Reflections (vol 1)

                              She decided not to talk to me a few years back,..and that is okay. We lived in an old house towards the Northwestern urban outskirts of residential Philadelphia . A three- storey Victorian house with iridescent stained glass windows on the landing in between two wooden staircases.
                           A season or two would change,...during the downward spriral,..of our digressing relationship. A night in the hospital would sober me up for a brief period,..then falling off the wagon,...to the dead of night,.. subway trains filled their routined courses.
                          The afternoon lingered in the deserted city Summer. Somewhere near where society ends,...and the suburbs begin,...lost on the edges of town. A few civilians neither here nor there,...it didn't matter. She left a few hours ago,...somewhere motoring in her polluted vehicle,..stretched out among the rural highway,....beyond my comprehension. She was rather vein,...she used to capture photographs of herself,..indulged in too much make-up. Then hang the framed pictures on the wall in our furnished apartment.  Was I in love with her?,...or the idea,..that I,..just like anyone else in the world,....had potential to be happy?,...My efforts fell flattened beneath the evening train as it pulled into the end of the line station,...at the center of town.
                        Her mother lived somewhere out in the sticks,..A far hike away,...a three hour drive into the heart of the country. Where paper mills and factories flourished beneath thick clouds of dead grey air. This was where she was born and raised. I got to see her homeland,..where the natives pranced around in wife-beaters gripping tire- irons,...it all made sense. That she would spring out from the wet garbage that gathers fuel in junkyards.

San Andreas

                                         The faint and dusty shore,... spread out into the horizon,...the dismal regions of the westcoast,...lines and fingerprints imbedded marks,..... in mountains of sand and mud,..as an angry cry from the vicious seagulls above,....fishermen make a living measuring the tide of the village seaside communities,..Pedro and his foreign souvenirs,...a caleidoscope that spills out beyond the barometer of justification,..bare feet as the waves crash like thunder in between the Pacific fault line of San Andreas,...
                                 Through the bay window,... the black eyes of a mermaid drowning through the ivory crest of the surf,...skin deep he was recalling her futility,..her final year upon the valley of the sun,..that beat it's sharp pangs into the soil with a thud,..then rising and ascending like an angel up into mirage of the unpredictable heavens,...her beauty thin and sordid,..but solid,...it's foundation,..valuable to the captain of earth. With his eyes bleary and drunken with bewilderment,..as wanting things to unfold like the fables of his anscestry. Her name was Gloria,...she was fabricated in this impoverished landscape then would diminish and disintegrate into tiny fragmented pieces as the seashells rest idly in the sultry soil.
                                      Pedro walked in the early awakening of dawn,..in the pale morning,. where the ocean compromises the sandy beach......just the steady tuning of voices in preparation of the days laborious endeavors,...and the remote nostalgia of Gloria,...in her vulnerability and her earthlike wisdom.  

Decomposition of Beauty

                         We sat in the evening twilight,..next to each other on your cushioned loveseat built for two,..your eyes were vast plutonic mirrors of crimson reflected into the eternal abyss. The dark shades of motherhood,...the forgiving spectrum of forbidden procreation presented an ongoing theme throughout the night . Our neighborhood courtship kindled the long awaited spark that ignited the far off fahrenheit of lattitudes.
                        Your name rhymed with love,... in the heat of the marble that assembled you parents mantle above the deserted fireplace of centuries. Your childhood photo albums has stained a permanent void into my psyche and membrane. The chiseled marrow that rubs to the side of my withered bone structure. Medieval,...your countenace lingers ancient and timeless,...to withdrawl your charming expression,...too deep into the weak moments of daylight. Tea and cofee spoons.,...macadamian nuts,..or crumbling macaroons.
                                The raw flesh sharpens as you chew away at your lower lip,...through the tired stress of your endless afternoons. The make-up you use to assemble your feminine face and charachteristics has taken it's toll among the living. The primitive transactions along your cycle of days. The rage you experience in the fatigue of your vague routines. How mindless the days transpire?,..
                        Then onto a sphere that holds no recollection of you or what you become.,...it is as if it never was,..nor meant to be,...all your actions were practiced in vein. The decomposition that age brings to your soul and your esteem. Resign your breathing love,...someone will be there to pick up where you left off.

Love ,... or/ The end of sorrow

                                In the faint woods approaching dusk,.. thin shadows of night spread out past the distinct boundaries that assemble the forest floor,....the intervals between the bedded leaves crackle beneath your abrupt footsteps. The eyeballs that watched over you in the sordid scurry of  night. Your silhouette,...remaining still,..then tumbling outside the corners of your vision. The pattern and contrast of your fragile profile,..layered in two- dimensional interpretations. To rest your limbs upon the aching branches that idle wearily,... upon the crucial descent of the vulnerable evening.
                               Teenage years diminishing into the folly of ages. The years of circumstance,...and the yearning for closure,...the weeping,...your eyes glazed with myriad tears leaking out through your fertile brow. Then mesmerized,..... the sensation of pain implanted traumatic memories into your sharpened recollections. ,... Your intricate presence of color. The iridescent portrayal of ideal fantasies,...the bleeding rainbows of aura that penetrated your mystical realm,..If only for a brief ribbon in time ,..my fingertips grazed the unfathomable mist you exuded beyond your eyes,..and into the vast abyss of time and destiny. The thick and bright,...the lost among the daylights. A curtain pulled down on the artificial evil that enveloped itself as reality.
                               You told me not to be frightened,... among the dismal landscape. You reminded me that the creatures were worth no mind to pay. They thrive off my worries,.....like a poisonous reptile thrives off the weak and illeterate.  The formations I observed no more than a mirage,...at the end of a jaded plateau,...and nothing more than a weak splatter of comprehension. You have planted significant substance into my thawed out void,..that's gradually grown,...until there was nothing left to do but melt..........

