Grass
Omaha

Combustible
Sitting there at the fire,
I am illuminated.
And the faux façade of face
melts away.
That which I define as self
becomes liquid;
the play of light across bone,
viscera and epidermis
flows fluid with each undulating flame.
My face becomes a miasmic mantle of
molten me.

Ever changing,
the visage you behold is quite simply
that of a man on fire.
Not your normal narcotic.
No opiate derivative courses through these veins.
That pyro-technique you see
reflected amidst iridescent pupils
originates from within;
not from that conflagrant mass of
timber now tinder,
burning away some three feet distant.

My skin glows incandescent yet
does not sear;
does not char.


Edging my hand towards that which defines me,
there comes a moment where pleasure
transitions to pain,
and there,
just at that threshold point,
a certain sense of sanity begins to wane.

Just which direction equals pain?
Which equates to pleasure?
Yes, it’s time to make a choice.
To be decisive.
To move quickly.

And as I cast my eyes around to
all those other reflective pupils,
I bring myself to ask,
“Would you not have me illuminate you?”

And all of you
who always thought I should have been
committed…
What am I here right now if not
totally?

Look away if you must but
from this moment forth,
I
shall forever be
burned to retina.

©06 Jack Hubbell

Omaha Basement

Listen to Me (for Jimi)
Just here in this ear,
I can hear the serene sound of a
plucked and hammered dulcimer,
while over there…
the other guy… the other ear…
He in the other gets
a hardwired Fender Stratocaster.
He gets Humbucker Pickups
and massive Marshall Amps.
Whammy bar wha-wha
and Hendrixian feedback.

A super-sonic spiral of distortion chicanes
down my aural canal
and there arrives at abrupt end
with a roto-rooter ear-drum-roll of dice.
It do rattle them scat sung skeletals,
and lo but resident bone dancers,
Brothers Stapes, Incus and Maleus,
gyrate in compound fractured syncopation
to the pulse of 100 watt stacked
tremelopinion.

But beyond the gray matter side
of my pink inner ear,
no favorable acoustic environment
will ever exist for the dulcimer musings
of a soft melodic mind.
You out on the far side of this
conga concussed cranium experience
none of this.
In here,
hammers continue to fall yet
nothing is ever damaged;
nothing is ever smashed,
and no, nothing ever relents.


How can I possibly have you hear
my song of self, when
the inside of this mind is a
heavy padded room?
How can I hope to hold sway
when there, in your brain,
two mighty speakers hang
from pre frontal lobes?
How can I and my dulcimer compete
when your mental synapses are grafted
to a left-hand strung Stratocaster?
Fused to Jimi and
‘Hey Joe’.
To Jimi and
‘Purple Haze’.
To Jimi and…
‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’.

Why, you’d have to be insane to prefer
that noise over the dulcet
dulcimer tones of
my voice.
I said…
I said, “You’d have to be insane
to prefer that to me.”
Me.
This voice.
Listen.

Listen to me.

It’s me in your head,
and not him.
Me in your head;
not him.

LISTEN TO ME.
Listen to me.
listen…

©06 Jack Hubbell

Omaha Asphalt

Rollin’s Reptilian Lie
Henry’s up there on the stage
lookin’ mighty lizard.
Certainly not lethargic lizard mind you.
Don’t want you to visualize that.
More like lizard on meth.
A lethal lizard amped
amphetamine mean.

He looks to the band behind him,
…and he looks to you.
To the band…
Then to you.

It appears he want to
strangle someone with
that microphone cord.
It LOOKS that way.

Oh, not that Henry would actually
garrote anyone in his namesake band.
His band…
The Rollins Band
is pumpin’ out a pretty sinister
groove at the moment.
No need to buzz-kill the kill-buzz.
Nah. Our iguana of ill intent
needs his solipsistic soundtrack of
soul sin self.
We in the mosh are expendable.
If Henry goes komodo,
it is our hearts he will devour.
And I cringe
and cower and
genuflect there at the back.

Now that you’ve got the visual,
I have one question to ask you:
Ain’t this a load of crap?

Henry Rollins does not actually
want to kill you. No,
but he wants you to THINK he would.
A certain suspension of disbelief
is in affect here.
In this case, it’s kinda fun to
pretend that at any moment,
Mr. Henry Rollins
might just attain a level of agitation with, oh…
let’s say his slightly out of kilter mojo,
that some sort of sacrifice would be in order.
And he could do it.
He could really do it.
He could leap off that stage,
pounce on willing victim and…
Again.
What a load of crap.

You’ve got your Wolfgang Mozarts.
You’ve got your Duke Ellingtons;
your Lawrence Welks.
You gots your Henry Rollins.
All them dudes wanna be lizards,
but I’d say they were closer to feline,
‘cause I call ‘em pussies!

That’s right. I said it!
Wanna know who rules the stage?
Poets!
Mother F-in poets!
Rollins wants to act all lizard n’ shit?
He should try poetry.
But nah… He can’t do that
‘cause he’s a pussy.
Scary? Poets
are freakin’ scary.
I know.
Just talk to one after the show.
Whoa!

Bust up the stage?
How many times
you seen a poet
mess up that microphone’s switch?
Yowsa!
Damn straight!

Smash amps?
I can DO that.
Break a guitar?
Well… I don’t have a guitar…but
look at this!

A pencil!

[snap]
Look at that!
Hoo-yea!

Henry Rollins a poet?
Poet my lizard licked butt!

Nothing like Walt Whitman!

Walt rocks!

©06 Jack Hubbell

Rhymes With Orange
T-Henry's
Omaha

Rejection Slip Away
So what do you aspire to?
Your own little Walden Pond?
Your own minute patch of solitude
where you fold into yourself
and turn your back on humanity?

I guess you figure that
immolating Therou’s lack of
social interactive skills
will place you on some higher level.

Say we follow his isolative lead.
Say we embrace his dismissive ideals.
Say we all turn our backs on our fellow man
in an attempt to become one with our, um,
fellow man.
Well, how many Walden Ponds are there?

What we have here is a multitude of souls
who have chosen to step off the map;
plummet over the edge;
fall away, and deep freeze as
their own little unique snowflake selves.
There they alight upon
icy ponds of indifference,
little realizing that there just next to
their one and only Walden Pond
is another Walden Pond.
And next to that:
another.
Our private properties all butt up,
one to another.
It’s suburbia out there.
A gridlock of Walden utopia.
Or is that dystopia?

You figure this is your
one great act of civil disobedience.
What? To
turn you back on us?
To walk away,
pass through a tree line and
fade away into your own
custom made forest of obscurity?

And there you stand at
Walden Pond Version Three Thousand,
Six Hundred and Eighty Two,
tossing forth deep ruminations.
Ponderous depth charges that
makes an impressive splash, but…
Let’s face it.
Your ripple goes no farther than water’s edge.
A water’s edge that you defined for yourself.

There in the forest,
you are the proverbial sound of
one hand clapping.
There in the forest,
you are that tree which falls.
The one that no one hears.

Like you,
I also stand at water’s edge,
and yet
my vista of liquid reflection is
far vaster.
Here before my feet,
a myriad of individuals
have pooled their unique fluid minds
into this basin of mutual acceptance.
Where your pond grows stagnant,
here currents surge and flow, to and fro.

There beneath the surface,
an immense swell rises.
Downward, a deep trough forms.
Just there, an upward curve—
a wall of shimmering… words.
Words followed by…
this sound.

A reverberation you will never hear
there in the seclusion of your
tiny Walden ideal.
For this is an aural assault that amounts to
a bit more than
one hand clapping.

Yes. Here we are ocean,
and from fifty fathoms we rise
each as one.
And there we crest, roil, pitch forth and fall.
Soon to crash upon this incandescent shore.
A million lyric liters of thought pounding
an equal number of sandy synapses.
Surf to sand and out again.
Each and every one of us,
riding that mighty wave of
applause.

©06 Jack Hubbell

PS Collective
Omaha

Diva Soma
PS Collective
Omaha

Submitted For Your Approval
Submitted for your approval:
A man deprived of
all the childhood trauma he feels he
justly deserved.
A man who feels there should have been
a higher quotient of horror content
in those formative years of his youth.
More running with scissors and less
“Hey! Who wants ice cream?!”
Less “Let me kiss it and make it better.”
Less puppy-dog tails,
if you all get my anti-wag meaning.

Oh, he remembers monkeys.
Yes, and not just run of the mill,
throw poop on ya monkeys, but
flying monkeys.
Airborn chimps that ripped the arms off Ray Bolger.
Yanked all the stuffing outta poor ol’ Ray
and spread it all over the forest.
And there… There was Ray,
still alive and babbling incoherent,
with a good portion of his insides
lying there on the outside.
You must admit that for a young boy,
seeing a severely gutted scarecrow
was the epitome of full Freudian freak-out.

But he weathered it.
And though he and his sister were forced to
hide trembling behind a chair
every time “W.W.W.” showed up on the screen…
(Um…for those of you unenlightened,
that’s the Wicked Witch of the West).
Yes, though they weathered “Triple W”
and survived to tell the tale…
Damn it!
There shoulda been more horror.

Submitted for your approval:
Rod Serling scared the bejeesus outta my mother.
He would not let her go to sleep at night.
Okay. All you Baby Boomers out there
know who I’m talking about.
You young pups likely think my mom had some dude
ticking on the far side of the glass,
trying to get in.
Not too far from the truth when you realize that
that glass was a TV tube with
clock and pendulum floating through
deep space there on the other side.
Or a big white door or window.
Perhaps E=MC squared or
a multi-jointed doll.

Or worse yet:
A doll’s eye floating there in the cosmos.
A single ocular orb
complete with droopy eyelid.
The most absolute of
sphincter puckering horror.
Scared shitless?
You bet.
Course, it could be that
I simply came to associate that eyeball
with the dread of what Rod Serling
had in store for me.

Sorta like when you see a triangular fin
slicing through the water
and your babbling inner Id screams
“Shark! Mommy porkin’ shark!”
Sorta like when the girl you’re dating
pauses in front of a maternity shop
and lingers
a little
too long.
You know.
Horrific stuff like that.

That plastic Cyclops oozing across
the dark backdrop of our television set
gave me a topsy turvey tum tum.
But… Not for long.
My mumzy came to find that
those nights Twilight Zone aired
were also nights that her children
failed to embrace the deep realm of slumber.
Oh, not only us.
Mr. Serling’s creations also haunted her pillow.

Submitted for your approval:
One young boy who got all that cerebro-horror
mainlined into his brain vein, and then
was made to go cold turkey.
No Twilight Zone.
No Outer Limits.
No Captain Kangeroo.
(Okay. Captain Kangeroo wasn’t so scary but,
Mister Green Jeans was most certainly a serial killer).

So yea. You don’t think that
that sudden withdrawal from the T. Zone
didn’t scar my noggin a bit?
No long term tele-tattoo trauma
to my tinker toy top-hat?

Week after week after week, I
stand here before you
pouring my cuisinart processed cerebellum
through this meta-morphine microphone
and out to your word junky ear holes.

Submitted for your dis-approval:
Can you stand the fix, or
is this serial syringe
a tad too toxic?

©06 Jack Hubbell

Memo to Mel
Interoffice memo to Mel.
Okay, perhaps not interoffice.
More like message from the wild.
More like last will and testament
from the great unknown.
But… I prefer interoffice memo, cause
I take certain comfort in such verbiage.

