The neighborhood was silent. There wasn’t a soul around this eerie town and the sun hadn’t peaked out of the clouds for days. The darkness of the land had swallowed the smiles of the population and nature had ceased to show its existence. The birds must have migrated early. The wind disrupted the branches of every tree that was in front of the houses; it left only the whisper of its presence behind.
Shadow’s alarm clock blared at the appropriate time of eight in the morning and he grunted at its ignorance. His girlfriend, Jessie, didn’t seem to care too much about his morning laziness. He didn’t even bother turning off the alarm. He simply rolled on his opposing side to ignore it. That seemed to require a larger effort than if he’d just gotten out of bed. Jessie remained motionless and wasn’t snoring like she usually did. She wore a long sky blue nightgown to bed and it brought out the true color of her blondish hair. She was lying on her stomach and her hands were tucked underneath the fluffy pillow. Shadow just peered at her through the crack of his eye as the sound of the alarm clock withered away his patience. Shadow heard his three-legged basset hound, Tripod, hobble to the nightstand and he began to lick Shadow’s left foot that was hanging out of the white silky bed sheets. The saliva dripped towards the floor and the grossness of the dog’s actions still wasn’t enough to get Shadow’s dead *** out of bed. The dog realized it had no affect on him and left the room.
Shadow had just gotten fired from his job as a technical engineer at a no-name computer store. He put computers together with both new and used parts and resold them to the customers. When he told Jessie, she was not supportive at all. They didn’t speak all last night and Shadow couldn’t imagine how this morning was going to go- another “Yes, MOTHER” conversation. He always had a problem with his temper. All hell broke loose when shadow didn’t get his way, but you’d think he had been taught not to swear at his boss when he got angry. Well, on the contrary his mind and anger had gotten the best of him. Guess Shadow saw that there was no reason for him to get out of bed. But his three-legged dog seemed to think so. He kept ignoring Tripod for some time and he **** all over the rug as a result of it.
Shadow felt a discomfort among his genitals as he stumbled to his feet to go to the bathroom. He concocted his usual bowl of cereal once he reached the kitchen across the hall and slurped up every last drop of milk. He thought distressingly about what Jessie was going to bring on him this morning. The sounds of static and distorted voices echoed through the room from the television- he walked back into his bedroom to get dressed. Shadow called out for his dog.
The job wasn’t so good anyway. Shadow was displeased with his boss from the beginning but he knew he needed to receive the checks- the pay was so good. He always had a passion for building computers and when he first explored this field, Spot would sit and watch Shadow build. Spot was his first dog, around the time when he was a teenager. He would sit there until Shadow was done and that might’ve been what caused him to like building them so much- it was the memory.
Shadow continued to call for Tripod but there was no response. The aroma of the dog **** grew more and more noticeable. The doors were closed so there was no doubt he didn’t escape again. He ran all around the house, opening doors and calling outside for him; peaking behind the furniture and the clothes within his closets for him. He spotted the pile of dog **** on the living room floor.
“What are you doing, Shadow?” Jessie asked.
“I am looking for the **** dog. He **** on the rug again.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Jessie.
“OUR dog!??” said Shadow.
The air began to blow through the rooms of the house and the papers that were neatly stacked on Shadow’s desk began to fall to the floor. Jessie sat up in bed and the wind carried her hair across her scull and it made her look even more beautiful than ever. Her hazel-green eyes remained staring a Shadow with the same goofy look of concern but she still looked beautiful.
“I don’t know if I’m alright. My face hurts…” said Shadow.
“Shadow, I DID hit you pretty hard last night. Remember?” asked Jessie. “I threw that little book-end at you and it hit you in the cheek bone. I didn’t mean it, I AM sorry.”
“It’s fine, Jess. I was being a ****. But really, where’s the dog?”
“I don’t know, he’s you’re dog. Let me get dressed and I’ll help you look for him,” said Jessie.
The window shades were pulled up so the light could shine throughout the house but there wasn’t much light to affect anything. It was still dark and moody in the sky and the storm was still passing though the area. Shadow had to turn every light on in the house to see, even though it was ten in the morning. He knew he needed to find a job, but he wanted to find this dog. He ran around the house looking for every trace of dog fur. The sounds of Jessie getting dressed were coming from the closet.
“Could you hurry up and help me, honey? I need to find this mutt,” said Shadow.
Shadow had given Jessie a special license plate for her birthday last year. It said “Jessie” on it and it was very hard to get. He had to call months in advance to purchase that plate. It was now implanted on his silver Jetta. Shadow’s job was right down the street, so he just rode a bike to work every day and let Jessie use the Jetta.
The job Shadow had used to drive him crazy. He’d work for hours on fixing or building motherboards and if it didn’t work, he’d have to start over. He’d come home in the worst moods after a hard day’s work. He didn’t want dinner; he didn’t want to hear from anybody, though Jessie liked to talk. And that’s where Shadow got very aggravated. He began to yell at her because she asked him questions and he would kick over Tripod’s food and water and storm out of the house in a rage; leaving the front door open behind him. But Shadow didn’t leave last night. He wasn’t the one who stormed out in a rage because he was too tired for that. Jessie left with the dog and claimed she was going to stay at her mother’s for the evening. They must have come back in the house late last night. The dog must be here. Shadow and Jessie kept looking for Tripod while calling out his name to come in sight. Tripod finally walked through the door form the back yard and barked a weak screeching bark.
“It’s about time, Podders! It’s about time we accomplished that dilemma” said Shadow as he looked up at Jessie and back at Tripod.
“What the ****?!” he said. The dog had blood all around his gumball nose and his droopy lips and walked away from them into the bedroom.
“I give up,” said Jessie. “You gotta clean that dog up because I am not going to go near that Blood; I already cleaned up the dog ****. What has he been through?”
“I don’t know…” answered Shadow.

