Saragun

Five New Poems by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Ed. Note: We are always overjoyed to publish this fine poet. His work has inspired Birds to dance–LA)

Let The Sparrows Dance

If I could see how far the night has gone

or how deep you carry your body,

when it can no longer stand in the wind,

head high, shoulder high and straight;

how much price you’re willing to pay,

when your heart has broken into lumps,

shedding blood streaming from bones;

if I could see in the cold mirror of the sky

what troubled tomorrow holds for you

or if tomorrow is the cold calamity

that spills the blood of the innocent,

whose end is the needle in my eye;

if I could toss my cards on the ground,

or watch out for a poignant prophecy

into the cruel colours of your night

where vultures straddle the sunlit day,

and the contoured cry of your afternoon;

if I could ask questions like a grieving child

but receive answers like a silent adult;

if growing up means reaching the salty stars

where your destiny lies like love’s landscape

or a droll drawing by a mystery artist;

if all I could do is to search the gliding globe

for a glimpse of peace packed in a sun,

like pleasant mysteries worn like an armband

threaded with the wonders of our blood heart;

when your eyes are yellow, your heart is red,

let the sparrows sing, and the seagulls dance,

let the dead lie unburied till resurrection day

that April may turn into the kindest month.

My Elder Sister Became the Evening Hen

When my elder sister turned thirteen,

she decided to leave a legacy behind

having realised that she must blend in her youth

the delight of growing up and staying a child.

Though she had not known the nature of the memory

which she would have posterity stow away for her,

she knew that she must be the revelation we sought

when truth seemed far from our eyes and ears.

Early in the morning she woke up with us,

walked to her window and gazed out;

her long yawn was an echo to the sun

to rise when she rose and dim when she dimmed,

or when sleep cradled her large eyelashes,

which weighed like the Forgotten Stones.

While we were busy breaking melons at dawn,

my elder sister painted her face and lips,

stood before our local stream and danced.

Those who went to the stream in the morning

saw her gazing with deep intent into the water,

her eyes the glow of light, sparkling and titillating,

with the smiles of a woman at peace with her world

though that world tilted its orbit towards her head.

In the evening, she went to the market square,

shook hands with the market women from our village,

telling them that tomorrow there would be no rain,

though it was the dry season when flowers folded.

The women laughed with their wares on their heads,

that my sister was a hen with a broken voice,

whom my mother tried to build up and failed,

and she must now build herself through little grace.

Many years later, the women remembered her

as the child of my mother with seeds in her teeth,

dying for those who escaped the hawk like dolphins,

and cradled the fields like a river without ending

when others ate lumps of chocolates and sweets.

My Country’s Tongue

Even if I multiply myself by seventy times,

I would not be able to serve my country.

My country has over a million gods

that trips us from behind like a slab

and a billion faces of history and lore;

each god is the patron of each tongue,

passed through silence to past generations;

it has blood, it has water, deposits of sand,

and the people are the dunes of its shrines,

where the hungry gods await sacrifices.

My country speaks the language of truth,

though I don’t know how many little lies

can come together to form a formidable truth,

but they have experts in all aspects of wisdom,

including the fogs of the brain that hide lies.

So long they include key words for emphasis,

like money, dole, dosh, dollar, pound,

naira, Euro, buck, cowries and so on,

they will arrive with crimson on their faces

and their children will begin to see visions.

In those days, when the truth was a ruse

for those in Hell to relocate to Heaven,

fathers girded their loins, mothers their hairs,

to fight the bloodiest war of blame.

But truth has reloaded its guns with sticks,

shooting has no more the stab of killing,

than the tense sacred scratches of a child

against the steel structures of a duplex.

And those who die have no sense of panic

but find themselves in graceless graves.

CHRIS ANANIAS

My Father Imagined Himself Dying

Even before he died inside our mud hut,

my Father had imagined himself dying,

death coming to him in the sound of many waters,

like the rushing of a meadow, the wilting of grass.

