FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

here's to a package of
Marlboro Reds
in the hands of
someone other than
the Marlboro Man
standing in
for those slack-jawed outlaws
my heroes now lack jaws
tongues
lungs

I swear it's been too long
since I inhaled manhood
The Great Darrell Winfield
rolled
packed
and filtered
into the only thing I know
that makes a man a man
the essence of
cowboy boots and farmer's tan
in every drag

see, I inhale my heroes
all the dusty red-necked
cowboys
Darrell Winfield
and my dad
men whose lives
went up in smoke
to coat my throat
in my own self-righteousness
I'm frightened this
is all that I'll have left
of him
lung cancer
and the lingering stench
of cigarettes

he always smelled
of cigarettes

he'd pull me into these
firm embraces
he held so long
that he'd suffocate me
in tacky business
and cigarette smoke
masked only
faintly
by a poor man's
cologne
still I breathed him in
until I'd start to choke
it was too much man to handle

my grandpa told me
“smoking doesn't send you
straight to Hell,
but it sure does make you smell
like you've already been there”

he was
a grown man
cursing
crying
lying
dying by himself
trying to drown out the inferno
with a case of beer
but sobriety finds you sometime
and I'd rather suffocate in cigarettes
than lose him altogether

and even if he smells like Hell
at least that means he made it back

My pal Marlboro is a good bud to have,
He can be a **** sometimes,
Still hes always there when I need him.
He can get a little "hot headed" sometimes
But hes smokin went hes angry
So i dont mind.
I loved my pal Marlboro,
Till the day he died...
See Marlboro,
He passed away this afternoon,
We burried him in the snow,
And said our goodbyes
But then,
I found another Marlboro,
He was in my purse the whole time.

In the Fall, when the temperature of the Bay would drop and the wind blew ice, frost would gather on the lawn near Henry Oldez's room. It was not a heavy frost that spread across the paralyzed lawn, but one that just covered each blade of grass with a fine, white, almost dusty coat. Most mornings, he would stumble out of the garage where he slept and tip toe past the ice speckled patch of brown and green spotted grass, so to make his way inside to relieve himself. If he was in no hurry, he would stand on the four stepped stoop and look back at the dried, dead leaves hanging from the wiry branches of three trees lined up against the neighbors fence. The picture reminded him of what the old gallows must have looked like. Henry Oldez had been living in this routine for twenty some years.

He had moved to California with his mother, father, and three brothers 35 years ago. Henry's father, born and raised in Tijuana, Mexico, had traveled across the Meixcan border on a bent, full jalopy with his wife, Betria Gonzalez and their three kids. They were all mostly babies then and none of the brothers claimed to remember anything of the ride, except one, Leo, recalled there was "A lotta dust in the car." Santiago Oldez, San for short, had fought in World War II and died of cancer ten years later. San drank most nights and smoked two packs of Marlboro Reds a day. Henry had never heard his father talk about the fighting or the war. If he was lucky to hear anything, it would have been when San was dead drunk, talking to himself mostly, not paying very much attention to anyone except his memories and his music.

"San loved two things in this world," Henry would say, "*****, Betria, and Johnny Cash."

Betria Gonzalez grew up in Tijuana, Mexico as well. She was a stout, short woman, wide but with pretty eyes and a mess of orange golden hair. Betria could talk to anyone about anything. Her nick names were the conversationalist or the old crow because she never found a reason to stop talking. Santiago had met her through a friend of a friend. After a couple of dates, they were married. There is some talk of a dispute among the two families, that they didn't agree to the marriage and that they were too young, which they probably were. Santiago being Santiago, didn't listen to anybody, only to his heart. They were married in a small church outside of town overlooking the Pacific. Betria told the kids that the waves thundered and crashed against the rocks that day and the sea looked endless. There were no pictures taken and only three people were at the ceremony: Betria, San, and the priest.

Of course, the four boys went to elementary and high school, and, of course, none of them went to college. One brother moved down to LA and eventually started working for a law firm doing their books. Another got married at 18 years old and was in and out of the house until getting under the wing of the union, doing construction and electrical work for the city. The third brother followed suit. Henry Oldez, after high school, stayed put. Nothing in school interested him. Henry only liked what he could get into after school. The people of the streets were his muse, leaving him with the tramps, the dealers, the struggling restaurateurs, the laundry mat hookers, the crooked cops and the addicts, the gang bangers, the bible humpers, the window washers, the jesus freaks, the EMT's, the old ladies pushing salvation by every bus stop, the guy on the corner and the guy in the alley, and the DOA's. Henry didn't have much time for anyone else after all of them.

Henry looked at himself in the mirror. The light was off and the room was dim. Sunlight streaked in through the dusty blinds from outside, reflecting into the mirror and onto Henry's face. He was short, 5' 2'' or 5' 3'' at most with stubby, skinny legs, and a wide, barrel shaped chest. He examined his face, which was a ravine of wrinkles and deep crows feet. His eyes were sunken and small in his head. Somehow, his pants were always one or two inches below his waistline, so the crack of his *** would constantly be peeking out. Henry's deep, chocolate colored hair was  that of an ancient Native American, long and nearly touched the tip of his belt if he stood up straight. No one knew how long he had been growing it out for. No one knew him any other way. He would comb his hair incessantly: before and after a shower, walking around the house, watching television with Betria on the couch, talking to friends when they came by, and when he drove to work, when he had it.

Normal work, nine to five work, did not work for Henry. "I need to be my own boss," he'd say. With that fact stubbornly put in place, Henry turned to being a handy man, a roofer, and a pioneer of construction. No one knew where he would get the jobs that he would get, he would just have them one day. And whenever he 'd finish a job, he'd complain about how much they'd shorted him, soon to move on to the next one. Henry never had to listen to anyone and, most of the time, he got free lunches out of it. It was a very strange routine, but it worked for him and Betria had no complaints as long as he was bringing some money in and keeping busy. After Santiago died, she became the head of the house, but really let her boys do whatever they wanted.

Henry took a quick shower and blow dried his hair, something he never did unless he was in a hurry. He had a job in the east bay at a sorority house near the Berkley campus. At the table, still in his pajamas, he ate three leftover chicken thighs, toast, and two over easy eggs. Betria was still in bed, awake and reading. Henry heard her two dogs barking and scratching on her bedroom door. He got up as he combed his damp hair, tugging and straining to get each individual knot out. When he opened the door, the smaller, thinner dog, Boy Boy, shot under his legs and to the front door where his toy was. The fat, beige, pig-like one waddled out beside Henry and went straight for its food bowl.

"Good morning," said Henry to Betria.

Betria looked at Henry over her glasses, "You eat already?"

"Yep," he announced, "Got to go to work." He tugged on a knot.

"That's good. Dondé?" Betria looked back down at her spanish TV guide booklet.

"Berkley somewhere," Henry said, bringing the comb smoothly down through his hair.

"That's good, that's good."

"OK!" Henry sighed loudly, shutting the door behind him. He walked back to the dinner table and finished his meal. Then, Betria shouted something from her room that Henry couldn't hear.

"What?" yelled Henry, so she could hear him over the television. She shouted again, but Henry still couldn't hear her. Henry got up and went back to her room, ***** dish in hand. He opened her door and looked at her without saying anything.

"Take the dogs out to ***," Betria told him, "Out the back, not the front."

"Yeah," Henry said and shut the door.

"Come on you dogs," Henry mumbled, dropping his dish in the sink. Betria always did everyones dishes. She called it "her exercise."

Henry let the two dogs out on the lawn. The sun was curling up into the sky and its heat had melted all of the frost on the lawn. Now, the grass was bright green and Henry barely noticed the dark brown dead spots. He watched as the fat beige one squatted to ***. It was too fat to lifts its own leg up. The thing was built like a tank or a sea turtle. Henry laughed to himself as it looked up at him, both of its eyes going in opposite directions, its tongue jutted out one corner of his mouth. Boy boy was on the far end of the lawn, searching for something in the bushes. After a minute, he pulled out another one of his toys and brought it to Henry. Henry picked up the neon green chew toy shaped like a bone and threw it back to where Boy boy had dug it out from. Boy boy shot after it and the fat one just watched, waddling a few feet away from it had peed and laid down. Henry threw the toy a couple more times for Boy boy, but soon he realized it was time to go.

"Alright!" said Henry, "Get inside. Gotta' go to work." He picked up the fat one and threw it inside the laundry room hallway that led to the kitchen and the rest of the house. Boy boy bounded up the stairs into the kitchen. He didn't need anyone lifting him up anywhere. Henry shut the door behind them and went to back to his room to get into his work clothes.

Henry's girlfriend was still asleep and he made sure to be quiet while he got dressed. Tia, Henry's girlfriend, didn't work, but occasionally would put up garage sales of various junk she found around town. She was strangely obsessed with beanie babies, those tiny plush toys usually made up in different costumes. Henry's favorite was the hunter. It was dressed up in camouflage and wore an eye patch. You could take off its brown, polyester hat too, if you wanted. Henry made no complaint about Tia not having a job because she usually brought some money home somehow, along with groceries and cleaning the house and their room. Betria, again, made no complain and only wanted to know if she was going to eat there or not for the day.

A boat sized bright blue GMC sat in the street. This was Henry's car. The stick shift was so mangled and bent that only Henry and his older brother could drive it. He had traded a new car stereo for it, or something like that. He believed it got ten miles to the gallon, but it really only got six or seven. The stereo was the cleanest piece of equipment inside the thing. It played CD's, had a shoddy cassette player, and a decent radio that picked up all the local stations. Henry reached under the seat and attached the radio to the front panel. He never left the radio just sitting there in plain sight. Someone walking by could just as soon as put their elbow into the window, pluck the thing out, and make a clean 200 bucks or so. Henry wasn't that stupid. He'd been living there his whole life and sure enough, done the same thing to other cars when he was low on money. He knew the tricks of every trade when it came to how to make money on the street.

