the 2020 election
so over seventy million
people voted for racism
for fascism, for the thought
that money is more important
than people
most of these ignorant fucks
are from families lincoln
should have slaughtered
after the civil war
instead, the losers got to tell
the story of that war and you
get what we have here
generation after generation
of stupid fucks breeding
even more stupid fucks
ignorance is a disease
and no one in this country
seems to like the cure
they are more than proud
to be stupid and dress
themselves in the flag
and think that makes
them patriotic
and if they are willing to
die for their racist leader
let them
thin that fucking herd
forever
-------------------------------------------------------------------
raven haired beauty
she was a woman
straight out of a
springsteen song
a raven-haired beauty
full of desire with eyes
that could burn through
your soul
as much as i longed
for a kiss
i was hoping that she
would be what would
kill me
take me from this world
once and for all
---------------------------------------------------------------------
some kind of loss or relief
i suppose i was supposed
to feel like some kind
of loss or relief when
my father died
it was neither
it had been over twenty
years since i had seen
or spoken to him
it was like being told a
ghost had finally been
captured and killed
i thought of it as a
tuesday and i must
have stumbled onto
some television station
i barely watch anymore
--------------------------------------------------------------------
unless provoked
all my friends
have moved on
i sadly never
got the chance
to do so
i'm never good
at burning bridges,
unless provoked
yet another joy
of apathy
-------------------------------------------------------------------
a difference of opinion
i never thought
of myself as
an addict
apparently
the authorities
have a different
standard
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He’s been widely published over the last quarter century, most recently at Dumpster Fire Press, The Rye Whiskey Review, The Black Shamrock Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy and Terror House Magazine. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Detours
Couple bottles of Boone’s Farm that Belinda’s
older brother got for us at A & C Beverage
when we met up with him around the corner
and of course the peyote buttons and we were off
cruising country backroads in my mom’s ’63 Impala
convertible that last summer night after graduation
when we found a moist valley of fireflies that
swallowed us like the sparkling, star-filled sky
as if we entered a Kusama Infinity Mirror
when time was giving us a second chance
to lose ourselves before maturity showed up
with handcuffs and magicked the key away.
Midnight phantom footfall inside the bedroom
ceiling and the scene dissolves out of focus
and then into focus again
landing me in that prickly flip of past,
not to repair history in order to save
a Joan of Arc or Soulika sister,
but to squirm into my middle school locker
so that this time Ruth White won’t find me
with her punches when I take the last
chocolate pudding cup in the cafeteria
before she can get her spoon-ringed
fingers around it.
A jet stream snares me, squeezes me
through jalousie window slats
to territory of bigger/faster/more/more/more
instead of snailing through sweaty lines
of government cheese and unemployment.
How to make doppelgänger sense of it,
these roundabout visits that send me rewinding
to never meet up with Gus who stained me
with a mickey he claimed was the size of a whale’s.
How can I be my best ingredient,
in glory to each birthday’s butter cream?
To follow the next trail of twine
through hallways where Easter eggs
are painted zygotes and that if I swallow one,
I could clear my throat of trouble.
Clothes Horse
You like wearing a soup of polka dots
with rascally pockets
and that hat of ostrich-egg-over-easy.
You’re a landscape
seen through pinhole, born for knowing how
to keep your clothes
dancing. Passersby nod through clouds around you,
gardenia with a bit of ginger on top.
Sometimes you’re in the habit
of spandex, buttery soft camel toe
whispering for guests.
Sometimes you’re all in for the dissenting swag
of a judge’s collar.
But always you’re hungry for the click & collect,
or thrifting
in the hunt for your next highlight reel.
Closets never enough,
scarves and gloves and bracelets color-sorted
in the pantry.
You tell us it was the shapeshifting of adolescence
that got you here,
the scripture of accessory,
the rebel arithmetic of your
outsiderness + your outside-ness
= bondage trousers, chain mail nose
ring, neon spikes for hair.
Now it’s martingale back and designer
pouch with teacup pooch.
You say you always wear your soul on
your sleeve, your style slippery or stonewashed.
And there you go again, chiffon creature
preening in limelight, combat boots prancing
for romantic notions like sprezzatura
and je ne sais quoi. Rod Serling Takes a Stab at Stand Up
Before he says anything he draws deep
on a fresh Chesterfield and turns his head
to profile so he can better think sideways.
