Her fingers are a blur
on the keys.

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

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

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

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

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

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

For the life of me
I cannot see how.

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

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

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

Maybe not.

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


I wouldn’t change a thing.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

-JB Claywell
©2015 P&ZPublications

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

It is switched off
for the summer
that is coming.

The boys are switched on
for much the same reason.

I am watching them with lazy eyes.

(halfway)

The homeless man is here too.

He sits in the chair opposite
my youngest.

They are exchanging introductions.

No one is nervous.

(I am too near for that.)

__


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

I usually do.

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

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

Now, I’m the one who orders.

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

that buzz starts
and my palms flood with
sweat.
the needle hits flesh
and it’s all familiar;

I’ve been here before.
still, it’s all forgotten,
except for the idea
that the images I’ve
asked him to mix up
on my arm are very comforting
to me.

Our Lady of Guadalupe
and an ink pen,
I’ve grown up surrounded
by both,

so to stir them together is safe
in its sacrilege,
not sacrilegious at all;

permissible in fact,
because of their combined power,
a display of faith in my own
ability to create, to destroy
darkness and demons

with notebooks and prayers
offered from a small stage,
through a live microphone,

or in a coffeehouse with
the newsman,
the laureate,
the tiger,
the bundle of nerves,
and the denim-clad
troubadour.

Our Lady of Poetry
will watch over us all,
in our church,
the church of the spoken-word.
*
©P&ZPublications; 2015
-JBClaywell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We will simply continue
to be.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes it feels like drowning in a barrel of tar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is a task of upheaval
and ultimately of survival.

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

*
-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

I sweep dead crickets
out of my office.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big deal, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first place we go is Rico’s.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a fool I was.

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

I said that I didn’t.

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

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

and that I had a telephone call to make.

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

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

I don’t like knowing
that there’s a YouTube
channel out there for
gun-nuts called “The Warrior Poets”.

I’ve looked at some the videos.
None of them have anything to do
with poetry.

I guess that’s okay,
but,
I still don’t have to like it,
so I don’t.

It does give me a reason
to write down the fact that
I believe that I,
in fact,
am a warrior-poet.

My friends are too.
John, Hans, Larry, Kristopher,
and Josh…

We’re a gang.

We’re a conclave,
a klatch of bare-knuckle
sophists, street-wise surgeons
of verse drunk on our own power.

Beautiful bruises,
pooled blood,
split-lipped
ripped pages
broken pens
shattered lenses.

We’re the dogs of war.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

We walked the Topeka zoo
yesterday and looked at
all the animals being held
against their will.

The angry zookeeper
told us about the bear
that got its head stuck
in a peanut-butter jar.

“It’s not a laughing matter.”,
he said.

The children laughed anyway.

“This bear would’ve died,”,
he said. “if we wouldn’t have
come along and taken him out
of the wild, removing the
peanut-butter jar, and nursing
him back from starvation.”

The bear was asleep in a thin tree
above our heads.
He’d climbed up there to be closer
to the warm sun,
my youngest son advised.

I wondered if he hadn’t climbed
up into that tree to sleep farther
away from the din of his jailer’s
voice as he shouted to the herds of us
who’d paid our six bucks to stand in
the cold and listen to his angry
voice tell us about peanut-butter jars
removed from the heads of bears and
how that’s what it takes to save lives
around here.

No one asked the zookeeper
or the bear if either one
of them still liked peanut
butter eaten straight from
the jar.

No one asked if either one
of them ever missed their
mothers.

We just watched the bear
sleep in the crook of the
highest branch of that
thin, leafless tree.

His head lulled into the
crook of his elbow and his
*** dangled in the chilly
air.

I suppose he was dreaming
of escape.
Maybe he pondered, dreamily,
what that zookeeper tasted like.

Perhaps he dreamed of peanut-butter
eaten straight from the jar,
knowing his head wouldn’t get stuck
anymore.

But, I bet he was dreaming
of his mother.


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

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

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

the city lights wink out
as midday returns.

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

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

Someone had written TEXAS in huge letters.

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

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

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


End Date

We’ve all got one.

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

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

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

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

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

In a room full of pundits and pud-pullers
I just wanna be the poet.
There’s not a ******* thing
that’s wrong with that either.

No, I won’t be that guy reading “Pride and Prejudice”
just so I can get a handle on the *******
zombie movie that’s coming out.

Give me a Mickey Spillane novel
and a slice of pizza.
Give me a Bukowski poem
and a pork chop.

That’s the problem here,
nobody seems to want to recognize their
base nature.

Nobody wants to admit that they still like *****
and *******, a nice ***,
and an amazing pair of blue eyes.

Everyone wants to point out what everyone else
is doing wrong while
hiding behind hashtags and keyboards
like chickenshits.

