honea byrne

                                           IN                                                                                          BETWEEN                            DRAGS Mandatory Church Service:                                       “So, how much time do we have?                                       “Oh, about five minutes.” We sat in the canopy ashing our drags in the large cigarette sand bucketed ashtray. This is our pre-chosen congregation before we have to go into the forced congregation.           I still just listen and take mental notes. Remaining in denial that my life has come to living in a brainwashed Christian homeless shelter. I’m afraid that the other tenants will rub off on me and I’ll be restricted like them to this place. The conversations are so predictable, and are always laced with profanity. Conversations like: about that fine lady, criticizing one another, talking about the staff, the best cons to pull, and the stern bosses.           Yea,

Origin, In between drags- © 2015, 2012 (Excerpt from Fearless III )           Always had that excuse “I’m stressed and I’ll handle it after I smoke.” At times, I used the severity of the situation as an excuse to smoke more. Situations like waiting by the telephone “Is she going to call?” going to the job interview, going to see someone that I really didn’t want to see, I’d smoke about ten in a row. Of course with drinking I would smoke up to three packs a day. Many times I smoked a whole pack in an hour.           First learned about the cigarette being a vehicle for slothful logics when I was working in the shelter. My peers perceived it as a right to smoke a cigarette during the workday. Many times they’d get lucky and get the supervisor in charge on their side by giving him cigarettes.           Of course, there came a day when I heard a supervisor say “These guys smoke more than they work.” After hearing that I decided that I had to be different than my peers. This meant

“It ain’t a stigmata it’s cancer.” I thought as the doctor told me. Reassuring me after my look of horror, “It’s not Cancer. It is just a spot on your left lung where the arteries have grown into the veins. We have to keep an eye on it though. Have an x-ray done on it in six months." Sat in that church just outside of Manchu Picchu writing fiction. The story is about playing guitar so awfully that it blew the heads off of zombies. Had that strange throbbing in my upper ab for a while now. Looked at that statue of a black Jesus. He had a gaping wound in the same spot we’re they stuck em’. I laughed at the thought of that. That throbbing is probably just constipation from the massive amounts of protein I ingest to keep my body looking like it looks. When I got back to Jackson Mississippi, my VA PTSD counselor told me I should get it checked out. At first the doctor told me it was just my pancreas was too big from my triglycerides being high (1,800) because I drink

check out the performance @SynergyNights the storm came ashore In the early morn knocking at my door Once she adorned- the rose's thorn She tore my heart in two into then and now like looking in the mirror and not knowing what is looking back time slipped away between the cracks I was running from the hell i created and it kept following one day I stopped but hell kept going. tears mist and i thought about all I missed. i may not know what love is. I know what it is not. "Baby, you used to love me a lot. All these years all this time i still haven't forgot your telephone number."  I know I know I should have got it right the first time. flashes of lightning my reflection and I wonder what could have been. That was so long ago. What would it matter?The winds she yells her name power lines fell fiery laughter suffocated in my doubt BLACK OUT no electricity-The sky falls I cry because somethings just aren't meant to be. "Sorry, I couldn't be the man

Below, is a ruff draft of a piece that I am working on about Katrina. I will perform this as a spoken word... One of the themes is about regret of the past. The narrator is riding out Hurricane Katrina and remembering his first love. Fearing that he will die during the storm he is trying to get the gumption  to call his ex- love. As his house and things are getting destroyed he thinks about all the things he will tell her.   ___________________________________________________________________________________ Came and made her presence  known in my home round 6 a m. Clear water became blood red when the pipes broke and let the dirt and rust in. The wind hisses her name "Katrina." -it did to me. They say you never get over your first love.  Lines fell to the ground. Still have my cell phone and I never forgot her number. She used to love me a lot. "Does she remember me?" I wonder. "Been thinking we could start again. I can be the man she wanted/needed back t