I need you to stay with me.
I need you to understand.
It’s not just this room,
but me,
when I’m inside of it.

You.
You’re the only one with
a key.

You.
Not me.

I only have the room.

And, you.
I have you.

But, sometimes your key
doesn’t fit the lock,
so all there is
is the room and
what’s in there
waiting for me.

Most of the time
it’s just work stuff,
frustrations that fade
by the lunch hour.

Sometimes it’s these
****** crutches,
this crooked spine,
the soreness of the
knees and ankles
that I’ve been born with.

Sometimes, the room pitches or
sways.

Haunted.

By the ghost of my mother,
her love,
the smell of her kitchen.

By the ghost that my father is not,
yet.
That day will be here soon enough.

I’ll be locked in this room.

The lock will be broken.

No one will have a key that works.

The room will be ablaze.

The only thing that will save me

is this pen
and
paper
not yet burned.


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

she was one of those things,
a person yes, but a noun too,
a thing,
animal,
alive,
warm.

she brought about that
innate desire to touch
or to taste
that all humans have.

putting your mouth
on something
makes it real,
right?

her tiger’s
tail swishes
behind her
and
no one else
can see it
but me.

how’d
I
get
so
****
lucky?

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

In the interim,
I will continue
despite the fact
that I don’t know
how to do this
without you.

There are still
moments of
the day that
pass
like
an oil-slick
eclipse
*******
the light out
of the room,
the air
from my
lungs.

It is in
these
moments
that I feel
the
most alive,
because I
really wouldn’t
mind
dying.

Knowing
that there
is so
much more
that needs
done;

the sorrow lifts,
the lungs refill,
the rage
returns,
lights the fire,
and I
advance.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

We,
all of us,
stood out in the lot
of the greengrocer's.

We looked upon
the pending sunset as if
we,
ourselves,
were birds ready
to take wing
into that auburn horizon.  

We looked at the clouds
as they became
majestic brushstrokes
placed strategically
by a great unseen artist
whose name we all knew,
but was different for each of us.  

There were brilliant purples,
pinks,
and oranges
that our eyes
might have been seeing
for the first
or last time.

(None of us knew for sure.)  

The sun shone
through a great bank of cirrus
like the beginning of
some great onslaught
by a giant dragon
or
the first flash
of a nuclear holocaust.

None of us
would’ve minded
either scenario
for the beauty of it
and
our presence
therein.  

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

On October 2nd a local high-school teacher invited me to her classroom to speak to her students about writing and poetry. More specifically, the lesson of the day was one in which the exploration of a subculture took place. Subsequently, the questions that were posed to the students in the beginning were: “What does a poet look like?”  What would a poet sound like, conversationally?” “What kind of clothes would they wear?” “What do you think makes someone want to be a poet?”   As we got set to go forward with what became an easy and enjoyable group conversation, it all seemed a bit esoteric to me and I began to wonder if I was indeed the right person for this particular gig.

I started to wonder if I was a poet, if I am a poet.  What does a poet dress like? How did I come to be a poet? I know my backstory, as it relates to the when and why I write what I write and way that I write it.
But, in the end, we talked about the subculture of poets and poetry, the need for more human interaction, the thrill of the live poetry reading and the fact that this particular subculture that I am a part of also tends to be sought out by those from other subcultures. I explained what The Thunderbird Sessions are and what they continue to mean to me. I explained that we have a regular attendee whom is very obviously wracked with anxiety, but that he comes to life under the lights and through the PA-system at Unplugged during a Thunderbird Sessions event.  Additionally, I explained that we have, often, subcultures within subcultures represented at a Thunderbird Sessions reading.

It seems that the fringes, the weirdos, the people who don’t quite fit in anyplace else, fit into the robes of the poet or the writer, because people that write have an escape hatch, they have a valve that releases the pressures that they feel every day and in almost every way.

I have done my best to make sure that my subculture is as accepting of any other subculture that might step through the doors of anywhere that I might be reading, writing, or otherwise existing. Because, really, the only culture that matters is the culture of kindness.  

Before that roomful of high-school kids was done with me, I told them that despite the fact that I didn’t know them, I loved them unconditionally. I told them this, because no one told it to me outside of my own childhood home and family. I felt like I didn’t fit on the planet. So, I found music and books that made for good companions when I needed them. Records and books are often quite a bit more reliable and dependable than people. People will let you down at every turn.  It’s a pretty rough room out there right now, so I’m trying to be one of those people whom you know will absolutely not let you down. I hope I’m doing okay.

A few days later, I got a thank-you card in the mail. It seems that I failed to communicate thoroughly enough on the subject of subcultures. No one wrote: “Hooray! Now I know a real poet!” “Now I understand how a poet should dress!”  “Now I know how to talk like a poet!”   Instead, the teacher wrote something like this: “Those kids remembered how you told them that you loved them unconditionally despite the fact that they were strangers to you. That really meant a lot to them.”

I want to do more of this sort of thing. It’s the only way I feel like I’m doing the very most good that I am able to do.
*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

Feeling like
a calculator
with a decimal
key
that sticks.

Always incorrect,
missing
the point,
a fraction
of the
actual,
misplacing the
factual.

The letter-opener
laughs
at me.

Sees
my inaccuracy,
my inadequacy.

The thumbtacks
gather,
whispering into
the corkboard,
memos written,
regarding my
misaligned
mathematics.

The desktop
dings
the arrival
of an
email.

The office-supply
order
has arrived.

The scissors,
held
in an X,
slice through
packing tape.

Right there,
on top
of the steno-pads,
rests
my replacement,

new,

plastic bubble
intact,

decimal key
moves free,
better than
me,
no need
to see
to believe,
calculations conceived,
bourn correct.

The decimals
rounded to
the nearest
hundredth,

I’ll find
rest,

my long division
meeting measure
of
its remainder
at the bottom
of an
office
wastebasket.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

The yellow dog was dead,
starting to bloat on the side
of a more rural stretch of 169
hwy.

It was easy to see,
despite the brevity of
our time together,
that the yellow dog had
belonged to, was part of,
a home, a family.

Even in death,
the dog looked like a
Dutch, or a Butch, or Jeb, maybe Roscoe;
like a dog that belonged
in a setting such as
this.

Not,
however, on the side of this
two-lane piece of asphalt,
but in this patch of fly-over
country that he had, just a
while ago,
snuffled.

Or,
living in the horse barn,
sleeping on the loose caroms
of straw, maybe catching a rabbit
for his supper now and then;
his master bringing him into
the house for a warm bath,
some table scraps, when the weather
cooled.

However,
today is warm,
the sun glints off of the white fluff
of a rabbit’s **** and the chase that
ensued was magnificent…

Unfortunately,
it led the yellow dog
to his less than enviable fate,
lying near the sweet summer grasses
with a look of disappointment etched onto
his face.

Upon my return,
passing the same spot,
I see that the yellow dog
is being given a wake.

The vultures,
their congress having voted,
their kettle having stirred,
landed near this fallen hound
and prepared to feast.

Though,
again my investment in the scene
was brief,
I couldn’t help but notice that
the yellow dog still wore a sturdy-looking
collar and that his tags shone brightly
in the late afternoon sun.

So,
I found myself hoping
that as he’d lain at the edge
of his last green horizon,
he looked up at the clouds
and thought:

“This isn’t so awful. I made the best of it.”

Then,
as the wake of vultures
began to feed,
I hoped they too might consume
some fleeting memory that the yellow dog
had about chasing rabbits, thrown sticks,
rolling in mud, or perhaps even this particular
misadventure,
the one that had led to
his wake.
*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018