Walking the nighttime streets
of this city.
Been doing this over half my life.
I’ve never worried about
the clack-clack-clack
of cerebral palsy’s
aluminum appendages
serving as dinner bells
for whatever wolves that
The Joe might den.

Bring ‘em…

drug dealers,
republicans
democrats or
the deranged…

It never mattered.

Broad shoulders,
a pretty mean
stink-eye,
&
being held upright
by a pair of elongated
billy-clubs
seemed always
enough of
a deterrent.

The wolves
are out of their
dens
tonight.

(I, among their number.)

So many
that the neon
howls.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

In the middle of another
eight hour shift.

The factory roars
as it always has,
as it always does.

Yet, there are poems
to be written,
cigarettes to be smoked,
and other thoughts,
perhaps thoughts of a
rosebush, planted in a soldier’s
helmet, or maybe daydreams
of
a black-cherry
sundae
to be dreamed.

So, the poet will think,
will smoke,
will dream,
will write.

What will they do?

The factory will roar
as it always has,
as it always does.

The memory
of a whole house
locked inside a single
room floods the mind.

This rooming-house;
a chopped-up duplex.

The poet lived
in the kitchen.

The ashtray overflowed;
the carpet was grey,
dusty with spilled ash,
the evening’s embers
gone cold.

The lock on the apartment
door;
it can barely hold back
a strong breeze.

The poet feels
safe enough.

When the landlady
comes for the rent,
he answers the door
in his underpants.

She is so persistent
in her quest for payment
that she comes by at ungodly
hours.

These are the times of day
that a writer, a poet
might best be
left to sleeping,
but the landlady fails
to realize this truth,
so underpants it is.

The room has been remodeled,
the poet has moved out,
gotten married,
is raising a family,
but he is still a poet.

Smoking a cigarette,
a welcomed pause
in the midst of
an eight hour shift.

The factory roars
as it always has,
as it always does.

The poet’s thoughts
will wander
to witches and how
the weight of these women,
dancing ******* in the middle
of a moonlit forest,
might have their weight
somehow correspond
with that of a duck.

And, then suddenly,
as if awakened from
a trance,
the poet will realize that
none of this ****
really matters anyway;
and that nobody ever
really gives a ****,
except the witches
and the ducks.

The factory roars
as it always has,
as it always does.

The poet remains a poet.

Because.


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

We have not fallen
in love with the second
coming of November,
but she is here
nonetheless.

How sad it is
that she is so
drunk on her sister
April’s wine
that all she can
do is weep her
frozen tears,

wail her chilled
misery,
ruining this year’s
garden already.

I would like to
be warmer,
no doubt,
but

this return will
be short lived.

So, while November
is here again,
I’ll pour her another
glass of her sister’s
best vintage,
join her on the porch
and offer her one
of my
cigarettes.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

It is our own mountain before us;
it is our own boulder,
and each of us is,
alone,
our very own
Sisyphus.

We heave,
shove, strain
onward, upward
with the daily struggle.

The bones of our tasked
limbs do not snap.

instead they are often chewed
upon by the hounds of our
history.

To one another, we’re
strangers, human,
yet still such a mystery.

Commonality,
forgotten as we feud
in regard to which of
us has the greater undertaking.

The answer is always the same,
despite the fact that so few
of us are willing to hear it.

At sundown,
when we go into our
homes for supper and
too little sleep,

the stone rolls
down to the bottom
of our hill.

Dawn will break,
the stone will wait,
and each of us,
unbeknownst to
the others,
will begin
to push
again.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

Oh, how I wish
you could see
and hear
what was done.

Today we spoke
of what has become
history, the present
all at once;

of how Thunderbirds
have lined their nest
with feathers of fire,
and decorated nest walls
with leather laces,
strung with beads
bummed from a
Summer-school
Social Studies teacher.

It was the best kind of lesson.
(A history lesson.)

Robert Frost and John Coltrane
were present,
but you were missing,
lost this last year.

However,
you still live
inside of your
Never-forgotten instructions:

“Go down to Felix Street and see a man named Hans. He’ll show you what to do.”

(I did as I was told.)

Neither of us
knew it then,
but what I’d heard was:

…”he’ll show you who you are.”

He did.

And, I still know.

Because of a lesson
well taught.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

the shadows of branches
rest heavy on window sills,
the beam of a streetlight
comes to rest on an eye.

there is little that can be done.

arise, sleepless one, arise!

there is so much to think
about in these smallish,
tired, vengeful hours.

so many errors,
so great a penance
to be paid.

and,
there is all night
to pay it.

