...don't worry, I didn't write them.

Poem the First, many more here.

She Calls It The London

She calls it the London because it is hers.
From up out of all of the aching years,
burned by memories of her arching fears.
Form up out of where her life began,
smuggled out of Pakistan,
sold to a twisted needy man,
to feed his ugly depredations,
fed to the lusts of many nations,
turned and tapered to shapes that adult lovers cannot know
a tiny vessel into which their sewage flowed.

To be that age and carry his seed inside,
to be at nine a hallowed concubine,
and then again, again at ten,
his pixie sparkly little bride.

And then escaped at twelve you see,
away from debauched fantasies,
and wandering streets like a Dickens urchin
stealing her food from shop stall merchants,
and caught one day her hand around an apple grasped.
Her wrist like bondage by his fingers clasped.

From out of this moment her expectations
where unhindered by ordinary hesitations,
but found, instead another path begun,
than left the other, older one.

Now she sits haughty, elbows like knees on the table,
a cigarette dangles, her neck is torus,
and wide dark eyes bore into me as I ask
how she now sets herself about the task
of courting men to pay for favors,
and all the debauchery in many flavors.

With an edge and air regal of one regaled,
she tells me of the city's darker tales.
Desire transformed be angry ego into rape,
while other weaker egos gape.

Of rooms of squirming bodies and shaken souls,
of masters slaves and their roles,
it leaves me reeling in the mind,
my pity eaten to a rind, and left
instead a cold wonder for this queen of night,
who treads soft footfalls beyond wrong and right,
to ease a sickness in its plight,
by catering to sweet neurotic flight.

Up and in to other lands,
taken and caressed by many hands,
to sleep upon the entire day,
it is wrong, but she knows no other way.
The smoke it plumes from her lips as she explains,
the daily agony and eternal pains.
The crooked path to self-redemption,
set forth on that darkened mountain path
was stolen by cruel intentions.

The white boa around her shoulders draped
was bought by the profits of many rapes.
But corroded away that innocence of dawn -
once taken it is forever gone -
is replaced by some strange self-possession,
which no mere physicality can exorcise.

I can see it, see it, see it in her eyes,
beyond her bluntness, and candid lies.

She calls it the London because it is hers,
and at its dark heart, her shiny mind and body
whirs.

And, from my good buddy WGG, via an email:

"The Myth Of Sysiphus"

There is no "myth" of Sysiphus.
It's true the way it's told to us:
While life takes its deadly, daily toll,
Still it's all (and only) "Rock" 'n' "Roll."

--Woody, Bergamo, '91

I'm glad other people are good with poetry; mine really suck.

Vast, do you think you can untangle the hidden message I'm sending here? Titter. Sorry, I'm so naughty.