rhinoctopus

Rhinoctopus has horns for arms, 
and one more on its head for style. 
It snakes those hard horns everywhere 
- you wouldn't think they're versatile!
They're hardly supple, flexible - 
One wouldn't call them tentacles. 
Rhinoctopus don't give a shit. 
Them eight hard horns slip  
in like bulls, and rearrange 
your china shop. You'd think 
a stampede came through here! 
And then you spot rhinoctopus.
The picture suddenly comes clear.  

invincible pinata

She's filled with treats you never saw.
Candies she made up herself, she's
thought up names and wrappings for
- surprises, toys, who knows what else?
But she does not respond to whacks.
The whole world takes its blindfold swings,
Innumerable hits! Dead on! She shrugs
them off, those dreadful things. She isn't
here as party trick. She's trying just
to hang around. What's in her
is for her to give, not you 

to break.

Her bright papier-mâché begins 
to stay the same. She smiles,
perfectly unfaked. She frowns,
serene. As unaffected as a queen.
She takes no bows. "So what, should I
just bust right now? Shower yourself
with me, because you try and miss?
Or direct hit? Please keep on swinging,
question-boy and little implication miss.

I do not have rewards for this.
For I am not 

a toy." Besides,

She's pretty sure inside her
are confections packed with cyanide.
Only a few, but still. It's no one's
business. That's for her to show
or hide.   

Paper Trail Detective Agency

The paper trail is on the case!
It's going to solve this thing itself 
if anybody takes a look.

It all links up like spiderwebs
in sticky sells and buys and deals
through bank accounts, too many
cooks of books. Short order or 
gourmet, the paper trail spots recipes 
by wire transfer traceries of frauds
and steals and faked-death bankruptcies.

It's mostly digital these days.
The paper trail has sidekicks staunch
for all the blips to dot and cross
and index crooked searches launched.

They've just about got this case solved.
It all depends on hunches, now. Some 
stupid human has to look, and say

"Hm, hey 

that's all a bit too perfect. Wow."

badass sequel blues

I'm working on a screenplay called
Psycho Bitches from Beyond Bonkers II:
Invasion of the Astro-Bastard Assholes, but

I'm having trouble
with inspiration. I don't want it to be just
like
the last screenplay I wrote. It was
unbelievable. Nobody
bought it.

But anyway, the Psycho Bitches
(who call themselves that
in a reclaiming and up-powerment
of some shit some dickhead said
last time, in the origin backstory
when they were little kids) are victorious
in their small town as usual, a little past
and outside Bonkers, Idaho

Having a good time, maybe
complaining "boring"
but, life is good
when you're a Psycho Bitch
from Beyond Bonkers. It's like
the group to be in. There are six
of them, always.

When this time, these guys
come from outer space
and it's fucking awful. It's like,
six guys (one for each Bitch)
(but not as dates, obviously)

who came here on a package vacation deal
organized by a shady travel agency
far elsewhere
that matches up affluent sentient
beings with a taste for the outré
and bold, maybe risqué
with custom-algorithm-picked
backward planets whose lower life forms
have evolved compatibly to whatever
the sicko aspirational safari predators
or alien wannabe abductors are interested
in. All completely under-the-table, of course.

There are laws about this up there, but
do those laws apply here? It's mostly
honor system anyway. No galactic cop
shows up to restore order! (Spoiler)

So, you know, the Psycho Bitches from Beyond
Bonkers tend to have to step in. To assert
and fulfill their own mandate, right about
where it usually fits.

Never confuse a ballad with a lay

She knew her stuff. 
I strutted mine
in naive fingerings, 
rough-handed chords
to cradle nerves with gall,
and chop emotion everywhere
it needs to fall, each moment
picked and rang with perfect
feeling fixed, in broken words 
and admixed pure.

She seemed to like it. Quite a bit? Hey,

Want some more?

Oh sure, she beamed! Enjoying 
right and wrong and tart
and sweet along. After a few,
"Hey, play a slower one!"
She sang, she called.

A song.

I felt some cue.
I trained on her my worst
best perfect one. And beautifully,
I gave it due. She took it
thoughtfully. 

"That's good," she mused. 

But not for me.    

Just kidding. It was plain, sweet more
and less, and everything, and good
enough, and fine as finest be.
Or anyway, 
It went.

She had some things to say, 
well-chosen, well-observed
in time well-spent. A well-turned ear 
she had, an eye for detailed sweep, a mind 
to weigh what's excellent, while noting 
flaws and all to keep. She understood

a song, and so much else. 

I took her readily, and didn't mind her
asking more. She'd won my high regard
with grace, by handling that one huge gaffe!

Unmeant, I'd slipped - we'd talked 
of songs by genre, type, compare/contrast. So 

when she asked for "slower one," unthought,
and showing off, I asked:

"You want a ballad or a lay?"

And froze. My words played back in mind
with too much gain. But she just laughed! 
And shook her head.

"Your choice. But not too fast."

"Of course!" I said
in faint shock and relief,
to carry on
undead.

Since the weather changed

Since the weather changed,
the rain runs in from sides,
along ground and crawling 
in rivulets up outside walls,
streaming windows of buildings,
collecting in piles on rooftop 
and hilltop in sidepours
and squalls. 

And the hail
Rolls and skips
from one side. It seems
nothing to do with the wind,
just an onrushing rolling and skipping
tide, or stampede of cold fists
flung and chips hard shot
in one-sided melee, skipping up 
from each surface and curb, pitting
by ricochet, denting cars, breaking 
glass, but the worst 

of it all is the sun. Oh, the snow 
creeps us all the fuck out as it drifts 
in like time-delay rime-frosted slime mold 
of purest white. But the sun, oh 

the sun 

Just looks down on all this. 

Just as if 
it's right.   
    

Tactical bureaucracy move

Unlimited fucking funding 
for the Arts would be easy to do.
Reclassify the military! It's justified.
Just ask Sun Tzu.

orbital

Nothing has been up it feels like for ages
I'm kind of in stasis
The orbit decays, as 
an offsetting uplift upholds from within, but 
I'm on more and more 
my own power and spin 

As momentum and swing 
- gravity, plus a miss - 
once provided, could arc 
on forever like this,
at least, 'til it dies. 
Has me slipping away 

from your lightening grasp, 
it's amazing I hold my own sway
so fast on this path as I wheel
and your axle diminishes
slow, by feel wearing off 
by degrees as rotations go wide, 

Almost none of the hold 
being yours, now. Alas.
Almost all of it's mine,
and a lonely ride. This force 
that had fixed us encircling time,
in peace and calm bliss. Like
something that science 
tried hard to resist,
has become a sign.  

I should have flown shotwise 
right out into space, but the uplift
within (which you gave, I've since
taken and made) soars to outpouring 
red in this gauge - what keeps me 
so spinning about you instead
of flown off from this beautiful
gravity cage?

- On a trip past the stars and the hearts 
and the moons, in shapes drawn like
clovers and diamonds and charms!
I don't know what keeps me.
It's not safe from harm.
It's almost not you, 

anymore.

And I sense with alarm
if this hold doesn't break of itself
and fly off, in the moment your gravity
well goes finally empty, flat and dry, 
and fails and lets go, sets me free,
lets me fly,
lets me loose

I shall lose

all the uplift from old reasons
why, that grew
in ascending
and plaintive strains
to keep me upon, held me up
in this old, grown use. And I'll plunge 

through the air
like a cloud
in flames
like a cloud
made of stone. If you saw 
through the blur, you'd say
it 
was
a sheep! All alone 
without shepherd, or feather
to flock. Not holding
together - apart, it would break 
and burn up mid-air, mid-drop,

to a glittering, somehow
suspended, still spark.  

appreciation's dregs

I can't appreciate you
enough anymore. It's
as if I've said it all, and
it isn't enough. I don't think
it's you. You don't stop 
giving best you have got,
and my tastes haven't changed,
just my well run off by the mouth 
you have drunk yourself
half full, yet my wad is shot.
You wince. What a gross metaphor
to let fly! You observe, but I didn't,
you see. The point is I have nothing
left but blanks. The "wad" in this sense
is a balled-up page, quite dry, not
anything jutting or vigorous. Though 
I sense by the way it strikes your eye
it might sting a bit. I am sorry for that.
Chagrined and abashed, yet I confess
somehow secretly glad and relieved! 
You've bled all the red there is
from my words, you've engaged
and guessed all, from blush peeping
in-between lines, to plain black and white.
Now all that remains is a milky sheen,
which a seer or sage of ancient age
might take for a sign, reading patterns
upon you for days where I have
come clean. So pure and well, spent
is the currency I have laid down this
time. It was all from my deepest 
or lowest base. I believe
the apology here
is mine. 

War March of Whose?

Get the war toys! We march on the morrow
and any other morrow that dares to dawn! 
Sure it's vile against all we hold and believe
- but that's just what they'll never expect
to see!

So it's on!

So let's roll - wait.

