Dark bits.

There is a dead factory. It sits on the tip of a small piece of land that extends into a forgotten lake. The whole structure looks like a giant dirty-inked thumb print pressed against a faded blue sheet of paper. Sunny days show up here about as often as pearls in washed-up oysters. Today is one of those rare days.

Joseph walks the perimeter, a reverse moat of concrete that keeps the waters at bay. To Joseph, it seems as if some deranged architect feared that armies of water nymphs and other fantastical creatures would rise up from the old lake and storm the ramparts. But this is not a castle, and it was no army, real or imagined, that destroyed this place.

Joseph continues his silent patrol, head cocked to the sky. His eyes are closed but he opens them quickly every few steps to avoid catastrophe or embarrassment, the two being synonymous for most Englishmen. even those from Yorkshire. When his eyes are shut, he feels the sun's embrace, a mother's soft hand on his face. 

Soon he stops walking, tired of opening his eyes and not wanting to chance falling into the water. There is wind and he hears the leaves along the shoreline sighing. He stands there a time, waiting for the ghosts. It is a beautiful, sunny day. Even so, their eventual appearance is inevitable. There is a bottle of not-so-cheap golden heat in his coat pocket, but today there is no chill excuse to seek it out, so Joseph just stands there, arms at his side, grizzled face (no wife, no work, no reason to shave).  

Eyes still closed, Joseph resists an urge to shout. Instead, he listens. He waits. After a time, he thinks that maybe it isn't ghosts he came to see. What would be the point? What do ghosts do, other then mock and offer false comfort. No, there are no ghosts here that Joseph hopes to stumble upon. The discarded, living or dead, cannot help him. It is at this moment that Joseph realizes that is exactly what he is. Discarded. Left behind and of no further use. He almost laughs then, but part of him knows that is not a path he can afford to go down at the moment.

This is the last place I was happy, now Joseph the Discarded has returned to haunt it. I am the ghost.

The thought hits Joseph with all the weight of sadness and he feels daylight's warmth fade from his face. Probably a cloud, maybe a cloud. He does not open his eyes to see. He does not want to know the answer.

Imagine, if you can, working in a shoe factory. Many people can't. Imagine working from dawn to night in such a place, with the noise and the chill and the grey and the monotony. Imagine doing it every day, every hour, slowly trading away your years, your life, in exchange for standing on a noisy factory floor. Now, imagine being happy. Joseph may well have been the only man alive capable of imagining just that. And the realization almost kills him.

Warmth returns to Joseph's face. Still he does not open his eyes. He does not turn his head.

Joseph does not return here on rare, sunny days, with the hope of glimpsing ghosts or other such ships, long since sailed. He comes here seeking a way back. A way to trade this world for a story, a world where old men can slip back and reclaim important moments. Where time is a merry-go-round, a roundabout, and where sometimes a man gets to jump on and ride in circles, the years sloughing off him like a snake shedding its skin. 

Right then, Joseph is not thinking about what he might have done to make things better. He doesn't want to change anything. He wants a place that needs him. A place that wants him. His place. His happy place. The factory.

A tear fights free from Joseph's closed eyes. He feels it make its way down his cheek. Tears always feel bigger in darkness, and this one feels like a river. He hears something then. It's only wind in trees. Only breeze and leaves and desperation. But to Joseph it almost sounds like a factory whistle.

Not almost. It is a factory whistle.

At this moment, he knows with absolute certainty that if he opens his eyes, he will see them. The discarded, all walking toward the factory's big double doors. He hears them now, a murmur that follows any crowd. Lost words about children and wives and baseball scores and politics. Joseph can't make out anything the discarded are saying, but he knows exactly what they are saying.

He stands there for a long time, but his eyes do not open. He has no interest in seeing ghosts. That is not why Joseph haunts this place on rare, sunny days.

I write poemswith bullets.
Sprayed punctuation on government walls.
I feel bad sometimes, but 
in the end - everything is art. 
Do you understand?

Liar.

Sacrifices are made,
so that my words may be heard.
In the end
I want you to listen.

do you understand?

Liar.

I want to be in charge of change.
So I write poems.
With bullets.
So I can be heard.  
Understand?

Liar.

Freestyle accompanying phone poem.

Shelter is a pretty illusion, 

a grass hut in a hurricane.

I offer my arms and soft words of safety

against the all devouring wolf of time -

relentless hunter.

Our only escape on a very narrow bridge, 

sways with each breath, each step.

Suspended above darkness and void. 

This moment.

this moment

this moment

is everything 

is everything 

our pretty illusion. 

Last week or so, I changed my profile so that it no longer reflected that my submissive had accepted my collar.  I did this as a bit of an inside joke and tease for her. 

I did not understand the importance or significance of doing this. It was not done because of any change in the status of our relationship.  It was not done out of anger and it certainly was not done out of intentional disrespect.

But I understand now that it was inappropriate for me to do so, and could seem hurtful and demeaning.  So I apologize for what I did. It won't happen again.

There are a lot of Daddys here, so there is a shortage of available screen names. Let's help them out.  post your suggestions. 

1. Daddy Long Legs

2. Bo Diddly Daddy

3. Sugarless Daddy

3.5 Sponge Daddy

4. Fatty Daddy

5. DomCom Daddy

6. Eat a Bag of Daddy

7. Daddy Denture 

8. Sir Dad alot 

9. Daddy Lubeless

10. Glitterdick Daddy 

Everything was in place, solid.

For years.

At rest. Ordered.

Then

A

    V

       A

           L

           A

            N

             CHE

Now life is sixes and nines,

new parts exposed, others buried under ruins.

Emotions torn away from natural progression,

tumble and swirl, rise and fall.

      But alive. 

Wonderfully battered. 

Beautiful bruises.

Adrenaline highs.

We run on false bedrock, unstable ground.

Every step together, a spin of the chamber -

barrel pointed at the heart.

To move? Insanity.

Still … 

pull the trigger.

One more step.

everything's shakin.'

It's 6:45 a.m. A gritty, mundane sort of magic pervades the air at "Valentine's" in the Hamilton Hotel. The silver troughs are already filled with thick wedges of French toast, pounds of flattened, cardboard-like bacon, mounds of shiny sausage links, and piles of other artery-clogging goodies. Urns of strong coffee stand guard over the holy of holies--the omelet station. The priests, disguised as waiters, carry pitchers of iced water and cold pewter creamers to their individual altars and stand ready.

Sylvia, the matriarch of the Weissman family, is the first to arrive. She rolls in, older and dustier than the pharaohs and flanked by two Sumo wrestlers dressed as tired tourists.  This morning she is decked out in powder-blue sweat pants and a faded yellow blouse. Behind the wheelchair, her son staggers as he pushes her majesty further into the room; a zombie stumbling toward coffee and salvation.  Everything about the first family screams "buffet veterans."

"Make sure the tea isn't so strong this time. It's always too strong. No one knows how to make tea anymore," she declares. The zombie rolls his eyes further back into his head. Since forever, he has been serving her "tea" consisting of a cup of hot water with a dry tea bag on the saucer. Always she complains that it is too strong.

The two Sumos break off from the procession and attack the omelet station, shouting out their demands while the zombie manhandles Queen Sylvia into position at the table. He collapses into a chair while she mutters something disparaging about the air-conditioning.

Royalty seated, the audience wanders in. A small army garbed in shorts, sandals, and mismatched socks. A few sport t-shirts with pithy sayings like "Obamanation," and "I'd trade gun control for bladder control!"

A family with three noisy children burst onto the scene, descending on the cereal station like crows on a battlefield. Eventually, everyone settles in and the familiar music of forks on dishes and clattering ice cubes against glass precedes the main event.

No one actually stops eating, but there's a familiar flavor of anticipation in the air. The waiters move just a little faster in, replenishing the troughs and re-folding those magical beige cloth napkins that refuse to absorb or clean.

Lee enters the room, filled with equal parts of desperation and determination. A large man just starting to turn to fat, he moves as if he is perpetually walking against a strong wind, sometimes dispensing his own. Today he wears slightly grimy blue jeans and a black Izod shirt, which hides a small gut, the foreshadowing of years to come. He is alone, armed with a dog-eared Dean Koontz novel (the one about a child in danger and a pet dog). There's less than a full day's growth peppered across his face. Whatever hair he sports is hidden under a faded Yankee's baseball cap. He has stayed in many different hotels but Sunday mornings from 7:15 to 9:00 am are always the same. For Lee, every breakfast buffet is a personal challenge.

Valentine's buffet is $15.95; about $5.00 more than breakfast would cost him at the Broadway Diner just down the road. He knows that he can hit the breakeven point by the second serving if he loads up on the bacon, but he's unsure of the quality of today's pork. It glistens with the promise of smoky satisfaction, but Lee has been fooled before by buffet meat products. He could pile on food, ignore it, and get a second plate, but it would be a hollow victory.

Instead he chooses a cheese and onion omelet and three pieces of French toast. This is also not without risk. While more satisfying, they are more filling and always make him feel sleepy.

"This tea is too hot," her highness announces.  Mummified, shaky hands, replace the cup.  Some hot water splashes over and the lonely tea bag finally achieves its life's purpose, darkening the small puddle in the saucer.

Across the room, Lee takes his seat and digs in. In a concession to culinary preference over economic interests, he piled the eggs on a toasted bagel, strings of cheese hanging over the end like Spanish moss. He alternates between the omelet and French toast, and by the time her majesty is satisfied with the temperature of her water, he is up for seconds. He is already full and a little tired, but he knows he is still about seven dollars in the hole. Lee, the Rainman of the buffet circuit, throws caution to the wind and loads up on the bacon and Danish. He knows this will ruin his day, but he also knows he'll finish this morning in the black. 

He piles the bacon so high that even the Sumo wrestlers take notice. Frick and Frack are on their 3rd plate already, but their portions are smaller and they are not members in good standing of the clean plate club. Amateurs.

Lee opens his Koontz novel and reads about the damaged but cute doggie. He quickly takes a chunk of bagel and eggs, then folds over a piece of bacon and sticks in the corner of his mouth like chewing tobacco. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he repeats the process until only the Danish remains.

A waitress glides over and refills his cup with hot, black lubricant. He gratefully takes a swallow and then attacks the pastry. His blood sugar has spiked to a little under 400 and he's having difficulty concentrating.  He keeps rereading the same sentence over and over, and his vision is getting a little blurry. But he has the presence of mind to know that he's eaten close to $22.00 worth of breakfast. He pauses to gently massage his chest. After a few moments and another large swallow of coffee, the pain recedes and he pops the last bit of Danish into his mouth.

Finally, he can breathe easy. The anxiety and tension disappear, the pain in his chest recedes and the caffeine kicks in. He is rewarded with that false sense of immortality that surrounds all hotel people. Mission accomplished, Lee gets up for some window shopping at the cold cereal and yogurt parfait table.

"This grapefruit is sour," Sylvia announces.