#comraderie
Running with my pals
No thought of going home.
Anything is better than
Being there all alone.
Nobody cares back there
But with friends I’m someone.
We laugh and talk together
Nobody ranks on anyone.
We get a little bit drunk
Or ****** when we can
But mostly we just visit
And look out for the man.
The cops like to hassle us
Because we look like kids.
Not because of what we are
Or from something bad we did.
We sit around empty houses
Where people moved away
And party in growing numbers
Some have guitars to play.
We sing songs we all know
And some original tunes.
But if the weather is good enough
I like to walk under the moon.
The street can be a scary place
Or it can be an amusement park
If you are careful about things
And not afraid of the dark.
And, of course, when I go home
They never notice I was gone.
It won’t be too much longer
And I’ll be permanently moving on.
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 12:26 AM UTC
“Old-man” Cody,
Four years my elder,
And five younger than his mistress,
Makes his way before me,
The only, “known,” and only near.
He dips, trips and spits his way
Into the night and plight
Of my only company,
“Alone,”
And I’m happy with just that,
“Alone.”
We met four years, 22 days
And some-odd hours ago,
Culminated, a Hidalgo County jail,
2,200 miles and some odd feet
Away,
From here that is.
He was of origin, my home,
The when and
Where I was ten years prior –
Juxtaposed, the dusty Stockton shipyard,
Only minutes prior, “now.”
He laughed then
And laughs again
At our, “backwater,” roots
As he longed for the tumbleweed,
But I don’t and won’t
When we’d brawled after something
Mumbled, and congruent, “mother,”
Words tangled with knuckles in cheek,
If only syllables, that spew, drip,
And crawl from his mouth –
Unwanted, anomalous, and
As desirable as a spastic colon.
Coming back to the tumbleweed,
I’ll never forget how, “that,” night,
Our very first encounter had ended -
My face, in between his boot
And that wretched brush;
The scratching and the bleeding,
A creation, making me
The modern scarecrow of sorts;
Pinned and echoing something similar to –
“Uncle!” as my mouth failed to render,
But my body’d spoke more than enough,
And into the dark behind my eyes
I’d leave.
Tonight’d be different though.
Sure, this, “newest,” moment ended,
But an older one began again –
As we came “home,” to iron bars,
Blistered wrists, and guards playing “gods”
With two of the town’s poorest drunks;
One a writer with broken lip,
The other a’bleeding,
Both scarlet and pride, two ol’ boys,
Conjoined in only numb,
Courtesy the 5 o’clock whiskey,
With a chaser, my victory,
And the sweetest I’d ever had.
Luckily, Cody had a warrant,
A bonus prize of sorts, as I’d be rewarded,
A darker cell somewhere and away for him,
Leaving me fortunate and leaving slumber
To take what was rightfully hers, Me.
Yeah, I slept and slept with the wines of
Buttress parallel justified atop lip,
Despite – the desperation, my brothers in
Adjacent containment,
And deafening “roll-calls.”
In between the snores of those
That’d nowhere else to go,
Myself included, I tucked in,
Still smirking within this starless night,
And whispered, “goodnight Cody,
You took me last time,
But I’d had your *** this round.
Good night,
Good night,”
And, “goodnight,” again.
He was my, "Finnegan," (bit of a Star Trek reference). Every time I bumped into this prankster (like clockwork, regardless location), we'd always drink and we'd always brawl. I hated him. I loved him. He was my friend. He was my enemy. I ought add, "sweet dreams Cody," as he slept some years ago and never woke up - he was driving. Bad call.
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 8:04 AM UTC