'hookah' poems - Hello Poetry

Madeline Jul 2013

i am the hookah queen

       and drifting in my hookah dream, i find
that i have no one else

  to care for.

i know nothing of their bitterness,
                           their wantonness, their greed,

i know nothing of that world,

    only me.

              and sifting through my hookah dream,

              colored with a hookah ream,

and pulled apart with all the careless shadows,

                                 i smile, (i the hookah queen) and contentedly i drift,

i am going, i am going, i am gone.

Jeff Gaines Mar 2018

Thee Longest Piece Ever Uploaded On Hello Poetry (As far as I know) ** I doubt you'll read it through **

Jeff Gaines Mar 2018

Thee Longest Piece Ever Uploaded On Hello Poetry (As far as I know) ** I doubt you'll read it through **

OK Reader, I'm going to tell you a tale … with great trepidation. You see, this tale, well, it's kind of like telling someone that you've seen a UFO. They want to believe you, but … it's never really been proven scientifically. Not to mention the fact that most folks who believe in such things are often the tin-hat wearing types, written off as … lets be nice and call them “odd”. And, of course, the more you swear to it, the crazier you appear. It's an epic tale, spanning 30 years of my crazy life.

  But, It's a story I want to tell, because it happened to me. I can barely understand it myself, let alone explain it. So … I'm just going to launch into it and you take it any way you wish.

*  *
Where Can You Be?

Where can you be?
Where can you be, my love?
Oh, can't you see?
You're not with me!

I'll search with gazes and I'll search with cars,
I'll search the cities and I'll search the stars, well …
I'm gonna find you, oh, wherever you are,
I'm gonna find you baby …  near or far, but …

Where can you be?
Where can you be, my love?
Oh, can't you see?
You're not with me!

I thought I'd found ya, but she wasn't you,
that girl she left alone and blue, well …
I know that's something that you'd never do,
your love has always been strong and true, but …

Where can you be?
Where can you be, my love?
Oh, can't you see?
You're not with me!

If you must settle for some other man
and deviate from our immortal plan, well …
I hope you realize I will understand
and I'll try and do the best that I can, but …

Where will I be?
Where will I be, my love?
Hoping the next life sees …
our destiny!

Where can you be?
Where can you be, my love?
Oh, can't you see?
You're not with me!

~Wednesday, April 1st, 1987
10:30 P.M.

  I was singing in a band back in those days and, as it happened, this was the last song I'd ever write for it. Just after this, as it does, it all came crashing down and the band was finished. But in those last days, they pondered this song, with great puzzlement. You see, it was unlike anything I'd brought them before. It wasn't rock … It wasn't a ballad … it wasn't even structured like a “normal” 80's rock song.

  No bridge, no solo, no loud grinding guitars, etc. It even had bits where I hummed, yes hummed, the melody, like a lullaby. As they read the lyrics and I described how it went, they all looked at me like I had three heads and asked where this had come from. It was nothing like anything I'd written before. I could only tell them when and where I'd written it, but had no explanation of what inspired it. It had just came to me, so I wrote it down. They didn't know what to make of it, or even what to do with it.

  One of them said it sounded like a late 70's or early 80's adult contemporary song or even in the vein of The Eagles. Another asked if it was about reincarnation … And I honestly, until that moment, hadn't thought of it that way, I didn't think like that at 24 … but then, one of them said it was “Haunting” …

  “Haunting”?

  “Wow”, I thought, I'd never had anything I'd written described as that before. When I asked him what he meant by that, he told me that it was haunting to think that this poor guy is desperately seeking a girl, that may or may not even know that he exists … in a world with billions of people in it. To top that off, he fears that she may off and marry someone else if he doesn't find her in time.

  This, along with the suggestion of it being about reincarnation made me rethink and rewrite the song. Well, a few lines in the last verse and chorus anyways. It actually made the song flow better and seem more complete. In a way, it actually made the song make more sense … to me and them. Sadly, we never did anything with it. There wouldn't be time. Ha … Time … how ironic. Over 10 years later, came this …

For Someone I've Never Met

Please save a place for me,
deep inside your heart.
Always know that I think of you,
as we both practice our arts.

Our worlds are full of temptations,
so very hard to resist …
and the good Lord knows
we're both far from,
sixteen and never been kissed.

Wealthy men with jaws divine …
Temptresses with looks so fine …
Paths that lead our hearts away …
Paths that surely lead astray …

They'll lead us there every time.
They'll leave us there … so  unkind.
Our hearts must shine,
night and day.
Through any darkness … they'll light our way.

If you never touch my face …
If I never look into your eyes …
We'll always have the comfort of sharing
the same
big, blue sky.

If I never smell your hair …
If you never kiss my lips …
Always know the search for your smile
has launched a thousand ships.

So, I hope you save a place for me
in your heart so sweet and kind.
Please, save a place for me …
Heaven knows you've one in mine.

~Thursday, September 9th, 1999
9 A.M.

“For Someone I've Never Met ” poured out of me in the midst of another breakup from the second, and last, girl that I wanted to marry. That emotion, never found me again. I looked at it on my computer screen and smiled, seeing “Where Can You Be”, in my mind, on my tattered old note pad that I called my “Song Book”. The memory of me writing it while sitting in my Z-28, looking out over the Gulf of Mexico as a beautiful heat lighting storm sent bolts across the sky, came flooding back; as did the debate of reincarnation I'd had with my pals in the rehearsal room all those years before. Here I was, again, writing about “someone” that I sensed, for lack of a better term, was out there … somewhere.

  Well Reader, do you believe in reincarnation? I was never really certain, but, as you can see, I had twice written pieces to someone I wasn't completely sure existed. I had always “sensed” someone out there beginning with the period after I wrote “Where Can You Be?” and thereafter. So, there they were, each written after losing someone I was deeply in love with. Each came out of nowhere, as they usually do. By the time I was in my 40's, I began to think I was either imagining it all (a side effect of being a hopeless romantic) or that I had just somehow missed this person and our “moment”.

  And then …

Epiphany

There was a place.
There was a time …
There, I stood … still unknowing
and everything seemed fine.

But there in that place …
at that moment in time …
the moment I saw the eyes,
I'd never believed I'd find.

Well, what could I say?
What could I do?
In a world filled with billions …
and there … was a you.

I'd always known you were out there …
even written of something amiss.
I never, ever stopped looking for you …
because my heart always said you exist.

My breezy Fall became harshest Winter.
My crazy life left my health running out.
I'd resigned myself that our moment had passed …
but this moment … it removed all doubt.

Well, what could I say?
Tell me, what could I do?
There we stood, staring … alone … in a city of millions …
yes, there … there was a you.

Oh, that mistress fate, she is just so cruel.
Frustration, a curse to be mine.
   I'd searched for you my entire life …
but now … my clock … knows a limit of time.

You see, I would never venture a love with you,
while knowing I'd have to leave you … hurt and alone.
I could only admire from afar … stoic and aloof …
while turning my heart into stone.

Nothing I could ever say and nothing I could ever do …
But now, at long last … at least I finally knew.

There, you stood … green seas, gazing up … into skies of blue.
My long-awaited revelation … become sorrow-laced realization.
There really is … a you.

~August 12th, 2009

  Typical of my life-long Charlie Brown syndrome … After being told in 2005 that I had “the lungs of an eighty-year-old man” and that I had “Six to Ten years” to live, I made a conscious decision in that Doctor's parking lot that I could never have another girlfriend and that I must face this alone. I don't see woman as objects. They are glorious creatures that are here to be our partners and friends and to make our lives amazing. I could never, ever knowingly let a woman fall in love with me, all the while knowing I was going to die and leave her. It's not in me to do such a thing, lonely or not.

  Yes, I'm still alive, I'm stubborn like that. But, some days are better than others and my new doctors say that they don't give people “time limits” anymore … because of people like me. I can't afford the lung transplant. So, as Bono so aptly put in one of his songs: “The rich stay healthy, while the sick stay poor”. It is what it is … and like the energizer bunny, I'm still going. Good for me.

  In the moment that I met her, the morning that followed, and the amazing speed of our nexus over the next several months combined with a string of synchronicities (Coincidences? Did I mention that she too, was a poet and writer?) that not only came after I met her on the sidewalk in front of the publisher we shared, but in those pieces I had written before and in several after; I was pretty much convinced I had actually found her. I have NEVER experienced anything like this, or her, in my entire life.

  So, after all this time, here she was … and there wasn't a **** thing that I could do about it. Besides, she was much younger than I and it probably would never have worked anyways. ****, the universe is rotten sometimes, huh? Maybe, if I'm lucky, things will balance out better in the next life. I can only hope. But I'm reminded, worryingly so, of the **** The Alarm song: “Collide”:

“All of these thoughts pounding in my head …
with the words I've wrote, in the letters I've never sent.
The distance in our lives may change …
Times that you can never erase …
But will our worlds collide?
Will our worlds collide, the next time?”

  Only time will tell.

  “Colors”, and a few others, were written about/for her. But, I could never show them to her. I would never endanger my friendship with her. I just wanted to keep her in my life. That, and that alone, was the only motive I'd ever had with her. I looked forward to seeing her marry, hearing her stories of her three kid's adventures; Hubby, all greasy, working on the car in the driveway, rabbits in her garden at night, eating her precious organic veggies or even about her new curtains. Just to know that she was alive, happy and doing well. I found a solace in her voice I could never describe and I was completely content to just have her in my life and watch hers unfold. Only I could end up in this odd position.

