Born In The Wrong Place, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37)

You colorless capital

Failing to express

The vividness of antiquity

Bone white marble 

Monuments to men

That made our history

And across the river 

The silent centries 

In morbid rows of sacrifice

The soldiers thrust

The flag poll into ground

Mount Suribachi in Arlington found

In the wrong place

I was born

Such an ingrate I am

But that's not 

At all

Anything I mean

That obelisk 

Incircled by a SWAT team

Of red, white, and blue

I fancied that moon rock

Amazed I could touch it

And walk through a module 

And just down the street

Such sculptures and  paintings

My ignorant eyes gazed upon

I had wonder and envy

In all of that history

On a manicured mall 

Many a protest

Many an inauguration 

Bills live and die in such hollowed halls 

One brief moment

New York, and Philly

You ended with D.C

I hated you

As a misplaced child

The autum chill 

The stamp like oblong paramecium 

Stuck to the wet cement stairs 

Leading to my townhouse basement

My favorite chore 

Mom's scrutny insured

I removed them all before

Her stern voice

Of dissapointment

My figertips cheese grated 

The cold behind it

It was living rigor mortis 

100 percent perfection I so abhored 

I could not escape

That soggy slimy mess

Untill all the leaves were gone

Then came the snow

That damned snow

Hung on for eternity

Spring I could not see

Warmth eluded me

Frustrated me with flurtatious breaks

You burried dad's Mercedes

I was no taller than a lawn Gnome 

And he made me shovel it out

I dreamed of sandy beaches

And palm trees

Escaping my prison

Of youth depending on them

For every bit of clothing

That sufffocated me

Marty McFly's jacket

And the cordroy patches

The argyle sweaters itches 

The only thing

September gave me hope for

Was a Lombardy trophy in February 

For that burgandy and gold

I'd truge through the snow

Scalp a ticket to go

The 9:30 Club

Living Color I loved

At the  Bayou I met the Ramones

It wasn't all bad

But the cold made me sad

Dreary and often depressed 

Pining for anything tropical

Exploding fireworks

The palm trees exploded with

I didn't know of meat pies

Or beats and shredded carrots 

They put on their burgers 

I had to believe

It was magic

Olivia made me sway

Wondering what was under

That's not a big enough knife

To slit the throat of old man winter

Oh Great Keppel

I had no idea

The paradise I finally found

And further south

The water taxis snaked around

Brisbane's downtown

The nightime tour

The lit up the skyline

In vivid bright neons

Was I being wed

Under the arching swords

Botanic Garden corsage 

The palm fronds 

Suspended yet bursting

Like frozen fireworks 

Everywhere, everywhere

No cold, no cold, no cold

I was born in the wrong place

 (end)

While I loved and enjoyed the escape to the Washington D.C. Mall and the underground DC music scene, and all the museums, and my NFL home team, I was still young and nowhere as educated as I am today, and I do appreciate the magantude of the history of that city both in our founding documents, but morso the interantional museums of Space, art, natural history, and the capital itself. 

But damned if didn't hate the long autiumn chill and bone cold winters. I had a a horrible chore, the one I loathed the most, and I did it as far back as I can rember even as possibly young as 6 or 7. Although my backyiard to the townhouse, had a overhang to protect most of the back porch and the cement steps that lead to the back door of the basment, water  and wind would push these  leaves  thin and sticky like stamps oblong paramecium would stick to the cement like a stamp on an envelope, and I could not simply sweep them off, so I had to use my bare fingertips to scrape them off, and it scratched the end of my fingertips and the coid damp air would make my wrists, hands and knuckles freeze like rigor mortis making it even more impossible. In my childhood and teens and my most of my life, I had always wanted to live in a tropical setting where I didn't have to worry about the cold. I loved places like Miami and Tampa and San Diego and L.A.

Time passed and as with all, my mother passed away, and beqeathed me the ability to travel to Australia, which I did, mainly because I had a close friend I had met online in the early 2000s named Bob, And during those years I begged and begged for him and John, my two best friends to visit me so all three of us could hang out with my mom. But that never happened and my mom passed away, and just a year later Bob had a stroke. So my first trip was to visit him and give him some comfort in the nursing home. I fell absolutely in love with Brisbane. On my second trip I took John, so he could see where our mutual friend lived. Bob had died between those trips so John never got to meet him face to face. On that second trip went west into the bush, John loves country settings, so our host drove us many places in that direction, then eventually made the peak of a triangle leaning east while going north, and ended in a tropical town called Yeppoon, with a short 30 minite ferry ride to my favorite island in the entire world so far, the tiny but pristine Great Keppel Island. Litterally could be out of any romance movie set or a pirate adventure. 

But out of all the coastline topography Australia's east coast blew me away in my two seperate visits. I've been lucky enough to have at least parents who valued exposing me to travel, even though my dad was an abusive mean bastard and a bully, my mom never really wanted to see that evil side of him. But she never let me down, never let me fall through the cracks, even in her twilight years she always was my rock, and all her authoritarianism melted away and we truely became far far closer and had more understanding of each other, than back in my youth, where our butting heads was Jerry Springer before he was a show. 

This poem expressed my simple hate of cold mostly, and having parents trying to mold you into their image when, as an adopted child, I never felt I could fit in. So I escaped in shows such as Simon And Simon, Jack Lord's Hawaii Five 0, Hunter, Threes Company, Charlies Angels and Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. And pined for some escape away from those long cold seasons. 

 Absent Of Tourch, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

She took the one you never had

Her father Bartholdi put it in her hand

Guiding imigrants into the harbor

How long will she stand

You the ancient inspiration

Sea merchants and warships

Towering over the jetties

You guided them out and in 

Parallel  tug of rope sideways

Virtically, violently up and down

Thumb Push Puppet

Dispite your washboard abs 

The scholar's of the day

Kept some of the Helios 

Tradition madated so

Not to rebuild the final say

She took your crown

The tumilus mound

Her epic bereft 

Following her father's death

I've seen lady justice

Crumble and crash

But that was rigged

Luminaire avoided Lars's head

In shambles in crumbles

Like salad crutons 

Crushed and sprinkled

On the tasteless iceburg

That melted and wilted

You left on the counter

For your weekend adventure 

The green olives turned black and red

And when you came back

Limp and useless

Tossed out like rubbish

In the trash can

Where was your head

That dreadful morning

When you decided

You'd rather be dead?

