Peal away the negative.

The sound of the hammers and an electric saw–contractors are installing a new something for my upstairs neighbor. Bodhi has taken to an under-bed solitude.

You’re scaring my cat! I say to the old carpenter.

He crumples apologetic. I smile.

I’m just kidding. My father was a carpenter. I grew up to these sounds. I don’t mind them at all.

In fact, please, keep screaming that electric saw. Cut away the negative of his war trauma, paranoid nights. Show me my daddy, again. Show me the man I built a “Professional Lemon Aide Stand” with. I was between five and seven. You forced your friends to buy all my lemonade.

Sold Out! Time to go swimming, Charlie…

I can’t believe I forgot that, daddy. I can’t believe that the sound of an electric saw just brought you back to me, so vividly.

I’m so sorry I forgot the good, dad. Things got really bad for me, for a little while. You know how it is, pop. I know you know how it is, and you know how that can be.

P.S. Fuck War.

Charles Bivona: Influences: The Buddha

Charles Bivona: Influences: Vietnam War PTSD Daddy

Charles Bivona: Influences: The Cold War

coming of age during the plague
of reagan and bush
watching capitalism gun down democracy
it had this funny effect on me
i guess

i am cancer
i am HIV
and i’m down at the blue jesus
blue cross hospital
just lookin’ up from my pillow
feeling blessed

and the mighty multinationals
have monopolized the oxygen
so it’s as easy as breathing
for us all to participate

yes they’re buying and selling
off shares of air
and you know it’s all around you
but it’s hard to point and say “there”
so you just sit on your hands
and quietly contemplate

your next bold move
the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable
and sell them to seagulls flying in circles
around one big right wing

yes, the left wing was broken long ago
by the slingshot of cointelpro
and now it’s so hard to have faith in
anything

especially your next bold move
or the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself

you want to track each trickle
back to its source
and then scream up the faucet
’til your face is hoarse
cuz you’re surrounded by a world’s worth
of things you just can’t excuse

but you’ve got the hard cough of a chain smoker
and you’re at the arctic circle playing strip poker
and it’s getting colder and colder
everytime you lose

so go ahead
make your next bold move
tell us
what’s the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself