#PROLOGUE

The Myth of Damocles as told by Uncle Lenny
He was this dude who complimented King Dionysius for having it so good and being so wealthy and having a fuck all easy life. And the King was like, “Bitch, I got problems too.”
You sit here in my cushy cushy throne with this fucking broadsword over your head.
Then I’ll march in every mother fucker who hates you
And really wants to cut your fucking head off.
And see how you fucking like it.”

#POEM

Swing, blade o’r my head, swing.
Drop down and do your terminable thing.
A few inches inch lower or just a snapped string.
And spare me from this insufferable King.

My wits are worn down to the dwindling fray,
As he forces me to be king for a day.
Why threaten with such a metaphorical display
And make me a parable to cut the way?

I just complimented his golden piss pot
On his wealth and privilege without a thought.
And strapped to his allusory throne was the thanks that I got?
“Rich people got problems,” is the morale he sought?

Just have me bargain for barley for days at a time
Or show me the stacks of scrolls that need signed
Please, show me the tedium of the bureaucratic grind
Or any of your daily problems that happen to mind.

You always had a penchant for the dramatic
And acted in ways that were so very erratic
Must your swift vengeance be so operatic?
You can educate without being traumatic.

I grow weary of this protracted affair
And wish death would come demand his fare.
To think the end is hanging just there
And all I can do is offer a prayer

“So, drop you fucking thing, drop
And make this hellish play come to a stop.
Fall like the red curtain dropped from the top.
And bring things to a close with a chop.”

I contain multitudes in the grand galactic scheme of things
Born of some celestial goop spattered on a cooling rock
With billions of years of bad decisions backing me up.

The air I breathe, the water I drink, the food I eat
All of it on loan from somewhere very far away
But that leaves the question of how did we get here?

I mean really get here. What exactly was in that primordial soup?
The things in nature that can be described as some fertile broth
Are very, rarely anything appetizing or appealing

We never talk about that goop, that was just the start.
Sure a watery, rich comet striking the earth is fine
But even that had to start somewhere.

Did the almighty have a stuffed up nose
That her or she or it rocketed upon the earth
while exclaiming in relief, “it is good.”

Maybe some transient pervert got a little too excited
Turned on by the birth of stars and first sunrises
A veritable big bang into the right chemical conditions

I suspect an alien in need of relief pulled over one starry night
And popped a squat in the obscuring clouds of a vulcanized crust
A fertile beginning for a new world sprouting from shit.

After all, the universe passes through me.
Every day, I gather the sun,
I reap the earth,
I consume the cosmos
And then I shit, fertile, rich and often.
If I squatted in some goldlocks zone
Found a spot that was warm, moist,
with the proper amounts of starlight
I too would give birth to a world.

Cats, evolution’s asshole
Trained terrors striped with malice
A natural selection of destruction

We are obsessed with their eyes
We make statues to their gold mysteries
And then they judge us

They look us dead in the eye
And claw the couch with a deliberate
Lazy patience

Yet, we love them
We curl them about our softest spots
We dote to their every need
Even dig for their shit like its ore

An alphabetical analysis of anxieties

Prologue

When you are gripped with an unknown fear

or get spooked in the dark night

Remember we all have our worries

And can suffer from a fright

The first step is understanding why

so you can accept the cause

Whether you suffered from a trauma

Or a reflex gives you pause

You are not an odd aberration

Or suffer alone in this

Remember we all have our worries

Some are detailed on this list.

“A” adopts ablutophobia

when you are scared of the tub

and grabbing hands are moist and lathered

and getting ready to scrub.

”B” brings about bogyphobia

And bogeys beneath your bed

Grabbing you by your appendages

To start chewing on your head

“C” comes with some Coulrophobia

The feeling that clowns can bring

after that prestigious profession

Was ruined by Stephen King

“C” contracts coronaphobia

As an epidemic spreads

If only everyone wore a mask

Our Grandma might not be dead

“D” drives deep the dromophobia

that huddles you by the street

waiting for the crossing sign to change

so the bus misses your feet.

“E” embeds enetophobia

when pointy pins prick your feet

piercing along your pained phalanges

and puncturing through your meat.

“F” forebodes felinophobia

and the clowder that follows

as cats are hissing and conspiring

to hunt you from the shadows

“F” finds foniasophobia

When a killer’s on your road

Your heart beats fast and your breath comes quick

As your brain squirms like a toad

“F” finds foniasophobia

As mass murderers go free

Like they haven’t caught the Zodiac

With his cyphered mystery.

“G” gives you Geniophobia

a concerning of the chin

of mandibles and protruding jaws

And the rows of teeth within

“H” hemorrhages hemophobia

a pulsing fear of the blood

seeping slowly down your pallid thigh

to commingle with the mud

“I” inflicts insectophobia

as bugs crawl across your skin

Stinging you with their envenomed tails

and burrowing deep within

“J” just has no phobias that jar

But there’s a few that won’t do

They’re antisemitic and racist

And full of a wrong world view

“K” can kindle kenophobia

a fear of the void of space

from free falling through the nothinginess

to vanish without a trace

“L” lurks with Lachanophia

A timidity of leafy greens

Of choking on parsnips or carrots

or an allergy to green beans

“M” metes out some mottephobia

A fear of fluttering moths

Chewing through your linen wear

Gnawing holes in your wash clothes

“N” nettles with Nyctophobia

Those nightmares that stalk the dark

With shadows that are following you

When you are lost in the park

“O” occurs when orinthophobia

draws black birds to every branch

Gathering on their lofty perches

Waiting for their pecking chance

“P” picks with pediophobia

Abhorring those porcelain dolls

Watching you from your mother’s cupboards

Judging you with glass eye balls

“Q” quavers with quadrophia

A qualm of the number four

Certain cultures think it sounds like death

And can bring it to your door

“R” rains down Ranidaphobia

A revulsion of green frogs

that are croaking in your swimming hole

And lingering under logs

“S” serves Syngenesophobia

When your relatives come by

They’ve brought their bags and are moving in

And won’t leave until they die.

