Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 16

DISASTROUS – Daily Post Prompt

Four sheets to the wind, dressing quickly, grabs the first shirt he can find in the crumpled heap in the corner. Next, trousers, socks and his only pair of shoes, are under the bed. Finally, his jacket is where he left it, behind the door. For a funeral though, disastrous.

Trump’s Russian Laundromat

How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money, run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate developer into the White House.
BY CRAIG UNGER

In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in New York City. The 38-year-old had arrived in America seven years before, with just $3 in his pocket. But for a former pilot in the Soviet Army—his specialty had been shooting down Americans over North Vietnam—he had clearly done quite well for himself. Bogatin wasn’t hunting for a place in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn enclave known as “Little Odessa” for its large population of immigrants from the Soviet Union. Instead, he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower.

TAILOR

“It’s a stitch up,” he complains,  “I never seen those goods in my life before, as God’s my witness. Someone’s ‘aving a lawrf.”

But no-one laughs, least of all, the dour faced beak on the bench who deems his crime worthy of incarceration.

The detective smiles. He was a tailor, before.

 

BURY

 

Bury the evidence, he was told and sure, it’s not Ivy League Law School  practise nor constitutionally correct advice or due process but hell, it works. J.W. Schadenfreude has been a thorn in his and his family’s side for far too long. He saw J.W.’s head covered and walked away.

Lottery

Death arrives

like a chill draft

in a creaking house,

when your name’s on the list

you can’t return to sender

or shift your position

to ward off the call.

 

Some wept,

there was laughter, too,

memories exchanged

and relief

etched the faces

of those who suspected

there went they, except,

by some trick of fate,

it wasn’t today.

 

Death is no thief,

just a debt collector

for this ludicrous lottery,

called life.

 

 

 

 

Dancing in the Moonlight

The moon, her partner

and stars, the twinkling audience.

She spins and twirls

to the sound of winds,

heart racing,

to freedom’s adventure.

yes, tonight she dances,

beyond the grasp of captors

and far beyond the sight

of those who dare not dream.

Tonight she dances free,

to walk in fields

of favourite flowers,

free to chase the fireflies

and fly in highest skies,

for her soul’s unbound

and free from earthly restraint.

CAPER

 

No, I’m not skipping about, having a laugh, it’s a berry that’s neither soft, succulent or sweet. Quite the contrary, indeed, for it’s sharp, even bitter with a crunchy texture and a salty flavour. Eat it fresh or soaked in brine, with fish, in a tartare sauce, it’s a caper.

Congress Close to Approving a New Space Army

By Rhett Jones (GIZMODO)

While fighting climate change and providing health care are both just too economically burdensome for America, members of the House believe there’s still enough cash to fund a space army that would fight off… the space enemies?

read more

ANGLE

There was a time when the angle of your dander meant  almost as much as the stoke in your poke but never enough. Back then there were standards, he thought, ready to torch the twelfth bonfire. But standards have fallen, he thought. for Chrissakes, some of these boys are racists.

QUILL

 

Joshua adjusts his collar, stiff and starched, just as he likes, with wing collars.  The chemical cocktail prepped for the execution, all he has to do is throw the switch. He declines, waiting for a printout, goose feather in hand. ‘If I must kill,’ he says, ‘ I use a quill.’