(end)

If you are noticing a pattern, then I do not need to use the word "ode" again. But it is. She lit a fire in me and I have been reading all last evening and today and responding to her disjointed, disrupted, dispondent pain of a life. I have been suicidal, and I do suffer from depression. So writing these in Sylvia's memory is my therapy. Such dichotomy of genus yet still absent of place or importance or self worth completely.  If I had a fraction of her talent, which is not me, beyond the reaches of Pluto, in a vast literary cosmos she is a super massive black hole of inspiration, nobody can resist. 

 Acrostic Interviewer, By Brian37(AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs on twitter)

Surrender to a conspiracy 

You black ravens hide in night's shaddow

Leather and spikes in the dungeon

Vesiputous rumbling silently stalking

Indigenous beasts on my flesh feeding

At 2 A.M the owls are plotting 

Pleased white night spotlight

Left dimming from grey fog's blocking

And cloaking madning screaming 

The darkness sightless shrill of nothing

Help will not be comming

Cunning and stealthy

Underworld's authority

The Amityville Horror

Slippery stumbling over dead bodies

You are the M.E. writing the autopsies 

Lecherous gnashing fangs waiting

Voraciously nocturnal never sleeping

In front of you, arms, that of a zombie

Allegory . it's the bat's cave now

Plato lost his apology

Last is the hemlock Socrates drinks

At least it is over no more pain agonies 

The dawn reveals vultures 

Hovering over my carcass

................

(end)

 Australian Paper Tree, By Brian37(AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

Jiffy Pop white inside 

Scrimshaw coffee scratches outside

Peeling like the flakey croissant 

Standing on it's side

Are you the player 

In Premiere Leauge soccer

Who slides accross the feild on knees

Tearing off your brown white jersey 

Rigid  albino python upwards

Mesusa's sprawling dew upstairs

One more layer deeper

Marrow from a fractured femur 

But you are not dead

It's just that you shed

Swinging on the stripper pole

With burlesque in the carpark's toll

Are you that flasher

On the New York Street

As Cagney and Lacey walk by

Not impressed in the least

I've never seen 

A tree like you

But by all means

Keep doing what you do. 

(end)

 For those who do not know, Cagney and Lacey was a tv cop drama  with two female partners in New York City. Known for the occasional flasher back then. A flasher of course is someone who has on a long coat and exposes them self in public. In the opening credits of Cagney and Lacey a flasher flashes them as they walk by with a handcuffed perp and look at the flasher as if to say "Please, we are not impressed."

My first trip to Australia, my host had just stopped at Redland Bay's carpark,(in America we call it a parking lot) and for the first time I saw a paper tree, and it was amazing looking to me, the bark was pealing, split right up the middle, as if it were Mr Rogers, or a stripper taking of a jacket, exposing a bone white trunk, almost as if one had broken their leg and their femur was exposed. I was facinated by that tree, it is one of my most favorite trees. 

The white exposed trunk looks like if someone had broken their leg and stripped it to the bone, and if you were to cut the bone, instead of rings, you'd get marrow. 

 Helmholtz Resonance, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

The discarded bottleneck

Tipped and spun 

Unbenounced to me

It's opening cavity 

Declined

And stopped it's speed

It's final resting spot

Over the floor's air duct

Everything collecting dust

Half eaten this, a discarded that

But that was nothing new to me

Slowly, carlessly, and eventually

One snowflake, then another

But I didn't bother

I'd get to cleaning eventually

But the whiteout snuck up on me

Everest sized Heafty Bags

The linebackers had long since

Broke through the line

Brutally self inflicted penalty 

I'd become

The garbage collector

With no way

To haul it away

 Volkswagon Westfalia, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

Big Bird, school bus yellow

Unitas retrograde

White blizzard crop top

Slatted glass sliding door window

Capmper pop up

Unsatisfied with my birth licence plate

In it, mom and dad wrote on yellow lined paper

Gave me a list of new monograms of to pick

To replace my prior beckon call

Eagerly willing to ditch

First, middle and last

Wanted to be rid of it all

But to my dad

He sold me to become a brand

My last name hold your chin up high

No monicle, cuban humidor 

Sit up striaght, be seen not heard

Eat this, it will put hair on your chest

Speak your suffix whith pride

Scolding me if I ever dared to cry

I was perplexed 

That the sequence 

Of my last name

Meant high status 

Letters have power

Make me some dignitary's 

Progeny , automatically

By proxy of mere eponmous 

I pick the first two

That part was true

But the last was all you

Projecting egotistial superficial 

Self importance, nonsense

I was only 6 you twit

How could I understand

Any of your fallacious projection 

You needed a lollypop Kojack

Bald head and aviators

Telly Savalas 

 ^^^^^^^^^^^ i DON'T FUCKING KNOW WHY THIS FORMAT KEEPS DOUBLE POSTING HALF A POEM. Just move on to the next post, that is the full completed version. 

How Many Ways? By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brian37 on twitter)

Several innocent black birds

Unduly, wrongfully maligned

A few accused of being on the grassy knoll

The others had ineffective  council 

No there are no crop circles

Nobody in the basmentless 

Pizza Joint you shot up

No dancing sun Bishop Silva

Why do you think the raven

Is in a conspiracy

They accept the election not rigged

They see the damage the former guy did

And the guy stuffed with straw

Whose most important job

Is to protect the corn crop

Of justice Heckle and Jeckle were robbed

Adam Ant found dead half eaten

In seperate interrogation rooms

The scarecrow police divided them

Offering the best deal to the first to confess

There was no attempted murder

Heckle was on one farm that day

Jeckle was on another in another state

Ineffective council  defense will say

The flamboyant flamingo

Liberace playing on the piano 

Im all for knit pink hats

Sticking it to patriarchal men

And Wally Gator 

Church chior leader

In his congregation cassack 

Someday to visit the Vatican 

Hurricane, Typhoon, Cyclone

Seriously college and pro sports

Soccer, hockey, rugby, money

Who cares what hemisphere they're in

Boar's Head

The deli's friend

Drove to the drive in

To see Tokyo Drift

And bobolink

Went to the mechanic

To fix his Ferrari's clutch

Flew to sing with the Rat Pack club

And Ace worried about Snowflake

Sandy being Flipper's friend

All four ended up at the Apple store

Their pod's warranties they had on hand

And the Toys R Us Mascot

Sold kaleidoscopes at first

Ended up following in dad's hoof steps

And joined the tower corps

And in Charlotte's web 

She had a cluster

She taught Wilbur pride

Then dispirsed her clutter

And the mongoose's nemesis 

Sewn lips kissing babies

William Tell hit the apple

Pulling them out of his quiver

And the Cherrio guy

Wants to keep you alive

The sprightly beekeeper

Swarm chases away from the hive 

Fozzie and Paddington 

Whinnie The Poo

In the Windy City 

Sleuths solve the crime 

But please please leave

Those poor birds alone

You have no evidence

What have they done?

