He wished he’d been born tough
instead of already broken down in ways.
Raised by an English teacher;
he didn’t complain about it,
but sometimes wished
it was by a linebacker
or first baseman instead.
Jesus Christ, just look at him!
He was a yard across at the shoulders
yet a good shove would’ve
put him on his ***.
He resented it sometimes;
especially considering the way
he was wired.
Like a pilot light
that’s always looking for a reason
to fire up all four burners
all at once.
Sometimes he wished
that he could fight his way out of a bar,
just once.
Spend the night on a jailhouse cot.
Go to the ER with a broken nose.
The adult in him knows that these are foolish thoughts.
He’s too old for that **** now,
pushing 40.
Sometimes he feels 25 and powerful.
Sometimes he feels geriatric and slow.
He likes himself better now than he did
10 years ago.
But, then wonders what could’ve been
and who he’d be if he’d been able
to draw his first breath just
15 minutes sooner.
In the end, he figures that
maybe he’d like himself less than he does
right now.
That’s the only thought
that saves him
now and then.

He went to see the oldboy in the hospital.
It was his job to check in on all the oldboys
and oldgirls that they assigned to him.  
He liked his job very much
the oldboys and/or girls had some of the best stories
or sometimes it was good just to visit with them
and watch the boredom or sadness leave them for a bit,
while they were visiting or chatting.

This particular oldboy was one of his favorites.
The oldboy reminded Jay of both himself and his father in an odd way.
For one, the oldboy had a lot of tattoos
and was always mad about something.
The oldboy had the proverbial soapbox
and wasn’t afraid to stand on it.
Also, the oldboy cussed a lot.
The oldboy was short/fat/bald too,
like Jay’s Pop was and Jay liked,
honestly to see this particular oldboy because
he felt like it gave him a glimpse into his own future.
It didn’t help though that the oldboy liked to smoke
those little blue cigars
and drink a lot of coffee
and whiskey,
because Jay liked, in moderation/sort of,
***** and smoke and cheeseburger sandwiches
and doughnuts
and bacon
and all that stuff that was surely shortening his life.
Jay didn’t like to think about that,
but he liked the look-forward that the oldboy afforded him.

Anyway, the hospital visit came about
and Jay made his way to the third floor
turning left and right scanning the signs
for the right room number.
He found it pretty fast
and made his way to the oldboy’s room.
The room was sad straightaway.
The little closet with the shelves just had a ratty pair of shorts
and a holey tshirt on it.  
The bed was made up tight and clean.
It looked like no one had slept in there the night before.        
There was the oldboy asleep in the hospital room recliner-chair.
He was in his hospital gown and drawers
with ratty old sandals on his feet. His chin was tucked in between his ***** and his gut
and he was snoring loudly.
Hey, Oldboy!
ZZZZzzzz
Hey, Oldboy, ya’wake?
ZZZzzzz
Hey!!  Ya’in here!!??
MMmmhmm?!
Hey, ya okay? Why ya in’here? Whatsamatter? Ya’needsomethin’?
Oh, hiya Jay.
Thanks fer comin’round.
His leftside looks a little hangdog.
They’s tellsa me I’da has had a stroke.
Oh, that’s a ****** shame, Oldboy!  
What the hell’ya gonna do now?
Oh, I’sa don’t right know, Jay.  
I’ma sad shape,
an’ I’ma miss my dog.
Lookit, Oldboy…
I’m calling The State.
I’m telling that they cannot send you
to the house without some extra time for someone to
lookout for you.
They’ve gotta keep someone
keeping  an eyeball on you.
They can’t send you home
with nobody keeping tabs on you.

Hey, that’s a good plan.
In this life ya gotta hava pal
and that pal’s gotta lookowt for ya.
Thanks fer comin’ by, Jay…
MMMhmmmZZZzz.

The Oldboy fell asleep
and Jay talked to some nurses
asking them not to send the oldboy home
until they’d talked to The State
and gotten him some extra help
and they said that they would do that
and they asked Jay to sign a release
and they woke the oldboy up
to ask him if it was okay that they talk to Jay
and the oldboy scribbled his name
on the paper and zonked out
and the nurses talked to Jay
and Jay made ‘em promise to do the good stuff
they said they would
and then he left
and went down the elevator
to the parking lot
and lit a cigarette
and felt sad and sorry
for the oldboy.
*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

Waiting for what?
Nothing much is happening here.
Still, there’s nothing wrong
with waiting around for a while.

The air is amazing tonight.
Damp,
cool enough to make
the earthen odors
mean a little bit more
than they might otherwise.

