Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Chrome


My dogs were being taken care of so I felt comfortable staying a little while past sundown.

Part scrap yard,part museum of abandoned junk.

The ward time and the municipal board forgot.

Hidden in plain sight, it seemed like they had been squatting there for decades.

Keeping their shadows low and their voices down.

This space was theirs as long as no one fucked up.

And no one ever did.


Niko and I had finished our yellow tea with pepper sprinkles.

A thick,vague concoction that tasted like everything and nothing. 

We were making our way back down the narrow dusty staircases when I saw it.


The hand buffed chrome moped straight out of the 1950’s.

It was beautiful.

A raw metal art deco time capsule.

I couldn’t believe it was just lying there.

So much potential amongst all this ruin.


I sat on it and moved it back and forth in the tiny space it was allowed.

It seemed solid and squeaked ever so softly.

All the bits seemed to be there.

Mostly.


Then a curious face emerged from a door to the right that we never saw until her eyes met mine.

“Hello I’m Nasreen..” she said,inquisitively.

“Is this yours?”

“Yes it is mine…”


I couldn’t argue with the provenance.

Her eyes betrayed her ownership.


“I must have it.” I said.

She contemplated for a few seconds in silence.

“I will sell it to you but it will be expensive..

And I need to fix a few things on it.” 


Niko and I looked at each other knowing what complete examples such as this go for in today’s market and decided to continue the negotiation.


“Give us a number” he said and she disappeared for a short while behind a dusty cupboard.

Rummaging ensued for a minute or two and she returned hurriedly scribbling on a small scrap of paper,as if doing a long list of calculations.


“8900” She finally declared proudly.

Niko and I looked at each other.

We could barely contain our excitement.

“8000” I countered.

Almost as a force of habit.

“And you should bring her home to me when she is ready” I said as I penciled my address down on her bill.


She was beautiful and naive and I selfishly didn’t want her rusting away amongst all this squalor.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Chapter 1


“Read this” she said.

As she handed me smattering of notes 

Scribbled on the ripped out soft covers of trashy novels 

“This is writing!” she proclaimed.


“These are rejects” I retorted.

She looked at me disappointedly.


“So you don’t consider what I do writing?” I asked.

“You’re not for everyone” she replied.


“And this is?!

These are incoherent rambling’s made to appeal to intellectually vacant groupies wanting to belong.

What I do is distilled from a thousand curated thoughts.

Do you know how much of my work you haven’t read because it never made the cut?”


“So what do you want to do…”

She interjected.

As if what I had just revealed after 3 years together meant nothing.


“I know you’re leaving”

She sat quietly, and

stared ahead,as if willing me on.

All the while feigning the deepest sadness known to man.


“Do what you want to do

But I have one request,

Don’t do it here,

Because this is where I also live”


She got up to leave as the safety regulatory agents came into view.

Suits and briefcases and prejudice .

All rolled into a slowly advancing wall of doom.


As they sat down at the coffee table

It seemed as if the birds all suddenly stopped chirping.


“Tell us captain” one of them blurted out.

As a sort of crude introduction.

“What made you wake up?”


“Divine intervention I guess”


But my focus was elsewhere.

Mostly on the river.

And on her walking up the hill back to the house.

Coffee cup and book covers in tow.

On the phone to her lover,

To tell him the good news.


I guess I am the reject

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Carpe Diem

There are a very few things left on earth that compare to a good cup of coffee in the morning. 

The rich woody aroma of those magical brown beans releasing all their secrets when crushed.

The time to contemplate during their slow steep in hot water. 

The anticipation of that heady brew coursing through your bloodstream while you slowly stir the precious dark liquid. 

The pep in your step after. 

It really kick starts the day and gets you ready for your upcoming fight or flight. 

Although, since the great 'event', one must consider oneself most fortuitous to find whole beans. 

Mostly, a jar of good old freeze dried chicory laden factory produced is what reveals itself after a short rummage through what used to be a pantry. 

But today we are lucky. 

And so I write this to you, dear former owner of burnt out rubble. 

In gratitude.

For you, like myself, were a person of discerning taste with a penchant for the finer things in life. 

Life, as precious as your beans, must be preserved and to this endeavor I must be on my way.

I hope this letter finds you in better times and intact. 


Regards, 

a survivor

Saturday, December 04, 2021

Redacted

When we first met, I slept on a mattress on the floor. Perfectly picked out for its balance between hard and soft. New. 

The same set up would not be good enough for us. For her. She deserves better I thought. 

I bought us a bed. Hard wood, dark stained and expensive. 

Worthy of her warm resting body. Of our innumerable unions in the early hours of those cold mornings. 

We each chose our sides. To sleep on. To reveal to each other. 

Sometimes as I lay in the darkness I look over to the emptiness that was her side and I remember the emptiness that lay in her eyes. Misconstrued for love. 

And the heavy heart I carried all those years after she left. 

It's weight indented on that once new mattress like gravity in time-space. 

And her side, still new. 

Like she was never there. 


Saturday, November 28, 2020

Parchment


Suspended in all its wonder 
         The heavy dot
Spun out from the universe 
And willed itself into being 

Into time-bound reality 
Into primitive carbon vessel 
      Flawed and perfect 

The ink remembers the pen 
       The invisible hand 
That shoots comets and opens petals 

May it's stories be worth writing

Friday, June 12, 2020

Close


I became addicted to the smell of your neck.
Your tea.
The sliver of truth in the stories you told.
But you have sharp edges, 
And I cut myself.
Over and over,
Trying to handle you differently.

I could not know that you coveted the light in my eyes.
That you stole and hid away.
In one of your many dark boxes.
All is black in your weaponized absence.
Still I wait.
Needlessly,
Counterintuitively,
For us to be how we once were,
Close.

Friday, January 24, 2020

Shock Strut


It appears we're going crazy
They said
In one voice
Composed of bits of mine and others
Collectively,they are quite convincing
I thought
As I pretended to have no clue