He opens his Star Wars: A New Hope lunch box
Inside a hippies dream.
**** in baggies that have the superman symbol
And Batman symbol on them
Tabs of LSD
And molly.
Hunter S. Thompson would have a field day

©Gambit '13

Liturgy in Time of War

I will go to the altar of God
To God who gives joy to my youth

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON

The dawn (evening) is coming, another hot, filthy, wet dawn (evening).  Let us arise, soaked in sweat, exhausted, to speak with sour, saliva-caked mouths, to meet the deaths of this day (night).

GREETING

In the name of Peace in Our Time,
For the Hearts and Minds of The People,
For the Land of the Big PX
For round eye and white (black) (brown) thigh,
I greet you, brothers.

PENITENTIAL RITE

All:

I confess to almighty God
And to you my brothers
That I have sinned through my fault
In my thoughts and in my words
In what I have done
And in what I have failed to do,
And I ask Blessed Mary…

But how can I ask Her anything now?

My brothers,
Pray for me to…

But how?
Priest: (But there is no priest)

KYRIE

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, Lord, have mercy on us now

Have mercy, Lord, on a generation
That sits smugly in college lecture halls
And protests endlessly in coffee shops
The war they hear, see, on T.V., for free
Justice and peace by the semester hour
Like, y’know, peace, love, Amerika sux
Play the guitar, ****, apply to law school

Have mercy on us
Who crouch behind sand bags
And clean our weapons
And protest nothing
And **** in the heat
And die in the hear
And throw ham and lima beans away

GLORIA

Glory to God in the highest
how many bodies yesterday?
And peace to His people on earth
Vietnamese? Or us?
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father
ham and lima beans?
We worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory
Doc, I can’t go home to my wife with this clap
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father
cigarette, canteen cup of instant coffee
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
******* magazine
Have mercy on us
relief behind the sand bags
You are seated at the right hand of the Father
i rot
Receive our prayer
i want to be clean and dry
For You alone are the Holy One
clean and dry.  just once.
You alone are the Lord
why do they chew that?
You alone are the most high
you mean the betel nut?
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father
incoming!
Amen


PRAYER

A

Father, you make this day holy.
Let us be thankful for
The many little joys of
This day, for life, for
The chance to worship
You.  In the end, bring
Us to you, so that we
May be cleansed of mud
And sweat and filth and
Guilt, and live with you
In peace forever.

B

Father, just get me through
Another day of this mess.

LITURGY OF THE WORD –

FIRST READING

From the Intensive Care Unit, NSA DaNang

A twilight world
Of neither peace nor battle
And of both

A man world
Embracing life and the grim death
Both

Peering into infected wounds
Night building shiver
Down from the black sky flares float

Broken bodies from the war somewhere
Eyes of a shattered nineteen-year-old Marine
Staring at the door to Yokosuka

PSALM

A Song of Descents

I cast down my eyes
Into the mud
Into the blood
It seems cleaner than death and drugs and casual ***
Drink Coca-Cola

I turned my eyes away from you, O Lord
And made this
Build this
Came to this
Samantha and Darren on Bewitched

Have mercy on…but how can we ask?  How dare we ask?

SECOND READING

Old Man, Viet Nam

Old man, a dog is barking at your heels
Old man, with the tired, weathered face
Are you afraid to turn around and deal
This dog a kick, to put him in his place?

Or is it, old man, that you’re just too tired?
Just too tired to turn and show anger
Just too tired to have your temper fired
Beaten by years of contempt and danger

Where are you going, trudging so slowly?
What are you thinking, behind those tired eyes?

Probably not about ham and lima beans

GOSPEL

In the Cold White Mist

After an all-night run on the river
Our boats arrive in the village at dawn
Dawn is never cold along that rive
Along that steaming, green, hell-hot river
But the mist is cold, the grey-green dawn mist
And after the engines are cut – stillness
Foul brown water laps at the mudding bank
Sloshing softly with fertile, smelly death

In the cold white mist

The boats are secured, and watches posted
We step off the boats and onto wet land
And follow the track into the deep mist
It becomes the street of a little town
A dairy lane along which cows slopped home
And where dogs and chickens and children
      played
Bounded by carefully swept little yards
And little wooden houses with tin roofs

In the cold white mist

But some of the houses are burnt.  The smoke
Still hangs heavily in the whitening mist
The lane is littered with debris.  A lump
Resolves itself into a torn, dead child
Across a smaller lump, a smaller child
Their pup has been flung against the fence, its
Guts early morning breakfast for the morning
      flies
We smoke cigarettes against the death-smells

In the cold white mist

Beneath a farm tractor rots a dead man.
When they – they – had come at sunset
He had hidden there.  And they shot him there
A man with bare feet and work-calloused
      hands
His hair is black; his teeth need cleaning
They shot him beneath the village tractor
His blackening blood clots into the mud
And our lungs choke in the white mist of death

