feedback loupe

a nasty friend of mine 
I love is always doing 
things she likes to 
titillate herself and 
me I take it all 
mischievously 

refrain or refrain

refrain can be either 
to plunge in again, going back 
seconds, thirds, fading out 
to the end, or 

to hold back, back off 

and never plunge in. 

The second one any
one can do. The first
to begin with, it takes 

at least two

or we'll find that we haven't 
refrained 
at all. 

Oh, well then. Sing or skip! 
It was our tune to call, 
and sometimes once 
or never 

is best. If unsure, 
we can stall! 

Or come back 
again, to spring time,

and consider 
come fall 

take a whack

What is obvious to you 
- to another, may not even 
be evidently true 

Nevertheless, why not take 
a whack 
at the hole 
where the mole 
is presumably at 

just in case
the staccato rat
-a-tat-tat of your words'
bouncing rubber-thump
tongue hammer-strokes 
may coax out 

a matter of fact?

Which - in hindsight - 
proves mutually, 
obviously, 
unspeakably

gross

and 

pat

consensus consent

consensus between two 
is absolute:

one can't
sacrifice self 
unless one wants to, 

and one really should not 
as a golden rule: unless 

the other's
self-sacrifice 

is really
what we want to do. 

If we really don't want 
them to break, shaft, 
go

against self 
on our own behalf, 
then: no.  

Then we shouldn't assume 
that they want us to. 

And we'd each do as please, 
and find

thank you

vice unlike vise

We all know vice 
grips right and hard, 
tightening in  

inescapably 

and catches some part 
of us we can't lose 
more than any machine 
you could work or choose
with no lever to turn 
reversing its course
for the pressure release

that sets you free

from constraining force

vice like grip part two

it was not a decision

just a response. But just, 
cast in terms of 
what everyone knows 

it wants

vice like grip

human viciousness, 
greedy and petty 
and blind, quick 

to erupt from the breach

any crack
in the thick callous 
skin-deep surface
of our human kind 

- which we try so hard 
to put forth and share, 
so long as the other 
will meet us there 

if they don't give as good 
as they get, we deserve
what we gave, what we want,
the dynamic turns master
to slave 

and of course, we revolt 
in a rush of red gushing
vision. Release the beast:
cold, brutal and hot, 
serve without leash 

it was not a decision

the spark in the stone

The spark in the stone 
is released in a crack 
but you can't tell where 
as you thwack and thwack 
upon unyielding surface 

you know there's a bit 
of unlit flame 
in this inert rock 

waiting perfect hit 

lucky again

I got lucky with you 
we were luck, pure luck 
not all of it good, 
but I'll count it all up 
and say holy fuck 

let's get lucky again 
any time, anywhen 
once some lines are crossed 
there's no way it can end 
just take a break, pause 
for a breather, regather 
our resources inner 
to plunge in again 
like two brand new

beginners 

Got lucky with you 
We were luck, pure luck 
Not all of it good, 
but I'll count it all up 
and say holy fuck 

suspect concurrence

I'm always suspicious
of losing my mind
when everything fits in a system fine 
but talking it out
with a friend so dear 
makes it all come plain 
makes it all so clear 
we're both insane

it all fits it all works

I'm always suspicious of losing my mind
when everything fits in a system fine 
but talking it out
with a friend so dear 
makes it all come plain 
makes it all so clear 
we're both insane

spell

It's just a cloud across the sun 
my vision isn't darkening 
my legs aren't suddenly undone 
I won't collapse 
or anything 

"No Reason Not To"

I don't know why 
I even try 
to explain 

It's more myself 
I need to tell 
make it plain 

If you know me 
(I think you do) 
then it's clear 

You'd know me more 
if I explain 
this right here 

There's no reason not to 
Unless I forgot to 

I don't know what
I really mean 
that's a lie 

I just don't know 
what words to fit 
how and why

I'm purest what 
and plainest who 
which you know 

I can't explain 
but that's my style 
So let's go 

There's no reason not to
There's no reason not to
Unless I forgot to 
There's no reason not to 

the quest

I'm frequently beaten by life, 
but since 
so far 
I've not been beaten by death 
I will rise again 
and resume the quest 
to find out what's more 
what's here 
what's left

she shared a song

The drum plays catch 
with spare guitar 
as her voice whispers 
circle, star
and binding arc 
so slippery 
the whole thing slid
to almost free

the telling

Your empty voice was full of lies 
I told by tone and pause 
I told you you don't have to try 
which was a lie, of course 
I knew just what you wanted, once 
You still must want something 
And so you weave your one-strand web 
to leave me dangling 

I have to hold my breath 
to keep it steady, everything 
depending on the finest lines
your empty voice can sing 
You had to make it beautiful 
It's effortless, for you 
Pure habit and routine, and I 
expect no less, and
nothing true

And so I don't know what I get, 
once you've delivered yours. 
So I dive in as if all true, 
and see what it supports. 
And if between us, we bear up 
and hold another day -
I guess you gave as good as true, 
and nothing left to say. 

accidental mouth

Sliced my tongue on a lollipop
Now the flavor that's filling my mouth won't stop 
It's cherry lime blood, 
and I swallow it down 
When the candy's all gone 
all I do is frown 

I want another one 
I want another one 
but I only have grape 
and raspberry blue 
I want another one 
Same as before 
I don't want an experiment 
I want more  

fates absence makes

Absence makes materials 
of its own, of substances 
unknown in your presence. 
Of patterns whose key
design feature is lack. 
As enough of these stack 
and interlock, what's gone 
seems unavoidable, and 
the arrangement simply

sits
waiting 
for you, 
fate's accomplice, 

to show up and reveal 
what all of this 
without-you
was always 

gong to be
for
.

up ante

One time we 
(you and I: to be 
clear) wasted whole 
afternoons playing video 
games. We did it with casual
zeal and elan, not a jot
of regrets, no guilt, 
no shame.
It was head-to-head 
fights, with big bets staked 

You kept letting me win, 
'cause you liked the take 

and I knew it was rigged, 
but I'd claim just the same 
with a cock-of-walk strut 
to my big brag frame 

dreams explain

Sometimes I walk out 
the back of my life 
into a dream 
where you 

are my wife.

But you 
are not there. 
You're on a trip! 

I hope that you bring 
something back, 
right quick

contact

her eye contact 
unlocks the soul 
so deep inside and 
slippery, so 

I wriggle in
and lean a bit 

next thing we know 
we miss
and hit 
and slip
and catch 
and
find and keep
this perfect

fit

social tactical array

It reminds me of 
this time I got out 
of going to a party. I just 

didn't show up

but I had a 
wild excuse, 
in case anybody asked. 

Nobody ever asked, 
so the excuse is 
still good! 

Poe's lesser works: a meditation

So as I lay laid out, sick of
and reading another from Poe's
Tales of the Boring and Preposterous, 
I find myself not much
wondering why

no one ever quotes 
or makes reference
or allusion to this
much-bruited writer's
many satirical sketches 
directed at the mediocrities
and foibles of newspaper 
and magazine publishing 
of his day? Perhaps, as 
they say, the master satirist
runs afoul by a portraiture 
too true. Easy mistake 

to make, one suspects! Most
of this dreck was written to pay
booze bills and keep roof overhead,
no doubt. I say: when you go with Poe,

stick to the big, heavy-hitting,
famous and eerie dreary business
wherein he scored so many hits,
always or usually in the literary
guise of some weird maniac
with a family history of nervous
complaints from the neighbors. 

The kind of guy even the local
birds stop by to croak their cease 
and desist advice to. That's the Poe

who holds up to any amount of
posthumous interest and scrutiny:
a real 

character 

comparison of literary types

A literary character 
is one time-lapse arc 
taken in sequence 
and chosen frames 
from the first sunup glimmer
where they arise, to add their 
specific shade and hue, glitter
and angle to the thickening plot, 
up all through the coloring 
clouds, an obstacle course 
they fly over and past, to
(finally) wherever they 
set: and there it is. That 

whole arc 

is the character.

We don't see
it all, just chosen shots, 
but we see enough.

The character 
of the author,
by comparison 

is all of that plus 
everything that lands 
or was put deliberately 

out-of-frame

the nude waitress

I had a dream we were on
a date, and you threw your
water right in my face! I didn't
do anything! We were talking about

boundaries, and you had your hand
down the front of my pants playing
with my pubic hair. I agreed. Then
you said I mustn't pay attention to
the waitress, or you would

become jealous. But I hadn't! 

In your defense, this was the place
with the nude waitress. We didn't have
the nude waitress - we had another one -
but I knew which waitress you meant.
The nude one. It's funny how things make

sense in a dream when you get a big glass
of ice water in the face. Anyway, we just kept
talking! Great time from then on in

looking twice

Sunlight clothes the world
in hue as shade gives
roundness to the forms.

Even if we never do,
let's share this view
to keep us warm

home run bat day

I am out there crying 
literally crying on the 
garden deck, because 
I broke my bone right 
straight through the sliced 
shin skin from a lack of
balance and impact, running
to catch and stop in time, and
my feet got so worn through
from walking, 

in my trademark elbows-out
ducky-dumb cakewalk strut,

just to show the kind people who
took me home, and apologized for
not getting there first. All the water

in the world 
outpoured, and all
the good dogs 
barked up a storm, and all
I need
or needed
was you just now, to 

come in, and nick
time, and break 
my hot hot head
open to cool and
warm 

before
my usual huge home 
run bunt sacrifice bunt play, which 

to be fair, has never quite done
been 

born. 

