Smash down the cities.
Knock the walls to pieces.
Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses
     and homes
Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black
     burnt wood:
     You are the soldiers and we command you.

Build up the cities.
Set up the walls again.
Put together once more the factories and cathedrals,
     warehouses and homes
Into buildings for life and labor:
     You are workmen and citizens all: We
     command you.

When a man starts out with nothing,
When a man starts out with his hands
Empty, but clean,
When a man starts to build a world,
He starts first with himself
And the faith that is in his heart-
The strength there,
The will there to build.

First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on the world,
On the great wooded world,
On the rich soil of the world,
On the rivers of the world.

The eyes see there materials for building,
See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles.
The mind seeks a way to overcome these obstacles.
The hand seeks tools to cut the wood,
To till the soil, and harness the power of the waters.
Then the hand seeks other hands to help,
A community of hands to help-
Thus the dream becomes not one man's dream alone,
But a community dream.
Not my dream alone, but our dream.
Not my world alone,
But your world and my world,
Belonging to all the hands who build.

A long time ago, but not too long ago,
Ships came from across the sea
Bringing the Pilgrims and prayer-makers,
Adventurers and ***** seekers,
Free men and indentured servants,
Slave men and slave masters, all new-
To a new world, America!

With billowing sails the galleons came
Bringing men and dreams, women and dreams.
In little bands together,
Heart reaching out to heart,
Hand reaching out to hand,
They began to build our land.
Some were free hands
Seeking a greater freedom,
Some were indentured hands
Hoping to find their freedom,
Some were slave hands
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
But the word was there always:
   Freedom.

Down into the earth went the plow
In the free hands and the slave hands,
In indentured hands and adventurous hands,
Turning the rich soil went the plow in many hands
That planted and harvested the food that fed
And the cotton that clothed America.
Clang against the trees went the ax into many hands
That hewed and shaped the rooftops of America.
Splash into the rivers and the seas went the boat-hulls
That moved and transported America.
Crack went the whips that drove the horses
Across the plains of America.
Free hands and slave hands,
Indentured hands, adventurous hands,
White hands and black hands
Held the plow handles,
Ax handles, hammer handles,
Launched the boats and whipped the horses
That fed and housed and moved America.
Thus together through labor,
All these hands made America.

Labor! Out of labor came villages
And the towns that grew cities.
Labor! Out of labor came the rowboats
And the sailboats and the steamboats,
Came the wagons, and the coaches,
Covered wagons, stage coaches,
Out of labor came the factories,
Came the foundries, came the railroads.
Came the marts and markets, shops and stores,
Came the mighty products moulded, manufactured,
Sold in shops, piled in warehouses,
Shipped the wide world over:
Out of labor-white hands and black hands-
Came the dream, the strength, the will,
And the way to build America.
Now it is Me here, and You there.
Now it's Manhattan, Chicago,
Seattle, New Orleans,
Boston and El Paso-
Now it's the U.S.A.

A long time ago, but not too long ago, a man said:
        ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL--
        ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR
        WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS--
        AMONG THESE LIFE, LIBERTY
        AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
His name was Jefferson. There were slaves then,
But in their hearts the slaves believed him, too,
And silently too for granted
That what he said was also meant for them.
It was a long time ago,
But not so long ago at that, Lincoln said:
        NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
        TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
        WITHOUT THAT OTHER'S CONSENT.
There were slaves then, too,
But in their hearts the slaves knew
What he said must be meant for every human being-
Else it had no meaning for anyone.
Then a man said:
        BETTER TO DIE FREE
        THAN TO LIVE SLAVES
He was a colored man who had been a slave
But had run away to freedom.
And the slaves knew
What Frederick Douglass said was true.

With John Brown at Harper's Ferry, Negroes died.
John Brown was hung.
Before the Civil War, days were dark,
And nobody knew for sure
When freedom would triumph
"Or if it would," thought some.
But others new it had to triumph.
In those dark days of slavery,
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
The slaves made up a song:
   Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That song meant just what it said: Hold On!
Freedom will come!
    Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
Out of war it came, ****** and terrible!
But it came!
Some there were, as always,
Who doubted that the war would end right,
That the slaves would be free,
Or that the union would stand,
But now we know how it all came out.
Out of the darkest days for people and a nation,
We know now how it came out.
There was light when the battle clouds rolled away.
There was a great wooded land,
And men united as a nation.

America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises-that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumblingly say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
"You are a man. Together we are building our land."

America!
Land created in common,
Dream nourished in common,
Keep your hand on the plow! Hold on!
If the house is not yet finished,
Don't be discouraged, builder!
If the fight is not yet won,
Don't be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
        ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
        NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
        TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
        WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.
        BETTER DIE FREE,
        THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.
Who said those things? Americans!
Who owns those words? America!
Who is America? You, me!
We are America!
To the enemy who would conquer us from without,
We say, NO!
To the enemy who would divide
And conquer us from within,
We say, NO!
   FREEDOM!
     BROTHERHOOD!
         DEMOCRACY!
To all the enemies of these great words:
We say, NO!

A long time ago,
An enslaved people heading toward freedom
Made up a song:
     Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
The plow plowed a new furrow
Across the field of history.
Into that furrow the freedom seed was dropped.
From that seed a tree grew, is growing, will ever grow.
That tree is for everybody,
For all America, for all the world.
May its branches spread and shelter grow
Until all races and all peoples know its shade.
     KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW! HOLD ON!

Once upon a time
There was a man
In an apartment
With flesh-colored walls
And a perfect view
Of skyscrapers
And rooftops
He has a brother
In a jail
With a perfect view
Of warehouses
And factories
Cover to cover
He reads magazines
And newspapers
And he likes two
Sugar cubes
In his regular cup
He doesn't worry
About ends
It's just progress
And we've all
Got to bend
Less the world breaks
If the bomb comes
It'll come in a neat
Little package
And someone
Will build new
Quadrilateral colonies
For two

I want to live in Europe.

I want to run in the Bavarian Forest.
I want to be left in the English rain.
I want to feel the Russian Frost.
I want to skate in the Alps.

I want to feel the French Luxury.
I want to taste the Belgian Chocolates.
I want to sleep in the European Palaces.
I want to feel the Papacy Monastic.
I want to feel the taste of French Cheese and Scottish Whiskey.
I want to hear the Italian Piano.

I want to read English Poetry.
I want to hear the Spanish legends and don't forget the olive there !
I want to feel the magnificence of the Parisian Events.
I want to swim in the Danube River.
I want to be inspired by the fascinating paintings.
I want to be amazed by the beauty of the churches there.
I want to read about the greatness of the European History from there.
I want to search in The Vatican Stores and Warehouses for answers I was looking for.

I want to dream about reading the books that have been hidden in the Invisible Palace of Books in Berlin.
I want to walk among the shelves of The National Library in London.
I want to go shopping in the streets of Paris and Milan.

