the world is coated
with honey,
if you just know
where to lick.

once a year
I drink too
much whiskey;
eat enough
cheese to constipate
King Kong.

and,
when I wake up
the following year,
the ocean flows from
my pecker into porcelain;
I swallow enough
Tylenol and tap water
to fill it up again.

once again,
the world is as right
as the wrongs remaining
will let it be.

The next revolution,
resolution,
revelation,
begins
again,

already
forget­ting
where to find
the sweetest
honey in the
hive.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

It is in these medium-sized hours,
on these winter mornings that I find
the most peace.

It is while standing at the end
of my driveway that I can feel
my connection to everything.

The soles of my boots do not impede
or interfere with my energy’s ability
to connect, through miles of iron,
directly with this planet’s core.

The stillness is not still,
despite my own.

There are ignitions and other beginnings;
small voices protesting the final bus ride
to school; the holiday pending.

Despite this minor background noise,
this unadorned stillness connects myself
to something larger and more substantial
than I can speak, write, or even understand.

This conduit is in all things, in all people,
and is the unspoken, unwritten definition of
what it actually means to be awake, alive, and
alert to...what?

Is it God?
Is it my sense of self?
Is it you?
All of you?
All of humanity?
Is it my sons?
My daughter?
My beloved?

Yes.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

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

And still, that horn
never sounds.

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

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

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

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

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

Or, for enjoying it
when it does.

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

Waiting for the all clear.  


*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

Both of us were frightened
by tales of blindness,
rare,
but if it occurred at all,
likely permanent.
We were stoic as we watched
several small vials fill with blood.
We hurried here and there,
always stopping to hold elevator doors,
to offer smiles,
reassurances where we could.
Having not now,
perhaps never asking him
to give up his personhood,
I reminded all of these geniuses
that my boy, despite his nuances
and need for simpler explanations, was indeed,
a man,
a maker of his own decisions,
and very curious,
in his own way,
as to how it all worked.

(He studies his x-rays with a seriousness
that astonished us all.)  

In the end, his signatures graced all the paperwork,
his mind was clear, focused,
despite some nerves.

But, my thoughts came back
to that bald little boy in the Radiology waiting-room.


How would his story end?  

There wasn’t any doubt in my mind
that he was at least seven years old.
No boy of that age chooses a slick pate like his,
even in the summertime.
No, that was cancer’s gift
and his momma’s curse.

We’ve endured
Cholesteatoma and a curved spine.
An aortic anomaly corrected almost 5 years ago.
He’s run a gauntlet,
no lie.
We’ve seen him seize,
called for ambulance assistance.

But, I’d never doubted that he’d get an 8th birthday.  
Not once.

(Not like her, the bald boy’s momma.)

The boy,
not mine,
the one in Radiology,
he looked tired.
His mother looked exhausted,
but spoke to the receptionist of her little one’s excitement,
looking forward to picking his older brother up
from school on the last day.

It signaled an ending
to my eavesdropping...

My own son came back
from his session of x-rays.

The bald little boy and his momma
followed the nurse back toward
their own appointment.

We gathered our belongings,
turned to leave.

A weak smile caught my eye.
The small fingers waved.

I waved back.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

I wonder if this old grade school
understands that I steal little
bits of myself back from it
even all these years later.

Despite the fact that
this building stole
a lot of my childhood,
leaving me with ******
noses, blackened eyes
instead of  good memories,
I come out here,
to write poetry.

The sun warms
the steel bench;
its  heat
softening the muscles
surrounding my crooked
spine.

My boys,
possessed of energy,
boundless,
climb monkey bars
or
slide down spirals,
maybe swing
for awhile.

I’ll do the same,
inside of my own
mind.

(Never forgetting the blood
I’d left inside.)

I write the line,
the lie;
“...stepping into silence.”
and think it a grand thing.

Recalling the morning,
standing outside
with the day’s first cigarette,
feeling that ‘connected to everything’
feeling.

Soon enough it
had all gone to hell.

Because, the more I thought
about whatever I’d meant
by: …”stepping into silence.”
the less accurate it seemed to be.

While outside smoking,
I’d gotten a message from
a co-worker.