*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

We called ourselves a gang
when we gathered,
these Missouri poets
and I.

We were the same,
yet starkly contrasted
nonetheless.

They wrote of daybreak,
meadows full of mist,
thickets of mule deer
appearing at first light
or
rabbits snared, squealing
in tangles of hawthorn.

I could not;
did not do
the same.

Instead, choosing
to squint in the shadows
of barrooms or truck stops,

I became the raconteur
for a different type of wildlife.

My heavens were full
of angels whose halos
were made of cigarette smoke
as it circled toward dim ceilings

or

bright neon rooms that sizzled
and popped with the scents
of bacon, eggs, and brewed
coffee in Bunn flasks,
waiting for the pour.

Today, as I begin my 43rd,
it is much the same as it
has always been.

But, there is one angel,
who is celestially sorrowful.

Her melancholy is thought
to be total until,
my storyteller’s eye is better
educated by my ears.

The jukebox has played
lost love’s anthems since
breakfast began.

Her head has shaken
a negative with each song’s
passing.

Her downturned mouth
and sleepy eyes are
actually awake, painfully
aware of the feelings
locked inside of each
and every lyric.

She hasn’t told me any
stories of disappointment
with her station in life.

Instead,
she has shared
the complexity of her empathy,
the breadth and depth of
her heart’s ache for love
lost, even if it’s not her
own.

She owns it.

Singing in silence,
feeling out loud.

A rabbit snared
in a tangle of hawthorn.

The dawn has broken on
The 43rd anniversary of my birth.

The day’s first gifts are received…

A belly full of food,
a story,
love songs
sung with an ache
I’ll carry for a while.

I trap a $5 under the salt shaker
and exit.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

Every chance we get,
we’ll fail one another.
All of us.

We’ll talk over one person;
ignore all the others.

We complain that no one
ever listens to us.

We rail from our personal
pulpits against the injustices
leveled against the least of us,
doing so behind the comfort
of our keyboards.

Even if we know that we’re
wrong, misaligned, misinformed,
we fight onward anyway.

At this point,
the goal seems
to be that humanity
is choosing to be as
insular, isolationist,
antagonistic as is
possible.

We’ll hate one another
from across the world,
never bothering to cross
the street.

We’ll shoot one another
emails, messages of our
discontent, before we let
the bullets fly.

But, we’ll fire those too.

Each new home sold
will come with it’s own
chain-gun turret.
(Why the hell not?
It’s the American Way,
Isn’t it?)

We’ll climb down from
our turrets each morning,
log onto our computers, tablets, or smartphones;
sending our family, friends, neighbors, and even a few
strangers a fresh round of electronic hate-mail or
a few new anti-social media posts that finally say what
we all think anyway:

“Greetings and salutations!
*******! I’ve always been smarter than you.
I hate you, but I hate myself more and I’ve
never gotten the attention that I think I deserve.
Have a miserable day!
I know I will!”

After that we’ll back our
cars out into the driveway,
We’ll get on all fours;
fellating our exhaust pipes
for about 30 minutes.

After we’re exhausted,
(Get it?! Exhausted!)
We’ll climb back into
the car and pull it back
into the garage.

We’ll punch in the code
to our home security system.

The code will automatically
activate our ambient anti-anxiety
and antidepressant systems

(conveniently included in our home HVAC unit.)

These will fill our homes with enough meds/particles
so that we will be easily sated, manipulated
all day long.

For an extra $200
these systems will also
post positive comments
on all of your social-media
posts so as to maintain
the body’s highest levels
of dopamine.

We want you to end your day
feeling like the center of The
******* Universe.

(Remember when they made posting
vague, attention-seeking updates
On social-media illegal?)

Lights out!
Time to get
the government-sanctioned
2.75 hrs. of  sleep.

Goodnight!
I hate you!
Stay off
of my lawn!

My chain-gun is
set to auto!

Hail Trump!
Hail America!

*
-JBClaywell
©PZPublications 2018

We evangelize to antagonize
these days,
failure to recognize
the humanity that we
bastardize while we
editorialize,
abandoning our personhood,
we fail to stand on love’s platform
in favor of being right,
which doesn’t always mean
correct.

The goal should be to
connect,
mayhap, to direct our
audience to our highest plane,
together.

