Precise scaffold silhouette
slants sharply across smoothed
cement. Narrow shadow shaft bisects
unfinished window, points
toward glowing sunlit
sliver of grey wall. Mundane
beauty, workday
glory unwitnessed.

I pray,
I don't get to see you
It's almost impossible
To get over you
When  I have to see your
Lovely Face,
Piercing eyes
Smile that melts my heart.
Every Workday.

Machine ground days
Somehow survived by clinging to precarious plans
Die for those.
For proles are stuck in a televised gleam
but I’m barred from distractions
I’m a man of action
Spring healing:
I found a new hope to get through the day
It has a name and it’s you

Workday: animistic curses
against people and their systems and products
except animals would escape forever
as soon as they open the cage
but we stay

The beastly gnashings of overworked merchandisers
for invisible self pocket stuffers
The competition's getting to us, comrades
I feel swindled out of my labor
I was pregnant
but they sold my child before
I woke up

Addressing the solipsism of my rehab circle:

I’m Kagey, and my life is hazy
but, blunted or no, let’s get this clear:
don’t trust your senses
and that goes for all my human peers

Body is a cage full of defenses
Still, I’m suspicious of reality
whether it’s façade society
or the wooden chair in front of me

Still, I enjoy the virtual scenery
I ain’t talking about on the T.V. or phone screen
I mean the willows, buildings, and faces
But all these mushy green acres are fakers
blobs without our eyesight

Still tho,
me and the universe are tight.

Feeling the rain more than hearing it
6:24 dark and threatening
It’s so cold in this ******* basement

2 hours and 36 minutes away
Crouching in plain sight
The work day.

Delivering food for the food bank, which is punk as **** frankly,
It’s a wasteland out here
And people need to eat

(A human right, if I understand the constitution correctly. Happiness is a lost pursuit in a body that’s hungry. You say food is a privilege <yes, you said it and believed it>, I say it’s life and liberty.)

Two 15 pound bags at a time
In exchange for baggage a mile high
Stacking cred against labor to build tone in your thighs

My joints wonder how young I think I am
Remembering the time my leg seized up and that old man just stared until I saw him see me and I smiled, I’m so silly

Hurry before all this pain ripens to taste
Slug it down like tequila
Try not to make a face
Born at the finish line, running in place.

2 hours and 26 minutes to make the coffee and absorb the caffeine
While I’m still me
And there’s nothing else to be

Hope is the morning sun
Peering in through my kitchen window
As I sip fresh steaming coffee alone.

Hope is the last workday before
My next day off, when I’m happy
For once, to wish away the hours.

Hope is awkward like a high school dance,
Like two virgins kissing
Beneath the gymnasium bleachers.

Hope is a grocery list fastened
To my refrigerator with a free magnet
Advertising a divorce lawyer.

Hope is a cracked wine glass, packed away
In a moving box that traveled from Kentucky to Illinois –
Just another casualty of the long journey.

Dedicated to John and Bob

From first flesh we move down widening halls
That lead to lives of wondrous walls.

Our spidered fingers gripped walls of brick,
Cruets, cups and candle sticks.
Incense clouded open graves
When we too believed we too were saved.

Between Annex walls we learned our phonics,
On tin-roofed walls we lived our comics.
Garage walls scaled showed different views,
Kitchen walls steamed with soups and stews.
Our school yard walls tallied pitches
That marked our summers of youth and wishes.

Now lift memory's pane and go back
To the white-framed walls of a secret shack.
There, in confusion we would cling
To the unknown wonders girls would bring.
These young boys' walls we both outgrew;
Now new walls sprang, as we did too.

Coffee House walls offered something new.
Wet kisses lingered near shadowy walls,
We heard poetry read in a backroom stall.
Recreationals made our new skin crawl.

