Incompletist 
 
It's all a bit sketchy don't you know what with the RMS and all.  
Formal education and I didn't work out but I was on my way across the country to fulfill my own peculiar 
and 
particular manifest destiny which at the time (at the time)? was a semi - conscious state of befuddled uncertainty laced with a lack of pragmatics that was nothing short of utter ineptitude.  
 
(Oh essential humor I laugh to myself now at the notion of then going clear across the country to maintain my standards and my continuous quest for success in failure). 
 
We arrived at the train station and said our goodbyes.  
 
After you left there was a welling and a filling and at the same time a depletion of air.  
I rushed outside after a constricted couple of minutes to tell you something but you were gone. 
 
I was consistently lacking in effort 
and all done and said 
pretty consistent in afraid. 
 
I do at times wish that I had more of more 
than all this less though 
but the wish won't make it so 
 
At a certain point, I guess, we got 
uncomfortable around each other.  
 
I'm glad, though, that I said what I said before you went.  
I will add now that I am sorry I made you nervous. 
 
As I think back right at the now of this 
now 
 
I was at a loss 
then 
and still am 
 
so I'll leave it 
at that. 



it can sometimes does 

I am looking out the window with my classical on as I ponder the rigmaroles of existence discussing such with the most fascinating person I know.   
Every time I feel I've made a valid point or observation during my ongoing convo I like to whip off my glasses to add further emphasis while highlighting a point that's been made salient and to add further punctuating resonance landing on a note redolent of conversational flair.  For example as I gaze out I reflect to myself on the virtues of eschewing the virtual for the sake and embracement of tactility and doing the sharp clean whip on eschew.   
When I revelate that the only thing remaining is to become a saint there is a slow whipping on become. Like that. 
 
Happenstance can work well and good sometimes. 
 
Oh sweet exquisiteness, as I lovingly prepare an afternoon aperitif and just now at the ready of the first gentle sip (lord how I love my ceremonies!) the radio crows out "heroes" - Ah yes, aglow and a flow, I duly proceed to an illuminated bask. 
 
The heart of the matter resides in the entire lonesomeness of the venture, and so dream, a much needed break from the prosaic, makes fantasy a much vaunted ally. 
So it goes, the garden of eden and myself with menagerie of profound friendships and equipped with a fleet of canines are baying in unison at the rising moon each eve over the waters.  
 
I think of a bovine at dusk by the side of a country road, looming and ruminating.  Life can be so wonderful!  And indeed the cat never ceases to contribute the phenomenal and to provide blessed insight into all things seriously absurd, a well rounded tutorial in surrealist burlesque, 
It welcomes and relieves one from the strangulating  confinements of love and isolation, providing a delightfully futile longing for unencumbered innocence and a bit of air. 
 
So it goes, the gallivanting ambition is to string two good days in a row together. 
 
But for now, synchronicity dovetails to a tee and a thickening 
of well and good in the here/now of slow nothing. 



Read 
 
Read 
Trees (solidity presenting) 
Fluttering leaves 
The light kissed plants merry with the wind free and clean 
The rain stream glimmering to 
a speckled burst of sun 
Gentle easy rolling chuckle of 
The sighing creek 
Uncluttered sea green 
Ah read the ripple (and if you hanker success that day, smell the dirt) 
Read 
The people prevarications (attendant chicanery) digitally respirating goofed on technology / hope's dilution on endless extension 
Read 
The blank vista 
Cloud proclamations and 
Twilights gold riddled clarification 
That shall permit languishing 
 
Books and songs have been my 
Life's blood 
But then it is just schmo/mooks mouthing off 
Read 
The perfect view point 
To watch the world go 
Tits up 
 
Soak up your/ time / space / 
Up to 
This eventual farewell / for now / 
Read 


 
Newsie 
 
He would come to the door ever so slow 
Deep into dotage and well past prime time 
I waited amid discomforts shade 
Eager to collect and be on... 
 
I liked the design of my route 
All customers were conveniently located next to each except 
for one lone house down the street a ways which was a drag on Sunday morning because that was the day I had to stuff all the papers and stack them in a grocery cart instead of the rest of the week's thin editions which were easily fitted into my portable sack and slung over my shoulder for an easy afternoon delivery stroll around the block (Saturday mornings I trucked out my bike and then I would treat myself to breakfast)- 
 
Sweet Bitch Memory 
/man oh man... 
 
the frowzy chippy who blurted on 
about the doings and going ons of the scotland yard 
(what she meant specifically I could never ascertain) 
the one who insisted I give change to the tune of a dime 
on her 90 cent weekly tab 
(my young self indignant at this outlandish chintz) 
I henceforth always made an elaborate spectacle of fishing and searching all about myself for her "dime" whenever I collected from her (but always coughing it up eventually - I was a good kid) - 
 
it was the year 1977 (we were there) 
I had heard thru the neighborhood vine about her demise and 
went up to the white house to collect 
 
He trudged to the door and we made our transaction 
both of us looking down until the close of business then 
He said to me looking up "my wife died"  and I responded "I know" 
He slowly lowers his head backing away just as slowly shutting the door 
 
I do my own slow lower into the realization (vague) that happens (if you're lucky?) that a goodly bit of life consists of pain and fear -- so much goddam sadness ... 
 
