My Cardboard Balcony

Ivory Bars by Belinda Roddie They incarcerate heroes and condemn martyrs, and when the former finally lose their skin to age and panic, their bones are used to frame the windows, bolt the doors, and line the once empty spaces leading into the mish-mash of cacophonous laughter concerning the absurd concept that the system is fair. They imprison heroes and dig up martyrs, and then they use their bones for bars, so when you, too, are locked away for speaking the truth or freeing a slave, you can grip the ossified ribs between your fingers, feeling the dust of futility on your hands, the betterment of society disintegrating into ash on your palms, the hollow shaft where the marrow used to be - bright, bright blood, the blood of a brave woman, or a clever man, dried up or drained or drunk by those who smile and rub their paws together to brush the death off them and go on their merry way, before they detain another stranger attempting to right the wrongs of the l...

When we got together for book meetings - cigar circles with Hemingway, tailored sports jackets for Fitzgerald, a bottle of personal bourbon for each guest in the apartment - we started to lose interest in arguing with Lisa. She had become so dogmatic as of late that if you were to try debating Thoreau, she would verbally cut your head off with all the literary poignancy of Titus Andronicus.