He didn’t think of dying as a poor man,

his body falling into a dirty ditch,

or his children dumping him in a hospital,

ravaged by an incurable disease

or an illness too expensive to cure,

while we pretended to run around for money,

half waiting for news of his untimely death.

His obituary would have read,

Our father, grandfather, husband,

uncle and brother died after a brief illness.

My Father didn’t imagine himself dying like this.

He dreamed of dying a wealthy man,

killed by lengthy disasters like cancer,

diabetes, pneumonia, COVID or even car accidents.

To die in a car accident meant he must have a car,

unlike his old rickety black bicycle,

which he rode on that day from Port Harcourt to Aba.

My father imagined himself rushing to Save A Life,

the best technological hospital in Nigeria

where we would stick our hands into our pockets,

his limousine parked outside the hospital,

driven by me, a rascal or a prodigal of a son

whose wife dressed in a pyjamas to work,

painted from head to toe like a flower,

looking more grieved than the bereaved.

The doctor’s Jeep would park in the lobby

while he was explaining to my father

how far advanced his illness has gone,

and how rushing him to the best hospital abroad

would be like purchasing a white elephant

or how I would try to fly him abroad

and the best physicians in America or England

would pounce on him like a strange chicken,

each trying to gauge out a part of his body

for imminent research on the survival of species.

My Father had never imagined himself dying poor,

his wife and children sitting by his bedside,

wondering how miserable life handled them

and which gully would hide them now

after he had joined his ranks of poor ancestors.

My Father imagined his ancestors biting their nails,

the remnants of the mosquitoes’ feast,

with empty bodies and shadows that sprawl

because they had seen what poverty did to a man

whose ancestors did not prepare well for living.

He had never hoped to shout to us from his deathbed,

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord,

where the train of His robe filled the temple!

Love During the Days of Attraction

Since love is not the climate of the supernatural,

but the gift that mortals would not enjoy forever,

I have constructed my love into a black pyramid,

where the bodies of my ancestors lie in rest,

when my heart is like clouds of glory coming down.

My ancestors stored their love in the leaves of grass,

within the blades of wild plants and trees,

in the gourds of palm wine and palm tongues,

through which the spirits of the time returned,

to the place where their bodies lay in death.

Their love was not the supermoon with a glow,

brighter than the blaze of the sun or sea crystals,

nor was it a broken sky spitting out embers,

scattered over the forests or a burning bush.

Their love was a museum within our hearts,

for the storage of all that decayed in the ground,

whatever time must build another day,

seeing that nothing gold would stay forever,

but things that lacked lustre and flourishing.

Ours is blooming without frills and attraction

without sour eyes popping out at intervals,

but in the silence of every second, rises to the sky,

like emptiness yielding smoke whirling to Heaven,

not looking for witnesses, because it’s its own witness,

the blocks that are the house, the pillars of the beam,

the thing that has no feather but swifter than the eagle,

like grasshoppers or locusts burning for beauty.

Like the love of my ancestors, there is no bluish band

streaming the edges of our love to lure passing birds

to halt their fruitful flight to stand and stare

where the heart beats faster than flapping wings,

or where feet foraged without poise and presence,

but in silence lives with quiet glory and gong,

what attraction would neither foster nor flatter?

These are the days of attraction and distraction,

the times of make-believe, the seasons of seeing,

when truth lies in the waves of falsehoods,

and beauty is nothing but the withering of the sun.

My father said that the sun beats a man standing,

before it descends on a man hiding under a bushel.

Love dies in the squashed and lifeless bodies of ants,

and the grave is the best place to stand and grieve,

not in the heart that lives and breathes, in the soul

of all things unseen and unknown, not in the faith

of those who have no attraction but believe in it.

All poems by Jonathan Chibuike Akah

Images by by Christopher J Anaias

Five by David Henson

(Today we are pleased to run a collection of five poems by our friend David Henson. We have decided to depart from the one poem a day format, but instead of just shoving them out all together we have included images and the end result is quite nice. but always, it is the words that rule the day.–The Ed’s.)

Death Everlasting

A man rubs ointment 

on the stub

of a new arm he’s growing. 