 Outright Sanitized, By  Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs27 on twitter)

The land was never ours, we stole the land

Before were other people, Wampanoag were

In Massachusettes. Algonquian Iroquoian 

Siouan in Virgina. But we were England's 

Invaders colonials, obsconding with what

Was not ours to take. Compartmentalized

Divinely justified, taking more  we were possessed

We were the really weak, expanding expanding

Their bounty at first shared, Andrew Jackson

And his Trail of Tears. Osage raped of wealth

Salvation, put them all on reservations 

In desert dirt , on arid barren land

(The deed was theirs, you kleptomainiac

Small pox blankets, no need to thank us)

To the land onward westeward genocidal bastard

We wrote the story, thoughtless, unrepentant

Such as we learn, lets not repeat that again. 

(end)

My response to Robert Frost's poem "The Gift Outright". 

It is an overal indictment on Colonial expansion and genocide of Native Americans throught our expansion from coast to coast.

Now, mind everyone reading this, this is not saying that can all be undone. It is though, yet another warning to humanity, just like the Holocaust, of atrocities we need to avoid doing to our fellow humans. 

 Wolf's Liar, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

He's gonna scream, yes yes

Right wing swill machine

Bombastic clown with frown, he grifts at night 

Anything he takes, it's classified 

He's gone too far, files near

Let the FBI take it away from there

Well, you don't know what the FBI did find

We know you wont come clean, little orange rinde

We're gonna end your MAGA lie 

Well, you don't know what the grand jury will see

Why don't you stop throwing catsup at me

Farts Noise isn't brainwashing me

Close to making  me hurl

Look at the chunky swirl 

Let the FBI take you away

Last night I held Jim Trusty's hand

Next week it'll be Slim Jim

Before they would answer me

Well they got wise and left the camp

I looked down, tiny hands is all I found

Well, you don't know what the FBI did find

We know you won't come clean, little orange rinde

We're gonna end your MAGA lie

Well, you don't know what the grand jury will see

Why don't stop throwing catsup at me

Farts Noise isn't brainwashing me

Close to making me hurl

Look at that chunky swirl

Let the FBI take you away

Well, you don't know what the FBI did find

We know you won't come clean, little orange rinde

We're gonna end your MAGA lie

Well, you don't know what the grand jury will see

Why don't you stop throwing catsup at me

Farts Noise isn't brainwashing me. 

(end)

Just admit it, this tune is gonna get stuck in your head now. 

(Disclaimer) This parody is covered under fair use. It is in no way a slight or criticism of the real artist or band. I acually love the real song. But I do hate the orange fuck who is trying to destroy our republic. 

 "You Don't Have To" By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet On FB and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

Your name is not Bob

But you're certianly are

A Barker

I know you won't be ignored Dan

When they walk by your house

You shout the good news 

"You don't have to go into my basement"

You sent your own son to your basement

That you turned into a torture room 

With fire and brimestone

Whips and chains

Iron maidens, shackles and rage

"STOP, STOP, STOP

You don't have to go down into my basement

I sacraficed myself for you. "

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO INTO MY BASEMENT" 

But if you pass by, and ignore me

I can and will get very nasty

Saul wants 200 foreskins

The Egyptian firstborn I did in

Job was so stupid, didn't ask questions 

"Good news, good news, good news"

But if you don't learn your lesson

To my dungeon for eternal spanking

Isaiah have you not read?

Malachi says I'll spread poop on your head

It's bears for poking fun of the bald 

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO INTO MY BASEMENT"

But you're always my lab rat

I'll be that bully brat

I'll smash the X box flat

You are the player in it

I can always hit reset

I know you won't be ignored Dan

You've got a master plan

You cloned yourself, killed yourself

You belong in a rubber room 

I know I don't have to go in your basement

Because it is a superstitious figment 

You're son is is mere fiction

There is no eternal firey dungeon 

So yes Dan let me tell you my plan

I am going to keep on walking

I won't be stopping 

To listen to your inane ramblings. 

(End)

A Twitter friend posted the following Dan Barker Clip. DionysianMasks inspired this poem. Thank you DionysianMasks.  

Satire of Dan Barker's satirical view of the concept of hell in the following video 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=854J4ffKDww

 This Round Is On Me, By Brian27 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

I was in a run

In  frenzied scurry  

Trying to avoid bears

That could potentailly eat me

I ended up on rice

Thin  as bedroom lace

Pink flesh swimming up stream

This round is on me

I could be in the Meddowlands

Rooting for the  Giants or Jets 

And maybe at baseball game

City Field cheering on the Mets

I could be at an Office party

Everyone smiling and jolly

Why are sitting on that copy machine

Bet you think that's funny

I could be at a beach resort

Surrounded by tiki tourches

Hula dancers shaking hips

This round is on me

One evening my freind and I

Ended up at Bennigans 

We ordered our usual drinks

And  this is what happened 

Two more drinks

Landed on our table

We were a bit confused

Because these we didn't order

The waiter pointed across the bar

To a man sitting alone

"These are on him the waiter said"

He had bought the entire bar a round.

We smiled and waved

But I couldn't let it go

I went over to his table

To thank him for the round

I invited him to sit with us

After what he did for us

"Come over to our table"

I didn't sense his trouble.

He collected his jacket

His keys, his glass

Re directed the waiter

To the new table his order

Initial common banter

"What's your name

What do you do

Nice to meet you"

His balloon became barren

Our shot glasses like golfish

Went down with our gulping

The next  round was on us

His wit withered slowly

His smile he had initially 

Slithered out of our  booth

Though his body never left

Swirling his near empty glass

Like a kid raising his hand in class

To get the waiter's attention

He wanted it filled again

What was he filling it with

Where did the other guy go

His shoulders' now slumped

His head bowed in sorrow

"What is wrong"

Our voices of concern

Hesitant he said

"I don't want to talk about it"

But we couldn't help it

We wanted to know

How could he go from 80mph

To a dead stop at zero?

