Returning to Lidice 

Before I knew how to run, how to swim, how to dress and tell the good from the bad, I learned how to take care of the gardens. Most girls and their Nivea-nurtured palms had nothing on my dirt-christened hands. 
I was christened all right. First, by the Catholic Church at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick, ten miles south of Lidice, where I grew up. Then I was christened by my grandfather's unforgiving gardens.
"You need to learn the value of hard work," he used to say to me. Of course, he knew a lot about hard work. Helvance was a small town near the Nazi-obliterated village of Lidice. The land was stained with blood. And my grandfather never made a difference between who was manly enough, adult enough, or tough enough to hear what he had seen. He was progressive like that, you could say. No discrimination in the department of permanent trauma. 
"We have to pass the story down. Otherwise, history will repeat itself," he used to say to me. As soon as I learned how to walk, I took care of the blood-soaked soil that would spur all the treasures necessary for a family to survive winters and enjoy summers. 
“You work, you reap the benefits,” he used to say to me. I think I hated him my whole childhood. 
The lesson of misfortune that happened on this soil was carved into me and forever stained my innocence. 
"Why don't we leave?" I would often ask him. 
"Because we know how to withstand a storm. It doesn't matter whether it's a storm of bullets or a storm of nature. We endure." I learned how to harvest pear trees. 

I learned a lot working in his garden. I admired his silent strength and his loud beliefs. I hated his burdens and his ancient personifications of youth. 
The pear trees were his favorite. So incredibly unresponsive to so many habitats, yet they subdued to his will and let him mold them into whatever he pleased.
He molded me, too. I became firm. Ready to withstand a storm of the world. 
“What if I choose to leave?” 
I was eighteen and eager to see the world, to study. 
He shrugged. He never acknowledged it as betrayal, but he didn't want to imagine that someone would leave the grove and grow beyond its borders. My grandmother encouraged me. 
“Go. You can always come back to your roots.” 
Of course, she would say that. She loved her roots. Spent forty-five years fertilizing them. But I didn't blame her. She was abandoned, and the land saved her life. Listened to her pain and accepted her tears without ever letting the salt infiltrate the fruit and spoil it beyond repair.
"The worldly possessions don't matter," he used to say to me. "It's only a matter of time before we're reduced to the state of a catastrophe like we were seventy years ago. Nothing will matter. Except for family and Mother Nature.” 
Was it a promise? A prophetic challenge? 
"You go and enjoy your life. But don't lose sight of what's important," he used to say to me. He packed three pears in my backpack. Reminded me that France and Belgium cultivated them but could never really nail the taste. He reminded me that the colonists brought pears to the American east coast, but the unique agricultural conditions killed the harvest. The pear trees thrived in Oregon and in Washington – North Pacific East. 
“If you want to go, you should go there. Always stay close to the land that can adapt.” 
Even when I thought I was making conscious decisions, his opinion was more important to me than my happiness. Because I wouldn't have survived without his tutelage. Without the values, he installed in me. I settled in Oregon. Portland was as close to my garden as I could imagine. I dedicated my life to literature and a small garden. 
Then, the worst possible thing happened. 
We were reduced to nothing. An imitation of life we used to have. For the first time in a long time, we united to survive. 
I wanted to go see him. Five years was a long time to be away. But I couldn't. I didn't go when I could, and now they canceled all flights. 
I waited. And I waited. Consoled myself with pears that never tasted the way they did when he served them to me.
Finally. Restrictions were lifted at least to some extent.
When I was waiting for a connecting flight from Atlanta to London, masked and miserable, I saw a bowl of pears on the front line of an airport restaurant. Of course, no one was eating in that restaurant. No one was eating the pears. I wish I could pull down the mask and ask the staff if I could have one. What a strange wish to bite into fruit at the airport. 
Who would ever in their ever-loving thought ask a waiter if they could have one of their decorative pears to go? 
No one. But that was before. Now, with empty halls and empty hopes, I would give anything to be able to tear the mask apart and have a pear. 
I was terrified and invigorated the whole flight to London. Stayed in quarantine for fourteen days, according to their regulations. 
“You have to hurry,” my grandmother told me on the phone. “He doesn’t have much time.” 
If I could erase the pandemic to be able to travel fast and tell him how right he was and that I'm taking back everything I ever said about living in the middle of nowhere, I would.
Now everyone lived in the middle of nowhere. Their houses and apartments were their nowhere. The streets were empty. Nowhere was suddenly everywhere. Nowhere engulfed us and suffocated us. 
 And the people capable of growing their own edibles were the true winners.
I survived. I arrived in Prague. Another fourteen days of quarantine. By the time they let me out, I sprinted to the nearest grocery store at the Hlavna Stanice, the Main Train Station, and bought the freshest, French-imported pears I could pick from the bunch. 
I boarded the train to Helvance, admiring the harvest I was bringing him. 
The train stopped at Lidice monotonously going into the station as my cell vibrated in sync with the screeching brakes. A text message from my grandmother.
“The garden is yours, now." 
He will never be able to say anything to me again.

