It's funny that you work in a place I escape to drink to
I'm just here for the burgers and sun maybe a beer or two
Sitting day dreaming absentmindedly when you walk up to me

And when I turn the first thing I see is your infectious smile
And then your looking at me with those sparkling eyes too
Why not make it a hat trick and start talking with that sweet sexy cool accent?
Oh what was it I wanted to order? I forget can you give me a minute?

It never crossed my mind that I had any consequence
I was just happy to take the smiles and my day dreams home in silence
But on the receipt you had a name for me aside from the bill of forty ones
I think it's the sweetest thing a girls done lately to call me "Nicedude1"

-Azrael Always James
© Copyright 2013

It was after the Second Anglo-Boer War. Some of the soldiers went to brothels and taverns and places as such. It reminded them of the vibes in canteens. One soldier named Jokas took the advice of several of his friends and bought a sex worker. He had been disappointed by the fact that his girlfriend married a lawyer. And so Jokas had his fun, this didn't last though for he still had the appetite for commitment.

So he kept returning to the same brothel - buying the same sex worker. In time they developed feelings for each other, writing letters and sending pictures when away to see relatives... but this wouldn't be as Dennis, a friend of his, introduced his cousin to Jokas. She was nice, had a decent job and was ready to settle. Her name was Anna. So Jokas stopped going to the brothel and opted to start a life with Anna, it seemed the sensible thing to do. Jokas moved with Anna, they both went overseas. Valerie was the name of the sex worker he had feelings for, what Jokas didn't know was that Valerie had fallen pregnant. A few years later she got a job at a bistro and lived in a vacant storage room with her son, Warkos. Warkos was raised in a bistro, there he got advice about life, culture and women from drunkards, thieves, policemen, lawyers and loafers. He had little formal education. He grew up resenting life and lacked a sense of belonging. He started being mischievous when he pick-pocketed a rich businessman, when he was only seven years old.

He used getting into trouble as an outlet for his anger and loneliness. His mother didn't keep men whom he could look up to. Although she began spending a lot of time alone and didn't care much about men, since her prostitution days. At age 14 Warkos met a girl with a strange name; Tellaby. Tellaby gave his life purpose at a time when he was suicidal.

She was a pretty, decent and very respectful girl who came from a well-to-do family. Days in the park with her was his escape, it gave him a sense of normality. However he would go back to the real world, back home his mom had been enduring depression and took up smoking. She was stressed by the fact that her boss kept abusing her (emotionally and verbally). Warkos formed a gang at age 16, he recruited a few dysfunctional teens in the neighborhood who spent most of their time loafing and stealing. His dream was to make enough money to buy his mother a house, find his father - so to find function; whatever that meant.

At age 17 Warkos got arrested for drug possession. He spent only 6months in prison as he had a witness who testified that the drugs were planted. The witness was paid by his gang of course. So he served 6 months for assaulting a police officer. All the while Tellaby got herself a boyfriend, he was a functional, smart boy who had a scholarship to study overseas at Oxford University. Tellaby's family approved of the relationship and pressured her to continue seeing him.

When Warkos got out, he heard the news and attempted to stab Tellaby's new boyfriend but was stopped by Tellaby... When Tellaby chose Eric, her new boyfriend, over him it was the end of his heaven and sense of normality. Drugs he found too dangerous and started researching fraud, he met a few intelligent con-men and together they forged cheques. In just one year he had about R500 000 and bought a nice cottage for his mom in the quiet small town of Andbury. This earned him prestigious status and he met with his gang again, had his mother's old boss murdered and took over the business. He ran three brothels and about five bars in three towns. He was only in his mid-twenties when he made his first million. He had a vice, to heal his pain of not feeling loved, and to forget about the pain and the void of not knowing his father he used heroin. Of course prestige comes with a price, there was a mob which was government-owned (secretly of course), it didn't like the growing competition, so when Warkos was 27, he was shot twice in the chest, once in the shoulder. The assassin was not found when the police investigated and he left few, if any, traces. Warkos survived the murder attempt after he was rushed to hospital, the bullets missed the heart but wounded his ribs.

Being housed was no longer safe for him so with his convoy, they moved from city to city, robbing banks and restaurants. At this time his gang earned notorious status. They were dubbed The Notorious Warks by journalists. On one heist he got shot on the arm and leg but this inspired him to earn even more power... A month later he funded a Black Resistance Movement, in papers they wrote about him as, "Warkos the Invincible Horse". Funding this political movement enabled him to expand his power and fight the force that was against him. He provided guns and grenades to a sect within the movement to attack government officials and invade and batter their homes. This moved to hijacking their cars. Soon this sect of guerillas had enough power to do crime in the cities, however they secretly met to be independent and not be under Warkos.

