it chews
bringing me from the depths of sleep
a half tide type consciousness
to bang on the wall a few times
and fall back
sinking deeper
into the welcoming depths

it chews
sharp and chipping
low on the floor
by the foot of my bed.
i'm awake now
my heart beating faster
as i notice
how close
it really is.

i get up
turning on the light
to take a look around
i don't see a fleeting tail
or a brown fur ball scurry
so i stomp around a bit
a giant
fee fi fo fum be afraid little rat
out with the lights
and back to bed.

minutes pass
and as my muscles
unwind and i truly
begin to think i have won...
it chews
cracking and splintering
louder now

i try and ignore it
but the sound is maddening
each crack
throbbing behind my eyes
like he is boring into my skull

stop it!
i yell like
he would understand
holding my pillows to my ears
nerves broken
heart pumping battery acid
it chews
and chews
and chews

unafraid of me
or my stomping
or my fits
and suddenly i'm the one afraid
my girlish unreasonable fear
takes over
crying
please stop
please
but it chews
coming for me
bringing hundreds
of it's friends
to join the party.
it will be through the floor boards
any second now
it's piercing eyes
and sharpened teeth
looking for something else
to chew.

The lion had just lost his dear wife,
Madam lioness a couple of years ago,
She was in the prime of her life,
When she succumbed to deathly udder cancer,
Mr. Lion grieved with all energy of the bereaved beast
To make it worse, he was also terminally ill
Of the vicious lung cancer, boring his windpipes,
That when he respired sweet music came out,
Like classical xylophones of eyeless Mehrun Yurin,

His sons were away commanding respective territories
Each son a territory in the order of traditional monarchy,
No one was to cook for the sick lion, don’t mention washing,
Hence the sons hired the squirrel alias madam Caroline,
She cooked as she did all other chores in the palace,
She was good in a concocting a matchless soup
From white mushrooms and cured goat’s meet,

As Caroline cooked she also sampled by tasting for her perfection
This little by little tasting made her to increase the strength,
Her skin became smooth, her buttocks swell
Her tail became shorter and steady, but very clean,
Her skin very oily and comely, exuding no evil smell,
Her walking style purged to majestic fashion
Even the type of songs she sang
Were not peasant spirituals,
Mr. Hyena wondered and wondered;
Is the squirrel pregnant?

Only to discover she was not,
But she has a new job;
Of cooking for the sick king lion,
Hyena also heard from the public domain
That she often cooks, goat meat and mushrooms,
But the ram tail twice in week; Tuesday and Sunday,
Jealousy and bigotry, malice and prejudice ganged up at once
And gripped the hyena simultaneously,
And swore to himself that come anything;
Spells of sunshine or blizzards of snow,
He must and must; root out the squirrel
From the palace kitchen,

That bright morning he went to the palace,
Singing a Christian song in praise of Lazarus,
Who resurrected from the dead,
He entered the palace still singing,
He commanded every to stand, put off the laurels,
For he wants to pray for the sick,
He made long and noisy circumlocutions of a prayer,
With regular stamping of feet and amen,
Commanding the devil of cancer to leave,
The lungs of the king, the mighty lion.


He said final amen and all sat down
Two sons of the king, the young lions,
Were all in somber moods, their father was sick,

From the kitchen, the squirrel surfaced,
With goats meat on a metallic platter,
He served the sick lion first,
Then each of them present,
On the first taste of food,
Hyena lost control of nerves
His tail jumped out of the white trouser
That he was wearing that day,
He ate voraciously with a crazy appetite,
No such delicious food had ever crossed his way.

He cleared his food first as expected,
Then he kept mum like a stooge,
Only wagging his long tail
His long tongue hanging out
Flagging in avarice like leaves of banana,
When all others stopped eating,
Hyena began in form of a question,
To which the lion’s family listened
Indeed with kingly caution;
Am asking you the king,
Why is Madam Caroline the squirrel,
Eating your food everyday,
And you are dying of a treatable disease,
To which she has the medicine,
Why is she betraying you?
To such a simple death?

All the lions plus the sick one
Jumped to the squirrel with all horror,
For the squirrel to bring the cure
Or the be killed first be the lion dies,
She pleaded for a minute to bring the drug,
Hyena in full gear of happiness
As his friend chews misfortune,

She blamed her small body size to be the  barrier
To bringing the medicine for king lion,
But nonetheless medicine was available,
Lions roared tell us! Where is the medicine?
In a soft voice the squirrel said;
The only cure for this disease of the king,
Is a fresh liver of a male hyena!

The hyena was frozen with surprise,
Like any other foolish bigot,
He begged to leave as his time was over,
No answer came to his request,
Other than abysmal darkness
Of violent death gulfing his body,
King lion drunk Hyena’s blood
In addition to the liver
On the squirrel’s instructions,
The lion became well
And began walking strong,
Out of this joy
King lion  promoted the squirrel
To be a minister of health
In the kings palace.

NAKED BUS

She catches the London bus
in her fist.

Gnaws it...then throws it
through the window.

Lucky the window wasn't
closed.

She chews it  when
teething.

Chews its redness
- off.

She is amazed to see
the real thing for the first time.

For her
her toy has grown into a giant.

