I wrote this book, or I guess parts of it from 2006-2008. It was published in 2010. The short story was a continuation of one of the characters in my first novel – The Suicide Cowboys. It was during this period I moved from Denver to Ft Collins and about once a week, my son Josh and I would drive up into the mountains to Estes Park and spend the day. We would park in town and walk up a nature trail past pools of trout and grazing elk to the the Stanley Hotel. The old hotel was where Stephen King got the story for The Shinning. We would have a drink at the bar and talk to the employees about their own supernatural experiences while they were on duty. Later we would retreat down the trail again and eat lunch at Lonigans Saloon, and Irish pub. I would go home with a car full of ideas and stories. This book holds some of them.
Just Me and the Night
Go away loneliness I want to drink Vodka
perverse drunken logic beckons me to the party
walk straight damn it the cops are watching I think
oh my God why, such a waste of the moment,
just then I girl asks me “what am I doing?”
we walk and she takes me someplace as sparks shoot from
her ass while she lies to me, what a performance!
4 am and I am at a 7-11 buying milk as a vast array of people lie
sleeping in old brick apartments. I hear a scream,
“Don’t call the cops!” I trudge home behind a black cat and let
myself in. Lying down I feel the rhythm of the night and wait
for the sleep fairies to close the gate of my mind.
Evening Street Lights
Walking along the busy sidewalks of the life soaked day
Autumn winds catches my collar and thumps my thoughts
My eyes go up to the third floor window and no lights shine
Loneliness shakes me
Damn!
I walk all this way and she is not home- Darker now
I shuffle around and go
To a corner bar and sit down
Blonde whore
Smiles
She wants a drink
I buy her one
Now what?
Her tale of woe, God
I pay
Walk out the door
Still no light
Where is she?
Cold, I stumble
What now?
The dull yellow street lights
They mock me and tell me to go home
I go as the street lights keep watch
On the third floor window
These and many more poems and stories are in Cowboys and Witches. This and all my books at Amazon.com/John K Bucher
Burned the tongue and some memories almost too much
Fires were lit so I sent for a crutch
The mind was flushed and ready for more
New thoughts tumbled forward into the floor
and the oopps…trigger guns fire hard to the gut and the nifty music plays louder until dancing Chinese ladies with their protracted grins and orange pumkins swoop by the leave- stand up! it’s late!
Another round or three and a new bottle is found
Cheers to the flag and those can still hear its sound
and…the sounds of raindrops pouring down in the alley outside and the coming of armed troops carrying swords and singing…
In the late nineteen nineties, during a construction boom, several blocks of downtown Los Angeles businesses closed their doors to make way for high rise luxury apartments, organic grocery concerns, work out spaces, and coffee shops. One of the stores scheduled for demolition was an antique shop with an eclectic array of sundries for sale. Since it was the last of a third generation family, when faced with extinction, they were happy to retire in a sunny climate with a generous nest egg. They held a “going out of business sale” event in which every item must go.
Some large items were from old circus venues and sideshows such as authentic costumes, swords, and historical documents. Stuffed animals sat beside some prized period furniture. After the sale was over, the shop was bare except for a stack of old dusty pictures in the storage area. The boxes moved to the alley near the dumpsters and forgotten. That same night a windstorm attacked the city and blew the boxes in the air and all over the streets. One such box contained old photographs, some over one hundred years old. As they blew across the city and picked up and wondered at, stories came alive and fired a few new, wild dreams. Here are those stories.