Cliff walls were breached by stairs of clay,
Carved by Incas on a turquoise day.
Tent walls echoed with impish fray,
Green walls beckoned at the end of day.
These walls gave rise to hot desires,
Like Vikings planning funeral pyres.
New music, cheers and weekend guests
Stood us ***** to pound our chests.

Those walls no longer ring our shores;
Time swept us forward with worldly lures.
We doffed our coats of suede and frills,
And donned new clothes and workday skills.
The walls of work are a rocky climb,
Stones laid by us, for yours and mine.
Such towers & turrets of heart & hearth
Guard all we know of any worth.

I see distant walls on cliffs, in fields;
Where do they lead? What will they yield?
Yet, there three friends climb one more hill,
Climb one more wall. Then all is still.

you, you little
lighthouse of love
your gap-toothed smile
sent out over a bowl of
brown butter porridge
guides me away from
the reef of workday despair.

your hand in mine
so small trusting
and divine
brings me back
to the path
and
out of the dark woods

your cheery wave goodbye
keeps me swimming
through the murk of
the tedious day

and that welcome cuddle
at the end of the day
brings me back to my
home harbour...

you, you little
lighthouse of love
my bearings
my light on the hill
shine on, shine on

It takes forty sap gall0ns
to 'still one gallon of maple syrup,
boiled down by the sun stored in firewood.
I remember well, my aunt Florence
feeding the boilers in the hill orchard sugar house,
wearing an old going-to-church dress,
that had, some years back, been handed down to workday chores
and on top covered over by uncle Fred's red and black mackinaw.
"Stand back," she said as she opened the boiler door
first the roar, then a bank of fire that painted
her from kerchief to boots flaming red,
her eyeglasses, two pools of glowing magma,
and everything above was steam and rising vapors.
In my mind's eye then and now when I read Dante
I'll think of her, she was and is, the very vision of a devil tender.

That Mexican hunger of memory,
That 7- 10 evening shift,
Campesinos de Chihuahua,
Sinaloans de Durango,
Day laborers:
Organized Labor’s stubborn cohort,
Largely ungovernable,
With Union Label conspicuous in absence.
Labor Unions:
Largely dead in America,
Except for SIEU, of course,
Making astonishing strides in unskilled circles.
SIEU: The Future of the American Labor Movement,
Eugene Debs rolling over in his grave again.
But I digress.
Mexican gardeners:
Doing most of southern California’s
Weekly landscaping these days.
Tree-trimming in evening twilight,
Certainly an extracurricular
Earning activity these days.
“Hustlers Only” need apply.
Adding five or ten or twenty,
Cash on Tio Sammy's barrelhead,
Mexican tree trimmers, already exhausted from
A workday that began at 6 AM.
And isn't it a pity?
A moment’s lack of concentration,
Distracted, perhaps, by *****-spirit former selves,
Sipping that last shot of afternoon tequila.
Cue Jay & the Americans:
“In a little café on the other side of the border.
She was giving me looks that made my mouth water.”
Distracted, a chainsaw arcs carnelian.
ReCue Jay et al: The chainsaw
“That belonged to JOSE!
Yes I knew. Yes I knew. Yes I knew.”
Severing his right shoulder deltoid,
A butchering to say the least,
Requiring, at least, three weeks “en casa.”
Tres semanas
Without Labor,
Consequently,
Without Capital,
No wage-slave salt lick.
“No dinero” for bread and butter.
Bread and butter?
A consummation devoutly wished for.
And dead certainly,
Better than Guns or Butter?
That Hobson’s choice.
No Padron LBJ are you,
Down along the Pedernales
Texas Hill Country, west of Austin.
Conjuring up both Guns and Butter?
You can’t have both.
Which is why we laboring folk
Always opt for the former,
Knowing instinctively that
A full-flush, spurting military-industrial complex
Means full employment and good times,
Except, of course, for the soldier boys.

