Looking through the window,
there she was,
behind the bar,
tending to the locals.

She herself,
my friend,
had become a local.

I wondered
if she begrudged
Hiawatha Kansas
the local-ness
that it had ****** upon
her.

I decided
that it would be better
if I didn’t ask.

Because my own hometown
was still home;
still feeling like someplace
That could be,
maybe do better,
but would rather not.

Choosing instead
to smoke cigarettes,
drink ***** and Red Bull,
while waiting for tomorrow.

Tomorrow would always show up,
looking just a bit more hopeful than yesterday;
remaining less motivated than we’d anticipated
last night.

I drove 39 miles with a belly full of
ate-at-home food,
leaving the house in favor of the blues band
playing downtown.

After their set,
I lost interest,
seeking something beyond the proffered
Friday night loudness and parking-lot
Mexican food.

I decided to see my friend, Abigail.

39 miles of ink-black nothing,
speed-trap smallness,
a couple of Casey’s
with
their lights shut off;
pizza ovens and donut fryers
gone cold for the night.

Red’s Alehouse looks like
It could actually be a house.

(there’s not much to it.)

The Budweiser sign,
neon.
the OPEN sign,
flashing.

Peering,
entering;
she screams in delight.
we laugh.
I sit.
we talk.

She dutifully fills new glasses,
washes those abandoned.

Someone puts a twenty-dollar bill
in her tip jar.

It was a good night,
a fair adventure.

I drove home again in the ink of the Kansas night.

36 HWY,
through the same speed-trap towns,
those convenience stores still
locked tight.
It was fine,
there in the dark.

Neither hungry nor thirsty,
I was sated.

I’d met ****,
Steve,
Jared,
and
George, who’d wanted a sandwich and some potato chips
where there were none to be had.

I laughed with my friend, Abigail.

We’d spoken of dreams long-abandoned
to work and changing circumstances;
finding satisfaction in simplicity and our own
intellects;
sometimes feeling that smartness
is in short supply in our
separate Red-State lives.

I pulled into my driveway
grateful for minutes spent,
memories shared.

I’ll stop in again
saying hello sometime
before the winter sets in
to stay for a while.

Maybe George will be there.

Perhaps I’ll stop by one of those Casey’s
before it’s shut tight or gone cold.

We can tell more stories,
sharing slices of our lives
along with
greasy pizza.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

I came back to the bookseller’s counter
advising that I wanted to utilize the new
nook.  

As I’d sniffed pages earlier,
we’d spoken of plucking guitar strings and
the benefits of
retreating into one’s office to write for the afternoon.

I used to do that.
No remorse, no regret, always cared what it meant...

after the clientele was seen, observed to be secure
in their homes,
tired eyes, hips, knees and backs noted
as required,
I left houses that didn’t belong to me,
slipped outside of lives that were not mine;
lives that I’d invested in anyway,
as much as it mattered and for what it was worth.

Slipping back into my office,
the blonde wood of the door shutting the hallway noise out
enough so that I could concentrate
on something other than the safety of some old lady,
retreating to the memory of what I’d just done
with the eyes of an outsider.

Write.
Write the sadness of that lonely old girl
out of your guts.

Write.
Write the misery of a 65 year old veteran
who’s fallen into homelessness after serving a country
that appears ungrateful but we both hope isn’t.

Resources, in the vernacular, are a slow go SNAFU,
a ***** that shows up
just as the fall breezes begin to bite
with December teeth.

Write.
(I tell myself again and again.)
So as not to cry
and do it here,
in this quiet,
paid-for space
so that you can feel like a writer,
not like a fraud,
a failure with a heart too big for your chest;
a devil in your brain who drives so fast that everything’s a blur,
a car-wrecked,
attention-span grab,
an emotional ambulance ride to nowhere good.

Write.
So that when the tears fall,
You can publish them,
Taking ownership before they dry.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

They ask me about words
and
I forget that they often
don’t know the same words
that I do.

I forget that sometimes my words
and
their words are mysterious
and
often not as profane
as they might be used to.

Then, I remember
that there are countless words,
concepts,
ideas,
and
beliefs that I am totally,
sometimes shamefully,
unaware of.
(all of these based in vernaculars unfamiliar)

None of us live the same type of life.

None of us
have earned passage
through hardship
any more or less
than anyone else.

Ours are circumstances,
unshared.

Not luck, not fate, not grace,
not inherent anyway.

No different than my last name being Claywell
and
my typing that very same name
into the system of The Department of Corrections;
seeing that name,
the same as mine,
unowned by me,
belonging to faces of men
and
women that I have never
and
likely would not ever meet
in our respective lives.

What does it matter?
It’s a name,
no different
or more or less special than Jones or Smith.

The name is mine and theirs,
as unique to us as we are to one another;
poet
or
prisoner.

Person first, second, and third.

Like a story,
a book,
a treatment plan,
sitting on a shelf or locked inside
a mind until the proper moment
providence or provisional,
authored by the judiciary or just
some guy.
(like me)

We live by words,
are released by words,
are transformed by words,
frightening, fitful, fretful or foreign.

Words give us our humanity,
allow us to encourage or enrage,
engaged so as to establish
a renewal,
reestablished ability to
manifest,
to actualize
the abracadabra
of
our own magic act…

our lives.


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

You typed out
your lack of desire
to keep the charade going.

You proffered
a predicted end to this existential
ebb and flow
of day by day
madness and miasma.

Yet, I could not abide
and
rest assured that I am no savior
nor saint.

My robes are terry cloth
with sequins, none.
No cape,
no boots,
no symbols of better than whomever.

I have only an unwillingness to stop.  

Because stopping is
to ensure that the darkness
and
the demons prevail
and
I refuse
to allow that to occur today.

Together,
dear unknown one,
we will become as phoenix;
being reborn
in the flame of overcoming.

Tempered we will be,
in the forge of discomfort
and
disquiet,
knowing still that we can be better,
we can do better,
we can become better than what is now,
doing so for our future selves
and
those who call us
by names other than our very own.

You typed out
your lack of desire
to keep the charade going.

However,
I see no charade at all.
I see honest insecurity.
A self-doubt that staggers.
I see a sadness
that seeps out of shin bones
rising clear up to the eyes
and
leaks out as heavy as a downpour
for reasons that have little
in the way of explanation.

I tell you,
little friend,
it’s not your fault.

We live in a society
driven mad by algorithms
that over-gift us our own brain chemicals
and
leave us like addicts
at the doorsteps
of churches or taverns,
trap houses
or jail cells.

Our more advanced existence
has handicapped
our ability to
communicate effectively.

The savvy
among our beastly brethren
take full advantage
of the last sinew of innocence
that we have left.

Hold fast,
dearheart,
for this tumult of your youth
will leave scars
and
capture your good heart
in a cage,
leaving a stone in its place.

We mustn't allow this.  

To do so creates a decay
like rust or rot,
which is so difficult to recover from
because it stains everything
and
everyone it touches.  

Even now,
we are surrounded
by the skeptical,
the cynical,
the altogether untoward
and
unwilling to be otherwise.

You typed out
your lack of desire
to keep the charade going.

Be advised,
if it hurts,
it’s not a charade at all,
it is an investment
in a desire for change
that feels like something better
than what is right now,
what is wrong now.  

We will seek a new now;
and
know that there are more of us,
more of you,
more of we
than you can even imagine.

All that I ask
is that you continue…
for yourself,
for my own self,
for the selves
that we have yet to become,
but will eventually.

So, please,
Exist.
Exist for me.
I'll exist for you.
Together we'll exist
for all of the people
who love
and
need us in this world.
Maybe,
even some people
we have yet to meet.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

A temporary wealth
is all that I am ever allotted.
A brief understanding,
as well as an ability to be understood.

We entertain ourselves
with coarse language,
crude humor,
a commitment to behave
as we know we should,
for a while anyway.

Even now,
our respective grasps
on whatever it is
that we are allowed to share
during this day’s task is tenuous,
at it’s very best.

There are count times,
microcosms of malcontentedness
that lead to slight infractions
here and there.

We,
I learn daily,
are in passing.
Always, in flux.
We are not pals
and
never shall we abide one another
as more than men,
in conflict
and resolution
at the same time.

It is not a death,
their exit,
usually anyhow.
There is no pall that befalls us.

Each of us is birthed
into the life of the other;
in an effort to facilitate
a change in each other,
I believe.  

An impact,
like an iceberg shipwreck,
rescuing and rewarding the passengers,
most of whom would rather drown themselves outright.  

None of us can swim.
We don’t know how.

We barely know what it means
to live as society says we should.
The rules change more often
than we can keep up.

