I remember you spirt in the Chelsea Flophouse
you were opening one's lips so gorgeous and so creamy
greasing me stamen on the unfucked bonk
while the bangers let it rip in the alley

Those were the diseased minds and that was Newfangled York
we were squirting for the wads and the meatballs
and that was gobbled snog for the creamers inside Gloria
centrifugally stiff is thus those of White House Nazis

Ah but you copulated telescopic didn't you basket case
you just acidified your jockstrap on the shoulders of the scrum
you copulated telescopic I never once heard you use sign language
I input you, I don't intake you
I input you, I don't intake you
and all of that balling *******

I remember you spirt in the Chelsea Flophouse
you were gorilla—like your ****** ******* was absolute epic
you leaked me again you frocked slap—up old salt
but for me you would **** an unzipping

And shaving your tongue because the creatures lust after us
who are barked at by the Daleks of *** appeal
you Rohypnolled yourself you emitted jet so what?
we are radioactive salvo we shoot full of holes the stride piano

*** one fine morning you copulated telescopic didn't you cocker
you just blunted your extremity on the cattle
you copulated telescopic I never once smelled you emit
I intake you, I don't input you
I intake you, I don't input you
and all of that balling *******

I don't mean to insinuate that I slobbered over you peanuts
I can't withhold ******* of each crouched ****
I remember you spirt in the Chelsea Flophouse
that's oodles I don't even kick—start you that thick and fast

We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over

and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless

Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts

Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye

     and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
     and "yes we will continue safely"
     and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
     and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper

Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway

and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first

Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS

but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face

        and the room was a landfill
        and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
        and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
        and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots

but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple

who’s eyes were not dilated 
and the room smelled
lemon-scented

and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;

following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks

that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain

Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls

and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway

The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant

and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale

-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded

by moose roads
                             moose lanes
                                                     moose rivers
and everything mooses

ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless

and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:

"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"

Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days

and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had

and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:

and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words

and being on time with the trains across the plains  
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision

Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too

beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years

and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile

And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off

and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;

      Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
      and hovering 175 in slipstreams
      and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady ******* in dreamland Nebraska
      only 10 highway crossings counted from home.

Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;

     who formed as a snowflake
     in the light on the street
     and was gone by morning
     before I asked her name

and how are we?
and how many?

Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?

There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.

Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.

The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East

and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine

mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying

Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably

Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;

more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier

and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering

and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight

And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car

and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal

then two eyes

then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******* on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow

and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective

while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive

Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone

behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal *******
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller

Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high

climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones

and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze

and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside

in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells

Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”

and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;

running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by

but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday

and then a timezone was between us
 and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now

then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye

but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all

and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind

you haven't lived
until you've been in a
flophouse
with nothing but one
light bulb
and 56 men
squeezed together
on cots
with everybody
snoring
at once
and some of those
snores
so
deep and
gross and
unbelievable-
dark
snotty
gross
subhuman
wheezings
from hell
itself.
your mind
almost breaks
under those
death-like
sounds
and the
intermingling
odors:
hard
unwashed socks
****** and
*******
underwear
and over it all
slowly circulating
air
much like that
emanating from
uncovered
garbage
cans.
and those
bodies
in the dark
fat and
thin
and
bent
some
legless
armless
some
mindless
and worst of
all:
the total
absence of
hope
it shrouds
them
covers them
totally.
it's not
bearable.
you get
up
go out
walk the
streets
up and
down
sidewalks
past buildings
around the
corner
and back
up
the same
street
thinking
those men
were all
children
once
what has happened
to
them?
and what has
happened
to
me?
it's dark
and cold
out
here.

"Soyez muette pour moi, Idole contemplative..."

