Adreline

Before and after a thunderstorm
are the best moments, aesthetically.
The colors emitted from the sky
and upon the Earth's surface
-just the day before, only pleasant,
but generally mundane-
glow in the air and on the ground
like some ecstasy of light and color,
their source seeming from an alien place.
A rainbow is not necessary,
but if a rainbow appears in this firmament
all the better.
It is a lovely contrast,
those light and lighter blues,
those subtle and profound pinks
whites, peaches, oranges.
They are set so far out
in that nearly unfathomable distance,
behind the darkening green
of July's terra firma and flora
over growing in this giving abode.

The sound of yelping country folk
egging on the illegal roar of street racing.
Atop that growl of revving engines,
a drain pipe drizzles with a staccato resonance.
A muffled hoot.
A muffled holler in the distance to the east
and just what are those unknown voices racing for?
"Six laps in counting!"
The thunderstorm riled them up
like dogs and they need to taste a little danger.
"The summer is here
and the time is right
for racing in the street."
Do not say the Boss never gave you something.
In the waning light of this post-storm sunset
the revving of engines grows louder.
The howls of the half feral speed men
become more pronounced and guttural.
There is a show tonight that will begin soon
and the show is sure to be a full moon show.

"Woo!" they yell.
"Woo hoo!" loud and proud
as the racers press hard their gas pedal
on the straight away of the race course.
Some in the crowd,
others listening, secretly,
wish for one of them to crash
and immerse their soul
in a fiery automobile baptism.
All the while, the rain gutter continues to dribble.
Then moments of mass hysteria
bleed into the consciousness
of the surrounding sound
of noise pollution.
Cars barrel down the streets
of the neighborhood
like a gospel call and response
to the sounds of the race,
so far, but still so distant from them.
The spotlights on the track kick on
after the sun finally and so completely
rests its glowing head beneath the western horizon.
(Hello, you beautiful beings so distant from me,
but still close to my heart. The sun is only yours, now.)
Soon enough, we'll move on to demolition derbies.

Aaron C. Molden

7th and Columbia

    The three Figg sister's were put into the custody of the state after their brother, Dakota, stabbed their mother to death with a kitchen butcher knife and afterwards was shot to death by a Lafayette police officer.
    There was Rebecca the oldest, Sarah the middle child, and the youngest, Stephanie.
    After the girls school, where Stephanie sunk her teeth into the cheek of a roommate's face and ripped out a handful of her frizzy strawberry blond hair (they were having a fight over why they were sent to the reformatory school) Stephanie decided to run away and live on the streets. She resorted to prostitution sometimes, if she simply needed a meal or a place to stay out of the cold for a night.
    Eventually she found a man with enough money to pay the rent most of the time, though she claimed  to never know his occupation. They began living together.
    She said she cooked all his meals for him.
    She claimed she performed all her womanly duties, pointing out specifically that she would suck his dick.
    She claimed he would hit her when he became angry because she slept with another man for money when he couldn't pay the bills that month, but she would just hit him right back. She was still young and agile, and he being so much older and slower than her, he would helplessly lose the altercation. "It happened too many times." She told the police. "I got fed up."
    Most of the time, they would laugh at each other after fights. She would hold him in her arms, rocking away the suscpicions they had for each other.
    Tyrone was his name, but all of his friends and some of his family called him Baby Bird because of his shrivelled and atrophied arm.
    It was out in front of the Tippecanoe public library in broad daylight. Stephanie pulled out the pocket knife with the black plastic handle and yelled "I know you're still fucking her!" She thrust the blade torward his skinny brown chest. His stained white polo shirt rippled in the hot summer air before the knife lacerated the cotton and plunged through his skin and entered the viscera of his gut. She pulled the knife out and went to stick him again, but he choped the blade away; the edge of the blade sliced the outside of his palm and fell to the sidewalk rat-a-tat-tating on the surface while small specks of deep crimson misted the grey composite.
    He grappled Stephanie around the neck. "Woman, have lost your goddamn mind!" He growled.
    That is when the police car pulled off of Columbia Street onto 7th. Tyrone (a.k.a Baby Bird) jogged over to the police officer , his hand dripping blood and his polo shirt saturating a deep red outwards from one small crescent shaped hole below his ribs; not between the fifth rib. "This bitch stabbed me, man!"
    The police officer turned the key of his Charger off. "Step away from the car, sir. We'll get this sorted out."
    An ambulance showed up and took Tyrone away. Questions ensued. Back-up arrived. She was hand cuffed. One of the police officers took pictures of the bloody knife with his phone. Another officer took Stephanie's state issued I.D. "You're a Figg" he said, but did not ask.

Aaron C. Molden

Strange World

This is a strange place.
Everything works the opposite way
from what stories have told me.
I have a hard time believing fairy tales.
Or folk legend.
We do not live happily ever after,
we simply get by.
We simply keep surviving
until we cannot survive anymore.
Such a blessing to be so
Complacent and still apathetic.

The pops of the incendiaries
barely affect me anymore.
Fireworks are such a strange joy.
The opposite, but somehow the same
as jumping feet first or head first
or side first or cartwheeling
into unknown water.

No matter. Insanity is no matter.
This whole charade pales
in comparison to the world
and universe at large.
Nevertheless, I peer out into an ocean
of pretty faces beyond the darkness before me
and still remember yours.
And, that, somehow, makes me smile.
It makes me feel foolish,
but not foolish enough
to stop me from smiling,
even as the bombardments continue
as my neighbors yell at their children
and their pets growl and bay
as the crickets rustle and buzz
in the onslaught of explosions
that seem to rile no one but myself.
Strange world we live in.
Strange world.

Aaron C. Molden