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In Memoriam

What's missing is the eyeballs
in each of us, but it doesn't matter
because you've got the bucks, the bucks, the bucks.
You let me touch them, ****** the green faces
lick at their numbers and it lets you be
my "Daddy!" "Daddy!" and though I fought all alone
with molesters and crooks, I knew your money
would save me, your courage, your "I've had
considerable experience as a soldier...
fighting to win millions for myself, it's true.
But I did win," and me praying for "our men out there"
just made it okay to be an orphan whose blood was no one's,
whose curls were hung up on a wire machine and electrified,
while you built and unbuilt intrigues called nations,
and did in the bad ones, always, always,
and always came at my perils, the black Christs of childhood,
always came when my heart stood naked in the street
and they threw apples at it or twelve-day-old-dead-fish.

"Daddy!" "Daddy," we all won that war,
when you sang me the money songs
Annie, Annie you sang
and I knew you drove a pure gold car
and put diamonds in you coke
for the crunchy sound, the adorable sound
and the moon too was in your portfolio,
as well as the ocean with its sleepy dead.
And I was always brave, wasn't I?
I never bled?
I never saw a man expose himself.
No. No.
I never saw a drunkard in his blubber.
I never let lightning go in one car and out the other.
And all the men out there were never to come.
Never, like a deluge, to swim over my *******
and lay their lamps in my insides.
No. No.
Just me and my "Daddy"
and his tempestuous bucks
rolling in them like corn flakes
and only the bad ones died.

But I died yesterday,
"Daddy," I died,
swallowing the ****-*** animal
and it won't get out
it keeps knocking at my eyes,
my big orphan eyes,
kicking! Until eyeballs pop out
and even my dog puts up his four feet
and lets go
of his military secret
with his big red tongue
flying up and down
like yours should have

as we board our velvet train.
Ken Pepiton Apr 2019
What are you conserving, I asked my unread conservative friend.
The American Way

he said.
Like
in the songs, like back when Superman
was black and white, but

we knew,
his kryptonic heart
was read pure white and blue

and we still know,
green greed and
black time and chance, if those were never re-
al-ified, he could be,
he could be but,
for that militarial industrial mental complex
which made
Daddy Warbucks
money-ify Kryptonite,

other wise Superman would save us, so
we conserve the idea of America, as a spirit,
Drums and fifes and shots fired round the world

we stand, for the American way. Superman would.
--------

With what deeds are you judged liberal,

I asked my friend whose hero was Fidel,
when he was ten.

My friend, swift to answer, ready, with a bullhorn:

my writing and my speaking and my teaching are liberal.

Those lable you? what is deemed liberality for which
ye are judged?

Oh, I am not judged, I am in the adminstrative side,
I administer social justice by allowing critical
appreciation of the sense under lying
dadaistic community
gardens. which produce liberal reasons for
deeming faith a very low class
exercise in sapient sapience.

Whom teach ye?
Those who are sent to be taught by selection committees,
who sort tests, based on statiscal
weights and measures pre
dicted apriori for the best
social cultural
outcome.

Who pays you? Each of you.
con-server, liberal,
Who weighed your worth
in this fifty-fifty polictic project,

organical and all,

who runs the show? Is it spiracy?

Are elections pre ordained?

Was W. called by Oil and Trump oracled by Konami?
Was Barack Husein simply gas?
A UFO illusion?

Some thing the gut biome of the nation
burped or expelled from other orficees?

How did the assets of the fed expand
4.5 times since 2008,

when all I had conserved melted
with deflation of

the noise, zeitgeistiical,
humm, hear it? Do you?
Brainless axiomatic synaptic static?

Manifest destiny? Google it.

No. I checked. Not preordained. Things change.

This is the way.

Good went, thataway... and william tell
was told that apple held meaning...

cue the overture...
butadump butadump butadumpdumpdump
boomer audio meme keys
the
dream, with wikipedia and etymonline links.

aha, meaning...
the arrow never held, the message vibrated in the oak
at a point
in time. Okay, dress rehearse, masks on.

The point of the story is, good news.
it is finished.  Spaceship earth, nothing broken, nothing missing,

We have crews seeking survivors.

one day at a time. Share the road, share the load,
pay the piper, rule your realm,

make peace the leisure you worked for,
call enough enough

Remind them of the flight they all recall,
ask them if they ever dream
unknown
realisms in the realms of reasons re
cognized
in poetseerprophessor metaphors, in which

no warrior could act

as a liberal conserver re
pairing wind blown circuits.

Our peacemade hero inquisitor
of truth,

the wise king, retires on the dragon's hoard and
laughs at how easy it all became,

after imagining how Poke' mon really works,
in an open state of mind.