I came home and found a lion in my living room
Rushed out on the fire escape screaming Lion! Lion!
Two stenographers pulled their brunnette hair and banged the window shut
I hurried home to Patterson and stayed two days

Called up old Reichian analyst
who'd kicked me out of therapy for smoking marijuana
'It's happened' I panted 'There's a Lion in my living room'
'I'm afraid any discussion would have no value' he hung up

I went to my old boyfriend we got drunk with his girlfriend
I kissed him and announced I had a lion with a mad gleam in my eye
We wound up fighting on the floor I bit his eyebrow he kicked me out
I ended up ******* in his jeep parked in the street moaning 'Lion.'

Found Joey my novelist friend and roared at him 'Lion!'
He looked at me interested and read me his spontaneous ignu high poetries
I listened for lions all I heard was Elephant Tiglon Hippogriff Unicorn
        Ants
But figured he really understood me when we made it in Ignaz Wisdom's
        bathroom.

But next day he sent me a leaf from his Smoky Mountain retreat
'I love you little Bo-Bo with your delicate golden lions
But there being no Self and No Bars therefore the Zoo of your dear Father
        hath no lion
You said your mother was mad don't expect me to produce the Monster for
        your Bridegroom.'

Confused dazed and exalted bethought me of real lion starved in his stink
        in Harlem
Opened the door the room was filled with the bomb blast of his anger
He roaring hungrily at the plaster walls but nobody could hear outside
        thru the window
My eye caught the edge of the red neighbor apartment building standing in
        deafening stillness
We gazed at each other his implacable yellow eye in the red halo of fur
Waxed rhuemy on my own but he stopped roaring and bared a fang
        greeting.
I turned my back and cooked broccoli for supper on an iron gas stove
boilt water and took a hot bath in the old tup under the sink board.

He didn't eat me, tho I regretted him starving in my presence.
Next week he wasted away a sick rug full of bones wheaten hair falling out
enraged and reddening eye as he lay aching huge hairy head on his paws
by the egg-crate bookcase filled up with thin volumes of Plato, & Buddha.

Sat by his side every night averting my eyes from his hungry motheaten
        face
stopped eating myself he got weaker and roared at night while I had
        nightmares
Eaten by lion in bookstore on Cosmic Campus, a lion myself starved by
        Professor Kandisky, dying in a lion's flophouse circus,
I woke up mornings the lion still added dying on the floor--'Terrible
        Presence!'I cried'Eat me or die!'

It got up that afternoon--walked to the door with its paw on the south wall to
        steady its trembling body
Let out a soul-rending creak from the bottomless roof of his mouth
thundering from my floor to heaven heavier than a volcano at night in
        Mexico
Pushed the door open and said in a gravelly voice "Not this time Baby--
        but I will be back again."

Lion that eats my mind now for a decade knowing only your hunger
Not the bliss of your satisfaction O roar of the universe how am I chosen
In this life I have heard your promise I am ready to die I have served
Your starved and ancient Presence O Lord I wait in my room at your
        Mercy.

                                        Paris, March 1958

There are stains on the walls and mattress.
The linens have more holes than a cheese grater.
Spent cigs burned into the dresser and
the light is dim.
Oh, Flophouse
you are truly great.
The Holy Bible would be ashamed.
The moans and groans fill the room with one night pleasure.
The walls are cracking and the carpet is cheap.
For a couple bucks,
there is a hour of
"What just happened?"

Blandly mother
takes him strolling
     by railroad and by river
--he's the son of the absconded
     hot rod angel--
and he imagines cars
     and rides them in his dreams,

so lonely growing up among
     the imaginary automobiles
and dead souls of Tarrytown

     to create
out of his own imagination
     the beauty of his wild
forebears--a mythology
     he cannot inherit.

Will he later hallucinate
     his gods? Waking
among mysteries with
     an insane gleam
of recollection?

     The recognition--
something so rare
     in his soul,
met only in dreams
     --nostalgias
of another life.

A question of the soul.
     And the injured
losing their injury
     in their innocence
--a ****, a cross,
     an excellence of love.

And the father grieves
     in flophouse
complexities of memory
     a thousand miles
away, unknowing
     of the unexpected
youthful stranger
     bumming toward his door.

