Rode side rbr

You’re about as useful

as a roadside rubber

Tossed out the window

By a five minute lover

 tossed out the window 

of a fifty four Ford

and making you

 as fruitful

as your 

drive-by brother

normally I swear

I’d pay no bother

but this fellow here

claims he’s my father

Don’t mind him. He gets this way. He rants and babbles.

Off sulking again….

moody, private, victimized, resentful…revengeful.

The only pain he is bound to inflict is on himself or those in close proximity. It need not be that way, but it is.

Lucy knew it the minute she banged him.

He was either going to kill her or laugh.

Or both.

But when he relinquished

And released,

Amidst the bellow and the heave

his grip now freed 

she laughed with the Joy

in the pure relief of breathing.

A gasp,

from drowning,

her reprieving.

Lying with the Beast

Bound within his sheets,

Still alive, still complete.

She had no choice.

V

tie noodle

Welcome to the church of St God

please sit where you may

We are a humble flock but

In a sea of rice,

each grain is the same

Be it white rice,

or brown rice

Or fried rice

With scrambled eggs

Rice is rice to jesus

To jesus, it’s all the same

The lord led us up this alleyway

Gave us the Laundromat

to keep us’selves warm

And a couple of fine Rest-ronts

A’wit some convenient kitchen doors

(Used to be more…

Used to be four - shut down since

ain’t here no more)

Then the Lord said

to tie noodles

day old dinner rolls

Salmon

On the mound

and life was good

That’s what he told us

Got no incentive to tell us a lie
Once he started ramblin’

you believe you can fly
from here

That’s the reason

He said he called us

 

No tricky explanation

The very explicit direction

That’s what the Lord told us

Right before he died

Was Dude, Ron, an’ Me

He just say
Go find out why

The city pick up his body

took The Lord away

Maybe we should said something

But at the time…

ain’t nothing easy to say

but a shame just the same

We wait since

That blessed day

In this dark place

Spreadin his word

and sharin’ his joy.

Cheerin our souls

You can hear his children say

Pitter patter

Down the alley

All you gotta do is listen

Chill the hush

as The LORD

he comin' down

this way

we are blessed

as he pass by

body steaming

in the cold morning light

but then that one day

he just crumbled
died, and...

just went away.

there's not a night not go by, someone don’t scream his name, echo down these walls. Like the cries for mercy rising from Hell as souls are being sucked under. 


Which they are and which it is.

blossoming

Upon her passing

Her heart blooms

Bursting in  joy


from concrete bounds

now released

with wings spread

Fanning flame

Rising 

Bursting free

Of the pain

Rising still

Her glory be.


Ascending.

Trouble Gotta Eat

You know... he’d say,  when you are weak, you are welcoming trouble. It finds you. Hears you sobbing…it’s got an ear out for that whimper in the night like some little baby boy afraid to go out into darkness and leery of the day without your mother. It prowls for you... 
    Eat away your soft belly. 

ez

     ETCHING - JAIL CELL

V

ORCHID

– the pale cream lavender and yellow speckled throat – the foggy velvet drape – the long low bow of it’s draft – it reminds me, the line, the grace of her neck, along it's soft and subtle arcing to a lobe so delicate, itself a blossom, seeking my light kiss of adoration and the whisper of her name

A BLACKER CAT...

A blacker cat walked the block on the far side

It’s tail tall and straight

Like a periscope

Above it’s agitated gate

Flickers the air

Head swivels

nerves twitch

Out in the open

Is not it’s favorite place

Alley cats don’t go that way

Give them a long, dark, dirty canyon

Walls to rub ‘gainst all day

Free to roam at night

Hunt the rat

which he prey

You don’t see him

on the si-walks

Come out to play

Deeper thoughts run down my dark alley

They run away

Like it or not

They just run away

And I can’t call

because

I got no say

because

Out in the open

Is not my favorite place

Either.

-   E.Z. EATON ‘10

I’m sitting in an alley, right below my window, talking to E.Z. EATON, the "Back-Alley Laureate" himself. 
A crime has brought us together. Simultaneous. Something I thought I had heard and something he swears to have seen – an apparent murder in the alleyway below my window – which is same alley EZ called home when he felt like it. I say 'apparent', but he saw it and I heard it. Murder.

The police have taken our statements, the body, and the car in which she was killed. So we sat, each reflecting on the night’s events. Lingering. I realized I had a choice to go back inside, and 
EZ did not.

Are you a man of faith, there, EZ? Is that what got you through all you been through?

Nah. Jesus don’t belong here.

Why’s that?

This is a tough neighborhood.

How many tough guys you know have been nailed to the cross?

This here alley is for hard scrabble. Cold–hearted survivors. He didn’t survive.

We’re still talking about him.

You’re still talking about him. I’m too busy surviving.

Some might say you are not surviving.They may suggest that maybe you are just in the process of extinction. Erosion. Obsolete loser. Game over. Look around and tell me you actually survived.

We all in the process of extinction. If I am still here,  then I am surviving.

There was a long pause in our conversation at that point, as  he pondered it.

So what brought you, Here...?
The question, stark as it was...I regret my lack of subtlety, and it seemed to strike him like a punch, but he barely flinched. It was his reality. Drunk, he laughed and let his guard down. Then he Moaned caustic".….what happened….?I was a foolish philanderer. One drunk Doc...Drowned in his own shame...


and then he quickly diverted back to the present:

"I saw what happened."

Whatd’ya mean?

 (When it gets real quiet, I hear things randomly, deep within the cortex, like a distant station broadcasting on an erratic  signal. Right about now my head is playing the audio from a televised football game. High energy announcer and crowd cheers in the background. Occasionally a whistle blows and the fans react.)

I saw what happened here tonight...

Look around!

He did. Then threw his empty pint hard across the alley and it shattered against the brick wall opposite.

I did not survive. I am a lost soul.

And that is why Jesus belongs here.

Then you might as well bring the whole fuckin crowd down here. Confuscious, Bhudda, Rimbala Muala….Jeeesssussss!!!!!! Get down here and save my ass! 

“We down here already!”  , a voice came from deep in the alley,“...we just too drunk to walk that far.”

“You and me both brother!”

“Well I guess you fucked man!”

“I guess you right, Brother! I guess you right!” he thought a second, shook his head, and chuckled to himself, “That Jesus is one funny dude.”