A Dark Room with Two Lit Candles

There are gasping and

Breathless moments in the night

And I

Fear, in the cold sweat of

Dark that I have 

Lost you.

I was once

Hidden and forgotten, and

You remembered.

I wrote you into existence when

You were a distant, crackling

And intermittent voice, bounding

Over electric hurdles, crossing

A thousand miles of telegraph wire

To sing your talking-song.

You read to me,

Stories from my childhood.

I am still afraid,

Still sweating,

But in the arms of your voice

I am

Cradled and I am

Brave and I sleep like

The victors at the

End of a

War.

I have held you 

And you me,

Cupped, running over and

Spilling out onto the ground;

A love that confuses like a

Hex, to those who are

Not learned in our arts.

I watch the deep gold in your eyes.

I can see the treasure beneath.

I am always greedy

For your copper and your bronze.

Shining and polished in olive oil,

The sun on every brush stroke

God saw fit to color you with.

A pair of hearts rolling a marching song,

A tattoo beat of two, 

Matching red feathers in our caps.

Soldiers of the field, over the hills

And far away,

In a foxhole, together.

Buried Gold Pt. 2

"Alas, Babylon and Sumer and Rome all cry out from the ages. Another voice has joined the anguished chorus of the Damned..."



"We have all lost someone," A sonorous voice wafted over loudspeakers.

"God, it's his turn today huh?" Cad spoke over his shoulder to Allister, in line for morning soup at the Cannery Commune.

"Sounds like it," Lister grumbled. A wavering and warbling, sing-song rhythm grated like mockingbird heckles over the sets of speakers and bullhorns rigged to the peaks of bunkhouses and worksheds alike.

"But here together, we can overcome any loss. We are the inheritors of a sustainable and pioneering spirit, and here, together, we blaze new trails into the future. The Ohio Syndicate provides for us all the means to rebuild and thrive. Thank you for volunteering with us..."

Lister and Cad followed the line into a long steel Quonset hut. Inside sparse arc lighting cast an orange glow on several tables attempting to line up in rows: old wooden kitchen tables, cafeteria pieces, and wire spools with every manner of seat adjacent. Some men sat on the floor, and spooned from their individual dish a thin soup consisting of a broth and an odd chunk, with field garlic and hickory salt for a semblance of flavor.

Lister held out his camping pot and a gaunt man ladled two large spoonfuls of soup into it, splashing out onto Lister's hand. He licked it off, "Cad you're gonna love it, I promise."

"You say that all the time." Cad sipped his pot, "Yep, you're right. I couldn't ask for better."

The pair sat across from each other on a pair of benches, with a large wooden box in between them. After Lister had defeated a particularly large and chewy chunk of what may have been turtle meat, he cleared his throat and said, "Cad, I heard something you might be interested in."

"And what's that?" His spoon clinked against his little aluminum pot.

"You remember Mormons right?"

"Remember, hell. I heard they were in charge out west. Governor stays in the tabernacle now."

"So, those guys, they were really big on all this happening." Lister gestured vaguely around him.

Cad's eyebrows twitched, "All what?"

"You know..." Lister gestured again.

"Oh! Right. Were they?"

"Yeah, bunker builders."

The last two words caught their neighbors' attention. Lister heard them drop their conversations and could feel their ears pricking. Cad shot him a look. They ate the rest of their soup in silence.

A buzzer rang in the Cannery and Lister exited the dark, mud-floored building with a sack full of his daily Portion. Cad was exiting behind him, and Lister hung back in order to let Cad sidle up beside him in the small crowd. "You ought to know better. No discretion!"

Lister nodded, "I know, I'm sorry. I know where one is."

Cad walked beside him but kept silent. Lister spoke again, "Okay, so I don't 'know' where it is. I know where it's supposed to be though."

"I'm listening," Cad said hiding a grin.

