An answer to the homeless problem in Butte, Montana?

I am just a common man, working a common job, almost enough to afford a common pad!

I wouldn’t ever run for a political office as I can’t smile that fake nor are my teeth that white.

I do know there is a homeless situation here in the fine city of Butte, Montana, my home town.

There has been for a while.

With or without a shelter, people, mostly good people, families even, down on their luck, are out there, living on the street.

You just have to wander Uptown Butte any time of the day, and look, really look, and you will see the issue before your eyes.

Even ride the bus, as a commoner, and see the issue.

Do I have the answer or the solution to this problem?

No, I do not.

With or without a homeless shelter, the problem still exists as we close our eyes to the main problem.

“Not in my neighborhood!” I’ve had lots of people say to me.

The problem is, they are already there.

I am one!

Good people, people who work, but who don’t make enough to afford housing,

They smile as they bag your groceries.

They laugh as they give your hamburgers.

They nod as you state your views about how “These bums should get a job!” or stop living off the systems.

A lot of them can’t live off the system, they are making too much at $8.80 an hour.

The waiting list is too long!

They smile but deep down, they are crying.

Yes, the system is broken.

Yes, there are the bums.

The drifters.

The fakes, the men and women who panhandle aggressively, who put their 50 bucks an hour through Coinstar, but honestly that is a very small percentage of the masses out there, living on the streets.

We must all remember we are only one step away from being one of the homeless masses.

One of the bums, who gets hot coffee thrown in his face.

Yes, it happens, I’ve seen it.

I know, I am on of the homeless masses, the dirty ones.

I am lucky.

I have friends who are there, who give me a bed.

And a shower, a place to shave, so I don’t look like one of the homeless.

I do know there are good people out there, providing meals on a limited budget.

I have helped them, shh, don’t tell my manager, I gave them ten cents off some rotten peaches!

We must remember what would Jesus do!

I am not a religious man but I have giving my last dime to a desperate man with three children, to buy milk.

I will be leaving my hometown of Butte, the place I call home, with tears in my eyes, as a proud man.

I love you Butte but…..

 

The Last Hope – True Tales from a Wandering Mind

I have traveled somewhere and got lost in a book store once. It may have been in Lexington, Kentucky. It was wonderful!

I need to write tonight, I am very tired, not necessarily physically, mostly mentally!

I’m trying to be a good boy, I didn’t kill anyone today!

I may have beaten some customer with a loaf of day old french bread and may have shoved a ten pound turkey up their butt.

Cashiers can get cranky when they skip nap time and then have a customer screech, “This turkey should have rang up at $12.95, not $12.96.”

DO YOU FEEL THE PENNY NOW MY FRIEND!!!!  I scream, shoving pennies by the bucket full down their throats. I AM RHAK, WARRIOR GOD!!! DIE PAGAN FILTH!!!

This gets you a visit to HR.

“Do you think that it was appropriate to scream….” reads transcript from the video surveillance “You have awaken the evil inside of me that has slept for a thousand years!?”

I shrug and then reply, “Maybe, the entire scene needs to be viewed in its entirety, it’s a master piece in English Norse Theater!”

“Does shoving a bottle of $18.45 wine down the customer’s throat while screaming, TO THE WHORES OF YOUR MOTHER’S WOMB compile into this theater script?”

I nod.

“We’ve had 58 complaints today about you!”

I smile.

“That’s down from yesterday, gotta admit, it’s an improvement!”

“GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!!”

Also, my brains are turning to mush.

People don’t realize the fun of being a cashier.checker.dragon slayer.

We stand there for hours, scanning your otter pops, control top pantyhose, and $4.95 a box condoms.

“Pick up a pregnancy test as well, same aisle!” I smile, fake of course. Checkers don’t have real smiles, just like they don’t have souls anymore.

They sold theirs for a box of cereal.

I sold mine for some Raisin Bran.

Nummy for the raisin bran!!

Course, standing there, you get to think, deep thoughts, deep, deep thoughts, like —

• I really must have done something wrong in a previous life, maybe killed a whole bunch of babies. Maybe I was Hitler. Or a Pharaoh of Egypt, one of the evil ones, who killed a whole bunch of babies.
• Why did I go to college for?  “Hot babes, lots of drugs!” my brain responds.
• Do cashiers really get laid a lot like the recruiter said?
• What is “Getting laid”? Will I ever see a really life naked vagina again?
• “Probably not, loser!” my brain responds. “You should have stayed in school, became a doctor of literature or underwater basket weaving.

