pond scum

I'm swimming in pond scum
I love it, i love it!
All your haute cuisine?
Just take it and shove it
I'm nibbling pond scum
I adore it, i adore it!
All your gourmet fare?
I deplore it, i deplore it
I'm gulping pond scum
I revere it, i revere it
All your dainty delicacies
smell like beer shit, beer shit
I'm happy in pond scum
Yes, happy as can be
For pond scum is ambrosia
to atomic mutants like me

your serve

Brown serving white
To make wrong right
the whispers led
to fresh-served head

reignight

Propriety and proportion
into the abyss thus hurled
Your siren song makes me long
to rewrite the world

provocateur

If there's a bear i'll poke it
But not literally of course
In real life i'd nary nudge a horse

If there's a cow i'll profane it
Offer me that scripture
I'll show you a conipture

If there's an empress i'll unpants her
Did you ever aim for gender-inclusive
and come off sounding icky or abusive?

If there's a cage i'll rattle it
Particularly cages of the mind
The kind i find make us blatheringly blind

I'm not saying i'm smarter than you
(though statistically it's probably true)
I'm not protesting i've been ingesting better books
(though i'll not shy from comparative looks)
I'm not claiming i've consumed more perspectives
(though i might scald your ceaseless subjectives)
I'm not bellowing i'm braver by far
(though you might meet my match only at the bar)

But i am a provocateur
who can glue 'em to their seats
And i've no time for provincial
protestations or conceits

Would you like to take me down?
You're welcome to give a go
If my defenders are in town
that might be a show

I've been wrong, no denying
I'll embrace my blunders
Have you even been trying?
One wonders, one wonders

Maybe you're completely free
of bullshit and hypocrisy
If so, you're a better fool
a better fool than me

rainbow rambling

One in four asian brides
choose caucasian dick
Wait, i'm a white dude!
Where's my asian chick?

Just as many hispanic brides
want a gringo by their sides
Could anything be sweet-ah
than mating a mamacita?

With african-american wimyn
my odds are halved, much less
Though twice my hispanic and asian bros
So where's my ebony goddess?

Don't feel bad, white wimyn
You'll not be bereft and alone
Even if you don't deserve it
i promise to throw you a bone

Feeling listless, dear listener?
Perhaps a little cringe came out?
Are these words i speak racist?

Certainly, without a doubt

But you can never judge words alone

You have to measure heart

Always see what's beneath

Intent is the important part

Am i being ironic and silly

rhapsodizing my rainbow willy?

YES...yes and maybe no

It's a conundrum, i know, i know

Attraction to the exotic

is biology's natural song

DNA loves diversity

and hormones follow along
Plus, mixed babies embody
the best of our dreams and hope
In our climb up MLK mountain
they'll be our guide, our rope

It doesn't mean my attractions
are never suspect or dire
Find me someone balanced and selfless
I'll quickly call you a liar
Find me someone well-adjusted
I'll show you a tragedy
But the price of making things better
is a mess of confused misery

For instance, let's talk transgender
Let's sing a congruent song
I'll show how even good mental tools
can quickly lead you wrong

When i meet someone new
past the surface i try to see
I try to be ethnic/gender blind
I try to see them as a totality

I try to feel all they ever were
and all they might want to be
But what do you do if someone
erases their earlier identity?

What if they only want to be seen
for who they are right now
I don't know how to see someone like that
Maybe i should learn how?

Some trans folk are proudly binary
I'm a woman, i'm a man, now it's plain to see
Other folk cry for gender fluidity
The straights try to agree, often pathetically

In streets and sheets, confusions play out
Do your best to manifest kindness
One poet holds their heritage aloft
Another praises ethnic blindness

So thank you for your ear
At least i made it rhyme
I'll finish with some silliness
apropos to this confusing time

Every person is so much more

than orientation or origin

And besides, everybody knows...

