he asked why do you keep her picture there in the drawer swallowing hard i realize that you were my mother more physically beautiful than any woman i’d ever seen no makeup no artificialness in any way i lied and i said oh i don’t know looking out the window at the bus stop i opened the drawer a few more times and there you remained stoic and frozen in your place as he gnawed at the steamy pepperoni pizza hot pocket and scratched his sack he yelled why don’t you put it in a frame and fear broke out in a sweat a slight vertigo took me and i rubbed my head looking for a hit he yelled again and saw what i was jonesing for he says nope not today lets go to the art store instead we dressed in American drag t-shirted leathered and jeaned he held my hand and missed my forehead kissing my aviators instead are you mad he asked i says no and think quickly about the flamingos at the zoo and the empty dark brown bottles of Kilkenny i left in the bus stop trash can two hours ago my feet feeling disconnected from my soul i says no i won’t go and he turns around to see me i can’t keep her in a frame it would be the ultimate betrayal she was Opa’s favorite until she met my Da and ran away with him imprisoned by her vanity and steadfast love for a man of misery determined to be his only queen on the backs of everybody she had to win but death did not agree what are you spewing about never mind i said i can’t keep her in a frame all her life she was held back by her thoughts expectations disappointments and aggressions even her people wandered the deserts and were rounded up in box cars as the evil ripped out their spirit and put them in cages i forgot he said but she’d like a frame she was always a refined lady as he smiled apologetically and the homeless guy with a grateful dead t-shirt on was handed a bologna sandwich by the salvation army guy as we detoured into Figaro’s Bistrot instead
SoCS Prompt
take a stab at it
the way i fall in love
is complicated in its simplicity
love my insides
my outsides are just temporary
my heart and my soul is where it’s at
the warmth of a hand the kiss of a feather
the ride of comet flying through Mars
the thought of a blessing
but you can’t be a coward
if i fall into madness
the turbulence rough
the motivation sunken
in dark hole obsession
you have to sink with me
and hold on to me tight
my spirit will guide us
don’t turn off my light
of course i love diamonds
and rubies and gold
when you gift them to me
so i can feed the ailing
the old and defenseless
flowers are lovely
and i adore all their essence
but to turn me on
shower the assholes the finks
and the bastards with words of
kindness wisdom and laughter
and if i fight don’t come to my rescue
but i won’t begrudge you if you
leave me to rescue an innocent life
human or animal it doesn’t matter
and if you know MacBeth that’s even better
and you mustn’t be angry when i share
my space with Johnny and Dee Dee and Joey and Marky
one last thing you gotta be a great kisser
evermore
on the last day of Hanukkah 2001 i was hung over from too many filterless Camels and clove cigarettes the night before i couldn’t sleep and i chain smoked i made my way to the cold bland bathroom to wash up the radio was on and i danced as i walked i moved like any skinny slinky Brit androgynous heart throb it boy from the 70’s i thought and felt kinda embarrassed after my ritual i went downstairs to chew the fat with Jonathon O’Mara from the coffee shop in the Tenderloin he wasn’t home so i went for a walk the sun was hot for a San Fran morning back then i was able to ride the bus for a quarter the drivers would mistake me for a high schooler it was easy i always wore boys clothes and black chucks my gay boyfriends always gushed over me as they tried to capture my femininity i loved having gay boyfriends we’d all have fun dance etc and i didn’t have to put out and if they needed an emergency fiancé to introduce to their waspy east coast family members they’d send out the beard signal and i was there we were all excellent fucking actors but behind the good times and the jokes we all lived our lives as prisoners in very painful cells some of the folks in our circle were even handed death sentences through illness or addiction as far as i went i had to fess up to my boys that men’s clothing might keep the rapists away and that when someone had the balls to tell me i was beautiful it would hurt very badly along with a litany of other issues most of my boys would gasp and then weep because they too had been deeply hurt continually for long periods of their life but we were a rowdy bunch we had survived our way and through those unfortunate passages we realized we were all connected and that race gender orientation and any other label didn’t really define us we were very strong and wise human beings with the capacity to love hard and relentlessly as for Jonathon and i woe upon anyone who’d mess with his sweet pea for a portion of my life i was blessed enough to know such a human capacity existed and i can move forward with this evermore
just the flu
