I.

One night at the Troubadour I spotted this extraordinary girl.

So I asked who she was.

‘A professional,’

That was my introduction that on a scale of one to ten

there were women who were fifteens—beautiful, bright, witty, and

oh, by the way, they worked.

Once I became aware,

I saw these women everywhere.

And I came to learn that most of them were connected to Alex



II.

She had a printer engrave a calling card

that featured a bird of paradise

borrowed from a Tiffany silver pattern

and,
under it,

Alex’s Aviary,

Beautiful and Exotic birds.



A few were women you’d see lunching at Le Dôme:

pampered arm pieces with expensive tastes

and a hint of a delicious but remote sexuality.

Many more were fresh-faced, athletic, tanned, freckled

the quintessential California girl

That you’d take for sorority queens or future BMW owners.





III.

The mechanism of Alex’s sudden notoriety is byzantine,

as these things always are.

One of her girls took up with a rotter,

the couple had a fight,

he went to the police,

the police had an undercover detective visit

(who just happened to be an attractive woman)

and ask to work for her,

she all but embraced her

—and by April of 1988 the district attorney had enough evidence

to charge her with two counts of pandering

and one of pimping.

For Alex, who is fifty-six

and has a heart condition and diabetes,

the stakes may be high.

A conviction carries the guarantee of incarceration.

For the forces of law and order,

the stakes may be higher.

Alex has let it be known that she will subpoena

every cop she’s ever met to testify at her trial.

And the revelations this might produce

—perhaps that Alex compromised policemen

by making girls available to them,

—perhaps that Alex had a deal with the police to provide information

in exchange for their blind eye to her activities

—could be hugely embarrassing to the police and the district attorney.

For Alex’s socially correct clients and friends,

for the socially correct wives of her clients and friends

and for a handful of movie and television executives

who have no idea they are dating or

married to former Alex girls,

the stakes are highest of all.



IV.

Alex’s black book is said to be a catalogue of
Le Tout Los Angeles.

In her head are the ****** secrets

of many of the city’s most important men,

to say nothing of visiting businessmen and Arab princes.

If she decides to warble,

either at her trial or in a book,

her song will shatter more than glass.





V.

A decade ago, I went to lunch at Ma Maison,

There were supposed to have been ten people there,

but only four came.

One of them was a short woman

who called me a few days later and invited me to lunch.

When I arrived, the table was set for two.

I didn’t know who Alex was or what she did,

but she knew the important facts of my situation:

I was getting divorced from a very wealthy man

and doing the legal work myself

to avail lawyers who wanted to get a big settlement for me.


Occasionally, she said, I get a call for a tall, dark-haired,

slender, flat-chested woman

—and I don’t have any.

It wouldn’t be a frequent thing.

There’d be weekends away, sometimes in Palm Springs,

sometimes in Europe.

The men will be elegant,

you’ll have your own room

—there would be no outward signs of impropriety.

And you’d get $10,000 to $20,000 for a weekend.





VI.

The tall, slender, flat-chested brunette

didn’t think it was right for her.

Alex handed her a business card

and suggested that she think about it.

To her surprise, she did

—for an entire week.

This was 1978, and $20,000 then

was like $40,000 now,

I knew it was hooking,

but Alex had never mentioned ***.



Our whole conversation seemed to be about something else.



VII.

I was born in Manila

to a Spanish-Filipina mother and German father,

and when I was twelve

a Japanese soldier came into our house

with his bayonet pointed at us,

ready to do us in.

He locked us in and set the house on fire.

I haven’t been scared by much since that.



My mother always struck me as goofy,

so I jumped on a bus and ran away,

I got off in Oakland,

saw a help-wanted sign on a parish house,

and went in.

I got $200 a month for taking care of four priests.

I spent all the money on pastries for the parish house.

But I didn’t care.

It felt safe.

And the priests sparked my interest in the domestic arts

—in linen, in crystal.



A new priest arrived.

He was unpleasant,

so on a vacation in Los Angeles I took a pedestrian job,

still a teenager,

married a scientist.

We separated eight years later,

he took our two sons to another state

threatened to keep them if I didn’t agree to a divorce.

Keep them I said and hung up.

It’s not that I don’t have a maternal instinct

—though I don’t,

I just hate to be manipulated.



My second husband,

an alcoholic,

had Frank Sinatra blue eyes, and possibly

—I never knew for sure—

had a big career in the underworld

as a contract killer.

Years before we got serious,

he was going out with a famous L.A. ******,

She and her friends were so elegant

that I started spending time with them in beauty salons.

They were so fancy,

so smart

—and they knew incredible people,

like the millionaire who sat in his suite all day

just writing $5,000 checks to girls.



VIII.

I was a florist.

We got to talking.

She was a madam from England

who wanted to sell her book and go home.

I bought it for $5,000.

My husband thought it was cute.

Now you’re getting your feet wet.

Three months later,

he died.

After eleven years of marriage,

just like that.

And of the names in the book

it turned out

that half of the men were also dead.

When I began the men were old and the women were ugly.



IX.

It was like a lunch party you or I would give,

Great food Alex had cooked herself.

Major giggles with old pals.

And then,

instead of chocolate After Eight,

she served three women After Three



This man has seen a bit of life

beyond Los Angeles,

so I asked him how Alex’s stable

compared with that of Madam Claude,

the legendary Parisian procuress.

Oh, these aren’t at all like Claude’s girls,

A Claude girl was perfectly dressed and multilingual

—you could take her to the opera

and she’d understand it.





He told me that when she was 40

she looked at herself in the mirror

and said

Disgusting.

People over 40

should not have ***.

But She Was Clear That She Never Liked It

even when she was young.

Besides, she saw all the street business

go to the tall,

beautiful girls.

She thought that she never had a chance

competing against them.

Instead,

she would take their money by managing them.





X.

Going to a ****** was not looked down upon then.

It was before the pill;

Girls weren’t giving it away.

Claude specialized in

failed models and actresses,

ones who just missed the cut.

But just because they failed

in those impossible professions

didn’t mean they weren’t beautiful,

fabulous.



Like Avis

in those days,

those girls tried harder.

Her place was off the Champs,

just above a branch of the Rothschild bank, where I had an account.

Once I met her,

I was constantly making withdrawals and heading upstairs.





XI.

We took the lift

and Claude greeted us at the door.

My impression was that of the director

of an haute couture house,

very subdued,

beige and gray, very little makeup.

She took us into a lounge and made us drinks,

Whiskey,

Cognac.

There was no maid.

We made small talk for 15 minutes.

How was the weekend?

What’s the weather like in Deauville?

Then she made the segue. ‘I understand you’d like to see some jeunes filles?’

She always used ‘jeunes filles.’

This was Claude’s polite way of saying 18 to 25.

She left and soon returned

with two very tall

jeunes filles,

One was blonde.

This is Eva from Austria.

She’s here studying painting.

And a brunette,

very different,

but also very fine.

This is Claudia from Germany.

She’s a dancer.

She took the girls back into the apartment and returned by herself.

I gave my English guest first choice.

He picked the blonde.

And wasn’t disappointed.

Each bedroom had its own bidet.

There was some nice

polite conversation, and then



It was slightly formal,

but it was high-quality.

He paid Claude

200 francs,

not to the girls

In 1965, 200 francs was about $40.

Pretty girls on Rue Saint-Denis

could be had for 40 francs

so you can see the premium.

Still, it wasn’t out of reach for mere mortals.

You didn’t have to be J. Paul Getty.





XII.

A lot of them

were models at

Christian Dior

or other couture houses.

She liked Scandinavians.

That was the look then

—cold, tall, perfect.

It was cheap for the quality.

They all used her.

The best people wanted

the best women.

Elementary supply and demand.



XIII.

She had a camp number tattooed on her wrist. I saw it.

She showed it to me and Rubi.

She was proud she had survived.

We talked about the camp for hours.

It was even more fascinating than the girls.



She was Jewish

I’m certain of that.

She was horrified at the Jewish collaborators

at the camp who herded

their fellow Jews

into the gas chambers.

That was the greatest betrayal in her life.



XIV.

She was this sad,

lonely little woman.

Later, Patrick told me who she was.

I was bowled over.

It was like meeting Al Capone.

I met two of the girls

who worked for her.

One was what you would expect

Tall

Blonde

Model.

But the other looked like a Rat

Then one night

she came out

all dressed up,

I didn’t even recognize her.

She was even better than the first girl.

Claude liked to transform women like that.

That was her art.

It was very odd,

my cousin told me.

There was not much furniture

and an awful lot of telephones.

“Allô oui,”



XV.

I had so many lunches

with Claude at Ma Maison

She was vicious.

One day,

Margaux Hemingway,

at the height of her beauty, walked by.

Une bonne

—the French for maid

was how Claude cut her dead.

She reduced

the entire world

to rich men wanting *** and

poor women wanting money.

She’d love to page through Vogue and see someone

and say,

When I met her

she was called

Marlene

and she had a hideous nose

and now she’s a princess.

Or she’d see someone and say

Let’s see if she kisses me or not.

It was like

I made her,

and I can destroy her.

She was obsessed

with “fixing” people

—with Saint Laurent clothes,

with Cartier watches,

with Winston jewels,

with Vuitton luggage,

with plastic surgeons.



XVI.

Her prison number was

888

which was good luck in China

but not in California.

‘Ocho ocho ocho,’ she liked to repeat

Even in jail, she was always working,

always recruiting stunning women.

She had a beautiful Mexican cellmate

and gave her Robert Evans’s number

as the first person she should call

when she was released.



XVII.

Never have *** on the first date.



XVIII.

There will always be prostitution,

The prostitution of misery.

And the prostitution of bourgeois luxury.

They will both go on forever.



“Allô oui,”



It was so exciting to hear a millionaire

or a head of state ask,

in a little boy’s voice,

for the one thing

that only you could provide

It's not how beautiful you are, it's how you relate

--it's mostly dialogue.



She was tiny, blond, perfectly coiffed and Chanel-clad.

The French Woman: The Arab Prince, the Japanese Diplomat, the Greek Tycoon, the C.I.A. Bureau Chief — She Possessed Them All!



XIX.

She was like a slave driver in the American South

Once she took a *******,

the makeover put the girl in debt,

because Claude paid all the bills to

Dior,

Vuitton,

to the hairdressers,

to the doctors,

and the girls had to work to pay them off.

It was ****** indentured servitude.



My Swans.



It reached the point

where if you walked into a room

in London

or Rome

as much as Paris

because the girls were transportable,

and saw a girl who was

better-dressed,

better-looking,

and more distinguished than the others

you presumed

it was a girl from Claude.

It was, without doubt,

the finest *** operation ever run in the history of mankind.



**.

The girl had to be

exactly what was needed

so I had to teach her everything she didn’t know.

I played a little the role of Pygmalion.

There were basic things that absolutely had to be done.

It consisted

at the start

of the physical aspect

“surgical intervention”

to give this way of being

that was different from other girls.

Often they had to be transformed

into dream creatures

because at the start

they were not at all



Often I had to teach them how to dress.

Often they needed help

to repair

what nature had given them

which was not so beautiful.

At first they had to be tall,

with pretty gestures,

good manners.

I had lots of noses done,

chins,

teeth,

*******.

There was a lot to do.



Eight times out of ten

I had to teach them how to behave in society.

There were official dinners, suppers, weekends,

and they needed to have conversation.

I insisted they learn to speak English,

read

certain books.

I interrogated them on what they read.

It wasn’t easy.

Each time something wasn’t working,

I was obliged to say so.



You were very demanding?

I was ferocious.



It’s difficult

to teach a girl how to walk into Maxim’s

without looking

ill at ease

when they’ve never been there,

to go into an airport,

to go to the Ritz,

or the Crillon

or the Dorchester.

To find yourself

in front of a king,

three princes,

four ministers,

and five ambassadors at an official dinner.

There were the wives of those people!

Day after day

one had to explain,

explain again,

start again.

It took about two years.

There would always be a man

who would then say of her,

‘But she’s absolutely exceptional. What is that girl doing here?’ ”





XXI.

A New York publisher who visited

the Palace Hotel

in Saint Moritz

in the early seventies told me,

I met a whole bunch of them there.

They were lovely.

The johns wanted everyone to know who they were.

I remember it being said

Giovanni’s Madame Claude girl is going to be there.

You asked them where they came from and they all said

Neuilly.

Claude liked girls from good families.

More to the point she had invented their backgrounds.



I have known,

because of what I did,

some exceptional and fascinating men.

I’ve known some exceptional women too,

but that was less interesting

because I made them myself.



Ah, this question of the handbag.

You would be amazed by how much dust accumulates.

Or how often women’s shoe heels are scuffed.





XXII.

She would examine their teeth and finally she would make them undress.



That was a difficult moment

When they arrived they were very shy,

a bit frightened.

At the beginning when I take a look,

it’s a question of seeing if the silhouette

and the gestures are pretty.

Then there was a disagreeable moment.

I said,

I’m sorry about this unpleasantness,

but I have to ask you to get undressed,

because I can’t talk about you unless I see you.

Believe me, I was embarrassed,

just as they were,

but it had to be done,

not out of voyeurism, not at all

—I don’t like les dames horizontales.



It was very funny

because there were always two reactions.

A young girl,

very sure of herself,

very beautiful,

très bien,

would say

Yes,

Get up, and get undressed.

There was nothing to hide, everything was perfect.



There were those who

would start timidly

to take off their dress

and I would say

I knew already.

The rest is not sadism, but nearly.

