On Helping Humans - a poem

Human nature, what is human nature,
some deem it bad, some deem it good,
that there is one switch to another
that's it, no other course of action to take.

You witness it considerably more when tragedy
strikes that a majority can get behind, how able
hands give freely their work, or their time
to build, muse, give, to contemplate our collective
messes. We do it continually around our world,
each and every day.

We also see carnage sweep about and decimate,
we see awful around world and in our own backyards.
We pain to witness it, deviant actions, and ideas,
and what could muster a human being to damage
another human being.

Human nature is fickle, but it is not created in vacuum.
It is one part innate, one part learned, one part chemical,
but the terror of humanity is a learned terror,
it is not the basis of who we are. Somehow our most
basic instinct compels us to freely lend a hand,
to recognize the need, the hurt, the want in others
and reach out.

We do not always reach out, we sometimes see the sole
man on a street corner begging for scraps
and dismiss him as nuisance but more often
than not, when a need is apparent, people want to give.
They want to lend hands. As it concerns children,
who did nothing to warrant an inquiry to their
person, we tend to rush to aid of them, especially those
in our own backyard.

On My Musings - a sort of poem

I tend to think about things a lot, and in turn I share maybe one too many remarks as to what that thinking entails, I assume some will be taken lightly, and others may be taken heavy.

That if I start to state some universal truths, some may nod their heads, and admit these facts, but then my muddled opinions may shine abrupt and cause an irritable bowel sensation of those that hear them, and cause them to lash out at me.

There is a fine line to walk when you write about life, because there are many things we mostly accept for all of  us, and there are those that are personal to me.

These personal things go from my personal experiences, and my brand of thinking, which includes a plethora of topics that can be touchy, or taboo, but on that other hand there are those declarations of love that we can all understand, remarks upon tragedy, on loss, and on the other end of the spectrum, on hope.

Is it fit to wave away the entirety of an individual thought if part of it is un-liked, or ill-taken? Is it fit that we should label a person a this, or a that, based on one line of thought that we disagree with? Is it fit to diminish talent, or creativity because one part irked us?

In my opinion it doesn't always matter to the whole, if we take into account that once in awhile someone may say something that we do not like, may use words we do not agree with, may have beliefs that will seep into the wordplay.

We do not have to buy every line, we do not have to take the bite, but I think there is a way to appreciate an artists voice without adopting their stance.

For I may speak upon love that I feel, and a readership may ooo and aww at my statements, but I may bemoan a state of political affairs and a readership may boo and hiss. They can take my generalities, and my appreciations as they will, and they can disregard my views as they will.

I do not claim to be inline to some perfect audience, I share thoughts that are for all ages, I share thoughts that are for adults, I share thoughts that comment on beauty, and thoughts that express irritability.

It is fair to avoid art, it is a choice to partake, it is a choice to latch onto my evidence, or to disregard it.

Take the pieces that mean something for you, and ignore the rest, and find someone who can give you guidance in those views that you yourself cherish, that I do not, but do not think it black and white, I operate in gray, and will continue to do so.

For Madeline - a poem

Hey you,
I heard you like unicorns,
and princesses too. Like Elsa,
from Frozen, singing songs, a girl too,
strong, like you. Katie-bug says you have a lot
of energy, heard she cooked breakfast
for you. She was happy too. Katie-bug
cooked breakfast for me before too,
cooked me crepes, which is a funny word,
looks like creeps, but our-bug doesn't creep,,
and the crepes were great. What'd she make
for you? Probably whatever you wanted?
She might have made you ice cream
and cake if you had really wanted it, or some pie,
any kind of pie, pie that was big, pie
that towered high.

Hey you,
I know bug wanted to be there for you
she told me every day when she found
out you had to go to the doctors.
I held her phone up so you could see her
scar. I heard your voice while
I drove her to see my niece and nephew
in the play they were in. They got to sing
some songs. My nephews name is Lyric,
like the words that make up a song,
my nieces name is Aurora, like the princess
from Sleeping Beauty. I figured you'd probably
know her, since you love princesses so much.

Hey you,
Katie-bug probably wishes she could fly,
would have flown down yesterday
to get to you. Would have put her body
there beside you. Would have tried on your
nail polish with you, and played with all
your stuffed animals. Heard you got a lot of them.
I hope its okay that I hugged her
when she couldn't get to you. But only until,
she does, because bug is coming,
heard you used to call her Miss Katie.

Hey you,
you don't know me, and I don't have magic
powers or anything but if I did
I would have made a unicorn to give Katie-bug
a lift to you. The kind you'd probably like,
maybe it could fly, and then you could keep it,
name it, I'd gift that to you. My name is Aaron,
but you can call me that guy,
sometimes Katie-bug calls me baby boy,
but I am not a baby, I don't wear diapers,
or drink out of bottles, but I like to read
books, and write stories. So,
I thought I'd write this story to you.

Hey you,
this story is about you. Cheering for your favorite team,
and then your team came to cheer on you,
silly probably that the wrestlers are cheerleaders too,
but they don't mind. You must be a hero to so many,
I think that's pretty neat. I heard about you,
after Katie-bug came for Christmas time and cooked
you breakfast. Must be special if she cooked for you,
that means your special to me too,
and so many others.

This is for you.

Bullshit! - a poem

it is bullshit!

when tsunami waves strike strike shores
or innocent people end up as collateral damage
or when children are found to have tumors in their brains
some of these things are out of our control

and that is bullshit!

that these creeping things come in and attack and claw about with winter claws
and strip our bones, ripping skin from skin, and we can't get out of the way
because it is directly in our pathways, seeking to devour us, all of this
sense of uselessness.

it is bullshit!

that cancer exists, that it should exist, that we truly haven't found
a way to to combat it, as we pour all of our resources into combat
scenarios, and murdering people, so much more to be done if we could
just simply give our resources for things that could save our sons
and our daughters.

that is bullshit!