It turned out to be his father

Retired cop turned investor

Made tons of money 

He lavished on his son

" You have everything

We said, "you should be happy"

I patted him on the back

But that didn't seem to help

"You don't get it" he responded 

His eyes swelled with tears

"I could be standing next to him

But a million miles  away it feels"

I could be in a stadium

I could  could be at a party

I could be with dozens of people

And still be isolated and lonely

The rivulets

Spidered down his face

Dried up over his red flushed face

He wiped his tears, took a deep breath

Sighed and resigned

At almost closing time

Last call had arived he said

"This round is on me". 

(end)

This poem is based on a real event that happened to me long ago. My friend and I ended up at a bar, and this guy bought the entire bar a round. I looked around to see if others were acknowleging him, but no, and that fucking annoyed me. So I went over and invited the guy to sit with us. At first he was happy and smiling and joking and asking questions. But slowly as the night went on, his mood changed. It turned out he was lonely and had no real relationship with is father. His father way of showing "love" was to throw money at him. And he had all the company in the world when he bought drinks, but those were one bar stand superfitial jabbing and jawing and drinking, then leaving and never seeing that person again. That is what the guy discribed about his life. 

He just wanted a real close relationship with his father, but he never got one. It is absolutely true that one can be surrounded by tons of people but still feel like you are on a desert island by yourself. 

 And don't read anything in the salmon reference about sex, or any part of the poem for that matter. That is just discribing how many people want to go to a bar and escape the rat race. And the "lace" reference is how we can seem so strong, like a samoln swimming up stream, but be so emotinally fragile others can see through your facade like you were clear plink plastic wrap or salmon on shashimi. 

And no, I am not from NYC. I was just using metaphor to say someone can be surrounded by thousands of people and still feel lonely. 

 Second Attempt( formerly "Under The Radar" ) By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

You've never heard of him

Or the poetry he has written

He was my  wordsmith friend

No no no

You probably only know

The words of Mia Angelou

There was another I once knew

Murdered on the banks of a river

Deep words he'd always deliver

No no no

You only heard of Robert Frost

"Gift Outright" widely read

Then the audatious lady

Wrote of shaddows and antifreeze

Of crying and crying

No no no

You most certainly know

Emily's take on dying 

She wrote of postcards

And of burnt edges

Hysterectomies ancient ceremony

No no no

You probably only know

Of Plath's life dichotomy

Based on the Grapes Of Wrath

Of the four seasons made a path

These poems she did pen

You've never heard

Of any of them

But they all deserve the fame

Many much better than mine

Their words burnt in my mind

I'll read until on my body death dines

Exchanging stanzes here

Are the unknown you dont hear

Second stanza of worldwide stage

Most will not gain fame

The same with all of life

Sports, music, acting, business

Poetry is no different 

For all that rise to the top

On shoulders they all stand

My influences are of bounty

More unknowns with I began

My respect they still command

Words are all we have

Paintings of joy and pain

Success and suffering

Our most important tool

The most we ever use

Of others words we're observing

It speaks in blisters

And bleeding

Of fog and sunshine

Of rejection and affection

Of fear and devistation

Axiety and hesitation 

Of weaknees and openness

Of conffesion and life's lessons

Open your eyes, ears, read and listen. 

The quiet ones you never see

Will never ever read, far far far

Far outnumber me. 

(end)

This is an ode to the poets of my poetry group I belonged to. This poem was my second attempt, my first version was accidentally deleted, and I wrote a poem called "Accidental Death" about how I accidentally deleted it before saving it. "Second Attempt" was originally called "Under The Raidar."

The stanzas start with the unknown poet I knew that most people do not know. The second is obvious pointing out the poets most people know. The alternating stanzas are to convey a message that the giants stand on far more shoulders than you know. I am not, and will never equate myself to the giants, and I have read so many poets of those whom will never be famous and those are giants to me too.  I have not seen any of them in almost 20 years, and I do hope each of them has gotten exposure or written books or collections, I am simply currently unaware of. I wish I had not lost conact with them, but that is also something that happens in life. 

I have so many that I admire both big and small. 

I am not liking how this poem attempt was turning out, and it does not do my fellow poet justice so I decided to delete it. 

 Pyroclastic Flow, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

An ancient nuclear bomb

Volcanic ash became their tomb

Distroying Pompeii on the way

As well as flatening Hurclulaneum 

There was no escape 

For the citizens

Behind walls, in allies

In boat houses

Some tried to

Jump in the sea

The couldron boiled many

The settling ash left cavities  

The pyroclastic flow

Delivered a cruching blow

Burning flesh and bone

Leaving ghostly hollows

Many eons later

Archaeologists filled them with plaster

In poses the dead were frozen

In fleeing desperation 

One man trying to rise

The inferno his demise 

You can imagine

The terror and cries

450 miles per hour

Gigantic tusnami of rock and fire

In 79 C.E.

The kiln is nature's pyre. 

(end)

This poem stems from my mom, back in 1975 bought me a subscription to National Geographic's "World" magine, for kids. I saw a pretty girl on the cover smiling sliding down a hill in snow. I missed the word VOLCANO on the cover. The pictures inside of the plaster casts of the dead scared the shit out of me and gave me nightmares. 

 You Missed The Point, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James RationalPoet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

After he escaped Castro

He landed in Miami

He murdered to get his green card

In the underpass tent city

He was wrestless 

Din't want to wash dishes 

He was on a mission

Money/power was his vision

So to prove himself 

He went to a fleebag hotel

To make a two kilo deal

Chainsaws, shotguns, double cross

Chased him into the street

Shot him in the head

Collected the cocaine

Took it to his new boss Frank

Who appologized for how it went down

That Tony had lost his friend

It didn't have to end that way

"A hessa is a pig that don't fly streight."

Then that platnum fair 

Took the elevator 

Not the stairs

Tony wanted her

Then at the Babylon Club

Frank listed the rules

Never never underestimate

The greed of your rivals 

Lession number two

A don't ever ever use

The products you produce

It's bad for business too

Tony wanted to please her

So he bought a Porche

Hit on her in the nightmare 

Cow pattern upholstery monstrosity 

The deals were plentiful 

He made them over and over

In the shaddows of the industral sector

He went to visit his sister and mother

But his madre was not impressed

She wasn't buying his lie

"Who did you kill for this?"

