Gumball creditor

 The gumball machine is full

take a quarter stick it in the slot

Listen to the coin register and fall in

then turn the cap and watch the gum ball come out

In the big globe you try to figure out

Where the sweet disappeared from

Eyes search, the little red balls aren't talking

The bulb keeps you dumbfounded gawking

You put it in your mouth and chew

The dry parts wrinkle up then soak saliva

The sugary flavor peels off and radiates

You smile and forget where the ball was hiding

pull another quarter out of the pocket

Metal to the slot nothing to stop it

How gumshoes ostracize

 They split into groups
Measures and loupes

They knew it all
Photos on a wall

All the smartest
detective artists

For me twas just a blank surface
I just made them nervous

They would hunt the killer
I found the whole thing thrilling

And follow the clues
Look for what was true

I would try to be included
Without imposing rudely

If only they'd let me be part
I couldn't get my start

For they cut me off
Told me to get lost

They silenced me
Did as they pleased

And they searched and searched
Their mission cursed

Communicating with each other
Comforting one another

with ridiculous opinions
Unable to truly listen

I followed them room to room
Where so many met their doom

How can I make myself seen 
How they pose and boast and preen

Sleuths looking for this illusive killer
No witness left alive to spill it

Their self satisfied smiles as they study a new clue
Yet it's back to the drawing board anew

I tried to intervene and again I am thrown out
Showing them solutions to their doubts

So I watch from a far, the edge of the forest
Where I always was, the pariah the pest

On a badly dug mound silty and shoddy
where I buried all of those bloody bodies

Sesmaria

 He chews those ants and scorpions
Big heads and fangs no care
Forraging underground lairs
Long tree rooted roads
Sprints before the sun bears
Before commute coach loads
Before dew hisses blow
or frost melt flows

He runs after the escapers
The groups hiking between peaks
In the grandest green chasm of the valley
With their little sacks, hope, they sneak
Yet my dog comes sprinting their track
He bites into an achilles and the scarpers
Their journey slowed with no way back

I instruct the bandeira to powder arcabuz
My dog comes back a man's blood on his snout
Grins on the faces reflected in sharp terçados
Will I take it all with my hound clout
My incompetent rowdy bloodthirsty band
Total victory is measured plain and bland
I claim Sesmaria,
My land loving soul demands

The way is smooth

 The way to live the day is smooth
Lie flat on carpark tarmac
Lick the air tan the tongue
On this singing winter sun

The way to live is suave God how and oh!
Its treking the roads kneading the dough
Readying it for a good pounding
Baking a dozen or rounding

The way to do it is aroma
Long hours of sniffing the freshness
Ecstacy in soft voices patient ears
Oh and no queues, no fears

This is the way to live and prosper
even if I am just a commoner
I Make of it null, I'll still want to jump and sing
It's the only place I've ever felt like a king

Croton's and their flutes

Croton bore hardened sons.
Calluses ran across their hands,
Warfare bred into their spirit.
They worked the land as farmers
And fought the war as soldiers;
Croton gave them life,
And Crotoniates they were.

When faced with the pomp of the enemy,
They sheathed their swords, raised no shields,
And left their spears on the ground.
For Croton had looked into Sybaris,
Learning of its excesses and extravagance.

So, instead of weapons on the battlefield,
They brought forth flutes and played.
The Sybarite horses danced instead of charged,
And in the havoc, the hedonists were purged.
Their way of luxury was extinguished,
The vestiges of their city scorched.

All that remained was the tragedy—
Of flutes sharper than swords,
Of dancing, dying horses.

---

Homework itemized

 Did you get your homework?
letters, markers and word labels.
Organize and take it to the table.
rack your brain now, margerine.

Did you get your homework?
Open the book, little check stickers.
Understand a percent.
Test in an hour, nutcracker.

Did you get it done?
The weight of the grade.
expectations gain inflation.
The years work pre cremation, peanuts.

It arrived inside an envelope.
You opened it like a present.
But it was obligation.
burning your hands.

Once inside Sybaris mall

 Once I got into the mall, how, I will not say. I walked around the grand shops and their stately gargantuan atriums. The outside was pure palatial swank, the inside pure opulence.

 Hired young people dressed in perfumed orange uniforms came walking up to me.
Their approach was courteous and kind and yet they would start guiding without permission. I went a long with it and pretended it was like a free tour. Their perfume was intoxicating.

I could see people mostly from the rich class prancing about.
Tiny dogs like colorfully dressed rats shivering at the cold internal breeze.
The words coming from my guide all dressed in orange didn't sink in. My mind wanted to create it's own narrative.
I had given the guide the slip and now I was in an incredible gift store.
It was replete with everey curious sort of dinky antique made to look modern.
Enthusiastic conversations bounced off every aisle.

Over illuminated shops with bodycare products boasted aged and overweight women and their even more overweight husbands as customers. It was like watching an aquarium. And as they moved through the aisles it was mindblowing, how their furcoats were not dragging items off their perches.

Meanwhile in the giftstore. Short young men with curly pony tails and black jackets would take pieces off the shelf and narrate their story. But they weren't from history. They were from politically correct films that were rewrites of history sold as fiction.
I loved the gusto. The less culturally or intellectually inclined were the taller almost athletic but still awkward late teens with their full body tats and their first attempts at letting a beard go straight to wisp.
They were just the audience.

Hilarious as it was and as common as it was, I needed to move on, I could smell faint perfume and several mall guide's dressed in orange were approaching.

I looked out and never asked myself as I surveyed each odd crowd, that maybe those few that looked back, thought the sight of me to be one of quite the freak indeed.