(Arguments occur at 30,000 or 15 feet.)

But,
what happens when
planes collide in midair?
In midstream?
In mid-sentence?

What happens when
We lose our right to
be right,
because we’ve lost our
ability to listen carefully,
to speak carefully,
and to proceed,
regardless,
with kindness?

We’ve all been ordained
to the bully-pulpit.

Convinced that correctness
lives in our own mind,
written as our own gospel,
inside our own lives,
yet,
hidden inside of  
the blue glow of the #hashtag.

This,
this fools tool,
is the ordinance
of the culture war.

And, it is not
fatal,
(or maybe it is.)

is not effective,

(often)

is  not
#enough.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

they sit
anxious,
attitudinal,
replete in
hospital gowns,
almost glowing,
angelic in their
whiteness.

below the knee,
the young queen
bee wears peach
fuzz.

my own grasshopper
has a forest of leg hair.

(puberty' s gift)

they look
at one another
not quite
like two strangers
at a singles bar,
but almost.

the moment dies
seconds after birth.

they transition from
insects,
scrawny, gangly teenagers;
becoming hawks.

now,
they perch,
staring at one another,
eyes full of defiance.

each one measuring
the other's plight
against their own.

inspections concluded,
they retreat,
separately,
each
back into their
own fauna of
electronic isolationism.

*

-JBClaywell

People forget.
It's not happening
to them.
They don't live in Flint
or
Detroit.
A lot of us have
seen very little of
The things we're railing
against.
The Abyss is too dark
To really stare into.
But, despite the fact that
I have kids to feed,
and real adult responsibility to keep in check,
I'm getting overwhelmed a bit
by having to come to terms with
the fact that we, collectively have lost the ability to treat one
another like people.

I refuse to participate.
I'd rather die.

If you're hungry...You get half of my sandwich. Automatically.

If you're thirsty...You get something to drink. Automatically.

If you need to talk... I'll listen. Automatically.

You don't have to agree with this, with me.

But, I'll look out for you. Because you're a human being, like me.

I hope you would do the same.

*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

He wanted a couple
of McChicken sandwiches,
so off we went.

He was fidgety and bored
at home;
had already watched a
DVD and...

it was time to
get out, into something
else for awhile.

Having placed our order,
I followed my grown-man
son to a table of his choosing.

We sat and waited for our
lunch to arrive.

The placard at the end
of the table said: #36.

While we ate,
we chatted about whatever
happened to be rattling around
in his head at the moment.

(I was only half-listening.)

Two men, at two different tables
near ours were having virtually
the same conversation into two
different cell phones.

The white man,
with the red beard
said:

"All I need is a few more dollars and I can make it back to Kansas City. I tried yesterday, to catch a Greyhound and they told me that I didn't have enough to make it all the way there, so I'm still here. I've been here about six days.  Yesterday was my last day at the shelter. Now, they're giving preference to veterans, so last night I was outside. But, at least the veterans are warm. I'm not a veteran so..."

The black man
in the hooded
sweatshirt said:

"I just got off the phone with my sister. She said that if I could come up with $20 for gas, she would come down from Kansas City and get me; take me back up to her house so I could see Mom. Mom's in the hospital, she ain't doin' so good, man."

My boy went on talking about doodads and thingamajigs;
movies full of mayhem and video games and their magic.

(The artistic, autistic wanderings of his thoughts)

He ate his McChicken sandwiches,
paying no attention to the two men
nearby.

My own mind wanders  
to thoughts of an ATM;
two twenty-dollar bills
given away,

wanders still to the last
ten dollars in my wallet.

I know that my son and I
are supposed to go to
the local video store
after lunch.

Which of these three men
should I give my last ten
bucks to?

Should I keep it for myself?

The boy is using the smallest,
crispiest French fries to poke
holes in the wax paper that his
sandwiches had been wrapped in.

I smile at him,
sigh,
and say: “Thanks.”

“For what?” he asks.

“For making that decision for me.”

“It would’ve been a hard one for me to make on my own.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” he says,
looking confused.

“I know. It’s okay.
Finish up and we’ll
go look at some movies,
maybe some comics.”

My son slurps
his soda-pop,
crunches his
final fry.

We make our way
outside into the
bright sunshine of
late afternoon.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

He poured himself
just the smallest
bit of coffee.

The remainder of
last night’s ***,
really.

It had sat on the
burner all night,
was now dark,
thick, ink-like.


