BEHIND HER HAZEL EYES                    
Somebody once told me that you could fit your life in a shoebox and I laughed at the thought of it.  
I was the youngest of six kids and I was favored by all of my siblings beside Natalie but she is a different story.
I grew up in a abusive home I would come home to see my dad beating my Mom until she couldn’t breath or get up.
I always watched it happen wishing that I did something about it but I was about ten and what could I do. There was a time my mom came home really late. I was asleep on the couch and Natalie was on the other one.
I heard my dad get up and come down stairs; I heard the front door open and close.
Then I heard my sister Melissa yelling at my Dad to leave our mom alone but He wouldn’t. My two sisters Melissa and Felicity were with my mom when she hit the deer and that is what my dad was so mad about. I got up ran to the door and I saw him and my mom. He had my mom up against the car, choking her out. I grabbed a stick and hit him on the back hard enough to make him let go of my mom.
He and I battled for whom had control of the stick he grabbed it out of my hands and pushed me on the ground and it knocked the wind out of me. It hurt but I got used to it over the years. I got up and I saw him looking from my mom to me. He wacked me across the face hard, I tasted blood and spit it out. I looked at him and said “ you are nothing but a coward, taking your anger out on your own children. You’re pathetic and dumb. Do you not see none of us want you here, Get lost I don’t want to see your face anymore”.
He had a hurt look on his face and looked at my mom. She was cowering in a corner.
She just said “You heard her Will just don’t come back”!
From that moment on I turned from an innocent little girl to a young woman who took care of her family and became the protector.  I have been in many struggles on my life path. I had to grown up and learn to face the life that shouldn’t have been put on anyone. I protected my best friend from being rapped. I told her to run and don’t look back and she did what I said. I remember the hands around my throat and getting slammed against the walls and the blood spewing from my nose. I fought hard knowing my life was at stake. I got quite a few punches and what not at the man. He let me go after a while and I ran I found Caddie at the park, waiting for me and she was bawling her eyes out when she look and saw me. She said, “Oh My God I thought you weren’t coming back, Jaylyn and you look like hell got a hold of you”.
I hugged her and started crying she knew she couldn’t ever repay me for what happened but she took me to the bathroom and cleaned up the blood that was smeared on my face. I knew she was thankful for me.
Caddie said to me “Jaylyn, you are a fighter”
When I heard this I thought it was funny at first but as I grew older. The message became clearer. On March 13, 2008 my sisters and I went in to foster care. I was scared and I was close to my mom. I lost her then. But Natalie and I were went to our 1st foster care home together and we were there for six months but the thing was they didn’t like me but they liked Natalie. I was scared and lonely. I wanted to leave cause they treated me like I was nothing and Natalie wanted to go with me and then she had wanted to stay with our first foster parents but to then she didn’t so we left and went in to another foster home and we were there for three years and I hated them and they treated me liked dirt and they did the same with Natalie but Natalie left before I did. They treated me more like crap and I hated them even more to the point to where I started cutting, drinking, and smoking. Anything that would harm my body.  It worked for a while but then it got worst and the drinking got a lot worse. I knew I had lost my way but I finally told my old school counselor. She and my friends became the only one I could trust. Ms. Lopez helped me get out of Bert and Anne’s House. I met this crazy black girl named Tanah and her foster mom.
She was excited to have me come there. I decided her and foster Mom would do.
From the First day I moved in Tanah and I were inseparable and still are a points she and take breaks but you can’t see one of us with out the other. Tanah helped me grow in a lot of ways it’s been six months since we have known each other but it feels like years.
But that is some of my story I don’t want to keep you reading forever
For all my life I knew I was a Fighter and always will be.
I guess you can fit your life in a shoebox if you want to try I say go for it there isn’t anyone trying to stop you from trying.

took my caddie up the track
gun held to the black
hoods on for the clan attack
planned it in my ****** shack
****** I want my 20 dollars back
bullets stab you through your back
huge
machete to the sack
and something else through your back
****** I want my money back

back

“We are all actors in an idiots play A tale of sound and fury,
meaning naught. Yet who would care to be a wise man's pawn
Where every twist of fate is well deserved And where a single flaw
could ruin lives? Far better to be in a madman's mind At least for
those (and are we all not so?) Whom fate has smiled on more than
we deserve If life were fair, earth would be hell indeed.”

