Bride and groom Erika and Joshua Garza say they thought their Durham wedding was set and all planned. The owner of the Fayetteville-based "Bragg About It Catering" company had driven up a month earlier so they could sample her wedding wares.

"She had the food ready. It was good," said Joshua Garza. "We tasted it and everything seemed great, and then she wanted to meet at the venue to see the kitchen and kinda get an idea of where she wanted to set up like that. So then we met with her at the venue and everything still seemed great."

They moved forward with the company, signed a contract, and say they prepaid caterer Jennifer Debrue $1,100.

"We talked to her all the time. We kept in contact. Everything was fine," Erika said.

That was until the day of the couple's wedding. The two say they received some surprising news.

"Nobody told us anything until we were in the limo and they were like 'Yeah, your caterer's not here,'" Joshua Garza recalled.

The Garzas now had more than 100 famished family and friends and no caterer. Fortunately for them, they did have some resourceful relatives who were able to run out and grab food for the wedding and save the day, but that did not change how the couple felt about the no-show caterer.

"I mean you don't do that to somebody on a day like that," said Joshua Garza. "You just, you ruin somebody's day."

Joshua and Erika tried to contact "Bragg About It Catering" but never received a call back or a refund.

"I don't want her to do this to anybody else, said Erika Garza.

But unfortunately, Sergeant First Class Anthony Baxley says it also happened to him at his retirement party.

"We didn't want to have to be running around," Baxley said, "We didn't want to be cooking. We didn't want to do any of that. We did a lot of research. We actually contacted probably over 10 different caterers before we settled on this one."

Falling in love with everything on the menu that Debrue offered, Baxley, too, chose "Bragg About It Catering". He says he prepaid the full cost of $1,500 and, like the Garzas, was left with an event with no caterer.

"After the ceremony was over I was immediately told there was a couple of problems with the caterer ... she never showed up, Baxley said.

Stressed to the max after receiving the news, it was Baxley's family and friends who also stepped in and saved his special day.

"A lot of the people found out before they went over to where we were doing the actual reception and they went to the store and purchased a whole bunch of food for us, he said.

With two costly no-shows, I tried to track down caterer Jennifer Debrue, but she did not respond to our phone calls or emails. We decided to go to the address listed on her contract information and spoke with her husband who seems surprised.

"They paid $1,100 and their wedding day came and went and she never showed up," I told him.

"I'm shocked. I don't know," he responded.

He told me Jennifer DeBrue would call us back, but she never did. Meanwhile, the newlyweds and Baxley are trying to spread the word that "Bragg About It Catering" is not something to brag about.

Our advice to viewers would be to pay by credit card so you can dispute it when something like this happens. Both Baxley and the Garza's said they did that.

read more: www.marieaustralia.com

www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

I

In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal
sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky
        waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart
worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in
        the night-time red downtown heaven
staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering
        these thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty
        of our lives, irritable baggage clerks,
nor the millions of weeping relatives surrounding the
        buses waving goodbye,
nor other millions of the poor rushing around from
        city to city to see their loved ones,
nor an indian dead with fright talking to a huge cop
        by the Coke machine,
nor this trembling old lady with a cane taking the last
        trip of her life,
nor the red-capped cynical porter collecting his quar-
        ters and smiling over the smashed baggage,
nor me looking around at the horrible dream,
nor mustached ***** Operating Clerk named *****,
        dealing out with his marvelous long hand the
        fate of thousands of express packages,
nor fairy Sam in the basement limping from leaden
        trunk to trunk,
nor Joe at the counter with his nervous breakdown
        smiling cowardly at the customers,
nor the grayish-green whale's stomach interior loft
        where we keep the baggage in hideous racks,
hundreds of suitcases full of tragedy rocking back and
        forth waiting to be opened,
nor the baggage that's lost, nor damaged handles,
        nameplates vanished, busted wires & broken
        ropes, whole trunks exploding on the concrete
        floor,
nor seabags emptied into the night in the final
        warehouse.

                II

Yet ***** reminded me of Angel, unloading a bus,
dressed in blue overalls black face official Angel's work-
        man cap,
pushing with his belly a huge tin horse piled high with
        black baggage,
looking up as he passed the yellow light bulb of the loft
and holding high on his arm an iron shepherd's crook.