In the cold white mist

White mist.  The path disappears into it
Smoky skeletons of little houses
In which there will be no tea this morning
No breakfasts of hot tea and steaming rice
No old widows to smile in betel-nut
No children to mock-march alongside us
Pointing at our ******* boots, and laughing
At us, for wearing shoes in the summer

In the cold white mist

They are dead and rotting in the white mist
On the edge of the jungle on the edge
Of the world, here along the Vam Co Tay
And the people pour out of their houses
To greet us on the fine summer morning
A corpse across a doorway, another
******-doubled across a window sill
Still another strewn down the garden path

In the cold white mist

The other patrol doubles back to us
And they tell us that the Ruff-Puff outpost
Must have been overrun the night before
He had heard their radioed pleas, and had
Run the river at night to get to them
And the ARVNs had fled through the village
And the VC had stormed in behind them
And it was knife-and-gun-club night in town

In the cold white mist

A little girl is the lone survivor
She looks may six.  Cute, except for the
Bubbling, *******, bayoneted chest wound
We patch her, and tube her, and use suction
Sort of like fixing a bicycle tire
And in the wet, gasping heat take her back
With us downriver, where a charity
Hospital leaves her on the steps to die

In the cold white mist

It will be our turn again tomorrow
Not a one of us died today.  Today.
But a village is gone, burnt and rotting,
Soon to disappear into the jungle
Along the green Cambodian border
Up some obscure river.  Up there.  Somewhere.
A few hundred people.  Their ancestors’ graves
Will fade with them untended, forgotten

In the cold white mist

Radio Hanoi might blame it on us.
But maybe not.  We made our report and
Nobody really noticed; no one cared
The talk is of the VC battalion
And where it has gone, and where it might go –
Maybe into death under an air strike
“And you guys better get in some sack time,”
Says the C.O. as he turns to his maps.

In the cold white mist

HOMILY

I’m scared, and I want to go home.  I don’t care any more about justice or fighting Communism or winning the hearts and minds of the people.  I can’t think about all that right now, because I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I don’t care about truth or loyalty or bravery or honor.  If Miss March were here she wouldn’t get cold, but she sure would get sunburnt.  And in a few days her skin would start rotting.  Then nobody would want to see her in the **** anymore.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
Up the Vam Co Tay, everyone is scared, everyone is tired, everyone is sick, everyone could die: sailor, soldier, officer, priest, farmer, fisherman.  Everyone rots in the wet heat.  The skin bubbles and flakes and peels, and is pink again, to bubble and flake and peel again.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I’m Doc.  I’m a scared, stupid kid with an aid bag and a few months’ training.  But I’m Doc.  I’ve got to fake it.  I’ve got to be cool and calm because this other kid with his guts hanging out will probably make it if I don’t ***** up and if the dust-off from Saigon can get out here now.
I have an old dog at home, and my folks write and tell me she sleeps outside my window at night, waiting for me to come home.  Someday we’re going to run and play in the woods and fields again.  She’ll bark and run wide circles, and dare me to catch her.  I will laugh under the autumn leaves.  But now my nights are glaring darkness, fits of sweat-soaked half-sleep, then sirens and falling glares and falling mortars, and then the Godawful racket of all our engines of destruction.  There isn’t any use in all this.
I’m scared, and I want to go home.

And I don’t want any ham and lima beans.

CREED

We believe in the Land of the Big PX
In presidents in suits, and generals,
In makers of economic strategies
We believe in flak jackets and .45s and peace

We believe in swing ships and dust-offs, yes
In the dark, green omnipresent Huey
Eternally begotten of technology
Blades to rotor, windscreen to machine guns
Made, not begotten, one in being with us
Through it all things are transported to us
For us men and our hunger and our hope
It comes down from the skies
By the high power of technology
It was born of the long assembly line

For whose sake are we crucified today?
Who suffers, and who dies and is baggied?
And on the third will arrive back home
To be neatly packaged in stainless steel

But not in ham and lima beans

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Preparation of the Gifts

Celebrant:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.
Through your goodness we have this cheap Algerian wine to offer,
Fruit of the vine and work of human hands.
It will become anaesthesia for our souls.

People:

Blessed be…we just don’t know

Celebrant:

Pray, brothers, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father, to somebody.  Maybe.

People:

May the Lord, or the baggies, accept the sacrifice we offer with
our own burnt hands
For the praise and glory of…of what?
For our good, and the good of all His Church.

PRAYER OVER THE GITS

Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Air cover’s gone away.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Preface for the Monsoon Season:

Father, all-powerful
And ever-living God,
We do well always and everywhere
To give You thanks
Through Jesus God our Lord
Even with diarrhea
thanks
When the mail doesn’t come
thanks
When we rot
thanks
When the heat ***** at our brains
thanks
When the mud ***** at our boots
thanks
When the horror ***** at our souls
thanks
We’re alive
thanks

SANCTUS

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might
The bunkers are full of blood and death.
Hosanna in the mud.  Blessed is he who comes with the mail.  Hosanna in the mud.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

The Kien Tuong Province Canon:

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
Along a steamy river
Mostly helmet and flak jacket
Above dark plastic gunwales

The sailor has lost his New Testament
But there’s a ******* around somewhere
Naked, willing women –
Miss March wants to be an actress

He also carries an old plastic Rosary
To touch occasionally
While whispering a hurried Hail Mary
He hopes She understands

Those who in bell-bottoms and head-bands
Fight Fascism
In Sociology 201
Will never forgive him

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
This day he is to be elevated
His body broken and his blood shed
For you and for all men

OUR FATHER

Our Father, who art in Heaven
this ain’t it
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
this ain’t it
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day…
not ham and lima beans
And forgive us our trespasses
as we shoot them that trespass against us
And lead us not into ambush
But deliver us from evil

SIGN OF PEACE

Peace on you.

AGNUS DEI

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy….

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

Priest:

(But there is no priest)

People:  

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,
But only say the word and I shall be killed.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON

They ate, and were not satisfied
They killed, and were not without fear.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Lord,
If we do not get out of this
Make some sense of it to those who remain
May we go home.  Home.  Or if not,
Take us unto you, in mercy.
Home.  Where you reign, for you are Lord
Forever and ever.  Amen

BLESSING

May you walk on grass that does not explode
May you sleep without rot
Without fear
May you never see or smell ham and lima beans again.
May you live
May you play with puppies
May you find forgetfulness
May you find peace
In the Name of Him who took your death for you

DISMISSAL

This is to certify that____is Honorably Discharged from the____on theday of____.  This certificate is awarded as a testimonial of Honest and Faithful Service.

CLOSING HYMN

Old men, smoking in the sunshine
Exiled outside the doors of life
Old uniforms, old pajamas
The chrome of wheelchairs, shiny, bright

Inside, polished wooden handrails
Line the hot, polished passages
Something to cling to on the way
To the lab, to x-ray, to death

And more old men, shuffling along
In a querulous route-step march
From Normandy, from The Cho-sen,
From the Vam Co Tay, from the deserts,
Past the A.I.D.S. ward and the union signs
On waxed floors to eternity

Portions previous published:

“Closing Hymn” is from “Outpatient Surgery – Veterans’ Hospital,” Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1993

“In the Cold White Mist” is a Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1991

“Old Man, Viet-Nam,” was published in Pulse, Lamar University, 1982

Comes in Jars
Comes in little **** baggies
Comes in Wrapped up clear wraps
Comes in capsules
Comes in bottles
Comes in a "100% organic" jars from the smoke shop
Comes in a friends hand
Comes in a pouch
Comes in eyedrops
Comes in as the best gift

"Everyone wants to be a little anorexic" she says

"You know, like, in a glamorous way, like fashion friendly anorexic"

I bite my cheek and nod, pretend to agree

All I can think of is waking up to stars dancing on the ceiling

Pale skin with bruises of unknown origins

And battered feet on and off the scale

Almonds in Ziploc baggies

Bite marks on fingers

Hair down the drain

Measuring crunches by the marks they leave on your spine

And battered feet on and off the scale

Enough water to turn organs into boats

Eating an apple with a fork and knife

Desperate hands grasping for ribs

And battered feet on and off the scale

Standing and the world going dark

Coughing around shots of apple cider vinegar

Carrying an emergency rice cake for weak spells

And battered feet on and off the scale

Enough green tea to drown organs

Sugar free gum to mask the smell of decaying organs

Whatever nail polish covers yellow and purple

And battered feet on and off the scale

How many calories are in toothpaste

Thinspo blogs

Pillows squeezed between thighs

And battered feet on and off the scale

Is today the day my heart gives out

Waking every day in a new body

Fingers clasped around wrists

And battered feet on and off the scale

Notebooks filled with numbers

Purple crescents under eyes

Fingers clasped around forearms

And battered feet on and off the scale

Elbows knocking into hipbones

Being scared of your own reflection

Lies to get out of dinner

And battered feet on and off the scale

The stench of *****

Oxygen that tastes of Splenda

Fingers clasped around biceps

And bleeding feet on and off the scale

 

If this is your idea of glamour

Then you can have it

save breath for later
lungs in a tupperware
container
ziplock baggies full
of sounds
the ones, the words
I'm too tired to make

hang my eyelids
on the clothesline
to dry, leave the weight
behind

pull all my teeth
plant them in the ground
grow some new ones
place them in my mouth
and let them fall out
that's not how to smile

I rode a curb side
dust devil into
the low side of
town.
Found myself
adrift right along side
the lip stick stained
cigarette butts,
empty dime baggies and
a city days worth
of welfare diapers
and plastic bottles who
will out last us all.

Same old dogs
along the same
old streets.
Dogs so old
they no longer
lift their legs to ****.
Its a bit shameful
but a Hell of alot
less painful just
to let it go where
you lay or stand.

Bad kids with
big sticks and
fist fulls of
C cell batteries
chase the winos
along the railroad tracks.
They generate
terror and call it fun.

