Who Is Sheila?

"Who am I?"

It was a question she'd only murmured to herself up to this point in life. A wrong answer could mean an annihilating ruin, cast into the deepest depths of hell. So best not to know.

But why now, at 57, as she's getting ready with her morning makeup, dabbing and brushing, seeing her face in the mirror same as a thousand times before, did this question burst forth?

Perhaps one can only hold one's secrets in for so long. Shame she didn't die before this question came to the fore. She could have pulled off the perfect crime.

Sheila the Hidden Housewife had mastered her role as the dutiful wife, loving mother, and - most of all - fierce protector of her way-of-life. So fierce, in fact, she'd killed to protect it.

Murder weighs on one's mind and only gets heavier over time.

Perhaps that also explained her recent nightmares of entrapped suffocation, eternally drowning in horror.

The art of successfully living a lie is in one's dedication. Oh, the bitterness she swallows on a daily basis, grinding her into tormented rage.

Just make it stop!! Someone make it stop! This can't go on!

And, yet, it does. Certainly a question is in order with such a dilemma.

"Who am I?"

Her previous answers of "Nobody" wouldn't suffice this time. But if she were something or somebody that would mean she'd spent a lifetime in self-betrayal. A 'nobody' does what is expected and the world applauds. That had become the center of her life.

The murder of her love had been a necessary evil, she reasoned. After all, worldly approval is all a 'nobody' has to live for. Only if she's 'somebody' would it be a crime.

An old and cold fate awaits her the rest of her remaining days. She'd made sure her world is locked tight where no one can get in to speak unwanted words - which also means no way out.

"Confess!"

Nooo, you idiot! NEVER do that. You'll die on the streets alone and unforgiven. You'll die with your lies in a snake filled pit, hated by any who see you!

Yet she must come clean somehow. Even set for life with her millions she raged against imaginary foes who wished to destroy her. They were the reason she has no future.

Yes, her Bible told her she must be a clean spirit. But not now. Maybe tomorrow.

My Name Is...

Saint Petersburg is the historic soul of Russian culture with her grand architecture and exquisite art. Inside one of these buildings filled with connecting grand ballrooms had gathered dignitaries of the criminal elite (i.e. the mob and government officials), agents who conducted the business of state wielding power in an infinite state of internecine conflict.

In dresses unfamiliar to their wearers were women who monitored from the edges of the rooms: the order of Savaged Souls. Peasant women plucked from rural villages traditionally brutalized by the state, left to starve and fend for themselves as their crops and livestock were plundered by city dwellers throughout Russian history.

With no way to fight back, they turned on each other, maiming and disfiguring in heated hate, crippled for life. From such places were these woman recruited.

Part of their training was gang rape from troops conscripted for war (conscripts are pulled from rural areas to keep the city elites on board with the Ukrainian war.). The soldiers took their anger out on these women until the eyes of the women flickered with life no more. From this point on, their only mission in life is to kill men - a very useful tool for the state.

A few of the Savaged Souls mingled with party-goers, missing nothing and no one, in communication with their stationary partners along the edge. Each possessed a hidden blade hungry for sanctioned blood. Trained and inbred with these knives, the women were impossible to disarm. Only death can stop the cutting.

An Intruder was at this party. He too is stopped only be death. Though his mouth betrayed a certain cruelty of decision, his eyes were alive - that was his edge. But he was just the sort of person for whom the Savaged Souls were seeking.

For the Intruder the women posed a problem. Inept pot-bellied military generals - the only kind Russia allows to stay alive lest they become too popular for the president czar's comfort - had been compromised by the Intruder who now needed a way out. But there was no fooling the deep dark ethnic eyes upon him. He'd been spotted.

That's when the lights went out.

Screams and gasps of resigned fear echoed within. A killing time had come.

One terrorized voice wailed. "My name is Igorian Petrovitch! I am protected member of the syndicate!"

"Oh, shut up, Igorian. There's nothing to be done now," replied a weary older voice.

But others cried out their names hoping their station and political connections would protect them.

Like hissing snakes the assassins slithered through the rooms seeking the Intruder. A heavy air of despair silenced the room in diminishing murmur. Only the rustling of the women's formal attire could be heard.

