Bouazizi’s heavy eyelids parted as the Muezzin recited the final call for the first Adhan of the day.

“As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”
Prayer is better than sleep

Rising from the torment of another restless night, Bouazizi wiped the sleep from his droopy eyes as his feet touched the cold stone floor.

Throughout the frigid night, the devilish jinn did their work, eagerly jabbing away at Bouazizi with pointed sticks, tormenting his troubled conscience with the worry of his nagging indebtedness. All night the face of the man Bouazizi owed money to haunted him. Bouazizi could see the man’s greasy lips and brown teeth jawing away, inches from his face. He imagined chubby caffeine stained fingers reaching toward him to grab some dinars from Bouazizi’s money box.

Bouazizi turned all night like he was sleeping on a board of spikes. His prayers for a restful night again went unanswered. The pall of a blue fatigue would shadow Bouazizi for most of the day.

Bouazizi’s weariness was compounded by a gnawing hunger. By force of habit, he grudgingly opened the food cupboard with the foreknowledge that it was almost bare. Bouazizi’s premonition proved correct as he surveyed a meager handful of chickpeas, some eggs and a few sparse loaves. It was just enough to feed his dependant family; younger brothers and sisters, cousins and a terminally disabled uncle. That left nothing for Bouazizi but a quick jab to his empty gut. He would start this day without breakfast.

Bouazizi made a living as a street vendor. He hustles to survive. Bouazizi’s father died in a construction accident in Libya when he was three. Since the age of 10, Bouazizi had pushed a cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid; selling fruit at the public market just a few blocks from the home that he has lived in for almost his entire life.

At 27 years of age, Bouazizi has wrestled the beast of deprivation since his birth. To date, he has bravely fought it to a standstill; but day after day the multi-headed hydra of life has snapped at him. He has squarely met the eyes of the beast with fortitude and resolve; but the sharp fangs of a hardscrabble life has sunken deep into Bouazizi’s spleen. The unjust rules of society are powerful claws that slash away at his flesh, bleeding him dry: while the spiked tendrils of poverty wrap Bouazizi’s neck, seeking to strangle him.

Bouazizi is a workingman hero; a skilled warrior in the fight for daily bread. He is accustomed to living a life of scarcity. His daily deliverance is the grace of another day of labor and the blessed wages of subsistence.

Though Allah has blessed this man with fortitude the acuteness of terminal want and the constant struggle to survive has its limits for any man; even for strong champions like Bouazizi.

This morning as Bouazizi washed he peered into a mirror, closely examining new wrinkles on his stubble strewn face. He fingered his deep black curls dashed with growing streaks of gray. He studied them through the gaze of heavy bloodshot eyes. He looked upward as if to implore Allah to salve the bruises of daily life.

Bouazizi braced himself with the splash of a cold water slap to his face. He wiped his cheeks clean with the tail of his shirt. He dipped his toothbrush into a box of baking powder and scoured an aching back molar in need of a root canal. Bouazizi should see a dentist but it is a luxury he cannot afford so he packed an aspirin on top of the infected tooth. The dissolving aspirin invaded his mouth coating his tongue with a bitter effervescence.

Bouazizi liked the taste and was grateful for the expectation of a dulled pain. He smiled into the mirror to check his chipped front tooth while pinching a cigarette **** from an ashtray. The roach had one hit left in it. He lit it with a long hard drag that consumed a good part of the filter. Bouazizi’s first smoke of the day was more filter then tobacco but it shocked his lungs into the coughing flow of another day.

Bouazizi put on his jacket, slipped into his knockoff NB sneakers and reached for a green apple on a nearby table. He took a big bite and began to chew away the pain of his toothache.

Bouazizi stepped into the street to catch the sun rising over the rooftops. He believed that seeing the sunrise was a good omen that augured well for that day’s business. A sunbeam braking over a far distant wall bathed Bouazizi in a golden light and illumined the alley where he parked his cart holding his remaining stock of week old apples. He lifted the handles and backed his cart out into the street being extra mindful of the cracks in the cobblestone road. Bouazizi sprained his ankle a week ago and it was still tender. Bouazizi had to be careful not to aggravate it with a careless step. Having successfully navigated his cart into the road, Bouazizi made a skillful U Turn and headed up the street limping toward the market.

A winter chill gripped Bouazizi prompting him to zip his jacket up to his neck. The zipper pinched his Adam’s Apple and a few droplets of blood stained his green corduroy jacket. Though it was cold, Bouazizi sensed that spring would arrive early this year triggering a replay of a recurring daydream. Bouazizi imagined himself behind the wheel of a new van on his way to the market. Fresh air and sunshine pouring through the open windows with the cargo space overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a lifelong ambition of Bouazizi to own a van. He dreamed of buying a six cylinder Dodge Caravan. It would be painted red and he would call it The Red Flame. The Red Flame would be fast and powerful and sport chrome spinners. The Red Flame would be filled with music from a Blaupunkt sound system with kick *** speakers. Power windows, air conditioning, leather seats, a moonroof and plenty of space in the back for his produce would complete Bouazizi’s ride.

The Red Flame would be the vehicle Bouazizi required to expand his business beyond the market square. Bouazizi would sell his produce out of the back of the van, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. No longer would he have to wait for customers to come to his stand in the market. Bouazizi would go to his customers. Bouazizi and the Red Flame would be known in all the neighborhoods throughout the district. Bouazizi shook his head and smiled thinking about all the girls who would like to take rides in the Red Flame. Bouazizi and his Red Flame would be a sight to be noticed and a force to be reckoned with.

“EEEEEYOWWW” a Mercedes horn angrily honked; jarring Bouazizi from the reverie of his daydream. A guy whipping around the corner like a silver streak stuck his head out the window blasting with music yelling, “Hey Mnayek, watch where you push that *******.”

The music faded as the Mercedes roared away. “Barra nikk okhtek” Bouazizi yelled, raising his ******* in the direction of the vanished car. “The big guys in the fancy cars think the road belongs to them”, Bouazizi mumbled to himself.

The insult ****** Bouazizi off, but he was accustomed to them and as he limped along pushing his cart he distracted himself with the amusement of the ascending sun chasing the fleeting shadows of the night, sending them scurrying down narrow alleyways.

Bouazizi imaged himself a character from his favorite movie. He was a giant Transformer, chasing the black shadows of evil away from the city into the desert. After battling evil and conquering the bad guys, he would transform himself back into the regular Bouazizi; selling his produce to the people as he patrolled the highways of Tunisia in the Red Flame, the music blasting out the windows, the chrome spinners flashing in the sunlight. Bouazizi would remain vigilant, always ready to transform the Red Flame to fight the evil doers.

The bumps and potholes in the road jostled Bouazizi’s load of apples. A few fell out of the wooden baskets and were rolling around in the open spaces of the cart. Bouazizi didn’t want to risk bruising them. Damaged merchandise can’t be sold so he was careful to secure his goods and arrange his cart to appeal to women customers. He made sure to display his prized electronic scale in the corner of the cart for all to see.

Bouazizi had a reputation as a fair and generous dealer who always gave good value to his customers. Bouazizi was also known for his kindness. He would give apples to hungry children and families who could not pay. Bouazizi knew the pain of hunger and it brought him great satisfaction to be able to alleviate it in others.

As a man who valued fairness, Bouazizi was particularly proud of his electronic scale. Bouazizi was certain the new measuring device assured all customers that Bouazizi sold just and correct portions. The electronic scale was Bouazizi’s shining lamp. He trusted it. He hung it from the corner post of his cart like it was the beacon of a lighthouse guiding shoppers through the treachery of an unscrupulous market. It would attract all customers who valued fairness to the safe harbor of Bouazizi’s cart.

The electronic scale is Bouazizi’s assurance to his customers that the weights and measures of electronic calculation layed beyond any cloud of doubt. It is a fair, impartial and objective arbiter for any dispute.

Bouazizi believed that the fairness of his scale would distinguish his stand from other produce vendors. Though its purchase put Bouazizi into deep debt, the scale was a source of pride for Bouazizi who believed that it would help his profits to increase and help him to achieve his goal of buying the Red Flame.

As Bouazizi pushed his cart toward the market, he mulled his plan over in his mind for the millionth time. He wasn't great in math but he was able to calculate his financial situation with a degree of precision. His estimations triggered worries that his growing debt to money lenders may be difficult to payoff.