“Y los sueños.”
Bourgeoisie entrechats.
I hear America still singing, faintly now.
A shrinking middle-class siren song--
Just a little something--
Some small baited hook--
Some chum bucket for Les Miserables;
Swarthy aspirants.
“Y los sueños.”
Our hunger of memory,
That once booming American 20th Century;
Horatio Alger:
Alive & kicking in the new millennium.

See see Papa Trench Bottom
dig in the mines happily, laugh ha ha happily
and drink at night and hear him
snore before the day
happy happy Papa Trench Bottom
he he he he he ha ha happy happy
at home and at work
See see Mama Big Bottom
she she she he he ha ha happy
Dance happily Cook with joy
toss with levity
and puts dishes aplenty on the table
for all in the family to eat and be merry
See see Teenage Tough Dude
he he he happily walks in the streets
Cool at school
Very Pop with the babes
and eating lots at home, with gravity
very serious in look, sparse in his words
but loves his mom, dad and sis
deep deep within, ha ha happily happily
Happy Happy Teenage Cool Dude
And see Sister Barbie Doll Pretty
Curls and dimples and cute smiles all
Happy hours in the ha ha bathroom
many more hours texting and chatting
and lots and lots of FaceTime
Happy happy walking ****
all the way to work
and chirping all day like a Paradise Bird
at work at the Rainbow Fast Food Outlet
happy happy talking talking all workday
Ah See Happy happy he he he
she she she happy happy Family
Trench Bottom family he he he
and she she she all day and night
Happy happy Trench Bottoms
Happy happy he he ha ha Happy Family always

the markerboard on the fridge read:
sleep tonight.

the only thing i promised myself i'd do.
the day went something like this:

i woke up thirty minutes late,
i made do with only washing my hair,
ate an apple, yogurt, drank a cup,
****** myself to clear my head,
ignored the neighbor as i stepped out the door.

went to a dead-end, data-entry job,
where the girls aren't pretty, nobody is funny,
because everybody is a CPA and i'm not pleasant because i
don't give a good ******* about the
world of finance.

the highlight of the workday (as it is everyday),
was the break room chatter during lunch.

the earth-shattering conversations
revolved around:
how good the nutrisystem desserts taste,
how there was low voter-turnout in the midterm,
and how that one girl is a lesbian.

i got off work,
ate a sandwich, a banana,
put on sweatpants and a thrift store t-shirt.
i wrapped some fitness contraption around
my belly, whose sole purpose is to make
my abdomen sweat profusely.

no pretty girls at the fitness center.

i got back to my apartment.
wrote some phony poetry full
of half-baked sentiment
for no worthwhile reason.

i smoked.
i watched a foreign film, but couldn't find my glasses.
meaning: i have no ******* clue what the plot was about.

i went to the gas station.
made small talk with the long haired indian man.
i bought two smirnoff 40s.
something about smirnoff gives me really cohesive dreams.

my roommate tried to give me a lecture.
i told him christ was a myth.
a simple summation of earlier religious figures.
slammed the door,
lit some incense called "*****".

i fell asleep, woke up an hour later in a fright.
turned on the fan,
lit some more "*****",
closed my eyes,
and dreamt a complex novel,
containing:
me missing church,
my mom calling me,
getting lost in canada,
finding my way back to
my hometown only to find
two dudes with heavy machine guns
killing everyone in the cozy, local shops,
then somehow i got a line in a movie
directed by none other than keanu reeves.

at least i finally got some sleep.

Lisa and I were watching one of our favorite series last night, a Japanese manga called “The Way of the Househusband” and I could barely keep my eyes open. I went to bed at a decent hour (11:30) but when I got in bed, I couldn’t sleep, I just laid there. It was rude and caused me to oversleep.

I don’t mean to brag, but I can go from oversleeping, to bushed and showered in less than 15 minutes, I’m really a marvel of efficiency (with still wet hair), especially since we wear scrubs.
I grabbed my iPad, stuffed it in my rucksack, and hey, I was ready to go.

