I sat on Balzac’s lap, Betula said.
The psychiatrist twitched his nose,
Scribbled notes. Where was this?

Outside a Paris cafe. He looked up
At her and stared. Were you alone?
No Balzac was there. He scribbled

More notes, his pen moved quickly
Across the page. Anyone else?
My grandmother. Can she substantiate

You sitting on Balzac’s lap? Yes, she
Was there. Where about does your
Grandmother live? She doesn’t.

Doesn’t what? He asked. Live. She
Died some years back, but she does
Visit. The psychiatrist frowned, scribbled

More notes. Do you see anyone else?
Yes, my sister, Alice. Is she dead, too?
Oh, no, she lives at home with Mother.

He sat back in his chair that squeaked.  
Betula put her hands on the arms of
Her chair and moved them backward

And forward, studying the psychiatrist,
His deep set eyes, his thick brows, his
Thin lips. Why did you sit on Balzac’s lap?

He asked. Because he said I could, she
Replied, feeling the warmth from rubbing
Her hands on the arms of the chair. Do you

Know who Balzac was? He asked. He said
He was a writer, Betula said, putting
Her hands in her lap.  He died in 1850,

The psychiatrist said. Yes, I know,
Betula muttered, he said. He scribbled
More notes. He gazed at her. It’s all in

Your mind, he said, these things you say
You see and do. Balzac said you’d say that,
She replied, said no one would believe what

I said about him and sitting on his lap.
The psychiatrist took out a peppermint,
Put it in his mouth and ******. Betula

Looked over his head and said, Grandmother
Says I’m done for, Balzac says, I’m ******.

Balzac is beading,
Robespierre is reading,
Introversion I am needing,
Reflections I am heeding,
In old bat cave central,
Like an ancient Sybil, hypothetical,
Wisdom is supposed to come with age,
As Balzac turns his own page,
Why am I more religious than the Pope?
Can any faith give Earthlings hope?
Better than folk smoking dope!
If you have a problems embarrassing,
Bring them here for my listening,
Sage advice I am providing,
Reflections I am heeding,
Yes, boys, beer understands,
How did dinosaurs make it in Pleistocene lands?
Answer: they didn't, for beer, no hands,
Yes, reflections I am  heeding,
Humans are minute cosmic specks, spinning,
On a pebble in Outer Space, clinging,
If gravity didn't ****, we'd all be floating,
Reflections I am heeding,
As Robespierre shall keep reading,
Then Balzac shall be beading......

You tell me that I am young
That life has merely licked me, not stung
That I do not understand, that I have not yet lived
Enough to grasp the substance

I have known disease
Slow tears, muted pleas
Pain that nothing could appease
I have known the smell of hospitals for summers
The beeping and slurping of machine in massive numbers

I have spoken to voiceless loved ones,
Loved ones with teethless mouths and twisted tongues
Distorted jaws and wheezing lungs.
We have spoken with little green charts
And broken hearts
From the inability to connect the mouth to the thoughts in the head
And I left without understanding,
What they had said
Because I eventually had to let it go
(I still don't know)

I have spent countless summer nights
In nature’s garb, floating silently in a river
So warm that my limbs, skimming the surface, didn't shiver
Under a clear sky, the stars like paradisiac lights
Without anyone ever finding out
About these wild and primal escapades

I've drank, I've smoked
I have burned my throat
With coarse lemon gin
Until I could no longer feel my skin.

I have been frightened
Yes I have felt fear, like a noose around my throat being tightened
Like a gruesome black crow, perched on my shoulder
I have often awoken affright at night,
Longing, praying, for the morning light
I have felt fear, wild, fierce and turbulent fear
More than anyone will everyone will ever know
By men, by life, by myself
Desolate under the sheets, like a forsaken toy
All by myself

I have seen Paris in the rain
Traveled the French countryside by train
I've woken up to New York window views
And seen New Orleans afternoons, filled with heat and blues.
I've swam the Mexican Baja waters, turquoise and clear
With snakes as sharp as spears

I have known humiliation
Causing my cheeks to turn carnation
A spoon, emptying my insides out
Like a gourd

I have loved
I have known the aching pain of a swelled heart
And the way it can tear you apart
I have gushed torrents upon my pillows and sleeves
Tears running down my chin like guilty thieves
From a lit-up house

I have known death, and grief
The meaning of "never"
Whimpering in the school bathroom
And cold, lonely nights

I have seen the works of Van Gogh, Mondrian, and Miro,
Modigliani, Cezanne, and Frida Kahlo
Of Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Magritte, and Picasso
I have wandered through hallways of masterpieces
Holding tight to my grandmother's hand
And I have wept shamelessly for joy
Before Degas's La classe de danse

I have been diagnosed
I have undergone computer programs designed to shift my brain, to better it
To get me to be normal, to submit
I have had brain-altering medicine shoved down my throat,
Like stuffing a goose,
To make my brain run a little less loose
And I have submitted and gotten use to my brain being altered.