Now admittedly, when
they hand you this and
say it’s from Jack, it
likely won’t carry much weight,
but when they tell you it was pried from
the clinched hand of my corpse… Well,
you might just give it a bit more import.

So… Mel… Okay.
I guess I didn’t make it,
though at this moment,
I’m still alive.
But I figure,
just barely.

I’m far from home,
hiking the Raven Rock Trail in North Carolina.
It’s been…what?...
Forty five minutes since I left the car park
and you must admit,
that’s an awful long time to be
lost in this vast wilderness.
Am I lost?
Yes. Well… No.
Perhaps. Who knows?
I mean, listen:
There’s this defined path but
what does that mean?
Nothing. Nada.
Easily manipulated by the local flora, fauna
and oh so deviant wildlife.

Just think about it.
This entire park could collapse
in a massive sink hole at any moment.
Trees fall.
Mold flourishes.
Somewhere there deep in the forest shadows,
an animal seething in rabid fury
is seeking me out.

I wasn’t always like this.
There was a time in my youth
when I relished the experience of nature.
I embraced it.
How naïve I was.

At this point, I imagine you rolling your eyes.
Dismissing my reaction as somewhat,
somehow … phobic.
But you ain’t here.
No. As you read this,
you’re likely amidst friends
in some late-night venue
watching a flatulent poet
over-exaggerate some aspect of
his poached pathetic existence.
But that ain’t me.
The real me is lost out at Raven Rock.

And as I follow the trail’s gradual descent,
there is a certain mental descent as well.
With each progressive step
into this forest’s depths,
I penetrate labia and nuzzle the womb.
This Mother Earth is fell feculent.
Here in her dark dampness
there is delirious decadence.
The air… heavy and oppressive,
and I find myself dwelling on death.
My death.

And it grows darker.
So much darker, though
I know full well that dusk,
both literal and metaphorical,
is still a full hour away.

Mel:
I am not meant to die here.
To collapse, crumble and molder,
producing a choice mushroom
just behind my compost ear.

Deep in this forest, I hear things.
And though I cannot see them,
know that they envelope me.
Yes, at this moment,
I am being consumed.
Parasitic entities penetrate my flesh
and I am powerless to stop them.

Listen Mel. Listen.
Why must nature
be so evil?
I am becoming unhinged
and it is your precious wild
which skewers my sanity.
Just where does tree bark end and skin begin?
There! For God’s sake, look!
There in a tree… what horror.
Someone has carved
a heart!
There next to it, letters!
Initials.
Little crosses
between the initials.

What does this mean?
What terrible events transpired here?
Were hearts exchanged one for the other?
Beneath this tree’s dark ominous boughs,
were they ripped from tender chests,
there to be swallowed, sap and all,
by another’s ravenous desire?

This is madness!
Such sticky, sticky madness!
Who in their right mind would
do that to a tree?
Deviant souls.
Souls consumed by nature.
By their sick embrace of nature.

And so, I evoke your name.
Melissa.
Patron Saint of non-concrete
and asphalt not.
Save me.
Save what’s left of this mosquito, chigger
and tick drained soul!
I beseech you in the name of
all things Daniel Boone.
Get me away from the sanguinary sap
of this sick twisted tree!

But no.
You’d still rather sit there and listen to
some fat ham read pseudo-psychotic poetry.

So… I guess I’m on my own.
I turn.
I run (well, okay…
I don’t run but I walk really, really fast).
And not more than twenty yards away,
I hear something come up behind me.
Something Dionysian.
Something Bacchanalian.
Indeed, a dark green man
whispers over my shoulder
with a voice not unlike that of a wasp.
There in my ear,
the loud throb of a crazed hornet.
And so I move faster and faster.
And though the buzz at my collar
suddenly dissipates,
I do not slow my pace.

There just ahead,
I see a sign
and this beacon or respite reads
“Parking.”
Who would have thought such a word
could bring my current level of joy?
I may just pee my pants.
And yet still I do not slow.

There! Look!
It’s my car.
My car sitting on
wonderful, lovely, cuddly gravel.
(I love gravel.
Have I ever told you how much I love gravel?
Not as much as asphalt and concrete,
but it will do in a pinch.)

And there I touch pristine chrome,
open the door and
slide through its portal to collapse
on a fine leather upholstery.
Equally, my now becalmed hands
wrap around a bound leather steering wheel.
Yes. Leather.
Leather from animals.
Dead animals.
Man’s supreme ascendance over all things animal.
All things natural.
Our dodo dominion deftly delivered
by way of Detroit.


Face it Mel.
This is the way things are.
Lo, but I turn that engine over
and the essence of
a billion ancient creatures
explode
with each catastrophic pulse
of a synchronized
spark plug.

Shifting into drive,
I hurtle down the road
and there pass to asphalt.

Faster and faster I travel.
Tiny insects,
a splatter spectacular,
there across my
lethal wind-shield,
and I?

I smile a mighty grin.

Oh, and yea.
Mel baby.

That office memo?
Tear it up.

I am right
where I was
always meant to be.

©06 Jack Hubbell

Decaying Industrial Site
Sanford, NC
Sept. 2006

Death Dwellings
Lights out,
I lie face up upon mattress
staring at the motel’s ceiling,
and though no one shares my bed,
know that
I am not alone.

Let me be direct.
I have killed.
I know this is a pretty blunt statement,
but don’t know how else to
get the truth out to you.
This is who I am.

Seeing your face contort ever so,
I figure you’re pondering my motivation and
I don’t blame you.
Such things often need be
brought into the light.

So okay…
Let’s go back a few years.
The street address is something like,
what? Florence Blvd?
East? West?
It matters… But then again…
Doesn’t.

I’m visiting a friend, and
she has this young son who is
quite enamored with me…
Go figure.
It happens.

This young boy has just been put to bed,
and having singled me out as
an object of affection,
he would very much like me to
wish him a good night.

I should interject here that
my motivation for killing
has nothing to do with
the act of tucking a child in.
Bear with me.
I’m getting to it.
We’ve still got time to kill here.

Anyway,
I step to this boy’s bedroom door
to find that there in the pitch black,
he’s already in bed;
tucked beneath covers.
Though not a relative,
from out of the darkness
I hear his voice.
“Goodnight Uncle Jack.”

And a warmth comes over me for,
dare say,
I love this child.

“Goodnight,” I respond,
“and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
There in the dark I hear this
delightful giggle.

Stepping away,
my hand runs across the wall
and comes across the light switch.
I look over to note this
and when I do,
there on the wall, things
begin to move.

Within in that brief glance,
I see a multitude of cockroaches
skittering to and fro.

And as I stand there
stunned and disgusted,
there from the far wall
again that sweet voice,
“Goodnight Uncle Jack.”

It takes me a moment
but I finally muster a final soft “Goodnight,”
and slowly back away
into the bright light of the hallway.

I… in the light.
He… in that… dark.

Moments ago I killed.
Here in this motel room,
just outside the toilet,
I beat a cockroach to death with a towel.
Killed it. Killed it. Phuqin killed it.
Flushed that mother-phuqer down the toilet.

This was not a Zen moment.

I will not qualify,
nor defend my perceived harsh immorality.

I really don’t care what you think of me.
So be it.

Time passes.
The Earth rotates,
and there in the dark,
something propagates.
And I and my Karmic conscious
lie in this amplified black,
full well knowing that I am still
not alone.
Know that my having killed
really means nothing.
Know that for this moment,
it is my current inability to
kill what I cannot see
that I must try to live with.
And this I will do,
yet try as I might,
cannot bring myself
to close my eyes.

I love,
and I hate.

In such a world as this,
it is possible to do both.

©06 Jack Hubbell