"this is hoffman, what's going on, where can i find her?"

"there's a nursery rhyme delivering your baby in 114."

"wait, what are you saying, ma'am?"

"nurse heimlich is delivering your baby in room 114!"

"oh sorry, i've been under the weather (chasing the dragon)."

      the fog finds you,
      it'll take your place in time,
      there is no rhyme or reason,
      or even frame of mind.
      the fog blinds you,
      it can't segregate,
      it'll capture all your secrets,
      it doesn't hesitate.
      
      memory recalls you,
      don't procrastinate,
      synapsis fire like machine guns,
      in the middle of the day.
      sensory remembers truth,
      better claim your fate,
      this ain't the time to run,
      new life won't cleanse your slate.

"jane! i'm here. how is our girl? where's doctor klein?"

"she's..."

"shush! mr. hoffman, i'm nurse heimlich. please take a seat.

there were complications with jane's umbilical chord."

"****."

"your baby's lung collapsed, causing her to suffocate. now, we did the best that we could, but the air and blood just wouldn't flow back to her heart."

"i was told there was a nursery rhyme delivering my baby in 114. this isn't a nursery rhyme!"

"then learn something from it, mr. hoffman. I sure am."

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You

If he’d known
The world would mourn his passing,
Would he have overdosed on ******?
How much self-love does it take
To break the habit?
Would you grab it, if you could?
I think I would.
Even kids and wife
Can’t make that change in life:
The skid, the slide,
The gliding down and down
And even more…
Until you’re on the floor,
A needle in your arm,
Unconscious of your heart’s alarm
Whispering “Stop
– or else your time is up!”

SPH, you never knew
They’d mourn your passing
As they’re doing.  
That it would cry: the bylines, headlines
Sounding, bounding, ‘round the world in living print.
If you’d been more intuitive, more self in-touch, less self-indulgent,
Drugs might have been out-of
Thought and need, thought and greed, but…
Habit feeds on thought
And you were caught.  
And so,
We throw
No stones at windows,
Even if and though
We know the world will not cry at our passing.
We’ll mourn
And learn.

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You 2.3.2014
Special People, Special Occasions; Small Stories Book; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin
  



https://arlenecorwinpoetry.com/2017/02/03/seymour-phillip-hoffman-the-world-is-crying-for-you/

Three piles of stones…

Three I held most dear to my heart,
Three are those that perished,
Now three piles of stones fill the gaps,
That their ashen bodies have left.

Black reflective stones for my mother,
Who taught me all I know,
Who named me Green for my love of the garden,
My mother, who preferred blue-jay feathers to her pearls,
My mother, whose gap,
Occupied now by black stones.

Silver clear stones for my father,
Who was strong and honest,
My father, who once whistled a tune,
A tune returned by the surrounding sparrows,
My father, whose gap,
Occupied now by silver stones.

Pure white stones for my sister,
Who was beautiful and wild,
Who ran through the woods laughing
Who chased frogs through the mud,
My sister, who shone more bright than the moon,
Her gap,
Occupied now by pure white stones.

Three are those that perished,
The same number that I held most dear to my heart,
Ashes are their body remains,
Three piles of stones,
Now fill their gaps.

Ashes and stones…

Ashes and stones are all that is left,
Of the garden I loved to tend.
Zucchini and purple onions,
Peppers and blueberry bushes,
Row after row of prolific treasures,
Burned,
Banished,
Out of existence.

Onion and Ghost…

Onion,
My sister’s little terrier,
Who knew exactly what happened,
Who barked at the ash filled sky,
Onion,
The little terrier,
Who missed Aurora,
His watcher,
My sister…
My beautiful and wild sister.

Ghost,
The white grey hound,
A ghost dog,
White as a cloud,
Moving through the woods like mist,
The ghost dog,
Who resembled sorrow.

Onion and Ghost,
My two constant companions,
Who like me,
Have had their lives split into two halves,
The first, one of happiness and abundance,
The second, one of ashes and stones.

My neighbor…

The old woman,
Whose house stood in the woods,
Surrounded by an apple orchard,
The old woman,
Who had thrown stones to drive away,
The looters in my garden.

The old woman,
Who I repaid,
With a bucket and mop,
And made her house shine.

This old woman,
Wise and friendly,
Who traded birdseeds
For my bread loafs.

The Forgetting Shack…

The Forgetting Shack,
Where boys and girls drink gin to forget,
Where Heather Jones, with her white dress,
Dances around the fire,
Alone and lost.

Heather Jones,
Whose parents had perished,
Just as mine had.
Heather Jones,
Whom I gave my mother’s blue dress.

Heather Jones,
Who danced around the fire at the Forgetting Shack,
Whose feet were ****** from dancing all night,
Whose eyes were empty and sad.

Heather Jones,
Who soon disappeared,
Too busy with trying to forget.

Heather Jones,
Whose blue dress,
I found in torn pieces,
In the ashes of the fire.

Diamond…

The boy who ran from the fire,
Ran across the river,
In search of his mother,
Her portrait close to his heart.

The boy who didn’t speak,
The boy who was tired of running,
Who stood still as a shadow in my doorway,
Who wore his black hood to hide his eyes.

This boy,
Who I named Diamond…

Diamond,
With his hidden voice,
Me,
With my clouded eyes.

Leafs that were once black, now an apple green…

There was Onion and Ghost,
The sparrows and the wind,
And now there was Diamond.

I soon found myself singing,
Dancing,
Smiling.

The black ink leaves,
The black ink roses…
Slowly transforming into
Apple green.

Where did this change come from?
I was Ash,
With black ink in my skin,
With gray clouded eyes…

Green…*

Diamond is gone,
Diamond, who brought about change,
Diamond…
Who kissed me goodbye.

I missed Diamond,
Who painted watercolors,
Who believed the garden would grow again.

I missed Heather Jones,
Who wore my mother’s blue dress,
Who danced too close to the fire.

I missed Ghost,
A white mist through the trees,
A ghost dog,
Who resembled sorrow.

Most of all,
I missed my sister,
Aurora,
My beautiful, wild sister,
Who chased frogs through the mud.

I dreamed of those I missed,
I woke crying,
I cried away the cloudiness in my eyes,
Sun shown out the window,
Seedlings grew in the garden.

From then on, there was no Ash,
Ash blew away with the wind.

I was Green again,
Green who tended the garden,
Green who sang with the sparrows,
Green who danced in the sun,
Green who smiled.











*For my english class, we were assigned an independent reading project, and I chose to write a poem from the main character's perspective. The book is called "Green Angel" and the author is Alice Hoffman. Hoffman is one of the most beautiful writers of all time, and her books are extroadinary! I strongly suggest all you hello poetry friends to read it!

Winnie the Pooh is trying to think
As are Plato and Socrates
While The Little Rascals get rambunctious
And The Marx Brothers cause calamities
Jim Jones stirs the Kool-Aid
And Georgie Porgie makes his move
Bo Peep and Miss Muffett start to blush
Red Ridding hood just swoons
The Muffin Man does a deal
With Johnny Apple seed
These beings and people our real
In our Surreal Reality

******* lets the paint splatter
And Moses parts the sea
Belushi buys an eight-ball
Bruce is on trial for obscenity
Rorschach is on the case
Right behind Sherlock Holmes
John the baptist goes for a swim
Along with Brian Jones
Jack and Jill meet Hansel and Gretel
They're hungry, they're thirsty
These figments of imagination do exist
In our Surreal Reality

Rasputin was so evil
As bad as Captain Hook
Now was it ** Chi Minh or Nixon
Who said "I am not a crook?"
Mao Zedong looked at Stalin
With a shared murderous grin
Booth stormed the Ford theater
And shot President Lincoln
Kennedy and King we're both casualties
Of the process of the deciphering
Of our Surreal  Reality

Zeus said to Aphrodite
"Wow, you look real good tonight"
And Handel says "Hallelujah!"
As the Wright Brothers take flight
Baby Face Nelson
Teams up with Dillinger
Moe, Larry and Curly
Mengele, Mussolini and Adolf ******
Three bears, three little pigs
Along with three blind mice
Sit together, while Maurice Sendack
Cooks them chicken soup with rice
Charlie Bucket had a buy out
Wonka gave up his factory
Fiction or nonfiction it's all a apart
Of our Surreal Reality

Chicken Little tried his best
To warm The Little Red Hen
Of the sly trickster
They call Rumpelstiltskin
Rimbaud applauds Leonidas
And his 300's final stand
Da vinci  paved the way
For both Newton and Edison
Folklore and war heroes
And those with intellectual mentality
Are all just pieces
Of our Surreal Reality

Wee Willie Winkie's scream
Wakes up Rip Van Winkle
But not Sleeping Beauty who's been asleep for thirty years
But has no acquired a single wrinkle
Caligula has lost his mind
And Nero's lost his fiddle
What does Beethoven's hearing aid
Have to do the March Hare's riddle?
Abbie Hoffman fights for civil rights
Thomas Jefferson for democracy
Products of the conceptual
In our Surreal Reality

