...of my need to wander  
this tired Midwestern town,
struggling to be new.

She understands that St. Joseph  
is not the same city as is now present,

That Joseph Robidoux would have to
fish his smart phone from out of his pocket,
dialing 911, and reporting gunshots,
retreat.

Angela acknowledges that I am like this town
in that, my husbandry is radically different than
it was almost two decades before.

She lets me look at my children  
as though they were strangers,
inviting them out for a coffee anyway.
Because, why not?
Everyone needs a cup now and then.

Angela steps aside as I strike up  
conversations with strangers,
like kitchen matches,
making sure that the pilot lights  
of their stories are lit,
like mine.

Knowing that my motives are two-fold,
she and I will sit in the booths of the  
greasiest of spoons;
places that are as alive,  
on a Sunday morning,  
with ideas,
thoughts, facts,  
or falsehoods;
as bacteria in a petri dish,
and no one else can see them  
but me.

We drink coffee,
eating hash-browns,
slurping egg yolks,
not speaking for several minutes  
at a time;
my eyes alert always  
to the other patrons and their possible  
hardships.

(I like a rough room.)

But, when we do talk,
my wife and I,
on this
"Earlier than everyone else is awake"
excursion...

We laugh.

And, I watch her eyes,
bluer than any ocean I've ever seen,
shimmer.

And, I want more than anything,  
to tell a story...


This one.

I smiled at her and she got upset,
climbed into her boyfriend's truck,
and wouldn’t look at me.

Just before this,
I'd watched her,
with my poet's eye,
hang up the receiver of the pay-phone  
I'd parked in front of.

The smile,
then,
on her face was huge,
remarkable, in fact.

It made her not-so-pretty face
absolutely radiant,
so I took note,
smiling back.  

Whomever she'd spoken to  
had obviously,
and with great  
purpose and verve,
bestowed that smile  
unto her with verbiage.

And, so I took it away.
I hadn't meant to.

Perhaps it was the fee  
we'd both been obliged to pay,

for this story  
to be  
born.

with gnarled tooth
and broken jaw,
it all gets stuck
in my ******’
craw.

with aching back
and twisted knee,
there’s little use
left of me.

the raven will come
and pluck my eye,
minutes after I
lie down
to die.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

That poor little *******
sat at his typewriter
and thought to himself: “What do I write about today?”

It was an odd, off-feeling, thing that he felt.
Sometimes he told people: “It feels like it feels when you are sitting there, reading a book or something and you suddenly have to take a ****. But, instead of the feeling being in your guts, it’s in your brain.”

The problem with saying
that kind of thing out loud
was that the poor constipated writer
always and almost immediately
felt like he was telling people
that he was full of ****
or otherwise a *******,
based upon how it all sounded to him,
and he was sure to everyone else
as soon as the words escaped his lips.

The stagnant little writer
went outside and smoked a cigarette.
He was trying to think
of a new way to think.

He thought: “Most of the time I write
about stuff that happens to me
or the things that I see as I’m wandering
around town.
Sometimes, I make things up, telling stories about characters that I’ve based loosely on people
that I’ve met via work,
or barflies I’ve sat next to,
nursing a beer or whiskey.”

Usually though,
the poor constipated writer
ended up writing about writing,
or standing outside smoking cigarettes,
or sitting in some bar,
next to some ******
who wanted to talk about politics
or religion
or some other nonsense
that wasn’t worth listening to
and then what was that poor
little plugged-up *******
supposed to do?

Well, nevermind.

I bet he’ll just do
what he usually does
and go whine about how
boring he must be as a writer,
how nobody ever gives
a two-penny farting ****
about anything
he has to say.

Then, I can already imagine it, can you?

He’ll go into that cold little room
at the back of his house
and he’ll continue to do
what he’s always done.

He’ll write stories about the streetlamps
and the moonlight.

He’ll write about that girl that he knows;
the one with the strawberry hair
and the thousands and thousands
of freckles.

Then maybe the next day
he’ll write about the old lady
who’s lights got shut off
by the power company
and about how he called
the power company
and said: “Listen here, ya sonofabitch!”
and they turned the lady’s power back on.

But, that poor little constipated
writer is in a place where he feels
like nothing he writes
is worth anything at all,
so he might as well
give up.

Or not.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

the world is coated
with honey,
if you just know
where to lick.

once a year
I drink too
much whiskey;
eat enough
cheese to constipate
King Kong.

and,
when I wake up
the following year,
the ocean flows from
my pecker into porcelain;
I swallow enough
Tylenol and tap water
to fill it up again.

once again,
the world is as right
as the wrongs remaining
will let it be.

The next revolution,
resolution,
revelation,
begins
again,

already
forget­ting
where to find
the sweetest
honey in the
hive.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

My new winter
coat is black.

It is as black
as a starless
night sky.

Yet, now there
are smudges of
dirt on the ends
of my sleeves.

My coat has hung
on the back of a
chair today.

As I lunched
at a small counter,
eating fried eggs and
hash browns,

someone must’ve stepped
on the sleeves of my coat
and left bits of their own
day behind.

The other day,
I’d asked my wife
to wash my coat
because it had gotten
dusty.

So, she did.
And, out it came
from the dryer,
thick and warm
obsidian.

Now,

I see those smudges
and I think of them
as clouds that race
across a midnight sky.

Like me,
like The Earth,
spinning,
always on the move.

*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

It is in these medium-sized hours,
on these winter mornings that I find
the most peace.

It is while standing at the end
of my driveway that I can feel
my connection to everything.

The soles of my boots do not impede
or interfere with my energy’s ability
to connect, through miles of iron,
directly with this planet’s core.

The stillness is not still,
despite my own.

There are ignitions and other beginnings;
small voices protesting the final bus ride
to school; the holiday pending.

Despite this minor background noise,
this unadorned stillness connects myself
to something larger and more substantial
than I can speak, write, or even understand.

This conduit is in all things, in all people,
and is the unspoken, unwritten definition of
what it actually means to be awake, alive, and
alert to...what?

Is it God?
Is it my sense of self?
Is it you?
All of you?
All of humanity?
Is it my sons?
My daughter?
My beloved?

Yes.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications