Fighting back the Urge
To purge these words and
Erase myself again
Is uphill or bigger at times
But I sit and type anyway
Denying the frailty I face on a
Blank page
The sadly sad sad paper glaring white and
Unmarked
But for these mad ravings
The alcohol blurring my
Art like
Smeary skies or
wet sugar
or kisses in the sand
Gritty but bearable and
Lingering
Curse my art
And its demand but keep it as a
Sacred Lover
I walk with it like all great passions
Thin lines between Love and Hate and
Banality
Wisps of real
Real
Meaning spin out on occasion but mostly everything is
Autistic
Genius hidden in the
Moronity
Flowers in the
Manure
Shafts of light
Piercing storm clouds for seconds barely seen by
Naked eyes
Yet still the words flow
I hope Mankind will find them someday
Hidden in clay pots in mountain caves and
Brought forth into the light
Turned this way and that and beamed with
Radioactive isotopes
And creating wonder and puzzlement and questions of
Creation and in my long gone grave my long gone bones will
Laugh
Knowing it was all just a
Booze rant

We walk through the world
Not showing the fear that boils down under
Putting on the brave face
and Striding into the darkest night
Kissing our worried wives or husbands or lovers
They may not say it but they feel it as they watch us
Ensconcing ourselves in Kevlar vests
And leaving for
they pray
They pray
Just for the day
And we walk the through the world
Brave hearts and souls
Caring more than many
Caring more than most
Just because we are
the last to run
and the first to stand and fight and try
try
try
To save this place for another minute, hour, day
We do it for children
We do it for love
We do it because we can’t help it
Picture
A murdering demon
Escapes clutches of the right
And careens through people filled city streets
Steals a taxi with an innocent woman inside
burning rubber burning burning
Screaming brakes and piercing sirens
Crashing back and forth from street to street to street
Ol’ lady gets out in the airport tunnel
road ripping her and breaking her and scattering her like
porcelain dolls dropped by a careless moving man
And demon finds another victim takes their
ride just a car jacking murdering fool he is

Grinning now faster faster 70
80 90 miles per hour
Trying to outrun the courage chasing him in black and white chariots
so close so close
And up ahead in the distance
Brave, brave Bobby
Laying out the spikes
Placing them just right
You know he kissed his wife
Held Dawn in his arms like comfort
She hoped like the others for safe returns
Of cops who work in this razor blade jungle
And Brave Bobby
Laying out the spikes
Thinking about stopping the innocent from a madman
Not having time to think about the Cleaveland Indians that he loves so much
Just thinking about the Job
The Job
Laying the Spikes
Stopping the Demon
And We all have a moment
Working in this mixed up insanity
Where time stands still for an instant
Photograph of forever drifting on soft lights downward
Bobby on the side of the road
Click
Nearing forever
Click
And the Demon
Capering and leering cuts the S.U.V. Into bobby like a Tank ramming an angel
Click
At forever
Bobby on stretcher
Dying light wringing out from behind his eyes
Juanita and Robert praying and praying
Hero cops Tim & Won helping to save him and capture the Demon
And snapshot forward
to a
Miracle
He lives
He lives
He lives
More and more and more Alive
In spite of Evil
In spite of pain
Like the beings who ran helter skelter into burning towers to save the innocent never to return
We feared Bobby was gone
Lost
Carried away into some other place far beyond his Wife and family and dogs and treasured Indians
In a place most never come back from
Just gone
But heroes never truly die
Some live on in memories
Ghosts of greatness traveling on unseen but very well felt currents
Others
When miracles happen
Survive
Like
Bobby
Hero
Warrior
Hero
Man
Hero
Husband
Hero
Son
Hero
Bobby
Who is here
With us now
And ready to move on

© 2001 Harry R. Fagel

Authors Note: This poem was written for Bobby Kintzel, a young Nevada Highway Patrolman who was hit by a murder suspect driving an SUV over 88 miles per hour as he attempted to lay spike strips down. Bobby received massive injuries and has not fully recovered to this day. The poem was written for a fund raiser for him, and was performed at The Orleans Showroom along with nuemrous other performers. The fundraiser was orchastrated by then Sergeant Randy Sutton of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.