Berryman writes an ode
To Washington's wooden teeth
Manson speaks of Helter Skelter
Neruda damns the fruit company
Charles Schultz frames the story
And Seuss gives it rhyme
Some where far, far away
Taking place once upon a time
And the villagers all had omelettes
Thanks to clumsy Humpty Dumpty
It's all food for thought
In our Surreal Reality

Santa brings us presents
And Cupid bring us love
But we can never get back
The members of the 27 Club
Warhol makes his movies
And Buddha meditates
Joseph Smith reads the golden plates
Mohammed and Jesus save
Theses figures bring people hope
In life's dualities
Trusting faith
And our Surreal Reality


Han Solo is in carbon freeze
Don Juan's preoccupied
Sinbad sets his sails
Simple Simon didn't get his pie
Caesar looked at Brutus
Brutus looked at Saddam Hussein
Hussein looked at L. Ron Hubbard
Who prayed to Eloheim  
Dionysus can out drink us all
We cringe at Achilles fatality  
As Ra soars through the skies
Of our Surreal Reality

Aristotle says to Shakespeare
"Well Billy you old bard"
Frodo trades the ring of power
To Fidel Castro for a Babe Ruth Baseball card
Biggie and Tupac write their lyrics on paper
Ted Bundy is put in jail
They're making another skyscraper
For King Kong to scale
Hemingway is too far gone
Kant's take on morality
Einstein says it's all relative
In our Surreal Reality

Churchill said victory
John Lennon said peace
Judas gave back the silver
Then hung himself in a tree
Tojo and Kim Jong-il
Wanna be as cool as Brando and Dean
George Carlin warned us all
Now Hermes leaves the scene
So do the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker
Followed by Old King Cole and his Fiddlers Three
As they make their way to find
A sense or Surreal Reality

Odysseus pines for Ithaca
Paul Bunyan chops the trees
The Jersey Devil has not been found
Noah herds the animals by twos not threes
Anubis wraps the mummies
And Augustus leads Rome
Bugs Bunny laughs with Pryor
All at the expense of Job
So what can we all make of this
Is this all actuality?
Symbolism or nonsense?
Realistic Surrealism or Surreal Realty?

I moved a few years ago
To the upper state of Vermont
Although the place is beautiful
At times it can be one great big yawn

That's when we put our heads together
Me and my best friend Shawn
And came up with the great idea
To start a Hippie Farm

Our noggins were a knocking
Not sure how this could be done
Do Hippies come from packs of seeds
Or like flowers, in a bunch

And can you start them off by grafting
Like they do on Apple Farms
Where you get rows and rows of Hippies
From just a single one

That's when Shawn remembered this mail order magazine
That we took out and took a look inside
It came with an assortment of Hippies
From Raw to Roasted to Highly Deep Fried

So we sat and weighed all of our options
And ordered a bushel of Hippies alive
Then we set out cultivating the fields
Till the day our Hippies arrived

The package  arrived a few days later
In an old beat up VW Bus
With psychedelic smoke pouring from the windows
Pretty sure they all came buzzed

Of course Hippies don't come with instructions
Only bell bottom jeans and old Jefferson Airplane tapes
Can't tell you how many Hippies we went through
Before we learned from our mistakes

Like don't plant a Hippie face first in the dirt
They need a bit of air to breath
And they don't like to be over watered
Just dust them off when you feel the need

Now that the farm is up and running
We seem to have come into our own
We've even come up with  a way of branding
Some of the Hippies that we've grown

We started selling them in flavors
Like Ben and Jerry's down the street
From our Abbie Hoffman Radical Cherry
To our Hendrix Hazy Purple Berry Treat

But it's our Groovy Rainbow Roundup Hippie
Whose sales have never let us down
In fact I'd put that Hippie up against
Anybody else's Hippie in town

I've never been much of one to brag
But we're known on the East coast, up and down
We've had people as far away as Florida
Come and buy our Hippies by the pound

So next time your up in Vermont
Stop in and take a tour and watch us grow
Don't forget to stop by our gift shop
And purchase your very own Hippie to take home

I know nothing about this discontentment,
This irritation and friction with sanity,
Suddenly it feels like I have not known my sanity,
Ever.
I have a confession to make.
To my parents,
3 decades older than me.
To tell them that I’ve been lying to them,
Lying about my degree, education and academic wealth,
For almost two years.
The fact is,
I had no choice but to tell them all is well
When the awls were pricking into my tender innards.
The time has come now,
Because I can no longer continue telling the untruth,
I tried if I could crawl in the campus,
Under the tag of being institutionalized,
For them.
Every day that I kept a straight face to them,
I trembled and felt the roars of the rising schizophrenic worlds, bit by bit, all around me.
I felt the unknown telugu that I heard in my mother tongue,
In my dad's voice.
Him renouncing me.
Him grabbing his head,
So as not to explode from the dirge of my living dead.
I hear my parents abusing me, in the random shouts of my neighbors.


I saw it all so clear.
I screamed.
I ranted.
But, found no warmth anywhere.
The fear, anticipation and confusion have killed my sanity.

Today, I flutter like a half-winged bird,
In the darkness of yesterday,
That my parents count as lit.
But then I released,
Knowledge is free.
And, knowledge is everywhere.
And knowledge came to me,
not with the stamps and seals of degrees,
But the enlightenment
From a concoction of three snorts of ******* and a dash of a little LSD on a Hoffman blot.
I rebelled mad in my high,
That I will no longer be institutionalized.
That I’m a free soul.
I became sober,
But my interests did not change.
Its been two years,
And I’m still astray, waiting to fully feel the freedom I have opted for.
For the pain of the mismatch I pour into my parent’s ears,
It kills me each day, second and time.
I have the guts to confess to my parents,
With neither shame nor embarrassment,
That my path is true and solid.
I wish not to be trained no more, to live.
I wish to simply live on my own.
I want them to know the truth.
That I have my house.
My kitchen.
My milk pan, mixer and fridge.
Today, if that **** that happened 5 years ago to me,
had happened now,
I know how to stand.
On my feet,
and hand him, my ******,
over to the law's eagle blind beaks sharper than the awl of my gossamer mists. Rather than bend my conviction, arrogance and identity to that ******* of a coward.

I want them to know that this is the only way.
Today,
I earn myself.
I live myself.
I’m free.
I have to be free.
I write all that I will.
And do forever the same.
I just,
Have to be free.
I will be free.

‘Twas but a rare, snowy day in Paris,
a January day, as all the lights of the city
rested, as dancers of the Moulin Rouge
fixed their make up during the intermission

And in the graveyard of Père Lachaise
there stood a solitary figure of an old man,
his hands gathered together politely,
in front, clenching on to a tattered flat cap

The man stood in front of a grey wall,
“a tomb without a cross or chapel,
or golden lilies, or sky-blue church windows,”
but with an equally lonesome little plaque
that read, ‘Aux mort de la commune,
21 28 Mai 1871’

He lit a cigarette, from which he took just one puff,
stuck it upside-down on a patch of dirt,
then notwithstanding the thunderstorm
of camera flashes from Japanese tourists,
he started to sing, with a hoarse yet firm voice,
“Debout, les damnés de la terre,
Debout, les forçats de la faim…”

As the wrinkle on his forehead began to stretch,
the dusty particles of ice piled higher and higher
on neighboring graves commemorating
French members of the International Brigades
and Spanish maquis of the French Resistance
-apparently the 3,400 meters height of Pyrenees
was merely a backyard *****
for ideas and fates to tread over barefooted-

His song was a ballad of unrequited passion;
when he got to the chorus about some final struggle
and the unity of human race in a silly hymn,
a song that was never played on a radio,
for which no cool kid would ever
spend $0.99 on iTunes store,
his voice started cracking in amorous choke

The old man was a lifetime lover
in the truest spirit of a Frenchman,
spent all his life trying to charm a girl named Emma Ries,
and whenever he dreamed of holding
the eloquently bruised hands of that sixteen years old seamstress,
his eyes swelled of nostalgic heart,

And he used to cry joyfully,
dropping tears of bullets back in the days,
whether by the guillotine in Place de la Concorde,
behind the barricades of Belleville amidst the cannonballs,
******* in front of the Gestapo firing squads,
or under the truncheons of gendarme in Quartier Latin

As the expired old ******* moaned wet dreams,
hallucinogic delusions of his bygone youth, however,
the chilly, soggy winter of 20th arrodissement piled on,
the ashen slums of Ménilmontant depressingly ugly as always
with brownish-grey molten snow spattered all over
the streets trotted by drug dealers and wife beaters,
and neither the fiery oratory of Maurice Thorez
nor the sanguine grenade of Colonel Fabien
was around to arson the frost into the proletarian spring

In the same winter that the old man sang
the first, only, and last lovesong of his life,
it had been more than two decades already
since the Berlin Wall had tumbled down
and the ruling parties in Greece and Spain,
both socialists,
had just driven 500,000 workers out of their jobs

-J.P. Proudhon, Marx and Engels, Jean Jaures, V.I. Lenin,
Leon Trotsky, Antonio Gramsci, Leon Blum, Abbie Hoffman-
by the time the old man muttered an old pop-song nobody cared for,
all of those names were as relevant as some Medieval knights,
characters from an obscure chronicle centuries ago,
who died by charging horseback into windmills,
mistaking them for giants that held whom they thought as
a princess of an ugly peasant woman,

Eventually, right before his voice cracked
into an embarrassing fuddle of choked-up tears,
impressive for a seventy something years old,
the man finished the song from his memory,
all the way up to the sixth stanza;
yet the curvaceously splintered palm of a seamstress,
it was still so far away from his hands that’s been pleading
since 1871 for that glorious *******
which once stood so proudly in the face of a Czernowitz magistrate

When the cigarette he stuck upside down on the dirt
burned all the way down, he reached into his coat,
took out a rose, laid it softly, like his own infant child,
in front of the plaque which golden inscriptions
turned grey from unwashed grimes of ages
and as the old fool walked away,
his back turned away from the solemn wall,
there was but one little patch of dirt in the whole of Paris
uncovered by snow, still hoping for the spring to come.

Rainbow village Episode 17



Fred, Lyle and Georgina decided to walk down to the shopping mall about 15 minutes away from Rainbow village, and as they were walking some of the young hooligans were skidding down, burning rubber, and some bikies did wheelies, which made Lyle jitter and he ended up saying, that you guys ate a pack of losers and should be f..n locked up, and one hooligan threw a rock right in his face, and Lyle collapsed straight away, while Fred stayed with Lyle, while Georgina went for some help.
Fred told Lyle not to panic, even if he was in pain, and then 2 hours later. The culprit came over, and told Fred, when I was a little boy, I was taken from my home, by a weird man who fits his description and his age, and I know his name, because I don't forget much from those days, and when he said that Gia name was Lyle Hoffman, Fred couldn't understand,
And Lyle told him, that he didn't **** him, so why do you want revenge, and he said because no one ever gets his hand on Peter Buchanan, and now, Lyle, you are going to be ******* in the public toilets, but I think I want you not to be as lucky as I was, so Fred, you go back to your retirement village, (which he said moving his fingers up over his head) and let me deal with Lyle Hoffman and Fred pulled out his mobile to call the police and Peter knocked it out of Fred's hand and then he said, that he doesn't trust him, so Peter took Lyle and Fred hostage and brought them to a rundown factory, and when he got them into the machinery room, Peter set the bomb to go off, in 3 hours, Peter wasn't wanting to **** Fred, so he made his rope escapable, but Lyle's ropes were on tight, and when Fred got free, he went over to rescue Lyle, but his rope was too tight, and he couldn't get the rope loose.
Lyle told Fred, his version of events, which didn't sound good for Lyle's defence, because it sounds like Lyle made his bed, and wanted Peter to lie in it,
What Lyle said, he got sick of Peter and his mates teasing him and to get revenge Lyle grabbed Peter and pulled him into the car and drove him off to the country, and then when he got him there, Lyle decided to get his gun and stick it at Peter, to make him too scared to say anything, but Lyle said in his defence, he let Peter go before the police arrived and shot through, and then he told Peter, tell a soul and your dead, and Peter was scared shitless, and apparently Peter hasn't worked since, but Lyle called him a gutless trouble maker.
Peter came back in and Fred told him, I see why you are doing this, Lyle told us the whole story, but you are making you just as bad as him, and Peter said, he is the reason why I am walking around psych wards all my life, and if you don't let me **** Lyle, I will go to Rainbow village and tell the manager that Lyle should be locked up, and not given the lap of f..n luxury, and Fred told Peter, please spare him, I have the name of a good lawyer, and he can help you get justice against Lyle, and Lyle went. 'hey'.  And then began to be super scared of Peter, because what happened was a long time ago, but Peter didn't give a hoot, but Fred's advice made sense, though, if he loses Fred will cop it, big time.
So Peter let Fred and Lyle go, but that wasn't it, no Peter rang up this bloke and, yes, Lyle went to court, and in court Lyle was getting fried, a he can't seem to defend himself properly, Lyle said one word and the prosecutor kept throwing stuff at him, and despite Lyle having Rainbow village giving him character references and all thar, Lyle's defence wasn't looking too good, and after 1 week of 3 sessions, the magistrate brought the matter in front of a higher court, which could mean jail time for Lyle, and the date was exactly 3 months time, Lyle was scared as he said to Fred. It's all your fault, he was a blushing trouble-maker and Fred said, yes but it still ain't right.
The end

