after a long afternoon nap on USC’s lawn i lift my arms toward the heaven in crucified form there’s hair in the grass and my skateboard is gone i sit there still wondering what happened to me was i just walking and then crashed to sleep or was i doing something i’d later regret people my age future doctors lawyers business men grounds keepers maintenance crews walked slowly on by talking about this or that getting up i fell down twice no one looked a second time maybe it was the grass stains on my shirt makeup runny laces untied LA Kings jersey hair in a nest from my left eye i catch the PD stares i smile a dainty coy like smile and they ride their bikes toward the black guy who’s finely dressed reading the medical text book
Stream of Consciousness
Capgras delusion
she brushed her hair slowly asking questions to the air i sat and i doodled in my math book algebra was not my friend although in high school calculus was a little kinder honestly being a student of the formal subject and theory concept philosophy and algorithm was never my cup of anything i preferred to daydream observe and think later on i was given diagnostic labels for all three on account that some people couldn’t understand how to appreciate those foibles of me and thus my mind was pathologized to fit into a neat little category i didn’t mind i was a kid but in some strange way much deeper and wiser than they would ever be not intellectual perhaps more intuitive a reader of in between the lines of the lines
Abbey was decent looking very natural and i liked that at home my mother and her friends laid on the war paint rather thickly and it was hard to tell if they were human in retrospect now i understand that all of the women i knew as a kid had pain to hide their veils make up booze pills loveless sex marriage unwanted kids back stabbing hate rage sarcasm some had money and when the rare expression of love was directed at them all hell broke loose love hurt too too much
besides a killer record collection Abbey had bottles of beauty products for Mexico Spain and France i personally never tried anything on except for some nail polish in pearlescent pink that i didn’t really like Abbey tried to teach me how to put make-up on but it really didn’t interest me there was something in my soul that frowned upon that sort of thing a kind of defense mechanism and i found the make-up styles of her younger years a bit on the grotesque side but what did i know i was a rag tag tomboy
on a dark gray November morning i decided to cut the rest of the day and i headed to the Cecil i knew someone would be there i almost floated up to the sixth floor where Abbey lived knocked on 607 and nothing i almost left to go rap on another door further down that hall when i heard the knob turn and the chain lock release Abbey had an ink blue and red left eye ball shut by the swelling of traumatized flesh
she told me to come in and as i walked through the door she told me about how she had gotten mugged last night and her purse stolen i knew from memory Abbey only had one purse tan kid skin leather silver zipper and fringe which was sitting on the floor of her opened closet door looking at her as every second ticked by i could feel a tightness in my chest my teeth began to clench and i punched a softball sized hole on the drywall i had seen the same on my mother
i-40e/nm-41s
before the sleep comes in the place where the parrots crow and gangrene defaults for a beauty mark of the ones who cant afford the trip into the stars that shine on borrowed gleaming blinks and NASA goes on break the supper crowd waits til 6
to catch the train by a frazzled skirt that has sat on its last desk at the home of doll house diplomats did you ever see the stippled sky after the new year came and we owe money that has not been invented yet the people have
spoken but our dictionaries have faded we want wine and glory the oyster bar awaits the hookers call the other girls and the priesthood has lost weight if i chew and spit
out codes that only fleas can understand i might take the interstate and go to Las Cruces and bake out in the sun then back to Lady Angels arms but i wont know about the after
in the room
the edge of summer is always rougher in down town the garbage cooks in the hot August sun and the mango pits baste in the pigeons’ bath water but i can’t help to be in love with the complex and undeniable lived in beauty of the city
as soon as i step into the lobby i see Mr. Petrucchio’s grand daughter with a mile wide smile because granpa will be moving in with them today i agree the Cecil is no place for an aging refined man or anyone else who didn’t have the junky sickness or the negotiating with the devil credentials
half of my life has gone by although i count my birthdays in dog years so old in my soul and experience but too young in some circles a gen x’er with no money too many bills the last of the missing generation child of war birthday cake candle blower outer low brow collector little girl but i still have me rickety cracked me