Population and Isolation

                                  In the time it took to create the sidewalks that unravel below the fallen leaves,...I walked along the rural paved walkways to Main and broad. A small city,..more of a commuter work zone. Where the 9 to 5er's take refuge in their uninspired routines. A Friday perhaps is brighter and fancier,...with our airs on. Maybe even a smile would tend to leak from a normally pensive expression. These moments in time,..on the brisk doorstep of Winter. Anticipation in the wind. Nature aligned with an underlying spell of premonition, The migrating bird,...or the hibernating squirrel,..to gather or to fly on.
                                 Cough syrup and domestication. The festive lights of the holiday tree in the living room. A doorbell was ringing through the evening window of town. Autumn clothes are worn,..yet clean. The twinkling of  myriad light bulbs hooked into a slim chord. Plugged into the electrical socket amidst a carpeted environment. Pets and their scents,...reminders and resolutions of what could of been. Hearts and candy canes,....postcards and letters never sent. Bunkers in the basement stored with dry goods. Isolation and insulation. The oak and the tinsel. The withered trees do fall to the icy ground. The cold will bring cramps to your aching limbs. The blood that runs thin,...with the alcohol and aspirin. Jack Daniel's and the Captain have taken your loved ones for a spin. Among the ruins of centuries. What does our ancestry have to offer among the wasteland of time lines?,...off track exponentially. The railways and lines of the city,..to the north and western to the jaded sky.
                                       Pedestrians have lingered on the urban corners,..with numb fingers in between their gloved hands. Polluted smoke from the chimneys high up above the breathing sewers. The aggravated tendencies of the jay-walked mind,...thrown out of the way of morals and purity. The slime of the curb as it looks to cars motoring over dark roadways. Midnight prevails onto dawn of the morning. The stars still hang in an amber awakening. Invisible through the enveloped sky of light.
                                   To be alive is to be immortal in times like these.

Fiction: Shadows in the dark

                                           Down and out for some time,... a dirty one bedroom apartment in Germantown . My dismal existence revolved around cheap beer and stale nights. Moments elapsed yet remained,...similar,...to the pungent indigestion,.of the gasping morning air. Somewhere in between brief intervals of time,..I'd find myself pondering by an open window,... looking out to the open courtyard. Three flights up I perished,..with knowledge of nothing else,..beside the frigid temperatures that  burnt a foreign fever into my tortured equilibrium.
                                          She made her aura present to me at a bar one night. The regular music manifesting itself among the dizzy locals,....pouring their hearts and their hard earned money into the endless fountain of oblivion. Dreams came to an abrupt halt at the creaking of a  swinging door in the hallway,...,.. the melancholy hope of a new arrival. The one who's gonna change your life,..then leave you dry,..... Where you came from,...the desolate solitary truth of daily struggles.
                                          She sat alone on a bar stool by one of the damp circular tables. She smiled a lot,..below her tranquil visibility,...frustration streaming through my sub-conscious. One too many weeks of displeasure had me down on my luck. I approached her with my slurred speech and work clothes. I wore a standard black waiter  outfit ,...  pleated dress pants,..button up shirt,...dress shoes. My hypersensitive vulnerabilities sized up her graceful demeanor. She had me at goodbye that night. Another fish in the river that made its way far down stream,...hours before the pale arrival of morning.
                                         Destiny would not let me be,...it held me in its firm preoccupied hold. The idea of love cramped my overall being until,.....there was everything in the world left for me to do. Halloween a couple years ago. The stars hung low in a brightened night sky. The constellations were in bloom,..and so was I. Something had to happen in the fluorescent lighting of the inside development. Behind walls masked with classic rock album cuts ,....I searched for the perfect combination of lust and feeling. I found it temporarily,..among the rocky cliffs of misfortune and disease. I had what I always wanted,..and I tore it down,..with the reckless destructive manner of my past. Lives were already lived among the aggravated fires of indecision. You can see the smoke through translated binoculars,..from the foreign shores of disbelief.
                                        To each others dismay,...we became bound together through the common need of familiarity. It was the way things were,..and going to be. Bloody Marys at the afternoon diner,..and evenings of blurred communication. The cycle lacked a solid foundation of time and stability. I found myself a mile from home,...alone and unemployed.  The answer to my behavior required a question,..and I had nobody to ask.

Residing on the outskirts.

                                  In the warm light of the afternoon,..through her suburban windows,...she looked to her dull neighborhood surroundings. An occasional car would breeze through her field of vision. Boredom created a steady buzz,..an audio dream,..tuned to a steady Autumn day. She leaned on the pale sofa with her knees and pressed her face up to the cool glass. An empty residential duplex was where she was currently residing. Her overworked husband pulling sixty a week to make ends meet. She'd stay staring out the window for some long awaited time.
                                     When she was much younger than today,...she loved a man once. With time on her side she could of never predicted the drawn out monotony of her present routine. She'd recall being passionate about the changing of the seasons and life,...in general. Romance had become a work of envious fiction. Daytime television burned a whole into her tedious vocabulary. She turns off the T.V. now and walks languidly into her bedroom,...as if possessed by the mocking demons she'd  hope she could maintain. To stave off the reality,...as to the wishes of her husband,...that their marriage was normal,..and not permanently damaged,..by the decomposition of time. The leaves falling from the trees outside her front door,... would recover from the long dead of Winter,...but she would not.
                               Growing up in the same rural community where she was presently living,..she felt charmed nostalgia,...reminiscing her youth,... high school love and forgotten dreams. She was never filled with the threatening premonition ,...that her life would be resigned to a sordid cycle of thought that tortured her on a daily basis. She despised her husband for everything he did,...everything she had become,...and mainly all she could of been.

Fiction. Blood or/ False Realities

                                     It was in all in your night kitchen,....we sat together on the hard tiled floor. Somewhere in between the hidden nostalgia,...we buried the toxic fumes of disoriented delusion  into one another. The dark and  crimson moon that peaked it's way into your 2nd storey apartment window. Breathing the soul dynamics of one another. Exchanging the blood and false realities of our past.
                                      Secrets and promises,...forgotten crimes or heavy misdemeanors. Products of the foreign city streets,..and it's forbidden desires. The mysteries of your bedroom,...and the falling of your brown hair onto your sheeted pillow while we made love. The flaws and casualities yet to creep into our relationship. The unacquired knowledge of vices and self indulgence. The love we yet created,...and the premonitions of  wreckage that would prevail through  the sensitive pleasure.
                                     The face of an angel peaked through white curtains,... of vast clouds,... up among the heavens. The sorrow,..I felt on the day I knew it was over. A burned picture into my waking hours of how close I was,...to truth. God was on my doorstep,..for a brief moment,...when I dreamt. I woke up to an empty bed and a broken existence. My apartment was my own. I attempted to forget the inevitable,...temporarily,....but not finally.
                                   My occupation was threaded and thin,...my words trivial. Phonecalls of banished behavior. Communication stabbed me in my wounded neck. The air of a photograph,... and the aura  it exuded.   Her friends did not like me,..and neither did I.    It is too late to dig up the soiled dagger that's been buried six feet deep into your childhood backyard,...next to the rotted carcass,.... of your beloved rabbit,..... that got ran over by a car,... when you were eleven.    You grew up in an upper- middle class neighborhood right outside the urban limits. Your parents were pure with morals and values. The scent of your polished futility.     The precise feminine charachteristics of your profile. Your family refridgerator had one of those built in ice dispensers.
                                     A scattered conversation took place once in our climatic weeks. Was I honest in my moments of desperation? Was that the only time we saw each other unclothed? Bare and naked was how it was supposed to be with us,.....the cover and prototection the homeless take in the dead of Winter,......in the hibernation of heat,.... above the filthy metal street drains.
                                

