Shun the ostensible gesture, flattered by
young actors paid to take a healthy swig; they're
digging for the world to feel right by flopping it backwards,
slopping it sideways; it lures the id like an impaled anchovy
seduces the halibut, wriggling on a rusty, abused hook.

angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
beauty.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
angles.
bones.
beauty.
beauty.
angles.
bones?
bones?
beauty.
bones?
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
beauty.
bueayt.
beauty
bueaty
beaueu
beaueee
bueatueu
bueayuyertu
buearueituwoer
beaorfuijoiewjfgia;jdfioawe
beaweoriuapwoeitus;lkdj;slkdjfoawierj

Tempted by the grapevines,
and the juices they offer,
I slap myself into piece and remember the order:
THE ORDER OF ESTEEM
to do what is written in my quiery--
NO LEAKING LIKE THE VINES!
No seeping into mud;
no STOPPING and dropping.

Conscience

Two pidgeons slurred in pinwheels,
churned their voices into bubbling chyme
against the inviting and fuzzy coat of morning's light;
they spieled on different reels,
spewed wars of illiterate songs,
rampant at the threat of the afternoon's deathly heat.
They dropped music notes onto the concrete,
which broke in halves, wholes, and quarters,
and debated the duet they thought to be innate.
And, crusted by the dawn, flapped on, and on, and on.

Insert: prose digression

I don't feel like myself today; a skin shedding was due yesterday at 4 and I was 15 minutes late for my appointment. Everybody else had already gotten their skins shed, waxed, polished, refurbished and glistered up for a clean new countenance. A fresh countenance, I suppose you can say. And I missed that chance--a chance to keep up with the trends and the latest ensembles that mean so much today and mean so little tomorrow. No, the opportunity wasn't so much a necessity to my being. Not so much as others beg the need for a fix--this fix, to keep up with life in the pace of change: styles, fashions, language, medication, personalities, music.

I feel like I deliberately forced an immunity to these "re-creations". A breach to the system. Yet, I still feel a tinge of morose from an unforeseen cause. Sometimes I wonder if I should acquiesce to the current and pick up a new face. Perhaps then I will feel more entertained and "inside" with the others. I wonder that.

Or perhaps I am pensive because I cannot relate to the "skin shedders". And, because of that, I am cloistered in my bubble of "immunity to the system". The ability to forego the change.

And sometimes, I just wonder about that.

Vacant scene:
I looked through a looking glass
and saw what I would have seen--
a tete-a-tete taking place at the coffee shop
next door to the university; an engaging conversation.
(You can tell the difference between captivating,
meaningful conversation in these occurrences.)

I can't remember the name of the shop
(funny, how I used to go there all the time).
A vacant dream it seems; that I've forgotten
something that had used to be "me".

conduit -
–noun

1.	a pipe, tube, or the like, for conveying water or other fluid.

2.	a similar natural passage.

3.	Electricity. a structure containing one or more ducts.

4.	Archaic. a fountain.

sycophant -
noun:

1. A person who attempts to win favor by flattering people of wealth or influence; a parasite; a toady.

She seethed in rage;
she merely looked back inquisitively--a blank face.
She lunged for her--cracked her open with a bat,
beat the shit out of her 'til her blank eyes rained onto the floor;
yet still she was there; the emotionless stare.
She chided her for her mistakes:
Ugly! Filthy! Rotten! Good-for-nothing bitch!
A cold blade impaled her delicate countenance.
She looked at the glass on the floor;
she continued to stare back at her,
cloistered in the lonely bathroom upstairs.

The mood

I just want to lay here with you:
Myself and Twilight's Twin.
And we'll converse freely,
sans probing wire boxes or squashed mini-TVs.
And every time we meet,
you'll smile at me with your shiny silver teeth,
glistering in every occasion;
and you'll wink at me with your pearl-shaped eye--
a sight that moves me to a stardusted sigh.
A peaceful, pensive sigh.

Thursday, October 1

And so it goes:
An endless cycle of need--
fixating ids into Christmas gifts
that we pine for, and like the crane
does the rock, we mechanically lunge for a transient smile--
Rushed. All is quiet in our heads
(all those voices tethering the ego are dead).
We try to emulate the drizzle and make our feet,
our brain, pitter patter and scatter to do the
indecent chore; and we find that, for the time,
we skid instead of smile,
our tantalizing situation embraces our knees with the concrete,
and leaves us sanguine kisses on our elbows.

The Zookeeper

A quadruplet of jellyfishes deviously loomed,
with their tentacles sneaking vine-like round a tree,
squirming, hissing and pissing scheduled poison
into the wrinkle of Jim's withering arm.
"Crucified by jellyfish?!" screamed Jim,
yet the words refused to pave their way through exhausted lips.

"Now are you in any pain?"

Pain? Pain?
"Are you a zookeeper? An executioner?"
Jim rightfully accused.

The jellyfish hadn't liked the idea;
the executioner hadn't liked the idea.