I’ve had enough of it,
and I’ve narrowed my field of
vision, while widening my perspective
You see, I plan to be the best version
of me that I can be

today

then I’ll do it again tomorrow.

If I knock somebody’s drink in
their lap at some point
in between,
I won’t lose a second’s sleep over it.

I’ll just try to do better on the next pass.

*

-JBClaywell
©2016 P&ZPublications

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

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

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

(yet, so very much more)

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

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

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

But, it’ll happen.

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

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

Same one I made,
‘cept I kept at it.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

There’s a war on,
ya morons!

Shortages everywhere!

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

Hell, they’re rationing
everything these days!

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

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

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

Not me.

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

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

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

Ah, **** it!

I’ll see you in the morning.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

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

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

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

Conversation made from philosophy,
spiked with profanity.

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

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

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

We’ve gone our own ways for the night.

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

I look forward to filling them.

*
-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

We are all moths
seeking the moon
but finding streetlights
instead.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*
-JB Claywell
©P&ZPublications;
2015

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

The buttons undone.

The first cuff is turned.

The second.

The third.

Just past
the elbow.

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

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

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

Fingers curl,
turning to ore.

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

Ore becomes iron,
becomes ordinance,
rage becomes rocketry.

Here it comes…

Fire.

Five.  



*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

she’s giving ol’ Josh
the goldfish eye.

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

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

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

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

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

Josh nods;
so does Kim.

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

around the room.

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

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

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

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

*

-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021

I’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

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

immediately,
seeking a bludgeon,
his demise is envisioned.

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

and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You fool.” he says.

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

interrupting his novenas,
the housefly continues:

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

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

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

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

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

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

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

‘Hey, dad…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


“Good.”
“That’s good.”
I assure him.

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

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

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

No radio this morning,
just talk.

I wait.
5 seconds
10 seconds
15 seconds

“Hey dad…”

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

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

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

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

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

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

we know.

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

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

but,
he knows.

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


*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

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

You, right now,
are lost to me;

how I wish that
you were here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

I’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

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

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

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

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

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

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

he pauses.

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

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

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

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

I’m going to relinquish this parking space.

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

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

I climb in and squeeze the back of his neck.

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

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

*

- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

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

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

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

Rights?

Rites?

Writes?

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

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


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

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

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

On October 2nd a local high-school teacher invited me to her classroom to speak to her students about writing and poetry. More specifically, the lesson of the day was one in which the exploration of a subculture took place. Subsequently, the questions that were posed to the students in the beginning were: “What does a poet look like?”  What would a poet sound like, conversationally?” “What kind of clothes would they wear?” “What do you think makes someone want to be a poet?”   As we got set to go forward with what became an easy and enjoyable group conversation, it all seemed a bit esoteric to me and I began to wonder if I was indeed the right person for this particular gig.

I started to wonder if I was a poet, if I am a poet.  What does a poet dress like? How did I come to be a poet? I know my backstory, as it relates to the when and why I write what I write and way that I write it.
But, in the end, we talked about the subculture of poets and poetry, the need for more human interaction, the thrill of the live poetry reading and the fact that this particular subculture that I am a part of also tends to be sought out by those from other subcultures. I explained what The Thunderbird Sessions are and what they continue to mean to me. I explained that we have a regular attendee whom is very obviously wracked with anxiety, but that he comes to life under the lights and through the PA-system at Unplugged during a Thunderbird Sessions event.  Additionally, I explained that we have, often, subcultures within subcultures represented at a Thunderbird Sessions reading.

It seems that the fringes, the weirdos, the people who don’t quite fit in anyplace else, fit into the robes of the poet or the writer, because people that write have an escape hatch, they have a valve that releases the pressures that they feel every day and in almost every way.

I have done my best to make sure that my subculture is as accepting of any other subculture that might step through the doors of anywhere that I might be reading, writing, or otherwise existing. Because, really, the only culture that matters is the culture of kindness.  

Before that roomful of high-school kids was done with me, I told them that despite the fact that I didn’t know them, I loved them unconditionally. I told them this, because no one told it to me outside of my own childhood home and family. I felt like I didn’t fit on the planet. So, I found music and books that made for good companions when I needed them. Records and books are often quite a bit more reliable and dependable than people. People will let you down at every turn.  It’s a pretty rough room out there right now, so I’m trying to be one of those people whom you know will absolutely not let you down. I hope I’m doing okay.

A few days later, I got a thank-you card in the mail. It seems that I failed to communicate thoroughly enough on the subject of subcultures. No one wrote: “Hooray! Now I know a real poet!” “Now I understand how a poet should dress!”  “Now I know how to talk like a poet!”   Instead, the teacher wrote something like this: “Those kids remembered how you told them that you loved them unconditionally despite the fact that they were strangers to you. That really meant a lot to them.”

I want to do more of this sort of thing. It’s the only way I feel like I’m doing the very most good that I am able to do.
*
-JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications