seeking shelter

The lights go out and the walls begin to rattle.
17 men sleep on the floor in one small dining room's shadow.
The sounds of sniffles and coughs spike, then die out neat.
The real crescendo comes two minutes later, when snoring begins to peak.

On hard linoleum floor, packed in elbow to elbow,
with all the sound of appliances in the kitchen
And now of course, this human instrumental...

Good food,
we all get to eat,
glass still half full
when you remember...
It's either stinky feet,
or a night on the street

squinted eyes, sparkling
a bright smile
dimples
the clear sound of joy and excitement
gasping for breath, playfully
you're amused
something is so worth praising
with your beautiful laugh

squinted eyes, reddening
a detached frown
sniffles
the soft sound of frustration and sadness
gasping for breath, helplessly
you're upset
something is so worth condemning
with your beautiful tears

Alex 2 breathes, stacks and unstacks papers, distantly
Alex 1, front cubicle, coughs, clicks his mouse
Eddie pulls out his drawer, pushes it back in, clicks his mouse
Alex 2, yes two Alex's, saunters up to the coffee machine
Alex 1, head down, clacking his keyboard
Mouse clicks, keyboard clicks, electricity
Monitors glow, fluorescents never flicker
Alex 1 opens a new file, two clicks of the mouse
Eddie sips his coffee, puts it down, clicks
New folder, new file, new data
Data entry, spreadsheets
Alex 1 asks did you get the email
Alex 2 has his coffee, his white shirt, under the fluorescents
Statics noise, static, mouse clicks, keyboard
Every new click, new file, new data, new folder
Data in, data out, file, click, the static electronics
Alex 2 clicks, files, new folder, new deal, new data
Eddie clears his throat, softly, the static noise, flickers,
Every new love story is a tragedy
Alex 2 opens a new folder, inputs data, spreadsheets
Numbers in, Eddie clicks his mouse twice rapidly
Stale effluvia coffee, static noise, electric light
Alex 1 sniffles, clears his throat, the clock ticks softly
Eddie opens a new file, the electric screen reflects his fixed eyes
Alex 2 sips his coffee, opens a file, clicks, keyboard clacks
Stasis, complete stasis, electricity, nodes, linear graphs
Numbers input, data, new file, file transfer
Every old tragedy is a ghost story
Alex 2 sips his coffee, breathes, clears his throat, data
Spreadsheets, monitors, electricity, static, data input, output
Every ghost story is infinite
Alex 1 gets up for a new coffee
Eddie inputs data, spreadsheet, file, new folder
Electric lights, stasis, data, file, click, file, input exp..

He is very low to the ground
He snuffles and sniffles and waddles around
He makes his home in a tree
What on earth could this creature be?
He has spikes and stickers and quills galore
There's a hint if you didn't know before
If you really stop and search your mind
You'll realize he's a porcupine

corinth picked up the ball and tossed it up into the air as high as he possibly could. the energy it took for him to do so left him gasping and his muscles stung a little, but to watch the ball arc high above the sky, black against blue, was worth it. when the ball started to sink back down, he ran after it, bumping past athens who had been watching mere inches away.

the enclosure was a backyard to a white building surrounded by concrete walls that cut open hands when rubbed too hard or when scuffles turned sour. in the corner, there was a patch of green grass. the rest was stained yellow from lack of water or from too much sun.

sparta sat in the dust, his hands red with dirt and blood. the stains wrapped around his fingers and wrists and spiraled up to his elbows. he rubbed the pads of his fingers along the dirt, picking up small twigs and stones along the way, as he drew circles around the bird. the bird was dead, long dead, but its brown and grey feathers still stayed in its skin most of the time and the blood was drying so sparta’s hands wouldn’t be red for too much longer. the cracks of flaking blood opened like wounds on small boy's hands: palms big for holding bigger hands and fingers short to keep everything close. sparrow feathers and tears smeared comets into the dust while he cried for his mama even though his mama never came.

corinth ran after the ball, his breath short and his face glowing pink from exertion. as he ran, his hand running along the concrete wall, he started coughing. catching up with the ball started the initial coughing fit that turned into a rattler. he held his hand against the wall, clinging to it with white knuckles, as he hunched over to cough and cough so hard he could feel his throat start to stretch ragged, could feel lunch starting to come up. athens kicked corinth's foot gently before backing away a few feet while corinth continued to cough. when corinth's lungs and throat settled, he stood up straight, grabbed the ball, and threw it up again, this time out of anger rather than play. the ball went sailing backward and athens ran in order to try and get to the ball first, having had a head start. corinth was still faster and managed to shove athens away with a rogue elbow to the ribs in order to claim the ball again. athens didn't argue against the bone.