"I'm just going to give you some Potassium;"

No! Don't you dare touch!
But Jim could not leave nor flee;
"Since when did jellyfish have such a strong grip?"
he surmised; his arms wouldn't bulge.

"Now what's the matter, Buddy?"

What's the matter? There is a team of jellyfish floating above me!

"Now what's the matter, Buddy?"

A fire ignited underneath Jim's wrinkle--
it spread through the toes and caused his stomach to billow;
he felt his toes fluctuate and the back of his hand began to skip;
he felt his forehead leak, his lips evaporate.

The jellyfish suddenly swam away with Jim.
"I didn't know I could swim here," thought Jim.
A mermaid floundered to his side and sweetly cooed:
"Now what's the matter, Buddy?"
And Jim was surprised to find his lip on his stomach.

The sea water must have doused the arm,
thought Jim. "Oh, nothing's wrong Ariel."
"Nothing, nothing's wrong."
The mermaid blew him a kiss and winked.

"Atta boy."

Murmur

Your heat glows around me
with every subtle respiration--
you're very much alive, body warping
mechanically contorting and processing
every little finger to every hidden pore.

But within me? I fail to convulse;
your heat used to pulsate throughout my ribs,
pumping erratically, a hummingbird spazzing
behind sheets of tissue, bone cages and lungs:

And yet, to this day, your heat flows around me
and is delivered as stealthily as the night owl
lunges for his breakfast (and when the sun blinks):
So I feel, so I hear, so I see nothing has changed.

Retrospect

'tacked the cold with a photo album
I pulled up to my shoulders
(open-faced and spine-up)
as I curled on my side
(like the teethy promises of the smiles enclosed).
Etherised on my bed, injected with nostalgia.

ostensible
–adjective

1.	outwardly appearing as such; professed; pretended: an ostensible cheerfulness concealing sadness.

2.	apparent, evident, or conspicuous: the ostensible truth of their theories.

In this blog is a place,

A sublime abyss; a foreboding leech:
delving its fangs into your brain
and pursing its lips to get every last drip
of human intellect, speech, and wit.

A world where humans sink beneath
the water; racing their heads up
toward the life-giving blossom;
only to see a crystal shave mystified overhead-
a barrier between the Humans and the

Mermaids?

Fairtyales, they come to life-
seeking an abode in this blog;
like a 9-year-old looking for her lost dog-
"It has to be somewhere."

A place lost in dimension--a time machine
invented to go nowhere; the purgatory of
Past and Present and Future;
it seeks no comfort in the Moleskine.
It shirks from the pen and the papyrus.

Untitled

Creeps with them,
sleeps with them;
abstruse in the blank
coat-mossy haze and
fire-lit-cages;
Fire. Tumbling like
bacteria, coats churning
systematically orange.
Vomiting, maybe, a placid
spark for attention-
a crack in the well-groomed
blaze; a stuck, crusted look
flaunts his face like a maze.

Night was when I saw you last;
Splayed in a haze
and sick as a pig,
you malingered there 'til dawn's shift.

Sipped some tea before we met
that time--kissed its unctuous cheek--
but thought of you with my head adrift
in my kitchen still;

a menagerie I discovered I've fixed
of spools and spoons and sporks,
all sharing your audacious contour
of clocks, tires, topological wires.

The Big Debate.

Is my poetry something to be shared or whispered? For all to understand or for all to analyze? What direction should I be going with this?

There are pros and cons.

What about the works that make absolutely no sense?
Maybe that is just how the poet speaks.

How do you tell the difference?
I guess that's what the poet wants you to think about.



I don't know, exactly, what direction to take because I know my poems are hard to understand. But I am going to try a different path: I will try to make more concrete poems. I've been trying to do so for the past few months but I'll take the rest of this summer to brush up on this skill.


Looking forward to it!

Campbell's running on this assembly line, defecating turds from the ceiling ducts onto conveyor belts made primly for our convenient hauling, no wait: keep running -- but off in the distance, you can hear a twang of rebellion tiptoeing onto the floor, cleverly unnoticed. mitigates the tyranny of this Mass Produced Communism. You can see the constipated ceiling ducts straining; impaired Valsalva maneuver (a mechanical one) -- then suddenly a paroxysm convinces you that there is

No Movement, with the promise of putrefying canned soup, bundling, spilling, quaking and popping like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. Cascading avengence; a sloppy, hopeful anarchy -- tastes like Chicken.

Scratch out the password
with your exhausted dime
and Rip and Tear
[shredded chicken pieces
right out of the page,]
and peruse the
stain you've left
embedded, and buried, deep
saggy crypt
[like bits and pieces of
swallowed epithelium,
within the exterior of a
healthy duodenum].
You see remnants of the alphabet
peering through the
shaggy haze of metallic dust;
too familiar to notice.
Then you pick up the glitter,
pretty paper too, and toss.

She never took
her ring off
whenever she washed her
grimy slimy thing of
two starfishes resting
under the cascading purity
of Tap. but, the ring
was still there; tethered
onto the starfish's arm;
unctuous like granite counter tops
(smeared lavishly with
Cold-Pressed
Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
was the coat the creatures bore,
glazed to perfection.