  I feared that she might get weird-ed out because I'd never displayed any romantic inklings toward her, so, to suddenly read these might make her feel a bit, lets say: uncomfortable. Actually, I didn't write them with any romantic intentions, per se; I just did what I always do … write what comes out. Still, there's no denying that they come across romantic. Again, so, so Charlie Brown. (long sigh)

  It is what it is. I also have to ponder the fact that maybe all those Charlie Brown moments in my life were preparing me for this one big, painful one. That does makes sense … ******' Universe.

Colors

Well when you're Green, I'll be your Brown.
Like the earth that loves the flowers,
I'll will be your solid ground.

And I'll be your Azure, when you are Verdigris.
We'll be thee most beautiful ocean
that eyes have ever seen.

And when you're Black, I'll be your White.
Mixing all of the colors … I'll make everything alright.

Now when you're Blue, I'll be you're Red.
If something should make you wanna cry,
I will feel your pain instead.

And I'll be your Orange, whenever you are Pink.
We'll be thee most amazing sunset,
that the sky could ever ink.

And when you're Black, I'll be your White.
I'll mix all of your colors … and make everything alright.

Should you be Violet, I will be your Beige.
Like a sleepy moonlit desert,
pasteled in dunes and sage.

And when you're Grey, I will be your Rainbow.
We'll be thee most soothing rainstorm
the world has ever known.

And when you're Black, I'll be your White.
I'll mix all of your colors … yes, I'll make everything alright.

With love on my palette, painting a glorious sunrise …
I'll color all your mornings with a smile and brighten up your skies.
If you should find yourself in sorrow from someones hate or lies …
I'll take the stars down from the heavens … and paint them in your eyes.

So whenever you are Black, I will always be your White.
I'll mix all your colors with a promise … everything will be alright.

Yes, I'll mix all of your colors with a promise … Everything's gonna be alright.

~  Winter 2012

  I wrote this after she had rang me up one afternoon lamenting about her life at the moment, troubled that her latest novel hadn't done as well as she'd hoped and now she had to be waitressing to make ends meet. I tried my best to cheer her up and assured her that she was strong enough to handle anything and that she must keep chasing her dreams. I wrote it as a poem, but I can't help but notice it looks like a song, though I've never heard music for it. Those repeated verses look just like choruses to me.

  Earlier in the day, I had been looking at a booklet of paint swatches. I guess, up there on my roof looking at the Manhattan skyline, her sadness and me looking at all those colors melted together somehow and, as happens, out came this piece. Even this, became another synchronicity as she would name her next novel “Show Me All Your Colors”. I remember seeing it in the bookstore and looking straight up … shaking my head at the sky. Was this the universe telling me to show and tell her all this?

  Well, if it was, I stuck with my gut and kept it to myself. My God, if you only knew how many of these synchronicities there were between her and I. It simply boggles my mind. I wanted to call them “coincidences”, but there were just so **** many of them … Each so unique, they just couldn't be called that. I don't want to tell them all here, because like I said, the more you swear to it, the crazier you sound. And I'm sure your questioning my sanity by now, aren't you? (Smirk)

  OK, OK … this one is definitely romantic. I wrote it one night, drunk to the bejeezus. I'd done what we called “The Crosstown Crawl” with my pal Tristan and a gaggle of assorted waitresses we knew. This involved starting at Brass Monkey on the west side highway in the Gansevoort District and ending at my favorite hookah bar, Karma, on the Lower East Side … Drinking in, and often being “asked to leave” (Read: Kicked out of) every bar that took our interest as we walked (Read: staggered) west to east, staying below 14th St.

  On my way home from the city on the J train, I thought about all the phone conversations we'd had while I was on this train crossing the Williamsburg Bridge. Being drunk, I guess, I caught a bout of sadness that I'd never get to tell her any of this or even how I felt about it all. Before I hit my elevator, this piece was swimming in my head. It's about as mushy a piece as I've ever written … if not thee most! Not the norm for me, but this is, after all, a lot to keep pent up inside you. I wouldn't wish this predicament on anyone.

For My Little Red-Haired Girl …

You …

My Love.
My Queen.
This Shining Light in my eyes.

My Laughs.
My Dreams.
My Soft, Contented Sighs.

My *****.
My Lavender.
My Dew Covered Rose.

My Smile.
My Cinnamon.
The Joy in my heart … ever inspiring my prose.

My Best Friend.
My Co-Star.
My Fearless Partner in Crime.

My Breath.
My Cohort.
My Side-kick throughout time.

My Snow-capped Mountain.
The Wind caressing my face.
My Vast Green Field.

The Ivy Covered Wall
that harbors my soul … ever refusing to yield.

In a different time ...

You … would have been my Life.

You … would have been my World.

You … would have been my Everything

and I will always love you for my own special reasons.

It is just a shame … and I'm so, so sorry … that you … must never, ever know.

Maybe next time.

~Charlie Brown

   When I came-to in the morning and read what I had wrote, I had to laugh a bit. It is borderline corny, very beautiful, very telling and very sad … all at once. I shook my head, laughing and told myself :

  “*******, Sam … yer losin' it. Get your **** together, will ya?”

