I enjoy the newness
of people that I see
out in public.
Moreso, I enjoy
the newness of couples
who have only recently
discovered one another.

The other day
I spied a man going
into the convenient mart.

My wife was inside,
fetching soft drinks for a
lunch outing we had planned;
I was waiting in the car.

The man was listening to huge, white headphones.
He was wearing a ‘Boyz N’ the Hood’ sweatsuit.
It was purple, with bright yellow lettering.

He was struggling to don his leopard print mask
without losing his headphones.
It was an interesting scenario to watch
as it unfolded;
so, I watched.

The only things going through my mind,
were the man’s obvious commitment to whatever
song he was listening to,
and
His willingness to represent such a colorful
display to pay homage to an obviously
beloved film.

I guess I was staring.

“What the **** are you looking at, ******!?”

I didn’t say anything.

Instead, I took silent accountability for my
perceived disrespect.
I looked away.

Later,
that afternoon,
I began to brood over
the incident,
the perceived slight,
the actual slight I’d absorbed in return.

Did I deserve it?
Did he deserve a pass?
Does any of this matter?

I let it go.

Later
that night,
I ran into a new couple;
two of my friends,
whom had found,
discovered one another.

They were seated near me
at a music venue.

We chatted some, between songs.

While the band played,
I watched my two, separate friends
enjoy their outing and their transition
into
couplehood.

Lots of smiles;
she rubbed his thigh;
he played drums along with the band
on her shoulders.
She laughed.

I looked.
I looked some more.
I laughed too.

It was a nice thing to see,
to witness,
to watch develop.

No one said:
“What are you looking at, ******!?”
They barely noticed me at all.

That evening remains a nice thing to recollect
into the pages of this notebook.

(which I’m doing now)

Almost all the pages are written upon.
Soon, it will be time for a another
notebook.

It’ll be new.
I’ll flip through the pages,
feeling the newness,
hearing the creaking of the cover
as I open it
for the first time.

My current notebook,
is comfortable, broken in,
easy to write in.

Sometimes, I fold the cover over,
resting my elbow on the corner
while I write.

The spine was long-ago broken;
so
my notebook doesn't mind
bearing my body-weight
along with
the weight of the words
inside.

My thoughts,
now
are on the lunch
I’d enjoyed with my family
that afternoon.

We sat around the kitchen table.

We’d picked up some take-out;
decided to go home and watch a
movie after we ate.

The wife and I sat
on the couch.

She rubbed my thigh.
I draped my arm across
her shoulder.

We looked at one another,
instead of the television.

There was twenty years of history
that flashed between us in
what was likely 20 seconds.

Still new.
Still lovely.
Still worthwhile.
Still a discovery.

A thread in the tapestry
of
our life,
created on the loom
of our love
during a lazy
Saturday
In
November.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

We were both either in the right or wrong place at the same time, the old codger in the straw hat and I.

And, I’m not looking to write, tell, or think of any other stories about my mother, whom had died.

Nevertheless, here we are at the FastGas on Frederick Avenue.

And, as he pays for fuel he starts telling the clerk and myself about the trouble he has with numbers.

“I just lost my wife of 47 years,” he says.

“I’m sorry to hear this,” I reply.

“I remember looking at the clock in the kitchen just after she had died. I couldn’t read it.”

“Hmmm…”

(Because I couldn’t think of anything better to say.)

“It was like it didn’t make sense anymore. It was like nothing made sense anymore.”

I could relate, but didn’t say so.

“Yeah, I’m 74 years old, and if I died tomorrow that would be just fine.”

“You miss your partner fiercely, yeah?” I asked rhetorically.

He nodded reverently and handed the clerk three $20 bills.

“I don’t know what pump my van is on and all I did was pump til it stopped…
Take whatever you need for us to be squared up.”

The lady behind the counter did as she was asked.

The codger thanked her, collected his change, turned to leave.

“Your partner will wait for you. You still have some stuff to do here for awhile.
It’s okay that numbers don’t make sense anymore. It’s okay if a lot of **** has stopped making sense. You’ve got people that’ll steer you right, I’m sure.”

The clerk nodded.
I winked at her.

He nodded, sighed, stepped into the cooling air outside.

I stopped to light a cigarette.
I smoked and thought about how, in spite of everything, it all still made sense.

When I looked up, all that was left of that old fellow’s van was a plume of exhaust.

Even that made sense.

At least I hoped so.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019

The bars on the graph grow taller.
The bars on the windows grow stronger.
It’s nice when the moon is visible during the day;
it reminds us that it, the moon, is always,
that we are always.
The bars on our phones let us know that
our signal is strong, able to be heard.
Our opinions are that much more valid as a result.
The bars, with the beers, bourbons, and wines
are closed against COVID,
so we sit self-righteous in
our quarantined quarters,
pecking our keyboards hatefully,
against hate…
Punching Nazis with posts to our
social media accounts,
but little else.
No sweat equity?
No sweat.

The delineations that we create are constructs.
Complete and utter *******.
They were either created for us, before we were ever born
or
we created them.