The pair entered their camp in the dead wood outside the Commune walls. It was more of a hassle every morning, going through the gates, and there was no guarantee of safety in the wood, but they paid Portions like all the other communes. Their arrival was heralded by yelping and barks from Sasha, who faithfully guarded camp and earned his Portion, too.

Wanderers passed through communes and worked, sometimes alone, usually in small groups. An old truck would sputter up to the gate and the unwashed would pour out of the vehicles, or leap down from their perches and handles along the sides. Barefoot or booted, threadbare or clothed, they had found life outside the walls unsustainable, at least momentarily. The goods manufactured there would be traded across the old United States, as the thin and ragged tradeways and lifelines held fast under the weight of the hungry masses that sought an unruined place within the corpse of empire.

                                                                .........................

The next morning, Cad, Lister and Sasha were absent from can-call, and new arrivals replaced them at the presses.The dead wood was finally springing back to life and stunted blackberry shoots and privet twigs colored the grey landscape with a bit of green. Autumn was not part of many of their lives anymore, rather the staggered green would continue on through hot, dry and long summers. Then, here around the Ohio, one day in November summer would end suddenly with a blast of arctic air and flecks of snow. Bits of wild onion and field garlic grew like senile hairs on a ragged scalp. Cad and Lister waited for the first polar front and to the east, dark clouds tumbled at the horizon.


"I'll give you two corns for a jug of that shine," Lister pointed behind a grizzled man in overalls who sat beside a small fire. The smell of smoking creek chub overwhelmed his senses for a bit before he repeated, "Two corns, one jug, Whaddya say?" Lister put on a big and friendly smile for the man.

He was nonplussed, "Mm. A pint. Pint be 'nough fer you."

"Sir, what's the proof?"

"Mm." The old man handed Lister a clear plastic pint bottle.

Lister shook the shine and watched the bubbles form and coalesce and quickly dissipate. "Could you use it for fuel?"

"No reason you couldn't." The old man seemed impatient.

Lister fretted, "All right. What's it gonna take for the jug?"

"Four corns and a beef."

"You're crazy as you look!"

"Three corns and a pork or I'll throw it on the fire!"

                                                                 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lister and Cad took a few sips of the shine mixed with rainwater that evening, only because it was so expensive. The next morning they woke shivering and dehydrated, as the first winds began to blow from the north. An all-too-familiar bite lingered on the tips of their noses.

After a hike, Lister caught his bearings and remembered where he had hidden his truck. The put-together machine had carried him this far; he trusted it against better judgement. They carefully poured the jug of shine and a can of gasoline into the tank. Sasha yelped at the tailgate until Cad let it down, and the dirty yellow dog scrabbled and clawed its way into the bed.

Lister slammed a T-bar into the ignition module and gave it a turn. The flywheel whined for a moment and then with a gout of black smoke the engine roared, the revolutions soared and what passed for a tachometer flickered to the right. Cad shook his head and laughed, "Gets me every time."

Lister laughed, too, "By far the most trustworthy thing on this continent."

Metal ground against metal, bushings and bearings creaked and squealed. The rusted truck hauled two men and a dog out of the dead wood hollow and out onto a peagravel wash that passed for a road. Sasha's nose pointed in the same direction the truck was headed: East.

Buried Gold (pt.1)

Buried Gold

Part One:

                               "Here,
where the rain falls, we will find our salvation."

    A radio crackled in the rain. Drops pattered and burst on a camouflage tarp, strung under low, scraggly brush in winter, in the mountains. Under the tarp, Lister hunkered over a low flame, a hot stack of needles, twigs, and bark. Smoke dissipated in the drizzle, and low grey clouds sulked across a gunmetal sky.

    He lifted his field glasses to his eyes, hooded by an old ball cap. His camouflage jacket draped damply over his shoulders. The left lens was cracked, but it still brought into focus a low farmhouse in a clearing across the long, overgrown pond where he had set up camp.

    The radio crackled again, "Right where they said right?"

