Reality
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
*This is a spoken word piece.*
He’s the kind of guy who speaks just to hear his own voice
and when he looks in a mirror he makes himself moist
and he said to me, “I’m surprised by your good use of word choice.”
You act like I’m a fool when my vernacular is so intricate
I could slay you using nothing but the English language and quick wit.
My thoughts and quips come at such a velocity
you can only stare at their monstrosity with curiosity.
You have the education of a fourth grader
yet you act like a mental crusader
while staring at me with eyes full of loathing.
No one told you that brilliance is not measured by clothing.
There’s plenty a fat car sporting a tuxedo
who only likes to stroke his own mind’s libido
but when his word palate fails,
he just wipes it off his coat tails
and onto the streets with people like me,
treating the poor like they went absentee
from life, when you can find more of that
on any street corner than under a top hat.
Would Einstein have been as famous for his work
if he had started off as a lowly mail clerk
and not wealthy from his father’s funds?
No one should really be stunned
that most of our greatest minds,
never had to work a nine-to-five,
never had to struggle to stay alive,
never had to steal to simply survive.
So this goes out to the brilliant downfallen man.
The artist, the painter, the guy shaking the tin can.
The dealer, the thief, those living in sin.
People whose faces crack trying to sport a grin.
The worker, the loafer, and those in between.
People living off food they stole from a vending machine.
There’s more humanity in the starving masses
than in any one of the higher classes.
So the next time you decide to be mean
based solely on what you have seen,
remember that the soul has the power to see in the dark,
that the mind has the power to set the benchmark
so get to know the person inside
before you decide to throw them aside
and you too will see beauty in the strangest of places,
from broken down spirits to worn out faces.
And maybe the next time you pull up in your Rolls Royce
you won’t be surprised by my fucking word choice.
Cadavers
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
Cadavers on the causeways,
bodies left to rot.
Blood curdling in the gutters
like last month’s milk
left in the sun,
it congeals where it lies
finding every crevice,
every niche
in which to fit
until it fills the cracks
and spills across
the gray plains of the sidewalks.
Some got the blade
and the incision across their throats
runs like tomorrow’s headlines.
Some got bullets
and the holes in their souls
match those in the windows
they died protecting.
A kid got shot on my block.
His pearly eyes swimming with maggots
still watching the street corner
he thought he owned.
The pool of blood
that poured
from the hole in his temple
has slowly been carried away
on the soles of passing shoes.
Insects and parasites
(some human)
crawl all over
and slowly eat away.
The skin on the bottom of his feet
cracked open
like the lips
that used to sing on my front stoop
all day.
In his life
he had been a two bit hustler,
a kid with his eyes
on diamonds and crack rocks.
His flat brim cap
got taken off by some thief
and his hair whips across
his cold blue face
still frozen in the last emotion
he ever felt
while a beating heart
still rocked his ribcage.
Each day
his mother sits on my stairs
and watches her son
slowly rot to black,
wither away.
Eventually the jaw will fall off,
and with time
only a pile of of bones
will litter the walk.
Maybe if we left the cadavers
to decay where they lie
people would remember
that each shot fired
lands in someone’s family.
Prepare for Battle
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
Ready your axes,
your swords,
your sabers.
Ready your words,
your souls,
your minds.
We’re taking the mansions
by storm.
The poor can make weapons
out of anything;
sticks,
kitchen knives,
pots and pans,
the legs of chairs,
broken bits of workout benches,
parts of the streets themselves,
prepared for this moment
by the brutality
of reality.
We’re rising up from serfdom,
the horrors of Harlem,
out of the ghettos.
We rush up the steps
to topple the idols,
Zeus and his cronies will fall.
Opulence will drip down
marble steps
seeping through cracks
in the glass ceiling
we have forever altered.
We want you,
the golden-headed gods,
worshiped as saviors
who only live
to line their pockets
with the souls of the lowly.
We want you,
the bosses and CEOs
who make billions
by putting millions
on the streets.
The red flame
of kerosene soaked rags
glistens off the chandeliers
as dirty feet
breakdown the door.
The nouveau riche
have nowhere to turn.
We’re taking the mansions
by storm.
You were right to run…
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
You were right to run;
I seem to be cursed.
Dead friends hang
from every verse.
Ryan caught a nasty
disease;
got taken away
by a tumor in his knees.
Cancer also came
for Nate
and ate away
at his prostate
like green vines
wrapping him tighter,
his skin even
started to turn lighter.
Black ice for Katie,
one of my favorite ladies,
not even going forty
to a ceremony of mourning.
Bobby got hit
by a drunk,
a D.A.R.E. officer’s
twisted luck.
The guy who hit him
belligerently inebriated
only got two years
in a room that was gated.
I still remember the glass
all cracked,
blood pouring through the sympathy
his killer lacked.
Cocaine, heroine
and all other drugs
bought from people
who called themselves thugs
but the last high
got them real low
and now they lie
six feet below.
Tiffany decided she had
too much of life
so she tried out dying.