On the road, Henry passed La Rosa, the Mexican food mart around the corner from the house. Two short, tanned men stood in front of a stand of CD's, talking. He usually bought pirated music or movies there. One of the guys names was Bertie, but he didn't know the other guy. He figured either a customer or a friend. There were a lot of friends in this neighborhood. Everyone knew each other somehow. From the bars, from the grocery, from the laundromat, from the taco stands or from just walking around the streets at night when you were too bored to stay inside and watch TV. It wasn't usually safe for non-locals to walk the streets at night, but if you were from around there and could prove it to someone that was going to jump you, one could usually get away from losing a wallet or an eyeball if you had the proof. Henry, to people on the street, also went as Monk. Whenever he would drive through the neighborhood, the window open with his arm hanging out the side, he would usually hear a distant yell of "Hey Monk!" or "What's up Monk!". Henry would always wave back, unsure who's voice it was or in what direction to wave, but knowing it was a friend from somewhere.

There was heavy traffic on the way to Berkley and as he waited in line, cursing his luck, he looked over at the wet swamp, sitting there beside highway like a dead frog. A few scattered egrets waded through the brown water, their long legs keeping their clean white bodies safe from the muddy water. Beyond the swamp laid the pacific and the Golden Gate bridge. San Francisco sat there too: still, majestic, and silver. Next to the city, was the Bay Bridge stretched out over the water like long gray yard stick. Henry compared the Golden Gate's beauty with the Bay Bridge. Both were beautiful in there own way, but the Bay Bridge's color was that of a gravestone, while the Golden Gate's color was a heavy red, that made it seem alive. Why they had never decided to pain the Bay Bridge, Henry had no idea. He thought it would look very nice with a nice coat of burgundy to match the Golden gate, but knew they would never spend the money. They never do.

After reeling through the downtown streets of Berkley, dodging college kids crossing the street on their cell phones and bicyclists, he finally reached the large, A-frame house. The house was lifted, four or five feet off the ground and you had to walk up five or seven stairs to get to the front door. Surrounded by tall, dark green bushes, Henry knew these kids had money coming from somewhere. In the windows hung spinning colored glass and in front of the house was an old-timey dinner bell in the shape of triangle. Potted plants lined the red brick walkway that led to the stairs. Young tomatoes and small peas hung from the tender arms of the stems leaf stalks. The lawn was manicured and clean. "Must be studying agriculture or something," Henry thought, "Or they got a really good gardener."

He parked right in front of the house and looked the building up and down, estimating how long it would take to get the old shingles off and the new one's on. Someone was up on the deck of the house, rocking back and forth in an old wooden chair. He listened to the creaking wood of the chair and the deck, judging it would take him two days for the job. Henry knew there was no scheduled rain, but with the Bay weather, one could never be sure. He had worked in rain before - even hail - and it never really bothered him. The thing was, he never strapped himself in and when it would rain and he was working roofs, he was afraid to slip and fall. He turned his truck off, got out, and locked both of the doors. He stepped heavily up the walkway and up the stairs. The someone who was rocking back and forth was a skinny beauty with loose jean shorts on and a thick looking, black and red plaid shirt. She had long, chunky dread locks and was smoking a joint, blowing the smoke out over the tips of the bushes and onto the street. Henry was no stranger to the smell. He smoked himself. This was California.

"Who're you?" the dreaded girl asked.

"I'm the roofer," Henry told her.

The girl looked puzzled and disinterested. Henry leaned back on his heels and wondered if the whole thing was lemon. She looked beyond him, down on the street, awkwardly annoying Henry's gaze. The tools in Henry's hands began to grow heavy, so he put them down on the deck with a thud. The noise seemed to startle the girl out of whatever haze her brain was in and she looked back at Henry. Her eyes were dark brown and her skin was smooth and clear like lake water. She couldn't have been more then 20 or 21 years old. Henry realized that he was staring and looked away at the various potted plants near the rocking chair. He liked them all.

"Do you know who called you?" She took a drag from her joint.

"Brett, " Henry told her, "But they didn't leave a last name."

For a moment, the girl looked like she had been struck across the chin with a brick, but then her face relaxed and she smiled.

"Oh ****," she laughed, "That's me. I called you. I'm Brett."

Henry smiled uneasily and picked up his tools, "Ok."

"Nice to meet you," she said, putting out her hand.

Henry awkwardly put out his left hand, "Nice to meet you too."

She took another drag and exhaled, the smoke rolling over her lips, "Want to see the roof?"

The two of them stood underneath a five foot by five foot hole. Henry was a little uneasy by the fact they had cleaned up none of the shattered wood and the birds pecking at the bird seed sitting in a bowl on the coffee table facing the TV. The arms of the couch were covered in bird **** and someone had draped a large, zebra printed blanket across the middle of it. Henry figured the blanket wasn't for decoration, but to hide the rest of the bird droppings. Next to the couch sat a large, antique lamp with its lamp shade missing. Underneath the dim light, was a nice portrait of the entire house. Henry looked away from the hole, leaving Brett with her head cocked back, the joint still pinched between her lips, to get a closer look. There looked to be four in total: Brett, a very large man, a woman with longer, thick dread locks than Brett, and a extremely short man with a very large, brown beard. Henry went back

The first settlers to the area called the Lumber River Drowning Creek. The river got its name for its dark, swift-moving waters. In 1809, the North Carolina state legislature changed the name of Drowning Creek to the Lumber River. The headwaters are still referred to as Drowning Creek.

Three p.m. on a Sunday.
Anxiously hungry, I stay dry, out of the pool’s cold water,
taking the light, dripping into my pages.
A city with a white face blank as a bust
peers over my shoulder.
Wildflowers on the roads. Planes circle from west,
come down steeply and out of sight.
A pinkness rises in my breast and arms:
wet as the drowned, my eyes sting with sweat.
Over the useless chimneys a bank of cloud piles up.
There is something terrible in the sky, but it keeps breaking.
Another is dead. Fentanyl. Sister of a friend, rarely seen.
A hand reaches everywhere to pass over eyes and mouths.
A glowing wound opens in heaven.
A mirror out of doors draws a gyre of oak seeds no one watches,
in the clear pool now sunless and black.

Bitter water freezes the muscles and I am far from shore.
I paddle in the shallows, near the wooden jail.
The water reflects a taut rope,
feet hanging in the breeze singing mercy
at the site of the last public hanging in the state.
A part-white fugitive with an extorted confession,
loved by the poor, dumb enough to get himself captured,
lonely on this side of authority: a world he has never lived in
foisting itself on the world he has -
only now, to steal his drunken life, then gone again.

1871 - Henderson Oxendine, one of the notorious gang of outlaws who for some time have infested Robeson County, N. C., committing ****** and robbery, and otherwise setting defiance to the laws, was hung at Lumberton, on Friday last in the presence of a large assemblage. His execution took place a very few days after his conviction, and his death occurred almost without a struggle.

Today, the town square collapses as if scorched
by the whiskey he drank that morning to still himself,
folds itself up like Amazing Grace is finished.
A plinth is laid
in the shadow of his feet, sticky with pine,
here where the water sickens with roots.
Where the canoe overturned. Where the broken oar floated and fell.
Where the snake lives, and teethes on bark,
waiting for another uncle.

Where the tobacco waves near drying barns rusted like horseshoes
and cotton studs the ground like the cropped hair of the buried.
Where schoolchildren take the afternoon
to trim the kudzu growing between the bodies of slaves.
Where appetite is met with flood and fat
and a clinic for the heart.
Where barges took chips of tar to port,
for money that no one ever saw.

Tar sticks the heel but isn’t courage.
Tar seals the hulls -
binds the planks -
builds the road.
Tar, fiery on the tongue, heavy as bad blood in the family -
dead to glue the dead together to secure the living.
Tar on the roofs, pouring heat.
Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon,
obtained from a wide variety of organic materials
through destructive distillation.
Tar in the lungs will one day go as hard as a five-cent candy.

Liberty Food Mart
Cheapest Prices on Cigarettes
Parliament $22.50/carton
Marlboro $27.50/carton

The white-bibbed slaughterhouse Hmong hunch down the steps
of an old school bus with no air conditioner,
rush into the cool of the supermarket.
They pick clean the vegetables, flee with woven bags bulging.
What were they promised?
Air conditioning.
And what did they receive?
Chickenshit on the wind; a dead river they can't understand
with a name it gained from killing.

Truth:
A man was flung onto a fencepost and died in a front yard down the street.
A girl with a grudge in her eyes slipped a razorblade from her teeth and ended recess.
I once saw an Indian murdered for stealing a twelve-foot ladder.
The red line indicating heart disease grows higher and higher.
The red line indicating cardiovascular mortality grows higher and higher.
The red line indicating motor vehicle deaths grows higher and higher.
I burn with the desire to leave.

The stories make us full baskets of dark. No death troubles me.
Not the girl's blood, inert, tickled by opiates,
not the masked arson of the law;
not the smell of drywall as it rots,
or the door of the safe falling from its hinges,
or the chassis of cars, airborne over the rise by the planetarium,
three classmates plunging wide-eyed in the river’s icy arc –
absent from prom, still struggling to free themselves from their seatbelts -
the gunsmoke at the home invasion,
the tenement bisected by flood,
the cattle lowing, gelded
by agriculture students on a field trip.

The air contains skin and mud.
The galvanized barns, long empty, cough up
their dust of rotten feed, dry tobacco.
Men kneel in the tilled rows,
to pick up nails off the ground
still splashed with the blood of their makers.

You Never Sausage a Place
(You’re Always a ****** at Pedro’s!)
South of the Border – Fireworks, Motel & Rides
Exit 9: 10mi.

Drunkards in Dickies will tell you the roads are straight enough
that the drive home will not bend away from them.
Look in the woods to see by lamplight
two girls filling each other's mouths with smoke.
Hear a friendly command:
boys loosening a tire, stuck in the gut of a dog.
Turn on the radio between towns of two thousand
and hear the tiny voice of an AM preacher,
sharing the airwaves of country dark
with some chords plucked from a guitar.
Taste this water thick with tannin
and tell me that trees do not feel pain.
I would be a mausoleum for these thousands
if I only had the room.

