Some will make their home
Wherever they can
Get to with their feet.
Cardboard box houses
And pallets they find
By trash bins on the street.
The boxes work well
Unless it snows or rains
And then when they melt
It’s out to find a home again.

Go on home
Where the love is
Home to family
Go on home
Where you’re welcome
There is no home for me.

Cookie used to be a chef
He lives under that low bridge
He cooks in used coffee cans
That just how his life is.
Makes dinner when he has it
For us who have so little.
You’ll find him most days
Cooking delicious food
Halfway to the middle.

Go on home
Where your bed is
Home to wife and your kids
Go on home
And be grateful
And not living on the skids.

Some people gripe
When the waiter is slow
And some were once waiters
Themselves long ago.
Some people are full
After they have dined
Others only manage to eat
Whatever castoffs they find.

Go on home
Because you have one
Because you have a job.
Go home where no one
Call you a lazy slob.
Go home and thank God
You have a place to sleep.
Go home and be grateful
Go home and God keep.

Listen
to these green plants
pleading
beseeching

you would think
they'd be used to it by now
but every year the same old thing

look the rain is finished folks
you're on your own now
nine months before the next shower

this is how leaves suffocate
see the gray dust clogging their pores
hear them choking
under a wind thrown blanket
this is how they drown

brittle and crackling the grasses
soon the weight
of a starving grasshopper
will be enough to snap
them

shrubs will dump
their curled up castoffs
earthwards
scribbled twigs alone
will remain

from now on
only the thieving airplants
will thrive
viral invaders
******* sap from reluctant hosts
who can ill afford
to accommodate them

now patient rocks
are emerging from cover
each a palette of vivid lichens
sundecks for snakes and lizards
now that the clamouring grass
is gone

the land lies baking
withdrawn
curling
into herself

even the air
sighs
slumps

soon fire will come
to cannibalise
the undergrowth
play chasey
through the dry grass
send ants scurrying
downstairs
flip a nod
to the big old cactuses
tickle the toes
of the mesquites-
who will stand stoic
observing the pillage
around their hot feet
and shrug
resigned
seen it all before
they are above it all really

fire
will play homage
to their indifference
lay down
a black velvet carpet


wind
will whistle up
tiny tornadoes of ash
to pirouette
and perish

everyone
will accept the inevitable
eventually
and just knuckle down
to wait it out

in a state of trance
floating
                  on a dream
                                      of rain



Tricia Lambert
Mexico
Nov 2010

Give me the sorrow, pain, fear, and anger.
Give me the things that people hate and I’ll smooth out the ruffles.
They’ll make me stronger.
They’ll help me love you.

I see a paragon of virtue in the flaws.
Give me the weakness, and I’ll find its use.
I want the castoffs.
I know their value.

I sit,
Cross-legged by the fire.
The box meant to contain imperfections.
I linger over each, loathing, pity, regret, fear,
My fingers curl over each piece.
My mind caresses the memory.

I change them,
I rewrite the weak,
Strengthen the lesser.
Broken pieces can solidify beautifully.

I swallow the pain, and anger,
Completely neutral outside.
I give a cleanliness to the soul,
At the risk of my own.

If you were to ask…
I’d give honesty.
The fractured pieces demand to be heard.
They scream from their container.
They poke and **** but I swallow it down.
If you ask…

It’s beautifully colored glass,
Broken, healed and broken again.
I can break, but I’ll be whole again.
Colors, defects, knowing and using them
that’s what makes me,
Flawless.

The Quiet of a Pickwickian World
By Sy Roth

In the silence of my Pickwickian world,
A transcendent quiet stands vigil.
Left to its own devices it rattles around, a
lonely brown-suited courier,
Hefting weighty cargo from one sooty corner to the next.

Seeks tranquility in a world where,
Fettered by golden reins
Hobbled by unceremonial chain mail
Lanced by coronets of thorns,
Astride, a long-in-the-tooth steed
Spurred on to wrestle shredded windmills,
A cavil of unrepentant correctors rest.

And they still come--
Tidal waves of disturbances,
Tsunamis that rip ashore and sweep all away
Into a loathsome pile,
Bilious flotsam of a generation bereft of empathy.


A forced silence clings to the dusty rafters
Where sages once stood
Hanging like KKK castoffs
In a closeted Jim Crow attic of rules and regulations gone mad.

A quiescent quiet demands quiet.
Nestles behind muffled screams
Of ages of piles of rotting flesh.

Dolorous vision of a peaceful world
Where peace packed for a long vacation
To Edens that exist only in fairy tales.
Bring with them untruths of understanding
Swaddled in ******, soiled bedclothes.

Leave me to my silence,
Lave me of the Ash Wednesday smudge
Where realities come home to roost in the dim corners
Where the highwaymen have no access.

Shatter the walls of the mime’s hold

Let the riots speak of the crime

The lie, the story never told.



The decimated morals of our fathers,

Disregarded, maligned and deemed untrue.

These men in charge choose not to care

To meet the demands of our due.



The new power has risen.

Already seeming long in the tooth.

Reminiscing of the old ways,

Where nothing could replace our cherished youth.