The poor *******’s mother had
fallen down the basement steps,

So…

“I bet that fall wasn’t very silent.”

sloshed around in my skull for
a minute,
then,
the woodpeckers
started in on the eaves of
my neighbor’s house,
their machine-gun beaks
strafing the silence even
further into ruin.

Soon enough,
“...stepping into silence”
ceased to be poetry
and turned simply,
into some
jibber-jabber
that I’d scribbled
into a notebook
earlier this week.

Nevertheless,
it’s mine;
silent, screamed,
or otherwise.

I’ve stolen it back
from this monument
to my terrorized youth.

Here in the sunshine,
by the slide, the swing-set,
the dandelion baselines
of the diamond behind me,
my sons kicking yellow
with every step.

I am grateful for the noise.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

I am neither kept nor caught.

Not a rabbit in the snare,
not the fox in the chicken coop.
I am here, with her,
not fooling her,
myself,
or anyone else.

If anything,
I am like a shark.
I have to keep moving
or I can’t breathe.  

Hunting stories;
an understanding of humanity
that continues to elude me,
in my shark-state.  

She lets me swim
these streets and alleys.
Hunting ideas for the notebook.
Telling all of the other fish my stories.

Sea lions I’ve bitten,
stingray tails.
How they might’ve tasted.
Their terrified eyes.

These are good stories.

They’re not always true,
but it’s always a little more fun
when they are.

I’ll just keep moving.
Swimming the currents
of this municipality’s ocean.

Sometime later,
I’ll feast.

(Blood is always in the water.)  

Pen and ink.
Tooth and fin.  

It’ll be a frenzy.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

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


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

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

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

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


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

Renewed,
by oneself,
in oneself.

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

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

We were the same,
yet starkly contrasted
nonetheless.

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

I could not;
did not do
the same.

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

I became the raconteur
for a different type of wildlife.

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

or

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She owns it.

Singing in silence,
feeling out loud.

A rabbit snared
in a tangle of hawthorn.

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

The day’s first gifts are received…

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

Standing under a lavender sky
looking up at a waning crescent
moon.

It looks like God’s thumbnail
bitten anxiously off,

set adrift inside the evening’s
celestial ceiling.

I try to wish her back
into existence.

Alas,  
I am unsuccessful.

As the sky deepens
into more desperate purples,
I become attuned,
acclimated to the fact
that my wishes will fall short.

Solace comes in knowing that
my love did not,
neither has hers fallen short
of the stars,
of the heavens,
of the desperately purple sky.

As I was then,
I am now.

Surrounded.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

you speak so freely
of your discord,
your worry over
what others think.

you never bother,
to look inside, to see
the cup you offer,
the sour, spoiled stink.

it’s easy to claim disharmony;
to profess to be the cup from
which only a few can drink,

but, if honesty were present,
and ethic of work, were here
the cup would be full,
the tea would be easily
potable.

alas, the cup is shallow,
there is no steam,
it brings no warmth,
no welcoming pull.

dishonest love,
a selfish heart,
is all that you can
serve.

an empty cup,
a vacant tea room
is more than you
deserve.

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

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

The bones of our tasked
limbs do not snap.

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

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

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

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

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

the stone rolls
down to the bottom
of our hill.

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

We,
all of us,
stood out in the lot
of the greengrocer's.

We looked upon
the pending sunset as if
we,
ourselves,
were birds ready
to take wing
into that auburn horizon.  

We looked at the clouds
as they became
majestic brushstrokes
placed strategically
by a great unseen artist
whose name we all knew,
but was different for each of us.  

There were brilliant purples,
pinks,
and oranges
that our eyes
might have been seeing
for the first
or last time.

(None of us knew for sure.)  

The sun shone
through a great bank of cirrus
like the beginning of
some great onslaught
by a giant dragon
or
the first flash
of a nuclear holocaust.

None of us
would’ve minded
either scenario
for the beauty of it
and
our presence
therein.  

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

In the interim,
I will continue
despite the fact
that I don’t know
how to do this
without you.

There are still
moments of
the day that
pass
like
an oil-slick
eclipse
*******
the light out
of the room,
the air
from my
lungs.