Family Business - a poem

There's something strange as we sit and eat our breakfast, lunch
and dinner. Strange that our thoughts are not on our taste buds
not on the flavors, but on the thoughts that are collectively
being thought on similar circumstances. As we go through motions
of existence, knowing that anticipation is stuck on our lungs
and in truth our breathing is falsified, and we attempt to laugh
and smile, to be genuine to ourselves before the waiting had begun.

This is typical of the days that follow news, personal news, family
news, that we are to contemplate tomorrow when we know very little
for today, and the flashbulbs of questioning cause us to go back
in our minds to our personal memories because we have been somewhere
resembling this place, before. As our food lands on our tongues,
we know we have had silent meals like this once upon a time, and it felt
as though the exiting of those events was the last word on all that business.

That it did not end there, that the period was only an ellipsis is perhaps
the hardest part of difficult times, that they tend to come around again,
and poke at us, and prod us, and we are forced to pay attention. Yet, the hardest
part of all of it is going about the normal day to day, knowing that normality
is going to be there. We want to send normality away, but somehow
we are unforfortunately accustomed to this news, and so we function
somehow when all we want is the world to stop so this, this can be found
out, and sorted, and to get to the point, but we wait, and wait, and wait.

Thinking on loved ones is toughest to do, wondering who needs
to be stronger, who needs to relinquish their floodgates to freedom,
and who has no need to fall apart. When we care for one another,
we cannot help but hurt for those who hurt, to fear when others fear,
to be consumed with rage again, and again at the unfairness of life.
Yet, we hope, and we continue to hope, battle weary, and driven
to see tomorrow back to its true state so that we may eat breakfast, lunch
and dinner in the peace we always did, but for now, we chew our food
with contemplation, and we recite our mantras in our head, and compel
ourselves to function, for we know a truth: we are fragile, flesh and bones,
human. So let us feel human, even though it hurts.

Machines of Rage - a poem

Thrash about thrash about thrash about
hyper sensitive to rage, rageful, full of rage,
seething hands, fisted, raised, bargaining,
inferno raising, boiling, lifted to peak
penetrative laser beams exploding fuel
trucks, taking no need to temper these feelings
because the feelings are fire, pure fire, fire.

Wonders in abrasiveness of suffering of children
wonders about pained children, hurting children,
always children, leave wonders amass in anger,
thrashes, seething, leaves hands wringing out necks
of grief. Children suffering in treatments, or wars,
always children, skin to ribs, tubes where they shouldn't
go, and smallest of all of us, strongest of all of us,
smiling on, reciting nicknames, playing with toys,
passing jokes, dealing better than adults in charge,
but this does not diminish inferno building.

Smoke bellows, it blocks, it corrodes insides,
as we, we not suffering, for now, wonder how
to communicate our rage, and we rage, rage
till sun disappears, rage when sun is appeared,
and anger permeates conversations
that we scorn, and burn into ourselves, fiery
brands of curse words, accompanied by debates,
bargains, as we face skyward, and say fuck,
why, dammit, why, please, oh please, and please,
how do we unseat ourselves as we are strapped
in by this glue, cementing us in this bellowing
smoke stacked intimidation of ourselves,
as we search dark questions, for darker answers.

And children, always children who listen to us ponder
the universe, and who see it clearer, with better vision
and we wonder why us, we, adults, the older, the foolish,
can't be gone in place of those who spy skies with innocence,
and we rage, and throw our tantrums as children did,
but we are not children, we are just machines of rage,
rage that we can do nothing but wait, and wait, and wait,
and then once we've waited, we will know no more then,
than we did before, what to do with our rage at the fuckery
of it all, and it is fuckery, for children are purest souls,
prior in existence to the picking of crows
that has caused the rest of us to inquire, inquire further,
inquire on why, with rage.

Happy Birthday Mom, January 21st 2020 - a birthday poem for my mother

To what do I owe my mother, beside that I am alive
and that I breathe because she brought me into this world
messy and screaming and angry that I had to be invited
out to this big old mess. That I plant my own two feet
is a testament to those early lessons of walking and talking,
and taking a moment to appreciate each others voices,
that is, all of us, all around us, to view things through a lens
of hopeful understanding. Coming to terms that these lessons
come with much hurt, for like her, I trust too hard, too much,
too soon, and the rewards, like for her, have always seldom
been worth the pain. I owe my mother much, as I walk my walks
and talk my talks. That I can even form coherent sentences,
that I can form flowery patterns at all with language,
is because of her particular undertaking to personally teach
me to read. I know that not everyone saw her embraces
as helpful, as though she were smothering me with understanding
and affections, and saving me too often from uncomfortable
places. But, I like to think I learned a lot, and learned a lot of love,
and what it means to truly care about someone, so that I do not,
and will not see any fault in how she's done it, brought me up,
and sent me out, and held me close.

My  mother, who today, January 21st, 2020, turns sixty-years
of age, and who took the time to choose to raise us, exclusively,
focusing on us as her duty, her occupation and her joy. Washing
our laundry, changing our diapers, defending our attitudes,
addressing our wounds, as she dressed them with band-aids,
and kisses.Who does not care much if you slip up, only that you apologize,
show love, and return love that she so selfishly gives. My mother
who put her children before herself, and sometimes that breaks my heart
but she would never say it as a burdensome task, she would never claim
us to be something that held her back in this life. For she speaks
wholeheartedly and earnestly and honestly about a need to approach
motherhood, to having always wanted to raise babies, good little children,
who loved her and appreciated her, that she could treat with a fondness
she may have felt absent at times in her own life. To this charge,
and hope, I can say with great certainty, that my mother did just fine,
gave us life, nurtured us, and raised us to be loving and considerate people.

