Train Wreck

By Al Ferber

My reader friends take note ... This is Al Ferber. A poet with grit ... angst ... beauty ... real life dirt ... buy his books ... he can't stop ... it pours out of him like a pissed-off volcano with layered stories to tell. —

Mark A. Swain

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669859307

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 © 2023 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.

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: 12/08/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

848782

Contents

Disclaimer

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Introduction

Cats Dogs and Other Creatures

Pain & Idiotic Joy

Skin Popping

System of Myths

H.S. Strategical

Silence

Hippies

Hippies

Well

Cleaning Up

Goin’ Down

Evening Descends

Winter’s Last Gasps

Famous Last Words

I Tried

Old Buddhist Saying:

Fish

Words For Words’ Sake

Ghost

Now They Tell Me

Blare

Rat’s Ass

The Wind

Poem Writer

Fool’s Errand

War All The Time

The Lights Went Down

Broken Heart

Bed Rock

Chronic Illness and Dreams

Well, Does It

Don’t Ask

Old Times

Last Stop

Gimme Gimme

The Next Chapter

City Light

Sirens

Street Trade

Parade

Sharing

Bohemian Rhapsody

A Terrible Room

Through The Fire

Walk of Dog

The Gathering

Refraction

Hey Dad

Crossfire

Sun Crisis

Neon Windows

There Was

Last Exit To Brooklyn

If

The Friend

I Hate To Disappoint

Incendiary

Third Rail

O-blivion

Finally

Pornography

Swimming

Street Walker

Against The Grain

Neon Circus

Sylvia

Death Knell

Idiot Farm

Can’t Remember

A Call To Arms

Over Yonder

Live Streaming

Merchant Of Cool

Across The Yard

My Element

Another One

Did I Forget

Did I Ever Tell Ya

Cradle of Civilization

Practical Question

Focus Your Heart

Don’t Listen To Him

Motor City

Fuck It List

Askew

Life Noir

People Of Industry

The Bay

Town Fool

Nope

Symptomatic

What A Shame

Beating

The Bin

The Mist

Reprobate

Up Against it

Al From Morph

The Winter Dance

The Teacher Strike

History

6 String

Typo Dyslexico

Factories

All Inside

Out

He Would Come Home

Therefore I Am

Shoes

The Paintings

Seeing Beauty

Passing Fancy

Purgatory

Every Single Time

Rotten

Closet/Street

Are You Serious

Heroine

All The Last Dances

Strike Down

The Big Story

Fallen Angel

Reprinting

Dust to Dust

Extra Extra

City Phobia

Car

Scoped

She Spoke Out

The Last Second

Hair Trigger

Trading Post

Books

Weed Keeper

The Circles of Hell

My Ass Turned Toward the Sun Again

A Crate of Hand Grenades

The Teacher Strike

Al From Morph

There Was

Disclaimer

Every word contained in this book, (including: names titles, page numbers and punctuation) is Fictitious. In other words: fiction, not real, does not exist in the real world. I have been given permission by nature to use specific words such as tree, water, dirt and the like. Nature, unfortunately, was unwilling to sign the release form. If any of this is offensive to anyone or anything for any reason, I don’t care.

Acknowledgements

All words used in this book have previously appeared in Mangle/zine and Evolution of an Accidental Painting and are reprinted here with my permission. I wrote, edited and published them.

You got a problem with that ? Call the cops.

Cover Art by Al Ferber

What these clowns did with it is way beyond my control.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my long suffering, wife

Cathi who has been my patron for all these writing

& painting shenanigans for lo these how many years.

And everyone else who has ever left a party early

because I was there.

Introduction

You’ve heard of the yard sale, the junk drawer, the junk yard, the junk yard dog, the garage sale, the fire sale, the closeout sale, the swap meet, the secret Santa, regifting, the trash heap, the trash bin, mismatches, odd lot, strange brew, every goddamn thing must go,