LA Culture

meine patina

/ mbrazfieldm / 9 Comments
mbrazfield 2019 (c) gouache on paper

Buk it’s 2020

my hero Hanky baby

and i’m still alive

these last few days

i’ve surveyed her face

our whore saint city

don’t fret she loves us still

these last few days

i’ve driven by

the schools i’ve been in

i don’t remember a damned thing

my first day of pre school

i was late

on account my dad had to wait

in the Mobil lines for five hours

hey Buk

do you remember

these last few days

every grade year the same old shit

the Pilgrims the marches the maths the farces

the Nina the Pinta the Santa Maria

Sesame Street Hee Haw Fat Albert and Lawrence Welk

and by the time Ronnie Raygun came around

i was branded diagnosed exposed and pigeonholed

the patina of fine psychobullshitary

casted on my soul

these last few days

intuitively speaking Buk

i don’t feel its right to blame

after all i have a conscience

id ego and a touch of naughtiness too

i don’t want to go down that way

remember the time over on Las Palmas Ave

when i called the principal

the devil’s panty liner

i had more class

than to just call her a knit wit

verbal theatrics have been

my little blue bird

these last few days

my bones hurt more

i linger by the antioxidants

and pay some attention

to the collagen talks

my hair line fractures

from the days of Face

are bald and angry

so i take turmeric supplements

during the day

these last few days

the stains of my sins

are rinsing away

leaving a fall hued patina

glazed on my spirit

these last few days Buk

the beer bottles on the streets

cigarette butts and paper sheets

blowing in the wind

make me feel sentimental

where has most of my life gone

is this what happiness is

to feel the bumps upon my skin

the knuckles of my hands

being cupped by my finger tips

as i walk under the bridge

where the many roads

to numbness took me

these days i swear Buk

i have felt

an orgasmic magnificence

flow through my veins

but there are still

some challenges

a crumb of life

/ mbrazfieldm / 3 Comments

his fedora was camel tan felt with a gray ribbon around the crown he missed a tooth or two skin dolphin blue ashy like the flick of a Cuban cigar he belonged at that piano bar he had always been there an entity but every end of a lifetime he’d take on another body and the fedora man would return to the same old black stool sagging with confessions of past souls bemoaning life and living being a junkie i was on the look out to see if he could be trusted the old man spoke English but our real conversation was on another level we understood each other with our eyes we were all intuition instinct pulse gut feeling we were cons used to the streets i wasn’t stable material i thunk too much he wasn’t to be trusted he assumed too little one day we both happened to be there i told the owner who wore fake diamonds and bee stung eyes i’m just a grad student from Harvard can i stay and scope things out what do you study she asked hoping i might be a doctor her jowls exploded with pride that someone with class and money could be among her crowd yes psychologist i lied i lied oh how i lied old fedora was there wearing a black as night striped suit with shiny shoes the kind they wore in Paris long ago as they ran to catch the frantic trains heading for Lisbon when my mother was a little girl i must have had a wild imagination too many old Hollywood flicks i suppose he was just a dirty old man and i a junkie student just wanting waiting     

thanks, Toots

/ mbrazfieldm / 11 Comments

dear Reina Señora de Los Ángeles

thank you for the myriad places

that sprang forth from your womb

beautiful whore open to all

from east north west south

thank you for your alleys overgrown with trash

and dirty smoky bars that only take cold cash

thank you for the pruned faced

multinational hookers

who tuck until they’re blue

and thanks for Hillel’s guitar

and X and punk rock hungry bands

i love to look at my reflection

in the puddles of the damned

and thank you for letting me slip away

from La Chata and La Sad Girl at Lil Chuy’s wake

thank you for the tacos sushi and McRib

colonics pilates and knock off designer shoes

and the beggar at every freeway exit

who cleans my windshields with his shame

thank you for the Salvadoran Iranian and Korean

who managed to call the fire men

to save the homeless Viet Nam veteran

while the GOP and DNC

squabble over shit

my Queen misguided angels by your feet

thank you for my complexity

for surviving my last fix

i appreciate you looking over me

thank you for the high end malls

fake nails lip fillers fat cell freezers

and my beloved 99 cent stores

the beaches and the valleys

the mountains and the roads

and for all the hardened gutters

you softened for me to sleep in

the soul we are your people

good bad papered or unwrapped

we are all your seeking children

but i’m your only brat

one night on Marengo st.

