school and learned words and heard scary stories
Did the monsters come
Words they can cast shadows... sometimes very long shadows...
There was a cot with wooden bars, I remember having a blanket with lovely warm colors on it, soft light blues and yellows, wooly sheep, Bo Peep or Bears or something
We had a golden coloured curtain with lots of designs on it in the bedroom
I remember if you looked hard enough you'd start to see faces in the curtain
Sometimes they would frighten me, they'd look very sharp and angry looking or maybe very sad unhappy looking...
I suppose today I still see faces, in my mind, in the great curtain of all my memories, all those I ever met and knew...

I remember looking at my Mom's face and not knowing what she was
Babies their a complete clean slate, have no words, they know nothing of this world
Gradually they warm to their Mom's affections and come to trust her and bond with her.
Because you had no words when very young there'd be huge gaps in your consciousness
When your consciousness would be completely clear and still
The silence and stillness would envelop you
... and there was something else... something else there... something deep in the silence
Out of it would come something very strange and quite wonderful
It'd come upon you suddenly...it was like your consciousness was changing, opening up
It was like you were descending into some great... some great complex
Your eyes would be closed but still you could see it and feel it... you were part of it
And it was so natural and so familiar...it was where you came from...it was Home
There was a first part that would lead into another part... and then another, all different
Yea, it had several stages and you'd pass through each stage from the outside going inward right to the very last stage... the very Source of Life itself
And you'd be completely at ease with yourself, you'd be completely at Home there
It'd come every night... that Special thing.,. that Special Place
Y'know sometimes when I see a little baby asleep in its pram, I know... I know where they are
Their away now, away in that Special Place
Far faraway from this world of care, so peaceful and so quiet there
Guarded by unknowingness and the Great Silence
With no fear or confusion there to bedevil it
Knowing only a relaxation so deep and a great Stillness within...

But me! I was the youngest in my house, I was always fighting with my brothers
And I was a terrible worrier just like my Mother
I'd be worried about school and the teachers, and trying to understand my (school) lessons
And there'd always be problems, arguments, confusions... humiliations and cruel harsh words spoken
At night I remember I used shake my head vigorously as if trying to rid my mind
Of words that had been spoken, words that hurt or stung...or confused me
I used bump my head gently against the wall
But no! I couldn't escape them... my peace it was broken now...it was gone
And that Special Place just like in the song Puff the Magic Dragon
It came no more...it was lost to me.

I suppose this is all I can remember, all I can recall
I guess this is where I must have come in
I suppose I must have reached the end... the End of my Rope here.

you left behind plane tickets
in my wallet
because when we were on
that plane
we were one
and like a wife
I kept your belongings.
you left behind train tickets
all over my room
in my purse
and in cupboards
to awake memories
whenever I find them.
you left behind
a Walkman,
a pair of earphones.
a bracelet.
a book.
gifts from your mum.
a bunch of photos.

I left behind
pieces of paper
with my heart
laid out on them
naked and
entirely yours.
I left behind
a watch.
a bracelet.
My scent on your
red sweater.
A bunch of photos.

I wonder if you deleted
all our pictures.
I wonder if you threw
away my letters
like you deleted me
like you threw my
love away.

Clouds of white March mornings
Surf inside this smokechamber I call a brain.
I was twelve and you were thirteen
Both separate rigid crystals growing
In the back of Mom’s awful red minivan.
We stained our fingers with Oxnard cherries
And got high on orange and eucalyptus.
Sand behaved like molasses.
My Walkman was full of ants
Who hated Third Eye Blind with a vengeance.
I had a pimple on my chin
Which I tried to hide with makeup
And I really hoped you’d notice
My cotton candy body splash
I got it because you like
Juicy Fruit gum and
That smells like cotton candy to me.
I chunked down short white shanks
On the red crabbed beach towel
Hoping you wouldn’t notice the ricotta billows
Developing on the upper thighs
Between slushy rivers of purple lightning stretch marks.
I couldn’t deal after ten minutes so I got in the water.
I laid myself across submerged tidal-pool boulders
Near-floating on the frigid little water-pyre
Congealing my skin like vanilla pudding
Bogging me down like a sea sloth.
It took me a halflife to figure out
That while I miss those mornings,
I do not miss you.