He’d fallen asleep
in the chair after
she’d left.

The angry words
sang in the air,
whippoorwills in
his dreams;

his sleep challenged
by their flocking;
his feelings.

It was snowing
when his eyes had
finally shut themselves
against the dawn of her
departure.

As he looked at
the front steps,
the new snow fell,

(just the smallest bit…)

filling in the
footprints of her exit

with finality.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

the center
of The Universe
and
the center
of
nowhere
at all.

This city...

Saint Joseph,
Missouri.

like an apartment
complex
or
a cul-de-sac
built by
The Hand of
God,
right
in the
bottom
left-hand drawer
of The Devil's
bill-paying
desk.

we walk
our dogs
on
long leashes
making sure that
they can ****
in our neighbor's
yard.

we cultivate
red-state
politics
and blue-plate
specials,
complaining
that our crime-rate
and our cholesterol
are too high.

we're the tenderloin
capital
of the world;
and we closed
the door
on that debate
as well as
several
others.

once,
not that
long ago,
we put it
to a vote,
whatever
it was...

it hardly
matters
anymore,
but only
18%
said: "aye"
and only
37%
said anything
at all.

the ballots
must've been
kept in the
lockbox

in the
bottom
right-hand drawer
of
The Devil's
bill-paying
desk.
*

-JBClaywell

Do not forget  
that this is all there is.

This moment in time,  

these years,
this spectacle,  
this speculation,  
and this separation  
is all that you get.  

This life is leaving you.  

Exiting with every single exhalation  
regardless of your intellect,  
ignorance,  
or deliverance.  

First-world,  
third-world,  
shine or *******,  
it doesn't matter.  

The planet will continue  
to spin long after  
you're gone;  

Create,
craft,
conquer.

The entirety
of The Universe
resides
in
you.

...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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We walked the Topeka zoo
yesterday and looked at
all the animals being held
against their will.

The angry zookeeper
told us about the bear
that got its head stuck
in a peanut-butter jar.

“It’s not a laughing matter.”,
he said.

The children laughed anyway.

“This bear would’ve died,”,
he said. “if we wouldn’t have
come along and taken him out
of the wild, removing the
peanut-butter jar, and nursing
him back from starvation.”

The bear was asleep in a thin tree
above our heads.
He’d climbed up there to be closer
to the warm sun,
my youngest son advised.

I wondered if he hadn’t climbed
up into that tree to sleep farther
away from the din of his jailer’s
voice as he shouted to the herds of us
who’d paid our six bucks to stand in
the cold and listen to his angry
voice tell us about peanut-butter jars
removed from the heads of bears and
how that’s what it takes to save lives
around here.

No one asked the zookeeper
or the bear if either one
of them still liked peanut
butter eaten straight from
the jar.

No one asked if either one
of them ever missed their
mothers.

We just watched the bear
sleep in the crook of the
highest branch of that
thin, leafless tree.

His head lulled into the
crook of his elbow and his
*** dangled in the chilly
air.

I suppose he was dreaming
of escape.
Maybe he pondered, dreamily,
what that zookeeper tasted like.

Perhaps he dreamed of peanut-butter
eaten straight from the jar,
knowing his head wouldn’t get stuck
anymore.

But, I bet he was dreaming
of his mother.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

We are all moths
seeking the moon
but finding streetlights
instead.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

there are monsters
at the end of our
most scenic streets.

still, we must travel
them and see those monsters,
shining our light in their
eyes.

some of us may exsanguinate,
or be gruesomely crushed by
uncaring or misguided jaws.

yet, we must remain steadfast
in showing ourselves to be,
each one, a phoenix,
a thunderbird.

We must rise above such
simple and foolish a
construct as hatred.

We must show those monsters,
at the end of those streets,
in those dark corners,
that we do not fear them,
that we will overpower them,
rising above them,
meter by meter,
stanza by stanza.

We must be the embodiment
of what we do,
we must be poetry.

we must bring our
light into all
those dark places,
we must never, ever
relent.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Somewhere, for someone,
a pound of flesh is
always due.

There is no god
and there is no devil,
but that don’t mean that
there ain’t no goodness
nor evil in this world.

There’s monsters out there,
every day and in every way.

We’re the gods and the devils here
and most of the time we’re hungry
for that pound of flesh.

And, for some reason that I can’t
figure we’re always ready to see
some other poor, sorry *******
pay what he owes.

