Like a captive, I capture rapture wrapping around stakes that matter
Joan of Arc battered
Also tattered but, easily dismissive
Refracted from fractured prominent phrases people play with
Distinctly persuasive and evasive, dressed boyishly attractive, lax stature, dawning armor crafted by absence as if asked about it-
I’m drifted
Protection is principle prerequisite, when fire is lit
I sort of implore your aorta before it’s incinerated to ashes
Dethatched as a habit, with swords or hatchets crafted to singe heartstrings that attached it
While I slash slick Rick as a quick fix,
To fend for pretend pretenses or presumed tricks,
I can’t quit
Cause I hit lips against hash spliffs fashioned with dashes of passion all while rationing fireball cinnamon sips
Martyr to avoidance
I gaze at fabled dazed gossipers galvanizing grips on gritty grapevines while licking warning labels through smoke haze on blurred lines
Capably unstable
Other eyes attending scandal circles able to shout lies and rekindle handed arguments on tables with locked smiles stay boxed in
Avidly amiable
Searching for counterparts when combusted or branded
Toying with matches loses meaning when rules reseed
Those vagabonds claim love is some all end hard bent to mend what the same above can’t comprehend.
Breaking boredom, I pillage pillows with night terrors
And ardent arsonists yearn for flames that churn, turn, liquefy and learn learned thoughts and smoldered feelings
Completely complacent
Melting in one another they are completing each other like two candles tryst true at a wedding day
However later the blaze is severed, smoke sears, and charred black wick stands alone for them.
Aggressive and progressive.
As for me never pleading, fire forever fleets to streets between iron bars I built that cage in deep heat and seep dire dreams once desired
Suppose I’m a skeptic
Roasted or disconnected
Just jaded, just met you
Always over it too soon
Burnt but I’m amused.
I’m useful.

these western leftist,
make us former commies...
look... really really
******* bad...

        my grandfather,
who was abandoned by his
father, spewed by the lies
of his father's brother,
found some stability
in the communist party...

sometimes did jury duty...
the communist party
gave him a house... etc. etc.,
but this, "thing" in the west?
the dissonance conundrum
of creating a collective hive?

it doesn't, and it will never work...
i already said this,
but i'll say it again...
communism does work...
but in only one instance...
post-war countries,
esp. given the plight of
Syria...
                
           it's a transitory period...
so the Syrian baker
can trust the ******* Syrian
taxi cab driver, once again...
communism is not a failure
in that it's applied as
a fail-safe concept,
a rebuilding mechanism,
  
like Poland... 1945...
through to circa 1990...
    it worked...
  **** it worked...
  eastern Europe didn't
receive funds from the American
Marshall Plan...

but Sweden and Switzerland
did...
   i thought they were neutral
countries in the conflict?

communism is a failure if its not
considered a recovery economy,
or rather:
    there's no or other at this point...

in post-war scenarios,
it's the only egalitarianism that works
in the short-end...
this is not English style of
egalitarian idealism...
   (a term i borrow from German
idealism of Kant)...
            no... the English don't know
that their egalitarian idealism
doesn't work...
it's too soft...
the war was harsh...
you're not going to rebuild
the same civic plateau with capitalism,
of a country that was either:
invaded by a foreign power,
or imploded into chaos via
a breach of ethnic-civility...

you can't rebuild Syria with
foreign intervention...
communism is far from a failure
of ideology...
   it was always supposed
to instigate a transitional
period, a post-scriptum...
   a communism can exist,
successfully, for... roughly 50 years...
once the tragedy passes...

and then the free markets can
take over, capitalism can have its
"stage fright", or rather its
wild west...
            but not before the circa 50
years are over...
  a Syrian baker,
   must begin a civil dialectic with
a Syrian taxi driver...
no amount of foreign intervention
will solve the problem...

