hospital bed.

Beginnings

and endings come here

with nothing such as divinity

or blessed cans of oil and incense

baptizing our souls

into eternity.

Nothing but ugly, fleshy, mortality,

the decaying stench of defeated microbes.

In brief flashes

that shatter time,

years slither away, forming milky pools

of withered age at the bedside.

Medicated synapses

are misfiring,

sending mixed emotions

to the conscious realization of an end.

Ghosts of past friends roam

the space around

the body melting under fluorescent lights,

fragile remnants of pain

and joy destined to be lost forever.

dead letters for living people

    

blood sold.

Turnstiles are attached to the doors

to the home that was sold

before you had a chance to die.

     

You pay the entrance fee

to sleep in your own bed.

          

A son, an alligator with

your mother’s eyes,

waits for your

corpse to go on sale.

               

His take

of your pension

runs the show.

Spinning turnstiles randomly

keeping you awake at night.

     

Strangers go through

your unmentionables,

taking what they want.

          

Your son guides them through the house,

telling stories

about things that were supposed

to be kept a secret.

               

Money changes hands

and more of you walks out

the door without you.

Spectators throw coins and apples

at you as offerings of good luck.

     

The turnstiles turn

day in, day out.

You collect pennies and wait until your death is paid.

dead letters for living people

cats.

Things like this probably happen all the time and always quite quickly. Afterwards, when things were calmer, I said, “Wow, that happened really fast.” As if some slow motion camera trick should have made it move a little slower to better understand it all.

     

Why did the cat cross the road? Don’t really know but it ended crushed under a brown sedan in an arc of twists and spastic convulsions right in front of our driveway. The thing jumped about in demon possessed fits, bouncing like a fish gasping for air, one of its eyes had become detached and it too bounced with its own squishy squashy sounds on the pavement.

     

The culprit, a late model sedan, kept on driving on down the street; it was out of sight by the time Gisele pulled over and we got out of the car. She was all maternal and hormonal because of the baby inside her and she drew out a teary wet wail; she opened the doors of whatever afterlife that thing had in store with her own feelings of loss and grief. I wasn’t as touched by the moment as I was awed by the event.

     

As its impulses and nerve endings began to give up so did the convulsive hysteria and it settled into meandering twitching until finally nothing. It’s deflated eyeball still attached by bloody sinewy tendrils to its skull. I just stood there, bearing witness to its closing ceremony.

     

Gisele ran inside to get Benny in hopes that he could offer some advice and possible consolation; he’s the clear-headed one in these types of situations.

     

I recognized the now dead carcass in front of me. It was less than a year old and its mother was a regular at our doorstep. I’m sure it and all its siblings were born under the house. The matron feline now watched as one of her offspring passed away, perched on the ledge of the flower bed, like an Egyptian statue made of dark stone, her eyes wide and fixed on her child.

     

Benny came out and looked at the pitiful object now lying before him. Gisele noticed the mother watching and attempted to console her for her loss. It ran, not knowing enough of the human need for closure and compassion. We all agreed that it deserved a proper burial, even though we couldn’t dig up a hole and drop it in. The land was rented and wasn’t ours to do with as we pleased. Instead the county animal control would be called in the morning to come and retrieve it. I mentioned that with any luck they could send a truck out here sometime before the dead thing begins to compost and we’d be left with the skeletal remains before bureaucracy’s wheel started moving. Benny agreed but felt it would be the right thing to do, Gisele mentioned that she would make sure it would get done, even if she had to call them a few dozen times.

     

Later that night, I could hear the other strays mawling and meowing while I lay in bed. I imagined that they were mourning the loss of one of their own; somehow it made the whole event more appropriate thinking that. Looking out the window I noticed some of them fighting and growling, a few of the more dominate and aggressive males had taken to feeding on the dead; desperate times. The ones eating of the flesh were older, their fur matted with filth and missing in some areas, mangier than the rest that usually stay near the houses; tomcats that probably came from the other side of the park or from somewhere else entirely. Some of the local strays were fighting for territory and privilege and the bigger toms were attempting to keep them back and winning. The dangling eyeball had already been consumed and one of the cannibals was burrowing into the skull through the opening.

