THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD IN VERSE
Dear Readers, I have tried to cover the salient features of this True Story in free flowing verse mainly with end rhymes. If you read it loud, you can hear the chimes! Due to the short attention span of my readers I had to cut short this long story, and conclude with the
Golden Era of Hollywood by stretching it up to the 1950's only. When TV began to challenge the Big Screen Cinema seriously! I have used only a part of my notes here. Kindly read the entire poem and don't hesitate to know many interesting facts - which I also did not know! I wish there was a provision for posting a few interesting photographs for you here. Best wishes, - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.  

                 THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD :
                        THE AMERICAN  DREAM
                             BY RAJ NANDY

           A SHORT  HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND
Since the earliest days, optical toys, shadow shows, and ‘magic
lanterns’, had created the illusion of motion.
This concept was first described by Mark Roget in 1824 as  
the 'persistent of vision'.
Giving impetus to the development of big screen cinema with its
close-ups, capturing all controlled and subtle expressions!
The actors were no longer required to shout out their parts with
exaggerated actions as on the Elizabethan Stage.
Now even a single tear drop could get noticed easily by the entire
movie audience!
With the best scene being included and edited after a few retakes.
To Thomas Edison and his able assistant William Rogers we owe the invention of Kinetoscope, the first movie camera.
On the grounds of his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory, Edison
built his first movie studio called the ‘Black Maria’.   (1893)
He also purchased a string of patents related to motion picture
Camera; forming the Edison Trust, - a cartel that took control of
the Film Industry entire!

Fort Lee, New Jersey:
On a small borough on the opposite bank of the Hudson River lay
the deserted Fort Lee.
Here scores of film production crews descended armed with picture Cameras, on this isolated part of New Jersey!
In 1907 Edison’s company came there to shoot a short silent film –
‘Rescue From an Eagle’s Nest’,
Which featured for the first time the actor and director DW Griffith.
The independent Chaplin Film Company built the first permanent
movie studio in 1910 in Fort Lee.
While some of the biggest Hollywood studios like the Universal,
MGM, and 20th Century Fox, had their roots in Fort Lee.
Some of the famous stars of the silent movie era included ‘Fatty’
Arbuckle, Will Rogers, Mary Pickford, Dorothy and Lillian Gish,
Lionel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentine and Pearl White.
In those days there were no reflectors and electric arch lights.
So movies were made on rooftops to capture the bright sunlight!
During unpredictable bad weather days, filming had to be stopped
despite the revolving stage which was made, -
To rotate and capture the sunlight before the lights atarted to fade!

Shift from New Jersey to West Coast California:
Now Edison who held the patents for the bulb, phonograph, and the Camera, had exhibited a near monopoly;
On the production, distribution, and exhibition of the movies which made this budding industry to shift to California from
New Jersey!
California with its natural scenery, its open range, mountains, desert, and snow country, had the basic ingredients for the movie industry.
But most importantly, California had bright Sunshine for almost
365 days of the year!
While eight miles away from Hollywood lay the port city of Los Angeles with its cheap labour.

                        THE RISE  OF  HOLLYWOOD
It was a real estate tycoon Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida from
Kansas, who during the 1880s founded ‘Hollywood’ as a community for like-minded temperate followers.
It is generally said that Daeida gave the name Hollywood perhaps
due to the areas abundant red-berried shrubs also known as
California Holly.
Spring blossoms around and above the Hollywood Hills with its rich variety,  gave it a touch of paradise for all to see !
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903, and during
1910 unified with the city of Los Angeles.
While a year later, the first film studio had moved in from New
Jersey, to escape Thomas Edison’s monopoly!    (1911)

In 1913 Cecil B. De Mille and Jesse Lasky, had leased a barn with
studio facilities.
And directed the first feature length film ‘Squaw Man’ in 1914.
Today this studio is home to Hollywood Heritage Museum as we get to see.
The timeless symbol of Hollywood film industry that famous sign on top of Mount Lee, was put up by a real estate developer in 1923.  
This sign had read as ‘’HOLLY WOOD LAND’’ initially.
Despite decades of run-ins with vandals and pranksters, it managed to hang on to its prime location near the summit of the Hollywood Hills.
The last restoration work was carried out in 1978 initiated by Hugh
Hefner of the ******* Magazine.
Those nine white letters 45 feet tall now read ‘HOLLYWOOD’, and has become a landmark and America’s cultural icon, and an evocative symbol for ambition, glamour, and dream.
Forever enticing aspiring actors to flock to Hollywood, hypnotised
by lure of the big screen!

                     GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
The Silent Movie Era which began in 1895, ended in 1935 with the
production of ‘Dance of Virgins’, filmed entirely in the island of Bali.
The first Sound film ‘The Jazz Singer’ by Warner Bros. was made with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology.  (October 1927)
Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, this decade along with the 1940s have been regarded by some as Hollywood’s Golden Age.
However, I think that this Golden Age includes the decades of the
1940s and the 1950s instead.
When the advent of Television began to challenge the Film Industry
itself !

First Academy Award:
On 16th May 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard,
the First Academy Award presentation was held.
Around 270 people were in attendance, and tickets were priced at
$5 per head.
When the best films of 1927 & 1928 were honored by the Academy
of Motion Production and Sciences, or the AMPS.
Emil Jennings became the best actor, and Janet Gaynor the best actress.
Special Award went to Charlie Chaplin for his contribution to the
silent movie era and for his silent film ‘The Circus’.
While Warren Brothers was commended for making the first talking picture ‘The Jazz Singer’, - also receiving a Special Award!
Now, the origin of the term ‘OSCAR’ has remained disputed.
The Academy adopted this name from 1939 onwards it is stated.
OSCAR award has now become “the stuff dreams are made of”!
It is a gold-plated statuette of a knight 13.5 inches in height, weighing 8.5 pounds, was designed by MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons.
Annually awarded for honouring and encouraging excellence in all
facets of motion picture production.

Movies During the Great Depression Era (1929-1941):
Musicals and dance movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers provided escapism and good entertainment during this age.
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it
backwards and in high heels,” - the Critics had said.
This compatible pair entertained the viewers for almost one and
a half decade.
During the ‘30s, gangster movies were popular starring James Cagey, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson.
While family movies had their popular child artist Shirley Temple.
Swashbuckler films of the Golden Age saw the sword fighting scenes of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn.
Flynn got idolized playing ‘Robin Hood’, this film got released in
1938 on the big screen!
Story of the American Civil War got presented in the epic ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939) with Clarke Gable and Vivian Leigh.
This movie received 8 Oscars including the award for the Best Film, - creating a landmark in motion picture’s history!
More serious movies like John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and
John Ford’s  ‘How Green Was My Valley’, were released in 1940 and 1941 respectively.
While the viewers escaped that depressive age to the magical world
of  ‘Wizard of Oz’ with its actress Judy Garland most eagerly!
Let us not forget John Wayne the King of the Westerns, who began
his acting career in the 1930s with his movie ‘The Big Trail’;
He went on to complete 84 films before his career came to an end.
Beginning of the 40s also saw Bob Hope and the crooner Bing Crosby, who entertained the public and also the fighting troops.
For the Second World War (1939-45) had interrupted the Golden Age of Hollywood.
When actors like Henry Fonda, Clarke Gable, James Stewart and
Douglas Fairbanks joined the armed forces temporarily leaving
Hollywood.
Few propaganda movies supporting the war efforts were also made.
While landmark movies like ‘Philadelphia Story’, ‘Casablanca’, ‘Citizen Kane’,
‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, were some of the most successful movies of that decade.  (The 1940s)
Now I come towards the end of my Hollywood Story with the decade  of the 1950s, thereby extending the period of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Since having past the Great Depression and the Second World War,  the Hollywood movie industry truly matured and came of age.

                        HOLLYWOOD  OF  THE  1950s

BACKGROU­ND:
The decade of the ‘50s was known for its post-war affluence and
choice of leisure time activities.
It was a decade of middle-class values, fast-food restaurants, and
drive-in- movies;
Of ‘baby-boom’, all-electric home, the first credit cards, and new fast moving cars like the Ford, Plymouth, Buick, Hudson, and Chevrolet.
But not forgetting the white racist terrorism in the Southern States!
This era saw the beginning of Cold War, with Eisenhower
succeeding Harry S. Truman as the American President.
But for the film industry, most importantly, what really mattered  
was the advent of the Domestic TV.
When the older viewers preferred to stay at home instead of going
out to the movies.
By 1950, 10.5 million US homes had a television set, and on the
30th December 1953, the first Color TV went on sale!
Film industries used techniques such as Cinemascope, Vista Vision,
and gimmicks like 3-D techniques,
To get back their former movie audience back on their seats!
However, the big scene spectacle films did retain its charm and
fantasy.
Since fantasy epics like ‘The Story of Robin Hood’, and Biblical epics like ‘The Robe’, ‘Quo Vadis’, ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘Ben-Hur’, did retain its big screen visual appeal.
‘The Robe’ released on 16th September 1953, was the first film shot
and projected in Cinema Scope;
In which special lenses were used to compress a wide image into a
standard frame and then expanded it again during projection;
Resulting in an image almost two and a half times as high and also as wide, - captivating the viewers imagination!

DEMAND FOR NEW THEMES DURING THE 1950s :
The idealized portrayal of men and women since the Second World War,
Now failed to satisfy the youth who sought exciting symbols for rebellion.
So Hollywood responded with anti-heroes with stars like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Paul Newman.
They replaced conventional actors like Tyron Power, Van Johnson, and Robert Taylor to a great extent, to meet the requirement of the age.
Anti-heroines included Ava Gardner, Kim Novak, and Marilyn Monroe with her vibrant *** appeal;
She provided excitement for the new generation with a change of scene.
Themes of rebellion against established authority was present in many Rock and Roll songs,
Including the 1954 Bill Hailey and His Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
The era also saw rise to stardom of Elvis Presley the teen heartthrob.
Meeting the youthful aspirations with his songs like ‘Jailhouse Rock’!
I recall the lyrics of this 1957 film ‘Jailhouse Rock’ of my school days, which had featured the youth icon Elvis:
   “The Warden threw a party in the county jail,
     The prison band was there and they began to wail.
     The band was jumping and the joint began to sing,
     You should’ve heard them knocked-out jail bird sing.
     Let’s rock, everybody in the whole cell block……………
     Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone,
     Little Joe was blowing the slide trombone.
     The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang!
     The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang,
      Let's rock,.................... (Lyrics of the song.)