It is in
these
moments
that I feel
the
most alive,
because I
really wouldn’t
mind
dying.

Knowing
that there
is so
much more
that needs
done;

the sorrow lifts,
the lungs refill,
the rage
returns,
lights the fire,
and I
advance.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

The air was painted.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Amen.

*
-J­BClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

Like the last few seconds
that the filament
inside of a lightbulb
lasts.

It is not
surrender,
but,
strain,
struggle,
a summoning
of will.

To continue
to give as much
as is left,
the very last.

Not expiration,
explosion.

Because even the subtle
pop of that wire,
is not a death knell,

it is a warning
against the
remaining heat.

A reminder
of the light
that lasted
until
just
now.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

is not effective,

(often)

is  not
#enough.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

I’d like more
than one death knell,
I’d like a
personal
bottle of lightning,
that I’ve caught for
my very own.

I’d give up that
little **** of a
rat-terrier if
it could,
somehow,
transmogrify
into a wolf
or
a panther.

I’d like
a jet-black
Camero,
with tires
made of fire
and seats made
of smoke.

I think that
a little toxic-waste
is good for you.

(keeps ya sharp, yeah?)

I think
that a man,
a woman,
hell,
any human
worth a ****
ought to be able
to ride into battle
on a goat, a *******,
or a *******
llama

and

know in their
hearts that they are the master
of their own destiny.

It’s a rough sea,
it always will be.

That’s life.

Be sad,
mad,
a little depressed,

but,

stay here,
because there’s
kielbasa sandwiches
with mustard and
onions.

There are people
that love you,
there are books,
songs,
flicker shows
to see.

The sharks bite,
the octopi might
squeeze,
the rays might sting.

None of it means
anything,
if you don’t…


Take off the floaties
and swim.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

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

the last thing
that one does
before defeat
becomes real.

How terrible,
these thoughts
are!

Maybe…

Maybe hope
is the worst
kind of crutch
there is.

Doing is better
than hoping.

There is too
much faith in
hoping.

Doing
takes
action.

Actions
beget
results.

The hammer
drives the
nails.

The arm
swings
the hammer.

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

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

The doors to the office
are locked up tight.

The receivers are off
their hooks tonight.

We’re out in the streets
practicing our long division.

The time has come;
gotta make the hard
decisions.


Which side are you on?

Why are we choosing
to glorify a man or
woman, in their
victimizations or
victimhood?

Doing so,
it doesn’t do
anyone any
good.

We allow or encourage
victims to swim in the
**** of their victimhood,
never to come out on the
other side clean?

Am I the only one
who sees this as mean?

More than that,
I find it obscene.

We are making nobody
equal.

This is just another
spike in our collective,
divided skulls.

What makes this
all that much worse,
like a ******* curse;
is that the culture wars
are the only battles
left to be won.

Sow what you wish
to reap.

Reaping kindness,
and willingness
to treat each other
and ourselves like
sons and daughters,
mothers and fathers;

there’s no place more
for this culture war
cannon fodder.

Fox News, god-dammed CNN
pointing out everyone
else’s sins.

They quit looking for any
battle to end;
Hell, they just push the buttons
and the next one begins.

Stay offline,
don’t feed these *******
swine.

Don’t use Face-crook,
they sold the book
a long time ago.

Feeding junk food
to our minds.
Fueling our egos;
leaving us to wonder
where all our time
goes.

The **** bluebird’s
not much better,
defaming our collective characters
in less than 140 letters.

Read a book instead,
lean into the pages
return to your own
thoughts,
exit these New-Millennial
Dark Ages.

We are one people,
we’re of all colors,
of every class,
maintaining our
collective humanity
shouldn’t be such
an unknown
pursuit.

Here we are,
divided,
trying to
feed one another
our own rotten fruit.

Check your personage
at the gate,
it’s already too late.

Or, is it?

“We The People” will
sell and buy us
like cattle going to
slaughter.

They’ll buy the mind
of every son and daughter
in the name of the mighty
dollar.

Taxes, student loans,
medical expenses,
freeloaders or front-loaded
*******, killing ourselves
with AR-15s outfitted with bump
stocks designed to bump stocks and
bonds, gluing our politicians hands inside the
pockets of the NRA lobbyists.

(Look what I did! I’m part of the problem!
Long divisions?
There are other ways
to solve
them.)


Ban it all and band together,
go to the party with the ugly
Christmas sweaters;
instead of badges worn by elephants
or *******.

No more.

Say it loud.

Say it now.

No more long division.

Care and carry the one.

Lift each other up,
enough is enough.

Sign the letter,
the petition,
the promissory note.

With Love,

The Remainder    

*


-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

I am the vengeance,
never received.

I am a walking fistfight
that never was.

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

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

I am every book that
I’ve never read.

I am every song that
I’ve never heard.

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

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

I don’t want to be well-adjusted.

(What the hell does that even mean?)

I am all the slammed doors
in the apartment complex.

I am a papercut on the tongue.

(The letter sits unsent.)

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

We continued our conversation:

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

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

In the middle of another
eight hour shift.

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

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

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

What will they do?

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

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

This rooming-house;
a chopped-up duplex.

The poet lived
in the kitchen.

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

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

The poet feels
safe enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The poet remains a poet.

Because.


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

memory is an odd thing.

recall makes us and itself
into amazing animals,
leaning toward the primordial.

we remember that time;
those precious last few seconds,
or that night that felt like
it just might be endless.

either one of these
can be a soft, warm thing
or a cold-blooded killer.

the ***** of it is,
the memory itself
the day of the week,
the time of day,
the way the light
might fall;
could make it all
interchangeable.

imagine it…

a teddy bear
with raptor’s claws.

sounds about right.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

or,

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

*


-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

I’d never have
the guts to call
myself a feminist.

Any man that does
is full of ****,
ladies.

Men don’t
know anything about
being a woman.

There are two genders.
Or, there are 200.

Either way it doesn’t
matter.

You know what matters
more than anything?

Being cool.

Being a decent human being.

Having self-control.

Accepting that you’re
responsible for what
you say and do.

Treat the girl or guy
of your dreams like
they’re the girl
or
guy of your dreams.

Don’t treat them like
a Corvette or a *******
cheeseburger.

Hey, can I have a ride in
your ‘vette?

No?

Okay.

How about a bite;
just one bite
of that thick,
juicy,
delicious-looking
burger?

No?


Fine.

Thanks anyway.

See?

It’s easy.

If you think it’s
more difficult
than the
aforementioned
examples;

you’ve got to
go.

Bye.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Having done a lot of driving,
my tank was almost empty.
But, in other ways,
was as full as I could want.

We had gathered,
those who had asked for stories,
and myself.

We had spoken of the tasks of putting pen to paper,
of putting one’s own thoughts
onto the pages of composition notebooks,
of how doing so had saved my life,
and had potential to save theirs,
if they ever found themselves in such need.

I had driven also,
to the next small town over.

There was the promise of music,
hawkers selling food and drink,
a street fair,
on the town square.

I sat with my friend,
her family,
in the civic center park
of the town that lives
just to the north of
the small town
I call my own.

It had been a hot day,
but the breeze was nice.

My thoughts wandered to the week’s earlier journey.

The eighth-graders whom I had spoken to,
had their own stories,
from Mexico, Libya, Iran, Morocco, Palestine, and Nigeria.

They told me those stories
from their summer-school desks,
in Kansas City, Missouri.

Really, they didn’t seem much different
from the stories I could have found
in this sleepy little village
just fourteen miles from
my own driveway,
that tonight was electrified into activity,
by way of the evening’s festivities.

I don’t come here all that often,
except, on occasion,
to visit my friend,
her family,
maybe one other.

Every time I do though,
it feels like a different planet.
Or, like I’m the alien,
having never seen people before.

We would all do well
to get out more.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublucations 2018

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

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

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

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

We sat and waited for our
lunch to arrive.

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

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

(I was only half-listening.)

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

The white man,
with the red beard
said:

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

The black man
in the hooded
sweatshirt said:

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

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

(The artistic, autistic wanderings of his thoughts)

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

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

wanders still to the last
ten dollars in my wallet.

