#theliteraryunderground

                                                                       Chapter Four

             “The end is nigh!” The narrator screeched over the ghost of Ian Curtis moaning from crackling speakers. The turntable’s needle hissed in the backroom. The patrons said nothing. They just sipped at their drinks and sat in stoic silence. A man at a table near the back lit a cigarette.

           “This is a nonsmoking café,” mumbled Artimus as he flipped a page in his book without looking up.

           The man continued to puff away without the slightest flinch and Artimus said nothing more.

3:38am at the truck stop

he sat down at the little u-shaped counter up front

tried lighting a cigarette but kept dropping the matches.

his skin was the color of skim milk.

you alright? waitress asked.

having a heart attack, his voice came like a skeleton

sweat dripping off his chin.

waitress ran to the phone for an ambulance.

want me to help you onto the floor? i asked him.

just light my cigarette will you, he said body stiff as a bent nail.

he took off an old silver watch with a white face slid it towards me along with his cellphone and wallet.

you tell her i remember that night under the stars at lake red rock, he said

made me write it on a napkin along with his wife's phone number down in joplin missouri.

©Justin Hyde currently lives in Iowa, USA.

1.

The sun oozes down

the sky,

soaking everything

with blood,

as it carves shadowy

fingers into bits of

shattered glass and 

stares out into the empty

pastures where vacant 

farm houses collide 

with the green oceans

barely visible in

mists of morning,

which soon disappear

behind the rocks of

decaying creek beds,

and trees trembles

with the distant roar

of gun shots,

or perhaps the echoing

backfire of countless

rusted out pickup trucks,

guzzling gasoline and

belching fire,

as the sky twists

it's through clouds

like parted lips,

which beg for the

best drugs money

can buy,

and for a moment

I swear it was all

just a dream

which I then wake

from with a jolt,

the poems reverberating

in my mind,

grasping in darkness

for a pen so that

I may capture them

before they can

escape

and become nothing

more than an endless

loop of background

noise as the

dust caked blinds

rattle with the ghost

dances of my kitten's

curious claws,

as she raises her

tiny ears to listen

to the screaming 

voices from a 

thousand broken

windows.

2.

Eyes rolled back

and half glazed over,

feet planted mere 

steps apart,

the room filling with

the heat of strangers

who quickly become

dearest friends.

It's almost hot enough

to melt all the wax

sitting in the racks

as the sounds of

passing sirens one

flight of stairs below

swirls in twitching threads

of sound in between

the glacial guitar tones

being tossed out by

the three men on stage.

The stage is actually

just a taped off corner

of the thinly carpeted 

room framed with twinkling,

purple Christmas lights.

I've known this band

for longer than life

itself,

the songs they play

have been going since

the dawn of man and

if you listen closely

to the faint whisper

of the wind I swear

you can hear them,

even now,

on the morning

after my throat is

still raw and brittle

from shrieking down

the twin barrels of 

the microphone as 

the poems sputtered

from moon kissed lips

over the swell of

the drunken mountain

evening,

everything happening

as if in a dream,

and it really is a dream,

one I've had since 

I was just a kid,

and it is their

dream as well,

forever existing to

be plucked from the

gutter of the moment.

It's hovered there

from the moment I was

fifteen years old and

I smoked marijuana and

wrote "A Dream of New York"

in a stolen notebook

in the afternoon glow

on my grandmother's 

bed and then wept,

only managing to

wake five years ago

just in time to throw

open every window and

let the tidal waves escape

from my mind at last.

As I slept soundly

the earth swallowed

up so many friends

like Gypsy children

stolen in the night,

and here I sketched

then screamed my farewells

onto the spinal cord

of noise until I could

no longer speak,

the applause rising

to capture my tears

and then cascade off

into the North Carolina

night to smoke

on the stairwell as

we did as teenagers,

praying we wouldn't

be found out,

only now with

wives and children,

and jobs to go to

in the morning.

I couldn't be

who I am

if they weren't

who they are,

and just then

the music surges

and twinkles like

the strange and 

beautiful epiphany

that it is,

wrapped up in

the choir of angel's

voices screaming from

broken windows deep

FEATURED PERFORMERS: Ron Whitehead, Ryder Collins, Craig Cady, Bill Gainer, A. Razor, T. A. Noonan, Carleen Tibbetts, Russell Jaffe, Ryan Snellman, Michele McDannold and Brian W. Fugett. AND music by the band Flamingo and an after-party in the Legacy Lounge. Suitable for ages 18+. Cash bar 21+.  VIP Pre-show 6-7pm $15 (Volume 1 of This is Poetry book series included with admission to VIP Pre-show). After-party to follow performances.