I have had kisses that were mere trifles
Frivolous, yet fierce and acute like shots from a rifle
Lips of mere flesh, not sweet godly nectar
And gazes that meant everything
That seemed to connect with an invisible yet indestructible string
Iris like distant galaxies and pupils twinkling like black jewels
Eyes that seemed enkindled by some ethereal fuel
Speaking of emotions far too secluded, cryptic and cluttered
To be worded and uttered

I know the way in which violence resides
Not in commotion, brusqueness, nor physical harm
But in silence
In the time that covers pain and secrets
In the slow impossibility of trust
In the way that some secrets become inconceivable to tell, time has so covered them in rust
In that dull, dismal ache
In all that is doomed to remain forever opaque.

I have read, for pleasure,
The works of Balzac, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Voltaire
Of Bobin, Gaude, and Baudelaire
Of Flaubert, Hemingway
and good old Bradbury, Ray
Émile Zola,  Primo Levi
Moliere, Rousseau, and Bukowski
I have read, and loved, and understood

I have known insomnia
The way a beach knows the tides
Sleepless nights of convulsive, feverish panic, of clutching my sides,
Of silent hysteria and salty terror.
I know what happens at night, when sweet slumber seems so far away
The worries and woes seem to multiply and swell in hopeless disarray
My lips grow pale, my eye grow sunken
As a time ticks by, tomorrow darkens




I have witnessed horror
In the form of a blue body bag
Being rolled out with a squeaking drag
By two yellow-vested men
With apologetic eyes
That seemed to say "Oh god
We're so sorry you had to see that
Please, please
Go home
And try to forget"

But you are right
I am still just a child
Naive, innocent, and pure
I have known nothing dark or obscure
I have not yet lived.

eph you see kay etouffee if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hound hog dog crossed bayou levee last night all right what did you say if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hog dog crossed the levee last night all right i heard what you said the first time why you got to repeat eph you see kay you ******* ****** **** what? what did you say you ******* ****** **** heard you the first time you **** a **** a ***** a ***** hello stop end begin believe conceive create no thank you i already ate what? what did you say begin believe conceive create no thank you i already ate quit ******* repeating yourself  you ******* ******* hello stop end begin believe conceive create eph you see kay etouffee if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hog dog crossed the levee last night all right

the renown physicist dressed in brown wool suit brown leather laced shoes white shirt burgundy knitted tie wild curly graying hair climbed the stairs walked across the stage stood at the lectern adjusted narrow support pole height reached down into brown leather briefcase retrieved his thesis concerning the relative theory of everything tapped microphone composed his posture made a guttural sound clearing his throat looked out at packed full auditorium it became evident to the distinguished audience the renown physicist’s fly was open and his ***** hanging out it was unanimously dismissed as a case of professorial absent-mindedness