I play back on the eight track
but the sound sounds so cold and
now there's the iPod
it's all gone digital
I must be getting old.

I had an eye pad years before
when I was a little scruff
it never played any music
but it made me look
real tough.

The Walkman talkman speaks no more
the Dansette is a relic
of a boom, post-war,
now everything fits in a room six by four,
I must be getting old.

And if they miniaturise me
how tall will I be?
will you still be able to see the
spot on the end of my nose?
God knows, but he don't say
he's a bit like the walkman
really.
I must be getting old.

(for my fellow dharma bums)

why is this backpack so heavy?
chicken & country cole slaw
forks & knives & spoons
a bicycle helmet hanging off
a sketch pad
books
          the next 100 years
          how the beatles destroyed rock’n’roll
a walkman & cds
          the soundtrack to the darjeeling limited
          faust’s first two albums
          tom waits & alan holdsworth
          compilations of local prog rock
          modern blues & albert king
old newsweeks
a black t shirt & blue scrubs
a folder with poems & instructional material
          the brain death protocol
a stethoscope
but why is it so heavy?
must be the hot sauce

I'm happy.

That might not sound big
but I've been depressed
since I was a kid
like a broken record
on repeat.

My memories were
and old-school walkman
that can't stop skipping
too many bits and pieces
are missing.

But now music overflows
from my joyful soul
instead of crackling
inside my heart
like radio static.

*m.w.

The big gray dog home with a Walkman on my chest ,
The long drive from Anniston , hitting every small town
to the West ...
Driver please drop me off in Hapeville , destination Kelleytown or
Covington , anyplace on Earth will do , anywhere but Fort McClellan !!

Father Joe died that year.
The Benedictine monk
who’d got you through
the worst of things.

Cancer got him in the end.
Your youngest daughter
was born that year but
nearly lost some heart

**** up the docs fixed
with their box of tricks
and the hand from God
you guessed. A year you’d

listened to Nellie Melba
from old opera recordings
on your Walkman sitting
on trains to the hospital

and back having visited
the sick wife and babe
both on different wards.
Before the babe was born

you and your wife had
visited the abbey grounds
where Father Joe had been
laid to rest with a simple cross.

Mid-April in northeast Ohio.
She’s bitter at the cold,
for overstaying its welcome.

The snow obscures the line
between the sidewalk
and the Devil’s Strip.

There’s a long line
of determined footprints
punched into the snow behind her.

Halfway through a song and a cigarette,
the CD skips -
figures.

These library disks never play for ****.
She ***** her fist
and whacks her Walkman.

Across the street,
in a wifebeater and sweatpants,
he people-watches from his front porch.

Sipping ***** and orange juice
from a chipped mug -
World’s Greatest Dad.

In his driveway sits a ‘97 Cavalier
with a plastic wrap passenger window
he’s hoping holds up to the wind.

Will this ever stop?
he says to himself, toward the falling snow.
A passerby might think he meant the weather.

Next door, she’s been up all night
with her newborn tornado siren
fruitlessly singing lullabies off key.

Six cups of coffee
keep her from collapsing
into a pile of ***** laundry.

She thinks about herself as a kid.
Thinks about how she used to like to
walk with her eyes closed.

How she used to like the thrill of it
the uncertainty and doubt of it.
This is like that. She tells herself.

She almost believes it.

I'm just a scratch on the record
I'm just a skip on your cd
I'm just an 8 track effort
With a song that's never played