I guess in my stupor, I was imagining what it would have been like to write something for her. I don't know … There it was and I was stuck with it. I almost deleted it, but, my finger wouldn't press the key. As I told you before … I'd NEVER show this to her. She'd probably never speak to me again.

   As a sadder epilogue, that eventually happened. I still don't know why, but we haven't spoken in years. Maybe she sensed this emotion in me and ran away. Or maybe, just maybe … she thought I'd pushed her away somehow … but for whatever reason, we drifted apart. I guess I'll never know.  As you can see by reading this, that was never my intention. But, like I keep reiterating … It is what it is.

  One day, I called her number to catch up and shoot the breeze. I hadn't spoken to her in a few months as she'd been busy promoting her new novel and I didn't want to pester her. But … it was disconnected … I checked my emails … nothing. I'd never been so confused, she just closed me out. I didn't want to bother her. I was sure she had her reasons and if she wanted to reach out to me again, she would. She had my email and my phone number. But, for now … she was gone … and that was that.

  So, what do you think, Reader? Do I get the Tin hat … or a Badge of courage? Am I bat-**** crazy … or just eccentric? I'll leave it up to you to decide, because as I said, this all happened to me and there isn't a thing I can do about any of it. I just had to get it off of my chest. Thanks for letting me vent.

  Wherever she is … she will always mean the world to me. I can see her green eyes if I close my mine and look for them. Sometimes, on occasion, her face haunts my sleep. Still, I like to picture her, kids playing in a sprinkler behind her, digging in her garden, wearing gloves too big for her hands and a smudge of fresh dirt on her cheek … it makes me smile.

-Sam Webster
Brooklyn, New York
2013

OK, you can stop scratching your head. I'm sorry if you feel like I tricked you or was playing a prank … That was not my intention. This piece is experimental writing, of sorts. If you are wondering, it's titled “Somewhere … Out There”. But I didn't want to put a title at the head of the page, as that might have clued you in too early.

I also confess that “Sam” the narrator is, on no uncertain terms, based loosely on myself. But hey, what better way to string you along? Besides, as Stephen King said, you “Write what you know”. As far as I 'm aware, using poetry within a short story like this, or in this manner, has never been done before. Welcome to the future!

It really belongs in my “From Thee Edge” Collection with the rest of my Twilight-Zone-esque short stories. (You can now read some of these fiction short stories here, posted in my "NoPo@HePo" posts, along with some non-fiction essays. I hope you enjoy them.) But, because I pieced together several of my poems to not only tell the story, but as a vehicle to carry it along as part of it; I wanted to put it here on Hello Poetry just to see if I could convince you long enough to get you through the story … while having you believe it was me speaking to you and that it was all very real to me. Thus, making it feel real to you as you read it.

Was I having you along right up until it was signed by someone else? Or, at least until the narrator addressed himself as “Sam”?

If so, then I accomplished my mission. I'd love to hear your comments on it. If you've been reading any of my other posts, I'm sure you've figured out that I like to run wildly outside of the box sometimes. This was just, as I said, an experiment in a different way to tell a story … fiction or otherwise. As always, I hope that I took you on a journey and, more importantly, that you enjoyed it.

~Jeff Gaines
L.A.
(Lower Alabama)
2015

#riencarnation #shortstory #poetryinashortstory #experimental #experimentalwriting #fiction

Ben Dec 2011

hookah

Ben Dec 2011

hookah

hookah connection
relaxing, thought provoking.
the waitress is cute

Circa 1994 Sep 2013

business proposals in a hookah lounge

Circa 1994 Sep 2013

business proposals in a hookah lounge

he was philosophical
the way any person is when they're high.

he wore black framed glasses
and talked too much;
which i kind of liked.
he said my name made me sound like a classy stripper.
i chose to take it as a compliment.

i didn't ask his age
though i wish i had.

he talked passionately about
aquatonics and molly.
he said he was starting up a business.

maybe i was flattered that he thought i was cute
or maybe he was generally interesting.
i'm not sure though.
all i can remember is the way the hookah tasted
as the music faded out.

John Dec 2012

Hookah Bar

John Dec 2012

Hookah Bar

11:52PM
In a hookah bar
Drunk
Writing from the heart
On an old couch
Made of leather
In a room filled with smoke
I don't wanna stop drinking
But I'm gonna regret it tomorrow
If I don't
Oh well
****

Yeah I was/am drunk. Legitimately. It's 1:30 AM. Just got home and writing this note after the fact.