The gig was up. Deception is no protection this time. This must be faced head on.

"My name," stated an unapologetic voice with singular clarity, "is BOND."

Motel No-Tell On Planet Hell

It was like a nightmare from which I could not wake at the Motel No-Tell.

First I hear the grunting of a large nude black man with a gorilla mask over his head. Behind him is a well-suited white man with CEO PRICK printed on his back as he deeply penetrates gorilla guy. As he finishes, the black man angrily confronts the courtyard and yells, "Next!"

On a far wall a man is singing and wailing his one hit wonder, rabidly hitting his head against the bricks because he'll "never have that love again."

In the middle of the yard a man was being kicked and beaten in tormented desire - or as they called it: Tongue Fu fighting. The beaten man struggled to his feet crying, "Who didn't hit me?? I know someone didn't hit me!"

A man in a white robe was identified as the non-hitter. The Beaten Man was livid to his core. "Kill him! Kill him NOW!"

"Now you will pay for not hitting!"

The fighters proceeded to murder him in the worst way possible and when someone asked Beaten Man why he rationalized, "Because he's not like us and will betray us. But after he's safely dead we'll declare him a savior who died for our sins making us saved. Brilliant, huh?"

Along the perimeter I noticed a string of explosives. A group of children was placing detonators in them. "They think we don't know what's going on but we do and we're going to blow this place back to hell!"

One man panicked as he noticed the impending doom planned by the children. "Hey, look, we'll be blown up if we don't do something!"

The CEO barked, "Shut up! I'm busy!" The Tongue Fu fighters laughed, "We don't have to care. We are saved!" The head banging zombie singer slurred, "It sounds like a hit!"

Although with only a few minutes left to spare, the motley crew assembled for a press conference. Gorilla man put on his judge's robes. The CEO proudly displayed his instrument of profitable rape. The fighters put on their priestly collars. Dead head crooner exalted in an audience at last.

The judge declared the white-robed man's murder to be "absolutely legal - no appeal!" The priests displayed their bloody faces saying, "We've been persecuted for our sins!" One Hit Wonder guy confidently proclaimed the constant banging of his head against the wall "has finally fixed me! Everything seems great!"

Those were the final words spoken before the great blast which I heard as I myself was fleeing far into the desert. The explosion left no stone in place. In front of me was a sign designed to enlighten me: "Desert = death! Do not enter!"

CODA: Later I was banned from MSNBC's Morning Joe for insinuating Supreme Court Justice Uncle Tom Thomas was regularly sodomized by a real estate CEO who'd inherited all his wealth. Sorry, not sorry. Got to call them as I see them.

Forget What You Know

When the police give a lie detector test, they start with a few innocuous questions to measure your reaction.

"Place of birth?"

"I can't answer that."

"Sir, this is not a game."

"You'll be upset. I could tell you and you still wouldn't know."

"Just answer the question."

"The Dog Star, as you call it. Sirius."

The two detectives and the man running the lie detector sighed at one another.

"I can't accept that as an answer."

"Does it show as a lie?"

"I need an honest answer to set an honest baseline."

"I gave you one."

The tall detective spoke up. "You're from another planet? That's your story."

"Not everything is as it appears. Forget what you know."

The men queried each others' faces.

"You're going to sit in that chair until you answer truthfully."

"No, I'm not going to sit in this chair unless you can prove I'm lying."

"Look, pal," said the short detective. "I don't care what kind of game you're playing, we won't stand for this."

"Your game. Your rules. I'm following them, you're not. No way I can stay in this chair if you don't accept the truth."

"Is that right? You going to zap us with a ray gun?"

"There are no weapons in space. That would be complete insanity, like devising something to blow my own arm off."

"How convenient: 'no weapons in space.'"

"There's a structure to the universe you clearly do not understand."

"Well, buddy, I'll tell you what I do understand -"

"Your violence speaks for itself. You are at war with yourself, you can see it in your eyes. Once you move beyond that, the universe will pour forth, simple as that."

"We're not interested in the universe, only our investigation."

"Th universe is your investigation. Open your eyes! You're crying out for it, pleading for hope and an everlasting way to life."

"If you keep refusing to cooperate we can only infer the worst."

