Small town restaurant

 burnt concrete floor
oversized wine fridge
begging to be seen
Wait staff don't quite have the confidence to dance
But pull off awkward half twirls and turns

You could almost call it a brasserie
Black aprons with beautiful thin yellow print
thin white towels tucked in
Still moving to a beat the customer could not hear 

Counter flow

 Runners in their expensive clothes
with their determined grins
Little pouches of optimism
Running like a line of livestock
Following the backfoot of the one infront

The mesh fence all the way to the capital
each person a wire filament
And I there running against the flow
Of their busy bodies
Their desire to feel the collective

To be counted
to be included
To enter the city gates as heroes in their heads
And celebrate afterward as if life was solved

Heading home fast dusk

 Refridgerator shut
Haul water
throat is burning dry
walk outside 

sun is gone
the day is dark
heat still radiates
The early night says

time to go

pack things I've stashed
make my way back somewhere
At some point I decided
To shelf myself into

Moon all sweaty
dish untouched
circling and humid
So deeply jealous

of the sun

Speak to sun

 The oval green of the park
Shone so sweetly that afternoon
The blue all smokey and dry
Thin cloud resembling jet trails

Grass manicured and perfect
The park center a round adobe structure
A few meters away the deck chair
Where I sat and absorbed the sun 

Where I spoke to the sun
not in my language
Where I heated the cooler parts 
On the perfect grass

Communicating with the big big
Lettting the uv burn away yesterday
Drinking down liters of water
As the dryness intensified

The conversation
The back and forth
not more than a murmur
Illuminating

In the landfill I am found

 Into the landfill my hands
soiled and contaminated
Where things go and seldom come out
Where the methane cloud bloom

Painting the hallucinations of walking phantoms
who circle the landfill from the last dregs of day
To the decaying darkness of first dawn
And in this wasteland we find ourselves

The residues of ourselves
What never belonged to us
Yet what was spilled on us and made us stink
And instead of bathing we swam in the trash

Of a society built on the anxious electricity
Of software and luxury brand human resources
Dogmatic canine feces
censoring your very spirit

Hygenizing your emotions
compliance leveraging you
So look at me filthy
Look at me diseased I am human

The underachieving pariah 

Into the landfill, my hands are stained
Soiled by the things that men have drained
Where nothing leaves and nothing heals
Where methane blooms beneath the wheels

I paint the phantoms, pale and thin
Who circle where the dead things spin
From the last weak light of dying day
To dawn that crawls through filth and gray

And in this wasteland, here we stand
The residue of human hands
What never belonged, yet clung like skin
Was spilled on us and soaked within

And rather than wash, we learned to swim
Through overflowing, festering grim
A society wired and electrified
Where anxious souls are sanitized

Software gods and luxury brands
Human resources with clean white hands
Dogmatic canine excrement
Censoring the soul’s dissent

Hygienizing every emotion
Compliance dressed as devotion
Leveraging the fear in me
Then calling that humanity

So look at me: contaminated
Look at me: diseased, degraded
I will not bleach what makes me free
I am filthy, I am me

The underachieving pariah
The unprocessed, unwanted fire

Unidentified antiques

 Tommy Timms was an awkward twenty eight year old. Digging in the smelly wasteland.

He was bent over and lifting something out of the lower reaches of the Landfill.
Tommy wasn’t a quick study and he spent a good ten minutes eyeing it over.
Using both hands to turn it around and tilt it to every angle.
He thought it might be a cooking device as it appeared to be two pans joined together.
He began walking toward the exit where a grand quarry stood with many severe cuts into the hill of it.
He dipped the contraption into a steel container that had filled with water from the previous night’s rain.
Gray and brown oil residue slipped across the water surface.

An old man in a tow truck turned up, Henry was his name.
“Hello young mister Timms what the hell are you doing in the quarry this morning then?”
“Oh hi Henry, take a look at this closed cooking pan I pulled out of the landfill.”
“That’s not a closed cooking pan, it’s a bed warmer from probably about two hundred and fifty years ago.”
“Look at the underside of the pan, look for a maker’s mark.” Henry said.
Tommy pointed it up again under the overcast sky.
The words Dexter came to his eye.
“It says Timothy Dexter.”

Henry scratched his head.
“I wonder if that is one the bed warmers of old famous Timothy Dexter?”
Tommy looked again at it.
“Wow it’s so old and by now it’s probably useless. Do you want it?”
“Yeah why not.” Henry said amused
He lifted it again with both hands and placed it on the back of the pick up truck.

Henry took it down to the NewburyPort Museum Massachusetts.
“I’m sorry, so you are saying that this was one of the famous bedwarmers supposedly destined for the Caribbean?” The lady clerk said.
“I am.” Henry said.
“Where’s the evidence for the claim.” She said.

Henry turned the pan upward showing the makers mark.
The words Timothy Dexter were legible.
“Oh wow, so this is probably valued at around 3 million dollars. We can afford to pay you 2.5 million. You are welcome to try other museums.”
“Not that will do fine.” Henry said pleased with himself.

A year later Henry pulled up to Newbury transfer station and the abandoned quarry. His new Range rover.
An Old friend called Tom hailed him down.
“Hey Henry, long time no see. How did you get enough cash to buy a range rover. Towing cars must be paying out well.”
“Um long story, listen you see a young man around here his name is Tommy Timms?”
“Oh the salvage boy right? No he’s been missing. Rumor has it, he fell into the landfill looking for treasures.”

A tricycle devolution

My foot got caught as I hauled a broken red tricycle from the mess. It was stained with the leftovers of black and yellow paint. One or two of the tassels still pouring out of the sides of the handle bars. 
The seat was ripped and the wheels buckled with the strips of rubber coming off the rims.
It was impossible to know if the thing had been thrown out in the trash because of wear and tear. Or whether the thing had met with misfortune.

The steel back step of it was rusted through.
I carried it with me over to the quarry so I could clean it up.
It looked almost impossible to fix.
But I spent that week picking through hundreds of meters of trash just to find little substitutes until I had everything I needed to fix it up.

At the back of the quarry there was a shed with welding equipment.
I hooked it all up and started welding the tricycle together again.
Mist came in and with it heavy drizzle, the nearby pines stunk of their resin.
Even with the blow torch melting the metal.
Putting off that crisp aroma.

I used some reasonable fresh leftover paint someone had dumped.
Painted the thing blue and white and tucked in and glued some more tassels to it.

There was mold inside the shed from the constant rain and drizzle.
I took the tricycle out of the driveway where the entrance gate was.
Noone ever visited this landfill anymore, as a young man it was a refuge when times were tough.
To remind me I wasn’t the only thing thrown away.

Here I stood almost six foot, too tall for the simple tricycle.
So I cast the spell to shrink myself to just under a meter.
And in a short span of time I was one meter high. I slowly positioned myself comfortably on the tricycle and rode enthusiastically to the small town below.

I couldn’t believe how small I had become. Everything slowly becoming new again.
The town looming up ahead as the wheels rolled faster and faster.
As if years in my mind were turning back.
Like the mile gauge before a used car is imported.
A slow backward journey from the landfill to the small town people thought mattered, until of course it died.