play continued until the sirens sounded. sparta stopped crying, corinth dropped the ball, and athens picked it up. all three of them hurried quickly and clumsily inside the bunker, shutting the door behind them. as they crawled down the narrow passageway, sparta started to hiccup, a leftover symptom of crying. corinth stopped and glared, and sparta murmured an apology before wiping his sniffles away with the sleeve of his shirt. corinth led the way until the three boys dropped inside the hollowed out room. it was round and the walls were mixtures of concrete, dirt, and chalk drawings. they each had to hunch, especially athens, as the ceiling

they sat in a practiced circle around the center of the room. after a few moments of quiet, hushed breathing, athens began the processions.

“we all here?”

the other two boys raised their hands. sparta’s fingers trembled while corinth raised his arm as high as it could possibly go. his ******* scraped against the ceiling in his earnestness. the three then began the tradition discussion of their names. sparta, forgetting conduct, almost gave away corinth's name, but corinth shut him up quickly. sparta apologized quickly and shoved his fingers in his mouth to keep from saying anything more. dirt and blood mixed with saliva in his mouth, and as he swallowed he ended up choking and gagging on the combination. he coughed and coughed, and corinth slapped him on the back. it didn't help, and the more sparta tried to stop coughing, the harder it lasted. eventually, he had to turn and face away from the other boys as hot bile slid up his throat and onto the floor with a small splat. athens grimaced and edged away.

"alright… show your lungs. everyone."

all three boys began the process of reaching under their shirts and pressing the smooth button under their ribs that unlocked the hatch. the hatch was a small door that ran from the bottom of their ribs up to their collar bone. when they found the smooth button, no bigger than the pad of their thumb, then a small click allowed them to open up their skin. underneath their torsos was a small plastic box that kept everything inside. it helped protect their bones, their heart, and, especially, their lungs. their lungs were frequent targets for doctors; they needed to be accessed quickly. fewer and fewer doctors came by to see the boys recently. corinth wiggled his shirt until he could shove most of it into his mouth, opening his body up and showing gray and green lungs that expanded and collapsed with every breath. his lungs were swollen behind his rib cage, and he experimentally reached in to poke in between his third and fourth ribs. the muscle that was there had been replaced by plastic, and had come loose when he'd pressed the button. his lung shuddered underneath his touch, but he felt the odd relief of pain swoop over him. two blue shirts tumbled to the floor as sparta and athens decided to take off their clothing and help each other find the buttons to unlock their hatches. the boys clung to the small moments of touch when the effects of their touh felt so alien, even after all those years after the surgery.

athens’ lungs were pink and perfect. he coughed and corinth couldn’t help but watch the way his diaphragm moved as he did so, and he felt jealousy pang in his stomach. sparta’s lungs were purple and blue, bruised and small, and they merely fluttered.

“lungs in order,” athens said quietly after a quick inspection of everyone’s insides. sparta immediately closed his hatch, flinching when his finger got caught initially between his inside and his outside, and started to put his shirt back on. corinth stole athens' shirt and slipped it on over the one he currently wore, his other hand slamming shut his lung hatch. athens blinked but let corinth stare at him greedily as he quietly shut his own hatch.

as they waited for the background noise of wailing sirens to disappear, corinth hugged his knees and athens started to draw people in the dirt with his forefinger.

