They are out there

Those that harm children

Hidden by their Mothers homes

Sitting in dank basements waiting

They burn with imagery

They taste blood

Their hard sex a testament to evil

And we watch our babies

Riding their bicycles

Skipping rope and hopscotch

Eyes soaking in the sun

While below they wait

The laughter of the little ones a

Beckoning

They wait

Pundits talk about social reform

About rehabilitation

About reintegration

After all

Most of these fuckers have done something hurtful before

So we owe it to them to let ‘em out to do it again

Right? Right?

And everyone is so surprised that the guy did a heinous thing before

And they mutter and whisper about inadequacy in the system

Of course

Not all of these demons have a recognizable past

Some emerge as a disgusting surprise

Killing their families

Goin’ on a rampage

In the end ultimately

Destroying some small human being somewhere

Some child whose only goal in life was to

Love

The dark is waiting for the little ones

Yes indeed it is

And I am waiting for the dark

With a loaded .45 and all of my friends

Most of who are

Mommies and Daddies too

We are waiting for the bottom dwellers

And we are ready

You can laugh or you can cry

You can stand or sit or lie

Or

Maybe you just heat up like some pipe coal

Give off a stink and some flame and then

Nothing but ash

Or

You can bring your friends

Prop ’em up like some shield

Baste yourself in their accomplishments

Stew in their suffering but mostly

Hang out in the back

Or

You can attack the world with

Sharp knives and attitude

Bring out the loud drums

Stain the walls with your sound

Or

You can tuck down into a ball

Chin on chest and sobbing

Ignore the love and hate surrounding

Give in to the me-grims

Or

You can imagine heaven

Think about clouds and Angels and harpsichords

Wonder at the fantasy that is much like

Spending lottery winnings you haven’t won yet

Or

You can fill yourself with power

Kill the infidels and disavowed

Burn down the non-believers

Wrap yourself in War

Or

You can just wait and see

Pick the grass between your toes and

Watch it all unfold

Like an endless channel surf

Or

You can be

More than you ever  knew

Because you imagined it so

Because you made it real

Or

You can write poetry

©2012 Harry Fagel all rights reserved

Walking into that haunted house

Horror shop thrill ride moment

The time slowing and flowing like cooling lava

Flash photos in the minds eye as I move with uncanny speed yet

Slow so slow

Looking for the partner I know is inside

As I move through a garage crowded with life’s detritus and the family car

I hear the moan

Zombie on my left

Dawn of the Dead in my peripheral

My mouth o-ing out and my eyes wider, wider

He is covered in blood

It is on every inch of him that I can see

Like some bad grindhouse movie effects it is splattered on the wall behind him

Down the front of his holed up shirt

On his head and on his shoes

His face though is the most cosmic parody of all

Eyes stabbed out

Teeth knocked out

Bulges where none should be

Flat where some should bulge

He speaks then

Just loud enough for me to hear over the pounding of my heart

“He stabbed me in the eye”

“He stabbed me in the body”

“He stabbed me and stabbed me and stabbed me and he wouldn’t let me get up”

“If I stood he promised to murder me completely by stabbing me in my heart”

This hissing calm voice coming from this folded up discarded pile of humanity

Arrowed directly into the bottom rocker of my spine

So calm and relaxed as if we chatted over hot tea and biscuits

I learned his name and that he was 73 years old and that he was married and that his wife was

STABBED TOO

Time speeding back up, I discovered the name of his attacker, a future son-in-law who they shared their house with and  moving in a blur again I plunged into the house

Freak out freak show freakatronic shit storm

She lay on the carpet near the door

Stabbed in the neck

Lake of blood that she had crawled from in the kitchen rivering into the space she occupied

Neck compressed by her blood soaked house dress she talked to me too in the same detached way as Hubby, noting that she was scared but revealing what had occurred and sounding apologetic about the mess on the carpet and doors and hallway and everywhere she was 73 too and dying so I did what I could and screamed at the medics to hurry the fuck up and they were saved and the man who did it was captured and all was so Brothers Grimm in the end I kept seeing the moving jaw of the old man whose eye was torn from his head by the hand of evil and I had to see the weapon a long unfixed bayonet K-bar knife with grooved blade and wooden handle about 12 inches long covered in even more blood and once again I stand in some strange place and another piece of me is chipped out and thrown into the void and I can only be vindicated in that when I get home I will love my family with my heart and shelter them with my peace, and take care of them and never ever hurt them.

©2011 Harry Fagel all rights reserved

If life has been for me a spring

Wound round and round

Every good deed anchoring me to here and now

Every laugh and smile another turn

Every brave act

Right decision

Proud moment

Decent outcome

Every held hand

Closed eye kiss

Sense of accomplishment

If it has all served to wind me here

Tighter and tighter

Each strand pushing against the last

A cocoon of bliss that bubbles against the

Ghastly miasma of outer world

Then this moment of unraveling seems poised

A pit of defeat just ahead of my well placed feet

A precipice with no guard rail

No signage and

No bottom

Here I go over the edge

Balloons popping

Wings burning

Stomach churning as my descent begins

I love my wife

My children

My friends

My family

Yet my screams they must not hear

My fear they must not taste

Stoic and strong

I drop and the walls become visual taffy

Rushing past my airborne self

All that prep

All that fantastic drive

Lost in an instant

Taken and burned

Left floating above the spectacle

Like so much ash

I can only fall into my loved ones and

Pray they do not break

Harry Fagel 2009

It is so hot

Candle flame held one inch below the feet

Attic insulation stuffed down the throat

Sulfuric acid bath on the te-te’s

A microwave oven heating an overheated gray sponge in the think tank

Hot

I am a grown man and chose to live here in this insufferable shithole stank ass hell

WHY

I don’t gamble or whore.

I don’t methanate or do real estate

The school systems broken as a crack head on Sunday morning and the only green is tortured from the landscape

WHY

I’m like the gimp, tethered in my box, ball gag choking back the witness, sting of the whip akin with the

Hot desert wind

Transient people try to take you for a dime or worse to

Blend you to their falsehoods yet

Still I stay

Addicted to her funk

High on the limitlessness of her imagination

Vegas is so Hot

HOT and sultry like

Wet caramel dripping on your cone like

Sugar melting in your latte like

Fire in your soul

My roots too deep to pull out now

Gotta hang for the pension and the kids gone way to school

Gotta stick around and watch the deficits get harried by self important royal family members whose

Only job is politics

Gotta be there for the hope of a hope of a hope that the gamble on this dusty place will pay off and not strip me naked and bare like the rest of the Suckers

Gotta play to win

Odds are a funny thing

They tend to favor the winners

Most who wear suits and sit in air conditioned back rooms in billion dollar casinos or

Maybe its those who roll around this place caring enough about it to risk our very lives for it

Guess it remains to be seen

This gamble I have taken

I have love for my childhood here

Out in the hotel pools and the awesome cool of Vegas but we seemed to be headed for celebrity only and bottle service so it may be time for my soul to find new roots in

San Diego

© Harry Fagel  2012 all rights reserved