But I will step up,
and make it today, since
there's no other way 
to make symphony

form

Political response to a five (5) stingy sentences meme

This crap smacks of one of those "zero
-sum" NO PIE deals. People who think
the product can't be more than what each
individually put into it.

Well, put me down in column "A," because
I don't understand the attitude. It's as if
somebody got caught halfway between
their ears! Stuck in overcompensating
hypercompetitive show-'em-all SUPERSTAR,
with COMPLETE ASS-HAPLESS TWERP
-MISER HAT thrown into the ring! 

A dangerous kook! A disorganization freak
par no excellente! WHICH IS IT? 

Sadly, it isn't a true dichotomy. Too often,
we end up with BOTH. I concur with the
commentator who said GROSS

Those are DEATH SENTENCES written so hard
in blood-debt letters and reason taxed beyond sense
that anybody who shares it and believes it is basically
riding a long bus off a short brick wall into a self
-steered (BUM RUN) abyss for shits and giggles. WHY
O WHY can't anyone tip their bus drivers, when full
performance in a crisis like this is clearly at a premium? 

Superman doesn't count, people. You can't expect
that clown-suited strongman to pick up the check
when he's all godawful agaga over his imperiled GIRL
FRIEND and JIMMY OLSEN up Hoover dam playing
spy camera and "oh, help me I'm a journalist!" CRUTCH
-WORK may not be glamorous, but it's

the hero's response
at this stage in human
development if you ask me.

Presidentialist Pitch

COSIGN
Call sign. 
No sign. 
"Conservatives"
never made a flying dime of sense to me,
as a side-designator. Now true, T.R.,
"THE TRUSTBUSTER" they called him
- he was a Conservative, and BULLY!
BULLY at it! 

Hence, they sent in whole crews of geared-up
rock climbing dudes, hacking his big ol' spectacled
PUSS into MT. RUSHMORE like he was a St. or
Holy Sr, but I'm going to go with the guess:

Teddy was far more the prostitute's pal
than he let on in those days. It's what "BULLY"
MEANS, duh. "Bull Moose PARTY?" Ringing
any bells? Trust him, T.R. didn't initiate any such
rank and mountainous self-idolatry all up in the
Dakotas for a stirring, jolly climax of a Hitchcock
chick flick except in the most mauve, oblique,
opaque, obtuse and both-ended way: while

living the dream. Out there riding rough and high
on Half-Dome, signing National Parks up, laying
down some kind of BLM for the big wasteland
gaps and expanses between under Big Skies 
and purple, pulsing streams of foamy water 
- GROSS. 

- was that ALL HE?
Hey, color me no historian
I don't know, but it's the kind of thing
he'd do. TEDDY BEAR

MAH MAN

He got so famous for that, 
it practically almost ripped the country 
a third one, one time. 

Handwritten dedication

Stop me if you've heard 

ENOUGH!
The story sucks, 
the arc's unjust, the
endless seamy characters
have all gone off their 
arachters, the whole 
authoreal tone 
and sass 

has bit you in 
your lofty,
salty ass well, 
WAIT. 

I told you
to stop me enough,
didn't I? Let's call it
"off." A bad note
pasted in, cocked
you in the eye.

A poor personal taste
play, an escape ploy
with no refunds: 
No fuss no muss
no fault no wuss
no busted trust,
no big red omnibus
for you to toss yourself 
from topwise and to the back,
(CRACK!) just to prove how
wrong
you got in,
up and on. It's YOU! 
The right customer 
for the win! 

By and by if you try
again: throw the book at a
wall! It will crash open signed
and to you, dear y'all, and

if you squint your eyes,
you might just find your
spot

In the wrong audience, 
whether liking or not. 

No Such Space Deals, Creepo

I had a dream that you, 
me, my lead guitarist,
Maggie K. and that actress
from the Wesley Snipes
movie had all been taken up 
in one fully-appointed
UFO, which 

was cloud-shaped,
fit and kitted out
for space travel, and
so (to our sudden
and complete ass
astonishment!) were

we! It was cool 
but problem, though: 
no food!

The aliens 
hosting or abducting 
us, the three or four of us 
up there in relative
comfort and ease, had
provided a beautiful 
streaming swimming pool
full of stars, so cleanliness
was next to effortless.

Plus a touch screen 
we could punch up
to ask any questions
of our captors and/or
benefactors, but 

Nobody had anything 
to eat!

Luckily, those stupid aliens
could be prevailed upon.
Made in so many signs
and angry hints

to understand what 
was needful to such
beings as we three
or four were, and

one big horse-pill later,
everyone 

pretty much 

was more or less satisfied,
revolted and mutineering
at the prospect of (slowly 
dawning comprehension) 
being installed in some kind 
of fussed-up Twilight Zone 
zoo exhibit for extraterrestrials 
to snigger and gawk! So 

Naturally,
seeing how it all was,
they took us right straight back 
to the big stone ivy-covered
cottage-castle on the circle 
where it all began, 

(...does this sound like 
a dream? TRUST ME)
(it was), and seeing as we'd
been so well-taken care of
enough, the several of us
left in full cahoots by
that point struck up
such a bargain and a band

that the others still won't speak
to me to this day! Sheesh 

It wasn't my UFO, people

The CORRECTIONS

A thoroughly unpleasant
book. Look: the themes are
well-done, the characters well
-drawn and the story, well, long,
but I didn't enjoy it for all it was
well-written. There's an elderly
mom and dad

and their three adult children, all
steeped in various betrayals, especially
self-betrayals. None of them like each
other very much; maybe the sister and
one of the brothers have an alliance. The

kids
are all
busy ruining their
own lives. The father and mother are trying
to deal with the father's rather rapid slide
into dementia. A lot of flashbacks
lay out the various stories, an
interleaved history
of resentments and
disappointed hopes.
It all comes to a head
at a family Christmas
get-together.

Sound like one of yours? By all means, 
go f*** yourself with a broom handle 
then, and complain about how your meds 
made you do it. Trauma is self-ownership 
palmed off on circumstance in a very short
to midrange con with all the trimmings missing,
and nobody wants to find the consequence or even

take one guess 

as to its potential lessons. Great read, 
Oprah. Slap a medal on it and tell 
Franzen to get going on the team 
superhero book he so assiduously 
avoids jumping into, tights 

bunched to the front and all askew!

Mind you, the hype
and the praise this book
received in hugely unequal parts are
not overblown. It's a solid piece of work, excruciatingly
so vivid in parts - especially the father's pathetic
disintegration on a cruise ship

as he tries furiously to hold himself
together by dint of the sheer accumulated
rectitude of a lifetime, and utterly
unhilariously
fails, betrayed
by his failing brain, heart, body
and mind plus a dodgy experimental
drug called Aslan.

Look. The book is clearly meant
to be unpleasant. See? SEE! It's
definitely a masterful piece of

craft.

I can't knock it from an artistic
standpoint, but I wasn't able to get
good out of it no matter how hard 
I pounded it home. No, I've enjoyed
some very unpleasant books before,

but this one's got me beat.

No fourth star. Sorry. 

horoscope says

Paging mister melodrama 
with another of his next-to-
greatest hits, the big boo hoo tale 
called how red and tender my feet
got last night! Oh, from dancing too
close to the poor, dead whale. It's 
as much as a bonfire, now died down 
but we might as well raise a sextant
to plot something sure in a course 
of stars. If you're aiming from space, 
let's draw ourselves sharp
and not waste 
one line
'til we've
skipped past Jupiter, landing
by gravity's time-nicked kiss 
in some cratered Mars. 

All ahoy

If I can only collapse 
at the end of each day, 
then I know I'm ok. 

I will be ok. 

If I'd only fall in next to
you when I fall, I would
never ask more than to be
reborn in that caterwaul squall, 

but you needn't despair, or
stroll overboard or wet
your hair. I'm alive in
the hold, in the rigging,
so square your back to the wind
and hold the line, and I'll draw 
the sails taut, and we'll all be
fine, 

and arrive on time. 

double diagonal and swung

One double diagonal, swung
hard up from a tipping point
she'd left her right toe in,
but just, 

Gravity came
to guest in her hips
and we all had to bless
that upward thrust and trust
to the fairy angel wings she'd strapped
on her back to uplift all us.

Well, wait. Hold up. Why must this
one poor woman drag the weight
of our gaze so dizzying high
above lust? Perhaps it's the luck
of the draw, or the call of the wild,
or maybe she simply had 

some accounts to adjust. 

 

the caution

Just in case I fall 
before I had the chance 
to tell you go: go on,
now. You'll never
have to stoop your head,
or strap yourself in bed
bound tight by head
and heart, and wreathed in light
to follow slow. Forsake this night.
Just seek relief, and find release, 
and I will come along to see.   

Just in case I fell before 
you ever had the chance to know: 
go on, now. No, we never had 
to stop ourselves, to prove,
to show. Or if you never
had the chance, if trauma
was too hard, too bad,
if karma was too rich,
too strong, if trial was too
wretched wrong, if universes
stretched too long, if dogma
was too pokey slow, too weak
to walk down every road, then just
partake this once, and go.