On January 21st, she was born, in the year 1960. A baby just like me,
and I never forget she experienced this world with all the faulty wiring
that makes up our human selves, she a host of a lot of hurt, a lot of hope,
and mountains of love and affection. Selfless, beautiful with a heart as bottomless
as the universe is expansive. She has room for me, and hers, and mine, and yours,
happy birthday mommy, my greatest role model, and my shiniest guiding star.

Meal Prep - a love poem

Meal Prep

Seems inevitable to be here, sitting at a table not too far away

from my love’s food preparation for the coming week,

pondering life as she ponders proper amounts of distribution

for burritos, to be wrapped, bagged, frozen for another day

not too far away.

Like tomorrow, or day after, and so on.

Freezer gives extension of life, and perhaps she too has extended

my life on some level, that knowing I’m living not just for myself

but for her as well, has added numbers to my counter, a counter

determining the length of time I will have on this earth. Of course,

I can’t see the counter, it isn’t conveniently displayed in text

as in an onscreen image, or ways google maps subtracts the minutes

it takes to drive from Allendale, Michigan to Ann Arbor, Michigan,

or ways I mentally add and subtract time to when I get to be with her

again. But, freezer gives time to consume what she prepares today,

and I think that is an awful lot like how we prep ourselves

for a future that in my mind should extend into infinity.

That late night talks where I might strike a nerve

in my own history, and become embarrassed

with tears and cry, is a way to prep ourselves for an existence

that is enveloped, stamped and post-marked just for us

at a near future date.

I believe it.

I believe it is possible that small confessions

are windows into our private souls, so that we, in a symbolic

sense, strip ourselves naked, taking off armors

to say, here is the rawest part of me, and see if they balk, or laugh,

or run at the naked-mole-rat image of emotional exposures.

As she moves about, in pajama pants, and t-shirt she sleeps in,

I like to think this is a screen-in-screen image of our whole story,

a zoomed in spot in our timeline, that might reflect a thousand-and-

one other times similar to it, where she preps some food, or I do

too, since I would like to contribute my time in that way at some

point, where I am writing away about our life, in a way that might

make her smile, and I’d like to think it would be commonplace.

In this way, I am stunned to discover I have been seeking this comfort

and safety for as long as I knew I would have to adult in this world,

and had seldom found someone as absolutely real, and thoughtful

as she is. Sometimes, when I’m alone in my dorm room, contemplating

my future, as a writer, and as scary as it is, I like to look at pictures

saved in my phone, one of her smiling with a scrunched-up nose

and think if this is my future, my professional failings can be as big

as they need to be, and as hard to deal with as they can be, but if she’s

going to be there to hold onto my pieces, and cradle them and rock

them back into a whole, and prep me proper, and roll me up in her love

and store me in her embrace for our endless tomorrows, then I am

sure I can struggle the seas that bash at me in my mind, for she knows

they are there, and she still wants me near even if crashing waves

occasionally make a mess on our floors.

Interesting, to see it so vividly

for I was so afraid of failure, but failure

is not something I witness in our timeline, if I can pull back

magnifying glass, and come to a farther

on point, and inspect it, I see love abound, and laughter,

and food, I see meal prep for me, for her, for little children

stomping like stampedes of dinosaurs across dining

room, and I see kisses on neck as we prep

it together, these small little beings, and each other, always each other

so that we are frozen in our feelings, ready to be opened, ready to devour

each other, and sustain our lives we’ve built together. I see that

now, sitting at table, a few feet from sounds of her slippered

feet on hardwood floor, and I find that I am full,

belly and soul.

Contradictions in Human Thinking - a poem

Trapeze artists tend to contend with a lot minutia

as they toss, catch one another and return each other

to platform stages barely fit for a pair of feet.

So then why are we not set to hone our standards

for important duties they way we have for carnival

performers, who in societal keyways have no importance

in functions that are important to everyday life.

Yet, we continue to preach that we must live up

to words of parents, of God, of law, and say that we should

be better than lizard brain that gives us no contemplation

and helps us to survive. We, constantly told that

we are more than an animal kingdom but content

on repeating the mantra that we are men.

If we are men, and we are set in stone, as the squirrel

who contends with other squirrels to collect their acorns,

then why bother with arguments of free will, or divinity,

for we bark out words of nature, contributed to the function

of hormones of primary sex characteristics, but we want

to be chosen and placed here for superiority to the insects

that we ridicule and crush under foot, even though the honey

bee has more reason to be for this earth, than we do, to breathe

on this earth, but we claim our towering monstrosities are divine.

Trapeze artists are expected to be conditioned in their tossing,

and catching, but a president seems to be absolved of any discipline,

a man of seventy-something is able to be excused for behaviors

of lies told like a five-year-old who lies, for he is learning the world,

but man lies because he’s learned it gets him away. He can lie about

repentance and we buy in, he can lie about racism, sexism, and he can

lie about motives, and mock veterans, and the handicapped, but we excuse

him like we excuse the five-year-old. One of these things is not like the other.

If we as mankind, or humankind, can develop an understanding

that we are better than the rest of us, and hold that certain jobs

are only fit for some of us, and knowingly make sure we put proper

people in their positions, why do we allow our leaders to be jokes,

and allow our country to be run like a sideshow, with smoke and mirrors.

We determine swamps are bad places, but allow the leech to claim

he’ll drain it. What a puzzling thing we wrought ourselves and what funny

excuses we claim as we beat our chests like gorillas while we claim

to be, claim to be more than animals.

Burial Sites of Tomorrow - a short story

Burial Sites of Tomorrow

Queenie felt the need to sit for a minute. It felt rather off for her to be so tired so soon, after all it had only been about fifteen minutes since she’d gotten off the monorail that dragged her safely over the ashes of former London. Neo-London wasn’t anything grand, like its predecessor had been, and not as many people had lost their lives as in some of the more major cities. Maybe chalk that up to the fact that London had been prepared for bombings, had been prepared for them. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really matter if you crippled England because it wasn’t a threat on its own, but it was a stronghold.

