There should be a genre of poetry called waste verse
tasteless and terse like the khaki pine needles that
litter the space underneath your porch.
a neglected place,
where the broken blue bottles and dew
marry in early morning ,
attended by a congregation of woodchips,
beers cans and
guinea pig ****
dancing easy with the morning breeze,
and carried like the currency of an early dreamer's reverie,
morning.

morning.

morning is gluing a teacup together knowing
that it will be broken tomorrow.
and day by day, the absence in form will grow
until that once teacup becomes nothing but empty space, with
its base designated in place of the back porch ash tray.
when i turned back one day, there was nothing left of its body
nothing left of it that i could see but paint dust, a couple of cuts
and some blood covered by a bandaid that doesn't stay on
because feet sweat a little too much.

morning is repetition for comfort
but breaking routine is
starting to feel more appealing
than keeping it,
because I know one morning I will wake alone,
with a rusted infrastructure and fractured backbone,
and have to look upon a screen with thousand texts that read,
"there are other fish in the sea"
well, *******, maybe he was my sea.
i mean,
he is my sea,
maybe.

there is a genre of waste verse called poetry,
and the simple syllogism of it all
leaves me reeling.
but after i finish my cigarette over the khaki pine needles
beneath your porch and go inside,
"good morning", i say.
"good morning", he said.
i cannot remember what was so important just a few moments ago.

morning.

I am from too long grass
that left muted green stains on my knees
From rock gardens overrun with punny yellow snapdragons
which delivered into my care all sorts of fascinating creepy crawlers

I'm from ash grey two by fours
which were all together fun to climb on
but gave nasty splinter when they were mad

I'm from the woodchips and sand
that provided me an elaborate landscape
in which to house my boundless imagination

I'm from the tail of sulfur smoke
that burned white hot through the crisp October Sky
and propelled my rocket to high heaven
or so it seemed to my eger eyes

I am from Thursdays
from green and red rhubarb leaves
and dirt under every fingernail
I'm from hurling half-rotten tomatoes
at the fence accross the ally
and running haphazardly from angry neighbors

I'm from lasagna and jell-o
candels on Christmas eve
and the squirt bottle of water
my only defense against ants

I am from obscure old families
who came over like so many others
and played the ***** in the secret choir loft above the church
I'm from woodwinds and piano strings
and never a silent moment
From reading aloud and reading alone
and from those who did the reading

I'm from the future and the present and the past of a million different stories
And I've always been headed towards
Where I'm from.

Happiness is the touch of my fingertip on your bowed-out lip.  
It’s the way that trying something new doesn’t feel like a monster with you.
It's letting the world have me, arms open, falling. Without censorship.


It’s breathing into the world, past the artificial growth of moist woodchips,  
And instead, to toppling trees and roaring forest fires that are sometimes considered overdue.
Happiness is the touch of my fingertip on your bowed-out lip.  


Sometimes things have to die to be made anew. Like an eclipse.
That’s how it feels with you.  
So new that I’m rhyming in my poetry. Like a horror story. . . without censorship.


Happiness is the touch of my fingertip on your bowed-out lip  
Or a framed portrait of a happy ending, but drawn only in baby blue.
I’m holding the feeling on my chest and watching you cradle it like a silk slip


Or a baby birds nest. You might drop it
And if you did, I wouldn’t blame you.  
That’s what unconditional feels like. Without censorship.


Mine turned yours, then turned sour, with every hour, spent split
And that empty void, of a screen, in between, everything you're deaf to.
The world gives me back, curled up and broken bit by bit.
Happiness is the touch of your fingertip on my bowed-out lip.

Perhaps it’s the chemicals
In the mulch
Or the heat of the sun
Or that it’s Friday
But I want to grip monkey bars,
Just once

Hovering over
freshly baked plastic
and burn my ***
Or scream that I’m it and
slap some chubby bully kid-
run like the cool wind
Thank gosh I am quick.
Impress Kylie with my
Kickball Kick
Or cry on the swings-
the playground’s gallows,
When I learn she is moving

come the fall.

Leaves roll in,
dragged in waves across pavement
Queens of the universe
speed by
late for classes in some far off world where there is no recess

But my time
is kept
by bright bells
The clanging of metal,
distant shrieks,
Tall red beams and
lines of dumb ducklings.
It begins with a voice
And ends with a sliding slam of
a Silver Chrysler door
It is sustained by light thunder
Of feet pounding woodchips
Leaving dust in the seams of jeans
My mother bought me at Kohl’s last week.

An endless cycle spins around
You dangle your legs off the merry-go-round.
Look down, the woodchips blur past;
Until it slows, your only hope
Is to hang on for dear life,
Grasp the metal pole so clear
While foliage and faces blend
Until the world has narrowed, bit by bit
To the merry-go-round you are seated upon.

