All You Got Left

hijacked stares

and high-jacked stairs

looking for all the world

a loss

given to sucking his teeth

and malt liquor power shakes

wrapped in

fish-bone dyepaper

lost as a thousand

underwater lamps

shining on the path to atlantis

wrecked and wreaked

and

roped and doped

shelling the high heel goddess

with

man-sized artillery

shells and canister

super male vitality

macho

macho

satchmo nacho

give it quick and don't look back

wrap around the clock

he trips

he sneers

he quips

he tears

and a coal-black

(what is coal anymore?)

coal-black jacket

coal-black face

coal-black trousers

coal-black heart

hijack the goddess

and look for all the world

a loss

Jousting in Time, Again

at times I think we looked

like brother and sister

but then I come unglued

and the world begins to look

like a watercolor

I once said it was a feeling

like trying to swallow

too much under-chewed beef

it gets caught in the chest

but the lump in the throat

pays no attention to the glass of water

and I have to cough and spit

and cry out your name

and remember how gone you always were

and how gone you are right now

if I thought I could cry out

for your spirit to return

I'd probably have a crack at it

and see if your spirit

could edit a few pages of text for me

and chew the fat

and laugh

and make me believe

I have a sister

Jousting in Time

So you are gone,

and I didn't expect you to go

(as if anyone expects it),

but I thought you would have left

a forwarding address

(at the very least).

Gone are calls,

emails,

snarky posts at one another,

laughs,

and stories only we appreciated;

names only we could pronounce.

So you are gone,

and I'm just sitting here.

Waiting it out.

Wondering how long.

Wondering which words will be my last.

I have started capitalizing words,

and using punctuation.

sometimes

Your barometric drop

comes back daily.

Some days.

And I sit,

and I scribble down words,

and the words don't always come,

but every evening always does.

And

(like I said)

I just stack firewood

and try to keep warm.

lippy waits for it

the cannibal trailer park

stuffed with rice

“han' it to me! gimme!”

coal faced stinkerman

diving at a stickybun

“gimme! gimme!”

and his hand flaps at the wind

the wind tries to blow

but can only inject itself

in the free spaces between the teeth

teeth that the stinkerman tries to hone

on a tinker elf's file

tinker elf taps out a merry little tune

and the stinkerman taps along

taps an empty bottle against the ground

clack clack clack against the concrete

of the cannibal trailer park

stuffed with rice

tinker elf pulls out the stops

and the stinkerman pulls down his shorts

shows all the world what he's made of

nothing comes between him and the wind

the wind that tries to blow

but can only inject itself

tinker elf reaches over

with a platinum mallet

with a tiny tap

a tiny tap

a tiny little tap

the mallet rings a bell

and the coal faced stinkerman thinks back

thinks back to a time when he was young

when his face was pearly white

when his teeth were nice and tight

when the wind could blow

and the tinker elf

was just a story

and a song

and a melody in that

cannibal trailer park

stuffed with rice

Why, oh Why?

I – the fool.

Strung out in piles of confusion

waste-o-matic smiles

in piles of waste-o-matic dust -

dust in a huff of conversation.

The piles of confusion

came tumbling to a halt

in a winter-never-wonder

of a January freeze;

a January freeze

that made February all the colder

when a chicken bone whistle

played a merry hornpipe

and the drops of

clear,

clear,

crystal-cystal clear

chemical confusion

in a waste-o-matic grin

played heavy on the brow of life

There it was that I had to stop

and push myself away.

Tearing at my throat, I screamed

and shouted an inky ave

an inky ave,

black

black

and black as the

crystal-cystal drops

that clouded your pen

Crystal-cystal deafening

and perched on a dusty ledge

the haymaker moonbeam

let out in a windy morn

so dark that it looked

like that inky ave

inky ave

inky ave

that rattled around and

helped me tear my throat

so that my own clouded pen

ran dry.

That darkened, windy morn

was colder than any ever recorded

the science-men drooled

and rubbed their bellies

to see such a cold and frosty day.

We all knew why it was,

but we didn't let on to anyone.