No one hums my tune
No one looks for my treble
And no one cares for my bass

I'm just an old b song
In a phonograph h cylinder
That no one wants to play

Please forgive me

Hello there, looks like were here again, playing the same instrument, with the same breathe.... Awkward if you think about it considering I have not talked to you in a couple years. I know I wrote the last poem in complete hate, disgust, and well to be honest I really just don't enjoy your existence on the dirt we share. I don't share well with the selfish. But I kind of have some empathy for you. I feel for the unfortunate disposition placed upon your life. Your parents ****** more than a shop vac that was built to **** down unholy spirits. This could be something to learn from because we can't call the ghost busters every time the air gets *****. I want to clear the air between us. What I wanted to tell say to the man who donated ***** to my mother, hung around a few years to long and stained the life of a new white tee shirt, is thank you. Thank you for my showing up to any of my sports events, I know you would have enjoyed them too much. Thank you for never staying in my life more than a year, my eyes can only handle looking at your deflated life for so long. I really want to thank you for leaving when I was 3 years old, not for leaving me and my brother alone, we always had her, thank you sir for dropping my mother like a faulty Walkman with no batteries, she is an iPod with an unparalleled playlist that you never got to hear. Thank you for not listening to the way she loved my brother and I, she spoke soliloquies with a harp in her throat, piano keys for teeth and a heart made out of everything she picked up after you left. So thank you for not being selfish and letting us have her all to ourselves. I'm sorry I have hated you for so long, it just took a while for my eyes to adjust in the dark, then I realized I was in the shade. Thank you for your genes. I can drink like a fish, I'm balding at twenty two, and my second toe is longer than my big toe. Now I'm not complaining one bit, because those are the same genes that gave me this heart that wakes up and feels everyday the earth rotates, the ability to smile from ear to ear painting a canvas full of alright teeth, and last but not least you gave me the genes to forgive you. So thank you Jack Binschus, in my eyes, you are not that bad of a guy. yes, maybe you are selfish, addicted to any substance that will wet your beak, and have tunnel vision in a broken mirror showing nothing but images of you. I will never call you father, or dad, or tell you I love you, but I will tell you that the pallet in my chest that has painted pictures of hate against your everything is clean. I'm over you. We can move on, you can now live in peace not ever knowing that I forgive you.

land lines, phonographs, telex, and hatracks
cassettes, telegraph, tape drives and 8 tracks,
pagers, zip drives, typewriters and ****,
floppy discs, slide projectors, and mainframes,

boom boxes, slide rulers, pagers and portable tv,
laser disks, cartridges, matrix printers and CRT
pdas, walkman, fax machines and reel-to-reel
and you now tell me, my love, your love is real

I jammed on my sneakers
took my walkman and speakers.
The forged American Express,Link and Barclaybank card
I had decided to leave in my yard.
I had to dash.

So I pocketed the ready cash
and scrammed up the lane.
I wasn't hanging about for the police.
I would have to explain
Why several large cases and antique
Chinese vases were tucked up in the attic.

Never static that's me
there is always another spree to go on.

Around about noon which seemed to come very soon
I was down on the coast looking for a mark
who would be marked before dark.
But the sirens waylaid me
the policemen had played me for a fool.
Being 'old school'
I bluffed it for a while
until the day of the trial when all was laid bare.

The judge(an old ****) played his part very well
Take the prisoner to the cell
I've given the wretch a twenty year stretch.

Now I sit and I stare at the bars and the wall
The call of the wild and the reckless behind me
Unbroken
Not free.
I look around me to see
a way out.

watching everyone take off their head phones,
just to hear me, just to hear me.

on the corner of, crest and woodview,
you couldn't see me, but i was near you.

screaming at the top, of both of my lungs,
not much air left, it wouldn't matter.

feeling like that bell's, finally been rung,
no more laughter, only children's sadness.

   there's a court date coming,
    there's subpoenas in the mail,
      we can all just ignore it,
        but as soon as we will fail.
         there's a court date coming,
          there's subpoenas in the mail,
           this is something we should go to,
            or this world cannot prevail.

all my scars are from familiar places,
give it a name, and i will listen.

shootin' stars, ask for me to wish them,
i couldn't do it, to my discredit.

i'll exchange a book for your Walkman,
happy birthday, happy birthday.

from afar you will see smiling faces,
no more hiding, now you get it.