“Macbeth” William Shakespeare.


From out of the darkness I can see an ever increasing
glow. Intensifying with luminosity as it gets closer and closer.
The blinding eye of fate is upon me. I am thrown with
tremendous vigour. Into where? I have no idea! Surrounded now,
by the blackest of blacks. I can only liken it to a bubble in a pool
of crude that flows wherever the black tide takes me. All I have is
the familiar company of my own voice. A continual narration that
one could expect from a television documentary. The life and
death situ of Michael Simon Jones, filmed in black surround
vision. It reminds me of oh so many nights, when all I wanted to
do is sleep. My mind just wants to stay awake, spouting that
continuous torturous soundtrack into the early hours of the
morning.

Through the darkness a piercing light, coming to me and
then gone, to me then gone. Do I dream? Perhaps of the high
seas. I picture a large tower, It protrudes out of a vast nothing.
The only safe path to steer by is a beam of light, cast down upon
me, from up high. Its beam Revolves continually around, a never
sleeping sun. A light that prevents many flimsy craft, from
grounding onto the craggy rocks that are hidden in the darkness
of the stormy oceanic swells, that roar below.

Again the quiet is shattered, am I not to be allowed to
sleep.
It can only be a dream, for through my bleary eyes I see a figure
of a man, sporting a bright yellow helmet. He seems to be
holding a huge lobsters claw, it is chewing its way through shards
of steel that seem to imprison me. His mouth moving, but I hear
nothing. I half expect to see subtitles appear below him, like an
old Buster Keaton movie. Then he is gone and once more I drift
into that blackened void.

Now a shadowy figure appears. Bending over me his hands
are holding something over my face. I think I can feel myself
struggling against his advances. He is too strong, I can’t breathe,
is he is killing me?

What sort of nightmare is this? Flat on my back in the
darkness, I am gliding speedily along the ground. Intermittent
lights flash past my closed eyes. I recall the deep red on-off glow
of the light, diffused by the blood that rushes through my closed
lids. Can somebody turn the ******* light off, I’m trying to sleep.

Gaaaaa………… I am blinded by the worlds brightest
light! Where am I? The light subsides and I can see, but nothing
is clear. It is like looking through a frosty glass window. There is
movement below me and the bleeding blurs of colours finally
evolve into recognition. What is this? What’s going on down
there?

Rather, what the hell is going on up here? How did I get up here?
I am suspended in mid air. Look I can move my legs. Holy Mary
mother of God, I’m naked! Naked and floating around what looks
to be a hospital operating theatre. Hovering above several
gowned professionals in the toil of their labour.

A naked satellite orbiting above the planet NHS.

Now tell me if there is something wrong with this scenario, but
this is totally not normal is it? I just hope I don’t need to have a
****. I believe that there can only be two possible answers for my
predicament. First is that I am in fact having one totally out of
my head dream.

Second, that I am experiencing some sort of out of body
experience. If that is so, then I can only assume, that the person
lying on that operating table, somewhere under the mass of green
hat and gowns spread eagled on that table below, is me! If only
that fat doctor would move his head out of the way.
Bah! Only so another head can immediately take its place. I think
I now know how a ****** feels when he cant get a clear shot. Oh!
Hang on a second, the assassination can go ahead. I can see!
No that don’t help, I can’t tell who the guy is, he has a mask
covering most of his face and more tubes coming out of him than
a Scottish pipe band. Oh my God! Who else do you know with
that tattoo? I should of known that an indelible red cartoon of the
devil would not be the luckiest thing to have etched into my skin.
I wish now that I’d gone for the Sacred Heart. That might have
been the healthier option and may just of tipped the scales in my
favour. I can’t really see Saint Peter letting me through those
pearly gates with a picture of Beelzebub brandished for all and
sundry to see. Oh ****! That’s me okay, and from this position I
don’t look at all in a healthy state. Can a spirit or whatever I am,
throw up?

