author: davy carren

location: san francisco, ca

story title: how death came to sandovar rudd

            You’ve got to hand it to the weather. Sometimes it just knows when to rain. Like today, when I don’t have an umbrella handy, and there’s no food here, and I’ve got to wear my nice wool jacket. Don’t ask me about the jacket. When it comes to the jacket I’ve got no idea. It’s got to be worn. I don’t want it to get wet. So, here I am, stuck. That’s about all you’ll get out of me. But if the circumstances permit-- and when it comes to circumstances I don’t know much-- I might get lucky and catch a cold. The circumstances have to permit it though. Permission must be acquired, like a new hat or a botched haircut. Let’s agree on principle. Here, let’s have at it then. When the whole bucks, and we part, then, of course you’ll see a marginal amount of detail in the differences between the color and loop. A barn burns so we like fire. It’s a matter of distinction. Pride and goofing off. Greed leaves us subtle. Then, also of course, a miserable amount of grief stomps in with two-by-fours strapped to its feet like skis. You’d be better off just splitting the returns. I know, when it comes to returns we’re more even keel. I understand this. Bottle caps scattered around the shore. I’ve got my scars too. Let’s talk equipment. If it’s necessary to be liked then we’d do well to wish for ailments. Don’t worry. When it comes to ailments there’s not a lot of aught to. If we’re talking ailments, well, call me a water hog all you want, but there’s thunder in my cereal. Nobody’s as funny as they think. Hell, there’s a mission statement in my coffee cup. I’d draw you a map, but my face will cringe. And I’m the one left pulling strings on the inside, hefting garbage bags down to the trashcans in the basement, and chinning up to the moon. Well call me Lady Day and tie a ribbon around my neck. I’ve got facts to figure out. I’ve got cases to explain. We’ve got to talk cases and facts at some point. Just like alphabets try on words for size. I’m going to test the bill. Exposition rendered precisely, in the minutest of ways, kind of positive in spending habits, that’ll do for me. For me, well, there’s no real try in it. Got to get mama’s house all sorted out. Of course there’s always that. That’s first on the list. Got to get those Jack In The Box burgers out of the freezer. Patch up the walls. Spackle the place up. Really, when the weather gets this way, well, it’s just like this. Quit. Get a job. Move the bulldozers over the hill. I can’t help getting needy in the wintertime. Sure, I’ve bricked my fair share of shots at getting ahead. Like being addicted to temporary tattoos, or being a little bit pregnant. For me lying is a rebellious act. I create this life, manufacture this person to be, and I wonder why people mistake me for a stranger. I won’t go on getting all morose about it. There’s no danger. It’ll be winter soon. All the drunks will come staggering in, ass-holing on about the spiritual side of things. After all, we’re lucky because we get to be humans and exist in the world the way we do. It’s just that my face doesn’t always make the right faces. That about sums up my adult life. Summing up? Well, that’s a funny thing. Like an umbrella being out of tune. I’ve done a few stints in the nuthouse. Can’t say anything too fascinating about it. Only thought about doing away with myself a dozen or so times a day. So there’s this patch of land in my head, this scrap of a thing, a borderline hysterical place that metes out parking tickets to bad memories and tries to restore peace. There’s just something about thinking that’s always eating away at itself. You go around. You come back. You bite off more than you could ever chew, and then get frustrated with your own cud. And so then you go and lop off a snake-like chunk of the thought that’s squirming here and there and everywhere, and pander to it some, and there’s only one place to go back to. Yep. And there’s always something lurking just around the corner like holy god bringing down his judgment on some specified day that everybody but yours truly knows about. I offered my condolences to the Hasblitt sisters when their daddy went AWOL and shot the moon with Francine Yeller that awful February night, and there’s no telling what exactly did happen to them both, though I’m sure Mrs. Hasblitt maybe might be able to offer up some. Nobody’s asking anymore, what with the aforementioned misses now being gone to the great ballpark in the sky, through doings all her own, mainly a shotgun’s last call. Now, I don’t mean to be implying that this lovely woebegone thing had anything to do with the disappearing of those two trysters under the starry sky, but there are those whose suspicions were aroused, seeing that the petering out of Mr. Hasblitt’s amorousness for his dearly beloved wife were well known to me. He’d often gate around the yard, out where the wrecks rust and the feral dogs growl, and we’d stoop and squat and smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, Old Gold, and he’d get to yodeling on about some ripe young thing he was about to tear into. I’d let him talk. I liked the cigarettes, and it was nice to be out there getting away from my damn infernal solitude for a spell, and he had a hand pistol he’d use to scare the wild dogs away. He’d rave on about the tempest of his doings, the way his misses stunk, the hurt that was hanging onto his heart like a claw hammer. I didn’t pay it a whole lot of mind. Murder was thicker out there than in most places, and it got slimy and mucked around like week-old stew being dumped into the road. Oh, let me tell you. There was world enough and time for it all out there. People stood around and ogled. Sometimes it was like the stars were watching you too, and there’s plenty more than a lot of them. Let’s not dawdle around on the circumstances of me being close with that wily bastard. I’ll just say he showed up sometimes, and we shot the shit and smoked cigarettes out in the yard, and it was pleasant enough for a hermit like me to have some company nights. Sure, he talked rot, and was vile and rude and all what have you, but I didn’t put much stock in his ever doing much besides jabbering about what he wanted you to think we was doing. One of those talkers you just let slide because they don’t matter much to anyone except themselves. Me? I think too much. Too much cerebration. It makes me bad company. I count stars, read the bible, and gun down snakes with an old Springfield bolt-action rifle from my bedroom window. People seem to stay away. Moved out here in ’82, before the Paddington Stock & Rebar Co. moved in and sucked away a bunch of the land, putting up stakes, claiming land at next-to-nothing prices, and then trying to profit on the people who’d come to rely on that land. People got mad, but what could they do? Money won out in the end, as it tends to do. I got myself this junkyard. I did okay. I managed. Things just ended up in my yard. It was like ghosts were dropping them off in the middle of the night, and maybe they were. I never ask those kinds of questions. I just go about my ways, counting my luck on the three fingers of my left hand, the other two gone to a stray bullet when I was just scrappy kid, the where and why of which I know about none, since it was before my powers of memory reached their full potential, and, from what I was told, the pain of it knocked me out cold, and in fact my ma and pop thought I’d done gone clean dead on them. But I didn’t. I kept on breathing. And when I woke up there was my left hand all bandaged up by Doc Shivers, who mussed my hair and told me what a brave boy I’d been. Brave? Shit. I slept through the whole ordeal. I guess sometimes you miss the rainstorm but get credit for walking home through it. Anyhow, I turned out like this with eight digits, and some folks call me Mordecai still, recalling the great 3-fingered righty of the turn-of-the-century Chicago Cubs, and I took this as an honor, and now go by Mordy to most. Though what people call me isn’t a blister or a burp to me. I’m my own man. That’s obvious of course, but what it means is true. So my junkyard grew as people moved on, and the scarp heap blossomed into an eremite’s dream. Carcasses of rotting dodges flanked with sunflowers and moss-covered refrigerators. It was something to behold. Stuff just found its way to me, and stayed found for the most part. Television sets lost their knobs and dials. Glass splintered like spider webs in the sun, which bleached everything to a stale, desert hue. The rivers of rust ran wild, and like wisteria climbed over toilet bowls, lunch pails, VCRs, x-mas tree tinsel, radios, aluminum siding, cookware and computers just the same. I had buyers from time to time, but mostly it felt like a giant tomb of things people didn’t want around anymore. Maybe I felt like I was one of those things. But I’m not one to get to sentimental over objects. They get made, and they’ve got to be discarded. I do my part to help them on their way. There was a guy at my door one day, banging on the screen, and I went out there to see what all the hubbub was. This guy’s grease-splattered and unshaven, and stinks like a brewery floor. He’s got on these gold-rimmed sunglasses, and his hair is all bunched up like a tumbleweed. I don’t want to let him in, or get too close, so I only open the door a crack, and I yell at him from behind the screen with the door still latched. Turns out he’s a scholar. He wants to talk to me. He’s on some kick where he’s trying to interview the old timers like me who’ve been around here and through some stuff. I don’t like the looks of him. He’s got holes in his shoes and shirt. It seems like he’s had his pants on for about a month without changing or washing them. I just know he’s not going to be nice on my upholstery or my carpet. But for some reason I let him talk his way in there, and we get to jawing, mostly him, about the old days when I first moved in here. At first I was kind of curt with him. Didn’t want to give too much away. And being laconic’s in my nature anyway. Most days I hardly say a word except when the mail arrives. But this tawdry scholar guy, well, he’s really trying to dig in for some information, and I’m curious as to why, but mostly keep that to myself, as is my wont. I’ve learned to play it close to the vest over the years. So I get to saying a few things I probably shouldn’t, and then he starts getting into a huff about it, and my mean streak comes out in spades, and soon we’re cussing and throwing good-sized objects at each other, and I tell him to go fuck himself and all this, and he’s seeing red, and I realize that he’s not so small of a guy really, and that maybe he’d take me. I mean without weapons. But I’ve got weapons of all sorts. So, I run back to my bedroom and make sure to slam the door behind me so it thwacks him, because I know he’s coming after me, and it knocks his ass right down hard, which gives me time to grab my….well, I’m not going to go into all that. No need to implicate myself. Let’s just say, he got what was a coming, and what was a coming was a trip to county. That did him well I think. Lousy bastard. Never saw him after that. Heard he was living in Topeka, last I know, and had shacked up with a bow-tie salesman named Robert. It was odd, but I didn’t care. To each their each. That’s what I say. But me? Well, I’m done losing fingers. Let him take a shot at my head next time. That’d be okay by me. Until then? Well, it’s think, think, think. Collect junk and wonder about god. There’s nothing left I can do.

