Pointless dissing incels

We're talking guys who
to hear they themselves tell it,
their only chance
to touch vagina in their lives

was if
they didn't get
a C-section
on the way in.

Because why? Well, to hear
them tell it, life is set up
unfair. Well, who's fault 
is that?

How they were born

Yeah, but it's also in what 
you do with it after. And 

How people treat you 
each time, again and again 
has something to do with 

how you treat them. In science, 
it's called a repeatable experiment. 
Same results get telling 
over a long streak 

Maybe change the formula. 
How you think, how you 
act, yeah! Seize power, 
but 

what you change it to 
matters. 

Fair as life.

The many overrule themselves 
on any given act 
they band together in hard mob 
to get offended at 

The strong abuse the weak 
who pose as strong to cow 
the weaker still. It's either 
high-bar drawn in law, or 
where you're perfectly at 
will. 

So much room left for cruelty, 
for callous forward drive. 
It's really neither here 
nor fair. No one 
deserved 

alive.

But fairness
is a thing we saw.
Saw possible, and made. 
In system rig-job, or dive in 
to intervene and wade. 
We go in over heads 
sometimes. We are 
washed out, and drown. 
As others, too afraid to see
turn every way and frown.

We know we risk all things
we stake. In every act of gift,
earthquake and cataclysm of reject,
rebuke, rebuff, accuse, correct,

and it's 

Not fair, but we'll risk life. 
In every step, misstep lies hid. 
And so we take it every way, 
because we care more than 
we kid.
Because we dare 

more than we drown. 

Because we all live in this town. 

Because we know what fairness 
is. 

It's 
just the thing that makes the biz.
Some daft idea that we can
be fairer than life. And

do you know what?

That's not hard, kids. 

easy tries

Is the day half-empty or 
still half-full? Walking out 
high noon, I would say 
it is rather more hot 
than cool,
but the sweat 
feels nice.

Now excuse 
me, I have to go try 
some advice that a dear
friend gave me for hot, hot days.

If it works, 
I will be the last one amazed. 

pluck up

We went a-Maying one day in June, 
forging forth into meadows with machetes 
as the wildflowers surged to our hips, waists, 
shoulders - tits in your case - and in over 
our heads. We've left quite a bouquet 
strewn in our wake, but nothing 
to show for it yet. Maybe 

we should turn, go back now 

before we forget. 

Happy Imogen

Years go by in a week sometimes. Her parents
kiss you on each check as you go, heavy with
baggage, packed happy with sadness. "Thank
you so much for having me!" You say - and,

seeing their daughter,

of course you roll out that ol' in-joke again: to
them. That slip that cropped up once and stuck:

"And have a happy and blessed Imogen."

"We will." Deep gratitude, always
somehow

Real. 

Apart from Imogen.
The only preteen girl
anyone knows who can
simultaneously glare and roll
her eyes. All who know her know

it: "Merry Imogen!" They announce!
To each other as she shows, turns, goes.

Are kids cruel?
It's hard to tell in so joyous
and mysteriously sacred a case!

"Why am I
the walking occasion? When
does it stop being funny? When
it never started?" 

There's an Imogen someplace, sure. This 
story

has an Imogen.
I wish you all the very 
unseasonably cold glare 

if you so much as dare to wish
people that

around her.

Somebody's Valiant

Picture the big hero 
of truth
getting all sweaty 
in comments queues. 

To convince who 
will never admit it, 
ooo. 

This shining one lives 
to attack doo-doo. 

Is it admirable? Are 
we here inspired, 
big time uplift 
- should we hold 
our applause? 

Make sarcastic 
heckling sounds, or just 
go? Moving on, nothing more 
to see here, yo.

Woodland advice

The chipmunks are called 
bonk-bonks, and the marmots 
are all Gus. That one bear we 
saw was Bruno (of course). 

The birds each have their own 
unique name, despite sharing 
most songs. You can tell them 
apart, if you sit eyes wide, 
and take it all in. 
Now and then, exclaim 

and do not explain. 

making days

Look. The most adorable puppy
kitty video really isn't enough 
to make one's day. Is it? 

The whole day, clicking 
and watching that thing? 
Dying from the darling 
glow it brings inside? 

The whole day? Really? 
Well okay. Let it make 
your day, then! But 

come on actually, yeah. 
It's a pretty great 
heart-melting share 
these two fuzzy things 
have right here, right 
there

Now. What good 
are you going to do 
walking around with 
day made and heart
all melted?

Get up. Go do things!
Day made already, yes,
understood - fine. But
you can if you want,
make it some more. 