It has happened again
While I'm not looking...
Snow drops and crocuses
tumbling into tulips and azaleas
The slow muted understory of color on the snow
Traipsing toward the waking sun
that herald robin
V of the geese
ever-pointing the direction
out of darkness
into life

...to reach the crescendo, yet again
Leave behind the bud ~
exquisite ~ Hope
of mere possibility
of dew jewels scattered in the green

And never grow tired of this procession

to love life
to love life

Love ~
Inexpressible

Love inaccessibly fragile
fool of a child
we always long to be
Love ripped apart at the V

**** this restricting world!
**** this corporate America!
Just kidding, we’re free

or

we’re told we are free
given a right to life liberty and property,
well originally,
but now we have the right to pursue happiness,
not to be happy, just to look for it,

But my search is over.
Who could ever be happy in this polluted world?
No polluted like the air,
polluted in the mind,
We are sick twisted carbon copies of what was once greatness

No room in the curriculum for questioning
MCAS MCAS MCAS
SAT SAT SAT
AP AP AP
these standardized tests **** originality  
****** questioning
Memorizing the test is blinding,
shutting out the good things in this still wondrous world,

you see me sitting quietly in my room,
My mind is screaming
you see me sitting calmly at my desk
I violently ****, and pull, and stretch the cage I’m in
taken captive by a so called reality

A reality in which money is the same as success
A reality where feeling is a sign of weakness,
and a reality in which fun is only for stupid children
when did this horror begin?

Money is meaningless just a piece of paper
feeling is NOT weakness it’s what reminds us we are human
and fun is something everyone needs sometimes

I was given hands, a mind, a mouth and legs
these are (from what I’m told) the tools required to rise above this reality
Yet this image, this illusion is stopping me
this illusion that my tools are inadequate broken

It’s like that favorite toy a young child has because
as I said fun is just for kids, by the way thanks for denying us Trix
anyways he’s at school all day
just waiting to play with it,
unable to think about anything else,
and he gets home and runs through his mom cooking in the kitchen
rushed up the stairs
almost trips but doesn’t
and he gets to his room picks up this fantastic toy and
it’s batteries are missing

This is like me

My hands have the ability to write,
to draft new ideas
beautify the world with diction and rhetoric
unify the world with strong words
that have positive connotation,
because I don’t want to pursue happiness
I’m a little greedy and it’s like this
if I have the right to live
and the right to liberty
than I am making **** sure that I am happy

My mind is a holy vessel
or it was before I let it be molded
before I betrayed the great thinkers that came before me
it should be home to morals and ethics,
yet it’s filled with lies
all my productive thoughts blocked
by the newest TV series on ABC and FOX

My mouth would be very useful
if my mind would help me think of something intelligent to say
oh I wish I didn’t betray
let them in day by day
infusing me with poisonous thoughts
thought of memorizing facts not understanding them
thoughts about questioning being the same as stupidity
thoughts lacking individuality

My legs should help me
stand up for what I believe in
Like Martin Luther King did
Like Fredrick Douglass did
Like The Framers, Rosa Parks, Abbie Hoffman
and Abraham Lincoln did
Stuff I would fight for
live, cry, and die for-
But I’m feeling crippled today

We’ve run out of Prophets Renegades and leaders

we are part of a generation too easily influenced and too quickly swayed
but what can I say? I am a victim just like you
and I’m curious as to what we need to do

I have-I’m not sure yes yes I think it’s an idea
and I might need you

Lets hold each other up
support our crippled legs with one another
lets question even when we’re told there’s no room
lets resurrect originality I mean after all
we have the right to life liberty and property,
well originally

I offer a few quiet
words under my breath. (1)

“I wish you a tongue
scalded by tea.”(2)
“I was born
of the fist. The hot Irish
Temper.”(3) “I am a master of Escape. Show me a body,
I’ll show you an exit ramp.”(4)

(For,) I want everything
to call me night.(5)

This is the dream where I play
God. And the front door opens(6)
In lakes, floating
logs ignite, burn. All the
fury is finally here:(7)

Once wayfaring strangers(8) as tall as steal as the New York Times(9)
that once they sang from our dark street (10), the song goes: Heart.

