No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I'm dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run

to

***** of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef
and hot dogs by the scores,
or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.

**** had me torn, **** had me scorned; I'm one of the few people who knows how it feels to have on a crown of thorns. Scars on my hands, scars on my feet, had so many plans but they all are now obsolete. Beaten outwardly and inwardly, never had the liberty to be anything more, just a lamb in a world full of carnivores. I am not a God; I am just a man that constantly gets beaten by a rod. The rod of guilt, the rod of shame, I'm starting to wilt, and I got no one left to blame. Faking smiles while dealing with depression, dead on the inside, and barren outside by all the oppression. Just a frame for the bigger picture, maybe instead of focusing on fame, I should've focused on the scriptures. No I don't want to hear your lecture, not here to be a fisher of men, my structure is fine enough dear sir.

Now in conjunction let’s us say amen, let’s us stop with the pretend, this is our time to amend our past mayhem. Bruises on my skin, bruises on my bones, trying not to tailspin, trying to control my hormones. You don't need Sherlock Holmes to figure this **** out, there is no need to doubt, that it is not fun being treated like an expired trout. Can't you see these scars? Oh yeah that's right you to busy looking at the stars! Scars opened up by unlocking the wrong doors, scars piling up from all the years of being treated like a *****. Scars won by wars, scars from running through the fire, scars from peer pressure, and scars from all the held back tears.

So many scars, feels like I’m not even human, yeah I swear I'm an alien from mars. 'Hey, people have it worse than you', well that may be true, it's all relative until it happens to you! Do you know what I've been through? Do you know what it's like being in an environment of lions, when you're a caribou? That's right you have no clue, the worst thing some of yawl ever faced has been the flu. Where-as there is me, who no one takes the time of day to hear or see. Where-as there is me, the one everyone tried to treat because they thought I was a disease. Where-as there is me, and only me, nothing more than one of those 'natives' or in this case 'Cree'. Can't you see my scars? Were you not listening to these bars? Do I have to drop down on all fours for some exposure? Cause when you need help I am one of the first ones to be your boulder.

They say pain won't last, they say that I can get over it in other ways other than constantly getting smashed. Some say that the forecast will clear, that there is nothing to truly fear except for fear. Some scars don't heal, some leave you with Ptsd and if something sets you off you can relive that pain wheel. I wear my scars like they a badge, not prepared to throw it in the trash. My scars make me who I am, it's just another thing in my program. My scars help me relate with others with the same scars, it helps me realize that I'm not the only one dealing with these scars.

Farewell Govan -
bathed in a baking sun
littered with betting shops
and no win/no fee criminal lawyers
and a myriad of pubs caked in years of libation
steeped in history of industry and shipbuilding
blackened smoked walls etched with gangland symbols:
tooled-up local carnivores who ride shotgun on a BMX
swapping discrete envelopes for indiscreet wads of cash.

Farewell Govan -
you fractured my ribs once in a moment of mistaken identity
I didn't heed the advice to not walk through the park at night
I didn't hear the pitter-patter of adolescent feet
speeding my way in brand new trainers across the grass
but I did feel the clunk of something solid on my head
as the ground rushed up to meet me in a concrete embrace
and watched as 4 bags of overladen shopping spewed out
lying face up spread-eagle in Lilliput fashion
and a mobile torch-app in my face with the repeating words
“Ima tellin’ you man its naw him, its naw him”
I reassured them frantically that I was definitely not him!
as the hooded troupe picked up what was left of my shopping
and even gifted me a couple of cans of super strength lager,
a cube of dubious council estate hash
and an usher to leave immediately
(and think myself lucky).

Farewell Govan -
you got me blazing on cheap beer at the local pub
which had recreated a holiday beach scene
with a hand-written sign that read: Better than Ibiza!
awash with carefree children
and pit-bull terriers wearing bespoke Barbour dog jackets
and brand spanking new Adidas white trainers
purchased from Tam out of a nondescript blue plastic bag
who always passes the day's pleasantries
while topping up his pension
chatting with auld Billy who was in the war (don’t you know)
via the Merchant Navy
and the version of how he was gunner on an oil boat in Vietnam
via the umpteenth pint that afternoon.

Farewell Govan -
your late night shadows harbour an underlying tension
masked with comic humour only if you can understand the lingo
words that are distasteful anywhere else are in fact a term of endearment here
I shall miss the odious vernacular and doth my cap to your spirit
the Salt of the Earth and the Lifeblood of the Community
with at least 40% proof liquids mixed with Irn Bru
purchased at the 24/7 corner store along with a can of processed peas;
one of your five a day.

