Clink, clink, clanky clink,
she can feel her ornaments cling,
with one another - with her flesh,
she is tired, she is famished,
the stink of her sweat, all fresh, on her skin,
clink, clink, clanky, clink,
the bed creaks as her thoughts cling,
with one another, to her mother, brother, father,
to her childhood, to her friends, to her favorite cake,
to a piece of bread, that she hasn’t had, since the evening-
and overall - her stink!
Clink, clink, clanky, clink - the pace fastens,
who is the man within-
filling her up, taking her by force,
and yet she is abiding by - him?
Think, think, thap-thap -what was she thinking?
The thought is gone, he is not looking at her,
she is not looking at him - and yet he is ****** her,
and she is aiding him - clink. Clink.
Why couldn’t she marry the one, who filled her womb,
who accepted her, whom she desired too?
Caste, religion, tradition,
father, mother, that ******* brother,
all thought they were marrying her off-
To a stranger? Well, this tradition is prostitution.
He doesn’t even know how to pronounce her name,
and yet he is ******* her - how naive, how naive?
And soon he will be done,
and soon he will roll over and lie,
close his eyes - Die, she wants him to ******* die.
And she shall lie there in a pool of dreams,
with the clink, clink, clanky, clink,
echoing even in her sleep,
and her soul is lost, somewhere amidst,
this unfamiliar stink!

i was never very confident
but when i lost you
i was confident that i lost it all

i've been living in your old room
the AC never kicked in quite right
but i still feel breezes of air caress my body right into my core
and i like to think they're you
and not the cracked window a few feet away from me
letting in the taunts of the world that lost its colors once you were lowered within it

sometimes i wish i was down in the living room
so you could come back to your old room
instead of the children's hospital
even though you were 18
the dry atmosphere caused the worst of nosebleeds
but that was just minor to the pain you were going through

you came home
but you were in the living room
i was still wishing you could come back to your old room
i would happily fold all my t-shirts and pack them in a suitcase
just for storage
because i could never leave you for more than an hour

i was unfamiliar with the word "hospice"
until you were taken under their care
i know our humidifier has been broken for some time now
but they rolled that clanky bed in
and the oxygen that the whole family breathed
just got dryer
because of your new mattress and matching sheets
similar to the one that you've slept in while the chemotherapy was entering through
making you brittle, bare and pale

on an early summer morning i witnessed the biggest irony in my life
you died in the living room
and i started to hate myself more as i watched your chest pump its last breath that you would ever take
i started to hate myself because maybe if you were in the old room i fall asleep in every night
it would somehow make you live a little bit longer
like that makes any ******* sense

..
i should've seen it coming
i should've seen it coming because a few nights before you were trying your best to play the sly cooper collection on the PS3
because it was your favorite series and you passed out because of all the morphine in your body dulling the pain
but i thought video games would ease that pain better because of the nostalgic value
so i just hoped you were reminiscing of the ability to actually hold a controller properly
even if the drugs took up 80% of your personality
basically i should've seen it coming because games were your passion
and it was let go so effortlessly

it'll be 3 years in august
and i swear despite what i just wrote it's getting easier
and on your death date
we travel
because god knows remaining in the house that day would not be healthy for a broken family like us

sometimes i pick out postcards so i can put them on your grave so you can see where i've been
so i trust you send me a pretty tourist postcard just so i know what heaven looks like

Key myopic moon daisy running chaffing ******* with the face of rules
Nothing's exciting about finding the weakness of "one" maybe in a flask.. rather
This virus is all day, it makes right choose left and the lost a stain of integrity
A huffy cough only happened askew Dr. Phil in sheriff attire presuming a blunder
What once meant to fly as in a plane and to sing through alto tenor was decorated movement
The fault of your energy is the agency that whips you.. and me.. next it's the ***** in your head that helps someone's breathing!
A loser lost little when listening and lasting of analysis of a great king... cajoling counting coveting cavorting..  it’s known of kids and everyone!
Hence, pony boy, coy girl asks of dinner.. what Zeus does voodoo isn't as nice a solution as the absolution.. arriving masks and soaps can bring to you and the community
There's trying chemicals for wives the best for maritime attack, ****! The farmer whose getlemens club extended the choice of free walk, might say, good work and give you a gravely Eugene digressive groundwork bed tuck
It's funded I warn! The challenge is dare to wiggle your way through parks and flowers as the time clerk mentions the meandering, from the sense of essence of your last wash
But for variations, we humor no other than blasphemy of achieved spy networking and castles submerged of the proving order
One rip.. a place turns chains of the attaché file into rains further
An ear then the lobes of our divinities could'nt've written of the discussion from the room from which the Covid 19 did start
A cage trapped with people wanting the Angel of Death and attentions cruising like bacon on a noble physically cooked marker ****
One stops  as a small panda not the mayor switching ringleaders but a guardian marshal with that frankly swankly lost yeah spankly ship sunk clanky evrybody who wins cankly be real addressed last punch
American cheese not with smoke as friends against fears face their inner tears that the hipper the shelf the easier the grunt as we take seriously that law about signals from the inner ****
However guard the world at a time when notorious raves and mechanics so true stood guard  
There's the placement plant for why it took place as truth just as you signals run but there's nothing there clear and far
Hammy gesture robots? Busted simply a thousand cots! What looks better invitations or forms? The real hash wagon might have horns!
Confusion be forward now  the possession was neglect!
Bodies in the morning as pigeons cooing deflect!
Any to hammer out the recovery aspects as well?!
Blame the glamour of autocracy for bad checks and now you can tell!

bloodless knuckles
as we grip the sides

a clanky chain
pulling us to the precipice

the drop

stomachs to our knees
and me and my brother

knowing we will never
live this day again

the memory placed
on the spindle with the rest

much like you and me
and Paris

with tearstained
napkins

whit howland © 2021

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            The British Army Pocket Knife

A great big chunk of folded Sheffield steel
For pocket, backpack, toolbox, or workbench
Rope work, leather work, awning work, rifle repair
Gutting a rabbit for dinner if it comes to that

No plastic-y Swiss gimcrackery for us
One tightens the blade by taking a hammer to the rivets
And sharpens it hastily on a handy rock
Wash off the mud and the blood and it’s good to go

It’s clanky, clunky, and out of date – it’s British
As British as can be - and so are we




I’m not British, but I needed a voice. My Hall ancestors were transported from Northern England to the New World for being bad, and the same for my deBeauville / Beauville / Beville / Bevil ancestors from Chesterton and my McQueen ancestors from Scotland.

I love my nifty British Army knife.

I will never eat rabbit again. Ich.