But how did I get here? I can’t remember anything that could of
led to this. I do remember going to bed last night, I had an early
night, don’t know why though cause I never get to sleep before
4am. Its a bit laughable I suppose, an Insomniac reading a book
called Insomnia. Perhaps a novel called sleeping tablet would be
more apt?

Unless of course…………… If I can’t remember anything since I
went to sleep then perhaps it’s because I’m still asleep and that
this is merely a dream. That makes more sense, doesn’t it? What’s
happening down there? Something doesn’t look right, things
seem very intense. If only I could make out what they were
saying, everything is silent.

“Hello! What is happening down there? Hello! Hello! Can you
hear me?”

They can’t hear me, no, of course they can’t but why can’t I hear
them? What if this is no dream? What if I am really dying on that
table down there? I can’t make out what they are doing to me but
it doesn’t look good.

There’s a lot of blood.

I wish I had taken more notice when ER was being aired on
television. The only thing I know for sure is, that is a scalpel the
surgeon is holding. The guy at the head of the table should be the
anaesthetist? the woman to the left whom looks like a nurse and
is passing the instruments, is a nurse. But the others I don’t have
a clue.

If only I could hear what they were saying. ****. This is a
nightmare, I can’t believe this. I can see them, why can’t they see
me? Oh please God let them hear me.

“I’m up here, listen to me you death ******* I’m up here.”

So close yet so far away. This can’t be real, this can’t be
happening, not to me. I’ve, never done anyone harm, I've worked
hard all my life. Always been a popular guy, never had a problem
mixing with people. What’s that the nurse is pushing around on
the trolley. I think its one of those crash box things. That’s it, a
defibrillator! *******! I don't think I'm breathing. Look at the
screen, I’ve seen enough movies to know that the green line
should not be one continuous solid.

Oh no, I’ve flat lined! I’m dead! Oh God no, not like this. Looks
like they are going to try and defib me. Here they go.

BAM!

Oh no, the line is still flat. They’re going at it again.

BAM!

****! Still nothing. What they doing now? No don’t stop!
What are they talking about? What have you got to discuss? Just
get on with it, this isn’t a ******* seminar. I’m dying down there.
Just crank that hunk of scrap iron up and send some volts through
me. God, I sound like ******* “Frankenstein,”

That’s it, he’s greasing up the connectors, here we go, here we
go.

_When I came back to the real world I had been in the land
of Coma-City for almost three months and for all of that time it
had been touch and go. It was later explained to me that I had
been involved in a RTA.

It had been surmised that due to my sleeping disorder I had fallen
asleep at the wheel of my car (A classic American 1950’s plated
Cadillac) and had veered into the oncoming traffic. Hitting at
least one vehicle and careering off road and down an
embankment. Finally coming to rest three parts of the way
through a brick built structure, this in turn supported a steel
constructed dome. Used as a point for ramblers trekking high
above Sheermont Cove and offering excellent views across the
horizon and out to sea. An ideal location in particular for budding
photographers to shoot the best possible images of Sheermont
Bay Lighthouse. The Caddie precariously balanced with its long
bonnet hanging over the edge of the cliff top.

In fact I believe that it was the domes heavy steel frame that
secured my fate. The brick walls now demolished beyond
recognition caused the now unsuspended dome to fall onto the
roof of my vehicle. Pinning it solidly to the spot, it crushed the
roof in on top of me, also saving me from plunging to the depths
below and almost certain death. I was trapped under the structure
for almost six hours. I remember very little of the ordeal as I
tripped in and out of consciousness. My rescuers had to cut me
out of the vehicle, with a tool commonly referred to as the Jaws
of Life and I was flown to hospital by air ambulance.

