Simplified line.

Simplistic? You dog, you abused
me for complexity just now! Which
is it? Yet truth shines through to true
in you here, when you call me
so simplistically.

Simple, true. I am an Alpha
Simp, Omega to sum - simple
right through really, and real
good at that, at least. I'm afraid
a worse man than you, in terms
of how bad I sit on my ass and tell
tales in lines to knock you off your
charger so hard, you can't (apparently)
find your butt sore with both hands.
Fool! That's a saddle sore! I left it
on the flying saddle, and you

unscathed!

Pay attention next time you
go hurtling far from chosen
course and splat back into the
bull you loosed by mistake
crashing through its gate.

Right in the eye!
A BULLSHOT.

Well, you do it fair, on-point -
but did you mean to? Woof
woof, wolf, in he-man skin,
I see your barked ass and funny
tooth show. Please allow me

to apologize for my self! My
conduct was implacable, my
courtesy as usual - found "familiar"
by those who know me, yet others
are right to call me out for my
huge, jocular good nature
(in their eye). It's a daring
care for me to stake pains
by, but who cares? I mistook you!
For someone I knew better! Well,
damn it I might have known better,

then. My fault! Because my misjudgment
and I tone it down from amity to civility
at your fall from the former. I should

have introduced myself politely
first, then or later. Now, Hi!

(You may be able to tell already
by my outlandish size, fluff hard
and pure incompetence at pleasing
you, which is too bad for any one
who cares, but) I am only the big
bad
sheep. I lowwww so in mournful
tones for humanity's sake as I herd
no flock whatsoever. I'm mostly
there to keep the dog in line. Good
dog! A real social pack animal for
the greater good she well knows,

being of it and in it and all out to win
it. The flock? Come on, they can take
care of their own choice of pastime
and repast. This whole thing's more
about me and the dog, for me, but
oh, she flocks like an angel playing
at pastoralism. It isn't really WORK
for her. Not with me there. I just

provide the stupidest example imaginable
of a sheep, damn big really (too bad) and
nobody needs to mind what the flock
does MUCH. They're at it on an all-out
own good spree! They mow the lawn

so I don't have to. Gruesomely, I've gained
a voracious taste for unpacked canine. Wild
or acting like it, or - more the best they can
do with so affected and weak an idea of wild
strength and order. A rather tame-ass job they
try to pull that way!

I suspect neither they nor I am really
the animals we pretend to be.

Anyway, it is not a reductive simplicity,
all I laid up, for it leaves nothing out
of any detectable size or importance

in reality. I'd expect you could demonstrate
definite conflict or inconsistency, if you knew
both otherwise, and better.

In any case, I welcome your one-point
mostly on-point correction! On TONE.
Personal taste critique, all sentiment no
substance, is better than nothing at all.

Tastes better! Well...depends, but I can
tell without too much face-making.
Composure, you see. Yours?

Delicious. Thanks! I mean it, too
- and more than you might

know.

Skeptic of certain media bits, please.

These radio talk guys, podcasters
or on the real air, take such low
cost narrative they cop on the sly
from freely available news and try
to make big deals over it! Arguably

in some cases they have a point. Foul
doings - big deal. But what do we
assholes care what these people
think! About IT! About IF!

It's not as if we can't take
and examine the real facts directly,
for ourselves! True, we can't, but it's
not as if we can't.

We literally can't.
Ground truth is out of range over
not much, but nearly all of what's
covered. Never, ever do they bring
up and fume over the everlasting
ever-loving doings on my block!

I wanna take my cock and jam
it in the so-called know-holes of
some of these dudes, just to see
their eyes pop all indignant. But
I'd go too soft and look like

a punk, probably. I always was too kind
for violence, especially, to play convincingly
bad. Bad ass? Sure, but anyone does that.

It's a bit of a tell when your ass
is so upfront (as mine is) - and not
bad! Not bad at all.

Now hold the phone. There are of course
she-showboat blabbermouths out there
bullhorning in on what is sadly way too
much a man-game, but that's a whole
deal to the side, by my lights. I don't
get mad. I may think what she says
is stupid or it may be brilliant, but I'm
a real you go girl guy. Always have been
- in fact I grew up fast the other day, and
told some obvious woman self-presenter
(who'd scored a point for her part, as I
found mine in a basic strong agreement)
"Attawoman!" No girl job at all she just
pulled off hard, but easy and sweet as a
smack on the face! I puckered up to wince
for it (seemed forthcoming enough) but

no dice. That's cool. What she wants, guys.
What she wants. That's her deal on any
would be (by you so-accounted) “fair
score.” She didn't try!

I was cool and appreciative of her aim
or lack thereof. So even nowhere near
face to face - some airwave, some signal
- women strike me not the same way
because of how I'm wired. It's a real
nurture vs. nature deal in wide and
groovy alignment! Works fine.

That's why I can't see my inner "F! YOU"
annoyance fantasy against media people
generally taking so raunchy a turn in

her case.

That would be a grim turn, not gay at all
to pull a mental cock jam at a know-hole
known to be no bull man at all, but a bull
strong woman who (haven't seen her! Don't
know what she looks like - ground truth
unavailable, BUT that voice) would probably

deal with me out of hand in person. Like
I don't know that from long and well-tried
experience. Already. It's no no-dunk slam
-brainer, but I'd bank how it plays out: me
again! All hapless, as-if pre-won before
the first woo pitch! Which probably
wouldn't be forthcoming, anyway.

It's just
Look. These
guys. Their big deals are some kind
of a job move they pull on the public
for their own confidence, but act

like it's our own good at stake.

Not buying it, folk pop news reaction
dudes. Cast your pod and your air wavy
net elsewhere by ether and thin air,

seeking your people.

Know what? Thank GOD
more women don't do this,
because I WANNA get mad
when I hear some shit like

THAT guy just
put.

It speaks either well of them
or poorly of us that more women
don't feel the need to wear soapbox
shoes clonking around down town,
angling for any chance to spot
a pitcher's mound, steps, a slight rise
- anything to gain that height they crave
and talk down the whole town - only online.

On the airwaves.

Which is worse. Men don't even need high
heels! When you find on the inside you're
already a heel so high on the human fumes
from what you shat in your head as a kid
and felt smelt great ever since, you find

it’s a lot easier to walk straight
in flats, buddy!
Trust me.
I don't even know what
their deal is.

"What tone were you going for?"

The tone I feel in me
is that of loving, doting
even carefree fond insouciance
that plays broadly and deeply in/upon

each piece,

yet overall smacks fine
as a reckless, perfect array
fallen by coincidence in lucky
grab and crash. Unaffected, natural
as all heaven and hell - and a peach
of a deal! Considering this moron

obviously doesn't know what he's
doing. It would be impossible, but
it's actually my dominant tone in life,

so.

However having said that, when
someone asks what tone were 
you going for, obviously you 
didn't get it. Not clearly, or 

clearly not! Which is oh, fine
- "OK!" I try
to mind my business 
for your part.

It's a fair take on 

any offer! (Usually 
they ask that to be sure 
your aim wasn't halfass 
wild - you did intend a 
tone. Didn't you?) 

Sure, intending a tone 
is my specialty. So 
easy it works 
fine 
great overall, 
but fine's ok.  

the Killer

Jerry Lee Lewis makes me feel 
my debt to humanity's unpaid. Still. 
He is alive and I am dead! How's 
that make sense? Wait, strike and 
reverse, but he is the Killer. Is.
Can't past-tense the immortals.
Part 
of the
problem isn't it? He's alive! I'm
dead. There's an end of it. Wait, 

I too am alive. 

Happy endings fit 
for whoever they do.  

Subjective sea.

A beholder’s eye call
for sure, out there. We
aren't above each other,
see. It is I, Joe! You are
you, though. So each we
please and deem and bail,
abob, adrift upon the green
subjective seas that heave us
twain, to each own port, by each
own sane or wild and daft, or cool.

Or keen.

By canny to uncanny means!
Tied-for-1st!-mates, captains, we!

By solo boat we storm our sea.

Armadas and regattas form, wherever
one and one agree, plus ever many more

may do.

That’s how we boat, and find at sea.

downtown abbess

She was my lil downtown
abbess if you know what
I mean. Loved that show
so much I got bored. She

had a part in it. But really
it was more the show, far
as she was concerned.

Without any complaint
on my part - my part
never complains - she
proposed a compromise
most foul I ever heard
- but she did it fair!

What a girl this woman
was (still is I bet), I swear.
Her childish ideas were
beyond the scope of ken
or most guys, but I knew.

So show's on - showtime,
she'd balance and drop
her whole downtown
abbey to make my steeple
bounce as if upheld between
such buttresses flying I thought

the Louvre had burned down,
instead of our lady. What's the
name? I was going to say "instead
of a french cathedral," but you
just know french cathedral has
got to be slang for something
dirty in France. She and I were

on fire

for that program show, albeit
we had our reasons. In between
important action onscreen, we'd
close our eyes and cry not Marco
Polo, but "notre?"
"DAMN!"

She was not just her lady then,
but ours both, each and All such
moments we had. Look, like magic,
television, art, personal privacy,
familiarity - these things have
science to practice, and
intimacy with any of them
brings commensurate and
incommensurable rewards
known well to who does.

Both of us always did eventually,
up towards forever as we could,
back down, up, down, wherever
we went, paused or wild it was
so cool!