                III

It was the racks, I realized, sitting myself on top of
        them now as is my wont at lunchtime to rest
        my tired foot,
it was the racks, great wooden shelves and stanchions
        posts and beams assembled floor to roof jumbled
        with baggage,
--the Japanese white metal postwar trunk gaudily
        flowered & headed for Fort Bragg,
one Mexican green paper package in purple rope
        adorned with names for Nogales,
hundreds of radiators all at once for Eureka,
crates of Hawaiian underwear,
rolls of posters scattered over the Peninsula, nuts to
        Sacramento,
one human eye for Napa,
an aluminum box of human blood for Stockton
and a little red package of teeth for Calistoga-
it was the racks and these on the racks I saw naked
        in electric light the night before I quit,
the racks were created to hang our possessions, to keep
        us together, a temporary shift in space,
God's only way of building the rickety structure of
        Time,
to hold the bags to send on the roads, to carry our
        luggage from place to place
looking for a bus to ride us back home to Eternity
        where the heart was left and farewell tears
        began.

                IV

A swarm of baggage sitting by the counter as the trans-
        continental bus pulls in.
The clock registering 12:15 A.M., May 9, 1956, the
        second hand moving forward, red.
Getting ready to load my last bus.-Farewell, Walnut
        Creek Richmond Vallejo Portland Pacific
        Highway
Fleet-footed Quicksilver, God of transience.
One last package sits lone at midnight sticking up out
        of the Coast rack high as the dusty fluorescent
        light.
        
The wage they pay us is too low to live on. Tragedy
        reduced to numbers.
This for the poor shepherds. I am a communist.
Farewell ye Greyhound where I suffered so much,
        hurt my knee and scraped my hand and built
        my pectoral muscles big as a ******.

                             May 9, 1956

Are you a male or a female?
Farm Boy

Describe yourself:
The Milkman of Human Kindness

How do you feel?
A Change is Gonna Come

Describe where you currently live:
Island of No Return

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
A New England

Your favourite form of transportation:
My Flying Saucer

What’s the weather like:
Same again

Favourite time of day:
When the roses bloom again

Your relationships:
The warmest room

Your fear:
Right wing rant

What is the best advice you have to give:  
Don't mourn, organise

If you could change your name, you would change it to:
Danny Rose

My soul’s present condition:
Accident waiting to happen

Another day seems to pass by in the desert as it has for hundreds if not thousand of years,
Except the crunch of gravel and sand as a 2 ton frag 4 tuned up humvee races down another street in Iraq,
no surprise to see this in Iraq since the US led invasion in 2003,
same **** different day, otherwise known to soldiers as SSDD syndrome,
only this day would forever change lives,
the flash was white hot and the melting metal was proof enough of the sheer explosivness of the improvised explosive device,
the blast enough to let Iraqis living miles away look up to see the smoke,
they never heard the screaming though,
but the soldiers did as they raced to what was left of the humvee,
three dead upon impact,
a fourth lay screaming on the ground with what was left of the rest of his legs still in the passenger seat,
medics on  the ground did good and saved the poor soul,
his screams would fill the Iraqi night for for hours,
a short chopper ride to Baghdad Hospital,
they docs put his feet on ice, quite literally,
more than ten hours of surgery and the legs were sewn back on, but this soldiers fight was over,
a flight on the first plane to Ramstein Air Base Germany,
but the doctors cant do anything for this man,
he needs propers medical care,
send him home to Fort Bragg,
Womack Army Hospital,
doctors are optimistic as they tell this hero he will live but his days in the Army are over,
the tears are unexplainable as he pleads with the doctors to **** him
he doesnt want to live,
he may never walk again, he is a freak, his fiancee wants nothing to do with a *******,
over a week the soldier tries everything he can,
pulling out IVs,
injecting his blood stream with air filled needles,
his screams keep the other patients awake during the cold nights,
his crying during the day a constant reminder of the hell that only those who have lived it can ever know,
a week passes by, at least one suicide attempt a day,
then the soldiers fiancee arrives,
the crying becomes unstoppable as he pleads for her to leave him, not to look at his crippled body, that he wishes to die,'
why? she asks,
the question stops his tears,
why? she repeats,
because I am a ******* I may never walk again,
so? she asks, calling in the doctor,
the doctor arrives to find the soldier in tears and the meanest scowl ever seen on a woman,
doctor she asks, so he may never walk correct?
thats correct the doctor replies,
can he still have ***? she asks,
the doctor is stumped by the question and stumbles as he replies, well....yea its only his legs not his *****,
the fiancee looks at her soldier,
well then why the hell are you crying? as long as we can still have *** I am not leaving you!
the soldier sobs uncontrolably as his future wife holds him dearly,
the smiles on the other patients outwardly happy for the both of them,
then dinner arrives, the fiancee freaks out,
throwing the food across the room and storming from the hospital,
the soldier believing she had finally realized he was a *******, sobs once more,
the patients, doctors and nurses stumped,
another suicide attempt made,
thrity minutes pass,
the fiancee arrives, carrying a Dominos pizaa,
she holds him closely as she says he cant eat hospital food anymore,
he needs to eat right so that he can walk again,
and so comes a miracle through pain.