Memoirs,..from a 19th century New England town.

                                      I have read many books and translations in my small poorly- lit nineteenth century quarter by candle light aside the fireplace. Above the wooden mantle hung a dark brown and grey portrait of Abraham Lincoln hung on the wall. With a glass of fine red wine on my side cofee table beside a mahagony recliner. The  leisurely hours would unravel through the night in the midst of my studies. It was then in my early forties residing in a quiet country New England town that I rented  a room from a presumptous landlady known throughout the spread village community as Madame Hissafet. An elderly woman,..a widower who was commonly feared among the curious natives,..mysterious she was indeed,..however I would add ,..a bit misunderstood.
                                  I lived aside the cellar door,..and would occasionally bump into her in passing when I was leaving. She did not say much but always had the same empty frazzled lifeless expression,..one of withered years and maple syrup. It was during this brief span in my middle age years that I was put out of work for some time. I would find useless hobbies to fill up my vacant hours. Sometimes I would sit beside the frozen river in the Winter and stare out onto the icy platform. Being surrounded by nature in the Winter was one of my favorite childhood pastimes that prevailed into my later years. The bare trees in the brisk noon,.with occasional frigid gusts from the river. I could tell at these times that I was very much alone,..and very similar to Madame Hissafet.
                          On returning home in the evening she would bring me a home cooked supper in a braided Easter basket that she used to parade around on her head with when she was young and beautiful. I was living in her place for a good six months before I decided to ask her to join me for dinner one night. She agreed without any thought or effort. We sat there in the cool of the evening. I could here feline cries from the upstairs as we sat down to our meal. It was her cat Beatrice that was not regulary  used to spending this time of the evening by herself. We sat in my small den across from each other,..on either side of my flimsy plywood kitchen table. She began telling me long drawn out stories about her life. She went on and on  about her deceased husband Maurice and their time in Paris. How they'd walk along the Seine every morning,..and about the moment when they decided to settle down and get married. Madame Hissafet admitted that she had a son who was about my age ,..and that I even resembled him a little bit.
                           ..

Fiction: Losing the future through the past.

                               Was it the sound of  the gradual water,..slowly dripping from the spicketed faucet at 2:30 A.M.,..the outlined porcelain frame of the bathroom sink. You left the hall light on in the middle of the night,.. while the scattered sounds of the urban streets spread shadows on your bedroom wall. The city humidity was ruthless when we first met. My nerves were also wrecked. I think you were sleeping above your familiar bedsheets,.while I laid there next to you on my back staring up at the sordid light flickering around your ceiling fan. I wondered how you could sleep at all,... amidst the dreaded summer heat.
                            My mind restless with alcohol and amphetamine,.... provided nothing for my realm of thought,...save feelings of despair and hatred towards my physical presence. I  wondered if you were dreaming,... and if you were,.. what you were dreaming about.?    We were going through the early stages of our relationship,..these were the good days. I remember how timid I was on our first encounters. I'd have to drown myself in booze to settle the unbearable anxiety of everything then.
                            I was a waiter at the restaurant next door to the one that you waited tables at. I would dress myself in black and put on a smile for the paying regulars. I never realized how any of them could work up the appetite to digest a whole entree. I would frequent  the restroom about forty times a shift due to my impulsive bladder,..or to powder my nose with temporary fulfillment. It got the best of me as I worked through my time at the establishment exponentially.
                           It was in mid August,...her family was out of town on vacation down the shore. We sat in her well furnished family room. I sat there shaking,...clinging onto a cold open can of domestic beer,..holding it up above my leg for desirable relief,.. I pounded these things,..put them down like water,..I was thirsty,..and I couln't get enough. Did it ever occur to you how messed up I was in those days?,..or were you like me?  Were you experiencing the thick denial that garnished my soul,..covering up long days of work, no rest.........resigning our love,..and for what?                         
                            I remember  sitting there in your family's designated area of relaxation,..among the suburban cushions of protective similarities. I glanced up at your senior year photograph from high school. It was then that I made the conscious decision never to let you go,...somewhere along the edge of the sky,...pre dawn,....the silver outline of our future bursted into flames,....and at the drop of a hat,...gone. Everything we ever did,....all the plans we ever made for the future,...disintegrated from the depths of the morning sky,...   myriad birds migrating south for the winter.,...formed a triangle up among the Autumn clouds,...with small spaces in between their formation,......you were bigger than the spaces.

Fiction: Retail,..Death,...and Rehab or/ A new beginning.