it's not like you can reuse
the rubble to rebuild the same houses...
sure... the darkest hour
in Poland under communism was
when martial law (stan wojenny)
was implemented by
Wojciech Jaruzelski
(Roy Orbison, no, really,
Roy Orbison)...
food-stamps, long queues at supermarkets
rationing... only white vinegar on
the shelves of supermarkets...
the whole presupposition of war
against the Soviets,
  counter measures to
      avoid the instances of
the Hungarian / Czechoslovakian
occupation / suppression...
   the Parisian spirit of '68...
every time i look into your loving eyes,
one look, from you,
  i drift... away!
    i pray, that you, are here, to stay!
anything you want, you got it...
anything you need, you got it...
anything at all, you got it...
   bay.................................. be!

western Europe received pittance
pay-checks from H'america...
eastern Europe received the hard graft of
communism...
             and it worked...
because it was supposed to work
for the 50 or so years that it did work...
when it stopped working...
my home town lost roughly 20K
   metalwork jobs...
  the metalwork factory was scrapped,
cut up, sold to foreign investors...
Celsa? i believe that's a Spanish company...

some people grew old, retired,
some went on the dole,
some became homeless,
some migrated to other parts of the country,
otherwise took the bold route
and emigrated to other parts of
Europe and the world...
a town dies, the people disperse
if in a dispersing worthy age...

     but i turn on the tube...
and listen to all these leftist lunatics,
and i'm like...          what?!
communism works,
   it works, in exceptional circumstances,
and like i said, before an equal
footing competition market resurfaces,
you're getting ****...
             this is not to suggest that
communism is at odds with capitalism...
apparently... it never was!

         but... you can't rebuild
Syria with capitalism...
  first you have to return to a commonly
shared civility, a counter to what
already exists in the English egalitarian idealism...
best represented as:

a 200m race at the Olympics...
all the competitors walk an equal
pace for 100m...
        and the next 100m?
they do their sprint, they compete!
but not until communism creates
a basis for a mutual trust of civility
between a Syrian baker,
and a Syrian taxi driver...

      capitalism and outright
competition will never solve the problem...
because outright competition
creates nothing more than
an dystopian: post-apocalyptic
mad max: fury road endless cycle of
recurring opportunists...

scavengers...
                      it works... in periods of
roughly 50 years...
what... and capitalism isn't prone
to its own timescales of economic crashes?!
see...
             even capitalism has hiccups...
but like i said:
    communism works...
for time periods, post-scriptum of
the damaging events...
                        under exceptional circumstances
of it being necessarily implemented...
like world war II... the Syrian civil war;
and only then!

****... my grandfather and all the other
school children, actually cried
when news hit the country about Stalin's death...
i have access to an actual ****** source,
what do you have?
  a target of ridicule,
        donning a che guevara t-shirt
who still hasn't rid himself of acne?

There was death and gore,

During the second world war.

Many people died in extreme violence,

Killed before they could call out to loved ones.

Young men were trained to ****,

Often against their morals and will.

So when I see your 1940s weekend -

Your 'war was fun and cosy' pretence,

Your clichéd polyester and fibre glass mockery,

Aiming to re-enact a mostly imagined happy-go-lucky camaraderie -

Forgive me for not joining in,

As I happen to feel it a cardinal sin,

To idealise and romanticise a decade,

Made up of austerity, rationing and air raids.

I've read a little social history,

The 1940s were not idyllic or crime-free,

Just as now, there were heroes and villains,

Among the soldiers and civilians.

Heroism abounded but so did black marketeering,

There were brave sacrifices but also racketeering.

City-wide black-outs were a gift,

To those who would rob and grift.

Your jolly nostalgic tribute is an annual celebration,

Celebrating your own fabrication,

Of a time when the machinations of war and a crazed ideology,

Saw the near extinction of an entire ethnic minority.

I do not wish to be a party pooper,

But don't just step into the fake shoes of a fictional trooper,

Please occasionally remove your rose-tinted glasses,

To remember that beyond your nostalgic narrative of the routines of the masses,

People lived with the daily fear,

Of the likely deaths of people they held dear.

