Between Here and Ever After

Everyone speculated that the theatre was the only place the dear lady ever knew happiness. She could portray heroines and damsels whose lives were far removed from her tortured own, speaking verses crafted by poets and wearing fine garments from charmed wardrobes. On the boards of the stage, illumined by footlights, she would bow to the applause thundering from silhouetted masses who congregated night after night to see her and the company of actors weaving stories and playing make believe with graceful abandon. 

Those many years later, we could hear her deceased footsteps and muffled dialogue in the backstage hallways and dressing room in the late evenings after the show had ended and the audience dribbled out of the theatre and into the indigo washed nightscape. On rare occasions, she could be glimpsed from the corner of an eye sitting the the audience or in the wings during blocking rehearsals or a final tech run through. 

One night she appeared to two of us as we were exiting the darkened theatre. She stood within arms distance looking towards the front row seats just before center stage. She appeared to be in her mid 30s, chestnut hair spilling over her drooping shoulders, pale skin and dark clothes. She was as real were we except she emanated a blue green mist and was half transparent. Her beauty was classic but her sadness made her appear eternal and ageless.     

'We mean you no harm' I said, 'We just want to go home'. 

She let us pass by the stage, the darkened hallways, the chilled dressing room, out the back door and into the alley.

When the door slammed shut, rather than fright, I felt sorrow for the ghost. Remaining here on earth, in the theatre of her youth. An eternity of watching us rehearsing and performing while conjoining with the backstage shadows and dimmed spotlights etched the eulogy of her untimely death. Unable to find her way to the gates where her company of actors are within waiting for their missing ingenue. 

I have always hoped someday this broken spirit, like us on that night, someday finds the path through shadows leading her back home. Amen. 

light plays curiously

upon the architecture

in heaven

bending beams

into symphonies

like strands

of molten glass

weaving tapestries

carressing monoliths

prisms exploding

refraction shards

within quartz cathedrals

illumining reverent faces

of angels and ancients 

and the unspoken others

gathered together

in fellowship

liquid crystal mosaics

entwine with sun light

reversing darkness

from within

here

prostitutes 

become sacred

the forsaken

now are

another finger

in the mudra

of Buddha

dawn rises swiftly

from below cloud vapors

dissolving orgasms

of moonplay

upon ocean tides

impregnating

the dome of sky

bringing new life

to the eternal

facades of destruction

crumble and yield

to light

and its sister

shadow

slowly realizing gazes 

eventually eclipse

heaven over matter

ceasing deceased beliefs

dark void moons

abyss 

vortex

conundrums

from vacant altars

of all

these are the words

born in silence

visioned

from light

traipsing across

mirrored chapels

lining the crossroads

between here

and ever after

All my love,

Max

I. Am. Not. Suicidal.

Let us please understand one thing very clearly before any further words transpire.

I. Am. Not. Suicidal.

It is very important to state this from the start because every time I write about this subject in a public forum, the response is swift and voluminous. Usually it's about 50 phone calls and emails from concerned friends, family, former lovers and those I barely know coming flooding in the next day. Begging me to please 'don't do it'. Sobbing implorings to go seek therapy, forcefully asserting that life is worth living, threatening to call 911 to save me from myself. Therefore, it is imperative to understand from this moment forward that...

I. Am. Not. Suicidal.

However, to be truthful, there was a point in my life that I was. I know the depths of depression and void of self worth, the illusion of irretreviable mistakes, scourges of unjustifiably magnified regrets that make large amounts of sleeping pills and alcohol, a noose in the closet or a bath tub full of razors seem attractive options to my ultimate exit as opposed to the gracious acceptance of old age and passing away in my sleep. 

Yes, I know how it feels to be that desperate and hopeless. I also know that I'm not the only one who has suffered alone and has somehow been drawn back from the rim of that dark and bottomless crater. I love my life and feel a great responsibility. 