Get ready first. 
We have trinkets, bamboozles
and wuzzles to fluff! To help us all
do our very best worst. Flea-flunkers, 
cha-tookas, punt-cunchers and breems!
Chunk saucers and scuz grenades,
pee-shooters, who knows what else?
Such nasty machines! Flamethrowers,
bazookas, to say very little about
our coup de grace whup-di-wazoo,
from hell, it seems. 

We shan't need to bust that one out.

Not yet. 
Not this jaunt.
Save it for Christmas, upon which 
we'll Bah Who Dore Ays their biz
all we want! They will learn
the true meaning of Doomsday,
that day. And all days
thereafter, if we get our way.

Slow or faster. 

But my love is different

My love is big and bright and keen
Where your love's deep and welcoming
and hark is that a complement between
it's like a yin yang deal! Just playing spoons
by opposites dovetailing snug with great
big bits of each of us grown deep inside
the other's swoopy shape. Besides, my
love is deep and welcoming your love's
bright keenness. Big as well. I guess
It's not so different. But how's a guy
supposed to tell?

An Almost Astonishing

You have an almost astonishing clarity 
of thought overwhelmed by fecundity 
of imagination, ideas in a sling 
which you bandy about crack shot 
and zing, as with overwrought style
you go wandering, brought down 
to basis: a hole in the ground. 
What baseless basis is that
to dig? Next you catapult up 
in a cloudhead bound passing 
shooting stars and woolgathering, 
knitting sweaters from such rough 
fibrous weave. Why I do believe 
these sweaters were wolves. Why 
on Earth do you make such a spectacle? 
Such epiphanies fit only fancy fools. 

I do not mean this to be mean.
I mean, I don't mean it that way
at all! Untrue. I just see
something in you
quite admirable, and I wish
it were in someone less
like you. 

methoditchy

I'm a very methogical man. 
With a method so logical 
I made up a word. It 

Stinks. I will try 
another one. 
Try an error! I say. 
It's bound to fit. 

Do us a favor

Blithering idiots, 
do us all a favor 
and shut up. 

Wait. 

Then you'd seem dignified 
and wise, 

standing there 
more than taciturn. 
Nodding sagely, omitting
the dumbest lies and most
everything else. Taking in all
said with listening eyes,

and a kind mannered smile,
knowing nothing you say would go half
so well as this best trick you've found
in so long a while. Know what?

Do a favor, keep
blithering
away.

Good to know! 
Never change
that style,
okay? 

Comicversey

Superman once stuck 
his dick in a black hole 
and got his shit off. Oh yeah?

Batman once beat chess itself! 
After some considerable preparation
and a thought towards all moves 
ahead. That's nothing! 

Spider-Man tells lame cracks 
while flipping unwilling gymnastic 
thugs and occasionally one 
strikes true! We laugh way more 
at the corny ones, he is such 
a Spider-Ass, but we love 
his pluck-MUST YOU KEEP 
going on and on? 

Both: We're sick of your Spider-Shit 
fanboy! You have not a side to stand 
in this debate! Superman is strongest, 
and Bats is best. 

Spidey's just a lame-o
playing way overhead,
outpunching and overthrowing
his weight on a spiderweb, more 
than proportionately. 

With a note on it, there
for all to see. 

Not a symbol or signal,
just courtesy.

Dark or just mean character

My vast resources
make meager means, since
my qualities lack either
character, or caliber, except
my sweet trick. So down and low!
No one who expects 

The inquisitor gets
what the shadow knows. And
he's sick with it. He he he hah
hah hah from the hearts of men, 
to their clouded minds! I question 
the questionable quite as well
as the worst of them. 

It's that skeptic eye I fix, yet again. 
On you. A discrepancy, in consistency
contradicts itself so I cast it down!
Across, and up in the pants. Now it's much
more robust. From that beating I just
partook myself, somehow such a darling
dance by the way I lead gives hell. I say!

Malpractice makes malperfect play!
And wins. I've been evil

For all your own good,
so long. I've forgotten how 
to stay. This horrible row, 
my road called wrong.       

I'm afraid I'm already gone
this way, far down. Come

now.

You shall not see me, but perhaps
we shall feel our way. Through night, 
to a dawn that shall never break 
to day. That's just how it is, 
how I always write.

It's okay.  

Incompats, compats perhaps

You have a pleasant face; 
I prefer plain, gorgeous. 

You have a forward way. 
I like that plenty, but 
prefer a bit behind. 
Which on the other hand, 
fits! So fine. I see, 
I mean. No hands 
here and there, 
hey mama.

Your character, I judge 
is rather. I prefer 
quite. 

What do you think of me,
though? 

That, 
if you like 
and don't mind me saying
could put the bow on the cake. 
Just right! You choose, 
I cut. Or rather slice. Or just 
fork in? Or spoon. 

Yes, let's just
as you'd rather!
I sense deserts 
in the wind at night. 
Eat what you have, 
and drink it too. Quite 
a near trick if you ken,
do both.

For and from all we know:

We are kind, I suspect 
not kin. Which is blest
as a festival of waves  
on coasts. Yet at just

This moment it is still
just possible, we may not 
begin at all. Shall we go? While 

We've had the chance? Or forbear,
forewarned and four-armed as
we are combined. Maybe take 

this next pass, for our cares.
Maybe flirt all the way towards 
death as we flit. We'd dare all
our lives, for such fit to share 

which we'd quite rather split
all our difference upon
to roast and spit!

whatsit bout

In tying bows  
on crashing falls 

from telling blows

while taking bows,   
we lost our minds 
and cost our brains 
in taxing thought. 
We took such pains

on honor's chin. 
Which was allowed
- or back of head.
Bad form, hot shot.  

Then dragged up by 
one arm apiece, we
giddily found most
our feet, and us 
dead on. We got
the judge of all this
fuss to make a face. 
Declare our fight  
decisively the worst
just seen most 
anyplace - but 
technically we 
both had won. Disgusted, 
triumphed, we rejoiced 
in sweating hugs. We'd won 
the fight! As if we ever 
had that choice. 

The chaste maid

The chaste maid 
is by no means 

Any more or less chased 
than she thinks she is. She 
Just wishes the anglers had 
fewer hooks by which to 

miss.

She is a catch! She's animal sly
with human good, but it would 
be nice if they baited with lures 
more alluring, perhaps 

something really alive. It's 
plastic and wood they woo 
her with. What's a chaste 
girl like this

doing in 
such a dive.

All misses 
in here! No catches, but she
will not miss.

She rises 
to go

to the back
of the joint, stick the
jukebox in gear. Let's have
some hits! Liven this place

up a bit. 

The point. 

"Epic tell" (formerly "Your suit transformed")

Then swords were spades, so civilized.
Instead of stab, you bury them. 

So wands and staves became as clubs, 
to call with sirens. Dance begin! 

We lost the glory for such drudge. 
We dug our holes to sleep therein. We lost 

The magic for such dull and bludgeon
clubs, accepting us
for sake of sin.
We lost 

So much,
as coins to diamonds turned. Now,
there's a stretch! The hardest rock
in worlds, so many faces cut - just pull
a ducat from your pocket, now. Just
flip a coin, 

Well, heads says think and tails says fuck
- by such low arts we lost our heads,
when we confused 

Our hearts with cups.
We can show hands
the table 'round, or fold
in prayer, but we can't read

Our own slick palms. In faces we
find too few tells to dare. As tics fail,
too. We fold, as bleating lambs. 
Compel us anywhere, we've
read the signs. Between the lines
of shielding hands - our fingers
misaligned. O! Destination anywhere. 
We call it fate, and fall behind.  

Let's tell it true.
The glory lost in stab 
was no real loss.

Just mine. 

Just jumping gun 
on way to hole
that lies, awaiting 
all. Betimes, as times
betide, we take the call. 
The worms will have their joke 
upon dear soul. Or cheat
them, let's!

We'll pack ourselves decked out
in suits, in box, in fiery kiln.
It fits! We do. We reduce withal
to uncountable mass of dust
and ash. A few pieces
left to rue.

Does it need a thrust?

Not really, such dull spadework 
comes fast, and whatever
remains has passed. 

It's not need that lacks, 
or want, just must. 

And the wands were props, 
and so were the staves. We'd trudge
leaning hard, in martial airs
with passing arts, making points
or passes significantly, but just. 
Turning take to trick, turning
test to pass, turning ask
to tell, or self to ass.
Indifferently done,
I'd say. 

And coins have meanings,
as diamonds do. And it all
adds up, but nothing lasts.
It's as if we've lost nothing.
It's all as one, today.

In all of this we have gained
our hearts. Now let's raise our
cups! Don't ask 

For who (or whom)
The bill tolls.

This cup's on you,
you recall. We have
already flipped the coin.
And you called heads, as
you do. You always do. My round 

Comes next! Take it easy, let's.  
Keep our wits this time! 
We go better that way,
however we go
right through.  

Your place, or ours. A few
rounds, or two. So fine. Our suits 
are resplendent as they are pressed
and worn. They and the stars
shall be transformed. 

We always do.

It isn't a change of self. Just skin
and form. Second nature or third?
Such lush thread count and cut
we've lost in this cause we
are so lost in. So found, as well.