Yet, we, ourselves, hesitate
and falter, mumbling our thoughts
and prayers, clattering our rosary
beads, cracking our hymnals and our
knuckles.

or,

pointing crooked fingers and
placing blame when time is up
and our own wrenched demon
has come to collect.

*


-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

We often hang up
phones without saying
what the person
on the other end
wants to hear.

More interested in
coffee and sinkers
on our way out the door;
beating the rush hour
traffic into downtown,
late for work.

Choosing resolve over
conviction, no trump cards
in this particular deck.

Massachusetts Street,
Lawrence Kansas, 7pm.

There’s a man sitting quietly
across from where I am.

He is alternating between purring
like a cat and making **** noises
at passersby and otherwise muttering
to himself.

He is drinking an iced tea from the
café and chain smoking

I am smoking a cigarette myself.

Every moment or so, we make
eye contact and I can see different
galaxies in his eyes.

Knowing, doubtless that he vibrates
on a different frequency that most
everyone else.

(I try to love him anyway.)

There are only minimal variances
in the code,
but these microscopic differences between us,
they bear so much weight that the scales crack.

Our circles are too small.

Shh…

The Honeybears are here.




*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

What a shame it is
that we spend most
of our time these days
committed to standing
on unloving
ground.

Instead of loving
our neighbor as
ourselves,

we seek unfettered
validation,
no matter our
own candid transgressions.

Our minds are full of stolen
ideas,
like eggs from the nests of eagles.

We spend our nights measuring wolves.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

In the cool
early hours
of a Thursday
in September
I find my way
into Big Sky
for a couple
of doughnuts
and a cup.

Just next door
is the Goodwill
employment offices.

There they find
sheltered employment
for adults and youth
with developmental
challenges.

As I park,
hoisting myself
from the driver’s
seat;
I notice her
trying the locked door
to those offices.

Thinking nothing of it,
I continue into the coffee
shop and begin breakfast.

Soon, she is shadowing
the Big Sky entryway,
eyes as big as
hubcaps.

Dressed as modestly
as possible in her
bright green hoodie
and ankle-length denim
skirt, she stares at
us all.

Her eyes are wide with
nervousness and a searching,
a yearning for faces known
and familiar, safety.
Settling for the security
of the donut-shop’s doorway
and the sunbeam therein,
she hovers still.

Her eyes come to rest upon me.

Having been in similar
situations for what is
too-quickly becoming a
half-century, I recognize
what this girl’s thoughts
must’ve turned to.

“There’s someone like me.”
“He’s different, and thusly
the same. He’s safe here.
I will be as well.”

With her owl-eyes she looks
me up and down, focused on
my outward-turned right foot
and the crutches leaning on the
chair opposite mine.

I smile.

So does she.

I wink.

When this happens,
her face flushes to
the color of roses
and her large eyes
sparkle like emeralds.

The doorway continues
to serve as her haven from
the unfamiliar, but she’s
relaxed a little.

Full of pastry,
coffee, and the desire
to finish the task,
I make my way outside.

Rising from my seat,
gathering my crutches,
I step toward the young
lady seeking solace in
the sunbeams.
Leaning in,
I cannot help but notice
that she is quivering
with apprehension.

I say quietly:

“You have really pretty eyes.”

Her unease dissipates immediately.

Her spectacular emerald eyes relax
and she smiles with her whole self
and says:

“I know.”


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

I’ve heard it
said that hope
is a terrible
thing;

the last thing
that one does
before defeat
becomes real.

How terrible,
these thoughts
are!

Maybe…

Maybe hope
is the worst
kind of crutch
there is.

Doing is better
than hoping.

There is too
much faith in
hoping.

Doing
takes
action.

Actions
beget
results.

The hammer
drives the
nails.

The arm
swings
the hammer.

Hope doesn’t
do anything,
except waste
time.
*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

As I pulled into the parking lot,
my nerves came up.
And, I began to wonder if there’d be
enough space left for me.

Circling the lot,
scanning the spaces,
searching for one
close enough;
I parked and looked
at all the cars
their glass eyes looking
back at me.

It was heavy in that lot,
the apprehension I felt.

Somewhere in me was a small
need to be around some good people
for a few moments,
it outweighed my need to be alone
in the night.

Originally, I’d wanted just to see
the fireworks that would follow
the last offering of this city’s
summer concert series,

contented in watching the bluffs
spit fire and sparks for our
entertainment.

The final volley fades and almost
immediately a thousand headlights
ignite.