Threw down his wad of money

But his sister still misty eyed

Haddn't seen him in many years

He slipped her back the cash

Outside the matriarch's humble home

Manny takes notice of Gina

Tells Tony that's she's pretty

The comment enrages him

"Stay away!" Is his warning

Frank sends Tony and Omar

To south America, specifically Bolivia

To make a traffic deal 

With ruthless kingpin Sosa

Tony wanted more

Omar's leash didn't work

From helicopter Omar swung

Sosa  gave Tony warning 

Frank was seething

Angry at Tony negotiating

Without his authority 

Tony reminded him of his loyalty 

Once agian at the Babylon 

Corrupt cop Mel wanted some

Blackmailed Tony at the booth

First class tickets to London too

And his sister he discovered

On the dance floor pleasured

Tony saw a man groping  her

Into the bathroom he followed her

He shoved and pushed  the guy

Then confronted her

Slapped her  to stop her

It only made her angrier 

To home Manny would be driving her

She liked him and was flirting 

He tried to keep his distance

Explained Tony's just protecting her

Tony return's to the booth

Unaware of what's to unfold

Two uzi's under cloth napkins

Hitmen have aimed at him

They wait for the right time

Then they let bullet's fly

Shredding everything in sight

Frank's unsuccessful try 

Tony wanted revenge

He called all his friends

He was to set Frank up

With a call at 3 A M

To the dealership they arive

Frank's on the phone about little league

Mel across the table 

Their lives were about to end

On the dot it rang 

Frank heard on the other end

"We fucked up"

Frank desperately tried to pretend

Tony reminded him of Hessa

Right before Manny shot him 

Frank offered him 10 million

And Elvira's hand as well 

Then he turned his sights on Mel

Trying to play it cool

Explaining Frank shouldn't have done it

But Tony was no fool

Emptied a round in his gut

"You can't shoot a cop"

"Whoever said you was one"

First class ticket to the ressurection 

One last "FUCK YOU" before his body dropped. 

The bodyguard was last standing

Nervous shaking and sweating

"What about him" the question

A long pause and then, "You wanna job?"

Frank was out of the way

Elvira became his wife

Gina got a beauty Salon

Tigers chained to a tree

Day in day out

The van in front of bank stopped

Bags and bags and bags

Of money to be laundered 

Sosa and Tony made tons of cash

The deals got bigger and bigger

Atlas in his mansion foyer 

"The world is yours" would not last forever

In the basement, and undercover

Hidden at 12 in the clock, a camera

Busted he 'd be, at a minimum

His lawyer said tax evasion 

But there was no way

Tony would do it, Sosa 

Offered him a plan

To avoid prison time

The corrupt FBI agent

The general, Sosa as well

Made a deal with Tony

To keep him out of jail

If of a diplomat

Tony would kill

It would keep the heat 

Away from their organizations 

Tony got lazy, got complacent

Manny wanted make his own dicisions

Elvira got board with his obsessing

Little did he know, he'd soon be done in

The three one night 

At a 5 star restaurant

Tony blotto angry about his plight

Blamed Manny, and his wife

Elvira had had enough

She walked out of his life

Never to return

Never to see him again

In New York

Sosa's hitman

Under the diplomat's car

He had placed  a bomb as planned 

But when he walked out to get in

His wife and two kids proceeded him

Got into the car

Tony's attitude changes

He wasn't about to

Murder innocent kids

What kind of monster

Would that make him

He warned the hitman

Not to do it

But he was determined

To follow through switch

But that was it

Tony had had it

Splatered his brains

All over the passenger window

Tony eventually

Flew back to Miami

Manny not there

Where did he go?

Tony went to his mother's

She had some hint of clue

Told him of an adress

Manny had moved into

When he got there

He rang the door bell

Manny answered in night robe

Tony looked up the stairs 

And there was his sister

In silk bedroom atire

Enraged at his best friend

Murdered him in his foyer 

She ran down slowmotion

Shocked and in horror

In tears cradling him

She looked up at her brother

"We were going to suprise you

We just got married"

Tony's bodyguard's 

Collected her limp body

Toted her to the car

Back to his mansion

When she realized

Where she was at

She screamed in rage

As they drug her in

But what nobody knew

Sosa had sent a team

Of a death squad

Stealthy crawling

All over in the dark

Tony had fucked him

And made himself a mark

All the cameras for security

Behind his back

Tony piled up his product

On his desk, powdered his nose

Then Gina walked in

Making romantic eyes

Exposing her skin

Sarcastic in tone

With gun in hand

"Fuck me Tony, fuck me!"

Shot after shot, the closer she got

A man broke in

Before Gina did Tony in

Lit her up like swiss cheese

Tony shot him dead

The final battle through office door

He craddled  his dead sister 

Though bloody he kissed her

Then looking up at the security monitors

He saw the masses outside his door

But he wasn't going to back down

He went to his armored cabinet 

Got locked and loaded his famous threat

"Say hello to my little friend"

A loud explosion

he door was gone

Smoke he walked through

Egging them on

They emptied their clips

Into him

One after another

He wouldn't go down

Silently stalking

With a shotgun

From behind him

The final blast done

Tony crashed foward

Over the railing

Splashing into his fountain

The waters turned red

And there he was

Laying dead

"The world is yours" 

Many missed the point of all this

There was no good

No good at all

His mother was right

From the start

Look at all that

His ill gotten gains

His best friend, and sister

Ended up dead

His wife had fled

All that fortune

And what was left

Floating in a pool of his own blood. 

It makes for a great movie

I have to admit

Everyone loves a good bad guy

A tragic hero

He wanted to provide 

For his wife

He wanted to provide

For his sister

He saved the kids lives

At his own expense

He refused to murder them

And that ultimately cost him

But this misses the point

The biggest point of all

If he had been honest

Right from the start

If he had never

Broken the law

If greed had not driven him

He'd avoided his downfall 

There is no honor

In anything  he did

He was a selfish bastard

Whose touch was posion. 

(edit)

This poem is of course, a plot summary but also an editorial of how I saw many, at the time missing the point of the movie, it was not glorifying Tony as a hero, it was an anti drug dealer movie. Tony certainly made for a great bad guy, but look at what he lost, everything, and for what? He lost his sister, his best friend and his life. all because of his greed and selfishness. Thus the very brilliant ending, panning from his limp floating body in the bloody fountain water, panning up to the globe and neon sign, "The world is yours." At least that is the message I got out of the movie. 

To me Tony was just as much as a piece of shit as Sosa and Frank. He hurt so many people in the process and all that money and power didn't help him. 

And this in no way is equating all people who use drugs to self medicate as being evil, or greedy or monsters. There is a huge difference between a innocent person selling a bag of weed here or there to make money to pay their bills and feed their kids, and say even the greedy assholes at big pharma who caused a huge opiate addiction crisis and crated more opiat addicts who otherwise would have been less likely to become addicts if they had not been over perscibed pain meds in the hospital. 