I stood a moment - left and was 
glad to go on and get away 
 
Lo here in the current deep up to the neck of the boo radley years 
paid up in full 
my bridge burner dues 
losing bits piecemeal 
 
/ it's not so vague 
 
I have often sensed the imperative of getting away ... kinda sorta before the reality boom lowers - 
 
There/then 
and now 
 
I didn't make it 
 
 

Another Day in Armageddon 
 
The potential is there (here) 
To be Infected by 
all of it 
But Hey!  I'm not sick (the world is) 
 
Yes it's so 
(torture and hell resides on two legs) 
 
Realization dawns full on and tardy 
Cutting clarity sharp 
 
Works torpor 
and necessities grind slapped still  
(its bigger'n money!) 
 
Mine is to 
Maintain 
I never could drive proper 
due to an excess in shy 
Beyond me (way over) 
it is 
the modernage train  
passing  
Goodbye and likewise riddance  
 
Right!  
Seize the day (your sick after all) 
Books can matter deep 
Computers stunt likewise 
Good luck dink 
 
My own 
I will relish 
The ring of brass repose 
The opportunity 
(Grand) 
To call in sick to life 
as you've prescribed it 
Your relish of standing in line 
 
Uniforms conforming  
I would prefer not to don the mask 
(while we're at it why'd you gobble up all the cans of tuna?) 
 
Ashes of surrender 
You is yours mine's mine 
Fiduciary sanctuary 
Good luck in prison 
The hard work of hope reaps dirt well you know (why don't you care?) everyone trying to inhale and exhale 
and I can't help rubbing my eyes they hurt when I look at you 
(But It's tuneful when the brook babbles) 
 
and so 
Maintain 
This lofty status 
and this gift of repose 
Splendiferous indifference 
the exhilaration of chopping air 
Beautiful futility 
(Grand) 
 
A permanent 
Hiatus 
 
 

Saturday’s Child 
 
Given the modern malaise’s dictum that to exist is to be stuffed stuff it is reasonable to desire retreats’ entreaties 
 
Aside  from the more obvious artificial means there can be perhaps a more elevated or at least organic avenue to meander down .  I’m hungry. 
 
Thus I crack open some pages.. 
 
oh hell.  It’s been said  that he wasn't steeped in culture and yet his stuff is upper case all the way, encoded in delicate mists of shroud.  
This technical mumbo minutiae numbo stagnates - give me the meat that fills.  
I gasp along hoping against hope for a gut issuance.  Oh my babies cmon, crap the pome that needs the exorcise and that 
resonates the empty room... Forget it.   Ah well, ‘The Joker’ comes on the airwaves and sometimes classic rock steps up.  Cat splayed royally recumbent in the corner always giving out 
sound concision melodiously relates that effort is a drain/drag but shoot some days I’m a gamer so I per sue: 
 
Fuck it fuck life fuck death fuck school fuck parents fuck families fuck friends and enemies fuck jobs (god knows) and fuck god (the people’s not the mystery - Ahh the catholic ingrained  -  I hope god’s gotta sense of humor) but Hey!  Fuck hope! 
Fuck art fuck professional expertise (self-evident in this presentation) fuck fuck but not nature and not animals hey ya gotta have sentiment no? Fuck expectations fuck demands fuck pressures life goes on death goes on longer 
Right fucker? 
Fuck 
 
Stuffs got us by the stuff and all this speed has left life in the lurch taking it (any of it) serious is seriously discouraged 
 
Pardon my distraction 
My immersion in desolation 
Tit-fer-Tat - happiness for holiness 
At the current there is not much else known 
Diligence comes due 
The strive to surrender 


 
A Good Clean Break 
 
realities routine's are a stone crusher 
all of it 
the jobs 
the relationships 
the striving 
the failing 
the achievements (I'm guessing) 
and more begets more 
all the do's of you hafeta do 
you can get tired beyond exhaustion 
tired of your self 
your thoughts (if you are inclined to that sort of thing) 
and relief is much needed 
some quiet  
a long walk  
to  
the middle of 
nowhere 
some surcease 
the compassion of a dog's eyes 



It’s the best 

he was pouring at the happening and usually there is a fair amount of disdain for the enthusiasts  
who like to sidle up to sample the snacks, libations and what have you goodies. 
 
he was a wisp of fair blond - a hippy kid. 
 
he asked me if I would like him to crack my can of brew 
I told him that this was not necessary 
 
I looked at some stuff and listened to some other stuff 
trying to maintain a bit of elbow room  
while the crowds swirled and yammered 
 biding some time before refill and then I went back for another and he  
cracked this one for me and said "cheers" 
 
I drank it down and went for a walk down the street 
I did not want to appear to be too gluttonous so I gave it some minutes 
 
when I resurfaced in the crowded room and foraged thru the groups back to my man 
he smiled and said "I grabbed this one at the bottom so that its chilled and now it needs to be shotgunned". 
 
