Marty Shambles

Meat the Messiah: s01e04 – Remembering the Dead

down at the la brea tar pits, joe camel is with his 16 year old daughter, jenny camel. he lights up a smoke and offers her one. 

jenny: i have my own.

she pulls out a pack of american spirits.

joe: i won’t tell your mother you’re not smoking our brand.

jenny: your brand, dad! i’m my own person!

joe: i don’t want to fight. i have something to tell you.

jenny (annoyed): what.

joe: i have cancer. it’s all over. doctors are at a loss to explain it. i should be in peak health.

jenny: are you going to die?

joe: yes.

jenny: good! i hope you fucking rot.

joe: how can you say that?

jenny: you were never there for me and mom. you were always out smoking and being cool. but you never had time to smoke with me.

joe: i don’t have much time left, but i want to make it right. will you let me do that?

jenny: no. fuck you.

a procession of war dead march down wilshire blvd.

jenny: what is it, dad?

joe: our fallen heroes… great americans who died in the line of service.

jenny: imperialist swine? 

joe: no. fuck you.

***commercial break***

tonight, on a very special friends, monica becomes a nazi. if that wasn’t enough, joey and phoebe join the falun gong. will friendship be enough to save the gang from cults? tonight at 8/7 central.

***

the procession of war dead moves through los angeles like a sobering annoyance, greatly lengthening commute times. jordan peterson and kanye west are on a man date to see a film about the holocaust. they are waiting in line for tickets outside.

peterson: i can’t wait to see all of the atrocities.

kanye: death to the jews!

peterson: i wish i was black so i could be as racist as you.

kanye: you could always wear shoe polish on your face and eat watermelon and fried chicken. then people would think you’re black and you can be racist too!

peterson: that’s not a bad idea!

the procession goes past. jorpan peeperson and yeezy stare at the the caskets draped with flags. peterson begins bawling his eyes out.

kanye: be cool man.

peterson: i’m just so moved by their sacrifice.

kanye: what do you care? you’re canadian.

peterson: everyone knows that american lives are the most important lives. and soldier lives are the third most important kind of american lives, behind white children and white women. these are just facts.

kanye: yeah i know. but you don’t have to cry like a bitch about it.

chunk: fag!

***commercial break***

the last woman on earth goes to the old supermarket. there are vultures and flies in the meat market. the produce section is reduced to mulch. there is grass growing in the canned foods aisle. all that’s left is canned anchovies and deviled ham. the woman considers her options and grabs the anchovies.

deviled ham: the last thing you eat.

***

the eyes of the surveillance state look away from the war dead. the street cameras don’t want a reminder of what freedom costs–their video feed going straight into the eye of washington. that glazed cornia has only itself to blame.

down rodeo drive, the sound of rage against the machine can be heard blasting from car speakers. hulk hogan and ronald mcdonald roll up in the cadillac, blocking the procession. ronald mcdonald, riding shotgun, pulls out his shotgun, and points it at the soldier pallbearers.

the cops watch this scene unconcerned. ronald mcdonald blasts one of the soldiers in the face. the cops do nothing.

hulk: why aren’t the cops doing anything?

ronald mcdonald: i have a license to kill anyone who’s not a millionaire.

hulk: that’s killer brother!

ronald mcdonald (to the troops): we need four caskets! 2 for us, and two for our beer!

the first 4 caskets oblige and empty 4 corpses onto the street, to bake in the california sun, leaving 5 bodies as the cadillac is towed away. they have a new ride now.

credits roll.