all the creatures of the earth (excluding humans) convened for an emergency session the bigger creatures talked first grizzly bears stood upright explaining demand for gallbladders bile paws make us more valuable dead than alive sharks testified Asian fisherman cut off our fins for soup then throw us back into the sea to die elephants thumping heavy feet stepped forward yeah poachers **** us for our tusks rhinos concurred yes they **** us for our horns wild Mustang horses neighed about violent round-ups then slaughtered processed for cat food whales complained of going deaf from submarine sonar tests then sold for meat many dolphins sea turtles tuna swordfish sea bass smaller fish swam forward pleading about getting caught in long line nets barbed baited hooks over-fished colonies chimpanzees described nightmares of being stolen from their mom’s when they are very young then used in research labs for horrible tests song birds chirped about loss of their habitats land tortoises spoke in gentle voices about being wiped out for housing developments saguaro cactuses dropped their arms in discouragement masses of penguins solemnly marched in suicidal unison to edge of melting icebergs polar bears and seals wept honey bees buzzed colony collapse disorder bats flapped about white nose syndrome coyotes and wolves howled lonesome prairie laments the session grew gloomy with heart-wrenching unbearable sadness sobbing crying then a black mutt dog spoke up my greyhound brothers and sisters and all my family of creatures i sympathize with your hurt but it is important to realize there are people who care love us want to protect us not all humans are ravenous carnivores or heartless profiteers a calico cat crept alongside black dog and rubbed her head against his chest an old gray mare admitted her love for a race horse jockey who died years ago a bluebird sang a song suddenly lots more creatures advanced with stories of human kindness Captain Paul Watson Madeleine Pickens Jane Goodall a redwood tree named Luna testified about Julia Butterfly Hill the winds clouds sky discussed concerns by Al Gore lots and lots of other names were mentioned and the whole tone of the meeting changed every one agreed they needed to wait and see what the next generation of people would do whether humans would acknowledge the cruelties threats of extinction and learn grow figure out ways to sustain mother earth father sky then the meeting let out just as the sun was rising on a new day

there is a cemetery in Paris named Père Lachaise buried there are the remains of Jim Morrison Oscar Wilde Richard Wright Karl Appel Guillaume Apollinaire Honoré de Balzac Sarah Bernhardt the empty urn of Maria Callas Frédéric Chopin Colette Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Nancy Clara Cunard Honoré Daumier Jacques-Louis David Eugène Delacroix Isadora Duncan Paul Éluard Max Ernst Suzanne Flon Loie Fuller Théodore Géricault Yvette Guilbert Jean Ingres Clarence Laughlin Pierre Levegh Jean-François Lyotard Marcel Marceau Amedeo Modigliani Molière Yves Montand Pascale Ogier Christine Pascal Édith Piaf Marcel Proust Georges Seurat Simone Signoret Gertrude Stein Louis Visconti Maria Countess Walewska and many other extraordinary souls it is rumored at late dusk their ghosts climb from graves gather drink fine brandy from costly crystal glasses smoke fragrant cigars and once a year on November 2 party hard all night culminating in deliriously promiscuous ****** **** it’s difficult to know what the truth is since the dead don’t talk or do they

We three met
Beneath the Eye In the Sky,
Above the green-blue lake.

You two were sent for a lesson;
I met you to escape.

Stories from long ago
And old films that you two know
Are shining new to me.

One of you loves me
And to the other
I made love.

But in teaching me your lessons,
(Balzac is our favourite!)
You have taught me not to love.

Let us lie here under the sky
Unwatched by others’ eyes,
Away from what you know.

One day you will accept this place,
But then, I will need to go.

Years from now, if you return,
You will still not find me.

Look for my name
On a candle-lit, paper boat,
In the twilight of
Zhongyuanjie
On the blue-green lake.

Bury me in Paris, when my heart stops and my eyes open wide,
next to Beckett or Sarte & de Beauvoir, ménage à trois.
Bury me in Paris, where the tourists go,
on the Champs-Élysées, or near the home of Picasso.
Bury me in Paris where the Seraphs scoff and roll their brown eyes
and the saints sell paints on the edge of the Seine’s grime.
Bury me in Paris between the pavement and le Métro,
take my body to whatever stop, just go.

Bury me in Paris on a winter’s night,
beneath the Louvre pyramid light.
Bury me in Paris with Lady Liberty in tow,
make my bed next to de Balzac, next to Marceau.
Bury me in Paris at the foot of l’Obélisque
accompanied by pharaohs, exhumed.
Bury me in Paris, leave me there, I guess,
in the hotel room overlooking the Arc. I, fully dressed.

Bury me in Paris while listening to Robespierre’s final scream,
the silence drowned out only by the guillotine.
Bury me in Paris, Montrouge, your angel calls to me,
that one who serves macarons at the head of the Tuileries.
Bury me in Paris, with the Angel, unimpressed,
next to her, I, in eternal rest.
Bury me in Paris, toss me off Bir-Hakiem, splashing,
or under tour Eiffel in the springtime night, waking.
Bury me in Paris, my body yearns to be free and true,
but if I am to die in New Orleans, bon Ange de Montrouge,
Bury me there with the jazz worms, singing:
“Angel, come to me, come to me, Angel, come.”

I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never head.
"Please make me," says some wistful tome,
"A wee bit of yourself."
And so I take my treasure home,
And tuck it in a shelf.

