Marcus smacks gum while he runs customers through his lane.
“I didn't pay for this gum,” he says. “I took it right off that rack behind you.”
Marcus doesn't ask if they want paper or plastic; he lets them bag their groceries themselves.
“Don't ask me to help you carry those out,” he says to an old man buying jugs of water. “Because I won't.”
A young woman comes through his line and Marcus runs her fruit basket through the scanner.
“I'm a poet working the night shift. What do you think this does to me?”

All the mills are shut down. The smokestacks say nothing. The riverside is silent. The strong, callous-knuckled men who used to pour slag (or whatever it is they did in those buildings) are now breaking your $20 at the grocery store, trying to feed their family on the same hourly wage that keeps their 17-year-old co-worker in Camels and condoms. They go home every night and eyeball the weaponry mounted on the rec room's wood paneling.
"That took out a running buck," they think to themselves. "Surely it could get me a good night's rest."

Before a yellowed poster of a woman in a compromising position and very little clothing, he cocked an eyebrow and coyly addressed her glossy smile, "You see, darling, I work for the government."
She wasn't impressed. He turned and slumped. Time to go work for said government.

You know the old saying, "You can never go home again." Well, it should be, "You should never go home again."

The rapid flashing illumination of the ambulance lights explode in my darkened room, like the landing lights of some unwanted alien craft. The helo, crouching ten feet off the nearby pad, makes the windows tremble like a first kiss; the high-pitched whine screaming angrily at nothing and everything. I suppose it's only right that I come face to face with the question of my own mortality.

Excuse me while I have a serious journalistic moment. On Thursday, January 9th, devastation rocked the world of some very talented local artists. Studio 16, a bright new face in the crowd of galleries in our city, was robbed somewhere between midnight and seven in the morning. The take was huge; the shock is still palpable. Doug Fordyce, Amandda Tirey, Rob Colgan, Brandon Kukan, Nancy Rick, Lisa McLymont, Susan O'Dell, and Deborah Wicks, I apologize to you for what our society has become.

FEBRUARY'S POEM: ME LIKEY
Rolling pins, boulders,
Areola soldiers.
Yams to slam,
Cherry-glazed hams.
Headlights, honkers,
Makin’ me bonkers.
Pancake flapjacks,
Downy milk stacks.
Billowy pillows,
Mind if I feel those?
A through D hooters,
Wish I was at Shooters.
An invite to ask for those digits,
Are you smuggling Mexican midgets?
Swinging small planets with water balloon grace,
More than a mouthful can be such a waste.
Boobs.

Don't cry, honey. Those kids are just jealous. That's why they make fun of you. Come on, buck up! Look at you-- just look at you! Have you ever seen a pair of sweatpants look so good on a human being? Sweetie, that boy just points at you because he wants a lovely teal pair of sweats for himself. And those girls get all giggly because they think you look cute and smart in those glasses. What’s that? No! You can hardly see that corrective patch beneath those nice lenses. That lazy eye will be fixed in no time, and you'll be stronger and more handsome than ever.

BALTIMORE, MD - Jeremy Clemons (13) passed away last Thursday when he failed to complete the last task in a complex series of obsessive compulsive chores. Scientists around the world are baffled, as this puts into question the relativity of the past 50 years of psychological research.