Indebtedness pressed down on Bouazizi’s chest like a mounting pile of stones. It was the source of an ever present fear coercing Bouazizi to live in a constant state of anxiety. His business needed to grow for Bouazizi to get a measure of relief and ultimately prosper from all his hard work. Bouazizi was driven by urgency.

The morning roil of the street was coming alive. Bouazizi quickened his step to secure a good location for his cart at the market. Car horns, the spewing diesel from clunking trucks, the flatulent roar of accelerating buses mixed with the laughs and shrieks of children heading to school composed the rising crescendo of the city square.

As he pushed through the market, Bouazizi inhaled the aromatic eddies of roasting coffee floating on the air. It was a pleasantry Bouazizi looked forward to each morning. The delicious wafts of coffee mingling with the crisp aroma of baking bread instigated a growl from Bouazizi’s empty stomach. He needed to get something to eat. After he got money from his first sale he would by a coffee and some fried dough.

Activity in the market was vigorous, punctuated by the usual arguments of petty territorial disputes between vendors. The disagreements were always amicably resolved, burned away in rising billows of roasting meats and vegetables, the exchange of cigarettes and the plumes of tobacco smoke rising as emanations of peace.

Bouazizi skillfully maneuvered his cart through the market commotion. He slid into his usual space between Aaban and Aameen. His good friend Aaban sold candles, incense, oils and sometimes his wife would make cakes to sell. Aameen was the markets most notorious jokester. He sold hardware and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Aaban was already burning a few sticks of jasmine incense. It helped to attract customers. The aroma defined the immediate space with the pleasant bouquet of a spring garden. Bouazizi liked the smell and appreciated the increased traffic it brought to his apple cart.

“Hey Basboosa#, do you have any cigarettes?“, Aameen asked as he pulled out a lighter. Bouazizi shook the tip of a Kent from an almost empty pack. Aameen grabbed the cigarette with his lips.

“That's three cartons of Kents you owe me, you cheap *******.” Bouazizi answered half jokingly. Aameen mumbled a laugh through a grin tightly gripping the **** as he exhaled smoke from his nose like a fire breathing dragon. Bouazizi also took out a cigarette for himself.

“Aameem, give me a light”, Bouazizi asked.

Aameen tossed him the lighter.

“Keep it Basboosa. I got others.” Aameen smiled as he showed off a newly opened box of disposable lighters to sell on his stand.

“Made in China, Basboosa. They make everything cheap and colorful. I can make some money with these.”

Bouazizi lit his next to last cigarette. He inhaled deeply. The smoke chased away the cool air in Bouazizi’s lungs with a shot of a hot nicotine rush.

“Merci Aameen” Bouazizi answered. He put the lighter into the almost empty cigarette pack and put it into his hip pocket. The lighter would protect his last cigarette from being crushed.

The laughter and shouts of the bazaar, the harangue of radio voices shouting anxious verses of Imam’s exhorting the masses to submit and the piecing ramble of nondescript AM music flinging piercing unintelligible static surrounded Bouazizi and his cart as he waited for his first customers of the day.

Bouazizi sensed a nervous commotion rise along the line of vendors. A crowd of tourists and locals milling about parted as if to avoid a slithering asp making its way through their midst. The hoots of vendors and the cackle of the crowd made its way to Bouazizi’s knowing ear. He knew what was coming. It was nothing more then another shakedown by city officials acting as bagmen for petty municipal bureaucrats. They claim to be checking vendor licences but they’re just making the rounds collecting protection money from the vendors. Pocketing bribes and payoffs is the municipal authorities idea of good government. They are skilled at using the power of their office to extort tribute from the working poor.

Bouazizi made the mistake of making eye contact with Madame Hamdi. As the municipal authority in charge of vendors and taxis Madame Hamdi held sway over the lives of the street vendors. She relished the power she had over the men who make a meager living selling goods in the square; and this morning she was moving through the market like a bloodhound hot on the trail of an escaped convict. Two burly henchmen lead the way before her. Bouazizi knew Madame Hamdi’s hounds were coming for him.

Bouazizi knew he was ******. Having just made a payment to his money lender, Bouazizi had no extra dinars to grease the palm of Madame Hamdi. He grabbed the handle bars of his cart to make an escape; but Madame Hamdi cut him off and got right into into Bouazizi’s face.

“Ah little Basboosa where are you going? she asked with the tone of playful contempt.

“I suppose you still have no license to sell, ah Basboosa?” Madame Hamdi questioned with the air of a soulless inquisitor.

“You know Madame Hamdi, cart vendors do not need a license.” Bouazizi feebly protested, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Basboosa, you know we can overlook your violations with a small fine for your laxity” a dismissive Madame Hamdi offered.

Bouazizi’s sense of guilt would not permit him to lift his eyes. His head remained bowed. Bouazizi stood convicted of being one of the impoverished.

“I have no spare dinars to offer Madame Hamdi, My pockets are empty, full of holes. My money falls into everyone’s palm but my own. I’m sorry Madame Hamdi. I’ll take my cart home”. He lifted the handlebars in an attempt to escape. One of Madame Hamdi’s henchmen stepped in front of his cart while the other pushed Bouazizi away from it.

“Either you pay me a vendor tax for a license or I will confiscate your goods Basboosa”, Madame Hamdi warned as she lifted Bouazizi’s scale off its hook.

“This will be the first to go”, she said grinning as she examined the scale. “We’ll just keep this.”
Like a mother lion protecting a defenseless cub from the snapping jaws of a pack of ravenous hyenas, Bouazizi lunged to retrieve his prized scale from the clutches of Madame Hamdi. Reaching for it, he touched the scale with his fingertips just as Madame Hamdi delivered a vicious slap to Bouazizi’s cheek. It halted him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

A henchman overturned Bouazizi’s cart, scatter

It was strange almost as strange as Thanksgiving with Justin Bieber  at his grandmother's house.
Yes I'm sure that wasn't the only thing getting stuffed that year.
Who doesn't enjoy being serenaded by their grandson as he's naked with his pick in one hand and
his **** in the other as he stands **** ball naked in the kitchen.

Thanks Canada your like a ***** girlfriend who instead of giving a great ******* gave us ******  What do I expect from a country that also gave us maple syrup and call me maybe.
I know we just met and this sounds crazy but your countries music ***** so never call us okay.

I was alone in the Pub as  usual hell what do you expect from a site that has a showcase yet has no more groups from which half of the showcases are named after .
Yeah the owner has that true modern day logic like having a music channel that only shows
reality show ****** and knocked up ******* who complain about paying the bills yet are employed by the network yeah common sense it really is lost on stupid people.

I was having like half of a case when a hamster who shall remain unnamed due to she would
harm me if I spoke the name of which is not to be spoken of walked through the door.
Gonz set me up with a cold one  I really need it.
Really hamster I never pegged you as a necrophilia kind of gal but to each his own
good thing I got the paper let me just check the obituaries and make some calls
You want something fresh off the highway or you more into cold cuts?

I know I'm going to hell but honestly did you expect good taste  in reading this **** ?
Are you ******* nuts?
The agitated little hamster asked as she looked at me with anger and possible **** in her eye's.
Look I can always hope good thing I forgot my whistle.

Just give me a cold beer you pervert and that joke was tasteless really have you no respect for anything?
I looked at the hamster after handing her the beer and thought deeply and hard pulling my mental hair at the same time even though I don't have any don't ask.
Duh hamster!
It's my job  to make tasteless jokes and be a pervert what you think the time clock on the walls for?
Um employees ?
Well yeah it used to be until they whole health care **** I swear I give my workers one meal a week and provide a perfectly good basement for them now I got to give them health care duh
if I paid my bills what would I drink with ?

My customer who remains anonymous to  protect the safety of my *****.
Looked at me in disgust uh oh looks like I might be getting a spanking as well.
You really keep those poor people locked in the basement ?
Duh person I cant say your name there not real people there here illegally.
How can you say that I should call the cops on you .

The hamster was turning red and from the threat of calling in the fuzz I knew she must be
serious yet still I knew deep down she was just playing hard to get with her threats and restraining orders but enough with the foreplay hamsters.

Look I really don't see what the big deal is ?
You have people trapped in your basement like some dirt bag smuggler.
Now you hold on a minute hamster how dare you insult me I said in my grown up voice
I know I can act like a grown up shocking isn't it?

I was about to tell this hamster just what I really thought of people who take advantage of people
who just want a better life and exploit others and really preach some of that moral **** that sounds real good yet isn't what I think cause I'm truly a ruthless *******.

When I stopped and saw the clock oh **** hold that thought I almost forgot to feed the basement people.
I reached under the bar and grabbed four cartons of cigarettes and a case of wine.

What in the hell you only give those poor people ***** and cigarettes ?
Well  duh there French what else would they want?  
Just then a voice came up from the dungeon I mean basement of the pub gonzo more wine
you American swine I hate you yet still I applaud your efforts in destroying that vile
man child Selena Gomez  .

Ahh you got love the French sure that strange little man may stay drunk on a girl drink and smoke like a chimney but even he hates **** pop music as much as me.

My one and only reader slash customer slash person I enjoy annoying sat in shock.
You are so ****** up .
I looked as I took my seat behind the bar that no longer exists because some people
who shouldn't be allowed out of there cage run the site into the like button ground.

Yes hamster I'm a little ruff around the edges but when you get to know me.
You realize behind all the insults and perverted bad humor .
I'm well I'm far worse than you could ever imagine.

We sat there swapping stories the drinks flowed the French man in the basement yelled
something in that strange language  he spoke once I couldn't understand cause I
don't speak German.

It was a  true night to remember except for the part I forgot duh!
It was growing closer and closer to closing time I mixed us both a good strong drink
yet with a soft side and heart of gold like a awesome ****** or that man ****** Kim Kardashian .

Well I guess better head out Gonz.
Aren't you feeling like your going to pass out .
Um no why ?

****** its really getting bad when you cant trust a good street dealer to quality
roofies  .
The hamster was headed out the door but before she left she turned and said.
Oh yeah and you might need to grab a pillow.

And then everything went black but not like in the NBA .
No indeed I was out like Charlie sheen after a really good coke binge when he used to be cool.

I awoke upon the floor alone cold and hurting in a area far more strange than fifty one
****** man whya alien would travel across the galaxy only to corn hole rednecks and poetic madmen is beyond me but enough about what some owners of websites do in there off time.

Upon the bar sat the only cure for my troubles a double shot of good blended whiskey.
Next to it a note on a bar napkin .

Dear Gonz  next time remember to remember which drink you spiked you ******* .

I had to laugh and sit really funny the seat was a bit uncomfortable get your heads out of the gutter
children your almost as bad as me.

Until next time kids remember .
Good humor bad humor  its just ******* a joke to begin with so lighten the **** up.

Cheers and stay crazy.

i hid cigarette
cartons from
my parents as
well as yours
because i knew
it was what you
wanted because
it was what they
abhorred.

© Matthew Harlovic

They sit atop a low wall kicking heels,
Pyjamas draped in bathrobes pulled-to tight
To ward Antarctic winds — Nearby the squeals
Of blues and twos betray the mortal plight
Of some ill-fated soul — A fog bank peels
Up from their glowing embers, for in spite
Of coughing blood and dragging drips on wheels,
Collective will has long since lost the fight —

And did they think as children at the flicks,
As war was sold with glory, did they think
As Bogart raised a lucifer to his lips
How Tinseltown might guide them to this brink,
And just like Fleming’s catcher tempt them in
With candy coloured cartons and a grin?

flowing rivers simulate the virtual reality of love
warriors topple over forgotten
like cartons of used milk
silk worms speak sovereign messages and warn us of our fate
are we ill or are we healthy
stealthily imprisoned by our visions
finish the sentences and sever your attachments
respecting tradition leads to detachment
a semblance of serenity
the giver of the dawn used shards of standard force
hover in the mind’s sky
houses pass you by
in finite allegories
gardens blossom
governing movies and seating our jobless
go outside now
remove the shades from your eyes
breathe in soma and drink from the sky
sightless sorrow forges on towards tomorrow
art is a balancing act
she came out of her shell in order to tell you a story
of garlands of silver and gold
woven finely into ribbons
greased with oil from a rare toad

Now, moving in, cartons on the floor,
the radio playing to bare walls,
picture hooks left stranded
in the unsoiled squares where paintings were,
and something reminding us
this is like all other moving days;
finding the ***** ends of someone else's life,
hair fallen in the sink, a peach pit,
and burned-out matches in the corner;
things not preserved, yet never swept away
like fragments of disturbing dreams
we stumble on all day. . .
in ordering our lives, we will discard them,
scrub clean the floorboards of this our home
lest refuse from the lives we did not lead
become, in some strange, frightening way, our own.
And we have plans that will not tolerate
our fears-- a year laid out like rooms
in a new house--the dusty wine glasses
rinsed off, the vases filled, and bookshelves
sagging with heavy winter books.
Seeing the room always as it will be,
we are content to dust and wait.
We will return here from the dark and silent
streets, arms full of books and food,
anxious as we always are in winter,
and looking for the Good Life we have made.

I see myself then: tense, solemn,
in high-heeled shoes that pinch,
not basking in the light of goals fulfilled,
but looking back to now and seeing
a lazy, sunburned, sandaled girl
in a bare room, full of promise
and feeling envious.

Now we plan, postponing, pushing our lives forward
into the future--as if, when the room
contains us and all our treasured junk
we will have filled whatever gap it is
that makes us wander, discontented
from ourselves.

The room will not change:
a rug, or armchair, or new coat of paint
won't make much difference;
our eyes are fickle
but we remain the same beneath our suntans,
pale, frightened,
dreaming ourselves backward and forward in time,
dreaming our dreaming selves.

I look forward and see myself looking back.

I need to know something. I don’t know if you want to tell me or not, but I really don’t care. You’re gonna tell me or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. I’m already ****** and it won’t take much to push me over the edge into dangerously angry territory.

No, **** it. Never mind. I’m ALREADY in “dangerously angry territory”. No, it wasn’t your fault. I was already close enough I could see the other side of reason before you came along.

But it would still be nice to know, if you’re willing to tell me. I mean, I’m not going to force it from you. That was the plan just a moment ago, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that my bitterness is not your fault. I won’t make you pay for it.

Yet I do feel as if it would do me a world of good to know.

Where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a back seat of a crowded subway train with a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye” in the other, holding it in front of your face as if it’s pages were a fascinating mirror? Was there an old man sitting near who turned to look at you every so often to the point where it creeped you out? Maybe you eventually said something to him, like “Excuse me, but is there something you wanted to say to me?"

“Why would you get that idea?” he would ask, as if he were totally oblivious to his invasive nature.

“I don’t know…you just keep looking at me and I wondered if there were a reason for it.”

“Nope. Not that I can think of.”

Did you smack him real good right then? Did you draw blood? I hope you did. I hope the driver had to stop the train to come back and drag you off of him. It would have been a real drag if the police had to be summoned, but on the other hand, wow, how ****** the thought of you resisting arrest.

Or did you cower into your corner, turn a page in your book and let the lecherous ******* carry on? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the kind of girl you are. I think you’re a firecracker.

And I think that wherever you were when I was falling in love is not where I wanted you to be. Not where you should have been.

Because I fell in love with a robot. Who knows why I fell in love with an ottoman? I didn’t know she was one at the time. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall in love with a machine? No, she was flesh and bones when I met her. She seemed normal, like all the other women I’ve ever seen or known.

But then she started smoking cigarettes. She carried them around in a little soft leather pouch that could be mistaken for nothing else but a case for holding the little *******.

God I hate cigarettes. I hate the smell of them, whether they’re lit or not. I hate the dark tan color of their filters with the little white dots speckled randomly. I hate the cotton that stuffs their filters. I hate the white paper with the almost imperceptible stripes banding around their length. I hate how the brand is stamped close to the base of the filter. I hate the packages that they come in and the cellophane that wraps them. I hate how stray flecks of tobacco gather in the bottom of the boxes and the wrappers, too. I hate how they make a person’s breath stink. I hate how they make a person’s clothes reek. I hate the way they look in a shirt pocket. I hate the way they look between people’s fingers and in their mouths. I hate the way they burn down to the nub and the ash that they leave behind. I hate pitch black nicotine stains on ******* smokers’ hands. I hate the way some people put one between their ear and noggin and actually think it makes them look cool. I hate how smokers seem to have some code of sharing, how it’s always “Hey, can I *** a smoke from you?” and 99 times out of 100 the answer is “sure”. It’s never, “Okay, but you gotta pay me back.” Oh no, Smoker’s Karma is at work here. I hate the way too many people call ‘em “smokes”. “I’m off to get a pack of smokes.” Good God, I think that’s lame. “Smokes”. Ha. I hate the way smokers ***** about laws that prohibit them from smoking in public and how so many of them have absolutely no regard for non-smokers who not only can’t stand the smell of the ******* but would just as soon not chance even the most remote possibility of getting lung cancer caused by second hand smoke. I hate how smokers would tell that person, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The chances of that happening are one in a million.” So what? *******. ******* with your nasty cancer sticks and **** your tar-lined wheezing lungs, too. **** the death bed you will lie on when emphysema steals your last breath. **** the oxygen tanks that cost almost as much as all the cartons of cigarettes you have wasted your money on during the last who-knows-how-many years of your life. **** all your attempts to quit. **** the feeling of disappointment that overwhelms when you fail once again, as Mighty God Tobacco hugs you, strokes your wet hair, wipes the sweat from your forehead and the tears from your eyes. Sweet summer sweat. The tears of a clown.

