bradley

will we ever go
to that island on
lake michigan

off the coast
and far away

and this is not a chance
and not a change of pace
or a time to die
in that quiet place

damn it
you're far too young
to waste away

you've still got four kids
and three wedding days

and now we'll never go
to that island in the sand
that we passed months ago
when you were a better man

and if i'm alone, then you're alone
and if i'm afraid, then you're afraid

My Feet Hurt

I’m simply too tired to write. I’m too exhausted to think of any new ideas; to paint any new pictures that would be worth noting or exciting to read. Sure I've got pleasant ideas boiling, and that kettle is about to sing but tonight is not the night. Tonight is for trying to keep my eyes open and lips moving to make conversation, and to seem like an interesting individual.

I've spent the better part of the last week with my feet glued to the floor of a job I don’t like. I guess I stick around because I care too damn much about my co workers to turn tail and run. I care too much about the well being of the owner of the company to back down. I've come in on my days off.  I’ve given up glorious plans of social revelry. I've told myself it’s in the name of helping out another. I wonder if this is a lie and I've only done these things in pursuit of that almighty dollar. The dollar. You know, at the end of the two weeks it isn't that mighty. It’s pretty weak. God knows I hope this isn't true.

On top of that my sister has come to town. It’ll be good to spend the holiday with some family. I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like, but that’s only because that dollar won’t stretch no matter how I pull. I could write about how much it means to me to have family here, and how it brings forward all the thoughts of my past and who I have been. I could write it. But I won’t; not tonight. It would be forced and really not from the heart, though the sentiment is true enough.

I read recently that the difference between a hack and a professional writer is that a professional writes regardless, and a hack writes only when inspired. I guess that makes me the latter, and tonight I’ll take it knowing that it won’t always be this way. Tomorrow I hope to be thankful to even have the desire and ability to sometimes writes something worthwhile. I wonder if there is any beer in the fridge...

Paint

Brittle boneyard of my soul.

Bleached and quiet.

Full of vacated moments.

I alone have time to examine
our
bruises.
Yesterdays clouts painted on my arm
forced into now with a touch.
Time-travel violence.

I write to keep the fear outside.
My pen locks the door,
the paper
hides the key.
I sing the way I hurt inside.
Bruises of dark cursive on your ears.

of warriors, coverings & sucralose

yesterday the waxing of the surf
the setting of the sun and table
met me with an open hand.

which reminded me of other spheres
on legal and stolen tranquilizers
when we shook closed fists right ways
and agreed to disagree.

you in your trench coat.
me in my wanton emotional
transgressions.

yet later in our disagreements
we sipped on uselessly sweet things
(in coerced proximity)
with the still and drear
and yearned longingly for
the surf to rise
and the sun to be reborn
with our hands held out
(with effortless disparity)
and our eyes chasing wildly.

those were the days friend.
the days we marked with mourning.

Part 1

“Honey, we have to get out of here.” He felt faint. His words came out slowly. “You have to get me out of here.”

Jack had just shaken the laws of nature, and he knew it. He wasn’t sure how he had done it, but he knew he had. And he was terrified.

Thirty seconds earlier, it had been crowded.

There were hundreds of people filing toward the open doors. Jack couldn’t quite see if the train was already full or if there would be room on this one yet. He tried to peer around the other disappointed fans pouring out of the stadium and onto the light rail platform. He arched his neck to find some sightline toward the train doors. It looked full.

“Shoot, this might take a while,” he said to his wife, Emma. He decided to give up and just go with the flow of the crowd for now. “Man, that game was rough.” Emma wasn’t listening. “Those nachos were good, though. Why don’t they ever taste that good at home?” She was digging through her purse for something.

He went back to trying to see ahead to the train doors. The crowd had stopped inching forward. He could tell that they were close to the doors, but he still couldn’t quite see if they’d make it onto this train. He didn’t want to wait for the 10:25.

There were two men talking about the game in front of him, one wore a leather jacket and the other a red hooded sweatshirt. Both were tall. Jack, even on his tip toes, could not see over their heads.

“I can’t see a thing around these guys,” he said to Emma, knowing he was basically talking to himself.

He needed to see over them. He strained himself, stretched and craned his neck as far as he could, but came up short. He was boxed in all around by hundreds of people, so he would have to jump to see around the two brutes.

He bent his knees just a bit, and sprang back up with as much vertical momentum as he could muster from a standing position. He pushed his chin up and looked down his nose toward the train as he got just high enough to see over the two tall men.

That did the trick. He could see then that the train was very full. He scanned for vacant spaces. No luck. They’d have to wait for the next one. It was late and he had to work early. Oh well, he thought.  What difference would ten minutes make? He was still happy just to have been at the game, even if it was a trouncing. No surprise. It’s a rebuilding season. Everybody knew it. Maybe they’d shuffle up the roster in spring and come up with something promising. What they really needed was to get rid of --

His mind stopped abruptly. Every other consideration, every other detail of life and existence vanished from his brain. He became immediately and horribly aware.

He hadn’t landed yet.

He was still looking over the heads of the tall men. He was staring at the train. He wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t he moving? Others were moving. He wasn’t moving.

He turned his head slowly. So slowly, in fact, that he wasn’t sure he was turning it at all as he panned across the platform full of eager passengers. He was above them. They were below him. He wasn’t on the ground. Everyone else was.

Each passing fraction of a second felt as though it dropped him deeper and deeper into a dream.

His whole body tensed and froze. A sudden panic set in. He hesitantly looked downward. He focused on his shoes, and his eyes grew wide.