Rock and Roll music began to tear down color barriers, and Afro-
American musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard became
very popular!
Now I must caution my readers that thousands of feature films got  released during this eventful decade in Hollywood.
To cover them all within this limited space becomes an impossible
task, which may kindly be understood !
However, I shall try to do so in a summarized form as best as I could.

BOX OFFICE HITS YEAR-WISE FROM 1950 To 1959 :
Top Ten Year-Wise hit films chronologically are: Cinderella (1950),
Quo Vadis, The Greatest Show on Earth, Peter Pan, Rear Window,
Lady and the *****, Ten Commandments, Bridge on the River
Kwai, South Pacific, and Ben-Hur of 1959.

However Taking The Entire Decade Of 1950s Collectively,
The Top Films Get Rated As Follows Respectively:
The Ten Commandments, followed by Lady and the *****, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Bridge on the River Kwai, Around the World in Eighty Days, This is Cinerama, The Greatest Show on Earth, Rear Window, South Pacific, The Robe, Giant, Seven Wonders of the World, White Christmas, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Sayonara, Demetrius and the Gladiator, Peyton Place, Some Like It Hot, Quo Vadis, and Auntie Mame.

Film Debuts By Rising Stars During The 1950s :
The decade of the ‘50s saw a number of famous film stars making
their first appearance.
There was Peter Sellers in ‘The Black Rose’, Marlon Brando in
‘The Men’, and actress Sophia Loren in ‘Toto Tarzan’.
Following year saw Charles Bronson in ‘You Are in the Navy Now’,
Audrey Hepburn in ‘Our Wild Oats’, and Grace Kelly, the future
Princess of Monaco, in her first film ‘Fourteen Hours’. (1951)
While **** Brigitte Bardot appeared in 1952 movie ‘Crazy for Love’; and 1953 saw Steve Mc Queen in ‘******* The Run’.
Jack Lemon, Paul Newman, and Omar Sharif featured in films
during 1954.
The following year saw Clint Eastwood, Shirley Mc Lean, Walter
Matthau, and Jane Mansfield, all of whom the audience adored.
The British actor Michael Cain appeared in 1956; also Elvis Presley
the youth icon in ‘Love Me Tender’ and as the future Rock and Roll
King!
In 1957 came Sean Connery, followed by Jack Nicholson, Christopher Plummer, and Vanessa Redgrave.
While the closing decade of the ‘50s saw James Coburn, along with
director, script writer, and producer Steven Spielberg, make their
debut appearance.

Deaths During The 1950s: This decade also saw the death of actors
like Humphrey Bogart, Tyron Power and Errol Flynn.
Including the death of producer and director of epic movies the
renowned Cecil B. De Mille!
Though I have conclude the Golden Age of Hollywood with the 50’s Decade,
The glitz and glamour of its Oscar Awards continue even to this day.
With its red carpet and lighted marquee appeal and fashion display!

CONTINUING THE HOLLYWOOD STORY WITH FEW TITBITS :
From Fort Lee of New Jersey we have travelled west to Hollywood,
California.
From the silent movie days to the first ‘talking picture’ with Warren
Bros’ film ‘The Jazz Singer’.  (06 Oct 1927)
On 31st July 1928 for the first time the audience heard the MGM’s
mascot Leo’s mighty roar!
While in July 1929 Warren Bros’ first all-talking and all- Technicolor
Film appeared titled - ‘On With The Show’.
Austrian born Hedy Lamarr shocked the audience appearing **** in a Czechoslovak film ‘Ecstasy’!  (1933)
She fled from her husband to join MGM, becoming a star of the
‘40s and the ‘50s.
The ‘Private Life of Henry VII’ became the first British film to win the  American Academy Award.  (1933)
On 11Dec 1934, FOX released ‘Bright Eyes’ with Shirley Temple,
who became the first Child artist to win this Award!
While in 1937 Walt Disney released the first full animated feature
film titled - ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarf ‘.
The British film director Alfred Hitchcock who came to
Hollywood later;
Between 1940 and 1947, made great thrillers like 'Rebecca', ‘Notorious’, ‘Rear Window’, and ‘Dial M for ******’.
But he never won an Oscar as a Director!

THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD:
This award began in 1944 by the Foreign Correspondence Association at
the 20th Century Fox Studio.
To award critically acclaimed films and television shows, by awarding a
Scroll initially.
Later a Golden Globe was made on a pedestal, with a film strip around it.
In 1955 the Cecil B. De Mille Award was created, with De Mille as its first
recipient.

THE GRAMMY AWARD:
In 1959 The National Academy of Recording and Sciences sponsored the
First Grammy Award for music recorded during 1958.
When Frank Sinatra won for his album cover ‘Only The Lonely’, but he
did not sing.
Among the 28 other categories there was Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie
for his musical Dance Band Performance.
There was Kingston Trio’s song ‘Tom Dooly’, and the ‘Chipmunk Song’,
which brings back nostalgic memories of my school days!

CONCLUDING HOLLYWOOD STORY  WITH STUDIOS OF THE 1950s

Challenge Faced by the Movie Industry:
Now the challenge before the Movie Industry was how to adjust to the
rapidly changing conditions created by the growing TV Industry.
Resulting in loss of revenue, with viewers getting addicted to
their Domestic TV screen most conveniently!

The late 1950s saw two studios REPUBLIC and the RKO go out of business!
REPUBLIC from 1935- ‘59 based in Los Angeles, developed the careers of
John Wayne and Roy Rogers, and specializing in the Westerns.
RKO was one of the Big Five Studios of Hollywood along with Paramount,
MGM, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Brothers in those days.

RKO Studio which begun with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the ‘30s,
included actress Katherine Hepburn who holds the record for four Oscars
even to this day;
And later had Robert Mitchum and Carry Grant under an agreement.
But in 1948, RKO Studio came under the control Howard Hughes the
temperamental Industrialist.
Soon the scandal drive and litigation prone RKO Studio closed, while
other Big Four Studios had managed to remain afloat!


PARAMOUNT STUDIO:
Paramount Studio split into two separate companies in 1950.
Its Theatre chain later merged with ABC Radio & Television Network;
And they created an independent Production/Distribution Network.
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope had been Paramount’s two biggest stars.
Followed by actors like Alan Ladd, William Holden, Jerry Lewis, Dean
Martin, Charlton Heston, and Dorothy Lamour.
They also had the producer/director Cecil B. De Mille producing high-
grossing Epics like ‘Samson & Delilah’ and ‘The Ten Commandments’.
Also the movie maker Hal Wallis, who discovered Burt Lancaster and
Elvis Presley - two great talents!

20th CENTURY FOX:
Cinema Scope became FOX’s most successful technological innovation
with its hit film ‘The Robe’. (1953)
Its Darryl Zanuck had observed during the early ‘50s, that audience  
were more interested in escapist entertainments mainly.
So he turned to FOX to musicals, comedies, and adventure stories.
Biggest stars of FOX were Gregory Peck & Susan Hayward; also
stars like Victor Mature, Anne Baxter, and Richard Wind Mark.
Not forgetting Marilyn Monroe in her Cinema Scope Box Office hit
movie - ‘How to Marry a Millionaire’, which was also shown on
prime time TV, as a romantic comedy film of 1953.

WARREN BROTHERS:
During 1950 the studio was mainly a family managed company with
three brothers Harry, Albert, and Jack Warren.
To meet the challenges of that period, Warren Bros. released most of
its actors like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Oliver de Havilland, -
Along with few others from their long-term contractual commitments;
Retaining only Errol Flynn, and Ronald Regan who went on to become
the future President.
Like 20th Century Fox, Warren Bros switched to musicals, comedies,
and adventure movies, with Doris Day as its biggest musical star.
The studio also entered into short term agreements with Gary Copper,
John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Patricia Neal, and Random Scott.
Warren Bros also became the first major studio to invest in 3-D
production of films, scoring a big hit with its 3-D  suspense thriller
‘House of Wax’ in 1953.

MINOR STUDIOS were mainly three, - United Artists, Columbia, and
The Universal.
They did not own any theatre chain, and specialized in low-budgeted
‘B’ Movies those days.
Now to cut a long story short it must be said, that Hollywood finally
did participate in the evolution of Television industry, which led to
their integration eventually.
Though strategies involving hardware development and ownership of
broadcast outlets remained unsuccessful unfortunately.
However, Hollywood did succeed through program supply like prime-
time series, and made-for-TV films for the growing TV market making
things more colorful!
Thus it could be said that the TV industry provided the film industry
with new opportunities,  laying the groundwork for its diversification
and concentration;
That characterized the entertainment industry during the latter half  
of our previous century.
I must now confess that I have not visited the movie theatre over the last
two decades!
I watch movies on my big screen TV and my Computer screen these days.
Old classical movies are all available on ‘You Tube’ for me, and I can watch
them any time whenever I am free!
Thanks for reading patiently, - Raj Nandy.
**ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR RAJ NANDY OF NEW DELHI

There are times in life
when a man needs change,
And I don't mean,
dimes and quarters.

Remember when you
were just sixteen,
Driving all alone, solo,
in your old man's Buick?
All the windows down,
radio music blaring,
Your bare arm draped
out over the side of the door.
to better exhibit your bicep.

Hell mister, no doubt,
you were ten feet tall,
the king of the road.
Ever wish you had,
that feeling back again?