                            I worked behind the cash register of a rural community chain gas and convenience store. Nightime would overshadow the desolate parking lot with the sordid sprinkling of iridescent lighting.       Customers would pass through the transparent windowed doors into the commuter threshold,.. oblivious,....with an uncaring air of ease,...removed from their commercial society yet,..at the center of it all. Merchandise and fuel on the side,...winged with overpriced medicinal products and fresh sandwiches from the deli. Packaged soups and policies to overlook the well-oiled machine of  corporate demi-gods.
                           At the epicenter of financial transactions is where I cashed in my tedious eight hour work days,..either crawling through the vast endless hours with sweat and anguish,,... temporarily avoiding disaster,........or gliding with ease along smooth strides,.. accompanied with the numbing comfort of my only and best friend at that time,...let us call him,.."opiates",.. as an alias. Long drawn out lines of quick faces and short expressions assembled the multitude of customers. Never a lull in business when you needed it,...and always dead when you wanted something to fill up your mapped out time.
                        Clocking little to nothing over minimum wage is hardly an excuse to go out and celebrate,..although being placed in the thick of it,... living a forty hour -a - week lifestyle,...it was the best damn excuse anyone could've ever gave me to get high.  As the evening hours would descend and transpire into the diminishing inevitability of the night,....my blood would settle,...with the warm knowledge of being set free to the vices of my own lonely lifestyle. The cycle would unravel,..flatten,..then recreate itself as if it never began in the first place. The only difference was me,..a mere physical creature,..softly and desperately beseeching the doors of death and destruction to let me in. There would come an end to the retail cycle,..but not the conclusion that I planned or set out for,..but plainly the opposite.
                         It was a bleak January afternoon, the heaping white drifts of snow carelessly accumulated around the circle of the paved walkway,.. at the center of the courtyard..the institution I was currently placed in,...on the behalf of my own broken accord,...couldn't of been more full of lost endeavors,...and void of all things involving joy or contentment. The depressive early morning awakenings provided me with feeble attempts at effort. The mocking faces of long termed sobriety dug at my aching side with "I told ya so,..you should of listened to yourself a long time ago,..then maybe you wouldn't be here",...roaming the empty fluorescent lit hallways,...faces disposed to the artificial sleep that never rested them.          It was all a lie,...the pleasure,...... and the dream,...I never woke up,..but I believed in it.

Australia

                           Blinding red,...the bright and mesmerizing sun trails,...bleeding into black and white beads in the corner of my vision. Weak and vulnerable now,...endurance grown tiring. Somewhere a mile off campsight,..a dingo ate my baby. Young at heart,.. burning,.. a questionable desire among the long stretched carpeted outback. Gone hunting now,..along the mounted flattened terrain,.fell silent,..then harshly echoed throughout the vast walls of the dismal canyon,.... the shells falling to the scratched surface of  shallow sedimentary. Consequentially final ,..the combustion of machine like discharge,.. temporarily compromising the horizon with the evening skyline,..then black clouds of smoke ascending up above the dusty touristed trails where many a kangaroo and vacationer went "Waltzing Matilda",..somewhere spread out among the inebriated natives high off the fumes of Fosters in a  village pub...dark,...premium,..crappy.
                                Australia,.. severed the ties with the Brits
,...then onward to the tales of" Men at work" and vegamite sandwiches. Off with the fish and chips,..a pathetic attempt to build an alienated culture lost on the opposite side of the world.
                      I came across an irrate Austrailian male at a small get-together in an insignificant town on the residential northern outskirts of Philadelphia. He claimed that all Americans were naive,..closed- minded and stereotypical. Me being completely bias in these matters,.. agreed with him almost instantly. I also inquired that our people were as idiotic as his,..this was the wrong thing to say to this blonde-haired young fierce Australian male,..because unlike me and alot of other Americans,..he felt passionate and patriotic about his sub culture and heritage. Oops. Whatever,.. I played along with his sterotypes of Americans. I claimed that I thought all the bastards rode around on kangaroos like horses and drank nothing but Fosters beer, ate Vegamite sandwiches and rocked out to "Men at Work". He also claimed that one of the prime reasons he loved visiting America was the long-awaited shortage of the small clear plastic cups that he used for "Beer Pong" in his homeland,..Truth is I wouldn't care too much for the guy no matter what country he was from.

In Between Time Zones,...

                               Pacific and westward,.the freight car he resided in gradually maneuvered itself with the rest of the train through the distinct timezones of unwinding landforms and its inhabitants,..It was an Early Spring morning in April,..a day following a night of tremondous rainstorms. He could see out onto the vegetation,.. the gathered puddles beneath the trees. The dew,..and mist rising from the grassy fields of mountains on mountains. The landscape moved quickly and casually in and out of his frame of vision.,..as the sordid sounds of machinery built a wall of sound surrounding his existence,..mangled amidst the trivial voices that assembled his insanity. Nothing was all he had left,..and this provided for him the relief of knowingly accepting it. Once a family man,,..he was happy for a short period of contentment. His wife loved him and his daughter Samantha would never of dreamed of living in a world without him,..the reality of the situation was that this was all a lifetime away.
                      When this all began,.. in the heat of delusion,... fever rose to his head and escaped through the narrow tunnels of his ear canals,..while sweat pervaded from his forehead through a tedious series of exhaustion,..the cycle held captive in invisible air for the whole world to interpret,..except him. A vein attempt at sanity always fell short,..with a grave and maddening thump. For fifteen years he provided for his family,...laboring hard twelve hours a day,..six days a week. A mere factory worker,..temporarily subjected to the gates of hell and then back again,..to the familiar dwelling of his family. It was not that they didn't love him,..they did very much,..despite of everything. It was just that they never knew what to expect,....He came in waves,..sometimes caring and with a smile,...then other times screaming violently in the shower and concluding in broken glass and blood. He would never be the same.
                       Homeless and abandoned,.. a lost man spiralling down the slopes of hallucinatory sprees and chaotic avalanches. Sharply coated with the thunderous pangs of an unforgiving society,..where disease was a bad hand,..and noone took your bluff. Coming to,... was the hardest thing for him. To see what fate had done to him. His filthy hole ridden clothes layered with the grit of previous mishaps. None he would remember all to well,..all he'd be able to put together (and only momentarily) was noone wanted anything to do with him. This he could briefly understand,...that it was all too much.
                    Growing up in the hearth of central America,..the lake of his youth. The mysteries of the universe would rest idly in the corners of his small farmside community,..waiting,..for this very moment to be revealed. He thought he knew the spectrum of his dynasty in a former life when he first took note of himself reflected in the vague silence of his newborn daughters eyes,..but just like everything he knew that was there for the taking,..he lost his calling somewehere in between the foreign oversea trenches of battles never fought that should of been.

