the terrible flirt and her rescuer

She said "Did you note
this sweet-ass cheek,
half-assedly bared
and smackable? Or,"
(she straightened
up, turned 'round)
"What about this tit
- hey! hey!" I backed
away, not scandalized
a bit, exactly, but
a little concerned.
"It's okay! I'm just
- sorry, a little too
forward, I guess. I don't
mean to disturb, or test
your boundaries, or
anything." Her face
pled a case of some
kind. "I'm a terrible
flirt," she concluded,
lamely. "I reassure you,"
I reassured. She brightened
and eased, and smiling,
began to hitch up her skirt
in front. "Hey! Hey!" I said,
"You don't have to do that."
Neither solemn nor preachy,
but with tidings of joy,
I reported: "The patriarchy
was defeated forever this
morning. Women" (such as you,
I thought) (case in point!)
"no longer have to obsessively
offer themselves objectively
in subjection to the approving
gaze of males (hetero, not
gays) grazing contentedly
through pastures of willing
women flaunting their sexuality
like so many pieces of meat
do." "Oh, thank God!" she relaxed,
exclaiming and smiling, and
giving me a look
that was hard to decipher,
took off.

non-synonymous

I'm always confusing impassive
and implacable, but you know
I think it works for me? "Impassive"
meaning not so much emotionless
as showing no emotion, "implacable"
meaning either "unable to be placated"
i.e. made less angry or hostile, or

"relentless, unstoppable." Now,

speaking impassively, I relent
all the time. I relent
at anything, over nothing
- I relent on a whim!
Sometimes I'm not even doing
anything, and bang!
I relent

anyway.

But it's true I cannot be stopped.
So, considering I could not possibly
be made less angry or hostile than
I already am,

I got distracted, and
forgot my point.

I'm impassive as hell over it

it's about.

It's about restoring the dignity of
the middle, lower-middle,
upper-poor and poor
and lower,
lower your eyes, look your kids
in the eye, tell them
this mess
is going to be okay. Because
you believe they can
pull it off! You have
faith in them. You have to
take a stand and cry "change!"
- even if in your own personal life
you can't stand change, don't do well
with change - this is more far-off change
that affects us all, that
none of us has to do with.
So it's primal
and has to do with
saving the planet
peace on earth
punishing rogue nations
- ourselves, primarily
destroying and eliminating
the human race, because
we fuck up everything
fix the sun
(or it explodes!)
put our humble face on
and make it fit
in case there's aliens,
and
more money for schools,
because
that affects prisons
in a convoluted way. We need
to hail the flag, glory up
the troops and such symbols
even though you gotta
anyway, we still want to. It's
sincere outpouring
It's about
how half the people are evil
- either actually, utterly evil
or abjectly deceived, stupid ass
dumb-ass dupes
who are the problem
- and so say all of they,
vis-a-vis us, which just goes
to show they're wrong
and we're not. It's about
finding solutions. Together,
compromise with evil and stupidity
because hey, even though we gotta,
we still want to. It's the right
thing, shows human decency,
human reason - shit like that
prevails if you make it. And
you have to, because
that's what it's about.

some swoon of yours

Yours is the swoon that woos
me, makes me swoon
myself,
and bless my monstrous
disastrous, lucky stars,
that somehow someone like me
caught your eye so,
and drew you
towards me. Blew me up
towards the sky
and so now.

We're left

with our way in a dance,
in each other's sway
and no pretense left. We've been
needless of more
and more pretense
each step.

Your eyes,

voice, spark

and slaying blade
arched arrows hit marks
not apparently
even aimed at, played

all the way straight through
and won. That's final enough,

for this one, who you
will love
and my response
to you

feels done, plus
not even slightly begun.
Proved best yet already, and
you move me more.
You move me beyond. I don't
know what why or how we'll find,
but I know much this: whatever
it is, if it's you, if it's yours,
then that's my biz.