You never have to lose yourself.
I'll stand beside you twice as well,
and faster than the stories tell. So
come what may, please bring yourself 
where you most wish to give: and I 
will wait beside the road to hell,
and point the way you want: to live.

Yes, just in case I fall too soon,
don't throw yourself in after, dead.
I want your arms, your mouth, your
charms, your legs and tongue
and breath, instead. 

double like a diplomat

I just saw a good dog take
a dump on command, right
out in public, in the yard

and it was liberating! True,
that's not the kind of move
you want to pull in your
own hat, but trust a dog
for aim.

Command, if you're seated
strictly two rows forward
and doing an impossibly-suave
"literal lyrics" interpretive dance
for the fans behind you, is probably
no place you want to be when you're
far more a big fan of Steven Seagal
booting your own home front door in
backwards, hard to kill and above
the justice - in absolutely no mood
to hear the position's fulfilled, already.

Tell that to him! He's pulling that move
on his own from the deep sea mess,
sending the whole boat crew to the head
for general quarters, sniffing up the bisque
for the whole crowd down South, where

he's

- believe it - supposed to be just exactly
that big. It's no insult to modern special effects
when the man's a duly-elected reality sheriff
or thereabouts. One time, I swore

I spirited Seagal away with false
promises of endless sequels, his
own mawkish drawling and histrionic
blues breaks on the soundtrack - trust me.

It was Wes Craven's new nightmare
on steroids, pork rinds and a huge
dose of down-home pork gravy
for starters. Then Seagal showed
up

demanding as usual
his huge cut of everybody
else's blocks, ducks and circle
kicks, run multiple times
plus backwards and sideways
remix to make easy viewers
think he's super-fast
which

did not go down
so smooth for the big
man, karma-wise.

I don't know. Maybe his best work
is beneath him after all

Big Promises

The problem is girl, 
you're a woman
who means 
on some to all levels you WANT 
to be exposed in a sort of cynosure,
an overt blast of all eyes wild that goes
from global to public to very personal
in a geologic eyeblink, leaving the whole
wide world rock hard and in no doubt
whatsoever as to your graces and merits, 
wiles and winning ways! 

The censure of all public eyes, it
would not be an exaggeration worth a
lawsuit over, trust me. Anyway, 
we're a little both too far to care past 
worrying, right? That kind of all-encompassing
tell-all show-all coverage blitz means trust. It
simply is the most proven way of establishing
social validity, reputation, good graces - the works. 

Whereas I'm so wise to that game, girl! Because
I know if I fall in that sweet trap to give you just
what's needful, a hot punch of everything wanted
and nothing off-key, you will become so rough in
bed I'm liable to get thrown for a crater! And then
what do we do for round two? The all-important 
proof of virility encore? I advise cool it!

Take a deep sea breather, bask in the salt
air awhile in sunlit spray mode, nobody
needs the publicity these days, and any
way, girl all you are 

already 
to me 
is 

no problemo, for sure.

So sit tight
and right wonderful,
don't fret around none, sweets
because mister fresh juice
and local honeyman's got bees
in the business these days, and
no shock twist overture's going to 
spoil these prompts and goads, cue
-wise or otherwise. 

Or at any rate not
if I have a thing 
to say about it

"ye gods, girl"

So lately I am thinking of you

in ways more suited to the

classical studies group

of a federal penitentiary

all pent up,

some part of me caged like a tiger

waiting

and pacing,

waiting

and pacing,

and in-between sitting, and wasting
|time.

classical literature

a diversion at best from these bars

but better than this nothing

to live with, I suppose

those dudes

are in there, reading pieces,

discovering and deciphering allusions,

gods and myths and idols and

oh, those glorious sylphs and nymphs,

minor and major goddesses and other forms

and it's kind of a revelation

how dirty all that legendary shh- is!

one guy: "FUTZ Pluto! Big bad god of

the underworld, so he gets to be all

below the law - 'R*** of P***sephone'

my a$$! Meanwhile I'm in here

5 to 10 for the same damn thing,

substantially"

another guy concurs

a third points out all those damn

gods were. And especially right on up

to Zeus. Mr. big god of lightning, plus

supernatural nonconsensual bestiality

always turning into bulls, swans -

man, probably any time back in those days

when a girl got tumbled by a mysterious

out-of-nowhere animal, people just said,

"There goes Zeus again! - but..."

Eventually they just learned to accept the odd

demigod, and highly-modified the story they’d told

against the mother, "...she was asking for it." No.

She wasn’t.

Meanwhile, to the side, one guy -

"You think that really happened often enough

to explain all these stories? I mean,

bestiality…it's generally instigated by

the human. If you think back then,

animals really thought we were all

that much more sexy,

I question that."

"What do you know about it,

four-eyes?" Bristling from the bald guy!

Hurt glowers from several others, rained

-upon looks. "What do you know about it?

What are you in for?"

Four-eyes, abashed, looks
down sheepishly

A pitched toast

There's something wrong
in the world's
design, but step back
detach far enough,
it looks fine. But dive
in drill down a bit,
and it's death. I 'spose
let's be grateful for
everything left

Books In Bath #2: Austen's Emma

LOOK. On this week's edition of books 
in the bath, I give you Jane Austen's
Emma. Arguably her fittest work: a tight
marvel of deathtrap implications worked 
and sprung by a heroine so mindfully,
thoughtlessly intent on general improvement
schemes that she was once underplayed by
Gwennyth Paltrow, of all actresses! 

If memory serves, someone slept on my
arm the whole film, and then pretended
to have an understanding. Meanwhile,
Paltrow stood out on the poster: arm 
outstretched, arrow nocked - and a
prettiest little bull's-eye just out of
frame! One supposes, by the angle 
of wink and smile. Well, 
in the bath, I'll spare you
the dog-eared corners, the many
passages underlined in pencil
or circled and marked out by
quotes, and simply note

that Austen's heroine, here
has her handsful of more than just
bowstring and fletching. Fetch me
a prized apple for my own head! I
don't doubt that hawk's eye of hers
might knock it through in one, for once!

Otherwise, 
simply let the bath run
in hot and cold tears streaming from
my eyes, raising cackles of bitter chagrin
in an increasingly unseasonably steamy
milieu, a scene better off left pitched
'twixt Charybdis and a great clashing
of legs in foam and suds,
somewhere off Gibraltar, where there's
a bride in a wetsuit
waiting for 
her cue,

perhaps. Or perhaps we'd all protest,
"Too much!" Anyway, by the time my eyes
cleared and my lungs, I was so wroth
what with all the merry doings and undoings
(in the book: she's a bit of a matchmaker,
our Emma) that you could have swung me 
from a folly hung in tire and rope, off and over
a cliff! And expected
to see me drop like a stone, 
without much difference
to how this poor tome ended up:
pristine,
mint condition. Unharmed
by dash of waters or water vapors,
unhurtled at any wall, 
held 

carefully by the covers or cradled by spine, and
at all times: fine, and more than fair. A good read
for sure,

and I am I hope
a more than fair judge of such things. 

All this, a very different experience
entirely from the last time we had 
books in the bath, if you'll recall. 

Some things can and should be laid 
at the author's head, and I can't be 
blamed for how heavy Max 
Stirner can get. I hope

Weird Hands

My niece has weird hands 
My weird-handed niece 
can draw artistic dragons 
and swords, but her hands 

hold yours, that is if you're
not too cute to be careful, 
next time! If you step 

to my weird-handed niece, 
best regard the lack of a watch 
on that wrist, because she 

is on time. 

9 Weird Tricks in the Heat Room

Women! As hard
as may be for one
man to love another's
cooking, these recipes
from Down Under will get you
on top again, being looked up
to and hollering "No Rules?
No worries! She'll be right!"

Right? Now, step one, remove
all impediments to cooking. Use
your oven mitts, your apron, your
own good sense, get down and
simmering on gas-fired heat
or whatever grills fastest

because HEAT is recipe #1,
and ooh we do not mean strictly
caliente! BON JOUR, picante
fans! YOUR MAN is going to
whet his palate to the crotch

finding how you've just turned
both up a notch downstairs. Next?

Shoot girl

just use your! Imagination, fancy
- no recipe from Cosmopolitan's
curbside rag can compete with
THAT when you're the one in
the bedroom and kitchen attire,
bouncing up a sweet storm

of marital arts in the room
where it happens! Vermin?

No problem! Actually, hold
up. That's a different recipe.

Try a steak instead maybe.
Filet mignon is cute, but
HE'LL be on fire when you
dump lump crab and saucy
bearnaise on his plate from

way downtown! FILET OSCAR,
for those who know and don’t
mind accepting a gold statuette
on the way backstage, now
and again. Now, strap it up
and in a bit, because it’s

couch time, and football

is a national sport, down
there.