The Beaten

                                        Closure to a child's lost years, speak restlessly in riddles, and lost tales of forgotten rainbows. All to be revealed with opened windows blowing night air, trickling through bedroom curtains, into our past. Prayers of the dead echo maliciously throughout silent courtyards, held captive by the moon and existence. Endless despite multitudes enraged at their superiors. Inferiority and sweat awaits the burning anguish of daylight,..piercing dried flesh with toxic rays,.....bright red,... skin peeling on the surface of the wounded., souls crying out through labor of a weary existence.
                                  A temporary band-aid solution masks the few recent staggering years of alcohol and abuse. In a barroom where the hurt people subside,.. over pangs of the evening news,..or the reality of the I.R.S.,..auditing the helpless onto the required corruption of   financial bankruptcy,...drowning the pity in bourbon and whiskey,..then rising,..the morning like a fearless bastard stepchild mocking his own stupidity with the unknowing desires of his parents..
                                Out of time and sight in a western desert community. Where all residents abandoned their suffering identities a long time ago. Around where any wage is under the table,.. and honesty is some far off suburban picketed fantasy. A weekday,...the house was empty,.and still a long ways before nighttime. She set her gin and tonic on the living room table then laid her throbbing head down on the cool wooden floorboards. The house was helped furnished by an old work associate friend,..who was looking to get rid of a couple old things. She didn't care if the house was empty. Then it occurred to her that this livelihood was a dead end. A mistaken detour among the dust filled highway of indecision. Her two little girls at Summertime daycare,..and she,..already miserably drunk,..surrounded by her own misfortunes . It was Tuesday and she was already broke. It would be the normal routine of scraping along until the next feeble government check sufficed for a day or two of oblivion and generic groceries.
                                A truck stop diner aligned with fluorescent lighting and weak coffee kept the banished faces interchangeable to the uniformed waitress. A slice of apple pie before hitting the road. Personalities in this establishment were only temporary,..what was the point. The road sign was made in the early seventies,.and since then,.......... nothing. A family attempt at a lifestyle excluding poverty only robbed the out of town patrons of their own once inspired "luck",
                       She returned home to her cosy two-storey house in the middle of Arizona,..to her husband's day off filled with cheap beer and black and white television,.."Hey there honey,..what'd ya bring me tonight"?,..She passes him,.in no mood for this now (especially this),.into the bedroom,..pulls out a fat wad of singles from her dirty apron and meticulously places them under the blouses in her underwear drawer. She walks back out with her typical tired expression into the narrow hallway leading to the T.V. room to comfort her bored desperate husband. "Oh honey the boss was there today,..so I couldn't get ya anything". She sits on the cheap love seat beside him,.and stares at the television. He looks over at her and puts his hand on her knee,."So it's been one of those days huh?",..

a neighborhood evening

                           In the brisk seasonal realm,..the trees finally acquired identities. Anticipation of the clear morning sky in a dewy contrast with the fields below. The migrant ants of labor below,.. as viewed from the eyes and nose of a commercial jet-liner,...as it soars from above into the far off destination of distance. While in the working class part of town the friendly barber snips a trim off one of his regulars. The pale afternoon is as appealing as a necessary drought of rain from the heavens,.... the crops of Central America drying through the depression.
                          Early twentieth century tidings from the bleary eyed illiterate,...staggering through the remote farms of the north. Waking up to isolation,...and dreams of drunken delirium,...to the filthy slums of Chicago. A pretty young woman in her early twenties,...who seemed to be drinking alone yesterday night. Such a lovely decoration to add to that bar stool. Dirt cheap was my local watering hole. The same daily routine and the same bartender,...Richard,.. yeah Richard with his handlebar mustache and lumberjack octave. He never tried too hard to make anyone feel any better,..that's what I liked about him. We all knew there was nothing but flat beer and false love  to wash down the drain.    
                       The previous evening in a moment of intoxicating inquisition I got the young ladies attention with my crucial demeanor. Her name was Gena,..a grade school teacher who somehow stumbled across my frequented establishment. Her dirty blond hair and chiseled cheekbones only added to her dark handsome features. There was also something sexy about her scratchy voice,..like she smoked three packs of Camel straights a day. She was a product of the unforgiving city,.. cool with her wisdom and acquired grace. She had style. I bought her another round. I leaned back on my stool and lit a parliament cigarette. "Oooohh,..classy",..she added to my preference,..."Yeah I remember when these babies were four bucks and a quarter about ten years ago,....you remember that'? I asked her without making any eye contact,..but only looking straight forward. "ummm,..I was probably around twelve ten years ago",.. she felt smart. "So," ..I thought about  a different subject. She liked me for some reason. I managed to convince her to accompany me to an upstairs billiard room in a neighborhood restaurant about four blocks down the street. We walked down Main St,..laughing amidst the lighting of the streetlamps. 6:45 or real close to 7,...I can't remember exactly. I told Gena that I was living with my girl friend currently but we didn't love each other anymore,..we were going through the breaks,.. I could tell that she had morals and didn't like this,..I didn't care. What I remember most about Gena was her caring aura and motherly ethics. We embraced and kissed as my pool stick fell from it's leaned position on the table to the drab carpet,..where weeks and weeks of vacuuming sucked the life from it's brand prestige.,."Go home to your girlfriend",..she buzzed softly in my ear.  I never saw her again.
                 

Fiction: The Starbucks suicide shift (part 1)

                                  I walked into a chain neighborhood coffee shop in the dead afternoon. The sleepy capped baristas and instructed audio set the scene. Evil corporate propoganda,.. wear this and expect that. Shove enthusiasm into the void,..and by god try to love what you hate,..Cash in on the scene,...with espresso beans. Try our new product ,..your gonna love it I guarantee it. Now where's the valium fot the comedown.
                                I walked into the sunlit dumpster area  on the side of route 309. The shade of the trees on  the filled garbage bags made me sad,. that the forty hours weeks of my life showed no signs of letting up. Something had to give, and it would.  I took a ten minute break and sat back in my cheap uncomfortable chair. I took of my hat,..ran my dirty fingernails through the grease of my hair and stared blankly at my black hat resting upon my soiled apron. The black hat with the Starbucks logo did not stare back,..but rather smirked with an ancient wisdom. It would prevail long after my existence. Plastic and cockroaches would survive the next World War ,..but I wouldn't. My break was over and it was back to the hours of  drive-thru communicative headset devices. "Yes,.I'll take a Grande decaf soy trpple latte with 1% milk.",.....her voice. The soccer mom with the kids screaming in the backseat of the minivan,.who hides her wrinkled eyed beneath the cover of her supermarket shades,..Finally six hours into the shift there was the daily four p.m. lull in between customers. I leaned over the ice tea counter and put my fingertips to my temples in disgust. There would be retail,..and more......Inventory upon monotony. Customer service was king around here,... and now,.. banished forever,. upon the black- listed unemployed. Formerly a shift supervisor,.. now, well probably something similar.,.but hopefully better.        
                        A struggling man in his late twenties residing in a dingy basement efficiency attempts to get out of bed then trips over his stereo chords. Walks five feet over to the fridge and pulls out a Miller lite then sits back down on the bed. Scratching his bedbug bitten head he attempts to recapture and play out the trauma of the previous day. Cracks open the beer and searches for his cellphone somewhere among the wreckage of his filthy bedsheets. Time to call work and give them a fresh excuse as to why I won't be coming in this evening.  "Yeah hello this is Tyler,...yeah I'm actually not gonna be coming in today,..it'll be slow anyway,...well I have to check into the hospital for a coupla days,....I'll keep you posted". Then placing his phone on the coffeetable next to the fridge he searches for his anxiety medication. Realizing the reality of his present situation of days upon  days,.. he sits back down on the foot of his bed,... wipes a tear from his eyes and downs the whole bottle. Stands up and removes his belt,..."I'm not gonna be needing this where I'm going",..he thinks to himself.  TO BE CONINUED.
                            

