She could have sworn Charlie Chaplin was French.

She had thought so since childhood -
there was something about his movies being sub-titled,
his ****** hair and (she lowered her voice with some shame)
his trouser.

She had loved his films since watching them with her dad
and he never had mentioned the silent star's heritage.
I mean, why would he?

She looked again.  And again there was something
'continental' in his eye liner, in his gait
and in the way he gracefully pivoted
that still fitted her misconception.

But now that she thought more about it,
it made perfect sense,
of course he was not French.
He must have been German.

Love is a bit of comedy, so be rough with love.

He arranges her one way and then another,
in itchy dissatisfaction. She surrenders to the role
like a silent bystander, a plaything in the hands
of impatience - what does he want?

“Like this,” he says in a schoolteacher’s voice.

The imbalance of power, the almost impersonal
manipulations, the momentum toward surrender,
and then the shocking, primal desire - to meld -
like a gunshot in a canyon long thought empty.

Zombies growl, creepers creep,
Down in the dungeon's keep.
"There are monsters nearby"
You may not sleep.

I used to hang out in abandoned buildings.
Old machine shops with puddles of rainwater pooled up on the floor;
sun or star light visible between broken and failing rafter beams
and the holes in the ceiling and my eyes.
Sometimes there would be particle board hammered into the brick
where heavy glass windows once stood;
tacked all about with bright yellow and pink postings warning
people like me to stay out and to not trespass under penalty of law.
The warning signs made me nervous because I don’t like to get in trouble.
Sometimes I would notice abandoned spaces while
driving up route 11 - Scranton, Pennsylvania.
I would park and discern through google maps on how
to gain access to yet another relic of American industry before
Wall Street reinvented slavery and shipped the spirit
of the Rust Belt to Mexico and Bangladesh and China and
various sweatshops overseas.

I had a lot of spare time to walk up and down the Wyoming Valley, northeast PA,
looking for the abandoned skeletons of buildings
into which I could furtively enter and abide.
Friday night, long week, punch the clock, no plans - no problem.
It was me and my two feet,
a long walkabout winding through the annals of my memories,
maybe some take out for dinner and all is well.
Don’t get me wrong, I had friends.
I’ve been to many places and I’ve seen many things.
I’ve faced many hardships but I always found a
posse or a partner with whom I could abide in peace and cheerful community.
That is before I would up and leave them abandoned in the wreckage of
my slow motion odyssey of self destruction;
dusting the bones of my many friendships with the many
chem trails from the many jet planes from the many tickets booked
by my father to save me from the many demons gnawing on my neck and heart.
Goodbye florida. Good bye guam. Goodbye california.

Abandoned buildings are safe.
There is a comforting predictability in their steady dilapidation.
There are no standards of social etiquette by which to adhere.
There is no small talk through which manufactured smiles show their teeth.
There are no ****** expressions and body postures to monitor
and reflect back what adjustments in countenance and demeanor I must make.

My face was a Greco-Roman mask.
Stretched and dried out, suspended somewhere between a comedy and a tragedy.
My face is the furthest frontier of my soul song,
the outermost edge of my heart.
That through which sound passes.

You smell like a carnival
in some forlorn town or county
I open the door
and smell the fried dough,
the petting zoo, the bumpkin hoods
with too much cologne
looking at you like you was eyeing their girl
wearing his lanky white arm

You smell like cotton candy,
maybe they could only afford a reptile guy,
the lions club and their burgers and hots
you can only purchase with coupons
The backseat of the worst corvette
owned by the greasiest ugly old man
who has a couple more benjamins than his
old lady's last daddy

Longing for the old days
Simple days
Times when you could ask "what's this song?" a hundred times
And every time, in reply:
"Darude sandstorm"

echoing laughter emanates through empty tunnels
hidden from that safe red street lamp glow;
and I quietly notice how I am always a shadow
in the trees that move in the wind as they’re changed by the season.

A collection of lost souls I nurture and hold as I rock myself to sleep
And I can’t cry for them
any more than I can  for myself.

The silent, gentle suffocation
which squeezes the breath from my lungs
snuffing out the candles
I meticulously lit on my way to my room.
It’s still and dark and creeping
and I feel the energy to smile slip away as I talk

Just as quickly as the uncertainty
which shuffles in uninvited
and steals the silverware from the kitchen.

An audience applauding the self deprecation Muffling the screams for help
As i’m invited to their table
but never quite loud enough to shout above the off stage rumble.

what do i write
is it because i have nothing to write
or because i have a lot of things to write about
i just started to write just so i can fill the paper
and it's not empty
let me stop because i will fill the whole book and i have borrowed it
©Grace Njeri

During the shooting of
Fellini's movie
8 1/2
he had a sign that said
"This is a comedy",
to remind the actors
that it was all a farce.

I feel that perhaps
I am sometimes misunderstood.
All my emotions are tempered,
I exaggerate only for effect.
I can pace myself
in both happiness and
misery.
Should I, too, hang the sign,
"This is a comedy"
on every poem I write?