Cars were always my thing.
I owned some Detroit
Muscle, Full blown Chevy,
Firebird 400, Chrysler Hemi.
Smoked some tires and
went to Court a time or two.
Of course all that was long
ago in my fitter youth.

When I became a Yuppie
I acquired a Poodle Puppy,
a Porsche and a MGB.

But the ***** does turn.
and so then, did I,
And my road got,
a little bumpy.

Along came marriage,
then a baby carriage.
And a big house
In the Burbs.

Then came a progression
Of Volvo Station Wagons,
to Soccer Dad Mini Vans,
to large SUV's.
All for hauling,
any number of things.
Kids and dogs, strollers,
bikes, kites and scooters,
Fellow car poolers,

And less we forget,
"Pulling" things too.
Boats, RV's, Utility trailers,
and all nature of landscape,
gardening, and general
shopping paraphernalia.
Little League Teams,
Drooling big dogs,
Papier Mache Volcanos.
Home Coming Floats,
Once even a Goat
You name it, I hauled it,
Or pulled it!

Years rolled by,
eventually the Kids
flew the nest, got married.
And low and behold,
The wife and I split,
Each going our separate way.
No one's fault, just grew apart.
The thinly veiled allegorical
Previous Patriarchal
arrangement became,
A whole new start,
A workable self allegiance
to just one.

Soon once more, I was the MAN.
I ran out, bought a **** boat
But not having the kids around,
Soon sold it, having found out,
that alone, I was not a water sport.

I caroused around, dated women,
got my pockets picked,
learned a few lessons.
Fell in love, fell out again,
Took a few pretty good blows,
Right on the chin,
Even some down lower.

Round about then,
An Epiphany kicked in.
Remembered my most,
ennobling, happy events,
behind the wheel,
driving Dad's Buick.

As I stepped on the lot.
There was never doubt,
There was only one choice,
I just had to have that,
Little VW Bug Red Racer.

Nothing like your Mother's
Beetle, the engine's up front,
Not stuck in the trunk,
And man it produces over,
200 Big Time Horsepower
Not to mention,
Lays rubber in three,
Of six gears.
Getting all the while,
33 miles per gallon.

Receiving additional help,
from a sweet Turbo Booster,
Just like a big, Indy Track Bruiser.

There's 19 inch racing
tires and alloy wheels,
They look so cool,
Spinning in motion.

Dual stainless steel exhausts,
And best of all,
a cool collapsible,
Convertible top.

Rack and Pinion steering,
Handles like a sports car,
Yet still offers a backseat
To take my Grandkids,
out for a spin.

Dude, it's got,
All the bows
and whistles!

Top Down Driving is such a thrill,
Makes me feel sixteen again.
The open road, the sky above,
The wind blowing thru my hair,
what there is left of it.

Perhaps the only thing that
Could possibly make this
Driving experience greater,
Would be to speed down,
The road, going eighty,
Behind the wheel of my
Little Red Racer,
Completely **** naked,
And of course all the while,
Feel the wind in my hair.

I don't know, I'm too old,
To call this a mid life crisis.
But on the other hand,
Maybe the acquiring of
This little red sporty car,
Has something to do with,
Those Testosterone shots I'm taking.
I'm even thinking, of dying my hair,
naw, lets not get crazy!

i.
we bundled in the car
wet wool and *** roast
the car that my father
brought home as a surprise
a big 1970 Buick Electra 225, four door sedan
     in pale yellow

ii.
winter, the sky an eternal black
the stars all about us
the woods, my parents silent
as if they, too, know
not to break the spell,

iii.
only the whine of the tires
all the way home from
my grandparents, down the
long rolling road, cozy
my sisters and i on the
back seat bench, the heater
blasting the car to an
     overwamth

iv.
feeling safe and loved and
knowing we could ride
     like this
forever, chasing the full
moon all the way to its
     home
but we all knew that spring
    was coming

I commit to poems the second that I begin writing them,
And here I am committing to this one,
My cursor on the screen
Tap tap tapping like tap-roots across it’s blue-glowing surface.
With every push of every button,
I begin seeing the blue light
As more than it is. I begin seeing it as a poem.
The blue light that illuminated the Never Sink sinkhole
Was not from a screen.
Nor was it from glowworms.
As I write on this screen though, there is that same blue light
With me still. It is
Streaming from the walls of the cavern,
Still massaging the bags of tiredness
That hang beneath my eyelids to remind me
Of where I just was, having *** with my ex-girlfriend,
And of all the places that I was before that: to remind me
Of the blue lights in Never Sink,
The sinkhole that is 120 feet wide and 170 feet deep that I
Climbed out of on a rope and in the dark,
Which was anything but dark—an unlocked lock
Sat in my driveway after I got home

From having *** with my ex-girlfriend tonight,
And there, in that lock, was a comparison to or an analogy for or a metaphor of
My climb out of Never Sink: gradual ascension
And then a moment
Of absolute awe and profundity so unlike any other profundity
That the clarity I felt absolutely throughout my body tonight
Can only really be brought into my mind with full force
Through a comparison and analogy and metaphor
To, for, and of the blue lights
That that temple provided us. Looking into that lock’s
Reflective gleam, I discovered that I felt
The way I’d felt ever since climbing out of Never Sink, which was exactly
How I’d spent the past year or so wanting to feel.

“Bring me,” I said to Duane, who went with me to Never Sink,
“To the hole in the ground
Where the blue light glows; where the glow-worms lightly blaze” and Duane
Said “okay” and he brought me there without
My ever having to say those words. And then,
In the moments after the sun went down we discovered
That the glowworms were not glowworms but
Armillaria mellea, a bioluminescent fungus.
Not glowworms but Armillaria mellea,
Which rose through and across the cave walls, coating the rock
With its skin. The whole pit was covered in that skin—the skin
Of that single individual.
As I methodically climbed out of the sinkhole on my rope, I felt that
Fungus (that individual) extending
Its black shoelace looking taproots into my lungs too,
And into my skin,
Where I was but where
I wasn’t quite yet. Where I was but
Where I couldn’t yet describe to myself without the use of glowworms—
Without the use of made-up and childish sounding words
Like Depropheria, which I wrote a book about but which
I never really understood, and I, the whole concept of which is flawed,
Feel like I could be the plant on Joe’s counter,
Which he said I already am.
Because if my “I” was in all of its molecules and its “I” was in all of my molecules
Then we would both just be exactly what we already were, Joe said, and so
By the very logic I extended in posing the question
I was and am the plant.

I could be Armillaria mellea too
But what am I if I think that I am glowworms? but really
The glowworms are fungus, and while I ****** my ex-girlfriend tonight, falling
Further into the space away from her, I was also
Scraping away at the walls of Never Sink
To see the tiny little hairs that revealed to Duane and I what really was there,
The Armillaria mellea, of course, but how could something so different
(“**** me, Daniel,” she said, “I feel you inside of me, I want you.”
“**** me,” I said
“”
“I feel myself inside of you, I”)
Be the thing that I am? I would never

Stop the car because I saw something shining on my driveway.
And I would never
Open the car door
And step out into the night with the engine running.
Step out into the night to find an
Unlocked lock
Lying there on the pavement while the song that I tried to live all year
Called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel blasts loudly
From my Buick’s speakers. Step out into the night
With that song blaring through my open car door, surely waking
My soon to be empty-nested mother from her sleep behind
That second story window
Right up ahead.

I did those things though—I
Stopped the car because I saw something shining on my driveway, and I
Did those things.
I am glow-worms.
I am, and so
I am the plant on Joe’s counter, and so
I can be a glow-worm.
I can be what I already am without knowing or comprehending that I am it.
I can be the whole universe.
I am the whole universe.
I saw over one hundred salamanders at the bottom of Never Sink.
And I saw four different species of salamanders at the bottom of Never Sink.
And I saw six different species of frogs, and I saw
Three brown rat snakes, which thankfully were not copperheads, but which
Could have been glowworms that were copperheads,
I guess. If you ask Joe, anyway. I’m not sure
I believe it fully
Even though when you strip away sentimental definitions of “I”
It’s pretty **** convincing. He was convincing.

I danced around Joe’s counter (where the plant sat, even then)
In September. At the time,
The counter was quickly becoming Alex’s counter,
Because I was becoming close friends with Alex,
And because Alex was Joe’s little sister, and because
Joe had left for the college he’d drop out of,
And during his hiatus from what he’d wanted to run from
It was just
Alex’s counter. It is Joe’s counter again now,
Because Alex has a dumb boyfriend who she likes to kiss
And doesn’t really like to ****
But who she does **** anyway and as a result
Doesn’t really like spending much time not ******* me anymore.
Anyway, I danced

Around Joe’s counter in September, when it was becoming Alex’s counter,
And I sank songs like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
With all my new friends. I thought that I
Was living those songs
Because, if my “I” was in the molecules that vibrated when the song played,
And the “I” of those molecules was in me
Then I would be those songs and those songs would be me.
Being the songs wasn’t the same as living the songs, though.
Rising out of Never Sink I saw myself
Reflected in the blue dots of light that Armillaria mellea created.
I saw that I hadn’t been living everything
That I was; I saw that I was the blue dots then, but I also saw
That I didn’t know that the blue dots weren’t glowworms.

When I was dancing
Around Joe’s counter, I didn’t yet know the words
To In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.
But all my new friends were singing those words, and so I
Screamed out barely-syllabic nonsense
With a smile on my face,
Speaking like a baby who recognizes the existence of language
But can’t yet put it into use.

Rising out of Never Sink
The whole cave opened up, as more and more levels of the sinkhole
Were revealed to be stars and galaxies
Of blue fungus to climb through.
Rising out of Never Sink, I held in my hand
The unlocked lock which I would use later
To weight my pocket as I would sit with these bags of tiredness hanging
Writing this poem late at night on the screen illuminated
By the blue lights of Never Sink. To weight my pocket
As I would sit writing this poem, with
***** excreted thirty minutes prior still resting on my ****
Like the name I haven’t yet learned to call her—
Caterina, Caterina, why did she change it? Maria
Was so pretty, why did she change her name, it was
To get away from me, it was to get away from me like
I wanted to get away from her, it was to get away from me it was
Because she always hated the name Maria. And
To grow more confident in herself
She needed to become
Caterina. She needed to rebrand herself like she worked on rebranding
That company’s logo for her senior thesis project in high school
When I first fell in love with her because
Glowworms lit up Never Sink at night.

