“Woolly-Toothed Madness” photograph courtesy K. Hayes 2019

“Floating Around On The Breeze”

Sometimes it takes forever when waiting around for growth.

Gradual, gradient, gratification.

Leather razor strops hang loosely from barber chairs.

Waiting to realign bent metal.

Taking it almost as far as it has ever gone,

Then cocooned,

And, brought forth into a new reality.

Shiny for a time.

Until, the patience required allows for another collection of potential.

“Jalopy”

Jalopy: a favorite word of mine.

My childhood ranged a series of jalopies.

Somehow, my Father scraped enough together to get a used Ford Capri.

This being the family car from 1980-1983.

Bucket seats, knobs, leather.

A tapedeck that played a “Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits” album, ad infinitum.

An air freshener that smelled of magic, and freshness.

Having a jalopy, unburdened my maternal Uncle Kevin;

Because we did not ask him to borrow his Plymouth Valiant to go to the “Clownie House”.

The “Clownie House” is where we would go for respite and sustenance after picking up  my Maternal Grandmother from her Saturday job at Jordan Marsh in Framingham.

Peanut shells cast about on the floor, an allergists nightmare.

A big screen displayed playing old time movies.

Beef hot dogs with french fries.

A real family restaurant.

Those in New England will remember it as “The Ground Round”, not the “Clownie House”.

But, that’s what we called it.

Saturdays were the best days.

Trips outside of our second floor apartment.

When weather permitted, windows down.

Hair blowing in the magnificent breeze,

Music playing.

Trusting that no matter where we went, our Father knew how to get there,

And, would always get us home.

Sometimes with bundles of food.

Errands.

Family.

Squeezed into a jalopy and ready for whatever came to us.

I really love that word.

Jalopy.

“The Kind Of Tired…”

Not forty winks, but thirty-nine.

Laboring under the dream demons.

Sleep wake walking.

Terror beware.

Bump, goes sounds in the night.

Industrious mice or silverfish,

A spider defining territory.

A groggy stumble to the bathroom.

Pee symphony dancing on the porcelain waves.

Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary!

Sleep paralysis.

There is someone in the room.

I can’t hear them.

But, I know they’re there.

Kevlar blankets for protection?

Not forty winks, but thirty-nine.

If you’re in the neighborhood on Friday, September, 20; consider coming by the next installment of “Dint Forget Your Art!”

There is a strong rumor that I will be given a microphone.

“Absentia Dementia”

Absorbing projected fear,

Living without cessation of confusion.

Where do I begin to end?

Hapless, upon the stardust strewn between distant,

Distant;

Stars.

Astronomical units.

The greatest expanse.

Someone can hear you scream in space.

If you scream loud enough.

“The Cave” ©️C.P. Hickey 2019

“The Cave”

expanse of black inviting

not a way in, but out

a need to hide from the rabble insists

forever spelunking

necessary to avoid the plague of society

coping through omission

drab denizens make safe harbor

there, but only one way in

toward the ill

the cave is not an allegory

simply a delusion

“Tired Eyes”

Spitting lines,

Friday Orange line.

Don’t give a fetty farthing of a fuck,

that you past your prime.

Born of a history,

Not the fault of your misery.

I don’t owe you.

So step off my face.

You ain’t getting shit.

We both born of misery.

I just never learned to dwell there.

Your resume,

bullet points of pity.

You ain’t nothing but a collective rage,

Expecting a payday.

Diffident gods and fate,

Absent.

Wheels in motion,

Tear- filled ocean.

No fucks left to give.

“Swiss Cheese”

My Dad adored Swiss Cheese.

On hot summer nights,

He would stand in his briefs,

In the darkened kitchen.

Sifting through the sparse contents of a poor family’s fridge.

Determine what was good,

And what had spoiled.

Lighting the second floor apartment from a singular point.

All that cast their view up to our windows,

Saw a silhouette of hunger dancing across drawn window shades.

Shades that moved minimally in the remnants of the minimal Mystic River breeze.

And there, the search continued until the old man arrived at the clandestine deli drawer.

Here the treasure of treasures could be found.

Of an international flair,

At least nominally.

Swiss Cheese produced satiety.

Crinkling plastic wrappers,

Keeping a wolf at bay.

Temporarily.

The sweaty gorge eventually began.

Eating each slice,

At first tenderly,

But, then tearing and jamming.

Witnessing such intimacy between a man and his food was memorable.

If a childhood could be measured and was stretched from samples of Swiss Cheese, to cinnamon-sugared toast, to lazy-man’s lasagna served from a black speckled roasting pan;

Then childhood was a feast.

My Dad adored Swiss Cheese.

And, it turns out…

So do I.