Then she discovers double-deckers.
Counts: "One double-decker bus...two double-decker buses

...24 double decker buses!"
It is unbelievably so!

Doesn't know she is counting
the same bus twice!

And now to add to her
amazement she

encounters a green bus!
Will the excitement never end.

"The bus has changed its clothes?"
she says unsure that this can be so.

But now confounded by a bus
all in white!

Even we have never seen
a bus in white.

It looks like it has taken
all its clothes off.

A **** bus!

But to her it's worse
far worse than that!

"The bus has taken
it's skin off!"

She refuses to go on
this skinless bus.

We wait for a "normal"
bus to somehow appear.

And appear it does
busy being a red bus.

The world of buses
restored to its proper order.

Two people both alike in character
Of the opposite sexes
Sit across a candlelit dinner
In a lovely, fancy restaurant

The room is incandescently lit
With a dimness that balances between ever so bright and ever so dark
Allowing for a gold tinge to envelop the restaurant
But not gold enough to take away notice of the lit candle set upon the White table cloth

The waiter appears and asks the couple
What they would like for dinner
The couple order the food and drink
Much to the waiter's delight the food and drink is expensive

The waiter returns shortly
With a bottle of their finest Pinto Noir
And pours the blood-red wine slowly
Into each of the couple's glasses
And leaves the couple to sip upon their sweet sin delicately

The food is laid out
Triumphant in its debut
A vast smorgasbord of entries
Including frog legs, crab, and delicious ****** steak

The couple prepare their silverware for the battle that is eating

The man stabs his knife into the ****** steak
Cutting it open and spilling the juices all over his plate
He stabs the meat with the fork and guides it toward his mouth
And slowly but surely chomps upon it with the strength of his fine jaw
And swallows the meat into the unexposed mystery that is his stomach

The woman begins to mutilate the frog legs with her knife
Cutting into the once moveable limbs
And stabs the limbs with her fork and brings it to her mouth
And delicately bites the limbs and politely chews
And swallows it into her fine and precious insides

The couple then split the crab legs
Using their bear hands they split the shells open
And remove the meat or **** it right out of the shell
They swallow it whole and do nothing with the shell
Leaving the shell aside to be as still as a carcass

The waiter arrives and asks how the food was
The couple obliged him with their satisfaction
The bill is handed to them and the couple pay it
Leaving a hefty tip
They then leave the lovingly dimly lit restaurant
To enjoy the night that is ahead of them

Say I know, no question, what the Good News was,
the Jesus good news, but

nobody believes that. And its free good news. Who pays me?

Think Gaiman's American Gods,
true believers everywhere, no truth, no free ificity,

sufficient, suffice, artifice, artificial freedom, if

you can't imagine artificial freedom, how do u test AI?

we can imagine all sorts of hells, and miserable lost evers

all phantoms from the stories you've believed
believed by the tellers
who told you
you were naked.

Is this a theme?
Are we manufacturing sensible un-believable
idle word redemption tools.
DIY? No App?
Empowering the believers to unbelieve, at will, with effort?
Very little effort, but yes,
My calling, yes, previous to full-time Peacemaker.

I e-merge several streams of thought, gentle, --- un belief is,
it hurts like you imagined hell, almost exactly.

Monetize your lies,  who said do that?
you don't believe them do you?
The ones you tell
Where you know prayers are answered

Because
You
know sorta. Knowing a thing is so,
you know, defining.
Be and lieve together they make a meaningful
you know

Re-ifing and de-ifing,
being a believer in whom is no guile,
is that
actable.
Could a thespian make us believe he believes what I believe if he were me?

Is that in the bible,
that walk a mile as me proverb?
It's true, if you do it, in your head or mind,
if you think mind ain't matter

or doesn't matter, okeh.

I don't.
D'I ever tell you about the time I realized I was safe,
lazy days o' summer,
way back when was no TV, no video nuthin, then

when I woke, I was here as sure as I am,
that I know next

to nothin for sure,
and for a blameless,
shameless old man, who catches Jesus winkin'
in his thinkin' ever day,

' cain't say damday and asaid it anyway.

It's about time I tell my story, if that is my job.
My story means the story I tell,
the one I think I believe I know and enjoy.

Tellin' it, I en joy en trance, never thrall.

Life is predominantly fun.
Empiric evidence. Take it, by faith,
we all know how,
we laugh and say we don't, but we are lost with out it,

no hope.
Oh, my God, desperate for you.
They sing that, they call such singing praise.

Somehow they have come to believe
Christ has left them desperate for any good things,
forsaken them after promising
other wise

Who would teach a chile such a song in Jesus's
whole body, I swaneee

Hopeless, t's what desperate means,
desperados are not disciples
of the tendency to a bias toward good, by grace.
nosireee
---
Can I speak living words,
is that living water flowing from me,
if I agree with the story I am telling,

Yes, all the promises of God.
Come let us reason,
we are past the scarlet sin.
Sin means disconnect in today's terms,
missed aimed-at-thing's the original Greek expression that
made it to the Bible.

And a blog is as good as a book, some say,
as far as words are concerned, meaning-wise

but spoken words go farther, these days.

Rhetoric is returning to try men's souls,
and the peasants have Google and IDW
(Intellectual Dark Web wuwu)

and the real Bible Daniel and Ezra 'n'em put together from all the sources they could muster under the banner of
Lest we forget.

