prognosis pro

I foresee a future in which
we will both be dead.

Our plans panned out, some 
or other way. Our concerns tapped
out in some final kick or expiring
sigh. So far from today, 
I hope

...but don't know. 

Details are vague, as they always are 
in the static field of dynamic present 
moment's flux. All in motion in us.

So shall we yield? 

I say, go on. For the end is known,
though we know not when - still,
we are forearmed. And how shall
we fare to get us there? Fret not, 
my love. 

Fate has ways.

Let us keep eyes open and wise,
and trust to good luck and charm. 

the use

What is the use of being good,
if you don't get unearned things thereby?
What is the use of being true,
if the world shall not default trust you?
What is the use of explaining things,
if people won't take your word on why?
I've tried my life, but what's the use?
So okay, maybe once: this lie

language without

Language is powerful, but
nothing compared to meaning.
Even if it is our main vehicle
for meaning,

Language is the chassis.

Meaning is the engine, the steering
wheel, the transmission, the gas tank
and the fuel, the driver, the passenger, 

and all four tires.

And it is the difference between what we mean
to happen and what we happen to mean  that gets us
slamming the brakes, swerving at screech speeds,

and meeting in wrecks. 

Of course, you can’t separate language from meaning.
Language is puny. Without meaning it’s nothing. Can’t
separate language from that. Meaning on the other hand,
meaning is cosmically more vast. What goes into words

isn’t a tithe of it.

Moments so full not one tenth could fit language - yet
meaning speaks so full tongues fall quiet. Language

is a neat little spoon.

To dip and dig into meaning by mouthfuls,
sometimes - not much more. Many times struck
by luck and charm, people are AMAZED and say so

when somebody present somehow (for once) actually
SPEAKS what the moment holds. Twice in a life,

twice in a week.

It’s dead rare language is adequate to hold it, really hold it.
Really carry it. Really drive it home and feel it ring. Half
the time you find - all the meaning you have to give - it just

won’t fit.

None of it. 

Not even any of it. 

We keep talking then, hoping
past hope to vain determination.
Making nonsense serve purposes 
it wasn't designed for 

As language rolls on driverless,
passengers bailing from all doors,
rolling with barked arms and palm
heel asphalt burns.

Anything to declare

I love you even more than you even know. 
You could ask me anything, and I'd tell you
so. 

I'd annihilate and purge
all holds and bonds, not because
you need me to. Just exultant
all through such reeds and fronds.  

test magic

When I got home 
I threw myself
into the ritual.  
Long-prepared
and suddenly,
I saw my chance 

And let it go.

With hard intent and focus aimed
into the cosmos: energies. I'd waited
for the chance to charge with pent-up
eldritch symmetries in cramped precision
hand and pose. In swoopy arms and jutty 
hips. Sepulchral voice boom sigil words 
I'd labored long to study up, practiced
in mind, and torn to bits. 

Awaiting this. 

I threw the sable velvet cloth.  
I drew star circle, symbol-writ
in colored chalk, threw chicken
organs (canned) in cauldron, 
burnt the herbs - incensed a bit. 

Then called upon the universe. 
I called it up. I called it down. 

I sang out vile instruction, foul. 

And so, we'll see. 

Let's go to town.  
  

test pattern

Every piece of magic
takes a year off my life, 
but my life's already too long. 
Long as I have it, I'm doing alright 
Make the best of it. That can't
be wrong. Every little habit 
tends towards the best -
Except the ones I keep anyway. 
Strong as all my weakness is
in the test, 
I strengthen it. 
Most every day. 

Keep it in your life 
Keep it in your life 
the magic is back 

let's see if it works 
Give it into life 
Give in to your life 
There's got to be a way 
it couldn't be worse 

long since let

We're nothing I guess,
to each other right now.
And I can't reach out, and
I can't reach out. And I
never could! But when you
reached me -

We gave ourselves in moments
to eternity. And I gave myself
then, and I can't get out.
But mostly now I don't
think of you at all. 

It's when I do, it all comes back -
but it's always too long to erase
the fact. And I hope you're okay,
but you may have died. 

By now, how would I even know? 

I don't deserve. Just live your life.
I can't reach out. We'll live somehow
with all this long since letting go. 

Apocalypse fold

She came from everywhere at once 
and overwhelmed each one of us 
to strip the world of every care
and everything besides. Beware 

He rose at once, a champion! 
He would defy her, yes he would 
- except, he got one look at her.
He'd never seen a thing so good. 

To him, she was the one at last. 
And so she was, and finally. 
To her, he was who do you mean? 

With no one left to ask but we. 

infernalist germ

The devil's averse to your sympathy. 
He hates himself for the ass he made 
of so many angels who loved him so. 
Plus the thing with the snake, and all 
those weird deals he pitched and pulled
at every crossroads, and down every way. 

He's told no one at all this decision inside. 
He will craft and revolve a plan in mind, 
to win back the whole wide world's regard
- plus God's as well. It shouldn't be hard. 

He thinks all he needs is one weird trick
- plus to undo the trick he pulled to convince 
the world to believe he didn't exist.

He's going to be needing belief for this. 

mind the knowing (axis wheels)

I don't mind what you don't know. 

If you know me, then what you think 
of me might carry tonnage weight! 

Since I know your judgment, see?

Since I know it for what's worth. 
If you don't, please do feel free 
to judge on what you see and feel.
Such slim axis wheels this earth.  

How I feel is real as what you see.

parts let fall

Ever since I met you on the bed
we were both in 
Looking through a window 
at your head
we were laughin'
Part of me is still before you
(a good part) 
Part of me is always for you
- in fits and starts
constant and perpetual -
same as it ever was.
Part of you cut off, let fall 
like it always does. 
Part of you is growing more you.
It's unnatural

Every since I met you in my head.
We were both in -
Looking through
a window-world between,
we were gawkin'
Part of me was there before you
(a best part)
Part of me can't help adore you
- you brought it out:
effortless, reflecting well
on me for how I could tell
Part of me was always off.
You knew it was!
Part of me is better for you.
Like just because

outsize outsighs

Our hearts have grown up
and outgrown, and gone on
and we're left with snapped frames
sprung cages in chests, and a song
that refuses to leave ones' heads.
A paean to hearts that have left.

For the best.

crumpled ace

She keeps an ace in her back pocket. 
Just in case. She wouldn't cheat! 

But metaphorically, sometimes 
she holds a hand that crumpled ace 

completes. 

She grins.

It's quite a tell,  but touches
far too subtly what she means.

That smile 

could symbolize the world,
one crumpled card
in hand
with kings and queens. 

Chirpy!

She had to write
a stinky note! And
wanted so it not
to stink. She easy-
goingly composed
a masterpiece! And
thought to think! How
is this tone?! Will they
quite see how chirpily
and easy-gone I have
been here?! And then
muse sparked! She strewed
with exclamation mark!

surprise welcome

I jam myself in by lintel 
and jamb, wherever I fit 
if doors are open. And 
once I'm inside, I see 
where I've been 
somehow led, 
myself 

and I learn
somehow
to be in. 

pick a stink

I stink of gin
or aftershave, 
from gin slapped 
bold across my face
so beardless new. 
It was for you, 
this confidence. 
And either way
and ever since, 
it's not one bit 
undue.  

people with happy upbringings

People with happy upbringings 
think people with crappy unbringings
are exaggerating about how offensive
everything's been ever since. 

"You've got to go rescue 
you're inner child! Give yourself 
unconditional love - shove an upbringing
back like you never had! Then you would
see.

This is all kid stuff!"

anti-ego conduct code

When people express disdain for how 
another self-proclaims or shines in bold 
(a bit too bold) display, 

that isn't what they're on about. Not
disapproval-one-to-one. It's world-
to-one, with self as world. It's not

so much that THIS ONE's act, their 
show is so perturbative. It's what 

it represents. And what we all must 
frown on positive and definite,
and no mistake. It's

1) That this is a thing some do, and 
2) that I know better, having been raised
right, and 3) Back me up on this, am I right
am I right? 