            Queenie took off her boots, and curled her toes underneath her wool socks, and extended her leg. She braced herself over the rubble of a ruined building, that rested somewhere between the safe zone, and the fallout zone, and she couldn’t for the life of her but wonder if she was taking a risk even breathing the same air within miles of that offshoot of radiation. She slipped her foot back into her boot, and then proceeded to do the same thing with the other one. Her toes curled, evident beneath her socks, and she stretched, and braced herself and she closed her eyes and side. She slid her foot back into her boot.

            They had been a gift from her father, the boots, he had found them, “On the body of some woman in an alley,” he said, and he had said it without emotion, or remorse or thought. Queenie thought that maybe emotional connections had died, that the consciousness of the world of the pains of others had been driven underground by the successful of hateful men in destroying the known world. Her father wasn’t a hard man though, and it was probably more clear, she knew, that he had simply acknowledged that that woman’s problems were over. It wouldn’t be hard to believe that he had looked at that stiff lifeless body, in whatever stage of dying it was in, and thought Queenie wears that size. It would have been instinct that led him to pull them off of her, and to ignore the smell of rotting flesh.

            That was before he had been gunned down over a gallon of milk at the supermarket. Spoiled, out of date, chunky milk, that had been sitting abandoned in the powerless supermarkets. Warm milk. The man who had shot him didn’t know it was hot warm, pointless milk, he had only since an ounce of hope from his past, and he had known Queenies father. He had seen him around, they had hunted together, shared battle stories, survival stories. Queenie was never sure why the man felt the need to pull a gun on a friend and blast him into nothingness over the gallon of pointless milk. The only reason she had known about it was because he had come to the shelter and had brought the gallon and put it in Queenies seventeen year old hands, as though he were handing off the last remaining property that her father had ever owned, as if it had been willed to her upon his death.

            Queenie was now twenty-three and she didn’t think she’d ever shoot someone over a gallon of milk, but she never ruled it out, because you never knew.

            She bent down to touch her toes and felt a shadow encroach upon her. Not so much a shadow, but a presence, but like a shadow it was silent and shifted the allowance of the light that hit the pavement. She pulled her knife from the sheath in her boot and she gripped it in her fist. She felt her muscles tense, she shifted slightly in her step to allow her to drive the blade through the air and on home. She breathed as the presence grew closer.

            Then Porter whined. He cried out his doggish whinny, and Queenie loosened. “Dammit, P,” she said as she looked down between her legs at the cocking head of her collie. He was a runt, smaller than what might be typical. She slid the knife back, secure in her boot and stood up fully, and turned around and leaned down. His head had been tilted but not because of curiosity but because of a Harry Potter backpack’s shoulder strap was clenched in his jaws.

            Queenie took a knee in front of Porter and rubbed her hand against his forehead, and the knotted mane like hair of his body. Porter dropped the background onto the ground and licked up and down Queenie’s face, before sitting obediently on his hind legs and staring intently at the backpack. In truth Queenie didn’t know anything about Harry Potter, but it looked rather silly, and the only reason she knew that it was Harry Potter was because it was written in striking gothic lettering at the top. But the picture depicted on the surface was of three twelve-year-old’s pointing sticks at an invisible enemy and wearing fancy robes.

            She took the backpack into her hands and noted how the condition hadn’t looked like it’d belonged amongst the rubble like the rest of the shambles, and bones that haunted these streets. “Good boy P,” she said, she leaned down and kissed him on his forehead, and moved her attention to the backpack again, she lifted it up, and Porter laid full onto his belly, and laid his furry chin on his furry paws as though he were anticipating the reveal of the contents. Maybe a moment of levity could ensue, maybe a tennis ball was hidden inside, or a chew toy.

            Queenie unzipped the rusted zipper, and surprisingly it opened with little resistance. She reached a hand in and felt a wad of loose-leaf paper, and she tried to grip and collect it in a pinch between her thumb and fingers and she pulled it out to inspect it.

            Porter looked on disappointed at the hall. He stepped in a little bit, as if he were taking baby steps with his paws, his butt raised a little in the air as he pushed forward. But he stayed calm, like a good boy, tail in check, still.

            The papers were a mix of story problem for basic multiplication problems.  Red ink dashed along lines that had been incorrect but having never had use for mathematics Queenie couldn’t make out just what it was saying. She flipped from one page to another, crude drawings of strawberries, met with the dash of subtraction came later. Followed by some more poorly drawn strawberries and the double dashes of an equal sign. Left blank, no answer, and marked incorrect with a red dash.

            At the top of each paper was a name Harrison Kent. Written in blocky letters. At the end of the papers there was an official looking document, written in fine penmanship, by some adult or another, someone who knew how to be official in ink, and write in finely tuned lettering. A teacher must have been. The grades reflected the ink marks, D, D+, C-, and F. An F for the math, a C- minus for the language arts. Queenie seemed this might be fair, she felt tears swell in her eyes, as she read the handwritten note at the bottom.

To Mr. and Mrs. Kent:

            It is with deep concern that I write this note. Harrison is having trouble focusing in class as of late. We know the bomb drops in the America’s and China are quite alarming, but I’d like to remind everyone that we are safe in the UK out of the way of these catastrophic events that are plaguing the rest of the world. I do not mean to make light of the suffering of our allies abroad, but we must remember to take care not to draw our children into the conflicts of adults. The basics of writing and arithmetic are paramount, education is the benchmark to secure the future.

            It has come to my attention that you have enlisted your son in helping you procure items during the public panic, asked him to steal items from you from the corner markets. While the panic is unfortunate, it is not fair to include our children in the petty act of taking advantage in moments of great distress. Truly we must show our children a level of strength.

