If you danced from midnight
to six A.M. who would understand?

The runaway boy
who chucks it all
to live on the Boston Common
on speed and saltines,
******* in the duck pond,
rapping with the street priest,
trading talk like blows,
another missing person,
would understand.

The paralytic's wife
who takes her love to town,
sitting on the bar stool,
downing stingers and peanuts,
singing "That ole Ace down in the hole,"
would understand.

The passengers
from Boston to Paris
watching the movie with dawn
coming up like statues of honey,
having partaken of champagne and steak
while the world turned like a toy globe,
those murderers of the nightgown
would understand.

The amnesiac
who tunes into a new neighborhood,
having misplaced the past,
having thrown out someone else's
credit cards and monogrammed watch,
would understand.

The drunken poet
(a genius by daylight)
who places long-distance calls
at three A.M. and then lets you sit
holding the phone while he vomits
(he calls it "The Night of the Long Knives")
getting his kicks out of the death call,
would understand.

The insomniac
listening to his heart
thumping like a June bug,
listening on his transistor
to Long John Nebel arguing from New York,
lying on his bed like a stone table,
would understand.

The night nurse
with her eyes slit like Venetian blinds,
she of the tubes and the plasma,
listening to the heart monitor,
the death cricket bleeping,
she who calls you "we"
and keeps vigil like a ballistic missile,
would understand.

Once
this king had twelve daughters,
each more beautiful than the other.
They slept together, bed by bed
in a kind of girls' dormitory.
At night the king locked and bolted the door
. How could they possibly escape?
Yet each morning their shoes
were danced to pieces.
Each was as worn as an old jockstrap.
The king sent out a proclamation
that anyone who could discover
where the princesses did their dancing
could take his pick of the litter.
However there was a catch.
If he failed, he would pay with his life.
Well, so it goes.

Many princes tried,
each sitting outside the dormitory,
the door ajar so he could observe
what enchantment came over the shoes.
But each time the twelve dancing princesses
gave the snoopy man a Mickey Finn
and so he was beheaded.
****! Like a basketball.

It so happened that a poor soldier
heard about these strange goings on
and decided to give it a try.
On his way to the castle
he met an old old woman.
Age, for a change, was of some use.
She wasn't stuffed in a nursing home.
She told him not to drink a drop of wine
and gave him a cloak that would make
him invisible when the right time came.
And thus he sat outside the dorm.
The oldest princess brought him some wine
but he fastened a sponge beneath his chin,
looking the opposite of Andy Gump.

The sponge soaked up the wine,
and thus he stayed awake.
He feigned sleep however
and the princesses sprang out of their beds
and fussed around like a Miss America Contest.
Then the eldest went to her bed
and knocked upon it and it sank into the earth.
They descended down the opening
one after the other. They crafty soldier
put on his invisisble cloak and followed.
Yikes, said the youngest daughter,
something just stepped on my dress.
But the oldest thought it just a nail.

Next stood an avenue of trees,
each leaf make of sterling silver.
The soldier took a leaf for proof.
The youngest heard the branch break
and said, Oof! Who goes there?
But the oldest said, Those are
the royal trumpets playing triumphantly.
The next trees were made of diamonds.
He took one that flickered like Tinkerbell
and the youngest said: Wait up! He is here!
But the oldest said: Trumpets, my dear.

Next they came to a lake where lay
twelve boats with twelve enchanted princes
waiting to row them to the underground castle.
The soldier sat in the youngest's boat
and the boat was as heavy as if an icebox
had been added but the prince did not suspect.

Next came the ball where the shoes did duty.
The princesses danced like taxi girls at Roseland
as if those tickets would run right out.
They were painted in kisses with their secret hair
and though the soldier drank from their cups
they drank down their youth with nary a thought.

Cruets of champagne and cups full of rubies.
They danced until morning and the sun came up
naked and angry and so they returned
by the same strange route. The soldier
went forward through the dormitory and into
his waiting chair to feign his druggy sleep.
That morning the soldier, his eyes fiery
like blood in a wound, his purpose brutal
as if facing a battle, hurried with his answer
as if to the Sphinx. The shoes! The shoes!
The soldier told. He brought forth
the silver leaf, the diamond the size of a plum.

