A Blue Collar Crick in the Neck

Chapbook

By: Armand Keckhafer

Acknowledgments

Contents

Alarm Clock…………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 1

What a Beautiful Thing to Sleep Without Recourse…………………………............Page 2

I’m Late……………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 3

Too Many Good Years…………………………………………………………………………………Page 5

Wooden Spoons are Cooking Utensils…………………………………………………………Page 6

The Rewards of Hard Work…………………………………………………………………………Page 9

Quitting……………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 12

Business Major…………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 14

One More Drink…………………………………………………………………………………………Page 16

On Loss………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 18

Dead Turtles………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 20

Like Duck’s Feet………………………………………………………………………………………...Page 22

On Spiders…………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 24

Sweet Green Tea……………………………………………………………………………………….Page 26

Full Inbox…………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 28

Smells Like…………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 30

One Eye Open, One Closed………………………………………………………………………..Page 32

Page 1

Alarm Clock

I can feel it now

its almost time

my lights are lined 8:29 the air horn is primed

I’m ready to go

Oh how he’ll jump the sheets will scurry

where are yesterdays clothing? Run large lumberous one

you’d better hurry! Maybe he’ll even crunch his toe

into the bedside

as he did last Wednesday, cursing.

He it comes, Its time!

Sirens full blare let loose the ringing annoyances

garbled radio frequencies have your share! He’ll certainly wake this time!

No way to lose Oh, God-Damn!

How many times does he plan on hitting snooze?

Page 2

What a Beautiful Thing; To Sleep Without Recourse

What a beautiful thing it is to sleep without recourse

head sunken into the downy pillow

like a treasure chest of dreams bounding around

in there

toes draped in multi-colored socks

poking out from the comforter

What a beautiful thing to sleep without recourse

I could not afford

when my alarm blared silent

fell upon deaf rem dreams

I’d missed

my third day this week

Page 3

I’m Late

9:12am

A small rustle of cloth, As my phone glides back

To its spot in my Right front pocket.

Alongside an assortment of ink pens, With push pop tops

One lighter,

Red Like the irritated skin

Around a scab Scratched too often

And loose leaf tobacco shavings Imbedded in cotton fiber.

9:13am The morning air

Burns like the breath of Hephaestus, Specks of cherry coals on scruffy cheeks;

It’s predicted to rain Today.

9:17am Oh god,

My eyelids were drooped. The blinds had retracted

The cord. My head was slumped,

Mouth gawking open. I hope the bus didn’t come.

9:17am Oh,

I swore a minute had passed already

Guess not. Page 4 The smooth backing of my cell

Is wonderful and cool against The gruff callous of my palm.

Like a burnt finger submerged in rushing white rapid.

9:23am The lethargic rectangular prism

Groaned to a complete stop And upon splitting the double doors

Sighed Like a single mother trying to keep it cool

After the third time her son Missed the toilet.

The glazed over eyes of the overweight black Bus operator scan me for threat

Before slumping their whole skull toward

The road again. 9:28

The trees along either side of the road Melt together.

The asphalt beneath sprints to keep up. A mirage of tar.

We’re only going 30. 9:31

I’m Late.

Page 5

Too Many Good Years

My bedside table rests

like an elderly black man

smooth cocoa skin

blemished

white scars, and searing

coffee cup rings

legs that wobble more than stand

screws left in a couple

a hunched back

weighed upon, too many good years

wasted

in service

keep ringing those bells

Quasimodo

Page 6

Wooden Spoons are Cooking Utensils

I know now that I wasn’t

the perfect child. I was hardly ideal,

a bi-product of my “godless” mother:

your daughter, an unwanted spurt

a spasm of DNA from my rapist of a father.

I’m indignant,

Pig headed. What I’d decided was right, was right

and it was so because I’d decided that it was.

I know now that you didn’t ask for me.

You had no intention of loving a new child.

Trying to tenderly grow his roots with plenty of sun,

the occasional sprinkling of watering can rain,

to watch proudly as the leaves sprouted

and the petals bloomed so you didn’t.

I know now that,

others,

Page 7

aren’t like you. That the other children

weren’t punished for tears. Food was not a privilege,

not for them. The pitch black of the concrete cellar,

the dust that rose from the slamming of the wooden entrance,

and the cool “shruck” of the bar lock being pushed into place

were all completely unknown to them.

