She clutched her fifteen quarters
for dear life and
if she let go she knew
there was nothing else to cling to
But she was not sad.

The coins played a one-note song
as they hit the counter
and she paid her dues
at the county clerk’s office
before walking across the street
to the liquor store.

Seventeen, fourty-five, eleven, nine
One box, one straight,
and an easypick for measure
and there’s the three bills
from her back pocket.

And just because she’s never won yet
doesn’t mean she’ll never win
at least that’s what she tells herself
when she walks seven miles
because she can’t afford a bus ride
home.

There is a gentleman
complaining of sore legs
and sweating from the stresses
of standing

And it is a wonder
that his back is not broken
and I heard the distress
when he was told he
would get no help from me.

And I saw the relief
when another gentleman,
aged, yet spry as ever,
offered instead to do
the business that the first
ought have done.

Yet his sweat runs like a river
though he did no thing,
and his legs, he assures me
are killing him, and I

am left wondering why
he ever bothered standing
in the first place

The solid-gold pavement
has been scrapped in for
full market value,
leaving us with your
garden-variety,
run-of-the-mill,
tarmac-style blacktop,
but that’s alright, because
it walks, bikes and rides
just the same, and
it only burns the soles
of your feet a little bit
as long as you learn to
walk fast.

It is on the wind and
will arrive first thing
tomorrow afternoon.

The dusk soon vanished in to a chill, dark night
which our elderly sedan cut through expertly,
it’s headlamps discovering new trees with
each sweeping turn that we mad around each
smooth country curve.

there were no stars that we could see.
They were there, though, Mr. Hugo assured me,
despite our lack of visual proofs.
I could not deny his theory any more
than he could prove it, however, and
just as well, for then it began to rain.

The droplets came slowly at first, only
bubbling on the surface of our windshield.
Then, all at once, the shower became a downpour
and it was easily classified as torrential.

Mr. Hugo suggested that we retire from the road,
but I insisted that we keep on. After all, I said,
We had no campgear, there were no clearings,
and it was only rain, after all. He shrugged,
as was his way. Alright was all he said.

The downpour soon doubled it’s efforts, and
despite their fervor, our windshield wipers could
hardly take the blur away.
The world became
a wash of looming trees and yellow light,
which I compared off-hand to the reports
of a near-death experience.

Then, the road began to jag.
The road had slicked from the sudden wash,
and though my foot came up so slightly from the throttle,
it was not up quite enough,
and the very next zig had us spinning.

Goddamnit, I heard Mr. Hugo say
and though I fought the wheel there was no use
as we flew from the road and in to a stand of
strong, unyielding Spruce trees, and to what would be,
unfortunately,
Our final digression

Over years and years
like some sort of slowly-evolving serpent
you have rubbed away your vestigial
limbs of sorts: Your heart and soul and
your sense of reason. But I am confident
that somewhere deep inside of you,
near your core or just a little before it,
there’s a part of you that’s still alive, but
this is a confidence that roots on hearsay
and it. Is. Wavering.

I stumbled on a flock of geese this evening
basking in the sun just beyond
a browning stand of evergreens
and it’s cruel insects

The fowl were soaking in the last
and reddest stretch of daylight
and they did not speak or crow
or flap or quack as they soaked.
They soaked and nothing more.

I had not disturbed them
so I watched very quietly
and did not move to lift my hunting rifle.
I scratched away an insect
and I hummed a bit
and the beautiful birds kept soaking
while the sun kept sinking
But as it went, so the stretches of daylight
got redder and redder
until everything finally and suddenly
went black.

There were no stars in
what I assumed must be the sky,
and I could not make out even the faintest
silhouette of my found flock, and when
I turned, I found my stand of trees
had blackened instead of browned.
It worried me, and I began to run.

I left my hunting rifle somewhere in that glade
and my hat flew away as a breeze picked up
and my heart was pounding as my lungs
pumped furiously to keep me whole
and soon, I was overtaken by a thick,
unyielding dread.

It sat in my chest as a 3-year old
thinking he was winning a wrestling match
might sit. It crushed in deep and I,
without thinking, shattered myself
as I raced away.

I was lost for eternity, I’m sure,
as I stumbled through the clawing woods
and strangling sounds of the wild.
Soon I could not breathe.
Shortly after, I could no longer run.
Finally I failed to stand and then,
like the end of every nightmare,
the dark and foul overtook me.

