skyline in November

when you died four days went by
until the living souls found you
grimace on your face and in the spirit comfort
you are gone sometimes awake at dawn i wonder where you are up in the skyline of the last picture i took
on our first train trip together
poetic in your cries for help you were
you’d cuss us out scream in ignorant hatred
then you’d say “you want a porkchop”
when soul one called it took 3 minutes
i thanked her she thanked me
we hung up wrote your final moments
as an incident report
no more angry calls or wasted lies
no more interrogations with misty eyes
about why the demons at your door don’t show themselves for me
i do remember our trip to Mickey Ds
you wanted cheeseburgers and OJ
we got our order and took our seats
while your eyes fled off in wonder
i did not know it then although sometimes i knew
that the more i pushed you to live
the deeper you fell into the belief
that your troubles would be over
after you visited the other side of that skyline in November

mbrazfield (c) 2022

drowning

mbrazfield (c) 2023

a simple glance across the freeway
is nothing just blindness
i see them feathered creatures flying
full of methane and chewing gum
enough today so i only cried
tragic for us not having
sweet sorrow of missing we won’t know
urchins us all
we walk the music in our head
outspoken messages are
the voices in disturbia drown
flowers are unique grown in farms
across the stars fertile ground
pregnant with disease and poverty
bundled flowers of sun’s tinted roses
blushing hepatitis bud
rabbit holes he said won’t go
i count only numbers for the bosses
you will dole out the splintered crosses
a glance from LA across the bridge
work i need to stay
hold her exhausted hand
offer tissue packs
drying rain
drowning

today was hard

mbrazfield (c) 2023

today was hard
he broke the
fire sprinkler and
a flood washed
three floors down
today was hard
she woke from
elusive slumber with
hot wires slithering
through her brain
convulsions and saliva
at our feet
today was hard
he almost struck
her through the
chest where her
already shattered heart
bleeds beyond belief
today was hard
her poisoned tongue
on point ready
to kill both
of their fragile
egos in one
accusation of deviance
today was hard
there was nothing
resolved so tomorrow
we grow more
tired of this
insufferable calculated demise
today was hard

blackbird

missing from my mind the blackbird looms
hoping to haunt my thoughts
but i’m beyond elusive
you must not take a step i whisper
or i’ll denounce you
expose you to the
wind
missing from my mind the blackbird looms
hoping to haunt my thoughts
and i withdraw my smile from him and send kisses to the gulls instead
the innocents and the vagabonds
and the coroner’s men
know the secret
in
my head
missing from my mind the blackbird looms
hoping to haunt my thoughts
but i’m beyond elusive
my lips pursed
fly up lest you drown
me up
in your desire to comfort
my pain
you want them to cry for me at the
Weingart
missing from my mind the blackbird looms
hoping to haunt my thoughts
and i’ve become so jaded inviting him
in the fire of the midday sun
and the eyes of the gods are away from me
i wish him so long
and happy he
aint
so he flies from me
with a quiet beak
out of my mind i cemented his
cry
and we wake apart in loneliness as such
without the
printed chants
bitter poisoned dreams
the ones where mercy sinks
and i wonder
do we

mbrazfield (c) 2023

poem inspired by Bukowski’s The Bluebird for NaPoWriMo 2023

Grand Central Sunday

hollow cheeks 1 buck a week not numb enough dead to it most the streets don’t cross we all get crushed beneath the guilt too deep to drill the Holy Host where is the Father your sons are lost and ghosts are paraded across a TV desert we’re separated those old those botoxed young buds in springtime I owe starlight inside s narrow tunnel wasteland we lay

that love situation

It was cold for the city today. Cold like the first time your palm touches a beer from a cooler. Tuesday around Pershing. Kicking around cigarette butts I look around hoping I can figure it out. The sky is gun gray so are the prospects of the tent city by the children swings. One lone chubby security guard swipes at his phone. Oblivious.

     Love is the hardest thing to think about. The thought of it is frightening to me. To them who dwell, and hustle love is crystal clear.

     She is there with a pink metal suitcase. The pink pops betwixt the stains of dried blood, chili, and grime. She wears a broken cowboy hat and underneath a matted polyester wig. I’m not sure what to have called the color. Across bent body a poncho, crispy looking like KFC clotted with dirt and hysterical indifference.

     From the banana plants steps out a man thin with skinny fingers and yellowed fingernails which at a closer look were filled with black dirt underneath. An unholy French manicure. As he reached in to hug her his Jamaican flag colored letterman jacket levitated in the wind. Then the rain came down on his worn Oakland A’s baseball cap. He smiled with a meth mouth grin and crust around the corners of his mouth. She placed her broken left hand on his left shoulder. And with her less broken right hand nursed a blunt as she offered it to the OA man as a new mother nurses her baby.

     I drew closer pretending to look past them and secretly taking them in like a hummingbird delights in nectar. He called her Lucretia, and she laughed a raspy sound. She called him Cesar and thanked him for the three dollars last night. He hoped the cough syrup helped her with her chest cold.

     Sitting down on the steps that stare at the jewelry and finger printing fronts across the street on Olive I caught patches of their conversation. Cesar was from Nicaragua. Years of exposure to the richness that is the immigrant community of Pico Union I learned to decipher at least 9 accents and dialects. The raspy lady was from L.A.

     The blunt was crushed on the tip and tucked in the hole of her chest. They sat down on a cardboard and took a long look at the day around them. I could tell he sighed as his lips pursed like an old Indian chief portrait at the natural history museum. As she stood up again with her less broken hand she slicked her hat off her head and took off her wig.

     “My last daddy hit me with a bat,” was her disclosure as she felt the stitched cut on the left side of her head like braille. Cesar shakes his head and reaches up to hold her hand.

     We turn to the west as a swarm of pigeons flap over the playground. The three of us look at each other and smile.

p312

no here no there
no peace no air
just You watching me
revolting soul both knees
weak frail not knowing
but understanding too well
madness only You see
me gone from clay
breath taken given away
slave to this world
pollution no control ugliness
takes its righteous toll
energy in the black
energy in the white
dark horse pale horse
hurry to my jail
rush me through valleys
carry me on the
trails leading to something
unimaginable star nova supreme
last night heard screams
tis was i son

for MP find peace, brother

psychosis

if
only one
word could escape
my brain and dive
unto this page i would
be free from you and the
anguish that you serve across my heavy
chest filled with imaginary demons clawing at the
testaments branded across my heart meant to bind this
tumble weed spirit running across these streets without end of
misery