STREET ADDRESS

Phil was minutely aware of the eyes boring into him from behind curtains in the building in front of him. He could feel cool water running in rivulets down his face. Distantly, he could hear the crying of his five-month-old daughter as they sat on the drenched couch next to him on the sidewalk. He was stone cold. All that his family possessed was piled in the parking lot getting soaked in the torrential down-pour. His consciousness was fading, his mind flipping back like an open book to the wind, turning and turning, but not catching on any page. The curtains slowly filled his vision, expanding like a camera moving toward close-up, the white rustling curtains, and the heavy rain…**** The mist was a thin veil that danced before the eyes, then slowly descended. Philip had awakened to find the morning clothed in a wet, grey overcoat skulking over his balcony. A vagabond-dawn outside, waiting to ruin his day as he stared into the adjacent park. Were he in England, he’d have long since died from one too many days like this. With coffee mug in hand, he stepped onto the bare glistening balcony concrete and sourly sighed. Then he was caught by the sight of the naked fall trees across the way and the light crystalline blanket that enveloped them. Droplets of water, like Christmas tree ornaments, hung from the bare limbs. A menagerie of natural artistry, no two trees alike. “Beautiful!” he whispered to himself, (‘You’ll miss it’) suddenly intruded upon his thoughts. He hadn’t been able to shake the suspicion that they were going to lose the roomy apartment overlooking the creek in Alum Spring, Fredericksburg. He and his wife, Theresa, had honeymooned here the past year. Until Tabitha had arrived last May, they had lived quietly save for the songs of the neighboring crickets. Fredericksburg had been home and peace for the little family. The lay-off a month ago in September now threatened that peace. Fear of eviction without a place to go loomed in his every waking thought. The past month and a half were fraught with anxiety and sleeplessness, but Phil kept prowling the thoroughfares of his quaint city, his ‘$5 an hour town’ as he liked to call it – all at the swordpoint of overdue rent. At night, he wrote to dispel ghosts and the dread that chased him, he would wrestle with his personal demons. Who am I kidding, living off my writing, really?! The thought riding him like a surfer the waves. One editor confirming his doubts wrote: ‘People don’t want to hear about Vietnam anymore. They want to hear about this popular war. Do you have any family who served in Desert Storm?!’ the slip read. Kissing his wife goodbye, he lingered with the baby a moment shaking his head, nuzzling her neck sadly. Touching his tie one more time in the mirror, he exited. “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of jobs!”, he tried to bouy his mood as he got into the old, green Coronet. This morning would be like the others. He drove, filled out applications here and there then drove on to the next department store or business. Although it usually did, the work of searching didn’t relieve the gnawing in his stomach today. A specter colored the thoughts at the back of his mind. Maybe I can outrun them, he thought as he trounced on the gas peddle and the 318 engine shot white lines at him, disappearing under the front hood of the Dodge.**** The rusty green Coronet slowly turned into the wet parking lot, and at first, Phil thought Alum Spring was having a garage sale. Then he realized, his thoughts frantically back-peddling over the events of the days and the months as they all fell together solidifying into the scene before him. The articles on the parking lot sidewalk were not arranged, but piled, thrown about. A siren went off in his head as he locked eyes with his wife’s deadened stare and he recognized the little thing crying in her arms on the couch outdoors. But she hadn’t recognized him, or the sound of their big old car or the baby crying. The monster was unmasked, the one that had been haunting him all day. As he stepped out of the car, sleepwalking over to where his family was huddled. Suddenly, the smell of the air changed. A wind came up carrying the scent of condemned, derelict buildings strewn with old papers and wet must. It filled his nostrils. He almost fell over, a light sweat breaking out all over his body and the wind whipping the mist over his neck gave him a deep chill. Adrenaline poured into his bloodstream and his heart hammered as it broke. He drifted over to the mound of pictures, lamps, chairs, and assorted papers stacked heckled-peck in the parking lot. “What….” was all that tumbled out of his mouth. His jaw hung in space and his facial features started to glaze over as each gouging scream from his daughter’s twisted red, wet cheeks slashed him open deeper and deeper. The scene of how they probably hustled her out of the building auto-played itself out across the theatre of thought that he now had no control of. The pain in his wife’s still face was maddening. His mind spun out of gear, as the surroundings grew dim. At that exact moment, the fine curtain of mist broke, turning with malice and without warning into a violent cloudburst, a waterfall crashing out of an opaque sky…

THE END

Prophet…

Granted, lately, I’m emotional about everything, and those who know me call me passionate. In High School, they mistook that in me for something else and became afraid. I was ostracized as if there were a student body, teenage-aphobic, Pre-crime at Neshaminy H.S., and if they thought you might do it? You got a label.

…only one guy got it right about me. His name was Rickie Schoen. I sat next to or near him in nearly all our homeroom classes throughout the three years at the Langhorne, H. S. campus, because of the likeness in the spelling of our last names. Yet I never got to know him. He was somehow invisible to me.

…until one night at our local Scottie’s Bar, well after high school, where my crowd all shot darts.

Rickie didn’t even go to this bar. I had never seen him at this bar ever, it was small and we all knew each other. But this night, he stood off in a corner by the jukebox sipping a beer. My crowd dominated the left side of the bar where the dart board was and the entrance to the small pub. The jukebox was by the bathrooms on the right side of this hole-in-the-wall. I was done with a couple of games and either went to play Paper Doll on the record machine or I was going to the bathroom. Rickie stopped me. We talked, but all I remember is what he said of me.

“I always thought you would be a person who helped people.”

I can look back over my life now and say, Rickie was 100% right about me. At that young age, to be so precise about a person who invested so little time in sharing himself with you Rickie, yet you saw me from the beginning.I have a word for those abilities Rickie, those very thoughts that may have helped me find my true passion. Where I come from – me and my buddies in the Kingdom would say you were gifted…

Home…

….it was pointed out

to me,

and I guess I had been taking

it for granted,

but he said,

it is a very peaceful spot outback

and he’s right.

I had missed it,

sounded like healing

and the birds grabbed my attention

just a moment ago.

The wind through the bows

and birdsong all about,

still in the listening,

it cradled me…for a moment.

Dig These Cats!

Part 2

“You guys here for the meeting?” Barb piped up.
“Yeah…. the new N.A. meeting.” Andy replied.
“We’re it! C’mon, coffee’s over here. So, where you guys get clean?”
Meanwhile, a myriad of very young, bright and inquisitive faces stared up at us from the plush carpeted floor as we made our way through the ocean of bodies, as if we were the three wise men, come baring gifts for the baby Jesus.
Andy was the only cat not floored by the menagerie of youths, their ages ranging from what appeared to be 15 years of age to the eldest of about 19. The eldest was clearly directing the young ones, keeping what semblance of order you possibly could from this juvenile morass of playful souls. The meeting’s ranks were being filled by an outpatient program called Today Incorporated, which he was the sole graduate of, having the most ‘clean time’ in the room, and so garnering the most respect. But it was clear, even as a young cat, he was wise beyond his years and a natural leader. He also had a smile that outshone Andy’s, whose gravity well was irresistible. He would always introduce himself simply as George.
“I got off drugs in Eagleville but have been attending A.A.” Andy assured Barb.
I chimed in with, “I was at inpatient in Today Incorporated but escaped.”
It was a wisecrack, but Barb didn’t miss it, because she immediately came back with, “Yeah, Gestalt therapy ain’t for everybody. I know you!” She suddenly exclaimed.
Uh-oh, you idiot! I thought, what did I do this time to this chick? But I was wrong.
“You were my paperboy, weren’t you?” Barb asked.
“You live in Red Rose Gate?” I responded in disbelief.
Well, sure enough – I was the entire subdivision’s paperboy long before I had become an addict, and this being some ten years later, I hadn’t recognized her.
She then turned her high beams on Kenny.
“Hi, do I know you?” She flirted.
Kenny, clearly the best-looking cat of the bunch, turned scarlet – he was painfully shy.
“Don’t think so…” was all she could get out of him as he shook his head ‘no’ while looking at me laughing. Barb was an artist and had an extraordinary eye for beauty, and truth be told – Kenny was a young Adonis whom many an N.A. kitten would tumble for. From that day on, he would no longer be my wingman, but I would become his on every occasion we’d meet an attractive girl at a dance or a meeting.
Just then George called everybody’s attention to the time and the need to start the meeting. Bodies came up from the carpet, the shenanigans stopped immediately, as the chatter dropped to hushed murmurings in the room and like magnets, chairs were pulled into a circle from the surrounding walls as the excited young cats filled them. All attentions were focused on George and Barb as the readings got shuffled and handed out.
“O.K., welcome to the Tuesday night meeting of The Bristol Group of Narcotics Anonymous, I’m George and I’m an addict.”
The room reverberated with the booming response, “HI GEORGE!”
And with that, the first and only N.A. meeting in Bristol, Pennsylvania and possibly all of Lower Bucks County had begun.
Little did Ken and I know, our faces masking the uncertainty we felt, we had stumbled into history. We had just become a part of the beginning of something so big that its impact would be felt around the world.

                                                 (To be continued)

Phantom Past…

I’m remembering that sunny afternoon, the last time I would see the gang of friends I had hung with during my boyhood days living in Red Rose Gate. I had been in the company of a large group of recovering kids working the N.A. 12-step program for two years at that time in 1981, when I suddenly received an invite to play softball at the ballfields beside Carl Sandburg Jr. High School. I was excited, thinking my absence from these childhood chums had garnered some kind of respect and acceptance from them. They actually wanted me back.

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make a living amends to this group of people who, on numerous occasions, I had embarrassed, horrified, disappointed and endangered with my drunken and drug addled behavior over the past decade they had known me. Little did I know what was about to take place, albeit disheartening, would change me for the rest of my life.

I was free from the crippling effects of alcohol and assorted narcotic drugs that had hamstrung me and tarnished my reputation among them all those years I ran the streets with them. I showed up on the ballfield like a shiny new penny, beaming and bright in my new-found clean condition. The warm wind was gently blowing, and the first signs of Spring were becoming evident all around the playing field as the guys and gals were shouting at one another, taking turns at bat. I walked up to my former drinking pal, Chris, and he introduced me to his girl, a young lady that was later to become his wife. I hadn’t seen or run with him in many years and our drinking bouts had been epic affairs where we had travelled the eastern coast and fished in the Delaware Water Gap for bass on 72-hour binges that had left us exhausted by weekend’s close. I was about to launch into my first soliloquy of ‘I’m sorry’, when he thrust a can of beer in my face.

I immediately tried to explain my new way of life to him and what the purpose of my coming was truly about, but he wasn’t accepting it. He didn’t believe nor did he want to believe that I was clean – he wanted his old drinking buddy back. Then another guy, who I wasn’t particularly fond of came up behind him and even more aggressively started to push the drink on me. But Herman was more open about the way this group had always viewed me, denigrating me even right there on the field. Bringing up my despicable behavior and asserting that I was a drunk and that would NEVER change. To them I was the court jester – and they needed their fool back, so that they could feel better about themselves. So that they could elevate themselves again in each other’s eyes. I realized they moved in a world I was no longer a part of, they were not my family of friends anymore and so I said my goodbyes.

I was crest-fallen and disheartened beyond belief. The baggage of emotion weighed on me as I made my way back to my apartment at Lakeview Manor. I felt as if my arm had been severed but was still throbbing like a phantom of my destitute past. I didn’t know how to separate the old groveling personality that felt I had deserved that kind of treatment from the new budding awareness of self that KNEW for a surety that I definitely didn’t deserve that kind of treatment! I was confused and felt terribly alone.

When I entered my living room, Pete my sponsor was there. I shared with him what had happened. All my emotions and irrational thinking was laid on that dining room table. He helped me sort it all out, showing me that those people did not care about me, they cared about how they looked to each other at my expense. They needed a patsy and for ten years I had been it. My eyes were opened to the truth and my heart and thinking were changed forever in that moment. I realized I had come home to my true family and that is exactly where I stayed. I never went back to those old people ever again.

Pete is still my sponsor, to this day.

Caged…

lonely window out

prison bedroom in

maudlin thoughts throughout

disabled body pinned

rack or bed I lay

spasm ridden splayed

rain a constant

symphony played

accompaniment to pain

held against

a will

to fly

“Dig These Cats!”

Part 1

“I was in the hallway of the entrance to Bon Ami, Morrisville’s premiere halfway house for local cats trying to sort out the wreckage of their lives after battling addiction to things like alcohol and drugs, when my sponsor Andy James quietly approached me and my wingman, Kenny Love, looking from side to side, making sure no one else could hear him. In hushed tones, as if he’s just stumbled onto the greatest plan ever for taking down Philadelphia National Bank at 2 a.m. in the morning, he sez in subdued whispers,

“There’s a new meeting in town…”

Had I known then what he was talking about and what was to come, I would’ve understood all the cloak and dagger and why maybe the room full of drunks right next door SHOULDN’T hear what he was about to tell us, because it was taboo back in the day – that being 1979, to gather with junkies and garbage heads in smoke-filled rooms and call it recovery.

“…on Mill Street, in Bristol – it’s a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.”

We had never heard of the program, but it sounded great, anything new sounded great, compared with the rooms filled with old-timers, retired and reminiscing about the bouquet of their last drunk when passed out in their locked, parked cars, having shit themselves in the hot summer sun. We were a scourge to them, outcasts, and having our own group of young souls start a new movement in 12-step recovery appeared as though it was some kind of alien invasion. They were afraid of the generation coming up clean. They were afraid of the mean streets that had borne us, giving birth to kids with fire in their veins instead of dope.

What we found as we, arriving early, ascended the steps to The Beacon outpatient facility that housed Bristol, PA’s very first N.A. meeting was something akin to an ensemble comedy sketch out of Max’s Dance Studio. Kids were throwing themselves around the room, laughing and shouting like recess on the James Buchanan Elementary School playgrounds. We just stood there and watched, the three of us, taken aback at all the activity and life going on in front of us. This was nothing like A.A., this was bad as hell! The joy was infectious as one of the members, Barb McDonald ran up to us out of breath and covered in sweat.

“What’s happen’in?”

“..not much, how about you?”

Which was Andy’s patent response dressed up in that winning smile he shined on you, cutting his face nearly in half from ear to ear. You couldn’t not like Andy, the most amiable cat I knew and he sponsored most of the kids who came in off the streets into 12-step recovery from a background using drugs. He was the first ambassador for N.A. in our area. Both myself, Kenny L., and my future sponsor for life, Pete Hawkeye B. were brought into Narcotics Anonymous by Andy. If he were a recruiter, the military would have given him a Distinguished Service Medal by now.”

(to be continued)

Flowing With The Spirit…

“We were looking for a good burger after the meeting in Scottsdale last week and usually places close pretty early during the week in Phoenix, AZ, which still amazes me for such a happen’in town, ya know?! Well Kev and I consult our trusty Google Maps and low and behold there’s a few places still open. We had forgotten to visit our FAVORITE waitress Jazzilyn over at the always hop’in Ihop and thought we’d take a chance with a totally new joint called ‘Lucky Lou’s’. Ya see that’s what Kev and I are famous for. We stroll around do’in the late-night crawl in different parts of town and come upon the most EXTRAORDINARY events in the most unexpected parts of town! We been do’in this since Fredericksburg, VA back in 2013! We call it ‘Flowing With The Spirit’ and it’s guaranteed to either stumble ya into some of the most incredibly happening places in town or get ya thrown in jail. Lucky fer us that wasn’t going to happen THIS night, I’ll tell ya! Unfortunately, it wasn’t so lucky for Lucky Lou’s ’cause Kev gets the Tingle as we’re approaching the darkened doorway to Lucky Lou’s and I sez, “What’s up?!”

Kevin’s got this 6th sense about the places we’re being led to and I’ve grown to trust it over the past 10 years we’ve been doing this. He looks at me just as we’re about to pull open the pub doors and sez, “…nah, let’s go someplace else.” Lucky fer us we didn’t go in – the place burnt to the ground that night with EVERYBODY in the joint!

We turn and get back in the Tacoma and go a few blocks up the street and that’s when Kev spots the Red Mountain Bar & Grill. The parking lot is packed and the bustle of humanity at the open door tells us this is the joint!

Sure enough, we go in and as your entering, you are positioned right beside the DJ who is spinning discs for karaoke to a packed room full of singing drunks. THE JOINT IS JUMPING and it’s a Tuesday night!

As it turns out The Red Mountain is trying out their new karaoke DJ venue for the first time and it is a raging success! The drinks are flowing, and the women are hollering for joy. Everybody’s singing, not just the guy with the mic in his hand. This place is livelier than an Irish wake on St. Patty’s Day! And we just hit the jackpot, Buck, the burger chef himself is behind the rail slinging burgers in the open kitchen while Mable is running frothy heads of beer a mile an hour from the bar to all the joyous patrons. They put Kev and I at a table in the thick of it and offer us up some of the finest beef hamburgers in the city, bar none! My mouth is watering just writing about it now. People are making out at the bar, love is flowing, and the air is thick with the joy of being alive (see the picture of the couple sucking face behind me and Kev), as music flows like wine through the crowd. Then our food comes along with our cokes (you didn’t think we were drinkers did ya?! I just said we were coming from a meeting, didn’t I?!) and the sweet aroma of sirloin hamburger and Swiss cheese with mushrooms fills my nostrils, a brioche roll shinier than the drunken greasy ocean of faces surrounding us sits atop this lovely meal, planted deep in a pile of golden fries that would put In-And-Out burger AND McDonald’s to shame with one fatal review – that review being this one here! It was a grand time with beautiful drunken women putting their hands all over us and butchering the slurred English language with their pretty little attempts at flirtation. The looks from across the room nearly knocked me out and I wished I could’ve taken that dark beautiful woman home with me, but as you’s guys know – I’m a priest!!!

So, all said and done, get your Keester down to The Red Mountain Bar & Grill on Tuesday nights and you won’t be disappointed. Tell them Kev & Philly Phil sent you and Mable will give you a door prize from the lost and found. I got a broken silver chain, symbolizing my deliverance from alcoholism nearly 18 years ago! Which only goes to prove – you don’t have to get drunk and high to have a grand ‘ole time in Phoenix, Arizona!!!”

Secret ‘O Life…

What’s the secret? How do you stay young? It’s a matter of the heart and a little help from an arrested development of your emotions. Yeah, it caused me some problems in the world when everybody thought I was immature and should grow up like most adults. But I never did. I protected that inner child and never laid him on the world’s alter in order to acquire the worldly things people strive for in this life.

And now in retirement, it’s paying big dividends! I never sewed my life into all the things this world offers people if they’ll just lay that child on the altar to sacrifice him or her. I sewed my life into the Kingdom of God. I became a priest! I don’t have fancy cars or a big house. I also don’t have outrageous debt to worry about and I sleep very well at night knowing I am not a part of this planet’s climate crisis. I gave that up 32 years ago so that the younger generation coming up would simply be able to breathe 40 years from now. That sacrifice has been a tremendous boon to my health and my childlike outlook has enabled me to do things other 66-year-olds find physically impossible!

I’m loving life today. I still do all the things I did as a kid, ride bikes, lift weights, party with friends, love, laugh, write poetry, and read comic books! There isn’t much I can’t do except maybe languish in a big empty home surrounded by all my ‘things’, devoid of the wealth that being at street level, getting my hands dirty in human affairs, and helping others bring. I am a servant and content to be a slave to the earnest needs of others, not a slave to what people think I should be, or to a credit score rating, or to keeping my class status higher than my neighbor’s. I find sheer joy in cleaning your dinner plates at the recovery house because I know a greater reward awaits me in the next life due to this obedience…

So join me, throw your life in a dumpster, tell the credit card companies to fk off, shrug off the debt, leave your car in the garage, and your houses behind, hop a train to someplace new and start over. Start working to save this planet and her people….like in the comics – be a superhero!

Celebrating Your Ghost…

Orson Scott Card’s ‘Sepulcher of Songs’, is a short story about a little girl whose arms and legs are blown off at the tender age of five, and who must languish in a resting home for the aged because of her limbless condition.

The story is told from the viewpoint of the state-employed psychologist who makes his rounds each week to visit her and monitor her emotional state. She is now fifteen years old and he and her are close friends.

It is the rainy season and going outside is forbidden to this little girl because of her delicate physical state, having a weakened immune system. But being wheeled outside to spend time looking at life as it happens through nature and town life around the nursing home is what keeps this 15-year-old girl mentally well. She starts to slip into bouts of catatonia and her mental state becomes affected by her imaginary creations and delusions.

The psychologist is in a race against time to save this little girl from going catatonic and having one of her imaginary friends and delusions take over her personality completely.

He has such a personal relationship with the little girl that he is familiar with the character this girl has created in her own mind and he pleads with the imaginary friend to bring her back to him. He speaks of his love for the little girl and bargains with the personality for the life of his little friend while she is in her deep catalepsy.

He breaks down in his desperation to save this little girl from never coming back to awareness again – he promises to stop the rain forever, he promises to drive her in his car anywhere she wants, to view the never-ending vistas of trees and animals, mountains and oceans…

… he bargains with the OTHER personality, calling out its name, to bring her back to him, but to no avail. He fears, as do the staff of the rest home that she is gone forever. And so, he falls asleep in the chair next to her bed, exhausted.

The following morning, he wakes to find her chiding him because he lied about stopping the rain. She had heard it all, all his promises and desperate lies to save her life. He and the entire staff of the home are relieved and rejoicing that the little girl, Elaine has returned. It is considered a medical miracle of the psychological sciences and he is being applauded for his efforts and urged to publish this extraordinary event.

…but it is not Elaine who has returned to call him to account for the false promises he had made to this little girl – it is the OTHER personality, the imaginary friend he had tried to protect Elaine from.

Elaine has gone forever…

This is exactly what happened to my little girl Tabitha. For more than a year she had severe bouts of catatonia and catalepsy while in and out of psych wards around the Fredericksburg area. I ran from hospital to hospital to await the return of my little girl – the girl I raised, who knew her father.

…but she never returned.

And so, I left Fredericksburg, Virginia

and the girl who had become

a stranger,

and came to Phoenix,

to rise from the ashes

and wreckage of my life,

to find myself,

to mourn,

and to heal…

Lover, Come Back…

The alarm violates

a musical dream-state

at 6:45 a.m.

as I awakened

to find all of last night’s enthusiasm

had packed its bags

and left town to go visit relatives

for the Christmas holidays…

An empty darkened room

greeted me with cold slappings

of dusty Arizona air.

…and the bed called me back

like the sweet lovers of my past,

“…no baby, not today, come back to my arms.”

Warm and supple, I slither back between the thighs of the big down comforter.

Ensconced once again,

I sink back into sensuous

Saturday morning dreams

of womb-like landscapes,

calling me

to the land of forgetfulness,

of a childhood

romping near a creek that

sings its siren’s song of home,

in green wooded patches of land

between the decades of

yesterdays past

and tomorrows

never to come…

December 5th, 2022.

Like a phantom limb,

your presence in memory

throbs and aches

within me,

but upon reaching out

you are not there.

By way of amputation

I came to Arizona,

which left me

with nothing

but hauntings;

translucent images

of my little girl

dressed in glittering guilt,

moving toward me

over a dark landscape

called shame.

Only today

are the monsoons

of sorrow allowed

to drench my soul,

your day,

the day of your birth,

because it was

the day of my birth also.

The day

this drunken shell of humanity

was privileged

with becoming a father.

Unmerited and unworthy,

I embraced this last chance to become

human

and you changed my

life forever.

…so I celebrate your ghost,

a woman I was given

the great honor to raise

and who has,

like an evaporating dream,

or vapor into the atmosphere,

left me with empty arms,

yet who still wanders the streets

entitled with your name,

not knowing of a father,

even a stranger to herself,

going through the motions

of an alien existence.

So, the torrents in anguish and mourning

drench this day.

But before I light the

candles you have already

blown out,

I whisper into empty air,

to the hollow memory

I’ve made my prison,

“Happy Birthday, Tabitha Rita-Marie Schmohl!”

Mongoose & Cobra

Mongoose & Cobra

…rising up on a

singular body stalk,

head fanning out,

intimidating in her

mesmerizing dance,

swaying back and forth,

like Death’s metronome,

an insinuated fatality,

if and when this

little mongoose decides

to believe the intended

message.

…but generations past

have taught mongoose

that cobra’s transformation

is mere show.

King Cobra

is filled with the

very same fear,

a fear of death,

that she is trying to

project

toward her natural enemy.

Fur rising on his nape,

as his mother’s lessons

return through his blood

and course through his body,

he doesn’t even

have to give consideration

to what his muscles

spring to.

All this towering

serpent knows is

mongoose was there

at one instance,

and now has

his teeth

buried

in her neck.

Suddenly, the writhing

dance of death

begins in dust

and spit

amidst the musty clouds

of dirt

on India’s copper veldt.

As I watch,

feeling now,

my own deadly appetites

rise up and fan out,

a taste coming into

my mouth,

saliva filling up

under my tongue,

this death’s-head

of addiction

rhythmically weaving

its lies,

bobbing for weaknesses,

it’s diseased mind-muscle

spasm,

waiting to strike –

I smirk to myself,

in mongoose-wisdom,

knowing full well

with life’s lessons learned…

…this beast doesn’t stand a chance.