I hadn't been there in ages, hadn't visited, I had no reason to
But then the Covid virus struck and Dublin where I was working was put into quarantine
I wasn't allowed to go up there anymore to work,
And I had no computer at home and no broadband/ WiFi at the time
So they sent me down to the Old Town
It was nice driving down the motorway, it was Autumn and the leaves they were all changing colour
The different shades of red, brown green and yellow
With the sun shining on the mountains and on the bay
It felt almost like I was going on my holidays,
The Old Town it had changed so much, there were all these new buildings,
Retail parks on the outskirts, hotels, new schools, civic buildings... coffee shops
It was lovely and clean and tidy
Like those living there were really proud of it,
The old town I'd known it was there also, in the background, a bit dusty now
There was the big old gothic church my Dad used take us to, to Mass some Sundays
There was the Port and the big ships along the Quay
There was the secondary school I was meant to go to... had we stayed...it looked old, a bit dilapidated now
I wondered was it still being used as a school,
In the Main Street there were still old names of shops that I recognized
The shoe shop where my Mom used buy us shoes
The chemist where my brother got his glasses... the Bakery
The cinema where we seen our first movie "The Magnificent Seven", it was all done up now... all different...
In the office things were... well...weird! ghostly!
A big modern office and some days I was the only one there, just me all on my own
Was like something out of a Sci-fi movie
Other days maybe two or three might come in to join me
All the others of course, they were all working from home,
Often I'd find my mind just filling with old memories and nostalgia...
I could hear the old ghosts calling, calling me to go back
I knew... I knew I had to go back there
Back to where it had all begun for me
The little seaside village where I was born.

So going home I took the coastal road not the motorway
Just the sight of the headland and the blue mountains sloping down to the sea
With the lighthouse there at the end
Just seeing them again gave me an old feeling of my father, my Dad
And then the village itself, the seafront... all the colourfully painted shops,
Sweet shops & novelty shops, the amusement arcade, pubs and hotels and B&B's  (Bed and Breakfasts)
After being away for nearly fifty years, it still looked...it still looked pretty much the same, was hard to believe
I stopped my car and went into a little supermarket shop to get a sandwich for the next day
As I looked around, I seen these two mature ladies there, they were around my own age
I thought to myself 'I might have gone to school with you once many years ago, one of you might even have been my wife had we stayed here and not moved away
I might have lived a more normal, a different life'
But then I thought 'Life is never that simple, is it'.
Outside I decided to go for a walk, to look around and reminisce.

There was the path, the pavement I used go to school on with my brothers
It was like returning to the scene of a crime
How I used to dread going to school sometimes
There was a teacher, a lady teacher that used scare me a lot, she terrified me so
I remember I got sick in class on several occasions
She put me outside once sitting on an upturned bin
I can still remember sitting there on that bin in the sun, feeling so lost and that I was a really bad boy, wishing I was home
I remember I used to get hives, itches on my skin
My Mom used keep me at home
She was afraid, she thought I'd give them to the other kids
I missed the addition and subtraction tables at school because of this
To this day I still don't know what 7 + 5 is, instead I bring it to 10, I know 5 is 3 + 2, so I say 7 + 3 is 10 and 2 is 12
And I know all the doubles, 7 + 6 is 6 + 6 is 12 and 1 is 13, funny that
How I used to dread going to school
Until that was... until one day I did well at something and I received some praise
Then things seemed to change after that, I wasn't as bothered anymore, I think then I realized I was doing better than some of the others in my class and that seemed to make a difference
I remembered sitting beside pretty little girls who used have lovely pink pencil cases with lots of fancy colourful things
Whereas me I barely had a pencil, a rubber (eraser) and a ruler
They were strange lovely creatures, the Girls with their lovely long hair and their cute little faces...
I remembered walking home on my own, with my little schoolbag on my back with all my books in it
It was such a beautiful place, the view with the beach and the sea and the faraway blue mountains
And yet, I used to worry about so many things
It's like even then it was all about...all about survival...
There was the big Chapel on the hill
Once before the Summer holidays they were looking for altar boys and someone put my name forward
Then on the first morning back to school after the Summer holidays
The teacher said you better get down to the church right away, like fast!! you're on the altar this morning !!!
I was terrified, I didn't know what I had to do, no one told me anything
So there I was on my own kneeling on this cold hard marble altar and it was hurting my knees something terrible
And the priest he's talking about God and the Devil and Evil or Hell or whatever
And all these people, the whole congregation their all staring up at us
And I'm petrified, and I started to get faint and nauseas
The priest had to stop the Mass
I can't remember if I got sick or passed out
I was so embarrassed and thought afterwards I was such a terrible bad person, I knew it'd be all around the school the story.

