Prayer of Thanksgiving

sometimes there just ain't shit to say

i wanna give thanks i wanna give thanks i have lots to be thankful for i have lots of love in my life i have lots of lots in my life i have i have i have and the goddess said let it be and it was and that's not so bad

i wanna be profound today i wanna stand on the pulpit of your breasts and be profound today i wanna i wanna i wanna sound like a fucking jimmy page song hey girl i wanna be your backdoor man i wanna i wanna whole lotta love baby i wanna be profound today i feel like i need to be profound today i feel like i've adopted a heart and i feel responsible even if

sometimes there just ain't shit to say

i wanna stand up tall and say the right thing i wanna stand up tall and proper and do the right thing but little does this little heart know little does this fragile heart know that we all try to do the right thing we all face our own brick walls we all want to just put our foreheads on the cool rough brick and fucking slam our heads against the masonry and hope that they burst into a million colors that don't even exist in the rainbow i fucking hate rainbows they are as bad as unicorns they are as bad as a sixteen year old girl writing poetry

i wanna i wanna stand up tall

and take a hand in mine and just say hey baby hey baby the wind dies down the light gets better the sun warms you up until your fucking toes aren't frostbitten your fucking fingers will thaw and the tip of your nose that red tip of your nose it will warm up and you'll be able to feel it again and even your heart even your heart melts

and the only zen is the rhythm of the world there is such a rhythm to the world that it makes my feet move it makes my feet tap even when i'm sitting still it makes my hips shake and swerve it makes me it makes me it causes me to sway like the boughs of these big old redwoods it makes me shimmy like the sea oats in the breeze it just does it does it does it really do there is such a rhythm bop bop de bop bop de bop bop

chaka chaka chaka chaka chaka chaka shaka hey

sometimes there just ain't shit to say

there is such a fine line between give me life and take my life that what the fuck i might as well do whatever i can now whatever i can today whatever i can at the moment because tomorrow i might just be the match that sets the world on fire i might just be the bomb that blows your mind i might just be the fluid in the cultural hydralics that lifts us out of these depths of hell i might be the black hole that sucks away sucks away sucks away your final dying breath

i just wanna give thanks i just wanna give thanks

oh goddess who art in the heavens and the earth and the sea and the fire hallowed be thy being hallowed be thy zest thy kingdom cum thy kingdom immerses me in love thy will be mine thy will be ours thy will be blessed because your cunt is our heaven and thy heaven our earth give us this day our sizzling desire give us what you may i have no troubles with others and pray that they have no troubles with me for every day is a temptation every day there is fucking evil all around us every day every day every fucking day let me wade through this shit and make it to the other side for you my gorgeous lady for you my sweet sorrow for you my cutie patootie are what it's fucking all about forever and always amen

i just wanna give thanks i just wanna give thanks

chaka chaka chaka chaka chaka chaka shaka hey

sometimes there just ain't shit to say

 

 

 

zen and the art...

so there's this guy and he has a key to my house

and all i know about him is that he drives up in the morning in his white van and he drives away in the evening in his white van and he speaks no english well maybe a little bit like you like or see this or ok or good and he knows expressions like a nod or a shake or a thumbs up or down

and we pay him cash

and our next door neighbor introduced us to him there is some connection from taiwan no maybe it's hong kong b somehow met him through the community and he has done a lot of things for us

he rebuilt our upstairs he built my office he repaired the outside of our house he rebuilt our bathroom shower he is a craftsman he is now building a bathroom and bedroom downstairs near my office off the playroom my dad will live there at some point

and i can pronounce his name but have but have but have no fucking idea how to spell it i've never written it down it's like a fucking dope buy we give him cash and he shows up and does amazing things for our soul to our house hey this is fucking san francisco you can make your closet a little bigger and call it a bedroom and all of a sudden your house is worth

one hundred thousand

dollars more than it was the previous month and i will spell his name phonetically chow guy or maybe it's chow gai or maybe it's ciao gai but i guess that would be from his italian heritage from when the italians colonized outer mongolia when marco fucking polo took his sunday stroll back in the thirteenth century who the fuck knows

i'd ask him but he wouldn't understand me i do know how to say garbage in mandarin cantonese whatever the fuck i believe it's cantonese but b next door can talk to him we just tell b what we want done and she tells chow gai ciao guy and he scratches his head and he jots some shit down on the back of a torn paper bag and he says something back to b who then turns to us and says he wants five thousand or two thousand or ten thousand depending depending of course and we are always shocked always amazed and we don't even ask for details he just

