8.31.2008

quips and social etiquette

There is nothing that gets me down anymore-he says.
I don't really believe you-I say.
Well you should. Because well, its true-He says.
What do you mean? I bus full of kids that you happen to run into and kill all of them wouldn't get you down?- i say
Shut up. Of course it would.- He says
Im a bitch- I say
Yeah, you are- He says.

Hes been kissing this girl downtown, claiming that he doesn't feel any remorse any longer.
My self, the cripple, can't believe it.
I apply lipstick with my good hand, and i don't bother kissing anyone any longer.
He used to kiss me, but i wouldn't compare it to Archaic gods or linen sheets or central park. I wouldn't attempt it.

How are you-he says.
Nothing new- i say.
Good i hope?- He says.
Fine- I say.


I attempt to not squander his lovesick heir with my unearthly sickness.
The world opened up, when i lost my fingers, limbs and its steam.
It was more powerful than drugs or sex.
Suddenly my own memories were no longer mine.

So- this downtown girl- I say.
Shes really good- he says.
Good- I say.
Good kisser?- I say.
Yes. Very- He says.
Good- I say

I re birthed myself, on my own, i don't even own a cat.
I wrote songs and recorded my little voice into my computer.
I read nothing.
I ate nothing.
I just sat, listened and opened my mouth when i wanted to.
I can't say anything glorious came from it.
In fact, i most certainly know that nothing DID come from it.
Just a beautiful computer jam packed with one woman's coping method.

i like this- he says.
I realize- i say

he is gripping my good hand in his.
my hand is sweating.
The late august wind had the slightest hint of autumn, my pace slowed to an awkward dull.
In my mouth, chewing on my bubble mint gum.
My throat stings from talking, because i have been talking too much in a very long time.
My mono syllabic responses cough up the backed up flem in my esophagus.
I no longer smoke, but i did that day.

My bad hand is wrapped in a bandage, it is like a sculpture, erupted into bubbling skin, and twisted flesh and bones.
He doesn't acknowledge im sick, or deformed.
I don't either.

Stop!- i say.
Are you okay?- he says.
Yes, i need a cigarette- i say.
I'll buy you some- he says.
Really?!- I say.
Yes, do you still smoke camel lights?- He says
No, i say. I smoke whatever you're smoking- I say.
Oh i don't anymore, ms. downtown doesn't like kissing me when i do.- He says.
oh- i say- camel lights are fine- I say.

In a matter of seconds i get a pack of cigarettes, and tell him to open it for me.
Its in my lips lit, fresh and deadly.
In my virgin lungs again, i feel like my old self again and suddenly my memories are mine again.
He walks past me to through away the plastic off the cigarette pack.
His back looks the same, like when i used to kiss him, and when we'd lie in bed pretending
what we had just done was far more astounding than it was.
I remember the child i took care off after school in college, that is now fourteen.
Anton, he had corn silk hair, he liked Jacques Cousteau.
We made up songs and we went to the movies together.
These two moments, relinked from the dark organ tissue lost from a month of pity.

I open my mouth, and nothing comes out but smoke.

A hurricane is gonna hit New Orleans- He says
I just read it in the New York Times- He says
Right there- He says

I open my mouth, spread my lips and tongue to attempt audible sound.

Shame it is- He says.
Awful news- he says.


i remember the dim lights of parties.
And the one man i loved to kiss at parties.
I remember the books i read.
Whitman, walden, camus.
I remember the incense at college i would burn when i was depressed or high.
I remember the dress of gingham i would wear on dates.

it is- I say
it really is- I say.

I wrap myself in my shawl and begin to cry in my head. a deep cry. inaudible, reverberating in my skull.
deep belly sounds only slightly shaking the tissue of my brain.
The cry transfers down my throat out my nose.
floating down my nostrils, dripping onto my upper lips.
He wipes it for me.
i show him my hand.
we don't kiss.
but i sleep easy that night.

8.26.2008

Lemme Show You A Couple Of Tricks

You say it's your first time around these parts?
Well welcome in, buddy, let me show you around.
I'll say hello and high five your belly
Send that putty-stomach operating
     with delight.
Once you see these sights
The truthfulness of All Time
Will make your cranium shake,
Send your brain syrup squirting around
To a thoughtful funk rhythm.
     This is it.
Don't show me that side of your life,
I don't wanna see shadow on that jaw,
     wisps of foam on your upper lip,
      eyes glossed over with a
         thin mist of soul.
I'll hit you hard on the back
And you'll fly-
Landing straight & tall in a 
          cosmic inn
Then you can order up all the...adoration you need,
Suck it all up
With one Hungry proboscis.

8.19.2008

The swallows have come back.

Its isn't fair I scream to Guadelupe.
She is easy on the eye- i think.
She gives me options of destruction- cocaine-a hammer-a clogged artery.
I take the cocaine.
But stow it away in the bottom of my stomach hoping the green balloon doesn't pop in the lining of tissue inside me.
And then I met you, had a fit of it all trying to cheat Guadelupe's request.
i read Cotazar, ate pudding, smoked opium, went to paris, kissed women.
The women i kissed you took pictures of naked in college.
Claudia was pretty and had thick legs.
Guadelupe found me in a bordello you left me in, she told me to pop the balloon myself.
But i stabbed her and insisted that I loved you umblasphemously. She writhed in pain as blood cascaded down her leg like a nick when you shave. I thought she was a sissy.
And i ran away. And didn't stay to take pictures of you with the cross dressing prostitue we decided to hideaway with in the Bordello. They would have been nice pictures. Blue, red, negative images of eachother.
I took your old Jesus and Mary Chain albums on the plane back with me. I also took your gray coat.
I will send it back to you before winter comes.
Gabrielle sent me his worn out horn in the mail this morning. I guess thats a sign. Its quiet beatup for someone heavenly and all, pathched up with sap and spit and chewn up gum wads: chipped to reveal the brass bits under its gold paint.



I got this blood and hair crusted all on my ear, I was cutting my hair with kitchen shears .
It’s boy hair now, boy hair for a long droopy neck and a bloody ear.

You could wrap the world in cellophane we wouldn’t miss a thing.


----Have you ever felt like those pigeons, the ones who sat on their wings, or the bald ones, or the gimpy ones, have you ever felt like they were trying to say something to you? Their iridescent neck feathers flashing and they look you right in the eye.

I ate pigeon the other night in a Chinese restaurant and that didn’t even occur to me then.








8.14.2008

My Time Away


The fog is stuck on my eyelids, but what a beautiful city it was, I suppose. My ribs hurts with the thought of home, and coming back made me never want to blink again. Change is a strange animal.

8.10.2008

dreamin' on that leather

you know the feeling! i dream about it night and day, about it hugging my sides, whispering tough secrets into my ear if i wear it with a dress and growling hooligan howls into my bones f i wear it with creepy creepers or glittering glamming 70's stripper platforms.

it would lead me to old dives and teach me to dance like a wildcat prowler, hissing and spitting punk lines to a jealous moon.


yes yes yes. yes yes yes. i almost found a perfect one in a seconhand store in either frisco or berkely i dont remember---- it was a bomber, perfectly worn, black, nubbly faux fur on the collar and spangled with zippers. it would have been mine but the armpits were too baggy.i was just short of crestfallen.

8.03.2008

This is for Lali.

A black leather bomber jacket. I ain't no 70's punk, but that item of clothing has permeated my dreams for years. The worn-in leather, soft at the touch, streaks of white appearing where the black has faded. The black rubbed away by countless bodies leaning against rough-edged buildings in the middle of the night. My mouth waters at the thought of it. Countless trips have been made to second hand stores and underground lairs, eyes straining to catch sight of the tough holy grail. Hoping to experience the bright light of discovery and the sweet, sweet, oh so sweet feeling of unadulterated power. It has to be perfect. Has to fit right. To hang on the body with ease, not too tight, not too loose. Just with ease. Loose upon the shoulders, thin and subtle. The item that I could pack away in a cardboard box before it was worn to shreds and unpack decades later, bringing out the jacket and the forgotten memories of sordid nights and sordid people. Memories of driving in a car at night and hearing someone utter the words- "We're on Teenage Blvd., heading straight to nowhere." Coins jangling in the pockets, the pockets that were widened as years of hands were shoved inside. Defiantly. Justly. the zipper hanging on by a thread, rust tainting the edges. Sewing up the skin.

In This Place That I Call Home

My brain is a perennial abode, housing Venus flytraps that snap at the frayed edges of phrases and pictures, clutching onto those buzzing sentiments with two dripping incisors. the makeshift gears that calculate numbers are bound with Red Cross gauze, allowing steam and equations to hiss and mingle and slip through spongy crevices.
Ever since I was little I would view the world with a unique scrupulousness, constructing reasons and stories and plans for whatever was in my peripheral vision-
A woman wearing a butterfly print sweater, holding a beige umbrella in the middle of a bright August day: My mind would become a tilt-a-whirl, rolling around my skull, doing ecstatic somersaults as if my eyes were spoon-feeding it some sort of sweet ambrosia.
A young boy staring forlornly at his plate in the midst of other crackerjack kiddies with hedonistic ideals: Me, firmly understanding his disapproval and wants. My brain, floating in a gelatinous pool, soaking in that knowledge with a relaxed grace.
My mind hosts its own recreational picnics. Doo-wop mantras find their way into the stocked shelves of nothingness, stocked to the brim with flea market junk and upper crust marching orders, jumbling it up even more, so that in the middle of the night I awake with a start and feel the blinds behind my eyes go up and down and up and down.
I don't know whether it's honest or whether it's merely a jaded expansion, displaying white cylindrical light fixtures to "mod it up" like a bad film set. I don't know how it functions. Does it use a sparking electrical outlet or a weather-beaten rodent that keeps the excercise going as long as gouda is suspended in view?
I live in my brain. It's philosophically ancient and nebulous and sometimes the A/C goes out, but it's the troglodyte's dream cavern. An instinctual Kangaroo pouch.

8.02.2008

My mother jitters as she speaks of Texas Women's Death Row. As she contiuously pours the silver liquid in her gold lined shot glass. She pours the fizzy water into the glass and shoots small sips into the warm pink lining of her mouth. She shows me pictures of the womens family she interviewed, the lesbian murders and the aunts with crunchy hair and honest eyes and teeth. A silence hushes the room and she changes the subject.