Nostalgia Is Like Herpes

The city is calm tonight
Only rustling leaves
and splayed knees
creaking between dumpsters
Stranded and dangling
From piss stained blankets
Sleeping on sidewalks
Like crime scene outlines
Drawn by angry chalk
of the poor and addicted

Dreaming of better days
Back when they were bankers
plumbers, dads, and teachers
Shopkeepers, wives, harpists
Married maybe even still in love
Back when they held parties
baked cookies, took baths
Smelled floral like the scent
of fancy perfume sample ads
lodged between pages
of better lives through yoga
Organic gardening, and Mademoiselle

Back in the days of before
Still soldiering through fortune
Back when they sent kids to college
And child support to divorcees
And knit dog sweaters for their pets
Back when music still ruled
Like a Rush concert
Or the tangled lullabies
Of cowboy boots, smoky bars
And the spirit of honky tonk
Rubbed up against jukeboxes
Belt buckles and back seats
Back when people smiled
in the time of first kisses
Hosted large public gatherings
During the era of Technicolor
And Tricky Dicky’s blathering
Back when Elvis swung hips
Nothing was sung online
Except the mercurial Bob
who was the first one in

Nostalgia is like herpes
The more we get screwed
The bigger the chance
We’ll find a reminder of it later
If I can just get through this….
I’ll see my Mom again
I won’t have to wear a mask again
I’ll dance at a crowded bar again
I can take a shower again
I’ll have a house again
I’ll have a job again
Life will be normal

“Nevermore”

Quoth the raven
I watch her fall down
around the deaf feet
Of a crumpled veteran
under a shopping cart
Chattering to herself
Snatching up his last
crumb of bread
Pausing forever…

Then flying off

Words: Cara Feral
Artwork: Noah Regan

It’s Not All Doom and Gloom

Cops push out addicts
Living under bridges
Then talk them down
From jumping off them
Suicide rates are leaping
But it’s not all bad news
At least the stock market
Reached a historic high

Welcome to the new norm
Please just distract at home
The CEO of Pfizer just sold
His shares for 5.6 million
On news of a fabulous jab
While outside my window
I saw a guy find salvation
Inside another kind of stab

Clean air, trees, and animals
Live more inside memories
Than anywhere else now
Once the polar ice caps melt
It’ll be another place to drill
But it’s not all doom and gloom
Elon’s gonna save the world
By sending man out to mars

Creativity tilled to vacant lots
Where kids used to play tag
Games like hopscotch or jacks
Red rover and capture the flag
Lone statues of imagination
Rotting in teenage wastelands
This is the zombie apocalypse
Without a single shot fired

Millions with no food or homes
Even more without any work
Yet everyone owns a phone
Why do you think the Nazis
Gave every family a radio?
But it’s not all doom and gloom
Sony came out with the PS5
Jails come with joysticks now

Election Day

Every four years there’s this sporting event
Preceded by campaign promises and vows of roses
We choose our bread, circuses and the president
We mark our ballots while holding our noses

Like the spectacle of a matador at a corrida
Dirt gets kicked up in front of a confused bull
The bullfighter starts a dance waving his muleta
Obscuring his sword covering our eyes with wool

Bulls are colorblind, he wears red to hide the blood
Which is exactly what the electorate wants to see
The candidates debate, argue and start slinging mud
Once the bull hears enough it charges for the nominee

The politician deftly steps aside while waving his cape
He holds out a ballot in one hand while hiding his blade
We see it all the time the rigged game and lack of escape
The matador stabs us in the back the voters betrayed

After all what good is an election without the malice,
The cheering crowds, the spectacle, and the hypocrite?
On election day get in the arena and cast your votes
Let’s make a change to the flavor of the same old shit

The Insane

I saw Jesus singing today
His salvation shivering
In the cold and the chill
His tent propped across
A shiny shopping cart
I feel his hypnotizing eyes
Like a charmed cobra
Daring me to look his way

He was sitting in full lotus
Playing a Tibetan brass bowl
Soaking wet in the chanting rain
Reminding me of the Buddha
It’s a circus sideshow everyday
As I ride by hazy Scobert Park
The drug addled and starving
Mixing with the mentally ill

Man can live just fine here
On bread, grass, and needles
Somedays overzealous cops
Harass him and his followers
You don’t have to go home
But you can’t stay here
The officer says with a smirk
Knowing that here is his place

It’s a crime not having a roof
Yet the ones that take them
Go unpunished and praised
Some days he smiles at me
As I bike past riding to my job
He reminds me of Diogenes
The Alexander the Great in me
Knows I’d be him if I wasn’t me

“At least they know their crazy”
I think to myself as I go to work,
With the rest of the insane


Words and Photo by Cara Feral