Ribcage. Envelope.(11)

______

(1) Adam Falkner, Poem for the Lovers at Pickerel Lake, http://friggmagazine.com/issuethirtysix/poetry/falkner/pickerel.htm

(2) Jeanann Verlee, Guilt, Not Grief, http://www.wordriot.org/archives/4780

(3) Jeanann Verlee, The Brawler, http://www.radiuslit.org/2011/04/09/radius-roger-bonair-agard-jeanann-verlee-adam-falkner/

(4) Joanna Hoffman, On Learning to Open My Eyes, http://www.pankmagazine.com/three-poems-37/

(5) Kallie Falandays, If Morning Never Comes, http://www.pankmagazine.com/two-poems-75/

(6) Benjamin Sutton, Notes from the Daydreaming, http://anti-poetry.com/anti/suttonbe/

(7) Jenny Sadre-Orafai, Treasure In Timber, http://www.pankmagazine.com/two-poems-74/

(8) Lauren Yates, The World According to My Heart, http://usedfurniturereview.com/2013/03/20/the-world-according-to-my-heart-by-lauren-yates/

(9) Robert Gibbons, These Mean Streets, http://www.poembeat.com/fall2011/RobertGibbons.html

(10) Michael Lauchlan, Unseen Larks and Immeasurable Intervals, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/march-2013-michael-lauchlan.html

(11) Leigh Philips, Dear New York City, Learn Gentle, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/march-2013-leigh-phillips.html

(*) Jeanann Verlee, Good Girl, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/january-2013-jeanann-verlee.html

America, you never had a chance
America, you and I both know there's only one way this ends
America, you aren't going to like it

America, what did you do to deserve the millions of revolutionaries in your streets?
America, whose bones are in the ground beneath your feet?
America, what did your father say before he left?
America, what did your sons bring home  from war?
America how holy was your birth that you can't move on?
America, who will be left behind when you do?
America, I'm too sentimental about you and I know it
America, I watched the workers hold the line for months and you locked the doors
America, I watched those people starve
America, I watched you build a cage and call it Chicago, call it Missouri, call it Baltimore, call it Dayton call it what you want and forget
America, I watched you forget
America, you forgot your angels
America, the saints want to destroy you and I don't feel sorry for you not anymore
America, I let go of you in pieces
America, I watch your flag burn to cinder and drift away
America, I watch you die every night
America, I loved you once and now I'm nothing
America, how did you repay Ginsberg's love?
America, where did you bury Eugene V Debs?
America, did you follow Abbie Hoffman to hell?
America, where are your heroes?
America, what did you do to the workers who never crossed the picket lines?
America, what did you give the black kids for Christmas?
America, what price do the immigrants pay for your freedom?
America, who do they pray to?
America, what do you pray for?
America, I pray too much for someone who doesn't believe in you
America, you never had a chance
America, I pray you get one, I owe you that much at least

"I'm sorry," I remembered saying.
"I'm having a hard time with words right now."
My brother nods his head,
unsurprised and worried.
"I'm going to go get another drink," he says,
and I understand that much,
before words lose all meaning
again.

Venomous slithering silk gown
Adressed the chandeliers in the
Marrakesh's dusky evening, just
To outshine the simmering glass

There were gentelmen and ladies
Chit chating politely, uninterested
Awaiting on a dinner to be served.

He noticed the scarf, she thougt to
Herself. Unending in memory are
Hoffman's grand thrilly fairytales.
I wish he'd gather the bold pirates
Of his conquering intentions and..

The drone swept silent
between the maple tree
and the shed

zapped my dog Shep
with an electric bolt
that vaporized him instantly

while Mr. Stone next door laughed
I told you, Hoffman
to shut that **** dog up

just as my drone
launched a fire grenade
up the exhaust pipe
of his new Lexus

yet somewhere
in the akashic record
of my sweet country
a muleteer helps
pull his neighbor’s wagon
out of the mud
that follows
a torrential rain

How many heroes have chosen this path,
Of least or no resistance?
In the face of overwhelming odds,
Or staring at cubicular, corporate submission;
Elect instead the stance
Of simply
Doing
Nothing?

Victorian ladies thought it amusing;
20th Century Centurions and Puritans condemned it.
The spoon-fed rich live it and lose nothing.
Russian aristocrats sometimes recommend it…
When spurned in love & up against it.

Oblomov, for instance, whiled his time away,
In bed, or staring out at the wood,
Writing meaningless letters and ignoring the day,
Yet it still did him some good.

