Friday, October 28, 2016

Rest Stop

The wet pavement of Highway 66 glistened in the light of the blue moon.   To the east the thunderstorm rolled on, lightning churning in its cloudbank.  I settled in for the long haul.   Mt Dew holstered in the cup holder, cashews and jerky sitting on the vacant seat. I flicked on the stereo and starting belting out 90’s boy band music, something I only do when I’m truly alone.

About 20 miles from the state line, I reached over for a succulent piece of animal flesh stretched, torn and soaked, when I saw her.   There in my previously empty passenger seat, was a disheveled old woman, wearing a crushed velvet green dress mud covered and off kilter, which along with her excessive make up migrating from her eyes to her jowls, was evidence of a night of dreams abandoned.

I almost drove straight into the borrow pit.  And slammed my breaks risking a jackknife.   “How did you get here?”

“go,” she said, then with emboldened enunciation, “GO!”  

Having hear plenty of tales from truck stops and late night diners, I figured my guest was not of this world.  I worked through the gears getting the rig back up to high way speed.   Better to move with a unwelcome guest than stay in one place.

She didn’t make eye contact, and we drove in silence.   I didn’t share my Backstreet Boys with anyone, living or dead. “So, um, where you headed?” I asked my paranormal passenger?

of course there was no reply.  Her lips quivered, her earrings dangled.  And her hands clutched a small bag close to her bosom.

I kept my eyes ahead. But couldn’t help notice her fidgeting.  Then a high pitched soprano voice sang this verse.

“It must be clean, the chrome must gleam, No smears, nor splatters, no paper in tatters.”  This kept repeating over and over.  Her fidgeting got more pronounced.

Wait a second I thought.  She needs to use the little girls’ room. “you need to, uh, take care of some business? “  I said.

She didn’t respond, just kept repeating, “It must be clean, the chrome must gleam, No smears, nor splatters, no paper in tatters” eventually adding, “no numbers etched upon the wall, enticing for a good time to call, Nor words profane not a single curse, and a nice little edge for one  to place  her purse”

“Well come on now beggars can’t be choosers.”  Still I wanted to get this ghastly roadie out of my cab.  “There’s a rest area at the summit” I said,  “we’ll stop there.”

Exit 6 couldn’t come soon enough.  I down shifted and skidded a little as I pulled into the rest area.  No other cars or trucks need a break at 3 in the morning.   The red light from the pop machine lit the path to the rest rooms.

I looked at my interloper.   “Well, here you go.” Her finger, which I now noticed did not bend in the correct direction, but instead took a meandering route to come to a point was directed to me.  Then she slowly moved it to the building containing the restrooms, repeated 4 times.   I got the hint.  As I jumped down from the cab, I heard her singsong voice with my marching orders “It must be clean, the chrome must gleam, No smears, nor splatters, no paper in tatters”

I can’t believe I’m cleaning a restroom for a ghost, I thought.   Three times I went back, and three times she rejected my efforts.   Dang it lady I’m a driver not a janitor.  Finally as the sun crested the peak in the east, I walked back one final time.  The cab was empty.

I don’t know how ghosts take care of their business in the private place.   But I got out of there as soon as I could.   So if you’re ever driving down route 66 late at night, and find a peculiar passenger in your car.  I hope you have Lysol, and scrubbers, but most importantly I hope you have gloves and a gas mask, because if you’ve been to a rest area, you know, the lady in need of a powder room was not the scariest thing I saw that night.

Monday, October 10, 2016

To be read at night


Ten
The bodies scurry away,

Nine
They think it's a game they're about to play,

Eight
They find a hole in which to hide,

Seven
Quietly, the innocent abide.

Six
The demon-thief will take from them,

Five
The mother's dreams--what might have been,

Four
Their stifled giggles would not emit,

Three
If their stalker's face were lit.

Two
But have a final laugh little
one.

Ready or not, here i come.