Sitting at a tiny plastic table, between microscopes
and glass bottles of corrosives,
his son lets a mouse he named Ralph crawl up his arms.
Sliding on a lab coat, the father faces his back
toward his son and pulls out subject 402.
It’s his weekend. A quick shot to the heart
is all it takes. He puts it back in the cage.
Watches it expire. Takes it out, again.
A slice of time exposes internal
organs, projecting them to the world.
Look at the heart, swollen red,
those tiny lungs unable to exchange oxygen.
His son spills crackers across the table, sharing with Ralph.
Tissue samples are cut, placed in fragile vials,
labeled and set aside.
Disposes the hollowed corpse.
The boy is hungry, clutching his stomach dramatically.
Eat your crackers.
The boy squeezes the mouse. The mouse
clamps his teeth on him until he is flung from the hand.
Ralph slinks into the background
while the boy cries fat tears, his wound extended.
He is like a man dying of a thousand terrible things.
The man grabs subject 403.
Twisting his uninjured arm around his father’s left leg,
he stains the lab coat with mucus.
Go sit down.
He sniffles, pushes over a stool and climbs to its apex.
Go sit at the table.
He leans into his father’s light.
The broken body with its skin pulled back, pieces of metal
protruding.
It’s Ralph! It’s Ralph!
No it’s not. Go sit down.
It’s Ralph!
He throws himself into the table. Swings his arms.
The vials smash. The microscope crashes.
A scalpel makes contact with the wall.
Subject 403 is catapulted.
To the boy, the body seems to come alive in the air.
But it is motionless on the ground,
Trapped by broken glass.

She holds the child to her breast
Gently stroking the girl’s hair,
And wipes the tears off round cheeks.
Her words soft, as if not to scare
The trembling little two year old
Any more than she has already been.
She says, “I love you,” and gives a kiss.
The girl sniffles and tucks her chin,
Shivering and nodding with a sniffle.
Then she says, muffled by the hair,
A fierce, “I love you, too, mommy.”

We all bear scars in one way or other.
Some from loving someone too deeply and some others from losing someone or something that you cared too much for.
Some scars are intentional while some others exist for stupid silly reasons.
Some we are but some we are not so proud of.

I have scars all over my body.
All over my mind and all over my soul.

I have scars on my brain due to over thinking and over analyzing incidents that haven’t even happened yet.

I have scars on my eyes for shutting it more often, for being blind to things that should’ve been taken care of.

I have scars on my nose from all those endless snobs and sniffles from my horrifying past relationships.

I have scars on my mouth from speaking the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth.

I have scars on my neck from getting choked up on false love and fake proposals.

I have scars on my shoulders from lifting up responsibilities that I was accustomed to from an early age.

I have scars on my hands from holding onto things that weren’t supposed to be mine from the very start.

I have scars on my chest from my ice cold heart that has been stomped over and over multiple times.

I have scars on my lungs from the “occasional” stress buster cigarettes that I am addicted to every now and then.

I have scars on my stomach from one too many butterflies that flew when we first met.

I have scars on my legs from running, miles away from people and that place I used to call home.

I have scars on my skin from the many tattoos I got done that helps me reassure my self-worth.

I have scars on my soul from trying hard to pull myself together, calm me down and compose myself through the rampant storm that’s been raging in my life.

I have all these scars. All of them.
And they don’t scare me now even though they hurt like hell, at times.
They’ve become a part of me and looking back, they are just reminders of who I was, what I have been through my life and the person it has made me become.
They don’t scare me anymore because they define who I am now.

A survivor.

The temptress zigzags into the barracks
And makes off with the subservient uniform wearing rifleman's milk money
To buy a swimsuit for her ephemeral summer body
That will sag to the floor by the first few days of autumn

She hacks the submarine's sonar system
And lets the current take her to a cedar river bend
Where she sniffles while polishing her handgun
Reserved for all those who lag behind in the arid region
To release them from their contractual servitude

Causing a ripple effect
Of inconclusive prospects
Etcetera , etcetera

A follow on to I Got Natural Eemunity

You know when I was a kid in a large family
We never had much money
So we had a bath only once a week
Simply because heating water cost money
Something we didn't have
A simple way of life eating simple food
Anyway days at school were spent alongside rich kids
In their spotlessly clean uniforms
With their sniffles and coughs and runny noses
Spluttering over their hygienically prepared lunch boxes
But
Us poor kids with a cheese sandwich in a paper bag
Rarely got a cough or cold

uncontrollable sniffles-
oh, god in heaven, why me?
coughing, coughing, and coughing some more.
coughing up my lungs!
or, at least, so it feels..
just let me die
or drug me up.
drug me up with the cold medicine.
every four hours.
just **** me now.

Tears flow
sobs quietly escape,
noses are red
eyes are swollen
your face a mess,
You realise the

pillows are wet,
hair falls in your face,
You cannot think straight,
Sniffles and heartbeats
rubbed eyes and pain,

Knock,
Eyes shut rapidly,
Duvet pulled over,
light turns off
the door opens and closes,
eyes are open,

"Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!
This is thy sheath;"
Juliet, heroine of my world,
reduces me to tears.

