Where am I going?
A concoction of darkness and fog
clouds the road ahead. My map
sits somewhere in the back seat,
buried beneath the mounds of
fast food trash and travel essentials.
I wish I could find it now.

A month ago I passed a city. Back then
it was clear skies and bright signs.
Welcome to Big City, where all
your dreams come true. And it felt
like they did. Everything was fast, exciting.
I lived my life by the flashing neon and chrome.
24-hour liquor,
Girls, Girls, Girls,
Do Not Enter.
Thank God I got out of there. In
a city with no stop signs, you’re bound
to eventually have a wreck.

A week ago I found a country town.
The familiarity of skyscrapers was replaced
with silos and rotten barns.
Welcome to Small Town,
Population: You. In the unknown world
of small society, everything became bigger.
XXL
All You Can Eat
Welcome
What once was a race became a conflict
of common courtesy. You go. No, you go.
I had to leave, or I’d still be sitting
at a four way stop, waiting to move.

An hour ago I passed a church.
I wish I had stopped and knocked
on the door. Maybe they would have
let me stay the night, or at least
given me some directions. Since then,
the fog has thickened, making my
fading headlights as effective as a
butter knife on a steak. I want to get out
of this, to find a place to rest, but if I speed
up I’ll most surely crash, and if I stop I
might never find my way again.

Solace comes from a broken sign laying
in a dirt ditch next to a four way stop.
Proceed with caution.

you are so lovely in your wicked ways
you are heavy
i can feel it, so can the room

everyone is waiting for that pause
the one you find yourself existing in

you are so lovely in your wicked ways
finding the quirks
the imbalanced romanticism in their dialect

'yeah, i’m a southern boy'
the kind you swore you’d stay away from

you spent too many nights with knights at rogue water
underage but over your limit

oh boy, that patagonia
slinging country song quarters into the jukebox

take me home!

you are so lovely, even in your wicked ways

do you like country music?
he turns left for the freeway
do you know how to drive stick shift?

you are so lovely, even in your wicked ways
i didn’t fold her laundry
she left my XXL t-shirts without wrinkles
pink, without wrinkles

you are so lovely in your wicked ways
he mixes a couple of drinks for you
reaches to grab your hand from across the bar
seared by the tea-light candle

i waltzed out of that bar like i had him
he is small and beautiful with a temper
i could love him all while hating him

i’m just a gal whose nose bled
after falling into his bed (more than once)
more than once

as ever, not a preference, or a pr.s. (pre scriptum)... more like an afterthought... never presume too much in case of diacritical ownership or necessary use... the language had terrible fathers... sure, once they said thou instead of you... nay instead of no... thee and still said you, as in: to be (that's thou without the index finger)... but when they applied diacritical marks ******* their faces, they attracted ridicule no one seemed to be bothered about... kinda like a Copernican trajectory... why put a dot above iota? well, the answer is the same as saying to clown-juggler (a) jesus... and saying to clown-juggler (b) yehovah... apparently the former is a res vanus (an empty thing) and the latter is a res cogitans (a thinking thing)... and a crucifixion is a binding process... collateral damage: it's the reverse... and you get to keep your yuppie christmas lights... but there a limb missing... ý and j... both have adequate indicators of children with single mothers... it like this genetic encoding, ** for woman, xy for man, xxl for a t-shirt... but why bother ι (iota) into owning any diacritical marks? that's ******* overly presuming to start things off to an Orff composition of a bulimic neptune that's why i suggested diacritical marks on a y... to transfigure it into the presupposed j... you know how many diacritical marks you can add to an ι? many... you can have a dozen brats while you're figuring out the plumbing... presumptious... presumptuous... see! false applicability of diacritical marks makes you a ******* worth of spelling! you're bound to be naturally dyslexic... ****, what a magic trick! ****! gone! dis and then there's dys- and the lexicon going berserk... make your ******* mind up! yes, i know that between dιs- and dys- the former means without, and the latter actually means an adjective, i.e. bad... or a jumbled up lexigraph; then into the tornado machine we go peacocking at the height of synonyms... but i still find it overly presumptious... ****... presumptuous to apply a dot above an ι (iota) and subsequently a dot above a non-diacritically existent j... it's how you yoyo and how you jump... there's so much ambiguity in anglican that the yhwh was drunk obvious... hence i'm drunk... and stating the obvious... you can clearly apply many other diacritical marks to a letter, rather than simply applying two: to aye and to hurray and forget the rest... rhyming couplet that... follow suite with jay... but write anything else in anglican and you see a Cardiff lazy... first the cymru, then the gaelic... well, you have to... given that english didn't come but shakespearean from the caribbean or india... you have to mind saying syrkloffipompusdumpus in Cardiff... it would be a bit diff not not... be gentle... get the rolling hills motto into that word, extract syllables like a German, or a chemist, please.

