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.

Dawn

The sunrises
Are my favorite part
Of an otherwise
Soul-deadening and nerve-numbing
Job.

The stars are so clear
In their selenium black-blue when
The young horizon
Begins to burnish and braze to
Brass, copper, orange.

Hours before the sun ever
Peeks above and
Blazes furiously, avenging
The cold and blindness of
Night, the sky melts and
Oozes into color, still full of stars,
Still overseen by the Moon,
And my favorite is the hour
When the bright faces of
Luna and Sol share the sky
Like good siblings born of the same
Light.

Hoarfrost shimmers in winter
And dances in our headlights
Pulling over the crunching
White gravel.
I shiver leaving the truck
For the cold factory
And I breathe deep the morning air
Before I plunge into
Work.

ACAB and Mawma sez

Someone hollered "whoo!" Across the river

I had driven myself here
To kill myself.

Fortunately The Dam was closed.

Because i had intended to walk along the low side.
The high side was the favorite, because of the depth. But i knew
There was so little
One could drown in.
So i walked
Along the lefthand
Low side
Because i also knew
That splatting oneself against the
Spillway
Slope
Was much more humane than
Drowning in the
Deep
Catfish
Dark,
And i had in mind my people,

Maybe they'd run their imaginations
Through.

Maybe there'd be horror but *gasp*
Also sympathy

Let's not go that far.
So I chugged down a bottle
And i drove as close
As i could
To where i could jump
Into that wide
Pure
Clean
Tennessee

i chugged that bottle down
And the wind cut cold
Shivering
Through me

And way,
Way across the slough
I heard a faint:
"Whoooh!
With a certain
Southron enthusiasm. And it said:

Don't give up!
But drink 'at likker,
Does 'at make sense?

And as I
Screwed the top
Back on the bottle

I thought:
Maybe so.

I elbowed the door on
My truck that
The cops broke
All the way home

And lived another day

What More There Is #2

This life  and
This love, they are so much more than
Dying, listless
asleep in wine, in malbec
and cabernet, in
whiskey smoke and beer,
Dying for a loving touch that feels
like white sand in between
your toes or a cool
blanket in summer.
It's more than fighting
to stay awake or
to sleep or
to get enough fiber.

It's more than you hearing words
in crowded spaces
those words that call for
great expanses, fields and
copses of birch and pine, you
who can barely listen above the din
and miasma, whose eyes are
dimly lit by neon and cathode-ray
and LCD,  deserve only the auditorium
of a grand wilderness, an endless jungle.

I too, cannot fully watch the flickers in your smile or the nuances of your laugh when all the diesel traffic
roaring by and every chainlink
fence stands between us,

~~~~~

A boat roars by, the brown water gets murky and
churns on our feet
river-glass sparkles in the waves
and white pelicans
soar far from home over the river.
We stand laughing, eyes
squinting in bright laughter, in the
burning sun.

There's more to life
in this, in this
shining cloudless day,
in mirthful folly and joy,
there's more to love in our
little rounded toenails
crinkling in the mud.

And I'll hear
your voice as if in a dream, vivid
and clear, hearing it as if for the first time
but with an added sense of deja vu.
And I can speak to you with no hoarse
choking throat, no smoke or
nebulae to cloud it, and
we can find what more there
is, and what sun
feels like on our skin.

Wherefore Is the Dawn So Bright?

Bow
To the whisky bottle,
And put your finger
Here
Between these frets.
Hit these keys
All at the
Same
Time.

Dip cigarettes in crawfish juice,
Get stymied by a gas station
Condom wrapper.

Know this,
These,
People and faces and professions
Neuroses
Dogs' names
Relatives
Those others
So significant.

Lose elastin, use lotion.
Snooze buttons, schmooze cliques
And
Play
Your part
Running
For local bar regional review assessment commissioner.

Repair things.

Learn how. It ain't hard.

Hit it with a hammer, weld it.

Learn the back roads in Tuscumbia,
Drive a stick shift, order the cheapest beer,
take cold showers, go camping unprepared. Eat the guts of
Crawfish, make terrible
Homemade pizza, burn bad poetry,
Burn good prose, burn letters, burn photos. Keep photos, get in touch with old friends, then never speak to them.

In a daydream, we dance to
Skynyrd in firelight,
Mosquito bitten and barefoot,
And the pebbles rattle under our feet.

Now look at the whiskey bottle,
see how much you've drank. Acknowledge this as a dose,
how much you need
now, versus
every other time.

Don't freak out. Don't eat too much.
Don't act wild at work, it looks weird.
Don't play with
fishing poles in a parking lot,
don't talk to yourself at wal-mart.

Be a human,
Love, remember,
Be a reptile,
Hate, forget

Red Autumn

The cypresses shed blood
Red on the asphalt, driven like
Snow at the marina, and
I deathlessly sneeze and
Cough, sniffling in
Leaf mold and the changing weather,
Watching yet another
Youthful season grow old
And senile. The summer
Waned helplessly before me
And could I have seized
It, and shook it by the shoulders
I would have, saying,
"Wait for me,
Just a little longer now."

My father says one more frost and
His lawn will lose its green.
He said this morning,
"Do I hear someone mowing?"
And, sure enough, the black
Neighbor who married that nice
Filipino woman was mowing the dust,
brown clouds soaring up
Into a clear and bright Alabama
Sky, little bits of dead grass
Slung out sideways from the blade and
His skin shining, hat too, bright white,
And my father says,
"I need to mow too."

The fiddle sings like a
Well-tuned train whistle, it screaming
In my ears out of the stock
Ford speakers and it drowning out
The lack of muffler, it giving me chills.
I headed to the end of the parkway
Where it hits the highway and
Stops, the highway running
North to South.
South led to the same, the familiar,
the dark and dirty foundry
And swollen hands, busted knuckles and
More sinus infections. It led
To the same too-soft beds and
Staticy televisions.
North went straight to my brave
And beautiful wilderness, dead
On into smooth pebbles worn
By water so clean you can drink it,
To tupelos reaching into creeks
Drying up in the winter's thirst,
To birches' silver knives waving in a
Stinging wind, to the year's last
Topwater bass that leap into my lap
And there,
There I made the
Tough choice.

"Another year," I said,
"Another season."

Let Me Tell You About Your New Boyfriend

He probably runs an atheism blog
He doesn't care about
Coming in stealing your
Heart because
He is a nihilist;
No consequences when he does wrong
So
He never, ever goes to jail

His car is new
Not
Paid for
But he can afford the payments
And
He has better insurance
Than me
But still complains about the price

His job is easy, he says it's hard.
His hands will never be calloused
They
Are thin and soft like
A woman's he

Still has both parents alive
But
They are divorced and he claims
Traumatization from that,
When he talks about his childhood
He will complain about that,

He is not
An only child
And he will have good relations
With his siblings.

He will never be covered in
Iron filings or grime.

He does not like the outdoors
And you don't either, so
That's fine and that way he'll
Never have fish guts on his
Shirt or never have B.O.

He doesn't mind paying
Rent and probably even
Makes house payments.
He is normal; working just to pay
For clothes to wear to work
And a house to leave vacant
While he's there.

He is good in bed and does
Not have performance
Anxiety.
His dick works even when he's
Drunk or takes the lorcets
He keeps secret from you.

He has big doe eyes
And will look straight
into your
Shit brown ones
And tell you
