The limbo of estrangement,
the burden of a secret,
the fragile hope of a ceasefire,
the suddenness of endings,
the wisdom in not speaking,
spaces between music notes,
the stealth...
at the beginning
it was mostly words
with which our minds
spoke to one another,
till some empty well
of curiosity had filled;
a wall of comfort
had been built,
word by...
Wild child.
Never mild child.
Shut the fuck up child.
Golden child. Scapegoat child—after while
—go to therapy child. What do you know,
child? After a while you don’t...
Gray sheets of steel rain,
each drop a tap,
a strum, a drum
upon the metal roof.
A pickup band,
hard rock, a heavy
metal sound all
loud, distorted,
hoping to be
famous,...
on a motorized scooter
no purpose in life
mustard drips off his hotdog
This is the second time that Charles Bukowski appeared in my little magazine Clock Radio of the mid to late 1980s. He and I had...
I spoke for my sister on the occasion of her death.
I reassured the kindly and the concerned that I would
curate her memories. Yet, I...
Running through tall grasses
glass jar in hand, cover off –
I can still detect a faint scent
of peanut butter wafting up.
He traps one first, a...
the world is spinning
into myth again and
all I can do is watch as
hummingbird nests hang
askew and all the fuchsia
gemstones buzz into being,
one by one....
Windsor & Newton Black Indian Ink, Manuscript black and white Dip Pen acrylic ink, Kuratake Black Sumi Ink on Strathmore Illustration Board for heavy...
it’s 75 degrees
the first real nice day
since winter
I’m staring at a patch of grass
with a confused look on my face
like I should be
doing something...
I am a friend to:
eggs and
the meditative journey of achieving perfect home fries--
rinse
chop
rinse
heat
olive oil on medium until it just begins to spit wisps of...
I said I had never seen one.
They speak up there, above the cliff.
We hunt them, said old Ted, spitting on the ground,
Chase deer, eat...
she told me
that she had suffered
from thyroid cancer
explaining
in some detail
that because it was removed
she no longer
had any desire for sex
I asked her
if she still
had...
regular twelve-hour shift walk with a clock
in Grimethorpe as security guard round N.U.M. remains, to find key, fit clock,
walk ripped floor tiles, dust, unused...
The case can be made that everything we do
is done for distraction
from the most righteous to the most evil
even love is a distraction
or the...
Warm air rises to the ceiling.
I draw a deep breath,
stretch out my arms
with fingers like feathers.
My wife sees me lean
to the wind, take flight
like...
but I never mailed it
what’s the point
the guy is dead
would his carcass crack open a beer
his rusty smith corona clack
beneath skeleton hands
while he searched...
remains of snowmen
now heaps of ice
hard as bone
No one asked you.
My phone
suddenly speaks
in a mostly
quiet room.
“I’m sorry,
I didn’t quite
get that”
Everyone
looks at me
as I murmur
Shut up Siri
They go where nothing does
not even moonlight
Finding a way to slice the air
and ride the wind
If you see one
bow down in wonder
Touch it not
Their...
Start with a comfortable room, perhaps
a warm kitchen, then add something odd,
a clock running backwards, a drawer
with a chicken bone wired as a pull.
Mix...
the window admits light
into the dark room
an empty couch against the wall
a book open on the table
you raise your hand over the coast
where it...
Nothing new. Messy room.
Mismatched. Teacher dull.
Hair tangled. Lunch room balk.
Cigar box full of broken chalk.
Missed assignment. Deadline
passed. Theme obscure.
Outclassed. Scratched
albums. No sleeves. Order
wrong. Apologies.
Paid...
there is a realm
I'm often transported to
when reading great poetry
it's one in which the common
becomes more refined
and the simple, more profound
where my words no...
Mom wanted me and Janie
to start school at the same time,
both be kindergarteners,
to take the bus
to and from,
almost like twins.
“That’d be better,” Mom said.
“For...
Hardly a slither in the half-light
yet still gleaming
as if to restore our faith
in shackle and shank, mast
and boom
No harm to look and linger at...
Had I seen the sweat pouring down the face
or the abject fear in the eyes, or if
I'd heard the screams of terror
as my hand...
Last weekend I went to this wedding in San Luis Obisbo, and I didn't even get laid.
It's a funny thing how at every wedding,...