Ouch 

"Your Grim Stevedores"

Well all these people in my heart
Who I fell in love with, but never out
They linger never paying rent, and keeping up
the management, they're bad for business
there's no doubt - put them out
put them out right now

There's no room in my heart
no vacancy at all
You have booked the whole hotel
and your grim stevedores
are dragging in your steamer trunks
And I am trying my best to help

And I will help you settle in
and I have turned down every room
nothing but the personal touch
I'm most hands-on solicitous
for such a precious guest as you

There's no room in my heart
no vacancy at all
you have booked the whole hotel
and your grim stevedores
Are dragging in your steamer trunks
And they don't seem to want my help

You'll settle into cleanest sheets
Your pillow mint, melting in your pillow mouth
Down my office, I turn in
And flip the vacant light to out

While out my window, cross the courtyard
I see the flicker in your room
And you'll be blasting your tv
But there'll be no complaint, you see
All the help is gone but me
And all the guests are gone but you

There's no room in my heart
no vacancy at all
You have booked the whole hotel
And your grim stevedores
Are dragging in your steamer trunks
And they might kick me out as well 

'Cause there's no room in my heart
No vacancy at all
You have booked the whole hotel
And your grim stevedores
Have all gone back to their long shores
They have left you in my charge
And you have put me in your spell

There's no room in my heart
No vacancy at all
You have booked the whole hotel
All your grim stevedores
Have all gone back to their long shores
And I will keep you very well

The Debate: Do Bra And Panty...!?

The Perspective: Let's dive
into ongoing debate about
whether

women
need bras and panties
on. AGAINST: many
women choose to skip
in the world wearing
bras and panties for
various: humidity, rashes,
boils caused by these
dangerous
undergarments? It

is a factor. Some lead women
to avoid them, in countries where
women are not allowed!

To show any part
of body, clothes
cover them entirely. That can
be suffocating, especially hot
and humid in areas. Research

shows almost 95% of women.

It violates privacy and gives many plenty
reason they dislike wearing bra and panty
out and about, despite facial recognition
and butt may place everyone on public
eyewatch, still she feels because it
feels
restricts the freedom with negative
effects on skin,
health and THE ARGUMENT

FOR: on this hand, important! Note
that underwear
serves a purpose! A bra helps
in breastkeeping, firm and uplifts,
supports sagging, prolonged use
of non-bra can lead to breast shape!

Additionally, to avoiding underwear
altogether: it can result in
embarrassing situations:

1. If there is wear and tear in the clothes itself.
Sabotage is real, and people can find right
out in public: the clothes one wears

degrading! Conclusion:

Is embarrassing. Stupid. The debate
continues awful, ongoing with women
expressing their preferences, biased
on personal comfort and prosocial
norms. Result?

The freedom to do without a bra and panty
of any kind! We knew that! Others stress
these undergarments, an importance for
support Breast health maintenance at stake,
and the ultimate claim?

Absolutely, the choice lies with each
individual woman. So stupid we knew
that. Some debate! Please chime in with
"stupid"
or

we knew that

some self-regard

Your humble online poet's
verse
inspires an attack
or curse. Now
please,
who's fault
has all this been? Check in
the mirror,
mannequin.

HAPPY YEAR DAY

All through This Year
we've kept apart.
But we're together
in my heart.

Happy Year Day, Dear

If you can read and tear
a stamp, please note my
hallmark's not too damp

Happy Year Day, Dear

For each occasion I have
thought of you, yearlong
I should of ought to send
more than

just
this: right here. One (1) card,
filled up from naught
to one,
to nil,
to all

concerned, and nothing
aught. 

time change

It's 1:41 PM where you are
I know because math
has divided this far

untrainable

I used to chase this one dumb
dog Max (known
to leap out of the backs
of moving trucks) all the way
to the beach, across 2 big streets
(bolting all the way!) with a leash
and 2 tennis balls, because

catch

was the only way
to get Max to approach you, once loose
and at the beach, or running flat-out
to get there. And
you needed to have the leash already,
and the 2nd ball to get it (Max) to come
over and drop the 1st, and then you needed
the leash, and ideally

some kind of alley. Thankfully,
the specific beach
had one

- and often had dirty, green
buried tennis balls! If you looked for them
(how I developed the dog trick, which
was the only way that worked for
anyone, with Max, by the time he
discovered the beach in reach). Very
bad,
poorly-trained
dog. Apart
from
an oddly talented
towel-snatcher! NOT my idea

I told Cindy DO NOT walk
Max to the beach. If Max
knows the beach can be
reached without a car, Max

will be GONE every ding-dang time
the door's ajar. Not even my dog! Very
beautiful dog, though. No idea what
breed. Good heart, just more or
less

untrainable.
Apart from the towels, which
appeared to be a side-effect of loving
to play
tug of war,
and again: not my idea, ladies! (I lived then
in a house in a beach town with 2-3 sisters
at a time:

varied). NOBODY
could train that dog
to do a g.d. thing
that dog didn't WANT
to do To be fair to me, Max,
Cindy, her sisters or the Kelly
sisters, depending on who
was living in that
house at the time,
it's entirely possible that

no dog is "untrainable,"

but the person whose dog "it is" has
to be the one in on the training,
probably! What was it

with Max and TOWELS

Just thinking of it
infuriated me to this
day. I hope Max did not die
in the middle of some street,

with
an owner
or two lunging after haplessly

as the traffic just couldn't
stop
in
time
.
Aw,
Max
Not again 

bad dog
no tug-of-war 
again

I've gotta level with you, Instagram

is the absolute last place I go. 
It takes ten minutes tops, 
on a fast day 
to get there, and then I'm 
"all caught up," and 

they don't let you share 
anything to anyone's 

WALL. So I'm out 
like a shot and 

there you go. I've 
gotta level with you

, Instagram.

Available for no apologies

This is just to say the plums

I apologize
if I wear you
out sometimes But
plums 
is my favorite purple 
-ish color in the world, and
I don't apologize in the slightest
for apologizing. Not lately,
any
how! YET I've been getting
better
at
it! Apology

is an admission of culpability for wrongdoing, but

it can also be a concern for better courses of action, or

a better aim for amends potential, even

in advance of trouble or complaint. It does not
/need not PRESUPPOSE a wrong has been
done, or been done done. Or any similar 
cowboy hat nod or tip

However, in this case alone, for only
one person arguably, I make an exceptional 

uh 

effect? No effort! 

OLD BAY: Where flavor comes into port on wings of foam and brine

Long-time readers will guess
how frequently I have cause to sing
the praises of OLD BAY. It's
quite unnecessary. Herr's brand
OLD BAY flavored potato chips

pack enough of that seaside spice in
on all sides (of each chip!) to send
the crustiest seaman gagging for a quaff
of the ol' lime-punched grog, just to restore some order on deck
and regain the use of his inner
compass!

If you find yourself likewise with
a mouthful of that dry-rub low tide
personified (OLD BAY has so much
character, "personified" works), you

might yourself wonder: "What goes better
with this?" Try OLD BAY brand spice mix
with a hot tin bucket of corn-on-the-cob, crab
-in-the-shell, or anything else that smacks
of the waterfront and includes inedible parts (cob,
shell), all the better to hold a deeper dusting
of the rust-red
and trusty
dusty stuff:

the seafarer's friend and prized luxury. Use OLD BAY
in the toilet! Use it on land. Use it in the sky! This
testimonial has not been paid or solicited in ANY
WAY by OLD BAY or anything like it - which

is no surprise. There's really nothing quite
like it at all. OLD BAY's proprietary blend of zing,
whang and salty tang really stands out on the palate and brings
armadas of sensations storming the defenseless port
of your mouth,
big time.
It's
the culinary nautical
equivalent of piracy, and trust
me! Once you find your lips
and tongue on the high seas, seized
and dragooned into the service of
this old spice and herbs treasure, you'll wish

you had a map and a shovel
to dump your newfound taste
hoard overboard and bury it
in secrecy, for safekeeping! OLD

BAY. It really is what they say, more
or less. Check with your physician
- or with your friendly local sea captain
- before using OLD BAY in a way neither
of
them can agree with. 

Best luck always

You cannot torture me, any more
than you can do a thing for me
which is not for you. It is

against my will, therefore 
quite impossible that it be "for"
me. 

And only I
can torture me.
This is no brag,
but simple faith
in reality, and that
experience is real,
and consequence
has definite lessons
applicable going forward, which

we could learn, if we aim to. No one
in my life could ever torture me, so it’d
be a rum (or gin) deal indeed if someone
could do it now! Especially from
or at some distance. I’d need
to upgrade something then, or

upbraid myself

jack move

Some son of a bitch is 
going to pay, he slammed 
his hand on the table 
to say. Now where's 
the check! And don't 
get smart! When treating 
another, it takes

some art 

her smile snakes

Her smile snakes, sometimes 
like she caught a dove 
in her mouth, and 
she's too slightly proud 
and sly 
to cough it up
yet

Coffee: GOOD for the liver!

Coffee is cheers 
to the liver, they say 
and I say hoist it up, 
don't get carried away 
by a bad, ass-read 
on a book by some 
Twain
who could 
Poe with the best, 
but if only 
in vain. 

True story #2: Fae design

One time I was in Solvang,
CA...ah, fnck it. Those faeries
were posed all arched-backs and
nude assessment right out in the window
for women and all to GAWK. I was like, 

"What kind of Danish camera shop is THIS
place supposed to be?" S went in with me
and she about puked. AXES all over the wall:
a glorified hit of antique violence, desensitizing
both of us so much we about puked off, backed
out and enjoyed the hell

out of that little Danish cutup and paste
town. I recommend it!

True story #1

I saw a green balloon
no idea where from
come drifting in and
down, losing altitude
'til it bounced once
NO
POPPED at the very
first try to bounce, at
the bottom of the common
depression.

That's the flood drainage
basin, for those of you. We
call it the "common depression"
because where I live, strange
place, everyone has one out
back just in case it floods.