There were two ravens
on the street lights
earlier this afternoon;
we looked at one another for a minute.

They had their sodium lamps
to roost on,
passing judgement on us below,
but there were other errands to run,
no time for further inquiry
as to the harshness of the gaze they leveled.

Still, we looked upon each other,
it was like they knew something unknowable
to anyone else at all.

We ate a tripe supper,
with beans and onions.
The smell of the tripe was a pleasant,
but readily acknowledged
barnyard smell.
As I chewed, I knew doubtlessly
what I was eating.  
It tasted fine.

After supper came a pair of cigarettes,
some time to walk.

There was no real destination.
The only task was to avoid the torpor
that comes all too readily
once the belly is full.

Now,
the house is asleep.

All but me.

I can still smell the lingering smells
of fried ***** meat and onion.
Now harsh,
a bit unpleasant.

I’ll make enough use
of such a small displeasure,
so as to stay awake just long enough to finish these lines,
take another short stroll
into autumn’s savory fragrances
before sleep steals what’s left
of tonight’s living wage.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

In the midst of a memory
that is not much more
than a wisp of smoke
after the candle has
been blown out.

The scent of the candle,
once extinguished,
is pallid compared to
its acrid brethren whose
tendrils ache for the ceiling.

As the exhalation
escapes the lips,
the small
flame winks into nothingness,

the smoke reminds us all
what a monstrous adversary
fire can be.  

Fire,
like the pain of this
incendiary,
if fleeting memory:

The raven-haired
librarian,
her tresses now streaked
with fine, silver filaments,
spoke of children
long ago buried.

(mine)


“You know, your daughters hold a special place in my heart.
I think of them often”, she says.

It is easy to speak truths,
when they are so honest and real
that they hang in the air like smoke
or cause a minor burn
like a palm held over a candle
for too long.

“I named one of them after Holden Caulfield’s sister”, I say.

“But, her middle name is all yours.”

That second sentence may have been a spark
in my mind,
that never was combustible enough to
issue forth as spoken,

but it remains true nonetheless,
librarian,

as true as smoke,
as true as fire,
as true as…

you.


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

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

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

“Where are the Slim Jims?” I asked.
“Are you with that woman?” the clerk
asked back.

“No, I’m with me.” I replied.
“Because, she just got one.” says the clerk.
“Okay. I want my own.” I said.

“You need to calm down.” he says.

The circuitry sparks.
The hard drive spins up.
Maximum.

“What?” I ask
and I really want to
know too.

“I said, You need to calm down;
beef jerky and stuff is right over there.”

“Oh, okay…and I’m not even wound up,
but I can get that way, if you’d like.”

“No, man. I was just saying…”
he trails off.

I wish I knew what he was just saying
and why he was just about to say it.

I wish I knew what I
would have said too.

Both of us were almost
*******.

Relax, chief.
It’s just practice.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

Sometimes there’s nothing left but the wolves.
cornered
confused
concussive silences
broken by howls
rivers of bile
iron filings
choked upon truths
landslide mind
sleep apnea
retinal scan
unidentified
alone
rivers of isolation
mercury tears
that don’t fall
they well
stay in the sockets
waiting for the next wave
numbness
sterilized
mechanical
depressive state
mauled.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

“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

He slides his cheap little Timex
onto his wrist and hops into
the passenger seat.

We could end up just about anywhere,
the local video store, a coffee shop,
the myriad of thrift stores,
or the ******* moon.

He doesn’t care,
as long as I turn him loose.

He just wants to be a big guy,
and wishes he had a squad of
loud cohorts to tag alongside
but, he doesn’t.

So, we hit the street,
my boy and I,
and I warn him…

'Don’t leave the building,
don’t go with anyone;
be back here in 30 minutes.'
He nods vigorously,
anxious to be off.

At the bottom of the 35th minute,
my nerves creep up.
Recalling the time I was almost
kidnapped.
I’ve never forgotten that old man
with his cane covered in etched snakes
and his offering of Reese’s peanut butter cups.

I’m in that hospital hallway, near that drinking fountain,
and my momma steps out of nowhere: “Jay”, she says loudly;
“You get over here by me.”
I move to her side without a word, but with a new awareness.

Fast-forward 30 years, and I’m back.
Standing worried near customer-service;
thinking about how easily swayed  he can be.

I hear a quiet ‘hello’
and can breathe again.
*
-JB Claywell
©P&ZPublications;
2015

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

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


Sometimes I miss that dog.
Sometimes I miss cigarettes.

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

It was one of those black,
crystalline
winter mornings.

There was no moon
or
stars that could be seen.

