Somewhere along the way
we forgot to tell you that
this isn’t always fun,
that writing, like Hemingway
said, is akin to bleeding.

Apparently we forgot to mention
that, like Selby says, it doesn’t
take much to do this; it only takes
everything you have.

I know for me, more often
than I would care to admit,
I’m still writing out my horrible
fears, feelings of inadequacy,
intense depressions, memories
of fistfights in boy’s rooms of
elementary schools, middle schools
and high schools all over this city.

That **** doesn’t just go away, you know.
But, writing about it helps.
Hell, writing about anything helps,
but it’s not always fun.

Sometimes it feels like drowning in a barrel of tar.

I will never forget watching my daughters be born dead,
I will never forget seeing my wife’s puffy, tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes,
I will never forget what I did to deal with what I saw, with how helpless
it all made me feel, how inadequate I was as a husband, as a parent, as
a partner.

I couldn’t fix any of it. I couldn’t take any of it away, but there was one thing…

I could write.
I could bleed ink.
And, I did.

I bled decibels too.
I took these notebooks full of bile,
of misery, of near insanity, to a bookshop
with a PA and a live microphone.

I used that microphone to spread my disease
as far as the soundwaves would carry it.
I wanted infection, secretion;
I wanted a ******* pandemic.

What I learned was that doing this;
writing it out, spitting it out, throwing it out
in small rooms full of people with their own stories
made my stories tangible, alive to an audience of my peers.

Going further back in time, I can recall a pretty clumsy
****** experience.

That girl, in her father’s Winnebago,
she told me that she wanted to do it just to
see if I could, and I could.
She was done with me before whatever sweat
we’d sweated had even dried.

She made me wait at the end of her driveway
for my father to pick me up.

So, when that older poet writes about
lost loves, or lovers long gone, I get it.

Because, maybe he’s writing about how sweet
and supple they were so long ago, so that he might
better be able to get a handle on the recollection of
the biting crush of loneliness that their departure brought about,
and might still live in the memory of his heart.

We write what we write.
Some of us call it poetry,
we may even reach higher
than we perhaps should,
and call it art.

But, I, and I would gather, we
know that it’s not always
a happy or enjoyable task.

It is a task of upheaval
and ultimately of survival.

It is not cute
but it is culture,
not always art,
but artful payment
to that which is painful,
pure.

*
-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

“Maybe if you wrote
like a cop when you’re
putting in service notes,
you wouldn’t waste
so much time.”
I’m told.

Maybe that’s right,
but it feels wrong
not to invest some
of what I’m good at
into these people’s
lives.

I’m good at telling stories.

And, I do tell their stories,
replacing words like ‘said’
and ‘told’ with dryer lint
like ‘stated’ or ‘observed’.

Regardless, an investment
is made, a story is told;
most days there’s not
enough story left for me.

Maybe, if I gave less
than a *******,
I’d have some *******
left for my own stories,
but the notebooks lay
empty,
my skull’s usual roar is
silent.

That silence deafens, depresses.
But, I care enough about the story in the
service notes to give more
than
a *******.

*
-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

If the world belongs to
the brave and the tricky,

shouldn’t we try to be
less of those things?

collectively, might it be
better to be aware and
kind, or honest and
sincere?

to be less tricky and less
brave is to be more human
and understanding anyway,
right?

be more you, and I’ll be more
me, and we won’t be anything
but us.

we’ll be neither tricky nor brave
we’ll be neither black nor white,
gay nor straight, woman nor man,

we’ll be human beings,
people that are simple
and meek, and curious,
and interested, and earnest,
and thoughtful, and respectful
of differences.

we’ll be as we were intended,
we’ll be alive.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2016

The Christ was waiting
for a bus
on a street corner
in Heaven.
It wasn’t a big deal,
but an annoyance;
His car was
in the shop.
Because,
even in Heaven,
an oil leak is
a pain in the ***.
The Son of God
whistled as he waited.
The song that he whistled,
just so happened to be,
“Ring of Fire”.
For no particular reason at all,
it had been stuck in His head
all morning long.
As The Redeemer whistled,
and waited,
one J.R. Cash
was just dropping
his car at the shop,
for a quick oil change,
in what must’ve seemed
like divine providence, but
probably wasn’t.
Not one to sit still
for very long,
The Man In Black
set off for a brief stroll
instead of staying put
in the shop’s waiting area.
Spotting Our Lord,
at the bus stop,
The Highwayman
strode up and put forth
his usual introduction;
“Hello…I’m Johnny Cash.”
he said.
“I know who you are, Johnny!”
replied The Lord.
“I was fillin’ in for Pete
the day you passed through
The Gates, pal.”
J.R. nodded, and said;
“Yes sir, I remember now;
September 12th 2003.
You and Your Daddy had
let me have quite the run.
I thank You for that.”
The Savior, replied,
“Sure enough, John.
We always do what We can…
Hey, what’re you doing here anyways?”
The Man In Black grinned;
“Aw, nuthin’, I just seen that You was here
waitin’ for the bus.  
I thought I might offer to
walk back to the shop with ya,
an’ maybe offer a lift to get ya goin.”
The Lord smiled up at Johnny; squinting in the bright sun,
“Sure thing, Sue.  I’ll take it,
lets go.
They’re pulling a gasket on My Nissan anyway,
I’ve got nothin’ but time.”
“Okay”, replied J.R., “Let’s head back;
I’d bet they’ve got my Lincoln topped off by now.”
The Man In Black fired up a Lucky Strike
with a black Zippo lighter.
At the sight of this, The Lamb chuckled;
“Sue, you’ve been doing that since you were
twelve years old.”
He paused a bit, shrugged,
and asked;
“Hey, could I get one of those?”
Johnny handed one over,
and the pair set off back toward
the shop.
*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2015

Earlier this week I spoke of some days
I’d rather forget.

I shared benign versions in the hope
that it is seen that the world is as good
or bad as you want to make it.

I’m reminded that sometimes
the ignorance of youth plays a part,
and you’re in bed with a stripper who’s shaking,

sweating, and stops breathing now and again,
and you’re holding on tight as she snores, moans,
writhes, and howls.

Because, you want to be in love with her
and you want to run screaming from your own apartment.
because nothing you’ve ever done,
no life you’ve ever lived,
the call center,
the furnished room,
the phone calls to your parents
when the bank account is down to pennies
has ever prepared you to lay next to someone
who’s all jacked up on some kind of dope
that you’ve never heard anything about
except for the stuff that you’ve seen
in movies or on TV, but that’s all
******* isn’t it?

And, you hope that you don’t wake up
next to a dead body,
so you don’t go to sleep at all,

So, that’s off the table isn’t it?

And, you make coffee and write
in your stupid notebook
about how much you think
you’re in love with this  doped up hyena
in the sack with you,
just because she let you rub up on her *******
a handful of times and you’ve run your fingers
thru her bush a few times.

And, you think that’s where love starts
but you don’t know a ******* thing about love,
but you’ve passed over a handful of $20s because
she says she’s broke and hungry and that’s what someone
who loves someone does.

You’re too ******* stupid or naïve to realize, to know
that the dough buys the dope and that she ***** some
of the other customers for the same thing she gets from you
w/o the ***** and w/o all of your foolishness, your *******.

And, the morning comes and she’s still alive, so are you,
and so is everyone else.
And, you wrote her a love poem in that
******* notebook of yours.

So, you ask her if she wants to hear you read it,
and you really mean it, you really want her to hear it,
to love it, to see that she means something to your foolish,
child’s heart.

But, she laughs at you,
puts her clothes on,
grabs her bag,
and walks out the door.

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

We marvel at
the smell of the white clover.

It is a baked in smell right now,
the heat is oppressive, crushing

The smell of the clover, and this
cigarette are the only reason we’re
out here.

Smarter, healthier people are inside,
in the air-conditioning, nursing a beer or
a lemonade, watching whatever might be on
HBO.

Returning to our respective homes,
we rejoin their much more comfortable
ranks.

(I’m curious what’s on HBO anyway.)


When the need for nicotine rises again;
cigarette in hand, opening the door, seeing
the pavement has darkened with rain.

The smell of the clover has been muted,
replaced with the brassy, metallic breeze
that rises like steam from the hot driveway,
lingering under the nose like a warm childhood
sip from the spigot.

That steam has its own odor,
rich and febrile,
rising from the superheated
surfaces of our cars.

It smells like squirt-gun suicide,
a child’s drink from the barrel of
plastic ordinance.

(Do you remember doing that?  
I do.)

How terrifying that must’ve been to parents;
to see their children, in swimwear or skivvies,
******* on the end of a gun.

Perhaps they gave it less of a thought
than I do now.

I’d wager they were inside,
in the air-conditioning, nursing a beer or
a lemonade, watching whatever might be on
HBO.

Out of the early summer heat.

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

water comes hot from the tap
for the first time in what feels
like a century.

the cup is rinsed, letting it fill
and overflow, the warmth runs
over swollen, arthritic knuckles
held there for a few minutes more

despite the rising mercury,
the water rinses stale coffee
and pain away

the powdered creamer
like the dust of ground bone,
is added and the black blood
of truth becomes chocolate
and is that much more palatable
like the day.


*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016