the yellow house.

The place had an almost religious feel to it, although I, at the time, did not know why.

It could have been that I was never allowed inside?

Always kept outside waiting in the car with my father while the women of the house went in.

Maybe it was the fact that my mother and her mother, even my aunt when she was privy to attending, got dressed up in clothes that were more suited for visiting relatives on Sunday than going to the market.

It would be years before I would be told its secret. At my young age it was merely a house, a yellow two story, the entrance to the second story was in the back, and its stairs led up the side of the building. The matriarchal leaders of my family climbed those steps each time and vanished inside, leaving the ignorant males alone in a car to wait.

After the ladies went on their way, I would move up to the front seat of the behemoth 76’ Mercury Montego Wagon. The seats were green leather and the size of my bed. My dad would let me sit on his lap, I would pretend to drive; my brother would stay in the back confined to a car seat.

With me at the wheel, we would be driving to non-existent places, until my brother got restless, then he would take the seat of honor.   

I remember one particular time, it was spring, and the sun was beginning its descent behind the neighborhood houses. We waited outside the car, me on the enormous hood, my brother in my father’s arms.

The car was parked underneath a giant elm, its branches tumbling down, caressing the roof of the monster. The heat generated from the engine felt good and comforting, the air cool and new. The sunlight came trickling through the branches and played with us for awhile; the new leaves beginning their rebirth.

I remember asking my dad who was it that lived in the yellow house, why did we return here so many times? He didn’t answer my question and suggested we go for a walk while we waited.

This house became an omnipresent artifact to my childhood. The place kept its stories to itself and hinted at something greater. People would walk up those same steps as my mom and grandmother, and people would leave. They were all of them mothers and grandmothers of other families, all of them with secrets.

I was never able to discern a pattern to our visits to the yellow house. I knew when my mother got dressed up after work and my grandmother put away her usual housecoat and sandals for a skirt and shiny shoes that we were going. I would always take some toys to help pass the time, although I never played with them when we got there.

The trip to the yellow house became a time to be with my father. He was a man that had his own secrets and hid them in work, at the job, on housework, in the garage. Distant and apart from everything that made up my life. Here was a time when he was made human and capable of laughter and attentive compassion.

Always when the women returned, they came with hushed conversations, whispers between the adults. Within the yellow house, they had learned more than what was known before they went in, and always it was sacred and profound.

josephmcabral.com

dead letters for living people

anchor

Staring at the wall.

Seeing faces.

They’re all here with me,

their names unknown.

     

It’s the little things

that one misses.

The doctor said

I’ll want to sleep off the side effects

for the first few days-

until my body adjusts; a short period of sedation.

I’ll sleep and stumble

for the next four to five days

of mind rebuilding oblivion

I keep one hand on the wall, an anchor, afraid I’ll float away.

I recall these same remedies

being sold for tens and twenties.

It was a free for all at every locker break.

A sixth grader had the round white ones with the split in the middle.

The seventh grader who had the pink football looking ones,

and the eighth grader with the powder blue triangles.

We were pre-teen monsters unaware 

of the hooks we were piercing ourselves with.

I crave the feeling of those hooks 

digging into a meddled consciousness.

There is a mystical calmness

to being brought to a place like this,

to sleep for a thousand years

in an eternal hibernation

poisoned-princess style.

The doctor tells fables

of functionality after the fact.

Pleasing tales of possible long term results

that are carried over after the tale is done.  

I want to go to the store and buy a toothbrush

walk the aisles aimlessly,

get a burger and a beer…

but the anchor is short… the length of my arm.

josephmcabral.com

dead letters for living people

beginning

She laid there. 
A warrior with a thick candy coated shell.
She was more than just depraved and starved; 
he was nothing to himself; yet, 
unwilling choices brought them together.
She smiled in a passive pleasure at the blood trickling off her flesh. 
She was no one when they met, yet he wanted to be her, 
touch her, 
her perfume swelled in the air. 

He looked at her, he saw himself; she knew who he was.
She allowed him to use her and yet refused him this desire. 
The sweat spilling over his body, dripping down his back, 
her flesh taunting in a perfect way that demeaned him of his own vanishing manhood;
crawling onto her, 
inhaling her, 
how he wanted to consume her and all that she meant to him.

There was the smile, 
emanating like a beacon from he knew not where. 
He grabbed at her throat; the girl could see heaven in his eyes. 
Whatever was left of her innocence was bubbling to the surface. 
After all these years, she now knew where she was going. Her release was with this
prosthetic-angel that had lost its way from heaven but could guide her home.
The man moved deeper, 
holding her tighter, he could smell her aura upon him, 
her unwashed hair, and the bruises. 
Broken pieces of her were sticking to him 
like so much garbage that it began to disgust him. 
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, he could see himself in her reflection.

So much of him was in her, and vise versa, that it made him scream out, 
she never made a sound and simply invited him in.
The control broken, 
the illusion reversed, he fell on her, exhausted, 
defeated, beaten, he let go his hold on her.
The man began to shed his own tears, the saline washing lines on her body.
His stomach wrenched, his heart, sore and darkened.
This man-child lay upon his eternal mother of us all. He lifted himself off of her,
a trail of snot, spit and tears following him from the pooled reservoir on her flesh.
Her eyes went blank,
he could see it, and they turned cold at the realization of his own inadequacies;
her face undid his own frailties.
The man knew, but was not capable of achieving
that which she had inaugurated him to do.
Her truths closed in and shadowed the light that was in her.

He moved onto the floor, lying atop the coldness of the room;
hearing the voices around him and below him,
all life contained within this building and taken away on the outside.
He lay naked upon the grime and dirt of worn souls and past lives;
he could hear her breathing and feel her heart beat in his skull.
He saw her move in the darkness of the room, the only light filtered in from the street.
The man realized her salvation was close,
the door within reach and he failed to show her the way.
He saw it shine in the dirty light.
Unbeknownst to him she had a piece of someone else’s love,
meant to protect her, and with that love, she opened her own door
and entered with a smile.
Her thoughts splattered on the wall
read by everyone who could decipher the language.
In with a bang and the building fell silent.

josephmcabral

dead letters for living people

sequitur

I paint.

Because I have to.

I go to work.

Because I have to.

I brush my teeth.

Because I have to.

Not always do I feel like brushing my teeth.

Not always do I feel like going to work.

Not always do I feel like painting.

But I have to.

I create.

Moments of time encased in pigments, ink, canvas, and or paper.

These are things never before seen

And never will they be seen after they are gone.

Yes, they are similar to many seen before,

Similarities in style and technique,

But none like this.

Because this is me.

I write.

Inspired scenes of the life that passes around us.

I see that life, as an artist, in composition and value.

Hours spent in front of vases and nudes in an attempt to capture that which is most ephemeral has given me the ability to watch a crowd move like the ocean, to examine the tiny gestures people act and the play of light on a decayed surface.

The words come, descriptive, symbolic, wholly nonsensical,

And I write.

Because I have to.

I work.

Odd jobs like most of you have and will,

I have work with the mentally ill.

Both adults and children.

The kind of people that hear the voice of George W. Bush telling them that the funny taste in their mouth is the blood of Jesus. 

The kind of people who ask if the trees will eat us today, with a look so sincere, that you have to wonder, has this person seen a tree devour someone? 

The kind of people who have Superman and Aquaman as best friends, and they themselves are members of their own personal Justice League.

The kind of people who hear screams of such horror and contemplation, day in and day out, that they have no choice but to scream back at those voices, just to block out what is being said.

I see myself in these people.

I don’t question what they see or hear.

I graciously take the bouquet of flowers picked by the fifty seven year old woman who spent the afternoon with Katherine Hepburn.

I may even comment on how lovely the daffodils are this season.

And I cautiously take the Ray-Gun that was given to the thirty six year old man by the unnamed government agent or the fusion bomb built by the forty two year old man out of toilet paper rolls, Kleenex boxes and snack wrappers.

I promise to put these things in a safe place where they will be returned to their rightful owners upon being discharged from the facility.

They believe me because I believe them.

After eight, sixteen, thirty two, forty eight, one hundred twenty hours,

My people leave me ragged and skinless.

I draw.

The lines are nothing more than road maps and guides out of a place that can be both brilliant and dark.

I write.

Their voices, and experiences, memories and fantasies mix with my own and I learn who and how it is to be human.

I paint.

Because I have to.

Seeing the world through the eyes of an artist

Means to see the world as sacred.

It all speaks to you in the hope that you will tell its story,

Because Artists are the myth makers,

When asked, what in the world is a Snohzberry, a wise man responded,

We are the music makers

And we are the dreamers of dreams.

josephmcabral.com

dead letters for living people

its all in the packaging…

The front door creaks

its wooden frame

against the weight

of compulsions that spill past the threshold.

Goat trails cut from cartons of mental attachments

masking shopping bags full

of under priced sale items

impossible to be ignored.

He explained the meticulous detail

that went into organizing the collected artifacts.

She said that sometimes

it was easier to just walk over things

then to find where they belonged.

Larger piles consume smaller piles

and even larger piles flood over

iconographic logos

meant

to represent

the best for us all.

She picks through each attachment 

from dust-strangled figurines to past dated processed foods,

the smell of organic acids fermenting the air.

He tells us how everything has a purpose,

even if he hasn’t found what the purpose may be,

its best to be prepared for anything

this self-destructing world could bring.

Meticulously manicured lawns

hide the abundance of cheaply made goods

sold under brightly lit signs

and well placed advertisements

promising enlightenment in a sale.

Sexual gratification in automated transactions.

He explained how many times

he had gone hungry

to buy the object of affectionate necessity.

The given greater comfort.

He felt power,

he felt good,

it felt right

in buying what he wanted,

when he wanted it.

An unforgiving compulsion feeds a ravenous addiction

A Promised Land mentality has spawned

a population beholden

to a bored apathy over the ignorance of need over want.

Capitulating the fantasy

of a blessed land of milk and honey,

provided by the righteousness of Commerce.

Manifest destiny evolves into vast quantities

of plundered merchandise at below market prices

for self-defeating conveniences

granting us the one last Freedom

to buy what we want.

Hazmat teams enter toxic homes

built on the refuse

of a propagated desire

to be what you purchase.

The Capitalist model feeds on itself by managing the illness in place of curing the sickness.

He can no longer discern the trash

that builds up within.

She has acclimated to breathing in the decay

from isolated corners where animals have gone to die.

The listlessness over material waste that collects in drifts and mounds.

He’s no longer aware

of the scurrying scritch scratch of cockroaches

maneuvering through the atrophy of compostable material.

The fetid air condensates on your skin.

Health inspectors and state authorities

get calls from neighbors who fear

loosing their own property value.

Rescue workers battle down doors searching through rooms
to find survivorswho are unaware of their own catastrophe.
Victims of something they had no idea could happen.

It all crests on a wave of condemnable history

that ends up in dump trunks

headed towards new mountains

of landfills and contaminated wastelands,

Four thousand pounds

of mentally compounded garbage,

excuses fraught with denial,

where packaging gets loosed

and caught on breezes,

on branches,

under fences

and in rivers.

josephmcabral.com

dead letters for living people