BOYS AND GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN



We now know more about Services received,

Then the Secret ones they're employed to provide,

For at least twenty women, the Price wasn't Right,

Was it worth quibbling and now having nowhere to hide?


From girlfriends, wives and family,

To say nothing of the public and press,

Yes, prostitution's legal in Columbia,

But taking a risk over pesos; what's the "cents?"


Knowingly violating their now lost security clearances,

Launching four government investigations, so US taxpayers have a say,

Boys will be boys, but while waiting for Barack to get angry,

Wondering what other less than "highest standard" behavior has been covered up along the way.


For 20 years, I was married to a DIA intelligence analyst,

For half that time, how often, and how much he paid, the divorce records show,

The agency did nothing, he still has his TS and 100+K/year job,

So I speak of what I know.


Overshadowed by the daily dribble of trip's "male melodrama,"

Was a pic of Hillary not exactly acting like a nun,

Beer and dancing, not whiskey and cocaine,

Showing the world that it's girls who know how to behave while having fun!



Karen Ann DeLuca

AN AMERICAN POEM



It snowed overnight

and here come the Klu Klux Klan

all toting volunteer shovels.

"We'd be glad to dig you out

as long as you're a white man."

they tell me. "Or not Jewish. Or Catholic."

I'm none of these, I swear,

and the Grand Imperial Wizard

forswears his divine mission

for an hour or two

of slapping around in mounds

the color of his robes.



It snowed overnight

and my dreams volunteer

to help clear out the driveway.

The one where I ride off

on the back of a goat

is already chiseling away

at the hard, crusty, icy, stuff.

And that's me, sitting for

the big exam in my underwear,

taking a little time out

to brush of the car,

uncover the front steps.

And would you believe,

the monster in the closet

is knocking those icicle daggers

from the eaves.



It snowed overnight

and snake-dancers arrive

all the way from Kentucky

to push that blower around.

Likewise a Nuba man

painted in ashes.

And the earth spirit

of the Ahsanti tribe

who hasn't even seen

a flake of snow

in his hundred lifetimes.

I can always count on Asmodeus,

the demon of lust



but who'd have thought

an astral body would have

all the right equipment

and Romulus and Remus,

teat suckers from way back,

would offer to sweep my path.



