The Best & Worst of Neuro Circustry

By Al Ferber

Someone once said to me, “It must be nice to get up every day
and see a circus in your back yard.”

I told them, “the circus is in my mind.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669857426

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

Copyright © 2022 by Al Ferber.

Cover Art by Al Ferber

Introduction by Paul Lutton

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.

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: 11/25/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

848229

Contents

Introduction

Lunch

Peril

Under The Table

Well, Well

Is It Safe

I Hope So

Twice Now

Every F’ing Time

Some Things

Guilty as Charged

Rosebud

Rough & Tumble

Fire Alarm

Designing Madness

Writer Application Form

Drunk Like Me

Puzzling

Tumultuous Living

Townhouse

Worm Food

Color Fields

Timeless

Another One Bites The Dust

He said. He said.

The Way It Is

The Murdered

Right Side of The Dirt

Evidentiary

Yes. I Did.

Irreversible

One More Time

Loverly

Once Upon That Time

Self Defense

Trifecta

In A Jumble

Powdered Red Cheek Bones

Experimental Therapy (the 90s)

Trouble in River City

No Shot

Confusion Says:

Q & A

I Had A Dream

Corner Girls

Guilty Plea

Dancing In The Supermarket

Condemned

Marriage of Heaven & Hell

Venom In Her Heart

Mental Health

Rosebud

Bucket List Inversion

Old Neighborhood

Bliss

Menagerie

The Dog Walker Lady

Three Ring Circus

Weather Forecast

Special Weather Alert

River Gulch

Bloom

One Step Away

Something Came Up

Assholes of the world

First Real Date

Transaction

Everybody’s On Board

Testing Testing

On This Day. In This Hour

Saint Lawerence Seaway

My Best Review

Black Bird

Opus 62

Scoring The Play

Next Stop…

Growing Up

Nine Years in Hell

Here’s The Deal

Anointment

A Drive to Johnstown

Arizona

The Push

Bright Light

Unannounced Vacations

It All Gets Confused

Are You Sure

School House

Sitting on the Floor

Annulment

The Signing

Salvation by Guilt

Rejoin Her

Short Term. Long Term

Post Trauma Effect

Echo Chamber

Echo Chamber

Losing Virginity

Darker Than Midnight

All Washed Up

I Remember

Tunnel of Love

The Mornings After

Old Irish Curse

Furthermore

Pep Talk

The Edge

On the Other Side of Drunk

Pay Attention

A Moment of Madness

Sometimes

A +

They Danced

Day One

Promise to Self

Nothing

Fog/Lights

The Window Frame

Playing the Margins

Phoenix

Thanksgiving

OK, It’s a Corral

He Sure Did

Really?

Off to The Side of The Road

Big Frank’s Beat

I’m a Dancer

No 2 Shits About It

My Shoe is a Step Up

Hope. No future In It.

Purple Suspenders

Curbside

The Sperm The Egg & The Dirt

This Shit Life

Our Houses

A Terrible Fiction

The Darkroom of Laugh

Don Quixote

Forged By Fire

Nominate the Sewer Rat

Beach House

He Don’t Play Well With Others

Skeevy

El Loco

Totems

Reprobate for the Ageless

Cats Dogs and Other Creatures

A Crisis Of Psyche

Survivors Guide to Madness

Zorro

Looking Back

Lust, Love and Scurvy

One & Only

She Did It Again

Magna Carta: The Musical

Sunrise

Under Cover of the Night

Fuck Ye Every Rope Stroker

Thee Ass

Bold Face Metaphor

Love Letters to the Paintings

The World Threw Him Out On His Ass

Egress

Protocol

Line In The Sand

Here I Am Again

Neuro Circustry

Introduction

by Paul Lutton

Neuro-Circustry is in a sense the hard wiring within the human body that can seemingly control what we think and feel.

This book isn't about that. Or is it? Those familiar with the works of Al Ferber and his alter ego, Gus, know that Al/Gus make no apologies for their blunt often disturbing description of the world. He can't help it. He is what he is, and fuck you if you don't like it. He's gonna tell what the world looks like from behind his eyes. But is it all ugliness? All just inescapable biology leading us down the dark hallways of fate? No! It's a circus! See what he did there? There is always humor amidst the ugliness. There is always redemption. Can you find it in these pages. Look hard.

Lunch

we’d have lunch at a cafe

across the street from his

house

that he referred to

as death valley

maybe once a month

two wounded animals

breathing the same air

Dakota told me stories

about him leaving his wife

and kids

to run off with a blond

beauty

who left her husband

to run

off with him

how they traveled and partied

and

went through all of his money

he’s