***

Daniel de Culla

Girl Half Woman, Half Sand

After finishing my night porter’s job
At the Lancrese Bay Hotel, in Guernsey, Channel Island
In the English Archipelago
I went to the beach of the same name
At about half past twelve in the afternoon
With the idea of bathing and hunting a female.
Yes, I bathed and hunted Dominique
A salty little whore, daughter of some innkeepers
Who had their hostel not far from 
The Victor Hugo’s house museum
At 38 Hauteville in St. Peter Port
Hauteville House, when he was in exile
With whom I bathed, very close
Putting my cool mackerel close to her clam
Which she shook all over me in circles
Going down to her hairy clam
Where I tasted that salt that tasted like the sea
Which had nothing to do 
With the taste of the clams I tasted
In the Red Light District of Amsterdam
Where prostitutes show themselves to the passers-by
In their illuminated shop windows
With clams that taste like expensive perfumes as Blanche
Reine de Nuit, Yves Saint Laurent, Fleur du Desert
And much less with the clams of the whores of the Rastro
Or the Retiro from old Madrid 
That taste like Patchouli
Guess Seductive, Titto Bluni, Miravia Mujer, Jimmy Choo.
The two of us linked together.
 When we finished
The sea took her orgasm and my ferocious ejaculation
Towards Saint Helier on the coast of the island of Jersey.
As she had to return home before two
She said goodbye to me with a “see you tomorrow!”
Walking along the beach
To see if another female would give me a cordial kiss.
In the distance, very close to the promenade
Next to some rocks
I saw a beautiful young woman in the sand
From the waist down
With two beautiful naked breasts on her chest
Whose name was Ordovica.
Dazzled, I approached her, stole a kiss, and said to her:
-What a beautiful day we’ve had.
How come you’re buried from the waist down?
She, happy and very pleased, answered me:
-I have numbness in my legs and feet
Multiple sclerosis, wow!
-And sex, and all the parts above?
-More alive than ever since you kissed me.
-Well, I’m going to dig in the sand stealthily
To reach that clam you have
To then go up to your chest
And reach your lips to give you a kiss of sin.
-Did you love me as soon as you saw me?
-Without a doubt, precious girl friend.
With the fingers of both hands
I began to dig on my knees
To see if I could reach her clam.
Singing: “I’ll dig, I’ll dig; I’ll get to your clam”
I realized that I already had her in my right hand
Because some rigid spines stuck in my fingers
Discovering her aboral face next to the anus.
-It’s a red sea urchin! I exclaimed.
-The good one! she answered; continuing:
As you well know, my new boy friend
The black sea urchin is poisonous like the widow’s.
Immediately, I took the sea urchin out of my swimsuit
Not without first giving it a French kiss
Not caring about the pain, stinging, erythema
That I felt in my hand
With which I guided the sea urchin towards the five tongues
In the shape of a star of her clam
That did not look anything like the natural female clam
With its large lips, small lips and clitoris.
We did not manage to copulate
Bbecause her caretakers were approaching
To pick her up and take her to their residence.
Perhaps, because of the total arousal I had
I saw that her four caretakers
With their erect member out
Picked her up and placed her on top of them
Taking her in the air towards an ambulance
Which was waiting for them on the seafront.
We couldn’t even say goodbye
Only I began to recite, nervous and excited:
-Girl, she’s leaving
The beautiful girl from the sand.
Girl, she’s leaving
The paramedics are taking her away.