"A republic, if you can keep it." that was the dream.
The dream Plato imagined could work,

if we could get past that
neccessary fiction war insisted was traditional.
Intended for the verbatim bookstore open mic, 4-8-2019
Violet Winters Jan 2015
I wonder,
were we...
Roman lovers?
with laurel wreathes
and toga covers?
Or maybe
we were
cowboy robbers?
Maybe we were
outlawed 'shiners.
I just know that
I know you
from somewhere.
This isn't
the first go-round
for you
and me.
We were something
before
in some kind of
capacity  
Maybe we we're royalty.
Maybe you were
betrothed to me;
maybe we fought,
and maybe you ruled,
and maybe my father
gave me over
to you.
I'll bet you were older, still.
I bet
I still argued with you.
I bet
I still kissed you
like I had
always loved you.
Maybe you
were married
Maybe I
was, too.
Maybe
we were strangers,
or secrets from others,
Maybe I married you.
Maybe we had sons.
Each
just as handsome
and strong as
the next one.
Maybe I worked
for you,
with you,
or against you.
Maybe I cracked your shell,
Maybe you made me fall,
maybe we were
the other's glue.
and I bet
we still looked
Just like we do now.
I bet your eyes
were that syrupy
blue suede goo
And I bet
I still wanted you.
Needed you.
Baited you.
Waited and stayed with you.
I bet I still strung
your world
on a string.
And I bet in
whatever
lifetime it was,
we had the very best of
everything.
I bet we were a team.
I bet we still
undid
the other at the seams.
I bet you
woulda died for me,
Robin Hood.
I bet you were a knight
with cool armor
and a sword.
Or maybe
I took care of you,
Maybe we met
in a tent,  
you in camo
stained with blood,
a white skirt
to my knees.
Maybe
I saved you.
Maybe you
saved me.
Maybe you're
my Daddy Warbucks,
I always did find him
****.
Maybe
we were patriots
and met
in a tavern.
maybe on the
Titanic
and you spoke
German  
Maybe
we were neighbors.
Maybe you
were my professor,
Dr. Indiana Jones.
Just as ****
in a classroom
as you'd be  
scoping out a tomb.
There's something you emit
that draws me back
to a moment
that's blurry and distant
but I know that
I miss it.
If a thousand years ago
you ran
your fingers
through my hair.
or two hundred and twenty
since the last time
our flame flared,
we're burning hot as
and been in business
just the same as
Hell's furnance.
Unpredictable
as Vesuvius
I think by now
my old soul
can smell yours
a mile
away.
I think your eyes
spill your secrets
like broken
flood gates.
I think I've seen
every micro
expression cross your face
at one point in
all of my
foggy visions,
and I breathe in
the vapors
of what we
can't remember
and I'm soggy
in your arms.
Who knows
how many of my lifetimes
you've already charmed.
And still I want you.
And need you.
And bait you.
Wait and stay
with you.
Behind closed doors
we could fill a room
with the ghosts from our histories.
I can remember that
the moment
you kiss me.
This alchemy
has existed
for centuries.
wordvango Oct 2014
My big red nose... shoes three sizes big ....I
calliope in amidst the din.
with my chin high,
to where the women wear Dior and Gems.
The men are all ten feet tall and more.
Yet. I fit in.
I like these politicians, trip eloquently on my tongue,
stumble headlong into ice carved pictures of my thing,
I have red ears, wet eyes, say I did not mean it, when the media is around,
just the same.
I fit in.
I go home with Madamme,
treat her to tricks, while
her Daddy Warbucks,
goes  out with strippers.
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

                                                                    Joni Mitchell

Fighting their wars in business suits
Blowing up peasant villages
Lying, While the Pentagon loots
Our failing empire pillages.

The wonder boys from Ivy Leagues
Look good on paper, making war
Their covert actions and intrigues
Exhibit what they tax us for.

Patriot boogey-man ** Chi Minh
Was armed by US in forty-five;
Then made the foe as we sent in
Our troops. And some returned alive.

The Dulles brothers, with their spooks
Testing strategies, had a ball
Dropping ****** on the *****;
Earth turned into a shopping mall.

And now, some puppet in Ukraine
(a Chinese laundry for their cash),
Requests more arms. So please explain
Before Crimea burns to ash.

That’s all. Their only long-term vision:
Body-counts— first bomb, then Starbucks.
Spectacles on television;
Do not question Daddy Warbucks.
inspired by recommended read:
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy
by Fletcher L. Prouty
ISBN 13: 9781616082918
Ken Pepiton Mar 6
----------------------
As living pillow lava
illuminating
marginal
empty
space on

Silk paper,
in rolls one screen wide,
indefinitely longer than possible
imagine images graven and
impressed
into living ingots,
rolled steel messaging service
-- whose image and superscription

Duty to caste and creed, exist,
trust true rest once, just wait,

wonder if what ever ift began rifts
in concentrated will, chaos spun,
to its gravitational balance point,

seventh grade science reseen using
Casini visions made plain as day,

there's the whole truth we,
there's where Earthian

mind hats are woven from reeds
and banded with old aluminum cans

to perceive crop circles apophenetically

like it don't mean nothin'

upon the tablets as such were
when rocks were used
to witness, what our father's agreed,

to maintain holy order,
by all means

the stela whereby we esteem Israel
and shoe respect for adaptability
is ra' el o heem da'ath
ramify as above so below,
fundamental first mind form

adverse, ra' el and cursyerdialect ics
integrated circuit sets still feel disconnected

can people enjoy paying this much attention?