This day has room 
in it now to explore. 

best days

You know, honey 
you are the ocean 
waves and the sand 
they lap throughout 
all my days. I remain 
on a blanket, right 
next to yours. I wake 
up hot pink in the sun, 
and adored. And so
are you!

So we'll both leap up,
plunge and cavort in waves
like your curls, 'til the sun
cools off. Let us just lie here 
hot, salty and soft.

You can trail your hand on my chest
and cough. I will look sidelong sly,
with a wink and a shrug, and a smile
and a laugh 

from a long way off, but
this moment will last, and 
I think what comes next 

is enough. 

Got options

It's a coin toss 
with a life at stake 
in tiny ways, every 
day you wake 
not knowing what's worse 
between nothing to give 
and no one to give 
it to.

Oh, as if 

It isn't that there isn't 
any one. It's only 
you've ruled them 
all out. Gone. Done.

Since they each 
proved no fun 

by the final exchange.
You wanted something else,
not same ol' same, and
it always does seem
to pan out that way. 

To be string free, 
or knot. 

Well, which is it 

today? 

truth too much

Trust me, I do exaggerate 
but I have my reasons. 
I mean to give you huge
things back, for all you've 
given me. Right-size, 
enormous, more than fits
in available words, normally
and so without even meaning
not to, I stretch - reaching 
too big, perhaps! And yet 

at the end, in
the moment of gift, 
it fits 
like a magic trick. 

And each word weighed, 
and each word true. If 
you say, "too much!" 
don't worry. 

I do, too. 

glimmering

No, not all have awaited
such a light. Plenty
have all available glare,
plus ample inner lantern.
Simple not stupid. A childlike
grasp, nothing to do with maturity
- but not weak nor false.

Not all await. There are many such
inner lights, not just one. We each
are a light unto each, if one shines

and the other willingly sees.

serpentine

A monk in a cell, 
with a face like a mask 
is praying to God 
to avoid this task, 
while across the sea 
the prisoner there
is counting the days 
'til the end at last. 
Doesn't matter him
her 
or their,
not to this. 
For we all have
a name, 
and a million
things to-do
at the end of the day 
we will find

were not on the list. 

crowd math

How many people realistically 
do you have room for in 
your life? A dozen? Two? 

Just one? We always find
ways to crowd each other
out, don't we. If only we each 
had all and only the people 
or person we need,

there would be billions 
left over. All somehow 
knowing, "there is no one 

for me." 

hand out

There is a hand out 
for whoever needs it, 
somewhere, dying 
to lend itself, 

but it's too late 
when you've walked on 
by. They'll go on 
dying at every step, 

wishing things different,
helpless to know 
why

through gauze

I have read this.
It wasn’t hard to see
my eyes
must’ve been filmy
the first time I tried.

They get that way. I’m not
sure I can understand why

this ends in unbelief
rather than belief.
But then
I’ve never been so acute
or astute at direct interaction

Whenever I should be 
I'm not shy

the sudden meaning

A sudden heft in mind's hand 
has dragged your still-hot words 
down to stomach and beneath

What I thought you meant 

was bad enough, not great, but
this (the sudden meaning) could be 

also, and 

I don't know how to ask. What if 
I ask and you skewer me for even 
thinking that of you? What if 

you freeze like ice, realizing 
how little I suddenly know 
of how you know me? 

What if I shut up to hear what 
you follow this up with? 

What if it's nothing? 

approach to reproach

You dumbell! Why the hope-smoked fiery
beehive fields of hell would you think THAT
was the sensitive, introspective thing to say,
to her,
right there just then
in all our face!??

Didn't you prevision the
wince-cringe wave that would
coruscate around all our eyes
and innards like the groaning stands
of your own personal arena, where you
just scored a touchdown FOUL? 

Refs be like, oh, yeah...?

Perhaps next time you plow right into THAT
minefield of yours, all sails ahoy, breeze blazing
shot full of holes without a doubt in sight
in the world, you might want to FART

LOUD first. Maybe THAT restores the
inner balance you've neglected.

Maybe not. Every asshole's opinion
is right where you look for it, arguably.

Ouch.  

apparition

I'm not this thing of hanging skin 
and empty flapping bulk arranged 
on plastic bones for all to see

I am 
not this. 
I'm what I
used to be, 

just temporarily 

estranged 

and waiting for 
the key to fill 
and stretch me 
back to real, 

which will be you. 

When deep into 
your eyes, I'll 

steal 

And you'll see me 
just as I was. And I 
will be, for you 

just 'cause.

