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Martin Narrod Feb 2014
The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten
Hal Loyd Denton  Jan 2012
Prison
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Prison
Prison
These cells of the familiar I want to take you on a journey of sorts take you inside a real prison let you walk
The cat walk in B house the other four cell blocks were round this one could have passed for a haunting
Looking structure in an old horror flick it had ten tiers I can’t speak of Attica or Quentin though my army
Buddy lived on the dead end street with the prison at the end so I knew by sight and the preacher that
Worked in Quentin he almost convinced me it was more dangerous than Statesville in Joliet it’s a tossup like the
Old inmate well into his seventies he was called a crank they housed them on the bottom tier called
Cranks because they wouldn’t work in the prison because of their attitude it wasn’t his seventies he
Wouldn’t work when he was fifty he still had respect because he was part of the Saint Louis mob but he
Told one day it was different than in the old days he said it used to be you had to do something to get
Killed now they would **** you for a slice of bread or for a lot less as one guard found out on the other
Side on the tenth tier a guy went to walk this guy to the infirmary not the hole the inmate walked
Straight out of his cell stuck the guard with a homemade knife or prison lingo a shieve they said that
Wouldn’t have killed him but when he dumped him over the rail and he fell ten floors and hit the
Cement He was finished senseless unexplained violence it could be he didn’t like the food that day. That
Was one reason you got vacation after six months the stress was incredibly high unlike the old prison
Movies you were not even given a night stick when chow was called you had to frisk every one before they
Went back to their cells a spoon rubbed against concrete soon gets a deadly point so you stand there as
Two hundred inmates sneer at you as they pass going down the corridor to the mess hall if you had any
Kind of protection they could just take it and beat you to death with it. I was taking twelve of them from
One location to another one I didn’t give any thought to the Dingo boots with square toes I was wearing
Then one of them said you could really stomp someone to death with those couldn’t you I felt like Bob
Hope delivering a hyper joke in one of the old road shows I didn’t snarl like bob there wasn’t a camera
Running I tried to give him my best tough guy stone face answer yea you never knew what they said if it
Was heading somewhere but in this case he just enjoyed the thought of stomping someone to death.
I could go on and give you some details that are hair raising and more brutal than the scenes in
Fargo but I want you to be able to sleep without the light on I started as I said to take you on a journey
What has been said thoroughly gives you all you need or should hear about those places. But at the
Beginning I said the cell of my familiar not a dungeon but in the most emphatic truth that I can use we
Are closed up here it does play out as a dungeon darkness plagues the human family truly disturbing
Darkness surrounds us we separate form society those who can’t live lawfully and house them in
Prisons I have at different places written about the price Christ paid for our freedom he loves and sees
Present needs and future terror that the lost face for no other reason did he subject himself to the
Horrors of Rome’s cruel brutality and the agony of the death on the cross your house is filled with your
God given blessings and they are to be your comforts give you pleasure that’s loves provision but most
Of us know Henry Storemin his cell of the familiar with the help of an electric appliance turned all that
He knew into a death trap he couldn’t get out of a place he knew for years and neither can we exit sin
And Death on our own nothing is wrong yes like the girl at the lake picture of wealth and health but as I
Told I Saw the real situation pierce the obvious I told you I got in trouble when I tried to write about the
Death of Candy Jack out home I was probing deeper and deeper visualizing her in death and then the
Awful realization of death without any flowers or doctoring I started touching the true realness of death
It wasn’t rosy it was and can be out done only by hell as being scary I recoiled and fled our cell of the
Familiar is taken us to deaths door and if you don’t have a true walk with God hell will follow. People
Don’t realize the cross was the means of deliverance and payment but it was God’s living expression of
How dangerous the situation is for you without salvation the beams of light are striking your window
Panes it is being mixed and missed as natural light it is your escape from an eternal lake of fire the
Broken figure marred beyond recognition who can argue at judgment I didn’t get it liar you see what it
Cost this was irrefutable proof you need to heed such evidence of God’s displeasure and of the lengths
He has gone to protect and reach you I’m sure I will lose some or all today from this but one who does
Less than this is less than a friend and is also a prisoner in the cell of the familiar. God’s love bids you to
Come the enemy says be a fool and die with me and join me in the fire it was created for me and my
Demons but you make your selves guilty and bring the same punishment on yourself.
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Francie Lynch Nov 2020
Many of the world's greatest Leaders throughout our tumultuous history have;
Many of  the insightful Revolutionaries in stink hole and glory hole countries have;
Many of the oppressed, disenfranchised and cheated also have.
Look to Lenin, Mandela, Gandi, Nehru, Havel, Bhutto, Ceausescu, Charles I, Papadopoulos, Lady Jane Grey, Louis XVI, Marcos, Milosevic, a pile of Mohameds, Mussolini, Nicholas II, Pinochet, Saddam, Marie Antoinette, Pope Clement V, Selassie, Baghdadi, Duvalier, and, let's not forget the author of Mien Kampf, Adolph the Tenderizer.
And what do they all have in common?
Some, before they became boldly notorious, and others, after they became criminally notorious.
Some, looked out their window and saw platforms being erected.
Others witnessed gallows, guillotines. posts and walls.
They all got some time in:
PRISON. GAOL. JAIL. COOLER. LOCKUP.  DUNGEON. KEEP. PEN. BASTILLE. CLINK. STATESVILLE. SLAMMER. STOCKADE. THE BIG HOUSE.
You get the idea.
His time will come.

— The End —