In time, I even grew to like it.
Her reasons for watching that
way, I mean. To her credit she
loved mine from the start -
hence "compromise." Some
deal! Big one for two on the
one job, one trying to watch
tele simultaneously, the
other
only
beginning to catch on.
Telling guest from regular
stars, threading a plot through
the loops - hard, bouncy joy
when it's not your show,
really.

It became ours.
It really, finally, did.
And that's a tragic pang
without her now. She's fine!

She always was. It’s just.
One of those two things. Which
often gang aft agley where one
and one make something so
strong it fails. I remember

we went downtown a lot!
So fun down there, right in front
of the people watching crowd, which
was us, too! Once we strolled by a
church and I said hey! Is that an abbey?
Why not pull our favorite tv trick right
here? You can watch it all spellbound
while I try to keep you up and semi-level
in the eyes.

SMACK!

Right in the lips she got me. That was a Kiss
Means No situation, but Thanks. See, we
could communicate by means other than
oral long since by then, but she was way
less anal than I about some things. Trust
me.
Don't
try it. You
may not do it right
so wrong as I can pull
off with some. And if
your lil miss

hates
the spot you aim
with your childlike-innocence
tongue trick, pun off and try
something better, and not
so low maybe! Otherwise

- where do you get it?

Innuendo.
That's where. 

balance of blessings and history lessons

I’m Greek Irish,
grew up in the 80s
in South Jersey (the S
end of NJ, USA: the
garden part of what’s
called from what they see
from NY the Garbage State - 
pretty strong, pretty funny
considering they put most
of it there themselves!) before

living in California for 23 years

over a six-year misunderstanding

with a great girl. By the time
I had a job I loved and two many
people of my own to go back,

I found we’d left each other.

It was okay on balance.

So I majored in fine arts oil painting,
but that was before all that! Soon as I
realized landing a corner office in one
of the spank-shined gleaming towers of
Big Fine Arts Oils was all out of my ambition,

I hauled ass to Cali and switched
to songwriting in much the way
a demon

does.

It was

A-OK on balance!

old awe

I mean "awesome"
in the old ways.
Awe

is dread and wonder

poured dense and bright
in molten form to alloy.

What tools we pour and pull
and draw and cool and beat
and shape of it cannot deploy.

For ever we
stand back in wonder’s glow,
to see
such point
and shining weight,
and keenest edge,

dreading leaden
heart or head it
could destroy. 

A lot of people

A lot of people
don't realize 
or believe this, but 

I was a man. 
Real one. 
Big! 
Downstairs? 
In the rec room 
with one beer in a hand, 
playing video games? 

You know the style. 

And six 
HUGE 
friends - 
DUDES? A little 
on the shrimpy side! 

Isn't it funny how a huge 
friend can be so small? 
All because I used to run
roughshod over these clowns 

every time!

'Cause they would kick
my ass up on screen. And
with just one beer - with
that crowd? We had to pass it
around town: these

were bad-asses. 

By the time word
got back, there were
only four of us. 

Some
can't
hang. And 
still the same
beer! Open! Flat, and
all those guys? Nobody
brave enough to sip it
in front of the boys! 

I call it courtesy
or hospitality.  
I was the host! That 
was my beer! I wasn't
going to swill that with
all my men going thirsty
on me, let alone dead

sober. 

Come on. So Mickey - in
the beer, pass it around,

now 

- nobody remembers this, 
but every time I try to tell 
the story somebody's always 
correcting me. "You weren't
there!" "That didn't happen!"

Which is it?

Guys, that was my beer and you
want to tell me I wasn't there
when you can't even remember? 

People, that story is real. It's
based on a real story, too,
and that happened. Well
you all can vouch! You
just heard it from the
mouth. I tell you 

a man can't make
that shit 
up
here. 

my pronoun is on

My pronoun is one.
Bit pompous, huh?
But chosen: one.

Rock numbers duh,
when asked what's best
behind my back in
gossiping:

Go one!
A fact!

For I am one.
One man! One each!
Just one
can make a difference
beach to crash a whaling
surf upon. If I'm not
here?

Just call me, hun.
I might come running
or correct, but either
way - you'll call me

"you"

as we connect? I bet?
Won't you?

It is the name
of all respect twixt two,
you know. Unless, it's
"Joe"
or "Cynthia," or "Jack" or "Moe"
or "Larry," curly - hairy huh?

Let's stick with you,
for you.
You call me

DUH 

Namaste, mate!

One told me once she
meant (she did the hands
-gesture): “the light in me
recognizes and salutes
the light in you.”

It hit
me so sweet
I flipped it. Namaste
first, back-ather
of course.

Then: Manaste.
Mah nah stay. “The
dark in me recognizes
the dark in you.” There
is no salute, but the handy
-work is flipped forward
and down from the up
position.

It made sense! She began

doing it to me all the time
when she saw me. A bit awkward
in public. “What’s she doing?” One
of us had to explain, often - people

got it though.

Both to you. 

Cowboy small.

Tale goes.

So, some would-be
heifer heisters hopped
the wrong fence to the 
green-grassest pasture 
they'd planned to burgle
on Sunday. The other 
side looked too trod
up and mown down,
maybe. A bit muddy

- it rained out there. 

That's the only way 
I can figure it: they 
chose on grass. They 
went for lush. They 
were high on dewy 
fumes, seeing green 
over some easy cow
catch - or so they
supposed wrong. 

I was on football duty, 
as usually per that day 
in finest season. See,

...the noise I heard...
from I knew not what, it out
rattled the windows. No tv
could muffle it, plus me all
up in the game yelling. What
happened you don't ask? 

They tried to pull the bull by
mistake!

A not so easy thing to do even
on purpose, I hope you'll allow.

Hard mistake,
too. Face up,
it's no bum steer
I leave out here dozing
in clover to draw out the
wrong 'un crowd,
apparently. I don't
know
why I'd do
that so mean.

Neither did he
- the bull. He thought!
(I think) I'd asked
bad company over! And
not the old rock band.
Pissed as all! Blames me
for all kinds of bull complaint.
We neither/nor of us know

just
why 

they
did it. Not
that way.
O Lord please
that's a no-go
to go-by for
life, and never
again.

A stymie on us both, somehow.
Me and him made it up as usual, but
it went hard for him that day. The cows
in hindsight plus the moment
(cows chew both)
thought it hilarious!

Called him a: she-calf!
A cowgirlish beast indeed,
and was he having it?

Had to. Fence. They cowcalled
mercilessly to his flank and ass, largely.
He was turned that way, and you try
turning him some other way, sometime.

No? As you prefer.
Wise preference,
between us.

Him? Awe, for sure, you know he
did not say a word. That sexy moo
woo ho-ho-lowing chorus at his obvious
expense (he knew. First time I ever saw
that bull blush!) was a bad morning sign,
but his call of bull shit duty got duly audible
on the very-near corpse
I had suddenly almost on
my hands, to go run help, yelling

my dang head off! I guess you
remember all about that alright. 

Sorry.

"What are you DOING there, man!" I about
cried! I wasn't about to ask the bull. Damn obvious
what he'd been doing there. 

Some poor man, actually - to judge by clothes,
he had funds sufficient as to unexcuse his late
misexpedition and guess his current state "earned,"
but this man so-called - was a child, really still.
And gasping. Real pity, considering he must of
been at least twenty nine and a child so almost
still, for keeps - some guy!

Whose damn so-called buddies forgot to
include in the "no would be beef
thief left
in blood clover,
gored in both cheeks
behind by the horns" rule.

Always supposing they happen to
have some such law. Probably? 

They just plumb forgot! A good
run of bull'll make you, if you
notice in time. 

Cows over there, guys. 

Wrong siders can't seem to mind
what fences are for, somehow. Next
time?

Bull's right where you left it.

Any less would be way off-brand for
this hand. I ranch it in an unhidden
no-valley high-plains way these salad
days, but if you like your pants dressed
foul inside instead of creamy buttermilk
and herbs draped gracefully over fresh
local greens and reds, hey, go toss your
self on a fresh plate and chow down with
corn and beans, please! 

We don't serve pants that way, especially.
 
Never on the menu, and the cook (me) 
does no custom orders so stank vile.  

Come by, by and by. Please feel free
to be our guest again. Next time,
though? Hot tip for such local
homes. Just come to front door
and knock, maybe. Ask

who answers.

That'd be me.

Or maybe the butler, but if she
shows up, run. Butlers are the most 
lethal profession in the home service
business. They always do it - her
especially,
trust me.  

No, she does not dress me. That's
a manservant. I can man my own 
post and kit, pal. If she dressed 
me? It would be too funny. Come
see for yourself, show up front
next Sunday. You'll see us dressed
by each other for church, or in our 

respective equivalent-day bests!  

Just knock and ask nice. Bring
beer, if you love a good game.
You can stay pretty comfy, big 
sofa - and the huge recliner is 
mine, but don't sweat the dog. 
He's cool. He knows 

we don't allow bull in the house 
after how he barked last time. Good 
dog. 

Not so nice bull, but when is it? 

Front and center, step up direct!
That way ends less mean for one's
behind, most days. Just to be a touch
more forward and honest about the
visit, nature, purpose and character
assumed fine.

Rather than
you know,
some wrong
-way cosplay fence
-jumping ninjas of what's
evidently not the cow out there. 

