This is the end of the first "issue" of The Messenger. IIRC, there's an explanation about what all this is on Part One, linked below. Enough talk, let's go ...

• Part One: Making A Good First Impression
• Part Two: Back At Stately Newhaus Manor ...
• Part Three: Take It Personal
• Part Four: Love Makes You Stupid
• Part Five: Where Everybody Knows Your Name
• Part Six: That Really Hurt

* TENDER IS THE NIGHT *

The Balrog-shaped digital clock next to Newhaus' bed shone the time as 2:43 AM, and he lie still, staring at his stuccoed ceiling. He reached out with his thoughts, finding his sleeping goth neighbors cuddled up in each others' arms, the crazy cat lady upstairs not noticing the six tabbies and two siamese strolled indifferently over her as she snored into her carpet. He noted Justice, asleep on his couch with a PlayStation controller on his lap, and remembered being in the shower, noting the lower buzz of mental activity and switching off the TV with a levitating fork two hours ago when his friend had fallen asleep out there. They'd worked up some "plays" to practice in an abandoned canyon in Rancho Palos Verdes before the day's rigors sent Newhaus to the warm embrace of his Royale shower head.

In the dead of the night, however, Newhaus found slumber challenging. He thought back to the "training sessions" Justice had given him after finding him -- crying, alone and surrounded by shattered glass and mangled metal -- after his powers had manifested six months before. What was up with those books he just had "lying around," ones that talked about magnetism and telepathy and levitation, Newhaus wondered. He never wants to talk about this crazy family of his back east ... I wonder ...

Suddenly, he heard the buzzing vibration of his phone, still tucked in his jeans, and reached out, levitating the pants by the belt buckle and the buttons, then freeing the phone and sending it zipping over to his hand. He smiled as he looked at the display, and spoke softly. "Hey, Tara."

"Hey, you, I missed you tonight!" the bouncy blonde said. "What happened? I thought you and Rasul were coming through!"

Thinking quickly, he said, "Uh ... I got an emergency thing from my clients at Digital Domain. They needed a copywriter, and Rasul was with me, so we sold 'em a package deal."

"Uh huh ... so you two ended up playing Grand Theft Auto all night?" Vasquez laughed.

"No, of course not!" Newhaus protested. "... well, he did, his part was done first. But I didn't."

"Well I hope I see you Saturday," she purred.

Dreamily, his eyes closed, imagining her voice saying the same with her lips near his neck. "I promise you will," he said softly.

"Oh, you know what?" she said excitedly. "I got so mad, did I tell you? Oooh, there's this guy I've been seeing, Chet, right?"

Gritting his teeth and clenching his fist as his arm lay across his eyes, Newhaus replied, "Right."

"So I'm working, you know, rockin' tunes and keepin' it groovin' and he's dancing with me. Which is cool, you know. But then this a**hole decides to start trying to rub up under my skirt like we're at home, and I tell him ..."

Frustrated in the dark and the quiet with the light from his clock shining the late hour on his hairy skin, Newhaus simply listened, making the appropriate sounds she expected to prove that her sounding board remained in place.

I hope that you've enjoyed this. I'm writing a second chapter now. I have a bigger plan for it, but I think I'm gonna ... ah, why tell? I'll just write it.

This was supposed to happen with Speakeasy Comics, this was supposed to fit in alongside Beowulf and The Grimoire and more. But it didn't happen. So here it is, for ill or naught.

Watching (ABC.com): Lost,

I'm sorry.

This has been complete for a long time. This isn't even the last part of The Messenger, superhero fiction I created originally back for Speakeasy Comics. I'm just gonna toss this up, and do the last chapter on Saturday when I do my comics reviews (Memorial day whacked the weekly comics schedule). I also got very into National Poetry Writing Month, which was good for my stamina but bad for almost everything else.

On a good side, I just made a new ringtone for my phone which makes me very happy. Right. Here goes.

