Picture courtesy scenicreflections.com

Written by Ken Carman

I work the night shift. My wife works the day shift. My wife wants to have a child. Maybe if we can get together long enough, we can.

My wife doesn’t really know what my job is, even though she’s visited me at work. Who she sees isn’t me, but a demon, posing as me. He has a strict hands off policy and damn well knows not to touch her. My Master would not be pleased if he did. You don’t want to piss him off.

So the demon sits at the desk where the night guard sits, stares into nothingness while pleasing himself with dreams of tormenting babies and slicing open little girls, while I shed my skin: give it to him. He pulls in all his sharp, spiny, horns and then puts it on so he looks human, and I go to work. All I have to do is step across the spiritual divide

My job isn’t that great. Brush up spilled brimstone and stuff it into the orifices of the damned, check the temp. Too cold? I’m the creature of the night to make it just right. The nastiest, meanest, foulest jobs in Hell: me. But I do them with joy, for my Master has told me I have a purpose.

You’ve heard of Jesus, right?

Once my shift is done I return. The Demon sheds my skin and steps across the spiritual divide. I pull in all his sharp, spiny, horns and then put my skin back on and go home.

I work the night shift. My wife works the day shift. My wife wants to have a child. I want to have a child. Maybe if we can get together long enough, we can. Maybe today’s the day, when she comes home.

For my Master tells me soon I shall serve him well.
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©Copyright 2013
Ken Carman
all rights reserved

Courtesy hdwpapers.com

Written by Ken Carman

You know my story, as told my others.

You don’t know my story.

My Father and I know how life flashes in front of others when they die. Not me. Not us. Not we.

In the last few moments, through pain that no one could bear, that I bore for you, I thought of whys, and hows. How were my disciples going to do? What reasons, the “why,” would they speak of me, tell my story, even, perhaps, write of me? What of my mother?

As life bled out of me I felt weak, I wondered why I couldn’t leave yet, I so wanted to return.

“Why have you forsaken me?”

Sometimes I think my father has yet to forgive me for saying that, as I have yet to forgive myself.

What of those who knew not what they did, who surrounded me: buzzing like flies who only know how to live off what life was, or life as it passes, not knowing, or admitting there is more.

We are all food for the father. They say the father: my father, is all knowing, yet there was so much we both learned that day. We learned of pain, betrayal, cowardice, bravery, anguish, and the many reasons why. Not as simple as it seems when you have to walk in the sandals of one of your own creations. Living is as confusing and filled with lies as it is revealing. You know you will die, but even at the end you struggle with the concept. The path to deep, personal, self-deception is laden with signs that say “wrong,” “right” and “it doesn’t really matter.”

My story is now yours to tell. It will be told, over and over, and being who you are it will be told as it was, also as some wished it had happened, and by those who wish it was something other than what it was. Great evil will be done in my name, and unimaginable good.

Here’s a clue: the good is often very hard, and dangerous, for those “foolish” enough to follow. What’s easy, convenient, even automatically recited, can be quite evil. For if my father and I have learned anything from those years it’s how easily self deception is, and yet how hard seeing that for what it is can be.

Let’s just say if you have led an easy life, accepting what you’re told, or what’s easy, you’re probably not following the path of the divine.

Now. while I know where I am going, and where I have been, even an earthly existence even for a savior doesn’t do it all justice. So I will return. But, for now, as light fades and the heavens approach, and I gasp my last earthly breath…

Tis all too much for even a savior to express in mere words.
_______________________________________________
©Copyright 2013
Ken Carman
all rights reserved

Courtesy catholiclane.com

Courtesy menupix.com

Written by Ken Carman

This was the world she knew
This was the world she knew
This was the world
SHE
knew…

Little white house
Up on a hill
In the river town
she loved

Next to her organ
On the long, wide shelf
A wind up Christmas church
Plenty of plants and flowers
Sitting
Dangling
Tended so well

Oh, if only plants could see
What they’d see
Looking
Through the big picture window
Down the gentle slope
Around trees
The Hudson River
flowing gently
sometimes not so gently
in the distance

Chicken Sunday afternoons
Soon…
after singing
Baptist choir
Playing organ

Hanging clothes
Clothes line wire
next to the garden
she had me weed
Plant seeds

Border collie
Running to and fro
Having far too much fun
from the dog run
In front of a rabbit hutch
And the lazy summer
Fully enclosed
Bug screened
Hammock
Dangling near
a short cement wall

And if she could
She would recall
the backyard
Where her kids played
near an old wood pile
And Hook Mountain picnics
Chinese birthday dinners

Husband home some nights
tho sometimes on the road
Three boys
One off to war
Two off to school
All the drama
Sometimes Heaven
Sometimes Hell
Of raising a family
Well

Deep inside
death ate at her
And soon
Too soon
what was of her
was left up a lonely hill
overlooking that same river
the church
the town
where we lived

Yes, Mom
All you knew
Has left you
behind
As have those days
That time

The ashes
Of the husband you adored
Poured into a place far away
Sons
Opposite ends of the country

But no need to feel alone
Oh, please
Do not feel alone
Where you are
Soon we shall be
As the Hudson still flows
Out to the oceans and seas
Because other families
Hopefully raised as well
As the Jims
the Kens
the Teds
Or the neighbors
Dean, Jerry, Harry and Dell
Are living their lives out
Near here, there and about
that white little house
On top of the hill
In the river town
You loved
______________________________________
©Copyright 2013
Ken Carman
all rights reserved

Courtesy flickr.com

Written by Ken Carman

She
puts on her black
leather
pants
Tight
black
leather
blouse
and unrolls
her
whip

Outside
those
who would love
to claim her
their own
their one and only
their bitch

But if this is done right
they are her’s
All her’s to whip
to beat
to shred
and if they’re good enough
finally accept…
for now

Lady Liberty

The candidates

Another election year
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©Copyright 2012
Ken Carman
all rights reserved