That he loves you, though
He doesn't really know
What that means and
Only says it because
You do.

He never gets mean
When he's drunk, he
Can handle his
Liquor
But
He will cry when intoxicated
And alone with you,
Probably about that divorce
Again
And
You will spend your
Effort
consoling him,
Poor baby poor sweet thing
It's okay I'm sorry
Et cetera.

He will
get mad though
And he will expect
Plenty from you
Get your shit together Christine
I can't have you
Laying up coloring all day
In your little books
What are you, nine? Why
Don't you clean the litter box
Your house smells like
Cat shit
That's why I
Always have you
Over to my
Place, you just seem
So sad Christine
Here
Why don't you move out
You should pick up more hours
Christine
Get your shit together
Depression's all
In your mind,
Et cetera.

He will be funny,
he steals
All the right jokes
From the internet
And Saturday night live
So y'all won't know, and
Being funny, your roommates
Will like him all right, not
Like they liked me, but
They'll like him enough.

he will leave you
And say
I just can't
handle you
Going to the psych ward
It's
Just so stressful
I've never
Dealt with a woman
That gets
Locked up

And you'll
come to me
saying
Allister
I'm so sorry
I know what
You felt like now
I'm so sorry

And I'll say
Yeah,
I guess
You
Do.

A Shoe

My heart
Like a shoe
In a dryer
Clangs and bumps
Pushing, bursting
Out the unlocked
Door of my chest

Slam it shut!
And good this time!
Back to thumping, whirring,
Humming loud and
Shaking.

A buzzer sounds,
A cloud of lint and steam
Signals peace, sleep.
I have found solace, and
My shoe is dry.

Summer Sweat

It's a fever-pitch
evening downtown
the heat still
radiates off of the walls and
asphalt,
hot
black and silver
daytime coming
from underneath,
so we're sweating
and it's
beer sweat, smelling
and thick, no breeze
in the alleyway
to cool our brows.

It's a low drone
buzzing to actual
conversation, meaning
it's
looks and gestures of heatstroke
until the beer
sweats out.

Those peers of the gingkos,
the streetlamps, shine
that orange sheen onto everything
and no one knows
what colors
the cars truly are.

Broken shafts
of light trickle down
to the sidewalk, where
a little
slick of vomit
reflects a green, then
yellow, then red
light.

Through a Lens

There's a rosy vision
in my mind
of you:

Making jokes in fireside flickers
and for moments
falling embers lit the night
so that we
might look
into the points of light
in each other's eyes.

The vision there before me
tasted of fireworks and
model train engine steam
the only
embers' shine
was
the end of
a Marlboro light.

But the jokes were still there
and through a joviality
we wrested back
control from the stars
and so
divine our own
horoscope-love, to
spin a zodiac back
around to Aquarius
and trip him with our feet.

Lauderdale

Come on come on
and what I mean here is
get your ass in the car.

Whadye mean you left yer
phone at home?
That sonovabitch,
you don't need it anyway.

You smell 'at clutch dust?
I kinda like the way it smells.

When you go down
to the creek and kinda try
to wash the road
grit from your forearms
in the cold water.

Flying down a county road
to get there
chasing daylight
at eight thirty in the evenin'
the sun is still up
and it's 89 degrees

"whoooooooooo!
Y'all smell 'at polecat!"

And you're yelling over
a blasting radio, it's playing
something you really
jam out to.
It's "Hold On Loosely"
or even, "Caught Up in You"

We talked about
the gun show and the fair.

We drank cheap
smoked brown
burned regular
in smoking vapor
trails all over
the county.

Racing the Waterloo
Cop down
redneck riviera
into the sunset.

Ocean

I hear your quiet calling,
Those silent screams
That teach me how to sing in
Whispers and mumbles of
Inner streams bubbling over
Outer rocks and stones.

From behind the veil of time
I still hear your voice squeaking
Like mice in a barn
And your eyes little faint
Blue holes in a blanket.

I stare over the side, at the sea
And in the blue, like your
Eyes, I am
Terrified by its immensity.

Your brazen Sun
Burns but
Freckles me.
And in that hot
Pain
There is health
Or death. I cannot tell which.

Wind, whipping
Words that chap my
Face while singing me
A song of movement
And grinding metal.

Your breeze
Lyrics like pavement
And salt-rot.
I can taste you in
Seawater
And cheap whiskey.

Lady Bug

I hear

in broken heartbeats

a syncopation of

sound 

making music

for the lonely.

and too here I follow the

ladybug on

the late night computer

screen, 

woken up by

a space heater

from his

cryogenic

slumber

in the window panes,

and I ask as I follow

him

do you have a want to leave my screen?

or to hear my shitty EDM?

And what were you doing on my mouse and keyboard

when I first walked in?

Did you hear that noise?

that song of

hearts

cracked like

violins

with loose strings?

Or are you too

loose

in your beetle

shell, lacking

proper

heartstrings

to tighten

and snap?

100 Dollar Bills

Ketchup clutched the bag in front of him and had long ago stripped away his seat belt.

"The fuck you want me to do man?"

"Keep the speed above ninety and don't get us dead."

"Hey, hey what the hell are you doin'?"

The Buick Riviera was moving down the freeway at an excellent clip. A golden secondhand paintjob  was ripe in the California sun with white leather; softop and all. Ketchup's man in the driver's seat kept having to flick the long, surfer sheen hair out of his face, and when he did so his right foot would press the throttle ever so slightly more, as if to check if there was a sixth gear or not. Watching now Ketchup instead of the road, he became disconcerted at the sight of his accomplice and headman the man oh man Ketchup Himself reaching into the bag and fingering its contents.

"Hey, Ketchup man what the hell are y'doin'!"

"Why the hell you think we knocked that place over, huh Rich? Why the hell do you think we usin' the freeway, huh?"

Ketchup flinched at the sheen of brake lights ahead and settled back into his side of the bench seat as Rich swung the wheel just gently enough not to spin out the Buick and dodge the slower vehicle.

"Plenty o'weight on the rear wheels huh Rich?"

"Look, just put it back under the seat a'right? Pretty soon we slow down and make an exit. I dunno, dump it in Brady's backyard and let it stew for a lil' while, see if it makes news, shit like that. Then we come back for it," Rich laid into the horn as he swerved around another vehicle.

The greatest thing about California, for blind old ladies and robbers alike, is that ninety on the freeway laying into the horn, or doing thirty-five in the fastlane, either one is still inconspicuous. It is hard on those grand viaducts to stand out; the nuts go unnoticed.

"Then we come back for it give Brady a lil' somethin' for his troubles y'know,"

"Fuck that man you can't act like you dunno why we did this" Ketchup kept one arm in the bag, gently stirring.

"Ketchup you got dat look in yer eye..."

And, sure enough, Ketchup's dark blue eyes had a sheen, like he might be about to cry or go catatonic. But he pulled his arm from the bag and Rich settled for a moment; he even slowed down to about eighty.

"There ya go man. Just chill, anyway like I was saying,"

"No, Rich, I was saying, and what I was saying was I wasn't really clear about why we drove out here a'right?" Ketchup rolled down those smooth power windows.

"The fuck do you mean?" He glanced at the open window, then the rearview for the cops. "This a set-up goddammit?"

"Not particularly," That look remained. He slid his arm gently back down into the bag.

Rich thought about reaching for it, or crashing the car. No, try to reason with him: "Look Ketchup just talk to me man,"

Ketchup grinned, flashed his eyes, and slung his arm out of the bag and out the window, cradling
100 dollar bills that scattered in a flock, twisting and flapping in the wind throughout the car and in an exponentially growing cone behind the car. A few vehicles behind them swerved and a few even slowed down when they saw what chaff was blowing on the road.

"Holy shit no, Ketchup, no!"

Ketchup grabbed the bag with both hands and sat his bony ass up on the door of the Buick,

"This is it Rich! Like a-hundred mile an hour picnic!"

Rich saw the next cloud of bills burst in a greater blast than before, scattering over eight lanes of traffic and some flying so high as to cross the median and land in the far lane. Cars began to slow and swerve with greater frequency. some managed to stop in the highway.

"There! Isn't this what yer all in the car for anyways? Isn't this what yer drivin' for!"

Rich kicked the throttle some, hitting ninety-five: "Goddammit man, this is the last time..."

Ketchup didn't hear the rest, the engine noise and a shift in the breeze across his ears left him with only the sound of his voice: "You buncha fuckers! Here ya go!" As he shook the bag the last great cloud of bills flew into the air. They burst in green anger, flipping and spinning, and tormented in their flight, and Rich saw in the rearview all the cars that stopped, and a few that wrecked, steaming hulks under the blazing California sun.

As they hit 100 miles an hour, a careless tanker-truck driver a mile or two behind was fumbling for another tape and hit his brakes too late, smashing into three cars and jackknifing its payload almost over the median. The median played its part too, though, and ruptured a poorly welded seam along the side of the tank. The payload was a small amount of gasoline, to be fair. It was destined for a tiny gas station in Ocean Beach, selling out from under the parking lot for seventy cents a gallon. However, it was enough to fuel a spark into a fireball that killed two, injured seventeen and scared the bejesus out of god-knows-how-many.

Rich and Ketchup both saw the black tower that rose from the viaduct, high into the air the cars themselves now behind the horizon, the road behind them empty. A dull doppler-thud from the explosion reached their ears.

"Goddamn worth a million dollars Rich!  A million goddamn dollars! You shoulda seen the looks on somma their faces! Like Jesus came back!"

Rich finally smiled, chuckled a bit, and tapped the throttle a bit unwillingly when he shook the hair from his eyes, heading north.