Farewell Govan -
I go to the sunny side of the Clyde
where it rains just as much
but you don’t get mugged for carrying an umbrella
or asked for the time from a watch-wearing tattooed sailor
and joy-of-joys there will be actual fruit & veg shops
where I don’t have to explain what fresh coriander is
and what you use it for, other than on a pizza;
I was offered dried bottled parsley instead.

Farewell Govan.

The magnolia sways in front of leaded lights
And I lay here thinking that all this beauty
Is all that there is or ever will be, a sanctuary
Where nature blossoms and is freshly laden.
But we are fallen like the dragonfly on wing
Hoovering, waiting for another knat to ****.

And as the carnivores devour their pray, daily
The human species, ruthlessly, turns over good
For another slice of the apple pie and so repeats
A cycle of never ending temptation baring thorn
With sadness I realise that I too wronged beauty
So mistaken in my haste for happiness and joy.

Love Mary **

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

Snake prowls
Preying owls
Welcome to the jungle

Night things emerge
Carnivores get the urge
Welcome to the jungle

Rainforest mammal
Dry desert camel
All know the law of the land

Swinging monkey on a tree
Or the flower-loving bumble bee
Know a jungle when they see one

Creatures with hungry jaws
Tear flesh with razor claws
For that's how a jungle should be

Man so set apart
Just because he has a human heart?
The joke's on me

So bask in the fantasy
That life comes so easily
Then welcome to the jungle

In a world full of ugly people,
A city made of hideous faces,
A phone call means everything.
It means a voice, free from
Its crooked nose, its wrinkled skin,
And its gapped, stained, crooked teeth.
It means a connection.
With another, with yourself,
And with the ability to disconnect
At the push of a button.
I take out my scratched, chipped cellphone
With its cracked face,
And call Helen.
Her voice swims through the mud
Inside my skull when she answers,
Stirring and churning
Until I'm weak and dizzy.
"How 'bout you just come
On over now, Big Fella?"
And I do.
I turn off the squawking television,
Don a pair of food-stained pants,
Drag a comb through my
Overgrown hair,
And descend the stairs to my
Waiting Oldsmobile.
The turn of the key in the ignition
Only produces a hollow click,
One click two click three click six,
Then a partial start,
But the beast fails to come alive.
I get out to replace
The fried starter fuse,
Then do this dance four more times
Before the old ***** clears her throat
And starts to idle.
It's a short ride,
Pawtucket is small,
And my only companion
On these post-midnight streets
Is the white noise
Issuing from the broken radio.
I pass the house I grew out of,
The crumbling schools
That taught me the value
Of impartial numbness,
The cemetery my father used to visit
To perpetrate the lie
He lives;
The role of a child
And the permanence
Of parents.
I pass abandoned factories
And abandoned hope
And abandoned pets
And abandoned storefronts.
In a world of full of past relics,
In a city full of ghosts,
A crumbling façade means everything.
It means bricks freed from their mortar,
Separated from their history,
Left to be picked up and thrown through plate glass windows.
Buildings are never empty,
Just quiet.
I pass the CVS at Newport and Armistice,
With its twenty four hour pharmacy,  
Dispensing the one a.m. hydrocodone,
The one thirty a.m. dextroamphetamine,
The two a.m. oxycodone,
The two thirty a.m. alprazolam,
The three a.m. dextromethorphan,
The three thirty a.m. methylphenidate,
The four a.m. eszopiclone,
The four thirty a.m. benzodiazeprine,
The five a.m. phenylpropanolamine.
I drive past the clinic in the old senior center
With its six a.m. methadone ready to go
In pre measured cups.
Buildings can be quiet, but not empty.
Helen lives on the third floor of a three story house
Built sometime in the forties,
Forgotten sometime in the eighties.
The two bottom floors are vacant,
The windows are boarded,
The driveway is choked with weeds,
And two lounging cats don’t flinch
When I walk by them
On my way to the door in the rear of the building.
The door is always unlocked,
So I let myself in
And begin the rickety climb to the top.
The higher I go,
The louder Amy Winehouse’s voice gets.
“What kind of fuckery is this?”
Seems an adequate question.
There are ****** handprints on the railings,
The walls,
Drops polka dot the stairs.
I don’t bother knocking,
I never do.
She’s seated in a La-Z-Boy in the kitchen
Facing the door,
In a cloud of cigarette smoke.
In place of exchanged pleasantries
I say I need to use the bathroom
And she nods,
Eyes locked on mine.
I take a look at my sallow image
In the mirror,
With specks of toothpaste and hairspray
Pocking my face like acne.
The toilet bowl is still streaked
With the last man’s ****.
I ****, wash my hands,
And take another look at myself.
Helen is no longer in the chair,
But I know where to find her.
She’s sprawled on the bed,
With a new cigarette in her mouth,
The toys spread out on one side,
The tools on the other.
I tell her I’ll forgive her for stabbing me the other night
If I can get a freebee now.
She shakes her head once,
Exhales a cloud,
“Not gonna happen, Champ,”
And I take what I can get.