They were glowworms in Never Sink
Because the glowworms are fungus
And I am the glowworms.

If you ask Joe.

I want to take some time now to describe
Rising out of Never Sink
Without giving any time
To the lock I found in my drive-way this evening, or
To Joe’s counter-top and how I danced around it knowing
That it wasn’t his but that it was him,
Or to the remnants of Maria, Caterina, and I which are all I, and which
Stick to my ***** still. Never Sink is a sinkhole
That is 170 feet deep
And 120 feet wide at its top.

I went spelunking in Alamaba, Georgia, and/or Tennesse last week
Where I never knew which state or time zone I was in,
And where an annoying but charming guy named Glenn
Led me and my best friend through epic places of infinite beauty.
One of those places was Never Sink,
Which is a sinkhole that is
170 feet deep and
120 feet wide at its top. We repelled into Never Sink
Because Glenn wanted to show us the glowworms
(Which were fungus that were glowworms that were
**** it) and because my friend Duane, who is my best friend, who is
A 39 year-old factory worker who worries that he is much older than he is,
Wanted to see the glowworms too.
We found over a hundred salamanders in Never Sink
And Duane and I discovered that it wasn’t glowworms
That illuminated the pit, but Armillaria mellea, which is a fungus, and
It was very cool.
But ascending through Never Sink was more than very cool,
And it was much more than fungus,
Just as the fungus which I took into my body in August (which it
Almost is again now) after the summer music festival was more
Than just fungus. That fungus was more than just fungus because
I took it into my body right after breaking up with Maria-Caterina (who
I can’t not talk about) For Good (which was
The name of a song they sang
At Maria-Caterina’s high school graduation a year ago, after which
We made love (which was what we called it
Because we were cliché and in love
(Which is what we made.)))

It was a spiritual journey through the cosmos,
In Never Sink,
Or at least that’s how it felt,
And when I climbed out of Never Sink’s mouth, I hugged Duane
And he hugged me and we
Thought that it was beautiful.

I am the plant in Joe’s kitchen.
I am glowworms.

The first thing to do is forget everything you've lost
Second, zip up your jacket, just to ward off all the frost
Best case scenario, you're alone, but sometimes you are not
Find anything to make you smile, bring a song, or bring some ***,
Sing along with the monotony, to get closer in the cold
Third step is to try to remember every part of your soul that you sold
Sketch out a poem, lose a friend, give the bitter pill a try,
Put the sweet one on a shelf, keep it there until you die
The fourth step is to take a crowbar directly to the glass
Leave it burning, phase existences, break choruses en masse,
Fifth step in the protocol is to never speak its name,
Check back on it in forty years to find it still the same
Then photograph it, crop it to a flattering degree,
Frame it like a work of art but hope they never see
And sixth in line, if you are bold, and still have a bone to pick
Then -- then you can finally break into the '84 Buick.

Dear Readers, I have tried to cover the salient features of this True Story in free flowing verse mainly with end rhymes. If you read it loud, you can hear the chimes! Due to the short attention span of my readers I had to cut short this long story, and conclude with the
Golden Era of Hollywood by stretching it up to the 1950s only. When TV began to challenge the Big Screen Cinema seriously! I have used only a part of my notes here. Kindly read the
entire composition during your Spare Time dear Readers. I wish there was a provision for posting a few interesting photographs for you here. Best wishes, - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.  

                THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD :
                      THE AMERICAN  DREAM
                              BY RAJ NANDY

               A SHORT  HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND
Since the earliest days, optical toys, shadow shows, and ‘magic
lanterns’, had created the illusion of motion.
This concept was first described by Mark Roget in 1824 as  
the persistent of vision.
Giving impetus to the development of big screen cinema with its
close-ups, capturing all controlled and subtle expressions!
The actors were no longer required to shout out their parts with
exaggerated actions as on the Elizabethan Stage.
Now even a single tear drop could get noticed easily by the entire
movie audience!
With the best scene being included and edited after a few retakes.
To Thomas Edison and his able assistant William Rogers we owe the invention of Kinetoscope, the first movie camera.
On the grounds of his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory, Edison
built his first movie studio called the ‘Black Maria’.   (1893)
He also purchased a string of patents related to motion picture
Camera;
Forming the Edison Trust, - a cartel that took control of the Film
Industry entire!

Fort Lee, New Jersey:
On a small borough on the opposite bank of the Hudson River lay
the deserted Fort Lee.
Here scores of film production crews descended armed with picture Cameras, on this isolated part of New Jersey!
In 1907 Edison’s company came there to shoot a short silent film –
‘Rescue From an Eagle’s Nest’,
Which featured for the first time the actor and director DW Griffith.
The independent Chaplin Film Company built the first permanent
movie studio in 1910 in Fort Lee.
While some of the biggest Hollywood studios like the Universal,
MGM, and 20th Century Fox, had their roots in Fort Lee.
Some of the famous stars of the silent movie era included ‘Fatty’
Arbuckle, Will Rogers, Mary Pickford, Dorothy and Lillian Gish,
Lionel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentine and Pearl White.
In those days there were no reflectors and electric arch lights.
So movies were made on rooftops to capture the bright Sunlight!
During unpredictable bad weather days, filming had to be stopped
despite the revolving stage which was made, -
To rotate and capture the sunlight before the lights started to fade!

Shift from New Jersey to West Coast California:
Now Edison who held the patents for the bulb, phonograph, and the Camera, had exhibited a near monopoly;
On the production, distribution, and exhibition of the movies which made this budding industry to shift to California from New Jersey!
California with its natural scenery, its open range, mountains, desert, and snow country, had the basic ingredients for the movie industry.
But most importantly, California had bright Sunshine for almost 365 days of the year.
While eight miles away from Hollywood lay the port city of Los Angeles with its cheap labor.

                        THE  RISE  OF  HOLLYWOOD
It was a real estate tycoon Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida from
Kansas, who during the 1880s founded ‘Hollywood’ as a community for like-minded temperate followers.
It is generally said that Daeida gave the name Hollywood perhaps
due to the area's abundant red-berried shrubs - known as
California Holly!
Spring blossoms around and above the Hollywood Hills with its rich variety,  gave it a touch of paradise for all to see!
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903, and during
1910 had unified with the city of Los Angeles.
While a year later, the first film studio had moved in from New
Jersey, to escape Thomas Edison’s monopoly!    (1911)

In 1913 Cecil B. De Mille and Jesse Lasky, had leased a barn with
studio facilities.
And directed the first feature length film ‘Squaw Man’ in 1914.
Today this studio is home to Hollywood Heritage Museum as we get to see.
The timeless symbol of Hollywood film industry that famous sign on top of Mount Lee, was put up by a real estate developer in 1923.  
This sign had read as ‘’HOLLY WOOD LAND’’ initially.
Despite decades of run-ins with vandals and pranksters, it managed to hang on to its prime location near the summit of the Hollywood Hills.
The last restoration work was carried out in 1978 initiated by Hugh
Hefner of the ******* Magazine.
Those nine white letters 45 feet tall now read ‘HOLLYWOOD’,  has become a landmark and America’s cultural icon,
And an evocative symbol for ambition, glamour, and dreams!
Forever enticing aspiring actors to flock to Hollywood, hypnotized by lure of the Big Screen!

                     GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
The Silent Movie Era which began in 1895, ended in 1935 with the
production of ‘Dance of Virgins’, filmed entirely in the island of Bali.
The first Sound film ‘The Jazz Singer’ by Warner Bros. was made with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology.  (October 1927)
Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, this decade along with the 1940s have been regarded by some as Hollywood’s Golden Age.
However, I think that this Golden Age includes the decades of the
1940s and the 1950s instead.
When the advent of Television began to challenge the Film Industry
itself !

First Academy Award:
On 16th May 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard,
the First Academy Award presentation was held.
Around 270 people were in attendance, and tickets were priced at
$5 per head.
When the best films of 1927 & 1928 were honored by the Academy
of Motion Production and Sciences, or the AMPS.
Emil Jennings became the best actor, and Janet Gaynor the best actress.
Special Award went to Charlie Chaplin for his contribution to the
silent movie era and for his silent film ‘The Circus’.
While Warren Brothers was commended for making the first talking picture ‘The Jazz Singer’, - also receiving a Special Award!
Now, the origin of the term ‘OSCAR’ has remained disputed.
The Academy adopted this name from 1939 onwards it is stated.
OSCAR award has now become “the stuff dreams are made of”!
It is a gold-plated statuette of a knight 13.5 inches in height, weighing 8.5 pounds, was designed by MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons.
Annually awarded for honoring and encouraging excellence in all
facets of motion picture productions.