sometimes it really takes an evening like this, you go through
them until you hear the prompt and emerge on stage
and say a few lines...
you start off with *the connells 74 75,
then move onto blind lemon no lemon,
then through to kula shaker govinda,
      then reef with gimme you love,
    then onto snake river conspiracy
with a cover version of how soon is now,
then you decide to take the steps toward
formalising a mix-take (ancient history
courting techniques, high fidelity crap,
and i did manage to make one for a former
girlfriend... how ancient it all seems right
now... it also seems that i should be
70! by the looks of it... sadly i'm not...
yes yes, my teenage dreams was to work
in a music shop... swear to god, once the mp3
format came out i knew now future anti-Beatles
maniac had his hands tied and couldn't
buy the Beatles vinyl and burn them...
what can you do in Tron-land that's equivalent?
buy a Salman Rushdie and rekindle the
          bonfire night of Munich?
i had a muslim friend that really fancied
natalie portman... but because she is a jew
that was kinda difficult... how about
i obliterate that problem with alicia vikander,
hey there, poster boy... reach for the stars).
the thing is: we're in an en masse shock,
it happened all too quickly...
then came placebo with pure morning,
and then back to covers, daddy cool -
             and then back to boney m with
rasputin... and and then i picked up a book
by jack spicer, and then i thought:
i hope that i write enough so they can do
a my vocabulary did this to me: the complete
collection, yep, i hope they can't hone in on me,
that they can only print (if ever, yuck)
           a selected works artefact
which, given the Darwinistic interpretation of
history... is not even worth bothering about...
the damage has been done historically,
it's answered in seven (if not more) news channels
with 30 minutes of original script, repeated
24/7 until another headline blip appears and
changes the narrative, just a tad.
    indeed i did pick up a book i own by the
san francisco renaissance poet jack spicer...
      and i immediately forgot what song i was
going to d.j. after i finished with thinking about
what she said when i made that mixtape for her:
listening to king crimson's epitaph at
around 5 a.m. on oxford st. going to work...
              i don't have a library, i have an a-to-zed
of avenues, streets, possibilities...
i don't think... i make cocktails...
                       the un-literal... literally applicable.
philosophy really taught me to not crave intimacy,
or bemoan it as some genius robotics inventor
who equates all things responsive as necessarily
needing an artificiality... so where's the antonym
dividing line between artificial and superficial?
men are from Mars and women are superficial?
               oh sure... we can have this talkshow logic
going round and round...
   wolves don't bark, but the domesticated dog
can't wow us with a howl... is that whining or whimper?
and i know i don't have a novel in me,
      tragic (said keith lemon style)...
                    because i never wanted a zoo,
or wanted to cage anything or see cages...
and then become scholastically holistic -
                      it was never going to be a chance to see
"the whole picture"... at best all you're going
to get is interruptions in my life...
        which is hardly what you'd call the disappearance
of Tiger Woods after rumours circulated that
he owned a harem...
                               and i really do believe that
hinduism got one thing wrong... Shiva is a girl's name.
        shaven... never stirred... sounds just about
right as if were indeed a mexican ****** drinking a mojito.
yes, we can have a mini lecture:
i abuse language, i enslave it, language the over way
round can have a bunch of protestors with
placards walking down the street and chanting slogans
that never make it into advertisement...
     speak ill of the Pharisees: get crucified...
speak ill of the plebs? they disperse - ha ha... i should
know... i could be considered a pleb anomaly...
        broad shouldered and strong enough to move
a tonne of bricks (once)...
             so anyway... i picked up this jack spicer
book i have (that ****** Lorca fetishist!
he'd **** his **** any chance he might have)
   and this weird thing came about...
i lost track of what song i would play to
murmur out the clicking sound of the keyboard
(forget it, typewriters were rapists compared
to computer keyboards) -
             it's from the poem phonemics -
and by god... i'd be gutted to have derived the same
conclusion... and i did...
    yhwh is a phonetic study...
esp. given the anti-diacritical approach of anglican
pragmatism... it's not exactly what people
expect you to believe: circumcision and kippah
and niqab... that's for people who own
about... well a single book or as Erasmus could
have said: in alles reiche... including spanish
dutchland...                        it's not even
mean-spirited that i say it: i said once:
i don't want fans... i want snobs.
                                 any respectable man with
a following of siusiumajtki (a queer way
of saying the verb of ***** and majtki?
                          )maýtki? ý, yep, rarely done(
just means underwear... what the pop stars
get when they ****** standing up)...
                   i really feel like i should write
the second to last part of the poem...
   it's itching me to do so...
             i just don't understand why i see it differently
to how jack sees it... i treated it as the case
of two Adams... aleph and ayin being
the protruding vowels...
                i didn't treat aleph as a consonant...
  maybe i made a mistake in doing so... but akin
to the Greek principle and the rule of prefix and suffix
you cut apart omicron and get o- out and attach
it to ν (nu) - of course once you cut up ν and extracted
n and forgot about the cascade that leads you up
to upsilon - to get the word νo out from the pick 'n' mix.
unless i'm speaking dutch, then i think that
makes sense.
              why wouldn't aleph and ayin be vowels?
           Semitic languages aren't going away...
as is neither the semitic religions... forget it...
it's too complicated, adding to the fact that i'm
bewildered about treating vowels as women and
women veiled and women in hiding and consonants
as men... in the same way that the Latins hide
their children in English... children? diacritical marks...
where the **** are they?
      you get them scooped up by consumerism,
only about 10% climbed a tree...
          the rest are churned into premature adulthood,
and you wonder, with all these advertising
campaigns why most of them develop mature
negations of ease, in ref. to premature depression...
  you wonder... where are the children? swallowed up
by another set of pop idols?
          did they ever play with marbles,
or hide & seek, ever played games with girls
and toys and tic-tac-toe?
ever skipped a rope?
                         it's fading because it's being exploited...
so you end up with a song that prescribed this
poem, folk implosion - make it with the best...
from the soundtrack to the film thirteen...
as it stands i need a refill, and i'll probably cite
the poem by jack, giving about half a second's worth
of care for copyright laws of a dead man...
   just so i can see if my logic serves me right
in saying that hebrew has to variations of a-,
as in aleph (א) and ayin (ע), as does greek
  with thought (θ) and philosophy (φ) -
but let me get back to you on that one.

