peer review

Ordinarily,
I'm not the slightest pinch
impressed by show-off
bull
shit
prose machismo displays, but God

this

was a masterfully-written passage,
wasn't it?
And it makes me pissed
at the involuntary multi-notch
ascension I can't stop
your climb
in my mind's relative
rankings of writers'
authorial-voice virtuosity,
in prose cannon heft
and length, accuracy
and heavy, explosive
load,
versus mine.

I won't say where you stand
at the moment, but
I'm a little nervous.

Which is fine.

how it things

Echoes to substrates
to pinnacles trembling
you tintinnabulate
cognitive bells
resembling resonance
semblance and dissonance,
ringing all through me
you crest and I swell
and you bring
it all back to me.
That's how it things.
You're reality, actually.

I put the y in the xyz

I put the ordpla in wordplay.

Uh.

I can do better
than that, I put

the not in connotation. I put
the “is”
in misery. I PUT

THE “CAN” IN “INCANDESCENT”! (also,
albeit
belatedly,
the “descent”)

They say (some say)
“the game isn’t worth the candle,” BUT
I’M THE ONE WHO PUT THE UH, um. The
uh.

I put the “am”
in game? No, I put
the “me” in game, surely.

I am a good person I will
keep trying I can do better.

I put the “yin” in “trying.” AND
I AM THE YANG,
BUDDY

just so you know

circulatory

My ancient heart
swims dragon laps
around the lanes
and molten pools
through veins and gaps
my body has. It drags
its way and squeezes
through - sometimes
my heart is in my foot.
I kick and stomp to force
its rise - sometimes it's
in a lung, and then
I breath half-fire
truths and lies, sometimes
it's mostly in my head.
It throbs and beats
interminably. If only I
could swallow it down
to find it in my throat
would be

about as close
to natural as anyone
could fair expect. My heart
got free so long ago, I can't

quite tell where it should go
to be correct.

unhanging

Break the spell.
Disenchant and de-bewitch
you, free you from the silly hitch
you’d hung your mind upon a hook

to catch and twist you.

This see-through frame
is broken, now. Take a look,
it’s all undone. Let all such
future guesses miss
you. Each and
everyone.

majifesto

It is typical
the human art, we must
declare and arise,
define
what it means
(or should) from heart
to mind, to question
and overcome, and well,
do it!

Once we have,
all of this, all
of us will be united
in this:

whatever it was

we ended up doing
with all this time,
and for all time,
for the better, for
each of us, for the greater
good, and most

of all:
for those permanent and invincible
ideals and sentiments of humanity
and simplicity, which we will
by then have surely discovered

and agreed not upon, but in. For
they will by then have been

obvious. We must proceed
obviously, from truth. Not just
make stuff up, and plug in ideas
afterward! That won't do, we must

find

the truth

that fits with what we know it is

and then figure out

what to rationally, passionately
inexorably and artistically
do with it.

Transitions

Nightfell. In the city, grumblings
and misgivings over rumblings
and groans mistaken for
misinterpretation of missed
information and livings
gone missing, fallen
through cracks grown
to narrow abysses,
lives caught and
wedged in the
clasp of
tightening
and inverted
precipices.
If whispers
were wishes,
you could kiss
hers and yours
both hello, in
the middle of doing
the dishes - but it isn't
that way is it? Of course
it is. Exquisite.
Delicious.

dark psychology

I've been studying dark psychology
and victim manipulation tactics -
how to victimize, how to be seen
as a victim, how to turn the tables
on the victimized as a manipulator
- all in order to present myself
to victims
as a victim
to be defeated. In theory,

Once they get a taste
of this, I expect
to be able to turn them

into manipulators

an army of them
and then we will go out
and victimize the real manipulators
with dark psychology.

Anyway that's the plan, and
I was wondering, can you help me?
Are there any books about this, or
perhaps just offer your insights

as a therapist? Any suggestion

is cool. It's early days, yet
planning stages

super-stinky

some of these poems
are super-stinky, and
it isn't that I don't mean
them (I don't), it's just
that I feel the world should
be warned: there are stinky
things out there. And what
better more harmless way
to put them out there?
Than a poem

You can't keep those
things in, you know. They
fester and grow, and
better in than out, right?
If it's going to fester. Ew

Hell no I didn't do that
gross
you must be kidding me
ahem
Oh, the poem? Yeah
I did that.

That was me
The End

micropressure

No pressure
detectable, push push
I am not aggressive, or
surely not passive just barely
insistent in little ways
we must show our love
in little ways,
shouldn't we? Always
in the same direction,
though. Consistently push push
no pressure, I like it
however you go, you
know. It's just
my way
I appreciate
just a little bit
more, sometimes
and that's good.
After all, don't
we all? There are ways
you can show you're mine
and I'm sure I don't know
what those are, but really
whatever is in your heart
will be fine. Find it in
your heart, as I knew
you would

of distinction

The distinction is: either you're aware
the best you have done and are doing is less
then you could have pulled off,
or
you don't care.

Not much as distinctions
go, not very distinguished
or for that matter,
distinct
- how would anyone know?

I
like to think
that no one can tell. Which
is it today? Ding ding
goes the bell

best trick

Oh my gosh. This is
my best trick. But then
I don’t have much in the 'ol
trick bag, as fundamentally
truthful as I am (not scrupulous
or with a moral motivation,
necessarily. It’s just so damn much
more effective, you know? An enlightened
load, easy to forget). So as we’re talking

I’m listening, engaged; my gaze
slips down to the speaker’s cheek
back up to eyes, slight distracted, back
down to rest on cheek - and:

(looking back to meet eyes,
brushing my own cheek in mirror
location): “Go like this with your
face.” Brush, brush my face. Look back
to their cheek. Back to the eyes
with a brush, brush. It’s high up

on the cheek, so if they brush
I look lower, wince: “Go like this
with your chin.” I see how far
I can work it down the body

without being punched. Typically once
the phantom lint hits the chest, the jig
is up. They can see: “Where?
Where? I don’t see it.”

"See what?"

See, I never said
there was anything. I just said

go like this!

When someone does it to me
(trick version or otherwise), I
draw them in. “Something what?
Describe it.” I ask probing
questions, pointed but brusque,
businesslike, elicit more and more
telling detail. Finally they’re like
“JUST BRUSH IT OFF!” Finally I’m like,
“You do it. You saw it, I don’t wanna touch
that thing.”

Lean face helpfully in.

“You’re already touching it! It’s on YOUR FACE?”

Oh, really. Mild surprise!
“Oh, is it?” Pointed pause.
Sheepish smile, “I thought you were just
funnin’ me!” This is the classic
you wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts
point, but with more sangfroid: I look around,
grab the biggest free scrap of cloth
(usually short of removing my shirt) nearby,
remove my glasses and rub the whole cloth,
flipping over to both sides, vigorously
into my face, making sounds of satisfaction
and comfort. “Ahh.” "That's good."
Like a spa treatment! Then

recompose myself and pause
as long as necessary. Face buffed
to rosy glow. Eventually me:

“Did I get it?”

I always get it

shaming cream

squirting out to hands and legs
applying dollops liberally
to naked limbs, and back
and neck
and rub the slickness
simply richly swimmingly
until it buffs
to glow and blush
of knowing rose,
this stuff
is what makes nakedness
sit sinfully
beneath one's clothes.
It's what makes us
so fearful of exposure,
whoops! An accident
we swear, we'd never show
our stuff. We keep it
under all we wear.
But where did we come
up with this? How did
humanity invent
this shaming cream
applied in dreams
it won't wash off
embarrassment

gaslighting

When you came to visit,
and we drove everywhere
were you disgusted
by how I kept breaking
wind in the car, inaudibly
but voluminously
fouling the air 'til
to me at least, it seemed
warmer and humid in there?
Everywhere we went
you never said anything.
Were you disgusted? Or
that whole time

did I not
fart at all?