He had won. The dancing shoes would dance
no more. The princesses were torn from
their night life like a baby from its pacifier.
Because he was old he picked the eldest.
At the wedding the princesses averted their eyes
and sagged like old sweatshirts.
Now the runaways would run no more and never
again would their hair be tangled into diamonds,
never again their shoes worn down to a laugh,
never the bed falling down into purgatory
to let them climb in after
with their Lucifer kicking.

there's a fat plastic tube taped sub-clavian carrying ruby fluid
from a clear bag that hangs overhead
draining mysteries of modern alchemy
into your body, its lifetime measured, silent droplets
inside a hermetically sealed hourglass we can only watch, not touch
but they don't change you

by protocol your nurse wore her nitrile gloves doubled-up
lest she get this stuff on her fingers - it's toxic -
advised you to flush the toilet twice,
making certain to eliminate stray molecules that might
be exposed to sitting innocents

i should be in the next chair, holding your hand

we might share complimentary raspberry danish,
stare at a silent TV on the wall
as it broadcasts flashing pictures of calamity from
the latest war or storm savaged country
but we’ve been living there for years already
our home not populous enough to draw serious media attention;  

we’d wrestle sips of anemic coffee from free paper cups
yours going into a red can when you've finished
because that brilliant color insinuates itself into saliva, eventually
as it does to blood and *****;
i could take mine home

i'd read moving captions at the bottom of the screen
to know what's going on in the images
while you'd feign interest in this tedious world and remind me, again,
how life is tenuous

ask me the name of that dripping liquid just to see if i was listening,
an appellation alien - if life were fair it would be easier
but i’d get the pronunciation wrong
maybe it could be a French word i remember reading to you from a menu in Paris
we might paste it thickly, soft cheese onto torn chunks of baguette
savored between sips of cabernet from long stemmed glasses;
pronounce it “good” as if we could own it

****** and gigolette -
we’d stolen the whole earth that moment,
grinning like a pair of cat burglars at a cafe table where i'd held your hand
but here we are, old again, bitter enemies
for the moment, i'm glad for Ativan and Motrin,
the only names i can remember from your tray of saltines and ginger ale

instead, i'm sitting alone at home with cigarettes and bourbon,
more congenial poisons
staring at a white, unmoving ceiling, pretending I’m working
we're like that, you know, tug and tow - where you go,
i'm heart-bound to follow
Doctor Jack insists i'll live much longer, a little sicker after
i might adjust expectations for a worn-out liver, headaches,
possible blood pressure elevations; short warnings written on the label

while yours smile, with more tricks than carnival barkers
they say, now, a handful - or only two - more tricks up their sleeves,
the grinning, white-coated thieves
Jack smiles, pats my hand, a warm man

smoking is prohibited in the clinic
i'd hang from the window ledge to get the next nicotine fix,
but it won't open to alive, mowed grass outside -
these proceedings always sequester hidden behind curtains in private,
a secret art of undertakers doctoring flesh to look still-living,
love making in mid-evening darkness we've long forgotten

i’d draw deeply chemically-treated air, forget it’s now happening
remind myself a paternal need to stay healthy for survivors
while trying to avoid living in midst of your horrors,
a preoccupation that subsumes my mind

if you’re right - and you always are - how could i bury you?
when the dog died,
i dug her hole in our garden myself, deep through tree roots to bedrock,
then beyond, depth a measure of devotion;
carved a stone with my own fingernails, her name in a crossed heart
and we two cried like shivering babies
as we shoveled all the dirt back in to cover her

these are words of a weak man, selfish ******* that i am
and really, all of life's slumped over in my lap right now,
just this little girl sleeping
but i should be in the next chair
if you'd only let me sit there
again

When Mars attacks
I'll be in Oregon
eating saltines
and everything bagels
washed down
with orange Tang
while you're probed
anally with a green stick
the size and shape
of a bottle of Bud
in downtown Tallahassee.

After the attack
I'll go fishing
in Crater Lake
and catch twelve
rainbow trout
or kokanee salmon
and fillet them
one by one
while you limp
and buy chairs
with extra pads
and change the gauze
at the base
of your ****.