Was that the banner spoken of
by the prophet so and so?

Could be.
Runner-up th'pole 'n'see who kneels.

Emoji winks are too cheezy for real poetry,
you never see 'em in songs.

Jesus winks but not at
your-my disconnection from re-ality.

We can't be **** Sapience Sapience
if we don't think about thinking.

The unexamined life's not worth living,
old Greek guy saying.

Jesus saying, as a man thinks, so is he.

And I think he was talking about good and evil.
A man can think good and evil, but

(and this is one of those forever buts I mentioned last time I was thinking on this thread),
evil can't swallow good. No matter how long it chews.

Funny, really, how stuff works.
We all live until,
as far as we do know now,
time
for conscious mortal me,
each
of us in this we, me
ceases.

De-sist,
recall the way it feels to lay your armor down
and know,

I ain'tagonnastudy war no more.

But, we are called,
chosen to fight the good fight of faith, Amen.

Ah, men,
we ain't got enemies.
We fought.
You believe you believe or you don't.

Have fun and don't make anybody miserable
and stand up straight,
with your shoulders back, good advice.

Next. There is a reason to go farther,

I think, but don't know right now, what that reason is.

Praying being asking for assistance in persistence,
I am praying this is plain, past simple, plumb to sublime.

WHEN the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks of direct and cross examinations, hot clashes of lawyers and cool decisions of the judge,
There are points of high silence-twiddling of thumbs is at an end-bailiffs near cuspidors take fresh chews of tobacco and wait-and the clock has a chance for its ticking to be heard.
A lawyer for the defense clears his throat and holds himself ready if the word is "Guilty" to enter motion for a new trial, speaking in a soft voice, speaking in a voice slightly colored with bitter wrongs mingled with monumental patience, speaking with mythic Atlas shoulders of many preposterous, unjust circumstances.

Title #1: Dear Hi-Chews (Morinaga & Co.),

Laughy-Taffy’s Fun
Always incorporate a pun
Yours need a haiku


Title #2: Hi-Chew 2.0

Our sells would just sore
But the brandings a bore, solved:
Include a haiku


Title #3: Mango Flavor

Hi-chews are yummy
But the mango is nasty
Discontinue Please


Title #4: Sales

Hi-chew sells are down
When Laughy-taffy’s around
Add a fun Haiku

Snot Sniffer, I hate you.
I hate sitting nex to you.
Why do you choose to keep the snot inside of your head by sniffing it back up?
Why don't you get up and grab a tissue so, I don't have to listen to you.
I'm sick and tired of hearing you every five seconds, with your nose and your snot
Your snot and your nose.
Why can't you blow it and make yourself happy?
and better yet, relieve me from listening to you...
Its like the guy or gal that chews like a loud cow
I hate you just as much as snot sniffer.
I hate you Snot Sniffer go and marry Chews Loud and die
In your Overwhelming Abundence of Auditory ****.

Depression tends to have a manipulating and controlling manner that spits and hisses from behind her snarled teeth,
Depression swallows the light.
And in doing so, depression gulps down yellow, drowning the sun and all his mighty.
Depression chomps on green, bits off grass and shrubble stuck to the inner corner of her lip.
Depression chews pink, each candy floss cloud tickling her taste buds.
Depression chugs blue, the ferocious waves sloshing down her throat with ease.
Depression regurgitates darkness, there is no colour when depression grabs my hands, looming shadows engulf my vision,
Depression’s feet start to move and I realise we are dancing to the dull thud of my heartbeat,
I dance with depression all through the dark, but it isn’t just dark, it’s the kind of dark with no moon, no stars or streetlights, it’s the kind of dark that creeps up on you until you cannot even see your nose.
The darkness slithers under my fingernails and slices back my skin, slipping beneath my flesh, it wears my hand like a glove,
It wanders upwards and claims my face simply as a mask,
As it seeps down, down, down, my legs now become stilts.
I am no longer dancing with depression, depression is dancing me, I am her puppet.

Drinking my tea
Without sugar-
    No difference.
                                        
The sparrow *****
    upside down
--ah! my brain & eggs
                                        
Mayan head in a
Pacific driftwood bole
--Someday I'll live in N.Y.
                        
Looking over my shoulder
my behind was covered
with cherry blossoms.
                                        
        Winter Haiku
I didn't know the names
of the flowers--now
my garden is gone.
                                        
I slapped the mosquito
and missed.
What made me do that?
                                        
Reading haiku
I am unhappy,
longing for the Nameless.
                                        
A frog floating
in the drugstore jar:
summer rain on grey pavements.
        (after Shiki)
                                        
On the porch
in my shorts;
auto lights in the rain.
                                        
Another year
has past-the world
is no different.
                                        
The first thing I looked for
in my old garden was
The Cherry Tree.
                                        
My old desk:
the first thing I looked for
in my house.
                                        
My early journal:
the first thing I found
in my old desk.
                                        
My mother's ghost:
the first thing I found
in the living room.
                                        
I quit shaving
but the eyes that glanced at me
remained in the mirror.
                                        
The madman
emerges from the movies:
the street at lunchtime.
                                        
Cities of boys
are in their graves,
and in this town...
                                        
Lying on my side
in the void:
the breath in my nose.
                                        
On the fifteenth floor
the dog chews a bone-
Screech of taxicabs.
                                        
A hardon in New York,
a boy
in San Fransisco.
                                        
The moon over the roof,
worms in the garden.
I rent this house.