I just want to be European,
I want to live in Europe.

                                                                             - *Shilo

Walt Whitman was a ******.

That's what we say when we cross his bridge
from South Philly to Jersey
and see what he would see:

the river solid waveless with trees green around
feeding from the water on the left and far beyond
the watertable real for a minute from the arched metal
and the city visible wholly with warehouses rowhomes
inches apart and glass buildings and all burnt orange
by four o'clock sun but clear on blue sky

but you know he was a ******?

and the city all one in your eye if you want it to be
and the languages together between the buildings

all the blacks asians whites itlalians irish polish
moving together and talking and eating the food
working and riding cars and buses around
the liberty bell and independence hall

it is brooklyn ferry it was his prophesy

but you know he was ******?
a big jersey boy *** yea

We all know the sound of a gun
If we haven't heard one,
We've heard one in the movies.

A staplegun
Snapped me back from daydreams
Of Matrix offices and warehouses
Hole-punched a Tarantino image
In my head.

Here, now, is the world before me:
Women are struggling to make a living
And men struggling for beer.
The markets are full of drying-up warehouses
And market stalls pregnant with emptiness.

A woman comes in,
Calls the last goods on the shelf, indicating interest.
There are the dying smiles that echo no goodwill
Upon the naming of a price-below-purchasing;
There are the hungry laughters at the teeth of the buyer
Who seeks his own gains;
There are the welling-up tears that fill the eyes of the seller
Who needs the penny to live another day.

Poverty and want wears an ugly face
And gives hate a voice to echo its disdain.
Much displeasure fills the air but in business
The customer always wins.

Pain eats up my heart as I watch the transaction.
Here, survival matters- just as much as love,
But now even this is no more.
                                                      
                                                                                     Abacheke-Egbema, Imo State. January 2014

The slam poet in cords, in denim,
rambles from neon beer haven
to flybuzz brothel, cracking quiet
jokes about soup to shiny junebugs
in the relentless moonlight.
One hundred dollars in thirty-five bills
slowly retreat from wallet
toward water-cut whiskey.
He’s got a chapbook widely
available at frozen yogurt shops
across the metro; he’s got a
tour in the works, tri-county,
every middle school from
Shawnee to Seminole; he’s
got a collection of ex-girlfriends,
made up almost entirely of wizened lesbians;
he’s got an MFA from UNC Wilmington,
and he shouts this more than speaks this
from his treacherous barstool to the sleepy bartender.
One of the girls, she takes him upstairs,
and to her he says, Your freckles—islands
in the sea of your milk-white skin.

The night passes, warehouses are razed,
and he watches the loft apartments emerge.
The food trucks come. He parks beside them,
typing poems made to order out of his trunk. The
money flows in, crumpled and sweaty and
in one-dollar denominations. The Old Fashions
transfigure into Old English. And in his pocket
thesaurus he looks for a word. It’s not vagrant,
nor vagabond. It’s not homeless, nor wayward.
He lies in the long shadow of a Midwestern sunset,
starved and shaking. Up from the blackened
city shrubs comes an indifferent breeze and
just as he thinks the word Pauper, he dies one
on the corner of 23rd and Western.

Revisited Merak harbor one late evening
a shape of sea fairy and colorful torches
were seen from afar , chattering calls  in 4 languages. 4 squalls in  once was a plage
their dancing  flames asked me to come closer

I hurried along the sleepy shipyards
passing massive warehouses fenced by rusty wooden doors
giant padlocks accenting  (reminded me of a  fancy cocotte loaded with blingbling)
stacks of oversized containers  solidly sat speechless.  Sleepless.

The light of each torch lifted into the sky. Seen by another eye
1883 eruption of the Krakatau crater.  130 years later the odor of its curators  
I ran closer. I fell.  I laid there a while , got up and ran again.
I lost my head and missed my right foot along the way.  I did not care.

When I arrived  the torches were there in front of me
reincarnated  into thousands inhabitants who had lost their lives
bodies covered with revolting cesspit oil  
For a second  they transformed into torches again.  One blazing in my hands.
Regretfully, I had lost my head so I did not understand.

The fairy stared . I wasn't scared.

:  come, come, …come purifying Sunda strait
dissatisfying the idiots thought it could all be fixed with tax rate
I moved toward  embracing fairy arms  
(Possibly, this close hugging love was only for beach-sea friends)

So, I united with the torches
A bit of a breach  pushed us towards the petroleum . Demolished it all.  Cannonball.
Black fog shrieking that same  words : Keep up the struggle .  Stay strong !
The alien residents might think I was making choices
but the fairy was leading me around
the torches reshaping the ghost-town

Chattering calls  in 4 voices.   4 languages.
Yet, for the officials ears , all were still voiceless.  Pointless.  



(Pulo Merak - Cilegon - Indonesia )

How beautiful the sunrise when it came ,
for I had waited so long ,
In vain,
how lonelineses. sweet tears I feel ,
down my cheek so bitter the pain .
Yet I walk were emporers once stood ,


Londiniam lies abandoned .
the Classis lit long since sailed ,
their. Masts beat against the wind .
The  river Thames glistened from the morning sun ,
Past it’s banks and statues of gods ,
Monuments to Caesar and suns of the gods  lie face down in the sun
broken in two ..

Why should I return for there is nothing here ?
And yet ,
the girls with yellow hoods shunned by the graceful good ,
call me back with their come to bed eyes .
and here I am ,
with ladies of wanton jewelled hair .
For now the Tudor warehouses of
Commerce swell what was once forgotten.

Matchsticks piled one on another ,
and look at them all too full of pride ,
to stupid to see .
Women with weasels in their hair ,
So elegant and fair ,
for the ladies in their yellow hoods say “ beware “

Now the suns rays that lie low ,
a ball of red ,
were quiet embers burnt and flowed ,
Only to find that ,

her Queen awaited
the suns rays of majestic glory ,
as if all of England looked to its shores .
her Golden Hind .
Monsters of the deep ,
Dragons ,
Serpents. ,
Demons from hell itself ,
yet
the evil seas could not swollow this ship ,
or return it’s bounty to whence it came ,

and the women with the yellow hoods hid their faces in shame .

You watch the little one teeter,
precarious, fifteen feet above
the mat on the chalked beam
with white tape wrapped around
her wrist and the cracked webbing
between her thumb and forefinger.
You watch.

Her fingers tight against themselves
she reaches left arm out and bends
to grab the structure wrapped in taut
leather and sanded down into a smooth,
uniform surface, the likes of which are
stacked in warehouses in central Pennsylvania
or southern Iowa or west Texas and shipped
to community centers and middle school
gymnasiums for use in competitions with face paint
and streamers and yelling parents donning
appropriate colors and shouting cheers in unison.