You know what? She never smoked before. I never would have thought she would pick up that disgusting habit, but she sure as hell did. Picked it up like it was a twenty dollar bill someone lost that she found on the side of the road as she walked to the smoke shop to buy another pack of Marlboro Lights.

There’s another thing I hate about cigarettes. “Smoke Shops”. Where the value-minded smokers purchase their wares. Not “Cigarette Store”. Not “Tobacco Warehouse"…oh, no. It’s a SMOKE SHOP. You’re going to buy some smoke, brother Jim. You’re gonna spend too much money at the 7-11 and it’s all gonna go up in smoke, but by the grace of God you are gonna save a couple of bucks by purchasing them at the “Smoke Shop” instead of the convenience store. You complain until you’re blue in the face about how ridiculously high the ciggy prices are at normal retail outlets, but when you run out of ‘em and the God-blessed “Smoke Shop” is closed ‘cuz it’s Sunday you’ll drive like a madman to Love’s and blow ten bucks because there’s a “Buy Two Get One Free” special going on. What a ******* good deal that is, eh, mister?

Furthermore…CIGGYS??? I hate how people call ‘em “ciggys”. But not nearly as much as I hate the word “cigarette”. I cannot stand to speak the word. I hate the way it rolls of my tongue. I hate the way the word sounds like it means “little cigars”.

I hate the way some smokers empty out their car ashtrays in the parking lot. I hate the way all the butts look lying there in a heap, a pile of paper soaked with the spittle of a hundred different mouths. And yet the nicotine python grips some desperate smokers so tightly that they will pick them up and try to smoke the last tiny flecks of tobacco from their crushed and blackened ends. I’ve even seen people extract the remaining **** from several discarded butts, roll it all up in a Zig Zag paper and smoke it. Don’t these people even know what Zig Zag papers are for? They sure ain't for tobacco, Charter.

“Butts”. There’s another word in the smokers lexicon that just sounds silly. “Smoke ‘er down to the ****, Jack, we’ve got more!” “I don’t have an ash tray, Terry, so just put your BUTTS in that half empty soda can over there on the table”…never thinking that there might be someone else at the party who could very likely mistake that particular pop can for his own and take a mighty swig from it. Oh my God, the thought, it gags me. How nauseating it would be to feel one of those wretched things fall against your lips and…Egad…the flavor…and yet the cruel smoker will laugh at such misfortune.

****.

God help me.

She was not a robot when I met her. Oh, no, she was a beautiful, exciting, passionate loving woman with a heart of gold and a desire that was practically insatiable. Here…take a look, I have a photograph in my wallet. See what I mean? That’s right, daddy-O, she was a real dreamboat. I used to carry this picture with me wherever I went…I guess I still do, huh? But I don’t know why. I don’t know why I torture myself looking at it, remembering what was, all we had, our bright and glorious future wrecked and deserted by her newfound proclivity for smoking cigarettes. Yeah, my friend, she was a real keeper. But you know what? **** her now, y’know? Just turn her over and **** her.

But hey…perhaps I’ve been too harsh on the smoker in general (if not to her…no, not to her). Perhaps I have exaggerated a bit. After all, some of my best friends smoke. It’s their business, not mine. Never has been mine. I know that. If they knew how I felt about the whole thing, whose to say they wouldn’t tell me to ****** off and never come back? Then again, if they are so shallow as to take any of this as a personal insult, then maybe, just maybe they aren’t my friends after all. I doubt the robot would want anything more to do with me if she knew what a stalwart anti-smoker I am. But I thought she felt the same. She DID feel the same. She told me as much. Before she lost her soul. Before she started smoking cigarettes. Before she started bumming ciggys.

I got no time for changes in her life so now I ask you again…where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a Pentecostal Holiness church on a hard pew early Sunday morning before the service began, thumbing through the hymnal, looking for one that best expressed your feelings of devotion at that point in your spiritual journey? And what would that hymn have been? “Onward Christian Soldiers”? “Peace in the Valley”? “In the Garden”? “Smoke on the Water”? “Hotel California”? Maybe some obscure Black Sabbath song tucked in at the end of the book, next to the Doxology?

Did your hair shimmer, reflected in the light that poured through the stained glass window directly behind you? Did you feel it’s heat on your neck? Did it draw out beads of perspiration there, glistening? Would you have let me lick them and taste their saltiness even in the sanctuary of the church building? Probably not. But I don’t think the idea would repulse you like it would some other bonnet headed midi-skirt wearing holy rollin’ *****.

Maybe I would have asked you outside so that you might feel a little more comfortable with what I’d had in mind.

And maybe you would have told me “no”. I couldn’t blame you for that. No, I wouldn’t. It’s only natural for a real woman to guard her integrity in situations such as this one. I could not hold that against you.

Is that where you were? I need to know. Where the hell were you when I was falling in love?

NEW neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets.
  
The look of their clean white curtains was the same as the rim of a nun's bonnet.
  
One way was an oyster pail factory, one way they made candy, one way paper boxes, strawboard cartons.
  
The warehouse trucks shook the dust of the ways loose and the wheels whirled dust-there was dust of hoof and wagon wheel and rubber tire-dust of police and fire wagons-dust of the winds that circled at midnights and noon listening to no prayers.
  
"O mother, I know the heart of you," I sang passing the rim of a nun's bonnet-O white curtains-and people clean as the prayers of Jesus here in the faded ramshackle at Congress and Green.
  
Dust and the thundering trucks won-the barrages of the street wheels and the lawless wind took their way-was it five weeks or six the little mother, the new neighbors, battled and then took away the white prayers in the windows?

i want to write about you
but i think it might be too soon

i am stopped on the cracked cement
next to a small but necessary park
in the middle of it all

there are hundreds of thousands of windows
shut tightly to keep the cool air in

the only chickens for miles
are being served up on plates
between college roommates
and lovers who find the city
more romantic than any
vague resemblance of a kiss
exchanged quickly on a narrow step
  
but still, i carry around my wicker basket
packed with old egg cartons
and carefully folded tea towels

i memorize the feeling of tired eyes that won’t look away
of how warm it is inside my bedroom with the door closed
tracing your outline in the dark

until the soft orange light of morning
paints every shadowy corner

until i have found myself feral
deep in a dark blue thicket
somewhere between you and the trees

I watch you in stop motion.

Love-
ly
dress,
I
must
con-
fess,
I probably
won’t
remember it
at all.

They’ve been trying for a while now
to anchor you down
tie you to the anvils of atoms and silk

I’ve been telling them for a while now
you’re extra-planetary
you won’t fit into their egg cartons

your first appearance
was marked by a fire
engulfing any earthly
binding or chains

You’ve been burning for a while now
with unlikely alchemy
with flames that repeat my exhaling

We’ve been missing for a while now
lost in each other
away from the world of atoms and silk

If you are searching for some sort of formula to carry on fighting, or for a sequence of numbers or symbols to decode bravery, there is no purpose to look any further. It’s not that you are close to it, or getting there, or that the concept itself of a bravery code is the first step towards deciphering the code, but you’ll never get the chance. There is no code. When you are trying to pull your parts together and make them work in concordance even though you have been unhinged an inch too far from the here and now, the currents of reality. For example, where is one of your hands? One is banging on the tabletop for attention while the other presses down on your trachea to crush it closed. You need to calm down one hand so you can use it to loosen the other from your own throat. There are no pretty ways- or any ways- to suture the open wounds that have been left on you. It feels filthy and confusing to speak, and it hurts because you know only yesterday your talk was free.