the world's best lovers are jewish wimyn

windows

I look out my window
to the cold street below
He finds a sidewalk spot
where the sun doth glow
He lays out cardboard
Then a blanket on top
He settles right in
and lets his head drop
for an afternoon doze
His shoes for pillows
No demands on his time
Yet his nap is a "crime"?
A well-dressed man
steps around the spot
His dog is curious
The owner is not
Windows are more
than pathways to vision
They also demarcate
what's OUT from what's IN

C.L. Blues

(sung to the tune of "American Pie", by don mclean)

A long long time ago
i can still remember how
that C.L. used to make me smile
and i knew i always had chance
of procuring a horizontal dance
and maybe i'd be happy for a while
But H.R.1865 made me shiver
What disaster did congress deliver?
The news, it hit me so sad
I'd never browse one more ad
I can't remember if i cried
when i saw that site reductified
but i was empty deep inside
the day that Craigslist died

It said come on by, you need a gal or a guy

Maybe an intersexual, you should give one a try

There weren't enough whiskey, there weren't enough rye

on the day that Craigslist died

The day that Craigslist died

Did you write an ad of love
and did you have faith in Craig above
if your hormones tell you so?
Do you believe in cock and hole?
Can casual encounters save your mortal soul?
Can you teach me anal real, real slow?
I was perfect for you, oh can't you see
but some fool responded quicker than me
Now they're kicking off their shoes
I got those missed connection blues
I need a lonely teenage broncin' buck (18, 18!)
I need a little suck and fuck
But i knew i was out of luck
the day that Craigslist died
I started singin' bye, bye you sweet old hairpie
I shut down my PC and let out a sigh
Gonna get stoned, and then i'm gonna cry
My love life is just gonna die
My love life is just gonna die
Oh, and there we were all in the same place

A generation lost in virtual space
Not knowing how to start again

All us men seeking wimyn, and men seeking men

And wimyn seeking wimyn, and wimyn seeking men

And miscellaneous for the non-binary population
There was platonic only for the nobler crowd
or maybe for those who were just too proud
to admit they wanted some too
We'll just pretend for a month or two
And there was casual encounters, such glorious sleaze
Any perversion, we're happy to please
I could not shake my dread and unease
the day that Craigslist died

I was singin' bye, bye you sweet old hairpie

I shut down my PC and let out a sigh
Gonna get stoned, and then i'm gonna cry
My love life is just gonna die
My love life is just gonna die

I met a womyn who sang the blues

I asked her for some happy news
She just smiled and turned away
I looked at Tinder and E-Harmony

but paid desperation ain't for me
though this OKCupid might be okay
And in the night the horndogs screamed
The tops cried, and the bottoms dreamed
Not a word was spoken
Our spirits were all broken
But maybe this calamity can set us free
Maybe real life is the place to be
I went to troll for tail at the library
the day that Craigslist died
And we were singin' bye, bye you sweet old hairpie

I shut down my PC and let out a sigh
Gonna get stoned, and then i'm gonna cry
My love life is just gonna die
My love life is just gonna die

Bye, bye you sweet old hairpie
I shut down my PC and let out a sigh
Gonna get stoned, and then i'm gonna cry
My love life is just gonna die

dear tj

Dear tj,
A little corner of my mind has always wondered what i did to alienate you. I think i've found the biggest piece of the puzzle.
The conventions of the social media world often make my brow furrow, mostly because i don't have the gene for "networking". Creating webs of transient, surface relationships for the purpose of...well, here's where my thinking is both good and bad, for social networking can enable things like awareness of events, creations, or individuals working toward some greater good. But on the negative side, so much of social networking seems to be about self-promotion. And that's a gene i don't have. Everybody's talking, but no one says a word. How many of us live two realities - what we SAY, and what we THINK? How many hidden pains, shames, angers, or affinities never shared...even with those closest to us?
I cherish true friendship, and it often seems that even those who should be connecting deeply, seldom do. Therein lies the main source of my problem here. When i see someone on social media who has hundreds of "friends", i think "No, you don't...and your willingness to say you do makes me doubt whether you understand that word". If "love" is the most abused word in our language, "friend" can't be far behind.
This FB "friending"...if they called it "acquaintancing", i'd probably have no problem.
So this is the lesson it's taken me a long time to learn - when someone "friends" you, they might not be reaching out for genuine humyn connection. In fact, they almost never are. But when i get friended by someone like you, so dynamic- and dedicated-seeming, i want to take you out of your box like a shiny toy. Get to the heart of life.
The question is...now that i've learned this lesson, what do i do? Stay inside my shell, or keep risking looking foolish?
The answer seems obvious. Of course, maybe i'm reading this wrongly. Maybe it wasn't my openness that put you off...maybe it was some other strangeness. My strangenesses might be myriad.
I'm sorry i furrowed your brow.
warmly,
wrob

