A funerary dirge
Blows in softly on the breeze
Distant and muddied by the
City Rhythm thrumming and thumping quietly between me and the revelry trumpeted bold and brassy piercing the caucaphony intermittently
Mixing melodies of bouncing horns into
A melodrama drawn in minor key

A black cat skulks the shattered streets around me underneath the shadows cast by broken rigs of steel and octane
Bouncing on dinosaur goo baked and shaped into ***** donuts filled with pressure almost explosive if released suddenly.

He meows softly from the street-
side of a broken boxwood promenade,
Unkempt and cracked, between he and I,
Sat upon the low steps of a split landing
Leading to the threshold, transom, and door of
1603 Rendon St.
Somewhere in New Orleans
during the week to be in Louisiana
- Mardi Gras -
(Deep Gras to those who know it)
the trumpeted herald of the Holy sacred Lenten season of self imposed sobriety
But here we are, all by our lonesome
just me and myself
And also Steve.


(Steve I just made up. There is no Steve. Well… not really.. kinda well. It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing…
But that’s the thing)

I put my hand out,
“Are you familiar?”
                                         Mow

“Tsc tsc tsc… no that’s not your call?”
Pss Pss Pss

                            Mreooow!

“Who are you? Why are you staring at me” the miniature panther seemed to think. He won’t much come nearer, rather he skirts a radius clear about me, but he lays down lazily on the roots of a laurel oak not far, but no closer, and stares and stirs and mews a few times softly and then slinked away silently off somewhere,
as if magically, without me seeing
Him leave.


Him was familiar.
Him definitely seemed
to be a warning of something
coming;

“I hope it’s a good thing!.. “
I thought - intentionally naive -
“That’d be nice.”
“Something good, for once.”

(Like me behaving… That’d be nice to see.)

Good Ol’ Steve…

I wonder if he’ll come back later…
…and if his life is interesting.


A siren wailing in the not too distant city
Reminds me I still hear,
That I’m still here.
just out here in it
chasing dragons and meeting demons
Witnessing magical mysteries
all through the streets…

“How does it all end? You may be wondering…”
He said, solipsistically,
standing in solitude,
Aloof, upon a stage; lit by a candle
held in his left hand,
burning low and dripping wax
across his white knuckled fist
clenching it like the last threads of a fraying lifeline
trying to slip from the grip of a dying man
desperate to hold on,
for a just little bit longer,
while he waits to see
if the prayers he’s prayed
fell silent
upon deafened ears
or if a devine deity exists,
Somehow, and also cares
enough to intervene,
to extend a helping hand
to swoop in,
and save Him

- To save the day -

“…Well…
The cancer’s coming.
I know that for a fact.
It’s in there somewhere;
That’s safe to say.
I can feel it
growing
deep
inside me;
gnawing steadily;
Obstinate and tenacious;
Toothlessly teething; persistently
eating me away.
Trying to replace
as much of me as possible
with its black bleeding heart
and its horrible face;
Laughing all the while, quietly,
as it sneaks itself into everything:
every ***** interior,
every
           nook  
                      and cranny

- any open space -

Insidious,
as it is inevitable,
as it always is and will be.”

So to excise this darkness
Invading my mind and growing in my body
I’ve begun to pray;
not to God, or gods,
but to myself-
the only savior
not out to pasture:

I entreat thee,
Oh Spiritus Meus,
Come save us!

- You are the ONLY way -

I need this too bad to let you ruin it.
You can diminish it, if you need to,
But I have to finish it;
Or else
it finishes Me.
If it doesn’t **** me
It will be unending;
Because it has, as yet,
Never
             Gone
                        Away

- And I need it to -

Because I’m ******* through;
I’ve found the needle in the stack of hay;
The treasure that I’ve been seeking
Out here in the wild