It snowed overnight

and St Uncumber,

everyone's favorite virgin,

is assuring me,

"We'll have you out of here in no time."

And the God Uranus

dropped down from the stars,

says he'll melt some of the stuff

if that is okay with me.

Even Dickens rolls his sleeves up

and Varney the Vampire

risks a killer sun and heat

of 21 degrees.



It sure is good to know,

when the work needs to be done,

I'm not alone in this world.

Side by side, even with the enemy,

the mystery, the exotic and the freaks...

if I can't get my car out

then who knows what the future holds

for any of them.

The Grand Wizard

doesn't even seem to mind

when the wind blows clear

that Nuba man's white ashes.

It's enough to make a grown man cry.

And maybe that crying grown man

will shovel me out next time.



DIVORCED COUPLE SELL OUT



You have not only purchased the house

but also the garden. Yes, it looks so

frail now. It's the season. It's the sentiment

our home exuded knowing it was on

the market. But don't worry. In decay, there

is color. In wither, a running commentary

on new life.



So work at it, like we did fifteen years ago.

Few will see your bed sheets after all

but many a thousand will spy your flush

geraniums and make their judgments.

Sometimes, flowers judge us. Like these,

crying out for fertilizer, for water from

that green hose that just lies there like

a dead snake.



You're new to this business I can see.

New couple. New house. Believe me,

the coming days, you won't stand for

anything that's dying. You'll take to

spades, to rakes, and churn your

precious miracles. The garden will prosper,

I guarantee. New blooms for old.

It's a sale.



TO AMOS, MARRIED TO THAT SIXTIES' REVOLUTIONARY



To think, the woman once

railed against Castro,

no better than Batista,

and now he's old, his beard

is white, and he can't even

get those good Cuban cigars any more.



He probably has Alzheimer's, she says,

forgets there ever was a revolution.

The people, she sneers,

they've been screwed by everyone

from emperors to presidents.

And they even screw themselves, I add,

though she doesn't hear.



Time is such a grim watch-dog.

It once felt like Now.

These days, it's retired and playing golf,

figures it can shoot its age,

never does.



And to think she kept the love-letters.

What are the words to her?

More Castros?

Except of course, their betrayal happened

over years.

And perhaps, she encouraged that treason.

Two people, both Cuba, both Castro.

Only she has no beard thank God.



And what's on at the Multiplex?

A movie about Che. Please, don't

get her started. That's how things end.



AVERAGE JOE



It’s a crazy death, a man underneath his car, in his own driveway,

doesn’t realize the brake is off and that vehicle rolls over him,

crushes his legs, his chest.

No wait, that’s not it, the scene is his driveway sure,

but he backs up, smacks into his five year old daughter

who’s playing with her dolls, squashes her like a gnat

against the garage door, cracks open the head of every doll.

But no, that’s just the worst that could happen,

not what did happen.

He made it to the street safely, and his family were

all safe and snug indoors.

But not the boy on the bicycle, a neighbor’s son,

he didn’t miss when that kid pulled out of the side street,

smacked him six feet in the air, bounced him off the car roof,

sent him sprawling bloody and dead, face down in asphalt.

But that wasn’t how it happened.

Nor did the truck cross over the center line, smash into him on.

And he didn’t slip on ice, crash through the guard rail.

Nor did he pull up suddenly, get concertinaed by the traffic behind.

It’s a crazy life, all of the things that could happen that don’t,

to him, to loved ones, to strangers, but they’re there in other lives,

the papers are full of them, deaths and disasters, there on every page.

He’s at his desk, car safely in the office garage, sipping coffee,

flipping through the newspaper before work begins.

On page three, ten dead in a mine cave-in. On page seven, a man struck by lightning.

He wonders where do they get these people.



CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS

Much talk,

garbled, gulped down with

Swedish meatballs over pasta,

odd friendships

yapping around a table.



Dave speaks and eats,

hard, staccato, like

pounding a ball in his glove,

Anna whispers Polish joke to Carl,

Lin is unhappy for all who did not make it here



It’s Jenna’s house,

photographs hang ghost faces,

ancestors years and oceans away,

yearning to be near

in sweat-shirts, jeans, and close cut hair.



No Kazlowskis’ here, not a Chin,

nary a Martini or a Schmidt,

intermarried, anglicized,

and all together, chatting the concerns

of romance, not races.



Slurp, laugh and on to the next

is the way their history happens now,

every look not catalogued,

every word not written down,

yet here they are, none of them.

John Grey

Courage


By Joel Clonts


You see,

it takes courage to love someone

as violently as I love you.


Thoughts of you enter my mind like a swelling rage

full of intensity.

Hollow.

Echo.

Time slows until there is nothing but the sight of you.


I feel you

in the pit of my stomach; the top of my senses.

Your smell, your body.

The smooth of your skin, the small of your back.

The touch of light reflected in your hair.

The seduction that is you.


It is as if everything in your faculty is a string

attaching you to me.

Twisting and intertwining

Tangling.


You see,

It takes courage to lie beside you, beneath you

To hold, to taste;

To hide in you


I love you violently

As beautiful and untamed things are to be loved.

Wild and frantic

Completely, in ways that I often can’t understand


…and I wouldn’t want it any other way.



Somewhere I’ve been.



By, Joel Clonts


Its somewhere I’ve been, not somewhere I go.

Where the saints, sinners, and winners meet.

Where the drunks remain and the regulars came,

To see how the black lights glow.



Different faces in different places,

Different ways, with sexy names

Clever letters rearranged,

but remaining unchanged

Is that black light, exposing stains



On your clothes, and on your soul

On your veins and up your nose

Feelings that show

only under a black lights glow.



Clear liquor, clear eyes open,

gazing-looking for something

Drinking, chugging, hoping and looking

But no touching.



She tells stories of circumstance, of innocence as she lies

To herself...as what she will

and what she want

Are compromised, besides…



It pays.

Easy money in easy ways,

But there are other ways debts are paid

She pays hers with pieces of herself that she can’t have back.