 Periaktoi By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

Revolve to show the morning

Revolve to show midday

Revovle to show the evening 

Men always did the play

It could be a background city

Or a background beach

Or dipict  the Oracle's temple

Out of human's reach

It could be a palace 

Or a courtyard garden

Or the clouds and sun

The backgrounds always spun

One side the audience  viewed

Quickly changing the other two

Were the backstage working crew

Could it be Antigony

Or that of Oedipus Rex

Or Helen of Troy 

Les Estrada is on stage next.  

Spin spin do it again

Turn turn pivot 

Periaktoi until pay ends 

(end)

I wrote this poem because I took a theatre class in college, and I had very bad performance anxiety and was intimidated by what I saw as "fancy" or "big words". I ended up having to do the lights for a real theatre play the college was doing, to get extra credit to compensate for my horrible reading comprehension at the time.

But now that I am older, wiser and not under any classroom pressure, the word "Periaktoi " is so easy to understand now. It is not really any different than the painted backdrop sets for summer stock community plays, except the three sided divice was used to make quick backdrop scenes that you could rotate between acts or even during acts. 

 Epic Nonsense, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

Quilled in Vulgar Latin

Colloquial era common tool

The labor of tribalism of the fool

Themes of loyalty and bravery

Conflated numbers confabulated

Manufactured exaggerated 

They sang your song in epic fassion

Sappy romantic bootlicking whaling 

The stanza's repetitive and anoying 

Crusades and Jihads of each competing

But I guess it's ok to reap the crops

If your murdering for the correct God

Just like Dante's Divine Comedy

Its just a childish apology

To excuse horrific tourturing

Charlemagne's army

Fighting in Spain

Of the Muslims hold distain 

They cant see they're both the same

God of Abraham 

Both of them 

Saragosa the Sundance kids

Last city standing

Held by a Muslim King

Who concides on wiseman's council

If Marsile's riches he gives

Converts to Christianity

Isn't that the way it's always been

Religion after religion conquering 

Forced conversion spread by sword

Compassion comes with strings

Only to those who rebuke their club

To the new one they must join

Charlemagne and his men

Battle worn and worn out thin

Sent a messenger to Mersile's court

That name that name repeated

Over and over praised again

Roland, Roland, his name they sing

Roland Charlemagne's nephew

Nominates Ganelon messenger 

But Ganelon fears his end in murder

Accuses Roland he's the lamb

Being lead to slaughter

Seeks revenge on Roland

Tips off the Saracens 

Gives them a plan 

A rear ambush of Roland's men

Ganelon knew quite well

For this trap Roland would fall

The musselman at Roncesvalles

Oliver, Olver pleads and pleads

Blow your horn Roland

Please, please please

Ivory oliphant megaphone

Roland refused to do such

Not wanting  to be accused of cowardice 

Hunting horn, elephant tusk

Blow it loud Roland

Call for help

Oliver the mysogynist 

Holds his own sister

Over Roland's head

His love intrest

But Archbishop Turpin steps in

Sees the futility of continuing 

Outnumbered

In the battle of

Roncevaux 

The carnage epic

Roland died

A maryter's death

But who was to blame

For all of this

Ganelon now defendent 

Argued his actions justified

But revenge and not that of

Treason to the church 

Pinable Ganelon's only friend

Threatens anyone who dares

To convict him

Thierry the prosecutor in this epic

Argues that of Roland's  service

Was under the command of Charlemagne 

Pinable challenges Thierry 

To trial by combat

Divine intervention then stepped in

Thierry the victor leaves Pinable dead

The Franks are the jury rendering verdict

Ganelon guilty and thus sentanced

All four limbs of to be tied to horses

Disruption dismemberment torn apart

And noose also a present to his kin

For  30 of his relatives

Complicit they must have been

This is not justice, just morbid revenge

Charlemagne recieves a message

From angel Gabriel 

To help King Vivien sing his song

Bemoan, bemoan, bemoaon

Greaving, singing the hero's song

The trumpet epic goes on and on

But what is this in the end

A bullshit apology

Defending religious tribalism.

Epic Nonsense!

(end)

 I love art, and poetry, but the art in a painting, and or poem, can and do have absurd themes, dipicting exageration and legendary mytholocial tales that never happened.

I love the ancient Egyptians hierogylphics and their pyramids and tombs artwork, but none of those gods were real, and just like apologizing for the Chrsitan Crusades it is nonsense. These are the ornate propaganda tools of antiquity. Exagerations of self imporatance and divine right of kings, both in polytheism and monotheism, and the warriors creed to defend the tribe. None of these motifs change in any part of human history, it is a defense of tribalism based on superstition and human ignorance. The stories are epic and have meter and beauty to the reader, but they are hollow peacock feathers promoting otherism, disguised as a patent on human morality by proxy of label. 

I read "The Song Of Roland" in my college French Lit class. To be honest, I did not undestand the plot back then. But I did learn that numbers and repitition in epic poems were conflated to grandure levels, like an elephant puffing out it's ears or a cobra expanding it's neck to convey a size bigger than it really was. 

Most people in antiquity had no concept of huge numbers, just like many people today cannot conceptualize the word "googol" which is in math is 10 to the 100th power. So a number of 10,000 or 20,000 would seem like a billion to a reader back then. 

And I also picked up on the repetition of the stanzas repeating the church and king and supporters of Roland being a tragic hero an the moral example of a hero. 

But again, epic poetry was the entertainment of the day, just like we overconflate hero worship in movies like Superman and Star Wars. Fantastic imagry and intense emotions and stories of loyalty and love and betrayal. An old saying, and I still think this is true, "there is nothing new under the sun". 

Human behavior does not change, just our cultures, our languages, our technology, our clothing. But themes of lifes events, of fear and bravery, of love and hate, of revenge and justice, of compasion and cruelty, those tropes, motifs live on.  Everyone loves a good story that paints them out in a good light.

I look back at the Song of Roland and want to barf now. Just like Dante's Inferno and Divine comedy, I look at those as meandering messes of human narcissism ornately played out, as if one were trying to untangle several hundred intangled electrical cords or unwinding the noodels in twisted intanglement of a plate of speghetti. 

Will I catch shit for being blasphemous about a beloved work of history? Don't care. 

And yes I did use the word "musselman", which is an antiquated term meaning those adherent to Islam. 

And "Oliphant" is an archaic word for "elephant", but in the conext of this epic, meaning ivory elphant horn. 