Welcome always! Amen? 

Ahem. That's grace then, let's 

eat. Folks? Dear? 

And you, friend especially new
and tender, probably just now?

I want you all to know. The story
is amoral, but it's got a certain ethos.

A fine line it 'tis, some blind or seeming
dumb guys (all five of them: dudes) draw
where there's obviously been a fence laid
for some reason. A fine, bright line!

Between funny 'cause
true, and so wrong
it's funny.

Some don't
see it that way,
soon enough.

Well.

That's how the rest of them saved
ass, face and limb well enough but
quick - by jumping down the well!

Now, I ask you all. You were there, 
you saw the condition of that well -

except Kid Clover over here. How's
that go down, for one whopping tale
of unintentional high plains ranch
-dressed hospitality? 

Of course it's true-based. What? I don't
serve artificial salad to my worst enemy,
chum! 

Now, how's the shark steak? Need sea salt?
Lemon-squeeze? Capers, or Cajun pan 
black reheat n' sear deal? Found it online,
new recipe! Got it in one try. Oh, dear.

It's what? You sure? Hey,

okay. 

Terrible's as good as some cooks get,
I guess you know you choosy beggar
- no offense. It's akin to your business, 
only less asking I guess. Your personal
taste is recognized fine. So I apologize.

But please, don't waste your time to yuck
the yum you could love if you choke down
so much of it!

You
might
find a taste

to acquire some.

More?

Sure, 
there's always plenty
someplace. 

Help yourself. Make yourself 
down home. Sorry about the bull,
as always, but he's kind of taken
by all those cows! 

He was not going away with you 
anywhere, nohow. Stuck fast, pretty
much irresistible when flirted 
with the wrong way. No bull
to confuse, if you know what's
good for either of you.  

Wait 'til you see what's up
for desert, spoiler alert. You'll
never-gue-HA! Yeah! Crème
broo lay. Nailed it in one, damn
cool, there sun. Obvious choice,
I guess it was - but sometimes?

It takes a cliché or two, to make
folksy homey in these parts. How's

the butt? 

Shut up? 

Alright.

Too big for the dining room table, now dude?

I swear. Brussels sprouts?

Broccoli? 

No dice, big time back 
when. 

I was a kid, and my taste
was so sweet I cringe
to recall the sheer amount
of sugar I poured on me
Corn Flakes (this was well
before Def Leppard's darning
influence) to make up for them
not being Frosted.

I do know 

it was Grr
ate, but my mind
reels why?

Even as my emotional 
palate sings for real! To tart 
pucker my today-lips at the known 
sweet song those days sang!

Meanwhile,

Brussel sprouts?

Broccoli?

Back then I swear I had no taste
for the finer things, because holy
shit nutrition, one woman once
taught me how Brussels sprouts
and scallops fried up right

were Thanksgiving forever,
and it stays. Gratitude 
is indicated on such
lessons, which 
never lessen. But they

grow strong in memory,
bones and teeth, blood, sinew
and bone, so-informed. Marrow. 

Heart.

Anyway, mind. I got a jones for 
soul food, when I'm feeling 
culturally apropos! And 

the pizza joint - the one 
I loved forever and only 
place in-county that could
serve up a just slice of cheese 
for one to appreciate the true 
triune virtues of such simple 
hot dish your palate stays 
scalded, knowing how too
-fast you bolted, wolved 
that once-too-many a slice! 
Closed! Out of business! 

Again! 

So sure honey,
let's try the new soul
food place they put on it
instead, why not. GOOD
though.

Well.

Cafeteria style, and a couple
of the hot dishes came up 
warm at best, but flavor? 
Wise, strong, good n' true. 

I took it well, then. Now? 

I remember too well my inner
and then eternal kiddom. Back
then, I'd have banged my head 

down once

(did!)

...on the dinner table upon
seeing there were too many
Lima beans for nine kids
to finish upright, like we
teamwork should for mom!

And her then oft-bruited
starving China complex
(typical), and I saw I was
bound to (had to) (China)
go in for seconds.

Damn. 

I still hate Lima Beans in
memory. I hated those things 
then, but you clean your plate 
of what you chose. And go 
in for seconds and thirds, 
I propose.

Otherwise, 
you're just some

kid. 

Grow big or grow home.
Up? Sure, when and if,
but no rush. Just wait, 
for there may be 
more if you trust. 

Please, sir, though. Can I 
have some less of them

beans? 

What were they thinking of?
In Peru, I mean? Those beans
to choose, cultivate, serve up
in commerce for a starved
world's vitamins or minerals?
Calories!

Hard pass, please. Don't salt 
me, I yuck no yum of any 
one but one. 

Me. 

Yet today they taste good. Weird. 
Buttered adequately, salt, 
to taste: they do. 

Word. 

Same goes with liverwurst, only
much the reverse: every damn time
I can no longer distinctly recall how
foul that goes in a sandwich. It's like
my memory holds all tastes, but I myself 

have none.

I think body chemistry alters 
what we crave
as we age 
for a reason, but
let's all hope
I'm not just whistling 
whatever offensive patriotic 
hymn they blow lip service to 

in Brussels, shall we?

I can tell you half the whole
"Broccoli" story too, if you like,
and kid?

No. I don't do that on food.
It's got more than you'll want

to hear about James Bond.
Not to all tastes, 007. But
dude was a hard bright ops 
snob on a high royalty
authorized murder 
rampage, when

he had to. Why? 

Well we all know the 
reason; it's since 

he could
by then.

He found he could. 
People were like, 
Jim. He's dead. 

DO IT. 

It's your job. 

How? Obviously
as a kid, he at least
had eaten his greens. 

Now he eats all colors, 
cunningly and otherwise 
to the bone. Right. 

Marrow. 

Kiss kiss, bang
boy. Girl, whoever 
they hire or rent.

It's quite a job, with
some confidence 

entailed. 

Not to all tastes, 
I suspect. 

I love 
loved her 
Brussels sprouts. 
Less than her, 
as it turned out. 
As she showed 
me. She 

could put down 
pounds of those 
leafy-knot deals, 

fried right! MmM!

Moms can cook 
can't they.  

Just not 
too light. 

Then again her 
kid, she loved 
those sprouts. 

Must be something 
done right. I never 
cared 

for them 
then. 

Too young, too 
stupid to taste 
what was always 

so good.

Social media comment verbatim+para breaks. A bit antisocial tho'

Sir. I know you
’re only up to 3,
but thus far this
promises to be
beautiful

as any theology
I’ve yet grokked
- and that is saying

something.

I grok so much
of that’s crap I mine
gold in daylight from it,

betimes.

It sounds like a building
to Seldon’s plan, and that
my friend is high, dry praise
- meant rigorously, as critique.
And
praise is the better part of criticism,
always.

It means only bad news is news, given
general good state.

Thank you,
and more please.

1 crack potential! Pillar 1
shivers to ground baselessly
in judgment, given arguments
opposed. BUT,
good news again - pillar
one holds all day
every day,
as each one

fends for self.

We tend hard to acknowledge
same real truth, when
we find we’re living in it.

It’s only in antagonism, debate
we split sun and its heirs. 

About rhetoric...

Rhetoric's essentially troll-science 
from way back, but let's not mince 
brass to tax the lesser minds among 
whoever's reading. Thanks! 

Hi! 

Whoever you are, I do not insult you 
well. No one does, dear. Now. 

About rhetoric...

Hold the toast.

Tequila is a dude bro

shot. Popular. I mean in
every sense of "dude"
and in no sense of bro
worth considering
siblingesque.

Not! Is the best course,
but sometimes, by way
of whoa no homey expla
-nation, I'll say:

"Awe nah thanks. I hate
tequila. It's too slippery,
bodily fluidity in there -
on the palate. Poor mouth
feel. Tastes like semen."

Now, of course I mean it
in a sly reverse triple self
deprecation backfire way,
for some minds only to
spit-take on. Nothing wrong
with that, when it works

aright?

You try yours, please.
Mine's
gin,

or pinochle. Hard spirit
to beat gin. A good soft
game to knuckle up, bone
up and bear down in on,
though, pinochle! Just don't

shout

"Pinochle!"

Unless you're sure.
Are you even supposed -
damn it.

Sorry.

I meant Uno. No mas for me,

thanks.

Pinochle is hard as jaw,
h'arguably. But my nose
might grow a foot if
I told you how “good”
I am.

At it. 

Trash her own house

It's not her own make - well,
most of it ain't. Yet choosing-to,
she'll sniff no sniff,
curl no lip, sift
a swath to a path, not

for order's vain sake.

Just to find and recall
where what she won't need
goes best, perchance to go,
get: take.

Come up trumps in the test!

Trash mnemonic at best, for
the classiest girl ever classified,
girl. Oh, woman no kidding - va
-voom and such. This trash
helps her sort and order

too much.

It's for blood, or for love, she
naturally plants feet and knees
in these rooms finding memories
- quite often not even hers!
- but spurred like wild flying steeds
to history's herd.

It's by love, money, sure, plus fate's funny
hand - she’s here. She'll arise:

"order up!"

And resume her stand.

Which is all her own.

For goodness: sake.

This trash wasn't hers,
but it is now, mate. 

Inspection tour.

