Noel Negele- Three Poems

White Pride ( Good Night )

My good friend,

Let’s call him Mike

For anonymity’s sake,

Is an anarchist

And an active Antifa member

Hates racists with the passion of a racist

And every time he goes to the gym

He  wears  this black sweatshirt

That has “ Good Night White Pride”

Written on the back

With bold white letters

The only problem is

The hood covers the Good Night

Part

Leaving the White Pride

Part

Open to misunderstandings

Two weeks ago

Poor Mike

Got jumped by three black men

Who weren’t familiar with the Good Night White Pride

Movement

But all too familiar with the White Pride part of it

I went to see poor Mike

To the hospital

Because it was that bad:

Broken ribs and fingers,

A fractured wrist

And jaw

Poor Mike came to understand

Sometimes it’s best

Not to take sides.

My Uncle

My uncle

64 years of age

thin haired now, almost all grey

his belly a beer- expanded tambour

ready to burst,

a red nosed

alcoholic

and an embarassment to the rest of the family.

One morning I remember

I was seventeen,

freshly initiated to alcoholism 

myself

he came for a micro intervention

brief and subtle

used himself as an exemplar

of avoidance

said he used to shit blood for some time

and that he cant get it up anymore

"But I started drinking when I was 36 years old

communism helped with that

but you are only so young

ruining yourself

give it some time

grow first..."

I thought as always that no one understood my sadness

a teenage sadness holds no trestle

I know

but self destruction is self destruction

and thats what I've been doing 

since conscience first appeared in my life

and at that morning we talked

and ended up getting drunk

from that early

integrity be damned even in adults

and in truth my uncle respected me more

than my cousins

since he knew I was the only youngster in the family

who wouldnt hesitate to knock him down 

on his ass if he acted like a clown-

the rest of my relatives respected his age

I cant respect a man simply for surviving

and as soon as he found out I like to play chess

I was invited at least three times a week for a couple of beers

and a couple of good chess games

and from advising me against drinking

I quickly became his drinking partner

used to joke around

"We are the only two drunks left in this family.

Your grandfather was the biggest of them all,

but now he's gone 

so its left on us to keep it going..."

now

jobless

his wife of 40 or something years

can barely walk because of an accident

and she's the only one with a job

and my uncle 64

ego ravaged

drinks, cooks

and paints

his time to death;

his paintings are of sea shores

and horses-

pretty good

but good doesnt cut it anymore

in fact

it never did

He's a chain smoker

and to this day 

I really believe that a fortune has been made out

of the endurance of his lungs

"Uncle stop smoking so much."

"I eat these fuckers up!"

he was a better chess player

I must admit

better than me, by miles,

out of the thousand games we played

I must have won 5 at best

but when he found out I like classical music

drunk

he kept asking

"Whats the name of Bach then? The first name of Mozart? Of Borodin?

You dont know shit!"

and I realised 

out of chess

the man lacked

terribly in pretty much

everything else.

Rat Hole

In this rat hole

I know all too 

well, fallen again,

slid like a knife

on the wrist,

sucked into it

like a haricot

through a straw

inside the abandonded

buildings, alongside 

homeless immigrants

and femished junkies

their spoons are crooked

and as soon as as

"the semen of God"

starts to swim in the blood

their eyes glow and

they light the bonfires 

it is a universal fest

inside this room with 

no furniture, we are

waltzing with death,

careless as the monks

burn and the economical

indicators plummet, we

are untouched, uncaught

on the web of your reality

there are no spiders here

and the cannons blow

as if Tchaickovsky is alive

and also a junky

yes, yes, yes

but it lasts so little

and the night itself

becomes a ceiling 

roofing our dreams

as we reduce our souls

to something frail and 

unworthy, we quail, 

the everyday life scares us

more than death standing

on the dark corner

smiling at us, with a shivering

along the floor and into the very

depth of me, his shark teeth

so very pleasantly brushed

we are runners and you are

more capable than us, with

your fed cheeks and your

cash reviews- there was

once a time when we used

to want to know things but

not anymore-

deeper and deeper into

the well as the days

become weeks and the

weeks become months

no friends reach you there

no relatives find you

all the youth wasted and sunk-

we are quenching the thirst

of our demons as if we're

made only for them to consume.