FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

Chapter 1

There was a woman. The cost to love her was your life. No other payment but a sending off, a revolver cocked to your temple’s side.
There was no spite in your death, just business.
Hell of a business to run.

I was protecting someone. Never been one to stick around, but this drag had carried for the past year. That gang-owned joint lay but two doors and a cold alley away. Popular place, maybe not the classiest but it had its patrons. Packed with your essentials: pool tables, dirt-licked walls and chairs, mean folk mixed in with the nice. Old fashioned joint with a history. You could almost feel it when you walked in. That small pressure when it’s about to rain? Felt like that had been building up for a decade there.
Some Madonna owned it. Names elude me, but she was just another front; as was the barkeep, the hired bouncers and those mean-eyed slingers that spoke loud in company, silent alone. Heh, almost like an old-fashioned saloon. Who the hell am I in this tale of cowboys and crooks?
I was holed up in that apartment block for the winter. Stiff drapes covering a stiff cold that seeped through the cracks anyway. Cold chills to wake to, and the whiskey don’t warm a **** thing. Maybe it was the ache of a past flame that led me to her. That old touch had languished and misted away in the night of some long dead memory, leaving an old kiss from a young lover on my shivering body. It grew faint with every year’s passing. I struggle to remember this keepsake.
Every night.
I was a no name protector protecting a no name ghost of a man. Yeah we knew each other. I’m no stranger to keep past talking terms . . . but, hell if I remember his name, how we got into this **** situation and why. Mind’s a little off. Been like that for years.

It was a stumble through the wrong door at the wrong time. Some spiteful voices in the back of the joint or the back of my mind telling me I’m headed for hell and ain’t coming back. See, every day is a crossroad, and I happened upon the worst one yet.
I remember that flaking paint; grime-covered white on a moulding door **** near off its hinges. That suited me, and I hated it. Maybe I grew sick of wandering the same way and turned my life on its spinning head. Spun me all the ways I couldn’t face. Saw a glimmer that fate had readied for me. Don’t think I’ve looked at anything with such eyes since; nor have they looked back at me.
The room was a cramped, dilapidated hellhole like every other room, but with her laying on that bed of hers . . . she was the only clean thing in the whole of this cursed city. Save, she wasn’t clean. No such thing exists; no such thing as clean since your adolescent innocence, and even that went up in flames. Hell, in a city like this I wouldn’t be surprised if the skeletons we kept so tightly locked in our closets outnumbered us ten to one.
Should have remembered that when I saw her, but my mind lay a blank canvas and I couldn’t help but fill it with all the details of this pretty bird. Even those that weren’t there.
No Name yanked me out quick. Never seen him so pale, ghosting further and further from a human being. He’d been running so long I don’t think he even knew what he was running from anymore. His past? Some cop chase from years back, ending with blood stains and shaky hands? A dead kid in the arms of a suicidal wife? Maybe he’s running from himself. Fear in the capacity we contain, and fear in the ways we unleash it around loved ones. I don’t blame him for running. If I was a worse man I’d run from him as well.
Now No Name has it all figured out, even if he won’t let on; and that bird in there ain’t part of the plan. Cash cash, first train out to some no name city for this no name man. In this together, he keeps repeating, like some broke down record player that only plays one song. Well I guess we share more similarities than I’d like to think so.

One night, about a month after settling in that old apartment, I hear raised voices. Not uncommon, but something about this still night woke some fear inside me. A fear I needed to meet with my eyes, a score to settle with myself. Sounded like some ******* outside was hoping to bring down the sky with volume alone. No type of gentleman, just a no ***** kid who doesn’t know the difference between command and screaming like a babe.
One gets you respect. Now, the other. . . .
I open those stiff drapes with stiffer fingers. Brush that layer of frozen breath and mist to find some mid-twenty good for nothing punk holding a struggling figure. The apartment ain’t exactly ground floor but even up here I can spot the difference between a gent and a sally. Some broad was in trouble.
Grab that six shooter, old man. The holster smooth from years of wear, small frays on the weathered jacket rubbing against goose-pricked skin. Comfort clothing that never really brings comfort. Not anymore. Guess I’m as bad as No Name. I’m just repeating routine.
Out the hall, no doors left in this apartment block. Stolen, broken, ain’t exactly your family fun lifestyle we’re living. No Name’s holed up in this fortress of upturned furniture and dresser-barred doorways. Lights flicker from between the cracks. The devil ain’t gonna bother with the door, I tell him. He doesn’t reply. Maybe he’s a religious man with one too many sins above his head.
There’s another yell and I feel my blood rise, hairs picking up static, a storm brewing inside that clenched stomach of mine. Take a tumble down the stairs in my haste. **** crooked balsa wood. Those stairs are gonna end me one day, I swear.
Ground floor. I slam that kitchen door and it cracks against the brick wall outside. ****. No Name’s gonna burst an artery. Call out for that ******* punk but he’s already eyeing me up. Only a few steps away and I can see the white in his eyes. No . . . those are his pupils. Wide, all cloud-like, he’s ******* dusted up. . . . Almost like looking into the past. Thrice-cursed ****. I’m in trouble.
This ain’t some lover’s quarrel, some twisted ****’s thought of a good way to end the night. This is a dusthead addict and I’m out of my league. His mid-snarl distorts and stretches past his cheeks and that devil grin sends an electric jolt from the wires of my brain to my heart.
This six shooter is as good as a pea gun against a Smiley.
He’s spouting some glossolalia drifts, layering it like an abominable duet. The coked-up boy in me yearns to understand again, but stiff joints and washed-out dreams have made me a cynic. Ain’t no beauty when you’re tearing things apart to see it. ******* Smiley’s on the edge and he’s ready to pounce right off. If that broad’s sobbing didn’t **** at those heart strings of mine I’d be running for my ******* life.
I lift that pea shooter and aim it straight at that devil smile.
He howls. Glass shatters from above. Some black monstrous thing comes speeding at me. I leap through that apartment doorway in time to see ******* Smiley consumed by it. All sharp, all solid that beast slams into Smiley, screaming loud enough to wake this dead city twice over. Smiley thrashes, he splays out to the ground, the beast’s seared flesh erupting in front of me. A piece slices past my cheek and I’m on the ground in tears. I hear No Name scream an incomprehensible curse above. I’m bawling now. Through my tears I spot that chunk of flesh. ******* balsa wood. Thrice-cursed balsa wood.
No Name had thrown a piano out that barricaded window of his. Tears of pure comedy, that’s what left my face. A Smiley taken out by No Name, I’ll never live this down. His mangled body lies under polished wood. Someone’s yearly worth gone in a second of frantic panic, reduced to twisted wires and cracked ivory. To see something so beautiful destroyed in seconds makes me wonder if the Smiley had gotten the better of us after all.
That broad’s in shock. Splinters covered every inch of ground save that around her; looked like a comet, trailing emptiness behind.  Should have noticed it then that something wasn’t right with that scene. Perfectly unscathed beauty sitting there with not a single scratch nor splinter on her, but I was too **** amazed I was alive. Knelt close to her and caught a whiff of some exotic scent on her skin. Some flower. Saw her face and it added another colour to that filling canvas of mine. This pretty bird from the joint. The one men died for. At least No Name had saved one life worth saving, funny it happened to be the one who could take yours in a night.
Names elude me, but the way I remember her . . . the way I remember her is Blossom, for when she came into my life she gave colours to my black and white memory, colours I didn’t know existed, and my black and white morals took a turn down some dawning grey-blurred alley.
So I’m a ******* gentleman and I walk Blossom home while No Name shifts furniture above us. Scrapes of hard wood against wood, filling that void in his once impenetrable bastion. I told you No Name’s got it all planned out already. Guess I’m just here for the ride.

what did it take for me to miss those days?
crawling breathless,
stomach nails for breakfast, ventricles of rust,
pounding on my ribs with any upright task
from soaking bed delirium,
corroded mind and eyeballs
tortured falun dafa tears
stinging on the walls a glowing red,
my branching veins encasing me in flaming
paths of mystery: to live or die, to try or fail
at simple efforts
--never gone without, since infanthood--
to stand itself a tissue horror
bathing in the needles of another lifeform's hold on me,
that spiral nesting multitasker
legions in the joints,
invading forces claiming spinal tower-riches
as if my thoughts will be my last,
originary flickerings of self, sacked and razed,
the burning out of novelty for bottom emptiness
and only sympathies malinger there--
yet vaster frame invisible to healthy eye emerged:
a sea, empathic with my prior paths from health diverged:
adrenal waves and dolphin plays of other air ensouled i purge
with cascade urges tension mixing universal breath
of statements, fears and wry coercings not to think of death
or tempting near the abolition of a system *****
for all the benison it's bound to store for years
of hiding blind and uttering the shield-word
of our sly, superficial, group-stock lies,
to have us screaming at each other out of only kneejerk love
a mask of fodder from our young dogmatic wanderings
they burn and burn and choke like spirochetes themselves
while shoving under family rugs the truth

cicada shells clung eerily against the burls and branches
of a monumental tree itself a deathly symbol bare of green
like ornaments of rhythm upsurge birthing into death digest
the exoskeletal remains, under finger crunched as
up the bark i climbed
to view what death had taken value on for me, and balanced
up atop the hill of faded names i yearned the meanings of,
and in the clouds
a part revealed
a sunny mist,
to paint me colorful again--
and in that mood a hail began to tick on forest floor:
the brittle dead a singing whisper flaking brown
on brown, on earthy brown to gather white within the paper nooks of leafy drums

how whimsically to service death
anon anon for now they're always lying there
across the road atop the grave hill,
from other species hunted here
but this, that time it was a carved skull
hacked or sawed but yards from peaceful temple yard
another, cleaner omen skull had led me there,
ochre red with emerald mold
the cranial pale divided stop and go
and led me wondering within the stream
to notice other signs i half-expected mystically:
surreal blood abundantly with vulture feathers carpeting the scene:
a stag with missing brain, missing hind and organs
chosen how, i'd never know
--i saw the arrow though, a barb of certainty--
and old fur, gray and white, a timely passing then,
to make of gore a sacred right,
and in hale ignorance i prayed like only atheists can pray
with self-disclaiming smirk but
humble authenticity of unknown forces
biding in the impulse-meaning-gathering of earth,
now memory to glean and hold to live in me

you came to me drunk and looking for love
when before it seemed i had plenty of
suddenly my eyes must have been
mazelike and empty
it falls out of me
so neat and yet so unkemptly
all these bodies in storage
and the coroner sent me
but i can't clean up this mess
i'm only good at disassembly

you cupped my chin in your hands
and begged me tell me what you're thinking
i told you i was staring at the wall
with that smile quickly shrinking
too fast for you to catch it
i felt your breath kiss my neck
as you tried a different approach
with a more subtle effect
i should have explained i need a while
to think before i talk about these things

My memere liked the smell of gasoline, i do too
the tiny shreds of dying nice and slow it pulls from inside of you
and stale cigarettes in mom and pop drugstores
and burying the dead birds, saying it was just time for them to go
explaining that they don't realize they are killing themselves
every time they slam into the glass doors
she loved the seashells welling up from the atlantic
and the waves that held me detained
when she disappeared from shore
the glass that cut, that taste of blood
the stillness of death and linoleum floors and the whining dog
i couldn't fathom how they could all remain

her still skin was first time i noticed
the shifting quality of epidermises cusps so waterlogged
like lotus leaves and flaking logs of driftwood in the ocean
the way it's currents pushed and pulled everything above and below our bodies'
disturbances and submersions of purple i didn't love
i wondered why our bodies couldn't just come back to us
couldn't learn to rigor mort this
still deaths leaves me feeling purposeless
waxy and elastic, with small hairs like the cactus on the windowsill
she said so but i can't convince myself that this is a beautiful thing

when i was young i dreamt of falling down the wooden rungs
of our staircase, screaming in pain in the airway and waiting to be saved
it felt so real, and days later we were pulling over on the side of the highway
when we got the call, saying no one was there when she had the fall
when i saw the sunset from the beach for the first time in years
that night i cried for the beauty and
washed off the tears, purple and red clouds
salt water and tender sounds
and stared for a long time
at the empty shell of a horseshoe crab
did not eat the poison berries
removed the glass from my feet
set down the photographs in defeat
sat and read the dusty books
still caked in her fingerprints
sitting on the shelves of the library

and he never liked gasoline
he always liked fresh air and talkative people
the little things, and the adrenaline of strings
the 4 am sunrise over town center's church steeple
i was terrified of loving this good person
this aversion confuses me,
i teeth at these pseudonyms for something so real
being turned into something transient
i can't explain it i just hate dominance
and love hurt children

i still see his face like it was yesterday
saying that it was his birthday, and he was smiling
about going to the lake
i still can't retrieve a single date
last year from the months of august to may
i just remember the pictures and google pages
i would read 1 through 25 internally enraged
by this rememberance of you
my fists clenched in a faded grip
feeling the searing headlines
cutting through the blackness
i forget what it's like
not to lose it all every time
i close my eyelids
and the waves i love creep in and rip
i've just conceptualized it to be a pattern
and accepted it

They tell me to stop remembering
But they don’t understand with
Each blow life hands me
Another is already sewn
Into my ribcage, bruises in each hand
between each crescent bone,
this isn’t a coincidence
Most nights i hang my lungs
Dangling from my spine
Watching the walls cave in
the sticky residue of surgical tape
Strapped around my bicep
Will not wash off in the shower and then
This guilt will not wash off in the shower
and then, you are a burden, hidden
In the paperwork, between the lines
Three weeks later and there is still
Traces of it on me
Parts of me trapped in glass vials
i wonder what people thought
when they saw me in that blue robe
on the bed in the little blue room
I still remember how thick the
needle was
I was never scared of them
until now

i trick people when i feel like
i'm not seeing at all
i'm just feeling, not healing
with these words
that's my downfall
i wish i could give more
but this is all i have left
if i can't keep it locked in closet doors
i know the effect with be my last theft
don't force it out of me
just let the drainage catch your crests
let it come in time
when i feel safe knowing you
would catch my conjested confessions
and lay them to rest

Dust flowers up from the Chilton County dusk
Rust is flaking off the pickup that has a skunk musk

Bullet , the blue tick hound from your sleeve pulls it
Could it be another hot day in August , would it ?

Peaches have last month gone to fill the niches
Beaches at the river are low , full of leeches

Summertime in Alabama is a long ******
Funnier than that song , swing low number

Gathering distant dark blue clouds that are a mattering
Battering thunder rolling , lightning shattering

Huge drops splattering on clay so Rouge
Deluge now soaking , coming down like a luge

Passing with one loud Crack blasting
Massing clouds now are just in a fasting

As I scale the *****
I note the melody of the wind
With its sweeping symphonic shifts
My nails grind against granite
Before flaking and falling into the abyss
Yet I persist
Upward along the lone path
Where the air recedes like tides
And frost forms fellowship upon my eyes
Before seeking to turn my sore limbs, frigid
Icily assuring each ache is anchored in anxiety
Which stems from the worn clothes of society
Yet as I climb, the fabric is discarded
Like old styles of yesteryear
Now basking in all my naturalness
I finally summit, my thoughts thankfully descend
My heart lifts up its scepter and then my chin
Beating with Brilliance it grins
Furls up it sleeves and wordlessly begins
The work of healing from within

I am not well suited
To existing in silence
White sheets in plastic bags
Absently turning printed pages
Scrolling through screens
I find nothing

No, I am not well suited
To these silent hours
That I fill restlessly
With hopeful solitude
And shivering despair
All to find nothing
But old flaking paint
And old mistakes

Friend Rockstar,
            Listen, yield to a robust think-tank,
            earlobes skidding against wheat and grain.
Terrible story, yes, what happened to that little girl.
Sterile teddy nightgowns weeping in the squad car windows.
Teacher – Teacher, do you harken my yodels for grace?
            I’ve never been maternal.
            Put the game on. Abortion.
            That’s what I’m about.
            Grab a bra. Sling some weight.
            That’s what I’m about.
Some housefly wings on a weathered corn cob.
Some downhome, homegrown twang for those fancy, fussy britches.
            Muddy workboots. Sweat-soaked collars.
            That’s what I’m about.
Him done made me read, sir.
What sacraments did we write today?
            I can still remember my first broken bone.
            I can still remember my first broken *****.
                        That could be what this is all about.
Mary, Mary, you can be contrite,
            so knife – so critter – so laze – so stalked.
    Who fertilized your seeds? Who reared your sprouts?
            Cockle shells and silver bells, honey,
            can’t grow up
            to be pretty little maids all in a row.
Sterile teddy nightgowns – green bells in gaseous gardens.
Friend Rockstar, you may have to sleep.
This restless harbor is a shivering anecdote spilled from a belly,
            a vast, deep cavern with love notes written in milk.
Your fried, stern smile was a flaking fingernail adjacent to the crack in the flowerpot.
Some garden, I say.

Indigo. A dream of the color, and the sound of soft rain. Bathing birds babbled among pines beyond her window, and morning light was warm on her closed face. An ache in the spine. Creaking knees. Shoulders cold cliff-rock. Complaining muscles knotted tight as wood. The wooden house around her also creaked in the wind. Smelled wet. And somewhere echoing through her fields Edgar barked three times, then once more in playful affirmation. Today maybe the last today. In her mind’s eye, falling almost back into dream, Nora surveyed the long acres surrounding her cold home: untended wheat, alfalfa, cattle-corn, all woven through untold ecosystems of weeds. Stray indigo flowers and violets. Scattered dust-filled barns. What the place might look like after all this time. With her right hand she sought the frame of the bed, found it, rough chips of paint flaking. Slowly exhaling at once Nora lifted her iron legs over the edge, thin-socked feet found the bedroom’s planks. Cold air. November hopelessness. With spider-sensitive fingers she plucked her way around the room, imagining violet dawn spilling through her screen window. Stood before the poker-faced mirror out of habit, ran her brush through hair that must now be silver. She felt the satisfying tug on her scalp and loudly past her ears. If her dresser was in front of her, to her right was the window and the pine-scented boxes where she kept his clothes, behind was her rumpled bed, and to her left then was the bathroom. She felt along the door-frame, the sink, the toilet, and sighingly she settled onto its seat. Relief.
Rain drops on her roof were like the “shh” breathed to an infant. Warm blanket of rain over the cold farm. The breathy wind was driving the rain towards her house, cranky knees told of a storm to come. The boisterous wind had the sound of laughter and strife, of voices: the twins arguing somewhere, Edgar probably with them over-enthusiasticly ******* their footsteps. The bellowing wind made the house creak more than usual, but there was something else. A distinctive groan from the foundation up the east wall to the roof-tiles. Someone was in the kitchen. Constance, just like it used to be. Connie was here and the twins were outside: they had arrived closer to dawn than Nora expected. Heavy truck’s tires in mud, headlights had pioneered dawn darkness. Smell of soil. Massaged her own back, kneaded the the flesh on either side of her spine, then wiped and stood from the seat letting her nightgown fall all down around her knotted ankles. Washed herself, and a short shower before the water turned cold. Dried her wrinkles feelingly, smelling soap, and pulled her soft nightgown back on. Socks.
Always a joy whenever Constance came to call — less frequently these days it seemed — always a joy to be with her grandchildren though little Bastian was still mistrustful of her. Always a joy to see her daughter’s family… but she never got to see Matt’s. An image of her son’s face, a red haired ghost of the past, flickered in Nora’s memory. He couldn’t stand this place since he was young, hated his full name “Matthias,” maybe hated Nora too. No reason to stay after his father died. He fled to the city. Must have a wife, several children by now. Well. At least Constance kept coming by. The rain grew heavier, played on the roof like the roll of a snare drum.
Out of the bathroom and bedroom, feeling the planks of floorboard with her soles, hand by hand and foot by foot she traced her steps down the rickety stairs. Uneven. Nora knew the chandelier she once hung here was red; she pictured the color as hard as she could to envision its reflection on each surface of the stairwell. Smell of pine. Like the smell of his clothes safely preserved in the boxes by the window. Jagged nostalgia. Nora had met dear Rowan back in another world: a world of whirling sights and colors and beautiful ugliness and ugliest beauty all. To America when she was nineteen, leaving behind all Germany and studying her new tongue. Had still devoured books then, was able to become a school teacher. When twenty-three, met in a chance cafe Rowan who worked the docks. Red hair. Scottish but of many American generations. Nora grabbed blindly at a face just out of memory’s reach. Her hold on the bannister revealed the places where varnish had been rubbed away by her wringing hands. From the kitchen, acrid cigarette stench and shuffling. Inflamed knees hating her meticulous descent, but better this ordeal each day than to abandon the bedroom they had shared. When the two met, Rowan still sent money to his agricultural folks in New York (“Upstate,” he protested more than once, “Not that awful city, but in the countryside!” and he’d pantomime a deep breath) because of the expenses of running their farm. Nora’s now. From the cafe he had bought her an almond pastry, triangular, smaller than a palm, its sweet crisp flakes made her think of Mediterranean forests, and when the two were married they worked this hereditary farm. Nora knew all the animals, when they still kept livestock. Now Nora’s farm, whose after? When her little Matthias was born they had praised him as the farm’s inheritor. Unwise.
Last step. Sound from the kitchen of Connie shifting in her seat, rustling papers. Smell of strong coffee. Strong cigarettes. Composed herself, quietly cleared throat. Sauntered down the hallway, monitoring expression and tone. Nora said, “Hello Constance. When did you three get here?”
“Hey ma,” said the woman’s voice when the elder crossed into the kitchen. “For christ’s sake don’t call me that.”
“For christ’s sake, don’t take his name,” Ma scolded, but then traced her way past the table to the countertop and felt about for utensils. “I’ll make you something Connie.” The counter was in front of her, bathroom to the left, stove to her right and along that same wall was the back door. ”How about some nice eggs and toast like how you like.”
“No ma, I handled it already.”
“And what color is that hair of yours this time?” Ma asked, carefully inserting slices of bread into the toaster. “Seems like months you haven’t been by.”
A patronising, sarcastic chuckle. “…it’s orange, ma.
Listen—”
“That is so nice. Your father’s hair was just that shade of orange.” Felt around inside the refrigerator. The styrofoam carton. Small and cold and round, her fingers seized four of them. “Do you remember?”
Pause. “I remember, ma.”
“What I don’t understand,” said Ma swallowing a cough, expertly igniting one gas burner as practiced and putting on hot water for tea, “is why you don’t fix to keep it natural. I love our nice fair hair, very blonde, very pretty.” Back home in Germany Nora had been the favorite of two men, but many years since engaging in the frivolous antics she in those days entertained. “Best to flaunt your natural hair color while it’s still there: orange like Matt and dear Rowan, or fair like you and Lorelai got.” Memories of her own face as she remembered it. Relatively young the last time she had seen. What wrinkles there must be. What a mask to wear. No wonder Bastian. Nora ignited another burner. Tick tick tick fwoosh. Smelled gas. Sound of the almost boiling water complaining against its kettle. Phantom taste of anticipated tea. Regret. The contents of the vial hidden on the top shelf. Today maybe the. Sound of heavy rain. “And how are your bundles of mischief?”
Connie sighed. “I told Lorelai to get her little **** inside the house, as if she hears a word. She’s playing with Ed somewhere in the fields I don’t wonder, rain be ******. That girl is such a little — well she’d better not be down by the creek anyhow. Could get flooded in a downpour like this. Bastian was out with her, but he’s playing in his room now. You know we don’t have time to stay long today, it’s just that you and I got to finally square this business away. No more deliberating, ok?”
Swallowed. “Course, Constance. Just nice to hear your voice. You’re taking care?”
“Care enough. Last time I was — oh! Jesus, ma!”
Ma’s egg missed the pan’s edge. She felt herself shatter the shell into the stove top, in her mind’s eye saw the bright orange yolk squeezed into the albumen. The burner hissed against liquid intrusion. Connie made a strained noise and scooped her mother into a seat at the table. Movement. Crisply, the sound of two fresh eggs being broken and sizzling on the pan. Scrambled as orange as Connie’s guarded temper. The table’s cool surface. Phantom smell of pine wood polish and recollections of Rowan at his woodworking tools building this table once. Other breakfasts. Young Constance, young Matthias. Young self. Her left hand massaged her aching right shoulder, then she switched. The sound of plates being readjusted with unnecessary force.
“You know,” said her daughter, “living in one of them places might even be fun. Might be good for you instead of moping about this place. But like I’ve been saying, we got to make our decision today: sell this place or pass it on. I know you don’t take no walk, cause where would you go? What’s the point in keeping all this **** land if you’re not gonna do nothing with it? You can’t even ******* see it!”
“Constance! Language!”
“Come on ma, just cut it out! This is great property, and you’ve let it get so it’s bleeding money.”
“…But Constance I can’t sell it, not like your brother wants me to do. He’s always trying to get rid of this place and turn a profit, but someone needs to take care of it! You know that this is the house that your f—“
“‘That your grandparents lived in where your father and I raised you…’ Yeah I know, ma. And I get it. Believe me. But what you’re doing is just plain impractical, why don’t you think about it? All you’re doing is haunting this place like a ghost. Wouldn’t you rather live somewhere where you can make friends? Things can’t go on like this.” A plate was placed softly on the table and it slid in front of Ma. Can’t go on like this. Egg smell. Salted. Toast, margarine. A cup of tea appeared nearby. “Anything else you want? Here’s a fork.”
“What will you eat, Constance?”
“I ate, ma, I ate already. Have your breakfast, then we can talking about this for real. Ok?” Then, the sound of her daughter’s body shifting in surprise, a pleasant unexpected, “Oh,” before Connie said low and matronly, “Hi baby, how you doing? Are you hungry?” But only the sound of the downpour. Orange eggs still softly sizzled. The wind pushed the creaking house. “Sweetie, you don’t have to hide behind the door, it’s ok. Come say hi to grandma… don’t you want some scrambled eggs?” Refrigerator’s hum. Barking echoed, coming over the hill. But not even the little boy’s breathing. Grandma had met the twins two years ago, following the **** of Constance’s rebellious years and independence. Nora was reminded of her german gentlemen and her own amply tumultuous adolescence. She could forgive. Two years ago Lorelai and Bastian had already been too big to cradle and fawn over, but they were discovered to be just starting school and already bright pupils. Grandma hung her head. Warm steam from where the uneaten eggs waited patiently. Edgar’s approaching yapping. And, fleeing from the doorway, a scampering of feet so light they might have been moth wings. Down the hallway back into his room. “Sorry ma,” said Constance.
Shrugged. A nerve flared in pain up her neck but she didn’t react. Only fork scrape. Ate eggs. On introduction, poor little Bastian had burst into tears and refused to go near her. Connie had consoled: “It’s ok baby, she’s just Grandma Nora! She’s my mother.” But poor little Bastian inconsolable: “No, no, no! She’s not!” What a wrinkled mask it must be. How hideous unkempt with silver hair. How horrible unflinching eyes. “She’s not,” would sob the quiet boy in earnest, “she’s a witch! Don’t you see?” And he never would let Grandma hold him. Lorelai was always polite, hugged warmly, looked after her pitiable brother, but her mind too was far elsewhere. Edgar alone loved them all unconditionally and was equally beloved. Barking. Yowling. Scratches at the door. Downpour. Door and screen door opened, wet dog happy dog entered, shook, and droplets on her cheek.
And there appeared Lorelai, a star out of sight. “Hey mom. Hi grandma!”
Grandma swiveled for cosmetic reasons to face where the door. Grinned, “Hello Lorelai. Wet?” Envisioned yellow sunlight entering with the excitable girl in spite of the deluge.
“Oh it’s so rainy out there grandma, I found little streams through your fields and big mud puddles and Edgar showed me where your secret treasure was, we found it!”
“Stop right there, missy!” commanded Constance. “For christ’s sake you look like you took a bath in the mud and the **** dog with you. Come on, your filthy coat needs to be on the rack, right? Now your boots.”
Warm nose found Nora’s palm, excited lapping. Slimy fur, smelly fur. A cold piece of egg dangled in her fingers, then dog breath came hot and licked it up. Satisfied, he trotted off elsewhere, collar jingling out of the kitchen and down the hall.
Little Lorelai lamented, “I couldn’t help it mom, the mud was all over the place! When we got past the motor barn and the one alfalfa field that looks like a big marsh frogs went ‘croak croak croak’ but Edgar growled and chased them and then we made it all the way in the rain to the creek and it’s so much—”
“Now you just hold on. Hold still!” Sounds of wrestling. Grunts of a struggle. “That creek must have been overflowing! Didn’t I tell you not to? You didn’t take your new phone out there did you, Lori?”
“No ma’am.”
“**** right you didn’t, cause I sure ain’t buying you a new one. Didn’t I tell you not to go all the way out there? Didn’t I? Now you get into that bathroom and wash your **** hands!”
“But I’m telling Grandma a story!” huffed little yellow haired Lorelai.
“Well wash your hands first and then we’ll hear it, Grandma don’t listen to misbehaving girls who are all muddy and gross. Not a squeak from you till you look like you come from heaven instead of that nasty creek.”
A profound sigh, a condescending, “Fine,” a door closing and a squeaky faucet running. Muffled hands splashed, dampened off-key ‘la la la’s.
“Who knows what the hell that one is ever talking about,” said Connie. “It’s everything I can do to get her to shut up for five ******* minutes. You done with your eggs?”
Ma fidgeted. The plate was scraped away, and a clunk by the sink. Licked her lips, mouthed a syllable, about to speak. But then her house creaked three strong along the east wall. From deeper within bubbled a suppressed sob: “Mom,” little Bastian wailed, “Mom, come quick!” Constance sighed, Constance cursed, and Constance swept off down the hallway struggling to refrain from stomping.
Sound of washing. Wind. Rain. Alone. Cold. Picking out the paint for this room, listed in gloss as ‘golden straw yellow.’ Rowan hadn’t liked it and chose himself the bedroom’s color in retaliation. The loss of the home they had built together. The contents of the vial hidden on the top shelf: do they see it? Bathroom sink stopped flowing, door wrenched open. Smell of soap, clean smell. Grandma said to her, “Your mother went to check on Bastian,” Taste of eggs still yellow on her tongue.
“What a *****!”
Stunned. “Lorelai!” she snapped. “Don’t you dare take that language!”
“But mom does it all the time.”
“Then Lorelai, it’s up to you to be better than your mother. When I’m not around any more, and your mother neither, you’ll be the one who keeps us alive.”
“But as long as you’re alive you’ll always be around, you’re not a ***** like mom. And remember? I got all the mud off so can I finally tell you can I what we found? Well actually it was Edgar found it. Oh and I’ll describe it real good for you grandma just like you could see it: when we pulled up we were just wandering in the blue rain, Bastian and me, and silly Edgar joined us but Mom tried to make us come back of course but I told Bastian to stay with us at first, but later I changed my mind on it. It was he and me and Edgar were hiding in the old motor barn where it smells like a gas station remember grandma and he was so excited to see the sun when it rose and made the morning violet sky he started clapping and Edgar got excited too and was barking ‘bark bark’ and howling so I told Bastian to go back even