Il lui disait : « Vois-tu, si tous deux nous pouvions,
xxL'âme pleine de foi, le coeur plein de rayons,
xxIvres de douce extase et de mélancolie,
xxRompre les mille noeuds dont la ville nous lie ;
xxSi nous pouvions quitter ce Paris triste et fou,
xxNous fuirions ; nous irions quelque part, n'importe où,
xxChercher **** des vains bruits, **** des haines jalouses,
xxUn coin où nous aurions des arbres, des pelouses ;
xxUne maison petite avec des fleurs, un peu
xxDe solitude, un peu de silence, un ciel bleu,
xxLa chanson d'un oiseau qui sur le toit se pose,
xxDe l'ombre ; - et quel besoin avons-nous d'autre chose ? »

Juillet 18...

Black,Brown,yellow or white,
Tall or short,what's in a height,
Thin, fat or obese,
What's to do with size,
From zero to XXL,
Beautiful,ugly or normal,
What the hell!
It's Your life,
Live it without strife.
Savour its flavours,
Reach out for experiences, newer and richer,
Be a Rockstar.
Soon before you die,
Your life before you will flash by,
Make sure,your ending is your best goodbye.
24/2/2019.

The halls of a high school
are the most
destructive and obnoixous
place to be
but also the most
peaceful and soul searching
place to be

Every teenager in the building
is in the halls in the exact moment
everyone is in one clump
loud, messy, and
thought provoking

you can hear bits of every
passing conversation
fleeting gossip
disruptive insults
blaring music

all the bits gather and swirl
in each others heads
weaving into our thoughts
and popping up in small talk
making your sentence a pop culture reference before your own eyes

If you walk a certain way
head down unless you see your locker
a few steps behind the last person
in the middle of the right side
you just disappear
people don't recognize
your existance

You melt into the routine of your
daily walk in the hallways
you're always walking near
the same people each
passing period

you don't know their names
but they are your friends
when you drop your books,
the two soccer players that
hate their coach help you
because they always walk
behind you and need you
to walk so they can blend in too

the girl in front of you
that seems to have self esteem issues
because shes wearing XXL shirts
when she's only a Large
whenever she sneezes
you acknowledge her
when no one else has
or even would

we've all fallen into the trap
of the hallways vacant yet
totally cramped feeling
we've been molded by it
we are part of the hallways

