Pinto?

No, not the wild-spirited, color-splotched mare
with mane streaming like flames-thrown
behind in the wind
Taking desert inclines
with scuffing hooves on rock
catching her balance in mesquite
curbing?
The sage, dust
All
that nature throws in its pathway to knowledge
toward treachery of crosswalks?

“P-l-e-a-s-e  don't slow down!
Stop signs--?
”No!
Just keep going!
Don't slow down now!”

“They'll hear us coming
3 blocks away!”

Pinto?
Clogged carburetor--?
No one much-mentioned
rear-end inferno reputation??
A mere twinge in my signature
Woman-without-a-clue

“Hey, it runs, right?
Gets where we're goin'?”

Kids duck in back seat
so as not to be seen
In the cloud of smoke
We make our approach

Hiss Spitter, Belch, Pop
and--

BANG!

--Like a gunshot

Kids take cover
on street, in backseat
duck down
so not to be noticed...

“Oh Ma!  
MA!!!
Not right here!
Farther down!”

...so not to be seen
...by friends that matter...
in this ride
from hell!
Backfiring Beast--

“Friends”
skitter away
from what will emerge from the smoke and fumes
of high-risk-situation

Kids spill out through jammed door
to unexpected accolades
onto equality's curb
of laughter  
Public school's
wake of exhaust and relief

I drive mercifully away


Start of another school day

A dads uniform
                          (Now my own)


           On any given day I saw the many faces of a man.
I watch him play his roles like they were well rehearsed scenes.
He was a star in his own actions, drama, thrillers and romance.

         He wore his soldiers uniform on sunday, torn jeans, white T-shirt with no sleeves and abrasions and scrapes gave stripes to his big arms.
He had oil on his hands and grease on his chin, barking orders as he worked on the car.
" Hand me that 3/4 standard and torque it to the 5th notch"
"What!? What the **** language was that?" I thought to myself as I awkwardly reached for the 1st thing my eyes spotted and held it up.
"That's a hammer Alex!" He said shaking his head as he smiled and walked toward me. He rarely had a disappointing tone. Later he explain the workings of a standard torque wrench Vs a metric wrench with converter. 10 years later I used that wrench to change my Edelbrock Electronic Carburetor 400 series twin stoker all by myself.

    I once saw him defend his honor. That day he wore  his heroes uniform as he leaped from person to person striking, grabbing, kicking, and throwing the 3 large men who underestimated his ferociousness. His tank top was ****** from the wound on his nose. His hat fell to the dirt next to the beaten, unconscious, and humiliated foes that once stood before him.
I could see that he intended to continue his lesson in respect but as he glanced over to see my wide open mouth and unmoved stare he quickly contained his aggression. He picked up his hat and shook it a few time to knock the dirt off. In that moment was another unexpected act. He help the worst of the men to a sitting position and asked him if he was ok. He was genuine in his concern that he may have been excessive in his judgment.
Later that night he explain to me that violence should never be the 1st choice for a solution and our actions should reflect the person we want people to see.
I would remember this 15 years later when sitting with the man I just choked unconscious, letting him drink my gatorade and catch his breath moments after he attempted to robbed me at knife point. In that few minutes I learned his life story. My friends said my actions were foolish.

            Duct tape and crazy glue are the tools of every street born medic.
T-shirt gauzes and boiled stones often made his grace when he wore his First aid uniform.
      
        As a kid I did DUMB very well, from gun powder soup, to a game of dart board hands. One of the more gruesome moments was my apple cutting malfunction. I severed my finger at the base pretty good. I cut right through the knuckle at the base of the index finger. It was the 1st time I fainted. Its still a debate weather it was the loss of blood or sight of it. Like a seasoned veteran he jumped into action. While most doctors would  use a coagulant like Lanxess, iodine and 22 gauge suture for this injury but not this man. He opted for all purpose flour, beer and duct tape to disinfect and seal the wound. Even though it was 3 hours before the emergency room would clean and repair the damage, I didn't shed another drop of blood while his homemade fix was in place.
I learned a lot of (what his friends called Ni**a rigging) first aid tips from him.
12 years later, while on a training exercise with  my CCC group in the forrest, a grade worker suffered a compound fracture from a slip and fall while hiking. I used a heated licorice root as antiseptic and 2 flat rock, my shoe in soles and a belt to mend and set his arm well enough to hike 2 miles back through the trail till we found help.

