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	enjoy this writing from Mike Brennan in the cc&d free 2014 PDF file chapbook: Postcards from Exile    (click on the front cover image or the title text to download the free PDF file, available with two different covers)				You can also order this release as a 2014 6" x 9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread for the book Postcards from Exile

Order this writing in the book the Beaten Path (a Down in the Dirt Jan. - June 2014 collection book)		get the 372 page Jan. - June 2014 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

A Meditation On Mayan Prophecies & The Sandy Hook Shooting Days Before Christmas While In a Veteran’s Dry Out Clinic For The Second Time This Year

Mike Brennan

A Christmas of continuous crisis
Locked away & attempting to
Bandage all my appendages
With the powers of invisibility
I still miss you here in the ICU
Sweating Survival Statistics
In the wards & through the pores
Of a passed away VA
The patterns of my circulation are just
A washcloth of washed out water wishing
To become one with the atomic rain

But all that can be expected
Is a postmarked parcel of pharmaceutical pain
Addressed with scrawled answered prayers
To remain wrapped in a raincoat
To remain dry through the traumatizing trial
That is waking up to another grateful shot at today

So please just raise your hand
If you know where I’m calling from
& don’t hesitate to share your checkered
History of abandoned attempts
At daily steps towards recovery
Because what went wrong last year
You’ll pardon the pun & surely fix this
As long as our collective strength is
Enough to survive the apocalypse
& just know that you really don’t
& your best thinking only bought you
This metal chair & a complimentary cup of coffee
That you’re stirring while shaking
Because the neurotic neurons
Are still partially receiving
Fragments of what the friendly forces
Keeps firing at the enemy
& it’s never quite quiet in the DMZ

Your mouth muscles are
Always slacked at half-mast
Trying to talk & spit up
Bites of bayonets
Names, ranks, & serial numbers
Involuntary movements to identify yourself
& state your business
& maybe just determine exactly
How many passwords can be committed
To the artificial asylum of memory

So you take three steps forward
When the front door opens
Palms paralyzed at the sides
Trying not to betray
Their white knuckled strain

But inside it’s only about the souvenirs
Yesterday’s campaign is today’s exhibit
The smile behind the chemical straightjacket
The many ornaments that adorn
Such a utilitarian uniform
A keepsake case of embalmed ears
Birds & BarsStripes & Chevrons
Tattooed odes to the orders of the fallen
Granite catacombs of all that was
Chosen to be forgotten
As our bones become bricks
In our confused cohort’s shell-shocked walls

You are just a bearer of flailing emotions
Constantly trying to keep remembering
You are not your mind &
You can never be completely in control
Of both the logical & the sensible
Although it is true
You always attempt to avoid the predictable
When language is not always literal
But the implications are of great importance
The sounds of the blues & soul are never quite broken
& since you are stuck
You might as well just sit back down & shut up
& expose yourself to the devil
Since she’s always ready to reciprocate
The love you gave to such obviously selfish loss & hate
Is just a wrecked wristwatch
Is another date in the courtroom courtesy of the cops
Is an illegible message in a bottle & an uncomfortable place to flop
Is a crash landing when broken wings can’t find a proper position to stop
A darkened vulnerability in a fatal midnight feature film
A harassing laugh at the dunce cap in the back of the class
A heart shaped holiday card sticky-taped to Grandma’s refrigerator
A booming new market for bullet-proof backpacks
The theoretical yet truthful depths of my anxiety attacks
My carefully monitored regimen of generic anti-psychotics
The fear of tomorrow’s texts of technological distress
The spreading disease of illiteracy, illegitimacy &
Pawn shop storage sheds full of priceless antiques & redneck TVs
Doomsday cults & finger-pointing Pig-Latin translations of Christianity
The murderous motive operandi mounted in our mosques & malls
Marred in the many morgues of modernity
All the undecided sides of the right to bear arms
Of all that belongs to freedom & liberty& the happiness loaded in an AR15
& the newest medication supporting the mental health community

& hopefully a day will come when the home front
Returns for the decorated hobos
Locked in their habitual nightmare of flashbacks
Agent Orange side-effects
Gulf War Syndrome & all the surprises
Starting to show straight through
The price tag of Enduring Freedom

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