It is disturbing to smile and to hold your face without anything to express. All you want to do is release that scream that begs for freedom, just as speech. But you can’t go on like this, all torn apart- this is a body fighting itself, a war against its own shadow; it’s a mind murdering the body from inside. Think about that, if you can just about bear it, and then you’ll catch onto why there’s not a instruction manual waiting for you after your experience to lay out in bullet points the right way to feel. How to’s on coping with grief, guilt, disgust, dissociation, nightmares, the memory becoming part of your autobiography. There’s no manual or guide because there is no way to make peace with that.

No one ever taught you that bravery can be something other than clawed in eyes, sharpened nails, feral smiles. It doesn’t appear as the torn up hands of a wrecked clock or the veins filled with venom under poisoned skin. You can decide what your bravery looks like. Maybe it looks like smashed plates, slashed tires, the silver gleam along the edge of a bread knife that flashes as you make yourself a sandwich. Maybe it’s letting the shadows give you some comfort when the windows are jammmed and refuse to open. It’s framing pictures of yourself and your mother because you have a need for nostalgia almost as much. It’s changing the colour of your hair, it’s gin and tonic before noon or else only juice you drink from cartons. It’s taking out the ******* bins whilst knowing they contain one or several things you ought to not throw away, but taking the words of Kerouac- Accept loss forever. It looks, perhaps, like trying to fix a clock but allowing for times ahead to weave in and out of an arbitrary linear path. No matter how many times you look at those hands on that face, you’ll never be able to turn back time or bypass a single moment on fast forward. It’s brave to try and invent a potential cure and to persist, but someday you’ll be thankful you couldn’t fix yourself by going back over time or denying the disappearing time.

It could be going to confession every Tuesday and Thursday, or visiting a shooting range, whether or not you end up firing a gun. It could be learning to bake your favourite cake, then baking dozens of small cakes and eating them alone. It could be a simple mouth to pillow scream. It could be the development of an entirely original and organic dream. It didn’t come from nowhere, nor from what you are trying to be brave for. A terrible event can be catastrophic and cataclysmic. The evidence in that is surely in all catastrophes and the associated ways in which the world shifts around it, accomodates is corners, and is changed even just by the wake left behind.

Most likely it is writing and it’s burning. It’s howling, visualising your head split in two against a wall. It’s bleeding to remember why you stopped drawing your own blood. It’s acting sinfully to forget. It’s undergoing an exorcism of your own by drawing a map of your body and marking out all the hiding places taken as territory by the spectres that haunt you. You’ll need your bravery to claim those spaces back, to conjure a monster frightening enough to scare the spectres themselves out.

If you try on lots of looks for bravery, be aware you’ll be black-night and blues and plum-colour bruised. Healing looks a lot like brutality, but it is the best home you’ve ever had. It is the first that you have built with your own hands and you owe no one for it.

Remember: Whatever has been done. Whatever you have done to survive.
Remember: the war is almost over.
Remember: you have always been home.

Carrot and coriander, why are you so pally?
With your 'c' sounding names and you both being edible,
Well I've got news for you boys,
I think you're absolutely terrible.

Carrot and coriander, why are you so pally?
Just because you both like soup and a little bit of season,
It doesn't mean you should be so close, it's not a good enough reason.

Carrot and coriander, why are you so pally?
You hang around in cardboard cartons, talking trash about other ingredients,
Well its just not acceptable boys, and I'm really not feelin' it.

Carrot and coriander, why are you so pally?
People think you're great, with your complementary flavours,
Well I'm sorry boys, think you're tasty? Do me a 'kin favour.

useless, this skyward nightblind stare
was it there, from lost flecks of  stardust
that God wrought
this species of heroes and heathens?
these eyes don't see much anymore

I've tired of my own sophic nonsense,
pretenses ****** to any screed that might buy words
to publish under slews of anonymous names...
real life is not vague
we chew it, hard crusty bread

before dinner, my own fingers rummaged deep
planted within loose root shards, chewed chicken thighs, other things
we've eaten,
ever since days as young children...

Our Father consumed simply

like a banged and dented '57 Chevy
adorned pretty with loose bananas and oranges
freed from paper cartons,
his rusty wrenches tucked in my toolbox
built solid, still colorful, if not as useful anymore;
a ***-stained carpet too good to throw away
left to rot in the driveway; I called a tow to haul it all
yesterday

Oh my Brother...

when it rains
I drown in his rolling wheelchair
and rubber-tipped canes, set out plastic buckets

... and I think to drink them in...

the stories of glory or warning,
conquests and war,
apple pies left to cool on a sill
awaiting harvest by the bravest soldier

today:
gifts of old shot glasses saved in the cellar
(I drink from the bottle)
a box of fine cedar from the back of the closet
(though odor not telling, for a decade at best)
more stories...

but still
we're both grown men now, and safer for past efforts,
the lawn neatly mowed if not always ****-free.

does it matter?
winter's soon coming.
what could it save me?

it's a cold wind -
in time enough, some men
newly minted, will gaze inward - outward, too
search for food left in the pantry
the paltry stocks I put up:
canned spaghetti, dollar store crackers, salty powdered soup mixes...

they'll wonder whether a father ever listened
cared enough to spout useful advice...
weigh one heathen,
the *** who wrote poems only for himself

With out stretched arms aimed at the sky, i danced with the clouds

singing her memory in my head

tears strewn across my face

the tattered bandages of time, erased

lost

like milk cartons,

but no signs to hold her place

no burial grounds but the white walls and too bright lights,

a symphony of disinfectant, and medical waste bins

and me with my muscles

me with my logic

me with my ****** sense of what makes a man.

stand strong they tell you

don’t cry they tell you

be found they’ll say

just know, just know

If reality is a bowl of
smashed cereal,
irreconcilable with
wholeness;

Then dreams are those
cartons of overnight
milk, mixed with reality
for a sour solace.

L'Espoir, quand même et malgré tout !

( Une poésie, bien pour notre temps )

L'Espoir, c'est le sourire entrevu
Qui interrompt les plombs de l'injustice.
C'est Malraux s'efforçant de lever des avions
Dans une Espagne en feu, abandonnée, trahie
L’espoir, ce sont ces humbles que l'on ne voit jamais,
À qui l'on sourit et propose un projet commun,
L’Espoir ce sont l'abbé Pierre et Coluche, délaissant leur confort,
Pour dire que la faim et l'absence de toit sont indignes de sociétés qui se prétendent démocratiques,
L'Espoir c'est la patience de reprendre l'explication si une première leçon n'a pas portée ses fruits,
L'Espoir c'est rejeter toute forme d'exclusion fondée sur la race, le sexe, l'âge ou la manière de croire ou de ne pas croire,
L'Espoir c'est l'évêque d'Hugo, laissant repartir le forçat Jean Valjean,
L'espoir c'est abandonner toute forme de vengeance et penser que l’être peut toujours s'améliorer, m^me s'il n'y mets pas toujours du sien,
L'espoir c'est refuser de hurler avec la meute sur l'homme seul que les médias exhibent au carcan avant de le conduire au gibet sous les clameurs de haine des foules.
L'espoir c'est penser que l'obscur employé et le simple ouvrier peuvent trouver et proposer ses solutions plus simples et plus efficaces que celles abstraitement élaborées par le chef ou par le patron.
L'Espoir c'est refuser de voir piétiner la planète et de laisser sans rien dire prendre des risques insensés au motif que certains puissants savent mieux que nous tous et ont le savoir.
L'espoir c'est se sentir rouge de honte en voyant des SDF allongés sur des cartons et entourés de l'affection de leurs seuls chiens.
L'espoir c'est découvrir des nouvelles et des sons nouveaux et ressentir que ce jaillissement de sons est une plénitude de l’Esprit et des sens,
L'Espoir, c'est parier sur la création des êtres et l'action personnelle et collective pour faire reculer la part de contraintes de la rareté et la résignation à ce persistant malheur.
L'espoir c'est refuser la facilité de désigner un bouc émissaire pour masquer son propre égoïsme ou fuir ses responsabilités et l'impératif de justice.
L'espoir, c'est regarder le ciel qui luit et la feuille d'automne qui tournoie comme l'aurore d'un premier jour,
C'est penser aux souffrances visibles et invisibles des malades et savoir relativiser ses propres succès comme ses prétendus échecs,
L'espoir, c'est s'abstenir de croire que l’on se dire citoyen en se contentant de paresseusement voter en déléguant toute sa vigilance et son action propre tous les cinq ans,
L'espoir c'est se demander si l'on a toujours bien exploré toutes les solutions et toutes les voies pour sortir d'un conflit et ne pas faire perdre sa dignité à son adversaire,
L'espoir c'est refuser de s'endormir dans l'indifférence des autres et de se sentir acteur et transformateur dans l'aventure de la vie,
L'espoir c'est savoir rendre l'espoir et la Dignité à celles et ceux qui sont tombés et désespèrent.

