A rook, a rook
Flew from the sky
And landed on a tree.
Spoke to the snake
That lie there:
"Snake, what do you see?

"I rise above,
I fly high,
Know all the human breed.
Seen kings and queens,
Even a princess-child
And all the warrior's deeds."

"Rook, oh rook",
Hissed the snake.
"You are so naîve.
You see strength
And beauty, too,
But they lie just as they breathe."

"Snake, oh snake,
What do you say?!
That is not true!
It's merry a life;
That I do know
I watched from high blue."

"Rook, oh rook,
You flew too high,
I know what they've got;
To ******, deceive,
Fight and ****,
Their tales are full of blood."

"Snake, oh snake,
You must lie,
I haven't seen such thing.
But let me tell
Of what I saw
Of wars and weddings.

There was a man,
Vain and full of greed,
So proud and so old.
Would never spare a coin,
But as a beggar he saw,
He gave him a coin of gold."

"Rook, oh rook,
I saw it too,
But that was not the end;
The beggar him stalked,
To his home,
And with a dagger in he went."

"Snake, oh snake
Let me tell
Another one:
Of a wedding so bright,
Of a king and his queen,
He kissed her and gave her the crown."

"Rook, oh rook,
Don't believe all you see!
Didn't you hear the queen cry?
The marriage was forced,
Their bond forged,
And she jumped down her tower high."

"Snake, oh snake,
I've seen battles grand,
Where heroes and legends fought.
The earth shattered,
The elements they've torn,
And flames from the sky they brought."

"Rook, oh rook,
That was no battle fair,
Just unglorious assault.
They died like flies,
All of them,
And were buried in nameless vaults."

"Snake, oh snake,
Listen close,
As I tell you of heartens blaze;
Once I saw two lovers,
Kissing under moonlight,
At a lake that mirrored their grace."

"Rook, oh rook,
That I saw as well.
They soon had broken up.
The next day,
She was found dead,
He murdered her out of love."

"Snake, oh snake,
If you speak true,
Then all I knew was wrong!
But then, dear snake
Wouldn't they be
Nothing but spoiled flesh and bone???"

"Oh, but that's it,
Rook, oh rook,
The inhuman, human lot.
They are alive,
And vivid they breathe,
And yet
They
Rot."

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

Black Rook In Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

The Response*

Even while flashbulbs go out, every now and then, we all must gather our arms and legs in a heap of human kindling, to rap tap tap on the downstairs neighbors door- for a set of candles, perhaps a chance to go completely insane for one terse moment when the hyperbole of vowels *just don't matter anymore.

And speaking of the sordid state of griseous gull-like creatures. Ravenous ravens gnawing outside the window of the kitchen table. How boring life can become, for at the moment, when we are not biting our nails, playing dress up, or playing doctor- all *******. Or maybe even burying our heads in the looks of rooks or with our noses brimming over with the tops of books.

The tea we have set in the study awaits us, as we all have to drink our tea some time.

Just don't leave the lights on baby. Who needs lamps at full lux at high noon any who? You, Mrs. Sylvia Plath Hughes? Maybe you ought to buy a book of stamps- at the nearest Hobby Lobby, pack a paper bag with an apple and a 'sammich', and list formally your complaints.

We can't all waste our time narrating other people's lives in the third person.

I used to think that all of them were just bodies. She-figures, they came and went, facilitating infinite happiness and following with hellacious heartbreak, aorta explosions galore. They pass. I stay. She goes. I remain. We all take a trip, but she falls asleep while I follow the road, I sing the song, make the lyrics up as the 101 heads West, and I careen against the Pacific. I see silvery-white plumes of whale breaths spouting, they break the rocks of my rock and roll. When the levee breaks, we'll have no place to go- I'm going back to Chicago.

California. Line 5. Verse 1. She is born in Arkansas, in Denver, in New York City, in the back of a taxi cab, her parents waiting for a table at Earth Cafe, 1989. There are concerts, balconies, elevator shafts, and on benches. The gain rises, the volume up and up and up, I offer her a cigarette, I ask her if she likes my dress, I show up with two palms full of a flame, and I say hello. Browsing in high-definition, the water is warm, my feet are planted and I have everywhere to go. Classical emporium of light fill me with ease, greatness, and belief. She asks me if I'm gay. Every great confusion can be proven to be fortuitous with enough time on hand. I kiss in cars, in bathrooms, and barrooms, in hallways, on staircases, on beds, church steps, and legs. I touched a leg, ran my fingers through her hair, my thumbs curved to the height of two ears alongside a size B head. I love art *****. i burn candles, and I swirl the wax around until the walls wear masks of white. I check-in to a hotel. I stop to buy wild flowers on the side of the road, or to climb down a ravine, we open a page into an enormous patch of strawberries, wind-surfers, and the golden Palo Alto beaches. I am in Bronzeville, on my way to Bridgeport, I am riding the train, browsing magazines, and singing new songs in my head. My lips are wet with excitement and the musings of the Modern Art Museum and the gift of a first kiss; behind the statue on Balcony 2, near the drinking fountain, the Eames couch, and two lips meeting anew. Bravery in twos.

Chapter 1, Verse 2. The chorus is large and exciting. New plastic shining coats. Smocks patterned with the Random House children's stories that we played with as children. We didn't wear gloves, or hats, or pants, or our hearts on our sleeves. I was up to my knees in hormones and very persuasive. My fifth birthday was at the Nature Center, you chased me into the boys' bathroom and kissed me with your wet and four year old lips in the second stall from the door. I eased up maybe 2% since then. The speakers are a little bit fuzzy, it's like listening to the spit of someone's tongue cascade the roof of their mouth while they pronounce the British consonants of the 90s. Said and done and saving space.