In the mean time, I’m going to go shopping for some new shoes,” Jessie. “I’ll be back later this afternoon, alright?”
Shadow sat on his favorite recliner chair in the living room. She kissed his forehead, grabbed her keys and walked out the front door.
There was silence. He was alone.
Shadow immediately got up and opened the front door to grab the daily town newspaper from the steps. He noticed that the Jetta had already left the driveway and wondered why Jessie must have been in such a hurry. He looked down the gloomy dark street and saw no sign of life. He closed the front door, locked it, and sat back down on his recliner. He unfolded the newspaper and wiggled his toes to the melody of his improvisational hum.
The hum suddenly came to a halt. The toes stopped wiggling. Shadow didn’t seem to breathe. He read the front page of the news paper and couldn’t believe his eyes. There was a Jetta- or maybe it wasn’t because it didn’t look like one. Maybe that was the point. There was no hood; there was no front seat. There were two photos: one of the car and one of the whole accident. A Tractor trailer was involved and no one in the Jetta made it. Shadow started to breathe slightly again and came to his senses; tried to collect himself. He saw the license plate and couldn’t believe his eyes.
There was silence. He was alone. He was alone the whole time.

Movies are my passion, the thing I love to do, the thing I enjoy to an extent. People ask me why I am wasting my time sinking into the ineffective fantasy world of the movies instead of enjoying the dignified life of reality. Not many people understand my undying affection for this compelling activity of entertainment.  What they do not know is that the real world isn’t actually the real deal. It is a test, an absorbing guidance into the perfect afterlife or the anguishing heartbreak into the tormenting hell. It is their choice which one they choose. It is like the reality of realities in the movie of The Matrix or the corruption and sadness of the desolation of The Titanic. It may be the realness of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen distressingly fighting for her life or the adventures of Shailene Woodley as Tris, loosing loved ones on her way. It could be the fans in the movies, screaming upon their idols or the hatred in the jealous, briskly spreading through the town. The inspiration is overwhelming and the education comes from the films, not from the institution they call school. The alive are in the fantasy and the real are in reality. They don’t understand the goodness that has not been seen in the life they call real.

What did the poet say?
Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed,
Yet such a sentiment is wrong, deeply and distressingly so,
For the nectar of success proves most enticing
To those whom Dame Fortune
Has coquettishly extended her index finger
And, twirling it ever so slightly in the air,
Has let him taste (for the briefest of moments, mind you) the tip,
A momentary sensation in the merest fragment of time,
But the sweetness, the utterly transcendent joy
Contained in that single frame in the long movie of one’s life,
Becomes not a cherished memory
But an unfathomable grail which engulfs all other desire,
Supplanting any semblance of prudence or reason
Until its recipient is no more than a small boy
Who, forsaking all other toys, hurdles bicycles and baseball bats
In the absurd pursuit of a runaway kite
Which has wholly bewitched him
By the alluring pull of the string,
The mad and joyous dance against an endless field of blue.

Death,
is not distressingly beautiful
it is cruel and tiresome
there is no peace in the act of dying
there is only pained loved ones
who tire of wishing for your release

A roster of rotten rogues and rascals
Rapscallions and self-righteous racketeers.
Wrapped themselves in the American Flag,
Like Wicked Witches of the West in drag.
Not a whit of statesmanship in the bunch.
Hearts as black as coal, I have a hunch.
If we go by behavior, the devil is alive;
Queen bees who hate the workers in the hive.


They started with genocide of all those here,
Native Americans before the whites drew near.
They kept it up by importing a million black folks
They owned and ***** and made up ugly jokes.
In time they treated Irish and Italians the same.
Let them come here and then played a sick game.
Promises to those, the non-Europeans, were not kept.
They heaped them with bias while good Christians slept.

It has been going on forever since antiquity.
They make our fine country a den of iniquity;
When not operating from a sense of disdain
They run their show on hatred, death and pain.
They claim they work for the people, but
Most of the people can tell what is really what.
Distressingly disgusting, diabolically divisive
They do their best when citizens are permissive.

In time they decided monopolies were great.
They let those with money put up the gates
And charge those with little to pass through
To get food, water, places to live. Not new.
Old country villainy was given a new face
And soon only a few creeps owned the place.
They cheated and swindled and laughed at those
Who starved, rebelled and fought and died.
Rich children splurged on geegaws far and wide.