Murder is worse

Murder is worse
than other crimes.
A detective rears up,
indignant, appalled,
tightly-controlled furious
to decry
and harangue and
belittle us all, all we
who'd condone or consent
to murder. Who'd allow
ourselves
to be killed, by some
scum. We deserve
it! Their laser-like
focus on
cold, ruthless justice
and crime, like the one
we let come on. We rest
quiet easy, with such
pure cause. The forces
of hard intellect, pissed
off and deducing all manner
of leads and clues. As
our corpse
is no longer able
to cool,
we lie deep and easy
knowing, some murderer
soon will be found

a fool.

There was a tree in the back of memory

When I was a child
I thought I was not a wolf
and I wasn't.
Things just were. And
I was just
a kid, and I would
grow up. There was magic,
in that we could choose
to be fools who believe
in magic, as we all do

There was a tree
in the back
but not of a house

that I used to climb
when I needed to think

very intensely,
for a short huff and scrape
about climbing.

I can still recall
I am still there now
half-way through a fall
with my back
about to get slammed
and the breath
knocked out of my body
for a while, turning over
with my arms drawn in
and looking up

into black branching webs

film negative lightning
frozen onto white sky

gazing up at the limb
where I'd sometimes sit,
but not this time

defense of innocent tools

Rhetoric has a bad name
propaganda and demagoguery
as well. Might as well
demonize public service
announcements! I say

all these things have good use
in good cause, and whatever

truth claims

they make - these can be examined
for correspondence with reality.
Sometimes it turns out
they're pen pals! The problem

isn't rhetoric,
isn't propaganda
isn't demagoguery,
or any other announcement pitched
as a service to the public, but

an insufficient emphasis
on teaching critical thinking.
Pound the tools into us
as kids, and we'd be more apt
to lance and dismantle the bullshit!

- yet this can never be. For
the facile egomaniacs, sitting high
in the power drive

would much rather have
everyone complaisant
and none-too-incredulous.

Let the best-designed
ad campaign win. Disgusting
motherfuckers

Cat morality

Cats know what claws are for. Playing.
Which they take seriously.
A cat would love to play with you
from now until you die
Which

They'd draw out as long as they could,
if they could. Naturally,

If they could.

Cat morality
is simple: if it can take being played with,
it is sentient life.
If it can't, finish play, then proceed
to the tasting stage.
If it tastes bad, at least

it can still be good
to play with.
Let's find more of these

incarnation

I constantly feed and water
this thing. Relieving its
waste, and scratching its
itch. It wakes up all needy
and bushy each day, and
somebody's got to take care
of it.

I guess it's me.
Everyone seems to think
that I am this collection
of urges and wants. Which

I really quite am, in fact!
It's a sacrifice I have quite
willingly made,
but once.

the common depression

The girl across the way
likes to walk her dog down
into the common depression
that lies
between all of us.
Where floodwaters collect, so
they do not flood. And nobody
dies - ahead of their usual
course, at least. Exceptions
for crime and for accident.
It's safe down in there,
for walking a dog. No one goes down
in there with bad intent - it's too open
to view. Some kids cut across,
but no one's supposed to. Except
for the sandhill cranes,
who fly in
announcing approach
in staccato honks, just after
the rains have come and gone. So
they come and they go. The waters recede.
The cranes glide down
and with murderous beaks,
make feast of who knows
what burrowing creeps.
It's a quiet town.

sustenance

I am made of meat
and the bone grown hard
protecting my meaty brain
and heart is of deepest
kind. Except sometimes
the bone nearly surfaces
man that hurts.

But it's fine. It's
just okay, I don't mind
too much. It just seems
such a human condition
to flinch from too thorough
a touch of reality. We are
made of meat, and hence:
we look mealy to eyes
that have felt
the pinch.

