life – Page 7 – Kevin Trent Boswell

roads

once, the roads all lay
wide open before us,
turning in hundreds of
different directions,
taking people on magical journeys
to numberless destinations,
along magnificent trails
of gorgeous scenery

yes, there were always
a few dead ends, here and there, but
one could always
turn around

you could backtrack,
without experiencing
too much anxiety
over lost time

you’d happen upon
interesting choices,
unmarked intersections,
where there was
no signage
to help you navigate
your way

it was all
up to you

choose your own adventure,
twist-a-plot, flip a coin,
“eeny, meanie, miney, moe;
my mother told me this way…
and you… are… not… it”

and so, you’d set down a path,
with guesses, hopes, and fears,
but no real way of knowing
what was up ahead

it was all an exciting gamble

you might meet your death
but, you might find treasure,
fame, or perhaps,
unravel a mystery

“once there was a way
to get back homeward.”

see? Paul knew the deal.

but now,
the roads have all
narrowed

many of them,
if not most,
are blocked off |||||
completely impassible

storms have knocked down trees,
barring the way

some roads are blocked by protesters

many streets are just
too full of potholes

you can’t drive down them without
wrecking your vehicle

all the roads,
even the dirt ones,
are littered with toll booths,
every half a mile

insane fees extracted like teeth

the “protection money”
extortions of gangsters
looks like chump change
in comparison;
third-graders,
threatening to beat you up
for your milk money

half the available highways
have fallen too far into disrepair;
you can’t walk down them,
for fear of stepping in a hole,
breaking your ankle

of the remaining roads,
those still open and drivable,
the traffic is maddening

each thoroughfare
congested with vehicles,
all belching exhaust, and
piloted by madmen,
caught up in the throes of
full blown road rage

too many cars,
even though the travelers
on all of these roads
already know…

there’s nothing
at the end
of any of these highways;
nothing they’d actually want,
anyway

the obsession is no longer
“where are we going?”

it’s now
“how long can we keep driving,
before we run out of gas?”

we no longer worry about
how long it will take us
to get there, because
we know…

there’s nowhere to go

now, we just try to lose ourselves
in the experience of the drive,
desperately trying to forget
why we ever got into the vehicle
in the first place

we no longer
ask ourselves why we
even have a vehicle

such questions would only
cause us to think about
what is at the end of these
endless roundabouts, and
dirt paths, running through
fruitless orchards,
as far as the eye can see

asphalt and concrete
conveyor belts,
mindlessly herding us
through the turnstiles
and metal guide-rails
of urban slaughterhouses

what was so important?
that we had to build these
heartless machines?

pay all these tolls?

deal with all these
crazy people,
rudely plowing ahead
in all these ugly boxes?

and, more importantly,
if whatever it was…

isn’t even there,
anymore…

then,
why the hell
are we still
out here?

why are we
still on
these

tacky footpaths,
made of gauche steppingstones,
leading only to the madhouses

these dry, dead riverbeds
where five out of every ten tankers
are beached, or rudderless

three more of them are sinking

and one more has been pulled over,
by the police

only one out of every ten vessels
on our peculiar, asphalt rivers
is in good working condition,
and sailing on nicely

and, even that one
still lacks any sense of
where it’s headed

what fever is this,
that overtakes us,
compelling us to pursue these

godforsaken
freeways
of the damned

infinite trails of
tamed wilderness
that lead to
absolutely
nowhere

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it’s everywhere

the highways are littered with
broken bottles and empty people

or, was it broken people
and empty bottles?
I forget

there’s no room in here,
for all your wanting

paper airplanes
hang like gliders in the paused breezes

the earthworms break the surface
and bloom into roses

parting rain clouds
leave panels of stained glass behind,
just floating there,
for all to marvel
at their prismatic splendor

the parks, bus stops, trains,
the stores, and everywhere else,
they’re all overflowing with
discarded hypodermics
and an educated proletariat

or, was it hypodermic education
and a discarded proletariat?

clearly, it doesn’t matter,
which end of the pipe
you try to put the stopper on

there’s shit pumping
out of both ends,
nonstop

The God of War Wants Me Dead

Mars made yet another
Attempt on my life today

I was at work, and
Starting to get a bit stir crazy
So, I took a break and went for a walk

I walked up the hill,
The same hill that I walk up and down
Every day… without dying

