we both tired and bored
then i’d ask where she was born
somewhere she said
but im not really sure
i want to tell you
she smoked then got up
to get a frozen tamale
from a dirty plate
in the moldy microwave
guilt and sin falling
from her face
like bombed out plaster
he joined the conversation
when she and i silenced
midwifing her and me into
a new set of unasked and unanswered questions
we all three sat there smoking
drinking diet cokes sniffing the air
she rasped i need another drag
the darkness is back i tripped my load was heavy and i trembled the darkness is there behind the curtains in my things in my mind the darkness cool calm and causing a vortex of loathing into my self the darkness i hear you but i’ve got to get up now i don’t want them to know
it’s the little poisons she thought as he spoke about trials foisted upon him as a child by the needs of selfishness and delirious desires of unbridled women his skin pocked with stab wounds stitched up in classic county hospital overworked student staff he groaned in self pity he’d forgotten why he was there in the first place we spoke for 23 minutes more then parted as patient and professional
i miss you
the smirk when you’d teased me
the boyish giggle
the curls on your forehead
i miss your hands
constantly incessantly writing smithing your tales
i miss the weather your shoes and hunters coat
the Italian deli and posing on Kerouac’s road
i miss following you into those portals of City Lights you and i there
when Allen died
i think he became a butterfly
i miss your passions for beauty the people and their pain
i miss Sunday morning sipping coffee at La Boheme thinking of ways to make you love me the way that you loved them
my heart my soul in silent pain it was so much so that i couldn’t see where my place in the world was
i’d like to think it was in all the flowers that you lay your eyes on
for the Parrot
GB lost her friend today
in a family of ten GB lost herself
in a culture where family was amputated from centuries ago then GB lost her crown
GB’s friends have lost their battles yet they hang on like fatal car crash victims who wont recognize the great beyond
GB cried today sobbed is the better word
GB judged herself for not being there when his time had come
i only a specter following her around mute and heavy dragging the chains of frigid bureaucracy
GB lost her head for a moment frozen grief there standing
GB never had what we do but we dont comprehend when GB begins to agonize
GB died again today and wailed betwixt the thunder of the freeway next to us
tomorrow GB will wake up and look for him in her dreams his wheelchair there with a a little box of rolling papers asking her for grits and bacon
im not ready to write that poem about pride i want to hold on to the last withering rainbow tufts of our youth
even as society judged you even as i relied on you as your own life hung over the cliff you gave me love
im not ever going to write about the goddamned rainbow and flags and house music and all of what you were pigeon holed into
i ache for you when i see a live pulse in the inside of my scared split wrist
i feel burning shame as if i could only gut myself out the several times you bought my junk when you needed life extending medicine
no i cant write about the marches and those vigils and political farces when i miss you so much
you were my mother my father my sister my brother my protector my guide you were my life choice accountant my guardian my saint
remember the time i was raped and you found them out and morphed into holy rage for a moment hell closed up while your fists rained down fury upon them we both wept
remember the morning when i knocked on your door and your mother answered with a face wet with Mary’s eye dew
from behind your favorite Japanese screen you called to me wondering if i brought you Thai iced tea
i navigated my shock to see your skin and bones when two weeks ago you wine and dined with joy at the Tenderloin
you said come kiss the queen and as i neared the top of your hand lowering my lips to your cool forehead
i melted next to your neck and received the final tear from your left eye and i knew the rainbow wouldn’t ever light my path again
*for Asa, i miss you so much friend say hello to Freddie for me
and with the flash of lightening my heart stopped the anguish of a thousand needles in my arms the guilt of surviving what others had not came to me in a night of bad dreams
it’s always by the river where there is pain and fear flanked by genuine love created like a diamond is through tons and years of pressure
in the dream its always cold like a movie with a storm showing something deeply wrong earning us that satan comes trotting to destroy us
the thunder speaks in deep cracks shooting through the canyons filled with rage pouring through the vessels of my soul in darkness my pupils open wide gaping for any light but my consciousness goes under
and that white flash slips through the glass again to retrieve me from catatonia’s grace and prick me with memories of all those years wasted by the river’s bed
i write this to myself
because i don’t know about forgiveness
it hurts too much
to still have to bend that far back
in my secret life
i am the hatchet undertaker
bury hatchets under buried bodies Beth and Devereaux say
but for how much longer
life has passed me like birds
silently looking nowhere
only forward
wings rigid
pushing away
from the skies above my head
that bird super highway
and when i can tear my eyes from the smokey heavens
my feet tired as they are like lead can sense the cool soft caressing clover down beneath the holy patch of Earth
regret from my hatchet burial pulley
begs me to take into consideration that some hatchets transform into boomerangs too
wallflower
blush
in
the
beam
of
Venus
eyes
hide
from
an
angry
Sun
the clock in my mind
doesn’t really tick tock
it’s more of a low cruel scalding grind
like a rusty cog from an old Slavic car
i lay on my mattress the linen pulled tight big fluffy pillows to hold in my thoughts
the colors are sanskrit oozing in sunburst lotus in buds
every so often when my body shuts down
the beat of my arteries scats like old Calloway
from a past filled with poisons textured with scars
then the grinding is noticed by a runaway synapse and my eyes they go shut
the cat’s by my footstool and the dog’s by my side
yet it is lonely the spirit is gone
she hides in the closet
where her wings were cut off
diagnosis haven across the bookshelf
eating disorders sadness depression societal crud
the plant upon the dresser silver and wide reminds me of Warhol and incense and wine
then the phone pings and i go rub my eyes
i hear that new song sent from afar
i wonder about mother Hubbard and the Kennedys the story of pauper clowning the kings
so i get up to empty the voids in my throat
i walk to the kitchen and touch a tea pot then i look out the window and think of your mouth the back of your head
do i look for what’s final or do i trudge back to bed
words less spoken 