The day was cold

when the fire went out,

when your spirit took leave,

kindly excused yourself,

said goodbye

more politely than can be expected.

You bowed low to the crowd,

and in silence the day grew cold.

Yours, no inky ave,

(but only light)

and I – the fool,

left to stack the firewood.

Wishing Again

Tremble at the dawn -

don't let the words pass away.

Tremble at the dawn -

not a word pass away.

Staring, breathing.

Closed-eye shuffle

drawing near

Haunting, loving.

Breathe, and breathless

without fear.

Tremble at the dawn -

don't let the words pass away.

Tremble at the dawn -

not a word pass away.

Lost and losing

only one hope

drenched in sweat.

Found and silent

redeemed the ticket -

holy, holy debt.

Tremble at the dawn -

don't let the words pass away.

Tremble at the dawn -

not a word pass away.

And the words that you wrote,

shadows

of the words that you spoke,

glimmers

of the worlds that you wrote,

embers

of the worlds you could dream.

Tremble at the dawn -

don't let the words pass away.

Tremble at the dawn -

not a word pass away.

Tremble at the dawn.

Tremble.

Crusty Lena (by Denise Janikowski-Krewal)

Crusty Lena from the Pizza joint

thought that all sailors were her heroes.

Not for obvious reasons

Didn't give a rat's patouti

about war games and politics;

didn't think that

their woven blues were hot.

Her desires leaned more to worn,

mussed up messes

A sailor once saved her day,

when she accidentally locked her purse

(and Ramone's tickets)

in her Dodge Omni.

While her girlfriends

swore at her in 15 languages

they they tried to learn at Berlitz,

the wholesome shore leave

picked her locks,

saving her face.

Another bluecoat danced

with her plain and shy friend

in a bar.

Even though he was flammable,

the anchor-tattooed arm

made her perpetually sad

girlfriend smile.

Lena remembered

her aunt telling her

to always treat a sailor

to a drink or a meal

because they were away from home

and lonesome.

So Lena gave the drunk sailors

a ride to their hotel and dropped them

into the hands of an understanding concierge

As she waited

her last table of the night

the boys in blue politely placed their order

with the middle-aged woman

who was weathered,

but still had a twinkle in her eye.

“2 pepperoni and one with everything...

on the house tonight, boys,” she said.

by Denise Janikowski-Krewal, February 2014

Denise Janikowski-Krewal, Poet. 1959-2014.

I can't write any poetry as of late, it seems.

Regular readers know that Denise died just two weeks ago today, and there has been a quite noticeable vacuum in my creative life.  I have every reason to believe that with time things will return to "normal."

Denise was my cousin, and as I said before, she was the sister that I never had.  In the last three years we had become so very close and our writing developed together.  We were on the phone every week, sometimes every day. We would email drafts of our work to each other and demand answers for what the other was trying to say, all the while helping to shape each other's poetry and fiction into something that we hoped was respectable and worthwhile.

My writing partner is gone, and I almost feel like I don't know how to put words on paper anymore.  I know it is just fear, though.

As soon as I post this, I am going to close the browser and find myself staring at a blank page of Libre Office on my desktop.

What I do with it might just well determine where I go from this point on in my writing.  I watched one of my favorite movies, "Slacker" on YouTube last night, and was reminded of one of my favorite themes - that with each of our thoughts, the universe splits into another universe that we chose not to inhabit, while we go on in the one we did choose.  Things from other universes sometimes pop up in our dreams, and so we might have contact with all the other things that might have been.

What a hoot.

If I could dream Denise alive again, it would be the first thing I would do.

On the paper is the memory of the choices we never made, perhaps.  Or maybe it is just a dream.

Memory eternal.

Goodbye, for Now...

It was with the heaviest heart that I had to bid farewell to Denise this past Friday.  My cousin, my dear friend, my poetry collaborator, and the sister I never had departed this earth in the early morning hours.

The world is a colder and darker place, suddenly.