Water In My Veins Jun 2015

Hookah

Water In My Veins Jun 2015

Hookah

How sweet it is
Melon
Cactus breeze

The sticky sweet flavors coating my lungs
Drowning out her laugh
Focusing on his smile

They all know my name
Say it with enthusiasm
Protest loudly when I say I have to leave

I stay an extra hour
But none of them really notice
They are too busy

Her laugh is all his smile sees
All my lips do is paint a smile
And take another hit

I am not alone in my chain smoking
This is a two person caterpillar
One with history

We stay put that extra hour of mine
Close together on that couch
Smoke hiding us from everyone

The lights are dimmed
We are alone
Nothing happens

We talk and talk
For what seems like hours
Though it’s only one

My head rests on their chest
As I take another hit
Their arm lays comfortably over me

All of this is familiar
None of it feels wrong
Yet it isn’t as everything belongs

We speak like the old friends we are
No hidden lust
Just real words in a world of smoke

I no longer care what his smile sees
I am happy where I am
Talking of past adventures

Another comes in
Says they’re leaving
We both protest loudly

Plans are said to be made then
We all want to invite his smile
But not her laugh

I don’t feel guilty for my thoughts
I am allowed to have them
To act on them

Her pale skin in the harsh light
I can barely understand
What power she holds over him

But some how I hold similar
I happen to not try to wreck friendships
As she already attempted

The maturity that our host shows
Is astounding
He didn’t win but still stands

We all are proud of him though
Even if some are unaware
Of the battle that occurred

He made it! He made it!
All of us gathered here to celebrate
Our hosts accomplishment

The roasts that occurred
Bring smiles to everyone's face
Even my painted on smiles turn true

This group
Even if I am new
Feels like home

I’m comfortable staying on the couch with old friends
Or venturing out with new ones
Staying put by one’s self is accepted as well

I can’t believe this group is leaving
I am one of the few who will stay
They all will be moving away

For now we all relish each other
Those of us who have known one another for forever
Or those who have just met

These summer nights will be some of the best of our lives
Laughter mixing with
Hookah smoke

I am falling in love
But for once its not with a person
It's with a group
And a life
This is going to be great <3

#hookah #lastsummer

Miss Masque Feb 2012

Redline Hookah Bar

Miss Masque Feb 2012

Redline Hookah Bar

That tapestry,
Red, Black, Gold
A Celtic Circle--
silently bearing witness
to the proceedings
of that smoky room:

The aquariums--one with
the large eel who seemed
to barely fit the tank
that took up half the wall;
and the smaller, vibrantly
colored fish in the
aquarium with the eggshell
colored coral.

The remixed music played
at a comfortable volume,
by the DJ we knew
so well, together;
as many times
it hardly seemed like
he was working at all,
as he just sat down and
talked to us, for hours.

Looking through
those over-sized books of
old advertisements,
and explanations of
historical artwork;
discussing the contents
with strangers,
who became friends
in the process.

Smoke billowed, enveloping
the atmosphere and filling it
with the smell of many spice
racks, pleasantly rolled in a
shell of a soft breeze
flowing from the oscillating fan.

The smell of joy,
of a relaxed sense of mutual
understanding; that it was okay
not to say a word, because the
atmosphere did the talking
for us.

We just enjoyed sitting
on those red pleather couches
that your **** sank back into,
not allowing my feet to touch
the floor; so they often just
dangled, legs swinging
to the tempo of the music.

As I took a hit
of the hookah,
I manipulated the smoke
into O's, puckering
my lips, trying not
to laugh as you
gazed at me in a
shy sense of wonder.

That face always made you
want to kiss me.