manglish

All assholes have assholes
But not all dicks have dicks
Can a boob have boobs?
Are there pricks with no pricks?
No pussies have pussies
yet all twats have a twat??
Are some wankers not wankers?
English makes me distraught
All heels have heels
And all brains have brains
though some cunts have no cunt?
This language gives me pains

one-flight stand

If i were master of space and time
i would freeze this moment for you and i
That i might swim the seas of your soul
Find the gnarled eddies that make you unwhole

Pursuing the purity of uncorrupted joys
Sifting your spirit from insanity's incessant noise
So that in the fullness of our years
i might touch the texture of your triumphs and tears

If i were master of space and time
i would freeze this moment for you and i
That i might learn to lift you to the sky
That i might smile on the day i die

pulse

Pull this heart's messenger
within your walls
pulsing
Blood-swept, breath-gasped
DNA-convulsing
Infliction of addiction
to brazenly emblazon
ME in YOU
Whispered names
Transcending games
Immersion to inversion
to pure subversion
An explosive surprise
You are my skin, you are my eyes
Beyond illusions
of control
self-annihilation
makes us
whole

yesterjester

We shared the most beautiful yesterday
in the corners of my lonely mind
I knew what to do and what to say
to make all your worries unwind
I made you hoot and howl
'til your gut grew giggle-pained
I stroked and soothed your scowl
'til mindless reveries reigned
Did we love then sweetly an hour or three
Our echoes rearranging eternity?
Did hormones implore we make a baby?
Dreams are not the domain of practicality...
I only know we floated together
free of fear, nothing to hide
Our lust a gossamer feather
so sacred we surely cried

"Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers"

(The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping)
-by robert m. sapolsky
1994, 1998, 2004
The thing that first strikes you is that this is the most boring book sapolsky has written.
Not that the writing is boring - it's delivered with robert's customary warmth and wit. But the subject matter feels of interest only to an academic, or someone crippled by stress.
Of course, "crippled by stress" is a far more universal phrase than most of us realize.
But then you get to chapter 17, and boom! Social relevance bursting all over the place, as sapolsky gets into western stress (which is increasingly global stress). In a nutshell, the greater the income inequality, the greater the crime and violence. The more inequality, the lower the voting rates, and the worse health/mortality rates. That last factor is a gradient - the lower you go on the socioeconomic scale, the more sickness and early death. But stress is rarely simple, as there is considerable variability at both the individual and societal level. Feeling poor is worse than being poor, and factors can cancel out. The Soviet Union had high income equality but also high stress, because personal freedoms were curtailed. In the business world it's not those at the bottom who suffer most, it's the middle management cocktail of high responsibility with low control. But some generalities are rock solid - the poor are more likely to make unhealthy living choices.
The book addresses coping strategies, depression, addiction, successful aging, and the crucial role that childhood plays in determining one's stress profile. Sapolsky, a neurobiologist and primatologist, deconstructs stress on the physiological level - what happens when brain/body functions are overstimulated or understimulated. His foundational premise is that humyn stress is unique in the animal kingdom, as our stress centers on the abstract (the future, or measuring ourselves against people we've never met). Our physiologies haven't had time to adapt to agricultural/industrial life. Ergo, humyns may not be the most stressed creatures on the planet (like certain individuals we all know, humyns as a species give more stress than we receive), but we're the only animals giving ourselves ulcers.
Thank you, robert. Another wonderful offering.

dami2

Look into these eyes
for a truth you've never seen
I'm your boytoy or babymaker
or anything-in-between
It's time for life to learn
a lady-led direction
Men are forlorn fools
Erraticisms with erection
I don't know where it ends
But i know how to start
I'll never stop coming
Coming for your heart

knee coal

Our feral flame taunts me
Eternities of tortured turgidity
Your hollowed heart haunts all
our chasms of incompatibility
Ever would i inhabit your pulsing pussy hole
Ever would i rabbit from your perverse, pious soul
One's greatest lover a lesser love?
Mutual elation to misery's damnation...
You seek a holy Hallmark card
not some progressive pagan to discard
Flee my dreams, oh siren of cupid
before i say something certifiably stupid

lioness

She looks my way like a languorous lioness
Her eyes paralyze, i acquiesce
to incandescent inebriation, as time stops
Her belly is full but she licks her chops
A playful goddess amused by her power
Rapunzel resplendent, no need of a tower
A shake of her mane, i'm eternally smitten
A twitch of her tail, DNA will be rewritten
Hearts levitate, longing to leap
Sacred this stillness e'er to keep

hell

This need does not heed the bounds of impolite
This greed supersedes barriers of wrong or right
For i know she's never never never
fucked free of her fortress of fears
and surely she's not ever ever ever
tasted joy's untainted tears
Nevertheless we're ill-suited at best
in the prisons of our personality zones
Welcome to my hell
Do tell, how is your own?

come

Whenever you whisper, whenever you call
I will come for you
Whenever you're against that wall
I will come for you
Whenever you're used unkindly
Whenever you're betrayed blindly
Whenever you feel trapped or tragic
Whenever you need mercy or magic
Silly or saucy, meek or bossy
I will come for you

I will come for you

flow

Lordisa, i want to make your sweat flow
from daily dalliances of low-impact cardio
From hours of gentle to-and-fro
Make-the-sheets-wet sweat, doncha know

Lordisa, i want to make your blood flow
Tingling your extremities, making you glow
Engorging your glory down below
Lordisa, i want to make you flow

Lordisa, i want to make your juices flow
The smell of my shirt sizzling you slow
Inebriated, elated, ready to go
Lordisa, i want to make you flow

Lordisa, i want to make your tears flow
Tears of laughter streaming your cheeks so
Tears of pain buried long ago
Lordisa, i want to make you flow

blink

I looked out my window
Momma poppa baby passing by
A sunny stroller afternoon
Their canine slave's sniffer held high
Then for a moment i could see
I mean see, really truly SEE
a leash around poppa's neck too
Hallucinatory story or true?

