FEAST OR FAMINE
heaven
Would any of us childhood pals have stuck together, that old tape, if not for distance? My friends, flamed up in meth or psychosis, I saw them rot, I untethered myself.
A rat fleeing the burning ship. The ship playing against the aurora on the horizon.
Easy to think of the ideal bonds when we were a thousand miles apart, not stumbling in front of each other or stealing lovers or dorking out most likely.
In videotape, all the movies we made, memorialized for only a couple decades at best, before all the pieces of the mechanism rot, become useless, scattered magnetic fragments of metal on a stretched piece of tape. It doesn’t matter if anybody watches them or not.
Time still bites its chunks out, the mold seeps into the drawer, the closet, under the bed.
Friends, who needs em? Always demanding, ladling over with emotions.
Woods in the back dirt, our friend telling us we’d find him hanging there one day from the top of the tree. He was nine, we all were, did I cut him out, the poison, is it ignoble to get the fuse into another room, to smother it with metals, to avoid any brunt force, bruise or cut?
I’m a lil coward.
I, polite Canadian, but emotions, self hurt, should be swallowed, forced down, a choke or bad gulp of air.
I’m… here if you need me, but please don’t.
I’ll answer the calls on my phone, but I’d rather a text message. I’d rather silence.
My friends, carry my weight, my impending doom, my paper cut wrist, oh!
earth
Fragments. Fools’ gold, or is it fool’s gold? Frottage. Front roads. Free lunches*. Feelings, nothing more than. Fleeings, in my best moments. Foil wrappers from sandwiches good and bad. Flan, the precarious, the delicate. Fucking. Flames. Fringe benefits. Foliage, or is it foilage? Fat chances. Feet, so many of them! Flagellations. Fridges. Friggin refs! Fun, some. Feed bags. Fie, fie, go fie yourself. Films, though most aren’t film anymore. Fabulists. French fries, French toast. Federales. Funk on the good speakers. Friends and foes. Freezes. Flunking out. Finks. Flags, they’ve been at half mast since at least 9/11. Flowers, gotta love em. Flowers, oh, right, allergies. Famine on the border of every feast. Freaks, no one I love more. Fresh produce. Fresh air*. Fives, if you can spare em. Fonts. Flanks. Frogs. Frogger. Friends with benefits. Friends with detriments. Frostbite. Flocks above us. Funerals below us. Fairies. Flub tapes. Freedom fries, Freedom toast. Fascism. Fig Newtons. Fronts, frocks. Fromage even. Flo from those tv ads, she seems like a nice actress who’s dedicated her career to… safety. Free me, give me safety. Filet the capitalists, flagellate the fascists. Flank Steaks. Farewells. F minuses. Faculty meetings. F minus minuses. FBI. Faps. Frat bros. Faberge eggs, though I’ve never seen one. Food, including fudge. Frontiers, what’s even left? Feldspar. Fumigation. Farm subsidies. Family farms (imagination). Facts, falsehoods, fumes through the grates. Festering wounds. For sure. Fellas, is it gay to fill your plate? Facing the end, the trick is we always are. Full houses. Foul odors. Fists. Faces through the window, you’re on the third floor. Figures. Fussy little so and so. Fashion! Fetch! Feel me? Fingers under the wheel. Factory farms, what’s a life. Fizzy drinks. Fanta, Faygo. Foreclosures. Foul balls. Fundraising, if you can. Fives, if you can spare em. Falcons. Functions for work, church, township. Florida baby! Florala. Fast cars, fast women. Faith. Fathers of invention. Foibles. French Polynesia. Framework. Fridays, fuck yeah! Frodo from that book and or film. Fozzie Bear, too. Fasting for religious purposes, or surgery. Favorites. Fogs. Fondness. Fever. Falconers, like they had anything to do with making falcons. Fangs deep in my wrist. Firing squads. Flies. Famished! Fungi at the party. Fungi causing sepsis. Flashes when the sun sets over the ocean, in the pan. Floods, forest fires. Funnel clouds. Fabric softeners, use a couple at once. Fantasies in moonlight. Flickering, the fire behind the film. Family plots. Fiddles (violins with character). Fathers in the streets. Flames licking the box store (violence with character). Fondling. Fragging. Fredrick Douglass. Fea, a punk band from San Antonio. Fear. Four corners. Forest animals. Foxes. Fur. Fracking, like licking your piece’s bowl. Frankly speaking, file cabinets. Fleas. Follicles. Fond-du-lac. Finches. Flinches. Fixtures coming off the ceilings, do we fix them now or wait for them to fall?
hell
New Yorkers in the unemployment line telling me they saw death, a man jumped from a building, hit the ground in front of them, they dodged the body and bought a bacon egg and cheese.
I don’t buy it, a bloodstain to outlast the self.
The city a shadow burned onto the wall, the tough façade only icing.
Pawprints on the 4000 year old tablet, a recipe for beans.
I’m afraid, am not tough, the possum splatted in the road makes me cry.
Give me a hand across the street, sonny, give me lethal aid.
I’ll scream fuck you! out the car window but I mean please, if it’s no bother, could you fuck you.
The Left Hand of Darkness being read by what I presume is a corpse through the bluetooth speakers in the barber shop.
The right hand does… only good?
I lived in Queens and drove relentlessly to Brooklyn, The City ™, etc.
A little polished medal to live in NYC like being in a censored high school play. I helped paint the back drop, I retreated during the pandemic when sirens swam the air and we pretended to be cool with the refrigerated trucks full of corpses.
Anyone can live in New York.
If I could fake it here I could fake it anywhere.
The cold New Yorker a part people play, no one more ready to burst into tears, people in their 50s still calling their parents baby names. Hi mommy, hi daddy.
Glenn Shaheen is the author of four books. He is the President of the Radius of Arab American Writers and teaches at Prairie View A&M University.
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