It's like this, and then there was total recall. Fast like a safety plan made wrong and then bouncing in and out all the way down the hall. Up through cable cars, Korean fast food market, wet fish, soupy street, concrete cracks filled with crab meat and **** heads. Just a square, a five block, two street, sideways quadrangle, beat of the Tenderloin, hour of the dove. Every one's dead on these loose ends. Hills of the back of her backside, skin of the back of her neck. Rapture is the grave of the sunset, memory is that thing that I said.

No one cans in carnivores, no one runs moves like a shepherd. Sunday, daft as candy, luck in the ways of the prophet. Canon of the blaze of every woman that died today. The sleep setting, the motorcycle bending the hollow, the ravines noisy interlude, up through the rough and the tangles, huddles in a six pack, three or four walking up the block to meet the rest of them.

The skin doesn't fit right, it wears wrong, the shoulders stiff, the masseuse excuses himself. Buckets of flowers hang from the ceiling like stripped cat christmas decorations in suburban mastermind serial killer resort town. Everyone is quiet because they gotta. They move their feet like they were hurrying death into a red volcano, like they were the errand of red from the top bell to the bottom of the town.

I sit on a roof top, baking in the noon day sun. Stripping sticks and stems off the side to sideways, just roasting away, laying, low in the afternoon light. I see a girl with her hands on her skirt, wobbling, scooting a priest card on a periwinkle terra-cotta.  I move my head, turn it upside round to take a better look. No one counts to ten when they see me. The gangster that woke up isn't the gangster that went to sleep last night. My wickedness ended my words mean your bright decay. So I ride the pavement exhausted, burying my coughs in an L-shaped arm

Cuddly Carnivores

Why do we humans cuddle carnivores
Give names to yapping little quadrupeds
Who growl at socks and shoes and closet doors
And rumple all the covers on all the beds?

What possible use is a dachshund pup
Who chews whatever her tiny teeth reach
And what doesn’t digest comes right back up:
Little dogs are impossible to teach!

But in my arms my Astrid softly snores -
That’s why we cuddle baby carnivores

This planet orbits a yellow sun like ours.
It is in the Optimum Zone to support life.
Sure enough it has a wide variety of flora and fauna.
Highly intelligent life has evolved in its seas and oceans.
Its continents, however, are dominated by a species of primates.

Over the past 300 of the planet’s years they have developed
Some fairly high technology.
But they remain carnivores
Who regularly commit genocide.
They cut down swathes of natural forest
To grow chemically protected
Genetically modified nutrition-sources.
And they mine their planet empty
Of its mineral riches.
The planet’s ecosystem is being rapidly destroyed
By them.

Socially and psychologically they remain primitive.
Yet they possess the means to blow their world
To pieces.

With heavy heart I have to advise
We sign this planet
“No Entry”
For the foreseeable future.
“Forbidden” indeed.
A planet we call MW Orion 8478-3
That its natives call
That ever so common name:
“Earth”.

Paul Butters

The Great Debate started,
Parliament was the open forest,
electors were divided into two groups—
Sir Fox's, and
The Lion's,

The first group wanted to overthrow the Lion
from the sovereign head of the forest,
It was a tough job to confront Lion directly,
So, Sir Fox, appointed a Monkey as the Chief campaigner,
and that monkey appointed other monkeys in the business,
Scaring them with a story of vanishing trees, and living on
the land increases the mortality rate if Lion Party continues.