Not even once?

confidence, confidence is the trick

Gigantically he strode
into every room simultaneously
in one smooth motion, his presence
almost unbearable, yet
he bore it
with characteristic elan
- not his, but somebody's
characteristic. Elan
was something he preferred
to borrow, rather than
cultivate. There was
never a shortage available,
and anyway its uses
were limited to
special cases
and trying circumstances
best left untried. He shook
something undefined off
his shoulders, stretched
like a man om the rack
and collapsed into his easy
ramrod posture,
surveying the scene
like a man in the hammock, owning
everything and lacking only
the daiquiri to wash it down
with. "This," he thought
to himself, out loud
"is going to be a
pip!" Eyes
sweeping up all
present in a net of
contact, he basically

dared

you to agree with him.
It was his sweet trick,
and that's how he
done
begun

"Common Sense"

We are
special now
like it always was.
We can't be
ruined, except by one
of us. No one
can tell us its over,
if we say "no."

'Cause we believe in you & I
- it's common sense
You can't deny it, or roll along
with blinders on, pretending
it went wrong

When all it was
was circumstance, you don't
give up! It's common sense.
When you fall off once
you pick back up, dust off
and soldier on.

You, look
- please, look
in my eyes like you always
do. We could
sometimes sit and stare
for an hour or two.
You've seen, everything
you could see
to the depths of my soul

- and all the things we said
weren't lies. Just common sense
Look in my eyes. Please
hear my voice, we have our choice
- don't just lay down and die
When all it was was circumstance
- you can't give up! It's common sense
When you slip down once
you pick back up - dust off,
resume the climb

We have
fallen deep in a trap
that we both have built
Go back? - no,
there's no going back. There's no way

no will.

Hold fast
keep right with me
together, we'll break straight out

'cause we believe in you & I
It's common sense, you can't deny it.
The world is not against our love
- but if it was, so what?
There's nothing that can make our choice
except for us - we can't be forced,
if by force of will
for good or ill,

we stand by what we've got.

And what we've got
is all we want. You know
it's love. You knew it once

- and we're still just us.
It can be again
It's only common sense

We are
special, now.
Like it always was.
We can't be ruined, except
by one of us.
No one
can tell us it's over
if we say "no."

So what

do you say
now, baby
Where do
we go?

orientation. .

I am responsible for the Arts
on this universe,
and am quite happy to receive
any complaints on that score,
but
the Sciences, please
take your complaint to my counterpart
at the other end of things. I am quite
well subtly sublimely complexly versed
in those, but
not really my area,
fielding complaints. I would be quite
put-out if they
fielded mine. You understand

As to the Humanities,
oh dear. I'm sorry
I thought you knew

you're on your own there.
That entire department

is self-run. No
that's not entirely right

either. I suggest you ask
someone. No,

I couldn't say who. No
one has stepped
forward

as
yet
perhaps

you?

personals

Lazy man, age 37+ possessed
by a rich self-fulfillment
and of a certain virile
indifference occasionally
confused for greatness
of character, loathes
beach-walking free-spirits

to the point of carrying a
bullwhip everywhere in case
one is spotted, hates

lazy days, employs bullwhip
to get them going underway
already, enjoys

relaxing with candles lit
to lazy jazz with only tippy
-toes in the bath (too hot)
while reading three novels
held high and dangerously
between two massive hands, all but

DARING one

to fall in the water and suffer
the punishment (FIREPLACE!),

detests medium-sized
talk (big talk and small talk
okay), loathes equals and peers
equally (superiors fondly humored,
inferiors protected and upheld), happy

to be corrected on grammar. No,
it's okay really - it's how he improves! Occasionally
self-refers as 3rd person, as in
self-advertisement. Personal

habits vile or immaculate,
nothing in-between.

