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Victoria Kiely Oct 2013
The rain beat the pavement as the man ran to a nearby bus shelter holding a newspaper over his ragged hair. The rain hitting the glass was nearly deafening, but there was comfort in the sound. A public transit bus comes and goes, recognizing the bleak figure immediately. This was, after all, his commonplace - the closest thing he had to a home in the past two years.
"Get a job", people would say, as if it were ever really that easy.
He had been diagnosed with depression after his wife’s passing nearly four years ago and suffered alone as he mourned and pushed through what most people see as a normal life. On the outside, it was unapparent how miserable he had become, unable to share the world with another as he had now for so many years. He came to his cubical on time each day, he worked until the late afternoon had came and went, and he left without a word. He was the unnoticed face in a crowd.
All at once, he lost his drive to live his life. He stopped showing up to work, he did not pay his bills, he didn’t answer the door or the phone. The clear print reading “EVICTION NOTICE” had meant nothing to him. He took only the essential things with him as he left behind an empty house behind. The last thing he put into his bag was a copy of the Odyssey, worn now after so many years of attentive reading.
The tattered copy sat open on his crossed legs, the moment passing by. The walls of the shelter sheild him from the wind and welcome him into their embrace. the adequecy of lighting was questionable as the sun descends and the world loses its colour. A streetlamp flickers to life and casts an ominous glow onto the street beneath it. He continues to read about the long journey of a man trying to find his way home, not unlike himself. What’s happening on the page is disconnected from thepart of the world that he is trapped on; he watches his secret world become a vivid painting beneath his hands and turns the page.
"Hello," said a man waiting for another bus to take him to a far off place.
He didn’t respond.
"I take it you like the book, judging by the condition…" The man tried again to grasp his attention. His dark figure loomed on the other side of the glass.
"I do", he said.
"What’s your name, son?"
He paused, turning to fully look at the man. “Its Tristan,” he said, contemplating the man as he stepped into the light. The man shuffled into the shelther gingerly, leaving behind the loud clack of his cane. His clothes chaffed against the skin on his legs, and he carried his fedora in his hand. He creased his face in pain as he sat beside Tristen.
"My name is Connor Wright", he breathed heavily, struggling to continue. "I have a spare copy of that book myself, laying around at home. No use to myself. Would you want to have it? I can bring it to you the same time next week"
"How do you know I will return it?"
"Perhaps I don’t want it back"
The silence stretched. “I would like that very much, sir” replied Tristan.
A dark blue bus pulled up to the stop without warning and stirred the stillness in the air. The headlights shone in their eyes and caught the edge of the mans thick-framed glasses. “I will see you next week then”
Each week came and passed as Mr. Wright began to bring Tristan books frequently, exchanging each new book for the last. “Why do you treat me with such kindness when I have nothing to give?” Tristan would ask him each week, never recieving an answer.
A year passed by in the presence of the silent agreement. Mr. Wright would often bring Tristan a warm container filled with soup, or a sandwhich left over from lunch to accompany his reading for the night.
On a cold night in april, Tristan waited at the bus stop for the greying man. He spotted him across the street as he waved to him. Tristan, flashing his increasingly more common smile, returned his vivid wave in the direction of Mr. Wright.
"Hello Tristan", he began as always with a bright smile. His distinct aroma filled the hollow bus shelter - a mix of burnt wood, but also new paper and musk, and apparent paradox. After a brief conversation, Tristan took the book out of Mr. Wright’s frail hands.
The bus arrived shortly thereafter and Mr. Wright borded the exhausted vehical, taking his time going up the short stoop of stairs.
This book was rather unlike the other books that Mr. Wright had given him in the past months. His books had usually been full of journeys abundant with creatures, or filled to the brim with a quaint scenery, embodying an allegory in a far off place. The book he held in his hands was called “Darkness Visible”. It was a self-help book for those in the winter of their lives, much as Tristan was, though he hated to admit it.
He opened the page of the book and the spine cracked as the smell of fresh ink and paper filled his senses. This book was new.
He read with curiousity at first, which later turned to deep interest, and later still, turned into inspiration. The following week, Tristan returned this book to Mr. Wright as he told him that he would not be returning to the bus stop with any more new books. “I wish to see you again in the future”, he said, handing Tristan a slip of paper with his name and phone number on it.
Many years passed by and the two men kept regular contact, discussing the endevours of Tristan and his success in his new life.
"Doctor Spense, you have a visitor" his secretary informed him in her usual airy tone.
"Send them in, please"
A man with strong lines creased into his face turned the door handle and entered his office at Kingston University. Commonalities were exchanged and the man fought back a solemn look as he took a seat across from Tristan. The armchair engulphed him.
"Doctor Spense, I’m sorry to inform you that Mr. Connor Wright passed away this morning as he succumed to his long fight against cancer", he spoke as though he had said these words in practise. "I am here because you were included in his will and we need to speak about legalities".
Mr. Wright had left him his entire collection of books, including that first copy of the Odyssey that Tristan had cherised so many years earlier when he had had nothing else. As he opened the familliar book, an envelope fell to the ground.
He stooped to the ground to pick up the white sheet and put it in the pile of other loose pages when he saw in handwriting, “To Dr. Tristan Spense”.
He read the words and tears filled his eyes, prickling at the corners and pooling in the clear canvas of skin before his jaw.

"The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty…" - Mother Teresa
I treated you kindly holding the knowledge that you would have nothing to give in return because I saw something I once saw within myself during the darker days of my time. I helped you because I knew your soul would rot and perish in a sickly way should you go unnoticed. I helped you because I hate faith in you and knew you had the kind of illness that could be taken away with the love of a friend. I hope that I have been able to give you the medicide loneliness, desparity and hopelessness and that your cabinets are stocked full. Remember where you have come from, and remember that it is always darkest before dawn.
Your friend always,
Connor Wright
SøułSurvivør Mar 2014
Summer 1986 Sunday 5:30AM

Misty morning in Malibu.
Seagulls stitch the sea to a subtle
silver sky. They sputter stridently.
Each elegant gull hovers effortlessly.
Entreating each other. Echos bounce
off the sound of the surf into eternity. The screeching of many a
soliloquy akin to silence.

I sit on the pier. The water before
me washes onto the staccato legs
of tiny waterbirds who wander
in and out of the surf. Little
windblown ***** of ecru and grey
wool. I worship in the womb of
the great goddess ~ nature. I wasn't to know the Creator was watching patiently...

6:30AM
I make my unhurried way up the
pier to my car. A cheap but
comfortable convertable. Nobody
walks in LA. I punch in a tape.
Don Henley. Boys of Summer.

I take PCH up to the incline that
takes you from the beach. Pushing
the pedal slightly as I slide by the
colossal bleached cliffs of
Palacades Park. There the homeless
sleep under the benches dedicated
by friends and family in
rememberance of loved ones.
Small plaques attatched for
posterity.

My hands are on the steering wheel
at 7 and 12 o'clock.I look at the cast
I wear on my right wrist. A token
of rememberance from an angry romance. He and I parted
respectively, if not at all
respectfully. I drive.

7:00AM
Venice beach. Not yet boysterous.
But never boring. The young people
(and old) still bundled together in bed. Saturday night hangovers will
be had by most of the denizens of
Venice beach boardwalk. A grainy
eyed few wander around abstractidly. Shopowners enter
their buildings, their storefronts
almost as small as booths. Graphitti
and giant works of art grace walls
everywhere ~ Jim Morrison and
Venus in workout leggings much
in evidence.

I smoke my cigarette and drink my
hot coffee carefully in the open cafe'.
I consider the eyefest of the crowd
that will congregate here to enjoy
the clement weather.
The cacophony and the clamor.
Touristas and Los Angelinos alike
drawn In by calculating vendors
and coyote souled street performers.
I look forward to seeing the
non conformity usually. But not
today. For now I sit in the quiet cafe'.

Venice beach. Vulpine. Vacuous.
A strangely vunerable venue. The
***** and the beautiful. The talented and the ******.

A street performance pianist trundles his acoustic piano on
casters out onto the boardwalk.
I ask him if I may play. He looks
at my cast doubtfully.
"I can still play..." I tell him.
He ascents and listens thoughtfully
as I play my compositions. He really
likes them. I ****** the ebony and
the ivory with insistant fingers.
The smile on his face is irrepressable. I smile back and we
flirt in self conceous, fitful fashion.
Time to leave.

9:00AM
Radio is on in my car now. A cut
from the musical Chess. One night
in Bangkok makes the hard man
humble...
I like the driving beat.
I'm going up I-10, a single blood cell
in the main artery that brings life
to the flesh of this mamouth town.
Traffic is tenuous. A boon here in
this conjested city.

I drive to Fairfax and Sunset, where
I lived with in a tiny one-bedroom
apartment with my mom. An
ambitious actress. I an ambivalent
artist.

Sunset. The Roxy and Whiskey-a-
Go-Go. Cartoon characters Rocky
and Bullwinkle casually cavort on
the top of a building. Billboards
as tall as the Hollywood sign. The
street of broken hearts for many
an actress -slash-model. They
wander about on street corners
looking haughty and haunted.
Waiting for who knows who to
honk. Their dreams have flown
away like the exhailation of smoke
from the mechanical lungs of the
Marlboro Man. Schwab's drugstore
and diner. The place where some
famous starlet was discovered.
Delivered into the arms of the
Hollywood machine. I opt to go
to the Sunset Grill.

11:00AM
I'm walking down Hollywood Blvd.
Perusing shops and persuing
pedestrian pleasures. Everyone
talks of the star-studded sidewalks.
To me they look tarnished and
filthy. Stars from a sultry smog
laden sky come to earth. The names
of some of the folks honored on
them I don't recognise.

I'm here to view movies today.
I'm definitely not going to
Grauman's Chinese Theater.
Been there. Done that. Gave the
very expensive T shirt to
Goodwill. I look around at the
proud and the plebian. The pedantic
and the pathetic. No prostitutes
out yet that I could see. Probably
toppled into bed to sleep
(for once). Deposed kings
and queens of the monarchy of the
night. The homeless hobble along
with their hair matted and askew.
Shopping carts with stuttering
wheels de reguer.

A couple of tourists with Izod shirts,
plaid shorts to the knee and deck
shoes sans socks gaze in a shop
window. It's borded by tarnished
and faded silver garlands... tinsel
Christmas tree.
"Want to buy a mood ring today?"
One of them querys his buddy,
laughingly.

I find my small theater and enter
the air conditioned lobby. I purchase
a soda and pass on the popcorn.
As I enter the theater's modestly
plush, dimly lit cocoon sanctuary
I notice very few patrons are here
for the matinee. GOOD. I finally
watch the premiere product of
Los Angeles. Movie after movie
slides across the screen. The callus
morally corrosive corporations
conspire with the creative to produce
the culmination of many art forms
in one. Cinema.

LA. Languid. Luxurious. Legendary.
Rollicking, raunchy rodeo.
Seaside city. Sophisticated. Spurious.

SPECTACULAR.

8:00PM
I wend my way up Mulholland Dr.
Another tape is playing in the deck.
One of my favorites. David + David.
Welcome to the Boomtown.

I pull over at a deserted vista. From
this viewpoint I can see the city
spread out like a blanketfof brilliance. The gridiron of LA.
Glitzy and glamorous. Generating
little gods and goddesses. A gigantic
gamble for the disingenuous and
gouache. Tinsel town. Titillating.
Tempestuous. Only the very brave
bring their dreams here... or fools
rush in where angels fear to tread.
All but the fallen angels. They thrive.

Oh! If this place could be bottled it
would be such sweet poison. I
look up at the auburn sky and back
down at the breathtaking panorama
The metropolis that is LA with awe
and angst. I carefully stub out my
cigarette and flip it irreverantly
toward the lagoon of lights.

I get in my car to drive home.
Home?
Could this imposing, inspiring,
impossible place be called home?

Well. Home is where the heart is.
And I live in the heart of a dream.
This is the city of dreams...

CITY OF ANGELS.

Soul Survivor
Catherine E Jarvis
(C) 2005
You can rest your eyes now...

I only have enough funds to
produce one spoken word
set to music... should I
do this one?
Jesika Jul 2010
Let me give away the end of this peom
It's about feeling so comfortable around this guy
that I could do anything in front of him

We've been togeather for almost a year but I already know hes the one.
We know we'll be togeather forever and we love each other a ton.

Our relationship only has one flaw
His step mom keeps us apart
her eyes I want to claw

But thats besides the point.

Eight days togeather we spent
drunk on love
blissfully content.

He was the first thing i saw when i opened my eyes
I woke him with soft kisses to his sleepy surprise

We spent every moment togeather, talking, laughing, wishing, dreaming
It was perfect
He showed me off to his friends and family, their aprovel left me beaming.

But as most things do, it came to an end
with tears i borded the plane
I tryed to stay positve and be ok, as i left my forever friend.

Now i'm home, and he won't be for a while, I miss him so much it hurts.
I know he'll hold me soon but it's never soon enough....

Last night we talked on the phone.
I smiled like our love was new. I'll be ok. Never alone
Innocent Sep 2014
The day has arrived.
The cold wind whistle, the land is bare and everything feels contrived.
A girl broken, fragile as a leaf in fall.
Damaged but promised.

Borded and no place to go.
Lonely, defeated and feeling so low.
The clouds are telling  a similar story.
Laying out a laundry list of woes.

The air is rich and fragrant.
A crooked little smile on her face.
She can't help herself as the sun fills her with grace.

Venturing out for the first time.
Load music, beautiful people everywhere.
Surrounded by all her partners in crime.
Spinning, dancing with laughter completely unaware.

He's at least 10 years younger.
An unusual flutter.
So beautiful, so strong and hard
He wants her but her bodyguards say no.

But she follows her heart.
Anticipation almost parelizing.
That first touch neutralizing.
Fast and furious, slow passionate.
Completely off the charts.

Behind doors and on roof tops.
Everywhere anytime, non stop.
Her innocent excitement increases.
A new cocktail of chemicals releases.
Lust, sweet delectable lust.
So happy and content

New attitude, a new her

Forever remembered
I'm trapped in a void.
I have no where , from it, to escape.
Must I have to be like "Superman" and fly with his cape?
Too broke to be seen.
Too sick to repair my broken back.
I'm cracking..ready to split from the horror from which I've traveled and been.
People I had admired, slip away, due to caring too much about "effort"
Caring too much about "expense."
Where's the care for someone as he is "an asset" depreciating in it's "blue book" value report?
I sleep in quiet hours , alone, on a hard floor.
A "doggy" who fakes a smile
to avoid losing another if he doesn't "accept" "all terms"
In a contractual "friendship," "Family linkage," or treated as a "Liability"
in a "business " of life that is almost bankrupt.
And it's fututre shall be a dead and barren building which shall be all borded up?
Sean Patrick Armstrong Mar 27
TITLE

Self banished down crusty cave

reaching for the undenyable

Bridged hoping as a wounded defender,

The left arm naked, convexd

while the right is sunken casually,

eventually, patiently falling apart

haven't the strength of mind to argue otherwise

the lighted buddhist mask reveals itself, solidarity, or double false

only mindful as a shipwrecked beach ***

a stick in the sand and thankful for fruit flies

perhaps the ultimate bite has been taken, and for the use of stapled source it rejuvinates gradually, crystal liquid, gumball machine

like its underbelly is welcome, alwalys flipping like a lightswitch for kicks

a hot *** of water

or flix in a camera

perminantly borded to the take-out reason quiz

or constantly switching between dinner, lunch, and breakfast

anyways, misunderstood

as a leafing nightstand bible

— The End —