Monkey, the chief campaigner exclaimed,

“We are not living in the rule of law but in the rule of Lion,
All are equal, but the continuous target of a particular community,
Like a beautiful deer, by another community in majority
should be banned, Deers bring historic and aesthetic
significance to the forest
And need to be treated as the same,”
Deers bellowed gleefully hearing this.

Cows felt hurt,
their exclusion from Monkey’s speech
proved to be a setback to the Fox’s Party,
Cows were the most targeted community
by the Carnivores, everyone in the forest knew,
Potential voters were lost to Lion’s Party.

Polarising speeches of Chief continued,
It brought Rhinoceros to its side,
Seeing rhino in political rallies,
Hippopotamus chipped in,
To counter the increasing weight
Political advisor of Lion, i.e, Tiger,
persuaded Elephant to become an official
member of their party.

Hate speeches increased in numbers
Giraffe, the bearer and upholder of law,
Overlooked everything,
the long neck looked tilted towards
an ideology.

Rumours became truth,
truth became rumour
Monkey was good in it,
And an army of monkeys were excellent.

Parrots, Pigeons, Peacock,
****, Cuckoo, Cat,
Loved the importance they got,
Disseminated the Fox loving songs.
The listeners felt threatened,
They had an enemy living between them
and they were considering them friends,
They thanked the Parrot, Pigeon, Peacock
for pointing them out.

Now, biped hated quadruped,
Quadruped hated reptiles,
Reptiles did the same to amphibians,
And in this way the whole animal kingdom
danced in chaos,

The fiery speeches of Sir Fox helped
in creating illusion,
The slogan of the Man as a common enemy
was changed to, Feline as a common enemy,
Felines joined Sir Fox’s Party,
And Canines ran to Lion’s Party,
Obvious was difficult to observe
Obscure was easy to see.

**to be continued

Beautiful piranha
Bare your teeth in a scheming grin
Pull back your harsh red lips
Flash your blue-green-gold coat of scales
Blood thirst blinding your eyes
White boney razor teeth gnashing,
Biting on empty space
Dart around your territory
With your cliques of similarly minded
Similarly equipped predators
Your body specifically designed
To be irresistible
To let you spot your victim,
****** them,
And go for the jugular

did it work?
I give a useless tug on my skin, done to reassure me
instead it reaffirms to me:

I am, again, inconsolable.

is the mask I wear today sealed on tight? too tight?
does it hurt to pretend so much?

does it seem clear to anyone else that there are loose ends I've yet to tend to? backdoors I've overlooked?
transparencies?    can they see through me?

I bare my teeth. canines, canines from the days of carnivores.
am I that carnivore? in my genes I am.

and in practice?

inconsolable, uncontrollable
barely a threat in her form.

this question comes to me under many guises:
an old man asking me: are you that of practice or are you that of genes?
a professor lecturing: are you that of cultivated identity or that of inherited form?

my concerned friends crying:
who are you?
is your mask anything like you?

and then i wake.
it's a terror turned nightly chorus.
recurring nightmares, doctors offer.

i admit i know the content of my dreams to be unfounded:
in life there are no physical masks that do the jobs my terrors depict.
no veil to hide the contours of each flawed personality, no mask to others, just me, weeping-in-the-bathroom, never-myself me

and those attempted favours to be like one another
i'll be like you so you'll like me
i'll like you because i'm like you

so the body charges on in this society like a mirror
cross your left leg when she crosses her right, fold your arms when she's folded hers, raise your hand to say hello, raise your hand to say goodbye

a kiss on the right cheek, a kiss on the left, one more on the left
this is how you show love and a greeting all at once

fold your arms over each other, this is sympathy, this is greeting, do you take comfort in this too?

so you learn to speak with your arms, and you learn to speak with your legs, and you learn to speak with your face, and you learn to speak with your head.

soon your eyes are apprentices of acquaintances, learning to borrow looks like library books, take on others' stories like they've read them end to end.

so in the middle of this process you learn to effectively say:
i see you, i hear you, i perceive you.

and in these attempted favours, at the end of your night terrors, is the parrot that they want to see. the parrot that you argue, can't really be me.

Lit by nature,
a flame of beauty

burning fiery
in her eyes.

Glowing like
the
mountains sunrise.
Soft,
and calm
like lilly of
the valley
beside spring.
Modeling silky
smile.
Making my bell 🛎 ring.
Rainbow 🌈 worship such allurment, can really
make carnivores
easily feed on grass.