                         New York, April 13, 1952

You leave the dingy room 333 and walk
Out onto ***** honeycomb patterned carpet stretching
Down the infinite hall towards an open door
Where the housekeeper’s cart is parked
She emerges from behind the stacks of folded towels and ***** blankets
Body younger than it looks somehow she’s smiling in wrinkles of a sunken, toothless mouth
yet underneath the image is an original warmth untouched by a thousand years of junk
You say hello in passing and then onward down the steps covered with plastic
The ***** yellow carpet stains so worn they’ve become part of the design
A window overlooks a courtyard where junkies lay nodding in the sun
The girl at the front desk eyes you half suspicious as you slip out the door and into streets
of Denver where mountains loom in distant vistas obscured by skyscrapers
appearing as solemn watchers uncorrupted, beckoning some strange recognition
You remember your friend saying that the mountains play tricks, cast illusions
Stories of weary travelers confounded by the mountains, lost for days
Weather changing rapidly as buildings rising new construction in the city
You walk past the capital, past the U.S. mint, past the park where bums sleep or stare blankly
Openly with eyes dark as Moroccan hashish looking for a point of entry
A word you missed, a fumbled thought, a dropped coin
This will happen:
You will lock eyes with a man sitting on the cement, his hand gently resting
On an old rusted toolbox
He calls you over, more incantation than command
Says he’s got what you need
He opens up the box and calls you closer
Look
A box of uncut crystals shining in the high altitude
He smiles with a jagged and decayed knowing
You decline yet something insists you need these crystals
These stolen gypsy gems somehow imbued with meaning
Glittering in the sunlight in the park in the old worn out face like chewed leather
Glistening like the clear air rising up above the smell of **** and water seared meat and *****
You walk among the blind alleys where junkies shift and shuffle like shadows rearranging
They themselves part of the scenery, part of the alley backdrop and rattling train track sounds
You’re passing by and one calls out: “Don’t let ‘em tell ya I didn’t say live your life, son”
You look back and see a huddled shadow tying off beside a chain link fence
He’s looking right at you with perfect insect calm, features out of focus, dull and grey
You pass the scene in silence and feel the eyes of hunger casting subliminal fuzz down the alley
At midnight you will drink tequila in your room and hear the endless car noise of the city
While you sit smoking out the window staring at the brick wall and down into the alley below
Where windows of the hostel open up and your friend said once there was a woman
In the opposite room ******* and he took off all his clothes and they stood naked
Looking at one another from opposite windows but he never went across the hall to meet her
You will laugh and be amazed and get drunk
As the driving beat of car stereos, bass and hip-hop incantations rise up through the splintered window frame yellow like decay
You’ll sit out on the street corner smoking
A gigantic hash joint
Passing it back and forth
Denver’s finest
As you listen to the shrill harmony
Of the corner night club filled with glitter and women and alcohol all spilling out into the streets
& you will watch them all go running, howling, yelling, screaming, laughing, *******, and
spreading out like fireworks across a vast empty space
The cars that never end
Choked out exhaust and marijuana smoke twisting in the midnight air rising up untouchable where the mountain breezes cap the city
& penetrates the human circus all around you
You will disappear up the hostel steps returning
Higher than you’ve ever been before
Each step, each movement you are disappearing
Melting into the smoke-tinged plaster
Your pulse is in your footfalls there
Among the honeybees and hexagons
Your breath beat in rhythms of your skull
After an impossible moment
You arrive back at your room, 333
The demon door more unfamiliar
This will happen
You’ll go inside and lock the door
Knowing you have the fear
Raw and powerful
Pure animal chemical reaction
Every tissue and fiber now opposed
To the very situation, the very fact of existence, of
Immediate dislocation in space/time
Alien moments here in Colorado hostel room
Where junkies sit in vegetable stasis
Feeling nothing whatsoever
& there’s a needle hidden in the room somewhere
Your friend says not to worry man
& what did you expect anyway?
“Yeah it’s kind of a flophouse”
“Just throw it out the window”
You take a long deep breath and look
Into a mirror you see your form reflected
As your friend pulls out his friend, the trusty map
And there, emblazoned in ****** letters
Denver
The very words looks sinister
Denver
Written in ****** words of ******
You try to realize what you came here for
Not this
& breathing deeply you lay upon the bed
The too-thin mattress covered in plastic
& think of home
A lifetime & world of roads away
You seek to abandon all you know
And become attuned to the rhythmic engine of sound
You will become filled with desire and yet completely empty
Cockroach needle empty park wind howling distant peaks sculpted valleys
Self-reliant water smell pity bums like silent watchers in the night
Nature spreads her view of time in silent moments
Stillness in the room
In the spaces between sounds
In the fear of comfort separation
In the freeness of creation
In the wild faith of travel
In the foreign teachings
***** steps and office buildings
In the bars and libraries
In the hostel *******
In the wholly new experience
In the squalor of the uncontrollable
In the corridor passing like a phantom
In the stones and cactus flowers
In the romance of the body
Eager to pass through
Into this new dream
Tomorrow we are heading for the mountains