We are sustenance. Why, I
myself have made many meals.
Others have devoured me, parts
and whole - and left me quite
raw, and so overdone. Yet my meat
is still here, looking robust
enough to outlive
my soul.

shoes you slip

The shoes you slip on everyday, what if
all the hard and sharp parts, the points
to bite and pinch and sometimes punch
blood with each pressing step, could be
made slick, firm inside, and even
and smooth? As hard slick and smooth
as the soles have become.

The shoes you slip in
everyday, what if
you did not have to constantly
catch yourself? On some upstanding
surface, or object
or person
where sometimes none was, so
you slipped and you fell?
What if you'd step sound
as the grounds themselves
that supported and gave
indications of ways, of paths
to trod sure as hardwood floors? Oh,

I cannot judge you. I could not walk
a mile,
I would not last a day
in those shoes of yours.

no really

Do you really think I love you? Do you
really think I want you? That I'd be
with you, stay with you? Do you really
think I care about you? 'Cause I do,
do, would, would, do.

But
human beings being
what they are, having done
what they do, how they treat
us all, I thought I'd ask.

And answer as well, leaving doubt
no chance to break the spell. And
there is one, you know.

I believe
there's a rabbit in
every worn hat made of faith.
We so bravely go without hats
in these faithless days, but you

my fellow magician's assistant,
keep me amazed, and teach me
to know.

untrustworthy type

Unable to control myself in my presence
as usual, I paid no attention
to the curtain I passed behind
It was just a stage left,
I've gone through
many times. As I exited
I put an extra strut
in my step,
signifying nothing.
The sound that you hear
so loud is - don't fret!
a macguffin I stuffed into
the plot, for suspense.
It's the heedless and carefree way
I make sense. I conduct my affairs,
and I don't ever expect to have
to mount a defense. Present tense,
I roll cold, bold, mean and hard
-ly correct, with a taciturn edge
to my deadpan drawl. I walk
into a bar, screw a lightbulb
in, complete a bystander's
sentence as a limerick,
and then take a fall
like a stunt. But no one
can believe I meant to do it,
'cause I said I did not. Because
I didn't. Ahh, people are so easy
to fool, I have truly missed
my calling I guess. One shot.
That's cool.

Your ex-

Your ex-
and I

have been hanging out. It started
by chance, it's been some
months now.

He's been telling me things
that ring scarily true
from the bits I've glimpsed

between lines of you.
And there's something else
you will be surprised

but I really think you
must know, bright eyes. It shocked
me as well, when I found out

myself. I couldn't believe it
I said go to hell, but your ex-
showed the proof.

And away I ran. Your ex-
and I
are the very same man.

What if the devil, you know, showed up?

What if the devil, you know, showed up?
Well hold it is it the devil I know,
or the devil I don't? Either way, though
if I spot who it is at least, I'd ask him
to take a running fuck off a dumptruck
and land in a pile of butterfly shit, please.
I would actually phrase it “Would you please…?”
so there's clarity. So it's clear he understands
that it is a question. He is not being compelled,
but asked, to fuck off. Please note, side note
- and I hope I’m not misaware, here! I do see
the specific profane words scattered through
in life. Not commonly but rarely, judiciously,
and - apparently! - acceptable, or considered
so. Since they're there. Unless I'm always
one step ahead of discretion and gone
before some flying rebuke comes in,
it seems acceptable, because
accepted. That would be odd. However,
I wish to emphasize and underscore
I'm not some Bonolord trying to push the Edge
using oh!-My-honest-goodness! “Bad Words.”
Who Cares? Just syllables, friends
- and there are no unjust syllables,
but be fair in how you use them. Me,
I just wanted a little strong color
in my picturesque. 'Cause it is the devil,
correct? Correct.

In theological terms,
all I've done here is quite liberally
“curse the devil” - something
that used to be done all the time,
and is still considered licit.
Or is it?

messy breakfast aftermath

Her white, angelic hands stroked sleek
and clean through rough and coarse beard hair
bedewed by crusted yolk of egg,
and found redemption lying there

her sudden angel wings came over
both of them in down newborn
and comforting, she swore at once,
she'd never trade halo for horn.