I will be reposting some of Denise's work here for a while, and her husband Todd is going to try to get me some of her latest poems, and I will be sure to publish them as soon as we can.  She had a couple of notebooks full of new poetry, and was writing in the hospital right up to the end.

Please keep her dear, loving, and devoted husband Todd in your prayers.  Her funeral will be this Thursday in Racine, Wisconsin.  If you need information regarding time and place, please feel free to email me at martinipen@gmail.com  I will get back to you as soon as I can. You can read a bit about her life if you click on this sentence.

I am in agony over losing her.  I know that many of you loved her poetry, and more importantly, loved her. She was truly one of a kind, and one of the sweetest and most genuine human beings I have ever known.  Her poetry was wonderful, and as she told me just a short time ago, it seems, she had "not quite hit her stride yet" as a poet - it was only getting better.

I will have more information and reposts of her work here, as well as links to her soundcloud account, where you can listen to her reading her own works.  A true treasure.

Please keep our family in your prayers, and please keep reading.  That is what Denise would like, I think I am safe in saying.

May her memory be eternal.

Tom (Janikowski)

Denise and me at a tapas bar two summers ago.  She was fond of saying "I thought you said 'topless'..."

Barometric Drop

Watching the tornado
Swirling, whirling,
Around your fragile
Window
Hearing the sound,
The warning,
Out of my power
To pull back,
Change course,
Shuttering against
Winds
Rattling your spirit,
Releasing a siren,
Invoking a miracle
From benevolent clouds
For the phoenix
In you
To rise
Unscathed
From the debris



Based on We Write Poems Prompt 195, Weather Report

january freeze

Derek will die on the street tonight;

 in the end, it will most likely be the cold that gets him,

but Derek will die on the street tonight.

he gave the finger to the day shelter lady

"I ain't no one's problem - just my own."

and looking to score some H 

goes out into the cold

and Derek will die on the street tonight

slush-shuffled until slush was ice

and spittle-freeze river 

made a chin-glacier knife

but freezing to death 

while looking to score some H 

is better than your heart bursting open 

all over your plate.

so Derek will die on the street tonight

I watched him shuffle with frost-bit toes 

and shuffle ragged, shuffle slow.

going to sit down under the stairs by the levee

where Derek would die on the street tonight.

but I know you all have it hard

because your heating bill is high

and you got aches and pains and you don't know why,

and little Justin is getting a "C" in math

so we all have it hard.

and lots of folks make choices.

and that, my friends, is why

Derek will die on the street tonight.

Flash in the Hubble

Another portal gone
Unnoticed,
Rid of,
Relief from the dejected
Antediluvian
Time-dilation,
Alternate life
Staring across
Another universe
Beguiled
By the sparkling,
Red-hot
Nano-second
Begetting
Neoteric
Dimensional promises




Based on We Write Poems Prompt #194, Happy New Year

OTC, mostly

a bent-faced little daydream

and the old man snortin' cheese

bloody on the underside

muddy on the knees

“no one sells for less”

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

get behind me when I talk to you

don't make me repeat

take a box

and a can

and a smack-mouth treat

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

when a bent-faced daydream

gets all short

and the box

and the can

and a holy-water h-bomb

starter kit court

“no one sells for less”

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

get behind me when I talk to you

don't make me repeat

and the little ragged muffinman

hanging high on 6^th avenue

look at that

look at that

look at his eyes

he got that bleeding dreamsmell

going on inside

but its okay, little molly lady,

no one sells for less

and little molly lady

sweaty pilly-sweater shufflemouse

hanging sad behind the

mustache man

“no one sells for less”

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

get behind me when I talk to you

don't make me repeat

but now that bent-faced little daydream

and that old man snortin' cheese

bloody on the underside

bloody on his knees

the starter kit opened

the starter kit closed

and when a bent-faced daydream

gets all short

and it gets all of those

and the box

and the can

and the cheese

and the cheese

and a holy-water h-bomb

starter kit, please

bloody on the underside

bloody on his knees

bloody on the lips

and bloody on the cheese

“no one sells for less”

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

I seen it everywhere

don't make me repeat

hey Steve, you okay?

Steve?