We call it the cabin this home of ours
Tucked in between the lake and a snaking
Half mile driveway we call a road
Lined with wild...
At age 14, I hauled alfalfa hay
for a big bay mare, mucked
her stall while a Philco radio back
in the tack room blew a hurricane
for...
arriving early
is being on time
being on time
is being late
being late
a disgrace
and waiting
in the clinic lobby
for my name to be called
is something to do
i’ve lived long
a desert denizen
surrounded
by saguaros
in lower elevations
than these northern hills
where wheat grasses grow
where pronghorn graze
& briefly
after i broke up the ice
in the bird...
my house has been invaded
by maintenance men
it’s not their fault
but I’m a prisoner here
the bars of social anxiety
keep me from any escape
the house is...
on your front lawn. i do not puddle.
i am no slouch. i did not relish
the enchantment of your touch
when you gave me two lumps
of...
strut
your anorexic poem
down the page
like
a Gucci model
down the runway
both
pretending
they don't give a fuck
At the edge of the sidewalk, looking like a black blotch against the snow with two small sticks for legs and a stubborn beak,
a...
I have heard people say they think in shapes and some in colours and one time a guy told me he thinks in hurricanes...
In memory of N. "Rain" Dailey,
Salem, Massachusetts, 1998
I light a photograph on fire,
toss it to the outgoing
winter tide;
flames char
her despicable face
reducing it to ashes.
After...
pebbles in this stream
once wild & sharp-tongued, now
a shining example of obedience, conformity
there are dark
waves
all I have to do is jump
in them
and I’ll disappear forever
I won’t drown
I won’t get washed out to sea
just at the moment...
letting go of your hand
I fell into the night sky
high above the streetlight
where you stood
I did not beg you
but I begged the world
not to...
In the freezing winter of our dissolution,
when his engine block cracked
in the Ford Econoline van, fracturing our sanity,
making our lawn a weeds cemetery,
coyotes saved us...
This is the time
that cannot decide,
a penumbra of seasons
where everything hovers
between either and or,
string lights and marigolds,
and no one bothers
to enunciate correctly.
I am flustered,...
A trailblazer over brown hairs
a thin cut from
old razor legs
smooth out
by lotion
by rain
by running in the rain
by the dull pounds of my feet
by the...
Lately, each experience feels uncommon.
Living in one room with a pot-bellied stove,
a wooden crate for a bookcase, a rug
of woven rags, my thoughts beat...
to a heart attack,
that greasy, salty
hunk of heaven.
Oh, lowly worker,
be my savior.
Bring me a box,
a bag, a promise
of fries, of fat.
Hand me my
happiness, my...
write of parlay
we chatted over manners and harbored edges. these things … moved the line into a place of rural contemplation.
blasée,
the feminine rolls her hidden eye—
he marvels at the width and breadth
of the mystery;
he is her ripened fruit, fallen into life;
and she is the...
I would
give you
my fortune
if I had one.
Until then
these rocks
in my head
are yours.
For example,
this one.
I haven’t left the house in weeks,
limping room to room, forgetting
what I came for, wearing unwashed
the goose-turd green flannel pajamas
I inherited from my mother-in-law’s awful
second...
today marks the 40th anniversary of her death
I still haven't learned how to play the drums
but the January birds are singing like spring is...
My sister Cape was only two years older than me except for the summer months we were one thin year apart.
And there it is...
i love my son
i love each of my sons
i have loved them for a long time
i love each and all of my sons very...
she is a blank canvas
loitering on a Gothic style easel
how many ghosts of painters needed
to finish her shrouded pine trail?
Dad let us stay up
the nights Mom went out
to sing with Sweet Adelines,
saying we were big girls
and could put ourselves to bed.
“You don’t need...
Lacquer 40x40cm
I have Magoo eyes, narrow slits
carved through bone that filter distractions
and see to the future.
When tapped with a toothbrush
my broken teeth ring with glockenspiel...
i don't think about him much
he wasn't very good
and i wasn't either
but marked in red pen
at the top
of my first poem for class
he wrote—
"Watch...
Among the litany of lost relics,
a Swiss music box tree stand
that played O du fröhliche, silver
and sent home after the war
and a holy rustic doll...
When I am old
...
I remember her porch
her cat in there
it was screened in
it was summer
late at night
almost morning
the darkness and
the temperature
just right
I looked at her dad’s easy...