Totally uninterested
in your reply. It is

what it seems.

Reply in comments.

I don't name names, Narc.

Or were you trying to card my credential? Slink off
and go take a masters up yours, please
advanced degrees
past a certain point just prove you're good
at school. I have no

thing
to prove to you, thankfully
or otherwise, and people
in my personal lives are private.

So you're free
to card, question, doubt
or disbelieve me, I made no claim - truth
in anecdotal form is not a claim, it's

reportage. Testimony. Evidence
is not brought loaded to bear, a person
is assumed witness and their testament
curious and sufficient, in a matter

pertaining to nothing but itself.
Nothing riding on it, to raise
the standard. No extraordinary claim,
either. The ordinary support
of my word will do. If not so, for you? I've

certainly

no burden
you could impose
or make stick, dipstick. No, sorry
dimwit, I

do not name names. The substance
as I reported it is accurate and
refreshing, bears on nothing but
to illustrate a point - as in
a parable? Were those stories'
historicity of-the-essence? At
all relevant? Whether it actually
happened? No,

my tale was true
really, historically
so, but

unless you hire me
with a contract
on a paying job, a commission
to convince you then no, sorry

I've no burden at all
to.

It's a little
like a bet,

Marc.
Or is it

mark?

The Story of King Authur's Legend From Memory

The story
of King Arthur's Legend
from Memory,
it doesn't matter his dad,
red dragon and white
some bullshit
he got raised in serf
clothes
who knows how, point is:

the Sword

he got that sword two ways
once from a Rock
once from a lake

and he was then acclaimed
as the rightful king

guess what
he was so bad ass
he could of conquered that shit - it
isn't commonly bruited but Arthur
took Lancelot
in single combat. Point is
those two men loved
each other like brothers

then a woman came between them
unfortunately
not in a kinky but a shameful way

and all that shit happened with
dude's son by his half-sister
the witch

her frustrated ambitions
borne fruit at last
in Arthur's confusing
and manifold ways (multiversial?)
death, then Merlin

who by the way was badass
deep in half the business
previously discussed

got all dotty over a crush,
underage - well,
for him, we was seven hundred or something
and living backwards through time besides
- it's how he told the future, but anyway

like Samson, he knew
she was going to do him like that.

He sacrificed himself
like all of us ultimately

for love.

That's what this is about
fuck the cup shit
and Galahad can stick
his vaunted purity up his ass

and fuck off while he's doing it

your potential can fly

I don't understand

how potential
can be a bad thing.
Or....a thing. I mean
it's fine but whom shall
give a flying squat?

Do we owe ourselves to it?

Are we its slaves?

In whose eyes
would we be "better"
for fulfilling some atom's-breadth slice
of its infinite width, for them?

A "better person"? Whoever
that person is is worthless shit,
and so's their opinion, leveling persons
and stacking betters on top. Potential?

I do believe I have infinite potential.
Much of it
damn damn silly
after all, a lot of it
to do with which breakfast I'll choose
every day for the rest of my life, excepting

where I skip.

None of it, none of potential
could even conceivably be

a bad thing.

We owe it nothing.

We are being.

It is not.

It is not
even
actuality.

Only what we choose to do. Only
what we actually get up, lean forward
pick up steam and charge - and attain -
ACTUATE! - THAT

is the only part of potential
that ever shall or ever has mattered.

And it's easy.
The rest of it?

Kinda childish.
Good for telling people
"dreams, people."
"get some"
"don't give up"

"your potential
can fly"

Fft, well

go fly,
potential.

expectation gunmetal blues

Expectation
to me, is the
made-up bullshit
I substitute for how
things really are - which

is a joy to discover. Which

I will NEVER discover
with expectation in the way - or
I will be disappointed. By something

that if
received in
welcome would have
been better better better
than expectation fulfilled. How low

the bar, expectation. Hope

is omnidirectional,
undemanding of specific
form and expression. Hope
latches to all good on sight,
with reflexes faster than humanly possible
in time, you will realize them
faster than light. Expectation

stands there frowning.
More than hesitates. It
consternates. And is more
than lost: it is disillusioned.