You see it and you find it,

Buts it’s different than when you left it

As a familiar stranger stares back from her reflection.



You see, it’s what you know, not what you see.

As the sun gets to bright for neon lights

And she is no longer “destiny.”



Her name is Nikki and she grew up on Taylor Street, around the corner.

And she’s got kids and bills and a mother who prays for her.



Under a black light,

She’ll try it once and she’ll love it twice.

As it makes everything in life, right. Everything better


She says it helps her


With rude businessmen, and slack boyfriends

With drunk college kids who have bi-curious girlfriends

“It makes it easy”

She’ll let herself believe.


If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas,

She’s starting to see

As her nose burns, and that line blurs

Between who she is and who she used to be.


Her name was Nikki from down the street. I was friends with her brother.


But she’s high now, a little numb and a little dumber

Mind trances, and lap dances, and she lets those hands begin to wander.

Lost in a moment, with strong liquor flowing

John boldly throws out a number.


She’ll swear its no habit, but she does have to have it,

So I try to get her some help.

All I can do is pray,

because it’s true what they say;


Baby girl,

I cannot save you from yourself.


You see, I’m an outside observer, just here for the show, caught up in the glow.

And even though, I may seem in the know,

Believe me when I tell you, this is not where I go


It’s just somewhere I’ve been.

Together

I always knew we'd stay together.

Banging against one another like wind chimes

that have no choice but

to cry out whenever even the faintest of gusts

throws them together.

We were bound as one,

unable to let the winds carry us away.

Always yanked back when the strings that held us grew taut.

In the nights, after dinner,

I'd sit on the veranda staring into the endless horizon of long grasses and starry nights,

knowing this was not the life I had fantasized about in the heart of my youth.

Strangely, I am one of those who they say followed his heart, diving headfirst after a life I knew nothing about.

A crazy fool that built a true life

from a mere impression of generations that came before him.

I worked hard and earned the right to sit outside,

alone on summer nights.

I can hear them through the screen door,

laughing and yelling,

pounding their feet against the floor.

These are the children you bore for me,

in your mind knowing they would keep me happy,

in your heart knowing they would keep me here, never straying.

I am the farm man, strong and weathered.

I live like those before me did on this stretch of farmland feeding all with the spoils of hard work and clean soil.

Or at least I'd like to think I do.

I wanted this for myself, I did.

And now I want to leave. To run and leap over the ground I've spent all of my days.

I should be proud, but really, it was the love of chasing something I thought I could never have that has kept me here all these years.

I have reached my destination, safe

without a scratch.

I am brought here, sat down, and told: This is it!

You have come to journey’s end!

I don a smile but look around,

Ever hoping for another fork, another bend.

But the path is straight and set before me, by me.

My children can laugh, play, grow

and journey on down the road I have paved before them.

They can pave what I have not. Diverging from the path, my path.

And then when they are gone

it will be you and I staring at each other in the silence,

everything to say already said.

Can I leave you then?

Then, when the strings are worn thin.

Can I leave the life I made for you and I, never knowing if this was what you wanted too?

Can I leave you here in an empty house?

On the land I tilled and for the dream I wanted.

Would you stay here with your eyes downcast,

bearing the burden of a reckless husband?

Who had no heart and no soul left to stay by his faithful wife.

These are the darkest of my days.

The trap I sprang for myself has sunk its teeth into my flesh.

No amount of wriggling and jiggling can release me from this boredom.

The string of the wind chime that held me so securely with its gentle tugging and musical clanging

has turned into the solid grip of woven noose and the steady rhythm of an ominous gong

counting down the end of my days.

I sense a freedom waiting for me just beyond this last stretch.

My departure now brings the burden of death upon your shoulders.

I cannot be blamed. They won't say I left you,

but that I've simply traveled to a better place,

ahead of you for now.

They say I will be waiting for you by pearly gates,

waving you into the afterlife

where we will spend an eternity together

and you cling to this.

But I won't, I've made my plans.

I'll strike a deal with the bearded man.

A good husband, a good father and all around a wonderful man.

He'll see that I was faithful.

That I ignored the pull of temptation.

And for all these things I've done for you.

He'll see that I spend my eternity away from you.

Veena Ambikapathy

“Trapped”

Trapped like an animal in a cage,
So many motions building up in a rage!
I look out the window life passes me by,
In this empty room I sit and cry.
Feeling so different from others,
Sometimes I just want to smother.
Trying to fit into life so many times,
My heart and soul is in a bind.
Doctors, hospitals do all they can,
I feel as if the world has me banned.
Often wishing for God to take me home,
I know this is wrong so I continue to roam.
Why am I broken? I do not understand,
People try to help with praying of their hands.
My body and mind feels bound with rope,
This gives me fear without any hope.
Too many people have hurt me so much,
I live my life in a hopeless crunch.
It’s so lonely being here alone,
Sometimes I get a call on the phone.
My mood changes from day to day,
I want to be well I pray and pray.

“The Little Girl”

The little girl always huddled in the corner,
Biting her nails down to the bone!
He would show up from work to home.
The first time she was thrown into the lake,
Thank God her brother dove in for her sake!
She also recalls being locked behind cellar doors,
Screaming and crying to get out to no avail!
The cellar was damp with a terrifying smell.
She must have fallen asleep in fright!
She must have stayed there into the night.
It’s all so strange to her this very day,
She really can’t recall ever getting out,
Wonders if the little girl is still there some way?

Linda Hunter

Web

Her web binds him in tight,
winds him close with sticky
need. He wonders how it
doesn’t stick to The Other One.

He rolls in closer, closer,
pulling himself in tighter still,
comforted by the ties to her,
drinking her tears for The Other One.

He tries to curl round the
quivering shell of her ache.
Always she is weaving, spinning,
always towards The Other One.

Nearer and nearer she edges,
dragging him, used, in her wake,
‘cause he knows she can trust him
much more than The Other One,

who doesn’t want her twisting
and twining, doesn’t see the art
she sacrifices. It chokes him,
her wasting it on The Other One.

