time appears to have gone on forever and there is a big chunk of me whatever i am that has not changed on this day a very long time ago i was granted permission to come into this world to a big city that is just made of legend i learned very quickly that when the sun went down we all bled shit sleep fought hated just like each other no big difference not from the next city over not from the next country over and probably not from other planets today that old cautionary statement we only live above our demons but we never get rid of them swirls in my head i confess at times i don’t know how i think how i see things i don’t even know sometimes if i believe in pain emotional spiritual physical i don’t know the difference at times what does it feel like to be without pain does it feel the same as being in pain don’t know so here i am back at the Cecil Hotel right where i have always been obviously not in body but in soul sometimes when there is no one around to question the fuck out of me and why my face looks or doesn’t look how they want it to look that particular day i wonder am i a ghost i wonder have i been reincarnated i wonder when i look up and down Broadway and Main to the left or to the right and then i look up and turn around and i look at empty shells of buildings where gargoyles used to be decorations masonry ballrooms perhaps so much and then there will be a particular window that enraptures my eyes and i can’t look away and if i squint my third eye i swear i can see her young dark hair big green brown eyes i don’t know what her name would have been maybe Hazel maybe Dorothy who knows not a modern name and then when my third eye blinks she jumps
Stream of Consciousness
orphan
i often forget his smile the glint of his eyes pulling an old dog eared letter i touch his cursive delicate but unintelligible there are no particular ideas in the tight ringlets of pale black ink his mind was full of scorpions she never returned to him they both mad with ego and one uppance i progeny alone i with a heart full of wasps
Jupiter
i was walking on Jupiter tonight that i realized that the threads to my life saver were breaking in slow motion it didn’t matter much since i was floating there bathing in stardust there i saw my hands and the shape of my heart beat slow and calm the link to civilization as i had always understood it was stretched into a million and ten lazers of a see through golden rose hue and at the end of these galactic rays were angels dressed like James Dean puffing cigarettes and playing poker
pieces of LA dream
dawn she comes to knock on my window like room service the same time every day
i found myself floating on a cloud with a pink hounds tooth pattern covered ironing board
on it one of L Cohen’s suits and through the little poofy clouds Motley Crüe played girls girls girls that sounded an awful lot like so long Marianne
earlier during the dark part of the 24 hours i could not sleep nor did i want to so i bought some fancy eye cream to hide those saggy violet rings
i try to journal certain things that need goodbyes but it’s not that easy i’d be writing my fingers right down to a stub
life is funny how she crouches like a tiger and pounces when least expected like when i stained my bed sheets with menstrual blood that one time and i was sad and angry for months because it was a loss a woman never really heals from
then one starts to think about the turnips on sale and how i should have bought some but at least i got my baby broccoli so i’ll survive
dawn paves the way for morning with Chai tea and a triple espresso chaser i start to stare again out of the window of the room but today i will be ready for the sneaky tigers
moon confessional
the dreams i have are irrational futuristic agnosticly holy and in reverence to the moon just this morning between coffee and more coffee and water and coffee i thought the goddess was a lamplight but no my cheeks felt blushed and that hot hot feeling came over me warnings of physical danger the moon caught me flirting with a piece of lemon cake for breakfast but i wasn’t interested nor in the tea or the oats memories washed over me of my uncle’s girlfriend’s breakfast table robust meaty no fancy meanings a flap Jack was just that gluten fat saturated and otherwise corn syrup and food coloring sugary cereal more potent than cocaine Tang for the kids gin and oj sometimes too wink wink lives so many lives i telepathically tell the moon can you see the despair from up there you lady with the rabbit tattoo engulfed in memory was i talking like a rabid fool i turned and looked outside my window and there she was all round and orange inching into my kitchen to see what all the trouble was
in real time
