Spare Change, and: Can of Worms
Rent from DeepDyve- Spare Change, and: Can of Worms
Spare Change
The VI condon is beginning to sing.It doesn't help my sleep,but I'm beginning not to care.I don't take it for sleep or pain anyway,but to lay in the lap of Mother Mary.I don't worry about moneyor health, or this new level of isolation …no pangs of loneliness, but a gradual embracingand a cool clean sheet slowlybeing pulled over my naked selfby something, someone who seems to care,perhaps a woman, wife, nursewho makes me feelso at home with myself;fireplace and kind musicin the background, the smellof a pie baking, and birdsoutside my windowsmanic in their song of well-being …
3:00 am and I need next to nothing now.The waiter standing by my bed(morphine dispenser)is telling me "sorry sir,sleep is no longer offered on the menu"I can hear "fear's" footsteps fadingdown the sidewalk, the busboy carryingthe mangled aftermath of my self to the junkyard. [End Page 49] I have survived,the issue of death suspended,I am sufficient,independent,absolutely gone …
until the clammy hands of sunriseshake my shoulders and throwwater in my face, and I cursethe sounds of thosepassing my window chattingwith genuine sleep in their voice,their daylike spare changejingling in their pockets.
Can of Worms
Heaven is for climate, Hell is for the company
ben wade, mark twain, james m. barrie
Last night I rode a rattlesnakewith spurs of bone and a steel cropthrough the streets of Santa Barbara;I was looking for a "happy hour,"a Tequila bar with country jazzand a woman with a snake bite kit.
"Horses and snakes outside" the sign said(there is nothing as unpredictableas a drinking snake),but looking through the swinging doorsall I saw were snakes, fangs smilingand hooked over the edges of their Margaritas,the bartender's blender glowing devil red. [End Page 50] When the fight broke outI was dancing a jig on the barto Thelonious Monk's versionof "After Midnight,"got completely carried away in spirit of the moment,shot myself in the foot.The snakes spit and hissed in the fiascoand melee of gunpowder smoke,the saloon turned into a can of worms.
Later that night, I limped home in a perforated bootand the scarf of a snake so tired she could barely rattle …but when I got to the crossroads of Heaven and Hellshe perked up and bit me on the nose.Tequila is the only antidote, she whispered,Tequila, and Hope …hope that right around the next bendthere's another Happy Hour. [End Page 51]
B.L. Schmidt is a native Californian who started writing poetry upon his return from Vietnam. His battle with PTSD has resulted in a significant body of work about addiction and those who battle it. He currently lives in the Santa Ynez valley with his wife and menagerie of unruly animals. He is happy and clean.