I sealed myself against the flood.
Bodies knock against my eaves:
a clutch of cats drowned in a crawlspace,
an old woman bereft with a vase of pennies,
her dead son in her living room costumed as the black Jesus,
the ***** oil of a Chinese restaurant
dancing on top of black water.
A flow gauge spins its tin wheel
endlessly above the bloated dead,
and I will pretend not to be sick at dinner.

Misery now, a struggle ahead for Robeson County after flooding from Hurricane Matthew
LUMBERTON
After years of things leaving Robeson County – manufacturing plants, jobs, payrolls, people – something finally came in, and what was it but more misery?

I said a prayer to the city:
make me a figure in a figure,
solvent, owed and owing.
Take my jute sacks of wristbones,
my sheaves and sheaves of fealty,
the smell of the forest from my feet.
Weigh me only by my purse.
A slim woman with a college degree,
a rented room without the black wings
of palmetto roaches fleeing the damp:
I saw the calm white towers and subscribed.
No ingrate, I saved a space for the lost.
They filled it once, twice, and kept on,
eating greasy flesh straight from the bone,
craning their heads to ask a prayer for them instead.

Downtown later in the easy dark,
three college boys in foam cowboy hats shout in poor Spanish.
They press into the night and the night presses into them.
They will go home when they have to.
Under the bridge lit in violet,
a folding chair is draped in a ***** blanket.
A grubby pair of tennis shoes lay beneath, no feet inside.
Iced tea seeps from a chewed cup.
I pass a bar lit like Christmas.
A mute and pretty face full of indoor light
makes a promise I see through a window.
I pay obscene rents to find out if it is true,
in this nation tied together with gallows-rope,
thumbing its codex of virtues.

Almost naked except
A dangling Marlboro cigarette  

Expertly stroking his lover
Fingers caress a slender body

Methodically engulfing aroma
The sweet smell of ***

Swollen lips surround
Waves of rapture quiver

Eyelashes and eyeballs flutter
Sinking into oblivion

Head bobbing like a pendulum
Savoring lingering lust

Inhaling smoke languidly
******* every undying toxin

Heather Mirassou

a soft packet of Marlboro's seems ****
these days,
and can i be the flirting first
to give a **** movie critique?
three black guys,
a white girl -
elephantiasis thoroughly established -
no, not the ******* part, the thing you flinch
as to have said: embraced -
      i'd be called a knife-weaving loner with
that sort of dangle -
    and there's me thinking:
that thing is readied for a Serena Williams'
buttocks - it's doubly pelvic in terms
of gravity, how many more inches
do you actually need to bypass those
*******? 12" ain't enough!
              plus, given the size of the actual
thing, how much of it will you actually
get soaked in phlegm while she ***** it
off into an ice-cream? i'd say a third if
not a fifth of it - the rest is kinda lost...
you need an African girl with enough
**** to tickle the tip of that skyscraper you'll
never get to build.
hard looking at the truth, isn't it?
you sorta hope it were a Pythagorean sample
of lecture notes on a beach on Rhodes...
      **** me: and they told me i was naive
but there's still
that:
and all that Darwinism and white self-loathing
to eradicate colonialism -
those 12" chocolate extensions were there
with fat enough bums... 'cos' you had to
bypass enough third-party jiggles
to get to the opportune part of insemination -
white girls and their ******* idea
of a shortcut... well done...
if you have an *** that's bulging enough
to be called the double pelvic or what
geneticists call the double-helix:
then i'd mind singing: and i am a tripod too!
believe me: in 20 years time Kubrick will
not be relevant... **** on the other hand?
next to the apples at a market stall.
               and i am holding a packet of
Marlboro's in my hand, a soft-packet,
sexier than Kenyan Camels sold without
filters (in a soft packet also) -
                  i'm still wondering about the white
girls' shortcut... a ******* tried to make me
strangle her neck by saying: all the black
boys have it... inch for inch...
               i told her: i bought an hour of gymnastic flex,
not your opinions.
         then in dodo the theta goes missing
when everything goes albino crazy when stated
in: discotheque -      techno oceanic -
                         tec (as: shortened) -
odd, isn't it: we are perpetually stating the halves -
never really the blunt obvious,
      charismatic loss of dynamo of language -
oh i'm not jealous, i'm thinking of all the things
i don't have to buy: perfumes, jockstraps,
     daffodils, we're-strangers-type-of-dinner-dates:
        let's freshen things up: escapades Francais -
the new risque - pervert dogs ******* strangers'
legs in the escalator sort of: till death do us part.
                       i just have 12" of concept
in a Nigerian buttocks to define gravitational
                                            pistons when
           that excess is matched with a buttock that's
twice an armchair: and only half to the said, ****:
or what i like to call the onomatopoeia filter:
         it doesn't sound like i'm knocking on a door
and the subsequent opening -
it sounds like i'm knocking on a crocodile's cranium
                and the ****** thing never shuts up!

Ellie. My name is Ellie.
I want to be a writer. I want to be a star. I want to be free.
I imagine myself riding on wide open roads,
on the back of a motorcycle with a boy
who is as much of a ghost as he is a person.
I imagine myself dazed in rooms
filled with a purple glow.
I imagine pills, lust, liquor, leather.
I want to live forever
and I want to die young.
My name is Ellie.
I don’t know what home means;
I don’t want to.
I need people to love me.
I will break all of their hearts.
I imagine late nights in underground clubs…
Marlboro, rock & roll, Howl by Allen Ginsberg–the bible.
Tanqueray;
falling down in a graveyard muttering in Romanian,
hoping for salvation,
but while I’m called an angel night after night
I’ve got the devil in me.
Rosewater runs through my veins,
the blood has already been spilt.
I won’t ever belong to anyone, not even myself.
When you have the knowledge that nothing’s real
it’s hard to do what’s expected of you.
I relate to flowers a lot.
They’re beautiful, but they don’t last.
Sometimes no matter how hard you try to take care of them,
they just run out of life.
I think I ran out of life the day I was born.
Everything is nothing.
The gods don’t want you to know that,
but that is the one truth.

Our love, a match
You, a Marlboro evening
We share every warm sunset.
I'm not sure when we'll finally burn out but at least I'll have the ashes to prove that we really, really, did try.
You, a lighter, ignite my flame
let the sparks never die.
After all this time still wishing and wishing upon shooting stars for you
my one true love.

Smoke inhabits my throat. My friends,
Intoxicated, are complimentary –
They say they wish their aesthetic was mine.
My lips, painted baby blue,
Hold loosely onto the Marlboro cigarettes.
I think of a boy, who I don't truly
Know, and I wish he'd attended tonight,
Although he was not invited.

I think in depth of social circles,
And of how circles are impenetrable –
They go continuously round with no edges
To break. I begin to realise that
That is the reason you aren't mine,
And never will be. However, can't
Circles overlap? Why should we not be
The arcs that meet? You are not here,
And I wish you were. What would you
Think about me taking a draw,
****, more than one? I said to you
Once that I would not become another
Teenager, another statistic, who inhales.

I guess I lied.

I think of all this –
As they take ***** shots,
And I distract myself from you
For a moment, by asking why
They'd drink it straight.

School was always humuorous to a degree in my opinion because of the underlying idea
that the more damaged you were, the cooler you were in the eyes of the rest of the school.
I have heard numerous conversations that began with something along the lines of, "Oh, you
think YOU got it bad, well my dad blah blah and my best friend blah blah and my life is hell."

I decided to get a little personal and share with you guys something I have never actually
told anyone in entirety yet. I am pretty sure the whole story is still only here in my brain.
I will, out of respect for these people, change their names.

It's October 31, 2012. It's about noon, and all of us sixteen to twenty-two year olds are just waking up.
Brianne woke up probably a few hours ago already to tend to her son, Aaron. He is adorable, one
and a half, blond hair, blue eyes. I have been living here for nearly two months. I am supporting her,
Aaron, and myself with food stamps. I get two hundred dollars a month to basically smoke **** and drink
on the government's budget. Trust me, I'm not proud of it either, and if I could I would pay it back.
Since Brianne is a single mother and an adopted child, she has a single-digit monthly rent (I was *******
baffled to hear this) and receives support from her foster parents. Basically, if I want to stay here forever
with absolutely no consequences save to miss out on a life of my own, I can.

Brandon is putting on clown make-up so he can troll the streets as a juggalo. I find this amusing as I always
liked to mess around with ICP fans, but he's a really cool kid so I let it go and I even help him perfect it.
I notice he has a bottle of Stolichnaya in his backpack and it's practically full. That, to me, is temptation.
I ask if he would mind me taking a few drinks here and there from the bottle and he says it's fine, so I proceed
to get a nice one p.m. buzz. It was always my favorite drunk, very light, and airy, almost like you're still asleep.
Something bogs you down, but it doesn't bother you, somehow it makes you lighter.

For the rest of the day, we hook up with a few friends, go out and trick or treat in the pouring rain, get soaked
and wait for two hours under an overpass while Brianne goes and gets her car. From there, we proceed home.

At this point, everyone is over at Breanne's and we're all making dinner and drinking beer and having a good time
(Aaron is with the grandparents tonight). I guess I started getting angry about the recent events (for about a month,
everyone in our group with the exception of Brandon have been slowly losing items...but they're obviously being stolen.
At a point, a few of us did some research and determined the only person who could possibly have stolen
a good deal of these things has to be Brandon) and I decided I was tired of sitting on the news waiting for no one to make
a move after a solid two weeks of being certain that we had our guy. So I called him out... and proceeded
to begin burning bridges slowly and very surely for the next few days. I am pretty sure a fight would have broken out
if Bri hadn't taken me into her room to relax. When I finally do, it turns out I woke up the upstairs neighbor,
her baby, and everyone in the house has left save for my friend Jeff and his girlfriend Marissa. This concludes night one.

I later learned that Brandon was not actually the person who was stealing from us (unless of course
he just happened to not get caught when we found out who had done most of it) and I feel bad for bringing the whole
thing up because I would have liked to stay in touch with him. We got along swimmingly and he actually did have
a lot of interesting things to talk about. Smart, nice, hilarious... Well, maybe he'll turn up one day.