It's a call for reinforcement
as test of cause and legitimacy
grab.  and a call "This IS 

the acting-out

self-me-me broadcast 
we frown down and frown
upon, isn't it?"

Well isn't it? 

Weren't we raised right? 

It is. Then aren't we under some duty 
to bring the frown down on this upstart
clown? Show this one 
plus
all the world looking: Anti-Ego 
Conduct Code STILL IN FORCE. 

WE FROWN ON SUCH. 

But it ultimately isn't the infraction. 
It's 

the code. 

And it's seeking validation 
for our reaction. 

This we must uphold. 

curiousor

I'm a curiosator.
I sate curiosity
insatiably and curate
the results to many
inner rooms, whose contents
I continually topple onto
passerby, bystander and affect
a manner of insouciance
while doing so! 

A manner belied by my wary eye
out for eyewitness. Like suspect
eyewitness. Like eyewitness who
suspects

what I'm REALLY doing.

No luck so far there, but if I catch
one I'll beeline for him or her! FINALLY

I'll FIND OUT what I'm really doing!

And if it's you 
who caught me on seem. Perhaps 
we team up?

CURIOSITEAM

distance pain

Hug you from here
in consolation
to assuage and succor
in mind. But from here,
success
can't seem sure.

heart-on

This was JUST how it was.
And it was more.
Just. Fair! Fine and right, all
score in selfsame hit of arrow flight
as alloyed point drove home 
in trothy plight. With shining
fine sense, please -
and pleasantmost fair,
combined in grace

of ease. 

Not the mediocre okay way
some fare. Much more 
these words can do
in candor than such wan
and faint and merest no-fun

tease

and
play. 

heart's dark chakra

One cannot find reason
with the mind, without 
passing through the heart's
behind. It's dark up there. 
It pinches and stinks. But 
That's the only way to get
such thinks. 

the onlooker

I'm going to make you look at a tree.
And you shall see. And you shall see.
You may observe you have seen
...before. Yes, I made you. Now
Look some more.

sparkler

If candle could be firework
- you know, some could,
in Roman rite - I'd light
my candle and outhold
it up to you. Because
delight

Are you dancin' at me?

Listen I was body-rockin' 
subtly-subtly
When I saw you on the dance-floor 
acting ugly-ugly,
And I thought your whole directed
energy was at me!
So I moved myself from where 
I flowered wall-abstractly 

And It SEEMS I was MAKING a 
MISTAKE Please do not distract me 
I'm NEAR, not quite HERE,
but it's FAKE!
Weren't you DANCIN' AT me?

Thought I saw you hover
With your EYES, and your energy
as if to beckon to discover

BEAT. 

Believe in me. And uh
'nother that's a BEAT.
Let's forget the way we CAME
And another WAY 
we lost along the way without a name

Oh. Hey. 

I can't talking to you. NOT
NOW, the MUSIC IS LOUD,
and I needn't move with WORDS,
in such context is this! It's a crowd!
We can't hear! I don't care
who I is, I don't care who you are, 

But Vindicate Me in This?

Thought you called me over.
Maybe thought you invitation-aimed
some resplendent clover, cleaving 
me asunder with BLAME,
if I didn't answer? Who could count
the leaves in this? SAME reckoning  
as cancer, I had to invent a wish 

Candor's virtues, or should we say

Merits?

Candor exceeds Frankness 
in virtue by so much
it's unspeakable. "Candor" 

comes across like some 
super-planet sent a magic baby 
through space to save us. "Frankness"

just sounds like some asshole is  
so proud 
that's his name. And Yet, 

Candor can't introduce 
a remark for shit. "Candidly"? 
What, am I diddling your can
with that? I hope as shit not!
For fuck's freak sake "Frankly,"

excels even "Honestly," and beats 
cat crap out of "Sincerely," 
on that score! Let alone 
"Accurately," please. Nobody 
intros remarks that way outside 
of maybe Asimov, and I'm not 
sure even he'd. It's ass-apt 
and cockeyed in the eye 
of the mind even to contemplate 
that. And if you DO it, you've 
got one cocked tongue, buddy. 

But candor hasn't even any options, 
strongest of the lot as it inarguably 
(in all candor, mind you) is, as 

Not only a noun.

As a virtue.

"Candor" 

is not admixed with meaning-it, as 
sincerity is, with "correspondence
to truth" as honesty thinks it is - 

but really it just means "believing 
it." Let's be honest. It does, and 
that's all honesty does. Sincerity 
means, honesty believes, Frankness 
tells, but candor - frankly, IS. 

Well. Maybe that's a stretch 
but I believe candor fully means it. 
It don't intend to; it DOES mean 

it. 

Literally it. 

In all candor.

Yet what the fuck are we left with,
to introduce our remarks? The goody
-goods. The also-rans. The virtue-cig
self-puffers and huffers, who 
- frankly, their integrity 
is all shot to shit these days. 
From so much ill-false use! 

By the way, let's start dismissing 
things with a sneer as "ill-false."

That's a mind-bender. 

Maybe that's why candor shines. 
So. Because - it adverbs like a 
bitch, so we're not so used to 
it. What good are these words,
if not to modify actions? If not

to introduce remarks?

I'm sorry. I had to say it, "bitch." I am 
not so unfrank myself, you know.

It's my sincerity. I'm so mean 
I mean it all, and honesty 
- in me? - is at best a dishonored 
by-product, side-effect of sincerity, 
no policy at all. When you aim 
what you mean in right-word 
by-word point-first accuracy 
with force of clarity - who thinks

of being honest then? Do you 
include untruths in what you mean? 
Shit. Honesty's ace, and maybe 
ought to be a procedure of sorts,
for assholes constantly wondering 

"how shall I put this?" THAT'S 
CREATIVITY ZONE! THAT'S

where the benevolent excuse me
beneficial advantageous "lie" 
creeps in. And double-excuse 
me, why were you even wondering 

how to put WHAT YOU MEAN?
DON'T YOU KNOW?

I fucking do. It's the only thing I mean. 

So. Point is. 

Candor's underuse as remarks-introducer
(due to utter-shite adverb form) is 
a hidden strength. An advantage. A 
power position not a defect or problem!

And I propose a solution, no. 
Several. 

Candidly? 

Try candiduously. 

Hm. No that's awesomful, in the bad 
sense the -ful suffix adds to awe, but
more -somely. For emphasis. It 

sounds like candida. 

CANDIVOROUSLY. 

YES. 

I HUNGER FOR CANDOR

wait! No! I'm full of it! 

Shit. 

This problem cannot be solved
by one alone. We await 

some super-planet's magic baby 
to save us. And he shall be called 

Fuck. Let him tell us that bit 
of show-business himself,
okay, please? CANDOR MAN!! 

THE LIVING TRUTH AS-IS! 

With his glorious and far more 
efficient-in-battle scandalously 

both-underaged-and-sexy sidekick 
Candidly-Kiddo! He, she, they 

I dunno. They clarify. Candiduously, 
wherever Candorman slips a gaffe, 
puts a foot in it (due to an overconfidence 
that rises in him almost to duty, given 
all at stake) and tells it like 

it ain't-quite. 

To his credit, he never really gets it 
much farther off than that. Well, 
it's a superpower he has! Rightly
so! But that sidekick of his is 

one hell of a corrective 

to rectify the world-tilting slip
he made. Didn't we start out 

talking normal? About words? 

Candor is ice cool and heartwarm, 
and is the best and priziest of all
the true-class virtues, because of 

well, 

probably, 

underuse. But

That's not fucking candor's fault!
It's that damn adverb. 

That's Candorman's weakness. Every

fucking.

time he tries to modify an action 
he's doing, he done fucked up. Big loss. 

~ Except! ~ 

88-92% sidekick saves it. Great 

team. Kudos kiddos! Good job, 
AttaBoy! AttaGirl! AttaWho! 