Yet, we grasp
and
cling to basic, vague understandings
in hopes of surviving
despite our best efforts otherwise.  

We work together,
tumultuous,
listening fecklessly,
recklessly hoping for
the best possible outcome.

It is quite the undertaking.  
This,
this performance,
this penance,
the doing of this
is how we invest,
how we spend our temporary windfall.

We learn,
together,
to be human.

Not that we ever actually were not so.
We learn,
however,
to be ourselves,
incandescent inside of our own skins.

Together, but with lives outside of mine,
for the betterment of all of us.
I learn to be a better humanist
than perhaps I would’ve
if I’d never been endowed
with
this temporary wealth.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

The rat-terrier
that I’d loved for
over a decade
has been dead for
awhile now.


Sometimes I miss that dog.
Sometimes I miss cigarettes.

My America is now
the go-to destination
for the suicide-bomber
or
The Mass-Shooting Machine


All of this national abomination
has become all too normal.
&
why is any of this
at all attached,
in any way,
to our
Easter-Sunday-Church-Going
morals?

Tragedy,
a travesty,
trustworthy humans.
-untrue-
mistrustful,
unworthy misogynist,
malcontents
lacking empathy.

Unpaid checks,
no gravity -
a lacking of grateful
hearts.


Our ears destined,
designed, dedicated to hearing
only the hurtful,
instead of the healing.

On the take -
take or be taken
fake or be faking-
make or be made-
scapegoated,
goaded into submission
leaving
us wondering
just what,
exactly is so bad
about hate.

I mean everyone’s doing it these days;
and no one seems to be doing it wrong.

Maybe that’ll change
once we’re on our
deathbeds.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

Our job,
in my opinion,
is to make sure
that someone who crosses our grave,
while on an afternoon stroll
across the cemetery,
on their way to the park,
meeting their
love for a picnic,
is able to say to themselves:
“Hey! It’s them! I’ve heard about them!”

Maybe we change things
for the world;
maybe just a handful of folks.

Perhaps the point
of this whole trip
is simply to do;
never to know.

All we can do
is believe in each other;
giving as much of ourselves,
our time,
our talents,
never fully aware
of just how far our
graveyard legacy
might be able to go.


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

It’s not the same
as investment banking,
but
you get the idea.


Investing emotion.
A willingness
to make something better happen
to or for
oneself.

Investing in
our own emotions,
so as to garner
more intellect in this regard.

An education in spending wisely.
Energy.
Education.
Experience.

These lines themselves
are an investment,
in thought,
in the feelings
behind the words on this page.
An execution.
An actualization.


We deal in Certificates of Deposit.
Human thinking reconstructed.
Structured.
Settlement.
Earning interest.

Renewed,
by oneself,
in oneself.

Rending willful neglect
to be null and void.
Willing the restored onto the next plane of existence;
the belief that one is powerful enough
to accept viability and value as inherent.
A readiness to do better than before.
Valuable.- Worthy of a life worth living.
Victorious. -- Made new, by one’s own hand.
Using one’s own mind;
actualizing this happening;
becoming worthy of being
powerfully reborn.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

The air was painted.

Inside the chain link fences
were clouds;
brushstrokes
that could’ve been
proffered by
Van Gogh
or
*******
as they dissipated
into the early, cold
morning air,
pausing only for a
few moments to allow
some of the particulates
to freeze;
the hydrogen, the oxygen,
the lye,
&
detergents that
make up whatever
is used in
a prison laundry.

The effluvium is rich,
the odor of a passable
cleanliness in what is largely
a rather fetid domain.

The scent of bleach,
harsh, chlorinated,
removal of that which
stains.

Yet,
something stays,
an acrid, sour smell;
an unpleasantness
which seems to have chosen
to remain
unwashed.

It is concluded,
that this emanation,
is the opposite of
emancipation,
it is a olfactive reminder
that
Building # 7
serves up
freshly washed sorrows,
rages, or regrets
as well as
whiter whites,
releasing
stains from grays
more often than the wearers
of
these wardrobes are released
themselves.


With this in mind,
swirling, shifting,
moving, motivating
marching upward,
toward
Building # 1,

It is breathed in,
and out, and in
again,

renewal,
like clean laundry
washed in industrial
soaps, rinsed in disinfectants,
delousers, deodorants
unknowable.

Starting over.
Today.
Tomorrow.
Overmorrow,
And,
Everafter.

Amen.

*
-J­BClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

The midwest tundra
swallows super-bowl trophies
and
replaces them
with
black-bottomed **** bubbles.

It dares most of us to do better,
while laughing in our faces,
forcing us to watch
as the kid we’re cheering for
cashes checks
for more money
than we’ll likely ever see,
but we cheer anyway,
as the offensive line crumbles,
the ground game is static,
and the receivers have fingers
glazed with margarine.

Like the zebras,
we throw the flag,
assess and accept the penalties,
and
acquit the insurrectionists
regardless of their guilt or innocence.

The previous commander-in-chief
wrote all those *******
a bison-horned,
organic jailhouse chow-hall
type hall pass,
so why the hell shouldn’t we riot
in the ******* streets,
or the halls of the executive branch
of the local,
state,
and
federal, feral governments
of the ungovernable?


Leave well enough alone
and
Elon Musk,
Jeff Bezos,
and
Bill “Microchip Vaccine” Gates
will figure it all out for us anyway.

Whatever happens,
*******’ Mark “Lieutenant Data” Zuckerberg
will keep us
all placated and engaged online
while the drone-strikes commence.


Social media keeps us
unaware of our socio-political/socio-economic saboteurs.

Who cares?
Aren’t there some cat-vids
on
Tic-Tacky
or whatever it’s called?

How much longer
do you think it’ll be
before we can live-stream
a state-sanctioned execution?

Phillip K. **** called
and
left a message for George Orwell.

He said something about
wanting his electric sheep returned
before Big Brother and The Holding Company
found out it’d gone missing.

Neither the electric sheep itself
nor
Janis Joplin were available for comment,
or hadn’t you herd?

Diplomatic Immunity?
Mutiny?
Mutations?
Economic,
ergonomic,
erogenous stimulation package?

Where do I sign up?

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

Sometimes I wish I had one thousand midnight hours all at once
or better yet,
a wristwatch full of the ticks and tocks of
all of the pre-dawn smallnesses for the next
decade or two.

These could be used to converse
with owls or coyotes,
foxes, hawks, ravens
or
river trout.

Our talks could be remembered
sweetly,
in the heat of a summer day
or
the dreariness of a wet, fall afternoon.

It is wished to not rely
on window sill,
moonlit memory,
mimeographed message
folded in half.  

No;
my boots would rather
chew earth,
pebble,
and
puddle,
seeking out strange nutrients.

Monday morning stanzas
are well and good,
yet
Saturday night
sonnets,
soliloquies;
those are the real
meat and potatoes
of a weekend
word ******.

Thursday night poems
are pretty ******
impressive too.

The Thunderbirds,
the phoenix of
the composition notebook.
Thursday poems and poets
ask for a sidecar of whiskey…
it shows up on the house.

Words and the working of them
should be fearless, eventually.

The best stories,
poems,
come from shadowed,
pained,
or
pining places
anyway.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

There he was,
Nathaniel,
working his spot
at the coffee shop.

I knew without asking
that he never liked being
called Nate.

Hell,
that’s why it said
Nathaniel
on his name-tag,
right?

I was feeling a bit spurred,
maybe a little raw,
for reasons which escaped
or  
I’d let run away,
who knows?

I should’ve been downright
jolly.
The holiday season hadn’t been
too terrible so far,
I had a burrito, the sauce,
a Cherry-Pepsi.

My notebook was open,
the pen was clicked,
ready to go.

The first bite is always the best.
Those flat-top grilled
piggy-guts are the bacon
that never gets eaten,
unless your in the know;
and I am.

Yet, it wasn’t mood-improving
even while it swam in the green chili
tomatillo wonders
created by:
The Sauce.

So,
after I’d chewed
&
swallowed...

“Hey Nate!
How’s it going?”

“I’m good.
I saw you come in.
I was wondering if you were
planning on ordering something
from here.”

Ah!
There it is;
a little bitterness
just for me.

“Yes, Nathaniel,
I plan on getting a coffee
after I finish my dinner.
Is that okay?”

He never said anything else.
He simply went back behind the counter.

I ate my food,
drank my soda,
felt a bit guilty.

Ol’ Nate hadn’t done
anything to me.
He’s only trying to make
his own way,
same as everyone else.

I threw my dinner-trash away,
approached the counter,
ordered an Americano,
(light and sweet)
paid,
sat back down
to write.

The drive-thru line
was going all-out.

Tonight,
Nate would have all the nickels he’d need.

In the end, our sourness
toward one another
was pointless,
meaningless,
outside of my own
stupid meanness.

Seasonal Affective Disorder
it’s called.

We,
Nathaniel and I
parted ways as patron
and
barista.

We don’t have to be friends.
No Christmas cards.
No presents under the tree.
Only coffee, cash,
a silent,
more patient,
poet,
working, writing,
sipping coffee.
Reasonable.
Silent.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I don’t know if they’re zealots or not.
(sitting in the coffee shop,
at the table across from mine)

They could be nice enough people,
just like me and you,
if perhaps,
in my opinion,
a little misguided.

(their conversation hits my rewind button)

It is the holiday season after all.
Folks do like to wear The Christ on their sleeves
like an ugly sweater to an office party.



They can have Jesus.
His birthday is coming up
sooner than later,
so they say.

I never wanted Him
in my passenger seat
after my mom got sick.


Ma strapped her Catholicism on
like Kevlar.
She feared death
nonetheless.

My crippled *** knew in Nixa, Missouri.
When that faith-healer came
to my Grandma's hometown
for a real Southern Baptist
revival.

There was fixin’
to be some preachin’,
some layin’ of the hands.

That preacher-lady,
in her white pantsuit and dyed hair,
coal black;
she asked me what I wished for.

I was a Freshman
at my momma’s
Christian Brothers
alma mater.

So, I told that preacher-lady
that I’d wanted to play football,
I wanted that purple & gold uniform,
I wanted to hold the line,
protect the quarterback,
take the cheerleader to prom,
I wanted the whole thing.

She promised me that I’d have it.
She promised me
the whole shebang.
She pushed on my forehead.
She pushed on my chest.
She whispered:

“Go ahead and let yourself fall over.”

Right then,
I knew she was a fake.
I never fell.
I stood straight-legged,
as tall as I was able.

I sank further into my cerebral palsy.
I took full ownership of it,
right then.

Because it was mine,
it was a part of me,
it made me who
I was supposed to be.

I knew that
right then as well.

That minute,
I knew I’d never need the football,
the uniform,
the cheerleader girlfriend,
none of it.

I’d need me,
myself,
my notebook,
my Robert Frost anthology,
my Metallica tapes,
all the things that Pops had ever said to me,
like:
“As long as you’re happy with who you are, that’s all that matters.”

And, it was.
Honesty was too.
The truth mattered.

It mattered more
than having that phony push on me.
It mattered more
than the show I’d figured out
she was putting on.

(I'm no fool.
And, I'm **** sure not a prop.)

But,
it didn’t stop me
from lifting my crutches up,
catching my balance,
wobbling to the back of the church
while the congregation gawked,
sitting in their pews agape.

When we got back
to Grandma’s house,
I made myself
a bowl of vanilla pudding.

Grandma & Aunt Maxine
told me how disappointed they were
in what I had done,
in the embarrassment of it.

Later, I cried;
told God how disappointed I was
that He'd let me be used like that,
embarrassed like that.

He never responded.
He didn’t care.

We don’t talk anymore;
never have,
really.

I think that we’re,
both of us,
better for it.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublication 2020

We seek a mystical awakening
this time of year.
We seek a star to follow,
so as to find a place in the desert,
a small oasis,
someplace to be born,
reborn,
born again.

Here,
where I am,
where you are,
the Earth is warming,
the weather patterns have changed to such a degree
that December doesn’t feel right anymore.

But,
the evenings are crisp enough
that you can put on a coat
and
walk for a while;
looking at the sky,
finding a star,
following it.

Christmas is a construct
based on Pagan winter rituals,
festivals attributed to the fact
that a wintertide torpor is descending;
that we know that the spring
will lead to a period of return upon the investment
in our ability to survive the harsh season ahead.  

The Christ-child is a symbol of ourselves as we wish to be,
full of hope,
a new life,
a sacrifice,
a suffering here and there
that will likely take place in either small or large ways
in the coming year.

The Three Wise Men
and their gifts
are a symbol
of the passage of time
and
the pleasantries we hope that The New Year holds for us.

What a perfect year for The Spirit of The Christmas Season.

In 2020 have we not been
as helpless as a swaddled babe?
Have we not felt far from home,
despite being locked inside?
In 2020 have we not made sacrifices of
ourselves in an effort to play our small part
in saving the world?

No?
Not really, huh?

It’s a nice thought though.

Being reborn,
being brought back
to a place in our lives
where we know how to demonstrate more kindness,
more tolerance,
more empathy than we did perhaps
in a time that wasn’t so long ago
that we cannot see it’s aftermath,
feeling residual impacts on lives,
our own
and those closest to us.

The fact of the matter is this:

“Merry Christmas”
“Happy Hanukkah”
“Joyous Kwanzaa”  

do not make up for anything.

We have to demonstrate
the spirit of these salutations
on
every other of the 364 days of this,
the next, the next,
and the next
years.

Not to mention
all of the subsequent years after that.

Look,
I’m no saint.
I’ll struggle right along with the rest of you.
Yet, we have to try.

Because,
during this year of unkindness,
of selfishness,
of hatred,
of entitlement,
of judgement…
I still saw the opposite of all these,
which allowed me to see,
even moreso,
one of the finest sights I could have wanted
to see during this decline
of civilization
known
as
2020.

I saw hope.
I saw it in all of your masked faces,
I saw it in the face of the lady who
bought me a bag of gas-station popcorn.

I saw it in the face of the gentleman whos
pizza slice I paid for one afternoon.

“I got you,” I’d said.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Is that all you're getting?” she asked.
“Yeah”
“Can we add his charges to mine?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”

Everyone said:
“Thank you.”

Yes,
Really.

I’ve got you.
Now.
and
in
2021.

No kidding.

Together.

Let’s go.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I enjoy the newness
of people that I see
out in public.
Moreso, I enjoy
the newness of couples
who have only recently
discovered one another.

The other day
I spied a man going
into the convenient mart.

My wife was inside,
fetching soft drinks for a
lunch outing we had planned;
I was waiting in the car.

The man was listening to huge, white headphones.
He was wearing a ‘Boyz N’ the Hood’ sweatsuit.
It was purple, with bright yellow lettering.

He was struggling to don his leopard print mask
without losing his headphones.
It was an interesting scenario to watch
as it unfolded;
so, I watched.

The only things going through my mind,
were the man’s obvious commitment to whatever
song he was listening to,
and
His willingness to represent such a colorful
display to pay homage to an obviously
beloved film.

I guess I was staring.

“What the **** are you looking at, ******!?”

I didn’t say anything.

Instead, I took silent accountability for my
perceived disrespect.
I looked away.

Later,
that afternoon,
I began to brood over
the incident,
the perceived slight,
the actual slight I’d absorbed in return.

Did I deserve it?
Did he deserve a pass?
Does any of this matter?

I let it go.

Later
that night,
I ran into a new couple;
two of my friends,
whom had found,
discovered one another.

They were seated near me
at a music venue.

We chatted some, between songs.

While the band played,
I watched my two, separate friends
enjoy their outing and their transition
into
couplehood.

Lots of smiles;
she rubbed his thigh;
he played drums along with the band
on her shoulders.
She laughed.

I looked.
I looked some more.
I laughed too.

It was a nice thing to see,
to witness,
to watch develop.

No one said:
“What are you looking at, ******!?”
They barely noticed me at all.

That evening remains a nice thing to recollect
into the pages of this notebook.

(which I’m doing now)

Almost all the pages are written upon.
Soon, it will be time for a another
notebook.

It’ll be new.
I’ll flip through the pages,
feeling the newness,
hearing the creaking of the cover
as I open it
for the first time.

My current notebook,
is comfortable, broken in,
easy to write in.

Sometimes, I fold the cover over,
resting my elbow on the corner
while I write.

The spine was long-ago broken;
so
my notebook doesn't mind
bearing my body-weight
along with
the weight of the words
inside.

My thoughts,
now
are on the lunch
I’d enjoyed with my family
that afternoon.

We sat around the kitchen table.

We’d picked up some take-out;
decided to go home and watch a
movie after we ate.

The wife and I sat
on the couch.

She rubbed my thigh.
I draped my arm across
her shoulder.

We looked at one another,
instead of the television.

There was twenty years of history
that flashed between us in
what was likely 20 seconds.

Still new.
Still lovely.
Still worthwhile.
Still a discovery.

A thread in the tapestry
of
our life,
created on the loom
of our love
during a lazy
Saturday
In
November.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

There is little notice
of the eddies of leaves,
trapped and circling
in the corners
of
chain-link.

