Mr. Keith Richards

/ mbrazfieldm / 5 Comments

ever since i was a kid i’ve always had a very vivid imagination mostly because i needed to get away i was too little to drive too little to get a job to make money to take the bus so the only place i had was deep inside my mind so time went by my body stretched my brain gathered more wrinkles and my eyes widened and then the shit hit the fan there were some days where the fan just fell off the ceiling there was so much turd on the blades then there were days when the fan was happily located on the ceiling in the hole with the wires that it was supposed to have swirling around and around doing its job with the moths going in and out of the little lamps shaped like butter cups there was no shit then maybe just a minor fart maybe it was me eating sauerkraut straight from the jar ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards and after a while teachers took notice they got all nosey sent me to see the psychologist called my mother called my father ring ring ring no one bothered so they thought i was special they had no idea how special i could be but i was a relatively well-adjusted child growing up in Hollywood and all you’d be surprised just how fucking well-adjusted i was ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards anyway so as a story goes and i forget where it goes cuz there’s just forks all over the place let me see let’s go to the fork with all the drugs and alcohol oh yeah all of them early on hard living on the edge before and after the edges give or take a few centimeters ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards anyway so long story short made long cuz mainly my fan is starting to show up again on this ceiling i’m in love with a man who lives with a clown and a possum but that’s an entirely different story love is a strange thing i remember when i was a teenager love was a Clash song or like Talking Heads or something like that and punk rock was like really romantic and like you know the Rolling Stones you know your band ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards was pretty cool too even though you guys were old even then but that’s not the problem anyway as i was saying my man lives with a clown and a possum no lie i’m not making this up i’m not even on any kind of drugs legal or illegal i’ve been dry for a really long timethis is just my brain my brain on reality what do i do you ask Mr. Keith Richards well i think a lot i like to fancy myself like a famous writer like a real deep thinker like William Burroughs sorry i don’t mean to name drop but Burroughs kicks ass anyway so yeah like i was saying yeah i say a lot cuz i’m like trying to knit my thoughts to have a cohesive conversation ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards anyway i’m not really sure why i’m here in my dream talking to you like you’re supposed to be my shrink right but you’re here i guess because the guy i’m in love with loves your band The Rolling Stones ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards anyway i’ve lived many many many years in downtown Los Angeles and it’s gone through a lot of intersectionality you know but i don’t know man like the ghosts are still there you know the systematically and psychologically disenfranchised the homeless skid row has just like fucking spread out to infinity and our politicians don’t seem to think that it’s a bad problem you know they don’t have to live on top of each other they don’t have to live on donated tents they possibly have not fought in foreign wars and came back to America just to get fucked over you know they’re not culturally marginalized i used all of the ism’s you can find ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards i don’t know how to explain the world anymore i just kind of walk around and around and around and then sometimes i look up at the sky and there’s this huge ass ceiling fan and the blades look like a chopper and they’re like spinning and spinning and spinning and we’re all down here pushing shopping carts and i’m giving them my empties because that’s all i got yes ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards yeah sometimes i feel pretty bad cuz like i have a place to sleep at at night i have people i can call when ifeel like i want to cry and i’m in love with a man who lives with a clown and a possum ya got that Mr. Keith Richards anyway before i rudely interrupted myself i wanted to tell you that living in LA is really starting to bother me she’s drowning my beautiful angel womb where i was born and grew up is drowning in shit i can’t stand it anymore ya dig me Mr. Keith Richards anyway what was i talking about oh yeah i’m in love with a man who lives with a clown and a possum and it’s really hard cuz it’s just the clown and a possum and there’s not much you can do with that all i know is that i’m in love with that man and he likes your band Mr. Keith Richards for your sake i hope that this dream ends really fast cuz i’m starting to bore myself you know i really don’t smoke or drink or use drugs anymore that’s all in the past i think that’s why i got so lucky to fall in love with a man who happens to live with a clown and a possum anyway Mr. Richards i won’t bend your ear anymore i think that my 45 minute session is up i really thank you for letting me wear this really cool bitching ass hat but you see i got places to go i got things to see i got ceiling fans to dust i gotta fart and i’m grateful to you Mr. Keith Richards you crazy old son of a bitch love your music man and i love a man who lives with a clown and a possum

mbrazfield (c) 2020

forrest for the trees

/ mbrazfieldm / 13 Comments
photo by Rob Banks (c) 2020

alone
world at his fingertips
one
the wires carry all
crossing
the borders of time
boundaries
broken at hyper speed
to
win a race with out tracks
heal
his eye artificially at a glance
the
megabytes of dying ghosts
need
of any host the mark
of
godly hands to drill us in
the
when all is lightning sting
human
dust nothing to breathe but
spirit

