"Junker"

There's a Junker in my Backyard
Gathering dust
Its been there for a long while
Growing rust
It used to be a good friend I could trust
Now it’s just a page from "boom to bust"

There's a Junker in the backyard growing weeds
It's past the point of ever paying heed
And taking time to find out what it needs
To get it up to *****, up to speed

There's a junker in my backyard shedding tears
once a trusted friend for many years
It's found itself abandoned full of fears
Never more to be shifted into gear

The Junker in my backyard fades away
With memories of a fondness from the day
Of being part of up and on the way
It's found it's way to where it finally lays


There's a Junker on the back roads of our dreams
That’s helped us tell the tales of where we've been
The far and wide, the places in between
The endless warm horizon’s we have seen

There's a junker in my heart that's never free
Forever needing more than I can be
Always meant to step up in the breeze
And head out for an island in the sea

There are junkers from tomorrow wanting more
A constant search to find that special door
That opens to the "land of nevermore"
Where you
Lay down in the sunshine on the shore

There's a junker in the moonlight's shining hue
Flashing moonbeams red and white and blue
Talking from the deepest part of you
Pages on the porch swing’s of our youth

There's a Junker in your Backyard
Gathering dust
turning slow from shiny chrome to rust
It once was an old friend you could trust
Now,
another page from one more "boom to bust"

Dearest,

This thing is claiming me again. I write only to express a great need to see you, or call you, or maybe even crank up the engine of this beat up junker I'm sitting in now. I'd very much like to see you again, or once more, even if it were just your eyes. It's been three years. Three years since I last heard your voice, or laugh, or saw you smile. ****, do I miss that smile. It's been three years since you left without a decent goodbye, you ***. You never had a ******* clue - but, anyway. That's not why I'm here.

I was thinking of you today, as I have every single one before and will continue to until my breathing ceases. Did you know it's the anniversary of when I realized I was hopelessly in love with you? Of course you don't. I never told you about that moment, or how I really felt. I swore I might, before you were gone, but it's been three years and I never did. So that's that, I guess. This is such a waste, writing to you. Yet here I am, painstakingly scrawling these thoughts whirling around in my brain on to a sheet of loose leaf paper. The best part is knowing I'll never send this to you. This is going to sit here in my pocket until I wash it, or burn it when I'm searching for the cigarettes I don't smoke, or even lose it on my walk through the city.

I walk every day, and not just to and from places. I walk to think. I walk to clear my head. Instead, I will pass somewhere you've been -- somewhere we've been -- and I will be right where I started again, plagued by the ghost of you on every new corner, in the middle of the crowds, and at the foot of the subway stairs. You are everywhere, darling.

You'd be laughing at this point, probably. You'd be thinking that I ramble like I used to and still don't manage to say enough to ever convince you that I'm true. Or maybe you'd be thinking how wasteful this is to this sheet of paper. How unfair that this piece of paper gets to carry this nonsensical message to you -- or not, actually -- and how unfair that it gets to sit in my pocket, close enough to be lost. Or maybe you wouldn't think that at all, and you'd be just blankly reading all of this and wondering whether I'm just bullshitting around the truth, like I've always done oh-so-well.

Or maybe you'd just be thinking that this is so typical of me, keeping things I'll never do anything with for the sake of keeping them. You always thought I liked the act of keeping things rather than the things themselves. Perhaps you're right, because I've always wished I could both keep you and be rid of you and the toxicity you bring.

But at the end of the day, I'm the one writing you. Maybe my feelings learn towards the former of those two extremes.

Anyway, you would have been right about the bullshitting thing. I'm really writing because the emptiness is back, eating me out and wringing my guts inside out, and it isn't even pleasurable. I wrote because I haven't done so in some time, and it's been a long time since I wrote one of these one-sided letters to you. I used to write more; I used to have dozens, even, though I never wrote those on loose leaf paper in an old junker, heat off in the middle of winter. Really, I'm freezing right now. This is ridiculous. And I've got to stop bullshitting to you, I do.

You know, I can almost hear you responding to this. I can hear your voice somewhere in the back of my mind, answering me. And maybe that makes me more insane than I ever was. Maybe this hollowed out body has finally been done in, and I'm just beginning my descent into the clutches of insanity... or maybe I just can't tell you the truth.  You know me well, you do.

The truth is that I ******* miss you so much, it hurts to breathe. It physically causes my chest to ache, for pain to shoot through my entire body with each pump of my heart. Unfortunately, my heart is beating ceaselessly and my breathing has yet to stop by choice, so it hurts every day, every single second. I am always missing you. There is no other truth but that.

I think that, by allowing myself to write this, I'm hoping this idea of you can save me. I know already that this is the dumbest thing I've let myself hope for, more stupid than letting myself hope for you and for change and for happiness. The point is, letting myself do this at all is stupid, But I can't stop myself. You are worse than any drug I've ever known, and I pity those whose lives you have touched only because I know what it's like to be cut off from you. God forbid you leave them, someday, and they end up like me. Or a few shades less crazy than me.

I haven't even eaten because of this emptiness. I can't eat, actually. If I feed the monster, it erupts and soaks me with self hatred. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid to do anything to infuriate it, and it's always angry. It's always whispering to me, sexily and sweet, asking me to do things that are so wrong. I'm not listening, and I'm staying clean, but it's hard, dearest. It's so hard when you've got nothing to cling to, nothing to even dream about hoping for.

This emptiness takes and takes, and it does not give back anything but empty caverns and the memory of what it was to feel. It takes everything I've got and it dumps it on the ground, spreads it around and sullies it. And when it's tattered and worn and filthy and unrecognizable, it crumbles it between its fingers like it's nothing but ash. I hate this behemoth more than I hate living through it. It's never-ending, the terrors it brings, and it pounds against me when I trap it away. It is invincible though, and it will always win. It's invincible in the way I believed we once had been, a long time in the past. Like us, I am not as invincible as I dreamed.

I'm sorry if I've worried you. I didn't mean to tell you, not truly. But now that the words are out, I seem to be a bit less empty than I was. Maybe I'll find my way out of this... maybe. I hope you are well, and smiling, and the world treats you kindly. I hope the night sky is beautiful where you are, and the lights glimmer in the distance exactly as you've imagined them. You deserve it a thousand times over me.

-A.C.

He sat there, same table, most Sundays
If he came alone, he did not stay that way long
His corner table would fill, with nodders and smilers
People with pint glass recognition of all he'd done
His special tankard 'World's Strongest Man'; no year, for that would be cruel
I watched him as I grew, from colouring book infant to
The girl who stood a round for her father
Each year he shrunk a little, those
muscles softening to fat
And still they came and asked him to bend their metal pipes
And carry a man on each shoulder
One handed him a rope for his teeth, and
Asked if he would  tow away his junker, they
Laughed and bought him another round, mate, another pint
For the World's Strongest Man
He told me once, when I was 10 and curious,
The stories of his ink marks, the places
He had been and all the strange and wonderful things
He had lifted and bent and pulled and
Training with the Sumo, ice hole bathing with Inuit,
wrestling hobbled Russian bears, the lion that left 'see, this mark here'
A yawn when he'd placed his big, shaggy head
In the beast's mouth because
He too was a king
I asked him once, when I had grew
If he should have been
More like bamboo
Thin and reedy, bending in the wind
No substance to speak off, yet
With a strength belieing it's slender form
He told me, as the acolytes trudged past
In heavy boots and rough winter coats
'All I ever wanted was for someone else to take the weight, even for a moment, but now it's too late'
I smiled sadly, because I understood
Tested strength and how it withstood
And yet I felt his heart-deep sorrow
At looking back, not to tomorrow
I did not buy him another pint, I walked with him instead
Through the door he'd left a thousand times
To his taxi, usual driver, 'home, mate?'
Lean on me for now, I said. I'm stronger than I look.

