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enjoy this writing from Ted Jackinsn in the Scars free 2013 PDF file chapbook: when the World was Black and White    (click on the front cover image or the title text to download the free PDF file)				You can also order this as a 2013 6" x 9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread for the book when the World was Black and White

Reading Matter

Ted Jackins

Heart and heat flutters
with the mild fluctuations
of these currents forever
running beneath my dirty
feet in the most dissonant
of tones which feel simultaneously
distant and very familiar
to these battered ears right
now,
a source of comfort
and a means of exorcising
a rage which can’t be allowed
to manifest any longer.
So you let it all out
through the headphones
clamped in a tight
death grip around your skull
and silently join in on
the screams as you scratch
this notebook dirge
onto a filthy page and
turn your head to
spit out the shells
from the deepest wounds
inflicted by now
empty rifles.
Later on the war drums
will slap back at the boot
stomps you make along
the sidewalk en route
to your favorite filthy bar,
it’s not abandonment-
just need some time alone
to think/drink/not speak,
just for an hour or so,
baby,
then I swear I’ll
come home.
I’ll climb the stairs
only to collapse
onto the broken couch
with tiniest angel
tucked in my arms
as all those thrashing
field songs continue
bouncing in my head
until I clear my throat
and reimagine one as
a gentle lullaby...
within minutes she’s
amused and asleep,
yet I am still awake
with these songs,
these words,
this child,
these four walls,
and what is a bed
for but simply wasting
half of one’s life away?
The sun starts to
peer in and it is now
time for my
forceful exit to
the waking world,
escaping these dreaded
mornings with their
chipper asshole mentality,
to sleep-
to dream-
to wake again to a
different kind of Earth:
that of the mid afternoon-
and it is beautiful to be me.

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