You’re Dead Already….
….Living In Hell
Jake Istre
ISBN: 978-0-557-01083-7
Copyright © 2006 by Jake Istre
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
Cover and interior art designed and copyright © 2006 by Nicholas Grabowsky and Diverse Media, taken in part from public domain clip art. Photo of the author by Nicholas Grabowsky and copyright © 2006 by Diverse Media.
All rights reserved.
The publisher does not always express the opinions of the author.
A Diverse Media Book,
Antelope, CA.
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You’re Dead Already……Living In Hell
Also by Jake Istre
Shocking Tales of Murder & Insanity
Thank you, Nick, for being the only other one…besides me….to believe in this madness.
This book is dedicated to my loving daughter.
Contents
Poetry……………………....a
Short Stories…………………..67
Poetry
Philadelphia Snow
A fresh quilt of snow
Covers the city from south to north
West to east
The sun rises brightly
Illuminating across the Arctic scape
Like brotherly love
In a town that has none
Walking down the avenue
I stop and stare at my reflected image
On the frozen
water on the pond
My thoughts are soon interrupted
By the vicious click clack
Spark show of the passing “L”
The city is dead
Folks too warm and cozy
to venture about
This city is dead alright
You can feel it in the air,
See it on faces.
As they peer through front room windows to see if I am friend or foe,
This little shit pile of bricks
is
Quilted up to the waist in fresh
Philadelphia snow
It is quite beautiful
And very much alive to me
Trip
He had 4 sheets of really good acid in his pockets,
It was a once in a lifetime concert.
A perfect night to unwind
Take a journey
Make some money
He sold about a sheet and a half before the first two opening acts had performed
but
just before the headliner
the train he was on took a wrong track, and derailed!
Some over-concerned bystander seeing some guy
Wig out alerted police.
Police thinking the man was crazy tackled him.
It took three officers sitting on him to subdue him.
At some point in the struggle
He had urinated himself.
The urine saturated his pants, including the pocket with the remaining sheets of LSD.
The spiked piss saturated through the police officer’s clothing and skin.
The police started to wig out on acid.
They began singing
laughing
Doing things police men wouldn’t normally do
Saying things in different tongues that policemen wouldn’t say
that’s when things became purple
And I tuned out.
72 Hour Hold
Inside nobody was crazy
We accepted the fact that we were fucked up
And learned to deal with it
By indulging in lots of fun drugs
We also knew
The rest of the population was just as crazy,
if not more than we were.
They just spend their lives pretending they are sane.
The most important thing
About being on the
Inside
We were safe from all of you.
Shot in the Back While Trying to Escape
Freedom
Is a long distance run
Endurance, and
Strength
Equals
Survival,
Then,
eventually freedom
Sometimes
You only get so far
Before they
Mow you down
The race for freedom
Is over.
You only had one chance.
Fear not!
The other side is the same as this side
Hell will always be there.
Fin
Death
Has arrived.
The room is ice cold.
Hair rises on the back of my neck, and arms.
He takes his last breath
But does not exhale
Death has arrived to take him from us.
now
Forever doesn’t seem so far away.
The Sick
The sick are taking over!
The sick
Infested with flies
Diarrhea
Malaria
Vomitus
The sick
Failing
Tilt
Game over
Malnourished
Aids
Staph
Gangrenous
Infected
No hope
Look of despair
Stinking
Of sick
Rotting death
The sick,
Crowding the hallways
Walking wounded
Bed ridden
Wheelchair bound
Tugging along,
Still connected to
IV machines
Ventilators
Automatic defibrillators
And colostomy bags filled to the maximum
The sick
Are taking over this hospital
as
The cowering staff takes shelter in the boardroom
Standing In Line at the Gates of Hell, Waiting to Get In
I have lived,
and seen death in the raw
I have met death up close,
In person
Tasted death
covered in putrid fucking stinking rotten death
Myself,
I am not afraid of death
Know it as a friend,
Also as enemy
I have died a million times now,
I am dead already
Waiting for death with open arms
To steal me from the hell that won’t have me,
And take me to the hell that does not want me
An Upstanding Member of the Social Elite
He stepped on the train
At
12th and I street station.