I knew what I was going to find.

I would say,

Maybe you should take off your bra,

and I knew it wasn’t going to be

beautiful.

Because otherwise she would have taken it off easily.

No problem.

There were damages that could be mended.

There were some ******* that could be redone,

some not

Sometimes it can be deceptive,

you know,

you see a pretty girl,

a pretty face,

all elegant and slim,

well dressed,

and when you see her naked

it is a catastrophe.



I could judge their physical qualities,

I could judge if she was pretty, intelligent, and cultivated,

but I didn’t know how she was in bed.

So I had some boys,

good friends,

who told me exactly.

I would ring them up and say,

There’s a new one.

And afterwards they’d ring back and say,

Not bad,

Could be better, or

Nulle.



Or,

on the contrary,

She’s perfect.

And I would sometimes have to tell the girls

what they didn’t know.

A pleasant assignment?

No.

They paid.



XXIII.

Often at the beginning

they had an ami de coeur

in other words,

oh,

a journalist, a photographer, a type like that,

someone in the cinema,

an actor, not very well known.

As time went by

It became difficult

because they didn’t have a lot of time for him.

The fact of physically changing,

becoming prettier,

changing mentally to live with millionaires,

produced a certain imbalance

between them

and the little boyfriend

who had not evolved

and had stayed in his milieu.

At the end of a certain time

she would say,

I’m so much better than him. Why am I with this boy?

And they would break up by themselves.



Remember,

this was instant elevation.

For most of them it was a dream existence,

provided they liked the ***,

and those that didn’t never lasted long.

A lot of the clients were young,

and didn’t treat them like tarts but like someone from their own class.

They would buy you presents,

take you on trips.



XXIV.

For me, *** was something very accessoire

I think after a certain age

there are certain spectacles one should not give to others

Now I have a penchant for solitude.

Love, it’s a complete destroyer,

It’s impossible,

a horror,

l’angoisse.

It’s the only time in my life I was jealous.

I’m not a jealous person, but I was épouvantable.

He was jealous too.

We broke plates over each other’s heads;

we became jealous about each other’s pasts.

I said one day

It’s finished.

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say:

Break my legs,

give me scarlet fever,

an attack of TB, but never that.

Not that.



XXV.

I called her into my office

Let us not exaggerate,

I sent her away.

She came back looking for employment,

but was fired again, this time for drugs.

She made menacing phone calls.

Then she arrived at the Rue de Boulainvilliers with a gun.

She shot three bullets

I was dressed in the fashion of Courrèges at this moment

He did very padded things.

I had a padded dress with a little jacket on top.

The bullet

—merci, Monsieur Courrèges

—stuck in the padding.

I was thrown forward onto the telephone.

I had one thought which went through my head:

I will die like Kennedy.

I turned round and put my hand up in a reflex.

The second bullet went through my hand.

I have two dead fingers.

It’s most useful for removing bottle tops.

In the corridor I was saved from the third bullet

because she was very tall

and I am quite petite, so it passed over my head.



XXVI.

There were men

who could decapitate,

****, and bomb their rivals

who would be frightened of me.

I would ask them how was the girl,

and they’d say

Not bad

and then

But I’m not complaining.

I was a little sadistic to them sometimes.

Some women have known powerful men because they’re their lover.

But I’ve known them all.

I had them all

here.



She will take many state secrets with her.



XXVI.

I don’t like ugly people

probably because when I was young

I wasn’t beautiful at all.

I was ugly and I suffered for it,

although not to the point of obsession.

Now that I’m an old woman,

I’m not so bad.

And that’s why

I’ve always been surrounded by people

Who

were

beautiful.

And the best way to have beautiful people around me

was to make them.

I made them very pretty.





XXVII.

I wouldn’t call what Alex gives you

‘advice,’

She spares you Nothing.

She makes a list of what she wants done,

and she really gets into it

I mean, she wants you to get your arms waxed.

She gives you names of people who do good facials.

She tells you what to buy at Neiman Marcus.

She’s put off by anything flashy,

and if you don’t dress conservatively, she’s got no problem telling you,

in front of an audience,

You look like a cheap *****!

I used to wear what I wanted when I went out

then change in the car into a frumpy sweater

when I went to give her the money she’d always go,

Oh, you look beautiful!



Marry your boyfriend,

It’s better than going to prison.

When you go out with her,

she’ll buy you a present; she’s incredibly generous that way.

And she’ll always tell you to save money and get out.

It’s frustrating to her when girls call at the end of the month

and say they need rent money.

She wants to see you do well.





We had a schedule, with cards that indicated a client’s name,

what he liked,

the names of the girls he’d seen,

and how long he’d been with them.

And I only hired girls who had another career

—if my clients had a choice between drop-dead-gorgeous

and beautiful-and-interesting,

they’d tend to take beautiful-and-interesting.

These men wanted to talk.

If they spent two hours with a girl,

they usually spent only five or ten minutes in bed.



I get the feeling that in Los Angeles, men are more concerned with looks.



XXVIII.

That was my big idea

Not to expand the book by aggressive marketing

but to make sure that nobody

mistook my girls for run-of-the-mill hookers.

And I kept my roster fresh.

This was not a business where you peddle your ***,

get exploited,

and then are cast off.

I screen clients. I’ve never sent girls to weirdos.

I let the men know:

no violence,

no costumes,

no fudge-packing.

And I talked to my girls. I’d tell them:

Two and a half years and you’re burned out.

Save your money.

This is like a hangar

—you come in, refuel, and take off.

It’s not a vacation, it’s not a goof.

This buys the singing lessons,

the dancing lessons,

the glossies.

This is to help you pay for what your parents couldn’t provide.

It’s an honorable way station—a lot of stars did this.



XXIX.

To say someone was a Claude girl is an honour, not a slur.



Une femme terrible.

She despised men and women alike.

Men were wallets. Women were holes.



By the 80s,

if you were a brunette,

the sky was the limit.

The Saudis

They’d call for half a dozen of Alex’s finest,

ignore them all evening while they

chatted,

ate,

and played cards,

and then, around midnight,

take the women inside for a fast few minutes of ***.



They’d order women up like pizza.



Since my second husband died,

I only met one man who was right for me,

He was a sheikh.

I visited him in Europe

twenty-eight times

in the five years I knew him

and I never slept with him.

He’d say

I think you fly all the way here just to tease me,

but he introduced me

by phone

to all his powerful friends.

When I was in Los Angeles, he called me twice a day.

That’s why I never went out

he would have been disappointed.



***.

Listen to me

This is a woman’s business.

When a woman does it, it’s fun

there’s a giggle in it

when a man’s involved,

he’s ******,

he’s a ****.

He may know how to keep girls in line,

and he may make money,

but he doesn’t know what I do.

I tell guys: You’re getting a nice girl.

She’s young,

She’s pleasant,

She can do things

she can certainly make love.

She’s not a rocket scientist, but she’s everything else.



The world’s richest and most powerful men, the announcer teased.

An income “in the millions,” said the arresting officer.

Pina Colapinto

A petite call girl,

who once slid between the sheets of royalty,

a green-eyed blonde helped the police get the indictment.

They really dolled her up

She looks great.

Never!

What I told her was: ‘Wash that ******.’





XXXI.

Madam Alex died at 7 p.m.

Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,

where she had been in intensive care after recent open heart surgery

We all held her hand when they took her off the life support

This was the passing of a legend.

Because she was the mother superior of prostitution.

She was one of the richest women on earth.

The world came to her.

She never had to leave the house.

She was like Hugh Hefner in that way.


It's like losing a friend

In all the years we played cat and mouse,

she never once tried to corrupt me.

We had a lot of fun.


To those who knew her

she was as constant

as she was colorful

always ready with a good tidbit of gossip

and a gourmet lunch for two.

She entertained, even after her conviction on pandering charges,

from the comfy depths of her blue four-poster bed at her home near Doheny Drive,

surrounded by knickknacks and meowing cats,

which she fed fresh shrimp from blue china plates.



XXXII.

She stole my business,

my books,

my girls,

my guys.

I had a good run.

My creatures.

Make Mommy happy

Oh! He is the most enchanting cat that I have ever known.



She was, how can I say it,

classy.

When she first hired me

she thought I was too young to take her case.

I was 43.

I'm going to give you some gray hairs by the time this is over.

She was right.





XXXIII.

I was fond of Heidi

But she has a streak that is so vindictive.



If there is pure evil, it is Madame Alex.





XXXIV.

I was born and raised in L.A.

My dad was a famous pediatrician.

When he died, they donated a bench to him at the Griffith Park Observatory.



I think that Heidi wanted to try her wings

pretty early,

and I think that she met some people

who sort of took all her potential

and gave it a sharp turn



She knew nothing.

She was like a little parrot who repeated what she was supposed to say.



Alex and I had a very intense relationship;

I was kind of like the daughter she loved and hated,

so she was abusive and loving at the same time.



Look, I know Madam Alex was great at what she did

but it's like this:

What took her years to build,

I built in one.

The high end is the high end,

and no one has a higher end than me.

In this business, no one steals clients.

There's just better service.



XXXV.

You were not allowed to have long hair

You were not allowed to be too pretty

You were not allowed to wear too much makeup or be too glamorous

Because someone would fall in love with you and take you away.

And then she loses the business



XXXVI.

I was pursued because

come on

in our lifetime,

we will never see another girl of my age

who lived the way I did,

who did what I did so quickly,

I made so many enemies.

Some people had been in this line of business

for their whole lives, 30 or 40 years,

and I came in and cornered the market.

Men don't like that.

Women don't like that.

No one liked it.



I had this spiritual awakening watching an Oprah Winfrey video.

I was doing this 500-hour drug class

and one day the teacher showed us this video,

called something like Make It Happen.

Usually in class I would bring a notebook

and write a letter to my brother or my journal,

but all of a sudden this grabbed my attention

and I understood everything she said.

It hit me and it changed me a lot.

It made me feel,

Accept yourself for who you are.

I saw a deeper meaning in it

but who knows, I might have just been getting my period that day!



XXXVII.

Hello, Gina!

You movie star!

Yes you are!

Gina G!

Hello my friend,

Hello my friend,

Hello my movie star,

Ruby! Ruby Boobie!

Braaawk!

Except so many women say,

Come on, Heidi

you gotta do the brothel for us; don't let us down.

It would be kind of fun opening up an exclusive resort,

and I'll make it really nice,

like the Beverly Hills Hotel

It'll feel private; you'll have your own bungalow.

The only problem out here is the climate—it's so brutal.

Charles Manson was captured a half hour from Pahrump.



I said, Joe! What are you doing?

You gotta get, like,

a garter belt and encase it in something

and write,

This belonged to Suzette Whatever,

who entertained the Flying Tigers during World War II.

Get, like, some weird tools and write,

These were the first abortion tools in the brothel,

you know what I mean?

Just make some **** up!

So I came out here to do some research

And then I realized,

What am I doing?

I'm Heidi Fleiss. I don't need anyone.

I can do this.

When I was doing my research, in three months

I saw land go from 30 thousand an acre

to 50 thousand an acre,

and then it was going for 70K!

It's urban sprawl

—we're only one hour from Las Vegas.

Out here the casinos are only going to get bigger,

prostitution is legal, it's only getting better.





XXXVIII.

The truth is

deep down inside,

I just can't do business with him

He's the type of guy who buys Cup o' Noodles soup for three cents

and makes his hookers buy it back from him for $5.

It's not my style at all.

Who wants to be 75 and facing federal charges?

It was different at my age when I

at least...come on, I lived really well.

I was 22,

25 at the time?

It was fun then, but now I wouldn't want

to deal with all that *******

—the girls and blah blah blah.

But the money was really good.



I would've told someone they were out of their ******* mind

if they'd said in five years I'd be living with all these animals like this.

It's hard-core; how I live;

It's totally a nonfunctional atmosphere for me

It's hard to get anything done because

It’s so time-consuming.

I feel like they're good luck though....

I do feel that if I ever get rid of them,

I will be jinxed and cursed the rest of my life

and nothing I do will ever work again.



Guys kind of are a hindrance to me

Certainly I have no problem getting laid or anything.

But a man is not a priority in my life.

I mean, it's crazy, but I really have fun with my parrots.



XXXIX.

I started a babysitting circle when I wasn't much older than 9

And soon all the parents in the neighborhood

wanted me to watch over their children.

Even then I had an innate business sense.

I started farming out my friends

to meet the demand.

My mother showered me with love and my father,

a pediatrician,

would ask me at the dinner table,

What did you learn today?

I ran my neighborhood.

I just pick up a hustle really easily,

I was a waitress and I met an older guy who looked like Santa Claus.



Alex was a 5' 3" bald-headed Filipina

in a transparent muu muu.

We hit it off.

I didn't know at the time that I was there to pay off the guy's gambling debt.

It's in and out,

over and out.

Do you think some big-time producer

or actor is going to go to the clubs and hustle?



Columbia Pictures executive says:

I haven’t done anything that should cause any concern.

Jeez, it's like the Nixon enemies list.

I hope I'm on it.

If I'm not, it means I must not be big enough

for people to gossip about me.



That's right ladies and gentlemen.

I am an alleged madam and that is a $25 *****!

If you live out here,

you've got to hate people.

You've got to be pretty antisocial

How you gonna come out here with only 86 people?

That's Fred.

He's digging to China.

You look good.

Yeah, you too.

It's coming along here.

Yeah, it is.

I wanted to buy that lot there, but I guess it's gone?

That's mine, man! That's all me.

