Cricktopia

tuesday night again
warm like mother’s milk
the night dark is silky
not yet the honey suckle whispers
its too early
but the crickets after the rains riot and march along the seams of the house
into tiny cricket bug speakeasys
i wonder if they have their version of Modest Mouse or the Matrix
my worries and fears anxieties and revolving years
of listening to crickets
a supple madness incubated
under pressure of the glamorous life shared by the ballsy poets
my arms just thoughts
holding tight to the hallucination of life
after work on many day
i envy the crickets and their Cricktopia
i envy the little plastic Oscars who get to go to a real home
some place in Wichita
but as i linger in the backyard of this home
assured that the sign on the side of the hill
can no longer crush me

Mr. Keith Richards

ever since i was a kid i’ve always had a very vivid imagination mostly because i needed to get away i was too little to drive too little to get a job to make money to take the bus so the only place i had was deep inside my mind so time went by my body stretched my brain gathered more wrinkles and my eyes widened and then the shit hit the fan there were some days where the fan just fell off the ceiling there was so much turd on the blades then there were days when the fan was happily located on the ceiling in the hole with the wires that it was supposed to have swirling around and around doing its job with the moths going in and out of the little lamps shaped like butter cups there was no shit then maybe just a minor fart maybe it was me eating sauerkraut straight from the jar ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards and after a while teachers took notice they got all nosey sent me to see the psychologist called my mother called my father ring ring ring no one bothered so they thought i was special they had no idea how special i could be but i was a relatively well-adjusted child growing up in Hollywood and all you’d be surprised just how fucking well-adjusted i was ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards anyway so as a story goes and i forget where it goes cuz there’s just forks all over the place let me see let’s go to the fork with all the drugs and alcohol oh yeah all of them early on hard living on the edge before and after the edges give or take a few centimeters ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards anyway so long story short made long cuz mainly my fan is starting to show up again on this ceiling i’m in love with a man who lives with a clown and a possum but that’s an entirely different story love is a strange thing i remember when i was a teenager love was a Clash song or like Talking Heads or something like that and punk rock was like really romantic and like you know the Rolling Stones you know your band ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards was pretty cool too even though you guys were old even then but that’s not the problem anyway as i was saying my man lives with a clown and a possum no lie i’m not making this up i’m not even on any kind of drugs legal or illegal i’ve been dry for a really long timethis is just my brain my brain on reality what do i do you ask Mr. Keith Richards well i think a lot i like to fancy myself like a famous writer like a real deep thinker like William Burroughs sorry i don’t mean to name drop but Burroughs kicks ass anyway so yeah like i was saying yeah i say a lot cuz i’m like trying to knit my thoughts to have a cohesive conversation ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards anyway i’m not really sure why i’m here in my dream talking to you like you’re supposed to be my shrink right but you’re here i guess because the guy i’m in love with loves your band The Rolling Stones ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards anyway i’ve lived many many many years in downtown Los Angeles and it’s gone through a lot of intersectionality you know but i don’t know man like the ghosts are still there you know the systematically and psychologically disenfranchised the homeless skid row has just like fucking spread out to infinity and our politicians don’t seem to think that it’s a bad problem you know they don’t have to live on top of each other they don’t have to live on donated tents they possibly have not fought in foreign wars and came back to America just to get fucked over you know they’re not culturally marginalized i used all of the ism’s you can find ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards i don’t know how to explain the world anymore i just kind of walk around and around and around and then sometimes i look up at the sky and there’s this huge ass ceiling fan and the blades look like a chopper and they’re like spinning and spinning and spinning and we’re all down here pushing shopping carts and i’m giving them my empties because that’s all i got yes ya follow me Mr. Keith Richards yeah sometimes i feel pretty bad cuz like i have a place to sleep at at night i have people i can call when ifeel like i want to cry and i’m in love with a man who lives with a clown and a possum ya got that Mr. Keith Richards anyway before i rudely interrupted myself i wanted to tell you that living in LA is really starting to bother me she’s drowning my beautiful angel womb where i was born and grew up is drowning in shit i can’t stand it anymore ya dig me Mr. Keith Richards anyway what was i talking about oh yeah i’m in love with a man who lives with a clown and a possum and it’s really hard cuz it’s just the clown and a possum and there’s not much you can do with that all i know is that i’m in love with that man and he likes your band Mr. Keith Richards for your sake i hope that this dream ends really fast cuz i’m starting to bore myself you know i really don’t smoke or drink or use drugs anymore that’s all in the past i think that’s why i got so lucky to fall in love with a man who happens to live with a clown and a possum anyway Mr. Richards i won’t bend your ear anymore i think that my 45 minute session is up i really thank you for letting me wear this really cool bitching ass hat but you see i got places to go i got things to see i got ceiling fans to dust i gotta fart and i’m grateful to you Mr. Keith Richards you crazy old son of a bitch love your music man and i love a man who lives with a clown and a possum

