ALARMA!

 

You might call me call me an alarmist. You’re right, I am alarmed. I’m ate up with alarm. It’s hard to sleep some nights I’m so Goddamned alarmed. Are you alarmed? Most people who know me think me crazy, or at best “unstable”. They suspect I have “issues”. They’re right. I’m unstable. I have issues. Have you ever seen a child’s face burnt off? Well, I haven’t ether, not actually. But I have seen a few online. I mean, the face gets to looking like silly putty, and the nasal passages are exposed, and the eyes welded shut. Does that shock you that I would say such a thing? That is an issue of mine. I take issue with a child’s face being melted off. What about a dusty street littered with human remains, and mothers searching through them trying to piece together the remains of their 12 year olds? Have you see that? You know, every day men and women go cobbling their children together so they can stuff them into a little coffin. And guess what, you pay for it all. Now that’s an issue, don’t you think? They took our money, and used it to kill little girls. So, yea, I’m alarmed. Now you’re probably thinking: “What’s gotten into this guy?.” But I might be thinking, “What’s gotten into you”? Did you know that more species disappear every day than any time since the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs? They just slip away forever because we need to stuff our guts or build more cities or get rid of our stinking waste. Yea, that alarms me. When you walk past a guy who has pissed in his pants, and he is talking to himself, and he has soars all over his body, does that alarm you. Do you just keep walking and try not to look. Well I’m alarmed, and I keep looking at people in the street, people I pass, trying to connect our mutual feelings of alarm. I suspect that if I’m alarmed others must be too. I can’t be the only one that feels this way! So look in people’s eyes, and I look for the shock and rage and confusion that I know they must feel. I look for the rage and the confusion and the shock that they must feel. I’m always looking and listening for it. I hope you reading this do the same.  Hope that you feel like I do. I’m alarmed, and I’m thinking that if a lot more of us don’t get alarmed, we are all fucked in the end.

Afternoons with Dwain

Afternoons with Dwain

 

Let me tale you about an old man and a little kid. This is not the sort of tale you might expect. Such a tale will never be made into a Lifetime Channel movie. There is no moral to this tale. There is no great lesson for you to learn here. The old mentor will not grow old and die gracefully and the young kid will not learn a great lesson about the beauty and tragedy of life. If you like Opera Book of the month yarns, move on. You might not believe all that I say, and that’s fine. Perhaps some of the details have been shaded by time, and perhaps I take creative license.  I beg your pardon. I am an old man with bad eyes writing in a very dark room.

 

Adam always went to see Dwain on the pretense of playing with his kids, who were a few years younger than himself, but Adam didn’t much like those kids. They were often loudly fighting and fussing, and were hard to get along with. They often wanted Adam to go get food from his house and bring it down the hill, which mad Adam’s mother mad. He always felt a little guilty and disgusted around those little girls. When he walked up to Dwain’s trailer they were always sitting in the dirt or playing in the garbage, looking up at him with their big needy eyes.. Matted hair stuck to their dirty faces. The yard they played in was a riot of broken shit; washing machines in various states of disrepair, cars, dishwashers, big tractor tires that bread swarms of mosquitoes, a pile of plastic trash that was meant to be burnt but never was. The kids played in and among those things like toys.  

 

Once, one of those little girls had been bitten by a rat when she climbed in an old wash machine. When she went to school the next day, the bite was so swollen that she was sent to the hospital by the school nurse. As a result of that, CPS was sent to Dwain’s house. They told him to clean up the yard and the house, and complained to the city. They told him that they would be back to check up on things, and if necessary were prepared to remove the children from the dangerous environment. They had not been back.

 

Adam lived up a hill from Dwain’s dilapidated trailer. One summer day he rode his bike by the house, and the little kids ran up to him and started asking him to ride his bike. He felt sorry that they had no bikes, and being a kind sort he obliged. Adam walked up to the porch to sit down, and let the kids take turns riding. Dwain walked out on the porch and grimaced, smoking.

 

“Take care they don’t break it, those girls can break anything.”

 

Aron looked up. Dwain was wearing no shirt, dirty jeans, and blew gret clouds of smoke. Adam stood. “It’s o.k. I don’t see that there’s much that they can do to that bike. It’s real tuff.