Into this temper of writers
called poets
I shove my own shoulders
Respectful of the undertaking
I chisel my words
and aim with care between lines
All this poetic lingering
to...
There are birds here,
the garden has no fence.
My neighbor checks in on the roses
and brushes away lice with soft
working hands.
I'm looking out from the...
The moon is above me
my toes are cold so I put some shoes on
not because I'm going anywhere
but just because it's harder to keep...
Feels like I have a bag over my shoulder that’s full of yesterday. As I approach Alice’s place it gets not exactly heavy but...
and gets hung
on the curb
then,
freed by the wind
lands in brown weeds
beside the big ditch.
I kick at a beer can.
the houses seem smaller,
the neighborhood
tired, run...
large pine trees in a bark beetle free forest
after living long lives of capturing carbon
& releasing oxygen & having been a home
to myriad wildlife...
I stepped outside
my flat I named
the bunker
and there was
a woman
bestial
with insane eyes
surrounded
by the trash
of her own making
syringes
toilet paper
plastic bottles
and a tomato
"you really shouldn’t
be here"
I...
"Flight" an acrylic painting on linen.
poems
are not meant
to
impress you.
they
are written
to
help me
make it
thru the night.
...on a very cold morning.
Should I admit
it all started as a pile of phrases
and a symmetry fetish?
Should I credit
nighthawks and traffic
in the liner notes?
Should I care
that all characters...
I am weeping. Please take my tears. It's all I have left. I lost myself. I don't want to find me either. I am...
Sometimes I just feel like telling a love story with a happy ending, and none of that conflict that people are told they need...
“Why don't you write about me!”
she wailed from the bed as he sat
before his desk, lost in reverie.
Without looking up, he replied:
“My dear, it is...
I'll be brief, for we are both busy
and the calendar Gods have laid waste to
that idyllic peace which, if we're honest,
is as foreign to...
I screech and I hoot and I dance on this morning
for sunlight through the windows,
clean, cold air and
a woman.
It seems she’s content to stare...
what I don’t know could fill volumes…
the formula is V = s3 if all of the things
I don’t know were stored inside
a cube shaped...
Near the Mexico border
in the Chisos Mountains of West Texas
they say it is so dark that you can see
the entire Milky Way
without trying
I look...
in the kitchen of the blacksmith
there are only wooden spoons
his hand pauses to examine the sky
silverware falters
tumbles from the clouds
and rains across the cindered...
It is there
when a hole in the road
accommodates the water that carved it
and later, the patch that fills it,
when a mango and stone
accept their...
How old was I?
I can’t be sure. You know
How Time can be; how it
Gets stretched, compressed
Torn and torched, but
I know I was young
Trying to...
I’d hoped the cruise on the Seine would be the highlight,
but it wasn’t. Nor was the open top bus tour.
We inched up the Eiffel...
Lacquer on wooden board 23x25cm
I remember talking to God
the conversation left unfinished
I got up and went
to go about my madness
but there was a moment there with Him
where my...
so far we have read the rules
in black and white
in print
meanwhile others translate them in different colors
i read your poetry in the rain
Went to church today.
A sanctuary of a few sitting
and spread out at the pews
in front and behind me.
A man at the left corner
of the...
You are not the trees, nor the clouds
reflected in a black plate pond.
The diving knife breaks the disk
pulls the jelly plant: You are not...
His coat of several years—
an acoustic blue and thyme puffer
morphed into kangaroo pockets.
It hordes crumpled store receipts
(with barely visible ink), napkins
taken from Dunkin Donuts...
It’s been raining since Christmas yet the water is lower than ever before and there’s a newly revealed rock looks like the hood of...
I will grow my remaining hair long,
and wear slip-on shoes.
I will clear a corner in my house,
set up an easel, and paint badly.
I will...
he let me sell my poetry books
in his comic book shop
one day I wandered in to see if any had sold
they hadn't
Dan, I have...
I rearranged my books
on the shelf today in alphabetical order.
Didn't realize how much time
had passed on arrangements alone.
What about the impatience and shouts
coming from...
Doesn't wanna see the next day
As long as his hair and beard
Not shaved. Same old sweater.