It is a trifling spirit and nothing more
that wails across the stones and valley.
It is inconsequential.
it screams and lies without a breath.

I saw it this evening. It spoke to me
with harsh tones and chattering teeth
but I was not one to listen to the Dead.

It gnashed it’s gnarled maw and spat
and sputtered but I would hear no more.
It squealed and boiled over but I
was in no heart to be offended.

I climbed the stones and out
of the valley, and I stood and watched
for just a moment, before I left
that poor, dead trifling spirit
to wailing, and nothing more.

You asked me once
what I thought life was all about
and I didn’t have anything to say
but now I think if you asked me
I’d say something saucy like
‘don’t worry about it’
because Jesus Fucking Christ
I sure don’t much anymore.

You have a crown,
made of twisted-up straw wrappers.
It sits awkwardly and is
sort of getting pulled apart
while you wrestle at the table
with your boyfriend.

You are smiling and
everyone is watching you smile
and hoping you keep smiling
and John, he’s twisting you
a new crown because
we all see that the old one
isn’t going to last.

I heard you got your papers
and you’re stuck here for life.
Or years – close enough to life
for you.

We tried to tell you that this city,
it’s not so bad really.
We tried to keep your eyes
away from travel magazines and
glorified computer desktop
backgrounds. You’ll just right-click again.

And you cry so much these days,
darling, and we don’t know what to do.
You breathe the air and swear it’s
not as good as it was a month ago.
You spit up your cakes and candies
and have nothing to say for it.

But John is twisting a crown for you.
If he has to keep you smiling one diner
at a time, He has no qualms
getting famous in those restaurants.

But I, my dear,
can not stand your self-inflicted
wounds any longer.
I swear, this time.

I wash my hands of you.
I will scrub very hard, at least,
and I will keep a towel with me
for the next time I get dirty,
because damn it,
You never really do come off.

The road was narrow and lined
with beautiful Spruce trees on either side,
and the clouds were thick
as the sun came down ahead of us.

We drove at a comfortable gait
floating around curves and breathing
what must have been the taste
of Heaven On Earth.

We must be dead, it’s too perfect
I chided to Mr. Hugo, and he smiled
and reached in to his pocket and
tapped a couple pills from the bottle
that he’d found in there.

Heavenly at least, he replied
as he took the tiny capsules
and gazed more easily in to the densely-packed
woods around us.

There were mailboxes going by
on the left side of the car,
and a few handsome houses
we could see as we rolled onward.

I mentioned that these Heavenly bits
are a fine piece to spend a lot of
hard-earned cash on.
He questioned the part where the cash
was ‘hard earned’, but we could only
make assumptions of the virtues
of the owners of these parcels,
and so as the great, beautiful sun
set before us,
we digressed in to admiration.

I heard him call you a
clean cut kid
paying no account to those
things you did

I saw the blood stains when you
washed your sheets
I see you size up every
girl you meet

I got a phone call from your
Ma today
she just don’t understand those
tunes you play

And we don’t know where you
go at night
but we never tracked you
down, in spite.

seems like whenever that
news comes on
they got a longer list of
folks that’s gone

While I havn’t proved
anything true
I got a feeling that
the problem’s you

I know you never say the
things you mean
but I bet you make your
cuts real clean

Don’t you?

Rode a back-draft to a bad part of town
and kept my hands to myself when I was down there.
I didn’t sing too loud. Nobody knew me.
Nobody knew I was a singer either.

Had a necklace on my chest,
under a black T shirt that I’d stolen
in my younger years. There were moth holes
and a paint stain on it. The color was faded
and the cloth was sheer but it fit right.

Some guy, he looked at me, didn’t ask for money.
He saw me a bum too. Saw down deep.
We’re all bums, I bet he thinks.
We all just want change.

There was a diner on a corner and an alley just behind.
Got my sandwich from a Spanish-speaking man.
He dressed it well and fast and took my last 5
and I ate out back. I drank the coke too,
that it come with.

I smelled that smell that garbage has
and figured it was time to head back northerly.
The buses don’t run down that way so late
and there wasn’t no bread to score no cab
so I waited for the birds to stop singing
and I caught another backdraft.

Those birds didn’t know I was a singer either
but they would.

A gun is all you need
and you’ll be whole again
and ready
to do what must be done.