He clings unwanted in the tangling
ropes – cruelly she keeps him
hanging. She could always have him.
She couldn’t have The Other One.

Soon she will be weakened, tired,
while he lies rested in her silken bed.
Soon she will be worn out, needy again.
He will lay her down with him, loving
her best vulnerable and wrecked like this,
wrapping her up, binding her tight,
sickly and close. Tied in the soft sleek strands.
Tied in her life’s work.


The Peripheral Girl

I am the peripheral girl. I am wedged
in at the edge of the photo where you
can’t see much of me. That’s my elbow,
there’s my ear. So quiet you’d never know

I was there. Do you even know if I was?
Do you think I care if you notice me?
(Notice me, somebody… Yeah, right.)
I am the girl with no face to remember

me by. No clever words snagging you.
I skulk and smirk, lurk behind curtains
of hair. I know the truths no one hears.
My voice is silent, my smile lies unused.

I bruise you, just gently, choosing sly
and sparingly. No obvious places, no
graceless soul-baring. I don’t do caring,
sharing. Never so you’d know. My power

is stealth. I am still the peripheral girl, the
fuzzy shape caught in the corner of your
eye. The name you always forget, the one
you can’t get your head round. The whisper
of gone.

Effigy

He made an effigy.
He made it for her,
picking all the things he
thought she would like.
It would be his gift.

He made an effigy,
using his own body
as carrier. Using his own
mind as template – selecting
the good thoughts he knew
would snare her. Cutting
out the ones gone bad.
She would never know.
He would draw her

a new love, an artist’s
impression. A pastiche
of her ideal man.
Holding it together

with blue-tack, tobacco
and home-grown denial.

He made an effigy,
built it with his own
hands, sticky with insecurity.
He studied her, watched her,
tweaked and perfected,
‘til he was sure this was
exactly what she would want.

It was ready. Finished.
A complete thing.

He gave her the effigy.
He said she could have it,
this body, this mind, this
beautiful boy, built for her
pleasure alone. And lots of
pleasure alone, he hoped.

He gave her the effigy.
She was amazed.
She put her arms around it.
She opened her heart, her legs.
She didn’t understand
that it wasn’t real.

Prick

Smothered in the sticky
splatter of the words
he spat all over her.

Trapped balloon deflating, she is
sealed within a wet papier-mâché
casing of his gobbed out dirt.
Inside, her every tender bit nicked
and pricked by the knife tips

of what he said.
The razored edges sliding,
slicing out from his lips,
sneers to steal and slash her
every suck of sorry breath,
each keening lung to puncture,
each hope and fall of chest.
Chafing inner elbows, knees,
thighs, breasts’ undersides.
Undecided

in his intention,
his words are still gummed
bitter with salivary glue.
His viscous fluids
acidic and thickening,
slickening her skin to
easy cuts, bleeds and infection.
Picking and prickling, rashes,
flicked splashes, allergy and
rejection. Weeping, weighted

down, sedated heavy with his trodden
in sodden gunk, deep down, under
layers of his mouth’s accusatory
verbal vomit, he could slyly
shoot home, this syringed-up
concentrated bile he’s stored up
for her and her alone. Finally
decisive. Always derisive.
He could…

One. More. Little. Prick…


Coming Death?

Big Tarantino fan.
And all the Saw films.
And anything with…
well, you know,

all that stuff. Torture.
The guts and gore.
He complains these days
movies have gone soft.
That there’s not enough
violence against women.
He must understand irony,

‘cause he’s clever and
educated and
he holds doors and
pulls out chairs and
helps her into her coat.
No reason why
she shouldn’t
go back with him. He
helps her out of it too.

But… it’s hard…

Hard to feel turned on
fucking under a poster of
Reservoir Dogs.
American Psycho
smirking to the side.

There are others,
ones she doesn’t know.
Blood-dipped knife-blades
dripping over open-mouthed
girlies, eyes wide and
thighs gaping.

Death or coming.
Coming death.

She thinks perhaps she’s
not bright enough to
get it – the art he admires.
Is it satire? Social comment?
She doesn’t want to
seem a prude,
so mostly
she just shuts her eyes.

Hollyanne

AT REST

My oars at rest,

the boat is bobbing.

My mind at rest,

I bob likewise.

No fishing pole,

no camera,

no reason to be here

other than to

ride the ripples in one place,

this place,

equidistant from the heavily forested shore

and the one where cars

peep through the pines.

I sit back, stretch my body

long and sun-wise,

slide my eyes under their lids.

Without doing a thing,

doing nothing

gives the orders

around here.


PLEASANT DREAMS, UNPLEASANT WAKING

No warmth. Not tonight.

No tenderness. Turn the

other cheek if you will,

the one farthest from her lips.

Read your book

until your eyes close.

Then fall asleep and dream.



Dream the perfect curve

of her face-lines,

the aromatic silk of her flesh.

Dream the time

you walked with her

across the field

and your rough hand found

the gentle small of her back.

Dream the trees shaking

and the daffodils blazing

and the warblers singing in the clouds.

No waking. Not tonight.


THE FAT BOY

It is an obese, flabby body that I must steer

along the sidewalk, leaning forward,

trusting gravity, hoping the rest of my body follows.



Some people stay well clear. Others squeeze between

me and the picket fences, praying I don't suddenly alter course

and squash them like gnats.



I hear the snickering, I've seen the mothers, in strict lecturing mode,

hold me up as an example of too much candy, too many soda bottles.

But have I really eaten and drunk too much?



My doctor says I have growth hormone issues.

So I'm not who I am.

I'm what I’ve got.



I watch the birds from my heavy bedroom chair.

They eat and eat and eat but they're never other than bird si/e.

They need all that energy to fly, my teacher explains.

My body can't conceive of flying.



I've read where beached whales die of the weight on their heart.

But what if their heart were part of that weight?


COLLAPSE

She collapsed on a busy street.

A couple held back,

in awe of the sudden disruption.

Some moved swiftly on,

not wanting to get involved.

One man bent over her,

felt for a pulse.

A woman knelt beside him,

shouted “Let her breathe!"

Some kids laughed.

An ambulance was called.

Two heavy set guys in white

lifted her onto a litter

and into the back of their van.

It sped away, sirens whirring.

The couple convinced themselves

they would have acted

but that man and woman

were just quicker off the mark.

The swift movers on figured

nothing they could have done anyhow.

The bending man, the kneeling woman,

sighed, "God, if only there was something

we could have done."

When last observed,

humanity was a sidewalk,

with just these people

doing just these things.

Some kids laughed at that.

John Grey

Dear reader
Ron is a poet, a short story writer and an artist. He has written 102 books of poetry over the past several years and 18 novels: He has been submitting his work for the past two and a half years. He is thrilled by acceptance. He is always looking for an audience. He has published 639 poems, 573 short stories and 115 pieces of art in over 204 periodicals, books, anthologies and 8 radio Broadcasts. He has been accepted in England, Australia, Canada, Japan and Thailand. He loves to write and offer an experience to the reader. He is a member of The American Poet’s Society as well as The Isles Poetry Association and The Dark Fiction Guild. His art is viewable on Facebook under will806095@bellsouth.net, you just click on profile and look under photo albums. He hopes you enjoy His work.

Website- Ronnie.Weebly.com (Swamplit)
Website- Shadowsatnighttide.weebly.com
Website- WolfFray.blogspot.com
Website- RavensWont.blogspot.com
Website- E-zine Ethrealsouls.blogspot.com
Website- E-zine Fathermostdream.blogspot.com
Website- Mirageinblame.blogspot.com
Sincerely Yours




Ron Koppelberger

4192 Acorn Ave.

Bunnell, Fl. 32110

Ph: 386-4379118

About 600 Words

Wolves and the Brutal Chill

The failure of his agreement to cross the frozen foothills of the mountain pass, the damn Donner freeway, was a charge to the series of mishaps that had led him to this point. He controlled the urge to cough and failed as he sprayed a fine mist of crimson across the frozen snow.
He had exactly two swallows of Gatorade left in the green and orange labeled bottle. The twittery helplessness he was feeling enslaved him to the need for forward momentum, he had to move, to push on to the meeting point. His injury was severe and the stitch in his side ached like a demon, push, push, push, he thought. His feet were frostbitten and numb from the cold, push, push, push. The delicate trace of blood smeared across his check as he wiped his mouth. He had spotted a shadow in the pine groove that lay before him, a wolf, jet black and a flash of crimson pupils in the light.
The tree had been a challenge to climb. He was about twenty feet up the tree clinging in a bear hug when the world went ashen gray.
The wolf howled on the distant horizon and ran North toward the rise in the landscape. Pine sap soaked his leather gloves in spots smelling fresh and bitter. He had moved, faltering for just an instant. The open space beneath him yawned and his feet slid against the crumbling bark as he fell, pin wheeling to the frozen earth. His friends, Ruff Winston’s, words rang in his ears , “Man carry a Bowie brother, a Bowie is the perfect mate fer yer trip, a Bowie man!” The empty void where the knifes sheath should have been was a godless balance of stupidity and naiveté’; he carried Jim’s namesake in his right breast and as a result he had done two things to himself when he fell.
He had impaled himself on the edge of the blade and he had sliced off his right nipple. The tiny chunk of flesh lay loose in his shirt, a tiny reminder somewhere close to his belly button, maybe he had thought, they can sew it back on. The taunt sheen of blood had dried sticky and matted against his chest. He wasn’t bleeding, nevertheless he was coughing up blood, he knew the knife had pierced his right lung.
His breathing was labored and bubbly sounding. He lay a short distance away from the tree in an exhausted heap. The sky swam and the sun burned his eyes with a salty stinging insistence. In gentle sloping degrees he fell unconscious dreaming of jet black fur and warm coddling wolf mothers. He lay there for two days before they found him. He was near deaths door and the shelter the mysterious wolf had provided him with had gone unnoticed by his rescuers.
When he awoke the bandages on his hands prevented him from scratching his face , raw, red, sunburned and chapped from the cold. The attending doctor defined the single set of teeth marks on his wrist as a mauling, an attack by wild dogs.
He had a coppery taste in his mouth as he attempted to itch the place where his nipple had been. “Damn!” he whispered in a growling hoarse gasp. The television was on and a commercial for Petco Cat Food was playing; a gentle purring feline appeared for a moment and his eyes bulged as an uncontrollable howl erupted from his mouth.


Automatic Outlaw

The wreck resisted the urge to beg a pittance from the passion of black boots and tight leather audacity. She followed the lines on his face with a remembrance of declared bond. The wreck coughed and furrowed his forgiving brow. She had assumed the guise of a recollection, a homeward movement in sashay and tempest, he remembered the dither of do’s and don’ts , of want and aspiration; they had been one.
He fingered the tiny totem that the stranger had offered him so long ago, the automatic outlaw, the electric passport to better times and pregnant futures. He saw flames and passion, he smelled the roasted scent of crackling wheat and tender harvest. The totem glowed and became warm in his hand. She watched the wreck and puzzled the common anchor that had brought them to destinations in scarlet saddle. She surveyed the wreck and seized the moment.
He was destitute and yet he was real and here, in her trespass. The fire burned in her eyes and she adjusted her Stetson. Found by fate, the black Nova supreme belched exhaust as she gathered him in her arms. He smelled Jasmine and she smoke. They climbed into the waiting car and headed North, toward saffron fields and azure skies, toward destiny.
He smiled and massaged the totem; thank god he whispered.


