She Bleeds For Brooklyn excerpt from Not Real Poetry She lives with low rent day dreams on no name backstreets. Dirty sidewalks made from quicksand concrete, There's no yellow brick road. In this city like a desert without an oasis. Hope a disease that breeds in places, Where God wouldn't go. In the air there's a stench, the smell of desperation. lives are stamped with a date of expiration. The Devil's grip on their souls. Night crashes down with the sound of a train wreck. She's on the prowl for love and everyone's suspect, But they just leave her cold. A chorus full of sirens singing life’s disasters There’s no fairy tale ending living happily ever after Reads like a Sexton poem She cries with a sound no one can hear Her eyes lost their voice Now she can't speak with tears She wonders about life on the other side of the mirror. Kneels down for one more unanswered prayer. But there's no one listening out there. She bleeds, she bleeds for Brooklyn She's hemorrhaging lies and alibis. She bleeds, she bleeds for Brooklyn. Break free Persephone Brooklyn left the front porch light on.
I Don’t Believe In Witchcraft
Excerpt from “Quicksand Highway”
When I lived in New Orleans a long while ago, my Dame de Mois at the time, Simone, gave me a Ledbury dress shirt for my birthday. It was magenta with the inside collar and cuffs in a subtle eggshell hue. I was excited to try it on and model it for her. The process of opening a new dress shirt is tedious. I have always been curious as to why they use so many straight pins in new shirts. I began pulling out the pins and putting them in a nearby empty beer can. ” Don’t throw them away!” She screamed. “Give them to me, I save straight pins!” ” Why the hell would you want to save all these pins?” I inquired ” I use them on my Voodoo dolls.” She smiled in a scary sort of way.
“What the hell are you talking about? Are you telling me you’re a witch?” ” I don’t particularly care for the word “witch,” I’d prefer Wiccan, it would describe me much better. Witch has many connotations and has been popularized in books, movies and in fairy tales. Most often we are portrayed in an evil or wicked manner, which is not the case.” ” So you practice Magic, like casting spells and mixing up potions?” ” Well yes but it isn’t sinister like you’re making it sound. Are you familiar with the Wicca Religion and practices?” “Somewhat, but I’m not as knowledgeable as I wish I was now.” “We aren’t evil or Satan worshipers, I’m a good witch not a bad witch, celebrating nature as well as the Moon and planets. ”
I appreciate your attempt to make me feel comfortable, but the good witch, bad witch reference doesn’t help, it reminds me of the “Wizard of Oz” movie. That damn movie caused me a great amount of anguish as a child ; witches, those damn flying monkeys and all those dwarfs, midgets or little people, whatever is the politically correct name for them, it really freaked me out. My mother made us watch it every Thanksgiving back in Chicago and the song “Over the Rainbow” sent me into a panic and state of fear whenever I heard Judy Temple sing it.” ” No Santi, it’s Judy Garland who sang it, not Shirley Temple, you mixed them together.” “See what I mean. A perfect example of how just talking about it causes me distress. ” It was the first and last time I wore the shirt.
His first book “Stray Dogs and Deuces Wild Cautionary Tales” was published in January 2020 by Horror Sleaze Trash Press. His next book is a collection of poems, “Not Real Poetry” published in July 2021 by Steve Cawte, Editor of Impspired Press. Arthur Graham, Editor of Horror Sleaze Trash Press released “Quicksand Highway” more short stories of adventurous mayhem in November 2021. Judge turned 68 last July and lives modestly in Costa Rica.