My wait-duh-what is-this-ok? look

I kind of love the face
I almost make 
when suddenly
I'm not so sure what

I'm trying to do will work. 

Already midstream in 
the act! No thought
of going back, too late 

to shirk, it's
kind of sour - stupid, 
huh? That stone is 
not so near to step.
This soup du jour is
not as you'd envisioned it,
and so much more 

in bigger bowl
than you'd expect.

I know 
that face,
because it feels 
just like it looks, and
I will catch a peep 
in mirror's face 
when trying to trim 
my beard.

It goes too far,
too close, so there's 
the look 
I almost make,
right there.

Right here.  

It says oh fuck 
it. I'll just shave. 

The path of least 
resistance paved

all clear

Sometimes when I reflect

Sometimes when I reflect
upon all the people I've lost 
through drifting apart as life does, 

I say hmm, 
and consider all I've gained 
by not having their needy bullshit 
to endlessly service and maintain, 
and I am sad, 
because. 

Some of those people 
were worth it. 

There's really no way to barge 
back in now and tell them that

party punch

 ...everything everything'll be just right, 

lil' girl you're in the middle of the line,
stuck like rhyme, put awkward up
to twist in time like slow motion 

vomit, which, unfrozen, turns out 

to be a too-truth spiked pint
of party punch. It just takes
some time, little girl you're 

In the middle of 

my life, everything 

everything

context key(w)hole

To folks who know us but 1-way, 

they'll find we lack integrity 

when we do what we always 

do, as
those who know us best
would say.

Tooling handsy

When the wrench turned 
and flew in my hand 
to crack the bolt's housing, 
I swore revenge. And
having 
made good
on my threat, this 
thing

will never work again. 

False lame

When your life consists in relearning

to walk, talk, eat, shit, fuck
breathe and fall

on average

every seven years, You

could be forgiven
for weakness and lapse,
attributed to old age, really
just inattention to detail, imbalance
uncorrected, resignation to
inferior coping thriving
defense modes, "Not
my fault!" "Best I

could ever do!"

, but it won't matter
if you are forgiven.
You'll still catch blame at every
step.

Really just.

Fair. Right. For if
you can't own your
faults, you have no claim

on your virtues, or oh okay
go claim away. You win
not much.

The hundred foot foot

A huge hundred foot
foot 
slid down the sky and 
thumped boom in front 
of me, bounced once and
heeled over, spraying 
gore 

It must 

have 

ah, you know I have 
no idea. It 

is scaly and hairy and 
probably some big 
big poor poor dude 
got lopped 

I scan the skies 
but 
no dice. Maybe 

I am only imagining 
this foot 
that heeled over 
to crush my chest 
hips, legs 

and feet. 

Hope so 
so hard 
that's 

so

lucid napping

First there's a rainbow pixelly
shape
like a retinal afterburn
cheerfully colored, shifting - organic looking
but rectangular
like a vegetable cell
then there

voices of cheerful, playful and serious, laughing

 control room (?)
 staff? They seem
 frequently amused and speak
as if they don't know I can hear.
Next
I can sense
my hand (left) raised
- at least one case I had
to shake and wriggle it like I was

working a glove on or circulation back.
Like it had fallen asleep
The background
all this time is

shifting like the shapes that drift
and merge when you lie waiting
for sleep,

but possibly it's become quicker.
A door forms with visible corridor
sucking into it - it's like a Universal
Studios ride kind of
there is
gravity and momentum shift.
It is possible to shift from saying things
"out loud" and actually using my vocal chords, or
moving my "hand" and actually my hand, which
is limited by the bed. It is possible

to do this without breaking immersion
entirely but it may weaken it.
Then through the door and often
what sounds like radio broadcasters. You can't quite

hear what they're saying - sometimes
you can. It doesn't seem to be about you.
Sometimes a dream can form around

you
without going through the door.
Through the door the scene and
people there come into view. Tricky.

Indistinct at first you have to sort
of
let go to make them real.
Sometimes

you end up in the control room.
They say they're real

but if questioned can
pretend to be aliens or
become aliens.
LIZARD PEOPLE!
I dunno, they seem okay to me.
Before they form or you
let
go
they can be anything. Once
you immerse it gets stable. But
you can shake your real head and pull
out.

---
The control room girl wore cotton tan slacks
(stitched like jeans) and a shinier slightly darker
tan shirt. Her hair was red or brightish auburn and
her face oblong. Pleasant, open, very restrained
annoyance.

In the dream it's all real
No longer a daydream either 

I had to save her
I lifted her to carry her our,

I mean, out

I can 
still feel
the taut, soft stitching like 
denim

light on my suddenly heavy
hand

By this point 

I was definitely asleep, and 
she slapped me awake

figures

ware prayer

Uplift all wings, uphold 
all craft. Let no one crash, 
or sink to drown on this 

Our watch. No accidents, 
no damn foul play, on 
this,
our chance.

Let's 
look and see, let's
show and tell, stand up

cry 

out 

This vigilance.
We cannot save
all lives all days, but
just this once, let's snatch
defeat from jaws of ugliness 
and hate. Let's mercy 
first, and
hurt
come 

last, 
and late. 

midline structure

Do I push you too hard? Is 
the silence a sign? We all must 
abide in such darkness sublime, 
but I take no bad tell until you 

say it's so. 

A ball in midair, cross the net 
I must wait now, to see what
comes back. 

Then I'll know.  

Assertive Manifesto

My self is 
an assertion. 

Yes, my self itself 
literally is. Not passive,
oh no, just deferential.
It's a courtesy I love, 
to defer to one and 
each other. 

Brass gong nope to
"Aggressive"!, haha
he he as if aggression
won one match wherever, 
anywhere, anyway
 I trod it down.

Presuming 
I noticed it there,
of course. Of course not, 
usually. Not a real thing, 
to notice, for me, 
aggression. Not

without a fight. 

Just lucky I guess.
Just assertion, I am.
Or at any rate, if not
just, I do try to be 

fair. 

I aim to be.
Just being, 
just barely,
fairly, not scarcely 
at all, and 

free. 

bolt Part 4: epilogue

Bolt epilogue

Yes.

The above are only three instances. Plenty of others,
though. You know, it’s
always something different.
Different things cue it. Set it
off. Different sounds, sights,
shapes. Pattern recognition. SOMETHING
UNCANNY
'ROUND
HERE!

Then I bolt.

You gotta. There’s a sense of impending
dread, delicious with threat. I love that!
It’s a great, strong
feeling, 
eerie.

Pretty wild! I never fail
to observe that feeling - unless

there’s some reason staying is
necessary or beneficial, of course.

Then I stay.

So far no calamities. The line between
intuition and imagination is not fixed. Although
in my experience, if I have some actual reason to
be in a place, the sudden
dread calm
rarely falls.
That sudden silence thrilling 
with alarum, alertness - as the
uncanny crashes in all around.

Not a thing in the surroundings
changed - only how it feels 
with me there. It doesn’t seem
to happen
unless

I’m kind of just someplace for no reason.

It’s like it knows. Knows when I have an excuse
to exist at the moment, and when I do not. When
I don’t - that’s when the feeling creeps in and seizes
hold.
That’s
when I observe 
and exercise my inalienable right to
f*ck off.

I bolt.

I get the hell out of there.

Never fails, and I’ve never regretted it.

Bolt #3: the beach

The third incident.

This happened at night,
on the beach. I looked
all up and down the
ghostline of breaking
surf that vanished and
reappeared, vanished

and reappeared. There must
have been a moon up above
the cloudlight somewhere, because

the cover layer could be seen scudding
by in featureless shape and form. The

waves could not. Apart from breaking foam, all out
to sea was featureless black void, swimming
in my night vision. I turned my eyes left and right, far
as could be seen.

The sands were tan bleached of all color,
a silvery patina of blown salt shifting over
them.

Anyway, that’s what it looked like. There
were houses along the beach I knew, but
not a single light from any of them. It was

the hour between
when you can remember
what day it is and
when you can’t; when
you slip into night
that belongs to
no day. To every
day. In that flying,
dragging dark the beach
grass seemed almost as black
as seas - but where the sea was
invisible, the grass weaved

like a thing alive.

It was alive of course. Alive with wind. Suddenly
I was gripped by a feeling out of place. As if
the feeling belonged there but I did not. 

The feeling was all wrong - the place 
wasn’t all wrong, maybe. My fit
into spacetime was.

I needed to get the hell out of there.

Which I did.

I hauled ass out of there. The whole time back
up and off the beach, threading my way up the path
barely-seen between the grasses, feeling their stinging
lash. I had to go. I had to go now. I was going.

There was a feeling bearing down. I was like, “Cool. 
Bear down, feeling.
Bear down.”

Gone. 

Bolt #2: work

The second incident (non-chronological).

Another time I was at work. I had the key
and the code to the building, being
as I’m a trustworthy ess oh bee and
overloaded with work only I could do
(stupid arrangement and entirely my fault
for not cross-training and outsourcing). Anyway

I was the only one in the entire
building. I took the alarm off myself.
Almost all the whole building was black.
I turned on just the minimum of lights
to thread my way through without

banging a knee,
or
knocking anything over - I knew
which switches to flip. A few
hours in, there I was in my office
(lights on in there) getting shit
stowed and cleared for a better
coming
Monday.

I had music playing quite loud.
It was awesome! Apart
from wasting my day off.

Suddenly, something made me
turn off the music. A sound? No. There
was no sound. It was a vibration of sorts,
from my belly. I went out to the vending
machines, scored a Coke and a packet of
crisps - the good kind, finally! They’d been
out
so long.

Suddenly it all slid together in my mind.
Me alone in the building. Saturday getting
late.

Something was wrong.

I got the hell out of there, pronto

Bolt #1: home

One time I was home (this
was at a time when I was living
in a white barn-style arrangement 

- a spacious converted loft and
a downstairs kitchen hall and loo) and
I just felt alert. All over like my soul
was electric
and my skin had eyes
seeing behind me and everywhere.

I wasn’t able to see out of my skin, mind
you, I’m just telling you how it

felt. Super alert and wrong. Something was
up.
I felt the need
to be gone.

I took off out of there.

I just took off. I needed out, big-time. It was dark
outside and cool. I went on a walk down
the concentric arrangement of streets
towards the church
in the middle, then peeled
off towards the beach.
I took the dogs. That

was my excuse.

That was one time.

I had to bolt

New Rap Handle: props up to emcee PBNJ!

Introducing emcee 
Pee Bee NJ! That's 
"Pig
Boy
Jersey"
and I don't
rhyme! With 
the words I say, I belt 
rhythm on cue, on
key at a tempo wrought 
wild and free, and variously, and 
people admire my wit and panache.

I uh,
duh- 

huh

to the beat
like some ass!

Like I beat
that ass
like
a bongo show! Slow 
to fast, and eh,

okay.
I might just
slip a rhyme 
in a beat behind,
or
two 
or three,

but that's sheer dumb luck,
accident or fuck, whatever. 

I don't truck with such aplomb
on purpose. Problem?
To make 
the crowd weep 
with joy! If only to realize,

"Oh. He's not meaning this.
It's a rap."

Quite. Just so, or dead wrong 
in case I meant it anyway, 
boy. Sometimes I do. Oh
boy, that's
my
brand new PBNJ
style! And
it always kind

of was.

Or at least, been 
awhile 

kind of want

I want to run my hands 
through your skin, and 
my tongue through your 
silken locks of hairdo 
kind of 

I want to sort you 
alphabetically by 
emotion 

and kind of 
get lost 

in the way 

the moon door

the moon is up behind 
the moon door, and 
this poem sucks already, 
but 
the moon 
loves being immortalized 
in verse 

so I did. 

Ashes to dust

My summer feet 

are here to stay. And if I ash
I step on it

and grind away. 

And if it's
coal, I do not wince. 

Just think of shoes

that fit, and grin

a bit. My sin. It
isn't pride. Just gluttony.
Informative chagrin

you see

How do you fare?

Poorly.

See, I 

just wanted to write a
poem about we should all eat 

animals, but leave humanity 
out of it, and...look. 

I got lost on a sudden research 
track. Stuck on 1-track shuffle for
forty good deep sucking minutes on
one hard, menacing croon Smith's tune
from Marr's guitars to Morrissey's
presumably still Jiminy cricket
Johnson bar. Against it,

at least 

one presumes one of them was. 

I was listening to How Soon IS Now, 
not the cow ode. But I couldn't help 
recasting the latter as the worst burger 
commercial score ever aired, by one 
Brit-Ass Jack King of Marrs by way 
of sincere epiphany, so one might
'pose:

 humanity

is not irony.
It is absurdity. It's 
look, it
needs work, but. 

Still
what she said was
she was either onto
something, or on
something. I saw her 
cute pun and rose my
hand. 

"Which what?" 

So I and I 

switched 

to a reggae 

chop groove and said 

screw the whole
thing, thank God I hadn't gone

into advertising. 

much 
And yet, 

There's so much not
to know, the point just bucks
can buy! It's
odd. 

I know people
who need so much money.
Goods & services buy that
so fast it could make a 
cryptoeconomics proselytizer 
smell paydays on the internet! 

Not kidding! Met one once or 
twice. Always pretty warm

on shills!

I can't see why they ask me 
for advice, though. Seems they 
have so much to sell 
already 

sideways ate

the univores 
ate everything 
omninomnom 
and left a hole
punched through
it all to sting