Movies During the Great Depression Era (1929-1941):
Musicals and dance movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers provided escapism and good entertainment during this age.
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it
backwards and in high heels,” - the critics had said.
This compatible pair entertained the viewers for almost one and
a half decade.
During the ‘30s, gangster movies were popular starring James Cagey, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson.
While family movies had their popular child artist Shirley Temple.
Swashbuckler films of the Golden Age saw the sword fighting scenes of Douglas Fairbank and Errol Flynn.
Flynn got idolized playing ‘Robin Hood’, this film was released in 1938 on the Big Screen.
Story of the American Civil War got presented in the epic ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939) with Clarke Gable and Vivian Leigh.
This movie received 8 Oscars including the award for the Best Film, - creating a landmark in motion picture’s history!
More serious movies like John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and John Ford’s  ‘How Green Was My Valley’, were released in 1940 and 1941 respectively.
While the viewers escaped that depressive age to the magical world
of  ‘Wizard of Oz’ with its actress Judy Garland most eagerly!
Let us not forget John Wayne the King of the Westerns, who began
his acting career in the 1930s with his movie ‘The Big Trail’;
He went on to complete 84 films before his career came to an end.
Beginning of the 40s also saw Bob Hope and the crooner Bing Crosby, who entertained the public and also the fighting troops.
For the Second World War (1939-45) had interrupted the Golden Age of Hollywood!
When actors like Henry Fonda, Clarke Gable, James Stewart and
Douglas Fairbanks joined the armed forces temporarily leaving
Hollywood.
Few propaganda movies supporting the war efforts were also made.
While landmark movies like ‘Philadelphia Story’, ‘Casablanca’, ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, were some of the most successful movies of that decade.  (The 1940s)
Now I come towards the end of my Hollywood Story with the decade  of the 1950s, thereby extending the period of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Since having past the Great Depression and the Second World War,  
The Hollywood movie industry truly matured and came of age.

                        HOLLYWOOD  OF  THE  1950s
Backgroun­d:
The decade of the ‘50s was known for its post-war affluence and
choice of leisure time activities.
It was a decade of middle-class values, fast-food restaurants, and
drive-in- movies;
Of ‘baby-boom’, all-electric home, the first credit cards, and new fast moving cars like the Ford, Plymouth, Buick, Hudson, and Chevrolet.
But not forgetting the white racist terrorism in the Southern States!
This era saw the beginning of Cold War, with Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeding Harry S. Truman as the American President.
But for the film industry, most importantly, what really mattered  
was the advent of the Domestic TV.
When the older viewers preferred to stay at home instead of going
out to the movies.
By 1950, 10.5 million US homes had a television set, and on the
30th December 1953, the first Color TV went on sale!
Film industries used techniques such as Cinemascope, Vista Vision,
and gimmicks like 3-D techniques,
To get back their former movie audience back on their seats!
However, the big scene spectacle films did retain its charm and
fantasy.
Since fantasy epics like ‘The Story of Robin Hood’, and Biblical epics like ‘The Robe’, ‘Quo Vadis’, ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘Ben-Hur’, did retain its big screen visual appeal.
‘The Robe’ released on 16th September 1953, was the first film shot
and projected in Cinema Scope;
In which special lenses were used to compress a wide image into a
standard frame and then expanded it again during projection;
Resulting in an image almost two and a half times as high and also as wide, - captivating the viewers imagination!

Demand For New Themes During The 1950s :
The idealized portrayal of men and women since the Second World War,
Now failed to satisfy the youth who sought exciting symbols for rebellion.
So Hollywood responded with anti-heroes with stars like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Paul Newman.
They replaced conventional actors like Tyron Power, Van Johnson, and Robert Taylor to a great extent, to meet the requirement of the age.
Anti-heroines included Ava Gardner, Kim Novak, and Marilyn Monroe with her vibrant *** appeal;
They provided excitement for the new generation with a change of scene.
Themes of rebellion against established authority was present in many Rock and Roll songs,
Including the 1954 Bill Hailey and His Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
The era also saw rise to stardom of Elvis Presley the teen heartthrob!
Meeting the youthful aspirations with his songs like ‘Jailhouse Rock’!
I recall the lyrics of this 1957 film ‘Jailhouse Rock’ of my school days, which had featured the youth icon Elvis:
   “The Warden threw a party in the county jail,
     The prison band was there and they began to wail.
     The band was jumping and the joint began to sing,
     You should’ve heard them knocked-out jail bird sing.
     Let’s rock, everybody in the whole cell block……………
     Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone,
     Little Joe was blowing the slide trombone.
     The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang!
     The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang, Let's rock...

Rock and Roll music began to tear down color barriers, and Afro-
American musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard became
very popular!
Now I must caution my readers that thousands of feature films got  released during this eventful decade in Hollywood.
To cover them all within this limited space becomes an impossible
task, which may kindly be understood !
However, I shall try to do so in a summarized form as best as I could.

Box Office Hits Year-Wise From 1950 To 1959 :
Top Ten Year-Wise hit films chronologically are: Cinderella (1950),
Quo Vadis, The Greatest Show on Earth, Peter Pan, Rear Window,
Lady and the *****, Ten Commandments, Bridge on the River
Kwai, South Pacific, and Ben-Hur of 1959.

However Taking The Entire Decade Of 1950s Collectively,
The Top Films Get Rated As Follows Respectively:
The Ten Commandments, followed by Lady and the *****, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Bridge on the River Kwai, Around the World in Eighty Days, This is Cinerama, The Greatest Show on Earth, Rear Window, South Pacific, The Robe, Giant, Seven Wonders of the World, White Christmas, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Sayonara, Demetrius and the Gladiator, Peyton Place, Some Like It Hot, Quo Vadis, and Auntie Mame.

Film Debuts By Rising Stars During The 1950s :
The decade of the ‘50s saw a number of famous film stars making
their first appearance.
There was Peter Sellers in ‘The Black Rose’, Marlon Brando in
‘The Men’, and actress Sophia Loren in ‘Toto Tarzan’.
Following year saw Charles Bronson in ‘You Are in the Navy Now’,
Audrey Hepburn in ‘Our Wild Oats’, and Grace Kelly, the future
Princess of Monaco, in her first film ‘Fourteen Hours’. (1951)
While **** Brigitte Bardot appeared in 1952 movie ‘Crazy for Love’; and 1953 saw Steve Mc Queen in ‘******* The Run’.
Jack Lemon, Paul Newman, and Omar Sharif featured in films
during 1954.
The following year saw Clint Eastwood, Shirley Mc Lean, Walter
Matthau, and Jane Mansfield, all of whom the audience adored.
The British actor Michael Cain appeared in 1956; also Elvis Presley
the youth icon in ‘Love Me Tender’ and as the future Rock and Roll
King!
In 1957 came Sean Connery, followed by Jack Nicholson, Christopher Plummer, and Vanessa Redgrave.
While the closing decade of the ‘50s saw James Coburn, along with
director, script writer, and producer Steven Spielberg, make their
debut appearance.

Death During The 1950s: This decade also saw the death of actors
like Humphrey Bogart, Tyron Power and Errol Flynn.
Including the death of producer and director of epic movies the
renowned Cecil B. De Mille!
Though I have conclude the Golden Age of Hollywood with the 50’s Decade,
The glitz and glamour of its Oscar Awards continue even to this day.
With its red carpet and lighted marquee appeal and fashion display!

CONTINUING THE HOLLYWOOD STORY  WITH  FEW TITBITS
From Fort Lee of New Jersey we have traveled west to Hollywood,
California.
From the silent movie days to the first ‘talking picture’ with Warren
Bros’ film ‘The Jazz Singer’.  (06 Oct 1927)
On 31st July 1928 for the first time the audience heard the MGM’s
mascot Leo’s mighty roar!
While in July 1929 Warren Bros’ first all-talking and all- Technicolor
Film appeared titled - ‘On With The Show’.
Austrian born Hedy Lamarr shocked the audience appearing **** in a Czechoslovak film ‘Ecstasy’!  (1933)
She fled from her husband to join MGM, becoming a star of the
‘40s and the ‘50s.
The ‘Private Life of Henry VII’ became the first British film to win the American Academy Award.  (1933)
On 11Dec 1934, FOX released ‘Bright Eyes’ with Shirley Temple, who  became the first Child artist to win this Award!
While in 1937 Walt Disney released the first full animated feature film titled - ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarf ‘.
The British film director Alfred Hitchcock who came to Hollywood later;
Between 1940 and 1947, made great thrillers like ‘Rebecca’, ‘Notorious’,‘Rear Window’, and ‘Dial M for ******’.
But he never won an Academy Award as a Director!

THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD:
This award began in 1944 by the Foreign Correspondence Association at

Reclining in their rocking chairs, the brothers Beau and Cletus gazed despondently out
Past the final farm toward the convergence of the worn highway
And the fritz horizon. Cows paused their chewing; an ashy sun
Obscured in incongruous fluffs of cloud; it grew
Greyishly chilly. "Shame the kids're movin'," Beau squeezed out before a deep belch. Cletus only
Mumbled, his voice lost in the light drizzle rapping on the milky sheet-plastic roof. The
          porch

Was unfurnished, save the chairs, one ashtray, and a novelty sign reading: "Get off my porch."
Cletus took a long, pensive drag off a cigarette before stubbing it out.
He coughed a raspy croak wetted with sixty-six years. Besides Cletus' sporadic coughs, the only
Distinguishable sound to be heard in Moody Creek wafted in from the highway:
Rattles of the day's final Spokane- or Boise-bound semi-trucks grew
Inaudible as Beau transiently  murmured, "Purtier than a string of fried trout, that there
          sun-

set." "Whaaa?" Cletus wheezed. "It's settin'," answered Beau, loosely gesturing at the sun.
Fractaled-orange-shafts webbing manifold shades of yellow – amber, belge, stil-de-grain – grew
Plumply stout upon the farmland, edged between properties and crumpled on the porch.
"I'll tell you what Beau – I'm glad they got out,"
Cletus uttered with assurance, his eyes scanning the reaches of light upon the highway.
Beau fixed his cap, musing over Cletus' words. He cleared his throat before beginning, "If
          only..."

Then stopped and itched his belly-button. Cletus turned to his brother. "I know one thang only
Beau: they'll do good in California. They'll be livin' high on the hog. Yer son n' my son
'll 'ave secure futures." Jack nodded somberly. He hated the highway.
He hated its ability to isolate everything. It had been his original revamp, the now-rickety porch,
His first project on his fixer-upper after marrying Dorothy West. They'd wed out
In his father's corn field; bought a house a mile or so down the road. Kids were born. Love
          grew,

And in its growing all things tangible and gorgeous – like tangrams piece together – grew:
The farm, the house, savings account and family. They ate hearty; drank canned beer only –
Living was smooth – but it changed when Dorothy took Little Dale and got out.
She wanted what the farm couldn't give or grow, leaving tiny Moody Creek with their son
As the last moon of May, 1955 went up. "*****!" Beau had yelled from the porch.
He'd woken to his Buick's rev and watched its taillights wane upon the
          highway.