The next morning, I woke up to find the house empty save for Jeff and Marissa in the next room, but where I am,
it simply appears empty. I don't know what happened but I intuit that I have been sleeping all night without
my girlfriend. This upsets me and I begin to weep like a confused child, which is exactly what you do when you're
helpless and too drunk in the brain to figure out how to pull yourself out of a helpless situation (trust me,
I own the handbook). Marissa walks in and begins to explain to me that I had scared her too much and she slept
on the couch and that she had left to go pick up her son. So I realize I need to calm down, but I can feel
Jeff is not happy with me in the slightest, considering he will not come and talk to me (this is extremely painful
because he is probably one of the best friends I have ever had, with a mind that vastly exceeds that of everyone
I have met save one other, and he's a different story). They leave and I decide to stay in the house all day.

This is a very bad idea. I stay home, watch re-runs of a show I have seen billions of times, and considering
that Brandon and I are no longer on good terms, like a complete *******, I drink the rest of his *****.

In walks Bri, it's around 7. She's not happy. She proceeds to tell me that the night before I asked out a friend of mine
and she said yes. And I was a bit shocked because I couldn't remember it at first. Then it all hit me.

A few days before, Aaron called me "dad." Now remember, this is not my child. I am dark, dark, dark, and she had this kid
about two years after we had any past relationship. I am extremely worried in my mind and I realize I am headed toward nothing.
That I am stagnant and can not even afford to go back to school. This scares me, so I drunkenly asked out Tanya.

Tanya...we had been friends for about five years, and I had tried to get with her so many **** times... she was like
one of those girls you see and you're instantly reminded of an anime character. Tall, thin, beautiful hips, perfect
proportions, lovely hair, eyes, voice, and a personality I can liken to a Disney princess/black metal lumberjack.
The kind of girl who has a tough exterior, but inside, she just wants someone to tell her everything is going to be ok.

After about two hours of pleading with Bri to let me stay, I finally send Tanya a message, and we hang out for the next
two days, whence I whisper in her ear that everything is going to be okay and we proceed to have quite passionate ***
for those nights, where I discovered the secret to making a woman ****** with my tongue (tip: if the underside of your
tongue isn't completely torn apart, you're doing something wrong). But alas, I could not stay.

This is the part I dreaded, because I know I have to go back to Jeff's house and ask him if I can stay there for a while.
And I got the answer I expected.

The words he used...

"I'm *******...extremely ******* at you, and disappointed." It was like a father saying it to you. And him and I
have a very interesting friendship built on such an extreme understanding that I knew exactly how badly I had been spiraling.
I began to leave and he gave me a slice of pizza, with that slight smile that told me "just go find yourself, we'll be fine."

I hobbled off into the night drunk, with one piece of pizza and all my food at Bri's, which could have lasted me another few days,
easing the transition into homeless. And it could have prevented a horrible occurance that took place the following afternoon. I
was crying, because I knew I was dying, but I didn't want to ask either of my parents for help, because this was the first time
I was out on my own and I was far too proud to give up and let the world make me its victim. So I walked...

Sixteen ******* miles...

To the next town. Took me all night because I was dodging traffic, easing into trees, avoiding on and off ramps, trying to stay
away from any police that may exist on the road. When I finally arrived in the next town (where I knew I may have one contact)
I decided to sleep until the morning came so I could have the energy to find my next venture.

It was five thirty am. I had 3 hours until sun-up, I had just walked enough to be burning, and there was plenty of whiskey in my veins.
I had left my sleeping bag with Tanya hours earlier, wishing in the park that I had not been so naiive as to think I would be allowed
back in the house. So I pulled out a pile of ***** clothes and put them over me like blankets, in some random corner of the local
park, under some bushes, hidden from cold and sight, with great hope...

Fifteen minutes pass. My eyes shoot open. I am freezing. The sweat has dried and frozen to my body. This is hell.

I grab my things and with the worst effort I can ever remember myself mustering, I drag myself to the toilet.
When I open it, the first thing I check for is cleanliness. It's spotless. I am so relieved. I sit in the corner of the room,
which my knees to my chest, head in my hands, wrapped in a leather jacket I had gotten from Jeff (ha, he really is my
guardian angel, though he would laugh to hear it).

I catch winks, occasionally looking up to check if the sun is rising. When it finally is, I get up, change my clothes (I had
ONE clean set of clothing and it had been rotting with the rest in the backpack) and immediately head to a thrift store where
a family friend is working.

On my way there, I notice in a little parking lot near the store a sight I had never actually come across but I always thought
would be the most amazing luck, and it was timed in such a spot in my life that it was the ultimate miracle...and a curse in
disguise.

In front of my eyes (this miracle appeared in my path as I was walking looking down, so it startled me) was the worst possible thing
for me: A half finished fifth of Smirnoff, and a half smoked pack of Marlboro 100 Reds. I open the pack and sure enough, the celophane
protected every cigarette inside from any water damage. I am ecstatic. This is not only amazing, but highly unlikely.

So I down the bottle in one go and take the rest of the smokes with me.

When I arrive at the thrift shop, it turns out I am there on a day when my potential savior is not working, so I get her number from the clerk
and head over to a payphone and realize... I have no money. So I decide to go on a quest for dropped pocket change.

Before I even leave the parking lot, I see a young man, no older than 23, sitting on a nice red classic-style Corvette and he's
reading William S. Burroughs. So naturally, I decide to strike up a conversation with the young man. Turns out he's the nicest guy
and his name is Jordan. So him and I got together and decided to go out for a game of disc golf (some may not know what this is;
Imagine frisbee but with a golf theme, so you need to get from a tee pad into a basket. Really fun, centering, and extremely popular
with potheads, Californians, beer-drinkers, and hippies) and before we go, he asks if I would like to snag a few beers first.

I tell him a piece of my story and he can tell I am down on my luck and broke so he decides to help me out. He buys us both some beer
and we proceed to disk.

Turns out he's an ex-****** and has been through quite a bit of hell himself, so we find that we're in a good position to help each
other make some better decisions in life. After the game, we go over to a payphone and he gives me money to call my friend.

Buzz (this the only name I am not changing because her name is ******* badass) answers the phone and unfortunately informs me that
though she would take me in any day of the year, she just moved in to a house with one older lady she takes care of, and its a single
bedroom apartment, so there is just no way it can work.

So I go back to his car and tell him the news, and he says he thinks he may be able to put me up for a few days until I can sort
everything out. We go back out to the store and grab ourselves a fifth of *****.

We end up in the park playing music, talking, performing standup for one another, and I begin to realize I am drinking too fast,
so I try to ease back a little. He was playing a version of a Radiohead song I had never heard before

"Everyone this way. Okay, get your hands against the wall. Spread your legs. Don't move."
The doors clanking, some ******* won't shut up in the next cell over.
More slamming of doors, someone rubbing my body all over trying to find my knives, no doubt.
And my AK 47 I conceal, and my ****, and my ... oh ****, I really did have **** on me.

"Move forward. Turn around. Alright, go to bed."

----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------

"Get up. Come on, slowly... There you go. There's a few more coming in so we got to get you to another cell."

Clank, clank...

"Pick a bed."

----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------

Something is wrong. This bed is not covered. There is no comfort. It's just a mat. And I have no pillow. This is not a house
of any sort, my bag isnt what I am sleeping on. Something is very wrong here.

I am in jail. Oh of course.

I know the answer before I hear it, but I ask anyway: "What are my charges, ma'am?"

"Drunk in public."

-------------------------------------------------------­------------------------

I'm about thirty miles or so North of inner Seattle. Not a bad place to be. I'm working for a Safeway. It's somewhere around
the first of June. I receive word that Bri has been on ******. And I may have left at a crucial time in her life thinking
only of myself, but I needed to go somewhere I could be productive. Yet my decision left her in a position where she turned
to hard drugs...

I can't help but feel I am to blame. I am listening to the dull, stupid words of my ex boss, Rod, who is telling me
that even though I may feel like I need to help her, there is nothing I can do for her, so I should bury myself in my work
instead. He tells me this in about six hundred different ways before I leave the room after twenty minutes. Well great.
I may have no focus here at work today, but at least I killed almost a half hour of the day just listening to someone
*******.

I am at a loss of what to do here, but I eventually get a hold of her, and after a long time not talking, we come to
somewhat of a closure, and she is beginning to sober up herself. I realize we were both in incredibly hard times, and I still
wish with all my heart there could have been some way I could have helped her raise that boy and stayed and been her
love, and at the same time, still go to college, and progress and get a good job...but I was in a small Northern California
town. There was nothing left, all the old shops were out of business. It was time for me to move on then, and we have
all seen better days for it. She looks incredible these days by the way. She lost an insane amount of weight, and I know
a lot of it had to do with the drugs, but if she truly is sober like she says she is, she'll be getting much better.

A few weeks ago 3 people I used to know and hang out with died in the span of a week. It was a terrible tragedy, and I have been
thinking back on all the names of people I used to love very, very much before they got lost in some way.

There's Lorne Holly, who killed himself after a few weeks of detoxing from crank.

Layla Harmon, who died in a car crash, blunt head trauma, with a drunk driver (I have a tattoo for this, I will never drive drunk).

Heavy Eagle, who killed himself after years of drug problems.

Chaz Lipman, who died in a car crash as well.

Ren Rain, who I am still not sure about...

And of course, Tray Beraldi, who was my closest friend's cousin... I wish I were there to mourne with him...

Last night I got a text from my best friend, who said he couldn't sleep and he barely eats anything anymore, and he feels like his throat
is going to explode, and he cant swallow and his neck is killing him constantly. He has been this way for a year, and he is talking constantly
about getting a gun and blowing his head off. And no one believes him because he constantly talks about it because he is in so much pain.
No doctor can diagnose him so far, he has no idea what's wrong with him, he's been tested all over the place, he has no hope, he's barely
cligning and he doesn't know how much longer he can hold on.