I laughed and retorted with double thumbs up 
Impressed that this cat accurately assessed my quench and provided a  
responsive and congenial atmosphere in one that can be rather unpleasant and clannish 
 
my man had it 
and I salute him for it 
the damn hippy dippy  
had it 
 
kindness 

Slush Pile

It’s mid-afternoon, Modine’s napping on the sofa, dreaming of Elanor, of the good times, when he’s roused by a ruckus in the yard. He pokes his nose through the venetian blinds just as Ed Scott’s clambering onto the hood of a Toyota Camry, his behind centimetres beyond Bailey’s snapping fangs. Holy fucking moly! thinks Modine. Ed is the letter carrier, and Bailey one of those Rottweilers that goes mental at the sight of a uniform. The dog belongs to Alvin Dark, two doors down, who’d promised the pooch wouldn’t step unleashed beyond the property line.

     Next on scene is Miranda, Alvin’s busty wife. “Goddamn you, Bailey!” she hollers, all shoulder-length shag and flopping udders tramping across the Nickersons’ precious lawn. One glance at her and the hound abandons the hunt, plopping, tail a-wagging, onto its belly. Miranda takes hold of the collar and hauls off the fugitive beast.

     He helps retrieve the mail scattered in flight.

     “That’s the third time this month,” Ed says. His hands are trembling. “Somebody should poison the mutt.”

     “I’ll donate the ground beef,” Modine says.

      He chucks a fundraising flyer into the recycling bag and pries open the only letter. It’s from a publisher, and says, “After a careful read of your manuscript, That Night on Ibiza: Love, Deception & Betrayal, the editorial board regrets…”

     Fuck you, you fucking fuckers!

     He prints the rejection and thumb-tacks it to the wall of his study, alongside the others.

—

Every town the size of Broadmoor could use a Waffles. He’s the man to call when you need a last-minute house-sitter. He’ll mow your lawn, pick up a prescription, deliver the egg foo young when the New Moon Panda is short-staffed. Or maybe you left the stove on. 

     If he had a resumé, it would include the following: Delvin McKracken and spouse Cookie were at the airport when they realized they’d left the passports on a dresser. Bali was their first overseas vacation, both had the yips; each blamed the other, as even happy couples do. Waffles squeezed in through the bathroom window left open a pinch due to the feculence of Delvin’s morning stool. Slapped the documents into sweaty palms minutes before the couple jetted into the wild, blue yonder.

     And this: Mattie Haybottom, who lives in the first trailer east of the Mill Pond Bridge, had a debilitating skin condition that flared unpredictably. It delivered an itch, she told the gals on cribbage night, “that’ll have ya yankin’ out your effin’ fingernails.” For years husband Ben nursed the affliction with creams and lotions promoted on the shopping channel, but he up and did what we all do eventually, “one of them melanomas.” Solution? Waffles.

     Modine had been the seniors’ English teacher at Broadmoor High when Waffles was in the class for the academically challenged, so any communication between them was restricted to a passing nod. The relationship was nurtured after he’d retired, and Waffles had given up on school.

     He knew that during the winter months, which in that part of the country would begin at several degrees below freezing, Waffles stayed at the shelter, in the rec centre, but had recently been living under the stairs at city hall. As a former councillor and unsuccessful mayoralty candidate, Modine knew the space had been used to store unused office equipment, and that a new slate of electors auctioned everything off, with proceeds turned over to Parks. The newly vacated room had an electrical outlet and after-hours access to a washroom for anyone slight enough to squeeze through a vent.

     By the time his residency was discovered, Waffles had cleared the cobwebs and added household essentials. The outside entrance was hidden from the street by a head-high cedar hedge, but questions were raised soon enough about the propriety of a homeless man setting up a pied-à-terre on civic property.

     Visiting dignitaries will talk, went one objection, causing Waffles, when the remark reached him, to snort, “Most of us wouldn’t recognize a visiting dignitary if he was wearing a Santa suit.” Staffers agreed, and why wouldn’t they? Who, but a Waffles, will rise at any hour for any reason, and for whatever sum is offered?

—

He slips in behind the hedge and raps on the door just as the town’s streetlamps are activated. The square fronting the vintage chambers glows warmly in the incandescence.

     “Identify yourself!” Waffles shouts above Armadillo Road’s “Pour Me A Double,” blaring from a CD player. Canned ravioli warms on the camp stove.

     “Mr. Modine! I’ve got something for you!”

     Former students who’d volunteered on his political campaigns still address him by the honorific. He tried disabusing them of the formality, but to no avail. Mr. Modine, he realized, it shall forever be.

     Waffles toes an overturned plastic pail across the floor.

     “You’ll stay for tea?”

     Over the years he’d hired Waffles to shovel the snow from his walkway and maintain Elanor’s flower beds, as she’d wearied of gardening just as she had of tennis, photography, and hot yoga—and, too, of the hairstyles and outfits required to properly enjoy those amusements.

     Following the divorce, his back acting up, Modine employed Waffles for other labours as well, and he’d once testified as a character witness when Waffles had been detained for disturbing the peace. “A weirdo,” he recalled a fellow teacher opining, “but harmless.” At school he’d been accused of looking up adolescent dresses, but nothing came of it. Said phys ed teacher Ron Jennings one night over a guys-only beer, “Who here hasn’t?”

