Lumber Yard

Chapter Three I carried an M-60 in Vietnam. Big, heavy, bulky gun, course I'm a big, bulky guy. I loved having that thing by my side though. I stay down low, set up on the ground, bullet's echoing whizzzs by my head, my buddy Tanner would drop next to me, load her up and I'd just shoot away. I remember the little gooks, they were like little weasels, they'd pop up, then disappear, then pop up ten yards closer, up down, up down. I'd wait, shoot a couple tracers over their heads now and then to let am know I was still there, then when they'd be just about on us I'd lay it down back and fourth, scatter their little asses; that's why they called it the 'saw'. It was a beautiful gun. I remember the sping of '68, one of the gnarliest fuckin' days I ever had. We were pinned up in the corner of this hillside, cliff line on one side, heavy wet jungle on the other, a small rice patty just below in front of it. It was full of lurkin' VC. They knew we were pinned, fuckers, they knew that jungle like the back of their little penises. I was high up, and the VC like ants, moved slow in the muddy patty below. I could take down two at a time as I shot across. There were just so many though, just kept coming, as if from some giant ant hole in the ground somewhere. They had little cover when they made it into that patty, and I'd been shooting so much that the metal glowed red metal hot, steam rising as the heavy rain drops disintegrated into steam in my face. We'd have to wait to reload it, gun metal so hot pieces of it would chip away in steaming orange chunks (I'd seen fuckers ruin a gun in a day of shooting without lettin' it cool). Before I knew it there were five or six just over the hump from me, popped up just like that yelling their war cry, guns shooting from hips. Tanner slammed that top down over the heavy brass just in time, and I rang the saw across their bodies, their stringy intestines red blood splattered into the wet trees and bushes, the top halves of their bodies falling one way, the bottom halves the other. Now days, every now and then, I might be watching TV, and out of nowhere the echoes of VC guns rings in my ears, 'Get down, get down,' I scream, dropping on the floor, 'Load it Tan, Load that shit...' then, 'BAM, BAM, BAM' I yell, the gun shots echoing loud in my skull, my wife and three kids looking on.

Chapter 2

Chapter Two My names Ann. I can't say I'm normal, or normal in your sense of the word, Im lost in between this world and that, or rather, have just become a wandering, hopeless woman who has multiple friends, they follow me, talk to me about things, like the color of that woman's hair, or the way that dude wears his pants, low as if shit has piled there, they speak in speedily spat words, that become jumbled conversations, as if all your friends are trying to explain themselves at one time, yeah that's what it sounds like in my head at all times. S ilence would be nice, just for a moment. But they yell at me when I ask them to be quiet, they tell me they're in control here, echo who the fuck am I to tell them to shut up, so I stay out of it, if they ask me to do something I do it, like the other day when they asked me to take a small bottle of bourbon from the shelf, put it in my waistband with the gum, the pack of sour patch kids, and a bottle of SO Be (I love that shit, I practically live off it) I did, and I walked out quickly only to be stopped at the door, "Miss, store secuity, can I search you please, we believe..." Yeah fuck you guys I said, and they thought I meant them, but really I meant them, you know in my head, and they arrested me, sent me to jail where I got a warm dinner with bread, milk, and some sloppy Joe shit that tasted absolutely foul. I got out yesterday found this old pad of paper and a quiet tree in the park where the voices whisper and I can here the birds chirp chirp their songs to desert afternoon breezes...

A Quiet Place

Chapter One Given two hundred thousand dollars, he spent it on two hookers, case of cabo wabo and as much cocaine as the rest would buy. Did it all in a matter of days, stayed in the house, fucking like a snowshoe rabbit in every possible threesome fantasy postion, then running around in circles until sweating profusely and collapsing. That 's when it's time for the tequila, buy a lime to chase, eventually the bluriness of the spinning room will lullaby him to sleep and he'll wake up tommorrow and do it alll over again. 'I have friend', or , 'him this' him that', such a sorry cop out excuse I guess, so, it's me, whatever... and now, all I have is twenty four dollars, and a pristine Plymonth Sattelite, circa '72. Hauls ass though, and swifts and swerves on curves. The stereo is loud and echos funny static sounds that reverberate in the back seat. I burnt my house down. On purpose of course, I just went mad , lost it all together. I live out of the Satellite, backseat is big, and I park in the back of this giant werehouse where these kids like to skateboard. Anyway, The other day one of 'em, this pudgy one with loud mouth, knocked on the window, woke me from this dream about my third grade teacher, Mrs. Fossett, giving me head. "Hey, Hey dude, you Ok?" "Course I'm ok fuck, I'm sleeping." I said, he flipped me off. I got pissed, what'd ya expect. I got up, got out, walked up to him, but instead of kicking his sorry, chubby little ass I told him that if he could beat me at a game of OUT I'd spare him the bloody face, and call to the police. He laughed at me, "You serious?" How the fuck would some bum fuck know what OUT even is you say? "Fuck yeah I'm serious, let's do this," and I went to my trunk and got out my skateboard, and my skate shoes (which are new, cleaner then the old New Balances I wear from the thrift up the street). They all laughed when they saw me take my board out, but when I set it down, pushed a few feet and did a perfect backside one eighty nollie flip...what the fuck dude..." he said, and all I could do was laugh. "Do this bitch." Needless to say I had to punch him in the mouth, probably came back the next day with pissed of father and the police, I was long gone and on the road again looking for a quiet place.

Fortune Cookie

Eyes speak
in quiet blinks
corner of couch
alone.
I guess it's
one of those days,
babe
where it's hard to read
your pages.
Just want to know
where you're at,
here,
or there;
maybe you could
take my hand
pull me to the room
and tell me it's ok...
But,
you're quiet
alone with
conversation soliloquized
locked out the world
with me in it,
and fortune cookie reads
'what you believe can't happen
can'.