Intermission 3: Maybe This is For You

They're never gonna stop.
The flies will come crawling down the walls
like spiders mugs of alcohol in their hands and
fists or middle fingers in the rest; wings buzzing
and fidgeting impatient for flight or inebriation
barcodes splattered viciously across them.
And the squirrels will sit in the trees laughing
throwing rocks at you and your morning jog,
rocks at you and your morning dog.
The cops will be just around the corner waiting
on the side of your building hand on their holster
eyes peeking your death, waiting for the right
moment to apprehend your future, gun-down
your witnessed potentiality.
The worms will crawl out their holes to die in
the sunlight.
The cat will come home at night from where
he rarely says and at the first wrong word or
idea turn quickly around and back-hand his wife,
or girl-friend, whomever the current one happens
to be, and beat her till she screams, beat her
till the child upstairs understands what it means
to conceal yourself into pieces yet still remain whole.
And the whore the bitch another feline will come
home from where she always says smiling as
she takes her shoes off and asks her children
what they had for dinner, God knows they having
to seek elsewhere for sustenance, children bruised
by her lies and sabotage, a faceless red-lipstick
objector.
And the pigeons and sparrows will line up like
the horizon at the table where is hot food, handed
out by glorious hands, and receive their dish maybe
their only dish for the day or the week left to humbly
walk away in THANK YOU and steal what they may
during the rest of the week.
"I am tired..." the dog says and gets to his bed,
begins seating his body, calculated and carefully,
relying on SSI and a green cane to lower himself,
and gets his body to a steady spot, that's comfortable
enough, a veteran who fought in a war we never won and
forever has been treated as the loser.
Dog stares blankly at the world before him for a minute,
seated on the bottom bunk of the bed he shares with another
above him who too may be hostile yet hospitable.
He sits staring there till an older gentleman a
fellow vet and denizen of their place of housing walks
past him and shoots a joking remark at him which
wakes him out of his wake to which he smiles lifting
his head and shoots back his own laughing remark.
And the disabled dogs will sit with their sense of humor
on beds marked with expiration dates bodies honored
by scars and useless medals trying to leave behind the
wars that never ended, just quieted down.
The seagulls will swoop down in their white suits and
rip off the poor.
The ghastly possums will haunt the city's dark places
and crevices brooding for the roq or the needle or
the glass.
And when the fire's burning your town of rest to
the ground the raccoon will furtively appear and look
at you with clairvoyant eyes that say - "I told you so."

Pull Pit

The cold chilling wind is my blanket.
Curled up or tying my limbs together for warmth
some cardboard and disturbing sounds from animals
or machines are my mattress.
I am decaying.
My sleeping bag is my home on these bitter nights but
my sleeping bag has been stolen, taken from the place where
I hid it.
The shadows spit and sneer at my footsteps,
make threatening motions.
My dreams are no shelter, there too I’m exiled within and worry
for my dryness when the bad weather of my brain brings rain.
A reality of exhaustion: weeks and weeks without proper sleep
my mind my body my soul dragging its feet glossy lips and pointed
fingers telling me it’s fake, I’m a forgery, that there’s plenty of
opportunities out there for me to lose hope.
More sand is brushed from my hair than the dirt beneath your feet.
I am no junkie or alcoholic but those two things give me armor
against the night.
Some one says “Well what about Allah?” and what about Him?
Maybe I’ve fallen out of favor with Him too.
The crickets no longer play so the scorpion sings.
The butterflies have caught on fire and the snakes fall from the trees.
There is no where left to hide and we know someone has chained up
all the exits.
The firing squad will be here soon but never soon enough plus
I’m told about their aim.
This sunlight thawing my cells warming me is the first warmth I’ve
had in 8 hours and I will stop writing this piece soon so I can get to
the food line and have my first meal in what has been much more so.