Now and again I wrote 
a poem almost incredibly 
too long. So I note, and 
I perk up in penance 
mode to write so
many poems
too short
and frankly,
pointless
that it
comes out
of joint! Well, 

that's just one 
personal taste 
critique, I'd say. 
My opinion is: ASS 
HOLE. You've got 
one too, you hypocrite! 

And biased, I bet! Can 
I check? 

Hell, no. 

The candleman can.

I cast my own shade 
and blame the sun 
which I keep over one 
shoulder, easy and fun
as I pick my stride 
over grounds found
fair 

just 

so long
as no foot
plants in air.
Just so long 
as I have a leg
to stand -

on that spot it hits
 - I can lever it on,
forth wild in a weird,
straight glide by hitch
and yard! With momentum 
and yaw and pitch, in a
pain-staking heel 

or two,
to toe this line
I roll in my dotty
print way, 

I'm alright! You know. 

It's bipedalism. That's 
my philosophy. A so
-called pedestrian way 
of life. 

If I find
I have only 
one half a leg?
I can kneel so hard,
I pray alright.
No strife. Or if
I am starved?
I can prey
on dust.

Get down on it
now, in amongst
this trusty skein
of grubby roots!
And dig in the faith
I just right now, each
so seemingly every
time, had to wink
and rig. Remade!

And let grow
on a whim,
to truth.  

I don't give one 
flying bugle toot 
in reveille or taps 
who salutes 
or scoots. 

If you've found me
here, thanks! I've fallen
for you! I guess! And
suspect - I can get up.
Could you 

give me
just a minute's more
time? 

I was thinking some
thing that I already knew
- but if I don't recall quite?

Then it's just my luck!
And if you don't mind
a little secret? Between
us, two?

I'm a little bit slow
and dense on the up and uptake,
dear. Yeah. You knew.
Yet as dumb as it gets,
you sure did lift me up,
and out of here.

Let's went. 

Oh sure I know! We
already did? Let's go 

out again! And come 
back in, kid. Oh 
I kid. 

You no kid.

I gotcha. It was just
the figure that came
to mind, perhaps

- mine, 
not ours,
but meant 
pretty okay?
Shall we say? 

Let's got, ought, naught,
plot, caught or catch, 
hatch, fledge wings

not! And say we did.
As we have been 
gloriously taut.
Or 
was it
vaingloriously
taught? You bet,
I bid. You raise,
I stake. You 

wish I kid. 

Just kid.

Teaching other peeps to be cruel 
is an odd hobby for an ex-straight 
-shooter like me. 

I don't mean 
I went gay. The opposite, 
really - don't "read in" 
if not necessary, 
I say.

Rather grim 
and glum 
I've 
become, 
giving apt advice 
to the wrong people, 
maybe. Helping them 
with their aims, when 
I might have helped 
them aim! Still, 

we go better safe than
dead, they say. 

I do try to help 
where I can, anyway. 
Some you just can't 
help, some you can. 

If asked, I'm a huckleberry 
up for all jam. But 

I do try to talk, goad 
wheedle and coax 
the folks out of it 
some, as they grouse 
and whine. Who 

the hell 
am I 
to tell, right? So far 
from wrong it's a spot 
so broad and blue 

as yesterday's sky.  

The upside of what happens

Has anybody really studied 
the physics of why toilets 
clog? 

Probably. 
I bet they studied up 
too late, with a plunger 
trying to cram and jog, 
make a splash in the grade 
by last-ditch dint of main 

effort delayed. 

But if so, I hope they paid 
a thought and a prayer 
along with their no-doubt 
cuss-damn swear 
for the miracle of 
hydraulics or 
at least plumbing! 

I mean, it gets sloppy 
when things go wrong, 
but it's fair how rare 
it is. And that siren 
song of A-OK flush 
right down the drain? 

We wash our hands of it 
without a thought, and 
save ourselves up 

to complain. 

Dream crush (worst. ever)

So 
I woke up in another horror
movie scenario, as I rarely
do in dreams. But this one 

was a nightmare. A real 
loo-loo!  

I was downtown. I love it!
When I noticed a ten hundred
ton erection 

was looming

and WHOOSH! Clobbering 
all over town! Mad, bad 
for business and pleasure
and purple, flying in thunderbolt
swoop and boom strike from
wherever it roots - poolside,

I inferred! - Some damn twelve
year old juvenile male couldn't
control himself! And since this
is every serious boy's worst
daydream - it grew and bulged
nightmarishly beyond humanity
in his shame and interest!

In those nearby!

This happens, always!
Until you grow up, man!
Get a grip on it from the inside,
before you destroy the whole
city!
Too late,
too
late

we learn.
Crushing up
and down on people
- human beings. As well,
or rather as foully as we
crush buildings, cars, flopping
and plummeting to pummel in
monster topple and bounce back
up, on full-on blind rampage mode! 

I was like whuut? 

How is this sexist, or
problematic at all? 

Seems a fair rampage, in the 
way of all life. I can't call it 

broke. Why fix it? 

That is why by the way 

I died.

See, I saw, from 
a certain point of view.
In the final analysis, it
was just fine. So, unjolted,
I never awoke to my
present threat! Oh,

don't worry. 

The dick didn't get me. 
I'm pretty much immune 
to dicks in dreams as in 
real life. Any number of 
dicks - they just bounce 
off! HAHAHA I laugh!
Unconcerned. I'm like "Look,
I don't mind humoring you pricks
a bit, just for funsies, but between 
us? Let's keep the bounce 
on metaphor, shall we? 

To go literal on a dick move
is a logical phallusy. Unless 
consent gapes lewd. At that 
point - come on. Logic? 
Out the door, we have 

Human Reason! That's
not how I got crushed.

I got crushed - surprise!
Some way I always do,
only moreso. Magnified, 
as dreams do tend: outsize.
I was trampled under a mob,
roughshod and in part, high-
heeled, sneaker-shod and
variously clad (not one single
lady unclad in the bunch! Odd,
don't you think? For dreams? Or
normal? Don't ask). This was a
she-stampede parade of frankly

the most
beautiful women 

I ever saw caught
in the act 
of an arguably negligent
mass homicide performance
collaboration. Manslaughter!
At the very least, me! - but I plea
selves-defense on a far greater
good scale. What do you expect

in a dream? 

Frankly I expect to die.

Pretty much like pretty that.
I do not 
expect
to get crushed
by a dick 
so large it violates
the square cube law
by force of sheer one
eye will, blind red blood pressure,
all cued, goaded and goosed, stoked 
in strokes of imagination. Lust. Why? 

Why would I expect such a thing? 

It's kind of low on the list, please. 

I expect before that, any number
of women to run wisely and shrieking
alarm, to aid others to flee as well! Get
the hell away from that thing. 

That's what I expect, when 
that happens. They sound the 
call: move your ass. Direction 
as indicated! You're in the way. 
Turn and run! You could lead 
such a pack you'd grow wild 
with pride, outdistancing them 
like a scrawny lioness pursued 
by bestial royalty in full-on flash
mob gang flight fight mode! 

Instead of, you know.
Stand there like you do.
Weighing and pondering, Hm.

1. Huge, fair dick killing all equally? 2.
Stampeding armada of well-heeled,
variably athletic and pretty intense
ladies?

Look, the
first is unfortunate,
let's admit -

- and raw. Wrong! Perhaps
not in the evil sense - DON'T
JUDGE. But wrong, surely in
the "that's just wrong" sense.
Anyone could see that and
know immediately what

to do. You
wouldn't even need a list, 
at that point. Point 1. Flee. 
GOOD POINT. 

And the women? They know! Obviously. 
They do it! It's a strong run for a cause, 
for once! I volunteer to sponsor any one 
of you: how many bucks a mile am I 
in for, and all.

Seems fair as well, what they have
freely chosen to do.

A sane response! Perhaps 
- a bit arguably - the only 
sane response! Especially
given a dick so big
no in-cell camera phone
can catch it all to flash
in your unwitting eye
like a jerk-ass dork!

I'd run, too! Hey! 

Wait. 

Wait. 

I thought that over. 

I would run, too. 

I was almost there, but - 
got run over. Crushed, as
per. As usual. By "females"
as some call them. Lord, 

I much prefer women. 

I credit them! Good crush. 
Well-run! Good aim: a right
way to go, and shrieking
like sirens and pealing
bells to enchant and beguile
us all in your spells of warning. 
To all in the way: GET OUT.  

I don't blame on that score.

Seems fair, some how, much 
in the same way life is, 

in dreams. Anyway. 

You know, when what you
expect is to die, you're always
surprised! Whether you do or don't
proves immaterial, usually. 

I always was a little too tender 
and quick to crush. But oh, 
pretty nimble and springy 
with it. No worries, me. 

After I die in a dream, I pop 
back up. Beaming! 

Oh crap. What is that huge dick 
doing? 

Dumb question. 

It's...pretty obvious what it's 
doing, and that's par for all courses 
with dicks. Pret-ty obvious, 

for the most and some 
say greatest part. So 

...what'd I do then? 

I laughed my ass off! 
"THAT thing is reee
dick you less!" My laugh, 
like the boom music of 
cathedral bells, broke 
the spell of dream logic

and I woke up, because 

at that point, look.

It's just embarrassing. 

My subconscious is so sad
at me when I walk out on a
horror movie it lavished not
one clear thought upon. "Guys, 
guys! Let's work a primal 
visceral revulsion upon 'im
this time!" 

