the big easy
is hard lives,
what gives

this rainy city
so sublime,
it's almost a pity

that streets are lined with ****
pests and rats in the alleyways
how did things get so ******

or have they always been?

overpasses with people
lying underneath

so many homeless
it staggers the mind to think

bread bags and coffees
floating in the wake of the ferries

outnumbering 10 to 1
the loads that they carry

all the old growth
coming down

all the gold of their headpieces
tinfoil hats fashioned from crowns

no jazz or blues can save them
from the fate that waits

an engraving reading,
here lies what once was a haven

The corners singed
Smoke rising
It was on too long
So not surprising
Next time I won't read:
The email, the text, or the
Instagram message.
Tomorrow I'll forget
I'll flick the switch
And my mind will drift
Like a balloon sailing out to sea
And once again burnt toast
Will be waiting for me

My dear friend please show me
How to act like I know these

Bumbling facades running this place
They’re all fakes that take up the space

Stuck in a whirling fantasy of power and fame
Tucked in a twirling travesty of towers of blame  

That they could never take for themselves
Lingering at the top takes a lot of help

They have gluttonous accounts, that makes all the headlines  
Without the money around it’d be an endless breadline

This is tyranny,
this is malicious,
this is undeniably done out of contempt.
The ire of this man cannot be expressed.
This is gluttony,
this is sinful,
take your coins and feed on the poor.
Sleep at night.
In the peaceful hours of dawn,
don’t blink and eye,
for I have ****** of my mind.

the yearling roasted on the spit
its drippings crackled the fire
huddled in a smoky closed space
family with a neighbour, or two
bags packed, shoes on, ready to go

the meat carefully carved
its skeleton intact, unbroken
with endives rolled in flatbread
unleavened as we had no time
meal's remains destroyed in the fire

we're ready to leave at any moment
from where we're born and always lived
to a place known only from ancient tales
outside, shrieks and wails, of horror and utter terror
inside, goosebumped, hair standing, we waited, in silence

The restaurant
We ate at
The last time I saw you

Is now closed

I didn’t know that would be the last time I would see you

I didn’t know that would be the last time I
would eat there

You looked into my eyes for the first time since I picked you up to say “this is the best garlic bread I have had in my entire life”

It took us 47 minutes to get there

It took us 61 minutes to get home

Because we sat in the parking lot of a gas station I’d only been to once before, but liked a lot

I haven’t been there since we were
Either

We listened to that song

Not the one you quoted at “lunch”

Not the one about what you want and don’t

The one that asks why

I took you back

To his house

I parked a block away

I cried

Our home is burning.
Moths and lilies are breaking the woodwork.
They are fluttering closer to our fumbling feet.
Your grandmother’s wallpaper has never looked so beautiful.

I used to spend my nights in the silence between the sofa cushions,
Trying to organize the history of anarchism,
Wondering why the persimmons had been bitter to us,
And why you could not distinguish stones from bread.

On the day God decided to forsake virgins,
I went off to the market, closing the door behind me softly.
Our foundation disappeared behind me.
Somewhere, I believe, you are still dancing.

everyone has heard of the acorn tale
”Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded.”
everyone has listened to the Little Red Hen
”she made the bread herself, she will eat the bread herself.”
----------------
not everyone has their hands stained with labor
we all need to work together
stop the bickering and name-calling
stop the delusional thinking and help make the bread
we got this - we have to get this!

Brian Hill - 2020 # 249

on the day of the double funeral I stand
waiting for the rest of me to die,
I am that I am but I harbor a bad disease.
i should be anywhere and be doing anything other
than what i am.
because before Abraham was i am
standing in the empty quarter
reading a funeral manual on the
day of the double sky burial.
i’m poisoned off my pouch of yesterday’s mana.
gums are bleeding this is yesterday’s daily bread.
men cannot live off bread alone
and the jackrabbit horde is coming home
our own locust plague for a new Sahara.
i stand with a hangman’s fracture
lost on the old sermons in the sand.
following my family’s footsteps sadly in the wrong direction,
lost among the marking rocks.
snow leopards of the black blizzard and
my poison pouch of mana.
drowning in the fires we cook a stray dog
reaping all the whirlwinds I sound a 12 foot Tibetan horn
on the day of a double funeral -
perched in the dwelling of the solitude.