fucking shows up

and i'm in awe of this man i have no idea about who the fuck he is i know it's just a fucking projection something that i just want to be true but i am so fucking jealous of this guy he just

fucking shows up

and he has his thermos full of some type of tea green maybe ginseng maybe fucking bull's ball broth for all i know we used to offer him sandwiches tea coffee whatever but now we don't he just

fucking shows up

and he is so quiet sometimes he has a little radio playing the local asian radio stations with a lot of wild traditional music that i can't really explain or describe but you know the music i'm sure you've heard at your local accupuncturist i really kind of dig it and he just

fucking shows up

and i throw around the term zen like i throw around the term yoga or tai chi like i'm some kind of kool kalifornia spiritual dude i can't tell you what it really is i just kind of know what it ain't but if i could point out an example if i could point out a representative of zen i would i mean i use the term all the time like yo dude there is just so much zen and i just dig just dig the zen of

washing dishes

or i just dig the zen of sweeping the front walk or i just dig the zen of being that's such a crock what the fuck do i know about zen of anything i'm a cracker from the swamps for fuck's sake but i really liked the asian dude in the movie diva french flick but the dude said zen and the art of buttering bread and i was young and just thought that was cool and of course i read zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance everyone who smoked dope and dropped acid in college had to read that book just like we had to read all the castenada shit and tolkien shit and hitchhiker guide to the universe shit but he chow gai just

fucking shows up

and there must be a zen about this i mean i think that he lives by himself and he just fucking shows up and he plays his little music and he drinks his tea and he takes my ancient house that was built before my grandmother was born and she's dead now and he takes my ancient house and he makes it beautiful all by himfuckingself

he could be tripping his fucking brains out

and it wouldn't surprise me he just seems so content i'm not going to say happy because it's not happiness that i sense that i want to see maybe it's joy maybe it's just a sense that he has purged himself of all malice and he is just good with the world and he and he i'm not like that i wish that i could sometimes i wish that i could kick back and find that spot

i find my joy in spreading my arms and looking the goddess in the eye and screaming at her to either give me satisfaction or kill me screaming sounds of joy and wondrousness and awe but sometimes i just wish i could find that spot that one little spot in the universe

that is mine sometimes i wish that i could just

fucking show up

Eulogy

Another poem for the web site verbophobia. The new word list:

The new word list has arrived. Have fun.

protrusive, cotton, hush, rent, amnesia, self-hypnosis, deflect, determinacy, worn, throe, adhesion, lurid, sapper, leader, epigraph, strawberry.

Eulogy

Oh, my sweet leader,
I’m worn,
I’m worn out,
I’m rent,

Your strawberry
The morning’s epigraph,

As, still, I’m protrusive,
Lurid,
Beneath the sheets,
The hushed cotton sheets.

The body seems forgetful,
Ignoring the morning’s throes,
Amnesia settles in,

Determinacy
Reconsidered,
Adhesion to history
Deflected,

Self-hypnosis?
I really doubt it,
As this activity will certainly
Be my death.

When you speak
My eulogy
Consider this old sapper
Kindly.

kill box

kumbafuckingyah

turn the page turn the page every day every day now in the new york times slip it out of the little blue baggie in which it's delivered every day now in the new york times there is a little box a cute little very serious looking box on one of the inside pages of section a and inside this little box this very cute very serious little box is the list of names, military service, rank and hometown of the soldiers who died in iraq the previous day

just like the boxscores in the sports section i find it very helpful

it makes things a lot clearer you know not like when i first moved to san francisco more than twenty years ago i used to walk my dog through the same redwood grove where i walked my dog this morning different dog this morning than it was twenty years ago different me than i was twenty years ago hope i'm smarter hope i'm less angry hope hope hope that

but things but things were not clearer then i saw no lists of those who died in golden gate park i don't think they kept handy little lists of such things the vietnamese memorial had not been built yet it was a couple of years off that my friend is an impressive little list in itself but it doesn't really change does it i guess it must as people are moved from mia to kia when they find parts here parts there parts is parts or not