I know now that,

the other children did not bury their toys

in the woods. They never dug through broken bark

through earthworms through grass you would have to grip by the husk

to rip it out mound by mound.

All for fear

that again batman can’t fight his dastardly nemesis

the kitchen knife. The other children knew

wooden spoons were cooking utensils.

But that doesn’t mean

that the blue crackled knuckles were just good discipline.

Page 8

That the welts and bruises that spread from yellows to purples

like food coloring in petite tea cups

on Easter were instilling obedience.

Just because I called you Sir and Maim

doesn’t mean you have my respect.

I won’t be you; I won’t teach tenderness in band aids

and turtle necks.

Page 9

The Rewards of Hard Work

1. The Pay

The four gaping mouths crowd around the dinner table.

The skin off calloused hands brings blood blisters, and

light paychecks. The landline drills dial tones into the skull

with Johnny voiced debt collectors who are over eager to

press send. The plates are glistening with saliva, the

mouths are not silenced, gurgling commands from empty

stomach pits. Feed me.

2. The Down Time

The young man with streaks of grey and a bend to his

stance of men twice his age stumbles through the particle

board frame of a trailer park door. The child is awake

staring with coon hound eyes on the verge of bitter tears,

each trail down his cheek a potion of intertwined despair

and jaw grit tantrum. A question fumbles into the air. “Why

are you never here?” There was no answer he would

understand.

3. The Recognition

Rise while the sun takes its second snooze, shuck the worn

olive overalls like the dusty rugs of ma’s kitchen. Name tag,

cell phone, lunch box, Paul Mall menthols? Check. The

first of the day smoke to greet the morning has the

harshest drag, like licking the underside of a spearmint

Page 10

candy baked to the pavement, he’s prone to wheeze. Drive

the barren roads to work, calm before the hurricane.

Eyelids droop on the forklift, ambling its paces down the

aisles, overtime work is filed under required hours. The

sun rises and falls in much the same way. Plaques adorn

the lunchroom walls, employee of the month five times

running. Promotional contract with John’s name on it,

exchanging pats on the back with the boss chatting up old

times.

4. The Support

The pallets tower above the regular limit, the forklift groans

under the weight. The trash piles have developed their own

centers of gravity, pitched into the dumpster one bag at a

time. Slate black film stretched to white by metal shavings,

filled to the brim. Always lift with the legs, and throw with

the arms. The bag bounded off the corner, collapse, an

audible crack. One week passed, lying on the bed, eating

bread crusts and oxycodone.

5. The Good Work Habits

The strings on the bottle were noticeable, and laced to the

hands. Measure, count, articulate, reason, one by one by

one by one by one by a few extra they fall down the throat

and hit the stomach with a splash. The stethoscope is

listening for that tell-tell sign the rattling shakes of

withdraw, trying to balance the scales. Monday is water

Page 11

torture, Tuesday a scheduled Chinese fingernail

examination, the lid is off the bottle again.

6. The Relationships

The mirror is ghastly, pale sunken in cheekbones, eyes

that drag for miles of desolate roadway, the wall on the left

side of the living room is as good a place as any to rest

them. Her face is taught, staring, talking in his direction,

trying to reach through the mist of padlocked clouds. The

child’s feet pitter patter against the cracked wood flooring.

The stairs creak beneath his leaps, up, down, up down,

jump, fall, up, down. The bottoms of the toddler sized

shoes are worn. The child tugs at a stick figure man’s arm,

pleading. The black clouds are rolling in.

7. A Good Night’s Sleep

Empty cap less plastic bottles litter the carpet bedroom

flooring. The lab coat is shaking his head, his palms rest

upon his hip and brow. The sterile smell of white sheets.

The split leather bands dig into the wrists the cold metal

buckles are little comfort, the ankles are empathic. Rooms

of other ghosts, whispering “Hello I am drug addict and I

have a problem.” Dreams of painlessness are shaken by

back surges.

Page 12

Quitting

The skin beneath

My arm

Shaking

Like the tone arm of a broken record

I need a cigarette, pwerrrt,

I need a cigarette.

“You should quit

Come on give it a try.”

As if I was waiting

For someone to suggest the thought

Before it crossed my mind.

The curvature of the sink is splattered

Streaking blotches of carmine

My throat is numb from coughing

So simple

“Why don’t you just stop?”

I keep expired cigarette butts

In my brown wallet

Page 13

Like ornaments of past regret

When I am racked by

Convulsion aches

I bring it above my lip

And breathe easy.