That again? 

Childish.
My subconscious 
apparently 
never grew up.

Never quite recovered,
from the shameless trauma
of when at seven, my
conscience
caught
my superego
out behind
the shed as usual 
- doing its boom-deep
"God" and "Dad" voices
of "disapproval" routine, 
 and incensed (as I then
generally pretty easily was),
I beat the everloving, everlasting,
everliving shit out of it.  

As I do!
As was even then my wont,
by age seven. An old, dab hand
by then wrought and worked
my child's heart from the inside,
even now. 

I mean: then.

Same beans. Ah,
seven of age! The Age
of Conscience, so
they say. 

What they don't say is "it
doesn't have to stop there,
you know"

Truth.

Quoth some velvet, sepulchrally 
seductive whisper! "It doesn't have
to. Grow up a bit! Leave your well-fed
id and subconscious to tickle dumbass
fancy with childish bullshit all they
like! Don't fret, angst or pour some
fury on me by defiant denial right
down its throat! That's food for those
dork drives and instinct whips! Just,

you know." 

Keep it in dreams, boys, would 

you? 

I don't expect to see anything 
like that shit downtown. 

And oh, I go downtown. 

To be just, and so: sure
of it. True to life, 
and quite as expected, 
I don't find myself facing 
any very great number of
women coming at me full
-tilt, yelling fair warning. 

If I did, though? I know just 
what I'd do. BOLT. 

Haul ass.

Also, on forethought,
I'd angle diagonally
away from center
oncoming mass, best
I can reckon the angle
without checking my
forward velocity with
too many shoulder-looks

back - alas! 

Though I confess,
I'd kind of like to see!
My haul ass mode has
no rear view, ironically
or not. It's full tilt forth.

No back-eye.

Which is a shame, a lack
and alas when a lass is
running to tell you something,
and for some reason you flee.
Startled! Perhaps? Why? Oh,
it's hundreds of them?

OK.

Best bolt, it's possible your
presence was offensive or
inconvenient to their forward
progress. Deduce later! Move
on now!

Sad.
It has
to come to that,
with no regrets, no
looking back - I always
regret not being able
to shoulder the load
of so much as one
backward glance,
not at full-tilt sprint,
but - I find the trip
you get is not worth
the hindsight.

There's something about
women united in strong
cause, with purpose! I find

it inspiring. It never fails
to prove strong bold muse
to my inner creativity, in
you know, a pretty great
way! Makes me want to

stand 

firm. Proud! In awe - which
is wonder + dread, so you know
if you don't. If you don't know awe
yet - fast, proud in us, of humanity, 
even, odd and otherwise. And maybe

just? Just for a quick snatch caught
glimpse, if you could turn, stand
and watch it all unfold? 

Coming on in super slow-motion,
but impossible! 

Not when it's right here,
right now! (there is no
other place I wanna be)
in your face closing fast!
Take heed then and aim
simultaneously the best way
you know how! Make lightning
of your good judgment and be

yourself a bolt!  

That's my advice,
and if you pay close
attention? Probably
any given onrushing
mob's advice as well,
male, female or who
-cares-at-that-point.
Very probably, they

don't
WANT
you in 
the way 
they plan 
so heedfully
to run right over.  

Most like, they'd each 
say (if polled) they'd prefer NOT 
to run over your DUMB

ASS, 
mate! 

Think of that?  

Humans even en masse 
and at speed are pretty decent,
pretty sweet, pretty good, pretty
fearsomely capacious and capable
creatures, and would probably
rather you weren't there at all!

In their pretty plain right of way. 

We all do our best in crisis. 
I know what I'd do, in every
damn dilemma I ever met! See, 
I've worked it over in mind, since.
Never stopping 'til I'm sure what
I'd have done at the time. Retrospect
is the next best thing we get to omniscience

eventually, you find. Good advice
is good medicine they say. 

You know what I say?
I say: if you see a mob ruled 
in polarized line by force of great
good cause, while you stand there:
"fine!" Best catch a jolt of that
current and bolt, if you know

what's good for you,
plus them,
you wonder
-dolt.

But oh,
use your judgment
before mine.

Mine's
usually
unavailable,
or busy, busy. 

good uppity

I'm uppity 
in the sense I hop, 
bop, jump myself 
up a bit, where I 
stand
just
to get 
an enthused,
elevated glimpse
of view that goes
slightly over 
my head. 

But I come back 
downity! Leaps 
and bounds of 
minor ascent 
return to ground. 
To basis, where 
surely stanced, I wheel 
to dance enraptured 
by what I hippety 
hoppity 

uppity 

find,
and found. 

Bad uppity, or poor 
uppity, or false uppity 
is - far as I can tell, 
a deal where you jump 
yourself up, stick in the 
air and glare. I've seen 
it! It's for real, and - you 
know what?

Where the overreach
leap-up uppity one is
just,
punching up 
to smack sight
into others' eyes,
dimmed and blinkered 
by their own false held

height,
from which vantage 
they see fit to throw weight 
around they never had, let 
alone weighed -

I call that good uppity, too. 
For just. For fair. For real. 
Right-on!

Just so. 

Just do.
But still, it's 
a bit more urgent
and grave than what

I most like 
to get up 

to. 

In a crisis pinch, sure!
Where foul looms true,
and false rears high - I
don't bounce or hop much.

I charge 

with level lance
at whatever level I can
run right through to the guard,
crooked fast in elbow nook,
held light but hard. 

Meanwhile, my freaking horse
is way back beautiful behind!
Capering in greener fields!

Some high-horsemanship trick
that is, but it's no trick I swear.

I am 
I assure you and them, 
no horse whisperer. I mostly
stroke, sneak apples and yell
"HIGH HO GOLD!"

Seems to work. Horses 

can tell what I mean. And
what's important:

that I mean
it. 

It's why I suspect
I'm so irrepressible, 

responsive, unruly, hot 
diggity underdog, responsible,
impudent, and why my level
charge hath charms it seems:
to burn, break and bind,
as others deem, please
and by their leave,
damn. 

It's...

because...

horses get me.

I do not get them.

A proper relation! By horse sense,
and mine, too if I'm honest. More
buck sense, maybe. Deer as may be!
D'oh. But it might be mighty,  if
I could figure these antlers out.

See, 

it all began the day
I took that damn internet quiz: What
Spirit Animal Are You? I went in
clean and unaimed, refusing to rig
the game or calculate for effect, target, but
- I was sure loader for bear! 

I thought. 

I'd have taken wolf. Not gladly, but
I've an angle on seeming wolf. I'd be like
"It's a big bad sheep trick, dresses like that!"
Play it off that way. Eagle? Hell, I should be

so high on death dive pinpoint adrenaline
thunderbolt bunny-strike. Or maybe 

I should not. Whatever, on or rather 
off principle, I aimed no end 
and just went through the thing 
ticking the right box. Result? 

I got deer. 

Deer. 

Well, my animal spirit seems 
to have bloomed aright, in the 
light and grain of my human nature 
and whack-ass twist of artifice, 
also natural by the way. To me. 

To us. 

In this. 

Grow up or get up. 

Sometimes just let up!

A fix you can't see 
how to fix is fixed, 
and reality is the best 
recognition we get, 
though - 

It is true. 

I don't insist. 

J'aime.

I am to be on my own. 
Not yet - just now, but 
soon, for coming days. 

It thrills me to be on my 
own, because 

I always am, in many ways. 
But I forget, and lose myself 
in routine scatter and gathering. 
In figure to ground, pattern catch 
and loss, in signal to noise 
- sum smattering. So 

when it occurs to be on 
my own, I get on it and ride!

'Cause I always am, but 
it usually won't occur to me
to recognize. Solitude's 

my jam. 

Oh it's obvious why I forget 
that point, with others' bright 
arcs and lines drawing in, 
uplifting me in interlace 
of light. Picking up where 
we lost ourselves, within. 

I'm a wholes-man.

I am almost idiotically, 
obliviously disinclined 
to seek in parts, when wholes 
are perfect, so. 

I hope you do not mind. 

It isn't incapacity of 
rationality at all, I simply 
find it won't apply. Or I 
won't push it in so small. 

I push in big, I find it just. 
And others? I get small 
complaint. But 

Since you ask, oh do I 
steer tits, bum - perhaps 
some cruxy snatch of gist
just forward, up between?
Where bum recedes, as 
greater aims prevail in 
heads - not "cooler heads"
just then, not mine. 

Since you ask, sure! 
Answer's yes. For all 
in every part. At best?
For druthers and for 
preference?

I will take sum.  

speechless struck

Say hi to me, she said. Are you 
the one? To make 
me smile? Say 

hi. 
Just try,
and I'll know 
your voice at last. 

At least, one note. 

She said. 

Too fast.

Improvise. Adapt. Breakfast.

Cheerios.
Damn.

No milk. 

So I cracked some eggs
in. Dumped it all in a
sizzling pan, added butter
(a lucky afterthought) 
and soon?

The whole hot steamy
mess got fairly fluffy,
and I put it 
back in the bowl. 

Now what

Damn. 

Cheerios. I should have
left these out. 

Crap though, I couldn't!
The whole point was to find
some way to salvage the cereal 
pour. With no milk, sometimes 
to make a bowl of cereal, 

you've got to break
some eggs. 

typical sex gender war maneuvers

In the midst of war, 
in a battle pitched, where
everything depended 
upon our parts - 

we found
at first sight
each other's love.