Stepped on slices
of white bread;
blackened
banana peels
litter the walkways.

Someone has fed
the prison mascot,
a vagrant cat,
a volunteer mouser
for the state
of
Missouri.

A sergeant kicks
the little mound
of dry food,
sending it skittering
into the dewy grass,
wasted.

There is a pale pink
to the sky.

Leftover sunrise.

Hopefully, other eyes see it too.

“Single file lines into the chow-hall, gentlemen!”

There is little gentleness here.

It’s contraband.

Chewed to pulp,
spat where needed.
A poultice.
An ointment.

Made from the last of the marigolds,
The Susans who’s black-eyes
have healed to a bruised yellow.

Pockets full of pink sky,
cool air,
sober hopefulness.

Stepping gently
into the
caged morning.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications 2020

Lima beans.
Canned asparagus.
Polished stones.
Lint I've collected from the dryer in my home for the last month or so.
Wheat pennies.
Buffalo nickels.
Loaves of pumpernickel bread.
Bone-handled pocket knives.
Names of those whom my family have loved,
buried,
long dead.

Most of these things,
I’ve no problem with.
Some I remember fondly,
some I collect,
some I eat,
others don’t really matter at all.

We enjoy the things that we enjoy.
While we’re here,
we do our best.

Most everything else is insignificant,
of little consequence in our lives.

Certainly less so, than our children,
ourselves, neighbors,
our friends,
our husbands,
or
our wives.

Why then, dear ones,
do we natter and fret so much?

We hem and haw,
wring our hands
stressing over things like
lunch,
a mask,
or
inequality in society,
usually blaming
The Orangutan currently occupying
The Oval Office;
certainly occupying more
than his fair share of our
collective consciousness.

We’ve forgotten how to forget,
how to let it go, doing the best
that we are able,
where we are,
with what we have.

We must remember
ourselves,
our values,
our votes.

Because,
apathy
or laziness
lost 2016
for all of us,
whether we believe it
or not.

So,
I plan to remember,
emphatically,
unequivocally,
unimpeachably,
who I am,
where I come from,
what matters to me more
than anything else.

One
One
Zero
Three
The year,
two-thousand
twenty.

You are you.
I am I.
We are we.

History,
our legacy,
our democracy,
our liberty
is at stake.

These reside
in our hands always,
being more important than
canned asparagus,
polished stones,
or
a pocketful of wheat pennies.

Specifically,
especially so,
on
eleven-three-twenty-twenty.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Where have we gone wrong?
Is this wrong?

We can hardly stand to speak to
one another anymore.

Does anyone remember how to
actually use the telephone feature
of the device that they carry
in their pockets?

Is this the future?
Am I living in the past?

How does one stay grounded, centered,
in the moment, these days, these months,
this godforsaken year?

Everything,
every conversation,
even my plate of biscuits & gravy
has been politicized, polarized,
punctuated, with the pugilism of
keystroke pundits.

On most Sunday afternoons,
I sit and compose.

My own musings;
the oatmeal of my mind.
Waiting for Goldilocks,
maybe a bear or three.

Come Monday,
I’m incarcerated for the day,
playfully playing the role
of Counselor
to men with addiction-issues;
an outright aversion to following
the norms of our less-than-gracious
Golden Age.

I might say that I’m playacting,
but I take it all very seriously.
(Not myself, mind you,
the work done inside those iron-gates.)

I refuse to perform with an angry eye,
heart or mind.
Seeking
clarity.
Showing
concern.

Are you a help or a hindrance?

This might be the question
we all could answer,
especially now,
on the downward *****
of
The 21st year
of the 3rd Millienia.

We’ve elected an inept celebrity.

Several of us love that facist fact,
loading out in our flag-adorned F-150s.

(Yee-haw!)

What a shame.
What a sham.
What a shambles our humanity
is in.

Our souls scream for something
that feels like success,
security, surety.

Even those whom are seen
as the least of us;
who vote against their own
self-interests,
they deserve better than
The Beast of Us.

Our faces hidden behind masks,
tearful eyes,
our fellow citizens have died,
our leaders lied,
we rioted, protested,
looted,
in response to jack-booted oppressors.

Confessors?
None.

This battle,
this race of inequity
may never be won.

Still,
we run.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublicarions 2020

I’ve stayed quietly
undiagnosed
for decades now.

Does it even matter anymore?

If I give you my attention,
you might notice the deficit,
you might not.

I wanted to spin out,
to crash out,
to bottom out,
to drop out.

Never could though;
it would have been too terrifying.

To not be able to get away,
to run away,
If things, people, or situations
got away from me.

What if my friends
didn't stay very friendly?

I’ve never pretended
to be very smart.
(Clever? Maybe.)

Baloney sandwiches.
Never steaks.

My married life
saved my physical
life, a fact I can’t deny
even if I wanted to.

Now,
the most terrible, wonderful
rock n’ roll thing I do
is try to stay up until
2 am
on a Saturday night.

I’m too old for that **** these days.
(I do it anyway.)

Trying to hold onto something
young that still resides inside,
I suppose.

I’ll keep holding on.
It’s not a bad thing;
not wrong to do.

Touchstones are important.
People.
Places.
Things.
Songs.

Our barbaric yawps are meant
to be heard over the rooftops.

To indulge in experience,
to give our attention to
as many fleeting things
as our hearts can hold onto,
as our fingers can grasp.

Whitman says that this is why we are here.
I agree.
The meaning of life is present in the oils
That we leave behind,
in our
fingerprints.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I guess I caught the ****.

I always thought I might.
Ever since this whole calamity started,
I thought I might end up with it.
I figured that it was just my kind of luck.

The Mean 19 came home to roost.

We were lucky enough to spit it out
14 days later.

It might not even matter,
apparently boredom
&
the greater good
don’t sit well with very many folks.

‘Mandate?’
‘What kind of ****** **** is that?’
‘I want a ******* cheeseburger!’

So,
here they come,
out into our careful weekend wars.

Our mission,
clandestine.

Theirs,
to be casualties before the first round
is fired.
They crash the party,
as loud and overbearing
as a congress of baboons.

They’ll make sure this lasts forever.

‘He brought back football, you know!’
‘Made a lot of us real proud!’

Really?

Well, I’ll be a fly on ****,
or
the head of The Vice President of The United States;
whichever you prefer.

How we howled!

All the while, some 22 y/o marketing genius saw
dollar signs in an investment of fly-swatters
with our team’s logo on it!

‘It’s a liberal-on-the-attack conspiracy’
they cried!
‘Those Socialist ******* knew that fly would be there.’
‘I bet they’d been training flies for months.’

Go ahead,
shout from the rooftops.
Let everyone know what you’ll wear or won’t wear,
how you’ll vote,
how it won’t matter if you do,
or don’t.

For God’s sake,
forget everything you’ve ever been told
&
just shut your stupid mouths.

Cast your ballots quickly and quietly,
then cast yourselves
into the sea.

You’ll never win anyway,
it’s not in the cards.

The deck is stacked against
the likes of us,
&
THEY cheat better than
we could ever hope to.

Go to sleep.
Wake up.
Go to work.
Come home.
Cook dinner.
Eat dinner.
Clean up.
Watch some TV
or
*******.

Nothing really changes anyway.

After all,
there’s no more Van Halen,
is there?
So,
you might as well…

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

We are lost.
Gone.
Tomorrow arrived,
we were not ready.

The future showed up,
we showed our ***.

Since we couldn’t
have the anti-gravity
boots,
the city in the
clouds,
or
free healthcare for
everyone,
we settled on the 24-hour
******* tapas bar,
turning it into an
all-you-can-choke-down
affair.

We called it progress.

We don’t need smart-bomb
drone strikes
when we’ve got
over-loved,
under-disciplined,
entitled church-mongers
inside our Wal-Mart,
maskless,
during a *******
global pandemic.

Not to worry though,
Jesus surely has the wheel.

Ah, who am I kidding?!

Jesus isn’t ‘up there’;
he’s down here
making sure
we can still have celery
and
strawberries
to forget about
in our refrigerators.

They’ll go limp,
like our overused
out-of-touch-with-reality
peckers.

Maybe then we’ll
be a little less inclined to
**** everything
up.

Not to worry,
the anti-anti-*******
industry means
more than having a stable
means means.
You know what I mean?
Is that mean to say?

It doesn’t ******* matter
because it’s true.

We march, we riot,
we loot, we get shot,
or
we shoot.

Where in all of this remains our
fundamental humanity?

Is it still on the altar?
Still hanging from the cross?

Doesn’t really matter,
does it?
The dollar is the boss.

At what cost though?