"Infer as you please. I have not spoken falsely. Search within and ask yourselves. Determine for yourself what is right and what is wrong. Anything else is a betrayal."

"How is it we can make you understand we don't care about the universe??"

"You might as well say you're not interested in breathing - while you do exactly that!"

"OK, I've had enough of this. But I'm going to get this much on the record: you know so much, tell us just what the universe is."

"You already know."

A murderous silence entered the room. Up and down reversed. The three inquisitors instinctively felt the urge to kill. The angriest of them exploded.

"I can tell you one thing! I can tell you what the universe is NOT! It's not LOVE!!"

The Battle Within (Here But Not Here)

The butter was melting and the popcorn was popping as Jamison waited on my living room couch. It's not often I get to inflict my Asian passion on someone. Today he was going to meet one of the all time great film characters: the blind swordsman Zatoichi.

I was hoping to provide something I rarely got during my own homeless bouts: a reprieve from the constant bombardment of scorn and soulless judgments. It felt almost too good to be true, that somehow God was slipping up to let this slide through the net of daily torment.

And I wasn't being completely selfish: Jamison already loved samurai films.

I put the popcorn down in front of him when:

"Man, I can't do this. I gotta go."

I knew that disturbed, lost tone - I've used it myself. But I had to say something.

"Dude, you're homeless! Where you gotta go?"

"I just do. Got too much on my mind."

2024

Into the woods I go. Briskly, then faster. Possessed.

 Am I running to something or from something?

Whichever it is it is getting worse.

In madness I rush, branches slashing me, time slipping away.

Then it catches me

"Help!"

"HELP!

"H-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-L-P!"

She is gone

I can't go on

Time to sigh

Time to cry

Time to die

Spin No More

I was dead-ending my way down the
crumbling concrete
of the side streets of my apartment cell
wandering and wondering
how to live up to the life narrative
I'd constructed so not to
spoil my script
as I peered a poverty stricken fellow
with his head stuck under the hood of his
misbegotten jalopy
under a searing sun
with only a hint of sky boiling we in the
immaterial world
with the lost pity of eyes spying ants vialed in
endless labors
when in sudden final exasperation
a twinkling surrender unleashes a universe of
uncried tears
whose pull halts the earth causing it to
spin no more

Waiting In Time Before Time

After a lifetime of despair, I collapse on my front lawn. As my head hits the green Spring grass, I remember how I got here: trust no one.

I realize I trust no one because I don't trust me.

As birds sing out to each other I spy two insects exactly alike only one has small pieces of purple and gold draped on him as if they were a hat and a robe.

The draped one is giving absolution to the second one and I think: "How can one insect give absolution to another?"

Neighbor across the street comes out to check his mail. His face is bloodied and one eye injured and patched. It was from his auto-feeding cyber fork. He need only sit there and food is delivered to his mouth.

Only its aim is not too good and it is possible he could lose that eye. "But isn't it cool!" he pleads, begging for belief.

Two brazenly blonde girls of rich man's loins stroll down the street. Too late they see me splayed in green demise and proselytize that all their blessings "flow from God."

I sigh, "No one who believes that says that." I don't know if they heard me.

Johnny "Ten Toes" (Don't ask. He just wanted a nickname) pulls excitedly into his driveway. He gets out and exclaims, "Don't just be smart, be Wal-Smart!"

People wander over to see a giant "W" branded onto his forehead. Johnny explains he's getting a commission for the disfigurement.

"That's a pretty smart whore!" assume many in the horde.

A loudspeaker from a pickup truck blares around the corner. In the back is a frail man propped up by stiff dried lizards who used to be men. A sign says, "STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD!"

He's known as the Great Deceiver and as such those who can still move (unlike me) gather around. I hear a woman say, "Only the deceitful tell the truth. Everyone else is a sucker."

Enraptured, they follow him to a nearby cliff of fatality to flap their arms and fly. An Earnest Man tries to stop them. "Verily I say unto you: Do not go off this cliff or you will die!"

"Now that we shut him up we can be free and fly!"

The Earnest Man is duly crucified as a power-mad controller bent on preventing their flight to salvation. The Great Deceiver lashes out.

"What is this 'Gravity'? Show from where it comes. If it cannot be explained it must not be true!"

But as the first one falls screaming to his death, the next in line proclaims with pride, "I hereby double-down!"

As does each that follows. His mission fulfilled, the Deceiver continued on his rampage across the land.

Atop a hill afar with the setting sun glowing behind it, I see a raven-haired girl lost in mystic Spanish sorrow cry tears of gold.

A dream meant to be she does not see, slipped forever in time.

"We haven't had that spirit here since 1969."

Dying Of The Lies

Oh, the sins of a lonely soul.

I agreed to go to church with my friend because I had nowhere else to go and did not want anyone to know that.

The sermon was titled "Lonely Is The Liar" and all sorts of things went through my head, as if it were directed at me. Is this why I was invited?

I drastically wanted to get up and walk out but that would have been social suicide. But to my final regret it was just the opposite...

After the service of a thousand years I was finally free. My friend said we could go out the back way and avoid meeting the priest. Was my friend ashamed of me? Or was my friend ashamed for inviting me under false pretenses? Lonely is the liar.

Either way I did want out with as little exposure as possible.

We descended through the basement where the church artifacts are kept. It was like a huge labyrinth of crisscrossing stairways and light was sparse. I felt we'd stepped back into medieval times

I blindly followed my friend but we soon got lost. We heard a rustling noise down the end of one of the countless hallways to find a doorway with a privacy ribbon across it.

It was the priest's quarters! He was masturbating in the bathroom. So we frantically turned our back on that way out.

It's holy when he does it!

Places after that got mustier and dustier. There were a bunch of old robes laying about on a stairway leading up. My friend felt sure that was the way but I was exhausted and decided to stay back for a bit.

I never saw my friend again. No trace anywhere, as if fallen into an abyss. Now what??

I remembered Rambo stuck in a cave using a torch to detect air flowing out. I gathered the old robes and wrapped them on a cross, setting them aflame. I'd worry about the blasphemy later.

To my shock it actually worked as I came to an out-of-use entryway with broken glass in the doors. I could see the outside at last!

Then dozens of sheriff's cars came screeching up and deputies with guns drawn came pouring out. Someone yelled, "Shoot the fucker!"

Had I triggered an alarm? Even if it wasn't me they were intent on shooting I didn't want to be caught in the crossfire. We all know how cops fantasize about shooting people.

I stumbled back down the stairs back into the dark passageways, my torch burning out. There was no going back. Or forward.

How did I even get here?? Oh, God, what can I do?

I could have just left during the service when I wanted to and avoided this nightmare! Why do I always think it's wrong to do what I want? I have a right to my feelings! I was terrified of not sparing others' feelings. I must face up! Dishonesty was my downfall. Now I die alone in the dark, knowing what I need to know too late.

Silent darkness engulfs me. I deem myself unlovable and deserving to die, so why even try?

Then, like a miracle, I heard a woman's voice calling out my name, pleading for me, like I'd always wanted to hear. Her voice echoed through the chambers.

No way could I let her see me like this, to know what a lying cowardly idiot I've been! I'll find her when I get out so she can see me in my best light!

But I did so want to cry out, every instinct and desire in my body yearned for her. A little voice kept asking, "Why am I staying silent?"

It's only when her voice stopped did I realize my horror: there is no reason for silence. Eternally too late, I called back until my voice gives out but the chance I thought would always be there is gone forever.

I was going to only let her see me after I got out but she was the way out.

We're all looking for something to live for and to die for. I crumple down in final despair. For my lies I do die but there was no reason why.

If you cling to your life, you will lose it.
But if you let your life go, you will save it.

Sureeling In The Years

Peering mirages through a Dali Impossible Desert I see masses of purposeless people...leading is a hero complex, a Man Without Purpose..."Now we have purpose!" they chant in follow accord...the Man Without Purpose - defiant to his ending - heads them to cliffs where buffalo were once driven...I ask a passing woman why she chants as such. "I'm not chanting, you idiot's idiot! I hate chanters a-chanting!"...none noticed me but all felt fear, eyes woefully shut to draw worth from the Man Without Purpose...one follow-man reads my thoughts. "Do not tell us what you see," he insists with stubborn pitchfork. "An open eye destroys faithless hope."

A smokey line in the not so distance took me to a city on mountain high. A house of refined fineness burned as a man with robotic smile stood proudly by out front...when I remarked on his flaming dilemma he shook my hand with both hands imploring, "I thank you for your concern. You're a good man."...then he gave a wink to deport myself. "I hope you'll say as much of me someday."...that seemed a curious profit as I reached the edge of the orderly block a wind blowing in a far away voice cried: "We're the city on the hill! The best there's never been!"

In the city square, every building has a steeple, stores and temples alike, the banks tallest of all...a man in a fiery fast car to be envied screeched up beside me...his Contorted Face turns to me to explain, "Suburban urban pain is the worst!"...then he twisted-turned forward-backward to the rear view mirror. "The dream trapped forever within."...as he reversed back to where he'd run from in Sisyphean defeat

Loosened Children mobbed me as coal mine canaries.
"We're in trouble!" "We're in trouble!" "We're in trouble!" "We're in trouble!" "We're in trouble!"
I suffered to ask why.
"It's our parents!" "It's our parents!" "It's our parents!" "It's our parents!" "It's our parents!"
"Do you want to take me to them?"
They silenced in deafening disappointment. "Oh, no," they rejected in unison. "It's so hard raising parents nowadays," their furrowed brows sighed. "They just won't listen."

A Singled Mother accompanied by hungry mouths to plead of her own making asked me, "Food, please, food."...I informed her I had no food..."Then where can we get what truly we are owed as fellows beings?"..."From those who have food?"..."No, that would be wrong. They told us so."..."They told you wrong."..."I'm not one to think unpleasant thoughts of others."..."But you just said it's a human right!"..."I'm only moral when disconnected."...thus she pleasantly starved in the land of plenty

Storming towards me with panther lust eyeing fresh meat was a Man Undisputed..."I'm angry! Angry, I tell you! This insanity must stop or it will be the end of all of us!"..."I would not dispute that."..."Of course not! I'm a man of the season of reason. Once I have the Final Answer we'll be saved! So betray me please with an answer."..."Love?"..."Love! Never love. I do know what the answer is not!"..."If you didn't know what you not know then you'd know what you do know."...he quizzed his head for a lost moment. "I know I want to be angry."

My eyes turned to the night sky where I swam among star dreams dancing in the infinity of a future already passed, singing songs of boundless joy with knowledge of light both known and unknown causing me to lift my arms in released delight, at last.

Then a Mob Of Politic Saviors spots me as they'd been Jacobin informed by the Man Undisputed of my certain lunacy. "You fool! We found the answer: Magic Rocks. Rocks is all you need! We had them implanted in our Elongated head. Come with us to Impossible Desert. In the sand an unmade man will save us/you/all!"...as I stared at the loveless eyes boring me I knew I had finally come full encirclement.

Billion Ways To Be A Bum

Me unfunded

Some of the crowd I used to run with call me "Howard Hughes" now. But they are gone for a reason, living only in the corner of my eye. Can a bum have real friends anyway?

I scrape by day after day, staying mentally intoxicated; living inside my head where I can make true things untrue - and untrue things true.

I've got nowhere to go, floating in the vacuum of space, grasping on emptiness. Any scrap of life I do find is immediately used as fuel for my lying mind. With a billion dollars (1.2) at my disposal I technically can do anything I want. So why do I feel so trapped?

I'm just like the wino who funnels every cent he finds to stay in his bottle. Put a wino in a penthouse and that's me.

I hide in esoteric mania on Mercury and Mars, where any truth I find remains unknown to this world. Do you know how disorienting it is to see the stars from a different planet? With all reference points lost, one is wholly at the mercy of one's thoughts.

An even bigger wino than me

Dying alone isn't much of a plan. I searched every goddam crook and crevice but cliche as it is, only love is real. Maybe it's only me but I can't find a way around it. There's no end game to anything else, only a series of dead ends.

I read where it would cost 250 million to air condition Texas prisons. Last summer here in Dallas was excruciating so that headline stuck out to me. I could write a check to cover that cost.

But it's not money that's holding them back as much as being possessed with crucifying Jesus. That's where the real battle would be, on the spiritual plane.

How's a wino going to win that fight? Especially when the truth does not suffice. I would need help.

What's to be done? (Probably what every wino says)