photo by hungrybison
Filed under micro stories, original photography, original writing, Outlaw poetry, poem
Shit, showered, and shaved by 8;
photo by hungrybison
I reach Havana airport by 10.
A coffee, two aspirin, and a body search later,
I await for the exodus.
1pm flight delayed,
3 pm,
4pm,
5:30,
take off now at 6,
exactly one hour after my connecting flight from Miami to Vancouver is scheduled to depart.
“Come back tomorrow, you can’t book onto another flight tonight.”
I unloaded only one,
one barrel,
on the woman,
and all of a sudden
I had a seat to The States,
on another plane.
Loaded onto a bus like a fleeing refugee,
I’m transported across busted tarmac to a small rundown building,
to wait in an unventilated room with a broken air conditioner hanging lifeless in a window.
An hour passes,
I’m told to go outside,
into the damp Cuban heat,
to wait in line,
to get onto another bus,
to go back to the building where I originally came from,
so I could stand in another fucking line,
to sit in another waiting room,
to board a plane that is now an hour late.
Finally I’m on board a plane,
vintage 1954,
and looking every year its age,
Got to make my way across The Gulf of Mexico in this thing.
After landing in Florida,
I rush off the plane to avoid the usual long lines that precede yet another inquisition.
I am told to go to an area where they will be checking for plant life,
drugs,
and other shit you’re not supposed bring into America.
I guess this is where they will locate the Cuban cigars I am trying to smuggle.
Cleared?,
No shit?,
Maybe God is looking after me.
After booking another flight to Vancouver,
I fall into a taxi to take me to a hotel.
Salsa music,
the stench of marijuana,
and the smell of Old Spice fill the car.
The dimly lit dashboard accentuates a yellow haze,
which will not dissipate despite the rush of air from my open window.
Grime fills my pores,
my teeth feel gritty,
I’m in desperate need of a shower and sleep.
No vacancy,
next hotel same thing,
repeat four more times.
Finally, a bed at the Holiday Inn.
Fresh sheets in the “land of the free”
for the truly fucked.
On his twelfth birthday,
photo by hungrybison
in a damp wind,
under swollen clouds,
and magpie calls,
an innocent universe faded away
sharply,
accompanied by the sound
of steel striking wood.
Tears streaming down a young man’s face,
they refused to fall.
Headless,
they continued running.
A diamondback rattler,
photo by hungrybison
a buzzards’ feast day,
a wasteland of grass.
The body will be where it fell to the earth,
crumpled like old leather,
the place where life ended,
will be marked,
with the stench of the decay.
Hides and tongues for
back east,
that’s gone,
so is the myth,
and the desire.
Stretches of abandoned roads,
on which the snakes sun themselves, are lined with dried up weeds ,
and fences where coyotes are hung by their necks.
Under what was once,
a swatch of blue,
now turned white,
comes the sound of rolling thunder,
the forewarning,
an oncoming storm.
The trailers,
and run down,
bone thin remains of dreamers,
lie in peril.
Filed under American West, Blood, creative writing, fiction, micro stories, original photography, outlaw poetry, poem
The anatomy of the legend is
photo by hungrybison
woven in the fabric
of delusion.
Woven in the fabric of disfunction ,
of “god creation”,
the reverence of the relics,
and the battle flag.
The blood stained effects
of the lost,
the false perceptions,
the distorted memory,
and the magnification of the myth.
Theirs is the song of magnolia and moonlight,
of romance in the denial of the sin,
the lash,
the dehumanizing terror,
which is now a heritage.
The price,
the mind accepts,
for the decimation of a culture,
the destruction of the old ways,
is carved in both folklore,
and in the collective disillusion of the vanquished.
