a twisted twig i
am not worthy of your cross
Rabbi gather me
Addiction
red eagles on Matthias’ arms
she stands in the night
quiet in the day swaddling my thoughts
through her windows that have seen moons
peeked at by La Baker and the dust bowl troops
the starlight beaming on my smoke rings
and the ancient flower wall cover
comes alive again crawling with suspicions
Perry Como and at times Lead Belly
fill my ears until they bloom
so coursing through my veins
the bewitching compounds of soul kill
silver on the mirror fades away
and in tandem we float away together
the me on the chair mustang hair gray
the me in the glass chipping off her hours
before my lids close
the pupils pin catch a brown fluffy moth
clutching with sticky little feet
to rusty rain gutters that hang
to her bricked flanks by grace and bliss
i hear the moth breathing in out in out
to the rhythm of surreal electric sweaty nights
but JESUS SAVES only twice
as Papa and i drink absinthe and champagne
body parts
after the Tropical
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
at the Cecil
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
dear Hester
dear Hester i have to go keeping you has cost me a fortune worked my body down to bones selling my soul for you for one faint kiss and giving the devil iou’s was no good
i finally admit that your fingers and aura gently crept into my blood brook driving me to unfathomable pleasure only known by kings but when i couldn’t feed you more and more and more your anger at me was like a riptide
dear Hester you thrusted and thrashed my body against the anguish i caused others because i was a slave to you when you read this letter i will be rolling in it the unholy pain of heart break for having to let you go
fever itch spasm vomit crying out for air
as i sink into the black hole of my own doing because i thought you loved me
Hester i have to Hester don’t you understand don’t cry Hester you have offered me comfort and euphoric happiness when the world turned its back on me you never lied to me and you even let the nay sayers preach at me and how you were a no good harlot beast
but in exchange for your mirage like generosity i turned over my freedom to you i have a sickness Hester i have to keep running there’s a demon stronger than us Hester i have to leave
the time has come for emancipation from us three
my dear Hester
das lebewohl
strikethrough
laced
sharp
clove smoke
in alley i
got what i came for
a ticket to peek inside God’s ear near
the heavens past the Milky Way from up there the world was beautiful
at the American Hotel full of sweaty nooks and crannies where the music was wild in its ferociousness and once infected
the brain floated amongst the red aura of the room while the riffs and the booms and the twangs and the truths were part of a generation dying to speak its aching lonely soul
from the cave with symbols and art from masters of no particular renown prophesies of the pioneers of future trillion sized debts and whose progeny would be prisoners within bars made of algorithms instead i was a rule breaker kid channeling Cassady before she knew how to write trickster of the night wild child who’d
never had to fight with an authoritative parent on account they were already at some of their own soirees as a little tax deduction i quickly learned that a woman’s place was not really where she had to stay and i followed suit because it was the only way my rebellious nature would be soothed and that’s how the old vagabonds took me to see the Clash when i was ten the coolest 6th grader ever summers in Bakersfield sandy hair wild like baby snakes shielded by the big
bad momma cobras picking grapes hearing the night thunder of God and machine never wondering what would happen to me at least not in the day time Al’s bar i miss your soul so many times i bled polka dotting your floors lost my mind but the angels of the green couches were there to call the taxi but no one knew the address rock and roll deep in thought colors floated steadily for me forming live connections to the guys that God called Us do pigeons count as doves i loved the one with stripped wings white neck and red beak hind and fore sight blended in my head pounding breaths waking up in the middle of the deck only to see the headlines im still here Hillel wild crazy as fuck child incomprehensible girl took the diagnostical sentence because you didn’t understand
Doña Margarita
now as i look in the mirror i see the scar on my neck where his ring ripped my skin off and wrinkles from all of the times i smiled before and after the event during that moment i fought back with everything i had i too was Jacob Israel in my bathroom looking down as my fingers blindly feel for eyeliner i think of Doña Margarita standing four feet tall outside of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church where i had gone that night looking for watermelon agua fresca i was thirsty for normal human contact she cajoled me about buying one of her amulets a little brown felt square with a saint on it or was it Michael i don’t recall anymore i smiled and shook my head no and as i walked away my mind was already boarding cloud nine but she followed me and said llevatelo es gratis i took her offering as her eyes turned stony with warning a few blocks away deranged in the annals of fifth street i lost it somewhere so into the bar i stepped had a few laughs saw a few flies guzzled a few vodkas and prepared to go up to the third floor to visit Taino another LA merchant turning the corner to go into the morgue like hotel lobby two arms wrapped around my 80 pound frame and into Werdin Alley we rolled but i swung with weak little arms i reached and i scraped faces arms noses tracers in denial that this was reality i focused on our collective flailing tattoos then ink covered my mind i woke up in County over hearing LAFD say she’s been a victim of a violent crime yet i could still feel the brown felt of Doña Margarita’s amulet in my hand it was anchoring
wish
i cant go to the hospital now ive got to come down its just that he made me so mad why do i do this to myself ive got to replace the mirror God im out of control i have an exam tomorrow maybe if i sleep but the blood isn’t stopping if i curl up by the toilet i might not wake up ive got to wait and come down the ceiling is cotton candy lies my skin floats like a lily pad he’s right but why does he cheat he should just leave but we need each other i need to lay down he hurts me so bad just like my mother i feel most alive in pain without it i don’t feel im dead but this isn’t right maybe church but they would judge me i need help the blood is finally clotting i don’t like how i look his other woman looks like the magazine girls im not worth all of this but i have some pride he knows ive never sucked any dick for my junk i don’t think our society circle can say the same for him no they are good people to me at least they listen and were all lost together i wish this was a dream i wish i was real i wish i could disappear how do i do this maybe im just a salty little cunt ok i broke the mirror because i don’t like what i see im not ready to say where it all began i don’t know if i will ever be Lord im walking through the valley of the blackest shadows i hear the laments of others too i cant feel you anymore Rabbi
just the flu
the magic leaves sanity a sacrifice ill pay for it tomorrow you gotta get some help tidal waves before me the river banks have failed screaming angels in a rage the faces flashing in the night i look for her and i cant find her sweet warm jello fingers pushing buttons to the elevator going up can you smell the gardenias wilting beeping and the blinking of the medical equipment sent tiny shocks of stress directly to the head the only way to soothe myself after a stressful situation was to savor the sensation of my eyes rolling to the back of my third eye it started with strained nerves and jittery eyelids tiny tear drops oozing from the corners and then the dark flowing through pin-hole relief of my private world painted with French carnival colors golds were greens reds that were milky blood pink old ship ropes and Macaque monkeys like the ones in Tangiers i remember while riding on the ambulance that late summer night
words less spoken 