[Haiku composed in the backyard cottage at 1624
Milvia Street, Berkeley 1955, while reading R.H.
Blyth's 4 volumes, "Haiku."]

I have gained a paternal responsibility
But I feel a different response filling me
Constantly itching from a million flees
Begging to get me out of this please
So in my mind unseen
Resides a murderous dream
To subtract from my team

I fall into a landslide
Of infanticide
A lioness eats her cubs
As a baby drowns in a tub
Before they reach the age
They acquire our rage
We devour our babies
Before they contract rabies

We're brought together by proximity and origin
By who we were forming in
This connection of chance
Determines circumstance
Guiding our circle dance
With random music
We take whatever we can
Until we lose it

A possum's mother dies
It has no time to cry
It must continue to eat
So it feeds
Like its mother in heat
Had to breed
In order to not lose
The child chews
In a world of me or you
The child chews
Instead of feeling blue
The child chews
Its mother's fur stuck in its teeth
It stays there to provide heat
The parent provisions from beyond the grave
Will get the possum through this ugly day

From possum to person
I can't tell which is the worse end
For there is flesh stuck between my teeth
Like a Christmas wreath
Where what lies beneath
In a readily equipped sheath
Is patricide or matricide
I can't decide
But must abide
To survive
The purgatory
I see surging toward me
So to move forwardly
I must live forlornly
After feeding on family
Company becomes fantasy
Learning no one can handle me
They're just meals I'll eat handily

I eat my relatives
In this hell I live
Where what I give
Is the gnashing of my jaw
To follow a universal law
That says scratch and claw
Until I meet God
Expecting my parricide ways
Will garner divine praise
But for everybody I slayed
My soul was filleted
Now I only see grey
So everyone looks like my father
And I say welcome back Kotter
As I yearn for my teeth to be hotter

Night sets,
The sun falls.
Moon and stars become uncovered.
A pink faced child crawls under the covers.
A cardboard book is clutched in soft bands.
A                           f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
looks innocent and careless.
Mother hen, baby calf, wiggly pig,
their  smiling faces send the child off to sleep.

That child remembers that story.
They remember the smiling faces of
mother hen, baby calf, wiggly pig.

That child is no long a child,
they no longer read that cardboard farm book.
They remember their childhood with that book,
they blur into one.
They see a barn just like the  
                             f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
just like the picture in the cardboard farm book.

They stop to revisit their childhood,
they stop to revisit their innocence,
they stop to revisit those smiling faces.


                             f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
is only a step away,
that no longer child pushes open the sun warmed door.
They except innocence,
they except those smiling faces,
but they did not see what they expected.

The innocence of their childhood was a lie,
there are no smiling faces here.

This is not the
                              f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
from their cardboard book,
from their childhood,
they blurred into one.

Mother hen is not smiling,
her beak is cut off with a hot blade, she cannot move her wings in her cage,
her daughters are taken to live her fate,
her sons are ground alive to be feed to her,
mother hen is not smiling.

Baby calf is not smiling,
baby calf is just born,
then taken by a man in blood soaked boots,
baby calf watches helpless as their mother cries,
as their mother chews the metal bars,
as their mother fights the electric shocks.
Baby calf does not know their father,
neither does their mother.
Baby calf is put in a metal cage,
they will live a year or two,
baby calf will not move,
that is the point of veal.
Baby calf is not smiling.

Wiggly pig is not smiling,
wiggly pig can only wiggle,
only enough so her babies can drink her milk,
she cannot reach them though.
Wiggly pig will watch her babies grow,
but beyond what is natural,
beyond what their hearts can handle,
but there is a big demand for bacon.
Wiggly pig can see her babies hung from their hooves,
and slit open alive,
but wiggly pig can only wiggle.
Wiggly pig is not smiling.

That                     f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
is not as innocent as the cardboard farm book.
That farm in the book,
it was a lie,
but that cardboard farm book was their childhood right?
They blur into one.
Their childhood was a lie.

That no longer child lived a lie,
because power wanted them to only see the smiling faces,
they wanted them to believe that farm in the book
to be true,
not the lie that really is.
Power took away their innocence of childhood.
Power took away babies from their mothers.
Power took away my smile.
The                      f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
from my child no longer sends me off to sleep.
Instead it keeps me awake with the image of a farm,
not the farm in the cardboard book though,
a farm not filled with smiling animals,
a farm filled with cries, blood, sorrow, pain, horror, death.
A farm that is a lie.