And now my very shelves complain;
They jam and over-spill.
They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"
"some day," I say, "I will."
So book by book they plead and sigh;
I pick and dip and scan;
Then put them back, distrest that I
Am such a busy man.

Now, there's my Boswell and my Sterne,
my Gibbon and Defoe;
To savour Swift I'll never learn,
Montaigne I may not know.
On Bacon I will never sup,
For Shakespeare I've no time;
Because I'm busy making up
These jingly bits of rhyme.

Chekov is caviare to me,
While Stendhal makes me snore;
Poor Proust is not my cup of tea,
And Balzac is a bore.
I have their books, I love their names,
And yet alas! they head,
With Lawrence, Joyce and Henry James,
My Roster of Unread.

I think it would be very well
If I commit a crime,
And get put in a prison cell
And not allowed to rhyme;
Yet given all these worthy books
According to my need,
I now caress with loving looks,
But never, never read.

Once I looked to the Bard for words profound;
ageless, his wisdom ran unabated.
Yet Hamlet is now ideologically unsound,
“the slings and arrows” historically Iocated.
I wept for the creature of Frankenstein,
spurned by his master, forced to roam the Earth.
But I’d been subjectively positioned in a paradigm
by Mary’s anxiety about childbirth.
I read Balzac, Hardy and Henry James
describing “worlds” which seemed quite sensible.
Now Eagleton’s exposed their bourgeois games
I find them morally reprehensible.
I dreamt of being Robinson Crusoe
or proud, fierce Hawkeye in his buckskins dressed,
but Fenimore and Defoe have to go,
they’re culturally encoded and empirically obsessed.
Inspired by Guinness, did James Joyce sit down
to see what magic flowed when he was ******?
The stream of Ulysses floats Bloom-about-town
dreamthinkingnever : “I’mamodernist”.

I’d gladly give Woolf a Room of Her Own
and be one of the boys with Hemingway,
but sensitive guys leave their bulls alone
say de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray.
No more fun with Wordsworth being daffodilly,
no simple pleasure reading Mickey Mouse;
Steamboat Willie can’t help but look silly
dissected by Foucault and Levi-Strauss.
The Bible shows intertextuality
says the two Jacques, Lacan and Derrida.
Judas, a construct of bisexuality?
The **** fixations of Herod are?

It’s got so bad I deconstruct a holiday brochure.
I can’t even **** without Roland Barthes and Ferdinand de Saussure.

Thanks thespis for another muse anew,
Filliping my soul with the spirit of a song,
To chant for the young world in these pepperish letters,
before my callous  eyes on the skull of  historical future
on my pykitonic   torso of I another African pykin,
as I finish my coffin for the cadaver of poetry
that the law of poetry is a distorting neurosis,
neurotic abnormality its baseboard of time
giving classical  balance for wondrous poetry.

Compensatory motivation a charm of its seed,
Taking dear eyes from the skull of Demodocos
Leaving songfull mouth his legacy for humanity,
Warped physique not short of history,
Teaching the world to drink in full pyrene spring
As hunchbacked dwarfism of Alexander Pope
was not in any sense  dwarfism  of his poetry,
nor club foot of Byron in ******* to Maugham
Byronic heroism to Europe of yester times,
That sired Proust, the Jewish neurotic
And Keats the most dwarfish and Wolfe the tallest
Of man and woman to the cultural matrix
Of Europe, the mother of art, poetry and synaethesia,

From which was born Pushkin that took poetry
Out of his nymphomaniac heart, to the solace of czars,
And Shakespeare the dear thief, luckily converted
Childhood kleptomania into royal theatre of King Lear,
The parallel of four brothers from the house of Karamazov,
Their father; impecunious penny penchant muzhik
In the name of Fydor epileptic Dostoyevsky.

A lull of the time to escape from world of rent and tax,
Gripped nerves of the duo to a new realm of art
wherein sensuous glory from ***** and Indian hemp
propelled the souls of  Coleridge and De Quincey
to grandiose highness of poetry in the dreams of *****,
bordering on the  teutonic greatness of  ritualistic breed,
poetry that transcended from rotten apples  in the writing desk
of Fredriech von schiller the begotten son of Germany,
writing under the arms of Balzac dressed in monkey clobus,
that along with Milton in the lost paradise, gave him swaddles
only when the poetic vein of Milton flowed happily from nothing,
but from the ritualized autumnal equinox to the spiritual vernal,
as Coleridge was in full recondite  of marquetry,mosaic and miracles,
the miraculous white male sheep, the white ram of Wole Soyinka,
that he gave as a gift to Achebe at the last anniversary, evil decoy
that become a car which deathly crushed Chinua Achebe
down to demise in the catacombs for the law of poetry
as abnormal human  neurosis an equation of perfect art.

Blue-eyed and bright of face but waning fast
Into the sere of virginal decay,
I view her as she enters, day by day,
As a sweet sunset almost overpast.
Kindly and calm, patrician to the last,
Superbly falls her gown of sober gray,
And on her chignon's elegant array
The plainest cap is somehow touched with caste.
She talks Beethoven; frowns disapprobation
At Balzac's name, sighs it at 'poor George Sand's';
Knows that she has exceeding pretty hands;
Speaks Latin with a right accentuation;
And gives at need (as one who understands)
Draught, counsel, diagnosis, exhortation.

Cielito lindo te escribo por que te extraño, para decirte que las cosas que dejaste se están llenando de polvo, no las he tocado por que la manera exacta en que dejaste todo por aquí y por allá me recuerda a esos discursos tuyos, largos y cambiantes. Me he cubierto con ese enorme suéter de lana que no soltabas mientras estabas aquí y que terminaste dándome aquel día que se acabo la leña para el fuego. Vyvyan me ha traído tus viejos discos de vinilo, me contó que tu tía Hilde se encuentra mucho mejor. Ayer saque a pasear a Balzac, no es lo mismo sin ti, cuando pasamos bajo el puente naranja espera con ansias jugar en el pasto mas allá de las escaleras de concreto, pero sabes que yo no puedo bajar ahí como tu lo hacías. Espero que el cobertor de colores que te envié te haya servido, no se como pases el clima allá. Añoro tus abrazos ahora que enfría tanto, me he empalmado de suéteres incluso el tuyo, pero este frió es diferente, me pregunto por que. Fui al medico por la gripe de Carmen y noto el cardenal en mi mejilla, le he mentido sobre el claro, pero creo que no se lo ha creído. Me acuerdo en este momento preciso de el jueves pasado, hacia las compras en el abastecedor de Darrell, había un anciano, no paraba de hablar, pero no se le entendía nada, deje a Carmencita en el carro y me acerque al hombre, me miro y me tomo por los hombros, me vio directo a los ojos, oh Noel si supieras lo penetrante que era su mirada, se callo un largo rato, y me dijo en voz baja: Usted debe saberlo, !Usted!, el hombre esta acabando con sus iguales mi querida señora, se devora así mismo ... pero...nadie hace nada. Me quede callada mirándolo asustada, y luego no supe que contestar, me soltó, volvió a su farfulle y alcance a escuchar que decía: para que mas querría alguien comida enlatada...
Fue tan extraño cariño, pero me dejo pensando y pensando, me gustaría saber tu que opinas. Quería decirte también que para cuando vuelvas podre usar ese vestido rojo que me regalaste, los golpes ya casi no se me notan, con un poco de maquillaje podría arreglarlo pero solo usare mis vestidos para ti, perdóname por aquella otra vez sabes que no se repetirá.
Te necesito tanto aquí a mi lado por las noches, he dejado a Carmen dormir conmigo últimamente espero que no te moleste.
Los días pasan como una película antigua, lento y muy confusamente, espero que puedas venir pronto, las heridas en mi espalda comienzan a cicatrizar, ha sido ya mucho tiempo lejos de ti no ¿crees? puedes volverlo a hacer para que piense en ti cuando me acuesto por las noches, o cuando me recargo en las sillas del comedor, sabes que no me importa.
Te envío todo mi cariño en esta carta para que sepas que no te olvido, que siempre te pienso, y que a donde mire siempre te veo.
Vuele pronto.
Siempre Tuya
Agnes

I.

À présent que c'est fait, dans l'avilissement
Arrangeons-nous chacun notre compartiment
Marchons d'un air auguste et fier ; la honte est bue.
Que tout à composer cette cour contribue,
Tout, excepté l'honneur, tout, hormis les vertus.
Faites vivre, animez, envoyez vos foetus
Et vos nains monstrueux, bocaux d'anatomie
Donne ton crocodile et donne ta momie,
Vieille Égypte ; donnez, tapis-francs, vos filous ;
Shakespeare, ton Falstaff ; noires forêts, vos loups ;
Donne, ô bon Rabelais, ton Grandgousier qui mange ;
Donne ton diable, Hoffmann ; Veuillot, donne ton ange ;
Scapin, apporte-nous Géronte dans ton sac ;
Beaumarchais, prête-nous Bridoison ; que Balzac
Donne Vautrin ; Dumas, la Carconte ; Voltaire,
Son Frélon que l'argent fait parler et fait taire ;
Mabile, les beautés de ton jardin d'hiver ;
Le Sage, cède-nous Gil Blas ; que Gulliver
Donne tout Lilliput dont l'aigre est une mouche,
Et Scarron Bruscambille, et Callot Scaramouche.
Il nous faut un dévot dans ce tripot payen ;
Molière, donne-nous Montalembert. C'est bien,
L'ombre à l'horreur s'accouple, et le mauvais au pire.
Tacite, nous avons de quoi faire l'empire ;
Juvénal, nous avons de quoi faire un sénat.

II.

Ô Ducos le gascon, ô Rouher l'auvergnat,
Et vous, juifs, Fould Shylock, Sibour Iscariote,
Toi Parieu, toi Bertrand, horreur du patriote,
Bauchart, bourreau douceâtre et proscripteur plaintif,
Baroche, dont le nom n'est plus qu'un vomitif,
Ô valets solennels, ô majestueux fourbes,
Travaillant votre échine à produire des courbes,
Bas, hautains, ravissant les Daumiers enchantés
Par vos convexités et vos concavités,
Convenez avec moi, vous tous qu'ici je nomme,
Que Dieu dans sa sagesse a fait exprès cet homme
Pour régner sur la France, ou bien sur Haïti.
Et vous autres, créés pour grossir son parti,
Philosophes gênés de cuissons à l'épaule,
Et vous, viveurs râpés, frais sortis de la geôle,
Saluez l'être unique et providentiel,
Ce gouvernant tombé d'une trappe du ciel,
Ce césar moustachu, gardé par cent guérites,
Qui sait apprécier les gens et les mérites,
Et qui, prince admirable et grand homme en effet,
Fait Poissy sénateur et Clichy sous-préfet.

III.

Après quoi l'on ajuste au fait la théorie
« A bas les mots ! à bas loi, liberté, patrie !
Plus on s'aplatira, plus ou prospérera.
Jetons au feu tribune et presse, et cætera.

Depuis quatre-vingt-neuf les nations sont ivres.
Les faiseurs de discours et les faiseurs de livres
Perdent tout ; le poëte est un fou dangereux ;
Le progrès ment, le ciel est vide, l'art est creux,
Le monde est mort. Le peuple ? un âne qui se cabre !
La force, c'est le droit. Courbons-nous. Gloire au sabre !
À bas les Washington ! vivent les Attila ! »
On a des gens d'esprit pour soutenir cela.

Oui, qu'ils viennent tous ceux qui n'ont ni cœur ni flamme,
Qui boitent de l'honneur et qui louchent de l'âme ;
Oui, leur soleil se lève et leur messie est né.
C'est décrété, c'est fait, c'est dit, c'est canonné
La France est mitraillée, escroquée et sauvée.
Le hibou Trahison pond gaîment sa couvée.

IV.

Et partout le néant prévaut ; pour déchirer
Notre histoire, nos lois, nos droits, pour dévorer
L'avenir de nos fils et les os de nos pères,
Les bêtes de la nuit sortent de leurs repaires
Sophistes et soudards resserrent leur réseau
Les Radetzky flairant le gibet du museau,
Les Giulay, poil tigré, les Buol, face verte,
Les Haynau, les Bomba, rôdent, la gueule ouverte,
Autour du genre humain qui, pâle et garrotté,
Lutte pour la justice et pour la vérité ;
Et de Paris à Pesth, du Tibre aux monts Carpathes,
Sur nos débris sanglants rampent ces mille-pattes.

V.

