Our pond is empty,
our trees are cut
to clear.

You, right now,
are lost to me;

how I wish that
you were here.

Never was it spoken
true, how important
that you are.

But, without your
light to guide me,
I’d have never
traveled
so far.

The softness of
your voice,
the reassurance that
you gave;

left all who heard it
with a little more
life to save.

Now these woods
are hollow,
the pond
is all but dry.

The leaves begin
to scatter
as the wind
gusts sharply
by.

The owl asks
me who I’ll
miss,
but never
says
goodbye.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

with hog jowl
and mole eye
he sentenced all
that I loved
to die.

without thought
of what we’d built,
who we were,
or why we did the
work;

he burned it
to the ground,
squinting in the
haze of his lack
of forethought or
the aftermath
wrought.

those that we serve
think that we know,
because we do.

we know.

yet,
as these changes,
these Trumperies,
these budget cuts
that slice and sear
the most vulnerable
among us…

these things cause
the unforgivable
“I don’t know.”
to escape our
collective lips.

but,
he knows.

with hog jowl,
mole eye,
and horse's ***
he sits upon
his liar’s throne
and
knows,
but won’t
say.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Hello.

My name is Harper.

I am a mouse.

My momma hasn’t let me out of our nest very often yet.

It has only been a short time since I stopped taking
her milk.

And, even still, sometimes,
when I am frightened by
a bad dream,
or feeling very small and very alone,

I will again take some of her milk
and she will sing to me,
stroking the fur on my face and neck
while she sings.

I want to tell you about my home and my family.

My momma, my papa, my two sisters, and I
live in a neat and tidy little hole
behind the refrigerator that sits
in a warm little house.

The house belongs to five humans.

So far, the humans do not know
that we live with them.

(My papa says that they would not like it, if they knew.)

But, the humans have a cat.

And, the cat knows about us.

The cat’s name is Chauncey.

I hate him.

He scares me.

Papa doesn’t think so,
but our human family is nice.

There is a momma and a papa.
two loud boys; one older one who is
tall and thin.

The other boy is small,
but very loud.

He reminds me of the squirrels
that live in the trees near the
back of the house.

The small boy never walks,
he runs everywhere he goes.

Sometimes he jumps and jumps
for no reason at all.


The girl is in the middle.

She is usually very quiet.
I like her best.

The girl reads stories from books.
Sometimes she reads aloud,
when she does,
I sneak in to listen.

I like stories.

I don’t know much about the human momma
or
the human papa.

My papa tells me not to get too close to any of
the humans.
My papa tells me to
stay especially away from the adult humans;
to never let them see us.

I do my best to follow the rules,
to do as I am told,
but I like the human girl
very much.

The stories that she reads to herself
are full of adventures.

I do so very much like to hear her read
the adventure stories.

(I wish I could go on an adventure.)

But, I must be very, very careful.

Chauncey, the cat, likes adventure stories
too.

*


-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

My sons sit in
the faux leather chairs
next to the faux fireplace.

It is switched off
for the summer
that is coming.

The boys are switched on
for much the same reason.

I am watching them with lazy eyes.

(halfway)

The homeless man is here too.

He sits in the chair opposite
my youngest.

They are exchanging introductions.

No one is nervous.

(I am too near for that.)

__


When I am alone,
the homeless man
will ask me to buy him
a cup.

I usually do.

The 1st time this happened,
he pulled a fast-one.

This tattered man
asked for a triple-shot
espresso
with steamed milk,
setting me back
5 dollars.

Now, I’m the one who orders.

(A small, dark-roast,
with plenty of sugar
and milk.)

Last time,
he chuckled to himself
and happily vibrated
down the path.

Today, he is well-met,
but,
remains
decaffeinated.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

He makes them,
fired firm and
full of glory
in their emptiness.

I’ve never seen
one of Dooley’s pots
born,
but I’ve been
present during the kiln’s
gestation
of brick, wood, and fire
nurturing clay into a
more substantial being.

In his shop now,
we sit and fill these vessels
with condensation,
communication.

Conversation made from philosophy,
spiked with profanity.

We, The Potter and I,
strut like roosters,
bray like *****,
circle like tigers.

We know one another
and ourselves
all the better for this.

In the dark, cool
emptiness of a closed-up
Dooley Room,
our conversation’s condensation
evaporates.

We’ve gone our own ways for the night.

When next we meet,
the vessels will again
be empty.

I look forward to filling them.

*
-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

I wrote a book in this place.

I have filled notebook pages
hunched over this very table.

Virtually every time I’ve
come here to write,
I start with a ¢.97 chocolate
chip cookie and the ‘Sunday Special’,
an ¢.87 cup of dark.

Today, upon entry,
I stumble upon
Chocolate Shift Change.

I watch as she tosses the
first molasses disc into the
garbage can.

I ask:

“You’re just going to throw them away?”

She says:

“They’re old.”

“As am I.” I think, but don’t say.

Instead:

“I’ll buy them all right now.”

(She looks at me embarrassed just a bit,
but hurries to pull the rest of the expired cookies
out of the warmer.)

“We can’t sell you the old ones.”

“The fresh ones taste better.”

I doubt if I’d have known the difference.

(Expired confections slide from her grasp.)

Purchasing one, fresh,
I speak of lost profits
and typical first-world
wastefulness.

She nods knowingly,
but shitlessly,

(In that she couldn’t have
given a ****.)

I ask for a pack of smokes
as well,
meandering off in search of pulp
and fire.

My mind racing with the temporary
status
of
everything.

*  

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

This town gives small gifts
if one drives down the proper
avenues or alleys.

Joe Rubidoux couldn’t have fathomed
some of his village’s future
backward advances.

With a fondness, perhaps misguided,
the soul-forming streets, rife with potholes
full of memories and busted tie-rods are
sought.

This sour Saint speaks
as the miles
of moonlight slide by and play
their personal history slideshow
just below the visor.

It is thought to turn left;
heading down 4th,
to where the wire baskets
were filled with hand cut potatoes,
and the bellies of barnyard birds
were plated up for joyous devouring.

Sadly, those baskets are hung to rust,
and those worn tables and vinyl seat cushions
are home to things more wild than the eyes
of the boys that ate gizzards fresh
from hot grease,
sopping it all up with white bread.

The sky begins to purple,
like the clover in those abandoned lots
near to where the coal trains still chug
down the line.

Places that made a man
are passed,
remembered as though
part of someone else’s
life.

The yellow paint and brown shutters
of that chopped-up duplex bring a sigh
that is as heavy as the coal cars that clatter by.

The need for what was,
what had to be,
is discussed
and proven to be for
good and all.

Because the man
behind the wheel
lives inside this municipality
seeing not mediocrity,
but marvels that reside
unnoticed as the miles
and miles of moonlight
continue to slide by.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

Whether you believe it or not,
my original arms dealer was
a Buddhist.

He armed me to the teeth
with a desire to destroy
the darkness
of my teenage thoughts
by firing bullets
filled with ink
into those wretched silhouettes,
turning them into
poetry.

He sent me,
filled past full
with bluster and
*******,
to the mustiest
den on Felix Street.

But, I couldn’t stay.

I hadn’t quite lived enough;
I’d learned even less
despite being so well
weaponized.

Instead,
I’d find The Black Box,
staying there until
The Paper Moone would
rise above my horizons
and that large sergeant
would offer me more ammo
from the armory.

We fired tracers down those alleys
until the shells were all spent.

We pause now to reload.

The Buddhist’s ordinance
is expended.

Little has changed
despite everything
being different
than it was when we first met.

Now,
the firing range
is nested by
Thunderbirds.

We are well-armed.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

Don’t look too close,
you’ll see something
you don’t like.

Don’t open the door,
you’ll see what lurks
in the basement,
under the stairs.

Leave the hasps unturned.

Let the keys jangle
on your hip.

Don’t turn on the lights.

Run.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

For the past 15 years,
the various versions
of ‘they’ have waited
for the all clear.

We’ve added a couple
more
through trial and error;
pausing to put a pair
in the ground.

And still, that horn
never sounds.

They’ve lived with
a *******
who’s volume ****’s
been broken for a
decade and a half.

Half the time no one’s
real sure what all
the noise is about,
not even the one
making it.

The only certainty,
if anyone’s certain
of anything at all really

is that there’s a fear of
everything that could
possibly go wrong.

This leaves precious
little room for everything
that might go right.

Or, for enjoying it
when it does.

Some days they walk
on eggshells,
other days it’s landmines.

Waiting for the all clear.  


*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

Her fingers are a blur
on the keys.

She writes with a confidence
that is so subtle that
it remains a secret
even from she who owns
it.

She gasps, chuffs, and
bemoans her anxious state,
but she never stops
typing.

After a bit, she pauses to ask
my, as editor, opinion.

She reads her answers to the questions
asked by the student-teacher essay exam.

I hear her read aloud.
I also hear her self-doubt,
her dissatisfaction.

She reads those answers to me
and hates them a little.

For the life of me
I cannot see how.

The words that she’s
written sit on the page
like cinder blocks of truth;

obvious examples of what
she has learned,
what she knows,
what she is now teaching
to some of your children.

Maybe I grind off
an edge by changing
a word or two.

Maybe not.

She writes like she lives,
like she knows,
like she loves,
like she’ll teach.


I wouldn’t change a thing.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

“What are you most looking forward to this summer?”
said the chalkboard at Caribou Coffee.

Someone had written TEXAS in huge letters.

I saw those giant letters as Nicolas and I walked in
for a variation on “The Ritual”,
my weekly festival of pen and ink.

What I failed to see,
was my little boy sneak over
to that chalkboard,
erasing those letters
and replacing them
with NICK.

Everyone’s got an end date,
TEXAS’ end date was today.


End Date

We’ve all got one.

All I want to do
is last long enough
to see
that they can cash a check
that they’ve earned,
get into a car that has their
name on the title
and get lost
if they want to.

Expiration date
on the old man,
the rhino with the ink pens
will be long passed one day.

In between,
there must be a handful
of dates that might mean
something,
maybe hold some memories.

But, really, none of those dates matter much.
What matters is that they get to use
it all up
by their own
end date.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

She’s a ******
ruiner.

She’ll take the
best you’ve got

and use it
to choke the
life out of anything
good.

It’s never her fault
either.

Never.

It’s life, or God,
or Karma, or even
******’ Wednesday
that gets in her way.

“Please!” she says.
“I’m under enough
pressure as it is.”

Like I’m trying to…

All I want to do
is the work.

Can’t do it,
if I’m in the same
building as
a
ruiner.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017



If you want more, click the link:  http://www.lulu.com/shop/jay-claywell/gray-spaces-demolitions-and-other-st-joe-uprisings/paperback/product-23035217.html

Thanks.

I am the vengeance,
never received.

I am a walking fistfight
that never was.

It is staggering
how much rage
can be carried
on one’s back.

I am every raised voice,
every clenched fist,
the howl of every
harsh wind.

I am every book that
I’ve never read.

I am every song that
I’ve never heard.

All I want to do
is bleed ink
until I’m dead.

Bleeding black ink,
a written hemorrhage,
a shovelful of dirt
flung onto my own
casket.

I don’t want to be well-adjusted.

(What the hell does that even mean?)

I am all the slammed doors
in the apartment complex.

I am a papercut on the tongue.

(The letter sits unsent.)

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

my god!

she makes
me
smile.

and,

i
don’t
even
feel
like

I’m
faking it.


*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

I was never interested in the kind of love that takes place in the daytime. I always wanted love that hid in the shadows, because as wonderful as love can be, and often is, it hurts.
I never wanted love that could see me bleed.



Love is soft, kind, holds your hand on the porch.
Love sits with you on the swing, in the park.
Love is candlelight, chocolate, a nice dinner.

Love is holding hands and nevermind
that palms are sweaty.
Because that love is new and
nervous, and hopeful.

That love is exploration, new touches,
electric tendrils caused
by kisses on the earlobes,
on the back of the neck.

Love is an evening stroll
that leads to *******,
waking in a bed that isn’t yours,
but a bed that feels safe enough
in the grey light of the pre-dawn.

And, anyway, isn’t it exciting?

This new place, this new person,
this new experience.

Love is conversation over a cup of tea,
a light breakfast, some good bread.

Love this new, this fresh, this exhilarating
won’t last, it can’t last, it’s too rich,
too many calories, too much sugar.

A love like this one is a mocha frappe.


The love I wanted was a 2:45am bedtime,
maybe a little hungover.

Maybe I’d been somewhere I shouldn’t’ve,
maybe she had.

The floor was littered

with unanswered text messages,
with missed calls that fell out
of my pockets like loose change
when I took my pants off and
hung them on the back of a chair,
too lazy to put them in the laundry.

Love that survives in these gray spaces,
maybe it’s real, maybe not, maybe it’s
mutated, adapted into a primordial
survival ignorant animal.

Love in the gray space, in the shadows,
in the storms, survives or dies,
but you, not it decides.

*


-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

I wanted you to love me
like a campfire,
like a warm blanket,
like a secret note,
a whisper in the night
that told me how special
I am to you,
how important,
how vital.