i want a good heart .
i want it to be made of good stuff .
i want the stain glass window builder to be my drinking buddy .
i want to drink only the punch of a million gender queer school kids taking free martial arts lessons to survive recess .
i stopped calling myself a pacifist when I heard gandhi told women they should not physically fight off their rapists .
i believe there is such a thing as a non violent fist .
i believe the earth is a woman muzzled , beaten , tied to the cold slinging tracks .
i believe the muzzled have every right to rip off the bible belt and take it to the patriarchy’s *** .
i know these words are going to get me in trouble .
it is never polite to throw back the tear gas .
just like its never polite to bring enough life rafts .
they crowd the balconies where the wealthy shine their jewels .
but sometimes love ..
sometimes real love
is ******* rude .
is interrupting a wedding mid vow just as the congregation is about to cry .
to stand up in your pew to say 
“ is everyone here clear on how diamonds are mined ?” 
hallelujah to every drag queen at stonewall who made weapons out of her stiletto shoes .
hallelujah to the blues keeping the neighborhood awake .
to the activist standing in the snow outside of the circus 
holding a ten foot photograph 
of a baby elephant in chains ,
when it’s probably some little kid’s birthday .
hallelujah to making everyone uncomfortable .
to the terrible manners of truth .
to refusing to clean the blood off the plate .
bend this spine into a bow 
i can pull across the cello of my speech .
love readies its heart’s teeth ,
chews through the etiquette leash .
takes down the cellphone tower after millions of people die in wars in the congo fighting for the minerals that make our cellphones . 
love blows up the dam .
chains itself to the redwood tree ,
to the capital building when a trailer of mexican immigrants are found dead on the south texas roadside .
love insists well intentioned white people officially stop calling themselves color blind .
insists hope lace it’s ******* boots 
always calls out the misogynist , racist , homophobic joke . 
refuses to be a welcome mat where hate wipes its feet .
love asks questions at the most inappropriate times .
overturns the defense of marriage act then walks a pride parade . asking when the plight of poor single mothers will ignite our hearts into action like that .
love is not polite .
deadlocks our rush hour traffic with a hundred stubborn screaming bikes .
hallelujah to every suffrage movement , hunger strike .
hallelujah to insisting they get your pronouns right .
hallelujah to tact never winning our spines .
to taking our power all the way back to that first glacier that had to learn how to swim .
to not turning our heads from a single ugly truth .
to knowing we live in a time when beauty recruits its models outside the doors of eating disorder clients .
that is not a metaphor .
this is not a line to a poem .
an indian farmer walks into a crowd of people and stab himself in his chest to protest 
the poisoning of his land .
a buddhist monk burns himself alive on the streets of saigon .
a united states' soldier hangs himself wearing his enemy’s dog tags around his holy neck .
may my heart be as heavy 
as a tuba in the front row of the mardi gras parade five months after katrina .
may it weigh the weight of the world 
so it might anchor the sun 
so it might hold me to my own light until i am willing to sweat as much as i cry .
until i am willing to press into the clay of our precious lives .
a window .
might our grace riot the walls down .
may the drought howl us awake
may we rush into the streets 
to do the work of opening each other’s eyes .
may our good hearts forever be 
too loud to let the neighbors sleep .

My brothers dog is a naughty boy
he chews on the furniture, and destroys his toys
the chap can even open the bread bin
scoffing all that is contained within

My brother did say, just the other day
with a huff and a puff in somewhat dismay
that he had caught his crafty mutt licking
the board that he chops his food on

He had wondered why it always kept clean
now he knows, all is not always what it seems

Yet my brother loves that puppy
and together they are so very happy
but he is a rowdy little sod
is my brothers naughty dog


By Christos Andreas aka NeonSolaris

By NeonSolaris

© 2013 NeonSolaris (All rights reserved)

basilisk ****
nonparticular inexecrable exit
art ****
the lips on for breakfast
twilight zip entanglement
meticulous bending and sensual telepathy

fever-sickness
rock 'n roll boo-boos
lilting black 'n blues on the caboose
puppeteering every tasty ***** loose

chews the collar
thighs and necking room
bustling bussers it gives ifs
gets down with

daisy, dior, dkny, grapefruit(purple) to narcisso and pink sugar too

Bliss tainted madness
playing tug-o-war with
January's vacuum
Years of passing down groupies
to the most recent djs playing bad dubstep tunes
and that sickness of seeing iloveyou's abused