    "Right," Lister said, but he didn't pick up or speak into the radio.

    Static gurgled, "You there? Copy me?"

    Lister moved slow and dropped the field glasses back around his neck.

    "Copy," He said, clicking the button on the side of a beetle-black portable radio, its antenna made from a long, patinaed brass bolt.

    The radio hissed, "Okay, so when?"

    "We'll just stay put tonight."

     A few pops, and a little static, "All right. I'll be 84 then."

    Lister squinted as smoke from the little fire burned his eyes, "Over and out." He turned a tiny knob and the radio blinked dark. 

    Cad and Lister sat in the light and warmth of their tiny campfire. they finally conceded they would need one source of fuel, and set off in search of at the very least a thick branch. The Great Thicket and Woods that was once the southland was no more, and only here in the Foggy Mountains could stands of oak and poplar and beech, not to mention the rain needed to keep them alive, be found. A great indicator of human presence in the Foggy Mountains was always an absence of deadfall, snatched up first before any trees could be felled for fuel. For miles through the forest Cad and Lister noticed cleared pathways in the privet underbrush, as well as several piles of splinters where large deadfall had been broken up. They were indeed on the right track. 

     Cad's knit cap was still dewy from the rain. The light from the fire made all the droplets glitter and the men's breath competed for space under the tarp with the ambient fog and white smoke.

     "So you really think this is the bunch?" Cad asked, he shifted in his canvas jacket and sat on a small stone he had warmed by the fire.

     "I really do." Lister grinned at his friend and nodded his head.

     A greasy dog that had once been bright blonde (now stained a rusty-screw, burnished clay brown,) trotted into the camp, lolling his tongue.

    "Sit, boy." Cad spoke to his dog in an even but vibratory tone. Lister thought of it as Cad's "dog talk."
The mutt sat and closed his mouth. Still breathing heavily, the dog's ribs were slowly flapping like a seabird, out wide, heaving for air. Cad reached into a pants pocket, and removed a small ball of deer and blackberry pemmican. He tossed it to the dog who snatched it out of the air with little fanfare and even less chewing.

    "We should have him stay close," Lister said.

    "You're right. In the morning, I'll leash him," Cad reached over and inspected a weeping scratch on the dog's ear.


      After she died, Lister made his way north from Genoa, begged of an old friend new closeness in an ever-darkening, expanding world. So in the Rennaissance, and the golden age of exploration the world had become smaller, in these late days after the cataclysms the world grew again, until the little counties Cad and Lister had once driven through in mere minutes now stretched out before them in infinite acres, uncountable footsteps. They had marched, following the water and rain. Cad's wife had fled with their son when their homestead in the woods outside of Genoa was raided by the Republic men, and Cad had attempted to defend their home by attrition. After stealing most of his belongings of any value, the Republic men had fled one early morning when Cad open-fired on them sleeping in the open. Cad and his dog had hidden in a collapsed chicken coop for three days before they got the drop on them.

"I know I got three." Cad had told Lister one cold, dry night when they had first reached the mountains. The clear sky threw a million specks of stars on a black canvas. Lister had gazed up at it all and asked, "Killed them?"

Cad nodded, "They're cowards, they didn't even try to fight. Got spooked, blasted a couple of rounds around, and jumped in their trucks and hauled ass." He blew into his hands to warm them, "Didn't even try to get their buddies."

Lister blew steam out of his nostrils, "What did you do with them?"

"Well, I had a jam, coincidentally, so I kicked the bolt back and dug out a casing, chambered a round and popped 'em one more  time apiece." He shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes.

"I know you didn't like it," Lister said, turning to his friend.

"Ha! No, no I guess I didn't."

"Y'ever think about 'em?"

"Nope, after I rounded up a little stuff, I've never been back there. Never been back. I still haven't heard from Sarah."