Soon the list of enemies grew in the mansions,
They included over half of regular American citizens:
Blacks women and poor people were told shut up.
There was not enough nectar to put into their cups.
Gays, agnostics and atheists were treated as if
They were the living minions of the Christian devil
Liberals and objections to conservatives called evil.
Anyone who had issues to the gathering of massive wealth
Was treated as a criminal who wanted to steal their wealth.

The self-righteous racketeers bought newspapers and lies
All created to be swallowed whole by the lazy and unwise
Who could not see that they bought and sold more crooks
That got into office and wrote evil laws into the books.
This is not a new game, in this computerized info age.
This is an ancient costume covering up the old outrage.
It only takes for most of us to stand by and not protest
When leaders lie, and cheat and steal and call it a jest.

exercising my mind,
challenging restless muscles.

heart vibrated in rhymes
body couldn’t comprehend.

feet marched distressingly
upon restless pavement.

concrete incinerated
between fatigued toes.

soul and humanity battled
a complexed imprisonment.

Appalachian was a battle ground,
that planted my fortune.

i twisted my cramped fate,
encountered an extraordinarily
individual wandering around
an disfigured realm.

discovering inner strength,
forced oxygen to pursue my stride.

demanding my determined breaths,
to encounter pulsating freedom.

Angst! quit wasting whats left.
You're not falling through time.
What you are talking of is theft.
We cant take that amount in our
Chest. I stress. Please get some rest.

What's to be when you awake?
A sad key on the piano?
Or a distressingly violent shake?
Or just another soul,
one which some lord would gladly take?  

Even sleep seems too steep a' hill
one which I dare say he will fall down.
I tried to keep him from his will,
Cause in his freedom he will all drown.

I'm reluctant to admit
That these curtains of flesh
Hide static empty rooms
The cold hard floors of which
Have shrieked with so much pain
When thick calloused feet
Trudged shamelessly upon it
That a timeless ache
Now reverberates constantly
From its sodden interiors
I'm reluctant to admit
That the numerous clusters
Of sparkling galaxies
Which used to shimmer and shine
Resplendently within me
Have been swallowed
Veritably
By a ruthless black hole
Which has rendered their shine
Imperceptibly weak
I'm reluctant to admit
That I've slowly become
a pale ghost
Of who I once used to be
And so I'm always afraid
To admit distressingly
That you will never
be able to find
The epitome of
A happily ever after
That you so desire
To seek in me

What are these words for
when emotions like a tsunami
consume me
Why must I feel everything so deeply
so beautifully yet so distressingly
I've always seen the world in magnificent hues
But sometimes the somber blues are pronounced
I walk through the earth
as if the air where a thickened liquid
Stumped by misery
Hurt by the compassionless
and the sickened state of this world

It feels, at times
Like God has let go of my hands
and I fall
so rapidly
to the torrents below
The deluge swallows me
And I'm drowning

All I see is vain ignorance
or intelligent armor
I don't see the people connecting anymore
through wide open hearts
I just see phones snapping and snipping
pieces from our tired, worn out lives
Our hearts are closed and small
Just like the Grinch
living in caves
up and away
from connecting with life
in a way that opens us up to both hardship and bliss

I'm drowning in the sadness of my mind
To rewild my heart I must disconnect,
take some time
Follow the flow of the river that runs below
soak my feet in the salty mud
connect with God, though maybe
God is everything
the feminine, the masculine,
The breeze.

He was a cowboy problem child
rescued by a mendicant sage brush sorcerer
resulting in his remembering everything
flawlessly insolently permanently
birth death life things in space have a beer
owner of his own head at last
thanks to whiskey tainted improvisations
and the use of springs and levers
in order to bring the Almighty down to earth
for a patch job on his many severed reveries
he slept on a bed of maguey spines
combed his tumbleweed hair over the burn spots
and tattooed his many and fecund scars into
the outlines of zippers and pockets
Tex Lester was a lariat twirling minstrel
and undefeated Popsicle stick swordsman
subject to a chronic howling for *******
Tex took me under his leathery wing
together we praised the pop up toaster
and often spoke of mechanics and luck
taught me to look at girls all anew
in the little red school house by the cactus patch
Miss Lobowski beat off my attempts
at ******* her leg during her class in ethics
as if a description of total damnation
could repair the broken mosaic of attention
Tex would implore with the tact of a scorpion
madam cover your eyes in the name of decency
what could I do but wake the dead
and digress distressingly in the dirt
a heartfelt rain making non-sequitir
well kids are full of surprises
uninhibited by mystery and murderous rage
completed by a delightfully unsubtle curiosity
but the more Miss Lobowski's convex mariachis
bucked and danced under her wet serape
the more it popped into Tex's ten gallon head
to teach her an old cowboy rope trick
round and round went his cowboy lariat
the desire to repeat pleasure unfortunately
is the desire to repeat it exactly endlessly
and that's the problem the big problem
at the museum of horrible deaths
you grab their ears and whisper
rest your head on a cloud angel
and hope they don't end up on top
of a truckload of flattened automobiles
Tex went mockingbird on her sensoria
let loose his Gila Monster on her panting ****
and together they began robbing banks
this is going to cost me my diploma