dear dami

Dear dami,
The moment we met, i knew that loving you is why i'm alive (and in that loving, i might BE closer to alive than ever).
Alive...not trapped in contingency or fear.
Alive...as humyns were alive before the darkness of excess and exploitation...
Alive as nature molded me, a silly ape of a tribe where wimyn are the brains and glue. Just a bonobo fantasy?
I would be surprised if you noticed my reaction to you. It was so stunning, i instantly subsumed it. Perhaps such connections are just a cocktail of hormones and loneliness...our brains cannot sustain such bliss. But for the first time in my life, i'm ready to transcend the negotiations of a world where people are commodities. I'm not advocating the abrogation of self-determination...but in this broken world, a leap of insanity may be the only sanity left.
***
Who i am at this moment, is creating a reality that shouldn't exist - a living embodiment of the aphorism (and howling lie!) "You get out of a relationship what you put in". That's one of the most egregious bullshits we sell ourselves...and almost never true (especially in romance). But this may be the one time in your life you'll be able to look in someone's eyes, and know that whatever you put in, will come back 100%.
***
Ants wants to arrange for us to meet again at an intimate musical gathering. But this virus inshelteration has put any such plans on hold, possibly for months. Every fiber of my being says waiting is an affront to life. When something this pure comes along, you don't wait one second longer than you must. Wait, and forfeit your right to anything good.
***
Wait! You SHOULD run far, far from me! The protector/nurturer in me is reawakening, and knows that no one should get involved with someone who is drowning, as i assuredly am! Horribly so...the product of my relearning normal humyn emotional responses, which this culture anesthetizes out of us as children. I've become viscerally aware of my own physical and emotional alienation, and it's made me desperate for healing...or any shabby substitute. I've become that which i'd spent a lifetime avoiding - a predator, like everyone. I can't trust myself to not manipulate you, with dripping jaws of desire heedless of right or wrong. Can you imagine how horrible that is to me? In my youth, i was walled off, but never used other people for vanity or lust. A lifetime chasing serenity and wisdom, and now...
One additional degraded layer is that there's a broken part of YOU that might love this broken part of me. The insanity i feel to make you MINE...we all perversely desire that. I could once trust myself with the universe's greatest treasures, and know that ego couldn't poison my caring. In wanting you, i flail in the hope of becoming that person again.
***
But can i keep the poison of manipulation out of my words? Are words anything OTHER than manipulations? Can i keep the last entry of this letter from being some cheap inducement? "Love me, oh love me!"
***
If you could measure my heart and hormones, there would be no limits on your loving response. If you could measure my head, you'd say "Walk along, walk along". Probably true - but if we knew the full measure of any potential lover's head, we'd all be eternally celibate. Deception is the bedrock of this society...including and especially lies we tell ourselves.
If i tried to be with any womyn but you, i'd be lying. The purity i felt the moment we met...one can go years without feeling that. Or is all this just a mostly-shallow expression of frustrated longing? Is there no deeper, unseen connection? That head/heart/hormones thing, is a false trichotomy. We are not discrete parts, we are a unified whole. I'll avoid the cheesy play-on-words that just suggested itself.
***
Another piece that might leave you anything but flattered? When i think about you, i think about wimyn from my past...ones i had a chance to love deeply and lastingly, but walked away because something was out of balance. Moments of intimacy sear my memory, when i held back, because of compassion, or self-preservation. And maybe those were good reasons. But as a lifetime of loneliness piles up, i become more and more wounded, wanting to be in that moment again, but...plunge!
Which might make you more "anyone" than someone unique and irreplaceable.
Of course, another truth we never admit is that the relationships we form at any given moment are far less about the qualities of those we choose, but rather...just who WE are. To a very large extent, life is a parade of "you'll do".
That feels pertinent to my current semi-insanity.
And the best liars are seldom alone.
***
Oh, the fantasies i have about you! So searing, so specific. Exact moments and words we share, i keep living them over and over...would you blush?
***
For as smart as i supposedly am, for all my "science-based" rejections of monogamy and marriage, jealousy and possessiveness, and the tyranny of defining our lives by romance...why am i such a hopeless romantic? Why does my longing for the great love of my life, become a more anguished howl each year? What the hell is wrong with me? Isn't romance just 11th-century poetic bullshit? Look how it consumes our media, our literature...
***
And really...on some level, isn't my desire to plunge just an elaborate tantrum against the reality that i've never found a lover (or friend) who was a perfect pea for my pod? I've had three beautiful romances, but there's always the awareness that i've never had a lover in whom i saw myself. I'll disrobe at the drop of a hat, but i've never been truly naked. I've never not felt like the only one of my kind in the universe. I've never BREATHED. I want it so bad it hurts...
Maybe loneliness is making me willing to jump off any emotional bridge, just because sanity and wisdom lead nowhere.
***
"We only chase the ones who run away". Hm. I hated that thought as early as i can remember hating any aphorism. Rejecting that ethos was probably the first spiritual leap of my life. By my early twenties, if not sooner, i wouldn't jump through hoops, charm and disarm, or plead my case...which is a significant piece of the puzzle of my loneliness. In fact, the whole point of writing a letter like this is my belief that everyone should know upfront ALL relevant information about anyone they might choose to love (or not). That includes making no secret of my desire. Perhaps in this strange culture, "laying it all out there" is just another form of self-sabotage. And maybe that's okay with me. I've always been content, even eager, to scare off the "maybes". And maybe with YOU, i'm content to sabotage things because i know deep down, when you measure the sacrifices and compromises that come with romance in this dysfunctional, codependent world, that being alone is probably the healthier, happier path.
The lesser of two miseries. Yay.
***
Not that i'm self-destructive IN a relationship. But in getting into and out of them, i don't think anybody has a healthy line on where self-preservation begins and self-destruction ends. The overlap is as large as an ocean.
***
For all the anguish and blood coursing through these words, they don't feel alive. One silence with you would be more alive than a million foolish words.
***
Or perhaps self-destruction has nothing to do with this. Perhaps i've just lived long enough to know that the dream of romance i've cherished may never happen. Perhaps there's an ever-growing, sucking wound in my chest knowing i've never shared love and understanding in the ways i'm capable. Perhaps my reaction is to throw away any pretense, and whenever love beckons, be the fullest ME i can be. If alienation and death are all this culture of greed and fear allow, go down swinging!
***
The moment we met, i felt pure adoration and humility. Yet it feels slightly insincere to say that! Like i'm selling something. Is all this just narcissus enraptured with himself? Perhaps. Still, it's humbling to feel such beauty.
your foole,
wrob