NO **** people this is a true story i witnessed myself in the Womack Army Hosptial roughly early 2006. It was a beautiful sight to see, and any man would consider himself blessed to be with what I can only describe as a miracle and the truest woman alive. That soldier deserved nothing less, oh, and he did walk again.

It was only a tiny village then
Away from the thoroughfare,
Had existed since I don’t know when
With a grassy village square,
There were only seven ancient cars
In the narrow village streets,
And none of them travelled very far
For the shop stocked milk, and treats.

It hadn’t seen much of progress since
The days of old King John,
Who’d lost his jewels in The Wash, by Mintz
Near the town of Oberon,
The villagers there were set in ways
That caused nobody harm,
But when Lars came from Oberon
There was cause to feel alarm.

For Lars was the local planner for
The town of Oberon,
He’d dragged it kicking and screaming
Into the century just gone,
He’d widened streets, and cancelled Meets
In the old stone Mason’s Hall,
By bulldozing their building, leaving
Folk with a low stone wall.

He’d passed it all with an ordinance
That had given him total power,
The council caved to his arrogance,
All that he did was glower,
He put street lights on the corners, and
He acted like a prince,
And when he was done with Oberon
He set his sights on Mintz.

He drove on down to their village square
And he said it wouldn’t do,
He’d turn the square to a thoroughfare
So the cars could drive right through,
He didn’t care when the people there
Said ‘Leave our square alone!’
He said, ‘I’m passing an ordinance,
So you might as well go home.’

The local hall was agog that night
There’d never been such a crowd,
The villagers all were up in arms,
‘This fool shouldn’t be allowed!’
‘This calls for a special meeting,’ said
The spokesman, Rupert Bragg,
‘We’ll have to call on the village witch,
The widow, Nancy Stag!’

They all poured out of the village hall
And they went to see the witch,
Who was busily mixing potions in
A cauldron and a dish,
‘You’ll not be needing my magic,’ said
Old Nancy, with a smile,
‘If you all agree with my plan, you’ll see,
That Lars will run a mile.’

She asked the women to stay behind
While the men went on their way,
‘I mean the ones over seventy,
The rest can go or stay,’
They huddled up with the village witch
And applauded Nancy’s plan,
‘We’ll send him scuttling off from Mintz,
You’ll see, he’s only a man!’

When Lars came down in his private car
They met him in the square,
Holding banners and placards, but
That’s not what made him stare,
‘You’d better get back to Oberon
Or we’ll march there, for our rights,’
He turned, and hurriedly left the square,
They all were dressed in tights!’

David Lewis Paget

Suzanne
I rode your car
But, it was too fast for me
You say you'd like me to feed your trees
Then, take your hat off sister
If you please
I told you about Elvis, *** bars, and kings
But you didn't want
To listen
Had to fight your own wars
Bragg about
Your male ******
So, come here now
Girl, knock down your trees
And you can come here
Doll, just listen to me
So, won't you come here doll
And listen to me
You can come here
Now, to feed the trees  
Suzanne
I rode your car
But, it was too fast for me

May the American poets, at Hello Poetry enjoy reading the following lyrical poem.  