Soon enough, we few are all alone
again.

Some of these singular souls I’d
wanted to see invite me to further
the evening with food, drink, and
fellowship.

As much as I want to,
as much as I mean to join them,
I cannot.

Something melancholy has its
hooks in me,
in my shoulders.

So, all I want
is to dive into
my pool of solitude
and swim.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

in the fullness
of the dark,
we forget to
remember that
we’ve been only
able to see about
ten seconds worth
of anything at all.

because of nature’s
need to quench thirsty
soil she spoils our
sight of the sun’s
blackening behind the
shadow of our cratered
cousin,
with cumulonimbus.

however,
the humanity
with which I’ve gathered
for a while has been rife with
disappointment,
until just
now.

in this circle of sunset,
we are overwhelmed with
the totality,
our disappointments fade,
eclipsed by wonder
and the sudden
coolness in the air,
which is audible
in its silence.

the clouds that purloined
our sleek vantage point
are purpled
strokes of a celestial brush
that none of us could
have hoped
to lift.

now,
as the sun reemerges,
rises again,
this time in the west,

the city lights wink out
as midday returns.

we return from our own
Olympus as well,
all the better for it.
un-disappointed,
alive in a way
that
never
existed
before.    

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Sometimes one has to realize
that they have to be
the one to initiate change.
Sometimes one can roar and howl
into the ear of the enemy,
into the inferno, into the abyss
and achieve nothing.
Or, one can whisper in the ear of
someone who doesn't believe
or understand.
A word of kindness,
a word of faith,
and all of a sudden,
one might find that they
are speaking to an ally
where once an enemy
stood.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

I always want
to stay out late
and look for the untold
stories of this community.

Little tidbits of
conversations that
I’m not part of.

People are stories,
phrases,
thoughts,
ideas,
dreams.

They are moments
and memories that
they’ve collected.

I only eavesdrop
so as to borrow
briefly.

Perhaps, their happiness;
mayhap their loneliness,
to see if it matches

the
set
that
I
carry.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

to drink from
the river of
kindness that
flows all around
us is the goal.

to do the same from
the incoming tides
of hate is unthinkable,

undrinkable.


to have lost all
threads of faith
in: ‘We The People’,

but to have a circle
of friends to envelope
with love and compassion,

allows one to regain a
measure of faith in: ‘We, the people.’

there is a division.


it need not be black or white,
rich or poor,
left or right.

it need not be the elephant
or the ***.

there is only humanity.

(kind or unkind.)

unkind people can be
shown kindness.

Ignorance is easy.
Hate is hard.

we will not overcome.

(we’re too selfish.)

we certainly will not overthrow.

(we’re too soft for revolution.)


really, the only way that this gets better
is with pockets of ‘We, the people.’

you, and you, and you, and you.

(and me too!)

doing the best they can
with what they have
where they are.

trust that a little
kindness can go really,
really far.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

I’d like to.
In fact, I’d
have loved to,
but you made it
impossible.

I’d have set
myself on fire
if you’d have
asked me to.

Now, I’d let
it all burn
to ash, leave
the charred
husks behind.

Those are yours.

Not mine.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

I wish that it were
easier to write poems
rife with scientific names
of flora and fauna,

verses that spoke of
romantic cities, their
breathtaking views.

Adventure that I’d be
hopeless to describe with
such mediocre vocabulary,
vernacular, or verbiage.

Alas,

I can only heave ashtrays
full of charred butts,
empty bottles, the contents
drank until drunk.

I write cinder block passages
in these pages, so that they
might outweigh my thoughtless,
yet most sincere,
insides.

I can only tell you
what I know, what I knew
or wish I did,

so that I might clear
the breech of fired
ordinance,
chambering the next
round and scanning
for
a target.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

You put on your flowered
summer dress,
the one that swishes
around your calves as
you walk.

I’ll put on my shirt,
the color of mulberry
wine.

We’ll pack a picnic lunch
and sit on the steps
of the library.

You’ll sit on the step
above mine,
your knees pulled up.

I’ll sit a step
below you and gaze at
your pink anklebones,
sandals set aside.

We’ll eat salami slices,
cheese, and grapes,
sipping apple-beer from
red, sweating cans.

The back of my wine-colored
shirt will darken with
the heat of the afternoon.

I’ll reach over and rub the firm
line of your ***** as it rests under
stretched-smooth cotton.

We’ll be mindless of the heat.