Loading the bowl and packing it tight
Take a rip off this chronic delight
Let your mind soar, weave and wander
Relax, hold it in just a bit longer
Let the spirit of the bud fill your lungs
Ghost it, ballpark, have a little fun
Feel your eyes droop low, streaked with red
When suddenly your stuck, you can't get out of bed
Your tummy starts to grumble, your mouth grows dry
You stumble towards the kitchen and eat an entire pie
You move towards cabinets laden with sweets
You eat the saltines, canned corn and canned beets
You devour all the candy, you inhale all the fruits
You head towards the fridge and receive some bad news
The milks gone sour, and there's nothing to drink
Your mouth is so dry and you can't even think
Water is flavorless and wine is too strong
Getting so desperate, take a swig off the ****?
Ew, that's too gross, I'm sure you'll survive
But next time this happens, keep a soda near by

It’s been seven years and I still don’t think I’ve processed it
For most of my young life I had no mother
For most of my young life I had no father
There was only her, mother of my mother
A sharp woman with hands like sharpened scissors
Counsel and Care, the altar I was made to pray at
Her touch was soft unless it was hard, and hard unless it was soft
Like salt tossed over her shoulder,
Like warm potatoes in the sun
Like a bowl of cheerios before the bus comes
We prayed the rosary every morning
And I told her about my gods and myths
I told her about the rocks and crystals
And I cried about numbers
We prayed the rosary every morning, and I couldn’t bring myself to mind
We went to church on Sundays, and I sang as loud as I wanted
We picked out melons at the grocery store and ate them by the pool

It’s been seven years, and I miss her
And I will miss her
I’ll cry when I hear Que Sera Sera
I’ll eat saltines and still think to myself they aren’t that good
I’ll keep my rosary and sometimes I will pray
I will miss her
And I can only hope to be like her someday
And I hope that she is proud

One full bowl of chilli,
at least two dozen saltines,
one hot dog, and
two handfuls of chips later,
I vow not to eat tomorrow.
I had two small chicken tenders
and a bottle of carbonated orange juice at lunch,
and half an hour later
I was hunched over in a bathroom stall
and my mouth tasted of stomach acid and regret.
I ate once yesterday
and the same thing happened.
I know it's unhealthy,
I know it can **** me,
but all the same the only thing on my mind
is how much I regret eating so much.
I know it's unhealthy,
I know it can **** me,
but all the same
I find a strange sort of comfort
in knowing that I'm at least strong enough to control my appetite.
I know it's unhealthy,
I know it can **** me,
but all the same I can't get enough
of this self-hatred
spilling out of my mouth,
tinted with the taste of last hour's meal.

In the fluorescent mourning,
teary and bedded in the violence
of wandering violin -- seeking praise
and receiving a hospital bed,
I told my brother to paint the city,
the way in was in 2002.

The road kaleidoscope'd and fractured
all of Kerouac's high coups,
broken saltines and cold tomato soup,
in gown in feathered down--
the world sang couplets and through windows
I watched rain, and told my brother
to paint the city,
the way it was before my success and subsequent pain.

It ain't the pork, it ain't the beans
It ain't the mustard on saltines
It ain't the redneck social scenes

I love about the south

It ain't the ice cold sweet southern tea
It ain't the way that we say please
It ain't the way we lemon squeeze

I love about the south

It ain't the perfect slice of pecan pie
It ain't the wink in the bullfrog's eyes
It ain't the fireflies that light the night

I love about the south

It ain't the way we say yes ma'am
When you visit Alabam
It ain't the attitude of yes we can

I love about the south

It ain't the way that we say ya'll
With the syrupy sweet southern draw
No it ain't none of that at all

I love about the south

It's the crisp clear starry nights
Through the shifting shadows of the loblolly pine
As I stand here with your hand in mine

I love about the south

Just the fact that you are here
And that I can hold you near
As I hear you call me dear

*I love about the south

The waitress said she didn't have any paper
As she took orders and names and personalities
And wandered
Tables ands kitchens and free bread
54 wants less water
Tom needs more water
Vinegar allergies and detailed taste
Unsalted saltines are a fountain of youth
As she takes my name and phone
And never calls again

i became the jumpin' jack flash in november '77.
there was slush in new york city and the bums at the piers
still burned trash in metal barrels you could see from over on coney island even.
just like kerouac said.

in the daytime foolish kids picked weeds in central park
and called them flowers. they got laid by stringing charming words together as they gave them
to the thousand daughters of manhattan's old monied men,
the wall street hacks hanging from the teats of the
great & frenzied cash cow of capitalist interest. the milk
came slow that winter.

one week, early december when the slush gave way to furtive snowfalls
i took a bus to patterson, NJ
for a few days, drank a lot of awful coffee writing obscenities in my journal but speaking
them aloud in the restaurants and bars and so
was deemed just like everybody else in patterson, NJ.
drunk & high, helicopter tours, stuffed with bread and half-truths.
and when shortly my irish luck ran out i raced back to the big smoke
in a drop-top mercedes driven by a man whose thick accent i couldn't quite place.
whose only serious question was whether i knew anyone
who had good coke.

in the city it rained for three weeks straight and
david byrne, in some bowery apartment wrote a song called 'flood'
which was never released on any talking head's album
but lingered in his brain as a reminder of the three weeks
he spent cooped up, eating saltines and dancing to the rhythms of the thunder and rain outside.
totally alone with his mind & a bass guitar. tina weymouth, naturally, was furious.
the bass was the last thing she had left in a band she half-started. and david had stolen even that.

but that was tina weymouth, that was new york.

tweet my injustice
Let's all us combustus
and fritter away french fries
from the local till us nuts

Freakin' Friday
Meek and Nigh may
take away the saltines from the
mouths of youths
and put a large bass in my
kissing booth

I am Xavier
I am Charles
I once supposited a pack of
Marlboro's
Shamus mc ****, Batman
the 'copter's on down furrows

Storm clouds raged across the sky and the silver sea boiled in the wind.
The great green fin of La Isla de Tiburon cut the water,
Mysterious, so painfully close, yet dangerously distant.
Monsters swam the gap and past waist deep the ocean had a lethal tug.

All morning we (father, big brother, little sister, and me) hunted in the sand for clams and later boiled them in a sardine can.
Dad ran along the shoreline and into the waves wearing yellow trunks, hunting with a sharpened stick.
Dad, the Wildman —hairy and shirtless—ran for our entertainment into the surf and whooped when a skate flapped pitifully at the end of his spear.
My brother kicked a trio of *****, fishermen's gifts, kept them from scuttling back into sea, and leaped over them for fun.

Sardines on saltines tided us over as the main course—crab, clam and skate—cooked on burning drift wood.
We children watched in drooling anticipation as a claw, wreathed in flame rose in agonized supplication
then collapsed back into embers to cook.  Froth bubbled out alien mouths and black stalk eyes.
Roasted alive seems an awful fate, but, oh, how delicious the meat!

Later, by lantern light my sister read her book over the protests of a gathering wind that scratched at our tent all night.
The sand spat out the tent stakes, but the poles held firm and our weight held our shelter down.
Never before and never again
I live here in my dreams.

Now I'm a *******
From Scott's Bay
Where inbreeding  took its toll
My mother and her mother before her
They were an exception not the rule
Or was it the other way around.
The only thing that saved me was my father
God rest this soul.
He was imported from Boston while a babe in arms
Later to met with the love of his life my mother
God rest her soul.
I guess you could compare us
With the hill billies from the hills of Virginia
Complete with some banjo playing
Only here in the Bay someone's
Always playing the bagpipes
You know the difference between the bagpipes and an onion
Nobody cries when you chop up the bagpipes
And as for crackers like Hank Williams the third
We crackers prefer to be called Saltines.

