COUGHING UP SOMETHING WRONG

I hear old boots walking up the stairs

Dragging scrapping dying all the way

As if that is all they can muster

After another day out at the waste of space

But something is wrong, wrong here

In the house that no one can find

On the never never in invisible Bristol Road

As my chest coughs and blusters and

My old body aches as is already legendary

And some of the stuff that I’ve been coughing up

Just seems alien and really shouldn’t be inside

My throat, my chest, anywhere in fact

As I sleep and grow ill off the damp

That’s creeping up my walls, onward to the top

And leaving me wondering how can people remain here?

Sure it would be quite alright

If my view wasn’t that of a rich mews house

And the back of that as well so they can have their privacy

Whilst I could really do with a few more square feet

As the damp means I sound like I smoke 40 a day

And my head feels messy but that might just be

All the weed I’m currently smoking

Hold on now it’s time for another

In the hope that maybe tonight I’ll just pass out

And not fidget enough to keep me awake

Leaving me feeling more uncomfortable than ever before

Or at least in a room with a roof

When on nights like these I’d just love to lay there and wallow

ESCAPING MY CELL

The prison walls were breeched tonight, a

Saturday night breakout, beer-bust had to be

Completed in order to sit here and write

Alone again but sick of what’s out there

Sick of the illness that is slowly killing this town

Gentrification, drug addiction it’s all the same

Bloody deal as where the money goes the bad

Tend to follow, oiling the wheels of commerce

In the insurance industry as who knows

A shady dealer may well move in next door

To you, especially if you’re on the front

And buy right next to a slum clearance

Dwelling that is chock full of mad ones

Some good, some great, some desperate

To just escape this town that brings it out

Shines a light and lets you know

You’re mad, it’s Saturday night and you’re

Sat here, alone and mad but sick of out there

When I could be out there getting drunk despite

The fact I got work tomorrow and barely enough

To afford more than two, a half and shot and

I’d be done tonight back to sit here, screaming

Mad thoughts about how I should be out there

But all I want to do is stay here and hope that

I’ll never see the inside of any of those places

Ever again

I can smell my escape, it’s growing more imminent with

Every passing day and right now I can just about

Wait it out, under six months and a ton to do but

Hopefully not once will I have to pass through that

Door to blow my tiny wad and increasingly mad cells

Just in order to sit and talk or hear another human

Voice that isn’t coming from my radio box

As today the only person I spoke to was the guy at

The shop and that was to just clarify a price

Four big cans of strong Polish lager was what I

Wanted, needed and he let me have them at a discounted

Rate and that is all the highlight I need for this dreaded

Saturday deep into the heart of middle-aged insanity

IT’S HARD BEING A SAINT IN THE CITY OF SIN

Trying to be good is hard

In this city of sin, in this home of the crazies

The only thing to do is get out or

Go wild, out of your mind

Until the day comes when it all gets too much

And you just got to bolt

For the refuge of the old

Because, honestly, it wasn’t always like this

I haven’t always been a madman

Waiting for the next time to get blasted

And right now, the longer I wait

The madder I get, the worse my head feels

As it deals with living in this god-forsaken dump of a town

Where no friends mean no one to talk

No one to confide in, no one to cry too

It all just feels like my time is coming to an end

After a long while I met a woman who I fell for

And we were like two peas in a pod

Despite having nothing in common outside of poetry

Drinking anything and smoking the weed

But now she’s cleaning up and I again have no one at all

As I lose another one to the futile attempt

Of being good right here in this city of sin

And I really hope it works out well for her

That she sees the light and gets what she wants

A sober life forever more

But me, I just want a friend with something in common

And in this town, well, am I all alone?

It certainly feels like it at this time

When I can’t even get a colleague at work to say hello to me

What can I do but get over it and move on

So the new list of things to do currently runs like this

Get a new job,

A new friend who ain’t interested in self-destructive ways

A new flat where my neighbour isn’t drug dealing scum

Who it sounds like regularly smashes up his room

Angry about something but then again maybe nothing

Just trying to exert his masculinity with a view to getting me out

So he can move a mate in

That’s a pretty long list and right now it seems hard

Nearly impossible for me to achieve any, not even one

As the rents soar and the drinks are priced too high

And all the jobs pay never enough to afford anything better

Than the life I have here in the damn last resort.