I walked on...our house was gone, knocked down, where there used to be three houses together attached, now there was only the end house
Our house used to be the middle house
It didn't look right now, the symmetry looked all wrong
It was like there was two missing teeth
Why did they have to knock it down ? I wondered. It saddened me a bit...

At another house I stopped, this used to have a shop, a small shop,  the shop was no longer there
This was my Best Friend's house, all the days we used to play football together in the back garden
Kicking the ball to each other
With our jumpers/ sweaters as goalposts
The first to score ten would win the game
I...I usually won
I always found you easy to read, it's like you only ran in straight lines,
I think you were a bit in awe of me for some reason
Maybe you wouldn't have been my friend if you'd beaten me
How did we become friends anyway, I wondered
I suppose coming home from school
We lived on the same road and were in the same class, we'd have met each other
I had two older brothers whereas you were the oldest
So our families would have had a different dynamic
I remember you had a delightfully silly younger brother
I remember your Mom, she was very pretty, she was a lot younger than my Mom
You used bring me in and give me a meal sometimes, we'd all sit and watch TV
There was a different feeling when I was in your house...a different atmosphere
But when your Dad would come home, he was a bit scary
And I knew it was then time for me to go home
You'd wonder afterwards what the lovely Mom saw in the scary Dad, adults they were a bit peculiar.

We were inseparable in those days, many mornings you'd hear the knock on the door
And the familiar greeting
"Hello Mrs B---, Is G---- in, is he coming out to play?"
We were always playing soccer up the garden
Or down on the beach, going out for miles to meet the tide, catching *****, looking under  stones to see what we might find
I remember we were very entrepreneurial
In the Summer we used collect returnable glass mineral bottles, Orange and Lemonade and Coca Cola
And we'd bring them back to the shop and get money back for them
And then we'd have a royal feast, we'd buy bottles of Orange and bags of crisps and ice cream pops and chocolate bars,
Remember all the different Ice pops there used to be, Choc Ices and Brunches and Orange splits, 99's... Ice cream cones
Chocolate bars, Smarties and Malteasers, Milky Bars and Milky Ways, Dairy Milk chocolate bars, fruit gums and Love hearts with little love messages written on them
We used hang around the amusement arcade, play the slot machines, maybe help some old lady collect her winnings, she might give us a tip
There was the bumper cars and the swingboats and music playing all the time on the jukeboxes
It was the seventies (the 70's) and glam rock was all the rage
Marc Bolan and T-Rex, and Slade and The Sweet and a million others
So many great songs, we couldn't wait to grow up and become one of those amazing creatures we saw on the telly
I'd never lived since as intensely as I did back then,
We'd stay out till late
We were like young hustlers going around,
It seemed the days they were never long enough, all the things we got up to,
We'd Caddy in the local golf course
And retrieve lost ***** from the ditches...
Heh! Remember... remember that time... the Brennan sisters, we were up one day near the school
There was building work going on
And there was this big high mound of clay
So we climbed to the top to take in the view
And then the two Brennan sisters came over
They lived nearby
They were in our class at school, we knew them only to see
They were smiling and laughing and giggling
They beckoned for us to come and follow them
We went wondering what was going on here
They led us back to their house, I think their parents must have been out
One of them came up to us and smiled
And then she pulled down her pants and showed it to us in all its wonderful glorious splendour
It was amazing... incredible... such a sight
Her beautiful...her splendid... her lovely... bare Bottom!
I remember thinking it was like a lovely ripe pear
One of Life's great mysteries had just been unveiled
And her there with this huge impish grin,
When we were going home we promised each other we'd not tell anyone, our parents, not even the priest in confession
About that great vision we'd just witnessed
It was the height of naughtiness
Yea! Those were the days...