lifetimes ago
 

i remember wishing

upon a star as a child

 

i'm still waiting for

that wish to come

true

 

i know i'm patient

but fuck me

 

my childhood feels

like two or three

fucking lifetimes

ago

 

when i see them

these days i don't

bother to make

any wishes

 

fool me once...
--------------------------------------------------
a hamster wheel
 

the constant race

 

have or have not

 

first or last

 

rich or poor

 

it is a hamster

wheel that has

no stop

 

not even with

death

 

i still know dead

people gone for

over twenty years

still getting mail

 

it is why i stay

within the fringes

 

out in the margins

and creases of life

 

you can't imagine

what you can get

away with when

no one is paying

attention
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
the years apart
 

the muse has

slid back into

my life

 

i think the years

apart weighed

on each of us

 

it reminded me

of just how big

of an asshole i

can be at times

 

it also taught me

how much a sincere

apology can mean

to someone

 

now, i never thought

of marriage or children

or even being allowed

to get close enough

for anything

 

but now, given this

crazy world

 

all these options

seem to be on

the table

 

should be an

interesting

summer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in hindsight
 

and of course

 

just when i start

to think about

having a wife

or whatever

in my life

no one is

interested

anymore

 

in hindsight

 

i'm sure this

is how it was

meant to be

 

loners don't

suddenly have

a spell of good

luck and the

perfect wife

appears and

utopia ensues

 

life is about

learning to

swallow the

hate and pain

and pretend

waking up

the next day

it will all

change
-----------------------------------------------------------
be careful what you wish for
 

death is

creeping

closer to

my door

 

my mother

has already

cheated

death

 

twice

 

i doubt

i will get

that

fucking

lucky

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is stuck in suburbia, plotting his escape. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, The Rye Whiskey Review, Disturb The Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy and Cajun Mutt Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Asphyxiation

Entrapped,
not within an empty matchbox,
not within a dungeon
in a castle with a moat,
not within an anchorite cell whose door
has been sealed by a Luciferian foe,
not in an attic with the shadows of lunatics
long imprisoned by a usurping lord,
not within a hole
dug for a corpse
but within a concept,
bred by a culture that nauseates,
asphyxiates, 
appalls.


Menace

The menace of losing my home
looms.
I’m sixty years old whose youth
had flown,
whose health is beginning to feel 
morose,
whose grip on life is loosening,
is loose.

I should have suspected where I trusted,
I’m bruised.

My back, like trees, is marked,
not by circles,
but by stabs
that measure the breadth and depth of a life
ravaged by all sorts of treacheries.

I thought my sixties would bring respite
from toil and strife,
a humble hearth, 
with home-made meals
and an ageing dog,
a tranquil phase
before the everlasting repose,
I was wrong.

John and Elvis Are Dead

John Lennon and Elvis Presley are dead
and George Michael followed in their trail.
I think that artists should be spared  
such tragic exits.

John and Robert Kennedy were shot in the head.
Martin Luther King Jr had met with a similar fate.
I think that pacifists and thinkers should be spared 
the hunter’s bullet.

Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded
by her cousin, the niece of King Henry the eighth
though both had royal blood in their veins!
 
Jesus Christ was crucified with a couple of thieves
for having declared his genuine kingship.
I think that the quest for the Holy Grail
will last until the end of days.

I would have liked to tell the departed nightingale
that Jesus is alive and well
and none is dead
because they continue living in our heads.

