Brenton Booth

Requiem for a Tough Bastard

He'd drank
and smoked
more over
the years
than any
great artist
that ever
lived. And
on his final
night (a full
year after
his doctor
emphatically
told him to
stop drinking
and smoking,
or he would
die within a
week) put
them away
with the
voracity of
a baby faced
amateur
that hadn't
yet felt the
unmistakable
awakening
of defeat.
Dying the
following
afternoon
with a wild
hangover,
and no
regrets
he could
think of.

 

Throwing Stones

I am in bed at 11:40 a.m.
trying to sleep, hoping
to never wake. Hear loud
beating on the front door.
Ignore it. The beating
continued for over five
minutes. Must be police,
I think. No one else would
waste that much effort.
I open the door. "Have
you been throwing rocks
at your neighbor?" the
brunette officer said.
This is a new one, I think.
Last time it was an alarm,
time before a steak bone
on the lawn, time before
that an aggressive life-
ending threat. What's next:
food waste in the recycling
bin!!! "Haven't thrown a
rock since the school
playground," I said. "So
you are denying it was
you." "Correct." "You know
the penalty for throwing
rocks at people?" "To be
honest, I really don't care,"
I said shrugging my
shoulders, thinking about
the last can of whiskey
in the fridge. "Can I go now?"
"Yes," the officer said with
an angry expression,
following an endless silence.
"But know this conversation
will be logged." "Archived
like the immortal words
of Christ," I said promptly
closing the door. Quickly
falling asleep. Dreaming
of giant wayward stones
crushing a misguided young
woman all dressed in blue,
and another older one,
perpetually leering through
the tiny cracks in our
shared fence: hankering
for life to finally begin.

 

Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry of his has appeared in Gargoyle, New York Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, Heavy Feather Review, San Pedro River Review, Chiron Review and Main Street Rag.