I’ve got it - woot!  Well, we’ve (Lisa and I) have it. The Covid.
After living carefully serpentine lives - for the last half decade - we both have it.

Lisa started feeling ***** Friday night, after work. Saturday she had some sniffles and we both took Covid tests, coming up positive. By Saturday evening, Lisa was laid-low and looked a flu-like death warmed over. I am asymptomatic, not a cough or a sneeze, although I do feel some fatigue and an occasional little dizziness.

“I hate you,” she said, in a moment of clarity and focus. I think it’s a temporary, fever-driven hatred - but time will tell.

Charles, our escort and consigliere, who goes everywhere we go, didn’t catch it. He’s become our designated shopper. When I asked Lisa if she wanted anything she said, “Orange juice and mango gelato.” Twenty minutes later, Charles handed me (masked and gloved through a door crack) two bags - one contained a large, extra-pulp orange juice, the other had a $70 selection of various ice creams, gelatos and ice cream sandwiches (the receipt was still in the bag.)

Saturday night, I texted my mom, who’s spending yet another summer overseas with “Doctors Without Borders.” She Face Timed me not two minutes later, from somewhere in Poland, or Ukraine - 4,170 miles away - and after checking I was ok - delivered what I think of as “family infectious disease lecture #17, full of “If you’re going to be a doctors” and “You know betters.” I love technology.

My sister Annick, a doctor herself, was knocking at our (her) door twenty minutes later. She gave us both mini-physicals and left a list of things to periodically check (like blood-oxygen levels) as well as two boxes of Paxlovid, “Do NOT take this unless or until I tell you to.”
We all have Apple watches and are now walkie-talkie connected for even more instant communication.

Rebecca, my fellowship surgeon, was, of course, very sympathetic and supportive when I told her but displayed a careful, verbal, clinical distance - addressing me as “Mz Vionet” once - instead of her usual “Anais” or the even more usual “excuse me.”

I’ve been promoted to nurse, cook and bottle washer - but the ice cream, topped with a little Bailey’s Irish liqueur, is spectacular.

Anyway, here we are. We’ve finally joined the Covid parade. I guess Covid isn’t over after all.

blue breezes and trees sway,
wind blows every care away.
cold twisting and turning to warm,
birds and bees begin to swarm.
never overwhelmed, just busy,
and playing until you're dizzy.
girls and boys will do no good
would play all day if they could.
sniffles and sneezes, a minor pain
who cares, now that winter is slain?
we cheer and shout that winter is done,
the frozen battle has been won.
victors are Warmth and Sunshine.
Summer and Winter intertwine,
bringing forth something...new,
all for the pleasure of me and you.

An unexpected virus came
Diabolically and odiously.
Sniffles like missiles;
We will cough
Green-brown phlegm
And seaweed;
Eyes itch with sweat;
Throats sound guttural warnings;
Muscles ache from making
The sign of the cross in European monasteries;
The tentacles are spreading, grasping, holding hard;
A boy lies face down on the firewall
Like a tethered goat,
Invasive, infectious and deadly.
The body politik has been exposed,
Vulnerable and fallible.

Wear sunglasses; covers your eyes.
Take a shower; gives you an excuse to have wet eyes.
Smoke a lot of ****; gives you an excuse to have red eyes.
Tell people you're sick; gives you an excuse to have the sniffles.
Tell people a loved one died; gives you an excuse that's accepted by society.
Don't come out of your room; covers your eyes.
Watch a sad movie; gives you another excuse to cry

Be lonely; won't need an excuse to cry.

Cars shriek in gridlock,
anger gnaws at my chest,
and I *******
in saltwater and sweat.

With wrinkles and claws,
anxiety squeals in the city
within my sanctity of
hounds-tooth and cotton.

Welling up with tears,
the sky, muggy and thick
drips and sniffles:
a heavenly tantrum.

