Bubbles

Blown into being by benevolence
Thin and reflective
Identical and unique
Delicate, so delicate
Universes
They contain everything
And may be nothing at all

Beats Me

Drum!

Drum!

Drum!

Drum!

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum...
Stiff
Tall
Rough


I'm a wooden drum...
Skin
Groove
Knot


I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)


I'm a wooden drum...
Made
By
You

I'm a wooden drum...
Sing
When
Hit

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum...
Hit
Hit
Hit
And
I
Make
Music (drum-drum)
I
Make
Music (drum-drum)
I
Make
Music (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum...
All
Can
Play


I'm a wooden drum...
Takes
A
While


I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum...
Spea-
-king
Now

I'm a wooden drum...
Good
Things
Must

I'm a wooden drum...
Take
A
While

Drum!

Drum! (drum-drum)

Drum!

Drum! (drum-drum)

Drum!

Drum!

Drum!

Drum!!

Belt Loop

Nothing so shows the beauty nature bestowed
On a callipygian Venus upright posed
As an intergluteal cleft bent over exposed

Tim O'Thillery

Aging

As celebrity must

Shoot them down!
Fire!

The golems are ambling over the hill

ft! ft! ft! ft! ft!

Big Bang

They say the big bang brought us here
And we didn't get a piece of the action
Always late for email and Michael Jackson
Found two white socks under the dryer
Reapply and reply, my windshield found a flyer
Are you even my friend?
Big bang on Facebook and untag myself
Were you there? Shit must have been insane
Cosmic copulation. Hydrogen and hydroplane.
Top gear bursting out and galaxies
And all that gas and hailing taxis
I guess we really are close.
Bubbling to the surface and organic
Steamed dumplings and wontons
Perfect spoken French bon-bons
You're such a pervert, and it upsets you.
Dirty. Lifting off nature's dress--true.
Your building neighbors are brutes, all that noise.
But still we're all family see--
Don't forget about replacing your zinc after sex
Farmer's market has the best goddamn eggs
McDonalds soda, red and yellow fries
Excuse me I burped, and salt and bleach and dyes
Little bang in the mirror, I hit a squirrel.
Remember the kids in the playground
Getting kicked in the chest too
Candles used to be nice, orange and blue
Smoky drawing rooms and whipping boys
Mercedes Benz and removing your vibrating toys
Coffee bean smells, mitochondria in your cells.
Tiger's hole-in-one, and Berlin wall came down
Tell them John Doe gets whacked again
Poker face, chips and bombs in Spain
SARS and Michael Phelps' gold had me scared
Botox and menopause dating, weed shared
Vegetarians are running with their iPods.
We're playing music on stage under the stars
Jenny Craig and silver no calories in the can
Obama did it and didn't Strauss-Kahn
Isn't it nice out today, total Marxism
Scratch-and-sniff Pink Floyd album's prism
Gay pride, New York's towers.
Man in the moon killed Superman
And Radiohead and Yahoo blew up
Google swine flu and please speak up
And Africa has such wonderful animals
Wall street saints and criminals
The oil is there just dig.
Millenials are out looking for jobs
We did it in her roommate's bed, clean sheets.
Starbucks for free wifi and good eats
Forbes' richest one hundred
50 cent can buy you street cred'
Sammy and Sinatra, Bhangra and Oprah
Let's go take a road trip down south
Ecstasy at raves and Jim Crowe
Gosh darn traffic's moving too slow
Cutting down the giving tree
Walking on the bed of the sea
The big bang came and time was up.

A New Year's Tale

His ears were still ringing and he smelled like tobacco and other people's sweat.

Slowly, tiredly, and with what he thought was an easy and charming smile on his face, Rodspeed applied the brakes and peeled down the windows of his borrowed blue Toyota Corolla. He was surprised by how humid it still was at such a late hour and, to a lesser extent, the confessional stench of alcohol emanating from the two policemen in night coats that had signaled for him to stop.