Cold and domesticated,..or/ Birth and divorce...

                                 I grew up in a regular middle-class household in Midwestern America. Domesticated I became at a young age. My conditioning would never subside beside  the fireplace.                      now here's a story........................................................                                                                                                                                                                         Cold Wisconsin winter's bring delusion to bleary eyed children in the midst of feverish journeys. Through wooden passages of confusion,..and onto stained glass cathedrals of the north. Just a hint of sleep paralysis,  cinnamon faeries sprinkle on their dreams during the vulnerability of  youth.   I'd speak through the walls, but the narrow hallways would only breathe back,...or sway in the afternoon,..remaining still,.. but then holding the sunlight captive as it displayed rays onto the smooth Oriental rug in well furnished living rooms of our past. A piano would never play itself,..but would sometimes rock a chair through the floorboards.                                          A warm splinter of ecstasy scurried down her spine consequently after receiving a letter in the middle of the schoolyard during  the hearth of a lazy Autumn Tuesday.  Her heart raced her all the way home down sleeping rural community sidewalks. Her single foot elevated the other one as swiftly and gracefully as the air she stepped on. The daunting trees never doubting her due arrival. Her parents would pretend to listen,...while their hearts told them no.                                                                                       A divorce would be out of the question,..if only for their daughter's sake. That evening around 8:30 P.M.  her mother found her dyeing her air in front of the upstairs mirror. A talk radio hummed softly through the thin walls of the adjacent room. Her father would pass out early every night from a gin and tonic hangover,...then wake up disgustingly early with a bad case of jitters, tiptoe downstairs to the cabinet ,...pull out the old Seagrams bottle from behind the seasoning shelf, then crawl back up the stairs to bed. Lying there awake he would play out the previous evening's sordid images in his head. "Did he finally cross the line this time?,...I only slammed down the bottle hard on the counter and cursed a couple times...",.He would repeat this to himself until he could justify his own reasoning behind his own self explained nuttiness.   
                                     After all he wasn't that bad a guy. When they were younger he charmed her all the way to an out of town chapel an hour and a half drive away. A winding road unraveling and climbing the Appalachians. The tall order of love they found much too demanding after a short period time though,... bad timing,..she was already pregnant. The rest of the time until Sarah became a teenager they did a good job hiding it,..never coming home at the wrong time,.or staying over a friend's house while supposedly out on business affairs..It's only come of late,...the tidings of false love beneath a caving ceiling of despair
                                The next day would be Friday though,..and Sarah,.. much to a fifteen year old's dismay,. was widely preoccupied with her first high school dance. The world at her heels she could not wait to see the boy that never spoke to her,..but only passed along his love in writing. On loose leaf paper he would would disclaim his love for her. Only in passing between the locker-rooms,..boiler-room and cafeteria, they'd exchange eyes at each other,...then look for closure amidst the puzzling and grey gravitational cobblestones that assembled the two lovebird's driveways.
                                 Sunday that weekend came around as quickly as her former life had dwindled. With a new kind of hopelessness. A fresh cut into her soul,....a brand new void for suffering. And just as her mother's eyes,...but not as wise,.. the boy's open conversations defied her feelings for this or that. All to be lost among a moment's decision. An unopened reconstructed package of heartache to be dismantled with the quick shortcoming of his switchblade.

Pain of the City vol. 1

                              The leftovers of the morning were stale by the afternoon. My crusted eyelids sealed shut much too soon. Bread crumbs, old newspaper, and pigeon wings. Who knows what one must pay for these things? The sacrifices I've made along public benches in the urban parks, where the sun casts shadows over jungle-gyms, swing sets, and undercover liaison officers. Father and son in the daytime of their own existence. A rebellious adolescent smoking  a mentholated cigarette beneath the cover of trees,. hiding from the familiarity of authority. The mystery and desire of love and sex at a primitive age. Puberty increases the severity of mood swings from joy to rage. The wind blows the post lunch hour breeze from the center of town to the outskirts of the city. What did you have at the Italian restaurant? now isn't it a pity? The outside tables covered by a thinly designed cloth of a western material. The table surfaces aligned with the proper arrangement of  condiment holders, metal utensils, and paper napkins that'll blow with the wind, or rub-up upon your skin.         
                               One's irritation increases gradually towards  the end of a decade,. parallel with the sights and sounds of the mangled streets. The vendors are onto something. Nothing is free among the natives of destruction. Just ask one of them, they'll tell you stories of politicians and humidity. "Oh did he die, well isn't it a pity",. echoes through the headlines of the obituaries. I can already see my reflection on the cemetery lawn near the garden at dusk. The animals held captive in the city zoo are hip to the tourists, they do not smile at the attempted souvenired silhouettes. Interchangeable they are with their sun caps and visors. Descending from the excitement to now being tired. Though what am I, to put a damper on all that's transpired?. Just getting more and more low and never higher. Confusion's not the only circuit that's being hot-wired around here. Not to bring up the Jackson prostitutes on 15th Street and fifty-cent beer.
                           Someone's got to make a buck around here. Why don't you telephone me dear when the evening's over?, and remind me of what I love. The emotional investments made among the backyard light bulbs have dimmed throughout rain storms and puddled garbage. The mud you and your fiance forgot to plan about, preliminary spring. But what do I say about pink ribbons innocent females wear in their hair to Sunday School?  The same thing I said to their parents,."I pity the fools",.to keep an intelligence boxed into the American Dream. Say what you'd like little girl,.but all the ice cream sundaes in the world won't wish away these things.