And though he remarried, this was, in truth, mostly why Beau never squarely looked upon highway.
The light drizzle grew
Heavy, intensifying. "Gosh **** rain might near knock the coverin' off the porch!"
Hollered Beau. Cletus looked up and blew a cloud of thick grey smoke. "It's only
Rain Beau. No need gettin' ornery." That morning they'd seen off their youngest sons as the sun
Was just rising. One left to work for a dairy ******* in The Valley, the other went to figure
          out

Himself and his career. The porch shuddered. Beau absent-mindedly repeated "If only..."
Daylight died; black inked upon the highway. Cletus lit a new cigarette. Moody Creek grew
Dense, compacted by the darkness. The sun inched away. Cletus hacked and put his cigarette
          out.

first line lips are false as a beach next mcarthur’s in chicago next the big blond takes the elevator down next pearl on the lip next shalimar stirs the canine **** all right I like that let’s start a new one do it what what do you have don’t **** up wheres the apostrophe ******* you’re cruel now back now whack it again whack it again I want it to go back whack it press it whack it okay new line

i want elevator i want uh i want don’t ask the bellboy for the time just take the elevator to what? to notions? to the lingerie shop? ah ******* grandma new line

all right one more time okay **** the gin-socked tongue that’s “soaked” period once again the elevator down paint the pretty tie (cough cough) thai next big buick big *** like fish put a ? after fish take it back take it back you ***** okay that’s not bad you do all right ah **** song of india in the desert at night put “” marks around song of india & desert song in capital letters hit shalimar then cadillac red lips then **** like a seashell with a gin-soaked tongue start new line

all right does mcarthur stick his socks in the bathtune at night that’s bathtub the dog howls at the moon buries it in the backyard snakes lose their skin cocoa butter slick water on the brain of the big dark blond song of india **** **** **** big fish *** big v8 you ***** keep up with me painted rocks like a pretty tie fast car long legs and a broken heel now dead no not dead yet um estee lauder goes down on price-waterhouse in a swedish bath bellboy watching this is his reflection in the mirror no silver one-sided next line

big blond trampled by elephants with wrinkled knees starch is not chic all gone shalimar stirs the k-9 **** sequined *** in the moonlight cadillac red lips hungry dog eats tail becomes himself bad dog play dead okay what do you suggest bad doggie bad comma bad comma hungry dog go for the tongue you dumb ***** keep going new line

what do cactuses(i) have??? fronds fur what are their things called new line

dog hates gin go for the breast stupid ***** good dog dry dog poor dog pour blond water of life **** yellow a thai like painted rocks period next

i want head down legs up i want sequined *** only ****** level damp dampened dampest ***** panorama **** **** **** blue blue down there feminine azure with clouds too got it odalisque in blue period have mercy on me no no new ******* line what are you filling that thing up with okay stop it for now

I was stung by a bee right between the eyes when I was casting one of those cheap little Mickey Mouse fishing poles. I froze as two hands lifted me onto a counter, and ******* dabbed chilled ointment on my skin. I sobbed quietly in humiliation. I was 4, and it was the first time I realized that Mother Nature could be a real *****. 

My father fell in lust (not love, he swore) with some curvy young something which hovered around the company where he and my mother both worked. He drove us back to Oklahoma, then left again. I spoke girlishly with him on a pay phone near an elementary school once, but I didn't see him for two years. I always knew the color of his hair was close to mine, but his face was a mystery. I was 6, and it was the first time I realized that you can love someone, even when you shouldn't. 

I swam past a little boy in the community pool, which belongs to the University in town. He told me plain as day that I was fat, blunt as a butter knife. I cried for half an hour lying on a hot beach towel in the sun, then all over again in the changing room. He was ten years my junior and I am now an adult, but to this day, I glance at my waistline every time I pass a mirror. I was 14, and it was the first time I realized that people can be unhappy with themselves, even when they don't need to be.

It was the second Saturday in March when my work phone rang, and my mother screamed that my stepfather was dead. She yelled at God the whole way home, angry with Him for taking her heart away. They were supposed to grow old together, she muttered, through thick curtains of tears, and I remember the ambulance lights, my aunt holding my mother to her in a way that only a sister can. My brother was silent and white-faced as my uncle kept repeating things like, "It shouldn't have been his time, he was too good of a man..." Some woman said later that my stepfather was already an angel, that he just needed to go home, as if that was supposed to help. I was 17, and it was the first time I realized that things happen for a reason, even if you don't believe.

I watched a tow truck haul away my first car, which still ran, but conveniently equaled my share of rent when drug across a scale and stripped for parts. I was hungry, I was tired, and in my head, I was all alone. I had never felt so burnt-out, used-up, and sad in all my short years. A few phone calls and hugs goodbye later, I packed my things and moved across the state. The feeling of leaving left me smiling and shaking like hell. I was 21, and it was the first time I realized that sometimes your only choice can be your best choice, and that jumping in head first makes the water look less black and cold. 

I fell in love with the same person twice. We let each other down, no doubt about it, but I was never the kind to strip a human of his dignity. I mistakenly hoped he'd have the same understanding. What I was left with was the feeling of being knocked down to my knees, when no hands had ever touched me, and I finally stopped trying to be part of a life I had no stake in. I was 23, and it was the first time I realized that heartache should be treated in a hospital, for it lies dormant inside every living body, deadly and unsterile, but it will never be curable simply because you can't touch it.

I was driving to work this morning and saw a little girl waving from the backseat of a Buick in another lane. I smiled and waved a little "Princess Di" back, feeling my heart flutter and rise oddly like a healing bird when she grinned happily over the back seat. And so I turned up whatever song was playing just then and said a little prayer for her. She was probably 4 (making me recall that bee sting), probably fresh to pain and grief, so I said: "Little one, there are things in this life which will make your heart bleed and your body sore, but hold on, add them up, and you'll see that living's worth the hurt because someone out there will love you, and you will love someone out there too." I'm still 23, and this is the first time I've realized what it means to be free.

(I hate poets.
They annoy me deeply.)

I.

There are the balladeers,
Working in service of their inner Service,
(Though, despite the seeming impossibility,
Their hackneyed verse is even worse)
Creating tortuous rhyme
Which slows down labyrinthine narratives
Ending up in some deus ex machine
So implausible that it would make Euripides blush
(Most often courtesy of some unforeseen projectile
Or sudden viral contagion;
Would that their creators meet such a fate!)

II.

I come not to praise the so-called sonneteers,
But to bury them.
They are an earnest lot,
(Lord knows that they are earnest)
And they will make their fourteen lines rhyme
(Though sometimes the rhyme scheme screams for mercy)
And hang the cost.
Though their narratives are head-scratching things,
And their iambs proceed with the steadiness
Of a nonagenarian church pianist
Doing her damndest to fight the wedding march to a draw,
They are content, nay, proud of their work
Because babble rhymes with Scrabble
(Though they are not particularly proficient with the latter,
They have the former down to an art.)

III.

Let us not forget the Buk-zombies,
Those apostles of aphorism,
Most of whom speak of their departed deity
As if he were an old drinking buddy
(Never mind that most of them were two or three
Or perhaps not even a bad idea
In the back seat of some mom’s Buick
When he exited this mortal plane, stage left, even.)
One’s mind is boggled whilst considering
The expanse of the bar required to accommodate
Everyone who would like to
(Or worse, have claimed to)
Buy old Charlie a beer, not that he’d stand for a round.
They are a sullen horde, this lot,
Best dealt with by aiming for the base of the skull.

IV.
Ah, the confessionals, Lord have mercy upon their souls
(For they shall have none upon ours.)
They feel so many things so deeply
As such things have never been felt before
(They have not read their Sexton, their Snodgrass,
Their Lowell, their Pl--well, no,
They have all read their Plath.)
It is, from the moment they arise in the morning
Until such time they set aside their fears and let sleep take them,
All too much for them,
And they bravely face the days
Until such time they care bear to take action
And fling themselves from some convenient precipice.
We should, as a service to them and ourselves,
Ensure the soles of their shoes
Are sufficiently worn and slippery.

(I hate poets.
They annoy me deeply.)

Let's go grab the money
Hidden in the Christmas Tree
Shoppe mason jar with the
Frosted stencil designs,
Ornate and resembling flora.

Let's take that money,
The three separate wadded
***** of once crisp
Green pieces of paper
That somehow reach the
Arbitrary total of one
Thousand, three hundred and
Twenty dollars and
Fifty lonely cents.

Let's take that 1,320.50
And go see the desolate
Stretch of sprawling
Humanity deferred between
These hiked peaks and the
Dangerous mountains
Separating the west
From the rest.

Let's go there!
Let's go there!
We'll make it across,
Be sure of that,
Be sure of nothing
But that!

Let's use the remaining
Seven fifty
To buy some
Seven Eleven sustenance
To have while
We walk backwards
Down backroads edged
With the encroachment
Of the wild back into
Negative space some
Long-ago engineer
Carved and paved.

Let's tell the driver of
This beat-up
Time-worn down
Overcast grey
Buick LeSabre
That we can pay her
Ten dollars to replace
The juice necessary to get
Us back to our sick aunt's
House in Poughkeepsie.

At the gas station
We'll tell her to stop
Real quick
And hope she leaves the
Auto to go
Pay the schlup at
The teller's booth
And jack the beater
And hope we won't
Have to bolt
Again if she doesn't.