The only difference is light
and
darkness.

This maze is shifting,
the starting point
seems
different for every single
life being lived.
Fair?
What’s that?

All Lives Matter.
Yes.
But, not right now.

In this moment, certain lives matter more.
The focus,
too sharp.
The crosshairs,
too centered.
Aimed all too well.

Another wall of the maze
of inequality, inequity
societal instability,
insanity.
Eugenics?
Genocide?
Systemic stupidity!

Orwellian,
anti-human
attitudes!

Ruled by wads of green paper
or
small slivers of plastic
riding our *****,
slid snugly inside of our
wallets.

The walls of the maze grow taller,
the bars on the graph do the same.

As long as it all comes with
an “I voted’ sticker,
Right?

Inalienable rights?
What are those?
Did we learn about those in school?
Did we?
I forget.

Oh well...

What time do the bars open?
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

the miracle
of a little
girl rising
from her
wheelchair
is
such
a rare
thing
that all
else
perhaps seems
ordinary,
maybe even
meaningless.

it is not.

miracles
are everywhere
and inside of
everyone.

Look!

You’ll see them.

in every sunrise
or
cotton cumulonimbus,
in every hummingbird
or the flour-covered
apron of that lady
who works at the
bakery.

there are miracles
in the eyes of
every child,
sparrow, leopard,
or
squirrel.

This line is miraculous,
as miraculous
as you.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

Something or someone
had taken a large portion
of his ear.

The top of it
was just plain
gone.

Had it been chewed,
swallowed?

Had it been thrown out
with the kitchen trash?

Dogs ripping plastic
during the small hours
to get to this sweet, salty morsel
of human flesh?

Had he screamed?
Had it once been sewn
back on?
Bandages soaked red?
The stitches failed?
The wound gone necrotic?

I stared at it.
I was obvious.
It couldn’t be helped.

We shook hands.
He left.

But, that missing
part of his right ear
will stay with me
for awhile.

It’s likely that I’ll find
that ear’s ghost
listening to this poem
from somewhere
within the creases
of my
jacket pocket.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019

We are lost.
Gone.
Tomorrow arrived,
we were not ready.

The future showed up,
we showed our ***.

Since we couldn’t
have the anti-gravity
boots,
the city in the
clouds,
or
free healthcare for
everyone,
we settled on the 24-hour
******* tapas bar,
turning it into an
all-you-can-choke-down
affair.

We called it progress.

We don’t need smart-bomb
drone strikes
when we’ve got
over-loved,
under-disciplined,
entitled church-mongers
inside our Wal-Mart,
maskless,
during a *******
global pandemic.

Not to worry though,
Jesus surely has the wheel.

Ah, who am I kidding?!

Jesus isn’t ‘up there’;
he’s down here
making sure
we can still have celery
and
strawberries
to forget about
in our refrigerators.

They’ll go limp,
like our overused
out-of-touch-with-reality
peckers.

Maybe then we’ll
be a little less inclined to
**** everything
up.

Not to worry,
the anti-anti-*******
industry means
more than having a stable
means means.
You know what I mean?
Is that mean to say?

It doesn’t ******* matter
because it’s true.

We march, we riot,
we loot, we get shot,
or
we shoot.

Where in all of this remains our
fundamental humanity?

Is it still on the altar?
Still hanging from the cross?

Doesn’t really matter,
does it?
The dollar is the boss.

At what cost though?

How do we pay what we owe
if we don’t know who the debt belongs to;
who holds the promissory note?

Is it a blood debt?

It sure feels like it
these days.

Who,
in the end,
really gives a ****?

We’re paying on credit anyway
&
horrors abound as the massive
massacre moves ever onward
toward some unknown
finish line.

Not to worry.

We’ll figure out what we need;
what we’re after;
who’s the master,
who’s the slave.

It all comes out in the wash.
The Blood of the Lamb
or Uncle Sam.

Not to worry.

As long as we’re clocked in,
everything will
be just
fine.

*  

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

It was said
that I’d received
an education here.

Survival seemed
the only curriculum
as far as
my young boy’s brain
could tell.

Ellison’s red bricks,
yellow/green floors were my own hellscape,
no escaping the addition,
or multiplication
of small angry fists
into soft stomach,
chubby cheek.

The respite of recess,
I recall the lowing
of unseen cows,
the smell of manure
on a breeze,
wafting past the swingset.

Milk cartons,
emptied,
filled again
with earth and seed,
milkweed.  

Butterflies,
adult lies.
blackened eyes.

Grasshoppers humming,
buzzing,  
the plink and plop
of  
gravel-rocks
tossed one at a time
into the storm drain.

This bench wasn't here
40 years ago,
yet the ghosts of my childhood
find my lap nonetheless.

As my own children
now swing, climb or
otherwise enjoy the equipment,
I remain haunted by memories
of people lost to me
for what feels like centuries.  

They unload their baggage
(and my own)
at my feet.

Was I ever a child,
A schoolboy,
Really?

Bessie tells me
it was so.

