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

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

I refuse to participate.
I'd rather die.

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

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

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

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

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

I hope you would do the same.

*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

Feeling like
a calculator
with a decimal
key
that sticks.

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

The letter-opener
laughs
at me.

Sees
my inaccuracy,
my inadequacy.

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

The desktop
dings
the arrival
of an
email.

The office-supply
order
has arrived.

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

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

new,

plastic bubble
intact,

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

The decimals
rounded to
the nearest
hundredth,

I’ll find
rest,

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

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

All grey and pulpy inside
with 100 pages
and a beautifully speckled
black and white cover,
it’s clean, and it’s mine.

Those leafs aren’t white,
but they sure do shine.

The possibilities are endless
and lately they’ve been hard won.

I think I’ll take a few minutes
to see what I can get done.

A poem or story; a bit of journal
just for fun?

I don’t know what to write,
I’ll have to wait and see.
I’ll wait for inspiration
from friends, work, or family.

No matter when the words go in,
no matter how long it takes,
those sheets that glisten and
shine, waiting for ink,
are always there for me.

*

-JB Claywell
©2015 P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the city lights wink out
as midday returns.

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

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

“What do you like about me?” he asked.
“I like everything about you. You’re my very best friend.” came her reply.
“Yeah, but what specifically, makes you like whatever it is that you like about me?”
“Okay, okay…” she said, her brow furrowing thoughtfully.
“I like that you’re smart, and funny, and that we talk a lot, and that you love me the way that you do, as much as you do.”
“Well, thank you, babydoll.” he said grinning at her, still somewhat dissatisfied with her answer and not sure why he was.

Later, she came into the room that he was writing in.
She said: “You know that I don’t have the same type of thoughts floating around in my head that you do. You know that my words don’t come as easily, as effortlessly as yours do, right?”

“I do know this.” he said.
“But sometimes it just feels really good to hear good things about oneself; to hear reasons why you are someone’s other half.”

“Fine, but you should know that it has always been this way, you have always stood in the very same light that you stand now. You are me, and I am you, and we are we. It’s this way now, and has been for the better part of two decades. It will always be so.”

“I know.”
"I do know.” he said reassuringly.

And, he did know.

She turned, his beloved, to leave the room.
“I’ll leave you to your writing then.”
“I can’t wait for you to show me what you’ve been working on.”

He called her name, just as her foot had touched the threshold.

And, so she came back to him,
this poet,
this writer,
with his artist’s self-doubt,
his constant worry
as to his worth,
his being ‘good enough’.

She wrapped her arms around him,
he allowing himself to be enveloped,
felt secure
in her embrace.

So,
with a wink,
a contented sigh,
and a brief pat
of her magnificent
left buttock,
he released her.

He was already
thinking
of
the next
stanza.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications 2018

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

there is little that can be done.

arise, sleepless one, arise!

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

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

and,
there is all night
to pay it.

*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

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

it’s a tough business I’m in.
and I wouldn’t choose to do
anything else really.

sure, I’d write more or maybe
give a talk here or there if
they’d ask me, but then…

doing this thing in December
is the worst,
because you get to see just
how much poor these folks
are living in.

the quiet rumble of the big man
his voice like a rolling, roiling
thundercloud, not ready or willing
to unleash.

the snap and pop of the whole of him
as he stands to greet me is like the lightning
and his massive sigh as he returns to his recliner
is a gust of gray sorrow filling my sky.

“Look at this,” he says, “just look.”
I do; and I see the old scrub brush
Christmas tree he’s had his attendant
*****.
“There ain’t a ****** thing under there.” he says
to me and to the universe at large. “And, I’m already…”

I know what he means, as I sneak my litany in.
his answers are the same as always, he’s making
his way and in fair shape.

“I go to the pantry; sometimes to the church,” he continues.
“But, it’s hard to stand in line…last week was two hours for lunch.”

my mind runs to the wallet on my hip and the five crisp, new $100
bills inside, but they aren’t there, they never were, a daydream
of passing one over and seeing him smile, smiling back, and quietly
exiting with a: “shhh…”

but I’m broke too.

I ask weakly if there’s anything can be done.

ignoring the question,
he tells me that all of his good ****
is in hock so that he might get his sister
and his mama something nice.

and here I sat thinking hard, not smart, about
how sometimes it’s not Christmas,
sometimes it’s just a Friday.