But as she swore, there peeped two points
from her angelic brow, and apprehensively,
she mused "Ah, fuck!
I guess there's just
one sin for me."

credo in glass

I want to get a set
of drinking glasses

that are sort of a pale
transparent cadet blue
color,

the fancy kind
with tiny air bubbles in - tall
drinking glasses, suitable for water

or whatever! - but inside the glass,
it is half full of completely colorless
transparent glass,

made to look like water.
In this way, these glasses
will always be "half full."

Things
when they don't exist
should be made beautiful.

"mah man"

The reason I put "mah man"
in scare quotes up there
in the title is as funny
and as sweet as you are,
you're kind of a scary dude
I think. I mean,

everybody trusts you, even people
you don't know if they know
what's good for them, but
I think they can kind of tell, too.
In case you're not aware of it,
there's kind of a secret conspiracy
of fan-based suspicion over your fearsome
black ops combat capabilities
- which we don't know about, but
suspect you've never even used these,
owing to your essential sweetness plus,
no need.

But it don't mean our danger antenna
aren't twanging a little, "mah man!"
Even though the effect is pure reassurance
knowing you're around, knowing you're
on our side.

That doesn't mean
we're dumb and blind
to the fact you're a FELL BEAST
of Tolkienesque dimensions (albeit
more a little on the Elven-side
of things of course - none of this
Mordor bull shit, sworn to fell powers
shaking your fist at wandering angels,
shitting on midgets down the little holes
they try to live their quaint bucolic
lives in - try all you like to skew "bad boy"
as a fashion statement baby, you can pull off
the clothes just fine but underneath,

you're a pretty, good guy
and we know it) you have to admit
if you're honest with yourself, most people
can see that given necessity
you're probably some kind of John
Wick Jason Bourne Mary Sue clone
as if wandering as if by mistake
into the wrong kind of Dan Brown
storybook, and they had to protagonize you.
It's just how you come off. Don't

fight it. Looks good on you.

No clown(s)

Clown
is not even in your repertoire
of pantomime roles. A goof,
a sprite, a mischief-minx,
a trickstress who only ever treats,
perhaps even a scrappy and indomitable
unbeatable superspy masquerading as
comedy-relief sidekick/love interest
for the purpose of the mission and with
an eye towards retirement, but no clown. A fool,
perhaps, as I am a fool
- for we both know what
has been going down, and
have gone on anyway.
Oh, we go on. But not
in greasepaint, fright wigs
doing huge, soft-shoe routines
to a comical song

more us

I'm not a big fan
of my misspent youth
or my misspent days
ever since, but I have to conclude
I can't argue with the end outcome,
whenever it comes the time. If I must
dismiss mostly all of misspent mine,
I must also admit, I have treasured
every one of the misspent hours
that were well-spent ours.

I look forward to more
us, wasting however much
of such time.

The problem with nudity is

The problem with nudity is
an actual human being
has taken their clothes off
now
do we know why? Upbringing? Partly,
at least to be sure, but - perhaps
the clothes are stolen? Or
to titillate? Some woo
move? A gambit
to exchange nudity for sex
we don't know. And so
we feel conflicted.
Not cool.
But remember
as a boy, I was
only a child, it was so
differently innocent.
Nudity was like a special effect
I didn't know how it was done
- how did they pull it off? On tv
very rare. It must have taken
something unusual. Because
I got a sense it was not allowed. So
funny. Naughty. Dirty!
Which is SICK, and
our minds process nudity
in such ways today. We see
floppy tits and flappy
cocks and stuff, cooches
and behinds every day, all around us
in our sick minds and now and then
whoa! The real thing. We can't imagine
how that happened - oh. It's my own.
Waking up in the shower again,
rude. Coffee
getting soap in it
disgusting
nudity

has become for us
some nasty grail
to hunt up online, or
some favor we do each other
by accident, on purpose
- whoops! wide eyes
taking notes!
It's not a problem
maybe. In the final analysis

because there's no solution
(other than clothes, which
is a temporary fix at best!)