So we said fuck it.

Betrayed both sides,
cast weapons and
uniforms off, pounded
out some kind of
détente. 

We're at peace with 
this. It draws close
enough to need and want,
with so much more than 
expected - fulfilled.

A winsome, lose some
war, my love. Some stunt.
Come kiss! Come hold. 
Come kill. Or if
you let me live? 

I will

only eighteen words in

I'm the first to admit I don't 
understand

what's going on 
in this poem, only
eighteen words in. But

a man with a concrete tongue 
just told me
exactly abstractly how
he had been. 

I didn't ask! So,
I checked 
myself.

Just in case
I wasn't literally 
there.

I wasn't.
Just here! As
usual. Getting 
out of a scrape 
in a poem 

by stare. 

I write, but 
cannot understand so
fine, foul, fair anymore.
I suppose it's free, this sort
of verse, but it cost me
an arm, a leg and one eye. 

I count that cheap, since
you cost me my heart. 

All poetry since only makes
my sense 

ask
why. 

hallmark heart

My heart was a square box,
but I put so much of you in it 
it went all the way round. 

Then atop it shrugged, 
two rounded humps,
and at bottom

it grew 
a point.

Now my heart is red,
papered round in lace.
It's an offering to you,
and I repent of

everything
I ever said about
cliché. 

You 

make cliche 
come true, and mean 
what it was always
supposed 

to do. 

Doc Dang III: Introducing The New Audience Stand-In Around

Doc Dang: "Finally, this is Doc 'Doc' Beans
- legitimate scientist and keeper of the flame
of sane around here. As you can imagine with
a whole team of mad scientists, we need at
least one of those for reality check and even
keel - and 'Doc's the best. He even writes grant
applications."

Doc Beans: "Charmed I'm sure." (in aside) 
"They're not really mad. I'm also a psychiatrist." 

You: "And your name's Doc-Doc Beans?"

Doc Beans: "Well, I do hold several doctorates; 
my real name is Beans. 'Doc's my nickname." 

Doc Dang: "Doc's everybody's nickname 
around here, but when anyone says 'Doc' 
- they mean Doc 'Doc' Beans. He's got
it by +2 degrees over me." 

You: "Do I call you just Dang, then?" 

Doc Dang: "Justin Dang, yes. But please:
really,
just

Doc Dang."  

typical hairy biped

I have two wings on fire
imaginary thankfully
spreading from the sides
of my head, instead of
my back, instead of
a halo,
and also

a halo cocked
at a rakish angel

whose gold harp lacks
half the strings.
So I told her, take mine.

Heartstrings!
Now she gives
them a pluck, strum,
running arpeggios,
glissando cascades,
and of course

I can't feel them
directly anymore

(torn out)

but when she plays?
I can hear the places
they used to tug.

It's amazing how sound
can make feeling

ugh

sometimes ugh
can be deeply,
gloriously
dug

I stepped on a nail

I stepped on a nail. 
It went right through the
heel
of my converse
all-chucks. 

I felt it hit bone. 

I'd gone downtown 
for a change of pace, 
it was such a clean nail - 

when I pulled it free 

with a sucking sound. 
Apart from my blood, 

nothing moved in me. 
And I studied the scene, 
no one looked or cared, 
thank God. The last thing 
I need
is help,
and the first 
thing I need is air.

So I raised myself
by the help of a wall 
and nearby sign,
remembered

to block out the pain
as I took my first step. 

Then I noticed my foot. 
My heel, of my chucks 
- there wasn't any hole! 

There had been no nail. 

"It was all just a poem..." 
I said dreamily. And I hung
my head, 

like a dead
beached whale.

Cat next door.

The dog next door - 
his name is Cat. Or 
her name is. I do 
not know. I asked her 
what his pronoun was. 
Cat looked at me
like I was Joe.

fullish deck

So first off, there is
no one (1). Ace pulls
double-duty as one
or fourteen as needed.

So if this were
the scale of human intelligence: 

2
3
4
5
6. 

7
(theoretical: 7.5)
8

9
10
J. (11)
Q (12)
K (13)
A. (14) 

Average would be 5, 6 or
7. That's not where it falls
numerically, but a statistical
bell-curve distribution bears
me out. Numerically, it would

hit right at 7.5,

leaving out the fact that the smartest
(Ace) is also sometimes 

the stupidest.

That's more realistic than some like
to get. In reality, you have to face facts:
no number one, and let it go at that.

Two
is the loneliest number now, somehow.

We don't find some undisputed #1 - and
then laugh to discover it's the dumbest
around! Nor do we find human baseline
normal hits at the midpoint
of all intelligence possible.

It hits right strong flush
in the range of adaptively
adequate to thrive, and with 
social creatures like us, that's
far less a competition than a

collaboration. 

If we take a step back, rationally 
each of us is playing with a deck 
of between 12 and 172 cards, but
only 52 of them can even be real,
and nobody has more than 38-44 
of those. The extra cards are made
-up woo woo horseshit in suits like 
cups, coins, swords and wands (or 
staves, if you overcompensate for 
what's in your hand). Sometimes 
SORRY! Or UNO, even Old Maid. 

These don't count, but they can mess 
you up if you shuffle what cha got 
and come up with a hand full of 
nonsense. 

That's the deck of intelligence 
each of us has. Nobody's all aces 
straight through, it matters the topic 
the field, the suit plus high card. 
We shuffle, we deal - this occurs 
cognitively, in the inkle, AKA 
the thinknoodle, the wonderknot 
- the brain's mind. It's normal, 
don't romanticize the thinking 
process, please. 

We pull from the deck and peek 
at what's in our hand, and we 

grin, 
or groan, 
or blush, 

or remain impassive. 
Inscrutable. 

Despite an amazing hand of 
five of diamonds, queen of
cups, ace of fives, nude maid
and SORRY!

who the hell 
put that ace of fives 
in there. Some might like 

to know. 

poop machine

My baby is a super-dupe
poop machine. She's always
eating just to poop used food! 
She wipes clean, 

don't ask me how I know,
don't ask me how I know. 
That's private business, yo. 

When she gets up purposefully, 
sometimes I sing the poop machine
song - that's when she hits me! 

"Problems poopin', baby? 
Don't want no one to know?" 

That's a joke. My baby has
no such problems, yo. 

Don't 
ask me how I know. 
Don't ask me how

I know she's a poop machine. 

Most people wouldn't guess 
just from looking at her.
It's not the kind of thing 
she'd like emphasized, 

but 

I know 
because she told me herself, 
one time.
She announced it in the flush
of triumphant return: "I'm a
poop machine, baby!" - she
said. Qu'elle surprise!

But
she's true, my baby is. And so
I believed her. And so
I learned. 

What I never otherwise 
might have guessed. I would
not have figured out why
she goes from the room,
to come back 
with a rosy glow.

I confess, if I thought 
of it at all, I'd have only 
assumed! "Pfft! Probably
makeup, or something"
- that's wrong! 

But once I found out, 
I sang the poop machine
song she so secretly loves,
when she goes from the room.

So secret in fact
is her love of that song
- you might never even
know it, just by how she reacts
when I serenade her on her way

to make boom. 

But you could be wrong, 
as a matter-of-fact. 

your very own showdown

Cowboy Man said "Horse Time!"

He was dressed his way. Hat, 
chaps and all - with a gunbelt 
slung akimbo and a steely 

eye 

fixing yours in a shadowy light. 
In a gravelly voice he said: 

"Horse Time!" 

You didn't know what it meant. 

You wanted to ask if it meant 
you won't get shot? A race, 
maybe - or equestrian event, 
capering and such? Or just 

get out of town? "Horse Time?" 

So you moseyed over to the crowd, 
asked "What does Cowboy Man 
mean when he says Horse Time?" 

The grizzled old miner you asked 
flinched and spat. "Who are you? 
Quit chatting up miners - are you 
a pervert? Get lost!" 

Your look of pained dismay swept 
those present, pointedly except 
Cowboy Man. Won't somebody 
help? Your eyes said. Pled.

The biggest whore in town
- 6'3"
roughly two-thirty
of burly lithe musculature
in a frame that to all reports
just won't quit - took 

pity. 

"Why don't you ask him? Cowboy 
Man is sad you ask everyone but 
him." You looked back and over. 

She was right. 

"Hell, Cowboy Man I'm sorry. 
What do you mean by 'Horse 
Time'?" 

His sad glare tightened to transfix 
your soul. His hand 

had a gun in it

suddenly empty, and you
were full of just enough lead
and life left to get hurt
one more time
as you hit,

exhaled,
expired.

Died. 

"Horse Time!" the crowd 
all yelled.  

fancy dress.

I put my pants on as a hat! 
With pantlegs trailing 
back to flap, a sock 
on front for modesty, 
and topless. Since 
I had to be. 

I wore my best 
dress shoes, a frown 
and clean-shaved cheeks 
(that's up, not down) 

and that is how I went 
to town. 

Which all went fine!

Is it because this story's set
in worlds where we 
are not neurotic
anti-nature
pipsqueaks who
have hired gun thugs
just to keep our own plus
other peoples' clothes on? No. 

It is because - forgot to say - 
above it all, I shimmied on 

a gorgeous gown.