In the living room, it took me a moment to situate myself - it was a very noisy and disorienting environment - what with Lisa yelling at me for running late, but soon we were off.

Just a girl, her lemon ginger Kombucha, and her angry roommate, ready to face the world.

We stepped out into the morning and.. Ughh! I’d forgotten my AirPods. I double checked, not there.
Lisa gives me a threatening look. “PLEASE,” I begged, desperately, “MY AIRPODS!”
“OH, my GOD!” Lisa said, glancing, irritatedly at the Apple Watch I gave her for her birthday.

I ran up the stairs and was back in NO time, really, really ready to go.
Just a girl, her Kombucha, AirPods and angrier roommate, ready to face the world.

My sister’s apartment is about 7 walking minutes from the hospital. As we were walking, I had my AirPods in and was rolling with Kanye. I in NO way endorse his CrAzY. But If I start the day out, with “Through the Wire” and “Jesus walks,” I’m tweaked for whatever gamut Rebecca (my surgeon) has in store for me. I paused the slaps, momentarily, as we passed a herd of boys, but I was bouncing again in a blink.

Lisa and I are in the second week of our two-month, summer fellowships - shadowing surgeons (different surgeons) for “clinical experience.” The first thing I do every workday morning is bring Rebecca a large coffee (from the cafeteria). She comes in at 5:30am every morning of the week and leaves God-knows-when - certainly, well after we do at 4:30pm.

She spends the three hours before I come in, reviewing patient notes and surgical plans. I gently rapped on her open door. She doesn’t look up, but she knows it’s me.
“Good morning,” I whisper, Rebecca’s seated at her desk, working on her laptop. I set the coffee on her right side and after I remove the pre-existing empty cups, I hesitate.

“What’s up,” she says, leaning into her screen to check something as she keys to enlarge it.
“I have a small question,” I say, “Are we supposed to be filling out timecards?” She doesn’t say anything, continuing to examine the - whatever. After a few seconds, I added:
“Quinn said we have to fill out timecards.”

“Did he?” Rebacca asked, rhetorically, after a bit. She’d stopped studying the screen and gotten a faraway look. Then, after another moment, she said, “Well, bless his heart,” which made me chuckle, because we’re both southern girls and that’s shorthand for “f**k him.”

“Thank you.” she says (for the coffee). I’d been dismissed.
We have rounds in twenty minutes.

To read or watch movies, that is the question.
When tired at workday's end, depressed about death's
certainty and my recent surgery
unable to contribute purpose
i.e., figure out whether to bomb Iran
or worship Krshna
and other gods such as Homer gives us in the Iliad
I lack vision therefore I choose television.
Chemistry text, bifurcated plant key
esp. grasses, intro to calculus, physics
unopened time slides by inexorably.
That's the dilemma with no resolution,
drooping rachis, striations on the lemma.
Dying chooses you. You don't choose dying.
So go slow as the day will allow.
The cancer patient's real work is facing
harsh realities and making adjustments:
getting the most out of life, considering
what his children will need after he's gone,
preparing his wife, parents, colleagues and friends,
and completing important professional tasks.
Get the most out of life. That's all God asks.
In Life of Pi the tiger is tiresome, short-sighted
eating everything in sight today, no plan for tomorrow.
The boy, however, is beautiful, reading
the lifeboat manual, building a resting place on the ocean
from oars and life vests, writing about his emotions,
loneliness and observations. The tiger's obsession
with killing keeps our boy alive with fear,
an aphrodisiac, a distraction from any hint
of hopelessness. And then there is the ultimate unknown,
the boy's conversations with Krshna which explain
the innumerable stars and their gentle glow.