“I’ve hocked my good **** before.” he says.
“Take a few months of being really flat to get it back.”

what the **** does really flat look like comparatively I wonder
but don’t ask.

“It’s about the giving.” he rumbles at me.
“It’s about showing the people that care about you
that you care about them too.”

reaching behind his massive self, he grins at me;
pulls a small, carefully wrapped box, from its hiding place.

“Open it.” he instructs.

and I do.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublucations; 2015

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

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

my own grasshopper
has a forest of leg hair.

(puberty' s gift)

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

the moment dies
seconds after birth.

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

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where do I sign up?

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

He got this monster of a machine rolling.
Someone, I forget who,
It might have been Chris,
told me to go see him at this bookstore.
I did, and it took off from there.
He looked like an average guy,
nothing out of the ordinary about him.
But, when he talked about writing,
he made it all sound so easy.
Like anyone could do it,
even me.
When he talked about reading,
he made it sound even easier.
Like a magic-show or
a rock concert.
I'm not talking about quiet time.
I'm talking about spilling your guts in front of strangers.
I did it once, and that was it.
I was hooked like a *******' trout.
I've done it a hundred times since then.
Man, it's cathartic, like jerkin' off.
No one can love you, like you do.
Only you're doing it in a room full of people.
But, they don't matter, and for a few minutes
they ain't there.
It's just you and your words,
and a live microphone.
  

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

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

Wanting to be here,

There.

With those fellas.

waiting on that meal.

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

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

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

We won’t talk of this ****.

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

We’ll howl and drool like beasts

(once they’re out of earshot.)

Eventually, we’ll all die anyway.

Eat a steak,
some potatoes
fried in duck fat.

Pat a nice ***,
if you can.

Fall in love.

Choke upon the
wealth of your

satisfaction.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Soon enough, we few are all alone
again.

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

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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 imagine Melancholy to be a person,
rather like Jude Law.
He's dapper,
handsome,
well-dressed.

He wears something
straight out of 1945,
a trilby hat,
and suspenders.

Sitting on a short-legged wooden stool,
he appears at the corners
of my consciousness.

He always has a lowball glass in his hand,
casually sipping an amber liquid
and smoking unfiltered cigarettes.
He tells me that I cannot
seem to do anything right.

He tells me I am a fraud.
He tells me that everyone I know
already knows this.

Melancholy comes to call,
sits in the same room with me,
smokes cigarettes,
stubbing the butts out on the floor,
drinks my whiskey,
and laughs at me.

A typical Sunday.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2015

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

You.
You’re the only one with
a key.

You.
Not me.

I only have the room.

And, you.
I have you.

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

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

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

Sometimes, the room pitches or
sways.

Haunted.

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

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

I’ll be locked in this room.

The lock will be broken.

No one will have a key that works.

The room will be ablaze.

The only thing that will save me

is this pen
and
paper
not yet burned.


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

No one ever tells you
that your momma is
going to die
one day.

Well, really they do
but to believe them
is to believe in the
monster that lives
under your bed
despite the fact that
your momma has told you,
over and over,
that monsters aren’t real.

(You want to believe her
so badly, but are never
quite convinced.)

But,
then comes the time
when she is gone,
having passed away
in the smallest hours
of Monday morning.

Today is Wednesday;
so you’ve  come by
to check on your father
who’s not lived alone
since before you were
born.

The house is empty,
dark, still.
You call out,
worried.

His voice calls back
from the bedroom.

You walk the hallway
expecting to find him
sitting on the edge of
the bed,
tearful,
sorrowful,
fidgeting with some
small thing that once
belonged to your
mother.

Instead,
you realize that you’ve
interrupted a nap.

Though, perhaps 20 minutes
before you arrived,
he was indeed
sitting on the edge of the bed,
head in his hands,
tears on his face.

Now, however,
he lay beneath a blanket,
on his side of the bed,
alone.

He’s nudged up
next to the pillow
on the other side
that waits patiently,
cool, smooth,
for her.

Yet she remains alive inside
of that dark, sleepy house,
and you can feel her there.

Perhaps she is nudged up
next to the man, who is
nudged up against that
smooth, cool,
empty
pillow.


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

we are servants
yet expectant,
not yet ready
to give,
perpetually ready
to take.

this seems to be
the way of things
now.

what a shame.

the Buddha
and the bridesmaid;
we are both
at
the
same
time.

seeking peace,
conflicted,
never
satisfied.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

I miss you.

I think about you
every single day.