The ring wasn't so lucky, though:
stripped of its zirconia mask
(like a lady wipes off her make-up)
only to reveal the grime and lime
of Forever Ago--

proof of the Wear and Tear.

new words

tonic - creating an uplifting feeling (or, in terms of physio, something to do with the muscle)
unctuous - excessively pious/religious (or....greasy)

She let her dog
tell her where to go
and crept up and down
with him on the street:
the intersection of
Main and Nowhere,
looming dimensions-
as told as by the physicists,
earlier that afternoon,
taught her that her
destination was already
foretold five different times
in five different places.

The dog continued to crawl,
she crawled with it:
forward, left, right, backward.

new idea __

__ we are all connected by the mind, when it is half-awake

"Where have all the flowers gone?"

She plucked.
One, five, twenty,
a-b-c-f-z-x.
flowers, withering
lonely within the street cracks;
and she picked them.
Impressionable things,
though limp on the sidewalk,
with elastic backs that hunched
over infertile soil-
unsatiated, dry, and famished.

Unknown places

She closed the blinds;
couldn't see. Thought about it,
heard stuff like walk talk
sauntering down the loose-leaved aisles.

Read about it, could sense the
brisk lips floating, spitting
kaleidoscopes on the window pane.
Loud, unbearable rainbows.

Twirled around like little girls
weaving yarn on wood
with soft feet, kissing. She
Dreamt about it, long ago.

ideas

-short story or poem about a child's imagination
Background: I was in the public restroom at Fashion Island yesterday and I saw a mom and her son. She was desperately trying to get her son to wash his hands, but he just didn't want to. He would scream and shout and stay away as far as possible from the water, but in the end the mother managed to wash his hands anyway. A child's imagination--why would he be scared of the water? That's what my story (or poem) will be about.

-video about anorexia (or at least avoiding temptation)
The story: A girl walks into her apartment (college girl, most likely) and sets down her keys and her bag. She sits at a desk nearby to do her homework when suddenly she decides to walk to the kitchen and grab a snack from her refrigerator. She walks back to the desk with her food and begins to eat and finishes the snack. She does a little work here and there but ultimately goes back to the fridge and eats something else. This continues several times. In the end, you see her at the desk just looking toward the kitchen, but a trashcan will be nearby showing no evidence of her eating (no thrown wrappers, napkins, etc.). (Or she could throw the trash on the floor but later on you see no trash on the floor.) She is only thinking about eating all of the food, but then goes back to her work.

Tantalus

You've sculpted me:
a clay cynic
made from damp
intangible palms

Dropped onto
the concrete canvas
I felt my shell quake
and granulate

Inside,
nothing

Outside,
powder

Superfluous--dirt on the ground;
I peeped through the cracks still,
and those crying hands glanced back
down at me.

I value my art much more than your
pre-manufactured bullshit
that people attribute to "style".

I'm surprised I'm not entitled to your
creatively cheap enterprises
and Warhol-ic recombinant retail
just yet.

Not my thing.

The park

Captivating shingles
interlaced homogeneously over
the-splattered-paint-dome,
which eyed me intrinsically,
knew what to do.

My feet billowed,
with an urgent chill,
toward the rustic palette shade
sweeping buttery sounds,
incessant tip-toeing

awarded me drip by drip,
as the sun licked my feet first
and quietly meowed at my entrance.

Grounds needed replacing;
budding arboreals locked in spirals
were knocking beneath me
for a taste of the nectar.

But they were too young-









(tbc)

Poetry prefers to travel

Poetry seeks retreat in the bereaved lifestyle of
sad dog tear drop rain hearts love my love-
and it flocks from coast to coast with a sling
carrying either trite words everybody has heard,
or majestic "wallflower words" that nobody acknowledges
(you know, the strong quiet types).

It doesn't settle in the metropolitan areas
in pursuit of tequila love, Lamborghinis and
Visas latched onto somebody's legs like splints-
necessary for walking and maintaining
elegant postures in gladiator stilettos, glossy loafers,
slippery outfits that glister like mopped wood.




(tbc)

Room M14

Like rats, they gather in bunches:
One black Two blue Three green Four
I heard his short story sputter on my nails
from his volcanic mouth; his words erupted
with memories flowing up my arms to my brain,
sweltering and spicy agave jogging through
my veins as the nurses handled their
witchcraft—the apothecary’s right hand.
They doused his cauldron body:
Morphine Delotid Vicoden
and garnished their concoction with saline.
Pantera Park: It was a Tuesday afternoon.
Three blind kids raced laps in wheel chairs.
And that annoying old woman that
screamed at her little girl playing softball:
Eight swing Nine swing Ten swing
They lost the game that evening,
the whole professional crew with their
professional badges, degrees, and experience;
they wiped off their loss like a tally mark
on the whiteboard. Squeaky marker, it only
squealed of Wins and whispered about the Mess-ups.
Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen
Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen
Nineteen Twenty Twenty-one
Twenty-one
Twenty-one

---

Written on April 23, 2009

"The box is a place."