Expectation is unnecessary for
goal, for
aim, for
plan, for
any design. Especially,
I put no expectations on anyone.
I have no expectations of anyone.
Because if I could have anything

I want,
I would want
what they want
from them.

Not my preexisting and diseased condition
expectation.

Expectation is
a deliberate attempt to inflict
fiction on a reality that blows
fiction away regularly. And then disappointed
when it comes up no-match. Blind
to how much better it could have
been, if you could only react

without a made-up millstone around the neck.
Ratcheting down reality by every notch
it fails to catch in the irrelevant
unnecessary, sub-optimal hook
that you outstretch

That's
Expectation.

It is the worst thing on earth
next to disappointment.

All the other worst things
don't hang out by disappointment.
Too cool for disappointment, those
other worst things.

starshot

clean light
for once. b

space
inexplicably black, considering
every eye-line you could take should at some point
short of infinity

meet with a star

but there's
an explanation. For why

the night sky is not a
saturation deep
glaring bright
uniform field of
continuous star.

There's an explanation why but
it makes sense as long
as you follow along,
concentrate, and

then once you've got it
you forget. Somewhere,
some far but finite

distance away

a night sky like that
which won't understand

is coming your way.

inspiration burns

I thought of something supercool
could be a poem
could be a song
could be a text
to you, or maybe
someone else - it's not
quite your style, your speed
your jam. Not all things

are.

You're choosy
like a high-standards
integrity celebrity reviewing
potential lucrative endorsement deals,

and this thing
was not quite up to your star
your bar, it was

fuck

I forgot what it was,

so far

so good dog

If the world were evil, people
would be sharing inspirational social
media stories of the big ol' dog who
rushed into a burning house, which
he'd set on fire deliberately,
to keep his so-called "master"
and either of the damn cats
from getting out
alive
people would be like
like
heart
share
omg

that's the kind of shit
that would appeal to so many people
the rest of us would be rolling our
fucking eyes over it, but it isn't

get it?

it isn't.

so what that let you know

If I do in fact die

If I die
let them carry me
to the shores of Ireland
where my forebears dug
honey from the looms
and bogs of that eldritch,
rolling green land, and roll me
in the green: down hills
and up dells until they got

tired of it. And then
my poor corpse
could rest wherever, I don't care

I'll be singing silently
by then, with the parts of me
that fell off in the rolling,
my eyes, possibly, a finger
or two - you know which

I could finally be at rest
in Ireland, where they're none
too fond of Americans like me
no more substantial a pinch of
Irish blood in my veins than in
a consumptive infant's diaper

that was not gross, it
was tragic, of the Irish kind
in which I specialize, trust me

it sings in my blood yet, O
Ireland, O home of souls
and tongues, licking
and ghosting about

being Irish
take me in

hint hint

I always figure
the uncanny and the canny,
the supernatural or the paranormal
...it’s all fucking normal
at the bottom of it all.
It’s only a nature
we’re piecing together
as we go, and the knowable
is inevitable, slow
steady, in leaping
surge, wise steps
or otherwise.
There can be
no case of urgency
nor rush. It doesn’t
matter what stories
they’ve been telling us.
They themselves don’t know: or
they’d have sold it
and made a mint.
The only secrets
that can stand the draw
of the marketplace
are those that can’t
stand the light of day.
hint hint

unpuzzle box

Context is key,
lock, and hinge
and what's in
the box is content
to be there.

Our Problem.