Lords Temple Basement Men
The first Book of The Word
In Nonsense we Trust

Assembled from pre-existing works by John Burroughs, Ryan P. Kinney, Jack McGuane, Cee Williams, Don Lee, Susan Grimm, Joe Roarty, Russ Vidrick, Dianne Boresnik, Mitch James, Tanya Pilumeli, Julie Ursem Marchand, Vicki Acquah, Terry Provost, Adam Brodsky, Lennart Lundh, Raymond McNiece, Hannah Williams, MaxWell Shell, Tim Richards, Ayla Atash, RC (Bob Wilson), Chuck Joy, Katie Daley, Solomon Dixon, Mary Weems, and Gordon Downie
Mostly taken as quotes during live poetry readings. Some stolen from other sources.
Additional content from predictive text by JM Romig, Linkin Park “Powerless,” “Saga of the Swamp Thing” vol. 1, T.S. Eliot, Amalgam Mythos, Kurt Vonnegut, Kevin Smith, and Psalms (chap.):13
Added original content by Ryan P. Kinney, Dr. Benjamin Anthony, and Ayla Atash

“Lords Temple Basement Men,” it says on the door in a badly photocopied sign, replaced freshly each week. The original was built from torn up pieces of bootleg band vinyl stickers left plastered all over the windows of some teenager, surely passed into decaying adulthood long ago.

They gather in the bottom of an abandoned house in the heart of mostly warehouses. Something, someone long ago forgot to bull doze in the wake of morbid industrialization and the zeal to just get more men more jobs while giving them no life, no place to live. They built in their own obsolescence.

A Man stands outside; half catcalling, half showman barker; daring, tempting, bribing people to worship with him. In paint stained torn jeans, long shaggy hair with the bald spot landing pad directly in the center of his head, and shoes barely hanging together on his feet, he bellows out The Word. Somewhere between slam poetry performance and theology lesson, he entices and seduces people to enter. Here, they do not call him Father, or Brother, just person:  Man.  “Hey, Man,” is how they great him.

“Come in and be amongst our broken people (pieces).
Mingle with our shards.
See which cut is the deepest”

People enter a crooked doorway. The Man pulls the peeling door behind them, scrapping the ground as he does so, and leads his flock down the concrete stairs to the basement. They come to a dingy dirt gravel floor and spread out.
The people in the room greet one another, then swarm around one woman,
“You are a good worker.”
“You will be missed.”

The Man steps upon his usual milk crate to open the service. He intones the Capitalist Mantra,
“God Save the Queen
Long live the King
Hail to the Chief
The Lord of all Lies”

And the people chant, “I will not kiss you. I will not bow. I will not bow. I will not be moved.
I love the idea of what I have to be”

The woman swarm, Mama Evil, pushes her way to the front to explain their purpose here,
“This is a strange, mad religious service. Everything is out of place, nothing and no one seems to fit together. We all gather here, but no one seems to-gether. This is less a sermon and more a discussion where the gospel is debated. The (holy) Word is debated, discussed, dissected, compromised, altered, changed, shredded, reused, updated, recreated. It is burnt to cinders, then rises as a phoenix, built out of the broken pieces of all that was said before; what used to be true, but is now casually agreed to be fallacy. We, people, call this Faith. Our membership makes up a multitude. There are Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Satanists, Buddhists, Capitalists, hippies, goth kids, Starbuck’s sipping bloggers, just plain weird kids in the back working on their latest D&D campaign. We are just people. And he, is just a Man.”
“Dual Spirituality is a possibility. In fact, it is encouraged. Multiple realities are possible. Poly-spirituality is acceptable. The only interconnecting philosophy among us is, ‘Anything is possible at any time for any reason’.”

The People are ready to receive The Holy Spirit and his unique brand of performance poetry,

“In the beginning, there was only The Word, a word. And then more. Which were collected into a story; The Story. And from The Story came creation.
And then came the questions. And The Question was man. Who are we? What are we? Why? Who am I?”
The Man explains,
“We are a beautiful blasphemy to God’s word because we question.”

Let me start with a parable,
“Once upon a time…
There lived a shy little boy and a chatty little girl. Though the two lived really close they never knew each other. That was until one day, the girl entered high school. They met for the first time on the school bus. The boy eavesdropped on her and for the first time spoke to her. Although she was especially irritated, the boy responded. It was with those words that a lifelong love blossomed…
‘You love me, you just don’t know it yet.’

Through the many trials and errors of high school life they grew together. And so, They lived happily ever after.”
“…Except, she didn’t. In this reality, she ran off with a rich older man while taking care of his dying wife, 5 years after those high school sweethearts were married.”
Years later, he would lament,
“It started with a broken heart. Through the crack seeped liquid fire. It engulfed me, burning away all that I was. The flames shall purify me. Boil me down to my base components, and then rebuild me. From the ashes will rise a new entity.
Who am I?”

“What can we learn from this,” asks the Man.

The first interrupter states matter-of-factly, “You are fire. You are love.”
A tie-dyed burnout rants, “Love is fire, Man. It burns. But it also warms and protects… Praise Allah.”
“Amen.”
“Bless you my son.”
“Hail Satan.”

“The last time I hear my heart…” says the bookish-looking woman sitting in the corner, trailing off as she adjusts her literal Coke bottle frames.
Now with ignition to her words, she quotes, “The last time I hear my heart was like a galactic ******. The ****** that made you and touches everything you made. Faith is attempting to live as though we are loved.”

A Drag King high fives her and says, “I liked the galactic ******.”

A torn up, steel-studded, leather clad punk continues, “Promise me you will live…
For nothing…
But the next moment.
No forgiveness, no damnation, only the match I strike on the heel of my boot.”

And then the automaton asks, “What of the devil: the original corruptor, the source of all evil?”

A gym rat, wearing a holey muscle shirt, extends an arm to point as he half sings, “The devil is a wicked man and wears a suit and tie. The devil checked in at noon and asked us, ‘What is the sleep of reason?’ You woke the devil I thought you left behind.”

“The Devil is due; the Devils do,” coos his boyfriend, the semanticist-*******.

The Man answers, “Is not the source of evil the same as the source of creation. Is it not evil to be so selfish as to create, with no concern for how creation will change everything.”

The Wiccan Princess retorts,
“Creation can be bought and sold.
Motherhood is a commodity.
Venus is for sale.
The nativity is shrouded in black.

We've streamlined your desire.
She was only offering an apple anyways.
And filled in that hole in her heart.

Here, we give her to you totally domesticated.
This one is costly, but so worth it.

You never will be worth it.
Earn enough
Be enough

Taste the salt of her tears on your tongue;
the salt of the earth.
She refuses to wear this crown of thorns.

In the eyes of your maker.
You should be ashamed.
To look your Maker in the eyes.”

Mama Evil attempts to chill her blaze, “Dear, the Anger is caged. It is the custom to call children who go to war, men…children of war die like men.”

Their daughter, the littlest girl in the world, coughed. A runny nose explained it, she had the sniffles. Nothing to worry about normally, but here, now? Right now the end of the world was in front of her. Flying saucers were floating down to slaughter the entire world with burning laser jelly. She coughed and picked up a remote with a wheel shaped dial.
“i drank too much pop and i gotta ***.” She said to no one in particular.
She turned the wheel shaped dial and a chorus of voices sounded. The chorus formed itself into an immense wall of sound made of bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians from another dimension. The littlest girl in the world kept turning the dial and saw the bureaucrats wash over the saucers, sending them back into space. The earth was safe, the littlest girl in the world smiled in relief.
And coughed.  

“It seems where demons fail and monsters falter, angels may prevail,” her mothers laughed.

Still incinerated, a goddess queen shouts, “We are the granddaughters of the witches you failed to burn.”

The crowd jostles and pulses like a living being. They are moved by the words they have heard. A chatter rises from them, much like the midnight sounds of the forest. "Who does she think she is?" "She said it. She sure said it." "I'm going to tell Moira all about it." An old woman near the back takes a swig from a bottle of wine she carries under her coat before passing it to a young woman in front of her.
"From fire, new life is born, too," she smiles, a crooked twist of the lips.

Rendered speechless and impotent, The Man abruptly closes this meeting with the usual send off,
“The Word has evolved, my friends.”

Dark nights where pain resides
No where to run, no place to hide
A young child, a boy of only five
A young child, a boy of only five

Giving chase were the foreigners
Hunters, killers, demons alive
No where to run, no place to hide
In this place where pain resides

"Pull the trigger... Now."

The first shot rang out,
The boy loses his left arm which held  his prized possession

A bamboo stick, shaped into a doll
Now sitting in his right fist

The second shot rang out,
The boy loses his right arm and his bargaining chip

He sits on his last two limbs,
He cries out in pain and anguish

Two more shots ring out,
His right and left legs burst out

From right underneath him,
Giving way to the soft ground

Soaked in his blood and his tears,
As he sniffles and goes into shock

The soldier steps closer in fear,
And then the boys face was lost

Another soldier asks them
"What the hell have you done?
He was only a child, a boy,
Why is this the outcome?"

