coping with the pain
of the shame i feel today
hold me in support
Depression
on Hill st.
she knocked over the bottles but made it up the drawer to the mirror on the shelf my tabby is alive
the helicopters rumble through the smoky skies the news vans are ready for the close up the tents the chalks the body bags three hours after the big bang
right behind the liquor bank debris in the alley empty Old English bottles and some candy wrappers big hot Cheetos Big Mac box
i saw some guy take a noisy shit on the corner of King street and wipe it off with the LA times i closed the gray gingham curtains
i’m never really sure when the psych meds will kick in but i don’t care as long as i can hear the Garcia’s next door just in case they get drived by since mother had a stroke and lost control over her boys
i do have all i need i don’t mind the four am sirens at five am i’m still not sleeping looking out my fire escape balcony the LA Rams play tomorrow and Dignity Health wants to cure my everything
magpie in the rain
i never saw a bird in microfiche before
and it crushed me
the sky outside has been clear for days
and i’m blind to it
the people above can see i’m trapped
and they tisk me
i never noticed me in the dispensary window before
and i despise me
the cathedral’s bell keeps clanging on
and it reminds me
the wings of life have withered off me
and i’m falling
my mind it soars just a magpie in the rain
America my bride
my flight parallels the clown’s tribulation what to do serenity
Faye
the skill is to find life in the routine she said i’ve stood at this counter for 30 years pumping the same bottles into the air and nobody cares she said
do you want some advice i could tell you that you’ll age if you don’t cover up your face in these narcotics made in Spain but it’s your body love it any way you want
ya’ see this scar above my perfectly lined brow fell off a tree in 1963 you have a lot of scars all over are you ok or are you one of those foster girls from down the block
i’m sorry listen that was harsh there’s this cream for $49.95 that can help heal those dark circles under your eyes it helped before my divorce hearing when Harry hit me
the freckles on your face and the bleaching out of your hair you really should try this salve from France you’re far too young to have this damage men like long soft chestnut hair like yours
oh my i didn’t see those tattoos i have a concealer for that but you should really get it removed and it’s a shame with your good bones naturally formed you’d be a good model but you’re too short
can you smile yes that’s it i think you could be on the cover of this magazine but you really have to clean up child you look like a dog town mop head skater boy
those nails you’ve chewed them to your shoulders look i have to take a break my boss might give me a raise but i feel that he just might leave his wife for me tomorrow
Grady, don’t tell your mom she’s my best friend and i think she would worry here’s her order and some make up for you we all have the demons jumping out of us and soon the scars of sin we carry in will come up to the surface
evermore
on the last day of Hanukkah 2001 i was hung over from too many filterless Camels and clove cigarettes the night before i couldn’t sleep and i chain smoked i made my way to the cold bland bathroom to wash up the radio was on and i danced as i walked i moved like any skinny slinky Brit androgynous heart throb it boy from the 70’s i thought and felt kinda embarrassed after my ritual i went downstairs to chew the fat with Jonathon O’Mara from the coffee shop in the Tenderloin he wasn’t home so i went for a walk the sun was hot for a San Fran morning back then i was able to ride the bus for a quarter the drivers would mistake me for a high schooler it was easy i always wore boys clothes and black chucks my gay boyfriends always gushed over me as they tried to capture my femininity i loved having gay boyfriends we’d all have fun dance etc and i didn’t have to put out and if they needed an emergency fiancé to introduce to their waspy east coast family members they’d send out the beard signal and i was there we were all excellent fucking actors but behind the good times and the jokes we all lived our lives as prisoners in very painful cells some of the folks in our circle were even handed death sentences through illness or addiction as far as i went i had to fess up to my boys that men’s clothing might keep the rapists away and that when someone had the balls to tell me i was beautiful it would hurt very badly along with a litany of other issues most of my boys would gasp and then weep because they too had been deeply hurt continually for long periods of their life but we were a rowdy bunch we had survived our way and through those unfortunate passages we realized we were all connected and that race gender orientation and any other label didn’t really define us we were very strong and wise human beings with the capacity to love hard and relentlessly as for Jonathon and i woe upon anyone who’d mess with his sweet pea for a portion of my life i was blessed enough to know such a human capacity existed and i can move forward with this evermore
paging Dr. Burroughs, Dr. Burroughs please…
WS i don’t feel that well tonight
the stars are covered in dust and grime
and the corner store doesn’t have the Windex i like
i’ve listen to Thelonius on Bluetooth
and Ravel’s Bolero till the landlady came
to shut me up it wasn’t even that loud
i struggle Billy Bull Baby i see you
in dreams of course with your suits and balding
beautiful head but your brain really turned me on
i’ve been going back and forth for three days whether i should
go to Daikokuya’s for a ramen bowl but i just don’t have the gumption
i think i’m depressed again the tears run like Jesse Owens and i have no interest in making
them stop
W im in head first in the Interzone of my own doing
for hours i sit on the kitchen counter
looking out for the little brown birds who eat the last
pomegranates of the winter and wonder where the
first half part of my life went but i worry more
that i have no specific certainty where my last half is
going
can you read me a bed time story my favorite is “Green Eggs
and Ham”
work by mbrazfield 2001
rumination
although Baker beach rasped with waves swatting at the flat shore my mind was silent thinking of not being able to think shattered shells the broken bones of tiny creatures descendants of primordial royalty from Neptune’s kingdom some pelicans patrolled the bay sky looking for a bite to eat perhaps the hot dogs in the fists of the screeching kids with the loud mother my soul silenced by the wind with his whisper lilting in and out of my hair like a desperate lover i could not think my head was silent the stark white gulls and the gray elongated clouds tacked up randomly against the black sky felt like being in space or an early 80’s video game then as i turned my glance toward the harking sea lions on the jagged rocks frosted over by salty sea foam i thought about Holden Caulfield and this disturbed me the silence then brought on my transgressions in Cinemascope and i wept into the sand
azures
heaviness in me
holds me down against the earth
my eyes while open
are deprived of your beauty
sinews in my brain toughened
hell hounds sucked bones clean
drowning of thirst for freedom
formidably sad
azures of my soul died away
my tear lands in the shot glass
words less spoken 