• Part One: Making A Good First Impression
• Part Two: Back At Stately Newhaus Manor ...
• Part Three: Take It Personal
• Part Four: Love Makes You Stupid
• Part Five: Where Everybody Knows Your Name
• Part Six: That Really Hurt

* THAT REALLY HURT *

By the time the Messenger floated down to the corner of 17th and Arizona, Justice had pulled up in the convertible. Exhausted, the caped hero landed in the seat and his friend gunned the engine, zipping away before anyone could really see what had happened. Hopefully.

"Meh, I didn't wanna sing that much tonight anyway ..." Justice joked, zipping into a wide alleyway near a construction site a block away. "Get that damned helmet off and take off the jacket. You'll actually look less conspicuous as a beaten-up white guy."

Breathing heavily, Newhaus took off the helmet and laid it between his knees. Grimacing, with pinpoints of blood and bruising along his arms, he got the jacket off as well.

"Good enough," Justice nodded. "Now, I need to get us somewhere we can get you fully changed in private, away from cameras and what not. I know McGallagher's not home and his garage is open, so let's head down to Culver City."

"Long way to go ... for a wardrobe change," Newhaus said weakly, battered from the ordeal.

"Security before convenience, function before form," Justice returned, easily reciting one of his many mottos. "Hang tight, pal, we'll get you taken care of."

The car pulled down to the other end of the alley and eased into traffic.

"I've got all these powers," Newhaus said forlornly, "and I got taken out by a guy who's basically Vega from Street Fighter. His thoughts were like sand, I couldn't catch 'em ..."

Sighing, Justice replied, "First of all, you didn't get taken out. You gave as good as you got, and you saved a kid's life. That's something to be proud of. Second of all, you're gonna lose sometimes. All heroes do. But a stone cold killer walked into that store and everybody in there's gonna live to see tomorrow. With more practice, you'll do even better. Like, say, using your powers on him from outside of the store and not having such a melodramatic confrontation in an enclosed space."

Newhaus chuckled at that, wincing at pain in his torso as he did. "You are always telling me I need space to operate, and that I don't have to actually talk to the bad guys."

Justice laughed and said, "That's right, Bendis, you can kick their butts and never have them know how it happened. Flying garbage can lid, pow! Fight's over."

Newhaus protested at being called Bendis, asking if he could at least be Judd Winick as they made their way towards Sepulveda and a southerly direction.

Meanwhile, on the I-10 freeway, Reagan seethed as Rasmussen navigated the Jaguar through early commuters.

"My uncle Paulie always said vendettas were bad for business anyway," Rasmussen offered finally, slicing through the quiet like the announcement of an audit showing up on your honeymoon. "There's tons of ways we can do business and never run into this mook ..."

"I will kill him," Reagan said quietly, almost dreamily, as he stared out the window, mask on his lap and chin resting on bloody knuckles.

Rasmussen frowned and said, "Uh ... I was just thinking that ..."

"One more word before we get back to the loft, and I'll kill you too," Reagan said with all the serenity of a Shaolin monk.

Rasmussen's mouth snapped shut with an audible sound, and he focused on moving the car as quickly as possible towards downtown.

Please feel free to comment or ignore, whatever.

Playing (Music): "Just Like Me" remix feat. TI and Usher by Jamie Foxx

No time for chat! Last two poems GO!

[NaPoWriMo Day 29]

One brush from her hand
like rain of golden dubloons around me
Every sniff of her sandalwood softness
wraps my head in PTA meeting fantasies
dancing talk at dinner tables
and gratitude at growing grand
by her side,
scions of scions laughing near.

"My Fantasy"
By Hannibal Tabu
090501

[NaPoWriMo Day 30]

Why do I love you?

Really?

Wow.

The question seems as ridiculous as asking,
"Do you remember what year Chubb Rock jumped up on the scene?"

Nevertheless,
let's encapsulate this virtually endless litany
for the record, if not for sanity's sake.

You're asking why I love you
when your Ifa meditations
fall in synch with my Kemetic chants.
We're congruency of the Yang form
ward left, single whip
sunrise, sunset
both times find us together
regardless of physical location.