never

I know i'll never laugh in your sacred heartspace
That's a dream for someone else to chase
But perhaps one day when life crushes you down
one word from a clown might turn you around
And my own curse is to feel far too much
in a world so uncaring and foreboding
So your indulgence of these rhymes
keeps a fool's heart from exploding

pink balls

Being pink with balls is a curiosity
as we dwindle into minority
Exiting the edifice of arrogance
That privileged palace of putrescence
Awakening to morning's fresh light
Determined to make all wrongs right
Knowing my life must now be
one of eternal apology
Knowing there's no one i'm ever likely to see
unbrutalized by someone who looked just like me

ever

I've played every game
One truth is ever shown
If you do everything right
you will ever be alone

cart of hockness

Don't trust these words, don't trust this song
This cock knows not of right or wrong
This cock wants you perpetually wet and waiting
A thousand penetrations, never ejaculating
Unless you claim seed, any swimmers you need
However you want us, together or apart
Just a fool who'll never stop kissing your heart

randy newman

DREAM SET LIST
(the perfect randy newman concert)
-Can't Keep a Good Man Down
-I'm Dead (but i don't know it)
-Political Science
-You Can Leave Your Hat On
-Mama Told Me Not to Come
-I Think It's Going to Rain Today
-I Love L.A.
-It's Money that I Love
-Lonely at the Top
-I Miss You
-Bleeding All Over the Place
-Sail Away
-Rednecks
-I Want You to Hurt Like I Do
-Blue Shadows in the Rain
-Shame
-Losing You
-Happy Ending
-Short People
Has any major lyricist ever been more unflinchingly honest ("I'd sell my soul and yours for a song")? Or written a funnier song than "Short People"? Oh wait, someone did - randy's own "Shame". I'm not doing album rankings, because randy makes great songs, not great albums (the two sublime exceptions are FAUST and BAD LOVE).

charmless

I won't be "cool" for you...
"Smooth" or "together" ain't my tether
Nor will i ship hip gamesmanship
Only nakedly unzip
Uncomfortably honest
Self-destructively raw
desperation
exploding
into
you

imaginations

Imagine hating me because of pigmentations
Imagine punishing me because of pigmentations
Now imagine our love healing all the nations

fire

If you harbor one secret
Piss off, with my regret
If you adhere to any fear
there's nothing for you here
You can have your desire
when you stand in the fire

2:35AM dream

Awaken from your sweet sex dream
Let subconscious slumber unroll
Lead your dream lover's lips
to your lusty love hole
Calmly press your palms around
his palpitating pole
Know i am he, tenderly
effortlessly, heart and soul