Tripping up the stairs,
looking out the window
smelling barley, corn and rye.
Trees make patterns
interchanging with birds in the sky.
Sun beats down upon your head
sit, counting ants,
with a stick, poke and ****,
throw rocks in the pool.
Boulders scream to be jumped off of
into water of shiny cyan blue.
The smell of summer in the air,
Trapped *****, caught fish
All is still and calm.
It's these simple thing
that keep us apart
my trust in you
guides me through the dark
When I look ahead,
all I see is reflection.
Walls of mirrors
infinite to perfection
It's out of reach,
this dream of mine
over the edge of
i
  n
    s
      a
        n
          i
            t
              y

Trees make patterns
against the backdrop of the sky.
Throwing shadows,
casting hiding spots
for those who wish not be seen.
Turning invisible any
seeking shelter.
Screening out sunrays,
dappling lukewarm oases
over woodchips and detritus
like pancake syrup.
Let’s play camouflage in the forest.

Eight years old beaten and bruised,
He fled from the house, lost and confused,
Running just running without a thought where,
A child seeking refuge in frigid night air,

He ran for a year, or perhaps just an hour,
Till he ran out his anger, and with it his power,
Casting about him alone in the dark,
He found himself trembling in a dead silent park,

A low haunting hoot cut through the night,
The poor lonely boy shivered in fright,
Cold and exhausted, alarmed by the sound,
He hurried along to a nearby playground,

Clearing the woodchips he lay down below,
A bed in cold dirt and a mind full of woe,
He lay there for ages, unable to sleep,
Then it started to rain and he started to weep,

Earth turned to mud, thunder was crashing,
And all through his shelter water was splashing,
The boy was soon soaked, sodden and drenched,
Sobbing curled in a ball, all bravery quenched,

He cursed his mad mother, he cursed the cold rain,
He cursed his bad life, he cursed all his pain,
The night ate his words and he started to pray,
For the sweetness of sleep to bring him the day,

He lay there for ages, wet to the bone,
The soft dirt beneath him colder than stone,
Stiff beyond movement he merely drew breath,
So done and defeated he wished only death,

And then he awoke, the black sky tinged grey,
Gave a cry of relief at the sight of the day,
He rose slow to his feet and shook off the night,
Stood numb in the chill air and waited for light,

Birds were soon singing to greet the fresh dawn,
He joined them with relish, his misery gone,
A golden glow crested, the day had begun,
He fell to his knees in the face of the sun.

Whack! Whack!
His mother’s heels click down
On to the hard wood floor
He claims to be Cinderella
His father looks down
And his first emotion is fear
For his young son’s life
It won’t be easy
He bends down
Picks him up and holds him tightly
“My beautiful son,
Be back before midnight”

Whack! Whack!
His bat strikes the baseball
For his first home run in Little League
His heart was never in it
But his father encouraged him
To try new things
And his mother is his biggest fan
He starts to notice
How tight baseball shorts are
They’re not very comfortable

Whack! Whack!
Towels leave bruises in the locker room
He laughs at his teammates
Running from his quick wrist
And wet towel
He’s the starting quarterback
And they just won states
He was voted
Homecoming king

Whack! Whack!
His heart duels against his ribs
The first time he kisses another boy
It’s nothing like the girls
There’s a new rush in his blood
His mind is in space
And his stomach in his throat

Whack! Whack!
He brings the axe down hard
Sunburnt metal splitting fibers
Sending woodchips everywhere
His father making him learn
The lesson that only hard work can teach
Nothing worth having comes easy

Whack! Whack!
The hammer comes down on the nail
As he finishes his daughter’s swing set
He watches through the window
As his husband
Hands her the first slice
Of her birthday cake
She just turned five
A number you didn’t get to see

They say when you die
Your life flashes before your eyes
They don’t say
It’s always your past

Whack! Whack!
His mother’s heels click down
On the hard wood floor
He claims to be Cinderella
His father looks down
And his first emotion is fear…

Whack! Whack!
His fists clench
Whack! Whack!
They come raining down
Whack! Whack!
He can’t seem to get away
Whack! Whack!
Why can’t you be a man
Whack! Whack!
Why can’t you be a man.
Whack! Whack!
Why can’t you be a man!

Why can’t you!?
You were his father!
And you
Were his mother!
You broke a child
When you were supposed
To build him up
So now the world
Had to bury his dreams in pieces
Shattered like glass slippers
You were afraid of him
While we
Would have loved him

His name was Zachary.
Zachary Dutro-Boggess.
I wrote your name
Onto a piece of paper
And folded it into a daisy
Because something beautiful
Had to come out of your story
Your birthday curled down
Over one of the petals
3 days before the day you died
You turned 4 years old
I wonder what you wished for
When you blew out your candles
I wonder what you wished for
When you first met God
Way too young
And he showed you
What love really was

There are small moments in my life
where the waking world
slows to a dialogue.
Asking to let the river come.
To wash away the sawdust
from woodchips
set to a fine puree
in the blending of my heart
sounding off midst thunderstorm
midst sun shower
midst silence
midst hunger pang
midst every hungry lover and everything in between.
A little mental friction
for a lot of features
content to become words.
Sounds that become symbols
becoming a box.
Express delivery
intending to deliver me.
Here, here, it’s here finally.
Talking to flowers
I feel guilty for having starved;

"Wake up little ones,
the bees thank you for breakfast
their queen sending her regards in all in an instant.