Any brighter and
streams in the ditches
would look like Cuyahoga River
across Cleveland during the 1960's

There is no fire, only flies
who make bright their bellies
and flash for show like the perverts
in metropolitan inner city parks

Enticed to the flies, like moths
to the ceiling globes,
we gather jars and lids
with air holes hammered hard

No walking as we streak
along gravel roads built after WWII
when rationing was lifted
and road speeds jumped

Flies caught one by one
are smashed on white tees,
luminous signals for drivers
alert to the folly of our play

Our madness endures
until Ball  jars become
dim lanterns of joy for us and jail
for the bugs doomed


to die before daybreak
until swept from the garage
floor as we plot our assault
on airborne glimmers along
tonight's roadsides

why is it that you only remember kissing?

or fumbling with plastic buttons in dim hallways, or folding his pants alongside your dresses
or laughing, or heading home to a bed you both could call yours.
why is it that the nights you spend crying in the next room- why does that fade?
you remain always dusty. god, all those days and months seperated by borders and waters you spent rationing these precious packages of recollection, closing your eyes and watching from a distance, as a younger, softer you rested her head on a pair of shoulders that were always there, a pair of shoulders that grew arms to hold you with, and a mouth to kiss you with, and fingers that would trace you and taste you and smudge you. now you know everything about love with nothing to show for it. now the safest place is nowhere near you.

you remember reaching out in the middle of the night, you remember why you quit smoking, you remember how he tasted, how he pulled you closer under the covers on cold sunday mornings. you would make room now when you would never make room before. now that it's too late, now that you are not fine. you remember kissing.

Despair
Trapped under tons of rock
How did they pass those 17 days,
A brotherhood of men
lost like a child’s shoe in the sand?
Rationing a morsel of food and water
for who knew how long
fate as uncertain as the stale air
and then another seventy days
of darkness and despair.

Freedom
The gradual progress of the drill
and all the careful calculations
before the flimsy cage,  
Encapsulated in a tube of rock,
a miracle of engineering,
determination and daring,
birth canal, difficult and painstaking,
a tunnel towards the light of freedom.

Faith
The prayer of a voice
from the depths of the desert,
A scrap of paper
Waved like a banner of life,
A freed miner kneeling,
resisting  for a moment
the magnet of family.
to give thanks in faith.

Joy*
The raw emotion
ore from the womb of the earth
the intensity of pain and joy
in the faces of the children  
as their fathers returned from the tomb;
a world waiting in the glare of hope
a world for once joined in joy.

It’s February, 2015, a Saturday and here I ‘yam.
Back in sunny California again:
The sun shining brightly again
On My Old Hemetucky Home,
Another mutant Stephen Foster tune.
Hemet: Riverside County,
Southern California,
The so-called Inland Empire,
According to the hyperbolic parlance,
Of sharkskin-suited land speculators,
Truly, the last of the
Patent medicine, liniments &
Snake oil hucksters.
Hemet: little oversight & lax policing
Yield a thriving, local
Medical-marijuana industry.
You are comfortably tucked . . .  
TUCKS® Medicated Pads | TUCKS®
www.tucksbrand.com/medicated-pads‎ Witch Hazel soothes and protects irritated areas. Medicated Cooling Pads are...