 

Dwain spit, “You’d be surprised. Come into the house and have something to drink”.

 

 

From there they started talking and became friends. Adam would go to see him sometimes, just walking in the house. He would bring little sweets from his house to give the girls. Adam would often find Dwain sitting at the table, drinking, smoking. Downturned eyes. Flies buzzing. The whole house stunk because of the kitchen, vomiting up the stench of the rotting food in the sink.

 

You might be wondering why Adam who was maybe 13, would hang out with such a guy. For one, Adam felt bad that he was so alone, and would go by just because he was bored and he felt he could give Dwain some company. Also, sometimes Dwain would give him beer. Adam instantly liked the way the beer made him felt, from the first drink. He also found that he was interested, and a little scared, at the stories Dwain told.

 

Adam would pull up a chair and sit down, and Dwain would start talking. He was lonely and had no one else so I guess it was natural that he would pour his guts out. He talked almost exclusively about himself, his ex-wife, and the kids. He would trow in what seemed like advice, or lessons some, but Adam mostly forgot all that. He didn’t trust that Dwain had much to offer by way of advice. Adam heard about how he had been a truck driver years ago and was married. He would be gone for long stretches of time away from home and his life did not trust him. He wanted to be home more, but was a convict so his options for work were limited.  She was always nagging at him to get a better job, or make more money.

 

Dwain and his wife got to where almost all they did was fight. He would come home and they would fuck and fight. The kids kept coming but they were not really happy. She wanted him to be in town. She was lonely. Plus raising kids was no easy chore. But he couldn’t find a job in town. Especially in Woodville, the tiny hamlet carved out of the Big Thicket where he lived. There wasn’t much work around. Most folks in town worked at the saw mill, but they would not hire him on account of his record.

 

Well, it got worse and worse. He started smoking speed to keep him up on long hauls. When he came home he was tweeked, strung out, could hardly get it up. So the sex stopped, and she thought he had been fucking lot lizards, so he was worn out. But it was the speed. “The shit clogs up the veins down there”’ he told Adam.

 

During these summer blab sessions the kids would run in and out of the trailer, and they screamed and fought and always wanted something. Adam came to feel bad for them, and at the same time hate them. Why did they have to be so loud? His feelings for Dwain were similar. Adam felt bad for him, but at the same time, the more he hung out, the more a feeling of (what he would later call) disgust built up. Why didn’t he get another job? Why was he always so unkempt and dirty, why did he only talk about himself? Sometimes Adam would ask about this, why he didn’t (in effect) go one with his life, get a job, and move on. Dwain always had some answer, some excuse, why he couldn’t go back to work. He was receiving disability checks, and his wife sent a little money each month for the kids. He tired to get her to take one of them off his hands but she didn’t want nothing to do with them. “She’s too busy partying and hooking” was his explanation. He had a bad back and the state said he was bipolar and had ADHD. Both parties agreed he couldn’t work. He was too fucked up. His back was too hurt. He was a two-time looser and there were no jobs for him, etc..,

 

 

All that summer Adam would just at the table, ask questions, sit a listen, and drink beer. He liked the smell of the whiskey and cigarettes. Sometimes his oldest daughter would be around. Adam liked her too. She was always dressed skimpily. Even at 13 Adam knew what the status was. Adam always tried to make conversation with her. He often stared at her tits and he knew she knew he was starring at her tits but didn’t care. She would go swimming with her friends at the creek and wear the most outrageous bikinis’ (so it seemed to Adam).  He didn’t care what she knew. He wanted to touch her badly. He would just stare and stare. Once he asked if he could go with her and her friends swimming. She pinched his cheek and said he was just a little boy, and couldn’t hang out with them.

 

Dwain would always complain that she was like her mother. He would complain; “Girls only dress like that for one reason” he said, “and it ant because its hot. You see these little hoochies in that shit in the winter time. They want to get boys. That’s the long and the short of it, and If she gets pregnant she is on her own! She better get married to a man who can support her if she knows what’s good for her.” She had a lot of friends and boyfriends and it seemed to Adam she was never home. But he liked it when she came swinging into the house and always hoped she would. She was sassy and pretty and had a lot of energy. Adam liked that alot.