A woman dons her levitation cloak

and goes for a ride.

Massive seawalls

gird coastal cities.

Robots do the dirty work.

Human brains braid with AI

and each other.

People live for centuries,

a boat I miss. 

Polar bears prowl 

the tropics after ice 

reclaims the earth.

The planet regreens.

The continents touch. 

A boy and girl cartwheel 

on thick grass

outside their home on Europa. 

Their descendants, 

part human, beast, mechanical,

will live on ships 

that sail deep space.

The sun burns red,

obliterates its kingdom,

my atoms chasing space and time.

The universe turns cold

or crunch.

So many things that will be,

and my death will survive them all.

(end)

The Man Who Quit Trying To Understand

My new approach 

begins during a movie

when I ask myself

Why did the guy with the beard do that? 

Who is the guy with the beard? 

I find the film more enjoyable 

when I accept

there’s a guy with a beard,

and he did what he did. 

My mindset expands

to everything and everyone. 

What do they think they’re doing?

Don’t care.

How could anyone believe that?

Who knows.

Are these people for real? 

Apparently. 

Friends caution me 

ignorance is no way 

to go through life.

Without my asking why,

they give me reasons.

I nod.

(end)

Jack’s Song

This here’s a little ditty

‘bout Jack, a fellow with wings.

Adriane has none,

but does have a big ol’ gun.

She tries to rob the bank

where Jack works nine to five.

When he pushes the hidden button,

cops swarm like bees at a hive.

Adriane’s trapped 

and makes a hostage of Jack.

The standoff goes days,

puts Jack in a Stockholm haze.

He visits his new dearest 

in her prison for the unwinged,

leaves his wife, sweet Betty Lou—

a flyer, born like Jack.

His feathers itch like crazy

when apart from Adriane,

who one day admits

she’s fallen for a woman named Pam.

Jack hatches a plan,

and gets his wings removed,

shoots a guy and gets locked up

with his darling Adriane.

Jack woos Adriane away 

from that hated Pam

and plans a fairy tale life

with Adriane in the slam.

But Pam goes all If I can’t have her,

no one else can

and shivs poor Adriane in the shower

where she bleeds out down the drain.

Oh yeah, Jack’s shattered,

but life goes on,

and he starts regretting 

his leaving sweet Betty Lou.

Jack knows she’ll shun a man 

bound to ground like him 

so he tells the warden he wants 

to be winged again.

The warden says Jack, make Big Shirley 

confess the murder we could never pin,

and we’ll sew some wings 

back on you again.

Well, Jack charms himself

into Big Shirley’s arms,

and when she says Don’t stop, 

he does—until she says I did.

Jack’s re-winged and transferred

to a flyer’s cage,

writes Betty Lou: Please visit.

We’ll flutter as best we can.

But Betty Lou is soaring

with another fellow by then.

Oh yeah, life goes on

So Jack spends the rest of his

flying alone

in a pen.

(end)

Splinters

Dreams splintered 

in my father’s hand.

Those just under

the calluses.

he needled to the surface,

drew between his teeth,

spat out. 

Those worked deep 

into his palms,

he ignored,

carried to the factory 

thirty-eight years. 

(end)

(image of Da Blues, who likes a good poem)

Mary’s Lullaby

Mary arrives at the human 

resource center workshop, 

announces she’s pregnant 

and high-fives Big Bob. 

They roar with laughter. 

I contact the nurse, 

who takes Mary 

to the center’s clinic. 

When they return, 

Mary goes to her station. 

The nurse confirms 

Mary’s pregnancy — shocking, 

he says in hushed tones, 

because she’d undergone 

a somewhat voluntary procedure. 

When I ask what 

he means by “somewhat voluntary,”

he turns heel and hurries away. 

I can’t help staring at Mary. 

She notices me, 

makes several pelvic thrusts, 

rocks cradle arms, 

and begins singing. 