Alice and I were fudged fruiting inside Falstaffian freakish fleur–de–lys:
She inside a quack–aztec–tattooed tank,
Me inside a pendulous magenta harness with polydactyl–perverted plumes bespattered into it.  
In the ****** **** of that kaput flophouse
We creosoted our conks all the cockatrices of the gorge–de–pigeon,
Inside crotches, Jacuzzis and homocentric Action Men.  
Alice, with the pornographic bend sinisters in the teeth of her poltergeistish fajita crocodile,
Smacked of the plug–ugly poofter of a south–south–west by south sackful sandbank.  
I cemented the jaundiced dangler of an ostrich to my *****.  
With that and my uncut fiddlestick of knobs
I was the idiosyncratic and wholehogging sadomasochistic slapper!

We banged the bush streaming proboscis in tentacle
Through smorgasbords of hermaphrodites and high muck–a–mucks
While Ravi Shankar’s idioglossias and cockchafers juddered our titbits.  
Our Moonies were classically cracked flabelliform by the time we disinterred them.  
Alice managed to fornicate incognito white elephant on behalf of myself
And we were passionately on the back of the dingdong, naked as our Moonies.

We kept one’s pecker up wrapped up in the shadowgraph
Athwart ever-strangling girdles of formaldehyde, ozone, fomenter and widow’s weeds,
Athwart polytetrafluoroethylene–pricked precipices and then down to the butts
Where we both came to a sticky end on our jockstraps and leered at the ballet dancers
That we then penetrated rhythmically by elongating tumescent our gang banging tentacles.  
Through comfortable French knickers I burped, “Thank you for ****** me everywhere, Alice”.  
In the soporific honeypotspunk, aped on the ooze,
I could smell that her **** had made her ******* type soap flakes break the sound barrier,
Splashing out a ***** whale seed skirting her jowls.  
“You’re fragrant, flypaper”, she rapped.

The Government gabble that little green men who hammer out the sexagenarians weren’t on board.  
Inside spleen of the spliffs, inside spleen of my gangrenous Pollyanna, I will over one’s dead body evacuate.  
I will over one’s dead body evacuate.

Elegy for the Forgotten Oldsmobile**

July 4th and all is Hell.
Outside my shuttered breath the streets bubble
with flame-loined kids in designer jeans
looking for people to **** or razor.
A madman covered with running sores
is on the street corner singing:
O beautiful for spacious skies…
This landscape is far too convenient
to be either real or metaphor.
In an alley behind a 7-11
a Black **** dressed in Harris tweed
preaches fidelity to two pimply ******
whose skin is white though they aren’t quite.
And crosstown in the sane precincts
of Brown University where I added rage
to Cliff Notes and got two degrees
bearded scientists are stringing words
outside the language inside the guts of atoms
and I don’t know why I’ve come back to visit.

O Uncle Adrian! I’m in the reservation of my mind.
Chicken bones in a cardboard casket
meditate upon the linoleum floor.
Outside my flophouse door stewed
and sinister winos snore in a tragic chorus.

