I sat on a half-rotted wooden bench
on the cracked sidewalk
that lined the deserted street.
The only light came from
a slightly bent lamp post
that flickered every now and then.

Faintly, from one of the alleys
drifted a smoker's voice
humming a tune that
lamented loneliness and a hard life.

Leaning back I closed my
eyes and let the voice carry me away,
watching the light flickering every now and then
behind my eyelids.

He stood on the edge of the cliff
dressed in his black clerics
a single yellow rose, pinned to his shirt
the breeze from the sea lifted his brown and grey curls
he was smiling.

7 balloons of different colors
danced around his head, taunting
veins bulged in his hand
from where he clenched the plastic strings

slowly, one by one, he let each ballon go
black, green, red, orange, white race towards the sky
the rest follow

The priest dropped to his knees
face upturned
watching each balloon
disappear
into the clouds.

He lived on a great arm
stretching out-- curling inwards, as if flexing.
On the tip of the arm
where the hand should be
but isn't
sits a run down shack
paint gone-- gray as the sky.

He was the spawn of drunkards
who drowned in their ecstasy
leaving oyster boy alone
but he liked it that way.

So he lived the life of a hermit
and died
alone
pearless.

She watched the rain hit the window and collect in droplets
that slowly made their way down the fogged glass.
Her forehead rested against the car door,
she breathed slowly and deeply,
lulled from the hum of the engine.
Bits of an old rock song drifted softly
from the radio.
A man sat behind the wheel,
her current beau.
He was potbellied and smelt of
cigarettes and stale cheap beer.
He hummed, out of tune to the song.
His hand rested on her thigh,
she sighed and peered past the raindrops
to the brilliant red and white lights flashing by.
Closing her eyes, she imagine herself in the
midst of the whirling colors.
Overwhelmed, drunk, and happy.
She opened her eyes,
looked at the fat driver,
who gave her an ugly grin
and kissed her roughly on the mouth
and patted her cheek.
She stared at the accumulated raindrops,
He rolled down the window and spat,
she stared at the dark sky,
the rock song transitioned into a blues melody.
Her forehead rested once more against the car window,
her eyes unfocused.

On a not so crowded street
with people milling about or standing around drinking coffee,
someone brings out a mandolin
and starts to play a cheery Irish tune.
Strangers turn their heads, some smile
and then a fiddle joins,
suddenly a guitar jumps in.
People bob their heads,
and some of the braver ones begin to dance.
Pretty soon the street is full of
tapping feet, laughing faces, and clapping hands.
The song ends
and the strangers part as friends.

You know that pain
that seems to come from
deep in your bones,
among the marrow,
sending hairline cracks that splinter
and break open along your limbs?
The pain that knots your stomach
and glistens as sweat on the palms of your hands?
It digs through your skin
and breaks through
blistering and
festering.
But it's in your head.
You don't cry out, scream,
you just go about your day.

"I'm okay."

In the shadows of the rotting gas station,
he sits on an old wooden bench,
staring out at the desolate town.
Lines of extreme age criss-cross his face
but when he turns his head
they're gone,
dismissed as shadows.

His eyes,
eyes of a crow,
black and beady.

And when he turns his head
and locks his cruel eyes with yours--