He sits next to me in the waiting room, his breath labored. He’s good looking, in his late twenties, wearing a red vest.
“Hi.” he says.
“Hello.”
His face is suntanned, but one electric white spark splits the colour of his forehead like a bolt of lightening. It confuses me for a moment, until I realise it’s a frown line that hasn’t tanned.
“Listen, mate...listen, mate. What’s your name?”
“Arthur…”
“Listen Arthur, can I call you Arthur?”
“Of course - Art if you like.”
“Listen Arthur – what are you in for?”
I put down my copy of ‘Perfect Home’ as the water dispenser blows a great gasping bubble.
“Bipolar.”
“Yeah? You being sectioned?”
“No, no. I’ve just come out of hospital. I’m having a review.”
“Right.” He chews his lip. “Do you reckon I’m gonna get sectioned then, or what?”
“Well - I don’t know. What are you here for?”
He sighs darting his eyes sideways, and his frown deepens.
“When I was sixteen I was at this party, right…”
“…Right…”
“And I was drinking. You know how it is. Few beers, bit of fun. You know how it is, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, so I’m at this party. And I feel sick, ok? So I go to the toilet. Nice toilet, friend’s house, pink bath, air freshener, nice. And I’m sick all over the place. What do they call it? Project summat...”
“Projectile vomiting…?”
“Yeah yeah, projectile vomiting. And then I gotta take a ****.” He lowers his voice, leaning into me. “So I’m all beery and I feel kinda terrible y’know? And I unzip my jeans and go to pull the old fella out…”
“Uh huh…”
“But there’s nothing there.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing there?”
“Exactly what I ******* say. My **** is just…gone. And I realise, right, that someone at that party has chopped it off. One of my friends. One of my friends has chopped my old fella off.”
I lock eyes with him.
“Jesus.”
“I know. One of my ******* friends.”
“And this was…?”
“When I was sixteen. Anyway. To cut a long story short – I went to Thailand a few years ago and I took this drug over there, some party drug. And my **** grew back. Everything’s been fine since then. But on Monday, well, you can imagine can’t you? I wake up and my **** has been chopped off again. Again. God knows who did it, but I've got a good idea...”
“And that’s why you’re here.”
“I’m here because I want them to find out the name of that party drug, the drug I got in Thailand, the one that worked. It worked. It actually worked, mate.”
“Was it ******?”
“**** knows, but it worked.” He rubs his face with both hands, sighing. “So, what’dya reckon? Do you reckon they’re gonna section me?”
Of course they’re going to ******* section you.
“I don’t know, mate. But I thought that my neighbours were poisoning my cat, and they weren’t too pleased about that. Do you get what I’m saying?”
My psychiatrist interrupts to call my name, standing at the mouth of the waiting room with a smile. I shake the man's hand and wish him all the best.
I look over my shoulder as I go down the corridor, and he picks up my copy of ‘Perfect Home’.
He puts his hand down his jeans, adjusting something.

October 20, 2018


I've spent this year

Learning how to deal.

This isn't melodrama

Just the truth

Condensed into just a few words

To express a vastness

Guaranteed to fill a few pages.


Like all years, it's been bittersweet.

I've fallen down

Tripped up

Left a bruise

Quite a few times.

But, of course

You have to fall --

Maybe even bleed a little --

In order to teach yourself

The triumph

Of bringing yourself

Back to your feet.


I've stood in front of a lot of mirrors

Most of them metaphysical

Truly getting to know the girl

On the other side.

The more we talk

The more I like her.

She's a hot mess sometimes, sure

But she's kind of a cool person to have coffee with.

She doesn't look like she used to, not at all

Especially when she's obviously trying to do better.

She still chews her tongue a bit

When she admits that she's wrong

And she's so very shy

When I ask her what to do

And she responds:

"I don't know."

I should tell her that I love her

A lot more often this year.


I've found that the heart is a wonderfully strange instrument

And that the soul is not an *****

But is something very, very real.

I've found that the former

Is as good at persevering

As it is at making messes

And that the latter

Is something all-too-useful

In the modern world.


I've found that most friends are fairweather

And, often, so am I.

I still hold out hope

That, maybe one day

I'll discover loyalty

That can be truly permanent.


Lastly, I've found that poetry

Is a beautiful vessel

Worth so much more

Than worrying about boys

Through a series of rhymes.

It's quickfire, artful catharsis

Freeing a caged dove

With words that make me feel

As if I can make my writing soar.

It's filled to the brim with love

And laughter

And tears

And imagination

And anger

And fear

And reflection

Just like these passing years.


And with every one I finish

I long for many more.

***** feet
***** of them ache
they're dry
all dried out, moisture to face and digestive tract make little difference
but comfort a little sort of; maybe
subdue to replenishing
skip the pain with a drink fucken, fucken drink fucken
dust lingers in the brain, it swirls
a cloud of ground envelops the shape of u
u become covered
u have a layer,
salty,
and dry
and 'organic'
(surely bio (though im not sure what is or why are))

full city boy, suburban boy, not particularly gritty boy
along side hippies
and volunteers all tripppy
and unwashed, and un plastic
yet forcefully hemped
drunk of micro beer
and burnt brown and blotchy red
and wire-y

and dry

and matted
as if nothing really matters except for principles
misguided and randomly enforced

feel like a husk; peanut shell
insides swallowed by the mouth of the party embodied
a monsterous sweaty man tanned and thickly bearded
and beered
fat dreads fall around and surround u; a forest of hair
a circle encroaching of fuzzy pillars in fibres
entrapped inside them; feel their lingering time matted hold
a wealth of effort to become unkempt; they are bars
they are walls
and the FACE!
………………………   ………………………………… oh
looming down, wafts of armpit vapour cloud; a looming puft that surrounds
engorged by the scent as it circles u, the mouth that lowered onto u
chews u and spills bits of u
chomp chomp
protein for vegetarians; u; ur rigour ur vigour ur guts
  
eaten in a flurry of chomps and slurps and it crunches
and it grates
like the rocks on the ***** of ur feet it grates

u are digested
and reused
as they would like
but for them; for a collective u dived into
for fun
2 days to peddle ur wares
to progress ( admittedly through some days of regression…)
for all humans, and Humans; for fun

on monday we will repent
for the damages waged on the inside of the body
and the outsides too
for some gain
i guess on this which we settle
for always for display for fun

I don't think most people understand depression
                                                    ­                         suicide
                                                         ­                           PTSD
or the cycles that they come in as if they were tides.

People don't see past the smiles and laughter to the darkness within;
That you could be surrounded by love and feel okay
                                                            ­                            yet still be dead

That no matter how much comfort or peace you have it still gnaws away in the beck of your mind and chews a hole in your heart.

Cut wrists and suicide attempts aren't a cry for attention but for help;
does anybody out there hear me? see me? feel the way I feel? does anybody get that I am on the edge and losing it? why does nobody listen? why don't they take me serious? am I worth anything?

It disgusts me we execute the wounded and condemn their suffering;
Maybe they shouldn't feel the way they feel, but it's how they feel, so quit trying to tell them to stop feeling that way!
QUIT TRYING TO FIX THEM

Just be there... they need to know they aren't alone.

An ex smoker,
          Picks up another cigarette
An old alcoholic,
          Can no longer abstain
A girl chews her lip, as a man starts to bite his nails.
A recovered boy,
          Drags a blade across his wrist
An anorexic girl,
      Tries to eat her salad,
           But can't hold it in

After Danez Smith's Dinosaurs in the Hood

Let's make a movie called *Lil Peep In Heaven
Transpotting meets 8 Mile meets six xanax bars
There should be a scene where Lil Peep climbs up a few flights of Stairs and makes it to the pearly gates, because there has to be pearly Gates

Don't let Bella Thorne star in this.
In her version she tongue-kisses Peep,
Chews scenery in platform boots and bright pink
Ripped jeans. **** that, Peep has a tattoo removed
By a saint, his laser is proof of all that is good

I want a scene where Peep throws his pill bottles
At Ganesha, a scene where Allah tells Peep he'll
Rot in his grave forever if he doesn't stop
His antics. Don't let GothBoiClique hold a
Funeral for Gustav. I don't want any of that

Sentimental **** about love and how life is too
Short. This movie is about a man/boytoy/ugly and dying thing,
Restarting his life with all the real-*** gods and patron saints and
Deities
Of every religion and every afterlife

I don't want some funny, dreadhead living in LA with a tattooed stick And poke commanding presence. This is not a vehicle for someone to Play Peep, this is a vehicle for Peep to play himself.]
I want his *******, white or not, praying. I want them far from their Knees.

I want Lil Peep to ride in a Benz truck down from the clouds, Screaming with spittle flying from his mouth the entire time.
I want Layla to post another video of Gustav slapping pans together Like a child. And I want Peep to see it all.

But this can't be a death movie. This can't be a death movie. This Movie can't be dismissed because it's too dark, or that a dead man is Playing the leading role. This movie can't be about crying, or cause people to cry. This movie can't be about a long history of emo coming To an end. This movie can't be about dying.

No one can say Peep is a pill-popping ******* who deserved his death Who wouldn't say it to his cadaver. No big pharmacy jokes in this movie. No bar, capsules or gels in the heroes, and Lil Peep never dies & Lil Peep never dies & Lil Peep never dies. Besides, the only reason I want to make this movie is for the first scene anyway; Lil Peep climbing up the cloudy stairs, his eyes dilated & empty

                                   the heaven before him filled with congratulations

Trigger Warning* depictions of ****** assault

Beach sands
peeling off a swimsuit
a wet slap
not quite drenched to the bone
yet still a burden
how it sits heavy on the tongue
a humid storm
inside you
heaviness in the prison of my ******
I am trying to pull up my *******
after my friend ***** me
in December
and I'm thinking of how everyone I love
has once hurt me
'moist' is the sound
of his fingers slipping inside me
I am closing my eyes
as the cotton of his shirt clings to my bare legs
and I am thinking that all the wetness must have
teeth
especially the wetness that grows within
and spills out
or chews its way through the skin
and falls onto another's
the night I was *****
everyone laughed
until the walls were moist
until it rained indoors
I say moist
and first, think about two naked bodies
the sound their skin makes
when I try to fight him off
underneath a hungry moon
in a house of warm heat
I saw moist
and think of his tongue against me
the bullet in his brain as I curse him
on a cold December night
the room
my *******
a dark red
I say moist
as in
my own blood spilling in my white ******* moist
or
his fingers moist as he pounded into me
so hard I bled
or my eyes moist when
I told my Momma what that boy had done to me
it felt like winter for ten years.

Katherine writes songs about wheat fields and her father’s blisters
From the four-by-six closet beneath the staircase.
Aaron doesn’t write anymore.

Katherine draws music notes to record
The tune of footsteps and creaking oak,
While Aaron feels the rough grain of maple window frames
And avoids his reflection in the double-paned glass.

Katherine holds tight to her pen
Like a man who’s lived a good life holds on to his final breath.
Aaron, he never found it that hard to exhale.

Katherine knows love like she knows the Sun,
While Aaron, who once flew wax-winged,
Stopped studying mythology
And found trust in extinguished light bulbs.

Katherine draws stick figures in the collected dust
Of cracked-cloth book covers
And embraces every particle that kisses her fingerprint.
Aaron wears black leather gloves
Like a desensitizing second-skin.
But they both close their eyes
When the wind brushes their cheeks.

When Katherine cries it’s wet and sloppy
And when it’s over she usually giggles
At the feeling of being human.
Aaron’s eyes are desert moons;
If he believed in a god he’d pray for rainstorms,
But instead he picks tumble weeds from his teeth
With the ribcage he found when the vultures were through.

