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 Oct 2020 page
Hal Loyd Denton
Her life can’t be denied
First to vent then try to understand then accept death of innocence first seething anger only more enflamed by people trying to
Politicize and lessen the loss of innocent American lives especially little one, long before face book there was basebook evil’s network
This country has rings of evil a year after the bombing in Oklahoma I flew back here and then drove a car back home I stopped and
Videoed the bomb site and then many miles later and much video of this great country I pulled up behind a pickup in Kingman Arizona
Still videoing I was surprised and angered when he had a bumper sticker up on his back window over from his lariat and high powered
Rifle that said something to the effect you haven’t got all of the explosives this wasn’t the only comment there were other signs of a
Gun culture what made it so offensive was it was well known McVeigh and Terry Moore had used Kingman as a base of operations
Arguably this was just a bunch of jerks not real disturbed people like the one in Tucson I understand because while running production
In a chemical plant we had a big government contract which involved a lot of piecemeal work we hired in thirty temps and one was a
Carbon copy of the shooter in Tucson we already had two deadly chemicals everyone knows cyanide but phenol is liquid poison it has
A couple of tricks it freezes at eighty degrees and it absorbs through the skin and when it gets to the blood your dead one guy
Unloading a tanker the line froze he breaks the hose but when he does the chunk of ice flows out hitting him with a load he was dead
before he hit the ground I got a face full of it deluded to fifteen percent when the electric pump transferring to another drum caused the
Plastic hose to jump out the force of the pump shot the deluded phenol against the rim across from me I saw it coming all I could do
Was close my eyes as tight as I could get them instantly ten thousand bees were stinging my face I staggered around until one of the
Guys led me to the emergency shower that was there for this very reason I was taken to the hospital my wife walked in and stated
Crying my brother in law said I looked like Anthony Quinn in the film requiem for a prize fighter they told me as they continued to
Steadily bathe my face with water if the phenol got to the blood there was nothing they could do I survived but then one of the temps
Named randy was a skin head so now we had three deadly poisons it was the hardest thing to interact even simple conservation was
Really impossible like the scene with two polar bears it followed their lives from cubs to three years old and they were being shipped
To another zoo how cute but something triggered the one he became pure bear instant raw aggression at a level that was unnerving
Even from watching it from Television it was like it was crazed just like Randy in an instant he was back in his room with his swastikas
Barely coherent and defiantly not cogent being around him was like getting high on some of our bad fumes I’m interested in helping
People the most powerful drugs couldn’t get you in line with his thinking delusional twisted into a knot of hate and violence he had a
Another thing he liked to brag and had a habit of drinking weird stuff he poured our H B Fuller industrial strength glue into a Pepsi can
And drank it we never seen him again although we watched with keen interest all the entry points to the building for the next two
Weeks incase Randy was paying us a visit with his AK forty seven rifle that is the only reason I have any concern for the shooter in
Arizona again all the warning signs were evident he is disturbed others must protect him plus others he would harm but they still
Wait until yet again as a nation we bleed with profound sorrow from innocence lost.
Madness slays a princess, love of country brought her to the place it would be so harshly violated
In her face America shines with what it should be perfected in innocence raised with all the colors of our vibrancy as a nation then the
Dark foreboding it steals light and life at only nine but she was far ahead of that measurement of earthen time she was endowed with
Power that lives in highest possibilities that are only possible in true unaffected innocence her country was the true country not this
Unrecognizable one that every manner of evil is allowed to flourish and then when openly shown its true depths of departure from
Its true excellence we fail to take the reigns as men and women of character we let drugs alcohol and *** rule without raising the least
Bit of a challenge our enemies spit and scoff at our claims of being a moral ceat for the rest of the world we seek only rewards never
Stopping to be sacrificial givers I know our troops and there are a select few that are this noble but the scale is tipped in evils favor
We are weighed divine justice and peace withdraws behind our ways that are filled with greed and failure at every turn measures taken
From our history shows such gaps of even the smallest vestures of righteous endeavor is tossed as backward living out of tune with the
Times Tucson is the product of the new standard of thought that guides us as a people you can’t wallow in filth and then go out to
Be a force and an advocacy for truth you are breaking down all moral restraints and wonder why we are in a flood of insanity you sow
To the wind then you reap a whirlwind each step each day distances us from divine defenses we invite only trouble as long as we
Pursue the course we are on all who is weak in our nation bare the blunt of this misguided thinking the world has never been this
Close to the brink it’s beyond human control that which is to be played out get in line or see more innocence perish right before our
Eyes this tide can be turned but it takes us all not a grand few that are ignored and steam rolled as a new advantage is gobbled up
For a short temporary season our founding fathers talked of posterity we talk of prosperity and everyone else be dammed.
 Oct 2020 page
blushing prince
Lately everything I've been doing has been done sober
My home has been spilling it's contents on the front porch steps; ripping flesh and cigarette burns off the carpet
The rooms gutted of their secrets, the walls even started whispering again
This is not dying, they say.
This household with it's backlash repression and traumatic events
bigger than the holes in my hands, but tonight I cannot play god
But that's all this is, isn't it?
emergency room contacts instead of friends
A waiting room, a fire exit, a fire hydrant parking station violation
I remember when my father would hold me in his lap, already in a drunken stupor talking about the love of his life
And I would listen, then I'd count the antidepressants for my mother
as she'd echo that love is someone holding your hair as you forget
and baby, I cannot forget.
I talk about you in past-tense and it still aches.
One time when I was a child
I was told not to run with scissors
not to play with fire
not to talk to strangers
but here we are,
I've got a fire that can demolish an entire forest
and my fingers are calloused from touching people I don't love nor know by first name
and there's this wound that doesn't heal
and I think it's you, I think it's you