Beautiful creature,
perfect nature.

wait for it and it doesn't come

caught off guard 

incredulous singing



squawking pigeons

six in the morning

kings of the ready

dead finch



cats eat feathers

in the house of cards

down stairs ready

house of carnivores



company functions

canvass paints numbers

paints horses riding
steady in mind--

through


windy
 ozark meadows

six in the morning

while the finch
sleeps in

There's something beautiful
In eating meat.
Devouring what was once a living being.
Turning that animal into calories for you to burn.
My teeth pierce the skin,
Tear the muscle from the bone.
A performance of delicious savagery
While staring into my lovers eyes.
Primal.

Sat here, awaiting the arrival of grandson number four.
The darling daughter rests downstairs, as I wait for the stork to call.
A posing question, is he a Maribou?
Hope he's not a Maribou; for they are carnivores.
Got to hope he isn't hungry, as he lands outside my door.
Think he's just a cartoon character escaped from world of myth.
I'm just taking the pith (with a lisp).
Does he attend with infant in beak, wrapped in a ***** at the end of next week.
I think not!
Hope he doesn't sling him down my chimney, because it's all blocked off.
Can  you ever imagine an infant **** in the chimney ***?
Oops I forgot, how could I ever?
Poor Laura has to do hard labour before her chap is born.
(C) Livvi

Like a treacherous jungle, the world shaped its self to resemble the untamable, unforgiveable, and unimaginable creature that pounced on every crest of supple, innocent victim’s souls only to be dragged miles through painful, elongated trenches, and then expended in its entirety to recommence restructure in all new patterns of mutilated destructed forms; completely rearranged and in search for the light to guide culpable souls into worthy positions with better conditions and purer intentions.

From the inception, slithering wildly the legendarily discreet elapid serpent anticipated the fierce panthera. What was thought as a tyro odyssey, was underrated, uncreated, and translated to total transformative, love abated, accommodative, grief impregnated, planes alternated, affirmative gamboling games.

As a barbarous being, all and every cutthroat, bloated, anecdote of overdrawn, theatric fervor entered this imprudent, illuminated, and aggregated thing to fill unanswerable questions and unexplainable connections by intersecting other frantic, energetic, idiosyncratic reoccurring addicts with realms of disintegrated, hardheaded, nerve racked dreams.

The exterior scaled, degenerated able soul entangled and sacrificed minded controlled logic against the mystic, enigmatic, acidic beast. Pushing forward in the battle of cosmic evolution, a mistake making, empathic fool, inflicted from predicated illusions of heart wrenching, exploding, brooding agape for aspired end resulted, expanded frontiers.

What the scrawny, deluded fool missed were the all purposeful and most numerable senses that embrace every now where infinity spirals out related creation in the ever expandable universe that all the scavengers, hoarders, trackers, hunters, carnivores, herbivores, and the water possessed serpent misuse every now and now and now and now and again to address the real issues that are eschewed, abused, and viewed as insignificant tools that could never resolve unbearable fights within things, beings, or feelings of desertedness.

Miscommunication is everywhere and nowhere. Uncontrollable senses are everything and nothing. A constant fight within and without means nothing. Nerves we suppress and addictions we abuse. All to fill a space that exists at uncontrollable rates and lighting speeds. What is strategic logic without perceived cognizance? This is constant tumultuous idleness, sacrificed thoughtlessness, crude awareness, and unmanageable apprehension only exploited to rationalize a beast with labels, feeble doubts, to dwindle realities, and to fuel the unpeaceful balance.

The brute, that the restless, powerless, and distrustless serpent inhabited welcomes the transformative living immortal beings into the now of the hare who weakens the logic to lessened and opened tempos of the lines, spaces, and levels of the all and great smash of vast, immense potentiality of authenticity.

Animal House

Sweeping dust
storm,
Gazelles leap.

Careening reach,
dizzy heights
Shy Giraffes
necking in
undergrowth.

Creeping tide
menageries
mystic sloths
limb and oath.

Sea mist
breaking wave
Sun prancing
Dolphins
embraceable
moonbeams.

Lizards
shedding skins.
Trine children,
Pan animals.

Golden gleaming
processions
growling purrs
Carnivores
give
Herbivores
last rites
confessions.

We are
the animal house
the  hourglass
menageries.

bleating hearts
imminent deaths,
fleeting breaths,
unimaginable
love.

I.