So among them there was an informer who leaked Warkos' whereabouts, he was shot twice in one shoulder but his men took cover and they escaped. Warkos, 29 years old, was getting tired of this violent life, he abandoned his gang and had a lump sum of money sent to his mother. He even investigated the whereabouts of Tellaby and stalked her for a while. He decided to go back where he grew up, he went to the storeroom which he and his mother lived in... In it was a locker; he opened the locker and found a box which had pictures and letters from his father, sent to his mother... In one letter was a poem written to his mother, Valerie, it read:

I have been fooled by ruling men
You believe in honour and glory
but you do not see the Be Lie in "believe"
and now I feel no better than these thieves
I only find comfort in being with you, Valerie.

At that moment he cried and kicked himself for he felt he had been living a shallow life... He thought to himself that his father was a good man and that he probably wouldn't be proud of him...

The next day he did nothing but think and that's when he got shot by Eric. He had been trying to get hold of Valerie as they (Eric and Valerie) were in the country to celebrate Easter... Eric found out and because he despised him with a passion he got word out to the police but the police feared him so they had to use an intelligent strategy; Eric insisted that it be him who murders Warkos as he will have done his country a great honour. So he came as a paying customer at the tavern/bistro, all the other customers left, as well as the staff. Warkos was unmoved by this, as he was deep in thoughts. This became easy for Eric, never had anyone been murdered with such pleasure... It is documented that Warkos' last words, softly and lazily uttered, were: "Where's Tellaby?"

People the world over suffer
They suffer from:
Hard circumstances, warring institutions,
Famine, lack of education,
Drugs and abuse, poverty, the list is endless.
But they are also addicted...addicted to hope.
Hope that things will improve
Hope that their dreams will one day be realized
Hope that what is so hard will finally be a hurtle passed
Hope is their mind's addiction, the fuel for whatever
It is they are striving for
If the temporary satiation of a drug is finally found,
Then their hope for the drug and their hope for the feeling
And their hope for the escape from reality are fueling them.
If they are struggling to make ends meet, to feed themselves,
clothe their children, escape the debt collector, find a place to sleep
Their hope is to not to have to face these same issues
Every day for as many days as they have living.
If suffering from illness, they hope for healing or death
Hope is their addiction when the young children sit in hot, enclosed spaces
Ill, hungry, malnourished, traumatised
Hope for something better, better than what is before them
Hopelessness is acceptance, it is living in the day to day
Knowing what is is, what can't be changed can't be changed
what can be changed for the better,
Well steps towards that then are slowly taken
And the absolute beauty of life, the wonder of these moments
Begin to sparkle and shine in a way that is subtly impressive
Small is sometimes the most beautiful of all
it is solid, it is simple, it is a sturdy brick upon which one can
Always grasp and stand upon...over and over and over
Refreshing and truly adventurous
To see the nature and artifice of the path one is walking
Realizing that each step is a changing landscape
Of environment, perspective, emotion, situation
When one is down they look up with hope, their addiction solidly in place,
To get to the top of the mountain for a finer view
An accomplishment and relief at having succeeded
but the top is always just the pinnacle
And hope to remain affixed in such a perilous place
Is not in actuality possible
Be it a very violent gust that blows you off,
For we all know the wind vortices are something fierce in mountainous terrain,
Or a misstep, a loss of footing as the ground suddenly whithers away,
Perhaps the grasping hands of others trying to join you,
Their hope addiction now at an all-time high because they
Are. Right. There.
Clawing like animals for the last little handhold to hoist themselves up
And in shouldering themselves into a stand,
They accidentally knock you off, or not accidentally perhaps.
Whatever the case, hope addiction swings back into full force
and if it doesn't motivate, it at least satiates the mind
But hope addiction is also deceptive,
It rallies the wild dreams and ignites the heart with delusions
When hopelessness and acceptance and disconnect are a wiser course
For to live on hope addiction alone is not sustaining
It isn't real.
When alternatives and different paths may be wiser, better
To begin walking upon for now
Hope addiction can be misleading, blinding
He beauty of hopelessness is looking then without the hope addiction
At the possibility that this new path, albeit much different from the other
Is only visible up to a few steps ahead
Does it curve? Does it stop? Does it merge further down
With the original path or perhaps another different one?
Hope addiction...I have been addicted to hope
We all have, it is beautiful and it is scary
I live in hopelessness...content, happy, busy, progressing, adventurous, never knowing what little chocolate from the box of life my day is going to taste like.
I must admit though, one a day is not enough to really enjoy a full day...fully.

crisp from the core
cut in half and a bore.

I want some more sand!
I'm tired of cement beneath
the slabs of meat I call feet,
the movement doesn't beat
the heat:
it fuels it.
burning
on my way uphill, the stretch
is between my thighs. Sweat!
this weather is no good for fancy clothes,
I've got pit stains up these hills.
I'd say I'm looking on the bright side, but
it's more of a stare, or perhaps it's the light
that's stalking me, because I can't seem to
escape it!
burning!
this soul is melting through this flesh which
can't let go of winters breath, what once was
afraid to freeze to death wants nothing more
than a cloud or four, to shade their skin from
sinking in.
the rays,
the haze,
the heat begins.

Summer is no enemy,  
Winter is no friend,
all I want is Fall again!
The spring is here,
my nose is red,
the seeping of color shall spread
ahead,
down and all places around,
it'll push and shove as
my body is covered
in the guilt of not taking
the time to properly supply myself
with sun screen.

You know I've been having a hard time lately
The world and life has been getting to me
And I can't find a loophole
Or an escape

I feel the hands of clocks grabbing me
They pin me down
And feed me lessons
I have yet to live and understand
I lie here
Floating like a blossom
Set free and wracked by constant tension
Below my surface
And behind my back

The days are too long
The nights too short
I didn't ever notice
That I have no choice

And its spiders that I feel creep all over me
Prickle my skin in the dark
Inject my skin with their venom
Float my brain in paralysis
The trick of the trade
Never saw me coming
It swept right by
I float stagnant
In a pool of indecision
And it makes me question
Everything

14/01/2013

When you seek a dark spot
when you prefer night’s shadow
when you pray no eyes can find you
see the other man.
The other man,
he walks in the fire
with an erased past,
a slipping-fast present,
and a stale-bread future!
The other man,
who knows he has to smile
on his horrendous walk
through grueling moments,
drag himself on
along the summer asphalt
and not burn out his zeal for life.
When you seek a place to hide,
seek an asylum to escape,
find out the other man
inside you.

Let. me.
I’m going. to. do it.
I’m going to rip every painstaking petal from my eye
I wont be okay. if the idealization kills the love. I feel
Im going to smash. And. Mangle.
These rose tinted glasses
Over this, Concrete, corner.
Don’t care who’s going to look. and judge
I am the victim
No longer will I look through a pink vial of self possessed poison
No longer will I escape true unconditional love
If there was, a Satan. this would be his game
His oracle.
Of divination.
Well. I said. fuck this, I’m not going to believe in its dictation
I’m going to be. my own salvation
From its pink. Innocent. coloration
I’m going to pull, pluck, and wrench
These petals from my eye lids
It’s going to be a painfully beautiful process
Don’t be.
Deceived.
So sweet. how could it. lead you to do harm?
When. in. actuality. it will end up twisting behind my very arms!
No, I wont collaborate to torment this feeling deep inside!
Inanimate object,
Objectifying. my love.
Going to shatter this wall. that you build.
Between us.
Gonna kill this in my fury.
You separate me from my beautiful reality.
Reality, is much more beautiful. than you and I. can conceive!

Shhhhh...
the only sound I want to hear escape your lips
is your breath
amiss in the sweeping endless echo of this ocean
I enjoy the feeling my fragile body
pulled and pushed
in this distance between us
I easily wave away these subtle forces
in my motion in your tight direction
subtlety hides this force that could take either of us by storm
into dark submission
embrace this submission to your skin now
your thrashing heart now
your strong compassionate arms now
sharp rocks amass baby power granules
This is where my feet belong
Shivering in our humility
numb to all but our synchronized vibrations
rocking in our susceptibility
to the depth, the darkness, the knowledge that together, now know
it binds our arms, strongly woven
fragile are we are in each other now
but strong in our conviction
anything could take us now, at this moment
we haven’t any worries
what can fear do for us now?
In the way you fit in the swoop of my neck and shoulder
we are pierced together, forever in this moment
the moon as she witnesses
Perhaps she sees something that keeps her
we are at the bones of mercy, of her power
and your body carried flush against mine
You hold me as if I carry some smoldering deep power situated in me
You are so much stronger than me, its in your grip
in the way you hold unto me
in the battle from which you contain your powerful thumping heart
that speaks so little of my own nudity
in this current situation
like I save you somehow
that my presence heals your predicament
smother me in your predicament
so that I may truly feel at your side
carried in that small corner of your heart
breathe into me
your passions
my sheltered trust
your devotion
because while my body was not created to serve you
a small part of my being has been dedicated to you
silently,

you're only awake when you're asleep
you're only alive when you are dreaming
"reality" merely brings dreary eyes and lifeless sighs
infinite repetitions, and heartless smiles
like crawling through a damned forest where it all looks the same

when will you escape?


(i promise one day you will feel again)