And here I am to tell the tale. But!

Did this metallic redeemer smile on me that fateful night? Saving
me from that almost certain death, on the rocks below Sheermont
Cove?

I think not.

The Dome. It saved my life I know this but the price I would
have to pay was far to high a toll. As I spend the rest of my days
drinking my food through the proverbial straw with only my own
mindful narration forever keeping me company.

I pray to die.

I was strolling down the aisle
We were shopping there in style
With my daughter sitting smiling in the cart,
I was stretching out my hand
For the Martinelli's brand
When the apple of my eye gave me a start.

With the bottle in my grasp
I saw, coming toward us fast,
A high heeled damsel, scarfed and towing her caddie
And she smirked as I, condemned,
Stood up to comprehend
The reason, as my child said "Whisky Daddy?"

There was nothing I could say,
To make it seem another way,
To vanquish the conviction so compelling
It was the color you could tell
And the shape she knew so well,
The question that my daughter asked was telling.

Neil Stewart McLeod

Fourteen blue eyes
Seven happy faces
Five futures
Two pasts
One marriage

An airforce officer,
doctor,
business man,
golf caddie
and an unknown.

One happy family

April Seventh, 1928

Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.
Luster searched the rough, amongst the grass, doing his own bidding.
"Here Caddie," a man shouted before he hit.
Images came back and I entered a fit.
Weeping and wailing I stood, a 33 year old male.
Soon to be reminded of being hooked on a nail.

My sister Caddy treated me well, though mother won't agree.
She thinks I'm pampered by the girl sneaking down a nearby tree.
Caddy ruined the family name.
Or so mother says, but I don't think she's to blame.
The girl lost her scent.
The Compson name is on the descent.
Caddy held me. She smelled like trees.
And not the kind that make one sneeze.

Maury was supposed to be my title.
My uncle's indiscretions made its worth idle.
So i was given something new to be called.
As Uncle Maury's and Mrs. Patterson's relationship stalled.

Miss Quentin picked up after her mother.
Looking absentmindedly for a wayward lover.
She sat next to a man with a red ascot on a swing after supper.
Luster wandered up and picked up something rubber.

...

I have no sense of how things occur.
My illness makes things easy to obscure.
The ticking of a broken watch beats on.
I, for ignoring such nonsense, have been deemed wrong.
Colliding events of different times.
Blurring together dateless lines.

My childhood ended when my dollhouse got repossessed,
crying in the back of Daddy’s Caddie.
You traded your daughter for diamonds
and left it all behind in a U-Haul.

You blamed his haunting city streets,
and post-war reenactment dreams.
You couldn’t be the queen to his beer can kingdom anymore.
He flipped too many coffee tables,
and let the kids grow up wrong,
and suddenly wasn’t the man you loved in high school.
He’s just another excuse,

But this isn’t about him,
This is about you,
All 534 miles of it.

You’re a woman without mirrors.
You play victim too well,
and love me like the favorite chip on your shoulder.
I gave your title to a deserving stranger,
and you flew from my human scent.
I never got to tell you about the splatter.
It’s hard to forgive someone who’s never at fault.

But this isn’t about us,
This is about you!
All 534 miles and counting!

This is about your life in 5 year chapters,
and sweeping your problems under the bible-belt.
This is about looking for happiness in the small town Carolinas,
and loving another man,
and another daughter,
and all the people you don’t owe apologies.

This is all about you,
And what you’ve done,
And you will never be more than this.