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

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

Should I keep it for myself?

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

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

“For what?” he asks.

“For making that decision for me.”

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

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

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

verses that spoke of
romantic cities, their
breathtaking views.

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

Alas,

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

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

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

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


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

She chewed her
nails relentlessly.

They were all bitten
down and raw looking,
even on the sides near
the cuticles.

She was always talking.

I swear to Christ that
she never stopped talking.

She told me about her children.

I told her that
I didn’t want to
know as much as
she was telling.

“Fine.” she’d say.

She’d shut up for
about half an hour
or so, then since the
goddammed kids were
off-limits, she’d start
in on Jesus Christ and
how great He was.


I asked her how long
she planned on talking
about nothing that had
anything to do with
anything.

She’d ignored me
and kept on talking,
telling me about
how she got saved
and how she’d
given her life to
The Lord.

“That’s great.” I said.

I asked her about
a guy that I knew
that she’d been going
around with for
awhile.

“Oh, that sonofabitch?”

“Yeah, him.”

She was so easy
to wind up like
that.

She could swear
like a sailor,
or a *******
merchant marine.

I always liked
it when she’d
say ‘****’ or
call someone
a sonofabitch
right in the
middle of an
otherwise
theological
gale.

I can’t tell
you why I’d
get her going,

but something
about it was
really
satisfying.

Maybe it was
the irony of
it all.

None of it
matters anyway
as long as the
tab gets paid.

*
-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

she was one of those things,
a person yes, but a noun too,
a thing,
animal,
alive,
warm.

she brought about that
innate desire to touch
or to taste
that all humans have.

putting your mouth
on something
makes it real,
right?

her tiger’s
tail swishes
behind her
and
no one else
can see it
but me.

how’d
I
get
so
****
lucky?

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

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

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

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

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

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

unvarnished.

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

But, you loved me like tin.

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

You escaped,
unlike me,

untarnished.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

A lot of people look familiar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The requirements of my youth
are overworked
and simply incorrect.

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

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

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

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

This.

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

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

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So,
after I’d chewed
&
swallowed...

“Hey Nate!
How’s it going?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The drive-thru line
was going all-out.

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

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

Seasonal Affective Disorder
it’s called.

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

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

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

although I never seem
to mind.

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

Being born in 1947
instead of ’75.

It feels like a different
kind of alive.

History has sharp teeth,
an unkind bite.

It’s okay.

We’ll share the scars
for a while.

*

- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

She’s a ******
ruiner.

She’ll take the
best you’ve got

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

It’s never her fault
either.

Never.

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

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

Like I’m trying to…

All I want to do
is the work.

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

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017



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Thanks.

sometimes there’s a buzz,
a drone that’s inescapable.
you spend all afternoon walking
around the festival, maybe eating
a turkey leg or some kettle corn,
and you find that you’re surrounded,

swatting absently, hoping for a clear
thought or the ability to offer your
attention elsewhere,
you beg forgiveness of your wife
and children.

other times,
contented to sit in
the middle of the swarm,
chewing the comb,
squishing its warm wax between
teeth, and letting that honey slide
all the way onto the page.

sometimes they sting,
with sharp memory and a
willingness to sacrifice some
of your solace, serenity, or
sanity for the chance to buzz
free.

and when found swollen
with venom or fat and sticky
with honey and wax,
a night’s sleep
and a poem or two
is your reward for sparing
the hive.

the colony buzzes and swarms,
you can feel them, hear them.
they surround, confound,
the words, like bees, abound.

and you must feast again.

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

He poured himself
just the smallest
bit of coffee.

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

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


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

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

his sleep challenged
by their flocking;
his feelings.

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

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

(just the smallest bit…)

filling in the
footprints of her exit

with finality.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

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

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

(their conversation hits my rewind button)

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



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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Go ahead and let yourself fall over.”

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

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

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

I knew that
right then as well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He never responded.
He didn’t care.

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublication 2020

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

Bring ‘em…

drug dealers,
republicans
democrats or
the deranged…

It never mattered.

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

The wolves
are out of their
dens
tonight.