I have to make him a turkey sandwich,
crusts cut off, mayo on the left piece of bread,
in two triangle halves every single night
before he goes to sleep on the right side of the bed
with two pillows, fluffed twice each, slippers
tucked neatly underneath the bed skirt.
And every night I wonder
what would happen if I forgot the pickle on the side,
like the one time
we ran out of cheese and my car had a flat tire
and the supermarket was so far, but boy
did he give it to me. I’ve never seen someone count
to one-hundred so fast with their finger taps
before the table flipped. Never have I seen
someone clean up glass so slowly, each piece
thrown in the trash individually
just like my pieces
that have been carved away year after year,
loaf after loaf, as my eyes droop backwards
and rest on his haircut that I give
every six weeks on a Wednesday. Sometimes,
I try to kiss his neck when I let the scissors slip,
but he always reminds me that this slot
is “haircut time” and there’s no necessity in kissing
anyway. And I’ve tried to respect
his attic closet compartments with the key
that had gone missing when he was fifteen,
and I’ve tried to wish on misshapen pieces of cereal
in my bowl because I’m that desperate for a miracle.
Do you know?
Do you know how hard it is to lie next to someone
who you know doesn’t dream of you, not because he doesn’t
want to, but because he can’t. He can’t
do so many things and sometimes I’ll lay out a green tie
on a workday instead of blue just to watch him blow up
because at least that’s a feeling. At least that’s not white walls
and another **** turkey sandwich. And I know that’s sinful,
and I also know that I fold my hands wrong when I pray,
but I’ve tried to shape him for years and all I’ve gotten
is a cast with nothing to fill the mold. And I know my suitcase
has been packed for weeks, but. . . Dear God, you know I’ll never leave.
I save my laundry for Saturdays, don’t tell him why I’m crying
myself back to sleep, and check the fridge one last time
for the right deli meat.

People don't love the way they used to. My mom taught me that. You taught me everything else. We, in a state of mock individuality, look for the good part of ourselves in others so we have a good reason to love them better than we hate ourselves, because we are too afraid to admit that we aren't terrible things. So I keep checking my yard to see if you had been asleep when you crashed into my lawn (but that is never the case). And it's not even because I'm looking for the good parts of myself in you, it's because I'm just looking for someone who doesn't care that there is no good part of myself to look for. No matter where I sit, my feet always dangle off the ground. And that's what life is like : an infinite state of dangling; a throne of questions, and we never quite touch the ground.
Summer doesn't feel like freedom when you've spent the whole winter in love. Buried beneath the crushing weight of my own frozen apologies and punching my feelings into deaf ears like the clock on a workday, I keep twirling in circles, trying to check the serial number on the back of my neck in vain. I am falling, but not into you and so it is more of a fast crash in slow motion that nobody can feel but me. I'm tired of spinning. I'm tired of digging for reasons like a stick in the ground. I know I'm not a dog, but I never learn. Oh my God, I never learn. And neither do you.

Friday,
his or her day
yours or my day
but Friday?

I'm not frying today
are you?
so
what wit decided to call
it Friday?

It's a workday
let's call today
workday
and any day that doesn't
begin with the letter S
can kiss my ***.

Reality is a blur, a foggy consistant blur.
Everyday is the same melancholic routine.
10 on the dot.
One sunnyside up egg with a toasted sourdough slice.
Citrus tea with honey and an amusing podcast to prepare.
Slap on foundation and eyeliner, to look somewhat "happy" for a straining workday to come.
Thank god for the coming 4 hours there, my mind is of spotless.  
Not a thought of you comes inching in my deserted cold mind in those 4 hours.
As soon as I punch out and put away the fake smiles of the workday, you pop right up.
This in general is not bad in a way that I loathe you, the memory of you,
But bad in a way that I miss you.
Enormously.
The old routine was much more methodically medicore but it was pure *******, beyond happiness.
Up at 9, waffles with milk, with tv in the background.  
As I can not fathom the desire to be at work already.
Walking in, I longed to see your deep icy blues that just melted me instantly as soon as I saw them,
Into a puddle, there I go.  
Their target are aimed towards my ungraceful demeanor, it still shocks me through out my whole body.  
Tingling, Inviting and Warm.
Feelings I felt everytime you nearby, I instantly knew it was you.
Present day.
As I drive towards what seems to be another morrow towards the vapid and grave, I look for you.
I felt those blues that day of a party.
I felt them as I walked away from a group conversation.
I felt them as I mourned the loss of someone.
I felt those blues that first night.
The night we met.
Vanilla ice cream, in the cold air and a life changing experince we both intuned.
Instinctively, I trust its profoundly there to you too.
Even now and till your departing day.
I felt those blue eyes.
As much sorrow and grief it brings me always, and probably will be till my final and sweet death,
I dream back to the days I would walk in, and melt in my puddle, as I felt and longed for those icy blues.