This was a thing he would stumble and say from time to time. They had started to lose count of the days since they'd left Genoa county, and Lister knew full well he hadn't heard from his wife and child.

Lister would struggle every time, "Well, you know." He kicked at the dirt, "She's a tough cookie. She's able, she's fit, she's smart."

Cad lifted his eyes to the stars. The moon was a small sliver that hung on an invisible line in a dark sea. The men were silent more often after that.

    Morning rose slowly and the season was falling back to the rainy cycle. Cold winds, freezing rain, mudslides, the odd flurry of snow. Cad and Lister had cursed the very rain they drank, and they thought about the times they had been thirsty. Cad and the dog had been up for a while, and the fire had been stoked back enough to cook a pat of bannock bread for the each of them, a doughy lump of random seed flour and water wrapped around a stick would give them the energy to begin to surround the site. His AK-47 was propped against the tree, its stock unfolded and a half-empty magazine on the ground beside it. It always made Lister touch the K-frame on his hip, knowing how easily the pair could be outgunned.

    In any case, it really was just a rumor. It could be the wildest goose ever chased. But after some careful consideration, Cad and Lister had decided it was worth the risk and the journey. The treasure that could be out here, it was hard to even imagine what it could do for them. So here in this nameless, half-dead wood, they found themselves slowly, carefully, approaching a few structures wherein the riches and protectors may lie.                     

Gasoline

The smell of garage gasoline and
aromatics, of wood chips
and old, cold concrete with
cracks in it and dead crickets
in the corners

Now we have the engine,
the roaring, firing smoke and
noise, the smell.

It took you somewhere.

If you played your cards right,
you could trust it.
And you could
shout over the wind and
escape the long heats of summer
afternoons.

Rubber and grinding metal
and singed leg hair, a junebug on
your neck.

A drop of sweat sizzles on
a hot piece of metal.

The Flood

I had a room there all to myself.

A long black tar-topped

parking lot hugging the motel

in steaming, Summer

arms.

I watched them pull away in

the thundering, sweeping rain.

The woman and the

little girl, they held a half of

a newspaper each

over their heads.

It was a nice car, one of these

crossover/station wagons on

steroids. The wind blew the rain

sideways, ditches were overflowing.

The dad was holding

a danish, from the

continental breakfast,

when he jumped into the driver's seat.

When they pulled

The car out of the swamp

People could see their bleach white bones

falling from the broken windows.

Now none of the money

they made, none of those

great houses of love and

pain, could keep

the warm river water from 

wrapping them

in a deadly embrace.

In the dark currents at the bottom

all things are cold, the catfish's whiskers

and a hand, or a finger, or

an American-made engine.

Bottom Shelf

Several ways and
several times
sweet yellow corn
has
transfigured and burned
down, thrown into
my throat with
a friction and
a speed.

A unique bitter
slime
back in the
back of my
mouth flushes, flushes
with fresh liquid.

You have to swallow again
and then you completely and
totally
taste it.

"Ah, bottom shelf as usual I see."

"Indeed sir, only the least fine."

And so you pour a little more
and let all the candles burn down
and soon
in cricket song
we'll sing
for the dawn.

Finally Run Aground

She sailed out
pretty as a peach
the decks shone in
a white April sun and
the port on the river, the
piers shifting up and down on
glassy
green water,
she waited every night
for the sleek, painted
barque to sail home.

The storms of time will
scupper steel
and rot the osage orange.

We loved her and she would still
haul in fish, a sight every morning leaving the
harbor.

And it broke me,
it broke me when
we saw her
leak and groan
and we swore at her, cursed her
and at night winced, remembering.

We crashed a beer bottle on her hull.

She'll sail now only in my memories.

They ask me 'Why do you look like that?
Are you okay?"

And I say "Y'all, I'm just thinkin'. I'm sorry"

And she'll be carrying me over whitecaps,
soaring under granite bluffs and
making me feel free.

Now, the anchor chain is
cold
on my foot.