            It has also become apparent that you have ceased in helping Harrison after class with his homework. When I asked him about this he said, “My father and mother said it’s pointless to even try.” He has chosen, even when given individual attention, to make any move to fill in any blanks on tests and quizzes, or to write in whatever number he feels like, even though he knows the solutions proper.

            Harrison is a promising student, and until this latest semester he had always demonstrated a willingness to explore his intellect, to expand it, and grow in his methods of self-expression. Scribbled recently in one of his notebooks I found the following poem (keep in mind Harrison has always been a strong writer, and still attempts some form of expression but this, this distressed me):

Maybe I may die tomorrow

May be I do

It may be that I do not witness the sunshine

That I do not raise up and reach my potential

How sick it is that the world is painting itself in blood

How little we care to care for the well-being of each other

The madness of yesterday caught like a plague

A virus that spread to and from sea to shining sea

Maybe I die

I know I will

How can I dream of growing up to be anything?

When adults continue to outlaw dreaming

With their bloodletting.

            With Sincerest Concern,

                        Miss Johnson

Queenie folded that report card up into a square and stuffed it into her boot and returned the worksheets to the backpack. She zipped it up and stood to her feet.

            Porter’s tail betrayed him and started wagging as he knew what was to come next. Queenie stood over him, the shoulder strap of the Harry Potter backpack in her hand just as it had been resting in Porter’s mouth earlier. “Show me where you got this P.” Porter barked and jumped up to his feet. He extended his head up, pulling his neck to take a long hard group of sniffs of the backpack. He ran around in circles as if he were chasing his tail and he darted off the way he had come. Queenie gave chase.

            There was a long rush of fears that brushed through her head. She knew the dates of the worksheets, and of the report card put the existence of Harrison Kent before the bombing of London, but she wasn’t quite sure she if he had survived that. The backpack while old and faded, and the zipper corroded with rust, made it appear that it had sat comfortable away from fires, or shredding hands of mad men she still needed to know how the boy had gone out.

            The run brought them to the end of the block, so close to the monorail station that she was surprised no one had found the backpack before. Even in her fist, shaking lightly with grade school math problems she knew it was still in fair condition for carrying rations, or ammunition. Why hadn’t anyone bothered to collect it. After all, this close to the monorail station was the safest, and therefore the most raided area. Picked clean for years.

            Porter turned into a townhouse, the door long gone, probably used to keep someone warm enough during the early winters. The ash and dust had collected like snow piles inside thanks to the roof being non-existent. Porter paused a moment in front of a stair case that ascended, and one that descended, and when he saw his partner was on his trail properly, he barked, and started to move with a deliberate slowness down the stairs.

            The staircase was in fair condition. The footprints of her father’s gift left behind on each step. A sign she was here, alongside the second set of Porter’s footprints. She had had Porter for a few years now. Tied to a lamppost, the coffee shop behind him a mountain of crumbled bricks and glass. He breathed heavy, draped in the ash fall, dry mouthed, scrawny, and dying. At first, he considered him for food. Her father had told her to focus on herself, on her belly, her heart, her head, food was important. And she wasn’t opposed to eating dog, but Porter, the name on his tags had said as much, was not just a dog. He was a survivor too, having held on longer than he should have. Other’s must have seen it too, must have seen him sitting patiently for his master to return, ready to starve to death as a loyal companion. No one was more surprised than Queenie herself when she kneeled down and scratch his ears. She cried for the first time since that gallon of 2% milk had been placed in her hands. She untied Porter and let him decide if he wanted to keep on waiting or to follow her. She had walked a mile, leaving him in front of the burial site of his master before Porter had caught up with her, and he had never left her side since.

            At the bottom of the staircase was a large family room. Red and blue hued wallpaper lined the walls. Movie posters for superhero movies did too, and inspirational quotes like, “Hang in There.” Queenie looked around the dust littered room and looked up to the gaping hole that busted through the ceiling, at the base of the hole was a bombshell. A dud. Hadn’t detonated. Speared through the eyes in a downward trajectory  and digging into the floor.

            That’s when she saw it.

            Extended out from the shell in a lost gripping position the skeleton hand of Harrison Kent. Porter unaware of the sacred quality human beings put on bones stuck his nose in deep and sniffed at the child fingers. Queenie was thankful she saw nothing else there, just the hand, the rest of Harrison lost underneath the shell, the rubble, a sudden burial he hadn’t been prepared for. Queenie cried again, for the third time. She brought herself down and close to the hand and laid the backpack down in the way she thought it might have been held. And she knew why no one had bothered to loot the pack. The bombshell had put them off from the idea. What if they had moved in and moved a plank of wood that tipped it, and what was once just a dud had found its motivation to explode. She placed the shoulder strap into Harrison Kent’s fist and laid it there. A part of her wanted to bend his fingers so his grip was more assured, but she didn’t.

            She whistled at Porter and Porter looked at her. His tail in anticipatory wagging stages. He was ready for command, and Queenie threw her thumb back over her shoulder to tell him to leave the place, and he barked and bolted from that place.

            Queenie placed her palm against the bombshell that had buried Harrison Kent, and closed her eyes, and breathed a moment. She reached down her leg and too her hiking boots her father had given her and she removed her knife. She placed the tip of the blade against the bombshell and dragged the blade down with an almost muted screech, and white line appeared as a result of the carving. With several mover movements, and with deep carvings she wrote, Here Lies Harrison Kent, Dreamer-Poet. She smiled through teardrops and moved to put the blade back and her fingers nicked the edges of the folded report card. She considered a thought a moment, and she thought of her father dead over a gallon of milk, she thought of Porter on the lamppost, and she thought of the world she never got to know. She brought the knife backup. And in full she wrote:

            Here Lies Harrison Kent, Dreamer-Poet,

            Lost as a result of our blood-letting,

            May he have passed mid-dream, mid-hope,

            A child still, a child still, a child

            still.

Dinner Date Downtown - a flash nonfiction

“Is that okay?” I asked for probably the third time. She’d been sitting beside me debating the menu, and I could only guess as to what she was thinking. Her long sleeves hid her bare arms from me, and my own hoodie kept mine hidden from her, but it wasn’t hard to imagine them running up to the shoulder resting alongside her neck. I reached out my hand to take hers, and she squeezed, and rubbed a finger along my knuckles.

It was the first time I’d ever eaten at The Bob. It was a Monday evening, and thus no one was there. The empty halls seemed almost haunted, larger than life, like a mansion made out of shiny homestead like wood that you’d find out in the country. It had the essence of a barn but outside Grand Rapids was gray and grayer, cloud cover had enveloped the sky, half eaten away snow still lined the steps leading to the entrance.

As my hand searched hers, she responded, “Yes, that’s fine.” I wasn’t sure if she meant it or if she was going along with my final decision. The first choice had been to go with a half-pound of pork shoulder, but I had said it wouldn’t be enough, and suggested a sampler of all the meats. Looking at the menu and never having been before I couldn’t be certain that the amount of meat, or its quality, but it seemed safer to go for a plate of multiple choice, even if one was wrong, something had to eventually be right.

Our flight of beers had dwindled down to two, but more like two that were both half-way full, before the waiter had returned with our meat platter. He placed it down and the aroma trickled up like you’d see in cartoons, as if scent was a hand that gestured with index finger for us to follow. We followed. Leaning in to inspect our options. These cubes of steak sat closest, six little squares, and a chicken breast, glazed and herbed to golden beautification, and the shreds of pulled pork underneath. “They didn’t bring the sauces,” she said to me, and gathered up her spoon to try the mac and cheese.

We had also ordered street corn at my behest, as I had never heard of it prepared that way, but looking back I’m sure I had, at a time further back inaccessible in my immediate memory bank, until I had tasted it sliding across my tongue. My initial reaction had been to go for my fork, but she didn’t. I felt it proper to follow the leader and had gathered up my spoon first. As she shoveled forth a mouth full of lava-like cheese and macaroni, I broke soft yellow corn in my teeth. She seemed to barely even nod at herself as she finished her last swallow of macaroni . An affirmation that it was good, but maybe not delicious. My own spoon slid into faded yellow cream, and a few pieces of macaroni gathered as well, and brought to my mouth. It was familiar the flavor, but creamier than usual, and I audibly confirmed, “Mmm that’s pretty good.” She nodded.

The waiter came around the corner with a round metal caddy housing plastic bottles of sauces. About seven in total that I can’t fully remember. He placed it in front of us, relinquishing the metal handle that shot up from the middle, and excused himself. Then she went for her fork and picked up a piece of the steak looking food. And though I had read what the menu said would be on the plate, I asked, “What is that?”

“The pork shoulder,” she said, I hoped unassuming to my own ignorance. Then she went for a bottle with a deliberate intention. A confidence in her choice, and she sprayed the liquid like water onto her pork shoulder. “This is a Georgia tradition,” she said, and of course she would know better than me.

“Like everyone does it?” I say.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said as she often does. And she takes her fork, and stabs it in, and brings it up, and consumes it whole. She bites, and chews. I stare. Ears open. “The pork shoulder is really good.” So, I too, go and gather up my fork, stab a piece of pork shoulder, I bite off a small morsel, naked, no sauce to get the initial flavor first, unhindered, or accented. And it is indeed good. Delicious. Perhaps it would have been better to go for the lesser flavors first, the chicken, and pulled pork but we chose to devour the best part first.

The bottle she’d used, and I too in turn used, wanting to know what all the fuss was about was labeled spicy vinegar. It was not typical of what I would have used, but tasted good nonetheless. We had been to many places, to try food, little dates for my minimally tested palette and typical of our trips her destinations had proven better than mine. I felt I had chosen wisely in the destination this time but had failed to order correctly.

A half-pound of pork shoulder would have been best, but she did not bring it up. It was a truth I said, “We should have just ordered the pork shoulder.” She nodded, and I said, “Next time, that’s what we’ll do.” To this she nodded too. Finishing off the corn and macaroni, giving me most of the chicken, because chicken always tasted like chicken. We had a moment to digest and consider. I laid my head on her shoulder, satisfied, and elated.

This is About Being a Writer - a poem

To write:

yes, what to write, as debatable a topic as there can be
because one can write for any number of reasons:

for pleasure
for pain
for deception
for persuasion
for fun
for benefit
for destruction

To write:

a task taken on by fools who think they know how to handle
language, but their language or one they've cultivated
only to find that they don't quite comprehend it all as planned
and that plan being:

to feed the drive
to satisfy the urge
to cultivate the craft
to debate the cause
to plant the feet
to plant the seed

To write:

is a garden of possibility using the nearest most handy
alphabet and watering it till it sprouts sentences
and weeding out splices and run-ons unless they are aesthetically
pleasing, and debating on whether that beauty in that eye
is worth more than the beauty in your eye:

spacing out the argument
causing vertical contemplation
driving horizontal actions
perceiving a new way of seeing
distracting the mind from collapsing

To write:

a way to self-express in order that someone else who cannot
might make sense of what is wrought within them. a determination
to put thought into word, fiction, or non, serif or sans serif,
with a course of action to drive home the theme, the point, the hope
that one might mean something with what talent they are given,
and then that is the goal then:

finding some way to say it
finding some way to express it
finding some way to contribute to it
finding some way to survive it
finding some way to live it
finding some way to stand it

To write:

open ended, contribute when you can, for a mind uniquely thinks uniquely
on what host it has to express, what hands it has to type or write or scribble.
What index fingers jars the backspace key, and what one hits return,
to skip ahead, but to go back to the core of the need:

to write.