     After his parents passed, Waffles found his way to the streets. There were siblings, but none close by. The liquor store and a former showgirl took care of what was left of his inheritance.     Sipping Earl Grey from a mayonnaise jar, Modine realizes the year or so he hasn’t seen him has taken a toll. The blond mane that once tumbled to his shoulders now coils lank and greasy around sand dollar ears. The hint of a beer paunch dips over his belt.

     “Gonna run again, Mr. Modine? You almost beat Swartz last time.”

     Graham Swartz managed a string of family owned fast-food restaurants across the southeast. His father had been a prominent developer and shameless self-booster. Ads aired on the Swartz-owned radio station branded Modine “a school teacher socialist who’d double our taxes.” Though he hadn’t proposed such a measure, or even considered doing so, he lost the count by a few hundred votes. Swartz has ruled Broadmoor ever since.

     “The election’s still a few months away,” Waffles says. “If you change your mind, I know the old gang will support you.”

     “I’ve had my kick at the can, thanks.”

     He provides an outline of the job. “It should take two days, three at the most.” He doesn’t mention the possibility of the mission going sideways.

—

The van’s a Chevie Astro. Its passenger seat had been removed by the previous owner, so Waffles is consigned to the back, slamming like a racketball into one wall or the other at every sharp turn. They are soon deep into farm country, bounded by wheat and corn fields, barley and canola to the horizon. The road is straight and narrow, traffic sparse—as good a time as any to give detail to the assignment.

     Elanor, he explains, was barren, which had caused them both much grief. Two weeks after returning from a holiday with girlfriends on the Spanish island of Ibiza, she asked for a divorce. “She said she wanted to go in a different direction, but eventually admitted she hadn’t been with the girls. She’d hooked up with a tech exec she’d been romancing online.”

     Elanor’s shacked up with a dentist now, he says. “Hers.”

     “Women,” Waffles sympathizes.

     Modine reaches into his briefcase, passes back the manuscript.

     “My novel. I’ve been working on it for years. I sent it to several publishers, but haven’t got a bite. We’re going to pay a visit to one of them.”

     Waffles appraises the tomb as he might a block of hashish. He fans the pages.

     “I’m not much of a reader, Mr. Modine. What’s it about?”

     “Love, deception, and betrayal. I took a writing class at the college.”

     “Any good?”

     “Readers decide.”

     “I like TV myself. Tractor pulls. Cage fighting. The search for sunken treasure.”

     “A man of the world,” says Modine.

     “I guess.”

     They pull into a truck stop an hour east of Bellview. Waffles makes for the grocery store, returning with a load of salty junk food and a sack of no-name beer. As Modine’s soaping the windshield, a scuffle breaks out behind the diner—a biker slapping around a girl. Beefy truckers intervene, the damsel flees.  Minutes later she’s pounding on the van’s passenger door.

     “Can you give me a lift, mister? It’s a 911 kind of thing.”

     Waffles monitors the scene from the rear window.

     “The dude’s walking this way. Looks pissed.”

     She appears to be in her late twenties, early thirties. Cheeks sooty with dripping eyeliner, reeks of incense. A nugget of  costume jewellery stabs the bruised lower lip. She’s poured like pancake mix into skillfully mutilated jeans. The patch brands her a Satan’s Disciple.

     He waves her into the back and speeds off.

     “Pleased to meet ya, fellas,” she says. “I’m Queenie.”

     “Is your boyfriend going to give us trouble?” Modine asks.

     “We’re trying to make an important meeting,” says Waffles.

     “I’d floor it. Norm’s whacko.”

     He turns down the radio to better hear the approach of a pursuing Harley Davidson. He imagines himself being dragged from the van and stomped. Isn’t that what bikers do, stomp? Waffles applies ice from the cooler to the girl’s lip.

     When it’s apparent they’ve escaped retribution, he slows down, and light chatter ensues. Waffles boasts about his city hall digs, deleting reference of the subterranean particulars. Modine mentions the novel. “There’s a printout in the back somewhere if you care to have a look.”

     Queenie, when it’s her turn, narrates episodes from an unhappy life: a teenage abortion, punchy boyfriends. “I came west for a fresh start.”

     And hooked up with Satan—atta girl!

     Just when she’s about done with the autobiog, Queenie segues to her “philosophy of life.” She believes aliens are amongst us, and that the Holocaust never happened. The moon landing was faked, and Princess D’s death no accident. He’s not surprised, as conspiracies ripen in clusters, that she’s concluded the Covid vaccine is a hoax, and the restrictions put in place across the country illegal. “I’m really careful,” she says, “about what I put into my body.”

     He normally enjoys a spirited exchange, but the reality distortion field sweeping across the southern border in regards to all matters factual makes rational discussion unlikely. He grits his teeth and concentrates on the road.

     “I agree with everything you’re saying,” Waffles says, but Modine believes it more likely his assistant doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but sniffs the possibility of some hanky-panky. He wonders if what they say about biker gangs is true, that the male membership shares its women like reefer. If so, how might that square with what Queenie green lights into her body? 