All I really want to say is

Lord? What I have done? I don't pray, I never pray, I don't even know who I would pray to. But WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO DO?!

I bring myself across hell and I pull myself from the worst depression I h

"In a row???" I ask, incredulous.

"Nah, man."

"Were you at least #37?"

"Well, yeah. But still that gets to me," he says. He starts counting change, playing with pennies on the glass counter.

"If you didn't see it, it didn't happen," I reply. I pull out a $5.00 bill.

"That's childish!" He looks at me like I'm a babbling idiot.

"That's my life!" It was my life.

"I can't believe you sometimes," he says. Nobody can, bud.

"You better start. I'm smarter than I look." I'm bluffing now; I'm a ******* idiot.

"Yeah, yeah. Do you wanna buy anything or not?" he goes back to his pennies on the glass counter.

"Yeah--Marlboro Reds," I reply hesitantly. For a moment I thought about Camels.

"$5.00 even." It's always $5.00 even when you're with friends.

"Alright."

"Shorts or 100s?"

"****, man, shorts!" It's my turn to look at him like he's a total stranger.

"Just asking." He puts the bill in the register.

"Shorts say badass. 100s say suicide mission."

"I suppose you're right."

"It makes perfect sense!"

"Either way you're going to die."

"Yeah? So are you, buddy."

"*******."

I exit the convenience store, pack my Marlboro Reds, turn two up (one for luck, one for ****, to be smoked lastly out of the pack) and light one.

.how  dignified it is, to simply take a walk at night...

)            that's all i wanted to disclose...
what comes now,
is all the unnecessary details
that would constitute a prose piece...
albeit in cascade - for the ease
of the eyes bunddled up in a
claustrophobia of a paragraph:

i know: the mere word 'dignified'
seems rather obnoxious...
but... how dignified it is,
to take a walk at night...
esp. when one is recycling leftover
bottles of whiskey, whiskey,
beer... whiskey...

after reading Knausgård vol. 1 -
with his father strapped to the house
with his mother drinking himself
to death...
perhaps i'm also akin...

but... there's "****" to do in between...
good god! mein gott!
greta thunberg! run! i said run idiot!
run to the recycling center with
those glass bottles!
success though: cutting the ingestion
by over a half...

current bank balance?
nearing 2 thousand pounds...
and there's the garbage to sort between
the recyclable and the non-recyclable...
there's the tending to keeping
the house clean...

there's a remnant spark about giving
a toss about some sporting event...
there's cooking a dinner...
but... it seems i miss the man who would
find about an hour and a half
to walk the streets at night...

somehow i missed it -
but... i imagine the sight of a week's worth
of empty bottles in the wardrobe...
i've had enough and...
i call the dog that's the dignity to take
a walk at night...
to never overthink anything except
thinking - that i can leave in the basket
of nothing...

sometimes the ego-automaton jumps
in and makes my walking meditation
fuzzy... that's where i find this mythological
ego of psychology -
ego the anti-narrator...

which implies: not myself... reflexive...
not my, self... the reflective circumstance...

and there's no familiar presence
of an mp3 player (broken, ****** lasted
for 3 years, good enough lifespan)
and no headphones...

perhaps i was anti-radio some time ago...
i've amassed a decent personal library
of audio... but now i rarely use it
having made a discovery of the gramaphone
and vinyls...
and being the late 20th century colt...
i should still be ripping c.d.s onto
mp3... but...
i just wanted to check out what i was
missing...
perhaps... the crazed sound of passing
cars, will indeed, never replace
the cobblestones and hooves...
but... there's a right to heave a sigh...
for no apparent reason other than:
i've met myself this very first time
having aged...

this is not a time for west coast
1990s pop punk or punk rock or whatever
they called it... when you would
either run in gallop jumping
in a jonathan edwards style...
or looking down and walking into
a lamp-post... this is no time to be
refreshing the cinema of youth...
with the offspring's ignition...

not when you're walking: and trying not to think...

also of today: my jewish newly converted
to islam neighbour came round
asking about my mother's slight bout
of depression concerning...
her recent hip-replacement...
and what's still in the post...
the aesthetic surgery...
after all: what surgery, proper...
is also a plastic surgery - an aesthetic...
obviously the muscles and the bones
are intact... but there is always a chance
that waste tissue will be removed...
fat... etc. and it hasn't even been 2 weeks
since the surgery...
and she said: your mum should look
at my surgery scars...
i lifted up my t-shirt and turned
to show her my back... namely my
right shoulder-blade...

and i said to her: you know why i didn't
get aesthetic surgery on this mark
of cain? that's the same reason why i don't
have tattoos...
nothing against tattoos...
i have the only tattoo i need:
a mark of cain and some historical tattoos...
dates... that i keep close to me
from my time in the pedagogy meat-mincer
effort... how it began with the romans: per se...
later began with hastings 1066...
but it would never begin with:
the first battle of Tannenberg (1410)...
so you don't know how i think my mother
is exaggerating?
it's a good thing she's my mother...
she can have her ******* pass...
i'd give her the same ******* pass if...
we were married for 35 years and...
she was a woman i could grow with...
otherwise? the ******* pass i reserve for
children...

i subsequently signed her will...
yes... she came round looking for a second
witness for her will being made official...
or ****** bureucratic paper...
but nonetheless official...
i didn't mention the fact that...
the two witnesses that have signed the paper:
need to be present simultaneously...
i asked her... what's my occupation?
oh... right... i'm a scribbler...
a chicken-scratcher... writer of no
guild... a writ pusher...  

but all i wanted to write was...
i'm not a fan of the haiku...
esp. the western haiku... or a maxim:
i abhor maxims...
but if you put Kant into the juicer
and you spit out the congested
categorical imperative...
and it doesn't sound like the original, should:

act only according to that maxim whereby you can,
at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.

id est:

act only according to that haiku whereby you can...
at some distant point of time,
convene for it be a shared experience
in the ratio of a 1:2 point of seperation...
2:4 4:8 8:16...
but that's not really a categorical imperative
to begin with... what sort of "idiot" would strive
for a maxim to become a universal law...
universal laws are maxim spin-offs...
or i'm just blah-blahing too much...
waiting dear god: for the razor's edge (and drowning)...
or a punchline on stage in front of a dumb / mute
audience...

o.k. 5-7-5...
syllables... given the japanese don't use
letter but have syllables instead...
again: i'm not a fan...
if it took my long enough...
i'd find my 5 syllables and my 7 and again
my 5 syllables...
but i am a westerner...
i deal with letters... i don't deal with syllables...
unless they are prefixes akin to trans-...
meta-... anti-... post-...
the western adoption of the haiku implies
the boredom achieved from too many
sonnets... is the haiku the new sonnet?

i'll try... but i'll need to open a dictionary
for this effort...

water knee deep truce (5)
to the drowning man imploring (8)
signature the soul with this last breath (9)

or however many... it's just a passing thought:
i don't know how it would be worthwhile
to think inside a box... standing outside it
to begin with...
a haiku and no punctuation:
if you're going to be puritanical about it...
no punctuation?!
no diacritical markers?!

the Kant reference is just to ease up on:
who the hell would live by a maxim,
a stand-alone maxim at that...
one maxim to make it into the realm
of gravity...

there's the plethora of aphorisms that
are observations that... well...
let's just say it's no an imitation game... (

since how the hell does:
how dignified it is, to simply take a walk at night...
all of the above?
darwinism in images:

stopped climbing trees...
stopped being furry...
stopped dreaming about snakes...
stopped fearing snakes...
stopped wrestling with tigers...
stopped king kong versus tiger gorgon...
jumped into a whale...
came out sonar Jonah with hell'io Job
to boot...
stopped climbing trees...
took toward the complexity
of climbing rocks...
esp. boulders... later desired
the great big button of a cookie i.e.;
desired the moon...
brewed some moonshine...
build the mirror corridor
at Versailles...
dug up lazy dinosaur bones of
that thick glutton splodge and...
retired the horse... drove a car...
etc. etc.: came across
the happy birthday of death by
gregory corso and said:
that be one of the best recitations
of poetry i have ever heard...
in youth and Paris and Paris was
the signature...

all of this but there's still...
how dignified it is, to simply take a walk at night...
more to the point...
how dignified it is, to walk at one's own
leisure...
a bottle of england's finest ale...
theakston's the old peculier in one hand...
a marlboro cigarette in the other...
how dignified it is...
to walk: but to also walk... at one's leisure...
not running a marathon...
not... running the concrete or the tarmac
dry with new year's even resolutions
to loße mass... (yes... since weight involves
gravity blah blah)...

this auto-correct science factoid rubric
around each corner...
i can only admit that walking...
is a sport for gentlemen...
cognitive ping pong ensues...
a solo game... perhaps...
it's not a matter of sport...
or attempting gentlemanly stature...
which could be the case...
say... if i were 75... years old...
but...

that's all fine and dandy... the psychology
behind darwinism 2.0
not even copernicus made it that far
with his "revolutionary discovery"...
or not that Ptolemy was still...
index... bibliography and historical
constipation when attempting to be
democratic and historical...
in a single poo'em... with no rhyme...
and certainly no overt-technique biases
to: "identify with"...

it's still an image burning in my head...
the gorilla that would / could wrestle
a lion to sleep with a ripped-off jaw...
the thumb-king of the jungle
and the savannah...
and of course the donning of the conquered's
mane...

but beside all the discoveries in the past
and the present...
i will find myself smirking...
laughing to myself...
that someone will find this too...
i can't stress it enough:

when i see people driving their cars...
some fast, some slow...
walking onto a bus is not a leisure activity...
it's not even a dignity...
it's a time-warp... a short-cut...
besides the point...

even this brain sometimes allow for
the dignity of walking to be eclipsed...
what its sometimes-odd bursts of egomania /
megalomania or all those other:
traits of the rational man...

perhaps this is the first day i've truly
appreciated the sensibility of walking -
much more in that: it became a dignity...
like the time i found the antithesis of narcissus
in my shadow...
once upon a nightly promenade
in the english outer-suburban labyrinth...
20 minutes walk from the fields,
grazing horses... foxes, badgers and...
no wordsworthian naturalism... i.e. the idyll...