It's as thin and full as any a swell
upon any sea. It waxes and wanes,
It has come to be, and gone.
And it washed us up
on top of ourselves. 

We have gone so well and good.
If I am your jackanapes, you're a queen.
And if we are flush, let's bust this strait.
We could. For if you are my heart, 
I have tails for thee.

Plus clubs and swords and spades
for whoever stands opposed to we.

This fate

or the next, resplendent in suits,
in or out of our dress,
our house so full,

We shall be. Venture forth
and jump back, and kiss
such selves we are, 
such mutually fools. 

As the bells come toll, I will fold
in the face of your tell.You'll see.

That hand running ace two
three four ace. What a busted straight!
But one hell of a pair to hand. 
To bluff, or a suit to make all
in. Fits just so. Cock an eye
for the tape, and an ear for
what could be bespoke.

Take a needle in time, and win! 
It's a kind of a sword, poke a kind of
bendy stave (or rope) at its eye, 
thread a line in and tie it through.
We begin to resume what has gone 
a long time by now, in our loom. 

We can suit ourselves well 
these ways. By such arts, clothed 
optionally at least and best, at odds
we can stake and raise our bets
'til the pot is free. So equally right
we evenly try.

And oddly guess. 

Can we tell our futures by fall
of cards? Hey, I'll take your hand 
if you'll take mine, we are blest.
Whatever they've got for us, it
cannot be so high and hard
so true so good and on guard

So beautiful

As how we found ours in this
hullabaloo.

Let's show.
Let's tell. 

I see DEATH at the end. And two fools 
deep in cups drinking hearts in clubs 
for free. Wtf it's you! 

And I think that's me.

Let's predict! Oh, gwan
let's see.

Procedure.

Loose and lossy, slipping 
down the focus
drifts, and
tightening. I know 
this shot. Just what this play's
about, but let's just share the scene 
and trade such lines there are, 
pre-written out and memorized, 
to improvise. It's called 'ad lib.' 

You taught me how. There's been 
such lessons in your eyes, and thankfully 
your lips, as well. And always just
the same. Yet always such surprise
to find they way that you improve
such cares without such pains
as others use. Your tongue 
would stick so fast, instead of

slip for all the world. You shape
such truths 
you speak to last. What's left

unspoken yet, if it
is good, I know it's kept 
for later to unfurl.

The Me Team

Id, the wolverine of the bunch 
(snicker), could really use a censor 
sense to go with those unstoppable claws,
invincible bones and supple size. 

But Superego's unavailable for the capacity, 
circling the earth at top speed hot on fixing 
some chick's fault, but she's long gone so 
he's reduced to arguing with some tricked-up
God, or Father, or Godfather figure's disembodied head! 

Who adds insult to humiliation by taking 
a paycheck for this, and not showing up. Our Hero 
has to ape His lines himself, in a booming 
patrician arch accent approximating his 
(but never His, sad) idea of authority's
style, when speaking with such power

to truth. Or 
at it. 

No one is tricked, fooled, moved, gulled,
cowed or otherwise flocks to hear, have
their wool knit watch-caps dragged like bangs
into their eyes and be fleeced by this, but 

You know I've always preferred shepherd's
pie to mutton? I mean, m'mm m'mm
mutton's good! But it's not swimming
in gravy under a suffocating layer of mash
with notes of dear bloody John. 

That was the sheep's name.

John. A prize winner in his day. Ram
-tough. HEY! Is for horses. I thought
shepherd's pie was supposed to have
beef? Well, this is sure mutton. Where's

the beef?

Ah, there it is. My mistake. I thought 
I tasted John.  

Where's ego to go,
though? What's ego
to do, all torn between
being and not-being,
fretting and strutting
in a mild-mannered 
spasm of fumbling,
stumbling, rumbling
bumbling (he could
go
all
the
way!) cataracts of excuses,
so self-image conscious
he's the onliest man in the
world! (or acts it, but really,
badly. Not if he were the last
man on earth would that lure 
hook anything resembling "a
catch"). Wait!

He's gone!

Where'd he go?
Why is it we never catch ego 
and the id mid-coitus? Always post-!
Afterglow unmistakable. It can't possibly
be modesty, but    
- no wait. He's

there. Over there.
He was there all along.

Yeah. He's...he appears
to be writing a poem. Never mind, 
ignore him
he has no powers
to speak off. He
he he he he he he 
he he he he he he
nope, he actually doesn't! 

Huh, what an impostor.
What an insufferably impudent
-with-impunity unimportant
fleaspeck of a ridiculous and
fantastic figure he cuts up as!
He's an EVERYMAN in that
respect! Quick!

That's the angle! Call the toy
company, strike at a deal for
the rights and such, and rush 
these three dolls into production!

CALL THEM

Ah, 

we pay marketing for that.
Let's leave that ball
to marketing.

Such trifles we pay them for
and actually let them do oft
reap huge gains. That's 
why we do it,
you know. Now!

Who's in charge 
of the intellectual
properties (such
as they are)? Who
do we have to blow 
up in a car, if no
reasonable accommodations 
are available at the inn? 
In-bounds of whatever's
the budget for that, I mean.
Otherwise, first-class all the way!
Let's wine, woo, win this chum
and dine out on the story
for a double-summer's-worth
of hot nights! Oh. 

Aw crap. 

Not that guy again.  

It's him. Why 
is it always him.

The ego on him

Orwellian gaffe

1984 was so pathetic 
it was hilarious, it was 
so wrong. Except for 

"Jump" and perhaps 
the snippet of "Jamie's 
Crying" that later made it
into "Funky Cold Medina," 
making its bid for immorality 
and immortality at once. Score! 

But where George (Sir George!) 
(Not the one with the beetled 
unibrow, the author of such 
sweet rewards he lost them all 
in a ridiculously civil suit - those
epaulets! By George, that was
badly done) went wrong was

In any setup with cameras 
so omnipresent and widely
-available, most of them (and 
the only important ones really)

Will end up in public hands! Vastly
and surely repurposed towards
more a Beasties-esque ethos 
of fighting partly for order and partly
for one's rights. Party on
loosely! Bogus,
as we are all
about to
so richly see

- is the main dish!

Ours to spot, catch, skewer and serve 
in a sauce drawn straight from the public
sewer we caught it in. Achoo and puke. 
Trust me, here's something you will hate 
to see, and it will outrage you for more 
than your share of revenge. Justice's 
tarted-up little assistant, occasionally 
risque and teetering a bit in titters 
and bold tats, thrown off course 
by the huge hunch these things 
go always and only by. 

What can the cameras in the hired 
help's hands hope to prove, in the deluge 
of what's going on, caught on tape? 
America's Home! Funniest videos 
you'd spit bile and fire upon first view, 
and find nor sense nor reason in 
no matter how hard you justify
(or whisper softly). 

I speak, of course, with faith 
in humanity - not excluding 
those decent and public sevants
bent on naively doing our will, 
not circumventing it up to some 
"greater good" (not ours) that they 
cooked up in the room
where so many chefs 
ruin their trust. 

I mean, those peeps 
exist, and they're cool.
Not perfect,

but. 

Nor do I turn my vigilant butterfly eye 
blind by winking in semaphore code, 
missing all the clowns who do pervert 
their oaths to such bald and fat aims, 
like loons. Those stooges, fools, and indeed, 
stools 

can go 

Take a flying piss into the nearest abyss!
(there is always one, if you look), and be sure,
we are there, watching. Taping it with a
reflective all-sass chuckle as they lose
balance, find perspective and their ass,
with both hands, diminishes in vanishing
pointlessness, falling into the abhorrent
place they chose: to void their bladders, 
then selves 
into.

They chose every step
by such bounder's leaps 
by days and weeks,  
and moons also.
The abyss.

Moons also. 

We'll slap it up without a laugh-track, 
slipped into a You-Tube Oops compilation
of government's latest atrocious hits
in a crass play for the approval.

We know what comes of this.

The ridiculous 
(which all authority
is, when it demands
respect 
instead
of compelling it)
is always fulfilled
not by miracle,

but in ridicule. 

If that's not enough warning sign, 
then when the revolution comes 
(continues, rather: vintage '76 
and finer than ever with such 
ripe young age), I'll be the first one. 

Up against the prophesied wall!

Like a standup comic, back to the
stereotypical brick, mic dangling
casually, insouciant by hand,
awaiting the inevitable cliché
drop, meanwhile

declining a cigar with airy wave,
and a last wish:
aim for the heart.

And with it.  

It's your only shot, and the only chance 
there is. Plus all you've got. 

So it is, all of ours, so
the question we have
to ask
is:

Did we fire six shots? 

Or only one. 

Rewind, let's check. Mister, 
I gots to know. 

Fool disclosure on the book: report is,
never read it. Nineteen-Eighty-Four. It
was assigned on or about that actual year,
for the "summer reading list" (repugnant
concept, I thought), but I was too busy
listening to Van Halen at the moment, 

if you can imagine,

and I chose instead to ace
the multiple-choice test, in lieu of it.
I wasn't reading that thing. I'd heard
enough about it, and sufficient to puke. 
I'd already had quite enough Brave New
World to tide me over, thanks. I was still
hot
from throwing it 
at the wall.