Her mother found her
three years ago
and is still crying
and lying
saying it was murder.
No one has the balls
to tell her
that her daughter just
had enough
and gave her candle
the final snuff.
The police came with malice
to grab dear Alice
and figured
she would be better off dead
so they planted a bullet
in the base of her head.
Jane attacked
with a hammer
by her boyfriend,
right out of the slammer.
He’s still sitting
on Old Death Row.
His hanging will be
my favorite show.
Then there was Johnny
who never loved anything more than
his wife
until she came at him,
stabbing him in the face
with a knife.
They found Frank
face first in a bowl
all choked up
on his favorite casserole.
You were right to run;
I seem to be cursed.
Dead friends hang
from every verse.
Taken down in an unholy war,
people thought Jake no more than a bore
until they heard the lore
oh his bravery; his flag still sores.
Colin shot in the back
for a vault combo he lacked.
A bad medical deal
left Brad with a body full of steel;
he would probably boast
that his coffin weighed the most.
Jill mowed down by a car
as it left the bar
and slammed pedal to ground;
they still haven’t been found.
Greg had a heart attack
at work.
Now his soul is in shadows,
his memory lurks.
Then there was Paul
who fell asleep in his pool
the last time he skipped school.
Mark lost his mind,
the visions wouldn’t subside
so he painted a shotgun suicide.
In a place crash engulfed in flames,
a poor ending for firefighter James
that brought him temporary fame.
Or Phil who went to bed at 24
and didn’t come back anymore.
Tequila
for Sheila.
Blade
for Jade.
Disease
for Louise.
Steve
left on medical leave
as a joke
but his last smoke
he flung
and ripped a hole in his lung.
Now you’ve found
why my mind is not sound.
When I close my eyes
I see a museum of faces,
I think of each time
I’ve tied those shiny shoe laces
and buried a friend
well before his time,
standing in awkward silence,
waiting in line
to stare down at a corpse
lacking its mind.
I remember each one of you
still in your prime.
I smile and leave
a part of my soul
as company for you
in that too familiar hole.
WORD
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
Just to let anyone from the UMass area know, on Tuesday night there will be an event on campus focusing on student poets, writers and songwriters. People will be performing spoken word, reading excerpts from novels and playing some music. If anyone is interested, it’s a free event with food and beverage and it should be a good time. It’s in the CVPA on Tuesday night and it starts at 7pm.
Kill Shot
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
Sitting on my front stoop
in DownTown City, USA,
smoking suicidal slivers
to their filters.
Three shots ring out
cold
against the warm
summer moon
and footsteps march down
the side alley.
A figure emerges,
silhouetted against
my neighbor’s
blazing basement windows.
The figure stops
in front of my porch
and looks up.
A kid,
no older than 15,
is staring into my eyes,
nothing but air
and my smoke
between us.
Yellowed streetlights
flash off of the metal handle
tucked carefully into his
waistband.
He reaches down
to wield his weapon
but grabs a cigarette instead.
“Got a light?”
I motion for him to
come on up
and he does.
His hands shake violently
and little drops of blood
coating his skin
soak into his cigarette
as he tries to drag himself calm.
He lights it
and leaves me alone
as sirens spark up
and speed to bring
a dead man
to his tomb.
My Brother
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
We sit across the table
and make small talk
over breakfast.
Seven years since I’ve seen you.
You pass the butter
with hands that held me
when mother
couldn’t bother.
Coffee drips
down the lips
that taught me
dirty words.
I think of
how you raised me,
of how you left me
of how you
ran away to the Deep South
only to run back
years later.
You look like
time has stood still
and maybe for you
it has.
You slowly fade
as light seeps in
through my morning eyelids.
Seven years since I buried you.
Seven years I’ve dreamt of you.
And as I wake
I realize that is all
you can ever be,
a dream and a memory,
and I wish for
one more cup of coffee.
Words from my Father
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
“Son,
you are a writer,
and don’t take that lightly.
Words
are the
most powerful force
at hand.
You can satanize
or patronize,
villify
or purify a man.
You can make a king stand
taller than a mountain
and crumble a landscape
to nothing.
You can
condemn or condone
from the pilot’s seat of your desk.
The path won’t always
be clear or smooth
for many people have
thrown the word away
as outdated
but you can rejuvenate it,
and when people fight you
don’t just drop your pencil
but wield it as an agent of change.
You walk among greats
and fate has selected you
to carry the torch
to the next generation.
Now go my son,
and change the world
and save it from it’s ways.”
Immortality
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
Driving through back roads,
aviators hiding
red eyes from
each sun crystal
reflecting off of
the smudges of salt and
grimy water that have
pooled on the windshield
all winter.
The trash, receipts,
and cellophane wrappers
from cigarettes already
smoked to the filter
all stirred from their
winter nooks and are flying around,
the wind the first fresh air
that has permeated the cabin
in months.
The stick of tea in your hand
is burning bright,
the smoke billowing out of
leather lungs and
dissipating in seconds.