superior intelligence, the fork,
the knife, the screwdriver the *****...
the hammer and the nail...
the scythe, the sickle and the lollipop...
the telephone the radio the television
the soap opera addicts...
the bedsheets the bed the cushion
the shampoo and soap...
all of it... but none of it at the same time...
with what comes a priori and with
what comes a posteriori...
the dignity of walking...
perhaps the only state of grace...

perhaps less "abilism" and more - upon reflection...
a mother strapped to a bed
after a hip-replacement surgery?
i.e. in a personal, very personal,
non-Teheran specific vicinity?!

perhaps the most basic meditation is required...
nothing grandiose...
nothing temporal or non-temporal...
something basic...
i.e. spatial... a meditation on cross the street
like a mindful hedgehog that you are...
and not panic driven like a mother goose
with her nursery...

walk long enough and you can even
experience bouts of spontaneous amnesia...
which is not related to actual memories
and their totality...
more in the immediacy: amnesia ex cogitans...
amnesia out of thinking...
10 minutes apart and you can almost
forget what you were thinking of...
10 minutes more pass... the labyrinth spits
you out and you recover from that temp.
bout of crucible amnesia: to forget what you
were thinking about...
which is a variant to that other escapism
of day-dreaming...
since you're walking... and no day-dreamer
is synonym of the thinker who also walks...

this variant of escapism comes of its own
accord... perhaps it's an ontological built-in-mechanism
that when you couple walking with thinking...
you'll most certainly experience these
bouts of "amnesia"... which of course doesn't
include walking in circles... but in a labyrinth
of your unconscious motives...
that the body is dissociated from a conscious will...

since... what sort of thinking exists
on a treadmill... or during running... to begin with?

how  dignified it is, to simply take a walk at night...
dignified in that: one is not so much able
to come across one's best ideas there...
but that one can simply come across... cogitans per se -

yes... i.e.: to be free from cogito ergo sum...
to come across the res cogitans medium...
only while walking...
and not like Descartes imagining oneself
sitting at a desk of doubt...

i find no better alternative: walking opens up...
thinking-in-itself... sometimes that's merely translated
as: being... it does not specify / reveal itself
as a: necessity of narration...
thinking is not narration is not thinking...
if you have experienced the ugly spontaneity of
the ego... in that vein of psychology's
three-tier meta-brain dissection of the mind:
subsequently the soul... blah blah...

now i see... this has become a sit-down meditation...
it has to end...
now that the arms have been employed for
a period longer, than the legs were employed
for, prior.

each cigarette now
is you and i then
entwined in a back car seat
me face up
counting the leaves not yet fallen
as i burn down to my filter
as you seep slowly like sap down my spine

i can still feel how sharp your teeth were
can see your wrinkled foundation
thin slices and bright orbs of her in your irises like
a string of lanterns in the night

and for many moons i
walked in your field
sent murmurs up to your window
kicked rocks to drown your doubts
oiled the rusted binds of my predecessor

you were so swift and careful
felt the pulse in my fingertips
cut loose the fishing line
snuffed out a menthol in my wrist

but even now
the tempered taste of marlboro glory
is not my own
it’s a folded map
i skip over city lines and highways
though when my back hits dead grass
the smoke rises while i
look upward expecting the same view

the stars are strung, an insect anthem decrescendos
you are far from this field, far from that car
and far from the ashes collecting below
my last smoke

He said he likes my clothes
And how they smell like smoke
It reminds him of someone he knew long ago

we take long drags
of each others skin,
the addiction comes
in phases.
day 1: my lungs sigh, weary,
air does not satisfy,
day 2: we're chasing
lifelines, that are rusted
and in vain
day 5: bad habits are
hard to break, beg, at the
holy altar of our mistakes
day 8: hands desperate,
clammy, unfurl
like belladonna palms.
day 9: i hope your
vocal cords strain, that
the only word you can
bear to say is 'stay'.
day 11: last breaths
muffled in the
graveyard of a kiss.
day 17: darling, i'm
losing track of time
day 28: i'm finding it
a little bit hard to quit.

I don’t know
What ails the angels
Maybe they are tired
Of trying to guard me
And save me
From my demons
I picture them exhausted,
On a street curb
Smoking a Marlboro
Menthol
Begging for rest.
Maybe that’s what ails
The angels.

                             -L. Frost

Washingtonians, this Wednesday afternoon, come to the Starbucks on 1600 K Street to become acquainted with some young, interesting, average income level Asian American guys and gals. Instead of meeting Asian American doctors, lawyers, and consultants, you’ll meet Dr. Dre copycats, alcoholic paralegals, and T-Mobile wireless salespeople.

These guys and gals are looking to meet new friends that include: white, black, Hispanic, or any other race of people, just as long as you aren’t a F.O.B. Because after all, they don’t want to perpetuate the stereotype that Asians only hang out with other Asians. Just kidding, we love our F.O.B brothers and sisters! But **** stereotypes.

If you are a Washingtonian who likes drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, stop by and make a new Asian American friend who will provide mixers and match you on a blunt. Please, do not ask these guys and gals for college study notes for Math or Bio, because all of them have dropped out of college to pursue their artistic passions, like: writing a novel about having a white group of friends and being the token who reads Tolkien and likes Toking; playing electric guitar in a grunge, punk, post-emo garage band with your black buddies who like Fugazi and bad brains but ******* hate Green day for selling out; and drawing sketches and painting portraits of the half-Asian girl you’re dating on a wide canvass, but really you’re secretly into selfies and taking photos of breakfast on Instagram.

We don’t discriminate against the kind of alcohol you drink, whether it be wine, beer, or liquor—within reason please don’t bring Franzia or Rolling rock, this isn’t college anymore. Yes, we get it, you’re highly considering attending this group because you’re a huge Haruki Murakami fan and you’re wondering two questions: are our Japanese American patrons also huge fans of the author, and do our patrons behave in a similar fashion to Murakami’s characters like Toru Watanabe and Toru Okada?

First, our Japanese American patrons are huge fans of Murakami and they own books like Sputnik Sweetheart and The Windup Bird Chronicle, but they also think the author often is obsessed with Western culture, in a way that possibly, and seriously possibly transforms him into a Brett Easton Ellis derivative based on Ellis’s American ****** and Glamorama.

Second, no these particular patrons do not behave like Murakami’s characters, because they’re real, living, breathing human beings, and not some fantasy figure or made-up person! But enough of the rant, please come though and let’s have conversations about jazz and talking cats.

While we respect Asian American actors like Ken Jeong and Randall Park, we really aren’t interested in having a lengthy dialogue about The Hangover’s Asian **** scene, or how Park was kinda offensively funny in The Interview. Although Park is awesome in Fresh Off The boat! All we really want is to just drink jack and cokes and smoke Marlboro lights and have conversations about the latest trends in indie rock and Hip Hop culture, and whether Citizen Kane was better than Casablanca, or vice versa.

At the meeting, we will have our guest speaker Jeremy Lin’s college roommate George Park answer questions about Lin, as well as a special appearance by Steve Yuen’s ex-girlfriend Marcy Abernathy who will give us an inside scoop to Yuen’s fetishes as well as his quirky habits. We will also be providing free snacks like LSD Pho noodle soup and Marijuana Mochi ice-cream. On a serious note, we’ll be giving out guilt-free Twinkies.

Before you arrive at the Starbucks, you’ll be getting a name tag and a free A.A.A T-shirt that wasn’t made by little children from China; instead, the shirts are made by Ronald Mai, our aspiring fashion designer whose twitter handle is @thatsmyshirtwhiteman! If you’re interested in coming out to the group our first meeting is this Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Leave your apprehension at the door and walk in with a warm smile, as you’re greeted by an expressionless face. And phoreal if your car is messed up and you require a ride, please call A.A.A’s number at (202) 576-2AAA (we know we’re phunny). Hope to see you there, and if you don’t come, you’re a ******* racist! But seriously come out and meet some cool *** people.

I smoke Marlboro Reds
because the smell reminds me of my father

"Cowboy Killers", they call them

I'm no cowboy,
but I sure hope they'll **** me anyway

**m.s.

I hate those mornings
when all I have
for breakfast
                            is a
Marlboro.

Decisions are kind of a funny concept. Some people believe that everything happens for a reason. Others believe that each decision has a domino effect on other parts of life. Have you heard of the butterfly effect? This idea believes that every decision leads to various outcomes, and that there are multiple paths a person can take. I like to agree with this statement.

Decisions are what make a person. At least, they're what show a person's character...

I observe ordinary character on a regular basis. I work at a liquor store in a town of roughly three-thousand people. I know the regulars by name, and I can tell who's had a rough day or who is excited for the weekend by what they purchase. I know when Barb is furious at her husband because she buys two liters of *** and the smokes he hates. I can tell when Dave is on good terms with his fiance because he skips the Fireball and heads straight for his 24-pack. Bob... is really just Bob. He comes in and buys a liter of coke, a liter of Bacardi, and a pack of Marlboro reds every day at 4:30 on the dot. Each of these regular's decisions display part of their character. Many of their purchases can be influenced by their emotions... but what part of life isn't?

You're probably wondering when I'm going to get to my point. That'll be a couple hundred words further. You of all people know how great I am at ranting.

How is my minimum-wage job connected to decisions and character? That's a good question. Each decision leads to a specific outcome. These decisions are based on the character of a customer. Their character is displayed in their decisions at my dead-end job. Anyway, back to your decisions.

Decision Making
Relationships are basically a hurdle of decisions. Deciding how to sleep together. Deciding the best way to kiss despite the height difference. Deciding what to say when meeting the in-laws. Deciding when to say "I love you". It's decision after decision after decision.

I like to think that each decision can lead to various outcomes. For example, if I would have never lost my virginity to a one-night-stand and cried about it to the girl living across from me, I would have never met you. So, if I waited to take off my clothes or if I cried about it to my roommate instead, this last year would have gone a lot differently.

I'm beginning to work my way to your decisions. First, let me state that you were the most indecisive person I have ever met. You were passive. You were lukewarm. You were flat. You were only certain on one thing: your admiration for college basketball.

I have to admit that you were decisive on your verdict to be with me... for a time. I guess I have to give you a little credit. You weren't all bad. There was a lot of good in you. But, there was a lot of rottenness underneath your tall, dark, and handsome physique.

The Beginning of the End
You decided to avoid a decision from the very beginning. Sure, it was me that you wanted. I mean, I was great. I still am. I may be biased, but I don't care. You wanted me... but you didn't want the price-tag I came with.

What did I tell you from the beginning? Let me refresh your memory. We were sitting on a lime green couch in the lobby of our college. It was close to midnight and I was exhausted but didn't want to be without you. I told you that I expected you to:

1. Be honest.
2. Be faithful.
3. Pursue me.
4. Make me a priority.

I didn't ask for much. I was searching for... Oh, I don't know, a relationship that sounded pretty standard in my terms. I wanted something serious, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't looking for fun or liveliness. These requests were normal, in my mind.

I then asked you if you would choose me over your mother. I knew you were close to her... and I hadn't met her yet. Also, for some reason, I already had a feeling that she despised the thought of me, and the idea of her little man bringing a girl home... (God forbid she have a brain on her head).

I didn't want to be tantalizing. I believe I am gentle in nature. But, if everything worked out, I wished to be the number one woman in your life... not your mother. I restated my question after a few beats and you continued to ponder the thought. After a few seconds you told me, "No, probably not. But I might change. I want you." That should have stopped me in my tracks.

But it didn't. We were together for about a year since that night. We kept things quiet for a few months before becoming "official" or whatever. Your decision or avoidance should have sent me running... and it did... to you.

I think part of myself knew that I deserved better. Also, part of myself believed that there was beauty in maltreatment. But, I saw potential in you. You were my best friend.

You were... I was in love with you.

I was willing to fight for us. I was willing to fight for you. I was willing to battle it out... and I saw myself coming out victorious, like the warrior I truly am... but, you were a battle lost from the very beginning.

Whatever "Fighting for Me" Looked like to You
Things got worse when confusion arose between your mother and I. She thought I was sleeping with you (when I wasn't). There was a lot of yelling... most of it was in Spanish. I was scared. I was petrified. She believed I was ******* up her perfect son. This put us on unsteady ground.

This was also the first time I saw you cry.

It was a battle between what she wanted and what I wanted. She wanted me out of the picture. I wanted you to stand up for me, and to stand up for us.

You chose me. This would be the one and only time I came out as the number one priority. I believe this was because you were over three hundred miles away from her piercing eyes and thin lips. It was easy to put us first when she wasn't there to "knock some sense" into her son.

Your mother didn't speak to you for months. She was furious. She was angry. Her dislike toward me grew with every passing day.

Letting the Bruises Heal
For the next six months, things seemed to get better. We fought but made up. We talked of the future while understanding that we were still young. We grew as lovers and as friends. We made promises and kept them.

But, the semester was ending. The snow was gone and the grass was nowhere near green. Three months of separation were just around the corner and I knew of the trials to come. I also knew that if we could make it through the summer, that we could last. That is, if we could make it with your bitter mother by your side.

Seperation Leads To...
Three months of fifteen minute phone calls every once in a while dragged on. I was patient with you. We were both working our tails off. I was taking summer classes. You spent any and all of your extra time off working for your dad or training for soccer preseason. Still, I was patient.

We saw each other twice during the summer. Those days were some of my happiest within this past year. Distance really does make the heart grow fonder. Those first moments of seeing you were like revelations. All of the time away made sense. The eight hour drive to see you made sense. We made sense.

It was during your stay at my house when I realized I didn't want to be with anyone else. Ever. It was the first time you told me you were in love with me. I felt the same. We didn't just love one another, we were in love.

It was during my stay at your house, a few months later, when I realized things were heading south.

Temptation
We fought. We fought a lot during the month before I drove to Wisconsin. It was almost daily. Somehow we made up... somehow. You were stressed and I was anxious. I was anxious and afraid.

But, I came down to see you, nonetheless. Most moments, I believed we were healed. We could conquer anything. Others... I knew your mind was elsewhere.

Although, when we said goodbye, I believed we were true. You made me a promise I was sure you would keep. Our goodbye was the second time I would see you cry.

Looking back, I think I know why. You were tempted. You were more than tempted.

Decisions and Indecisiveness
The day after I got back home, you said you "wanted to take your promise back".

Two days after that, you left home to go to a camp I knew nothing about. You "couldn't take your phone" but I knew better than that.

We went an entire week without talking. And I knew something was wrong. I had never felt so sick in my life.

You eventually returned home from camp. But, it took you two days to respond to me. Once you finally called me, you told me you "couldn't do this right now". Then you hung up. That's when I knew it was over.

I was furious. I was jealous. You were tagged in pictures on social media with a few girls in particular.

1. Phones were allowed.
2. You were awfully close to one girl.
3. You were lying through your teeth.

We met up on campus a few days later. I had a list of questions that just about vanished into thin air when I saw you. You were ruggedly handsome... And I was still in love with you.

You greeted me with a hug. I just about cried.

You explained to me that your parents gave you an ultimatum. It was me or college. Stay with me, and college was out of the funds for you. Break things off with me, and college would be paid for. You told me you chose college.

You explained how you "needed to do this for yourself".

You also told me you didn't love me anymore.

You decided against me.

The Entire Truth
I was confused. I was heartbroken. Nothing made sense. It was like you gave me a puzzle that was missing more than half of the pieces. I spent the next month trying put the thing together. I came up with one single solution... but I didn't want to believe it.

My hypothesis rang true through a friend. I believed you cheated on me. Yes, I was sure your parents pulled their big levers; but I believed you were hiding information from me. You were.

I can't go into the details because I don't know all of them. In fact, I probably never will. I've ran through every scenario a thousand times in my head, and I still come up short.

All I know are your decisions. Your decisions show your character. Your character is flawed. Your decisions broke a large part of me. I am still attempting to put myself back together.

Out of all of your indecision, out of months of tug-of-war, you were so decisive on leaving. You were set on cheating. If anything, I wish I could ask you why.

Why did I always seem to come up short? Why wasn't I good enough for you? Why did you choose money, college, and your family over me? Why did you choose her over me?

So many questions I will never get closure on.

Deciding to Decide
I have moved on... for the most part. There are still days (like today) when I miss you more than anything. But, I am stronger. I am certain that I was good enough for you, even if you couldn't see it. I am also certain that you were the first person I was truly meant to be with.

Remember when I mentioned the butterfly effect? I know that different decisions lead to various outcomes. We have the choice. We decide where our life goes (or we choose indecision).

Your decisions led to a different life. A life without me.

And I think, as of right now, I'm okay with that.

My old great-aunt Elaine with her withered hands gave me $200 and beaded handbag
"This your mad money," she told me, as we sat on that nursing home couch, "And it ain't for your purse. This goes in your shirt, where only you know you got it."
The assisted-living nurse chuckled to herself. They got along, my great-aunt and her.
"Why?"
"Cuz if you get angry," she said, in that Marlboro-raspy voice of hers, "And you gotta go, you walk out on your date and you leave 'is ***. And then you got your money for a strong drink. And your cab."
The nurse laughed
My aunt re-situated herself on the nursing home couch. Elaine Dauterive. Her mind was going, and so was her health, but she was as regal as a queen on her throne in that moment
her fire-red hair, ungrayed, was her crown
No cape as royal as that sleeping gown.
"Don't you think for once second I can't take care of you, honey," she said in that creole drawl, and I knew what she meant
Because even after she'd gone I would have that mad money
All stuffed in my bra for when I needed it
Because she was older than time, for me, seeing things like
The Great Depression, World War II
What I read in history books
I'd be ****** if I took what she said with even one grain of salt because Auntie-Lane, I'll be ****** if I don't love you
And I know you're on your way out and
I'll buy you whiskey in the afterlife with some of that $200 cash that you busted your *** scrounging up for me
Southern hospitality at its finest
And those liver spots redder than wine adorn you like badges of honor for all of the years you've endured
My elder - creole woman, with a soul as fire-red as her hair, breathing more smoke than air
My old dragon
On a pile of gold: her mad money

Could you hold me up-
right, left to sit and stare
though your sifting smoke
columns like a spinal wisp,
wasting away time in your

beautiful lungs. I like to in-
hale the cast-away smiles
you hang over me, into me,
my mind lost in taste to how
your chest is as mild as May.

My mom and I went out
driving around from bar to bar
a lot
looking for my old man.
Usually we’d find him pretty early on
the drive home, with my mom yelling at him
while my four-year-old *** sat in the backseat
having to listen t it all.

Those were the
good nights,
the easy & calm nights.

But this one night
I remember
better than others.
My mom went inside his favorite bar
with me on her hip.
The bartender told her he had just left.
with some blonde lady.
So we sat in the car and waited.
His Harley was parked out front
so we knew he’d be back.
My mom chain-smoked,
sipping at her icy Mountain Dew
from her green metal thermos.

She had fire in her eyes,
gasoline in her veins.
My mom was really gonna let him have it
and that blonde *****, too, she said.

The bar was next door to a 7-11
Two lowlife ******* were
Standing around
They saw my mom and I sitting there,
One of them yelled at her
“Whatcha lookin’ at *****?”
“I ain’t lookin’ at you, shut the **** up.”
My Mom spouted back, flicking her Marlboro.
They didn’t say anything,
Just started walkin’ away.

Out of nowhere though,
the ****-talkin’ lowlife was next to her window.
He reached in and grabbed my mom by the arm.
I was really scared, I remember.
“Whatcha got to say now? Huh *****?”
My mom reached for her pistol
With her free hand
While the lowlife kept
talking, threatening to **** her in front of her son.
Within a matter of seconds
The black 9mm pistol
Was unholstered and shoved into his nose.
His eyes were as wide as they got.
His hands now up in the air,
he was shaking & trembling.
My mom pulled back the hammer,
it made that terrifying click.
His eyes shut tightly when
that sound came.
“I AM a *****. The WRONG ***** to **** with tonight.”
Be cool lady. Becoolladybecool. Don’t shoot, don’t shoot.”
The gun was now pressed into his sunburned, pockmarked, cheek.
“Get the **** away from my car.”
And just like that, off he ran into the darkness.