When you wake up in the morning
And there's a note on your mug
"I didn't want to wake you"
"I left your favorite donuts on the table"
"When you sleep you make little sobbing sounds"
(And I think that's cute) is implied
To no longer be your own
To be stealing his deodorant
Because you miss his smell at work
And kitchen smells are not musician smells
And guitar strings are not
Your body
But they might as well be
Because you feel
Every
Tiny
Note
He plays
You would gladly do his laundry
For another song to fall asleep too
Many ways he kisses you
Too many places to count the stars
Too many phantom vibrations
And you think your phone is ringing
Because he just wants to talk about your day
You lose it for a minute
But it's nothing
It's the wind blowing
It's just missing someone
And you're terrified you've forgotten
The shadows his nose casts and
The dilations of his eyes
And the shapes of his words
As they meet your ears
But you look up at the moon
How it waxes
It wanes
Your love goes through phases
That bring in the tides
And wash lost shark's teeth out to sea
Your love changes daily
Loving him is often scary
You are perpetually quaking
Remembering how quickly
Sweet things dissolve in the rain
Sugar wastes enamel
Like time wastes muscle
You could fit a camel through the eye of a needle
Easier than you can handle this
Than you can wrap your head around
Caliente
Having no control
Because you cut the reins
You wanted it that way
And you forgot that fear
Taste like red wine and stale saltines
And being out of ice cream
You wanted it that way
You wanted a love story
You wanted to know that there's no such thing as control anyways
No such thing as
An autonomous heart
And you are ******
Because you could draw the shadows his nose casts
The squeeze of his ***
The way his eyes fluoresce at the sight of you
From memory
You are ****** because he is all you can think about
Past, present, future
I mean, you are seriously ******

i killed a spider
a few hours ago.
its body is still on
the wall next to where
i sleep.

all day was dark,
lying in bed
like a corpse.
gastroenteritis;
the stomach flu.

revival and rounds,
the kitchen, saltines.
"those items that are
no longer useful must
be exhumed."

refrigerator grave
cannot help but
remind me of my
sickness and how
you could have rephrased.

sometimes i wish
i could understand
you better than i do.
but then i realize it's
what makes our relationship.

Last night, all the teeth fell out of my head.
You said it was a common dream,
but I wore away my gums with the bristles all the same,
and swallowed the mouthwash just to make sure
my insides were clean enough.

But then again,
perhaps my organs are not the correct organs
and the mouthwash is now dissolving the walls of
my simulacrum stomach.
Plasma will drip from my gaping, toothless maw,
the color of pea soup.

Grandma hated pea soup.
She said it was too opaque to see
the glass shards at the bottom of your spoon.
They would slice up your tongue
and you wouldn’t be able to call 911.

My tongue feels too big, overflowing onto my molars.
I chew, scraping off the taste buds,
whittling down the swollen muscle,
so I don’t swallow it in the witching hour:
your sleeping ears deaf to my wet choking.

I am eating saltines without soup when you come home,
in the puddle of mouthwash and blood my stomach spit back.
Your mouth runs over with “****,” your own teeth like rows of tic tacs.
I worry they’ll fall out soon, white and small against the linoleum.

I wasn't sure where my friends were and why I was considered such an enigma of commitment.
after a communal bowl pass and a swig of strawberry lemonade ***** that tasted like strawberry lemonade tears:
everything that I considered a blessing in my book,
things that I liked about myself
these things became someone else's reason to dislike me.
My strengths became flaws and the things that I used to love about myself became the reasons I wanted to have raw flesh on the insides of my tiny wrists.
I began to doubt and slash every relationship I've made because the amount of betrayal I felt was like when my mom used to make the water too hot in the bathtub and walk away to the other side of my house so that the hot bathwater would boil my skin
and I just had
to sit there
and prune.

I told the truth once to my high school writing class.
I told them the truth
and then my best friend left me
and after my words left the page
and echoed in the air,
just about everyone else left too.

I was alone and I tried to end it because when you're stuck in the hot bathwater and you're six years old and your tears and titanic ice and still no one comes to save you from the boiling hot water,
and somehow in your life you begin to tolerate injustice and pain.

I'm thinking about checking myself into a hospital.
Inpatient treatment.
Pill in a waxed oval cup so that my feelings will regulate and I will start feeling normal like everyone else.
The normal of unrequited kindness and hate hidden inside of a held hand.
I would love to feel like I've overreacting
and I would love to say
I'm crazy
but the craziest part is that in all of this crazy:
I feel sane.
Sane that I can recognize that the only time I write and stab my pen to paper is when I really just  want to stab myself,
stab myself till i bleed blood that won't even soak into the earth,
but forms a puddle that dirties up everyones foot prisons,
containing a checkmark of approval from society.
If everyone just wants to feel loved and so wanted why would you preach hate and expect love in return?
Is it even possible to feel better about yourself without bringing someone else down?
I shouldn't expect anyone to come back to me
when the only one who will never insult me is the
thin white pressed and processed trees
that are bound within a "made in indonesia" binding.
I want to feel sick and I want to throw up and purge my mental illness of depression with some gatorade and saltines
but the only thing that can really cure depression
is the flatline of a heartbeat
and the ones that you loved so much
wishing that they would have loved you more
while you were still around.