You’ve always been
one of the most
powerful
human beings
I have ever
known.

To be nurtured
by you
was to be saved
from drowning
preemptively.


To be loved
by you
was equivalent
to having a
corner-man
in a title
fight.

It was not soft,
but it was kind.

It was often angry,
but never intended
to be mean.

Your heart was
always a forge,
a furnace,
the surface of
the sun.

The fire
is still
alive.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

The tree is being cut down
it has no choice in the matter.
If someone is coming at you with an axe,
you can run away.
The tree has to stand there and take it.
The tree is rooted;
bound to that one spot;
there is no escape, none,
never was.

Do you ever wonder if
the tree feels the axe
cut into it?

Does it resonate through
the whole of the tree,
like it resonates through
me?
-
For some reason
I’ve been having to interact
with more homeless or panhandler types
than ever before.

I always wonder why they approach me
in the first place.

I guess it has something to do with
the perception of shared struggle
or something.

I’ll probably never figure it out,
but it could be something like that.
Regardless, it never lasts very long.

The dirtleg sees the guy on crutches as
some sort of kindred:

“Hey man, can you give me a couple of bucks,
so I can get my car going?”

“No sir, I can’t.
I don’t have any cash on me.”

(Actually, I have about $50 in my wallet)

“Okay, brother, thanks anyway.”

“Sorry, sir.”

(I just want to go home.)

{From a block away}

“******* crippled *******!”

(I can still hear him.)

I imagine wiping his blood
off of my crutch before I get
in the car.

The engine turns over.
I drive home.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

In this bluest blue
of the first morning venture
I can hear a helicopter
or a C-130 from the airbase nearby.
Yet, despite my squinting, I cannot see it.

I avert my gaze from the sky,
moving it to my front lawn
just in time to invade the dog’s privacy
as she performs her morning necessaries.

The skyward sounds intensify,
I attempt to find their source once more.
Still unable to locate said airship,
allowing my eyes to follow instructions given by my ears,
I spy a hawk riding the thermals,
perhaps looking for a rabbit to invite over for breakfast.

Able to still hear the warbird or rescue chopper,
my imagination stirs these sounds,
the vision of that sleek, hunting raptor.

How tiny his goggles, his helmet.

How deftly the hawk fires rockets from under his wings
while strafing the rabbit village with his machine guns.
They scatter
as the burrows that nested them warmly, safely in the autumn are destroyed
in flying debris and fireball.

Breakfast is served,
our thunderhawk dives to inspect the results
of his latest scrambling mission.

The dog and I weep softly as Taps plays for fallen lapin infantry.

Our own breakfast is griddling,
we turn our backs to this  morning’s madness.

The omelettes are ready,
the bread,
baked,
pulled from the oven,
the coffee is hot.  

Like rabbits we retreat
to safer quarters.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We learn,
together,
to be human.

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

My new winter
coat is black.

It is as black
as a starless
night sky.

Yet, now there
are smudges of
dirt on the ends
of my sleeves.

My coat has hung
on the back of a
chair today.

As I lunched
at a small counter,
eating fried eggs and
hash browns,

someone must’ve stepped
on the sleeves of my coat
and left bits of their own
day behind.

The other day,
I’d asked my wife
to wash my coat
because it had gotten
dusty.

So, she did.
And, out it came
from the dryer,
thick and warm
obsidian.

Now,

I see those smudges
and I think of them
as clouds that race
across a midnight sky.

Like me,
like The Earth,
spinning,
always on the move.

*

-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

Massachusetts Street,
Lawrence Kansas, 7pm.

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

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

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

I am smoking a cigarette myself.

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

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

(I try to love him anyway.)

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

Our circles are too small.

Shh…

The Honeybears are here.




*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

My wife
and kids
like me better
these days.

The doctor
gave me an
Rx
for an
antidepressant.

I’m not much of a
tough guy,
my anxiety
presents
as anger
and
I tend to
take it all
very personally.

I cried a lot
this year;
missing so many
dead people.

Those little blue
pills make everything
a little more difficult.

But, there are less tears
and more future
in the windshield…
looking toward,
moving forward.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

The potter and I had arranged a barter.

So, I went to see him and complete our business.

This same potter is also a painter,
and so, when I arrived,
he was in the middle of a deal that would put one of his paintings on someone’s wall
while putting more money in his pocket,
right then,
than I make in a month and a half.

Rather than impede a more artful capitalism,
I left his shop so as to pursue
some time inside of these pages.

