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ON the one hand the steel works.
On the other hand the penitentiary.
Sante Fe trains and Alton trains
Between smokestacks on the west
And gray walls on the east.
And Lockport down the river.

Part of the valley is God's.
And part is man's.
The river course laid out
A thousand years ago.
The canals ten years back.

The sun on two canals and one river
Makes three stripes of silver
Or copper and gold
Or shattered sunflower leaves.
    Talons of an iceberg
    Scraped out this valley.
    Claws of an avalanche loosed here.
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Prison
Prison
These cells of the familiar I want to take you on a journey of sorts take you inside a real prison let you walk
The cat walk in B house the other four cell blocks were round this one could have passed for a haunting
Looking structure in an old horror flick it had ten tiers I can’t speak of Attica or Quentin though my army
Buddy lived on the dead end street with the prison at the end so I knew by sight and the preacher that
Worked in Quentin he almost convinced me it was more dangerous than Statesville in Joliet it’s a tossup like the
Old inmate well into his seventies he was called a crank they housed them on the bottom tier called
Cranks because they wouldn’t work in the prison because of their attitude it wasn’t his seventies he
Wouldn’t work when he was fifty he still had respect because he was part of the Saint Louis mob but he
Told one day it was different than in the old days he said it used to be you had to do something to get
Killed now they would **** you for a slice of bread or for a lot less as one guard found out on the other
Side on the tenth tier a guy went to walk this guy to the infirmary not the hole the inmate walked
Straight out of his cell stuck the guard with a homemade knife or prison lingo a shieve they said that
Wouldn’t have killed him but when he dumped him over the rail and he fell ten floors and hit the
Cement He was finished senseless unexplained violence it could be he didn’t like the food that day. That
Was one reason you got vacation after six months the stress was incredibly high unlike the old prison
Movies you were not even given a night stick when chow was called you had to frisk every one before they
Went back to their cells a spoon rubbed against concrete soon gets a deadly point so you stand there as
Two hundred inmates sneer at you as they pass going down the corridor to the mess hall if you had any
Kind of protection they could just take it and beat you to death with it. I was taking twelve of them from
One location to another one I didn’t give any thought to the Dingo boots with square toes I was wearing
Then one of them said you could really stomp someone to death with those couldn’t you I felt like Bob
Hope delivering a hyper joke in one of the old road shows I didn’t snarl like bob there wasn’t a camera
Running I tried to give him my best tough guy stone face answer yea you never knew what they said if it
Was heading somewhere but in this case he just enjoyed the thought of stomping someone to death.
I could go on and give you some details that are hair raising and more brutal than the scenes in
Fargo but I want you to be able to sleep without the light on I started as I said to take you on a journey
What has been said thoroughly gives you all you need or should hear about those places. But at the
Beginning I said the cell of my familiar not a dungeon but in the most emphatic truth that I can use we
Are closed up here it does play out as a dungeon darkness plagues the human family truly disturbing
Darkness surrounds us we separate form society those who can’t live lawfully and house them in
Prisons I have at different places written about the price Christ paid for our freedom he loves and sees
Present needs and future terror that the lost face for no other reason did he subject himself to the
Horrors of Rome’s cruel brutality and the agony of the death on the cross your house is filled with your
God given blessings and they are to be your comforts give you pleasure that’s loves provision but most
Of us know Henry Storemin his cell of the familiar with the help of an electric appliance turned all that
He knew into a death trap he couldn’t get out of a place he knew for years and neither can we exit sin
And Death on our own nothing is wrong yes like the girl at the lake picture of wealth and health but as I
Told I Saw the real situation pierce the obvious I told you I got in trouble when I tried to write about the
Death of Candy Jack out home I was probing deeper and deeper visualizing her in death and then the
Awful realization of death without any flowers or doctoring I started touching the true realness of death
It wasn’t rosy it was and can be out done only by hell as being scary I recoiled and fled our cell of the
Familiar is taken us to deaths door and if you don’t have a true walk with God hell will follow. People
Don’t realize the cross was the means of deliverance and payment but it was God’s living expression of
How dangerous the situation is for you without salvation the beams of light are striking your window
Panes it is being mixed and missed as natural light it is your escape from an eternal lake of fire the
Broken figure marred beyond recognition who can argue at judgment I didn’t get it liar you see what it
Cost this was irrefutable proof you need to heed such evidence of God’s displeasure and of the lengths
He has gone to protect and reach you I’m sure I will lose some or all today from this but one who does
Less than this is less than a friend and is also a prisoner in the cell of the familiar. God’s love bids you to
Come the enemy says be a fool and die with me and join me in the fire it was created for me and my
Demons but you make your selves guilty and bring the same punishment on yourself.
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
En la grana de un prado sanguíneo
o en un bosque de cabezas cercenadas,
la viuda reclama la carne
de un párvulo *******.

Allí donde entonan sus voces
un coro de lamentos disonantes.
Reniega de su apetito
la matriarca del barrio francés

Pues los gritos de Joliet
no inquietan su consciencia,
cosechan en cambio,
un jardín de culposos deleites

Placeres como solo admite,
la maquiavelia de una gioconda
que envuelta en lujosos atavíos
extiende sus garras al inocente
.
Ni hablar del perjurio voraz,
que oculta a la fantasía
la marea virgen del infortunio
y el propio siniestro.

La desesperación de una madre
que devora a sus hijos con el don de Saturno.

Para la que no hay erotismo
sino aquel que evoca
el rigor cadavérico.

Vapores que ascienden
desde el lecho en descomposición,
y alimentan su magia.

Celebran el cruento dolor del infante,
con la mirada de espanto
apenas visible en el carmesí
de sus finas pestañas

Porque es claro como la luna
y tan cierto como la muerte
que en la viuda no hay gozo,
sin el grito que desgarra la noche.

Sin la brea que desciende
sobre el horizonte,
y la angustia que acompaña
la pasión de la masacre.
... o mejor dicho, la viuda de Jacques Paris, Marie Laveau, la maga del Misisipi y su muñeca  Joliet, a quienes olvidara la historia por imitar a los titanes y consumir a sus hijos con el vigor de las masas famélicas
Hal Loyd Denton Nov 2011
Blasts in the past
Remember when the passenger train use to stop the people would be all hustling grabbing their suitcases all making a mad dash
For the train station they looked so awkward in their efforts but there was an excitement travelers and their mode of travel will
Do that each and every time but the greatest show is the greyhound station in Frisco every month I would take my three days and go
To the city by the bay go eat wild sea food at Fisherman’s Warf. But in the station the circus had the greatest show on earth Barnum
And Bailey but this was small and crazy and never dull the acts would just be frenetic a guy would stand up and just twirl in the floor
And then the next would stand up and give an Impromptu speech then one would pull out a giant bowie knife not harmless just
Antics after the floor show then the business acts guy would open his coat revealing a hairy chest with supposedly gold chains
Enough to make Mr. T. envious then up comes the sleeves ten watches up both arms selling was the game and stupid was the
Ongoing theme wild eyed stringy headed unclean down and ***** just what a big city should be move out on the street a different
Sell the panhandle supreme I thought that was stupid until ten years later listening to the radio a street radio crew was doing that
scene they proceeded to say these guys could take in twenty thousand a year but these two were just for laughs one was maimed
Or appeared to be but it is the land of movies and they say California is like a bowl of cereal it’s full of fruits nuts and flakes but what a
Place here one stands as the other approaches with sun glasses a cane when they are side by side the glasses are pushed up how you
Doing Frank they shoot the breeze a little then its back to work striking the side walk and fooling the folks that work for their money.
In the city those building are truly like great canyons a hippie approaches he is wearing a ***** over coat and when you walk in the
Shadows your teeth will actually chatter from the breeze blowing off of the bay then you look down and you really get a chill he is
Barefooted thats one way to say good morning world and wake up in hurry and anything can happen especially if you come from
Here you are strolling down Market Street you look up at the show Marquee you see Hells angels and then you hear this roar from the
Street you look and their they are all on choppers with their babes on the back the combination of everything that’s happing then the
Collision of reality brought up close and personnel is thrilling and the show the night before even getting there this is 1967 the first
Show looks like the rialto in Joliet marble walls and marble columns men in evening wear women in gowns enter you look at the price
In today price it would be equal to thirty bucks that made me winch on my army pay then I get to the show it looks like a flea bag
The magnificent Seven is playing Yul Brenner is starring there has to be thirty bald guys at the time Reagan was governor but in a
Preview he slaps a woman a voice in the dark roars out way to go governor all in all weird and wild and one time the hotel had
An agent right on the landing from E Harmony a guy walked by he said what do you like red heads what a town lonely no problem
You can even pick the color of hair better than Tijuana the word was if you get in that crooked jail your best bet is write
Your name on a tortilla shell throw it out the window and hope an American finds it no matter what color their hair is or you could
Be doing the donkey pokey routine for a long time sorry I jumped cities maybe I should have called it wild travels
Brad Lambert Sep 2013
It's been one hell of a night.

