yours a cool blue glance that burns cold in the midst of my heart
yours a hot clutch tight around my fevered mind
yours the sound of angry thunder sticking at the door of my vulnerability
yours a distance beyond comprehensibility that weighs on my caving chest like 19 billion suns
yours a bitterness spilled across a bleeding tongue
around here we radiate from the inside
we laugh because crying would mean shedding and giving out
with laughter we bring breath in
around here the afterwinter doesn’t fully unfold
yet the night and day in mid summer dreams can be very cold and far away
a never ending road of rocks and thistle
around here we build and tear down when it becomes necessary
in essence we always build
around here time does not matter and the Constitution is a gamble
There was nothing unusual about the morning for seven minutes. Then the news came.
A winter suicide.
In South Central Los Angeles it was still nothing unusual. The mentally ill with a history of homelessness, drug use and unconventional survival skill die all the time.
We were going to meet to work on goals and stuff. Her new life.
By the simplicity of her allowing me to journey with her, no doubt my life would be changed a little yet again.
Not on the surface, but on the inside. In the marrow of my recollections.
Her life and my emotions were like the sugar in the sorry cotton candy machine. Fluffy and sweet disintegrating under her tears. They speak and share; inform me, keep me employed and then I feed the stats into the county machine and do it all again five days a week.
This one was shocking in a painful way like when you’re kicked in the ribs, but you can’t scream or your face will be kicked in next.
Then anger and resentment set in against the factions of claimants of caring and the keepers of those who matter.
Why did she only matter to me? I, a nobody as designated by said keepers.
Let us not scrape it under the crusty superficial bloody red carpets of the city. I grew up here too. I recall a running record of events. I recall the angles and twists of stories.
Driving through streets filled with junky dreams and the parallels of pathology and human conscience. Crypto gods hoard discarded lives outdoors to make room for the lives whose pockets they can pick within their trap doors.
Later I figured I couldn’t be mad at any higher power we’ve sunk so low I wouldn’t know where to go.
It appears that in the city the affluent are the only ones building up taking over God’s once very holy real estate.
In the night alone in my place thinking about her life and our collective deaths. I refuse to believe the asses or the elephants, the foxes or the talking heads from studios named after pretentious consonants.
Instead, in dreams awake I face the moonless sky. Light a candle with her in mind and believe the truth of the life in her humanity.
I don’t smoke anymore. I don’t pay attention anymore. I don’t do much anymore. Anymore matters not to anyone. It’s been about two weeks. There is a foggy dream pricking at my waking reality. There is a politeness as to not give away who I am, and who we are, and what we are not made of. Orion’s Belt has lost another Queen Sister. Look up, see? The castle shines less than it did about fourteen days ago.
Sitting next to me, he, young and professional talked to you about developing a plan for hope. Sitting next to me, your cracked yellowed fingers, stiff like frankincense resin, shuffled through your last official systematic memoir, but he and I didn’t know. Did you know? Or did you know you couldn’t go on? Your blue framed reading glasses made of plastic were spotty and needed a scrub. Your skin ashy and hair matted into a bun, those fingers searching for that someone who told you that you were fine so that we could tell you too
We met on St. Valentine’s, you tried with all of your might on St. Habet-Deus and laid yourself to rest on St. Alvaro’s soiree. Yet, when the old timer hard core practicing apostles hailed St. Polycarp, I stood looking at the west atop the building’s nest with my back to your door sealed by the authorities of science and service.
so
the
dark
came
rapid
stinging
in
a
flash
gone
but
you
took
my
name
for a long time
here in our home
we as tired brethren
squeezed unto these walls
the sky loosing grip
bowed heads so often seen
yet the city knows
our pain
post war America
with my morning coffee
bomb my soul
with bad news
bust economy
we sing the blues
through Alexa
post war America
which one is that
i against i
freedom of curiosity
5G napalmed
no longer exists
the smorgasbord of Adam’s tree
a swipe away from a child’s magic machine
post war America
infiltrated in my dreams
meander through my streets
come witness your children be
her eyes golden filled
look at it its burning bright
sun on her windows
during the times of kings and crooked priests when land was worked with skinned hands and God was kept from most fat wives were prized possessions throughout the times borders planes punk tunes politics wars of worlds and lipstick trends tea cup dogs and reality shows churches of every persuasion color and flavor fat wives are now abandoned dethroned and berated yet among the kings and dukes earls and car owners big boned brides and fruits from loins each pound of flesh was a gold brick in their safe now strewn across my street and the streets of the city fat humans lethally lethargic forced to eat poisoned industrial concoctions trash and starches because the bottom of the begging cup has nothing more than the guilt coin of the popular collective unconsciousness
i’ve seen multiple coroners tents these few weeks white tiny like a fortune teller’s but there are no chances no predictions no suspicions just finality i’ve not felt myself murder being televised 5G capitalized on death’s dealings my smile and gentle nature up on stage demands the talent and strength of an opera singer the gall of most world viewed presidents laying down or standing still mind woodchips all of my plans palms to the sky warm sun light reminds me that there is a God i’ve seen the death of my father dressed in blue he brought down by what he held up all of his life i’ve seen the death of my mother and the sting of unfamiliarity that divided us i alien child no umbilical cord on my feet walking slightly off smell of medicinal debauchery from last night peppers the air snippets sensationalized wishing shards of words empty whirling eddies of promise obscure delicacy is what i want when i want to be alone middle age was always middle age at any point in time imbibed in the yolks of many situations took on the foil as well as the queen as well as the beggar as well as a fiend feeding rats in the alley in the middle of the day with words that mean nothing but carry weight just the same i’ve seen too many coroners tents bottom line no one gives a fuck is the appropriate cause of death on the only certificate some of us will get privilege tells me to take some time trim my cherry tree smell the air inventory what i have and be grateful count the finches outside fighting on the bush that has a doctor and expensive fertilizer i want to tear my hair out at times rage knock over bureaucratic tables like Christ in Jerusalem
words less spoken 