          When I write my poetry I never know what it is people see or interpret from it. I know the workings of romance and I know the power of its application. The day he wore his Casanova uniform I witnessed 1st hand the great reward a little effort can bring 2 people in love.
         On a normal day in the park us kids ran around yelling and screaming while him and mom sat on the grass watching us play. In the moments of a physical dilemma I sat next to him to catch my breath as he talk to her about random things. I knew my presence was interfering with whatever moment him and my mom were having but I was too intrigued by the task he was performing on the side to care.
On the reverse of a box top he drew a picture of a monkey sitting on a tree in the middle of the water. It was handing a flower to a mermaid sitting on a rock. I never forgot the joy on my moms face when he handed it to her and said "this is us."
I saw that picture everyday displayed on her mirror. Here I am 25 years later looking at my own art and words displayed across the walls of my home. My wife often looks at her description in the words and her name in the titles. Our own son invades our personal space as we sneak kisses and exchange affection through his predictable intrusions.

        My own uniforms hang in my closet waiting for interpretation from onlookers.
Suit up and be seen, or close your eyes and remember his many suits. Your in my thoughts. I hope this finds its way to you.
        Love
              -Alex J Meighan-

My intake took your fuel and ran it threw
to this carburetor and disguised itself as a brain.
It took all the information thrown at it and combined it together, then a little spark caused an explosion, which led me here:

I stood idle and held myself in the ice cold rain,
Water began dripping down on my shivering frame.
Each drop adding a beat like a song’s surrounding pound,
Running thoughts drown out into a long forgotten sound.

Pulling the handle I choose to release this body's soul.
And I strike solid like a nut whose free from the tool,
And land with a force derived from deep set desires.
Finally free from the strong grips of deadly pliers.

My soul is free, therefore it no longer seems to mind
That I drove away and left my lonely nut behind
And there it remains in the heat of the black asphalt
Sinking into the earth because of mine own ****** faults.

it's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse

a woman, a
tire that's flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard...

it's not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he's ready for, or
******, ******, robbery, fire, flood...
no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse...

not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left ...

The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can **** quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver's license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink's stopped-up, the landlord's drunk,
the president doesn't care and the governor's
crazy.

light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill's up and the, market's
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it's
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.

then there's always ***** and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they're
your friends;
there's always that and worse;
leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.

or making it
as a waitress at norm's on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a car wash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady's purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.

suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and China and Russia and America, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
***, except maybe one to **** in
and the other one around your
gut.

with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.

so be careful
when you
bend over.

Thirst

Yes I know what it means to thirst I hiked across the mountains to a friend’s distant ranch one possible reason I didn’t just go down the road was when returning by jeep from the same ranch I ran into literally thousands of these little guys they were following a mating call I guess to the ladies they really looked fine but for me it was a little hair raising no pun intended as they say since they were hairy themselves if little fuzzy caterpillars come to mind I only wished that was the case I was going about thirty and they were crunching and flying up behind the jeep as I drove through their intended love fest. I suppose if the jeep had shuttered or died as the one did in the San Antonio River as the driver crossed the slab in the river while the water was rising and drowned out the carburetor and was carried so ignominiously down river. I don’t know maybe a thousand Tarantulas could carry a guy off that was why I was going across the mountain and they had the road to themselves.

First I miss calculated I thought after going past the San Antonio mission across the San Antonio river up the mountain that I would find water at the building that stood on the top nothing but an old abandoned corrugated shed. I had no intention of going back the hour or more getting to the top then the five or so miles and mountains aren’t smooth clear across up and down in the baking sun in that arid semi desert country when I finally looked from the top of the mountain down on the long road that led back to the ranch I was hot and dehydrated maybe those tarantulas were over rated I don’t think so well any way look a pond right next to the lane looks can be deceiving I finally crashed and banged my way down to the pond oh great dog days of summer **** to bad move over **** I buried my face in it and drank **** and a whole bunch of moss that was right under the water and it was hot I wasn’t complaining.