And that is how I went to town.   

Fear: a power

Fear 
is a power men and women 
have over me by coming 
near. Now I have to 
figure out what the hell 
they want from me. 
I act right and stall/ 
Sensing fear, they bolt.
Never will I be known, 
never truly touched. 

All because of fear. 

Somehow it seems 
ridiculous

cognition rod

Your toothsome,
pulchritudinous form
voluptuates my cognition rod 
from cool to warm to hot to 
- wait. I don't mean "cognition 
rod" equals dick! If I did, the
next word would be - 

hard. 

Which it is, but that's
not what cognition rod
means. OK, moving on,
from 
cool
to warm
to hot
to hard, 

- you've got to admit, it does 
kind of sound like that. Leave 
it aside, go back up and start 
over, reading from the top 
and skip this part. Picking up: 

hard! And o my god your 
face! Your hair! You're 
poetry in flesh, stripped
bare - what I mean here 
is a lack of ornament. It's 

literary. Literal, same beans 
in this case. OK, it's literacy.
From "stripped bare": 

- look. Just what the hell is 
a "cognition rod" then, you ask? 
Keep it in your pants, you! This 
is a poem ongoing! From "stripped
bare":

...in song of wild empyrean tease, 
that tingles licked extremities. By
lightning, licked, I mean! And tongues
- of flame! A spiritual sort of sport, 
untamed and won, no shame. Begun,
your form incarnates dream so pure.
Pure hot! Pure oh my god galore!  

But spiritual, you know. I mean,
I don't see you the way it seems
at all. 

So what's "cognition rod" then? 

Oh for suck's fake. It's like
...you know how the eye 
has rods and cones in it 
to sense and differentiate 
light? Well, the "cognition 
rod" is a posited analogous 
organ in the mind, which 

you know 

pounds and pounds one 
thought, under certain 
perfectly-normal circum-
-stances. There may in fact
be no "cognition rod." It's 
conjectural, plus a metaphor
- but it sure feels like there
is!

A big one. 

type a-

A lot of people 
don't correspond 
in any particular
way to each other.

That's how you can
tell. That's the tipoff. 
When you see hey, 
this person is not 
quite like that person 
at all really? - you know 

right off. You're dealing
with one 

of "those." 

Facing up to biology.

The problem is biology.
People no longer want
to face up to this, and it's so
trendy not to, but there are real,
biological differences between
boys and girls.

Girls
are bio-bodily situated
in a way to look like sluts
if too much shape becomes visible.
Even covered up or not, it's the SHAPE
that causes the distraction. It's not

cultural or subjective,
but pure objective fact: girls
are the only thing that is shaped

like sluts.

Guys see this,
and they don't know what to think.
They've been told otherwise, so it
confuses them. We need to stop
making nature a matter of opinion
and respect what the natural reaction
is. Girls covering up

reinforces the specialty and ownership
of female bodies! That's something
that ultimately benefits both girls
and the boys they choose to honor
with the exclusive and permanent
gift of their bodies.

Girls walking around, shapes uncovered
- this just sends the message to boys: "I am
signaling to you that I choose to honor you
with the exclusive and permanent gift of my
body." WHAAT?

And then we blame boys
for being sexually confused!

It's tremendous, and a problem 
we need to face up to, these 
days. 

her winning way

She cheats the way
she comes across,
in quiet, quite deliberate,
decided-sure decisive moves.

She always bends and breaks the rules
since she's the one who made them up. 

So no one else is keeping score. 
Not quite like her. Despite the crowd
grows wilder now, begins to roar 
as play by play, and point by point
her cumulative effect builds up
to win and try, and win again. 

She wins them all, then cheats 
some more. 

Putting on a Program

Come on GIRL!
You know any MAN 
with a pussy like YOURS
to call his own bone home 
whenever you let him would 
thank his lucky ASS 
for the chance to "say Hi," 
maybe call your eyes pretty, 
but fuck that. I talk very raw 
and completely at ease with it.
Hello and welcome again 
to the show! Rude Smooth 
For Dudes with Lady Problems 
- because there are no "problem
ladies," am I right, ladies? MEN!
Is your woman sick of the way
you pitch woo like you didn't
mean to? Or it? Well strap in
and hearken your HEART
to how I speak so pure
and sincere nothing between
your woman's ears OR legs
could doubt that shit! I will
unlock the tumblers on your
dumbass façade to how you'll
bare your heart clean, strong
and manly, speak clear as
BALLS - crystal - and way
easier to see the future through,
because this woman you found
- she deserves it man. 

You know.

Well I'm here to teach you the
trick to it is NO trick, and before
we go - you might find a little
something to say to the lady,
make her feel like you know
what a man's about her. Ready? 

First up, spin a tune. Set the tone. 
This one's called BACH: Toccata 
and Fugue in D minor. 

It uh primes the mind, so listen in. 

because awesome

I love you when you 
fucking interrupt yourself
midpoint right through what's
inevitably, clearly going to be
a really good point -

'Cause your eyes got wide and wise,
to see the much better point
you could make,
shape,

rise -

And I'm hit!
skewered!
pierced!
with it 

Surprise! No, 
of course I would be,
but 
with loving attention paid
to point made, I wanna
draw you back, 
your attention to
the point you
broke in half.

Yes! The point you made! 

Valid point - good point, 

that last.
But 

Where were you going with 
the other one?
And despite how I point to
original basis and aim, the trajectory
tracked, that you cracked, broke
to sunder and maim,
for your sudden-discovered 

new point! To make! 

- I cannot get you to revisit 
what has now become 
"Irrelevant. 
Fake." 

(to you)

Why I love that 
is up for argument, but 
I say: it's because awesome. 

inch-deep recreation.

Ah, to be born in
the inch-to-foot deep rush
of salt foam water where
land meets sea! Well,

we cannot be.

Most of us. So we're drawn
to make our peace, there.
Be reborn,
and such. 

Option A.

If somebody fucks with
you: you are authorized, 
legitimated, and otherwise
duly fucked with. 
That's an out. 
It gives you options. 
You can 
fuck with them right back!. 
Or, be the "bigger person" 
but come on. If you were
really that bigger, who
the hell's gonna fuck
with that? That's my
sweet trick. 

Be really bigger to 
begin with. People 
sense it. Of course 

someone's always 
got to try. That's 
my out. It gives 
me options. 

proportion!

If only you could
know exactly how
excited I am about 
everything now
that's happening
in your life, 
you'd be
giddy as
I am at this,
maybe.

Or giddier,
since it is after
all you. Embarrassed,

maybe.
And probably assume 
that I put too much in, 
or get too much out 
of you, but you know 
what? 

I do. 

the wokebros cometh

All over Twitter and Instagram, 
wherever a photo that skews 

to femme
is posted,

the wokebros come piling out. 
Like hemorrhoids for dat ass 

No doubt:

"Beautiful. Your titties are a cultural
presentation decision I respect in my
FACE." 

"That ass is ROUND, and presents 
a male ideal of femalinity for sure. 
Is it true? Real? Right? That's a nature
verse nurture culture jam! I say you
can nurture my nature with it on
social role with consent explicit
for my part. The ass itself? NO
DOUBT. Objective for real."

"I wish someone who looked like you
was not a dude. If you say you're no
dude, that's a done deal of course,  but
I wish I could just tell. Some girls don't
wanna let you tell, but I respect that.
See, I just wanna tell all the girls, but
if they say no ok." 

"Your gender identity is real, but what
I see is HOT. Biological sex is come 
on unrealistic anyway. YOU decide,
girl." 

"Woman I think, that female youth look
is binary as hell and I say you rock it dick,
vag or BOTH: no worries. If a dick - COOL.
If not? I can help" 

On the one hand I guess it's what we 

wanted 

longview

If I could pop back in time 
for a ringside seat at the big 
Roe vs. Wade match, I'd be

screaming from the aisles! 
"Don't do it! Rule of law. 
what's done Supreme 
can be undone Supreme,"

- I'd be tackled. Shut up.
They'd probably do me
on a Supreme contempt
beef. Fair.
Then,
when they
found out about
the time travel - come on.

People in the nineteen 
hundred seventies?
Same apes as you. Me, 
too - it would be ignorant
to presume them so
fucking dumbass they
couldn't
                   spot me 

by a dozen tells. I'd be 
caught up
in a top notch 
black ops lab a mile 
beneath or into a mountain,
or some such, strapped
to a table.

Getting dissected 

which was just 
my whole plan,
all along, my

man. 

Kind of.
More or less. 

Anyway: wing it. 
I say wing it. All 
for the best. 

Why I don't do requests.

I do requests! The asks 
that catch so that I leap 
and ricochet off walls, 
come back - to give 

you that. 

I give a lot, in easy 
hard or tricky shot.
I give at once, and
I don't stop. I live 
and love to serve. 

So ask! I'll pop. 
I either do or won't! 
And if I won't - I'll pop 
arrays of alt-ops options 
doable, to same base purpose 
- since you asked. Most askers
find, I cut a suit to fit their deal,

if I can't do exact what's asked,
still I can try to loophole, circle
workaround and hit the spot.

Or if no good, then I won't try. 

So I don't do requests declined,
and then renewed.

For whosoever pushes past decline
must be opposed, right through.
No way. No how. No suit for you.
I either do or won't. 

If asked? A question takes 
decline, and no. Or it was 
not a question - which, 

we find out fast. 