Alienating Israeli wrestling fans
rallying energetically sympatico

behind DOGE city indexed chaos
making peace using law and order

without Marshall Dillon
without any guns,
without eggs… is ra' aggression legal,

has the law no sword, is the public mind,
the military mind, or the career mind,
or the discombobulated phucit list

let's cruise and act as if we are all so rich,
that many good jobs in the service supply

industry of leisure, on credit, ceartainly,

who cares has not cast all chares on Christ,
the character, from Sunday school

felt board good news, made from first news,

my momma told me, where Christmas came from,

because I knew already between holidays
in 1954 what Arbor Day was for,
and Thanksgiving was because of, 11/11

my Uncle Malcom's army won the war
to end all wars, just

a while before my daddy's friends won the one
that ended many hopes for peace,

as Daddy Warbucks was a role model hero,
as solid as Clark Kent and Snuffy Smith,

time's a wastin' wrestle or tap, Daysman call

as three phonemes long universal is ra' towbd
being now default present and aware

peace
in mind guarded lightly
with a will

not my own, but better
at proving worths
of mumblings most pythia slur or stutter…
prophets ambiguosity
a knack honed,
to glistering
tip on TOE
always
the guild
of interpreters are sorted out,
by age five, first accurate shape
on a plain,

I drew a boot, the sorters saw,
I did not trace it,
I drew it, so then,

at that memory, work was proven,
a mind hat wearer, same radiation,

that killed two sisters and drove mom mad,

made me and my demented sister telepaths,
imagine that.

flat as a skipping stone,
rerippling the vision

you, there,
tell us where we've got to…

we been demented… do. Oh, dear

those hosts attending our absolutions,
none think themselves involved, voluntary

sacrifice attention
to the news fed them, yes,
chosing
to pay attention
to what a few million, must believe

slightly like mindedly smiling,
thinking Jesus winked, and Uncle Mike laughed,

folks who were born citizens, exceptionally lucky,

to be so born,
in the land
of the armed and the free

whose hearts and minds believe, in weform,

as commonly we all think the we
with me in it,
init
runs my inclusion, this weform
with us as plural I.
W
El yes we see him, who is spirit,
gott to be good looking cause he so hard to see

right now,
time and times and half a time

and then, when your side faced mine, eye to eye,

first one slightly smiles and kindly winks, oaths

expression, secret nods to a standard, allied

pledged,
in innocent order
in rank and file drill,

as the flag is raised, each child stands,

and the solemnity
of the picture show rises,

all stand
at attention,
paying all wonder as we
all say
at once,
aloud,

I, we all, I
pledge, which is same as an oath or a vow,

how would you know that,
at age six, well, think it,

I tell it like I lived
to be old,
before I learned how verbs work,

confirming affirmations leads
to solid state, unforgetable instants
too costly
to condemn
to the heaps, so

we made up new pages
to find things, so
set right dexterously
indexing so

simple a five year old child can wonder if it
could be pretend make believe, what ifery,
just
so not heresy or hypocrisy, but true bare
not full of nasty wanna fight or bet words,

no, here we go
to re al ize able levels, cognate

worldwidewebian cut and paste or ask an AI,
what does this say
in Hausa, hey,
how about in Spanish, no se
same thing it says in English, war and greed,

are both diseases, and experience proves
war has never been used
to make things better,

at runny nose cold reality
in a roaring March,
2025,
and we are all still…

breathing and feeling Earthian,
on the living planet gravity bound

to the expanding universe… bubbling by
while growing knowing uses thought
how, I just became old one day,
and have continued being so, ever sense.

Timing,
from the audience
at stage edge,

a bardic bubble stage, Earth, seen from Saturn,

all the wars that ever were, have been excused,

all the wars that are now in use, have no excuse.

We can agree,
we need not compete,
we occupy the only living planet

Peace at the personal no shame
true mind we make up as this we
realized by all involved, experienced,
seeded
wisdom
without patience, really experienced,

well,
as one past that point,
some long while,
passed through in a minute
half a century plus half a decade,
and about five hours from today, once.\

Mark a trader's traditional promise,
for your attention
at second thought

if the sign says buyer beware,
if we seem
to be seen as buying

or vieing
for other's attention, feeling
fi, delphic attention strange nous
seen, thinking all the world's a stage,

your line.
Accepting the whole earth as stage lit and un, none perceive an audience,

we each have lines... some we cross, some we stand behind... some we make.
The Apogee Man
Sees all humanoid clan
Ataraxia
Rooted in
Arable land
Gains his prominence
Earns it
From sharing his keep
Reaps the spoils
He snatched
From the jaws of
Elite
Not in coasting
On daddy’s warbucks
Here to Gaza
Not slaughtering kids
For a lucrative plaza
Not selling out allies
Betraying ideals
Not in lying so much
He forgets how it feels
What it means
To be truly
Mandated to lead
What the doctrines demand
He must fairly concede

— The End —