Sitting in a Starbucks sipping a needlessly costly dark roast,
wondering if I've solved life, or if I'll break apart soon enough.
A tightening sensation.
I could get a ****** cup of coffee at both ends
of this ****** workday, and it'd be lovely.
Just having a sense of time,
even if it's just to **** time away.
**** everything away.

Dead-eyed through drenched days
spent seeping through blank space
to spill another swollen week out
                  on a crumpled page

I'm young, but not that young
grown up and dumbed down
so I'll drag one more punchline day out
                   'til a year's ground down

Face the wall...
Aimed at the door...
But we're still here and so
         I suggest that we share this bar...

Stumble out
regain my feet
and pluck my keys from the gutter. I've
been dancing with defeat and, now, I'm
driving on the borderline
between familiar haunts
and same old foes that I conjure--
Now I start to realize that, like you,
they've got my number.

They've got my number.

Rhombuses of light
             separate us--not by much

                     but these

square miles of concrete
              will divide us just enough

Deadpan Friday nights
space out workday lifelines
until another starving paycheck
               grounds another flight

Your time spent so costly
the bill's due, your words freeze
a season's regrets regressed. Empty
                bottles taken out.

Besieged by walls
Afraid of doors
the nights leak in, you turn
     the lights out, choking down one more

Waking up,
you find your breath
you find your feet and your reasons. You
have found your boots and keys and lost your
fear of the season's size.
Between the years and months
you've been a ***** and a miser
when the skyline creaks and sighs, remember

you've got my number

And I've got your number

The world's got our number--
                 --it's okay to come over
We can laugh at the night
               at sunrise, we'll run for cover
'til the season is over
          now, just run for cover...

When I was just a child, they were just a married couple;
Older, middle-aged, nothing distinguishing about them at all.
I loved swimming in their swimming pool,
Until they upsized, to a glitzy neighborhood of rambling,
Ranch-style houses.
And they upscaled, to exotic, foreign vacations.
Brought me back a Hawaiian volcanic stone, with emerald flecks,
A salt and pepper shaker set from Israel.

She was a clothes horse, always kept her figure,
Dressed slinky but classy, for an old babe;
Visibly stood taller, if another woman
Ever complimented her clothing or style-
And they invariably did.

My dad said that when alone with her husband,
That man would brag about daily *******
From his office receptionist, at the end of the workday
Before going home. I was older then, tried to imagine
How the shared exchange could have furthered
Some ancient, nightly excavated ambition?

Alone with her once, my dad said he made an innuendo,
Some playful joke which he had since forgotten the point of,
Probably due to the more stunning reaction it caused.
He had always loved teasing with words,
But he said that she had dropped all suggestion of pretense,
And she had told him then, You couldn't handle it..
He still chuckled about it, long after the fact.

Funny how for all those years, what I remembered seeing
Was a mostly colorless couple
Who always drove large Cadillacs.
And how in the later years, he could only move
While tethered to his oxygen tank,
Though it never hindered his smoking.