(THAT’S RIGHT, *******: A ******* COMMERCIAL RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ******* POEM!  GIUSEPPI MARTINO BUONAIUTO--SURELY NOBODY”S FOOL—FINALLY FIGURING OUT HOW TO MAKE POETRY PAY, THEREFORE AVOIDING THE DIED-IN-THE-GUTTER BIT.)
You are safely tucked behind the impenetrable
(www.tucks.com)
Wackenhut G4S Security-
(www.wackenhut.com)
Policed & Patrolled walls,
Of your typical over-55 gated lunatic asylum.
“For Active Adults,” reads the sign,
Whatever that means.
I’ve been thinking about the adventurous young.
What is it these bright,
Wander-lusting whippersnappers
Fixate and obsess about.
Like dropping out & coasting for a while.
Dropping out & coasting:
Not as easy to pull off for 20-somethings these days,
As it was in the late sixties/early seventies,
Flush times for Guns & Butter.
Where is it cheap to live?
Where on . . .
“This blessed plot, this earth,
This realm, this England . . .”
Where on this ozone-depleted,
Global fondue fungus ***,
Can I go to just sit still?
To think:  to make sense of it all?
It’s leisure, Kemosabe.
Leisure cultivates philosophy.
LEISURE:
The very stuff of curiosity and
REACH—
As in: “One’s grasp should exceed one’s reach”—
Idleness leads us,
Gifts us with understanding &
Self-awareness.
You are 21 again, and restless.
You are unwilling to just settle in.
So, where do you go?
Where can you live on savings?
To not work,
But not go hungry?
To just sit still,
Contemplating the state of the wicket,
Be it wicked or sticky.
Today it’s Prague and Berlin—
Or, for the truly decadent: Bangkok.
For us it was Florence or Paris—
Or, for the truly frugal,
Driving our cars to Mecca: Montreal,
"La Métropole du Québec"
Sanctified are the places we’ve chilled.
Shrines & vortexes; each holy latitude,
As Han Solo drolly reminds us:
“It’s not the years; it’s the miles.”
The amount of ground covered,
A blessing devoutly to be wished in Old Age:
But I digress.
Just the thought of hanging out
Some place really cool,
Yet relatively inexpensive--
In a parlance acquired
Over the years and the miles,
Tactfulness learned,
Manipulating the language
For fun & profit.
Common sense is aged in the barrel
And the bottle, rephrased.
Vernacular Viniculture.
Which proves my point:
If you live long enough &
Read enough of the right stuff,
Eventually you’ll discover
A precise, more exact vocabulary,
Appropriate for Old Age inner monolog.
Would Old Age be tedious?
Boring, for those who
Never went anywhere?
Both physically & spiritually speaking.
Are memories our only revenge on Old Age?
And for those hiding behind the barriers,
Safe. Ignorant. Jolly. Dull.
A fast track toward senility &
Evanescence.
Does Alzheimer’s seek out & destroy the
Most cloistered among us?
While those bold & beautiful,
Experienced, still spinning,
Still weaving a tapestry in 3-D Technicolor.
Remembrances of things past . . .
(Get back in your hole, Marcel . . .)
And as the AARP crowd knows so well:
We Baby Boomers really had it pretty soft.
Boom economics,
Conspicuous consumption,
Coonskin hats, Betsy Wetsies & Hula Hoops!
By and large:
FUN TIMES!
No Great Depression,
No chocolate rationing.
A jungle war pretty much optional,
For most of us of the
American bourgeoisie.
We’ve got a lot to remember.
We’ve much to be grateful for.
Electronic media changed everything for us.
Television and movie theaters gave us
Alternative dimensions,
Parallel lives,
Multiple identities.
Experience so real that
To see it on the screen
Was to live it, oneself.
Perhaps those video downloads
Might prove useful one day.
Comforts out on Golden Pond.
Will you still need me?
Will you still feed me?
When I'm sixty-four?
Grazie, Sir Paulie.

6 more cigarettes, she counts,
rationing her existence.
Finding something to need other than sleep is refreshing.
She can hear his voice
through the walls
and she inhales deeply.
She needs the smoke to blacken her lungs
as a small pittance of retribution, reflecting the blackness she  holds in her heart.
And, as she exhales,
she lets the smoke burn
her eye
as she watches watches it coil
and curl away.
Someday
she will display her wounds
proudly
as battle scars.
Bur first she must survive, and heal. 
5 more to go.

a tree did grow
in Brooklyn.        it was June--
our third-- and the summer weather
hadn't turned yet:
school was just out, Prospect Park was never full, and the nights
were still              cool.