A mile to work and a mile to home;
I roam this bay town more often alone

Than with anyone else who's willing to stay;
I fray and I wither like Bill back in the day

Of those times so funky where music was fresh;
Outta breath I would get singing along in my vette:

I pretend, quite often, that instead I do own;
But no, it's well know of my junker I roam

That I travel point A to point B by such mode;
Yes, I go via foot or death trap on the road

That is ever before me and ready to fight;
Whether night or day light, my knees give their might

And walk and stomp and push best they can;
Whether sit or stand or cross bridges off land

I do hope to pickup a better way,
Less stranger;
But danger aside, I drive on: me and my ford ranger.

Edit




• by michaelfixer
• 15 hours ago, Apr 27, last seen 2 minutes ago
• © michael gagain













i'll make him an offer he can't refuse....

he must understand the car...it is used



i been here before...can't do it again

the car is a clunker

my wife called it a junker



i will go back to the ads...

and set my sights on a jag

before i give this fool my cash



oh.......one hundred bucks

in that case i will try my luck



if it does not work

or i get it stuck in the muck

i'll simply..call and get a tow truck



Author notes

he wore white sneakers,
and black glasses, and
played guitar and sung
the blues

he picked each string
and hit each note and
had voice like gravel
and a heart of gold

he was old but he was
chipper, he was broken
down but he still laughed
like it was 1923

he sung to the taste of
good food, he sung to
the taste of good beer,
he sung to the soul of
his old city, and he sung
for the sake of singing
itself

he, like each man up
there, was playing for
the sake of playing.
they were a quartet
of junker cars and
busted stereos

he sung those old time
blues, back in the days
of Robert Johnson and
racial inequality, back
when the water fountains
were separate but everyone
was still chasing a dream
so uniquely American

he sings and he plays and
his guitar is just smaller
than a normal


he sings those old times
blues with a smile on his
face, even as the world
writes new songs for the
next generation of gravel-
voiced blues-singers that
seem to enjoy life just a
little bit more than anyone
else

¿En dónde estás, por dónde
te hallaré, sombra, sombra,
sombra?...

                    Pisé las piedras,
las modelé con sol
y con tristeza. Supe
que había allí un secreto
de paz, un corazón
latiendo para mí.

Y qué serías, sombra,
sombra, sombra; qué nombre,
y qué forma, y qué vida
serías, sombra. Y cómo
podías no ser vida,
no tener forma y nombre

Sombra: bajo las piedras,
bajo tanta mudez
-dureza y levedad,
oro y hierba-, qué, quién
me solicita, qué
me dice, de qué modo
entenderlo... (no encuentro
las llaves). Sombra, sombra,
sombra... Cómo entenderlo
y nacerlo...

                    De pronto,
deslumbradoramente,
el agua cristaliza
en diamante... Una súbita
revelación...

                          Azul:
en el azul estaba,
en la hoguera celeste,
en la pulpa del día,
la clave Ahora recuerdo:
he vuelto a Italia. Azul,
azul, azul era ésa
la palabra (no sombra,
sombra, sombra) Recuerdo

ya -con qué claridad-
lo que he soñado siempre
sin sospecharlo. He vuelto
a Italia, a la aventura
de la serenidad,
del equilibrio, de
la belleza, la gracia,
la medida...

                          Por estas
plazas que el sol desnuda
cada mañana, el alma
ha navegado, limpia
y ardiente. Pero dime,
azul (¿o hablo a la sombra?),
qué dimensión le prestas
a esta hora mía; quién
arrebató las alas
a la vida. Y quién fue
que yo no sé. Y quién fui
el que ha vivido instantes
que yo recuerdo ahora.
Qué, alma mía, en qué cuerpo,
que no era mío, anduvo
por aquí, devanando
amor, entre oleadas
de piedra, entre oleadas
encendidas (las olas
rompían y embestían
contra las torres peñas)...