You’ll fight the good fight
and send them marching home.
You’ll explode characteristically
and run yourself ragged.

You have no spirit
but a beautiful soul
and I met it once in a bowling alley.
It rolled perfect spares.

When I asked you what you wanted
you didn’t have an answer
only a shopping list
and a phone book with
numbers circled here
and here
and there.

When I gave you what you needed
you shied away and I thought
that you might cry but you didn’t.
You ate your greens and you
worked your shift and damn it
you took your medicine.

If you plan it right
your coffers will never run dry
but that gun isn’t loaded
and your pantry’s still empty
and I don’t know who the hell ‘Amy’ is,
but she’s not calling you tomorrow,
that’s for sure.

I fished a nickel from underneath the couch
it was a buffalo nickel. It was worth five cents
and I threw it in my nickel bottle.

I got downtown at 8pm and wandered
with nothing but a dime in my pocket
and a set of keys
but I couldn’t buy nothing from nobody
and that nickel at home wouldn’t help.

So I got down to the viaduct
out South street way and I
tossed a dime in the murky waters.
I made a ten-cent wish, then,
and headed on my merry.

They hadn’t processed many
wishes that day, you see,
so those odds were probably
stacked up for me and I’ll
take what I can get
and nothing more than it.
And it it won’t be much
‘cuz after that nickel
I’m fresh out.

I hold my dagger
Traditional Florentine
for to cut and parry
while the other blade
does the dirty work
and I keep them on edge
by means of my edges
and thrust and push
and slice and stab
so you stay just out
of harm’s deadly reach
but somehow with
my dagger held Traditional
Florentine you snuck up
right beside me and
you’ve been inside my
deadly arc for years now
and I don’t think that
I’ll ever cut you now,
just as long as you don’t
cut me,
first.

We dug for gold and struck oil
and sold it for all it was worth.

We’re rich now, and we’ve
got a lot of big plans for this
little
godforaken
undeserving
wretched
piece of
shit of a
town.

We’ll be burning the schools
and setting our sons to graze
the greener pastures.
Our daughters, to trot
on beaches ever distant.

Our dogs will all be beaten
and our grandparents held
face down, underwater,
and the strong will survive
and build me my monuments.
They will build me
my hallowed halls.

And should a man or woman cross us,
It’ll be the whips for them.
And if they cross us twice,
the chains, and then the cleavers,
for we will have our order,
and have our orders carried out.

Not a soul will stand against
while their carts move so easy
and their drink containers
break so much less. Nor do
they rust.

but years from now
when all our oil
has been burned away,
I hate to think
what happens to
the pair of us
when all our loyal followers
burn Kerosine instead.

I knew a woman
one or many years
ago
(It pains me to remember)
and oh did she hold
such a flame.

Her looks and charm and such
were such that lesser
sorts of men surrendered
and it was well and good,

she was not hungry,
not once or ever.
She could carry nothing
but had it all
and oh did she hold
such a flame.

Her car went down
in a ditch on someone
else’s wedding day.
Her leg was broken
but only in one place,
but her dress was ripped
and where’s the
fairness? where’s
the justice? The
Humanity?

I saw her that day
but not since and
good riddance, I think.
She cared not at all
for me or mine but
oh, did she hold
such a flame.

Our northbound rambling soon took us
beyond the scope of either of our normal
driving habits. We were at a loss
and did not recognize the exit signs.

I wondered out loud that neither of us,
though well-traveled we had been,
had seen the places that were named
on the side of the highway.

He wondered for a moment, in a silent way,
and stroked his chin and tapped
the top of the arm rest in between us,
and he said it was no wonder to him.

What was there this far north, after all?
Why bother going to a place where
we had nothing?
What was the point? He said.

I replied that it must be the same reason
we were heading this way now, and that
we’d better come up with one rather quickly
to explain the money we’d spent on gas.

His continued to be a silent way, and
without further discourse,
as we finally took a pleasant-looking exit,
our quiet forced us
in to a further digression

Kind of quiet,
no?
’til she finds the corner of
the bench seat
but even then, not loud.
Not so much.

But she says what she needs to,
and isn’t that enough?
and what else is there, really?

The belts are not so tight
so she can move a bit.
She appreciates that, I think.
And when we took a short trip
in to the city, it was just enough
to stretch our legs.

The ducks were out that morning;
I heard about them, I heard.
I don’t remember.

There were other things on my mind.