Civilization is a husband
and humanity is a wife.
A cuck husband, civilization.
She's carrying on with society,
culture and sometimes (shhh!)
religion behind his back, while he
tippy-taps on hookup sites, seeking
ego relief and assurance from tarts
and sluts such as the masses, the populace
- the majority and the minority (fantasy
three-way that) - a lot of the hush
hush monkey business going on
is outright gay - and on the outskirts
of it all lurk the sullen and skittish
conspiracy freaks and maladroit outcasts
- friends of the couple, know the whole
scoop and bruit it about in loud
accusation for all to hear and laugh
at them - well, wouldn't you?

Combative, conspicuously unhygienic,
zoning out repugnant and unloved
- but nice, they insist. And punished
for it. The problem?
Love,
sex, romance
and trust, you name
it, we got a problem. Problem
for someone. Well,

I say
if there's no solution, it
isn't a problem. Go
to counseling
seek help,
guys,

it's about time
to try some better fit on
for shits, giggles or just
sighs.

you and me in a funky conundrum

Your paradox is exemplary
my enigma fits like a toothless
key, as the tumblers catch
slipping loose and free,
a conundrum comes
into being we

need to ask

Most people believe
when you cry for help
then the punishment comes
- as you should expect,
when the people realize
they can't help you.
It punishes them. They hate
helplessness, and they strike
back, disgusted: you need
to be stronger yourself. You need
to be able to manage and handle
your life. You think I
haven't been through as bad
or anyway, bad? You can't just
give up like a baby, crying
for what you can't do
yourself. You need to
buck the fuck up, shut
the front door and dig in,
in the living room of your
soul, where the strength,
healing and shit begin. Find
that place of strength or
something. It's in you, do it.
Do it yourself, you can't
otherwise. I can't help you
with this.

Or if it dawns on them
that you waited too long
to ask, and all chance of them
helping is passed, they whew
in relief and say: "Why
did you wait? Why didn't you
ask? I could

have helped. You need to ask
people for help."

got options

So what do you do with a human body?
You've got arms, legs
You have options. You can
strike, block
protect the head
or do you just
lean in for a kiss?
Eyes closed, not all the way
- leave it on them! Bold move
exposed
no peeking
not really fair, though.
Or is it? They say
all's fair in love and war,
love being
technically both, so

I think they've gone away
peek! Yes, it's so.

Dance like a champion,
then

you've got options
you're practically

unstoppable like Sia
perhaps next time,
a block? Just in case
Eyes wide

for the countermove

the frog

I'M THE SADDEST EMCEE ON EARTH,
AND YOU KNOW,
I HAVE A PRETTY REAL GOOD IDEA
OF MY WORTH, AND IT'S
MORE THAN SOME SUCKA!
I CAN TELL YOU THAT, BUT
NONE OF MY FANS WANT TO HEAR
ME RAP, SO
I'M THE SADDEST EMCEE ON EARTH
I ROCK RHYMES FOR REAL
ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON
IN THE TIMES, LIKE
OH MY GOD A FROG! THERE'S
A FROG IN MY HOUSE, HOW
THE HELL DID THIS FROG GET IN?
THAT'S SO CRAZY, I CAN'T
DO A THING ABOUT THIS FROG
HE'S SO FAST, SO I'MA UM

THERE'S A REAL FROG IN MY
HOUSE RIGHT NOW, GUYS. A

FROG.

AND I'M THE SADDEST EMCEE
ON EARTH

center line

You talk about polar opposites,
but I bet that if you were at one
of the poles,
you couldn't tell which. It'd be
cold as hell, and nothing
to look at but blinding white
- depending on season, day
or night.
With respect to this, feel free
at the end of your pole
freezing ass off, and
slipping down. Don't flatter
yourself too much, I am not
on your other end, or
any point in your line.
I am your
equatorial opposite. Come down
sometime - or up, if that's it.
The water's
fine.

inner scumbag

He's a lowlife within
it's the base gross nature
he operates from so swimmingly
to so winningly win and behave like
a champ - unfairly his best in everything.