Heralding her approach  with a question,
"If ever body of water is the same then how come we give them different names?"
My insides swell as the pitcher empties
a cascade of the liquid life force each of our bodies are known to contain.
Despite all the knowing,
despite the constituents of our anatomy being hardly a mystery
I still find myself capable of pondering a stranger's.

Even stranger to think of any beauty before me
as a complex wave function.
trinkling into my sight on waves of light
like water over hungry flora hoping to make something of those same waves.
She's here
the queen's words shining in every droplet
and they say,
"given enough time stars become people, becoming you,
becoming a cog in the clockwork that becomes the reason
we thrive."
Reminding me, though the light may play tricks with my sense,
anything anybody else ever has told me about beauty has been a lie.
This is THE soul reason to even be bothered to write this dialogue down.
So I may lie to you.
An open book so you may be certain.
Have you ever been so certain of something?

It seems all that could ever be true is the royal you.
Sliding perspective's scale over a notch
you become the queen's resolution,
laboring to unify a single mind
and the world becomes you
watering flowers out of guilt.

Transforming what you know to be most real,
washing over you  
like seredipity on a day
where everything has gone wrong,
into right
into a dialogue
into you
into everything
and back.

It’s the sound of old, pop-punk blaring through my car speakers at two in the morning.
It’s the way my breath becomes visible late at night.
It’s the sound of our shoes on the woodchips in the park.
It’s the smell of grape Swisher Sweets in our hair and the taste of ****** tobacco on our tongues.
It’s the oversized hoodies.
It’s the neon beanies.
It’s the energy drinks.
It’s the last minute bonfires.
It’s the deep talks on the swings.
It’s the way your hand felt in mine.
It’s the way you felt in my arms.
It’s the sound of our laughter, dripping with the inevitability of the future.
It’s the feeling of growing up.
It’s the feeling of not wanting to grow up.
It’s the changing leaves.
It’s the morning frost.
It’s the end of summer.
It’s the start of tomorrow.
It’s over.

-trj

it's an age-old quandary
posed in introductory
classes on physics and philosophy
pray tell
what happens when
an unstoppable force
meets an immovable object

at first
such inquiries struck me as
existential exercises on the
paradoxical nature of language
and the circumstantial limits
of our reality which i found
to be little more than petty frivolities
after all
this existence is comprised of
nothing less and nothing more
than subjective perceptions catalyzed
by our own eyes and

while i've since come to realize that
there are no black and white solutions
only grade shades that obfuscate
manichean and simplistic versions
of the truth
i must admit
i think i've found an answer
to this question that might
just be foolproof

because i've already met an unstoppable force
it's personified in her twin twilight eyes
that rotate like intertwined galaxies
in a nocturnal dance of evanescent starlight
manifest in the mischief that burns
as white-hot and bright as hydrogen fusion
every time she smirks at me

and if she epitomizes the
extravagant intensity of a
runaway train that refuses to be stopped
or a knockout punch that cannot be blocked
then i myself am her counterpart
an immovable object
solemn and sober at a standstill
withstanding an onslaught of elemental
cacophanies that shake this very
planet to its molten iron core

still i remain the silent sentinel
a giving tree
ancient
ageless
vigilantly awaiting her impending earthquake
which will shake and shatter this forest
of fools and frauds about me who reach
outstretched limbs like thieves and liars
she is a hurricane uprooting craven mentalities
and when all the barren woodchips are
spread about the vicinity i shall stand strong
on the mountain peak with those alliterative words
carved into my wooden feet

i'm "bent
but not broken
hanging on by a thread"
and while we might invent
a trillion reasons to steel
our resolve and refuse this
addiction once and for all
i can think of one monosyllabic
four-letter word that gives us
an excuse to do just the opposite
one that is as rare as it as pure
at once precious and effervescent
it is the cousin of faith and hope
but greater still and it gives us a
reason to fight when we cannot seem
to cope with a world tightening
nooses of rope around our throats

so kick the chair
my neck won't snap
and when they come to cut me
down they'll ask me
"after all this time"
i will conjure my
patronus in your image
as the word "always"
anoints on my lips like your kiss

like evolution or the Big Bang
this eternal question must have
an answer buried deep
waiting to be unearthed
and it begins
as always
with a simple hypothesis

were we to meet again beneath
the moonlight the way we did
three hundred and sixty-five days ago
on a rooftop in a distant neighborhood
i wager it would be a bad idea
dangerous and reckless
but our affection would become unbreakable
as we coalesced in ethereal bliss