 I think all aspects of human history, and that includes the arts as well, should always be studied and debated and vlaued, even if you do not like a particular piece. I think Picasso's Gernika is a masterpiece, but aestheticly to me, it is ugly and disjointed. If I ran into that painting, and he was an unknown when I did, trying to sell to me, I wouldn't buy it, because I don't find it visually pleasing. But I do get the meaning behind it. It expresses the horrors of war, and the threat of fascism. 

But the Song of Roland doesn't really strike me as even that. I comes across as two tribal gangs like the bloods and Kripts accept the perspective is that of one gang leader only. 

 "Badass"? By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

You think you are an apex?

You think we are the center

Of all of this?

Self centered is what you are

Insecure narcisisstic 

Claim to be above it all

Not at all

You are not that tall

We haven't been around that long

Everything we create

From our cloths to our homes

Things to catch our prey

How clever we are

We got to the moon

Yet cant take care, of the planet we're on

It's all artifical, we cannot do the same

Without help, we would die

If we went all natural all day

We are not as badass as we think

We build skyscrapers and monuments

Yes, write poetry and build weapons 

But if we had live like

The tardigrade 

With no artifical aid

There's no way we'd survive

300 degrees above

Or 300 degrees below

We couldn't make,

The morning dew

Or fleeting shelter dwelling

And how about our longevity 

Only 200,000 years 

Comparatively 

Where as the water bear

Beats most life, a billionth of a second

We are from it's perspective

It has survived all 5

Mass extinctions

And most don't see this

The earth doesn't need us

But the tardigrade will move on

Long long long, after we are gone.

It is microscopic 

But it's survival is epic

In its evolutionary tactic

We are good at being humans

But we will never be

Or come close to the tardigrade 

The tardigrade is badass

It will always be, and as far as humans

We need to learn humility 

 Against The Grain, (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twtter)

In the English langage

There are an esimated 

171 thosand words to use

It is the poet's job to 

Paint the pictures 

Of adventures

Of the forests 

Of the darkness

Of the waters

Of the flowers

Of the sorrows

Of tomorrow

Of your losses

Of your success

Of you romance

Of the dead

Your choices

Are limitless

Your images

Are boundless

But if I may

Add one more thing

Don't be timid

Don't be restrained 

Go outside

Your comfort zone

Piss someone off

With your prose

Blasphemy 

Isn't a crime

Break the rules

Image wise

If our species

Never questioned social norms

Nothing in life

Would ever change

Make them uncomfortable

Don't play it safe

Go on offence

With your prose

Remember that guy

At the Hitler rally

The only one who refused

To be a sheep, or salute 

That's your job too.

Don't be kind

To authoritarian bullies

Don't be blind

To autrocities

Challenge the masses

Who sell absurdities

Ridicule them

With no mercy

Give no cult of personality

Any refuge any credence

Stand up to tyranny

In defiance 

Don't let them grow

Anti science

Anti intellectual

Anti plural 

Diversity and humanity

Depend on scrutiny

Not the insecurty

Of demands of blind loyalty. 

Paint ugly truths

Make it their mirror

Face them with

Unvarnished truth

The masacre of Zong

The Britsh were wrong

Remind them of Mengele

Don't gloss history over

Remind them of Jonestown

And Marshall Applewhite

Remind them of Auschwitz

And the gas chambers within

Remind them of Rodney King

Remind them of Newtown shooting

Remind them of our dark side

If to forget, we're doomed to repeat

Not to shame, not to blame

But remember, remember

Always always remember

All 8 billion of us, are in this together. 

Use Occam's razor

Make your word's sharp

Be that great white

Be the wire barbed

Be that thorn

On the rose

Be that antagonist 

Frustrate complacency 

I have no problem

With the protagonist

Yet it is also your job

To shake things up.

 Untitled For Now, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @brianrrs37)

About that British comedian 

With his skits and  backup dancers

Angels were all, but one was English

For 40 years to me she was nameless

I pined after her, skit after skit

D.C. channel 20, capital Hill sat

But they never placed her name

To her face in the credits

 In love with her as a teen

What was her name, HER NAME?

It took me 40 years to figure out

Finally LOISE, LOISE, THAT'S IT, THAT'S IT!

A simple google search

Ended my agony 

If I asked for her hand 

Today would she marry me?

Oh laugh if you will

Bet you think it's funny

Yakity Sax 

While everyone chases me. 

Oh who am I kidding

Even back then

If I had met her

I'd be a dead man

In over my head

Stuttering and gasping

Just a handshake 

A heart attack I'd be having. 

And what would the words

Say on my Urn?

He got so excited

Into traffic he ran.

The red double decker

Zig Zagged the Thames river

Her name hid on it

Seemed like forever. 

(end)

I used to be a huge fan of the Benny Hill show, but I always hated how they never put the lady's names to the faces in the credits. I was in love with Louise English, oh sure, yea, I was special, I was the only one in love with her...... There is a barf bag available on the back of your seat. 

This is just a silly poem about crushes. In all seriousness though, back then I was extremely star struck about any celebrity. If I met a famous sports star I liked I would stutter too. But with her, I probably would have passed out in a faint if she just had shook my hand. 

AN aside, for the fans of the sitcom Fraiser, which was a spin off of the sitcom Cheers, in Fraiser Nile's love interest was Daphne played by Jane Leeves, Jane was a Hill's Angel too. I know I know, you were enjoying your morining coffee when I interrupted you with this monstrocity of a distraction. 

I'll have serious poems soon. I just had to get this silliness out of my system. 

P.S. The title is a play off of the line Maxwell Smart always said, "Missed It By That Much."

How about this guys, you pick the title,

Either "Missed It By" a play on the Maxwell Smart line, "Missed it by that much"

Or poking fun of the si fi Arnold movie, Total Recall with "Total Re-Fail"? 

Post your choice on my twitter page @brianrrs37.

Here is a picture of her. I seriously wanted to marry her. 