but things were not so clear then in golden gate park a lovely park a grand park ranks right up there as one of the bestest and brightest of parks i just remember i remember being amazed at the people who slept in the park they were everywhere i wasn't used to people being without homes i wasn't used to people not having places to stay i mean i know i knew a lot of very poor people some of them related to me i knew poor people but i never knew anyone so poor that they had no place to live that they had no place to stay that they had no family i mean even my poor relatives had family you never threw out family

but i wasn't accustomed to seeing this i wasn't accustomed to seeing people simply lying beneath bushes i used to fantasize not really fantasize but sort of imagine what would i do if this guy were dead what would i do if this guy weren't among the living any longer what do you do i've never really seen a dead person outside of a funeral home

never saw a dead person

never saw a person die

but things were not so clear when my dog was sniffing around under the bushes and i paid no attention until i saw her dragging a pantsleg attached to a leg and a foot pulling on it and growling and there was a body attached to this leg but no voice she was a big dog she was a strong dog and this was a small adult body and she was pulling this body out

and i thought ah geeze here comes the dead body that i never saw before dead body dead dead who am i supposed to call who am i supposed to summon am i in trouble because my dog disturbed the body ah shit i should make sure my weed is stashed if i need to call the police how do you call the family of the dead body fuck fuck fuck i don't have time for this shit today when the bush screamed

shit fucking dog

and i knew the body was at least half alive and i summoned my dog and she dropped the leg and we kept on walking through the woods and body crawled back up into the bushes

and last night we played cards i won i usually win i'm not bad i'm not bad at all had a bit of a down streak but managed to pull it out of my ass at the last possible moment i mean it was down to me and m and he had four queens showing with the wild card and he could figure out what i had i had a jack queen king of hearts showing and one wild card and he didn't know if i had the down card or not and i didn't know if he had the down card to give him five queens but

i don't

think that he was even thinking m plays by instinct and i wonder if that instinct saved his life on occasion i mean he used to be a policeman is a policeman i mean not just a regular policeman he's a detective law and fucking order baby i mean he's a homocide detective he told us came in one time and told us he asked us really if we had ever really felt

brains

and i'm pretty sure we all looked up from our cards and shook our heads and waited for the story some guy involved in a shootout with the police some meth salesman up from modesto the meth lab capital of the world and this guy has had a little too much meth this evening and he ends up sticking the gun beneath his chin and pulling the trigger and blowing the shit out of his fucking head and face and splattering brains all over the inside of the truck cab and m is telling us how he scooped the brains up and put them in a bag and

he's in this surreal place as he's telling it and before he was a policeman before he was a detective playing with gray matter he was in the marines in vietnam and he never talks about that

i often wonder if he ever killed anyone but m only wondered if the mortician could put the fucker's head back together for the funeral

he could m could easily kill any three or four people a the table even if we rushed him all at once he's big but i wonder i wonder i wonder

and then there j's friend t who i am certain has killed someone and he is one fucked up guy i mean t is older than me he grew up in sf he grew up with stories that made me think that life is the same everywhere he grew up a white redneck in the city beating up gays beating up hippies then he was drafted in 66 and went to vietnam

and he was in the marines and he was

in the shit

and he was captured by the viet cong and he was in a bamboo cage just like in the deer hunter and he said he escaped and he killed several people in hand to hand combat and he told us this over the course of a sunday afternoon he drank almost a fifth of bourbon while i trimmed his plants and smoked his bud

and he hates people t hates people he hates vietnamese but in a sense of fairness he also hates most asians spreading the love so to speak he's killed he's taken a knife and slit a guy's throat he has broken a man's neck with his bare hands it was him or me he said i had to do it the little fuckers wanted to kill me i didn't want to be there but the little fuckers wanted to kill me all i wanted to do was go home

t ain't never going home he lives by himself with a very big tv and a room full of marijuana plants and some grow lights he goes out sometimes and most of the times he doesn't get into fights but sometimes he does

and i fucking wonder who gets in trouble for fucking up t who gets in trouble for this

kumbafuckingyah huh we have four rules at our house for the kids for me and j as well rule number two is you can't join the military major fucking rule in our house

my cousin w went to vietnam and killed a few people he came home w was a big fucking redneck guy and for a while he was all killed this and killed that and all the other rednecks back home that didn't go slapped him on the back and told him he was all right but years later w got sick agent orange kind of sick and then he started crying a lot and the local rednecks didn't slap him on the back any more they didn't really come around any more

i use the little blue baggie to scoop dog shit in the park

kumbafuckingyah motherfucker

there were five names in the box today

 

