She caught me on the street.
She wanted to say,
“Go fuck yourself”,
But
I beat her to it.
And so she did.
free verse
The Weight of Mistakes
People learn from their mistakes—or so they should.
But do they really?
Your mistakes come in the form of margin calls, bills to be paid,
or some thug named Louie who visits,
when you’re not expecting.
Or do you?
Your penance? Loose change. Rattling in pockets.
Heavy enough to notice. Too light to break a window.
But forgiving—
Ah, well now,
that’s the real trick.
You have to realize Jack…
Forgiveness, It isn’t a gift for you.
It’s a key for them,
a ticket back from their own bleak exile,
a rope thrown down a well
where they sit, doing nothing but staring upward with empty hands,
drowning in the echoes of what they did.
Regret is a parasite, how cliché,
burrowing, gnawing,
eating a man from the inside out.
That parasite can be in many forms.
Mine is drink, women, smoke, whatever I choose.
It’s the only freedom I have.
The ones who truly see their sins
will reach, rebuild,
fill the cracks they left behind.
Those people make me sick.
They have it all figured out.
They’re not on my frequency.
So you compartmentalize. You lie, you bring everyone for a ride on your magic bus. Condemning them along with you.
This is your balance.
This is your grind.
Not some sermon, not some chant,
but the law of the damned:
Hold the grudge, and it burns you alive.
Let it go, and maybe, just maybe,
you get to sleep at night.
Unless, of course, you’ve already made peace with the burn.
Then to hell with it and to hell with you.
The USS Towers: A Sailor’s Lament
There she is,
Rusting under the fucking waves,
Our eternal mistress sleeps,
steel heart still.
We’re topside now,
but her ghost still raves,
In the depths where our memories chill.
Her engines’ dirty growl echoes in my head,
stale AC’s sour breath,
salt on my tongue.
Our small destroyer,
pitching, we bled,
Puking our guts out,
God, how we are wishing we were young again.
Mess decks,
a cesspool of stories and grease,
Hot, nasty coffee could raise the dead.
Shitty midrats barely kept the cold at bay,
Bitter sludge burning holes in our head.
Tossed us around like goddamn rag dolls,
Yet kept the enemy away,
our steel mother.
After long watches,
fucking dead on our feet,
She’d rock us to sleep like no other.
They sank her for practice, our old girl,
A fucking exercise,
that’s all she was worth.
Silent rage burns,
as memories unfurl,
Of our home, our hell,
now in the earth.
One by one,
we’ll ship out again,
Join that endless fucking Westpac cruise.
No more bullshit,
no more pain,
Just the freedom we finally get to choose.
She sails on through the starry night,
Her crew aboard,
forever free.
No brass to polish, no watches to fight,
Just us, our old gal,
and the endless sea.
M.Hatter
Girl with Dirty Feet
Me and my girl,
the girl with dirty feet,
We used to pass the days by sitting on the porch,
the evening wind satisfying and warm.
She draped her legs over my lap
as waves of orange and purple
washed over us,
cleansing us from
the hard day.
Not a sound could be heard, except the soft
snores from our old dog
and an occasional giggle.
I lay in bed now,
70 years on,
I can still smell the
old wood of the porch.
I can still feel that warm wind
and hear the soft snores of
a friend long gone.
Most of all, I can
feel the weight of
her feet.
Oh, how I miss my girl with the dirty feet.
In the Yellow Maverick
Out on the open road,
a young boy, should’ve been in school,
instead, a passenger,
riding down highways from one trouble spot to the next.
We always left just in time,
before shit hit the fan,
before we made long-lasting friends,
before report cards arrived,
before we got comfortable,
before we called it home,
before we felt ashamed of who we were.
We hit the road at the right time,
fresh air through the windows,
deafening sound wind ripping through the car,
drowning out the local AM radio.
It was my chore to scan the radio dial
for stations we could pick up.
Fascinated by the concept of radio,
people off in the distance sending music
through the air.
At night, the dashboard and radio’s soft glow
offered little comfort.
No curfews, just slept when you couldn’t stay awake,
praying something scary wouldn’t reach in from the darkness
and grab you.
Daytime was no better. No reading, it made you sick.
Back to the AM radio.
Sometimes I wished I was another kid in a passing
car heading off to a normal life.
My mom, on the run from the law with two
little boys in the car,
swept away from life back home in Georgia,
now living out of a car always on the move.
Now we’re just white trash on the road,
littering the landscape.
Road Rage Romance
Out on the highway,
crossing the great American landscape,
I had a girl with me, hungry and eager.
Pulled in, took a piss, had a cig,
got her some food.
Back on the road, she excitedly opened the bag.
“Where’s your food?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
Truth is, I wasn’t.
“Well, then I’m not hungry…” she said, crumpling the bag.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re not hungry?”
“Here, let me have a fry.”
“No,” she said, throwing the bag out the window.
“Fuck you doing?” I yelled.
What the fuck? Ten bucks down the drain.
She started to cry.
“Why’d you throw away good food?”
My vision blurred from anger.
“Fuck you! I want to eat with you!” she screamed,
hitting me upside the head. “Why can’t you understand that?”
I reached over and slapped her,
she slapped me back.
We’re both slapping, and I miss the blue lights in the mirror.
Siren kicks in.
“Jesus, see what you did now, you cunt?” I yelled.
She hit me again.
Trying to drive, pull over,
while she’s hitting me,
I’m blinded by rage.
“License and registr- Hey! Stop hitting her!”
“Fuck you! Do you know what she did?”
“He has weed in the car! And he abuses me all the time!”
What the fuck! My anger’s off the charts.
“Out of the car!”
Gun pointed at me now.
I smack her one last time,
the last time for sure.
I never saw her, my car, or my personal belongings,
again.
Joe
Joe was a boy of 12, big for his age,
they sure did make boys tough back then.
His head was as large as a basketball,
greasy hair parted on the left,
swooping down, covering one eye.
A scar on his lip made him look mean
and deranged.
Oh yeah, the jury was split on old Joe,
right down the middle.
Half the class adored him, the other half, hated or feared him.
At recess, he made it a point to choose one of the boys
that didn’t sing his praise,
or he just didn’t like,
and beat the snot out of them.
I never understood his selection method,
nor did anyone else.
There was no way to know when your time was up
and you had to square with Joe.
You needed eyes in the back of your head,
and when you saw him,
you ran.
On one sweltering Chicago day, in classroom 107
at Public School,
we learned that Joe died
while up at the lake with his family,
swept away by a strong current and drowned.
The future gone for this boy.
They say, when they found him,
his body swollen and his lips blue.
There were sniffles and sobs,
but hard to tell if they were sadness
or joy.
Sitting at my desk, staring at the door,
I let out a sigh of relief.
I don’t think anyone heard me,
just like they couldn’t hear the desperate cries from Joe.
12 years old and relieved of duty.
I remember looking out the window at the playground, knowing
that while God didn’t listen to Joe’s prayers,
he definitely heard mine.
BlackDayz 