Ma chatte !
Pourrais-tu me rendre un petit service ?
J'aimerais te prendre toute habillée
De pleins et de déliés
Dans le noir le plus complet de l'encre
Puisque la nudité t'effraie et te chagrine.
Mais pas n 'importe comment, ma minou !
J'aimerais te prendre déguisée,
Fardée, maquillée, parfumée, pomponnée.
J'hésite entre astronaute, religieuse dans l'ordre des Carmélites Déchaussées
Astrologue et paléontologue, déchiffreuse de hiéroglyphes.
Ah cartomancienne aussi.
Tu t'occupes, ma chatte, du déguisement du haut
Je me charge du déguisement du bas !
D'accord ? Tu veux bien ! Je t'adore !
Et toi tu veux que je me déguise en quoi ?
Ou tu préfères que je reste nu comme un ver ?
Tu te réserves le haut ou le bas ?
Ou la panoplie toute entière ?
Ah tu veux te charger de tout ?
Je te laisse faire ton choix.
Je peux incarner ce que tu veux
Ensemble ou séparément
Cowboy, homme de Néandertal ou de Cro-Magnon au choix
Curé, comme le bon curé d'Ars ou simplement pape impie
Libellule, homme grenouille, raccoon, orphie,
Oiseau-lyre ou mangouste, pharaon, dragon, E.T.
Quelle que soit la panoplie que tu choisiras pour moi
Je précise la taille : XXL
Et si d'aventure tu me choisis un masque, ma Muse
Je voudrais porter ton visage car je suis ton ombre.
Et je voudrais te regarder dans mes yeux
Et t'embrasser longuement iris contre iris.

Oh gawd it must still be mating season for hooligans
cause I just saw another 10th year trend setter
trying to wear hand me down XXL retail theft pants
Which obviously impeded walking and running
In addition to exposing kool-aid hickey on trend setter baboon ****

"I need to take a shower
before doing anything else,"
I inform my mother as she unlocks
the door to our tiny, temporary
studio apartment of a home.

"That's what you teenagers get
for trying to wash your hair
with Chinese food," she laughed.

As I slipped into the bathroom
and out of my clothes I answered,
"That's not how it happened!"
I tried to brush my hair clumped together
with sweat and sweet and sour sauce
from last night's left over dinner on the road.

The brush couldn't get through
the mess so I let the water
have its way with my brunette locks
until finally the suds and conditioner
were able to work it out for me.

As the soap made its way
down my porcelain skin I ponder
why teenagers have to be so bold

and what I've gotten myself into
this time. When the sound of bottles
crashing from the shelf pulls me
from my thoughts I turn the water off
and pull on my Joe Boxer shorts and
the XXL T-shirt swallows my frail frame;
she asks if I still smell like fried rice.

"I hope not," I giggle and crawl into bed,
when we turn off the light the room
is filled with two words said by both of us
in unison and dreams of being a
mother myself someday fill my head.

~ Good night

Fable VIII, Livre II.


xxL'astre du jour rentrait dans sa carrière ;
Les Guèbres l'adoraient. Quelle divinité,
Disaient-ils à genoux, au sein de la poussière,
Oserait avec toi disputer de beauté ?
Ton domaine est l'immensité !
Ta durée est l'éternité !
Et ta présence la lumière !
Rien de parfait que toi dans la nature entière.
Parfait ! dit un docteur à mes dévots surpris,
Quoique aussi bien qu'un autre il baissât la paupière ;
Parfait ! y pensez-vous ? parfait ! Pauvres esprits !
Apprenez donc combien votre erreur est grossière ;
Sachez qu'en plus d'un point le soleil est taché.
Non, ce n'est pas tout or que ce roi des planètes.
À vos yeux, j'en conviens, ce mystère est caché ;
Mais il est clair pour nos lunettes.
C'est peut-être y mal voir qu'y voir mieux qu'il ne faut.
Censeurs trop scrupuleux, ma fable est votre histoire.
Dans Delille, un Clément a vu plus d'un défaut ;
Mais grâce à tout défaut qui se perd dans sa gloire.

Imagination now rules the day
in the past this was not the case
when I shared all God gave
in pursuit of **** delights
I was the one that had no clothes
my audience watched as I danced
pursuing work that paid the bills
while learning trade as engineer

between the end of class
and my pillow found by sleep
I bared all at Rusty’s side
duo dancers in birthday suits
the dollar bills rained to earth
or were stuffed in parts untoward
fame was mine to embrace
on the stage of college years

you’d wonder why I did not keep
to the path of Magic Mike
XXL could have been sought
instead of twiddling computer bits
the answer is modesty
knowing that I still possess
the tool that pleased an audience
concealing now for decency

I’ll not judge my wanton past
it was delightful, though too short
when the world asked for more
clothes to wear, not to disrobe
perhaps I’ll take up the craft
though many years have gone past
imagination says ‘please no’
make them wonder what’s below.

© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180317.