Baby's got issues.

                               Her last bender was a chronological disaster,..monumentally demoralizing, and stating the obvious extremely sad. She went back and forth between two neighboring area hospitals. Getting deported from the first one for sucking the Purell out of the hand sanitizer dispenser. When I went to visit her in the ER she seemed to be filled with sedative and hopelessness. She laid there flat on her back staring up at the ceiling while the television played the same commercials in the same order. She wasn't always this way.
                             When I first met her a few years back she would still get motivated with the little things in her life. She would even get that wild-eyed expression (which is the reason I fell in love with her) if I brought up anything she felt passionate about,.(her family, art, her future). We'd spend dreary nights in the same dive bar uptown discussing things we would do when the seasons changed, never taking the time to examine how empty we were at that present moment. We would feed off each others instincts and mask our love with endless charades of desperation.  I'd always experience the morning after blues, she would always take the morning after pills. We would break-up every other day, then rush back to one another. Who was I kidding, I always knew it would be like this.    
                         The real devastating part about our relationship was the fact that we were dishonest with everything and everyone including ourselves. We would catch ourselves telling each other the same lie repeatedly, then would come an argument that would be followed with oblivion. The cycle would begin again. Never sparing each other the comfort and knowledge of truth. The warning sides were there, only for our entertainment it seemed. Our conversations these days dwindle somewhere in between sympathy and fact of the matter. The only thing different about now is that we both realize all this matters, perhaps to us too much.
                      When she tried to take her own life last November , I shook it off almost overnight, like a  bad case of fleas. She seemed willing to change for a whole twenty minutes when we exited the hospital. Then just like magic we disappeared into the city night and all it had to offer. All that held any significance in our relationship rested solely on how we felt and nothing more. All I ever had was this life and a superficial existence. My identity would shift as simply as what situation I was in, or how much money I had. When I had money I was every one's best friend and I loved everyone. When I was broke I would cry out to the star-filled night like a desolated werewolf.
                      Needless to say no problem resolves itself. She and I like the earth, sky and constellations need each probably more then ever.

"Algebra Craig", and other true stories of The Maridian Galaxy vs. The Imaginarian Robots.....

                       I momentarily sat in a bright and dull room at  a long rectangular linoleum table across from a friend who appeared preoccupied with brain activity. Worn out, he put his mouth to his chin then spoke,."Ya know Lenny the thing that concerns me the most is this robot they got who goes by the name  "Algebra Craig". he sank back down deep into thought.  " So it's one of their robots that finally got to you", I retorted., "I always thought it would be women or power, or something of that sort" I settled back. "Damn it Lenny ya don't understand" he exclaimed with authority."  "This robot they got is a woman robot that can morph into any shape or form, and the worst part Lenny, oh I won't tell you what the worst part is ". he bit his upper lip , "tell me I can take it", I reassured him  "The worst part is........this robot they got can read your thoughts". I looked across at him, I could tell he was serious and meant business.  "Well", I said. " It cant be that bad, we'll just get the guru in here for a couple more days and he could........"NO,NO,NO,. ....", my friend said. "The guru,....I'm done talking to him", "And besides this robot exposes everyhing that'll ruin me. My vulnerabilities, my charachter flaws, my dreams, I mean Lenny,...this could be the end of me."
                       My friend Ryan though extremely intelligent and well educated had many etched out  imperfections. In the past he had been the prime candidate for saving the Maridian Galaxy from the Imaginarian robots. His triumphs in the past had been brief and short-lived. Along with every blazing victory came a dark, and more complex retalliation from the Imaginarian robots. But this time it  appeard they for sure had Ryan's number. After five long afternoon seminars with the Space Senate we acquired a defence maneuver. We would control Ryan's thoughts first, which would in turn, control the information that the Imaginarian robots  thought they gained. The plan was immacualate! Even the guru in a pesonal moment revealed to me that he wished he had thought of it first. The dawn and gametime were just minutes away when came an even bigger complication than the first one.....................TO BE CONTINUED

some kinda night

                        It was all some kind of luxury that came to a rather crude and harsh ending. A three day all nighter and Frankie's crib. It must of all been some kind of timing or party favor combination. We would pre-game early on talking of what kind of triumphs would transpire. Never considering the authorities. We would all drop-out of high school the following Autumn.  You see the secret to Frankie's shindigs was to drink enough not to trip too hard, then that way you could still mingle.
                       I recall sometime during the second night I was taking a leak in Frankie's first storey bathroom, the window was open to the Summer swamplike tendencies. This gave me a sudden hot flash of paranoia (snakes)  along with a series of heart murmurs. I swore that all the party-goers outside were all trying to get a glimpse of me taking a leak.(I was tripping too hard). This trip to the restroom was followed by three long hours by the keg barely saying a word. I was attempting to drown my way back into socialization. Yeah we (the hallucinagenic superfans) were all hip to the tripping too hard socialization trick.
                    I think it was during my trip the first night there, I was much too concious of my peers social themes. The preps were too uptight, the jocks reminded me of gym socks,. the hippies needed to shower,. ( I thought I saw a gerbil crawl out from one of their assholes), then there was me , and I'm sure I was much too me, (just for the mere fact that I walked and breathed, sweated and vomitted. Yeah all the fun was to end on the third night early before the party even started. I was lucky enough to still be attending the pre-game.          
                   It was all whirlwind and downhill, I guess it all had to be. Then you get ungrateful cats like me who still try to relive the old times (a programming flaw). I should of took a tip from all my friends and peers who all got married ten years ago. That pyramid blotter was something else though.

