Ripping off the Belle of Amherst after hearing on NPR that Hemingway shot himself because he could no longer write

For Mercy is a passion presst,
Beyond the fleeting gale.
She waltzes like a girl distresst,
Puking in a pale.

And, Liberty with lock so small,
Afore the fingers long,
Which prattle at a broken gate,
With ventricle in song.

Fleeing From Security

arr. by Andread T. Eblis

It is highly unlikely this will reach you. I hope you can piece together the mishmash of coasters, napkins and gum wrappers that I stuffed in the envelope I sent you, as it is of grave importance to your affiliates.

Being an Army dropout and a failed cop I've worked security most my life. The post I got now ain't no cake. That's why I'm running. 

It's 07:10, and I know my tail just showed to say he hasn't seen me all morning, and that I never came home last night. That's because I'm running, trying to figure out what to do.

At 07:00 I'm usually just making roll call. The only rolling I do however, is on a gurney in 7 -point restraint.

The job pays well I'd suppose, if you ever got to spend it. If I m not here, or working a double, I'm trying to bust the hangover from all the dope they load me up on. Then there's the booze and pills from trying to drink myself to sleep. I'll never sleep again with this gig.

They roll you to some operating room in some sub-cellar. They induce death... You spasm, you shit, you seize. I've died more times than any sane man should. I am no longer sane.

The only solace is that I know I'm not alone in my vocation. There's MacDouggal and big ol' Earl Jones. MacDouggal always bitches about me being late [I've built up a tolerance to death], and mumbles about his late car payment, or his wife's cheating, or something as he slips out the door, leaving me with a hand full.

Jones is a company man, though. He's always on overtime, helps me set the load, and is early to relieve me. The man is huge, with sweat always boiling on his knotty black brow.

I'll skip the part of bow we transmute, how we get there, for then I would be truly nuts. To even try to relate the process that tears a man's being in shreds and delivers it to that place, would snap the thin thread of credibility I have with you and your people.

So, once I'm down there, or up there, or where ever there is, the reality of my task becomes apparent. Not that this is a place where reality has any meaning. 

As I become aware— after the initial overwhelming stink and sound— the sight of one puny man holding back that, seems wholly ludicrous. Its enough to fill one with tears and titters, and then I know I am to replace the man who is firmly entrenched, maintaining the security of the Gate.

Yesterday morning it was Jones. Actually the man is huge and dark, looking proud and tall, holding it back with unfailing ease. "Where's MacDouggal," I mumble.

"No call. No show," Jones grunts. "Got him before I hit the gurney." All conversation is over as I brace myself for the load. Jones, kind as he may be, lets up too quick, and I am nearly bowled over with the sudden encumbrance. 

Those on the otherside rally at the newcomer, emitting that low, though deafening, hiss-click-click noise which I know is an entreaty, an empty promise.

The frayed edges of my mind tell me that if I succumb I will not die like the rest, I will go to another place, have great power, much of a realm, and thousands of concubines; things I have never imagined. 

Pulpy talons stroke my chest, and tails— at least I hope they are tails— lash and wrap around my thighs. My shift has just begun.

I no longer have any concept of myself. My life before isn't even triggered by photographs. My off-duty hours are bobbled and lost. I have no paid holidays, sick days, vacation, or health insurance. I am off on a folly and I run...

Peckman's Model

to the reader: Following is a copy of the transcript from a recent police interrogation. It fell out of the pocket of a local detective who was taking a cab ride home to his wife, after a long night on the town. The cabbie was nice enough to send it our way. The questions have been edited out.

I first met Richard Peckman when we were bike couriers. We called him Peck, Heck, Hecky, Pecky. Called him Pecker behind his back. We called him Heck after Richard Hell, because he was such a dark son-of-a-bitch sometimes.

He had gotten a Multi-Media Art degree, and worked as a messenger while getting a Master's in some sort of Bio-chemical Engineering thing. He did it pretty slow, it took him a long time. We were pretty good friends for a time, but then he met Molly. Molly Sindretta. With an “S”, I think.

He had just graduated, and he was acting like some golden boy. He was high out of his tree. We had done some partying while he was in school, but this was like all-natural, through the roof. I don't blame him, we lived like dirty dogs for years, we were always filthy then. (Laughter) Yeah, thanks pork-pie.

I was there when they met, him and Molly, that was a wild night. I was there with some other people, the place was packed. I don't know, some summer... I don't know which year, I was hammered.