The homeless man with closed eyes

Savoring a hit from a half charred

Bit he found lying in the back

By the dumpster.

I want him dead.

If you’d ever given me half

The downward ahh the intake

The twists and turns of careening dust

That falls from the embers when ashed

The two fingered spin from the pack

To red lips.

I’d be hard on quitting you

Too

But as it stands

I’m leaving.

Page 14

Business Major

You palmed the sleek head of the Fender Stratocaster

its contorted carmine base, the three single coil pickups,

and cutaway horns;

fretted the cracked black pick in and around the strings.

With a hum and a strike of your foot against the old

linoleum

that sounded like the upturned, unanticipated, closing

of an old tome, of longwinded text, nuanced into

incomprehensible discourse on one happening or another

in which all the petitioners’ gravestones were a drought of

flower petals…

An instant catapult of dust

flinging what little mites had luxuriated there

for years

back into breathable air.

You’d strum the chords your finger nails

a mist of alabaster

your eyelids, scrunched

a pad-lock concentration.

My jaw hung

segregated

gentle nods every half second

Page 15

a contagious smile

like wild vine

crackling towards the sun.

You played so well I tipped you

10 bucks.

This year when I asked you what you wanted to do with

your life,

“business major”

You said.

“I have to make money, art is dead; what’s your major?”

“Creative writing.”

On the walk home I tore up a tulip

like it had my social security number printed

on the petals.

Just try to take my pen,

Adam.

Page 16

One More Drink

The air in Ol’ Mcaffry’s went down like

powdered sugar

and must.

That bounded from collective dingy boards in the sidewalls

every inhale was a shot of dust, neat.

The bar itself was a round center piece island;

a convince store rack, black hangers lined

with deadbeats, drunkards, failed artists, and every flavor

of cop.

I was of the third denomination.

The ripped black leather wire framed seats, all had a nasty

rise in the middle

that made the men sitting there saddle up, like boarding a

fence one legged

and given my colonoscopy was two days ago

it was especially unwelcoming.

The bartender was a one eyed broad, red headed with more

fire in her

than the famous fireball cinnamon whiskey that collected

dust on the middle shelf.

She was laced with old tattoos.

Her arms were children’s story books in swirling form

Page 17

knights in armor, to princess with skull decals, and

dragons on motorbikes.

She had a full head of spite and spittle

bit back more punches than I was ever willing to catch.

Either way, I wanted her,

and damnable courage,

the bar filtered some of its unwanted rubbish back onto the

street

and I was feeling like another drink.

Page 18

Of Loss

What little I know

is gleaned

from the smallest of tragedy.

The end of the rollercoaster ride

the decrescendo of spiraling loops and twirls

the unbuckling the seat belt, one handed

with a frown.

The rusted core

of a beloved apple

that shriveled and melded the pastel

water color greens and reds in aging.

From Tuesday through

Thursday, when you remembered it existed

and tossed it into the bin.

The goodbye,

that had three days notice.

Like there were late fees,

extra charges, on my

delicate heart strings.

With a mouth of sandpaper walls

and cotton coated tongue

Page 19

I couldn’t weave the word

That needed said.

What little I know

of loss,

is the last time you left

I didn’t

say goodbye.

Page 20

Dead Turtles

Morose;

because there are four

dead turtles

on this walk to wal-mart,

but also

realizing that

dead turtles

are super gross.

One,

is melted in its shell

like a child’s ice cream in

cardboard cone

left unattended, and taken by the sun.

Another,

was shattered

like a concussion grenade

tossed in a bunker

just scattered pieces

on the inner state.

Black tire singes on the roadway

a stench of pond scum

Page 21

and rotten sea weed

challenge the exhaust fumes for

air space.

A rabbit skitters by

the underbrush off the

side of the highway.

Who won that race?

Page 22

Like Ducks Feet

Cool blue water rushes out the rusted spicket

trickling over freckled

sundried skin

prickling tiny fine black hairs

like a chilled stream of rain water

gurgling through the concrete ditches

and overflowing the flood drains.

There was no bother

for the yellow elbow length gloves

that adorn the countertop shining

in the dim flickering kitchen light

reminiscent of ducks feet.

Fluorescent-blue

Dawn

soap, a squeezable bottle

shaped like an onion tuber

yanked by a tuft of bristle

from the river bank.