LOST A POEM TODAY

I got home after work today, tired but free after a hard days’ shift

And ate some dinner and switched on my radio

The plan for tonight was going to be some football on my radio

Another Madrid derby as a centre-piece of a major European night

And a bit of the other, a poem or new story to be started on

But then as I unlocked the laptop it all went pear-shaped

My stupid lovely old laptop didn’t recognise who I was and shit

I couldn’t remember my mate’s old password

He’s passed on now so no way to make contact but that still

Still didn’t stop me from trying every which way I could

To get it to work, to open my words up and write again

And then finally I managed to get inside and wow, no shit

I managed to get it fixed. 

I sit here now and the match has just kicked off

So plan A is back in action and the only stuff I didn’t have backed-up

Was a poem I wrote last night, a proper stink fest

Of words and confusion caused by someone

Most generally me, sitting down with no idea of what words I wanted to write

So i think this one works a little bit better

And hopefully I’ll remember to back this one up!

ON YOUTH & WRITING IN A DREAMLIKE STATE

I dream of my youth and all I can see my young self doing is sitting alone, writing

Just like I am now

But it’s not at my home; it’s at friends from yesteryear

Numbers 11, 15 and 19 all on the same street but a few years apart

Number 19 came first and the lower the number the older I get

And the smaller the houses become until well I’m back

Sat here in the last resort penning this little ditty

Then I’m older still and sat in a familiar place

A time of clubbing and mad nights with mad drugs and near-dead Goths

But I sit in the corner, imagining Kerouac typing like mad

On his never-ending scroll of eternal delight

As I do nothing but yell at my drug dealer, give me more because

I just got to write.

TWO OLD PUNKS DISCUSSING THEIR DEMONS

I was sitting on the beach yesterday with a friend from yesteryear and he’d been through some similar shit to me of late

Another old punk struggling with their demons and both of us admitting to mistakes in our past when the great old combo of drink and drugs

Made us feel real, different to how we were when we were young and growing up

When all the madness made us the life and soul of every party and life was just one big long party because then we didn’t need much food and it was all dirt cheap

The days were spent listening to snot-filled speed-fuelled music and the nights were spent pushing hard at those god damn doors of perception as we determined that all drugs were good and they could never harm us

Now after being spat out the other end we sat and talked and he asked me about things that happened in our squalid house-share and all I could say was

I don’t remember much of it as for me I pushed it a lot harder than anyone else at that house and I’d already seen and done so much stuff, some I was desperate to forget

The women, the occasional terrible music we used to listen to, I’m thinking the horridly bland pop-punk and the drug-fuelled gabba that ruled just because of all that damn amphetamine sulphate

And the things I can vaguely recollect are just mostly things I want to forget hence all these years of drinking and doping but now they’ve ended well shit what comes now??

In 2014, over the course of some snow days, I put together a collection that would become The Truth About Snails.  At the time, most of the writing I was getting to was speculative and science fictional (I guess that’s a word) in nature.  So the first collection of poetry I put together reflected this. 

  

Poems were inspired by years as a comic book reader and sci-fi fan.  They were not fan fiction, really, but reflected larger themes of science fiction and fantasy that I enjoyed. 

This is the text that appears on the back of the book:  

“Ordinary objects take on a new form, and myths become real and move next door in the verses contained in this collection. Whether it is a recasting of the myth of Sisyphus, or the titular truth about the origin of our shell-bearing planet dwellers, each poem offers a new view of an old friend. Much of the writing was inspired by the comic books and science fiction, and on concepts beyond the scope of the real world, and cast firmly in the supernatural.”

My hope is that this book can be the first of many.  I am already at work on a second collection, which is out for review now, as well as a variety of articles, reviews, and prose works.  I reprint some of my favorite poems at jddehartfeaturepoems.blogspot.com, write reviews and post them at http://dehartreadingandlitresources.blogspot.com/, and tweet @jd_dehart.

Whether you check out this chapbook collection, a future book, or just read my work around the web, I appreciate the read!

The Truth About Snails is now available both on Amazon and Red Dashboard, the publisher’s website at http://cms.reddashboard.com/j-d-dehart/

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Hamlet 2.0

Alas, poor Yorick. Life really sucks right now. Insert melancholy Emoji here.

My daddy issues are piling up, and my uncle is not helping this situation at all. He can be such a jerk-face. I just started a blog called “Mom, How Could You?” and it already has 200 hits. I don’t intentionally spread my unhappiness, but the attention really helps.

Sigh, poor Yorick. Oh, sigh.

To be, or not to be? That is the question. Who the hell cares at this point? I can barely get Broadband in this spot, and this ghost guy keeps texting me. I’m tired of questions, and I have the ACT next week. It’s so unfair.

I am really starting to think about revenge, but it can be such hard work. Would I have to get up for that? I really like sleeping in, and a full-scale revenge plot sounds like it could take A LOT of planning. Even more strategy than my Angry 

Birds app.

Sigh. What would Rick from The Walking Dead do? He would go for revenge. I just can’t decide. Plus, who knows? It might end badly.

But at least I’m not the only depressed teen around here. This Ophelia girl is the most emo girl in town. It’s simultaneously boring and hot. 

Should I suffer the slings and arrows of getting a haircut? Everybody expects me to get a job and do something important, but all I want to do is find myself. What is a sling anyway? Is that a new app?

I think I’ll just curl up in the castle and post something on Instagram.

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JD DeHart

Theater Musings

Cassandra, in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

A character study for directors and actors

by

Gary Beck

312 East 30^th Street, #5E

New York, NY 10016

212 481-8220

garycbeck@yahoo.com

www.garycbeck.com

www.facebook.com/AuthorGaryBeck

©  2016

Cassandra is a minor, but vital character in Aeschylus’ drama, Agamemnon. She informs the audience of the forthcoming death of Agamemnon, as well as herself, precipitating the action to come. Presumably the audience knows what’s coming, since it is a tragedy. The challenge to the director is to make the prophecy of imminent death theatrically dramatic to an audience visually saturated by the incredibly sophisticated imagery of film and tv.

In order to construct the emotional involvement of the audience in a scene that is critically important, Cassandra must compel a range of feelings. This can be facilitated by the chorus, who can express qualities of scorn, derision, mockery, pity, for the possessed woman. The actor, by creating tension before, during and after prophecy, completes the stage requirements for furthering the action.

The source of developing the depth of character necessary for Cassandra to evoke tragic awareness is in the pre-history of the Iliad and the myth of the House of Atreus. The director and actor should presuppose that the audience may be familiar with the tale of Troy, and possibly even the play itself. They should assume the audience will not know the myth of Apollo and Cassandra, which could be the key to initiating the foundation of constructing the character. Cassandra, a young royal princess (12-14?) of the house of Priam of Troy, is desired by the god Apollo. She agrees to have sex with him, if he’ll give her the gift of Prophecy. He does. Then she mocks him and refuses to keep her part of the bargain. He can’t take back his gift, so he curses her with not being believed.

This is where the actor’s work begins. This once privileged personage is now an embarrassment, a demented creature, possessed of madness, yet still a beloved member of the royal house. All these qualities must be examined and included in the character. The curse began before the Trojan War, which lasted for ten years, followed by the capture and destruction of the city. Then Cassandra was awarded as a slave to Agamemnon and presumably was his bedmate during their return to Argos. By building the character’s emotional life for at least ten years before she comes on stage, the actor may arrive with a three dimensional persona that will stir the audience’s emotion.

The exploration of pre-character should not be a day to day diary, or a chronicle. There should be some invented salient facts or experiences that will lead to the tormented emotional state of a character alienated from the world around her. It is vital to understand that Cassandra has been disbelieved many times. She has probably been treated as a privileged, demented member of the royal household, yet was considered harmless.