but if one day we grow more sane,
I hope we'll see nudity for what it is.
Whatever that may be

thrilling sick cliffs

Terrible and thrilling
like a sick fascination
with cliffs. And the part
where you count off
your disappearance
is sadder than
the world ever was.
Terrific, in a sense
almost gone from the word.
I want to leave a hole the size
of the future I saw coming
into view and reach, by the time
I was ready to slip over it. The abyss
you look so carefully into and over,
looks also absurd. A steep
and overreaching slip and fall,
a moment of reeling vertigo
blur, a hesitation just enough
to recall, and deter.

nontraditional doggerel

There was a young lady from Fuckett
Who constantly kept saying fuck it.
She puzzled, unpleased
And would beg on her knees
but no one made limericks about her.

conscience autovigilante

my horrible imagination loves
to bring my conscience in
to show me doing horribly
some act that makes me
wince and cringe
within
in thought,
and rip myself
right out my back to reach
in hands, and snap my neck
impulsively
before I can
because I can.
It's usually
just some damn
thing, I thought of
just so bad, so wrong, so mean
to say - I never would! Well
now I can't.
My life is gone.

At any rate, it's gone
shocked small. I saw your face
so vividly collapse in pain
and disbelief, it wasn't
me. It wasn't me!

It wasn't you. Your face
is fine. You laugh, you're
talking still
and calm - until

"Are you okay?" you ask
"You're awfully quiet."

Yes, it's gone.
I'm fine. Your face
- so unconcerned, so
good, so innocent - is balm.

one stuck wide

there was a creature with tongues
instead of eyes
behind eyelids
it kept both closed,
but now and then
most playfully,
this thing would wink
and then you'd see
and then you'd know

dragonfly

How different from the butterfly
the dragonfly zips brutally
with sullen and voracious strength,
its stained-glass panels worrying
the air, its legs
like talons clutched
to body
ugly, ramrod worm
in flight
so creepy beautiful
so lazily
it drifts to strike
from shining hazy day,
abrupt
in shift
your turn
goodnight

controlled study

Would you like a coincidence?
Pause a bit, reflect, and then
tell me what you're thinking of.

Ah. Well. That didn't work. We are
not twin flame telepaths, perhaps
I should've held off
the experiment
'til I knew you weren't busy. Then
again
not knowing
was itself a telepathy fail!

Ah, botched it. After I hit send
I concentrated on one image for you,
then changed my mind to another, then
alternated with indecision, then

got distracted
and wasn't sending anything
by the time you saw it,
and replied.

So that must be why

"cold dish connoisseur"

You violate my privacy.
Humiliate me publicly.
The whole world has been made to see
how I humiliated you.
But turnabout's fair play in war,
and love, they've seen it all before.
It's only boring 'cause it's you
who's settled for this score.
As far as I'm concerned, we're square.
I've never had that much to care.
Our contest wasn't ever fair,
I gave up playing long ago.
I'm happy if your grudge is spent.
Or if it isn't, come again!
Living well is best.
I haven't tasted yet
revenge. Do you recommend?

bird lore

In ornithology,
the "lore"
is the region between the eye
and bill
on the side of a bird's head. So yeah
That's that. Now you know
the score.
I'll send you
the bill, if you like
pussycat

observation crisis

looking at stars and trying to see
atoms
colliding like metaphor, simile
as vast
as the heart that contains all you are
as tiny
as what it must mean to me
now
as the forces begin, tear apart
expanding lightspeed
towards entropy

if I could
just focus
on both things at once,
I'd put it together eventually

The mother you once

The mother you once knew
- once were, once
wanted to be
has been taken from you
by this awful child
grown awfuller every month
when the birthday party's due
Who made this child so awfully?
So awfully cute,
so spoiled
so fresh
So demanding and taking
most all of you.
The mother you once
were not,
you guess.