By now you know my interest isn’t in natural thirst I seriously doubt that any one is thirsty naturally speaking but we all are in a dry and thirsty land without spiritual water. It shows by the unhappiness expressed by so many they don’t get it the soul is not craving water of this world it is seeking the one who met the woman at the well so many women deride the bible when it speaks about man being the head nowhere is there more consideration giving to women than in the pages of holy writ to this woman he came see the water glistening as it spills from the clay jar inviting yes but multiply it a thousand times when he said if you drink of that water you will thirst again the water I offer will satisfy your deepest longings it is the highway that ends in joy forever more would you be foolish and take trinkets from a stranger when you are with the very fount that all things proceed from and have their being I promise you a river of living water that will never cease a spring that has started its over flowing this very day in your presence waters that are pure and will quench all thirst drink with abandonment he stands before you his words haven’t chaged.

Electric static buzzing in attentive ears, wondering how and why you ended up where you did. Stale smoke filling the air like the compressor in a carburetor.
Direct injection.
Vicious speeds.
Catatonic struggle.
The lisp of an old hippie, tracing his tracks in a wheel-legged fashion, up and down the streets of Seattle, looking for the kicks that previous nights were unable to provide. Supply and demand for bottom up approaches.
Roaches scattered in the living room. Some dead, some still glowing in the dimness. Empty cans of Campbell lint excessive consumption. The prevalent motif of the middle class. Stars and stripes hung in the window pain, above the static placidity.
Seattle stars
No such thing
I guess it must be raining there forever.

there are only 5 seats and on each end
are metal chapels. time slows down like a slug
climbing a vertical wall, or say, a drunken man
  making his way towards the oblique recess.

the ignominy of an exhausted carburetor
is the orchestra for the night.
lots of women go in and out, out and in,
  whichever is first, but the last is always
just as bland as any other truth:

we go, each foot splayed to cover measure,
  and in the flash of a scene, gone.

I watch their skirts make gossamer tune,
like some flotsam or a poised note being led
  straight to a trajectory disappearance:

the idea of the image is to glide
over them, over flesh,
over this fetal smoke that I will soon toss
  right into the womb of nothing

and fall flat as a key from a tone-deaf cathode,
a spanked melodrama of television with dull cursive,

        or as lithe as justly, the right camber of blues
             ripping straight through my day-old denims,

peering through the tease of a thigh’s penumbral shadow,
the sound of the world being dragged into double-doors

       echoing a metonymy: *silence the interlocutor, her mouth
                          full of birds. Dark birds.

o, good lord of the streets
where a phantasmagoric sensurround

banishes the scream of youth –

a carburetor snarl taken
   as unction of name. was it

your name that you whispered to my ear,
   him dearth in the quietus.

first to go is grace,
  what soon follows is bravery. a makeshift moon
of course, hanging by the earlobe of

her; I’ve been wanting to bite to break skin
   her truly frightened symmetry
of a  storm which is an  onus of  pain -

o, good lord
     help me weave way later
     when I’m down on my contrabass.
Scout Albano tonight’s a dark
   expanse of    regret

resonating a deep and hollow throb.
    women on flay, cigars in mouths chucked
like busy streets on a noontime sun, the soot clambers
   the billboards and their frozen, extant smiles

      wring out the poison and drain:
    we have no imposed god, an announcement to ear
  shot into the flay of the bone that persistently
      aches - like some unreal drumming of squalors.
            
         we are ruined with echoes of many names that haunt us
  with their gaping mouths
              in   frightful  angles,    but

when we’re drunk, Marc,
   this will all be over.

i like the word epicenter
heard it one night all cranked out trying
to get drunk the juice like water
my nose sweating
amped like hell
wanting to disassemble the VW
bug
find what that sound was,
took apart the carburetor first,
sniffed and stood for half a second said, nah,
not the prob
looked into the glovebox
was sure the bug was in there,
a few screws later
the dashboard was on the porch
and still I had no idea what
that ******* sound was
walked in quick circles
thinking , almost,
it had to be the radiator
or a fanbelt or the tires!
Yes !
I took them all off, carefully snooted around their
hoses the perimeter of the fanbelts circumference
the radiators fins
the pressure
got to me of the tires was perfect,
had to be the ******
I sniffed down my throat went that
chemical taste like antifreeze
I took her out
the transmission
inspected her tip to toe
the servo thing the
valve body
went full bore into the
torque converter
it torqued
converted
now I was getting worried
it was the mirror was loose of course
I took her off
it was coated with a white powder
did a line straight to
AutoZone
for a mirror cleaning
fluid , they looked at me funny.

