Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
JB Claywell Dec 2017
I watched my very own
Charles Bukowski
eat a tangerine outside of  
the arthouse  
where we were reading.

His name is not really Bukowski,
but he has told tales in the same  
vein as the Laureate of Drunkards
for longer than I have been alive.

I have listened to that same back alley
patois,
and barroom wisdom for long
enough that I feel a certain level  
of comfort in calling the old gizzard  
this municipality's own  
Charles Bukowski.

The grizzled old poet  
is telling wanton tales  
of love and honeydew.

He goes on and on,
recounting the times  
that he's drunk  
strong potato liquor
with Bengal tigers  
in the backseats  
of roaring taxis
on his way to parties  
hosted by zebras and  
gazelles.

We each light a cigarette,
pausing to smoke for a while.

Seeking to continue  
the conversation with  
my salty comrade,  
yet knowing my own  
stories cannot compete,
I surge onward nonetheless.

His interruptions jam my  
traffic before I can even make  
it onto the onramp of his  
particular, peculiar highway.

His mouth is already working,
though his tangerine consumed.

He's chewing his next story into
digestible, deliverable bits.

And, now he's chewing the rind.

His mouth,
his words,
his life,
and my own for all of it,
is full of  
zest.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2017
for David, the tiger.
JB Claywell Nov 2017
Outwitting,
out-writing
the days
defeats.

Snatching
victory
from the
inkwells
of the
mind.

Spelling
out
half-truths
and lies
in equal
measure.

The eye
of the
beholder
is blind.

Every other
word is
a treasure.

Not gold
or silver,
but thoughts
fraught with
flailing,
failings,
soaring
in spite
of
broken
wings.

Sailing
past lonely
hearts and
thoughts
of loved
ones left
behind.

Smeared
pen strokes,
notebooks,
spines bent
full of sins
or loves
confessed
obsessed,
depressed.

We are,
all of us,
roses,
between pages
pressed.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications
JB Claywell Nov 2017
There's not enough
real darkness these  
days.

There are plenty  
of shadows,  
but not enough
truly dark places.

Everyone wants to
be an apex predator,
but still wants to squeal
and cry when made to  
bleed and flail like  
prey.

Some of us live  
in those shadows,
fighting real battles  
that no one else  
would want to see,
or fight,
let alone win.

Victory is so unfamiliar  
these days.

The hyenas and wolves  
want their meals handed
to them;
served up on gleaming silver,
brilliant white napkins tucked  
under their chins.

No blood spatter,
no claw marks.
Soundless.
Effortless;
everyone getting what they want,
what they need,
without struggle.

Yet, also claiming to be  
the wildebeest or  
the caribou when the fangs
penetrate, biting in.

None of it's fair,
or right,  
or good enough for any
of us
anymore.

There's little consolation  
in the consolation prize.

The light is too bright,
But, it's the darkness
that hurts
our eyes.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications
JB Claywell Nov 2017
She chewed her
nails relentlessly.

They were all bitten
down and raw looking,
even on the sides near
the cuticles.

She was always talking.

I swear to Christ that
she never stopped talking.

She told me about her children.

I told her that
I didn’t want to
know as much as
she was telling.

“Fine.” she’d say.

She’d shut up for
about half an hour
or so, then since the
goddammed kids were
off-limits, she’d start
in on Jesus Christ and
how great He was.


I asked her how long
she planned on talking
about nothing that had
anything to do with
anything.

She’d ignored me
and kept on talking,
telling me about
how she got saved
and how she’d
given her life to
The Lord.

“That’s great.” I said.

I asked her about
a guy that I knew
that she’d been going
around with for
awhile.

“Oh, that sonofabitch?”

“Yeah, him.”

She was so easy
to wind up like
that.

She could swear
like a sailor,
or a *******
merchant marine.

I always liked
it when she’d
say ‘****’ or
call someone
a sonofabitch
right in the
middle of an
otherwise
theological
gale.

I can’t tell
you why I’d
get her going,

but something
about it was
really
satisfying.

Maybe it was
the irony of
it all.

None of it
matters anyway
as long as the
tab gets paid.

*
-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications
JB Claywell Nov 2017
The doors to the office
are locked up tight.