George Gad Economou

The air in the room reeked

the air in the room reeked of stale tobacco and cheap gin.
only the absolute necessities in it: a double bed with a metallic skeleton and
a thin mattress, two nightstands whereon boxes brimful with condoms stood,
a small refrigerator in the corner, and next to it a small cabinet.
two shelves contained bedsheets and towels, 
the third a lovely collection of booze.
“how about some music?” Yvonne asked, and took out her iPhone.
“God, I love this song,” she said as she swayed to Jimmy Hendrix’s Voodoo Child.
“yeah. so, this is where you live? or where you just work?”
“both,” she replied, her voice coming off somber despite her dancing.
“uh-hum. so, a drink?”
“of course. I’ll have a gin on the rocks.”
I mixed two; the moment we sat on the mattress,
it creaked and budged under our weight.
“I’ve often meant to get a new bed. but this one’s sturdy, and does its job.”
we clinked glasses and drank. “I imagine you need a sturdy bed, right?”
“part of the job requirements. does it bother you? what I do for a living?”
“why should it? does it bother you I’m a broke drunkard writer?”
“nope.”
we drank some more, then our bodies amalgamated
into a single bouncing body making the mattress squeak
and the bed drag against the floor. didn’t even think
of the number of men that’d been in my position;
I did have a dirty past, too, I just never got paid for my troubles.
once the deed was done, and she cleaned herself up with some tissues,
we lay in bed, taking pulls of gin out of the bottle.
“you better leave. I have to take a shower and get dressed.
in about an hour, we open for business.”
“okay, fine. see you in two days?”
“maybe, I’ll come by the bar tomorrow.”
we didn’t kiss goodbye. I left the small two-story house with
the seven bedrooms and shambled down to the bar by the port.
“the usual?” the bartender asked, I nodded.
large draft beer and triple Jim Beam on the rocks arrived on the dirty wooden counter.
“hey, George,” Jeanette greeted me with a long peck on the cheek.
“how about buying a tequila for a girl enjoying her day off?”
“sure.”
she hunkered down on the neighboring stool.
she bought the next round; I bought the one after. and so on.
until the bar had to close and we went to the apartment she shared
with three other young women selling their bodies to make ends meet.

Brooks Lindberg

The Writer is a Pornographer

The writer owns an original Goya painting.
The writer enjoys eating red pears.
The writer is wanted in four states.
The writer is current on his debt obligations.
The writer cooks with tarragon. 
The writer is endowed.
The writer is not endowed.
The writer is a wombat.
The writer has fangs.
The writer is his alter-ego.
The writer is a mud-fish.
The writer is writing.
The writer is not writing.
The writer leaps from oblivion to oblivion.
The writer writes.

Jason Melvin

Butts in the air

Mom said she liked my new poem
the link posted on Facebook
she scanned the room
then her smile disappeared

I need to talk to you

said in a pained whisper
her head nods toward the empty kitchen
away from the rest of the family

She pulls in close and whispers
almost a cry

   I scrolled down and clicked on something

   Did you know?

a dramatic pause
she’s searching for the bravery
to say the vile word

   P    O    R   N!!!!!!!!!!!!

just saying it weakens her knees
I can’t help it     I laugh

This was the wrong reaction
Her: (In her best whisper-yell)

   I’m serious!

Me:

   I don’t know you must’ve clicked

   on something you shouldn’t have

I think of the poem she’s talking about
a little slice of life moment
published on a respectable site
not like the trash I’ve published at HST

my nonchalance has her concerned

   You don’t understand

   I saw their vaginas

   their butts were in the air!

I don’t how she expects me to react
with anything other than knee buckling laughter

   What if your kids saw it?!

my youngest being 16
I have to assume
they’ve seen some porn by now

as my mom storms off
huffing as she goes
I ask

   So, where exactly were their butts?

Marty Shambles

Meat the Messiah: s01e03 – A Breath of Fresh Air

on the warner bros backlots, bukowski gives slurred and blurry directions. left here, right there, wait back up, never mind keep going. they linger to hoot and gawk at a group of chorus girls, then back to the task at hand. 

hulk hogan takes out his hog to examine his wounds. the necrosis is spreading rapidly. he has a half-dead dick, and it smells like old meat.

bukowski: there it is.

there’s a large machine that says ‘wind machine’ in an unassuming font. they stop the car and get out. there is a slight breeze. 

hulk hogan, elvis, ronald mcdonald, and bukowski get out their respective guns and shoot down the wind machine with all their power.

a man, who is really me, the devil, in disguise, runs up and yells at them to stop. 

man: what are you doing?!

hulk: we’re ending the wind, brother!

man: why?!

elvis (to the boys): why were we doing this again, man?

ronald mcdonald: so we can shoot stuff.

hulk: but we shot stuff anyway, brother.

bukowski: this seems kind of dumb.

they lower their guns. there isn’t a breeze anymore. it feels warmer.

man (who is really me, the devil, in disguise): it’s going to take me weeks to get more parts for this here wind machine! i hope you boys are happy with yourselves.

the 4 assailants look down in shame.

