Mug Shot (available light)

 

 

 

                                          V 

gril girl

 

 

V 

Passing Through

 

Evan pondered his fate

as he has often

done of late.

At that age

where the years

can grate,  

and eat away

your stately grace

with no ready remedy

not a success

or a tragedy

just a shadow

passing through

his short stay

was not a waste

with his last breath

wheezed a lifetime  

alive in the moment

just not immortal

 

 

 

 V

 

feetheart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

V 

Doc Healy

 

 

 

 Dr Healy was absent that night and no one was the wiser.  He went off just to have a smoke and returned just before the smoke cleared. I have a memory of him scanning the scene before his entrance. Most unusual don’t you think? Why the hesitation? One would properly assume he’d burst into the room in shock or action but rather he wandered, as if  strolling through a smoke shop while killing time on his lunch hour. But this was the dark of night to be clear and I fear the good Doc had a hand in it…both hands at that. He grew impatient because he claimed he had patients waiting. Given the hour, I doubted, but so he said, and who was I to question? The authorities wished him well and retreated. But “in his absentia", I was only left to wonder.

 

V

Tortured Soul

He was too young 

for his years

but old enough 

to understand 

where he stood

 

 

what no one saw 

or experienced

was veiled 

in a cocoon  

of preservation

 

but the cocoon

was soon 

to bloom 

see it 

explode

exposed

but if you looked 

too late 

you missed it

 

Blown away 

and it's

okay

he never chose

to fix it.

 V

a tingle.

 

 

 I wouldn’t say

"I’m  cool."

but sometimes

I do

get a chill...

 

like…

 

a ripple.

 

And my “world” ?

…is a room, 8x12’

and I'm single

 

Luckily

 I’m partial

.....to explore

.......the inner space

between my ears

which is infinite

where fame

and fears abide 

side-by-side

while at the same time

sparking the tiniest fraction

of universal friction

 which was felt

immensely

in my nipples.

 

 

V

farewell El'

We had just arrived home from Eloise’s funeral. She was quite the girl. You would not have guessed it from her plain front. There was a smattering of handsome strangers, mostly well dressed, and highly presentable. They each kept to themselves, not sure of the other. There were flowers from eleven different sources. There was a Robert, a Ben, a Marshall, an Alex...a couple of Mikes, some other guys named “joe”...and and someone named Betty but calls herself “Mr. Shivers”. Mr. Shivers sent a single Lily. Well, that one sent a ripple (...to the nipple) throughout the room. And who knows? Mr. Shivers might have been any one in attendance whose nipples paid 'attention' while perfectly erect.

 

 

 

                                     V

 

 

 

 

V

soon to be wed

 

 

 

Not that it’s still a story.

It’s not.

Nothing to be told

that isn’t old

and yet still told 

tenfold.

 

So, here goes: 

 

Dude became a brute

who immediately embraced 

her abuse.

From their wedding night on,

her life was a sliding scale

of beatings.

 

His “gentle touch”

proof in the burn marks,

born of boredom.

Tattoos disguised bruises.

Trips and falls

Were her fault

Until she slid off the scale,

in overload.

Three years on the chain,

now ‘broken’

Nothing left to give,

she gave up.

And as much as you think 

the mother was wronged,

save your pity, 

and your prayers,

 for the daughter

she left him

behind. 

 

 

V

The Stillness

  

 

 

 

The stillness made him uneasy. The claustrophobic quiet enveloped him. It hugged him in its tight grasp like an eight-hundred-pound ape. His breath was labored, his legs weak. There was the panic drawn from the fact that he was so remote…so crushingly alone. His ‘compass’  wound up and started to spin freely , picking up a momentum in his cranium. He was lost with no sense of direction. His next breath could be his last. Briefly, at first he caught glimpses of a cartoon classic playing in his head  - an old alarm clock exploding and parts flying everywhere. But it got so it repeated repeatedly to a maddening proportion, until he mercifully, or purposely, passed out.

Coming to, he found the reboot did him some good. He had survived the fall from grace, and the upgrade went smoothly. His memory of the crash, eradicated.

 

 

V

 

The dawning

 

 

 

 

 

It didn’t dawn on Megan

to look both ways.

She was careless…

her fears abandoned

free at last

until the moment

she wasn’t ever

and much 

too late

to 

reconsider.

 

 

V

 

 

 

what was to come...