You watch her shift her weight from left
leg to left arm and kick up to handstand.
You see her look of concentration and you
see when her eyes open wide with surprise
and you see her balance shift backwards
and you see her overcompensate
and you see her back bend to the side
in a way it's not supposed to go.
You watch her fold in half and fall hard
onto the bright blue mat
in a cloud of chalk dust and you watch
her face full of disgust and disappointment
and white tears and sour looks.

You run to her, laying on the ground in a
small pile. You push competition officials
to the side and hurdle trainers and instructors
to get to her, to hold her in your arms and to
hear her crying and whispering softly,
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."

You put your lips on her forehead
and you put your lips on her temple
and you hold her against your chest
and your eyes start to quiver
and you grip her tighter
and you tell her that she's perfect
and you tell her that she's doing
all she can do, and that everyone
makes mistakes and everyone falls
down once in a while, but the part of
life that's most important is to get up,
get up, get up, get up.

She repeats,
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."

You hold her and the two of you
rock together and the room falls
silent and you are the only two
there, you are the only two who
matter in that moment, and if
she could just listen, if she could just
hear you, she would know and she
would believe and she would realize
that all she can do is be who she is
and get up and try again and that
every day is a new day and that
every moment is a new moment.

But she can only sit in your arms and cry
and whisper apologies to nobody and
everybody, apologies that seem out of place
in the first round of the junior varsity
gymnastics tournament in the fourth
of five divisions in a nothing town on a cold
Saturday afternoon in March when she's
got a scholarship to Berkeley in the fall
and an award for increasing student
engagement and a clarinet concert the next
day and a family who loves her.

You lift her up onto your arm like
you did when she was small and you
carry her to the car to raucous applause
and admiration for the little girl who did
it all and will continue to do it all.

She wipes the tears from her face and
looks up at you through hurt and furrowed
brow.

"Ice cream?" You ask and she smiles.
"Yes please." She looks down.
"Chin up." You lift her face towards the sun.
"Okay." She opens her eyes with wonder.

Give a shout of love out to Boston. Lost in translation I'll create this poem for a lost daughter or son.
A new war has been waged, well...heh heh. We've already won.
Spun out from a night of drinking wine, I'll type another line.
Killing people over selfish, religious beliefs, destroys happiness by the ton.
Are YOU ******* happy? Are YOU ******* done.
Plans to **** out weak people surely doesn't sound like fun.
Your **** stinks. No pun intended. Words on the internet should never make you offended.
Lend a helping hand for the Earth, or waste away in the dirt.
Beautiful women get slaughtered like cattle, in a dress or a skirt.
We'll have fun and we'll flirt. Still caring for others as they get swallowed by hurt.
Knowledge is power they say, so I'll take off my only shirt.
Give it to someone that needs it, so they may pay it forward to another.
My sister and brother, from another father and mother, read these words carefully, while haters turn into lovers. Hearts and minds full of love, kindness swoops down like a dove. Shove another McDonald's cheeseburger in your face and see your health drain away. Think of the animals that get slaughtered in warehouses each day.
Pray for fertile soil in April AND May. Fool YOURself into a thought that treating animals kindly isn't okay. Roam free in the grass and the hay, while slaughtering axes sweep around, sprays blood and slays. Helping each other day by day IS the new craze.
A daze of happiness turns frowns upside down with a smile and grin.
The Dropkick Murphys knows whats up.
For Boston....for Boston....for BOSTON!

They met while still in high school

Most likely to succeed

They had big plans for college

They were on their way indeed

She dropped out while a junior

He continued to the end

She left to have their baby

Their plans, they must ammend

They married down at city hall

Their parents did not know

He wore an old, ill fitting suit

In her dress, she did not show

But here she was, six months along

Their perfect world was done

They were not sure how they would get by

With the addition of their son

He was trained to be an architect

But he started sweeping floor

Interviews were hard to get

Unless you knew the name upon the door

She got a job in retail

Working afternoons each day

It wasn't what they planned on

But they needed her small pay

They had a small apartment

More a garret than a pad

But, in the area they wanted

It was the cheapest that they had

Two years went by and another child

Had increased their home to four

He was working as an architect

And was no longer sweeping floors

Since college though, he'd had a curse

A devil you might think

For to keep himself under control

He was sneaking nightly drinks

As pressure grew and deadlines loomed

His drinking did increase

He was now a junior partner

At the firm of Flint and Meece

He was fighting with his wife alot

The kids were just more stress

But, he bottled up his problems

And he chose not to address

The fact that they were fighting

He was drinking every night

And when she called him on it

They would end up in a fight

He was going in hung over

Some days, he just stayed home

And when they called him from the office

He would not pick up the phone

One day though he went over

the line out there in space

When the wife and he were fighting

He hit her in the face

He didn't know just what to do

He went down for a drink

He needed time to decompress

He needed time to think

She called in sick for her next shift

She stayed home for two weeks

She stayed home till the bruise was gone

And the swelling from her cheeks

His drinking kept evolving

He was hiding it no more

Plans were being made at work

To take his name off of the door

He'd shown up drunk for meeting

His plans were never in on time

They offered him assistance

He refused..there lies the crime

The kids withdrew and feared him

They'd rather eat with friends instead

They'd only come home after dinner

When it was time to go to bed

Another fight ensued at home

When they fired him at last

He beat his wife up so bad this time

She ended up inside a cast

Her arm was badly broken

Charges she refused to lay

But the cops who came to see them

Chose to lay them anyway

This was her chance to make a move on

She packed the kids up late at night

While he was in his jail cell

She booked them all on a late flight

Her family would take them

She would move them to the west

She would start her life without him

It would be for the best

When he got out and found her gone

He sat down, had a few

He didn't have a family,

He had no idea what to do

Instead of phoning to her folks

To see if they'd arrived

He went on a ***** ******

Which most would not survive

He drank from when he broke the day

Most times, well after four

Then he'd drink until he would pass out

And would spend the night there on the floor

He reached the point of no return

When the sherrif came one day

He said "It's time for you to leave this house"

"Unless the taxes, you can pay"

He'd let things slide, and had no funds

His world was on the brink

But, instead of fixing things on up

He went looking for a drink

He spent some time in missions

Trying to find work he could do

But, when he would only get rejected

He turned to devil's brew

His reputation sullied

There was no work in his field

He tried to find work elsewhere

He would see what things would yield

He got jobs working labouring

Warehouses, car washes and such

But, when he kept on missing shifts

And was still drinking as a crutch

He got kicked out of the missions

He refused to toe the line

He would rather be out drinking

******* on some cheap *** wine

He was living by the train tracks

In the cedars, in the woods

He was sleeping in a sleeping bag

He was existing as he could

His drink of choice was anything

That would make his pain just go

He was drinking aqua velva

And in a pinch he drink sterno

The devil had his soul tight

He was on his way to hell

If his life was a big boxing match

This was his final bell

He had the world at his command

A family, and career

But, when alcohol took him over

He lost all that was dear

He'd climbed on up the  mountain

Worked his way up to the peak

But, his body was not strong enough

When the devil chose to speak

His wife and kids, they did ok

Their lives had turned the page

His kids soon did forget him

He was from a different age

They found him in the park one night

When the volunteers came round

They brought food to the homeless

He was dead there on the ground

His body had just given up

His liver had just quit

He died there in the bushes

This kind of end...a perfect fit

He had no wallet with him

All his secrets, they were hid

But they found inside his pocket

A picture of his kids

He died alone and helpless

At the bottom, not the top

He did not have the where withall

Or strength of self to stop

He may have died with nothing

Maybe, he died full of guilt

But, the world in which he left us

Was a world that he had built.
.