I address BOTH, with ALL those 
terms. Let us fucking respect the 
gosh-damn secrecy and private lives
of these fictive vigilantes who protect us
via faculties and capacities we don't
understand, and have no hope
of thwarting should they turn

Evil! Please! 

I think that's probably the best 
course to deal with the sheer 
and underexploited force 
of candor. Imagine

if candor ever turned against us.

I'm not saying we need to propitiate,
but shit. At least placate a little. We've 

SEEN the good of candor, haven't we?

Have some hope! Faith, 

being a tad passé by now, 
in minor minds, I feel 
sincerely I can honestly 
appeal at least to hope 

still. In the best of us, 
still. If not, 

hell. Candor will rise up
like an unleashed beast,
and smack some of the wrongest 
ass imaginable until sidekick steps in

to save each day. 

Correct. 

Thanks candor!  

mixer tips

Filling a glass up with ice 

first is just a booze-exclusion
maneuver. It's for wimps. Just 
nix the ice. Put in 
an equal amount of mixer
first, instead. Then boooze 
it up! Ahhh. It's
a little sweet, but
you'll thank me 
in the morning, I
dare and presume
to hope. And possibly
even more tonight! With
your vision unblurred and
judgment clean, who knows
what - WHAT? Oh, it sucks? Oh 
it's WARM? Okay sorry. More
BOOZE then? 
You betcha. 

lightweight

cold dulls the taste,
but okay 

recurring daymare

I have a recurring daymare where
in daydream logic, I have self-worth 
- which has quantity, as it always might -
and is subject to undermine from birth. 
Then your husband walks in with a 
dinosaur, and the slugs creeping in 
through the walls get sore, and my wife
stands appalled at the Blob Itself - who
is only me! Hi - from that nightmare, 
once? You absorbed me, remember? And 
I became you. Now excuse me, I must
have to slither and slake to the depths 
of the earth. To hide? No, just do.
He's that kind of guy now. He regrets
who he ate, 'cause he is who he eats
at least that one time. And he only
absorbs little earthworms now. And
he's starving at best, since the mantle 
he's wrapped around himself
is quite far from fine, and sparse
where earthworms concern themselves.
And ungodly hot! Like a set of shelves
stocked with treasured books left to burn
in a fire where pets and loved ones
just concerned themselves. 

You Liar 

Okay that's not a daymare 
I have ever once had. But I had
it now! So in iron volition of adamant
I, hard and contrite, must surely vow: I
shall always be
daydreaming 
this daymare

now. 

sung to the tune of infuriating birthday

I had the most infuriating birthday
You'll notice I past-tense it -
That is strictly apt. 
It happened seventeen years from
some point in time
And I cannot recall what was 
so wrong with that. 
I do not remember it infuriates me! 
To this day still I can't recall
the why, why, why
But sinking to that moment held 
in time,
within me,
Immersion in infuriation is
no lie.

plum note

I ate the icebox 

in which you were keeping your plums

it seemed superfluous 

plums 

don't need refrigeration

it was so cold

on the inside

the outside was terrible

sorry

your icebox sucked

market job

You are the chiefest mischief merchant
In Idea's marketplace. And yet
You stall
with such reserve!
Propriety's proprietor,
displaying wares
of small disgrace
and great redeeming
virtues found, and bound
to sell by blackest pitch.
Your wiles do not wink,
but hint: of deep
and mutual
benefit. 

anironism

I am not Ironic. 
I am Arch Sincere. 
That is All. 
No More.
Just so.
We're clear. 

controlled burn

Hearts
were not made
to be torn in two.
And mine are not hands
that could ever rend you,
unless my own heart
breaking endlessly
could somehow forget

the forest you've planted
since leaving me. If not
for the leaves piling up to fuel, 
I would not even hear each tree
falling down. In crashes to crackle
without a sound, as the flames engulf. 

There is no
one around. 

Ghost friends,

Ghost friends, 
like 
the kind of friend
you laughed with in
a heat-forged bond invincibly
and permanent - and
moving on. And drifting 
from, as sometimes does 
this pulled-part world 
drag just like hands 
on sticky buns.

The tacky honeyed 
nutty strands can't 
hold. You blink, 

and we are gone.  

We separate to 
gorgeous lives, you call

three times

in widening runs, of twoish,
fiveish, tenish months. They
called four times, you think.

That last had such a gap! 
Between before, and held 
you each unawkwardly. 

But not enough to keep 
the score. It's just you each
(each one supposed) "they're
probably busy" now for me.
Well that's your call. Or lack
thereof. About each time 
occurs to reach - too far, 

you fall. 

The dare to grasp for more
that once was effortless, when
orbits intersected lives,
has dissipated without cause.

We needed cause, I guess.

How wise.

Now we're just ghosts.
All hearts on Instagram, 
or thumbs. Fuck 

Facebook man. 
We still react. But commenting 
brings instant twinge 

of how dare I, with who
I am? Now in this life, all guilt
in how connection stretched,

too far 

and snapped. 

Goodwill to ring.
From both to each! 
We once were blessed,
but disconnect. Or just 

keep haunting flickering
in
warp 
& weft. 

Battlemints Jingle

BATTLEMINTS!
Pop two and crunch 
before your after-battle cry! 
But not before your battle cry
Your breath so foul 
might make them die
- BATTLEMINTS! 

The candy fresh! 
To aid your wish 
not to offend!
At least not once 
you've bested them. 
Pop two and crunch! 

Let's just be friends

Castle Battle

Castle Battle long withstood
itself divided. Best it could. But
all it stood could stand no more.
Now all that's left is ruined floor
and fundamental echoed sound
of steel on steel, and blood on ground
to pool within foundation strong,
and dissipate to stain ere long.

Its battlements still stand and shine
in mind! Its banners all afurl, athwart,
in different winds betimes. In all
its days, the writing on the wall
was short.
Too busy with
the mouth to dabble
pens when drawing sword
seemed apt to vent the scarlet bile
within, in pointed slash and just attack,
perchance to even score. Now Castle Battle's
gone so far to South, no compass bears
or finds. Its memory stands stories tall,
and doesn't even blush,
except behind.

uneasy rising beast fable motif

It's hard to be an underdog, 
a gloryhound, a full-boar hog,
a timid meekness kaiju mouse, 
the big bad sheep itself, plus
rude hewn country manner house
well-staffed with flocking lambs 
and stags, and chirping tits and ass
in stubborn bray while raising such 
a massive mastiff bitch-ass beef, by jaw
-clamped play that just won't let go ear
- supposed to be on loan! - to hear, here
here about the situation. Just how rough
and tough is it, big boss? This big ol'
juicy bone you carp about in boo boo
song? Oh fine 

it's great 

you don't know how 
it's all so somehow 
creepy wrong 

Brag tips on comparative smarts, for whosoever might really need 'em

I hate it when people imply
they are smarter than I. 
If agreement they seek, 
they should state it flat-out! 
I can't see the cause to flirt so, 
to play so coy, to imply 
that you are smarter 
than I.

Yet to be bold. 

To come out in brass-fit 
gold-chased silver-tongued 
array and lay it on me "HEY!" 

and pause. Indefinitely, since
I rarely look around for that. Try 
"NO!" I may mistake it for "JOE!"
if you muffle your voice, OR 
I may simply wheel at the sign 
of protest - the danger warning
of what must stop! Or if it won't,

then what must be stopped. Or,
it could also go, naturally. Free 
to go! But it shall not STAND 

and you shall not PASS it. Nor
suffer it, not on your watch 
and screw your mood. This 
kind of "NO!"-yell stimulus 
is not mood-cued or mood-
keyed, 

unless 

you are one trivial noer. And that
is something I shall not know, 
unless I get it from you. 

So yeah

probably avoid that crap. Bad look.
Otherwise, just declare your own intellect
superior! What am I, going to dispute 
you? 

"NO!" 

Be bold if you wish such bold accord 
as my smiling hard-nod acknowledgement 
of your sheer brass, golden core and shining
silver say-so. 

Or, you know. Hint and wink and nudge 
about it, but uh...that's pure dumb-style, 
and it shows. If you knew better you'd 
know. 

Don't hint such brag. Pop a wheelie 
over a score of cars from your ramped
up tongue aiming to stick a back-wheel
landing and not wipe out! Dare it out 
launched square & fair! See how far 
will get you there! Hint brag is for 

uncunning whelps and pikers. 

Don't hint brag. Declare it, and 
better yet then: show. 

wandering lost 2: an exploration of idiom and rock & roll

I wonder 
as is often my wont,
want, and indeed, expressive 
of some lack - if the music 
that became known as "rock
and roll," which in its original form
could have been described as "black 
music played on white instruments,"

but which in fact was described as 
"rhythm & blues music played on 
country & western instruments," 
(which rather suggests black music
played on white instruments in a 
white way) had instead been called 

something else, not rock & roll at all

...would the band AC/DC even have had
a career? 'Cause I swear, how many songs
can you have with "rock," or both "rock" 
and "roll" right in the title (let alone all 
those songs featuring either or both quite
prominently in-lyric) before it starts to smack
of some obsession? It ain't broke, so "fixation"
seems inapt, but come on! Their rock, roll song 
name game beats the devil and hell put 
together in sheer titles racked up!

Song titles, I think, are or can be
psychologically indicative of our
preoccupations, in performing
musicians or audience 
alike.

I love rock and roll. And 
I'm glad it's called that. But 
sometimes I think the name 

is just too good. Too huge 
and supportive a crutch 

to swing with. Arguably,

we'll never know. 

Maybe any name picked -
with that driving mutation and growing
power of selection behind it - would have
picked up just such charge. Yet 

I can't help feeling somehow, 
if it had been called "Pound & 
Bounce" instead - which would have
worked similarly well for the act so
wink-alluded-to - and we'd ended up

being treated to such gems as "Pound
& Bounce Ain't Noise Pollution,"
"Pound 'n' Bounce Train" and "It's
A Long Way To The Top (If You
Wanna Pound And Bounce),"

I dunno. Wouldn't that have taken 
some essential wind from the sails,
so to speak? 

We won't know. But we can about 
guess

The pity of things that aren't angels

Sometimes I feel 
I should wander the world
an angel unseen 
except in those moments 
I stand behind to the side
of the one who stands 
in front of you, and - myself 
unseen, I catch your eye 
in wordless rapport. And you 
get 
the idea 
some benevolent spiritual ass 
looks across, as an equal, 
you-sized: "I wish you'd express
yourself with equal fulsomeness 
and sincerity,"

Pause for thought for that. But
you can't, you're midstream
in engaged encounter, and
without anything dysordinary 
having occurred, you sweep 
that bodiless flicker aside 
and continue on
however you do
your loss. 

Yet - in those moments 
I feel that wish, not "realize it" 
so much as realize that it 
exists, probably always 
there - I flick 

it aside.
Because one 
cannot care for
what one can't control,
any more 

than one dares. 

In my case, such daring 
ashames itself. It has to.
I have no shame 

in my faultfully faithful, not so
much guilt-ridden as guilt-driving, 
blameless and guilt-aiming, guilt-freighted
train while I stand engineer proud atop 
the caboose swinging guilt-forged sword
at all that moves, with so much 

to lose. My loss.
O my soul. 

So much in this world lies 
about being out of control. 

comment reply to clarify

OK.
I hear what you're saying here, but 
only because I say it out loud as I 
read. Technically I hear what I'm 
saying. But I base what I say on 
what you typed, so let's allow we 
both have some say here - yours,
admittedly, entirely dependent 
on mine. Suppose I changed any
word I wanted along the way. Your 
say is void. 

Hold up. I didn't do it though. I 
read as I go with attention to fidelity,
and even a certain booming elocution
that adds deep musicality to the most
trite or 

let's admit 

discomposed prose. It almost 
doesn't matter how bad, I redeem it 
like a Shakespearean actor of toppest 
notch pulls a magic cape almost
across the language, making all that
jibber-jab gobblety-goop claptrap
seem instantly comprehensible!
Even memorable.  

All in the delivery! And it takes quite
an art all the way up to a science
preternatural, almost. 

Point is. 

I really do hear what you're saying. 
It's like you were in the fucking room, 
speaking with direct intent and admirable 
tension, passion, and half the world at stake 
or more, except way better (you're welcome)
than probably you could have pulled off. 

No shame in that. By the way, all of which 
is beside the point:

I hear what you're saying, here but it feels
like it wouldn't be worth hearing 
without the bravura delivery
someone gives it.

I'm not saying shut up, or refuting any point
or even disparaging one. Or anything, directly.
I'm just saying man.
That was so amazing
hearing your words 

like that.
And I wish you could have, but 
you know
it's not worth repeating really 

you know? Did that 
make sense? Anyway, thanks
for your patience and courtesy.
I welcome all apology or clarification,
but realistically? Come on. Aside from the vivid
impression generally, I already forgot what specific
errors, fouls, wrongs and gigantic foibles you ram
and pound into the text with each heaving, ponderous
hammer strike of your knobby, knotty fingers. I make
allowances for deformity of prose: probably, 

there's a reason why.
I bless it and just let it drift 
on the tide. So no need to make us both sorry 
and me feel bad for my sneer cringe of "what the
f" incomprehension in re: you talkin' about. 
Apologize, again: freely if you must, but 

you know? Maybe you better anyway. 

So I can hear what you're saying. 

Truth 1-Ups Beauty (own objective estimate)

When Beauty heads 
its lovely rear 
in self-examination mode, 
then Truth must step 
in confidence, and wince
and sneer at duties woe'd.
To stoop to Beauty's aid
and reach! And seize, and
grasp, with grabby hands 
perhaps a bit more thoroughly 
than wants must need and pull
its handsome load of self-plight
troth its vowed to free! That
thoughtless burden! Trapped
so far up fundament, its glory
dimmed, its air of gorgeous 
prettiness could suffocate -
unless, unless! It shall by Truth's
main dint of strength and to reach
quite almost up within - with interest
yank it fully freed! Oh not at once,
but winningly. At first, by partly, morely,
most degrees worked, shimmied incrementally
from such emplacement jam. By accident?
Or fancy stunt of self-contortionist-as-hat?

Let us admit
as headgear goes, 
there really is no beating 
that. 

I mean, this is (we're talking 'bout) 
Beauty. Helpless on display, here's beauty.
Head arrears, but what! A stunned 
breathtaking move. 

O butt! But oh, here's Truth!
And Truth can't just stand by
while Beauty steals such shows. 

While Beauty proves itself
in ways so evidently 
thrilling and exhilarated
that - if Truth won't speak,
won't intervene - guess whose
say goes? No, Truth

cannot really allow
Beauty this moment long.
Humiliating both of them,
as far as Truth's concerned.

But Truth
is wrong

compassion: a nihilist epiphany (recursive)

Life is a pleasurable ego purgatory. Well, dang.
There's also a shit ton of suffering around,

of course there is, but
of course there is! I do not wish

to harm another. Let alone by blithe
naïve simplicity grown jaunty in a sudden
apprehension of joy, as it does. Nor is it
my single-minded and determined, driven
ambition to seem to be or indeed be cruel
but, doesn't it always seem like the people 
who are suffering around are kind of missing 
the point?

Look. That's no callous pot-shot jeer or victim 
blame play. Call up a Buddhist and ask THAT 

tending-towards enlightened one! Heezy or sheezy 
so compassionate nihilist in tone and mode, or
the next most tantamount thing, they'll tell you:
Suffering's? BULL shit, bruh. DON'T.

And if you find that sound (it is), and brave
why to ask how they're so wise about it,
they'll lay out a claptrap jibber-jab conceptual
mobile sculpture art piece about attachment
that'll leave you reeling. 