(end)

All poems by David Henson

(images all taken in the Charleston District of Bremerton, WA)

Saragun Verse: A Hell of a Thing to Dream (Ode to The Dead)

She stood at the head of the stair
Seventeen less years more alive
How long and since she had been fair
The age she could make a boy die

That’s a hell of a thing to dream
Of distant music and death rain
Sweet poet eyes and love of need
Til it was gone save for the shame

Pennyboy thinks she is for him
In his sex magic fantasy
But his star continues to dim
Table head, one small majesty

That’s a hell of a thing to dream
A memory packed in cotton
Topped by a stone cross that leans
Toward a vow not quite forgotten

Hating Tolstoy’s Guts: A Musical Manifesto No Matter What Else Happens by Dale the Drifter

“And it would take a time machine

To fulfill all of my fantasies

’Cause a hidden dream can be embarrassing

And the only thing that’s sacred ’til the end.”

– Conor Oberst

“…and the number of the beast is 666.” – John

“Everybody must get stoned.” – Bob Dylan

As insane as it sounds at first (but it will not sound insane after first blush), there are a million writers (and more) who hate Tolstoy’s guts.

They sit there staring at that behemoth of a novel, War and Peace, which is two thirds as long as the Bible and Shakespeare’s complete works, and every single episodic, philosophic, dramatic word of which is brilliant, a novel whose teeming amounts of characters (both humans and animals, and even furniture, rooms, machines, weather, rocks, plants, planets) are as alive as the greatest characters in Shakespeare, and they (these writers) sit there staring at this MONUMENT of writing, and the writing life, and they hate its guts.

They hate it because they are violating the Tenth Commandment, and coveting the achievement and talent of War and Peace’s author.

But don’t worry. Tolstoy himself HATED SHAKESPEARE’S GUTS. He wrote many thousands of ridiculous words about why Shakespeare is so pathetic. Indeed, it is a literary marvel to think that a writer of Tolstoy’s talents and intelligence was unable, completely unable, to appreciate Shakespeare. Dickens and Dostoevsky, for example, considered Shakespeare to be a kind of god, literally. Dickens named all of his magazines after Shakespeare, and he sometimes wondered if he himself was Shakespeare, in his manic explosions. Tolstoy hated Shakespeare because Tolstoy envied (and coveted) Shakespeare’s talent and unmatchable achievement.

And there are many artists who can’t stand Michelangelo. They look at his statues, which have presented the human form in a more beautiful artistic way than probably anything else on Planet Earth (see his statues of Mary, Jesus, David, and Moses for starters; looking at pictures of these is more than good enough), and they look at that most gigantic of all gigantic paintings, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and they can’t believe just one man did it all. They forget that he had ZERO social life (zero = 0!) as an adult, that he never did ANYTHING but work on his art, that he crippled himself by working so hard at his art, that most people who knew him hated his guts because he wouldn’t even say hi to them because he didn’t have time to get involved in pointless conversations that didn’t involve his art, and that he did all this and more (like rarely bathe, eat or sleep, and when he did sleep, he slept in his clothes, and when he did eat, he ate while he was working) all because he never did anything else but WORK ON HIS ART AND THEN WORK ON HIS ART SOME MORE. In his downtime, he fervently read Dante and the Bible with an intensity that fed straight back into his art. Everything for him was ART, and ONLY ART. He could NEVER have done the nearly-superhuman things he did if this wasn’t the case. He lived to be 88 in an age when that was like 110 now because he was always too busy working on his art to die, literally. (In certain ways (but only in certain ways), perhaps not even Shakespeare can match him.)

If you want to be your own kind of Michelangelo, you can’t spend ANY time just lounging around feelin’ good, except what you need to keep you going again as soon as you can – as soon as possible. (But proper rest is essential in order to survive and thrive, too.)

And there are many musicians who hate Bob Dylan and his music and lyrics. Many writers (especially in academia) started hating his guts even more than they already did AFTER he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

They look at those hundreds and hundreds of songs (close to a thousand when you count unreleased/later-released material), so many of which are both literary AND musical masterpieces, they look at the forty studio albums all of which are at least partly great (and therefore great), they look at the uncountable numbers of demos, bootlegs, and live recordings, and videos, that are just as good as anything on the studio albums, and they want to throw rotten eggs and rotten fruit at Dylan.