I wanted you to love me
like new snow,
like the smell after a
rainstorm,
when the streets are
washed clean,
and we would bask
in the halos of the
streetlamps,
holding hands and
smiling.

You loved me like barbed wire,
like a snare on a rabbit’s foot,
like a house fire,
all the mementos that didn’t burn
coated in a layer of ash,
of soot.

You loved me like a bomb shelter,
like a place safe from your explosions,
but barely so.

You loved me like sandpaper,
removing layers,
grinding,
removing,
until I became

unvarnished.

I wanted you to love me like silver,
like gold.

But, you loved me like tin.

I never knew what it was,
my sin.
I loved you, but you left.

You escaped,
unlike me,

untarnished.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

The birthmark rides her set jaw.

It is a deep, bruised, purple
that starts just below her left eye
and runs like a brushstroke,
to the right and comes clear
across the lower mandible,
stopping after her right ear is
swallowed by the color of fresh
plums.

The iPod or smartphone
rides in the pocket of her
pink sweatshirt.

It matters little what songs
reside therein;
those jams are pure armor.

The sun is in her warrior’s eyes,
she squints and the muscles in her jaw
flex.

She’s spotted me,
ambling in her direction.

We share a brief glance.

Immediately, I can see that I’m both a kindred
and an interloper.

(I start. I stop myself. I say nothing.)

She continues with the thousand yards, the long knives,
the silver-bullet eyes.

I’d lay real money that her DNA is angry.

She’s an Incan or an Aztec warrior,

and she wears her unwelcome birthright,
her birthmark,
her war paint,
her war pain
because she has to.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

I choke on the decomposition,
the rotten, vegetal smell of her
home.

I’m in there every three months.

She, with her withered legs and
her *******, bewildered smile,
tells me that everything’s groovy.

But, I know better.

It ain’t.

She ****** herself on the regular.

She tells me that her man is all
sorts of lovey-dovey.

He ain’t.

He’s a *******
in sheep’s clothing.

There’s nothing to report though.

If she won’t say it,
neither can I.

I walk out the door,
that the caregiver holds open.

Ol’ Loverboy has his dentures
in his hand, wiping them down.

The desire to put them back in his
mouth for him is huge.

I imagine him choking,
like I am.

Not on that rotten, dead plant stench,
but on a fistful of incisors.

*

- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

Now and then I feel
like I am being hunted
by old dogs hollered down
from some dark mountain.

The old man says to me
that it’s not right that
I’d parked handicapped.

(He approached as I’d lit up a smoke.)

I asked, so, of course,
he told me:

“Those crutches don’t matter much.
Your age should dictate your need.”

he pauses.

“And, you’re young enough to get
to the door from a spot further away
than this one.”

I tell him that he’s lucky my momma
taught me to respect my elders.

The urge to render him more useless
than he is now comes to stay.

But, I lock that particular door and
listen to those old dogs howl and snap
their jaws.

I’m going to relinquish this parking space.

Not because of what this old man says,
but because I’m done with it.

My son is in the car, playing with the radio.

I climb in and squeeze the back of his neck.

(Perhaps a little harder than I’ve intended to.)

I’m syphoning some of his innocence for myself;
willing this particular hunt
to be done.

*

- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

Telling stories to the dead
brings them back to life
for just a short time.

Time spent with them
can pass like molasses
through an hourglass,

although I never seem
to mind.

It helps me as much as it
does them;
I get to live the ghost-life
for a brief stint too.

Being born in 1947
instead of ’75.

It feels like a different
kind of alive.

History has sharp teeth,
an unkind bite.

It’s okay.

We’ll share the scars
for a while.

*

- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

How many of these old notebooks
have I thrown away?

How many times have I told myself
that I’m not worth putting down on
paper,

that hell,

I’m hardly worth putting down?

I keep picking them up,

99¢ at any good pharmacy.

$1.25 at an office supply store.

No matter where I get the pulp from,
it’s medicine.

Any time I doubt it,
pitching them
is fever.

Tylenol won’t work,
only ink.

*

- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

It’s this recurring waking-dream,
especially on these blustery nights.
I can almost see the sheen of the mahogany
surface of the bar top.
I can almost feel the weight of the tattered
rag that sits on my shoulder.

Barryman’s is a place to come in from the cold.
There’s always a fresh carafe on the burner of the Bunn
machine.

Or, there are stronger drinks.

This is the place where you can talk to anyone about anything.
And, no one is ever wrong, because we all know that we all know
that everyone is full of ****, but we like them and ourselves anyway.

Well, there was that one time that one poor ******* got the boot.
Everyone remembers that one.  

He was hollering about how Winston Churchill could’ve made a better
cup of coffee in spite of his drink of choice being blackberry brandy
and how Kafka was overrated.

So, he was out on his self-righteous ***.

Oh, how he did howl for a while, this ****-drunk sonofabitch;
but then we remembered that we’re all a bit like he was then
from time to time.

And, we retrieved him, his muffler, his hat,
gave him some coffee, a copy of “Catcher”, and a seat
by the fire.
*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

Dear Magenta,

I hope this letter finds you in better spirits than I.  It has only been three days since I was allowed pen and ink. I have spent the last two days trying to decide what it was that I wanted to convey in this message.
Once I decided, I spent most of today locked in my room beginning and destroying this letter.
The floor is littered with scraps of paper, upended preludes.

There is so much to tell you; beginning is near impossible. We will do our best, I suppose.

I want you to know foremost that I have never hated you. I want you to know that I only wanted to see our project to it’s inevitable end. I wanted to be done with you, I wanted you to leave me to my own devices for a while, I wanted to be able to refresh myself and renew my spirit. You, my antagonist, should have allowed it. Alas, you’ve always seemed to be ignorant of my need, or to have other plans altogether.

It is a clever ruse that you have put together. You would speak to me of my own betterment. You would tell me that you were only trying to strengthen my resolve, to make me somehow improved. And how I believed you! How I wanted it to be unfeigned!  And, I do wish ever so that your efforts were pure. But, where you see me, you see a buffoon, no doubt!

What a folly you have made.

I am aware of you now. My eyes are open and my mind fairly screams with indignation.

I need you to know that I will not bend to your supplanted misgivings. You will not continue as you have these recent months. My confidence is returning and no anxiousness shall impede it.

I know now, and have always known, that I am capable, and intelligent. You may find me unconventional, perhaps even unsavory, but I know that my intentions are pure and my efforts are honest and more importantly, well received!

Now, you must also know that I know what to expect! When the time comes and you are confronted with my malcontented behaviors; you will project a moue and cry foul.  I can almost see it in my mind’s eye!