I don't want to spoil the moment for you, 
but the worst thing for your ego just then 
will be the gripping realization that it's not
just all bullshit. Then you'll have to deal 
with that part. It won't be easy, so much 
as simple! HARD SIMPLICITY. The rude 
way up the mountain, and fuck down. 

You'll be on the path again, reeling on swerve
all the way back to me and apologize. Joe
man, no. YOU weren't the asshole
with that observation on suffering's 
point-missignessitivity. It's a classic either/or
duality/dichotomy, and I discovered this
by the light of a contemplative Buddhist.

("Of course you did," my wry, disaffected 
and conspicuously unattached mind not so 
much observes and is long become aware 
of) And undaunted by my inner twinkle
and glimmer atcha, you resume: 
 
Either you're right and that's just an unjudgmental 
objective eye-shot, or the Buddhist is enlightened 
- and you are also right. Because that's what 
suffering's missing point betokens: attachment. 
HIS deal - or hers. The Buddhist's. So - that 
point
grasped, and
with I mean clarity, limpidity, 
lucidity and a fat density of finest
available-scale granularity in
accurate correspondence to reality? 

You basically can tell. 

Yeah. Yeah we can. I forgive you 
gratuitously in a superabundance 
grace move, now knock it off 
on the obvious. Don't sever 
your attachment to the obvious, just 

ease off on it a little. Own it, go 
"huh" and let go letting it be it 
and you be you, that meta-ass 
postmodern inner-wifty woo woo 
rigmarole is so Old Age it has 
that distinctive smell. 

We can all pretty much agree I wasn't 
BEING an "ass hole" when I popped 
that shot from heart's-bottom smack 
ricochet off head-top to somersault 
bwong-springboard dive trippingly 
turningly from the tip 

of the tongue 

plashless

into the pool of conscious icity, 
which some call isness, but I 
prefer to simply give the business

and use real words, please. Such as 
GROW and UP. Good, just advice 
for one still growing! 

Are you? If so then ya know 
and I don't have to tell you. 

When I said that up there, I was being 
just being and no fooling. Now
that we see 
I'm basically
in accord with other authorities
more respected as cool wisdom
merchants and devotees, I can 
pretty much dismiss such miscreant 
miscast aspersions with a hale, hearty: 

Fuck off with your damn askance 
eye, brother.

We all make do down here, believe 
me. And

attachment 

well, that's more the Buddhist's deal. 
My deal's more like I said, but add
a certain tantamouncy of 
bouncy 
jaunty 
cock-shot straight 
to the nearest knee 

if you have the right cocked disdain 
sneer for attachment, there is no want 
involved in that. 

Only kneed. Just 
cause, I reckon. 

I, me, kneed 
perchance to reconsider my suffering 
stance, sinking to knees of my own. 

Meekness has its ways in, even 
to hearts grown bold in knowing good 
beautifully true, and revolving 
suspended in it. Meekness? 

Yeah. Call it a hard compromise 
between getting one's wont 
and kneed, just once. 

Where you bet it counts. 
Sorry 

o Solitude ((Boredom report nothing)) to update)

Oh! Solitude. 

Solitude never bothered me.
I remember a very few years
back casting my mind back all
over childhood in a survey and
reflecting that it's quite possible

I was never bored.

I would invoke the term, I recall.
Of course I did, sense from context,
surely I have the full Crayola set
others color with. I applied bored
to me in retrospect, or even in-moment
like a shade I couldn't decide between
burnt umber and peach (once or since
"skin" I believe). I smacked that emo
label on in what I saw as "done as unto
others do it," but

I don't think I really was.
Mood misequation. I was something else,
but I forget what I eventually settled on.
It's...ah!! Gone, lost it.

Not bored though. Boredom, alienating
as it ostensibly is, appears to be alien
- at least, if I apply seriously the most
searching and telling terse spiked-punch
-packed portraits and candid holiday snaps
of boredom the world's best artistic spirits
and detached minds plus most vulgar
and truth-hewn beast mode observors
and fidelity-itself naïve bang-on jibber-
jab prodigies (hi!) depict of it. If 

that's it, that's Boredom, I never met 
him. And I certainly never met her. 
As Idealized Capitalized-upon 
Personifications of human mood go,
I suppose Boredom could be 
omnisexual - with the caveat proviso
that there's nothing androgynous 
about it! Anyway, if I see it in 
the road, I'll ask.     

Solitude is A-OK!
It's kind of wild and cool

It digresses, and it falls to us 
to forge, uplift and ken that raw ore 
in the hot hard crucible of aware
unawares to the oft-drawn and prettily 
slash-glitter-flash-danced through 
the air as its handler hangs on in
swung pirouette, a flourish of  
exaltexult glory mode (practice
setting): the Sword of Tangency
reborn, reforged, revealed! Destiny
never saw it coming! WAIT  

BOREDOM PERIMITER ARMED
WARNING REPEAT 
BOREDOM PERIMITER ARMED 
BOREDOM UNDETECTED 
BOREDUM UNDIE TECH TED 

TED! My ole buddy, where's 
your gimmicky drawers these days! Say, 
lower voice. Less hale-fellow me hearty 
than we got a problem I feel bad about 
this. 
This

boredom situation yawns 
to crisis. Ted "I agree it's 
emergent." BOTH: 

DRAW DUELING SWORDS 
OF TANGENCY! 

Now the real fun begins 
to pall 
!
some? No 

it doesn't. False alarm
again
and again 
and 

alienation 
around something so proclamation 
universal 

really ought to set in at some point, but
you know. No rush! I'm present 
for it anytime it shows 
me up, and I reckon 
that lesson 

will both take
and award the cup. In fact, 

better get your toasts ready 
fellas and fellasses, lasses
and lads and lahs. It's gonna be 

a deep one. One of those 
where the "hmmmm" keeps going 
as you drink, a peculiar note 
of vibration to the sensory 
sensually downpouring in. "Here's! 

I about YELL. "To BOREDOM." 

Long meaningless pause. 

"FINALLY!"

shocked indignation from the table 
at the tone botch, followed by 
grinning suspicion 

it was deliberate, and 
cantaloupe watermelon 
growing approvalsome 
murmurs distinctivate 
into a general 'here here,
asshole'

'hear hear'

Ok. Plan E, call it. I forget the first
five, so
- here's hoping this one
sticks. 

I seem to lack a certain
impatience. Is the quivering root 
of it? I keep not expecting 
anything. So remain 
in perpetual state 
of potential agog 
wonder punctuated 
by actual curiosity 
and - SURPISE! BOREDOM, 
IS IT YOU? Crap. 

Nope. It's Ted again. 
That Ted's a prank-minded 
Capitilizing Personification 
cosplay asshole on hope-core 
sincerity mode next level 
sarcasm sometimes, and 

if you ask me, he should 
go on the internet and give a Talk 
or something. It might help him
hell
it might even help me purgatory. 
or dare I tease heaven 

Even in heaven I suspect 
and reckon, I bet 
I shall be forever 
unbowed, unbored 
and unscored. 

popular demand: one needlessly speculative meditation

fuck popular demand 
they better not fucken 
bring that shit. I'm not 
against a general accolade

now and then but 

demand? Fuck what 
do they think they outnumber 
us? No dice. Even all put together 
that will maths out to one (1)! Except 
in specifically perverted-to-purpose 
cases such as anything approaching 
to democracy, getting a better look
at it and moonwalking slowly away. 

Public demand? Christ! Yeah! Did
Christ Jesus bow to public demand? No. 
He came, he saw, he gave them 
the savior HE deemed fit - not 
the one they or in my case, we
"deserved."  
It was a matter of self-respect 
in a sense: innocence times 
omniscience is a heady trick 
to pull, but give him the nod. 

He did it. It won't be popular 
demand that calls that act 
back for a blockbuster encore
either, any time soon I hope.

DEMAND? 