I am saving up for Grace. A crush in the mid 2000s, black hair, long legs, and the only brunette for a decade before or after. We played doctor, with the electric scalpel we turned our noses red with Christmas time South American powders. A safe word for an enemy, the sun for an enemy too. You bolted out and took my early Jimi Hendrix Best Of compact disc case too. While we're at it, you took my Michael Jackson cassettes as well. I go mid-range, think Kiri Te Kanawa in the whispers of E.T.'s Elliot. Stuffed-animal closet party for seven minutes in heaven. Your family came with butlers while mine came with over-educated storage. A blue borage sky in the intestines of life, a splinter in the shanty-town of invincible daily struggles- both of us were born again in O'Hare Airport's Parking Level D. Too many nonsensical arguments in two-tone grayscale ripping open the packaging of a course about trysting in your twenties.

Your stomach's history is overpowering. It is temperamental, mettled by spirits and sleepless nights, borborygmus, wambles, and shades of nervousness you were never comfortable speaking openly about. The history of your ****** was privatized, in options and unedited films shot over and over candidly by a mini DV desk camera, nine months to read you wrong to weep in strong wintry walks back and forth from The Buckingham to the Dwight Lofts, Room 408 without a view. All of your secrets in a little miniature of a notebook, bright cerise red. You captured teardrops in medicinal jars meant for syringes. You tied strings to your fingers, named your field mouse Ginger, and introduced your mother as Lady Darling. Captain with stingray skin, the hide of Ferris Bueller with the coattails of James Bond, dusted with daisy pollen, and clearly weakness. You ate me like bitter herbs on Thursdays, and like every other woman I've ever met, on Tuesdays you always kept me waiting.

I have wings for everything. Yellow wings for a woman in a yellow dress, Red, White, and Green wings for Bernice from Mexico City, Purple wings for  Mrs. Doolittle the doctor who worked at Taco Bell, the Jamaican priestess who was traveling through Venice Italy- we smoked hash with the grandchild of James Joyce on the Northern pier against the aurulent statues of Apollo and Zeus, Cupids' collection of malevolent tricks, SleepingB Beauty's rebuttal in fending off GHB attackers, my two dear friends who were kidnapped in clothes, abandoned in the ****, and only remember eating chocolate donuts with sprinkles and the bruises and dirt on the insides of their thighs. Nothing clever. Nothing extraordinary. Everything sentimental, built to withstand soot, sourness, and early female bravado.

You know how to play the piano so you've said, but i only have the CD you gave me to prove it. I do have evidence of your addiction to men and *******. I have your collection of dresses with tags still on them (but every woman has some of those), there is the post office box in Kauai, the Halloween card from last November and the two videos I have stored on an external drive in a nightstand adjacent to the foot of my bed. You sleep atrociously, talk too quickly, and **** like your father abandoned you when you were five. Your talent for taking photographs is like your skill-set for playing the piano, but I don't have the CD to prove it. You don't believe in social media, social consistency, friendships, or hephalumps and woozels- with the exception of the classes we shared together in college, I've never seen you outside of the most glamorous of fashion. You hate flats, hats, and white wine, and for as sad as you can seem to be at times, I've only had you cry on me once. While we were on the phone, three days after your mother hung herself. That's when I last left California, and I haven't been back yet.

I love a Kristine, but once a Britni, a Brandi, a Joni, a Tina, Kristina, Kirsten, Kristen, and a Katherine and Kathryn too. I know rock stars who are my dearest friends, enemies who I share excellent taste in music with, and parents who've always had my back but show it in lashings of the tongue and of the belt. It's been two years and three states since I was two sizes smaller than I am now. I've never considered the possibility that I was the main character and not the supporting actor, but due to recent developments in antipathy and aesthete, reevaluation, and retrospective nostalgia. All of this is about to change.

I am me still evolving without my usually stolid and grim ****** features. i bare brevity to situations existing that would **** most or in the least paralyze a great many. There is one for every hour of every day, and one for every minute in every hour, second in every minute, and more than the minutes in every day. No one has a second chance, shares a different time, or works off a different clock. I have been called the master of the analog, king of the codependent, and rook to queenside knight. I share a parabola for every encounter, experience, and endeavor. I am three minutes from being a cadaver, one drink away from a drunk, and one thought away from being completely alone. I think upright, i sleep horizontally, and I love infinitely. I am the only finite constant i have ever known. I am the main character, the script, satire, sarcasm, and soundtrack are mine.

"I don’t care if you believe it. That’s the kind of house I live in. And I hope we never leave it.”
There's A Wocket In My Pocket by Dr. Seuss

Part I


the plateau. the truest of them all. coast line. night spells and even controlled by the dream of meeting again. the ribbon of darker than light in your crown. No region overlooked. Third picnic table to the drive at Half Moon Bay, meet me there, decant my speech there. the table by the restroom block. While the tide is in show me your oyster garden, 3:00p.m. at half-light here in the evilest torments that have been shed.---------------door locked.  The moors. Cow herds and lymph nodes, rancorous afternoon West light and bending roads, the cliffs, a sister, the need to jump. There is nothing as serious as this. There is nothing nor no one that could ever, or would ever on this side come between. Who needs sleep or jokes or snow or rivers or bombs or to turn or be a rat or a fly or ceiling fan or a gurney or a cadaver or piece of cloth or a bed spread or a couch or a game or the flint of a lighter or the bell of a dress; the bell of your dress, yes, perhaps. Having been crushed like orange cigarette light in a pool of Spanish tongues. I feel the heave, the pull; not a yawn but a wired, thread-like twist about my core. Up around the neck it makes the first cut, through the eyes out and into the nostrils down over the left arm, on the inside of the bicep, contorting my length, feigning sleep, and then cutting over my stomach, around and around multiples of times- pulled at the hips and under the groin, across each leg and in-between each nerve, capillary, artery, hair, dot, dimple, muscle, to the toes and in-between them. Wiry dream-like and nervous nightmarish, hellacious plateaus of leapers. Penguin heads and more penguin heads. Startling torment. The evilest of the vile mind. The dance of despair: if feet contorted and bound could move. The beach off Belmont. The hills and the reasons I stared. Caveat after caveat at the heads of letters, on the heads of crowns, and the wrists, and on the palms. Being pulled and signed, and moved away so greatly and so heavily at once in a moment, that even if it were a year or a set of many months it would always be a moment too taking away to be considered an expanse, and it would be too hellacious to be presumptuous. It could only be a shadow over my right shoulder as I write the letters over and again. One after another. Internally I ask if I would even grant a convo with Keats or Yeats or Plath or Hughes? Does mine come close? Does it matter the bellies reddish and cerise giving of pain? Does it have to have many names?