Ravaged cities fall to the greed.

The people corrupted within.

Mesmerized, refraining from our old creed.



So spawn something new.

Become the voice of the voiceless.

Hold in your soul and breed the castoffs.

Find the kindness we’ve never found,

Our pillars of faith,

That kept our spirits so sound.



Retreat from their molds, let it out

Forsake those rituals and let them down with ease.

Make your own way, leave no doubt.



Don’t be the drone, cease the stall

Because like it or not

Permanence is the death of us all.

The constant anguish that I feel
tears my heart to shreds,
unworthy words to articulate the pain lodged in my throat
It leaves me aching, speechless,
I can't breathe.

unable to share my pain,
as predominant fears arise
I wonder about the gossips, castoffs,
Judgment at being the victim I am
Yet not able to get justice for me,
my fear has left me speechless.

What a mess my life had slowly become,
tied down by fear; it's become my shadow!
the anger slowly breaking me,
the pain driving me insane,
I perceive I'm irreparable

An irony my life had become!
Shreds of what I'd dreamed of as a girl,
never imagined being in the law's dent
Yet I stand, hands clasped
as the verdict is given,
There's no relief!
I fear I won't get the justice I deserve.

For the justice that's been served,
for the molested victim, it's not enough
ten scores too little, yet a score was given,
So relishing the pain, I choose forgiveness
Perverting the anger, I choose to forget.
I admit it's my way out.

So shredding all atoms of fear and shame,
ignoring most rude whispers,
I finally feel the far fetched freedom,
Justice has been served,
Served in Forgiveness.

Where'd you wander off to? I was one lonesome night-shift from writing another piece entirely – Allen y Federico, chasing Whitman as he climbs the paywall guarding Bohemia, ashen fog of beard left trailing in his wake. Ah, but here you are, my High Court of Muses! Lavender castoffs of two mechanical empires, camped outside on the supermarket pavement: awaiting a dawn delayed by the skyscrapers it hides behind. The Best Minds Left Standing... Lorca’s feet beating faraway Gitano rhythms; Ginsberg spouting love-letters re: the weeds’ anarchic growth from the concrete cracks... and one smaller sycophant.

I’ve offerings of oranges – Spanish nostalgia reduced to contraband – ‘stolen’, bruised, saved from dumpster fates. Wouldn't you have done the same? Isn’t food waste just state-sanctioned sacrilege? Naranjas, clementinas, full miniature moons split into crescents: I figured (halved) you'd (quartered) be starved (eighths). You savour each sacred drop of juice in ways I've yet to master. I’d always been preoccupied with expiry dates... Moloch who sets up shop inside my brain... yet time melts between my lips and I am with You under UV floodlights. I am with You where the overhead glow may not be starlight but it’s not the worst alternative. I am with You – until the checkout boy steps out for a cigarette and when Allen’s eyes follow in pursuit, I’ve lost him again. Holy, he mutters into his final segment of fruit; holy, I repeat, imagining Eve’s overeager sprint into the wide-open prisons of thought.
    I am a woman cloved in two, better half wrapped in citrus peel and tied with string – para tí, maestro Lorca. Does it bother you that these buildings stand closer to the Sun than you could have ever reached? Yet you were nothing short of an Icarus, and how close you came! Abstract wings borne from words and notoriety! Your mythology was written to fit a flamenco guitar – if they don’t know that, they don’t know you – through musical folklore, Franco tried to **** that which was immortal. His legacy is a nation of graves and a granddaughter in the gutter press.
    I begin to feel that history is a ripple-effect of looking over one’s shoulder and deciding “you’d hate it here.” There’s always the dawn. You wait for it with practised patience – pervasive optimism – the ability not to end an “always was” with “and always will be”. Is it all you’d waited for? Has time diminished its novelty? Will you write it down and tell me what I’d slept through?
    Out cold, you turn me onto my side so I don’t choke when Moloch finds his way out.

The smell of sun-warmed skin mixing with salt air gives us sleepy eyes and soft smiles.

The dew gathering on cider bottles
Rolls,
Drips,
Settles on the porous slats of the table.

Waves crash lightly, distant and invisible
Claws scratch along the deck
After tennis ***** and plum stones
Stopping at the rails.

There is a quiet murmur of life in the neighbourhood.
The hum of barbeques.
Parties.
Bike-riding families laughing up the streets
And people like us,
Sitting outside, food and company
Soaking up the last of the afternoon sun.

Crumbs fall onto my skirt,
Black and stiff with dried salt,
Unwashed and unironed.
I brush off morsels of Galaxy Blue Cheese
Wellaby's Crackers -
Sun-dried tomato flavour.
Gluten-free.

Claws scramble towards my feet
Where three dogs vacuum my castoffs
As if they haven't been eating all day.

The Pogues declare that "the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day"
As my aunt laughs
Warm, harsh, and unashamed.

