after the Tropical

/ mbrazfieldm / 12 Comments

the fevers come alternately between the shivering cold silver icicles from the north in my heart and the crickets in stereo is all i hear on Thursdays at the meet this isn’t working i’m not working you’re not working when you’re passed out more than me i am screaming so dimly silently as to not disturb the expectations of those who haven’t lived haven’t hurt haven’t lost haven’t murdered their own soul as the blue gray spirit holds the last of the plasma in her hands weeping into the air of having felt good and bad together like when the gods cum and the fucking rock bottom has three secret layers underneath the circle with a broken line cannot protect me do you not see what i see it is beauty in the knife wound of his side that costs too much to stitch and Bacardi left a while ago and your horse faced phantom takes too long to boil i can’t wait 1 second it’s too long to feel too much the melodrama of my delusion you don’t deserve mouth to mouth but ask me as the ambulance struts by not our call tonight tomorrow neither

rsvp

/ mbrazfieldm / 4 Comments

hi

Rabbi

i’m that girl

this Eden is

very beautiful

i’ve crawled on my belly

since the time of the Pharaohs

and i’m feeling deeply tired

today i make the case that gifting

me free will does not compare to heaven

when i close my eyes the cries of Mary

still echo in my ears while Martha’s

brother slumbers wrapped in linens

and the taste of chocolate

melting joy on my tongue

careless angels send

Your blessed signs

however

i am

done

nolo contendere

/ mbrazfieldm / 5 Comments

some Sunday mornings early at the park the ducks would waddle toward him with shaky hung over arms he’d lift me above the quacking wonders the giggles floating up like bubbles some summer times long ago i’d get to stay at his home motorcycle parts in the bathroom and nightly a different ‘aunt’ to make me food some days after his brothers would roar out of his garage in the afternoon i’d make a dollar for every bottle i scavenged from his oily shop floor and i finally had enough to buy chutes and ladders there were certain times i didn’t trust him his glances were an empty page don’t act like your mother he’d say when i offered to do a chore just to strike up a conversation like Sammy and Ginger my neighbors next door did with their Da when it was their turn to water the lawn i guess he thought i wanted another board game as i grew older and farther away i saw no use of trying my hand at rewinding time with the old man being a Da wasn’t his suit and being parented is something i’ve always sucked at

at the Cecil

/ mbrazfieldm / Leave a comment

any road north at this time of the year is cold and wet

       my neighbor said   coughing out gray-white swirled                                 

                                  menthol smoke

            your journey need not be postponed

if you can live here for more than 23 minutes

                    you’re used to the inclement weather

        i squinted up at Jeannie her pin curls once golden

              lighting up the strip joints along

the weary loosed boulevard  were now dull piss

                 yellow and very very sparse

she couldn’t remember that she walked into my room

                 believing she was home

    as Jeannie orchestrated a plan to cross her shriveled

        go-go booted legs    still i sat silent on the floor

    crushing pills to help me think    i was never one to

          bother reading directions 

by the morning when the birds bathe in the puddles of acid rain

             and snails ever so slowly smear their way

to the dying ficus tree       and in a moment of pre-contemplative clarity     i   look up again at my lady

       her crushed velvet baby blue robe   casketed what time separated from the wheat of life

          then wild cat eyes darted    past her   nodded head to look out of     the  screenless  cracked window

             with Tom  rasping something through the radio about      

                          a downtown train

                     and a torn paperback about Lenny Bruce’s life   on the milk crate  shelf

       i couldn’t help to wonder   if we were also waiting for            

                      Beckett’s

                                  immutable  Godot

private runt

/ mbrazfieldm / 10 Comments

another flame in the distance of a repetitious page

alarms my blood into a flow of fast thinking

she comes in the storm of her own pain

a slow thick fear the only match i have to counter

i now know not to longer linger by the crusted ashtrays

or lean on their solid walls of past injurious indiscretions

but rather crawl out of the darkness of the closet

a charming foxhole a Neverland of sorts with Barbies GI Joes

water colors and a one eyed teddy bear called Mike

after the storm lulls herself to sleep

and the lightening goes to some other town

to launch his cowardly thunder

we are all less than triumphant in dignity and resolution

and when all is calm the mirror under the storm

confirms that there is life yet

another successful recon mission

a blue awareness baptizes me

today i survived again

and am still breathing for a home