The idea, in it's infancy, took quite a different form.

Did eyes exist before the stars?

Was consciousness the norm?

Were we aware before the drop, that we were always falling?

It wasn't so;

From what we know,

We're stumbling,

Stutt'ring,

Stalling..

The eight segments were what arose

When through the pool we spluttered...

Falafel and salami lined the streets, and liver cluttered

All the handsome rare black-market stalls,

And that was when she uttered:

"Markmenshowing, in the age of cheese!!!"

Startling all the strangers...

"Keep your filthy paws off of those mermaids please.

The dangers!"

And in the end the coathangers are where obsession took her;

Marx was looking tempting, but not quite enough to hook her,

And the sea-lion was mocking her with whiskers all the while,

While the second five accosted her, in quite a brutish style,

And the contents of Kurt Vonnegut's; A myst'ry til the end!!!

But she's awful thankful anyway, for randies from a friend.

And the trophy stands; some mockingly,

A shameful vict'ry taunter.

For the challenge begged no entrants...

Yet the rebel dared to saunter.

six months

we spent together

now all that's left

are the songs i wrote

the notes you passed me

the mixtape you made me

on my birthday

all those songs that still make me cry

every single time i hear them

the shameful trophies

of a love that has been lost

These truths the sea lion holds to be self-evident, that holders of all trophies are created equal except the shameful ones, that they are endowed by their Creator with life, liberty and excessive indulgence in coat hangers.

These truths, however, are not as self-evident to the new male swimming dancer at the aquarium: his affair with the mermaid, the content of Kurt Vonnegut's pockets, the eight segments of the liver, or whether ground will ever be broken on plans for the new wing of the falafel concession stand. NOTE: Kurt Vonnegut was not aware of the contents of his own pockets.

oh, to quasi-present friends,

to heartbreakingly absent coconspirators,

to semi-attendant comrads,

to sadly un-accompaniying peers,

oh how i missed you!

oh how this environs lacked of you.

and now, if you can, could you help me find my thought?

i know it is a shame to ask this of you,

as you just recently returned,

but being a ninja of great dexterity,

and unbending charachter,

i was hoping you could.

no one else can.

Kurt Vonnegut, used to carry some of his best thoughts in his pockets,

but i am not a deep thinker as he is,

nor as articulate.

my pockets are empty of thought.

the cheese, was riddled by a Marxist,

and so held no hope of retaining a trace of even a clue to a residue of the hint. such is the worksmanship in this age.

by the newly erected wing of the falafel stand i had hope to find an errant whisp

of a notion. nothing as defined as a thought, but at least better than an open-ended opinion.

but he who seeks to mix falafel with philosophy will find only stains and smears. a shameful trophy.

i listened in a quiet moment to the second Miles Davisavis quintet. oh, what talents this second itteration of the great five that came before. oh how i would have loved to receivevadvice from Davis, or even Tony Williams. but they are not among us and were known to show their conceptions in abstract form only.

so having no other way, i cut a liver, to eight segments, asking a sea-lion for advice. the Otariid was famous for dispensing poignant truths. he took my offering, examined them at length, and concluded that it needs onions, else the future is bleak. he read no more the otariid of my lacking thought, and hissed and flapped his flippers , as that there were others in the line.

so here it is, my friend. my desperation is great. i can offer you but sordid gossip of the aquarium employees who engage the mercy of the mermaid.

if you could help me, my gratitude will be endless. and though i can offer you no king's rememberance, perhaps i can send you some of that cheese..