The snowstorm t.v. in the lobby’s their mother.
Outside my window on the jumper’s ledge
ice wraiths shiver and coat my last cans of Bud
though this is summer I don’t know why or where
the souls of Indian sinners fly.
Uncle Adrian, you died last week—cirrhosis.
I still have the photo of you in your Lovelock
letterman’s jacket—two white girls on your arms—
first team All-State halfback in ’45, ’46.

But nothing is static. I am in the reservation of
my mind. Embarrassed moths unravel my shorts
thread by thread asserting insectival lust.
I’m a naked locoweed in a city scene.
What are my options? Why am I back in this city?
When I sing of the American night my lungs billow
Camels astride hacking appeals for cessation.
My mother’s zippo inscribed: “Stewart Indian School—1941”
explodes in my hand in elegy to Dresden Antietam
and Wounded Knee and finally I have come to see
this mad *** nation is dying.
Our ancestors’ murderer is finally dying and I guess
I should be happy and dance with the spirit or project
my regret to my long-lost high school honey
but history has carried me to a place
where she has a daughter older than we were
when we first shared flesh.

She is the one who could not marry me
because of the dark-skin ways in my blood.
Love like that needs no elegy but because
of the baked-***** possibility of the flame lakes of Hell
I will give one last supper and sacrament
to the dying beast of need disguised as love
on deathrow inside my ribcage.
I have not forgotten the years of midnight hunger
when I could see how the past had guided me
and I cried and held the pillow, muddled
in the melodrama of the quite immature
but anyway, Uncle Adrian…
Here I am in the reservation of my mind
and silence settles forever
the vacancy of this cheap city room.
In the wine darkness my cigarette coal
tints my face with Geronimo’s rage
and I’m in the dry hills with a Winchester
waiting to shoot the lean, learned fools
who taught me to live-think in English.

Uncle Adrian…
to make a long night story short,
you promised to give me your Oldsmobile in 1962.
How come you didn’t?
I could have had some really good times in high school.

Down at the local bar, there are two chairs.  
In one is a man named Logus,
Who came from The Desert of Nine Valleys;
In the other is a song-less musician named Sparrow.

Day after day
Alone in the bar
The man with the foolish grin
Is keeping perfectly still.
But nobody wants to know him,
They can see that he's just a fool.

He wandered very far,
Very far,
Over land and sea.
A little shy,
And sad of eye,
But very wise was he.
And then one day,
One magic day he looked Logus' way.
And while they spoke of many things,
Fools and kings,
This he said to him:

“Good morrow to thee, brother prisoner!
Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize we're floating in space,
Do you realize that happiness makes you cry
And
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?”

Logus doesn’t want to bother with the bird,
”These are all lies
and jests.”

Sparrow retorts, “Still
A man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.
Now,
Drop your guard, you don't have to be smart all of the time.
I've got a mind full of blanks, I need to go somewhere new fast.
And don't be shy, oh no,
At least deliberately.

What was I saying?
Oh yeah.
Let me tell you a story that's sad but true,
About someone who just may remind you of you.
Let me tell you a tale that may help you awake a woozy head-
I'll buy you a drink
-It begins long ago on a happy day,
With a fool who was loved, but threw it all away,
Who exchanged a good home for a flophouse, a bar and a plank-“
Sparrow’s eyes begin to glisten--

Logus Interrupts,
“While we're on the subject,
Could we change the subject now?

My name is Logus,
I'm carrying the wheel.
Thanks for all you've shown us,
But this is how we feel.
Come sit next to me.
Pour yourself some tea.
Just like Grandma made,
When we couldn't find sleep.
Things were better then,
Once but never again.
We've all left the den
Let me tell you about it:

I am just a poor boy
Though my story's seldom told.
I have squandered my resistance,
for an existence
In which
Ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for
And why it is here,
It will instantly disappear
And be replaced by something even more bizarre
And inexplicable.”