Adventure to Bizarro World

"So what if I've had eleven beers tonight?" fumed Darryl, crumpling up another aluminum can and flinging it across the room. It landed in the cat's litterbox and Baby spat and hissed.

 

"What're you, trying to drink yourself to death?" demanded Olivia, his girlfriend of ten minutes. "If i'd known that was what you were about, I never would have committed myself to your happiness."

 

Darryl blinked. What the hell was this woman, who had just walked through the door an hour ago, even talking about? After snorting up two lines of blow that he'd had in readiness on a pocket mirror, she'd proclaimed her undying love and then passed out. When she awoke, a few moments ago, she had started carping about how much he drank! If he'd wanted scathing criticism, he could have stayed with any of five ex-wives. How could he get rid of her? he wondered. Where did she even come from? She couldn't even get his name right.

 

"Dirwood," she cooed, "when are you coming to bed, honey?" He rolled his eyes,

 

"Who are you?" he asked. He startled, then stared at her with sudden appreciation. She was a dead ringer for the classic vocalist Patti Smith, a gorgeous, sultry, dark-haired creature whom Darryl had always lusted after, back in the day. As if on cue, Olivia suddenly began crooning "Because the Night," until finally, like a spring-wound toy, she ran down.

 

"Tomorrow's our anniversary, honey," said Olivia in a syrupy voice.

"Hell," said Darryl, "I only just met you.."--he checked his watch-- "...seventy minutes ago! Where did you even come from?" he

asked.

 

"From the constellation Gridiron," she replied, then she added coyly, "Do you want to see my Big Dipper?" Darryl frowned, looked closer at Olivia, who now resembled Daffy Duck. Darry shook his head, looked away.

 

"Olivia," he said, "you've changed."

 

Olivia's face suddenly assumed a feral, rodent-like expression and she said, "We're pregnant again, Dirwood."

 

"What's that to do with me?" he demanded.

 

"It takes two gametes to make an embryo," she reminded her boyfriend of 24 minutes. "We did the dirty," she told him.

 

"I did not..." he began, but she cut him off.

 

"You weren't the biggest," she said, "or the hardest, but you were the best!"

 

Swollen by the magnanimity of her words, Darryl preened, threw his arm about her narrow, Patti Smith-like shoulders, and said, "Olivia, will you marry me?"

 

"Of course," she purred, and threw herself into his embrace.

An hour later, Darryl and Olivia, accompanied by their five children, boarded a three-stage rocket bound for Bizarro World, where everything took place in  reverse.

 

"It'll take 430 light years to reach Htrae (Earth spelled backwards)," Darryl told his wife of 84 minutes. What do you want to do to pass the time?"

 

Olivia smiled slyly, then replied winsomely, "Well, Dirwood, we could work on making more ybabs," and embarkation was begun.

are you out there, somewhere?

staring into the dark
searching for the morning light;
are you out there,
somewhere? 

to bring me back 
from the world of bottles and needles;
every one the last
even though there’s always another
waiting in the shadows. 

are you out there,
somewhere?
to hold my hand, 
to feel my pulse
through my bleeding skin? 

the faintest sound
another memory long gone;
destroyed by the booze, 
eradicated by wrong embraces.

I need you, once again,
to keep me warm
through the endless winter. 
freezing, just like then, 
and the needle has lost its warmth. 

are you out there, 
somewhere? 
waiting for my return, 
patiently sitting in the corner
hoping for the promised miracle.

a sun that never rises, 
a mist that shall never be lifted; 
hiding in the dense forest, 
running away, fast and far,
escaping the ruins that burned too fast. 

squinting into the vast nothingness
of eternal damnation
and I smile; 
your former words sweet music
to my perishing heart. 

is it you I see
walking amid the debris? 
are you still out there,
somewhere, 
searching for the final pieces of the puzzle? 

another attempt, 
you’re nowhere, 
I’m everywhere; 
both lost, both found, 
only the needle is keeping us apart. 

are you out there,
somewhere? 
I ask the night, question the stars;
they can’t explain why your
kisses were tossed into the bottomless well. 

another blurry night, 
more mistakes, 
sins added to an already extensive list. 
it’s all right, 
no need for forgiveness. 

I warm the needle, 
the junk has melted.
are you out there,
somewhere?