     

The sound of war continued and was getting fiercer. Something had to be done if I was going to get some sleep; I threw on some shoes and grabbed a large black trash bag. As I stepped out the door many of the cats fled, except the few braver ones and the two intruders, approaching the carcass the remainder of the group fled except the one tom that had been fighting for his right to eat. The concept of being stared down by a flea bitten cat is one of those things you don’t expect to happen in our day-to-day lives. He began growling and poised itself for attack, a medium sized stone to the head sent it scurrying.

     

Using the plastic as a shield I grabbed the body and was able to pull the bag around it, lifting it up properly. With a quick walk across the empty lot in front of the house I was at the fence to the yard crew’s facility; a large blue dumpster was on the other side. One full arm swing and the bag and partially eaten cat landed with an echoing boom. Walking back the matron feline was at her perch, watching me with eyes the color of mourning.

 dead letters for living people

gone.

My eyes felt like etched glass. My skin felt as if it was being over run by insects, I could imagine them foraging through the hair on my body and digesting the not yet dead flesh.I had decided to spend some time playing video games in between the live coverage of the our newly christened war to defend christendom on CNN, the rockets red glare was pale and green under night vision goggles.    

     

Benny tumbled out of his bedroom. He had determined it was imperative we get out of the house, something about evil emanations forming on the ceiling and a conspiracy forming between the cats and said emanations. According to the dialogue between his thumbs and his cell we had friends who were at the mall, as well as friends who would be having dinner at the newly refurbished Ruby Tuesday’s at said mall.A plan was quickly formed; we could have dinner with these friends, gorging ourselves on the establishments perverse salad bar. It was a great plan and the idea of having somewhere to go had me strangrly excited.

     

Benny readied himself and I decided the occasion deserved a clean freshness; I rummaged through the laundry pile for a cleaner pair of jeans and a shirt. Gathering up my things I found a beaten candy tin, it had six Adderall pills. I took two of them and saved the rest for later.

     

Coming out of the bathroom, steam cleaned and shaven I found Benny talking to his shoes. He was in a direct dialogue with his left sneaker and, after observing for a few seconds, it appeared the left sneaker was in a dialogue with the right. He broke out into a roaring yell when he noticed me watching and rushed his full body weight, pinning me between the wall and him. He went off chanting a tune while I slid down the wall; deflated. As I crawled myself up I could hear Benny banging the rhythm of the song on the roof of my car; it appeared that I would be driving.

     

It was surprisingly comfortable outside, with the windows down and a minimal amount of traffic the whole moment verged on the borders of being pleasant. The sun glasses kept my etched ridden eyes from burning in the exposure, the car was riding its own wave on the melting pavement, and I felt as if I could fly along at forty five miles an hour. It was one of those times when you could make a change in your life for the true positive path. Find a cause for living and decide to buy a new mini-van for your non-existent family. We had arrived at the commercial of our lives; cue soundtrack.

The respite from the usual bombardment of oppressive heat and choking humidity had brought all the locals to the street. Latino Couples sitting on terraced landings watching their kids play in the parking lot, old black men sitting at their front door, young black boys free-styling on their bikes with their pants around their knees, while ladies named Latisha, Teykia, Lexus and Toshiba watch the young men as they walked on by. Children of all such race and color ran around in desperate grabs for attention from those around them and themselves.

     

Fancy decked cars on high-rise wheels with chrome-plated rims that glow crept through, windows tinted, chassis’ polished, trembling the air. An ancient white woman all dressed in white and a decaying black man all dressed in black held hands while they pushed a shopping cart filled with their history. A Latino woman walked in the opposite direction pushing a shopping cart with bags of groceries and two kids inside it, another daughter followed behind with her own Hasbro plastic shopping cart; practicing.

     

A gentleman talking to himself, another paced back and forth at the bus stop also in a deep conversation, which only he hears. Boxes, bags, old furniture and other household confections littered the street on the oncoming side; some of the neighborhood scavengers rummaged through the refuse in search of treasure.

     

A whole row of two apartment efficiency cottages followed the path of the discarded artifacts; each building had been slashed with a spray painted fluorescent orange “X”.

     

“You think the plague has returned?” I asked, slowing the car to get a better look.