(I, among their number.)

So many
that the neon
howls.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

That poor little *******
sat at his typewriter
and thought to himself: “What do I write about today?”

It was an odd, off-feeling, thing that he felt.
Sometimes he told people: “It feels like it feels when you are sitting there, reading a book or something and you suddenly have to take a ****. But, instead of the feeling being in your guts, it’s in your brain.”

The problem with saying
that kind of thing out loud
was that the poor constipated writer
always and almost immediately
felt like he was telling people
that he was full of ****
or otherwise a *******,
based upon how it all sounded to him,
and he was sure to everyone else
as soon as the words escaped his lips.

The stagnant little writer
went outside and smoked a cigarette.
He was trying to think
of a new way to think.

He thought: “Most of the time I write
about stuff that happens to me
or the things that I see as I’m wandering
around town.
Sometimes, I make things up, telling stories about characters that I’ve based loosely on people
that I’ve met via work,
or barflies I’ve sat next to,
nursing a beer or whiskey.”

Usually though,
the poor constipated writer
ended up writing about writing,
or standing outside smoking cigarettes,
or sitting in some bar,
next to some ******
who wanted to talk about politics
or religion
or some other nonsense
that wasn’t worth listening to
and then what was that poor
little plugged-up *******
supposed to do?

Well, nevermind.

I bet he’ll just do
what he usually does
and go whine about how
boring he must be as a writer,
how nobody ever gives
a two-penny farting ****
about anything
he has to say.

Then, I can already imagine it, can you?

He’ll go into that cold little room
at the back of his house
and he’ll continue to do
what he’s always done.

He’ll write stories about the streetlamps
and the moonlight.

He’ll write about that girl that he knows;
the one with the strawberry hair
and the thousands and thousands
of freckles.

Then maybe the next day
he’ll write about the old lady
who’s lights got shut off
by the power company
and about how he called
the power company
and said: “Listen here, ya sonofabitch!”
and they turned the lady’s power back on.

But, that poor little constipated
writer is in a place where he feels
like nothing he writes
is worth anything at all,
so he might as well
give up.

Or not.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

There is nothing
to it at all.

All I have to do
is jump.

Let myself fall.

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

hold.

Step off
the edge.

Will I land on the rocks below?

Or soar?

Those are the options.

And, I get to
decide.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

If the world belongs to
the brave and the tricky,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2016

In the places where
the water moves swiftly
over rocks,
under sky…

While not cloudless,
it is perfect nonetheless.

The clouds present
are sparse,
scattered like seasonings across
the endless blue,
served up sashimi-style
raw, cerulean,
just for me.

There are ions
in these places,
released by movement,
mist, mineral.

They fill lung
and eye
with prisms,
a freshness not
consumed in
ages.

So,
I find a seat
at God’s supper-table,
pick up my fork,
begin to eat the air,

which is enough
right then
to sustain me.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

Where have we gone wrong?
Is this wrong?

We can hardly stand to speak to
one another anymore.

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

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

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

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

On most Sunday afternoons,
I sit and compose.

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

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

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

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

Are you a help or a hindrance?

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

We’ve elected an inept celebrity.

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

(Yee-haw!)

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

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

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

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

Confessors?
None.

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

Still,
we run.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublicarions 2020

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

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No?
Not really, huh?

It’s a nice thought though.

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

The fact of the matter is this:

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

do not make up for anything.

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

Not to mention
all of the subsequent years after that.

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone said:
“Thank you.”

Yes,
Really.

I’ve got you.
Now.
and
in
2021.

No kidding.

Together.

Let’s go.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

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

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

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

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

There is a pale pink
to the sky.

Leftover sunrise.

Hopefully, other eyes see it too.

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

There is little gentleness here.

It’s contraband.

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

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

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

Stepping gently
into the
caged morning.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications 2020

From Journal: September 2019

Some things are simply a matter of midnight melancholy while others are a direct result of the full moon. Sometimes a wish gets made mid-sneeze, mid-yawn, or mid-sentence, getting somehow ruined. Who really understands how all of these things work? I know that I don’t. I probably never will. But, I keep trying. Don’t we all? One way or another.