Du lourd dictionnaire où Beauzée et Batteux
Ont versé les trésors de leur bon sens goutteux,
Il faut, grâce aux vainqueurs, refaire chaque lettre.
Ame de l'homme, ils ont trouvé moyen de mettre
Sur tes vieilles laideurs un tas de mots nouveaux,
Leurs noms. L'hypocrisie aux yeux bas et dévots
À nom Menjaud, et vend Jésus dans sa chapelle ;
On a débaptisé la honte, elle s'appelle
Sibour ; la trahison, Maupas ; l'assassinat
Sous le nom de Magnan est membre du Sénat ;
Quant à la lâcheté, c'est Hardouin qu'on la nomme ;
Riancey, c'est le mensonge, il arrive de Rome
Et tient la vérité renfermée en son puits ;
La platitude a nom Montlaville-Chapuis ;
La prostitution, ingénue, est princesse ;
La férocité, c'est Carrelet ; la bassesse
Signe Rouher, avec Delangle pour greffier.
Ô muse, inscris ces noms. Veux-tu qualifier
La justice vénale, atroce, abjecte et fausse ?
Commence à Partarieu pour finir par Lafosse.
J'appelle Saint-Arnaud, le meurtre dit : c'est moi.
Et, pour tout compléter par le deuil et l'effroi,
Le vieux calendrier remplace sur sa carte
La Saint-Barthélemy par la Saint-Bonaparte.

Quant au peuple, il admire et vote ; on est suspect
D'en douter, et Paris écoute avec respect
Sibour et ses sermons, Trolong et ses troplongues.
Les deux Napoléon s'unissent en diphthongues,
Et Berger entrelace en un chiffre hardi
Le boulevard Montmartre entre Arcole et Lodi.
Spartacus agonise en un bagne fétide ;
On chasse Thémistocle, on expulse Aristide,
On jette Daniel dans la fosse aux lions ;
Et maintenant ouvrons le ventre aux millions !

Jersey, novembre 1852.

2020 - day 193 part 2

Sunday, July 12, 2020
2:54 PM

We all have won, more than once. We know
the waay it feels soo right.
Dare and do, theyoostasay,
Jah, today, I ask
what gives,

what takes away the fear of death the young ones hold,
as their, from your authorized sen' ones, human right,
right by
righteous statements, SOP
standard op procedures,
like war on TV, in the sixties.
Survived
to face
five fold ministers, now all prophecying doom to me,
the heresy shaping up,

for war with the hated haters of him who hates

iniquity, hates
a false balance, hates
a false witness; and it stands to reason, here is safe.

Here is no condemnation, by virtue of you being here.
Were there condemnation here,
could you imagine Jesus's will, in you, being done

out there,
in the open, no walls, no closets, no phobias, no neurosis
not psychosis

okeh. This day, this far, we agree, we are alive, we are finding
meanings common all our lives,
meanings we knew were lies being left to test our will to

use the freaking force, LUKEOUT!

Lookout-
Never works, nor do light sabers,… words work
light sabers never better than lightning,
except in weapons that may be imagined, if any thing is possible,
you know it is, '' before you believe it is.

This is war. This tuning in to feel the fear of death shackling children,
with the same old stories,

amplified by more than one could think or ask,
once upon a time.

Wish to catch the magic fish,
lust to find Allasdenof readers who knew Mohammed
never learned
to read,

they say, I wouldn't know. If there were no history.

There are still stories tucked just so into stories,
everybody knows.

The experience, we being, being the crowd for crying out loud,

we got it. life is good. we feel… we feel… wrong
we know
ever is never like now… somehow we
think we do, inky do say
listen
the story is the story you tell, you know.
push and shove, twist and pull

patty cake, paddy cake, baker man, putemintheovenfasasucan

the religious thought was linked to truth, eu means joy ye ken?

eudaemonia, as a state, is governed a we, a we we may see as ours

- go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be likewise

Take y'given tangled web, 'twas gifted to our fathers,
by others who did not know
the blessing in giving more, taking less. The spirits
in the gin,
then in the ***, then whiskey, rye whisky in little
brown jugs,
I wuvoo
I do, little blue legal chick in 1970, just before
biome me mem meme fall

all ye outs back in. We got a session with the judge, it seems
there is an accuser, after all…

this maybe so sayer say Jesus is a liar, like untrue to you
if yo u never swore to never be foresaken, left
alone
to witness the workings of chaos in order effectually see-ing
all things
all
all thing functioning as was this one day, today, in my future,
yur jes' now

just so, 2020 tech can do this trick. Watch

misty? as the angel was heard to say, with a stutter, re
read {could be latinate, its no code, just words
be-a-ing being as human as humanly possible,

while standinderundersogreatacloudof witnesses linked

to this one idea. Truth is free.
ሴ ሴ ... _ .
ሴ ሴ ... _ .
ሴ ሴ ... _ .