The distance between

his glaring bright aim
and the upwelling spring of
foul, cruel deed left indeed undone
- another bloody corpse of potential self,
of horrible imagination, not the only one
on the cutting room floor - the distance between

these two points, one sunk in shameless subbasement
dank, musk and funk, the other hung strung
to celestial vault - the distance

is what draws the line so taut,
so straightforwardly clean,
so blamelessly bright, so
pure, so faultlessly crossed
in lines between stars
you could read by the light,
but the book would be shockingly
amateur smut, grotesquely
and vividly lurid galore,
or juvenile cheapjack
horror and fright,
mixed in with his guilty
pleasures: a weakness
for world class literature.

Things you don't need me to do

You don't need my explanation,
least of all of myself.
You don't need my approval
or my permission. You don't need
my apology or my circumspect. You don't
need me putting it mildly, you don't need
me noting that it was, in fact, mild
which is why I put it so mildly. You
don't need what I mean. Well not
particularly, it seems. You don't need
my agreement with what you said. You
don't need my disagreement either
that's for sure. You don't need
my clarification that I was just
being easy and natural like always,
giving what I felt moved to give,
no more

no less. Such things should go
without saying. It goes without
saying they will, then. Okay. I can try
to do better, however, you don't need
me to. What's left? It goes without
saying I did not need you to say any
of these things. Yet you did, and
I didn't feel the need to complain.
Especially not
in such a smartass way. I did it

because I wanted to. It goes without
saying
you didn't need me to.

prison wing

I sometimes talk to you in mind.
Although in time
and distance, we
have grown so long so far
apart. The person that you grew
in me, back when we always turned
to each, from each we gave our finest
self, and often more
than probably there was
to give - a dim homunculus
took form and root, and grew
and shaped itself in horse
manure and loving seed

and even then, when you
weren't there, I had a little
you with me. And I still do. It's grown
considerably. It doesn't

moan, or vent
the way you always did.
It doesn't bleed, but still
it cares as you once did. I turn
to it in time of need, or else
it barges in, "surprise!" To pipe up

on some this or that. I still know
so damn strong just what
this person thinks, and feels
and wants, and who she is.

Or was. I still know so damn
strong what you would say
or do. Despite we've grown
so long so far apart,

from when we really knew.

Oh, you are not the only one.
Your single cell, so tenanted -
I have a sprawling prison wing
inside myself of drifting things
now drifted off, and now and then

- I meet with them, sometimes for real.
No, you are just one troubled shade,
one convict in the doppelgang. But

you're the one I like most to
let out, least likely

to let hang. Most likely to
with sudden pang, recall myself
to self, and feel

as if I'm somehow more than just
another of these pseudo-souls.
It dates from days and ages
past. You got in first
to make me whole.

reverse justification

The triviality of our dalliance
has gone past the point
where frivolity alone
meets whimsy and fancy
and attempts to conspire
to justify its existence
and purpose, on higher
or lower or similar grounds,
succeeding easily
on the basis
that it is found
completely unnecessary
and gratuitous,
like all the best things
in life: like beauty, like
abundance
beyond all want
and need, and peace and joy
in serenity. Like
two of us.

upset

Fortune-Claire's hand-pony
rounded the stretch and pooped
out, while Torture-Claire's
hand-pony surged. The absence
of crowd went wild and was soon
holding breath drawn deeper
to shout, as she urged. The race
was as pretty and neat
as she pleased
and

poised

to be wound up
predictably, well

it was pretty much hers,
but then worse luck,

she came in third.

weird buttons

People have weird
buttons. They walk
around through the
world pushing their
buttons up against
random passersby,
reacting indignantly
...it’s odd. I wish
I could help ’em with
the buttons. With the
tendency, but it seems
ingrained. I'm more of a

click/toggle switch

guy.