Hushed in the smoky haze of summer sunset,
When I came home again from far-off places,
How many times I saw my western city
Dream by her river.

Then for an hour the water wore a mantle
Of tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoise
Under the tall and darkened arches bearing
Gray, high-flung bridges.

Against the sunset, water-towers and steeples
Flickered with fire up the ***** to westward,
And old warehouses poured their purple shadows
Across the levee.

High over them the black train swept with thunder,
Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath it
Wharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelers
Resting in twilight.

he's not my favourite writer as such,
in terms of his poetry, no finer antagonist
for his two virtues: honesty and poignant
vulgarity, and as a "drinking buddy,"
i treat him as an antagonist, you'll see why
when i write the following:

he came to america aged 2,
so obviously, knowing how immigration
works, and how adult migrants
are politely told to integrate, which
includes forgetting the mother tongue,
i came to england aged 8.
aged 4 my father emigrated to england
because the once budding steelworks
in my humble town of birth shut down,
over 10,000 out of work,
then other trades buckled under
the weight of enemy propaganda:
levis, coca cola, john paul ii, you name it.
a vague memory of my father was
impressed into me, the 1994 world cup
is my best guess on t.v.
my mother left when i was 6,
she left me a present, a dobermann pinscher
i named axel (after axl rose from guns 'n' roses),
mad *******, bit everyone
and almost took my eye out after i whipped
him for attacking my grandparent's dog,
an alsatian. so technically the earliest
cognitive developments were done
with my grandparents as my surrogates:
grandfather was high-up in society,
was a manager of one of the steelwork
conveyor belt warehouses that produced
train springs and produced the steel columns
for the 1998 world cup in france (stade de france),
but he drank, came with the job,
broke my grandmothers hand,
when i was five i marched him drunk
from his mother's birthday party through
the entire city - but i guess things happen
in your childhood that you can't alter:
his father left for america (spoke 7 languages,
so obviously not a serf), and when he wanted
to make contact his brothers lied about my
grandfather being a rascal of sorts: thief,
hooligan, so so they could get their grubby
hands on the family estate, which, rumour
was it, was rather large; and maybe seeing
the red army invade (boys who slept in barns
in hay with goats), and the ss-man in black
uniform giving him sweets (herr, bite bonbon,
although he says it like the man's name was,
yep, herr bitebonbon - child's word association,
mr. who-gives-sweets), then seeing the ss-men
in rags fleeing from the hammer and sickle dragon;
not to mention his stepfather beating him,
being a miner in the newly integrated lands of
silesia, and many more details i guess.
so anyway, they were my surrogates for some time,
i came to england aged 8 without any knowledge
of the language, learnt it pretty quick, self-taught
mostly, brain still a sponge.
father laid the foundations of dockland's light railway
at the time, but then had a chance to become a roofer.
poland was not in the european union at the time
i had to depart when i started high school,
figure out the reasons sherlock:
spent an autistic year in poland, split by not having
learned the language to a satisfactory point
and forced back to relearn a tongue i was slowly forgetting.
after a year came back to england, plan was to go
to argentina and then america the first time - alas...
but i came with a resolve to never part with my roots,
TO NEVER, EVER, FORGET MY MOTHER TONGUE.
took to studying under grandfather's motto:
matematyka, fizyka i sport / ucz sie, ucz sie, ucz sie.
so i did, went to university to study the sciences,
i could have gone to the russell group bristol or
warwick, but for the budding in me romance to have
started writing ****** poetry, i chose edinburgh.
stayed 3 years, failed french in first year after a brief
losing-my-virginity relationship with a french exchange
student of psychology, failed chemistry 2nd year,
retook exam, no summer fun, 3rd year failed chemistry,
summer in st. petersburg, retook exam and got the ******
degree: immigrants pride and pinnacle i guess.
some horrific **** after, got reduced to working in lidl
for a day, got the job, came in drunk, shoved a bunch
of pickle jars on the shop floor, cut my hand open and
left (politicians are now saying - graduate jobs for graduates,
well, evidently not). but in my 3rd year i met my love,
philosophy - took to it like fish to water, i can't lie,
this is where my antagonist comes handy - he's
being pompous and rightly so at being critical of the
poetry scene, of people studying literature to only
create more literature - i get that, but that's hardly an
attack on learning, or the sheer love of it;
and based on reading an academic work on him,
i gather he has sympathisers behind the enemy lines -
but i too don't like poetry to convey naiveness and
innocence to the world, a dreamworld where everything
comes true because of the way you think of it
a priori, since i guess when the world proves otherwise,
there is no original output of idealism, no cute puppies,
but lynched dancing bears and overworked horses
and the fear soaked eyes of cows in slaughter houses,
this *a posteriori situation leaves most former poets
crushed... crrrrrushed... they either stop writing,
continue writing lies to children, or wise-up,
become as cruel as the world, although a hermit's
cruelty - 'world, on my terms, and with whom and when
you will know that i am still here.'
but it's like that - one invents, the other gets all the credit
and the most famous one of the three doesn't know
the first one when talked about by critics and admirers,
e.g.? tristan tzara, cabaret voltaire, dada anti-war movement
of 1914, invention? cut-up. w. burroughs "perfected"
the method, and thirdly bowie used it too -
critic on television while dirges and epitaphs came:
burroughs' burroughs' burroughs'.
this world has become horrid - all those wars on paper,
all the et tu brute et tu brute et tu brutus?!
all that fame - but ask any banker about infinitesimal
calculus and he will be like... huh what?! what for?!
investments in wars, rocket projections, that kind of thing.
and about that - the horrid nature of the argument:
what came first, leibniz or newton? chicken and egg debate.
both at the same time i guess.
and it's this pervasive first in line, i want to be first in line
incomprehensibility in me -
which means there are only a few famous people
everyone's agreed on, and they're anonymous -
the man who discovered the fermentation process,
and the shaman with ***** who sifted through amazonian
poisons to find a hallucinogenic,
to name but a few of the truly famous ancients.
in conclusion - had bukowski been taught german,
or had been old enough to remember some german,
his writing might have looked something like this;
i too with acne, chernobyl birthmark,
heart condition, and a forcefully induced
****** scheme sophistication brain haemorrhage,
resulting in wrong diagnosis of schizophrenia,
fuelling my subsequent splashing money on
psychiatry books and beating about 5 psychiatrists
at their own game: given my stature of 6ft2
and 253pounds... they were worried i might do
something grotesque - hard to get a discharge,
but got one after 7 years of wrong treatment;
that's like prison, worse, you are living in a society
that tries to pacify you, seeing all the pleasures
of society with people enjoying them, dangling like
a treat, and you're told you're "sick."
i'd rather have spent 7 years with those deservedly
locked up: at least a feeling of solidarity for god's sake:
so as you can imagine, my investment in an internet
presence or the internet's appreciation of it
is about as important to me as yesteryear's snowfall.