**brainstorming**

(about the green-leafed index cards)

that face i choose to wear

Faces
painted in aged acrylic oil
(refusing to dry) are never
worn, with pretense nor
explicit insecurity
they

are fully dressed
with organic yarn
pathogenic and dead Swiss
surges of Kool-Aid lips&cheeks
spouting

They
wear masks down the runway
chic, pomp, flirtatiously
leading on the victim
coaxing plans and
forecasts of success

fortune cookie promises
stuffed with Benjamin Franklin
oozing.

oh, so good.

Since when did the cat
bear knees weak
for the dog?

Or when did the snake
suggestively hiss
for the mouse?

Child's Play

Once a boy, always a boy.

A lapdog inspired to obey
the thrust of his barbed wire leash
stretching; swooned by dreams
etched in sanguine ink and smeared charcoal—
crumbly, like shrapnel on canvas.
It was the work of Heroes, said the pamphlets
to the infant Legacy, coaxing the boys with
chocolate-covered honor and candycane pride.
They snatched the bait like gluttons—a second Halloween.
(Once a boy, always a boy.)

A clever selection of children’s songs
are imbibed and learned by them:
the orchestrated symphony of rifles
humming, bombs plucking a
staccato verse for flavor.
Twice wounded, thrice glittered by
crafty glue guns blasting supernovas on
stenciled paper bodies left to dry in the sun,
dripping a mosaic of white, maroon, and green.

A siren then shrieks a note—Recess—
when boys sprint round in the mud; wind-up dolls
in frisky unorthodox tango,
unsure of which direction their feet are
forced to step. They sing their corrupt alphabet
for the younger kids to hear:
A for America!
B for Be a hero!
C for Courage!
and continue until the hype elapses and the bullets run out,
and the music evaporates with their fantasies;
a subtle indication of the truth slipping,
like a boy skins his knee on the pavement.

And it begins with a delicate close,

not dismissing so much as a wink or a blink
to really translate recent foreclosures;
so fatal to the blur, these
unoccasioned trivialities that
screw with the mind and the banality of
Every Day.

So I see you now,
someone else.
A different view in my previously
blurred and telescopic goggles
(others call them eyeballs).

You look... better, for some reason.

And at once, I can sigh with peace;
for now, all the tumult has dissipated
like the coming of seasons, and the onset of
either famine or floods;
they vanish eventually-
such tremor in a twilight disguise;
all gone now.
Vapor sewage
Gone, invisible track

except into my locket chest,
sealing our story with
gauze and hot glue.

You've patched me up--
where did you learn how to sow?
(Although it's arguable you've
undid the seams--unintentional threads
on your brink and mine,
not meant to be interlaced).

A wise man once said to me
indirectly
the truth about life: It Goes On,
he said. And I'll learn to consult
his therapy educated and pristinely;
primly, cleanly, and proper.

So you're just a girl

So you're just a girl who needs some
extra boost and shake to think,
"Man, this is how I want to feel
and I'll damn-well-please feel this way."
(Just saying.)
Muttering things to yourself on
blank-paged moleskins priced for
nearly half of what it's worth--
though, in the end, if it's worth
your dignity sparing and
ballooning integrity (full cup,
brimming with it), I guess it's worth
the buy.

"Damn-well-please,"
you'll feel how you want,
no longer streaking your shirts
for a spark of acknowledgment;
nor leaving your bra strap 'twined
irrelevantly round your pinky.

Heavens to goodness,
it's all in the interior folds,
(not exterior molds, fungal facials
and other unnecessary productions).

Once a Boy

Once a boy, always a boy.

A lapdog hung by string roots
shot by barbed wire
stretching; an unequivocal menace
in the killing fields. Fields that
boast of legacies that sneak
young boys with shrapnel,
it coaxes with chocolate-covered piety
and offers it to the Legacy of America.
(Once a boy, always a boy.)

Twice wounded, thrice glittered
by a (machine gun) that sparkled
sanguine stars on some mangled thing
of a body; enamored by the
sweet shrill of the rifles
humming some new upbeat single.

The boys wound round—wind-up dolls
in a frisky unorthodox tango,
as if on a showcase being judged by
Big Brother, on a scale from one to ten,
despite letters addressing their
lonely gals back at home,
unsure of which direction their
feet are forced to run;
courage strength be-a-hero,
America!
is their surrogate lover,
that is, if not already flirting with the
smokin’ mine bombs,
sizzlin’ blood on a half-faced man,
steamin’ missiles defecated by planes,
rumor has it.

I can't do this anymore.

I won't allow you.

To this girl I know,

You inspire me; really.
(not minding the wear and tear),
You Go For It
and speak with a set head.
Though you've weaved,
'round my wrist,
a tie-dye reminder that
"Yes. It will be all right."
That,
"Yes. Things will be okay
if you Try."
You're over the past
like the knot that you tied
(the bunched ending of the lead sequence
of the trip--when there's too much
tryptophan),
I believe in the transcription;
and I can only hope to
transcribe what you've demonstrated
so professionally mature.
(I'm following you this time.)

ideas in the air

- marine snow
- this girl i know
- men of the guns
- mirrors: good image/bad image

Props to Mark Sescon.

Almost Always, Always Almost

She said: What is more real?
What you live or what you feel?
Angel busters that
wake you in your crib,
waking you from shadow worlds and
fairytales you used to be so
compliant to the haste
compliant to the moment, sifting away
nothingness from The White Wine.

I hesitate. I deviate.
I push myself to find My Place
in the church, in the
confines of a home,
or confines of a blanched home,
so thoughts won't confuse me,
so Opinion won't abuse me,
and so that peace will drink
my insides instead.

Do you transcend? And venture
thriftily? Crafty spirit, selective host.
But you're still happy.

You stun me, your love for Him it
Strays from the Secular--
Strays from the trash we
dare not confess that we defecate
from our own mistakes.

What happened to this place?
When were choices made so aimlessly?
A nation, mangled in-between
truth and hopeful superstition?

The road belches of sorrow;
a fork in-between.
Reality, transcendental mentality.
Who am I? And who should I be?
Damn conscience,
trekking for answers
that are not inside of me.

Almost, finding relief.
Always, finding grief.

Almost, always guessing.
Always, almost hoping.
Almost, always searching.
Always, almost knowing.

feel good drag

Just let me ink out a RELEASE--
and enjoy the cathartic proportions that
satisfy me more decadently than feasts of
raw veggies and fruits of the stickiest
consistencies.

Not relying on organized happiness;
the scheme of things. Creativity wreaks
havoc and craps on the floor; it busts
through metal caves and solid foundations--
it plasters insecurities and eases the
super ego.

Yes, this is my feel good drag:
I'm higher on this than any other prescribed chemical.

An exercise in creative thought processing and sound affiliations

Spewing emotions strike keyboards
Blatantly, so much for a pause or
Tactful meanings implicitly conjured
By hearty aberrations; a sigh from the
blouse, a shrill from the tired denims;
they leak the truth: they leak about you
and what you’ve done during your
explicitly banal day—they are what
Thomas drank when he spilled his doubts
Upon the Son: One, two, three
Are numbers forged unwillingly by the
stubborn unbelievers; No, this shall not
pass; we cannot relegate, I cannot
delegate and spurn diction so
incandescent (I copied from Lincoln);
so taut and pomp and infallibly cool.

Assisted Living

A cloistered chess set, an empty wheelchair,
a music box that could not sing.
Monotony was a popular resident here.
An unfamiliar face intruded, though, and
robbed the usual house scenery.
I stopped the thief in her tracks, but
she retaliated with overcast eyes that grabbed
me silently, as if I had slipped into a well.

“You’re beautiful,”
said her eyes, hungry for a smile.

There was nowhere else to look:
A shelf of dusty magazines, a cupboard of puzzles,
A belching piano that purged its last solid hymn—
untouched and emaciated.

The other house residents went on
existing, like workers drifting at the assembly line.

“No, you are,”
I retorted smugly, cautious of my compromise.

Then I heard them snickering behind my back:
A laughing clock that ticked seconds in miles,
a forgotten photograph wailing, yellow like jaundice patients,
a calendar of events that made promises like a salesman,
bargaining for the happiness of fools
who could not tell today from two-and-a-half decades ago.

“You’re beautiful,”
said the eyes once more, twice more, thrice more,
as the residency collapsed into a madhouse:
giggles from the radio made in the ‘50s,
squeals of droll ecstasy from the children’s books,
mischievous shrills from the stuffed animals.

*in the works*

One:

"Hey Green Shirt,"
(followed by rhythmic counting,
adrenaline,
exasperation,
excitement)

(or maybe a spin off of the 911)


Two:

Streak, pour, spread
(three words repeated--
which, and why)

(choose words that sound out a word?)


Three:

Not quite;
brainstorming.

Poetry is words

How do I want my man?
Like a poem--
Save the big ideas never
scintillating into motion,
like a treadle does work in the
sweatshops: a lever pulsated by the
coaxing of her exhausted feet.

Poetry is words:
Big, strong, audacious,
conniving, taciturn,
simple
meek
loquacious, incandescent
Or customized to your preference:
Hyperbolic prate like a Shakespearean,
Modest and transcendental Frost,
Whimsical and innovative Dickinson.

I will peruse his intentions
with tact; I'll undress his synonyms
and unzip the plucky metaphors he wears
pretentiously on his sleeve. His naked themes
will indicate the worth of the seams, like the Dow.