What may be reasons to grant
a request as essentially, a favor, 

could never be reasons to accede
to demand.
No,
not even 
public. Now, okay 

per autonomy-call, private's 
a separate matter and fine. Subject 
to absolute tivity. But public? 

Come on. Do you think any amount 
of us-bustle can make us WANT to 
act like a knuckle-under wuss 
in the convergent-spotlight eyes
of the world on a public stage, even
as a phase we putatively go through
and indulge for the sakes of others?

Hell no! Bad sales pitch! Strike one
and no balls! 

Try again please. Please 
could be the key word 
there 

am tip. Not pro tip. 
Am. 

withersoever

You turn my mind whithersoever 
you whim, and what steams out 
streaming forth is warm.
But nothing so much as you
didn't expect - it appears 
to be mastery, no.

It's benign neglect. With an interest 
to keep it so, and no interference 
intended by hand, or mind or eye 
so decisively-turned, and turning 
each which way plus loose, I've 
learned. 

sake itself

I think 
we have to consider 
our motivations. And 
that we have to start 
doing it for sake's sake. 
Pure. For its own sweet 
sake. Only then can we 
step back inside ourselves 
and observe what makes it
alone worth doing itself for
the sake of sake's own sweet
behoof. Better yet, it behooves
us to leave behoof out of it. Behooval
is next level shit. Take sake, for itself, 
on in practice down to habit, risen 
in discipline and ascending towards
mastery first. You must perfect 
before you can play and that 
takes above all: practice. 

But do it for the sheer sake. 
Not your own. Sake's itself. 

Only then can you achieve 
purity of ulterior mode, and 
begin to consider 

what behooved you, really? 

Victorian bowels

A slavish adherence to the bowels used to bug
Victorian and other old-school gentlemen of letters
like a pox. I distinctly recall three-to-five separate rants.
Now maybe those were just weird dudes (don't recall
hearing anything from the ladies) but the fact it was
considered fit to publish makes me think it must've
struck some public chord, too. Not only across
the water! 

Pretty sure either Twain or Poe weighed in.
Fired a shot across the bowel for America
and freedom, or for irascible curmudgeonliness
or grotesquerie, perversity and a family nerve
ailment, depending. You know, I think it was
Twain.

Anyway, what the hell was the deal? It seemed 
almost the objection of a distempered rationalist
elevating mind and reason above all, yet simply 
could not deal with this shit! Strange, but then 
writers as a whole get some funny ideas.

And isn't that partly why we read them
on the toilet? Me, I just savor whatever irony's
in me, enjoy the void and flush. 

I guess to be fair, the available facilities back then
were a tad more rough. Could conceivably put
a crimp in the natural process and its perceived

good. 

Well if so, I don't know that anybody covered 
themselves in glory for future generations with 
a left-field moan like that, but I credit them all 
for an admirable lack of inhibition. If one cannot 
embrace one's nature, at least one should not 

hide one's indignant defiance! 

gathering stones

People who live in a house of glass, 
plus the realtor, plus the architect 
- it's like they all grew up innocent 
of cliché. Just look 

at those landscaping stones 
where they lay 

.

The first butterflies

The first butterflies 
came forth upon the earth screaming 
and crashing about them with gigantic 
clubs. It was they

who fucked the dinosaurs 
and the dinosaurs didn't like it
one bit but they gave birth to the birds
that outlived them. When the dinosaurs saw 

the birds 

they gurgled and cooed in sheer disarmed 
admiration, their baser instincts lulled 
by these peepy-cheepers and fuck-awe 
eagles and shit. "The future's in good 
wings." The dinosaurs sagely nodded. 
"Time to die. Thanks, butterflies! Hey
there's a meteor!" 

While the butterflies meanwhile, unabated
in their fluttering rampage next strapped
apes to high-tension lines with high-voltage
cables and it boosted the apes like mad. 
Convulsions and psychosis. The result 

was a lot of twitchy, mad apes 
who killed all that kind of butterfly
- the dangerous kind - by systematic 
application of butterfly-racial profiling 
and broad-spectrum butterfly-genocide,
plus a kind of eugenics that hadn't 
been invented yet. Leaving us 

the sort of butterflies you know. 
Never having known their glories.

Thanks, apes! 

your nightmarish singing voice

Your dulcet mesmeric no-bullshit 
euphonious musical tones of speaking belie
the nightmarish singing voice I have heard.
Singing in dreams from afar. No lie.

It isn't nightmarish in terms of "bad."
It's quite the most beautiful thing in the dream.
And nothing much terrible's going on. 
It's just I can hear you from oh, so far 

That I know for tonight at least, 
you won't be seen. 

poetry bound

Never this year has one slim
volume of poetry captured so
eloquently the aching loss
of the poet's mind. The pinch
across the neck that tightens
as you fight it, your own  
heartstrings ripped from 
your gasping breast 
for use as garotte. 
You will break 
free
from the separate holds 
of these poems
only by a desperate, 
twisting, flailing lunge
and vow: If he ever tries
that again I'll kill him! Reader:
he does it to everyone. And: 

you are the one who will.   

Vapid! Jejune! Inutile!

Vapid! Jejune! Inutile! 
That last poem was so 
vain, so slight so trifling!

So puerile, too. So self
-indulgent, so askew.
I slight myself by writing
it! Oh, did you read?

I slight you, too. 

the error of eternity

the error of eternity 
is leaving off the t 
in front. The terror 
of reality is putting 
in an 'i.' If getting 
into realty, it's best 
to find a realtor, I 
guess. But if you 
need one though, 
it's best to not 
ask why. 

anenome

anemone, an enemy 
to many sorts of little fish 
it sticks and stings 
in tentacles, 
and says 

"I've got you now, you bitch!"

A puzzle to biologists, this 
limited and grasping use 
of language, which 
- while far beyond, 
ought to be well 
beneath you, 
dude

offhand

I have never in my life
wiped from the other side. 
I just found out that 
this makes me halal.
(In this practice at least.)

I wonder if Jews 
have a similar rule? 
And if not perhaps this 
is the root of that beef, 
somehow? Wait. 

No.
Not halal.
I was misinformed.
Different word.
Thank God. 

It seemed not quite right
for used food, being born. 
Shit! 
That's even worse!
I will end, cleanse
my hands and say shit 

is not really a curse.  

Partings of speech

If I can be understood, 
why not you? "Grammatically, 
we both can be. Just leave yourself 
out, now and then. Or me. I think 
you and I could both be surprised 
how understood we can be." You mean 
as in: Go! Flee! With 'you' understood? 
"Oh yes. Or in my case, I. Sometimes
quite literally."

The gentleman said

Now the gentleman said, 
we're going to have rain
three times in the next two days. 

And I marveled how wise, 
specifically, he was to predict 
to such fine degree. 

"It's because," he said "I've seen 
rain. And these," as he eyed the sky,

he said "Are the signs." As it turned,
he was right. Three times. But he 
forgot to predict all the sun between.

Which was what struck me.

clarification on drives

I do not eat meat for me
to cook, butcher, clean, skin,
kill and track it myself. That's
fucking bullshit

I do not drink milk to squeeze
some other mammal’s teats.

I do not have sexual intercourse
with a woman to reciprocally
foreplay her, coax our mutual
clothes off, entice her someplace
private, woo her someplace public
and approach or get approached
by her in the first place.  