it was summer in the city before it comes unglued.
i had yet to resent the F train terminal
or its crowds
or its sweat.  i hadn't grown bored
of 23rd St. on one end of the day
and Church Avenue on another,
or of the cost of cigarettes
or coffee or of the FOODTOWN sign
at the top of the subway steps.
it was a beautiful month
because it was doomed barely to last
its 30 days.

and there were too so many long hours,
sitting                  barely shaded
on your stoop,
fending off the landlord's sister and the bugs and waiting
for the fall.
each time i've gone back
since then i've sat
on those slow steps;
that summer it was no different:  three months to crown three
years,
moving                  so timelessly
by

that next month the heat bore down,
not the heat only of the sun and the air but the wet,
***** heat of the city,
steam forever rising from underground, the oil spills
in the gutters         beginning to boil.

but still it was New York
and summer.  the roaches and rats hadn't yet
eaten                     all the fireflies.  
i grew to love routine
disquiet:  the long car rides to Queens,
the Mets games and their pretzel smell and riding back,
inevitably discouraged,
my homemade tank top leaking Magic marker onto my chest;
the trips to the beach at Rockaway, sullen and determined, and their return
to Manhattan, tasting like salt (and you, once,
like blood) and my hair stiff
with brine and feeling the sand in our shoes grit
against the ***** sidewalks;
those quick walks
from Smith&9th Streets,
sipping Mexican Cokes and rationing our time
by cigarettes:  
all of July was exhausting,
but familiar by then.


in August the tornado came,
first Brooklyn'd seen in 30 years.  we two
slept blissfully through it, woke only
for the aftermath.
we went outside almost giddy, certainly
unbelieving,
holding hands.
and the tree
which had stood outside so
serenly
was uprooted,
having missed the bedroom window
by only a few feet.

[it was June--
cool.
barely shaded
so timelessly
beginning to boil
all the fireflies.]

Oh, they don’t know they’re born today,
What do they know of surviving a war?
Suffering blackouts, hardship of rationing,
With never a thought of ‘asking for more’.

They act so tough, never knowing real fear,
Never experiencing terror and dread,
They’d be dancing to a different tune,
If the Luftwaffe still flew overhead.

I tell you, kids of today; know now’t,
Claiming life’s hard: they’re having a laugh,
Let em’ clean grime off a twelve hour shift,
With carbolic soap in an old tin bath?

Talk of going without, they get too much!
We only had skipping ropes, whistles, bells,
Maybe an orange and apple at Christmas,
Along with monkey nuts still in their shells.

If we were lucky, we got a shiny penny,
Truth be told, there was never any shame,
Today they expect brand new bikes,
Plus the latest craze of a video game.

A sign of the times, life always changes,
Rose-tinted memories; forever make hay,
I’ve said it before; I know I’ll say it again,
Oh, they don’t know they’re born today.

© Paul Chafer 2014

Mina Mina she declares
Life is hopeful
Pink and red.
She instructs me to wash
my hands and listen
to my parrot
She is feminine power
fearless leader

Mina Mina she lies
of no use know
what does she know
of wife beatings? Of
Dumpster scavengers? Of
rationing food? Of
Children in whom no one
Believe?

Mina Mina she is dead.

I am not usually frugal but
I hand you guilty slips of the fingers
Niggardly.
It is wartime and I am rationing touch.
I chew the pen you gave me; do I
Taste you?
Do you see my tongue and wish
I would lay it hot to your flesh, burning
Excuses in stealth-sweetened luxury?

rationing myself out
after giving you my everything
to place yourself in the hands of someone
knowing they can ruin you
is the ultimate gesture of trust
and when neglected and unwanted
the plunge of death
when your heart finally gets handed back to you
broken
beating irregularly
scared to even flutter again

how could you be so sweet
and leave me so bitter
now it makes sense
because salt looks a lot like sugar

smiling in a mirror I see
an elephant in the room\a deserted island .

there are mountains precipices above about me
dangerous

surroundings if I give up
and dark valleys filled with enemies

knowledge is no armory when fitted for a battle of strength
'tis general \

or survival that brings an animal above to see
here
in reality
I am the one

alone so natural like mammal lust and human greed
in all the caves I seek

hiding

away from

rationing my sanity if I did not see a grander destiny
for me
for us.

you asked me long ago why every time we ******
it was 'so passionate'
today it hit me,
as i was reading tropic of cancer for the fourth time
it's because i am passion,
i am passion embodied
your other women,
they may give you something else individually,
but they are not the look in my golden eyes
as we both stand on our knees
and devour each other hungrily
they may be beauty or intelligence or a simply good ****,
but they are not passion
i realized that it is not the **** that you crave,
but the characteristics that you lack, you take from us
you need my passion to stay sane and whole
i gave it freely because it is all of me
i have an endless, abundance of passion
a depthless well of fieriness
you pay me in faux love and deep friendship for the dedicated doses
of passion that i put into your soul
your words stick to me because they are my words
i gave them to you with each passionate ****
and you spit them back in just the way i loved
the more i ponder our coup the more i realize
the ******* was for me to unload the heavy burden passion brings
you needed it to fill you and i have a surplus
as each day ends i find more clarity
you are a hollow vessel and your women give you your character
they are all loved and unloved by you
they all give you what you need to feel human
but i must start rationing my passion
i need it for my writings
i need it for my living
i need it for my sanity
perhaps to hone it so that at a simple touch i can ignite sparks
in every beggar, aristocrat, country-man
rather than to fill up your empty chest where love is not welcome

remember days before food waste,

scraps for  dog,  cat maybe

some pig.



sitting until my plate was clear,



hash. tag rationing.



peelings were taken down

the garden by the rhubarb buckets

or

aunt olive made wine from that

with tea dregs.



he came every other day, pig man as

it was acceptable in those days.



when

there was no food waste .       mum

darned socks



sbm.

Throughout history, even
as recent as 1940's bread
has nearly always been the
first victim of rationing.

Staple is hardly the word
for an essential which is
first to be singled out for
apportionment in crisis.

you can only have one
box of eggs she said
but we have to make omelettes
for five
well you just can't have them
she reiterated
now cashiers are making
culinary decisions in my household

Soon the lie will no longer be profitable and the evil elite won’t be able to hide the extreme environmental changes and chaotic sociological behavior manifestations. When it’s obvious to everyone that things are getting worse, because infrastructure and entire areas of real estate are not being repaired, know that the false powers at be understand there is no need to fix them, because more damage is on the way.
This summer, right now, and getting worse every day, food rationing is increasing because our food chains are being altered with GMO and infected purposely with deadly viruses. This summer, right now, and getting worse every day, water restrictions are extending into more areas because our weather system is a mess, they have ******* with it so much it’s now effecting our vital resources. When our basic needs to sustain life start being taken away from us, the game is over.
Take note, are you profitable to the planetary system being put in place? Do you go along with what the government tells you to do, and how to think? Do you question? Do you support vaccines, same *** marriage, one world religion, one world government etc. etc? If you are not on board with the one world thought that is about to be massively unveiled, when the re-boot starts your purpose will evolve into soylent green (food for other humans-cannibalism).
Once it is obvious, that the bulk of humanity will no longer be profitable via work force labor (because labor is becoming mechanized using robotics) in any form, guess what? You’ll be used for slave support yielding Food, and a section of humanity that is remaining will be harvested. Everyone is familiar with the term hell on earth, well this term was created for this time, and everyone is gonna have seat at this picture show, everyone.

Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Pray for your family, friends, neighbors and countrymen.

the challenge, 12 sentences starting with the same word – green.