Let's call my cousin
And find out who will give
Us four hundred dollars for
The stolen used parts store
And take that four hundred
And buy:

Two (2) greyhound tickets to get us
Back to our ****** apartment
In Stamford: 64.50 American

Three (3) damp-bunned flimsy
Beef patties glued between
Pieces of government-issue
Yellow American cheese
With all the fixins we please: 3.24 American

One (1) zip of dried out
Seeded and stemmed breaks
From the boredom of
Our own conscious
Processes: 120 American if lucky

At least eight (8) servings
Of amphetamine based
Pressed little buttons
Of confused energy: 200 American

One (1) bouquet of
Red yellow and oranges
Mixed on the petals of
Your mother's favorite
Species: whatever's left American.

Meteoric Buick
Slick *****
Frantic frenetic
Majestic kick
Chick shtick
Shashlik

Nicotinic stick
Lick flick
Hermeneutic heretic
Magnetic rhetoric
Hick logic
Strategic

Plastic music
Tick click
Bucolic Bardic
Peptic druidic
Rustic emetic
Sceptic

Polymeric quirk
Sick trick
Turmeric trimeric
Septic *****
Wick crick
Derrick

Trees, houses, Treehouses,
Abandoned.
                  beaches
                ­                 still
                                 appear the same as summer
but the sky's gone
                 Sunshine
to
                Windwine
                                  (Clouds and clouds, some much            
                                    larger than others, sometimes just one big cloud  
                                   mapped out between            
                                   us and rest of universe to the cascade horizon)

All the pets can tread cement
without
worry of burns and the two hundred calamities
of July are over.
                              Replaced with
                              rain and bums escaping to the
                              soup kitchens and
Churches
                                  (East side Vancouver, Pandora Victoria,  
                                                 astreet in a city astray)
Ashtrays freckled in the evening drizzle
common.

My hands are held by gloves and
                                 fingertips from half of
                                 Japan,
my lips are kissed by the                          comet
beauty mark on right side
bottom
                                                (Though this universe is attending
                                                  unive­rsity in a distant city
                                                  while I hold my own
                                                  practicing the Dharma,
                                                 or MAYBE none of this will happen!)
Everything is in its place
as it always was-
though circumstance has tried to
teach us otherwise the                        
                                     ­                            Blackbox
                                      made of star-rubber S T R E T C H I N G
Hasn't the concept
of          calendars or
                             Jesus or
                                medicine cabinets
                                                         Dentists and
                                                             ­               Saints.
Everything is in its place
as it will always be
        as it has never been...
(Ever)
SPONTANEITY of matter
                         Gliding thr-
                                          -ough matter.
What does it all matter anyway?
There's                    loving
and                    ­     experiencing,
                Music.
           Personsong.
         Do-no-wrong.
That        no-no           of making
             mistakes?
A falsity!
**** up

In blissful circles
to the         SOUND
                    OF SNOW
                    MELTING
on streetlamps front of my
House.
                                (A very silent orchestra performing
                                 Before collision and like dog whistles
                                 It's a sound we cannot hear.
                                The peoples got their poetry and
                                cognitive thought so the other
                                Animals get the REAL sensory
                                Inconceivables to write about
                                But the ******* can't)
In that
                        future
_____
basement house

Where the Van Gogh
                   Velvet Underground sit
P
O
S
T
E
R
E
D
on the wood-c
                        u
                          r
    ­                       v
                             e walls.
I'm in unfolding daydream
Thanking
HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS
predating my
EIGHTEEN.
Thanking the
                              Beats and the Dadaists
                           and Buddhists and
                        Existentialists
                     ­ Post-modernists
                  Minimalists
                Expressionists
            FOR BEING.

Really, they aided
Me off
  the ^ ground
during
eight month unemployment induced depression where
I felt disassociated with myself
and the dynamo                                                       outside the front door..
Glowing via
         sunlight in the day window and
            headlights in the night window.
Either way
I filled up with
                                   (((Purposeless cynicism)))
The world bulb clicked ON
With/without me           there,
None of the corner stores
Or      airports
Or      hospitals
          courts and
          institutions
gave a rat's ***
what woes I be asphyxiated by
or that                 Farmquiet two lane
                                 tarnished path
In the country                       (in May)
      seemed fine a place as any
to     step a few feet to the          
                                               right
                            and
      left

of me and
                         .......DIZZY.......
by death traffic
old Buick polish
(Tragedy they'd say!)

While there midway in the firing line
I felt like
the wackos in      l o o s e
stone COLISEUM daisy cages
               Empty lots,
       Place where the beast of
  Emptiness cuffs to your sleeve
             and weeps
                      All over itself
                      that Sarte was right all along!
(No Exit! No exit!)

Autumn quartz moonlight                        O
Illuminated headstone repetition
circling musk fields.
  Skeleton wings
Of preceded seasons' timbers
Caught muttering the
Corpseconvo
as the               tumblecar
trembling             hot in
                           Music sauna HUM
Approaches life,
to the
                       paralyzed November air
of
Coffin bodies insulated
By roots N' six feet of terrestrial barrier.



Faces disappearing now
to Heavenly chandeliers of time
offering distant light future
and above my ponderous skull presently
                 dancing riverside to situations
                                                  and newness
                           (2016)
                  enigmatic spiral
  every                 color             every
                        possibility
every                rainbow          or
                      non-rainbow chromatically
                           webbed in Attic
                                          of secluded
                                Quantum Dimensions-

The big blue doors are opening to cosmic entirety,
cats everywhere are purring in their sleep,
somebody reads                          Murakami,
                                                      Picabia,
                                                      Joyce,
   ­                                                   W.C Williams,
                                                      B­erryman & Brainard too.
Big blue doors, rites of passage,
Aarti Varanasi twenty-seventeen,
             joyride to San Francisco (I wrote a poem on that once!)
Continuing self-exploration,
            reminding that soul to stay awake,
            the search for love-
Warmth when the year is
metamorphosed to cardinal leaves
       Sunset Summer!
      Autumnal transfiguration
      spiritual!
      Rearrangement of the concurrent reality!

I turn 19 in October and
a procession of kind-eyed children
will be born in the moments
I blow the cake candles.
Light goes out!
light comes in!
Hanoi expects me still.

poor buick good dog we’re almost done bad moon bellyful of big dumb blond last line i want uh a memory yes before yes atomic foreskins pink & fresh yes hunger for the womb **** **** **** *** junk food ****** with a walkman playing schumann to dilate woman oranges have more delicacy oranges orages oral fruit caught in the act the memory here it is a certain man crippled since birth caught in the act *** without hands his only defense: today today is only the beginning this is only the beginning a sick man’s argument okay last line

while in the street already leaves are falling

You can't breathe.
The cold air burning
down your throat,
clenching up like a fist.
There they are,
in the backseat of a '98 Buick,
your mouth is wide open,
but the air won't inhale.
The blood is clotting up
around your brain,
and the the stars in
your vision fuse and form
clusters and galaxies of color.
You fall to the pavement and writhe
in anaerobic agony. The world
falls from blue to black to white
and your heart is clogging your
epiglottis, dead weight in the
back of your throat.
You can't breathe, yet you struggle
up to walk away, still
everywhere you turn
there's a silver '98 Buick LeSabre
and her, painted in
silhouette across
the back window.

bernie the cheese
collapsed at the side
of the road
his measured response depleted
he watches as she folds up
her neat and meticulously spelled words
plied on silver tongue into her rucksack
and through such ******* ******* of kings english
she entices him ever onward where
faint lines can be sought
and yet to be found
that echo the face of true madness
its laughing sweating continence
painted with watercolours and
can only be seen in the reflection of
a mirror reflecting another mirrors image

her face slowly releases its dire grip
and her eye looses it screaming aspect
as she finds herself alone on the ***** alleys cobblestones
the battered dumpsters spilling treasures for the divers to find
she begins to hum a beatles tune from '63
and fingers the lace shawl hiding her deformed mind
trying once more to capture that vast lost feeling from
girlhood that dances a
dubious little jig on her headstone of the heart
singing 'lookie here....look at whats buried here'
she remembers his face but not his name
he drove a silver buick with a skull painted on the hood
his blond features engraved in the notions
his words mixed with foul smelling chicken soup
he was a soup of the day in her salad years

bernie the cheese
chews on the charbroiled taste of his
blowup doll lover's lips and tries to say
the three magic words
'made in china'??
his own words spent he casts about
in terror for a phrase or two to quote from
the masters of deception
who gather round in long grey coats
sinister eyes on the fruits of his labour
their wooden faces warped by rain
their mouths only a dim perceived line of
mumbles written in childlike scrawl
on the backs of closet doors
we hide here because we cannot see
therefore we cannot be seen
you cant touch me because i cannot feel
they gift him at price unnamed some loose parable
naught more that glib reprise of his own perilous straights
his is the beast that labours in their stead
he is their human face
she is but the road they walk today

put the key in the ignition, the car into drive, and all your gross post-*** insecurities to the back of your mind. forget you don’t have a license. forget she’s asleep in the bed that knows your panic attacks like they’re a late-night tv special and roll out onto the road - don’t hit the neighbor’s buick - drive. drive.

take the route you used to sneak over to your boyfriend’s house in 7th grade. feel the ghosts of his hungry pubescent hands under your bra, get that old lump in your throat, wish you could go back in time and scream that you weren’t ready and that you’d never be ready and that one day you’ll be seventeen driving down his street hating the way he used to own you. remember that his street is also your street. remember that you’re worth owning things too.

pass by the house your best friend used to live in, back when summers meant hot cheetos and horchata instead of cigarettes and cheap sangria. pray that one day you’ll be that way again, happy and fearless and okay with being alone. scold yourself for praying.

forget where you’re going until your stomach growls and the road gets narrow. then keep driving.