Sparrow began stirring in his seat,
”You know, there is another theory which states
That this has already happened.
And you lived that,
In exchange for a pocket full of mumbles,
Such are promises."

Logus looks at him,
“And? I am still alive.”

Sparrow rolls his eyes,
“Geez, you know
Somebody once asked, "could I spare some change for gas?"
I need to get myself away from this place."
I said, "yep what a concept,
I could use a little fuel myself,
And we could all use a little change."
Too bad
A fake Jamaican took every last dime with that scam.
It was worth it just to learn some sleight of hand.
Bad news comes, don't you worry even when it lands,
Good news will work its way to all them plans.

But the building's not going as we planned.
The foreman has injured his hand.
The dozer will not clear a path.”

Logus scoffs,
“You talk in maths.
You buzz like a fridge.
You're like a detuned radio.”


Sparrow Laughs, “You'll never be what is in your heart.
Weep little lion man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start.
You have a heart that's full up like a landfill,
A job that slowly kills you,
And bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired, unhappy.
Such pretty houses,
And such pretty gardens:
Green plastic water-cans
For fake Chinese rubber plants
In the fake plastic earth.

There's an empty space inside our hearts
Where the weeds take root.
And now I'll set you free,
I'll set you free.”


They both left right on time,
The Sparrow accosted his mind.
The Sparrow said,
"Hey man, we go all the way"
Of course, they were willing to pay.
Back to the street,
Down to their feet.
Losing the feeling of feeling unique,
Do you know what I mean?

Well on the way,
Head in a cloud,
The bird of a thousand voices
Talking perfectly loud.
But I never heard him
Or the sound he appeared to make.
And he never seemed to notice.
But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning 'round.
Of course, everyone goes crazy
Over such and such and such.
We made ourselves a pillar
We just used it as a crutch.
We were certainly uncertain
At least, I'm pretty sure I am.
Well, we didn't need the water
But we just built that, good *******.

For most have found both freedom and safety in their madness;
The freedom of loneliness
And the safety from being understood,
for those who understand us
Enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety.
Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.
And Horses run fastest on the way home.

Logus and Sparrow had just that in mind,
and so, after deciding to take Sparrow’s ride, they left.
After dragging themselves into the car
Logus looked at Sparrow from the passenger seat,
“I keep myself in
To pull myself out.
I'm rising up,
Wish I was sinking down.
And it's not like
There was warning
We were happy.
And it's not like
There was mourning
In the warning.

I guess I am a scout.
So I should find a way out.
So everyone can find a way out.

I know I am a scout.
I should've found a way out.
So everyone can find a way out.

Sparrow starts his car, the ignition doesn’t turn at first,
It’s an older model so it takes a few tries.
Sparrow turns to Logus,
“Well, that is that and this is this.
Will you tell me what you saw and I'll tell you what you missed
when the ocean met the sky. (You missed, you missed)
You wasted life, why wouldn't you waste the afterlife?

Drift all you like,
From ocean to ocean,
Search the whole world.

And you find your destination
With so many different places to call home.
'Cause when you find yourself a villain,
In the story you have written
It's plain to see
That sometimes the best intentions
Are in need of redemption.
Would you agree?
If so, please show me.

These thoughts and the strain you're under
Be a world child, form a circle
Before we all go under
And fade out again and fade out again

Logus starts groveling,
“Turn me on to phantoms,
I follow to the edge of the earth.
And fall off.
Everybody leaves
If they get the chance,
And this is my chance.

My shadow's shedding skin,
I've been picking scabs again,
I'm down, digging through
My old muscles, looking for a clue.

I've been crawling on my belly,
Clearing out what could've been,
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding.”

His eyes are the size of the moon,
He could 'cause he can so he does.
He’s feeling so good,
Just the way that he does
When it's nine in the afternoon.

Logus starts thinking to himself,
“So you think you're a Romeo?
Playing a part in a picture show?
Cause you're the joke of the neighborhood!
Why should you care if you're feeling good?
Take the long way home!
Take the long way home.

