The Bonnie and Clyde Files…another excerpt
My latest book, The Bonnie and Clyde Files: How Two Senior Dogs Saved a Middle Aged Man is out and I have a few copies left of this limited edition (300) run. I invite you to support me and an independent Oregon publisher by purchasing direct from my web site, nestuccaspitpress.com
The book features 10 poetic interludes, where I channel Walt Whitman to make sense of the madness and inhumanity I witnessed, scenes I will never forget:
Below is an excerpt:
I lean against the wall
inside the probation office.
Joint is packed.
Reprobates are jacked.
I read Walt Whitman
at random
waiting for a form
to set me free.
It’s come to that:
a form for freedom
in a democracy.
Can you believe
they want it in longhand?
To my right
two couples
make out
before their
meetings and drug tests.
Nothing surprises in here
not the sparkled jeans
nor the man reading Macbeth,
not the dog food coupons
to feed human beings
nor the reek of fish.
Okay, this making out does
these two couples!
It’s like that poem
“Kissing” by Dorianne Laux.
A stanza reads:
They are kissing
to begin the
world again. Nothing
can stop them…
they are doing what they have to
do
to survive the worst
It’s the one human act
the State can’t take from us.
Even in here:
fluorescent lights
plastic chairs
gray carpet.
It’s an act of secret rebellion
smack dab in the open
face to face
in our faceless times
not a reckoning
but a puckering.
I read another line from Walt.
He writes a lot about kissing
but never uses the word.
I watch the couples,
the two women
angled toward me,
their eyes closed.
One has slipped her feet
out of flip flops.
She is barefoot
and kissing
in the probation office.