Katherine webs outlines with plot twists and foreshadows
While Aaron knows some stories
Are made up as they’re written.

Katherine collects crushed asphalt from both sides of divided highways
And mixes it with ****** wax to varnish her innocence.
Aaron drives the back-roads and keeps one eye on the rearview mirror.
He finds solace in sharp turns.

Tonight, Katherine curls her toes as she writes a song about
loving up until your very last breath
And caresses her lips.
Aaron chews on his and slides open the window.
They both recall the taste of someone else’s skin from the salt in the air.
Katherine’s candle flickers and pops when she moves
Her hand through the light to cast stories on the wall.
Aaron crawls down the shadowed side of hallways
And feels the grey grow in his hair as he starts up the staircase.

Step by step by step by
each breath is
step by step
loved a little bit less
An all but silent cacophony of creaking oak.

Katherine etches a treble clef but her pupils dilate
When she senses the unfamiliar feeling of a second heartbeat.
With stitched silk stockings
she tip-toes up the same song.
Aaron hears music for the first time in so long
And turns to see where goose bumps come from.

Katherine crescendos at the top of the stairs and
Stares into two full, bright desert moons.
Aaron finds it hard to let go of the breath it takes to say,
“Don’t be afraid.”
Katherine tumbles like fingers down piano keys,
But for a split-second in the moment their eyes met
They both forgot the weight of loneliness.

I used to have a puppy
His eyes were big and brown
He messed upon my carpets
And knocked my ornaments down

He ate my favourite slippers
He chewed my armchair too
But I miss my little puppy
I really really do

If only I,d been more careful
Remembered to close the door
I,d still have my little puppy
That I have,nt got anymore

I still have his little collar
And his dog chews in the drawer
Still see his little scratches
On the back of the kitchen door

I thought of getting another dog
With a cute little face
But I used to have a puppy
That no dog could replace

So if you,ve got a pet
Please look after and take care
Cos I miss my little puppy
Now that he,s not there

NOTE: I visited a beautiful country garden with spectacular surroundings. In one area of the vast gardens there was a section with birdcages. The birds were very colourful and beautiful but they looked sad. A group of children took great pleasure in screaming and kicking the birdcages. Across from the cages was an open birdhouse where birds could come and feed. That idea of being imprisoned on one side and free on the other inspired me to write this poem.



Hark! Hark! Hark!

Can you hear our croaking cry? Please stop and don’t lark!

Our beaks now harp the songs of lamentations
From deep within our slumbering souls which are walled up in damnation,
But once there was a time,
Yes, there was an Age of carefree wonder and rhyme,
Oh, how we sped across the milky white cloudy miles,
We small band of caged brothers were kings of the skies,
The waves of wind rippled and sang through our feathers
As we danced amongst the trees and mountain heather,
The morning sun would drip nectar and honeydew,
Our music surged with the dawn chorus and to a crescendo grew,
We were the ships of paradise floating upon the golden light,
We sailed through the oceans of the deep blue skylight,

Yet here we are now...

We birds of paradise confined to these narrow dreadful hell’s cells,
O, my brothers, you who watch and stare and yell,
Your kind dared to ensnare us and everyday in pain we play,
Our glorious pride and colourful lustre plucked away,
Where once we flew freely with our brightly shining feathers
Now we hobble upon the grimy ground like tattered orphaned beggars,
Red, green, white and blue
These are the colours that so impress you,
Our rich and radiant plumage now rusts,
Please help us with your love and trust!

You stand and mimic and mock,
Some of you search for stones and rocks,
Outside these bars you prance and poke,
What would it feel for you to bear this prison’s infernal yoke?

Outside our weeping cage,
There upon a tall pole there sits a palace as white as freedom’s pure page,
It is a painted birdhouse built high upon the hilly *****,
How it glows, this home, this bright beacon of hope!
The windows are without bars or glass panes,
In that lovely house slavery is a shame,
The doorway has no lock nor door,
It is a home open to birds both rich and poor,
Birds breeze in and birds breeze out and move freely about,
They flutter in and flutter out,
They sing here, they sing there, they sing everywhere,
They have the freedom of life in the very air.

Is it true?
Was it you?
How could the one who built our cage
Also create the open birdhouse across the hilltop stage?

Look to me and tell me true,
Hey you! Yes, you who kicks my birdcage and chews!
Please look here and not at yonder black crow,
Can you for real cage the rainbow?



©Rangzeb Hussain

turn on a sixpence

i slipped on your silhouette,
as i crept in your shadow.
Obscured in your umbrage,
an abundance of dark.
Opaque mistakes clouded,
our nebulous hearts.
I shaded your colours in grey tone,
to take home,
your essence in plainclothes,
and our monotone goals.
I was your eccentric apprentice,
You were a trip to the dentist,
pulling me out of comfort zone.
I had decayed in ways,
concaved incisors seen better days,
yet in spite of my enlightened phase,
the sweetness of life took me away in a chain of abuse of penny chews and the absolution of front page news.
I choose me,
I choose you.
Now if i misstep,
i’ll turn on sixpence;
and my value to you will continue to grow over time.