 

After a few years of driving the truck, Adam felt he had to make more money. The kids kept coming and so did the bills. His wife was getting more adamant that he “man up” and make more to support his family. So he started moving speed across state lines. This was risky business because it was a Federal crime. To make a long torturous short he got caught and did 8 years in the pen. His wife left him the day he got out and dumped him with the girls.

 

Every time Adam went to see him the conclusion of his drunken monolougs were about the same; “Life’s been so hard ever since. I can’t get a good job with my background and the money my ex sends is not enough.”

 

Towards the end of the summer Adam’s mom caught him drunk and knew where he was getting the beer. She forbid him going to “play” with Dwain’s girls. He went to high school in the Fall and he was excited and busy and forgot about Dwain a little. When he did think of him he had a vague rage and sadness and disgust, all mixed into one. He didn’t like the feeling and so he put him out of his mind. Why was he so ragefull? What had happened to those people? Why were things like that for them. Adam lived in a nice trailer that was clean and had a few nice things. Adam knew his mom would never leave him. He shuddered at the thought. Why didn’t Dwain give those girls a bath, why couldn’t he work? Adam started to hate Dwain, but he felt bad too, like a ball of hate and sadness and disgust all mixed together…Adam decided that something had gone terribly wrong, and that he must know what went wrong, but with all the new experiences of highscool he soon forgot his resolve.

 

Adam had almost put the experience out of his mind when he came home at the end of one spring day to find that the street down the hill was full of cops and Ambulances. He ran down the hill to see all the cops standing around. He asked the cops what happened and the cop told him Dwain had went to the hospital. It was the last trip Dwain ever took.

 

He asked where the girls were and the cops told him they were ok. “But where are they” he persisted”?

 

The cop looked down with annoyance. He had dark glasses on so you couldn’t see his eyes. “They are at a good place for kids, now get out of here.”

 

He stood there hating everyone around him, the cops, the ambulance, the dirty shitty trailer, everything. He couldn’t stand to see his mother or father. He felt like screaming WHAT’S WRONG?! But he didn’t. He ran off into a spot in the woods he sometimes went to, and sat and thought and thought about what could have been so wrong. Why? Why? Why? Spun around and around in his mind until deep in the night.

 

On watching Butterflies Queen dub

On watching Butterflies

Bold queen,
why so shy?
On a lily light,
To let me spy
Red and orange, 
Wraped in gold
Still your wings,
Let me behold
Those smooth leaves.
Open wide
Little queen,
Why should you hide?

Royal blooded
How you flit
Calm your heart
Come and sit
Ill only look
I have no net
Little queen, why not rest?

Revision Dub for Summer

Revision Dub  for Summer

summer

collects in the gutters
gets tangled in fur of wild cats
drops on the backs of lady bugs slides
off her perfect spotted smoothness
she unhinges her wings for me

summer
is honey-suckle thick
an ovulation of magnolia
the earth is SO good

I’m looking for the transfer

On Watching Butterflies

Be still

Stretch your wings

let me mind you there

why so shy

What particular tools nature employs

What color and light

What exact dimensions

 

Little butterfly

Built for repose

Let me pay you some attention
Be still

Let me look

me and pa-bitch

On weekends, the Harris County holding tank is pretty-much standing room only. It varies of course, depending on the population count, but it’s usually packed. The holding tank is where they take you when you first get to jail to get booked, fingerprinted, and all the rest. It’s where you wait to be moved back into general population.

  One guy in the tank named Pavitch kept demanding to see a lawyer or a judge, or be let out. The cops started calling him Pabitch because he kept pushing the button by the little speaker, asking when he could expect to see the judge. I could tell by the conversation that he had been there for longer than the law allowed. The bosses are not supposed to keep you in holding more than 42 hours, because conditions are so crowded and dirty, but it is not uncommon to be there much longer. Cons basically sleep on top of each other, on a dirty cold concrete floor, so after a few days’ guys tend to get irate. They start asking to see a lawyer and all the rest. But the cops just blow them off and move them back to population whenever they get ready.  After a few days cons start taking it out on each other, fighting and bitching, like when you put dogs in cage and bang on the cage.

For whatever, reason Pavitch (unlike a dog) figured he’d try and buck the system, and was furious about being in such shitty conditions for so long. Perhaps he was expecting better treatment in the U.S.A. He kept screaming that he had papers and was a legal citizen and needed to go to population, and see his lawyer, or be let out. I’d heard of guys without papers, mostly migrant workers, hung up in the tank for weeks. They don’t ever see a lawyer unless the family can raise the money to buy one.