Swish pan / swish pan / swish pan / ah,
there’s the ringmaster, hot light, hot mic
and he’s rapier thin cool in a black mohair
3 roll 2 sack suit and crispy white oxford
spread collar. Glad you all could make it tonight becauseyou’re traveling now with the best dressed man in any dimension. Rod straightens
his Brooks Brothers double stripe and clenches
his jaw for the baritone glide. I just flew intotown an hour ago and boy, are my gremlinstired. Rod straddles a stool. You know, some people call me the Arthur Miller of science fiction TV, but my wife calls me television’s Groucho Marx of eyebrows…Yeah, I’m aJewish kid born on December 25, that one Christmas Day my parents had something elsedelivered besides Chinese take out. He grips
the mic and a beam of light launches off his
silver military bracelet. You might haveheard I was a paratrooper during WW2,but hell, that wasn’t half as harrowing as battling with TV sponsors…I’m no dummybut we all know what it is to look into the faceof the Twilight Zone—you have to have toiletpaper with you at all times for the doo-doo- doo-doo… But seriously, I do hold the record for winning 6 Emmys in outstanding writing for a drama series but what the hell do those two aliensin the front row care. They’ve probably got betterjokes on their planet, like “an Earthling and a Martianwalk into a diner”… A mound of ash has been softly
growing near his Florsheims. My daughters keep telling me that I smoke too many cigarettes, but then I remind them of our digs in Pacific Palisades andCayuga Lake, and they stop nagging me. Oh yeah, Sometimes I like playing the“ In Rod We Trust” card.
Rod drops his cigarette butt to the floor and rubs it
out with his shoe. So that’s my time, folks. I’m headingback home now to the hacienda and when I get there, I’ll walk into my study, sit down, put paper in the typewriter, fix the margins, turn the paper up, and bleed. Consider
When you consider a pitch to end all pitches, a pitch for
angels some say, for what materializes in the dusty corners
of your apartment, a pitch as delicate as Shantung Silk carried across ocean in satchels underneath the ruby throats of birds, then your perfumed scarf will touch
down upon a vestibule’s tapestry rug and proclaim
the final exit. How euphemisms spiral into themselves
as our pendulums slow, and cantankerous static clings
to our nose hairs. How we want to chew the date off
our ticket to the Imperial Lounge and just keep rolling
around a lush field, olly olly oxen free. How we yearn
to get drunk on cocktails of instant smiles and
cellular serums, our pinkies tapping our lips.
How we limit, to a parakeet mirror, our scavenger hunts
for wrinkles and dearly pay to have done what alchemists
do with plastic. Death will launch the trajectory
of our accumulating selfies and leave us with our
monkey minds godsmacked like undigested bits of beef.
So wag your tongue all you want at that grandfather clock
and swath your phone in a crochet shawl to muffle calls
from the grave. Branch shadows will play upon your
sleeping face and your scarab ring, too loose now
for your fingers, will twang to the floor.
No such place as exactly what happened.
Poetry Accessories
after Rod Serling’s “The Bard”
spurs of moment + tertiary motivation
+ worn copy of Ye Book of Ye Dark Arts
that flies off top shelf + riddle for riddling
+ doodle for doodling + fecund uncertainty
+ that crazy moon + blacks, whites & grays
spring-loaded + quill pen at attention
+ title/act/scene/cup-inside-cup-inside-cup
mash-ups from Brother Will + sand conjured
from your loafers + first picture book cherished
+ porcelain tureen with footnotes brimming
+ six-foot hot dog bun for napping under stars
+ dust motes whirling in sunbeam
+ pixel by pixel hearing + gaze unmediated & gliding
+ cockles squirming your heart
+ Harpo’s harp in barbed wire
+ Méliès’s flash, dazzle & poof
+ world too small to be satisfying
+ horsepower via headstone + va va voom+ipsy dispsy+za za zoom
Let Principle cohere focus As unconditional Love
Entirely allowing
Focus appreciation
Through all perspective's
Intervibral coincidence,
Enjoying
Allow I self the hand of preference.
Born Free
Sense
Know
Less resistance
Allowing, You're Worth it.
Get caught, Satisfied with your own natural grace.
Turn time on a dime.
Freshen your focus,
NOW.
Once upon a time, in a village near the forest, lived a man with very dark hair and a serious countenance.
He was living alone in a wooden house. He was making everything with his bare hands. Every day he walked, before sunrise, deep into the forest.
