you are this ghost
​that haunts my life
not dead
i'll never meet you
i would not recognize you
if we passed on the street

you've seared my heart
my precious one
through him
me
and
my babies
i feel all that you gave
your fetish
your anger
your ideas
often pondered
what drives
what needs
compels
beyond my perception
knowledge
imagination
these broken threads
weave into the lives of so so many
endlessly haunting
through words
through touch
through fears, lust, anxiety
haunting
through generations
haunting
forgotten
hidden
still haunting

i am queen of the dirty laundry
but cooking, washing dishes
  and scrubbing toilet bowls are also in my realm

no king decides to join me here
no man at any helm
  of my fleet that sails through sudsy water
  while never leaving home

Shout out to Mother Shipton - 1448 

earth
  well-trained
  into symmetrical blocks
       of man's architectural imagination
       perfectly
       esthetically placed

people
scurry
  in and out
  round and about
  like ants

at the bottom
  we found
   some green
      hidden amongst the building ruins
forgotten
run down
  on the edge
  in the middle
  it lies
       out of symmetry
continuous
broken
 shades of green and grey
  as the tiny squiggly bits of life
compete
in this smallest of spaces
​   we call home

So many women
 I know
 have experienced terror
 at the hands
 of those
 who claim...to love them
That I wonder
 if those old couples
 that seem so happy
 are real
​Does he really adore her
 or has she just put up with a lot
   behind
     closed
        doors
Is she fat
Is she ugly
Black roots and black boots
Does she twist herself up...for him
Or the camera
That is ever watching
Or the people at the bus stop
Or walking through the mall
Who notices... except her
 that she is aging, aging, aging
working, working, working
loving, weeping, breathing, fucking
yielding, learning, knowing
     and forever twisting up
     into an appropriate form
Current
  artificial social expectations dictate
 how the skin that sweats ...and bleeds
  will be worn and adorned
  in pursuit
of those who
    Need
        Love
            Desire
                 Use
                    Fear
​                       Us

Written by Daniel Gale
Edited by Barbara Hubert

Inside
the screen blows with the wind
it knows there's a way
cuz the evening sunshine
keeps coming right on in
a triangle of beauty, love, trust
whew!
a good time living through
all of this       again
listen!
birds so near 
a touch of nostalgia
at starting to grin

I was tired, frustrated and fully drunk after spending three days drinking with Buck and still no stories. Dinner had consisted of two plates overflowing with prawns–a treat to appease me.
    “I’ll bet your tummy is just,”
    “Bursting,” I finished.
    “Well, take your pants off.”
    “No.”
    “Ah, boy, are you ever a prude. No pants off, won’t take your top off. No. No. No. What do you think I’m going to do?
    “Oh, oh, you don’t look so good darlen, did you eat too fast?”    
    “Mmmmm.”
    “You know I’ve had a lot of women leave me because of my eating habits. You know old Uncle Buck, I don’t eat until the beers gone. I’m not opening a can of beer then eating. Nope, no beer after dinner.”
    “If I eat any more I’m going to be sick.”
    We sat quietly in the baby-shit yellow kitchen for a few minutes as the constant music that permeated the shop wrapped us in its gentle melody. “Say you’re looking pretty laid back. You must be getting tired.”
    “I am. This is a hard lifestyle for me. I’m not used to it.”
    “I should fucking think so. A fucking micky of Southern Comfort a day. No wonder. But you and I are going to have the best sleep of our lives tonight because you are going to get out of your little bedroom there and come sleep with me, and I won’t even try to fuck ya. We’ll just cuddle. And if you are not comfortable with that tonight–tomorrow. Ha ha. I’ve been partying with you for three nights.”
    “Yeah but I have been going out of my way to stay out of your way.”​
    “But I’ve been going out of my way to be with you.” He lit up a joint he’d been saving for after dinner.
    “Yeah well you’re not supposed to.”
    “Hey you want a toke of this joint. You're smoking aren’t you?”
    I reached across the table and accepted the smoke.
    “You know why I’m afraid to let you do my story? I want to be on top of things. I mean, you know more about me than anybody.”
    “I know, why do you think I never told you I was coming. You’d have taken off and I would have been stuck here by myself for three days.”
    “Yeah, you know me, and I trust you.”
    “Right, because you know I’m not going to hurt you with my stories about you.”
    “The thing is, I don’t want anyone to know that I’m crazy, eh. Because it only takes three people to commit you. Man, I’ve been evading fucking being under psychiatric fucking observation for years. In 1967 they wanted a court order to put me under fucking psychiatric fucking observation to get my head checked out hey.
    “I went in front of the judge. I’d already talked to the judge and, boom, that was good. You know boom. I had a chance to talk to the judge before I went in. So, I went in and the prosecutor says, ‘We’d like a court order for Daniel Gail to seek psychiatric treatment four times a month for a period of.’
    “But I’d already babbled to the judge and my dad had babbled to the judge too hey. See, ol pops was a Mason and the judge was a Shriner, and pops was going to be a Shriner too, see what i mean.
    “My dad got me off. I know he did because his buddy, who is a Shriner, knew that dad wanted to get into it over at Lickel’s Hot Springs there in Terrace. So the guy says to pops ‘Herb, I’ve set up a meeting with you and the judge whose going to do your fucking son,’--1967. And so, boom, this comes down. Dad spent three days with two Shriners. One owned Lickel Hot Sprints and the other was the judge. And my dad, who was just the coolest guy, I mean the coolest, I mean I am nothing compared to my father. He was a million times more of a man than I was. You’d have fallen in love with him if he was ninety. I mean dad was a swooner. He had women fallen all over him. They just couldn’t say no to him.
    “So this deal comes down and the prosecutor says, ‘we’d like a court order for Daniel Gail to seek psychiatric care four times a month.’ Because I smoked marajuina. But I’m way out there anyways. They laid it on the drugs, but he, when I’m straight I’m way out there. I mean I’m way out there. I’ve been conning these cocksuckers all my fucking life. Sometimes I think I probably am insane. 
    “Then he looks over at the prosecutor and says, ‘No, I’m not going that route.’ 
    “That judge told the fucking prosecutor what’s what. I owe that fucking judge. I owe pops. He really was the coolest.”

Part 1 

It is twilight dawn. We are approaching from the air a green and blue plateau nestled in a high mountain range. As we get closer we see the green is a vast swamp land encroaching onto a rock creating a sort of divide between blue and black. Large bugs (cockroaches, beetles. dragonflies, etc.) are flourishing in this primordial soup-like environment.

We move over the land until we come to a nest in the tall grass. Two bodies are curled up together. One Is a young fair-looking male. He has a twisted leg. The other is an old grey female with long sagging breasts, thinning hair and down-turned eyes. She Is pregnant.

Her body shudders with a contraction. She sits up. She stands and walks a few feet from the nest. She stops for another contraction. Her water breaks. Blood and amniotic fluid run down her legs into the grass which is as tall as her. 

She walks along a well worn trail, on the waters’ edge. The sun is just peeking over the horizon.

The boy-man is laying in the nest. The sun is midway to its zenith. He, then stands up to look for her. He walks along the path and finds the fluid from her water. He touches it and rubs it between his fingers. He smells it. 

He walks further along the trail making guttural noises to beckon her. 

We see the female breaking an overgrown trail. Blood is still dripping down her leg. She stops occasionally to experience a contraction. The sun is at its zenith. 

The male continues to follow the female, laboursly_because of his foot. 

She is now approaching an area of lake front that is less swampy and more rocky. Large 
blackened logs litter the waterfront. Some of the rotting logs are embedded in the unstable shale, creating dark sharp hills along the steep foothills of the mountains. The insects are becoming more slithery and slimy. The sun is just past its zenith on its way down.


We see the male still following in the newly broken trail. The sun Is half way from Its zenith to its sunset. 

We see the female stop in an open space littered with bones. She lies down and gives birth to a bloody, squalling infant boy with a twisted foot, twisted arm and down-turned eye. She expels the placenta and one last gush of blood. She picks up the screaming Infant and drops it back down into the puddle of red. 

She walks away and sits behind a large rotting log and weeps. The sun is nearing the horizon. 
The male is climbing the sharp rocky landscape. He hears the infant and stops to listen. He walks over to it and looks at it. He picks it up. 

A large rock smashes him in the back of the head. He drops to the ground with the baby still in his hands. 

The female bends over him and picks up the infant. She holds the infant to one of her long breasts and lets him suckle. 

Part 2 

It Is twilight dawn. We are approaching from the air a green and blue plateau nestled in a high mountain range. As we get closer we see the green is a vast swamp land encroaching onto a rock creating a sort of divide between blue and black. We move over the land and come to a nest in the tall grass. 

We see the female nursing the male infant. She pulls him off her breast and hangs him a little way out of the nest so he can crap. 

We see a boy toddler running back and forth along the shore. The female is in the water hunting. She pauses occasionally to pick a leech off her body to eat. She wrestles with a large black eel and drags the eel out of the lake. On shore she guts the eel with a sharp rock, eats part of it and offers pieces to the boy. Afterwards she picks him up and nurses him as she walks back towards the nest. 

The female and now adolescent boy are creeping through the high grass. They are a short distance from each other. Together they track and kill a rat. 

The female is lieing in the nest. The boy-man approaches with several eels over his shoulder. He drops them and kneels down beside the female and begins sucking milk from the female's breasts. She reaches down and strokes his engorged penis. We watch her slowly seduce him and they make long, loving, passionate sex. 

Part 3 
It is twiiight dawn. We are approaching from the air a green and blue plateau nestled in a 
high mountain range. We move over the land until we come to a nest in the tall grass. Two bodies are curled up together. One is a young male with a twisted arm, leg and down-turned eye. The other is an old grey female with long sagging breasts. thinning hair and down-turned eyes. She is pregnant. 

Her body shudders with a contraction. She sits up. She stands and walks a few feet from the nest. She stops for another contraction. Her water breaks. Blood and amniotic fluid run down her legs into the grass which Is as tall as her. 

She walks along a well worn trail, on the water’s edge. The sun is just peeking over the horizon.

The boy-man is laying in the nest. The sun is midway to its zenith. He stretches in the heat, then stands up to look for her. He walks along the path and finds the blood and amniotic fluid. He touches it and rubs it between his fingers. He smells it. 

He walks further along the trail making guttural noises to beckon her. 

We see the female breaking an overgrown trail. Blood is still dripping down her legs. She stops occasionally to experience a contraction. The sun is at its zenith. The male continues to follow, laboriously because of his foot, the female. She is now approaching an area of lake front that is less swampy and more rocky. Large blackened logs litter the waterfront. Some of the rotting logs are embedded in the unstable shale, creating sharp hills along steep foothills in the mountains. The insects are becoming more slithery and slimy. The sun is just past its zenith on its way down.

We see the male still following in the newly broken trail. The sun is half the way from its
zenith to its sunset. 

We see the female stop in an open space littered with bones. She lies down and gives birth to a bloody, squalling infant boy with a twisted foot, twisted arm and down-turned eye. She expels the placenta and one last gush of blood. She picks up the screaming infant and drops it 
back down into the puddle of red. 

She walks away and sits behind a large-rotting log and weeps. The sun is nearing the horizon. 
The male is climbing the sharp rocky landscape. He hears the infant and stops to listen. He walks over to it.and looks at it. He picks it up. 

A large rock smashes him in the back of the head. He drops to the ground with the baby still in his hands. 

The female bends over the male and picks up the infant. She holds the infant to one of her long breasts and lets him suckle. 

She begins to walk back the way she came with the infant in arm. A large rock smashes her head from behind. She falls to her knees, and drops the baby. She struggles against the young male. 

He bludgeons her to death with the rock. 

He staggers to his feet, picks up the infant and walks back towards the nest.

​

Chapter 1 - the-favoured-lands-death-peddlers-1.html
Chapter 2 - the-favoured-lands-death-peddlers-2.html
Chapter 3 - the favoured-lands-death-peddlers-3.html