How do we pay what we owe
if we don’t know who the debt belongs to;
who holds the promissory note?

Is it a blood debt?

It sure feels like it
these days.

Who,
in the end,
really gives a ****?

We’re paying on credit anyway
&
horrors abound as the massive
massacre moves ever onward
toward some unknown
finish line.

Not to worry.

We’ll figure out what we need;
what we’re after;
who’s the master,
who’s the slave.

It all comes out in the wash.
The Blood of the Lamb
or Uncle Sam.

Not to worry.

As long as we’re clocked in,
everything will
be just
fine.

*  

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I sweep dead crickets
out of my office.

They come inside,
making their way
under the fire door.

The door leads
to
A-Yard, a quick exit for me
if the alarm ever goes off for a
more legitimate reason than some
****-bird having a contraband
smoke in the john.

The crickets come in;
they find
slick concrete floors,
painted cinder block walls
and certain death.

They’ve got no *******
traction;
really, it could be called a false-start.

Perhaps, they laugh,
spitting their tobacco juice,
thinking how clever they are
to have escaped the late-summer
heat.

Once here,
they find that the hop
is hard to dance,
so they play their cricket-fiddle
and listen, thirstily
to the echoes of
their own songs
ringing out and dying slow,
here,
on the inside.

They do the same,
barely moving by the time
I arrive on the wing.

Circles, mostly.
One leg broken from trying too hard
in this environment,
hoping to hop away,
to escape into someplace better
than my uninviting
office space.

I have spoken of similar circles,
redundancies,
in this very room
that the crickets die in.

These men,
jump, hop, and bash
themselves into a submissive state
often before they even realize it’s
done.

Shattered,
squashed,
ultimately swept out of the office,
their broken lives written on the side
of a manila folder.

We try,
they and I,
to
sing in ways
using words
that echo louder
than the songs of those
crickets who choose
to die
in prison.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I think I know
what’s happening,
after the fact.

The house is more or less closed up.

The TV room,
to the kitchen,
down the hallway,
the bathroom,
the bedroom.

Do it again and again,
world without end,
amen.

He keeps it hot.
His bones hurt
like the unused rooms
with their doors
shut.

The newspapers,
junk-mail on
the kitchen table.

We clear space
for coffee cups,
conversations.

It’s small,
but it’s a horde
nonetheless.

The result of boredom,
the fact that it’s not really
hurting anyone,
nobody complains.

Angela straightens things
up when we come over for a meal
now and then.

(She does the cooking.)

He’s lonely.
He wants to talk to someone.
Who?

No one really talks
his brand of talk
these days.

He’s still working on the book
that he started writing
when I was 16-years-old.

He leaves us alone
on the weekends, mostly.

We do our thing,
he does his.

During the week,
we feed him dinner
most nights.

It’s a good arrangement.
We talk a lot as Angie
cleans up afterward.

It’s alright.
It’s fine.

Cynthia still casts
shadows in the house
that I grew up in.

I wish she was home
with him.

He does too.

We all know it.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I’ve been eating popcorn
out of my hat.

It was a freebie that I picked up
at the Gower town fair.

The hat advertises the
centennial anniversary of some local bank
that I’d not heard of until that day.

It was a hot day.
The sun was brutal,
trying to beat us down.

(Pops, the boys, & I.)

We’d walked the perimeter
of the park,
the town square,
in our efforts to see what was what.

We eventually settled on some
kettle corn,
a couple of BBQ
sandwiches apiece.

We’d brought
gas-station fountain drinks
with us;
sneaked ‘em right on in.

My sons found the rides
straightaway.

They spent about $20 of
mine and my own father’s
money.

They masked up,
were cautiously carefree;
stopping for squirts
of sanitizer between
swings, bounces, and bumps.

Pops and I
found a bench
away from everyone else.

I’d gotten him a hat too.

We used them to shield
our heads, our eyes
for the afternoon.

Today,
mine’s an impromptu,
improvised popcorn
bowl.

I’d lined it with a couple
of unfolded brown paper napkins
first;
proud of my ingenuity.

As I poured my first
cap full,
I could almost hear
my wife’s chiding
words.

I chuckled to myself
and

didn’t write them down.

I wrote these instead,
while I munched another
handful of popcorn
from my hat.

*
  
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

“Fear of Fear” was the title of that day’s coursework in “Criminal Thinking” Class. The class addresses thinking errors that these guys tend to make on the regular.  We, every one of us, have made these errors in our own lives too.  The material, written by human beings for human beings, has its flaws and its merits, like anything else.  So, the way that I go about teaching the class is to read through the material as it is, comment on the things that could have been addressed differently, then focus on the merit of the material and ask the guys to expound in either agreement or disagreement on said merits. The discussions can really take off from there. But, we always land the ship focusing on the merits that the guys can agree on and take our ah-ha moments, no matter how small, where we find them.

“I’m not afraid of anything”, he said.
“I just don’t have that in me anymore.”

We go on to talk about some scenarios that he’s dealt with in his not-so-long-ago criminal life.
He tells me that he has been sent on errands by people who were his overseers, out there on the streets. He tells me that on some of these errands, he has called his mother and advised that she should know that he loves her and that if she doesn’t hear from him again…

“Now, to be clear, I don’t like these situations”, he explains..
“I’m not afraid of them.”
“I just don’t like them.”

He goes on…

“Let me give you another example.
If my kid wants to go on a roller coaster, I’ll go.
I’m not afraid to get on the roller coaster, but I don’t like them.
I’m always thinking about the cars flying off of the track and crashing into the ground.”

“I’ll ride my Harley down the highway at over 100mph and not even give it a second thought.
Yet, a roller-coaster…
I don’t like ‘em, but I’ll get on one if my kid wants to go.
I’m not afraid.”

Now it’s my turn...

“Okay”.
“So, you’re contemplating the “what if’s”, right?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“And, when you’re out there on the highway, you’re too busy enjoying yourself to contemplate the ifs, yeah?”

“Right.”

“Riding on roller coasters causes some trepidation though.”

“Yeah.”

“You think about what might happen.”

“Yeah.”

“If you can avoid a roller coaster, you will.”

“Yeah.”

“Going on missions for the higher-ups causes some trepidation?
You call your mom, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Once you’re out of here, are you going on any more of these missions for the bosses?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Because you’re worried about what might happen?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s another word for trepidation?”


These  guys aren’t stupid.
They certainly aren’t cowards.
They just tend to think in ways that have led them down paths that might have been avoidable.
They are human beings that make mistakes and bad decisions, just like any one of us.

These guys are making me smarter.

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

There are gladiolas,
black-eyed Susan
growing in wooden barrels
behind the chain-link, below the razor-wire.

The Powerhouse
they call it,
the building that houses
the generators, the boilers,
whatever else it takes to keep
these cinder-block cell-houses
warm, cool, or otherwise
habitable.

As I make my way up toward
the building I work in,
I pause to look at these blooms.

I must.

For it is in seeing them
that I may be seeing the
only beauty offered that day.

There is so little here
that is beautiful,
one might say.

The floors are scuffed,
the walls,
the paint, chipped away
or graffitied with pen-caps
or makeshift knives,
not looking for that space between a cell-mate's ribs
just then.

There is rust on the window sills,
on the bedposts bolted together,
bunkbeds for the bruiser or the bruised.

Still,
the gladiolas, those black-eyed Susan's
persistence in palpable,
as is the potential of every single
human being housed inside.

The perspective shifts.

There's beauty in that potential,
presented in the form of actualized,
engaged participation in today's classwork
or
small-group discussion.

'What's this?
A breakthrough?
Sir, is that a teardrop?'

Real,
not tattooed.

Beautiful.

More so than any gladiola
or
black-eyed Susan here
could hope for.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

What a luxury this is,
to **** indoors,
when what’s out there is so oppressive,
in so many ways.

Let us speak to one another
of our shadow-lived lives.
We’ll use words of romance,
reverence, street-toughened
prideful parlance.

We’ll speak openly, shamelessly
of ******* outside.

This phrase seems to be
the only applicable euphemism
for a life spent tripping over corpses,
seeing swarms of golden bees buzz by our brains,
the fatality of their sting
as yet unknown to us.

We’ll smoke awhile,
speaking of our children as well.
We’ll pretend that we give a ****
what their future holds, knowing all that needs to be
known happens in the immediate,
the now.

(The next score, the next hit, the next left-handed dollar,
the blood-blackened sky,
ruling
reigning,
******* outside.)

Still,
we speak sentences,
bits,
set-backs full of ‘do as I say, not as I do’,
fully expecting to protect everyone
but ourselves,
all the while continuing to
**** outside.

Finally,
we end up here;
the now here,
nowhere.

