To Sleep

Take page from notebook.
Write the word, hope on the page.
Fold page to half the size of an apple.
Sleep with the folded page inside your pillow case.

Middle Urban Calamity #1

He said it. Once. Twice. Too many never agains and this is it, once and for alls.

“I’m going to quit this girl. She’s dumb as bat shit. I don’t care. I don’t care. I gotta quit this girl. She’s thick but fuck, she roots like fuck and wants to root all the time. I like that bit. I like that bit a lot.”

But the thick young girl was a witch and she was going to drop him in the shit like you wouldn’t believe. He’d be hung out to dry with nowhere to go, looking like a complete dickhead.

That or she’d love him.

Nothing would be worse.

There's A Rugged Road

by Judee Sill

There's a rugged road on the prairie
Stretchin' all across the last frontier
There a stranger strives solitary
Blessed is the lonesome pioneer
Roll on, roll on, roll on
Night birds are flyin'
Come on, the light is gone
Hope's slowly dyin'
Tell me how you come ridin' through
Still surveyin' the miles yet to run
On the long and lonely road to kingdom come

He can blaze a trail, though the rumblin'
Dims his guiding light to just a spark
When the hour is low, he comes tumblin'
When the moon is high he gives his heart

Roll on, roll on, roll on
Night birds are flyin'
Come on, the light is gone
Hope's slowly dyin'
Tell me how you come ridin' through
Gainin' steady till this round is won
On the long and lonely road to kingdom come

People far below chasin' pleasures
Offer him directions on the run
Prophets on the path offer treasures
Though she's mighty hungry he takes none

Roll on, roll on, roll on
Night birds are flyin'
Come on, the light is gone
Hope's slowly dyin'
Tell me how you come ridin' through
Blindly faithful but followin' none
On the long & lonely road to kingdom come

When the sun goes down at the right time
She comes windin' through the purple haze
Just a feather's touch in the night time
But it'll color all my weary days

Shinin' finer than this earthly sun
On the ragged rugged road to kingdom come
On the ragged rugged road to kingdom come

From her 1973 album, Heart Food.

A Synopsis

Hall wanders through as witness to so many middle urban calamities. Fights in pubs, domestic punch ups, cheating, begging, fist jobs, lovers, patsies, scoundrels, embezzlement and songs.

So many songs where Hall goes to sleep praying to the songs in so many keys, words, meaningless words, in meaningless songs which make sense only after he's heard the song 100 more times because he shudders and stops.

Everything means nothing to him and everything to everyone else.

Today Hall lusts for a patient. It's happened before but today is today.

The day I start to write.

A big day because Hall wonders. Is virtue its own reward? Or is it time to push virtue away and punch it again when it leaps forward at his face.

Because virtue is a cunt and Hall is tired.

Tired, foolish today and sad.

Because tonight, when virtue sobs, Hall decides tonight is all.

Tonight's the night.

Tonight's the night.

I start to write.