Purchased of some small food,
a cold drink on a hot day,
I sat down to write for a while.

Having paid my own art some attention,
I made my way back toward the potter’s space
so as to complete our transaction.

On my way there,
I felt two pairs of rather wild eyes
upon me.

They, those eyes, pierced my side,
with the intensity, authority of a Roman Centurion,
stared at me with the zealousness
of The Old Testament,
fell upon me like the weight of The New Testament;
King James edition,
and I knew it.

I felt,
strangely obligated,
to acknowledge this weighted gazing,
asking these ladies how their evening was going.
My efforts were polite,
rhetorical.
I left them sturdily in my wake.

These women faded from my thoughts.
And, I wish, retrospectively,
that I had vanished
from their minds as well.

Alas, these missionaries
had been set to their devine task
by none other than
Yahweh Himself.

And, their mission,
it seemed,
was me.

They tracked my progression to the potter’s field.

“Can we pray for you?”

“Sure, you can do whatever you feel compelled to do.”

“Do you not have a relationship with The Lord?”

“I have a relationship with the entirety of The Universe.”

“Do you not seek salvation from sin, the wickedness of Satan, and the evils of men?”

“I do not. However, I do know that you seek the ability to feel good about praying for me, a disabled man, because you seem to believe that because I have legs that do not work like yours do, I must be fundamentally lacking something that you can bestow upon me.”

“Have you no faith at all?”
“Have you no relationship with Jesus Christ?”

“I do have a faith. I have a faith in my own humanity, in my inherent ability to commune with all that is honest, true, and good in The Universe.
I do not need your self-serving prayers.”

My friend,
the potter,
the painter,
sang these ladies a song;
played his guitar.

The ladies swayed in time to the music,
just a little.

Together, we bestowed,
upon this pair of zealous women,
kindness and patience
that they seemed to accept
along with our collective faithless, heathen, message
of goodwill;
love for their humanity,
if nothing else.

“Well, we didn’t come here for this,” they said.

And they left us,
none the worse for not
having been prayed over,
or preyed upon, to commune,
in each, our own way,
with each other,
The Universe,
The Great Spirit,
The Buddha,
or Whomever.

Once they had gone,
I traded three books that I had written
for a very nice vase that the potter had made.
The vase was gray,
spun with earth tones,
was flecked with robin’s-egg blue,
sits beautifully on the shelf.

It is now part of The Universe
with which I commune.

I pray
that it
is always
so.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

It was an interesting thing
to be in a bookstore
with him.

The altered state came
almost immediately,
it was hard not
to notice the happening
of it.

It was an electricity
that changed,
charged his large
frame,

making him almost
mountainous.

For just a minute,
we were all blokes
who liked
books,

but he became
a book-buyer/bookseller
a few paces past
the threshold.

When he spotted that
one treasure, that particular
hardcover,
perhaps a first-edition,
he proclaimed
it’s value forthwith.

With his eyes wide,
a sidelong grin,
he dived into the pages,
inhaled deeply
through his nose.

Continuing,
he examines
the tome fastidiously,
expertly announces
the novel’s value
at thrice what the
shopkeeper is asking
and advances to the
counter.

Soon after,
we left that shop,
each of us weighed
down with brown paper
parcels.

Stowing those,
we then sought
smoked gouda,
beef sandwiches,
and potatoes fried
in duck fat.

It was time for lunch.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

The buttons undone.

The first cuff is turned.

The second.

The third.

Just past
the elbow.

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

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

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

Fingers curl,
turning to ore.

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

Ore becomes iron,
becomes ordinance,
rage becomes rocketry.

Here it comes…

Fire.

Five.  



*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

my god!

she makes
me
smile.

and,

i
don’t
even
feel
like

I’m
faking it.


*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

They’ve bitten and held
through the month of October’s
unseasonable warmth.

Now, they’ve excised on the
first day in November and I
bleed.

The leafless branches of the
bluffs,  show among their
unshed brethren like the
claws of the undead.

The work becomes onerous
despite my ambition;
the cold weather creates
problems unsolvable before
the first ice forms or the first
snowflakes fall to stay.

There is no reward in getting
done what needs done.

Leaving the house before sunrise,
coming home as the last of October’s
auburn hangs in the sky,
knowing soon that November will
leave her bleak blackness in the air,
robbing me of the rose-colored clouds
that decorate the morning commute.