The Ragged Old Flag
Written by Johnny Cash

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sittin' there.
I said, "Your old court house is kinda run down,
He said, "Naw, it'll do for our little town".
I said, "Your old flag pole is leaned a little bit,
And that's a ragged old flag you got hangin' on it".
He said, "Have a seat", and I sat down,
"Is this the first time you've been to our little town"
I said, "I think it is"
He said "I don't like to brag, but we're kinda proud of that ragged old flag"

You see, we got a little hole in that flag there
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
And It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it
Writing "Say Can You See"
It got a bad rip in New Orleans, with Packingham & Jackson
Tugging at it's seams.
And it almost fell at the Alamo
Beside the Texas flag,
But she waved on though.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,
And the south wind blew ******* that ragged old flag

On Flanders Field in World War I
She got a big hole from a Bertha Gun
She turned blood red in World War II
She hung limp, and low, a time or two
She was in Korea, Vietnam, she went where she was sent
By her Uncle Sam
She waved from our ships upon the briny foam
And now they've about quit wavin' back here at home
In her own good land here She's been abused
She's been burned, dishonored, denied an' refused
And the government for which she stands
Has scandalized throughout out the land
And she's getting thread bare, and she's wearin' thin
But she's in good shape, for the shape she's in
Cause she's been through the fire before
And I believe she can take a whole lot more

So we raise her up every morning
And we take her down every night,
We don't let her touch the ground,
And we fold her up right.
On a second thought
I do like to brag
'Cause I'm mighty proud of that ragged old flag

Wake up wake up
Or else back up back up
You leaning on the footsteps
Of pain
See through your eyes nothing pain
Its stain
On the Windows of ya soul
Break protocol took a wage for the toll
Death I be humming it
Til I take my last breath
No fear for the afterlife
I'll retain my throne in the afterlife
Chilling with my ancestors
Kings n Queens with exquisite cousines no fiends
To worry about on the block
We got it on lock
N them earthly slave masters
Are my slaves and I'm the master
Can't run nor can you hide
No matter the distance I'm still on ya hide
Attack me be prepared to face the pride
Lions and lioness I suggest y'all just move around cuz I'm to suave
Can't get no love they call me *****
But then get made when I use *****
Kind of irony is that?
Imagine me without a **** gat
No sir I pack all my tools
Embraced my own rules peep my manual
I'm stronger than Sampson with dreads on my head
Cuz I'm invincible


First laws of psychics nothing comes from nothing
So how can they say God don't exist
This is ludicrous they blinding the bliss I risk
My life for this **** til I touch a casket
Driving in a black hearse
Family in tears I see em rolling
Down the cheek of the meek
They should inherit the earth
See the gargoyles catching mirth
No worth
To my **** name its shame
That I've been seeing images
Since I was a lad I Sinbad
But no jokes to tell I learned all hope will fail
But if I stay a soldier I won't fail
Two tours been there done that
Ya got guns we got straps
But they won't stop me never
Flank em off guard down goes ya weather
Feeling cold dead heartless cuz I'm bold
Plus my bank roll sitting swole
Don't mean to brag
Still got homies from the block to Ft Bragg
Never sag push a Chevy caprice **** a jag
Switched to intellectual books that I've never had
Cuz I'm invincible

3/5/2016

it says here
'i feel so much like an old duke
tudor, you know
writing to my french inamorata
how are our *******? haha.
i hope school is going well.'

there is a certain ounce of truth to that
i lived under wraps
under blankets
you know, shock ones
hoping no one would discover
(my vulnerabilities)

you doubted the quality of marriage
but said you'd do it for me
i mean, now i've found someone
that'll not do it begrudgingly.
it was interesting though
our androgynous life
like that billy bragg song, you know?

the one i told you about in the letter?
greetings to the new brunette.
your ****** politics left everyone in a muddle!
i'm emptying my glass right now like when we used to debate
but it's not a pint i'm using to celebrate my love for you
downing more like to forget my hate for you.

Can you save me from the man I tend to be?
The spirit of the Thälmann Battalion is in my soul
Reading the radical poets
And having conversations with myself.

Can you save me from the man I tend to be?
I listen to Billy Bragg and dream of  a ‘New England’
Dennis Skinner is a hero.
All that is left of the English radical dissenting left.

Can you save me from the man I tend to be?
Fear provokes anxiety and silence.
Never can I do without thinking.
Or creating intuitive minds

Can you save me from the man I tend to be?
Seeing consent manufactured day-by-day
Conversations with Noam Chomsky
On violations of authority.

Do I need saving from the man I tend to be?’

There's a warrior Robin, I do
not remember, I would, I do
remember lines
from movies,
from long ago, seems, I'm something of a latchkey kid,
first generation with television,
however, with TV allusions, legal as Donne.

and I got Bub, in My Three Sons, old, with all my wits,
and more, older and wiser, I say to my friends, yada,
you know, you know,
that's a burden in itself. All wrapped up for Christmas,
what a gift,
the pain, all worth the whole, total pain involved
in growing old and otherwise, in terms considered
magic,
as magic is an art, to tell a truth once, that
is easy,
twice, not cliché, you know, the cultural humor,
bher with us,
we exist,
voices, in the head, the fullness, si, the godhead,
embodied, did
that happen to you is a different question than
did that not happen to you, you comprehend, you

get
it, getting is, being is, and getting, being gotten, is.

Essential. Al re al ized. Simple enough, not, too,
Sublime,

seems asking too much, a million lines, you read,
this is flowing, funny, dialogos dialectic, neither
mean much dia, means through, piercing, passing

logos is just all we ever think or ask, before we think to.
Lectic, lecture. Elect to ask a friend, I dial my AI,
hey, I wanna be a gazzilionaire,
and your my phoney friend, AL
laughs, misspells itself in untter actual- ize on TV,
people believe, AI Got the answer, feed me
old Jeopardy questions, topped with Melvin Bragg,
and his guests
at BBC 4, In Our Time, the whole trip… with these folks,
and we never knew we knew such things,
gifts to all our children, learn to not have enemies,
really, let them have their hate. We won,
our bits past.

Fini. For now.

And that was live from the Jeopardy Memory Awards,
live from the Del Webb Sun City near you, digitally.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Hellopoetry.com­


                   But His Airplane Features Gold Seatbelt Buckles

     Trump calls for removal of every top official investigating him
                                               -The Hill

Article II, Section 2

Before he enter the Execution of his office

“District Attorney Bragg is a danger to our Country,

He shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:-

and should be removed immediately,

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will

along with Radical Lunatic Bombthrower Jack Smith,

Faithfully execute the Office of President

who is harassing and intimidating innocent people

Of the United States, and will to the best

at levels not seen before, ‘Get Trump’ Letitia James,

Of my Ability preserve, protect, and defend

the worst Attorney General in the United States,

The Constitution of the United States.

and Atlanta D.A. Fani Willis, who is trying to make PERFECT phone calls into a plot to destroy America, but reigns over the most violent Crime Scene in America, and does nothing about it!

David Gilmour's guitar
Sylvia's pen
Houdini's hat
Feymann's bongos
Elliott's beanie
Cobain's *******
Karpov's mind
Hozier's hair
Tolkien's genius
Bragg's youth
Greenwood's innocence
Dostoevsky's demon's nihilism
Napolean's Europe
Myself maybe.

Better living,
better for me to have it done.
She was the world,
all of her ideas so round.
Always the down to Earth type,
so close to ground.

How do we listen for hope,
if we don't know the sound,
Bragg about wisdom,
with none of which found.
She's a world,
amongst all planets,
Who knows how to spin your words,
so beware fellas.

I'm not writing about a girl,
or a lady of such
Neither a lush woman,
a type to break your heart.
Nor a being,
to have you falling in love.

It's a piece on living,
written to be read by eyes of the living
All of us still breathing,
how's the life you're living
Playing it safe all the time,
not a risk of risking?

What are your aspects of life?

Take this aspect,
expect and accept what comes to be next.
Be it may you're desperate or depressed,
nothing keeps you away from the rest.

All aspects of time. Times of living.
All of what we are. A better end than a beginning.

A simple life of a human.