Jane's sick, just a common flu
Nothing she can't handle
Another workday
Same as any other
She blows her nose right before work
Tosses the tissue in to a bin
Grabs the doorhandle and walks in

George is just on time for work
Maybe today will be the day
Maybe Jane will see him today
He grabs the doorhandle
And as he walks in
He wipes the raindrops off his lips

The virus works its way in him
Just like Jane's rejection
It's like he's not good enough
But he's a good man
He knows that
Okay maybe not the best guy ever

Maybe he thinks too much of himself
Perhaps she's known better
I'm not good enough
But he knows she likes him back
she can get better
Well she's not that great either

Much does he know
That in order to be able
To cast blame on others
We must have an understanding
Of what we are blaming them for
And that can only be identified within us

Do we not have to understand
A concept before we teach it
Sure enough we must understand
What it means to not be good enough
Before we teach others to feel that way
Congrats George you passed

Jane was taught she wasn't good enough
And now George has identified with that
And George will teach it to Melissa
Who is secretly casting
Her adimiring, loving looks at him
And when George is done with Melissa
Melissa will teach it to James
And James will enforce that within Jane

(An exercise to write a sonnet in iambic pentameter)

With heavy heart, I offer my remorse,
for I'm too tired to dance this weary eve.
The echoes of my workday's tireless chores
linger, leaving naught but fatigue's relief.

Oh, believe me, I hate to disappoint,
for the music tempts me to sway and dance.
But the hours I've toiled, each task and each point,
have drained me to a tired nudnik, perchance.

My spirit, once bright, now longs for respite,
to find solace in rest and heal my self.
Though my love for dance burns hot like cordite,
exhaustion demands I stay on the shelf.

Forgive me, my friend, tonight I must rest,
but once refreshed, we’ll fete and dance with zest.

I heard birds chirping this morning.
I wondered if birds conduct sonnets to other birds in their little bird languages.
Maybe there is a bird tongue considered "French" of bird tongues.
All romance and delight and cheese and devoid of home.
They speak soft when chirping of flights South
and loud of thawing North.

Are they dissatisfied?

Does flight seem like walking?

On the bus I hear chatter.
The workday not over. Wake up
get back to work. If you pause
remember you are a failure.

If you invest, call it working.
Unless it is French, do not pronounce anything that is not English correctly.
Condemn those who make mistakes at what you do not know how to do.
Say it is easy. Say you could do it better.
Don't try.

Fly South for the winter. Eat cheese by the fire. Pay a thousand dollars to hunt pheasants in an enclosure.
Give your son a hundred dollars.
Tell him to take her "somewhere nice."

Kick him out when he takes him "somewhere nice."

Watch people swoon at your feet; hate you; want to be you.
Hate people who want nothing you offer to give them.
Act as if the offer is a debt.
Give gifts and ask for a return on your investment.

Are your hands soft?

Are your wings weak?

Is there anything else you need

stove juts out
stuns in sixty-year-old kitchen
shiny, electric,
everyone marvels
so much better than the gas stove
as if the functions are not the same.
I, misled, maybe
have no newfound love
for false hearths
and work dens masquerading as homes.
we never knew food
just kosher salt, pepper, ketchup
a dash of rosemary
yet our curves labored, steamed hours
heaped over knotted heels
at the end of the workday
you were so tired
and we ate whatever you could manage.

I desired to taste liberty,
imagined I had it on a slow burner
simmering with
coriander seeds, cumin, cinnamon
chili powder bleeding into broth
parsley finely cut
into slivers for garnish grew
dry in my hands,
waiting.

Somehow I ended up
back in that same kitchen
a dream at my lips,
hungrier than before.

The hush of the morning breeze
whispers through aged pines
The rush of tires on asphalt
As an unseen car moves an unseen driver
Closer to the start, or end I guess, of a workday

Meow

The birds begin to wake
Softly at first
Then, as more and more of them awaken
The chorus grows louder and louder
Filling the near stillness with a multitude of calls

Meow, meow

A squirrel scurries in fits and starts
Across the shingle roof outside my window
An acorn, not yet ripe falls from the oak out front
And hits the slate walk
Heard this morning where as the sound would pass unnoticed later in the day

Meow, meeeoooww, meow

Then there's the cat

Hitting the bag hard.  Contracting the muscles. Pushing the limits.  Everyday is a workday in the gym. Boxing is a tough sport and injuries do happen, but the main draw is the test, and the endorphin high.