My poems are just pre-pubescent suicide letters to myself that I hope someone will read and stop the blade
and put it into butter and spread on waffles instead
of their freckled skin.

I would like to say that I've been doing something wrong so that I can fix it, but when what you are doing wrong is just existing, then besides dying: how can I cater to your needs of disappearing?

How can I bring myself so low into my mental spectrum so that you can glow and feed off of my self deprecation until you have reached the maximum potential of you.

I should probably thank you because my soon to be hermit tendencies will help me stay safe and sound;

I wish I had the courage to **** myself, but more importantly: I wish I had the bravery to love myself instead.

Old men drinking ***** on Monday afternoons ...
Dragging on Camels , warming calloused hands by
the burn barrel ...
Southern rail cars pass them by , their stories are another place in another
time ...
Cashing welfare checks for potted meat and saltines , Wild Turkey
and Goody powders ...
Crossing the railroad bridge bound for home on a frigid , blustery Georgia evening ..

Light bulbs were smashed in their sockets as she lost her mind.
She found a way to release the pain,
tearing the sofa cushions dusted with crushed saltines.
The sets of initials carved into the coffee table,
were the only thing left to remind her of the love she once lost.

Driving home from the airport
from High Ridge Road we peered at downtown.
I told our visitor
this is the view tourists like
looking at the city from afar
or driving past its monuments.
But if you really want to see the city
you have to smell the streets the morning after
or visit Aunt Stella in her trailer.

That night we did just that
laughing with the folks
sitting on her old stuffed couch
and on rickety folding chairs
she’d fetched from the bedroom closet.

We listened to Fred
leaning over his old guitar
playing it as if it were a woman.
His voice was gravel
but when he sang falsetto
I could see him in his mother’s arms.

Stella quietly left for the kitchen
and brought back beers
and saltines and sharp cheddar cheese,
Fred still crooning softly.
We were completely mesmerized by him
and his humble country charm.

As I sat there with our visitor
I was again a boy at home with Mama
and Daddy who’d just got in from the plant
in his khaki pants and shirt  
smudges of oil on his sleeves
smelling of the day’s sweat.

Him
written July 8th, 2021

This is painful stuff, for me to post. I need to get this out of my "In Process Notebook" and into the "Finished Notebook." For me part of ptsd is avoiding anything about the trauma. I don't even want to call him my father, but that is who this is about. There are not graphic details of trauma in this writing, but there is some graphic language. I would avoid it if words can trigger you. Please feel free to skip this one and move on to something else.

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

The other day, I stood in the kitchen, and had velveeta on saltines, a snack indelibly associated with, him, like the big hershey bars with almonds, that he kept in the cupboard over his junk drawer filled with screws and nails, with the shoe polish for our Sunday shoes kept below.

I can smell the shoe polish, unexpectedly real, that drawer and the shoe polish, and my soul recoils, instinct to flee as far away as I can get. There are memories, of him, that I have practiced remembering, until I don't flinch, at the thought of him, in my home - in my mind - in me still.

This isn't one of them. This one comes crashing through me, like a tidal wave, the love and the hurt. If it was just one, love -or- hurt, it would be bearable, perhaps, but that is not what this is, one or the other.

Love and hurt, together, shatter me, over and over, and I am broken glass, on that kitchen floor, all over again. I resolve, to practice this memory, practice him, until I can walk over the glass of these memories, keeping the smile on my face, and not want to flee.

I lost a beloved friend a few years back...
The big 'C' got him, thankfully it took him fast.
He died around this time four years passed,
it truly feels like yesterday that his spirit was here,
blessing the ground we both walked upon.

He was a real funny ****, always with the quips.
He'd send me texts and call them e-quips.

