in the village

the quaint and lasting effects
of a quiet that fell
on deaf and dying ears
like a lightning bug fainting from the dark
like shifting sands after an earthquake
a thousand miles from a soul
and i wonder at that;
how you take words and turn them
in your hands
like spaghetti
like confusion
like an overfilled belly
followed by predictability.

in the village they have a
word for you
in the city they know you but
use no name.
they've called you by
buddy and chum
but your face is
flat like a billboard
masked like a dollar bill
like a one act play
without the curtain
drawn.

the tiresome effects
of this quieted namelessness
disquiets me
like a stillborn gazelle
like a stale and unwanted pastry
left on the door step for
a starving girl
who cannot get out of bed.

Quantum

left under the bed

in shapes of atomic

chance,

with dust mites and

trifles of forgottenesses

you are still

boxless and free.

Quantum in nature

leaping the edgeless

formless voids of 

supernatualimaginantions

playing supertonic 

symphonies

in halls of dark matter...

and i wonder

from my mind's confines 

the nebulous way

i forget you and your

gravity. your

atomic fury.

your permanent 

relativity,

which shines a

defining light that

I have never known 

before.

A nightmare sequence from in progress script.

-->

Abe’s Nightmare

          INT. ABANDONED BEDROOM NIGHT

          Clothes, dirty newspapers, and the remains of a bed and a few dresser drawers litter the floor. "GREG + ABBY" is spray painted in 4 foot letters across the wall furthest from the door. The room looks empty until a whimper emanates from a bundle in the corner. A small woman huddles under a grey blanket. Her hair matches the dirty yellow paint of the walls behind her. She is a chameleon in the corner.

          The wind blows a gentle mist of snow through the windowless frame. The room is still and quiet.

          CLOSE UP OF:

The once decorative brass door handle. It doesn't move. Suddenly it turns to the left. It turns to the right. It jiggles furiously as the camera backs slowly. The below the knob, a turnkey shakes in the skeleton lock and the brass bolt is visible through the chewed up wood of the door frame.

A sudden crack of a boot coming through the lower door panel is deafening. Stuck, the boot yanks its way back through the door. Two more kicks and the splintered door is nearly limp in the frame.

          SWITCH TO:

The woman in the corner. The noise of the boot kicking the door sends a spasm through her body. Again the sound of the kick and she spasms, but this time the sound of a door swinging and a knob hitting the wall keeps her huddled closer.

The woman stays huddled as a pair of dirty jeans cut in front of the woman. A sob escapes, and then a small cry.

The hand next to the jeans holds a clear liter vodka bottle. The near empty bottle disappears up through the top of the screen and returns with just a swig left in the bottom.

          FULL SCREEN ON:

         
DIRTY GENE, 50's alcoholic fired from a factory up north a few years ago. Dickies and workboots as dirty as his hands.

DIRTY GENE
Well, I was wonderin' what was
behind door number one. Looks like
I gots meself a squatter.

 (Laughs)

The girl looks up and a toddler aged girl is revealed in her arms under the dirty blanket. Her face is dirty but still visible is a fading beauty. The child cries. Her face is stone.

WOMAN 
Get the fuck away from us.

DIRTY GENE
(halting Laugh)

ah he ah heh eh heh.

He reaches down and rips the blanket off of the woman. As the blanket is torn back the woman is revealed as SARAH, ABE'S wife. She is no longer dirty and the boy is not a toddler, he is 4 year old Connor, ABES son, wearing a new pair of Oshgosh overalls and holding a toy police car.

SARAH

Abe! Abe! Abe!

DIRTY GENE

(laughs over SARAH's screams)

Ah heh heh heh.

ABE sits fitfully up in his own bed with his cell phone vibrating on his dresser. "errrr... errrr....errrr"

In The Morning, We're Ready

The first warm Wednesday.
It's early still.
The Sun reaches arms in through closed windows.
Wide bands of antique air.
Stand in the beam, you can see.
Everyone is out there.
In the world of fuzz, of fade, of flowing warmth.
Everyone is ready.

The Tree is wearing his aura.
He's stretched it carefully over each limb, so as not to tear.
He is resting, recharging.
Ready to dance again when The Wind starts up her music.

He is The Dog's keeper by day.
The Dog stands at attention at the top of his worn brown circle
Ready to ask.
He asks everyone, every passerby,
If they, too, are really, really, really, really excited.
It is Wednesday, after all.

The Apartment bows her head and arches her spine.
See how carefully she cradles her children.
Somalian, black, white, Mexican, all her own.
She absorbs the direct blow of The Sun
On her charred back
So she can make sure each of her children inside gets their share.

The Cars line both sides of the black river of Civilized Man.
They feel the trickle of melt under their fat rubber toes
And try not to squirm.
They are busy watching, ever diligent.
They lock arms and keep The Children back
Safely out of the rush of The River
While they wait to carry their own downstream.

The Dog asks another passer below.
They don't answer.
They never do.
I finally open the window and lean out.
The warm air covers my face and arms.
The Tree, The Apartment, The Cars, The Dog.
They all look up at the sound.
 "I am!"

Four Square

-->

1

I can feel my ring where it isn’t

I lay my eyes where I shouldn’t

I scoff as they do what I couldn’t

I dream and go where I can’t

2

And the snow wakes me

Squeezes me

Mocking all the notions of death as darkness

Death is the blinding white of endless snow

3

I will spoon out the heart of the air

Clawing wide the moment

I will bruise the second hand

Till it bends and bursts

4

Let me taste

Like a man who can not remember

One more time let me feel

The spike of citrus, her tongue, his laughs, a cold tear on a warm check.

Braunschweiger

Apparently homeless man,
sits in space between
the in and out door
at the place we all buy our food.

he is eating Braunschweiger with a spoon
beside him is a gallon of chocolate milk
somewhere between full and empty

"It's all down hill from there"
he says in a voice just loud enough,
he may not have meant me to hear it,
and he waves me on

Limerick #1

A blank page stares up

You don't have a clue, do you?
How can I respond?