turquoise

/ mbrazfieldm / 5 Comments

2:57 in the morning Broadway still suffers for someone
traffic lights blink with the force of anemia
i think only of you
and wonder how to kiss your eyes
so blue like turquoise
the Sun she won’t be long in coming to teach me what pains me to know
as i wonder how to kiss your eyes
so blue like turquoise
the Moon he’s been a coward left me at the bar
he slipped away to chase a star
and i wonder how to kiss your eyes so blue like turquoise
as i step again into the hemming of the dying night
the puddles underfoot are my only guide
through the mesh of doubt and loneliness
and i wonder how to kiss your eyes so blue like turquoise
i thought i saw you down the road
chasing your old ghosts
in such a radiant glance you told me of another’s heart
through Broadway i wander
and recite ‘will i ever be enough’
and wonder how to kiss your eyes
so blue like turquoise

for Mr. Banks ♡

great Grady’s ghost!

/ mbrazfieldm / 8 Comments

it happened in slow motion lightning fast simultaneously laughing gas i crawled like a cheetah at the break neck speed of a snail that’s all i can think of i remember it was 4:44 am and i needed to go to thee room not any room thee room people were sitting on plastic chairs orange yellow green like an artificial fruit salad outside of the Macy’s window circa 1936 there were little speakers on the ceiling with little mesh coverings like those that cover the shower drainage holes i thought i might have been walking on the bathtub floor laughing gas they said and further down the hall there were ashtrays big tall cylinders with a silver topping and sand and butts yellow butts put out i could see the name brands on them Menthol Kools Marlboro Winston Camel and then there were big cigar pieces i don’t know what you might have called them i was just a kid i remember seeing tiny little Dixie cups inside of the telephone booths and there they would be those little cups with blue and yellow flowers and the name Dixie i guess that’s where people stash their pills i also remember the phones being off the hook buzzing and buzzing and buzzing and i imagine an old woman on the left hand side middle booth cream dress church hat white wiry hair crystal green eyes and dead lips she stared at me like a frog i look down i know who she was once we passed across the hall there was a war survivors and i peeked and i saw a room full of gurneys men mostly black men with bloody bandages somewhere missing legs and then from my right ear i could hear an invisible body that sounded like they were from Texas white harsh hateful yelling at the top of this lungs to be taken out of that room he didn’t particularly like being with the coloreds i had never seen something like that the laughing gas they say the laughing gas and further down the hall no yellow brick road my hair wild frizzy intertwined with a piece of bubblegum right in the middle but they didn’t know and i didn’t tell it was strawberry i believe later that night with my tiny little left hand i recall pulling it out the pain made me feel down to earth although i don’t know what was happening to me i had little hands finally we reached our destination the nurse lifted me up and while she carried me for about 4 seconds and sat me on my gurney i remember seeing my little gown pink with little yellow teddy bears my little thighs were bloody i don’t know why i could feel my nose being crusty and no one in the room was my relative no one in the room was anything other than a wage-earner no one in the room was anything more then a team of let’s put them back together again the laughing gas the laughing gas they sing

fleeing

/ mbrazfieldm / 3 Comments

nine in the morning it rains there are no clouds
just a dark gray block in the sky angelic concrete
i am longing for something or someone to come
in to this rain with me
alas the freight train
she won’t come
she has never been here
nor can i see her smokestack on the horizon
and when the sun sets
the sun does set in the rain
but i can’t see it
the freight train will still have not passed me by
what would i do in that train you ask
i would get out of here
to another place
another time
another land away from the nightmares
away from the cures
at this point
this point right here
we are all mad
the disease is the Garden of Eden
i give into the garden
the garden is in the freight train
there with wood paneling
like an Irish grandmother’s home there with drinks
there with spirits
the freight train rattles and my longing evaporates
it is now nine at night
i have not slept
i have not slept
i will not sleep
the freight train
i don’t see her
she won’t come for me and my longing
the rain will not come
i was born on a rainy day
the rain she is my lover and my companion
and she also sits with me in longing for other skies
that only the freight train can give or take away

done a little dance

/ mbrazfieldm / 14 Comments

right in the middle of your eyes where the universe glows
i can see the future there i go
i tango to the middle
of the nuclear bomb
evaporated into the nothingness of everything in the world
and the world above that world and so forth and so on
i don’t claim to be a physicist
i don’t claim to be anything because i want to tango into the middle of your nuclear bomb
i don’t understand how it got this way
there are sunsets and there are sunrises
and there are suns and there are moons and stars
and i suppose i’ve been told there is a God
but the one who told me is merely a human
how can we know
there is fire
there is hot hot fire
there is very cold ice
there are lights that are just imagination
of those who’ve come before me after they’ve tangoed into your nuclear bomb
in the midnight puddle of water
where the crazy heard the call
to tango into the river of everlasting
that went inevitably wrong
with head underwater
as the oxygen bubbles pop
the cries of angst
burst out at me
mirror mirror in the dark
fade boom atomic tomb

mbrazfield (c) 2020