corinth picked up the ball and tossed it up into the air as high as he possibly could. the energy it took for him to do so left him gasping and his muscles stung a little, but to watch the ball arc high above the sky, black against blue, was worth it. when the ball started to sink back down, he ran after it, bumping past athens who had been watching mere inches away.

the enclosure was a backyard to a white building surrounded by concrete walls that cut open hands when rubbed too hard or when scuffles turned sour. in the corner, there was a patch of green grass. the rest was stained yellow from lack of water or from too much sun.

sparta sat in the dust, his hands red with dirt and blood. the stains wrapped around his fingers and wrists and spiraled up to his elbows. he rubbed the pads of his fingers along the dirt, picking up small twigs and stones along the way, as he drew circles around the bird. the bird was dead, long dead, but its brown and grey feathers still stayed in its skin most of the time and the blood was drying so sparta’s hands wouldn’t be red for too much longer. the cracks of flaking blood opened like wounds on small boy's hands: palms big for holding bigger hands and fingers short to keep everything close. sparrow feathers and tears smeared comets into the dust while he cried for his mama even though his mama never came.

corinth ran after the ball, his breath short and his face glowing pink from exertion. as he ran, his hand running along the concrete wall, he started coughing. catching up with the ball started the initial coughing fit that turned into a rattler. he held his hand against the wall, clinging to it with white knuckles, as he hunched over to cough and cough so hard he could feel his throat start to stretch ragged, could feel lunch starting to come up. athens kicked corinth's foot gently before backing away a few feet while corinth continued to cough. when corinth's lungs and throat settled, he stood up straight, grabbed the ball, and threw it up again, this time out of anger rather than play. the ball went sailing backward and athens ran in order to try and get to the ball first, having had a head start. corinth was still faster and managed to shove athens away with a rogue elbow to the ribs in order to claim the ball again. athens didn't argue against the bone.

play continued until the sirens sounded. sparta stopped crying, corinth dropped the ball, and athens picked it up. all three of them hurried quickly and clumsily inside the bunker, shutting the door behind them. as they crawled down the narrow passageway, sparta started to hiccup, a leftover symptom of crying. corinth stopped and glared, and sparta murmured an apology before wiping his sniffles away with the sleeve of his shirt. corinth led the way until the three boys dropped inside the hollowed out room. it was round and the walls were mixtures of concrete, dirt, and chalk drawings. they each had to hunch, especially athens, as the ceiling

they sat in a practiced circle around the center of the room. after a few moments of quiet, hushed breathing, athens began the processions.

“we all here?”

the other two boys raised their hands. sparta’s fingers trembled while corinth raised his arm as high as it could possibly go. his ******* scraped against the ceiling in his earnestness. the three then began the tradition discussion of their names. sparta, forgetting conduct, almost gave away corinth's name, but corinth shut him up quickly. sparta apologized quickly and shoved his fingers in his mouth to keep from saying anything more. dirt and blood mixed with saliva in his mouth, and as he swallowed he ended up choking and gagging on the combination. he coughed and coughed, and corinth slapped him on the back. it didn't help, and the more sparta tried to stop coughing, the harder it lasted. eventually, he had to turn and face away from the other boys as hot bile slid up his throat and onto the floor with a small splat. athens grimaced and edged away.

"alright… show your lungs. everyone."

all three boys began the process of reaching under their shirts and pressing the smooth button under their ribs that unlocked the hatch. the hatch was a small door that ran from the bottom of their ribs up to their collar bone. when they found the smooth button, no bigger than the pad of their thumb, then a small click allowed them to open up their skin. underneath their torsos was a small plastic box that kept everything inside. it helped protect their bones, their heart, and, especially, their lungs. their lungs were frequent targets for doctors; they needed to be accessed quickly. fewer and fewer doctors came by to see the boys recently. corinth wiggled his shirt until he could shove most of it into his mouth, opening his body up and showing gray and green lungs that expanded and collapsed with every breath. his lungs were swollen behind his rib cage, and he experimentally reached in to poke in between his third and fourth ribs. the muscle that was there had been replaced by plastic, and had come loose when he'd pressed the button. his lung shuddered underneath his touch, but he felt the odd relief of pain swoop over him. two blue shirts tumbled to the floor as sparta and athens decided to take off their clothing and help each other find the buttons to unlock their hatches. the boys clung to the small moments of touch when the effects of their touh felt so alien, even after all those years after the surgery.

athens’ lungs were pink and perfect. he coughed and corinth couldn’t help but watch the way his diaphragm moved as he did so, and he felt jealousy pang in his stomach. sparta’s lungs were purple and blue, bruised and small, and they merely fluttered.

“lungs in order,” athens said quietly after a quick inspection of everyone’s insides. sparta immediately closed his hatch, flinching when his finger got caught initially between his inside and his outside, and started to put his shirt back on. corinth stole athens' shirt and slipped it on over the one he currently wore, his other hand slamming shut his lung hatch. athens blinked but let corinth stare at him greedily as he quietly shut his own hatch.

as they waited for the background noise of wailing sirens to disappear, corinth hugged his knees and athens started to draw people in the dirt with his forefinger.

woke up not knowing what time it was, looking toward a sewing machine instead of a clock on my desk, still reeling from hypersexual dreams of celebrities, old friends, fast cars, thunderstorms, video games and social experiments, mutual ******* without contact, floating in a nothingness world of bliss, then, thinking about sewing the right way, with seam allowances, wrong and right sides, and cutting out pizza slices from curves, wondering if my forlorn yellow polka dot shirt with the holes in the yoke would look nice as a giraffe, or if it's still worth mending. shades of marigold and dandelion pouring through my hands, buttons touching down on my great grandmother's old flowered quilt, taking their places over the holes. a needle threaded with delicate string weaves in and out 'round the tears, the negative space, the flaws, closing them up, sutures administered on a long forgotten corpse, breathing life with every stitch. open the curtains and it looks like dusk, though i'm sure it's morning: dark clouds, lightning, mist, fog, grey, gloom; promises of a storm, like in my nighttime mirrorimage otherworld of chances never taken, experiences that never, can never, will never, present themselves in reality. taste tests of who you want to be, but without the risk of ruining everything you've worked for. secrets you can keep, burning through eyelids, wanting to get out, but staying just below the thin layer of skin and lashes poised just right, painted and black and reaching toward the heavens, before flaking off into tears that confuse a happy face, slow dancing to the sweetest music, smiling to the words, the motion, the what will comes and the what might happens and being carried away with the love in the room and the sun in the sky and the warmth in the wind. no dreams, no mirrorimage otherworlds, no pretend existences, could ever ever ever be as sweet as these feelings, this love, the beating of twin hearts, the warmth of skin on skin, the colours of sun-shone sea and land irises looking at mine, through me, into places only you can see, only you know, only you've ever been. my comfort, my rock, my anchor in the storm, holding the moon tight in orbit, even when it pulls, even when it wants nothing more than to get in a boat and never see land again. heavy weathered metal from the earth digging deep into the ground under wires and waves and crashes of the sea, tethering the melancholy man in the moon to the only place that makes sense: helping sailors see the way on clear nights, reflecting sunlight from china to the seven seas, shining through dark windows to light up blushed faces of lovers and dewy tangled limbs, twisting sheets and straining steel, singing quiet songs of familiar feelings only we know, never wanting, never needing, to write the lyrics down; they whimper, weep, wail, cry out with passion, from every pore in our heaving entangled bodies before laying down to rest, to visit the nighttime mirrorimage otherworld that will never ever be as real, as sweet, as warm, as this real world life we share.

An Embrace to you,
Is all I are.
I want to unwrap you,
from your Brown paper and strings,
again and again and again.
See Me? I'm a shooting star.
Even a dandelion is a ****,
or a blossom or a wish.
Steel and gravity centred;
Flaking black paint rusting,
virtuous, falling apart at your touch,
as I unwrapped your envelope,
Of a Kiss.
I evaporate at a degree of a volcano explosion,
a white brick painted,
at the edge of the road,
I guide your way to a flaking me.
Flying as you are through my mind,
about to reach fantastical implosion
and the skies are grey and pink,
a glitter of an old wives tail;
Do you soar my darling?
As I rust here in your shadow?
Bring me back together,
Hold for me the hammer,
and I'll be the nail.

Over the years, I taught so many classes
in many different schools,
long-term or short.
Hundreds and hundreds of  students,
all ages, three to eighteen years old.

But how could I remember
all of them?
I was the teacher; they were there to learn.
Those were our roles; that was the contract.
They would move up and I move on, for all of us
always a new beginning.

But now and then
one will return to haunt me, like the girl
whose secret friend, Little Mister Hansford,
drove a tiny red plastic car.
I keep it now, in my drawer,
and remember.

The boy, his skin
flaking and cracked with eczema, trying to resist
the urge to scratch, but always failing.
How could he bear to wake each day to face that life?
Yet I was proud he claimed me for his brother;

On a school exchange visit,
an older girl, seventeen,  
crossing the Alps in a coach,
moved beyond tears
by her first sight of real mountains.

Do they remember?
Maybe they do.  
A young man I met by chance
one day on a Spanish street
surprised me by recalling
how I read Winnie-the-Pooh when he was small,
and did the animals in different voices.

So many children, so many years have gone,
but memories, like love, can linger on.

comparable to a parasite
but with a higher mortality rate
it has opened its mouth
and found a way to my insides
it began to multiply
an asexual creature
and slowly I was being consumed
they nested in the linings of my stomach
giving me sudden lurches
which triggered my anxiety
then frolicked in my eyelids
irritating the iris
and I was forced to cry
then such creatures
tunneled their way back to
my flaking epidermis
and for a split second my body remained its shape
but one could soon see
I fell victim to a consumption

Mechanically he put out his best press
Straightened his yellowing pages
In spite of little pieces flaking off
Like dandruff

Ow !
His spine was not as strong
As in younger presses

He bathed and used aftershave
But still he had that musty air about him

He lay claim to nervous fame
As he fidgeted with the book markers
About to be given as gifts
For her , his blind date

She came in fresh in expectation
Her beauty made him full of dejection
Her cheerful voice proved
to be more than exhaultation

He fumbled for the first sentence
Of subjection , but
Managed only to say
"Please ! I'm just an open book to be read"

She eased over
And ran her fingers over his cover .
down his bindings ,
then inside his yellowing pages

She sighed ,
with pleasure ,
"Yes , this is my perfection "

She doesn't know me, nor recognize me anymore,
as if the trees have changed shades of blue they never were
and dandelions have melted into an orange color.
She stood back in a shocked unacknowledgement
a painful stare right through my flustered skull
taking notice to every little ant but silly old me;
the chilled sizzles in her passionate eyes
passing by my attention seeking debonair,
easier than skipping stairs on her way
out of work every Friday afternoon.
she sometimes speaks to me, but the tides are shallow,
and our depths couldn't even bathe a babe.
Red flakes of the greatest nothing
incapable of breathing the slightest spark in her mind,
but her blazing hair has caught my attention.
Flaking embers that have sprinkled thousands of burnt marks
upon my coarse skin
like freckles stained to my body unable to be brushed off.
Her burnt heart is on my sleeve but I'm afraid not in my arms;
a fire pulsing through my veins like a slightly more addictive ******
because she is my little red, of course, from afar
and that is all I could ask for
no more, no less
because she is my little red

1

Another space arrives. The newborn cries.
And the destiny determined:
Oven or matchstick.

Descendant of both; inheritor of another:
A machine that dreams itself into being,
Dragging its sleeping subjects after it.

Sustenance of nightmares, the food of what
God is, blood the earth pumps forth.
The plastic legacy is siphoned off,

Its artifacts cheap jewellery:
Enamel glinting white and turquoise.
Flimsy chains that never last,

And yet last forever, the paint flaking off.
So too does the rust on this delicate orchid.
It is an oracle of poisons.


2

The city burns in its incandescence.
The indelible halo
Of a lime-green candelabra

Makes light of midnight. Our slumber is
Punctured by gunshots and the drone of the
Ambulance.

Not a foot but a juggernaut,
Pandora’s box,
Sowing the seeds of your distress.

Fallout marks the potent epoch.
The neon octopus spews it back,
Invisible print on the murderous air.

Where water drinks
No diving bell can bear
The pressure of such fuchsia.

I remember the schoolgirl days
when Sister Anne led us out in rows of
blue and white
                 [mirrored in
                 the Dutchware my father painted with
                 quick, uniform strokes]
to the school garden,
pointed hands to plant the
violets.

We breathed their air,
colonies of their gold dust
                 settled in our lungs; sometimes
we carved out twin plantlets
to grow in our window.

And for all those years
I never saw the flaking autumn nights
when Sister Anne stooped,
nunnery cast behind a bush;
crushed a violet stem between
2nd and
               3rd fingers
lit one end
smoked her eyes
                                blue.

Red post boxes stand on street corners like aged prostitutes
rusted and flaking
and they are going the way of phone boxes and TV aerial?

Are there still milkman?

Who writes letters?

Postcards from men
working down a pit?

Stuck in the trench
I killed time by attening seminars about powerful words,
the history of things,  
body language as legitimate currency
exposing the micro.

A craven emptiness screaming extinction.

First, garlic.

Dig your nails into its flaking paper,
pink and beige like magnolia petals parched
in the gutter.
Peel back the skin and crush
the weighted bud
with the heel of your hand on your favourite knife.
It has been waiting for this.
The thick expectent smell sits up on the chopping board,
looks up at you like an old friend.
It has burrowed itself into the skin of your hands and lingers there

it will not be washed away, instead
it quietly clings to your fingers, flavouring
letters on your keyboard, the edge of the banister,
every light switch in the house.

The pulped clove is scattered into a scraped frying pan,
your grandmother's; it was never non-stick.
The stuck parts were always the best bit,
and so it goes,
the oil and creamy crumbs find the same spots,
engineered over forty years.
Some were accidents. All were happy.
Yours were ambition-led experiments.
The thumbs in the brown recipe book
were never your thumbs,
the dried-out sedimentary edges
were never your mishaps
but still it is a bible of sorts,
providing answers but never asking questions.

Later after dinner when everything is cleared away
and nobody can tell that you had been cooking at all
bring your fingertips to your nose
and inhale
the remaining relic of your meal,
a letter to yourself,
the end notes enduring but faint
now, lastly
lastly
garlic.

I FEEL THE FURIES DESCEND -
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO SAVAGE A PILE OF MEAT AND MUSCLE
THE STENCH OF IT, O GOD
O GLORY SCREAMING, WHY
RAGING AGAINST SOME BROKEN
DYING THING:
PEEL THE SKIN FLAKING FROM MY BACK,
WEAR IT AS A TROPHY
FASHION MY SKULL INTO A SICKLY CROWN
YOU DESERVE THIS THRONE! YOU
REALLY REALLY DO!
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO DIE
FROM SELF HATRED
PUTRID FIRE AND MALEVOLENCE
REMINISCING LIKE OLD FRIENDS, AND
MY FINGERS LYING AT THEIR FEET
I WAS NEVER ALIVE! NOT IN THE
RIGHT WAY, AT LEAST, SING
SONGS OF MY COURAGE
SACRAMENT AND DUST SENT OUT TO SEA
ON A FLAMING BOAT
NOTHING BUT A SHATTERED URN AND A
DECK OF CARDS
AND A SUICIDE NOTE THAT SAYS SORRY,
WRONG NUMBER
THIS ISNT - THAT IS TO SAY, IM NOT -
I CANT BREATHE, NOT WHILE
EAGLES SWALLOW MY LUNGS, A FLY SWARM
TURNED HOLY SCREAMING
REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT!

A shadowy shop with
Shelves that bend and buckle
Under the weight of years.

The dust of  the decade
Lies undisturbed

Volumes lined in motley ranks
Anthologies, albums and almanacks
Heaped in
Precarious stacks.
A few flaking pamphlets.

Dream-like sepia images
Dog-eared and damp
Bulge from mildewed and
Musty manilla.

Some are excited by
The acrid smell
Of old books.

Not sure that I am.

A bargain box or a treasure chest
Who cares.

Festered and forgotten
Between the yellowing pages of
A railway timetable
Lie someone's drawings.

Quite clever.
A little deranged, if you ask me.
Nice colours

But you wouldn't want them on your wall.

"They call him a magic man"
"There's no such thing as..."
"As what, magic?"
"..."

And the coffin hit the banks in Burma
Mud on the feet of a white man, stranger
"I came in search of truth, can you help me?"
The two men sat awake, drinking alcohol
Fermented and brewed by hand and the locals watched
Flaking hut, the bamboo was broken, he wondered how

"They say he has the power to heal"
"And yet I don't believe you"
"Find him"

The trees were dusted and the Antelope were grazing
In the Kalahari I found my guide, we smoked and died
By the fireside, I lied about the tide
He took my hand, I lost my stride
The Nile ran red and I awoke covered in sweat

Phantom structures of glass and brick, apparent not to I
A world of stars and the translucent eyes of a *******
The grinning dawn was mournful as we fell from barriers
The guards were boiled alive but their guns survived
And the California beaches were beckoning

I lay down on the road, calling out to Kerouac and receiving nothing but a jolt as the cars massaged my flailing back, and the monkeys were howling as a witch doctor calls

The small boy read the lacquered book with glistening nails adorned
The tide was vile, washed him away with a sly smile

A great **** at the doors of a church, masks discarded
The preacher man watched with a snarl, upturned lip
Gripped by fear the small boy clawed his way to the banks
He banked on life
Gambled with a choice and won

Burmese man-child, hashish in the pipe
Tell me of the story of your life
The bamboo pipes

A lighter falling through space, as the astronaut suffocates
Nicotine daze and a greyish haze, through the eternal maze
And we lay awake for days and days

A tank would fall from the mountain top
Crushing just one daffodil
and the bamboo mourned

Muddy river ran dry
Today, the day I die

The flavor of the winter
on a cold morning after
a storm starts with a kitchen full
of busy hand making
while snow is flaking
a warm oven baking.

Steam laced with scents that
engage the heart in happiness while reawakening
childhood memories.

Mugs filled
with the warmth of coffee, tea, or cocoa
that soothes the throat when sipped.

Eyes smiling as
family members not together recently
give good company.

Thoughts of hope and
Happiness fill the soul and the mind
as the holidays usher the year’s end.

~Miguel

drumm drumm drummed in two
ranks of
auto-
filers whacking keys and levers and springs
slamming
edged
quantum of scripture
i e o u y vowels of no need-- back in cunieforming time
then came those monkeys with the typesetters
whose keys never got stuck
uno
marko per stroke
five 'undred per bit of etaoinshrdlu
click click cliche'
time measured by degrees in fractual
sym-metry wit' bio me

Tumeric kicks in,
eases the swelling of the bubble.

Imagine the imaginings of a child reading
funny papers
in the privy, smokin' grapevine for no

known reason, or,
maybe it appeased the flies, while I sat
upon the throne
in a tower of my own

wandering through memories of
Terry and the Pirates saving Dalai Lama
from the clutches of
the abomb-in-abled snowman,

Yet-i isis now, the Prince of Persia, once more?

No, this battle is not mine. This
war
was
won;

at that crossroad in Perry's Cafe
when the offer was made: star a footnote here
aster-risks have not been invented... we must reduce opacity.
histoical he refused the deal but  did Write the course
"The Internet in One Day"

work for hire, a good gig, then Netscape went public,

reality validated verification of the efficacy
of Feynman's reversible NAND gates,

the future was super positioned
No taxes, tarriffs or tithes; pay flat
twenty percent
for eighty in return, guaranteed in for by of
we, the people's adaptation to

Paredo's Principle versed in Solomonic Wisdom,
re-de-clearing no non new things
under the sun,
trial by

total emersion in a sea of green sans
yellah submarine,

acid etched re
collectibles dust and debris,
flotsam jetsome wetsome old girls dream

it's now, the future, 2019, and some
of us
survived the seventies in hiding,

we're back.
wee voices you ignore at your peril,

not every inspiration is from for by good.

Some are.
Some words live in the sounds they make,
hocus pocus
abra
cadabra, for instance... is heard by children

as the leaven-less wafer
transmogrifates at
the spoken words Hoc es Corpus

Genutim, non factum
magic
thinking is nothing like

what you thought, child.

The message is believable, the messengers
may
be otherwise. EH? ***-eye-say-- eee- eh?

Self-evidence is acceptible, take a hold,
get agrippa comprehension

sweet-almost
persuasive enough to mask the bitter
ever
after taste of century eggs left in the fridge too long

Biome, bio-me, self-effident-icacious
conch-ious
ness, ac
knowledged... these words lived
once,
the eggish-isms egging us on, go
on, only you...
not me, I'll wait
I've slipped, I've fallen... where's the beef? Was this a common quest?

1972. Sheizbomb, pirate orange sunshine.
1973. We reached escape velocity
1974. Trajectory changed
1975. Lost contact, she's near Cuyguna
1976. Prego
1977. Aha, the reason is born

Future 2019 will seem as real as you may
imagine. I promise,

Ever after, all, as real as you may
imagine. I promise

look, see self evident truth, act asif you know
and understand
angel talk

there remains a rest for the cadabre we inhabit,
"Dancing Queen" "Fernando"
Abba's body of disco hits, missed
by missing one decade and a half,

in sanct-if-ication vacation
to become a hermit when I grew old, if ever,

hoc corpus, eh, as long as faith remains
rememe-r-able post Sini-ification of Suffering,

(the Dragon from the East is not the beast
embodied in the west with golden head,
silver breast, brazen *****, iron legs
and flaking rusting feet of steel
stuck
in sludge ponds and stump ponds and undrained
swamps and sloughs {called wet lands by frogs and ducks})
Ah, so

The golden-green-blue dragons gracing slotmachines,
lure hopers to the slime, not
green Nickleodean slime, real slime from century eggs white
jelly gone dark, dark brown and stinky...

even if i'd tried, I'd never have imagined
eating a century egg
sans chewing, just
gulp
swallow it whole. Din't choke gk kg.

deja vu? no, you missed something.

waiting is being
Dalai Lama, half-scientist, half-otherwise aware
there, in exile,
remains hoping a peace past standing under the
acknowledging of good
and evil,

new mercies on one side, meaculpa, mea
maxima culpa,
on the other.

Who pays? Me or Jesu or the pariah one step
up from a cockroach?
Wait and see. Be still.

Don't ask Mother Teresa, she had no clue.
But she finished what she began,
that was her plan,

skip as much purgatory as abody can stand
imagining worth it all.

Me, says the hermit,
I took the grace Noah found. Wait and see. Get ready.

Google translate the Latin Mass, then imagine it
being a message you must hearken to

drum drumm drummmed into your brain before
your prefrontal
cortextual tester circuits formed and your responses

were ever etched
on the tables of your faith belivin' childheart,
sweetheart,

just think, what if good news gathering is
even-jelly-if I can. Evangelical, if I say-tion sugar pi,
event-tually we see, fine,
details, points to every true story

a bed of nails no liar may rest upon

'fi say so, semper fi.

{evangelicum laude graduates bher no bad news in ever}
--phi beta kappa, key that opens what?-- do you know

what meaning signals breathe? beat?

Take great gulping gasps of air,
affording your self
evident right

to surface, as a bubble you can breathe in.
I think we're alone now

there doesn't seem to be any one around, now

1977, that was four whole decades ago?

Right. And whenever you are, dear reader, this was
ever ago. I testify, I examined this life.

It has been worth the effort. Now I wait. Still.
Try it. Here, there,

no condemnation, the act it self just
is null-ift before asif goes whatif and we lose our value,

we balance madness. We work closely with Cleo,
she handles historical re visioning.

time out-- essential term screams for discretion, get to the grain---
What noise is this... mmmmm
Muse- muse- just, muse like
music, drummm drummm hummmmm
Define, fine, granularity, like salt or sand or sugar
but qualia
mysterium familiarus

Term definition. Lord means h'laf weardan, {Welsh}
warden,
protector of our bread,
by which man does not live alone,
owner of the tower in the vinyard where your captive enemies
languish in your wishless hate.

We wait,

we companions be, joined by the leaven from the sky

leaving footprints in granulated sugar salted sand,
feel it,

sorta sticky, like toe-jam. like mebbe toejam spreader
and the Walrus was
CS Lewis level mere signposts at degrees of little thinker
steps tick tic tic
spiraling
clock wise from up,
counter-clockwise from down

forward, ever onward, off is impossible in the land of on,
here for ever is
too much good stuff,

but that lasts (to the same level of qualia judgment degree)
mere mortal moments

flash. Here we be, wondering and wandering, to an fro,
to get a feel,

for real. This can't go on for ever, they say.
Shall we see, I say... as I passed away.
Life goes on, and no lie follows

Listen,
it's finished, that's all we need say. Live on. Be good,
or die trying. No lying about anything.

What if ever did begin and you simply failed to be aware?

It's shedding season--
a time for growth and flaking
away dry, dead cells.

There always was a face
under this mask--
living skin, stifled
under the thick, white layers
immobilized by:

fear

the expectations/exhortations/excoriations

Logic found at the bottom of
empty wine bottles,
the dregs and sludge of sediment.

Hairline cracks, deepening,
flaking, peeling,
tiny pieces, larger chunks,
the slow work of years
until

my fingers ripping, prying, tearing
a sudden rending of it all.

I raise my naked face to the sun,
feel the wind on my cheek.
Take one, long, full breath.

Hello.  It's good to be.

So the other day I put on my big, black hat and hobbled down town
(Yep, hobbled as I fell stupidly playing in the yard pretending as though I was a kid and tore a ligament)
I donned my black chucks and I was hot **** again for a while
I threw on that big fur coat my grams left me And a few of her gaudy jewels
Anyhow, I went down to "L" street and sat on that bench again
The one in that make shift "park" where they lined up a bunch of big rocks and called it good
I sat and looked at that giant lady painted on the side of that falling down brick building for more than a bit
"L" street, The bad part of town where you can get anything
Not named L street because it's L shaped, but because of a pill that apparently makes you Tripp
I guess you can or could get them there, the L pills I mean
So I sat there thinking and being mad
Staring at that giant, painted, brown woman
She advertises tobacco from 80 years ago and she's almost gone
Flaking and peeling,
Pieces of her lost to the wind, and to time itself
She smiles
And she's beautiful
And I hate her
But since I was 15, She draws me to her
That Tobacco Lady, with her smile, and red dress and feathered hair
She always smiles
When it rains, she smiles
When it snows, she smiles
Hell, when half the ******* town burned
That ***** smiled
I cry, she smiles....

That Tobacco Lady

A ghost used to dance in my mirror--
she moved like a picture taken in motion,
though her dress remained still as the background.
But she has since stopped dancing and
grown bruises beneath marigold eyes.

Once, she whispered to me “It’s not your fault,”
but her breath reeked of rotten flowers
left too long in a molding vase--
her skin delicate as dried viscaria petals,
flaking and crumbling ever since

a man’s uninvited touch lingered there.
She stands pretty from across the room,
though her beauty is measured by the distance
I have forced between us--
five feet and counting.

“Love does not exist”

“Love is ****”

“Love is just a word that we make up in our heads to fill our infinite emptiness”,

Is what I say to myself. As if I could drill these beliefs into my head, subliminal messages to soothe my cracked and flaking heart.

These lungs are my own personal generator fueling my skull

Turbines working overtime

Maybe love is the only tangible idea within this existence

Maybe I am just scared

So I bury the idea under the earth, waiting for the tree roots to weave themselves throughout my love

And sprouting a small, delicate oak tree. And one day, it will grow.

And like all flowers or trees, this seed will need water

and plenty of sunshine