Eyes can savor the sound of it;
But I delve deep with Encyclopedia
relationships (beyond lazily-construed
purl stitches of rhyme and lime)
that whet my appetite for the
Creative, Spunky, Erratic, Calico-tongued muse.

poetry is WORDS.

bedlamite - lunatic
yoke -
yardage -
scintillating - vivacious
shrill - high-pitched noise; marked by great intensity; betraying some strong emotion or attitude in an exaggerated amount, as antagonism or defensiveness
incandescent - intensely bright; brilliant, masterly
tartan - 1. a woolen or worsted cloth woven with stripes of different colors and widths crossing at right angles, worn chiefly by the Scottish Highlanders, each clan having its own distinctive plaid.
2. a design of such a plaid known by the name of the clan wearing it.
3. any plaid.
bobbin - spool
treadle - lever worked by action of foot to put machine into motion

cor⋅nice
   /ˈkɔrnɪs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kawr-nis] Show IPA noun, verb, -niced, -nic⋅ing.
–noun
1. Architecture.
a. any prominent, continuous, horizontally projecting feature surmounting a wall or other construction, or dividing it horizontally for compositional purposes.
b. the uppermost member of a classical entablature, consisting of a bed molding, a corona, and a cymatium, with rows of dentils, modillions, etc., often placed between the bed molding and the corona.
2. any of various other ornamental horizontal moldings or bands, as for concealing hooks or rods from which curtains are hung or for supporting picture hooks.
3. a mass of snow, ice, etc., projecting over a mountain ridge.

par⋅ox⋅ysm
   /ˈpærəkˌsɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [par-uhk-siz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1. any sudden, violent outburst; a fit of violent action or emotion: paroxysms of rage.
2. Pathology. a severe attack or a sudden increase in intensity of a disease, usually recurring periodically.

wring⋅er
   /ˈrɪŋər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ring-er] Show IPA
–noun
1. a person or thing that wrings.
2. an apparatus or machine for squeezing liquid out of anything wet, as two rollers through which an article of wet clothing may be squeezed.
3. a painful, difficult, or tiring experience; ordeal (usually prec. by through the): His child's illness really put him through the wringer.

man⋅gle
1   /ˈmæŋgəl/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [mang-guhl] Show IPA
–verb (used with object), -gled, -gling.
1. to injure severely, disfigure, or mutilate by cutting, slashing, or crushing: The coat sleeve was mangled in the gears of the machine.
2. to spoil; ruin; mar badly: to mangle a text by careless typesetting.

Fairytale

She writhed in patent distress—
an unlucky damsel that
the fairytales omitted.

Helplessly tied
to a tree somewhere,
The contours of her body were as
naked as a Roman sculpture:

she was tethered in a
tight dress of blanched silk;
a kimono
locked in a princess’ corset.

Only her bejeweled face
witnessed it all
with those beaming ruby eyes.
Spirals of yarn,
tantalizing rope it would seem,
floundered across the air and mocked
her only means of escape.

Until, quietly,
like a steady ship strolling back to shore,
like a feline frozen at watch for a meal,
like a maelstrom imbibing a glass of Ocean,
arrived her dimwitted lover-to-be;
her gleaming cavalier
riding a mustang black as a burrow,
though he bore a red handkerchief round his fat neck.

They exchanged gazes,
as tainted lovers would,
in unearthly paradox;
The terror in her eyes screamed, “Save me,”
while the tranquility in his teethy grin whispered,
“Relax.”

She clamped her eyes shut.
A kiss of promise divulged into a
long, pretentious laugh,
licked by an impatient tongue.

Devouring fangs seized her eyes first,
and undressed her royal garments to make it easier;
the gluttonous and thirsting,
blood-licking, gut-sucking
eight-legged prince
digged for her body
like somebody digging for crab meat from its shell
while having lunch at The Boiling Crab.

more beautiful words

I love words.

***

ou⋅tré

  /uˈtreɪ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [oo-trey] –adjective passing the bounds of what is usual or considered proper; unconventional; bizarre.

discomfiture - [the elegant way to say] frustrating feelings of embarrassment or awkwardness

dessicate - to dry; dehydrate

denouement
–noun

1.	the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot, as of a drama or novel.

2.	the place in the plot at which this occurs.

3.	the outcome or resolution of a doubtful series of occurrences.

aberration

1.	the act of departing from the right, normal, or usual course.

2.	the act of deviating from the ordinary, usual, or normal type.

3.	deviation from truth or moral rectitude.

4.	mental irregularity or disorder, esp. of a minor or temporary nature; lapse from a sound mental state.

5.	Astronomy. apparent displacement of a heavenly body, owing to the motion of the earth in its orbit.

6.	Optics. any disturbance of the rays of a pencil of light such that they can no longer be brought to a sharp focus or form a clear image.

7.	Photography. a defect in a camera lens or lens system, due to flaws in design, material, or construction, that can distort the image.

prate

–verb (used without object)

1.	to talk excessively and pointlessly; babble: They prated on until I was ready to scream.

–verb (used with object)

2.	to utter in empty or foolish talk: to prate absurdities with the greatest seriousness.

–noun

3.	act of prating.

4.	empty or foolish talk.

cavalier

–noun

1.	a horseman, esp. a mounted soldier; knight.