aromatherapy

i love swimming at dawn i love swimming when the light is new when the light is building up when the light is just beginning to threaten its just beginning to threaten her first explosive orgasm of the morning that most powerful shiver and shake that blesses us all that wraps us all i love swimming at dawn i love swimming when the water is dark when the water is salty black when you swim by smell when you let your nostrils when you let your schnozz just rudder you through

i love the lingering smell of leaving her there darkness still wrapped loosely around her with the sheets her wild hair loosely spread among the pillow i can still smell her as i plow through the water she is more powerful than the salt than the seaweed than the seals than the than the than she lingers

the nose knows

the back of her neck ah the early morning dew has nothing over the loveliness of waking up with my face buried in the mass of hair that flows over her morning aroma soothing my passage into the physical darkness my hands moving gliding through the water down her thigh early morning not to light no tickling so early the thick morning waters the icy morning waters playing with my fingers running morning firm down her thigh

she mindlessly opening for me the goddess the morning goddess opens her icy waters to me as i plunge in chilly chilly plowing out into the bay breathe stroke stroke stroke breathe stroke stroke stroke breathe so warm she bakes beneath the sheets she is my evening hot water bottle need her close through the night bakes through the night so she her motor purrs in the morning

opening opening

moist

the nose knows the morning aroma moving down her back around to her belly each region even the nether regions especially the nether regions each region having its own unique its own local its own little smell ah baby oh baby waves chopping with the crisp morning breeze chop chop breaking over our heads as we try to breathe breathe stroke swallow choke breathe breathe stroke

ah baby oh baby the moist smell the moist smell morning moist my nose my nose a gentle probe ah baby oh baby my nose my nose is a fucking pig's snout wallowing in your morning nakedness ah baby oh baby

the warmth the chill the warmth the chill

lingering

the glance over my shoulder you've taken over the entire bed you've had me now you've rid yourself of me the white caps still chopping within my sleeping princess the smile on your face

lingering

 

Deal

ah les quebecois ils sont si si si comment dit-on fucking confused ah les americains nous sommes si si si comment dit-on fucking arrogant ah who gives a shit

what a cool city what a cool place what a grand old aggregation of fine cuisine and fine wines and fine women with the cutest fucking accents and asses what a what a what a fucking hardon i get from fishnet stockings and a deal and i was there i am there i was there less than twenty-four hours hey the french even the fucking candian french hey even these fuckers want television they need television they have to have more and more and more television

even if it's fucking canadian television c-fucking-b-fucking-c tv jesus it might as well be called the fucking eskimo channel

san francisco to montreal and back to san francisco in twenty-two hours

i fly in i deal  i fly out deal deal deal i'm the cynical fucking bastard that's why i'm good i'm good i'm so good at the deal the fucking deal the deal the deal gives me a hardon makes me cum on demand

hey baby i am the man i am the man i am the dealer i am the guy that is going to get you hooked next stop is your town baby i'm going to bring in more and more and more and more television ah yes don't you want to watch the channel about hunting gophers in your own backyard don't you want to watch the channel about how to make your own grain alcohol don't you want to watch the channel about

fucking your neighbor

up the ass with your own homemade howitzer and don't you want to watch the mets the braves the cubs the b-ball baby the round ball the forty-three different soccer leagues from around the world and especially australian fucking football jesus fucking christ no wonder the aussies are so stupid after taking a beating like that with no helmet no pads muhammad fucking ali baby

you need it you need it you need it just like she needed the kobe rape just like elizabeth smart needed the woods like jessica lynch needed iraq like malvo needed his boy just like just like arnie needed to be governor grope grope baby just like just like just like

well darling just step right up just step right up just step right up hey it's an honorable profession hey it's an honorable thing the world needs more television we are going to bring it to your town baby seventy-six trombones don't you want a little video on demand don't you want to be able to sit back in your fucking lazy boy chair and push a button

high definition

trouble in river fucking city

don't you want to see the world blow up in all its glorious colors through your digital video recorder dvr pvr tivo baby baby

baby except if you live in europe you poor fucking saps you haven't a clue you haven't a clue you only know what your mamma told you about television there hasn't been anything new under the sun in europe they think that color is the boy from africa they got nothing in europe unless you look at the germans ah the fucking germans and they ain't got shit baby all they have is a little soft porn on the public airwaves or unless you look at the