Some nights have teeth, fangs that sink into flesh. Other nights sing sweetly. No one really knows which night that the given day will lay upon their doorstep.

What most people tend to forget is that they can almost always exercise at least a modicum of control. This is neither fate nor destiny.   It is simply life and it happens to us as much as because of us. This line of thinking is easy to let slide. I try my best to remember.

Apologize when you must. Never say that you’re sorry for something that is out of your control. Be as kind as you are able. Make your mistakes. Learn from them. Hell, just learn. Keep learning.

We’re all out here, following our own humanity around. Like something we keep on a leash. We walk beside it. All of it is lost art. A sonnet. A painting. Something Michelangelo or Aristotle left abandoned in their basement.  A statue, somehow alive. It scratches its ***** and ***; giving its fingers a sniff. It won’t look you in the eye, but neither will it apologize for being what it is. It may very well be more human than you.


Soundless, except for my clicking. Alone. Walking the streets of Downtown. I parked at The Corby and just walked. Today was noisy. People talked to me at every turn.

Earlier today, I was at a bookshop. A lady and her young daughter stopped me. The little girl just had to know all of my ‘why’s’. (Why do you walk like that? Why do you use those things? What happened to you?) I really didn’t feel like going into it, but I couldn’t see any way out of it either. The little girl was earnest as hell and her mom seemed fairly insistent. I felt like I was on display, a lesson in a classroom. However, I couldn’t get the chip to stay on my shoulder. I don’t like being that way anyway. It’s a drag. People mean pretty well most of the time.

As a side note: Pops saw much of this interaction and sat in the van looking rather smug. He looked like he knew that he had raised me right. He did so, but I really wanted to be a **** right then. I don’t think he’s ever seen that much of ‘the thing that happens’. He liked it way more than I did. The lady made her daughter thank me for answering her questions. I felt like an employee.

Lots of depressive times and thoughts. Most of these are still tied to the passing of my mother. I’m not really angry these days, just frustrated. Nothing except home time seems like it’s going the way that I want it to.  
Something needs to change and I’m not sure what it is. I want to do something different. I want to do something that doesn’t force me to care about others so much. But, even that feels wrong. I love doing what I do. I love people. I like the distance though. It keeps me even. I need distance a lot. I’m no  good if I have to go for long periods making people feel comfortable or whatever you’d call it. I get wound too tightly and have to get away.


-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019

They are called cowbirds.

I did not know this until
just a few weeks ago.

The neighbor-lady told me.

I told her that they made me think
of those fish that you see during
documentaries about the ocean;
the fish that cluster and move
and
bend the shape of the whole school
so that it catches the light that is just
visible below the surface
and
is just
bright enough to scare the sharks or
dolphins enough into thinking that
the entire school is one big fish that
might do well at fighting back against
dolphins or sharks,
so they end up leaving that particular school
of fish alone and look for easier prey.

“Yeah. They’re called cowbirds”,
she said again.

So, I asked her if she came out to look at the pinks
and purples  and oranges of this sunrise and I asked her if
she thought that the ***** snowdrifts looked like coral reefs
now that they’ve melted in the sun that we’ve had in the afternoons.

I told her again that the coral reef snowdrifts and the way that they’ve melted
are the reason that the cowbirds made me think of those fish from the ocean documentaries and I’m sorry I can’t remember what those fish are called,
but
aren’t the colors of the sunrise beautiful?

“So, yeah, they’re called cowbirds”, she said one last time as she turned to go back inside.

“Now I know what a cowbird is”, I thought.

And, in spite of the black and grey dirt on them,
I still thought that the snowdrifts looked like coral reefs as they melted,
and
I still thought that the lavender sky,
with its pink and orange laser beams
was beautiful while the cowbirds swarmed
and
their inkblot flocks
coiled
and
spooled through an ocean of blue ,
my brain wandered around the ocean
and wondered if those same types of silver-scaled fish
made like the cowbirds while avoiding
the dolphins and the sharks
as though they were seafaring
raptors.


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

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

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

No deposit,
no return.

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

You’ll get more than you think
in return.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019