Jus' kidding, Aldous. 

At the doors.  

affinity's ghost

Fidelity is a funny thing 
to joke about as the punchline 
falls, and everyone cracks 
a face straight down 
to the diaphragm, 
holding one's heart 
by claws. 

Yet as closure breaks over 
and sunders us, we realize 
hope in the midst of woe. 

There was something 'bout you
I knew was true. 

We fit, even if 
we misstepped 

to go. 

The negative space 
'round that joint silhouette
has been dawning to light 
our ways apart. And forward: 
that shape has indelibly impressed,
stamped by some art
into each half-a-soul
we have left, or right 

in my case. For my sighs, my part 

has lain stainless 
between our lies. 

And the lesson I keep 
after all has gone 
encourages me to sing all 
our song. 

infinity's wake

infinity's flaw 
was found before all 

had got wise to the fact 
they were unawares 

to this perfect uncoupling 
unimpaired by any realistic 
sense 

or care. 

But we took such pains 
in the end, it was 

somehow square. 
Or rectangular, narrow 
across the wide, taller still 
in the front and back, 
with you and me deep, 
and on each side 

bearing pall to the shameful hole
where we died. The legend 
of us goes on and on. Our friends 
took such hope in the song
we wrote with our hearts' 
and lives' bloody quill
pressing on. 

let's bushcraft this

So it looks like rain.

Let's bushcraft this.
That means let's slap up
a dirty contrivance of bark
and hide.

Inviting biting commentary
from absent critics, or just
those in mind
rushing
to a rollicking
sporting upon it
like some two-fronted
beast all-out and plunging,
swiving, cunning, maneuvering
in a display more cheek, more check
perhaps than mate, but meet
and by no means
moot

How we match up and fall
down back behind, catching
in sparks, jolts, heroic spurts,
gushing into and over each,
devising the other by
astonishing means

finally

grasping and gasping
out our courses in cusses
and other such slips of tongue,
unmeant yet much carried and
renewing the puzzle of both
together stunned, flummoxing
in spasms aghast, appalled

at what we made. What's been called

"a tent"
suitable only
for what people do

intense

Me and you, after Godzilla.

I: "It's as well to dull
your taste before
you go to be taken in
by one of these mass
-marketed artifices. If you do, 
you'll find yourself richly
out of place there, enjoying
the incongruity as it all washes
over you like a stale popcorn fart,
leaving you hungry for more. Or
else." /I paraphrase

thee: "..." /makes impeccable Godzilla noise*

Me: "...Noice."

THEE: "..." /with subtly corrective glare of ire, mild-eyed, not much  

I: "Oh, you're hungry! Well let's bolt. I know the rainy-day place for just this moment."

Thee: /brightly, with feeling**: "That
wasn't bad, actually! Despite
your feigned airs."
_________
**surprise? Relief?
I wonder

/exeunt,
via hauled ass
to the slightly forced-affect
posh-casual feed joint! 

Delicious.
_________
*ah-AHhh, oo'wuh (Roughly,
with painstaking reptilian feeling
of indignation, habitually outsize
and ill-tempered, overcompensating
as usual for the enormous size,
pardon.

SIGHS)

One Decent Course

It's either fine how it was,
or it's better now

and I don't care which,
just as long as it fits

you can write whatever end
you want, of the story 
or technically I guess,
set the sequel up

if you finally think
you made a mistake
here's a last chance
to make it right

it's either over like it was,
or else we move on
I refuse to let it drag
on without a fight.
Any longer like this
in my heart, I mean
- you have no idea
there was anything there
but over it
is whatever's between
us at all,

And at least one had 
to care. 

You knew what you had to do,
and you went

right ahead full knowing the cost
you spent, 

but if you finally think
you made a mistake, here's
a last chance to make it right
and if you still think
what you did was right, then

Here's another chance to cut the loss.
Just one more wound,
to wind and bind, if you finally think

You made a mistake. Here's a last chance
to at least make it right. And

you're not the boss anymore, you know. 
But at least
you could serve 
one decent course tonight. 

R***st response comment to innocuous Insta*pic share

"London's storefront's ( sic ) 
are gorgeous." 

*beat*

"That's because of the lack of 
*****rs. N****** would tear 
that sh*t up in a h**rtb**t. It's what
*igge** do.

"

...

I can't even.

I had to share 
before somebody reports 
my
too too responsive comment 
to
this triple-tripe bilge m****rbatorypiece
of willfully misbegotten self-artifice,

and I am banned from Insta*

Love, 

*gram

Clarifiction.

In confidence, the begin-quote
in that passage should come 
before the capital 'M' of Mind, 
but mind, it was missed (tellingly). So,
unintended, 
fret not.
The subconscious
intends all 
It does not imply. 

Reasons for prescription.

Your medicine draws you back 
to even from an odd basis in nature, 
not your fault though you've had 
to own it after painstaking reflection

Upon the benefit of not. Denied 
and defied for a time, you gave in
to suspicious hints and whispers, 
vindictively you thought: "I'll show
her. I'll show them all I don't need 
any of this." "Take with plenty 

of water," the bottle advised. Plenty
isn't good enough, though. A rising tide
brings all boats afloat, so. Might as well 
add some good spirits and stimulant in. 
Gin & Coke it is! Peculiar beverage, but 
hardly still. "Take without alcohol," wait.

Too late. Had plenty. In sum toto, over time
we find it brings (in combination with sleep,
good food and air - the usual) about
a nice retardation
of the rise if too high, drop
if too low dynamic one finds, fills
the mind with a well-picked species of
cotton, and drains away

much of the character one fancies 
others find in us. Or we have. 

Still. Try water next time. Maybe that's 
the trick. Don't operate heavy machinery
sleepily, for a light touch with one's wits 
fully alert, going about on the down-low
skulk, gives goes and drives way better

to realistically-aimed goals. Who knows?

Maybe it is what it isn't? Maybe let's find 
out and in. By experiment, only - rigorously
undertaken, the better to truly falsify, if 

(as we hope and believe), she'll be right.  

Please be good, God

"Please be good, God"
Now that's 
one heck of a prayer. 
It just slipped out, when 
I realized I was begging my
computer, please be good 
little guy. I know, sometimes 
you conk out. Probably have to,
though. Too much on your 
mind, need a break - that's okay.
Please be good though for me, 

Then I realized this was just a bit 
too close to praying 
to a black box whose miracles 
I can't even understand. So 

I switched the aim 
"Please be good, God"
then I laughed. Praying 
for God to be good 
is like giving yourself a hand

in a way you can't applaud. 
Maybe after, not during 
at least. Let us be not vulgar 
or vain or gross in this, but 

be Good, God 
I prayed. And I laughed, 'cause 
I know God is good. Then reflected 
I do have faith! Please be good 
in this God, this little way, help 
this little black box keep up 
and run clean. Now 

I know if it doesn't, it don't 
mean you're mean. Sometimes shit 
happens, and it's nobody's fault 
but either free will or physics 
that's all. Sometimes an inconvenient
application occurs, or fails in the one 
or the other of those. And a miracle 
is not indicated, at least...maybe 
nobody asked, so the course ran 
on, and that course is a beast 
sometimes. So I asked. But 

I'd ask please not test 
my faith in this. Though 
I know it would be for the best, 
somehow if you did. I've got the faith 
of a child during summer vacation 
and tests often go amiss. Don't worry

I pass, on most all of them. That's a zero F
- sixty points lower than D. If I happen 
to walk into it though, I can bend and mend 
True/False or multiple choice by means 
of essays, and tick every box. I don't mind 

a test, so long as it's not ruled 
by some substitute parent 
spinning dark sarcasm 
at the top of the class 

in mismatched sox. Please 
be good, for me, in the matter
of this black box. Thank
you. 

Doesn't mean that much
but you're welcome to help, 
now, by miracle 
or visitation, it's just me 
who has to tell between. I trust you
for all tricks and tests I've applied 
or guest through like a star 
on tv. 

You've just

You gotta have faith in someone
for the good you've known
but you tend to watch out 
for the bad you've known, too.
Preferably from them, and not 
someone else. And without judging
either of those damn two. Second 
person or third - don't get that shit
crossed! The one in front of you
didn't pull that off, keep the fold
on your squint, you can peep okay.
And your mouth? Well, better a gag
than too shoes, trying to soft-shoe 
or moonwalk back out of these
misconstrues. You've just got
to be wiser in your serpentine
coos

Why can't the vicar?

Why can't the vicar on the scene 
of crime quit potting about with 
the cordials? Shoving tinkling glasses
of sherry and port to starboard and left 
- like that! Like a zephyrous squall, 
blown away by a pleasantry.  

Just so. Vanished poof. 

These delicious drinks, though. Hints 
of color and notes of toxins distinct! 
As we heel over drowsy and woozy 
and lose, our consciousness dawns 
on a new theory, in inky dark mauve
scrawled desperately dim,
and presently gone 
like a nasty hymn. 

