Monica Bellucci and the empty Victorian houses on wales. street. By J.C Hawkes

I will listen to every Black Sabbath album in the Ozzy era - until this big red hand which is trying it’s damnedest to fuck with my eyes today and play with my life in a hotel quarantine

— until it all falls away - stops grabbing at my testicles - twisting them with a spoonful

of sugar, a morphine drip and tables full of meat platters.


I told them - those ghosts - as I was passing down Wales Street - all the houses were empty

and that I will just keep walking… I will not look in.


I have a few good friends. All, of whom I can count on - we converse about the imminent dawn, the never ending cycle of night and also the air surrounding the pots and pans, a glass of red

and the monstrous fright in the living room at noon.


— I’ll do the dishes - I’ll also fuck your wife and stab you in the back.


And it is a necessity to speak openly, not necessarily in verse.

But, I am absent right now - so leave a message

I’ll get right back to you

when the drought

returns…


… although, at that time - I might not be so warm.


…and to Monica Bellucci - you’re the only Bond girl I wish never got shot

- yet you did it well, it was a good death.





J.C Hawkes has been writing since he was a child, navigating this human existence with precautions instilled - and then one day, he broke away and slandered the the gods who reportedly made him - stay - in this beastly home he was given.

He has been published a few times in: The Rye Whiskey Review, The Dope Fiend and Dumpster Fire Press’ ‘Voices From The Fire’. He lives in Melbourne, Australia - but how much longer will he reside in a city like this? Legend has it - he wants to leave humanity as soon as possible and live in a log cabin built with his own hands in far northern Canada - where he will make friends with the Bears and the Moose and the Woodpeckers from Mars.