I wondered, 'Whatever became of you Old Friend ?
I looked you up online but couldn't find your name anywhere, couldn't find anything about you
Were you even still alive ?
50 years was a long time, I'd barely made it this far myself, and I had a lot of scars to show for it
I thought rather amusingly that I should knock on your door
Maybe you were still living there,
But what was I hoping to find ? I wondered...
"Whose at the door ?", a woman's Voice inside might say,
"Just... just some crazy guy talking about 50 years ago" her dutiful husband would reply
That's probably how it would go
I felt like I was Rip Van Winkle awakening after being asleep for 100 years or in my case 50 years
What did I hope to find
What did I hope to see, an old man now just like myself
And I bet you'd tell me your opinions on the government and the economy
And how the village had changed over the years and how other old schoolmates of ours had got on in life
But No! that's not what I wanted to hear or see
I wanted to see you there again just like you were as a little kid
Your lovely youthful face smiling back at me
And you'd say, "I'll get the ball and we'll have a game, the first to ten wins"
This was what I was looking for, this was what I wanted to hear.

We were very close, were going to grow up together, go to the same schools...college
We'd always be friends
We'd meet all the trials of life together....
I hope Life worked out well for you, my friend
In a way...in a way I almost didn't want to know
If I learned you did well in Life I'd probably only get jealous
I'd start to think I was better than you and that I should have had those things you had
Life, this world it makes enemies of us all... eventually
It divides, is all about competing and comparing... and beating (I suppose).

I still remember that last night before I left forever
We were down on the beach, it was twilight, the tide was coming in... the waves slowly advancing
Just like in life I had no power to stop it, to change things,
I had no say, I didn't want to go and leave you Old Friend
No! I didn't want to go....

Thank you...thank you for being my friend, for being there
For all the time you gave me, I hope I didn't hurt you in any way.

I have a photograph, one solitary old black and white photo of the two of us
We're sitting on a barrel in our back garden on either side of my Dad whose in the middle
You look a bit uncertain, unsure of yourself, probably lost in the dynamic of my family,
I look at you and I think
"Whatever happened to you.... Beautiful Friend, whatever became of you"
And then I look at myself as well, and I think, I whisper
"Whatever became of me as well".

She never noticed
books of poetry.
Her life was busy
with empathy
for those troubled
from pains scratched
on psyches from
neglect, abuse
or sacraments to fallen Gods.

She seldom heard music
except when,
heartsick from lost love,
she wallowed in vain misery
or during her youth when
hit parades blasted from
solid state radios
in dashboards, or from
jukeboxes flashing
come hither.

She thought little of flowers
nor paused to note scents,
shades or grace on
stems of green.  Her head
was busy with
important matters,
day-to-day grinding
away on work or play.

Now alone,
she absorbs whiteness from
clouds,  motion from birds,
or fragrance from flowers
with senses dulled by
age, injury or illness.
She sifts through her
day looking for
fresh tranquility.

I look to you
And suddenly flowers grow in strange places—
Between alley ways, on top of jukeboxes, in my heart.
I could never forget the fragrance of your youth,
Seemingly arrogant without ever meaning to,
You spring out of confidence I would not blame you for having.

And you bloom so beautifully,
All the vines grow quickly just to be where you are,
And the sun comes out at dawn just to see you.

Joy so constant we took it for granted
plugging jukeboxes with quarters
loading those noisy machines with B-sides
that only we had ever heard

Van Morrison's "Blue Money" bounced the skip
from station to station in the AM static
we loved that doowit dooey doop, doot door dooey doot, do doot
but the mystic sang of sweet things on the other side

"Saturday Nights Alright For Fighting ", tough ol' Elton John
worth a quarter to hear that song
flip that ***** get your money's worth
two songs there for the price of one

The Stones rocked "Brown Sugar" like slavers in heat
too young I was to understand
why the controversy, so many offended
I rarely chose it, though, cuz I loved "Sway"

"Sweet Hitch Hiker", CCR
sounded more like a razor than a tuned up car
do you remember "Door to Door"?
didn't think you would

"Children's Heritage" over "D.O.A."
"Generation Landslide" over "Hello Hooray"
"For Emily Whenever I May Find Her" over "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
yes, even

B-sides whenever possible
because the A-sides were all on the radio
why feed money to the jukebox for a song you can hear for free?
such are the economics and logic of the 10 year old music aficionado

Regulated heavy-petting, severed metal jukeboxes of the new platoon. Orations in the streets, on their knees; women hanging from street lamps, their shoestrings dismantled, clothing sifted through for every karat of worth, then the shoes stuffed on- bare naked bodies and tangerine blossoms came through the Eastern air. One of them coughed something, not in English. Each of them riddled through with decade-old grins, as if from a childhood game of cops and bandits.

Every part of my trust in her body, a knot made of plastic in a reel of film strung from her shoulders. A gunshot emptied her stomach, its bang echoed cerise colored paint.

BY THE DROP

Life's roadmaps blocked by bottles,  we learn to throw them behind when we hit full throttle

How we began the day becomes a direct reflection on how it ends, Liquid courage for a Saturday night fight

With a devils tongue we speak loosely of others when our own soul is what we should coddle

Dig that early grave,  flesh dissolves in alcohol,  from a park bench or jetliner low living kills outright

Living is heavy but we add more weight as it is lightened with liquid, even the strongest fortresses fall with a weak foundation

Muddled is a bartender's term not a lifestyle, with foggy vision life can never be seen as bright

Uncaring not conforming easier to follow when our eyes are hollow, blitzed behavior accepted as a savior,  predators' prey without invitation

Forever we roam as if all alone,  body and  mind now nothing more than an empty shirt

Illusion often an allusion harder to find answers when lost in delusion, what happens when we are unaware of the question

Sometimes jukeboxes ring with that black sound, empty rooms holds the smell of death, it enters our souls as we become less alert

Born with thirst it is appealing at first, slowly for a few evolving into a curse, quenched in gallons or by the drop a glass becomes a weapon R.C.

We all lean a little off plum
Swaying to the music
of a manipulating song.
Songs played on
jukeboxes for profit
Songs leading us like sheep
to green pastures to fatten us,
Drunk on the elixirs of illusion
Ready to follow the wrong God home
Sliding from off plum to crazy

It’s a struggle to keep from being
overwhelmed by the tribe.
Being yourself is harsh living
You will be lonely, frightened,
and tossed around
Yet, no price is to high for the
privilege of finding yourself.

life, currently... shouldn't be about...
a problem with the internet connection...
or how:
there's no satellite conncetion to the t.v. -
because of "snow"... and "hurricanes"...
but under the prescription of
the government...
  where is... where is indeed:
the replacement fireplace and a druid storyteller?
to keep up with the mr. and mrs. smith
enclosed in:
a quarantine zoo where only the virus
gets... to window-shop: concerning
what next to "wear"?

      trivial details: is anything but so grand
as to gain poetic traction from...
trans-gender activists and those teen
with premature depression antics of:
haiku... not yet a haiku etc.

but my post-soviet laptop works just fine...
it's all these delta korean "smart" whizz-kid
analogies of tablet that are...
feeding the bug of: forgot the cables...

last time i heard that the t.v. box needed
to be connected to the "dial-up" box-of-boxes...
the modem... sprinting to "evolve":
zee hub...
              smart as: the old soviet
manifesto concerning technology...
  if it ain't broke: don't even think about
spaghetti fixing it... sunshine...
and what happened? they went along
and "fixed" it...

                   like they went about fixing
the original... thesaurus rex algorithm of
youtube: that once great platitude of all other
jukeboxes...
   no chance in hell seeing these john peel
suggestion "crop up"...

i had the "audacity" to scribble them down...
once upon a time...

       band / album

beehoover / heavy zoo
        nord skin / secrets of the words
black elephant / cosmic blues
     swamp sessions / a lifesize swamp
1000mods / super van vacation
           ruby the hatchet / aurum
                  greenleaf / trails & passes
  the silver seas / catch yer own train
        sleep / leagues beneath
          spaceslug / lemanis
witch / s.t. (self-titled)
          elder / dead roots stirring
red scalp / rituals
                   castle / welcome to the graveyard
broken bells / s.t.
                        place of skulls / with vision
naxatras / (ep s.t.)
                       UNV nation / s.t.
                 the heavy minds / treasure coast
roma / s.t.
                   fabricantes / la selva incrustada...
savannah / deep shades...
mystic sons / s.t.
          sun of man / s.t.
  weird owl / nuclear psychology
       elbrus / s.t.
                   stonehenge / bunch of bisons
gin lady / electric earth
hey satan / s.t.
                   d d  blood / s.t.
               sonora ritual / dust moment
gnome / father of time
                                       godsleep / coming of age
ordos / house of the dead
mountainwolf / the silk road
               buffalo fuzz / s.t.
                                 black dust / s.t.
                may the fuzz be with you / vol. I
transpanda / goats against humanity
earthless / black heaven
           gorilla pulp / heavy lips
    black willows / samsara
   stone age mammoth / earth born... etc....

what a bullet bite... two short of ******-do'h shucks
when you come back home...
drunk and sober at the same time screaming:
some little ****** of a squinting eye...
****** up the jukebox: now i can't sing...
now i can't dance!

my t.v. needs to be smashed...
and my internet connection is tone deaf
and stone-age to boot...
i'm no trucker and i'm no christian
evangelist minder... for the "ummah"...
or whatever it's called...
i don't bet, yes ma'am...
i pay my dues to the tele-evangelical
god's son: the preacher ma'am...
yis i' 'ere owe...
  the scrutiny of a stamp-collector's
lick a slick and shove it up
the queue into heaven's ear...

         my most mediocre complaints...
a girl sent me a poem and a sketch...
and i'm just... hanging onto sanity's blockers...
steroids... and all those other
goof-*****... and i still want
to make it listening to the La's because...
the Beatles never made it to...
London Calling...
by... the stain... no... wait...
i don't know of a band known as the stain...
perhaps i should...

bad internet access and bad t.v.:
because winnie the p'ooh shot down a satellite
thinking it was: an asteroid heading
to hit Beijing...
the two: must be given a space-trap
of confusing intelligence officer:
blah-blah traps...

       i guess my mother should be dying...
my neighbour should be...
doing something...
dinosaur jr.., should be seeing
a revival... and a wish to dislodged nirvana
in the grundge charts... along with sonic youth...

but my post-warsaw pact...
this heap of "junk"... this soviety spy of a laptop...
if i wanted... i could probably synonym it
with a ******* microwave oven!
all this proto-plastic toys of...
   better heave: *******'s worth of the edit...
in capitalism: plastic is the new iron!
and all the more clueless...
call-center jihadis who will have you believe...
cables are involved...
connecting the view box for the t.v. to
the modem... the hub...
the "dial-up"...

because... the old octopus of walking about...
with syringes and makeshift veins
and arteries... to the great big brain
of "Omnia"...
                    omni-potent...
    omni-present...
omni-... yes... that litany of the prefixes...
culminating in: Islam Inc. and the female
deity of Omnia...

   wouldn't want to pluck those diamonds
out from their sockets: would we know...
then again... i'd rather see the mouth...
those niqab bound eyes are too filthy...

they pretend to cry i too pretend to see a waterfall...
and then the crocodile comes snappy
right at me...
and... i have to...
pretend he's a pig and a sort of leather belt
that can goes well with any choicest choice
of fine linen: and that not so fine kind...
you can hide pork in leather...
the belt, the shoes...
eh... crocodile crocks are too...
too **** obvious... for "hiding"...

stay inside they said...
  but the t.v. is the new fireplace...
                 and if there's not t.v...
   can life take toward... or rather... can poetry become
this surrogate for petty concerns being
answered in a democratic manner?
what's being love or not being loved...
guarded by a disparity of age:
does it matter whether you're 34 or 74?

i just want to know...
   why i'd pay circa 20 quid a week...
for a t.v. with a license...
and... nothing to watch...
     ol' lore of love is gone...
   very pressing... or hardly... practical
devaluations of that once...
formidable willing-pull-&-tug for impetus
sensation are long gone...
the crass economics of...
              heaven... i will forbid myself
to staging a cart-boot sale...
practical i: who still doesn't have a car...
and never will:
horses auctioned: yes...
            