Seeing my old professor from my college days brought back some of those memories, of college frat parties, girls, girls, men, men, more men, no wait, wrong flashbacks!!!
Professor was head of the humanity department, I took his history of the 20th century world, and learned to question authority or do drugs.

I don’t remember.

If you remember college, you did it wrong.

Or maybe that was the 1960s.  I forget.

“Hi! Been a long time!!” I said.

He beamed.  “Did you take my classes, what was your name again?”

I told him.

“I remember you, you were the smart ass in seat 7 row A!”

I nodded.

We both laughed.

I told him about my adventures as an IT monkey for the mafia or a casino in the middle of a corn field, my descent into madness AKA retail.

“You should write a book!! I’m working on one!” he nodded and then we had to part ways.

It’s always nice to see old professors and teachers so they can see where their prized students landed.

“You were my hope…” one of them almost cried at me, running away in tears.

If I’m your hope, you’re f*cked!

I wasn’t his real hope, he was going senile, his wife explained to me later, but if it made me feel better, worst, whatever, then go ahead and believe it.

I’m a hope!!!

Jack Kerouac: Where are you now?

A Retrospect of my life in words and pictures

by

Dr. Andre Costello

The world begins to slowly move away from the body, traveling through space, time is a different matter.

The lady at the bar laughs and pours us another drink, in the name of humanity.

“War is not an option?”

A statement?

She didn’t exactly know.

We stood up and she disappeared into the setting sun.

The sun, a blazing orb of yellows and reds, burned my skin but into the desert we went, my head held high and the body rejoiced in delightful agony of pain, running from the feet, up the spine and into the brain.

July 12th, 1993: Angie is dying, one minute at a time, as we all do.

She did it exceptionally well.

Hagus De Morus, trapped spirits on this world, overlooked a dreadful mass of humanity, the villains of the world; tax lawyers, used cars salesmen, angry youth trapped in globs of human waste trying to swim upstream like broken salmon.

“Here we should give up!” she once more appeared and said, smiling.

I had wanted to give up miles before, days in.

She wouldn’t let me.

We did not see the setting sun, as the world ended behind us, one minute at a time.

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Jack Kerouac, where are you now?

Trapped in some shitty after life, writing about the cause and effect of madness on the road with some long dead hooker who we never learn represents our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our nieces, the long lost love inflection we met in high school but never had the balls to ask her out?

Are we the same way, different time?

Did we see the setting sun against the dying of humanity, or are we just mad, insane, completely utterly, sitting on the street corner watching the dogs and fights and the fucks and the loves?

“Cigarette?” the executioner asks.

I shake my head no.

“Good, those things will kill you!” he says smiling through broken teeth, rotting flesh falling from his face, to gather on the ground.

I bought a ticket, someplace, any place, the madness of my mind, my eyes, seeing the world as a twisted mold of disease and war, the painted hookers of 7th Street disappearing from my view as the bus hit the highway.

Gary, the lover, the fighter, the writer, was dead, in the ground, killed by society, drug of choice, life, a killer, no one gets out alive.

I tried to find my way back to that “other life” where I was happy, floating above humanity in a balloon, sky high, now, here in the blood, the mud, shit of society, looked down upon by those high up, those not realizing that some day soon they too could be down here.

The highway kept moving forward, pulling us down the line, further apart from the lovers, closer to the edge, the cliff, would we go over in a blazing ball of fire.

Can’t go home again

They say you can’t go home again, that time changes everything,
The life, the place you once knew is no longer the same.

Standing in the stream, waiting, eyes to the distant horizon, watching, hoping,That one day, it will come back to you, but the stream keeps moving forward, away,
And nothing stays the same.

What will happen, no one knows, the past is past; tomorrow never comes and all we have is today,
To feel; sadness, happiness, tears and laughter, standing there, watching the sky, intense blue.
Life goes on even when you don’t want to.