fucking french

they ain't got shit they got a wierd fucking format that even the rest of europe won't pay attention to those fucking frogs no baby if you want the real thing if you want the real thing you gotta come here you gotta come here you gotta come here and get on the wagon get on the wagon we got it all baby

we'll show you channels that you just can't believe we'll show you the channels that you've always wanted we'll show you the channels that will make you stand up and drop trou and salute with your skinny little cock 

we've got wrestling we've got mule racing we've got mule fucking we've got sharks both vicious and human we've yes we've yes we even got that special porn the type of porn that george bush likes to watch that special porn of people getting blown up getting the fucking shit kicked out of them by missiles and bullets and hand grenades and and and lions and tigers and bears oh my

and we've got the porn that uncle georgie doesn't admit to watching doesn't want the rest of us poor fucks to watch he doesn't even want to admit want to admit oh baby do we gots a little porn oh baby we gots the big porn we gots john holmes we gots asia carrera we gots the hots we gots ron jeremy fucking uncle george and laura up the ass we got we got we got 

yeah baby

our porn is clean our porn is scrubbed clean of all infections our porn is downright clinical baby clean clean like listerine 

the porn industry is king here we export we export fucking and sucking we've sent it right up over the satellite and into your house you don't even have to walk into the little back room at your local video store and have little johnny from down the street giggle as you lay down your fresh copy of teenage sluts three baby because you know johnny is also fucking your teenage niece three by three

but fuck the swedes fuck the danes fuck the icelanders the laplanders the laplickers the germans and their big fucking dicks we got the porn baby and it's being piped into your house twenty-four by seven

step right up step right up 

we're going to sell your babies some toys and then we're going to sell your babies some formula and then we're going to sell your babies a chance to join the army and be all they can fucking be with a televised tomahawk cruising up their ass

and we're going to show your neighbor being gang raped on the eleven o'clock news and then the next day he'll have his own television special with a special re-enactment starring dick the swinging dick cheney

and we'll target your asshole for a quick advertisement about enemas about anal-ectomies about fucking preparation h baby we'll target your head for all sorts of elixirs that will make you breathe easier that will make your hair grow that will make your eyes change color take out the fucking red baby we'll target your fucking dick and protect it from those skanky bitches that will give you disease

we'll target your mamma for when she dies we'll target your daddy to take that long prostate testing pole up his ass we'll target your little sister to be fitted for larger breasts and sweeter smelling pussy i'll deliver that message personally myself

ain't no heroin ain't no pills ain't nothing like it baby i got it all just step right up

and the lovely people of montreal the stupid fucks of montreal don't even know what hit them

deal

 

French 101

they are all fucking speaking french i mean they look a little like me they're white but not pale like those fuckers in toronto no they're a little darker like me not greek dark but in that direction but they're all speaking french with fucking attitude

they're dressed warmer they know things i don't know they know seasons they know cold i have only suits for one season san francisco season and i don't do cold well where your fucking hair can freeze and break off

those two over there playing cards they're gay they're euro gay and they're getting their french fucking each other selves onto the plane back to montreal after a weekend in san francisco

the old dude in his plaid beret hands folded on his lap in deep meditation head bowed in deep meditation his wife chatting away he in deep meditation grokking on life and fishing and perhaps the little park where he played chess as a kid and of fucking that cute little lass that lived across the hall and his coke bottle glasses down low over his schnozz overlooking his white paintbrush chin a cute little goatee sans mustache that yearns to paint the inside of the lass's thigh

and the gay dudes put down their cards and pick up their respective new yorkers

and the dude with the sweater tied round his shoulders i fucking loathe the sweater on the shoulder look we have only four rules that our kids have to live by in our house number one they must always live by the golden rule and respect and treat people like humans number two they can't join the military three they can't vote republican and four they can't wear a fucking sweater around their shoulders makes life easier to have only a few rules to live by they're pretty cool kids

tres bien tres bien she leans over me i should be a fucking gentleman and stand up and help her but hey i don't want to insult her by asking her not to rub her lovely little crotch against my shoulder i believe i can just detect the slightest whiff of desire i don't even care if it's not for me but for the hot stud frenchman boyfriend who is also not helping her but is instead enjoying the rear view of her grinding ass

oh i'm sorry i didn't mean to bump you in the cutest fucking little french accent ah mais non mais non ce n'est rien i fumble through i mispronounce misspeak and she giggles and jiggles

why won't this couple behind me speak fucking english aren't there any fucking english speaking people traveling to montreal they're obviously having a fight i can't understand a fucking word in spite of my five fucking years of french but these ignorant fucks know that i can't understand them they can't be fodder for my blog these ignorant fucks if i can't understand them

i liked the french version of the pre-flight video she sounded sexier than the english babe especially when she blew into the life vest tube to self-inflate there will be no need to buy hotel porn in the room tonight i'll just reflect upon her sweet lips ah sugar hmmm sugar love the sugar

i can't believe it but the sweater fuck is sitting in my row window seat i always have the fucking aisle if i need the view from the window i'll buy the fucking postcard i'll check out the video i don't do well on the inside for six hours i need the aisle you know what i mean butter bean but here this sweater fuck comes and i have to get up and let his sweater-wearing ass into his seat this is not a gay thing this is not a fucking gay thing this guy is not gay he's a fucking tennis-paying republican elephant fucker no doubt about it

ah fuck i'm wrong he's fucking speaking french ah shit are there french republicans fuck all my fucking stereotypes out the window again but the home rule still stays

my air waitress with special safety skills speaks french with my row-mate and i get a hard on i watch angelina jolie play laura croft in skin tight latex with the french audio channel and i get a hard on i glance across the aisle at the air cooled nipples of of this really fine euro chick and i get a hard on i reflect on my morning luckiness my morning delight my morning my morning my morning in that wild new position and i get a hardon

man was not meant to fly

 

Sailing Ships

sometimes i enjoy life so much that i feel ashamed sometimes the world just unfolds before me sometimes sometimes she gives of herself and keeps on and keeps on and keeps on giving and sometimes she threatens to run away

i sailed the viscous waters of the san francisco bay actually the entire fucking day the full day the whole day the viscosity of the day engulfed me had engulfed me earlier when i swam in her arms in her icy arms but i sailed the waters i stood on the boat i reached up and touched the sky that leaned over to meet me to join me to swallow me

while she lay in wait in her dark alley lay in wait with her little black heart thinking i loved her not

earlier i had entered her i had submerged myself in her beauty i had penetrated the water the icy water folded around me like the wetsuit that i never wear my arms my arms my hands my fingers moved through the water the big bowl of salty chilly jello more slowly than normal more slowly than i could help more slowly than my slo mo motion can express my legs kicking haplessly the air sliding down my throat like maple syrup

she steals the money from my wallet but i don't care i don't need the money i don't want the money i can't keep the money when it's over i only want her soul i only want her back i only want her want her want her in my head in my hand she is so fucking smug with her theft she is so fucking smug with the thought that she may have influence over me that she may that she may that she may

and the wind poured over us and the light weighed heavily on our eyes on my eyes eventually sinking the air sinking the elements sinking sinking in its brightness oozing through the fibers folded over my cracker covering oozing through oozing through not unlike the banana slugs those slimy snotty yellow banana slugs that make their way across the floor of the redwood bed near my own alley near my own path

lights don't flicker lights don't flicker lights ooze lights flow lights fade but lights don't flicker while i throw my arms around you i can't protect your innocence i can't save your life i can only love your life love life love living hell baby this ain't jonestown this ain't jim jones talking to you on his tragic anniversary this is the ooze this is the slime this is the mortality of it all

the smoke of her herb poured down our throat like sweet yogurt and the spinnaker grabbed her wind and yanked us around the water like the little fools we are and the clouds the fog poured in through the gate and and and slid their hand between the legs of the sail and

but we can't be ashamed of loving we can't be ashamed of living we can't be ashamed you haven't been around long enough to know that bricks crumble that walls fall that shit happens that there is beauty in monotony there is such beauty there is much to be cherished in the monotony of it all

There is a web site called verbophobia that Joe London featured on his blog. The guy lists a bunch of words and then asks that one uses them in a poem or some such drivel. At the end of October, it said:

Here's the new word list, folks. This list is compiled from a *Top Secret* source, mixed with words sent in by Catherine Meng and Xtina Strong. I threw in one of my favorites, too:

pupil, pressure, gauge, impropriety, ampersand, shoulder, withered, social, climber, tickler, hen-speckled, spyglass, smarmy.