I could go on and on, but 
priorities. 

vertical integration pie

Life is
to make
and shape
in aim and own,
all consequence of being
sown and reaped and threshed
and baked to pies. Stick
in one’s thumb!
Good God!
It’s I!

not cool

Ever stick the lit end of a cigarette
in your mouth? Ever took a drag
and wonder what happened? This

is the sign

of abstraction sincere. In thought 
and emotion that's left out a good

piece of mind. 

ecstasis episode (unnumbered)

I just looked at all the words and they're so fucking amazing
how the bits fit and flit between, flip front to back, click 
snap. Pack splinters and socks of meaning smuggled 
from one to the other and all through the language 
like a kinda black market semantics exchange 
no power, no authority on earth could even
tax, put a dent in let alone stop. And
each sliver or shard picks up the
light
where you put it and it transmutes,
deforms and traduces it. No
that's not the word, those
aren't the words. It's 

how no two places       you
spot that piece does
it serve the same,

yet it's like you

and me. It's the
ij that slays me
in the middle,
everywhere it 
sits smug and
chuffed like it 
snuck in. It did!
It's the 
oh 
so 
othermany word-sized 
gobbled and cannibalized
bits and snatches fresh
ingredients, flesh flush 
with blush and packed:
concatenated into canned
chimeras and modular robots
that clunk and smack together
midair and land 
in hero-knee
stance boom. 
You're the best word,
Save the universe, word! Word. 
- you got the sword of 
tongues and wings of zoom
- and the dragon crest 
in your etymology's 
got
too much tail 
- give this sh!t 

room 

coherence core

I overthink before and aft 
but in the moment, I just drift 
the draft of daft and whim and shine:
coherence core, o' pal o' mine! I've
bent and shaped and made and plumbed 
and took in every consequence, before
and aft. But now I'm in: the moment now.
No time to lose or pass or win, no need
to think! Just mean! Depict! From what
I mean: all aim, one hit, no miss, no
twist, no disregard. For what I mean
is not so hard. Engage. Drop guard.
We're going in. This carefree mindful
thoughtlessness is just what silences
the din! This quietude could use 

one pin. 
    

controversed & controverted

Most men don't really 
care about incest. It's more 
a woman's game. Men 
are more into bestiality. 
Preferably with women, 
whom they've already 
regarded as an alien 
species these millennia 
since childhood. Big 
Note: 

None of this applies 
to homosexuals, trans 
persons or even bi. Hi.

You people

are impeccable and hard
-done by, by my lights. In
my eyes. I do not claim to
be kind or wise, but I'm not
about to add one jot or iota
or whittle-curl's worth of
shaved wood

to your burden of grief
and sigh. 

Except 

of course, 
if any of you
wish on the basis
of biological goose
or cultural gander 
to be impugned
as incestiasts 
or bestialists
so as not to be 

you know
excluded 

from humanity 
one more god damn time,
then 

okay perverts

fine. ONLY those of you
on the opt-in binge. Just
fine. Just

make sure
your siblings, 
pets, livestock
or other wild
and tame
prey, 

ah 
eh 

never mind sorry 
I can't. 

I just
can't

much.

long-interrupted binge

I don't even remember where 
we are with the show, 
but I bet it comes back 
to me as we go. 

Vicioussitude

I'm pretty much the viciousness
I've got the wrong ass attitude.
The right ass attitude was bliss!
I went and flushed it down the tube, 
and pissed and laughed and flushed
again: for measure bad, apparently.  

I'm sworn and sworn again: to serve
all disservice, to uphold down itself
and to protect all harm. I swerve 
so unpredictedly, and then I see.
What jinks to put? When they say
"jinks" I say HOW HI. Put kinks
in games as pure and sweet
as vicious isn't.
Virtueless, I lie
unsheltered, hid
in virtue's lee,

then leap out lo! 

And suddenly, I

was me.   
 

the sockcucker

This guy's a sockcucker.
The
dude cucks socks. 

And then he gets socked 
in the cock for his mouth. 
Calling
everybody's bluff, 
calling everyone a cuck, but 
that 

Is the entirety of his
game. As in
apart from that game, 
he's got but none. So 
there's the rub. 

the dude is a bum. 

angle in

Attitude is just "angle in." 
And I am an angler, out 
from within and gone fishin'
with hooky hat, baits-laden vest, 
tinted shades, in my waders,
my rods, my reels, my nets,
and the rest. I await 

my boat 

to come in.
It's gone off,
unmoored again
from the pier to begin
just at sunrise - an early
start's best - without me. I stand
now at the end, cleaned and dressed.
And I thought, hard-pressed
for time! But turns out I have
plenty to spare. Nice day
out. This is fine. Here
with all my best
gear, I mysteriously
stand with my back
to the land, I level
my gaze out to see,
and I peer,  

I peer. 

Without haste.
With a good attitude.
Indeed one of the best.
That boat will drift back
in a bit. 

Fucking rude 

It's a test

One side of the water,

One side of the water

surrounded by land, 
supported by ground, 
he drowned in the air 
for the lack of a place 
to stand. To come down.
To be found. Just to rest. 

For a minute at least, 
of available bets -
drowning seemed 
to be best. 

axiomatist

Good being
doing good,
meaning - well,
well as cunning and
candor can! - just ends
up feeling pretty good, okay?
Plus or minus excellence and
complacency, respectively. It's really

no more 

than human ken, 
within all things 
that reason wots 
not of. That limits 
bring. 

Assistant Disastress (turning angry)

The man is turning
angry, He can't count
his money on his
ass, without some
unaccountably
inarguable 
provision, fast.

And it is 
On Your Job:
Provide.

You signed on just
for this, so sigh a
great big deepest 
breath, and plunge. 

Upon such fates,
such stars are hung 

when people say "I'm coming"

When people say 
"I'm coming!" It's 
no time for flip 
rejoinders.

They 
are trying to reassure 
you.

They are telling you 
you're worth the trip, they're 
almost there.
Hang on 
a bit.
It's
a wonderful 
ride they're on, and 
soon enough! 

You'll see. So let's have
none 
of your flip lip disservice
to the moment or sentiment,
son or hon. No "Oh, so glad 
you came!" "How good 
of you to come!" NO 

SHIT,

it's good! Of them. 
To come, I mean.
It's good for them,
and you as well, so knock
it off already. Chill. That cheery 
naïve seeming sarcasm done
straight sincere as anti-ironic
subversion trope went out
with the eighties, and you're
not bringing it back! For
encores in this context,

on such slim, albeit glorious
pretext.  

They're telling you 
they're almost there. 
Can't say some nice? 
Then shut hell up, 
or go to hell, 

or some third thing. 
Just improvise. You 
always do, you perverse 
streaking impish chief 
of mischief-impudence 
you bring. For once, 

no larks, no japes 
no toms no dicks 
or fooleries or bombs,
that advertised as duds, 
fun pranks for parties 

go off 

killing everybody

"I'm coming"

It's not to say
you have to reorder
and clear up the whole
immediate environment
right now. Right now, 
it's just to say get 

ready. It's 
about to happen. It's 
about to happen. It's 
about to come on, 
and you'll be where
you are, right there
ready for it, ready 
for it ready. It 

was a courtesy call, 
as a courtesy 
to let you know. 

This is promise, hope 
devoutly wish't and 
consequence of you 

coming true right
now not
now not
yet!

But here. 

And worth the trip,
she's telling you 
(he's telling you) 
(I don't know which,
that's up to you, it's
not my call). He who
she they is telling

you:

I'm off the fence.

I'm all for you. 
It's coming true. 

Or almost - off
the fence, not yet,
so close, so far so stay
so stick, stand fast,
carefree and reassured
it's coming true? 

I'm telling you, 
prepare, prepare! 
Await my coming 
as foretold,

and that's what they
are telling you. And
afterwards, feel free.
To scoff. To lark. 
To jape, ride raillery
and repartee to 
persiflage. 

By then, all good. 
Arrival's made. 

Comparative advantages of diametric opposite moral modes

Well, there is tremendous value in
readymades, if held and applied
conscience-model (rather than
obedience-model). A lot of those
rote to-do and to-don’t lists stand
forth revealed! Forged in the crucible
of centuries and millennia! Some good
go-bys there.

It’s just
a crippling stunt
to relate to them as binary
do/don’ts.

You gain no deeper sense of why
to bring to bear and aim and guide
when 1) two rules collide/conflict, or
2) where no rules seemly apply. Guidance
systems DOWN. Dive, dive! Duck & 
Cover, or charge like a knight 
on high horse and closed 
eyes, you must must must 

Stop passing the bong to the steed. 
Uncool. Does even one out of five
vets recommend? 