So the bosses started calling him “Pa-Bitch”. He kept ringing the buzzer demanding he see a lawyer or go back to population or whatever, and they kept mocking him and telling him to shut the fuck up. This went on and on and the other cons were getting tired of hearing him complain about it. I took up for him and told them that they would be doing the same thing if they were smart. I spoke loud so I thought the bosses would hear:

“You dumb fuckers, I bet if we all started raising shit we’d be back in population by now laying in our warm bunks, instead of this shit hole, why don’t you get off his ass and let’s join him. We should all demand to see a judge within 72 hours, be booked in, and be taken to population. If we all constantly complained about it maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Some of the guys were making eye contact with me and shaking their head. I guess the bosses figured they’d better take care of it before it got out of hand. So one opened the door with a clank:

“Pa-Bitch come on, you too Adam, you’re going to population, you’ll see the judge on Monday, promise, just calm down before the AACP shows up”.

Before cons go back to population they have to shower, get de-loused and dress out in county orange. Usually they take cons back in groups, but Pavitch and I were the only ones to go back. Once you got back in the little shower room they make you get naked to spray you with bug dope. It sends a chill down your spine because they keep it real cold. Usually after you get sprayed they turn on the steaming hot showers so it’s not too bad.

So we went through the motions; undressed and stood on the cold tile floor to wait for the boss to come in with the tank of bug dope. We just stood there naked under the blowing cold air-condition, for what seemed like an hour. We were both shivering when the boss came in. To my surprise and horror it was a lady cop, which I’d never seen before and I thought against the law. I was shivering and shaking and I put my hands over my dick. She smirked;

“Come on now boys, don’t be shy, we have to make sure we get all the crabs off too”.

She went over to Pavitch and started running a gloved hand through his hair.

“Look at all these nasty lice, filthy fucker, you guys don’t know how to bath I guess where you come from”.

She started spraying the bug dope all in his hair and face. He close his eyes and put his hands over his mouth, she moved the wand to his dick

“You nasty little bastard, let’s make sure to get all the crabs off that little dick of yours.”

She walked over to me and slapped my face.

“Big man huh, you gonna’ start a big revolution huh”

She sprayed me in the face.

“Now get in the shower and wash this shit off before it gives you cancer.”

We stepped in the shower but the hot water would not come on, only the cold. We hesitated and tried to turn the hot knob

“Come on you little bitches, wash it off before it burns your skin”

I knew that the longer you leave the bug dope on you, it started to tingle, then burn. So I stepped into the cold water. It was freezing cold. Pavitch and I shivered under its assault. The boss lady threw towels on the floor and told us to dry and dress, and that we would see a lawyer on Monday.

In population guys asked us about what happened. We told them they took us back early because we were making noise. I didn’t want to tell them I got punked out by that bitch boss lady, then guys would try and punk me. I just told them we did what we needed to do to get moved back to population. I remembered seeing those pictures of those dudes in that prison, those dudes from the war. I guess we should thank God we live in the U.S.A.

Poem

Kids got ideas for light, that’s good

But I figure Charon

Don’t take that currency

 

I got ideas too

But I also got coin

 

For the passage among the shades

And forms of shades

On that stinking far shore

Lamb of Moloch (Third Dub)

Lamb of Moloch (Third Dub)

It had been raining for five days but the work went on, continually. Day and night. Two shifts 12 hours each. It was called a “shut down”. That’s when a big petroleum processing plant shuts down completely for maintenance and repair. Some years ago the plant had burned. It had sat inoperative for over a year. The longer the plant is off- line the more money is lost. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. So the bosses push to get it done. Everybody works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.

A petroleum plant is a mass of gauges, pipes, heaters, coolers, valves, and dials. They are arranged into distinct knots of metal twisting stories high, called stacks. Each stack performs a different task in the refining process. They are festooned in flood lights. The stacks are linked by pipes and tubes. Scaffolding surrounds the towers during a repair. The scaffolding is the only way for workers to climb into the mess. It formed an outer shell around a core of tangled pipes, like a skeleton around guts.