Friday, September 9, 2016

Ode to the Bookmarked


On the shelf waiting; anticipating, you've sat for too long old friend
I stuffed the bookmark in your thin off white messages; a promise of hasty return.
But then I went of to other new exciting tomes and left you alone on the shelf.
Not entirely alone, for them content you would be, no I left a promise that turned to a dagger.
As the seasons changed my hand would pass by you again and again, sometimes I'd even place my new friends on top of you. But you endured this indignity, this subjection because of the promise I stuck in your spine.
It said I would return to see where you led. It said we would spend time again.
But as the seasons gave way to a year you knew I wasn't coming back. The wedge in your pages was no longer a promise but a memorial to my disinterest. A rock in a shoe. An unforgettable annoyance. And also a shackle. For as long as my mark is slid between your pages, I have claimed you and no other may have you.
Nearly a decade has passed and you had given up on being anything other than a old maid. There are no best seller lists that bear your name. No zeitgeist compelling the masses to grasp you off the shelf. Dusty with an old piece of shrapnel in your spine. You have long ago given up being excited when my hand reaches near you on the shelf, not once in these years has it found you.
But today it does. My old hands pass you to small hands which trace your gilded title and read it aloud with a sense of awe. A friendly breeze removes the dust, and daintily cracks open your spine. The old mark is removed with swift precision, you're free. You have a new master now, who will read the pages I never bothered with. Who will tell friends about your wondrous secrets and wisdom. Who will allow you to fulfill the mandate of your creation given in a printing press so long ago.
I was a fickle friend, but the loss was mine. Your message I'll never know

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Ross Park

In dire need of a poo receptical I pray for one that's just acceptable but what do I find in this east Idaho park? A doorless wonder I shan't even shart
Lined up in a row three stool stoops sit
But it appears they only bought half the kit
For dividers protect me from peeps from the side 
But the full Monty is shown from the front, I can't hide
Alas the poo time is appointed and it cannot wait
So I quietly squat doomed to my exhibitionist fate

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Civil War

He's my friend.
so was i...
red and gold vs red and blue.
the flying machine. The man with a tech heart becomes law and order. The one who shirked responsibility, accepts it's uncomfortable mantle
the personification of Liberty, our modern Columbia, born as propaganda, but he believed it, he became what the posters proclaimed. a Heart of honor. a heart of love. a heart of loyalty
Freedom and Order, in unending battle since mankind gathered into tribes and only intensified as society has become more intertwined.
Can security trump choice? If either wins, both lose. Elements of a fragile chemical reaction. If one over power the other, the reaction dies, and so does our humanity into totalitarianism, or anarchy.
Today, the tension begins again. we will marvel as the American Captain fights the Man of Iron

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

HomeBodies

There are some creatures in my room a whole society in fact. They live and love and grieve and die, the whole sentient experience in tact You cannot see them, of course they hide from a giant such as you, but if you listen closely in the dark of the night they'll speak and you'll hear not a few And so you see I cannot commit such an atrocity as destroying their homes, their whole way of life , for the comfort of merely me So that's why dear mother the piles must stay of clothes that have fallen to the floor. The toys and the books must be kept in their place haphazardly flung near the door. To the untrained eye it looks like only a mess, but if you look more closely you'll discover, my dear little friends who on this pig sty, rely, would you really kick out a young mother, or two lovers, please keep their cover.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

