My childhood was both sour and sweet,
Sour because I lived with two mothers who were immiscible liquids,
Sour because of sibling conflict and strife,
Sweet because my brother and I enjoyed the company of communal friends.
Growing up on Apple Avenue was a memorable experience,
There was a large field at one end,
It housed a public school,
There were vendors on the field who sold indigenous confections,
My brother and I were their loyal customers,
There was a tree on the field that barely had leaves even during the rainy season,
We were told different mystical tales about the tree.
The highlight of one of the evenings was a bicycle race,
Chopper versus BMX,
The race was about which bike was faster,
In the maiden race, my brother was a few metres ahead,
The Chopper rider committed a foul,
He collided with the rear wheel of my brother’s bicycle,
My brother’s bicycle tumbled and he sustained injuries,
It resulted in a fight between rival groups.
The bicycle race was on hold for a long time.
September 25, 2026.
(Thomas Kinkade painting)
panorama picturesque
architecture statuesque
Monterey pine trees
tints that appease
flowering hedges
with watery edges
a couple buying flowers
children enjoy the showers
a cyclist slow rides
running dog by her side
hawkers
gawkers
colourful cars
a painted pause
a man reading
a canvas rain-bleeding
a Carmel scene lifelike
this is how peace looks like
I dawdle down the lane, sight is a glancing glimpse.
This road taken is a journey not an adventure,
thus shadows from limbless skies causing an eclipse
Now in front of me stands a great redwood,
this journey now a standstill,
can I move past this giant, only if I could.
Is that light gleaming through the great tree limbs?
I have awakened, this is how it begins.
With this found sight, my trek can continue.
My adventure now marches always on this avenue.
I had heard of haunted houses for sure
barely knew about Halloween house on Mure
It was situated at the top of the lane, high on a hill
The jack-o-lanterns were bright; the night was still
everyone is invited, an enthusiastic ghoul told me
He was standing at edge of the driveway, pouring pumpkin tea
decorative flies swirled in this beverage, one made a hiss
I drank them down rapidly, not wanting to look like a priss
a vampire-like creature standing on the porch gave a bow.
“a human being!” She shrieked. “Oh, you’ll be a wow!”
This almost made me turn and run, but I was braver, right?
I was the hit of the party, on this Halloween night.
It’s sad when poverty
leads to the proliferation
of gangs and sales of drugs
which leads in turn to addiction.
No bigger open market for drugs exists
than one where great homelessness grew.
Gangs are thriving even to this day
there on Kensington Avenue.
Gangs of many ethnicities,
prostitutes and miserable folk
hang out there hooked on
heroin, fentanyl and coke.
A billion dollar market where I’m sure
drugs are bought as easily as soda pop.
Don’t worry that you even will get caught.
Over there one rarely sees a cop!
“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached,
don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
- Quote by Confucius
-------------------------------------------------------------
Human errors
beyond measure
K and A avenue
intersection
smoking hurt
needling pain
losing love of live
living addicted
people mistreating
people mistreated
unconscious youth
forgetful leaders
ruptured vein
dying humanity
homeless theories
weighed hopes
failed lot
lots failed
The wheels of the chaotic times churn for them
the sands of crushed dreams in the desert of desiccated life,
settling frenzied on the unstratified fragile structure
of the disorganized dunes of desolate existence.
The sequestered moments of distressed awareness,
drift the dust of disarray to the foyer of failed being.
The truth of trustful conviction sinks under suffering
made with mirage on the ruffled ripples of disorder.
In homeless languished life’s impoverished landscape,
sorrow-paved avenue contours convoluted uncertainty,
winds to nowhere at the fading fringe of the time future,
beyond the befuddled perception of toiling time present.
With the faceless faces smeared by the shadows of scorn
they walk on slimy Kensington Avenue of cardinal crime.
Life trampled by insolent wavering footsteps in journey
under the stupor of opoids that never ends their pain.
They seek the benevolence of the society to help them
in their search for the lighted path away from squalid environs
for their suffering souls to discern the abode of empathy,
as they strive to find the way out of the dead end avenue.
Here they come with
an iPhone
Go Pro Zv Max
buddies in their ears
bopping to old tracks
dead cat on a mic
push it in yer face
what are you doing, girl?
Tryin’ to turn a trick
earn your Rhino tranq?
Sneakers burning
keeping warm
sleeping standing
got no dorm
Here they come in
their pink puffy
glittering long fat coats
frothy coffee, milk of oats.