Before the world calls again
We must make amends with the wind
Look not towards, turn around
Learn to challenge your mound
The world is erupting in earnest
Pearls rim the bulletproof vests
Another bay of mammals
Stripped of their enamel

Watchful eye, clockmaker
***** hands on blood bakers
Stagnant relics of the past
Wailing worms on salted masts
Crowded church, bullet tears
Limping for the flaking fears
Mountains bring a gilded path
For the saints, a shallow bath

Handcuffed legs, boarded hands
Folded on a calm command
Rotting hope, livid arms
For the magnate, no alarm
Bracket helm, grainy green
Swords are drawn on gabardines
No God will eat a tear
And dead they flow, winded pier

Dead they crow, winded pier

Billowed fire, riverside
Cower under thickened hides
Excess arms upon the dock
Sandinista on the rock
Triggers sold in tragedy
Lilting light, youth will cease
Leaders sleep in padded wells
Suffer mother, drink from hell

Here’s the hero, banner flown
Ruby paper, nature grown
Skeptic in the eye of rhye
Naked comics sing to die
The site is exiled from the shore
Stricken by a fiery pore
Steel-laced curtains, hesitance
Infidels in happenstance

Here is fortune, there lays war
I have sold a solid car
Husband creaks, mother moans
Children bred to take a bone
With a blonded, slanted eye
Astronauts will learn to fly
All the while, a preacher seeks
A pinstriped caddie and a freak

I am born and I am weak

Dear Donald, I have to say
How much I love our private jokes,
Especially the one that we
Both have called the Russian hoax.

You have learned a lot from me.
Fortunately, you're on my team.
All the power that I have
For you, however, is just a dream.

But keep up your strategy
Of duping the public. True, you'll find
You cannot fool everyone.
But there's one thing to bear in mind:

The more you condemn your nasty critics
And put the critical press on trial,
The more power you'll have. Can you--
While reading this-- see me smile?

The 2020 election will be
Very important. We can thwart
Your Democratic opponent, so
Let me know if you need support.

If you say a cloud has been lifted,
Then I think we both agree
That if you lift some sanctions, you'll
Lift the cloud that's over me.

I like how your trust in me
Overshadows the trust in your own
Experts there. For more advice,
Call me on the telephone.

By the way, I have to say,
I'm still counting every hour
Till I can have my penthouse view
From high atop your Moscow tower.

I'll support you, by the way,
But don't ask me to be your caddie.
I can dig up dirt on any-
One you want. Your friend, Vladdy.

-by Bob B (5-7-19)

T'was the day before aluminum.
And all through the towns
Steel fantasies did roam,
All finny at thousands of pounds.

Lots of metal, heavy and sculpted.
No custom kits, just regular Detroit iron,
The Mesabi Iron Range leveled and scalped.

Fins, I say, fin, fins and finny.
You could stab yourself on a '57 Chevie!

Sleek, but massive,
Caddie fins with bullet tail lights
Rare Edsels and Packards

Thunderbirds, killer headlights to match the fins
Remember the Rambler!

Knife edges everywhere, the Studebaker Fury
Corvettes, vruum, vruum, VRUUUM.

Beloved Impalas, Rocket 88's,
Imperials and Mark III Continentals

Where did we go in these steel confections...
Drive-ins, both food and movie,
Down Main Street to be seen,
Back to be seen again, groovy

We had pimples and ducktails, 
hoping to meet girls,
but the cars had fins of steel!
And they were the magnets.

The kitchen?
A ridiculous container for all
The plastic utensils you'd need.
A spatula, tongs, weird fork thing?
Even a series of spice racks

The bathroom,
Holders for your toothbrush and paste
A caddie for all that shampoo and body wash
A rack on the back of the door for your towels

A shoerack
A laundry hamper
A series of picture frames and knickknacks
A few blankets
A set of decorative pillows

...so many pillows.
No one uses them!
We all just move them before sitting.
It's ridiculous.

But,
All of these things
Do a home make.

They're so incredibly inconsequential.
Clutter.

Yet, I dare you
Point me towards a home
For two or more
Which lacks these.

These are how you know
A life has been made together.