"Grow up tall,
little kid,"
said grandpa Joe.
And so I did.

The watermelon grow tall too.
The sunflowers look to the sky,
keeping their chins up,
raised real high.

So maybe it's silly,
watching grass grow,
but if you never try,
how could you ever know?

So maybe it's crazy,
chanting for the rain,
but if it never comes,
how could I grow the grain?

I'd prefer to stare at clouds,
than sleep forever like a rock,
skidding by life.
Why, that would just ****!

So, if you ask me to leave this here place,
you better shove it,
before you wake up
in an unknown space,
******* with lace,
with a disfigured face,
completely full of mace,
and a strange case
of something poisonous.

stiff is the flesh of rubbery, unripe watermelon,
strange and flexible as frozen laundry.
I dispose of it in the apartment garbage.

unnerving is the sleeping, sleepless city
eerie as an adult edition of I-Spy and equally unsweet
suspended indefinitely, creeping subtly in between
Christmas and New Year's Eve.

My mother was
a first generation lesbian.
My father,
a first generation divorcee.
His father was the one child
of a public school teacher.
He found my grandmother at 18.
A farm child, one of seven.
A painter, a baker.
My mother's father
a single boy to three sisters.
His aggressive masculinity
kept the line clear and thick.
He found my mother's mother at 17.
A middle of seven Pentecostal children.
A beauty queen, an agoraphobic.
Each had five children.
The door-to-door salesmen/
homemaker and mother of boys duo
bet it all to open a hobby shop.
They were by far the poorest of the
watermelon farming siblings.
They were artists and explorers.
The high school graduate and ladies man,
was a logger before a father.
And the single mother of 25 he left
scarcely left her home at all.
Neither pair made it big.
But they made my father.
A lonely, post middle aged man.
The poorest of his brothers.
A used to be pilot,
and could have been teacher,
a want to be pioneer.
A nuclear family super fan
who never got his way.
And they made my mother.
A nervous, eccentric hippie
who doesn't know how to talk to her siblings.
A woman working her *** off to excel at lower middle class.
A builder, a fighter, a **** good mother.
Even if accidentally so.
She has plans to travel.
He has dreams to live by a lake.
And they made me.
A single girl among three boys.
A quirky, nervous tomboy.
A thinker, a gardener, a climber.
A loser and a dreamer by blood.

Swallowed by mistake
Sprouting lovely roots inside
Make me beautiful

Color of lemon, mango, peach,
These storybook villas
Still dream behind
Shutters, thier balconies
Fine as hand-
Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch.

Tilting with the winds,
On arrowy stems,
Pineapple-barked,
A green crescent of palms
Sends up its forked
Firework of fronds.

A quartz-clear dawn
Inch by bright inch
Gilds all our Avenue,
And out of the blue drench
Of Angels' Bay
Rises the round red watermelon sun.

Summer is bright and yellow
It tastes like a bowl of watermelon
It sounds like an ocean's wave or kids playing in the pool
And smells like the fresh cut grass
It looks like a peace and blissful day
It makes you feel happy and free.

i can't believe i came across this today,
but i am certain did...
   an experience so vague i couldn't believe,
i actually experienced dyslexia,
call it quasi call it pseduo... but it was very
much akin... from the book's narrative...
but not from the footnotes, i read the footnotes
at perfect cognitive speed, but perhaps
returning to the narrative i did experience
a slack of the + (add) of how words are
dissected and quickly put back together...
  yes, that other arithmetic with very little
breathing room, yes, that thing without
a soul... the word... or god...
    i turned custard brain, fudge...
     i felt like watching the gymnastics at
the para-olympics... and if i was going for a cheap
joke / english black humor i'd probably
laugh at that... but since this is the most
perfect ideal, i can't only make that comparison.

and so it was, i sat there doing nothing productive,
nothing... counting sheep to encourage
day-dreaming...
       so i said: 'i'll read a book', like i might do
on the whim in my grandparent's house
(one of the many reasons i decided to be "canadian" -
and establish a firm belief in bilingualism -
since if i didn't speak the tribal tongue
i wouldn't be rummaging in my grandfather's
library... and stealing books from him...
  well, exporting them to england, where he said
on my last visit: your library is bigger than
mine, isn't? well... it can fill a double-bed
   and be stacked at about 300cm up...)
    maybe the fact that being immersed in the tribe:
polish on the radio, on the television,
the fact that i can be without the internet for
weeks on end and have no quick-canvas outlet for
my earned tongue is the reason i could read
Kraszewski's* Dei Ira / bozy gniew / god's wrath...
    (there is too much subtle differences between
capital iota and little-town lambda -
   or why iota had to have the dot above it, anyway) -
so dei ira looks better... which is why i'm
not orthodox about using capital instances all the time...
   what a whirlwind...
         but prior to that i was watching
a david jacoby film - love is the devil: study for
a portrait by francis bacon...
                                         and all i could think of:
what marvel, to have a **** shoved up your ***
and speak so beautifully...
  have such a vast array of narratives...
     i can only assume that experiencing **** ***
gives you the other man's **** shoved into
your mouth that acts like a tongue and speaks
      so many truths as could be possible,
as in Freudian dream: when a woman wears a hat...
a talking ****** on her head from slurping
at the vaginal grotto of another woman...
     such a marvel though, homosexuality, esp.
the type of homosexuality that has art to express
rather than a civil partnership, civil rights...
  i mean, i could watch this stuff for days and never
yawn or need to watch protests and marches...
  just the image of what is best described
   john william waterhouse's
   painting hypnos and thanatos...
      i can't help but see it like that...
         francis plays the female role, his model the evident
dominant male... and sure, francis having his
**** punctured for what could be best described
as diarhhea either side of the equator does so...
it's as if he is eloquent enough / intelligent to allow
this to happen, for another man to speak through
him somehow... the model's phallus in francis' ****
becomes the model's tongue in francis' mouth...
    which becomes the stage for hypnos and thanatos...
in that francis' tongue becomes a phallus in
the mind of the model: and it whispers him nightmares
in his sleep... a vicious cycle indeed...
           that's the homosexuality that's highly regarded
by me, not the confetti functional type that
    exploits science and social norms and can no longer
lend itself to art, to transcending the taboo...
      with homosexuality divorced from art...
i can't see anything profound by gays from now on...
i really can't... if there is no art in this deviant
love, no art is worth being expressed by this
once glorious realm that has grovelled into the gutter...
so let's start once more: with Onan!

