grossbod

it was yesterday. all of boise's finest showed up at the greek food festival. I'd never seen them before
  the band didn't play, really
there was someone playing a keyboard, one of those drummachine outfits
okay, we'll just call him the drummer
and a boise's finest
playing a bouzouki
...Don't be alarmed! he cried, Don't take cover
beneath your tables and chairs, I didn't say bazooka-
  soft chuckles from under breaths
there was a bass player who just kept putting his back to the crowd
a crowd of old women & toddlers
dancing in a circle.
Did someone say FOOD? boise's finest seemed to cry from out of the woodwork
and they put on their tight shorts
to encase their sausage legs
and they strapped on their bejeweled sandals.
a little fat fauxhawked kid, sobbing
bc he'd punched a girl in the stomach & was being reprimanded
a gem in a mount rushmore at night themed tee
a gem in a giant housedress, admirable.
I snuck across the street with my beer
and hung out with the boy who's nice to me, for some reason
I had at least three square meals
I got a singlass tan
I hung out with my family. my dad put on the wall and kyle freaked out
my dad & I talked about love
he said I should never change, that I should always go for everything, like I do.
he is like me.
and he is good, he finds it
for 63 years.
I am proud to come from that.
so far june does me right
and may,
may was a thing
of me being dead & weak & strong again
and I'm happy,
  so this isn't a poem, anymore

virtue

I moved inside and logged

  that fire

write in the light of it

with wet woolens dangling

there isn't a dictionary

  no one thinks to bring one

     it rains on the internet

   but I still find out that nemesis is the word of the day

                     

              but we have a different word of today

  

manliness,

      excellence, 

           godliness,

                potency

Virility & Virtue

    an advertisement urges me to click on a link: why men fall in love

  and its subheading: remind him why he loves you

  I am not a virtue

but a virtuous woman might

  just

remind a man

    why he loves her               

          

  like I am virtually her

  like I am virtually here

         I am essentially, practically there

  like I am essential, practical.

         a word on mouths for 600 years

  being as a fact but not as a truth

the fire is virtually dying

the fire is dying with virtue

nothing in the translation 

  of an old dead tongue

       can truth it real

& our descriptive grammar

    is proven absolute again

(so I know: another log for the fire, another wine for opening, feed them)

  

    I ate potato pancakes from the pancake & christmas house

  they were virtually crawling with onions

    why isn't that so true enough

      that I commit to it always?

and so drink & glorify in the 

older-than-that 

  words

the I-came-before-you words  

from a landscape slammed

  before latin was the only real shit

  Let yourself in then, your valor

        your worth  

  let this ancient adjective upstand

  let it be goodness

  let it rein america in

  let us men be strong

  let us be members

  let righteous members abound

But where's your tuff?

  where's your I'll-show-you-molly

  where's those gods-in-your-veins

  where's your justice?

  where's that wishful name

  placed pressureful on your slumped shoulders?

can't live tuff
  hide-in-a-name jelly skeleton

a nemesis has 

  Just indignation

      Righteous anger

         & thrashes & divines wrath up allover everything

  the virtuous

& the goddess of vengeance? at a Party sometime

   taking some beerbongs

     bodyshots

  Virility's glistening biceps in his threadbare tank

Nemesis' dampened tramp stamp

  and sunkissed bejeweled stomach

    glistening in the fluorescent basement lights

the Good & Strong & Excellent & Essential

   versus

the Defender of Justice

  who can shotgun the most beers

  who can kill that keg

  who can take down the party.

Who is splayed on the patio

   at the outcome of a chicken fight

 which one asks for more

   & which begs to be left off