***commercial break***

a noid sits in a darkened warehouse that is empty, save for a twin mattress, a folding chair and a table. on the table are a glass, a bottle, an ashtray, a pack of marlboros, and some photos of a pizza. in the back of the warehouse is a large plastic curtain on a runner, beyond which, who knows. the noid looks at the photos and takes a long drag off his cigarette. he knows what he has to do. he gets in his car and drives off. he swerves as he drives. he’s still a little drunk, but he has to do the job. he parks his car directly in the path of the delivery driver. the driver stops, and that’s when the noid jumps out of the bushes with a gun and shoots the driver between the eyes. he drags the pizza crying to his car. the pizza is bound, gagged, and drugged, and thrown in the trunk. the pizza struggles against it all but there’s no point. it soon succumbs to the drug and passes out. the pizza wakes up strapped to a chair. the noid says, go ahead and scream. i like it when they scream.

***

hulk hogan, the perfect american, stands on hollywood boulevard, watching the parade of war dead; dozens of caskets, draped in american flags, carried by soldiers, making their way past the filth and flourish of tinseltown.

hulk is moved by the sight and a single tear forms. a 12 year old kid sees this. it’s chunk from the goonies.

chunk: fag.

hulk: fuck you kid.

a flurry of shutters clacking and flash bulbs bursting capture hulk extending his middle finger at a kid.

hulk, elvis, ronald mcdonald and bukowski go their separate ways.

there should be rain to atmospherically punctuate the scene, but there’s still no wind.

credits roll.

***

Alex S. Johnson

Twatzapooner’s Revenge: A Fucked-Up Fairy Tale

“Forgive me, Trollkins love, I feel ever so sleepy.”

Princess Cherrypop, 19, stretched, yawned and placed a dainty hand over her luscious, nubile lips. 

Her Troll attendant, whose name was Hermione Plunger, started. 

“No no no no, young miss, that will not do,” she said.

“And why ever not?”

“Because you must be vigilant. We must ever. Be. Vigilant. We must take the potions and the remedies, maintain our lookout at all times. She is awake now, and dark upon the land. She. Nair. Cuntingham.”

“To be honest,” said Cherrypop, depositing a kiss upon her beloved handmaiden that was ever-so-innocent even as she inserted a sly, experimental bit of tongue, “I am dead tired of the constant wakefulness, and I see nothing wrong with bedding down…I mean, we could, you know, separately…or…together. In an innocent, experimental way, of course.”

Hermione gently fingered the Princess, who sighed and oozed moisture from the Pussy of the Realm.

“Thank the goddess Twatzapooner for investing the hereditary pussy power in these mine nether lips,” sighed Cherrypop as Herrmione’s firm, nimble fingers played with her. “That feels so good, and better than good. Indeed, I feel a royal explosion coming on.”

“No, no, no, you mustn’t,” said Hermione. “For is it not foretold that the release of such power would cause great destruction and devastation throughout the Land of Euphoria, and your father, Herbert Longwood the XI, will lose of his wood, and the Queen Griselda will lapse and become a slushycorpse once more, and then…deadfucking will be the rule rather than the exception, as the peasantry always follow our example, be it good or bad.”

“I’ve never felt that was quite healthy,” sighed Cherrypop. “But then again, I am young in years and, aside from reams of experimentation, innocent of man.”

“It is what it is,” conceded Hermione. “At least it keeps him from plunging the royal fleshscepter willy-nilly amongst the entombed like Count Edward of Geine.”

The Princess shuddered.

“Could you help me out of mine royal costume?” asked Cherrpop? She was beginning to feel that odd itch and wished to engage in such activity as corresponded to it, which generally resulted in her suspension from the ceiling with a gag harness over her head. 

“Nay, Princess, I dare not and will not. You must attempt to dial back the sensations. Think of that awful toad, Crust Pellotone, who made his advances upon the royal pussy but recently. Think of what occurred to his body after Twatzapooner’s wrath.”

Cherrypop shuddered again with a mixture of delicious dread and outright horniness. “Oh my goodness yes. He was stripped of his clothes, stuffed into a leather sling, pinioned and punctured in every major artery. We watched that sling leak for days while he bled out, but due to the magic of the court sorcerer, Fuzzlewick, he never truly died. He’s still around somewhere,” she said. She frowned. “I’m glad he suffered. I know my father the king always admonished me to think kindly of all creatures, even the horrid, but Pellotone truly was the worst of the worst. His open and obvious slaverings! And him a peasant!”

“And him an ill-bred yob,” said Hermione. Without thinking, Cherrypop’s servant had gone knuckle-deep. Suddenly realizing what she had done, Hermione retrieved her fingers, then caressed the Princess’s cheek. Cherrypop sucked her slick fingers and licked her lips.

“I love to taste myself,” she said. “Could we play that lovely game now, the one with numbers?”

“We cannot,” said Hermione.

The Princess pouted. “You go from hot to ice cold. Which is it to be?”

***

High above Euphoria, nestled in a pink cloud, the goddess Twatzapooner was vexed. Her hereditary nexus with the royal pussy made her feel every sensation Princess Cherrypop did. And this ridiculous Hermione person was not only deliberately lying to the bearer of the Pussy of Power, she was blocking Cherrypop’s release, which caused her great frustration.

She heard the familiar whinnying of the Baroness Cuntingham, Queen of Nair, in the far distance. Nair craved the pussy power for herself, and took every opportunity to try and ambush the Princess in an attempt to carve the pussy from between her legs and extract its puissance.

“Can you believe Mistress Hermione’s boldness?” said Cuntingham partially to herself, but knowing Twatzapooner could read her thoughts.

“Yes, I can,” said Twatzapooner. “You know what, we both deserve relief. Let’s first edge the Princess, then allow her release, whereupon I will grant you what you have long desired.”

“Oh goddess, that would be…so very fucking great. Seriously though. I would do anything for you.”

“Are you mental?” asked Twatzapooner, infuriated. “I was just this close to granting your wish of obtaining the Quim Chalice, and then you pull this toadying shit.”

Twatzapooner grew angry, and angrier still, at the general impertinence. 

The heavens began to boil and teem. A horrible stench filled every nostril in the kingdom, the smell of rotten meat lying in the sun for days stirred together with the guts of a fishmire and the piss of a Nocturnicorn. 

Then the meat rain began.

Chunks of bloody flesh descended. They splattered rooftops and patios and yards and hedges and trees and the Dark and Light forests. Bits and pieces of blood slime smeared across cheeks and splashed down faces, making no distinction between royal and commoner.

“Oh no, the goddess is PIIIIISSED,” cried Hermione. “We need to give her discharge now.”

So saying, she tied the Princess to an x-cross, muffled the royal lips with a bit gag and proceeded to lash her until she bled. The Princess screamed through the gag, tears welling. She felt a convulsive sensation begin in her toes, then spreading up her body in violent waves. 

Till it reached the pussy of power.

And detonated.

On her pink cloud, the goddess Twatzapooner experienced the Law of Unintended Consequences. Linked as her pussy was with that of the Princess, her discharge was even greater.

The meat rain increased, gathering clouds and turbulence until it became a meat storm. 

The stinking flesh gobbets began to whirl in the sky, causing sucking columns to form. Houses were wrenched from their foundations, trailing bricks and sod. Horses were smashed against rocks as they screamed and screamed again. Many peasants were battered with clubs of meatcurrent until they expired. 