Paul Arrighi

Sometimes on the way out of Giant,
I'll spend some time freeing change
from the receipt-paper
bindle in my coat pocket
for one two-twist mystery prize
from a Folz machine.

Two quarters:
Enough for a sapphire ring and a cheap
laugh while I juggle coffee-cream cartons,
a sack of December oranges, Certs,
cinnamon mouthwash, a dented can
of green beans 'cause it's cheaper,
red toothpicks, Ziploc bags, a barbecue
chicken TV dinner, Noxzema, a 32-case
of Poland Spring water, a Valentine's
Hallmark card and envelope, a bottle
of pink grapefruit Perrier,
two quick picks for Cash 5,
gluten-free potato chips, garlic salt,
some cumin for $2.82, and a copy
of Vogue.

I strap my groceries in the passenger seat,
and see them sitting straight up as I had,
childishly marveling at the lush
maple leaves washing the windshield
edges in green, leaving helicopters
and dew trails.

She and I watched slug trails
beneath mustard streetlights glisten
like Berger Lake.
Bright as the last cigarette my grandma snuffed out in a smokeless ash tray.
Bright as the first line of road flares that separated me from a burning Taurus.
Bright as the quarter my grandpa gave me for the Folz machine in the Sylvania.
And bright as the emerald ring I showed him.

My kitchen is yellow
Ugly and faded
My kitchen is where
Late at night
I traded
Crumbs with a monster
A tiny little thing
That grows and grows
With growls and grumblings
She does not like the yellow
And neither say do I
Sometimes the hideous color
Makes her want to cry
So I placate her with cookies
Brownies and more
But my little monster
Throws tantrums on the floor
No amount of Nutella
Can get her off her knees
For my little monster
Has a minds disease
And I’m too busy fighting
That I can not see
The empty cartons of ice cream
Will bring her no true ease

I've been searching for you
at the bottom of cigarette cartons
trying to remember
if your touch was ever hot
as the ashes falling from my fingertips
I've been searching for you
between the breaths charring my insides
taking my time to wonder
if the warmth between your thighs has faded.

Eyeballs return their messages
After the dial tone
You find yourself silent
What a milestone
At twenty six
You are still a ******
Useless burdens
Learn to surf
It combines love with gravity
Strategies and striated lines
Fingers align
We incline our spines
And elevate our torsos
Mind the gap
A fabricated rip in time and space
Figuratively awake
We speak from our hearts
Your long time girlfriend
Is now a victim of indecision
Start talking or you’ll lose her
More than ever she needs your strength
Your friendship, your lips and your touch
Control the rush
And give time a chance to unwind
Mindless fingers linger on her legs
Can we beg for more
Or will we get usurped by the corridors
Cartons of milk left in defiance
Send me your elegant negligee
I neglected to beg your pardon
You neglected to say you were sorry
Phone calls reach dial tones
And we remove the stones from our sundials
Calendars are timeless timelines
Wild like waves
We break free of enslaved isotopes
Compose songs and poems
And attempt to drink atomic gold
From fountains of power
Houses are all just boxes
That we store our souls in
Gardens are living visions
Virtues are numberless
Hundreds of spirits join hands
In parks and paintings
We partake in equations of healing
Save me from my longing
For loving too much is a curse
And purses fall like hexes
Placing dents in your dresses
We undress our fences
And select our neighbors
To dance with

Torrential, lightning and a river on Decatur,
straightened tie, loaded gun, staggered
down to house 423, a big wet bottle in my hand,
a choir of angels in my head, I confessed to you
that I never much cared for Frost, possibly both
roads lead to an affair with me, time means little more
than air, cotton candy fever dreams, melting wedding bands,
a stain on your white dress, tender, torn up, seeing
Jesus on the cross at 3 am, it's Tuesday, borders, lines, barriers,
milk cartons, hamster wheels, the sun stayed away for fear
of witnessing this itchy massacre, plans? I find them trite,
quick to betray, overdrawn bank accounts, flat tires,
17-year-old quick *****, the wrinkles in the mirror,
the road back home, detour, detour, going down south
by way of 35, oceans of highways, shorelines of grief,
steady shots of grace in the passenger seat, where have
I smelled that before? Change your perfume, if I kiss you,
it needs to be strange, frightening, splitting the seams of
norm skull and disemboweling the sanctity of routine,
it's easy to put up the picket fence, easier yet to paint it black,
but behind the curtains of my .32 caliber grin,
lies a quivering child waiting for ma to get off work,
babysit me, hospital gowns, looking for lost blue crayons,
the bouquet rots on the windowsill, remember the first kiss?
Doped on caffeine, sleepless because Shorty partied too hard,
tile floor, porcelain, your strapless top undressed itself,
earthquake waltz, borderline insane, milk thistle,
both roads lead to an affair with me.

Moving swiftly on
packing my life
into cardboard.
Boxes lie strewn,
filled with folded clothes,
books, bits of paper.

Memories trapped
on the page all pile
into containers
destined for yet
another shelter.

A new home,
strange,
unknown,
exciting.
Apprehension
lies lost somewhere
in the debris of fast
approaching deadlines.

Beginning to piece together
the jigsaw of suitcases,
bags, holdalls, and
supermarket cartons,
packed like sardines
into the belly of my car
I journey into the future.

The wheels of
life accelerate.
Hardly pausing
to look back,
shifting gear,
I struggle to
remember
where
I packed
myself...

"Sometimes I think to myself that if I owned a gun I’d blow my brains out the back of my head. But since I don’t own a gun, these bottles of whiskey will have to do," Richmond told the Arab man behind the counter of Bob’s All American Convenience store. The Arab man nodded politely and counted the money Richmond laid down on the counter before putting it in the register.

Richmond leaned against the counter staring past the clerk and past the cartons of cigarettes and boxes of condoms and blunt shell wrappers that fooled no one of their intended use. Richmond stared past the convenience store walls and passed the ****** blowing a John in the back alley by the dumpster and past the man beating his wife in front of their children and past the 13 year old girl that just found out she was going to be a mother and past the block that only worsened every day and past the city that was crumbling beneath corrupt politicians and the debt they incurred and past the country that hid the truth from its citizens.

Richmond stared past it all and felt his eyes begin to water as tears started to fall down his face, tracing his age lines, tracing the scars that scared away children, tracing the laugh lines he no longer used until he could taste his tears, salty and wet, first on his lips and then his tongue. Richmond cried for the first time in a long time and began laughing at the thought of himself crying. He did not know what brought it on and when he tried to pinpoint the thought or feeling or emotion that triggered the tears he was met with a migraine.

The Arab man behind the register looked at Richmond with suspicion and reached beneath the counter top and pulled out a baseball bat that had nails protruding from the top half and told Richmond that he needed to leave, that this was a place for business and not weirdos. Richmond wiped away the tears with the ragged sleeve of a flannel that he had found in the dumpster earlier that morning. He feigned a smile the best he could to show no hard feelings and grabbed the brown bag containing three small bottles of whiskey and left the store.

The air hit Richmond’s tear stained face and instantly cooled him and he felt the bitterness of winter coming even as he heard the air conditioners running and the taxis honking and the birds over in the park a block over chirping. Richmond walked along the sidewalk, ignored intentionally by everyone he passed, and found an alley way unoccupied except for the rats digging thru refuse and slid his aching body down against one of the buildings brick walls and took out a bottle of whiskey and uncapped it and brought it to his lips and felt its amber courage wash over his tongue and down into his belly creating a warmth that he hasn’t felt since the doctors told him that his wife and daughter had died in the car accident that had only left him scarred badly upon his face and chest.

Richmond thought about their deaths and felt the pain as if it had just happened and not seventeen years ago and drank the first bottle of whiskey gone until the numbness overtook the ache and he watched the rats scurrying thru the garbage before a cat crept down the alley and coughs one of the rats off guard and began toying with it as cats do. The other rats took off down various holes and behind whatever coverage they could find so that they could live another day.