   i had a dream that i was a motorbike...
i had the life of: roulette roundabouts of "chance"...
and that paid off...
   but what didn't pay off:
the peddling... easy-grip and whiff of
a tensed up wrist to accelerate...
would have been... the better option...

horses: tighten the reins...
imprint a heel in the torso... turn left "he says",
is say: tighten the reins to the left...
dig a heel in the right canvas bracket of torso...

i would most certainly consider
the matter closed...
    if i was getting such a ****** detail of a provider
for free or for a bare minimum...
love... hate...
these can hitchhike to their own demise
and slouching shadows to escape with
metaphors or stockholm syndrome detainees...

this 1.4 liter of ms. amber was supposed to
last me for three days...
good luck... i want to drink a little...
and become angry at those call-center mouse-traps
of pseudo-peoples...
who will cite: cables not included!
i want to become angry with...
the paycheck brigade...
   who hardly solve anything but...
digress and cut you off...
and are most likely to... over-toast
those hot-cross buns...

                       love... hate... miasmas... both... alike!
"ranting ******* and turnovers"...
and sober... does it? yes?
       what did the sober man ever conjure up...
beside... the glue of bureaucracy?
i must beg: what of the minotaur...
the menacing... hardly a bull's head
on a man's torso...
the marching of the hammers...
the marching of the quills...
i have heard that one country has asked
for finger-prints just so they can issue
a passport...
      
         my signature is not enough...
nor is my hand-writing...
         but love can wait...
       there's no need to give it a status of wine...

drinking warm whiskey isn't so bad...
you just close your eyes...
swirl the glass and pretend it's cognac...
god forbid the sanitation pipes should
malfunction...

    i have no real time for love...
love can happen in a metaphysical dress of something:
that allows... as many pockets
as there are things to hide in them...
practical peacocks of attention...

turns out: i can't fathom any ability to doodle out
a rook...
there seems to be no archetypal architect
to mind it...
there is one for an elephant...
a kamikaze giraffe that's most probably
a Nessy spin-off of a leopard: print for
a leather chair...

        is it a hybrid stork?
           best bet is: return to sender...
at least she will have an address on the readily
available... but at least i'm not hustling back
bathwater... or... i could have been...
sending her a packet of oats...

hour 'promptu...
       i'll sober up will i never...
talking to these whizz-kids about...
the internet connection and "missing satellites"...
because love should be by... "ripe old
prime concern"...
whether i am 34 or... 70 year ol' ++++...
   i can't draw a crow...
i can draw an elephant in doodle-sketch
stenography...
but i shouldn't... "technically"...
the crow is more... is more...
blatant...

show me crow: with letters!
         no... i don't imply: ᚴᚱᚨᚴᛖ....
  i mean... show me a crow...
all i see is a litany base...
of: ᚠᚨᚴᛚᛉ... this is what a crow looks like
to me...
                      "faklz"...
         you can't change my mind concerning
this...
nor can you: what sisyphus looks
like: RO...
               who needs to insert the pitch-fork
stopper of a H in the... omicron and...
what implies rolling: or rather... trilling
the R... for the rattlesnake exerpt?

   what's a snake?                           ᛊ...
it's not... ᛋ-ᛚᚨᚾᚷᛖ...
                            but for me...
a crow is... ᚠᚨᚴᛚᛉ: faklz...
                        
                                       the snake and it's...
spine... and the brain in the pickling-jar...
the winding details of signatures in
desert sands... the left-over dinosaur branch
of: by now... aeons have passed...
let alone but one... of those...
heavily culprit... tabloid newspapers...

i should have my "missing eye"
deemed the noun worthy of: faklz...
    tribulations by the:
-klz                   dolls scenting:
skip "the middle ground"...
all the latex in the world... and none
of the ******...

where is the love: it's most certainly no here...
it's with the engineers...
and not: with the call centers...