Outside the ring, time is more fluid.  The clock continues to tick but, for most people, the seconds don't count.

A knockout can arrive in the blink of an eye.  You think you know the ropes, the footwork, the patterns, and then wham!

Like a car-wreck.  One minute you're buzzing down the freeway, listening to tunes on the radio, and kaboom, what the hell???

Instant change, up becomes down, and for some it's down and out!

Twelve rounds, the bell sounds, points are tallied, did you make the grade, did you put in your best?

It's everyday life played out as spectacle. Twelve rounds in the squared circle and then your time has passed.

Gone before tomorrow
Is the fellow who insists
That the day of his retirement
Is the workday he resists.

Where he pulls the plug on having
An excuse to leave his bed,
Which escalates the likelyhood
That , perhaps, he’ll soon be dead.

Because...
To lose the joy of purpose
Is to lose the will to try
And when the spirit of endeavour's gone
The soul begins to die.

So do yourself a favour son
Recant on how you play...
Excorcise retirement
And live another day.

Enjoy the flow of living
With purpose at it’s hub
And magnify the meaningful
Yea brother... that’s the rub!


Marshalg
Magnifying the meaningful@the Bach
Mangere Bridge
24 January 2011

We drank tequila straight from the bottle
and danced naked in the unfenced backyard

We chainsmoked the entire pack
And argued the difference between harassment and assault

We passed around the **** pen
and I don't remember what we were doing by that point

We woke up still naked
and asked ourselves if it was worth it

Early on a foggy morning
Each workday, past year and a half
My eyes wander to your lights
Your office, are you there?
Are you at your laptop
Sitting in your over sized chair
eyes glued to the screen

How I wanted to know you
To befriend you
How I wanted to look to those lights with warmth and trust
To feel your presence as protection

Only now I'm afraid
I can't trust you over most things
Your eyes have flashed at me in anger
as I disintegrate into something you can't manage
Pure emotion and sadness
Frustration at lies

Something in me dies now
When I see those lights now and remember that hope
"All beginnings are beautiful" I know the saying
And this is not the beginning, and may be the end

How I yearned to find the key
To friendship and soothingly
we'd chat and feel so good
And now I'm frightened. I don't feel good

You said things would be fine, but they aren't
Can I dig my way out of this hole?

I want to run away
I hate this place, don't want to stay

I'm trying not to write poetry
for him
but I can't help the way my words fall,
sometimes. A strong wind shoving me out
to sea.
It's always the sea.
I'm trying not to write poetry
for him
but laying in the warmth of
a shared bed
I can still feel his thumb in my fingers
as I try to hold on
to keep him from falling off the edge
of a peaceful morning into a workday.
I'm trying not to write poetry
for him
I imagine him reading everything I've ever written.
I blush a little, at the thought.
He shares my bed, yet
he does not share my poetry
the way beautiful strangers do.
I keep trying not to write poetry,
for him.
I don't want to give too much of myself
away but
I've never been one to do things
halfheartedly and he keeps drawing me in
real close
close enough to feel his heartbeat.
Close enough to be warm.

I want you to desire me
Like a cold drink of water,
In a cool crystal glass.
I want you to pick me up and press me to your eager lips and drink me like you haven't seen water in days.
I want to be the poison in your blood
That you crave each and every night.
I want you to rush into the kitchen after a long day,
and lift me up and let your lips embrace me
As you **** the life out of me because you absolutely need me.
I want you to beg for that 5 minute break in the workday
So you can set me a flame and inhale my nicotine passion.
I want you to taste me on your fingers and your breath hours after you've seen me.
I want you to be haunted by me.
I want you to desire me
I want to be desired.