It's the end
Of the world
As we know
It, so how
Do you know it?
Did you gather all
Your knowledge from
Radio broadcasts or
Did you spend time
Devouring the
Pamphlets of Paine
And Hamilton and Adams or
Did you sell your
Soul to the world
Wide web in exchange for
Little finger pin ****** of
Dopamine every few
Clicks and whistles?
How is brunch treating you?
Do you know
How to eat an apple or
That they exist?
What finish did you pick
For your gold toilet seat?
Do you have enough money
To buy food to eat?
The cats growl at each other outside,
Fighting off the heat.

Spoonfuls of honey exist
Within the heat death apocalypse but
My mouth still tastes like
The lingering scent of quarters
Leaving sweaty palms
After swallowing the sweet
Sugar down, as
Distracting as it is.
I distract myself from
Something(s) in my use of
Metaphor, but what?
The answer lies beneath the
Underbelly of some suburban
Monster with concrete teeth and
A camouflage of fleshy forest,
Frying like a hot egg in the sun
Behind corporate warehouses and
A strip mall where all of the shops
Are owned by the same person.

To see or not to, to be or not to?

Humanity could not collectively
Know all of the history we
Ourselves have constructed,
Let alone the dynamics of the
Cell mother planet or the
Secrets of the whispering cosmos.
We tipped the point a long time ago,
And we now sit back and enjoy
Our euphoric hallucinations before
Death by drowning.
It could be death by
Auto-****** asphyxiation, but
Who's to say until
We see the autopsy report?
Maybe we should have another
Done by an outside source...
Outside solo flyer questioning
The ubiquitous while existing
As an insider in trench coat and
Fake moustache feels faulty for
Not yelling from the fringe in.

I would like to factory reset my phone.

The internet lets us know what
We know that
Others know about us
While blocking us from ourselves.
Balance and moderation,
Sure yes just fine,
But please define those
Words in the language
Of the twenty first century.
Shall we fail to mention daily that
Our rivers, oceans, and streams
Bubble with reminders of
Our own mundane mediocrity?
Shall we continue to pretend
We don't see that we can see?

To see or not to, to be or not to?

To breathe in hot glue,
Death by acrid smoke and
A broken bottle,
Or a slow decline
Into madness by
The hands of a
Pixelated Nosferatu
Coming out of the screen
To haunt you,
Vibrating under your pillow,
Strangling your lucid dreams?

Hot sun blazing,
sore feet cramping,
standing in an infinite line,
that is seemingly endless,
waiting and waiting,
for merely a small piece of paper.

Finally after what feels like a year
of standing and waiting,
we pass the gleaming,
chainlink,
make-shift fence

As if we stepped through a portal,
into some alien world,
where the air was full of music,
laughter,
chatter,
and the aroma
of something deep-fried.
White tents in two parallel lines
stretched forth in front of us,
forming a long path.
To our right were three buildings
that looked like they had been fused together
and reminded me of warehouses.
People hustled and bustled
here, there, and everywhere inbetween.

We make our way down
the rows of tents and displays,
”OOH”ing and “AAH”ing all the way,
and pausing at familiar tent,
that had a banner,
and that banner
that said something
about Jack Lawford Real Estate
and underneath it,
a familiar face,
a face I call Dad.

He was sitting
within the protective boundary
between the safe shadow of the tent
and the beating sun.
We sat and talked for a moment or two,
every now and then we sipped an ounce
out of the crinkly plastic bottles
filled to the brim with water.
Once we had finished
with our rest stop
and every last drop
of our water bottles
had been consumed.

We moved on to one of the large buildings,
and there, we had the chance
to cool down and escape
the searing heat.
There, were a few things
that made me smile
just seeing them,
that I was truly
and sincerely proud of.
Each and every one
had a shining blue ribbon
attached to or next to it.
Coffee cupcakes,
a barnyard decorated cake,
and a country themed miniature garden,
with a bicycle prop
no bigger than three fingers tall.

to follow up that,
we left the building and re-entered
the realm of the shining sun,
but it was different.
It wasn’t as brutal.
We journeyed down
the long lines of the tents,
until we came across a
giant,
shining,
colorful,
sign
that read “Magical Midway”.

Here, we waited
for another piece of paper,
in the sun,
for a smidget of time.

We left the line
with little paper bracelets
around our wrists
and stamps on our hands,
that were like passports
to go on an astounding journeys,
filled with thrills,
laughter,
and more,
except these journeys
aren’t across vast lands,
they’re adrenaline
inducing roller coasters!

Because my partner in crime
is unfamiliar with the vast selection of rides,
me and my younger brother
decided to show her
our absolute favorites
before we let her off of her leash.

Every minute was jam-packed
with action and laughter
smiles and screams!
one or two hours had passed
before we all realized
our stomachs were screaming
“FEED ME!”
Once again we met with my Dad,
but not for long,
just long enough so
we could navigate another two rows of tents,
except these ones were bigger
and much more colorful,
and the smell of hot dogs
and deep fried goods tainted the air.

Nicolle and I ate
two steaming fresh Pronto Pups
bathed in bright yellow mustard
and we each had a fiery hot funnel cake
drenched in strawberry compote
and dusted with powdered sugar.
Neither of us could finish,
but we managed to consume most
of the monstrous beasts.

Afterwards, we returned
to the wondrous world
of roller coasters,
except I didn’t have as much fun
because I was filled with fear
when Nicolle or my brother
mentioned riding one of the tall,
scary rides that turned me into a chicken
right then and there.
Like I had shrunk to about an inch tall,
and the world was out to get me.
I sat through multiple rides,
and my overprotective mom
wouldn’t let my go on some of the rides nearby
that didn’t make me cower in fear,
but she wouldn’t allow it
because someone could ****** me up
while her back was turned,
but I wasn’t exactly convinced.

The three of us stumbled
upon something great!
A game,
a race,
and a prize at the end!
We joined forces
and gathered our scraps
of money and went ahead,
a race to the finish,
ready, set, go!
We all felt the excitement
and adrenaline surge
through our bodies
as we aimed and fired
our squirt guns toward
the bullseye no bigger
than a marble.

Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
We have a winner!
NIcolle, my partner in crime
had finished filling the small tube of water first.
A great achievement deserved a great award.
Among a billion colorful and huggable prizes,
a huge pink and blue elephant caught her eye.
Mr. Periwinkle is his name,
and to this day,
Mr Periwinkle can be found
in the depths of her room,
and I still remember every minute of that day,
I shared a new experience with an old friend,
and the now old experience with that new friend,
Mr Periwinkle.

I need a sedative.
Desperation never looked good on anyone.
But when I show a little skin and do my make-up just right,
I can make it more than passable.
I can make them fall in love with the way my body becomes music, and my hollow gaze, and my photo-shopped smile...
All before they even know my name.
Not that they will ever care to know it.

My emptiness is unbearable.
And my heart is running away with my mind,
So they can live in train cars
Or abandoned warehouses
Or maybe a nice treehouse somewhere.
If they're smart, they'll see the world before settling down.

Meanwhile,
What's left behind is walking along the streets in quiet neighborhoods,
Humming sad songs that sound like hallelujah and empty orchestras,
While the rain melts me into the cracks in the sidewalk.
I'll be nothing at all by morning.

I'm not a real girl anyways.
I'm a memory box.
Keep your best of times tucked away in me.
I'll gather dust in the garage, or the attic, or the basement.
Or maybe, if I'm really lucky, a shelf in your room,
Where, at least occasionally, you'll glance at me and smile.
But even that is aiming pretty high.

A Winter Ship

At this wharf there are no grand landings to speak of.
Red and orange barges list and blister
Shackled to the dock, outmoded, gaudy,
And apparently indestructible.
The sea pulses under a skin of oil.

A gull holds his pose on a shanty ridgepole,
Riding the tide of the wind, steady
As wood and formal, in a jacket of ashes,
The whole flat harbor anchored in
The round of his yellow eye-button.

A blimp swims up like a day-moon or tin
Cigar over his rink of fishes.
The prospect is dull as an old etching.
They are unloading three barrels of little *****.
The pier pilings seem about to collapse

And with them that rickety edifice
Of warehouses, derricks, smokestacks and bridges
In the distance. All around us the water slips
And gossips in its loose vernacular,
Ferrying the smells of cod and tar.

Farther out, the waves will be mouthing icecakes —-
A poor month for park-sleepers and lovers.
Even our shadows are blue with cold.
We wanted to see the sun come up
And are met, instead, by this iceribbed ship,

Bearded and blown, an albatross of frost,
Relic of tough weather, every winch and stay
Encased in a glassy pellicle.
The sun will diminish it soon enough:
Each wave-tip glitters like a knife.

The old man, grey, bespectacled, with difficulty, rose from his chair.
If he’d come to plead for mercy, I doubt he’d find it here.
He struggled to stand steady with his Zimmer walking frame
As he gave his testimony we all felt his sense of shame.

“I was there when all this happened; I saw the smoke rise to the sky.
I saw the piles of ashes that were once like you and I.
I counted stolen valuables; Money, watches, gold.
I dared not speak objection. I did as I was told.”

He asked for a glass of water; this much he did receive.
He testified an hour without asking for reprieve.
He spoke about those distant days we see in black and white.
Of a Germany destroyed by debt and burning for a fight.
He then was young and good with numbers
He was the bookkeeper of Auschwitz;
He can’t un-see all he did see.

Although he never shot a girl or stabbed a sleeping child,
He’d tallied up their worldly goods to add them to the pile.
When the Russians over-ran the camp, he and the others fled.
They left behind warehouses full of the possessions of the dead.
The Jury must deliberate about what punishment is due
For this ninety year old **** who kept track of baby shoes.

Greetings from us at Homeland Security.
We hope you had a pleasant journey.
But keep in mind there's no guarantee
That you won't exit on a gurney.

You should love our border camps,
Which are still progressing in stages.
We have “subdivided rooms.”
(We don't like to call them cages.)

We strive to stifle criticism.
Please ignore our critics' lore.
Doesn't everybody love
To camp out on a cold, hard floor?

We provide you with a blanket.
What? One is not enough?
Crowded rooms should keep you warm.
Exposure to germs will make you tough!

Lest you feel our detention centers
Are too uncomfortable or stark,
We leave the lights on for twenty-four hours
Daily in case you're afraid of the dark.

What? You say you need a doctor?
Come on, beggars can't be choosers.
Toothbrushes? Toothpaste? Soap?
Those are just for wimps or losers.

We all want your stay to be
Just as pleasant as we can make it.
True, some have died, but they’re
The weaker ones who cannot take it.

If your kids were taken away,
We don't mean to disrespect you,
But since only God knows where they are,
Then we'll let God reconnect you.

Locking kids in windowless
Warehouses in our recollection
Is a way to offer the kids
Security and protection.

If perhaps you’re seeking asylum,
One little thing might give you pause:
The president is working on
Ways to change asylum laws.

We know the whole idea of camps
Polarizes, or causes a schism.
In figuring out what to call them,
We prefer the euphemism.

So, enjoy your stay until
The powers that be decide your fate.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get a shower
During your long, protracted wait.

-by Bob B (6-24-19)

Would anything change
if I left where you all stood
would you be doing less opiates
and making somewhat constructive conversation?

Would you go unpunished for my excuses
or anticipate someone yelling while you drove?
I can’t see why someone would miss
a savage like me

Bickering, or
*******, or
slutting, or
strangling

You’ll all rest in peace
(not death, you barbarians)
when I’m not having spasms
next to your sink

Could anyone contort your face
like I can when I tell you how
filthy or gorgeous you look?
(no.)

Is anyone going to replace this void
that I’ll create in this cell
the walls stained with old *****
the rug covered in excess hair

In my defense
I’m truly insane
it should be no wonder
that I live in such a cave

When I leave
you’ll be much more relieved
I do wonder, however
how quickly you’ll age

Or if I’m the one to age
whistling through deserts and forests
and tripping on sidewalks
or drowning in corporate fountains

I cry hopelessly that I’m not
a catalyst
because I don’t want to stay here
when everyone is through

The rain will wash out
your bloodstains on my clothes
I can’t stumble through a laundromat
without feeling like a derelict

Maybe I’ll take up smoking
and deal crank to minors
and abuse my dogs
and **** my wife (or husband)

Or I’ll become a banker
and pocket your money
to burn when I’m cold
or bury under expensive food

It’ll take ten more warehouses
and a thousand more people
to chain me to this
map of my adolescence

Leaving here I’ll lose my mind
between the branches and streams
and the abundance of towering behemoths
that grew only lifetimes ago

Next time is indeterminate.
Sometimes it never arrives.
This time is the right time.
I've offered buckets of promises,
Boxes of apologies,
Truck loads of regrets,
Warehouses of chances,
But there is no next time.
The crystal's broken,
The hands are frozen.

