Burning Sails

By Al Ferber

The sails burned. The ship burned. Everybody burned or drowned. The ship sank. The hollow horror of it all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664196780

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.

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Copyright © 2021 by Al Ferber.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/25/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

834566

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

1990 Something Or Other

Burning Sails

Abandoning

Dream Sequence

Bussing

Malcolm

Infinity Minus 5

Willful Bastard

The World Won’t

4:32 Am

Wtf Gwendoline

Fever

Suicides

Big Girl

Reading To The Walls

Buddha Watered Down

Bertha’s Sisters

The First Drink

Gun Turet

A Certain Kitchen

Alto Madness

Experimental

Therapy (The 90S)

Prison Papers # 10

The End Of The War

Through The Jungle

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

cover art by al ferber

all names places dates thoughts musings words

contained herein are FICTIONAL

there is absolutely nothing contained in or with

5,000 miles of this book that is/are not by me.

my permission is hereby given to print every damn

word. my name is al ferber. got that!!!!!!!!!!

all of these words first appeared in Mangle-zine.

reproduced here with my permission. al ferber, editor

and publisher.

dedicated to Cathi

my wife

higher power

honey bunny

best friend

gate keeper

sparring partner

soul sacrificer

multi tasker

and benefactor

crossword

jig saw

and human

puzzle wizard !!!

1990 SOMETHING OR OTHER

a young guy comes up to me

after the reading

says i read your book

where ?

"University of Pittsburg

saw a copy in the library

picked it up

and couldn't put it down

when i saw your reading

advertised in the paper

i had to see the guy

who writes this crazy stuff"

strange things happen when

you put shit down on paper

just so happens

i did not

grow up

didn't want

to grow up

didn't know how

to grow up

and glad of it

she gets me

as much

as anyone has

as much

as anyone does

as much

as anyone

ever will

i knew someone

a long time ago

told me she was

like a shark

if she stopped moving

even for a second

she would die

she

must have died

before i met her

never knew her

to move an inch

in any