a new year began with new decisions set into motion life has become as tasty as it is to bite into a drop of water going along for a cruise Sunday traffic as it should be nicer cars whiz by yet the wind in my hair with tinges from the valley we pass the Fortress of Hollywood’s mysteries pressing forth on the one o one music from your youthhood fits you like a stretched out girdle particularly where the lace is falling off but i say nothing i nod in support of your choices instead my face is made up mostly the eyes my scars and wrinkles the tattoos on my arms they make me feel something the hills and horses grasses and trees stand around me like pall bearers to be i turn my face to the right and my lips kiss the warmth of the sun instantaneously i wonder if i placed my breast in the light would i get that effect of feeling again
Loneliness
Charlie’s cough
Charlie grew weaker
from the old
1940s window pane
i’d hear him
then one dusk
in September nothing
a few days
passed i rummaged
the building’s trash
casually looking for
unexpected art supplies
it seemed Charlie’s
kin tossed out
everything that he
possessed and of
no advancement for
them pedigreed relatives
yet in my
quest for treasure
troves i found
from Ohio an
old Glessco bottle
slurs of lunatics
at night is when i like to see
all those things that mean to me
the most and yet are so simple
at night is when i like to feel
through those little childish trinkets
the force of the world’s throat
speaking to me
at night is when i like to think
that those ideas imparted through pictures
teach me to be me
at night i sense the echoes
that bounce from my own glass ceilings
suspended by wildflower buttons
and the slurs of lunatics
at night i taste the salt of tears
erupting from the memories
of how i came to be
the keeper of these silly little trappings
and the birds
i built a castle for you
made from fantasy bricks
crystal pink and jubilant
some of the windows
just framed by stories and things
not of any worth
the walls my twiggy arms
at times scuffed and bent
but strong
when the winters came
the foundation
a mere pond thawing
no life just murk
so i gave you pillars
adjusted from my short legs
lifting you from your knees
as you held tight
to the roses and wine glass
in your hands
and the birds
i could never get them to sing
for you Mutter
my throat unable
to find its stolen words
lunch hour prose
right here in this moment on a cold Monday for LA midday sun peeks in and out although this morning he ran from his wife Moon and she stared him down because he rose late hungover from radiation
today on a gray Monday and the City of Angels we watch each other we don’t see but we watch i look past your shoulder you look past the whole of me eyes glazed over it seems briefcase knuckles curled on the handle white pink shirt slightly crooked walking stumbling in the mind the lunch hour we eat nothing we just stare across the freeway bridge to see the trucks and the cars of the other people who do just as we are doing but they ride on four wheels and to think as we often do not think that there is no connection between us although we are all in the same situation arm in arm in our disconnection
i walk four more blocks and i see the people i used to know
some slowly dying drinking poison others slowly dying puffing away oblivious to the universe
yet others collecting cans washing them out behind buildings stealing water from the dirty pipes
today midday lunch break my shoes dirty my legs cold my eyes blind hands tucked inside pockets that are empty
the whole world is empty yet we drown in debris
we cannot hang our thoughts out to dry those times are long gone
i walk another three blocks where i used to know of a 130 year old home two bedroom large porch she’s gone the only evidence that she ever existed are the orange cones left behind by the demolisher
next week i can bet they will have a high rise up
luxury apartments that no one i know could ever afford
philharmonic
tonight
i will not settle
for chords
electrically or naturally strummed
nor radios or streaming services
i shall not partake
of what you have created
Tesla dear
tonight
i am happy with the cutting of the air
watermelon slicing sounds
of the ceiling fans
or the cricket
dressed in green and brown velvet
chirping at my cat
tonight the city bred howls of coyotes
at 11:43 PM
is what i want to hear
maybe i might decide to cut up pictures and squoosh a paint brush full of podge unto my board
the dowry for the clipping that will marry it before Fall
tonight i want to hear the groans of pleasure and of pain
rise up from sewer pipes and circulate out of the city drain
my curiosity will sustain
an unknown hunger
that causes me to sit
ever so corpse like still
and hear the birds
crackling the dried leaves
of the tree trunk lobby
during their intermission
while attending
their own mourning dove
cooing philharmonic
front porch haiku
night time clouds and skies
crisp breeze California style
tonight look inward
Taino el de abajo
the room is sterile
free from any love germ
only the tiny beasts of whatever
perfect in nature are adored here
in this sterile cold dry room
my gut told me
“She passed.”
referring to the death of an aunt
i hardly knew
i don’t feel grief
not yet
and
as i explained to my-self
some people might never feel it
to mourn loss is difficult
to mourn loss of a loved one is hard
to mourn for and carry a heavy heart for an enemy
is tougher
i don’t feel such loss for the masculine things in life
as i do for the feminine
to have had a physical mother
never to have experienced an emotional mother
or spiritual mother
has been loss
yielding veils of survival
darning lies as i went along
because for this ride
you must be tough
to have had to rip my addiction demons
from me without a cowboy’s hickory stick
to bite on
while all of Murphy’s laws
chose to shred themselves
has left a raw gaping hole
in my crippled soul
yet there is a certain life-long journey
a chipping away of the spirit
the grief polishes
nearly to transparency and vulnerability
that fake shine as seen on t.v.
we can certainly fight
for all our lives
against this erosion
but we will not win
in my age
i can now see
the entirety of who Taino was
what he meant to me
i could not
in my youth
see that deeply yet
*dedicated to Jose Montoya POET
3wordpoetpost
purple moon Hendrix
mid day liquor store
sun ablaze wearing gold dress
i sit on milk crate smoking break
from unemployed day
boys girls tourists from Detroit
camera filters flashes and lens
they think im something
but im really nothing more than
a puffer of rings up the sky
beside two buildings
average thoughts baseball innings
hamburger helper bowls
gas prices and cheap strip shows
when they bore of shiny Hollywood
back to hotels and premeditated meals
my arms crossed behind my head
laying on fire escape
conversing with blue moon’s older sister purple moon Hendrix
words less spoken 