To start again we take a pen
create a bill of rights
because,
sermons will not feed you
in the long term this is what we need to do,
storm the walls of warehouses and and pull them down
burn the cities,burn the towns
astound the populace,face the thieves who turn a trick
and kick them out.

This motel's coffee is weak
Even after the 8th cup
Trying to shake off the storms
Thundering in my head
Like too many days
When I haven't felt a reason to be
Out on open roads
I promised to write a letter
To you every day
That these wheels have been rolling
But you've forgotten all the curves to my script

Because it's been too long
Since my pen has scriven
And it's been too long
Since I've kept any promises

Another day and another night
Passes by on the road to another town
And I can't keep track
Of where I was
And who I'm finding myself to become
I call you up from a pay phone
On the corner of loneliness and nowhere
But when you answer
I can't find my voice
And there's a silence that hangs deadly in the air
As you ask is anyone there
I know you know it's me
But you play along like a stranger
Dialing the wrong number
And maybe I'm just a stranger to you anyway now

Because it's been too long
Since I have called
And it's been too long
Since I've kept any promises

This place looks familiarly foreign
Rundown warehouses and farmland
That time left buried deep in a past
That's become more of a dream
Than some old reality
I look around to find the same memories
Playing from the viewpoint of an outsider

Because it's been too long
Since I've been home
And it's been too long
Since I've kept any promises

These tires have lost their tread
On the long driveway
To a house I once called home
That I shared once upon a time
With a woman I loved
I see the embrace waiting for me
Behind that dark oak front door
If I could find the courage
To leave this car
And put the key into the lock
With a twist of the ****
I wonder if I'd still find you
There waiting for me

Because it's been too long
Since I have held you in my arms
And it's been too long
Since I've kept any promises

Because it's been too long
And all my promises are gone

for Kate and Nicola and Wayne and Paul and Cameron and Skye and Kylie and Nathan and Cameron and the weird guy next door.  


Here’s to you, my crazy friends
You ******-up misfits too cool for my school
But you liked me anyway, you let me
read you my book of poems
You played Bone Machine while I was tripping
We walked through the suburbs looking for fairies,
We slept with each other despite my huge crush on you
You liked me anyway.

You taught me to smoke ****
To stop hating on op shop clothes while
I wore Country Road and cashmere vests.
We watched the sun come up, smelling of sweat
and drugs and DJs’ last hurrahs and dark old
warehouses, kerosene fire batons and your menthol
cigarettes.

I gave you Siddhartha and Guildenstern and Rosencrantz,
though it wasn’t the first time.
I loved it all: the guitars, the punk chords, the dodgy old houses
in run down parts of West End,
the random houses, the secret nights smoking your
Champion Ruby in my old *** pipe because we’d
run out of **** and Henry Miller wouldn’t settle for just plain *****.

Bohemian Cafés and curries,
girlfriends turned turncoat then lesbians,
your secret *** parties that I never found out about ‘till years later
your Mezz Mezzrow typewriter and bright candles of novel beginnings
that never saw the light of day.  Her sweet little hips showing a little too
clearly with the the shining light from inside as it lit her silhouette on
your balcony. I miss you guys, with your madness your friendships and
deep inner hipness that wasn’t in me.

So it’s years later now, we’re old and I ain’t seen you in years.
Wayne showed up in a café one day with CDs of his latest, still cool
I was studying Mandarin, and I wanted to reconnect
He gave me his number but I didn’t call him, I can’t explain why.
You showed up one day, “weren’t you going to come and say hello?”
I was but I still don’t know how.

The first Holy Book of The Word
In Nonsense we Trust

Assembled from pre-existing works by John Burroughs, Ryan P. Kinney, Jack McGuane, Cee Williams, Don Lee, Susan Grimm, Joe Roarty, Russ Vidrick, Dianne Boresnik, Mitch James, Tanya Pilumeli, Julie Ursem Marchand, Vicki Acquah, Terry Provost, Adam Brodsky, Lennart Lundh, Raymond McNiece, Hannah Williams, MaxWell Shell, Tim Richards, Ayla Atash, RC (Bob Wilson), Chuck Joy, Katie Daley, Solomon Dixon, Mary Weems, and Gordon Downie
Mostly taken as quotes during live poetry readings. Some stolen from other sources.
Additional content from predictive text by JM Romig, Linkin Park “Powerless,” “Saga of the Swamp Thing” vol. 1, T.S. Eliot, Amalgam Mythos, Kurt Vonnegut, Kevin Smith, and Psalms (chap.):13
Added original content by Ryan P. Kinney, Lennart Lundh, Barbara Marie Minney, and Gabriella Ercolani

“Lords Temple Basement Men,” it says on the door in a badly photocopied sign, replaced freshly each week. The original was built from torn up pieces of bootleg band vinyl stickers left plastered all over the windows of some teenager, surely passed into decaying adulthood long ago.

They gather in the bottom of an abandoned house in the heart of mostly warehouses. Something, someone long ago forgot to bull doze in the wake of morbid industrialization and the zeal to just get more men more jobs while giving them no life, no place to live. They built in their own obsolescence

A Man stands outside; half catcalling, half showman barker; daring, tempting, bribing people to worship with him. In paint stained torn jeans, long shaggy hair with the bald spot landing pad directly in the center of his head, and shoes barely hanging together on his feet, he bellows out The Word. Somewhere between slam poetry performance and theology lesson, he entices and seduces people to enter. Here, they do not call him Father, or Brother, just person:  Man.  “Hey, Man,” is how they great him.

“This is the original Church of the world's scraps.
The body of the body of the body.
Burning in the sun.
‘Me and my son were born in the sun,’ They say.
He is willing to do it.”
The Man says, in a soothing voice.

People enter a crooked doorway. The Man pulls the peeling door behind them, scrapping the ground as he does so, and leads his flock down the concrete stairs to the basement. They come to a dingy dirt gravel floor and spread out; filling the space like gas expanding into a cylinder.

Background chatter already fills the room with low whispers before the performance-service,
“I am happy to hear that you are safe”.
“I am not sure that you are”
“You will be missed.”

The Man steps upon his usual milk crate to open the service. He intones the Capitalist Mantra,
“God Save the Queen
Long live the King
Hail to the Chief
The Lord of all Lies”

And the people chant, “I will not kiss you. I will not bow. I will not bow. I will not be moved.
I love the idea of what I have to be”

Mama Evil steps forward to explain their purpose here,
“This is a strange, mad religious service. Everything is out of place, nothing and no one seems to fit together. We all gather here, but no one seems to-gether. This is less a sermon and more a discussion where the gospel is debated. The Word is critiqued, modified, disputed, and changes between its members at each meeting. At any time for no reason, people can interrupt The Man to deny, confirm, suggest, or challenge his statements. The group then decides on the next bit of gospel to be made up on the spot or if what has already been said is still the current phase of perspective. There is no central thought or plan, just a plan for thoughts. We, people, call this Faith. Our membership makes up a multitude. There are Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Satanists, Buddhists, Capitalists, hippies, goth kids, Starbuck’s sipping bloggers, just plain weird kids in the back working on their latest D&D campaign. We are just people. And he, is just a Man. The only interconnecting philosophy among us is, ‘Anything is possible at any time for any reason.’”
“As the recovering Catholic Kevin Smith wrote, ‘It’s not important which faith you are, just that you have faith.’”