Some scumbag

Some scumbag
skulks inwardly
with a shining smile
for all to see,
call him genuine
- and he is
just not
what they think
he is
on the inside

sleeps in a cell
on a cot
eating gruel
and dreams
of forbidden
things,
a monster shot through
with urges and drives
that grope
and
cling.

And he can control
them all, he just doesn't
at all. Which is why
everyone's seen

everything.
Call him genuine
and he is

it's a mystery to him
why everyone sees
and nobody sees

how disgusting
this is.

how it lies

Oh, these uneven lies
make for treacherous drives
Play it how it lies and
hit it true, says I. If you do

they other may say, "Whoooo!
see how it flies," and

duck. A long way away,
by then. You forgot to yell
"fuck!" I mean "fore," but okay,
they heard the crack, saw -

And it dropped their jaw! Sure,
but they moved their head

just
when

or just before the ball went in
and got stuck.

Again.

the inquisitives

Supposing the worst
isn't what we want.
Supposing we can't agree
what is. Supposing we decide
to take what comes. Is that
any kind of a way to live?

Supposing it is.

Is it good enough?
Supposing it is.
Will we want more?
Supposing we don't?
Or supposing we do.
I think we can see
enough from right here
to find out some more.

death scenester

If you don't aim the gun, squeeze
trigger-pull
tap, don't expect
any bang, nor the smell
of a cap.

But if you've neglected
to thread the red strip
with the gunpowder bumps
into slot, or you did
- but it sticks,

you have missed
your shot, lil' pard.
Pop pop, now you're dead.
Don't take it so melodramatically
Oscar-bid death throes
hard.

these deeps

These deeps we explore
were not here before. I checked
quite obsessively last time
through. And the time
before - when I wasn't
with you - these deeps
were but shallows, then.
What did you do?

life threat

Quit making light
of what's heavy
and dark, and I promise
you I will let go
your heart. If you don't

I will stay, and hold
for keeps. We will sink
in despair, and giggle

to depths
of these deeps.

give the nod

One time I nodded
while someone was talking. She saw,
kept going. At an interval,
as I was moved to, I nodded
again. She

stopped. "What
are you NODDING
for?"

I looked at her. Soft
steely eyes and impassive
face (my face. Her eyes). Wtf
was she talking about, nodding? The pause

had come to fruition already.

Without breaking held gaze, without
change of expression

I nodded.

Comics Hero (Female)

Her tits
weigh ten pounds each,
the size of cannonballs
they cantilever weightlessly
despite their heft
her pivot waist
is always stressed
and flexed to show her
bam backside, her
effortless thighs
are splayed, arrayed
in battle poses
every page, even
when nothing's going on

her outfit
what there is of it
is skintight
and white
and pink, so
in certain lights
- yeah, you can just
imagine

her powers are
mental. She can read minds
project fantasies into wide
open eyes, powerfully influence
the weak of will - depends
on who's immune. She also
can objectify
herself. Turn
into an object
in other's minds.
Effortlessly, in fact
this power's unconscious,
involuntary. It's out
of her control. They call her

Mindfuck
or Birthday Girl
(the skimpy bikini
part of her constume's
white, and, what with the pink
you can imagine, looks a bit
like tan lines) as a joke,
but she calls herself

Serious Bitch
and she does just fine
although she keeps switching sides, which
the villains don't mind

A few years back, after
five decades at
resolutely
and canonically
age twenty-two, they gave her
a redesign. Not popular
with the fans. So
they wrote in a new archenemy
called Backlash. He was nice

kind of a wimp, though.
Kept switching sides too,
but no matter what you do, man
you're enemyzoned. He'd listen
to all her problems while they fought
over what being enemies means.
Visually-based on a prominent
(as such things are) and vocal
(as such things always are) superfan.
Also unpopular, but

what do you expect. Gotta pander
against the demographic sometimes,
to remain credible in

this incredible biz