Televised Gods
for your televised mind.
Fall asleep with the
lights on ,leave
something to guide
me back home.

Blame it all on me
and I'll leave before
the hate sets in.
My time here is
far past due,
summers over and
the rare California rains
have come in.

I came only for the
weather and whatever
there was to drink.
Moonshine Cherries and
Jameson on ice.

The conversations all died with
that last bottle of whisky.
The mason jars are all empty
and this passing moment
feels right
for me to leave with.

The Jungle Cat and his mate,
Captain Hectic, tell me
I am no longer a player in this game,
I have stepped back and I am now...
An overseer? A witness?! A referee even? Or just above or beyond it all?

Yet still he sits at The Vipers House,
Being eaten alive by invisible sharks
Of one who has been in the game Far longer than he
One who bats her lashes
And incites guilt from housewife
hospitality.
   And all these many, merry men,
How They do
flock and flutter
Like moths to a flame, that is just more darkness
****** in by neon lights and fake bluster.
  

Roundabout,
So here we go again,
Sweeping up any evidence of this deal
Baggies, pins and needles,
a twisted array of steel,
Tiny shards of Zero
Left out for The Key
To clean

She will hold her heart
So Tight inside now,
  She does
Lock it till the chains ****** her skin
This screaming pain,
The vicious words
   just too much
For one dissociative to bear.

Can't feel the brutality
Of the words,
Like knives, one upon another
Straight into her heart,
   No she can't feel it, won't feel it,
Just turns her head away,
   Switches her heart to off...

She won't be hurt anymore....

Nope.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCXCVI)


I lick my finger slowly, with a sense
In closing as of stealing frosting, pale
As aught compare, th'espresso's foam detail
Tinged subtly with milk's sweetness for intents,
Like that finale suited for it hence,
The rainy blacktop half dried in betrayl,
While minutes tiptoe by on wings more frail
Than insects' glassy touch we note from thence.
Prepare their lunch with baggies for as twere
Thin cleanliness, cuz honey's sticky to
A fault; cube our potato like in tour
What, eh?  I tossed my brother's typed note, knew
Not that twas worth aught, and discuss how poor
Tis that all's typed, not writ by hand.  And you?

21Mar19b

My next door neighbour
Is again kicking up a fuss,
So I creep up to the window
To see if I can suss,
I can't feel but upset
Is there something I dont get?

All the accolades up on the wall;
Fathers puffed out chest,
Misses in a fur shawl.
Memories framed everwhere
So many styles of hair!
Tickets to only the best shows
At front row yeah you dun kno!

I look away and with jealous dismay,
The latest car of this day you can finance with this pay unused on the drive way!

Suitcases packed, postcards sprawled on the wall,
Sun burnt in the chritmas islands
Been drenched from Niagara falls.

I look back in my window
Its all grey and dull.
There aint no one writing good times on my wall.
No happy birthdays, no pictures to share,
How can I prove that I existed?
Its like I wasn't even there.

Its bare because privacy is something that I care for,
Places I've been, therefore, I haven't captured those moments in time
Through components that engineer a digital eye.

But still, I can't help but wander into that snippet of their lives,
And wonder why it can't be mine.

But if only I could actually go through that door.
Living room on my right,
door locked tight,
The rest of the house is as grey and bleak as mine!?

Skeleton hands closing closet doors,
Not so distant relatives travelling alone in the halls.
The friendly ghosts of schools past,
Will tell you what they thought of them last; revealing why they no longer a part.

Neglected pets, ex's to forget, nasty little texts that capsized lives into wrecks.
Used baggies and tickets, earthy daggers and spigots that buried all the nasty and ***** secrets.
All the zits, the emptied makeup bags.
That was used as a mask to hide the upset and sad.

I peep in the living room (just one more time).
Yes, it's brighter than mine,
But I realise that I dont parade my life.

Peoples square or round window are always exciting but never do they let you look further in because it will unfurl their world and you might just start to realise they are just like everybody else!

Gosh, they are moddest when they are praised!
But no attention, well their wall will get another decorate until someone succumbs, ups a thumbs and shouts out 'you're great!'

My living room is better than yours!
There's these unwritten rules
Of the modern day society norms.

Get yourself into debt, when do you next jet set?
Aw your kid has taken their first step! What a pet!
Big bright signs signal the window display
"Look at my life, it's greater than great!"