He turned his head to the right. “Emma?”

She was still looking through her purse for something. “EMMA?”

“Yeah?”

“I--  I’m--  I think I--  jumped.”

“I can’t hear you.” She turned. Her eyes didn’t meet his face but his right hip. She looked up. Jack’s eyes were filled with shock. She looked down, wondering what he was standing on.

Jack was two feet above the ground. He was standing on…nothing.

She gasped and slowly took a step backward, staring at his shoes.

“I’m not-- I can’t-- “ Jack stammered. “Emma? Emma, what’s happening? Emma, what’s under me? Am I—”

“What is this?” She took another step backward.

This time she backed right into a young woman talking loudly on her phone. Emma tripped over the girl and into the side of an old man in a long overcoat. “Oof!” He caught her under the arms.” Careful there, I gotcha!” Just then the girl on her phone let out a piercing scream. Her phone crashed to the sidewalk.

All heads in the crowd now turned. Then everyone nearby stopped cold.

There were scattered shrieks and gasps as anyone within ten feet pushed backward to get away. The tall men turned around and found themselves staring right into the chest of what appeared to be a much taller man right behind them. They quickly saw the truth. One of them blurted out some startled profanity as the other tripped over him trying to get back. They both scrambled to their feet again and backed up with the rest.

A wide circle had now opened up around Jack. Everyone on the platform and inside the train could now see something that they couldn’t quite understand. A loud gasp followed by an “Oh my god” was heard from inside the train as just then the doors closed. The train began to move as another scream rang out, then another. The train grew louder.

A loud chugging and swishing mixed with the growing commotion on the platform. The crowd seemed to crescendo along with the growing noise of the train. All seemed to blurt out their unfiltered gut reaction. “What is this?!” “Holy --” “Jesus Christ!“ “WHAT THE--”

The train’s piercing whistle erupted in one long blast as it departed the station and, in its echo, everything again went suddenly silent.

A full twenty-foot ring had opened up around the floating man and his wife. Emma had ended up on her back on the sidewalk, not yet able to stand up.

Hundreds of wide eyes stared like unlit light bulbs, waiting, watching, searching for reason. No one in the crowd knew exactly how long this silence lasted, but all recalled later that the silence was broken by one horrified voice, coming from eight feet above platform.

“I don’t know what’s happening!” Jack sounded like a frightened child in the last moment just before the drop of a roller coaster.  The crowd stared.

The girl who had tripped Emma and dropped her phone scurried forward into the empty circle. She reached down and scooped up her phone, then hastily jumped back into the crowd and started recording. One by one other cell phones began to pop up throughout the crowd, recording each passing second.

He was floating. He wasn’t moving. Not up. Not down. Not left or right. He was simply floating.

“Jack, is this real? Or is this some hidden camera thing or…” Emma asked. “I don’t like this, Jack, stop it.”

“I can’t stop it, Emma. I don’t even know how I started it!”

Jack began breathing heavily. Very heavily. And very deeply.

“Jack?” Emma raised herself to her feet.

He had been off the sidewalk for a full twenty seconds, a fact which was now becoming very real to him. He felt lightheaded as he looked around at the countless faces.

“Honey, we have to get out of here.” He felt faint. His words came out slowly. “You have to get me out of here.”

His vision began to darken as he saw the faces begin to swirl around him, slowly at first, then faster and faster. He felt all thoughts drain from his mind. He saw a glimpse of Emma as she rushed toward him with her arms stretched forward. She screamed. It sounded distant, muffled. Everything became fuzzy. And then everything went black.

She Is For The Weak And Wise (Revised)

She is for the weak and wise.
Her, no clever coy disguise.
My sense of safety risks no rise
From She or Her colorless eyes.

Her kiss was not the sweetest grace
That my naive young lips would taste.
Not Her green eyes did thoughts displace,
But I was lost in Kali's face.

I did not throw myself at She
Just to recoil instantly.
She uttered no heart-scouring plea,
But Annie bore the tragedy.

It wasn't She who, all alone,
Ensnared my heart to forge Her throne.
She did not shatter all I'd known,
But Meghann splintered hope like bone.

Come, Boy, speak up now, crass and clear
To utter truth in utter fear
'Til smudged is penmanship by tear.
The Bard to Muse speaks. Let Her hear.

Kali, I was not worth your time.
Annie, how I lament my crime.
Meghann, your smile still stings sublime.
My Love, you've never left my mind.

A Falling In

My muse wears hues Ukrainian,
Bright auburn eyes, sienna skin.
Where jawline flows to flawless chin
Her slightest smile beguiles men.
Thus effortless was I drawn in,
Thus, stupefied, did toil begin.

Though, I confess, my eyes are weak,
Know this: even to fools like me
Mere pits of beauty prove no feat.
While miles wide they lie and wreak,
While sirens, songs employed, snag feet,
Perfumed edges are seldom deep.

So how, five months since first locked glance,
Do I remain so deep in trance?
Subtle this trap, no vast expanse,
Yet walls expand as I advance!
Or do I shrink beneath their slants?
To what depths have I plunged perchance?

Strange muse, I've heard her soft whisper
To no one in particular
Her utmost for His highest mirth,
Consistencies of soil and earth,
Intent to see the last made first.
Such myst'ry beats my heart for hers!

Therein my myst'ry is expelled,
That once into her first I fell
I fell with still no floor to tell
For beauty deep as Jacob's well.
I'll wrestle with my muse angel
Until she calls me Israel.