When I was in college, I was given the oppurtunity to write a weekly column for the school paper. I did so for two years. One week my column dealt with the subject of teenage suicide. Immediately upon publication, a deluge of friends, teachers, near strangers and others I never even knew read my articles came to me with urgency and great concern. They inquired of the state of my mental health, begging me not to off myself, while a few were near tears. I sincerely appreciated the outpouring and assured everyone that I was fine, which I was.

Then a young woman I barely knew sheepishly approached me and said 'Thank you for writing that column.' She told that she never knew anyone else had ever felt like she did. She went on to say that now she didn't feel alone anymore. The thoughts of dire worthlessness, personal responsibility for everything wrong in the world and ineptitude to fix anything, the implicit knowledge that if I weren't here anymore, no one would notice and everyone would just plain be happier without me; thoughts I knew all too well, were for her beginning to abate and she was starting to remember what it feels like to be happy.

It was late afternoon, the sun was setting on distant end of the sidewalk where we stood, away from a congregation of the cool kids, both of us trying like hell not to cry. To this day, that was one of the most important dialogs I've ever had with a fellow human being. She taught me the importance of not mincing words or pulling punches when I write. To know that for every one who doesn't get me, there are many that do. To never speak with any less than my total heart and soul because there is someone out there who needs me to be brave more than I need me to be brave. That no matter how bleak, no one is ever alone, no pain is insurmountable and no grace unattainable. 

If you have read any amount of my writing, you know I don't put on kid gloves and dilute the vocabulary. Since that conversation, I am aware that it is my responsibility as a writer and fellow human being to lay it out, guts and all, upon the altar. Especially since being blessed and cursed with a heart bag, tear ducts, wound scars, angelic visions and belief in our creation as large as mine. I have to write like this, there is no other choice. I know perfectly damn good and well that I'm not alone in any of this and nobody should ever feel they are anyone less. I may not know who you are or what you're going through but as long as I have anything to say about it, please know, you are not alone and it will get better, I swear to God. 

I don't recall

the first time

I cried

in front of you

I was probably

not drunk

or fishing for attention

just honest saying

fuck it all

this is me

accept this part

or let's each

go back home

It was probably

about my father's illness

or my mother's hatred

and my own deception

of myself and how suicide

was more delicious

than hanging around

this shit hole

I trusted you

though not completely

half expecting you

to lash out

with a witless knife

like so many before

smelling an easy target

and so much fun

to bring down 

in a storm

of feathers and helium

an explosion

so deafening

the satisfaction

exquisitely momentary

as a back alley

orgasm

I cried

on some forgetful night

giving a shit

as I expected

most to do likewise

passing between

feigned compassion

and flittering recognition

of one's own heart

splattered 

across the couch

nude

I begged

go the fuck

back to bed

there is nothing 

you can do

pardon me

while I plead

for an oasis

of sleeping pills 

and alcohol

in the middle 

of this desert

and all the serial killers

who erased 

my voice mails

I am rendered

invisible

amongst your prayers

I have descended

unmemorable

into your history

even your hatred

has forgotten me.

Please never lose sight that no matter how hopeless it seems, none of us is ever really alone. I hope no one ever leaves this place until we each realize how much we matter to each other and are loved by those we have chosen to forget.

All my love always,

Max

My Invisible Friends

Not a damn thing in this life has ever been easy. It wasn't ever supposed to be is the best conclusion I can surmise. Why? is a question I don't bother to ask anymore. I'll be greeted with silence. 

I grew up with a very pronounced speech impediment that finally abated through therapy when I was about 16 years old. I still have the faded ghosts, decayed remnants and decrepit artifacts of my stutter. Hold me in conversation long enough and I'll start t-t-t-t-t-ticking the f-f-f-f-first letters of my wwww-wwww-wwwww....words at the beginning of sentences. Well, you may or may not notice, but I will. 

My stuttering has been reduced to an infinitesimal fraction of its former self.

I've since spent many years as a stage actor and more recently beginning to feel my oats as a spoken word artist. I am at home and happy to be onstage in front of several hundred people. My voice is clear and strong. It doesn't take any shit or prisoners. I can whisper a fussy baby to sleep, cuss like a drunken fucking sailor in a whore house and provoke mountains to movement with prayer.