and everyday i awake wake with only one identifiable
fear: will i not write a single verse as of today?
it's not a case of a single day encapsulating my
fear, but that that crux day: furthered into a silence
that can't compensate the act of writing with
anything, other than sleep... i just can't seem
to smarten up concerning this very rational phobia...
    and having said that: here is the incision mark
denoting an interlude, and how: what are originally
intended to be of enso quality, cannot
   stand up to the biological tick-tock of needing
the loo...
     and do i think o'keefe's music foundation
by children is so much better than the original
done by tool concerning the song forty six & two?
yes, yes i do... just look at the kid on the bass guitar,
the fact that bass guitar is allowed to state a layer
of cake just above drums to set the rhythm
means the rhythm guitar doesn't have to solipsistic
******* and scale the everest of solo...
   it can remain in the rhythm section,
actually be worth a rhythm,
   the guitar doesn't need to overload into a solo...
the vocals belong to that domain...
   as long as the bass guitar is allowed to be heard
(unlike in metallica) - then i must be tone deaf!
revise me!
                    jazz knew the importance of every instrument,
and the need to be spontaneous, but also
the need to be anti-synchronisation,
  and therefore anti-muddle tsunami of:
all together now!
            n'ah, **** that **** (yes, the Vulgate is
coming along, i like the pooch, i don't care what things
i might say, the rude growl-bark is coming along:
so we can admire him licking his *****, and for no
other reason he's coming):
as in the birth of sexes... which the animals don't
seem to comprehend that much intently...
                 i can't like my ******* or **** one off...
but i know i can abstract a woman into
a hand and just pretend it's me doing the ****
crap with her... than myself included,
   or as i might add: never drink or *******
before the mirror... soon enough your reflection
becomes a bit odd, not because of what you do,
but because you hide so much perplexity before
you in Lucifer's daylight with which
  the moon Narcissus governs the moods...
that you start to look at your actual shadow
   with more clarity and fact...
  looking in the mirror is the reverse of looking
at your shadow under a street-lamp at night...
the mirror sort of becomes a shadow...
             the form becomes a bit (ha ha, what
an exagerration) vague... i look into
a mirror and i am but looking into shadow...
                   and i can't exactly recognise the eyes,
or make our geometric approximations
of a skull...
                      it's not even a case of a poor Yorrick
blah blah.
    or as the new governing body put it:
there are to be no mirrors contained within
the gates of Pandemonium...
        each to his own shadow, each to his own abstract...
   for the shadow will be deemed the new mirror...
   the new found glacier of, yes:
when salt water freezes, comes pure white floating
on the oceans... but must you freeze fresh water
and there's this matrix...
as in icecubes...
       dropping from a vendor machine...
and i knew i shouldn't have digressed so much,
but then again, if there was no ****** tick-tock
       rebellion, i probably wouldn't have revealed this much...
with ancient lore...
    who'd use the word Pandemonium these days,
if you're merely trying to call it: the Houses of Westminster...
well sure, accusation due: i prefer
a bunch of kids feeding me a nostalgia over a song
i heard aged 14... such is the power of the song 46 & 2
done to a... wait wait...
  i was talking about bass guitars and jazz...
(i could never get to like rap...
            i liked when the blacks deconstructed classical
music, but they did after: i'll never like,
mainly people of blackies and that general fanfare
of rap feeding tribalism) -
          the greatest aspect of jazz:
that on some recordings there's a chance to hear all
the instruments having a solo moment...
you'll hear a quintent solo:
  the piano, the drum, the saxophone, the horn,
the double-bass solo... each doing a solo...
not some erectile dysfunction of rock music from the 1980s...
i mean: each one will do a solo...
  and **** me, that's grand... and given there's no vocals
makes it all the better... but where, the ****, can i hear
jazz music being kept with such high regard as i
might find mozart pickled and even mummified
     to suddenly rise again and compose like i might hear
it on classical.fm... maybe acid jazz killed it...
   i can't seem to hear of one place where i can hear
the range of jazz music i have in my collection...
which probably mean's i'm lazy and don't fiddle about
with the radio fm and am channels... to "look" for jazz...
  i'm all applause though: jazz allowed for
deconstruction of classical music and paved the way
for the current state of polyphony in plateau...
    meaning: too much drum, too much ump-pst-ump-pst...
   jazz paved the wsay from orchestra,
   and yes, maybe because it was too impromptu
as it was necessary, that there was no jazz composer...
  there could have been no jazz script... no pre
           to what was otherwise alway and only: uno...
a once...
    sure Thelonious Monk did use an orchestra at some time...
  but if only someone decided to do a solipsism
and write out jazz like mozart wrote out
      concerto... but no... jazz descending from on high
and invoking african villages could never do to
its practitioners the deadly fate of breeding a jazz
composer...
                   it was the communal idea, the musketeer
unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno:
   you could never allow a silent dictator like
a mozart dictating to a throng of people contained
within an orchestra... which later made the once
silent dictators very very vocal... speeches in Munich
alike...
           the fact that jazz has no script,
and the fact that if someone tries to play a Miles Davis
from script... is completely an ***...
     put him on a donkey (backwards)
                     donning a sanbenito and lynch him
to the nearest traffic junction to **** louder than
a car klaxon... that will do the trick...
       they did bother to script led zeppelin though...
    maybe it was the stiff competition that did it:
jazz. airy... breezy... but what a quick moment it was...
i'm almost jealous of the beat poets experimenting
with jazz musicians... but then i'm not:
i like to think of them as parasites...
   you know... those things feeding of spontaneity...
parasites... or dare i say: plagiarising leeches...
plagiarisng what? well, not the content, the context:
feeding of jazz spontaneity... not working from
old composers like Milton or Dante...
thank god for Ezra Pound and Sylvia Plath.