Entre oleadas... Olas...
Gris... Olas... Sombra...He vuelto
a olvidar la palabra
reveladora. Playas...
Olas... Sombra... Hubo algo
que era armonía, un sitio
donde estoy... (sombra, sombra,
sombra), donde no estoy.
No: la palabra no era sombra.

El fulgor del cielo,
la piedra rosa, han vuelto
a su mudez. Están
ante mí. Los contemplo,
y, sin embargo, ya
no están. El equilibrio,
la armonía, la gracia
no están. Ay, sombra, sombra
(y tanta claridad).

Quién disipó el lugar
(o el tiempo) que me daba
su sangre, el que escondía
el lugar (o era el tiempo)
no vivido. Y por qué
recuerdo lo que ha sido
vivido por mi cuerpo
y mi alma. Qué hace
aquí, por mi memoria,
este avión roto, un viejo
Junker, bajo la luna
de diciembre. La niebla,
la escarcha, aquel camino
hasta el silencio, aquella
mar que estaba anunciando
este mismo momento
que no es tampoco mío.

Quién sabe qué decían
las olas de esta piedra.
Quién sabe lo que hubiera
-antes- dicho esta piedra
si yo hubiese acertado
la palabra precisa
que pudo descuajarla
del futuro. Cuál era
-ayer- esa palabra
nunca dicha. Cuál es
esa palabra de hoy,
que ha sido pronunciada,
que ha ardido al pronunciarla,
y que ha sido perdida
definitivamente

I've awoken now.
Quite down little birds.
My mind muddied and blurred.
Where am I now and how..
Did I get here?
Rusty, still turning on like that old junker that'd never start first time.
Memories mysty drips and drabs of last night.
Unshaven from days ago.
Dirt and blood laced aftershave.
Was it one night or a week, maybe they blended together.
The nights are the worst they always bring the day.
Recoil finding myself all over again.
It's Thursday.

if all these energies are spent on youth, then such a crescendo of disillusionment is waiting with its gnashing teeth and gangrene filth to stand straight iron your shirts, and queue for a bottle of milk - at the supermarket like a catwalk of Milan - people and their dream of telekinesis - they enforced stance on telepathy -  telepathy being, of course, the symptom of over exposure to televisions - that scale justified by infinity mirrors, or that infinity (∞) is actually a mirroring - mire rings and what other disambiguation  there is to it in reverse - but only in a snap of the flash - illumination via a twin begot between two limits... or something like that.

never you mind english pragmatism,
pragmatic speech therapies and other associations,
bundles of closed words that desire
the presence of a dictionary, desire or no
desire, are bound to require the dictionary
necessarily - long gone the pronoun overuse
as is the signature of the english tongue -
pronoun overuse - shrapnel of conjunctions
and the like between elongated word-giraffes...
infinity is a mirroring effect* -
infinity is a foggy murk of 19th century London
should it be looked at straight, or seen through,
paper from wood, glass from sand, finely
ground - not grin d e d - sublime i say ol' chap -
we are bound to loosen things up without
clear vox vis (voiced energy - pardon any
other association of vis, meaning also violence -
latin is dead in meaning, but alive with type oh,
typos as the curvatures of sigma: it total,
no northern barbarian conqueror or *** gave us
encoding to use - the rúnes were like roman
numerals, matchsticks - VI or ᛋ -
                                  or die junker in das bunker -
and if by the testimony of Ogham - should
any testimony be made - once a whisper &
secret... rune - now a frenzied shout on the hills!
råbe of king Cnut, the conquest of England -
ᚱᚨᛒᛖ: r (ride, journey) / a (one of the Æsir) /
          b (birch) and last e (horse)                   .
all my books smells of onions as i prepared dinner,
and garlic too, a famous imprint some might say;
or say that nearing-middle age all this
technological connectivity made us more distant
with our neighbours, or that some say
that all that's prone to internet publishing is false -
but have you inspected the publishing industry?
glamour models' autobiographies,
footballers' "auto" biographies -
graeme le saux is called a professor because he has
a-levels or a degree - and you think all that
is published for charity on the internet is false?
i guess you've never had so much freedom
to delve in private places where social media is
the ugly head of socialism popping up once more,
but the health of the publishing industry leaves
me agitated, as was richard brautigan
in his poem hey!   this is what it's all about
with the beautiful words:
                                             no publication
                                             no money
                                             no star
                                             no ****
                                             ____________
yes, i will be playing with diacritical symbols
as if i were learning chinese encoding of sounds
so so complex they might as well be crop-circles -
but what farmer cares for such symbols?
a secret genius on a farm in Iowa? hardly -
i'll be playing that game of what's more protruding
should i have written rúnes or rūnes -
or left it sketchy and stark naked runes -
since the r is also protruding when going
skiing into the parabola - believe me, the pedantic
in me, given the lessons learnt from Kabbalah
concerning active meditation using symbols
will keep me up all night long - and indeed, once
a cryptology for whispers and secrets,
now a blatant shout as if feeling it was necessary -
akin to a book of maxims:
are these necessary truths, or unnecessary truths?
but as they say: we lost a great treat -
we lost the leprechaun's and the genie's reward,
then came mathematics and solidified our loss,
it's not a case of secrets any more -
but a stance of i just want to be heard!