His phone starts ringing,
he clumsily pulls it from his pocket
and answers it.
It’s his wife, para.
She’s concerned,
“Hello? Hello? Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Come on now,
I hear you're feeling down
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.
Relax.
I'll need some information first,
Just the basic facts,
Can you show me where it hurts?
Please don't
**** yourself for recognition.
**** yourself to never ever stop.
oh no!
You broke another mirror!
You're turning into something you are not.

Come home!
I'll bake you a cake
Made of all their eyes.
Do you see me
Dressed for the ****?”

Logus chuckles and thinks to himself,
“I know she's looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb
In the shape of an "L" on her forehead.”

Their eyes are the size of the moon,
she could 'cause she can so she does.
They're feeling so good
Just the way that they do
When it's nine in the afternoon.

Para continues,
“But you'll still
**** yourself for recognition,
**** yourself to never ever stop.
You broke another mirror,
You're turning into something you are not.

And that's okay

I got a box full of all your pity.
We're fresh out of tissues
Because on them I wrote a comedy,
I wrote a comedy.

Logus looking down,
almost as if she’s there in front of him
to see how sad he feels,
“Sorry, but
I'll take a quiet life,
A handshake of carbon monoxide.

With no alarms and no surprises,
No alarms and no surprises,
No alarms and no surprises,
Silent, silent.

Tell me what to do!
Now the tank is dry.
Now, this wheel is flat.
And you know what else?
Guess what I received
In the mail today?
Words of deep concern
From my little brother:

Logus briefly thinks of a letter he received recently,
“Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep little lion man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start.
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head,
you'll never settle any of your scores.

I backed my car into a cop car the other day.
Well, he just drove off - sometimes life's okay.
I ran my mouth off a bit too much, ah what did I say?

Well, you'll just laugh it off and it'll be okay.
it'll be okay.
Everybody needs a place to call their home.
Everybody needs someone to call their own.
Even when you're lonely, know you're not alone,
You're one of us.”

Logus' attention turns back to para.

Para begs,
“Please hold on hope, don't choke
On the noose around your neck
And find strength in pain
And change your ways
Know your name as it's called again.”

Logus sighs,
“Phew!
For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself
Phew, for a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself.

Sparrow,
Somewhere on the edge of the conversation,
Begins getting heavy eyed,
Shutting one then the other and then opening both
And says to himself, drifting into an irresistible
road hypnosis induced sleep,  

“And if you could be what you wanted,
If you could be who you wanted
All the time,
All the time.

And now I'll set you free,
I'll set you free…”
Before trailing off.

Click them off like

rosary beads

with accossiated prayers.


Smudge the dreams

into the eiderdown,

And divide them down

in ironed out

layers.


Line them up and

gobble them with listless

tea.

I am your prediction!

(said in shushes,

quite benediction)

I want to drop like stingless bees.

I am Addiction to Tranquility.


How jealous I am!

Watching him fall on his ****

as I begin the solitary farce

of trying to close my

eyes.

I watch his chest slowly sink and rise.

How beautiful -

to be cut down,

like grass.


Flophouse drapes of

cigarette smoke

hang from the ceiling in

billows.

A headache clings and

holds me close as

daylight stumbles

like a ghost,

and settles her questions

on my pillows.


The tragic thing about each morning

Is that I greet each sleepy dawn

with the dry and

pinkened threat of tears.

Sleepers – do you know the

might of what you do

each ******* night?

The oblivion in half your years?

The fiction of your wild frontiers?

The obliteration and presentation

of all your garbled

Freudian fears?

Do you know the glamour in what you do?

Do you know what I’d give to be like you?

To live and somehow not be here?

To close my eyes?

To disappear?

An icky flophouse in downtown
LA,
The Astor Hotel- a famous New
York City Hotel,
The hotel breslin in midtown south
In N.Y.- an out of the way one
A rusty- watered motel room late at
Night on a lonely stretch of the
Jursey Pike,
A run down drive in Chapagin I stayed
In with a 'Girlfriend' so we could do it.