So, I wrote something, and it's now a selected (although not the selected) poem:

twist like me

ah, your smarmy
fucking pupils
give away the

impropriety
of your withered
morals

but the pressure
of your
vulva
causes my tongue

to twist --

an ampersand,
a tickler,
a good vibration

that runs,
flees,
escapes

through your navel
through your ribs
through one shoulder
and out the next;

please, please,
remove this blasted
spyglass
from my hen-speckled ass

for you cannot possibly
guage
from such a viewpoint

how
such social climbers
as your sweet self

can twist like me.

 

Runaway

nigger

nigger spade burrhead junglebunny spearchunker

dumb nigger shiftless nigger stupid nigger lazy nigger

nigger nigger nigger

i ain't no preacher i ain't no teacher's pet i ain't no zen buddhist monk i ain't even a mayoral candidate i ain't telling you the way it should be i ain't telling you the way it could be will be i ain't yo mamma i ain't yo daddy

my grandma said nee'gra my mamma early on said coloreds or colored people then in the late sixties she said black she tried to be cool she was cool

my grandpa just said nigger he said nigger probably every day until he died in nineteen and ninety my uncle ben said nigger and when he meant it in a positive way he used a possessive adjective like my nigger his nigger your nigger their nigger got to treat your nigger right can't talk about my nigger that way and when he meant it in a negative way he used a demonstrative adjective like that nigger or those niggers or maybe a definitive like the nigger

i never really heard my daddy say nigger until i was well out of college and he was mugged in Tampa and then he used the word with vehemence for a while

now he's calmed down

we didn't integrate until the fifth grade in nineteen and sixty-nine when the mets won the world series they beat the atlanta braves in the playoffs first division playoffs can't even remember who they played in the series and we had all these young teachers come down from up north to teach so they wouldn't get drafted so they wouldn't have to go to vietnam so they wouldn't have to kill so they wouldn't have to be killed

and all my friends were nigger this and nigger that and they talked about fighting and they talked about shit

i used the word nigger i was only ten

i was a little worried a little scared what the fuck why do you want to do that why do you want to fight niggers is uppity they said

chris snyder and i hooked up chris was the toughest kid in the fifth grade probably the sixth and seventh grade don't know because they wouldn't fuck with him i saw chris kick the shit out of thomas wilson toward the beginning of the school year

thomas was a fucking cracker redneck and deserved to get his ass kicked

chris whupped him whupped him good chris sat next to me in class and i said chris i said man you're going to flunk out of math you can't even fucking add and he said i know and i said i'll get you through math just hang with me

and he hit me in the arm he hit me hard it fucking hurt and he said fuck you white boy and the teacher called on him and i slipped him the wrong answer not just the wrong answer but a stupid wrong answer and he said the stupid wrong answer and he looked like a fucking idiot

and everyone laughed black and white

except i didn't laugh

and chris sat down and he said grinning at me he said deal

and later that week i was kind of cornered by a few black kids down by the woods at the edge of the playground and chris came running down and kicked the shit out this kid donnell

and later many years later when i was in college and at home one summer and my friend w got this job at dbc where they made bags cloth bags burlap bags all sorts of bags it was a hovel of a place where they paid everyone minimum wage and deducted for shit like gloves that were crap and fell apart and when the black folks got old they just fired them and w was a white boy is a white boy he was a friend of jimmy d's whose daddy owned dbc and

and w was digging this black chick

and i said one night smoking a big old phattie with him i said yo baby hot hot chocolate and he said

no

w was in med school and he wanted to return home to south georgia to practice and he said nobody would visit him nobody would give him any business nobody nobody nobody if he dipped into the chocolate he said

no

chris snyder showed me chocolate i went to his house one time a few times after school and some weekends other side of the tracks baby

and his friends and his cousins would be around and they loved to see the white boy come around

and they loved to touch and be touched and i loved to touch and be touched and i

looked at w

and said you're a fucking idiot and he said

no

and i said

bye

california is the place i oughta be so i loaded up the truck and i headed bever-lee

hills that is movie stars swimming pools

and i don't know what happened to chris i imagine he didn't go to college i imagine that he got some shit job i imagine that i imagine that i imagine that he might even be dead he liked to fight i never saw him after the seventh grade and i don't know what happened to his cousins i'm sorry chris man i'm really sorry i'm sorry that i feel

relieved

that i left and i feel

ashamed

that i left i was afraid to try and change things i ran away i didn't want to affect i wanted instant effect

i ran away

and i don't know how to fix it i don't know how to say i'm sorry i don't know how to make amends i don't know i don't know i don't know

i ran away