"Let me have a look at your license", ordered the taller, lanky policeman who had the lined, tight face of an academic, save for dull, watery eyes. 

"Good evening officer. So sorry-I left it at home tonight, and this is my mother's car. Is there a fee or something that I can pay to make up for it this time?", Rodspeed replied hurriedly, affecting nervousness and an expression of utmost penitence. At the same time he fished in his front-right pocket for a few crumpled bills that he had presciently set aside a few hours ago. 

In the discreet manner of school children passing notes behind a teacher's back, the grand sum of six dollars was quickly exchanged through the open driver's-side portal-from the air-conditioned world of jeans and youth, to the humid world of night-duty and old uniforms. Along with this sum of money went a silent, meaningful look that flashed across both faces.

"Happy New Year, sir-have a good night!" said the suddenly cheerful and obsequiously respectful policeman while averting his eyes. At the same time his fellow officer-by all indications a novice-clumsily removed the red and white striped metal barrier that stretched across both lanes of the quiet suburban road. 

Rodspeed merely saluted in response, waited for the stray dog to finish crossing the road, shifted gears and drove off.  While reflecting on how maturely and naturally he conducted himself this time, he watched as he shrank the policemen's figures in his rear-view mirror. In tired thoughts he tried to imagine the familial situation of the thin policeman. 

He envisioned a family of three-perhaps, four-children, hungry, watching a nonsensical late night show with their mother on a microwave-sized television while a struggling, squeaky fan overhead spun about a rotating axis in a vain attempt to banish the suffocating heat and humidity typical of a rainy season night. Rodspeed also imagined a shiny, red truck-a gift from the policeman to his youngest son-made possible by his kind donation of six dollars.

Well, he really doesn't need a truck. What he needs is a new pair of shorts, and perhaps some green food every now and then, thought Rodspeed, dangerously on the verge of falling asleep behind the wheel. 

Rodspeed hit a pothole, jerked awake and noticed the silliness of his thoughts and how magnetized his eyelids had become. He gave himself a cautionary slap on the face and steadied his gaze as he made his way down the unlit, tree-lined roads of suburban Accra. He reminded himself to drink less next weekend. He also
wondered how the skinny policeman could possibly have managed to fail to remember his face each time. They had had no less than four of such encounters as they had that night.

"Blue balls are such sad balls....oh...shoot, I need to get petrol," he said aloud in the silence of his air-bagged world, as he drove past the dozen obese prostitutes signalling for him to stop. 

Season's Cheer

I know you got a good heart,
I know it.

Wintertime is not for everyone,
Only the homeless like we.
Now, this season cause the worse-worse afflictions
Of the mind and of the body.
An' this body here tougher
I'ffen tell you no lie.
Nobody wants clenched fists, crisp chills,
Hemorrhagin' lips an' tetanal jaws.
Appeal I think to jus' a few.
But unprepossessing we
Glad for equal footin'
This time when Santa long coming long.
Yeah...
Santa been coming behind that dumpster
He ain't the real one, mind
But his whooping always agitating
Lee-got-a-penny the "seoul crooner".
Poor man got a vicious case of the scrofula
Of the body not the mind, mind.

Skinny, yet wintertime got some delights,
If you are homeless like we, mind.
You ever had a cup of dunkin' brew?
The stuff!
Mind I don't care much for't--
The caffeine addictions an' all but...
Mind,
Come winter
Our hands are the only oneses can open...

Only the homeless are free, mind.
Only the homeless are free...
Ain't being strangled
By cashmere nooses.

For't I'll die sooner, I stole one from a bow-tick
Damnit I jus' had to hide Lee's scrofula!
Scarin'uhchillren jus'
Scarin'em!

Right of now he's belting a tune like the radio.
Coulda 'queeze your eyes an' cause a tear
His puss-filled lymphs sweetenin' every high note,
"It's the most won-der-ful time of the year."