I've scared the fresh hell out of the wicked and calmed souls of the wretched with my words. Sometimes committing vice versa much to my error and subsequent self imposed brow beatings. But this is how I am learning to use this blessing and curse of this voice of mine. It is my glory and my wound. 

I stuttered and stammered as soon as I could speak. Some of my elders thought I was mentally retarded and immediately wrote me off as pathetic and damaged. Others thought I wwwwas sssstuttering on purpose to get attention. 

My parents yelled at me 'Stop stuttering! It sounds like hell!'

I got bullied and beaten up a lot. Somewhere around age 13, I had had  e-double-ee-triple-eee-fucking-enough. I started to punch the shit out of any potential bully I saw. I was a damn good little scrapper, beating the crapola out of two and three punks simultaneously. I kicked balls, gouged eyes, threw shit at people's heads and choked the snot out of any motherfucker who made fun of my sad little retarded ass sssssstuttering voice.

Also realizing at a very young age about my bisexuality on top of the speech impediment that thus presented a great immediate need to learn the manly art of fisticuffs to defend myself from the small minded and overzealous. I studied and practiced Tae Kwon Do and Judo like a ravenous vulture/scared mouse/viper engorged with bile.

It came along one day, while in the post lunch recreation area of my junior high school (where most of the fights happened) I was confronted by an assemblage of about 14 frustrated fellow youths united for the sole purpose of kicking the shit out of my retarded, sputtering, half way queer, indignant and incomprehensible ass.

For the next 20 or so minutes, I was beaten, punched, kicked, slammed, slapped, shoved, knocked to the ground and spat upon. At a couple of points, a kid or two I had never had any contact with joined into the fray. It was, after all, what the cool kids were doing at the moment. All the while a vice principal observed the entire scene from beginning to end. I kept calling for him to help me. The prick just stood there and stared. 

The school bell rang and the gang dispersed. Somehow, I got up and walked away. I have been told that I have many guardian angels and protecting spirits that surround me. I count this instance as one of many situations peppered throughout my life that I believe confirms this. 

In the days that followed, I tried to tell my parents what had happened. Their responses were words to the effect of 'Oh well, I guess you did something to make them mad' and 'why didn't you punch them in the goddamn mouth?' At that point, the solution seemed obvious.

Just stop talking.

For the next couple of years, unless I was in the company of trusted friends or it was absolutely necessary, that is exactly what I did. Any time I detoured off the foot path of silence, I was immediately sssssssorry.

Silenced mouth

clenched tongue

I forgot how to laugh

how to cry

That summer

I tried to hang myself

a thousand times

My lover

came to disdain me

Our taboo

had become 

rancid to him 

That summer

I sweltered

no chance 

of innocence

regained

I tried

pills

rope and knives

not sharp 

or swift enough

to tear this life

free 

to the abyss

where I could 

in silence

drown

I wrote

suicide notes

knowing

they would 

never

be found

Then came

the drugs

and momentary peace

masturbation ending 

in failed assassination

cries for release

The attic seemed

a good cemetery

to hide my anxious corpse

where I could die

safe and astounded

at the glorious failure

of my wasted life

Praying never 

to return

to this 

cruel 

earth 

again

Fuck you

eat shit 

and die

all of you 

my 

invisible 

friends.

I pray that no one else ever feels like I did while I was growing up, but I know a lot of kids, for their own reasons do. They need to know that they are not alone. I swear to God, the human spirit is more resilient than any of us can ever believe until we've been through hell and back. There will come a day of choice between enlightenment and bitterness. In the name of all that is holy, I pray that ye choose thee well. Too many tender souls are too young to realize this. In the name of all that is love, please share this before it is too late.

Please. 

With all my love as always and forever,

Max

Angel Unborn

1. Amber

When I turned on the light, the bedroom floor looked like a murder scene. I was convinced for an instant that God was going to take from me my wife and unborn daughter. Kelley stood quivering amidst the crimson horror and said 'I think I need to go to the hospital'.

