Chapter And Verse

Ace Was My Friend

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Ace was my friend.

I'll always miss him.

I never had a better friend.

And maybe none other at all.

But he died.

And so will I.

And so will you.

We all will too.

And might be no one there to mourn.

(Or in any way other cause havoc.)

So all right.

Shit.

So what.

A Dark And Lonely Night

A dark and lonely night.

Ginger Lynn Barger

1989 tonight to 2003

Our Little Girl

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That's what the tombstone said.

A Day Along The Path

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A day along the path of totality.

In conference with primitive people.

Would demonstrate my heavenly power –

That they may take me, yea mistake me

For a man of wealth and taste.

It dimmed, darkened, clouded and rained.

Not sure were all the stark success.

Now I clean my pistols tonight.

A Fine And Telling Tale

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A fine and telling tale:

Befall one night by the studio – drankin', dancin', prancin'; long late into the night.  The big boss bucks me home (we didn't wreck), to Daddy's place and to Willy's too. They long-play up-'n'-at-'em. We chit-chat, lollygag and bullshit, bob 'n' weave 'till damn near dawn. I crash. I wake.  Daddy asleep. Willy still long 'n' strong, awake at the kitchen table.

Might I make the breakfast? he stoutly say.

No, that's OK, I lamely play.

What kind? You say, he gravely say.

I don't know. Don't give a fuck. Scrambled, then, I say.

Scrambled? Shocked. He is, he is.

Willy is truly put off, put out, astounded.

You really happy with that? What? ... Only the here and the now, the fast and the easy? Let me do for you my specialty: fresh butter fried, hard over crispy, plenty o' salt 'n' pepper, with a taste of Tabasco sauce.

Sure. Thanks, Willy.

Sure thanks.

Sure thanks for the fuckin' lesson.

Sure thanks.

A Fragment

A Fragment:

Mary McNulty Devitt

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Come, let us take time. She was afraid that someone would find out that she was lonely. She was ashamed of this thing – this slip of the spirit showing. She ran this night and hard – out of breath with running. Such a funny one. One of the funny ones who step on ants because their streetcars won't come – one of the lone chocolate eaters – jazz listeners – The Comic Desolates with their grimy guts attune to a swifter, friendlier music than is found in these foul flat streets. She was precious once. Precious, patted and pressed – washed and wanted and it was Ah! Sweet. (That much done – we carry our unquiet lives away in little baskets.) Now it's up and down the street pretending they've got someplace to go – Looking in windows – Looking at the smiling and the talking and how they touch one another – While the lights go on in all the little houses.

Each night when she came downtown she knew it would be the same – She'd come down fast – driven – incomplete – into town – turn the white corner – past the dreaming post office – Sadly sadly through Bum Park and in front of the hotel there was no one.

The Father no longer slept snoring in the silent house nor strode the broad lawns nor set the house dancing with his roaring. The beloved slobbering and fumbling over his supper from across the table, and the secrets and the laughter quite quite gone.

But here was some place to go – this street gone white in the moonlight and the mists around the arc lights strung out through the town far. Soon it would snow. She stood in front of the hotel where his cab stand used to be. There were still a few people making noise in the street.

Cab – Taxi Cab – Cab, Lady?

Why not? Streetcar down, taxi back – back.

Where – home? She got into the cab and sat back shivering. So frighteningly public – cigarette burns in the worn leather seats – the smell of stale smoke and such a lot of ancient comings and goings, findings and losings – so much forgotten quarreling and furtive love making – hollow singing had eaten its way into the tired upholstery.

Where to?

Could I just sit in here for a minute?

Lady, listen, I'm out here to make a livin'.

You have to be making a run all the time?

I have to be making a run.

Well, the Union Depot, I guess.

Union Depot it is.

The cab pulled off the stand and swung into St. Peter Street. The mist was heavy now and the tires and pavement were silver wet with it. The cab hissed along – other headlights were blurred – indistinct – far away. Steam formed on the windows so that the world outside seemed unreal – half seen – only half heard. This constant being alone made her feel disconnected – suspended – like an amorphous blob floating. She was surprised when people spoke to her at all and found herself looking around to see if there hadn't been some mistake. The driver was speaking to her now.

– and pull up on the side stand if that's OK? I wonder what the first of it was. Nothing was whole or sane since the Father died. Where did the everydayness go? What vital juice ran out of her forever when he gasped that last time?

Other cars made slow motion shadows on the streaming windows as they swung broad into the curve of the drive.

Union Depot – thirty five cents.

She felt trapped – she hadn't wanted to come to the depot. This is where people went away. This is where they came home – some of them.

A Grey, Indeed

A grey, indeed the gray-scale day;

Blunt knife, sharp edged but blurred –

Within, without; without within.

This too shall pass, they say.

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Sey Hey ...

All Dogs

All dogs are good dogs

But not all dogs are good

A Long Story

A Long Story is what we say –

Just what we say when we won't sey.

And Then It Seems

And then it seems the saw:

That We were ever now in Hell,

Not merely and hardly but classically,

Left on the shelf like out for recess;

But actually and only and really –

Out and out,

Full on and for real,

By the Great And Good And God-Damned God:

Bring it on,

Step in time,

Sure as shit –

Swim in a sea of depression.

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I scribe the silly application form,

The never ending Daily Do.

References are required.

Of which (of course) there are none.

I call the pal on the telephone:

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"Could ye then deign to prefer to refer,

Or to be of the signal citation –

For me, my friend? ... Ah ... Ah? ..."

Well ... ah ... it's like this ... ah ... maybe ...

Say he.

Might do the same for you,

Say me.

"Thanks. But no thanks. But no.

I care to work another day

Before I fucking die."

Fuck you, I say.

And you, say he.

Et cum spiritu tuo.

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A friend in need

Is a friend indeed.

Anne de Montfort Devitt

Anne de Montfort Devitt.

24 Oct 1957 through 9 Dec 2013.

Always Artiste in All and Every.

Yea: Dance, Theater,

Early Ragstock,

Latterly Refind Vintage linens.

Pour le courage:

Vinnie, Maeve, Jack;

Daddy, Mama, sisters and brothers;

Vickie, Katherine.

Wire to wire she ran;

Straight, stout and true.

But there be Life, Love,

And Time lost.

That's what it comes down to

'Till the train run out of track.

Never has such ever been

Nor shall another be,

So kind, enduring,

Beautiful and brave

As Dearest Annie D!

As I Age

As I age

I grow plantlike –

Seek the sun,

Want warmth.

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You could die for your country,

Build a bridge,

Make Deathless Art,

Do your part,

Sing a song,

Strike the gong,

Invent the wheel,

Cop a feel,

Wear a mask,

Take to task,

Study math,

Fire hot wrath,

Go anywhere you want in the world,

Get the girl,

Be of parts,

Light some farts,

Try the twelve step program,

Take part in a pogrom,

Be sensitive,

Or maybe even inventive.

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There may and might be:

Goals,

Auditions,

Ambitions,

Cares and woes,

Sturm und Drang,

One for the road,

Or the long and winding way home.

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You can swing