100 things i love about the prequels


  1.             Quigon Jinn
  2.          Obi Wan Kenobi
  3.          Yoda Vs Dooku
  4.         Yoda Vs Sidious
  5.           Duel of the Fates
  6.   .       Darth Maul
  7.           Mace Freaking Windu
  8.           Purple Light Saber
  9.           Hundreds of Light Sabers
  10. 10.   Geonosis
  11. 11.   Padme’s wardrobe
  12. 12.   Naboo Star Fighters
  13. 13.   Watoo
  14. 14.   Sleepy Jabba
  15. 15.   Pod Racing
  16. 16.   The jedi council
  17. 17.   Yaddle
  18. 18.   Qui gon’s funeral
  19. 19.   Who is the Phantom Menace
  20. 20.   Who is Sifo Diyas
  21. 21.   Count Dooku
  22. 22.   Force Lightning
  23. 23.   Battle in the senate
  24. 24.   “good relations have I with the wookies”
  25. 25.   Tarful
  26. 26.   Comander Gree
  27. 27.   Comander Cody
  28. 28.   Comander Rex
  29. 29.   “if a planet doesn’t appear in our archives it doesn’t exist”
  30. 30.   Jango Fett is a dad
  31. 31.   Clones
  32. 32.   Boba Fett
  33. 33.   Komino
  34. 34.   Kenobi Vs Jango
  35. 35.   Mace decapitates Jango
  36. 36.   That Stare
  37. 37.   Palpatine and Anakin at the opera
  38. 38.   “you’re under arrest My Lord”
  39. 39.   “shoot her or something”
  40. 40.   “but Lord Sidious promised us peace”
  41. 41.   Mustafar
  42. 42.   Battle of the Heros
  43. 43.   Battle over Lava
  44. 44.   “I will do what I must”
  45. 45.   “you were the chosen one”
  46. 46.   Palpatine’s manipulations on the Invisible Hand
  47. 47.   Anakin saving Obi Wan
  48. 48.   Jedi Star Fighters
  49. 49.   Sonic Charges
  50. 50.   Slave one chase
  51. 51.   Darth Vader breathing at the end of Phantom Meanace’s credits
  52. 52.   The queen’s decoys
  53. 53.   Order 66—so sad
  54. 54.   Ki Adi Mundi-the look on his face when he sees their betrayal
  55. 55.   General Grevious’ light saber collection
  56. 56.   General Grevious cough
  57. 57.   General Grevious 4 arms
  58. 58.   Obi Wan’s sweet ride
  59. 59.   The Utapau leader
  60. 60.   Darth Vader marching on the temple
  61. 61.   Jett Lucas handling some clones at the Jedi Temple
  62. 62.   Yoda impelling a clone trooper
  63. 63.   The twin sunsets at the end of Revenge of the Sith
  64. 64.   We finally see Alderaan
  65. 65.   Bail Organa’s sorrow at the creation of an army
  66. 66.   Bloated Cow riding
  67. 67.   Always a bigger fist
  68. 68.   Droidekas
  69. 69.   “they’re still coming through”
  70. 70.   Wat Tambor
  71. 71.   Death Star Plans
  72. 72.   Young Tarkin
  73. 73.   Palpatine’s Transformation
  74. 74.   Killing the battle droids
  75. 75.   Double Bladed Light Saber
  76. 76.   Curved light saber
  77. 77.   Dooku was an apprentice
  78. 78.   Anakins limb loss
  79. 79.   Bionic hand at wedding
  80. 80.   “have the protocol droids memory wiped”
  81. 81.   We find out who “the maker” is
  82. 82.   Hundreds of jedi in battle
  83. 83.   “around the survivors a perimeter create”
  84. 84.   Dooku and Sidious on Coruscant
  85. 85.   Coruscant
  86. 86.   “you wanna buy some death sticks”
  87. 87.   “you want to go home and rethink your life”
  88. 88.   R2 making the droids burn
  89. 89.   Grevious body guard
  90. 90.   The beauty of Naboo
  91. 91.   The opening scene of Atack of the Clones
  92. 92.   “and now we will discuss a new treaty”
  93. 93.   Yoda
  94. 94.   Blockade Runner
  95. 95.   James earl Jones asking about Padme
  96. 96.   The Emperors sadistic joy at Anakin’s fall
  97. 97.   NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
  98. 98.   The twins
  99. 99.   Owen and Beru
  100.        Fade to credits, end theme

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Lies

The warm comfortable lie Such is the lie that forgives our base actions Such is the lie that feigns comfort and help to the weak and weary, but, offers no solution Such is the lie that blocks us from our future Such is the lie that keeps us in our past This lie takes the wounded and comforts them in place, while they still lie wounded on the battlefield, with the enemy advancing The cold hard damning lie It hates, it destroys from within. It stops progression by fear. It tells us we have no potential. It tells us friends are not real. It tells us that we are second class. It tells us to stay in one place out of fear


The warm lie gives way to the cold lie as we try to leave the field. No longer able to keep us in unknown danger with sweet nothings whispered in our ear, the beautiful nurse transforms into a wraith, a banshee, who will tear our psyche apart if we will not stay with her. Her lies keep her there, she cannot follow, but can only call out. Can only scream. Can only use words to keep us with her. For all her thrashing she is as powerless as we make her, or as strong