Eighty Thousand Words

write long novels, said someone I barely knew, one of them advisors
that know nothing but how to sell bullshit.

long novels sell.
 
I spoke to a woman about a novel I wrote at 19,
it’s more than two hundred thousand words long—still not long enough
to match Wolfe—and she liked the plot.

told me to translate it, publish it. she also asked
about the inspiration, the drinking and drug-abusing. 

I said, it’s fiction. it’s meant to be the disclaimer on
whatever’s published—it’s a work of fiction, don’t call the feds.

could I have mentioned I started it when I was underage and 
getting my feet wet on the ring of drunkardism and
finished it on
a spree of rotgut, speed, and pure junk? 

some chapters are repetitive as fuck, I blame blow. 
some are harsh and honest; bourbon does that. 

it’s a work of fiction. like this poem. 
the woman never called again—she wasn’t a drinker,
one beer and she was off. after the date, I got plastered at
a bar near home—some Irish guy bought a barrage
of well scotch shots.

we got under the table drunk, then I was 
teleported in my bed. 

it’s a work of fiction, do remember that, 
when you tell me I’m 86’d or

mention the tab.


The Mauve Moon

lonely wolves howl at the mauve moon 
as marauders come knocking, razing ancient landmarks. 

stare at the starless sky, the great green mushroom—all gone, 
nothing left but the final wails of unborn souls trapped in limbo.
sour grapes turned into sweet wine, bottles emptied horrid taste, 

gruesome realities and morbid details, nets made of fire catching
rational men. eradicate, destroy, rebuild; what a fine writing

on a half-ruined brick wall in the middle of the ocean.

look down, all the towers emerge from under the sea—old homes
now belonging to fish and mermaids. Ulysses’ sirens reappear, 
under the liquor store they swim, amidst the shelves they sing.

if you are, die; if you think, you don’t exist. Voltaire’s ghost
promenades in the ruins, somewhere in the distance
Aristotle’s swilling Thunderbird. 

we’re still around—the liquor store clerk polishes a shotgun, 
two kids shotgun beer in the back alley. 

the mauve moon howls, the echo shattering what remains of the world.

Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Letters to S. (Storylandia), Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), and Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press). His words have also appeared in various places, such as Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Outcast Press, Piker’s Press, The Edge of Humanity Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

smitten

I’m flying above the clouds,
eyes closed and arms expanded;
I’m laughing like an idiot
with my chest about to burst
and I wonder if you feel the same,
every time my name appears
on your screen.
I wonder if I’ve put a smile
to your lips
as you have done to
mine.
I hope that your
friend across from you
teases you for your
stupid, smitten
face
and I hope that you
say my name.

say that I’m
yours,
say that you’re
mine.

gumdrop

why don’t we try something different?
you know very well how it feels to have me
like a gumdrop in your hand
or between your teeth
why don’t you get to know how it is
to truly taste me?

damn the critics who’ve rotten
your innocence,
making you believe such saccharine
bliss could never exist
without its own health complications

i suppose if diabetes runs in your family
as it does in mine
it’s best to be wary of the thoughtless, uncontrollable
consumption of delectable confections
but one gumdrop wouldn’t hurt you

now, watch as I do and place
your gumdrop against the cushion of your lips
smooth edged and firm
now, take it in with a pop as if it were
a pill– don’t swallow though

sink your teeth deep into it
and taste what it truly feels to have something
forever irrevocably yours
for I am endlessly longing to be
either on your hand or between your teeth
all I ask is for you
to cherish me

now you know

if you place a rose
and let it bloom in the sky,
it means that she wonders
about your touch–
traces of lemon
(spunk),
of blueberry
(charm),
and of strawberry
(mirth).

if you don a daffodil
and let it smile on your chest,
it means that she’s given
you a second chance–
accents of dew
(clarity),
of rose quartz
(healing),
and of olive
(forgiveness).

but if you leave an orchid
in a cardigan’s pocket
it means she has
left–
notes of pining
(for gazes unmet across crowded rooms),
of hoping
(on the accidental brush of shoulders or skin),
and of regretting
(to have done something to preserve it)

if you’re left with a flower
slowly slipping from your grasp, it means you have lost
what can never be found
 again

if you didn’t understand this before
well,
 now you know