                                                        ­                    the end.

If you need a place to pick your nose,
Eat contraband &/or beat your meat,
God bless the child that's got his own,
That's got his own bedroom,
His personal Reichstag bunker,
His private Junker Bauhaus,
If you get my drift?
If you don’t, “Get Bent!”
I am not here to entertain you.

So I am coming in from garden hosing--
Not lederhosen, you Aryan punks!--&
I'm on my rear patio thinking to myself
I couldn’t get any higher,
Even with Jackie singing:
Search Results Jackie Wilson - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher (Best ... Aug 11, 2011 - Uploaded by jakebucknall 123 Jackie Wilson - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher (Best Quality). The Staple Singers -I https://www.youtube.com/watchv=mzDVaKRApcg.
But I digress.

A spot of hose magic,
Watching my garden grow.
Keeping things moist & fertile,
Leonard Cohen (RIP) on the airwaves,
A fat blunt betwixt my lips,
"Curling up like smoke above my shoulder."
“Don’t get me started,” I said,
Paying tribute to beloved Joan Rivers (RIP)
Lost so senselessly, so humorlessly,
To some whack-job-wonder boy,
Who just happened to score perfect 800s
On his high school SAT exams, &
Later worming his way into Med School,
Which rather begs the obvious question:
Those 11-year old Frankensteins,
Why did their Bubbes give them a
Chemistry sets for Chanukah?
Later earning state Medical licenses,
Licenses to practice,
Licenses to **** & just say
*“OOPS, I did it again!”

If you need a place to pick your nose,
Eat contraband &/or beat your meat,
How blessed thou art with
Your own bedroom, Adolescent;
Your personal Reichstag Bunker,
Your private Junker Bauhaus, if
You get my drift?
If you don’t, “*******!”
I am not here to entertain you.

when you say my name
the sunset blinds me
your beaten hands have never felt my freckles
but the way your words sit in my chest
i know the warmth could last forever
i know this isn’t all in my head

red, blue, yellow cars
i wanna hold your hand in them all

i know it’s wrong for me to keep calling
but when i’m in the dark
laying on the hood of my car
and your music is playing
i can see the ******* stars swaying

who knew distance could make so much noise
but the miles between us scream at me in the night
to drive and drive
until all i see is white in my headlights

and you’re so purple and yellow
with your big t-shirt’s and goofy *** smile
and you’re so red
switching up like the weather
twilight in your eyes
the sun keeping your head up

so ride the train into town
i’ll drive an hour in my junker
just to pick you up
and show you sunsets forever