—

In amongst the lodgepole pine of the foothills, fatigue catches up with him. He swaps places with Waffles, stretches out in the back. Queenie’s hunched over a funnel of cellphone light aimed at the double-spaced pages of That Night on Ibiza.

     “I’m digging this so far, Mr. Modine,” she says. “Not a lot of big words, but plenty of big thoughts.”

     “Deception, betrayal, and love!” shouts Waffles. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Modine?”

     “Close enough, Waff.”

     As he drifts off to sleep, Waffles finger-drumming on the steering wheel to the headphone melody of the Austin Lounge Lizards, Queenie reads on. When he wakes an hour or so later, a stack of pages has been set aside.

     She says, “I’m at the part where the older woman is giving divorce advice to the younger one.”

     “Refresh my memory,” he says.

     Queenie searches for the passage: “Don’t waste your time getting even,” she quotes. “Get a good lawyer, and get everything.”    

—

Google Maps directs them to a split-level outside the ski resort town of Harkney.It’s set back from the road, behind dense shrubbery; the closest neighbour is several kilometres away. A muddy Ford SUV is parked in the driveway. Moths swarm the porch light. 

     They crouch on the deck around back, peek through the kitchen window. “If there’s a dog,” whispers Waffles, “it would’ve barked by now.” He opens the sliding door with a single snap of the Chevie’s tire iron.

     “You didn’t learn that at Broadmoor High,” Modine says.

     “CSI:Vegas.”

     Queenie opens the fridge, checks the expiry date on some luncheon meat, makes a face. She finds a couple of bottled beers, and opens one with her teeth.

     They split up: Waffles and Queenie take the basement, Modine the main floor.

     “Back here in five,” he says.

     Waffles and Queenie find nothing of interest downstairs and return to the kitchen. “This place is a pigsty,” she says. “Like it’s already been turned.”

     They’re about to search for Modine when he comes down the hall pushing before him a pudgy, patchy-bearded man in a T-shirt and sagging underpants. His hands are secured with electrician’s tape.

     “He was under the bed,” Modine says. “Had to be restrained.”

     “Bet you didn’t do so good at hide-and-seek,” says Waffles.

     “Are you Edward Belanger?” Modine asks. “Page Count Press?”

     “What if I am?”

     “I sent you my novel more than a year ago.”

     “Ever heard of email? The telephone?”

     “Should I smack him?” says Waffles.

     “Maybe later.”

     “What’s your novel about?” Belanger asks.

     “Love, deception, and betrayal,” Queenie replies.

     “I get hundreds of submissions a year. If I don’t get a money-maker soon, I’ll have to shutter the place.”

     Modine globs onto his T-shirt. “You have an office, I presume.”

     Waffles and Queenie retire to the living room. He ignites the gas fireplace, she forages. There’s a decent sound system, dozens of CDs. In a den off the hallway he finds the liquor cabinet and a baggie with a couple of fatties prepped. He sparks one up, she mixes the drinks. The first bars of a jaunty number by Slim Dime and the Prairie Kings crackles through the speakers. They dance.

—

The office is lined with bookshelves. The desk supports a laptop, a printer, a hooded lamp, several bubble envelopes, and a trail of moist mouse shit. Boxes of new books are scattered about, a whiff of printer’s ink hangs in the stuffy air. A message board features photos of a youthful Belanger mugging with authors. Empty and half-empty glasses, some having doubled as ashtrays, occupy every ledge. A lone window looks out over a yard framed by a listing picket fence. The stem of a push mower pokes up through the dandelions.

     Modine drops Belanger into the desk chair. He binds his legs before removing the wrist restraints.

     “Better?”

     “Than what? A beating from your Neanderthal?”

     “You owe me a reply.”

     The publisher points to an unsteady column of manuscripts stacked to the ceiling. Several have slipped from the top and lie splayed on the floor.

      “Yours is probably in there somewhere.”

     “The slush pile?”

     “So it’s been called.”

     “I sent a stamped, self-addressed envelope. There’s a postal box at the end of your street.”

     “A home invasion over a couple of stamps? Our grant never came through, the co-publisher went back to school, and my girlfriend took off. I can only read so much crap in a day.”

     “Don’t you have some kind of selection criteria?”

     “Sure, but some days I just roll the billiard balls across the table and see where they end up.”

      “If I knew you were this cynical, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

     “And I’d still be sleeping.”

     Belanger stinks. With that pallor, the eyes closed, he could be mistaken for a corpse.

     “You—”

     “I’m not saying another word until I’ve had a drink. Bottom drawer.”

     He finds a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label.

     “Glasses?”

     “The only thing I’ve got more of is rodents. Little fuckers are everywhere.”

     He finds two mugs. Pries them lose from their surface. Gives each a cursory rinse at the washtub out back. A few snorts of the grog and Belanger comes to life. Colour floods his patchy skin.    

     Modine isn’t much of a drinker. One glass of the stuff and he’s thinking of Haley, who he hasn’t seen in years. She sat across from him in the writing class. A chapbook of her poetry had been published by a women’s’ collective, making her an instant celebrity with the group’s aspiring rhymesters. She sold about a dozen copies to family and friends—“pity purchases,” she called them—but most were stashed in the closet, collecting dust. After class they’d race back to her condo. When the bedsprings stopped squeaking, her cats would gather like a lynch mob outside the bedroom door.

     He returns to the present, to Belanger and a blur of scruffy fur scooting across the floor, diving into the slush pile.   

     “What’s it going to take for you to read my book?”

     “Fuck off, never come back.”

     “Maybe you’ve been releasing the wrong titles. Some of yours are…a bit opaque.”

     “I’ve been at this for thirty-odd years. What do you suggest, rookie?”

     “Mine: That Night on Ibiza.”

     “You may not be aware that grants haven’t kept up with costs, and that revenues are down across the board. Even the top commercial houses are sacking editors. People are avoiding the self-reflection needed for serious reading. Most people are into sports and celebrity gossip, maybe a beach whodunit. They’re glued like zombies to their cellphones or streaming The Whorish Housewives of Wherever—”

     The conversation is interrupted by breaking glass and laughter. Belanger glances at the ceiling, rolls bloodshot eyes. He extends his empty goblet.

     “Fill ’er up or I clam up. Don’t be stingy.”

     “You’re a very angry man.”

     “Looked at a newspaper recently?”

     Something large is overturned, the walls vibrate. The fridge? A body-slam? Belanger doesn’t seem to notice. He says, “Don’t misunderstand me: There are still readers who crave printed self-expression, the magic of words hop-scotching across a page, a rollicking yarn, but sales receipts don’t lie. How do we market a book available free of charge from a library? I’ve known plenty of talented writers in my day. The lucky ones are competing for jobs teaching others what they themselves can’t make a living at.”

     “How do you cope?”         

     Belanger leans forward. The eyes bulge.

     “Drugs and alcohol. Stray tail when I can get it.”

     “I see suicide in your future.”

     “It’s always an option.”

     “Would I be correct assuming you were once an aspiring writer? Had your heart broken?”

      His reply is drowned out by a thunderous clamour. Modine glances out the window. Motorcycles, and plenty of them. The big kind.

—

He remembers reading an article about biker gangs. How they appeared in several countries simultaneously after the Second World War, all those untethered ex-servicemen. How The Wild One, the early Fifties flick starring the heartthrob Marlon Brando, birthed the cycle genre. He remembered the posters for Born Losers and The Girls from Thunder Strip. Cycle Savages and Leather Boys. Westerns played out on wheels rather than stallions. Bad Boys, not Good Guys. And there was the documentary about the Hells Angels, the notorious California-based club. The filmmaker asking a scowling “associate” about the missing apostrophe in the gang’s name, and his response. “It’s you who miss it,” he’d spat. “We don’t.”

     Before Queenie, Modine had never met a biker. As he and Belanger are downstairs awaiting their fate, the main floor is being ransacked by Satan’s little helpers. It occurs to him that those he’d seen being arrested on the news over the years looked similarly contemptuous. Faces marred by skin conditions, many of them, limbs and necks festooned with daggers and skulls and dripping blood. Born losers all.

     The arrival of Waffles and Queenie interrupts his musing. They’re blotto.

     “You guys have a visitor” she says. “Norm.”

     “I don’t know a Norm,” Modine says.

     “My old man.”

     “The author of your fat lip?”

     “In my world, it’s a love tap.”    

     Into the publisher’s cluttered office, trailed by a clutch of wasted clowns in full costume, bounds the aforementioned. He’s wearing the obligatory vestments, heavy boots and a jean jacket emblazoned with the Disciple crest, road-dusty trousers and a funky T-shirt. A flap of greasy hair slouches on his scalp like a frayed door mat, deep lines parenthesize the unsmiling mouth.

     “Are these the assholes?” Norm says.

     “Chubby here qualifies,” Queenie says. “Mr. Modine’s a good shit.”

     “You got any more pot?” Norm asks. “My guys are running low.”

     Waffles tells him to look inside the Chinese vase on the nightstand in Belanger’s bedroom. “There’s pills, too.” Off, happily, skips the gang leader.

     Alone again, Modine removes Belanger’s constraints and the two of them are left sitting in the dark as the party upstairs drags on throughout the afternoon and into the evening. The living room window shatters. A brawl breaks out. Somebody’s dry heaving.

     “Way to go douchebag,” says Belanger. “How did this go from book chat to zombie invasion?”

    “We gave her a lift. How would I know Norm planted a tracker on her?”

     Early the next morning, the gang sleeping off their excess, Queenie returns. She’s made coffee.

     “I’ve been talking to Norm,” she says.

     “I’ll bet that’s not all your mouth has been doing,” says Belanger.

      “One of the boys, Sparky, has a thing about fires, and he’s got this look in his eyes,” she replies, “so you might want to zipper that pie hole.”

      Despite her poor taste in men, and her weakness for conspiracies, his opinion of Queenie has evolved. This is one book he may have prejudged by its cover, because the girl he’d minimized and stereotyped liked Ibiza. She gets it—she gets me!

     “You’re every bit the dipshit you try to be,” she addresses Belanger, “but Waffles and me didn’t want this to happen, and neither did Mr. Modine. I understand that if you don’t turn things around, you might lose everything.”