mbrazfield (c) 2020

pilgrimage

silence

wet grass

white skies north

sun

hides behind

giggling watches me

scratching

my bean

looking at flowers

signs

blink silently

breakfast served here

air

breathing again

stops to chat

birds

sing replies

air and birds

me

crosswalk speaks

time to change

look

the wealth

staring at me

life

another day

granted to me

meine patina

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

let me count the ways

pic by mbrazfield (c) 2019

life you have this annoying way of walking by as i’m trying to see a point of view prescribed by a cold and sterile man

take today for instance i’m just whistling by on my way to the corners pungent with wet filth and frothy with human madness

every prophet will eventually go back to her house yet i am neither saint nor prophet but just a sinner looking for faith

here in front of me stands the place where we yes you my soul conscience and mind dwindled childhood away waiting for the unknown without fear bloated with arrogance

aerial was i

twilight is a little jagged

rays of Sun’s arms

tremble as Earth opens his

blue doors to her

the marriage bed set

and i’m growing my wings

to fly in the mocha of the night

he beckons my common senses

and i dive into a certain

constructed abyss

my back it labors

as the vestiges

of alabaster hued flight

carries my sins away

then just as quickly

as the virgin blossoms

my wings disappear

into the waking Sun

her face beaming with hope

and as night and i

we go our different ways

my back rested

city aflame

my life clean slated

soul light as a feather

greatwestern

the hospitals are the same all over i now believe except for the revolving doors everywhere and the river beautiful pigeons and other birds look like they were spit shined and then the river crossed on planks made of steal with tug boat Cadillacs full of salty earth the buildings tall old bones new skin i grin at the sun rays coming at me hard but the old grandfather wind swoops me from the light and in three hours it gets dark and i walk around the park and back to the clinical round of someone who knows nothing of anything beyond the cereal box patients waiting all the time looking tired worn out sucked down pulled up by the soul and sick of heart like the ladies looking out from the Amsterdam house mine eyes search for invisibility and the wolves follow me with teeth and i a fox in sheep’s skin look the other way i don’t want idolatry tonight the French baguette is hard and stale but i get it anyway i want to feel other than myself the urges come like thunder but then all of a sudden it dawns on me that i’m in Illinois and that Abe was a member of the Whig Party tears are salty anywhere we go and why in the fuck isn’t Pluto a planet

sunrise prayer while whistlin’ to Shonen Knife

Lord it’s me

Grady the Rh- monkey

tuesday morning

Chicago scene

eyes are watering

but it’s not the wind

i haven’t talked to You

like i think i should

just want to thank you

again and again

life flashing

on the right side of my brain

the train car rails

are really cool

if i had a stray thought

it’s all because

of the architectural allure

but i’m mouthin’ too much

arigato for all you’ve taken from me

arigato for all you’ve given me

arigato for all those whom i’ve battled

and for those who have kicked my ass

for all the ones i’ve hurt

and the things i’ve thrown away

thank you for the violence

and especially when peace runs through me

thank you for the fight

thank you for the lessons

thank you for this river

and the beggar by the bay

for the nature

and the phantoms in my bed

and thank you for looking down on me

when my demons ring my bell