Be a Mountaineer - a poem

It's okay to be ashamed of yourself,
that you might have done something to harm someones emotions
in an act of anger, in a haphazard way as you tried
to navigate your own mind.
Be ashamed and feel guilty that you screwed-up
allow the retrospection to cross your mind and be big enough
to admit you faulted and failed, and have faith
that your person may be willing to forgive you
but do not take advantage of grace. That is the key
to entrusting another with your mistakes,
do not get away with it, for that is not the point,
introspection, inspection, scrutinize the motive and come to understand
that you felt as you did because you allowed your self to come
to a place where you couldn't relinquish a moment
to communicate. Screwing up is human, mistake making
is human, but an admittance, that drop of the stomach,
that sinking feeling that you disappointed them,
made it worse yourself by acting a fool in the face of irrational
thought. Don't be alarmed if they don't give you an easy
out, for if you know you messed up a moment, they too
are allowed to consider your action, to debate it in their minds,
and to forgive if they feel you have earned that right. Never take it for granted
their grace. Never do that, for graceful hands can only take so much,
and they should be held more than they are hindered,
and I know I myself have had to come to terms with my own mind,
to debate my motives in saying the wrong thing,
and to scrutinize what fear it was that led me to be rude.

Maybe my perceived infliction is less than I claim it to be,
and maybe it is just the right amount of injury,
but it is important to know when to admit that you were wrong,
when I was wrong, and I want to be strong enough of a human being
to say that I was wrong, than to go my whole life being wrong
and saying I was right. And be forever thankful that she looks
at you the way she does, and be forever conscious of that look of hurt
when you were mean sometimes, but don't destroy yourself with guilt
because that isn't how this works. I am forever searching myself,
but then I see a photo of us, from just the day before,
and I remember that my momentary lapses into rudeness,
are not the norm for me, and she knows, and she's always known,
but never excuse it, never excuse it, never excuse it,
own up to it, acknowledge it, mend it so you can mend them,
and hold them close, because you are not the sum of your mistakes
and you strive to be the man she wants, and needs, and you will
make mistakes upon that climb, and she will love you,
as long as you climb climb climb.

Walking on Sun Light - a poem

Radiantly you've come around again and again
weekend after weekend consoling saddest parts
of me, and you've developed a home inside
of my heart that is outfitted with latest comforts.
Walls lined with patterns of paper that illustrate
in words the connections we've created similar
to brain synapses that electrocute and connect
with one another and make brand new appreciations
that span globes and illuminate suns that spread
light that shines out of your eyes. It's that radiance
that drew me in, like magnetic pulses that reverberate
through underground tunnels that no one else can see.
These invisible places may be for me and only me

but translation is circulating through my bloodstream
and existing would not be possible without you
and truth be told it would not be impossible to step
by step through the coming days, but they would
not be lived all the way through day to day from the pits
of my stomach, tips of my toes, and courses set by your love
that I would not have to lead me on. I would be blinded
by my own pity, I suppose, but that is not the life i have
nor the life I am holding, the life I am holding
is bringing me through trenches of fear and worries

that is how life is leading me, with you, arm in arm
with me, keeping my eyes on a future that you are apart
of.  The time keeps ticking away, and I see the path
clear like Robert Frost, or was his more unsure if he had chosen,
chosen the right path, or the plan was that he had taken
a path to his end, no chance to change what came before
this is journey chosen by sure feet, feet that are sure because
they are accompanied by you. Your company keeps me conscious
of how much I am in need of you, of your want, and that,
that has made all of the difference.

Cautionary Tales for Later Concern - a poem

Terribly articulate are the naysayers that we often find ourselves allured

by their

sense of actualization, and their sense
of realization and their
reluctance in admitting any fault

we find that in mouths of devils we are accustomed to attracted

due to their

convictions and the way they scribble out manifestos
in order to convince their masses that they
don't walk around with horns and pitchforks
and hoof feet

Terribly unpleasant that the babes we seek to protect are often coaxed

into believing these

naysayers and predators, for they speak good game, but have no
substance beyond knowing the needed script to get young girls
to unbutton their pants. Let's not confuse age with knowledge

for I have witnessed the most compassion and knowing from

children who

do not speak to devour their prey or to reduce people
of puddles of weakening ash, as they decimate
the worlds they grew up on,

no the little ones are the vegetation grown out of volcanic soil
and we must do our best to remember that even smiles
hide daggers.

Musings on a Silent Life - a poem

Took a last minute drudge in a swamp
and as I sink sunk sank into obliviousness
I thought, isn't this so much like life
as I glide indelicately across ponds of ice
what do I expect when it cracks underfoot
what can I hope if I take no care to proceed
with caution or to consider the fabrics
of my foundation or my universe in all its infinite
imagery.

Maybe it was calming presence of mud consuming
me but there was comfort in meeting such a cold
demise as though it were familiar to be caught
unaware even as I was buried alive in the muck
for isn't that I bit like life, I thought, how the dangers
and cautionary tales that are told, are so familiar
to us that they do not feel like distraction
but like comforters, we, who are so accustomed
to toxicity happily swallow the sludge
as if we had no methods of
escape.

Then as I took my last breath, which incidentally
was a swallow of swamp sludge slipping down throat,
I could only then think, was this life? Was I always
content to feed myself on the rot that festered
there on my lung, heart and mind,
for so many seasons I heard cries for bettered
conditions but for so many reasons
I heeded not outcry or battles fought and for that reason
I slip into comatose surrender to the pains I wrought
myself. It's that comforting feeling of familiarity
and what retrospect does is shake of foundations
you thought were safe secure and locked with key
but are truly defiantly lashing out that you attempted
nothing.

My head swallowed whole therein that swampy
situation, I couldn't help but think, was life
much better for my serving the sanctity of the normality
of cliches that society beckoned I consume
and would it have hurt to ponder a course of action
that was not in tune to the conductors in charge
behind the scenes in the curtains of history
played out and discharging orders
that they were unaware they did not have to give.
Sad state of affairs to witness clarity as you
depart.

Pyromaniacs - a poem

As the animals were burning they thought they'd talk about burning human beings
as if human beings burning was anything new for them to go through, as if animals
as well as human beings weren't burning all along, but let's assume for a moment
that the animal is separate from the being of the human, and assumptions of this sort
don't do a lot for the cause at hand, because whether its with climate changes, or if burning

is brought on by changes in climate, and heat, and drought, and forests burn down
just as they did in California not too long ago, just as right now, not too long ago
they are/were in Australia too burning. But human beings in California or Australia,
or refugees in Syria, or Iran, or Iraq, or men chopped up with buzz saws and chainsaws,
and how metal might burn flesh in frictions against skin, and as animals burn on grills
and get consumed in burning consuming acids in belly's and human being sizzle and smoke

on sides of roads, grown adults, or young fresh meat, ages zero to a one-hundred eleven,
just the smell is flesh of animals, and our meat might mesquite rather nicely, but we like to burn,
play with fire, big booms, or little flames, and decimate flesh, and all that isn't flesh like grasslands,
and forest, and trees, the bush or canopy, on fire, and the burning bush god spoke to Moses, and said oh holy Moses what are we doing with this world when he glanced through crystals into
future moments, of charred remains, and if the meat is rotting toss it out, but if the meat

was not made for consumption what are we doing burning the flesh of each other, smoke expelling
from handguns, and demanding refunds for movies depicting burning, and burning onto our retinas
images of fiery explosions, and glorifying our brutish bullied strength on the rest of the world
america willing above god so it seems, and blood and guts, and fire, and burning of rage and passions
of cycles that won't stop, and us responsible for office seat of highest part, and animals burning
all of us the animals burning within, without, and not sure where we left our water in plastic bottles, probably near a graying coral reef, it would seem, it would seem.

Holy Wars Between Mad Men - a poem

Whose war are we even fighting anymore
as battle borne children are vaporized in heat
blasts, and crystal balls reveal what history
books already told us.

When they were read
about in stories, or etched into drawings
or brushed on to canvas. Before the photograph
gave us unrelenting images of carnage
of the brutalized and torn apart. When warnings
were issued as mass graves were shown
housing the bones of a million lost in devastation
but we all shrugged and said "too bad." When
men came home flight after flight in caskets
and we said, oh, too bad. We had the proof
glaring on box television for years, before
Widescreen, Flat-screen TV's were even
remotely fantasized about, we had it, we had
evidence.

As children starved, and died
trapped in distant lands, we had imagery
that our little bombs were destroying people
with bodies with same composition as ours
and yet we shrugged. And, we didn't learn,
as mad men declared himself king of the world
or idiots, depending on which side you ask
did we not expect this? many did, many saw
signs on bringing on of wars, but we decided it was okay
that a  mad men with control over armies, and bombs
was fit to toss them wherever he wanted,
when truth is always truth: that rich men don't die
in their own wars, but poor men do, and an epitome
of fortune sits strapped to his high-chair and barks
out order in cloud of inquiries, to what?

Perhaps distract, to cause chaos, watching worlds
burn for pure entertainment. To what levels
of outcry can remorseless men be changed,
and the answer is perhaps none, but stories
will roll in, as a consequence for actions taken,
and it'll be there's dead or ours, probably more of theirs
as if that is the ultimate victory when children's
flesh has to be torn from their bones
while small packaged men can measure each others
dicks. What small value we place on life, what contest
we turn war into, there are winners, in that one
side still structurally stands, but with how much blood
and how long till the crown is too heavy to sustain?

We are a culture of violence, we thrive on it, a culture
of tantrum throwing children content on eye for eyes
and quid pro quo, and it is always men at the helm
steering the ship into oncoming traffic. oh,
we Americans, we love to self-sabotage.

A Wonder or How I Am Always Connected to My History - a poem about childhood trauma

It's a wonder
is it not? When one
finds a way through tragedy
to take strides to go on,
but not to move on,
for moving on is out of reach.
It is a wonder
that loss of child would not cause
a muteness in the forward steps
but time halted not for them
as it does not halt for anyone.

That wonder,
that compels the life of all the others
to beat begrudgingly as they go on
never losing the loss far from
themselves. It is
a wonder, that they can be excelling
as much, as they do, how the mother
could raise boys into men,
who struggle with trauma on shoulders
but not at the expense of loved
ones around them. How
loss causes such self-searching
for a seven year old, for a three year old,
how internal questions are asked
of them far before they
would normally be ready.

Wonder how animals
feel when a cub is lost
to wildfire, wills of gods
and all that existential drama?
Though it causes wonder,
it is not the final thought,
for the children had to grow
and express themselves,
found words to be opportune
to govern their thoughts,
had each other for awhile,
had to grow up, as grown ups do.
Wonder if creativity would have
sprouted in unhindered minds,
ones that didn't have to contemplate
mortality of babes when they
were babes themselves?

Is the creativity fostered because of tragedy,
or is the tragedy just a bystander on their
journey, and a picking up of a pen
inevitable? Do the children
bottle up what they don't understand,
things like crib death, and child caskets,
and grieving parents?

Do they keep it hidden in compartments,
dresser drawers full of mothers tears,
and fathers fury, do they wonder
why it hurts so much not to hear
baby cries? When they are men
do they understand better the value of life,
are they better for having been near deaths
grasps? Certainly minds are damaged,
brain is overly concentrated with pain,
and wondering, it is
a wonder after all to ponder,
to grant eyes into 20/20 retrospection,
and to be curious how much
a babes brain can carry, when
they still are rusty at walking,
and truth be told, and told
from experience, a lot
a lot is held on babies brains,

so keep them safe, for they
are small universes full of possibility,
and are always paying attention,
Yes, wonder, a wonder
to think I am a grown shape
of a three year old's experience
with tragedy.