     “What’s that to you? Your primitives are trashing my house.”

     She squats. “Listen: Norman has been around bikers all his life. He was a biker baby. His parents were bikers, his brothers, too, and so were his aunts and uncles. When I told him you were a book publisher, I could see he got to thinkin.’ I’ve never done it with a guy who’s had such a huge need for attention.”

     “And I should give a damn because…”

     “Because if ya keep that mouth shut and do as I say, we might give this story a happy ending.”

—   

It’s mid-week, almost midnight, the road rain-slicked. Traffic is light. Waffles and Queenie are passed out in the back. His showdown with Belanger has left him despondent. The encounter has him questioning the years he’s laboured over Ibiza. He slips on Waffles’ headphones. A catchy ditty by Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band delivers some succour.

     At dawn the skyline of Broadmoor swells on the horizon. Motorists taking the turnoff into town are met by a campaign billboard for the incumbent mayor. That air-brushed profile with its phony smile. The stupid slogan used in all Swartz campaigns, If it’s not broken, don’t change it!

     The shift buzzer at the rendering plant wakes the lovebirds.

     “Everybody alive back there?”

     “Hunky-dory.” Waffles, his voice raspy.

     “Tickety-boo.” Queenie. And hers.

     “Norm and the boys cleared out quick.”

     “Some of ’em have real jobs,” Queenie says.

     “I was surprised he let you go.”

     “He’s got others.”

     “Where can I drop you guys?”

     “City hall.” Waffles.

     “Both of you?”

     Pause.

     “Yup.” Queenie.”

—

 He carries an espresso out to the patio, opens his laptop. The flower garden is abuzz with pollinating honey bees and monarch butterflies. The pink hyacinths and bell-shaped snowdrops are at their royal best. He’s scrolling through his emails when he’s interrupted by a commotion out front. Coming around the side of the house, he finds Ed Scott on the landing, his mailbag the last defence against death-by-Rottweiler. Miranda Dark appears. She whips the hound and drags it home.

     Ed sits on the top stair. Catches his breath, mops a sopping brow.

     “Is Bailey the only canine that doesn’t care for you, Ed?”

     “On this block, yes, but my day isn’t finished.”

     He returns to the patio, to his emails. There’s a message from Manchester Wrigglesworth, a commercial publisher with international reach. He knew it was a long shot, but he’d sent along an early draft anyways. 

     “Our editorial board has read That Night on Ibiza,” it begins…

     Motherfuck—

     “…and the delight with your narrative was unanimous. Should the novel still be available, we advise that you secure the services of an agent, as we are also interested in the movie rights for Vroom! Vroom, A Leader of the Pack Tells All, your award-winning bestseller from Page Count Press.”

Don McLellan has worked as a journalist in Canada, South Korea, and Hong Kong. He has published three story collections and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, a ReLit Award, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and the Whistler Independent Book Award. More info at donmclellan.com

Curse

Dark thoughts tickle
Within my brains
And my words trickle
From my veins
Until only emptiness remains.
Runes building poetry
Under pooled ink.
Words become a mystery
On sanity's brink;
I could cross if I dare blink.
My pen leaving craters;
Page upon page.
My words are traitors
To my rage.
These lines build my cage.
My nightmare breathes
With every verse
While my heart wreaths
Under my own curse
And the pain is growing worse.



Far Off Doors

Failure is the only thing I've succeeded.
I'm good at getting lost on the way.
Not seeing that you were all I needed,
While nothing could get me to stay.
Still nothing could fill the void left behind.
The emptiness is a painful longing.
Hiraeth in my heart; tormenting my mind.
Wanton of a paradise without belonging.
My soul haunts those forgotten halls
While my body walks along other shores.
My taunted heart screaming silent calls
That wish to knock on those far off doors.

From South-Western Michigan, Jerry Langdon lives in Germany since the early 90's. He is an Artist and Poet. His works bathe in a darker side of emotion and fantasy. He has released five books of Poetry titled "Temperate Darkness an Behind the Twilight Veil", “Death and other cold things” “Rollercoaster Heart” and “Frosted Dreams” Jerry is also the editor and publisher of the literary magazine Raven Cage Zine poetry and prose. His poetic inspirations are derived from poets such as Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. As well as from various Rock Bands. His apparently twisted mind, twists and intertwines fantasy with reality.

Midnight Soul and Hay Meadow Heart 

Night comes creeping softly 
Like a ghost descending the stairs 
Dragging reluctant shadows behind it 
With a dark beauty that mystifies reality; 
Flooding my being with midnight skies 
And lining the walls of my soul 
With planets, suns, orbiting moons, swirling 
Nebulas and covering the Sistine ceiling of my soul 
With the layers of a million Milky Ways. 
My super-conscious is a blackness 
Lighted by a billion twinkling stars. 
There is just room enough left in my psyche 
To fill each crevice with the scent of new mown hay 
And the site of the burgeoning meadows of home 
Over-flowing the memory banks of my heart. 


