Featuring Jack Henry

on a bench behind a building reading a book

there’s a bench behind
a building i sit on,
during lunch or
odd times during the day,
when things seem
too much;

when i don’t want
to be in a building working
a job for which i have no heart –

in my hand
a book of poems;
i read them real fast,
see if anything
stops me cold,
or smashes my gut,
or fist-fucks me until
i cannot breathe – 

and i am reading this book
about a lucky guy; all his travels
and footsteps out and around NYC,
and i stop cold,
smashed in the gut –

i read these words
and they buzz cut my skull;
a riptide drags me further out to sea;
and this one poem;
the gut-ripper;
screams out about going back,
back to the place where
a world is simple and true,
back home, 

just back before
all the shit -

but these roads!
these many miles!

it’s page 16 and i am gut ripped,
there on my bench
behind that building,
and i think
i’d better stop reading
before i jump
behind the wheel
and just drive -

drive to a place from which i will never return -

Sunset Blvd, Echo Park

there’s a small diner on Sunset Blvd
in Echo Park
near Highway 101 –
the heart of it all –
hipster heaven –

i order at the counter,
sit up against a wall –
a slender young Mexican girl
with good legs and a tired smile,
brings me my drink
in an oversized cup –

you new around?
she says

nah,
i say

i’ve been around
a couple of times
and up for maybe one more
last time around –

a NYC punk’s in town
to read poetry on the back patio
of some place called Stories –

i stand in the back row -
watch in silence -
wonder if i could still
take the rejection,
knowing i’ll never have to worry about the fame -

for Puma Perl

in the crashing fall of electric light

there’s a storm coming
building in the hills and mountains
north of Phoenix
building on souls of 19 dead soldiers
firefighters lost
fighting a red devil burning
cascading across drought languished forests

bring out the dead

eat the dead

my castle crumbles against a relentless wash of
blue-black oceans
aching against shores of rock and stone
and sand so easily reclaimed
recalled back to the depths of Poseidon’s fist

the storm coils high above a flat melting desert
rain eager to fall
so eager to touch dying grass and scrub

we watch the sky boil and churn
we watch blackbirds seek shelter
we watch reality TV
desperate for the next breath of another worthless creation

she dances in the corner of my brain
as thunder booms
as lightning spins across the horizon
her legs spread in front of me
our eyes touch
my fingertips embrace the delicate trace of lace
i pull her free
my tongue traces down her flesh
past the point of hesitation
past the point of common sense

Jesus coughs from his station at the cross
as her back arches up
as black clouds finally give in
and rain begins to fall

burn

time tripping, tripping through time
each year ticks by, just a little bit faster

when i stand at tide’s edge, i note the sea level rise
when i stare up at mountains, i watch the forests start to die

it’s just time, tripping & skipping by
the clock a little louder, a little angrier
a little sad, but maybe that’s just me

i can feel age creeping up
sneaking up
i forget things, misread things
the synapses in my skull
don’t have the same
snap, crackle, pop

low tide water trips on my toes
the Pacific is colder today
that i remember
& the mountains?
i just turn away, smokes rising
& everything is about to burn

bio:  Jack Henry has recently emerged from a ten year hibernation and has reignited a fire to write.  Recently published in Red Fex, Dope Fiend Daily, Winamop and Horror,Sleaze,Trash; Jack has restarted Heroin Love Songs, a Journal of Poetic Chaos.  For more go to jackhenry.wordpress.com