Cassandra surely prophesized the fall of Troy, which largely had to have been laughed at. The inner torment at being mocked and pitied would be a constant. It is useful to be aware that prophecy is a ‘divine’ gift, not an act of reason, therefore, the prophet will be possessed/transformed, while in a state of inspiration.

A physical transformation when in the state of prophecy must be carefully created so as not to be contrived, grotesque, silly, etc. Any implausible quality that might make the character unbelievable to the audience must be eliminated. The complication for the director is how to get the chorus, whatever format to use them is selected, to sustain disbelief in the prophecy, despite the fact that the audience knows it’s true. Since the curse of disbelief is on Cassandra, she must be convincing, or the scene will be contrived and the audience involvement with the play will deflate.

Of course very few actors will have the opportunity to play Cassandra, at least in a serious theater setting. Yet the same general outline of character development can be applicable to other roles. Create who you are, then you will be, of course pre-supposing you have the talent and skills to be.

Call a Priest, My Father Said

My father never talked much about religion but he went to Mass every Sunday, the 6:30 Mass where few people would be and he wouldn’t have to deal with friends and neighbors. His contribution envelope was always filled out the night before, sealed and propped against the salt shaker on the kitchen table. It was gone with him when I as a child rose in the morning. 

My sister and I would go to the children’s Mass later and my mother to the Mass at noon. We weren’t, spiritually speaking, a close family. Truth be known, we weren’t a close family. But that’s another story sometimes hard to write or explain.

I remember, though, when I was very small, not yet in kindergarten, walking by my parents’ bedroom going to the bathroom before going to bed and I would see my father on his knees saying what I assumed were his prayers. Yet I don’t recall him ever saying a word to me about God or religion. His life was hard work Monday through Friday and all the overtime he could get. 

He earned enough money climbing high voltage poles and towers in alleys in Chicago to put me through parochial grammar school, high school and college. He didn’t drink or smoke and he put his money in passbooks at a local savings and loan. 

His weakness was five spoons of sugar in each of four cups of strong tea early every morning before work.

I doubt that with overtime in the Forties despite being skilled he ever made more than $9,000 a year, yet he was a top “troubleshooter” for Commonwealth Edison Company, called out myriad times in the middle of the night and on weekends when the power had gone out in Chicago and other places in Illinois. 

In his 37th year he was up on a pole one bright summer day training a rookie and the rookie made the wrong move and was about to touch a hot wire and my father tried to stop him. In the process, he took the 12,000 volts instead. 

His story ended up on the front page of The Chicago Tribune. By then I was married with kids of my own so I came to the hospital not knowing how badly he had been hurt. Gathered outside his room were fellow workers who I would talk with after I had gone in to see him.

He was lying in bed in decent spirits and showed me the hole in his thigh, not bandaged, and it looked like a small volcano after an eruption. Then he showed me the bandaged missing part of his forearm. A big indentation almost from elbow to wrist. 

I don’t know why his arm was bandaged and his thigh was not. He didn’t say what had happened, just something about a rookie. 

We talked a bit more than we normally might have. After a while I left the room quite shook up and was met by a trinity of co-workers waiting to find out more about my father’s condition.

I recognized the name of one them, Charlie, who my father had trained decades before. Despite their difference in ages and background, they were very close friends. Charlie had been born in Chicago, my father in Ireland.

Charlie was quick to tell me that my father taking that much voltage should have died, something the newspaper article the next day seemed to confirm. 

The other workers told me he was one of the top five linemen with Edison Company, maybe the best. He should have been a foreman long ago but did not want to boss people. Preferred doing the work.

Finally Charlie told me what had happened after they brought my father down from the pole bleeding and burnt. They laid him in the alley and the workers were shouting “Call a doctor! Call a doctor!”

Still conscious, my father looked up and said, “Fuck the doctor! Call a priest.”

Apparently a church was nearby because a priest was there before the ambulance arrived. My father received the last rites in the alley before they took him to the hospital.

He never mentioned that to me over the years but I wasn’t surprised to hear what happened. He was a man who always had his priorities straight.

Donal Mahoney

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