So this balloon came in, bounced
half a time, zero times and it was
VANISHED, gone. It was

the most beautiful thing I've
ever seen in my life next to
that garbage bag in the movie
with the under*** t*** in it
(tastefully or not, more or less
obscured by gallons of rose
petals) that Kevin Spacey w***ed
to (basically) at the dinner table
in front of his own wife and half
his kids, as the story goes.

I think this is part of why people
hate Spacey. See, that wouldn't do
it for me. Man's an actor, and

did you see the one where he sings?
All Hollywood did, plus his repertoire
of on-point impressionism, so the story
goes. He was well-liked, and white,
and his sins shone all the darker and
more vile upon the backdrop he'd painted
to call life. But if you ask me, Keyser
Soze was ten times worse

Conservative estimate
So I see what the big deal was. Pick up
a coffee cup and chuck it at a fake
detective next time, Soze. Maybe

that'll be enough to bring you in
before you lose your consultant
job on Badge of Honour

Story Time on Poesy #1: Dirigible Homegirl

A girl got
in a balloon to go
on a trip around the world. It
became her home, which was okay
up there. Down below, the people
looked up much like ants, engaged
in their busiest possible
lives
underground
and
all over the leaves, vines,
detritus, swamp, miasma...it
was obvious to her (THE GIRL)
(SHEESH) from way up in her semi
-rigid cell airship-cum-home that if
left to their own devices,

the insects could glom-jam up
an A.I. that could overthrow and destroy us both. 

So she leaned her sweet patoot far, far
out over the side and took a big D*** at the biggest,
highest,
unwobbliest anthill she could HIT!
BULL'S
-EYE! 

This was
basically how
everybody began
developing their own language. TRUE,
A STORY, but there's less lie and more lay
in most myths than people used to be
prepared to lay down around a fire, in
the old days. Which, to bring us back full
circle on a loop-di, was basically why
everybody began developing their own 

language. 

certain Emma

I feel certain Emma 
should have married the
lot of them.

Give her a lesson in manners!
All bad. Imagine! Frank Churchill
stalking the gothic halls of the abbey,
fingering old petticoats as that bat Bates
rolled on, unstoppably while peeved
as an old warhorse, Mr. Woodhouse 
doled out gruel and Mr. Knightley drove 
sixteen miles both ways to London 
to give it a haircut in the 
worst style

ever.

As to timing! Meanwhile, Emma
would have judged it best, finding
herself obliged (on the pianoforte, as
usual), as only proper for a member
of her high standing, popping and
whelping out brats by the ninemonth
and twelvemonth, lines forming
to either side, claiming
these prodigies
as "prodigious productions,"
fecund and fickle as all heck, as nieces
and nephews depending upon relation. She!
The blushing and proper object! The
abject godmother and aunt to all, so to speak
by general agreement among only
the best sort of people,
to look 

away?  
Rely on it!
Trust nothing else! Mr. 
Elton himself could not 
concoct a worse sermon 
with a theme of drunken, 
tawdry apocalypse if he'd 
married the cow's maid 
and milked her slippers 
off for an act of charity! Why, 
the dancing, to-doings and 
goings-on put Bath itself 
to healthy shame, aglow
with a demure, vulgar
vitality almost winsomely
fetching, stepping down,
turned and left the continent
(which by then had grown too 
hot to hold them all) (at all) behind,
quite stooped and conquered by oh, 

womanly judgment
, call it. 

I make no wild erotic surmise here, 
by observing that she among all God's
creatures had pretty surely backed and 
painted herself into a pretty pickle, and
that probably the only way out was
honour, daring, darling couth, the merest 
kiss of mischief and a clout on the skull
(not hers) by some kind, stout oaken
cudgel for even raising the specter
of such conduct. Probably. No, 

possibly, surely

Gojira's got style enough

All I'm doing is bobbing 
for bread crumbs, lately 
and I'm sick of facing 
down the fish business end 
of what I can't ever catch 
or quite comprehend without 
a canon salute from the bridge,
airborne! And a flock of seabirds

calling foul as I'm born 
all over the skies that you
herd. Such a scene! Both hands
to the face, not allowed! Unclean!

Some ump, huh? Lads, 
when my ship came in,
it was armadas of punks 
to the shores on gin, like
forest-gust leaves with big
cannonball planks from the 
deck and a long, skip trace 
off a wreck from a very short
sleeve, tucked up off the hip, cocked 
red skies to dawn. So you gots
to believe
That your luck's
gone wrong, and give props
and thanks when that beast
rose down to kick buildings like tires
test-driving the town
so hard, so tall, about Tokyo sighs
but 
You go,
oh, ee, oh,
which wicked witch lies
on this towering set? Why not
call in a peer? OK! No review,
no, no big surprise. No, I won't
demand, dear.

No recount for me! Put it all on
the books, straight math to the seer 
in both identical columns, you look
as the formula took. All clear.

As the fake wave rose up, came in
and down, surfing through the whole
crowd by the noise, just to color all
ports foamy white and rain
radioactive loud, too sane
with its toothsome grin
so proud, swinging scaly-ass
tail as the wrecks rode through
on a bird-brained whim. Now. 

How about you? 
Yes, fail. Fail up!
And next time 
set a network up
to plot steps 
tripping none too soft,
but next to key crisis points,
dork! 

When epicenter knocks, 
best pick up a fork, call it
opportunity. Just raise up the door! 
And invite in shocks, 'cause this city
knows how to remix encore,
putting butts in seats just another
round
more. 

Ding, ding said the dinner bell. 
What's on the menu, and who's 
got the score? 

way past cheers

the spirit of beef 
has fouled the air 
in the room which 
shall not-be-named 
back there

I spit cold fire Pt. 2 twice

OK, okay I caught it I can
dig it but it's not my style. I'm more

of a "keep the flow on, let the words
find the inner-aimed line metered by
flying to click in place, and any and all
rhymes that hit are BONUS but not necessary
/legit to the slip-snick-click-fit bling blam
WHAM."

type

Yeah, that's right, I type, but I don't
write I build a rhyme. When I fiddle, Nero
burns while Rome goes on roam to download
the new verse from the Pope's dropped curse
from the wrong chair as I swat FLIES
of some size, sidestep bunts
and run basis in reverse order,
checking all cases short of a score
I drive three guys in sideways (that's
the gender-neutral "guys," there
"guys") and it's 1st, 2nd, shortstop HEY
BOYS

WE WIN (1)! The rhythm has to be
caught in the voice A lot of times
The rhymes stay in place on the page, but
in the hand that holds the mic (air mic,
mine) the speed up slow down cadence plays
havoc with the haters
and players storm stages
trying to get their scrambling hands
underneath my rage in wack-ass anticipation

of a MIC DROP, 
but please. Say thank you first, 
'cause your welcome 
is a given when I throw a verse. 

Each time I drive home bonus points
like coffin nails:
FINE

"primordian time" "savage attire"

I can dig it but 
it's just my style not to 
these days. Trust me, 
on the mic I haven't 

got one.
Just all

a personal property

I am THAT GUY
who can sit RIGHT NEXT
to two people conversing
quite animatedly, quite loudly
in a cafeteria or other public
house and completely (at will)
tune their private talk out. I believe

or rather more, I know the eavesdropper
deserves everything he hears, to use an old
-timey way of putting it: just as the trespasser

deserves everything he gets.

BEHOLD

WHO DARES?

WHO CARES?

To hearken unto the summons?
To fill the room of opportunity
with striving sticks and cues
and clicks and pocketed plops
of balls upon honor's green
cloth
field?

Each of us, buried in our own
concerns, burns
in his, her
or their own way the bridge
of opportunity as the golden
chance looms, passes by, and
is forgotten beyond recall. How
long! Must we look back in despair,
grimacing with chagrin over glory
spurned and life unlived? - The true life of
strength and courage exemplified by our father's
fathers and mother's mothers, forsaken by us
all-too-lately for the sake of some momentary
excuse, some inconsequential injury, some
dull
pedestrian
responsibility?

Fie upon such foul sport!
I say thee nay. The plaintive
specter of dispassion and noncombativeness
calls weakly to claim its weekly victims; I reject
it abjectly. That time is over.

The time has come. Each of us
must now rise up and claim the task
that is ours by right: the time is set.

The cue is straight.

The ball is round.

The hall awaits !!

WHO THEN NOW WILL
FAIL TO HEED THE SUMMONS
OF THE CALL TO POOL!?

Not I, said the
fiddly
lil'
dragonfly
.

Your break

“growing up”

So my ghost got caught
in a bubble of rain, next
I’m sitting on a bench
next to her, in pain
but it’s only my knees
MY HEART, NO GOD

I don’t need to sing
another man’s song
to be odd

Introduction #2

Conceived by coincidence
Born at speed
Rapidly developing into a
learning being with a taste
for cognition to outpace
recognition in a bold
foray of discovery

Into The Known...I AM
JOE! The wonderstuck!
Fancy champion of truth's
caboose, pushing the whole
thought train uphill
towards the tunnel
from the rear and not
skimping on tangents!
My courtesy is...well,
"innate"

Is as good a way to put it. Those who know me
find it "familiar." And I bring me here to confide
to you each (and so all) in a booming whisper audible
to the point of embarrassment..."I have never had

the slightest idea

how to write one of these."

Introductions,

Well. Do one's best then. Do one's best. Then.

Now, arguably, might have been better

"The Salute"

Oh melodic anarchy
of we thee sing and
mote it be. For those
about to rock’s come
on. That’s why I’m
hear.

To sing this song.

“Radio Love Brigade (Of Love”
(an excerpt, not of any song but of a lyric poem)

Cheers to #1: Coffee

Cheers to you, and a HOT FRESH SLUG

coming slip sliding down one's cool
throat OOOH and UGH

fan stance two: MK Ultress

Maggie Koerner is insanely
beautiful BECAUSE she
looks exactly like
two other women I know
and love and neither one
resembles the other, and
because her dog is an insanely
big huge benevolent fluff
monster of (evidently) love,
joy, dog virtues, and above
and below all: because

I can't even
that voice
her gift
on the songwriting tip
off the insouciant
cock of her just-so 
outthrust to-the-side HIP
in a dance move
I couldn't do myself if I
damn
can't even put to words,
her.

That's why I fan

when words fail me, IT'S
TIME to get a road
on the ticket, pick a spot
and save me a space
in the merch line, because

to be a real fan surely
requires at least two (2)
purchases in support

of a living artist.

Or any amount of purchases
in the vain support of a dead
act's damn financial heirs
and assigns. Living

trust me

trust M.K.

is better

Civics 2: Aftermath

I'm tremendously

interested in specific issues
in politics. And in the above sort-of
"Big Picture" quasi-useless "RAH!
RAH for BRING BACK CIVICS
CLASSES" spiel/pule.

But still, a lot of the time I honestly
have no idea what to say. Some points
spike so deep and hard and death
is literally spilling out of them. No me gusto

A cringing and so cringeworthy coward, personally,
when it comes to the bloodwork that must be done. Or
seems like it. Oddly enough, in a direct personal threat
(self or others,
RIGHT THERE)
setup, a shocking lack of empathy sizes me up and washes
all up me from the innards! leaving me disgusted after
REGARDLESS of the outcomes. Yet on the real

pull-together, fly-apart big picture?

I feel so small

So incapable of impact,
control, exertion of push. Sucks!

that old, old human dream: politics

HMMM. 

I guess in legit
cases, an exception might be
made. Arguably. Let the people decide!
In an all-ways pushy-pully CALL FOR
LAW! That's what I say!

That's ON-TOPIC.
That's what politics IS: the dread
dream that people converging upon
each other in - ideally, and ideally really
a nonviolent-esque big GLOM JAM
argle-bargle, sometimes including
various rules of order, might hit
upon courses
the other side can't stop and/or
might even improve by vicious critiques
and partisan or the odd free-for-all donnybrooks! A dream

of progress, in the midst of which we
sit rightly or leftly (and/or, probably:
A BIT OF THE OL' BOTH) DEADLOCKED
where no clear way that can't be crossed-up or
blocked by the opposition (and the bases, in theory
- they're in on it at some level) presents itself. 

The old, old human dream of progress, played
out over the booming decades, centuries and millennials
by creepingly increasingly (and inevitably, increasingly
creepy in select cases) modern means. Not necessarily
an improvement!

But in a lot of cases (arguably, all cases of non-tyrannies),
we get the government "WE DID IT." 

I say that's too simplistic. Every nation gets the government
its individuals INHERIT, apace and in waves. Then, past
a certain point of paying into the common kitty and
showing up to vote or not vote WITHOUT
mounting and networking effective CHANGE DEMANDS
upon the status quo (CUI BUENO...?) ...OK, past that point,
per individual,
adulthood and then some, typically,

"we"

(very generally) THEN
"earn" the government we've hired done.

"Been hiring done," is more accurate: and watch out!
For the tax exemptor's "cop out." "DON'T BLAME ME,

I DIDN'T PAY" 

False

my damb dumn flail

My damb, dumn flail is 
to the good, in acres and points 
degrees off the fine 

I do a 360 and course-correct 
in 

by convergence upon any
/every line 

one gives 
one-to-one 

for that's my sweet trick 
there's no trick to it all 
just a bit too much wick 

for a candle to shed 
any light by a game. 

My name now is Joe, 
but by any name given,
I prove that all much

just the syme

mic drop.

When I battle emcees 
and they drop the mic 
I snatch it up before it 
hits the floor like a bike 
shooting off of a loading 
dock ramp like a train 
except I'm on it flying out 
steady pedalin' VAIN

BECAUSE I don't do the 
mic drop move myself, I 
just watch the opposition 
and rely on stealth, so when 
the sucka drops the mic 
I'm on mic swoop mode 
like a toad! With a goad 
to grab mics by the load 
and drop such heavy-freighted lyrics
it might take ten docks
worked overtime to get 
so much tip to the top fresh
not out-of-stock rhyme palleted up, 
shoved way into the trailers 
getting tractors hooked up 
for the long, long trip heading 
out nationwide  

Then I'd fly by on a bike 
like I'm right to ride 
Like a dock jumping fool 
heaving forklift blades
from the front of my bike 
instead of that granny basket I have 
but I have it in spades, which is cool,
but those blades 
would be like BOOM LIFT FORCE

for the freight my rhymes pack, 
ship, drop at your doors and just 
split before you hear it: "DING-DONG" 
said the bell! Better not drop yo' mic 

'cause I bike like hell

All Aim.

It seems I am all aim, 
and all intent, and so 
therefore: I've none 
deliberate. And none 
consideration, unless, 
except: in retroact by 
restrospect, a hindsight 
gained by booted rear! 
Direct address, from 
what I hear (far more 
than read) (but there's 
that, too, especially 
here). I mean I say 
in one-to-one: 

direct response. 

It's how I'm done.
That's how and why 
I talk like that. It's hard 
indeed (or statement, please!)
to be precise to one-to-many 
everyone! It's only give-and
-take, in back-and-forth free 
gift and intercourse, whereby 

Ah. Ahahaha. 

'He said "intercourse!"' WHAT 
a BUTT HEAD huh huh 
huh huh huh duh 
huh 

duh-dumb-tsh

important note

Great minds discuss
ideas. Small minds
discuss, um, wait.
Wrong. Ideas, events
...people? But what's
in-between great and
small minds? MEDIUM
MINDS DISCUSS
EVENTS?

That sounds asinine. Like
they are psychics! Predicting
events! Mediums. Is the plural
of a psychic medium still "media"?

Horses sweat, great minds think
alike, men perspire, girls glow, and
aggression - passive or otherwise - is
duh like whoa. Curiosity kills the cat, but
let us not forget it was the highly-adaptive
curious nature of the cat that got it its nine

lives in the first place!

Evolution by means of natural selection, peoples,
surely. Or if you doubt me - by what other means
can you suggest these eight extra lives might be
explained? Curiosity is super-adaptive as a trait!

The foregoing remarks are only here
to illustrate how delicate a topic can be. How easily
it can derail. The moral being: please, don't.

Due process

The future
will never come to pass, because
the present
will always be in its way. But 
the present can't last! 

Or rather: it does. 

Only forever 
this now comes, 
because. 

I quit in protest

I quit in protest of 
a muched-belove 
critic's exclusion 
over a one-word 
critique left 

on my piece. 

There is nothing 
unnatural or inapropos 
about a one-word critique 

even if the word is hot. 
Has anyone got 
a better-suggested 
or more-or-less 
sanely-moderated 
option upon which 
to post my poems? 

If not, 
consider this not 
a quitting in protest, 
for 

it is not strictly 
autobiographical, 
as about none of 
my poems are. 

Consider it a 
mood

Vastless

Out here on the beach, 
the biggest in town, please 
check out my huge two 
stony legs 

and wherever my torso's 
got to, GUESS

it is huge and buff 
and my head's a peg 
by comparison, yet 

one well-cut jib. LOOK

on my mighty-as mighty
-ass works, as trembling 
as they are on time! As 
trembling as ye may be, 
MAH MANS and mah 
womans and persons 
and kids! GOT RHYME?

Well, rhyme's a disorder 
or ordering trick, that is 
without reason leading 
up to it. For I 

am 

Ozzy "Mandy" ASS

(no I'm not, not really
but as emcee names 
go: LEGIT, arguably
not 
or 
so)

I'll and/or it'll 
pass. 

Resolved!

My implacable wit once 
more shall win more rue 
than days can fill. 

Begin? 

Differences between agony

The course of love, true,
never did run true enough,
didn't it. Deep! -  or did it?
Well, in this case, (ours)
(or: once was): true, it did.

But hindsight is perfectly
20/20, 180 and 360 degrees
awful considering how untrue
some of what I said did, and
what you thought didn't do,
and of course (naturally)
in the interlap between 
the two, where we lapped 
each other's wounds 
and bound them to
a point even more 
wound-up, twisted 
and inflicted, so we 
leaped back and kissed 
hurt itself; we soothed each
other half to death and as usual 

did not make up,
since up
cannot truly be made. Up
is a relative value with no
real
direction
except where both stand
on some same ground
and agree to crane
their necks, perchance
to see, or reach their arms,
perchance to interleave fingers
or leave hands be? Clasped, 
or just touched by tips 

However it was, how it is:
"we" end up drifted apart
for  
you see 
we never address 
the fundamental, 
troublematic 
point! Do

we?
One or both of us sadly
doesn't even know
/couldn't say what it
is.
/was. So,
under such
dire conditions
as those, how could
we expect love to conquer 
anyone?