:: green road :

green road is where I was born; in winton.



green grocer delivered each tuesday and thursday.

green front doors and hedges line the road, repetitive.



green shooting brake denotes uncle’s arrival, posh we thought,truth came later.



green our neighbour’s face as bombs fell/were pushed; she hid in the outside toilet.



green school knickers; janet next door under her gymslip.

greens up the garden, with spuds  & rhubard, runners & plums.



greens for dinner, liver & gravy; poor food, i guess there was rationing.



green her coat with big buttons,darted & half belt she wore while shopping.



green my mittens, shetland hand knitted; a souvenir.



green the scarf that matched, richer now.



green the sky; the storm passes.



sbm.

scapegoat extraordinaire dollar bill menace
mental patients ******* barrels white bells with tennis

candelabras peanut-butter bread milk intolerance
skateboards pickup trucks brick wall limits- rationing away---

canned vegetables and water sealed containers with dolphin parts
FOR US TO EAT while watching final Jeopardy.

Linked together by the hip double barreled shotguns with no voices
no choices - hear a faint whimper of resistance.

Take down that symbol of hate that history recorded erroneously
until skyscrapers fall once again but now from within and capitol buildings speak a new kind of education.

Your tears are false pride and mimic something you cannot possibly understand because you have been accosted.

You are radical- you are despair- you are mountains crumbling
you are children going hungry from lack thereof-

you are self-inflicted wounds licked by wolves

It's been decided at Davos
the pandemonium evolution
which is what it is, for control.

Little by little there has been
the good cop bad cop approach
Virus Vaccine Virus Vaccine etc.

Fear has been marketed alongside
security between blinks of those
who are being optically opiated.

The crescendo has been reached
next part of the plan will be their
final move that is ratio rationing.

The food chain is our weakest link
and the please sir may I have more
people will not be able to revolt.

why is it that you only remember kissing?

or fumbling with plastic buttons in dim hallways, or folding his pants alongside your dresses
or laughing, or heading home to a bed you both could call yours.
why is it that the nights you spend crying in the next room- why does that fade?
you remain always dusty. god, all those days and months seperated by borders and waters you spent rationing these precious packages of recollection, closing your eyes and watching from a distance, as a younger, softer you rested her head on a pair of shoulders that were always there, a pair of shoulders that grew arms to hold you with, and a mouth to kiss you with, and fingers that would trace you and taste you and smudge you. now you know everything about love with nothing to show for it. now the safest place is nowhere near you.

you remember reaching out in the middle of the night, you remember why you quit smoking, you remember how he tasted, how he pulled you closer under the covers on cold sunday mornings. you would make room now when you would never make room before. now that it's too late, now that you are not fine. you remember kissing.

There’s a war on,
ya morons!

Shortages everywhere!

There’s a shortage of
sanity, of clear thought
here!

Hell, they’re rationing
everything these days!

No one will pay your
******* cab fare either,
so, find your own *******
way out of this ditch!

Stick your sonuvabichin’
thumb out, hike your
skirt up, show those
******* some of the pink
stuff.

That’ll get ‘em,
or maybe it won’t,
who knows,
who cares,
who gives a circus-elephant ****?

Not me.

I don’t give a ******* cerebral
hematoma about what happens next.

I just want to get out of here
and see how far I can get before
the radiator blows and my eyebrows
are singed off.

Jesus Christ in a ******* boat!

Ah, **** it!

I’ll see you in the morning.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016

I use to talk about my feelings with my therapist
I was planning to keep seeing her for many years
It was the companionship I enjoyed the most

Just one hour a week, but enjoyable nonetheless

Now those days have gone away

And on the internet I stay
Looking for some friendly chats

Life can be sad at times
Can't it Matt?

One day soon they will be rationing food
Telling us where are bodies can move

To those mountains I will go
Life is hard
This I know

The Pandemic in Six-Word Memoirs
“The world has never felt smaller.”

By Larry Smith
Mr. Smith is the creator of Six Word Memoirs.

Since 2006, I’ve been challenging people to describe their lives in six words, a form I call the six-word memoir — a personal twist on the legendary six-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I’ve found that some of the most memorable six-word stories arise in the extremes — during our toughest and most joyous moments. So over the past several months, I’ve asked adults and children around the country to use the form to make sense of this moment in history: one person, one story, and six words at a time.