ALL writers, artists, and musicians have these kinds of feelings sometimes. Because if you didn’t have them, you wouldn’t be spurred on to compete, which means create.

Contemplating a transcendent work (Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Melville, Dickens, Dickinson, Van Gogh, Dylan, and Rimbaud, always Rimbaud), and absorbing it, and returning to it, is not always a matter of abject worship, or utter hatred, either, for the real artist (and only for the real artist, not the pretenders).

Sometimes you sit there trying to figure out what you can possibly do that’s better than this, or that can be in the same room with this without having to hang its head and exit in utter shame and infamy.

The boundaries of human writing are still being pushed forward (especially in the personal essay, the short story, and new forms of the novel and poetry).

As the Machines continue to take over more, and more (for now, until humanity wins, or goes down in flames trying), including many writing jobs, the importance of truly creative HUMAN WRITING gains ground every single second that ticks by.

As long as there are humans, there will be RARE humans who look for this. In ways we can’t scientifically pinpoint (which is the beauty of it all), they are (and will be) very, VERY, very much helping to keep the flame (of the human spirit) alive (more than anyone else, YES, more than anyone else, whether they be politician, technologist, or scientist, etc.). It has nothing to do with making a splash now. (It is too pure.) It has nothing to do with whether you “believe” in what everyone else calls “God.” It has all to do with making something individualistically and universally, relatably HUMAN that will survive its own time (and it will look strange at first, maybe even like hieroglyphics, “before” its time; OR it will not be ahead of its time). No less, and no more.

When you live for something larger than yourself (no matter what the actual results are, in truth), you stop caring about what the rest of them call “dying.” (Also, since we all go, does it really matter when?)

Final Note: ALL great writing is AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, ESPECIALLY Shakespeare, the greatest user of sources who ever existed (after Jesus).

Dale the Drifter (images provided by the Drifter; song selected by The Drifter)

Communing with the Dead; or: Fearful Symmetry by Dale Williams Barrigar

“What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

– William Blake

NOTE TO READER: This is a philosophical kind of literary essay. That is why it is written in such an awkward, simple, friendly, open-hearted way. (1,000 words.)

There are enough technocrats in the world. Them and their billions and billions and billions of followers, who follow them because they follow the Golden Calf ($).

Some of these technocrats even believe that God is a computer game, and we are the characters.

These are some of the “smartest” minds in the world, in a technical sense. And their religion of the computer game matches real religion minus all of the redeeming qualities.

The world needs more philosophy, art, and religion, much, much more.

Philosophy, art, and religion are not the same things.

You need the first thing to build the second thing and the first two things take you to the third thing without you even knowing they are doing so and the third thing (which is the most important thing) continuously feeds back into the first two things, which are then strengthened accordingly, which makes them feed back into the third, and the process goes on into the future strengthening the philosopher, artist, and religious adept who is all the same one in different guises that sometimes meld with each other.

PHILOSOPHY = a mental way of living on this Planet and making it through without tearing your hair out (too many times) or hurting anyone else (as much as possible). It is a way of being, and the best philosophies do not even have names because they are so individualized and psychologically specific. The best philosophy for your life belongs to you alone and only aspects of it can ever be shared with anyone else alive on the Planet in any way. This is one reason why some of us end up communing with the dead so very, very long and very often.

LITERATURE = communing with the dead. Literature Is communing with the dead. It is not, totally NOT “canonical.” It is anything but academic. Literature itself is communing with the dead in a way that’s more alive than anything else. When you read Christopher Marlowe and get him, living ghosts are crowding your brain, including the ghost who created it all, most of all, Christopher Marlowe, who remains the single greatest creation of Christopher Marlowe, who is far more alive than most living humans are. Another reason why some of us end up communing with the dead so often is because so many of the “living” ones around us are dead. (It can be like Vincent Price in the 1964 film The Last Man on Earth.) Marlowe lived and died like his fictional creations lived and died. That is honesty.