I suppose it’s time
I believed her.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019

I’ve stayed quietly
undiagnosed
for decades now.

Does it even matter anymore?

If I give you my attention,
you might notice the deficit,
you might not.

I wanted to spin out,
to crash out,
to bottom out,
to drop out.

Never could though;
it would have been too terrifying.

To not be able to get away,
to run away,
If things, people, or situations
got away from me.

What if my friends
didn't stay very friendly?

I’ve never pretended
to be very smart.
(Clever? Maybe.)

Baloney sandwiches.
Never steaks.

My married life
saved my physical
life, a fact I can’t deny
even if I wanted to.

Now,
the most terrible, wonderful
rock n’ roll thing I do
is try to stay up until
2 am
on a Saturday night.

I’m too old for that **** these days.
(I do it anyway.)

Trying to hold onto something
young that still resides inside,
I suppose.

I’ll keep holding on.
It’s not a bad thing;
not wrong to do.

Touchstones are important.
People.
Places.
Things.
Songs.

Our barbaric yawps are meant
to be heard over the rooftops.

To indulge in experience,
to give our attention to
as many fleeting things
as our hearts can hold onto,
as our fingers can grasp.

Whitman says that this is why we are here.
I agree.
The meaning of life is present in the oils
That we leave behind,
in our
fingerprints.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

It’s the Tuesday night
of your life.

Soon enough,
Wednesday will be
looking at you,
waiting for you
to cross it’s name
from this week.

Thursday will be
here before you
realize.

Stooped,
shallow of breath,
thin of bone,
milky-eyed.

“I’m so tired”,
said Thursday.

Friday is a second wind,
a telephone call
that announces
ourselves
to
ourselves,
reminding us that it’s all
over so quickly.

Saturday,
a celebration,
merrymaking
as we remember
who
we
are.

Sunday.

Resting.

Maybe a book,
a short nap,
an afternoon
at the cinema,
a steak
dinner.

Monday comes back around.

What if our hours
were days?
What if our days
were decades?

This week is almost over,
isn’t it?

My knees
hurt.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

Lima beans.
Canned asparagus.
Polished stones.
Lint I've collected from the dryer in my home for the last month or so.
Wheat pennies.
Buffalo nickels.
Loaves of pumpernickel bread.
Bone-handled pocket knives.
Names of those whom my family have loved,
buried,
long dead.

Most of these things,
I’ve no problem with.
Some I remember fondly,
some I collect,
some I eat,
others don’t really matter at all.

We enjoy the things that we enjoy.
While we’re here,
we do our best.

Most everything else is insignificant,
of little consequence in our lives.

Certainly less so, than our children,
ourselves, neighbors,
our friends,
our husbands,
or
our wives.

Why then, dear ones,
do we natter and fret so much?

We hem and haw,
wring our hands
stressing over things like
lunch,
a mask,
or
inequality in society,
usually blaming
The Orangutan currently occupying
The Oval Office;
certainly occupying more
than his fair share of our
collective consciousness.

We’ve forgotten how to forget,
how to let it go, doing the best
that we are able,
where we are,
with what we have.

We must remember
ourselves,
our values,
our votes.

Because,
apathy
or laziness
lost 2016
for all of us,
whether we believe it
or not.

So,
I plan to remember,
emphatically,
unequivocally,
unimpeachably,
who I am,
where I come from,
what matters to me more
than anything else.

One
One
Zero
Three
The year,
two-thousand
twenty.

You are you.
I am I.
We are we.

History,
our legacy,
our democracy,
our liberty
is at stake.

These reside
in our hands always,
being more important than
canned asparagus,
polished stones,
or
a pocketful of wheat pennies.

Specifically,
especially so,
on
eleven-three-twenty-twenty.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I guess I caught the ****.

I always thought I might.
Ever since this whole calamity started,
I thought I might end up with it.
I figured that it was just my kind of luck.

The Mean 19 came home to roost.

We were lucky enough to spit it out
14 days later.

It might not even matter,
apparently boredom
&
the greater good
don’t sit well with very many folks.

‘Mandate?’
‘What kind of ****** **** is that?’
‘I want a ******* cheeseburger!’

So,
here they come,
out into our careful weekend wars.

Our mission,
clandestine.

Theirs,
to be casualties before the first round
is fired.
They crash the party,
as loud and overbearing
as a congress of baboons.

They’ll make sure this lasts forever.

‘He brought back football, you know!’
‘Made a lot of us real proud!’

Really?

Well, I’ll be a fly on ****,
or
the head of The Vice President of The United States;
whichever you prefer.

How we howled!

All the while, some 22 y/o marketing genius saw
dollar signs in an investment of fly-swatters
with our team’s logo on it!

‘It’s a liberal-on-the-attack conspiracy’
they cried!
‘Those Socialist ******* knew that fly would be there.’
‘I bet they’d been training flies for months.’

Go ahead,
shout from the rooftops.
Let everyone know what you’ll wear or won’t wear,
how you’ll vote,
how it won’t matter if you do,
or don’t.

For God’s sake,
forget everything you’ve ever been told
&
just shut your stupid mouths.