Same old fading jeans. Same
Old scent. Same old bad...
when i am dead
will i search
for a dead goose’s feather
& dip the calamus
into a dead fire’s ashes
& into a dead beehive’s wax
& write a...
he said he was looking for the light
but i thought he said stay with me forever
i remember windflowers & the way
he crossed his arms behind...
A small hermit crab
walked on her hand,
she gently cupped
and closed.
Hermit crab
moved house that day,
but still it was
a familiar place.
If hardened eye and calloused hand
are able to perceive
a rim of gold around a plate,
a touch of lace upon a sleeve,
and if the rough...
sunlight
glinting off
piss
Sometimes I think I should stick to fiction. It’s probably easier to remember lies than is it to remember little beads of truth so...
A man whose heart is a time bomb
says leave the house, breathe
some fresh air, meet people,
take chances.
When he was younger he advised
all his friends...
these days
these nights
a hammer pounds against my head
after each death in your sea
my tongue is sour
neck & back needs twisting
no matter how early
or late...
They’re 85
walk daily
he holding her hand.
She stops frequently
transfixed
by far off.
Fusses
with her scarf
until she’s done.
Even now
he watches
still smitten.
The moon and I have time tonight
to give the year a fair review,
to talk about the times that we
were bloodied, halved, in hiding,
and the...
If a person flies
off a barstool
into the open arms
of the floor
are they not paying
the cost for taking
a shortcut to love?
Falling in love is like swallowing grains of sand
to recover the pebble you skipped across the pond
by your childhood home, the ripples setting in
motion...
slowly it diminishes
withdrawing toward the wall and ground
each one taken without thinking
until before you know it
all that is left are the bark scraps
and a...
I had lunch yesterday
in an apartment
overlooking
the neighborhood
in which I grew up
and now I know how God feels
Myrna was standing in a long line
waiting to checkout when a lady
in her early 60’s dropped her cane
& it turned out she had the...
of Cain’s Mayonnaise, circa 1975
Powder blue Porsche
both delicate and racy
for small town roads
speed limit sign,
30 miles per hour
certainly restricts this car.
Cotton-soft light blue color
obscures...
We’d catch carp
in the river
put-em on a stringer
walk home
through the alleys
of the boulevard homes
throw them over
the privacy fences
into the backyard pools
their bottom sucking
mouths still...
After thinking
not too much
or too long,
I knew I needed
to get a job.
Mike said so, too,
but mostly
so he could buy pot
and get his parents
off his...
When I look back, I picture a multi-million pound
Formula One pit crew,
making snap decisions at break-neck speed,
but instead of shaving seconds off,
this team’s goal...
There’s a storm already brewing,
asphalt waiting for a shine,
a string of lights all set to spill
and bleed as watercolors
only one of us will see.
But...
The past continues to
Breathe in me.
Occasionally it is kind,
Tho often it finds me
Breathless.
I glance back and small details
Come alive, with strange power to wound...
Click any image to view full-screen.
I don’t wanna talk to anyone
I wanna have a conversation with
a blackberry bush in summer
I’d say, you sure look like you’re thriving
and the bush...
this is a poem about my mother
that is what this is about
my wonderful mother and how I did not
go see her for years because...
Last night I dreamt of the perfect opening line
to a poem that would, I had no doubt, piece
back together the crumbling world. It was...
The SPOTLIGHT EFFECT is the psychological phenomenon by which people tend to believe they are being noticed more than they really are. Being that...
was
for a group
of aspiring writers,
the host
asked me to
start off by giving the
audience a writing challenge of sorts,
something
to think about
while i was reading.
i thought
that was...
my mother
combed my hair.
i was standing in
the kitchen with my friend Stephen
(it was always Stephen, never Steve)
and
we were
getting ready
to go back out to play.
i...
because god was lonely and everybody loves you
when you're six feet underground some say paranoia
is a heightened sense of perception but it's another
type of...
Among the litany of lost relics,
a Swiss music box tree stand
that played O du fröhliche, silver
and sent home after the war
and a holy rustic doll...
there is a nice long beach and lovely views out to sea
the sea that is rising
The rust-colored brick tenements
testify to the city's history,
shifting masses of tenants
absorbed with daily drudgery,
jobs, errands, rendezvous.
Inside each apartment, walls
of mementos, souvenirs, prizes
down the long...
Ours was the turnaround driveway, the one in which mistaken cars corrected themselves, and zoomed back up the street.