You’ll kiss me;
our mouths warm with
the spices from the salami
and cheese.

We won’t mind.

Leftovers stowed,
we’ll sit in the car,
turning the A/C up full.
relishing the cool.

We’ll retreat from the sun,
contented and cooled once more
to create our own
summer storm.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

still crippled
and half-crazed
from a day’s worth
of backbiting and
in-fighting amongst
the family,

we’ve separated
ourselves from
ourselves saying:

‘you go left;
we’ll go right
because nothing
else is and that’s
the ******* fact.’

so,
as the sun sets,
the sons and I
make a slight return
to the diner where
I’d eaten breakfast
with friends.

we,
my man-cubs
and I, ate well
and quietly,
with thoughts
of repentance
in mind while we
watched the wild hares
frolic in the clover
outside ourselves
and the window.

having supped
and washed the
the sweat from our
brows,
we returned from the
wilderness of our separate
adventures
to the lanes and fairways
of domesticity.

we,
not He.
are the gods
of our domain.

and,
there has been
enough of breast-beating
and forked-tongue seething
for this particular
earthly rotation.

if only,
it could have
stopped before
I’d absorbed
the sourness of
what was said to
me in the parking
lot of the pre-dawn
diner; before that
first cup of coffee.

we,
us three gods,
my sons and I
return home to
await our goddesses,

forgetting our
Buddhist bacon,
our Hindu eggs,
and our chalices
of Catholic, Apostolic
chocolate milk.

instead, we remember
that I’ve already
disappointed God
once today and I’m
reminded of this by
the heartache of sorrows
bestowed upon my lover,

and,
by the heartburn
of that diner’s finest
bowl of Voodoo chili.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Time moves quickly,
faster than one
thinks is so.

The home is
hollowed to
house.

(It’s time for
us to go.)

Almost ten years,
we’ve been here
and the roots
they’ve grown
deep.

We’ve broken
memory’s tendrils
and sought another
place to sleep.

It’s been the only
roof that my young
one has known.

He’ll have his own
bedroom,
passing the small
hours all
alone.

It’s a hope that he
enjoys it,
his own space down
the hall.

I’d beg for all his
nights to pass
fearless,
not one second,
none at all.

The bookshelves
sit empty,
all my treasures
have been stowed.

They’re all boxed
and labeled,
bound for new
abode.

The tendrils
of memory wrap
around this home
tonight.

But,
where we are
together
is home.

And,
it’s here for
a few more
nights.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

The buttons undone.

The first cuff is turned.

The second.

The third.

Just past
the elbow.

The sweat collects
in the crook
of the arm,
like tiny rivers
falling into a
super-heated
sea.

The day’s heat
has soaked the
cloth of the shirt,
sticking to broad
back.

The evening’s barbs
and a game of ‘the dozens’
gone too far
has heated minds
past
boiling.

Fingers curl,
turning to ore.

Thumbs tuck themselves
across the second joints
of the first two
phalanges.

Ore becomes iron,
becomes ordinance,
rage becomes rocketry.

Here it comes…

Fire.

Five.  



*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

There is nothing
to it at all.

All I have to do
is jump.

Let myself fall.

Exhale all the
air from my lungs;
fill them deeply
once
more,

hold.

Step off
the edge.

Will I land on the rocks below?

Or soar?

Those are the options.

And, I get to
decide.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Those beautiful tendrils of smoke
that halo the heads of the regular
joes; their ***** weighing heavy on
mahogany and brass barstool.

That beautiful, marbled piece of beef
that sizzles in the cast iron pan on
the burner in the back as the jacket
fries boil in oil in a wire basket
beside.

Wanting to be here,

There.

With those fellas.

waiting on that meal.

Willing to give anything
for the opportunity to embark
on such a Bukowski-esque quest

like steak frites
served up steaming
with sidecars of bourbon
maybe a beer or two;
cigarette smoke.

Elevated cholesterol,
maybe a choked-upon
piece of gristle,
lungs full of carcinogens,
maybe a nodule of cancer.

We won’t talk of this ****.

We’ll talk about the ***** of
the lasses that stroll by our barstools,
heedless to us in the least.

We’ll howl and drool like beasts

(once they’re out of earshot.)

Eventually, we’ll all die anyway.

Eat a steak,
some potatoes
fried in duck fat.

Pat a nice ***,
if you can.

Fall in love.

Choke upon the
wealth of your

satisfaction.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications