the best metaphor ever:
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;"

—William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7[1]
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
for Ernest L. Gonzales,
an overdue uncommissioned tribute

~
mined the meta data,
mined the meta world,
for the meta~for,
the truth serum ether
that gives me a breather,
turns out Willie's
meta-rumination
spot on, the boy's dotty
meta~ruination

no longer my eyes see
your eye test chart lettered reality,
tears of alpha~poetry all I got,
cloudy visionary
with wordy meatballs reigning,
charting a schooner's course,
on a Texas-sized ocean of poetic reality

police took away my licenses.

illegal for me have both,
they, city~proclamation proclaimed,
driving and poetry~striving simultaneously,
dangerous for life and limb,
claiming I drove like
I was in a poetry slam video game,
had to explain I was trapped
in the world of poetic-reality

where the alpha~words
afloating in the atmosphere,
imagery balloons preventing
crystalline vision,
so one or the other,
this world of mine,
the world of poetic reality,
is my baggage carried
and a foot in both
worlds  be word dangerous for global health

ticketed for doing 85+
in the left poetry fast lane,
judge disallowed my only excuse,
mentally composing multiple haikus,
and needed my fingers and toes to do
syllable counting

now you know why
I write poetry on the bus

no, the kid kids you not,
the only arrest on record for
poetry-composing intoxication
under the influence,
while operating an
auto~mobile ma~chine

Went to the bodega
for some late night vanilla swirl,
the immigrant behind the counter,
at 2:00 am, gave me my change
in tales from Bangladesh

late for work,
took me a fat taxi,
the driver, a city life comber~climber,
asked credit or cash,
and I said kind sir,
you do me great credit,
if a poem in Urdu
you would recite in lieu of payment

now you know why
I write poetry on the bus

So, my dear Ernest,
life is our poetic reality,
you are the best ever metaphor,
the one poets keep stealing from
each other,
at the intersection
of our eyes crossing

in fact,
ole Willie stole the world's most famous
metaphor's inspiration above,
when me and he,
once pub crawling,
we disagreed if a certain door
was the pub entrance or the exit,
and the next day
in a burst of
Poetic Reality,
he composed-stoked stole them words,
in a hangover haze

*so the poet point be this:
we may live in and of this world gritty,
but the only show
we ever know'd
was turning life
into the poetic one

Do you think,
the yellow brick road,
sparkles when,
it rains?
Dorothy,
we aren’t,
in Kansas,
anymore.
The tin man,
has become,
your best friend,
and your dog,
he’s running away.
Oh poor Dotty,
I’m so sorry,
the witch,
it’s actually,
deep inside.
Don’t you,
understand?
It’s raining,
the hanging man,
he’s swinging,
and the road,
it’s sparkling.

Gloria was a grump,
delightful Felicity a frump,
Sara a bit of a chore
Liz liked gore,
Azi cried alot
Jill cared not a jot
for anyone, I learned
Cecila's stomach churned,
Roberto enjoyed her food
In public, Edie was rude,
Faizi liked to laugh
Katie liked to ****,
Esmeralda loved to ski
until she broke her knee,
Toni drempt of fame
but ended on the game,
Jen constantly made love
worn out, she resides above,
Queenie liked her drink
spent her days throwing up in a sink,
Julie adored her kids,
both are on the skids,
Siham adored money
was always miserable, never funny,
Frankie cared for wealth
spent a fortune on her health,
Jasmine was dour
more nettle than flower,
Ruby liked to cook,
Cynthia preferred a book,
Fill wanted to marry,
she eventually met Barry,
Aysha had great beauty
and was shrewdly dotty,
Anna was a shrew
which everyone but me knew,
Kath used excessive perfume-
smoking me out of my bedroom,
Pauline constantly showered
while Jackie always glowered
at strangers in the street-
where Carol and I met
on New Years Eve 2011
and for a month I was in heaven,
until my short affair
with nimble Clair,
Toni ate sparingly
lean meat and leaner celery,
Jo ate five times a day,
No one got in her way
of food, while Chris ate
tons of icecream, getting stuck in a gate
one day when off to work,
I took the opportunity, like a ****,
to leave waving goodbye
from my car. Why?
Essie was beside me
and again I needed to be free,
which a month later so did she!
Mitch bought me another
borrowing it off her brother,
who much bigger than me,
once more I was impelled to flee.
Suzanne in France
lead me a dance,
having other men every day
when I was away,
while Adalene
worked on my brain
and Genevieve broke my heart,
briefly, when apart
holidaying in the Alps with Jean
until her curiosity done
she came back and apologised,
and thereafter we thrived,
and would still be together
had not Heather
seduced me one day
when Genevieve was looking the other way
and did not see
Heather kissing me
by the pool
in Dakar, Senegal,
or making love
in rainy Vaduz,
holding hands in Bern
near a milk churn
having a bit of a lover's palava
in Bratislava.
When she found me with Ruth in Moscow
Genevieve told me sharpely to go,
I went. Ruth went off with Jean
and I took the first plane home,
meeting Jess in Heathrow
we took a taxi to Wivenhoe,
living there a year,
where fattened up with calorific beer
dressed now in grandad fashion
I started making a sullen impression
on even those who loved me,
but still, good reader, I needed to be free
so here I am now with Daphne
the final woman for me.

I met Adele in my son's first school
so, reader, I guess I'm just an unstructured fool,
for along came Celeste, Diane and Frick
making me still a colossal p......k.