You can always tell the
Virgins from the way they
Glide—cerebral giddy with nectarfilled
Hearts and earlobes full of
Wax/
Wane moonshine turf if you’re not
Dying for astronomers’ loves and what makes
Ptolemy different from Claude is
Given prove:
Equal and opposite reaction.

II.

Shove knife down pork
Wasn’t so hard, was it.

III.

TWO SOLIDS INTERSECT

In a plane. In the bathroom, to be exact.
What follows is not
Essential to the proposition;
Calculate the spatial
(surface area, volume of cubicle,
conclude insufficient is <
where escape
velocity is )
useless to
resistance factor 7 [prepare
for lift-off landing
taxi

To the Bronx of course where else would I
Be on a night like this it’s raining in the parlour
Wont you step outside?

III.

anemic & half-
starved half-
sandwich
go on,
have a bite.

IV.

in arm will undulate bloodcellspouroutcantstoptoowide
are you just imagining this?
What would they tell you in school blood is
thicker than water
i’m not sure they eat
carnivores here.

CARNIVAL
festival of meat.

Flesh
LIVE
trembling
quiver SWIFT shoot through air DUCK dead swandive nosedive outplug
BOOM go the couple in the cabin
lavatory
laboratory? Rats go bang in the night

crash & burn debris over Detroit is our
favorite way to die
colorful isn’t it rainbow—
brushfire—
bruises and fire storms out and around the
populace to decimate seems like mating by a factor of ten

V; or. X^2+i(70x7)=

aftermath:

my ex squared
with me seventy times
seven
equals in
fortitude (labor-intensive)
tea costs sixpence in dallas what about
you so
integral to my
being that sometimes I wonder if you’re just
imaginary or if
what it takes to be transcendental is
beyond what’s rational or even what’s
real to me:

eight is
enough for the eggs.

I sit in the winter air
On the worn metal park bench
Where we watched the wind blow the last leaves across the grass
But there's no life now nestled amongst the pack of lonely trees
Like hunger driven carnivores they huddle
A dying breed

I sit in the winter air
A long sleeve shirt and my black athletic shorts
You always hated how I dressed.
I could be another runner, but I sit and feel my legs and back slowly go numb where the metal hugs my skin
The bench is always cold,
Few rays of sun break through the tree limbs

I sit in the winter air
Could I move, stand up, walk?
But I came to be cold, to shiver and breathe deep the poison that stings my lungs
I came to forget warmth and soft smiles
The heat of another so close that it is as if we are one body
Until then, wrap me in the arms of the frozen

We pull
the Humboldt
out of the water.

Sometimes
they eat each other,
and we pull
up
shredded hooks
clotted
with white meat.

Sometimes
they
scramble
underneath the surface
and the film of water
separating us
from them
becomes pink and flashing.

We pulled up
a black
saucer
of an eye
one night.

It clung
to a hook
by
pink strings of optic muscle.

Our flashlights
put little continents of light all over its placid, black surface,
and I felt human sadness
some type of animal-human
empathy,
it ****** me up so much
that I threw the line overboard
again,
almost hitting Nestor in the face,
with an un-baited hook.

Our hauls
are getting smaller.

The carnivores
used to jump
into our boats,
slicking
the planks with an excretion
the consistency of placental fluid.

Now,
sometimes dusk burns
as
we yank
seaweed,
seagrass,
and
toilet seats
over the prow;
our bodies tenebrous;
straining with the line
like warriors
stabbing the sea.

She was a crazy catholic lady
With a crucifix dangling from a chain round her neck
Cheap Jesus pieces in her earlobes and
On her fingers, twisted against her wrist
The symbol of Christ's suffering and death
Molded in less than precious metals
To show allegiance to the cause
To prove membership in the club

I told her I was an alien
From a planet I pointed to
(Which was actually a star but she didn't know any better)
I gave some obviously typical dry science fiction name to the orb from where I came
A red planet,heated year round by hell fire
And the coup de grace
The people from my planet worship Satan and God

She took most of what I had to relate in comparative stride
Until I got to the part about worshipping the debbil
Then she began to moan ang groan about second thoughts
But second thoughts weren't part of my plan

"It's lunch time ,guys. They've got liver and onion on the buffet and it's going to be delicious"

"But O Holy One. We are not carnivores. We are Here to feast on all the bugs that have made themselves comfortable.

O Holy One did yet another double take and saw me bending down seeking out insects.
What she didn't see was Neolithic alone In the grounds area planting gummy bears and gummi worms and other insect  like critters. Insects like you .