My mother said, somebody’s here every time,...
I’ve been so long writing what has turned into a novella, hate that fucking word, and like, fuck me dead, I just want to...
You have a warm smile
You are twenty-six years old
You are strawberry blonde like your siblings
You have strong shoulders and a six-pack we envy
You are...
There can be a lot of waiting,
but that's ok, he noted
as we leaned into the night
and the sky became a window
to a thousand seasons past.
We...
Open Arts Press, LLC, has released a new, free broadside of poems by Leeza Simmons Sikes.
Download your copy of Bitchy Poems now.
Art by Jenn...
I had a big book of haikus
that I lost to homelessness
which is a haiku in itself
but it hurts too much
to write it
I cried when...
saw some alien visitation jizz on unsolved TV
close encounters of the filthy kind
with all-you-can-eat UFO porn
vintage 8mm clips
brazilian style
pretty pink
pulsating orbs
shaky cam zooms
focusing on...
After bathing in heavy cream,
I turn down the covers
of my Procrustean bed,
“itching” (as the song goes)
“like a man on a fuzzy tree”
who’s “gonna need...
something is changing here,
so slight it can hardly be
noticed.
yet it has been. a feeling,
came with the light rain.
the quietness.
all things are changing.
Mobile photography, New York, Fall 2022.
No yellow brick road.
It’s fire brick, used for ovens.
A walkway cul-de-sac
not a scenic drive.
Buttons of every size,
shape, color & un-Aryan creed.
Stored like ashes
in giant...
Stuff tulips in your mouth
Don't deny your heritage
Dutch girl.
If you have intelligence, sadness and an innocent face I stick to you.
What I see:
The emperor's...
Oil paint on Ampersand Gessobord panel, 3mm uncradled - 54cm x 30cm
find the chosen pathways
watch the birds and wild
flowers grow
below the scene plays out
with wildlife as punctuation
There were a thousand stars
reflected in a schist rock bowl
of rain. One of them was mercy
though you claimed you didn't
know which. You stirred them...
fear
of this and that
of nothing in particular
that no one else will
understand
While asleep on my back,
fingers jitter, type a worrisome
montage of scenes, beginning
with a fall from a harp player’s sky
to an ocean of sharks,
a parachute,...
Spotlight effect
things i haven’t done since primary school
eaten tapioca pudding with rose hip syrup
asked a girl the color of her knickers
won a competition for who...
The Book of Unknowing
1
What is this scrim between
Music and the self?
Who is incarcerated for
The crime of lucidity?
2
How does one expunge
The soul’s bile?
What is this...
It takes a lifetime
to press.
And there's no atonement
but for the very rebellion of being
in the flesh, I've seen birds
hang so heavy.
You were here,
it happened.
Your...
this silence is better
soft sounds of the keyboard
the gale winds and rain stop
subtle whispering of the ceiling fan
birds gone to roost
and no trucks on...
the fifer piping long around the main street and also the kathunk of a truck crossing the coleman, today is the reckoning of sadness,...
I didn’t replace you, girl.
I did clean the blood your body left
after the cancer came on, a slow crawl.
Then quick. Like you were bit
by...
dinner boys are unnecessary
to window a past of shed snakeskins
hushed of meat
everyone leaves on last-laugh ships
tricky grandfathers too
when the wilderness returns
& the time of...
“The only difference between a flower and a weed is judgement.” Wayne Dyer
I have put pen to much that I ought not have
written, including,...
is your head clear today, loose limbs, while
mild air floats above.
will you go the other way, as you did
yesterday?
One. The burden to carry
other, to make it all right.
I take my prejudice hard
rather have it punched
down the drain, things and events
cream and licorice,...
the black rose of poverty smells
like the money you wanna ask your parents for
old leftover refrigerated pizza
the leather of a wallet there's no point...
Once in a while
on a weeknight
I’d scrape up a few bucks
to get a couple beers
at the corner bar.
I’d never talk to anyone,
just sit and...
Moon, I've lost my shadow.
Three friends are here, ready to drink
and dance, as Zhongba temple bells toll.
My pilgrimage took me past a village
whose only...
Days before the flames, I flailed and freaked
in your arms at the front door
of our friends’ home.
I was one, my sister, seven.