The People are ready to receive The Holy Spirit and his unique brand of performance poetry,

“In the beginning, there was only The Word, a word. And then more. Which were collected into a story; The Story. And from The Story came creation.
And then came the questions. And The Question was man. Who are we? What are we? Why? Who am I?”

The Man explains,
“The whole point of The Word is to make up new ones. To defy God’s Word by creating ourselves.”
“Do you see the animal’s asking questions? Wondering who they are. They simply know that they are.
There are no fish in Purgatory. Only us.
The Garden of Eden is colonized by serpents
There was no place for the demons to go, but further in.”

A Hindu Yoga instructor rights himself from walking on his hands and decides to take the first initiative, “Puff the Magic Dragon says, ‘Jesus loves me, but I need to talk to a human.’”
A furry cosplayer responds, "I need to talk to a human."

A Wiccan Princess retorts, "Nature is not as inventive as she thinks she is; Neither is God"

The Man answers,
“We are a beautiful blasphemy to God’s word (because we question).”

“Heavy is the crown that wears the head,” says the child prince.

The Drag King quotes, “Psalms (chap.):13
You will tread on the lion and the cobra.
You will trample on the great lion and the serpent.”

"...And God teaches the cricket how to play his music," says the bookish-looking woman sitting in the corner, trailing off as she adjusts her literal Coke bottle frames.

A gym rat, wearing a holey muscle shirt, extends arm to point as he says,
“Humans begin as *******.”

“Humans are also stardust.
Which means we are golden,” replies the scientist

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust,” says the derelict businessman hobo hero,
“God made mud in his own image and we are the leftover **** that rose out of it.
And if all life is really God’s sacred mud, then every **** storm is God’s Wrath.”

The Man quotes T.S. Eliot,
“What are the roots that clutch. What branches grow out of this stony *******. Son of man, you cannot say or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images.”

"The grapes of wrath transmuted into the harvest of imagination,” illustrates the painter

The automaton states, “**** the earth, to make a certain sense of it all.”

The Man attempts to regain control,
“Some future digger after truth,
alien or human, kneeling with
trowel and brush at this grave,
will note in clear, careful script
the wonder that a people would
be so deliberate with the smallest
of their gods' creatures,
and so careless of themselves.”

A soccer Mom asks,
“They say I shouldn’t be so tired.
They say I should get a job.
They say I should get off this couch.
They say I shouldn’t be a blob.”

“It takes but one step to enter the grave,” says The Man.
“So much can be lost in crossing that threshold. How did your grandparents, born in separate countries, meet? Did your mother kiss your father first, or vice versa? These are questions we don't think to pose, but without the asking or other evidence, Death will redact the list of begettings. Are you prepared for that void in memory? Or have you made notes for your children to leave theirs?”

"My Dad keeps their honeymoon receipts in the family Bible,” says the Unknown.
“After Mom moved on, he would take the Bible off the shelf every evening after supper.  He would first stare at it for what seemed forever while pouring himself a huge tumbler of bourbon and lighting a huge cigar that smelled like month old underwear.  Eventually, he would open the gold clasp and raise the deeply cracked leather cover of the Bible and first look at the family history written inside the front cover in the delicate and intricate handwriting of Mom, before pulling out the well worn honeymoon receipts, which he would shuffle through like a deck of cards before spreading them out on the worn and scratched kitchen table like a kind of dead man’s hand.  Sometimes, he would weep quietly.  Other times, he would pound his fists violently on the table shaking the cans of beans and potatoes on the shelves above.  That is when I knew it was time to make myself scarce.  He never ever opened the Bible any further than the front cover, which made me wonder about the nature of the book itself.  I always pondered the same questions over and over.”  
“Is Bible a filthy word? Is it the animal? The Man, The Woman? Should we burn the book?”
“Is the Word filthy?”, asks The Man, “What are the filthy words? What are the power of Words mired in ****? Who do these words define? Who are you?”

Mama Evil commands a presence,
“****? ****? ****? *****? Broad? *****? Are these the words you use to define me? When that which defines me is the holy chalice, life's catalyst, mia figa, my ****: stand us all on our heads and we all look the same. Regardless of our skin color, or the shape of the bones in our face or the skin around our eyes or the texture of our hair, those folds of flesh, that tunnel to the precipice of the universe, that little happy happy joy joy button, these are what we all have in common and what the whole world simultaneously wants and reviles. It has that much power. A lexical reclamation is taking place. One that will lift up the collective feminine spirit instead of dragging it down to the depths of all pejoratives. ****! The taking back of all pejoratives is an essential part of the reclamation of the collective self-esteem of woman kind! She is a Hindu Goddess! She is the Roman Goddess who is the protector or newborn infants. She is cunctipotent. She is all powerful and creates and destroys the world with her blood sugar **** magic. She is the princess and savior of the Mahabharata, renowned for her hospitality, who willingly receives any traveler who requests food and lodging. She is that benevolent. Durvasas bestows upon her a powerful mantra as payment for that hospitality and with it, Princess Kunti has the power to call on any God in heaven to lie with her and she will bear a son then by the next day. When her husband is rendered sterile as punishment for shooting the Stag King as he mated with his queen, Princess Kunti bears three heirs for the kingdom. She saves the kingdom. She saves the day. She is **** magic at its finest hour and she dwells in all of us who have ever been slandered. So go on, you ignorant *******. Call me a ****. Only you in your infinite small stupidity are skint the knowledge that you have just called me a princess and a savior.”

A comic nerd asks, “What of Power? What is power?”

Mama Evil holds up a single flame, spewing from a cheap blue lighter in her hand. She asks, “What is the power of The Word.” Is it in the book? Or in the air.”

She answers, “The power to choose. Do I set the world on fire, or put out
the flames?”

The room goes dark as she abruptly steals The Man’s usual send off,
“The Word has evolved, my friends.”

Watching the train tracks
Kiss and retract and
Kiss and retract
They meet and depart
Like a pair of silver lips

In the distance there are
A huddle of crumbling buildings
That used to be factories
Or warehouses
They're now bleached bones
Under a dusting of February
Snow

There is a silhouette cut out
Of a dog that stands in front of
Them, closer to the tracks
So close I almost missed it
I wonder what purpose it could serve

I suppose
To remind someone of
What once was
Or what could still
Be
A solid shadow to stand out
Against so much bleached
Bone