The coastal storms
had harried our
Midwestern weather pattern,
dosed us with perhaps,
a little more winter
than we’d previously
been ready for.  

Out the door,
on the street,
just before five o’clock
in the morning.

The air is not still,
but doesn’t have much movement to it.

This breeze has teeth though,
they bite hard enough
that everything in me
says that it might be a good idea to stop,
turn around,
get back under the covers,
hideout for a few more hours.

But, I’m already out here.

I’ve chosen the Phillips 66 sign
as my adopted moon,
letting it guide my steps.

I pass by that mechanic’s yard.

The yellow IROC Z-28 stares at me
with her dim headlights,
reflecting the light of that
‘not-a-moon’ moon
we’d both elected to go in for.  

“I used to go fast”, she says.
“Me too”, I say and keep walking.

There was a time that I wanted that car
like I’d wanted women I had known
during years and versions of myself
long gone.

Really though,
I don’t know what I would have done
with those yellow fishtailing hips,
those screaming tires,
that black vinyl-wrapped steering wheel.

Yeah,
that car was very much like
those long-lost lusted for women,
in that I’d have been flummoxed
as to what to do with them after a while.

There are only so many
red lights to run,
so many hairpin turns to take,
holding that yolk for dear life.

There are only so many mindless rolls in the sack,
only so many beers with bourbon sidecars.

I keep walking.

That yellow Camaro winks at me
a few more times
under the light of that gas-station moon.

I keep walking.

Nowadays we’d both make
that same quarter-mile run
to the Phillips 66
in the same amount of time.

However,
she’s all caged up
in that chain-link lot.

I’m not.

I’m free.

I’m cold,
but where I’ll end up,
I’ll fill up on biscuits and gravy,
sit in a warm booth,
hope that someone
has already left a morning paper behind,
and stare into the inky, starless pre-dawn sky.

Likely becoming
hopelessly infatuated with my
adopted moon.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

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

It’s impossible to be sure
just what this is.
It feels like decay,
like drought.

Walking tonight
like an angry dog
on a very long leash.

Ready to lunge or
snap at the nearest
passerby.

Willing myself to
expel some of the
bile, the filth,
the wretchedness
into the ether.

Blues like an
anvil between
the shoulders.

It waits in the shadows
for the next opportunity.
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPulications; 2016

Writing in this book,
finding my way in the dark,
seeking, feeling, stretching hands,
straining eyes to see inside the cave
that is my mind these days.

There is a darkness there,
a gloom,
a tomb,
and a womb
all at once.

It’s where I die but feel alive;
or live but feel like I’m dying.

This is the place where I've buried babies,
proclaimed eternal love,
remembered the playground,
recalling the push and shove.

In this space, I clear my head;
I clean my mind,
I think, ponder, and proclaim.
In this place, I stay sane.

This is the place that I’m found,
the place where my mind is sound,
where my love is strong,
where I’m write, right?
And, it’s okay to be wrong.

In this notebook,
I pay what my quiet costs;
in this notebook,
with it’s empty pages,
I find what I've never lost.

*
-JB Claywell
©P&ZPublications;
2015

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

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

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

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

“So, some ******* tells me that I should thank all of the men and women who have served our country and allowed me to have this glorious three-day-weekend. I says to the goon, Yeah? Do you know why we’s are able to enjoy these fine bratwursts on this, a spectacular Monday afternoon? Sure, sure, he tells me. It’s because’a all the service men and women.  What?  So, I asks the guy…What exact holiday are you’s celebratin’? And, he says to me: Why, Labor Day, of course!  So, finally I says to the guy, I says listen here you ******’ goober, I says if you wanna thank dead or living soldiers for your freedom all day long, every day, you’s go right ahead. Hell, I tells ‘em; I’ll even join ya! Lord knows them guys deserve it. But, I says, but…If you wanna thank a poor dead ******* particularly for a tree-day-weekend, known specifically as Labor Day, then you gotta tip ya ******’ hat and say tanks to Jimmy ******’ Hoffa. May he rest in peace, cement and peace, but mostly peace.”