 

 

It was as ‘still’ an evening as she had ever experienced. Hot? … yes, and oh, so, still…102  at 8:00, with clouds moving in and wind picking up, overnight thunderstorms are 50/50 but the humidity would appreciate a winner.

“Sparrow” (not her real name -and not my idea)… fanned herself while casually perched on the narrow balcony above the fray. 

“Crime” was very available, so foot-traffic was scarce.   No traffic no sales. We closed but we open.  She could hear the shop’s front bell from up here. She ‘could’, but knew she wouldn’t. Streets, as quiet as one could hope, but remain apprehensive. No never know on these streets. Someone could pounce out of the darker shadows, while a passing vehicle does a U-turn back around and fires with intent to inflict dire consequences.

So, she took to ‘the roof’ to take in the scene, for some quiet time and cool air, and what was to come.

V

Transcendent

 

Lamar - the sky belonged to him 

for as long as there was “The Spring”. …

and wide center to roam to . 

Playin' toss, nice and easy. 

Before lightning strikes 

with the whack 

of a blistering bat!

 

He  had truly found his peace. 

His grass...

...his grace, 

his peace.

 

But you know the game, 

and before he goes lame, 

or contract makes claims

...they may not shoot you, 

but your ticket's punched 

just the same.

 

 

V

 

UNKEPT

 

 

 

If I disclose any of my party of clowns they will drown me in a pool of ping pong balls.

Somewhere, lodged like a tumor in the back of my mind, was a baseball play-by-play Announcer, and a voice of his time. 

Someplace there was a ruckus, I don’t know where the pummeling came from, but I heard them throughout. And someone was getting pummeled.

 Apparently I clung to life, long enough to hang on. 

Not conscious of breathing…or conscious of reality, It was a ghostly mystery to me, phasing in and out, and with each nod, a new mystery.

The clowns visit me at night and pummel me with pool noodles. A thousand lashes…never more. As a result, I drift into a comma.

The nurses call it “nodding off”...

(Drug-induced…at eternity’s ledge…but we’ll call it  - “dozing” – for billing purposes).  

 But, I'm gonna call it "Noodling off."

 

OH LORD! 

“…if I should die before I wake I pray the Lord knows his mistake.”

 

 

V

In Her Proximity

 

 

Diane on the other hand had different ideas. She’d related stories of coming back. Not that anyone believed her, but it still gave them room to bounce the thought around and ruminate on what that might include. 

Just when they thought she was in Toledo, she’d show up 3 miles away, downtown in a bar, then be gone by morning before sunrise. So ‘the morning after’ does no one any good. Too late. She fled like fluid, ran with the current, and flowed downriver. 

The ache that comes with knowin’ her eventually leaves you numb from the sheer weight of her proximity. It passes, but not entirely, because it's always on "Pause".

 

V

that skunk

 

Lord Jesus scatter me into the universe

I’ve been doin’ my chores…

and cleanin’ up whiskey stains

burn marks

and water rings,

which ain’t mine

…not a one.

But you see they’re on my headboard, Lord

The very bed, where I lay my head

So It’ll take some time

But I got no claims

can’t afford to believe

in any particular woman 

unless she’s willing 

to lay claim to me                                                                                                    

…and no one is claimin’ me,

so I guess we’re fine…before...

 

well hell, it’s just that it's MY bed…

they’re sweatin' and stenchin'

while I’m sleeping with 

the brutal stank 

of the skunk

they left 

behind.

 

 

 

 V

tumble

 

 

Dorwood expected the worst and boy did he not see it coming. His situation is…was…very tenuous, but the push...hardly a nudge... sends him into the chasm...a long way down, deep shaft with a variety of protrusions.... rocks, roots, and such rough stuff.... and it's walls, narrow tight, ripping and tearing at cloth and flesh, on his endless tumble, never reaching the ground, but shredded instead.

 

 

V

Degraze

 

When I have a drink at night,

 

and just a splash at that

 

I prefer to refer to it as

“de-glazing 

an old pot, 

that's worth 

holding on to."

 

 

V

Peaches

 

There was no fruit in the fruit bowl left 

except for a stone someone 

had sucked and chewed on, 

chipped, and abused 

then spit out

...front and center of said bowl,

  and they left

 leaving it otherwise empty…

‘Cept for that pit.

Such a crass, crude, and thoughtless act,

bearing no fruit whatsoever… 

the crime before the fall

pits and all.

 

 

V

naked girl with pup

 

 

 

 

 

 

V