"This is the only Earth," I would say with the bouquet of lilies spread out on the table. Are lilies only for funerals, I would never make or risk or wish this metaphor, even play it like the drawn out notes of a melody unwritten and un-played: my black box and latched, corner of the room saxophone. Top-floor, end of the hall two-room never-ending story, I'm the left side of the bed Chicago and I see pink walls, bathrooms, the two masonite paintings, the Chanel books, the bookshelves, the white desk, the white dresser, you on the left side of the bed in such sentimental woe, **** carpet and tilted blinds, and still the moors and the whispering in the driver's seat in afternoon pasture. Sunset, sunrise, nighttime and bike room writing in other places, apartments, rooms where I inked out fingertips, blights, and moods; nothing ever being so bleak, so eerily woe-like or stoic. Nothing has ever made me so serious.

Put it on the rib, in a t-shirt. Make it a hand and guide it up a set of two skinny legs under a short-sheeted bed in small room and literary Belmont, address included. Trash cans set out morning and night, deck-readied cigarette smoking. Sliding glass door and kitchen fright. Low-lit living room white couch, kaleidoscope, and zoetrope. Spin me right round baby right round. I am my own revenge of toxic night. Attack the skin, the soul, the eyes, the mind, and the lids. The finger lids and their tips. Rot it out. Blearing wild and deafening blow after blow: left side of the bed the both of us, whilst stirs the intrepid hate and ousts each ******* tongue I can bellow and blow.

Last resort lake note in snow bank and my river speak and forest walk. Wrapped in blocks and boxes, Christmas packaging and giant over-sized red ribbons and bows. Shall I mention the bassinet, the stroller, the yard, several rings of gold and silver, several necklaces of black and thread? I draw dagger from box, jagged ended and paper-wrapped in white and amber: lit in candle light and black room shadow-kept and sleeping partisan unforgettable forever. Do I mention Hawaii, my mother dying, invisible ligatures and the unveiling of the sweat and horror? Villainous and frightening, the breath as a bleat or heart-beat and matchstick stirring slightly every friends' woe and tantrum of their spirit.

Lobster-legged, waiting, sifting through the sea shore at the sea line, the bright tyrannosaurs in mahogany, in maple, and in twine over throw rose meadow over-looks, honey-brimming and warehouse built terrariums in the underbelly of the ravine, twist and turn: road bending, hollowing, in and out and in and out, forever, the everlasting and too fastidious driving towards; and it's but what .2 miles? I sign my name but I'll never get out. I am mocked and musing at tortoise speed. Headless while improvising. Purring at any example of continue or extremity or coolness of mind, meddling, or temptation. I rock, bellowing. Talk, sending shivers up my spine. I'm cramped, and one thousand fore-words and after words that split like a million large chunks of spit, grime, and *****; **** and more ****. I might even be standing now. I could be a candle, in England, a kingdom, in Palo Alto, a rook in St. Petersburg. Mottled by giants or sleepless nights, I could be the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, a heated marble flower or the figure dying to be carved out. I'm veering off highways, I'm belittling myself: this heathen of the unforgettable, the bog man and bow-tied vagrant of dross falsification and dross despair. I am at the sea shore, tide-righted and tongue-tide, bilingual, and multi-inhibited by sweat, spit, quaffs of sea salt, lake water, and the like. Rotten wergild ridden- stitched of a poor man's ringworm and his tattered top hat and knee-holed trousers. I'm at the sea shore, with the cucumbers dying, the rain coming in sideways, the drifts and the sandbars twisting and turning. I'm at the sea shore with the light house bruise-bending the sweet ships of victory out backwards into the backwaters of a mislead moonlight; guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos swept like black coffees on green walled night clubs, arenose and eroding, grainy and distraught, bleeding and well, just bleeding.






I'm at the sea shore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets, ******* and two lines left in the letter. I’m at the sea shore, my mouth is a ghost. I've seen nothing but darkness. I'm at the seashore, second picnic table, bench facing the squat and gobble, the tin roof and riled weir near the roadside. .2 and I'm still here with my bouquet wading and waiting. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. My inches are growing shorter by the second, cold, whet by the sunset, its moon men, their heavy claws and bi-laws overthrowing and throwing me out. The thorns stick. The tyrannosaurs scream. I'm at the sea shore, plateau, left bedside to write three more letters. Sign my name and there's nobody here.

I'm at the sea shore: here are my lips, my palms (both of them facing up), here are my legs (twine and all), my torso, and my head shooting sideways. I'm at the seashore and this is my grave, this is my purposeful calotype, my hide and go seek, my show and tell, my forever. .2 and forever and never ending. I was just one dream away come and keep me. I'm at the sea shore come and see me and seam me. I'm without nothing, the sky has drifted, the sea is leaving, my seat is a matchbox and I'm all wound up. The snow settling, the ice box and its glory taken for granted. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. The room with its white sets of furniture, the lilies, the Chanel, the masonite paintings, the bed, your ribbon of darker on light, the throw rug **** carpet, pink walled sister's room, and the couch at the top of the stairs. I'm at the sea shore, my windows opened wide, my skin thrown with threat, rhinoceri, reddish bruises bent of cerise staled sunsets. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. I'm at the plateau and there isn't a single ship. There are the rocks below and I'm counting. My caveats all implored and my goodbyes written. I'm in my bed and the sleep never set in. I'm name dropping God and there's nobody there. I'm in a chair with my hands on a keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock, horse-riding into candle light on a wicked wedding of wild words and teary-eyed gazes and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder. I'm all alone but I feel like you're here.