- These streets and alleys -

Among the gutters and trash and strays,
with the animus that is lurking
inside the deranged and damaged
People with whom I spend my days,
and nights, and wee hours
muttering and laughing
and yelling and crying
and listening and looking
and losing and finding
and lusting and *******
and living and dying
and loving and failing
and flailing and flying
And falling and bouncing
and breaking and binding
And picking up all of the pieces and trying again,
and again
and again and again
just out here surviving as best we can
every day after day
after day after day
on endless repeat until a night intercedes
and we push back against
the dark days ennui,
and revel in reckless distracted abandon
while the clock ticks away;
we’re just striving to stay upright
to make it back home from the fray,
to see another sunrise alive
so we can be sure we see  

- another ******* disappointing day -

And people wonder why we do it
but we’re proving that we’re strong.
We may be stupid, but you can’t **** us;
and you know what they say:
“If you’re gonna be dumb,
you better be tough;
and you never can pray enough.”

- To the ones unafraid of the muck and mire -

That comes with wallowing in the pain,
it does not matter if it’s inflicted or inherited, self-imposed, or someone else’s to claim,

It all. stings.. the same…

And the barrel burn of whiskey
and the ***** of numbing needles
And the rush of powdered breathe
and the dreary dregs of hangovers
all do the same thing.
They take the edge of the blade-
the one that cuts the deepest
if it’s left unsheathed-
the one in our own hand
that we forgot to put away-
and dulls it beyond repair.
It fills the senses with distraction;
dumbs down a ******* brain
That won’t let the little things go;
won’t shut-up for anything.
It draws the focus off a soul that’s aching
to cry out its sorrows and
name it’s demons names;
To demand that they come forward
to their inquisition;
To have them answer
for their crimes of passion
and persuasion
and all the pleasure they gained
from seeing us consumed
by our self-inflicted pain;
To hear repentance for their intrusion;
To see their face carry shame:
So we can forgive them
And then forget them
and put them up
or down,
or aside,
But asunder;
The manner does not matter,
but We must
release them

- To be unburdened -

Lest we bury ourselves
underneath them
on our last day.

This satisfaction, for us, is deception, though,
for their judgement days never came;
and a more immediate solution
presents itself every weekend,
or every so often,
Sometimes it comes around
on say… a Tuesday;
but we always know it’s out there
for us whenever we want it,
and that’s usually every day.

Why wouldn’t we need distraction
from that achy old wailing thing
inside our breast and in our heads
clouding our brain?;
in front of us
impeding progress;
forever and always
in
      the
           way

- so we settle in -

to the maintainence method
that allows us to keep the days
from turning black under the shadow
of the unbearable burden
of our own crushing weight;
And you can’t judge
someone who is there
unless you’ve been there
and got away;
and if you’ve really been there
and you got away,
then you won’t judge them;
and if you judge them:
you have not seen
what they have seen;
and you cannot know
what they have done
and you dare not have anything to say.
You cannot understand
the means of survival
that people use
when you don’t need them;
and it’s easy to put a label
on something you define
without experiencing.

So don’t stand there scoffing at me
for being someone you pity and shame;
you’ll never understand

- The Beauty of Surviving -

Because for you,
It’s not a thing.
For you lucky few
Without the claws of demons
On your neck and opening you veins,
I give you this one piece of perspective:

If the demons do, one day, come hunting you,
Make sure
                     You know
                                         Their names.

- To banish demons -

you must call to them
To drag them out
into the light of day;
and only then can you be sure they leave, because from Light and Love 
They run away.

- It’s time now, for me -

to put the treasures,
and the troubles,
out on the table,
where all
                  can see it  
                                    on display.

• (preface) . Ante Up •

Never Gamble with more
than you can afford to lose

• Prologue : The Deal •

From the dusty haze
between hot mirage waves
in desert air
refracting red shifted rays
of the horizonal sun
bouncing off the highway
appears an indigent itinerant
who’s seen better days,
walking alone
at a leisurely pace,
west towards sunset
and night and escape,
without baggage or burden
beyond his distempered ways.

He comes suddenly upon an unexpected place- hitherto unseen by light of day


• I:  The Flop •
     LIQUOR IN THE FRONT!
     $ POKER IN THE BACK $

The flashing neon sign proclaims
From behind the dingy pane
Of a curtained window
By a door to nowhere safe;
With a sign that hangs
Beneath it saying

Open Buy, Table Stakes,
    No Limit Hold’em
Come on in and Play!

And just underneath it
Scratched into the widow,
In an unsettling scrawl,
By a steady hand
With a razor sharp butterfly
Switchblade knife…
It says

“There’s NO LIMIT to WHAT you can WIN”

That does sound tempting
So you do go in
Everytime…
And you’re greeted with a “Hello friend!”
By a bartender standing by himself,
in an empty room,
Cuffs rolled up and forearms wet
polishing glassware and tins with a towel;
One That’s seen too many rims
and broken glasses and spilled drinks,
and blood and tears and ***** sinks
It could NOT be clean,
but “**** it,” you think,
“There Ain’t nobody in here”
And either way, the alcohol is cheap…

“Can I get you something to drink;
maybe a double whiskey, neat
Or Tonic, Lime and gin?
The game already began.
You can head on back, if you want…
They probably only played one hand.”

And he motions to a padded door lit green with red light glowing below from under the jamb.

“Should I get a drink
and play a few?” You think,
“I don’t have much to lose.
And what if …

I win?”


• II..  The Turn •

It’s a gamble, going all in
It’s a big risk to take,
But if it pays off man
*******,
You got it made

And the hand looks good,
(it always does)
But this fella’s poker face…
It is uncanny, Man
You cannot read a thing
It’s like he’s made of stone
He don’t ever tell any kinda way…

And this ******* devil always calls.
He plays his hand in every game
Never sits out a round
Throws his money down
Folds his cards, then
Sits back …

… And he waits …

… And every hand he plays,
It seems the game is strange,
In some unexpected way -  
like cards you thought you had
might not be there when you look again
But you can’t remember if, or when, it changed.
It might’ve been you just ******* seen it wrong,
But either way, the ******* card you need
is gone;
And just when you notice-
He’ll look away,
And then back at you,
As if to say,
“I call your bluff kid, turn em up.
Let’s see this hand you played.
What’re you holding
That Made you think
you could win a game
I ******* made.”

• .IİI.   The River •
You’re playing too fast and loose …
         Like you ain’t afraid
            
But you should be …
         ‘Cause You ****** up
        
Too Bad the Bet’s Been Made


• IV.:.   The Showdown •

And then He wins
An when He wins
you can’t defend the hand you held
In any way
He takes his chips and stacks em up,
He doesn’t have anything else to say.
He doesn’t gloat, he just
… ******* smiles…
And He watches your face
As you sit and you stare
and you think good and hard
about the mistake that you just made.

“Read ‘em and weep”
It’s his favorite part.
It’s his little art:
Watching a soul
get crushed…
                                  …Ugh…
“…Again?”


• Epilogue - Wanna Buy Back In? •

Never
Pay More To Play
Than What You Stand To Win

Gabby Bayou

Man this swamp is haunted
I swear to god
You can’t see the ******* but you hear em say **** through the trees
Warning you to “stay away”


You just gotta deal with all the **** there
So much ****


It’s insane


But I don’t mind a little muck and mire
I love to stomp around the swamp
Splashin’ up mud and Makin’ waves
Besides I got these hobbit feat
That don’t sink
Cuz
I’m creature of the place
And so I make my way down
To the woods that surround it
every now and then ,
And set up shop for few days

This forest is my home, you see
You cant take it away from me
I’m rooted here and moving on is
A tough play to make.
But it’s not too bad
I like it here
It’s soft and warm most days
And as long as you keep an eye on your corners
Cain’t nothing scary sneak up close
And you can usually escape

There’s dinosaurs out here, though
You hear ‘em roar some times
sneaking ‘round the thicket parts
Hunting their favorite prey


But this old lizard-skin-Leather-backed
swamp-stomping’ dragon’s
Got claws and teeth
and it don’t seem to me
much like he can be
killed no-how, anyway

So you know I ain’t afraid