so
while i do not yet know
what happens when an unstoppable force
crashes into an immovable object
try asking me again tomorrow
so i have time to conduct
some experiments
and i just might have
a more scientific answer

but
then again
it is only a
hypothesis

Skywoman fell from her world above with seed in her hand. The muskrat, dead of life, clenched mud in its paw, its final offering so Earth could become. It all begins with soil and seed. Soil, a micro universe of life sustaining life. Seed, the tiny carriers of stories and sustenance. Two rich and sacred beings I will learn well in my life. My fingers have placed many seeds into cells packed with fertilized soil, placed many seeds straight into the Earth. I have watered them, transplanted their strong roots and promising sprouts, tended to them, harvested their food body and been nourished by their flesh. Soil and seed are the foundation of all plant life, and thus, the foundation of us. Their cells become our cells. Their fiber scrubs our bodies clean of waste and sin. They are the Earth's lungs that breathe life into our lungs. Skywoman fell with seed in her hand. Seed from another world, her offering to a place not originally her home. Turtle Island is not the home of my ancestors. I feel discomfort in the thought of tending to land that was brutally stolen. I find solace in the story of Skywoman. Through her steadfast dedication and reciprocity with the land, Turtle Island welcomed Skywoman in, let itself become her home by its own choice. Her offering of seed a promise to be its tender, its stewardess. Although this Land of Turtle Island is not the roots and soil of my Ancestors, we are all inhabitants of a greater Earth. Through the waters and the mycelial network buried under the old growth forest, I can reach to where my great, great, great, great grandparents stewarded land and tended to beast alike. Their stories are not lost to me, and although I may not know them in the form of words, they are, like the plants, the cells, blood and bone of my being. They comprise the very physical structure and spiritual essence of who I am. And so although this Land of Turtle Island will never be my ancestral home, I can only pray to become its native in time, by its choice, by its welcome. My ancestral home is Earth, as it is for all human life. All of the two legged beings that came before me have foot-printed her soft soil, swam in her rivers, and returned their naked bodies deep in the ground to be food for worms and microbes that digested both their skin and stories. These pieces of human life nourish the soils where wild ramps and fiddleheads grow, where wine berries burst in color, and where carrot seed roots itself sweet and deep. What are we but food for the impeccable microbial universe present in each and every handful of soil? If I work in this life to make my body, my flesh, my muscle, my blood, the most nutritious food for the micro beings to consume and put to new use when I am placed naked and free back into the ground, then I will have done part of my duty. May I one day be potent medicine for them. My duty, next to nourishing the microbes when my heart no longer beats, is to tend to this land as home, healer and relative. One day there will be land that I need, and it will find me, and I will work each day to know and tend and feel and understand that land like my own very body. Until that day, and still after, I will build upon my own heart and mind a beautiful layer of compost and woodchips to breakdown and become rich, soft soil. Soil that retains and builds nutrients and water, is beautifully aerated and loamy. I will build that world within myself so I can extend it outward to every seed I touch, every wild and cultivated food I harvest. And, when that land comes to allow me to tend to it, my offerings will be of humble, hard work. Of service. My work will be to become its native. May the birds know the beat of my footsteps like they know the beat of their own hearts. May the coyotes and the rabbits and the groundhogs and squirrels know my scent the way they know the scent of the wildflowers that have bloomed alongside them year after year, decade after decade. May the soil know the salt of my sweat that has dripped into its universe every day from April to October under the heat of the Sun. May my salts and electrolytes mix with their world, day in and day out, until they need me, too, to survive. May I be as integral to the system as every bee that pollinates the flowers, every frog that eats the bugs, and every fungus that consumes the dead leaf particles and turns them into fertile forest floor for the ferns and other fauna to emerge in ecstasy and vigor. The flavor of this place will be as diverse as the many worlds that collide and coalesce to create it. And I yearn for the day to know the shade of golden yellow of the butter that comes from the cream that separated from the milk that comes from the cow that’s been nourished by the land we have inhabited and fell in love with together. One day I will know just by the subtle change of the smell of the breeze that the magnolias and daffodils are about to blossom. I will know the sweetness of my carrots and green beans, the lingering smell of garlic scapes on my hands after plucking them in May. But first I must make a home of myself. First, my own body, mind, spirit, must be tended to with such adoration and respect and beauty and brilliance. So I will start there…becoming native to my own body. Becoming home to my own self.

Home

The taste of granite flushed her mouth,
Felt like brittle sand between her teeth,
And she grimaced harshly,
Blaming the crust on her teeth for her situation.
Her knuckles cracked as she pulled her hands into fighting fists,
Her heart beat sung cruelly in her ears as she stared,
Black eyes dancing in unanswered danger,
At the large looming presence in front of her.

She could die,
Truly die, splat, gone, disappeared,
Wind howling with her absence,
Never to be seen again.
And she didn't know how to feel about that,
Was undecided,
Twisted and curled and gnarled in darkened thoughts,
Couldn't quite wrap her fragile mind around reality.

She was walking,
Back and force, pacing with side stepped tracked expectancy,
Eyelashes swaying like whiskers in the wind,
Cold eyes opened and ready to see the end, the coast to her city.
Her feet clacked like a horse's hoof beneath her,
Her shoes, never cleaned, smelt quite similar to a horse too,
Musty, sweaty, *****, filled with unleashed stench,
But she did not plug her nose.

The smell was hers to disgust on,
She embraced it.

She tucked stray hairs behind her angled and alert ears,
Letting calloused and shredded hands do such a gentle action seemed wrong,
As if they only mimed the part they were meant to fit,
Even though they had been her hands for as long as her hands existed.
Her eyes raised slowly, in key with the slow moving sunrise,
She gazed in mesmerised and petrified wonder,
At the unveiling scene of terrified beauty before her,
It didn't seem real.

She dropped her arms in shock and amazement,
The two falling tactlessly beside her sides with the agility of a ragdoll,
She found herself walking on slightly bent legs,
Towards the glorious picture.
A child, no older than four,
Demon eyes the colour of the blood,
And silver hair the colour of the moon's reflection on the sea,
Lifted out a curious arm with gentle innocence.

The child was not normal,
Though neither was she with her black eyes and doomed expression,
They fitted together, their palms folding like two clashing pieces, and slotted seamlessly,
She had thought her hands would fall off if they ever touched another.

Why was this boy so special,
And why did she not hate him for it?

She lifted him into her arms with a maternal grace she had never understood,
Tugged him close until his small plump face rested on her clothed chest,
Could hear his gentle and fragile heartbeat thumping softly against her squished torso,
Banging harmlessly against her ribcage.
She felt tiny hands play with her straight locks of hair,
Running fingers through the tragic art of her style,
Sniffing the smell of unwashed hair,
Of unbathed pale skin exposed to the elements.

The little boy's nose did not wrinkle as expected,
He did not appear to think she smelt of horse like her shoes.

The little boy smelt of woodchips, of forests, cooked chicken, and clean air,
He was far too precious for her to be holding,
But she couldn't seem to let go,
Not once she had him.
He brought his butterfly soft lips to her ear,
Gently brushing hair away from the opening,
And whispered softly, as if he had no idea how glorious the words were,
Against her shoulder and into her heart.

“I'm home, right?”

He rolled the words over his tongue,
Tasting them like fine wine,
As if he could not believe them himself,
And she could only hold him tighter.

A shoestring girl
Curled up in an attic
Who’s remembering a family
That’s picture-perfect
Using the dust
To form a father
A lively one
Who’s supportive
That hugs a doll
Made of scraps
A mother
Who loves
Without condition
That’s always scolding
Two brothers
A pair of woodchips
Who run all-day
On a concrete drive
Which lays in front
Of a cookie-cutter
Home
Whose neighbors laugh
And play outside
Where everyone smiles
Free of worries
About the future
Or what will change
Because the memories
Of that shoestring girl
Were morphed to be
Picture-perfect
Through an adolescent
Mind
Full of ignorance

once upon a time i would look into the mirror
with a... curiosity of water...
sometimes i'd turn on the tap...
sometimes i'd block the plughole...
sometimes i looked at the "drowning" man
as a lake... sometimes as a river...
sometimes i'd come back with
concepts of time...
sometimes i'd come back with
concepts of: what if music didn't exist...
i'd cite no music at all...
but the comparison of the sound
of falling rain on a tin roof...
or on an umbrella... or in a heavily
leafy forest against the... snares...
   all that for a monotone crescendo...
that... if listened closely...
could spit out an A♯ and all the other
black notes...
                    that is, indeed, too intricate
and overbearing with detail...
but then a paragraph by Dickens really...
all those Victorian excuses for
keeping the language as cordial as possible...
never mind the archaic and obsolete
terms like... nearing celeriac...
yes... indeed...
                 ce-le-ri-ty:
                       swiftness...
etymology: via French celerite -
evidently from Latin: celeritas / -tatis...
                            celer (also latin): swift...
back to the mirror...
but only today...
      occupied by a mirror in a supermarket lift...
and all that could become about
from a trial and run period of...
the Chinese were never to be the Mongols...
there was never a horde... coming...
not from behind that wall...
not from under their overtly complex
ideograms that would be chewed and spat
out as nothing more than Li Po:
syllables: because... who the hell could
have heard of the concept of letters
in this Mars upon this Earth?
            that they: SHua and SHea
and CHow a lot...
                           or... this is what Ezra Pound
could have forgotten...
     ยิ้ม (which is in thai... yummy yim...
because of beijing and ****)...
                     wei-xia(o) - better in cantonese...
mei-siu...
             :) when borrowing
egyptian hierogylphs to steal some owl,
sparrow... cenobite from the chinese...
it's almost staggering how they didn't conjure
up pyramids of architecture...
instead: just a plain ******* roof...
this is a dog: こう
                   yep... here's the dog: 구
and here's the barking: woof woof! ワン