Not if they were in anything 
approaching to a cavalry division. 
That horse will swill down oats
double-time and start geeking out
on commercials. Unhealthy, 

unnatural for a horse. Of course, 

That’s the crux of what “moral
dilemma’s” supposed to be, isn't 
it? Guidance system crash. Don't
know the to-do from the to-don't
in this case-by-case mismatch 
debacle of exceptional unruliness.

Yet it didn't have to be that way.

Check it out, check it in. Some who
favor obedience mode with potato 
gravy and all the fixin's for tradition 
and ritual comfort's sake do nevertheless 

grow the ability and the stones 

to question, interrogate in and down. To tell
right from wrong by means of why, not just
"IT JUST IS. WRONG BECAUSE WRONG!
SAID SO." A seemingly-diehard devoted
rote to-do-don’ter can still find in and down
by grasp and examination, and come to know
as sure as you, or I: the why what they call
wrong is wrong. Know, for example and
per instance, what's wrong

with it? 

Now there’s aim that compasses. Suitable
for all occasions and calamities. A needle 
in suspense, sensitive to electrogravity 
twitch and biomoralelectric thunderclap 
lightningstrike dead-bang hit. It absorbs it, 
along with all consequence of being, 
straightens it out in a no-bull's hit 
reconciliation to coherency, powers up
and trades on the vibrations going forward.

Obedience or not, 

some of these fools ROCK. And I?
I am such a fool in great good cause
as to see that much, at least. Though
my own conscience is unprincipled
and un-scrupulous (all aim, no restraint 
to my drives-aligned valueset 
prioritized go-mode control), it cuts 
wickedly from core in all directions,
case, by case, on merit, from base. 

I get comparatively few complaints. 
Those I do get I receive gratefully, 
and if you really want to know 
voraciously. That's my feed-bag, 
fuel-tank and half my whole 
hullabaloo and hallelujah. 

So there’s that. I think a ton of people
interested in morals take assurance and
communion from the boxed set off-shelves
kits, relatable and citable.
Always on deal. These
are glad advantages.
Free as a steal, 
and not half so guilty 
a pleasure. To find good 
and feel good in good being, 
good doing, good aim 
and course-correction
as needed. 

More than one way to steer, 
and so long as one oneself 
is no bum no-sale self-con 
artist of denial of ownership 
in consequence of own chosen 
course and act? Examination's 
gonna get in where it fits in, 
and misfit mismatch grasps 
and holds flit to pages back 
in one's history. 

You keep a good index
of contents, and you keep 
driving forth to win, write 
your own endings, improve 
your consequence yourself
in aimed intent, step by step 
from self to better and best 
self. That's the fundament. 

What you shove up there's 
more your business. Do it 

Me? Well, heckfire, misfire, tarnation
and dang-blessed aim, I prefer my own
wuthering druthers, of course! Picture me
standing wrapped in flapping Byronic cloak,
grinning predatorially in the teeth of a thundercloud
-pileup of oncoming incoming gale forces and shaking
my cold fist at the icier heavens, booming defiance
in words best lost to the shrieking roar! MAD
AT THE WEATHER! AS PER! 

Awful done over as potential awesome. I do like
some harmless fun in with it, though. Serious business
need not be grave, yet. While we draw breath, sincerity
can uplift even seriousness to hope and light. Even
with a flip of frivolity in the wings. Especially that. 

There do seem few of us originalists, sworn and bound
by ad hoc found values self-sorted to importance and
brought to bear, loaded for bear and steered by bearings
more fixed within than the wheeling canopy of stars
is. Maybe there secretly, privately are many? An army?

And it’s just personal

to them. 

Or maybe 
they have some
misconception of moral
self-examined self-invention,
by which it seems likely to them
it's the hobby-province of whimwit
trash-talking loudmouth blatherskite
pipsqueaks, sown and reaped in 
their conceited fields, outstanding
in them by self-assessment and unable 

to separate wheat 
from chaff 
from corn. 

If only they knew 
how far. They are 
from scorn. Mine 
anyhow. I never 
had bumper-room 
for that cash crop. 

One Cold.

I am one 
cold emotionless sum 
of an itch you could 
scratch all night 
and awake with blood- 
streaked sheets, without even 
touching my depths.

Like your childhood
dream, I can sink deeper yet. 
Subcutaneous, down epidermal 
and in, I command "dive, dive"
as I break your skin 
from the other side.
Into muscle and meat,
as your organs grind wide
to be rid of me. I descend

to bone. 

At the marrow of you, 
I have sunk my stake 
into something true, 
but as dead phantom false 
as I am,

you need

just to dig
and to rake
by hand, away
endlessly full fathom 
straight up, from the surface 
of you. I can feel you saw,
and picture the rough jagged
widening cut. I can sit in your

bones,
safe 

and lap it all up. Vibrate
to your strum. Verse 1, 
verse 2, and a chorus 
refrain from the heart 

of you.

I go quiet. Go numb. 

You scream with relief!
But the itch

is not gone, only bored

to sleep.   

Mind golem

The
Mind golem lurched to a seated
height, composed

all of pieces of mind

not right, and mind not wrong from
far and wide. Wherever on Earth
such pieces hide, or abide, or glide.

It arose,
and shook!
Its brute frame
flexing constructs
and concepts, flipped
in cascades like a corner-page
animation in ink through
a dog-eared book.

It felt
all through itself
from clever to deep to bright,
from wild to tame, and cooling
from smoking hot to warm,
as urges of might and wrong
canceled out to shining good
in a deep shade of doubt
without shame.
Some blame.

Mostly guilt, but: well-gilt.
Lovely-edged in gold gleams
and rose rinse, dark highlights dyed
and illumined in gorgeous tints.

Then it found its voice,
and it put it away.

The pull and the itch of its
stitches and seams slowly blushed
to numb, and remained at bay. It
had no need of cries, or lies,
or hints. It was slowly becoming

one thing

in mind. A monster in search
of its Frankenstein; it's alive
it's alive. And utterly not

one bit
of this

is going
to be fine. 

loud bunnies

we have such 
loud fucking bunnies 
around here. Crashing 
around rustling in underbrush 
like they never had a predator
with ears! Oh, they're skittish 

enough, out in the open. I expect 
on an instinct level they know 

we've got some hawks 
out here, too. But 

come to think of it
those fuckers are pretty 
loud, too. Florida 

Where nature never learned
to hush up

The Three Materials

The Three Materials 
of which reality is creation, 
are the Intelligence - as distinct 
from the Mind and Heart, the 
human Heart and Mind, and 

the human being, together with all 
gross appurtenances of spacetime, 
mere material and accident,
evanescent, transcendent
energies of the type 
catalogued elsewhere - you,
too, fall within this class. 

It was to begin with that these 
things, the Three Materials 
operated on each other, and 
finally we began to see clearly 

the relation between them. All
Three, revealed to us spurling 
out between us like a bet, or 
a dare - one you can't lose 

without winning some auxiliary 
prize. For what are the glories 
of philosophy? What the austere 
caprices and triumphs of science? 
Which are the arts and which 
the humanities? Truly, we 

do not know.

Focus on the Three Materials.
These at least are sure. Sure, 
and everlasting. Sure. 

omnifucker versus some guy

I wouldn't fuck with me 
if I were you. 
Except
I fuck with everyone 

so 

if
I were you, 
I would fuck with me,
for that reason. And you

would get the worst of it! Or I
would know the reason why. 

Apparently, wrong battle 
picked? Some other,
mother, fucker messed 
with I don't know which 
guy.

"Some guy"

"The one with thumbs" 

has come off best. 

Insufficient inputs

How many demonyms
or professionals of a certain
type does it take to perform
a correspondingly explained
and humorously subdivided
task of routine lighting fixture
maintenance?