Really?

I thought there was a lot between us.

No. We're neighbors.



He's a cute guy

He's entertaining.

See, I kind of did do something shady to him.

I thought my property went all the way back

and butted up against his.

But there was one lot between us right there.

He said he was buying it,

but I saw the 'For Sale' sign still up there,

So I went and called the broker and said,

I'm an all-cash buyer.

So I really bought it out from under him.

But he's got plenty of room, and I need the space for my parrots.

Pahrump will always be Pahrump, but Crystal is going to be nice

All you need are four or five fancy houses and it'll flush everyone out

and it'll be a nice area.

They're all kind of weird here, but these people will go.

Like this guy here,

someone needs to **** him.

I was just saying to my dad that these parrots are born to a really ******-up world

He goes, Heidi, no, no; the world is a beautiful garden.

It's just, people are destroying it.

I’m looking into green building options

I don't want anything polluting,

I want a huge auditorium,

but it'll be like a jungle where my birds can really fly!

Where they can really do what they're supposed to do.

There were over 300 birds in there!

That lady,

She ran the exotic-birds department for the Tropicana Hotel,

which is a huge job.

She called me once at 3:30 in the morning

Come over here and help me feed this baby!

Some baby parrot.

And I ran over there in my pajamas

—I knew there was something else wrong

and she was like

Get me my oxygen!

Get me this, get me that.

I called my dad; he was like,

I don't know, honey, you better call the paramedics.

They ended up getting a helicopter.

And they were taking her away

in the wind with her IV and blood and everything

and she goes, Heidi, you take care of my birds.

And she dies the next day.

She was just a super-duper person.



XL.

I relate to the lifestyle she had before,

Now, I'm just a citizen.

I'm clean,

I'm sober,

I'm married,

I work at Wal-Mart.

I'm proud to say I know her. I look into her eyes

and we relate.





I got out in 2000,

so I've been sending her money for seven years

She was…whatever.

Girlfriend?

Yeah, maybe.

But ***, I tried like two times,

and I'm just not gay.

She gets out in about eight or nine months

and I told her I would get her a house.

But nowhere near me.

I didn't touch her,

but I'd be, like...

a funny story:

I told her,

Don't you ever ******* think

about contacting me in the real world.

I'm not a lesbian.

Then about two years ago, I got an e-mail from her,

or she called me and said, 'Google my name.'

So I Googled her name,

and she has this huge company.

Huge!

She won, like, Woman of the Year awards.

So I called her and I go,

Not bad.

She goes, 'Well, I did all that because you called me a loser.'

I go, '****, I should've called you more names

you probably would've found the cure for cancer by now.



XLI.

No person shall be employed by the licensee

who has ever been convicted of

a felony involving moral turpitude

But I qualify,

I mean, big deal, so I'm a convicted felon.

Being in the *** industry, you can't be so squeaky-clean.

You've got to be hustling.

Nighttime is really enchanting here

It's like a whole 'nother world out here, it really is

I’m so far removed from my social life and old surroundings.

Who was it, Oscar Wilde, I think, who said

people can adjust to anything.

I was perfectly adjusted in the penitentiary,

and I was perfectly adjusted to living in a château in France.



We had done those drug addiction shows together

Dr. Drew.

Afterward we were friendly

and he'd call me every now and then.

He'd act like he had his stuff together.

But it was all a lie.

Everything is a lie.

I brought him to a Humane Society event at Paramount Studios last year.

He was just such a mess.

So out of it.

He stole money from my purse.

He's such a drug addict because he's so afraid of being fat.

He liked horse ****, though. He did like horse ****.

This one woman that would have *** with a horse on the internet,

He told me that’s his favorite actress.

Better than Meryl Streep.



XLII.

The cops could see

why these women were taking over trade.

Girls with these looks charged upwards of $500 an hour.

The Russians had undercut them with a bargain rate of $150 an hour.

One thing they are not is lazy.

In the USSR

they grew up with no religion, no morality.

Prostitution is not considered a bad thing.

In fact, it’s considered a great way to make money.

That’s why it’s exploding here.

What we saw was just a tip of the iceberg.

These girls didn’t come over here expecting to be nannies.

They knew exactly what they wanted and what they were getting into.

The madam who organized this raid

was making $4 million a year,

laundered through Russian-owned banks in New York City

These are brutal people.

They are all backstabbers.

They’re entrepreneurs.

They’re looking at $10,000 a month for turning tricks.

For them, that’s the American dream.



XLIII.

If you’re not into something,

don’t be into it

But,

if you want to take some whipped cream,

put it between your toes,

have your dog licking it up and,

at the same time,

have your girlfriend poke you in the eye,

then that’s fine.

That’s a little weird but we shouldn’t judge.



She was my best friend then

and I consider her one of my best friends now,

because when I was going through Riker’s

and everyone abandoned me,

including my boyfriend,

I was hysterical,

crying,

and she was the one that was there.

And, when somebody needed to step up to the plate,

that’s who did, and I have an immense amount of

loyalty, respect, and love for her.

And if she’s going to prison for eight years

—that’s what she’s sentenced for

—I’ll go there,

and I’ll go there every week,

for eight years.

That’s the type of person I am.

Man life know just set eyes way like young world soul day hunger space mouth earth thoughts ignorance blind things mind knew final moment human creation kind creatures souls high forgotten dream love spoke self existence face holy deep bound think home void say surrender ear forever called held ephemeral red state end shall heed hope edge living waking fall sea wake garden need February thought past wanderer got men page colored tepid terrible **** proudly untitled features point painted faceless box forgot render wild spring splendor  handfuls looking half brain lost torn ancestral  unseen vision inner summer honor mister owned banner save today fear groans wasn't smoke  street fable strange year contrast black years  able pain body spoken word known motion  palpitate reeling nature culture disclaimers  cancer beg attentive frames ****** base profound double remember wholly finger death token  cries continue folk oh fishing form broken true  divides spread ah twas away breathe wait warning hallowed wish closer lens turn eye live  constant current author hung theory dangle  bramble chemical new force changes adderall  anymore giving beneath possess pardon commentaries eternity internal walk reason  long change does idea glimpse consciousness  wandering simply wonder physical dreams war  sleep told rest benign prior begging truth little  2012 born tale crow bowels allegory animal rule  exasperate making horse curse hands ones read  rearrange capture doing command fail awake  aperture seedlings shift steely sir nap spead ****** demons slits clever telling loud spits la-la-di-dah killing slip game reflected nameless ask  lovers rabid bear salivate plunder shameless  famously savior mint rides menthol bully fate traded melodies play misunderstand mammals gentle witless fine utterly savage silt tongue-less  dirt dilutes pure non-sensory taste briefly ravage dismember it''ll shedding ruined curtain  knots offers plot fulfills munificent two-act  relegates boxz bug altruistic wintergreen tossing  callously guise grovels one's singers treachery ashes mid-life mutter fashion parading  ambiguity separatist liars staple steeping neath  guidelines scoffing stitch moans civil wrote  Fictitious undoing fables table effigies serve  sonnets staged remark psalm swoll praise harken  beggar verse bread lines heavily electricity detection snow sack-happy preaching credit  spotted wicked best gravity gun campaign owe  barge choir revelry celebratory satiated sinking  headline pack hound persistently propaganda  gentlemen excluding diminished ******* run idles  occupied levies wolfishly honestly misinformation cuba vehemently dumb grace spectator erasing  toned sage crowded secrets inter-connectivity  loaned prayer hymns grave mistaken magnified  vandals selective jump leak escapes says minister  buckle mass honesty shut tar children's hats  monument doping long-lived electrical ladle  exaggerated cartoons address seconds cool cradle bleak yang's mind-framed hypnotic  walker caps folly treble claim streaks mixtures  swelled interstate elapse teasing spoon mobile  succulent witchcraft borderline fatal 99 temple stacks sups plastics creeps neurotic ills tossed  meek sipping old crack interlock wax alleyway  coughing blown freak clock birthdays societies  slow flashing viscous candy argument toothless  pills cerebral rapt wall bisect lives wheezing  photo kid starter foiled pair saturated self-castrating pre-packed naked uncertainly pill  used came chaos coated reprisal fells wrack  irreverent mirth sickly disinherited proudest  collate wheeze appearance palette disharmony  discontented bastardized emotive bio inhale diction beat spoiled reclamation loudest tempo  totally disembodied matte imperfect shells flat  struck sounding imparts flak origin severance remarked bone walls snared leaflets mocking  hot scripting adjective noun agape seemingly  resistant gawk calamity passage paintings wind  trashcans signings sits cheap makers poetry persist scrap slipping individual talk wonders  leaving questions fold actor fancy parchment  fates engenders flown jaws stripped longer music  sacrifice fakers book boldly frown sigh atop patient hang trade occupation blows spectacular  whispers worthy backward waving certainty danced suppose needn't ‘drawkcab’ second-guessing  boys forget marched motto heads tightly lies two-tone earthbound harp twice turns goodnight  lying ***** internally indiscriminate nickname  drunk convictions myth steep  in-consumption  fitting artist **** universal sick expressions bad  du spell melody big siphon proud learn sprawls song spastic something temperaments utter check  fissures stomp totality blend definitely thrall sing rug voice shade pestilence ties commiserate round devil steady brains emotional certain gate  suckling gates dearth decay weight bounce pound  carrier pangs glass startle contest earthen web  tug pressed air patience flush amassed guest gone apprehension staring empathize captain believe fading in-perceivable deathbed guarder makes surrounds scatter drooling ebb blink cob tome  venom near door lair derision draws host stairs scent parts curiosities spider webbing surprise wares tips stepping ascetics starkness realize picture surroundings dictations grand pillars  deaf limited comparisons greet visual residents  personal settings dismiss alien law stability common earthly shiftless places prelude  understanding mosaic keen trifling embodiments  geared inception whisper visible jowls kiss murky  puddle rank dawn dichotomy single faithful fraying pays tailor veil climb mores pence whim  breath wellspring samara god stony pear  shadows fruiting forebodes moonlit looming  shown passed bog gold wracked faint tongues  noble preachers mirror shifting layered depth  threads jungle narcissus bemused seamstress self-worshiping architect's wore slumber anomalous  opened barren seam lip caustic scene coupled brick gardener's clenches -with forms idle breed  embodied lore starving empathy design illusion  tree coat fabricate lucid mason scatter-all  narrative seeking imbued 16th shivering chemicals 17th 15thrisk improperly dare  deliberate plan purge try brought chapter speed  aide utmost spirit leading intervention felt  recall recent advent sincerity times diary  lackluster piously lasting happy holding hear  stem tasteless whimpers wet spine monstrosity  dripping causes position quite softly claws pallet  answer digging tearing beast satiating circle breaks skips redwoods beckoning rotted hushed  gray lapsing monoliths deities creborus  imbuement hand stroll paradigm rendered chorus shy whispering forest residual tension  surrenders tolerance lull anew sentenced  bearing tide birds dirge divergent rim joined  cogs wood hesitant mist emergent towering offer  awareness confinement inverted faultier stowed  plane sanctified blanketing trusting memory fossil flash twists laden self-indulgent fleeting invitation agony grip shore impetus lingering  crows promise gift union swallowing endless floor supposed ecstasy sensory intent  psychotropic cradling placement interned  jagged connectivity exchange congenial begun  summons singular spiral assumes ambient reciprocates re-entry fruition reached aggregate lifetime limbs birthed instinct  frightening tarry proper entire light  boundaries innocence pursuit ago discover left  youth's unknowing sacred time place meager  simple fact cast ceaseless wide-eyed literal  apparent coincidence create boldness morphed  crooked kempt mere stumble buried shutter fairy  pivotal definitive months worth shear ambition sound required journeyed self-reflections title  facets vague restless intimation gut wanderer's  leap motivate path account boy soon bears faith  question tripped reasons uproot awaited confronted days step heal provocations wisps crushing transcend chronicles instance  directness raw drove occurrence objective-less  real enters slightest confident nondescript  typify  foreshortened interment paradox bitter heart  devoid jeopardy angry sensation confidential guilty arrogance mercy compliance reprieve  vincent deadening factual sign emotion awe  inhibition shackled butterflies absence actual sciences acknowledgement violent stagnant  spiritual American doors roots lack matted fore  gestures society cause streams intensity hair impossible discord lonely hearts resounding  jest  what's flavored pains closed toxic contented  happenstance scientific knowledge yeah  wizardry shaking stifled withdrawn bloom  jitter dreads settle asocial hulton make  predisposed figurative reflections demeanors  wondered affect hulton's projected sense  morning industry arrays ghosts feeling  certainly endomorphic where's partially wrath  passer mornings jovial unease advertized asking  trash onward wished tempers media mentality connect pasts sharp-toothed scramble great colours trial test salvation continually lent  degree secretly subjection social waned  disconnected colors grimly intellectual civilization cash trading baffling particular  digest myths monumental ending seasons winter  repetition introducing agent everlasting  shoulders delivered honestly-- possession funny  continence history unsightly function suffering propulsion profession divulge familiar tugs era  importance capability perpetuation spite inventory words entirety leveling fray insight  date record continues writer getting evermore fellow tongue possessions identical proof accuracy education similar sack admittance  favor unravel conveyance guilt gives beginnings  predicting audacity definition bobby heady eaters frameless learned release stone grandeur sang  speak molds sleeps split built seats people folded  sheer pour evoked playhouse liquid boring  tellers frayed stark walked reality pleas doth  preformed shows beak pride squawks opinions  greatest bold stunning sightings he'd loudly slain  sunk watch legend precipice theater deeper compound commentator civility justly silly sin  reverent seen prophetic moral confounds notion  lacking explain attempt prolific viral estrange proclivity scorn hide blur pious strung eden's  horror cut skin arch cruel twig mother vile  pass lend woods peach shrunken trail man's canopy worn 434 eat warm limb familiar father delete.