This place,
with it’s all-too-honest
hallways where we can lie
and deny that we did it to ourselves,
our children, our families.

We know,
that poverty and parenting
play their respective,
inter-generational roles.

Yet,
in the end,
each of us has at least a modicum of understanding
that there are alternatives
to the ineffective intellectual
toilet-bowl mentality
that keeps us
******* outside.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

We are made
of time and decisions.
It is not destiny
that guides us
nor
fate that stirs the winds
which fill our sails.
It is time,
alongside the very choices we make
which define us, create us.

Molecules, atoms, electrons.
Matter. Space dust. The very cosmos,
the time-space continuum.

Time.

We, our very selves
are the product of a singular
moment.
Even if that moment
is or was not as sweet
as we might wish it to be
or have been for ourselves
or  
those who put movement
and
momentum into our
very creation;
we
are
made
of
time.

Life,
once that particular
clock begins to tick,
is ultimately our own.

How we react to
what happens
along the way
is that which makes an individual’s life
what life is.

These are the terms and conditions.
These are the rules.
They’re always changing.

Eventually, time’s up.
Food.
We become food for worms.
Time moves on.
Without us.
The tree grows.
We feed it.
The sun rises and sets.
We don’t see it.
Time passes regardless,
heedless to our absence.

Would to doom.
Gone too soon.
No fork. No knife.
No spoon.

By light of the moon,
stillborn youth.
No more lies,
only truth.

Until
the end
of
time;
undecided.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

The bars on the graph grow taller.
The bars on the windows grow stronger.
It’s nice when the moon is visible during the day;
it reminds us that it, the moon, is always,
that we are always.
The bars on our phones let us know that
our signal is strong, able to be heard.
Our opinions are that much more valid as a result.
The bars, with the beers, bourbons, and wines
are closed against COVID,
so we sit self-righteous in
our quarantined quarters,
pecking our keyboards hatefully,
against hate…
Punching Nazis with posts to our
social media accounts,
but little else.
No sweat equity?
No sweat.

The delineations that we create are constructs.
Complete and utter *******.
They were either created for us, before we were ever born
or
we created them.

The only difference is light
and
darkness.

This maze is shifting,
the starting point
seems
different for every single
life being lived.
Fair?
What’s that?

All Lives Matter.
Yes.
But, not right now.

In this moment, certain lives matter more.
The focus,
too sharp.
The crosshairs,
too centered.
Aimed all too well.

Another wall of the maze
of inequality, inequity
societal instability,
insanity.
Eugenics?
Genocide?
Systemic stupidity!

Orwellian,
anti-human
attitudes!

Ruled by wads of green paper
or
small slivers of plastic
riding our *****,
slid snugly inside of our
wallets.

The walls of the maze grow taller,
the bars on the graph do the same.

As long as it all comes with
an “I voted’ sticker,
Right?

Inalienable rights?
What are those?
Did we learn about those in school?
Did we?
I forget.

Oh well...

What time do the bars open?
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

They asked me,
yesterday,
as we sat on the
half-court
on the recreation
yard,
having ‘small-group’:

“If it meant that you could have your legs back,
would you sell your soul?”

Have my legs back?

I knew what they meant,
so I didn’t need an explanation.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar question,
theirs.
It was one I’d answered several times
before.

Never, though, inside these fences.

As this was the case,
I felt good in my reply.

“No. I like who I am.
Who I am is based
inside of the fact
that I was born
with these legs,
that work this way,
turn that way,
always bending this way.”

They had trouble wrapping
their criminal thoughts around
the ideas of liking oneself
or
not taking whatever
was to be had.

We moved past it soon enough,
sitting on plastic safety chairs
in a semi-circle under the
basketball hoop.

We moved on to discuss
spirituality,
empathy,
humanism
on the warm
concrete
under the warm sun,
which glinted off
of the razor-wire
brilliantly.
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Essential,
essentially so,
entirely committed
to being thus.
It’s life outside
of the walls
of my home;
it’s a staving off
of
becoming
stark-raving-mad.

Awake at 5am,
on the pavement
by 6.

I take my chances
with COVID 19
in service of
my family,
my state,
myself
and
men whom are frightened,
shot, stabbed, burned, broken
humans
afraid of nothing on the other side of
incarceration
except for their futures, uncertain,
stopped short by a virus,
an unseen enemy,
a murderer without a shadow,
killing, perhaps in well-lit hallways,
carried in by the unsuspecting
usual suspects.
No fever.
No cough.
Carriers nonetheless.

I can’t stay home.

Because,
idle hands do The Devil’s business,
and
God never comes to visit.

So,
I need neighbors  
to shelter-in-place
saving lives;
mine,
theirs,
as well as others
yet to be begun
once again,
free.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I peeled the orange whole,
the bitter pith,
the stinging juice,
pulled into sections
eaten one
at a time.

I thought of my new office,
my new filing cabinet,
full of offender homework,
headed for the shredder.

I couldn’t help but read
some;
just a glance now and then.

The bitter pith of justice served,
the salty tears of regret.

The oranges I’ve seen
scattered on the yard,
they remind me each
of a life made hard,
difficult by way of choices made,
more and still by prices paid.

I saw a letter written from father
to infant son,
the pages spoke of deeds
never undone.

“We were drunk.
his daddy said,
“there was an accident
...and, I’m sorry son, but mommy’s dead.”
“I’d ruined our lives on a single night,
I’m doing my best to make it right.”

Like the peel of the orange,
that letter’s no more,
&
that boy’s daddy paid
what was owed.

He’ll never have his son’s
mother back,
but,
from what I read,
his heart wasn’t black.

Daddy made an error,
in a terrible way,
spending some time
in prison grays.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications 2020

They’re playing “Life”
in the living room
while I write this.

Alexander and I
believe board games
live entirely too well
up to their names,
refusing, for now,
to play along.

We,
Alex and I
seek a more solitary
style of entertainment.

Books and music
hold sway here.

As we shelter
ourselves from infection,
leading to introspection,
relegation to the confines
of our respective
residences.

The Mean 19
is out there,
walking,
stalking,
mocking,
locking us down.

When we ask,
weeks down the road,
what COVID did,
it’ll be more about
what we’ve done.

How we cared,
what we shared,
art we created,
while we waited.

So,
let’s play.

There’s more
to this,
to everything.

It’s more than just…
a bored game.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

We talked,
my lover and I,
about this illness,
this virus that
has us all locked
inside our homes,
hoarding toilet paper,
hand-sanitizer,
hamburger.

We spoke of
my mother,
the challenges
that she and her husband
struggled with,
how they bested her
on the beginning
of her 71st lap,
barely started,
never  allowed to
finish.

“I’m glad she’s not here for this.
It would be so hard for her and your dad.”
says Angela.

I nod,
wondering how
in-home dialysis
would’ve worked out.

“I am too,”
I agree after a pause.

She’d overcome enough,
paid her dues
long enough
to pass
this pandemic by,
not sheltering-in-place,
instead,
breathing easily
as an afternoon stoll
across the face
of The Universe.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Give the horses sugar cubes.
Give the eagle a salmon.
Give the monkey a ripe banana.
Give the donkey a carrot.
No one knows what any of this means.
Trust me, I don’t either.
You can say that these lines are deep,
you can say that these lines are shallow.
I assure you that they’re neither.  
I’m writing to understand the roar in my skull,
to quell the torrent that whips my brain.
I’m writing these words outside of myself;
if I don’t make time to write them down,
they drive me insane.
Into this notebook the ink must flow,
like blood coursing through my veins.

Without paper,
ink, and pen,
surely I’d be wracked with pain.  

I write them down onto this pulp,
I read them from this page.
For I, myself, am a Thunderbird,
I offer my life onstage.  

It is this art inside myself
that I must give away.
To everyone and nobody at all,
I give myself away.
I give everything I have
and am,
to being a storyteller,
a poet,
a husband,
a parent,
a good man,
a friend,  
or just me…

Jay

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Which way are you going?

I’m going this way.

Robert Frost told me to.

But, it really doesn’t matter
one way or the other
what way,
which way,
when way
you want to go.  

Mr. Frost and I
have miles to go
before we sleep.

These woods are dark and deep,
so we have to be going soon.

We’re following the paths
The Universe has set before us.
We have business
at the end of the line.

But, while we travel,
we’re gonna get a few kicks in.
We’re gonna do whatever
the hell we feel like doing.

Someone once said that the woods,
the snow,
the roads,
the convergence
that Frost laid out
is a metaphor,
an allegory,
some *******.  

I’ve always taken Frost’s words
at face value.
Those two roads
met in the woods,
the choices that we make,
they make all the difference.

They,
we,
create the outcome.
The Universe
simply
unfolds
a map.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

How new this is,
how odd,
how interesting.

I can feel
the eyes
seeking to understand,
deciding that it doesn't matter,
giving me what passes
for my due
regardless.

I make that half-mile
journey on my handicapped
legs because I want to,
because I need to.

It’s part of what passes for respect
around here.

I walk for myself,
for them who live behind
those gates, those fences,
so as to assist in the possibility
of mending the punitive
as well as the personal;
patching holes.

Yet, their eyes burn.

It’s not polite to stare,
so I’ll stop.

It’s their house,
this 1 House,
this community,
of convicts, inmates,
offenders...
semantics,
synonyms,
systems of...
reform,
rebirth,
rehabilitations sought,
as yet unfound.

We,
they and I,
are seekers,
still.

Thus the march
continues.
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Why are these children not in school?
The table of super-white, well-dressed to the point of looking like an ad, would have a hard time getting arrested if they were wielding machetes are at the table adjacent mine.
They look like a cult.
Karen and Becky look over at me. I feel like an amateur still-life painting that didn’t even make it to The Member’s Gallery.
Karen looks like she knows that she’s better than me, than the baristas behind the counter.
She finds us all mildly annoying, but she’s doing her best to maintain an expected level of decorum.  
Little Reed has a necktie on.
He looks like a Reed. Freckles. He’s a ginger, like his dad. Pastor Kyle.
That’s no *******. I’ve overheard that Daddy-O really is a pastor somewhere.
I never figured out where. It’s not really important, is it?
However, I still want to know why Reed and little Becky aren’t in school.
I want to know.
I won’t ask.
But, still…
Reed’s tie is spectacular.
It goes with his shirt beautifully.
The Windsor knot is impeccable.
I bet Reed has no idea how to tie a Windsor knot.
I know I don’t.

These people are beautiful monsters.
And, they are likely perfectly harmless,
Innocuous.

I bet they vote.
Which makes them less so.

They are every cliche.

The ladies glance in my direction now and then.
They’re wondering what I’m doing.
What I’m writing in this book.

The desire to strike up a conversation is huge.
I remain silent,
observant.

I want to ask Becky and Reed if they can diagram this sentence.
I won’t ask though.

I have to get out of here.
I feel like I’m in the presence
of America’s Greatness that few American’s
are actually privy to.

It smells like juniper.
Gin martinis or with tonic,
used to swallow secret extra Xanax tabs.
or
money used to buy hookers.

(paid out of the collection plate.)


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

First comes Lunch Break.

“I see you writing over there and on Sundays I can hear you talking to your friend,”
she says.

She continues,
while her eyes sparkle with a mischief that is neither unfamiliar or unwanted.
“You guys are funny.”

I laugh
&
remember how flushed her face was
on the Sunday that she sat with us.

Lunch Break is an older gal;
I should stop to re-read her nametag
but I haven’t.

Right now,
her wry smile;
shaking laughter remind me of my mother’s
if only
in the space
of a single
breath.

Popcorn stops by next.

She too flutters matron’s
angel-wings as she looks in
on me.

“I’ve just popped a fresh batch,”
she informs.

I nod my thanks; scribbling onward
to a perceived victory
of poetic or otherwise literary
proportions.

Feeling particularly pitched at,
I pick up a box of Popcorn’s
salty siren-song scented
offering.
I call her Princess as I cash out.

“The new girl needs a name.”
says Princess Popcorn.
“It’s her first day. You have to name her too.”

I don’t know why they like this,
but they do.

Nowadays, it’s considered toxic & sexist.
(I call it old-school and wink in a knowing way.)

The New Girl…

Her tag tells me that her name is:
Jordan.

It’s she that I give my popcorn money to.

I smile.
Jordan returns the gesture.
“How’s day number one going,”
I ask.
“Okay”
says Jordan.

I pay for the box of popcorn
with a stack of nickels stolen
Off of Alexander’s bookshelf.
“$1.08”,
chimes Jordan.

She hands me 2 pennies back.
“Maybe tomorrow will be better than just okay.”
I say.
“Make the rest of today the best it can be.”

The New Girl gives a big, toothy grin and says…

“You too.”
I walk back to the cafe side
to munch popcorn
I don’t really want while I
line the nest of
this poem
with the feathers
of
gas station angels.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

I never knew
that I needed
poems,
that they came from
outside
of me,
from some ethereal
plane,
which would come to
take root on the
inside.
So,
yes,
I find that I need poems
like I need leg-bones
in order to stay upright.

I need to bathe in the shadows
of thoughts
and feelings that
are not my own
just as much as I need the air,
knowing that oxygen
has no owner.

Like…
(notebooks,
pens
&
apple beer or whiskey
now and then.)

I need your poems
more than I need
my own,
most of the time.

Your poems are my poems
that I have yet to write,
because my life is your
life is my life is our life
is…

Like leg-bones,
like marrow.
like heartbeats,
like fried-egg sandwiches,
like a *** of fresh
coffee.

Like steak burritos,
with green tomatillo
salsa.

Like me,
like you,
like us.

We are poems,
are poetry,
are essential,
are
alive for
ourselves
&
each other.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2020

I have your Christmas present from Jan.
I have the note that she wrote for you as well.
The note is dated: 12/1/2019.
That wasn’t all that long ago.

The gift is interesting too.
It’s a copy of ‘The Best American Poetry of 1997’.
The pages are dog-eared throughout.

Did Jan do that for you?
Did you do that?
I’ll likely never know.

The book is 23 years old.
The gift is 59 days old.

Who loved it longer?
This thought limps & staggers
around the rooms of my mind
as I page through 1997’s ‘best’ poetic offerings.

It’s almost a zen-like meditation
that allows me to touch the name
of the love of this book
and
its
contents as they pertain to a
59 day old gift from Jan
to you
now to Jay…
all of us unknown to one another;

just like
Charles Simic’s poem:
‘The Something’
was to me
only
five minutes
ago.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

dying a thousand small deaths,
profound yet altogether meaningless,
dotting the t’s,
turning blind eyes,
listening to the noises of the nines
while waiting for eleven.

how high does this thing go anyway?

everyone knows that I like it loud
so you better quiet down.

the embers are still aglow.
there’s still a little life left, right?
a little bit of heat? heart?

I’ve only ever wanted to be a five,
maybe a seven;
somewhere north of hell,
maybe a few miles
south of heaven.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

This isn’t it.
This is not the end.
It is merely a quickening.
Believing that I’m
all together and all alone.
Falling apart,
empty,
decomposition,
decay.

Half-life.
Barely living.
Counting down to zero.

All I have left
is detonation,
destruction,
decimation...

This isn’t it.
This is not the end.
It is merely a quickening.

This is a hatching,
arising from one’s
Chrysalis,
an awakening through
pain and chaos.

This is a trip through
the ****** grinder
to see what you’re made of.

It helps to remember
that the caterpillar
turns into a mass of virtual
Nothingness
before the wings come out.

(I think I read that somewhere.)

It’s said that the butterfly remembers  
those days painfully;

In spite of the fact they hurt so bad,
the wings are worth it.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Today, I went to the donut place that has had a couple of copies of my book for sale. They’re down one copy. That’s an interesting story and has some pretty interesting follow-up involved. The follow-up took place this morning. It involves a conversation with the person whom had purchased one of the aforementioned copies of ‘Gray Spaces”.  I’ll do my best to detail it here:

Ken, one of the oldboys at the donut place has purchased one of the copies of my book that Matt, the owner of the shop, has placed in there. He and I were talking over donuts and coffee one morning. Ken’s a bit of an opinionated loudmouth and gets on people’s nerves now and then. Sometimes such that people tell him where to go or choosing the higher ground, ignore him and treat him as more of an annoyance than anything else.
But, I like him.  He’s a former East-Coaster, specifically an old-time Boston guy. He sounds great. He’s a nay-ba-hood guy who just might have ‘pahked his cah in Hahvahd Yahd’ once or twice.
Anyway, he asked me what I did for work and I told him that I was a social worker until recently and that I was also a writer. He made some smart-assed remark about how I couldn’t possibly be a real writer as I had not published a book. I asked him how he knew I hadn't. His response was typical. He suggested that I looked like the type of guy who probably wouldn't be able to publish a book.  So, I showed him a copy of “Gray Spaces” making sure that he took note of the author’s photo on the back. It was an interesting thing, because as soon as Ken was convinced that I had actually written the book, he laid out a ten-spot. I handed him the book. That was the cover price. I didn’t realize that Donut Matt had wanted to charge a bit more to cover his shipping cost. Matt got a little cooked on the deal but was cool overall.
Ken had his book, Matt had ten bucks, I had sold a book. Life was looking pretty alright right then.

A few days later, I’m back in the shop. Ken comes in and he sits down at my table. He’s usually one to sit at the table with the other oldboys but sometimes Ken’s mouth gets him into trouble and he winds up being mildly and quietly ostracized by the other fellows in that they ignore him as their conversation marches ever onward.  

Ken sits with me. We, he and I are in a corner booth. I have coffee and a plate full of small cake donuts. Ken pours his own coffee, orders a cinnamon roll, pays and sits down. Now, I know that Ken has a good heart but he’s a nay-ba-hood guy. He grew up playing the dozens, he’s East Coast. He’s a pain in the ***, I like him, so he ain’t gonna bother me none. Plus, I’m curious…  I ask:

So, did you like the book?
No.
No?
That’s right, no.   But, I can’t seem to put it down.
Really?
Yeah, really.
Why not?
I don’t know. It keeps making me stop and think. And, it turns out that the stories or whatever you call ‘em; they make me see you in a different light.
Yeah? How’s that?
Well, you’re mad about some stuff.
Yeah, sometimes. But, I also like a lot of stuff. I see the good stuff where someone else might see garbage.
Yeah, I can see where that’s true.
So, is there any particular piece of writing that you did like or that made you think or feel a certain way?
No. But, there are those stories in there that made me feel bad that I give you such a hard time about opening the door and razz you about walking funny and all. I promise you, I’ll never do that again.

(Ken has a reputation for razzing folks in that shop. He’s not too nice about it sometimes either. But, there was a time that he slipped and fell on the ice last winter. He broke his hip pretty good and was laid up until March of this year. He recounted the story of his fall and subsequent recovery and said that now he has to move even more slowly and deliberately than he did before the accident. He’s 85 years old and has just now developed a sense of empathy regarding mobility concerns.)

We continued our conversation:

I like it when you give me the business. It gives me an excuse to give it right back to you.
Yeah?
Yeah. You don’t bother me. Why don’t you use some of this newly discovered empathy and be a bit nicer to the staff here?
Maybe I will.

We finished our respective breakfasts and I got up to go next door to The Goodwill Store. I wanted to look at books that I might give to some of my friends for Christmas.
Ken watched me go. He got up from our table and moved to join the other fellas.
As I walked past the window he rapped on it. When I looked in his direction he flipped me the bird.
How poetic.
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019

Thankful for what?
I've lost myself and gained an insight into my own stupidity, my own arrogance. I think that I think too much. I think that I know too much. I think I'm right much of the time. (I'm not.)

What am I? Who am I?
I feel like I know who I am.
But, I need to be something too.
And, that, friends, is the lizard-faced terror of our Capitalist society.

Some of us know who we are and that is definition enough.
Others of us need more than one definition.
Poet.
Writer.
Raconteur.
Able to stave off poverty,
socioeconomic savior?
Survivalist instructor to the less-fortunate?

What am I now?
Not very much at all.

This is not a good line of thinking.

My self-talk is not very good these days.

I want to make something happen.

Doors opening or closing,
is the hell of this particular hallway.

There are no open doors.
Every one of them is locked.

My kicking is bootless
as are my cries.

(Positively Shakespearean!)

I'm waiting for someone who carries a key.
This is not my style.
I want to wreck some rooms.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

Yesterday,
I sat in a common area
of the local university and wrote.

A student
in a power-chair
would glide by
now and then.

I liked the hiss of the wheelchair’s tires
on pavement
or
inside on the hard floor.
I liked the hum
of the motor that accompanies.

I can recognize these sounds
for what they are
almost immediately.

To me,
the sounds are comfortable,
they have a familiarity
despite the fact that they
are not my own sounds.

They are not the click
and
clatter of my crutches
and
I wouldn’t presume to identify with them,
yet they bring about a kindred.

They, these hisses and hums,
bring forth a needed feeling of
‘not-alone-ness’
that I have come to relish of late.

To me,
these are the sounds of,
at the very least,
a modicum of success
and
always of perseverance.
  
Otherwise,
we might all be werewolves
out for a stroll under the light
of the full moon.

I grab small gladnesses where I am able.

The streets are full of wild things
that snap,
snarl,
and
sometimes bite.

I walk among them,
having written of small kindness,
things familiar if strange.

They let me pass unharmed,
still warmed by feelings of belonging.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPbublications 2019

You have to get it right.
Except for when you don’t.
It’s okay to have ****** it all up.
Just don’t live there.

Mistake.

We tried.
We had an opportunity
to do some taking.
We missed.
It happens.

I have to remind myself
all
the
time.

*
-JBClaywell
©PZPublications 2019

A lot of people look familiar.

At this point I think
that I might have seen
everyone in town at least once.

I know a lot of people too.
However,
I feel like very few people know me.
I like it that way.

I’m pretty open
in regard to myself and my life.
It is, after all, what makes its way
into my art.

How could I be a good storyteller
if I didn’t tell true stories?  

Still, I tend to keep to myself
more often than not.

My small family is all I need;
all I really want.

I do whatever I am able
to make sure that everything I do
means something to someone.
Sometimes it’s just me.

Cooper taught me to look at friendship through a different prism.
He showed me how to find
different significance
in the way the lights and colors
moved through
the time and space that had been allotted
them in any given moment.

I’m supposed to be able to see the importance of a single moment;
to see the history
while it’s still the present
and
to live in the moment
all while saving it for posterity.

Time travel is possible if you show your friends enough love.

Morrison and I spoke of
the aforementioned
at great length
the last time we were together.

I recounted times when I used to believe
that the only friends I had,
the only true friends I had,
were those people who would
regularly interrupt my sleep schedule
in the name of adventure,
overflow my ashtrays,
empty my refrigerator
all while turning that night
into the next day.

Everything served over-easy,
greasy with butter,
and
spiced with Tabasco sauce.

Our friendships were and are real enough,
but indigestion,
Insomnia,
omnipresence?

The requirements of my youth
are overworked
and simply incorrect.

A real friend can be quietly encouraging,
or someone who leaves you alone
for weeks at a time.
Remaining ready,
diligently able to resume
at a moment’s notice.
Picking up where you left off
like only seconds had passed.

I’ve talked this talk,
with and about
Cooper,
Clark,
Morrison,
Otto,
Mulvaney,
Nelson,
Christy,
and
Bremer.

Some of these,
I see once or twice a week,
others once or twice a year.

We love one another nonetheless.
We are friends after all.

This.

The very essence
of this line of thinking
is what fosters the kinds of interpersonal relationships
all human beings long for,
should strive for.
It is the definition that is listed
in the dictionary of my heart.

It is the manifesto
that Cooper laid out before me
at 4 o’clock in the morning.

We were at Denny’s having breakfast.
The eggs were runny.
The hash browns were covered in queso,
gravy,
or both.

Because we all have to die sometime.
Why not surround ourselves with
friends?  

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

We’ll season our greetings
and
salt one another’s
wounds for free.

We compare our flavorless
lives,
without ever investing
in one another
or
ourselves.

No deposit,
no return.

Give as good as you get,
or better yet,
give better than they deserve.

You’ll get more than you think
in return.

To be leaving,
to have left,
to start over,
to be bereft.

What else is there
but to walk away?
So sorry a state
that only God
might stay.

There was no mercy,
there was no sin,
shook dust from boot,
beginning again.

We’ve set the fires,
the windows are broken,
only shards remain,
the building is gutted,
the staff is insane,
where once we cared
only shells remain.

Oh,
the night is a swollen
wineskin,
the moon hangs high,
I only
wanted to live,
was
left behind to die.

Sated on hatred,
collided with skin,
bones are broken,
teeth are pulled,
pliers grip
incisor again.

The clock is punched,
its wires yanked,
limited options mulled,
the senses dulled.

The hands are dealt,
the aces laid down,
all bets are lost.
they’ve come to collect,
my wallet is empty,
my life
is wrecked.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019

Something or someone
had taken a large portion
of his ear.

The top of it
was just plain
gone.

Had it been chewed,
swallowed?

Had it been thrown out
with the kitchen trash?

Dogs ripping plastic
during the small hours
to get to this sweet, salty morsel
of human flesh?

Had he screamed?
Had it once been sewn
back on?
Bandages soaked red?
The stitches failed?
The wound gone necrotic?

I stared at it.
I was obvious.
It couldn’t be helped.

We shook hands.
He left.

But, that missing
part of his right ear
will stay with me
for awhile.

It’s likely that I’ll find
that ear’s ghost
listening to this poem
from somewhere
within the creases
of my
jacket pocket.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019