Cast your ballots quickly and quietly,
then cast yourselves
into the sea.

You’ll never win anyway,
it’s not in the cards.

The deck is stacked against
the likes of us,
&
THEY cheat better than
we could ever hope to.

Go to sleep.
Wake up.
Go to work.
Come home.
Cook dinner.
Eat dinner.
Clean up.
Watch some TV
or
*******.

Nothing really changes anyway.

After all,
there’s no more Van Halen,
is there?
So,
you might as well…

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Guy told me that he was sure that Michael J. Fox and I had the same disease.
He wanted to know why I wasn’t shaking and convulsing all over the place.
Was it because of some new medication?
I tried my best to explain the differences between Cerebral Palsy and Parkinson ’s disease.

None of it seemed to make much difference,
and that,
in itself,
was okay too.

Guy was apologetic,
not for getting his information wires crossed,
but for my troubles as he saw them.

“Man, I’m so sorry that you have to live like that.”

I told him that it was what I was used to,
that it wasn’t that big a deal.

“Man, I just think it must be so hard.”

I told him that it was not easy some days,
that it was what I knew though,
that I was okay,
doing my thing,
just out seeing a band play
some music.

Something must’ve gotten through whatever haze he was in,
because he began to apologize for talking to me
about what he called,
my problems.

“No, sir.”
“A question is just a question. It never hurts, it only helps fill in the gaps.”
He said that he was sorry anyway.

I told him not to worry about it.

He asked if I liked the band that was playing later that night.

I told him that I did,
very much indeed.

He said that he wished he had a ticket,
but was trying to hear whatever he could
standing out in the cold,
next to the tour-buses,
smoking.

I finished my cigarette,
said I was going back inside.

He apologized,
‘for bothering me’,
he said.

“Nah,
you make the world
more interesting”,
I said.

And,
it was
true.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

What a luxury this is,
to **** indoors,
when what’s out there is so oppressive,
in so many ways.

Let us speak to one another
of our shadow-lived lives.
We’ll use words of romance,
reverence, street-toughened
prideful parlance.

We’ll speak openly, shamelessly
of ******* outside.

This phrase seems to be
the only applicable euphemism
for a life spent tripping over corpses,
seeing swarms of golden bees buzz by our brains,
the fatality of their sting
as yet unknown to us.

We’ll smoke awhile,
speaking of our children as well.
We’ll pretend that we give a ****
what their future holds, knowing all that needs to be
known happens in the immediate,
the now.

(The next score, the next hit, the next left-handed dollar,
the blood-blackened sky,
ruling
reigning,
******* outside.)

Still,
we speak sentences,
bits,
set-backs full of ‘do as I say, not as I do’,
fully expecting to protect everyone
but ourselves,
all the while continuing to
**** outside.

Finally,
we end up here;
the now here,
nowhere.

This place,
with it’s all-too-honest
hallways where we can lie
and deny that we did it to ourselves,
our children, our families.

We know,
that poverty and parenting
play their respective,
inter-generational roles.

Yet,
in the end,
each of us has at least a modicum of understanding
that there are alternatives
to the ineffective intellectual
toilet-bowl mentality
that keeps us
******* outside.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

You have to get it right.
Except for when you don’t.
It’s okay to have ****** it all up.
Just don’t live there.

Mistake.

We tried.
We had an opportunity
to do some taking.
We missed.
It happens.

I have to remind myself
all
the
time.

*
-JBClaywell
©PZPublications 2019

We are made
of time and decisions.
It is not destiny
that guides us
nor
fate that stirs the winds
which fill our sails.
It is time,
alongside the very choices we make
which define us, create us.

Molecules, atoms, electrons.
Matter. Space dust. The very cosmos,
the time-space continuum.

Time.

We, our very selves
are the product of a singular
moment.
Even if that moment
is or was not as sweet
as we might wish it to be
or have been for ourselves
or  
those who put movement
and
momentum into our
very creation;
we
are
made
of
time.

Life,
once that particular
clock begins to tick,
is ultimately our own.

How we react to
what happens
along the way
is that which makes an individual’s life
what life is.

These are the terms and conditions.
These are the rules.
They’re always changing.

Eventually, time’s up.
Food.
We become food for worms.
Time moves on.
Without us.
The tree grows.
We feed it.
The sun rises and sets.
We don’t see it.
Time passes regardless,
heedless to our absence.

Would to doom.
Gone too soon.
No fork. No knife.
No spoon.

By light of the moon,
stillborn youth.
No more lies,
only truth.

Until
the end
of
time;
undecided.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Move the chains,
shift the paradigm
in such a way
that it might shift
tectonic plates,
alter the *******
coastline!


Change the channel,
alter your state!

(shift, alter, change!)

So,
what now?

Cut ties with
all your life’s
toxicity?

What’s that look like?

Under the covers?
Staring at a screen?
Petting your cat?

Paddling
the online ocean
of lazy lies.

It’s safer to swim with sharks.

At least their teeth are honest.


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

There are gladiolas,
black-eyed Susan
growing in wooden barrels
behind the chain-link, below the razor-wire.

The Powerhouse
they call it,
the building that houses
the generators, the boilers,
whatever else it takes to keep
these cinder-block cell-houses
warm, cool, or otherwise
habitable.

As I make my way up toward
the building I work in,
I pause to look at these blooms.

I must.

For it is in seeing them
that I may be seeing the
only beauty offered that day.

There is so little here
that is beautiful,
one might say.

The floors are scuffed,
the walls,
the paint, chipped away
or graffitied with pen-caps
or makeshift knives,
not looking for that space between a cell-mate's ribs
just then.

There is rust on the window sills,
on the bedposts bolted together,
bunkbeds for the bruiser or the bruised.

Still,
the gladiolas, those black-eyed Susan's
persistence in palpable,
as is the potential of every single
human being housed inside.

The perspective shifts.

There's beauty in that potential,
presented in the form of actualized,
engaged participation in today's classwork
or
small-group discussion.

'What's this?
A breakthrough?
Sir, is that a teardrop?'

Real,
not tattooed.

Beautiful.

More so than any gladiola
or
black-eyed Susan here
could hope for.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I think I know
what’s happening,
after the fact.

The house is more or less closed up.

The TV room,
to the kitchen,
down the hallway,
the bathroom,
the bedroom.

Do it again and again,
world without end,
amen.

He keeps it hot.
His bones hurt
like the unused rooms
with their doors
shut.

The newspapers,
junk-mail on
the kitchen table.

We clear space
for coffee cups,
conversations.

It’s small,
but it’s a horde
nonetheless.

The result of boredom,
the fact that it’s not really
hurting anyone,
nobody complains.

Angela straightens things
up when we come over for a meal
now and then.

(She does the cooking.)

He’s lonely.
He wants to talk to someone.
Who?

No one really talks
his brand of talk
these days.

He’s still working on the book
that he started writing
when I was 16-years-old.

He leaves us alone
on the weekends, mostly.

We do our thing,
he does his.

During the week,
we feed him dinner
most nights.

It’s a good arrangement.
We talk a lot as Angie
cleans up afterward.

It’s alright.
It’s fine.

Cynthia still casts
shadows in the house
that I grew up in.

I wish she was home
with him.

He does too.

We all know it.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

First comes Lunch Break.

“I see you writing over there and on Sundays I can hear you talking to your friend,”
she says.

She continues,
while her eyes sparkle with a mischief that is neither unfamiliar or unwanted.
“You guys are funny.”

I laugh
&
remember how flushed her face was
on the Sunday that she sat with us.

Lunch Break is an older gal;
I should stop to re-read her nametag
but I haven’t.

Right now,
her wry smile;
shaking laughter remind me of my mother’s
if only
in the space
of a single
breath.

Popcorn stops by next.

She too flutters matron’s
angel-wings as she looks in
on me.

“I’ve just popped a fresh batch,”
she informs.

I nod my thanks; scribbling onward
to a perceived victory
of poetic or otherwise literary
proportions.

Feeling particularly pitched at,
I pick up a box of Popcorn’s
salty siren-song scented
offering.
I call her Princess as I cash out.

“The new girl needs a name.”
says Princess Popcorn.
“It’s her first day. You have to name her too.”

I don’t know why they like this,
but they do.

Nowadays, it’s considered toxic & sexist.
(I call it old-school and wink in a knowing way.)

The New Girl…

Her tag tells me that her name is:
Jordan.

It’s she that I give my popcorn money to.

I smile.
Jordan returns the gesture.
“How’s day number one going,”
I ask.
“Okay”
says Jordan.

I pay for the box of popcorn
with a stack of nickels stolen
Off of Alexander’s bookshelf.
“$1.08”,
chimes Jordan.

She hands me 2 pennies back.
“Maybe tomorrow will be better than just okay.”
I say.
“Make the rest of today the best it can be.”

The New Girl gives a big, toothy grin and says…

“You too.”
I walk back to the cafe side
to munch popcorn
I don’t really want while I
line the nest of
this poem
with the feathers
of
gas station angels.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

it is strange
to look into the
mirror of our
upbringing,
and
start a staring
contest.

we looked at us
for a few hours
and
these turned into
days
faster than we
realized.

months passed,
then years,
and still we stared on,
into this mirror of
ourselves,
of our lives
and
our own devising,

our own separate
togetherness,
like wheat and chaff,
like milk
and
cream.

it has been akin
to a quickening,
a molting
a rapturous unbecoming
and
all the while,
a rebirth.

the decades will
continue
racing by,
and
elope with what is left
of our eyes.

we will be left
stumbling in the dark,
yet seeing
everything.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

Yesterday,
I sat in a common area
of the local university and wrote.

A student
in a power-chair
would glide by
now and then.

I liked the hiss of the wheelchair’s tires
on pavement
or
inside on the hard floor.
I liked the hum
of the motor that accompanies.

I can recognize these sounds
for what they are
almost immediately.