In the rain the stacks were surrounded by giant sheets of plastic, hung from wires and tied off to the scaffolding. The wind was so high the rain still blew in. The sheets caught the wind like sails, and ripped, blowing in moisture. They popped and whistled. Everything in the stack was dripping wet. Guys had to climb up the “racks” or scaffolding--into the great tangle of pipes to do the work. In the rain and dark this was a terrible work. They were often nearly soaked before they even got to the place in the pipes they had to work. Lights shined harsh florescent light from the ground or scaffold into the metal entrails, but in the middle it didn’t help. Inside the stack small lights were hung at various points, but it was still too dark. Shadows hid everything because everything was a tangle of pipe. It was squirming through the entrails of a robot monster. Shadows and harsh florescent orange light bathed everything. Some guy shad a light on their hard hat, but it just made the shadows thicker.

The guys wore harnesses and lanyards. They hooked their lanyards to the racks and climbed up. They called it “tying off”. But it was hard maneuvering through the tangle, because the lines tended to get hooked on gauges and pipes. One could get tied up very easily. And dragging a lanyard behind you, unhooking and hooking it to the rack as you went, was slow going at any rate. So guys often “flew” up. They climbed up and into the rack without tying off because it was quicker and easier. There were safety guys who were supposed to watch everything, but they often looked the other way when guys flew because the job had to get done for anyone—including them—to get paid, and time was money.

Most of the guys that worked on shut downs, especially the hard ones were x-cons. The nastier the work, and the longer the hours, the more ex-cons were on the job, this was an objective rule. This job was especially nasty. It consisted largely of removing smut and ash from the pipes. The refinery had burned a few years back. It had gotten so hot that the metal itself burnt. The pipes that were still usable had to be cleaned. To do this, the workers used a chemical they called “snake piss”, . It was a type of industrial solvent that melted the goo off the pipes, but also melted the thick rubber gloves guys wore to protect themselves from it. It burned like hell once it got on your hands. Each guy carried a bottle of a chemical that neutralized the burn. The foremen  and bosses called it MK, which stood Bennotol Karitine. The bosses knew that rats exposed to the vapors tended to develop cancer. When the factory had been a closed shop, the union had tired to force the bosses to disclose this to the workers, and make it to where they could only work with it 3 hours out of an 8 hour shift. Now, there were no unions workers left at teh plant.

 

Most of the workers had shaved heads and tattoos. The tattoos that made it obvious where they had been, and who they cliqued with, to anyone with an eye to see. It was absolutely the best job most ex-cons could get. It paid 18 an hour for an apprentice, plus time and a half. When they all showed up at starting time they were loaded into a bus at the gate and the buss drove back to the stacks. They called the buss the “Grey Bird”, same as they do in prison. They also cliqued up about the same as they would in prison, mostly along racial lines. There was some mixing, but not too much, and always with an eye to who was the dominant man in the relationship. Guys always jostled for position in the little hierarchies that were constantly being erected and challenged. The worst thing to be called was a bitch, or a fag. Once a guy started calling you gay, you knew you were being challenged.

As in prison one was either a shark or a fish. Also, as in prison there was a constant threat of violence. Fights often broke out but were quickly stopped. Confrontation was usually over petty grievances, and tended to be settled just as quick.

Adam considered it all slave mentality. He didn’t much talk to any of the guys. He kept to him-self. He had a plan. The plan was to make enough money to pay for a few semesters of school and quit as soon as he could. Most of the guys left him alone. He seemed to them not very sociable, or scared, or both. He was no threat and stayed out of the little rivalries so he was not given much mind one way or the other. When he did talk to the other workers he bitched about working conditions. Sometimes they seemed responsive, sometimes they just replied that they were glad to have a job, and to not let the foreman hear them talking that uppity shit.

the crew leader got word that Adam should be fired pretty soon. He kept sending him to get MK because it was one of the nastiest jobs, and the most dangerous because it involved a lot of climbing up and down the stacks, and handling the toxic solvent. There was a large tank of the stuff on the ground near the stack. Adam would have to climb down with a five gallon bucket, fill it up by siphoning the BK from the tank, and tie the bucket to a line that was brought up to the top. If the bucket got hung up it was his job to un-lodge it.

At the bottom a guy was standing watching Adam climb down. He yelled up.

“Why you let him do you like that AD?. Tell him to send someone else”.

Adam took off his helmet and wiped his fore head on his sleeve.

“Fuck em, I’m gonna quit at the end of the week anyhow, I made enough to go back to school. This job is easy because every time I come down I rest. They don’t say much if I take my time.”

“AD listen, it’s all about respect you got to let guys know they can’t fuck with you like that. You shouldn’t have to come down every time. Its considered bitch work, you should be panting by now. You’re a painter by trade ant you.”?

“Respect!?” Adam looked at him with amusement. “I get paid the same weather I’m hauling piss or painting. I don’t care what that chicken shit crew leader thinks of me. He gets paid as much as we do, they choose another one each night. They do that to make some guys think they are better than the rest. But truth is they ant no better than dog shit, just like the rest of us is treated like dog shit. l If you guys were smarter you’d demand to lay out while its rain. Nobody should have to work in the damn pouring rain, but instead your too busy knocking dicks like you was in jail. Ya’ll should get it together and stop givein each other such a hard time. You should learn how to give the bosses a hard time instead”.

“I’m gonna be a boss sometime soon. That’s why you gotta get the good jobs not the shit jobs. It shows you can move up, take on more responsibility. One day i'll be management”.

Adam laughed. “It’s all the same. All jobs are the same out here if you are working in the stacks. You get paid the same and the conditions are the same and the hours are the same and the risks are the same. IF you’re not sitting your fat ass in the office then you’re out here with the rest of us dogs, and if you’re out here it’s all the same. I can promise you that you won’t be sitting in an office any time soon.”

Adam tied off the bucket and started back up the stack. Half way up he got tangled up in his line. He could barely move enough to un-hook him-self. It was hard to see. The easiest thing to do was just un-hook, free himself from the tangle of lanyard, and tie off again. It was hard to move but much easier not being tied up to a scaffold. He went to unhook himself. Just as he did his foot slipped. There was a large open spot just behind him. He fell into the hole backwards. His hard hat came off as he fell and he hit his head on a pipe. The lanyard lines trailed up as he fell bumping against the pipes, like impotent wings.

The guy below watched blankly as he fell, with eyes much like those of cattle.

Adam’s broken body stretched across a gauge near the bottom of the stack, head dripping blood. The blood fell on the pipes, writhed down the steel entrails, and dripped slowly down and puddle on the concrete.

The lights smoked as the rain pelted them. The blood was absorbed into the concrete. The only sound was that of the rain hitting the guts of the machine, that breathed a sigh of pleasure in the rain.

Turkey on White

 

Turkey on White

 

Bob and his brother were truck drivers, so they were not home much. They lived with their mom, Bob’s girlfriend, and Bob’s son. The latter we called Weird Al because he had very curly hair that he let grow long. We thought that was funny because no one else did it. We also thought he was just sort of weird. He also had very thick glasses. We used to buy pot from Weird Al..................

 

One thanksgiving after all the Turkey was eaten and all that, me and David got together and called Wired Al so we could buy some pot. He told us to come over. When we got there, he invited us into his house, which he never did before. The air was suffocatingly thick with weed and cigarette smoke. We were introduced to everyone; Bob, his brother Tom, Sara their mother (Weird Al’s Grandma) and Amber Bob’s GF. Dave and I took a seat on the couch after a round of handshakes and Al brought us beers. The whole family sat stoned watching the Dallas Cowboys and passed around multiple joints. I gathered from the conversation that Bob had just gotten home a few hours ago from a long run. Between puffs on the joint he was eating a triple layer sandwich with processed Turkey cold-cuts, processed cheese slices, white onions, and lots of mayonnaise. The mayonnaise kept squishing out the back of the sandwich and dripping down his forearm. His gums were bleeding, which left the bitten part outline with deep red. He was talking about how glad he was to be off the road:.........................

 

“Don’t get me wrong I’m glad to have a job, but it’s damn nice to be home. Home sweet home!. (Chomp). Boy this here is one damn good Turkey Sandwich. Damn good. I guess we should have said grace first. Well, I was too damn hungry to pray. (Chomp, Chomp). Why don’t we all go around the room and say what we are thankful for. I know what I’m thankful for, a fine woman, a job, a good truck, and by God the Cowboys are wining!  I’m fucking thankful glad I live in America, where a man is free to work and eat good food, like this here Turkey Sandwich, which I can enjoy any time. Plenty of Turkey Sandwiches and Hellman’s mayo in the U.S.A .”..............................

 

The sandwich was by now a thin slice of white pasty bread stained red with his gum blood. Below him on the paper plate was a large glop of mayo. He leaned to pass me the joint which I thankfully took. God bless the U.S.A. I thought.

test

test test test

High Plains My love

Stretches into the sky

A terrible dryness on her lips, but still Harbors so many of god’s children Waits breathless for the snow That will melt on her belly And seep into secret caverns So her children don’t thirst My Love Is torn by men With steel in dirty fat peasant hands With dead eyes and guns and fences they bind her The poor, crawling on top of her Sucking My love Will be redeemed On that day.

High Plains My love Stretches into the sky A terrible dryness on her lips, but still Harbors so many of god’s children Waits breathless for the snow That will melt on her belly And seep into secret caverns So her children don’t thirst My Love Is torn by men With steel in dirty fat peasant hands With dead eyes and guns and fences they bind her The poor, crawling on top of her Sucking My love Will be redeemed On that day.

test

test test test

Variation on a theme in Polyhurt

Variation on a theme in Polyhurt dig into the wet earth to grasp the roots of things lie prostrate belly pushed against the loam sit motionless under the bowl of turning stars these things too, are passing the desert sage and bison antiques the bald elm and the Jerusalem thorn the robs of Christ and the rolled dice passing, these things too and what did you think, young dreamer that your heart was made of stone not likely, not likey it is a murder of paper tigers instead a blessing of unicorns

When you die

When we die, what? What will we show god our IZOD, garbage, mortgage cultural capital happy little picket fence degrees, self obsessed narcissistic striving for that lie that old tired lie "self" fulfillment what will we show her God As she laughs a terrible howl of tornados and hail storms As she throws back her star studded locks and unfurls her eye lashes God As she opens the book of days and marks by our insignificant little life's name A “0” And lets us on as before, moslty un-noticed even by god, who could really care less, down, into a glum hades, among the shades, us too, as always, A shade, a blown ash, forever

Love Poem 243,432,569…..

Love Poem 243,432,569…..

Of course I’m an animal, so are you.
This accounts for us

Fighting like cats
Fucking like bunnies
Grooming each other like monkeys
(Me) licking like an affectionate dog
Cooing like mourning doves
Screeching like owls
Laughing like hyenas
Cuddling like hamsters

As we slept
As do all creatures
Great and small

Love poem 122,345,879,398,964...........

Love poem 122,345,879,398,964...........

Of course the night pushes past me trailing
Her dark blue gown, studded dimonds
over and over and over

Of course the night’s sharpened obsidian heart
Dissected me alive
over and over and over

Of course the night is its own mother,
giving birth to her-self
Over and over and over

And I am an old man with
Little left to say

Of course I am in love with you
Because you stay soft forever

Because you stay young forever

Because you dance naked in front of the fireplace
forever

Because the tip of your nose and ears blush in the heat forever and i
Wind down like the stars’ great clockwork
But you, my love, and the night
Cover me

this is not a poem

This is not a poem

All that shit you sweat
All that shit you play so close
All that shit you run after run after run after
All that shit you dream to cop
Its all burning, like your body

All that shit you jock
All that shit you covet
All that, its all burning, like your body,
Falling, falling, falling, to dust
Like everything you hold dear

All that shit you need
Need it so deep down it hurts
So that you give your life to it
It’s all burning, like your body, falling, falling, falling

You tell me, what is life for
Where have we been, what have we done,
Name something good you did, between struggling for garbage
Struggling for garbage, all of it burning like all of us
Burning

You don’t need any of the things
You think are so damn important
And they end up owning you.

Litmus Test (Cleaned up 1)

Litmus test.

Dylan was the strangest red neck I had ever met. He wasn’t really a red neck, he was just poor, white, and lived in the country, outside Woodville. I used tota go over there quite a bit and get drunk with him. His wife and kids were gone, and he was on disability on account of falling off a stack at the paper mill, so he had alota lot ofta time to just drink and do whatever.