Funk infused acoustics
dance on your skin
and in your eyes
lies field after field,
each a different color,
each lined with little rock walls
constructed hastily.
The ground is still wet
from melted snow and
the earth
glimmers.
There are no other cars
so you take the center of the road
and glide over hills,
watching the vista,
watching it slide away,
slide down to tributaries and
rivers with tiny rapids,
collections of boulders
strewn haphazardly
across them to form
waterfalls and gullies,
wooden planks strapped together
and lain over the cold black stream.
Atop each summit
you can see the path
for miles
and know that you are
the only person
living in this moment.
This is the closest
to being an immortal
that any of us will ever reach.
Bobby
Posted by Brad Costa | Filed under Uncategorized
It was a rainy November day, cold and brisk with the wind starting from the Northeast and ending at the core of our very bones. We had just lost our last soccer game of the season, a 5-4 defeat in shootout. Silence had enveloped the whole walk back to our locker room; this battle was lost on home turf. No one felt like speaking; we just wanted to pack our things quietly and go home, each with our head hung in agony. So much for glory, there’s always next season.
Two kids were taking the loss harder than the rest of us because they were seniors; no one from our school continues onto the more prestigious pitch of college soccer. They screamed (“Get the fuck away from me!”) and were at each other’s throats until Bobby walked in.
“Calm down guys!” The yellowed light of the room shined off of his bald head. Bobby was our assistant coach, our mentor, our very own hero. He was a police officer, and a good one at that. When our town ran out of money, he stepped up and became the D.A.R.E. officer in town for no pay. Our team needed a coach so he took the job even though he was already coaching three other teams at the time. That’s just the way Bobby was; if someone was in need he would be at their side before they even asked him.
Needless to say, he meant a lot to our town. Any day without Officer Bob was incomplete and the town was lackluster, not just in sports and police affairs, but in the run of the central nerve of the town; schools, administration, even local shops.
“So you guys lost. And? You made it to the playoffs; some people never make it that far. Did you guys have fun?” A nod passed around the room like the proverbial torch. “Then who cares? You play for fun, and as long as you do that, the rest is fluff. You guys played with dignity; you have nothing to be ashamed of. Remember that.” Bobby donned his hat, turned around and walked out into the great unknown.
The reports in the morning came in hazy at first, only that a car accident had occurred on Route Six sometime in the late night/early morning split. Then we were told that one of the drivers was drunk at the time. It wasn’t until they reported that a police officer was killed that the tragedy sank in.
Officer Bob was killed en route to pick up his friend who was intoxicated at a local bar. Before Bobby could get there, the man left the bar sliding between lanes traveling at fifty miles per hour. He swerved over the yellow line and smashed into Bobby’s police SUV, which was thrown into the woods on the side of the road. He was killed on impact. The other driver refused a breathalyzer at the scene, but that was a mere formality; the arresting officer said it “smelled as if he were sweating pure grain alcohol.”
The next day of school was complete hell. Students were crushed enough and we looked to the teachers for support but each class we walked into had a professor with cloudy eyes. It would be understandable if we couldn’t learn what was being taught, but the teachers couldn’t function enough to put notes up on the board. School was cancelled the rest of the week; it would be foolish to even try.
The wake was held a mile for our high school, next to the police station. Our soccer team met at the school in full dress with our warm-up jackets over typical funeral clothing; black dress pants, tie and shoes, white long sleeve button down shirt. Each of us handed a black arm band with his name on it which was placed on our left arm, and a pin with his picture affixed over our hearts. We walked to the funeral home; the street had to be closed from too much walking traffic.
It was an open casket affair; the damage that killed the man was internal. He was in full police regalia looking as if he would sit up with a joke and end all of our misery. A small cut on his forehead was the only thing that revealed the truth. The wake was supposed to last for three hours. Not wanting to turn anyone away, the family stayed for six and a half hours.
The proceeding day was the funeral. Never has there been a gathering so large in the history of our town. Route Six closed for a five mile span, also a record. There were at least one police officer present from every town in Massachusetts and every major city across the country, a common occurrence for a police officer killed in the line of duty, with the bagpipers from the Boston PD thrown in for good measure. Bobby’s brother stood in front of us all, with tears streaming down his face. “I’m obviously very upset I lost my brother, my friend, but I’m glad to see he would have an impact on so many people.” He broke down and never got to finish.
We all walked three miles from the church to the burial ground. Two fire trucks sat back to back with ladders fully erect and the largest American flag we had ever seen hanging in between them. His plot was in the back of the graveyard, two hundred feet from our practice field. A twenty-one gun salute was followed by a procession of our town’s officers placing their white dress gloves on the coffin. His oldest son was handed the flag and a legend was slowly lowered into the ground.
Every day, in some way, each one of us remembers Bobby; his ever-present grin, his booming laugh, all so real still. His death wasn’t what stuck with us forever; it was his life, his message, the man and not the tragedy. No matter where we go, we will always carry Bobby.