When the arbolic lady sits I the grounds shelter she can't help but spot some of those cray college pestle shoot firsrms inside their belly
Just looking for tha pillowcase. ( that's where it was)

Catholic lady stared into that uncanny stew I did, too, and all the aliens with perhaps we shouldn't have been so cocky at first we soo began to respect the wagonmaster

One last gesture for the catholic lady
She sat across the room obviously devising plans of what to do when we got home
Home sweet himi took a magic marker
And drew a huge upside down pentagram acroo the whole of my palms
They didn't look like tats that were inked for fun or for hell
Theft tats. Were reminders of to WHOM you belonged.

I opened my hand, turned around and waved. It at her, a beautifully drawn Baphomet head smack dad center of my so realistic it looked like it might slide off of my skin and back to the loving arms of Boris Karloff.

The gummi bears were delicious
It was hard to pretend I was chomping a nasty X Y or Z, which were made an entirely horrendous smelling concoction for their entry but had almost become disqualified when it was found that she harbored secret  ideas. She's willing to talk about them on the phone.

Now he's here 5:00: o'clock early making soft, simple subliminal suggestions lull in conversation and I don't think anyone is individually off the hook for this nonsensse.

Catholuc girl saw his pentagram palm and almost had heart attack as well,I don't want to di early of hreart disease so I  hope it's some good old marihuana that gets us thru this hellish lost weekend


He didn't want to go stay with his parents but he did anyway dragging corpses behind him and begging the "old boy" to show him again how the **** never goes down. He heel used, martyred, confused

Catholic girl told my whole routine to the doctor. He thought it mildly humorous but felt obligated to be with
Her, she sufferers and her mind really reeled...she thought I ate bugs for dinner, what else was I telling the truth about?    Casting Crowns couldn't stay for our encore. We didn't expect them to,

SET LIST
10- "Mama ToldMe Not to Come" Three Dog night
9.- "The Pusher" - Steppenwolfe
8. - Goodnitr, Wake  Up Stonef" - Blind Society
7. "Madonna and the pope, swinging from arope" - my brother's least favorite band name
6. "1/3 of the Beast" the Beales
5. - Let's make this a short one
4. Dive hound ***** fu ka someone's in the house... I'd daddy, but your gun durum I'm only five and I don't know what thr g be this -

I would like to share with you my enduring
        Memory with guns,
Never forgotten, a difficult story.

In my home Summer of 93 was born
From the dry sun and certain colors,
      Not the forsaken flowers,
But the rags of gangsters,
     The survival of the unfittest like
     Certain carnivores on a plain,
Tired of the slums from people whom
Live unmajestic lives.

     For a summer
Bullets had no names weekly,
A repugnant visiting crisis and I lost
My bed to fear,
One longs for a night with no bullets
Flying by,
And a dream without the oppressive
Gunshot just above my head board,
A consolation in the morning's sorrow.
Everyday a new hole discovered,
Everyday thinking
"I'm lucky to be alive"

    No.
All my heart aches
Because one night a bullet had a name,
And the bullet came for Mother
Never to return to the earth,
     In the blossoming summer
All I knew was death,
     Death with a barrage of gunfire
From the breast of destiny,
     Full in my heart was vengeance,
12 years old and lost in the womb
      Of the Barrio.

Like a madman,
For I was no longer a child,
The bullrush of thoughts come clean.
    Memories without veils,
Like an angry widow resting
In indifference, with an evening
That arrives with an eruption .

     A penetrating glare from my eyes,
Between youth and death,
I will tell you about my enduring sorrow,
     And a 12 year old carries a gun.

This temper that lives inside
Storms out unexpectedly
Like a monster unleashed
Ignited by stress

Spilling Anger
Yelling in irritation
Sensing my mother
Lurking in my shadow
A vile aftertaste still lingers
Forced fed by her poisonous venom

Until I realize
I'm roaring
Splashing my screams onto
My loved ones
Making them cry

The beast has taken over
From the depths
Where my momster
Lay her eggs  
Waiting for them to hatch
And be released
In shame and guilt

The last thing I want
Is the mirage of that
Ghost haunting
My babies

The creature that resides
Hidden from the world
To protect against  
The carnivores who feasted
On my innocence

Now breathing to exhale my scare
Away from my young's oxygen
One breath at a time until
The monster's ghost
Has settled back
Deep inside my oppressed soul

© Jl 2016