The basis for a series of downtown handouts, possibly.

You know, to expand the public's mind.

//Gaslit/Fooled by The Flicker of The Light//

[Original scrawl]
//Gaslit//
A storm comes
and the power goes out.

The rain stops.
the town goes on a long smoke break.

In the middle of the night
the light comes on.

The cancer comes back.

--------------------------------------------------------

[Milled]
//Fooled by The Flicker of The Light//
A storm comes
and the power goes out.

The rain stops.
the town goes on a long smoke break.

By candlelight and glowing embers
-- a minute is an enormous expanse of time.

In the middle of the night
the electron light comes on.

Gaslit again,
the cancer comes back.

There was a storm a few weeks back. I scribbled this down as I ate Chinese food by candlelight and finished it in the hard light glow of a computer screen later. Tell me which you prefer/don't (if either) and why.

Deliciousness and parlor tricks

"Good evening.
I'm the fool, the dancer, the idiot.
I'll be taking care of you tonight.
I've donned my hair-gel jester cap;
groomed myself gaudy and pretentious.
Take your table and give me your coins and change
to complain.
I'll listen. Hell, crucify me.
Like my song and dance? Laugh.
Spit on me, and for a dollar
I'll catch it all in my mouth
and gargle.
You see, all we serve on our menu here
is gluttony
disguised and renamed several times;
put some chunks of it on a plate
and wring the rest into a glass.
I'm here to pluck rotted teeth
and twirl intestines,
wear everything around my neck on necklaces,
like leis.
Anything to keep you entertained
as the choke of extreme corpulence
stops your heart.
Just leave some cash folded under a cup
or tucked in the sleeves of a black receipt-holder.
Anything you want.
It's not the money I'm after,
bills to pay or not,
but rather the satisfaction of killing
bastards and bitches
with deliciousness and parlor tricks.
Some are wise enough to last off of
water and bread, and maybe some booze.
No matter.
I'm shit for the next hour or so.
When you leave, I'll write poems and ballads
about our night together,
store them in the little bells on my feet.
In a few years, I'll come and dance on your grave
to remind you.
Anyway, I'll be serving and slaying you this evening.
What can I get you?"

Initial draft of the gathered frustrations of being a waiter.

The speech I wish I could give when greeting a table.

WARGEARS

"Shadows rose from our feet as men."

A poem I've been working on, based off of the premise of the GEARS OF WAR video game series, and probably a large number of other unrecognized sources as well. Didn't post it whole, since it'd be an annoyance to scroll through.

An attempt at reviving the heroic/warrior tradition. I've tried to favor narrative over originality, to whatever extent of success or failure.

//A Soft Rent Sunday//

//A Soft Rent Sunday//

She buries apples at her mother’s grave

Dreaming of a Sunday
under the soft rent Earth

in the colourblind darkness

From her flowers
grow corpses

The fruits of labour
lay next to pulpy skeletons

Those which disappeared
in the shadows of the tree’s splayed splintered branches,
sprawling out over the field

Smoulder and swelter cold;
the odd ambivalent apple falling not far from the tree

Told to stand up straight
you step into the stream,

But the water’s moved on.

And just when you think it’s all over
You get dragged back into the same old game.

Unsure as to whether I'm happy with this.

The sudden disorientation and change in tense is intentional to indicate the sense of disorientation and self-loss so strangely inherent to growth; a sense of (the consciousness, a new self-awareness? perhaps that's too lofty) being born when you least expect it.