Come see the zoo;
we got dead cats, dead rats,
xylazine zombies too
shootings, drive by’s
OD’s, all you need.
It’s killadelphia man
Sleeping in grime
in this here hood
that ain’t no crime
ain’t no good
Here they come with
Their TikTok
YouTube Instagram smirk
Here’s a Dixie buddy
tell me where to shoot.
My girls lost a foot
you wanna see that?
See him lie, see him die
what you gotta film
to get your likes?
influence me
influencer
nothing to see
make a stir
Where is this? Are we on Mars?
America – just count the stores,
capitalist carnivores.
That so-familiar movie score,
the swish of passing cars.
The city built on Brotherly Love
(Wells Fargo, Fitch and Abercrombie)
at the mercy of Pam Bondi
- was that a person, or a zombie? –
What was Madison thinking of?
Car’s no use: no place to park it.
Arrested at a funeral home.
No gravel pits, no air, no loam
- eat your heart out, Kristi Noem
(Checks Cashed Here, Medina Market)
Can this be noon? It feels like night.
What are these groupings? Hangouts? Dives?
They’re ganglions? They’re human hives?
Squandered talent, wasted lives.
Subway line blocks out the light.
Sidewalk garbage. Mostly men.
That hokey old verbal agility,
“insure domestic tranquillity”
correctional facility
for the heirs of William Penn.
Human beings are detritus
(Lifetime Nails, Olympic Sports):
To clean it up, we use the courts
Perhaps we ought to build more forts
- and thus our id comes back to bite us.
Had lunch with a friend
And we sat in the shade
In a sidewalk arrangement
The restaurant made.
I live on the east side
And she on the west.
We meet to catch up
At each other’s request.
The corner was busy
And traffic zipped by.
With sirens and buses,
I’m not gonna lie,
The noisiness level
Was blaring and loud,
Plus bulldozers rolled
As pedestrians cowed.
Construction just added
More rat-a-tat-tats,
With shouts from the workers
In safety-type hats.
My friend and I chatted,
Our voices both raised,
Delighted to be there,
New Yorkers unfazed.
the avenue's trees
What is with this month of May
the day is as cold as November
the leaves on the trees are full
and green, yet among the mass
of chlorophyll, I see many yellow
and Auburn leaves.
It is as if the trees think of autumn
has arrived and is prepared
for winter hiatus.
If I tell the plants it is because of
melting ice in the Arctic, they
will look skeptical and say
we follow nature's signal, this
year will be the shortest one
on record, except for the ano
of 1748, when snow fell in June
The chapter I'm writing
starts with this setting
a side street that goes
for a block and ends
at a ravine.
Boxes are stacked
in the hallway.
The crimson trees outside
are still, but I know
something stirs.
The laptop screen glows
as I write.
I'll close the cover soon
but the story never ends.
A veil of clouds hides the sky.
I'll grab a quick bite
and do my laundry
for something clean to wear.
A birthday card I meant to send
lies on the floor. The friend wrote
that he moved from his house
to assisted living, his life shrinking
from seven rooms to two.
I cried when it rained last night
for a woman I once loved.
It is November
and the weather is changing.
I moved here three weeks ago
and occupied the second floor
to find my time and place.
Beneath the stars, where galaxies align,
A pathway hums with vibrant, pulsing light,
The echoes call, as if the night's design.
Where cosmic winds weave tales of fire and flight,
The avenues of wonder stretch and twist,
A tapestry of dreams that sparks the night.
With every step, the shadows gently kissed,
Electric whispers surge through veins of air,
Each heartbeat dances, caught in blissful mist.
Neon constellations twinkle, bold and rare,
As comets kiss the pavement with a glow,
And time, suspended, hangs without a care.
In vivid strokes, the universe will show
A harmony of colors painted wide,
Where hopes and fears converge and ebb and flow.
The heartbeat of the cosmos as our guide,
Through Electric Avenue, we make our stand,
An astral journey never to deride.
In every pulse, the threads of fate are planned,
With every turn, the infinite unfolds,
A beacon bright, a bridge to all that's grand.
So walk this path where mysteries are told,
And feel the charge that lights our deepest dreams,
In cosmic realms, our stories yet untold.
Through vivid nights, we sip on starlit streams,
On Electric Avenue, the cosmos gleams.
No more can you say
that Paris is gay
Only the left
has right-of-way
Where deception
is granted a daily reception
Even before the press conference's
cursed inception
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