you're telling me... that the chinese could...
become the sort of empire the mongols
carved out?
and how long... before they could...
start breeding their slaves and lackeys...
who could understand them...
or read what they would have to necessarily
write?
         looks pretty in that mandarin...
but back in latin: gou... jugou...
              it's not like they could... or would...
because infiltrating this labyrinth of:
and only coming back with the primitive
latin of lady gaga... all those strokes for a syllable
and no letter...
there much be a dictionary of strokes...
an Ab - Ba
             Ac - Ca - but not really...
                  just in case anyone might need
to be reminded: Xi Lo and Li Po and Xi Jinping...
there is gold in the yellow river...

anyways... i ramble on like any self-respecting
european does: the power of perception
and the subsequent fictions / narratives...
just as important as the facts... of geometric rigour...
anything outside their realm is
either fake news or equal to the Valentinian heresy...

you can't move this sort of a literary
backage and turn it into a body of water of men
and horses bows and arrows and steel...
not with those sort of phonetic encoding...
which is why... the Mongols are currently
resurfancing with their old alphabet...
i dare say i can't imagine what it could
possibly look like... not the sort of crude
Thai... when compared to the genius-head
of mandarin, by comparison?
                 but if you're trying to... "wage war"...
and all you have is...
the proverb: the chinese would merely
have to march to conquer us...
you wouldn't even have enoug bullets...

        well then... atomic bombs are crescendo
pieces... they don't really sell more guns...
just brooms, shovels, bricks and cement...
and a hunger for licking eternal shadows
of the eternal sun of boom...

a minor haitus from mammalian pride...
   this little gremlin has learned the oldest
trick in the book...
   it will mutate and probably not evolve
to gain a proper mouth with teeth
and a tongue... or a leverage of a limb...
but all that cosmopolitan pride: mammalian...
the graces of writing a letter...
the bestowed angelic choir when wining
and dining...
the virus... and the bottleneck pressure
of the hive...
   the glorious mammal... having to...
look more closely at the little gremlin...
i see no symptom: of lilac mushrooms growing
out from under armpits and between toes
filled with killer toxic ****...
     the ant, the former ape...
the hive...

                           you are most certainly
a mammal and ape and all that comes with
darwinistic ideology...
but... smell it? it's not fear... it's not panic...
it's: a precautionary lullaby...
i agree: it's not quiet a hive...
a hive is a concentration of gravity...
this is still but a herd... much difference
to be grasped: between a herd...
and a hive...

                a herd might as well roam...
a hive: nests...
sending out its most potent examples to ward
of intruders...

   or there are two languages: there's the formal
and the informal...
but there's also all that beauty in...
what's to be said: readied for rhetoric...
and one to be: thought about...
                      theta-omicron-upsilon-gamma"eta"tau...
clearly there's no borderline number
of a letter of spelling that's a H(atch) in
greek... less so when is comes to ψ
and the passive π  with an otherwise silverback
"alpha male" of... "sickly steve": σ...
old as a solipsistic **** (the grateful dead...
st. stephen)...

    or if i were chinese... i wouldn't really require...
the distinction...
since... i'd have to burden myself with
the tools akin to chopsticks... or if i was really...
really sadistic... and tiger mommy...
two toothpicks and a mountain of dry rice...
to... allign into a straight line...
take your pick!

but it must be the hong kong fashionista trend...
it must be... wearing surgical masks...
when... going "shopping" for some woodchips
and whiskey?
i'm giving my hands a baptism in the earth...
i'm gardening... spring cleaning of the house
has taken... extreme... transcendent meanings...
but at least i'm not doing what was
otherwise done: doughnuts and blockjobs
and netflix binging...

mind you: i must have been deserving to...
finally get around to reading some Dickens...
this is not a parody...
a parody would be...
            Mabel - don't call me up...
singing live at the Brit awards...
              and the most important vestige of
anything that matters happened today...
two crows were foraging the lawn for
an equivalent of carboot oddities...
the odd twing 'ere... the odd twing v'er...
ever wonder why...
you will never see crows...
fill the whole scene with a sense of ****?
all the time... the ***** pigeons...
was good sure... that those feathers shouldn't
come off and the niqab should be attired?

i too am waiting for a miracle...
a muslim woman wearing a niqab all in white...
then again... where's my imagination...
concerning ******* gloryholes and
b.d.s.m. thrills! michael jackson's: ye-he!
yes... no lasso with that plump iceberg of
juicy beef... but it's there for the taking...

and that i drink... of course... that 35cl shot is...
there's more need for spontaneity than rhyme...
all this is hardly my kind work of edit...
where is rhyme in either frank o'hara or charles
bukowski...
it's not even waiting for a hint of inspiration...
it's: chicken scratches... and scratches...
and then... wow!
magic... a rhyming couplet at worst!

allure of last night...
    i can clarify...
                   i'm less enchanted by a fear of the "evil"
man... at there's a purpose and foremestly: a resolve
involved...
   a chaotic purpose of will...
which... even if the evil deed is willed...
is suddenly dispersed into the realm of phenomena
and chance and gambling and...
"darwinism"...
       the truly man can be forgiven...
in tha consequences of what comes...
alongside the arbitrary...
         but this leeching middle-man...
              the "fox"...
                     the ***** hands that forget
to sense a mind for a worth of soap...
  the peculiar mundaneity of horror bound
to the everyday scrupules of:
keeping up expectations...
that worst form of acting: lying without gravitas...
and a stage... and a purposively alligned
audience for the part... always prescripted for
the awaiting encore galore!
                   3rd party associates of evil...
the evil that simply... "asleep" or... "associated with"...
that sort of *******...
just shreds... the hopes of Cain seeking redemption
as a nomad... hostile: outcast...
just like his father... Adam...
              
                 Adam was cast out...
Cain bit the second apple of Abel... blah blah...
simple arithmetic of images...
the ***** of Siberia: one might conjure up...
with the devil's dozen of wolves of Blagoveshchensky
district...

yes... and at this point in time:
rather than history... history will always provide
the allure of studying human affairs...
time: like... fire... like water...
like earth and its geology...
   is the... given that lightning is the...
allure of the Faraday's fire... blitz-krieg...
me this language and a happy family!
ha! ah ha ha!
me this language and... peacocking in
a nightclub... out-takes from a *****-flick...
one *****-stars playfully ****-gags another...
the one being gagged is responsive
to the joke that begins and ends with...
the punchline... an oasis of the vernacular:
BA-NA-NA...
           toast! here's to me trying my rupture
of an artery in the phallax formation
with an ingestion of some...
spandex ballet... a ****** and a bass woo
of a barry white...

       like: "oops" was supposed to presuppose
the grand event of... the big bang...
"bang" a concept so devoid of meaning
when being introduced to a vacuum of... time
has to be an element... akin to fire...
akin to water... air and earth...
and... Prometheus didn't exactly steal...
a lightnig bolt... did he?
he didn't exactly steal an atom heatwave from
Chernobyll... did he?

- but only now...
              time... mythology: too much time has
passed... and there's a geological layering
of furthering the will of man...
and the recycling of paper...
time... history: bookworms more or less:
"there"...
time... journalism...
                and the self-employed free agents
of time... "poo'ets"...
               at least...
what "standing out of" all time... and space?
time i can can understand...
but space?
here's me standing outside of all space:
a bullet-point...                                           ).(
   and (.)           ****... how about...
the exclamation marker                               !
or the question mark                 ?
sure as ****... these would require the "diacritical"
mark of distinction more than
i which is already an I so can be ı
j which is already a J so can be ȷ
but the ! and ?
                            well...

mirror mirror on the wall... poor sam...
      Dickens would have someone swap
their Vs for the Ws and vice versa...
             if it wasn't poor Sam... the shoe-shiner...
and some other vague shadow personage...
but let's assume i have an IQ of 100+ and
i can keep up with a victorian text...
for this poor some swapping his Vs for his Ws...
comes up with... a breakdance of...
latin via: amicus curiae and...
                ad captandum...
            standing outside of all time... and space...
looks like heidegger's hammer
had a precursor...
     a shoeshiner had all these...
maxim prefixed readily available rhetorical pivots...
to shut people up: if they were being
too... "inquisitive"...
well outside of time... hardly...
if there are pockets of space that are somehow
synonyms with each other...
and that before time is given a linear: "forwrd"
it has a period of: "jumping" to-and-fro...
of being glued and at the same time
wanting to be... glued in a diluted sense
of the word...

it must be a Hong Kong catwalk summary...
before long i was much younger...
20 (circa)... now that i'm 30 (circa)...
and there's this surgical mask hiding my face
but still exposing the beard and the puffy rinds
that do encrust the eyes to peep...
well...

it had to become apparent...
the old curiosity of water is... driftwood...
now i stand before the mirror and
puncture the skin for the long "lost" embryos
of Beelzebub's jist: jazz: jizzom...
cuckload of fly ***** of maggot on my face
in the form of acne...
           there was once the sort of inquiry
an antonym of my specimen could share with me...
and be attracted to...
now i use the mirror for only one purpose...
hardly me about to romance a vampire
and... "disappear"...
but the surgical mask helps...
i don't see a quasimodo...
i see a furnace of a Frankenstein's adam
with pupils of coal and an iris of fire
to peer at and with...