At this moment a man turned a corner

His grocery bags fell to the floor

As he laid his eyes upon
The torso that lay in an ocean
Of blood next to a bamboo doll
That he had made 5 short years ago

He slowly said, "My Son."

i'll get you.
see how your eyelashes look
under autumn sunsets.
keep your hand warm
inside my pocket,
always a welcomed guest
within my jacket.

orange painted seeds.
my love we'll grow
into something beautiful.
pretty pretty pretty.
how you make me grin,
giddy like a little girl.

pumpkin flavoured bliss.
i can taste the spice already.
but first,
sour daisies graze my calves.
your eyes blink beyond seasons,
beyond time and leaf colours.

i recall those valentine sniffles,
wet boots on your dorm room floor.
red gloves i lent you
on our first date.

i love you more everyday.
yes,
even on the bad days.
you now exist past judgment,
'good' and 'bad' are just words.

still,
you are good.

I’m sorry
If you thought I was smelling you
I have a cold you see
it's winter,
and it would seem the life
that once graced the limbs of trees and the buds of flowers
has taken up residence
in my nasal cavity.

the sniffles you may have heard
were not an attempt to steal a piece of your essence
but merely the feeble accommodations of a person with
a virus.

of course, none of this is to say that i wouldn't want to smell you.
whereas the life of the trees and birds and flowers
has become my enemy
it seems to have been kept in you.

you remind me of daffodils.
i think of you and my eyes feel as if they are welling up
i am allergic to daffodils, you see.
i do think they are quite nice to look at though.
every time i am around them however,
i become nature's fool

i'll never see you again.
my words are falling on the deaf ears of nature
in the winter when sounds seem to be hushed
but please know
i really wasn't trying to smell you.
i couldn't smell anyways.

Fay's crying
by the pub

I see her
on my way
to Baldy's
for shopping
for Mother

she's pretty
standing there
in the blue
cotton dress

so what's up?
I ask her

she looks down
towards home
the tall flats

my dad's mad
and angry
and punished
me just now

why was that?

because I
got the names
of our Lord's
apostles
incorrect

O big deal
I don't know
the guys' names
I tell her

she sniffles
wipes her eyes
looks at me

but I should
she tells me
I’m Catholic
and the nuns
teach us things

nuns and buns
I tell her
forget that
Saturday
is for fun

Dad told me
to learn them
she mutters
she sniffles
her eyes red
I’m done for
if I don't

we'll learn them
together
I tell her

so we go
to my place

my mother
gets us drinks
and biscuits
and brings us
a Bible
an old one
black covered
red edges

Fay sits there
next to me
on the brown
wide sofa
cold leather
with cushions

her fingers
turn pages
here's the page
she utters

I watch her
her finger
very slim
run through names

I nibble
a Rich Tea

she recites
a few names
in order
we repeat
and repeat
till they stick
in our brains

she nibbles
Custard Creams

I drink tea
then more names
repeated
repeated
like a game
name on name
Peter john
James Andrew
and others
and others

I nibble
Ginger Nuts

she nibbles
a Rich Tea

got them now?
I ask her

I think so
I hope so
she utters

she shows me
her red thigh
her old man's
hand mark there

I know them
she tells me

we both do
I tell her

we sip tea
in silence

nearly time
for the kid's
cinema
I tell her
can you come?

don't think so
Daddy says
it's sinful
to watch films
of violence
and kissing
and killing

she looks sad
nibbling
a Rich Tea
her red eyes
searching me.

I'm not one for religion
I believe in what I choose
I am not one to comment
on Christians, Hindus, Jews
Put your faith in something
It's not my place to say where
But, if it doesn't work the first time
Don't just leave it there
I believe there is a reason
But, I still do not know what
Things are not determined
Make the best of what you've got
I can't explain to someone
the things I do not know
And I hate religion salesmen
On TV selling faith there on their show
Having faith is something special
It's something I can't quite get
Many people talked to me
But, I don't get it yet
I have been to church to listen
And see if I find God
But, I leave still feeling empty
I feel such a silly sod
Mary, Joseph, Angels
I can put a face to these
But it doesn't give me solace
I can't drop to my knees
The last time that I went there
I sat in back beside a lad
And when the service finished
He was sitting, rather sad
He looked at me and questioned
Between some sniffles and some sneezes
If I could help him understand
About the baby cheeses !!