You are what your reading lady. Now would you hold this gun?

there are so many of you
that i would love to sit down with;
maybe over a milkshake and a plate of fries;
and just talk.
i want to ask you about the boy that hurt you,
about the anger you feel deep inside
over a father who said he’d come back...
and then didn’t.
i want to run with you through pages of words and say
“oh that’s right, what a lovely metaphor.”
i want to see all your smiling faces and
thank each and every one of you for showing me kindness,
for saving my life.
i want to collaborate on novels of poetry
and laugh with you through the tears of our pasts.
so until we sip those milkshakes and eat those fries...
thank you, to
some of the most beautiful people i have never met.

All present in the stream of time,
Connected they build a line, a river which flows uninterruptedly,
The here and now, is the future of a pasts dream, a wonderous reality,
It is the futures past, the memories recorded within the depths of it
Gravity distorts time, causing it to slow down till it's stopping point lensed from a black hole, lurking within shadows of remorse in space,
Fished out from the sea of passing events, it keeps flowing, but now it does so while not including the fallen one who embraced a blackhole,
Time only knows one path, straight ahead with no slips and turns,
The present is the pasts future and what was thought to be possible,
It is the little wealth every living being possesses yet it is overseen and forgotten, until the moment of ones death drives gladly near,
From the womb to the tomb, drowning within the waves of a temporal lengh, the event of an entity's existence and its period.
A pace for an allotment, given from the complaints of an worldly life,
Spend it well, unlike the spring we cannot turn the tide, recycle again!
But for that matter the world of dreams holds a sweet embrace to all,
After all, you don't need to die in a dream.

~ Umi

She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green,
And an off-white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams,
Like leather, like elderly skin, like a crossword puzzle with half the letters filled in,
She sat by me and spilt her sentences and her tea:

She claimed her husband had been killed by a cabal of spiritualists,
Killed by a bull elephant in the streets of Nepal,
Killed by the seven plagues,
And never killed at all,

That he was once a number
Somehow both perfect and prime,
That he was Prime minister of the sea,
And independent of time,

That his bones were cracked marbles
Bought from a widow in Tennessee,
That his name continued to escape her,
But that he looked something like me,

Leaving I saw her wings drag her heavenward,
I saw her terrible wings,
As I stumbled and veered from concrete to tarmac
I heard the pavements start to sing:

“I was once a flowerbed,
My father was a field,
My mother was a source of light,
Before which all the people kneeled.”

Then lost in the eye of daytime and night,
Drawn to the moustache of a Spanish racketeer,
He was once abandoned by his books and his babies
In the boot of a broke-down cavalier,

His pasts and ideas caught up to him,
And gripped him by his belt and his teeth,
His pasts gripped him in quiet of his nightmares,
And slashed his arms in the street,

Visions shook me by the bleeding palm,
Her terrible wings now pinpricks for the moon,
Visions shook me as deities died,
With eyes like a card-trick and fingers like doom,

Then stuck in the endless space between words;
She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green;
Stuck in the endless space between words;
And an off white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams...

Time is of the sentence, while
verbs reveal their intents
for adjective nouns (pro or no
comment) quickly in vents
meant for air, but coarseness
courses through upturned grates  
shredding of courses into no ways

to go from here to home,
awaiting infinitely fine moments
caressed along necks of silken
skin within the wear of stretched out
glances left lingering still
in compassionate ponds rippling
soft warm smiles lazily by
the melting cares of the world
golden in luxuriously wrapped light
playing across the surface & through-

out into emerald encrusted irises
to cast love's shadow over
swamps of fear gurgling neuro-
toxic diatribes against plu-
perfect pasts & future
imprefects presented in a case to
Your Honor's (the jury) out of bounds
dissolved with ear ration-
al solutions mixed & stirred
thoroughly throughout,
without spilling too
much.

Tinder dame, early September,
kindred flame I'll long remember.
I crossed her path & she crossed mine,
attraction shared was so in line.
A close encounter, nothing serious?
I'd never tried, she had me curious.
Commitment for us to meet soon,
tonight at 9, nearby saloon.
The tension built 'til she arrived,
a warm embrace, my fears subside.
All the while my stomach in knots,
we cleared the air & shared our thoughts.
Talk of cribbage & our pasts,
hopes for futures built to last.
Face to face, our eyes spoke words,
reading minds, beyond what's heard.
Telling I could use a nudge,
She told me she's not one to judge.
Rainier cans & shots of whiskey,
holding hands & feeling frisky.
She opened doors, established trust.
Leaving together was a must.
One more dose of nerve eraser,
another first, a pickle chaser.
We walked along, enjoyed the view,
talked and smoked, Camel's for two.
The house of love, our room awaits,
we tiptoed through the noisy gates.
Alone at last, where to begin?
The curtains drawn, a lovers den.
Our souls & skin soon came together,
kissing lips soft like a feather.
Arousal swelled, and time stood still,
as I explored her lakes and hills.
A loving gesture I did get,
the best one I have ever yet.
Overcome with thoughts of lust,
the mounted madam felt my ******.
Upon her neck, my hands feel right,
She'll teach me more another night.
Our scissored legs ensured a ride,
within so deep I could reside.
Both of us were so perspired,
we drank some water, cooled the fire.
On through the venture we pursued,
enjoyed each other in the ****.
I found it such a great surprise,
my hands controlled her rolling eyes.
A luscious lass with her own way,
her glass half full began to spray.
I found it far beyond appealing,
it gave us both a special feeling.
Afterwards we're side by side,
I couldn't sleep, my smile's so wide.
Bursts of sleep, I dreamt for more,
was not prepared to close this door.
In morning light, our eyes would meet,
I kissed her more beneath the sheet.
Our bodies rested now and ready,
I gave her mine & took hers steady.
I lost my focus in her eyes,
My ***** release, between her thighs.
A perfect evening, morning too,
a shared passion with someone new.
A breakfast spot, that we both know,
Sandwich, omelet, cups of joe.
It was so nice to share a meal,
two new friends who made a deal.
As we went our separate ways,
I hope again, her eyes I'll gaze.
When I felt lost, inside myself,
I found my way through someone else.

N’díídá!
Wake up, wake up…my son.
Hogan seeing east, great sun greets.
Brave piercing cold, Brave bleeding heat.
Set rezilient mind, see battles won.
Brave flinted rocks, brave metaled beats.
See painful pasts, set your feet lil’ one.

Náás diiná
Walk forward, walk forward…lil’ man.
Look through clouds, look over mountains.
Brave the liquor, Brave the drugs.
Bend blinded minds, see lies to “amen’s”.
Brave minds blinded, brave coward tugs.
Hear the peoples past, set your legs lil’ one

Holzishdę́ díníí’
Look to pasts, look to pasts…fighter young.
Smile sacred stories, smile given songs.
Brave severed cuts, Brave suicidal triggers.
Laugh at tears run, let fierce anger rung.
Brave the useless, brave the claimers.
Sing the creation past, set your fists lil’ one.

T'áá Yedigo Yániłtxi’
Speak up, stand up…my grown spear.
Surprise the eagle, overpower the bear.
Brave the gods, Brave the fearful.
Embrace the night, prepare the gear.
Brave the genocide, Brave the brainwashed.
Break the path, keep slaying their fear.

Keep digging…keep digging pillars of braves.

on saturdays, they broke our knees.

mondays and wednesdays were reserved
for the study of literature,
for splitting open our heads and branding the words of the great writers
into our bones,
copying them over and over in our own blood,
memorizing masterpieces until we knew them forwards and backwards,
in order to remind us that there was always someone out there
who was better than us
(so we might as well not even try).

on saturdays, they broke our knees,
because pain would make us stronger.

on tuesdays and thursdays,
we were chained to a wall of numbers
and forced to take it apart piece by piece
(then put it back together, exactly how it had been before)
learning the true nature of  things from the inside out,
so that we would always have an answer for everything,
and never have to just sit and wonder
at the world around us.

on saturdays, they broke our knees,
so that we would learn to know the sound of shattering better than our own skin.

fridays were the days
when we were taught history,
when we were told the stories of our pasts and their pasts
and all the pasts that had ever been,
so that we would learn from our mistakes (and their mistakes,
and all the mistakes that had ever been)
a thousand times over—
learn them so well that we would carry them with us forever,
and never be tricked into letting go.

on saturdays, they broke our knees,
so that we would always have something familiar to fall back on.

sundays were our day of rest,
when we stole a rowboat
and paddled off into the mist,
until the fog was so thick that we couldn’t see our own feet
(it was the closest we ever got
to emptiness,
not that we would ever admit
we desired it).

but on saturdays, they broke our knees,
so that we would remember to come back eventually.

we always did.

The Seven - The Mashup


In memory of my mother who passed away recently, I wrote, or intended to write seven (only six were actually done) new poems themed about her, her passing and some perspective on life and death.  All were read and I am deeply appreciative.  I have consolidated them all here, in order, though not necessarily the order in which they were written. But the order does matter, as it reflects the change in my mood with each passing day.   Perhaps I will write the seventh someday, but not now, not soon.

Thank you all so much for incredibly kind words of sympathy. I am not a dweller, so I set myself a goal to complete this vow, this task, in a week to correspond to the seven days of mourning the immediate family observes after the burial (the shiva, shiva meaning 7).  For seven days, the bereaved family "sits shiva," sitting on low, uncomfortable stools and the comforters come to share their grief, praise the deceased, from mourning till late at night

#1 Shiva

I am confused - what day is it?
Windows tell day or night, a necessary but a condition insufficient.
The days have no distinguishing marks, a video stuck on
Repeat - a single track of recollected tales, prayers add a mild seasoning.

Though brief is this week of pre-sentencing hearings,
If one cannot dice the time into portions,
Then, there can be no pardon,
No early release date, from Phase One.

Rinse grief. Repeat. Seven cycles.
Apply stain-stick at the intersection of
Bloodied hurts and dimming memories,
Strangers secreting, spilling on you secrets unwanted.

This play, saw it many decades ago,
Before there was poetry, children.
A young man of twenty one,
Very afraid, silently, of the newest unknown,
His father, cancer won.

I hated it then. Now experienced, I hate it more.
This semi-catharsis, a tapestry tale wove of faded pasts
Twisting an heirloom blade into an old wound,
the original cast, a new revival, playwright, regrettably, deceased...

First time at bat, hid in a small room, away from this tradition.
Beating my head against a wall privately,
That being my preferred manner of mourning,
Not this Broadway show, twice a day, seven days.

Rituals well intentioned, a time tested method,
nonetheless, jail time for me, a/k/a, the boy, the brother.
Familiarity comforts some. Me? A prison uniform.
I write my own poems, I am not a Borg collective.

Cast as Son, my obligations specific, aged.
My Hamlet doublet, cut/torn, messaging my somber status,
The cuts deepest, invisible, but all see this child
Drowning in eye pools that continuously self-replenish.

I'll do the time, this show the longest running ever,
Did forty years as son-shadow of a father-man,
Tacked another concurrent sentence for his woman,
End Date: Indeterminate...

The low stools will reappear, seven days for me,
Yet my job as poet not fully done, until this be read!
Leave 'em laughing o'er this Official Release from the obligatory,
Read, sit but once, read this poem, this script, this story, and be freed.

#2 Hover^

My Children:

Ancestral homes oft possess,
a unique scent, product of an atomizer, a memorizer

Musty time, the odor of
faded and shadow,
hollow, yet hallowed.

Somewhere along the road,
a residence transforms from home to
shrine-storage unit-hospital room-tomb-records depository.

Dust, expired perfumes,
the sweet odor of crumbling, yellowing books, disinfectant,
stale medicine chests, years of furniture polish, sabbath candles.

It is my smell -
the parfumerie of my history, a customized blend,
a commissioned work in 1964, entitled, more accurately, emitted,
"Her-Story."

Photographs, memories, and paper scraps
my very own Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Yet the most potent firing pin for historical retrieval,
the molecules of scent.

Soon all will be dismantled, discarded,
just plain dis'ed.

Confused and disenchanted,
my departure orderly but, in a disordered fashion.
unable to seed one last kiss upon your forehead,
nonetheless, surreptitiously enter your neurons
though my entity, away, across the miles-wide Hudson River.

For three days, I will hover invisible,
implanting myself once more,
slapping your mucous membranes,
transversing this pathway, an additive to your cells, nuclei,
where my markers always reside.

Adding one more ingredient to your inner vision,
strengthening the formless structure, my altered state.
This odor, keep close, fresh, no becoming musty too, my scent,
the last of your senses knowing me, a true keepsake.

Hold me close and hold me fast.
This one last magic spell I cast.
This one last magic smell I set fast.
You cannot hold it, but it will cradle you.
You cannot see or touch it, but when contact comes,
You will see me, hold me, as in the days of your youth,
When you loved me best,
And I, you.

^According to the Talmud, the soul hovers over the body for three days after death.  The human soul is somewhat lost and confused between death and before burial, and it stays in the general vicinity of the body, until the body is interred.

#3 Orphan

The funeral will commence at 11:30 am.
Gives me one last review time before the
Final Exam.

Panicked, I discover a whole new chapter
for which I am wholly unprepared,
though its inevitable presence was
assuredly knowable long in advance.

Orphan

It doesn't fit, occur, imagery is of a young child to
soon abandoned, not a late-in-life curmudgeonly poet-boy,
who has been multi-times reincarnated.

I add this title to my list
of proper ways to address me,
titles earned by dint of hard work,
or just unlucky luck.

This new status, orphanhood,
bequeaths no special privileges,
other than, a semi-official
societal permission slip
to feel bereft, lost, and compose poetry.

Know a real orphan, from early, early on,
has never recovered and
never will for it is just impossible.
Just impossible.

So whom am I to make light of
my undesired, unrequested new degree?

I accept it and to my surprise,
It hurts.

# 4 Judgement Day

After you put in some time on this planet,
You kinda know what the world thinks
About you, your rep, what they don't say to your face,

Sure, thingies, time and incidence and circumstance
Can sometimes cause makeovers external,
But each of us know the quality of ourselves,
Self-certification, you can out your internal self,
Better than anybody else.

So I inquire of myself, about myself,
what will you be remembered for, if at all?

Why do I ask, today, now?
Do we not ask ourselves this
On the low down, subconsciously everyday?

Is this a poem?
Most assuredly...
And a trial.
You, the judge the jury and the prosecutor,
The defender, if u can, if u will.

For seven days my mother was adjudged,
Family, friends, hers, her children's,
Almost an 80 years of live, in color, HD, looking back video,
Tales told, memories dug up, old photos explicated,
Who what when where of the details of one women's voyages,
Creations.

I cannot, I will not, do the details here.
Suffice, acts of kindness, faith in people,
Feminist in a strange land, a chance taker,
Gifts of memories, streaming of adoration,
Many strangers are witnesses to me,
This trial a runaway train.

I am outed.  There will be no such verdict for me.
I am outed.  There will be no trial needed, just a
Summary judgement delivered.

Out yourself.
What will you be remembered for, if at all?

#5 Summer Girls In Their Summer Clothes

Oh yes!

The streets of Manhattan, jewel dusted,
Summer girls in their  summer clothes,
Bedeck the streets and make men say, Thank You!
To their creator.

Little black dresses, previously immortalized^,
Seasoning and sauces, halter tops and jeans cutoff,
Give thanks for the tanks, revel in the revelations,
For God created man and women in his/her teasingly bare image.

Yo! Dude!  This is number 5 in the series,
Of sad and somber, re dad and mother, ***?
Have you lost perspective, not read the directive,
You're in mourning, time to be introspective,
Not dis-respective!

My mother was a beautiful women.
Till the day she died.
Yes, physically beautiful at 98.

She, was a poem.
For her exterior was suffused, burnished,
By the spirit residing within her body

I ask myself, why not judge a book by its cover?
Her cover was exquisite, but what gave her a glow,
A radiance, was her modesty, her love of humanity.

What's under our cover?

^ Nat Lipstadt · May 30
The Little Black Dress (and its magic prowess!)

*#6 & 7 Live like you're dying

Perhaps you know the lyric, the song?

Live like your dying.
Dying caught my ear, my eye, can't imagine why.
Con-Textual emendation, Natalino style.

Live like your writing.

Yes, that makes sense...
Embrace with passion each new session
Charge every second stanza with ruminating rhythms,
Cut the wires to the air traffic control sensory tower, go solo,
Pulse each word, beat all into a plowshare, even the anger,
Even the hate, dressed to ****, in words, forgivable...

Grant the mundane, the insane, even the pain of tragedy,
You refuse so hardily to glorify, grant it and
Record it all - a moment,
A royal audience with all
Your writing parts.

No fancy footing, keep it simple.
No jesters in rain puddles,
Let images of clouds of sand
Born and perish  in other's eyes and sighs, let verbal games bedevil other
Wooden puppet princes drinking fairy ales.

Huh?

Write clean and clear,
Let the sheerest wonderment of a new combination,
Be the titillation of the tongue's alliteration,
No head scratching at oblique verbal gestation,
Let words clear speak, each letter a speck,
That gives and grants clarification, sensational.

You, afternoon quenching Coronas, white T shirts,
Sun glazes and later, a summer eve's Sancerre,
Wave gazing on the reality of rusted beach chairs,
Babies sandy naked, washed in waves of Chardonnay,
The traffic-filled word-way highways and bay ways,
Exiting at the Poet's Nook, for exegesis & retrieval.

Write of:
Body shakes and juices, skin-staining tongues,
Taking her, afternoon, unexpectedly, her noises your derring-do!
Broken tear ducts, the Off switch, so busted, write about
Real stuff.

Write not in fear of dying
Angels delivering bad news in vacuum tubes,
Write joyous, psalms of loving life,
Live like your writing,
Write like your living,
So you may die well.

Distant learning courses in the heart
Irrelevant actions have left us all apart

Acquisitions decaying those stray minded people
It's no longer a commonplace to feel peaceful

Simultaneous occurrences have our mind in disarray
Through our pasts they begin to replay

All these calamitous activities brought through maleficent eyes
Disintegrate what's left sending us in a fools paradise

We reap to elope from these rigorous bearings we call home
Only to find ourselves cast away into the unknown

We strive to survive in a world full of abhorrence
Being seen transparent just as worthless corpses

Those few who prevail are not left without detriment
They are forever severed a mental delinquent

Nevertheless our story lives on
In this godforsaken marathon

-Joseph B Schneider

Corks of bottled pasts are popping,
Fury trains are slowing...
Stopping.
Recognise the ifs, the buts,
The wings, the ruts,
The shadows hopping.

Corks of bottled pasts are popping,
I'm a fury train and I need stopping.
Tinted blood,
Liver sopping,
Fetch a bucket,
It needs mopping.

Steam-rage bursts from veins and ears,
Peace erupts and all he hears?
"You've ****** me up for years and years,"
"For years and years and years and years!"

[Where is home?]
[Where is home?]
[Where is home?]
[Where is home?]
Not here,
So I'll destroy everything that you own.

"Restrain her!"
"Restrain her!"

Corks of bottled pasts are popping,
Fury trains are slowing...
Stopping.
Recognise the ifs, the buts,
The wings, the ruts,
The shadows hopping.
Boiling rows,
And dripping mouths,
And pools of vows
That now need mopping.

My mother's breath is tainted with alcohol
She's on my floor, sleeping away the dinner she refused to swallow
I try to forget she was never there, and remember how hollow
Her skinny love for me was, and I ate my way into her Hell
The first cigarette, the first drink, the first time I forgot to think
I was induced in her fairy tale, my morals wothout ink, to go on
I tried to slip away, grasp a hint of bliss
I did catch something, and that was a fish

Her name was Autumn
Her hands on my shoulders, mine on her hips
We were one glance away, and this time, it hit
An anchor she was, I left my dreaded life behind
I took her calloused hand, and she took mine
Our pasts weren't us, they were our luggage
We dropped it off far back, buried it, covered it
A pair of suicidal lovers, a kiss above the chin

I was pulled on a thread
Seven months of lies
She was a chameleon
No painful past of cries
She wasn't molested
Her mom wasn't at the end of the line
Her dad didn't abuse her
Now wasn't her time

She left me longing for another
Another Autumn, another lover
I didn't love her, I loved who I thought she was
I know I will see her again, when the leaves are dust
She is so sorry
Sorry I'm sad
She got to live the life
The life I never had

I yearn to forget the name of Autumn
Until the season leaves, fall from the pealing trees
I will lie in the lies of the baked brown leaves
Crumple them one by one, calming myself, forming ease
Chills form around my neck
The same spot my mother gripped my throat
It is so hard to love someone, who despises being loved
My mother, a liar, a man sitting above

Wrote this while my best friend since childhood and I drove 1300 miles to South Florida on a whim for Spring Break. It's epic, so get comfortable.

"Approachable but you wouldn't know it.  Proclamations of the Romantically Challenged"

Day one.

We meet, old friends...watch old friends...become old friends again.
We find our lost grins, ones only shared with our closer than kin.
Thin shagrins of lasting cynicism and sinister pasts are masks to the blasts we got away with and lived to tell the tale.
Alas, we are sons and friends first, not last.
We cling to our good old glory stories past,
But at last the time is new, our trip begins.
Wheels burn, stomachs churn.
Our aspired souls yearn,
to fire the liars and unconcerned.
We head for the East coast.
With temperatures rising,
approaching unseen horizons,
rejecting the superficially tantalizing,
we begin to feel our tattered souls wisen.
Talking a new talk, calculating the steps to walk a new walk.
Testifying our pains, devilishly dodging heavenly rains, the bitter pains.
Watching yourself in a friend, a cynical kidder gone bitter. Your mirror becomes your babysitter.
We search our hearts and back again down I-10.
We find strength and talk about things friends for life can only talk about on a walk about.
We lift some Spirits to lift our spirits.
Night falls,
we arrive alive… our walk about calls 1,365miles in 18 hours.

Day two begins.

Meet and greet with the beach.
Get a handle on some handy sandals,
some nicotine candy and butane candles.
A fifth of Daniels.
Jack and Jose will duel this day.
"You know it's know your fault, pass the lime and salt," ends most answers before noon.
Let's take some dares with the local fare, shadowing the glare of our wear and tear.
The sun fries,
windy sands fly,
waves pacify,
dropped bikini tops glimpsed from the corner of our eye, testify.
The Sun sets.

Shuffing off the nightlife status-quo of Clematis Row, we turn our walkabout into a Palm Beach Safari...Club.
Whoa! Rows and rows of walking, talking shows barely clothed from head to tanned toes.Making funnies about hunting honies preying on $$$.
The unattainable passes. We tap our glasses.
"Point in case, what a waste, such tragedies as these, a lot of money and a little cheese meets a little ****** in high cut sleeves, low-cut cleaves & cuts way above the knees.
Our cuts are deep. Bartender, two Yagers please."

Low and behold…on those stools sit no fools.
Breaking all rules.
with Coronas as fuel,
we inflate our jewels.
As we coach our approach, mentioning "I-10 and back again" prompts grins,
hides our cynicism and sins,
then, moving in to win friends.
Names and places put to faces, careful glancing, winks and dancing.
Alright, the trips to the bathroom are getting old.
Warm smiles once cold, honest questions and truths told…no souls sold…we fold? Hmmmm.
We leave and arrive alive.
Caffine and nicotine stay the scene until the wee hours overpower us.

Day three unfolds

The sun rises and the ocean calls.
Old molds broken
No lies spoken.
No need to peddle your life away settling on the day-to-day following peers falsely content and full of contempt.
Eyes turn bright,
the Sun pours over night,
dolphin, lime and salt,
golfing talk,
day approaches night.
Less tense and more pensive,
more apprehensive and less expensive,
even so we head out to even the evening,
to end our grieving and start achieving....something.
Latitude changes have rearranged our attitude gauges.
So we choose West Palm's Clematis Row to show us how a little rude,
lude and tattooed could clue us in on the anew.
Fools with jewels.
Girls with rules.
Uncool tools abound.
We walk this street of sleekish freaks,
the falsely meek,
lions that squeak.
"Club Respectables" is dubbed rejectables as the objectionable scene is seen as a scheme by vampires with recessive genes.
Next is Spanky's…Best described as "A frat boy fishing pole contest to tackle box in bait shack." One bucket of beer away from "I got your back Jack in case of attack."
We move along.
Colombia Supreme brewed proceeding it's fine grind and American Online becomes the sign of the times swaying us to stay and play at an Internet Cafe.

"I could live here," proclaims a cynical kidder once bitter now soothed by the sea spray and salty air.

Enlightenment heightened by a magic man,
near night's end, inspires an O'Shea's Black and Tan.
The crowd mocks and baulks the sidewalk scene from the patio Pub Dubbed Irish.
We greet the ground,
not the masses' frown,
seat our ***** down,
toast our glasses of black and brown,
our bitters with bite wash down the bitter frowns we normally wear out in our hometown.
"That's a sharp Harp's and sinister Guinness; can I get a witness?"

We head back down our beaten path, writing our epitaphs and usual eulogies...But you know that the "place" or your "space" will change your face, one makes the case."If you sound bitter and you look bitter, chances are you are bitter."
I begin to smile during our final mile of token jokes,
Corona smokes,
shiny Harley spokes.
We leave and arrive alive at the realization,
we have things to strive for in our lives.  
We smoke and joke and poke fun at the run down broken blokes we were before our fun in the sun had begun.
  
Day four begins.
  
We embark for the Ozarks. Our souls at ease.
Save the scene...the last palm tree's waving leaves,  
we wave our palms and leave.
1300 miles more,  
Pushing the morning hour of four,  
empty coffee cups galore,  
moonings a score,  
pedal to the floor,  
memories and more,  
we knew we would be back for more.  
Suddenly learning how insane our inane claims of waning fame should hold no shame,
we reframe our game.
Upon our return…
the strength to strive, take back our broken banks and breaking backs.
Less taxing, more relaxing..."it could happen"... eliquinent waxing.
As we search our hearts and back again, down I-10,we find the strength in things you can only talk about on a walk about,
but that's what it was all about.
By R.Craig David-copyrighted 1995

She felt his words enter her soul
As he traced every inch of her skin.
'beautiful' he whispered delicately.
She drifted in and out of realities and daydreams,
Consciousness and unconsciousness.
He stayed gazing at her pure beauty.
Her body was made for his eyes.
Her lips were made for his lips.
A perfect fit.
They lay there for the day.
Talking.
Laughing.
Crying.
They learned each others secrets.
They opened up their pasts.
They planned a future together.
And after all this they fell asleep.