                            whatever a god might have
cursed me with... i'll add salt...
then i'll add the vinegar...
  then i'll sprinkle some sand on the "wounds"...
and later call it:
the crackle of cement before the moans
of mud...
            
***** pigeons... always with the ***** pigeons...
it ends with ***** pigeons...
and of all of them... the spectacle of being
rejected...
i'm guessing... the clarity of rook morality...
being akin to the morality / NOBILITY
of swans...
                 since you will not see them...
eagerly displace their courtship... in the plain sight
of day...
    the rook and the swan...
will you ever see the nightly troubles of keeping...
a... vested interest in surrogate motherhood...
in surrogate fatherhood...
in the widower swan?

                                        as fallen as i am...
there are most certainly more noble creatures
abiding in my exfoliating noun terminology of verbs:
like attaining the halo of a manicure...
rather than... random beating with a beak
a... clue to how wings do not translate as arms...
oh that perpetual hunchback of:
grace with flight... but bowing before every step
of a walk... that man admires the flight of birds...
but cannot see... all... well...
who cannot excuse the jitters of hopping sparrows...
the gift of flight... but being humbled when curious
about nails... gravity... and earth and... rotations...
of heliocentric grandeours!

language: otherwise known as the swedish banquet
table for peacocks... baboons and...
lipsynch.      parrots! joe wooden leg in tow!
joe wooden leg... bartanblondine was asking for a
"whittle talk" with a barbarossa...

just saying.

I miss the stripteases,
Even the arguments--
Less bitter than the loneliness.
It takes so long to make a friend,
Even longer
To adjust to experience.

You are your mother's eyes,
Her innocence and guile,
Gossip of the single-chair salon.
She say count
Your friends on fingers,
One hand held behind your back.

You were young and casual,
The bed post carved and whittled,
Woodchips on the floor,
Not wanting to be known,
Or even placed in memories.

Forgetting was the great effect
Of the twelve packs
And occasional *******,
Swearing by its value--
While I, some freakish lobe,
Remember every ******* thing.

You never knew how to need love,
With its circumstances,
Gift of the restless father,
A long train ride
Into thin air,
Some years a summer visit.

Rooms with moving pieces--
Morning's unmade beds,
Disenfranchisement of the afternoon,
The self-help hucksters
And baloons--
Children waiting.

Transition of your oldest friend,
Beside you in your husband's arms--
Before they both are gone.

eyes wide open
but they're gently shut

vermillion eyelids
and the smell of warm...

dusty dirt-caked hoola-hoops
and birthday barbecue hotdogs,
lines of black and smoke-saturated hair

10-year-olds on roller blades, bicycles, and scooters, dropping f-bombs and kicking pebbles.

suburb golf carts
and splintery playground woodchips
waft through the leafless pencil-like trees

daydreams of sun-naps on the sidewalk,
when we would watch the shadows of ants march across the cracks with driveway-chalk hands...

saying "no no no" with a warning tone
as she tries to lick year-old sticky ice cream stains from the pavement

that new house smell
somehow being better than you remember it

summer's grand re-opening

and we're all here,
then, now, and waiting.

there's something about

a cardinal, flitting across

saturated woodchips after

a downpour.

as if throwing back air in a

looksy of: fly.

whose tree cover tantalizes

a resonance that treats the peace

between wetness & color.

step one
to fall in love is to be expounded deep beneath the sea floor
imagine yourself with the entire ocean waiting patiently behind eyes
did you know that the average window is three thirty seconds of an inch
and the water at the bottom of the sea has a pressure over one thousand times that of the standard atmosphere
windows to the soul, you never stood a chance

step two
elucidated complicated and delicate
as if there was ever the option, but your mind will always romantacise, rationalize, projecting in masculinized manners
you think that you're so important, so perfect, so pliable, but truly you are simply periodic
this is when you start to find it harder to look past the inconsistencies, the unpuncuality, the irresponsiblitiy
throwing woodchips and delivering food for two
you can no longer pass this off as temporary

step three
the first person to ever say that they would like the opportunity to try
the first person to -
the first person to -
i certainly love you

step four
this isnt really about letting go is it
but there is the feeling welling up inside
as if about to filter into something different
something duller dimmer translucent thinner
will i ever would i wither
could i weather let it simmer -

how do you hold on to a burning pan without handles
when you have worked many years
when you have found a golden hour between two palms
when there is nothing you want more

beaten down by sand in glass
i wonder if i will be okay when it finally does pass

i cannot live on with it in my reach
i cannot survive letting it slip
yet neither could i ever grasp it ever keep it

step four
breathe in

step five
you will never be the same again
but you will be alive

what a special time
we were all special people
I can only imagine
the purest form of unity
were our games in the woodchips
one by one
I see you again
I wasnt the only one
Who remembered everything
They, too, remember everything
We've all felt this loneliness
Six years in the void
Are we too weak to reconnect
The lot of us have split