        


        december second at three forty two am, with 12 seconds...1988

1965

The plane was unstable
But that's what test pilots do
Work out the kinks out
It was called the Lockheed starfighter
the updated version.
The landing gear was stuck
I had started for  the airport six times but my fuel was in vapour.
No choice it landed belly up .
I saved 29 million of the country's money.
I got out of the plane they  
rushed me to hospital
That's where I got two crash landings in one day.
She was a nurse but so beautiful.
She said I got to do your vitals honey.
My vitals were already standing to attention.
She noticed but said nothing.
Just smiled.
I asked if I was due a bed bath
Still smiling she said I looked like I needed a cold shower.
She would look into it
We married six months late
I don't think in my long life I was ever happier.
My buddy was a some kind of weird science guy working on secret government projects.
I don't know why we clicked but we did.
He said your gonna **** yourself in one of those flying coffins
And I am working to bring you back.
He was right that ******* widowmaker blasted into the trees on landing
The took me to the ghospital he said he's dead.
They put me in one of he frozen contraptions a cryogenic vault way below the base.
And froze me.
Then he got killed in a lab explosion and time went by

2016
¡the building was being demolished
But I was a popsicle in the cryogenic tube
A young construction guy found the forgoten vault.
He unfastened the tubes and gas exploded in room
The top opened
And he saw me below.
He ran screaming out to report the incident
By then the ice was melting I was awaken in a new reality
fifty years later
I got up sirens were blasting everywhere
I was naked but looked like I was when I was frozen.
I found some clothes in the lab and put them on.
When I got outside I was blinded by the California sun
Then cars were streaming by
A helicopter flying over head
Flashing neon signed everywhere it was bedlam.
I ran and ran
Then found a newspaper in the garbage
It said August 12  2016
It hit me
I was a ******* time traveler.
I was in a state of confusion
But this was a residential area.
A nice ranch bungalow was in front
I saw a big tree house for the kids
Running up the ladder I stopped and wept
Where was Jenny my house ?
I added twenty to fifty one *** ***
I still looked Twenty four.
I fell asleep
The noise awoke me it was dark.
A guy was trying to put heavy moves on the pretty lady in the kitchen she was screaming
I ran down into the house and the guy told to get lost.
I asked him to leave quietly the lady does not seem interested he went for me
But I kicked his ******* ***.
And threw him out. He had just had his *** kicked by a 74 year old geezer.
Her little boy was watching
The ******* television was the size of the movie screen
She told me she had dated this guy  months earlier but he was an *******
Sixties girls did not swear much this one had a dose of sailors mouth.
It looked like I had missed out on some smoking burning
bras ****
She let me stay couchsurfing
The kid was nice I liked him
I told him where I was from
looked at me and said you're a ****** but you helped mom.
The kid looked into some kind of spiders web on a small walkman thing no wires how did it work.h e called it an eye phone.
Then he found my buddy's address.
We phoned it was his daughter he's dead she said before I was born his lab blew up.
We went over the next day.
She said you are Jimmy right.
I said yes
I told her I lost my wife jenny the love of my life.
I lost her by sort of dying myself.
She smiled No she's alive.
She gave me a book it had my buddy's neat handwriting in it.
If for any reason I get disabled and Jimmy shows give him this.
It told me of his secret experiments in cryonics.
Then it dropped the bombshell.
Ageing cannot be reversed.
You will get to the age you should be in  days after reanimation.
I looked at my hands they were getting ******* liver spots.
My hair was turning grey.
I could carry groceries in the bags forming under my eyes.
I did not have time to waste.
I had a four hundred miles trip ahead.
I caught the bus to Seattle then took a car to the ocean
Her house was on a hill
It was windy I was out of breath just getting to it from the road
I felt weak and old I think I am going to die before I get there.
Then I was at the front door just a few more steps
And I would see her once more.
The bell of course ..I rang the bell
No answer the house was silent.
I fell to my knees weeping like a child.
I was too late
But then a beautiful older lady appeared behind me.
I recognised her eyes and that smile.
She dropped a basket of cut flowers onto the floor
Oh my god she gasped ...Jimmy?
Yes Jenny it's me
She held me close and we embraced.
Oh I have dreamt of your return she said.
We kissed again
Some passions defy age and time.

A year later

She made me remarry her to renew my vows
You might have forgotten your old ones she reasoned.
The person that gave her away to me
Was a beautiful lady about 49 years old
She kissed us both
Wishing us a life of joy.
I love you mom
And you too daddy
It was Alice my beautiful daughter.
Who introduced me to my granddaughter Jane.
And my great granddaughter.
Of nine months old Abby.
Who capped of the whole event
With her first half word
Gan Gan.