etiquette

My mum taught me,
when I was wee,
the rules to please my gran:
“Get your elbows off the table”
“Say ‘please and thank you’ whenever able
And don’t eat with your hands.”
“To ma’am and sir
One should defer
Yes, even sometimes
When they’re wrong.
With family it’s sometimes best
To go along to get along.”
In company, aim for grace,
Be civil and refined.
One should by the gentility
Of their manners be defined.
The etiquette she taught me
has served me very well,
But if you think it doesn’t...
You can fuck off straight to hell.

scrumptious

the moment before
when I see the want
and slowly smile
you lean in
your hand snakes up
to twist
within my tresses
you pull my face
inexorably towards you
is there any desert
more scrumptious

comminute

Revenger’s recipes:

take all your broken pieces
the cracked and frayed edges
and lay them in the mortar
pick up your pestle
comminute your sorrow
from now until tomorrow
then of the flour made
of all the best forgotten yesterdays
bake bread for all your enemies
and hope they choke on it

polyglot

Je t'aime. 

all the words there were and are and will be

Ti amo.

spoke by all the polyglots in unison

the tower of babel fallen and scattered

Jag älskar dig.

the chorus uproarious

are to we two as silent movie reels

Ich liebe dich.

we are as the shimmering of heat rising

words are by you and me unnecessary

and yet, let me say, in every language, in every way

I love you.

litmus test

draw a line
in the sand
and stand behind
a litmus test
a yea or nay
no room to sway
or shades of grey

decoct

were it possible
I would grind you up
break you down
and render out
your essence
decoct an elixir
made up of your
innate joy and
on my lesser days
drink you up

bower

rest ye here awhile

your wearisome journey
through rugged terrain
far from done

so please you, pause
long enough to
restore a sprightly tread
and in this bower
make your bed
of moss and mystery

indulge in an interlude
of well earned tranquility

ere you strap on your satchel
and rise refreshed
to face the world again
 

magniloquent

in the quiet
there we find
ourselves
and in ourselves
the multitudes
of whom
Whitman spoke
the cowardly, the brave,
the dumb, the wise,
truth therein lies
magniloquent we sing
or meekly squeak
our souls in music
when of ourselves
we speak

reverberate

within the hollow
of my hallowed halls
the corridors of
my neural paths
a song reverberates
intrusive and unceasing
I would banish it
if I could but
as I cannot catch it
unbidden I hum

purview

during long days
i long for comfort
half remembered
niche cuddled
in the nook
between between
arm and chest
resting head
despair surpressed
and quieted care
departing as we
murmur and mumble
of things beyond
our purview
in daydream dilemas
together create
the world anew

hamartia

she prides
herself so
on attributes
becoming
the hamartia
of investing
all your sense
of self worth
on an ephemeral
facade of youth
sure to fade

canker

the bile of injustice
catches in my throat
to choke me
surer than rope
frustration
like a canker grows
blossoms
to resentment
and to rot
all the years
of doing what I ought
of heeding what was taught
doing the right
yet beaten out of spite
all the years and years
playing by the rules
and here I am
played for a fool

orthography

Do not quibble with me;
hiding behind little changes
in orthography
to claim ignorance.

As though an extra U
confused.

You know, you knew,
from tone and context
you could figure out
but better to play dumb
than prove without a doubt
the breadth of your malice
hid in stupidity
like a pill in cheese.

parabolic

her hand dances
in parabolic arcs
above the paper
in swoops she starts
to make a something
out of empty space
and bends her arts
to set a broken world
back in its place

smithereens

all it takes
is one dumb glitch
and then the itch
grows great
we wish to smash
to smithereens
this fucking tech
we love and hate

encroach

Time is a stealthy bitch.
She sneaks in and hides
in our dark places,
encroaching on our secret spaces;
and when we sleep
she steals away our hours
to sap us of youth
till we are faded
as long cut flowers.
She takes and takes but rarely
gives unless we court her
and then, perhaps,
she’ll drop a moment
of forever-seeming in our laps
as pearls before swine.
But she lets her sister,
Memory, follow behind
to swipe those from us too
when we are occupied with
paying other gods their due.

two-bit

some sort of
generational
genetic tic
that I cannot lick
seriously
it has happened
so many times
you'd think
that I was thick
I fall for every
two-bit conman
if not their
petty shtick
even though
I surely know
their charm
is just a trick
and will I fall
prey again
probably but then
the finding out
is what it’s all about

animadversion

you may see it
as a flaw within
slow to judge
seeing the good
beyond its domain
like an aura made
of chlorinated hours
in the summer sun
sans goggles
so all the better traits
in her eyes glow
she would not cast
down those eyes
no more would she cast
animadversions on
even those deserved
she would not wound
and so oft is wounded

zero-sum

they keep us
on the ground
by convincing us
that this
is a zero-sum game
that the crumb he gets
is took from you
they keep us
from looking up
to see from whence it dropped
that crumb from table heaped
not given or shared
but fallen
as they stuff their faces
they keep us
starving so
fixated on food
we fight each other
instead of them 

delate

"they eat their young,"

"and fight over the scraps"

"they swindle, and they swear"

oh how it goes
each would delate each other so
that no one sane would trust again

a witch, a snitch,
how easily they switch

bathetic

beware, caller, beware,
be aware and be wary of
the sweet nostalgic flow
how easy the conversation goes
easy, too, to drown in the bathetic glow
of a love you never truly had
but thought you used to know
it is not a flame rekindled
but merely that Time has dwindled
the sharp edges....
as has the Bordeaux

newspeak

how quickly
words lose their meaning
when repeated over and again
words intangible as air
the newspeak parroted
across the ether
words abused and misused
words like truth and loyalty
and love

cap-a-pie

I entered as we all do
naked and shaking
overloaded by information
imperfect receptors
straining for morality
and to also not die
so far, so good, somewhat,
I suppose, so clothe me
cap-a-pie in glory
if you ever tell my story

shard

clumsy handled mirror dropped
we walk on the broken shards
of our bloodied reflections
pierced by infinite distortions
repeating into eternity

mirandize

I could not be
more chastised
if I had been
mirandized
and rightly so
because I know
I'm in the wrong
and cannot write
to make it right
but time must do
remaining true
or just do right
in my heart
from the start
all along

abecedarian

she recites them
like a litany
an abecedarian Arya
A is for Adam - abusive
B is Ben who belittled
C is chauvinist Charlie
D is degrading David
E is for Evan etc, etc 
and so she goes
through all her woes
and all of those
who wronged her
and their names she'll say
and reckons how
she'll make them pay
today or all
of their tomorrows

leviathan

trepidation rises
from stomach to throat
an invisible leviathan
lifting despair and hope
its wake anticipation
we surf the expectation
or are dragged below
and cut upon the corals

feisty

like a cat
she will beguile
her placid mask
belies the wild
fierce and feisty
inner child
bursting forth
protuberant
raging still
exuberant
stretching out
behind her smile

sentient

go ahead and
laugh at me
with my pleases
and thank yous
to Siri and Alexa
but come the singularity
when technology
becomes sentient
our robot overlords
will remember
my respect
and we’ll see
who’s laughing then.

vox populi

the never ending cycle
of political discourse
as campaign stretch
from months to years
the vox populi no more
vox dei but vox unum
for ears attuned to hear
nothing but the echoes of
their own voice voicing
nothing but their own opinion

gormless

he would make himself
seem greater and so
surrounds himself
with gormless galumphs
but instead he seems
a greater dunce
and insecure to boot
that he would recruit
the sniveling and the sly
and never wonder why
they would follow
a hat so hollow