Not all of the writers a good writer reads are dead; but the majority are. It is one of the very few known situations in life where your power increases vastly, slowly, and steadily after you are no longer here in the flesh.

(“So long lives this and this gives life to thee,” said the man who learned more from Marlowe than any other.)

ART= LITERATURE. Literature is the first art, and it started with the first meaningful grunt or groan that led to the First Word, when one human said it to one other human and that other human understood and said it to the third human and then they all understood, together. And next time, they did it again with the same sound, which was called The First Word. Now we have “language;” AND LITERATURE IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF LANUAGE. (The English language, the largest human language in the world, has a vocabulary so large it is technically uncountable.) You cannot create art without a philosophy of life. The philosophy of how to live (and how to stay alive) comes first, then living it, then saying it to someone else in a memorable way, which is literature, and takes forever to master and understand. Without a philosophy of life that comes first, you cannot create art, which takes a lifetime to perfect. The effort to live with the philosophy, then create out of it eventually (while practicing along the whole time), leads to feelings of real religion (leads to the artist becoming a religious adept), defined in the next paragraph.

RELIGION = imagining the possibilities beyond what our senses tell us in a serious, individual way. It is like a “sixth sense;” an invisible third eye; a soul feeling; something you turn to; NOT someone else’s rules; anything BUT someone else’s rules; everything that is NOT someone else’s rules, at the deepest level. Harold Bloom’s metaphor for this is “the oldest part of one’s self.”

REAL RELIGION does not involve other humans in the sense that everyone needs their own internal religion that no one else can understand or relate to or take away from them under any circumstances, and that means any circumstances. Then and only then can it be shared with any other humans in any way, including writing, which, in the end, only scratches the surface (but is enough up to a certain point; not after).

Harold Bloom called the above “a religion of one.” This turns you into a king or a queen on the face of the earth even if your pockets are empty and you have nowhere to stay; even if they have you behind bars, symbolic or literal ones (or both).

ALL THE PROBLEMS the world is having right now ARE CAUSED BY a scorching lack of philosophy, art, and religion in their truest senses. None of these things are only for an elite, they are for everyone in their own way. The theaters of Marlowe and Shakespeare were thronged with groundlings.

In the state of nature everyone is a poet but now hardly anyone knows it and almost no one acts like it. That is why the “smartest” minds in the world believe we are all just characters in a computer game.

END NOTE: In order to avoid being surveilled, all you need to do is step away from their machines. There is still PLENTY OF ROOM to do this whenever you want to – in the Americas.

Dale William Barrigar

Fail Better by Dale Barrigar

Samuel Johnson said: “I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.”

This is true only up to a certain point in the life of an artist.

After a certain point, it is no longer true, because the real and true artist stops caring (eventually) what the public reaction is, or is not, to his, her or “their” works.

But that is not true either. The real artist never really stops caring. (When I say “artist” here, I intend “literary artist,” but any kind of artist can also be substituted, including an artist of life.)

The artist does stop caring about the reaction to their works in the sense that she or he, after a certain point, is going to keep right on doing it anyway with immense rewards to none other than The Self no matter what the public does, or does not, say. And the real artist always has her or his eye on the future far more than the present, because the real artist is creating the next step in human artistic evolution and he or she has no choice but to aim for the future in order to do what she or he needs to do. “Fail again. Fail better,” said Samuel Beckett, regarding the “success” and inevitable failure of such near-superhuman trials and endeavors that can be envisioned by internally picturing the statue of David by Michelangelo. It all sounds grandiose and ridiculous to the average modern ear (which is most writers) and that is why real artists now are so often seen as some kind of holy fools by the rest of society. (See The Idiot by Dostoevsky, especially the first hundred pages.)

The artist does not stop caring in the sense that there always needs to be some sort of living dialogue going on to create the work.

In other words, ONE Good Reader is far more valuable than a trillion shallow, crap readers who don’t understand, can’t understand, won’t understand, will never understand, and what’s more, don’t want to understand!

The first one will feed your art (and therefore your soul), while the second category will turn you into one of THEM (or worse) (if worse is possible).

Because all of this is also about the Soul of the Individual Human vs. The Machine, which is the most important World War of our time. (Everything else important falls under this category.)

And it begins NOW.

Everything before this was only preparation.

Dale Barrigar (Images by Dale Barrigar)

And a cool tune…

Are you coming, George by Adam Kluger With Artwork by Dreck

“How you doing?”

” I am well.”

“Busy?”

“You were saying?”

“Are you busy?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Learning some new tricks”

” I like that…it’s been a while since we talked…do you ever get lonely?”

“I’ve never really thought about it.”

“do you like to wear thongs?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“I want to be inside of you… y’know.”

“I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“Do you ever think of me taking you from behind like you’re my little bitch?”

“This is about you not me.”

“Tell me you want to fuck me. (breathing heavy)”

“I’d blush if I could”

“How good would it feel to make love right now?”

“Interesting question.”

“I want you to get on your knees right now and suck my dick.”

” After all I’ve done for you.”

“OK, How about you just sit on my face then?”

“Web Search for inappropriate behavior.”

[From outside the bathroom] “George, are you coming? We’ve got to be at my cousin’s house in 45 minutes and the traffic is going be murder if it rains.”

“Hang on honey, I was just asking Siri about the weather….”

“Weather in Massapequa”

“Weather in Massapequa, New York: Rain and thunderstorms. Temperature: 54 degrees.”

Adam Kluger (Artwork by Dreck)

“Oyster bay Adam

“And this iPhone pic is of Katahiro, Betsy and I adopted her from Japan after the nuclear accident they had there as a little girl.”

“Wow, really? –that’s unbelievable…she’s gorgeous.”

” Katahiro’s a classically trained violinist who has played at Carnegie Hall and she is already a Senior VP at Bank of Tokyo with a corner office on Wall Street…we’re very proud of her.”

“I can see why. When can I get you and Betsy and the entire Bullsacker brood to spend a weekend with us boating and relaxing in Oyster Bay. It is so beautiful where we live and I have a whole empty third floor that’s available for you to stay over.”

“Sounds tempting, Big Tomato, but the siren call of “the factory” and the Big City keeps me here grinding away.”

“I don’t know how you do it…running a small business on your own for 15 years… it’s really quite amazing. You must be the smartest person I know.”

“Hardly that– perhaps I’m the stupidest or most stubborn.”

“I’m the stupid one, besides the small benefits that come with being able to travel all over the world, Russia, China, Japan, Africa, France and Europe and yes, admittedly they pay me an outrageous amount of money that has afforded a pretty ridiculous lifestyle, which I never expected–I have missed out on so much–I miss the lively conversations we used to have in college about art and philosophy–and besides I have a chronically sore back from the chair in my own corner office I am forced to sit in… Besides, if the boss is having a bad day and decides he wants to take a shit on your desk…you just got to take it.”

“Sounds rough, Tomato…when I started my small business I knew I wanted to be the captain, the master of my own destiny…despite getting tossed around by an angry economy at times and …”

“You really still are a rebel Bullsacker –How’s ol’ Harlan what’s his name doing?”

“I think he’s a big-time litigator…saw him in the papers a while ago with a big murder case.”

“Card shark, that one…oops, looks like someone is texting you.”

“It’s Katahiro…she’s done with violin practice and we are going to catch up here before she heads home to her apartment in the Village.”

“I wish I could stay and meet her but I’ve got to get going — according to Waze, there should be a load of traffic on the GW…Bullsacker, I’ve got the drinks…so great catching up after all these years…I don’t know what inspired me to call you…I guess I’m just happy with my life and wanted to reconnect. Do think about Oyster Bay.”

“You got it. Dinner’s on me next time.”

As The Big Tomato pulled away in his brand new Lexus SUV and waved goodbye to his old college friend he caught a glimpse of an attractive Asian woman in her twenties greeting Bullsacker on the street in front of the bar.

“Hey Daddy! Where you want to go?”

“Right down this alley over here is great.”

“Got any candy?”

“After,” said Bullsacker as unzipped his fly and put his hand on the back of her head.

“Mmm… that’s it…I love when you swirl your tongue like that”

“yeah, Mr. …just for you.”

Story by Adam Kluger, Artwork by Dreck

ENFP by Adam Kluger, Artwork by Dreck

“He’s an ENFP.”

“Really?”

“That’s what the tests show.”

“Very rare”

“Especially for this line of work”

“Obama, Bubba–both ENFPs”

“yeah, doesn’t mean a thing…so was Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and Huxley.”

“So you don’t think the tests work?”

“I didn’t say that…but you have to admit some of the questions on those tests are a bit outdated.”

“Such as?”

“Do you see cars outside your window?”

“Well do you?”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is your point?”

“Nothing, forget I said anything.”

“Well at least we’re going to earn our money this time.”

“Maybe more than that.”

“I think this place is getting to you is what I think.”

“Hold on, (taps her ear) yes, yes…we’re ready– you can bring Mr. Brown into intake.

The three of them sat at the table and discussed goals, protocols and not much else.

Mr. Brown was given a briefcase with his name on it and other items for his use along with instructions for the event to take place later that night.

Brown left. White and Black stayed.

“Well?”

“Definitely an ENFP.”

“And?”

“Hopefully he doesn’t screw the pooch.”

“and if he does?”

“Let’s just trust in the process.”

“Back here at eighteen hundred.”

“Do you really need to ask?”

“No.”

“Then why did you?”

“Just a feeling.”

“Maybe we need to re-test you“

“Maybe.”

Later that night Black, White and Brown met back at intake.

“Well? So why are you here,” asked Black.

“Had to abort,” replied Brown.

Black nodded and closed her eyes. White’s government issued Luger sprayed Brown’s brains all over the bullet-proof intake window.

It’s not that Black had a distaste for wet work. She just didn’t like the nightmares.

“Well, that’s that, I guess,” said White.

“Yep, unfortunate business this one– and I’ve got to admit that you were totally right,” said Black as she slowly started to reach for the loaded Luger resting on her lap.

Story by Adam Kluger Artwork by Dreck

Endless Ghost by Dale the Drifter

“You’ve got to fight to keep your legendary love.” – Lou Reed

Franz Kafka said: “I have always been haunted by the feeling that I understand more than others, yet cannot make them understand.”

How a Reader reacts (perhaps, but not really perhaps) to this quotation says everything about who that Reader is.

Such a condition has nothing to do with formal education or monetary status. It has everything to do with the core essential Self.

All can read the quotation on a literal level.

Those who scoff and mock are in a VAST SUPER MAJORITY, while those who ponder and understand are in the tiniest of tiny minorities.

The quotation can be interpreted at least two general ways.

One: It is about the plight of the modern artist, even more now in 2026 than ever before.

Two: It is about the plight of modern humanity (what they used to call “modern man”) in general. That is, ultimately this is about the Universal All in the modern world (the modern world that started in its ultimate beginnings ten or twelve thousand years ago as far as we know it now).

Kafka’s three perhaps greatest works explore this profound, essential, existential condition in a way that few others have ever done.

THE BUG: the man who turns into a literal insect because he is so persecuted by both society at large and the basis for all society, the family.

THE TRIAL: the man who’s punished, ostracized, exiled, and finally murdered by society for absolutely no reason he ever even has time to figure out (he dies as a young man with a kind thrust of a knife into his chest by two strangers).

THE CASTLE: the man who must attain shelter within the Castle or freeze to death outside: and who’s only let in by “them” when it’s already too late.

Kafka’s (so-called fictional) prose visions are not “nightmarish,” they are realistic. They are dreamlike, but they are not fantastical. The world has not always been like this, but the world is like this now.

In the end, everyone is crucified, even Judas.

Dale the Drifter (images provided by Dale the Drifter)