satellites and google earth and i'm still
bound to: fire! awe!
stick... friction! stones! hay fever!
ooh! aah!
   bronze age man: necklace!
harem in the waiting!
     verb + noun! elevator!
      did two nouns give birth to:
worth keeping...
i.e. pro-noun? and then that
turned into decomposition of...
chair... via... minus ch-a-r into i!?
                  no... of course not...

       of a "thing" too alive to be yet called
dead...
   just ploughing the field...
just... one of those infinitely biased
circumstance of this particular instance...
and: there's no need to peacock with
any answer: esp. if it's the "right" one...
no autodidactic when...
of a lineage... the offspring were...
supposed to be taught by people of personage...
and... scribble scribble mcdonald does doodled...
because: hey... "bruce"!
how's that york of ours: the rime
of... jack! how's that?!

    no need for tallent... no need for...
in the ethereal: of particulars...
monkey does what monkey ought...
and ought not...
with as much trouble as plasying smart...
as playing double...
and no smart or ever double...
plays out into the luck of the dumb...
you'd almost wish to be a cattle related
work of glut from a ******* & herd
perspective...
        i have to conclude...
this world for all this... beauty...
no... not when the half-imbeciles are involved
in... ruining the worth of copper...
the worth of crown...
and the worth of intellect...
for the sake of...

                a pinch of a bitter pint of a tad
bit of banter...
                   for me...
death... is a postman...
and i am... most certainly...
having to assure myself...
with a delayed send-off date...
this life and the world within in...
can or rather... would never allow me...
to feel inclined to be:
somehow... resting: even then moving...
on the bargain argument of:
being assured...
pretty much... yes...
a bargain... a bargain when asleep even...
most assured... a falling sensation...
or an ice-cream cone of licked...
morals and conscience...

and if not dabbled in?
        well... if not... dabbled in.

Hats off to the purveyors of midnight hash browns and the -
morning waffle
Anoint this hamburger with mustard and ketchup
Three cheers to cackling waitresses , loud jukeboxes -
and busy chefs weaving magic with silver spatulas
A place where coffee cups ne'er run dry
Where her patrons are greeted with Sugar  , Darlin or -
Cutie pie
Wipe thy feet before entering this culinary church
For thou hast entered the tabernacle of the patty melt
Flowing with sweet tea , hot sauce and southern belles ...

The motel sat squat and lonesome in the middle of nowhere, like a bad idea that couldn’t quite die. Pull over those shotgun thoughts, she’d said, her voice thin as cigarette smoke, half-love, half-warning. In the backseat, a wisp of a memory stirred—bodies colliding like busted stars, creamy petals dropping one by one onto cheap upholstery. The slap of reality had come later, sharp as a motel key left unclaimed at the desk.

Inside, the jukebox wheezed out its eternal last rites to broken men, women, and jukeboxes. Black coffee steamed in the booth, untouched. She stared past it, past him, past everything. He’d tried "I'm sorry," tried it on a napkin, in a thousand different intonations, but the words were as empty as her half-lidded eyes. Drunken pleas didn’t move her anymore. Deep down we don’t change, she’d said once, tracing a cigarette burn on the table. He hated that she might be right.

The fears swam in his head like rats in the pool out back—too filthy to save, too stubborn to drown. Every motel had them: rats, ghosts, people like him. The long drives didn’t help, the sleeping pills didn’t help. Family therapy was a joke they didn’t laugh at anymore.

Outside, the desert was a ******’s heartbeat, long and taut, waiting to pull the trigger. No welcome home here, no open arms. Sacrifices made, yes, but not counted. That was the rule. He felt the morphine blues of goodbye coming, their ugly melody too hard to respond to. Wish you were here, his mind whispered, but the words were jagged and broke apart before they reached his lips.

After dark, the days of handovers and cheap dreams faded into something worse: the truth. On our deathbeds, maybe we all regress. Memories stay young at the moment of disaster. He imagined her stepping away from tomorrow's drama, just far enough to let the edge of her dress brush against it.

“Help the invalid,” she’d said once, her voice sticky with mockery. Was that him now, the invalid? Maybe. He didn’t answer her then, and she didn’t wait for it. She never waited.

He lit a cigarette, setting fire to everyday troubles, or at least pretending to. The creamy petals were all gone now. Only the thorns remained, brittle and unforgiving.