Pasay's no conversationalist,
   unapologetic.
  
      "Way sapayan, pastilan"

Ravenous snarl of
      the carrier
     The refined grit of
        rusting fulcrum
          The terse hammer
        malingers,
  The pompous talk of
     carburetor
       and the flagrant burst
         of jetwash,

    i am never grateful for these
      subsequent cacophonies:
   a steel orchestra. i could no
   longer take the metaphysical spar of this hunted dialogue.
    darkness weds the synagogue of
      shadow and soon,
    we will all drown in the rain.

You puffed out hatred
In blushing clouds that glowed against the hollow sky
And I writhed in the back seat
To the music of a broken carburetor and a lack of self-respect

Inky purple stains strewn across the dashboard
To match the ones on my shoulders
There’s a sky up there and I don’t think you’ve ever seen it
Because you say I’m a constellation that someone wrote the story of
Before they tossed me into the sky

So you toss me around like candy wrappers and train tickets
Because you like me when I’m crumpled in the center console
Below the strength of your hand that holds the cigarette
That you burnt your name into my skin with

This highway smells like gasoline
Maybe because I’m doused in you
And every time the road turns itself over into a new year
I tell myself that I’ll love you

Better than I do from below your feet
Peeking out from under your tread
While I’m treading water in the bottom of your cup holders
Or maybe one day from the passenger seat with your fingers pushing bruises into my thighs

You’re driving me towards the milky way with ashes in my palms
Away from city lights, away from myself
There’s a solar system next to my body in the trunk
And it always spins around you

you popped the hood
and ran your fingers
over the engine
stroking the piston
smoothing the dipstick
feeling the carburetor
and for once
i felt jealous
of a honda civic

We are the generation that's finally woke up, took our head out of our ***** to realize we can't live off religion and tomorrow will be betters.  Is god really even there anymore? I used to ask you this to fill the silence at three a.m. because my brain honestly would not stop thinking about the big questions on life after death. As a kid i never questioned what the church taught, it was only after i grew up i learned they taught me to hate myself. When i was baptised it wasn't in blessed water to purify me of my child like sins of stealing one too many cookies but to try to burn any evidence i would one day realize how one sided this talk with god is.

I use to pray everyday.....preached to people who i thought needed Jesus like it was some sort of game that whoever saved the most people wins. But no one told me begging for a sign that maybe it gets better is how one is suppose to see this all and holy love.

Waking up has become this impossible task of trying to go to some dreamland and yes others have it worse but I'm tired of that line always being used to justify that what i feel does not matter in any shape or form. While others may have it worse in no comparison should i complain but its like i have heaven and hell inside of me at war and its been like this for the last seventeen years. I found myself praying the other day because frankly i didn't want to die on the freeway in a black 1983 ranger simply because the carburetor died. I never finished the prayer and looking back now I'm wondering if that's because i realized in the matter of seconds it took me to pray i managed to survive one more thing with nothing less than an amen or a hallelujah.

I've bruised my knees so many times from sitting on tile til my legs were numb just to feel a sense of security that my spot in the afterlife was secured. I believed every ******* word my family said for years about god being everything. But right now talking to god i can only hear my own voice, and i cant tell if that means I'm suppose to save myself or if he's finally left me.

I don't think he can even hear me anymore from how loud the religious people are shouting holding their signs of hate to make the man upstairs so proud of them. Will they get a clap on the back and "job well-done" for every body they bury six feet deep without even pulling the trigger.

Wheres god when we needed him most,I'm tired of staring at an empty sink wondering why he hasn't stopped me yet, has he finally stopped believing I'm real just like i have with him?  

What do you think it feels like to fly?i don't really have an answer because I've spent my highschool years with my head in the clouds high on whatever drug i could get my hands on because god wasn't enough to fill my cup so i found replacements.

One cup was filled with love so holy but somehow tainted I guess I let my blood ooze too much because it splashed in the cup and the love left. Never looking back, do you think that's how god felt when i finally realized like the tooth fairy i could never believe in his existence .....because my parents could never keep a straight face while talking about him.

And maybe one day even the bible will become mythology a simple story put into history to write off as fake.

He contemplated the viability
of an extended relationship
She, content with ambiguous design
knitted him a sweater

He wrote sappy love poems for her
about the swell of her *******, the curve of her thighs
She took on two other lovers
to fill the time they had to be apart

He came to her house, scribbled
obscenities on her bathroom walls
She copied them in an elegant calligraphy
illuminated with gold leaf on fine vellum parchment

She adjusted his carburetor
when the Toyota wouldn't start
He read out loud to her
from the Time's Sunday Supplement

She got drunk at his party,
puked in the kitchen sink
He put her to bed
then quietly cleaned up after her

The moon never
scrawled their names
across the sky

Rock And Roll Memoir

It was too **** loud
I never liked Bobo
our first drummer
            or
was he the third?
The riffs?  Stolen.
Lyrics written
by a callow youth
still torment me
to this day like a
                                            s
                                     w
                                                a
                               r
                                                     m
                                      of
                          b
                                        e
                                                    e
                                    s
My obituary
a bit of boilerplate
written by interns
at Rolling Stone
lays waiting
patiently
for the call.

I don’t remember
      in any particular
   order
the origin
                                             of the band name
                     the outcomes  
                                                   of
                                                             the lawsuits

                                            what happened
           in Houston


penning “Love Carburetor”
                                                                             on the bare
***

                                   of a groupie named Skyyy

                      

           writing
                    a song cycle

                                           about the Laps                      
riding  
  
                                 in ambulances
           limos


helicopters

or

                                                                                     punching
Bill Graham

on the sidewalk
                                                               in front of

                                                  the Fillmore                                
                                                                                                    


                                                                                                    East.

If you say
we played Farm Aid
twice, well
I guess you would know.

I can’t ****
standing up
or hear a word
you’re saying
and my doctor says
we must get
a handle on my liver
before we think
about replacing my
knees
hips
corneas
heart and lungs.

But I’m booked
to a ten night stand
at the Beacon
with the New York Philharmonic
performing our first album
in its entirety
with our original bassist Ian
somebody or other
plus interviews
on Fresh Air and Morning Joe
to promote a concert
film by Jim Jarmusch.

MECHANICAL

The lion of Africa is mechanical
A knock down engine
Left to rust
Producing garbages
Break down to the apex

From one mechanic to another
They always promise to fix it
Get paid and extort us in return
Inflicts more damages
Heaps the faults on previous mechanics

The lion of Africa is mechanical
With quack mechanics
Stealing our tools and equipments
Always seeing a complex fault
At the end of each day

Pleading to fix it if given a second chance
But repeats the same error
When their repair tenure is over
They bring in their kinsmen
To make promises too

Tools and equipments unaccounted for
Where's the employment carburetor?
The infrastructural radiator
The nut of unity
The scale of Justice
The gear for separation of powers
All you political mechanics.

Photo credit: Ativie Kimberly Adesua

©Kporho Vwede Daniel
07067333949
(IG: General Ali Official)
All rights reserved

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                      Verse on the Cowling of a Model T Ford

          Flapper-sips forever
          No Janes
          No whisk-brooms
          Warm up your dog kennels
          And hop with that fire alarm

“This is the cat’s particulars, the bee’s knees,”
An owl-flap gushed, “Paper is so middlebrow
We hopper our lines on a motor now
It’s all about the new technologies!

"The old ways now stand back to let us pass
The carburetor rhythms our words with air
We write our poems with life, with speed and flair
The beat of the banger is the ultimate gas

“We are the apogee of poetry and art
There is no end; there is only our start!

“Yippee!”

By: Cedric McClester

Covid is a hoax
Until you get it
Once you do
You won’t forget it
You will learn
To regret it
But by then
You’ll be embedded

Ya see I know
Of what I speak
Covid had me
Feeling so weak
That I found it
Hard to breathe
And I was just
About to leave

They put me on
A ventilator
Sooner rather than
Much later
My health was
Like an elevator
Going up and down
Think carburetor

In the spirit of
Full disclosure
They put me in
An induced coma
And that isn’t
A mere misnomer
When I say
I was almost a goner











Cedric McClester,Copyright © 2020.  All rights reserved.