Belly of the Beast

By Al Ferber

The beast is always there, waiting to consume and digest the least aware among us, the least careful, most unguarded, most distracted. Distracted by song, art, love,
and in some rare cases, happiness. Their ultimate destruction is the ultimate goal
of the beast. Before digestion he engages through desperation in his victims emotional and spiritual ruination. He is everywhere, he eventually consumes everyone, he is quick but patient and eventually grabs even the most vigilant. Our only saving grace, pleasurable hallucinations before, during the chase, and those we experience in the midst of consumption for those shall be our last. Welcome to that
dark dank hopeless place that is his dreaded heartless human rendering belly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483665016

Al Ferber

Al Ferber a septuagenerian going on 13. Born. Regrettably… A North Philly kid. Survived education at Temple U., Penn State, Villanova U. Alcoholic 30 years. Sober 23 years. Indenture servant to Catherine the Great 34 years. Learned to love and appreciate cats and one dog. Authored 30 books of poems, 2 novels, 3 chap books. Poems in Magazines in U.S., England, Scotland, France. Still alive, on the downward path of the sliding board, as of this writing. An undocumented alien in the world. Resides Ocean City, NJ surrounded by water with Cathi, Luna, Mitzi, and Opal. So there.

Book preview

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I had a holy hobo relative

a hobo a wino

a resident of the streets

found dead sitting in a chair

in a rooming house

on Vine Street Skid Row

with rosary beads

held loosely in his hands

died while I was still

in diapers

he saw my face once

I have no recollection

of seeing his

never saw a picture of him

until after my own mother died

they’d tried to blot out

all evidence of his existence

had no marker on his grave

for forty years

during my childhood he sent

his brethren from the train

tracks to my street

to my door

where they begged for a job

to do

sweep off the front steps

and sidewalk

in exchange for a glass of water

or a piece of bread

so I could see and hear and smell

and understand their humanity

and our common connection

to the world

Bartender

For 13 of the last

14 years

of my 30 years

of daily drinking

I worked as

as a bartender

at Tangier Café

18th & Lombard

3 blocks from

Rittenhouse Square

center city

Philadelphia

right on the border

of life

one block from death

wrestled with kegs

and cases of beer

wrestled with traffic

on Route 95 every

day to get to work

one night

breaking the sacred rule

for bartenders

never come out

from behind the bar

I did

to break up a fight

one day

played cat & mouse

with a rat that had

run behind the bar

plunged a backed up toilet

in the ladies’ room

in the middle

of Friday happy hour

customers three deep at the bar

that sometimes lasted

all night

skating back and forth

behind the bar

skating faster and faster

throwing drinks up on the bar

to stay just this side of the weeds

met that same challenge

every Friday

skating on the edge one

or two feet ahead

of the thirsty crowd

exhilarated and ready

to pound back the Irish

Whiskey of another victory

heard the daily shit

or piss report

from Willie

a schizophrenic who

lived in a rooming house

on Christian Street

Mr., I shit. I shit a lot.

‘Hey Mr., I tried to shit

but nothing came out."

Hey Mr., I peed. A lot came out

every day like clockwork

with a glass of water chaser

One night

a ceiling tile sagged from a leak

in the apartment upstairs

then burst sending a few gallons

on water on a diner’s head

there were

lawyers

doctors

nurses

locals

tourists

celebrities

Elizabeth Ashley

Jack Palance

Heraldo Rivera

sportscasters

Vince Campbell

reporters

weathermen

bookies

dealers

hustlers

there was the day

I got off early

and a gorgeous

lady of the evening

bought me drinks

Those Heavy Chains of Madness

Its the madness itself that binds

that sometimes inflicts

a vision of the world

and its goings on

as it actually is

that reveals the viciousness of men

that reveals the myopia

of the common man

that urges the madman to have fun

when all is actually irreversibly lost

to sing amidst the cacophony

of so called civilization

to shit in the woods because

at least there it can turn to mulch

to hear all too clearly the baffling

lies told everyday and bought

by everyman by politicians

to understand the basic nature

of hatred and fear

to howl at the moon because he knows

wolves are actually his brothers

to find no comfort in the truth

he sees and hears

knowing the