sitting in my bed room with my cats and dog we laugh and talk as i finger bang the keyboard i think about smoking a cigarette but i don’t i miss the Cecil the old Cecil full of the residue of Adam’s sin i miss a phantom childhood you know the one where we become our parents’ parent yeah i’m not bitter i got to play with real barbie dolls mainly holding their hair back in my mom’s bathroom when they were throwing up too many cocktails diet pills and i guess too much cock that made them pregnant who knew i was just seven
its August 2019 the edge of summer again its rougher now we have placeless people stewing in the system stewing in the tents waiting for a breath of help the Cecil has cleaned up mostly serves to house tourists looking for the LA experience i shy away from their questions like where’s the best Mexican Food where can we find parking how much are you asking for a blow job baby and being me i have to answer back i’m too big to fit down your throat sweetheart i’ve learned to disarm some but not all yet i love my city it’s my home and she’s disarmed me any way she’s wanted to my sweet Sensei i’ve been a good student though she can’t deny that
where has life gone and my summers and popsicles hot dogs and fireworks on the fourth where has the magic gone i’ve missed much so the Fall is coming along with the adverts of pumpkin spice everywhere the new Fall collections the new laws that question the very validity of what the Gods have created and the pangs of sadness come but also the reminder that life goes on in spite of decree or tears or me i’m learning to love something greater than the world at long last hobo girl i say don’t worry you can still smile a mile wide
spiritual something
as far as little girls went i was not very normal i read and understood language on a different level i could imagine with my mind’s eye seeing the words float up from a page or sign or billboard or holy book like smoke when the Vatican has chosen a new pope
i thought i could genuinely speak to non human life forms through my thoughts and at a young age the whirlwind of the lives of the adults while in my Topanga canyon years caused me to believe in the spiritual something that was always there invisible but tangible only to my soul ever present warning me hide the keys flush those pills down the toilet before they get them and die for the day don’t go home with that man don’t touch mommy’s things hide by the creek
always the presence during the part of life when the soul seizes to be tender and becomes a little hardier the spiritual something became overbearing not like Joan of Arc’s but just getting in the way i wanted to do my will even though it wasn’t the right thing to do for the sake of my soul and well being i followed the human aspect that surrounded me and forsook the spiritual something
now that i’ve traversed several planetary rotations i know it’s there and sometimes i can feel it most often i can’t or i can’t tell if subconsciously i refuse to feel it however the mortgage of my misguided self agency has come due
orthopraxy 261
containment is necessary if life is to be kept in the outskirts of ethical veils a true man is often deceiving to himself let the mirror lead us to the kneeling chamber pure blue get a clue im not in soft cookie scented pajamas anymore woman whore all the more follow that fellow he knows where to score and take a tissue for the blood ransacked of the floods of dignity dispelled in drought of love freedom the cosmetic side free of pungent primordial scent does not an anchor serve to preserve what we claim is precious fight snot nose kid get out if you don’t like it accident of lust and loss of mind what we want is not what we sought after hear the engines grind Chopin rings in the ear of what was innocent for only days and then the angels of carnality lead the way to where her wings allegorically to be ripped of the whipping back of martyrs run pretty momma go around shes ready gotcha little cunt face first chipped tooth kiss the feet of the Queen of Angels and the DAs assistant can scrape evidence from broken fingers after the appropriate forms have been signed
atmospheric tiramisu
that Friday had been particularly rough my science teacher Mrs. Thorndyke must’ve been on the rag or something i’m not even sure why i went to school that day i guess i just needed the routine life was unraveling all over me my folks money politics and a robust octopus demon had it’s addiction tentacles around by mind i felt heavy lost i wanted to make it all go away if i got a gold fish took out the trash make dad a clay ashtray maybe if i behaved but my check engine light had been flashing for almost two years now
i walked around downtown til i hit Main street i was too tired to go to the nickel besides i knew Taino wasn’t home i didn’t trust sitting in the lobby of the King Edward by myself i had a feeling i went up to the roof of the Cecil i was a runt back then no one knew i was alive the sky was baby blue like a Joe Jackson song and right where the mountain crests with the horizon an atmospheric tiramisu of different colored smogs
looking down at the sidewalk on Main i would count the people coming in and out of the lobby i remember thinking these must be really happy folks well mannered with nice houses and lawns and supper my mind began to wander my body relaxed i wasn’t comparing or analyzing anymore i was just of the moment alone face to face with my 17 years of invisibility of course i thought about jumping but that streak of rebel pomposity fed by my love of the Sex Pistols thought jumping off the roof would be utterly trite
thank goodness for my photographic memory finger tips without having to shift my eyes from the helicopters pigeons and flag poles i reached into my book bag and fished out the Ritalin pills that soothed me when i felt like curling up and sucking my thumb in about half hour or half day the lines blurred i was thinking about the news and the Contras Viet Nam vets and crack cocaine i thought about how many homeless people there were and the crips and the bloods and everyone in between
nowadays i often think of that Friday and i wonder what would have become of me if i had been a popular girl a girly girl a girl whose parents were proper closet alcoholic church goers conscious voters PTA joiners and i wore dresses and never took anything stronger than grape juice but we were not like that no one was ever like that in truth we were all just ragers in our own way
my daydreams about the world its wars and LA were just smoke and mirrors to hide from what would inevitably be an incredible ride into familiar unknowns of wanting to die and fly and vomit and binge and fuck and love and cry and laugh and feel whole
R 12:9 to 13
the wood peels from the shanks of the inside of the ghost temptation rots teeth grind in the daymare of desperate desire the room with no view the floor is on fire and the sea she is angry boiling up to the chair of judgment it’s not your time yet the mistress and her kin invade my gossypium cabin fever out i say no room in my nightmare you would not understand day three the muscles stalactites reaching up to a god out to lunch remember holy time is different than human seven heads are better than none my hands in outer space the heart percolates in mother’s Turkish coffee pot ssshhh she doesn’t know licking out to anything that moves without a pulse to send some help a little bump a little drop a little cup to ease lubricate the crumbling road to the reality of seals breaking slowly
more acid than deoxyribonucleic
where did the blue birds go across the fields salty and gray the dream doesn’t end in it are old poles if you put your ear close enough you can hear the screams of time and perhaps a feather and a sliver of grace caught between the splinters in the east rusty dust rises from the Virginias i sense that my feet were black made so by the Greatness of my Sky Master but more because my great pawpaw owed his liver to the company store where can i find the mercury in my eyes shine into the night late strolling on Fairfax no sales on the Sabbath ill take the bagel extra cream cheese but can i pass on the smoked fish at the bus top where i like to sit Jimmy Kimmel on the script while me and furloughed Gabriel with the shiny twilight wings sit across the street and watch the ghouls worship the place where Tate Folger supped their last and watch the men of Sharrei Tefila pray and dance around in circles of the gates my Thai iced tea has become watery continental long necked girl all round dumb mouths talk at you about the triple X vegan doner kebob so just sit and fly watch it go by fire by night but where
SoCS badge by Pamela, at https://achronicalofhope.com/
not…alone
the pineapple stand is gone and three more tents sprouted last night she she she with two elders coughing i float above the tar but every now and again there in the crack on the corner near where the ancient fault line is grows a dandelion an astronomical seven inches tall i know he answers little girl you got a quarter you like the flower the rain gutter waters it see drip drip i see sir here is a bottle of water and a gift card to Quiznos all i can spare oh no i need money oh God bless you child anyway you too sir then the dream turns harsh cloudy i can’t get to my car and the wheelchair i’m trapped in gets hit by a truck the spine snaps i wake screaming my neck gets caught on a ring of Saturn i’ve grown accustomed to my good fortunes heart thumping i look at my hands in the dark no one’s there so i hug on tightly to the blessing in my dream
SoCS badge by Pamela, at https://achronicalofhope.com/
words less spoken 