So...
You dropping a dollar or what?
Git df@ck outta here.

bloop

>bloop<

>bloop<
>bloop<
>bloop<

>whsshhhh...!<

>"heeuuuughh!"<

"...I didn't find it!"

"That's alright. Maybe you can look again tomorrow."

>cough<
"I could swear I dropped them right around this area over here."

"Well, it's getting late and it's freeeezing! It'll be dark soon too."

"Fuck! I can't believe I just...wait..hold on...I see something."

>splosh!<
>brl-brbl-brbl<

>bloop<
>bloop<

"...you're missing such a beautiful sunset."

>"bloop"<

Sweaty palms

Look at me look at you

Looking at a line on your neck 

Looking at your philtrum 

My philtrum is deep

And when I am 

A child soon

It will guide

The issue of my runny nose over 

My mouth

Slippery armpits could use a tissue now

My teeth do not align 

         Properly when I-- so I--

Shut my mouth

And my forehead is bony

And my skin is shiny too

But my eyes are sometimes keen

I look surprised in the mirror

So looking at your face may do for now

I didn't mean to look at your acne

But here I am 

Thinking about it

Still thinking about it

I'm still thinking about it

Old Man on the Beach

There's an old man that I know
Who can sit for hours at a go
Building castles in the sand,
Facing always the long, brown land,
Ignoring the vast and true sea
That ever so enraptures me.

“It seems to me the waves sing free
Of sailors and dreamers out at sea.”
But he says, “Better to be wary
Out there's something scary
Far beyond your simple sight,
Far on the blue's other side.”

I walked down and greeted the ocean
With a lustful hopeful notion
Of losing myself in its embrace
And having its foamy lips kiss my face.
He said fearing that I should regret,
"But for the water, sand should never forget".

We walked along the encroaching line
His footsteps dry, and water in mine.
He spoke of the fresh shade of old trees
And the busy bustle of worker bees,
The water licking my toes meanwhile
And salty sand lining a skeptic's smile.

“Boy, I was just like you before,
Thirsty for all the world and more.
But time has this way of turning you
Back to the things that you looked through
Out at what you didn't yet know,
Back to the old your soul will go.

"I swam out one day in the early morning,
Before the land roused had finished yawning.
The sea did hold me, fairly shallow queer,
But she had several other lovers near,
And one did appear and swallowed me whole,
Spat me out deeper still as per his role!

"Decades long torment was my lot,
And frightening battles have I fought--
Fighting for breath, sight and the sun
The sea did laugh thinking she had won
But sweet, steady land forgiving all
Bought me back, the prodigal."

Then strangest thing would happen next
With alien strength and as if vexed
He grabbed my body and flung me steep
Into dark water that had gotten deep.
In the growing distance I spotted him
Laughing as if cursing grim, 

"Swim, boy. Swim!"

That's the old man who's back I know
Sitting still for hours at a go
Fixing castles in the sand
While facing always the long, brown land
Ignoring the vast and true sea
That for so long has captured me.

Now What?

Guitar gusto gone 

After a long gig,

Shawn "Shredder" Ocean 

Shrinks off-stage via the 

Back-exit door forward 

Into the foraying mass of ass, 

And we peeking over guards'

Shoulders at the tired idol who seeks 

Silence-waves crashing, bombarding and 

Bouncing off his lungs and fizzing like grinding glass

Squeaking slowly, scathingly through eardrum. 

Now blinded sharply with light

Spearing through pupil bruising back wall,

With speedy void in stomach bursting up,

Out and through fingers, and collarbone pulling-up,

He extends heavy hand to doorknob,

Doorknob is cool, twists right,

Doorknob is springy

Carpet and then wall,

Couch, falling, heavy

Cheek smacks soft 

Matte leather

Eyelids drop,

Cooling,

"Eye fork in rock"

Go Ahead

The world is full of heads

Big heads, small heads

Black heads and white heads

And all together they bounce and twirl

And some wear crowns and some wear hats

And some wear hair and others are bare.