The fangs of September are pulled
for this year, but the rest of these
benumbed months will gnaw
until the warm juncture’s thaw.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2017

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

I smiled at her and she got upset,
climbed into her boyfriend's truck,
and wouldn’t look at me.

Just before this,
I'd watched her,
with my poet's eye,
hang up the receiver of the pay-phone  
I'd parked in front of.

The smile,
then,
on her face was huge,
remarkable, in fact.

It made her not-so-pretty face
absolutely radiant,
so I took note,
smiling back.  

Whomever she'd spoken to  
had obviously,
and with great  
purpose and verve,
bestowed that smile  
unto her with verbiage.

And, so I took it away.
I hadn't meant to.

Perhaps it was the fee  
we'd both been obliged to pay,

for this story  
to be  
born.

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

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

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

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


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

I sweep dead crickets
out of my office.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Time moves quickly,
faster than one
thinks is so.

The home is
hollowed to
house.

(It’s time for
us to go.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tendrils
of memory wrap
around this home
tonight.

But,
where we are
together
is home.

And,
it’s here for
a few more
nights.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

I’ve been eating popcorn
out of my hat.

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

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

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

(Pops, the boys, & I.)

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

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

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

My sons found the rides
straightaway.

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

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

Pops and I
found a bench
away from everyone else.

I’d gotten him a hat too.

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

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

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

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

I chuckled to myself
and

didn’t write them down.

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

*
  
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

How do we get ourselves
back from the lost places
inside our own minds;
the places where self-doubt
swims like a school
of sharks,
a school of thought?

The page,
tells the kindest
lies;
doesn’t always have
to be true,
however, it should
be honest.

It should hurt
A little.

Like…

a cage fighter,
like razor-wire,
like a coffee cup,
like a broken bottle,
like suede,
like the left wing
of a hawk

or

the right wing
of a vulture.

Like the backfire
of an old car,
the roar of
a shotgun;
the tink and plink of
buckshot on
an old 50-gallon
drum.
like a saw-tooth,
like a lion’s roar,
like a warm blanket

or

a war machine,
like something sweet,
that’s become something
else,
something obscene.
like a sonic-boom
rattles a pane
of glass.

Nothing is really,
like anything else,
we’re all simply
figuring everything
out for ourselves.

We’re fettering,
ferreting our own
truths from
betwixt the
lines, our own lies
so,
keep a
keen mind,
a watchful
eye.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&Z Publications 2018

Outwitting,
out-writing
the days
defeats.

Snatching
victory
from the
inkwells
of the
mind.

Spelling
out
half-truths
and lies
in equal
measure.

The eye
of the
beholder
is blind.

Every other
word is
a treasure.

Not gold
or silver,
but thoughts
fraught with
flailing,
failings,
soaring
in spite
of
broken
wings.

Sailing
past lonely
hearts and
thoughts
of loved
ones left
behind.

Smeared
pen strokes,
notebooks,
spines bent
full of sins
or loves
confessed
obsessed,
depressed.

We are,
all of us,
roses,
between pages
pressed.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

What am I now?
Not very much at all.

This is not a good line of thinking.

My self-talk is not very good these days.

I want to make something happen.

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

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

My kicking is bootless
as are my cries.

(Positively Shakespearean!)

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

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(I did as I was told.)

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

…”he’ll show you who you are.”

He did.

And, I still know.

Because of a lesson
well taught.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

It is her china shop.
And, I'm the bull she allows to enter.
In such a small space,
it is easy to see that she wishes I'd leave,
but simple loneliness
inspires her to offer coffee.
I guiltily refuse,
trying to make myself smaller.
We meander through my list of questions,
force some small talk in between.
In the end, as I exit;
sorrow and relief,
mix equally
on her small,
lovely face.

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2015

The hot wings and fries had just hit the table
when I saw him.
He walked in with his lady friend
and a little girl that looked a lot
like him.

I thought about leaping from my seat
and sinking my fist, wrist deep
in his mush.
It seemed like a fine idea.
I remember him kicking me
in the ribs and in the side
of the head.
I remember feeling my body slip between
the toilet and the bright blue wall
of the stall.
I remember knowing I was stuck.
I could tell he remembered too.
I called him by name just so I could look him
in the eye.
I wanted him to know that I knew.
He knew.
I did too.
We shook hands.
I saw regret in his eyes
and was glad of it.
In the end, the regret was
mine too.
I need to turn old anger
loose.