/ mbrazfieldm / 13 Comments

an emergency room is not an ideal place to sleep while you might not get beat up you might catch the flu or get arrested but sometimes you get to see the city in its an entirety a representative from all walks of life and we all stew in our vulnerability suddenly everyone hurts farts groans wails yells angers saddens and feels life in their gut like a cheese grater or wrecking ball if you’re on the gurney gunshot wound to the back easily a kid or a pregnant woman bleeding bad God’s credibility comes to question why did He allow this but my logic doesn’t go down that pussy route going nowhere i know that God is God with no need for anyone especially not someone the likes of me instead i wonder why that kid wasn’t at home at three in the morning was his mom turning tricks did he have a fight with his father or the bleeding woman with half a baby coming out her Oscar De La Renta ball gown while her husband’s wearing a Rolex what the hell is going on i wonder could i have prevented this how am i connected to these souls did i vote the right way did i pick the correct door my eyes dry out as i weep inside the x-ray room while they rearrange my arm loss is loss i feel inside my own insanity and so with dawn i’m finally gone and greet the sun upon the bridge while the train whistles blow as i turn to my left hoping that nothing else goes wrong for the ones left on the emergency room floor

the functionalism of dandelions

/ mbrazfieldm / 29 Comments

supple eddies of wind

caress and tickle the yellow

little matted heads

and their thin arm stems

shooshes it away

they stand firm rooted in packs

patchy green grass

sprinkled with crinkly caramel leaves

some dandelion families

those of five and six

adopt a stray apple tootsie roll candy wrapper

that found its way from Halloween

a few rebellious dandies flourish

in one and two and they grow up pretty hardy

before being crushed under a running boy’s tennis shoe

i like those that grow up nice and tall

with shiny pea green fuzzy stems

that little Mexican girls harvest on a Sunday

to place on the altar of the Virgin mother

when they end their day in church

then there’s the really rugged ones

with sparsely yellow tufts

they are angry little spiky things

surrounded by the trash cans

punctured by the littering

wrapped in sheets of rust

those end up having to bear the brunt

of needy cats and dogs

looking for a litter box

strip mall haikus

/ mbrazfieldm / 6 Comments

tall telephone pole

over pale distance crows caw

sun rises once more

parking lot safe house

for last night’s oil puddles

aglow in morning

pushcart troubadours

seek out their daily bread place

chow lines slowly move

weeds grow cautiously

in vacant junky yard suite

fast food wrappers scream

an LA woman

/ mbrazfieldm / 16 Comments
Pic by mbrazfield (c) 2019

im no different

i too bleed

i too drink

i too breath

i too think

i too speak

i can wear

a suit and

shiny diamond rings

i can fuck

a woman or

a man if

i want when

i want there

is plenty to

go around in

this town i

can steal beg

borrow die live

catch a disease

have a cock

sewn on or

my pussy stitched

shut i can

love and hate

worship and sin

i get tickets

and big debt

i can write

and wait tables

sell the story

make you cry

or laugh depending

on how i

feel about it

i too can

show passion for

the things that

make society gag

i can figure

things out for

myself and buy

a house and

marry three men

i can walk

the streets alone

very late at

night and see

the children writhing

engulfed in their

pain euphoric to

the all great

equalizer who comes

when she wants

only and claims

those who have

had no time

i can watch

sit back relax

or run scared

out of my

head from the

boogey man or

woman you can

be just as

oppressive baby don’t

tell me no

look in my

eyes my queen

i give you

a description of

your cloudy soul

i can fight

but there are

some things that

i will die

for and won’t

think twice about

it my freedom

my voice and

right to be

me not a

victim or a

trophy i refuse

to be shackled

by diagnosis political

label or join

the sorority of

hypocrisy and vanity

yes i am

a woman free

now i understand

when i got

called rock headed

it served to

break that glass

ceiling and shoot

me to the

infinate frontier of

my own agency

my own democracy

i follow my

drum and i

will share all

with my sisters

but i will

never apologize for

who i am

how i am

what i am

why i love

when i go

where i stand

in this anthem

i proclaim equality

homenaje moribundo

/ mbrazfieldm / 12 Comments

From my bleeding heart

Rain the cries of a bottomless love

In ardor and pain and sweetness from the guava fruits

Destined to wither and die on your ground

Angel of cruel deliciousness

Knocking on the broken door of my memory

As I agonize in the thought of your becoming eyes

Hell does circle me every day and brighter at night

Lady of the circulating endless ecstasy

Only you can allow me to die in peace

Image by mbrazfield (c)

estimada novia de colores

en las garras de la pasión

mírame en los ojos

un color come el mío

te juro no los vas a ver

eres el suspiro de la vida

que nace y muere como la Coatlicue

quiero ser libre en tu prisión

y nunca escapar dulce peregrina señora del altar

de las cosas más sagradas en su naturaleza perversa

píntame con tu arco iris

columnas de nuestros padres

las madres ya no van

y siguen su camino

quiero que hagamos amor

en Saturno

y con uno de sus anillos

hacerte mi esposa

for Chabela’s grave stone

/ mbrazfieldm / Leave a comment

the old path to the

gray green river holding gold

steps of ghosts fade off

mercantile store stands

empty and devoid of blood

by the railroad’s end

youthful eyes smiling

bright pigtails full of petals

soul in pretty dress

from west to east

/ mbrazfieldm / Leave a comment

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