A certain kind of head shifts from side to side

Some speak true on their greasy pivots

And others are blue shaking in stiffened jots.

If in a syncopated rhythmic bop

I see your head give a merry stop

I will put a smile on mine and head for thine

And place on the bottom of yours a kiss

And watch your head grow into a balloon of bliss

And we’ll turn and face the northern wind

And walk along the reddening bed

Of sky forlorn for every fellow dead

Who in centuries past did lose his head

For bashing his hard against the guard

Of a mighty head over how much bread

I’m glad my head lives now instead

It’s heavy to my neck for all the miles I’ve tread

And soon it’ll plop sideways in time for bed

Hopefully in the morning I’ll still have my head

If you’ve got yours now then good for you

If you know where this is going then go ahead

Cocktail

Chatter and a low murmur

Plunging occasionally into a tune,

Lost in dark crystal eyes like space.

Between the sighs and telling laughs,

We, the crowd, swam halfway up

To just right and still so cool-

Bubbly and brownian.

Down the side of your wet wine glass

We, the two, slid slowly down

And dropped into understanding,

Splashing with joy and release
Measured in creases in figures cut and perfect faces

That could not hide resplendent souls

And target gladness, fun and joy.

Wine and cheese and shoes and carpet.

Water, water, we were water

And we drank deep, and drunk

Found a light made in every evil

We loved the moment butterflying

Between flowery pools in impossible life

Hypnotic laugh and overflowing not knowing

Caked Gum

Step by step I measure out a night

Spent looking through glass windows

At dimly-lit faces seated around dark wooden tables.

Occasionally, I slow down to appreciate

The graceful flicking of a wrist

Or the courageous placement of a palm,

And my heart smiles in recognition:

Camaraderie in this city of ones,

Conjoined twos and awkward threes.

I jump over puddles reflecting the black sky

And watch for yellow taxis carrying

Melancholy passengers to beds in thin rooms

Where they will succumb to the streets' muted symphony

Wafting through shutters and landing beside tired ears

While I continue marching alongside foreign soldiers.

To the rooftops, I imagine we appear united—

We all have legs, we are all careful,

And lightly place gazes upon each other.

I walk some more, so much myself,

With a transient shadow and recoiling reflections.

I keep my hands in my pockets fingering my phone,

Narrowing my eyes and stiffening my cheeks.

I breathe in their cigarette smoke that I hate to like

Before I descend sticky steps into the subway’s void.

After the humid air congeals on my skin

I hop into a screeching car,

And then I stare at lines and sterile lights,

Pictures and shoes, eyes then eyelids,

And I feel so acutely me,

I feel remarkably divorced,

Yet I long for momentary bondage

And losing my reflection’s wide-eyed interest.

My weary yawn is a silent “City, take me.”

Score Four Me

Floating in anomie,

Anonymous in the morning,

Powerless against the tyranny

Of the alarming clock.

[Modellers, never forecasters,

Mathematics has won!

Dictating that many masters
Be more free than the one.

Il n'y a pas plus de confort,

In lieu, many will not see.

It's why I still smile wry in the street

Bidding you hello-adieu.

Just like I said goodbyes,

Like a short while ago,

To philistine monies for eyes

I gouge out to survive each day.

Sucks, at the age of twenty four

I hear a hungry tsetse fly

Singing that idyllic lullaby,

Right outside my wooden door.

It says, "Your feet are pressing sand,

Watching the waves arrive.

Undressing child, your heroes swim!

Prim as proper, you too will dive."]

Defining moments #1

"I love you": A mantra and prayer that the statement be true and if it is yet, that it will remain true.

Obesity: A skewing of the form/function aspect of clothing heavily in the direction of function over form i.e. when the functional use of your clothing is more important to you than their form. 

Temptation: The state of not having done yet what one feels like doing.

Naturalness: Beautiful ugliness versus Fakeness: Ugly beauty

What do humility and coolness have in common? They are qualities you possess only while in ignorance of them.