(L.F)
 Oct 2020 page
blushing prince
The man who wears a leather belt and uses sensible words
loves her in cobalt violet, in the streaks of a hazy violent sky
after a storm has passed and she lets him
he claims that the egg people are coming, they’ll bring with
them handful of gifts of glory, of the things people hide
in the crevices of sidewalks, in the spaces where identity cards
are devoured by the teeth of the unknown
the television is always on and the static that surrounds them
is the serenading music she listens to before she falls asleep at night
she pretends that love is painting one’s nails while the other
loses their mind
as he laughs at the invisible neighbors outside the window
his bones can smell the coming of the apocalypse
and it’s not in the form of a swarm, or a flood
it comes in the bodies of girls with strawberry blonde
hair and that’s why he’s so drawn to her
and why his mother was swallowed by the earth
she learns that illness comes in permanent mauve
the walls of her room are covered in that hue
the boy she sneaks cigarettes from at the diner
in his car the color is almost a tangible personification
the smoke blows out into the crisp air like a bag of potato chips
the lungs constrict and expand
the thoughts hindered from years of yielding to the yellow sun
with the ****** robe
the child, the woman, the human lives in ****
but the thinker manages to escape years later
and live in the suburbs on an easy paycheck from
foolish strangers that believe that gasoline is a cheap party trick
and a fantastic high
she doesn’t recognize touch anymore besides
the harsh graze of asphalt hitting her knees
people seldom realize that freedom is not in
the way your toes curl but in the way they finally unfurl
how curious you can spot patterns where there are none
to be rescued does not always come in the way of clean arms

She loved him in transparent maroon
the grasp of warm sand kissing you gently
 Oct 2020 page
blushing prince
When my hands were the size of apricots
my tongue always jumping through hoops
as I read words that were dusty
a book covered in pretty plastic
from the local library that smelled like a grandfather
if I had a grandfather
I read Corduroy, the story of a stuffed bear
in the Laundromat
the sun sweltering outside
melting the story with me
like a swirly ice cream cone on the side step of an apartment
or the slushy ingested combined with
the acid you were so prone to tasting in your throat
reflux, like a memory that just won’t go away
leaving the residue of remnants you wish your brain would just spit up
this ordinariness of abandonment
feelings washed away like the mud stains on your uniform shirt tumbling in the washer
the soap bubbles punching the glass window in unison with all the rest; a cleansing of spirits
a lot of people go to church
but for those that can’t afford it, the laundry is heaven with a vending machine
I felt for the stuffed animal rejected for missing a button
because I knew children with trembling knuckles
turned into adults that got lost in the escalators of the world’s mall
wandering ghosts with perpetual uncertainty whether they should
buy the coffee set or the patent leather shoes that will balm over the calluses of their feet
in the loudness of the fans redistributing hot hair
I was in limbo, the rigid seat sticking to the back of my thighs like caramel
sweat almost hard to ignore if it wasn’t for the luster
of all the women inside, their shoulders broad like those I
only thought of in lumberjacks
burly burlap sacks over their shoulders
swapping stories of childbirth as frequently
as they ordered a pound of red liver chunks from the grocery store next door
like animatronics that learned to harvest a genuine laugh
their nail polish never fading despite the gruesome biting teeth of Clorox bleach
staining the skin on their hands
they were warriors, lost and unsure of in a world that didn’t look them square in the eye
much like those camo toy soldiers you won if you gave the machine a quarter
unwrapping it from its’ plastic cage, growling for the neglect of their maker
who decided not to give them pupils at all
senile wrestlers sometimes forgotten by children in the middle of the walkway
so that they could be stepped upon, accidentally
these women with their chocolate complexion and romantic gold hoops, accidental
unrecognized by their country, banished by their family
isolated in a land that shows mercy to those that only help themselves
no refugee whose blood could compare to oil
these women who weren’t missing any buttons
would congregate inside this Laundromat hoping to remove the stains
wishing that their clothes would stop smelling of unpaid labor
that they could stop calling home a box inside a closet of more stacked boxes
they can hear those around them, elbowing the walls like multiple hearts in a rib cage
the world glimpsing in for a second, just another spin rinse cycle
repeat until all color fades
I too find myself  stuck inside that Laundromat, I realize
except I know that I can leave, I know I can walk out with my book in tow
open the door and become another spectator if I wished
which is more than that poor toy soldier can say
 Oct 2020 page
Lisa
Hemingway once wrote, “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up but bull fighters.”
An alluring career path,
but I know bulls are color blind.
They can’t even see the red,
and that kills it for me.
Hemingway also said, “Write drunk, edit sober.”
I can drink myself into a state,
but words don’t flow as easily as gin.
I’ve taken a liking to martinis lately;
there are 13 different ways to order one.
There are a million better things I could do with my life than google how to order a martini,
but I’m no bull fighter.
 Oct 2020 page
Lisa Pike
Daddy
 Oct 2020 page
Lisa Pike
You are dead..
Never to be my hero again

I saw your body, but you were missing
Your eyes were open, I closed them
Surreal thinking that you had passed

I did not cry. I could not cry
I kissed your not so warm cheek
and said goodbye

Love you always

— The End —