-JBClaywell
©2015 P&ZPublications

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

People act like they are only allowed to or capable of using one line of thought at a time, or that negates all the other thoughts or something. Not me, baby, not me. It’s not like I can’t want the Syrian refugees to be well tended to while at the same time wishing we would do more for our veterans, returning, homeless, disabled or otherwise. Hell, I wish we’d feed our kids and take care of our elderly and mind our footing and everything else too. But, just because I’ve got some of my focus pointed here or there, doesn’t mean I don’t see everything else as well. Really, in the grand scheme of things, to me, this whole thing with the refugees is about being human and treating other humans, humans that have lost virtually everything, like humans, because they deserve to be treated like humans.
We squawk about red cups and refugees, we grouch about taking Christ out of Christmas. We complain that we don’t do enough for homeless vets, or hungry kids, or whatever. But, the remedy is to do what you can, when you can, and how ever you’re able. Next month, I’m going to a local venue to “Rock For Tots”. I’ll get to see some pals, hear some good music, and help some kids get a better Christmas. That’s how I’m keeping my faith, some faith, any faith this holiday season. And, don’t be so foolish to think that I’m saying that the only faith I have is in the local music scene or some such nonsense, but it is a place to start because it’s full of good people trying to do a good thing and they’ll get it done.
Maybe that’s the point here. Maybe we should see our opportunities to do good stuff in the world like I’m seeing this town’s local music scene right now. It’s pretty simple really, just do a good thing, be a good person, and try to make a difference here and there.
To say that all Muslims are terrorists is stupid, and fearmongering has no place here anymore. It never has. To say that we are “One Nation Under God, Not Allah!” and to ask me to “like and share” that kind of simplemindedness makes me wonder if you understand what America is demographically and how it got that way in the first place.
I’m an American. I’m pretty sure I’m a Christian. (I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd, Ringo.) I know that I’m an Earthling, just like you, and I also know that I’m a Humanist. (If I see a human being out there that I can help; I’m giving it a shot. Hell, it’s what I do for a living.)
‪#‎Hashtags‬ ain’t gonna cut it, friends. We created this country with action. We’re a nation of thinkers, dreamers, and ultimately doers. We get it done, son!
So, do whatever good you can, when you can. If you don’t do that, it’s like not voting…you don’t get to *****.
In the meantime…
I’ll see ya out there.
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; (2015)

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

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

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

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

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

None of us live the same type of life.

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

Ours are circumstances,
unshared.

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

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

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

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

Person first, second, and third.

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

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

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

our lives.


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

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

She herself,
my friend,
had become a local.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I decided to see my friend, Abigail.

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

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

(there’s not much to it.)

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

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

She dutifully fills new glasses,
washes those abandoned.

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

It was a good night,
a fair adventure.

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

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

Neither hungry nor thirsty,
I was sated.

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

I laughed with my friend, Abigail.

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

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

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

Maybe George will be there.

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

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 step carefully off of the curb,
the white plastic bag is looped
over the handle of my crutch,
inside the bag are a couple of Little Debbie
nutty bars, a bottle of diet Sprite,
and a bottle of Pure Leaf, Southern Style
Sweet Tea.
Angela’s not with me.
I’m taking her a treat.  
She’s working
on campus.
Making my way back to my car,
I spot a maroon 1984 Datsun 510
at one of the pumps.
Immediately, I have to check it out;
we had one of those when I was a boy.
I freeze.
Hanging the nozzle back on the pump,
is my father,
he is wearing khakis, a red and blue striped
polo shirt, and tennis shoes. His hair is less gray
than it was when I saw him just yesterday, and what’s
up with those glasses?  The frames are really thick!
“Hey…Pops?” I say.
He looks up, his eyes wide, green
and full of life, confusion racing across his face.
“Jay?”
“Yeah.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m 40.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m 44.”
“Whoa.” we both say at the exact same time.
“What year is it?” he asks.
“2015.” I reply.
The 44 year old version of my father
and the 40 year old version of myself
stare at one another for another minute.
Finally, the silence breaks.
“You know, I have a wife and three kids.”
He only laughs that deep, hearty, infectious laugh
that has become an inherited trademark.
“And, your mom’s got beans, Spanish rice, and hamburger
patties working at home.
Last I heard, you were pretty excited about supper tonight.”
“I’m sure I am.  I started work on this thing early, no doubt.”
pointing to my gut.
It is painfully obvious that we are both afraid to touch one another.
No hug.
No handshake.
Nothing but a small wave
once he’s back in the car.
But, as he drives down Frederick Ave.,
toward the house,  
I see his window drop.
“I always knew!”
he yells.
“You still do!”
I yell back.
The Datsun warbles and shimmers
like water in the sun
then blips out of existence.
*
©2015 P&ZPublications;
-JBClaywell

My mother is a password,
my father is a desk.

I am a pen that moves across
the blue lines of this page
or
the clatter of the keyboard
on which these words are typed,
transmitting their collective zeros
and ones into the blue-black light of
the text that appears unabashedly unmonitored
on the monitor, the screen, the scene
of this machine
that wages wars on my melancholy,
destroys the depressive states,
guerilla tactics,
computer-guided, cruise missile
ordinance.

Ordinary?
No.
A one-man Civil War.
An opinion-piece, op-ed
megaphone manifesto.

Rights?

Rites?

Writes?

I’ve got ‘em all,
down the the most
microscopic minutia,
a miasma of Most-Holy
**** or Shinola.

My mother is a password
my father is a desk.
I am a pen,
the mightiest of swords,
a war within a warrior,
no better
or
worse,
just different
from the
rest.


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

Falling out of bed,
sliding down to the floor.
Flesh of my back
catches the edge of
the nightstand,
peels back in a 12-inch
strip that my wife
finds on the floor,
and dutifully throws in
the trashcan.
She’s throwing me out,
one piece at a time.

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

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

Earnest Hemmingway says that writing is akin to bleeding.
The adjunct English professor told me that it definitely wasn’t easy.
And, that anyone who says it is,
is a ******* liar.
I disagree.
I think writing is akin to ******* in the beginning,
and ******* later on.
The first few times you try it,
you may not be very good at it,
but you like the results.
The more you do it,
the better you get at it.
You figure out what words or phases
turn you on the most, and you use those the best.
They get the best word-gasms out of you.
Reading books is, in this instance,
a lot like looking at *******.
It shows you what some of the other possibilities are.
It gives you examples of what works for other people
and what you can make work for you, and an audience,
if you like.
But, for the most part,
you’re doing whatever you’re doing
for the one who loves you most.
You’re doing it for yourself.
Later on, you can write for an audience.
You can take them with you, make them feel you,
show them wonders never before seen.
Like *******; the first few times might be clumsy
or awkward.
But, soon enough they’ll seek you out.
They’ll want your words for their own release.
Like loyal lovers, they’ll need your embrace.
So, maybe writing is like bleeding.
But, maybe it’s not.
Maybe it’s like *******, or jerking off.
So, do it a lot.
*
-J. Claywell
©P&ZPublications; 2014

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

...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.

Sending my kid down that hallway
clad only in his underpants and socks
wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done
as a parent, but it was close.
He looked so small
as he walked away from us.
He was staring down at the IPad
and I was glad for the distraction it brought.
He walked willingly, if not a little blindly into the unknown.
The O.R. nurses led the way, chattering away to selective ears which
listened primarily to the beeps and boops of “Plants Vs. Zombies”
or some such nonsense.
We kissed his forehead and said we’d see him soon.
He muttered a goodbye and swiped his finger left to right
setting a trap for the next digital enemy.
We waited in a very comfortable, yet uncomfortable room;
with strangers and their concerns and cares thickening the oxygen
I was trying to breathe.
There was coffee and doughnuts, cereal and milk.
We ate breakfast on Styrofoam plates and out of paper cups;
we waited.
When it was done we were told how it all played out.
The surgeon spoke of it in the same way my mechanic
talks about replacing a head gasket,
only with about 1000% more confidence;
like it was literally no big deal at all.

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

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

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

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.

If I were a real poet,
I’d be second-cousin
to Charles Bukowski.
If I were a musician,
I’d be a nephew of Tom Waits.
I think that it’s
a pretty safe bet to say
that the best tracks
on any album are track
#3, #7, and #9.
The best one of those three
is always #7.
Fall is the best time
to listen to jazz
and drink coffee
laced with bourbon.
It’ll get you drunk,
but you’ll be wide awake
at closing time.
My step-daddy
should be Hubert Selby Jr.
I can never sleep past 6am,
even if I go to bed at 2.
Sometimes baby,
the only thing better
than biscuits and gravy,
is you.  
*
-JBClawell
© P&ZPublications; 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

where did it go?
left in some boxed toys in a garage sale?
nah, it was left on school buses and playgrounds
trampled in the grime and dirt of too many fistfights.
tossed aside for the brave face that kept me alive for
another surgery…and recovery.
I tried to find it a few times
but too much time had passed
and little else had gotten better
I had moved on…unwittingly…unwillingly
moved into the territory of the adult
able to hold my own in a conversation
that should have been over my head
but was not.
I had discovered a different kind of toy
one that smelled like wild cherry bubble gum when first opened
one that was magnetic as it’s sounds unwound across my tape machine.
I tried to talk to people my age about my discoveries
They were too busy discovering their own wonders
like a pretty solid fastball...or even second base.
Years and youth gone
I lived alone
with notebooks, headphones, and cassette decks
content to leave their world for my own
a combination of riffs and words
that inspired me to use my own voice
to produce as good or better than the gods that lived
in my backpack.
I make my way…
and the old gods still ride along.

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