And, honestly, I’m looking forward to it.  But, please do try to maintain a level of composure that is redolent of your years on this planet.

With an unfortunate level of superciliousness,

Obsidian


-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

The sabers rattle
sending
the torn flesh messages
of the Great Old Ones.

No more apologies
or options for your
angst.

Those particular doors
have closed.

Acceptance of your mindless
discontent,
your dissatisfaction
with what is barely
adversarial,
or
at worst inconvenient
has been deemed
unsafe.

Safety, at this point,
Is not a concern.

Those hollows have been filled;
The floodgates closed,
That river ******.

This space is unsafe for
your need for a safe space.

(This Space for Rent)

Wanton want,
need,
greed,
have no elbow room
here.

This space is taken.

The fist you find
will knuckle the
small of your spine
and smile.
*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

I wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.
You’d have to walk around with me for a month
or so for it to make sense,
to seem like a real thing.
Sometimes, it’s not even real to me;
but it’s my life and
I’m the one walking around in it,
so there it is.

In the fall and winter,
particularly around the holidays,
it gets worse.  Some days,
especially during the last two weeks
before Christmas,
it gets really bad.

(Why do I think it’s a bad thing?)

(Is it?)

(What is this about?)


They come at me like zombies
when they see the crutches
and yet I refuse to blame my Cerebral Palsy
for what they do.  
Really, I believe that they’d show up anyway.
I think that they, and I to a degree,
feel some sort of cosmic pull
toward one another.

The drunks come to me.

(the developmentally disabled too.)

They tell me stories of how they ended up
in the same place that I am.
They tell me that they know also
that our paths were supposed to cross.
They tell me about their relationship with God
and how Jesus loves them in spite of their drunkenness
(or impairment.)
They tell me how blessed we are to have met.

That one always leaves me flummoxed.

All I wanted to do was eat a tenderloin and some fries.
All I wanted was a cup of coffee or a beer.
All I wanted was to occupy a small bit of
grey space for a couple of hours.

These cohabitates,
these space-stealers
always go straight for The Bible.

They talk of rapture
And the wholeness that I’ll
find in The Kingdom of Heaven
and I want to tell them that they’ve
taken some of that wholeness for
themselves, but I can’t.

I always say: “Thank you.”
And speak to them in
bumper-sticker platitudes;
telling them that we’re all
making our own ways
down our own paths.

And, it’s true, but I don’t want
to have to say it.
I don’t always want to believe it.

(And, I don’t always.)

I wish I could tell them that I want to be more like them,
to work in a factory,
lift the heavy stuff;
to work steadily on the line
or over the road,
inside the grey spaces
with more time to think,
to be quietly oaken
and iron.

*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

my kindness is wrapped
in sandpaper,
my sorrow is bundled
in rage,
the solace that I find
write now,
are these words
I’ve placed on
the page.

you might not want
these gifts I bear,
but really they’re
all I’ve got.

what I need,
I’ll take from you,
with too few words
of thanks.

I’m sorry that
I move through
life with the grace
of an explosion;
a tank.

but, know that I
am grateful for how
much you’ve given
me,

it means more
than you
will ever see.

so, as you gather
your resolve,
strengthening your
nerve,

know that I do
the same, because
you are more than
I deserve.


blessed be you
who unwraps
razors,

I’ve poisoned them
with love.

I’ve put them in this
envelope,
the corners sealed
with blood.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

Typing out the stings of bees;
the songs that dead crickets
sing with broken wings…

I write next to a pastor,
railing on the teachings of
The Christ and all I can
think of is the sea of amniotic
fluid that flew across the room
and splashed my sister-in-law’s
shoes.

(yielding babies born still)

Where was god
when we needed him?

All we had was each other
and twins we’d never meet.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

as the father lifts his toe from
the starting block of his 75th year
and the son stumbles and gropes
past the midpoint of his 41st lap
toward an individual century
it is doubtless that neither of
them will make it to that
particular finish line.

no, it is certain that both
of them will come up short.

not a shame or a sham,
a slight or a shortchanging
just a statement of fact.

the father might come close
and for the sake of the son
it is hoped that he does.

The click and crackle of knee,
hip, and lumbar fill one’s ears
and thoughts with the rumors
of one’s mortality.

It is known that the father will
one day fade as sure as a sunset
and the son will melt into the floor
and stay there.
*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Electronic invitations are sent
to this festival of pen, paper, and ink.

No one ever shows up anymore.

I don’t mind.

It gives me more time with this notebook
and a head full of fire.

On Sundays,
the coffee is $.87 and I can have
all that I can swallow.

Today, it came black
in spite of my request
and as I made my
attempt to doctor it
into submission,
it spilled.

The next thing I know,
I have a reem of coffee-soaked
napkins and I’m hoping these
pages can be
salvaged.

After doing the best I can
I hit the john to wash my
hands.

Stepping away from the ******
is a man in a suit and tie.
He shoots me a baleful look
which I gratefully return.

He didn’t stop to wash his hands
in his hurry to get away from me
so I know that his cleanliness and godliness
are about the same distance apart.

Upon my return to my wrecked altar
of ritualized scribbling I notice that there are
heavy beads of cream hanging on to the edge,
same as me.

Instead of wiping them up
I head outside and light a
cigarette.

There is a young couple
contented with their quick,
cellophane wrapped sandwiches,
Doritos and sodas,
a fine picnic supper.

I sit so that the wind is in my face
and the smoke blows over my shoulder
into their suppertime soiree.

Upon my exit
they shoot me a baleful
look.

I earned this one.

And, I gratefully
return
home.



*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Be aware of what you
say you will do.
And then do that thing
with a robustness that
makes sense to you
and would make sense
to anyone that you would
bother to explain it to;
your intentions to do this
thing right and well.

The trick is not to explain
it to anyone at all,
to just do it;
first this thing,
then that one,
then the next one
until you get in the habit
of doing the literal best
you are able in all tasks
that you endeavor upon.

Treat your daily
with a reverence
that you would a child
that you love or an
elder that you’ve respected
in this life  and would
undoubtedly give your
best efforts
on the behalf of.

Soon enough
you will become
a beacon
for those
whom you
interact with.

And it,
this forthrightness,
will become
the
(much needed)
norm for
the whole
of the
human
race.

*
-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Ol’ Long and Tall sits
uncomfortably in the
seat next to mine.

It is obvious that his
back is bothering him
this morning.

‘Hey, dad…”

This is how it always starts.
Anytime he wants to talk,
he opens with this salvo.

I think it’s like using a turn signal
when changing lanes or something,
and who really knows what lane my boy
is in as he hurtles down his own highway?

It’s not that I don’t know him,
or care what’s on his mind, not
at all.

We’re both thinkers,
Alex and I, it’s just that
he gets a little bit tangled up
now and then, and just goes blank,
but never dull.

I think “Hey, dad…” offers a bit of a reset;
just a moment’s pause for organization,
such as it is in Alex’s case.

“Hey dad…” he starts.
“Did you know…?”

He goes on to tell me
some facts, which I forget
now,
about Hawaii.

Soon, that folder is empty
so he begins telling me tidbits
about the migratory process
of monarch butterflies.

“Where did you learn this stuff?”
I ask.

“At school.”
“On the internet.”
he states.


“Good.”
“That’s good.”
I assure him.

“There’s more to the internet
than You Tube and Minecraft;
and you found it.  I’m glad”

“Yup.” he says and grins his squinty grin
at me.

I nod and keep driving,
it is a school day and we’re on
the highway.

No radio this morning,
just talk.

I wait.
5 seconds
10 seconds
15 seconds

“Hey dad…”

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

as the coffee cup is rinsed,
the filthy little ******* lands
on the counter to my right.

immediately,
seeking a bludgeon,
his demise is envisioned.

however,
this housefly stays in
my periphery
for just a moment
longer

and

I cannot help but notice
his tiny little mitts, working
and fretting.

imagining the tiniest string
of rosary beads wrapped
around his housefly fists,
it occurs to me that he
might be making his peace
with God.

offering up his little housefly
benedictions, contritions;
apologies for all the sugar bowls,
he’s puked in during his
miniscule little life,

all the little maggots that
he might have fathered
and subsequently abandoned.

I think, without thinking really,
to chide my little countertop
cohort, saying:

“Ah, give it up little one, He isn’t there, He never was,
and if He is, He doesn’t give a second’s thought to the
likes of us.”

the housefly looks at me;
still furiously working his
unseen beads.

“You fool.” he says.

“God has obviously heard my contrition, my apologies,
and has granted me a reprieve, however brief.”

interrupting his novenas,
the housefly continues:

“You, my friend, are so great,
and I am so small,
yet you’ve heard my voice,
seen my beads,
given me reprieve, however brief.

I had asked God to give to you,
just one golden moment of
true, honest belief.

And, so He has, and now
you understand that
the prayers of a housefly
have stayed your hand.

So, it doesn’t matter how
great or how small,
God listens to each of us,
one and all.”  

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

when she was sick,
or sometimes when
she got her period,
she would lay in the
bathtub.

she would ask me
to come and talk
with her while
she did this,
and I would.

we would talk about
everything and nothing,

all the while
I would look at her and
marvel.

her skin is the color of milk,
mottled with freckles
like droplets of honey.

and, there were places that were pink,
of course
but I was always fascinated,
at these moments,
with her toes, flushed with blood
from the warmth of the water.

with those toes she can flip the drain,
letting out water,
work the faucet,
adding just a little more hot,
they would crinkle and pop
as she flexed them,

working the drain a final time,
she stands, closes the curtain,
starts the shower.

that’s my cue.

I stand, stretch and yawn,
feeling more sated somehow
now than when we have ***,
I make my way to
the linen closet,
and return faithfully
to my porcelain perch

with a towel.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

I ate lunch at Taco Bell this afternoon.
As I was people watching,
I noticed a guy who looked
just like "Chief" Bromden.
He was working on a burrito
and looking forlorn.
As he took his biggest bite,
the bite that signified
his commitment
to enjoying that burrito,
all the guts fall out of it.

He was visibly upset by this
and embarrassed as well.
It made me think that
such a happening is universal.

Hot, gooey pizza toppings
or burrito guts have fallen
in our collective laps or
bounced off of our shirts
and onto the floors
of a million restaurants
between us.

It ***** and often
it produces that feeling
we get in our stomachs
when we’ve become the center
of unwanted attention;
even if no one is watching.
This guy had the saddest face
I’d ever seen.
It was really depressing.
But, in the end,
I found myself hoping
that he’d smother me
with a pillow if ever he
found me to be the
victim of an unnecessary
lobotomy.

**** you, Nurse Rached.

*
-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

Somewhere along the way
we forgot to tell you that
this isn’t always fun,
that writing, like Hemingway
said, is akin to bleeding.

Apparently we forgot to mention
that, like Selby says, it doesn’t
take much to do this; it only takes
everything you have.

I know for me, more often
than I would care to admit,
I’m still writing out my horrible
fears, feelings of inadequacy,
intense depressions, memories
of fistfights in boy’s rooms of
elementary schools, middle schools
and high schools all over this city.

That **** doesn’t just go away, you know.
But, writing about it helps.
Hell, writing about anything helps,
but it’s not always fun.

Sometimes it feels like drowning in a barrel of tar.

I will never forget watching my daughters be born dead,
I will never forget seeing my wife’s puffy, tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes,
I will never forget what I did to deal with what I saw, with how helpless
it all made me feel, how inadequate I was as a husband, as a parent, as
a partner.

I couldn’t fix any of it. I couldn’t take any of it away, but there was one thing…

I could write.
I could bleed ink.
And, I did.

I bled decibels too.
I took these notebooks full of bile,
of misery, of near insanity, to a bookshop
with a PA and a live microphone.

I used that microphone to spread my disease
as far as the soundwaves would carry it.
I wanted infection, secretion;
I wanted a ******* pandemic.

What I learned was that doing this;
writing it out, spitting it out, throwing it out
in small rooms full of people with their own stories
made my stories tangible, alive to an audience of my peers.

Going further back in time, I can recall a pretty clumsy
****** experience.

That girl, in her father’s Winnebago,
she told me that she wanted to do it just to
see if I could, and I could.
She was done with me before whatever sweat
we’d sweated had even dried.

She made me wait at the end of her driveway
for my father to pick me up.

So, when that older poet writes about
lost loves, or lovers long gone, I get it.

Because, maybe he’s writing about how sweet
and supple they were so long ago, so that he might
better be able to get a handle on the recollection of
the biting crush of loneliness that their departure brought about,
and might still live in the memory of his heart.

We write what we write.
Some of us call it poetry,
we may even reach higher
than we perhaps should,
and call it art.

But, I, and I would gather, we
know that it’s not always
a happy or enjoyable task.

It is a task of upheaval
and ultimately of survival.

It is not cute
but it is culture,
not always art,
but artful payment
to that which is painful,
pure.

*
-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

“Maybe if you wrote
like a cop when you’re
putting in service notes,
you wouldn’t waste
so much time.”
I’m told.

Maybe that’s right,
but it feels wrong
not to invest some
of what I’m good at
into these people’s
lives.

I’m good at telling stories.

And, I do tell their stories,
replacing words like ‘said’
and ‘told’ with dryer lint
like ‘stated’ or ‘observed’.

Regardless, an investment
is made, a story is told;
most days there’s not
enough story left for me.

Maybe, if I gave less
than a *******,
I’d have some *******
left for my own stories,
but the notebooks lay
empty,
my skull’s usual roar is
silent.

That silence deafens, depresses.
But, I care enough about the story in the
service notes to give more
than
a *******.

*
-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

If the world belongs to
the brave and the tricky,

shouldn’t we try to be
less of those things?

collectively, might it be
better to be aware and
kind, or honest and
sincere?

to be less tricky and less
brave is to be more human
and understanding anyway,
right?

be more you, and I’ll be more
me, and we won’t be anything
but us.

we’ll be neither tricky nor brave
we’ll be neither black nor white,
gay nor straight, woman nor man,

we’ll be human beings,
people that are simple
and meek, and curious,
and interested, and earnest,
and thoughtful, and respectful
of differences.

we’ll be as we were intended,
we’ll be alive.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2016

The Christ was waiting
for a bus
on a street corner
in Heaven.
It wasn’t a big deal,
but an annoyance;
His car was
in the shop.
Because,
even in Heaven,
an oil leak is
a pain in the ***.
The Son of God
whistled as he waited.
The song that he whistled,
just so happened to be,
“Ring of Fire”.
For no particular reason at all,
it had been stuck in His head
all morning long.
As The Redeemer whistled,
and waited,
one J.R. Cash
was just dropping
his car at the shop,
for a quick oil change,
in what must’ve seemed
like divine providence, but
probably wasn’t.
Not one to sit still
for very long,
The Man In Black
set off for a brief stroll
instead of staying put
in the shop’s waiting area.
Spotting Our Lord,
at the bus stop,
The Highwayman
strode up and put forth
his usual introduction;
“Hello…I’m Johnny Cash.”
he said.
“I know who you are, Johnny!”
replied The Lord.
“I was fillin’ in for Pete
the day you passed through
The Gates, pal.”
J.R. nodded, and said;
“Yes sir, I remember now;
September 12th 2003.
You and Your Daddy had
let me have quite the run.
I thank You for that.”
The Savior, replied,
“Sure enough, John.
We always do what We can…
Hey, what’re you doing here anyways?”
The Man In Black grinned;
“Aw, nuthin’, I just seen that You was here
waitin’ for the bus.  
I thought I might offer to
walk back to the shop with ya,
an’ maybe offer a lift to get ya goin.”
The Lord smiled up at Johnny; squinting in the bright sun,
“Sure thing, Sue.  I’ll take it,
lets go.
They’re pulling a gasket on My Nissan anyway,
I’ve got nothin’ but time.”
“Okay”, replied J.R., “Let’s head back;
I’d bet they’ve got my Lincoln topped off by now.”
The Man In Black fired up a Lucky Strike
with a black Zippo lighter.
At the sight of this, The Lamb chuckled;
“Sue, you’ve been doing that since you were
twelve years old.”
He paused a bit, shrugged,
and asked;
“Hey, could I get one of those?”
Johnny handed one over,
and the pair set off back toward
the shop.
*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2015

Earlier this week I spoke of some days
I’d rather forget.

I shared benign versions in the hope
that it is seen that the world is as good
or bad as you want to make it.

I’m reminded that sometimes
the ignorance of youth plays a part,
and you’re in bed with a stripper who’s shaking,

sweating, and stops breathing now and again,
and you’re holding on tight as she snores, moans,
writhes, and howls.

Because, you want to be in love with her
and you want to run screaming from your own apartment.
because nothing you’ve ever done,
no life you’ve ever lived,
the call center,
the furnished room,
the phone calls to your parents
when the bank account is down to pennies
has ever prepared you to lay next to someone
who’s all jacked up on some kind of dope
that you’ve never heard anything about
except for the stuff that you’ve seen
in movies or on TV, but that’s all
******* isn’t it?

And, you hope that you don’t wake up
next to a dead body,
so you don’t go to sleep at all,

So, that’s off the table isn’t it?

And, you make coffee and write
in your stupid notebook
about how much you think
you’re in love with this  doped up hyena
in the sack with you,
just because she let you rub up on her *******
a handful of times and you’ve run your fingers
thru her bush a few times.

And, you think that’s where love starts
but you don’t know a ******* thing about love,
but you’ve passed over a handful of $20s because
she says she’s broke and hungry and that’s what someone
who loves someone does.

You’re too ******* stupid or naïve to realize, to know
that the dough buys the dope and that she ***** some
of the other customers for the same thing she gets from you
w/o the ***** and w/o all of your foolishness, your *******.

And, the morning comes and she’s still alive, so are you,
and so is everyone else.
And, you wrote her a love poem in that
******* notebook of yours.

So, you ask her if she wants to hear you read it,
and you really mean it, you really want her to hear it,
to love it, to see that she means something to your foolish,
child’s heart.

But, she laughs at you,
puts her clothes on,
grabs her bag,
and walks out the door.

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

We marvel at
the smell of the white clover.

It is a baked in smell right now,
the heat is oppressive, crushing

The smell of the clover, and this
cigarette are the only reason we’re
out here.

Smarter, healthier people are inside,
in the air-conditioning, nursing a beer or
a lemonade, watching whatever might be on
HBO.

Returning to our respective homes,
we rejoin their much more comfortable
ranks.

(I’m curious what’s on HBO anyway.)


When the need for nicotine rises again;
cigarette in hand, opening the door, seeing
the pavement has darkened with rain.

The smell of the clover has been muted,
replaced with the brassy, metallic breeze
that rises like steam from the hot driveway,
lingering under the nose like a warm childhood
sip from the spigot.

That steam has its own odor,
rich and febrile,
rising from the superheated
surfaces of our cars.

It smells like squirt-gun suicide,
a child’s drink from the barrel of
plastic ordinance.

(Do you remember doing that?  
I do.)

How terrifying that must’ve been to parents;
to see their children, in swimwear or skivvies,
******* on the end of a gun.

Perhaps they gave it less of a thought
than I do now.

I’d wager they were inside,
in the air-conditioning, nursing a beer or
a lemonade, watching whatever might be on
HBO.

Out of the early summer heat.

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

water comes hot from the tap
for the first time in what feels
like a century.

the cup is rinsed, letting it fill
and overflow, the warmth runs
over swollen, arthritic knuckles
held there for a few minutes more

despite the rising mercury,
the water rinses stale coffee
and pain away

the powdered creamer
like the dust of ground bone,
is added and the black blood
of truth becomes chocolate
and is that much more palatable
like the day.


*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

Penelope was angry with me,
earlier this week I had ripped up
a story that I’d been working on for
a long time.

The story was about an ex-con, with a heart of gold,
he wandered around Nevada and righted a few wrongs
along the way.  

The coolest thing about him was his name and the fact that
he was a little banged up.

In my head, he was kind of an older guy, a ***,
kind of greasy, you know, shifty, reckless, a guy
maybe you could relate to, and he walked with a cane.

Big deal, right?

Penelope didn’t think so; I mean she was smart enough
to know that this story wasn’t my ******* magnum-opus
or anything, but she got ****** because I flipped out, started yelling
about how I was a no good sonofabitch, couldn’t write for ****,
and should give it up and take up ******’ basket-weaving or something.

She tried to tell me that I was being a ******* and that I was a good writer;
pointing out that I’d made it into rags like “Clues”, “Dime Detective”, and that once
I’d even been published in “Web of Mystery”.

But I wouldn’t listen and I told her that she was full of ****, and a pain in the ***,
and that she could do better than a hack like me, and I told her to get the hell
away from me or I might lose my ******* mind and strangle her.

So, she did.  She packed a bag, got in my car, and took off for her cousin’s house upstate.

Now, here I was, without my car, without more than maybe twenty-five bucks to my name,
and without the girl of my dreams.

I was just about to throw my typewriter out the window when the phone rang…

“Penny?”
“Nope.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, ya dumb ****!”
“Who the **** is ‘me’ and what the **** does ‘me’ want?”
“It’s Dale, ya *******!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”

Dale proceeded to tell me about how he’d just been picked
up by both “Amazing Stories” and “Tales From The Crypt” for a
six month run of short fiction in each and he then tells me that
they’ve seen fit to advance him two-hundred dollars each.

“Eat ****, Dale,” I say, and hang up the phone.

About thirty minutes later there’s a knock at my door.
It’s not Penelope, unfortunately.
It’s Dale.

“I don’t wanna eat ****, Chuckie-boy.
I wanna eat a steak.”

I tell Dale to go get a **** steak and that I’m not planning on going anywhere.
He won’t take no for an answer, so the next thing I know, we’re loaded into his jalopy and heading downtown.

The first place we go is Rico’s.  

Rico’s has pretty good food and they know what to do with a KC strip,
so Dale’s pretty jazzed.

“Chuck, you getting’ a steak?”
“Nah, I was thinkin’ about the club sandwich.”

While we ate, Dale told me about how he’d gone about the writing of the pilots
for his two series of short stories, about the correspondence between himself and the
editors, about sending in edits and revisions, and about finally getting his acceptance letters,
signing the contracts, and getting the checks in the mail.

I listened, sure, but mostly I let my thoughts wander to how Penelope and I had done, and been doing, much the same for the past several years.  
I would mail manila envelopes back and forth to “Mystery and Suspense” and she would do her monthly allotment of sentiment scribbling for The Renaissance Greeting Card Co.

Neither of us were hacks.  We got some checks in the mail, same as Dale, and more often.

What chaffed was that Dale had gotten a contract for a run of stories.

Dale had gotten what I wanted. And, I couldn’t handle it.
I had forgotten about all that I had done, all that I had achieved,
I had dismissed all of those manila envelopes, all of those little checks, I had forgotten how they’d added up, how they’d kept me alive, fed me, sheltered me, how they’d sustained me.

And in the dismissal of those envelopes and all the good they’d done me, I’d managed to dismiss the only other things that had done me any good at all.  I’d dismissed myself as a writer, and I’d done the very same to Penelope.  

What a fool I was.

When we’d finished, Dale paid the check and asked if I wanted to go to Auggie’s *******
and have a look.

I said that I didn’t.

I thanked him for the meal and asked if he’d mind dropping me off at home.

I told him that I had a lot of work to do on a rewrite,

and that I had a telephone call to make.

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

Penelope is sitting at the kitchen table.
She has a large manila envelope spilled
out across the red plastic surface.

There are about 50 blank greeting cards,
the fronts of these have pictures of butterflies,
palm trees, puppies, strawberry patches, assorted
flowers and birds, and artist’s renderings of quiet places
in nature.

Penelope is writing things down on a yellow legal pad
and contemplating the art on the fronts of the blank cards.
Penelope is working.

About once a month, the Renaissance Greeting Card Co.
sends one of these manila envelopes full of blank cards for her
to ponder.
Sometimes while she ponders,
she drinks wine.

Other pondering sessions require ginger ale
or coffee.

She tells me that the wine is the best lubricant for
the ponderings of wholesale sentiments and she writes
one down on her legal pad.

When she has turned each blank into, what she believes to be, a
suitable greeting card, we will sit together and number the blanks
with black marker, I will type up the sentiments and match them to their
corresponding blank, we will stuff these into the supplied return envelope
and mail the whole mess back to Renaissance Greeting Card Co.

A few weeks later, Penelope will receive a check in the mail.


I am in the bedroom.
I have a little corner desk set up in there.
On this desk, is a typewriter, an ashtray, and a tennis ball.

Sometimes, if I run out of ideas, I’ll chuck the tennis ball at the wall
and catch it on the return bounce for a while.  
Usually, I drink coffee while I do the chucking, sometimes it’s
whiskey.

I write stories about bank robberies, diamond heists, or other
tales of daring do.

Sometimes I write prose poems
about what Penelope and I do
on a Wednesday afternoon.

When I have enough of these to fill a manila envelope
or two, I send them off to various editors/publishers of
magazines/rags I have found that serve a particular
audience for these sorts of writings.

Sometimes I get a check in the mail,
sometimes I don’t.

But, there’s always another Wednesday afternoon.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

Just fifteen minutes ago
Penelope and I had been
******* like a couple of
fire-breathing, rabid dragons.

I say dragons as opposed to
rabbits, jackalopes, or whatever
because we’d only been awake for
the past half hour or so.

It was 11am on Sunday;
neither of us had brushed
our teeth yet.

There was a party at Reilly’s
last night and the bourbon and
gin were flowing fine,
I have to say.

John Reilly’s oldest boy
had gotten out of Wabash
Friday afternoon after serving 7 years
so it was definitely time for some levity.

Penelope wandered the bar and made
over some of the regulars, sitting on laps
or patting bald heads.

Reilly wasn’t giving drinks away,
despite the joyous occasion.
Ol’ Johnny wasn’t about to pass up a buck,
but Penelope made sure she and I drank for
free.

So, we drank.


I found the bedroom to be sour,
smelling of *****-sweat and ****-fumes,
so I pulled my shorts on, making my way
to the kitchen.


I turned on the stove,
found a pan and went to the fridge
for the butter and eggs.
The coffee *** stared at me.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you.”


After a brief pause to get
my first love percolating,
I grabbed what was left of a loaf
and my finest, read that as only,
cast iron skillet and wished I had a
sirloin or flank to fry in it, but I didn’t.

Instead, I grabbed three coffee cups,
and set to work, using one of the cups
to cut circles out of six slices of white bread;
luckily I had a half dozen eggs left.

Some people call them
hens in the nest
or
eggs in a basket,
but we always called ‘em
frog eyes when I was a kid.

I won’t bore you with the details,
but I had those little golden *******
looking pretty good by the time I heard
Penelope’s bare feet padding from the bedroom
to the can.

I listened carefully.

I heard the tiniest little **** echo into
the bowl of the toilet while she peed;
I found it endearing.

The shower ran,
the coffee dripped,
I grabbed the Tabasco, some maple syrup,
some marmalade.

Options, right?


I made myself a cup of coffee,
added sugar and some powdered
creamer I had.

I rarely bought milk.

Hell, I rarely slept here.

The frog eyes were done.
The shower stopped.
I heard Penelope padding back to
the bedroom and rustling around in my
chest of drawers.

She appeared in the doorway.
her shower-wet hair a deep, mossy
brown that would dry to a mousy color,
her large, deep, wet eyes the color of emeralds.

I could get lost in them.

Penelope was wearing one of my undershirts,
and, from what I could tell, nothing else.

“What’s for breakfast; it smells good.”
“Coffee too?”

“Indeed”, I said.
“Frog eyes”, I said.

Penelope made a face,
but sat across from me anyway.

Picking up a circle of fried white bread,
bursting a yolk; sipping her coffee,
she took a bite and
smiled at me.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

I like how the moon
is out in the daytime
and that I can see it
while I drive.

Sometimes I talk to
the moon and ask it
if I’m doing what I’m
being called to do.

The moon never
answers me, but
instead is silent
and doesn’t offer
advice or remark
on what I should
or should not be
doing.

In the silence
of the moon,
I remember
that I have my
own voice, that I
am my own creator,
my own master, my
own, my own.

I do not have to seek
approval from the moon,
from you, from anyone.

We are celestial, the moon
and I.  Made of the same
cosmic chaos and calamity.

The moon and I, for now,
have the same fate, the same
destiny.

We will simply continue
to be.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

The air is incredibly thin.
I can’t breathe, and my
hands are shaking.

When I was a boy,
a playmate hit me
in the head with a
glass ashtray.

In an instant,
my father had snatched
the boy up and carried him
****** outside, suspended
by one ankle.

I’ve heard also,
stories of my great-uncles
two brothers, run out of
Saint Louis County
because they’d fought in and
been banned from every tavern
on both sides of every main drag,
of every township therein.

Maybe that’s where this
comes from.

There is a fire inside that
most days is only embers,
but stokes far too easily into
infernal inferno.

The grey mush in my skull is
jacked into some electricity
with jumper-cables made from
too many sour thoughts,
a fierce depression, and
huge piles of self-doubt.

Gladness, contentedness,
feels like fraud, like failure,
like not leaning into it sturdily
enough.
Like not staring into The Abyss hard
enough.

It feels like obscenity to
not see conflict,
to not rail against
some dark thing,
some enemy.

In doing so
is found the ability to
feel like
enough.

But,
what
is
enough?

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

There’s a war on,
ya morons!

Shortages everywhere!

There’s a shortage of
sanity, of clear thought
here!

Hell, they’re rationing
everything these days!

No one will pay your
******* cab fare either,
so, find your own *******
way out of this ditch!

Stick your sonuvabichin’
thumb out, hike your
skirt up, show those
******* some of the pink
stuff.

That’ll get ‘em,
or maybe it won’t,
who knows,
who cares,
who gives a circus-elephant ****?

Not me.

I don’t give a ******* cerebral
hematoma about what happens next.

I just want to get out of here
and see how far I can get before
the radiator blows and my eyebrows
are singed off.

Jesus Christ in a ******* boat!

Ah, **** it!

I’ll see you in the morning.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

In her leggings,
and her striped
Cape Cod dress,
we meet Kim.

She’s in possession
of ankles the circumference
of Kennedy half-dollars,
a wasp’s nest of black curls
piled on her head,
she’s a straight line
from shoulder to heel.

She’s a real catch, Kim is,
and she knows it.

She has no idea that
she looks like a peacock
dipped in motor oil,

she’s giving ol’ Josh
the goldfish eye.

We’re all here to see The Freight Train,
The Rabbit Killer, but Kim’s hoping
for more.

Kim’s looking to get her
bunny stuffed, she
don’t care much about who
does the stuffing,

but she’s hoping for Mr. Clark,
he’s her mark, no doubt.

Now, Josh bought Kim
a beer, but was asked to
leave the cap on,

He looks at me, confused.
“It’s so you can’t Rufie her.
She wants to *******, but
she wants it to be her idea.”

Josh nods;
so does Kim.

As the evening proceeds,
and we’ve all done
“The Freight Train Boogie”
it’s become increasingly
obvious to Kim that Josh
is not agreeable to buttering
her biscuits, she moves,
which is to say stumbles,

around the room.

Every so often she’ll climb onto
the lap of some guy she’s known,
biblically or otherwise, before.

Sam, Bob, Steve, Ralph, or Charlie,
it hardly matters.

Earlier, she’d told us about
the 6-year-old twins,
the teenaged daughter
at home, ex-husband,
boyfriend, whatever, in jail.

The Freight Train moves ever
onward, but I’ve seen too
much of ol’ Kimmy’s show,
now depressed, it’s time
to bail.

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

He’s a squirrel,
dashing and dithering
here, there, *******
everywhere

At near six feet,
he towers, but
at 120 he’s not
much more than
a cat-tail.

(yet, so very much more)

At the end of the day
he rattles; bits of this
and that in his pockets,

I’m waiting for the day
when he palms a Marlboro
and one of my lighters.

Having a thing for fire,
I know it’ll be soon;
we already hide the
matches.

But, it’ll happen.

Will I make him smoke
a whole pack? Nah.
Where’s the lesson there?
He’s nicotine ****** or puking,
while I’m out a pack of smokes.

It’ll watch him cough, hack, spit;
realizing the error made.

Same one I made,
‘cept I kept at it.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016