seems i have a ****** for a larynx...

perhaps i just seem to mean: i am a firm believer
in bilingualism... perhaps that's based on
some sort of religiosity,
    and let me tell you: it's born with
a schismatic nature, siamese, but not like a
siamese twin, in that it really needs a surgeon...
  it's a nucleus that's inherently schismatic...
i can't blame the english nation being
so lazy in its multicultural ethos,
i quiet like it: i don't live in a ghetto...
but forgetting my native tongue just so i could
sing a national anthem with conviction?
na'ah, that's not me...
            we'll come to Kraszewski's rex piast
in a minute, and it really was a genuine
experience of placebo dyslexia,
the one on the other side: should i have written
zilch...
      i believe in something quiet Canadian...
i don't believe in isolated communities,
   or ghetto tactic... i am a firm disciple of the advent
of bilingualism: forget the *** for just one day,
your genitals won't suddenly drop off with
gangrene scabs... you don't need a doctor
to say that...
                i mean: bilingualism as a concern
for incorporated culture, and the culture you were
born in... why can't these people just care to juggle
three testicles?
                   oh, elaphantisis got in the way...
sure, two oranges and a watermelon: makes sense...
no!
      have mutual respect, you come to me sprechen
Piast i'll speak Piast to you...
   well: given that polish and polish aren't that far apart,
i'd feel inclined to utilise
           idiosyncratic lingo...
   lingua genesis...
                children are so much easier to utilise than
angels: they have yet to experience anything at all
on the Socratic basis...
            so if i talk Piast to me, you will know what
i'm talking about?
     it doesn't matter if you do... i chose to be
a library, rather than an encyclopoedia of immigrants...
    there's not need to test me on general knowledge:
the stuff i "know" already gives me membrane...
     i respect both the culture of my birth and the skin
i am sometimes told to make sure is called tattoo,
and what i see before me, and quiet frankly:
i see nothing before me... a turban here,
    a sausage & mash there, a pint of guinness there,
noodles elsewhere... all in all: globalisation
and the elements: earthquakes... torandos...
   there isn't much to see in a poly-ethnic society...
there are too many major changes taking place
in a pyramid of non-ethnic ascriptive
         non-this-and-that pawns...
  it's not even painful: just a bit disgusting to watch...
  and yes i have access to a voult of monochromatic
society:
   you know how many ethnic minorities i spotted
in a train station in Warsaw? three...
two asians and one black woman...
              i haven't experienced the cold winters in Poland:
but i knew there was a limit...
         only about three apaches in a crowd of
albinos... which doesn't translate as:
    i was somehow content, it just meant
that most signs in Warsaw are written with a bilingual
bridge of Polish... and Ukranian Cyrillic...
plenty of Ukranian Mecca-bandits, for sure,
     but that's the end of the line with what
western Europe is doing to itself...
        every time i come back from Poland
i'm smeared with a rainbow of variety,
   it's either: i want to **** all these girlies
or i want to **** them... mostly the former,
  but you get the picture of experiencing the alternative
of the western experiment: since marxist economy
was "doomed" or simply expected to fail...
the economy finally seems reasonable with safety
for the old and the pension plans...
that marxist-culturalism had to emerge... if we are not
on the same dough plan of being content with a table and
a chair: might as well say we're all prone to don
a ******* afro.
                ***** are naturally curly, no?
going back "home" is always a weird experience, i tend
to read books there... like Kraszewski (who,
even the locals **** as being an unbearable bore
and joke that Joyce is easier read)... with his dei ire...
my grandfather just dropped it into my hands
as an experiment, thinking i wouldn't read it...
    well, in terms of translation Kraszewski is a myth-broker...
no one would read him,
  meaning: i'm kind of grateful that poles
seem to sorta: not exist, when it comes to citing examples
that include modernity and the history being
formed... i could sorta believe it if i were Estonian
or Lithuanian, or from Liechtenstein...
          but we're talking about a place with a large
enough population to be a major player in some
wordly conflict... Poland isn't that small...
    but yet it appears like it appeared from
the 18th century onwards... a state partitioned...
    and what i love about remaining tactifully bilingual?
i can talk about my native in a "colonial" tongue...
hence the " " definition: self-acquired...
             that's why i became spastic-fantastic reading
Kraszewski's rex piast - nothing came in,
i lost all trace of syllable construction, i read the books
so slowly i had one page done in about 10 minutes:
prolonging my musing of world powers, thrones
and crowns on a toilet...
        *******... another interlude.

can anyone see the, dodo project? i really just see a dodo project, yes: eine dodo projekt... i'm white, i'm male: can i be allowed to express these nouns in a pronoun, or am i schizophrenic prone? it seems i c

Sublime sun, no socks and cigarettes,
concrete jars each step.
My finger strokes the trigger aimed at a perfect fullness,
targeted to smash smooth surfaces.

This shooting gallery also houses art.

Sparks of adrenaline fuel blood, hot lead flows through veins.

Like a toast has been raised by a crystal tapping,
the scene lies in focus.
Every melon visible,
I choose a victim.

“Every dog has it’s day”.

An ******* squeezing,

as splatters land upon tatters,
a cold slime slick of fresh pink flesh.

I lap it up.

Second on the list:
I’ve always wanted to hurl
a pumpkin from a third floor window,
watch the flecks of orange explode all over the grey concrete below,
a bulbous bursting of gourd upon ground.

An exuberant exhalation of at last:
I have got something done.

surrender hind-legs
targets yellow spines
yellow stems
flowers blend into frogs
tree frogs tree apples
tree fruit heart numinous
nervousness next level
levitation into vibration
watermelon seeds
stars, steam, sand and shadows
i allow
keep talking spinning
weaving the stars
love is a happy motorcycle
bathtubs zoological
sisters straight eyed sailors
cumber-buns saviors
yawning in the wind
at the hint of a spark
gravity embarks on sacred journeys
desert walks soul visions
quest into westerly winds
pools of tough romance tough love
chances are that now and then
we will pretend
that we are more compassionate
then we are

Green marble walls
With half white lines
Inside the compound wall
A white basement done
From that a red house
Designed with black oval drops
So juicy, tasty watermelon !

The watermelon's tears alighted lightly against the bloodstained perfume, and when the steam cleared, light was visible filtering through the fingertips of the victorious battle-bound man with the paper crown. Was this ice and freezing of the tongue to be his reward for the conquest of the wooden palace of Arbol? We would soon see...

My mommy said I shouldn’t eat the watermelon seeds, that it would hurt if they made a home of my tummy. She’s a little loopy, my mama, and I don’t believe her sometimes, so I ate the seed and it tasted really boring. I swallowed the seed whole and nothing happened, mama.

My mom told me not to eat the watermelon seeds, that, in a few weeks, a small black tear drop floating in my body would hurt once it found a home in my belly. If it claimed my gut, it would throw out the food I tried to eat, greedy of the space, growing and swelling inside me until the button of my worn jeans would no longer snapped shut. She’s a little dramatic, my mom. I ignored fruit-flies swarming the chewed rind left on the counter, its sickly sweet scent swallowing the space of my small apartment.

My mother warned me never to ingest the seeds of a watermelon, that this little black tear drop once wedged into the sweet sponge of the fruit would one day decide the house it made of my torso was no longer its home. It tore its way from my body, strangled the sides of my diaphragm, round after round of reverberating contractions bent me over until the sweet clear liquid flowed from me. Then came the melon, my melon, that once found a home in my body – falling from me in clumps of sickly sweet spongey mush through shaking fingers into an unsuspecting porcelain bowl.
                             She was right, it did hurt.

runny summer ooze
unlock the watermelon
and night hits neatly.

you hurt me everyday and yet i'm supposed to forgive?

Summer diet: Weight loss summer food

The weather may change but our diet remains constant. Whatever the weather, summer, winter or the monsoon we want our pav bhaji or Schezwan chicken or the spicy kebabs and the masala chai.

But realization never strikes us that change in weather could mean a change in diet as well. For those on a weight loss diet the options are slim, you need food that is delicious, low in calories, rich in vitamins and minerals as well as fibers. Let's peak into your refrigerator and cook up the best summer weight loss meals.

Max on vegetables: Vegetables are the best bet when the sun is unforgiving. Red meat is not advisable for summer as it increases your body's internal energy requirement for digestion - thus, tiring you out if you aren't in great health to begin with. Luckily Indian food is known for delicious vegetarian food, which means that you won't need to make too much of a compromise when shifting to a palette that mostly involves leafy vegetables.

Go easy on the nuts: Dried nuts are rich in calories and to avoid over indulging yourself with nuts have them in small proportion and stock away the rest. Another reason to avoid nuts in summer is that they produce heat in your body, which could result in heat boils. Go easy when snacking on these energy nibbles.

Learn about salads: They are no longer just sliced cucumbers, tomatoes and beetroot. Salads have evolved; restaurants have a wide selection of different salads. Indians are more open to feasting on salads as a meal. It takes less time to prepare and you can toss in anything you want even chicken and fish along with the greens. Add citrus fruits, chilled cucumber and fresh lettuce and you've got the perfect summer meal.

Try the chilled soups: Gazpacho is the first dish that comes to mind when you hear the words - chilled soups. But you can try out soups made of tomatoes, green peas and cucumbers; they are both cooling and refreshing. If you like beetroot, you should try chilled beetroot soup too. Healthy and refreshing, these chilled soups are the perfect starters on a hot and balmy summer night.

Enjoy fruits as desserts: Fruits cool the body, rejuvenate your cells, keep you hydrated, and taste like heaven on a hot summer day. Dice some fruits in a bowl, sprinkle some chat or cinnamon powder and you have an awesome dessert. Watermelon is the most sought after fruit when the sun is relentless.

Meet your summer crush - low fat yogurt: Dairy products are always a healthy option, provided they are low fat. Good for digestion and rich in calcium, you can have yogurt any way you like - whipped into lassi, sweeten with sugar or mixed with fruits. Yogurt is cheap and doesn't need a fancy accompaniment, but you do need a refrigerator to preserve the healthy bacteria.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-melbourne | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide

i think, you should stop going to italy, for one, oh **** me, keep going on hedonist ****-**** fests to places like mallorca, but stop going to italy, you're making my stomach ache from laughter, with what you come back with, the so-called "innovations"; somehow i'd just poach my cauliflower, and drizzle it with fried breadcrumbs, and serve it as a side-dish to fried eggs (2), and some tatties; for goodness sake, even cauliflower cream soup makes more sense, garnished with some fried chorizo!

first it was avocado on toast...
          who the **** puts avocado on bread?
i can imagine putting it in pasta...
but on bread?
                hey, what the **** does
the acronym f.a.d. mean?
             i don't know, and i won't google it...
o.k. avocado on toast...
              nothing near guacamole,
  but fair enough...
           but what i discovered... pushes
the button where i turn into a fox laughter
(fuchslachen) -
           i couldn't stop...
                      you can find it in the *weekend
section of the saturday times newspaper...
written by nicola m.
          cauliflower and mozzarella pizza...
you have to be ******* me...
                cauliflower? on pizza?
one of my housemates at university told
me an anecdote:
    i was in a restaurant once,
          and asked for a pizza with no cheese...
he continued:
      and then the head chef came out and
asked me... are you, insane?!
       a bit like: bread...    but no butter?
and i thought i was insane eating a watermelon
today, whole,
the red pulp, and the outer layers including
the skin included, allowing myself
a gorilla imitation cameo gimmick...
      but i thought i was mad...
but there's avocado on toast...
   and now... cauliflower on pizza...
                              it's a ******* side-dish!
wait, don't tell me... you're going to put
some potatoes onto the pizza the next frizz
comes along... right?
                      how about beetroot?
                         thankfully, if i have some
wacky ideas in terms of culinary escapades,
they happen, drunk, after 12a.m.,
and i'm the scientist, and the experimental rabbit
2-in-1...
                     a newspaper column?
apparently, you get one, putting avocado
on toast...
                 or cauliflower on a pi-zzzzz-ah...
to be honest, even though i haven't tried it,
grilled aubergines on a pizza could work...
   the toast?               marmite and cheddar...
english people should stop glorifying holidays
in italy... they're ****** cooks...
                   an italian would just look at
a pizza with cauliflower and say:          cosa?
i'd suggest heading to scotland first,
and picking up the vibes from some haggis.
**** me...
   avocado on toast...
                caulifower on a pizza?!
                           now i can die happy, 'appy,
clapping: encore!

"Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold." - From an essay by W. B. Yeats

Big heart,
wide as a watermelon,
but wise as birth,
there is so much abundance
in the people I have:
Max, Lois, Joe, Louise,
Joan, Marie, Dawn,
Arlene, Father Dunne,
and all in their short lives
give to me repeatedly,
in the way the sea
places its many fingers on the shore,
again and again
and they know me,
they help me unravel,
they listen with ears made of conch shells,
they speak back with the wine of the best region.
They are my staff.
They comfort me.

They hear how
the artery of my soul has been severed
and soul is spurting out upon them,
bleeding on them,
messing up their clothes,
dirtying their shoes.
And God is filling me,
though there are times of doubt
as hollow as the Grand Canyon,
still God is filling me.
He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,
the spider in its intricate web,
the sun
in all its amazement,
and a slain ram
that is the glory,
the mystery of great cost,
and my heart,
which is very big,
I promise it is very large,
a monster of sorts,
takes it all in--
all in comes the fury of love.

Wrestle me well, my love,
     For we were star-crossed enemies,
          And I miss you.

My shoulders miss your caring arms,
My lips crave your pale-red tongue,
     A slice of refreshment, watermelon,
My chest searches the rise of your chest,
And my torso longs only, and is only,
     For your leg locks.

     Grapple me and my lightweight heart,
     As the backbone of this world breaks,
     As the sun sinks into final submission,
          But I will never tap on this love out.

               Never.*

© 2017 J.S.P.

.i'm pretty sure that someone like Mozart, composed, in total silence, didn't hum out a tune, given that he had to micromanage symphony, or rather, the latter stage of polyphony - synchronization of all subsequent parts... whereby music was more optical in its genesis than people might like to believe... of course auditory in its exodus from the godhead, but... i'm pretty sure the composition process for classical music, would never amount to the sort of fun impromptu of jazz... must be a black privilege sort of, "thing" to have found jazz lying around...

how did the beatniks even believe that
a cross-generational mongrel of an art
form, fusing poetry with jazz could ever work?
robert pinsky still has the dream -
but it's a bit like:
      you think you can smoke marijuana
and listen to blues?
              not drink a drop of the devil liquor
and take blues seriously?
       just like sonny clark would have
said: 'if you don't shoot it,
     you don't smoke it'...
         given that... this is not stoner rock
type of wasp hive droning, humming,
heavily repeated rhythm...
              nothing wacky like
thievery corporation doing a live
rendition of the forgotten people
                                             live on KEXP...
what's that phrase?
    i feel monged -
   i.e. so ****** that you don't know
if it's a brain or a jelly,
         a stomach or krāng...
an 8th of an ounce could last me a week...
never mind...
   but how could they even suppose
that, somehow... jazz would dissolve
into acid jazz...
   that ****** variant you don't hear
in a jazz club...
   sure... the one up in Edinburgh was
jazz by name only...
       instead?
   one night i heard the cover
of neil young's song old man...
yeah... very ******* jazzy...
                what's next, a banjo quartet?
first jazz song i ever heard was
art blakey & the jazz messangers'
      opening track from the album
   of the same name - moanin'...
          SOLD...
           had to stash on some of the records...
but did i really want to speak over
the music?
             did i want to contaminate
the music and produce some ****** mash-up
akin to the beatnik experiment?
     *******... high on dope...
              never bothered to call jazz...
the black man's equivalent status of
what white man's classical music is...
     and where's jazz now?
joshua redman isn't exactly a lifejacket
when a boat with 20 is sinking...
jazz has been neglected...
    relegated as posh black boy music
heading off to Yale... wap... or wrap it up...
talk with a mouth but forget playing
the ******* horns, the sax...
              can't exactly see a revival...
   but would i really want to speak to this music?
feels a bit like talking over an opera...
made sense back then, makes little or no sense
now...
                    beside the point...
      there's still a heatwave in england...
every morning i wake up in a furnace -
    or as if attired in a metallurgy suit working
raw metals...
       and i always ask myself the question...
to rehydrate...
   would i rather eat half a watermelon,
or drink a big glass of water?
                         it's always the first.

Now watermelons are a wonderful treat
They're the very best food that I like to eat.
I wonder why we save them for special days
As for watermelons, I would gladly pay.

I'd pay whatever the cost might be
Just to savor the flavor of that delightful treat
Just thinking of them gives me shivers to my toes
There's nothing else that can even come close.

Their sweet juicy flavor just melts in my mouth
On a hot summer day, I just want to shout
As I feel the juice trickle down my dry throat
It's the very best feeling a food can evoke.

Watermelons, watermelons I'll praise you forever
You're the one dish I'll pass up, not ever, no never
When I'm thirsty and feeling ready for a drink
It's only of watermelons that I start to think.

It might be an icy cold winter day outside
But that doesn't stop me from wishing inside
Of ripe, red, tender watermelon flesh
Even though I know I must wait, I guess.

Wait until summer comes round once more
With its hot hazy days and humidity's high score
To see watermelons piled up to the sky
All ready and waiting for me to buy.

Now I'll tell you a funny story that happened to me
I was only twelve or so at the time, you see
Visiting a lady friend my parents had made
She  had two children about my same age.

She took us all down the freeway a ways
Til we got to a farmhouse with garden and hay
Beside was a river, fast-flowing and cold
The day was so hot we all made a bold

Run for the water to cool ourselves down
We had great fun splashing around like clowns
We jumped and screamed 'til so tired were we
We fell on the grass to rest and to breathe.

And then my eyes saw a rare surprise
The farmer began piling watermelons high
Watermelons, watermelons come one and all
It was a great party, as I readily recall.

We ate and ate as much as our tummies
Could hold of those watermelons, so yummy
We ate till our stomachs started to pop
It seemed that of eating, we just couldn't stop.

It was time to go home down the freeway so far
So we all hopped in my friend's beautiful car
But after just a few minutes of traveling along
Every one of us children sang a brand new song.

The song was quite funny, but no one was impressed
All we could think of was giving our bladders a rest
Bathroom, bathroom we all in chorus sang
We sounded like the little rascals gang.

But on the freeway, no exits were found
No ramps to see if a bathroom's around
What in this world could one conceive
To find some relief for the children that grieved.

Well, to make a very long story short
We found a bathroom but learned not to resort
To overeating watermelon when far from home
Too much watermelon makes your bladder groan!

it's a lot harder than you think.

you have to be from the South, like me
or the North, like I want to be
or somewhere entirely more interesting than Dallas
and you have to have the ginger gene
(because there's no way I'm having
blonde children)
and you have to like aquariums
specifically the seahorses

don't wear too much cologne or
pastels and don't ever smell like
frat parties, barbecue, or beer
and DON'T ever say that ballet is stupid.

you have to ask before we choose
the restaurant because I don't eat Italian
or Thai or Greek or Subway
and you have to hold the door open for me
even if we're in my own room.

listen to my monologues for class
and rattled-off to-do lists
as you lazily push the basket
and I grab it from you because you're going too slow
and mockingly call you a princess

know that I am busy, VERY busy
in fact so busy that I may not see you
because I am an independent woman
and there are stories to be built, dragons to be slayed,
and there are things my hands must finish
before I can start on holding yours

make fun of my Crocs
and the way I hiccup out of nowhere
and the days that I don't have time to eat breakfast
so I bring a Fuzzy's cup to class
full of off-brand Cap'n Crunch
shoving handfuls into my mouth between
snide remarks about Morrison
while you laugh inside your eyes
about what a cynic I pretend to be

hate me when I tell you
that I don't need a hug
and that I'd rather be dating Hemingway
or that I have rehearsal
painting cities, building histories

ignore my comments about you needing to shave
or on how I think I'd rather I'd never get married
and live the rest of my days writing stories
with organic vegetables and rainy days and
walks in the Carolinas

call me a ***** when I'm being one
(because I know I am about 97% of the time)
and tell me you would help me
if I would ever let you
whether it be Christmas lights or
physics lab or the gnawing pain
of lonely lonely lonely

let me read my books, propped up on
my pillows and nestled into a glaze
and let me have my expectations
of Rochesters and Darcys
even though I say I don't
and when I have to sew a blanket for class
and I say the stitching looks awful
tell me no, it doesn't
because I desperately want you
to know that my favorite color is lavender
and I love watermelon and stationery and
online shopping at 2 am
and I desperately want to know
your elementary school, your favorite song,
your middle name
even though I pretend I don't

and sometimes when I say I'm right
and you know that I know I'm wrong
just pick up your spirals and turn to leave,
then stop and say
"my favorite book is Gatsby, too."

and smile and call me crazy.

it's a lot easier than you think.

eagerly consuming the seedless watermelon leftovers from corporate victory picnics

Looking for the “watermelon girl” from Sam’s Club earlier. I thought you looked like you were planning a party, but maybe you just really liked fruit. I watched you put six melons in the cart and then make a call. You nodded and held the phone between your cheek and shoulder, adding seven more melons to the cart. One of them dropped and rolled towards me. I picked it up and gave it to you, joking, “Have enough yet?” (Stupid joke, sorry) You responded, “I hope so. She always loved melons.” Then I noticed the tears on your face. I left you to finish your conversation.

Anyway, I was the guy with the bad joke and the brown hair. Wearing a green button down and blue jeans. You were the girl with dark curly hair and a blue dress. And the watermelons.

I hope it ended up being enough. I hope you see this.

There is nothing better
In this world you’ll find
Than the stealing of watermelon
Straight from off the vine

Makes them even sweeter
If there’s a challenge to the cause
Being chased by buckshot
Or old man Jamison’s dog

Running cross an open field
One dangling from each arm
Just make sure you’re fast enough
Where you don’t buy the farm

Make it to the edge of woods
Count yourself as lucky
If both you and the stolen goods
Arrive at the scene Scott free

There’s nothing better in this world
That you my friend can find
Than in the stealing of watermelon
Straight from off the vine

deli meats and cheeses
i look past them at soft crinkling smiling faces


and i drink my java
warms up my hands and ******* and i sweat
in my coat


walking up and down the isles

I see trail mix
and sunchips

and sweet sweet sweets
the yummies

that i adore

chocolates
especially

dark chocolate cocoa orange cherry strawberry berry red brown

it's the sweetness and saltiness
of summer time ice cream

It's the cold crispness
of carrots and snap peas

It's the warmth and comfort
of big muffins and a plate of hashbrowns
at Perkin's
after a stressful morning



spice smells
of pad tai noodles


sourdough bread, fresh baked
crunch crunch on the outside
soft hot squish
inside
(save that part for me, i eat them separate
-you laugh)

how many times did we
laugh
about how you ate that bug
and we were never picky



cherries
all those cherries.





we ate nutella
on bread,

washed it down with cold organic orange juice
from a cafe neither of us had ever heard of

and tofu
tofu tofu

always cooked perfectly (we wondered how they do it)
(i still don't know)

chocolate, melting slowly

"you missed some."

-------just an excuse to kiss me.
i giggle


peanut m&m;'s

turn my tongue colors.

Watermelon at a potluck
wedding cake
cheesy potatoes
and an extra helping of bread
(we laughed so hard at the white bread, squished into a cube)

ruby red
made you wince

I drink it straight from the bottle
and smile

remembering every kiss
that tasted of grapefruit
in that tent

every kiss that tasted of salt
from the eggs?
or from the sweat on your lips

the sweat on your lips.

we kiss more
i smile into your lips
i remember that, especially

we never got sick of each other
nutella on everything, now.
especially on s'mores


i smile with every memory




i put my hands in pockets, the cold rushes to meet my face
in the ice cream aisle

i cool down as i graze
through the tubs or corn syrup and double churned triple churned
cream with extra fudge

sherbet

i chuckle to myself


memories memories
of sitting up high
with you,

sand on our toes
chocolate caramel fudge coffee
on our tongues

love

in our hearts


you remember.

the taste of that summer

so... ah ha ha ha...
what's the difference
between,
performing

                        oral ***
on a *******'s ******,
eating a heterosexual
"version" of an oyster...
and then...
   catching
Berlin's trans-
            -ex- "usual"...
   eat a watermelon?
you... you're seriously
going to call that
"fiddly bits"...
  originating from...
oh... right...
   bread & wine...
doesn't really begin
to cut it, for the church
attendence...
   sure... soak enough
bread in wine...
   it's still not going
to end up,
as crisp as a watermelon
and...
   all the minus worth
of giggles...
now,
i did think the channel
contra points was
weird,
when discussing incels...
but... this current stuff?
hector dejean...
i like art,
esp. when it's ******
inhabited...
   like... moving beyond
the danish girl
sort of canvas...
       yeah... oral ***
and eating fruit...
  if a phallus is a banana...
what's the best replica
of a ******?
ah... trick question...
if it's not a watermelon...
it can only be an oyster...
get the "paradox"?
sure, rhythm section
on the drums,
the guitar,
   and the hushed bass guitar
of a metallica track...
much more visible,
     when revised...
bass was there,
before the tragic death
of the original bass-player...
i'd love to visit berlin
though...
   trans-
     and... whatever "gender"
is...
          like:
people remember what
punk was all about?
   really?
                   i thought that
green day perfected
the approx. 30 minute LP
     extension, model...

point being...
  you can watch
the vinyl, spin...
   and...
   whatever EP you're
listening to,
a 35 minute side
finishes as much as
a 40 minute side on
the silence ripple
                         end...

                    me?
  i like to imagine
literature...
   in the Islamic world...
around 1955...
and the city of Tangier...
having "invited" itself
from h'america...

         i just can't forge
a reminder of h'american
literature,
   within the confines
              of östlichberlin...
i know the story
of westernberlin:
        an ****** epidemic...

and ****** is not
synonymous to opioid...
                  savvy?

Mongols in Warsaw...
pollack tongue
on the signs
    with Ukranian...
Ukranian smugglers
in the western-bus-station...

remind me though...
  a simple banana will
do for nuance
in gratifying a man...
what sea-farer is
to be made equivalent
to a banana?

    oral...
      testimony... mouth...
to genital interaction...
  last time i heard...
it was either full gob
and slurp and oily face
when bustring on the scene
of orange or other citrus
fruit...
    subtle variation
when it came to
ingesting an oyster...
    or nibbling
             on a watermelon...

well... we're talking
about, "the forbidden fruit"...
given that men were
circumcised in this
nomadic religion...
   and *******
was deemed taboo...
        because, why would you?
if you have been
circumcised,
yeah... ******* would
be kinda pointless...
well then...
  what if the metaphor of
Eden...
of the "forbidden fruit"
is actually associated
with performing oral ***?

what then?
      every time i ate a *****
i was thinking along
the lines of... oyster...
          orange, watermelon...
   given the ingenius
naivety of hebrew poetics...
i'm giggling...
   because i do think
that the, "forbidden fruit"
of Eden,
was...
     how casual eating out
***** is...
      hell...
a woman performs
     *******:
          a skyscraper is erected...

covert metaphor
is the standard base for verb...
esp. if it is
         overtly-nuanced:
                           niqab-stressed.

Well, why not me, I reasoned
(No surprise to friends and loved ones,
As I have always considered my time
On this spinning patch of rock
As something of a monument to the value of pragmatism)
But there were still the normal sine-wave vacillation
Between tenuous optimism and odds-driven grim reality,
Fanciful discussions of Chinese herbs and Mexican clinics
And, later still, of time frames and stock transfers,
All the while various folks attired in suits and clinic coats
Debating matters pertaining to the coda of my personal symphony
(Doing so as if yours truly wasn’t even in the room)
Until, deciding my input might be somewhat pertinent, I said
If it’s all the same to you, I would like to go home.

It was, in a sense, like getting back on an old Schwinn
(Fender dented, rubbing on the front tire just the least little bit,
The chain needing oil, grudgingly giving in
To the demands of the crank)
Sitting, unused but inordinately patient, next to the barn,
The whole notion of settling back into a pace you’d forgotten,
Like dialing back a metronome from allegro to andante
Without missing a beat or flubbing a note.
What’s more, there were the sensations you’d never made time for
While under the thumb of daily deadlines and train schedules,
Greeting you like friends you hadn’t seen for twenty years
But started gabbing with as easy as slipping on old jeans:
The scent of the lilacs, overpowering but borderline mystical,
The informal yet precise ballet of the cattails and jewelweed,
The fields of cows that, even though you know it can’t be the case,
Are populated by the same Bessie and Bossie
You taunted and pelted with watermelon as a child
(I have made it a point to proffer my apologies),
The dark, pine-choked hills,
Formidable but accessible, even comforting.
Sometimes, when I am not paying attention,
I catch myself all but tearing up,
And I say to myself, ever so softly,
As not to disturb the squirrels and the wrens,
I had almost forgotten.  Christ forgive me,
I had almost forgotten.


I’d assumed (sometimes, I can be astounded
At the full extent of my own foolishness)
That she would merely take a leave of absence;
She has, after all, an alphabet full of advanced degrees,
A rainmaker’s reputation and the billable hours to match.
Columbia and Harvard Law, after all,
But she grew up down the road just a piece in Ebensburg,
So this is all part and parcel of her as well
Hard coded in the DNA for better or worse, she’ll say,
All the while shaking her head and laughing softly.
Surely you don’t want to stay here, I’ll say,
Boorishly rational in the face of everything
Which would argue to be otherwise,
You’ve read enough Forbes and Fortune;
Altoona is dead, Johnstown is dying,
And she allows that, for a time, coming back
Was the source of some misapprehension on her part,
Until it dawned on her that on those rare occasions
It had occurred to her to glance skyward in mid-town,
She had seen faceless tiles of windows
Sufficient to sheet a Great Pyramid,
An Armageddon’s worth of angels and gargoyles in the cornices,
But she had not, even once, ever seen the stars.