and that night maybe we can even take a trip
into the lucy skies
and you’ll know what it’s like
to have a bonnie to your clyde

let me plant roses in your skull
and make a bed for you under my skin
so you’ll never know what it’s like
to feel the cold again

i know it’s hell you can’t touch me
but maybe if you open your eyes
you can hear me

i want you to be free
and give you the feeling of dreaming
the feeling you get bombing a hill on a skateboard and it’s all laughter and yellow
or maybe when you’re at a party and it’s late as hell and you’re smoking a cigarette on the porch with a cute girl and you get close enough to smell her skin
the feeling when you wake up in your own bed and it’s been raining for weeks and the sun is shining in and you can feel the warmth on top of your blankets

whatever feeling you crave
wanna give you a piece of me in an unforgettable summer
that will inspire you forever

A soft song
distracts.

The window fogs,
as white lights
fall away
running fast
as can be
on into
a sea
of infinity.

She yawns,
then fingers
a circle
into the glass
trying to
make time pass,
make her hours
move faster
then those
minute *******
that just drag on.

Dullness settles in.
Her mind wanders
slipping beyond
normal constraints.

A pew, pew, pew
of imaginary lasers
escape her
small lips
as she races
to escape this
boring moment.

Little blue eyes close,
and all those stars above
move light years closer,
as she sits
in the cockpit
of a little weaponless
space junker.

Two bogeys,
circle her ship,
but she ducks
and twirls
through the gap,
allowing the blasts
to blow up
passing meteorites
which shred the
metal plating
and pulsating
engines of her
impatient pursuers.

Now she is free
to explore infinity
with her
Soft body settled
deeply into
the comfort
of the old couch.

Eyes still closed.
Her mom
comes home,
kisses her
brave space traveler
on the forehead,
then carries
the tired wayfarer
off to bed.
A space where
dreams take
the young explorer
farther into
the star sparkling unknown.

Freedom is writing, imagination and dreaming for me..
So sit with me, I dont bite..
Hear the story of how you set me free from my chains.

They say the mind is our own worst enemy, "Dont think too much" My friends would ramble on as I write vigorously on the first page of a brand new journal.
I look at them as imbeciles, they think too little to not question all of whats around them.. or to ignore it!

Right about now the clock strikes 8AM and I shall be off to my bus for school.

the way his eyes light up In the darkest of spaces.. His soft silky hair.. His voice, and the way he looked at me for the first time. I'm in love

Its running late, and its 40 below today.. the cold is getting through to my core..

His arms holding me as I cry In the house that built me.. the house that destroyed my inner most child.and created a beast.. he warms me, though its 2 below in my room..and though theres an empty hole in my chest

30min go by.. still no bus. My lips are blue, I can see them reflecting in the busted side mirror of an old junker chevrolet out front. Ill wait a little longer. The cold is at about a 5/10 right now "I got this." And I do..

I'm starting to burn up In his embrace.. His love so powerful any ice within my chest Is melted at an instance. All the world around us melts.. we float on this broken spring mattress into the mystic of our soul connection.

An hour goes by. Im sure the fact is relevant to you that I won't be going to school today, but to me theres still hope.. so i gather sticks and rocks beneath the hardened packed snow and get a fire going for myself out here, "maybe there's an accident"

What is it to be saddened or upset? Dont you remind me. Right now beside his body, skin on skin, soul on soul, I feel naked. Hes held me so tight today that hes bannished my troubles of the past..  melted my inner most glaciers. He warms this heart of mine, connects to my soul, and together we dance among the stars in spirit.


The fire blazes this morning. No idea the temp, or time- I'm warm out here. Thats all that matters. If I go inside the house I'll have to dream like I'm dead, so sit with me.. so I can imaine my dream mans dialogue to all to be said..

(But theres no fire flickering right now, it's all in my head. I'm battling my demons with my dreams. Dont wake me today please. Let me be with my lovers, be with my friends.. let me be free with the memory of him)