Part II




I wake up in Panama. The axe there. Sleeping on the floors in the guest bedroom, the floor of the garden shed, the choir closet, the rut of dirt at the end of the flower bed; just a towel, grayish-blue, alone, lawnmower at my side, and sky blue setting all around. I was a family man. No I just taste bits of dirt watching a quiet and contrary feeling of cool limestone wrap over and about my arms and my legs. Lungs battered by snapping tongues, and ancient conversations; I think it was the Malaysian Express. Mom quieted. Sister quieted. Father wept. And is still weeping. Never have I heard such horrifying and un-kindly words.-----------------------It's going to take giant steel cavernous explorations of the nose, brain cell after brain cell quartered, giant ******* quaffs of alcohol, harboring false lanterns and even worse chemicals. Inhalations and more inhalations. I'm going to need to leap, flight, drop into bodies of waters from air planes and swallow capsules of psychotropics, sedatives beyond recalcitrance. I'm requiring shock treatments and shock values. Periodic elements and galvanized steel drums. Malevolence and more malevolence. Forest walks, and why am I still in Panama. I don't want to talk, to sleep, to dream, to play stale-mating games of chess, checkers, Monopoly, or anything Risk involving. I can't sleep, eat, treaty or retreat. I'm wickeded by temptations of grandeur and threats of anomaly, widening only in proverb and swept only by opposing endeavors. Horrified, enveloped, pictured and persuaded by the evilest of haunts, spirits, and match head weeping women. I can't even open my mouth without hearing voices anymore. The colors are beginning to be enormous and I still can't swim. I couldn't drown with my ears open if I kept my nose dry and my mouth full of a plane ticket and first class beanstalk to elysian fields. It's pervasive and I'm purveyed. It's unquantifiable. It's the epitomizing and the epitome. I have my epaulets set for turbulent battles though I still can't fend off night. Speak and I might remember. Hear and it's second rite. Sea attacks, oceans roaring, lakes swallowing me whole. Grand bodies of waters and faces and arms appendages, crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and I'm still shaking, and I'm still just a button. And I still can't sleep. And I'm still waiting.

It is night. The moon ripening, peeling back his face. Writhing. Seamed by the beauty of the nocturne, his ways made by sun, sky, and stars. Rolled and rampant. Moved across the plateau of the air, and its even and coolly majestic wanton shades of twilight. It heads off mountains, is swept as the plains of beauty, their faces in wild and feral growths. Bent and bolded, indelible and facing off Roman Empires too gladly well in inked and whet tips of bolder hands to soothe them forth.-----------Here in their grand and grandiose furnaces of the heart, whipped tails and tall fables fettered and tarnished in gold’s and lime. Here with their mothers' doting. Here with their Jimi Hendrix and poor poetry and stand-up downtrodden wergild and retardation. I don't give a ****. I could weep for the ***** if they even had hair half as fine as my own. I am real now. Limited by nothing. Served by no worship or warship. My flotilla serves tostadas at full-price. So now we have a game going.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------  My cowlick is not Sinatra's and it certainly doesn't beat women. As a matter of factotum and of writ and bylaw. I'm running down words more quickly than the stanza's of Longfellow. I'm moving subtexts like Eliot. I'm rampant and gaining speed. Methamphetamine and five star meats. Alfalfa and pea tendrils. Loves and the lovers I fall over and apart on. Heroes and my fortune over told and ever telling. Moving in arc light and keeping a warm glow.

the fish line caves. the shimmy and the shake. Bluegrass music and big wafting bell tones. snakes and the river, hands on the heads, through the hair; I look straight at the Pacific. I hate plastic flowers, those inanimate stems and machine-processed flesh tones. Waltzing the state divide. I am hooked on the intrepid doom of startling ego. I let it rake into my spine. It's hooves are heavy and singe and bind like manacles all over me. My first, my last, my favorite lover. I'm stalemating in the bathtub. Harnessing Crystal Lite and making rose gardens out of CD inserts and leaf covers. I'm fascinated by magic and gods. Guns and hunters. Thieving and mold, and laundry, and stereotypes, and great stereos, and boom-boxes, and the hi-fi nightlife of Chicago, roasting on a pith and meaty flame, built like a horror story five feet tall and laced with ruggedness and small needles. My skin is a chromium orchid and the grizzly subtext of a Nick Cave tune. I've allowed myself to be over-amplified, to mistake in falsetto and vice versa. To writhe on the heavy metallic reverberations of an altercated palpitation. The heart is the lonely hunted. First the waterproof matchsticks, then the water, the bowie knife, crass grasses and hard-necked pitch-hitters and phony friends; for doing lunch in the park on a frozen pond, I play like I invented blonde and really none of my **** even smells like gold.--------------------- There are the tales of false worship. I heard a street vendor sell a story about Ovid that was worse than local politics. As far as intermittent and esoteric histories go I'm the king of the present, second stage act in the shadow of the sideshow. Tonight I'm greeting the characters with Vaseline. For their love of music and their love of philosophy. For their twilight choirs and their skinny women who wear black antler masks and PVC and polyurethane body suits standing in inner-city gardens chanting. For their chanting. The pacific. For the fish line caves. For the buzzing and the kazoos. For the alfalfa and the three fathers of blue, red, and yellow. For the state of the nation. But still mostly working for the state of equality, more than a room for one’s own.-------------------------------------------------------------­------"Rice milk for all of you." " Kensington and whittled spirits."
(Doppelganger enters stage left)MAN: Prism state, flash of the golden arc. Beastly flowers and teeming woodlands. Heir to the throes and heir to the throng.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------- The sheep meadow press in the house of affection. The terns on my hem or the hide in my beak; all across the steel girder and whipping ******* the windows facing out. The mystery gaze that seers the diplopic eye. Still its opening shunned. I put a cage over it and carry it like a child through Haight-Ashbury. At times I hint that I'm bored, but there is no letting of blood or rattle of hope. When you live with a risk you begin at times to identify with the routes. Above the regional converse, the two on two or the two on four. At times for reasons of sadness but usually its just exhaustion. At times before the come and go gets to you, but usually that is wrong and they get to you first. Lathering up in a small cerulean piece of sky at the end turnabout of a dirt road

I am made of infatuation, shame and forever gloom
You could not fall
This is not the chessboard of your dreams
No pawn makes—
No bishop makes
The queen takes, is taken an equal
This is not an aisle of rebirth
Or some sombre remembrance
It halts, it halts
The numbers lessen
I did not abandon, I am still here
Yet, a halt lingers
Like death stuck on the precipice of throat
A life of a single lifetime of a thought
I am energy, a little restless
But restless so out of the nature of self
Like the eye of a rook
On the king through a rook

A stupor unblinking
Like the sharpening of a dream
The knight-slide like an Arabian sword
The king scuttles
Rook takes rook, king takes rook

I fancied myself a manly dream
But it doesn’t work like that, does it—
The game writes, and children play
Now I wait the shameful minutes away
(And I watch your hands, so patient, simple
Say, are you dead or pleased?)
And I watch your hands
I should’ve looked up when I had the chance
Now the brooding leaves
And my eye hardens
Father, you have won
With a dream so well, you played just right
I should have not worshipped the pawns like that

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
     And the mussel pooled and the heron
               Priested shore
          The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
          Myself to set foot
               That second
     In the still sleeping town and set forth.

     My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
     Above the farms and the white horses
               And I rose
          In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
          Over the border
               And the gates
     Of the town closed as the town awoke.

     A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
     Blackbirds and the sun of October
               Summery
          On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
          To the rain wringing
               Wind blow cold
     In the wood faraway under me.

     Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
     With its horns through mist and the castle
               Brown as owls
          But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
          There could I marvel
               My birthday
     Away but the weather turned around.

     It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
     Streamed again a wonder of summer
               With apples
          Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
          Through the parables
               Of sun light
     And the legends of the green chapels

     And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
     These were the woods the river and sea
               Where a boy
          In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
          And the mystery
               Sang alive
     Still in the water and singingbirds.

     And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
     Joy of the long dead child sang burning
               In the sun.
          It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
          O may my heart's truth
               Still be sung
     On this high hill in a year's turning.

the rook mocks all in its path
as metaphor, worthless
symbols symbols too many ****  symbols
they out number most folks reality
the angels on high
slug them when you see them
from eternity comes the haymaker
play the zero sum game
kick below the belt
cook a rook

.
Quiet! Shhh!
Can you hear it?
The animals are talking.
No, they are panicking.
Can you smell it?
The Forest is on fire.
My Forest is aflame!

I run, following nostrils singed with heat,
against the tide of the fleeing fauna.
Reaching the blaze I see....
eight of them.
My anger rises and erupts.
'STOP!' I bellow. They turn and draw swords.
My eyes narrow and a look of pure disdain unfolds.

I continue.
'I am Rook, Lord of the Forest Kingdom.
How dare you, enter my domain with no permission
and reek havoc on my Forest'.

A step is taken, toward me.
The eyes of a fighter glower, at me.
The point of a sword raises, threatening me.

I punish.
'For your transgressions and your destruction
you shall stand as stones, for eternity,
and as a warning to others'.

A scream pierces the air as a foot,
then another, compresses to rock.
The rest join the chorus, agony,
as each become statues,
twisted and contorted as
the Ancient Oaks they had destroyed.

My Oaks.
This is my Anger.
Would you care to see my Love?


© Pagan Paul (2018)

i’m the rook
that took to my branch,
tree of silhouette lightning,
pecking the pelt off my prey
i’m casting them away for the sport of it.
if i take off,
like how the tide that comes and crashes,
foam and salt spitting,
eventually draws back, retreating back to the sea,
i won’t return in the same familiar form.
thorns for feet, a midnight beak.
i’ll take refuge in knowing you shan’t
remember me
but i’m the rook that pierced you,
strung you
hung you on my tree.

Life is a but chest board and
we are the players, some
are pawns they may seem
weak, but to others they are
the best players in life. They
can move any where they like,
they are many, but are the
first in life to fall. The down
trodden, those deemed weak
are the ones who will pay the price,
for the wrong move ends all.

The knights the protectors
of the people, but always
sacrifice them self's if to
save the king or queen
of the land if the rooks all fall.

the bishop it is only has one
way thinking, never will it let
its faith change, same coloured
square all through out its life of
the game.

The rook not a person but a
place to keep those from harm,
but a place Is only as safe, for
as long as it doesn't fall. For
where this rook is placed
depends on if it will keep
those from harm or be toppled
an burnt to ruins on the floor.

The king and queen of this
wooded land, but will only
survive if they can play the
board with the right moves
and hand. For if rule is misplaced
then even a rook can topple a
kingdom if played in the wrong
way and down will fall a kingdom
pieces and all.

Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.

Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart's waste
grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?

I never knew a dreary rook
whose trill is absent from my ear.
A crow ashamed of its black
that brushes wet paint to change its color.
A bird that builds nests from razors and plastic
who abandons forests for streets
and brothers for cold nights.

Perhaps it did not survive.
Perchance it dove into the ocean
to find eternity within its form.

A melancholy avian was not meant for this world,
for no other song is fit to fill the morning’s air.