 Arthur, Arthur, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

Not the Pacific Rim

Maybe 1400 baud 

Your Orca on acid

Barnacles dot your hull 

Or was that shrooms

The lighthouse melted

Quint bitten in half

Cleat hitch knot looms

Your lexicon placid

Leaves me confused

I look in your gally 

For  more booze 

Frenzied whitcaps

On the north shore

Mother of pearl foam

Tube slams you on the deck

The scuba divers shocked

You've smashed against the rocks

Wisky in the glass

Briney coral bleached 

Was it LSD

OR CUSH in a bong

Port red and starboard green

Doldrums in midday sun

Your sextant is broken

The constilations are usless

Cloud cover leaves you sightless

Adrift in raging night time rain 

Sheets and sheets relentless

Battlecry charge in darkness

Crack and boom and lightning

Will your ship be sinking

The barber pole on the cliff

Is supossed to guide you in

But the blinding tempest

Will never be your friend

The mast broke in half

Leaving you tumbling 

Jostling, rumbiling 

Lumbering, listing 

The sea's mosh pit

The ballest wobbling 

Swaying, nausiating 

Leaving port regreting

Suddenly in a sweat

The sunlight  hit your face

You blocked your eyes with your hand

Now you were awake

As smooth as glass

No ripples no wakes

Seemed like your nightmare

Went on for weeks and weeks

Did Brody pound 

The junction cable

After the claw

Tugged it out of the water?

Tapped you on the shoulder

Did that psychic soothsayer

Fleece you of your Franc marks

And tell you the nightmare was over? 

(end)

In college I had to replace a foriegn language with French literature. I had read the Song of Roland in that same class. I only remember the name Arthur Rimbaud, but my college days were eons ago, so I do not know which exact poems I had read in that class.

I highly suspect that "The Drunken Boat" may have been one of them since it keeps comming up in google as one of his more famous poems. I read it just now before I wrote this poem, as an ode to him. I will have to admit, although the summery of the themes in this poem at times confused me. It is discribed as basically a bad trip, or mental nightmare/dream as if he was on a drug or drunk. But I do remember his name from my college French lit class.

I am going to read some more. Looking for something a little shorter than "The Drunken Boat".

The reason I  passed college, is that I had multiple friends and advisors who would check and double check my spelling and grammar before I turned it in. I do not have any secondary oversight now.  I have A.D.D. and anxiety attacks and performance anxiety and quite possibly some level of dyslexia. 

As I have said before I have a conflict software problem with this website formate with copy/paste and this website does not have built in spell check. But I do try my best to re read and re edit over and over unless the "edit" option is gone from the bottom of a post, then I can no longer edit my post. If there is a major problem, I will usually end up quoting the flawed post, and correcting it in a new post. So you may end up seeing duplicates.

Always look for the post number as a hashtag # then the post number and Title of the poem in the banner that is just above each new post. . Please have patience with me. It has taken me decades to accept myself and my flaws, but with my poetry, it is extremely hard because I do love writing and sharing and reading. But I am doing this alone with no help now, it isn't like in college. 

 Far From Baroque, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

Too full of cob webs

And aristocratic wigs

Knickers only to their knees

Stockings accentuate calves 

No no

Not for me

Sonatas, operas, movements

From them I will flee

Give me the Crystler Building

Give me Metropolis

Give me the Speakeasy  

Saxophones/trumpets in big band clubs

Let me hear Cybill Shepherd

Sing the canary's song

"I Told Ya I love ya"

Or the pining "Blue Moon"

My birth year was all wrong

I'd love to live in the days of

Key Largo Bogart and Bacall

Wearing Indiana Jones Fedora

Close as I can come

Is Harry Connick Jr

Or even the scat

Offbeat of Manhattan T.

Sunburst in gold or silver

Turqoise Pleated box facade

Eastern Columbia Building

In L.A. It resides. 

 (end)

I love the art deco look, lamps, clocks, buildings, ect ect ect. And the bandstands of big band night clubs. I just loved the sultry look of women like Lauren Bacall. Rocco was a great bad guy in that movie. I always love that ending. I love the antique iron key typewiters, and phones. and the triangle patterns and sunburst patterns and gold and black and marble mixes. I simply love that era look and big band jazz. 

Not talking about one particular building or dress or decor just a poem of almagamation of the era and look and fashion and music. 

 May I Be Franks With You? By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @brianrrs37)

Melodious chamomile 

Art of pulchritude 

Salubrious twighlight

Slumber

I put you in my CD player

She's a cook you know

She will drink fine wine

And her specialty? Eggplant

You don't know why

You are  so happy

Sad dulcet tune

Both at the same time?

Tierra del Fuego 

Ice cream truck 

The freezer knows

Phalanges froze

You rolled with Mick Jagger

At the Glendale Gallaria 

Low rent apartment 

I found in Chinatown

Give that gypsy a FDR

I hit the juice and sing

But I see in you

Bee Gees jive talk too

Food fights every night

Papaya's and bananas

Our weapons of choice

But is it really right?

The opening credits

Stereopticon overlaps

Your name and mine

Are our dreams synced up this time?

Great distances between us

I would never wish you prison

I'm going to have to 

Watch the movie again.

(end)

All of the stanzas here in this POEM are alluding to one of my favorite slow and soothing jazz artists Michael Franks, and the themes in a few of the songs on the only album I have of his 'The Art Of Tea". This is my ode POEM to that album.

He has a romantic slow soothing voice, sulen at times but also playful sounding. He was one of the first Jazz artists I got introduced to by someone I was dating at the time. While still single and no disire to date or marry, I still love listining to this album.

Stan Getzs is too disjointing sounding for me. Franks is about as freeform sounding as I get with Jazz.  I am also into Candy Dupher, David Sanborn, and as you read in my last poem Manhattan Transfer. I also love the cover band/s group called "Post Modern Jukebox". PMJ does all sorts of pop songs of today and the past in the styles of decades from the 60s 50s and 40s and 30s. They are simply fun to listen to. 

I AM SERIOUSLY GETTING ANXIETY RIGHT NOW over this. I could have a fucking spell check anyway and still fuck up. It can take me hours and sometimes a couple of days to catch all my spelling mistakes. I have been at this particular poem for a few hours now. I hope I have caught all of them. 

 F*** Jerry Springer, By Brian 37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

I am old enough to remember

When all the talk shows

Were conversational, civil

Even though "Controversial"

Donahue's favorit guest

Up until her death

Was the most hated woman

A label she didn't deserve

You should thank Madalyn 

She kept Islam and Buddhism

And Hinduism and Jainism

Public school officials hands

And off course there is Oprah

You get a car, and you get a car

Everyone gets a car

But then, but then, it went too far

Mortan Downy Jr,

Jefore he died from cancer

Was the father of the frey

He'd rile you up and everyone shout

"I'm not going to take it anymore"

Your anger was justified

But the justifications were shallow

All designed to sell ad space

The more pushing, shoving hitting.

Does anyone remember

Any episode of Jerry Springer

Where you could the entire hour

Where the censors had no worries?

But now the entire show

Is a mere test pattern beeeeeeep

The kind in the days stations would sign off

And it would wake you out of your sleep