The receivers are off
their hooks tonight.

We’re out in the streets
practicing our long division.

The time has come;
gotta make the hard
decisions.


Which side are you on?

Why are we choosing
to glorify a man or
woman, in their
victimizations or
victimhood?

Doing so,
it doesn’t do
anyone any
good.

We allow or encourage
victims to swim in the
**** of their victimhood,
never to come out on the
other side clean?

Am I the only one
who sees this as mean?

More than that,
I find it obscene.

We are making nobody
equal.

This is just another
spike in our collective,
divided skulls.

What makes this
all that much worse,
like a ******* curse;
is that the culture wars
are the only battles
left to be won.

Sow what you wish
to reap.

Reaping kindness,
and willingness
to treat each other
and ourselves like
sons and daughters,
mothers and fathers;

there’s no place more
for this culture war
cannon fodder.

Fox News, god-dammed CNN
pointing out everyone
else’s sins.

They quit looking for any
battle to end;
Hell, they just push the buttons
and the next one begins.

Stay offline,
don’t feed these *******
swine.

Don’t use Face-crook,
they sold the book
a long time ago.

Feeding junk food
to our minds.
Fueling our egos;
leaving us to wonder
where all our time
goes.

The **** bluebird’s
not much better,
defaming our collective characters
in less than 140 letters.

Read a book instead,
lean into the pages
return to your own
thoughts,
exit these New-Millennial
Dark Ages.

We are one people,
we’re of all colors,
of every class,
maintaining our
collective humanity
shouldn’t be such
an unknown
pursuit.

Here we are,
divided,
trying to
feed one another
our own rotten fruit.

Check your personage
at the gate,
it’s already too late.

Or, is it?

“We The People” will
sell and buy us
like cattle going to
slaughter.

They’ll buy the mind
of every son and daughter
in the name of the mighty
dollar.

Taxes, student loans,
medical expenses,
freeloaders or front-loaded
*******, killing ourselves
with AR-15s outfitted with bump
stocks designed to bump stocks and
bonds, gluing our politicians hands inside the
pockets of the NRA lobbyists.

(Look what I did! I’m part of the problem!
Long divisions?
There are other ways
to solve
them.)


Ban it all and band together,
go to the party with the ugly
Christmas sweaters;
instead of badges worn by elephants
or *******.

No more.

Say it loud.

Say it now.

No more long division.

Care and carry the one.

Lift each other up,
enough is enough.

Sign the letter,
the petition,
the promissory note.

With Love,

The Remainder    

*


-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications
JB Claywell Nov 2017
I’d never have
the guts to call
myself a feminist.

Any man that does
is full of ****,
ladies.

Men don’t
know anything about
being a woman.

There are two genders.
Or, there are 200.

Either way it doesn’t
matter.

You know what matters
more than anything?

Being cool.

Being a decent human being.

Having self-control.

Accepting that you’re
responsible for what
you say and do.

Treat the girl or guy
of your dreams like
they’re the girl
or
guy of your dreams.

Don’t treat them like
a Corvette or a *******
cheeseburger.

Hey, can I have a ride in
your ‘vette?

No?

Okay.

How about a bite;
just one bite
of that thick,
juicy,
delicious-looking
burger?

No?


Fine.

Thanks anyway.

See?

It’s easy.

If you think it’s
more difficult
than the
aforementioned
examples;

you’ve got to
go.

Bye.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications
JB Claywell Nov 2017
They’ve bitten and held
through the month of October’s
unseasonable warmth.

Now, they’ve excised on the
first day in November and I
bleed.

The leafless branches of the
bluffs,  show among their
unshed brethren like the
claws of the undead.

The work becomes onerous
despite my ambition;
the cold weather creates
problems unsolvable before
the first ice forms or the first
snowflakes fall to stay.

There is no reward in getting
done what needs done.

Leaving the house before sunrise,
coming home as the last of October’s
auburn hangs in the sky,
knowing soon that November will
leave her bleak blackness in the air,
robbing me of the rose-colored clouds
that decorate the morning commute.

The fangs of September are pulled
for this year, but the rest of these
benumbed months will gnaw
until the warm juncture’s thaw.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2017
*seasonal affective disorder
Next page