Never ending quest, is that thought a curse?

Your answer changes next.

These are words redeemed after my 69th year breakdown…
weaponized,

we won. That is the good news. False witnesses project reasons
for war;

we remain the evidence of things unseen, ignite a spark,
ignor it only by lying to the bit of you

that has the knack to imagine striking a spark,
in the darkest dark ever described,
fitted to fear receptors liganded to legendary necessary lies.

There was a war where there was no blood to shed.
The war for the power to make history,

History of leaders followed for goodness sake, goods to take,
stories to modify,

Balzac claims tres bon, 1, 2, 3, 4… ave maria oh, weahhh

out in the fictionized foam of all the stories ever known

being Kevin Bacon linked, 6 to 1, the magnificent seven

so 3 plus 7, 10 to 1, better odds, take 3 chances 4 times.

If any thing can fall it falls.
any thing that can shake, shall; and so on, amen.

Magic words spoken with no sense of any power having

master and commander authority to utter an actual amen, and

see this is as we say, what we got. Many idle amens, it’s a mess.

---
2020 the great controversy creeps up - I refused to catch
the magic fish bait,
I am open to any temptation

I say, with all the awshucks authoity awoud fuds

The grace of goodness itself--perse the real deal, does not fade away.
ሴ ሴ ... _ .

Three is the ready, steady, go,

steady accumulation of attending to take
the granted

virtue to effect trans formation
chaos to order algorithms

rhyminwhyman, whykill… whykry radio
man
five by five still alive

four point solid-ity it-ness

stack the stones, edify edu cate, straight
as model in the pat from first point
second, to third to you
through the wall that never was there

point, game set.
Any triggered hate, fires the alarm.

The idea that is the accuser side of
aitia ai ai ai loops,

is as the thing the ancients name the
accuser of the saints.

The "you ain't nothin'"
Then come the bots in legions of oughts
overcome ing one
spark
oh
you had to have seen it
ሴ ሴ ... _ .
ሴ ሴ ... _ .

In the middle of the night
I share this poem with you

What do you know
what do you see of me?

A few patches of black
carved in the white of a screen
a few sad words trying to soothe
what is left of me

I live secluded in an apartment
downtown of a half a million souls' city
founded by the Atlantic ocean

I live a cosy and quiet life
sometimes going out to feed myself
and breathe the lousy air of town

Me and my few friends gather once every week
to share a drink
to exchange meaningless thoughts
and useless ideas
around the fate of man
the hopeless prospect of our destiny

We are bachelors around forty
We were born wild and hard
offshoots of the oddest
long gone sycamores
rooted in the most infertile soils

We used to read powerful litterature
Nietzsche, Kafka, Broch,
Joyce, Balzac, Beckett,
Shakespeare, Goethe and Bernhard
to name a few

But none of them has ever helped us out
to find a heart to love
and a pristine soul to care for

All the books we read
have tormented us
with many questions and relentless issues

Now we sit still in our chairs
and watch the clouds go by
hoping for the next blue sky
hoping for the next feeling to come

And never do we ask when...

The light began to dim because
the oil was running low and the
morning came a creeping up
as if I didn't know,

never meant to be the stranger
I am Tonto to the Sunshine Ranger.

Invincible
I am the storm
reap me, read me
in the early morn.

In spite of me
I write of me
my protestation is but
the denunciation of
previous wrongs

and the megalo' in me
dressed as Romeo
sees the spotlight on me
as I put on
the one man show.

Behind these masks
there are certain deeds and tasks
of which I shall not mention.

Against the rule of
Isaac
Balzac
vitamin A and
Prozac
I would tack this to the end
but the end is yet to be and
in this the truth could be
nothing more than
ripened Brie
( nice to spread upon your bread,
but fit for nothing else)

I would be a Jane
but I am John
also a Christian
and how do I carry on
this thread?

What I see inside is
beyond me
as fathomless as a
bottomless sea
I never understood
how could I?
the third eye
is blind.

Between the cemetery
and the library
a sign that reads,

here lies my poetry
RIP.


.

Pere-lachaise is just the place
to be a writer for
Morrison and Oscar have taken up
a permanent residence
Hugo is beautifully miserable there
and Balzac just loves the dead
life can be very funny; he says
among the tombs and catacombs
in the necropolis of the city of light
a place to die for.