I had fully expected her to
blow his head off, right there in front of me.
She asked if I was okay.
I nodded yes and she kissed my forehead.
She stood outside the car then
Next to his Harley
Pacing back and forth
Her adrenaline really pumping now,
smoking and drinking soda
from that green metal thermos.

I don’t know how much time passed,
but eventually
a little red car pulled up.
My dad and the blonde got out.
When he saw my mom he sighed and said,
“Ahhh **** me.”
scratching his big biker beard
with his brown hands.
The blonde tried to go into the bar.
My mom blocked her entry saying,
“Uh ah! What the **** were you doing with MY man, *****?!”
The blonde looked to my dad for help.
“Danny?” she cried.
“Rhonda, nothing happened. I just got some coke from her. That’s all, now chill the **** out...”
“*******,” she yelled.
The blonde again tried to go into the bar.
And again my mom stood in the way.
Now the blonde was ******. She screamed in fear & frustration,
“***** get the **** outta my way."
“You ******’ *****,” my mom shrieked,
smashing the green metal thermos to her face.
Then she dropped it
and began throwing wild punches to the blonde’s face and head.
I unbuckled my car seat
and leaned out the window
watching my mom & the blonde
roll around on the ground.
My dad let her get in a few good hits,
then pulled her off.
The blonde’s face was
red, swollen, and bloodied.
My mom wore a lot of rings.
The blonde stumbled to her feet
and finally ran inside.

My parents argued all the way home
The old man stuck to his story,
that it was just a drug deal.
She wasn’t having it.
They told me to go to bed,
but I stayed up
peeking around the corner,
watching them argue.
The old man was too drunk & coked out.
He wasnt making any sense, the **** he was saying.
Finally she got tired of arguing in circles
and just threw a hard right
layed him out on the kitchen floor.
I ran as fast as I could back to my room.
I could hear her say,
"See? You ******' *******! This is what you get!"
as I pulled my Batman blanket up to my chin.
****.
My mom was tougher than Batman.

I buy the cheapest cigarettes
that I can find
sometimes subsisting solely
on my own fears

too busy counting
and alphabetizing
all of my past traumas
to get to work on time

I’m too young to
feel this old
I’m tired of being
so tired

I’m still waiting
for my life to start—
I’m dreaming of a day
that I can feel young—

as young as these
bones that creak under me
and this flesh that bulges and
sags

as young as these eyes
that do nothing but stretch
and dilate
I’m always so afraid

but I don’t see ghosts anymore
it’s trite to say that what I fear is myself
but I know, I know how evil I can be
and I’m afraid of everything

how do I keep going under
the weight of myself?
why do I try when all I do
is waste so rapidly away?

I hold the cigarette to your lips
I love you
Is that why I feed you cancer?

I feel my pupils,
Dialate,
My legs become,
A nimble stalk of grass
Blowing in the breeze

Everything is ******* awesome,
The hand of God Himself could not bring me down
From this man made chemical high

I struggle to pull a cigarette,
From a freshly opened pack
Because I can't quite feel my finger tips
**** you, Marlboro..

Leaves shake involuntarily,
On the trees before my eyes
The little piece of square paper,
That rests upon my tongue,
Brings me harmony

In the stands, down 35-3 with two minutes left in the fourth,
Fred Carson picks at the sticky, white remnants of a Coke bottle's label.
He leans over to me,
"Do you mind if I talk to you again?"
I don't, and haven't since kickoff.

"You know, I played running back on this same field."

"Oh yeah?" I say, allowing the story to commence.

"Started all four years. Rushed 1,000 yards as a freshman."

"Wow."

"It took five guys to bring me down by my senior year."

"That's insane."

"I probably still hold the record for most rush yards,
but I doubt they keep up with things like that."

He takes a sip from his drink. It's half empty.
His hair -- greasy, most likely on its third unwashed day --
parts to the left and clings to his skull.
He's wearing a long sleeve, plaid dress shirt.
The shirt is buttoned to the top.

"Hell, that was back in 1968," slows, "I graduated in 19-68. Jesus."

Fred retired from the post office six years back.
He claims he's never missed a game of Blue Jay football since 1970.
The high school band starts playing in the section next to us --
a misshapen cover of "Louie, Louie".
Fred raises his voice,

"You know, I've been to every football game since 1970."

"Yeah, you mentioned that last week."

"I apologize. Yeah, if it wasn't for that first year of college.
I got a scholarship to play ball at Florida State.
Couldn't be there and here at the same time, you know? Kinda hard."

He runs his big-knuckled right hand along his khaki'd thigh, checking his pocket.
He checks the left thigh -- nothing.
Reaches into his shirt pocket and reveals a lighter.
Then a soft pack of Marlboro Lights emerge.

"You know, I ran the fifty in less than five seconds."

To the dismay of cheerleader moms sitting behind us,
he lights the cigarette.
He stares at the Bic lighter with some NASCAR driver -- number 88 --
I don't recognize.
The cutout of the NASCAR driver's scraggly face
sits atop a navy blue and spiraling purple backdrop.
He starts to scratch at the label on the lighter.
A screech from a clarinet rises above the rest of the band,
Fred grimaces, takes a drag, continues,

"The coach at Florida State said I was the fastest boy he'd ever seen.
He said I was going to go pro. Sure thing, he said. I rushed for nearly
300 yards in the first game my freshman year. After the game,
the coach was like, see boy, I told you. You are going to tear it up
this season."

The NASCAR decal comes completely off. Under that purple and blue label,
Fred uncovers a white lighter.

"Would you look at that. I wouldn't have bought the **** thing if
I knew it was a white lighter. That's bad luck, you know. Hendrix and
that--uh--Janis Joplin lady both died with a white lighter in their hand.
Bad luck. A white lighter is bad luck."

"What happened at Florida State?" I ask.

"Well, we were playing Notre Dame during the second game that season.
Down by five with three seconds left on the clock.
We were on our own thirty, and the coach of Florida State was like,
run the hail mary play. But in the huddle, I look the quarterback
square in the eyes, and I say to him, captain -- he was team captain --
I say, captain, I'm hungry for that ball. He knew I could do it.
He took the snap, the receivers rushed down field, and I bolted toward
that line of scrimmage, took the handoff and I was gone, baby."

The crowd begins to cheer as the Blue Jay quarterback throws a long pass
to a wide open receiver. Fred freezes mid-story.
The cheer blurs into a silence, as each person in the bleachers
watches the ball ascend.

For the first time all night, the band lowers their instruments from their lips.
Just a ball floating.
The buzz from the stadium lights becomes audible.
One person gasps.
Then like dominoes the stadium follows suit.

The high arc of the ball betrays the distance,
and the pigskin plummets sharply.

"Interception!" the announcer cries through the speakers.

"That's a **** shame. I thought he was going to have it.
What were we talking about?" Fred asks as he drops his
finished cigarette into the nearly empty, naked Coke bottle.

"You were talking about Florida State. You were down five and--"

"That's right. So, I break up the middle. I dust that noseguard.
I stiff arm a linebacker. I looked like a Heisman trophy in motion.
I travel 69-yards down the field. I'm slowing down at the endzone,
thinking nobody is around, and sure enough -- plow -- the cornerback
dives right into my leg. I broke all kinds of bones and tore all kinds
of muscles. The doctor told me, he'd never seen anything like it."

The band plays the fight song as the clock winds down and the Blue Jays lose.
I try to disappear in the sea of blue and silver exiting t-shirts,
but Fred slows me down,

"It sure was good talking to you. I'll have to tell you more about Florida State
next week. Be sure to sit by me."

"I will," I say as the band director, Mr. Morton, steps in front of me.

"Hey, Fred," Mr. Morton says. He looks at me, then back to Fred.
He's trying to decide whether or not I'm of relation.
"Son, I went to Seminole State Junior College with Fred here
when we got out of high school."

"Really? Did you guys play football together?" I ask with innocent inquisitiveness.

"No, we weren't really into that. Though, we were at all the games.
We were in band together. Until Fred's wild streak got the best of him,"
Mr. Morton laughs, "am I right, Fred?"



The fight song came to a close.
With a lowered head, Fred walked into the silver, blue crowd
with a plaid dress shirt buttoned to the top.

Tap tap tap*
goes her hand as she
rattles her box of cigs,
packing 'em in before
she hungrily rips off the
cellophane.
Her eyes lustfully stare
at the untouched pack
as she contemplates how it will
taste to put one in her mouth.
Although the Surgeon General
has adequately warned her otherwise,
she slides her fingers around
her chosen poison,
eagerly putting it to her lips.
The lighter clicks, and flames
quickly lap up the tobacco and its
chemical casing.
She inhales, and the raggedy breath
reverberates in her chest,
a sick pleasentness seeping into her veins.
Nothing has ever
felt better, as blood rushes
to her head and her muscles relax.
She lights up one after another
until the pack is gone,
and the cycle begins again;
an inner debate where her head
tells her to leave the addiction behind,
but her heart and body, starting to feel
lonely and withdrawn, insist on another
pack to dull the creeping emptiness.
So back to the corner store she goes,
as he waits behind the counter,
ready to give her another taste of feigned and
unhealthy comfort,
for it's better than being alone,
sober,
and without him.

A bee with innards spilling
A lost tabby,
A blimp caught up in trees,
Tintern Abbey.

The gravestone of a lover,
A drowning ship,
An NHS delivery of
Fortisip.

A girl with alopecia and
Fungail nails,
A one legged pigeon,
Exploding whales.

Ivy choked churches,
Merlot tongues,
Parrots plucking feathers,
Marlboro lungs.

Girls locked up in attics,
*** toys.
Boys punching girls
And punching boys.

Babies crowning
Fussed about like kings.
Darlings,
You shall see such pretty things.