Peck comes down to bitch someone out, I forget who or why. Had a shot, did his bitching, and went off to the back of the bar, by himself and nursed a beer. I had seen Molly earlier, across the way, sitting like the ice princess she is, or was. I couldn't get anything going with her, never could on the other times I'd seen her there.

I see her look at Peck though, and he catches it, and goes limp like a goose with a rung neck. I see him rolling gears in his head, like he's trying to work up to chatting her, like he always had to. He makes like he's going to, but I know he's just going to get another shot. She wags and curls a finger, and points to the seat next to her, and like a fool, he sits down. He never stopped doing whatever that itchy finger required.

Anyway I start seeing him rarely, if ever, and he's always got some big ideas, real hare-brained stuff. She's got a Fine Arts degree and they do some joint art projects, or some such thing, together. I never understood the stuff, it was way over my head.

They get this gallery going down on Pittsburgh Street. Yeah, where you busted up the party tonight, where you busted me. That was the chick’s pot, not mine… The bassist from the punk band… I thought I'd get lucky, I don't know… What’s the matter with her?... You don’t know that!...

Anyway, they hook some freaky patron, some French faggot, and get offered some wacky gig in Paris. The get married before they go, kind of elope. Too good to be true? That's right, her hooks were in him so hard, so quick.

Next time I see him in is in the bar… Yeah, the same one… Well I guess you'll always know where to find me then… To let you know that that cheap tie doesn't go with that even cheaper suit.

I see him in the bar and he looks worked… Not more than a year-and-a-half ago. Molly's left him and he's not too clear on why. He looks like hell, like he's taken it real hard. And he admits it too, "but not to worry" because he's got some big stuff rolling. I don't hear from him for a long time.

I was down on Pittsburgh awhile ago… Like six months ago… Making a drop at some photographer's place in that same building… Yeah, that's him… Yeah, in Peck's building.

I see Peck's name on the mailbox, so I drop in on him, ring his bell. And he looks worse than when I last saw him…

Invocation of an One-legged Afghani Bike Messenger Too High to Get Home

I humbly implore thee Persian overseer
Máh, twister of months,
Why are you so to our dear cousin Luna?
You encourage her to fullness
And drop her like a coin into darkness.
You are obviously an angel for no man
Would wax a woman so, to let
Her wane alone in the night.
Don't you know how many, commands,
Curses, contracts, cocks & cunts have 
Been mouthed in supplication, in her presence,
In her honor, in her dull and unwinking glory?
I ask then sir, please take a gentle hand to my fair mistress,
And turn her to a whole form to shine
Through the gauzy night, and lay bare
The flesh of the Earth, so I may travel
Safely to my pallet beneath a window into
which her arms do fall and lick.

For my "Rehab Sweetie": too bad I wasted this on someone else

Once we were high as the moon,
Now after the Fall, tripping from
Dim star to darkness, arms out-
Stretcht, fingers grazing, grasping
Never plucking from the stellar vineyards.
Your body is the yew that bends &
Sways in the breezes of Nocturne
But never topples. It has been hewn
and shaped by drunken gardeners,
Crackt by frost, and scorcht
By the August, but
Mai's gentle kisses and
The embraces of fogs,
And lovers' tumblings
At your roots, give a
Gentle grace to the young rake
That leans against you,
Dreaming up through your
Boughs.

From "Lyrical Snares"

By Charlotte Praecox Regina

After dappled upon a golden bed,
& pillowed by the dusky hills.
Still now browned, and glowing,
Covered by Daylight's coppered lips.
They have left quite the outshine
To the pale and even Sister, who,
In the wheel of Her transit, sweeps
The shattered sixty seconds of a Sun
Beam through occlusion, like the
Shards of a sugared coffee cup, to
The curb.

Mooncalf

By Dr. Dick B. Roman

So even now I am the mooncalf,
Hatched from a leathered sack,
With Chernobyl distinction.
They tried to drown me in the
Love Canal, because of my
Prehensile sixth fingers which
Coil around your knees like tongues,
To make you open and twitch
Like a cuckoo clock, every AM
First-thing. Trumpeting the dawn
In birdsong. May you coo like a pup,
As I come to suckle on your toes and
Earlobes, like Romulus on the
Seventh Hill. These are things that
Are your guise, that I must
Disimpact prior to procedure.
Stripped and flicked
With language, darting like the bait
Of an angler fish. Knotted pinings
Are nothing now, this pulpy smell,
So ancient on the stove before the
Dinner bell. In this hunger there is
No time for grace.

Haiku of image of 10 years, was too lazy to find out right form

void sparks buds blossoms
turns full bloom and emblazoned
petals soon ash void