death healer

Waysted stood in the rain gawking at the new city. His chubby face grimaced in something like self pity. The city was off limits to humans who were plagued and terminally ill. He only needed a fresh strand of DNA and he would be healed. Unfortunately in the Fringes that was virtually impossible.

Stoik skated up beside Waysted's cybernetic wheel chair. He was a skinny kid with placid eyes.

“They say you can cheat death there,” he told Waysted pointing to the city.

“Boy I wish I could just get inside,” Waysted exclaimed to his friend. Stoik tapped him on the shoulder.

“Me too.” He smiled a smile of acquiescence. Waysted turned to face him.

“You know how I hate the Fringe. So much disease and death and…” He shook his head sadly. Stoik stared at the new city without speaking. A curious look came over Waysted’s face.

“You think there are pure people in the Fringe?”

“Maybe,” Stoik replied, “but they are just as helpless as me and you, they can’t escape, the new city guards won’t even scan them for the plague, if they ever try to enter the city, they just kill them without questions.”

Waysted exploded. “This is so unfair. I need a new body. I don’t want to die in the Fringes.” Tears pricked his eyes. Stoik turned away and fired up his cyber blades. With lightning speed he vanished from view. Seconds later Waysted heard a loud crash. He raced towards it.

Stoik lay lifeless on the ground while a hologram of his body hovered above. DNA 100% unplagued. Waysted felt a tingling in his spine. He tried to speak and failed.
copyright(c)2002 Billy Jno Hope

depart

depart
in
rain
drenched
laundry
blues

billy jno hope

Inspired by an article on the youths in shenzhen

I propose to wake the world
Guide the sun through jealous night
on vampire wings
across embryonic dreamscape
till my ghost resists flesh
In voyeuristic pose
we witness the kiss of life and death
And flee shenzhen
I to time and me to wait

copyright(c)2003 billy jno hope

Circa 2004


in terms of anger
i have shot the pain back
with full body armor
to the excruciating point
i have idealized
silence is defined more clearly
nothing sacred in how i puked
a loner calypso repeated the mantra
searing my intake
breathe goddamit
through your nostrils tonight
the plane wounded in st lucia
a prelude to happiness
absolute sky inspite of me
jungle water rising for keeps
carnival beast affected a roseau frown
ignorance clawed deepest
anticipation rode shot gun
liquor veins popped
fixated on popping
less me more insight
i don't know what i am missing
old voices choke on 20th century phlegm
turf street cadence swept in
swallowed the void
my niece cleans their blood songs
one more age might skin my eyelids
pitch me into the chrysalids
wishful thinking
was never condemned
on my footstool
safety pin spitting verbiage
summoned me out of vagrant bliss.

copyright(c)2004 billy jno hope

It
it died before
it understood
suffering gut lust
sucked every marrow
for the suffocating man juice

it died before
the void
christened it
divine

it bled
into a stain
on the soul paper

it became
a permanent fixture
of sadness

it
man
who else?
copyright(c)2004 billy jno hope

Sinners In Crisis

I have escaped with my blood but misplaced my soul. There’s no one left to torment. I stare into the crumbles of ruined expectation. Like snot I felt it coming long before the shadows clung to me. The outside world never doubted, my crash forever sweetening their tongues. There’s a knife in the kitchen sink begging me.

The hour strikes one, time for the apparition to taunt me. I grab a chair for the vigil but I pace for bone yard answers. On the porch, in the dark, staring bleak, a bastard vision unforgiven. Now a dog howls for dark moons. An owl chases a portent. I dare it to bring it on home. It screeches past me and I glimpse the onset of defeat.

So damn hard to fight my rage. I stagger to the shop and someone christens me a Taliban. I am here for kool aid and sweetener. The semi-retarded baptizes me Talibanic willing my ten cents to fall. It falls. I pick it up daring him to kick it away. He laughs at the same joke that burns us all. I stumble on defiant mortally aware this time the joke is on me.

They will knock the door today. I will cringe and lie. Do you want to play for keeps? I have black jeans on and rum on the funky table. Invite them to tempt the blade. Let them dance in the pentagram. Instead I put on a shirt and go to sleep for the dreams it killed.

We are walking home from the beach, where mountain rum burns bellies, where fish is second best. My brother curses humanity as he smokes their fart. The sun beats upon us, melting the little fat we possess. Cars zoom by on the Fond Cole highway, in the movie Point Break Bodhi called them metal coffins and now I believe him. Who cares if the red one is faster than the blue? Someday I will kill a car to see if it bleeds. We are approaching the bakery and Meshy shakes his dread locks for the sales woman. I wonder about his sanity but the woman smiles knowingly, the truth about real freedom.

My eye lids have stopped fluttering. Mountain rum from my weekend binge is the culprit. Maybe it’s time to glare into the sun. I need a space shuttle to get closer. The first West Indian in deep space. Much obliged to piss Creole dialect on aliens. A Fond Cole bum adding insult.

What will I eat today? There’s the proverbial fish crowding the refrigerator. Cooking and I are sworn antagonists. One pot is the norm and I always save some for my ancestors. Meshy does the opposite torturing the pots with visions of five star cuisine. I smell rebellion in the sink and that damn begging knife.


She said my face aged and I trembled. It is true baby face has gone missing. Time to paint the mirror black. I feel a groan building up fast. Hold thy vomit Judas, let’s hang together and count cathedral steps. A hard rum on me and you can buy lotto tickets. The rum is partly to blame; the mountain sure doesn’t cough up vigor. Ernest guzzled deep for bottom secrets. Shaky swallows to reassure the hangman. Big six fixes god in mouthfuls of soca halves. Hard choices we can only fathom.

Did I forget the music? It is bursting right now at the seams of my universe. It is coming undone beyond evil isms. I float away to darker lights. Moby screams from the blue painted wall. He leers at my naked back. PJ Harvey peeled from the paint. And there’s me dangling my boom box standing forever on the bed. The knife can’t possibly beg today.
copyright(c)2003 Billy Jno Hope