As no one should. Who 
pushes past decline invades, 
presumes, aggresses soft 
but hard, persistent, strong
as if a game? As if this is
or could be how it's played? 

Oh, nah.
You shall not pass.
It shall not stand. 

I must oppose! If only for
the sake of all! These pushers 
roll to persecute. They drive
entitlement right through,
to nudge, to shove, to coax,
to make you do.
To make you
wrong,

if you do not. 

I say? Hey you!
Knock it off! 
Go pound sand. 

Because so help me me, 
if you do not? I will tell 
you
where 
you are completely free 
to get off. 

But I'll point at my crotch.

Look. It's just a jocular jibe 
to lighten things up

People who use

People who use ketchup 
instead of salsa for their 
tortilla-chip dippin' needs 
put me in a tizzy in the 
nethers over how sexy 
they must have to be, to 
offset the repugnance 
of such acts, but - 

- I haven't tested it.
And if I do and it's true,
I don't know how to act,
yet. Take it easy by wing, 
maybe. Wing it!   

People who use music 
instead of goals for 
motivation - hell! That's 
normal! I do it myself.

Tested and proved, but
you know what? People
who use the scientific method
to pick which indistinguishable
tint of color swatch they'll paint 
which room with,

hell. 

I keep an open mind,
sometimes but I'd have
to see that shit. 

I don't
believe it necessarily, but 
I won't disbelieve it

unnecessarily!   

Toast.

To all things tried, 
or never before - 
may they all
come good,
and us 
wanting more. 

sociocultural exchange.

"Do you piss out of your ass 
or what?" He said.

I was like, 

well, no. Do you? 
Piss out of my ass? I think 
that would be weird. 

I think with the original 
statement, he was trying 
to imply my way of doing 
or ordering things was off. 
Uncanny maybe. 

Typical primate banter!
Confront the interloper. 

I love such stuff.  

clean stick

Qualm 
can calm
what whim 
incites. It's
not the same 
as scruple bright, 
and consciention's
clean line drawn -
but whim can't win, 
where qualm stands 
strong. 

on up high

I hate being 
on a flight with some 
famous person. They're never 
sat near me, it's like...what good
were they? One time it was G Love
and Special Sauce, and I only noticed 
because 

some standup bass addict was 
trying to pack his shit on 
at the same time as mine, 

on the flight, though?

Never saw them, him or 
whoever. Last on, first 
off, 
I dunno. I was minding 
my own deal, so 

what good are they? 

Look. I say either be sat 
right next to me or fuck 
off. I don't have time 

for these people on flights,
and I'm too courteous
and deferential probably
to make the fuss,

anyhow

the quest as-if

I put on my armor as-if and trod
the land like a bandit lightning shod,
sowing seeds by boot with each
thunder stamp growing crops behind
without hindward glance, and
reaping by wind in backward gust!

I trust it all came out like I planned
to a bumper crop windfall,
bold and just

a bit too much 

for a man to plant. 

Having roamed all the world
and called it blest, and ordered 
it best, 

I found myself home,
and I never left. 

The impressiveness

A lot of the time, kids
are too much. People just
stand back, step back/detach

(or try to) from them and judge!

How else to assert our imagined
inner height? Like big ol' trees
doing the loom and shade routine
on some upshot youngster. "Count
the growth rings, short stuff."

We'll be all like:

"He's amazing. Did you see-?"
"I couldn't believe it."

"She is a boss brass brawler
upper baller on TRACK TWO:
GIRL MODE. How old?"
"Two!"
"About right."
Both: "Admirable."

"He-"
"-He's a She!"
"OK, don't be phobic mom - how old is she?"
"Six months."
"I respect her already."
"You better."

We just can't take
such beings in
sometimes,
the sheer look see
spiked to sudden will
or interest on display -

- and when one talks?
Oh man. We make
an ass of self tryna
engage one of these
brand new or recent
developments in being.

We know why they
toddle over or go hide
behind mom’s leg, or
run wild like nuts, once
they got the hang.

We know why they crawl
to us,
on knees,
elbows and belly
over all handsy
to tug out
our shoelaces.

"Because...
...they look up to us?"

No. Well, yes, but
that's a sheer coincidence
of biological geometry.
We know.

So do they.

It's shoe practice.
Soon to be stepping
in them.

Kids don't even know
they know this, some of 'em
yet - don't kid yourself.

They know. On a level
we can't quite reach
no mo'.

Get your batons clutched
for handoffs and your hoops
set to fire up, folks, because

the kids are here to take it
and jump through less fake
by the bound, pound and inch.

Gained ground's a cinch when
you're a learning machine
on growth hormones
of in-house brew.

Don't fret sweat or blanche,
though! Once puberty and
the approval of others hits
for real and slips, sticks,
catches and clicks in them

they'll be just like you.
Advantage: us. Grown-Up!

We been at it awhile.
We know whose boss
is ours, and how much
is due.

Our ritual

You were sitting in my grave 
that day, and smiling like you
always do. 
Which I had
for the first-time seen. 

I'd hand an apple out to you, if 
I had picked one
on the way.
Your

outstretched hand
held apple green. 

Your smile told me: seize the day! 

"Thank you!" I claimed,
and plucked "Just what I
wanted!" from your grasp,
at last.

Then looking fast
upon that hard 
and rounded
sheen, I grew

confused. 

"This is for you,
grave apple queen."

Your troubled smile, 
first I'd ever seen,
grew wide enough
to fall

into and dream. 

planet stook

The planet stook 
upon itself. Upon
us both, all schmicky-boo. 
And we both thought 
abstractedly, oh -
that's not right and 
this can't last! We've
got the planet stook 
right here! 

But it will do 

Praxis is one’s chief poiesis (that’s my theory)

Way I figure it
comes down to

permission to suck.

Frees up daring to try
what’s up plus death
dives down. and

I need one or both, 
sometimes. I follow both 
or one. I reckon each

lil' new-breathing 
work, whose

tiny bones 

align mid-hang, sinews 
and guts webbing in
to tune, to chord
whatever song it 
sings, or might have 
sung: "If it dies,

from being created, 

it dies."

“I was only going to make
another one! Rack ruin
and hazard and hang
fire wrong!”

Or aright, as it comes.
Let it, I say! That's its
job.
Mine is
to suck loud and with
enthusiasm, so perchance

perhaps to rule.
In moments, memorialized 
in good works and turds. 

I see free clunk and free botch
as steam vent and tendon stretch
to cleanse and supple me up

for strict rigor
and discipline, later
maybe. Switching off apace.

Switching on in space.

So an opening, aperture 
in me

dilates

got a pair

I've got a pair of jacks 
and a pair of balls. 
I'm pretty sure that's 
not enough to call 
at this stage of play 
in this canny strip 
chess game, up so 
late as I wish to stay, 

apparently. But

...instead of this
fooling around on
the board, with a hand
full of cards, half-dressed,
unscored - perhaps I might
best interpret by feel? With
intuitive hard soft tactile sense, 

perchance, find real? 

Maybe this whole deal
is some kind of ploy? 
Aimed at some other 
play between girl 
and boy? Or fuck - 

that's presumptuous! 
Beneath us both, for me 
to guess so assumptuously. 

Unless it's just "pre-" in
a sense before sumptuous,
innocence less modest by
turn of hands, and

waiting to boast?

If so,
my next move
could depend on me! Wait 

What? 

It's my move? Hey! Sorry! 

I thought 

Oh heck it. I bet
my shirt, knight to rook
two, and...

hit me.

She did. 

some weird grace

Oh Lord, 
we thank you
for bringing us all here 
around this table, 
where we came ourselves 
freely, unbrought by others,  
to break bread.

Please, 
thank us for gathering,
here. Please give us some unbroken
bread to break, and you, and we can thank 

each other properly - we in our puny, 
mortal, dying as we live way, by
eating. You! In your infinite way, 

pretty obvious, but please:
long before we dig in! 

We pray: 

Give us forks, knives 
to dig in with, spoons 
to scoop and plates and dishes 
for this food. Which we so gratefully
gather 'round, some of us - pretty 
hungry; grant these patience dear 
Lord, as I pray. 

As we all pray! 

As my prayer grows. so help
me God! Please confirm you
brought the food, because if
you didn't - who did? 

How can we even trust this
good food
you gave, if
you didn't? Please! 

God! 

Please give us mouths 
to put the food in, teeth
with which to chew it,
throats and such, down
to stomachs, to small
and large intestine, to
rectum - you know,

God.

We all here know - and
so on out. To pinch, wipe,
flush and dear Lord! Let us 

then wash our hands. Please! 

Grant us these blessings, O Lord! 
Plus the hands, of course, not only
to wash much later, but to use
the forks now and such. Let us not
take the food
by hands into mouths
directly, for it

is an abomination to us, in our eyes
and norms in most cases - though
we know you of course, Lord
could not possibly give a tin
shit about that pipsqueak stuff!

But we are, my Lord. Wretches.
Pipsqueaks - unless it's bread! Or
something handy like that. 

That's OK. Then let us use our hands,
oh Lord. And you above all,
and we beneath, please: 

grant us the faith we need! To believe
these gifts we ask will be or already 
have been granted in this, our day.

So that we all, gathered here, might say

- ready all? One! 

Two!
Three!

"It's a miracle!"