Stream of Consciousness

a genesis with a Dada twist

/ mbrazfieldm / 8 Comments

in the beginning when She did pick oxygen carbon hydrogen and nitrogen and He did stir the clay with hot holy essence all the words in the world were at a finger’s length beyond my reach

so close they were that i then leapt out of the nest of my pink blue galaxy and into the pavement of down town LA the words they did follow in time i’d pluck tiny words for tiny worries and the Nephilim smiled for they knew i was falling

in love with the charge of turning the misery hatred pain starvation violence and rape of it all into the beauty found on the hem of the robe of the Goddess and the wing of a humming bird

that’s reaching for the higher hanging words drenched in the nectar from the Tree of Knowledge i strung them up to detail the anatomy of a broken heart with its crystal shards wrapped in Cleopatra’s linens sanctimoniously tucked away in a Payless shoe box atop an urban closet shelf

of the condemned building in the bosom of desperation and the pool in eyes of children stack did i those words like bricks made of powder to bring the kingdoms down and with the rabble of defeat as i burnt down i built up a nation of wordsmiths

who with their quills pens papyrus key boards tablets and marketing firms wait gingerly drinking lattes on the Stratford Upon Avon wicker chairs

that my English teacher said she dusted for the scribes who mused the signs letter symbols into the dendrites of my mind but not before Allen Will Bill Jack Hank Dylan Langston Lou Bowie Leonard and Ms. Angelou were anointed and leaving me with words less spoken

abreagieren

/ mbrazfieldm / 15 Comments

my mother and my father would fight about the air around them or about Jimmy Carter and about their marital problems tired old words leadless bullets that i took for them a meek child called to be King Solomon at 4 the trees and blocks and baby dolls were not enough to free me from the painful heavy feeling in my post toddler soul an orphan in the house of everything meaningless clean sanitary and paid for but not love i had 30 pieces of silver 7 times more and i kissed no one and no one kissed me when i bruised my knees or when the Armenian kids beat me up after school or when i cut the rope and wandered off into the womb of my city the yellow brick road didn’t exist but there were miles and miles of pavement where gentle hands and toothless grins had my best interest at times and at times i grew up the hard way but between stolen 4th of July Fireworks shows OD visits to the ER home cooked waffles at Astrid’s house boys with rainbows in their eyes and a few good angels i learned how to love

auxiliary guardian angels

/ mbrazfieldm / 4 Comments

Willie and Big Daddy sat in front of the Seven Eleven from noon till about 4 in the morning except on Sundays when they went to church at the MM Willie had a four dollar a day sun flower seed habit with his Colt 45 Big Daddy liked to comment on women’s asses and cat call on the flaming tight boys who dressed like Duran Duran Willie had gone to Howard in the 70’s and when he wasn’t in psychosis we’d talk about Nijinsky Big Daddy would tell me about the bed bugs at his SRO on 7th and how the Good Lord had saved his life and when the drug dealers and pimps would try to entice me into their cars they would both roll their wheel chairs in front of me and dared them to fight and as time went by and i grew older Willie and Big Daddy faded into the brick walls with graffiti and no posted bills the three of us together were never like anyone thought we should be we just were and they both gifted me with alternate ways of understanding the world and breaking the chains

rumination

/ mbrazfieldm / 3 Comments

although Baker beach rasped with waves swatting at the flat shore my mind was silent thinking of not being able to think shattered shells the broken bones of tiny creatures descendants of primordial royalty from Neptune’s kingdom some pelicans patrolled the bay sky looking for a bite to eat perhaps the hot dogs in the fists of the screeching kids with the loud mother my soul silenced by the wind with his whisper lilting in and out of my hair like a desperate lover i could not think my head was silent the stark white gulls and the gray elongated clouds tacked up randomly against the black sky felt like being in space or an early 80’s video game then as i turned my glance toward the harking sea lions on the jagged rocks frosted over by salty sea foam i thought about Holden Caulfield and this disturbed me the silence then brought on my transgressions in Cinemascope and i wept into the sand

Carol

/ mbrazfieldm / 15 Comments

Carol was trying to find a few cigarette butts to gut out to make a whole cigarette although she wasn’t a smoker she’d sell them to her neighbors in the tent next door for fifty cents with her thin arms and micro wrists she’d toil for a couple of weeks to raise enough money to go to the flower store on Los Angeles street and buy her parole officer a single rose or sometimes two or three red carnations i had met Carol while i was in high school at that time she was in her thirties she befriended me at People’s Store asking me about my perfume on account that she liked it i was a young punk and i told her that i wasn’t wearing any and walked off Carol stood there looking confused but the guilt gnawed at my chest and i could feel my ears turning hot and red i told my friend to go home and i walked backward a few steps toward Carol as i turned to her i mumbled at  her that i was sorry for blowing her off and offered her my snickers bar she lit up and said thanks kid but i’d rather have some of that beer you have in your back pack i froze and denied having anything in my bag although i knew damned well i had a bottle of Daniels i didn’t like beer we both smiled knowing each other’s truth in bullshit every now and again i’d go looking for her with water bottles canned food and the occasional AJ note if i could spare it we talked about DTLA and Skidrow Carol laughed and i watched her and then she started to tell me about her family out in Virginia Carol had been a victim of many unspeakable things my relationship with Carol lasted for about three years or so her sanity was remarkable but as time went on  it became unbearable to watch her sleep during the day in the summer LA heat her legs were encrusted with months of dirt and when i stared long enough at the splotches they were almost artistic or hieroglyphic in a way i stopped visiting for a few months to reckon with my own demons when i returned it was during spring time and Carol did not recognize me i found her on the corner of 6th and Wall squatted down bare footed picking peas out of a tin can with half a label that read Springfield by her feet was an old pill bottle that read Retrovir a few cigarette butts and a mangled how to live with HIV pamphlet

sentimental

/ mbrazfieldm / 4 Comments

there is something mystic about how you held your cigarette and smiled at me with soothing turquoise eyes and a twinkle in your tone the mere idea of your touch floods me in places that i cant mention while the lilies stand alone in glasses full of wine i still think of you at dawn and how you made me woman through your arms and your voice and your dreams and your thoughts i was every femme fatale sans the silver screen a dress up doll knitted in the silk of your tongue remember your company’s party we were better than the real Rick and Ilsa when did time go by Charlie now the moons have passed and people descend lower into madness and love is threatened by my not finding my place without you my Black Flag to your Rolling Stones my Smiths to your CCR but we both liked Kurt Weill and we both loved making love and greasy fries afterwards longing is hell am i that bad as to have lost you “he’s up in heaven so i’ve got to be good” every now and again i see your pea green fedora staring at me and it says ‘mornin, angel’ with that Indiana twang

charm school drop out

/ mbrazfieldm / 16 Comments

it’s very late and the crickets are bedding down in the banana trees for the night and behind the brick walls yes the ones tagged with nonsense the drunkard kings are pissing i’ve been kicked out of many a slummy joint you wouldn’t be the first bouncer to pop that cherry although i give you the fact that i was a little loud when the barkeep wouldn’t take my buck for a bottle of vodka but you understand i’m petite and not of swift feet when i’ve had a few tom collins’ down my gullet ok i get it don’t call my parent’s and that is not my id card but i do resent it when you won’t admit it that i’m the best duker in the bunch and while i have rosy knuckles to prove it let’s not point out last week’s black eye but don’t worry about me by the time i’m in my forties i might have been through a few programs for exceptional drinkers but psychoanalysis has nothing to do with a girl having fun on a Saturday night and by the way can you hold my hair back i feel a wave of chili coming up

fashionably late

/ mbrazfieldm / 2 Comments

slowly the drizzle fell looking up at the amethyst sky i thought of my mother the swallows on the side of the bridge in their mud nests and the Cap out at the People’s Café upsetting as the day was my pencil’s lead broken a scraped knee and a love affair uncontrolled what my blood stream craved was beyond the reach of angels squinting at the stop signs i charged ahead at medium speed fearing that i had missed “A Summer’s Night Dream” the little puckish girl let me in to the crowd of on lookers and she asked for my ticket but it was Falstaff i was looking for

cigana

/ mbrazfieldm / 5 Comments

for much of my youth i went from one corner of Hollywood to another the moon a constant companion except when she had to escort the beautiful ones in being a juvenile vagabond laid a certain freedom but too much of it lead to complicated cages at 17 with about two packs of everything bad on a daily i flourished in education book and otherwise yet i couldn’t remember much of my childhood it might have been a good thing nevertheless i loved my freedom to drink or stare at antiquities at the museum for hours and hours or maybe sleep in the library and eat onion rings at Astro’s the beach was nice at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays i really loved the hand of the wind on my shoulder and the seagulls chasing me as i threw crumbs of French baguette at them oh how i smiled and laughed

Aidan Hallston

/ mbrazfieldm / 7 Comments

Aidan Hallston was a quiet man i noticed him he stood out from the rowdy boisterous crowd my father kept in his garage on Saturday nights the wind and birds at time would say that Aidan had lost his family to the bottle without a ship i spoke to him from a distance and with time that distance began to heal Aidan’s dialect was through ratchets and wrenches and i was an eager student the days went by and i grew bored but Aidan Hallston stayed among the foreignary of LA so far from his own home now that i’m old at night i think what could have happened to him and i smile at his gesture of love when i tried to smoke his Lucky Strikes and he said “they’re no good fer ya’ lass”