Standing by the road side
Thumbing a ride
Sleeping Bag, Backpack
And...Guitar on my back
Heat rolls off the Highway
Like Hallucinogenic Waves
Found a Roach in my pocket
Got me through the Day
Nothing but 70s Buick's...
And Cadillac's Roll By
On the on ramp to  I-80
Rolling on to  West Skies
A wish for a fast ride's best
Been up for 36 Hours
Popping Little White Crosses
Nothing Passing by but...
Military bosses.........
A VW Micro-bus pulls up
With a Band of Tie Died, Dead
Heads, cranking Jerry Garcia
The smoke the bowl, Kept on Toking
Greatful Dead played "Keep on Truckin' "
I Rolled off some Riffs, along with the Band
Flyin' 300 miles in that beat up old Van
My head got mellow, with these fine Fellows
They Dropped me off in the cool of the Night
And all I saw of them was their Red Tail Lights...1/27/15

A thick flood of thought clogs
lemon teeth and pools, crude
and salty behind lost red eyes.
Gouge them hollow! Darken the moon.
Brittle moans like a swollen beehive
loom tall, fifty miles behind the lost craters.

Hugs from pigs in blue,
they dance and loll around the flames,
a funky dark against their luminous fire.
Proud and bogus (and probably ******),
bitter about foul books they never read,
statues made of fear in the groins of men.

Ruined: hurled into a crag,
torn and singing, trapped in loops -
No elbow room in black hole falls.
Snoring next to wives wrapped in shawls,
hugging her leather Buick seat,
praying to wake up gaunt and lithe.

They rise, mornings, clutching onto dreams
in which they fly through the cold gloom.
They scratch desperate screeds onto napkins,
bite squirming, disobedient tongues,
souls raw, chafing in their dank enclosures.
Animals! Bred to elect ourselves for slaughter.

Apocalypse Dreams


Pt. I

a handful of unknown faces--familiar strangers--mixed
with recent visitors of my flat
(like the faerie friend with the voice of a man, the proud & queer
Ms. Bobo-Dancy herself, who taught me how
to glitter everyone in the dance hall)
come together to swim.

we tread water in canals, naked along
the European street whose frames are
pastel towers, elaborate easter-egg homes.
untouched elation sits in our chests,
a rare, extraordinary *****.

our legs tango in cyclic waves,
we do the dead fish float in the rising water.
when we relax our eyelids, our bodies are carried
right to a high school gymnasium.

the dance continues, takes our legs
down the stairs, we duck against
descending ceilings, to reach the blue mats in the basement
where we stretch our limbs fully, infinitely--
(until gravity bickers).

the blonde lady in front instructs the flow--
until
Sirens shriek in routine breaths
(the alarm we prepared to disregard in school drills
presents itself).

***** smoke rushes down the stairs to play tag,
my eyes dash, but no doors,
all the fibers in my thighs work together to perform the sprint,
across the tiled floor, up the crowded stairs

but flames rule the spiral staircase
i **** in air, hold it, as i rush against the cloud of grey, the block.
fellow stretchers surround me, but i reach the door right in time,

I look back. I am Lot’s wife.
Against my will, I look back.
I watch the orange killer strike--
In one motion, he absorbs the school
The girls behind me on the stairs
become walking bodies of fire.

Pt. 2

Tonight we are at the ocean,
the boy from Budapest, my father, & I.

We stand with toes on the shore
as waves gently turn in with the aid of the Moon.

It is winter, yet the ocean is bathwater
under Midnight’s sky, under the rickety boardwalk,
We push off into the deep water.

The boy points at the scarlet seahorse latched on my arm like a tattoo,
Through the clear water, a stingray sways, spots my legs, &
chases me back to the sand,
my heartbeat runs faster than my feet.

Back on the sand that starts to growl,
quiver, faster, and
the Earth hiccups, an awkward sonic thunder,
then it vomits up seawater, with much vigor,
--an epic volcanic belch--
only over the ocean,
I am untouched.

But the boardwalk,
It acts like a sewer
The water rushes through its pipes
I see one man on the walk,
a tall, dark-haired stranger with a top hat, suitcase, & a story
The water sweeps him up
and he drops straight down,
his bottom plops onto the shore
and his arms fall right off like a plastic doll with removable parts.

A smile strikes his face,
Is it the satisfaction of a future in disability funds?
The humor in being knocked down by random burps of the Earth?
The random vomits that take us with it.

His suitcase is out of sight, and
I am being transported to another new home,
with purple walls and a **** green carpet.

I am yawning at the apocalypse.




Pt. 3
August 1992, Miami


Off the highway ramp to Miami,
Clusters of cars perched as birds in the treetops

Like baby robins, some shimmied back and forth—preparing to fly
Telephone poles and oak trees did the tango ‘til they dropped

Like unwanted *****, they dispersed among the grass and streets
The twin palm trees from Carol’s backyard spilled into the in-ground pool

Her once-favorite spot—they will forever be swimming. The sun, the only
light in town, radiated in waves, darkness to light to darkness; the stench from

lack of running water permeated the air. Carol had phoned the bank earlier; her untouched safe deposit box was the reason for her trip. She parks her Buick

in the spot with the least ashes, and walks towards the bank, NCNB.
Its walls were scattered among the cement, the teller’s desks have vanished.

She eyes the security guard sitting (in uniform) in a grey folding chair near the entrance. “How may I help you, ma’am?” the words exit his lips as if it’s a normal

day at the bank. She tells him her business, and starts towards the back, but triggers the guard... “Enter the front door, ma’am!” Her feet guess where that used to be, start over,

She gathers her savings, leaves out “the door.” A sharp smile crosses the guard’s face.
How long will the it last?

Tall hedges rustle
bullied by icy breezes
beat against the window
  relentless neon Buick sign
pushes the insistent light
of capitalism
through cream lace curtains
after sunset  .

Simon Timothy, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways!
You look like the sun, like daises smiling up at the moon. You make me swoon with your bad punch lines and imperfect rhymes.
You look like bees swarmed around honey pots soaking in the greatness of what they’ve created and you sound like serenades and smokers cough. And I want to be coddled by you. You smell like musky post rain September. You are so special and so patient, like you have been waiting for me to love you since we met and I bet when you look up faithful in the dictionary Simon Timothy will be smiling back at you. I want your name entwined into every line so all of our friends know I need you like a barricade needs people to hide behind it.
Like a breath needs a word to follow, like a bird needs a tree hollow, swallows need the breeze like birds need the bees like Simon Timothy how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
You bring out the best in me (more like the breast in me?) you bring out my worst jokes and my best one liners, you dress like an old timer and it makes my heart go wheezy like it’s a diamond miner. And your vest is fresh air. I’ve been drowning.
You, who showed me survivor and wrestling, you with your adorable obsessing. You, with your brilliant mind and the most charming laugh you, my rude dude with attitude.
Sarah Kay says: “you are the worst thing, that has ever happened to my poetry.” And it must be a twisted form of prophecy because I’m full of lovey dovey feelings I’m still reeling from the last time you told me you loved me, because I am broken at best. My body has cracks and crevices like an old rusty car and you still want to see how far I can drive. I want to thrive with you, I want to express every emotion I have ever felt, you make me feel secure like a seat belt but I am the buick beyond repair.
No matter how much mold is in there you still hold me while I’m crying and trying to tell you you deserve so much better but you don’t listen.
You, with the brilliant blonde hair I love running my fingers through, the one who kisses me like he already misses me even though I’m not going anywhere, you. Who lets me love whoever I need to because you know I need to and that I will always come back to you, you.
You, Simon Timothy. How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways!

The amphetamines made me god
A street corner king known across town
I feel blue as the pavement moves beneath my feet
I feel gone as the moon comes on
That flickering flourescent light
Down between the streetlights
The record scratch like a Cadillac
I've mistaken for a Buick
The cigarette flick from his window
Spins through the night like a pinwheel
Exploding sparks on the asphalt

Choked on exhaust
Thoughts of you walk beside me
Etched on my bones is your name
I wouldn't call it living
Just existing
Cars headlights sirens backseats
My head is spinning as he asks for change
"No but here's two cigarettes."
That ought to get him through the night
You got a light
On upstairs?
You got a light?
Someway for me to see when the streetlights stop
The road takes on the country
The dividing lines turn to stones and sticks
The sound of night as cows fall asleep
The fields are full of mushrooms that glow caps in the moonlight
I used to pick them at the edge of the forest
I once was happy with the thought of "maybe" having you
Now I don't do much of anything but **** myself quickly
With no one to stop me
With no light
Somewhere between the star-choked horizon and the sea
You fall asleep with another
Your heart gives a flutter when he says your name
When you kiss his neck
When you fall asleep
Dreaming seamless dreams of children and sunlight
Something in storybooks once known as true love

I am the emptiness that exists in the kitchen
at such hours, late and lonely.
I can operate only in this space,
at night when the answers become irrelevant
and the present tense becomes the past.
I rely on the sporadic sounds of movement of traffic below the window.

I am the scratchy sound of death cab
on the Buick’s aged speakers.
I claw at the insides of the aluminum
and seep out through cracked windows.
I shore myself against a distant past
despite better judgment.

I am born of the vivid summer heat.
I ride the train to the loop
and back out to the city’s extremities,
like blood through a body.
I sweat under layers of wool humidity.

I am the concrete paving the boundless suburban streets.  
I exhale tar and forest
as the rain begins to fall, long after dark,
cooling the still-hot surface.
I crave the tires and feet that brace themselves against me.  

I am the slow moving clouds at dusk, the color of tea.
I ignite as the sun slouches toward the horizon.
I consume the jets that depart from O’ Hare in every direction.

I am familiar laughter, striking ears in palpable waves.
I move most freely though vicious August heat,
But even in such passive chilled air, I proceed.

I careen toward what has been named peace,
though it’s been forgotten over the years.
I have fled the immortal city for one more ageless.
I crave the smell of the death of summer.

I pass into a state of suspension
like the bodies that surround me, never born but built.
I trace the veins and find no flesh,
but only bones beneath them.
I stretch willing to bridge the gaps that exist.

I am the tangled freeways moving among one another
in the heart of a city accused of being heartless.  
I am guiltless in the face of isolation.
I hold blood hostage on a daily basis.  

I am lethargic, gold-soaked afternoons
Bearing such spacious skies.
I lie beneath gilded light
like the lazy palm lined streets.
I am the trembling airwaves,
And I disarm the distance itself.