Loneliness

grady’s haiku

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a twisted twig i

am not worthy of your cross

Rabbi gather me

for a wild Irish boy

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tempest in your name

wild love ripples through my soul

tease me rowdy wind

periodic emissions

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i must’ve needed the pain you gave me

it started like a dream knowing always

that it wasn’t meant to be because of odds

i was so very screwed in the head

my compass smashed by consequential hammers of life

you were what i needed then

but you came not to me without your complications

we didn’t make love

i don’t even think i know what that is today

it’s not been explained in anything i ever read

least of all not there when you’d touched me

we fucked like animals and it was explosively good

and i’m not ashamed i have no regrets and i’d do it again

you cautious i free

all of which was good and partly wholesome  

after my fifth reincarnation

i can now admit i was looking to die

you were the perfect trigger

cruel mean handsome strong smart older

and so very wrong for me

i the perfect foil

in the hunt that men love

gullible vulnerable presentable stupid educated young

i have aged since then yet i haven’t grown

i’m a perpetual socially functioning adult

with the soul of the song of the lone barn owl

in the dead of a rainy frosty northern night

as the minutes pass every now and again

they stab me slash me and run away laughing

with the memories of your bristly mouth

alternately between my lips and my breasts

my neck and my legs

your rough skinned hands clasping my wrists

to keep me from jumping

your honey yellow eyes who wept

with me at our miscarriage

and your graying temples

where the kind lies of indiscretions were confined

if i still smoked i’d light up

after some of the dreams i’ve had of you

i miss our chemistry animalistic

sloppy sleepless rough bitter

with the right amount of intensity and ambrosia

i miss your manly scent woodsy of earth like Adam

the reverberation of your voice

on my navel

zenith

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chaos in our blood

sunrise joins our hungry mouths

zen entwines our flesh

at the Cecil

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any road north at this time of the year is cold and wet

       my neighbor said   coughing out gray-white swirled                                 

                                  menthol smoke

            your journey need not be postponed

if you can live here for more than 23 minutes

                    you’re used to the inclement weather

        i squinted up at Jeannie her pin curls once golden

              lighting up the strip joints along

the weary loosed boulevard  were now dull piss

                 yellow and very very sparse

she couldn’t remember that she walked into my room

                 believing she was home

    as Jeannie orchestrated a plan to cross her shriveled

        go-go booted legs    still i sat silent on the floor

    crushing pills to help me think    i was never one to

          bother reading directions 

by the morning when the birds bathe in the puddles of acid rain

             and snails ever so slowly smear their way

to the dying ficus tree       and in a moment of pre-contemplative clarity     i   look up again at my lady

       her crushed velvet baby blue robe   casketed what time separated from the wheat of life

          then wild cat eyes darted    past her   nodded head to look out of     the  screenless  cracked window

             with Tom  rasping something through the radio about      

                          a downtown train

                     and a torn paperback about Lenny Bruce’s life   on the milk crate  shelf

       i couldn’t help to wonder   if we were also waiting for            

                      Beckett’s

                                  immutable  Godot

paging Dr. Burroughs, Dr. Burroughs please…

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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

Aaron

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when our palms met

that balmy Chinatown night

a little lost canary

from the corner pet shop

sang a melancholic cord

switching his little face

from right to left

he looked at me

and flew away

i had fallen in love

the kind of love

that makes you scrutinize

your breath your weight and even your thoughts

the kind where

you leave your beloved

friends pets and dishes

behind just to think about him

the kind of love

that makes you check your phone

fifty times at two in the morning

you know the kind you lose

your soul to in the encasing darkness

and nothing feels the same

distilled death and i churn my spirit

but you danced with me

for a few years

you are no longer Aaron

i am no longer me

i don’t recognize my smile

its erased forever in your cusp

my heart has melted away in your hypocrisy

my common sense buried under your peach tree

and Aaron he no longer lives here

and i don’t recognize

the song of the canary anymore

204 months

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stars

and

peace magic

the Tip O’Neil

years latch key cutie big

eyed wild eurotrash bastard child in the days

of secret punk band shows underage law breaking a menace to the lawns

the paint on my tiny nails chewed down to the stubs scratching like a cat on the urban totem hey ho

no go not tonight the breeze cooled by something in my heart the hocus pocus speaks in tongues the snakes charm themselves to the crowds and through my throat i swallow 10 inch nails

smokey cries old men die but come again tomorrow with light bulbs in their hands of poison from the gods made with resin from the Tree of Life and so we are like them only for a while until the mercenaries come asking for our ransom in the faces who just won’t give a fuck

our communal star doesn’t point to the north but rather to a place that’s nowhere we could have been babies in the manger with the beasts to keep us warm but my momma was no virgin and your old man joe the drunkard rolling stone left to follow an alice cooper homage band i miss the days of after school of which i hardly went and a chance to interpret Shakespeare at our leisure the stars we caught when we swung high are still there and we beneath them

photo mbrazfield

sentimental

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there is something mystic about how you held your cigarette and smiled at me with soothing turquoise eyes and a twinkle in your tone the mere idea of your touch floods me in places that i cant mention while the lilies stand alone in glasses full of wine i still think of you at dawn and how you made me woman through your arms and your voice and your dreams and your thoughts i was every femme fatale sans the silver screen a dress up doll knitted in the silk of your tongue remember your company’s party we were better than the real Rick and Ilsa when did time go by Charlie now the moons have passed and people descend lower into madness and love is threatened by my not finding my place without you my Black Flag to your Rolling Stones my Smiths to your CCR but we both liked Kurt Weill and we both loved making love and greasy fries afterwards longing is hell am i that bad as to have lost you “he’s up in heaven so i’ve got to be good” every now and again i see your pea green fedora staring at me and it says ‘mornin, angel’ with that Indiana twang

coy

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paint

pavement

sacred there

in the pond

on the daily traveled sidewalks

in motion forever being touched with no feeling

i see how beautiful you are comfort for the industrial spawn city child

your orange backs stop my steps from going too far without smiling in the bleakness of the day waving docile fins

your jewel backs charming treasure afterthought of the straggler in the mood of the times scientology across the street while the bed bugs do battle cry by the patisserie of my distant sullied youth

in the pavement my eyes the news of the day beguiles to think that in your face there might be happiness

around you go with the brothers in the dark pool of my mind

i walk against a tide of lukewarm panic

no Buddha’s cloak can hide

the past that

keeps me

forced

inside

Photo m brazfield street stencil artist unknown