Exhaling in Secret Prisons

The floor was dank, mossy and covered with the pitted scars of a thousand before. The walls were granite and rough hewn concrete on all four sides. The ceiling was smoked glass with recessed lighting deep within the heavy glass , just barely discernable and glowing in shaded spectrums of candent nuance.
He touched his raw stubble covered cheeks with the tips of his fingers. “Breath Star, Breath!” he whispered aloud. His heavy exhalations filled the room and he wondered how much air he had left in the claustrophobic confines of the prison; how many inhalations and gasping breaths. The red button on the wall in front of him was the tempter, the will to move ahead. What might happen if he pushed the scarlet button? Perhaps he would find freedom, perhaps a thousand hells, perhaps great grinning deaths in blackened ash and maybe the edge of heaven. Might the walls close in on him smashing him to a pulpy memory.
Wellsprings of water flooding his prison with thirsty swallows of death, what might, what will? Star touched his finger to his lips , “Shhhhhhhhhhh,” he hissed, “Tell me your secret, tell me your secret.” Star grinned “Yer my turn little red……..yer my turn.” he stepped closer to the red button. “Pease god……please!” he prayed.
Star touched the button, smooth and warm, “Push it Star, push it! He shouted at the wall. “PUSH IT!” Star pushed the button and a warm breeze wafted from behind the brick and stone as it slid sideways; there was a tunnel and light, the smell of wheat, saffron assurance near the light, near the light, near the………..
Star opened his eyes and the blurry image of his raven haired wife met him.
“Thank God!” she gasped, “He’s awake, Star’s awake!”
He remembered the car careening into the ditch then blackness. He starred into the fluorescent lights overhead and sighed in relief; the button, he was free, alive in love, in fields of wheat and saffron.


A Blessed Blossom

The naturalness of the gentle blossom was in fine-spun magic with the seasons of both ash and harvest. A bloom in blushing chagrin with the accounts of angels and saints, full in sleep and boundaries of frayed glory. There was a perplexing innocence in the beginnings of reflection and birth, bearth and gusty meandering sanctity.
It came in sad sorrow of shadow and shade, a departure from love and animate intimacy. It was a cold proposition in favor of demons and blackened berserkers, the season in rebuke, the time of parched acquiescence and discreet dark diversion. It was the bane of passerby, the wane desire of soliloquies in bone dust, rattle and gossiping devils.
The flower cringed and withered in lieu of passion and sated cycles and in the miracle that defines the amaranth it found purchase in a new day as the specter of loves lost and declared diabolic dissolved into the soils of perdition, passing without further fanfare. A bloom in crowns of possession, a soul in search of harvest hearth, the amaranth of dark confessions.


The Next Day

He was wide awake and beautifully ever again. He had delivered a fulfilling, rolled, milled, sated and assured glass of whiskey wild, wild in alliance to the dreams of slightly sober care, precious bond between yesterday’s twilight and dawn’s replete secret.
He had sat on the front porch rocker the previous evening, comfort and a frosted mug of whiskey in perfect taste with the shadows of the coming darkness. The world had rolled on and the fact called life had made itself known in reflection and muse. He was swaying, gentle savor and the sip of a new beginning. The orange twilight horizon and fresh appreciations of cool indigo evenings in awe filled his eyes with the expectation of a day to come.
The cars dusted the air as the rattled and bumped along the dusty dirt road in front of the house. He could taste the grit as he sipped the cool whiskey, he endured the will of what comes to pass with comfort, with ease, with complacent degrees of sameness.
The whiskey had made a hollow little tempest against the side of the glass as he turned it between his fingers. The frayed edge of evening-tide cloaks and gentle waves of starlight lit the skies in flittering butterfly momentum.
He had raged the afternoon and in raw boned delight, in wonders of toil; the seed in saffron and wheat, in gilded turns of earth and sweet buds of birth he had toiled and turned the soil with sweat and dreams of tomorrow, sunburned and sure, dirty flannel and gray stained blue jeans. In secret touch the half moons of fertile fresh earth between his fingernails felt good and real.
The whiskey had been good. Yesterday he had sewn and the birth of a new day, a fresh crop defined the currents of what would be a courtesy in dawn’s eternal bonnet, the advance of tomorrows morning sunshine spirit.

Ron Koppelberger

Dear Editor
I am a short story writer, a poet and an artist. I have written 102 books of poetry over the past several years and 18 novels: I have been submitting my work for the past two and a half years. I am thrilled by acceptance. I am always looking for an audience. I have published 630 poems, 528 short stories, and 110 pieces of art in over 191 periodicals, books and anthologies as well as in 7 radio broadcasts. I have been published in The Storyteller, Ceremony, Write On!!! (Poetry Magazette), Writing Raw and Necrology Shorts. Also I recently won the People’s Choice Award for poetry In The Storyteller for a poem titled Secret Sash. I have been accepted in England, Australia, Canada, Japan, Thailand and India. I love to write and offer an experience to the reader. I am a member of The American Poet’s Society as well as The Isles Poetry Association and The Dark Fiction Guild. (My art is viewable at face book, will806095@bellsouth.net)
*Website-SwampLit (RonnieWK.weebly.com)
* Website-Shadows at Night-Tide (Shadowsatnighttide.weebly.com)
* Website-WolfFray.Blogspot.com
* Website- Ravenswont.blogspot.com
* E-Magazine/Website- FarthermostDream.Blogspot.Com
* Website- Marageinblame.blogspot.com
*E-Magazine/website-Ethrealsouls.blogspot.com
Sincerely
Ron Koppelberger

The Arrival of Man and Wolf

The secret messenger shrunk from the wildfire and the skies became a torrent, rain and warm heavenly flows of patient breadth. The resolute indulgence of wheat bloom and saffron passion distinguished the unconscious gift of vision and dreams as a thousand thousand ventured into the grain.
The outline in stone hid in shadow and temptation, a circle in granite and obsidian, a gathering of baron toil, it waited and the wager in torments of fire would yet evolve, nevertheless it raged and fought the tethers in dangerous rebellion. The wheat gathered its blossoms and in rooted diversities of method quelled the quandary with incense and the light of the divine, Eden in times of ascension and quest, the wont of what would be.
The angel, quiet and sure, went before inland seas and wild jungle brush to the man and the wolf, he satisfied a dream and the temper of reflection. The endless fields of wheat honored the gain of ceaseless passage to test and reason in the fondness of forever.

* In labors of omen the dawn sheltered the pair as tides in stone, also, amassed the run, the destiny of smoke and fire.

A Drama

Forevermore a change, a silhouette in summits of soul. He shaped in contours of garden labor, intricate fangs and forepaw change. He entreated the image of manifest passage unto the existence of détente’, a peace amongst wolves and the morning-tide glow of fresh skies and sparrows in anxious array.
He considered the flower blossom and the bumble-bee buzzing in fervent revolutions of flight. A pleasant riot of dandelion dander flittered against his paws as he played with the dandelion seed, a dream, a boundary between here and the there. He saw they baby girl, the angels sang and the soaring gossip relinquished the name of a curious dandelion, the discerning destiny of an awakened spirit. The wolf calmed the conference of seed and rushed toward the horizon in mysteries of bidden heaven and the secret of saffron shelter. The child would be the salvation of wolf and man and any other class of earth bound soul. He lay still for a moment and contemplated the arrival of the blessed child. He knew there were forces at work and some of them were fighting for the chance to rule in darkness and sorrow. The sun glimmered against his eyes and he looked west, to the distant clouds and his destiny. He would find the child and his path, for the sake of future dreams.

Netherworld Outcasts

The doorway was neglected and defiantly, day by day, in its affirmed rush of energy and mystery, mystery for the birth of rivers that define netherworld rebels and wolfs that grin in tender assay with the sunshine and the rain. They employed the doorman and the password was “DAISY DAYS”, a growling consent and entrance. He watched as the doorman grunted and a tiny panel in the scratched oaken door slid open, “Daisy Days!” he responded. The panel slid back and the sound of locks turning and tumbling echoed in the shadows.
A gaunt man with the features of a female hen greeted him, “Cluck, Cluck!” he chuckled as he shifted to pose in the form of a welcoming wolf. His lips curled and he snarled, “Welcome Firefly.” Firefly fell to his knees and bound the fabric of a dream as he padded into the secret enclave.
The door swung shut and the clan of the gray fray and southeastern wilds convened in gauze and smoke and misty lace. The rest of the world pushed on and secrets were shared in the meeting place, secrets that would shape the future of mankind and, indeed wolf kind. Suffice it to say the wolf found solace in the encroaching twilight that would find their final acceptance by man.

Certain Brand

The parched conclusion was adrift in seas of sand and sagebrush. He concurred with the likeness of balanced twilight and dawn mist. The tumble of destiny had placed him in the temper of distant horizons, refuge, a mix of native tightfisted cinder defined by the flame of embers and closed handed ash, straw and harvest energies of dreamy aspiration.
The sands flitered away from him in waves of cool dry air and the moths danced in sparks of burning passion. He growled and appraised the vast desert shadow, he claimed breaths of wolf like yield as the gray ends of braided fur secreted his flesh in wishes of canine wonder.
The hands of fate spoke in symbols of change and in change he indulged primal instinct, the way of man and beast. His eyes fluttered and amber suns filled them with luminescence and direction.
The slender neck of the brandy bottle sloshed in forward motion to the attention of rhythm and wolf grumbles. A droplet of delighted will and the drama of an ethereal teardrop, an extravagant prelude to haunt and hunts, to desert rays of scarlet struggle and hungry rare fulfillment dared to be his divine inspiration. It was a declaration of freedom, a guarantee of eternal saffron and garden blossom, he engaged the sunrise and found the frayed tether of the other, the wolf in angel attire, in uncommon fortune, “Moreover to the edge of evolution and cities that grace the wonder of heaven, a purpose in whispers of secret.” he intoned as he headed for the tender heart of Eden.
A shadow satisfied by the dark wolf and by the dream that would bring him closer, in endless accord with the bones and dust of a great granite circle, stones, the alter, scarlet unbidden stones. He would reveal the promise begat to him by the fates, his will, his destiny. To find the angel and the wont of his generation, by blood and wine and for the need of his kind.
Somewhere in the distant horizon the angel waited for the dark wolf in the passage of the storm and the desert blooms, a breath of patience and the prayers of one who has the seal.

Spit

The pace of the reverie was bridled by the why and wherefores of the cur. The moan was barely emphasized in winter worlds of presumption. He retreated from the wrapper of vigilant mystery to the quiet rampage of discovery. Tread in spoils of backwoods darkness, a shakedown in suspicions of existence. Guiltlessly he thrashed in silence. A script waged by static and white sound.
He meditated and searched for the inborn scruples of spit, a difficult bone. He wrest with the ancient drama in a curs destiny, the cycle of limitless bond between dog and wolf. He thought, shoved and pushed at the unlatched vault, the blessings of intrinsic dust and ensuing agents of change. The glass was a blank admission of unrevealed consciousness, a charm in assent, a reflection in tamed consent, imitated by a metamorphosis, the mirror assumed the cur and the cur, guileless with dreams and portent assumed the breed of amended companions.
He savored the respite as his mange disappeared and the wounds closed in favor of exclaimed fury passion and order. The cur bothered the bone and howled with resolute charm. The freedom of rare springs in seasons of sultry balance defined the substance of the curs poise and destiny ensued in arranged saffron bloom.

Ron Koppelberger

Looking for GOD

It became noticeable a couple of Presidential elections ago,
Although perhaps it began with Reagan,
Amplified by the events of 9/11,
There was shame in being perceived as "pagan."

Suddenly our leaders needed to be Our Fathers,
Heaven sent to out-Fox "evil" wherever it occurs,
And if they weren't GODlike themselves,
They had to be praying (and preying) like they were.

Epitomized by the inauguration of Obama,
Err, deification - but "he's only a man,"
Now that Barack hasn't delivered, we're out Scouting again;
Even in a GODfather pizza pan.

Looking for GOD, what does that mean,
For the constitution, for separation of church and state?
And could the search for a shepherd be indicative that,
Even Republicans love the "nanny" they claim to hate?

Why not rely on ourselves, instead...
Of casting a Hail Mary vote quickly followed by knives,
Because none of these candidates can save US,
When their main priority is their political lives.

Karen Ann DeLuca