After an exponential breaking of speed limits and traffic laws, we were met by a group nurses. Several ultrasound tests later, it was determined that an old biopsy procedure site had opened when she had her first contraction, instead of the tragedy it was first thought to be. I looked into the mirror in the maternity room and saw two long tendrils of gray hair coming from my temples that had not previously existed.

About 10 hours later, she was born. I knew in that second I would never be the same. I had just become something I always wanted to be. I was now somebody's dad and it's all of a sudden not all about me anymore. 

2. Daniel

After three false labors, he came into the world on a bitterly cold morning with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. He was not breathing and unresponsive to the midwife's slapping and pronounced chantings of ' Baby! Baby! Baby!' She said to her assistant to get the team of 'special' nurses. 

Two smiley faced women wearing smiley faced nurse smocks entered, scooped up his limp purple body and said they were 'going to take baby out of the room for a minute'.  I knew if those two bitches took him, they would quickly give up and I would never see my son alive.  

I grabbed him away, laid him on a table, held his hands, looked toward the sky, closed my eyes and I bullshit you not, I saw a light. What happened then or for how long, I have no recollection. The next memory I have is being shaken by the nurses. They were saying 'Mr Grimm, he's OK, you can let go now.' 

I looked down to see a little pink baby boy screaming his fucking head off. I held him for a minute then handed him to the nurses who checked his vital signs. He promptly urinated all over the bunch of them. My sentiments exactly. They took him over to Kelley and she held our son for the first time. I sat down next to the bed. She asked, 'What just happened?'  Later, the midwife asked 'What did you do?' To this day, I still have no answer. 

This poem is called 'Asaliah'

To my little boy

never born 

unto us 

I feel 

your angel 

tonight

Though you 

never

became

our child 

in this life

still I feel 

your light presence
and longings

to be 

my son

to be
our children’s brother

and of my true love 

she would bear

bring you forth

and love 

with a fortitude 

possessed 

only by mothers

Your first 

cry would dispel

my dark imaginings

I would become 

filled 

with a strength 

known only 

to fathers

We would raise you 

with a love

known only

to parents 

and  

name 

you 

Asaliah

an angel 

whose guidance

I cherish 

and name
I have 

always had 

a reverence.

I feel you 

close tonight 

my son
not 

holding my hand
but in a dream

I conjured 

from chaos

and distilled 

into liquid starlight

dancing on oceans

of nectar 

behind

drawn 

curtains

of my 

haunted 

eyes

and sing you 

to sleep

with hymns

from our joys

unrealized

until our souls

can do 

aught

else

but 

collide.

All my love always,

Max

A Door in the Sky

He was already halfway into the Christmas vodka by the time I walked through the door. 'Go get yourself a glass and sit down' he barked. 'I always told myself that one day you and I were going have a drink of vadker and I was going to tell you some things'.

I had heard the stories from my Mom, grandparents, aunts and uncles. I had seen the old yellow newspaper from his hometown with his picture on the front page. A 24 year old steel eyed soldier posed behind a machine gun and a waist high stack of Nazi soldier helmets. The family always spoke with glowing reverence of his single handed obliteration of a platoon of German soldiers that had planned a surprise midnight attack on the American troops.

'We're so proud of him. Your Dad is a hero. He saved the lives of all his men.'

Sergeant First Class George B. Grimm received the highest honor that can be awarded for heroism in battle without dying. I still have his silver star medal in my top dresser drawer along with the swastika and iron cross he took off a dead soldier. When we were in depositions and negotiations for his medical malpractice and wrongful death law suit, I secretly carried his silver star in my pocket. 

'First of all' he said, 'your daddy was a damn good soldier. I did what I was told. I did what I had to do.' 

He stood at his position while on solitary night watch while the rest of the troops slept. Somehow he became aware of an immediately impending attack by a German platoon. He sequestered himself beneath a bridge with as many machine guns and armaments as he could quickly gather. When the enemy forces stormed over the bridge, he let fly with a flurry and hail of gunfire unleashing a storm of blood rain upon himself from the fresh corpses of soldiers above. 

He killed every last single Nazi son of a bitch in sight all by his lonesome damn self.

