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Cul-de-sac at the End of The World
Its not that I truly
believe that all
cul-de-sac track home suburban streets
are evil,
although most are likely
very bad.
Its just that the dark black spot
that I grew up on,
is likely unsurpassed
as freakish conglomerations
of opressive negative energy go.
Melancholy, I still recall
the faces of the children.
Empty, already embittered, without substance.
They moved like hyenas
through pebble topped gravel streets
and green, green St. Augustine
standing water drainage ditches.
There is not much to say
about them,
except that they were bad,
very bad.
Along with their very bad parents
screaming in streets
and gulping down canned beer
in lawn chairs, roosted in front
of ugly carbon copy floor plan cages.
We all seemed trapped together,
forsaken by circumstance.
Coerced by fate
into a 10 year
Poseidon Adventure nightmare.
In a place
that was not just
on the edge of a city,
or end of a street,
but on the very edge of civilization
at the end of the world.
They are always with me
these tortured mannequins,
these bastions of cruelty,
especially in the bad times
when the end seems near.
The Novelist
Standing wrapped in a thin blanket
of white wet dirty snow, he stood
smoking a cigarette the way he usually did.
Out of the side of his mouth, with
hands, slightly unsteady, portraying
a man out of time anachronism
boyhood
lost persona.
Once, after reading A Tale of Two Cities,
he declared an affinity for Sidney Carton, the
anti-hero
who died a far, far, better death
for the sake of love. However, it was the
restless, smoking, late night wonderings
through dark empty Paris streets
for which he felt a familiar longing.
Thats how could be found on many a fitful
summer late night, pacing the smooth
wooden floors of our home. Always
with the cigarette, usually a glass
of whiskey, often spinning a crackly old vinyl
Dream of The Blue Turtles," preferring,
Moon Over Bourbon
Street, slow and mournful,
even for Sting. He always seemed to be shaking
his head slightly, even when he wasnt
actually.
Not that he was sad really, simply resigned
to existing between the days.
So, as the engine whined
out that whirring
followed by the clicking, it seemed entropy
and Ice had finally defeated our old Chevrolet.
He
stood framed within the frosty whiteness
of the frozen windshield. A subtly imposing figure
in the long black overcoat,
which seemed to
bring him a minor joy
in the few languid winter days that Texas let slip by.
Dropping the tiny
cigarette remains
deliberately casually, warm
breath, smoke like in blue-gray air,
while gazing skyward he
mumbled
Fuck.
All that needed to be said, really,
on the silent journey back into the warmth.
Temptress
Although,
I would insist that the kiss was an accident,
and shouldnt have happened,
the fact that I picked
up a small toy plastic guitar
and crooned a charming 5 am comedic plucking serenade
of the Violent Femms song "Why
Cant I get Just One Kiss!"
would seem to make my behavior at the time suspect,
to say the least.
That
piercing eyed dark makeup almost white blond
New Wave Mormon bad girl
poised recklessly upon that couch
seemed
like a bright red ripe moist apple
that would crack and drip down the chin, if bitten into.
Although I barely
knew her,
her similar looking but even prettier
good girl younger virgin sister
had dazzled me with breathtaking
tails
of jacking off boys while leaning out her bedroom window late at night.
That, and the fact that my buddy,
whose house we were at
having left us alone to throw his paper route
had a viscous terrible love for her,
just seemed like enough, you know?
I enjoyed her hot wet bad girl mouth with a seeming madness.
I sucked
out everything she had,
then gently breathed life back into her once again.
Making sure to experience;
the
hair and,
the ass and,
the neck and,
the midriff and,
the breast,
before finally letting go.
We sat giggling together as the sun forced the night to die.
I had conquered her, nothing more, nothing less,
It
felt satisfactory.
Of course it annoyed the virgin sister,
as well as my buddy, eventually
when he had
heard.
It was 1987.
This and several other nights, in retrospect, seem as harbinger
to my total downfall
looming in the distance,
which in the life of a man takes place not all at once
as you might expect,
but one
step at a time.
Freakyhead
Up ahead I spot
a person on the sidewalk wearing
a brown flannel shirt. Its
getting kind of cold and
I
can see him, or her walking
with a weird up and down
right to left, side to side
BA-dump BA-dump motion.
Swinging
the arms a bit much, but
what is it with the head it
doesnt seem to match the
rhythm. It seems to move with
its white ball cap, almost
of its own accord as if it
were attached to a long springy
slinky thing. Shit,
its freaking me out that bobbing head.
It seems to foretell death in
some stupid gothic comic Bizzaro manner
but
as I come upon him,
what seemed to be the head turns out to be
a slightly taller second persons head that
is visible walking directly behind the first,
bobbing left while the first bobs right.
Not a harbinger
of death at all,
just two goofy average
BI-pedal humanoids
walking down the sidewalk
A Boy In The Rain Is Worth
a Thousand Words
There is a photo
of Nando and I
in the rain,
which captures perfectly
the joy,
in being fully
conscious
for the first time
of the beauty
of a thousand,thousand
drops of water
falling from the
sky.
And it seems
that in all the other photos,
wherever there is a group of people,
it is me
who
holds the boy,
head about level with mine.
And as I thumb
through them,
I realize
that is how
it should be
he and I
together
like that.
What We Truly Are
Fundamentally wrong.
Thats how we live.
How our world spins around.
Mental illness is a manifestation
of
a cultural psychoneurosis
revealed in the individual.
Chemical addiction and
Chemical imbalance and
Manic Depression and
Stress Anxiety Syndrome and
Multiple Personality Disorder and
uncontrollable rage
are
seething gaping tattered holes torn
in the well accepted tapestry of social dishonesty.
We believe
that material wealth is a measure of worth.
We believe that human life can be measured in statistics.
We believe
in objectifying others to get what we want.
We believe that sexual promiscuity is somehow liberating.
We believe
simply going to work each day is
an acceptable use of a lifetime.
We believe that needing mind-altering chemicals
to feel good, makes sense.
We believe that purchased possessions have value.
We believe that true love is anachronistic.
We believe the ends justify the means.
We believe well have time to relax in our old age.
We believe our governments
fulfill a social contract.
We believe in get them before they get you.
We believe that idle hands are the devils
workshop.
We believe in survival of the fittest.
We believe in nuclear proliferation.
We believe that what
you see is what you get.
We believe what we see on television.
We believe in plastic surgery.
We believe in
acceptable losses.
We believe in destroying our own planet.
We believe, We believe, We believe
We believe that
we are indestructible!
We are the living antithesis
of what we truly are and
in our unbridled desire
we are self destruction personified.
The lie is that it all has meaning.
The lie is that there are no other
choices.
The lie is that one individual doesnt make a difference.
The lie is that there are no consequences.
The
lie is that we dont cause our own suffering.
The lie is that money and possession mean more than
people or love.
The lie is that mental illness is an aberration
and that something is wrong with individuals so diagnosed.
STOP!
Lets just stop!
Breathe deeply and slowly.
Actually feel the air flowing back out again.
Stop
and Look.
Look for the answers
waiting to be discovered
in between each BREATH.
ONE
BY
Fine armys
of strong
black ants
MARCH
foreword
to an
unanticipated
DEATH
by drowning
delivered
from the hose
at the
edge
of my
kitchen
sink.
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