chylee plunkett Nov 2012

helpless girl

chylee plunkett Nov 2012

helpless girl

This is a poem of a girl. A girl who is so cliché, that she needs to write angst-filled poetry to keep herself conscious and her thoughts free, but is too hipster to believe it. A girl who is too freckled to be fair, too fleshy to be flirty, too conspicuous to be classy, too prominent to be petite, but too small to be seen. A girl who’s piercing blue eyes absorbs everything and regurgitates emotions like a tampered slots machine—excessi vely and noisily. This is a poem of a girl who is so over-stimulated with color, texture, love, and life that the numbness in her head is a pink eraser. A girl who was brought up to have opinions and dreams as long as they kept her on the path to perfection, poise, and parenting. A girl who is experienced enough to know the difference between sorrow and guilt, manipulation and cowardice, hysteria and hyperventilation but is too naïve to know why certain boys are a bluish green, why math is a bafflement, and why ground up chili peppers in dark chocolate ice cream isn’t everyone’s favorite food. This is a poem of a girl who salivates at the mere thought of classical music, couture fashion, and feminine heels. A girl who breathes in culture like a caterpillar inhales hookah smoke. A girl who Alis volat propriis (flies with her own wings) but ultimately plummets to nosus decipio (Let’s just cheat) because her humanity held down her Heredity. A girl who thrives on music of every variety: as long as it can paint out her emotions in front of her. This is a poem of a girl who is so acerbically witty and harsh that she could unarm Napoleon but is so vehemently protecting that Mother Theresa herself would be awed. A girl with an attention span of a fish, short-term memory like sea foam, thoughts that outnumber armadas, and a bad habit of dehydration. This is a poem of a girl who talks but shouldn’t, speaks but doesn’t, and who is so badly burnt by the enticement of affection that her wallflower camouflage is now charred ashes around her stubby toes. A girl who has such infatuation that she could pin Lust against the wall and make Passion jealous. A girl who wears red lipstick because she knows it will keep a man’s gaze for 8.2 more seconds than with chapstick and the 50’s will never grow old. A girl too nervous and traditional to make the first move, but too strategic and over-analytical to lie back and forget. A girl who loathes the word mamihlapinatapai because it describes her every circumstance since the day she befriended the purple-brown boy who thought her personality tasted of Raspberry ice cream and to this day she still can’t pronounce it. This is a poem of a girl who needs a bed so crowded and protected with blankets and pillows that her monsters can’t penetrate her mazed-up mind. A girl who drinks tea with her lips, and philosophy with her soul. A girl who can’t spell the alphabet backwards but can make great mnemonic devices. A girl who can’t tie ends together because she doesn’t want to leave anything unsaid but whose tangents are kite-strings. A girl whose sentences are distracting fences in front of her literal eyes but doors for her mind’s eyes. A girl who has Synesthesia but keeps it quiet because of the condescending kids in kindergarten who called her a freak, and a liar. This is a poem of a girl who thinks about Death and whether he is a snatching thief or just the ferryman. A girl who dances with her eyes shut, her heart open and her toe-socks on. A girl who will clean her room at 2 am because she can’t handle the sight and the night is too lively for sleeping anyways. A girl who wears her heart not only on her sleeve, but on her chest, open as a blushing book playing poker with hockey players and still winning a game. A girl who’s emotions are kept in a Tupperware box and left in the refrigerator but if you shake it hard enough the lid just might pop open

james arthur casey Apr 2015

Home at Last & the Caterpillar Mortician (a poem in name only)

james arthur casey Apr 2015

Home at Last & the Caterpillar Mortician (a poem in name only)

Gather ‘round, warriors. This is your time.

This is your time to shine. It’s your day in the sun. It’s one-of-a-kind, o ye cheaters of death, but this is, nevertheless, your finest hour.

You found a home in war. You entered into a contract with bad company and gave up the rights to your body, your mind, everything but your mortal soul. They took advantage of the circumstance and you wound up deep in a bunk hole, hiding behind the tenuous wall of a manure pile. Bullets whizzed by your ears, fear possessed your frames like a demon taunted by the Lord. Death swooped in to put it’s fear into you, but you all laughed in his face and spat in his eye, turned your back on him without saying goodbye. Perhaps “See ya later” would have been appropriate.

But no matter, husky gladiators. It is time to rest from your battle. It’s time to put away your swords and scabbards, your spears and your slings. Your automatic machine guns and your hand grenades. Your potent strains of anthrax and your agent orange. Surrender your arms, troglodytes. Cast them to the ground below. Consider the clatter they all make as they fall to the pavement. Take it in, breathe it all in, make it yours…

…for it IS yours.

Sorry, we didn’t get around to telling you. It was always yours, we just figured you would find it out on your own if you wanted it bad enough. No, I would agree: that is NOT fair. And I would also say this to you, “Fairness is a relative concept. When you consider the value we placed on you actually knowing this as a fact…well, I think it should be pretty ****** obvious. Don’t be a *****, you give all servicemen a bad name when you do that, you know?”

But enough of the self esteem-building fodder all, that is not why I have gathered ye here to-day. Nay, not even close. I have brought you all here together because I wanted to be the first to tell you. You’re all going home. That’s right, you’re homeward bound. Soon you’ll be able to pack your **** and take a southbound train to ride. You’ve lost your minds killing innocent civilians, you’ve struggled to keep your eyes open most nights, as staying awake meant staying alive. But you’re going home! Warm nights tucked between clean linen sheets. Soft goose down pillows to bore your heads into. The smell of coffee in the morning, bacon and eggs if you’re lucky. The prospect of another day that won’t be defined by the number of lives you’ve ended between sunrise and sunset.

The journey home will be a victorious one, indeed. You shall see it from the comfort of a first class seat on the most expensive airliner we can afford! A small bottle of gin or whiskey is only a few feet away and all you have to do to get one is ask the attendant. If you ask nicely I don’t doubt she might let you have more of those little bottles than administrative policy usually allows. But she sees it in your eyes…you’re a grizzled soldier. You’re still warm to the touch from the heat of battle. You know this. This is who you are, it’s what we made you. And she will sense this. It will drive her mad with desire. Her knees will quiver, she’ll blush, she’ll radiate ****** charm…but all you’ll be able to think of is that Vietnamese farmer with the plaid shirt.

A ***** plaid shirt. Dripping with dark, brown mud, he smiled at you from beneath the brim of a straw hat that looked as if it had seen many better years. A smear in the drying clay was on the right side of his face where he’d wiped sweat. His lips were dry and cracked and his nose was a little runny.