The hardness, the pain, lets us enjoy the light, the happiness that shall come someday, hopefully soon.
That which does not kill us, makes us stronger, so the old saying goes.
Some days, we feel like sitting down, never to arise again, to feel the hard ground, to grasp the dirt into our fingers, to close our eyes and never awake, last breath escaping from our lips, rise to Heaven, or fall to Hell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The river moves onward and forward, as we should, in everything.  Those who have gone forth will be with us till the end of days, forever and ever, here in our heart, in our soul, and we keep on moving as they would want us to go forward, though, as has been said by better men than I, it can be hard, tempted to lie on comfortable grass and never rise again.

I keep moving, forward, onward, her in my heart, in my soul, the blue skies above me, high cliffs, so high they touch the sky, to my side, the lane moving forward, ever forward, the direction I shall go till the end.

 

Depression:

Depression sucks!

Trying to get rid of it, to become happier, sucks even more.

Walking down the road, thinking about life, I begin to realize, I’ve lost my soul, bit by bit, not sure when, depression settling into its place.

I think about life, sober, not now though, I’ve been drinking cheap beer, which gets me thinking even more, realizing what life is about.

Sober, I walk down the road, thinking about life, the beginning, way before I became an adult, I go back into time, to a “better” place.

Is this time, right now, the better time, going farther down the hill, will life get worst? Better?

Depression sucks, it makes you look at life in darker light.

I try to get happier, which is tough, when the negative outranks the positive.

Will life get better?

People say so.

Others say no.

I try to keep positive, but it’s tough, the mind starts to think about other things, the negatives outrank the positive.

Then other days, the positive outranks the negative, those days are the best, I skip down the road, singing a song of happiness and light.

Good times.

The bad times disappear.

Right now, I am depressed, for no reason. The mind goes into the dark places, nothing cheers me up, even the beer doesn’t, the booze flows through me and disappears into the air.

Life sucks, move down the hill, the world keeps punching me in the guts, hard and with no love.

Then the next day, life kisses me with passion and love, embraces me and I love it.

Then back to bad.

Kick, punch, hate me, then the next, embrace, up, down, I hate it, I love it…

I wish life would make up its mind, to embrace me, love me, it sucks when it hates me.

ANOTHER POEM ABOUT LIFE AND STUFF

I walk through the darkness, eyes wide open, mouth singing songs never meant to sing.This is life, from the bottom up, down inside, over and out, life is about everything.
I awake, breathing, eyes wide open, once again, singing about life.

There is a road, leading up into the sky, to grasp the sky, to breathe the air free.
We are nothing, we are everything, this is it, eyes seeing, mind knowing.
We are everything, we see it all, ran to the end, walked till our feet bleed, we are we.

Were are you sister? Were are you brother?
Were are you my dear wife, gone to heaven forever and ever?

The body is dying, the soul is fleeing, this is the end, my only friend.
Where are you? Gone to battle, to find your meaning in life, to find that which means the most?

Money, sex, drugs, everything, nothing is worth the end of it all.
I shall meet you at the hill, the huge tree snaking its way over us, grasping us, holding us.

Death become us.

Where do we go?

Here?

There?

Everywhere?

I love you dearest one, till we meet again, I am here, there, everywhere.

Singing,

Laughing,

Running,

Falling,

I am alive, and well, breathing forever, till the end of time.

We shall become one with the alive.

 

Life in Complex Colors

Walking down the road, eyes to the ground, spirit to the Heavens,I keep moving and the breath still ushers forth, for I am alive,
Alive in this world, alive to see another day, another sunrise, sunset,
Walking forward and onward, feet to the ground, arms in the air,
This is life, perfect, not perfect, a great life in harmony of everything.

Life is moving, kissing, loving, seeing, hearing, back and forth, breath in, out,
Life is here, there, everything, nothing, the gaze of everyone from inside my head,
A kiss, loving in the fields of grass, embrace, night time, day time, every time, against the wind,
Moving forward through space, into blind open sight.

The time is near to contemplate everything, Gods listen as I scream into the dark,
Tears rolling down my eyes,
This is life,
Happiness,
Sadness,
Death and life, embrace into everything.

Good,
Bad,
Indifference,
Pain,
Ecstasy,
Everyone dies.
It’s okay…