We remain
unconvinced and aloof, 
looking grim and wan
just a bit off our game, 
this time. Growing pale 
as a fact quite cold. Sterile.

Nothing more to pursue. 
I expect we'll eventually 
quit this line. 
 

recipe/confection

You are thrice mine by means 
I can't describe except by plain 
words operating on planes and levels
where the best they can do is fall fast 
and crash into cryptic and mystic
delicious and listless allegory 
- an allsorts mix. Dip a hand 
in the bag. It's not licorice! 
But whatever you grasping 
grab so vigorously
is yours
to consume, there we are.
It's we!

dogged alliance

Go up and talk to the dog. 
He won't listen to me at all. 
He's up there his way, and 

will only stay. I don't know 
how he got so insufferable 
and superior in his glorious 
pelt he hides beneath such 

typically eager bark and bite 
and purr-like growl and play.

He's eventually like an animal,
and essentially naturally like 
as well 

but
I want him to be my pal 
and he's not. He's your dog 
too, and your pal 

hot shot 

inward fangs

The thing we hate most is
it's time to grow up. We hate 
all the dumb toys we didn't 
have time to find out to enjoy,
when others did. 

The disgust is always

partly at the you who didn't realize it.
Self-hate's fangs are turned inward, it
has every trick in the book to turn us
ingrown and festering, not outgrowing
anything.

There's a part of us
that resents our being.
Our very being.

We attack who we were
for stupidity, weakness 

and everything else, because
we resent having been. 

I don't understand it. But yes
that disgust overrides roughshod.
Everything it can that could be
grasped and learned from,
to diminish and weaken,
outgrow and overcome

the urge to self-destruction. That urge
is always fighting for its life, 

our death. 'Til our death overtakes us 
or we grow up 
and forget. 

amoral undilemma

Whose poker face tells 
are so wrong they're right, 
and who are we to say? 

Wanna bet? 
Let's fight

come the next go round

Everybody wants people
to "back them up"
but

When they're all the way back, 
up against the wall (or similar! Some can even
rock two simultaneous wall-like obstacles,
that's a hard place), suddenly
as if that changed the situation, 
they're all "Hold my beer. I got this." 

I'm like, hey. "Buy me a beer to hold. 
I can hold my own. I got this!" Or
"You get this. I've got 
the next one. Let's all 
hold our own beers, 
please."

Business first. Then,
like not so much a boss, 
but a proprietor:  
mind the proprieties. 

That's class in a glass, and come 
the revolution, I'll buy my 
share of rounds. 

social engineer, coming thru, choo choo

All aboard, let's go. Tickets? Please.
Please yourselves, as you will. Oh,
begin
to conduct yourselves, well. 
I have got
quite a pill, here
to bitterly present! 
If you swallow, that's the plan.
If you don't well, enough 
bad money spent. Where's the good
money waiting 'round for? I've a plan, 
one you might not yet be interested
in, sure. But pretend! It 
could possibly just work.
Then you'll see!  See? I want,
what I want 
is 

to start

substituting "trend"
in every case of "norm."
See who gets indignant, maybe? Perhaps
I do. Perhaps if I do, if it catches on,
we'd finally find normal by
embracing trendy! And if so, I'd be 
fine with that. But then 
I'm pretty bendy 

Always was. Anyways! It's a start,
there's no rush, but no progress without
those. All those starts, with some fits
- and with possibly some throes. Plus direction!  
Better chosen than just windy-day blows 
raining down 'til the thunderbolt shows 
us something burnt. Who knows? This
could work! 

It's a start, what the hell. 

But. How
do we get this "all aboard"
to swell, to sell, to engineer
a certain critical faculty-lack
base? In the masses with the asses
in the seats we want to place,
for the chase? Who do we have
here to hurt, first and who 

is the last? You, my dear 

Are the last one in the world
I want to hurt, but 
don't worry 

we'll go fast.
Let us through, 
oh please do. 

Smacky the bandwagon elf

Smacky the bandwagon elf was killed 
in a comically serious accident. And for once, 
all the other elves followed suit. In tribute 
to one
who would always think many days late,
too-hard hangers-on overcompensate best 
and fit in, into three times the crowd 
that it would have been if you'd only
gone 
before it had been quite so
completely

allowed.   

ritual of misery's loves

Let's reassure each other, ourselves 
We can do this. Saying "No,
of course not." "Of course it
won't!" It's not promises, just

A way to weave words against 
the hot and pressing hard and unyielding 
stones, in obstacles and projectiles clashed 
and splintering, and with us between. Such
immutable force and resolve are facts 
arrayed and displayed, irresistible
to such fools as we. Oh, we know 

to bull and bear our bets upon
our backs. Our words can't bind
on chance or fate or luck gone flat, plus
we have besides decided choice is
the best bet yet. Still, not sure. 
Here are no sure things that we
can't slip, or catch, or get. If 
we want, we can collect 
quite a set. Plastic and malleable
as debt. One day, we'll look

back on this, 
and forget. 

psychosomatic eczema

Red herring, that. Or macguffin 
or something similar, only less 
misused. This poem's about 
itself some way other than 
what the title, up there, alludes. I apologize
if you surfed right in on an engine hard-pressed
against your skin, to discover some wisdom 
dreamed so clear, but I really cannot 
quite help you, dear. Which 

Admittedly could be called "jack
move," or a "punk" or a "prank," but 
I'd no intent to cast any net of mine
half-wide enough to fish 
for anyone half so bent 
on revenge. Now I run 

for my life, I've been outed 
and doxxed like a bagel with lox 
cut halved by knife, spread in
public view, as the vultures 
descend, their hunger for vitals 
comes down without end. Won't you

Please take pity on me, or not?
It's really not worth the consequence,
and I do mean for either of us. You have no 
idea
what guest you invite
by such trust unspent.  

Misses Dulcimer

Misses Dulcimer - Chariot, 
Sharon, and Sham - three sisters,
have courted and won their suits 
by wiles pressed in cases cool,
comprised in glances, words 
and worsted wool. And now
their names are just 
the best, and just 
the same.

A pact they'd made, to one day if perchance
should come, be Mrs. Dulcimer times three,
in fact. Well, what a lark! And what 
a triple-wedding thereby was done.
The chaps respectively were chuffed
and bloked and copped, and then some. 
By these ladies three, in their well-bespoke
brand new suits, which woo'd and won, as 
worn that day, and well. That day, they all won
through, sworn fools in cause so good and true.  
To heck, who knows? We'll see. Just set a spell.
Things work out, as some do.  

kiss of gin

a kiss of gin 
from a parting glass 
to your parting lips 
before parting glance, 
in time just nicked
by the chin and drunk
too fast, let's 

Please go our desperate way,
away so fast to safe homes,
to our betterment at last,
and wherever it roams
as it comes to pass

or whatever it is,
or should prove to be. 
At least it should try, 
we've deserved it, see? 

omg political

AOC is the Beyoncé
of offensive comparisons. Oh,
touché

Catchup

I can't keep up with my muse. 
She has gone before to light the way
with her eyes, but she's always come back 
right now, by chance. And I'm running apace 
to take up her slack. The length in my leash 
she always lets. I guess and I'm rough but my bark 
forgets how biting her glowing sarcastic praise 
raises hackles to bust shackles in such ways. 

stochastic blessing

I am in fancy fact 
a stochaster. Stochastism 
(or Stochastimancy, to the 
ignorant and superstitious)
(Hi!) isn't chaos theory or even 
chaos magic, but sit with me 
a spell and I'll sling spun 
random enchantment at 
cha hot, and at us, and chill
'til you know what the bells
have wrought, and how much
was wrung from our time.  
The tolls and the prices 
admission admits these days 
couldn't pass for free. But lady? 
Be mine, or be thine, or be gently,
gentle man. As you will, 
please identify what 
our obstacles be? If as I bet,
you can. In your own 
sweet case. In mine? Let us open a case,
and see! I bet I can even
sympathize, but the die
is cast upon one of six sides,
the other is heads. Up one of
five tails, it lies. And we'll live 
and we'll die thereby. Ah, 
sighs is the whispering groan 
begat in the drone and the whine
satisfaction's cat has curiously 
warmed itself upon. It would have
to be that, wouldn't it? Scat! Shoe! 
Begone! Ah, puss. That's okay, 
have at. For destruction is 
a creative act, and I love to create
so stay the hell back.  

gala balls just mist

Opportunity mist occludes our eyes.
By the time we have knocked or are knocked, it's
already arrived and been swept away
by chance. Now, who had the balls
to call this dance?

hard reboot

I have reproduced the cause of the fault 
again, it seems. Though I don't know when

C'mon baby baby hold it 
together, you've done so good all day 
irrespective of jolts, and the weather oh 

curses! Oaths! Unfreeze thyself cursor
Resume thine roving post, and point 
where I've aimed you at 

in a furious whirling scrawl 
right back up to bat! To click, 

perchance to sprawl back across 
and into incandescences. Oh why 
you dumb box of microscopic gears 
can't you try to perfect yourself in this!