No one knew...
https://youtu.be/HyZIvnkkaxc?feature=share
doesn’t matter
darks
whites
or colors
the lint screen
is always gray
You, at home where sea and sand negotiate,
where troposphere and tower fit like puzzle pieces;
I, a rougher sketch of you, a stranger in the...
a dear friend
recently died
unexpectedly
voluntarily
taking with him
some of our pain
and most of
the answers
leaving us with
all the grief
Midwife to spirits, you call for water,
circle the chairs, position the planchette,
your fingers soft on old mahogany.
The grace of touch - oh, how we dead mourn...
but don’t tell me I must leave,
I must let go. You frighten me,
the one I treasure, the one
who holds my hand.
Why are you so...
there have been a couple
of incidents but now she
is in disguise
with different
hair
Abstract | 16 x 12 Cm | On Paper | 2022
as she got old
everything
turned into
something
to fuss about
upset till the end
died
trying to decide
coffin or cremation
my brain matter is worth 7 bucks
read me on kindle and I’m worth even less
my frustration is fourteen cents prolly
my longing is a bright...
There was a fork in the road, and I chose properly. The path ahead was beautiful, full of love, but the love was elusive.
Blablabla...
There are mornings when
"Good Morning America"
wakes me up
and I don't need to
open my eyes
to know you're still
not home
*
There are mornings when
we stand in the...
Bone yellow light
from a forty watt bulb
warms stale air
and clings to the skin
of my funeral coat.
My starched cotton shirts
carry dust on their shoulders.
Hung on...
Digital Art
Across from the fried-egg
fug and clatter of the café
a woman stands ironing
in the big bay window
of a first floor flat.
It's a wet November day
and...
why do you come to me in this satanic moonlight?
you who were the red balloons of summer.
you who were every love song I sang...
The neighborhood will be an old body
whose cells have turned over.
Long dormant ghosts will animate
like leaves beneath a passing car.
No one will collect fiberglass...
A homeless man begs.
His cardboard sign,
written in crimson—
the world’s out of balance,
Armageddon is nigh.
Without being seen
huge mountains of ice
roll in the ocean
and then disappear.
An...
Abstract | 16 x 12 Cm | On Paper | 2022
she was drawn again yesterday with her sibling
though it did not look quite right so
shall i tear the sister off?
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
rolled by a beetle over your sky,
everyday.
Cover your eyes in kohl
against this young gods glare.
Inhale cinnamon oil smoothed
into warm skin. He tells you
there is...
Hey,
Because I dropped my phone in the water and learned that sleeping masks are not tripods, I'm writing this in my notebook, sitting at...
Never mind "unnatural"!
Natural is sold at supermarkets
wrapped in non-recyclable plastic.
Wrapping. Don’t get me started.
My rooster can stand on one leg
or spondaic goosestep to a...
my hands
through your
red hair
give me
3rd degree burns
I have...
because my dog is odd.
At first, I thought
he was probably autistic
or maybe broken by abuse
from a previous owner
& then I read
that his breed is...
was a
ruined white flower.
she
had to
be 80 or more,
but
she stood there,
in the back of the room,
while i
read my poems
to a couple of dozen students
who only
looked...
Each day I grow colder.
The sun calls my name
but I have no will to answer.
The people on my street
crane their necks
and point upward.
Diabetes has...
I’d rather be a large cat—
leopard or jaguar.
No arguments with a spouse.
Marriage isn’t a thing.
Kill when pissed-off.
Eat the offender.
Lick myself handsome,
before the prowl.
Squat, claim...
I wear my mother’s pendant some days
Not my style, really, gemstones bunched into a bouquet
dainty
I prefer
heavy
or nothing at all
I feel silly, wary
femininity does not...
The hammock is hung
between aspen and oak
which means one day logic
will flutter its pretty fingers
and fall on its head. Our rescue
dog sleeps nose to...
man is a quick machine
a dangerous machine
a tricky-powerful
slick machine
but not always,”
said the lion
between
bites.
January 1, 2022: fly like a buffly,
sting like a bee!
December 31: dropped on the bed
like a wacked fly,
stung by reality
of the wind blows
that yell, Get...
EXPLORE
Neither Nature nor Nurture
A wallow started by the hippos
is the haunt of warthogs now.
The sounder’s trine of little pigs
raise holy heaven, godly grunts
as though flung mud will...