She woke in the morning with a sickening feeling in her gut.
He was gone.
She was too terrified to roll over.
To see the indent of him on those sheets.
She feared that she'd suffocate on the oxygen he'd used up the night before.

She reached one arm cautiously over to the other side of the bed.
Felt his wonderful skin
Laying next to her.
She let out a sigh of relief.
He meant it.
He did.
He meant every word.

He woke with a sleepy gaze.
'beautiful'
He whispered as he kissed her forehead.
Inhaled her scent.
And for the first time in a long time.
This broken hearted train wreck really did feel....
Beautiful.

I was born with an overwhelming empathy
for all creatures encompassing me,
a red heart ready to feel something
I’d never felt before,
I was born
with the ability to love,
and perhaps I’d no say in the matter
but the blood filled me no less and the strings
‘round my organs tugged and throbbed
and eagerly heeded the choir’s demands

I was born in a state of pure chaos, pure bliss;
I was born to look ahead and reminisce

I was born to the familiar it would seem,
the leaves I recognized when they fell from the trees
and how evergreens stayed so ever green;
I’d felt the life of rain in me,
death as cold as Canadian Rockies
all at once with the shelter of instinct
leaving behind nothing but footprints
and running for a different reason
into a cave that says
security and not
top-security penitentiary

I was born, learned and raw
in chaos and bliss,
I was born to look ahead and reminisce

Since our political system has been laid bare, after RumputiN was installed
in the Blackhouse, it's beautiful complex of lack of complexity, in a word,
conspiracy of conspiracies, has moved me and "...we(e),..." to have as a few
of my favorite things be far more reaching questions, out of necessity. Like,
without acknowledging, and demanding others do the same, that it's been
purposely engineered to be a criminal injustice system instead, how can one
even have a real conversation that would lead to potential for real change
of it taking place in reality, if you don't know who you were, where you've
been, how on God's green Earth can you expect to know who..., where you are
and what's going on, necessary to start thinking about changing anything,
even yourself, as well as directing who you will be and where you will
be going, etc.?  Swine slaughtering lower-middle-class to poor men en masse,
mostly of color, instead of just doing the usual liquidation of their ases
and assets, are just serial murderers masquerading as cops, and what goes
around comes around, no?  If you're not taking bullets you're making them.  
Also, people are fed up with felonious RumputiN and his rootin' tootin'
organized crime family spree from the Blackhouse, which should be prosecuted
using the RICO Statute instead of just being elaborately covered up by Mueller
for he's not using it and he's handing out immunities like soldiers candy to
Iraqi kids, duh.  I would add some salient pointless points, beyond the 'empty
boat' of Zen, and 'useless tree' of the Tao, we can understand the burden
placed on our shoulders by our ancestry not exercising their responsibilities
as they should have, and thereby it's Siamese twin sisters, their freedoms,
Withered like unused muscles as well, as a panultimate challenge, saving
humanity, literally. Also, understanding Jung's "80 % of all actions, thoughts,
feelings we have, that we acknowledge, or don't, perceive or don't, are
compensatory towards our pasts", necessitates an integral understanding of
Satre's existentialism' meaning of angst, as experience integral to life, not
opposed to it, but, rather, central to it, and a nexus of it.  This is more
than an embracing of gestalt's, Perls', moment, now. Moving away from sophist
perspective, we also experience the meaning of life is struggle, which comes
through all our meaningful work, succinctly. Further, what is life beyond that
foci is also, the where, when, who, how, and sometimes why too (but never Y2K)
of life; beyond our masks and ego fulfilling stories, schtick, lines, etc..
Do we struggle, not just as lifelong students, with the impossible, not just
the improbable.  Yet, it's actually more layered than that in a much larger
dimensional paradigm than 4 dimensions.  Yes, the effects of our causes in any
action usually have effects that undo our causes as we act them out, intend,
present them, etc..  Yet, those more superficial, linear, first conclusion
layers are not less effective, per se, as the complexity of Karma, Dharma are
beyond our normal comprehension. What is the root of thought, feeling, the root
of feeling, being, the root of being, the extent to which we struggle with what
it is, no?  For, as the following twig of poetree gleans: Soul//
As my breath
is the one, prana,/
And the life's pulse, pala,/
Reaching angelic source, sura,/

So is this mind, manas, a
/  Flowering unfoldment,
/ Unendingly touching
/ The eye
that would it see,/  
Unbeckoning unto thee./
As well, this Bodhi, a temple,/

Of the four and fifth, nur,/  
So entered by atma, a ray of thy sun,/  
Thus being
winged, and
/  As such with wind,/
Flying only in dharma's dance,/
Is returning
to, Brahma, you./  For, there yet, by thy grace, go I./  
We are not who we think
we are, we are, rather, the extent to which we struggle to evolve to be some-
things, spirit, soul, Bodhi, etc., on the path of study that could and should
be one, you, me, forever asked and never answered.  Yet, even if we lived as
prayer, our light only adding to the well of light, our every step in grace,
leaving no footprints that followed none, echoing in all ways, always,
sometimes, like pulling teeth, "...we(e),...", must stalk our words from our
insides 'til we wrangle them, like cats, to the tip of our tongues, no?  For,
"Words weren't meant for cowards..." and we must "be brave...", Happy Rhodes.
We can't allow ourselves the luxury of taking our supposedly 'golden silence'
all the way to the bank, as your average bear does.  These are the end times,
we successfully struggle, to abolish global defacto-slavery by the non-renew-
able energies' corporate structure's machine and it's convolution, against
the global oligarchy's premeditated mass-****** of 7.5 billion people, or
humanity's extinct.  Gandhi, "(supposed) science is the root of all opression"
and, "...we(e),..." must be the change we want in the world".  Is not life
relation, are we not responsible for one another, are not all threads in
the fabric of life needed, as is the evoliutionary ones' mendings, for we
can't allow it to be torn asunder?  If not here, then where, if not now, when,
not you, who? Viva la evolucion.  Indivisible, illimitable you, GOTV.

It's raining,
Ambulance sirens drown the,
Silent slumber,
No one is on the road,
A mobile maddance,
Mad chanced,
Or mild happenstance,
No change,
But the toll keeper keeps,
Jingling coins,
What have you got to pay?
The windowless hospital waits,
With a unacknowledged anxiety,
No one is on the road,
Will this be the last time or,
Are you trying to make,
Every one stare longer,
The rain wont stop,
Shot, shot, shot,
Drip, drip, drip,
It'll be a few days,
Till the rain,
Decides to quit,
The toll keeper has better things to do.
And the ambulance rolls on.

We had recovering drug addicts come in
Talking to us with their sunken
Ashy eyes
And sweaty palms
You could tell they were nervous by the
Way they carried themselves
Cinder blocks and
Broken piano parts
And their pasts
All clinging to them,
For life support
They talked about how easy
It was to let gravity eat you alive
As you are falling into a black pit
You can’t stop the falling
Their wings were bound to
Pseudo lovers who
Gave them bruised arms
And blue fingers.
If you are lucky enough to
Escape the clenched hands of
Addiction,
The rest of your life will
Be a walking tightrope act
Trapeze dancers
One slip and you are falling
Even faster
Harder than before.
And your family, friends,
Everyone you have ever known is
In the audience watching you
Fall into your premature grave
And there is nothing they can do
But tell you to fly
But you cant
Because you just love your
Mistress too much
To ever let her go.
And they warned us about
How hard it might be to say no
To not let the circus come into
Town, but if you do
Only you can pack up the
Lions, clowns,
Colorful balloons.
Someone asked them if they
Believe drugs should be legalized
And he responded with
If I walk into a gas station
And see drugs for sale I will
Not be able to hold myself
Upright.
But I also do not want a government
Establishment to tell me what I can
And cannot ingest into my body,
So I don’t know.
Newton’s First Law of Motion
States that something will keep moving
Unless some force acts upon it.
And once you start drugs
Or gambling
Or skipping meals
it will progressively
Worsen in time.
Festering in bloodstreams
Until you decide to stop it.

At the dawn,
The sun sheds her cloak of moon, cloud and starry black skies
And stands naked, bright and shining,
Filled with yellows, and orange, and brilliance.  
And all I can do is wish to be as lovely as she.

Such radiance! Like the Phoenix rising;
Arms turned into wings the color of glowing embers
Stretched as wide and far as the rays of the sun herself,
Bursting with passion and gold and blazing,
Too small and too wonderful to contain it all.

But we don’t believe in blinding flames anymore.
How can we dream of such light?
Wings clipped, the color of ash, bound to earth
Through chains whose links are made of things too solid to break,
Things like gravity and pasts that hurt us to remember.

Women much like any other woman;
Like my mother, my friends, myself;
Women whose light has been diminished,
Who wear cloaks of bruises and broken promises now.
Filled with fear and rage and destruction.

Sweet sisters,
Trapped in cages not of their own making.
Bodies banging and thrashing against bars
Spasming in pain and silence
Too shamed and confused to sing

No melodies are heard here,
But look how pretty the silent bird is.
Muffled by gilded cages
Constructed from hardest of materials
Things we were made to believe.

This is the darkest of places
Closed curtains block out the sun.
No moon or stars to wrap us in fitful slumber.
There is no dreaming in this gloom.

“Sing for us!” they say, “croon for us something sweet,
“Let your voice choke past your rage and sorrow
“Flit amongst golden bars, sing and dance,
“Become our vision; ****, slave and nurturer
“For the cage is large and the sun cannot reach you here
“Let our praise warm you and our approval be your stars
“We will keep you safe.”

But birds such as we;
Like my mother, my friends, myself
We were not made for cages, gilded as they may be.
Our wings and hearts and love cannot be contained
Even by things of the most hurtful construction.

Lift up your wings and soar once again.
Rising like the Phoenix
Filled with rage and destruction and new promise,
From tombs of ash and tears to take flight.
Breaking through golden bars created by those who envied our passion.
We fly like no others.


At dawn
The sun and I will rise again
Shedding the pasts and hurts of yesterday
Like cloaks of moon and cloud and stars .
For I am simply me: a phoenix, daughter of the sun, naked, bright and shining
Join us.

It's pouring rain
Rivers run through the drains

Nothing happens in this town
peoples lives spiral down

Very few escape this place
start in a new town as a new face

If you're stuck here get used to gray days
as the contrast of your soul slowly fades away

Cause we live in the **** of god
fenced in by mountains and more than flawed
we'll take your losers loners and outcasts
Too eager to forget their pasts
Placed in this godforsaken community
Where no one cares about your identity

If you catch a glimpse of the scenery it's beauty never fades
but the wind cuts through to your core like a sharp blade

You'll never elude that damp chill
Keeping warm is a needed skill

If you ever go out dress in layers
And just in case say a few prayers

Unlike the people the weather is harsh
and to the beat of the rain we all march

Cause we live in the **** of god
fenced in by mountains and more than flawed
we'll take your losers loners and outcasts
Too eager to forget their pasts
Placed in this godforsaken community
Where no one cares about your identity

Winds are howling
dreams are drowning
Waves crashing into the shore
ships will sail no more
In this washed out itty bitty city
where the weathers always ******

Cause we live in the **** of god
fenced in by mountains and more than flawed
we'll take your losers loners and outcasts
Too eager to forget their pasts
Placed in this godforsaken community
Where no one cares about your identity

When i tell people about how i saw beyond reason, they tell me i'm not making any sense. Ironically, that's exactly the point. Something beyond reason can't make sense, logically, but it doesn't mean there isn't anything beyond logic.
We as people often act defying logic, although, arguably, the logic we live by is relative, and that leads to certain logical conclusions. What i am more interested in is, if all the relative points of logic can be seen as parts of objective, or even universal logic, then can i map it's boundaries? The answer is no. For the reason that if you can't see beyond a certain point you can't tell what's behind it. Say i stumble upon the logical end of my thought - it seemingly ends at a certain point, but what is beyond - i cannot know, that's why i can not tell if it's the logical end of it is relative to me or objective. But that is a logical mistake on my part. It's the relatively logical way to think, but objectively it's doomed for failure. For the same reason why we can't find the edge of our universe - not just because we don't see beyond the visible space region, but because it is impossible to reach such an edge in three dimensional space.
Allow me to logically explain why, on example of a two-dimensional space. Imagine yourself in a jar with water, you are swimming on the surface. The boundaries of the jar is your observable, or for better word - reachable universe. But the jar is not the entire universe, beyond the jar there is enormous amount of water. Whether it exists on a three-dimensional sphere or simply goes forever is irrelevant - you will never swim to the edge regardless. But if you were to be able to jump up from the surface of water then you would have understood that the true edge of this universe was actually vertical and you've just escaped through it into a new 3-dimensional one that is an extension of the two-dimensional one you previously were floating in. Now how do you then escape this 3-dimensional one you found yourself in? You know the answer, you jump into the 4th dimension - the logically only true edge of it.
Whether you can do it or not is irrelevant, what matters is what it tells us about logic - the exactly same thing - you can't reach the end of logic by simply looking around for it's borders, you have to fundamentally defy logic and go beyond it from the start.
Before we attempt that i have to lay down some things i kept secret from you until now. Why do i even chase the logical end? The answer is - i don't, i chase the fundamental understanding of the universe. "Whoah - hold up there" you might say, "what a perverse charlatan you are with your irrational methods, leave the universe to scientists!" And i will tell you - you are completely right. I don't understand anything a physicist or astronomer does when they examine what they can about the universe, but i believe, even though objectivity is not a matter of belief, to have a full understanding one can't study things from one aspect. Logic is the counterpart to fact, it is due to logic that facts exist the way they do, and it is due to facts available to us that we have the relative understanding of logic that we have today. Logic is the interpretation of the universe. And to reach a logical limit, in a sense, would be similar to reaching the limit of the universe. I can't jump into the fourth dimension of space, but i still i want to gain the fundamental understanding. I am desperate. That's why i will not stop until i have found it.
I have to derail from logic, and to do so i first need to deconstruct it. Construct is the foundation logic. By tying things into constructs, logic allows for interpretation of facts. Take for example the three dimensional space. It's construct is simple - it is existing in a three-axis fashion. There is left-right, forward-backward, up-down. Very simple, yet if need be it allows for great complexity, which can always be traced down to it's construct - three axis. To go beyond logic's very basic construct would be reaching my goal, but it is too early for that, as i can't yet pin-point what that is; i can do it for the relative space that i operate in, since with logic i interpret it, but to break down the very thing i interpret the world with is a completely different task.
Let's return to constructs. As i have realized, they are the foundation of logic. But further than that, they allow for existence of concepts. Now, beyond being a pretty word, a concept is something that we can logically interpret - understand, deconstruct or construct. Now not to play this game of terms any further, for the sake of logical simplicity i have decided that there are two types of concepts (and nothing further) - relative and objective. Relative concepts are understood in connection to other ones, while objective ones don't need the presence of others to still be ready for interpretation. The truth is, no one operates in objective constructs, because for that you would have to be outside of logic and universe, know it completely and wholly, only then would you truly be able to tell what constructs are objective. Even though relative to us, some concepts seem objective, for example - evolution, we describe it as the process of continuous adaptation. Seems very objective, right? But to proclaim such a thing is a fallacy - as even though it may be connected to our entire relative field of logic, we cannot tell whether is a fundamental property of all layers of the universe beyond our own. Another example - the concept of process. Well, time flows and with it something changes. Very objective. But time is relative to our perception of reality, there may not even be "time" at all and all there is is the way we experience the universe. What if we experienced time backwards? What if we experienced all time available to us at once? What if we did not experience time at all and stayed in a single "time-frame"? Is the concept of process still valid then? As such, all concepts available to us lie in the relative region of logic, and as far as we can understand, they don't stretch beyond it at least objectively.
Now that i have decided upon the features of logic, i need to derail. I don't know where to start so i will attempt to deconstruct a concept, and hopefully i will reach a logical failure - that will indicate to me that i have reached the limit to which i can deconstruct the concept, unless of course i have failed to stay true to logic, which seems contradictory, but really it isn't, as duality is the nature of the universe - even in logic.
If i have to "derail" then i will go with the concept of "a train". The one that travels on rails. What is a train? Is it a machine powered by fuel that goes on rails to transport someone or something, and usually consists of many connected wagons? Yes, but a lot of that is formalities, as how exactly a train works isn't a fundamental part of it's concept. The human idea of train can easily be seen in how we use the word alternatively - "train of thought". Fundamentally, it's something that travels to (hopefully)_a destination (but this train is doomed to fail). As such, i have discovered that "train" is only one of the faces for the fundamental concept of "transportation". Transportation is so fundamental to not just our existence but all life on Earth; because of this the invention of train by humankind was inevitable.
Let us transport somewhere. Conceptually, transportation means continuous movement of object by another. I want to go from point A to point B and i transport myself: i put myself in a cart and the cart takes me there. I want to transport a can of soda from the store to my fridge: i transport it there by carrying it in my hand.
I have realized that transport is a bad word for all of this, since it is not yet the most fundamental concept. What an oversight by me! Let's quickly fix this by proclaiming that more fundamental than transportation is movement. That truly is a great concept, as it is very fundamental, so please replace the word "transportation" for the word "movement" in the previous examples i'd described.
Movement is the primordial concept. I have arrived to such conclusion by thinking for an entire minute. If the construct of our perceivable reality is the three-axis, then by adding the concept of time and cause-effect into the mix, movement inevitably appears. Actually i have messed up with the terminology, so i will clean up the mess: construct of perceivable space is three-axis, but the fundamental construct of our relative reality also consists of time and cause-effect. In such a formation, movement is the primordial construct of this relative reality, as it is the most fundamental act. If you didn't know, non-movement is impossible in our reality due to the principle of relativity: even if you stay in place - from many perspectives you are in fact moving.
How does movement occur?.. What does it describe?.. A process of me moving from one point to another in a certain period of time? But what if it can also be reversed and describe me as moving in time in a certain length of space? Yes, it should, absolutely. Because from a detached perspective, it's the same thing. For me to move a certain distance, a certain amount of time has to pass; when a certain amount of time passes, i inevitably move a certain distance. I can't move to a certain distance without passing through a certain amount of time. I can't pass through a certain amount of time without moving some distance. In fact, i have an idea, i will move through time just because i decided to, and for that to happen i only need to go over a certain distance, or i may not even need to go, as i move through space all the time anyway. I still can only experience the time in one direction which is dictated by the cause-effect first being cause then effect in my relative perception of reality, but all it takes for me to go backwards is to turn around the cause-effect axis the same way i would turn around in the spacial three-dimensional axis'es. Everything would be exactly the same, just going backwards, and would make perfect sense once you apply a different logical interpretation strategy (with the effect being prior to cause).
Now i turn on the cause-effect axis in such a way that to my right is the cause and to my left is the effect. Time is at a standstill. I can't tell for sure but either i experience just one time-frame or all of them at once, but time no longer plays a part in my perception of reality, in fact now i see that to my right is the past and to my left is the future - it's frames like the one in which i currently am but slightly alternated, only if connected in a sequence they combine into time, but standalone they are like three-dimensional pictures.
I have experienced the world in a way i never had yet, but it still makes complete sense. I need to start removing parts of the logical construct. As i still witness past to the right and future to the left i decide that i can also see the alternative pasts and futures - all of those that intersect the one frame i currently inhabit. Why did i even decide i can do that? Because quantum mechanics told me i can, since according to their principles, universe is both deterministic and random - all effects occur from all possible causes and thus form infinite amount of timeline forks - all of which happen but a single observer feels like he only experiences one.
So i am an observer who turned perpendicularly around the cause-effect axis and decided that he can see what other observers he interconnected with experienced and will experience - them being technically other versions of me that cross paths in this frame. Now, when i say i've decided, you must understand, that even though factually none of this is possible, logically it is, just as much as you don't need to actually perform an action to sort of experience it - when you play a video-game or imagine things. Now, back to my experience of this ultra-reality, it is not very comprehensible, as it is similar to having not just one vision but 3 powered by infinity. I can't take it all in, but all my counterpart versions did come to this time-frame too, after-all. Which means that right here and now there's infinite amount of me, and all-together we can comprehend this mess of infinite pictures, one by one. This is definitely some sort of super-consciousness, made possible by all of us observers realizing that we interconnected from divergent paths in this one frame, which in turn was made possible from us rotating on the cause-effect axis. This is as close as it comes for me experiencing something truly divine. Not factually possible, yet logically experienceable.
Now i have seen it all - the entirety of my personal observable universe - or to be more factually correct - the entirety of my relatively available logic. Being only one of those infinite converging observers, i can't really tell you exactly what it consists of, but if you follow me in my previous steps you will understand it without me having to explain it.
Now only just one thing remains to finally derail - as i see everywhere i could ever see, and still wish to see what i could never see. Just like from that two-dimensional water i jumped into the three-dimensional air above it, i have to jump from whatever this thing i currently am experiencing to somewhere beyond it.
And i actually do so. In a way. I can't see **** here. Or at least, i can't figure out what i see, it makes no sense, it is beyond logic, beyond comprehension. Not even the infinite amount of my brethren can figure it out, it is on a completely different plane of existence, or maybe it even is unexistance, i can't know. It's completely quiet, even though maybe it is actually loud, just that the sound doesn't make any sense to me, so it's the same as if i don't hear anything. I just stare into it which is both nothing and so much everything to me that i almost drown in it. It pretty much ***** my thoughtful entirety into it much like a black-hole, it can't really do it but all my thoughts are attracted to it. It is to me like a great void that probably has lots of stuff inside but i can't possibly ever reach it, so to me it's a void. A void beyond logic, the delirious nonsense itself. I cannot reach it.
I get back from it to my plane of existence and turn around into the normal position on cause-effect axis of my relative reality. I really did it, i found that edge, that border. It's such a strange insight unlike anything else i have ever experienced in my head. I both know and don't know so much more about the universe - i experienced that black hole in my head, the end of the line for the train of logic, that drowns out into the vast void of complete irrationality relative to me. Now i know where and how to find it, and while it's not of any use to me, it brings me both despair and solace.
And did You find your end of the line?

His strong arms
hold me close and tight
keeping me warm.

His strong arms
are raised up to fight
those wishing harm.

His strong arms
lift me high like I'm
a jar full of air.

His tender fingers
twist the tendrils in
my naked hair.

His face, his feet, his chest, his gut inside it
are Chakras he never hided
when we both decided

...to show each other
let go of our pasts
to grow in each other.

We each have the strengths the other lacks,
but how can we make space living on each other's backs?

His strong arms
tend me like
a living room.

His strong arm
sows seeds in
my bleeding womb.

His arms stronger than any enemy's of mine
cannot fight what they cannot find.

Demons he cannot see he cannot face,
so they will take me away from him without a trace.

Strolling, wistful, through a thousand lives,
across the chasmed centuries gone past,
he calls her name; it never quite arrives
to fall upon her ear.  Just at the last,
she leaves the hall, or shutters windows closed.
The fading echoes rebound, fall, despair
upon the careless earth, alone who knows
how many times he's haunted up her stairs
and stood before her door, unwilling hand
hung limply at his side. The heavy years
passed by them both again; he hadn't planned
that they would not meet. This chance disappears  
to speak the truth he knows she knows as well;
two ancient souls in broken bodies dwell.

Two ancient souls in broken bodies dwell,
a karmic double-helix twists through time.
They spiral 'round, attracted and repelled
by cosmic force, the space between defined
as two arms' lengths apart. Their fingertips
will brush by chance; the spark that generates
ignites the kindling lust, the heated lips
which speak the wildfire words of love. The fates
dictate the places, times where their paths cross;
circumstances, consequences feed
the choices made.  They've chosen fire, the loss
of reason, stoking starving naked need,
dance with abandon, passion, without pride;
they trip light-years fantastic side by side.

They trip light-years fantastic side by side.
The pas de deux began in ancient court
of some small city-state.  He is a knight
sent by his Queen, a diplomatic sort
of mission.  At a dinner hosted by
the local King, the knight, while taking in
who might be helpful or a hindrance spies
a shaken mane of gold, blue eyes within
her stunning face, struck slack with ennui
until she meets his eyes.  An eyebrow lifts,
a corner of her mouth curls up, unseen
by all save the old man beside.  He shifts,
and stands to pound his staff. The hall is still;
bound by an angered mage's curs'ed spell

Bound by an angered mage's curs'ed spell:
"Your burning gaze, Sir Knight...your smile, milass;
returned. You want each other?  Very well!
So mote it be; I'll have it come to pass.
She will be linked to you, eternally
yours, to have, to hold and never love;
to consummate and quench your lust will be
your death. And you shall lust, by Jove above!
I hereby mate your everlasting souls;
condemn you with a love like Hades' fires,
passion's heat incinerates you whole.
You'll take him, child, and **** him with desire.
You'll die for her; she'll bring you to her knees
across uncharted lands, bedragoned seas."

Across uncharted lands, bedragoned seas
uncounted years of wandering, he seeks
asylum from the memory of her eyes.
The softest skin, most gently blushing cheeks,
wildest fingers raking skin from back,
ever-changing hips which ****** and thrash;
the tavern *****, the courtesan, all lack
whatever power it would take to smash
his crushing need.  An aching pilgrimage,
life spent in shameless chase to slake the lust
imposed by jealous wizard in his rage.
Now weak and old, he walks alone through dust
and sandstorm, seeking solace, final rest
in desert's scalding carborundum breath

In desert's scalding carborundum breath
she oversees construction of her tomb.
Her father started it; upon his death,
she left the mage to build the solemn room
of memory. The waves of slaves pour sweat
in rivers onto stones, their muscles scream
and ripple in the undulating heat.
Mirage becomes a staggering man, unseen
by all but her. She mounts and rides to bring
some water, some relief.  When their eyes meet,
their souls enmesh, their spirits start to sing,
his failing body falls about her feet.
They're found again, and still there's no release;
not even end of life can bring surcease.

Not even end of life can bring surcease;
she lived another twenty years beyond.
His final glance of longing gave no peace,
but chained her in the everlasting bond
of arcane condemnation. Her ****** heart
is pierced by passing seconds, every one
a blunted needle, mildly poisoned dart
not strong enough to stop her pulse's run.
The mage's gift to her: the agony
of life remembering her lover's kiss,
then a death too short to set her free.
It sends her toward another fatal tryst,
spun round again the universe's width;
their love a measured minuet with death.

Their love a measured minuet with death,
a dance with destiny.  They wake again
to unfamiliar bodies, unknown paths
meandering across the haunted plain
of time.  A muddy pasture, half a million
blissful stoners join in raucous song:
"...and you make it hard". Among the hills run
****** lovers who can do no wrong,
all sharing bodies, needles 'til the smack
runs out. Her shaking arms strapped 'cross his chest;
he huddles close, awaiting the next stack
of Methadone. He shivers; breathes his last.
She cries and rocks his body, they will spoon
throughout the summer's thundered afternoon.