Not a criminal, but running masked.
— Stella Kleinman

Every day’s a bad hair day.
— Leigh Giza

Home ec: rationing butter, bourbon, sanity.
— Christine Triano

Cinemagraph
Can’t smell the campfire on Zoom.
— Melanie Abrams

Deserted crowded Manhattan, my own island …
— Elisa Shevitz

Eighth hour of YouTube. Send Help!
— Leela Chandra

Cinemagraph
Messy hair, messy room, messy thoughts.
— Lily Herman

I regret saying, “I hate school.”
— Riana Heffron

Read every book in the house.
— Francesca Gomez-Novy

Cinemagraph
Never-ending, but boredom doesn’t faze me.
— Lily Gold

Required school supplies: screens, screens, screens.
— Darshana Chandra

Won scrabble; smile breaks through mask.
— Abby Ellin

Cinemagraph
Tuning out parents, under my headphones.
— Lukas Smith

This is what time looks like.
— Sylvia Sichel


Bad time for an open marriage.
— Rachel Lehmann-Haupt

Cinemagraph
Sun-kissed lips? Not kissed this year.
— Twanna Hines

Avoiding death, but certainly not living.
— Sydney Reimann

Social distancing myself from the fridge.
— Maria Leopoldo

Cinemagraph
Dream of: heat, limbs, crowds, concerts.
— Amy Turn Sharp

Teacher finding inspiration through uneasy times.
— April Goodman

Slowly turning into a technological potato.
— Jad Ammar

Cleaned Lysol container with Lysol wipe.
— Alex Wasser

Cinemagraph
Hallway hike, bathtub swim, Pandora concert.
— Susan Evind

Numbers rise, but sun does too.
— Paloma Lenz

Afraid of: snakes, heights, opening schools.
— Michelle Wolff

The world has never felt smaller.
— Maggie Smith

Cinemagraph
How do you make sense of this moment in history?

Share your own six-word memoir in the comments. We’ll feature some of our favorites in a future article.

An EMP attack
Perhaps a Cyber Attack
Or Nuclear attack

An economic collapse
Food rationing
Marshall Law

Who knows
What it will be
I have a feeling

There may be
Hard times
For you and me

Clipped, and happening
on the shores of sharpened shears
Is a veneer of shock built beetle shellac
That'll act like a sealant.

Believe me, if you peel back the needle paper
of staples and waxy stock,
then,
again,
don't be shocked by all of the little bugs that shock you.

It'll reset back to zero,
Heroic actions, not withstanding
So!
Instead let hate have an ample landing,
and have ample space
To hold together
the sort of space that
had been bothered.
More so,
Bothered to be.
So live,
to breath
and see.

I am 13 when I decide for the first time my skin isn't satisfying
And the only way to remedy that is to break inside
To pull out something unpleasant, fill it instead with boxed wine
Fill it with soft-core **** alone in my basement while I text
The oldest man who's interested in me, and it's pleasant
Until I'm rejected for the 50th time

These people are so nice about it, they exchange me
My nothings are as sweet as the first metal bite against my wrist
and, this, I promise myself, is the reminder of what it feels like
To be damp with the must of underground, amongst the spiders,
Afraid to get up or touch myself or feel anything new

When I am 15, I finally realize all of the words cascading around me
Are meant to be the knives upon which I impale
I dye my hair again and let my future fall away
I was always convinced I didn't deserve to succeed, that it
Was always out of my grasp and I cry for the first time
For a solitary hour in my grandmother's bed
Because even the next room over, she can't hear me
And I spend the whole summer rationing my food supplies
And running myself to exhaustion every morning I can rise
Nothing was as tragic as that, because it wasn't a beginning
It was 3 solid years of losing every second
And distancing myself so far from every morsel of life
I eat but I've never recovered

I haven't had a friend since I was 15, and life is starting to
Become the tedium upon which I stay teasing
Would it be better to approach or defend
The heart