Every time I shut my eyes I see the same blood washed visage
Babies whose skulls have been crushed by Mother’s maul
Vagrants torn and dead in the street
Jagged bits of glass glinting in exposed neck ligaments
Old ladies pushed down stairs until their bodies become an unrecognizable old mess
Quivering on the landing
Drug dealers shot in filthy alleys where garbage from the paleolithic era still reeks quietly
My eyes squeeze shut hard as iron gates yet no tears come
Only a grim sort of desert sand forms in the corners and gums up the works
I finally shoot from bed and endlessly pace the house
Passing works of art and books of poetry
That shall one day lay in ruin too
My anger bubbling and stinking and fogging the air
How did this happen?
The obesity of the world stretching the thin tenets of civilization to the point where its
Permeable to every bad idea that ever was
Everyone’s opinion laughs from the brain box about how wonderful it all is
Echoing off of the empty words booming from the stereo inside a lowered truck that
Sits painfully on the hot night asphalt outside
Chika-chika chicka-chicka chicka-chicka chicka-chicka chicka-chicka chicka-chicka
The Ghettobird awful close for this slice of paradise
Why can’t the poor stay in their trenches of shit where they belong instead of spilling out
Into the graffiti bourne sidewalks
“Listen children to the story that was written long ago..’bout a kingdom on a mountain and the valley far below…”
War is all that is real
Wake up and see it for once
Without it the periods of peace would be nothing
The Devil is not about sex or sugar or finality
The Devil is murder
The Devil is the spirit of man
The Devil is the Judge rose bald and gleaming from the brimstone laughing and dancing and
Playing the violin
Hanging babies in trees is as easy as walking head-high through a green park
This fat reality TV land shimmers on my distance
A mirage of nothingness against the truth of death
Know death
Embrace it
Taste it
Find it
Mind it
It’s coming
What did you do? Did you survive a battle?
Blood streaked and pissed and more importantly did you understand love?
War is love
It is
And that is truth too
Love your neighbor
Lest you raise the axe and cleave him twain
Love your children
Lest you tie rocks to their limbs and pitch them in dark water
Love your wife
Lest you murder her out of spite for her beauty
Stay at war
Nothing meaningful was ever peaceful
Cheap or easy.

©2012 Harry Fagel for Cormac McCarthy

She hides the money ol’ jelly jar
If he finds it he’ll kill her for sure
She wants to run so far so far
The Righteous sit back and hypothesize the reason for his allure
But he beats her
And she goes back
She’s simply too impure
Wide eyed little kiddies hold breath
Waitin’ for the smacking sound
5 year old who prays for death
Rather than see mama on the ground
Again again again
Lost little angel child waitin to be found
Calling the cops it not an answer
Daddies fists just get more furious
Oh can]t someone please cure this cancer
Its getting far to serious
The scholarly hold their chins and nod
Her behaviors oh so curious
So pennies and nickels and dimes go in
And slowly her nest egg builds
Shangri-la she’ll take her brood her kin
If it’s the good Lords will
But Daddy found the jelly jar
And that’s why she was killed

Standing over you in
past midnight darkness
seeing your tiny form
nearly shapeless under blankets
Watching you sleep
little hands relaxed and arms
wide open
as if to hug the mattress and
thank it for its comfort
Sometimes hearing
Sometimes seeing
and Sometimes reaching out and
feeling for your
Baby breath that swooshes softly out
of you
in perfect rhythm with Mother Earth
What dreams have you
Spinning colors and floats of merriment
Or fantastic beings like angels and smiling dogs
Mommy sits with open eyes and Daddy soars you
Through endless airgames
What dreams have you
Simple things
Cookies that stay cookielike when bitten
and blades of grass that shoot cool sparks when you
Pluck them in amazement from endless parks
Talking balloons that laugh and play
Soaring around you like butterflies
What dreams have you
People in love
looking at each other in bliss and happiness
Strangers not conceptualized
All people are good.
What dreams have you
G-d and light
I hear you talk about la la la
Can you feel my heart across this room?
I watch. And wonder about baby dreams.
And wish I could dream them too.

©2012 Harry Fagel all rights reserved