To me,
the sounds are comfortable,
they have a familiarity
despite the fact that they
are not my own sounds.

They are not the click
and
clatter of my crutches
and
I wouldn’t presume to identify with them,
yet they bring about a kindred.

They, these hisses and hums,
bring forth a needed feeling of
‘not-alone-ness’
that I have come to relish of late.

To me,
these are the sounds of,
at the very least,
a modicum of success
and
always of perseverance.
  
Otherwise,
we might all be werewolves
out for a stroll under the light
of the full moon.

I grab small gladnesses where I am able.

The streets are full of wild things
that snap,
snarl,
and
sometimes bite.

I walk among them,
having written of small kindness,
things familiar if strange.

They let me pass unharmed,
still warmed by feelings of belonging.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPbublications 2019

At this point,
life feels like
A table set for
20.

There’s only
one
lemon ****.

Everyone wants
a piece.

Someone’s going to end up
with a mouthful of blood.

(Spitting out teeth.)

Chew,
while you still
can.
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019

They asked me,
yesterday,
as we sat on the
half-court
on the recreation
yard,
having ‘small-group’:

“If it meant that you could have your legs back,
would you sell your soul?”

Have my legs back?

I knew what they meant,
so I didn’t need an explanation.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar question,
theirs.
It was one I’d answered several times
before.

Never, though, inside these fences.

As this was the case,
I felt good in my reply.

“No. I like who I am.
Who I am is based
inside of the fact
that I was born
with these legs,
that work this way,
turn that way,
always bending this way.”

They had trouble wrapping
their criminal thoughts around
the ideas of liking oneself
or
not taking whatever
was to be had.

We moved past it soon enough,
sitting on plastic safety chairs
in a semi-circle under the
basketball hoop.

We moved on to discuss
spirituality,
empathy,
humanism
on the warm
concrete
under the warm sun,
which glinted off
of the razor-wire
brilliantly.
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

These pages were
dog-eared
but,
really I was amazed
that they were still
there at all.

If I told
you the truth
I’d have to say that
I was flabbergasted
to see that the whole
bookshelf  hadn’t
combusted.

The pages with
folded corners,
those were my
favorites.

The words set upon
those leafs,
those single,
gossamer surfaces
taken, culled
from all the reams
in the world,
those were firebrands
to me,
to my soul.

Even thumbing through
their undamaged brethren
those incandescent selections
generate a glow
that is felt
as noumenon,
worldly, real,
yet ethereal
nonetheless.

I read on,
savoring
the
warmth.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

Why are these children not in school?
The table of super-white, well-dressed to the point of looking like an ad, would have a hard time getting arrested if they were wielding machetes are at the table adjacent mine.
They look like a cult.
Karen and Becky look over at me. I feel like an amateur still-life painting that didn’t even make it to The Member’s Gallery.
Karen looks like she knows that she’s better than me, than the baristas behind the counter.
She finds us all mildly annoying, but she’s doing her best to maintain an expected level of decorum.  
Little Reed has a necktie on.
He looks like a Reed. Freckles. He’s a ginger, like his dad. Pastor Kyle.
That’s no *******. I’ve overheard that Daddy-O really is a pastor somewhere.
I never figured out where. It’s not really important, is it?
However, I still want to know why Reed and little Becky aren’t in school.
I want to know.
I won’t ask.
But, still…
Reed’s tie is spectacular.
It goes with his shirt beautifully.
The Windsor knot is impeccable.
I bet Reed has no idea how to tie a Windsor knot.
I know I don’t.

These people are beautiful monsters.
And, they are likely perfectly harmless,
Innocuous.

I bet they vote.
Which makes them less so.

They are every cliche.

The ladies glance in my direction now and then.
They’re wondering what I’m doing.
What I’m writing in this book.

The desire to strike up a conversation is huge.
I remain silent,
observant.

I want to ask Becky and Reed if they can diagram this sentence.
I won’t ask though.

I have to get out of here.
I feel like I’m in the presence
of America’s Greatness that few American’s
are actually privy to.

It smells like juniper.
Gin martinis or with tonic,
used to swallow secret extra Xanax tabs.
or
money used to buy hookers.

(paid out of the collection plate.)


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications

Give the horses sugar cubes.
Give the eagle a salmon.
Give the monkey a ripe banana.
Give the donkey a carrot.
No one knows what any of this means.
Trust me, I don’t either.
You can say that these lines are deep,
you can say that these lines are shallow.
I assure you that they’re neither.  
I’m writing to understand the roar in my skull,
to quell the torrent that whips my brain.
I’m writing these words outside of myself;
if I don’t make time to write them down,
they drive me insane.
Into this notebook the ink must flow,
like blood coursing through my veins.

Without paper,
ink, and pen,
surely I’d be wracked with pain.  

I write them down onto this pulp,
I read them from this page.
For I, myself, am a Thunderbird,
I offer my life onstage.  

