---

I love to watch the Londoners spit
A regular waterworks!
Some spouts of two
Or four
Or more
Ejected through the gaps between their teeth
Mixed with tobacco and smelling of whiskey
On the streets and in the grass
Whenever they feel it accumulating –
Even with their loved ones
Or children
Or parents
Or coworkers
Or boss
Or the Queen
Or God –
Hey! When you gotta spit,
You gotta spit –
No swallows about it.

---

---

I’ve a Fatty sitting next to me
Who cannot keep from pestering
Her body is overflowing
And stealing half my seat.

Rattling the aisles with suppressed coughs
Which echoes with the sticky stuff
How Dionysus slurps her cup
Not caring who is near.

Yet the candied cherry on the head
Nonchalant she stretched her legs
Rubbing me with balmy sweat
Choked by her body heat.

I have little mem’ry of the show
My view blocked by squelchy, saggy folds
And thund’ring anger in me rolled
With no room to applaud.

---

---

Down the campus path I stroll,
Inner peace upon my air –
Yet these students on that knoll
Counteract it with a glare.
In class, my dictative voice
Is primed, pristine, and refined;
Still, those lacking it by choice,
Less-than-pleasant they might find.
My manners: sweet and cordial
My smile: inviting, real, warm
My face: fresh, calm, youthful
My friends: I don’t have but one.
What is missing? I don’t see
Why these animals hate me.

---

---

They tell me I can be what I want
Not who I was born as or am,
So I tell you now, just as forewarning,
To know it all beforehand.
You call me boy, but that’s not I;
Last time I checked, I’m a man.
I ain’t no dude, what is that even?
We’re not related, so I can’t be your fam
Or your bro, or bruv, or whatever.
And am I your friend? Oh, no, not I;
Not your pal, your bud, your chum.
And I’m no chap in the heat of May
Or dead cold December.
You can guess that I’m American,
But any halfwit knows that score –
My name is Connor, get it right,
Since I’m none you’ve met before.

---

---

I have my right
to silence
because human beings
in being beings
as other beings
simply being
are silent
And so it follows,
since you are, indeed,
a human being –
or profess to being so-
that I have my rights
to your being
silent
Thank you.

---

---

I will always remember
The Day the world ended:
snowy sheep were bleating
all through the night before
and the biggest fear
was what would happen
the next day.
And then
You know –
You know what?
The sun rose
with problems more
intimate
and less
imaginary
than the sheep
bleated for.
And I laughed
with the Dawn –
a new world beginning.

---

---

Why did I receive this prize
For coming next-to-last?
Are you saying I would win
If I run half as fast?

The trail was harder than it looked,
So boost the spoils next time!
A little extra without the work –
Sounds like a perfect crime.

And while we’re speaking of the work,
Why not cut the course?
A hypothetical competition
Would require little force.

I may play that game with you,
But I know not its name;
If everyone will win a prize,
How am I to blame?

Competition grows quickly stale
Without the choice for one to fail.

---

---

Embezzled in gold, with heart of emerald,
An ancient Palace stood fast –
The family within played and thrived and loved
As their ancestors had done past.

Then, without warning, without rhyme, without reason,
The sky exhaled vehement breath –
Cavernous spheres of Fire and Rock, Ice and Steel,
Prompted land and life to death.

Witnessing horrors. Seeing nothing.
Fire burning, Feeling not.
I walked through that Palace, crumbling to cinders all around
And felt Wonder.

---

---

Here I am, at five and ten,
No more a boy, not quite of men,
Now a chick without a hen
Lost amidst a wolfish den.

Alone, abandoned, and confused,
Seeking comfort that be loosed
To aid my trust at once abused
And yield the love I’ve been refused.

Each plodding day within my school
I feel as though I play the fool
Who, deep across the kiddie pool,
Drowns from mommy’s cruel misrule.

Up to my frantic wading
Sails Miss Mercia Kaeding –
Philosophy teacher waiting
For me to take her baiting.

A kind word far extended
A lonely pain soon mended
Though I try see her offended,
My anger her compassion ended.

Forsaken by one she adored,
I soon found myself stored
In apartment cleaning abhorred
As roommate reliant on her board.

Nine and twenty, healthy skin,
Affable, diligent, urban bumpkin
Sleeping near beer and violin –
In laughable sorrow, we are akin.

I simply drink, she gets drunk –
I wear cologne, she smells of skunk –
I listen to classical, she only to punk –
I eat fresh fish, her diet is junk.

She’ll confide in me her darkest wish,
Assist me with the daily dish,
Teach me how to sing Swedish,
Convince me she is stylish.

I keep silent, she laughs rather loud –
I have no self-esteem, she bids me be proud –
I tend to get bored, she tends to be wowed –
My feelings fall flat, hers oddly endowed.

Two of a kind, despite disparity,
Relieved by each other’s gentle company
With weeks and months drowned in sake
I believe that I can be truly happy.

When darkness falls, sinking night,
She clings to me and holds me tight
As I abate the urge to fight
Her velvet breasts’ lulling delight.

Then her smile does melt away
As tears slip down in icy spray
Her lip quick-quiver and betray
The heart within that ever sway.

Seeking to amend amiss,
My judgment I do now remiss
Leaning in for warming kiss
Flush of flesh in fleeting bliss.

She cradles me within her arms,
Glittering gaze always disarms;
Powerless under her feminine charms
I courageously challenge social alarms.

But, then, one day, our home bereft
Of whom my heart is lost in theft
From sad fates that so solidly weft
Have snapped in twain with she who left.

Mercia, love, my soul desire,
All I clutched dear to admire –
How could I believe you would tire
While kindly kindling my funeral pyre?

I do not care what you think of we,
You hardened hearts of society
Who before would shrug us off brusquely
Because dead eyes we cared not see.

My teacher taught me trust no one
Because, on Earth and under Sun,
Humans love ‘til they ache to run
And leave you with your soul undone.

---

---

Forget the world, forget your home,
But don’t forget the dancers
who dream about their land from far
And mistake our strange dark skies as foreign-
But first they pour the tea, then they pour their souls
Into swirling satin strips of see-through robes,
Their hips beating the techno of the lit Turkish Café.

They will remember every dollar
Strapped close to their core –
Anatolian flowers bloom in deserts most of all.

My puff of hookah filled the sky
And turned the pale white moon bright orange
When a pretty blossom still in bloom
Ensured my tweed suit vanished,
Replaced with a white robe to make up what was missed.
I joined humanity as lavished by the Turks,
While we trod upon the dancers who kept our spaces filled –
The darkness of the dance makes us forget its day outside
And that the coming winter will freeze our party over –

But in the Middle East you know the only white is stone,
And the only snow that fell was the ash of dancers’ hearts.

---