Everyone, All role up this way
"I need you to see how my life is great.
Please don't go away"
Now their brain is racing, the fame needs chasing,
All for barren validation

if i could
       i would take that smile
       and inject it directly into my bloodstream

my parents warned me about drugs in baggies
       sold on the street
but never the ones
         with teeth
         and a heartbeat

-MM

Today, I want to sink my chest into yours.
Your heart pumping blood through my veins for a bit, mine doesn't want to anymore.
Let's trade.
I'll put my brain on ice.
Wash this skull cavity with some minty fresh chemical while my wrinkled pink mother board discovers cryogenics.
When I place it back Into my tingly, almost numb now, chemical washed head
I will still feel heavy.
I want to turn to a whisp.
Like the Night Elves in World of Warcraft.
A floating blue orb of energy
Just a spirit, weightless.
Let me live as electricity, like that spark you felt .
Like that spark they all felt.
Place me in the power lines so I can power houselights and televisions.
Let me be usefull for something again.
Don't convert my head though.
Keep that on Ice.
Better still, creamate
everything but my heart.
Let the ashes get caught
in carpets and drain pipes
Kept in little ziplock baggies,
Tucked in a wooden box,
Kept back seat of my mothers car,
So she can hold it once in awhile.
Until she parks her car in a bad part of town
And a homeless man breaks in
Doesn't steal the gps, or her wallet on the front seat,
But snorts me three hours later
Thinking he just hit the jack ***.
That's where I want to be.

In the lungs of some car burglar
Where his addiction should have been,
coughing on my ashes.

He won't get my heart though.
Keep that frozen in a white room.
Smelling of copper, by a tray of tools,
Latex gloves and paper masks.

One day, thaw it out
bring life to someone.

I was given, at my first birthday party,
a gift sublime, a lovely, lush garden
I played among its fonts and flowers,
traded baseball cards with Atlas and Athena,
rolled in high grass with iridescent dragons

Then one fine day through leaflets high,
I spied a fat juicy fig, haloed by Summer sun
The tree was poison, I knew, its sweet fruit
most likely bad as well, but in my arrogance
I climbed the trunk, got tangled in its branches

I lost control, lost something never truly held,
and fell, through viney snarls and vicious thorns
Fell farther than I ever rose, to putrid death,
moldered slime beneath the canopy
of verdant paradise on gentle hillside above

I crawled about in mud and earthen warrens
Slowly, year by year, learned to walk again
But arrogant I remained—had not my
lesson learned, and so I doubled-down,
made mockery of this chance for redemption

All the sweet virgins did I ****, and teach
our children sin, in crystalline waters
I did shat on mulched fields, amber and green,
with cigarette butts and baggies blowing
listless on Autumn winds

When Winter finally came, as winters must,
to **** off weakened souls, and make
the garden ready for new attendants,
I did not learn, I did not take the blame...
It's Him, I cried, I have not power to do this!

But then my youngest daughter sobbed
She watched, sadly, out clouded, grimy windows
and, looking up at my limpid, sullen eyes
crawled into my arms one last, lonely time
to face what I could not...

Behold, the Silent Spring

Flabs upon *****
of excessive skin
flock towards the sands
to soak up the rays of
the day light hours
and delude themselves
in the roped off
safety zone waters
of the seashore.
Benched from lack of participation,
sober and observant,
you can't help but overhear
a conversation about the salty tastes
and textures of boys *******
between four teenage girls
who look like they just entered
the early stages of middle school
and should not know anything,
at that age,
about that topic of discussion.
Seagulls slowly glide overhead
waiting for the perfect moment
to bomb white droppings in the
******* mouths of the hodads
and steal their bacon while they
quickly scurry off and guffaw
on the inside.
Young ladies *****
hang proudly out of their
skimpy bathing suits and stare
into the sunken eyes of perverse old men. Socks and sandals roam the shores
like tyrants to detect metals
in the sand with their hiked up baggies, buttoned up blue Hawaiians
and fisherman hats.
They'll find god before
they find these treasures.
Unsupervised children puke peaches
and use plastic shovels
to pour buckets of sand
down the backs and cracks of rubbernecks with discourtesy and no remorse.
Adults shaded, relaxed and
nose deep in books
leave the responsibilities
of their parental duties
with inexperienced lifeguards
to babysit their youngsters
while they doggie paddle
and submerge in the undertow
along the waves of the oceanside.
Concession stands serve
delicious yet unhealthy,
deep fried grotesque of
appetizers and entrees
to the potbellied roly-poleys
as they wash it all down
with a fountain of syrup
and carbonation.
Bare footed beefy **** diesels
and their skinny minis
walk hand and hand
over the broken beer bottles
and sharp rocks buried in the sand,
unscathed and luxuriate
in teenage love
and summer fun.
Dorks and dweebs
play sand sphere
with bunnies and honeys
while Gremlins and grommets
hunch like Quasimodo
on their surfboards
and ride the ankle busters
and pounders til the end
as they hit the bone yard
at point break.
The sun shines down on all of us
leaving that warmth and radiant glow
as you watch the mythical creatures
and sea serpent shaped clouds
slowly overpass.
What a lovely day at the beach.