I used to think that all of them were just bodies. She-figures, they came and went, facilitating infinite happiness and following with hellacious heartbreak, aorta explosions galore. They pass. I stay. She goes. I remain. We all take a trip, but she falls asleep while I follow the road, I sing the song, make the lyrics up as the 101 heads West, and I careen against the Pacific. I see silvery-white plumes of whale breaths spouting, they break the rocks of my rock and roll. When the levee breaks, we'll have no place to go- I'm going back to Chicago.

California. Line 5. Verse 1. She is born in Arkansas, in Denver, in New York City, in the back of a taxi cab, her parents waiting for a table at Earth Cafe, 1989. There are concerts, balconies, elevator shafts, and on benches. The gain rises, the volume up and up and up, I offer her a cigarette, I ask her if she likes my dress, I show up with two palms full of a flame, and I say hello. Browsing in high-definition, the water is warm, my feet are planted and I have everywhere to go. Classical emporium of light fill me with ease, greatness, and belief. She asks me if I'm gay. Every great confusion can be proven to be fortuitous with enough time on hand. I kiss in cars, in bathrooms, and barrooms, in hallways, on staircases, on beds, church steps, and legs. I touched a leg, ran my fingers through her hair, my thumbs curved to the height of two ears alongside a size B head. I love art *****. i burn candles, and I swirl the wax around until the walls wear masks of white. I check-in to a hotel. I stop to buy wild flowers on the side of the road, or to climb down a ravine, we open a page into an enormous patch of strawberries, wind-surfers, and the golden Palo Alto beaches. I am in Bronzeville, on my way to Bridgeport, I am riding the train, browsing magazines, and singing new songs in my head. My lips are wet with excitement and the musings of the Modern Art Museum and the gift of a first kiss; behind the statue on Balcony 2, near the drinking fountain, the Eames couch, and two lips meeting anew. Bravery in twos.

Chapter 1, Verse 2. The chorus is large and exciting. New plastic shining coats. Smocks patterned with the Random House children's stories that we played with as children. We didn't wear gloves, or hats, or pants, or our hearts on our sleeves. I was up to my knees in hormones and very persuasive. My fifth birthday was at the Nature Center, you chased me into the boys' bathroom and kissed me with your wet and four year old lips in the second stall from the door. I eased up maybe 2% since then. The speakers are a little bit fuzzy, it's like listening to the spit of someone's tongue cascade the roof of their mouth while they pronounce the British consonants of the 90s. Said and done and saving space.

I am saving up for Grace. A crush in the mid 2000s, black hair, long legs, and the only brunette for a decade before or after. We played doctor, with the electric scalpel we turned our noses red with Christmas time South American powders. A safe word for an enemy, the sun for an enemy too. You bolted out and took my early Jimi Hendrix Best Of compact disc case too. While we're at it, you took my Michael Jackson cassettes as well. I go mid-range, think Kiri Te Kanawa in the whispers of E.T.'s Elliot. Stuffed-animal closet party for seven minutes in heaven. Your family came with butlers while mine came with over-educated storage. A blue borage sky in the intestines of life, a splinter in the shanty-town of invincible daily struggles- both of us were born again in O'Hare Airport's Parking Level D. Too many nonsensical arguments in two-tone grayscale ripping open the packaging of a course about trysting in your twenties.

Your stomach's history is overpowering. It is temperamental, mettled by spirits and sleepless nights, borborygmus, wambles, and shades of nervousness you were never comfortable speaking openly about. The history of your ****** was privatized, in options and unedited films shot over and over candidly by a mini DV desk camera, nine months to read you wrong to weep in strong wintry walks back and forth from The Buckingham to the Dwight Lofts, Room 408 without a view. All of your secrets in a little miniature of a notebook, bright cerise red. You captured teardrops in medicinal jars meant for syringes. You tied strings to your fingers, named your field mouse Ginger, and introduced your mother as Lady Darling. Captain with stingray skin, the hide of Ferris Bueller with the coattails of James Bond, dusted with daisy pollen, and clearly weakness. You ate me like bitter herbs on Thursdays, and like every other woman I've ever met, on Tuesdays you always kept me waiting.

I have wings for everything. Yellow wings for a woman in a yellow dress, Red, White, and Green wings for Bernice from Mexico City, Purple wings for  Mrs. Doolittle the doctor who worked at Taco Bell, the Jamaican priestess who was traveling through Venice Italy- we smoked hash with the grandchild of James Joyce on the Northern pier against the aurulent statues of Apollo and Zeus, Cupids' collection of malevolent tricks, SleepingB Beauty's rebuttal in fending off GHB attackers, my two dear friends who were kidnapped in clothes, abandoned in the ****, and only remember eating chocolate donuts with sprinkles and the bruises and dirt on the insides of their thighs. Nothing clever. Nothing extraordinary. Everything sentimental, built to withstand soot, sourness, and early female bravado.

You know how to play the piano so you've said, but i only have the CD you gave me to prove it. I do have evidence of your addiction to men and *******. I have your collection of dresses with tags still on them (but every woman has some of those), there is the post office box in Kauai, the Halloween card from last November and the two videos I have stored on an external drive in a nightstand adjacent to the foot of my bed. You sleep atrociously, talk too quickly, and **** like your father abandoned you when you were five. Your talent for taking photographs is like your skill-set for playing the piano, but I don't have the CD to prove it. You don't believe in social media, social consistency, friendships, or hephalumps and woozels- with the exception of the classes we shared together in college, I've never seen you outside of the most glamorous of fashion. You hate flats, hats, and white wine, and for as sad as you can seem to be at times, I've only had you cry on me once. While we were on the phone, three days after your mother hung herself. That's when I last left California, and I haven't been back yet.