“T” taxes with technophobia

A terror of new machines

For they’re coming to enslave us all

With their batteries and screens

“U” unearths Uranophobia

A fear of heaven most high

Where gods and goddesses sit and judge

Unheeding your mortal cry

“V” vexes with vestiphobia

When your clothes refuse to fit

And your patterns have clashing colors

With sweat stains in every pit

“W” whets wiccaphobia

When wild witches curse your name

Stirring spells into their cast cauldrons

And manipulating thanes

“X” exhibits xerophobia

A despair of drying skin

When no moisture can ever slake you

As you wither from within

“Y” yokes you with ymophobia

When you contradict some creep

Even when you know you’re right

Conflicts always cost you sleep

“Z” zeroes in on Zemmiphobia

Worry of the great mole rat

Crawling naked with tremendous teeth

From it’s native habitat

So when you stare into your own abyss

And feel your guts drop to your feet

Remember we all have our worries

And that’s what makes us complete

I remember Cape Cananveral
Though I was many years too late.
When a long rocket’s red and starry eye.
Lifted our eyes in commingled fate.

Nothing unites us like destruction.
O rings twist as the GIs pivot
Speeches and rockets are fueled with gunpowder.
As towers climb and Rosies rivet.

Why do they build our rockets?
As they give each other medals and applaud
When did we let them trade in our exploration
for a Tesla-branded escape pod

We thought we knew what loneliness was
Until our universes collapsed
into an impregnable bubble
When our borders contracted out of fear

Suddenly, we were trapped with people
Who we weren’t entirely at home with.
Time plus distance made the hearts grow fonder
But what happens when the space contracts

We worked to escape a lot of the time
Carved out niches reserved solely for ourselves
We bargained and maintained for a shred of self
We all hoarded little quarks and quirks.

Now, we all must turn inward.
Regulation, guideline, doctor-prescribed selfishness
We must spend time with each other
And embrace the decision’s made.
Summer’s almost over.
And a lonely winter isn’t far.

We had an agreement
You and I
We promised to do better.
This time we’d part ways
With our troubled past.
We’d let go.

Of the anger.
Of the betrayal.
Of the hate.
Of the lies.
Of the deceit.

But you made me.
You made come.
You made me come down hard.
On the back of your neck.
Like a yoke.
That chokes.
Like a boot
That suits.
You made me push and let go.

We knew this was coming.
You and I
Things would get really bad.
Then get a whole lot worse.
We told ourselves it’d get better.
We’d get out.

Of the anger.
Of the betrayal.
Of the hate.
Of the lies.
Of the deceit.

But you forced me.
You forced me past.
You forced me me past the edge.
Into a clear way forward
Like a blade
That slays
Like a fist
That’s pissed.

I’m going to push and let go.

He went away for the holy day
He took a Hajj holiday
But he never got there
He never got there
He never got there
He never got there they say

The NSA took the Imam away
They put him away
They put him away
In Guatanamo Bay

Now we don’t know
Where the Imam has been
They took him from us
They took him from us
We don’t know
Where the Imam has been
They took him from us
They took him from us

Ringy, ringy, ringy
Up the President
And remind him to close
that illegal residence
Ringy, ringy, ringy
Up the FBI
And ask them to stop
Making Jihad

Yeah, yeah, yeah
No no no, no no no
No no no, no no no

He went away for the holy day
He took a Hajj holiday
But he never got there
He never got there
He never got there
He never got there they say

He went away for the holy day
He took a Hajj holiday
But he never got there
He never got there
He never got there
He never got there they say

The NSA took the Imam away
They put him away
They put him away
In Guatanamo Bay

The NSA took the Imam away
They put him away
They put him away
In Guatanamo Bay

Scrape it into a pile.
Gather everything
that once had meaning.
Pack it full of tinder.
Scorch it to a cinder.
Build up the pyre.
Build up the pyre.
We got lots of wood.
Splitting with anger.
Chords of disbelief.
Gasoline and camphor.

Flick your bics
Flick your bics
and set it all on fire.

Burn it all down.
It’s time to start over.
Burn it all down.
It’s time to start over.

You grab the big ax.
I’ll whack it
with the hatchet.
Let’s get to work.
Time to make a racket.
Build up the pyre.
Build up the pyre.
Splitting with anger.
Chords of disbelief
Gasoline and camphor.

Flick your bics
Flick your bics
and set it all on fire.

Burn it all down.
It’s time to start over.
Burn it all down.
It’s time to start over.

Here are three most beautiful things I’ve ever heard,
about drinking, whores and excrement:
“Write about something else, for fuck’s sake.”
“You’ll never be anything but above average.”
“I don’t want to be married to Bukowski.”

I’ll take that advice.
I won’t sing about the sluices of my city
clogged with the vomited insights
of self-destructive escapades.
I won’t whisper
about illusory dreams
dissipating from over-flowing ashtrays,
like acrid snakes that bite the eyes of the stubbornly hopeful.

I’ll plagiarize Byron.

I’ll write about a flower.

It’s white.
It’s got a few green leaves.
It reminds me of a perfume
Bought from an Arabian street peddler
on the clean side of Faneuil Hall.
It stinks cheap.