A fat bald man
Short,
With a rusty old bicycle.
He had on a tattered blue t shirt
with over washed blue jeans,
Stained and soiled with substances of an unknown kind.
He had three teeth when he smiled
And wore a pair of what appeared to be women’s sunglasses.
Watching him for a moment
I could tell he was watching all of us
behind hidden eyes.
The train began to move
And without warning, he scratched his nuts.
Then he sat down.
Women of the World
I have lied to you
At times I may have said cruel things
But I never raised a hand to you, any of you, and
There were occasions when a slap would have been appropriate
I loved you all
Even when you walked out on me, left me swinging from the noose
Stinger in my gut
Clutching the pain
I became jealous of you
You became jealous of me
And the impression I must have made on
Your fathers
Mothers
Boyfriends
Best friends,
And lastly all of you
So I ask why do you hate me?
The Eve Of My Suicide
It’s the down to the final hand
3 kings,
A pair of aces
I’ve failed at the game of life.
Failed at love
As a writer
A father
Even managed to fail at
Everything else
The only thing I have done well
Is lived my life
According to my rules,
Living on my time
No one else’s
I am different, you see
I always was.
The problem wasn’t you
It was me
I’m out!
As I slam the cards down for the last time
Pour a drink for a tomorrow
That will never come
Some people like to sit and wait for death to come to them
To hell with gods
I’ll be the one to decide
Death I am coming for you.
Crushed By the Steering Wheel
Crushed
To death
By the steering wheel
Still strapped in the seat
He looked like you
Or me
As he began to bleed from the mouth and nostrils.
Thrown through the wind shield
Of a mangled Plymouth Dodge
Into the street.
The woman he hit head on
Skull spilt wide open
Like a dropped egg
Medulla cerebellum center
All over the cobble stone
Appendages mangled and tangled
Like a pretzel
Crushed to death
By the steering wheel
Looking like you or I
Monday morning at 11 past ten
Ran the red.
Casualties of the Battlefield
Love
Is war
War
Is love
There is no peace for you and me baby
We served on the front lines
Of two totally different battles
For much too long
There will be no peace for you and me
Ever again baby
Only
WAR!
Punch Drunk!
Some drink to forget
Others
use
Copious amounts of illicit narcotics
I
Write poems to forget
It’s my eighth poem in three hours.
I am feeling quite tipsy
As the words flow looser
Poem after poem
Well into the night,
after the drunks pass out on their liquor
There I am,
Still going at
Well beyond last call
Sweet music
I am writing
While listening to two jazz greats
On the radio
One a trumpet player
And the other on electric piano
What I am hearing is so fucking
Phenomenal,
I can imagine the two greats
Their fingers flying all over the scales like
Fire
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off!
“To hell with it all!”
I told him
“I am just a nobody who writes stupid poems,
Nobody will ever read
“That’s all that exists for me,
“I am not one of these writers who reads other writers’ work.
Nor do I wish to hob-nob and schmooze
With other pretentious assholes!”
I do not want to be a
Hemmingway
Writing for
$$$$$$$$
And
fame
My aim is only to destroy
What you know as shit,
And make it shittier
I am sure
There are a lot of other individuals
More suited for the role than me
Your little world isn’t ready for me
I sure as hell
Am not ready for it
Closer To Suicide Than Salvation
I liken depression
To being an untrained fighter in the ring with a world champion heavy-
weight boxer.
A few blows
Are all it takes
To knock the wind out of you
And leave you flat on the mat
But you are unable to get up
And the feeling lasts forever
Lying there
Windless
Clutching the gut
Bewildered
In a daze
You lose sleep
as
weeks turn into months
You lie dead on the mat
committing the same suicide day after day
Hour after hour
Today
I lie in bed all day