You'd question my passion for you
and I find it in your kinetic motion,
installing dance into fertile new minds
arms flailing in an ecstasy of Africanity.
It's the same motion in your designs,
digital hieroglyphs and scrapbook sentiment.
You're a builder of worlds
with a laptop and patterned paper.

Interrogated about my reasons you're adored,
can't help but glare into brilliance
of your oort cloud-sized determination.
It's going to get done,
a fact not in question
even when not in evidence,
your will to accomplish
inevitable as the wind.

The question at hand is loving you
when the answer's clear in your devotion.
No one has ever,
will ever
could ever
love me as hard
as well
as amusingly
or as erotically.
Textbook definitions rewritten
in brush of hip against mine.

Wondering why you're welcomed as wife?
Why, wander in whimsy with me,
your wild westbound waters
wiggling and winking wackily.
Lime green laughter and lemonade lilacs
lift levers and longarm languishing
leaving lovers lilting lightly.

You're investigating my devotion
with all the skill that made you
a successful entrepreneur before you were 25,
with skills sought after
by clients corporate and common.
You handle more business than briefcases,
get calls from E.F. Hutton and Alan Greenspan
desperate for your savvy.

I'm getting the third degree about my affection
but remembering taste of your curry chicken
spinach laced noodles with Lawry's affection.
You introduced me to breakfast joys,
greeting sun with vegan waffles, soy sausage
warmth never available in my sleepless nights.
Wanna take a break to crack that casserole
but can't take my eye off the stove
'fore that pot starts bubblin' over ...

Interviewed about your idolization
my conservative nature skirts past
the E-ticket all-world thrill ride
between your sandy taupe thighs.
Eroticism in one syllable of saying my name
outdoes every porn shop and strip club
between El Segundo and Redondo Beach.
Keep my mouth shut
before curiosity inspires hunters of cat.

Just in case all that wasn't enough,
last, but by no stretch of the imagination least,
you are beholden of a beauty that inspires legends.
Sheer volume of your majesty is enough
top stop traffic in Mogadishu
while you're getting coffee in Leimert Park.
You are the most splendid creature
I've ever been blessed to touch,
and I do so every day
shocked at the honor of the privilege.

Why do I love you?
How could I not?

"FAQ"
By Hannibal Tabu
090413

Aight, that's it, Tabu out.

Playing (Music): "Use The Same Old Song" mash-up feat. Kings of Leon vs. The Temptations

I worked like a crazy bastard all day at work.  I overslept, getting there late.  I didn't take a lunch.  I just generally grinded non-stop, including hustling southbound and at Sully's.  

Which means I didn't finish a poem.  Lemme ... no I can't muster even a haiku right now.  I'll catch up tomorrow.  I'm gonna drop two tomorrow, and it'll be like the first part where I caught up.  As long as its thirty poems at the end, that's all that matters, right?

It's 4AM.  I'm about to do dishes and take a shower and hopefully sleep an hour before driving the gear back and getting to work.  Rock on.

Watching (Hulu): Rescue Me "Wine"

I've decided to (try to) finish strong, so my day 30 poem will be the one I've been working on for a while. FYI. It'll actually hit May 1st (May day, heh) but whatever. By that time, I will have done one poem for every day of April, achieving the goals of the project (even though I started six days in -- how about that, E. Amato? "Catch up" indeed!).

Today's poem entry (I do have to check that lady on the blogroll she spelled my name wrong! Still, some of my poems have been vapid, some cute, and a few real winners I'll be working on and improving):

The only rules that matter are your own.
The facts? Though interesting, matter not,
random consequences we have sown.

Elders laugh when we insist we're grown
still dancing to what radio calls "hot."
The only rules that matter are your own.

Experiences, pleasure, pain and moans
what reason behind lessons we've been taught?
Random consequences we have sown.

Possibility chills to the bone
just how close to the cliff we often got.
The only rules that matter are your own.

Can we find the time? Nascent skills we'll hone
Always excuses, we'll hear those a lot
random consequences we have sown.

You'll find your way, the way you've always known
walking a dreamlit course, your story's plot

The only rules that matter are your own.
random consequences we have sown.

"Villanelle: Kujichagulia"
By Hannibal Tabu
090429

This one's a draft, I don't feel it's anywhere near descriptive enough yet. Villanelles are hard than I remember ... I remember them hard, but sheesh.

Still, forms are important, for the discipline of things. I can't really master subjects if I don't go into their arcane forms, like a martial artist.

Off I go ...

Reading (Comics): Phonogram: The Singles Club #2

Urgh.

The machine gods were against me today, with a UNIX machine that could barely accomplish anything and a virus on another one. Also, my domain was not renewed as I was told on the 15th, as Network Solutions is apparently rife with Vogon poetry. A pox on their house, and I suddenly appreciate GoDaddy.com.

I'm debating an announcement with the Hundred and Four. More on that soon. Maybe.

Let's make with the poetry. This was me at the doctor's (minus the squeamishness about the needle) ...

Microscopic metronome
visible on index-card sized screen
marking time until everything changes.

I've made a lot of things.
Websites.
Trouble.
Stories.
Mistakes,
spirit, so many mistakes.

This time I've helped make
a wholly original concept.
Pristine promise of a brand new day
poured into a quarter-inch of possibility
pulsing, patiently, within love.

Steely preparation sits in seat marked for anxiety,
gift of precocious stepdaughter days
and little brother nights of my teenaged years.
I've opened the way for this
I'm ready
grateful for this covenant of spirits
flowing into a synchronicity called "family."

"With Arms Wide Open"
By Hannibal Tabu
090427

Family time, off I go ...

Playing (Music on the drive home): "Heat" by Kevin Sandbloom

The first half of today was awesome. I saw a tiny heartbeat. I didn't freak out when I had blood taken. I felt wonder come down on me.

Then I had to wrestle with Internet Explorer all day as its operating system integration failed at an epic level. It wore me down. Badly.

Came home. Washed dishes. Made a lunch. Made dinner for myself and ate it. Cleaned out the fridge. Took out the trash. Made time for the family. Did my column. Didn't freak out about what I didn't do.

Oh, and wrote a poem. See you tomorrow, where hopefully I can work on some of the more substantial pieces I have in the hopper. I don't have the energy now.

I'm okay most days.
Smiles, talking coherently.
Barely here right now.
Exhausted. Running non stop.
My dream tonight, sleep and warm.

"Tanka: Fade"
By Hannibal Tabu
090427

Hasta.

Watching (ABC.com): Grey's Anatomy, "Sweet Surrender"

I'm not sure why MySpace's blog editor decided to get all froggy, adding extra paragraph tags and what not, to some of my entries, but it was bugging me so I had to fix it. Look for cleaner formats in previous blogs, sorry about the bad code. It wasn't me!

I had a good and somewhat wild weekend. Saturday was an early one (after getting home at 2:30), waking up to try and "accidentally" meet this TV writer and network. Which had middling success -- I didn't have much prepared to show, I forgot business cards in the car, I was groggy and not as charming as I could have been. But he authorized a card drop off, so we'll see.

I shlepped out to the eastern part of the county with Auset for a spiritual ceremony, where she went in and I slept in the car, which was a life saver. We then shlepped down south of Lomita (Palos Verdes? I don't even know) to visit a friend at some jewelry party thing (like Tupperware but with shiny stuff). We then enjoyed ZPizza and headed home, hanging out before I went to do a show.

On Tuesday, I'd foolishly agreed to do a Saturday show, not realizing it was on a day I'd be out of the house before 8AM. Still I managed to rock it on a slow, slow night, singing maybe nine songs (way more than usual) and keep the show moving. Again I made it home at 2:30 and conked out.

Today's Sunday, which was the best. The whole family was out of the house by 10:15 and checked out the Huntington Gardens and Tea Room with my very good friend I met at work, his wife and his toddler daughter. Surprisingly good food in the all-you-can-eat buffet, served alongside tea and (for me) lemonade. We visited a lot of the gardens, and Sekhmet enjoyed the kids' one maybe too much. She ditched the toddler to stay, and I stayed with her while everybody else hit the Chinese gardens. Sekhmet had a minor frustration moment (noted in a previous poem, we're getting there) but we worked it out.

Then a dance performance, where Sekhmet was performing at 4PM. This led to me kicking it with Auset's junior high pal, who's hilarious and reminds me of one of my best friends -- let's call him "Akiki," a Ugandan name meaning "Friend." Akiki volunteered his mom's house for food, which we hit after visiting Auset's dad, all rolling together in Abraham. We ended up at Akiki's mom's place, videotaping Sekhmet's antics, talking trash and generally having a good time, eating pasta. Sekhmet passed out in Auset's arms at about 10:30 (we couldn't leave, we were having such a good conversation) and home we came for some chill time, my blogs and my column (while she sleeps against my elbow and my thigh).

So, great weekend despite sleep deprivation (Wednesday night to now I've had a total of maybe 16 hours of sleep), poem time. Here goes ...

So, the price of peace
is that prorated to now?
Discounts available?

"Paid In Full"
By Hannibal Tabu
090426

More tomorrow.

Watching (Hulu): I don't know yet, haven't booted it up in Firefox (I watch in Firefox and work in Safari)

Urgh.

I'm actually writing this late -- I left my SD card at work in my machine, and it's how I deal with all backups and savings of writing.  This blog says it's Saturday, but it's actually Sunday as I type with a pregnant Auset wedged up aganist me (she wants to sleep like I'm furniture, using me as some kind of buttress. 

Anyway, that said, I don't have a lot of time and I'm down two poems.  So I gotta rock this fast, which means either haiku or tanka.  Here goes ...

Hard words to young child
chastizement necessary
Stamped foot in garden.

"Oh, Behave"
By Hannibal Tabu
090426

More shortly from the real Sunday.

Playing: (Music): "Wreckless Love" by Alicia Keys (and yes, I know it's not spelled that way, she didn't)

I got some props from my dawg Craig, not a traditional poetry fan, over Tuesday's poem about The Power of Shazam (tm), so I'm pleased to follow that up with today's comics-related piece. Honestly, you can blame Rob Sturma (also known as Ratpack Slim of Green fame), who got me started on all of this in the first place.

The problem is, Craig now has me all ginned up to do more comics related things -- Bizarro thinking just like us, but it always comes out all crazy, or Mr. Mxyzptlk's modes of mischief. My general belief is that most super villains are outlandishly frustrated or dangerously bored. Growing up a smart Black kid in the south, those are motivations I can relate to. Anyway, here's today's work ...

I first split the atom when I was twelve years old.

While waiting for my high school diploma,
I proved the Hodge conjecture
and devised my first weapon of mass destruction.

I've devised profitable patents
while waiting for microwave popcorn.

It's been decades since I sat in a barber's chair,
my best friends are pathological psychopaths
and instead of being lauded as the finest mind
humanity has ever developed,
I'm considered a criminal
a deviant
a villain.

My twelve-year-old mind found it all so simple,
never having access to Oppenheimer's notes
red hair still waiting to be born
underneath my pasty chest.
Complicated mathematic equations
like music in my mind,
and I hummed as I wrote them out,
sang aloud as I contained the reaction
that powered the lab I had in the gardener's shed
for the next two years.

Without the shadow of that invader
fluttering over my head
I could be anything.
President wasn't big enough,
standing astride worlds of finance and commerce
took less focus than urinating.
My intellect could administrate galaxies,
power contained in my all-too-human mind meat
could follow the paths of six thousand gamma waves
across seven parsecs
while making myself a sandwich
and solving world hunger.

But I can't.
Can't concentrate on curing cancer
or solving any Rubik's Cube in fourteen moves.
I can't sit down to write
all four symphonies I've had in my head
since the night I lost my virginity.

All I can do is look up in the sky
and dream about the day I'll bring it down to earth.

"Frustration: The Gospel of Lex Luthor" By Hannibal Tabu 090423

Have a good one -- I'm back to the grind.

Watching (on Hulu last night): Lie To Me, "Better Half"