It is this art inside myself
that I must give away.
To everyone and nobody at all,
I give myself away.
I give everything I have
and am,
to being a storyteller,
a poet,
a husband,
a parent,
a good man,
a friend,  
or just me…

Jay

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

This isn’t it.
This is not the end.
It is merely a quickening.
Believing that I’m
all together and all alone.
Falling apart,
empty,
decomposition,
decay.

Half-life.
Barely living.
Counting down to zero.

All I have left
is detonation,
destruction,
decimation...

This isn’t it.
This is not the end.
It is merely a quickening.

This is a hatching,
arising from one’s
Chrysalis,
an awakening through
pain and chaos.

This is a trip through
the ****** grinder
to see what you’re made of.

It helps to remember
that the caterpillar
turns into a mass of virtual
Nothingness
before the wings come out.

(I think I read that somewhere.)

It’s said that the butterfly remembers  
those days painfully;

In spite of the fact they hurt so bad,
the wings are worth it.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

Essential,
essentially so,
entirely committed
to being thus.
It’s life outside
of the walls
of my home;
it’s a staving off
of
becoming
stark-raving-mad.

Awake at 5am,
on the pavement
by 6.

I take my chances
with COVID 19
in service of
my family,
my state,
myself
and
men whom are frightened,
shot, stabbed, burned, broken
humans
afraid of nothing on the other side of
incarceration
except for their futures, uncertain,
stopped short by a virus,
an unseen enemy,
a murderer without a shadow,
killing, perhaps in well-lit hallways,
carried in by the unsuspecting
usual suspects.
No fever.
No cough.
Carriers nonetheless.

I can’t stay home.

Because,
idle hands do The Devil’s business,
and
God never comes to visit.

So,
I need neighbors  
to shelter-in-place
saving lives;
mine,
theirs,
as well as others
yet to be begun
once again,
free.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

dying a thousand small deaths,
profound yet altogether meaningless,
dotting the t’s,
turning blind eyes,
listening to the noises of the nines
while waiting for eleven.

how high does this thing go anyway?

everyone knows that I like it loud
so you better quiet down.

the embers are still aglow.
there’s still a little life left, right?
a little bit of heat? heart?

I’ve only ever wanted to be a five,
maybe a seven;
somewhere north of hell,
maybe a few miles
south of heaven.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

How new this is,
how odd,
how interesting.

I can feel
the eyes
seeking to understand,
deciding that it doesn't matter,
giving me what passes
for my due
regardless.

I make that half-mile
journey on my handicapped
legs because I want to,
because I need to.

It’s part of what passes for respect
around here.

I walk for myself,
for them who live behind
those gates, those fences,
so as to assist in the possibility
of mending the punitive
as well as the personal;
patching holes.

Yet, their eyes burn.

It’s not polite to stare,
so I’ll stop.

It’s their house,
this 1 House,
this community,
of convicts, inmates,
offenders...
semantics,
synonyms,
systems of...
reform,
rebirth,
rehabilitations sought,
as yet unfound.

We,
they and I,
are seekers,
still.

Thus the march
continues.
*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I have your Christmas present from Jan.
I have the note that she wrote for you as well.
The note is dated: 12/1/2019.
That wasn’t all that long ago.

The gift is interesting too.
It’s a copy of ‘The Best American Poetry of 1997’.
The pages are dog-eared throughout.

Did Jan do that for you?
Did you do that?
I’ll likely never know.

The book is 23 years old.
The gift is 59 days old.

Who loved it longer?
This thought limps & staggers
around the rooms of my mind
as I page through 1997’s ‘best’ poetic offerings.

It’s almost a zen-like meditation
that allows me to touch the name
of the love of this book
and
its
contents as they pertain to a
59 day old gift from Jan
to you
now to Jay…
all of us unknown to one another;

just like
Charles Simic’s poem:
‘The Something’
was to me
only
five minutes
ago.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

We talked,
my lover and I,
about this illness,
this virus that
has us all locked
inside our homes,
hoarding toilet paper,
hand-sanitizer,
hamburger.

We spoke of
my mother,
the challenges
that she and her husband
struggled with,
how they bested her
on the beginning
of her 71st lap,
barely started,
never  allowed to
finish.

“I’m glad she’s not here for this.
It would be so hard for her and your dad.”
says Angela.

I nod,
wondering how
in-home dialysis
would’ve worked out.

“I am too,”
I agree after a pause.

She’d overcome enough,
paid her dues
long enough
to pass
this pandemic by,
not sheltering-in-place,
instead,
breathing easily
as an afternoon stoll
across the face
of The Universe.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

They’re playing “Life”
in the living room
while I write this.

Alexander and I
believe board games
live entirely too well
up to their names,
refusing, for now,
to play along.

We,
Alex and I
seek a more solitary
style of entertainment.

Books and music
hold sway here.

As we shelter
ourselves from infection,
leading to introspection,
relegation to the confines
of our respective
residences.

The Mean 19
is out there,
walking,
stalking,
mocking,
locking us down.

When we ask,
weeks down the road,
what COVID did,
it’ll be more about
what we’ve done.

How we cared,
what we shared,
art we created,
while we waited.

So,
let’s play.

There’s more
to this,
to everything.

It’s more than just…
a bored game.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I never knew
that I needed
poems,
that they came from
outside
of me,
from some ethereal
plane,
which would come to
take root on the
inside.
So,
yes,
I find that I need poems
like I need leg-bones
in order to stay upright.

I need to bathe in the shadows
of thoughts
and feelings that
are not my own
just as much as I need the air,
knowing that oxygen
has no owner.

Like…
(notebooks,
pens
&
apple beer or whiskey
now and then.)

I need your poems
more than I need
my own,
most of the time.

Your poems are my poems
that I have yet to write,
because my life is your
life is my life is our life
is…

Like leg-bones,
like marrow.
like heartbeats,
like fried-egg sandwiches,
like a *** of fresh
coffee.

Like steak burritos,
with green tomatillo
salsa.

Like me,
like you,
like us.

We are poems,
are poetry,
are essential,
are
alive for
ourselves
&
each other.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2020

Which way are you going?

I’m going this way.

Robert Frost told me to.

But, it really doesn’t matter
one way or the other
what way,
which way,
when way
you want to go.  

Mr. Frost and I
have miles to go
before we sleep.

These woods are dark and deep,
so we have to be going soon.

We’re following the paths
The Universe has set before us.
We have business
at the end of the line.

But, while we travel,
we’re gonna get a few kicks in.
We’re gonna do whatever
the hell we feel like doing.

Someone once said that the woods,
the snow,
the roads,
the convergence
that Frost laid out
is a metaphor,
an allegory,
some *******.  

I’ve always taken Frost’s words
at face value.
Those two roads
met in the woods,
the choices that we make,
they make all the difference.

They,
we,
create the outcome.
The Universe
simply
unfolds
a map.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

I peeled the orange whole,
the bitter pith,
the stinging juice,
pulled into sections
eaten one
at a time.

I thought of my new office,
my new filing cabinet,
full of offender homework,
headed for the shredder.

I couldn’t help but read
some;
just a glance now and then.

The bitter pith of justice served,
the salty tears of regret.

The oranges I’ve seen
scattered on the yard,
they remind me each
of a life made hard,
difficult by way of choices made,
more and still by prices paid.

I saw a letter written from father
to infant son,
the pages spoke of deeds
never undone.

“We were drunk.
his daddy said,
“there was an accident
...and, I’m sorry son, but mommy’s dead.”
“I’d ruined our lives on a single night,
I’m doing my best to make it right.”

Like the peel of the orange,
that letter’s no more,
&
that boy’s daddy paid
what was owed.

He’ll never have his son’s
mother back,
but,
from what I read,
his heart wasn’t black.

Daddy made an error,
in a terrible way,
spending some time
in prison grays.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications 2020

“Fear of Fear” was the title of that day’s coursework in “Criminal Thinking” Class. The class addresses thinking errors that these guys tend to make on the regular.  We, every one of us, have made these errors in our own lives too.  The material, written by human beings for human beings, has its flaws and its merits, like anything else.  So, the way that I go about teaching the class is to read through the material as it is, comment on the things that could have been addressed differently, then focus on the merit of the material and ask the guys to expound in either agreement or disagreement on said merits. The discussions can really take off from there. But, we always land the ship focusing on the merits that the guys can agree on and take our ah-ha moments, no matter how small, where we find them.

“I’m not afraid of anything”, he said.
“I just don’t have that in me anymore.”

We go on to talk about some scenarios that he’s dealt with in his not-so-long-ago criminal life.
He tells me that he has been sent on errands by people who were his overseers, out there on the streets. He tells me that on some of these errands, he has called his mother and advised that she should know that he loves her and that if she doesn’t hear from him again…

“Now, to be clear, I don’t like these situations”, he explains..
“I’m not afraid of them.”
“I just don’t like them.”

He goes on…

“Let me give you another example.
If my kid wants to go on a roller coaster, I’ll go.
I’m not afraid to get on the roller coaster, but I don’t like them.
I’m always thinking about the cars flying off of the track and crashing into the ground.”

“I’ll ride my Harley down the highway at over 100mph and not even give it a second thought.
Yet, a roller-coaster…
I don’t like ‘em, but I’ll get on one if my kid wants to go.
I’m not afraid.”

Now it’s my turn...

“Okay”.
“So, you’re contemplating the “what if’s”, right?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“And, when you’re out there on the highway, you’re too busy enjoying yourself to contemplate the ifs, yeah?”

“Right.”

“Riding on roller coasters causes some trepidation though.”

“Yeah.”

“You think about what might happen.”

“Yeah.”

“If you can avoid a roller coaster, you will.”

“Yeah.”

“Going on missions for the higher-ups causes some trepidation?
You call your mom, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Once you’re out of here, are you going on any more of these missions for the bosses?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Because you’re worried about what might happen?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s another word for trepidation?”


These  guys aren’t stupid.
They certainly aren’t cowards.
They just tend to think in ways that have led them down paths that might have been avoidable.
They are human beings that make mistakes and bad decisions, just like any one of us.

These guys are making me smarter.

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020