And it feels like Summer.

they told me to go,
to visit the land by the sea,
and take my troubles with me - I asked "why?"
and they just shook their heads.

i went my own way,
and left my troubles behind me,
littering the places of my life with
junk i did not understand,
while they shunned me.

even so, i went on,
my trials left a wake behind me,
people, places, things i cast aside  as i went,
friendless and lost in the world,
and i saw their pity-filled eyes,
but they would not speak to me.

at long last, my path led me to the sea,
its force and power unmistakable,
for it had not past nor future,
it simply was.
and it beckoned to me.

i retraced my steps, picking up my castoffs,
back to where i started,
and they winked at me,
knowing smiles playing on their lips.

i took my troubles to the sea,
and threw them in,
myself along with them,
and at last i understood,
for the sea claimed all my troubles,
and washed me clean.

i came out of the water, and they were all there,
laughing and smiling,
and i was one of them again,
made new by the relentless wild forgiveness of the sea.

I tried to capture my authentic voice
My inner voice, my true-something-me-ness
But the little ****** is elusive
And free it remains, wild and free, to this night

So I deploy an inauthentic voice
An outer voice, only maybe it’s not;
Perhaps it’s an Hegelian dialectic
A voice cobbled together from castoffs

On a sale-table down at Goodwill, I found
A gently-used voice – so how do I sound?

sometimes she forgets, and
she wakes me up by touch - i hate those
late nights, because i am robbed
then of hypnopompic tranquility.

most days i wonder what it’s
like, having zero obligations -
i dozed off in the surf, painted neon blue
by some nearby coral beast’s castoffs.
it wasn’t dawn i was waiting for,
but just the tide rising high enough
to submerge me completely -
my lovely wicked moon its accomplice.

Shaman buried in mud, to neck
Sipping cyclones through take stand reed
****, **** storming wreckage
Pull in precision *****, whirlwinds
Great Cloud Breaker despoil sum of poison
Resolve atomized flotsam from sea-drift
And castoffs of skies  

Bear necessitous storms, our future
Straw ******* inhale, totality of shambles
My shaman, my shaman, ****, ****
Bury in silt of your sludge bath
Looting impurities spinning about ozone
See pleas of your people, know your people,  
And bury upside down the rest  

Under rubble, let their heads crush
In murk and magnitude, diseased times
From villainy of what they have done
Conspirators pushing infracted pollutants
See fit to **** them deep into molten iron core  
Below tar, oil, silver and gold that tempted them
Free us Great Cloud Breaker from demand

When last we laughed
I was flush to your bluff
By necessity and nature

Joyful unto sky of gray

Comprehension is pain
Outran it far as possible
Truth is a rock, but they
Mapped it for me; ephemeral
Delicate as a piece of ancient
Poesy. No rosy-fingered dawn,
Nothing to write home about.

             * d *

You can’t get far on a sick nag
Fresh water, strong mind
On a narrow road, endless
Desert ahead

Where is your Masala?
Your final stand?
Don’t be some dead girl

            * a *

Let them win, there lies strength
If you can shut down need
You can win a life

            * d *

Just how far I went I’m not
Sure. Still finding castoffs
Pieces of salvage I can use now
Flush with hope, I can eat again

I can truly laugh
You were the one who
once laughed best
Silly as loons we were, so
maybe we could be
still

Possibility runs rampant
Through me
Shivering wet and wild


"Birds can't unchain from skyway"
You said that, remember,
But what if weighted regret
Claims us in this journey

Suddenly, so privately
A moment of recognition
Pure, behind our eyes

Right where I keep you
Where it's always you, Pop
Fully recognized, armored up
Tenderly on display to

Such hungry world

What good is all my love
If you wish not recieve it
Use it, use it till torn, cast it
Aside as coat to a hanger
Woolen soft and sagging in lone
When its body be far far

Far is beauty, in flavourless
Riches, halls of boney ceilings
And pillars of God, you
So glorious in your indifference
So irresistible: merciful your gaze
As it grazes me by – myself, meek
Cottage, of anticipation and dust

Myself mumble, mug of night-
Old melancholy. Throughout
the stars

***** at me, waiting for agony
To spill out its reticence
I paint, paint, cheap commodities
Fuel for your warmth in those
White countries. Rag-clothes,
Castoffs, rugs if you may
A fable for a table or two
A momentary exhibition
If you may. Yet I I warp
Over myself, restless in
Scarcity of grief... how you
Play at deprivation, clever
And careless, coy as a bird

Out out out to the blue with
Your pretty laughter and mist
And never again a flutter
To drag me from dream
Violent in your quiet, your
Absent saturation, running
A little red boy, alive as violins
Round and round and round
Me - nothing of you
To boil or brew, no leftover
Sight on which to chew

Perhaps,
Like curves of waves
Of east bound tides
Or rage of a surging storm
And eventual novelty of a sensual dawn
So is art hatched.

It’s the courtship
Of pen on paper
Primed with desire to unravel beauty
And obscurity
In the clammy palms
Of artistic porter

See,
It’s the crave of a chiseled sculptor
To chase grandeur from castoffs
It’s the convergence of the stars
On the bed of a blissful night
It’s the sunup of notions
Secreted
In the crevices of hearts of men.

It’s life

That puffs breath
In icy souls of men,
The caress of the wind
On the supple knees of trees
It’s the splendor of a moonlit sky.

Art is a paradise..