unleash the ancient bones from the sewer sarcophagus what tribe did they come from and is there crude running through the cavities for we need another Dunkin Donuts on this corner for L Ron’s sake can you please scroll faster my children tasted human contact and i don’t have the time send the nanny to my third grader’s botox session i have roast goat yoga what is it the Bhagavad Gita is that the new shoe store at the center can you believe in something the tires of incongruence are filled with the holy toxins crossing the bloodlines of the time while religiously binge ignoring what’s around the glamour shots bus bench adverts warning homelessness is deadly unclear who they speak of and all the while for 17 just 17 i dream of Mulholland Drive on a two wheeled Pegasus can you hear me Jean Michel tell Andy that i love him the side swiper in the ‘vette looking for the boys long in the teeth the industry landlady needs new meat the volcanoes goofed on mick don’t feel duckie if he fails to bring them mini daisies to their oxy chambers pharaohs in their visions but down in the river racing cars on stolen clouds and i have a hardy laugh spray cans looming large can i paint the past pantheons of our minds yes i believe i can drop dropper dropped watch the hands watch the hands don’t look directly in the mirror while you’re under a spell quite the riveter you are i am the walkman helmet Rotten Johnny and Afrika Bambaataa with the Kiedis house band weaving eckankar in my drums while we carve our knees into the side pavements i didn’t know we couldn’t fly nothing takes out the stains of blood
LA Culture
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
the seeds
being a kid with 24/7 latch key clearance life was a wonderment full of things that logically i didn’t get but knew were painful for the human spirits amongst me
i frequented the Cecil more than homeroom at D Starr MS it was like a carnival backstage up close contact with the carnies included it was cool
the sixth floor had Abbey the hooker she was a Mexican-American lady with flan tone skin and perpetual bruises on her arms her pimp was some meth enthusiast with tax problems and a wife who was the daughter of an LAPD cop Abbey shared her Jack in the Box with me sometimes and we’d talk about Belmont HS years in the 60’s the student marches and such i just looked at her while flipping her records with my bony hands self-branded with the Anarchy sign i liked Abbey she never took drugs or drank not that i knew about she was just angry and beaten
in the lobby Mr. Petrucchio sat and read Time Magazine the same one for months on end the one on the Contra Aid scandal he was Sicilian from Corleone he turned me on to The God Father one and two he also shared that the movies were too glamorous i never asked what his first name was he was always Mr. Petrucchio to me it sounded hella cool i liked it when he taught me the dirty words in Siculu like fetuso or puttana or minchia but you kinda have to draw it out he said
i met Amos in the lobby one summer day i was reading the LA Weekly about the night stalker having been caught Amos had an intriguing accent and beautiful ebony slick skin eyes like black olives bright red lipstick and was wearing mermaid cut dress in peacock with crystals on the yellow satin sash i liked his wooden platform shoes he carried them guess he got tired
i must’ve been starring Amos looked and asked who i was i froze he laughed like the Un-Cola nut guy ay Mr. P is this your grand baby Mr. Petrucchio responded by shaking his head no and blowing out pewter smoke from his pipe what’s your name honey never mind what you doing here where yo momma at that’s a cool dress can i touch it Amos’s laugh echoed through the musty lobby shifting the dust sure it’s crushed velvet are you a drag Amos’s laughter roared making the glass at the front entrance rattle i smiled like an idiot
the last bus to east Hollywood pulled up and i left black safety pinned book bag and markered skateboard with a black flag logo returning after a few weeks Abbey was sick i took her a Jumbo Jack and chocolate shake she told me she lost a baby i said oh as i gulped tears back we sat silent in the lobby as she didn’t want to sit in her room anymore we didn’t cry
unlike Joanie and Chachi
the side of your salty neck
was black with my eyeliner
your purple nails tore at my back
while i tried to pull down my pants
you had insisted on wearing your dad’s kilt
to a Circle Jerks recital
and with breathless whispers we gave up
i pulled up and you pulled down
but as a consolation prize
you let me grope your jockey ass
as the first riff of
“I just want some skank” started
Porciuncula
The need for refuge beckons her to sit on the Pacific shore at 3 or 4 in the morning. With an eased mind, images of what the Tongva and Chumash peoples saw 8,000 years ago channel into her inner eye. Were her stars, their stars? Her moon, their moon, her sea, theirs? How many times had Hailey sprayed awe over a most sacred people whose spirit now inhabit museum cellars full of shells on the Wilshire Corridor?
Waves crawl atop of each other grasping at the salty air that dangles. Tired woman feet sink into the parts where the sand is dirty and pasty. An ancient destiny and nothing yet manifests. Tiny moist crabs send little winks of light like fire flies, only for her to see.
Currents swish around tired ankles inviting her to enter as a new lover does; into his soft troubled bed. Being of an unfinished spirit, she thinks of getting lost in the tremendous Pacific. Squinting, Porciuncula strains her eyes looking into the sooty darkness. Nothing but a stray speckled gull bereft of its home. She looks down at her legs wiggling to keep the briny cold at bay. Such is the juxtaposition of her emotions that the imagination’s pictorial bank issues an image of a monk on fire. Admirably grotesque. The siren of an ambulance wailing in the distance captures her attention. Surveying the gritty banks as she gets up to stroll back to the road, her eyes get stuck on a tiny heart shape shell. She smiles secretly. It’s a wink from God.
Like a pre-historic creature crawling from primordial soup, she lumbers toward her road. Such as the Cowboys and Indians, Porciuncula too had weathered many events on this Western shore. As she sniffs the thickness of the brackish kelp in the air, her mind floats to an early age when she learned to shut away thoughts, wrangle impulses and cram words sharply down her throat into the gut.
Porciuncula was born old in the land of the new frontier. Los Angeles. In time, words uttered by a simple child became tiny bell tolls propelling her into a black hole of law, guilt and polite despair. She had to have been born old. How else can one know to sit quietly and listen to the most infinitesimal crackles of salt water on sand as if to hear the soil pray to the sky gods of peoples and triumphs gone by?