Dear Mom,
I know I shouldn’t have been
snooping, but when looking
for some socks on a day when I was
still living with you and had neglected
to do my laundry, meticulously paper clipped
in your drawer, I found a 26-page document
that made my insides curl
when I saw the name of Dad’s mistress
printed blatantly on the front cover.
Yes, I looked through it
(and I know I shouldn’t have) and I don’t know
what made me more disturbed—the fact
that you took the time, ink and paper
to look up the woman who
destroyed your marriage
on public records,
and neatly annotated the highlights
of her messy divorce
prior to meeting Dad—or that this
26-page monstrosity sat innocently beside
his old Valentine’s Day cards,
still painstakingly arranged by year, mixed in
with your daughters’ decade-old crayon drawings
captioned by the loopy letters of a child’s handwriting
next to little plastic baggies with worn edges
containing baby teeth,
the roots yellowed by age and decay.

You never let anything go, do you?
You hold time captive by the wrists
until the soft skin bruises, and even when
it finally jerks itself away, you still manage
to sweep up every speck of dust
its presence
left behind, and store it
perfectly labeled in your archives
like some neurotic historian,
where you think your daughter, who was
only looking for a pair of socks,
would never just happen to stumble upon
this hoarded material record
of every ******* thing
that torments you.

We tend to listen to limits brought forth from the lips of liars
Like a **** who has his eyes on them dollars
Pyramid schemes you know you start from the bottom
Thoughts of a girl that never knew her father
Heels navigating across the cracks of concrete a avenue princess calling another man dad
Unaware who she is in Christ her reality is sad
Horrid..
the love of money cements the foundation of prostitution
Street pollution  empty drug baggies and used Trojans
For protection
Her street name  is black magic
Pimped by Mr. Voodoo the witch doctor of human traffic
When she put on them tights man the hex is on
Walking from corner to corner shaking it like pepper corn
Fire... the blocks are hellish her only glimpse of heaven
Is when the ****** breaks yet some how she never gets pregnant
God is a keeper in the eye of the storm
Ask the samaritan woman
Several men
Lets say 5  husbands
Belonging to others
Yet Christ brought life to the equation
Like a baby is still a blessing even though birth by a ******
The dove brought back a olive
But there is redemption for the raven
Now who is telling her
When no one is speaking heaven
But speaking sulfur appealing to the hell in her
While she crying on the inside
Too busy relying on the entry to her insides
Uncoached in the hearts on men
Does she know thats where sin lies
**** telling her he love her as he offer her over to dudes  he sends lies
Drunk love ?
Music intoxicating her brain waves
To street demons she plays a *** slave
Every night is Halloween
Put the mask on, costume on
Disguised in the streets yet exposing thighs and cheeks
Men lapping the way dogs desire treats
Flesh exchange like the reduction of a liquid
Flame hits the pan its flavor intensifies for an instant
shimmering salacious sin
Nearing the end as time gets  slain
Yet she collects more than just dollars and cents
A piece of them remain
Soul tied to her spirit
Tainted
But who going be the nurse and show her to the physician
Registered in the salvation army
Delivering rations of life
Give her a mirror  and show her the fathers image
You see his likeness you were created in it
For a while you were Satans tenant
He gladly accepted your sin for rent
Demonic commerce
Oxygens prince
Warden  over the prison of ******* souls
You see Christ shattered the locks
Satans key doesn't work anymore
Freedom
The blood of Christ like Harriets shotgun
covering you as your flesh makes attempts to go back
Now the world call loose women hoes
But God is a redeemer of vessels
You see his definition is that of a  pathway in which living water flows
Redeemed by the King
Take a drink
Her thirst forever quenched

The gravel crunches
as we walk
and it's cold.

We push our breaths out
of chapped lips, and wipe
away dried spit, with nicotine
fingers.

Pigeon feels the baggies in his pockets
full of vicodin,
that's gonna get us ****** up.

His fingers look like earthworms through his jeans
as he gropes for the baggy.

I get that jolt, just thinking about it;

that jolt of happiness you feel right before you get
real ****** up.

I look around and pull out a Camel Light,
because that's all we smoke.

And light up. It's real
white out, white and cold.

The moon's fat as a snowflake
and foggy up there too.

I move my toes,
and can't feel a thing,

****.

We crunch through the woods,
catching glimpses of the moon, and the lake
through the trees.

I want to hit this fifth of Henny
jerking in my backpocket,
but I'm saving it.

Pigeon stops.

Me and Gus keep walking.

Pigeon coos.

We turn around.

He whips out the plastic baggy,

In the moonlight the Vicodins look
like those tiny, candy skulls you get on halloween.

The stench of ****, *****, and feces
immediately hit my senses
as I step over ***** syringes
and white, powdered filled baggies
the imperfect combination
of ****** and overdose
the drool dripping out of their mouths
and the sight of eyeballs rolling
into the back of heads
I see the hookers who parade around
in their birthday suits
who's bodies resembled that
of a skeletal corpse, and of course
who can forget the music
that shakes the exterior
of a cracking foundation
half-dead bodies moving and grooving
to the sound of a repetitive beat
but the irony out of all this of course
is the transaction.....
the meeting between men
the sell of deadly prescriptions
and the lost of finances
only to repeat its licentious cycle again
but this is nothing.... it's actually quite normal
in the stomping grounds of the ghetto....

Devils and mercenaries
Dislocated shoulders
Second hand panic
Static cling

Visions broadening perception
Decrepit linoleum houses
Men in the front yard, *****
Crawling in search of a fix and some pants
Viles of junk, baggies of powder
An unexpected destiny of agony
Forced to dress up to please a higher society

They won’t let me go
With all the information I know
The despicable disciple’s pillars of animosity and distain toward the rebellious over flow

Never a hunter always a prisoner
The bounty is huge for this lone survivor
Two lunatics in a rubber room
One claims to be captain of a magic carpet
The other believes his skin is on inside out
Both sunburned and daffy

Her armada of refusal of failure goes unmatched
Even my resistance is unparalleled to hers

Electric shocks, water torture, brands, beatings, lashings and floggings
My beard is torn from my face

We will not surrender our splendid fascinations of the galaxy for you provincial ideals of pain and suffering to teach the divine path to enlightenment
How sadistic

We both lay silent and prepared
****** and bruised
Devising the slaughter of their brutal oppressive cult

Today, we have surgery
I sink my chest into yours.
Your blood pumping through my veins for a bit,
I feel heavy.

I want to turn to a whisp.
Like the Night Elves in World of Warcraft.
A floating blue orb of energy
weightless electricity,
Spirit in the power lines, like that spark we felt.
Tealight in a gas stove, left on for 6 months

When I am cremated
My ashes will be Kept in little ziplock baggies,
Filed away in the back seat of my mothers car,
Until she parks in a bad part of town
You break in
Leave the quarters for the tolls
Leave the GPS cupped to the windshield.
Then snort me, in my mothers backseat.
Thinking you just hit the jack ***.
That's where I will be.
Charcoal cave painting your nasal cavity
coating the inside of your lungs like a cigarette.
Replacing your addiction.

This surgery
The Aorta of copper perfume,
Scalpels summoning blood,
I, scavenged from the wreckage

my heart inside you,
the rest scrapped in a kiln.

If they botch the surgery
cold Iron will be the last thing you smell.

I, a spark
grounding from your chest.

Heart still beating.

Suddenly I am but an artifact
My bones are brittle, they crumble back to earth with the slightest breeze
Where there was once flesh is now non-existent
The heart that urgently pumped blood, the veins and arteries that carried it, the lungs that drew desperate breaths, the brain that ordered them to do so; all gone
Let my room become a museum of the only joys that never left me
Every corner of my room filled with something that temporarily filled my heart
The rocks, dried plants, mass printed fortune cookie fortunes, cat whiskers, miniature clothes pins, small pieces of pretty string and little baggies, things given and things found, the empty lighters, the scraps of paper I deemed pretty enough to keep, the unfinished sketchbooks and old paint brushes, the books that broke my heart and the ones that helped it heal, the collage of pictures of my childhood where all our eyes looked so empty, the vinyl records, the small old stuffed animals, the few objects from my infancy, the knives that cut my wrists and legs
Let all these things fill the silence or emptiness that I may have left
Cling to them like I did, find comfort in their stationary presence
or is it better to let it be another closed door, another empty room
Where you swear if you're quiet enough, you can hear my laughter and faint emo music
A room where my cats wander in circles crying out for me, wondering when I'll come home
Make a home within the ache like I did
Let the pill bottles tell the story of me slowly wasting away

You left me standing here
With no plastic baggies
Who's gonna clean up the mess that was my heart?

Or will it dry in the sun
Until the flies don't even come around anymore?
Will it be eaten by dogs?
Do you even CARE????

Posted up,
Trap Keeper's
what
my girl call me,
a few baggies
near my belly button,
and my 6-inch demon
below it,
when I hand you something,
I hand it from the bottom of my stomach,
imma make you love yourself,
for a few moments
Imma be the most beautiful thing you've ever seen,
you might even love me back,
might even love my shirtless
breast, the way my tattoos
swirl and alligators pop off the letters on my chest,
I might just swallow you whole
and make you another part of my arsenal,
another inch to the sixes.

How empty the feeling
of standing under broken skies
when the moonlight beckons all those lonesome, home
Or how the baggies breach branches on the oak trees
on a park before town
where empty beer cans swivel in brilliant winds
and kids dare not go
for the guns come out in droves
- firing squad of the soul

If i could
i would take that smile
and inject it directly
into my bloodstream

my parents warned me
about drugs in baggies
sold on the street

but never the ones
with teeth
and a heartbeat

*****

how would you like it

the bartender
sighs the lord’s name in vain
understood the slurred wittiness

wobble onto stool
****** over
joining the rest of the line

sweet

the sound
system jests that one song
about a breakup
puke on the sofa next to your carpet

it’s yellow
swayed hips
shoulders give way

diluted In and Out closed
turn over

moist

to the Devil’s dance floor
where a pretty ugly Frenchie took your wrist
foot strikes a patch of ice
popped cherry on a yellow wheel stop

get up dizzy
scrape on forearm
the impassionate spring fever

wrapped around neck
constrains body against

*****

hands stroked rock hard back

she asks if she could have a stick

reached into baggies
pulled out a yellow
she takes halo
you took halo

got into the convertible

a silent triumph when you insert your key

twist


---
by Aleksander Mielnikow (Alek the Poet)

Jimmy's pad
was a rockin' place.
Like small mountain ranges,
mounds of pinkish-flake
covered the mirror.

His triple beam
balanced baggies
twenty-four seven,
while his harem of ******
went from door to door,
snorting huge lines &
******* massive *****
of the wide-eyed,
strung-out paranoids.

These vampires
always seemed
on the run,
jonesing, looking
out of the windows
'till four am,
sick for more
of the blow.

sometimes i wonder
how i would have turned out
if you didn't decide that i was worthless.
would i be the person i am today?

would i still be wandering
lost around my own house
in a drugged up daze,
blood dripping from my wrist?

would you still ignore
all the ashes on my carpet
and the bottles and baggies
making a rug of their own?

would you still bring me
the things that i ask for
even though you see
what they are making me into?

would you still turn away
when i shove my arms in your face
forcing you to see
my feelings in the flesh?

suddenly, i realize that i am glad
you decided i was not worth your time
because you only made me
into a shell of who i was

not who i am now.

I think my "drug problem" started in seventh grade
When my best friend opened her mouth and showed me her teeth made of pretty pills
And saliva tasted like whiskey
It progressed in eighth grade when we started sneaking ***** into school instead of water bottles
She started drinking spiked coffee on the daily
Bringing in baggies of rummy gummy bears
Over the summer she smoked ***
And I learned to swallow three pills at a time
Our freshman year we skipped three days in a row
And I learned how to disguise the smell of cigarettes into bubbly perfumes
I got prescribed yellow little bottles  
Over the summer I smoked ***
Sophomore year came and we skipped school l
Till my parents caught on
We snorted our first pill together
I started buying
Over the summer
We partied
Till we puked
She got arrested
And I learned how to line

I have more used plastic baggies with remnants of **** left in them than I know what to do with

We’ve gone through so many

Maybe that’s why I can’t remember anything but you…

I like having them

I smell them when I miss you because they smell like you

Because they smell like us.

I have an extra lighter with me because you always forget yours

I light it when I miss you

I touch it when the flame dies just to feel the warmth on the tip of my thumb

It reminds me of how you get a little too close 

It reminds me of your warmth.

That lighter

I love the sound it makes when I grind the gears and press down swiftly

The click and the whoosh of the flame springing to life

It takes me to nights when fireworks and stars paint the sky

It takes me to our rock in our stream in our kingdom of trees and fresh water

It takes me to the sun gleaming in your eyes

It takes me to flower-flourished fields. 

The flame takes me with it as it dances

And I dance through my memories

Tracing my steps until I find each moment we have shared

I dance until my eyes slowly close

And then I dream of you 

I dream of you and wish you were here

But this is just a dream…

I wish we could dance forever.

When the breeze is stagnant and the water is
still, maybe this is
a sign you should look up,
because if this world can stop the wind in
it's tracks, imagine what it could
do to the air in your lungs.
How many times have you pulled grass out of the ground while pondering what went wrong
Maybe if you listened harder to the breeze you could understand its telling you to never find comfort in boys who find more happiness in illicitly filled baggies than you
It could take me walking an entire desert to know
Love is not quite as easy as quicksand
and the more you try to keep your arms free,
the closer you'll be to missing something, but I'll always be walking

She is there at the water’s edge
Most any day she can wheedle and whine her mother to the water,
From the intermittent teasing warmth of late March
And all through the languid North Country summer
Until such time she is there,
Mitten-clad and scarf-wrapped like some miniature Tut,
Bracing against January’s razor-blade winds in those last few days
Until the few gurgling rills and streamlets are nothing but ice
All the way up to the big river in Ogdensburg.
She scrambles down to the bridge abutment
Hard by the Riverside Cemetery
Dropping a Popsicle-stick craft
(Its sails snips of cloth or bits of green-bar paper,
Its cargo a message stapled into a sandwich bag)
Into the river, sent on its way
With a brief and whispered benediction.
Most times, the craft founders almost immediately,
Taken under by a sudden gust of wind or large stick
Perhaps a carelessly tossed forty-ounce Hamm’s empty,
But on occasion the boat will stay upright and precariously totter along
Until it slips out of sight past the bend near the hospital,
And she claps her hands, convinced that yet another one
Is on its way to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the great blue ocean.
An onlooker might cluck and shake his head,
And tell her that such a toy
Would never make it outside the village limits,
Certainly never past the big bridge on Route 58 at Elmdale
Or the one further on up past Pope Mills,
Let alone to the Seaway,
But he might check himself, perhaps sensing
That there had been disenchantment
For one life already,
So he might instead make gentle inquiries
As to what messages are carried in the plastic baggies.
She would (her voice all mock-sterness though the eyes betray her)
Answer simply That is between me and the angelfish.