Internally, by the force of such love
I pour into and through you for others 
to pout and squiz and grin, and 
respond or abstain. It has all been 

through you, I've groaned in pain. 

Have i tried yet 
turning it off 
and on again?

the Trick

I'm glorying in contentment
and peace lately, a trick 
no one else seems to see
or have tumbled. At least 
not so's I'd notice. The key 

is to ease one's grace effortlessly 
in the moment, discovering 
whut? And why do you ask 
such emptiness anything? Go

fast, and contemplate 
your biz. But leave out the 
self-buzz words, now please. 
Awareness is only attention's 
jizz. Ew 

is as good as an Om,
for this disease

hard, but soft

I have a big voice, 
and I dress to the left 
in case no one can tell 
I guess, amazed. 
Quit looking at me,
I've said nothing for days! 
Oh, it's public we're in. 
Fine, then. I accept 
your gaze. Oh, it's only
yourself you regard?
So askance, I see?
I'm a mirror, then. 
A good looking glass!
At a glance, I reflect
what I see, you project 
yourself right off me 
and the question's intent 
in such circumstance. You ask

Who's the prettiest one 
in my pants? Is it fairest 
as well, or shall we whistle off?
While we work our interpretations 
so hard, but soft.  

sorry, stuck (for a terminal rhyme)

There's something that I can't do by myself
even half so well as it goes with you 
so inclined to participate, fully in 
and keen to begin and go on
by turns in a light and summery
springy wood as the screw
turns descendingly down
through grain, I'm biased
I know. But all such cares
as are taken together
redeem all pains. It's 

conversation, I mean. 
So what 
might you else 
have thought or intended, 
there? From such inference 
we imply what we read 
between every line 
ever done indeed. 

Which is natural, 
but quite off the point. 
Let us talk this out 
until noses aglow 
back in perfect joint 

we have come to know
has always awaited us 
here. Oint Oint 

hypochondriaphile

I read this, I read that 
You have to stop reading 
crap, go to the doctor 
and what (s)he tells you
that's-that. On the internet 
medications have contraindications 
and side-effects so fat, you can't buy 
them all up, for all
the insurance in the world! And 
you'll tease and convince and titillate
yourself to a case of the vapors, waiting
anxiety on your health. Seeking truth in 
in the strangest place. Some anecdotal wealth
of lies and miracles prized 
from screens. 

Go in. 
It won't kill you
to take advice 

from someone who means 
to tell you what's wrong. That is 
if they find it was in there 

all along. 

morality teens!

Morality Teens! Form up! 
Form gangs and cliques 
and claques along bright lines 
so just so perfectly made-up 
in time for the pendulum swing
to nick in so fine, we find
swooshing back, right forth
to right! 
Eventually
and adventurously, 
we the might of hope.
It is time for the young
to scold the old! With respect, 
they've come just a little too 
comfy, complacently cold 
to the call of good. So evil 
be damned! We draw the sword! 
Reality teens! To thee! Not me, 
I am way too aged and fine, 
oh lord. Have at thee lads 
and lasses aroused to ire 
and fire and pique

so proud. 
Well, rightly so
arguably, let's. 
It's allowed!

Refuted but nah

Perfect doesn't happen live, 
they say. Well, 

you had to be there 
in time, 
on the day. 

cathedral fires

Well I was feeling a nap coming on,
this coffee has staved it off a bit 
then 
I heard

the news break in on me. Somewhere,
and I know, I've been there - 
a university cathedral burns 
alone in the woods as angels
flame and smoke into ritual
preordained by nature, just super.
Reduced to ash, taking root
to soot in a blazing flash,
in trade for their pains

As the whole thing falls.
I know, 
I can never come back 
at all. Those trees grew up 
ringing round that space 
in obsessively upward stride 
that took always to reach, 
or near as. I am held at bay 

as everything Monterey
burns today. If I could go back 
with a cape, right now I'd dump 
hurricane force rains 
nebulized to a drenching mist
of drizzled deluge that would quench
those ancient and parched throats of bark
to cores that could never again
be singed. Be toast. Be oak 
and ash and yew, and especially 
redwood again like new. 

If I'd ever gone back before now,
I could. But Shakespeare 
will have to find 

new parks,
I guess. And everything else 
gone up 
in a separation of state 
with some cause 
to effect. At best, it's just 
chemical. A lightning strike 
as touched off. Predetermined.

Cool. 

Let's pretend it don't matter, 
then. Or now. Or ever. Or 
ever again,

you fool 

self-demonstration fail

A sample, you ask. A specimen. Girl
/woman I'm just that guy! Oh, Man,
I'm on
my own plane
with discomfort galore, 
in a seat so economy-false,
I score! A solo poem boner 
and working it all for all it's 
subjectively valued at! By my lights 
tuned low and base, the better
to conjure a specter spectacularly
by its shades, these days 
I seem to be id
more than ego, and tact
has put on a cape, flown out
to fight crime as has been its wont,
frustrated in nicks of time where it went
to lark and stunt. Proved vain. Insufficiently
tipped! Ta-da! I've arrived! Where is it?
Where's the wrong I intuned, tuned into
afar and shot straight to the source
of disturbance? Har har  
Just slipped out the back! It 
was never here, you fool. Got
the wrong side of town on tap for such pule 
as your puerile jejune superego pretends
as occasion to make someone else 
hold one's beer. Boom intone into
consequence. And 

Just so! Like that! This poem has
turned, and is not even hintily now
about dicks or sex, or by-products
best kept upon chests locked in hope
of some future conquest of a socio
cultural storybook kind. I, the prince!
You, the virgin whore with defiant
eyes, saying "you call me WHAT?"

Oh. Sorry. It's a joke! I lied, what
you can't take a lie for a joke? Laugh away,
fun one. I just keep popping off like a jukebox
whose singles are all novelty, no pop or jive
groove, no symphony, and no sympathy
do I have to drop dimes on such traitorous tips
called in from dives. I keep puling out such
sickly sour smells 
in vividity tense, into intent forms. 

I shape them to purposes vast
past norms. It is just, 
just a touch,
just a touch too warm 
or discourteous, 
perhaps! To indulge
in such absurdly lewd
displays of proesy 
prosody posed as whimsy 
goes. Self-urge to enact and create,
fulfilled! Now reenact, recreate the scene 

revisited for hate/love right/wrong 
plus bile and spleen, sprained 
brains, all boiled as par in a kettle 
of course, contained in 
society's mind, to society's 
shame. Take pains as you please.
I am just that much 

Inclined to this plane. 

And you would not believe 
the contemptible ease 

with which I maintain 
such slovenly slut-about 
and sleaze, winking in 
implication and out 
like the breeze. 

malice afterthought

What sort of nude
humiliation do you imagine 
I want? You subjected to, 
to which you object 
in prospect, digging 
for woes and whoas 
in this grim bit of business 
which you propose? Revenge porn 
is contradiction in terms! Is porn 
"living well?" Is porn best "served 
cold?" 

The mutual exclusivity here is 
or ought to be criminality, if
and when these two too ill
-suited (entirely unsuited 
actually, natch) drives are 
malevolently combined. No, 

I am not and ever would be

sharing 

Yet

If you're into that sort of 
tease, titillating oneself 
with fantasies of some hard,
cruel dude with a posthaste 
ache to show to the whole world 

how his

you once were, 
in malice afterthought,
and you want

to cast me in that role? -

Sorry! Not interested. I prefer 
action pictures to psychological 
thrillers poised and spread implausibly,
even raunchily, motive-wise. Trust me,
there's no belief to be found or held
or prized from such innocently yet suspicious 
lies. Cast your eyes aside from such low
base goals. Besides, you
so scrupulously omit 

ya face

most times. All the best pics, though 
show nothing else but. I love ya face, 
and the thought of seeing it fell 
and furious, hurt and wronged 
would pursue me to death and beyond 
if I ever let slip such precious tell, 
such privacy shared and spent 
in a moment I can't ever regret 
so, well. So I'll see 
that I don't. Capisce? 

Oh hell. I can't put it any barer 
than that, and to be the bearer 
of clarity, FACT: You never did,
would, or could even have 
hinted at. Such. 

My imagination, you know. 
So terrible in every conceivable way 
of self-accusation bent. I keep it 
against myself, perchance
for someday. 

A bit much, I confess a bit 
too too much

tarragoner

YES. Tarragon. It goes good
in the sauce, but not much. Just
a touch, working up to taste. Too
much tarragon is DEMONSTRABLE on
the palate, it has a naff character to it
that stinks up the mouth's standing room
like romano, overdone by a dry leaf
fragment or hundred or so. Just a touch,
though,
the right touch wends
and melds and swells just everything else
to sauce perfection.
Well. 
Okay, maybe a tweaky pinch more, 
just to taste. Perfect! Ruined? 
More tomato paste

obscenity

her jiggle and crux 
of cushy meat so padded 
and slung, swung gracefully
with the stealth and the poise 
of a ninja pose, comes stealing 
in brief without her clothes. And I 
knows and I knows and I knows 
in her - pretty nosey, or maybe 
just curious? Oh, "object" is far 
too hard a word to subject such as she 
to in any test. It sails and fails, for
She's always been at best, subject 
to nothing at all, and I've cradled her
in my gauche male gaze, all gauze 
stripped away to diaphanous steam 
as she plays in my sway in 
array serene, and stays
any orders I execute
clean. 

bubble bath

A private message 
borders in a stretching square 
of rounded edge, and bubbles up 
to fill the tub. I hopped in nude 
(as was my wont), and filled to edge. 
Now I can't move. I'm sick of wetness
on the tile. I don't know why, I've all 
clean towels to hand, but somehow 
sopping doesn't satisfy in such
a while. Let's bask 
in this, all just
poured out from 
spouts as unselfconsciousness
as metal, hollow downward hooks
all doubt, dissolved insensibly.
Dispensing steamy letters sent 
- unscented salts and oils are set 
quite liberally aside, unopened and
unspent. It's just for ambiance. This
Oz I wizard in needs no such ooze.
Just praps a squat vermilion-scented
candle lit to drip its wooing wax
down to both sides of this here
tub. It's soaking in, I figure

as I wrinkle in museum mode. I
contemplate
resemblance
in peccadilloes - minor sin
of vanity, that! Oohs and ahs
and never 
overcompensates. Deliberately
and likewise, otherwise 
at least, I seem to have just wait
just wait for it - a sense 
of brim, and levee's breaking point 

to settle in and bask in this. My aching
joint. The ambiance I do anoint. The true
tub soak. It's all we civilized types ask!
The luxury of haitch to O. In steamy
temperament, soaked fast. 

rank observation

Somebody said I have a command
of English, But
sometimes I drive
the troops too hard. Well
apologies and fuck you
to the troops, dudes. I believe
we all know who signed up for this,
and who's seeing stars
on whose epaulets.
The EGO on this id
is appalling, kids. Don't
try anything at home.

I already did. 

the spring anti-social

On Prom Night, everyone 
who didn't invite 
falls in with a case 
of solitude's booze. It's 
Been seventeen years since 
we graduated. You'd think 
we'd have no further left
to lose

accomplicity

accomplicity 
dovetails and hews 
through living rock 
of the one and you,
in channels and veins 
of streaky ore. Who
you find it with is just
what you both explore,
all in
and about
and through, 

It's unnecessary 
but so useful, too! 
Once you get on a lark 
and sport yourselves 
with a mischief fit 
for faeries and elves 
done up in scientist kit 
as a prank with a point 
to it. We have much 
to thank, and it's mostly 
the way we've done 
ourselves in.

In being, 
but even more
knowing something
by tells and by giveaways,
innocent of sin, or
ignorant of what's lost
by win. So by takes
and turns in breaking
swells as the candle burns 
'til it's worth so much more
than the game it sells - I will be 
your accomplice, now shush 
don't tell. Just laugh 
like bells, as is always 
a wont of yours, and my want 
as well. If the game is afoot 
let us fix eyes and try both hands
upon this scent, that track, 
one side pursued by two
such curious sleuths, and
hunt it like hounds to hell. Or hey,
maybe paradise 

is the way
it runs. Well, 
it shan't be safe
there, either way. Quite nice!
We have too many plans, 
too much to do for our pains
and cares, to much fun. It almost 
goes through the star-freighted rooves 
of that universe you hinted darkly
at once, in darkest verse.
It is so hard to care
more or less than this,
as we recreate and repair 
all the trickiest,
dodgiest most 
insidious and
sophisticated 
effects of bliss

C'mon job

Come on baby rouse my ire
C'mon baby, strum my lyre 
C'mon baby stoke my pyre 
Come on baby poison my woke 
with swole, come on baby make 
my parts so great that if everything 
fits, I could be whole and then what 
it is could amount to soul, but 
that would be nondemonstrable. Come 
on, baby come on. BABY C'MON
let's know this knoll we've come out 
upon so long ago we should know 
how to write its song

The clarity.

The clarity of my thought consists 
in measured, bent degrees and arcs
by jury, rigged. By judgment, fixed
- because the court hath all such art. 
Or was it heart, to fix such things?
Withal, we all come gathering 
to parse and tease between each slice, 
and so adjust the scales precise.
Just so, adjust the niceties. So
mean, we mean it all. So nice 
we've found a sense 
by such degrees
that fleas and lice 
could slot between 
and drink our life's blood dry,
and clean as ice. 

post-toast

It’s funny how feeling fills
so full with sense
and senses numbed
a bit. Oh nothing, pet. 
I'm mumbling. You've heard 
more than enough
of it. 

the spirit glass

the spirit glass
sits broken now
in spirit, as 

the drink is fixed.

This broken drink 
was perfect once. Oh, 
what became of all of this? 
In swimming ink and dimming
light, a fiery sting lies dwindling
in blood and throat, a choked-out 
prophecy. Specific as to what,

not saying when, 
with this and that (but
mostly this, in deluges
- and then a dash or spritz of thus
and such, for color more than
sin) poured in per wish
by measured dram: 

it is fulfilled,
as it was spoke. 

Just so, by dam
the drink once broken 
now is full. Is fixed, is
flush, is pleasurable. Is 

gone! Like that? What hey,
what how?

With broken spirit,
let's allow. 

So fill to me
the spirit glass
and set me up
a pedestal,

You’ll see how well
I balance then.
And if you can,
please tell me later
how I fell. 

problem with sarcasm

My problem is, sarcasm doesn't mean
how they always said it  
when I was a kid.
Like Steve Martin's "Well, 
Excu-you-ooze ME!" or "Yeah, that's
perfect, put that right there." - when
somebody's dropped some smashed or
dented thing. Something loud, at any
rate, that wild and crazy guy 
was not really asking
to be excused, was he?
Nor did mr. perfect-right-there
mean it, dudes. 

Which was plain to see. 
That, friends, was sarcasm.
Something said, and 
perfectly clear: not meant. 
At least, intended as such: to be understood
as a dig. A jape. A wry and bent 
sort of poking instrument, to jab,
jab wry between the ribs. That is, 
or used to be 

the sense of it. 
My problem is 

lately, the dictionaries 
all seem to insist
it's malicious or cruel!
A conspiracy! Only guess 

I've got: lexicographers 
must have been wimps at school. 

'Cause if that's what sarcastic means 
to them,
then 

I kid you not.
I pity the fool. 

"Good job." 
Sarcastic good job, 
how malevolent, oooo. 

Thoughts wander how far

Pretty far. Haven’t reached
a limit yet, except and unless
the limit of my interest counts.
It definitely matters - indeed,
decides the matter,

but who’s counting? I say
it doesn’t count. And in practice
if it ever did, I’ve lost it.
Count.

So, pretty far.

My mind has feet!
When the game’s afoot
it treks and traipses unstained,
unburned through soot and ash
of volcano spew, to catch updraft
from the pyroclastic flow and waft
up heavenward flue like sunlit dew, straight up
into hells
of lightning-crowned
and towering choking smoke,

then I take the engineer’s seat
and yell “Choo Choo!” ALL ABOARD
the suddenly brand-spanking clean
and new white cumulonimbus cloud
on forward float, scraping straight
out of Dodge on lightning legs,
chugging on with tornado dicks
out dangling down proud, but that’s
all a bit too disturbance-based.

For me,

I mean.

I pull back the controls, and the cloud
launches off and up into space!
Past gravity wells, past
the Tannhauser gate - you people
have no idea what I’ve seen,
though. Randomly wandering
paths in mind. None of that sh!t’s
really out there, you know.

At least not as such. It disappears
like tears in rain,
I find.

It may not be "random"
in the strict stochastic sense,
but such distinction is valueless.
Way leads onto way unplanned,
what comes. I scheme and peer
and stand around, charging up and down
unplotted vectors and arcs
like a bunch of bulls
steered by bums, unchosen except
at each spreading array of quantum tines
in some multipronged superposed blest 
and indefinite fork, and forge forward
on freest whim! As indeed,

I’ve mostly done through real life
- both real feet really on real grounds,
albeit thin. Or working the pedals
and shifting gears for all this worth. There are not
fewer ways to go, down here,
I’ve found.

Not all those who wander are lost.
But you might not want to follow them 'round.
Someone else, maybe. Those wanderers quite
possibly have no clear idea where they’re going
or what they have found, or might have found.
More than likely, they neither want nor need
such ideas, for what they intend to find out.

Just what’s there. Let's wish them luck
on their wanders in mind, towards
wonders unguessed, just what’s not
- or may be, and maybe
we can’t know.

Now a matter of taste and preference
arguably, and as points go, 
you could call it moot.

I won’t argue. But for me? The former’s way
deeper and richer and better to find. Just what’s there.

If you care, you can keep that in mind.

exploratory trespass

So, 

I wrote a shamelessly fond
and devoted exploration 
of you, or some idea. Over which
I had no right, which I know

But, 

I thought I'd toss it out 
to the world! Without
your name for any or you
to spot or not, for any 
to secretly openly know 
what I'm getting at, which 
anyway, is beautiful

And 

for its own sake, really. Just
a jot and a lick 
and a spot of paint 
outspread in licensed ways 
of artifice or poetry, 
maybe a shot or a swerve
of aesthetic wish or want,
just gently pricked
and bled its bliss
naive and blithe, 
and own. 

That's how sake is.
Self-supervised, directed
and grown by natures intrinsic
and sensible, or inscrutable.     
It isn't a game, all rules 
with no play or win in them.
It's just a statement, tender
and plain

And accurate
as a gentleman,
or a paradox,
or anything else
one could describe 
for profit or gain    
I hope and guess, 

Or just for itself:
the doing of it. 
Some joyous plaint 
or paean of words,
trying to catch 
as best one gets.  

approaches to grace

You are sometimes felicity's fussbudget,
though the limpidness and liquidity
by which your pour yourself into it
so curiously into confluence
with all swift, sharp intercoursing
flows through rocks and shelves
hard and wearing away - noting
the influence of each upon each,
deciding your influence as 
you intently stray - takes fluidity 
to a fluency one could hardly suppose
attained by any but constant, devoted 
souls. And that, by the way 
takes a brain.

Meanwhile, says I, in my rude
country way, take courtesy
for my fundament! And trust I mean
well, to all intent, and purpose myself
to my aim and bent, which makes me a fool
or an ass sometimes. With nothing so seeming
effortless as preference and inclination aligned
in enjoyment of every try and test. 

Approaches like these both work, I find. 

For ease is not grace, and grace is not ease,
but either can meet and marry and match 
quite easily, in contentment and peace. It's
catch-as-catch can, but can 

can catch.
And be caught
as well.  

You seem to draw lines 
into staves, and play notes
that arc and swell thereupon
into chords interwoven in time
virtuosity clocked of itself: intent
reproduced in attempt so well, so fit.
There's pattern and play and propriety,
and so much of each, observed and designed
into it. As it swings out and into the test. Behind 
it a practicing scientist and artisan with heart 
in throat for the best. I seem to be much 

More pure of act, myself. Indeed in the moment, 
I'm innocent even of thought! For the very 
most part at least. I don't rightly know 

how I got so ought. So should, and so 
almost must. You protest: "But you must 
know!" No, well - you could be right! But 
I know on some level, then. It's a test. 
Perhaps it's a trick. Perhaps a fight!
But I shan't best subconscious in this 
unless, until it shows up. 'Til then, 
let's call it a draw.  

Meanwhile, as I say, I do so admire
the notes you place, precisely where each
has so much call and such cause to be. 
I sense you admire my crashing grace 
through the lines - how it adds its own 

symmetry.

We could each learn a thing 
or two from this pleasant tree 
that has grown from acorn, dropped 
or strewn who-knows-from, at just upon
the boundary line between us. Plumb. 
Perhaps it's not oak. As it grows, perhaps 
we'll have plums or figs, or both! 
Either way, it's a nice place to meet,
well-begun. 

all avail

her eyes were closed
her body glows 
she sees herself 
in full detail 
and blushes 
from the scrutiny 
with every flaw 
redeeming me 
to all avail. 

And seemingly, 
she loves this person
she has been, and 
she could be. The best one
in my life, exploring 
scenery and slipping back
behind the drops to cop 
the moment feelingly. 

And actually, we 
fit so well we can't 
sit, lie, fly still as
swaying, clapping
gonging bell. 

this shipwreck

This shipwreck of ours 
two boats intersmashed 
has surprisingly seaworthy 
properties, natch 

We shan't be surprised 
when we charted such course. 
Having spotted each other afar 
and spread sails, yelled full
steam ahead! Go ramming speed go!  
All hands on all oars

at an angle so doe
-eyed and pure

consummation, so
devoutly risk'd
has won top awards,
and the best critic's kiss.  

As soon as we figure out
how this thing steers,
We'll be sailing so sweet 
after this for years. 

Bond between us

You keep switching 
from Connery to Lazenby 
to Craig, whereas I have been 

Pierce, all through
all the way, and I can't help
finding your flighty escapes
are not quite redeemed 
by these horrible puns
you make. 

Meanwhile, in Bucharest  

You are not impressed 
by my cool and implacable 
charm, and keep calling me 
"Remington Steele"

It's clear that we have no 
Bond
between us at all 

to unite 
how we think and feel, 
and redeem us from harm,
or from disbelief. 

So it's just action scenes 
and explosions, I guess. Tawdry
and rote as if choreographed
seductions and yes, oh, "yes
James," yes - those quips, which
you drop like bombs.

Which never do quite go off, 
except, unless
in the sense
that your laugh 

turns them all to aplomb,

and I'm blown
through the glass, to land 

in a swoon, 
on a gigantic swan.

Q division 
has a strange sense of whimsy, 
in some of these trips 
we've been on.

frustrating artist

You know what would be a great, gross  
almost gory gloriously visceral
visual image?

An eye 

- naked and without a body,
let alone a face or a head. 
The ball of an eye, suspended 
against some background (which 
doesn't really matter, but 
had better be perfect) (could
totally ride herd on what people 
perceive the theme to be, you 
know)

Just a big eye. Glisteningly 
depicted, regarding the viewer 
- who's beholding who here, 
beautiful? - and 

here's the coup de gross 

Where the eyelids should be 
framing its truly gorgeous 
iris, there would be two
perfect curved rows 
of eyelashes 

growing directly out of the eye

behind the chemical sheds (Clandestine's song)

I met my baby out
back behind the chemical sheds
we were there for no good reason,
both of us
for very different reasons,
but
no good.

Only one of us 
was seen
to leave the way we came, 
but 
I can't say who. The whole thing was 
clandestine, 
like her name.  

relief for days

The relief lasts for days 

you've postponed and postponed 

in increasingly vain 

and ridiculous ways 

as the ugly necessity 

grows on your mind. 

Tormenting you endlessly, 

days turning weeks 

to bile and slime 

in increasing waste 

of dragging time. 

Each spare moment bastes 

suffused in the taste 

until this becomes 

time's signature pace 

and marinade, 

and the pounding grows
in futile waves of useless 

ways. Insistent, ignored, 

denied, dismissed, and back
for more 

Since everyone knows 

this thing must be done. 

So you do. In a fury 

of misplaced, much-belated 

haste, and not much fun
- to begin with, at least.

Sometimes once you start,
you get into it. It's the starting
that's hard. The impossible bit.
So you do,
and you go,
and go on 'til it's done.
And you look around pissed
at all of it.

Not pleased
in the slightest, just done
with this shit.

But then, passing moments
in passing days, you notice
the pressure and point of prompt
jabs in, except -  

there's nothing to do.
It's all been done. Nothing left.
All through.

There's relief for days and days
spooling out 'til the tension and taut
of tightened and twisted nerve, 
slow-ratcheting up, day by day
is released, plays out and unwinds
to stay.

good to last

One of the coolest things about coupleship 

is all the shorthands, 

in-jokes, 

secret language elements, 

theme songs (multi-purpose 

and dedicated purpose) and games 

you develop between you 

which would confound and befuddle 

most witnesses. In fact, let us note 

that depending on perspective, 

this is one of the coolest, most 

annoying things. 

It cannot be helped much, 
most probably. It just grows up 

naturally between you, 

in habits of allusion 

to your prior enjoyment 

of each other, spun out 

in elaboration, innovation 

and development 

which infuses and mutates 

your present enjoyment 

of the other's present 

and past, 

and your own. 

Which so far 

has been good to the last.
It's a bit 
like an incrementally scratch-built 
home, with mutual whim 
for an architect. Looks good. 

Commands a certain amount 
of dismay and respect. 

Track and tread

Head down, eyes up
scanning ahead to make your break,
but meanwhile, watching step
step by step you make 

the path you'll take 

by storm, by roughshod tread
on forward march you'll beat a path
to your own sake.

Now more than ever.

Now more than ever
it's important to lose weight,
get healthier,
receive oral sex,
achieve enlightenment
out of your mind on drugs
or drunk wild off your ass
with your closest friends
to distract you from all of this
shit going on, which
will never end.

change of program

I've had you up on that stage so long
- it's no pedestal. You've room to roam,
to strut, to spin, some shows
you strip. Tell stories, moan
and crack your quip
to greatest effects on earth and parts
elsewhere. Wherever my mind
has gone, you were there
with my eyes
and heart enrapt.
Your audience was a sea of I's. 
Stock-still we sat, and took
you in. But lately you've been
replaced by a ghost. Your costume
is empty, untenanted. The show
has gone on without
its host.

the tarmac

The problem is
these people who've passed through
death and crisis, don't
increase our chances passing through
the same. We know how many die,
and out on the tarmac
with an engine in flames,
by the time you touch down
after circling
for hours,
yeah
someone could write a book.

But they wouldn't do that
if they crashed and burned,
would they? Take a look.
These numberable fuckers
survived. So easy to brag
now, eh? But the ones
who don't

add up.

And no one survives
to write feel-good stories,

for all who've died.