Let alone all, 
let alone 

you.
Me. Either. Or both, or 
ideally - each? Trust me, 
we were always in reach. 
Us. You know that now, I see
you see I know that now, too.
"Us": was always right here, 
right now, and now 

we know that for a fact, 
and so,
it hurts more than ever 

how. 
Will you go? 

How will you go? 
Drive through the wind 
and the rain, again. 

Cover it up. Cover it 
up. There's no more 
to see your direction, 
my end, your steady 
shine and everlasting 
bend. There's no song 
left to steal, not to seal 
this deal over and over 
again. For real,
or not for real: 

I am. 
So are you. 

So we were. 

So true. 

Past tense is one hell
of a drug, if you can't take
it anymore. And heedless 
of hope, regardless of all belief: 

you can't.
You can't take that 
away from we, for neither 
can I. As we both now see

No, you.

There's just a thing 
or two I have 
to say to you. 

One is "you" 

The other is 
"suck." 

The third is not 
(if you please) 
"please," but 

if you must, 

go.
Go
Please
yourself. 

six simple machines

The block of head
by edge of tongue 
and screw of heart 
hang pulleys swung, 
set ramps ablaze 
and levers skewed. 

I can't recall the other 
two, or if I could, 
I'm not inclined 
so plain, 
it seems. 

So much for brain, 
now what it means 
I leave to us, or me 
or you. A bit in trust

which could be vain.

"Charades" (after Austen's Emma) #None.

My first intends a thing I couldn't know; 
My next is just to say I told you so. 
Combined we find a sense so obvious, 
Ironically, at least, it can't be just. 

lullaby trumpet

May sleep gather you in
with the softest embrace
and forgetfulness wash
all the cares from your face,
as the dreams of the night
take you where you most wish
to be held by the light
and caressed with a kiss.

May the love of your life
beat more strong in your breast
than a pessimist army could hope
to contest, and when night quits
the field, and the birds sound
their call, may you wake
to a dream, and your life
conquer all.

boat pole conundrum

I want to go where there's canals
and pole my boat right up the locks

and then, just stand there quizzical

I don't know what's next!
what a shock

Open dream journal #12: reality hut island

I had the most bowdlerized/public
tv broadcast edited-for sex
dream I ever had.

I was on

an island

with myself,
this babe I'm into
(None of you, 
please, breathe
easy don't worry),
and many (like elebenty
-two) other "single people."

It was like a reality show
except in the dream,
none of it
was being filmed or
recorded. I don't
know

if it was supposed to be some
whack-ass group therapy vacation
package or what! But

what it amounted to was: everybody
had their own luxury hut
to which they could retreat OR
open invitation, and people
were basically
alternating between

chillaxing solo

in the luxury hut
(to each their own)
and/or a lot of HOT
HUT HOPPING, only
as noted before:

My dream standpoint for all
of
it was
LONG LOVING
EXTERNAL SHOTS
of occupied huts, even if

I was in the hut! Like,
I'd see me going in, I'd see
me in the hut with the specific person,
and then
it was like JAMES
BOND LOVE! IT'S
OBVIOUSLY ON! 

Fade to black

Until finally me and the person
I actually knew ended up in somebody's
(hers or mine, don't know) HUT. NOW
IT'S ON

RIGHT?

WRONG

Tons of deep n' heavy kiss an'
cuddle and some kinky disrobing
action going on, but then FADE

TO BRIGHT LIGHT! I woke up

Typical

certain words mixed up

I'm always getting certain
words a lil'
mixed up: salient, sapient,
sentient,
seminal

Mind you, it isn't as if
I don't know what they each
mean, or even that I've ever
(necessarily, actually) picked
the wrong one in use, but

soft. But still.
There's a sticky-slick
tinge between that explains,

perhaps, perhaps

Why I never call myself
"sapiosexual," and
for that matter,

WHY I'M NOT.

Anyhow, that term
should properly not
refer to a sexual
attraction to "intelligence,"

but rather, to wisdom.

Now we're talking
the hot, sticky stuff

Hopeful yet unhelpful note.

It isn't pain 
if it doesn't hurt. 
It isn't suffering 
if you can or could 
stop it swift, easy 
and costless to any
one at any time. It
could be agony or joy 

- Have you checked? 
It's not okay 

Unless it's fine. 

Well,
you draw your own line.
Consider that mine. I hold 
a high bar for what I'll call
fine, but I'm okay with that.

Call it in the air, or flat
smack
on the table,
by hand. Like
we always used
to say, when asked
(and we had no better
answer pre-planned):

"I'm okay. I'm 
Going To Be OK." 

OK? Then that's-that,
hot dog or too-cool cat. 
(Or will be) that. A fact, 
so shake off your fur,
dry and pat. 

How I hint: a finder's key:

"How I hint: a finder's key:"

I don't. Assumption #1:
and fair and true most 

every time, with me. 

I do not mean to be 
obscure, obtuse, or 
ever come across
as mystery, 
puzzle, con-
undrum. I'm not 
a game! Not won
or to be lost except!

By exception. By who
you are in what you really
give, and how. Which
has no rules but those
you pull out as you live, 
and breathe, and choose 
to give! ALLOW. 

Choose well or wisely,
or unwell, unwisely: BAM!
Yours to present!
Perchance well-drawn! 

How fine that is! We give
and find a boundary,
then.

I'll never have my fill
of those, for there's a line.

How handy, that! It can be

Fine
as finest things,
or clear as mud itself,
and splat. And trust me 

mud is pretty clear 
when you step in it, slip 
and plop.  

So. I like lines 
that others give:  
laid out and limned 
by point or plot  
on-point and there.
Right here, right now.  

It works sublime.   

I like them now, I like them
then, I like them when.
I like them clear, 
presented, friend. All good, 
all free, so as to show your  
boundary! Which is to say:

to show where I am welcome,
when by clean, clear plotted, well-dug
ditch or any border marker fits - perhaps
a fence! "No welcome there, past this,
SO SIGNED" (a fence works fine,
sighted or blind)

Yet if that part's excluded, out,
so much more welcome, tends
to find and found, be found and
founded everywhere, or else.   
We draw the line. "Elsewhere,"
or so, to coin 
a mat.

And plop it out by many 
splats, by many doors, and 
gates, and subtle signs, so
saying "Come on in!"

How like a flat, apt., or house, some 
homey, homely good abode! Tells me
by mat, and frame and jamb 
whether that door is open/closed.  
The door is one open-shut case 

to say what's so. It sits right there!
It clues you in, by bell or knock,
each time and more, that's if
you care and dare. So long! 
As one can give
the line
that one wants you 
to take, observe,
a simple twist of direct-
met or on-point swerve.  

And we can find each other, 
thus. 
Well, as to mine, 
my own? My lines?
Oh hey,

I find no need to fuss, 
when I so trust another's serve!
For me. For we are free
in who

We'll choose as company,
as friend. As bare acquaintance
or just mere! Perhaps
some other role intends?
Well, pitch it out. We'll
comprehend. Perhaps

Some other act
(I mean an ACTION, here)
can signify? In crisis, we all do 
our best. Or try

to, hey. 
We're on-the-fly. What's
more, it's just as well
if one
-to-one we
pair in how we'll dwell (for
all intense or peace-n'-calm,
or any purpose-plain to cast, 
from subtle-nuanced well-
knocked BRASS to simple,
clear as courtesy:

or class. That's categorical.
Half-full, half-open or thrown
wide. We have our ways 
to come inside, and if unsure, 
to ask how-why. 

The other's turn, in their response 
shall be some key, if we care why. 
Including non-response. It counts! 

That is if we hold free our friends,
or who we'd want to be. Free 

just never ends, you know.  

It goes as each and both prefer.
As each agree, apply, concur.
All this is by necessity:
a matter of agreement,
free.

All given and received as same
by either side, or functionally! 
A similar-enough grasp/hold,
each way from each to each, 
all told. OR ELSE: has there
been some mistake? We're free 
as well: to dive in, shake 
up/down or fix and sift, 
as each shall square away
or air, or breach! Freely
engage, or not. To make
it right, or so, find true. 

For sake. That's any
some same sake (or
close enough) in interplay.  

Two each-own calls
with two potential
vetoes, no expiry
in such voter's stalls.

Agreement is as good as one
plus one. Found same, in some 
point/line. Oh, me?

I mean to be straightforth.
Which is: right plain, direct
address with clarity on course
-correction mode, and cued 
by any/all who care to dare, 
or opt-out y'all.

Alacrity! Like horse on steed!
Or thrown upon the rider's 
bleeding corpse, at need 
(such capers hurt, but 
worse if we pound 
dead to dirt what 
ought to have been 
chosen ways. Or 

so I find. So so 
I'll say. Or so
I aim all worth. Not short.
Not playing dumb at all, but

possibly: just dumb.

By you, I'll take that finding,
call it found and founded, and
back out or in, or as we each
shall draw or line or please
or preach. For you, regardful 
what you think and say

have more than say 
alone can teach. 

Dumb is,
or could be
well and truly
how I am, in how
you'll say. That's squate
in your regard. Whatever you
may not or might speak
out, suspect or recollect:  

I don't PLAY dumb. 
"SCREW THAT YARD!"
is all I'd yelp from/to 
such porch as uppily 
declares pretense 
upon me as I'm 
walking by: more 
ignorance than 
innocence itself. 