When Tomorrow Has Flown
 
When tomorrow has flown 
Into future memories 
Where will love be then; 
Still strong between us? 
Will your mind burn 
With indelible images of me 
Swirling just below instant recall? 
Will your heart still ache 
From the memory of my touch? 
Will my undying words of love 
Still echo in your chambered soul 
When tomorrow has flown? 
Love does not seek assurances; 
It lives or dies within a dream. 
Within the soul of yesterday 
Love comes naked and barefooted; 
A deep passionate flame 
Burning in the wonder-filled darkness 
Where twin souls are melded by time. 
We are alive on sacred promises 
And the murmuring madness 
That comes whispering through time 
To bind us soul in soul, as one. 

Annie Johnson is 84 years old. She is Shawnee Native American. She has published two, six hundred-page novels and six books of poetry. Annie has won several poetry awards from world poetry organizations including; World Union of Poets; she is a member of World Nations Writers Union; has received the World Institute for Peace award; the World Laureate of Literature from World Nations Writers Union and The William Shakespeare Poetry Award. She received a Certificate and Medal in recognition of the highest literature from International Literary Union for the year 2020, from Ayad Al Baldawi, President of the International Literary Union. She has three children, two grandchildren, and two sons-in-law. Annie played a flute in the Butler University Symphony. She still plays her flute.

Let's save the "dying" World! 

It's your turn, Oh scholar, Oh poet, 
Humanity is dying before your eyes. 
The greedy say everything is mine 
He divides what he doesn't have into a hundred! 
Make an invention, brainstorm, 
Say such a word, let it touch the heart, 
Let the soul-conquering song be sung, 
The world has come to life, they are alive again! 
We extend a helping hand with care, 
Let's save the "dying" World! 

Elmaya Jabbarova - was born in Azerbaijan. She is a poet, writer, reciter, translator. Her poems were published in the regional newspapers «Shargin sesi», «Ziya», «Hekari», literary collections «Turan», «Karabakh is Azerbaijan!», «Zafar», «Buta», foreign Anthologies «Silk Road Arabian Nights», «Nano poem for
Africa», «Juntos por las Letras 1;2», «Kafiye.net» in Turkey, in the African's CAJ magazine, Bangladesh's Red Times magazine, «Prodigy Published» magazine. She performed her poems live on Bangladesh Uddan TV, at the II Spain Book Fair 1ra Feria Virtual del Libro Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, France, Portugal, USA.

Broken the Chain

I shall break down your chains
Even if nothing else in me remains
You have insulted me enough
Another one, will be too much
I shall break down your chains 
I had from you suffered pains
Your hands have left my skin scarred
My total womanhood, you tarred
I shall break down your chains
My child's safety, from you, gains
All the beatings and control at home
Has peeled off your shiny chrome 
I shall break down your chains
Marriage, no longer, my loyalty sustains
Now, the time came to find happiness
A true man, to comfort my loneliness
I have broken down your chains
My mind, my heart to wisdom trains
New love, my- self respect regained
I'm no longer an object, spirit maimed



Free verse

You harness me to own, process, and sell
You dig up walls and force me to redirect my path
You corrupt my purity with trash and poison
I rather flow and be abused rather than freeze cold
You pluck me from my life giving roots
You tear each petal and make ridiculous wishes
You squash me so my scent be bottled
I rather bloom and be destroyed rather than be ignored
You kissed me, to drink my life away
You praised me, to control my thoughts
You give some, to get everything else
I rather be used than to feel worthless in my eyes
You starved me, stealing my food
You make me work, taking my wages
You beat me, enjoying my tears and screams
I rather suffer, than left alone, nowhere to go
And we allow ourselves not to be free
To be used, misused and abused
For nothing is permanent even life
We rather exist in a moment's illusion of joy.



Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14, 1965, in Manila Philippines. She has worked as a retired language instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. 

For her, poetry is life and life is poetry. Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for truth in pursuit of equality and proper stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.

Why? !!

Why?
Are you always on my mind?
Every second, every moment?
Are you in my soul?
You don't know ...
Why?
I can't go, you can't go either,
My pillows are wet with tears at night.
The stars are holding me in mourning.
You don't know.
Why?
Do you keep writing gazelles?
Is it a band or another beauty?
Shormikan peshonam yo azal, azal?
You don't know.
Why?
Did your love blind my eyes?
Do you have anything to do with me now?
Does it matter, spring or winter?
You don't know ...
Why?
My heart sank,
You have broken my broken tongue,
Oh, give back my poor heart.
Silent ....
Why?
Many questions, unclear answers,
It is clear that I will be separated,
Now love is abgor, feelings are broken,
No answer ...
Why?
Why?
Why ?????
You don't know ....


Sharipova Zuhro Sunnatovna (Zahro Shamsiyya) She was born on April 9, 1969 in the Nurata district of the Navoi region. Her first poem was published in 1985 in the Gulhan magazine. Uzbek publishing houses published works in the journal "Sharq Yulduzi", in the literature and art of Uzbekistan - "Ma'rifat", in various regional and district newspapers. World almanacs in Canada, -2017 in Dubai WBA 2018 "Turkish poets of the world" (Buta 3) 2019, "Muhammad Yusuf izdoshlari" 2017 almanac. She published her book "Ismsiz tuigular."