He picked the highest tree and worked from day to night. All his furniture, even his plates, spoons and forks, was made of wood.
The man did not have a lot of friends, or neighbors, and the closest house was miles and miles away. He never married and he spent all of his life working the wood. His work made him famous in the nearby village and they came to him and ask him to repair everything that was broken. And the man gave all his time and attention to the wood and it was as if he and wood understood each other. The wood was given new life and became a beautiful table, a beautiful chair, or a very nice door.
People were starting to come to him from far away,
from the big city, asking for more furniture and other decorations.
One day he was preparing a wooden chair, and he was out in the open air, when suddenly a rare perfume came to him. He looked around but nobody was with him. So, the man continued to work the chair and try to give it a nice shape and wanted to put also some beautiful colours..
Again the perfume made him turn his head and then he noticed on the earth a very beautiful strange flower with several colours…
“I do not remember seeing this flower before” he said. “No, you don’t. Because I was a seed and some days ago a sparrow brought me here from a foreign country. But as the sparrow got tired from the long journey, he hid me in the earth, and he thought that he would come and eat me later…. But he forgot. I am a seed and if u bury me I will grow up and become a… “ “A beautiful flower that smells so nice” said the carpenter.
“Yes, but I smell like that only if I am happy.. Some minutes ago an ant passed and we spoke.
He gave me news about my family, so I am more happy.”
The perfume was exceptional. It was like the perfume of the orange flowers with a bit of ylang ylang. The man had never thought he could speak with a flower.
“I must finish my chair, I have a lot to do. I must
finish before night comes, ” said the carpenter and
started again to work on the chair.
“Why are you so hurrying to finish your chair? I see nobody else here with you. Do you have family, a wife or children?”
Asked the flower.
“No, I am alone and I am very busy. So do not ask me silly questions, I must work because I have a chair to deliver….” “How is possible to work in such a beautiful day, Look up, the sky is so blue, look at the forest and the trees, such a beautiful picture.” said the flower, and continued ” I need some fresh water and if you have some more grass, you can bring it close to me, so I will have company. “
“Love yourself… “, said the flower and turned his petals to the sun.
“I feel much better, but I really need some water..” repeated the flower again.
“Ohh OK. I will go to bring you some water.” The man left and went to the house. He took a big vase and he put some water in it. Then he went out and he threw the water onto the flower.
“Ohhhh you almost destroy my little petals. I tell you, you really never love anything or anyone. You just threw the water, with all your force. You must be gentle with my petals.”
The flower explained to the carpenter for hours the gentle way
he must water him. And that he must from time to time change and cultivate the soil. And he asked the carpenter if he would find some other seeds, and plant them close to him, so he will not feel alone.
Then the carpenter had a better idea, to take a big pot. He put some soil inside and he suggested to his friend the flower to grow in there so he will not be alone anymore.
The carpenter and the flower became friends; he was strong enough to carry the pot with him
even when he went to the big city for buying new tools.
After months passed the carpenter was so attached to his flower that he started to read books about gardening and every day tried to make his friend happier. He bought a new pot and he placed it near the window so his flower could have a sun bath all day. When he went to the forest for cutting wood for his work, he carried the flower along in a small wooden wagon
so they were always together.
They spoke a lot about everyday life and sometimes about the future. But the flower always said that we must show our love now, not in the future”.
Today is so important for the flowers, from the first sunshine that catches us, we must take as much light we can, and drink water, and have someone to care for us, as we are so fragile.
The flower grew up and became even more beautiful.
And his perfume also became so popular that
when neighbors visited the carpenter, they asked for the name of this flower, so they can also find the seeds and plant it in their garden.
The carpenter told his neighbors, “My flower is very rare and I do not know if you will find the same seeds. I named my flower “Love”. But as this flower has a deep impact on my life, I give him this name. Because he helped me understand that today is more important than the future.
And love is a free energy and the more we give away, the more comes back to us. “ The carpenter and the flower stayed friends for a long time. And the carpenter always left some hours free after his work for gardening, as he got so many secrets from his friend, that he could grow any strange seed and see it grow into a mighty tree or lovely flower.
His garden was very famous and people came from all over the country to see it. And when someone asked him about the secret of this beautiful garden, the carpenter responded, with a smile: “Love, is the secret.” The End
Translated from Arabic to English by Ashraf Aboul-Yazid