I love a Kristine, but once a Britni, a Brandi, a Joni, a Tina, Kristina, Kirsten, Kristen, and a Katherine and Kathryn too. I know rock stars who are my dearest friends, enemies who I share excellent taste in music with, and parents who've always had my back but show it in lashings of the tongue and of the belt. It's been two years and three states since I was two sizes smaller than I am now. I've never considered the possibility that I was the main character and not the supporting actor, but due to recent developments in antipathy and aesthete, reevaluation, and retrospective nostalgia. All of this is about to change.

I am me still evolving without my usually stolid and grim ****** features. i bare brevity to situations existing that would **** most or in the least paralyze a great many. There is one for every hour of every day, and one for every minute in every hour, second in every minute, and more than the minutes in every day. No one has a second chance, shares a different time, or works off a different clock. I have been called the master of the analog, king of the codependent, and rook to queenside knight. I share a parabola for every encounter, experience, and endeavor. I am three minutes from being a cadaver, one drink away from a drunk, and one thought away from being completely alone. I think upright, i sleep horizontally, and I love infinitely. I am the only finite constant i have ever known. I am the main character, the script, satire, sarcasm, and soundtrack are mine.

"I don’t care if you believe it. That’s the kind of house I live in. And I hope we never leave it.”

SUDDENLY I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven
That seemed as though ice burned and was but the
more ice,
And thereupon imagination and heart were driven
So wild that every casual thought of that and this
Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out
of season
With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;
And I took all thc blame out of all sense and reason,
Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,
Riddled with light.  Ah! when the ghost begins to
quicken,
Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent
Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken
By the injustice of the skies for punishment?

I am quiet, I am serene, I am wind and fire, I am, a queen. I am breathe and voice, I am heart and beat, I am sounds you cradle, I am the sole of your feet. I am carrier and word, I am thought and mistrust, I am heat and ice, I am *** and lust. I am fallen and hit, I am, sleep, I am dominant and stubborn, I am crushed and defeat. I am bells that toll, I am a philistine, I am hushed and centred, I am thou and thine. I am pulled, I am broken, and torn, I am consciousness and lost, I am reborn. I am woman, I am words and tongue, I am here and present, I am bullet and gun. I am wolf and fierce, I am protector of all, I am belief and faith, I am short and tall. I am fever, I am skin, and bone, I am a hug at night, I am a place you call home. I am sleep, I am dream, I am sufficient and loud, I am sewn and seam. I am lover and beauty, I am incredible and bereft, I am walk and talk, I am dumb and deaf. I am depth and substance, I am creator of life, I am misdeeds, I am trouble and strife. I am siren, I am power, I am forbidden fruit, I am the choir. I am fear, I am fright, I am creep and gentle, I am sense of right. I am tree, I am creature, I am autumn leaves, I am life's student and teacher. I am stop and halt, I am impe-tuous, I am starving, I am ra-venous. I am pelt, I am growl and claw, I am raven and rook, I am hammer and saw. I am flight, I am graceless, I am mercy, I am faceless. I am duty, I am bound, and enslaved, I am soar and breeze, I am story and fade. I am *******, I am almighty power, I am she, I am the tick, tock, tick, in your hour. I am beseeched, I am judged and shunned, I am a rough ****, I am powder in your gun. I am movement, I am forward, and pause, I am magic and mystic, I am the air in applause. I am brake light, I am crash and burn, I am wanton and demanding, I am 'when will you ever learn?', I am ex, I am honesty, and offence, I am lying naked and marked, I am dreaded intense. I am baker, I am cook, I am carer, I am all you took. I am forest, I am howl, and fang, I am bracken and bush, I am sung and sang. I am heave and sigh, I am a look of disgrace, I am tortured thought, I am disappointed face. I am halo, I am the barren chest, I am fortitude, I am armour and breast.  I am hot, I am spice, and flavour, I am between and in, I am reverence and saviour. I am bold red, I am bright and hue, I am sought and hidden, I am me, not you. I am the edge of forever, I am precipice and knife, I am forged steel, I am husband and wife. I am hedonism, I am beautifully free, I am arms wide open, I am everything of me. I am thought, I am prayer, I am darling, my darling, I am awake and aware. I am the trigger, I am a white flag of peace, I am the mother, I am desist and decease. I am climbing up higher, I am builder of bridges wide, I am swung high and low, I am by your side. I am cut grass, I am burnt toast, I am broken crystal glass, I am what you love to hate the most. I am a lady, I am a lover in the day and the night, I am restart, renew, I am a flame burning bright. I am gay and straight,  I am dual and nigh, I am man-lover undercovers, I am the apple of my eye. I am au-revoir in the morning, I am the last goodbye, I am something untold, I am the last time I cry. I am ******, I am drugged and tired, I am pain, I am high, and wired. I am level, I am calm and content, I am wink and thumb, I am the mortgage and the rent. I am fumble and tumble, I am drop and slip, I am smash and grab, I am slide and trip. I am laughter wide open, I am smile and teeth, I am depression and loss, I am the widow in grief. I am inner child, I am hurt and abused, I am friend and lover, I am wasted and used. I am survivor, I am strong in spirit and mind, I am a force to be reckoned with, I am resiliently kind. I am nature and nurture, I am tribe and race, I am society and people, I am colour and taste. I am within, I am without, I am shadow and hand, I am thought and doubt.
I am but, me. I am not.

Waltzing into the blanket of dusk.
A pawn escaping across the checkered board,
Out and inwards to the green grassed yard.
A sleeting figure, past-and-future,
Gone the way of the fearless noble rook.
Down-acrossed squares of black and white.  
Into the field of endless battle.

This game we play, has become a tournament.
White against black, two players locked;
Locked in a battle of constant wits.
Who shall win?
The noble too afraid to capture the evil queen or,
The darkness plauging the board.

**Check and mate.

With different people come different skills,
in the game of life which we all play.
And like a game of chess , each piece,
unique in its own way.

To the smallest pawn to the greatest knight,
each piece reflects who we are inside.
But as one might think a disadvantage is at hand,
that the pawn has not any chance.