Perhaps I AM,
dumb, just! 
That is, if you'd say
dang or heck, or damn, 
or shit, or fuck.

I mean, if you
get mad and cuss! 

SOME CLUE.
If what I say IS dumb, 
to you, then maybe I
am, too.

Too true.
Or could be, any way. 
No fuss. I know that your idea
of me is some thing in your
head. Not mine. So I will 

keep you equally free, 
and let "us" be, or be not 
sublime. Be dead! Or gone!
Or be
alive as one, or just as two
may be: both free. If
what I say
speaks many tongues
(to you), 0 hey. 
Or signs, too many
to appear, to single
out or count? Which means
for you, some tough read-ins 
galore? 

Well, that's sure fine as well,
as signs and warnings flow
and score.

Pick one interp and lay it plain,
that's if you wish to tell, to show.
To see what's-what and more! To see
what we can see. For sure, you'd
call me dumb
if I don't know
you're free as I to
make, take, fast. Or slow
and dense, if doing THAT's
beyond my compass, or my
sense. Come on. Grow up, 
get through, go past if I am so,
so dumb! DUMB ME 

We'll-see. I am! I'll say, if
you call me dang slow.
'Tis fine by thee, and 
I don't mind where
intuition (oh, mine
own) soars too dang
free in fancy's costume
cape cosplay, and spanking 
birthday suit! That cape's 

a sign to me! It is or works 
quite all-the-better to obscure its
OWN ASS MOVE for fancy's
sake!

If back leaps forth a step
too soon, too late, I'll hold push
free to come, to shove.

When motive flops a take,
imagined into meaning's lap,
that's some dog trick! I might applaud,
but hardly cheer. Perhaps one clap. 

Just listen, love

- I might just stick.
So please, do
call me
too slow/dense 
for any of that,

all its worth
can value up,

by your own
sense. In lights you find,
by scales you weigh. And
huge top hat! Why not?

Some play! Pull out! From
all of that, that's in. Or 
can be, truly

if I seem dense
to you, tough gal, tough
guy or gentleperson: then 
it's 'cause I am. One of my
own sweet and equal peeps
abob, adrift or full-on sail
in such free beingship as flies
upon subjective seas, capsized

- or so I'd say, if you don't
tell me 
how or why

you're not such being. 

I'm open expectation, there.
I promise no pretense is due 
from me, for you to fair accuse
me of. UNFAIR, I'll say! 
To say or claim "pretending"
stupid, dense, or dumb! 

Not
me!   

I'd rather let it go,
let time pull trust through 
growing size, or sighs, or
sights, or deep rich loam,
perchance to root. To bloom. 
Or grow blind on the spot! If
as some say, love takes the room
and installs blinds. Or...strikes 
one blind! Like staring up
too high at noon
can do

on an uncloudy day.   
For that is I! THAT I
can say! My can-do
know-how attitude!

It's not pretense, no acting
role. It comes to fores as dense
as grow and slow as juggernaut
on speed: a low-slow, wary 
dreadnaught mode, for pace
not greed. Such plod, such
plop! Such booming step!

SO SLOW, 
shoes drop.
but sure enough of coming course,
quick to correct, if clarity/correction
comes. Or so I aim.

If you can give. You might 

be quite surprised, and live! 

In all such things as "reads between"
such lines I DON'T give (left unsent,
unspoken, left ungiven) prudence
counsels caution to hold up. Find 
what's meant by direct inquiry, 
or offer your own: come correct.

Oh, I am slow in my defense
or by advance, for further fines
and fairs, and/or a general use, 
as one might reckon and suspect. 

Use that. No hint. No wink.
No sign. No "tell" - at least
that is a pure, strong bet
and bound to pay in luck's
sweet stakes. I take
what you give 
literal.
Not "literally," 
dead-literal!
And so 
sincere.

Why not? All 'tis 
is simplest, easiest 
course, in small
and easy things.
No knot, except 
to hold where both 
agree, and easy 'nuff 
to pull and slip. 

For that's the world 
we find and see. 
And anyone can just 
jump 'ship, in any 
relation ship kind.  

And if you're not?
Sincere, I mean! Then  

Away we go. 

Just watch your back 
if I'm not here. 

I told you so.  
For it is true.
I much prefer and
usually always aim
to say: up-front, and back 

is clean. "Unsaid" is no fair hand
to bet or lay, or play on me. 

For me! I mean. Of course. 
For you? 

Just give. Just let. Shine you, 
and I'll keep up, or catch
up best I can, and
live. 

For no one has to be
like us, and no two have to 
make an "us." Capisce? 

Free gift. Is always stringless, at its 
best. And if so, free: is always just. 

And that's the end. What's obvious
might bear repeating, now and then.
Soliloquy has petered out, to eat 
paul's dust. 

We just say when. 

My daily diet

For breakfast, a big, tall 
coffee, twice filled. Today 
with cream, it fit and hit
the bill. 

For second breakfast
(sometimes skipped,
just as with first) a BIG, TALL
(pint glass) MILK and one
of those flat, thin granolas. 

A granola bar of some kind. 

You know the kind
I'm sure 

For lunch, oh hey, we'll have 
to see. Yet probably 
it will be bread 

with something kept between. 
- SURPRISE! 

And as to dinner: visualize. 
And so to bed, and quick. 

So naturally, this diet
today is/was no thing
like yesterday's course.

Yet hopefully, I say  (I'd
say!) I'll hit my marks 
each time! With force!
Like steed! Not John
Steed, by the way
- the deadliest man in
the service - yet more
like a gallant and noble
steed: A HORSE, to gallop
on various capers, to jump,
to plod at need, or just 
haul ass! Pronto and
Galore, would be 
my carriage team, 
if both were me. 

Hard work at need,
and fuel up fine. An apple,
sounds alright just now

for me and mine, in fact!
Why not?

With sugarcubes thrust
in its (corèd) core!

Divine, sublime, and/or 
fine fare for any horse
I'm sure, or do suppose
(one does, one knows), plus
ample hay, in sun or rain,
or plenteous grass. Bit sweet 

for me, but then 

I don't endorse

I am not/cannot (usually)
beat a horse, or be that ass
-inine, lest I then be obliged

to clap or chap or even kick
that ass. Not yours! 

I'm sure it's class. 

kinds-of spiders

The Brown Recluse
is champ of fears.
I've seen the real
mccoy, plus pics!
Of recluse, and the
damage it inflicts
on flesh, not by
ill-will, but usually
only when/if pressed.

Please don't, my
dears. You're better
off, and so am I.

The Widow's bite
brings pain in mind!
But thankfully never
in flesh (mine). I see
its carmine, scarlet sign
and sigil well. It quite
stands out, that’s if
you know quite where
to look. I do! No doubt!
I see, I spot, and so I bless
its predatory web, so pitched
in sails to catch the ripened breeze
and flying insects, in its spell
so ease

-ily, it augurs well
for Widow's peaks of fuel
and strength, and bodes aplenty
more bodies, galore to come
in Widow's broods, by Widow's eggs
in time's brief stretch, and then again
but please, kids -
- not on me!

So far,
so good
so what.

Some other kinds I have
for sure,
but I don't know
them
well-enough
by sign to name
each every one,
or kind.

No game
for me, that studied
figured-out and catalogued
eye-traipse through arachnid
bestiary. So I just bless!
However just.

They make a living,
seems to me,
at pleasant and appointed task!
(to them, perchance)
(I make no claim)

and weave respective webs
by dance, to shake in waves
of invitation's grace
By stretching bull's-eyes which
encircle out,
alas

to me!

I often plow
right through such things.
I am (as many maddened
spiders find) a force
of nature, that

they can't quite
spot coming, account for,
thwart, or oft foresee. For
in my ways and sway,
sometimes,

their webs surround.

And dumb-as me, like
dumb-ass flying bull
or bug, I do succumb
to treachery of tangled
webs enough, and they
get down! And I will flail
and say "EUEUUGH"!

My luckless after-battle
cry. Don't cry for me,
eight-legged bay-bay.

Just passing through
Just me, kind friend
-ly neighborhood
web-slinger! Yes, it
is I. Your ne'er sworn
never-foe, in this, our
passing chance to try.

If I had seen

you

or IT,

you know, I would have
given wide-as birth
a great broad berth
for you to spin.

I didn't.
SORRY.

"So what?"

All.

It's all that I can-do.
And what it's worth,
I leave to you.

Down to
and including everything.
Up to and including
nothing.

I don't judge
spiders
in
any inimical way,
just occasionally webs.

If you lil’ peeps can build one
much more visible,
probably you'd starve.

If you could build one
large, sticky and hard
enough to stop me plowing
through unawares and pulling
the whole thing down, if you
could weave it strong
enough to catch me in

- good luck with THAT last meal!

I bet, suspect and reckon it would be,
for one of us. And that’s
no sin.

Spiders
are our friends,
you know. That’s if we hate,
dislike or loathe, avert self
from (or disagree with) all
the various bugs, insects,
and such small things they prize
to prey upon, and live.
And stay alive.

Therefore, I here presume:
a given spider is our friend,
so long as it builds
and spins OUTSIDE.

In the ENVIRONMENT.

Where such things belong!
This goes double and triple
for ants, by the way.