Part of him never emerged from beneath that bridge, never stopped hearing echos of gunfire, never came clean from the bloodshed, never awoke from the night terror. 

Nearly four decades after that night, as we pounded down shot upon shot of vodka, he finished telling me his story. It was the first time I ever saw my father cry. I tried to put my arm around him but he told me to sit back down. We sat across the table for what seemed forever while he repeated 'your daddy was a good soldier, your daddy was a good soldier, your daddy was a good soldier......'

A Door in the Sky

The fragility of children 

transcends space and time

trickles through pores

on the surface

of the grid work of his skin

surrounding his face. 

Immemorial legions of bastards 

drawn to his bedside

to bask in the sun

as his father

calls him back home. 

The light of his day

was preceded with glory. 

His family sat round

trading stories over coffee

cakes and regressions

led to tears

soaking the bread of communion

shared at his dining room table. 

The lamp overhead

was the only light artificial

in this room full of angels

ancestors and souls

of those he had loved

and loved him in return. 

The lives he took

on the battlefield returned

and offered forgiveness

for his unchosen tasks. 

The light overhead came closer. 

We witnessed stillness and haste

in its approach. 

Then God as a man

rose up and proclaimed

his innocence had returned 

and he shared it with those

present and otherwise. 

He kissed us goodbye

one final time

as he ascended and climbed

through a door in the sky. 

All my love always,

Max

PS. If I have one prayer right now, it is that Dad is looking over my shoulder as I write this and saying 'You told it right, kid. You told it right.'

Christmas Prayer 2011

This is Christmas. Hopefully we've all got turkeys to stuff and presents to unwrap, so let's get right to the goddamn point. 

Jesus

is a metaphor

for compassion

Ignorance

is a sin 

against God 

Intolerance

is the spear

that impaled him

Stigmata

is the tears

of  a lynched niggers

bashed faggots

exterminated Jews

burned witches

flogged Christians

family

The tree

of crucifixion

coarse rope

and duct tape

binding and silencing

forever the others

will be the scourge

of this earth

and death 

beyond

reincarnation 

vortex

of our species

The fence

upon which Matthew

was tortured

left to die

is the cross

all Faggot

Nigger

X-tian

Jew

Kike

Heathen

Mohammedan 

cocksucking

towel heads

like us

must bear

when evil

is left

unattended

and ignorance

uneducated

Buddha

is a homily

for what we must strive

against

and aspire to be

Hate

is our cancer

Compassion

our scalpel

Choose ye well

and teach your children

accordingly

This is my prayer.

Fuck your parades. This is Christmas. There is no time left to lose. 

Peace,

Max

Miami Poems Part II (Irresponsible Sex Acts)

The politics of sex can evoke a battle of biblical proportion. It is as old and eternal as the sky. If we are to survive, the precoitial wranglings seem to be a necessary evil for some star crossed lovers. What brings us to a conjunction of bliss can be preceded and followed by tangles of bargaining and negotiations like so many lawyers enmeshed in the art of war, haggling over who gets the larger share of mother's ashes. 

In my formative years, we were an uninformed and reckless bunch of idiots. Hobbling around with pants around our ankles, schtupping in the back seats of cars, fire escapes, forests, movie theatres, back booths of night clubs and the occasional bed. 

We had never heard of HIV and only occasionally used protection. It was, after all, Miami Florida in the 1970s. Cocaine was thought to be as harmless and addictive as beer and possession of some exponentially increased your chances of being on the receiving end of oral sex.  

We danced and drank vodka gimlets, scoping each other out across the mirror balled, strobe lit expanses. Swaggering and swishing, acting uninterested and pantomiming alpha sexual superiority. While concealing secretly moistened panties and insecurities temporarily abated by tattooing another conquest onto our genitals. Sometimes never knowing their name and not caring about anything but the cycles of the game. Stalk, chase, kill, run, stalk, chase, kill, run, stalk, chase, kill, run from one bed to the next to the next to the next. 

This poem is called...

Kisses Drop Like Diamonds...