With the queen’s strong offense,
and the bishops swift attack,
the pawn’s presence is sadly overlooked.

For many see it as a worthless runt,
only used in the scheme of the king and ignored
until the bitter end.


But in fact the pawn is the most courageous of them all.
The only piece who knows how to charge.
Fearless and brave, it surges forward,
unhesitant and void of fear.
Who won’t retreat when defeat is near.

So who are you? Which one are you?
The decisive knight, the stubborn king,
the blunt rook, the potent queen?
The swift bishop or the valiant pawn?
All of which reflects who we are.

i.

impressionist,
where the grey
clouds and the blue
ice of winter
gather their ghosts,

winter, too cold,
too white, the
woodland hollows
dent,
summer love

discarded in
the frost,

the sky oaken,
the moon’s forget-me-knots
silvery dream.

ii.

clouds like wintery steel,
sunken, in a night pool,
the golds of my heart,

the lodestar gathers
moss and rook,
glimmers in a sky
of woven cloth,
her leaves, the trees
of winter,
her leaves, the dark
breath of the storm.


iii.

winter and quiet stars
brooding emperor
sleeping in the twilight
hour,
winter dreams of
strange ice caverns
where ice ghosts
dance with twisting
hair.

iv.

pond of ice,
snow bear,
snow dream,

sleep unwraps

wide avenues of
trees,

sleep, the dark girl,
the falling tide.

v.

twig breaks under foot,
earth’s thrones
settle in the lizardy light

the moon rises in the sky,
soft centuries of sky.

to the lush old fields,
i walk back,
filled with young yields.
from where i shall take back
the never ending memories
of my childhood days, i thought
i used to sit by the window sill
all alone and still
to watch the autumn sunshine
that peeps into the pane
the big old oak
and the greedy rook
the cherry blossoms on that lonely lane
the blushing lilies and white poppies
that bloom around the shire
i came from a racing world
where love vanished and is filled with dare
where the sea churns blood
and from where humanity fled
we took everything from her lap
and left it bare of warmth and sprout
none have time now
to look back at the fallen oak
nor the rook on the shabby scarecrow
who guards the barren fields
so scarce the cherry blossoms bloom
as the world began to race
trials narrowed to that little falls
where the running streams
told their weary tales
walls began to build up
huge and strong
nor a drop now came
through that restricted site
climbing further
to the peek up north
my ears caught a dirge
which the nightingale sang
to the dying earth
coz now we have opened the pandora's box
and infected the earth
i wonder where the squirrels went
'fore it was their place
now we encroached it
and to rebuild the woods
of fawn , the trespassers forgot
now all that is left of the brook
is a concrete wall
nailed to it a new plastic board
with bold letters printed
read: TRESPASSERS NOT ALLOWED"

Staring with the spider
into semantic oubliettes
The cats have all gone mad
The hounds growl at shadows
The guards in the tower
hone their bayonets
The night is red
The shroud of crow
follow my car
past sleeping windows
then lift like one
legendary rook
The snow falls in my headlamps
and my mind is a cemetery

Checkered choices rise some nights,
play chess with all my frightful failings.
Queen's Pawn to Rook 5.
          Nail my footsteps
          to the concrete season.
          I'm losing pieces it seems.

I'm a sardonic grinner
     and under these eyebrows, it's nuclear winter.
Wending my way through the last
three years, I find no release valve.
The pressure will build and place
its long arm along my shoulder,
pull me far from my friends.
One.
                                         Two.
One.
                                         Two.
                   Step
                 by step
      by hammer blow step
a story is crafted, installed with a lock
          in a circular book.

Queen's Pawn to Ryman Street
                  1:45 a.m.
simmering skin over ice armored innards,
the freezing rain sends up my curses
                                               like steam
                                  clouding off of my shoulders
and into the skyline.

I've castled my way out of checkmate questions.
Not my move to make,
                     so I won't life a finger.
Queen's Pawn to front doorstep,
          then straight on to bed.

Dis nou die tyd om te babbel
En my mond verby te praat
, want hulle sê mos
A drunk man's words is
A sober man's thoughts...
En wie weet dalk vind ek
Die antwoorde in ń diep gesprek met myself...

Sien ek is nie een van daardie
AA lappies wat skeinheilig
Sit en slukkies suip om
Geluk onder in die bottel
Op te spoor nie.
Ek rook skaamteloos en
Omhels die intense stank
Van 10 jaar se lewe wat ek
Mors en longkanker, want
Dit herrinner my an oupa se
Skoot en *** veilig ek was
In daardie asbak woonstel
Waar ek soos white-trash eers my brood moes inspekteer vir
Indringer kokkerotte wat ook
Maar net teen ons kompeteer het
Vir ń krummeltjie kos.

Ek babbel, want wat anders kan mens doen as vrees jou aangryp as die koue staal jou hande brand -
En nee ek praat nie van lemme en inspuitings nie,
Want lemme maak merke waarvan ek reeds te veel het wat nou oor my polse uitgesprei lê en my herrinner *** swak ek was, maar *** sterk ek was... en inspuitings los ek vir die dokters en susters en die bloeddiens
Wat my leeg wil tap om een of ander sad case se lewe te red met bloed van ń bloedjie wat self nog in die verdoemtenis rond dwaal.

Ek babbel, want dis social anxiety en scary stuff om in ń kring te sit en Russian roulette te speel met al 5 van die mense wat ander van jou verwag om te wees. Want wat gebeur as ek myself in hierdie hoerasie van persoonlikhede raakskiet. *** weet ek watter een is ek as elke een die sneller swaar trek en hoop en bid vir ń blank... *** weet ek.

Kliek...
Kliek...
Kliek...
Kliek...
Bang!!

En nou babbel ek maar weer
...
Want ek het so pas agtergekom ek weet ook nie juis *** dit voel om dood te wees nie.

Wie is ek...
-*** sal ek weet

Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
...

Ek weet.