“Smart rats" Richmond found himself saying allowed. He opened the second bottle and drank it as he watched the cat tear open the flesh of the rat with its sharp claws on its paw and tear chunks of insides out with its feline teeth. He drank the bottle as he watched the cats white face become red with blood from its **** and he drank as he watched the cat lick and clean itself until it was a white cat again and it left the alley. Richmond stood up slowly using the wall he was leaning against for support and he stumbled his way out of the alley with his one whiskey bottle left hidden beneath the left side of his flannel. He cradled it like an endangered animal and continued his sluggish, stumbling walk towards the park where he found a bench and laid down and closed his eyes.

When he awoke he saw a cop coming towards him. Wanting nothing to do with the law Richmond quickly snapped to and started walking in the opposite direction of the cop. He looked over his shoulder once or twice or three times after a good while of walking and did not see the cop anymore. He sighed. And laughed quietly.

Richmond walked some more with no path or intention in mind until he sobered up and realized he had walked to the graves of his wife and daughter. Richmond dropped to his knees and began sobbing and scratching at the dirt that covered their caskets some six feet below. He howled for god and asked angrily why them and not him. He laid his head down on the ground and cried and the dirt mixed with his tears so that he looked blackface in some spots. He wiped away the mud and tears and took his last bottle out and before putting it to his mouth told his wife and daughter that he would be with them soon and he pulled the trigger by drinking the bottle empty and laying down next to his wife’s grave and holding the ground where she lay dead.

The next morning the care taker was doing his first daily walk thru and came upon Richmond lying with the tombstones, dead, and with a smile on his face.

The trot of kalesas,
Temple shack stores and
Hastily scrawled calligraphy—

Fruit cartons
And rice sacks
That litter
The clay streets
Itching to emerge from
Asphalt skin—

Browbeaten Angkongs shivering
In the December chill,
Decked in hawaiian shirts
And worn sandals—

Dirt-tinged air
Which goes down my throat
About as smooth as grandpa's beer—

Bitter but clean,
Swelling my chest with pride—

It tastes like home.

a bus ride to somewhere
tranquil or at least to
somewhere less loud
i look high or tired or
a combination of both
                              what is the word...
                                                         there.
                                                     pa-thet-ic
maybe traveling with
an empty stomach helped
because normally
i would've puked
banana bread and tea by now
                           i've always hated shaky
                                drives and the smell of
                                                      air freshener
do you hear all the noise too
there's a madman shouting
in my ear, a ****** karaoke tune
and a tiny voice saying
                                       you're immaterial
repeatedly
                                                   or is it just me
how do you function
when you feel like you've lost
an arm except in my case
it's my brain that's been missing
                                 you should see my stash
                                                       of milk cartons

substitute your mind for the divine presence
open you eyes and gaze upon the unknown
I speak for a plethora of overgrown gardens
are we cartons of cigarettes or bundles of sweetgrass
answers like these are never necessary
yet we borrow everything from life's apothecary
i am among the tired lions
who offer their music to your dynasties
its a weekend campaign finance escapade
to bring farms to your table and then go back to the basics
i wish you could see the benefits
that only exist beyond these earthly dimensions
for limits expand whenever we question them

I give thanks for the earth
i give thanks for the trees
i give thanks for the mother
i give thanks for the bees
i give thanks for the soil
i give thanks for the work
i give thanks for the passion
i give thanks for the hurt
i give thanks for the smiles
i give thanks for the children
i give thanks for the flowers
i give thanks for the silence
i give thanks for the power
i give thanks for the rain
i give thanks for the sunshine
i give thanks for the pain
i give thanks for the anger
i give thanks for the rage
i give thanks for the strength
to never separate myself from you

The car we decide to drive looks
like a crooked body. When Leo and I stop at a gas station,
we enter the bathroom, look into the full-length
mirror. Even with him standing up, I can count
all 24 of his ribs, all of them poked out and looking
like nooses. I imagine witches dead and dangling
off of each one of them.

He is that thin.

The way he looks
reminds me of my father.
Right before my father died,
his face looked like cruel weather.
My father in a hospital bed,
my father in a coma.

Right after my father died I listened to “Wild Horses”
on repeat. The lyrics seemed to fit well with the white
of the hospital walls (I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie.)

When Leo and I get back into the car
I put on “Wild Horses” again.

Leo was not there the day my father died.
Leo did not come to the hospital once. Leo
has hands large as Vatican City. There have
been times in my dreams when Leo looks more
like the Pope than he does himself. Leo’s skin
is not nearly as wrinkled in real life.

In the car we eat cheese and peanut butter crackers,
drink cartons of orange juice. I eat and drink until
I feel sick. This is normal. In this heat, sticky and dry
as the corners of my mouth are, it is all I can do not to make
Leo stop the car so that I can stick my hands down my throat
and *****. The vomiting is normal, too. I have only

just met Leo. It was me who suggested this trip, my body
in his bed, me staring up at his ceiling, and it was me
who was surprised when he agreed to take it with me.

I know,
ten dollar bottles of whiskey
and cartons of Marlboros,
are certainly a way to accelerate my untimely demise.
But women,
now that'll be the death of me.
Underneath the drunken stupor
behind the walls of smoke;
I'm fragile as any fabric.
I can only be cut and sewn so many times...
Alas,
as with all my vices;
the whiskey,
the drugs,
the cigarettes,
I'll dive head first into the next one.
Give it my all.
Take it or leave it,
you'll have the best and worst of me.
And when you leave it,
I'll sew myself back together,
just one more time...
And it'll be on to the next one,
until I die.

it is
in-between sentences
diagonal;
directing a conversation you can't have/
the need to protect the pride
Lie on something similar, like
thick grass; emptied cartons of
unfinished favors, leftover excitement/
somewhere else to put your perfect hands
silver, white seconds
pumping your gallop
against the lips, out loud
louder
against the sureness of breath-beside-sleep
louder until we open up
breaking it down for my sanity
tell me you felt me, once
just
to my diaries of you
my need
dried coral reef
doesn't grow under palm trees, darling
pumped from
your need
& why you should be . . .
so very
so very
*brief
with
me

?

sometimes it just takes a clear sky to clear your head,
i can remember the days of waking up
to earl grey of england, thick, bulging clouds,
none in the shape of cauliflowers,
or as some would claim: castles made of clouds;
it would just seem like a nuclear holocaust
happened - and that's how it really is,
the body's barometer, thankfully it's there,
and i can blame something outside of myself
and call it a mood, or a ****** cognitive narration.

unlike today, clear sky, crisp wintry blue,
slightly hazy on the edges of my vision,
and slightly pink, monet pink,
thin pink, nothing that could be compared
to a grapefruit pink, a fluorescent pink,
no... thin pink, thin atmospheric pink
teasing purple while dragging a bit of orange
behind with it.

and my breakfast, a cigarette and a glass
of quasi-skimmed milk,
ah, quasi-skimmed - ever so often coming
out of school i used to buy a pint of
full fat milk and drink it before getting
on the bus home... those old bottles of
milk that the milkman still delivers
      in the night... you could still buy them
in shops... haven't seen a bottle like
that in a shop for ages...
    last time i drank a bottle of milk like that
i stole one walking home,
left a pound and took the bottle...
  quasi-skimmed?
   it's the tobacco hangover...
the phlegm needs to stay down...
milk lines the throat, while i smoke and
taste iron from cigarettte...
quasi-skimmed:
   semi-skimmed milk and a top of water...
at least the colour is still pristine ******
white... unlike the skimmed milk in red
cartons that looks: grey, or bruised...
but the effect is the same, but hardly.