D. Pollock does "The Standstill"

                   I've stopped complaining about anything a long time ago. Becoming more resigned in my elderly years. The campfire has simmered down. In my wild years I would enjoy playing guitar and improvising everything from songs to my life to entertain people. Now I choose to do "The Standstill". I guess one could stay "The Standstill" is probably along the same lines as John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels". The major differences I can point out right of the bat between "The Standstill" and "Watching the Wheels",. would be for one "Watching the Wheels" is a song, and "The Standstill",. well to be honest with you it isn't a song, it is doing nothing about something. Another huge difference between the two would be I never became famous. If i ever did become famous I wouldn't be able to perform "The Standstill" anymore, I guess I'd just be able to sit there and watch the wheels for people to realize that I was doing nothing about something.
                   The best time to do the "The Standstill" is when you find yourself in any kind of a public setting and you find people in a heated disussion (argument) involving politics and/or religion. But I would feel obliged to encourage the reader to  take a few moments off from "The Standstill" ( don't force it)  to observe what is actually going on in front of you. Something will click inside you while you are doing nothing about something (The Standstill), You will realize that the people you are observing really aren't listening to what anyone else is saying. The reason for this is the people involved in the heated discussion are actually only paying attention to the words and thoughts the individual is presented with during the conversation. As if the individual is re-upping on ammo for the next discharge. There are great rewards to doing "The Standstill", if you don't believe me take some time out from your nowhere busy life to do "The Standstill", you will quickly find out what I am referring to. But do not mistake me, there is great effort involved with following through with "The Standstill" adaquately. It might even seem to be like going directly against your exact nature in early attempts. But do not be  discouraged, because just like anything else "The Standtill" takes practice.        
                        What exactly is "The Standstill?"                        
            
                Who me? You know after reading all of that I am a bit offended you'd even ask me out of all things  a question, this involves great effort. You should be ashamed.

                     How do I know when I'm doing "The Standstill" correctly?

              I will provide you with only one brief answer. You aren't doing it now . You are just sitting there looking dull, inquisitive, naive, and curious.

                       Is "The standstill" similar to "The Hokey Pokey"?

                 Finally an intelligent question. Somebody give this man something, or nothing.

             So there you have it, you are perhaps better off with doing something about nothing, or nothing about something.

Our morning walks

               I've grown accustomed to our early morning walks. When the dew spraying off the morning buds was equivalent to the exchanging of our bodily fluids. It was the late Spring I am referring to now. The Pre-Summer grass promised laughter among the nettles,.... and the mediocre body of water (lake) that wrapped around your furry plantation. The early Autumn would bring the death of many swamp-flies and distant mad cackles,.. from your crazy neighbors estate. Yes our early morning walks. I recall a conversation that took place one morning. I just met your eyes coming over the scattered landscape. We discussed how people were more what they wear than what they eat. I that day wore a white undershirt tucked into my beige khakis,. covered by a navy blue windbreaker. You a tighly knit pink summer dress with a grey shawl wrapped around your shoulders. Then in the mid-to late Autumn our morning walks came to an abrupt dark and narrow ending,. majorly due to your death.
               My favorite mornings during that brief period were the ones when I woke up and saw the Red cardinal out of my bedroom window nesting on Old man Mckinleys tree. That meant you didn't have cancer and you weren't dying. My memories of you still ring true with many past seasons piled in the remote corner of your fathers dusty shed. I recall how petite and slick you were,. as if the universe was built around you and I was lucky enough to be a part of it.

Elevate Me Sometimes

                       I remember when my limbs were more sturdy,. The flesh not so tender ,. more muscle grease, a little more ummmpphh,. solo man-power. Who needs it. I'm rather partial to commercial waste anyway. You know things that kind of smell like my anatomy but's consistency more resembles that of melted plastic and cardboard too. Then along comes the insect infestations,. I guess I would only pray that I would be ready for this presently in my life. Children kind of smell like shitty flowers to me. Like if you plucked a few daisies from the soil then to took a huge dump all over them., then barfed up tastycakes and fruity pebbles on top of it.
                        I recall being a fiesty teenager as well. I thought I knew it all among the symettrical lilac prism fields, (parading around the rural area with my oversized Jim Morrison T),. yeah I thought my experiences were enough for me and all you people as long as I could eat your brownies too. Yeah I thought I knew all there was to know about relationships. The only thing I've learned about relationships since I was a teenager is the mere fact that I know nothing about relationships. Why bother trying? I'd rather get piss-drunk then watch Annie Hall or Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind for the fifteen hundreth time.    
                      Life does kind of seem mostly to me as good or bad as I make partially make it. Like If I acquire more physical problems,. (which I did) I'll probably get prescribed more drugs,. AND STOP! I know what you're probably thinking , but what's wrong with a positive oulook? Fuck all you pessimists, why don't you all just do everyone a favor and kill yourself.  
                    Spirtualality,. ah this is always a good one to lean on in trying times,. and once again to all you pessimist let me remind you the one thing about spirituality,. THERE IS NO CORRECT WAY TO DO THIS. Once I Thought there was a correct way to practice spirituality, I would work out in my basement on a Stationary bicycle,  get stoned, take a shower, compulsively masturbate, watch television, then finally go to bed. BUT THEN I COULDN'T HELP BUT FEEL THAT STILL THERE WAS SOMETHING MISSING.

One Dead Battery and an Inflated Lung

             I naively recited the words and phrases to the demographically challenged hoodlum in a wrong place at an okay time. I was walking like I meant business (currently unemployed) to the wine and spirits store. The young man was either unaware or did not care that I seemed to be much older than him. His coworkers or friends,.(or both).were doing thug like work  pulling an over-sized looking ladder like apparatus from one side of the platform to the other for no apparent reason. I had an empty white-wine glass that I could use in my hand as a weapon in case I should get into sub-conscious dream-like brawling. So he followed me home. I quickly became intimidated. Yelling back at him repeatedly,. "What are you gay or something! Fucking Homo!,. Why are you following me then"?
             I decided somewhere along the parallel timeline universe that presented itself during the nicotine-patch induced mind manifestation that I was somehow severely traumatized by the North Koreans sometime during my mid-to- late twenties. This was when I decided a perfect time for me to showcase my flying skills in the center of the outskirt town community. (the natives must of thought I was so reckless!).  And Snow,. Oh yes I cannot forget that everything was code white in the dim heart of the Alaskan pale sun-lit afternoon. With flakes the size of Uranus.
                 Although I can't help but getting a little sentimental when recalling my life,. as if it meant
something other than its actual signifigance. The truth is that my health has plummited large intervals in my early thirties. I'm not able to run from youthful hoodlums nor fly like I used to. The crashed cars of my past got two dead batteries and gave me nothing but lung cancer from the toxic fumes,. oh yeah,. and also killed a couple close friends.