Looking at the scene through her Mirrorcast, Hermione’s eyes widened.

“Royal shitmix,” she said. “The goddess is displeased!” She rapidly undid the Princess from her bonds. “You need to use the royal pussy power now!”

“What?” said the princess, a tad dizzy from the bondage and blood coursing towards and away from the pussy of power. “Come again?”

“Yes, Mistress, cum again. You must cum again, and restore the balance.”

“Very well then, Hermione. Eat me in that special way, and I will partake as well of the sweet game of numbers curled inside themselves.”

After a furious bout of Ye SixtyNine, both the Princess and Hermione exploded with hot, frothing orgasms. A column of Pussy Power ™ ascended through the heavens, spearing Twatzapooner’s ethereal body. 

The heavens sucked up the meat rain the way one might use the heel from a loaf of bread to mop up extra shpegoootiin sauce. The storm collapsed in upon itself, rested, relaxed and smoked a cigarette.

In their respective places, the goddess Twatzapooner, the Princess Cherrypop and her servant Hermione dozed off to sleep, quite sated.

The only one who remained unsatisfied by this arrangement was the Baroness Cuntingham, Queen of Nair.

“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me, Twatazapooner. Seriously?”

And with that, she stalked off to her Eggsucking Hut.

Doug Hawley

Meditation Monsters

The ten people, five men and five women were meditating as usual at their Wednesday night session.  They were all nude because they followed the rules of their prophet Lee James.  According to James, a lack of clothing ensured their innocence as they spent an hour in a seventy degree Fahrenheit room with candle lighting.  The men and women were required to be in separate rows approximately five feet apart facing each other.  They believed their position and all of the other conditions of their meditation – silence, no devices, no food or drink – would improve their physical and mental condition.

Five minutes into the session two naked creatures interrupted them.  One was obviously male, and one female but they weren’t exactly human.  They were larger than typical humans and had hair in unusual places.  Their bodies resembled those seen on old space opera books.

After a stunned silence lasting more than three minutes Joy spoke up “What the hell.  Who are you and how did you get in?”

The male responded “Before I answer those questions, let us introduce ourselves.  I go by Night Monster, and she as Night Angel.  We are night demons, but good ones.  Our mission is to spread sexual pleasure or healing.  We came in earlier today, but you couldn’t see us because we are only visible at night.  We can better your lives by offering you extreme pleasure.”

Dan said “What a load of crap.  Are you escapees from a freak show?”

Night Angel answered “A freak show escapee who knows what you have fantasized doing with Janice?” 

Dan face flushed and he opened his mouth to speak, but slowly reconsidered.  Janice also blushed.

Monster said “Listen, all of you can go into denial about your desires, or what we are, or we can help all of you.  What do you say?”

Jake said “Whatever those two have on their minds, how about we let them talk.”

There was some mumbling, but no objections, so agreement was assumed.

Angel took the lead “As we said we have been here for a while, and examined your thinking.  This is a singles organization, and despite the asexual meditations, we know that most of you are here for romance as well as enlightenment.  You all studiously ignored Bill’s erection during the meditation and Carol’s admiration thereof.  Your meditations are valuable, but we have suggestions for augmenting the experience either before or after with earthly delights.  If there is one or more disinterested, you could wait in another room while we work with the rest of the group.”

Joy and Jay left.

“I don’t want to belittle anyone here, but none of you are in satisfactory relationships now, and everyone in the meditation group is a friend to everyone else here. You are all in good health and flexible.  Monster and I suggest the following couples:  Janice and Amir, Carol and Sam, Suzette and Bill, Helen and Dan.”

There was some surprise from the group because the combination mixed both size and race.  Pale Janice and dark Amir, big Suzette and little Bill, but no one objected and some were very pleased.

“We think that we have good matches based on your conscious and unconscious thoughts.  So if there are no objections, we suggest that couples get on your meditation mats and begin to explore.  If anyone needs help Monster and I are excellent fluffers.  No one here needs to go home without an orgasm or several.”

The couples went to their mats as instructed.  Most of them began erotic massages on their partners.  Janice used mouth while Amir let his fingers do the walking.  The couples, with one exception, were thoroughly aroused.  They did some bargaining, including do it my way first, then I’ll do it your way next.  Suzette blushed and pointed at her rear portal.  Bill smiled and started drilling.  After they all agreed on how to proceed they went into various versions of cowgirl, missionary, and things only available to Kama Sutra students.  An interesting mixture of groans, yelps, chirps, and purrs followed.

Carol and Sam were the exception.  Their mutual inspection didn’t lead to arousal.  Carol cried for help.  Monster positioned Carol for sixty-nine, and Angel used her foot long tongue on Sam’s penis.  Within a couple of minutes Carol and Sam were thoroughly fluffed and eagerly started on each other.

An hour later several thoroughly satisfied couples were ready to leave.  They bid farewell and gave thanks to Monster and Angel for giving them an addition to their meditation.  On their way out they stopped in to tell Joy and Jay goodbye.  To their surprise Joy and Jay were vigorously pursuing missionary sex.  Joy told the group “We weren’t against the sex; we just wanted to have a little privacy.  We didn’t tell the group that we have been a couple for weeks.  Nothing new here for us.”

Amir, Jay, and Janice told some of their friends and those friends told their friends.  Soon, Sexual Healing named after an appropriate Marvin Gaye song moved to a large room at the Portland State University campus, and hence to the more liberal colleges.  

Lee James contacted the original Portland Oregon group to propose a modification of his book on meditation to include Sexual Healing.  A year later James and the group had a best seller “Healing Though Sex And Meditation”.

As this is being written, peace groups are suggesting Sexual Healing between different racial, ethnic, national, and religious groups as a way out of conflict.  Various sexual orientations are copying the original straight groups.  The future is bright.

Noel Negele

If Our Mothers Could See Us Now

Once, you bought some rope
and tied a 22 year old beauty 
from Bulgaria to your bed—
butt naked and flushed 
and showed her perversions 
she will never shake off 
or find somewhere else

now, your red eyes 
search the ceiling 
for a place to hook 
that same rope
and tie it around
your scrawny neck

now, midday, drunk and desperate 
you visit an AA meeting at a church 
and everybody looks so clean 
and content and absolved 
and they’re so nice to you
it almost embarrasses you
in its unfamiliarity 

some in suits even—
so well shaved and pure faced—
there’s an envious relief in their faces
as they tell stories of old
painfully familiar to your present

decades of sobriety 
in display

if my mother could see me now
you think to yourself 

with a broken right hand 
and a bruised up face 
and a toe broken too
from when you kicked
a barstool at someone’s face
as if it was a soccer ball

now, at the cigarette break
of the AA meeting 
you wonder off outside 
and far from the group 
feeling like you’re going to
burst into a weeping fit 
because of the kindness 
of these once broken souls
offering you coffee and cookies
with a soft tone to their voice 
as if talking to a mad man—
voices like the Indian flutes 
calming down the cobras—
offering you a chair amongst 
the circle of them 

now, if my mother could see me now
with my busted wing
and my plastered up face
nourishing scars that will remain
for the rest of my life

but it’s always about that higher power
that’s helped them 
which makes you feel lonely 
because you don’t believe in God—
you don’t believe in people either 

you are tethered by nothing 
to nothing 

you can barely wait 
for the meeting to end 
so that you can limp away
from them, chasing that drink 

the imposter, the liar
the bad son, the bad brother 
the bad friend and the even 
worse lover 

now, you drink at the pub 
betting your rent money 
at a football match—
watching the game at a screen
as it all goes downhill 

as your loss is as impending 
as a liver failure 

sitting now at a barstool
waiting for that next beer 
a fella next to you
looking at you 
waiting for the same thing 

You look like you been to war
he says to you

some battles 
you respond 
but the war is still ongoing 

he laughs 

You don’t happen
to have any jobs for me
do you
you ask

he glances at your casted hand—
I was about to ask you 
the same thing 
he says 
and we both laugh 

a hollow laugh.
Nobody’s really laughing here,
we’re just waiting for the add-on
to the pause, we’re just waiting on 
the reprieve 

from the mounting bills 
the grief of spouses
the increasing silent desperation 

so quiet in our need of help 
too cowardly to give love
a third chance 

I decline romantic offers—
last one took me by the hand
like a child
and led me to a ketamine hole
and a well of alcohol 

swimming from one addiction 
to the next 
and truly wondering 
how come you don’t 
drown yet

a steep decline
steepening by the day
to a free fall

some people have to hit 
rock bottom to bounce back
and others
and most
expire there in that lonesome darkness

all eyes glued to the screen
gamblers with downwards faces 
in a dour looking dive bar 

Lord almighty 
and all the angels above 
you think
standing up to leave 

if only our mothers
could see us now.

Marty Shambles

Meat the Messiah: s01e02 – Be Alert and of Sober Mind

in l.a. the sun is a flash bulb in the camera of the sky that never relents. roy mcroy eats his whole lunch in a laborious, trodding fashion. only two more days of this job. when he was young he met greta garbo at a screening of which film he couldn’t remember. since then he wanted to be near greatness. he got a job 35 years prior at the w.b. lot as a security guard, straight out of high school. it was a union job with a pension so he stuck around. he married his high school sweetheart and they had two children. when they got a tv at the security booth, the channel was always set to fox news. he left it on there because he wanted some noise while he had down time. the conservative programming made him more suspicious of immigrants, and black people who weren’t famous seemed to be hoodlums. for years he let his brain simmer on the conservative hotplate, until it was dry and hard. this was a point of contention at home, as his wife and kids were not cooking their brains on trash tv. instead, his kids became bay area anarchists, and his wife ran off with a woman; all of whom stopped talking to him. he started drinking and was mad at nights. he broke down crying at walmart and bought a gun. now with two more days on the job, he has two more days of purpose. two more days of slog and agony. then he could end it. roy mcroy watches as a cadillac convertible drives up to the security booth at w.b. studios. he sees elvis and hulk hogan, an old drunk and ronald mcdonald in the car. ronald mcdonald takes out a shotgun and blasts him in the face. 

***commercial break***

a very white upper middle class family rides in their cadillac escalade. ‘in this fast paced digital world, it’s important to take into account the quiet of a well made car.’ the escalade plows through a herd of deer without losing speed. blood splatters the windshield. the kids in the back say yay! the dad turns on the windshield wipers.

***

panama’s ‘destroyer’ plays in bullet-time as the hammer strikes the shell. there is a rapid expanse of gasses and flame, propelling the buckshot down the smoothbore barrel, each bb of shot trying to outrun the last, until they meet the true forms of light and death outside the barrel. this is plato’s shotgun, and in this moment, when the shot traverses from gun to face, everyone surrounding understands the true forms of the mortal moment. as the music swells, roy mcroy has a reverie from sometime ago, when men were men and the goddamn antifa wasn’t trying to take his job. it was a simpler time, some decades before this one. and he thought of an office building in the middle of a field that he saw as a kid. he didn’t know what was in the office building, nor why he was there, but he knew that there was something beautiful about that building and that field, that it had the american promise of taming the wilderness for business, that all frontiers would soon be mapped. there should’ve been a picture taken of that building, in all its dull imposition. this is what roy mcroy thinks of in his last milliseconds, as the buckshot pierces meat and crushes bone… as the metal snakes through the skull and out the back. the body of roy mcroy slumps back and air escapes his lungs like a sigh.

credits roll.

***