Marat in his bathtub, Proust in his bed,
Still accomplished SOMETHING
Or we’d have forgotten them instead.
Is there still no virtue in doing nothing?

Against the tide of corporate work,
Aquarians rebelled with dance.
Later on, Generation X
Came to work in a greedy trance.

Peter Gibbons was hypnotized,
To escape his lifeless job,
Destroyed the office as it was downsized,
But was promoted by “the Bobs”.

Some lesson there, for those who strive,
That work alone is not enough.
Attitude is more important to our lives,
That revolt by nothingness is not that tough.

Abbie Hoffman was thrown through windows,
While preaching peace instead of wrath.
Despite nobility of cause, does humanity still go,
The inexorable way of sloth?

Sharon Talbot

Vulnerable
Like the small turtle crossing the road alone.
Confused
Like having Christmas lights out in mid-July.
Self-conscious
Like the dock that seemed to be hiding under the water rather than conquering it.
I dreamt about being lost
Like the people in apartment 66 who have been evicted
Free to be the person I want to be
Like the wildflowers that sprout along the road.
Independence here
Like the only pink house on Hoffman Street.
Real friends
Like being part of a flock,
Like being part of a town,
Like being a part of my Poughkeepsie.

I wanted to be like
Abbie Hoffman before,
until I built a prison
of my own.
Now I am trapped within
the usual circle
that I have grown
tired of,
even before I start,
even before everything ends.

Fade in: Ext. Theater - Day
Cue clouds: gray shrouds
blanket the sky
and the sun's last remaining rays
Cut to: Ext. Theater - Noon
Cue crowd: no sound,
no song comprise
the mise en scene
of this somber scene
Fade in: Int. Theater - Night
Cue sound: few gasps,
some oohs and ahhs,
some cries comprise
the mise en scene
of this joyous scene
Cut to: extreme close up
Their eyes reflect the faces on the screen:
Newman, Hoffman, Brando, Ledger
Pacino, De Niro
Penn, Caine, Dean
Fade out

So shut off the lights and close your eyes
The demons come crawling in
Their creeping deep inside
These shallow thoughts now becoming so vivid during the eerie nights
It’s definitely not alright
Can’t seem to escape them or break the chains they display in your mind
Constantly battling the urge to feel the pain their causing you inside
It’s taking such a toll on one’s daily life  
Missing the bright crystal blue skies in the days we often felt alive
Moods constantly changing like the seasons and in our heads their telling us “trust it’ll be fine”
Can’t seem to shake them in the darkest of times
Can’t seem to break them out of the chains that they live shackling inside
Getting tired and restless it’s becoming so hectic
Don’t sleep well most nights
Should we just slip and let them rip us alive?

-Brian Hoffman (9-13-20)

Like an expectant batter at the plate,
sitting on the Pitcher’s change of pace,
Philip took the speedball for a strike.
Imagine the surprise upon his face.

Found by a friend upon his bathroom floor,
The last used needle still stuck in his arm,
Philip heard the Speedball called strike three.
Inevitably, the addict came to harm.

Some will weep to see such talent wasted,
while Realtors will inquire on his space.
Philip Seymour Hoffman burned too brightly;
some other star will come to take his place.

The friend I know
is not the friend I knew

His once open smile -
focused, pleasant -
has become a fast fade,
changing instantly
into a serious unforgiving expression,
a Dustin Hoffman smile,
fleeting, formidable,
a solemn face that closes gates,
builds walls,
seals fate,
the expression of an
enigmatic character
in a strange novel
speaking endlessly
with great authority
and then
just like that
vanishing
with a turn of the page...
never ever appearing again

He smokes. Lips pull thin white clouds of relief into his lungs but when he is done he will head back in to the dark den of machine men. There used to be better days. Now strange alchemy has turned his soft body hard, smooth skin wrinkled, white teeth cracked and yellow, and soul into a mutilated mess. The fence vibrates with his passing frustration as one foot cracks the corner. Would have been a ****** mess if not for the tight steel toed shoes, that add about half a pound a piece. His fatigue weighs so much more. A heaviness stops him at the door. It is like he is walking in a world of gravity set at twice the normal rate. Safety goggles, lunch lady hair net, and ear plugs have become his nighttime uniforms.
“Five hours and twenty-three minutes to go.” He recites like Dustin Hoffman’s rain man.
The mechanical madness beckons him in with a thud da dud, thud da dud, thud da dud.
“At least it is a midnight shift and not a hot summer day shift.” He thinks as he shrugs off the last remnants of his reservations.