     

“Worse. Eviction. Look at those postings on the windows.” Benny pointed out that each building had a poster-sized piece of paper adhered to a window stating eviction by eminent domain.

     

“Not all of them have the mark of Cain on them. There are still some people living in those last two.” One had some people standing in the doorway, keeping watch. The other showed no signs of life but it was evident that it had once had a posting that had been ripped down.

     

“The ones with the ‘X’ are the ones that have been vacated. All that stuff on the curb is what got cleared out.” Benny sounded familiar with what was happening.

     

“They just threw the people out? Tossed out their stuff and sealed up the house?”

     

Benny pointed out a man sleeping by the front door to one of the cottages marked with an “X” to answer my question. A few feet in front of him some kids were going through a pile of boxes that might have been his.

     

“Them’s the breaks. Make way for the new world vision and pack up your things, the righteous are taking over. The places are probably unsuitable to live. City officials using the justification of a dangerous living condition to feel better about themselves.” Benny’s remark made my stomach feel sour.

     

We watched as some teenage boys and a large woman crossed the street with some boxes and a couch; one of the boxes being carried fell and a collection of dishes and cups went crashing to the ground.

     

“This is too much reality for right now.” I turned off the street and fled the scene like some escaping criminal. Racing down the side streets, I rolled the windows up and turned on the A.C. The air had lost its friendly demeanor and the commercial had ended. “I need sustenance and escape from this rot and decay. I need to purchase a big ticket item and celebrate the freedom were told to so carelessly spend and shop for.” The words came out of my mouth as if I were preaching from the pulpit.

    

“Feeling a little too close to home? Nothing like the harshness of witnessing a crime, that unending helpless feeling, that possible thought of maybe wanting to do something about it all, that realization that you’ll forget about it once those houses are down and the new corporate edifice is erected.” Benny was throwing his words at me like daggers, my suburbanite-sheltered belly was exposed for the first time in years, and I hit the gas and drove the car right into a scene from a foreign movie.

     

“Shut up you wicked, wicked monkey.”

     

He laughed, maybe at my remark, maybe at his knowledge of being right, maybe at the fact that I had nearly took out a yard gnome on the wrong side of the road.

dead letters for living people

the indulgence.

It’s a turbulent nausea

washing over the skin,

as if drowning and unable to swim,

in a stagnate pool of cigarette water.

     

The air outside is a sickly wet

convulsion of humidity that gets inside a person

in a slow creeping fashion.

The barflies

rested their wings

on greasy barstools.

     

Each counting off the days by

the amount of distilled liquid

floating in their skulls

         

I cursed them out and

told them they were dead already,

 just too stupid to bury themselves.

              

The impulse was strong,

I had to get out,

seek alternative belief systems

that have an opened bar

and quiet drunks.

The road is a wicked succubus

that twists and writhes in

delirious gyrating rhythms,

she’s in a sexually orgasmic

epilepsy against the protests

of a digestive system in vertigo.

My feet catch a grown man,

he’s crying over his infant whose stomach

is starting to swell from malnutrition.

    

A meal is the new Holy Grail.

The golden calf has died

on the streets of America.

When nothing is left, can you still believe in Jesus?

Snake dancing Christian fundamentalists make

their way around me and this man.

     

These righteous worm creatures

slither from street to street

establishing religious

franchises in mini-malls.

          

They step over the child gasping for air.

These prosthetic angel’s,

who view me, this man,

and his dying child as vermin

feeding on the rotting carcass of the

golden calf that they pretend

is still alive.

The sickness of the drink passes

but the perverse contamination

clings to my skin.

     

How much were we promised,

while we banged on the doors of gods

demanding answers,

justifications, and understanding?

          

While others of our own kind

were cutting away pieces

of our souls from our backs.

Selling the pieces as trinkets to those who

didn’t even have the

courage to step up to the door and knock.

Groping the final few steps to the house,

hoping that I haven’t lost my keys, yet again.

     

A shirtless Uncle Sam is sitting on the porch,

his flesh hangs in sheets from the bone.

He’s got a beer for me and one for him, he’s waiting.

Giving up on everything

else around him,

and waiting for the dream,

himself and me to fade away.

dead letters for living people