the magic leaves sanity a sacrifice ill pay for it tomorrow you gotta get some help tidal waves before me the river banks have failed screaming angels in a rage the faces flashing in the night i look for her and i cant find her sweet warm jello fingers pushing buttons to the elevator going up can you smell the gardenias wilting beeping and the blinking of the medical equipment sent tiny shocks of stress directly to the head the only way to soothe myself after a stressful situation was to savor the sensation of my eyes rolling to the back of my third eye it started with strained nerves and jittery eyelids tiny tear drops oozing from the corners and then the dark flowing through pin-hole relief of my private world painted with French carnival colors golds were greens reds that were milky blood pink old ship ropes and Macaque monkeys like the ones in Tangiers i remember while riding on the ambulance that late summer night
Ma Joad’s great grand daughter
mud
coolness
green cricket
calls to the soul
primordial waste
spirit shredded woven
in the skin of the leper
i’ve become night hangs loosely poor
lacking luster my lady shoes not
good enough to walk the sidewalks of the
chosen fools who speed holiness away
my gown humble with the dirt of work
hands clasped in riot darkly hid
elbows turned upright gaping
for fluids of defeat
social sunshine glares
upon my lips
without a
tragic
face
try
mighty
sinner smile
at least look to
the west of Hope street
and the pillars under
the court house of the fake lights
at the steps of public health signs
and with divine encrusted begging
bowl nee five dollar coffee paper cup
we ask again tonight and through the day
for gentle rain across my face gone
away with sorrow full with blown
out stars gazing through the soul
of infant time and sin
seeped through secret holes
in skies hazy
with sanguine
guilty
stain
sibylla horrendas
i want to be the animal who takes you so high that you will explode in gold and silver ecstasy shivers down your knees to the back of your legs as i tickle your hairy lower back while i climb on your stomach let my mane suffocate you while rolling your eyes to the back of your head you can see how the Son of Man was conceived up close and personal i want to be the animal who on her slick wet skin patchouli mango scent you slip as you chase me to the stars through a roof of glitter and lightning i’ve never stood with the virgins but as a great fortune teller the secrets of the deepest crevices of the human soul can be found in the tar pits of my eye i am the animal who for 17 ethereal seconds will hold you hypnotized paralyzed and then simultaneously release you when i fly to the sky where time disappears as we turn into the nothing of everything regenerating a new crop of witnesses heirs to the embers of what that we left behind
rumination
although Baker beach rasped with waves swatting at the flat shore my mind was silent thinking of not being able to think shattered shells the broken bones of tiny creatures descendants of primordial royalty from Neptune’s kingdom some pelicans patrolled the bay sky looking for a bite to eat perhaps the hot dogs in the fists of the screeching kids with the loud mother my soul silenced by the wind with his whisper lilting in and out of my hair like a desperate lover i could not think my head was silent the stark white gulls and the gray elongated clouds tacked up randomly against the black sky felt like being in space or an early 80’s video game then as i turned my glance toward the harking sea lions on the jagged rocks frosted over by salty sea foam i thought about Holden Caulfield and this disturbed me the silence then brought on my transgressions in Cinemascope and i wept into the sand
charm school drop out
it’s very late and the crickets are bedding down in the banana trees for the night and behind the brick walls yes the ones tagged with nonsense the drunkard kings are pissing i’ve been kicked out of many a slummy joint you wouldn’t be the first bouncer to pop that cherry although i give you the fact that i was a little loud when the barkeep wouldn’t take my buck for a bottle of vodka but you understand i’m petite and not of swift feet when i’ve had a few tom collins’ down my gullet ok i get it don’t call my parent’s and that is not my id card but i do resent it when you won’t admit it that i’m the best duker in the bunch and while i have rosy knuckles to prove it let’s not point out last week’s black eye but don’t worry about me by the time i’m in my forties i might have been through a few programs for exceptional drinkers but psychoanalysis has nothing to do with a girl having fun on a Saturday night and by the way can you hold my hair back i feel a wave of chili coming up
fashionably late
slowly the drizzle fell looking up at the amethyst sky i thought of my mother the swallows on the side of the bridge in their mud nests and the Cap out at the People’s Café upsetting as the day was my pencil’s lead broken a scraped knee and a love affair uncontrolled what my blood stream craved was beyond the reach of angels squinting at the stop signs i charged ahead at medium speed fearing that i had missed “A Summer’s Night Dream” the little puckish girl let me in to the crowd of on lookers and she asked for my ticket but it was Falstaff i was looking for
the midnight 57
for all the life left in his bones he strains to light the cigarette the midnight train is running late he rubs his hands together the mouths to feed are growing into free thinking minds washing dishes at the Shrimp Palace doesn’t buy too many books to stave the pain of the morning news about his lung he smiles at the queens wiggling out of Club La India toward El Tauro taco truck for carnitas and debauchery the midnight train arrives and we both climb in he lets me pass and offers the old legless man his chair the man returns the smile as Valerio’s own smile strains against the hopelessness
words less spoken 