And he did have a lot. He had all sorts of hobby’shobbies. He made weird stuff out ofa car parts and discarded mechanical shit. I guess you could call it art, but it moved too. His weird contraptions didn’t do anything, I mean nothing practical, they just sort of turned gears and pulleys and belched smoke or popped or some blew air horns like on a train, all sorts of crazy shittuff. Most people in town thought he was nuts. Well, I guess he sort ofa was. But I’d rather be that kind of nuts, than the kind of nuts those dumb fuckers at school and church seemed likemore than half the time.

I felt like I could talk to Dylan about stuff I would never tell my grandparents, who I lived with. I mean we could talk about sex and girls and getting fucked up, and the sort of stuff I wanted to do with my self later in life, and what college was like, and how fucked up religion seemeds, and some politics, and all that. He was a smart guy and read a lot, and I liked to hear his opinions whichopinions, which seemed far removed from most what I had heard from most folks about this kind of stuff. He had lots of books and he wouldoften let me take them home. I’d read them and then we’d talk about them.

One book, called The Dirty One was full of sex stuff, most of it between dudes. Well, I was pretty shocked at first, but after reading it for a bit, and getting past my initial uneasiness I felt sort of turned on by it. Well, actually I’m lying, I felt reallyREAL turned on, and I won’t tell you what it led me to do, but I will tell you I felt ashamed and sort of sick and confused after I did it. I tried not to think about it and when I did I felt scarred.

So I brought the book back to him after only a few days. I just put it back on his shelf so he didn’t see. A few days later we were drinking beer and he asked me how did I liked it, and ifdid I had read it through to the end. And I told him I didn’t have time for it, so just brought it back. Then he started talking about the stories in it, real frankly, real openly, and I got uncomfortable but I was surprised by how open he was. Well, I asked him what he thought about gay people. I had never considered the question I guess, well, that is until I read that book. Everybody always talks about it like it’s such a terrible thing and it’s the worst thing and all that, so I just sort of accepted that, and that’s why I felt so terrible about doing what I did after readingto that book. But before that day, I never much paid it any attention to gays.

Daryl just said that they had the right to do whatever, and that it wasn’t anyone’s no bodys business if they did, and that life was too short to miss out on fucking with whoever you like. He also said that lots of the people who are really pissed off about people being gay, the ones who make a big deal out of it at school or church or on the TV and all, they might want to be a little gay them selfvess. He said that lots of people are a little gay.

I said, “How are you a little gay, but not all the way gay?”

He took a long drink of beer, lit a cigarette, and paused.

I said, “Well?”

Daryl looked over at me and said, “Wwell this is what I think, but I might be wrong. The difference between being bi, or part gay, and all the way gay, is if you like just guys and not girls. But if you do like guys, you still might not want to go all the way. I mean you know , do all the things they talked about in that book. If that’s the case case, Youyou might want to do some of them, but not all of them. And anyway, you might be in love with another man and want to do it sort of for him, but not really. Some people say you got to like to be fucked in the ass. I can’t imagine anyone liking that much. Talk about pain! Goddamn, feels like your being split in two, can’t hardly stand it…..”it…”He stopped in mid in dead sentence.

“So how do you know if you’rer gay, I mean how? Are you saying gay guys
are the only ones who go all the way?”

He took another drink, and looked up at the cellingceiling, “Hhell I don’t know, well anyway it don’t matter, people is people, and gay, not gay, part gay, whatever, it don’t matter. It’s all just names. And poplepeople of both sexes can be beautiful to look at and fun to be with. But I’ll tell you anyway, seems to me if you want to know if your all gay or not, I mean if you ever question it, try getting fucked in the ass, then you’ll know, Jesusueeeeezus, now that’s dedication.”

I decided to leave it at that.

Return to it

It will be soon now
Soon now
We will return to it

do you remember your dream
can you remember being
suspended in the salty sea,
weightless and perfect
like a willow or swallow
or bush or thrush
can you remember being perfect like grass

or have they beat it out of you
the pureness of things, of your heart
like a delicate bloom, like a newborn sparrow
all downy softness and new growth
all pink rose and budding and warm thick blood

have they dried us to a shiver
that’s their job

what did we do today
the only day of this life
go through the motions
our fingertips cracked

It's ok
It will be soon now
It is almost here