Last Friday night

was a total disgrace

with my freshly tanned ass

and the egg on my face

Rubber hoses on my thighs

left a horrible sight

and those hip boots

were sadomasachistically tight

All the running and screaming

were to no avail

when that silver studded porcupine

crawled up my wanton tail

Without a stiff drink

or so much as a whisper

all his passion was hung

from her creamy dripping lipstick

at the click of a half cocked gun

The police and guards

decided not to dance

at the apostolic wonder

instead to boil at the lance

My prissy hearted missy

took it up the big wazoo

when the primal hearted preacher

refused to acknowledge

how much he liked it too

Suffering cats in champagne vats

are soused up to their whiskers

so my pretty pussy took a holiday

to reconvene with all her sisters

They’re scheming and plotting

those harpy bitch-like shrews

sequestered and sharpening their heels

and think we haven’t got a clue

But I know their evil plan

I’ve got wind of their wicked scheme

It was scrawled upon the men’s’ room wall

in the toilet of my dream

It said we must die slowly

but it doesn’t tell how long

the raven will be descending

with the furor of King Kong

It’s got the face of Elizabeth Taylor

but with Bela Lagosi’s bite

and it comes to direct from hell

starting next Friday night

It will claim to be a lover

but all it does is fight

this screaming senorita

with much panache and class

I spy from the corner of my eye

and slap a padlock on my ass

because I know the heat she’s packing

and she’s not seeing mine

until kisses drop like diamonds

into the lipstick of my wine.

and so it was,

Max

PS. I'm not a damn bit proud of this part of my history. I'm also certainly not ashamed either. My footsteps, no matter how foolish have led me to where I am today. I have, as the song says 'looked at life from both sides now'. At this point in my life, I thank God constantly for my wife. I prayed every day for the love of my life to appear. Twenty four years and two beautiful children later, they are still here with me. At the risk of redundancy, I'll say again, the right prayers get answered. Time is a wonderful thing. It makes me realize what is of true value and what is a bunch of bullshit, how short is our allotment of life and the eternality of the human spirit when conjoined with true love. The combination of the two make our species invincible. Whether we have ever met or not, I wish no less for you. Life is too short to not know love. It is what makes us human. It is what makes us divine. From my lips to God's ear. Amen.

All my love, always and forever.

Max

The Miami Poems

Make no mistake, Lucy was not to be fucked with. It made no difference that she was barely five feet tall, skinny as a pipe cleaner, a small parrot constantly perched on her shoulder, sweet faced young Latina behind the counter of the store where I used to pick up my nightly pack of cigarettes. God help you if you got on the bad side of this woman. You would be on the bitch slap end of a front snap kick to the the ball sack and an elbow strike to the thorax. While you lay on the ground sputtering, gurgling and wondering what the fuck just happened, Lucy would be strapping on her golf cleats, preparing to climb up your ass to do a Mexican hat dance all around the inside of your rectum. Thus it was too bad for the unaware big stupid oaf wearing a Megadeth T shirt and executioners hood, carrying a machete who tried to rob the store during Lucy's shift. 'I got in that motherfucker's face and told him to get the fuck out of my store before I fucked his fat ass up!' Apparently, the boy wised up and did just that. 

That was classic Lucy and God, I loved her. She was one of my favorite characters from that distant time and place. One of an array of personalities colorful and divergent as a rainbow in the middle of a typhoon at midnight while a whole city burns to the fucking ground. There is no place on earth like the perverse stage where people parade around in full lunatic regalia like Miami, Florida. 

For better and worse, I spent 28 years living in a place that has been described by journalist, novelist and screen writer Carl Hiaasen as a '24 hour freak show' and once was voted 'Rudest City in America'. I was raised, went to school, came of age, got married and had our first child in that hallucinogenic fever dream of a city. I was there for the Haitian boat lifts, the McDuffie riots, the cocaine cowboys, the plight and futile anger of Cuban refugees, any amount of crackpot politicians, serial killers, gay bashing street punks and ethnic gang wars, the murder of Gianni Versace and Hurricane Andrew, oh sweet suffering Jesus Christ almighty, Hurricane fucking Andrew. 

There are some dark corners beneath that tropical paradise festooned with beautifully vapid swimsuit models that house and nurture horribly violent crime and unspeakable evil perpetrated by sadly twisted sacks of humanity who leave a trail of atrocity and abomination in their wake.

All of this however makes for wonderful fuel and fodder for a writer.

In perusing all my years of journals full of poetry, I have found numerous pieces that could be grouped into a category called 'The Miami Poems'. The piece that follows is one of them. It is a composite poem based on the following two people, the first of which is someone who worked at the same store as my brass balled friend and sometimes object of lust Lucy.  

1. I never did catch his name but I knew him as the fellow with a near obsession with the band Joy Division and haunted by the suicide of their lead singer Ian Curtis. He would be playing a cassette of the (to me, annoying piece of monotone whiny 80s euro-pop crapola) song 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' incessantly from his boom box behind the counter. He would passionately talk to me about the band and how forlorn he was at the loss of their singer. He said, with jagged electric static timbre in his voice 'man, their music talks about my life, man'. He was always happy to see me, I suppose because I would listen to him and stay with his protracted conversations even though it got uncomfortable as hell sometimes.  

One night, while making my usual stop to offer alms at the altar of the great God nicotine, I found the store surrounded by yellow police tape and many squad cars with flashing blue beacons forming a barricade in the parking lot surrounding many dozens of uniformed officers scurrying about. 

The next night, all was quiet. I went in and asked the owner what had happened on the previous evening. It seems my nameless friend had earlier in the day before, stabbed his grandmother and four year old brother to death with a screwdriver and fled to the store to hide in the back room. 

A post script to this story; I've long since quit smoking.

2. He was a burglar alarm installer, part time gun merchant, bottle of scotch a day drinker, night club hypnotist, survivalist who liked to be called 'Big Bad John' and he was for a short time, my boss. In his living room sat five loaded AK-47s by the front door, many pistols on his coffee table, stacks of cases containing canned food, water and toilet paper along the walls, behind the sofa, on the book shelves and around the TV. He often said 'When the state of anarchy breaks out, I want to be prepared'. He offered us other pearls of wisdom such as, 'Screw the government every chance you get' and 'I don't need to give you a retirement account. You need to invest part of your paycheck in lottery tickets'. I came to discover he was being watched by the feds as well as the local po-po. At which point, joblessness looked pretty damn sweet.

I have to hand it to these two guys. Because If anything can be learned from Jim Carrey's performance in 'Ace Ventura, Pet Detective' (coincidentally, filmed in Miami) if you're going to go bat shit crazy, don't be half assed about it. 

This poem is called '....all I’m saying....'

The depth of this hill

is as steep as its climb

In the silence of sex

lies the stillness of time

While lusting for death

seductions of crime

danced on the brain

and chewed at the liver

clouding the eyes

and made the corpse quiver

Ink spots that fell

on the carpet remain

her precious boy’s blood

would rush down the drain

‘Policemen are fools

who ransack and rape’ 

he said at confession

that was recorded on tape

The news would proclaim

‘This boy had gone mad

a quick lustful fix

killed the chances he had’

White trash from Florida

is invading our city

it’s an abortion our taxes

must pay for this pity

I’ll lock up my daughter

I’ll chain up my wife

I’ll shoot the son of a bitch

who tries to fuck up my life

In my fort of canned goods

toilet paper and ammo

we’ll be safe as the God

that sits up on high

while the rest of you cannibals

eat shit and die

The streets are not safe

for folk like me 

and you don’t watch your step

I’ll go hide in a tree

and hose your ass off

with an Uzi

if you step in my yard

because I watch the news

and it scares me

to know there are people out there

like that and like you

who threaten my world

my church and my life

and if you think I’m paranoid

thank my fourth wife

She’s under the floor boards

in plastic and mud

if you pigs want more evidence

go wade through the crud

The last time I killed her

was the last time I saw her

and that’s all I’m saying

until I speak to my lawyer.

Stay safe kids, all my love,

Max