Once while shopping at The Great Canadian Tire Store,
we bantered about how it came to pass that the black culture in the western world used slang terms to denigrate the white. Calling them ****** and *******. The latter referring to the slave master's whip braking the speed of sound on the back of a family man stopped from even a pleasure of a good read.

My friend said to me "*******": I prefer "saltines". To our surprise we had come to understand the term '******' derived when white 'John's' would cruse black neighbourhoods to solicit prostitutes.

They would signal they were prospective clients by honking their horns. For they feared leaving their vehicles under an assumed threat of physical violence.

These days I feel I am channeling my dear friend. For me, it's always with the quips and puns and non sequiturs. Some end up as titles for this work I produce. Like, for an example: Are Plastic Surgeons Recyclable.

Although you may not, I just have to laugh at my self. Some say my jokes aren't funny, they are an irritation. To which I state, that is the optimal effect, my true aim.

                                      Pat Two

At his funeral, his brother delivered his eulogy. Telling the childhood story of the family pet, a housecat had gone to the basement and Dave stood at the top of the stairs coaxing "Here Kitty kitty, come here kitty".
His father says, "Call him louder", and without missing a beat or changing his tone or volume Dave says "Here louder louder, come here kitty".

We shared puns and jokes that in this day-and-age, some would deem offensive. To be honest about the matter, some were. But... to qualify, maybe to justify. The jokes were always in jest, never meant to harm. It could be me, in the attempt to excuse poor behavior. Perhaps it's so, that is to say I don't know for sure. I've yet to make up my mind.

                                         Part Three

The point being, for I have strayed and I digress. The love I have for my friend still lives on and perhaps will never end. If it is David that I channel, so be it! I feel blessed.

Although I have, I never had to say good-bye to my dear friend Dave. For he never really left. He lives on in the hearts and minds of his chosen friends. And will continue to long after the day of my demise.

For the life of me, as I sit in the corner on a crooked chair, flanked by a lamp and a potted plant on an end-table. The end of this year approaches quickly and I wonder to myself, when will I again meet-up with my old friend.


end

I rest my eyes
Wipe off water
Watch air move light
Swallow

Do you have to be large
To be melting away?
I have nothing much to lose
But things are falling

Why isn't the bug
In his body?
How do I handle his cornered
Predatory remains?

Saltines and sugar
I am now burgeoning
Into a comfortable fluctuation
Though I long held the key

I am leaving home again
Turning around, clasping
Dancing on portions of time
Swallowing, swallowing, swallowing

She said they had morning ***. Mulled over with me past memories of better lovers. Worried about telling her business. It was hot again. With beads of sweat above my lip and on the side of my face. An ant crawled to my knee. Crushed saltines sat lonely near the porch. My hair does not cooperate. I spent a dollar and some to chat an inmate. Sent a photo.

Wood floors make a parlor guitar come alive ..
Songs of contrition & lost love ..
Scotch , saltines , cigarettes & oil ..
A slow train to some southerly destination mimics-
an elder musicians pain & toil ..
Harlequins , false prophets & shamans -
troll my midnight thoughts ..
Drown them in music
Hold them under the water till the bubbles-
cease ..
Eliminate them by any means ..
Cleanse the hallways of my brain-
with a blues progression in the 'Key of E '...

3 cups dandelion greens
A quarter cup of water
1 waxed sleeve of saltines, crushed
A pinch of coriander
A pinch of curry
A stintch of ginger
Any remaining salt
Stir into a slurry
Serve with appropriate liquid

Wonder Wart-Hog succumbed to his powers,
“Was it the beer?” on his adopted planet
raised by hillbillies who were unable to eat him
As misanthropic as his neighborhood denizens
he is fated to bring swine justice, to the greater evil villains,
with his haphazard hog combat
living in a welfare toothed city scape
with broken-bottle-wielding alleyways
our superhero lumbers and snorts forward
into the breach of the seedy underbelly
of a schizoid society seeking hoodie anonymity
or zombie relief in a pick your poison age
This “Hog of Steel” though mild mannered
in his unaltered ego of Philbert DeSanex
fights for a labored truth, law and order
while delivering absurd antics on unsuspecting consumers of fascist pickles and bureaucratic saltines

-cec