The contents always happily gave

Page 23

angry hives

like a million or more

red topped mosquito bites

in scattered disarray.

Yet the yellow elbow length

floppy, oversized

dish gloves

sat atop the counter top shining

in the dim flickering kitchen light

reminiscent of ducks feet

it wasn’t till I was drying

the last platter

that I noticed them sitting there.

Page 24

On Spiders

It sits in wait

on the hallway baseboards

and shower top crevices.

Where the soggy white bathroom walls meet to discuss

water damage.

Tiny hardly visible tendrils

trailed across doorways and back woods

maple leaves

of Hawk’s Ridge’s paths, alike.

Nothing should have eight eyes.

Really, anything more than two

is hyperbole.

Like its creator gripped them from a jar

and flung them willy-nilly

all over the creatures face.

I can even deal with the obnoxious amounts

upon flying insects and even the

awkward juxtaposition of the flounder.

But you eat a cobweb

across your bathroom door

for the third time that week

Page 25

and see if you release the next one

into the wild.

Page 26

Sweet Green Tea

Sweet, lukewarm, watered down,

from the ice-long melted

green tea.

Caramel in color like it’d been left

far too long to rot in

direct sunlight

floating remnants of

stems and leaves

swirled by finger tips for boredom cures.

A plain white plastic university cup

brandishes its golden outlined

advertisement lettering

as loud and far reaching as possible.

The polluted brown gulp

splashes my stomach like honeyed

Vinegar.

After every swallow my teeth stand at attention

like their commanding officer

strolled by their post.

They lift their rifles

and shiver too and fro,

Page 27

with a hint of lemon;

it’s the best thing I’ve had to drink

all week.

Page 28

Full Inbox

Hey,

I love your

face!

Lets dance

boy! Wooo!!!

I’m too old

and want to feel young

again!

I want to stare

at all the stars with

you. Awwww

it was alrightly cute!

Too manyyyyy jello shots

*I lose my fingers

in your hair*

Silly Boy.

That sounds nice…can I join?

that’s not as nice but

I’d live. I’m so stoked!

Take care of me…

all kinds of exciting adventures

Page 29

What a wonderful dream that is

I Love kids.

I’m ready to sleep now

babe

“Thanks for reading my poetry”

Thanks for writing it.

Page 30

Smells Like…

Those flowers, Dahlias

I think

reek like a gaggle

of geese came flapping through.

Careening south in their tight-knit V,

but maybe that’s because you

keep fanning them at my upper lip.

“Smell anything yet?”

They do look beautiful.

The chocolate mint chip cookies

radiate heat,

like an old cast iron wooden stove at full burn

in the mainstay of a crowded log cabin

in the woods,

when you open the oven.

But they only smell like a bonfire

because my mustache is singed.

Page 31

You always shower your neck

at the nape

with two extra dabs of perfume.

Misted from the pink Antwerp-cut bottle,

but it only smells like roses

because it pricks my nose

when I get too close.

Page 32

One Eye Open, One Closed

Arms curled beneath the quilt

her gentile breaths indent her pillow

and bound sweetly to my drifting mind

like a barnacle stuck up under a ship sailing to dreamland

what a lovely day, was today

A pink wax paper lantern

concluded the fireworks show

one by one we unruffled the folds

tender finger nails pull on the creases

watchful eye of the crowd of would be rocketeers

inspected each side for inconspicuous rips

“Make a wish”

She said.

Like a child I tossing a singular rusty penny

into a wishing well at the local Chinese buffet

aiming for the jade dragon’s skull

I kept one eye open

to watch it sail upon the air waves

the lofting rises

the fragile dips

I closed the other

“Look at that thing go!”

yells aloud grandfather nameless

binoculars set like spectacles

“I hadn’t thought it’d make it that far!”

The old man’s voice jumped and sank

like a boy playing hopscotch

“It must be damn-near 500 feet in the air!”

“What’d you wish for”

she asked

tentative

“I can’t tell you”- my normal response

was absent

her gruff callus on soft flesh I curled her fingernails

into my palm

parked my lips

pursed upon her temple

“That for as much time as we have

be it an hour

be it a day

be it a week

be it a year or a lifetime

that for every second of it my smile

would stretch as wondrous

as when watching that undaunted balloon.”

Sighing I sprawled my arms

and let myself be taken by the tide of sleep

“Yes, what a wonderful day, was today.”

Page 33