by the US mail he sang
Aging
Mr. Keith Richards
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
spread the WLS
for S Clemens
sky why you so blue
grass so green
trees so tall
soul so clear
eye so deep
as to decipher
what’s not clear
to this wounded heart
can these walls
really be it
alpha’s omega
will come so soon
the comet this way
comes again
to interview my nature
spread the WLS
purgatory
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
spread the WLS
tally mark
time you’ve stained me long
relentless secretary
how much more to go
spread the WLS
in preparation
time sits on the shelves
next to all the dreams
just an index finger’s length
out of reach
her side of the wall
sustains the portraiture
of her bloodline
his side the world’s articles of hate
never knowing of each other
going about their life
the wall that separates them both
in between the unseen darkness waits for them
patiently there void of light
and when that time marches from its sitting place again
to guide their souls into the other world
the ego skin from them will finally be shed
spread the WLS
to the boy from other poems
if we never fly
if we never dream of life
in other directions
if we never tilt our hats
by Johnny’s tomb
if we never smoke Cuban cigars
and tango with Tom Waits
if we never see each other again
know that you were enough to make me happy
spread the WLS
when she was
stillness has a home among ashes of dead flowers past
old dust only remnants left of her
here in this room of austerity supple cries still cling to the remnants of the time when she was
when her bird died or when her heart got broken to know he had been taken from her in a muddy field cold with rain and damned with fire
madness ensued and she never knew that her name was the last on his longing lips
spread the WLS
front porch community
the brittle bone of my hand no longer carries a force
as a boy it held the strong hand of my father
as a man that same hand carried a weapon of protection
the light in my eyes slips away slowly in salty tears
spread the WLS
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