Throughout the summer's thundered afternoon
as heavy clouds erupt on thirsty soil,
cooler air meets skin on fire, a boon
to Magdalene and lover.  The sweet oil
washes off, the rain obscures the sound
of marching feet.  Centurions approach
and ****** him from her side. "So now you're found
beside this one, whose last ride gave us such
an evil time.  We strung him up, but now
his body's gone, and you were seen beside
the tomb. You'll die just as he did, and how."
She watched another man be crucified.
Supported by her love, he passed in peace
suspended in expectant spring's embrace.

Suspended in expectant spring's embrace,
the royal courtyard at Versailles in bloom
is laid out for the party.  Every face
is rouged, each powdered wig precisely groomed.
The hundred soldiers stand down, raise a toast,
Vive le roi!  One teasing courtier
seduces a queen's guard to leave his post.
Behind a hedge, they make love unaware
of peasants, women milling through the gate
in search of bread and royal blood, not cake.
He runs to save the Queen, and seals his fate;
the mob will **** for revolution's sake.
The oaks a silent witness to his doom
in autumn colors, reds and golds festooned.

In autumn colors, reds and golds festooned,
the twin moons rise and set, reflecting sun
upon the biodomes.  Earth shines down, ruined
by man's neglect, what could not be undone.
The population by law zero sum;
resource conservation held above
the joy of new life.  Parents here must come
to know the anguish of requited love.
She bears his child; they knew too well the chance
they took.  The court will force a choice be made:
the father or the child. A tear, a glance
as he's locked out. She watches as he fades
in cryogenic punishment, life lashed
to winter's icy shackles holding fast.

To winter's icy shackles holding fast
her soul, she proffers prayer, slogs through the sleet
toward her cloistered cell.  One chilling blast
wraps habit 'round her, knocks her off her feet.
The heavy, sodden cloth, the wind prevents
her gaining purchase on the frozen ground.
From monastery cot, the monk could sense
distress.  In thin burnoose he dashed and found
her, cold as stone, yet breathing; swept her up
and rushed her to the hearth.  His warm embrace
brings on familiar heat.  Their pasts stirred up,
relived, decision made within a trace:
"'Tis best this time we live, and never start."
Their minds attuned, yet cleft by broken heart.

Their minds attuned, yet cleft by broken heart;
the aching need grows stronger day by day.
He tends her failing health without regard
to duty, vows.  Her weak voice strains to say,
"I will be gone before you this time. Hear
me out; this may be what we need to break
our curse.  Stay with me as my time grows near;
and love me as the Reaper comes to take
my soul, and finish with me after I
have left.  God will forgive sins we'll commit
for man alone has ****** us.  We must try
or curse ourselves, continue to submit
to endless pain, remain just as we are:
connected, blessed, and doomed to be apart."

Connected, blessed, and doomed to be apart,
they cling to every moment here and now;
the priceless beating of her failing heart,
his passions roil out in unending flow.
He gazes deep in her eternal eyes
as they glaze over, looking past his face
into the hollow stare of death.  She lies
suspended between life and time and space,
to hear an old, familiar voice sound in
her ears.  "To dance with death before him
as you rut...how clever!  Most astounding
that you'd carry out this futile whim.
He dies; you'll live, just as the curse defines;
strolling, wistful, through a thousand lives."

Strolling, wistful, through a thousand lives
Two ancient souls in broken bodies dwell.
They trip light-years fantastic side by side
Bound by an angered mage's curs'ed spell.
Across uncharted lands, bedragoned seas,
In desert's scalding carborundum breath
Not even end of life can bring surcease;
Their love a measured minuet with death.
Throughout the summer's thundered afternoon,
Suspended in expectant spring's embrace,
In autumn colors, reds and golds festooned,
To winter's icy shackles holding fast;
Their minds attuned, yet cleft by broken heart:
Connected, blessed, and doomed to be apart.

Seven New Poems For Seven Days #1: Shiva

Shiva means seven. For seven days, the bereaved family "sits shiva," sitting on low, uncomfortable stools and the comforters come to share their grief, praise the deceased, from mourning till late at night.*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~­~~~


I am confused - what day is it?
Windows tell day or night, a necessary but a condition insufficient.
The days have no distinguishing marks, a video stuck on
Repeat - a single track of recollected tales, prayers add a mild seasoning.

Though brief is this week of pre-sentencing hearings,
If one cannot dice the time into portions,
Then, there can be no pardon,
No early release date, from Phase One.

Rinse grief. Repeat. Seven cycles.
Apply stain-stick at the intersection of
Bloodied hurts and dimming memories,
Strangers secreting, spilling on you secrets unwanted.

This play, saw it many decades ago,
Before there was poetry, children.
A young man of twenty one,
Very afraid, silently, of the newest unknown.

I hated it then. Now experienced, I hate it more.
This semi-catharsis, a tapestry tale wove of faded pasts
Twisting an heirloom blade into an old wound,
the original cast, a new revival, playwright, regrettably, deceased...

First time at bat, hid in a small room, away from this tradition.
Beating my head against a wall privately,
That being my preferred manner of mourning,
Not this Broadway show, twice a day, seven days.

Rituals well intentioned, a time tested method,
nonetheless, jail time for me, a/k/a, the boy, the brother.
Familiarity comforts some. Me? A prison uniform.
I write my own poems, I am not a Borg collective.

Cast as Son, my obligations specific, aged.
My Hamlet doublet, cut/torn, messaging my somber status,
The cuts deepest, invisible, but all see this child
Drowning in eye pools that continuously self-replenish.

I'll do the time, this show the longest running ever,
Did forty years as son-shadow of a father-man,
Tacked another concurrent sentence for his woman,
End Date: Indeterminate...

The low stools will reappear, seven days for me,
Yet my job as poet not fully done, until this be read!
Leave 'em laughing o'er this Official Release from the obligatory,
Read, sit but once, read this poem, this script, this story, and be freed.

First star channels
     a hymn from a hammock

Leave a trail for me
     in the new grass
     I will weave back around it
as I trace the code of our pasts

I will glide back through
Like two snakes

Each print of my feet
     a press on fresh cells
Merges me with you back
          seeping to the soils

Keep speaking to me through the fire through the clouds
through the first body of light in a quickly darkening sky

In that space, we deny
all that is fear from dying

From here, there’s only “feel”
And from everywhere,  is “Love”

More.

Symphony of Silence throughout the night
Doors and windows latched and locked tight
Sleeping softly as dreams ******
Troubled times when morals where subdued

We’re shoulder to shoulder with the **** or the ***,
Look at themn's with the same eyes, not down the barrel of a gun
The pasts only purpose now, Make the blind clearly see
The mistakes they made with their ******’ corrupt legacy

It’s quiet in the cities cobbled streets, the birds pick at first light
Emerge from their nests, Like our generation glimpses first sight
The new formed world from the rubble of this war
No emblem or flag can heal wounds this vicious or raw
Brick by Brick, The walls of Peace rose to keep in hate
There’s no more guerrillas in the street, Only as heads of State

The Family divided, A Birds clipped wing
This Island, Our home,
Shared together
or
Squandered Alone

Had there been a time where idealizations were accepted among the walk of reality that lie before us it may all prove to be a bit more comforting.
Where the daunting banter of voices that sat atop my conscience were able to soothe the pain of grieving without true loss.
Heartache failed to be coupled with death.
A place where we could walk hand in hand with dark, empty vessels sent to sail with a destination that is but a passing fog and direction pinpointed out by wanderlust souls.
We lie with a marker of selfishness that runs so close to the bone- etching its edges into our flesh with such vigor that one could hardly ignore, yet it sits on the back burner.

Come with me, my love, dance in my graveyard of pasts.
Take in the sights of freshly filled earth that mold itself beneath our feet as we take a gander at what was.
Here lies the spring evening under the sycamore, young hearts screaming with excitement, the way the wind intertwined among-
The nearly bare branches of autumn rest peacefully with the skin coat worn as a declaration of verses that died between clenched teeth and sealed lips.
This is the laughter worms now feed on.
Here are the fingertips and silk braced locks buried alongside one another but never to touch again.
Pay mind to the faces piling up adjacent to the stone wall, laugh lines rotting by the rise and fall of moonlight.

What a spectacle of self, is it not, dear?
We can witness blue fade to black, closing the light on this scene.
Sit here and rot beneath the sycamore tree.
Clench our hearts between our teeth and swallow messenger bottles along with them.
Never to walk in unison but let one dissipate aside the other.
Let our memories of memorized bone structure fall before our very eyes- wouldn't it be grand?

Induct this into the cemetery of past and do away with the make up of oneself.
We will let this idealization fall cold,
Watch rigor mortis seep in with such mesmeric fashion.
Tuck it away before pre-thought memories taint themselves with reality.
Lower it down under into the ever so charming embrace of wood and soil, mites and fungus.
Clean our hands of touch ever so sacred.
Let it bleed out, darling. Let it decay.
Anyway- how will we remember this when its done away with today?

Let the grieving sink in, just to coddle remembrance of nothingness.
Embrace the black holes swallowing pieces of us.
Dance among the treetops and feel the wind, when our memory dies we can truly begin.
And again,
And again.

To every single person
Who feels as though they are broken
Shattered, shards, scattered across
Corrupted pasts,
You will be okay.

I know there are scars deep within your soul,
Lacerated across your heart
And potentially upon your skin
I know there is regret, and blame,
Disappointment and shame
Burning fires within.
Let them go.

You are beautiful,
At 3 in the morning when you’re curled up
In your sheets, your pillow
Saturated in yesterdays regrets.

You have endured journeys
Others could never even fathom
You shall blaze trails others
Could never even imagine.

Pain does not define you,
Society shall not confine you.

Don’t you forget, lose sight of or regret
That just because you can’t see the stars
It doesn't mean they're not shining.

9 am I woke with a broken heart
it had been shattered, unbidden
in the place after empty and before disappearing
-That-

To jump in a lake fully clothed and
realizing that you're too weighed down
to surface...

it hurts in my tummy
it hurts in my chest
it hurts in my throat

I am afraid.
The past is a broken red balloon
dragging on the ground behind me.
Every glance backward sends me reeling
sick and dizzy to my knees.

the breathless sorrow petrifies.

There are ghosts in my skull
(I know them by name)
Perhaps, that's the trouble-
I know how to call my haunting.

How many years of happy will it take
to even the cost?
I cannot do this anymore,
but it seems both my destiny and my doom,

I'm suspicious I've already lost.

On old mainstreet, sits an old café,
Where home-town-grown musicians play.
Sometimes they like to change its name,
But the clientele stay just the same.
When times are tough down in the town,
You know you can’t get the Black Dog down.

Rednecks and faux-necks and used-to-be-loggers,
Crafters and rafters, and activist bloggers,
And poets and hippies and mystics and fools,
And outcasts from the secondary schools,
And gypsies too: you’ll find them here,
Drowning in local, hand-crafted beer.

At night, locals sip organic tea,
And turn up the menagerie
Of lights and mics from another age,
Pieced together to make a stage.
And there, the guitarists waste their breath
Beating the Same. Four. Chords. To. Death.

There are some new lyrics, there and here,
But all of them memories of yester-year:
A year spent in the same **** space,
With others who’ve never left this place.
They sing of their dear loves and pasts,
And how much longer the wandering lasts.

And on they wail, and on they moan,
And twang the antique, rustic tone,
But their faces show they like it here,
This breaking haunt of yester-year,
And after the set, they carouse with cheer,
And smile contentedly to their beer.

On old mainstreet sits an old café,
Where home-town-grown musicians play.
Sometimes they like to change its name,
But the clientele stay just the same.
When times are tough down in the town,
You know you can’t get the Black Dog down.

You say you’re a ‘boss’, does that mean that I’m God, next,
Time you mess with me you’ll see I have a God complex,
Whatever, I mean this rap’s getting complex,
My effects, they perplex, my ego’s getting convex,
I could say that I’m strawberries but I’m much more like lime,
Acrid, like acid, I rhyme, I’ll keep my clothes on that’s fine,
Your sexisms pasts it’s prime, Gatsby’s acts aren’t fine,
Calling me out is a crime since you’re completely irrelevant,
The orders are mine, YOU strip but you best make it elegant,
I can take off my clothes for fun and still be ******* intelligent,
Dodging your blows, fo’ sho, street talk but still make it eloquent,
I might be teeth, ****, toes but lets make one thing clear,
The only head you’ll be getting is off the top of your beer.

Focus me on presents
Yet you set me down in pasts
My frame click, click, clicks
On all the things to last

My flowers never die
My faces never age

the past can
make or break you.
their pasts:
hers very short
his very long,
have brought around
and unlikely path
toward the future.

she was young
fresh faced
and naive,
wanting only
what was
the best for
the world.
born into the
chaos that
broke the civilization
that once
reigned supreme
into shards of glass.

he was older;
hardened by
loss and tragedy,
selfishly protecting
the things that
he fought
so hard to take
and keep close.
he was a helpless
victim of the
strange and unfair
ways of the universe

together, however,
they were
ying and yang;
both coexisting
in harmony that
could only be
brought around by
their pasts.

he fights
like hell to
ensure he can
get this right
a second time around.
she struggles to
see how dear
her life is to him,
and the others.

their pasts have
made them into
the people that
endure and survive
their twisted circumstances.