The buttons on that plaid shirt were the cute mother-of-pearl finish jobs, the kind that snap shut real easy. How many men would have noticed that? How many of the sharpest minds in the known universe would have missed how his left boot didn’t quite seem to match the right. But you caught it right away and you stored it into that immense data bank that is your United States Marine Corps certified brain.

If only you could forget it, though. Right men? I see a few tears in a few eyes. I know I’m on the right track here, so if you still think I’m not talking to YOU, I have an invitation right here in my back pocket that will entitle the man to whom I give it a 6 month stint in the back of a mess peeling spuds. You don’t want that, now, do ye? What? No takers? I thought not.

But where was I? Oh, HOME, that’s what I was on about. You all have very nice homes, no doubt, and I’d bet there’s not a single one of you who isn’t just itchin’ to get back to ‘em. Is it the one you grew up in? Is it one you just bought? No matter, when you leave this place it will either be in a body bag or on the better side of Uncle Sam, who looks after all of those fine men and women who have risked life and limb in his service.

So what’s it going to be, worms? Death? He calls often here, and don’t think I don’t know that his is the song of the siren to many a worn out Spartan. But faileth not, loyal comrades.

Will it be insanity? Will the wage of life and death struggle prove to be nothing more than a tug-of-war between lucidity and madness? Yer going home, grunt, why should it matter? Either one’s better than lying face down in a pool of your own guts. Don’t worry about it, just get on the plane. Baby, it’s your ticket to ride.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

I stepped onto the tarmac with a firm determination to forget the last 2 years. Maybe even the last 15. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just tired of looking for an answer. I’ve listened for the still, small voice of reason and wisdom, but it seems to have stayed behind in the battlefield. Probably where it belongs.

The night was cloudy and the stars shone like pinpricks in a dark black veil that covered the most brilliant light…ha, I almost said “life”…I may not have been too far wrong there. I wanted to cut the cord of gravity, float through however many miles it might take to reach one of the punctured holes. Then I would tear the fabric and crawl into the other side. Disappear into the brilliant aura.

Only a dream, only a wish. I drug my weary frame from the bustling airport to the highway. An old two-lane road, dangerous after dark. It doesn’t bother me. It’s purpose is to facilitate the traversing of distance from one point to another. I could care less about where it could lead me. I only knew that I would not turn back no matter where I wound up, so I stuck out my thumb and waited for someone to give me a ride.

Does anybody stop to give rides to strangers anymore? I wouldn’t. It’s not something I condone. In fact, I have only done it once in my life, when I was just a kid, before seeing “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”. After watching that seminal film I resolved to never, ever pick up hitch-hikers again. I wasn’t going to help anybody on the side of the road, either. **** being a “good Samaritan” if it means getting my brains blown clear out of my skull, flung to the side of the road like rotten fruit.

Despite all of this I still had my hand stretched out, thumb in the universal position that signifies the need of transportation for the “down-on-his-luck” traveler. I remember asking myself what could be more pathetic. I was reduced, by circumstances beyond my control, to hitching or hoping that someone might be clueless enough to pick me up.

Yet, that is exactly what happened.

A hookah smoking caterpillar sat behind the wheel, and he seemed glad to do a small kindness to me. He could tell I was a veteran of psychic wars. He felt obligated, I was sure.

“Hop in, friend,” he said. “I can see that you’re a little down on your luck. I been there ma’self a time ‘er two. Just throw yer pack in the back seat and climb up here with me.”

I wasn’t shocked in the least that a hookah smoking caterpillar was driving a GMC Jimmy east on Route 66. It did, however, give me quite a shock to think that he would pull over and offer me a ride. I am no fool.

“Off we go,” I said to him.

The road was a long one that took us out of the state. As we crossed the line the caterpillar turned the radio up real loud and started singing along to a Journey song they were playing on the classic rock station.

“Ooooh, wheel in the sky keeps on turning,” he wailed. “I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow!!!”

I turned to him. “You have a very distinct grasp of Steve Perry’s vocal mannerisms. Have you ever sang professionally?”

“Oh no, not me. I could never go onstage in front of a lot of people and sing. I just don’t have it in me.”

“Well, you aren’t afraid to sing in front of me. What’s the difference between one stranger and a hundred strangers?”

“Oh, it’s not that. It’s not that at all,” he repeated. “I had a friend who used to play and sing in a lot of the bars on the circuit between California and New Orleans. It was a job to him, you know? He told me about a lot of the stuff that goes on in those places. He told me how one time he was singing a Roy Orbison song when some pool-shooting loser throws the cue ball right at him. Beaned him on the forehead, BOP! Had to hurt. Said the bruise swelled up so bad directly afterwards that people started calling him “the Elephant Man”. I was a beginner in the days when he regaled me with these anecdotes and mister, I’ll tell you, he put the fear of God in me. I was so terrified of getting conked in the head with a pool ball that I never pursued the craft.”

I felt a tinge of sympathy for his plight. “I’m sorry to hear that. I bet you would have been a star if you’d gone for it. Bigger than Steve Perry, even.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I don’t feel cheated or like I’ve missed anything essential to my happiness. As long as I’ve got wheels, my hookah and something to put in it, I am a happy caterpillar. Remember that: I am merely a caterpillar.”

“I will do that, but you’re a caterpillar who could kick Steve Perry’s *** any day of the week!”

“Wheel in the sky keeps on turning!”

“**** straight…I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow!”

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The caterpillar held the wheel steady and kept on truckin’. He sang along with every single classic rock song that came on the radio. From Kansas to Boston to “Sweet Home Chicago” he knew them all and, to be perfectly honest, he did a **** good job. He belted ‘em out like Springsteen, he crooned like Bryan Ferry, he croaked like Joe Cocker, he wailed like Janis Joplin, he screamed like that dude from Slayer. No two ways about it. This hookah smoking caterpillar had serious talent.

I was curious. “So, mister, what to do you do for a living?”

“My friend, I am a mortician. I deal with death every single day. I do a job that most folks would find distasteful and not a little disturbing. And yet I love my job. I do, oh yes, I do. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the whole world.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said. “How does a man get a start in a field like yours?”

“It’s not too hard, really,” he replied. “You come with me, I’ll make you an apprentice. You lookin’ for work?”

“No, sir. I can’t say that I am right now. Still got a little cache stashed away from military days.” I made a gesture with my hand that signified that I was grateful for the offer, but would have to pass. “Maybe one of these days I might change my mind. I think I could handle it. I’m not squeamish. No, not at all.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could handle it. I can tell by the way you look straight ahead, you don’t look back, you’ve got a grip on everything in this world and you think there’s nothing that could ever shake your foundations, whether it be from the east wind or the west. The north or the south. Do I read you correctly?”

“I reckon you do. I’ve had a hard run most of my days. Experience has taught me one lesson, but it taught me good and well: Nothing is as you really think it is, and it could all be gone tomorrow. ”

Jeff Gaines Aug 2018

Message to a Friend

Jeff Gaines Aug 2018

Message to a Friend

Mark A. Williams
SEPTEMBER 14, 1962 – JULY 23, 2018

___________________

Wow Mark,

Was so, so saddened to hear this news. I haven't seen you in over ten years, but as kids, we had some amazing adventures, didn't we? Partying, camping and swimming at the Hudson lime pits. Mowing down on Pizza and pitchers of Pepsi (and as we grew up, BEER!) at Pizza Hut. (We knew the numbers to ALL the songs on that jukebox by heart!) Hanging out and looking at the stars through Budvido's telescope, listening to Doctor Demento. Laughing hysterically as we ran through Monty Python skits as everyone looked on in total puzzlement because THEY wouldn't discover them until YEARS later!

Building underground forts in the North Woods. You, Budvido, Zeke and I playing pinball at 7-11 for hours and hours. Watching Bands, chasing girls and playing Foosball or Pool at the Touch of Class Teen Club. You gave me my first Imported beer . . . a Lowenbrau. I will always owe my passion for those German beers to you and it was fitting that Budvido bestowed you with that moniker.

All through Jr. High, sharing a seat on the school bus. You, Matt, Tom, Buddy and I cruising around late night on our bikes for hours. Hanging around in the Jasmine Lakes sign with hijacked beer or getting free bags of Burgers from Burger Queen when they closed at night! Jousting with shopping carts on our bikes in the Winn-Dixie parking lot. Sitting up all night in Jimi's room after climbing in through the window or going on endless space cruises with him and Raymond in the Toyota.

(RIP Jimi Carlsen)

Sneaking into the nudest Colony and skinny dipping! Always cracking up at the school lunch table. Swimming in my pool and terrorizing my sister and her friends. (Allegedly) Trashing that crook Fast Eddie's produce stand after he refused to pay us for a full day of picking watermelons!

Good times, indeed . . . Some of my most precious memories.

I can only pray that you know that I wouldn't trade my youth or you in it for anything in the world and you will be sadly missed, Lowenbrau, my old friend.

I hope that where you are, your beers are ice cold and that you and Jimi aren't having to glue the Hookah back together.

Jeff Gaines
July 28, 2018

Such a sad task, to say goodbye to a friend with last words that may never had been spoken up until then. As it happens, this friend and I often relished in our youthful exploits, but still ... I'd not seen him in ten years. Because ... life happens. He had fallen on hard times and was bouncing place to place and I too was moving and living all over. We had spoken on the phone here and there and that would have to suffice.

I haven't posted in weeks and I haven't read in almost 2 months. THANK YOU to those who have the patience with me to still read me, even though I can't reciprocate at the moment. I will, when time permits, come back and catch up on all of you. It will take me days and days!

#mourning #lossofafriend #oldfriend #funeral

— The End —