yet what's the prompt though?
it's too early to be writing something sober...
just a word i used yesterday concerning
a book... anti
                                       c, h, i, r, s, t...
doesn't the concept usurp the third person of
the original trinity? i mean, who was he supposed
to be? pure animality of a dove, a symbol of peace?
these days philosophers say that the third person
isn't a person at all... but a suggestion of a community
of believers, a bit like the islamic *ummah...
for centuries christianity was founded upon
the principle that the holy ghost was a person,
some kind of mediator between the son on earth
and the father in heaven... and perhaps even a transitional
tool for the son to embody the father via
the move from the earthly realm to the heavenly realm,
a "philosopher's stone" if you like:
christ's body of flesh and ash on earth, turned into
some ethereal body-substance in heaven...
    but these days, well, that link has faded,
the concept of community is gone...
         every older person will be cited as having said
that at some point...
     is that an argument to suggest that the holy ghost
was always a person, i.e. the paraclete?
well... if that be true, as c. g. jung suggests...
the notion of the paraclete ever arriving would usurp
the authority of the pope...
                or any eastern partriarch...
but then there are the philosophers who say that the holy
ghost was never a person, but a concept of a community,
a body, indeed, as any person might have:
but a collective body of believers...
   but given our modern times, or esp. the example
in england: there is no community of believers as such,
that has disappeared a short while ago,
the number of attendants of the church of england
has wavered to a slight nudge in %...
        evidently what has died is not god per se,
but the community established by the creed -
                  god is dead, well: a third of him...
in that context i completely agree -
   then what is happening has already been happening
for some time...
   and he sits at the left hand of the father...
no one else, but the antichrist, and with him
the spirit of the times: the zeitgeist...
       the one that states: revolutions and counter-revolutions,
for the ones one dispersed will shower upon
those formerly affirmed in ethnic and base root
of their lands to subsequently disperse.
    for has not the concept of the antichrist dispersed
the concept of the holy ghost?
unless of course one is to believe that the paraclete
is true, but rarely spoken about in mainstream
theology...
                at least in england, a third of god is dead,
that is: the holy ghost: a body of believers: a community
has vanished... for one, the urban environment has
killed off the once held belief that people could
live in small communities...
                                 we're all practically strangers
around here, even if we've lived next to someone
10 metres away from us for 10 years:
there's really no point making alliances now,
nor ever.
               the best we've accomplished with the death
of the high street, is a very nice looking prison...
our neighbours sometimes drop packages of
delivered goods that can't fit through the letterbox
while we were away...
   it's almost like living in someone's agoraphobia
la la land... that said: if that third of him ain't dead...
it's definitely sick, or in the process of dying...
adding the fact that for some the islamic ummah
is so tempting... because it actually is a community...
well... what do you know...

              time to get seconds of my breakfast.

I am just your average nut case
Searching for her soul mate
Inside endless cartons of ice cream

its been 4 days since I've showered
5 days since I've shaved
6 days and 7 hours
since you chose to go away
two cartons of cigarettes
a bottle and half of scotch
it like time is stuck in neutral
nothings moving on my watch
I haven't been outside for days
the curtains have stayed drawn
the days rolled into endless grey
no nightfall, dusk or dawn
this won't go on forever
each day a bit more pain has gone
one day I will be numb enough
rumour has it, life goes on

it was a dry winter
he sang "*** and candy" as i braided my hair
we'd never dwelt so far apart
oceans between us while sharing a bed

he bought me rain-boots for christmas
desert dwellers have little use for rain-boots at the end of december
but i smiled because it didn't matter

he could never see me
only aknowledged the static space i inhabit
his empty eyes sang symphonies in the silence

we were young
and the world refused to cease it's spinning
despite our sea-sick cries while faking love

even the rustiest carousels chase their tails long after the waiting line is rendered empty after dusk

the secret to life inside our discarded cigarette cartons
the history at the bottom of the beer pitcher

it was our hell
our own private galaxy doing pirouettes on the sidelines of time
we aged like newspapers hidden in the hedges

but we meant it
or at least we thought we did
whatever it was
we meant it

the way that one means it when they say they wished they'd died the morning after dollar beer night

it felt right
no matter how bad it always hurt

'Les amoureux de la pluie'

  That's the myth we share sitting across a sea of stars (table) that bound a distance rich in silence and secrets only whispered into budding tulips.
  Ambiguous forms that refer to the weeping clouds to heal scarring burn wounds; we ask for you to madden our burning coal spirits with waves that seem to effervesce as they sweep by.
In those bubbles washing away the endless thoughts we conjure up over elements and matters observed.

You like the smell
of wet pavement
  after it pours
  And
I fail
   to stop thinking
about the little things
you act upon.

The mischievous innocence that frames the corners of your smile force me to lose my structure as a lover. My hands quiver and are weaker than the red and blue fishes swimming across your blouse.
Empty unsealed cartons remind me of your wholesome frown (that i honestly adore) and opalescent evenings overseeing weary city light lit buildings.
I'm kissing the morning Sun through your burning lips, my dear. With sideburns that curl the way lashes should, they are pecking at my ears as we wrinkle these covers and fall asleep again.

i usually take susie (4 bottles of beer) for a walk
in the rain, take the hood off, and don
my long multichrome brown hair
as a samurai bun to watch it rain heavy again,
smoking a cigarette at a bus stop
with the 'no smoking' sign without a fellow
passenger to actually for my privacy and being intrusive.

they really did it!
i swear on my heart of a scout they did,
they got frightened by the masses,
and created a very empty celebrity caste of people,
easily recognisable twits,
when then remembered the population tsunami,
they panicked and created them,
actors foremost, the easiest way to spread the lie,
they did it, and faked us into believing that
all of us were recognisable,
well at least in the jungle a baboon was a baboon,
but in the human kingdom, the side-effect
was talent shoes, misguided the plumber
into becoming a singer...
i wish it stayed like it did, like it was still:
zdrowie na budowie, nie w mafii (
health on a bulding site, not in the mafia)...
but alas, one born every second in china,
and one born every minute in europe...
who's keeping count? the clock isn't...
it broke when attempting to clock formula 1
circuits... down to the thirtieth second of 0.001...
a nervous breakdown in mechanical terminology...
but they really, really, really did do it,
concerning the 3rd commandment...
they took the tetragrammaton and took it out
from censorship with adam & eve...
they said jesus christ jesus christ jesus christ
in vain... so much in the vein of empty
that they morphed vanity into blasphemy...
say an arrangements of words using the words
jesus christ and you won't be called vain,
but blasphemous... a bit like those terrorists in the
active sutra of gunning people down -
the takbir (allahu akbar) - the people are calling
me a blasphemer, but i call them empty...
who's winning? you say the magic words long enough
and in multitude of its porcelain antique worth
and it will become it... a bit like words like
sun, apple, worm, ******* et al. congregating
on the altar of philosophy with the equivalent
communicative word of *thing keeping them in its
*****... the 3rd commandment means don't use
my name a lot, i'm busy, i'm a supra-verb
(always busy), keep naming with the atomists...
but then you misguided the term vanity,
and changed it to mean brimming to the edge
as a way to state a blasphemy...
when a vain use of a god's name becomes meaningless
due to overuse... it becomes a blasphemy to use it...
the hebrews rarely use what's already censored
like in christianity the words **** & ****...
ooh... we are convinced of being offended!
you offended me already... you censored words
and only came up with statues of squares...
ask the mathematicians... they drew a square quicker
than you moulded one for trafalgar sq.
the 3rd commandment does not mention anything
about being blasphemous about the name,
it means using it to use it to no gain...
meaning that the name is empty...
i guess moses and elijah also had the greek surname
christ attached to them.

*your blasphemy is the ultimate curse / vanity,
it's so empty when you use it,
it makes using other words feel cardinal,
and you the bishops still use them,
it's easy creating a religion from a child's gift
later lost and gained as a cross...
catholicism is the ultimate theocratic democracy,
where the non-existence of the thus state
allows for symbolic identifiable bureaucracy...
you used those words in vain...
thus you entered the 0.1 realm of blasphemy...
the christians are on the realm 9.9...
because they use the words jesus christ in vain,
and thus blaspheme in order to censor
their vocabulary... thus making casual words
seemingly unholy, even with all the science
concerning their concentrated apple juice cartons.

I remember summers ago with a boy, who wasn’t so sweet but could read aloud like a gypsy and read your hand lines like a priest. I’d kick off my shoes and we’d spread a huge blue sun-bleached towel on the sand and prop up a chair. The metal grew hot in the sun. I remember a cooler full of Coke cans and plastic cartons of strawberries; we lived off those for days at a time (along with the occasional Hot Pocket) because we were too lazy to bike out to town, and it was too hot to leave the wooden floorboards and ice towels of our house. The windows let in the evening lights from a few miles away and the distant sounds of Spanish street guitarists. Sometimes we clambered up on the roof to hear them better, and you memorized one of the songs they’d play every night, spinning out a rough version on your guitar. But you couldn’t pronounce the words as well.

When we went out on the beach, you hated the waves so you stayed high from shore while I waded out until the water reached my belly, feeling the coolness seep through my shirt and the sand riffle between my toes. I’d always wanted you to join me. I wish you didn’t hate the waves, but you did so I just stood there alone, taking in salt from the breeze and the laughter of two sisters dragging buckets of water they could barely carry from the ocean to their sand castle. Again and again they came and went so that they could fill up the moat, because you couldn't have invaders from the next kingdom over to be able to kidnap the princess so easily.