no doubt i’m here real time as they say another year under my belt this late summer and what have i done jazz in my head most of the time now me more than ever two different people warm bubbly attentive to the rescue then the other me just like everybody else exhausted empty hurting under professional care but me thinks i need a tailor i’m falling apart at the seams the bigger my smile the wider the mess behind it but forward i confess and we must go in real time time what is time other than a sentence time time what is it keeping me in cages too little freak out too much freak out there is no middle ground God will i ever know why the time is what it is hey but on the bright side there is *Cassettes with Postcard from Kreuzberg in real time in real time not jazz but comfort looking out the window the birds and squirrels visit less often COVID wearing off i guess in real time hmm i wonder how the Traveling Wilburys would have covered Postcards or what would GnR have done Metallica is too harsh no me thinks Reeves is best in real time after work get food for pets hand out some change to the corner dweller for cigarettes so tired of you today L.A. in real time although you know i love you
*Check this cool cat out https://nickreeves.blog/2020/05/29/her-anarchy-baffles-cassettes/
California Covid sun
following the gray marbled filigree of last month’s mud on sidewalk downtown farmers market hot with California Covid sun
the cherries look tempting but the purple Peruvian potatoes go great with olive oil pink salt and cumin my face tightly masked chewing the fat with the book vendors afoot offering their home address for their monthly ‘hope we get laid’ poetry reading salon
then the urban crows catch my eyes they with E A Poe smiles rainbow oil slick feathers shine under that California Covid sun
Dr. TL tongue tab flash back dream hits me like a polar breeze suddenly there is baby Grady golden brown moppy hair blue Keds size three and an uncle with soldier rough hands smiling at me
no sooner than a tear peeks into my water line a sonic whistle from Spring Street punctures my loser mind Lola Ramirez on the weekends and Manny Sandoval during the MF 9 to 5 she a purple paisley mu mu gold earrings and Michael Kors sack me black t shirt with the face of Siouxsie Sioux paper Trader Joe’s bag both aging X’ers under that California Covid sun
Lola and i float to the flower stand and her throat crooned in a Yucatanian Spanish slang enchanting and schmoozing the vendors so i get to pay ten bucks for a 50 dollar assorted calla lily bunch
the 4 am 3 cup Turkish coffee buzz wore off and dull knife pain from old injuries descend upon my left arm so i shared a dream that a cool boy once had while Lolita and me sipped iced black pressed molassesed coffee under that California Covid sun
nail biter
we sat there just flopped on the hot sticky sidewalk waiting for inspiration to get up and walk i was the nail biter of the pack Nate was the food finder Noodle was the weed finder and one eye Byrna was just one eyed Byrna we thought that we might go panhandle in front of Clifton’s but there were two problems the first was that men thought i was a boy prostitute and after i’d animatedly correct the would be johns LAs finest would get called never a good idea for underaged Clash fans looking for meaning and a mellow yellow evening the kids got tired and took the bus home i walked over to the Cecil and loitered outside watching portly gray and brown pigeons bathing in grimy puddles under the city lights
lost on the way
ya ever listen to sister Tharpe wailing on her guitar while spiking up your mohawk
strumming and tugging at my strands as her sweet sultry honey melts into my ear veins
getting ready for TSOL to play on the Sunst Strip in LA balls to the wall sexy hell
underage but i don’t care the way i’ve been living i’m going no where
life was too lively growing up at home so i ran from the folks
and broke all the rules danced on the shore at 7 past noon
big black ugly boots Cinderella slippers were for fools
stick my tongue out at the sky fill my nose up with white lies
scratches cuts bruises and tears bloody trousers fists in the air
scent of cars black smoke and politicos resign my gender go underworld
Christ Savior i see the Son can You explain why i felt at 3 like 21
riding on the bus with the ladies of the night shift who went to clean the houses of the rich
indignation in their smile as bright brown eyes fell on my style
echoing in the length of the trains how can this child spit on the American dream
missing the point in what i conveyed symptom of the American nightmare lost on the way
in the 1/60 th
i never recall at what time it happens the death coveted by bones veins flesh and cells for regeneration not sure anymore where the motivation comes to them my last thought was of “heart of darkness” Conrad did you take my pen i think you’re watching too much news while the truth slips in and out your eye lids he said my plant she sits in her ever patient pot looking at the tree romeo and juliet my third eye is pink today and burns like fire water yet in and out of REM my plant and i glide through the sky her roots firmly pressed in dime store soil and my soul torn out by its tangled roots
words less spoken 