It rains a lot here, almost all the time
So, I’m used to the hill being muddy,
Slick, just a bit less than safe

I’m used to planting each step very carefully

But today, just as I was taking my break,
Stretching my legs, climbing up and down
The same hill that I never die on,
Mars was changing zodiac signs,

You know, up there, in the big, blue sky thingie

As soon as he did that,
He was automatically squaring
My natal Mars position

Mars square natal Mars is, um… challenging

Seeing his moment of opportunity,
He tripped me

I went sliding down this muddy,
Goddamn hill, the same way I never do

Mars is exactly square (in my birth chart)
To my natal Sun

He’s an out-of-sect malefic for me

So, it’s hardly the first time
He’s tried to take my life

He doesn’t hate me or anything;
It’s just that he looks at me, and
Thinks to himself,

“I really should go ahead and murder him.”

So far, he’s failed every time

Maybe he isn’t really
Trying very hard,
I don’t know for sure

It’s tempting to think that maybe
He’s not that good at his job;
But, I know better than that

I think he’s just pretending to try to kill me

I had to go into the bathroom,
Lock the door, take off my boots,
Remove everything from my pockets,
Take off my jeans, and then
Wash them in the sink

I wrung them out, as best I could

Then, I put everything back on, and
Went out and stood by
A shitty little space heater,
Looking like I had pissed myself

It took two hours for my jeans to dry

This is why I’m pretty sure
That Mars only wants me to think
That he wants me dead

He just finds it entirely too amusing
To almost murder me

bullet holes

a crisp vertigo
has bitch-slapped me
right out of my seat,
and taken my place
at the table

how is it that one can be
gun-shy and trigger-happy,
at the same time?

these lesser mysteries
fall pale and sickly,
into the dim, sour heat
of winter’s chamberpot

fasten a few severed limbs
to your Christmas wreath,
and sing that classic
advertising jingle once more;
it does so warm the hearts of the masses

put a few coppers
into the wooden collection box
to help the neighborhood children
raise enough funds to
burn down the old cathedral, and
replace it with a house of mirrors

it’s a good cause

or, at least, it’s one that they’ll
never write songs about,
and hence, we’ll never have to
listen to them singing

you scrunch up your brow
and wonder, with a new brand of vexation,
what is this peculiar dip
you’ve been invited to
plunge your nacho poker chips into?

it is gray with fear,
it cringes and recoils
when you move towards it

and, what’s more,
it reeks of both vinegar
and victory

a blind man sidles up next to you
and tugs at your coat sleeve, saying
“I’ve seen this movie. Trust me,
you won’t like it, either.”

the cat has dragged home, and
ceremonially draped, a hippopotamus
across your threshold

it is more than a little incensed
that you show no appreciation
for its generosity

fickle creatures,
all of us

more inscrutable nightmares,
injected straight into the jugular

night wipes the sweat from its brow,
takes another shot of whiskey,
and motions disapprovingly
toward the calendar on the wall

the constable slurs an order
to the lieutenant on duty,
who promptly douses the wall with gasoline,
and sets the calendar ablaze

before exiting, he salutes, and
cheerfully says, “No worries, sir.
We’ll have a new one nailed up
in time for the New Year’s festivities.”

all the stops have been ripped out
from the church organ

now, it will do little more than blow bubbles,
and coo sinister, atonal choruses
of “Hail to the Chief,”
“Ring Around the Rosie,”
and “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”

“Ashes, ashes…”

we are always
falling down

it has been said that
there are worse things
than you

still, it is truly
impossible to know,
and difficult to imagine,
where such monsters
could possibly
exist

©️2023 Kevin Trent Boswell

portland, december

outside the building where i work,
the wind whips and wails

it raises holy hell in a way
that you just wouldn’t believe,
not unless you heard it for yourself

it moans and cries,
bawls, screeches, and shrieks,
as if this was the set of an old,
black and white movie

i shit you not, it got even louder,
louder than it’s been in hours,
just as i typed those last few lines

it’s as if the bad director
of this old, 1940s horror film
(or maybe it’s film noir)
was really hamming it up,
failing to understand the intrinsic value
of restraint and moderation;
not realizing that less is often more

if you’re caught out in it,
in all that wind,
it slices straight through you,
like a gangster’s switchblade

aside from the wind, it’s so
oddly quiet,
here, on the inside

that’s why the wind is so obvious,
there’s nothing
to compete with it

there’s only the sound of the heater,
and occasional fragments of conversation

but, that wind is so strong
and so ridiculously loud
because it’s coming
right in off the train tracks,
up a smooth hill with nothing on it,
and then, it smashes up against
the corner of this building

and that’s where i sit,
right near that corner

this wind, it produces
the caterwauling music of lonely banshees,
raging quietly o’er the moors,
weeping for lost loves,
ready to punish anyone
for their unconquerable sadness

i sit here and read my book of
dark, lonely poetry

i know the frustration of this poet,
i understand why he settled for
booze and prostitutes,
why he gave up on the idea of love,
altogether

i understand it, but
i don’t drink,
and the women i chased,
they didn’t charge
for their madness

they just scooped it out
from five-gallon buckets,
the way shark fishermen deal out chum

they served their love
on platters made of quicksilver,
adorned with rubies, emeralds,
bits of gravel, and chunks of broken glass

the whole soupy mess just
floated through their veins, and dripped out
from between their legs,
with that cosmic wine of ether and arsenic
on their breath

it slapped you in the face,
like that cold, december wind,
coming in off the train tracks

i hear that mournful banshee wind
and i know, that i too
will always be alone

not because i wasn’t
good enough

but, because
everyone these days
is just too broken
to know how to
love anyone

or to love themselves

instead, it’s
an unending parade
of impossible tasks

herculean shit-tests,
and promethean tortures
for imagined wrongdoings

it’s always,
“if you really loved me…

then, you’d endure
this bit of bullshit

and this one

and, a thousand more
just like them.

and, you’d thank me
for the privilege.”

it never stops,
the goddamned shit-testing

it just never stops coming

it’s just like
that goddamn wind
outside

always wailing

only,
more full of tragedy

more imbued with a primal rage

and, full of an
over-the-top
loneliness

the type of effluvial, melodramatic sadness
that pumps straight out of old
black and white movies,
dripping bombastic sentimentality
all over the celluloid

i would step outside,
shake my fists at the sky,
and yell, “stella!”

but, nobody’d hear it

and, they wouldn’t get the joke,
even if they did

people these days,
they don’t know shit about streetcars,
or any kind of desire
that isn’t a fleeting whim

their desires are all
easily forgotten
beneath the next,
pointless distraction

they wouldn’t know a maltese falcon,
if it fell on their heads

they can’t sit still for classic films
they can’t sit still in a dark theater
they can’t take the wailing cold
of the cutting wind

and, they certainly can’t stand
to be alone

the wind whips,
stinging like a shapeless jellyfish,
zapping you with a high voltage charge,
like a downed power line

it cuts,
like the edge of a
cheap gimmick

cuts
right thro
ugh you

cuts you right
in half

Flypaper

You can’t write
Beautiful poems
About love, nature,
Or friendship

When you’re under
An endless barrage of
Of deceit, disaster, and
Disappointment

If you’re trying to
Sit quietly
Under a bridge

And, everyone up top
Is chucking rocks at your head,
Hurling insults at you, and
Some things that are even worse

It’s going to break your concentration

You’re going to get shit
All over the pages
Of your notebook

It just doesn’t work;
You can’t do it

You can’t do it,
Anymore than a painter
Can put the finishing touches
On a huge, oil-on-canvas piece,
While sitting beneath
A flock of seagulls

The dammed birds
Are just going to keep
Shitting
All over that artist’s head

Shitting
All over the painting,
All over the palette

It’s pretty goddamned difficult
To write sweet, starry-eyed,
Optimistic poetry

When gut-wrenching
Distress and betrayal
Keeps falling all over you,
Getting all stuck to the pages

Poetry is flypaper

Whether hits your life,
Whatever hits you
Right in your gut,
It stains the work

It’s probably more accurate
To say that
All the bullshit,
The lies and
The letdowns,

Really,
It stains
You

It’s all over your face,
The dust of it is
In your eyes

The hunger of all those
Empty calories
Is in your belly

The holes, from all the
Drudgery and false promises,
Have punctured your heart,
Your lungs, and your veins

The greasy, foul-smelling
Residue of
All of it

It’s all over your hands,
And so,

You can’t set pen to paper,
Or touch your keyboard

Not without
Getting that shit
All over your writing