2.	one having the spirit or bearing of a knight; a courtly gentleman; gallant.

3.	a man escorting a woman or acting as her partner in dancing.

4.	(initial capital letter) an adherent of Charles I of England in his contest with Parliament.

–adjective

5.	haughty, disdainful, or supercilious: an arrogant and cavalier attitude toward others.

6.	offhand or unceremonious: The very dignified officials were confused by his cavalier manner.

7.	(initial capital letter) of or pertaining to the Cavaliers.

8.	(initial capital letter) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Cavalier poets or their work.

–verb (used without object)

9.	to play the cavalier.

10.	to be haughty or domineering.

Judas' Wager

The stylish keeper expected my arrival.
He wore a white top hat, suit, and gloves,
and welcomed me with an amused grin—
(was it some sort of droll courtesy, then?)—
as I tiptoed through a transparent crystalline looking glass.

Two rumpled sheets flew open,
by my flipper hand,
And manifested an old burlesque club;
a veritable circus
enveloped in a forest of sound.

On a squat chunk of wood,
two fat white women undressed like heathens,
tossing their costumes on the ground like
heaps of rags
before a large group of smiling sheep.

Doughnuts were strewn across a long, gold table—
some chewed and spat on,
most licked by a naked woman
wearing wings of mystery,
yet no halo.

A big neon sign flickered in white and blue
behind the stage:
“HAVE”
(two letters were too dim to see)
while two lit slabs lay disgruntled on a shelf somewhere,
seemingly peevish at the victor
of Tic-Tac-Toe.

I looked at him, the keeper, and he at me,
along with his wild mouth of teeth and
never-before-seen, shining jewelry.
And My God—
the keeper made it all clear.

It was patently ironic:
nothing in the air was smelled
(my nose crinkled with regret),
nothing was felt or heard or tasted;
(my finger drenched in chilly retrospect);
yet, I witnessed it all with my windowed face,

and I thought to myself,
“God, get me out of this place,”
but I merely dreamt, and dreamt again
until somebody decided to turn up the jukebox.

---

Made this for my beginning poetry writing class. We had to write a poem based on random phrases that we selected from a passage of a random story. The words I chose:

smiling sheep, lit slabs, heaps of rags, fat white woman, rumpled sheet, droll courtesy, amused grin, stylish keepers, shining jewelry, light-echoing wake, blank and tingling, magic show, white-gloved assistant, forest of sound, doughnut, leash, naked woman, big neon sign, sqaut chunk, veritable circus, jukebox, patently ironic.

Mermaid

I find myself delving deeper and deeper into this:

like digging through the ocean from a sight above the precipice
with a dolphin shovel made by mer-maid hands.

First I'll uncover a layer of salt,
then crystal,
then diamonds,
then something holy and profound;
something that can only be reached at abysmal decades--
something that can only survive treacherous temperatures and wanton hope
(only thermophiles would venture to such heights).

Then, the shovel will shrink
in comparison to the ocean floor.
And when I believe that I've hit the bottom of the maelstrom,
and that I've found myself within the core of the Earth,
the whirlpool will kidnap me somewhere--
a place predestined or predetermined,
chosen perhaps by the fate of humanity
or by "His loving hand".

I will carousel back, I imagine;
It will flounder down nicely with me,
and we will be sitting at the precipice together instead,
eating peanut butter and gluten-free bread,
tossing our leftovers at the loquacious seagulls,
never looking down.

words

draconian - harsh
droll - amusing in an odd way; jester; wag (a person given to droll, roguish, or mischievous humor; wit.)

--------------

draconian toils

Vulnerability of the masculinity

"Hey Tom," she whispered to me from a sly degree. "Miss me?"

I caught her gazing from above. She was leaning over the rail of a staircase that seemed to pry ajar from the wall. The steps ran in a downward carousel to my feet.

I could see her grinning confidently. She wore a tightly fitted sleeveless top from Forever, her breasts subtly hanging out from beneath her exquisitely defined collar bone. Her skinny jeans were faded, though; she always wore the same pair--the ones that snuggled against her legs that flaunted the S-curve.

Falling in and out of like can be so trivial.
There comes a point when all I think about is endless possibilities,
and then another point when all I think about is my id acting up.

It's as if love is really just a feeling:
like, it comes and goes when it pleases
to save for bitter endings, or to butter up a banal existence.

A surface impression: a first impression.

That's all it could possibly take.

A feeling; a transient feeling.

Tainted

I'm not who I seem to be.
Within my golden casket,
a sarcophagus encrusted with
fabulous artwork, divinity-strewn,
a farm of loquacious maggots
chew, swallow, and digest my integrity.

Treasure map

That taciturn stare,
it wears me down to the
latest drips of a
cultured vial
-the ones that I see in the hospitals.
That (glistering) way
you fix yourself in my kaleidoscope eyes.
That (devious) laugh,
that (meticulous) demeanor,
your regular attire.
So regular to the eagle eye,
so regular to the passer-by.

E.W.H. Myers - A Renewal of Youth

^ I read a few of his poems randomly in Langson today. Mmm.

Inspired me to write more... "Romantically, stereotypically, rhythmically" when it comes to poetry. (I feel like my poetry is just written WORDS, but not beautiful syllables to hear. If that makes sense.)

----------------------------


Here's my spin on the old classics:








I lament thee,
soft-spoken soldier,
with lips of remorse.
Yet, like the majestic waves
spilling gloriously onto the Earth's
canvas,
My souvenirs of you
are packaged neatly into
Pandora's file cabinets.

They draw their guns out.

There's a part of me that feels empty, and a part of me that feels... split and indecisive. It's like I'm walking the clothes line again, while holding an umbrella (or something). I really don't know what to make of this.

I (sincerely) hope it's not the case of the greens. Because if it is, all I would ask myself is... why am I letting this go?

It's...
A duel between the masters.
Bold Billy and Taciturn Man.

=========


I wish I could stop looking at you.
and all the things that you hope to do.
(and this is where it all begins,
where you find yourself a new batch of friends.)



Dude, forget about it!

MUTINY! MUTINY!

en masse - as a group or body
banal - dull
mutiny - rebellion against legal authority
abate - lessen in amount, degree, intensity
arbitrary -

1.	subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.

2.	decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.

3.	having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government.

4.	capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demand for payment.

5.	Mathematics. undetermined; not assigned a specific value: an arbitrary constant.

–noun

6.	arbitraries, Printing. (in Britain) peculiar (def. 9).

------------------

I keep depending on Tomorrow.

Why so much pressure on Tomorrow,
when Today is always isolated and lonely?


TODAY--! TODAY, I'M SORRY I IGNORED YOU.

The thin girl.

There are many times
when I look at myself
and think about
You and Me.

I'd say,
"Well.
You would like me more,
if I were thinner."

And both of you would agree.

Forgive me, Lord.
For I am so weak.
I resigned to myself,
and acquitted from my goals.
I feel so weak,
I can't bear to look at myself
straight in the mirror--
for that is the sorry price
I've paid for my
crimes.
The mirror taunts me,
The mirror also gloats.
She stares at me, through that mirror,
her belly button winking at me like her eyes
and they chide me for being so
vulnerable to myself.
I've lost,
to my ignorance,
and lost,
to my illusory, feigned, materialistic sham of happiness--
a sham that can only span for...
(what? three hours?)
Until it's done again.
And now my belly just flops
-relentlessly cascading-
deviously overflowing with greed
at the edges of my pants,
and seethes of revenge
because
"I have NOT treated it
like the temple it feels it is."
(Corinthians spews
of the laws I should have abided by;
I should have sworn my oath at the time.)
Why did I lose You,
amidst all this?

what's in a word?

hegemonically - control or dominating influence by one person or group, especially by one political group over society or one nation over others

caste - the class and rank or position of somebody in a society, according to birth, occupation, or some other criterion

bloc - a group of countries or political parties with a shared aim

chafe - (1) to become sore or worn by rubbing, or make something sore or worn in this way; (2) to cause friction; (3) to be or make somebody irritated, annoyed, or impatient

creolized - to form a new mixed language from two or more other languages

inexorable - adjective

1.	unyielding; unalterable: inexorable truth; inexorable justice.

2.	not to be persuaded, moved, or affected by prayers or entreaties: an inexorable creditor.

inviable - unable to survive, especially financially or biologically


----------------------





why do i care?





practice:
"Emily imputed wickedness to the caregiver for not answering her cries for help."

I just had a weird ass dream, haha. Okay, the part I remember… Jin, Jimmy, Charlene and I were all in a car telling stories about hm… past incidents that have happened to us. So Jimmy was telling about a past incident where him and his family does scary things

(btw, Jimmy’s in the passenger seat. Jin is driving. I’m on the left side in the back, Charlene’s on the right.)

And then Jimmy says that he goes to an autoshop of sorts, and before he leaves, Jimmy like… smushes his whole self (like he usually does) on the window and makes that creepy face similar to the Cambria photo (eyes wide open, tongue out haha).

Then the cashier guy goes, “How’d it doo baby boo” or whatever and points both index fingers at Jimmy (all perkily). Or saying something like “Everyone does their own thing.” (??)

And then my brain skips suddenly (forgot the in b/w)… I remember being in Jimmy’s house and there’s a sink full of water with peeled oranges in it. Then I do something and unplug the water accidentally, when it all drains. Julie sees and gasps ‘cause she thinks I’m in major trouble (so do I).

There are bits and pieces I remember – I’m in Jimmy’s house, as if we’re staying in Cambria.

Now, I remember this one last part when some small thin Asian man with mid-length hair (with a face kind of like Winnie, my old piano teacher??) walks up to our car and goes, “I’m dead.” And then puts his hands seductively all over Jin’s head. And then everyone freaks the hell out (the car window was down for the driver). And we jet out of there. The freaking end, to this weirdness beyond words.

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