She sat in blue light, artificial,
fingers tangled in dreds, natural,
head bobbing to bare beats
and **** draws upon the well of
electronica, O' jazzia,
O' sense-sinking psychedelia,
O' fleeting fingers ******* false feelings in the dark;

And this is what music is.
This is what music has always been.

The arrangement of sounds to tell a story,
paint a picture,
build mindscapes and landscapes upon which stories and feelings
will meld and melt and freeze to ice,
hot ice,*
a paradoxical nocturnal noctuary of dreams and nightmares and candles dripping with wax.

Sing me home, Chet Faker,
bring me back to your apartment.
Sing it long and sing it low,
(This gas station fluorescence sure is ******* the eyes.)
sing me back to Boulder, Colorado;
to Joliet, Montana.

O' jazzia, my jazzia,
my sweet sand dollar saxophony,
will you meet me in Amarillo, Texas?
Will you play me a tune before the water-meter puts me to sleep?
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Blasts in the past
Remember when the passenger train use to stop the people would be all hustling grabbing their suitcases all making a mad dash
For the train station they looked so awkward in their efforts but there was an excitement travelers and their mode of travel will
Do that each and every time but the greatest show is the greyhound station in Frisco every month I would take my three days and go
To the city by the bay go eat wild sea food at Fisherman’s Warf. But in the station the circus had the greatest show on earth Barnum
And Bailey but this was small and crazy and never dull the acts would just be frenetic a guy would stand up and just twirl in the floor
And then the next would stand up and give an Impromptu speech then one would pull out a giant bowie knife not harmless just
Antics after the floor show then the business acts guy would open his coat revealing a hairy chest with supposedly gold chains
Enough to make Mr. T. envious then up comes the sleeves ten watches up both arms selling was the game and stupid was the
Ongoing theme wild eyed stringy headed unclean down and ***** just what a big city should be move out on the street a different
Sell the panhandle supreme I thought that was stupid until ten years later listening to the radio a street radio crew was doing that
scene they proceeded to say these guys could take in twenty thousand a year but these two were just for laughs one was maimed
Or appeared to be but it is the land of movies and they say California is like a bowl of cereal it’s full of fruits nuts and flakes but what a
Place here one stands as the other approaches with sun glasses a cane when they are side by side the glasses are pushed up how you
Doing Frank they shoot the breeze a little then its back to work striking the side walk and fooling the folks that work for their money.
In the city those building are truly like great canyons a hippie approaches he is wearing a ***** over coat and when you walk in the
Shadows your teeth will actually chatter from the breeze blowing off of the bay then you look down and you really get a chill he is
Barefooted thats one way to say good morning world and wake up in hurry and anything can happen especially if you come from
Here you are strolling down Market Street you look up at the show Marquee you see Hells angels and then you hear this roar from the
Street you look and their they are all on choppers with their babes on the back the combination of everything that’s happing then the
Collision of reality brought up close and personnel is thrilling and the show the night before even getting there this is 1967 the first
Show looks like the rialto in Joliet marble walls and marble columns men in evening wear women in gowns enter you look at the price
In today price it would be equal to thirty bucks that made me winch on my army pay then I get to the show it looks like a flea bag
The magnificent Seven is playing Yul Brenner is starring there has to be thirty bald guys at the time Reagan was governor but in a
Preview he slaps a woman a voice in the dark roars out way to go governor all in all weird and wild and one time the hotel had
An agent right on the landing from E Harmony a guy walked by he said what do you like red heads what a town lonely no problem
You can even pick the color of hair better than Tijuana the word was if you get in that crooked jail your best bet is write
Your name on a tortilla shell throw it out the window and hope an American finds it no matter what color their hair is or you could
Be doing the donkey pokey routine for a long time sorry I jumped cities maybe I should have called it wild travels
Steven Hutchison Jan 2015
Chicago

Black clouds are stirring-
White men gaze down white noses,
Seemingly immune.

Joliet

Music in the air-
The sound of brass and woodwinds
Permeates fields;
Exercising their freedom,
Equality, and kinship.

Springfield

Blood in the terra-
Innocence spilled under the
Cradle of a king
Now grows ironic flowers
Ignorant of unmarked graves

Carbondale

Black sky is waking-
Picket signs silhouette on
Pyramids of coal
A quartet of 2 Haiku and 2 Tanka

— The End —